Let's turn in our Bibles to Isaiah 59, and then to 2 Thessalonians 1. Isaiah 59 first. Let's stand together to hear the Word. The last section of Isaiah 59, beginning in the second half of verse 15. Longing for a mediator, but also the promise in verse 19 that God will save His people from all opposition and persecution. The context is the sins of Israel and their separation from God, the call to repentance, and that's where we pick up the language of verse 15. Then the Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore, his own arm brought salvation for him and his own righteousness. It sustained him. We put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly, he will repay. fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies, the coastlands he will fully repay. So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. The redeemer will come to Zion and those who turn from transgression in Jacob, says the Lord. As for me, says the Lord, this is my covenant with them. My spirit who is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants. Descendants, says the Lord, from this time and forevermore. 2 Thessalonians, we pick up the reading. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the Church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly The love of every one of you all abounds towards each other, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer, since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you. And to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints, to be admired among all those who believe. because our testimony among you was believed. Therefore, we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the word of the living God. We turn to 2 Thessalonians. If you are visiting with us today in the last months, we've been studying 1 Thessalonians and we are picking up now in 2 Thessalonians this morning, looking at the first chapter as a whole. And then I think we'll be coming back to the first chapter to dig into some more of the details. But this sermon, the sweep of the chapter to help us get situated in this book, and understand a little bit more of the breadth of the apostle's letter and his argument, as it were, in this chapter. Moving from the first letter to the second letter, it is indeed the second letter. There's evidence in the second letter that it is chapter two and verse 15. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle or letter. There's a reference in this book to a previous letter to this church. Chapter three in verse 11 gives us the same sense that this is the apostles continuing ministry by letter to the church at Thessalonica. You remember that this church was born in persecution, Acts chapter 17, and that they knew the fires of persecution, but that there were many, both Jew and Greek, in this city who had turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a fellowship of believers was formed in that place, a church. The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ continues to be the dominant theme, and you see the series titled, The Return of the King, carries on from 1 Thessalonians to 2 Thessalonians. And we will be looking a little bit more at that theme of the Second Coming of Christ briefly this morning, but more in the coming weeks as we go back to Chapter 1 for more detail, and then on into Chapter 2. There are three main issues in this letter, however. And the first one we will deal with first. And that is the encouragement of the church at Thessalonica as it continued to go through the fires of persecution. Again, after that, clarity concerning the second coming. And there's one more theme in the book, another warning against lazy Christians following up on the first letter. And here the apostle even more directly, it's where he's going to say that if you don't work, you don't eat. And he is dealing with a problem of industry or lack of industry, lack of a hardworking spirit in the church. So those three things, the encouragement of the church and persecution, more clarity about the second coming of Jesus. And then the third will be this matter of the industry of the church, the work ethic of the believer and Paul's teaching on that. And that again, all of these things. flow from the first letter, you can think of the second letter as follow-up reinforcement and teaching on top of the first. Themes that continue, but we see more light and more glory, as it were, as we continue to read 1 and then 2 Thessalonians. Today we're going to look at that first theme, the encouragement of suffering believers. Study the church under fire. and see how the Apostle Paul teaches us against what we might call fair-weather Christianity. What do I mean by fair-weather Christianity? A kind of Christianity where the conception that many people have about following Jesus is that all my problems should go away. But they don't, do they? They don't. God has seen fit that we Spend time in this fallen world, and we have trials. Now, you might think to yourself, well, you just said that the church at Thessalonica was undergoing persecution, and I'm not undergoing that, so what's it to me? That would be a very bad thing to think at the beginning of a sermon like this, so don't think it. You all go through trials. Satan is always going around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Some of them are in your closest relationships. Some of them are because of sickness. Some of them are because of the imperfections of Christ's church. Some of them are because you made some really bad life decisions and you're living with the consequences. You're feeling the pain. The good shepherd of the sheep is bringing you to a place where you feel Tribulation or trial comes a lot of different ways. It always comes, we're going to learn, by the sovereign will of a good heavenly father. Sovereign will of a good shepherd of the sheep, the great shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing's outside of his control. So this morning, regardless of what