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So let us begin our study this morning by reading from Zechariah, and this time from chapter three. Zechariah chapter three. And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And the Lord said unto Satan, the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, yea, the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?
Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. He answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take the filthy garment from off him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and will clothe thee with rich apparel. And I said, let them set a fair mitre on his head. But they set a fair mitre upon his head and clothed him with garments.
And the angel of the Lord stood by. And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua, saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, if thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then also thou shalt judge my house, and shall also keep my court, and I will give thee a place of access among these that stand by. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they are men which are a sign. For behold, I will bring forth my servant the branch.
For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua, upon one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, says the Lord of hosts, shall you call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. And God give us good understanding of his word. Hitherto, we have been concentrating our attention on the glorious fact that God is a God of restoration, who loves to restore his people.
Yesterday we spent a few moments listening to the definition and description of restoration that God gives us in the opening verses of this prophecy. It is not a question merely of being restored and taking up a correct position. Israel had already done that at the point that Zechariah's prophecy opened. They had returned from Babylon. They had returned to the land of promise. True restoration goes further than the adoption of a true position. It is a question of our relationship with the Lord. Return unto me, says the Lord, and I will return unto you.
Of course, we remind ourselves again, there is a sense in which God had need to return to Israel, in which he has and shall have never any need to return to us. Ezekiel had stood by to see that heart-stopping sight of the glory of the Lord, the presence of the living God lifted up from his sanctuary, and as though in regret and hesitation, pausing by the threshold of the house, pausing on the Mount of Olives, as reluctantly the divine presence came to its decision, it could no longer tolerate to be amongst Israel.
Left their house to them desolate. What an appalling thing to have the outer shell of religiosity and have lost the presence of the Lord. In that sense, of course, as individual believers, we are to our promise that he will never leave us or forsake us. We do well to remember the warning of our blessed Lord to the last of his seven churches in Asia Minor, sorry, to the first of his churches in Asia Minor. It is possible for a church to have its candlestick removed.
For all that, it is surely possible, isn't it, in our lives as believers to know periods when the Lord's presence seems to have been redo- re- re- removed. When we're left to toil on with the external routine of our spiritual lives, and the glory seems to have departed. All the great saints down the ages have talked of such times, so that I suppose we need not be surprised if in moments of trial and difficulty and opposition, sometimes thick dark clouds intervene, freeing the shining face of our Lord and our awareness of him.
What delight it is when the clouds depart, when through the intercessions of our blessed Lord, the tribulation is brought to its end, and our wayward hearts are restored to the Lord, and supreme joy above all else, the sense of the Lord's presence is restored. Say what is life? If the light of the Lord's presence seems lost to us. But if this be a description of restoration, that we return to the Lord and the sense of the Lord's presence is made real again in our hearts, then it leads, it leads us inevitably to the matters that now confront us in chapters three and four of this prophecy, the visions that stand central to this part of Zechariah's work.
Both chapters three and four contain visions concerned in one way or another with the temple of the Lord. Chapter three concerns itself with the office of the high priest in his official ministry in the temple of the Lord on behalf of the people of God as their representative. Chapter four deals with the civil governor of Israel, Zerubbabel. But he concerned as the civil governor to organize the people in their rebuilding of the temple of the Lord. And here this symbol that is taken for us is not so much the high priests, high priest and his official roles, as the candlestick with its never-down light of testimony to the living God, and in particular, testimony to the world.
For the temple of old had this double function, and it reminds us of what our double function is and our glorious privilege as the people of God, to be concerned as a holy people, as a holy and a royal priesthood, to exercise that exalted privilege of the worship of Almighty God. And this will stand first in any restoration, won't it? To be made aware of the glory of the presence of God is to find ourselves summoned forthwith to that wonderful privi- privilege of ministering to God and exercising our holy priesthood before him.
To be restored to the Lord will, in the second place, inevitably lead us to feel our responsibility to witness for the Lord. Israel held that responsibility, and we should never underestimate what God did through them. We who are Christians and are inclined to concentrate on the superiority of Christianity to Judaism, should nonetheless not forget what a powerful testimony for Almighty God did Judaism provide in its temple in the ancient world. They were an odd, a uniquely odd people in the ancient world.
