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Amen. Right, so we're up to Ezra chapter three in the book of Ezra. I've got in a bit of a habit of reminding people what happened the week before, because it does all go together, doesn't it? You know, the chapter divisions came later and it's good to remember where we were before. In Ezra 2, if anyone's forgotten, we had a very long genealogy. It was a long genealogy which started with God-ordained leadership and then continued with some real strong heads of the family. We talked about that. There were people appointed solely to singing and some solely to being porters, weren't there? And they just inherited that family job, that family job, which you can imagine would have meant they were pretty good at that job, yeah? We then saw some put out of the priesthood because they couldn't prove their genealogy. We talked about how no one today can prove their genealogy, okay? Don't buy into that nonsense, it's impossible. And no one is asked to either because we're children of Abraham through faith in Christ, okay? So it's pointless, done. Genealogies are done away with. And really there, those people couldn't prove that. And how do you prove your genealogy? Now it's faith in Christ, isn't it? That's how we are the children of Abraham. We saw how they wanted to do things decently and in order with a priest standing up with what's known as Urim and Thummim, which are some sort of ornamental things that the priest used to have on his clothing. Then finally, at the end of the chapter, the wealthier men were willing to give of their abundance to get things going. Verse 69 in Ezra 2 said, They gave off their ability unto the treasure of the work, threescore, and one thousand drowns of gold, and five thousand pound of silver, and one hundred priests garments. So the priests, and the Levites, and some of the people, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nethinims, dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities. And then we go into chapter 3 now, verse 1, which says, And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. As always, I'd like to pray before we continue with the chapter. Father, thank you for this book. Thank you for the messages, the lessons we could learn out of this book. Please help me to preach that clearly now. I want everyone to just pay attention, have attentive ears to it, Lord. And help me to just preach accurately now. Help me to be fully in spirit, Lord. Help minimise distractions too, in Jesus' name, for all this. Amen. OK, so why in the seventh month here? So if you're looking at this thinking, oh, what was the point in the seventh month? Well, turn to Leviticus chapter 23. The seventh month is the equivalent of our autumn time. It's sort of September, October time. Leviticus chapter 23 starts with the Lord telling Moses to observe the Feast of the Lord. He talks of the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of First Fruits. These were all in quick succession in Nisan, which is our springtime, sort of April sort of time, yeah? Then the Feast of Weeks, or we know it as Pentecost as well, 50 days later. And then there's this long gap between the three feasts in the seventh month, you know, where they come in in Tish, which is known as Tishri, which is our September, October time. So basically you've got these three, you've got the Pentecost feast, the Feast of Weeks 50 days later, and then you've got a long gap until what we know of as sort of autumn time. Leviticus 23 and verse 23 says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, and a holy convocation? Ye shall do no servile work therein, but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. So that's the Feast of Trumpets. OK, this is what would be in there, sort of Tishri, this is the seventh month. And then it's the Feast of Atonement. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Also on the tenth day of the seventh month, there shall be a day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. Ye shall do no work in that same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God. Now jump forward to verse 33 to then see the Feast of Tabernacles, which we see specifically mentioned in Ezra 3. Verse 33, where you are, says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month, these are in quick succession now to day 15, shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. That's a pretty jam-packed seventh month, isn't it? And although it's not clear if here in Ezra they observed the first two, maybe they did, maybe they didn't. I mean, they definitely kept the Feast of Tabernacles, as we saw in verse four, if you go back to Ezra there, and probably maybe, maybe they did blow the trumpets when they gathered and offered in verses 24 and 20, what we saw from verses 24 and 25 there in Leviticus 23. And maybe before, you know, that verse four where we are in Ezra, maybe they also did the Day of Atonement. I don't really know. But they definitely seem to make a point of, of, you know, the Feast of Tabernacles. And look at Ezra 3.1 again with that in mind says, and when the seventh month was come. So it's important this autumn time when they're gathering and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. So all coming for that seventh month to observe what feasts they could. Then stood up Jeshua, the son of Josadak and his brethren, the priests, and Zerubabel, the son of Shealtiel and his brethren, and buildeth the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. And they set the altar upon his bases, for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. And they offered burnt offerings thereon and to the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. Who built the altar? Was it the dog's bodies? Did the top guys stand and point? No, they led from the front, didn't they? OK, these people led from the front. We remember we looked last week at Zerubabel being in the kingly line, Jeshua being in the line of high priests. And it says in verse two, then stood up Jeshua, the son of Josadak and his brethren, the priests, and Zerubabel, the son of Shealtiel and his brethren, and buildeth the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. And they set the altar upon his bases, for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. They offered burnt offerings thereon and to the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. And I say that because how many so-called sort of churches, organizations, et cetera, where people think, you know, they just kind of sit back and tell people what to do. You have the sort of arch villain somewhere, you know, just kind of points and prods and gets people doing stuff. But we should be leading from the front, shouldn't we? In leadership, you know, I mean, our pastor uses a term that he believes in servant leadership, and that's people that are serving as they lead. And we should be we should be willing to do that, shouldn't we? And it's the same in many areas of life, same in the workplace. If you're leading people, the best way you can do that is by showing by example, isn't it? And, you know, I've been at places I've seen these people before where they literally everyone else does everything. And they're like, oh, no, I just plot and plan for behind the scenes. And it's like, well, you know, you want to it's not that you're doing it to show people, but you should be showing yourself to be working if you're in leadership, shouldn't you? Because it can get hard in the long term to listen to instructions for someone that doesn't actually seem to do that much. And here we see here, Jeshua, the son of Josadak and Zerubabbel, the son of Shealtiel. These are like the two. You've