A Nation Falls

Well, today we come to the final message of this study over the summer months in Jeremiah.

And I know some of you wondered why I would select such a lugubrious and despondent book as Jeremiah, who's called The Weeping Prophet. Shouldn't we as followers of Jesus Christ focus on the New Testament, perhaps someone might think, and deal with contemporary and practical issues? Well, to that question, here is the response of the Apostle Paul, Romans 15, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. That is that the Old Testament is written for our instruction, for our encouragement through tough times that we might have hope. And our study in Jeremiah, I trust, has reminded us of the profound hope and profound encouragement that we have as followers of Jesus Christ.

It is Jeremiah who tells us that if we seek the Lord with all of our heart, He will be found of us, that He will be our guide throughout all of life. Paul also says, now these things, he's referring to Israel in the wilderness, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. So the book of Jeremiah, admittedly, is an ancient book dealing with ancient history, but Paul is telling us, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that these things in fact were written down for us, for our instruction, so that we would learn from the idolatry of the Israelites.

They who had so much entrusted to them, who abandoned the living and the true God and worshiped false idols. And Jeremiah is calling Israel and Judah to repentance. And he's saying to them very strongly, repeatedly, in the 52 chapters of Jeremiah, if you don't listen, if you don't repent, judgment is coming. So this ancient book of Jeremiah has both encouragement and warnings. And on this final message in the study of Jeremiah, we're going to deal with a neglected subject, neglected by many churches and many preachers, the judgment of the Lord. We're going to deal with the fall of a nation when God judges His ancient people. So let's think, first of all, of the reality of the Lord's judgment.

I don't know what concept you have of God, but here is the biblical God, and He is a God of judgment. For 40 years, Jeremiah prophesied to the people of coming judgment from the time of his call in chapter 1. If you look at Jeremiah chapter 1, see it in our baptism quoted from Jeremiah 1. Here in Jeremiah 1, verse 16, we have a summary of the burden of the message given by God to Jeremiah, as he's called. He says, I will declare my judgment against them, that's Israel and Judah, for all their evil in forsaking me. What was their basic sin?

They forsook the Lord, but not only did they forsake the Lord, they have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. Judgment, says Jeremiah, is coming. And now as we come towards the end of the book of Jeremiah, Babylon, the superpower of the day is knocking at the door of Israel, of Jerusalem. And Jeremiah is reminding them, still at that last moment, unless you repent, judgment will come.

He's opposed by the kings. He's opposed by the priests. He's opposed by the prophets and by the people. And 34 times in the book of Jeremiah, we read that they did not listen to Jeremiah, who's declaring the word of the Lord. Do you always listen to the Lord?

Or sometimes does the word of the Lord go right over your head? The nation, Jeremiah reminds them in chapter 2 verse 5, has absolutely no reason for forsaking the Lord. He tells them, instead of facing the Lord, you've turned your back on the Lord.

Anyone doing that? Turning your back on the Lord? Jeremiah 2 verse 5, thus says the Lord, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me? What reason do you have for departing from the Lord? And went after worthlessness.

Hebrew word havel, vanity, the chasing of the wind. You went after worthlessness and became worthless. You know, when you forsake the Lord and pursue your own desires, the Lord often gives you exactly what you want, but you are fundamentally and radically changed. And that's what happened to Israel. They abandoned God.

They went after worthless things and in so doing, became worthless themselves. They abandoned God, but it's worse than that. Chapter 2 verse 12, be appalled, O heavens at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate declares the Lord.

What is so shocking? What is so terrible? Here it is, Jeremiah 2 verse 13, we saw this before, for my people have committed two evils.

What are the two evils? Number one, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. Beautiful description of God.

He's a fountain of living waters. You forsake that and what do you do? You hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. This is utter folly, utter stupidity, Jeremiah is saying. Look over to chapter 10, we see what they do. Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 3, they abandon the Lord, they don't listen to the prophet. They follow the customs of the pagans around them as vanity.

A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field and they cannot speak.

They have to be carried for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them for they can't do evil, neither is it in them to do good. This is what they do, they abandon God, the living God.

And what they do, they go to the forest and they cut down some trees, nail some pieces of wood together and put some clothes on it, put some gold and silver on it and they worship that. This is utter folly. In contrast to their pathetic worthless gods, Jeremiah reminds them as I would remind you today that there is no one like the Lord. Jeremiah 10 verse 6, there is none like you, O Lord. Do you know anyone as great as the Lord?

