Haggai 2, beginning in verse 1. Hear the word of the living God. We'll read through verse 9. In the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadek, the high priest. Be strong. All you people of the land, declares the Lord, work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations shall come in. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. And so, Lord, once again, what an incredible passage of Scripture where You, Lord, have spoken directly to us. And we know that Your Word is living and active, and although that You spoke this hundreds of years ago, it is still for us today. You are still speaking to us from this prophecy today. And so we pray as the New Covenant saints of God that we could hear Your Word and obey it and receive the encouragement from it. So bless us now, Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen. We're continuing this morning this short three-week study of Haggai, and last week we laid sort of some historical context and got our bearing under us, and I won't repeat all of that this morning, but I do think it's worth putting before us again some major dates and events that make up the context for the book of Haggai, because I imagine, again, the book of Haggai is not that popular. It may be a little rusty for us as we come to a prophecy like this. And we saw last week that Isaiah the prophet, in the 700s BC, he prophesied about a pagan king named Cyrus, who God would anoint or stir up to send Jewish exiles back into their land. hundreds of years before they even were let out of their land. And this captivity took place in 586 BC when the Lord, by the army of Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, ransacked the city of Jerusalem and God brought the fullness of His judgment onto His covenant people for commandment breaking and for their failure to keep His covenant. and they destroyed the city and they destroyed the temple in 586 B.C. Yet, the prophets also spoke about a second Exodus. They spoke about a second deliverance where God would bring His people out of captivity and back into the land in a similar way that He brought them out of Egypt and into their land the first time, back in Exodus. and when he promised to give them the land that he promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And we looked last week at Ezra chapter 1, and astonishingly enough, we read about Cyrus the king, Cyrus the Persian, who conquered Babylon, and he declared that the Jews could go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple, and he did that hundreds of years after Isaiah the prophet said that he would, and called him by name. And we saw how just absolutely astonishing that was. And that takes place in 538 B.C. And they begin to come back and lay the foundation of the temple. But somewhere along the lines, the Jews who came back into the land stopped building the temple and they stopped the work and they began to prioritize building their own homes instead. And that makes up the content from Haggai chapter one that we saw last week. Haggai who's prophesying along with Zechariah. says that the word of the Lord comes to him in the second year of Darius the king. So scholars believe this date to be August 29, 520 BC. So these Jews have been back into the land for nearly 18 years, and they have done very little by way of building their temple and rebuilding their city. And we saw last week, the reason was that, largely the reason, was they began to prioritize their own homes and their own harvest and their own life over and above prioritizing building the house of God. And they cared more about their own homes than God's home. So last week we looked at the importance of keeping God first in our lives and living out every facet of our lives in light of the reality that we exist to please and glorify God. This week, I want to look at Haggai's second prophecy, which we see in verses 1-9 of chapter 2. And next week, as we sort of finish out this little mini-study of Haggai, I want to look at some of the eschatological and end times dimensions that we see here in this text. So we'll have to restrain ourselves today and wait until next week to get into some of that. But Lord willing, it will happen. And this morning, I really am eager to walk us through this passage because I think that there is so much for us as New Covenant Christians to learn about living faithfully the Christian life in this world. There's one particular theme here that was somewhat inescapable for these Jews. And I think it's a theme that is inescapable for us today. And that's the theme of discouragement. discouragement, or perhaps we could say the temptation to be discouraged. This is an extremely prevalent problem, especially in the life of the Christian. Because how often do we look at our lives and we look around us and we see things just aren't the way that they should be. That's a reality for us. We read the scriptures and we see the type of life that God's called us to live. We see the Bible calling us new creations in Christ. We see the Bible saying that we're free from sin and alive to God and righteousness. We see that we've been filled with the Spirit of God and yet we go and we look in the mirror and we get discouraged. Because we say, where's the power? Where's the new creation? Where's the manifestation of the Spirit in my life? Why do I still struggle so much? and