Please take your copy of the scripture now, please, and open it to Nehemiah chapter nine. Nehemiah chapter nine, we've been working our way through this text for several weeks now. We again will not make it to verse 37 this morning. We'll be looking at verses 25, or rather 26 to 31. But again, I wanna get our minds back into the context of this to start back in verse five. These are the Levites who are praying on this day of Israel's great confession. It says, Oh, may your glorious name be blessed and exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are Yahweh. You made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts, the earth and all that is on it, the sea and all that is in them. You give life to all of them and the heavenly host bows down to you. You are Yahweh God who chose Abram. and brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you and cut a covenant with him to give him the land of the Canaanite, of the Hittite, of the Amorite, of the Perizzite, of the Jebusite, and the Gergesite, to give it to his seed. And you have established your promise, for you are righteous. You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry by the sea. Then you performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted presumptuously toward them. And made a name for yourself, as it is this day. You split the sea before them, so they passed through the midst of the sea on dry land. Their pursuers you cast into the depths like a stone into mighty waters. With a pillar of cloud you led them by day and with a pillar of fire by night to light for them the way in which they were to go. Then you came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You gave them upright judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments. So you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded to them commandments, statutes, and law by the hand of your servant Moses. You gave bread from heaven for them, for their hunger. You brought forth water from a rock for them, for their thirst. And you said to them to enter in order to possess the land which you swore to give them. But they, our fathers, acted presumptuously. They became stiff-necked and would not listen to your commandments. They refused to listen and did not remember your wondrous deeds which you did among them. So they became stiff-necked and gave themselves a chief to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God of lavish forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. And you did not forsake them, even when they made for themselves a molten calf and said, this is your God who brought you up from Egypt. and committed great blasphemies. But you, in your abundant compassion, did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud did not depart from them by day to lead them on their way, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way in which they were to go. You gave your good spirit to give them insight. Your manna you did not withhold from their mouth. And you gave them water for their thirst. Indeed, 40 years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they did not lack. Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell. You also gave them kingdoms and peoples and appointed them to them as a boundary. They took possession of the land of Sihon, the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, the king of Bashan. You made their sons numerous as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land which you had said for their fathers to enter and to possess. So their sons entered and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and you gave them into their hand with their kings and the peoples of the land to do with them according to their desire. They captured fortified cities and a rich land. They took possession of houses full of every good thing, hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive grove, trees for food in abundance. So they ate and were filled and grew fat and reveled in your great goodness. Now our text for today, but they became disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets who had testified to them so that they might return to you. And they committed great blasphemies. Therefore, you gave them into the hands of the ones who distressed them, and they afflicted them with distress. But at the time of their distress, they cried out to you, and you listened from heaven. And according to your abundant compassion, you gave them saviors, and they saved them from the hand of the ones that distressed them. But as soon as they had rest, they returned to do evil before you. Therefore, you forsook them in the hand of their enemies, so they had dominion over them. Then they returned and tried to you, and you listened from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your compassion, and testified to them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously. and did not listen to your commandments, but sinned against your judgments, by which if a man does them, he shall live. And they gave a stubborn shoulder, and stiffened their neck, and would not listen. However, you bore with them for many years, and testified to them by your spirit, by the hand of your prophets, yet they would not give ear. So you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, In your abundant compassion, you did not make a complete destruction of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and compassionate God. Father, turn our hearts to your word now, as we read it and expound upon it. Father, let us not only understand it intellectually, but for it to impact our hearts. that we might leave today not the