Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Amen.
Welcome to the 48th Brethren.
We have yet to worship.
Amen.
Welcome to the 48th Brethren.
Boldness is not a natural starting point.
It certainly wasn't in Gideon's life,
but he did go on eventually
to do great things for God
and spared an entire nation,
delivered an entire nation,
but his beginning was
kind of a herky-jerky start, wasn't it?
But he made progress steadily by jerks.
And some people aren't going to start out
as bold as others in the Christian life,
but if they're consistent,
if they steadily make progress,
eventually, you know what?
They're going to be winning their thousands
and their ten thousands,
and they're going to be doing great works for God,
same as anybody else.
You know, it is interesting
that he took these ten men,
and you have to think about how that conversation went.
I don't think it was one of these things
where he's like, hey, you guys got to come with me
and I can't tell you anything,
and you can't ask me anything about it.
You're going to come help me with this,
and they're just like, all right, we're with you, Gideon.
It was probably like, hey, I'm going to go tear down
a false god.
And his dad appears to be
an affluent member of society.
They upset the men of the town
when this happened.
This is probably one of the main places
where they worshiped.
So he's got the ten guys with him,
and they're all going to do this.
Well, what does that tell you about the ten guys?
That they were with Gideon.
That they supported him.
That they saw that Gideon
was going to do something bold for God,
and they wanted to get behind him.
They wanted to get with him.
They supported him.
Even though he's not starting out
this great, bold man of God,
they're still like, well, we're still with you.
We're going to still help you.
We're still going to do this.
This just makes me think about,
even in our circumstance,
we need people who are going to help things
get started around here.
You say, wait, we've almost been here four years.
I know, that's a new church.
We're just getting started.
And I'm not saying that to fault anybody.
Every time I mention that,
someone's like, oh, you're always ragging on us.
Well, it's true.
We've only been here not even four years yet.
We're just getting started.
And quite honestly,
it's been kind of a herky-jerky start here.
But we've made progress,
steadily, but it's been by jerks.
And I don't mean
the kind of jerks you're thinking.
There have been some jerks.
But, you know,
we got this building.
We were running more people
when we got this building.
We were running over 50 people.
Our lowest attendance
lately, we had nine people.
And I understand people have to go out of town
and things like that.
That's why it's important for everybody to come
when you can come, so that when people
that are normally here aren't here,
I'm preaching to nine people,
including my family.
I don't know if you noticed,
but there's this attendance.
I didn't just put that in there
to fill up space.
Okay, I kind of did.
But it was dual purpose.
This is so you could say,
hey, how's the progress going here?
When was the last time we broke the record?
It's been almost a year.
On Sunday morning.
It's been almost two years
on the Sunday night.
The Thursday night
is going to be hard to beat.
81 on a midweek.
It's the highest record.
So I'll give you that one.
But my point is this,
we're making progress,
but we've had setbacks.
People show up,
oh, I love this church.
This church is so great.
Oh, I can't believe you hate false versions
and quit.
It's like, oh, okay.
Welcome to come back.
I didn't say you had to leave.
People probably come here
and say, I just don't like that preacher.
I have this same person in the mirror
that tells me that every day, too.
My shadow is put in for a divorce.
I get it.
People are going to come here
and there's not going to be anything wrong with them.
They're not in sin.
It's not that they've been out of shape or something.
They're just not going to like me.
They're not going to like what we're doing.
I believe that.
There's other King James-only,
Bible-believing, Baptist churches
where people can go there
and be blessed and serve God.
I get that.
This is where we're at in this church.
We're trying to get this thing off the ground,
and it's been steady by jerks.
I'm glad for the progress.
It's like, we've got a Gideon,
and maybe he's not the most eloquent guy.
Maybe he's not the guy you'd think of
to lead a charge in Tucson.
It certainly wasn't something that entered my mind.
But here's the question.
Where's the ten men?
I know we've got a corps,
but let's keep going here.
Let's keep this thing going.
Let's keep the ball rolling.
Gideon had the support.
That's what this church needs.
People to be faithful to the services,
to be there for the soul winning,
and thank God for the people that are,
but there's still more people
that could take it to the next level.
They could help us go out there
and pull down some idols.