we get discouraged. Many of us have had desires that are good. We have desires for doing certain kinds of ministries, desires for our families, desires for our careers, but when we look at our current circumstances, we say, what happened? How did I get here? Where did I mess up along the way? And we get discouraged. Proverbs 13.12 says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Things don't seem to be going in the church the way that they should. We aren't as pure. We aren't as holy. We don't see sinners converted the way that we want. We don't do as much outreach as we want. There's gossip. There's slander. There's division. There's not doctrinal unity the way that we want. And we get discouraged. and we look out into this world and we see injustice prevailing, and we see leaders highlighting and loving abomination, and supporting it, and accepting it, and tolerating it, and condemning righteousness, and the people of God get discouraged. And no doubt, when we consider the circumstances of these Jews from this passage and other passages that deal with the same historical event, it is clear that they are utterly discouraged. God has brought them out of exile, but they were likely still a very small people. And they were a very poor people. They were struggling with their own sin and selfishness. As we saw last week, God had to rebuke them through the prophet Haggai to get them to do the work. And the people of the surrounding lands are opposing them. We read in Ezra 4, verse 4, it says this, Then the people of the land set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to build. They hired counselors against them to frustrate their plans throughout the reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia. So for nearly two decades, for two decades from the time they went back into the land under Cyrus's decree to 520 under the reign of Darius the king, the surrounding nations made it their aim to frustrate the work of the people of God. to keep them from rebuilding the house of God. And they discouraged them. There were many temptations to discouragement, yet we see in this prophecy God's mercy and His grace in ministering encouragement to the people. He uplifts them, He strengthens them, and yes, He exhorts them, and He spurs them on to work and to finish the work. So what I want to do is draw out from this passage three keys for battling discouragement. Because everything that was true and relevant for these Jews under the Old Covenant is true and relevant for us today. So let's jump right in. Number one, we must judge success by faithfulness, not by outer results. We must judge success by faithfulness, not by outer results. So again, in verse 1. The second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to the hand of Haggai, or by the hand of Haggai the prophet, to Zerubbabel the son of Sheltiel the governor. So this date is likely October the 17th. And why that's important is it would have been the last or second to last day of the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. And so the people would have all been gathered together in Jerusalem. And it says this in Leviticus 23, 39, on the 15th day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord for seven days. And they were to dwell in booths. And verse 43 says that your generation may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. So every year they were to come together and they were to celebrate a feast celebrating all the abundance of harvest that God had given them as they would have been faithful to the covenant. That's how it's supposed to have worked. It should have been like that. Yet we know from last week that they had a very small harvest. And the reason they had a very small harvest was again because they were putting off the commands of God and prioritizing their own careers, their own homes, their own harvest, and God removed His hand of blessing. and their harvest was very, very small. It's also interesting that Solomon dedicated the temple that he built at the Feast of Booths, during the Feast of Tabernacles. And so you can imagine that as the people reflected on Solomon's temple, and all the wealth, and all the gold, and the bases, and the poles and the curtains and all the animals that they sacrificed. It says in 1st King that because there was so much gold that silver was accounted for very little. Nobody even used silver to build anything because there was so much gold. So much wealth there was under Solomon's reign. And there was this glorious temple and there was political peace. There was safety, there was security, there were animals. People weren't miscarrying. There was a blessing on the land, and yet they look now at their own situation, and their own lack of resources, and the small little stones, and the lack of gold, and the lack of security, and they get overwhelmingly discouraged. Why? Because they were judging success not by their faithfulness, but based upon the outer results that they could see. They were looking at how the temple appeared. They were looking at how their circumstances appeared, and not looking at, are we being faithful to God? Are we doing what He said? Are we being faithful to His Word? And they became discouraged. And they were letting their outward circumstances discourage them, rather than letting the Word of God encourage them. We saw this last week that