I keep picking up handkerchiefs
from under the pulpit here and coughing into them once or twice
and I lay them down somewhere. And so I pick up another one
and sweet Bonnie takes them and washes them, folds them and puts
them back under here. But I'm trying to just use one
a week, you know, so she doesn't have such a continual job of
providing me with handkerchiefs. Now you wouldn't think that's
important, but. From my viewpoint, it's a pretty important thing
to be done. Now the prophecy of Haggai consists of four visions
given to him over the course of about three months and 23
days. From the first day of the sixth
month to the 24th day of the ninth month of the second year,
of the reign of King Darius the Persian now the timing would have been
according to the Persian calendar and I don't know what time of
year they called the beginning of the year if it were according to the Jewish
calendar I could have told you that this all started about September
but it's not the Jewish calendar being used so I don't know what
time of year it actually was I also know this, or don't know
this, I don't know exactly how long Darius had been reigning
because when they say in the second year, the second year
could have begun on the second day of his reign. You say, how's
that? Well, if they started reigning on the last day of a particular
year, that day was the first year of his reign. And then the
next day they started the second year. So when you read stuff
like that in the Bible, You know, in a certain year of someone's
life or someone's reign or whatever, it doesn't mean that that first
year occupied an entire year. It just meant from the time it
began to the end of the first calendar year. And so Darius
may have been reigning for no more than, actually is the way
this is written, five months and one day. And it would still
be the first day of the sixth month of his second year. But whatever time of the year
it may have been, and however long into Darius's reign it was,
the Lord spoke to the Jews who were in Jerusalem through a prophet
named Haggai. And while all that we have of
his words occupy on my Bible about a page and a half. We read
in the book of Ezra that he and Zechariah preached to the people
there and I assume it means they kept on preaching. But this is
the essential message that God gave to Haggai and he gave it
to the people to stir them up to continue and finish the temple. Now the prophecy of Haggai, and
we're going to understand what he's saying here, we need a little
bit of history. The prophecy of Haggai comes about 10 years
after the first wave of Jews returned to the Promised Land,
having been sent there by Cyrus the Persian. Now we talk about
the Babylonian captivity. But the captivity of the northern
tribes of Israel actually began under the Assyrian Empire. But between the captivity of
the northern ten tribes and the beginning of the captivity of
the southern two tribes, the empires changed. Babylon overcame
Assyria and became the Babylonian Empire. And before the Jews were
ever sent back The Persians conquered the Babylonians and became the
Persian Empire. But all of this is collectively
put under one umbrella called the Babylonian captivity. But it was a Persian king, Cyrus.
Now this is the Cyrus that Isaiah speaks of by name. And Isaiah
named him 150 years before he became the king of Persia. Cyrus,
my anointed one, God called him to do the work of sending the
Jews back, called him 150 years before he ever became king of
Persia, which means long before he was born. Cyrus sent them back, but when
they came back and began the work, there were some, the Samaritans
came, and they didn't like what was going on. Actually, they said, let us help
you. Now, who knows, they may have
been saying that with a real intention of hindering the work.
But they said, let us help you, and Zerubbabel, who was sent
down there as the governor of that area, Zerubbabel said, no,
you don't have any part in this. Well, that insulted them. And
so they pestered the Jews and hindered their work, and finally
sent a letter to another Persian king named Artaxerxes. I think
this is the same one as King Ahasuerus, which you read of
in the book of Esther. But there were two named Artaxerxes. But nonetheless. They sent him
a letter basically saying the Jews are nothing but trouble.
And they're trying to rebuild the wall, and they're trying
to build the temple. And boy, once they do, you can be sure you're
not going to get any tribute from them. And so a royal decree
was sent back, stop building. And so the Jews stopped. Well,
after many years, 10, Haggai was sent with the message Why are you sitting here doing
nothing? And so they started building and started working
on it. And another letter got sent. And this time it would have been
to Darius. And Darius issued a decree. Not only are they allowed to
continue with the building, you in what they call the Transjordan
area, that's where the Samaritans lived, all the tribute money
that you were going to send to me, you send it to them. to help
them build. But anyway, they had been discouraged.
