I invite you to turn with me in God's word through the prophets in Isaiah chapter 43. Our text this evening then is Isaiah 43 beginning in verse 1. We'll read into 44 through verse 5. Hear the word of the Lord from Isaiah the prophet. But now, Thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned. And the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Sheba, in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes and honored. And I love you. I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you." I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Bring out the people who are blind and yet have eyes, who are deaf yet have ears. All the nations, gather together, and the peoples, assemble. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, it is true. You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and beside me there is no Savior." I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange God among you, and you are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and I am God. Also, henceforth, I am He. There is none who can deliver from my hand. I work, and who can turn it back? Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I sent to Babylon to bring down all as fugitives, even the Chaldeans and the ships in which they rejoice. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior. They lie down, they cannot rise. They are extinguished and quenched like a wick. Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself, so that they might declare my praise. Yet, you did not call upon me, O Jacob, but you have been weary of me, O Israel. You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings or wearied you with frankincense. You have not brought me sweet cane with money or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities. I, I, and He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance. Let us argue together. Set forth your case that you may be proved right. Your first father sinned and your mediators transgressed against me. Therefore, I will profane the princes of the sanctuary and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling. But now hear, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen. Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you. Fear not, O Jacob, My servant, Yeshurun, whom I have chosen, for I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your offspring and My blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grasses like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, I am the Lord's. Another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, the Lord's, and name himself by the name of Israel." Thus far the reading of God's holy word. Let's ask His blessing on its exposition now. Let's pray. Lord, you who feed the little birds when they open their mouths and cry to you, feed us, we pray. Lord, give us understanding and illumination, or this is a vain exercise. Please give grace to the one who speaks and all of us who listen, that your word may enter and bear good fruit in our minds and hearts, we pray. For the sake of Jesus, our good Savior and shepherd. Amen. People of Covenant OPC, well loved by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not surprising that this book of Isaiah, after the Psalms, is the most quoted book in the New Testament. The deep insight into who Yahweh is, the comfort, the way in which the past, present, and future all come together under the sovereign plan of God for our good. This is truly a remarkable collection of oracles. I've chosen this text because this has been my personal reading here in this section of Isaiah recently, and it's really spoken to me, a lot of these texts in the latter half of Isaiah. It is difficult to find exactly the breaks of the natural thought breaks here. Sometimes our chapter breaks are helpful. Sometimes they are not. It seems to me that the text that I've, as we've read it here, is a natural enough passage. But stepping back, I think we can say that this passage that we've just read is in many ways a summary of the whole teaching of Isaiah. On the one hand, we can think of Isaiah as a covenant prosecutor. I think we know something about prosecutors here in this congregation, having a public prosecutor amongst us. Isaiah is God's prosecutor against his people. He is exposing sin and threatening judgment. That's on the negative side. And on the positive side, Isaiah is God's comforter. He is bringing a message of consolation and profound encouragement to these downtrodden, fearful Israelites as they experience being refugees in exile. If we can generalize, we can say that Isaiah, on the one hand, brings the law, and on the other hand, he brings the gospel. On the one hand, the law is when Isaiah exposes God's demands of us and shows how we have failed to live up to His expectations. We have forfeited a relationship with Him. Surely Israel has forfeited a relationship with God as we see it in this passage. But the good news of the Gospel, on the other hand, is that God declares how He will forgive us our sins. that his favor is toward us, he will continue to have a relationship with us, and he will bring that relationship to a consummation, as we heard this morning, despite our sins. That's the gospel. The gospel is the good news. Both these themes, the law and the gospel, are powerfully displayed in our passage. this morning, and I think that if you can grasp it by faith, if you'll believe it, I think you will find that in your world that is filled, if it's like mine at all, it's filled with so many uncertainties, so many anxieties, so many reasons to be discouraged, that there's a word that's profoundly helpful for us in this passage. Right at the beginning in verse 1 of chapter 43, fear not. And at the end of our passage in 44 verse 2, again, fear not. Do not be afraid. There's reason for you to have confidence as you look to the future, no