Dr Greg Bahnsen - The Christian Mission: God's Inevitable Triumph (Part 5)

Turn with me in your Bibles, please, to Matthew, the 16th chapter, where we'll take as our reading this morning, verses 13 to 19 as we consider God's inevitable triumph. Matthew 16, verses 13 to 19. Hear now God's word. Now, when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, who do men say that the Son of man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, but who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee. But my Father who is in heaven. And I also say unto thee, thou art Peter. And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And thus far, the reading of God's Word. Last evening I was doing a pretty good job of working myself into a real depressed state of mind as I started reflecting upon how really far behind we are as Christians in this world in terms of seeing the kingdom of God come to expression, seeing men and women and children profess Jesus Christ as their Savior, and living under his lordship, seeing all areas of life reformed. I mean, stop and think about this. Let's be depressed together for a minute here. I got to thinking about the thousands of young people that graduated from high school just a few weeks ago. And I was thinking about that because I had two children that graduated and they graduated from a Christian school. And I got to thinking, well, you know, not even 100% of that graduating class at a Christian school is all that I think Jesus would want our young people to be or understands, you know, the system of doctrine and the Scriptures, going to go out there and have a. A sanctifying influence on the world. But that's just a small little Christian school. And just in the city where that Christian school is located, you know, there are thousands of young people, you know, that graduated from different high schools, the vast majority of whom do not respect human life, would compromise on the question of abortion, would be tolerant, if not practicing of sexual perversion. And, you know, your mind just starts going, think about every year that happens. And not just in one little city and in one county, in one State, but all over this nation and all over this world, too. You know, we're just from a numerical standpoint, I don't know what are we even doing here today? From a numerical standpoint, we've lost, right? It just is not going to be the case that the kingdom of God is going to engulf this world. We're a diminishing breed, if you want to put it that way. It's not just that there are fewer and fewer people going to church and professing to be Christians. There are fewer and fewer people who are going to church professing to be Christians, who care. What it really means to be a Christian, who read their Bibles, take it seriously and say, well, I'm supposed to believe the right things. How many people do you know who profess to be Christian who put that high on their list, say, I have to believe the right things. I've got to learn about these things. I got to study the Bible. Well, you know, the depressing thing is, and I love all of you, I'm not trying to get down here, but probably many of you have that problem too. And then you got so many things to do. How often do you study your Bible? We don't take that seriously. We're a diminishing breed. The idea that there'd be people who say, I'm going to take up my cross and follow Jesus, and I believe that in so doing that not only will I be blessed individually, but I'm going to see changes in my family and in the community in which I live, the world in which I live. No, from a numerical standpoint, from standpoint of what you see in the Christians round about you. Well, for crying out loud. For what you see just in the churches that we think are just a handful of, you know, good, solid churches, they go through what church splits, their politics and personalities. They create difficulties, and then you have little worth. I mean, how many small, little, you know, fledgling works are there in this world, in our nation, like the one that I'm preaching to this morning. And you look at that, and I'll bet that if you are honest, I mean, if don't turn off the TV channel upstairs and say, I'm just not going to think about it. If you're honest and you think about that, it's got to be pretty depressing. It's like if you were running an extrapolation into the future, you'd say, we've lost. What have we got? Maybe a generation and a half to go, and then there won't be but a handful of worthwhile Christians on this earth. There's just no hope. What is our Christian mission? Why do we exist not only individually but corporately as Christians? What is our mission? Well, obviously our mission is to proclaim the indisputable existence of God. You know, that we live in a world where many people profess that there is no God. They're atheist, okay? So one of the things we do in our Christian mission is that we defend the existence of God. That's obvious enough. But it's not just any old God. You know, that's one of the things that's distinctive about the Reformed faith. We don't believe that there is some kind of theism in general of which the Christian version is just like one way of looking at God. They're all legitimate. You know, some cultures approach them this way, some that we don't believe there is a general idea of God. And it's good that everybody has that. And then we start particularizing that there is one only living and true God. And so we don't only in our Christian mission, stand over against atheism. We stand over against all religions that do not proclaim the grace of God as well. Part of the Christian mission is in understanding and proclaiming the incredible mercy of God. Think about one of our near cousins, as those who study comparative religion would like to put