And the nations got to know about them, of that curious kind of people that had a temple in which there was no image. That, to start with, was an extraordinary thing. Would that Christendom had continued in that strain all down its years. And then they discovered Israel that worshipped a God that was unseen. And moreover, a God who was concerned with morality. If in the ancient world you wanted to know about ethics and morality, normally speaking, you didn't go to the priesthood. The priesthood, generally speaking, in many a nation were people who paid God his rates and taxes and persuaded God, uh, to be on your side against your enemies, so long as you kept him in good supply of sacrifices.
And the morality of the thing was largely irrelevant. There has been a perilous tendency in the human race to divorce the worship of God as they have conceived of it, from the question of holiness and morality and righteousness. And Israel's God stood virtually unique amongst the ancient world. The Almighty Creator God, transcendent above his creation. A God who insisted that those who worshiped him observed his holy law of morality and ethics.
And so Israel stood amongst the nations as a witness to the true God, and what is more, a witness to the purpose of God in history. No other nation had it like that. Israel did not merely deal with timeless truth. It stood in its tiny Jerusalem and in its unique temple, proclaiming that the great God of the universe had a purpose in history, and that purpose was vested in the role given to Israel, and it stood with its finger pointing forward to the coming of the Savior of the world, brightening this dreary world with the glorious promise that human life is not for nothing.
It is not going round in mere circles. There is a point, there is a purpose, there is a hope. The transcendent Lord has already intervened in history and is guiding history to its glorious consummation. Oh, what a privilege Israel had, and in their better days they fulfilled it. Watch, if you will, even in that late time of the Acts of the Apostles, the Chancellor of the Exchequer from Ethiopia coming up in his chariot, sick of the idolatry of the pagan nation and cynical of its philosophies. Coming up for Jerusalem, for to worship.
Here was Israel doing its task among the nation. Happy days were there when God from time to time restored his people to this twin task in their holy temple, the glorious privilege of acting as God's priests, to give him their worship and their praise, and to be conformed to his standards of holiness, then to be a witness for him in the darkness of heathen. I needn't spell out to you that that is our privilege, and if Israel were privileged with these things, we more.
The restoration will for all of us have that same effect. Only now consider Israel's high priest at this juncture. We are told that Josh- that Zechariah saw Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. We note how many times in this chapter the presence and the words and the actions of the angel of the Lord are mentioned.
When we come to chapter four in its visit vision, it will no longer be so much the ministry of the angel of the Lord. It will be the ministry of the Holy Spirit. These twin great ministries that we enjoy so much today, the ministry of the Son of God himself, the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And here was Zachariah standing before the angel of the Lord. Let us pause in our imagination once more to sense the exalted pillar. That man, six foot of mere clay, and a sinner in addition, should be admitted to the high and holy ranks and stand before the exalted persons of deity.
Or who shall express it? Who Who comprehend comprehended? it? To this ministry are we called. As then the abysmal state and condition of the man, when now it is perceived, as he stands in that holy place and before such holy personage, that his garments are filthy. Not only the garments that symbolize his own personal state, the garments that indicate his holy office.
Joshua was high priest of all the many priests that represented God to the people, and the people to God. Let us think for a moment then of his office. So that the people of God might worship God acceptably and with godly fear, God had provided them with a high priest. And the New Testament comments that every high priest is taken from among men and must be able to have, uh, compassion and to bear gently with the ignorant and those that are out of the way.
For if ever God's people were to worship him, they would need a priest to come out in all his glorious garments and represent God to them. And help the people in their appreciation of God. Worship isn't just me getting excited and having a good emotional time, a wonderful emotional high over what I don't quite know, but I'm having a wonderful emotional time anyway. If you took me round an art gallery and showed me some glorious painting, and I started to dance and say, oh, how wonderful it is, and I got my eyes shut, and you took me to some abominable wretched painting, and I said, how wonderful it is, and I got my eyes shut.
You might doubt whether it was art I was appreciating, or whether I were just indulging some emotional fancy. Worship is not a question of working up wonderful bursts of emotion and enjoying them. True worship is my response to the reality of Almighty God, to the wonder of his holiness, to the beauty of his holiness. Hence, Israel's high priests in those early days were provided with garments of glory and beauty, as they came out from God.