matter what the uncertainties are that you are facing. So I'd like for us to consider this passage together. I would like us to begin thinking of our problem. Three points this evening. Let's begin with our problem. Though we need comfort, I do think that we cannot appreciate the deep consolations that we receive knowing that Yahweh receives us because of Christ. We can't realize how good we have it unless we realize how lost we are without Christ and God's favor. So let's begin with our problem. In this passage that we've read, our Israel and our sins are displayed in a number of different ways. The most powerful is certainly in verses 22 through 24. Here we read that not only have the people failed to provide the regular daily offerings, as we see in 23, not only have they failed to bring the sweet cane, that's the fragrant calamus, that's part of the anointing oil that's used in temple worship, as we see from Exodus 30 verse 23, they've not only committed sins of omission, but more importantly, they've committed sins of commission. They have wearied God, as it says in verse 24. This is obviously an anthropomorphic illustration. It's a metaphor, as Isaiah has a hundred metaphors. He's the greatest of the Old Testament poets, in my opinion. He's constantly speaking in poetic terms. It's impossible to make God weary, He who is omnipotent. But it's like treating God as if He were another person, and burdening Him down with your troubles, and with burdens, and making that person carry so much stuff that you just wear them out. That's the picture here. The real problem, as we see from verse 22, is that the people are the ones that are weary. They're weary of God Himself. And I dare say this is a temptation for you and for me. Oh, I'm just... I'm just tired. I'm just tired of the Christian way. If I'm honest, can I say I'm just tired of the Lord? I'm tired of the restrictions that the Scriptures place on me, I may say. I think I'll wander off and try something that's more exciting, more fulfilling, perhaps. Each of us is surrounded with temptations that are wooing us to make us tired of the Christian way, to make us spiritually sleepy. Is there a particular temptation that is weighing you down today, this week, that's making you Do you feel like the Christian life is burdensome? That it's a narrow way that you're giving up something rather than gaining something by being a Christian? Isaiah 43.8 highlights, puts the spotlight on another of our problems. There we read, bring out the people who are blind yet have eyes, who are deaf yet have ears. Now, some of us have physical disabilities, but all of us have moral disabilities. All of us. That's what we're talking about here. Isaiah is saying that the people are spiritually disabled. They have no discernment. This is what Isaiah is rebuking at the end of chapter 42. The people are spiritually insensible. We read in verse 20 of our text, They see many things, but do not observe them. They hear many things, but do not understand. Actually, that's in 42, rather. The people, as you may remember, in Israel at the time of Isaiah, and then later, the people are surrounded by troubles, by national calamities. And yet, they continue to disobey, and as we read in 42, 24, they refuse to walk in the ways of God. And so we read in 25, so he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he did not understand. It burned him up, but he did not take it to heart. This is very physical, this is very political, this is very national. Remember, Israel is the church in its infancy. It's in a particular state. It is a theocratic people. The church is tied to a particular ethnicity and a particular geography. We call that Palestine. It's tied to that place. And so when the nation church has a national setback, it is a church setback. It is a call to the church nation to repent because they're completely connected. And so this is how we understand chapter 43 verse 28. This is very harsh. Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling. God is saying, I will expose my people to national disasters so that they will repent and wake up. We, however, as Canadian Christians, as American Christians, whatever our nationality may be, we do not live under a theocratic kingdom. We have no Davidic king that rules over us. We are living in a different stage in God's church. We can read verse 23, and I dare say we can be thankful for the relative freedom that we have from all the burdensome, cultic, outward requirements of Old Testament religion. I would go on to say, I think Christianity, particularly Reformed Christianity, Protestant Christianity, is probably one of the most freest spiritual lifestyles in the entire world. If you compare it with Hinduism or Islam, there's very, very little required of us. I mean, here even we have an offering, but if you don't want to give, you don't have to give. What, we come together to pray together once a week? Is that so hard? I think we've got it pretty light. if you compare religious obligations, outward commitments that are required of us. But let's push deeper than the outward thing. The root problem that Israel is facing is the same root problem that we are facing, and that is that sin goes down into the bone. It goes down into the marrow. In verse 27, Isaiah, or the Lord through Isaiah, points the finger. He says, Your first father sinned. Your mediators transgressed against me. Jacob was a habitual sinner. His very name means deceiver. Yaakov means heel-grasper, deceiver. But are we non-Jews? Any better? Maybe some of us are Jews, I'm not sure. But are we who are not Jews any better? By no means. Our first father, Adam, was just as much of a sinner as Jacob was. And if I can put it this way, there is some kind of a horrible, mystical process by which we receive not only our genes from our ancestors, but we receive this inner corruption, which we call