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Well, good morning Sower Nation. It is Saturday, February 7th, in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm Andrew Forrest. This is your wake up call. Well, happy Saturday everybody. For those of you who are preachers, I hope today is a day of rest and preparation for tomorrow morning. It is hard to express what it feels like to know you have to preach in the morning. And I like preaching, but it is also a heavy burden. So, for example, I try never to do anything on Saturday evenings. I accept no invitations, attend no events, so I can be ready Sunday morning on those rare occasions when I'm not preaching on a Sunday morning. Saturday evenings are just amazing. No stress, no worry, just a normal evening like all the rest of you folks. So for all that to say for those of you who are not preachers, pray for your pastor tonight and enjoy the fact that you aren't preaching in the morning. Hey. I'm the senior pastor at Asbury Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'm the author of the new book, Love Goes First. I'll be preaching at Asbury, my church, tomorrow morning, 8 o', clock, 9 o' clock and 11. The 9 and 11 are live streamed. But today we are continuing our little series through the second half of the book of Exodus. In the first part of Exodus, God gets the people out of Egypt. In the second part of the book, the Lord begins his plan to get Egypt out of the people. Lord, thank you for taking us out of Egypt. And now, O Lord, please take Egypt out of us. Let's go. So we say, wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. Praying in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our scripture reading for the day is Exodus 27, 2021. Hear now the word of the Lord. You shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure, beaten olive oil for the light that a lamp may regularly be set up to burn in the tent of meeting outside the veil, that is before the testimony. Aaron and his Son shall tend it from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall be a statute forever to be observed throughout their generations by the people of Israel. The word of the Lord. You folks remember the old Boy Scout motto? I was a Boy Scout. It was a long time ago, but I remember the Scout motto. Be prepared. We're looking today at the Kind of passage we tend to skip over when we read the Bible, which is exactly why I want to draw your attention to it. We're in a little series looking at the latter part of Exodus. In the first part of Exodus, God gets the people out of Egypt. In the second part, the Lord is working to get Egypt out of the people. And in today's reading, we read some instructions for how the tabernacle lamps are to be lit. Remember, the Tabernacle is a little portable Eden the Israelites are meant to build right in the middle of the desert. Every detail is important because every part of the Tabernacle is meant to teach the Israelites about the Lord and his way of righteousness. The priests are meant to tend the lamplight all night so that it never goes out. I like the connection that Victor Hamilton makes in his Exodus. The Old Testament's teachings on keeping the lamps burning regularly may provide background for Jesus admonition in Luke 12:35. There he says, be dressed, ready for service and keep your lamps burning. For Jesus, keeping one's lamp burning continually is a symbol of watchfulness, being ready, and waiting for the Master's return. End quote. So there's this quotation that John Wesley never actually said that there were three things he expected his Methodist preachers to be able to do at the drop of a hat. To preach, pray, and die. He never said it, but it's a great quotation nonetheless. So are you prepared for whatever happens today? Are you dressed and ready for service with your lamp burning? Lord, wake us up. Give us the faith to face whatever today brings, ready and unafraid. Show us the things we need to leave aside and the places where we are unprepared or complacent. Help us remain faithful to the end and give us joy as we wait for your return. Amen. So here are some journal prompts to get you thinking. First, why do you think Jesus drew on the Old Testament lamps to make his point about being spiritually ready? Second, what does it look like for a person to be unready for death or Jesus return? Third, is there an area in your life you'd have to admit is unprepared? This is a fun thought, I think, to consider, like what it means in modern times to keep the lamps burning. And I hope you'll kind of dwell on that today. Today we will sing Seek ye first, hymn 341 from the seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer's Praise. You probably know this one. It's a great kind of campfire song. It's from the 1970s, but it's beautiful and of course, draws on Jesus's words from the Sermon on the Mount. Let's sing both verses. 3, 41. It goes like this.