You are great and your name is great in might. Verse 10, but the Lord is the true God. He is the living God and He's the everlasting King. Notice this, at His wrath the earth quakes and the nations cannot endure in His indignation.

Verse 12, it is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom and by His understanding stretched out the heavens. Don't you want to be on the side of that God, the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who is living, the God who is the everlasting King? Why would you abandon that God? Why would you not listen to that God and follow your own pathetic idols like scarecrows in a cucumber patch? Because they do not listen, because they do not repent, the judgment of God now comes.

God is not mocked. God is patient, but God's judgment comes. And the Israelites should have remembered their own history. The Lord judged people in the days of Noah with the flood.

The Lord judged Sodom and Gomorrah with fire. Their own people, the ten tribes, the Assyrians had come and had taken them into exile. They knew about the judgment of God.

Their very history would remind them of that, but they do not listen. They do not listen to the prophets, and now as prophesied by Jeremiah, judgment comes. We know from history, 586 BC, a terrible thing happens. The Babylonians, led by their great leader Nebuchadnezzar, capture Judah, destroy Jerusalem, set fire to the temple, and capture their king, King Zedekiah. Let's read about that in the last chapter of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 52.

If you have a Bible, turn there and we will read the account of the destruction of Jerusalem. Now remember, these are the people of God. These are the ones whom God had delivered from Egypt. That was their history. They had the very law of God entrusted to them.

The judgment comes. Jeremiah 52 verse 1, Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

We heard about Jehoiakim last week. He was the king that burned the Word of God. For because of the anger of the Lord, it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon, and in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all of his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And he built siege works all around it. So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city, and all of the men of war fled and went out from the city by night by the way of a gate between the two walls by the king's garden. And the Chaldeans, that's the Babylonians, were around the city, and they went in the direction of the Arabah.

So the soldiers, instead of defending Jerusalem, they escape. But the army of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all of his army was scattered from him. Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him. The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he slaughtered all of the officials of Judah at Riblah. He put out the eyes of Zedekiah, that's the king, and bound him in chains. And the king of Babylon took him to Babylon and put him in prison till the day of his death. In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebu-Zaradan, the captain of the bodyguard who served the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem, and he burned the house of the Lord.

That's Solomon's temple. And the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, every great house he burned down, and all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem. And Nebu-Zaradan, the captain of the guard, carried away captive some of the poorest of the people, and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the artisans. But Nebu-Zaradan, the captain of the guard, left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen."

You follow that? They besieged Jerusalem, they held them up for some time, there's famine, there's panic, they break down the walls, they come. The army and the king run, they capture them, and they capture Zedekiah and his sons. And right before the eyes of Zedekiah, they slaughter his sons. And then they put out the eyes of Zedekiah, so the last thing he sees is the slaughter of his own sons. And they put him in chains, take him to Babylon, imprison him, and there he dies, the king of Judah. The king, Jerusalem, the temple, the nation have all fallen.

God's judgment has come. Many are taken captive to Babylon, a remnant of the poor people are left in the land of Judah to cultivate it. And the Babylonians, very interestingly, have heard of the prophet Jeremiah, and they go to him, and he's released from imprisonment, he's been imprisoned by the king of Judah. And the Babylonians give Jeremiah the choice, either you can stay here in the land of Judah, or you can come with us to Babylon, we'll take care of you in Babylon. And Jeremiah, we're not surprised, chooses to stay in the land. Nebuchadnezzar appoints a man called Gedaliah, if you're familiar with the story of Jeremiah, as governor to oversee, there's a remnant left in Israel.

There's the poorest people. The Babylonians very smartly leave some people because they don't want the land to go to wheat as it were, and they leave some of the poorest, the artisans, in Judah to be the vinedressers and the plowmen we have read. Gedaliah, the governor, is later murdered, and those that are left in Israel, in Judah, then feel that they might want to go to Egypt in order to escape the tyranny of the Babylonians. So they come to Jeremiah, you can read about it in Jeremiah 42. They come to Jeremiah, and they ask him for advice, Jeremiah 42 verse 3. They ask him, that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go and the thing that we should do. One of the challenges, incidentally, reading the book of Jeremiah, it's not all written chronologically, but they go to the prophet and say, look, should we go to Egypt or not? You're the man of God.

You tell us, and whatever you say, we will do. Verse 4, the end of it, the Lord answers you, I will tell you, I will keep nothing back from you, Jeremiah says. Verse 19, the Lord has said to you, O remnant of Judah, do not go to Egypt, nor for a certainty that I have warned you this day that if you've gone, that you have gone astray at the cost of your life. Verse 21, I have this day declared it to you that you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God in anything that He sent me to tell you. Now therefore, know for a certainty that you shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live. Chapter 43, verse 7, and they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the Lord.