got the spiritual leader and you've got the one in the kingly line, the leader, and they're helping build this altar, aren't they? Yeah, they're getting stuck in. They're working, they're grafting. And that's how it should be, shouldn't it? You're never too, too high up to just get stuck in. And also here you could argue, why did they get involved? Because it's important, isn't it? Important how you build the altar to the Lord in the Old Testament. Yeah, we don't have altars now. I was wondering why we don't do altars because there is no altar in the New Testament. OK, however, here it was important, wasn't it? They want to make sure they get it right. And if, you know, if you're if you're leading things, but you just got no idea what anyone's doing, you're not hands on at all. You don't really have a clue of what it is they're doing. Then you're going to have problems, aren't you? You want to know what people are doing. You want to have an idea. You want to be as hands on as possible to get things done as you want it. These people were hands on. Now, what does it mean to set the altar upon his bases? Well, it sounds to me like they fixed it properly. It wasn't just a temporary altar. That's what I believe. They put some footings in or something similar. That's what the bases are. Because it said of the concern of their enemies, maybe breaking it down. He said it said for fear was upon it said and they set the altar upon his bases for fear was upon them because the people of those countries. So I think they were worried about some sort of sabotage, maybe people coming along, people trying to destroy the work of God. So they made sure they fixed it properly. Right. And, you know, again, I'm going to constantly, as we picture this book, draw the parallels between that and our work here, setting up the house of God in the UK. And when you're planting our sort of church here, you need to plant it on some solid footings, too, don't you? OK, here they're putting it on its bases because of the fear of people trying to tear it down one way or another. Look, our church would be torn down if it wasn't built upon a solid foundation. The solid foundation we build it on is the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of God, isn't it? OK, it has to be built on that. And I say that and you might think, well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it, brother? But listen to the distinguishment here. OK, again, it's not because I'm knocking. Look, there again, there are some great pastors, great people that people have followed and people have listened to and learnt a lot from. Nothing wrong with that. But we're not building our church on pastor you fill in the blank, because if that's what you're building it on, if all you know is, well, he says that, he says to do that, you're just building it on what he's telling you, you're not building it on the word of God. There's a confidence, an extra confidence that comes when what you do comes from the word of God. You have to do your own study. You have to come to your own conclusion. Yeah, we should follow somebody who's following Christ. Nothing wrong with that. However, when you're building a church, you're doing what we're doing. We're not doing it because the NIFB does that, we're doing it because the NIFB is doing what the word of God says to do and preach the gospel and preach the whole counsel of God and stand on the word of God, stand on the King James bubble. But you've got to understand where these things are in the Bible and not just like, oh, yeah, we just do what that church, we just do what that pastor says. That's not building it upon the foundation of the word of God. Does that make sense? Yeah, I hope that you can see the distinguishment there, right? They do it that way. Great. But what we're doing is what the word of God says. And that's why all these people don't, oh, yeah, we're NIFB. Look, yeah. Amen. Great. Yeah, we are an NIFB church. We're not going to deny we're an NIFB church. But ultimately, why are we an NIFB church? Because we believe the word of God. Because the NIFB is as close to a biblical church as there is out there. Those NIFB churches. Yeah, there's going to be minor differences between them. But they're trying to preach the whole counsel of God. They're standing on the word of God. They're out soul winning. They're standing on the King James Bible. They're standing on the key doctrines of the faith. Yeah, and they're men standing behind pulpits who actually have a bit about them to stand there and preach the whole counsel of God, not just kind of pussyfoot around trying not to offend people. And that's the point. It's not because of who they are. It's because of the word of God. Right. And that's what we have to build our church on. And notice here as well, it says, And they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. OK, and that's the thing. If you build a church like this, it's not, oh, well, I build a church like this and, you know, and hopefully things will just work out. Look, you need to be serving God morning and evening if you fear the people of those countries. And when we say fear, yeah, OK, we're not called to fear. But we should have a healthy concern, because the truth is, is that no one else is preaching like this and doing and going out soul winning and standing on the truths of the Bible. So we wouldn't last if we just turned up, did a bit of the hard preaching, but we weren't doing anything else for God. The only, don't get me wrong, we're still going to get attacked. Because I'm not saying that if, you know, the churches are getting grief and having problems. Oh, well, they must just, you know, not be doing work for God. No, they are. We're going to get problems. But God's going to get us through those problems if we're working for him, if we're serving him. So it's like, oh, I just want to hear sodomites preach on every week, but I'm not willing to do anything. I'm not willing to go out and preach the gospel. I'm not willing to go, go and do these extra ministries, try and find things that we can do to make a difference in the nation and ultimately go out and preach the gospel and go and pound the streets and put in time into getting people saved. And it's because we're doing that that therefore we're going to then, we're going to get the protection from God for that. That's what I believe. And here it says, it says here, for fear was upon them because the people of those countries, colon, let's continue that thought. And they offer burnt offerings there unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. So there, look, we've got problems with the people around. We got, OK, look, we got problems. We're going to continue. We will have problems with people around us, OK, and that will grow and grow as we start to make more of a noise in this nation. And because of that, we have to be serving God. Right. We have to be offering those offerings, sacrifices of our time, our ability, you know, giving ourselves to the Lord. Right. It says, it said here, and they offer burnt offerings there unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. Then says in verse four, they kept also the Feast of Tabernacles. As it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom as a duty of every day required. So basically they're doing things properly with the Feast of Tabernacles lasting seven days, a set number of burnt offerings each of those days. OK, they're trying to do things properly, at least with that feast. Verse five says, and afterward offered the continual burnt offering, both of the new moons and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were consecrated and of everyone that willingly offered