In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes that when God speaks, it is not just mere words, but an act. The word of God is described as quick, powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. The speaker also highlights the importance of testing everything by spiritual values, rather than pragmatism, and emphasizes that the ministry of a person should not be judged by the number of engagements or Bible teachings, but by the impact of God's word. The sermon concludes by discussing the three aspects of the word of God: its thought, expression, and person, with a focus on Jesus as the embodiment of God's word.

Lord, we are subject of thy pity, of thy compassion this morning. We do not even know what to ask of thee, for we perhaps do not really know our truest need. We think we know sometimes. There are things which are very real to us as needs, but Lord, it is true thou knowest all the truest need of our hearts, and only thou knowest. According to thy knowledge, speak Lord, make it personal, make it individual as well as collective. While Eli did not hear the voice of the Lord, even in the tabernacle, there was one who did pick us out for speaking this morning. Thou didst call Samuel. Samuel, may we be called by name, may we know the Lord is speaking to us. Do not allow our minds and thoughts to be diverted unto other people. We shall say that's something for them, but do keep it directly, that afterward we can truly say the Lord has spoken to me. Now for all that is needed, Lord, in us, and for us, fathers, do that by the wisdom and the power and the grace of thy Holy Spirit. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. By now, I think you know that there is a book in the New Testament which is called the Letter to the Hebrews. Perhaps you think you know something about that. I'm going to read again. We are getting very near to the end of this time of gathering, ministry. I feel that it's very necessary for things to become very definite, concrete, and that we should at this time expect the Lord to be focusing things on very clearly defined issues. But once again, let us read at the beginning of this letter, chapter 1. God, God, having of old times spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world, who being the effulgence of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Chapter 12. I trust that it has not lost its music. Verse 18. Ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched. Verse 22. But ye are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. When you go away from this convocation, I wonder what you are going to say about the ministry and the messages. Brother Tong, well, his subject was the overcomer. Brother Romke, well, I don't know how I can put it into a phrase. We know what he has been leading us to. The other man, well, his subject was Zion. Is that what you are going to say? Lord, be merciful to you. I could almost wish that we forgot that word Zion as such. If it represents a subject, look through Zion. Because, you see, what we have in the beginning of this letter, God has spoken in Zion? No, through Zion. Has spoken in his tongue. If we have used the Old Testament name, which is always a type and a symbol, if we have used it to help us by gathering up all the historical associations of that name in the Old, let us still remember it belongs to the not as to a name and as to a place and as to a thing, a mountain, and so forth. It belongs to the not. What belongs to the but is what lies behind that name. Its spiritual value, its spiritual meaning, its spiritual essence. And if we were asked, what is that? We've got to come back and answer, God has spoken in his Son. What is beyond, behind, through Zion is his Son. He's spoken in his Son. Whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he made the world. God has spoken. How has he at the end of those times now spoken? The speaking of God from a certain point in history on to the end is in his Son. Is it necessary to walk around there saying, not about his Son. Not the teaching doctrine of Christ, but the person. In the person. He has spoken in a person. Do try to get hold of that. It's in Christ that God speaks, in him. Now let us try to break that up for a few minutes. You see, Zion, if you're going to use the word, the name, again, Zion is in representation the fullness of Christ. That is what this letter is about. Fullness and finality in Christ. And Zion as a name represents that. The fullness of God's Son. That is Zion. And that fullness is God's speech. For and in this dispensation, God's speech is the fullness that is in his Son. Now you remember, when you go back to the beginning of the Old Testament, and God has intervened in the history of Israel. In what is called the creation. It all begins with that word, God. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. And in what? God speaks. God said, let light be, and so on. God spoke. God spoke. And out of his speaking everything came. You come over to your New Testament, and although it is not so arranged chronologically, quite for good heavenly reason, the Holy Spirit's wisdom, the Gospel of John really does stand at the beginning. Because the other three begin on this earth in history. Bethlehem, or in case of Mark, the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. But John overleaps all time. Goes right back to the deepness beginning, and he opens with this, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. And the Word was God. And the Word became flesh. Here in this new beginning of a new creation. Of a new order. The Bat-er-era. God speaks. The Word. We have heard something this week about the Logos, or Logos. I am not trying to add, certainly not to improve. But I'm going to say a little more about that. Which the word there, as you know, in the beginning was the Logos. The Logos was with God. The Logos was God. And the Logos became flesh. Tabernacle among us. Beginning was the Logos. John has taken that word, of course, from the Greek. Which in the Greek world had its own particular meaning. First of all, in the Greek mind, the word Logos meant a thought. A thought. Something in the mind. That's where it begins. A thought. Or if you like to make it general, thought. Logos is first of all thought. Or a thought. Then, keeping to the Greek, it is the expression of the thought. The thought put into expression. Maybe words. But what is in the mind expressed, given expression. That's the content of Logos. It might go beyond that in the Greek, but in the Bible it certainly does. It is true. Logos, the word, was a divine thought. Something in the mind of God first, before ever there was expression or utterance. Something that was the mind of God. You say in the beginning, in the beginning was the mind, the thought of God. What a large world that door opens up, doesn't it? We've got the whole of our New Testament there, the mind and thought of God behind everything else. But then, that mind and thought of God was expressed, given expression. God said, out of his thought, out of his mind, God said, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians, God who commanded light to shine in darkness, has shined into our hearts. God said, by expression, by expression. What happened? Ah, that's the point. That's the word. You see, follow me closely. I'm going to perhaps be exacting on you for concentration for a little while. But, when God expresses his mind, it is not something just in language, in verbage, in diction. Whenever God spoke, and whenever God speaks, something happens. God speaking according to the Bible is always an act. He spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. The word of the Lord is an act. In this letter, you come to chapter 4, the word of God is quick, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing, dividing asunder soul and spirit, joint and marrow. Go on. God's word is an act. It's a fiat. Something happens. God's thought put into expression resolves itself into something that wasn't before. You can never be the same after God has spoken. Even if you will refuse it, resist it, that's been a crisis. So Jesus will say, the words that I speak unto you, they shall judge you. They shall judge you in the last days. Don't believe in me, the words that I speak. You'll have to meet those in the last days, because this is something not just said, but something put into the universe, which is a crisis. The word of God is a crisis. The word of God is an act. But that does not exhaust the word, Logos, as used by John and as the word of God in the Bible. There's a third aspect, the third aspect to the word. It's the thought, the mind, the mindedness of God. It's the expression of God by which something happens. It's the act of God. But then the third aspect of Logos is its person. It takes up its residence in a person. It becomes personal. In other words, it becomes incarnate. The mind of God, the expression of God, is incarnate. It is in a person. Any encounter with Jesus Christ is a crisis. Any encounter with Jesus Christ is meeting God. God was in Christ. It's an encounter with God. It's not just what Jesus says, although that, of course, is the expression of the mind of God in words. But you see, it's a personal encounter that has to be, not an encounter with what is written in the first place, not an encounter with words, though they be divinely inspired words, it's an encounter with a person. So, the word became flesh, incarnate. Shall we go over again? The incarnation of the divine thought in a practical issue in history, in an act, in a fiat. Ask Saul of Tarsus whether his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road was a fiat. Old Dispensation answers that very loudly. It was an act of the incarnate and glorified word of God. This is the logo. God hath spoken in his Son, who is then the embodiment of his mind, who is the expression of that mind, who is the incarnation of that mind. And this whole letter so-called to the Hebrews, or to Hebrews, is just an analyzing of that, or a summing up of that. God speaking, God speaking in the Bible, in his