They could help us go out there
and be a beast of burden
and help us pull down some of these imaginations
and these strongholds that people have in their minds
and get them saved and pull out of hell.
And start to make progress.
And the other application we can make with this
is people who are new to the faith.
People who are newer to the Christian life,
which is a lot of people in this room, by the way.
We shouldn't get discouraged
when we don't see ourselves or others
just skyrocketing right out of the gate,
just right off the blocks in the Christian life.
We're just ahead of the pack
and leaving everybody in the dust.
What we should be looking for
is that we're making progress
despite the setbacks.
I'll do this very quickly,
but think about the example of Peter.
Peter was a great man of God.
Peter's written several books in the New Testament.
He's a key figure through the Gospels.
He was one of Jesus' inner circle,
and he's there at the Transfiguration on the Mount.
He's in the upper room, and he's preaching at Pentecost.
Peter did great things for God.
Peter walked on the water.
Everybody else stayed in the boat.
He's like, hey, can I come out there?
But what ended up happening when he stepped on the water?
That's progress steady by jerks.
I made it on the water, but then I almost drowned.
But then the Lord had to save me and pull me
before I went to swim with the fishes.
And we see that throughout his life.
He's there. I'll die with you, Lord.
All men forsake you, yet will not I.
And then he's denying him.
He's cursing and saying, I know not the man.
And then he's quitting the ministry,
and the Lord has to come back
and get him involved.
Peter's life is a perfect example.
It's a picture of all of our lives to some degree.
We all have that in our Christian life.
We get in church, then we're kind of out of church.
We're in church, but we're not really into it.
We're trying soul winning,
but we're not going soul winning completely.
We're all kind of going through that.
Those are pretty general examples.
You could apply that to marriages, child rearing,
every aspect of the Christian life.
We understand, but we're not all for it yet.
We're making progress, but we're not where we should be.
What we have to do is keep
putting one foot in front of the other,
getting over the mistakes that we've made,
and keep pushing ahead.
And this is something that a lot of
younger Christians go through in the Christian life
early on.
But when all those things happened with Peter,
what I'd point out is that
Jesus never really came to Peter and berated him.
He didn't criticize him harshly.
Now I know when he found him fishing,
he came and said,
Peter, love us thou me more than these.
And he said it three times to the point where
Peter's heartbroken and is just saying,
Lord, you know that I love thee.
And he was making a point.
But he was saying,
Don't you love me, Peter?
Basically what he said.
He didn't come saying,
You Peter, you loser.
You backsliding loser.
You worthless scum.
How dare you.
You know, he didn't berate him.
He didn't harshly criticize him.
He didn't belittle him.
Really, what he did is he encouraged him.
He came to him in a low point and said,
Hey, remember what we had going here?
Remember that you're supposed to be doing,
living for me and doing great things?
And what did he end up doing?
He went on to do great things.
You know, so when we see people, you know,
who are, you know,
having a setback in the Christian life,
we shouldn't just write them off.
You know, because we've all had setbacks.
You know, even people that, you know,
manage to show up to church on a regular basis,
you know, they're having setbacks that
we don't know about in their personal life.
Guaranteed.
You know, they might have some major,
you know, backsliding going on,
but, you know, they manage to show up to church.
That's because, you know,
showing up to church is like one of the easiest things
in the Christian life.
You can say Amen to that anytime you want
because it's that easy.
So, you know, when you see people
going through those things,
don't berate them.
You know, bless them, encourage them,
you know, and help them along.
I mean, that's what God did for Peter.
Peter went from denying the Lord to preaching
probably one of the most powerful sermons
you'll ever read in the scripture at Pentecost
where, you know, thousands of people
are getting saved in one day
through Peter's preaching.
The same guy who would just, you know,
a few chapters ago he just said,
I quit, just threw up his hands.
And had a huge setback,
which was just one of many that he had had
in his, you know, Christian life
leading up to that point.
You know, because, you know, backsliding,
you know, I wish this weren't the case,
but it's just, you know, backsliding
is a part of the Christian life
for a while, at least for a while.
And look, I'm not saying this,
don't take that as a license to like,
well, deacon said backsliding is just part of what you do.
Look, you don't have to backslide.
You know, if you do these things,
you shall never fall.