the Lord spoke to them back in chapter 1, and He says, I am with you, yet here on the last day of the feast, when all the people would have been together as an assembly, so that they could all hear the word of the Lord, the word came through Haggai, and He says in verse 3, Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? So it seems that there was a small group of older saints, probably in their 70s, 80s, possibly even in their 90s, who would have seen the first temple in all its glory before it was destroyed. And they would have seen that and remembered that. They may have been 9, they may have been 10 to 20 years old, depending on how old they are. And they would have remembered the former glory of the temple. and the stones, right? And these huge pillars, and all the animals, and all the richness, and then they looked at the current temple that they were trying to rebuild, and it was nothing in their eyes. This new temple was a shell of its former self at this point. And the text doesn't say this, but I can imagine these older saints are telling stories about what that first temple looked like. It was beautiful. The gold was everywhere. It was glorious. And the people would have heard this. And so rather than keeping their hearts encouraged by believing that God would do something powerful in their day, being encouraged that God had brought them out of captivity, being encouraged that the Lord was with them and hadn't fully cast them off, they were discouraged. They were driven to discouragement. the Lord was with them, yet they were discouraged by the seeming lack of results that they could see with their own eyes. And that's a word for everyone in this room, isn't it? When we don't see the results that we think we should be seeing, rather than being content and just trusting the Lord with the results, what do we do? We get driven into despair. And this can lead to mild, even to severe depression. Not only does it discourage us, but it also opens the door for pragmatism. Because when it seems to us like being faithful isn't enough, when we see that, oh, faithfulness is not resulting in the results that I want, maybe we need to just go out for some other methods. Maybe we need to try a few other things that are outside of Scripture that will get us the results we want. It's very, very tempting. Faithful exposition of the text and practicing church discipline and the regulative principle of worship. You know, that just really doesn't grow a church that well. Maybe we need to incorporate some business strategies. That'll grow the church. Because we want to reach people, right? Guys, we could think of a hundred examples of this right now, couldn't we? Brothers and sisters, while there is a time to make a sober assessment of the fruit, and there is a legitimate time to judge a tree by its fruit, we are called to faithfulness to Scripture. Faithfulness to what God has commanded, and we trust God with the results. And this will keep us from discouragement. So many young families. So many young marriages. So many jobs. So many homes. So many careers. And we look at them and we say, where are the results? What am I doing wrong? And I would say, don't ask that question. Ask, are we having fidelity to Scripture? And if you're having fidelity to Scripture, we can trust God with the results. With the growth. and put our hope and trust in Him. Because here's the thing about pragmatism. Yes, it does yield immediate results, but down the road, we usually just end up making things a whole lot worse, don't we? And the next generation, and the generation after them, reaps the bad fruit of our pragmatism. And this brings up another crucial aspect of this first point. Discouragement is often a result of comparison. Comparing usually results in utter discouragement or it results in pride and arrogance. Because what do we do when we say, well, my fill in the blank is not as good as theirs, so I must be doing something wrong. Or my fill in the blank is a lot better than theirs, so I must be doing something right. I must have it going on. I must be a great parent. I must be a great preacher. I must be a great fill-in-the-blank. And we do this. And this causes problems on many fronts. But the biblical assessment of success is always fidelity to Scripture. And I hope that encourages you brothers and sisters. If you currently are not being faithful to Scripture in some way, from last week it tells us what to do. We humble ourselves before God. We repent. We confess our sins. We receive His forgiveness. And then we press on being faithful. He's given us a way back into fellowship with Him. But if you are being faithful to Scripture in any facet of your life, be encouraged. That is what God wants from you. And He will yield the results that are best in His eyes. And He will be faithful to His promises. This leads to the second key. Not only must we judge success by faithfulness and not by outward appearance, but we must prioritize truth and obedience over our emotions. While the occasion for discouragement, while the occasions are often provided by real circumstances, that's reality. The feeling of discouragement is just that. It's largely a feeling. It is largely emotional. I mean, how many times have you heard someone say, or you've said it yourself, I just feel discouraged. I don't really even know what to point to. I just feel discouraged about this situation or about life. We've all said this. And again, while the circumstances that provoke discouragement are real, discouragement itself is largely an emotion. And we must, when we feel discouraged, be able to go into the Word and renew our minds in objective truth. We have to be able to do that. We have to be able to deal with faulty emotions from God's Word. We must be able to lean into what is real and not what we feel. We must bring our emotions into alignment with God's word. We must take our emotions, if you will, captive to obey Christ. It says this in verse 4 and 5. This is the Lord. He says, Yet now, be strong, O Zerubbabel. Be strong, O Joshua. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. He says three times, be strong. Anytime a Hebrew author repeats something three times, He's trying to really emphasize that point. We remember this in Isaiah 6, right? When Isaiah sees the Lord and they cry out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Emphasizing God's abundant holiness. And here he says, be strong. Being discouraged, brothers and sisters, does not justify neglecting to do what God has called us to do. Do we have any texts of scripture that say, only when you feel like it, obey. Only when you think your motivations are perfect, obey. Only when you feel great about life, obey. It's not in there. It's not in there. And this kind of thinking is not popular today because we so value sensitivity and we so value this idea that everyone's a victim and we're afraid to trigger each other, whatever that means. And we so value authenticity and being your true self, whatever that means, that we often feel like that simply to obey God for God's sake is legalism. You heard this? If you don't really want to, if you're not really motivated, you're just being a Pharisee. You're just being legalistic. It's not what legalism means, brothers and sisters. Legalism means doing things God has not commanded you to do in order to be right with God. Obeying God's commands is not legalism. This is the voice of the triune God saying, be strong. And as the people heard Haggai prophesying, repeating that three times, they would have had alarms going off in their heads because they would have remembered a previous leader in their history that God spoke to in this way. And as we read, we should have alarms going off of our head. What does that remind you of? Joshua. Remember, when they're coming out of Moab and God's about to take them into the land, He says to Joshua, be strong and courageous, I'm with you. He says it, guess how many times? Three times. Joshua 1. Be strong, Joshua. I'm with you. I'm going to give you the land. And so he's facing an incredibly tall task. Moses, our leader, is gone. This land is filled with Canaanites. Apparently, they look like giants to some of us. They have big walls and big strong cities and big mighty fortress towers. What are we going to do? And the Lord is saying, be strong, Joshua. Don't be afraid. Be courageous. Go fight. Go take the land. I'm with you. I've promised it to Abraham. I've promised it to Isaac. I've promised it to Jacob. I'm going to give it to you. You've got to go fight and take it. Be strong. And as they're hearing this, they would have been saying, if the same covenant God was faithful to do that for Joshua. And He's here with us now saying, I'm with you, He'll be faithful to us. And it would have greatly encouraged Him because I am not telling you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That's not what this text is saying. It's not saying look inwardly and pull some more effort out. No, He's saying be strong in your covenant keeping God. Land yourself in the promises of God and be strong in Him. Not in your own strength, not in your own wealth. Be strong in Him and in His covenant. He goes on to tell them, according, in verse 5, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. He's saying, I'm still keeping that covenant. It's been hundreds of years and you guys have apostatized over and over and over and I'm still keeping my covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. Land yourself in that and be strong in it. Not only does he say be strong, but he says, I will be with you. He says, work for I am with you. Work for I am with you. Not just work, Work, for I am with you." It's amazing. This is the Christian life. Waging war with His promises. Taking up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. and fighting your mental, emotional issues, fighting all the satanic attacks around you, fighting the ideas and the ideologies of this age with the Word of God. And in the same way, we must do this today because this God that revealed Himself to Joshua and to Haggai is the same God who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to reveal Himself in fullness It's the same covenant-keeping God. I am that I am. The eternal triune divinity is with us today. And you say, well, that's the old covenant. Not so fast. 1 Corinthians 16.13. When Paul gives his final instructions to the church, he says this in verse 13, he says, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, and then here it is, be strong. Just a couple of chapters removed from that incredible chapter on agape love, 1 Corinthians 13. He says to them, stand firm. Be brave. Stand strong in the faith. Be strong. Act like men, says in