You are my reliance, my strength.

I beg You. Please answer my prayer.

O Lord, where are You?

Now I am puzzled and confused.

I cannot feel Your presence.

But, without Your guidance,

how am I to be a good shepherd to my flock?

O Lord. I am forever in Your debt truly.

Brothers and sisters can’t receive any supply.

They hunger and thirst and their faith grows cold.

Some no longer attend the services, distracted by the world.

But I’m unable to support them, because I am weak.

O Lord. Where are You?

Please have mercy on me … and give me strength.

Lord. May You revive the church…

Better go to bed. You’ll catch a cold here...

I just can’t write my sermon. So how can I sleep?

But didn’t you buy many books about preaching?

I did, but they aren’t inspiring.

My spirit’s dry. I have nothing to preach about.

Give it time. It’ll get better.

And soon you’ll be back to normal.

To be truthful, when I preach, the eager faces of my flock all around me…

I have nothing new to preach. And it just feels…

They are listening to me out of courtesy.

And it makes me feel like I’m so very guilty.

I can’t really minister to them.

You should go back to sleep.

But I must finish my sermon.

I’ve got to prepare for the service I’m leading tomorrow.

Yes, but please not all night.

I’m worried that your health is getting worse.

I know. You sleep first.

All right.

Brothers and sisters,

no matter where we might be,

we should be light and salt.

Same old thing again.

Glorify the Lord’s name. (I know what you mean.)

Obey the Lord’s teaching.

I don’t want to come back.

Be humble and patient. (No enjoyment at all. You said it.)

Love your enemies... (It’s the same every week.)

How has everybody been progressing

with the daily Bible reading plan?

Please read the Bible according to the daily plan.

For the manna God prepared for the Israelites

is what the Bible is like.

It is the spiritual bread we eat. It strengthens us.

Just as Luke 1:37 says,

So, if we don’t read the Bible,

we’ll be thirsty and hungry in spirit.

Brothers and sisters,

keep reading the Bible, and you’ll be strong.

And now one final message.

Please open your Bibles and turn them to Acts 1:11.

I’ll read it with you.

From this verse we can see

in the end time, the Lord will appear in the spirit

and take us into heaven.

Yes! That’s right!

And so, we should wait for Him with faith.

He never fails His promise.

Amen!

But in the end time,

like a lion, the devil prowls around us,

it is searching, searching for someone it can devour.

Yes.

Especially the “Eastern Lightning.”

Preaching everywhere that the Lord

has returned to this world in the flesh.

We know this is impossible!

Right. Yes.

He’ll come in the Spirit.

And He will not come in the flesh!

Amen. That’s right. Yeah.

So then we should all be as wise virgins.

Stay in our home church.

Amen!

We all must be watchful and wait for the Lord to return.

Or otherwise we’ll be like the people we find in Ephesians 4:14.

We should both read the Bible and pray more.

This concludes today’s service.

Amen!

Pastor Chen, my husband’s having those headaches again.

Please pray that he’ll recover.

Pastor Chen, my son is going abroad.

Please pray and ask the Lord to bless his trip.

Brothers and sisters, let us stand and pray.

The sermon was boring. I didn’t enjoy it.

I think you’re right.

It’s just the same old sermon again and again.

There’s nothing new.

Coming to the service doesn’t solve any problems.

I’m getting tired of it.

Do you think we can really enter the kingdom of heaven?

Sister, you can’t say that.

Didn’t Pastor Chen tell us?

We will all be raptured when the Lord returns.

I might stop coming.

I’ve so many things to do at home, I just feel that…

Hey, Pastor Chen.

Hi. You’re all still here.

Hey, Pastor Chen, you’re leaving now?

Yeah. It’s cold out here. You’d better head home.

See you later.

Sister Gao, you’re still here?

Pastor Chen.

Mm-hm.

I’m disturbed.

I just don’t know how to be after the Lord’s heart.

So I need your advice.

Thank the Lord.

May He lead us. Please explain your problem.

Our factory has had so much work.

My husband has asked me to come and help him.

That means I wouldn’t have time to take care of the service,

which has made me struggle with which I should be doing.

Sister Gao, you know that our church needs a host.

No matter what, abandoning the mission and service

is not after the Lord’s heart.

Which I feel, too.

I know my husband is burnt out from working very hard all day long,

and still I do nothing to help him.

This doesn’t glorify the Lord’s name.

Sister Gao, since you said so, I can say nothing more.

Of course, you’re aware of the condition of our church.

That it really needs you.

Lord have mercy. Someone will be raised up in my place.

Brother Lin is zealous and donated much.

His grave illness was quite unexpected.

How could it come to this?

So many bad things have happened in our church lately.

We must pray for Brother Lin,

ask the Lord to care for him.

We must tell others about it

and ask them to pray as well.

I don’t understand.

What’s happening to the church?

Why doesn’t the Lord keep us?

I think the Lord is testing us.

I almost forgot I met Brother Liu on my way home yesterday.

He’s moving out of town for work.

He’s what? He said he was going?

Yeah. That’s what he said to me.

And did he tell you why?

He was in a rush to go shopping.

So I couldn’t ask him more.

I thought if you could find a little time,

you could talk to him about it.

Mm.

Let’s go.

Pastor Chen, fewer and fewer are coming to services.

Most co-workers became weak.

We must find a way to restore it.

Yes. I’ve been praying a lot about it.

I haven’t received any answers.

Do you have any suggestions?

What about a dinner meeting once every week?

All the brothers and sisters can communicate with each other.

And the long-time believers can testify

to encourage those whose faith might have weakened…

Brother Chen, you can stop reading now.

My mind’s made up.

Brother Liu, please think this over.

I am quite sorry for you.

You’ve served the Lord for so many years.

So tell me, how can you give up so easily?

Is there some difficulty in your life?

Brother Chen, to be honest, the difficulty in my life

isn’t the only reason that I’ve decided this.

I’m hesitant to tell all of this to you.

Please don’t worry. Just go ahead.