people we were when we came, different, more mature, having understood your word, that we might grow and change by it and be obedient to it. For it's in Christ's name we ask it, amen. Over the last two weeks, we have been looking at chapter nine and this amazing confession of Israel's sin in the midst of a revival that had broken out in Jerusalem. This revival, like all true revivals, was marked by really three outstanding features that we have observed. Number one is the preaching of the word of God spurred on by the hunger of the people for the word itself. That is all throughout chapter eight. In chapter nine, you have the second outstanding feature of revival, and that's the confession of sin that's revealed by the word that has been expounded to the people. And then third, we will also see in chapter 10, the evidence of confession and repentance, which is the changed lives of God's people. Those are the three outstanding features that happen in every revival. And we'll see that covenant renewal, as we said, in chapter 10. So this is a sovereign movement of God, a sovereign movement of His Holy Spirit to work within His people and to work to change them. And the result is you have a strengthened fellowship with God because of the repentance of sin. And that requires an awareness of and a sensitivity to our sin. And that happens when we're brought into closer proximity to the Word of God. As we're brought closer to Him and brought closer to His Word, it reveals are in light of who He is and that shows us our sin. Scripture then is the written revelation of the character of God. And so exposure to that and a right understanding of that shows us who we are in light of who He is. In fact, that's the only way that you can be rightly related to God. So we've been saying that there is no true fellowship with Yahweh God without confession of sin. That's the main point of this entire passage and so that continues and extends into our text today. And the parallel reality of that which we saw in the text last week was that to confess our sin is to agree with God about it. And we've said that we only understand our sin when we rightly understand who He is, and everything, including our sin, is rightly known in relation to Him. God and His character really then are the foundation of all reality. We saw that at the beginning of this prayer. His character is the standard of right and wrong. The law that He has graciously given is the written embodiment then of that character. So every time you confess your sin and agree with God that it is sin, you are also confessing the righteousness of God. And so as Israel confesses their sin in this text in chapter nine, they also confess God's goodness as a parallel truth to the sin. So first, when we began looking at this text, we saw Roman numeral number one, we called it the confession of God's goodness. This was two weeks ago. It's chapter nine, verse five B, or the second half of verse five through verse 15. This is all the good gifts that God has given in creation. So the last half of verse five through verse 15, Yahweh gave us creation, he gave us life, he gave the plan of salvation through a Messiah and a nation that was brought about through the man Abraham, who was the man of his choice. We saw that God gave deliverance, sustenance, a standard of righteousness, which is the law so that Israel could understand that they had sinned. Because it's only when you understand that you are a sinner that you properly understand that you need a savior. He, in addition to all that, gave them protection, and He gave them land. And so Yahweh is good, and everything He does is good, and everything He gives is good. Then last week, we saw the second part of this message, and it was Roman numeral number two. It's the confession of God's faithfulness. First, we had the confession of God's goodness amidst the confession of Israel's sin. Now, last week, we saw the confession of God's faithfulness amidst their sin. In verse 16, we saw the first but they statement in response to all that God had done, all the goodness that He had given them, and all the faithfulness that He had shown them. In response and in contrast to that, they treated the Lord with contempt. They not only didn't listen, they went a step beyond that then and refused to listen. Their hearts grew hard as a rock, and they chose to not remember the miracles and the wonders that the Lord did to take them from Egypt. And they tried to return to Egypt. They committed spiritual adultery against God. They created another god to worship. They attributed all of Yahweh's goodness to that idol. And then they blasphemed, they mocked the Lord while they played the harlot, using Old Testament terminology, with their idol. And even in all of that, the Lord did not forsake them. He is gracious. He is compassionate, the text tells us. He called them to repent. He continued to love them and to take them by the hand like a father with his child. And instead of withdrawing himself from them, he gave more of himself to them. And rather than spite them for their sin and refuse to forgive and restore, he gave even more to them. Verse 20 tells us he gave them his good spirit. That's the Holy Spirit. The Father is working to win them back with love. He kept giving, He kept sustaining, He kept providing food and water, kingdoms for them to possess. They took the spoil of it with them as they were on their way to the promised land. And then eventually they came into the promised land and He gave them children in abundance, the text says. They possessed that land and dispossessed the other nations that were there. And