a free will offering unto the Lord. So they're doing the daily morning and evening offerings, the monthly ones. That's what the new moon ones are. They're observing all of the feasts. They're doing all of the free will offerings. They they just want to worship, don't they? By the looks of it, these people have come back. They just want to worship. They just want to serve. They just want to please God. Yeah, that's what I see there. I see some people that look pretty zealous for God. I talked about this last week, because so often, especially as you kind of get further through the Bible, you just start equating kind of Jews and Israel with sort of curly tasseled, sort of, you know, weird head banging types. They're not the same people. Now, don't get me wrong. Those are ultimately the spiritual descendants of what we have once we get to sort of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ at the start of the kind of New Testament, at least, you know, the start of the gospels from before we go into the New Testament. But that's still 500 plus years from this point. OK, at this point, there's a zealous group that are returning, aren't they? That's what we see here. It says in verse six, From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the Lord, but the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. Now, I preached a sermon out in Ireland about working before you have a church. OK, because I think many people get confused and they think, well, we just deserve a church. Every country should just have a church. But that's not really how it works. Yeah. And I think some people also, you know, they kind of believe that once they have a church, then they'll start doing the work for God. But it doesn't work like that either, does it? OK, you need to work hard ultimately to show that you can have a church. You need to put the graft in to even be in a position and have enough people that are working solid and grafting to be able to sustain when you have a church. Because as everyone knows here, once we got this church, the workload didn't decrease, it increased. And we needed to already be doing stuff, right? And there were many people that were here at the beginning of this that would go off. There were many people that come in and hit the ground running as well. But this sort of message for me is, and again, I'm not really one to preach to YouTube, but we do have people around. We have people in other nations that sadly don't have a church and watch our sermons. We have people that will come here and visit sometimes as well that don't. And all of those out there without a church, they need to work. These people didn't at this point have the temple. They're offering to burn offerings unto the Lord. They're offering to the Lord. You could, the analogy would be our time and effort. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. OK, and for all those who watch out here, who are watching us online, maybe visiting sometime, etc., if they want a church, they need to work and graft. OK, and here's the thing. If you're able to motivate without a church, great. A lot of people can't, because it's hard, isn't it? A lot of people need that kick up the bum from the church to go out and do stuff. And it's a great thing that we have a church to do that. But for those that are able to motivate and able to do things, great. But if you're not, then you need to move to a church. What you don't want to be is one of these people that just sits in the sort of spiritual wilderness and we're going, well, I've only had a church. Never mind, I'll just watch online. And that's about the extent of their spiritual sacrifice. That's the extent of their offerings. No, if you don't have a church, either work to get a church and that means network, get out, soul winning, try and find people in the area to preach the gospel, get people meeting, meet regular on Sunday. It's like if you don't have a job. We often say this, I've heard this preached before as well, is that if you don't have a job, you should be spending 40 hours a week at least looking for a job, shouldn't you? Yeah, like why wouldn't you? Oh, I don't have a job, so I just kind of put my feet up and just hope it will magically appear. No, you put the graft in to get a job. But it should be the same with a church, isn't it? If you don't have a church, you should be putting the work in, but you would do it at church. Your Sundays aren't a day off, your Sundays are right. I need to be listening to preach. I need to be getting out of soul winning. I need to be networking. I need to be finding other people. I need to really do that on a Wednesday evening as well. And maybe even add, let's add a midweek soul winning session in there to boot as well. OK, that should go without saying, shouldn't it? And if you're unable to do that, then you need to get in church. And maybe you could go back to that area in the future if you think that there's a call for a church there. But look, there's not a call for a church everywhere. There's not the right lantern, not the right people in every area of the world for a church. There needs to be believers, people there. And yeah, you could go and plant a church and build it up slowly. But that's very hard. It's very difficult. And it's not as we know, just because you're getting people saved doesn't mean they're going to suddenly be a good church member, does it? So here they began to offer burnt offerings under the law. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. Not having the temple was not an excuse for them to do nothing, was it? OK, they were they were offering those burnt offerings. But Sarah says they gave money also unto the Masons and to the carpenters and meat and drink and all unto them of Zidon, to them of Tyre to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the Sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus, King of Persia. Now, the Sidonians were renowned for their carpentry skills. And the point with that is what we see here is that it's one thing being a hands on leader, OK? And I believe in all areas of leadership, you should be a hands on leader. There's no point having a soul winning captain, for example, that, you know, only does it now and again and doesn't really go soul winning, for example. There's no point having someone who's preaching behind the pulpit, right, we all got to do this, serve the Lord, go out and preach the gospel. If I then just go and put my feet up and don't do it, it's never going to last like that. But on the same hand, sometimes you need to bring the experts in as well, don't you? Makes me think of some of you kind of get eternal DIYers sometimes who are kind of like, there's nothing they won't try and do themselves. But there are certain jobs where they just make a pig's ear of it. You know, certain jobs where I remember when I used to go and do landscape, you'd turn up and it'd be like, oh, yeah, well, he did try and do this job. And then you look, you're like, what on earth? Literally just cost you now a load more money to get it redone because they weren't really capable. They didn't really know what they were doing. They just bodged it. Yeah. And here they're bringing in the masons, the carpenters, that unto them as I did them a tie. They brought in cedar trees from levels they brought in good material stuff. Why? Because the House of the Lord is important, isn't it? Again, the people in to do the work, like, for example, here, we got plumbers in to run to get the urinals, to get the toilet set up, to get, you know, all this piping going around here. And it cost a bit of money, right? However, it was important because what we didn't want to do is bodge it and go, I'll just