Haggai - Part 3 — Stuart Briscoe

Stuart, would you like to come up? And Stuart, I know that you've been involved over many years in ministry in North America, local church ministry, a church leadership situation where you've seen a church grow very significantly.

And I wondered whether you would be able to share with us some of your reflections on that. What are important factors in seeing a church grow and leading a growing church like this as you've done over so many years?

Perhaps if you would share something about that.

Well, thank you. One of the things that has been very exciting for Jill and me in these last few months is that we have finally stepped down from our responsibility as the senior pastor of Elmbrook Church and have been immediately commissioned as ministers-at-large.

Somebody said to me, what exactly does a minister-at-large do? And I said, that is the wrong question. The right question is, what does a minister-at-large not do? And the answer is, he does not do any longer anything he does not want to do.

And so we are having a wonderful time. At the same time that I had my 70th birthday, I completed 30 years at the church. And it was also the end of the millennium, even though we celebrated that one year prematurely.

And it was obvious to me that that was the time to make a change. Because at my age, three things can happen to a pastor. They can either carry you out, or they can kick you out, or you can walk out. And being totally committed to self-preservation, I decided to walk out.

And they immediately appointed my senior associate as the new senior pastor, and we have had a very, very smooth transition indeed. We have had a most wonderful 30 years pastoring the church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

And the first thing I told the church when I went there as their pastor was, you are either the most courageous or the most stupid people on the North American continent. I have no experience of pastoring a church.

I have no training whatsoever in pastoring a church. All I can tell you is, I know an excellent book on the subject. And I promise you, I will read it, mark it, learn it, inwardly digest it, and teach it.

And the only thing I ask of you is that you will join with me in doing it. And as far as I know, that is the key to a healthy church. Knowing an excellent book on the subject, reading it, marking it, learning it, inwardly digesting it, teaching it, and doing it.

And that's all we've done.

So now you can throw away your other 20 books on how to grow a church. Thank you, Stuart. A very important reminder of the basis of all that we do as the people of God rooted in Scripture. Arthur Pont, who is one of the members of our Keswick Convention Council, a very valued member who is involved in many other aspects of Christian work in this country, is going to lead us in prayer.

Worship Through Praise, Petition, and the Reading of Haggai

I want to offer two prayers with you, one of praise and one of petition. Almighty God, hear us, we humbly pray, as we seek to worship you, for whom you are. You're the only infinite and supreme God of all creation.

You're a God of justice and judgment. You're awesome in majesty and breathtaking in beauty. You are God supreme without equal or flaw. You are measureless and infinite and ultimate and incomparable. You're stupendous and awesome.

You're thrown in splendor and radiant in majesty. You dwell in dazzling light and are beautiful beyond description. Your power is unlimited. Your command's absolute. Your holiness searing, your nature perfect.

We pray to you and come to you in great humility, yet you're also a God of infinite compassion and tenderness, hearing a child's cry and an old man's whisper. Your mercy is unlimited and undeserved, embracing your enemies as well as your friends, and flows from the dawn of time to the end of history.

You are the only God whose love is eternal beyond the boundaries of time and space, and yet you allow us to call you our Father. You are our God. You have told us to have no other gods before you. You are our God.

Oh, praise your holy and majestic name. Jehovah God, Lord of all, amen, and yet again, amen. Heavenly Father, fill Stuart Briscoe with your Holy Spirit. Speak to us, we pray, by your word. Move our hearts by your word.

Mold our wills by your word. Change our lives by your word. For Jesus' sake, we pray. Amen. And let's stand together as we sing a song of confidence and trust in the promises of God. This song may be new to some of us, and so the band will sing verse one, then we'll all join in.

My hope rests firm on Jesus Christ. Let's stand. And Alison Ridgebridger is going to read our scripture reading from Haggai chapter two, and then Stuart will bring the exposition.

We're reading Haggai chapter two, verses one to nine. On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Speak to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people.

Ask them, who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest.

Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord, and work, for I am with you, declares the Lord Almighty. This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit remains among you.

Do not fear. This is what the Lord Almighty says. In a little while, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations will come, and I will fill the house with glory, says the Lord Almighty.

The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord Almighty. The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place, I will grant peace, declares the Lord Almighty.

Amen.