Son. God speaking in his Son, and all that follows that from chapter 1 and its beginning right through to the end is just the, shall we call it, the exposition of God speaking in his Son. You must read the letter in the light of that. God is speaking. So when you come to chapter 12, this section, from verse 22 onward, what have you? You have the gathering up, the gathering up of that speaking of God in his Son, and concentrating it. If you break up the section you'll see it's a concentration of what is true about the person of the Lord Jesus. And you must look at Zion like that. It begins there. We are come to, well we say Zion, heavenly Jerusalem, city of the living God. No, that's symbolic language. We are come to the Son of God. Now, in all this meaning, all that follows, which I'm not going even to touch upon, I know you would like me to talk to you about the spirit of just men made perfect. What does that mean? And the great company of angels in pestle and ray. You'd like to know something about that. Perhaps you'd like to know a little more about the church of the firstborn ones. His name's Arlen Roden, haven't I? I'm not going to touch on any of that. I'm keeping it here this morning. God speaking in his Son. The thought, the thought of God expressed, the thought of God incarnate personified. So that Zion, as a typical word or name, is the embodiment of all that. God speaks. Or in the Old Testament, God spoke in Zion. He spoke out of Zion. You go through the Psalms, and you go through Isaiah's prophecies, especially the last chapters of those prophecies. Refer to them again perhaps presently. You go through and see how God is speaking out of Zion. It even comes to this, The Lord shall roar out of Zion. God speaks out of Zion. In other words, out of his Son. Hath spoken in his Son. Now, having stated that, that's the position. You see, I'm trying at the end of this ministry to become focused, concentric, get the real heart of all this. Now, what is the heart of all this? According to the statement at the beginning, God, at the end of those times, in these times, in this time, has spoken. How? How? Son-wise. In his Son. The absence in the original of the definite article, his Son, doesn't make any difference, because the very next statement is, who he appointed. They are of all things. So, this Son is his Son. We note that and pass on. The governing law of God's speaking is Sonship. Is Sonship. That is the thing which governs God in all his speaking. Are you getting it? Sonship. And, as has already been said, Sonship is not a beginning thing, it is a final thing. It is an ultimate thing. Romans 8 again, waiting for our adoption. The manifestation of the Sons. The end which governs all God's speaking in Christ is Sonship. You like to change the word? It's adoption. It's put at the end. Sonship. Adoption. An end. An object toward which God is moving by the speaking in his Son. By birth we are children. By adoption we are sons. Remembering the difference in conception. Someone holding a little baby yesterday, not of the family or even of the same race, said, you see, I have adopted her. Oh no, that won't do here. That won't do here. That is not the scriptural conception of adoption. As you've been told, and ought to know by now, the scriptural meaning of adoption is someone already in the family by birth, who has grown to maturity, and then the day of maturity, coming of age, the celebration, the festivity, the coming of age day, when the father takes his own child, now mature, puts the toga on him, invests him with the symbols and insignia of authority to be as the father in this world. Everyone meeting that adopted son has to reckon with the father. He is in effect the father. He has been adopted, or the word really in Hebrews is placed, placed, in this position of responsibility because of maturity. We'll have to come back to that from another standpoint as we go on. What I'm saying is, that is the end to which God is working. His beginning is begetting. His beginning is birth from above, bringing in a family. But not you. It's not easy to marshal all this into a good order that you can get a hold of, but I think you'll figure it out as we go along. Even in the born child there is the spirit of adoption. The adoption has not come yet, but there is the spirit of adoption. That's what Paul says in Galatians. Because we have the spirit of adoption, we cry Abba, Father. I think once here I told you what that really means. What does Abba mean? Why put the two things together? Is it just two words of different languages? Abba is one language, Father another. Is it just a matter of super-irrigation? What is it? Oh no. Abba is the quality, not the relationship. It's the quality of a child, a little child. And when a little child turns to its father and says, Dear Father, you've got Abba. It's a heart relationship. Abba, dear Father. There's something very close, very intimate. It's a mark of spiritual infancy. Of course that's the first thing we list, isn't it? When we're really born from above, we don't say, as