“The Time Is Now” (Haggai 2:10-19)

 I wonder how many of you have driven along the south end of Dunbrack Street near the entrance to Long Lake Park… If so, you likely are familiar with the two high-rise apartment buildings on the opposite side of the road that have stood uncompleted for the past decade. They are a source of amusement to some, annoyance to others.

I think most of us would probably consider the site a blot on the landscape. Certainly the neighbours do! But here is what the builder had to say about it in a recent press interview: “If you stand back and look at it, it actually isn’t [an eyesore],” he rather brashly claimed. Then he went on to comment, “It might be annoying that it’s not done and you might be wondering what [on earth] is going on there. But if you look from a distance at the building wrap on it, it’s a funky white and red.”[1]

Well, I ask myself what kinds of things people were saying about the Temple in Jerusalem in the days of Haggai back in the year 520 bc? It too had been standing partially reconstructed for more than a decade.

Those of you who have been present over the past three weeks will already have heard the events of Haggai’s timeline. But let me recap them for you. In 597 bc, after a two-year siege, the walls of Jerusalem had finally given way to the powerful armies of the Babylonian Empire. Ten years later, in 587 bc, those same armies had leveled the entire city, including its magnificent Temple, which had been constructed during the reign of King Solomon three and a half centuries before. In addition, in a series of expulsions over a period of fifteen years, the city had been emptied of its citizens. Men, women and children were forced into exile in Babylon involving an arduous journey by foot of over 1200 kilometers.

Ten years after that, when Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon, Jerusalem’s citizens were permitted to return. Construction soon began on rebuilding the city, and two years later they started to undertake the project of restoring the Temple—all of which brings us to the year 537 bc. The restoration began with the setting of the altar in its place. This meant that the regular sacrificial offerings according to the feasts and seasons of the year could begin once again (Ezra 3:1-6).

Construction

A year later, with construction crews organized, the foundation of the Temple was laid. This was accompanied by a great celebration with trumpets and cymbals and choirs, and the crowds cheering and singing along—although those who remembered the grandeur of the original Temple could only weep. In their eyes the new temple would never be more than a pathetic successor to Solomon’s imposing structure.

They were not the only ones who did not join in with the jubilation. The Samaritans and others who had settled in Jerusalem during the Jewish exile began to feel threatened by what they saw happening around them, particularly when the Jews refused to allow them to assist with the reconstruction project. And so they wrote a letter of protest to the emperor. In it they claimed that the rebuilding that was taking place was just the first step towards a full-scale rebellion and that the next step for the Jews would be to stop paying tribute to the emperor. And so construction was forced to halt, with not much more than the foundation having been laid.

For a full ten years it remained that way and it didn’t take long for people to become accustomed to it. It just became part of the landscape and nobody seemed to be terribly bothered by it. Until along came two men: Ezra, the envoy of the Persian emperor, and Haggai the prophet.

It was through the initiative of these two remarkable leaders that the work on the Temple that had been stalled for a decade got under way. On the long-neglected site workers could once again be seen sawing and chiseling wood, shaping stones, and putting them into place. You could hear the banging of mallets, the back-and-forth of saw blades, the chip, chip, chipping of stones.

Yet the productivity that was evident on the Temple site was in stark contrast to what was happening in the fields and orchards and vineyards not very far away…

As we open our Bibles to this morning’s passage, it is approaching the darkest day of the year. Three times Haggai mentions the exact date: the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month—which on our calendar turns out to be December 18^th. And Haggai uses the shortening days to acknowledge that the people have been living in dark times. Indeed, for season after season they had seen repeated crop failures. If it hadn’t been one thing, it had been another: blight, mildew, hailstorms, all in an unrelenting succession of disasters year after year.

The situation had become so dire that people were beginning to ask, “Why?” “Why are our crops failing again after again in spite of all our toil and labour?” “We are nearing the point of starvation. What have we done to deserve this?”

Challenge

So it was, in these desperate circumstances and with the approach of the darkest day of the year, the Lord spoke to Haggai—and not with an answer, but with a couple of questions to put before the priests. And they were these:

“If someone carries a piece of sacred meat in his pocket, meat that is set apart for sacrifice on the altar, and the pocket touches a loaf of bread, a dish of stew, a bottle of wine or oil, or any other food, will these foods be made holy by such contact?”