Isn't that shocking? They see what happens when you disobey God, the Babylonians come, and now they think they might go to Egypt to escape Babylon. They ask for advice from the man of God. He tells them, no, do not go to Egypt. And they go to Egypt, and they take Jeremiah with them. And they continue their idolatry there, and what happens as Jeremiah prophesied the Babylonians then go into Egypt and subjugate them. And in all probability, this man of God dies in Egypt, and Babylon is captured by Egypt. Once again, judgment has come.

If what's the basic lesson? If there's no repentance, if you don't listen to God, He is patient, He warns you over and over and over again, but if you don't repent, there is no escape from the Lord's judgment. What do you think about that? Let's think of the nature of the Lord's judgment.

People struggle with this. Let me remind you that the Lord, the true God, illustrated in Jeremiah is just and holy. God is a unified and harmonious being.

He's perfect in who He is and in everything He does. God's attributes are perfectly balanced, unlike ours. God is gracious and He's merciful. God is gracious and He's truthful. God is compassionate and He's also just.

God is holy and He's also loving. God forgives, that's true, but God also judges. And the Lord's judgment is a reaction of a holy God to sin.

Time and time again, Jeremiah had spelt it out to the people. If you do not listen to me, if you do not forsake your idols, if you do not repent, if you do not get right with God, judgment is going to come. The Apostle Paul in the New Testament, before he begins at the beginning of his wonderful exposition of the gospel in the book of Romans, writes in Romans 1, verse 18, that the wrath of God, the wrath of God you say? Yes, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

We thought of truth last week, of a man who cut out the Bible because he didn't like the part that's going on today, isn't it? We suppress the truth, we turn from the truth, we go our own way, and God's judgment is coming. God's judgment, God's wrath is not irrational, it's not unpredictable, it's not an outburst of rage like someone being angry and losing their temper.

No, it's not that. God's judgment, God's wrath is His holy hostility to evil. Now, I understand that the judgment of God may be difficult for us. You ever wonder in reading the Psalms like Psalm 96, Psalm 96 rejoices that the Lord is coming to judge the earth. The people of God in Psalm 96 are rejoicing because God is going to come to judge the world with righteousness. You think that's strange?

Think of it with me. Don't you celebrate when justice is done? Don't you want justice to be done? Don't you want evil to be eliminated?

Wasn't there celebration in this country when Osama bin Laden was executed by the U.S. special forces? A man who committed these atrocities against this nation and other places worldwide, wasn't it the fact that when he was executed that people rejoiced? People often ask, why doesn't God do something about all of the evil in the world? Well, God will do something about it. And yet when we tell them that God will judge the evil, they can't accept that.

What kind of God would be neutral in the face of evil? We expect justice in this world, don't we? When someone is murdered, when a woman is assaulted, don't you expect justice in our courts? Sadly, it's often not there, but we are a nation, we say, of laws. Part of laws is justice, and part of the law is that if you offend, there is a penalty.

There is a consequence from illegal and criminal acts under our own laws. What about God? Do you want God to be neutral in the face of evil? The Lord's coming judgment, and it will come.

One thing we can be absolutely sure of, it will be perfect in its justice. A loving God is not neutral when it comes to evil. You say, well, that was the Old Testament, John. That was 2,500 years ago.

Things are a bit different now. No, God is immutable. That is God doesn't change.

Remember the writer of Hebrews, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Isn't it wonderful to have a God like that, utterly dependable, a God who's not fickle? That's why we can trust Him.

That's why we can depend on Him. In the life of Jesus, in Luke chapter 13, there was a tower that fell, and 18 people were killed, and they ask the Lord about it and basically say, well, why did this happen? And He says, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Do you ever think about the fires in Hawaii? Do you ever think about hurricanes? Do you think about the devastation there is?

Seems to be increasing, doesn't it? What do we learn from it? Unless you repent, says Jesus, you'll all likewise perish. Life is short.

Life is fragile. Death is certain, and judgment is coming. That's the lesson Jesus says. We are built to glorify God. We are built to reflect the image of God.

But like Israel, we pursue our own desires. We want to worship a God with whom we feel very comfortable with. People say, well, I've got my God. It's usually a God very much like themselves, very much like their lifestyle, a God who makes us feel good about ourselves, a God who's like my buddy, who's always validating me, a God who helps me to fulfill my dreams and my desires. In other words, we want to have a God we can control. That's not God.