then in verse 25, it tells us, we read this just a moment ago, they lived in houses they didn't build, ate fruit from trees and vineyards they didn't plant, they drank water from cisterns they didn't dig, and in the provision of God, they ate, they grew fat, they rejoiced in the great goodness of Yahweh God. But there is a danger. When we get comfortable and when we are at ease. And so today, the third part of this message, Roman numeral number three, we have the confession of God's compassion. The confession of God's compassion. Again, just to look at a couple verses to start us off, verses 26 and 27, it says, but they became disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets who had testified to them so that they might return to you. They committed great blasphemies, therefore you gave them into the hand of the ones who distressed them, and they afflicted them with distress. But at the time of their distress, they cried out to you, and you listened from heaven. And according to your abundant compassion, you gave them saviors, and they saved them from the hand of the ones that distressed them. Now what happens here in verse 26 really is quite stunning. In response and in contrast again to all of the goodness and all of the forgiveness that God had shown them, Israel here shockingly becomes rebellious again. Again. This word that's used in particular here is always used with rebellion against God. So it is a distinct word and it demarcates the particular rebellion of his people. These are those whom the Lord has committed himself to. These are those the Lord has shown his love as his children. And they dedicated then, in spite of him dedicating himself to them, they dedicated themselves to commit themselves to something else. The text says they became rebels and rebelled. Then in verse 26 it says that they cast your law behind their backs. That's a very graphic description, isn't it? It's a depiction of the attitude of their hearts See what that embodies, can't you? Someone taking the Word of God like a handwritten letter from a father that loves them, wadding it up into a ball, pitching it behind their back with disdain. It's the description of utter disregard and disdain for the Word of God. This is really a reflection of Some earlier text, one of them, 1 Kings chapter 14 verse 9. It says, you also have done more evil than all who were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke me to anger and have cast me behind your backs. They cast God behind their backs. When you cast the word of God, when you cast the law of God behind your back, you cast Him there as well because God His character is reflected in His law. It's Him in written form. Verse 13 here of Nehemiah chapter 9, we saw that God had given them upright judgments, true laws, good statutes, good commandments. This is how the text describes the law, and that's how Israel's confessing it now. But in the day when they did that, He just wickedly took it all and pitched it behind them like a piece of trash. It's as if they were saying, we have no use for you, Yahweh. Again, there's a progression in the text if you look at it. They sinned and became rebels, verse 26, but there is this pesky convicting law of God that just will not go away, isn't there? And so what do they do? They crumple it up and they throw it away, telling God it is nothing to us, you are nothing to us. That's how it works, isn't it? Really, in order to soothe your conscience when you're in sin, you move or remove the thing that convicts you. That's how you soothe your conscience if you don't want to confess and repent. And so you throw it away, you proclaim your independence from God, and then you're done. Or are you? See, the problem is that the word of God is not that easy to get rid of. It's not just something that lives on a sheet of paper. It's actually the written testimony of God himself. The law is his character, and as long as the Lord lives, his word lives as well. That's why Jesus said this in Luke chapter 21, verse 33. He said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. It is the testimony of Him in written form, and therefore the Word of God is as eternal as He is. You can destroy all the copies you want. God can make more. But in this desperation of Israel's sin, they tried to get rid of it, didn't they? And the Word of God became inconvenient to them because it convicted them. They don't like conviction. It doesn't feel good, does it? They were disobedient. They were law-rejecting rebels. Now, what has God done in the past when Israel rejected Him? Remember verse 20? In compassion, He gave His Holy Spirit to them, didn't He? You're struggling to obey? Well, I will give even more of myself to you, so you have every resource. They had the power of God in the form of the Holy Spirit himself to give them insight and to give them understanding of who he was. In verse 26, they took the law then, they took all that God had given them and they pitched it behind their backs. And so then God sent them prophets, the text tells us, doesn't it? Look at the text again. They became disobedient, rebelled against you, you cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets. God provides them with prophets. It's as if Yahweh said, okay, you've rejected what I wrote, you're fine. I will send you prophets who will speak my words to your face. My messengers and my spirit will empower them and you will understand and you will not escape conviction then. What's their response? Well, it's as if Israel said, we threw your law behind our backs. We rejected the Holy Spirit that you gave us. so we wouldn't have understanding, and