The priests said, “No.”

Then Haggai said, “How about someone who is contaminated by touching a corpse—if that person touches one of these foods, will it be contaminated?”

The priests said, “Yes, it will be contaminated.”

Haggai was taking the priests back to the laws of ritual purity in the book of Leviticus, where they are all laid out with great clarity in chapter 11—laws with which the priests would have been deeply familiar. There were the dietary laws that governed what you were and were not permitted to eat: Animals with cloven hoofs and that chew their cud, such as cattle, goats and sheep, OK; animals that don’t conform to this standard, such a camels, rabbits and pigs, not OK. Fish: OK; but any water creature without scales, not OK. And the list goes on. You can find it all in Leviticus 11.

There were also laws about avoiding contact with people with skin diseases and with dead bodies—and even with women after childbirth. And they are all laid out in great detail in Leviticus, chapters 12 to 14.

But Haggai reminds the priests (as they knew perfectly well) that cleanness and uncleanness only goes one way. Contact with something that is unclean renders you unclean. But the Levitical standards were clear: you can’t render something clean that is unclean or tainted by putting it into contact with something clean. It just doesn’t work that way.

Haggai does not mention precisely what the issue was but his contemporary Ezra didn’t hesitate to be specific. The problem was intermarriage with the Samaritan and other non-Jewish settlers. The Book of Deuteronomy was very clear in that regard: “You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods.” (Deuteronomy 7:3-4)

And Ezra’s reaction, when he found out what was going on, was “As soon as I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled… And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God…” (Ezra 9:3,5)

The lesson that Haggai was seeking to get across in his more measured language was that it all had to do with consistency. The people of Israel had committed themselves to a sacred project: the rebuilding of God’s holy Temple. But their attention to the Temple had not led to a corresponding focus on their everyday lives. Maybe if they thought about it, as Haggai was at pains to inform them, they would realize that God’s failure to bless their harvests was not his failure at all, but a result of their failure to live up to his righteous commands.

I remember way back when I was in university there was one of my fellow students who would repeatedly remind us that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into a garage makes you a car. (I expect you’ve heard that one before.) The people of Jerusalem had got their priorities backwards. They somehow assumed that rebuilding the Temple would be all it took to gain God’s favour. How wrong they were!

It was generations before Haggai that God had spoken to the prophet Hosea in these words: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6)

In the gospels we find Jesus quoting those exact words. On another occasion he addressed the religious people of his day like this: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:25-27)

While after a long delay of ten years, the people of Jerusalem had been diligent about rebuilding the Temple, on the inside their own moral and spiritual lives lay in ruins.

Promise

Many years ago Karen and I visited St Paul’s Cathedral in London. As we wandered about in awe, we were halted in our steps by the sight of something that was very familiar: the artist Holman Hunt’s famous painting of Christ the Light of the World. I suspect that many of you can picture it in your minds. It depicts Jesus standing and knocking at a closed door with his right hand, while holding a lantern in his left. As you take a closer look, you see that the door at which he knocks has been overgrown with vines. It hasn’t been opened for a long time.

The painting of course is a representation of Jesus’ words in Revelation 3:20. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to them and eat with them, and they with me.” Many of us are likely accustomed to hearing those words in an evangelistic context, as though they were addressed to people who hadn’t yet opened their lives to Christ. But that is not the way they were originally intended. They were addressed to a church, to a community of believers, to people who had turned to Christ and invited him into their lives. But the problem was that their faith had become lukewarm. It had become a kind of accessory, an adjunct to a full and busy life. Their status as God’s beloved children had become not a privilege they treasured but a commonplace they casually assumed.

The people of Jerusalem were so focused on rebuilding the physical Temple that they failed to see what Paul would later identify as God’s spiritual temple. He wrote to the church in Corinth, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Later, he added, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19–20).

So what can we learn from this passage? Years ago I had a friend who would warn not to get so caught up in the work of the Lord that I lose sight of the Lord of the work. And that is an easy trap to fall into. Just take a moment to look at all the things that can occupy our time and energy: Sunday school, prayer meetings, church council, youth programmes, music team rehearsals, conferences… And that doesn’t include our primary obligations—to our spouse, to our family, to our neighbours in need, not to mention our own personal relationship with our heavenly Father. (Oh, and did I neglect to include our jobs?)