That's a fiction of your own imagination. It's an idol. It's a breach of the first commandment. You will have no other gods before me.

That's what Israel did. They had their own gods. You want a tame God? You want a domesticated God? You want a God that you can use and manipulate? You want a God that you can live your own life and then ask Him for help in an emergency? No, false gods, idols, are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. We have our idols, don't we?

Our possessions, our career, our personal happiness, our comfort, our family, our sport, our relationships, ourselves. Hebrews says it's appointed unto man once to die, and after this comes judgment. Many times when people say they don't believe in God, they don't want to believe in God because if there is a God, they know they're accountable to God. Famous novelist Kingsley Amis, English novelist, brilliant. He said, went to communist Russia among the intellectuals, and one of the intellectuals said to Mr. Amis, do you believe in God? He says, I don't believe in God, but it's worse than that. I hate Him.

That's it, isn't it? I hate Him. In other words, I don't want a God to be accountable. I want to live my own life. Listen to Jesus, Luke 13, verses three and five, unless you repent, we'll all perish. You see John, there's a very heavy message today, listen, I'm a preacher of the Word of God.

Richard Baxter said, I preach as never sure to preach again as a dying man to dying men. Some of you sitting here may never ever hear the Word of God again. Some of us may be on the very edge of eternity. At any moment, you think we are different because we're living in Charlotte? You think you're different from the people in Hawaii who were devastated in the fire?

You think you're better than them? You think God's judgment isn't going to come on you? You think you can continue to live as you like with no accountability? The reality of the Lord's judgment, the nature of the Lord's judgment, thirdly, the escape from the Lord's judgment. I want to tell you the good news of the gospel, that although we deserve the judgment and the condemnation of God, we can escape the Lord's judgment. Left to yourself, you will never ever get right with God.

Jeremiah tells us that those who trust in themselves, those who trust in their own efforts, whose hearts turn away from the Lord, will be judged with the Lord. And repeatedly, he calls on us to repent. Chapter three, verse 12, go and proclaim these words towards the north and say, return. That's it, turn, repent. You're going in that direction. Can I say to you, sir, turn, return.

Why are you going in that direction? You know it's wrong. Return, repent. Faithless, Israel declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger for I am merciful, declares the Lord. I will not be angry forever.

You say, that's wonderful, but here it is. Only acknowledge your guilt that you rebelled against the Lord your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the Lord. Return, O faithless children, declares the Lord, for I am your master. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. Repent, repent. That's the message.

When Jesus began His public ministry, Mark tells us in Mark 1, He came, and what did He say? I've come to make you all feel happy. I've come to be your best friend. Just live as you like, and when you get into trouble, just turn to Me. I'm going to make you fulfill your dreams, and if you follow Me, you're going to be healthy, wealthy, and so on. That wasn't His message at all, was it?

What was it? Repent and believe in the Gospel. Repent. That was the message of John the Baptist, wasn't it? The Messiah has come. You've got to get ready. You've got to repent.

You cannot continue as you are doing. There must be authentic repentance before God. That is an acknowledgment of your specific sins.

There's got to be a change of attitude and actions. You're to ask God for forgiveness. We learned under the wonderful New Covenant described by Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31, He says, I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. That's the Gospel. That's the good news, that however deep the sin, however much you have rebelled against the Lord, if you return to the Lord, He will remember your sin no more, but be warned.

Jeremiah also tells us of the people who kept saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, that religious observance without humble repentance and faith in God will not save you. You can come to Calvary Church all your life. You can be a member of Calvary Church. You can be baptized.

You can take communion. You can sing in a choir. You can teach Sunday school. You can be a deacon. You can be an elder.

You can be a pastor. But if you have never repented before God and called out to Him for salvation, you will be eternally lost. That is the message of the Gospel.

And so I say to you, turn, don't depend on your own efforts. And when the Apostle Paul, when he's talking to the elders at Ephesus in Acts chapter 20, he says to them, he preached of repentance towards God, and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. See, true repentance is not just changing your life. True repentance is not saying, well, I've really messed up, and now I'm going to do a lot better. That's not repentance.

That may be helpful. That may be a good thing to do, but that is not biblical repentance. Biblical repentance is before God.

I don't know if you grasp that. It's you dealing with God. It's not just saying, well, my actions have really messed up my home, and I've really messed up, and I'm going to do a lot better. That's not biblical repentance.