Ephesians 6.10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Brothers and sisters, discouragement is not from the Lord. It keeps us from the work God has called us to do and it opens us up to deception and sin and further depression. And much of the time, not always, but much of the time, this is the biblical counsel that I need. And this is the biblical counsel that will help a brother or sister. Very lovingly, very graciously, come on, brother, be strong. Come on, sister, be strong. God's with you. He'll keep his promises. Let's work. Let's do what God's called us to do. People are depending on you. People need your gifts. People need your service. God's with us. Be strong. This leads to the last point. While we strive to be faithful and while we strive to prioritize truth and obedience over emotions, we must lastly keep our eyes on future glory. We must keep our eyes on future glory, says in verse 6. For thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations shall come in. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine. And he says the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former. says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give peace." As I said earlier, Lord willing, next week I want to get back into that text and look at some of the eschatological themes and get down into the weeds of some of that discussion. But for our purpose for this morning, I want us to consider a truth that no matter where you land eschatologically will be relevant for you in fighting discouragement. Because we don't have to get into the nuances of end times positions and the hows and the whens to get the general thrust of this passage. Why are they discouraged? They're discouraged at the lack of splendor of the temple. They're discouraged at the lack of resources. They're discouraged at how hard the work is. They're discouraged at how small their number is, how poor the harvest was. And yet God says to them, I'm going to fill this house with glory. And it's actually going to be better than the first one. And I'm going to provide all the resources for it. I'm going to provide the necessary gold and silver because it belongs to me anyway. He says in verse 8, the silver is mine. The gold is mine. And it's going to come from the nations. God's going to bring in what is needed for the temple from the nations. And again, this is a layered prophecy. And we'll see that next week. But we have in this prophecy an immediate fulfillment and future fulfillments. But in its immediate context, in its historical context, God does provide from the nations for this temple. And we see this in Ezra 6. Then Darius the king made a decree and search was made in Babylonia in the house of the archives where the documents were stored. So they find a decree that Cyrus the king had made years earlier, which told them that the house of the Lord could be rebuilt. And it says in that decree that the cost was to be paid from the royal treasury. And upon reading this decree, Darius the king, when Haggai is prophesying, finds it and he tells the people of the surrounding lands, he says this, let the work on this house of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. Moreover, I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for rebuilding this house of God. And listen to this, the cost is to be paid to these men in full and without delay from the royal revenue. the tribute of the province from beyond the river. And whatever is needed, bulls, rams, sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require, let that be given to them day by day without fail. that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons. So literally, in history, Darius the king is telling all the people of the nations, provide what they need for the temple. And it's coming out of the royal treasury. If they need gold, give them gold. If they need stone, give them stone. If they need animals, give them animals. Everything they need, according to the Levitical law, give it to them. He provides for them. As they waited upon the Lord, they weren't just to lay around and be lazy and be discouraged. They were to be occupied with the work, yet they were working in light of the promise that God was going to make the temple glorious. And He did. And He filled the temple with glory and He made it splendid. And He says in verse 9, the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former." They were to battle the current discouragement by putting their hope in a promise of future glory. Future glory. He was going to visit them in a very special way in the future. He will make this temple beautiful and He will make it splendid. And it may be that many of us are discouraged because we have so focused on our temporary situation and what things look like right now and not having a view of future glory. In our New Testament, the major thrust of it is constantly telling us to look up, to look to the future, Brothers and sisters, whatever difficult circumstances you are facing, bodily, financial, marital, whatever they are, your own battle with sin, I know I can speak for all of us that it is extremely easy to get discouraged. When we look at our own culture and see what is being celebrated and propagated, I think this passage would lead us to be encouraged on two fronts. We should have a type of temporary future hope. Temporary future