As with the men and women of Jerusalem, our gracious God wants nothing more than to bless us. Five and a half centuries after Haggai there was another who put it this way: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

As we yield our hearts fully to our holy and gracious Lord and to his priorities, we will find that his will for the people of Jerusalem is his will for us today: “From this day on I will bless you.”

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[1]     https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/construction-on-eyesore-near-provincial-park-in-hrm-painfully-slow-but-making-headway-101004250

 

“What’s In a Name?” (Matthew 1:18-25)

 If you were expecting a baby—and you knew it was going to be a boy—what do you think you would name him? Well, in Canada apparently the most popular name for boys right now is Noah, followed closely by Liam and William. (And for the record, the top three girls’ names are Olivia, Emma and Charlotte.)

“You are to name him Jesus”

In our Bible reading this evening, however, Joseph wasn’t given the luxury of a choice when it came to naming the baby to whom Mary was to give birth. Can you imagine him saying back to the angel, “No, we’ve done some thinking, and we’ve decided we’re going to name him Liam…”? It wasn’t going to happen!

And so, over the next few minutes, as we stand on the cusp between Advent and Christmas, I invite you to join with me as I meditate on the name that Joseph and Mary gave to the baby who was to be born to them: Jesus.

Now that name Jesus has a noble lineage. I’m sure many of you are aware that in the Hebrew spoken by Joseph and Mary it would have been Yeshua. Perhaps we are familiar with it as the biblical name Joshua. And Joshua was one of the greatest heroes of the Old Testament. It was he who as the successor to Moses led the people of Israel into the Promised Land. And his name, “Joshua” in turn means something like “The Lord saves” or “The Lord is salvation”.

Today the name Jesus comes in as something like number 2003 on the list of babies’ names here in Canada. However, in first-century Israel Jesus was not an altogether uncommon name. Indeed, we meet with two other Jesuses in the New Testament. There was “Jesus called Justus”, a companion of the Apostle Paul, whom he mentions in his letter to the Colossians. And there was Jesus Barabbas, the criminal who was released by Pontius Pilate when the crowd clamoured to have him set free.

We don’t know how or why those two were given that particular name. But we do know why Jesus was given it: because, in the words of the angel, he would save his people from their sins.

Now I can’t imagine that either Mary or Joseph can have had any precise understanding of what the angel meant by that. But they would have been in no uncertainty that the child who was in Mary’s womb was special—and that he would play a unique and all-important role in God’s dealings with his people.

Forty days after the baby’s birth, when they came to the Temple for Mary’s ritual purification, it was the devout Simeon who would give them an inkling of what was to come. After blessing them, it was Simeon who told Mary, “This child is appointed for the falling and rising of many… and to be a sign that will be spoken against, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also…” (Luke 2:34-35) Ominous words—and no doubt among those that Mary would ponder in her heart over the years to come.

“Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”

Looking back, it is clear that Simeon’s words of prophecy pointed directly to a grief that years later would tear deep into Mary’s soul. Indeed his prophecy would be fulfilled just a short distance from where he had spoken it. No doubt Mary could see the Temple rising above the city on the horizon, as she helplessly watched her son, bruised and bloodied, being hoisted up on a cross. And it is there that we encounter the name of Jesus again—not from the lips of an angel this time, but displayed prominently on the crass sign that Pontius Pilate ordered to be fastened above his head: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.

Of course Pilate intended it as a form of twisted humour, a mockery not only of Jesus but also of a people Pilate himself openly despised. And the religious authorities got the message. They recognized it as the insult, the blasphemy that Pilate intended it to be. And they demanded that the sign be amended, so that it no longer read “The King of the Jews”, but “This man claimed to be king of the Jews”. However, Pilate was in no mood to change his mind and the wording stood: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.

This time it is not shepherds who gather to look on in wondering awe and humble adoration. It is ghoulish spectators who have come to look on as a man’s life painfully slips away from him. And it is not an angels’ chorus that we hear, singing, “Glory to God in the highest…” It is the voice of mockers sniggering among themselves, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.”