Good morning and greetings to everybody sitting in the tent here at Keswick once again. The sun is shining. One thing I learned coming to the Keswick Convention is you must comment on the weather. I'm mentioning that the sun is shining, of course, because we're also greeting our radio listeners through Radio Premier, and we wish you a good morning and hope that you're having a good day down there as well.

Particularly those of you who've been listening to Telling the Truth, that is our daily broadcast. You've just been listening to Jill Briscoe. Now you've got the other half of the outfit. We're going to turn now to the book of Haggai chapter 2.

Haggai’s Four Messages and the Need for Encouragement

This particular rather brief prophecy contains four messages that the Lord brought through Haggai to the people of Israel, returned from exile, commissioned with the task of rebuilding the temple, and reinstituting the formal worship of Jehovah.

We looked at the first message yesterday morning, which we called a message of challenge. He came from the prophet Haggai because the hand of the Lord was on him. The Lord had sent him, and he spoke everything that the Lord had commanded him to say.

One of the most encouraging things you can possibly read is that when the people listened to the word of the Lord, the Lord stirred up their spirits. He assured them that He was with them, and they set to work and did what He told them to do.

Now when you come to the end of chapter 1, you think, well, that must be the end of the story. Haggai's job was to get them fired up and get them back to work rebuilding the temple. They'd made a great start, but for 18 years they had left the work to lie fallow.

Now he's got them working again. He can go home and do whatever it is that he was doing before he became a prophet. But to think of it in those terms would be to seriously misunderstand the prophecy of Haggai.

For less than a month later, Haggai comes with another message. That is, less than a month after they had started the rebuilding project. To be precise, he came with a message on October 17, 520 B .C., at 9 .35 in the morning.

No, that was a little added extra just to see if anybody was paying attention. When we look at this message, we are in for a surprise. For after they had set to work with great enthusiasm, incredibly, they ran out of gas.

And less than a month later, it seems that all the enthusiasm, all the drive, all the motivation is dissipating, and now they need not a word of challenge. What they need now is a word of encouragement, a message of encouragement.

And that is the title of our second Bible reading here today. And so that is the task of Haggai. Sometimes the task of the prophet is to bring a word of challenge. Sometimes the task is to bring a word of encouragement.

Let me identify for you three things by way of outline. First of all, we will look into this passage and read something about the debilitating dynamic of discouragement. The debilitating dynamic of discouragement.

Secondly, we will talk about the empowering effect of encouragement. The empowering effect of encouragement. And thirdly, we will talk about the positive power of promise. You don't have to suffer from alliteration, but if you do, it helps on occasion.

The Debilitating Dynamic of Discouragement

First of all, then, the debilitating dynamic of discouragement. Isn't it interesting that the Lord instructs Haggai to say to the people, Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now?

Does it not seem to you like nothing? Now, this is a bit of a downer, isn't it? It's a rather discouraging approach. And the Lord is telling Haggai to point this out to the people. Simple fact of the matter is this, that the Lord wants them to recognize that the work of the Lord is not all hype, and the work of the Lord is not all glory, and the work of the Lord is not all fun, and the work of the Lord is not all excitement.

That in actual fact, if you're going to be involved in the work of the Lord, you are going to hit some rough water at times. You are going to run into times of discouragement. But the point of God showing this to them and reminding them of this is simply that if you're going to engage in the work of the Lord, you've got to know how to handle discouragement.

If you can't handle discouragement, you will not succeed in the work of the Lord. Now, why would it be that these people were discouraged? Well, if you refer to the book of Ezra, and for the sake of time, I won't turn you there.

You can check on this later, as you have it in your outline, if you so desire. You will find that they had repetitive problems with the authorities. It seemed that they were always running into bureaucratic roadblocks.

There were people who were just making it plain difficult for them to get the work done, and that can be debilitating. That can become very discouraging. I remember when we were extended the call to go as pastor to Elmbrook Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States.

We did what we obviously had to do, and that was apply for a visa. In those days, there was a fast track for visas for those in the ministry. And so we were assured, you'll have your visa in two weeks.

Well, after two months, we called the American embassy and said, do you have our visa for us, please? And they said, well, we've got a slight problem here. You notice that I'm completely bilingual now.

And I said, what is the nature of the problem? They said, well, we've discovered that you've applied for a visa as a minister, but you are not a minister, so you can't have one. And I said, why do you think I'm not a minister?