now you send prophets to us? It's okay, we did away with the law, we did away with the Holy Spirit, now we'll do away with you. We'll kill your prophets. We'll murder them. It's almost as if Israel is saying, don't you get the picture, God? We're done. And ultimately that's even what they did to Jesus in the future. Jesus spoke to them about this. Matthew chapter 21 verses 33 to 38. Jesus is speaking in parables here and he says, listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it. This is God building this. And built a tower and rented it out to the vine growers and went on a journey. The vine growers are the people of the nation of Israel by the way. Now when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. And the vine growers took his slaves and beat one and killed another and stoned a third. And again, he sent another group of slaves, larger than the first, did the same thing to them. But afterward, he sent his son to them, saying, they will respect my son. But when the vine grower saw the sun, he said among themselves, ha, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance. We don't want you anymore. No testimony about you. We don't want your grace. We don't want your goodness. We don't want any more calls from you about obedience to your law, no more words about our sin, no more calls to holiness, no more of any of it. We despise it all. We are not your people and we reject you as our God. And we will murder the messengers you send to us. And then after we do that, the text says, they blasphemed his great name. So after we do all that, then we'll laugh at you and mock you and mock you openly among the nations. contemptuously about you. Verse 10 tells us, of chapter nine, told us that Yahweh made a name for himself. How did he do that? He made a name for himself by breaking the most powerful nation in the world at the time. Egypt nor any of her false gods could hold anything to Yahweh. He broke Egypt with his wonders He split a sea to save Israel. And now Israel says, well, we're going to take that great name. We're going to blaspheme them. We're going to mock that. We're going to hate that. Then we're going to tell others how much we hold you in contempt. This phrase, they committed great blasphemies, it's a repetition of verse 18. which tells us that this rebellion that they committed while in the promised land was a sin that was on par with their making a golden calf. This is the same type of abandonment. It's awful. Now look at verse 27. Therefore you gave them. into the hands of the one who distressed them, and they afflicted them with distress." In verse 27, you have something incredible that takes place here. I don't know if you picked up on it yet or not. This verse is talking about the oppressors that the Lord raised up during the times of the Book of the Judges. That's what the context is here. And this was a really dark time in Israel's past. We get a sense of what this time was like. Judges 2, verses 14 and 15. We'll just read this real quick. It says, And the anger of Yahweh burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them, and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went, the hand of Yahweh was against them for evil, as Yahweh had spoken, and as Yahweh had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed. What does verse 27 say? He gave them into the hands of the ones who distressed them, and they afflicted them with distress. This verse is talking about the oppressors during that time. So there are oppressors to discipline Israel. And there is a series of deliverers by which the Lord then rescued them. But you need to see what verse 27 does here. you need to compare verse 27 to the rest of this prayer. I want you to pay special attention to the occurrences of a word, and the word is gave. The word is gave. So look back at the rest of this prayer with me. In verse 6, God created everything and He gave life to man. In verse 7, God gave Abraham his name and selected him. In verse 8, He gave the promised land to Abraham and to his descendants. In verse 13, Yahweh gave the law. In verse 15, He gave bread and water and the land for the people of Israel to possess. In verse 20, He gave His Spirit. He gave manna and water to sustain their lives. Verse 22, God gave them kingdoms so that they would overrule them, overthrow them, and dispossess them, and take all the spoil of those kingdoms. Verse 24, He gave them the kingdoms of the pagans in the promised land. Now in verse 27, it says that Yahweh gave them into the hands of their enemies. That's significant. Yahweh gave good gifts. He gave, and He gave, and He gave. And then we look at verse 27 and we're tempted to say, well, now He gave them something bad. No. No, He didn't. He gave them into the hand of their enemies as a good form of discipline. He did not abandon them. Instead, He gave them good. Even when they rejected Him, He gave them good and did not abandon them. He continued to give good gifts even as they sinned more. And you say, well, you mean Yahweh would discipline His own people by turning them into the hands of someone else? Yes. And when the Lord in His wisdom saw that they would not return, He knew that that return wouldn't happen apart from the pain of discipline. And so He gave the good discipline that they needed to turn their hearts back to Him. Discipline is a gift. Do you understand that this morning? That when we sin, discipline is the good gift of God to bring our wayward hearts back to Him. And the question is this morning that we need to ask ourselves is do you see it as good? Or do you somehow think that God is being evil when