You will say, what are mere garments and a bit of gold thread and a bit of blue, purple, and scarlet and fine twined linen? Well, yes, you are Christians, and you see it's only a picture and a type, but in those early days of man's spiritual childhood, it did convey something. You read the Hellenistic Jews in Egypt, for instance, and their rapturous description of the effect produced upon them when they went as tourists up to Jerusalem, and the high priest came out in all his robes of splendor. No scruffy old high priestess in denims and jeans or something, but a high priest in, uh, his robes of glory and splendor, and even those humble symbols mediated something of the glory of God, and men felt they must prostrate themselves before such an exhibition of glory.
And as they learned the glory of God, there was their glorious but kindly and compassionate high priest to have mercy on those that were ignorant and out of the way. Here comes a clodhopper farmer from Galilee. He's come down to Jerusalem to worship, and dear man, he has a tremendous good intention to worship Almighty God. He's got the best pig off the farm under his arm, and he's bringing it with all joy on his face to offer it on the altar of God in Jerusalem. You've got to be careful how you treat the dear man. He means it well. But offer a pig on God's altar? Now, my dear man, the priest has got to say that, that, that, I do. Yes, I know the Greeks, uh, gods, they seem to like pigs, but your God doesn't.
And in spite of all your good intentions, let me not hurt your feelings, my good man, but we shall have to change that offering, you see. For offering is not just offering to God what we feel we like. It's offering to God what God has said he likes. And if you think it's a bit curious that Almighty God should argue the difference between a pig and a sheep, behind it there were deeper things. That God was teaching his people the beauty of holiness, beauty of conduct, standards that are acceptable to God, and that which he abominates, not merely at the physical level, but at the moral and the spiritual.
See now a disaster. There stood Israel's high priest. Pardon me, and his garments fit. We should judge the seriousness of it insofar as we have apprehended the majesty and the glory of God. Insofar as we have apprehended that the chief function of our worship is not so that I shall have a good time, or you either.
The function of our worship is that we shall minister to God's pleasure. And in addition to it, not only did he stand before the Lord in his filthy garments, but there was Satan at his right hand as his accuser. A relentless accuser of the brethren, calling God's attention to the failure of his officials and of the people that the priest represented. Pointing out to God that anything this priest could do must prove unacceptable to the standards of Almighty God.
Yes, and the fire of God's judgment had almost consumed him. And the voice of God's grace is heard, breaking the silence and rebuking the accuser. The arm of divine mercy snatches the bran from the burning, that dirty, smoking, filthy, sooty bran from a fire, with all its horrible stench in the nostrils of Almighty God. He gives to his, the adversary Satan the reason.
I have chosen him, the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem. As we stand by, what revelation it gives us of the grace of Almighty God, that God should choose such a stinking, s- oily, sooty firebrand.
The privilege of ministering in the thrice holy presence. Normally it was the smell of incense in Israel's temples that greeted the nostrils of Almighty God. Now it was the stench of a sooty burning firebrand. And God had chosen them. As we read it, our minds irresistibly go to ourselves and try to account for the enormous grace of God towards us.
Chosen. Chosen not for good in me. Wakened up from loss to free. You're almost being burned in the wreckage dump of eternity, hidden in the Savior's side and by his spirit sanctified. Teach me, Lord, on earth to show by my love how much I owe.
I tell you what it's done for your ministry, my brother, my sister, and what it will do for all eternity. It will be the end of your parading your virtues and excellences in the courts of God, but it will increase infinitely the wonder of your appreciation of a God like that, that could introduce a burning, sooty, dirty, stinking firebrand and choose him for this high office of priestly ministry. And then the angel of the Lord took up his gracious work and said, he answered and spake unto those that stood by, take the filthy garments from off him.
And unto him he said, behold, I have caused thy iniquity to pass from thee and will clothe thee with rich apparel. It's accompaniments for the presence of God, given to the high priest as representative of God. At which Zechariah got so excited that he forgot he was meant to be listening to a vision, but he joined it. At which point he said, ha, let them set a pair of mites around his head as well, God. Oh, it's nice when God's people get enthusiastic, isn't it? And see a need for salvation and begin making suggestions to God.