Yet not many days would pass before there were those who came to see what had happened that day in a whole different light. The sign of humiliation and shame would become for them the symbol of victory and salvation, so that less than a generation later Paul, a former persecutor of the church, could write, “Far be it for me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 6:14) Jesus, the child in the manger. Jesus, the crucified Saviour.

“At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow”

It was looking back on the crucifixion that the same Paul could write these words:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the form of a servant,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

“You shall give him the name Jesus…” The shepherds were overcome with fear. The wise men bowed in reverence. Faithful believers have trusted and worshipped and proclaimed him for nearly two thousand years. And the day is surely coming when you and I and all who have put their trust in him will gather around his glorious throne. And there we will bow before him to sing with all creation,

Worthy are you …
for you were slain,
and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they shall reign on the earth.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing!

To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!
(Revelation 5:9,10,12,13)

We have Jesus’ promise that, as he came once as a helpless baby to Bethlehem, so he will come again as King and Lord of all to claim every last particle of creation as his own. His promise is there for us in the final verses of the Bible: “Surely I am coming soon.” And in wondering awe and humble reverence, together with believers from every people, language and nation, we reply, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20) Let’s say it together: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all! Amen.

“If Stones Could Shout” (Luke 19:28-40)

For the next few moments I want you to try to imagine what it must have been like to be among those who stood on the streets of Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. (I’ll even let you close your eyes if you like, as long as you promise not to go to sleep!)

The city would have been bustling with people, as worshippers from all over Palestine and many from considerably farther afield—from as far away as the distant corners of the vast Roman Empire—had begun to gather in preparation for the annual Passover celebration.

For centuries there had been a tradition that, as they made their way towards the holy city, travellers would recite what are known as the Psalms of Ascents, the fifteen psalms beginning with Psalm 120. Many of those psalms remain familiar to us today, as they have become entrenched in our Christian worship: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go the house of the Lord.’” “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved…” “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream…” “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain…”

So it was that there was literally music in the air as Jesus and his followers made their way towards Jerusalem. Our Bible reading this morning opens with them looking across at the city from the top of the slope that separates it from the Mount of Olives—and I find myself hearing the distant echoes of those psalms being sung in the background.

As they made their way along the twisting road that led down into the valley and then up towards the city, Jesus knew what awaited him there. Indeed, he had been warning his followers about it for some months: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” (Luke 19:31-33)

The Disciples

In fact, Jesus had warned them on at least three separate occasions what was going to happen to him. However, the disciples, really hadn’t paid very much attention at the time. Plus, I suspect that by this time they were so caught up in the excitement of the coming Passover celebration that those words of foreboding had faded almost entirely from their minds. They would have had no idea of the darkness that was to engulf them over the coming days.

It was in that context that Jesus came to them with a request: “Go into the village ahead of you. There on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’”

The instructions seem strange to me—almost like something out of a James Bond movie. However, the disciples seemed to think nothing of it and went on their way unquestioningly, following Jesus’ directions to the letter. And as it turned out, everything was exactly as he had told them. Little did they know that they were embarking on a trajectory that would lead to treachery, betrayal, torture and execution.

Now they were happy to obey Jesus and to carry out his instructions. But in a few days’ time they would see this same Jesus, whom they had come to love and adore, roughly arrested, unjustly tried, brutally tortured, and nailed to a cross to die a slow, agonizing death. And they would find themselves cowering behind locked doors in fear for their lives. Piece by piece, everything that they had come to believe in and to hold dear over the previous three years would be turned on its head.

The Multitude

The next scene takes us to the gates of Jerusalem. Located atop Mount Zion and surrounded by thick stone walls, the city would have made an impressive site, especially for those who came from the towns and villages of the countryside.

I am reminded of one of my visits to New York City. I was with a friend and we were walking through the streets of Manhattan, when a stranger came up to us and said, “You’re visitors here, aren’t you?” When we asked him what gave us away, he replied, “It’s because you’re looking up, not ahead.” All our attention had been riveted on the enormous skyscrapers that towered above us, to the point where we weren’t paying any attention to where we were going!

I can imagine a similar dynamic taking place with many of the pilgrims from the tiny hamlets of Palestine—among them Jesus’ disciples. There were the more than a quarter of a million of them jostling along through its narrow streets. And everything about the city would have prompted oohs and ahs.