The Jews had been stopped from building, and now nearly 10 years
had passed. Now, this means that during that time,
they went on building their own houses, building up their own
households, establishing themselves, making sure that they were economically
viable, all those words that you could apply to what men normally
do in this world, and they ignored the house of God. Now, when they first went there
in the year, I believe, I had it written down here, I think
it's 836 BC, You know, 836 B.C., that can't
be right. 536 is when they went back, 536
B.C. When they went there, they built
an altar on the temple grounds. You know, the major altar of
temple worship, and they began making offerings. And they laid
the foundation of the temple, and that's when the Samaritans
interfered and the work got stopped. And I'm sure that there were
many who said, well, sure, we would like to have the building,
you know, with a holy place and the most holy place and the Ark
of the Covenant back there. But we've got the altar, and
that's the main thing. We can still offer sacrifices,
and that's the main thing. And therefore they left off doing
what God had told them to do. So Haggai is sent to stir them
up to do that. In fact, verse two, this is what
the Lord Almighty said. These people say the time has
not yet come for the Lord's house to be built. Now that's what
the people were saying. I imagine they might have been
saying something, you know, God's sovereign and, you know, He'll
get this figured out for us when the times comes. They did not
apply themselves to doing that which they were sent there to
do. And so the Lord then sent this
rebuke by the hand of Haggai in verse 4. Is it time for you
yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house
remains a ruin? Now, why did he mention paneled
houses? Well, they were building themselves
what would have been considered for that day a very nice house. Most houses in that day, you
know, you had, they were made out of essentially mud and sticks,
you know, a kind of mortar or probably very similar to, you
know, the adobe that they use in the southwest of our country. what the Native Americans used
at one time. But houses were built like that.
Maybe some of them built out of stone. But it was a single
wall, and that was it. You went on the inside, it looked
pretty much the same as it did on the outside. But they were
doing better. They were building their structures,
really, pretty much like we do now when we build a house. You
build the bearing framework, And then you go inside and you
put nice panels on the inside to give it a very decorated and
luxurious look. Now that was not an easy thing
to do. It meant cutting lumber, you know, cutting down trees,
cutting them into pieces of wood and being able to, I don't know
whether they used tongue and groove or what, but somehow or
another they made that wood so it'd come together nicely and
make a beautiful interior for their house. Now there's nothing
wrong with that, except this. God's house remained in ruins.
While they were spending all their effort to advance their
fleshly cause in this world, they were allowing the house
of God just to be a pile of rubble. A pile of rubble that had been
laying there for 70 years, roughly. Well, what's this mean? Well,
there would be many who would look at this text of scripture
and they would apply it to believers like this. You all need to make
sure to give. You better give enough to the
work of God or God will put a hole in your purse and all your money
will run out. It's amazing that even among
those who otherwise preach grace, when it comes to giving, they
get real legalistic about it. as though God is going to bless
you according to the size of your offering. But the scriptures say God loves
a cheerful giver, which whatever else it may mean when it says
cheerful giver, it means someone who gives because they're glad
to do it. We could make this application,
I think this would be a legitimate thing, If a person pursues fleshly
goals rather than spiritual goals, what he will receive is a fleshly
harvest. And a fleshly harvest would be
like having a purse with holes in it. What good does a harvest
of fleshly blessings give you? beyond those which are necessary
to sustain life comfortably. I don't begrudge those who have
way more than they need. Quite frankly, I have a good
deal more than I need. There's hardly an American that
doesn't. We have great prosperity in this country. And I'll tell
you, if you ever go to another country, not one of the industrialized
nations, but go to one of these so-called third world countries
or to the emerging economies, you'll find out just how good
we have it here. So we're not in the, you know,
stripped down to just what we need. None of us. Nonetheless, if a person gives
himself to that, then the result will be a worthless harvest. It doesn't mean it won't be a
great harvest. There are people who get fabulously wealthy. But
to what end? They die and it goes to somebody
else. And the somebody else it goes
to, there's a very good chance they won't have good enough sense
how to use it and they'll waste it. And that means it'll go to
others. You could apply it that way,
and that would be true. I could say to people, and Paul
says this in Galatians, do not be deceived. God is not
mocked. Whatever a man sows, that's what
he reaps. And he says, if you sow to the
flesh, you will from the flesh reap corruptible things. But
if you sow to the Spirit, you will receive a harvest of things
pertaining to eternal life, the things of the Spirit. And so, just as farmers, they
have a harvest that is according to what kind of seed they plant
and how much of it they plant, likewise it is for us. Whatever
we give ourselves to, we're going to get a harvest in that kind
of things. And however much we give ourselves
to something, that's roughly the size of the harvest we'll
get. So we could make a general exhortation
here, give yourself to spiritual things. Yes, we live life, we
have to work, you know, eat by the sweat of our brow and all
that kind of thing. But once we have achieved a reasonable
lifestyle, then let's not give ourselves
to the pursuit of worldly things. But there's something much more
important being taught here. And I don't want us to miss it,
because all we think about is what we do on a day-to-day life. He's speaking of something spiritual
here. For you see, Israel is not set forth as an example for
us as to how to live our natural lives. The religion, the old
covenant given to Israel, it was not a spiritual covenant.