Yes, glorious. He got caught up in the excitement. I think at that point the angel of the Lord smiled a bit, perhaps behind his hand. For here was Zechariah entering into the glory of it and the wonder of God's grace. Set a lighter on his head, holiness to the Lord, that he might bear the iniquity of the holy things. And what man wouldn't cry out if he knew the depth of his own heart and his own inherent unsuitability to be a priest before God, or even to be the people of God? You too, I think, would shout out. Or I can put a miter on his head, that he for us might bear the responsibility of ministering on our behalf in those courts above, to bear the iniquity of the holy.
For how shall I bear the responsibility of my high calling to minister with my childish cattle before Almighty God? And they put the mitre, it was the best that could be done at the time. They put the mitre upon Joshua's head, holiness to the Lord, that he might bear for Israel the burden of their iniquity. And they clothed him with garments. Then the angel of the Lord protested to Joshua and said, thus saith the Lord of hosts, if thou wilt walk in my ways and keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee a place of access among these that stand by.
To represent the people before God. To represent God before the people. To train his people in the responsibilities of holiness. And the angel of the Lord stood by. I wonder what he In was his thinking. Surely, if our New Testament is any guide, thinking down the ages, to the time when Israel's imperfect priesthood will eventually be laid aside, as a child lays aside its early lesson book, and enters the great realities of life.
The angel of the Lord, none other than the Son of God, must even in those moments have been looking down the centuries, when he should come to take up the role of our great high priest. They are the iniquity of our holy things. To a- a- express the Father to us. To make known the name of God in the midst of the congregation. That our hearts grow aflame with their love for God and admiration of his glory and his holiness. And then in turn, to lead back the praise of his people to God.
Therefore, uh, Joshua is now told, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, behold, I will bring forth my servant the branch. Behold the stone that I have set before Joshua. Upon one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts. He will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. Our minds go to our great icons. How shall I fulfill my role to God? How shall I stand in those unsullied courts of glory and offer praise that can be acceptable by the standards of Almighty God?
Oh, thank God for the gospel of our high priest who's come out to make God known to us. Has mercy on us who are ignorant and out of the way. And has entered in as our representative. Now stands ready to minister on our behalf in the courts of the Almighty God. Having therefore such a great high priest over the house of God. Let us draw near in full assurance of faith.
Our bodies washed with pure water, our conscience cleansed by the blood of Christ. One day, Israel shall be restored. One day she shall fulfill the high and holy office to which she was called. You shall be unto me a holy priesthood, a peculiar faith. Today we anticipate that role, and in higher circles, call to stand in the immediate presence of God and minister to him.
But this is not only, this is not our only ministry. For the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem had a double function. It was the center to which Israel came to offer their praise and worship to God. It was meant to be the center from which Israel and her priesthood showed forth the virtues of him that had called them out of darkness into light, and made them his peculiar people, that the knowledge of the God, of God might be spread abroad in all the earth.
And so now, as we pass from chapter three to chapter four, we remain in the environs of the temple. To see God's powers of restoration, not only in the priesthood, in their terms of worshiping the Lord, but in the priesthood as its terms of witnessing to men. The fair garments of the high priesthood remind us of our Lord at God's right hand. For us, he wears the mitre where holiness shines bright.
For us, his robes are whiter than heaven's unsullied light. He it is that takes our hand and trains us junior priests, and trains us in our stumbling acts of worship, in our childish adoration, leads us into the deeper things of God. When our voices fail in their inadequacy, himself standing in the midst of the people of God leads the worship of God on our behalf. As now we turn to think of our responsibilities as priests to make God known in the world, the emphasis changes.
And from concentrating our attention on our great high priest, uh, God turns our attention to the ministry of his Holy Spirit. And so Zechariah is awakened out of his sleep and given his vision of this great lampstand. For at this stage, the testimony of the Israel was in the doldrums. They had begun to build the temple of the Lord. With all the things of circumstance and the united power of their little enemies around in Palestine, and the massive overpowering weight of the Gentile imperial government had combined to put a stop to their ministry.
How should they make God known as royal priests and fulfill their function in such a hostile world. The answer is to be found in this glorious vision, even in that ancient day, in the ministry of God's Holy Spirit, symbolized now for the prophet as he sees this lampstand, not perhaps exactly of the kind that stood in the tabernacle that Moses made, but a stand with a single bowl on it, maybe, and niches all around the rim of the bowl carrying the seven lamps. Pipes connected with olive trees that poured their oil into the lamps and so kept the lamps a burning for God, a testimony in this world.