They said, because you haven't pastored a church. I said, do you think Billy Graham is a minister? They said, yeah, he sure is. I said, which church does he pastor? They said, well, I guess your God is there.

And so they said, okay. And I explained to you that you can be an evangelist who's a minister, or a pastor who's a minister. Oh, gee, yeah, well, we'll send it to you right away. And so we waited another month and no visa, so I called back again.

I said, what happened to our visa? And they said, well, we've discovered that you're not really a minister. You've written books, so you're an author. I said, well, that is true. But when preachers write sermons, sometimes they stick 12 of them together and put a hard cover on them, and they become a book.

I didn't tell them I'd never written a sermon in my life. And they said, oh, gee, yeah, we, yeah, right, okay. And well, we'll have it for you right away. And another month went by, and I called them on the phone again.

I said, what happened to our visa? Well, we've discovered you've been behind the Iron Curtain, and we're wondering if you're a communist sympathizer. And I said, well, if you've seen what happens in communist land, you'd be sympathetic too.

And it went on and on and on like this, just bureaucratic roadblocks. Now, ours were nothing compared to the problems that they were experiencing here. But that's one reason why the people began to run out of gas, the debilitating dynamic of discouragement.

Remembering Former Glories and Unmet Expectations

The second thing that led to their discouragement was remembrances of former glories. How does this temple, the foundation of which have now been completed, how does it look to you now? And I pointed out to you yesterday that some of the old timers, who must have been very, very young, if they had any vivid or clear recollections of the former temple, their attitude was this is a very, very poor excuse for a temple.

The glory has departed. I love the story of the American tourist who was traveling around the south of Wales. He'd read all about the Welsh revivals, and so he wanted to see some of the scenes of the great revival.

And he found an old man who actually remembered them. And this old gentleman took him around some of the chapels, and he showed them where the choirs used to sing, where the men would come from the coal mines with the coal dust still on their faces, and they would go and they would sing the great hymns of the faith.

And then the old man looked at these great chapels there that were completely empty, and he said, oh, but the glory has departed. The glory has departed. And digging back into his memories of the Old Testament, he wanted to say you could write Ichabod right across the front of this church.

But unfortunately, his memory was not as good as it might have been. And he said, the glory has departed. You could write Knickerbocker right across. Well, I'm not quite sure what you do with Knickerbocker across the front of your church.

I suppose you could sing As Pants the Heart, but that just occurred to me on the spur of the moment. So here's the difficulty. Repetitive problems with the authorities. Remembrances of former glories.

The good old days are no longer with us. Thirdly, there was the recognition that expectations might not be met. This was desperately debilitating for them. I want you to notice that on the date in which Haggai speaks to them, the twenty-first day of the seventh month, if you check in Leviticus chapter 23 sometime, you will discover that that was the last day, the great day, of the Feast of Tabernacles.

And on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, they would actually read from Ezekiel chapter 47. And if you check on Ezekiel chapter 47 sometime, you'll discover it gives a magnificent, stupendous picture of the temple.

And if you were there on the particular day, the presumable day they celebrated the day of Tabernacles, because we know that they did when they started to rebuild the temple again. If you had been there and they read Ezekiel 47, and you got this glorious picture of what Ezekiel was predicting about the temple, and then you looked at the thing that they'd been able to do, you'd say to yourself, you know, we're getting all hyped up here.

Ezekiel is getting us all excited about the simple fact that the matter is, this is totally realistic, unrealistic. It just isn't going to happen. Ezekiel needs to get real. It's all right, these enthusiastic people coming and getting us all excited about these things, but we just get all pumped up.

And then when we go back to reality, we just get all discouraged all over again. Has that ever happened to you? You ever run into bureaucratic problems? You ever find yourself in difficulties remembering the former glories and saying whatever happened around here?

Ever got yourself into a situation where you've gone to a great conference, perhaps Keswick, or you've made the pilgrimage to Willow Creek in America, and you've got all thrilled and excited about your church becoming a mega church, like their church, and then you've come back to your little flock.

And you say, whatever happened around here? There's a debilitating dynamic of discouragement that is part of the reality of the work of the Lord. The fourth dimension, I would suggest to you, of their discouragement was the realization that problems would not be solved overnight.