There were some spiritual truths illustrated in it, but a person
could do everything that covenant required, die and go to hell.
You say, really? Paul said, concerning that righteousness
which is in the law, I was blameless. Yet he was lost, wasn't he? And had he died in that state,
he would have perished under the wrath of God. So that form
of religion that the Jews practiced, the outward form, was not a spiritual
thing. It was set up for a purpose,
and one of the purposes for which it was set up was to serve as
illustrations for you and me of the spiritual people of God,
the church of the Lord Jesus, consisting of all those who have
believed God from the very first believer last one. They are all of one body. They
are the holy nation. They are the chosen people. They
are the priesthood. What went on in Israel? Just
an illustration. And so the right thing for us
to do with this is what many in my religious past used to
contemptibly refer to as, oh, you're just spiritualizing that.
Well, duh. The Word of God's a spiritual
thing. And while it says some things
about how we are to live our day-to-day lives, its primary
focus is always the spiritual thing. So what's being taught
here? Well, the Jews represent the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the temple, the temple pictures the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And what were these people doing? They were busy with the things
of their religion, the things of the church, and were not paying
attention to the things of God. You say, wait a minute, aren't
the things of church the things of God? They should be, but they
aren't. For example, he says, you're
living, you're building for yourselves these wonderful, beautiful, luxurious
houses. You're spending your time and
energy to build for yourself a house that goes above and beyond
what you actually need. And at the same time, the house of
the Lord is in ruins. And how many churches, how many
churches are spending vast sums of money building up the church,
building up a ministry, but they spend hardly anything
building up the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world. If you were to talk to many churches
in our nation, in particular, because of our relative wealth
in the world, And you would say something like, well, how are things going on over
at church? Oh, the Lord is blessing us. Just last year, we were able
to build a new sanctuary. And I mean, this one's nice. And they speak of the blessings
of God upon the church in terms of the physical things associated
with going to church. Brethren, the blessings we so
desperately need are not carnal, they're not fleshly, they're
not natural. What we need is the spiritual things. And there's
only one place they are found. And that's in Christ and in his
gospel. Now we, the Lord gave us this
building and it's a, you know, A large building, obviously much
larger than what we need, but we couldn't have built the right
size building for the price we got this one. And we've spent
some money maintaining it. But God help us, if we ever begin
expending the majority of our resources trying to make things
bigger, better, and more beautiful, and at the same time ignore supporting
the ministry of the gospel in this world. Churches will spend great amounts
of money in programs, particularly youth programs. But I noticed that as my generation
entered adulthood, the baby boomer generation is considered one
of the more selfish generations to have walked the face of the
earth. And I'm not going to dispute that fact. I noticed that when
the baby boomers, as they came of age and became adults, suddenly
more and more specialized adult programs became. And then you
had college and career groups. And then you had young adults.
And you had young marriages. And you had women's groups, and
men's groups, and all these groups and churches being busy, busy,
busy being church and nobody's doing anything about the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It lies in ruins. Why? Why is that? Well, with some of them, they
don't even know what the gospel is. They couldn't preach the
gospel if they wanted to because they don't know what it is. But
this even happens to real, bonafide churches of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you remember Laodicea in the book of Revelation? What'd the
Lord say of them? He said of them, you're lukewarm. You're lukewarm. And just like
a cup of lukewarm coffee or any beverage that you either want
it to be hot or another kind you want it to be cold, whatever
it is, who wants a lukewarm beverage? He said, I'm spitting you out.