You know, if these things are in you and abound,
they make you shall never not be
barren or unfruitful in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Look, it is possible to live,
I'm not saying a sinless life,
but it's possible to live a life
that's of godliness and pleasing unto the Lord.
And to, you know, to not backslide.
I believe that.
I'm not saying be sinless.
You know, backsliding is more this idea is like,
you know what you're doing is wrong,
you shouldn't do it,
and then you go do it anyway.
You know, that's, that's, you know,
one form of backsliding.
Or it's not even necessarily doing,
you're doing something sinful.
It's just that you're not doing what you used to do.
You were making progress,
but you backslid.
And go to Hosea chapter four.
Hosea chapter four kind of paints this picture.
You know, backsliding is part of,
you know, a lot of people's Christian growth.
You know, it's a setback.
People experience these things.
They go through setbacks in the Christian life.
The important thing is to not keep sliding.
And I, you know, and I, again,
those peaks and valleys that I mentioned earlier,
they should get shallower and shallower and shallower
and less frequent and less frequent and less frequent.
You know, backsliding, I do believe,
is something that people mature out of.
And, obviously, everybody's different.
They're coming from different places.
They have different proclivities to different things.
It's, that's gonna, you know,
there's a lot of variables.
There's gonna be a wide spectrum of people,
you know, of how much they backslide
and, you know, how frequently and to what degree.
I get that.
But it is part of, I believe, Christian growth.
Look at Isaiah, Hosea, rather,
chapter four, verse 16.
It says, for Israel backslideth as a backsliding heifer.
Now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place.
So he's talking about how Israel has backslidden
like a backsliding heifer,
meaning they were God's people, right?
They're God's people.
They once served the Lord,
but now they've backslidden.
They're no longer serving God.
They've forsaken him.
You know, so that's kind of,
gives you an idea of what backsliding is.
And he likens it onto a backsliding heifer.
You know, a heifer is basically like a,
you know, like a cow that hasn't calved yet.
It's never given birth.
That's what a heifer is.
You know, and it's an interesting analogy that he uses there,
why I believe he uses that analogy of heifer, too.
But notice, you know, it's a backsliding heifer.
It's like an animal that's trying to make progress up a hill,
but is stumbling.
You know, it doesn't have the strength
of a full-grown mature animal.
It's still kind of young and inexperienced.
You know, it hasn't borne fruit.
It hasn't birthed.
You know, it hasn't gone through hard things.
And it's struggling.
It hasn't developed the strength to really make progress.
You know, maybe, you know, it's trying to go up the hill,
right, this heifer, and it's running out of steam,
and then it kind of stops.
You know, and that's a lot of times when you start to slide.
You ever gone hiking on like a loose gravel?
You know, if you keep moving, you know, your feet slip,
but you kind of, you know, you make progress.
It's when you stop moving that you kind of start sliding,
and then you're like reaching for the pine branch
to like pull yourself back up, right?
So it's kind of that idea, like an animal,
it's trying to go up, but, you know, it's backsliding.
It's going, it was here.
It had made this much progress,
but now it's kind of back down here,
and it's kind of going in that direction.
You know, you could do that as a nation.
You could do that as an individual.
And notice, again, it says as a heifer.
It's a backsliding heifer, a younger, immature animal.
This is something I believe that younger Christians,
you know, people that are newer to the faith,
are more prone to.
They're more prone to not have the strength
to make the spiritual progress when the,
you know, when the way gets steep and rough,
you know, they might run out of steam a little bit
and start to slide back.
You know, what they don't need is someone to come along
and go, oh, yeah, you like that, huh?
And just kind of push them down a little further.
What they need is someone to say, hey, no, let me help you.
And not encourage that person.
You know, that's what the preaching of the word of God is, dude.
That's why church is important.
You know, and it might feel more like it's the preacher standing behind you,
like cracking a whip,
but that's still encouragement nonetheless.
It's still a reminder, like, oh, man, yeah, I got somewhere to be.
I got a mountaintop I got to reach.
I got things I got to do.
I'm backsliding. I got to keep moving forward.
And he says there that Israel slided back as a backsliding heifer.
Now the Lord will feed him as a lamb in a large place.
And that's where you can kind of get that idea
of this is talking about an animal trying to go up a narrow, steep place
because that large place is like a, you know, a lamb in a large place
that you can imagine that big, fertile, you know, river bank
that is just wide and even
and, you know, it's just grass and soft, you know, plants.