category you might put your present sufferings in, The Word of God will speak to you about how to live through suffering to God's glory. Now, the chapter opens up with familiar words that we're not going to cover again. The author, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are mentioned. There is the recipients, the Church of the Thessalonians, and God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then there's the great apostolic greeting again. We looked at that at the beginning of 1 Thessalonians. Again, we looked at it at the end of 1 Thessalonians, the promise of the grace and here and peace of God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ to the church. Those will be important later as we go through the sermon, but we're not going to exposit those in the detail that we have last time as we look through it. They are connected to the rest of the sermon. But in verse three, the apostle opens up again in a way similar to the first letter, many of his other letters. He's talking about how he prays for this church. And he says these words, we are bound to thank God always for you. And why is he thanking God for these believers? Why are Paul, Silas, and Timothy, when they go to their knees, why is there a stream of thanksgiving going up to God? We're gonna see because they are evidencing again and still what we call the three cardinal virtues, three virtues of what we see in Thessalonican or Thessalonian Christianity. So that's the first thing we're gonna look at, the three virtues that are present in this church. And then we're gonna up the ante a little bit, and we're gonna study the crucible in which these virtues are evident. And then we're gonna go a little deeper yet, third time over the chapter, and we're gonna ask the question is, how is it, or what perspective is required, or what is the source of the spiritual life and power to have these virtues in that crucible. So three virtues, crucible of suffering, and then the question of how does this come out of that? So the three things that make the apostle thankful, that make him bound, as it were, obligated, he sees them and he knows there's only one thing to do, he needs to thank God always for the brethren as it is fitting. And the three things are these, because your faith grows exceedingly. I want you to put the crucible out of your mind for a moment and the fact that these are persecuted Christians and just focus on these virtues. Here's a church that is marked by faith that is growing exceedingly. It's abounding. And this brings us back to 1 Thessalonians 1 and verse 3, we give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith. And then, Chapters 1 verse 9, you turn from God to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus who saves us from the wrath to come. The apostle Paul is seeing, hearing reports of a deepening and growing trust in Jesus Christ. And it's not just mild, it grows exceedingly. The saints who first heard about Jesus and held to Him, the picture is here, that they are holding to Him more tightly than they ever have before and that this faith that lays hold of Jesus Christ was abounding, growing, exceeding. This is a very strong description of that growth. It's a strong word in the Greek, this idea of exceeding growth. Their trust in Jesus Christ is stronger than it ever was and it's growing at a rapid pace. Now, something to learn here, a very important thing about faith is that it is not static, but it is to be exercised and that we grow in faith. It's not just a momentary thing you did in the past. I repeat this again and again, but it is the gift of God. We're united to Christ by faith and faith can grow. You can have, Jesus said to his disciples, oh, you have little faith. He also said, it never sounds so great faith, no, not in all Israel, that there's the idea that faith itself, the gift of God, worked by the Spirit, given to us in our regeneration, that it grows. Here it grows exceedingly. And how does it grow? How does faith grow? Well, two primary ways in the Scriptures we see again and again that it grows. It grows by the means of grace. Word, sacraments, prayer. It grows under the preaching of the Word. It grows by the ministry of Word and Spirit. But there's a second way that faith grows, and that's when it's tested. For example, when God tested Abraham in Genesis chapter 22, the result of that test at the end of it was that he believed that God would raise the dead. And his faith grew under trials. Now, we know this is also true. The testing of your faith, James says, produces patience. So faith tested results in greater fruitfulness. And that's what's happening in the Thessalonians. This faith is growing exceedingly. Second thing, the love of every one of you all abounds towards each other. Now, the apostle could hardly have said this more emphatically. But the second thing that's growing or abounding is love. that affectionate, spirit-worked disposition of the believer toward God, but here especially towards one another. And the picture here in the church is that love in every direction is abounding. As a matter of fact, when you read the text, the love of every one of you all. Now just imagine this, the apostle being able to say this about a church. He's saying, I'm looking over the whole body. Doesn't matter man, woman, boy, or girl. I'm seeing something supernatural happening. Everybody's love for everybody is abounding. It's increasing. Not only is the faith in Jesus Christ increasing, but the love is abounding. The affection, the tone and quality of relationships in the church at Thessalonica was evidently better than it had ever been before. And that's growing. There's less wars and fighting among them. And there's more affection, mutual interest and kindness one towards another. And this isn't surprising. First Thessalonians chapter four, but concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write for you for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more. That's the first letter. The