Job 42:10 - "And the LORD restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before."

This word is a comfort to anyone who serves the Lord, like ointment upon a wound.

Job was an extra-ordinary man. He lost all 10 his children at once. His messengers arrived one after the other to tell him that he had lost everything. Eventually his wife said to him, "curse God and die". But Job steadfastly clung to God and said to her, "you speak like a foolish woman". Even his three best friends turned against him.

But he did not give up but pressed through like a hero of the faith.

Finally, God restored to him what he had lost and gave him twice as much as he had before.

We honour and praise God for what He had done in the restoration of the auditorium. I had thought it would take years for it to be restored. But God did a miracle and it is not even one year later and today we praise God in the new auditorium.

Without God you cannot go forward. Learn from this building that God is alive, He is far greater than any difficult circumstance. This building speaks, though it has no mouth, of the great wonders and power of God.

Not far from here, many years ago, a farmer was very prosperous. A co-worker said to him one day, "indeed God has blessed you". But he replied, "it is not God's blessing but my own hard work". Within three years that farmer was bankcrupt and he lost his house and his farm.

In Russia the communists wrote on their tractors, "we will plow, plant and reap without God". It was heartbreaking to see the poverty of that nation not many years later. God is not mocked.

We need God to stay in our midst or else we're lost and cannot prosper.

(The plaque on the stage wall declares, in German, "Lord, stay with us". There wasn't enough room on the wooden plaque to add Zulu and English, but we hope to have it in the future.)