it. One of our near cousins would be Islam. The Muslims believe in one God, one personal God, one sovereign God. Many people would say so. You know, they're kind of like, you know, Christians, reformed Christians anyway. But they aren't like reformed Christians at all. Because when all is said and done, the Muslims do not have any concept, any legitimate concept of God's mercy. The idea that God is ready to forgive, not just balance the scales with our good deeds, but to say that we are forgiven for the sake of Christ and his substitutionary sacrifice. And so we stand in this world over against atheism. We stand over against all other religions, Muslims included, that do not understand the grace of God. But you know, we stand over against those that profess Christianity as well. There are so many groups, you see, do not want to let Christianity be defined by God's self revelation in the Bible. And though they don't come and wave a red flag and put it this way, essentially what they do is they create a God in their own image. They'll take a little bit of the Christian tradition and they start tinkering with it, they start manipulating it, they change things around and they're going to Believe about God, what makes them comfortable and what fits into their lifestyle. They don't want to hold to the inconvenient word of God as their standard. As I've often put it. They take the scissors and paste approach. They go to the Bible where God has showed us, shown us who he is, what he is. Like they say, oh, we don't like this, we don't like that. So they cut it out and repaste the Bible together so that though they profess to be Christians and though they in some way will say the Bible is important to them, they don't let the Bible truly be their ultimate standard. We often call that theological liberalism, but you know, that's to be found in evangelical churches too. I don't need to belabor illustrations, but you find something that God requires in his law that doesn't fit in into our culture, makes us look not just unusual, but weird. And you'll find the vast majority of Christians today, I say this like I know. I have the feeling that the vast majority of Christians today would initially say, oh, we're not under that. Because that would make it hard for us to say we follow the Bible, we're embarrassed by the word of God. Or many Christians apparently are embarrassed by the word of God. So part of the Christian mission is not only to stand against atheism and to stand against those who don't understand the grace of God, to stand against those who don't follow the inconvenient word of God as their final standard. Oh, but let's narrow it down further. Not only do we have to take a stand against atheism and legalism and against those who don't let God speak for himself. But even where there are those who would stand with us in these three matters, their view of Christianity and its mission in this world is really very narrow. They have no concept of the transformational message of the Bible. See, once we get square on this, there is a God. We know him through his mercy. We have to follow his word as our standard, even when it's inconvenient. There are people say, well, but Christianity is never going to go anywhere in this world. But the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says that. Christianity is supposed to reform every aspect of life. Christianity is supposed to affect every aspect of our individual existence. We aren't just Christians on Sunday. We aren't just Christians when it comes to the hope of eternal life or prayer. We're supposed to be Christians, distinctively Christians in our family life. We're supposed to be Distinctively Christian in the way we spend our money, in our recreations, in our politics and our education, and on and on and on and on. You see, the Christian Mission has this. This just tremendous outlook. The scope of the work that's to be done is nothing less than the changing of the entire world and everything that men do in the world to glorify God. So that's why I was depressed last night. When you think about it, the Christian Mission has those features to it, and yet it just looks horrible. As I said, if we were to do an extrapolation and if that's the only thing that would be the basis for what we think is going to happen in the future, I think we just kind of roll things up, pack up and go home today because the Christian Mission is going to fail. We're just way behind on the numbers count. We're just way behind in terms of moral and social influence. We're just way behind in terms of the purity and the strength of our churches. We're just way behind in the Christian Mission. And so I thought I should take a few minutes this morning for my sake, and maybe you'd like to listen to me counsel myself. I thought, I'm going to take a few minutes this morning and focus on how God's word teaches of the inevitable triumph of God in the Christian mission that he has given us to do. You know, around Christmas season, as it's called in our culture, we often hear choruses in Christian churches singing the Hallelujah Chorus. You know, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. And it's thrilling music. That's one of those rare things in the history of music, I believe, where the subjective feel of the music really fits the objective, rational message that goes with it as well. I mean, the Hallelujah chorus is pretty ideal to get that message across. But, you know, we sing that and you wonder, is that just an emotional high that you get when you sing that the kingdoms of this world are going to become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ? We sing that with enthusiasm, but do we sing it with faith? Do we sing it really believing that's going to happen? We have a day of despair and pessimism. But I'd