DIY it and end up with leaks everywhere, end up with problems, end up with some sort of macerator with the toilet constantly breaking and all sorts of issues. And sometimes you need to just get people in that know what they're doing. You need to make that call. Here they did with this sort of thing. And obviously, the House of the Lord functioning properly is important. Verse eight says, Now in the second year of their coming unto the House of God at Jerusalem, in the second month began Zerubabbel, the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua, the son of Josadak, and a remnant of their brethren, the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem. And appointed the Levites from 20 years old and upward to set forward the work of the House of the Lord. Now, in case you're wondering, because I mentioned this last week, the Levites start their service at 20. OK, they could serve those that worked in the Tabernacle of Congregation at 25 years old. So they could serve those that are working in that. However, they had to be 30 years old to serve in the Tabernacle of Congregation. OK, so there were distinctives. Again, there are rules. God has rules and he has good reasons probably for those rules. You can probably think it's probably a mature man's, a more mature man's job to be actually serving in the Tabernacle of Congregation, as opposed to the general work of the Levites. Yeah, but again, that wasn't a child's job either. They had to be 20 years old and upwards. They had to be a man in God's eyes to do that. And then at 25, they're able to serve those that are in Tabernacle of Congregation. Because even that, it's all important jobs and there's stipulations. And we talked about this obviously at length last week, about the stipulations for certain roles in the church. It's not just arbitrary. They're not just random rules. Oh, yeah, well, if they've got a wife and a kid, it's probably all right. You know, as long as they matter. Well, maybe not. As long as they preach, well, look, it doesn't matter. God puts rules there for a reason. It's not, oh, we're not there to question it and bend them. We just follow God's rules, don't we? OK, and here they're getting to work building the house of the Lord, aren't they? These people. And it says, Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Cadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah together to set forward the workmen in the house of God, the sons of Henedad with their sons and their brethren, the Levites. So these guys, their sons, their brothers are all getting stuck in, aren't they? Now, the sons are getting involved. But obviously, like we said, with the Levites, they need to be 20 and upwards to be getting to be basically Levites to qualify for being part of that service of God. Yeah. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph with symbols to praise the Lord after the ordinance of David, King of Israel. And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good for his mercy endureth forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praise the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. So they're shouting and praise the Lord because the foundation was laid, because the footings were laid, because the foundation, the bottom part, the strong part of the temple was laid. And although they hadn't finished, this is a very tough part of the job. So if we just look at this for what it is. I remember when I first did a driveway and you know, I got actually at the time I hadn't driven a little mini digger before. So I thought I'll just get because I started trying to dig up some of the drama. I thought this is tough. Yeah. Middle of summer as well. I thought I'll get one of these man with a digger guys in. Yeah. So this this fella comes along and he he was, oh yeah, do it in a day. Yeah. And he suddenly he literally just pulled up the top surface of this concrete. Yeah. And this was this is my dad's driveway. He said, OK, yeah, I want to get you can learn how to do it. Dig up my driveway and lay in your driveway. Now, he just pulled up the very top surface and said, oh, you'll be fine. Lay it on top of that. But he literally pulled up about two, three inches. So he was just saying, just shove something. The driveway was all cracked and sinking and everything else. And really, he was trying to bodge it. He was just saying, oh, you'll be fine. He didn't really want to stay any longer. He tried to get away from it early. Oh, yeah, I pulled up all the concrete and everything else. Yeah. However, when I started kind of looking into it more and understanding I needed to dig a lot more. So I ended up hiring a digger myself, learned how to use it, managed to smash my parents front windows and managed to start digging up this this digging up this this driveway and going down the necessary depth. And a good rule of thumb with drivers or some used to try and skim it at four inches, which is like 100mm, 150mm was strong. Yeah. And that driveway is still there to this day. Now, the reason being because I dug deep, but that's hard. And without mechanical diggers, that's hard. And that was just a driveway. OK, that was just a normal residential driveway. Let alone for a huge temple. Yeah, it's a lot of work. Yeah. And that's the hardest part of the job. And this guy was like, skim it off, shove it down. And you see that all over the place with driveways, especially people that just do bare minimum. They can do it cheap. They get the money. And within weeks, you start seeing the tyre tracks where it sinks, where they've been driving on it because they haven't put the footings in. But if you're going to do a job properly and when you build the Temple of the Lords, you don't want to come along with a little little skim of the top and shove in just a bit of kind of cheap, quick, you know, what you call sub base and then shove on the top of it after a couple of inches because it's a house of God. It's important. They've just made a point of getting in the top guys for the carpentry, for the stonemasonry. They're not now going to skimp on the foundations. And the point, though, is it's obviously it's obviously an important job. Yeah. And on top of that, by the way, it's not just that they were digging down and you're going, well, didn't they already have the foundations there? Well, it wasn't. They didn't use crushed concrete at this point. Oh, they were using a lot of the time expensive stones that were quarried to lay as a sub base. We see Jesus Christ. We're going to see that in a minute being described as a chief cornerstone. Yeah, they used very strong rock, strong stones to be their foundation. And some of those would probably have to be brought in. And also because they're building upwards from that, it's not just, oh, we just shove something else on the top now. No, because it's all part of the foundation. And for me, it seems like they're putting a lot of probably whatever version of brick work. We use bricks now for these sort of things, blocks, et cetera, probably beneath ground level as well. So they're going to dig away a lot of what was there. They're going to have to reset, relay things, get stones in for it. That's why they got these masons coming in as well. Now turn to Ephesians chapter two to get an understanding of our New Testament building. OK, and there is some, you know, there's obviously some work involved with the footings and foundations here, although the initial one requires no work. So what's our foundation? First Corinthians 3.11, well, you'll turn to Ephesians two says, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. OK, there's no other foundational footing for a New Testament church than