I think it's a remarkable thing the way the flavor of food changes
with the temperature. I've gone to the refrigerator,
you know, and opened up something that got put in there as leftovers,
and I smell it, and I thought, man, I just ate some of this
yesterday, and I don't remember it tasting like that. But then
I warm it up, and it's back to what it was like yesterday. And
so the Lord said to the Laodiceans, you've become the wrong temperature. You're lukewarm. You're nothing.
You're not committed to this. You're not committed to that.
You're certainly not committed to my gospel, and you are like
food or drink. It's the wrong temperatures,
and I'm going to spit you out." What did he mean? That he's going
to send everybody to church to hell? No. What he meant was,
you keep up this pattern, you will end up as a church with
no light, because the churches were likened to burning lamps. And he was saying to them, your
light's about to go out. It happens to churches. It can
happen to us. In fact, it's always a good thing
for us to ask, is it happening to us? Are we getting distracted? Are
we thinking more about building the church, whether we're talking
about the building itself or even adding numbers to it? And
boy, there are churches that have given themselves to church
growth programs at the expense of the gospel. Because quite
frankly, it's hard to grow a church with the gospel. That is, it's
hard to grow a religious organization with the gospel, and only the
gospel. Is what the temple of God represents
our most passionate desire? What did the Temple of God represent? It represented the presence of
God among the people. Remember? Symbolically, God was
present back there in the most holy place. And when God took
the Jews out of Egypt, they made that Ark of the Covenant, and
everywhere they moved, they moved that Ark with them. And that
meant that God was with them wherever they went. My friend,
what do we want in our worship more than the presence of God? I'll tell you this, if our Lord
Jesus does not come among us when we worship, we may as well
stay home. Or just, you know, get together
and have a party. And I guess that's one reason a lot of church
services are more like parties than they are like worship, because
God's not there. And so what else are they going
to do? I desire, and I know that you
do too, in your heart of hearts, you desire the presence of God.
You desire to know him. You desire to enter into union
and communion with him. And if you come to church, and
I'm glad of this about you all, you all are insistent on the
gospel. I wouldn't dare preach anything
else here. I think you'll be pretty mad about that. And well,
you should be. But if you came here and didn't
get to hear the gospel, you think, why did I drive here? Why did
I get out of bed this morning? all that every bit of our being
when it comes to this business of worshiping God, every particle
of our being was devoted to longing for, crying out for the presence
of God and therefore It was committed to the preaching and the hearing
of the gospel of God, gospel of Christ. You say, why? Well,
if you want the presence of God, where is he? God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself. If you want the presence of God,
that means you must have the presence of Christ. In that temple was a symbol of
virtually everything God has done to bring about the salvation
of his people. There was the altar representing
the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. There was a priesthood
representing our Jesus Christ, our great high priest, who has
gone into the most holy place, the one not made with hands,
but the real presence of God. intercede for us. There's a candlestick
which speaks of the light of truth and in that respect also
shows forth the Holy Spirit who takes the things of Christ and
shows them to us. There's the table of showbread
representing Christ, the bread of life that we continually feed
upon, not something we just eat once in our lives and then go
on about other things. Not something a person partakes
of when he, in quotes, makes a decision for Jesus, or gives
his life to Jesus, or has Jesus into his life, or many of the
other non-scriptural phrases that the world has invented to
describe believing Christ. But it's kind of this one-time
affair, and then you go on to bigger and better things in the
church. No, it's Christ at the beginning, it's Christ in the
middle, it's Christ at the end. Everything is about Him. And
without Him, you have nothing, really. Without Him, well, you
know, there was a time when the glory of the Lord left the
tabernacle. It was no longer, you know, the
Ark of the Covenant was in there, but God had left. And it was
declared Ichabod, which means the glory has departed. And when
the Lord departed that tabernacle, it became nothing more than a
tent with some very expensive furniture inside. That's it. And brethren, if we are a church
without Christ, if we have a worship service without Christ, we have
a shell with no God in it. Says, you've planted much. This
is, he says, give careful thought to your ways, verse five. And
then verse six, you've planted much, but have harvested little.