At the centre of it all was the magnificent Temple occupying thirty-six acres of land. Its fifty-foot-high gates flanked by enormous columns, its gold glistening in the hot Near Eastern sun, it would have been an impressive sight even to modern eyes. Already more than forty-six years in the making, it would not be fully completed for another four decades.

Now add to that the excitement and anticipation over the coming celebration of Passover. Then into this scene there enters a strange sight—a man riding on a donkey, with other men going before him and spreading their cloaks along his path as though he were a king or some kind of royalty. This leads to what seems to have been a spontaneous outburst of excitement, as some join in and spread their garments on the road, while still others cut down palm branches and lay them along the cobblestones. Meanwhile, all of this is accompanied by joyful shouts of “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Of course, we all know that within the space of a few short days the jubilant cheers of the multitude would turn to shouts of “Crucify!” Among them there might even have been some of those who passed by him as he hung naked on the cross, who jeered at him and mocked him with the words, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself…”

The Stones

Then there were the religious authorities, who would have none of this spontaneous celebration. “Teacher,” they snapped, “rebuke your disciples.” To which Jesus replied, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

My suspicion is that the stones that Jesus was referring to may have been the enormous megaliths that formed the base of the Temple. Some of them weighed as much as five hundred tonnes. You may recall that on a previous visit to Jerusalem one of Jesus’ disciples had drawn attention to them. “Look,” he said (and I can imagine the wonderment in his voice). “What massive stones! And what enormous buildings!” (Mark 13:1)

Now let me ask: Can you think of anything more inanimate than a stone—particularly a stone of that magnitude? Yet Jesus says, “If [the human voices] were silent, the very stones would cry out.” What did he mean? Was he just being poetic? Was he using exaggeration to get his point across?

Maybe. But I think there was more. And my reason is this: It is because at the cross everything would change—and I mean everything. It was not just a matter of closing the gap that separates you and me from God on account of our sin. What was happening on the cross would radically affect the whole created order in its entirety—even the rocks! For it was on the cross that Jesus would defeat once and for ever the cosmic powers of sin and evil and death—all that is wrong and sinful and out of step with God’s will in the universe.

We get a glimpse of what was happening in Matthew’s remarkable account of what took place in Jerusalem at the moment when Jesus gave up his spirit:

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:51-53)

So it is that when we get to the Book of Revelation, we find the aged John peering through his astonished eyes not just to catch a dream of things made better, but to be captured by a vision of the whole of creation transformed. What he gazed upon was a new heaven and a new earth. “For,” he says, “the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” (Revelation 21:1)

The apostle Paul expressed the same kind of understanding in his letter to the Romans, when he wrote:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:18-23)

So as we move through this Holy Week towards the observance of Good Friday and Easter, if I leave you with anything, I want to leave you with a cosmic vision of what was taking place as our Lord and his disciples made their way into the holy city.

When Jesus was to utter those words from the cross, “It is finished,” he was not just saying that his life was coming to an end. He was doing away once and for all with sin and evil and death. He was ushering in a whole new creation, made perfect in accordance with the will and pleasure of his Father.

In the words of the apostle Paul, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:19-20)

When New Testament scholar N.T. Wright wrote his book about the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion six years ago, he chose the dramatic title The Day the Revolution Began. In his conclusion to this massive 400-page-plus study, he wrote this (and please forgive me for quoting it at length!):

With all this we lift up our eyes and realize that [we] have been so concerned with getting to heaven, with sin as the problem blocking the way, … that [we have] forgotten that the gospels give us [the atonement] not as a neat little system, but as a powerful, many-sided, richly revelatory narrative in which we are invited to find ourselves, or rather to lose ourselves and to be found again on the other side. We have gone wading in the shallow and stagnant waters of medieval questions and answers … when only a few yards away is the vast and dangerous ocean of the gospel story, inviting us to plunge in and let the waves of dark glory wash over us, wash us through and through, and land us on the shores of God’s new creation.[1]

The obedience of the disciples would quickly turn to fear. The shouts of “Hosanna!” that rang through the streets of Jerusalem would soon be no more than an echo. But the day is coming when even the stones will not be silent, but will resound with the joyful chorus of all the redeemed:

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing!
(Revelation 5:12)

Let’s be sure that you and I are part of the crowd!

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[1]       The Day the Revolution Began, 415-416