You will remember that in chapter one, one of the things that they were experiencing was that they were planting much but harvesting very little. This was a direct fulfillment of the part of the curse that God had said would be the lot of covenant people, you remember, in Deuteronomy 28, that if they lived in disobedience, the harvest would dry up.

They would have all kinds of problems with the fertility and the productivity of the land. Now if God is going to turn things around for them, they are smart enough to know this, that a harvest doesn't suddenly flourish overnight.

It was not going to be a case of waving a magic wand and all their troubles would go, that there were no easy solutions, that they would not be solved overnight. And probably they had got into the kind of attitude that we tend to get into now, and that is that we don't want to wait for anything.

We demand instant gratification. And if it doesn't come, we become discouraged. And fifthly, they were going to have to deal with the reality that if anything was going to be done about fulfilling the task that had been given to them, it was only going to happen through blood, sweat, and tears.

That was how it would be accomplished. Put all that together and you've got the dynamics of discouragement. Now what do you do when you become discouraged? Well, sometimes the tendency when you become discouraged is to become negative.

Sometimes the tendency is to degenerate from being negative into being skeptical. Sometimes your skepticism can harden into cynicism. Sometimes when you become discouraged, you will find that you fit into the category of those of whom it is said, blessed are those who expect nothing, for they will not be disappointed.

Sometimes when you become discouraged, you simply go through the motions because you've always gone through the motions and somebody has to go through the motions. Without any sense of enthusiasm, without any sense of expectation, without any sense that you are part and parcel of something greater and grander and more glorious than yourself.

I submit to you that the necessity for a message of encouragement from Haggai on this day, the 17th of August, 520 BC, 9 .35 in the morning, was simply that they were becoming deeply discouraged. All right, with that in mind, then let's look at the contrast here, the empowering effect of encouragement.

Be Strong: God’s Authoritative Call to Action

Notice that after the Lord Himself has raised this question, who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory, in order that they might confront their discouragement, the Lord Himself now, against the backdrop of a realistic appraisal of their discouragement, now speaks the words of encouragement through Haggai.

And what words of encouragement they are. Let me read to you now from verse 4. But now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehoshaddak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land.

Now obviously this is repeated three times, repeated presumably for emphasis. Sometimes we don't hear the thing the first time. Sometimes we don't get it the second time. Sometimes the Lord says, listen to me again.

And three times the powerful message comes. Be strong. You'll notice that it is an all-inclusive message. It applies to the prince. It applies to the priest. It applies to the people. Everybody is to hear this word, be strong.

Now if you look in your Bible, if you're reading a New International Version as I am, it says, but now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Let me be technical for just one minute. Won't be longer than one minute, I promise you.

But the way the NIV has translated the Hebrew here, the expression is translated as a verb. There's a very good case to be made that it was not actually a verb, but it was a noun. And then it would be translated as follows.

But now be strong, O Zerubbabel, in inverted commas, and then afterwards it would say, Oracle of God. The whole point of that is that when God speaks an oracle, it is an authoritative statement. It brooks no argument.

It is not a suggestion. It is not a mild-mannered, insinuating thought. It is the Lord Almighty who makes an authoritative statement. And this authoritative statement is to be heard and to be obeyed.

Be strong, Oracle of God. What do you do with an oracle of God? Some time ago I was doing a seminar in a little church in North Carolina, talking to people about how to study the Bible for themselves.

And I was explaining to them that perhaps one way of studying the Bible is to identify different themes and perhaps have a system of different colored pencils. And if you come across a command, underline it in blue.

If you come across a promise, underline it in red, etc., etc. And sometime later I went back to that church, and during the course of my preaching this time, not a seminar, preaching, and I said with a great rhetorical flourish, as we preachers do, what do you do with the commands of God?

And a little lady who'd attended my seminar put up her hand and she said, I underlined them in blue. Well, I was so excited about that, but that was not what I had in mind. Let me ask you a question, my friends, this morning.

What do you do with the oracles of God? You obey them. You say, but I don't feel very strong. But I'm not a very strong person. But you see, my problem is. Now, suddenly when you see, be strong is an oracle of God, the fact that you're not very strong is a fundamental irrelevance.

The fact that you don't feel very strong has absolutely nothing to do with the issue. The fact that you don't particularly want to be strong is absolutely, totally another subject. The one subject that matters is this.