Now what God did to the Jews as they were, um, trying to,
uh, you know, live life without a temple to them, the blessing
of God came by way of abundant harvests. an increase in one's natural
wealth in this world. But so long as they were pursuing
that rather than pursuing the God who made them a nation and
made them a people, that all their efforts to bring about
this worldly wealth were coming pretty much to nothing. Yes,
they had their nice houses, but They weren't getting the benefit
from their efforts that they should expect to get. He said,
you planted much, but harvested little. Now, if you plant little
and harvest little, you understand that. But if you plant much,
but don't get a good harvest, that's surprising. He says, you drink, but you never
have your fill. In other words, your thirst is
never quenched. Drink, drink, drink, drink. Thirst
is still always there. You put on clothes but you're
not warm. Now imagine that. I remember one time Donnie Bell
came to preach for us and he flew into Sioux City and I went
down there to pick him up. It was January. It was something
below zero with a howling wind. And this was before Sioux City
had any jet way. They parked out on the tarmac
and they rolled a set of stairs up there. So you had to get out
in the weather and then walk to the building. And I'm watching
through the window looking to see Donnie. He comes out and
all he has on is a suit jacket. And in my head I said, Donnie,
Donnie, Donnie, you never come to Iowa, you know, in January
without a heavy coat. And he came in, I said, of course
he, you know, just about stripped the skin off of him. I said,
Donnie, you stand right here. I said, I'm going to go get the
car. And I'm going to drive as close to the front door as I
can get. And I said, when we get back to town, we will find
you a coat, because you don't come to Iowa in January without
a heavy coat. But imagine if you put on a coat,
and you still didn't get warm. You invested in the finest of
coats, and you could not stay warm. That's what's happened
to them. You earn wages, and you put them in a purse with
a hole in it. Now, this was all referring to natural things.
We apply them to spiritual things. Churches, they put in so much
effort to the, I'm trying to think of a simple word. Well,
the structure, the buildings, the programs, the how-to's and
all that. They put so much into that and
they don't get a harvest of what it is they really want. They
are not warmed by the message they're hearing. Why? It's not
the message of God. Their thirst is not quenched
by what they're drinking. It's not the gospel. You can drink messages, you know,
that you're Highfalutin preacher, I say highfalutin, you know,
famous preacher. He writes books and his name
is, you know, you go into any Christian bookstore and you'll
see several books and people talk about him and you're hearing
messages from him, but your heart is not made warm, your thirst
is not quenched, you are not enriched with spiritual things.
Why? The message isn't Christ. It's not the gospel. They got
some pretty good messages on It may be beneficial, you know,
about how to have a good marriage or how to raise kids or something.
I'm not saying those are without any profit, but their profit
exists only in this world. And we need spiritual food all
the time. Without it, we shiver. Without it, we thirst. Without
it, we are impoverished. Without it, there is no harvest. Verse seven, this is what the
Lord Almighty says, give careful thought to your ways. What are
you doing? Pay attention to what you're
doing. And he says, go up into the mountains and bring down
timber and build the house so that I may take pleasure in it
and be honored." What was he telling them? He says, quit serving
yourself. Quit busying yourself with the
outward expressions of religion and busy yourself with what is
at the heart of true religion. It takes work. He said, go up
in the mountains and bring down timber. That's not easy. Of course,
they'd been willing to do that to build their own little houses,
hadn't they? He said, you go up in the mountains and you bring
down timber and you build the house, which means setting aside
that which has immediate gratification for you and which you think is
representing God blessing you. And you put your effort into
declaring my gospel and sending other people to declare my gospel. He said, so that I may take pleasure
in it. Now any believer here would tell
you that he takes pleasure in hearing the gospel. You know
who else does? God. Because when we declare
the gospel, we're talking about his son. And who of you doesn't
like to have people come up and talk about your children? Somebody comes up to you and
tells you what a wonderful son or daughter you have? You like
them right away, don't you? They're on the top of your Christmas
card list right now. Do you think that it affects
the Heavenly Father any differently when we go into the world and
speak well of His Son and declare the glorious things that He has
done? Paul said that when we go out
and preach the gospel, whether it goes out as a savor of life
unto life to people or a savor of death unto death, And that
was just his way of saying whether people receive it or reject it. He said, it is to God a sweet-smelling
fragrance of Christ. One of the brother preachers
was talking to me one time bemoaning how few were coming to the church.