the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the sub base, if you like. OK, without that, it's all going to sink. Without that, it's going to collapse. Without that, but without that strong concrete footing, it's all done. OK, it will not last. Our foundation is faith in Christ, OK? And most churches in inverted commas because they call themselves churches on the outside around have no foundation. And spiritually, they're built not just on sand. They're built on quicksand, really, spiritually. Now, they might last in terms of in the world's eyes, but spiritually, without faith in Jesus Christ, they're just a tumbling spiritual house. OK, they're not going to last at all. And, you know, you say that and you go, well, you know, really, because I see these church like, look, they're not. They're a joke. They're a mess. Spiritually, they're not doing anything. They're not serving anyone. They're not getting anyone saved. They're not doing any of the things of God because they really they're just like this collapsing house. They're on sinking sand because they don't have that foundation that, well, for other foundations, no man later than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. That was 1 Corinthians 3.11 again. So without faith, without the right gospel, OK, it's no spiritual house. I say that because of the amount of repent of your sins churches. They're not churches. And it's something, again, I preached it the other week and it's like you just feel like you need to keep preaching this. I've got a friend who who was looking for a church while he's out across in Cyprus, and he'd found this church and he sent me he sent me it and said, oh, what do I think of this? And it looked all right at first. King James, you know, they blah, blah, blah, this and that. The guy was an English speaker. And and I looked it up because all they had was a Facebook channel. And straight away, it was something like debunking once saved. Oh, so something like this. And I just said to him, you know, said, no, work salvation. Now, the problem is with many people in life is you can give them as much advice as they ask for. And do they listen? So he turns up there. Well, I spoke to the guy. Seems all right. You know, it's not like these other false churches I've been in. I speak to the other day. I said, look, it's not we're not trying to compare it to the C of E church. That's what he was compared to. I said, these people are they sound right, don't they? They sound like they got the you know, they got it right. They dress like us. They talk like us. You know, the guy was even because I looked on a quick clip and he's even talking about because I couldn't remember what I'd found because I couldn't actually remember what I found. I just remember saying to him, I'm sure it's a work salvation. I can't remember why I knew that. And they even had a clip talking about talking about replacement theology. I mean, you're thinking, wow, an IFB church actually saying that we've been grafted in, etc. Because I looked at something because it said he was quoting. I think it's quoting John 8, where he said, if you continue my word, then you might decide to do. I thought, oh, we might get the gospel out of him here. His version of because there's no statement of faith. Oh, I'm surprised. No statement of faith. Anyway, by it being I emailed him last night for my friend and he replied back that I said, do you have a statement of faith? It's on our website. However, a quick summary, blah, blah, blah. Salvation is by repenting and believing in Jesus and showing fruits meet for repentance. Now, when they now you could argue, you could go, well, he might just mean showing fruits as in saying, well, you know what the gospel is. But why would you put that in your statement of faith if you believed its grace through faith? I mean, you might highlight and go repenting means, you know, changing your mind for what you did believe to faith in Christ, turning from your false gods to faith in Jesus Christ. Maybe, you know, turning from works of it. However, he wants to explain it away. But you don't just add it and then go, oh, yeah, freaks meet for repentance. What on earth is that? So I sent it to my friend and said, there you go. The point being that is that a church? Oh, it looks like a church. Sounds like a church. It acts like a church. But it's probably a definite repenting your sins church. OK, and that's and that's what it was. Yeah. And the point being that they're just on sinking sand, aren't they? And that guy might might get some people coming along there, but it's not a church. It doesn't have the right gospel. But but there's more to it than just a cornerstone to just the gospel, isn't there? To faith in Jesus Christ. The foundations, by the way, go up to above eye level. So often when I was first reading this, thinking foundation, you're just thinking down under the ground. Well, Revelation 21, 19 that says of the New Jerusalem and the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was Jasper, the second Safir, the third at Chalcedony, the fourth and emeril. So so why have they got all these precious stones? I'd imagine because you can probably see it. You can see the foundations. And I think sometimes maybe and I might be wrong, but I believe when we talk about foundation, we're talking about sort of the very like base level from underground to probably sort of maybe I'm guessing knee high. I don't know. OK, something like that. So you can have a great sub base. You can have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can have that cornerstone. Right. And then instead of using a slab of concrete, you then use something soft. Yeah. So I've got faith in Christ. That's it, isn't it? Right. Church done because you've got the right gospel. No, because, for example, back to driveways, there are people that get all the sub base right. And then they lay the driveway or the patio on some soft sand. And what happens with soft sand? It just starts sinking and dispersing and moving about underneath any sort of pressure. You've got to use the sharp sand. Yeah. Or you've got to use some sort of good strong mortar mix. Right. And it's the same with some sort of temple as well. You can lay your cornerstone, your very sub base. But what's on top of that? And that for me is what's happened with many of the previous churches here that were built on faith in Christ. They had the faith. They had the right gospel. What did they put on top? Because look at Ephesians 2 and verse 19. It says, Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. So Jesus Christ is the initial cornerstone. But the apostles and prophets are also part of the foundation. How do we make the apostles and prophets the foundation of our church? The word of God. It's King James Bible. That's that's where we find the apostles and prophets. It's the word of God. And so many churches have basically opted for some sort of false gimmick, foundation stones, haven't they? Some sort of false version, some sort of fake sort of brick, some sort of crumbling brick, some sort of just just joke bricks, something that maybe looks like it. But in fact, it's just going to collapse. Right. Or they've they've only put maybe some of the stones in. So you've got those who maybe, yeah, oh no, we're King James Bible, right? Yeah, yeah, we got we got the chief cornerstone, but we just kind of put we'll put one stone there, one stone there, one stone. Basically, they pick and choose. They're picking and choosing the parts of the Bible that they like, that they're confident to preach, that they're happy to talk about. But then they're removing the other bits. Right. And what's going to happen to a church like that? It's