God is saying, brooking no argument, I'm telling you, be strong. Now, He doesn't tell us to do it without giving us the power to do it. You know that. You know that God Himself is the dynamic of all His own demands.

You know that God is not an Egyptian taskmaster who tells us to make bricks, but refuses to give us straw. God is the one who says, be strong. That's an order. Don't argue. No excuses. No exemptions. Get on with it.

Be Strong and Work: Every Believer Has a Task

You see, there are different ways of encouraging people, and that's one of them. Be strong. Here's the second word of encouragement. Be strong and work. Well, that's a novel idea. Be strong and work. What does that mean?

What it means is this. It doesn't matter if you're a prince, and it doesn't matter if you're a priest, and it doesn't matter if you're a prophet, and it doesn't matter if you're one of the people. This is addressed to all of you.

You say, He doesn't address it to the prophet. You're right. But in Ezra, we're told that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah joined in the work. In other words, there is something for everybody to do. Do something.

You know what happens in the church as far as the work of the Lord is concerned. We say, Oh, the work of the Lord is not functioning very well here. Oh, it's very discouraging here. Nothing very much is happening here.

Something ought to be done. Now, when we have decided something ought to be done, what do we do? We form a committee. And after we have formed a committee, we discuss it at great length and decide that now is not the time to do anything.

So we refer it to a—oh, you've heard it. I don't need to proceed with this talk. You know where it's going. We refer it to a subcommittee, etc., etc. And then eventually we get a report back from the subcommittee that has taken so long that the committee can't remember what it was they referred to the subcommittee.

But something has been done. And listen very carefully. In the church of Jesus Christ, one thing we have to recognize is this. When all is said and done, far more is said than done. Now, what do we encourage people to do?

We encourage people to be strong, because God says so, and do something. It's amazing. Even if you can't do much. If you can't do much and you do something, doing something is a whole lot better than doing nothing.

And as you begin to do something and you see something that needs doing, and in the strength of the Lord you go about doing it, you will begin to discover that you become encouraged yourself and you become an encouragement to other people.

There are different ways of encouraging people. This is the second way. Thirdly, you will notice that God then goes on to say, for I am with you, declares the Lord Almighty. Now, you'll notice that it is a verb here, declares, but the same thing obtains.

The same thing applies. This can be a noun as well. Another delightful, authoritative oracle of God. What a great oracle of God this one is. Put it in inverted commas. Put it in quotes. Make a plaque out of it, out of Lakeland green slate.

Hammer it on your wall. I am with you, oracle of God. This is a very fascinating statement actually, because you see, up until this time, they'd got the general sort of idea that God was with them and manifested his presence in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire at night in the tabernacle, and then his glory had filled the temple, but now the tabernacle is gone and the temple is in ruins and the glory has departed.

You remember? Nicobarca, excuse me, Ichabod. You remember what has happened? Now they need to hear this word. Listen, even though the tabernacle has molded into dust, and even though the temple has been razed, and even though the glory, the visible, tangible presence of God, evidence of God's presence is no longer with us, I am with you.

Years ago, I got a very odd postcard. It was an invitation to the Polish millennium. Now, I have many weird friends. They're all in the ministry. People in the ministry have a weird sense of humor. I knew that this was some weird humorous prank on the part of somebody, although I did think they'd gone to an awful lot of trouble to do this thing.

So I ignored this invitation to the Polish millennium. Two weeks later, I got a telephone call. You have not answered our invitation. I said, which invitation was that? To come to the Polish millennium?

I said, the Polish millennium? What is the Polish millennium? They said the celebration of Christianity, being in Poland for a thousand years. This was in the mid -1960s, the depth of the Cold War. I said, well, what is this?

They said, it is a celebration. We want you to come and speak at our celebration. I said, well, I don't understand. They said the Catholics wanted the Pope to come, but the communists have said no. And the Protestants want Billy Graham to come, and the Catholics have said no.

And while they're arguing about Billy Graham and the Pope, nobody has heard of you, and we thought we could... So I went. Depth of the Cold War. The time they were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the great communist revolution.

I remember arriving in Warsaw. They'd said, things can be difficult here, so don't bring any details of addresses or names or telephone numbers. We'll meet you at the airport. And of course, they didn't.