we need not pray, Almighty, most terrible and fearful God. Our first business now, Father, that's the beginning of the Christian life. We have the spirit of adoption, although we haven't come to the adoption yet. That's coming. If the spirit of adoption develops us for adoption, that's the whole course of the spiritual life, you see. Well, that's all here. I'm saying that the final object toward which God, the Holy Spirit, is working is what is called adoption. Sonship. It is governing everything. It is governing everything. It's the end which is brought to bear upon the whole course. What is God doing? Well, Hebrews will tell you, won't it? All the discipline, all the discipline of the child of God, the children of God, is governed by this one object, sonship. So you have, my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, for whom the Lord loveth his children. He chasteneth. He disciplines. He scourges every son to be set by him, to be placed. The discipline of the Christian life and what child or what potential son is he who has no discipline, whom the Father chasteneth not. The writer uses a very strong word, as you know, about sons. They're not true sons. They're illegitimate children coming to a false position if they be without discipline. There's a tremendous revolt against discipline in this world, throwing off of authority and all control, all government, all discipline, a revolt against it everywhere, especially in you. Well, the word says that's how it's going to be at the end. Disobedient to parents and so on. This doesn't augur well, does it, for God's final purpose of a family not of infants but of grown sons for eternal responsibility. Now we're back to Brother Kahn. Eternal responsibility, governmental position in the kingdom in the ages to come. There's so much about that in the New Testament. That is efficiency. Discipline for that. Dealings of God with us in this way, this way. Oh, look again if you want this illustrated. Look again to the history of Zion. What a disciplined thing Zion was, wasn't it? God was having no nonsense with Zion. God was tolerating nothing less than his full thought in Zion. When Zion deprived him of what he had brought Zion into being for, he then set Zion aside, showed that he had no longer interest in that as a thing. He disciplined Zion. Read again your Psalms. Read again the prophets. We're all concerned, as we shall show, with Zion. What discipline, what discipline. Through the years and finally the 70 years of exile and captivity, what discipline of the people of Zion. Shall we just look for a moment at Isaiah? I did say a little while ago, you look at the last chapters of Isaiah and you'll find that they are all concerned with Zion. These final chapters. Let's look at, shall we, chapter 61? Oh, we're in, very near the end, aren't we, of Isaiah when we come to 61. What is it? Well, you can go to 60 if you like. Oh, rise, shine, for thy light is come. Glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Go to 61. Spirit of the Lord, God is upon me. Lord hath anointed me. You know again, it's the two-fold interpretation. Zion is here, pointing on to the other one who used these very words and applied them to himself. Now, 62. Cut out the numbers, 61, 62, chapter division, artificial. For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace. For Jerusalem's sake I will not rest. Until her, yes, alright, righteousness. Remember, you're amplified. Until her right standing with God. Until her right standing with God go forth as brightness. And her salvation as a lamp that burneth. Nation shall see thy right standing with God. All the kings thy glory. I will not hold my peace until that happens. This is the cry of the prophet. And you can go on in these last chapters of Isaiah if you like. Perhaps we shouldn't spend too much time with that. But there it is, what I'm going to come to in that very connection, is this, that Zion, Zion was the burden, the concern, the heartbreak of the prophets. Prophetic ministry always focuses upon Zion. Got that? Not only the Old Testament prophets, that's pointing to something else. The work of true prophetic ministry relates to this divine thought that is enshrined in this word Zion, as we have it in the letter to the Hebrews. To have this amongst the nations, this expression of the fullness of Christ in sonship in a corporate body, that is the end toward which God is working and carrying out all his work of discipline. I do want to apply this in a practical way. You see, we, rightly so, perhaps, perhaps rightly so, are concerned with the work, what we call the Lord's work. Concerned with evangelism, getting souls saved, nothing wrong with that. That's alright, don't think I'm undervaluing that. The work of preaching and teaching and having meetings and conferences and all that we can encompass by this word or phrase, the work of the Lord. We are concerned about that, very much concerned about that. Perhaps you ministers are very much concerned about your ministry. That is, the next address that you're going to