inner sin, this orientation towards the twisted, as well as an original guilt, that we're born under this. This is a universal problem that we face. This is our problem. But let's move on in this passage from our problem to God's solution. This is our second point, of course. Now, do we need to repent? Yes, we need to repent. But the fundamental Solution to our problem is it doesn't come from you it comes from God himself as is repeated again and again in this passage look at 43 26 If I and Isaiah loves this imagery imagery he uses it repeatedly he takes us into the courtroom and If you are in court with God and you have a chance to argue your case, kind of something like what Job had a chance to do, can you win your case with God that you are innocent? That you're right before God? That you're not guilty? And the answer, of course, is no, you can't do it. And so that's why verse 25 is very, very good news for you. The Lord says, and he emphasizes here, I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. Did you catch that? It is, it is not the animal sacrifices that ever took away the sins. All the reasons, please hear this, this is tremendous news if you can understand it and believe it. All the reasons for God to forgive you come from within God Himself. They come from His nature, who He is. Ritterbos notes and says, the entire work of redemption proceeds not from Israel, but only from the Lord. Verse 25, removing Israel's transgression is the Lord's act and only his and that for his own sake. The motivation has to be in his own nature. For there was not a single ground for doing it on Israel's behavior. The passage might well be entitled, In Praise of Free, Unmerited Grace. Brothers and sisters, the music of this grace, it permeates our entire passage. So let's listen to some of the notes as we go through this passage. Look at verse 1 of chapter 43. Here's the Lord speaking to Israel in its need for assurance. Thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you. Can you feel the care? The Lord is taking us back to the beginning and He's saying, I am responsible for your existence. It's very intimate. It's like a potter. I formed you. I made you, as it were, with my own hands. He repeats in verse 2 at the end of our passage in chapter 44. He repeats these same descriptions that God is for us. He crafted us together when we were in the womb. He will help us. God is not just some kind of unmoved mover. He's not the watchmaker who wound things up and who disappeared. He helps us. He's involved with our lives. He's a good shepherd. He's a good gardener. He's like a mother to us. He will never forget us. He cares for us. Back in chapter 1, verse 1 of chapter 43, he says, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. Redeemed you. This is not a word that we often use in our modern culture, but it's a very rich idea. It's like Boaz. You remember Boaz? Right? For Ruth and Naomi and the family. The Redeemer is the one who does everything necessary to make sure that it's going to turn out okay for you. That's what a Redeemer is, someone who cares for you, who pays everything necessary, who does everything necessary to make sure that you're going to be okay. That's what the Lord says. He says, I am doing that for you. I'm your Redeemer. We don't have time, of course, to explore all the riches of this passage. There's a lot of stuff here. There's a controversial but a very powerful image in verses 3 and 4. Here, this is not at all, please understand, this is not at all any kind of statement of the low importance of Africa. That's not what it is. It mentions Egypt, then it goes on, Cush is to the south of Egypt, Sheba and Seba is to the south of that. I like to think of Seba as Eritrea, but I'm biased because I used to live in Eritrea, and I love those people. But what God is saying here is the positive, that He values His people with a very special love, and He will pay whatever it takes Whatever cost is involved to make sure that they are well taken care of. When you look at 16 and 17, what act of redemption do you think that the Lord has in mind here? Of course, He's talking about the Exodus, right? When God brought Israel out of Egypt. And in that process, what happened to the Egyptian army, of course? As we read in verse 17. It ended up at the bottom of the Red Sea. Israel literally walked through the mighty waters, but the pursuing Egyptian chariots were washed away and their riders perished. Brothers and sisters, let us remember, as we see up here displayed before us, we have the font and we have the Lord's Table, which will be before us here early next month. When you think of the font, remember what Peter says. These are the waters of judgment. They're taken away from you. They become the waters of blessing to you now, as you're identified with Christ. But for him, they were the water of judgment, as in the days of Noah. Remember that what we eat when we approach the Lord's Supper is our equivalent of the Exodus. that the Lord has made a way for us, and it is through the blood of Christ, because of His blood, we are not destroyed by the avenging angel that punishes and pursues sinners. So let us remember, both in our baptism and at the Lord's Supper, the mercies of God and His grace toward us. But as if the exodus were not sufficient, The Lord goes on to promise in verses 19 and following a new thing and that new thing we could describe as a second exodus. Now, during Isaiah's day, what is the threat? The threat is that the people are going to be taken off into exile, first by Assyria, and then, as does indeed happen, by the Babylonians. And then later, the threat is, how are we going to get back from exile back to our holy land? What God is promising them, He's giving His people an assurance. He's promising that He will provide for them drink in the desert. Verse 20 is like a poetic description of God rolling out the red carpet for His people who are returning home. He's going to make sure they have something to drink. even when they cross the dry wasteland. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. Through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. The flame shall not consume you, for I, the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, am your Savior. Brothers and sisters, this message, one of the reasons I love Isaiah, the New Testament writers loved Isaiah, people have always loved Isaiah, is because it speaks to us at different ways and at different times. It becomes bigger and bigger and bigger, richer and richer and richer, the more we read it, and the longer, the more time passes, we see how these paradigms, how these expectations of God's work become filled again and again and again. This is a word of consolation for those who were taken into exile, a word of encouragement for those who come back from exile, and even more than that. This passage, as all of Isaiah, is pointing us to the greater Exodus. The Lord Jesus, it says, spoke with Moses and Elijah when he was on the mountain about the Exodus that he would be, that he was going to carry out. It uses the same word, Exodus. But it points, Isaiah is always pointing us to this first and even this second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 11 of 43 we read, I am the Lord and besides me there is no Savior. How can we not think of, when we think of the Lord as Savior, how can we not think of Jesus who came to rescue us from the mess we've made and the enslavement that we find ourselves caught in as human beings? Isaiah, his meaning, we might say, is pregnant. It is filled with rich and richer meaning as we see God delivers people at different times and in great and greater ways. We are not finished. Christ has come, but Christ will come again, and He will bring that new thing to a completion. There is still a sense we enjoy salvation, but there is a new thing. Salvation is still yet to be, yet to come in its fullness. There's a day when every eye will indeed see, that every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that there is no other savior. We heard some of the negative, there's some negative stuff at the beginning of the Olympic celebrations. But focusing for a second on the positive thing, I think it's universally stirring to see people, of course, come together in excellent physical condition to compete people from all the countries of the world almost. And it was very moving to me as I saw at one point in the rugby, men's sevens rugby, one of the Fijian players, he made a goal and then he clearly gave God thanks by raising his hand like this. Unless I'm interpreting it incorrectly. To me it was like, thank God, I'm giving God the credit for what just happened. And it is surely the case that there are believers from all over the world that are gathering at this time to compete in these games. It is an expression of the world coming together, and God's people are a part of that, of course. In our passage, some people see chapter 44 verse 5 pointing to the in-gathering of the Gentiles becoming believers and in fulfillment of prophecy. That may or may not be the case. We can feel something similar. There's an expansive feel in chapter 43 verses 5 through 7. So we do know that God is going to make all the people of God come home, even from the ends of the earth. But whatever exactly Isaiah had in mind, speaking of Israelites or speaking of the Gentiles from the world, we do know that in God's plan, God is gathering in the Gentiles from Fiji, from the islands, from Australia, from every part of Asia, that He is gathering His people. And we, all of us, through our mission work together, through our witnessing together, we have a part in seeing that happen. It's a great privilege for us to see what God is doing on a worldwide scale. It's extremely exciting. So we've been considering our problem and God's solution. I want for you thirdly to consider with me then our response. Our response to Yahweh's grace. We were reading the Heidelberg Catechism earlier in the service, and you're probably aware that the Heidelberg Catechism has three sections which can be characterized as guilt, grace, and gratitude, or to use another alliteration, as sin, salvation, and service. Those three main ideas, and it's always remarkable to me how these three points There's so often a beautiful paradigm to bring out the meaning of God's Word, and such is the case here. How is it that we should respond, then, as we think about God's Law, which convicts us, and God's Gospel, which assures us of His grace? I think we can respond by focusing on at least three things from this passage. First, if you look at verse 10, if you look at verse 12, Isaiah reminds us that you are God's witnesses. You are God's witnesses. Now, verses 8 through 13, I'm sure, Al would tell us, is a rather strange court scene. Because I'm sure that in all his career, he never called as a witness, a visual witness, someone who is blind, or as an auditory witness, someone who is deaf. It's unthinkable. But that's exactly what God does. He takes someone who's blind and deaf and makes them witnesses. God's people are his witnesses. Why is that? Because they and they alone have seen what He promised and what He fulfilled. They know that He promised ahead of time that there would be this captivity and that it would come to an end, right? The courtroom scene in some ways, and we don't have enough time to go into it, is a debate about who is God, whether Yahweh is God, the God of Israel, or the gods of the nations. Yahweh is the only one who can proclaim ahead of time his intentions and then bring those intentions to pass in history. You, brothers and sisters, are God's witnesses. Now, before you start thinking, oh, you know, I need to get more active in speaking to my fellow