kind of like to encourage you by some of the words that we find in the scripture, particularly let's start with the atheist that I said we have to deal with in our Christian mission. We stand over against those who don't believe that There's a God or stand over against those who don't believe in the Christian God. In First Corinthians, chapter 1, the apostle Paul tells us that God makes foolish the wisdom of this world. Verse 20 says, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world or the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? And I often look at that text when I'm teaching apologetics to encourage people the Christian worldview can undermine. In debate, in encounter, in dialogue, in discussion, the Christian worldview can easily show the foolishness of unbelief. So I try to encourage my students and congregations I preach to and so forth that to defend the Christian faith and to take that as kind of your theme, hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world? But you know, you can believe that and say, yeah, okay, God's made foolish wisdom in this world. But the fact of the matter is there's a whole lot more fools than there are wise people. And we're so small, we're such a minority. And then we start, you know, this whining that I was into last night about how we're really behind in the numbers game and all that. Look at verse 27. Paul says, But God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame them that are wise. And God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong. Now, there is a paradox that's worthy of your reflection this afternoon, this Lord's day, as you think about what you've heard in the sermon, you try to apply it to your life. There's a paradox worth thinking about. God takes the weak things of the world and puts the shame the strong. We are behind in the numbers came, no doubt about it. We are behind in social influence. We are behind in so many ways. Our churches are really a mess. We are weak in terms of outward glory and outward strength and outward capability. We are the weak things of this world. We are the despised things of this world. People ridicule us for the things we believe. And you know what God's going to do? He's going to put the shame of the strong through us. Because God is able to do that's right. That's the kind of God that we worship. God is able to use insignificant things. God is able to use donkeys. Did you know that? Ask Balaam about that. God can rebuke this world through a donkey if he chooses to do so. God's able to Use slingshots. You know, check with Goliath about that. You can have all the outward strength and worldly grand grandeur of a Goliath. And a slingshot blessed by God can bring you down. God could even use the rocks to glorify him. You remember when Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, his triumphal entry and his. His enemies, his opponents thought it was horrible that, you know, people were praising him and the way that he did. And he said, I'll tell you this, if they didn't do this, the rocks would cry out. That's a kind of God we have. God takes the weakness of this world, things that don't count. He takes rocks and slingshots and donkeys and accomplishes his will. Now, if God can do that, then I think we have a real reason for hope. We have to remember the power of the Holy Spirit has been granted to us. Not just a message that is easily ridiculed by the world, not readily believed, but we've been given as well the power of the Holy Spirit. As Calvinists, we often talk about the doctrine of irresistible grace. You know, the acronym for the five points of Calvinism. Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace. Think about that for a minute. It's one of the real doctrinal accomplishments in the history of Reformed theology to recognize that the Holy Spirit cannot be thwarted. When the Holy Spirit wishes to do something, the Holy Spirit accomplishes that men cannot successfully stop the Spirit from doing what he wishes to do. So the grace of the Spirit is irresistible. Now, if the grace of the Spirit is irresistible, even though we may be small in number today, we have real reason for hope, don't we? We have an irresistible power that is behind us and is going to attend our work. The Holy Spirit brings revival. I can't give you a lesson in church history today, but one of the most exciting things you can study in church history is the history of revivals. Do revivals come in a way that could have been predicted a generation or two before? No. That's the amazing thing about them. If people were doing the extrapolation game, you know, in the generation before revivals, they'd say, oh, there's no way. And yet there they are. Through the mysterious irresistible power of the Holy Spirit, for some reason, God starts turning the hearts of people around. The history of the church is a history of revival. Think about the day of Pentecost. What happened on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church in full measure 3,000 people believed in a culture which had just crucified the Lord of Glory, the very son of God. 3,000 people believed. And now do an extrapolation on this one. Before the 3,000 or even after the 3,000 people believed numerically, where did the Christian church stand on the day of Pentecost? Take the world's population, you know, it was a pitiful minority. Take the Jewish religion. Those who were, at least up to that point, called them the people of God who had been entrusted with the oracles of God. Look at the Jews in that day. How many of them turned to Jesus? Well, we say 3,000 in one day, and that's remarkable. But how many among all the Jews there were was that it's a pitiful minority. So you might think, well, the Christian movement or the Christian mission in that day would never