going to crumble. It's going to collapse. It's going to fall because it has to be the whole lot. It's the whole word of God, isn't it? Every word of God is pure. Not just the bits that jive with today in the world. Not just the bits that won't get heat on you. Not just the bits that won't, you know, upset your your Bible college, you know, overlords. Yeah, they're Bible college overlords, aren't they? Yeah, not or you're kind of your denominational types, because, well, we kind of call ourselves this or that. Look, none of that matters. It has to be built with every single brick, doesn't it? Every single part of it. Second Peter 1.21, you don't have to turn there, you're in Ephesians 2.19. But second Peter 1.21 says, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. See, it's not just one prophet. I like that prophet. I don't like that one. I like that bit of that prophet. I don't like that bit of that one. It's all, all of it is of the Holy Ghost, isn't it? And that's that has to be a foundation of our church. That's why our church will only really do real things for God. And that's that's why all these churches. And I'm not just talking about things like, look, one being, we're all going to be off on certain things. I'm going to be off on certain things, certain interpretations. Everyone is, OK? Don't get, look, your favorite pastor is going to be off on things. OK, that's life. Yeah, none of us are perfect. We're just people, right? However, however, you have to be standing on the word, though. And that's why all these guys, it just goes so off. Those churches are a mess. Oh, well, well, what's that got to do with soul winning? A lot. It's got a lot because the whole church has to be built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And it's all of God and it's key to a strong church. So remember that the next time you just want a worldly speech because people get their heads turned by that stuff. Next time, they just want a really smooth, worldly speech, a real ear tickler. Look, it doesn't matter. Yeah. That stuff's junk. We're preaching the word of God here, aren't we? We've got to stand upon the word of God. Next time you think, oh, not another Bible study because people get like that, don't they? Does it sound exciting, that sermon title, Ezra three? It doesn't matter because it's all the word of God, isn't it? And the thing is, if all you ever did was topical sermons, you can ultimately just a lot of the time be preaching what you want to preach, not what the Bible is calling you to preach. When you choose books, you don't have a choice, do you? To some degree, OK? Obviously, you can expand what you want and not. But you still got to preach through. Next time your head is turned by the self-styled intellectual false prophet with his extra biblical knowledge. There's a lot of those around, aren't there? But that's not what makes a great church. What makes a great church is the word of God. Not all the facts and figures around the word of God. Yeah. The foundation for the house of God is faith in Christ, the real Christ, by the way, followed by the apostles and prophets, the real inspired, preserved word of God. Yeah. But is that it? Is that is that it then? Is that now the house of God built? No, because that's still just the foundations and the footings. Ephesians two and verse 19 says this. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God and are built. That's you. That's all of us are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together growth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for inhabitation of God through the spear. So everyone here is a part of that building. And and look, we're all part of the building. We're all part of this church building. It's not about this this industrial building. It's not about where we are. It's about the people here, isn't it? OK, it's about that. And and even if it's just to do something that they were doing back in Ezra chapter three, you're a part of that building. Let's see what they were doing back in as a three and verse 10. Ezra three, 10 says this. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with symbols to praise the Lord after the ordinance of David, King of Israel. Look, we're all priests now. OK. And what are they doing? What the priests doing here? They're praising the Lord and what they're praising him for. Well, you could argue here. Just the foundation alone is cause for praising God, isn't it? Just the foundation. Just faith in Jesus Christ alone is the cause for praising God. Just what that faith really is. Just what he did for us is cause enough to praise God, isn't it? He saved us and he likes the singing to it. Doesn't it? God likes the singing to it. And you might go, well, you know, I'm just not a big fan of all the singing stuff. Well, tough. He wants you to sing to him. Yeah, it doesn't matter whether you like it or not. He likes it. Yeah. What if what if, you know, it's your your birthday and your kids are just like, I don't like singing, you know, and you and you know, the other kids start singing happy birthday. One is like, not really for me. You'd probably be a bit annoyed with that kid, wouldn't you? Like, it's my birthday, you little brat. I like you singing to me on my birthday. Or the other kids are singing daddy's so great. This never happens for me. But if it ever did, I still dream of this, you know, daddy's so great. But one of them's just not having it. You know, how dare you? But we're called to sing to God. He loves it. He likes hearing his children sing to him. Right. And it's also good for us as well. I've talked about this before. Look, when you're praising God, it kind of stops you being full of yourself a lot of the time. It stops you praising yourself because you're giving the praise to God. There's much we get from that. But that's something we should all be doing. And even that alone makes us part of the building, doesn't it? OK, that's one of the purposes of us being here singing to him. Verse 11 says, and they sang together by course in praising, giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good for his mercy endureth forever toward Israel. And by the way, not the charlatans in Israel now. This applies to us. This is talking about us. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praise the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. That's a good reason to be shouting and singing, isn't it? Yeah, the foundation of the house, the Lord being being laid there. And it says here, but many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who were ancient men that had seen the first house when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice and many shouted aloud for joy. Do you know what makes me think of this? When you look at that, it makes me think of those of us that have been around the block a bit here and those of us that have been, you know, over the years seeking a church in this nation, seeking somewhere we can at least just put up with, just call a church and be part of and everything else. And just, you know, somewhere. Look, many, many people here were willing to put up with the little jibes about soul winning, were willing to put up with the pre-trib rapture every week. Were willing to put up with Zionism every week. Five prayers to Israel in a service, Bethel Baptist and other such like things. Yeah, many of us were trying to put up with stuff as long as we think they got the gospel, as long as they got the King James, as long as they're at least trying to, you know, at least got some form of outreach. We can at least say this is a church. But wasn't it great to finally have a biblical church here? For those that have been around and been