When Zechariah saw the vision and was asked whether he understood it and confessed his ignorance, then God gave him the simple but infinitely significant explanation. Not by might, said God, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. Herein would lie the secret of Israel's ministry as a holy people of God in that rebuilt temple in Jerusalem to the nations that were around, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.
These are familiar verses, but let us pause on them this morning to think about them, and once more to enjoy them. These are, of course, not in the first place exhortations, but statements of gospel. How should that tiny little minority of Jews return to Jerusalem, scarce decent houses to live in? How should they stand against the mass might of the imperial power and all those little powers are biting at their heels like a lot of street urchin dogs. How should they witness to the truth of Almighty God? How should they stand in the ruins of the temple caused by their earlier failures and ever hope to convince the nations that their God was the true God, when every time they opened their mouth, invited the comment and the criticism.
Some God couldn't even stop you going into exile. Some God, if you are his representatives, when we consider the way you behave and have behaved in the past, and anyway, what difference are you from us? Your God is only one more God to add to the list of the superstitious or to be rejected by the atheists. How should they, in all their immeasurable weakness, testify to the living God in their broken old temple at Jerusalem.
And the answer is a veritable gospel message, isn't it? Not by might, nor by power, but by spirit, says the Lord. We this morning, each one of us involved in his or her ministry for God, we catch hold of it, don't we? As a gospel message. We recall the blessed words of our Lord as he left us, as he charged us to be his witnesses, but in his grace put things in their true order and proportion. When I have gone, said he, I will send another comforter, and he shall bear witness of me, and you also, but he come to bear the incalculable burden of witnessing for God in this world.
My little heart cries out this morning, but oh God, I have so blotted my copy book. Oh, how tarnished has my witness been for you, even at the best, when I tried so hard. Some of us may even feel that what we've attempted to do as testimony for God lies in ruins around our feet. Oh, hear the gospel, my brother. You who are concerned to witness for God in this world, oh God, help us to lay hold upon the gospel of God's word. Tell me often, as you'll need to, to tell me, the theorist.
Tell me that I am responsible to be the Lord's witness in this world. I must get up and onto my feet, as you perceive me in my brokenness and my past failure. Oh, tell me this glorious gospel. The witness for God in this world, the witness to the ascended Christ, in the first and in the last analysis, depends on one greater than we. When he is come, he shall bear witness of me. See the conditions in which the word was spoken. With the temple still virtually in ruins, with a feeble attempt begun to restore it, and then despair, and the people left off from the work.
And God Almighty gives his people a new, a renewed vision of who it is that carries the responsibility of the testimony, and God's great divine Holy Spirit standing with them amidst their ruin to revive again his witness to God. Gospel message though it is, it carries certain exhortations with it, doesn't it? Such exhortations as Paul gave to the church at Corinth in his day, who are apt to slide over the wrong side of that fine dividing line.
Sure, I have to use all my abilities for God. Sure, I have to dedicate to him and use all my powers and resources. Then, how easily we slide over the dividing line and come to think that it is we who carry the burden of testimony for God. We need to sit back and listen again to inspired words. Not by our wisdom, nor by our power. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? God hath chosen the foolish things, the weak things of this world to confound the mighty.
That is no excuse for carelessness. That is no, uh, command that we are to sit still and do nothing and leave everything to God, but it is to tell us where the secret of our ministry lies. Weak things, nothing. Not trying to prove to the world that we have the best brains, or the greatest power, or the most efficient organization. That might or might not be true. We stand to witness to realities infinitely higher.
Witness to the reality of God, to the supernatural Holy Spirit of God. Not in the fireworks of pseudo miracles, but in the serious responsibilities of building the temple of God and all its backbreaking work, and yet witnesses to the supernatural and to the superhuman. You will remember that as John the Apostle and the Seer comes to relate his visions, what life shall be like in the end time.
The Holy Spirit through him uses again these symbols. For consider whether our world is going. Its stark issue shall finally be, is there a God? Or isn't there? Is there a supernatural? Or is our world a closed system of cause and effect? An accident, the origin of which none can explain.