give, and you're pulling up your notebooks now. You've got a congregation in view. The work of ministry, of evangelism, or whatever else may come within that term, the work of the Lord. Perhaps you are very much, more than anything else, concerned with that. It must be in the work, it must be given to the work. My brother is going to forgive me because I say I'm trying to focus this thing right now. We have been having something in these evenings that I consider to be the very essence of the Lord's interest. It's the same thing that I'm talking about, only in other language, the overcomer. The essence of the divine thought and intention in Zion. Brother Kong has been laid on his back for many weeks. And we should not have got that if he hadn't been. And some of us know that the Lord sometimes sees it is far more economical to take us out of the work than to keep us in it. To lay us aside from all our busyness for him to get the essence of it. He's after the essential, the intrinsic. Men are after the big. Pragmatism governs so much of Christian work. But you don't know what I mean by that word. It means, if a thing is successful, then it's right. That shallow thinking. The devil has got a lot of success. Is he right? Many things are apparently very successful. Growing, increasing. Everybody says, my, that's the thing. Is it? That's pragmatism. If a thing is successful and popular and everybody is flocking to it, it must be right. All right. Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, they flocked. They followed. He told why. Told why. He said, because you did eat of the loaves and fishes. Because if you saw the signs and wonders and a wicked and adulterous generation seeking after signs. They flocked for that. But, but, short life. Presently they're all for seeking. They're being sifted out. He's being left alone. All the marks of success are being withdrawn from this world's standpoint. At last, is this a successful movement with him hanging on the cross? Is that pragmatic? We know today. We know today. No. No, not that. Not because people are flocking here or there. Crowding. Rushing. Not because a thing seems to be gaining much ground. Becoming big. Not necessarily. Wait for that. Wait through the tribulation. And then you'll get a great multitude which no man can number. But that's not pragmatic. In this earthly sense. Do you see what I mean? The discipline. The discipline of being sifted down from the husks to the kernel. From the chaff to the wheat. And wheat corn is bruised. Says prophet Isaiah. Wheat corn is bruised. Is bruised. He's after the true, genuine bread. And the constitution of that is something that has been ground to powder. Been bruised. Does this explain something to you? Your own history? It's very true. It's the word, you see. Therefore there is this section in Hebrews about sonship. The chastening of the Lord. Chastening the Lord. And chastening for every one of us may mean something different. What would be chastening to you would not be to me. But what would be chastening to me would be to you. You can get away with lots of things. But the Lord knows where to find you out where you can't get away. I might be able to force myself through some things on sheer natural soul force. I don't know whether that's true now, but it might be. Perhaps in the past it's been true. But the Lord knows just how to chasten me. And that is chastening for me and perhaps for no one else. That thing. Oh, don't just bring that word chastening into a narrow definition. It's the thing that gets us individually. Finds us out. The thing which to me is real discipline. There's a nice, very patient, forbearing, long-suffering temperament, you know. And they can be spoken to, treated, and they don't ruffle a bit. They just go on. But with someone else, the Lord brings a rather awkward person into the home. And my word, that person is discipline. You see what I mean? Chastening discipline is what it means to us individually. But whatever that is, and you may say, Well, why does the Lord do this with me? Look, he doesn't do that with all these other people. They're getting away with it. Until I went into the house of the Lord, saw things from his standpoint. The Lord is dealing with me. I'm letting off all these other people in that way, but he's got me. Do I revolt and say it isn't fair? The Lord's not fair if he doesn't do this with others. No, no, this won't do. He is focusing upon this end. This sonship matter. For adoption, for eternal responsibility. Well, we'll get hold of that. And we'll go on. With Zion again, in the background of our thought. Let us pick out one more thing about Zion. I expect you well know, of course you do, commonplace, that in the very blood and constitution of a true Israelite, a true Hebrew, a true Jew, in the very constitution and blood, there is a consciousness or sense of destiny. We are the chosen people. And we are chosen for God's purpose and intention. It isn't something that we have taken on as an ideology, as a philosophy of our existence. It's in our blood. They