he disciplines his children? This is what he did for Israel because he loved them. It's what he does for us also. This is true even today. Hebrews chapter 12, verses seven through 11. The writer of Hebrews says, it's for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our benefit so that we may share his holiness. And all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. But to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit, righteousness. When someone is disciplined by the Lord, The purpose is to produce the fruit of righteousness. And when they respond to that discipline rightly, that's exactly what it produces, is the fruit of righteousness. And so when God brings discipline into our lives, the purpose is not to crush, the purpose is so that you and I will forsake our sin and return to Him in repentance. And He's working to produce that fruit of righteousness in your life and mine. Just like the writer of Hebrews says, no discipline is pleasant. It hurts. There is pain. But that's exactly how the Lord designed it. When that happens, it means that it's doing its job. He has given it to us to train us when we reject him and his commandments in our lives. So the question I have for you this morning is, do you? Think of the discipline of the Lord as good. Do you think of the discipline of the Lord as a gift? He gave, and he gave, and he gave. And even then when he must discipline, that discipline is as much of a gift as all the other good things that he had given to them. It was a gift from a father who loved his children. And so the writer of Hebrews says, don't despise that. Don't think little. Don't hold it in contempt. That's what that means. The Lord's discipline. Hebrews 12, verses 5 and 6, the context just before, verses 7 through 11, he says, and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. And he flogs every son whom he receives. Really, that's the writer of Hebrews just quoting Proverbs 3, verses 11 and 12. This is a principle well-established in the Old Testament. Proverbs 3, 11 and 12, see if it sounds familiar. It says, my son, do not reject the discipline of Yahweh or loathe his reproof. For whom Yahweh loves, he reproves. Even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights. If any earthly father loves his son, he'll discipline him. So how much more so is that true of the Lord? And so we're commanded not to loathe it. We're commanded not to hate it. We're to embrace it. We're to learn from it. We're to welcome it in our lives so that we can be taught wisdom. Proverbs 1, verse 7 tells us it's a fool that despises wisdom and discipline. And when the Lord brings discipline and chastening into your life, don't reject it. Embrace it. Learn from it. But do not despise it. Now, what happened after the discipline? Well, they were to be in distress, weren't they? The people that God sent to oppress His people were doing their job. And when the pain became severe, Israel realize that God was right and that they had sinned and so they would repent and they would cry out to Him and they would seek the God who had done them good and they would acknowledge that even the discipline that He had given them was a good gift and then once the discipline had done its work then they cried out to the Lord and they repented and God would raise up a Deliverer, a Savior for them, the text tells us. And they would be delivered. And then as soon as they had rest from their oppression they would again forsake the Lord and return to the same and even worse evil than they had committed previously. And that cycle kept repeating itself over and over and over again, all throughout the book of Judges, didn't it? Many times God delivered them, and this was the testimony, was the confession of God's compassion Verse 27, God listened according to His abundant compassion. Look at verse 28. In verse 28, it tells us that He delivered them according to your compassion. And what we need to see here is that He listened. He delivered not because they were worthy. He listened and delivered because He is a God of compassion. That's why He did that. And all through the years of the judges, the Lord testified to them. How? Answered through His Word. That's what verse 29 tells us, isn't it? Verse 29, it says, and testified to them, meaning God testified to Israel, and testified to them in order to turn them back to your law, yet they acted presumptuously and did not listen to your commandments but sinned against your judgments. Your law, your commandments, this is what God is testifying to them by. He's calling them back to his word, calling them back to his character. And the clear lesson here is that no matter how evil the world becomes, God's standard of righteousness does not change. If you read the book of Judges, you find out that Israel gets very, very, very dark. And no matter how evil the world or the culture is, God still testified to them. He still called them to righteousness. He still called them to be like him. This is also what God does today. The world is dark and it's getting darker. Evil is becoming clearer and clearer. People are becoming proud of their rebellion. We're told by the wicked, ungodly world that people should take pride in their sin, that they should probably step out of the closet rather than clean it. Beloved, our God hasn't called us to be a little better than the world. He's called us to be like Him. No matter how evil or dark or perverse or sinful the world becomes, God has called you and I to holiness and righteousness in the midst of that. Well, now Israel didn't heed that call. Verse 29 tells us they acted presumptuously again. Look