It's easy going, right?
You know, the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place.
God doesn't look at us when we're like that backsliding heifer
and just go, well, nuts to you.
Nice try. I guess I'll go find somebody else.
You know, Peter didn't begin to sink and cry out,
Lord, save me. He said, pfft, should have brought a life vest.
Where's your faith? It was nice knowing you.
At least you're saved.
And just walk by and let Peter drown.
You know, he pulled him up. Yeah, he did say, you know,
wherefore didst thou doubt?
You know, he kind of corrected him a little bit,
but he still had compassion on him.
And God's looking at Israel here and saying they're like a backsliding heifer.
You know what? I'm going to lead them like a lamb into a large place,
like a sheep into a large place.
I'm going to help them get to a place where it's going to be easier going for them
and they're not going to be continually backsliding.
David said he brought me forth also into a large place.
He delivered me because he delighted in me.
You know, God delights in us.
Did God delight in Gideon? Sure did.
But was it because Gideon was just this, you know, stellar,
you know, super great leader when he found him?
No, he found him hiding.
But he looked at him and said, look, it's not about your position, it's about your potential.
I can still use you, Gideon.
I can get you out of that hollow.
I can put a sword in your hand and I can do great things with you,
you know, if you'll just start putting one foot in front of the other.
And you know what? And I'm not even expecting you to be the perfect, ideal candidate right out of the gate.
You got to take those 10 guys with you. Go ahead, get some help.
You got to go by night, Gideon. All right, that's not exactly what I wanted,
but I'm glad you're at least headed in the right direction.
You know, God still delights in us.
He delighted in Israel. He saw them backsliding and said, you know, I'll take care of them.
He saw David out running for his life out in the mountains.
And he delighted him and he protected him and he brought him into a large place.
You know, and really, the Christian life, in my experience at least,
is probably its most difficult at its outset.
One, because, you know, especially if this is something that's new to you, you weren't brought up in this.
You know, this is all new.
It's probably, that alone is kind of making it more difficult because it's just the newness of it.
Having to learn so many things that, you know, and understand so many things.
That's not to say that, you know, after that it's smooth sailing.
Obviously, the Christian life has its, you know, no matter how seasoned you are, it has difficult times.
You know, that's just the nature of life.
But, you know, the Christian life seems to be most difficult for people at the outset of it.
Not just because of the newness of it, but because of the fact that the devil doesn't want them to make progress.
The world doesn't want you to make progress.
You know, the family is not going to like this new you.
They're going to say, what happened? Ever since you started going to that church, you've been acting different.
What do you mean you don't do this anymore? What do you mean you don't do that?
You say this, or go there, or drink that, or dress this way, or talk like that.
Whatever. What do you mean you stop doing that?
What do you mean you're going to church?
You're going to church three times a week?
What's wrong? Well, is it once enough?
What do you mean you read your Bible every day?
What do you mean you're memorizing scripture?
You're going out on your own time and knocking doors to tell people about Jesus?
You're like, those of us that have been doing it, we're kind of like, yeah, what's your problem?
It's like, duh. You know, because we've heard it so many times.
I heard all that. Oh, the you from a year ago would laugh at the you of today.
And I said, I know.
And at the time when it was new, it was hard to hear.
But now I'm just like, so what? What's your point?
You know, now I've got people calling me a less attractive version of Hitler.
And I'm just like, I can just laugh it off.
You know, but on the outset that have been like, oh man, what am I going to do?
When it's all new and it's all difficult, right?
You know, when you're stat, you know, and forgive me, you know, for using this analogy, but it's what the Bible uses.
You know, the spiritual heifers among us, right?
Those that are new to the faith, right?
Those that are newer, they're like that younger animal that hasn't built the strength.
They don't have the fruit. You know, they haven't born that fruit.
You know, they don't need to be picked on. They don't need to be discouraged.
They need to be delighted in. They need to be led. That's what they need.
Go over to Psalms 18. Psalms 18.
You know, grace and encouragement is what new believers need.
People who are getting a start, you know, we might look at someone's spiritual progress and say,
yeah, it's steady, but it's steady by jerks.
We might look at a church and say, yeah, they're headed in the right direction, but, you know, they've had some setbacks.