second letter, he's saying, I have, you've been taught of God as the spirit of God. Romans 5, 5 has poured the love of God into your hearts. Your eyes have been opened. I've exhorted you to increase in that affectionate kindness and interest in one another. And now I see it abounding and I am bound to give thanks to God for you all. The third thing is less obvious directly from the text, but it's an echo of the virtues that Paul sees in 1 Thessalonians 1, 3. He says, we remember without ceasing your work of faith, your labor of love, your patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. And here the idea of patience and patient hope, hope's implied. But he says in verse four, we boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations. The third thing he has, he commends them for here is this perseverance, this endurance, connected directly to hope, a quiet perseverance, not a bitter and angry blowing up in persecution and tribulation, but a resolve in this church on good days or bad days to wait on the Lord with patient hope. Intimately related to the great hope, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian triad here, faith, hope, here expressed in the forms of patient hope, a connection to chapter 1 and verse 3 in the first letter. Faith, hope, and love. They are evident, pulsing, abounding, growing exceedingly. Evident in everybody. This is a supernatural work of God. Paul's on his knees, Silas is on his knees, Timothy's on his knees. We are bound to thank God for you. They have firm convictions in Jesus Christ. Joy not extinguished by hardship. Warm, kind, affectionate hearts towards each other, reflecting God's love in the gospel. The three fundamental virtues here of what it means to be a new creature in Christ. They're pulsing. at Thessalonica, and Paul is on his knees praising God for supernatural transformation. Now, let's up the ante, as I said earlier. You need to get a hold of the backdrop against which these things are happening. Jesus warned against what I'm calling fair-weather Christianity. The kind of Christianity that works for you when you like your circumstances, when your spouse is acting the way you think they should, when your boss is giving you the raise you think you should have, when your health is even happy. But the Christian life isn't about your hopes, plans and dreams and aspirations. It's just not. You need to get that. Not about you. It's about the glory and kingdom of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He taught a parable. Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13, he reminds us that there is a kind of apparent faith. So I went out to sow. Skipping down, but when the sun was up, these seeds were scorched, because they had no root, they withered away, they fell on stony places. The explanation for the stony ground hearer, listen to this, but he who received the seed on stony places is he who hears the word, immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while, for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. When life circumstances, when the heat of opposition to Jesus Christ in the gospel and to you as a follower of Jesus Christ comes, what do you do? Jesus says there's gonna be some people that turn tail and run. These were not fair weather Christians. Look at verse four. We boast of your patience and faith and all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. Verse five, they suffered. for the kingdom of God, verse six, they had tribulation. Rather, they were under those who troubled them. The old problems in Thessalonica weren't gone. These were believers who from the first day, they said, I love and trust in Jesus Christ, or being led as sheep to the slaughter for their faith in him. And now years later, and two letters later, they're still living in the same crucible. And somehow in that crucible, Paul says, I am bound to give thanks for your faith, which is growing exceedingly, for your love, which abounds in every possible direction, and your patient hope in Jesus Christ. They were losing their jobs, their social standing, their money. They were persecuted, prosecuted, dying for Christ. And you have to understand This was God's will for them. Look at verse five. This suffering that you endure, look at verse five, is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God. Some of you need to get this this morning. It is a privilege to go through trials as a Christian. to be counted worthy to suffer for the Kingdom of God. If we would understand this, it would make our small frustrations far less concerning, wouldn't it? There's a privilege in being a disciple of Jesus Christ, taking up your cross and following Him through the crucible of suffering. And it was in this crucible But faith, love, and patience, evident to a degree that astounded the apostle, were flourishing. Some applications here. From Hebrews chapter 13, there are many believers around the world who are currently going through unspeakable suffering for the cause of Christ, who evidence these things, faith, love, and patience, sometimes in a greater degree than we do when we get up on the wrong side of bed. The word says, remember the prisoners as if chained with them, those who are mistreated since you yourselves are in the body also. Think much about your fellow believers who are an example to us of these things. Paul says, we boast of you among the churches of God. In other words, the reputation of the faithful sufferer was useful for the whole church in following after Jesus Christ, which is a good reason to think about and pray about the persecuted church, which is why we do so on Wednesday nights regularly, our prayer meeting. Second thing, humble gratitude for your privileges and freedoms. We don't need to be, we ought not to be profoundly ungrateful for our present circumstances. You know that little, that children's song, count your blessings, name them one by one. How often do you stop and take inventory of the mercy of God in so many ways