can't get away from it. It is themselves, isn't it? It's like that. A true Jew, citizen and child of Zion, has this inwrought sense and consciousness of destiny. It is the reason, the ground why they've been able to suffer so much. Why they could go through their persecutions and survive. Why they could endure so much. It's not because they make up their minds. Not just the strength of their will. It's something born in them. Part of their very being. It's elemental to them that they are a people of destiny. They hold on to it. They cling to it. They're still at the wailing wall. It's born out of this. All right, well, that belongs to the not. Here we are with the but. We have come to Zion. And we have come to Zion in this sense. There is, by right, if it is a true citizenship in heaven, this one was born there, if it is a true child of God, there is something about such a true child of God that although they may not define it, they may not know even the scriptures about it, within them they have this sense of destiny. That there's some purpose governing our salvation. There's some meaning beyond our present comprehension for which we have been called. There is something in us, in our very constitution, that says, hold according to his purpose. A sense of destiny. This is essential to Zion. This is what the New Testament is all about, and this is what this letter to the Hebrews is all about. This is true citizenship. We don't like these ideas. We don't like this language. But you see, with the Jews, the Jews, the true Jews, there was this element in them of selectiveness. You don't like that language, do you? Brother Cohn got very near it last night, but he didn't use the language. Selective. Something separate, something different, something other. Something not general, but particular. The in-wrought consciousness of being called and chosen for something which we call destiny. And only that will keep us going through the discipline. Only that will keep us going through the suffering, the adversity, the perplexity. Have you not been, as I have, more than once and more than twice at the point where you would have despaired, been left to yourself, you would have given up, and gone out, taken another way, and even washed your hands of Christianity? You've never been pressured? Well, if you haven't, all right, thank the Lord, but there is such pressure, you know. And even this man, with all his wonderful experience and knowledge of the Lord, came to a point where his eye was pressured. I despaired of life. Paul, you despaired. And you're always telling people not to despair. You were writing about the God of hope, and you tell me you despaired? And you tell people to be in the Ascendant on top, and you say, I was pressed beyond my measure? All right, perhaps you don't know all that, you know a little of it, but the children of Zion are kept by something. They're held by something. It's this indefinable something, which we call destiny, hold on us, that won't let us go. There's a grip upon us, that even when we say we're going, we can't go. Even when we come to the depths, we don't go out after all. We don't, that's all. We decided to, but we don't. No, it's not something to analyze and put into a system of teaching, doctrine, but it's some deep reality that is holding us. We are children of destiny. The call according to his purpose. Oh, I would like you, if you want a little Bible study, to go through and underline that word, according, according, according as, according to. Marvelous word that is, with Paul. It's all according to something. Zion was elect, chosen, separated, made distinct because of destiny, its great purpose. And there was that in its very constitution, in the very blood, in the very blood, there's something unto which we have been called. I'm going back to the prophets, you see. The prophets were supremely concerned with Zion, just because of Zion's destiny, or how burdened they were about Zion. And of course, in their case, their burden and their concern for Zion was the recovery of Zion. Zion had lost out. Zion had ceased to be what it was called to be, what God intended. It had lost. Now the prophets are all concerned with the recovery of Zion and Zion's testimony. That's prophetic ministry. That could open up another hour or two, couldn't it? Oh, prophetic ministry. What do you mean? Foretelling? Foretelling events? All right, if you like to have that. But the real essence of prophetic ministry is the recovery of the fullness of Jesus Christ, which has been lost. It's a recovery. And a reinstating of the testimony of Jesus in the church. Well, that's our evenings, isn't it? That's true prophetic ministry. And don't bring prophetic ministry down to this and that and something else. The gift of prophecy. What is the gift of prophecy? What is the gift of prophecy? Only foretelling it may be there or it may never be there at all. And still be the gift of prophecy. The gift, the function, the anointing of prophecy is the recovery of the full testimony of Jesus. The recovery of all that Zion