You know, what people, what churches, individuals, families like that, what they need, they need grace and encouragement.
They don't need to be, yeah, you should probably just quit now because it's never going to happen.
Yeah, well, you went from 50 people to 40 on a Sunday morning, you should probably just wrap it up.
You're already in your third year.
You know, whenever I start to feel a little sad and start to have a little, throw a little pity party for myself,
I just think about, you know, the men that blazed this path before me, just, you know, immediately before me.
You know, like Pastor Anderson.
I'll just go talk to him. I'm like, where were you doing your third year? I feel a lot better about our situation.
Oh, you weren't on staff?
Oh, you were working a full-time job driving, you know, tens of thousands of miles?
Oh, you had a family to take care of?
Oh, you were literally flying in to preach and then flying back?
Oh, you were doing all this in your house?
Oh, you didn't even have half the amount of people?
It's like, oh, okay, that kind of puts it in perspective.
You know, that's encouragement.
You know?
Same way with a new believer.
You know, we who might be a little more seasoned might look at people and see them stumbling and trying to get going
and can just say, well, why can't they figure it out? Why won't they just start doing what they're supposed to do?
That's not what they need.
You know, maybe, you know, it would behoove us to think back when we first started out the Christian life.
And all the grace and encouragement that was given unto us.
I mean, I had plenty of people early on in my Christian life that could have come along and just went like this to me.
And just put me down.
And just got me on their thumb and just made me squirm.
Say, you did this, and you do that, and you don't do that, and they could have just gotten after me.
That's not what they did.
You know what? They just kept that all to themselves. I'm sure they thought it.
Right? They kept it to themselves.
And they gave me time, and they gave me, they were patient, and they were encouraging.
They preached the sermons that needed to be preached.
And they helped me along in the Christian life.
You know what? And it got there eventually.
You know, and it's still, it's still an upward trend, and it's still got its peaks and valleys.
But they've gotten shallower over the years, as it should happen.
As we mature out of that spiritual heifer, and we develop that strength, you know, climbing up that hill gets easier and easier.
You know, and then we are that ox.
Then we are that beast of burden that Gideon can come grab and just start pulling down idols with.
Any time of day.
And you go to Psalm 18.
Look at verse 32.
It is God that girdeth me with strength.
Verse 32, Psalm 18.
And maketh my way perfect.
He maketh my feet like hind's feet, and setteth me upon high places.
He maketh me those things.
You know, we want to all spiritually be that spiritual hind that's just up on top of the mountain just prancing around.
No problems.
Oh, big cleft over here.
Oh, giant gap.
Well, let me just leap over that.
Oh, giant boulder in my path.
I'll just, you know, scamper up that real fast and on to the next one.
You know, but how does that happen?
It's God that gives us that strength.
It's God that gives us that ability that makes our way perfect.
That makes our feet like hind's feet.
That sets us upon high places.
And God does that.
He teacheth my hands to war so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
Everyone loves that verse.
Right? Because it just sounds like, you know, He's just, God just made me this, you know, I just hulk out.
I'm just a beast. God just turned me into this total, you know, just bad dude.
But notice verse 35.
Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation.
A shield's a defensive weapon.
You know, yeah, He's, you know, I can, He made my hands to war, but you know what, He also, He also gave me a shield.
Because no matter who we are, sometimes all you gotta, sometimes all you can do is hold the shield up.
Against the fiery darts of the wicked.
You know, and you're not gonna be out there just swinging and just being a mighty man of war.
Sometimes you just gotta get behind the shield and just say,
Today I'm just gonna hold the shield up and just get through today.
And maybe tomorrow, you know, I'll have a little bit more strength to go out there and actually make some more progress.
But what I'm not gonna do is move that way.
You know, that's the point of the shield, is to not get pushed back.
You know, it's a defensive weapon.
You know, the Christian life isn't just gonna be this full steam ahead, guns blazing, swords swinging, you know, slaying Christian victory all the way to the end.
There's gonna be a lot, there's gonna be seasons, there's gonna be times in our life where it's just like,
Let me just hold this shield up, just give me the strength to just get through this day and just not backslide.
And you know what? That is progress.
When the enemy is trying to push you back, when the flesh is trying to pull you back,
and you manage to hold your ground, that's progress.