towards you? particularly the freedoms we enjoy. And we have to be careful to think about those freedoms. If God were to take them away, it would still be a privilege. But they still are good gifts. Good gifts. We have salvation in Jesus Christ. The Thessalonians understood that if you had salvation in Christ and you were to die, right afterwards, you still have everything. which means that we need to learn from this. But if you have salvation in Jesus Christ, everything else you have on top of that in this life is reason for humble thanksgiving to God. Even if you're a sufferer, it was reason for humble thanksgiving, but we need to be mindful of how good and lavish we have it, particularly here in America in our freedom. Thank God for it. You need to see suffering then also as a privilege. Sometimes people call me up and say, Peter, this has happened to me here at Covenant in the last 11 years. My marriage is so bad, I want to get out. Why do you want to get out? Well, because I'm suffering in it. That doesn't seem out of accord with the Christian life, does it? Maybe you're suffering for the good of another person. Maybe someone else is sinful in the marriage. Why do you want to leave? Would you also have preferred that Christ come down from the cross and not finish his suffering? Could you think that perhaps that this is also in the sovereign will of God, and that sometimes we go through hardship in order that our own character might be shaped, not first somebody else's? Pastor, get me out of the suffering. I can't. Matter of fact, you can't change yourself. I can't change you. None of the elders can. You need the sovereign work of God. And that maybe is what He's doing in your present trial. Changing you for Him. Maybe He's doing what the Apostle Peter said. He's saying that you're suffering. in order that once you might be tested, that virtues might come to the surface. 1 Peter 1.7, that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Let me start minuscule. The frustrations we have in this life, when God holds something back from us, Perhaps we are so used to having so much, we've become like petulant children. I'm going to cut you off in traffic. I use this often. You're here in freedom in Greenville, South Carolina, and you're just furious. Probably tens of thousands of suffering Christians right now who would like to change places with you and your car on Whitehampton. Probably. Or bigger. Again, I go back to the marriage example. Come to a shocking realization that you married a sinner or you have a friend who's a sinner and the relationship's not quite as good as it should be, especially since you and I are such notable saints and we have to deal with sinners. And ugly things happen. Even here at Covenant, cursing and swearing and anger. I've seen it. Bitterness, vileness. I'm going to take the ball and go home. A complete absence of cross-shaped love in the crucible of difficulty. I give a thousand examples, but the question is, what virtues rise to the surface when your will is not being done? But the will of God, bringing you to hard places, is being done. For the Thessalonians, what came to the surface was faith that grew exceedingly. Love that abounded in every direction. and a patient hope in Jesus Christ. What if God called you to suffer the way they suffer tomorrow? Could Paul boast about covenant to all the other churches about these three virtues? Kind of rough, you might think, Pastor. Kind of rough to hear this. One more thing. What perspective produced this kind of character in this kind of crucible. What's the secret of this? Two things in the text from chapter one, or maybe three. First, it is clear that the Thessalonian believers, the believers at Thessalonica, understood something glorious, union with Christ. Look at the opening words, to the Church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, the language of communion with God. Your life is hidden with Christ in God, Paul would say to the Thessalonians. You have privileges, astounding privileges. They're so great that they eclipse all the suffering possible in this present age. Privileges. They have faith in Jesus Christ that grew exceedingly, which means they were seeing more and more of Jesus Christ. Close with this section, chapter verse 12. The name of our Lord Jesus, that it might be glorified in you and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. This idea of grace abounding and union with Christ and communion with the triune God lies at the bedrock of the reality of faith, growing exceedingly, love abounding, and patient hope and tribulation. because they were seeing something bigger. Think the sunrise as an example. Ever watch the sun rise over the ocean, for example, on the coast? What happens? The sky starts warming, and then you get that moment where just the first sliver of the orange ball comes over. When you first believe in Jesus, you first see the glory. But there's a real way where you're only seeing the beginnings of that glory. The sunrise continues that day until high noon and the whole world is warmed and illuminated by the glory of the sun. And in the Christian life, faith grows. We see the beginning of that glory, but the more we lived for Christ and to Christ, the more that grows, we see more of that glory. And union with Christ here runs through this text. These are people who understood that when Jesus on the cross said, it is finished. That everything they needed for life and salvation was in Jesus Christ and they needed nothing else. That he had finished the work of atonement. Second thing they understood is that they had delivered them in so doing delivered them from the wrath to come and they had provided righteousness and they were clothed in that righteousness and that the masterpiece of a perfect life was finished. You have to understand this. When Jesus says it is finished, the masterpiece of a perfect life is finished. And when you believe in Him, you're united to Him, and God sees you in Him. And you