have been successful then. There was a time. I forget the title of the book. One of you can help me. But remember, somebody talked about, you know, the amazing 12. Only 12 men. 11, really. And then Paul gets added to the group who changed the world and not only changed it in their generation, but in subsequent generations to the point that, you know, you can't understand Western history anyway without understanding Christianity. It's transformed, you know, the world. A small beginning. The power of the Holy Spirit. Attention, our work and our mission. And so I have to say to myself, as you're listening in, that when I get despairing and pessimistic, when I worry about the pervasive unbelief around us and the weakness of the churches and how we just seem to be losing in the numbers game, I have to tell myself that that's really a failure to trust the promise of Christ, really a failure to believe him when he says, as he does in the text that we have read this morning, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail. Now, the gates of hell will not prevail does not mean that the church is going to be, you know, huddled in some small room, you know, with just a few of us here in the world pounding on us and Satan's out to get us and so forth. Jesus is not assuring us. And don't worry, they won't get inside. I'll keep them out. The gates of hell will not prevail. Now, wait a minute. That would be. The gates of the church will not be run over, right? That isn't what Jesus is saying. It's true enough that Jesus will protect his people even when they're persecuted. But this is A verse that talks about the gates of hell not prevailing. You see, the image is the opposite of what we often think. This is an image of the church being on the march, the church being on the attack. This is Jesus and his kingdom and those who follow him taking the battle to hell, where those who are in unbelief, who do not know or do not profess, I should say, the existence of God, who do not bow before the living and true God, who do not know his mercy and his grace, who will not follow his inconvenient word, these people who are locked up in hell, following the prince of this world, Satan. The gates of hell are not going to prevail as we go to take captives out of there. Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Remember that the Christian mission and the building of the Christian church. Church is first and foremost and finally the work of the Messiah himself. I get discouraged because I'm often a failure. I don't do things as well as I want to do them. I don't see success in my individual ministry or projects or whatever. But you see, in the end, the test of the Christian mission and the inevitable triumph of it on earth is not the test of my individual efforts. Because it's Jesus who built the church. And by his grace he's willing to use my efforts, weak and feeble though they may be, and yours as well. Jesus says, I will build my church. The emphasis there has got to be, I, I'm going to do this. Now, if you were a betting person, you wanted to gamble, how much would you have bet on the day Jesus was crucified and even his own followers betrayed him and turned from him and would not own up to him on that day when Jesus was put to death by the Jews and the Romans together without anybody being loyal to him, apart perhaps from his own mother, what would you have bet on that day that Jesus would be triumphant? I dare say you probably wouldn't have taken any odds with your own eyes. You can see there's the end of the Christian mission. There's the end of what Jesus was all about. And three days later, he rose from the dead. Death couldn't hold him. Now, that's the one you see who is speaking here in Matthew 16. Who says, I am the one who will build my church? You're discouraged. You're pessimistic. I can conquer death. I can do everything that I promise that I will do. And I will build my church. And the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. In Revelation 11:15, we find the words that are sung at Christmas season in the Hallelujah chorus. The kingdom of the world has. Has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever. Jesus says, I will build my church. He shall reign forever and ever. Indeed, Revelation tells us in the 20th chapter that Jesus has already bound Satan, has restrained him in this respect, that he is not able to deceive the nations any longer. Satan cannot deceive the nations. That doesn't mean he isn't trying, and that doesn't mean that there aren't nations that are deceived. What it does mean is that when the kingdom of Jesus Christ comes on the scene, Satan is unable to thwart it because the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. In fact, in Matthew 12, Jesus tells us in verse verse 28, if I, by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. For how can one enter into the house of the strong man and spoil his goods? Except he first bind the strong man, then he will spoil his house. Jesus says, the kingdom of God has come upon you. It's come upon you because I, in the power of the Spirit of God, cast out demons. I have bound the strong men. And then Matthew adds these words that are often neglected when people expound upon this text. And then he will spoil his house. See, Jesus has not only bound Satan so that the nations will no longer be deceived when the kingdom of Jesus Christ comes, but Jesus is going to spoil Satan's house. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. In Hebrews 10:13, the author of Hebrews tells us that what Jesus expects to take place from this point on, now that he's been enthroned at the right hand of God, he's ascended on high, the author of Hebrews says, henceforth expecting his enemies to be made the footstool of his feet. Indeed, in the second psalm, David had said in the Old Testament Testament that the Messiah need only ask Jehovah, and he would be given the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. He needed only ask. Jesus hasn't forgotten to ask. Jesus ascended to the right hand of God, has prayed for the world to be given to him. And the psalm says it will be done. That's why Jesus could, I think so confidently, tell his disciples before he ascended, make disciples of the nations. Not just make disciples in the nations, but make the nations My disciples. Jesus expects to see widespread success. He expects to see the world turned around to follow him. Isaiah, the prophet said of the increase of his government and peace. There shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from henceforth and forever. And then these words are added. The zeal of Jehovah, of hosts will perform this. God is zealous to perform that work. He will see to it that it is done. Daniel interpreted for Nebuchadnezzar a dream where in a dream Nebuchadnezzar saw the four major empires of the world as they are interpreted in the form of an idol, that is a golden head and a silver torso, and so forth. And Nebuchadnezzar sees a stone that is not cut by human hands come and crush this image and grounded powder. And the stone grows and grows and grows until it fills the whole earth. And Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that God's kingdom, the stone cut without hands, will destroy the world empires and then will grow to be a mountain that fills the entire earth. And he ends with these words. And the dream is certain. The zeal of Jehovah, of hosts will perform it. The dream is certain. There was confidence in the prophets, and they lived in a horrible day in the days of the old covenant. There was confidence in the prophets that God's kingdom would prevail. There was confidence in Jesus the king, that his kingdom would prevail in his day shall the righteous flourish in abundance of peace until the moon be no more. He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth. And his enemies shall lick the dust. All nations shall serve him. So said the psalmist. All the ends of the earth shall turn unto Jehovah, Isaiah 11, 9. And the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea. So you see, I have this problem when I get pessimistic like I was last night, when I get depressed. And the problem is I can either live by what I see and what, in my own human wisdom I would conclude and judge to be the case about the world and the course of this world, or I can live by the word of God and what it tells me is going to actually take place. Well, now I have a career, to put it in secular terms, But I have a calling from God to teach people to follow the Bible and not their instincts. To follow the Bible and not what they see. To live a life of faith like Abraham did. Remember Abraham, God said, you're going to have a son. Abraham's empirical, rational, commonsensical response had to be, yeah, right, I'm going to have a son in old age. I have an old wife who is barren on top of being old, and I'm going to have a son. And not only am I going to have a son, but you say all the nations will be blessed in him, and that my children, my children's children, my grandchildren and grandchildren's children and so forth will be like the stars of the heaven and the sand of the seashore. The Bible tells us that Abraham believed against in hope. He believed against hope. There was no human hope in that, but in hope toward God's own word. Abraham believed it. Now, like I say, I've got a career where I'm supposed to be teaching people to follow the Bible and not their common sense and the way they see things. And here I am getting depressed because in the numbers game, if we were to extrapolate, we're losing this battle horribly. The Christian mission is not only going to fail on earth, it's not even going to be around in a generation and a half. If I want to exaggerate and this looks so bad until I open the word of God. And I realize that, you know, in Abraham's day, in the day of the prophets, in the day of Jesus and his earthly ministry, in the days of the early church, everybody must have had the same trial of faith to work through because things looked horrible. It didn't seem like things could get any better. And yet God has always been faithful to his word. God has always been irresistibly, sovereignly, all powerfully able to do what he says, and he comes through and does it with the prior promises that we find in the Bible. Not the least of which is Jesus saying that he will build his church in hell itself. The gates of Hades will not prevail against what he is going to do with such promises of these that instead of extrapolating that the Christian mission is going to fail, I need to extrapolate that there is going to be inevitable triumph for God and what he has done through the work of his Son on earth. We should be looking for steady additions to the body of Christ. Now I realize that a lot of Christian churches as well as the world would kind of snicker, if not outright ridicule a little group like this that says, look, here's our outlook. We're expecting steady additions to the church of Christ. Doesn't always have to be our little group. By the way, these are not promises made specifically to us, but they're made to all of God's people. But that includes us. And we expect steady additions to the body of Christ. We expect to see greater evangelistic and missionary outreach in this world in the future. You say? Well, it doesn't look that way, Dr. Bonson. What are you going to say? Well, the history of the church is the history of unexpected revivals. We expect the unexpected. We should be looking for greater efficiency in the ministry because Jesus is the Lord of this church that he is building. We should