Arrived in the dead of night. The airport closes up. No planes going out anywhere. I'm standing there. I don't know anything. I don't know anybody. Don't know what to do. I'm thinking of my wife and my family and my home, and I think of why in the world am I here?

And they're ushering me out of the airport because they're locking it up for the night. Nowhere to go. It's snowing. Bitterly cold. I was not a happy camper. Stood there for about half an hour, wondering what to do, and then eventually I heard a voice behind me say, Briscoe.

I turned around and there was a man in a long leather coat with a collar turned up and a wide brimmed hat with the brim turned down. He used... I remember four years ago, he used to show up every morning at quarter to 11.

And so I found myself saying, I didn't do it. I promise you I won't do it again. Just let me out of here. Here, take me. I'll come quietly. And he said, you stood Briscoe. I said, yes. And he didn't arrest me.

It was worse. He hugged me. And he kissed me on the left cheek. And he kissed me on the right cheek. And horror of horrors. He kissed me right on the front. And I thought, Lord, I'm coming home. He said, come quickly.

I'm sorry I was late. Come quickly. So we got on the streetcar in old Warsaw. They hung on the straps. And as we hung on the straps, he said to me, speak loudly of Jesus. I said, what? I don't know any Polish.

He said, you know German? I said, yes. He said, speak loudly of Jesus in German and English. So I did. And quietness descended on the streetcar as we bounced along on the old cobbled streets of Warsaw.

People began to listen, straining to hear as I spoke loudly of Jesus. And I found myself enjoying it. And then I thought to myself, what a dramatic change in me. A few minutes ago, I was depressed. I was discouraged.

I was downhearted. I just wanted to go home. Now I'm all excited about being here. What's the difference? And then I looked at my friend in the long leather coat and the broad-wimped hat. And I thought, the difference is he is with me.

And then I was ashamed. Then I was ashamed. Because you see, I had forgotten. Lo, I am with you. Always, even to the end of the age. And all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And the reminder of his presence fills you with encouragement.

There are different ways of encouraging people. That's another one. See how we do it? Oracle of God, be strong. Do something. I am with you. But then read on. He goes on and says even further. Verse 5.

Remembering the Covenant and God’s Faithfulness

This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. This is what I covenanted with you. Now why would God bring up the covenant at this point? Well, the reason He would bring up the covenant with these people, the people of God at this time, was that that was the foundational statement.

That was the bedrock of their experience with Him. Let me read to you from Exodus chapter 19. God speaking about the covenant. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Oh, there's so much here in the covenant. We'll need to revisit this again to understand some more of what Haggai is saying to the people. But let me just remind you of what God is saying to this discouraged people.

He is saying to them, do you remember what I did to Egypt? Oh, yes. And do you remember how I carried you across the sea and I brought you into the wilderness and I bore you like an eagle carries its young on its wings?

Do you remember? Oh, yes. And do you remember how I brought you to myself at Sinai and I revealed myself to you as the God of the covenant? Oh, yes. And do you remember that when I established my covenant with you, I told you that you were my treasured possession?

Oh, yes. And do you remember that I said that you would become a kingdom of priests? Oh, yes. And do you remember that at that particular time I said that you would be a holy nation? Oh, yes. Well, what's the matter with you?

Didn't I make a covenant with you? You know what I did to Egypt? Read your history. Be fully acquainted with what I have done down through the centuries. You know what I promised you? Oh, yes. Didn't I promise that you would be a treasured possession?

My crown jewels? Yes. Didn't I promise you that you would become a kingdom of priests? Not a kingdom of soldiers who would rule by force. Not a kingdom of politicians who would rule by compromise. But a kingdom of priests.

A kingdom who would rule and reign on the basis of worship and service. That you would come together as a unique people who would worship the Lord your God and flowing out of that worship would be a lifestyle of sacrificial service.

And out of your worship and sacrificial service the kingdom would spread to the uttermost parts of the earth. Isn't that what I told you? Oh, yes. And didn't I tell you you would be a holy nation? A nation uniquely set apart from me among all the other nations so that people would look at me in a fragmenting culture and see something that cohered and see something that is unique and see something that glorifies me.

Isn't that what I said I would do to you? Oh, yes. Well, what's the matter with you? What's the matter with you? Retrace your history. Reacquaint yourself with my promises. Get yourself in step with my purposes.