have nothing left to give or to offer to God for your salvation. There's nothing to give. He has done it all. He paid the price. He lived the righteous life. His life overlaid over yours. A finished masterpiece of a perfect life offered to God. You united to Christ. Salvation that can never be taken away by death or hell or Satan or the world. So this light momentary affliction cannot be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us for we are in Christ. When faith grows, you see more of that glory, and the sun of righteousness, to use the language of Malachi, lifts ever brighter on your life. And you're more willing to suffer for Him. Second thing, a deep conviction here in the text that God is sovereign in suffering and in justice. We read from verse 5 that it's manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God. But the second thing is, Sufferings, particularly those that appear to be unjust when others wrong you. We're going to get more into this in the next week as we go back to this chapter. But look at verse six, it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you. To give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. Inflaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of his power when he comes in that day. The second deep conviction in the crucible is not only the goodness and the loveliness of Jesus Christ, but that God is sovereign and that He will take care of you. He will right all wrongs. He will bring final justice. And that it is not your work to bring vengeance, but vengeance belongs to the Lord. In your trials, and I say this to you, if you're being wronged by someone else right now, maybe it's a close relationship. It's not your business to mete out vengeance and justice on the other person, with your anger and bitterness. It's your calling to recognize that this too is from the hand of the Lord, and the Lord will make all things right. Everything. And then to trust Him. And if it's a fellow believer, Your duty is to love them with love abounding and let it go. Let love cover a multitude of sins. If it's the world, sober reality is that God will judge the world with everlasting destruction. But the peace comes from knowing that the judge of all the earth will do right. So faith can abound and love can abound. In this life, you may well experience intense suffering without seeing what you might think is justice. Leave it in the hands of the Lord. and live as a Christian. Finally, it's very clear in this text that enduring hardship as a Christian for Christ's sake is a gift. It's a privilege. It's following our Savior Jesus. It's taking up your cross and following Him. Peter, do not be surprised as if some strange thing has happened, that this fiery trial has come upon you. Why are you surprised as a believer that you at times go through a crucible of tribulation? Instead, Paul to the Philippians, he says, it has been given to you to suffer for Christ's sake. Paul to the Thessalonians here, it's the will of God for you to suffer. He's appointed you to suffering. Paul, as he preached in Acts chapter 14, through many tribulations, we'll enter the kingdom of God. And again, in verse 11, the apostle Paul picks up on this theme. We pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling. Paul's saying, I'm not praying first that you would be delivered. but that God would count you worthy of living through suffering in a way enabled by the Spirit to bring forth faith, love, and hope to His glory. And as long as He puts you through that, He remains good and faithful, and you follow Jesus Christ. So here's the question. Have you ever thought that your present trials might be a gift from God, a privilege in following the Lord Jesus Christ, an expression of your union with Christ, part of your participation in the advance of his kingdom, a way to learn obedience, a reminder of the sin which still so clings to you, and a path that leads to glory. Let's pray. Lord our God, as we think on your word, Or do we pray that we might be those who, even in the crucible of trials, manifest and show faith that grows exceedingly, love which abounds in every direction, even as you pour your love in our hearts by your spirit. Or that we would be marked by a patient, enduring hope in you knowing that you do all things well, or that we would be marked by a willingness to lay down our lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to you, which is our reasonable service of worship, or that we would not be surprised at trials as if some strange thing has happened to us, but that we would rejoice insofar as we participate in the sufferings of Christ. Lord, that we would trust your sovereignty in everything, and that the character that flows from difficulty would be a character that brings glory to you. Help us by your word and spirit, we pray. Set in our eyes again on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, in whose name we pray, amen. A mighty fortress is our God. Let's rejoice in God's protecting, saving mercies. Journey hymnal number 92, let's stand. The mighty fortresses are gone, but homeward never again. ♪ Where'er we are with our flock ♪ ♪ The poor foal hills we claim ♪ ♪ For still our ancient foe ♪ ♪ Doth seek to hurt us more ♪ ♪ His wrath and power are great ♪ ♪ And our withdrawal ♪ is not his equal. If we in our own strength and heart our striving would be losing, would not the right men on our side, the men of God's own choosing, ♪ Just as good as may be ♪ ♪ But she does it this way ♪ ♪ Lord's having of his day ♪ ♪ A place to praise and sing ♪ ♪ And he must win the battle ♪ And though this world we battle soon, Shed gladness to our dear U.S. We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Harmony spring, We tremble not for him, his great weak anger. For all is to be sure, a little word shall fail him. The Spirit and the gifts of earth to Him who didst assign it. Protect him, Draco, this mortal I also. The body they may kill, but to the finest still, this kingdom is forever.