An accident that by ten million accidents compounded has come to have some beauty and apparent meaning, but which in the end shall dissolve in atomic disaster and utter meaninglessness. Or is there a God? Source of it all, sustainer of it all, designer of it all with a future and a purpose that shall last eternal. And in the end shall be the final issue. They who are given the high honor, and they have a responsibility for witnessing for God in those final days, see what their testing shall be.
As amid the scientific and quasi-supernatural wonders of the beast and the false prophet, they witness for God. The revelation reminds us that God shall make them his two olive trees, vessels of supernatural power. Now be prepared for it. What happened to returned Israel after the days that Zechariah speaks of will happen again. There came times when restored Israel in the land were faced by the great gigantic, to them gigantic Gentile ruler Antiochus.
Epiphanes, so called. Some Jews called him Epimanes, which means gone bonkers, but that's by the way. Who came to prove finally the God of Israel was only one other God amongst the pantheon. So in the temple of Jerusalem, set up the desolation that maketh de- the abomination that makes desolate. In those terrible days, God's people stood by, saw the temple treated with sacrilege, its sacrifices stopped, its high priesthood cast out Gentile idolatries upon the very altar of the Lord.
And that final test of faith, there came no voice. Nothing but silence. From an apparently silent heaven. So shall it be at the end of our age. The two witnesses under the figure of the two olive trees that stand before the Lord of the whole earth, says the book of the Revelation, chapter eleven and twelve. they shall carry on their witness in the very teeth of the opposition of the man of sin to the supernatural power of God.
And at the end, the beast that comes up shall destroy them, and their dead bodies shall lie in the street, the holy city, and the world shall go mad with rejoicing, proved at last. There's no God out there, like the Jews always said there was, to intervene in our affairs and to trouble us in our world. At such lengths shall the faith of God's people of that day be tested.
But my brother, we and our age are in the same battle, are we not? The world, with its materialism, with its demonism, challenging our faith in the existence of the supreme transcendental God of the universe. How shall I prove his existence as I try to witness to that world? Well, not, um, ultimately by my logic or my clever argument, or my physical strength, or my own superior vision.
In the nature of the case, it must be by God's Holy Spirit, using his clay and broken vessels to demonstrate to the world the reality of the power and the wisdom of the revelation of God. God help us in our Christian church not to muddy the issue. Not ultimately by our organization, though organization we must have. Not ultimately by our wisdom, so let's get all the wisdom we can lay our hands on.
Not by our education, though who would want to despise it? Thank God for education. Not ultimately by our organizations that ever tend, if we are not careful, to cloud the issue by their denominationalism. Uh, by the Holy Spirit of God, God dwelling in our midst. A lovely, nice, brilliant new candlestick would, I suppose, be a good thing to have the oil lamp on.
I encourage my brother. A broken Judaism, but repentance, and in all its weakness coming back in dependence on God, would do for God. Demonstrate the reality of a divine power that could use even such humble and broken vessels. And there is hope for you and me. However we feel we may have failed in our ministry thus far, let us bring our brokenness in repentance to the Lord, and the glory is that the Holy Spirit has come to bear the weight and the burden of witness to God by his supernatural power, and by his grace, he will still consent to use his failing but repentant clay vessel.
Let us return our thanks to the Lord. O God, we thank thee now for thy great salvation. There are moments in our hearts when we survey the office and the work to which thou hast called us, that our hearts sink within us. How could we be called to touch such high and holy and more than human things? Today we bless thee for the testimony of thy broken people, Israel, whom thou restore. We take courage in our hearts, that thou dost turn us in our weakness to our blessed high priest at thy hand in all his perfection, and to thy Holy Spirit sent down from heaven in his name.
Help us in our weakness to draw ever closer, we beseech, till our vision, to the vision of these divine persons and the reality of their ministry, and take our grateful thanks this morning for thy patience and forbearance with us, being willing to use us as vessels of thy supernatural grace and of thy supernatural power. Grant through our study and our waiting upon thee this morning that the blessing of thy salvation may go out through thy humble instruments, through all those lands wherein thou hast placed us. Men may come to see in this increasingly materialistic age the reality of the supernatural God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