means as the fullness of Christ. And any ministry that does not have that as its objective, clear and strong and definite, is not prophetic ministry. The prophets were thus burdened. Read Isaiah 43 again in the light of that, which we haven't time to do. Well, now we come to near the end for this morning. Again then, Zion is the embodiment of the spiritual values of Jesus Christ. Underline that word, spiritual values. Test everything, test everything by the spiritual values. Not from the standpoint of pragmatism at all. From the standpoint of its spiritual, which means its eternal value. The ministry of any brother, my own or anyone else, is not going to be judged by the number of conventions or meetings at which I speak and the amount of Bible teaching that I give or he gives. It's never going to be judged by that. Understand that. You may have your diaries full of engagements, preaching engagements. You may be on the way of a very, very busy Bible teacher. You say in America, what is it, teach the Bible. Teach the Bible. You may be very busy and you may have no time for anything else. And yet with all, the sum total, it's not going to be judged, dear friends, by how much you have done in that way. It's going to be judged by its eternal spiritual value. What the essential spiritual value is, when this life is gone, when I'm gone, when you're gone, when all the teachers are gone and we arrive in heaven and discover what was taken up then in our lifetime and is there, the things which are seen are temporal in the preachers and the teachers and the conferences. The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. And that's the standpoint of Zion, the essential spiritual value of everything. Now you, dear preachers, teachers, really burdened in heart that every bit of your ministry shall have a spiritual eternal value. Not the address, not the address. This great teacher, principal of a theological college, but a real man of God, to his students put it this way. Do not be concerned with the winning of your sermon, but be concerned with the winning of the people. Meaning, of course, their spiritual life. No, it isn't whether my address is successful, accepted or not. It is what is the spiritual lasting value from an eternities and heaven standpoint of anything. Surely our ambition ought to be that when it's all over here, when it's all over and there are no more conferences down here and no more ministries and addresses down here, and we all gather about, our ambition is to find their people who say, look here, I wouldn't be here but for what the Lord did in me through your ministry. That's it, isn't it? Oh, focus upon that. For Zion is, let me repeat, the embodiment of spiritual value. Not a place, not a sect, not anything temporal. That's not Zion. No, it is the concentrated and intrinsic spiritual values of Jesus Christ. That is Zion. On what note shall I finish this morning? Well, with all that in view, of course, the right note, of course, would be God's jealousy for Zion. Prophets shared the jealousy of God over Zion. The Lord said, I am jealous for Zion, for Jerusalem. I am returned with great wrath and great jealousy. Where is God's heart, sir? Not on any temporal expression of the old Zion, that's not. God's jealousy, God's concern, God's wrath relates to the true, intrinsic, spiritual values of his Son, Jesus Christ. He's focused upon that. He will look after those spiritual values. Look after the spiritual values, that ought to comfort, comfort us as ministers especially. See, people may repudiate, may discredit, may go away and leave us. All right, that's discipline, it's pretty hard. But wait a while, perhaps in their own lifetime they'll come back or they'll confess and fear. I got something from you, which has been my real salvation. I didn't recognize it at the time, but I know now that what you were saying, what you were doing, was the thing which has become my deliverance, my salvation at the time of trouble. It's like that. God will look after the spiritual values if you are concerned more with spiritual values than building up something big down here. That is where his jealousy is. Sooner or later his wrath will be shown from Zion in that sense. The enemies will have to bow. They'll have to surrender. As in the eternity, every knee shall bow and tongue confess. All the enemies of Christ are going to be very much humbled. God is going to roar out of Zion. But let us be quite sure that it's Zion in this sense. He shall come to that, to Zion. And leave it there for now. The Lord interpret. We do pray that, Lord, this very hour may be used by thee to produce those essential eternal values. Not just be an hour with ministry, more or less appreciated. There may be something wrought, something planted, something put inside us constitutionally that shall appear in heaven and in glory as the divine field, the word, the word of God which did something. So help us, seal this time then in that way, forgiving all mistakes and errors and faults in the human, and take charge of thine own interest.