looking to finally have somewhere just built on the chief cornerstone, on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, because those places, you tried to see the best, didn't you? But ultimately, you just were always disappointed, weren't you? And you could try and be stoic with it and try, yeah, no, you know, at least kind of you mentioned grace for faith that week, you know. But but it was always just kind of felt like a losing battle, didn't it? So many of these places. And it was, you know, when we when this church opened, it was just, wow, you know, we've got people here, we've got a load of people you could just talk on a level to about soul winning without waiting for someone to go, you don't do the saving, you know, to just be able to talk about the King James Bible being the preserved word of God without them trying to kind of trying to discredit you somehow or weaken you or something, to just be able to talk about, you know, the truths of the Bible, about the wicked world we see, to be able to just talk about homeschooling, you know, just dressing normally all the stuff, which should just be normal conversation, which instead you felt like you just had like walking on eggshells with people at these places to just have someone stand behind the pulpit, you know, going, when is he going to drop the work salvation into it? When is he going to drop the damnable heresy? And if you are sitting there thinking that, well, good luck to you. You can wait a long time, you know, because it ain't happening. All right. But look, that's where a lot of us have been. And these people here, they've been in the captivity, haven't they? They've been in Babylon. They've been under under that Babylonian rule in in Babylon, just like, when are we going to when when will we ever get back? Now, those of them that knew the word, they would have known that Jeremiah had said 70 years. I don't know how many of them did, but it was great here to have that. And with that, when the work gets hard, the flesh fights back, because the flesh does fight back often about the spiritual life, about living for God, about church life. When the spiritual battle rages, and it does, believe me, the battle rages to try and destroy this church, destroy the work we're doing, destroy everything. When all that happens, it's a good thing to remember where we were before. Don't forget where you came from. I'm going to preach a sermon on that. But don't don't forget what it was like in exile, what it was like without the church. Don't forget that when the lure, the temptation of backsliding just just into nothing, just just keeps just tempting you, attempting you, because it will. It will. Don't forget that, because I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to be back in Babylonian captivity with a pastor that speaks cowdy. Because that's what it seemed like a lot of the time. They seem to speak cowdy, repentance cowdy or something similar. Yeah. And I don't want to be back there. You know, we're all a part of this. We're a part of this building. We're part of the the maintaining of this building. We're a part of keeping it going. And that's praying for each other, that's strengthening each other. That's turning up to church, being there, being a part of that, you know, being a being a help to everyone here. And it could easily happen that, like I said, the devil wants his church destroyed. OK, he does, and he'll work through different. He'll work through his people. He'll work through. Sadly, he'll sometimes even be able to work through God's people as well, foothold in some sort of wickedness, some sort of sin or something else. And don't we don't want to we don't want to be back to where we were. OK, trying to justify repenting your sins, Baptist, because you didn't say that week or trying to justify. And that's sadly where a lot of people were before. Verse 13 says so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout and the noise was heard afar off. And we want to make sure that our noise is heard afar off, too. OK, we want to make the noise of this church heard, don't we? But how we make the noise that church heard, it's not because we're bitter and angry at the world. It's not we don't want. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I know that short foundation Baptist, because they're all just walking around moaning and, you know, going on about, you know, the latest conspiracy or anything else. Or look, if you're when you're out and you're talking about our church or any of you that have your social media, any channels or anything like that, then you're representing the church. Don't forget that. Yeah, when we go to the it's not just going to the care home. You represent the church. We represent the church every time we go soul winning. Every time you knock on someone's door, you're representing Shaw Foundation Baptist Church. Don't forget that, OK? We're not there to go and pick fights to have rows to look. Sometimes it will come every blue moon if you're just getting in rows and people are just you're just coming away, like having to say hard words to people, everything else. Something's going wrong. And you're not a good representation of our church then. And I will like, you know, with that, you know, something I will now and again have to pull people back from soul winning. If that kind of just becomes just a constant thing, because we should be going out now and again, you're going to get problems. But the rest of the time, we should just be going out politely, leaving a good taste of people's hope. They don't want to hear it. We move on and have to start going. You do know you're going to hell, you know, all that sort of stuff. And believe me, that stuff happens with churches. But but it should also not be because we're holier than nails either. People can be like that, can't they? We don't want to get a name for being. We don't want to shout our noise to be because we're holier than nails, because we're just constantly trying to show people how, you know, how holy we are and our our living standards and everything else. That's not what we want to be known for. Now, people accuse you of that. Just if you preach the Bible, they'll accuse you of that. Just if you if you and your family kind of try and dress appropriately. But we don't want it to be because we're pushing that on to other people. Right. Why do we want what do we want to be now? Turn to Psalm five. What do we want that noise heard afar off to be? Well, here's one thing about the joy, the joy of serving Christ. How about that? Wouldn't it be nice if people went, yeah, that that Shaw Foundation Baptist Church has some happy people in there. That's some joyful people with the joy of the Lord. They're not people constantly moaning, constantly whinging, constantly complaining. They're just people that just seem to be happy, happy. And I say that because this has happened now a few times. And this isn't a reproof because like in a few different situations now, that's been something that our church is getting known for. The most recent one was on our way back from Ireland. And you had a plane, a late night plane full of people just scowling, silent, angry, and then you got a load of independent fundamental Baptists laughing, joking, having fun to the point where when we got on the horrendous long stay bus, yeah, where they charge you about a hundred quid to park your car for a day and a half. And then you have to queue up and get on. I mean, this was this was the only thing that was lacking was people on the roof. OK, it was ridiculous. You crammed on, squeezed on the people. Clearly not enough buses for their ridiculously expensive service. And the only people you