Yeah, and when you don't give up ground, that is progress.
Say, Yeah, but I didn't gain any new ground. Yeah, but you didn't give up any either.
Thou hast given me the shield of Thy salvation, and Thy right hand hath holding up Thy gentleness, hath made me great.
You know, sometimes people just need to be encouraged. They need to just be told, Hey, hang in there.
You know, life's long, you got plenty of time to make progress, just hang in there,
and do what you can, and keep making progress, don't give up ground.
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me that my feet did not slip.
That God did that. You know, over time, over holding up that shield, over fighting that battle,
after staying in it, God has built me up, He's taught my hands to war, He's given me strength,
over time, and now my feet are enlarged. I can take these big steps, and I don't slide anymore.
But is that how it started out? Is that how it starts out in Christian life?
No, you start out sometimes losing ground. Don't let that discourage you.
You know, progress often in the Christian life is steady by jerks,
especially on the outset, and some more than for others.
Obviously it's something we want to grow out of, but you know, that is the case for many people,
and what they don't need is people to discourage them, they need to be encouraged.
To be told, Hey, let's keep moving here, let's go do the soul wedding,
let's go do the soul wedding, let me call you, let's go to church, let's keep serving God together,
let's keep making progress. That's what they need.
Not just like, well there they go, I guess they don't love God anymore,
I guess they're just not going to serve. No, don't write them off, encourage them.
I'll close on this, Ephesians tells us to be kind to one another in chapter 4,
Tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
You know, Christ doesn't look down every time we mess up and just say,
What's the point? Why do you even bother? Why do you even try?
Oh, you haven't read your Bible in forever, don't ever read it again, obviously you don't care.
Oh, you haven't been to church in a while, you probably shouldn't even go there,
because is that what God does? No, he forgives us, he's like, it's alright, just start where you left off.
God got us this far, and then we kind of go all over the place,
and then we come to our senses and God says, okay well, this is where you were, this is where we left off,
let's just start there, and we'll see how further we can get,
and hopefully we can keep that trajectory going, but if not, if something happens, God will forgive.
God will help be tender hearted, God will be with us, God will help us to make progress.
You know, because the Christian life, it can be studied by jerks, and that really it is,
in terms of progress. The Christian life should really, it's expected to be studied by jerks,
in terms of progress. We don't need the literal jerks.
The people are going to come along and say, give up, quit, I knew it, I knew it, I knew he didn't have it,
I knew she couldn't hack it. You know, that's not what people need, that's not how God is with us,
that's not how others have been with us. We need to encourage people, we should look at people and say,
you know what, this could be a potential Gideon. You could be talking to the next, you know, a Gideon, spiritually.
Somebody who, through the right encouragement, through the right support, could go on and do great things for God,
I believe that's the case for every single one of us. Let's go ahead and pray.
Dear Lord, again, thank you for your kindness, your patience with us, Lord, your tender mercy.
Lord, thank you, Lord, for being compassionate with each and every one of us,
and not, Lord, just tearing us down every time we make a mistake or misstep, Lord.
And, Lord, that you encourage us and, Lord, to endeavor to keep moving forward.
Lord, I pray it help us to be people that do make progress, Lord,
but to not be discouraged when things don't go right, even if we make mistakes,
Lord, that you would help us to always, Lord, just get back in the saddle and keep serving you,
Lord, so that we can see great things done in our lives, through this church, over the course of a lifetime,
and we ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.
Alright, we'll sing one more song before we go.
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, the truth be not displayed, marching on, marching on.
Lord Christ, well, there with you are lost,
against the ground, empty, tall as steel,
beneath the banner of the cross.
Oh, land, land, sea, land, land, land with life,
make the Lord, Christ, high and tall.
Now the greatest sound ever heard, now the storm is on,
now the Lord shall crack his heart.
Marching on, marching on.
Lord Christ, well, there with you are lost,
against the ground, empty, tall as steel,
beneath the banner of the cross.
When the glory comes, there's no remaining,
may this peace be reminded.
And with your heart they love,
march against the wind,
and the cross the world shall swing.
Marching on, marching on.
Lord Christ, well, there with you are lost,
against the ground, empty, tall as steel,
beneath the banner of the cross.
Marching on, marching on.