And he was preaching and preaching. It didn't seem like many wanted
to hear. And I said, well, brother so-and-so,
So we don't preach because we've got somebody to preach to. We
preach because we have someone to preach. He's worthy to be
declared. And when he is, God is pleased
with it, stumbling though it may be. He takes pleasure in
it because he is honored in it. You expect it much with all your
Religious efforts with your promising to read the Bible so many chapters
a day with your promise to spend so many Minutes or hours or whatever
in prayer every day You expected it when you wrote your check
as though writing the check is the main thing You expected it
when you went to church and even went to church twice a week or
whatever you expected when you were doing all of these things
associated with religion, but we're not focusing on Christ
and And he said, you thought you'd get a lot out of it and
you didn't. And you won't. Oh, how much effort I've spent.
Hopefully, it seems like I do less and less of it as the years
go by and you grow in grace. But I remember in my early years,
all these things, I'd get caught up in doing this and that, trying
to have deeper experiences with God and all that, and all I got
was a harvest of nothing. All I got for all my fleshly
efforts was a harvest of flesh. Our promises don't accomplish
anything. Our works don't do anything. That is our outward,
natural works. We can be very, very religious
and get nothing from it. Consider your ways. And then, he says, Verse 13, then Haggai. Now the people, well, the people
listened to the word of the Lord through Haggai. And it says they listened to
him because the Lord had sent him. And you know, God's people
always listen to the man God sends. Not because they're listening
to his person. because they recognize God's
voice in the message that's being preached. And they don't only
listen in the sense of, yeah, that's right, and then go on
about whatever they were doing. They listen to it in the sense
when we rebuke our children for disobeying and we say, you're
not listening to me. Because listening involves more
than hearing. It means taking it in, agreeing
with and acting on it. But the people feared the Lord. And because they feared the Lord,
they did what the Lord said. Verse 13, then Haggai, the Lord's
messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people. I
am with you. He didn't wait till they finished
the temple and got the Ark of the Covenant in there. The moment their hearts were
turned back, he said, I am with you. His presence among them did not
require the temple. But so long as they refused to
build that symbol of his presence, he wasn't with them. But the
moment their hearts were turned, I am with you. And I am with you even as you
build this building. And when we get into pursuing
fleshly religion and God rebukes us by his word and our hearts
are turned. If for a while it seems to us
we've been deprived of the presence of God. We no longer are warmed. Our thirst is not being quenched. We're not getting the harvest
we were looking for. The moment our hearts are turned, the Lord
says, I'm with you. I'm with you. See, it's the heart
that is the issue. The actions always follow the
heart. And when the heart is made right
toward God, the actions follow right along. That's why I don't
spend a whole lot of time telling you what you're supposed to do. If your heart has been made right
by God, you don't need a lot of telling. Might need reminded
once in a while, because we still got that flesh. But there is
in you a desire to do those things, which God requires. I am with
you. The people were stirred up and they began to work on the
house of the Lord Almighty, their God. Three days after the word of
the Lord came through the mouth, Haggai, they got busy. They turned their hearts away
from their houses, away from their lands, and focused upon
God as he was revealed in that temple. Now this has application to churches
who are illustrated by the nation of Israel. And God help us that
at all times our focus is on him and not on the church. You focus on the church, it falls
apart. You focus on him, Christ builds
his church. It's that simple. But it also
applies to individuals, because churches are made up of individuals.
What are you busy with? What are you giving yourself
to? Haggai said, by the word of the Lord, consider your ways. What are you doing? Are you pursuing Christ? Or are
you just being religious? There's a big difference. Or
could it be that you're making a show of
religion when what you're really pursuing is the world? Either way, in the end, you'll
have no harvest to speak of, all the money will have fallen
out of your purse, and you will be thirsty and cold. But blessed be God. For a mere turnaround in our
heart, he says, I am with you. Though you made a mess of everything,
I'm here. Though you have run long in pursuit of the wrong
things, I'm here. And though you'll probably not
do a real good job pursuing the things you should, I'm still
here. For I have put within you a heart
to follow me. May God grant such a word to
us as he gave to the inhabitants of Jerusalem those many years
ago. And may it stir up our hearts
as it did them to always be about Christ and his gospel. and that our hearts and minds
are consumed with it. May the name of the Lord be praised.