how personal this is. Again, verse 29. It says, and you testified them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not listen to your commandments, but sinned against your judgments. This is personal. Why? Because the law is the embodiment of his character. And so this is a personal rejection of Yahweh. That's exactly what their sin is. And isn't that what sin always is? It is a personal rejection of the character of God. of Him, of His laws, His commandments, His judgments, which is to say His Word. And it is Him we reject when we sin. Our sin is a declaration that at that moment we love the sin more than we love Him. And hasn't that really been Israel's problem all along? That their hearts were not right before Him? And isn't that what they're confessing here? At the end of the day, You've got this long litany of sins that Israel has done, both in the past and in the contemporary, even to the day in Nehemiah, that they're reading this confession, that they're praying this prayer of confession. This is just all the result of the evil heart. What do they do? They give God a stubborn shoulder. They stiffen their neck more. It means they refuse to bow their head. refused to give up their way, their wills to the Lord. Again, at the end of the day, it's a rejection of his lordship, isn't it? The evil of their hearts is reflected in their actions then. So what does it mean when it tells us, verse 29 is talking about where it says God's commandments and judgments that they would not listen, but it says if a man does them, he shall live by them. You could read that and mistakenly think it's talking about some type of work salvation. So what does that mean? Well, this is talking about not being saved by your works. It means the outward acts of a man reveal the condition of their heart. The rebellious unsaved heart is seen in the refusal to submit to the Lord. That's the stubborn shoulder, that's the stiff neck that Israel evidenced. The obedient saved heart is seen in our obedience to those same commands. And so when we do that, when we obey the Lord, that obedience marks our life and therefore it can be said that we live out our life by them, by means of them. The obedient saved heart is seen in our obedience to those same commands. So if you're obedient to the Lord, it reflects a saved heart. That's not salvation by works. It's a saved heart demonstrating itself to the life of a person. It's the heart that shows it's trusting in God alone for salvation. And it shows that it believes God because it obeys what he says. So verses 28 and 29 are the time of the judges. that I would take verses 30 and 31 to be referring to Israel during the time of the kings. Look at those verses. 31, or rather verse 30. However, you bore with them for many years and testified to them by your spirit by the hand of your prophets, yet they would not give ear. So you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your abundant compassion, you did not make a complete destruction of them or forsake them. For you are a gracious and compassionate God. God kept bearing with them, didn't he, during the times of the kings, again, year after year, patiently enduring that rebellion. And in His grace and love, He warned them over and over. He sent prophets to them again. When they had been empowered to speak by His Holy Spirit, He's giving His Spirit again through the ministry of the prophets. So He's not just giving the prophets, He's not just giving His Spirit, He's giving both. And, oh, Israel would have a good king here and there. And that good king would do fairly well, and he would seek to obey the Lord. And when he did that, the people would follow the king's lead because, well, they had to. He was the king. But what we find is that most of the kings of Israel are evil. And the people under each one of those progressive kings got worse and worse. They didn't listen to God or his prophets. They rejected his word. They rejected his message. So the Lord had one last good gift to give. He gave Israel, again, into the hands of the Gentile nations. Israel had rejected all the Lord's giving, and so they became the gift of God into the possession of evil nations. Again, look at this. The end of verse 30. He had been giving to Israel, giving to Israel, giving to Israel, giving to Israel to come to the end of verse 30. So you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. That's the exile, isn't it? They were removed from the nation, removed from the promised land. They rejected all the Lord's giving, and so they became the gift of God into the possession of evil nations. He gave his own people over to the heathens. And that giving was brutal. It was the result of their sin. They were removed from the promised land into Capteria and Assyria and then Babylon. In the fall of Jerusalem, the fall of Israel was unimaginably barbaric. And you would expect that Yahweh, for all of their rebellion, all of their rejection, all of their wicked evil, that he would finally destroy them completely. What does verse 31 say? Nevertheless, in your abundant compassion, you did not make a complete destruction of them or forsake them. Why? For you are a gracious and compassionate God. In spite of all of their hatred, all of their wicked treatment of Him, He has compassion on them. Oh, the destruction they went through is horrific! But the text reminds us He didn't destroy them completely, did He? Why? Because there was something great in them? Because there was something redeemable, naturally, in them? Some glimmer of goodness in them? No. They're depraved at the core. He had compassion on them. Why? Because verse 31 