can hear on the bus, everyone else, you just saw it. This is the independent fundamental Baptist chatting, joking, having a laugh. At one point we even broke out of the song. We did. What was it? Bring them in or something. But because we're just full of the joy of the Lord, weren't we? Full of the joy of going out soul winning in another in another area to get on a plane to the point where some guy actually said, and it's a bit of a bizarre thing that he asked. Have you guys just been on a stag do? We're like, no, we're Christians. We've been soul winning. That was the truth. That's the truth. Is that the truth? Who was on that bus with me? Yeah, that was the truth. Right. OK, and that's how it should be. That's how it should be. People should just see you and take note and go, there's some happy people. Because isn't it a joyful thing to serve the Lord? Isn't it a joyful thing to be saved? Isn't it a joyful thing to have a church where you can serve the Lord, where you can be around like minded people? And that's something we should be known for, shouldn't it? Let alone going out and preaching the gospel. Psalm five and verse eight says, Psalm five eight says, Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness, because of mine enemies, make thy way straight before my face. Look, there are a lot of enemies out there, but it's not a reason to be glum. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their inward part is very wickedness. Their throat is an open sepulchre. They flatter with their tongue. So you've got the wicked out there. And I'm not talking about the people who are just, you know, trying to flatter and everything else. And that's not the sort of joy I'm talking about. Let's see verse 10. Destroy thou them, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee. Look, there's some strong parts of the Bible. And maybe you're not like grinning and smiling and chuckling while you read these bits. Sometimes you might be, OK? And that's your own issues there. But verse 11, it says, but let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them. Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous. With favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. And that's a reason to be joyful, isn't it? That's a reason to have joy. That's a reason to let other people see that joy. We should be rejoicing that we put our trust in him. We should be ever shouting for joy because he defends us. Look, those wicked people out there, you wouldn't have a chance without God defending you. Let's shout for joy about that. Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. If you love the Lord, look, be joyful in him as well. We could be serving, you know, we couldn't be as blessed as we are to be serving such an amazing, awesome God. An awesome God that does so much. He could just leave us to it. And we could all be just cannon fodder for everyone, let alone salvation. I mean, just the whole thing. We serve this amazing God and the God, the one true God, we serve, let's have some joy in that, yeah? And he will bless the righteous with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. And you might go, oh, I don't see how that's working. Look, believe me, the stuff we teach, preach, and the way we live in this world, you shouldn't even last five minutes. You should be getting rounded up and banged up probably. Really, yeah? However, we're still compassed with favour. To be able to do that, we're able to live how God wants us to, to get the blessings of doing that, and still get the favour, still being able to actually survive and live in this world, yeah? And all of that is a great reason for joy. And here it says that the people in verse 13, back in Ezra chapter three, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of weeping. And the weeping is with joy of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout and the noise was heard afar off, yeah? And that's something I hope that people can maybe try and just remind, if you remember nothing else in this verse, the joy that these people sought from basically being a part of the building of the temple of God. Yeah, and everyone here is a part of the building of the church of God in this nation. And I know we all think that the end times are coming any minute, but we don't know that, okay? For all we know, we could have centuries, and this could be the start of something amazing in this nation. It's not just kind of a last stand at the end. We could end up with churches everywhere for this, and make a real difference here. And I see in this nation, just quickly before I finish it, I see some pretty good sort of, what could I say, at least a good landscape for churches here. I see a nation that didn't do anywhere near the amount of restrictions that pretty much everywhere else in the world did. The US, you still can't get in without a vaccine. I mean, I thought everyone had proven that the vaccine doesn't stop you getting it, that the vaccine's dangerous, but yet still the US are clinging on, right? I don't know. And that was a nation we used to look under free, oh, the freedom of the US. Finally, we were out in the States. Whew, I'm glad we're not. Really, you know, and I'm seeing some changes here. And I'm seeing a nation here where, look, there seems to be more and more ability to live for our faith. They recently, by the way, stopped them bringing an unbiblical lack of chastisement ban on families. They wouldn't have it in England. Okay, the Scots don't really count and they would do the Welsh anyway. But England still seems to be, at least they agree with biblical parenting to some degree here. The homeschool laws here are very friendly. Okay, it's pretty free and easy with homeschooling here as well. There's a lot of stuff here that makes it easier to live your faith than the majority of nations in the world. And praise God, we have a church here as well. We have a church, we have a load of people here that are willing to serve the Lord and hopefully we're gonna have more churches in this nation in the future. And many nations, sadly, you can't see that happening, can you? But we need to keep working, we need to keep grafting, we want God to keep blessing us in this nation, blessing us with the ability to serve him here as well. And we should be shouting for joy that he's basically planted more than the foundations. We have a house of God here. And we have a house of God. On that, let's pray. Father, thank you for, well, for, you know, just the many lessons, many examples we get from the Old Testament, even, you know, as late as the book of Ezra, you know, was in the period of time to still give us examples of planting the house of God, planting in this nation. Thank you for the many lessons we're getting from this book, the many, many verses of encouragement and the many things that we could take from this to help us with our walk here, with what is a hard job here, but a very fulfilling job. Help us to get the joy from that, that we should, that you want us to take. Help us to appreciate everything you've done for us here, everything you continue to do for us here. Help us to take that joy into our week, to show, you know, to be a shining light to others with the joy that we can get from life, knowing that you're with us, that you bless us, that we're children of yours, Lord. And help us also to, you know, show how other people can be, not only saved, can be a child of God, but also try and encourage people to get involved with the work that we're doing here as well. And Lord, we pray that you help everyone to get home safe and sound, to return on Wednesday, and if not on Sunday, for another day in your house. In Jesus' name, for all this. Amen.