That may be behavior modification. It may be very helpful, but that is not biblical repentance. The young man in Luke chapter 15 who left home when he returned, what did he say? I've sinned against heaven and in your sight. Yes, he'd sinned against his father, but he realized his main sin was not because he was a greedy young man and a selfish, self-indulgent young man. It was because he had sinned against God.

Have you done that? Attending from your sin and embracing of our Savior Jesus Christ. His name is Jesus. He saves us from our sins. Not so that you will continue in your sins, and authentic repentance, John talks about the fruit of repentance, is demonstrated in the way that we live, showing our love and forgiveness of others who have offended us. You say, well, how can a holy God say to me, your sins and iniquities I will remember no more?

Here it is. This is a message, the unique message of the Christian faith. On the cross, our Lord Jesus bears the judgment of God. We are all under the wrath of God, Paul tells us in Romans. We are all deserving of the condemnation of God because all of us have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.

It's true, some of us are worse sinners than others. Some of us sinned very obviously, and other sins are more subtle, sins of pride and avarice and greed and all of that, but without exception, every one of us here in the sanctuary this morning has sinned, and because of that, we're under the condemnation of God. God in His great love, it's His great mercy, has provided a way of escape, the only way of escape from His judgment. On the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ satisfies the wrath of God. John says in 1 John 4 that the Father sends His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

You see, what on earth is propitiation? God's wrath, which we deserve, is averted by Christ's atoning sacrifice. In my place, bearing shame and scoffing rude, we sing, in my place – what – condemned, He stood. Did our Savior deserve condemnation? No, He's the only perfect one in all of human history. He's the Lamb of God. He's the sinless Christ. He who knew no sin becomes sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And at the cross, we see how much God hates sin, but we see the tremendous love of God, and so that between sinful people like us, and a holy and a just God who will judge sin, there is that magnificent bridge, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter brilliantly puts it in 1 Peter chapter 3. He says that Christ also suffered once for us. The just – listen to this – the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. I love that, because Peter knew that by himself, he would never, ever get to the Savior.

He'd spent three years with Him, but even when He was with Him, He had messed up. But now, our Savior comes, and He suffers once, one sacrifice for us, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. That's the only way you get to God, is through Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father apart from Him.

He's the only way to the Father. In Jesus Christ, there is then offered this freedom, this forgiveness, this eternal life, this supernatural power to live in a loving relationship with God. And the love of God is not compromised by His judgment of evil, and His justice is not compromised by His love. God is both loving and just, you understand that? He's a just God. He's a loving God.

He's a gracious God and merciful God, but He's a holy God and a righteous God. In the Narnia Chronicles, some of you read by C.S. Lewis, there's this wonderful character, a lion called Aslan, and he represents Christ. And Aslan is a very fierce lion, but he's also a loving lion. Mr. Beaver asks about Aslan.

He's wild, you know, not like a tame lion, and C.S. Lewis writes this, people who have not been in Narnia sometimes think a thing can't be good and terrible at the same time. Someone asks about Aslan, is he, is he safe? Safe said Mr. Beaver.

Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe, but he's good. He's the king, I tell you. He's a holy God. He's a just God. Is he good?

Of course he's good. The very essence, and that he's so good that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The only way to escape the certain coming judgment of God is in Jesus Christ, who on the cross bore our sins, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Paul, as he writes to the Thessalonians, who were idol worshippers in Thessalonica, as he comes and presents the gospel, he says to them, and this really is the New Testament commentary in one verse on all of Jeremiah, I think, Paul says to them in 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 9 and 10, he says, you turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God.

Think of that. You turned from your idols to God, the true and the living God, through this Jesus whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus, he says, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Do you ever think of Jesus doing that? He delivers us from the wrath to come.

Jeremiah in the Old Testament would agree with the Apostle Paul, yes. He's a good God. He's a great God.

Good judgment is coming. Therefore trust Him. If you've never repented and received Christ, do that. Live for Him. God calls on us to repent from our sin and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and we'll be saved. And we who have done that must live a life radiating the beauty and the justice of our Lord Jesus Christ in this needy world. Therefore, we thank you for this magnificent Savior who delivers us from the coming wrath. We thank you for Him. And I pray for each person here, the boys, the girls, the students, the young couples, the seniors, those for the first time, and some here who have never, ever bowed the knee to Christ, convicted of their sin, shined on Christ, that they will see the loveliness of the Savior of the world who delivers us from the wrath to come. We ask it in His name, amen.