tells us, for you are a gracious and compassionate God. He had compassion on them because he is a God of grace and compassion. He saved them not because of them. He saved a remnant because that's his character. Now, as we come to the end of this section, we can't forget that what we're reading here is a prayer. And the fact that this is a prayer of confession is very instructive for us. So there are two things as we wrap up this morning that I want to point out for us regarding prayer as it concludes this section. First, number one, prayer, especially confession of sins, must be genuine. It must be genuine. There is nothing you can hide from God and there is no benefit in even trying, is there? I mean, you can't convince the Lord that you're worthy of Him or worthy of salvation because of you. God saves because He is compassionate and gracious. He doesn't save because there is something inherently worthy by which you or I have earned it or by which He owes it to us. And so there's a tremendous need for veracity or tremendous need, we should say, for truth, for honesty, for genuineness, for authenticity in our prayer before the Lord. Here the nation is gathered together to confess their sin. It's an outpouring of confession to God. They knew they were sinners. They knew their parents were sinners. Their ancestors were sinners. They have no way to hide that from God and there is nothing they know that escapes his notice. He has not forgotten the sin of the past. And he has every reason to pour his wrath out upon them again for all that they've done. And there is no reason for him to not. But in this prayer, they refuse to make excuses. Did you notice that? They refuse to make excuses. If their heart before God is going to be genuine, and they're going to have a real relationship with God, then they have to be truthful with Him, don't they? They had to truly agree with God about their sin. This is not some religious ritual they're going through to jump through the hoops and just satisfy the physical requirements. They're ready to stop playing games with God, and they're ready to start getting serious. These people are desperately aware that they needed God, and that in order to do that, they needed to be honest about their failure. The fault is all theirs. God is utterly blameless and perfect in every dealing of his with them. And he's magnanimous in his display of grace and his display of compassion and his display of mercy. And we should ask the question, do you and I not know, do you not know that this is true of you as well? You and I are sinners. The fault is all ours. God is the only one who is perfectly righteous. So we stand before him raw, bare, with nothing hidden from his sight. Nothing. And so when you come before God in prayer, speak genuine, authentic truth with your God. Confess it. Be honest with your Lord, truly transparent with him. I mean, he already knows. So we need to agree with Him about our sin. But know this, when you do, He is compassionate, and He is gracious, and He is abounding in loving kindness, and He is slow to anger, and that is exactly how you will find Him too. To the one who humbly confesses their sin, God is not and will not smugly dismiss you. He will not push you away. He won't remind you how terrible your sin is. When confession and repentance happens, he embraces and he forgives any offense. But we must be genuine and authentic before him. So trust his compassion, his grace, his mercy, and cast yourself on it. Second, look at the weighty way that they view God in this prayer. This is really important. We live in a time when people think God is a joke. He's treated like he's irrelevant. Or they treat him like a grandpa. Or they treat him like someone who winks at sin. Oh, God and me got a deal. I know he said that this is really important, but it's okay, I'm just gonna keep on doing that, and he's okay with it, I've talked to him, really. I see him as someone who gives a pass on every sin and holds no one accountable for anything. Is that how Israel is in this text? Everyone here is overwhelmed with the weightiness, with the greatness of God. That's what they've been confessing this entire prayer. He is creator, He is great, He is omnipotent, He has all wisdom, He is perfect, He is glorious. Interesting little fact about the word for glory in the Old Testament. It's the Hebrew word kavod. The root meaning of kavod is heavy. Heavy. You say, what do heaviness and glory have to do with each other? It means weighty. something of value to which worth and honor and glory are to be ascribed. I want to ask you this morning, is that how you address God in prayer? The God of the universe is not to be trifled with. His presence is weighty. He has worth. He has value. and he is to be honored above all else. Those two principles alone will take your prayer life to places you've never seen before. Well, we've seen the confession of God's goodness, the confession of his forgiveness, confession of his compassion today, and next time, preview of coming attractions, confession of God's faithfulness. Father God, your word is truly a lamp to our feet, and it is a light to our path. It is a joy to us to know it and to read it. It is a joy to us that it calls us back to you. Even in our sin, you are a God of abundant compassion when we confess and repent. Father, we thank you for that this morning. and pray that you would help us to do it. There's not a man or woman among us that doesn't sin. We need to relate to you on the basis of who you are. We can understand who we are, but we can seek your holiness and glorify you by it. In Christ's name that we pray.