Well, certainly good morning to you.

I want to thank Pastor Mark for inviting me to come up and be here and open the scriptures with you this morning.

And as we look around in the world, I can imagine that each of us could use an encouraging word for sure.

It's, in the earlier service, it was just refreshing to actually sing in public the battle

hymn of the Republic.

I thought, I wonder if they'll sing that in the capital of Washington, D.C. ever again.

And which, again, is a reminder that hymn was produced in 1861 during the Civil War.

And you think, you know, we love our country. We do. And yet we look around and we see how far our country is from that culture that would

embrace a song like that, incorporating not only the patriotism of how our country was founded,

but the truths of God's worth. And we know that America is not the solution to man's problem.

Jesus is.

But yet, it's certainly right to sing about God and country.

And so today, as we look around, we see that at least currently, our country is not headed in a good direction.

But the other question that we sang about this morning,

which I want to help us to see, is in the midst of all the chaos in the world, do we truly

believe that God is on the throne? Amen. And so as we see the world and our country heading in what we would certainly call

the wrong direction, we know that God has a purpose and a plan for everything that he's doing,

and ultimately, and it's getting closer and closer, his goal is to send his son, Jesus Christ,

to come back and to rule the world in righteousness.

And that's the hope, that's the goal.

And in the meantime, we're called to stay busy.

We are to occupy until Jesus comes.

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