be expecting the strengthening of covenant homes, not the weakening of them and the destruction of them. But we should see more covenant homes and better and more firm grounding in the Word of God and the teaching of pure doctrine and godliness and wisdom. We should be expecting visible and power public influence for the church in our society. In Philippians 2, 9, 11, we see something of the aim and the assurance that we can have that because Jesus has been highly exalted by God, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We should be expecting the consistent development of a Christian, Christian worldview. We should look forward to advances in the understanding of Christianity and its application to this world. And we should eventually be expecting final vindication. That's the message of Revelation 20:and 21. Not only do we rule with Jesus on thrones right now, with Satan being bound, so that the kingdom of Christ will see a 1000 year reign, but in the end we will see Jesus come back and he will triumph over his enemies, even those who would not bow the knee in this life. And they will be forced to do so, because he will come in judgment upon those who are in unbelief. And he will separate the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the tares. And we will come into the kingdom of God in its glorified, consummated form to enjoy him forever. And those who would not enjoy his offers of mercy in this life will be banished from his presence forever. God will be vindicated. So the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever. Jesus is going to build his church. He's going to build it so efficiently, so well, so powerfully, through the irresistible, unexpected, revivalistic ministry of the Spirit, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. Now, what does that leave you with this morning? I hope it leaves you with three things and Then we're done. One an incentive to work and cooperate. An incentive to work and cooperate. You know, God also promises to take care of our daily needs, to give us our daily bread. We pray to him for it, and then we'll take special us to do, go home and sit at the table and wait for the meal to fall from heaven. No, we pray for our daily bread. We expect God will fulfill his word, and then we get up and we go out and we work, we get jobs. We try to be frugal in our saving. We try to be good stewards of the money he gives us so that we can have our daily bread. Likewise, God has promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. That doesn't mean we should sit back then and say, okay, we're going to watch this. This like a spectator sport. This is going to be great. No, the inevitable triumph of God's kingdom means you need to get to work and not only work, but to work and cooperate with each other. Well, of course, in this small group that's beginning, cooperate with each other, but also cooperate with all those who are of like mind, all those who want to be faithful in following Jesus Christ and incentive to work in quot cooperation. Secondly, I hope this morning I've given you a prophylactic against despair. I hope I've done that for myself. It's so easy for me to just look at, you know, how bad things are there and to say, oh, well, it's, it's hopeless. But that's faithless on my part. Here's something to help prevent that kind of despair from getting into my life, to remember the word of God and let it govern my evaluation the way I see the world. And thirdly, I hope this morning this gives you a reason for rejoicing and a reason to praise God, a reason to be happy today and tomorrow and this week and throughout this month. A reason for praising God every day of your life that you know, even when things look bad for you or for your friends, even things look bad in our culture, we know God will not fail. God is going to triumph inevitably. The victory will be His. That's the kind of God he is. That's the kind of powerful spirit that works through us in our ministry. And that's the kind of word that God has. He says, behold, it goes forth from him and will not return unto him. Void, will not return empty. It will accomplish that which he sent it to do. And this morning I've only touched the surface of the some of the verses in God's word that tell us what he expects his word to accomplish in this world. I will build my church, the Lord said, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That's not a word that's going to be proven vain or empty. It will not return to him void. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning. I come to you this morning confessing my faithlessness, my willingness to follow my own inclinations and evaluations, and to judge by outward appearances and not to believe your promises and to rejoice in them and to be comforted by them. That you will triumph inevitably, that your kingdom will prevail on earth and for all eternity. Eventually you will be the one who has vindicated. Your truth will be known, your mercy will be exalted, and your son will be king. How we thank you that by that very mercy and power you have drawn each and every one of us into your kingdom. We should confess and do from the heart confess that if you have the power to change us individually, you have the power to change as many as you wish to. And since you have promised to change many and to turn nations to you, and to make the nations the disciples of your Son, then we wish to believe that that indeed will happen. And to serve you in that confidence. We ask that today you would give us not only rejoicing hearts, but confident hearts that will work hard in your kingdom for the sake of your glory, knowing that the victory is ours in Christ. We thank you that you have assured us of your inevitable triumph. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.