hope that God will work on our behalf, that He will move in our favor, that He will work all things together for good, even in a temporary way. And we have promises of God saying, I'm going to use this for your sanctification. This is so prevalent for our battle with sin. What is God's great goal for us? That we would be like Christ. He will sanctify His people. If you are struggling with sin, and we all are, that is such a huge promise to cling to. He will sanctify me completely. And if you're married to a sinner, everybody should say amen. And that person is a Christian. You should have so much hope that God's going to work in that person's heart and work in your heart and restore and repair and rebuild. And even in situations where we don't have specific promises, I can't promise you, brothers and sisters, that your boss will turn away from evil and begin to honor the God of heaven. I can't promise you that this nation will elect a godly president. I can't promise those things. But even where we don't have specific promises, we should have hope that God will work powerfully in the earth and in our lives. And then secondly, we should have an eternal future hope that there is an imperishable reward that is being laid up for us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ. And we will receive an imperishable body, and an imperishable eternity, and an imperishable new creation. Paul comforted himself in his hears with this truth. He said in Romans 8.18, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed at us. So juxtapose the Jews comparing the second temple to the first and getting discouraged with Paul saying, my situation is so bad, but it's not even worth comparing to what's coming in the future in terms of its glory. 2 Corinthians 4, 16-18, So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we do not look to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. He says just before His death in 2 Timothy 4, He says, I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for Me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to Me on that day. And not only to Me, but also all who have loved His appearing. Have you loved the appearing of Christ? Do you long for and love the second coming of Jesus Christ wherever you are eschatologically? Do you long for Him to come again and make all things right? Do you long for the new heavens and the new earth and a new resurrected body? I submit to you today that we would be discouraged far less. Far less. if we would think far more about the future glory that is promised to those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. And after giving one of the most significant teachings in the New Testament on the Second Coming, In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul says, we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so we will always be with the Lord. And then listen to what he says, verse 18. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. What words? That he's coming again. Encourage each other by the fact that Jesus is coming again and he's gonna make everything right. God has revealed to us a sufficient amount of material of what He is going to do in the future, not only so that we can have the knowledge, but so that we can be encouraged by it. So it can land in our hearts and bear fruit in the way that we think and feel and live. And this is what the book of Revelation is all about in many ways. No matter what happens in your life, no matter how much opposition Christ receives, He is going to win. He is victorious. He is the Lamb slain yet standing, and He has conquered, and if you remain faithful to Him, you will conquer. So as I close, just like these Jews in 520 BC were discouraged by the perceived lack of splendor of the temple, we likewise get discouraged when we feel and think that there is a lack of splendor in our lives, often in terms of our own holiness. But take heart. Christ loves His church, and consider what He does for His bride. He gave Himself up for her. that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word." And listen to this, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. Amen. All right, well, as we transition to the table, we come to this table every week to remind ourselves of these truths, to remind ourselves that Jesus has come in history, died for our sins, shed His blood, and we proclaim that He is coming again. And so if you're a believer in Jesus Christ and you've been baptized into His name, and you're a part of a fellowship, a local fellowship, we would ask you to come and take the supper with us, you can come, take the elements and return to your seats and we'll take it together. So take a few minutes and when you're ready, come on up. I'll pray for us now. Father, again, we just thank you for your word. Lord, I want to pray specifically for any who are dealing with discouragement, Lord. The discouragement that sets in and does not seem to leave, day after day and week after week, possibly for some year after year, I pray that You would encourage their hearts from Your Word. That they would see that by the power of Your Holy Spirit, the best is yet to come. And give us the grace to encourage one another in these truths. as we press on with the work You've called us to do. We thank You for Jesus Christ. Help us to come to the table with joy. We ask it in His name, Amen.