co-workers or my neighbors about the Lord Jesus, which is always a good thing or generally a good thing. The strange thing here is, you are a witness whether you want to be or not. Whether you speak or not. Just by being identified with Him, you are His witness. If the waters of baptism are on you, you are called by the name of God, you are His witness. Period. That's who you are. Just by existing, you are His witness. And that's a big calling. So first, you are His witness. And second, If you look at verse 1 and again at 44 verse 2, there is a command here. Do not be afraid. This is not a suggestion, this is a command. Somehow we Christians, perhaps myself first and foremost, we can convince ourselves that anxiety is virtuous. When the Lord says, do not be afraid, you should not be afraid. And fretting and fretting is doing no good whatsoever, right? Now, what is the biblical message? Oh, you have no reason to be afraid? Ha! Absurd! Look at verse 2. Verse 2 applies to you just as much as it does to the Israelites. They had to go through, as the saying says, hell and high water. The same is true for you and me. It may be in this area of your life, in your health. It may be a relationship issue. It may be a professional issue. It may be some serious dispute in a legal matter that faces you, or some other trouble that just wears at you year after year. how I wish that the prosperity gospel were true. But it is not true in this life. You must expect to go through the fire and to go through the flood. That is the nature of your experience in this world. Did you catch that? If you understand that, you can live more happily. Because you're not expecting that things, if things would just straighten out, then everything would be perfect in my life. It's not going to happen. and tell the glory of the new earth, right? So we expect these things to come. But the promise here, and the reason you cannot be afraid, is because, as we read in verse 15, you have a Redeemer, you have a Savior, and you have a King. You have a King. We live in democratic societies, but we have actually a King. That is someone in power who can do us good. He can actually take our troubles and turn them into blessings. This is extraordinary. Brothers and sisters, let the anxiety go. Let it fall away. Let faith arise in this one who is your redeemer. And as we read in this text, who loves you. God loves you, He says. This is love language. It's explicit here in our passage. He loves, He loves, He loves you. It's extraordinary. Finally, thirdly, as verse 22 suggests, by way of application, Call upon Him. Israel was guilty of not calling upon Him. Call upon Him. Brothers and sisters, He is the center. Make Him the center in your life. Make Him the point of orientation in your life. And in particular, if I may, call on Him, if you look at 44, call on Him for the power of the Holy Spirit. 44 is very rich here. It's a beautiful picture. It's a picture of a dry land. Have you ever been to a desert area where it's rained? Maybe in the eastern California or any other desert area that you may have been to. What happens after it rains? It just becomes green. It's amazing. what's dead and brown for 10 months of the year, boom, just comes alive. And here it uses the idea of willows, these plants that grow where there's plenty of water. Why are you here today? Why do you have any interest in coming to hear the Word of God and sing God's praises and pray? Why do you have any interest in being in this meeting today? It's because the Spirit has worked in your life and given you a desire for Christ and made Christ sweet to you. God has worked in you. That's the reason you're here. Because this is dear to you. This, what the world considers to be a foolish and irrelevant message, is precious to you. Right? So, brothers and sisters, let us pray for our children. It speaks about the offspring here, on the descendants. Our children cannot be one for Christ, cannot grow in Christ, cannot flourish in Christ, without the work of that same Spirit. I know many of us have the testimony. We heard the Gospel when we were young, maybe we wandered, but then the Lord came back and brought it to us. Brought it home to our hearts. So let us call on God for our children's sake and for the sake of those younger people in our lives that we influence, whether we're teaching them or whether we rub shoulders with them in any way. This is our prayer for the rising generation, right? This is our hope for this country. Right? What's going to happen to this country? We pray for the younger generation. What's going to happen to the church? It's in the hands of the younger generation. So let us pray to the Lord that God would do just what He says, that He will pour His Spirit on our children and on the young generation, that He will raise up for Himself people who identify themselves with the Lord Himself. It's not imposed on them, it's coming from inside them. Look at the end of our of our passage here in verse 5. It's beautiful. I'm not sure if you're into tattoos or not. It's almost the idea of tattooing here, writing on your hand, the Lord's. I belong to the Lord, right? Naming yourself by the name of Israel, saying, I am the Lord's. Brothers and sisters, as we close, isn't this a beautiful circle? At the beginning, in verse 1, of chapter 43, we read, I have called you by name, you are mine. Li ata, you belong to me, it says. And here at the end of our passage, it uses the same expression. Li Adonai, li Yahweh, right? I belong to the Lord. Brothers and sisters, this is both side. When you come to the Lord's Supper next month, the Lord is saying to you, you are mine. You are mine. Right? When you remember your baptism, you can say, God set me out from that moment to be His. His name is on me. You are mine, His love toward us, and then we respond, and we call out on God that our children might respond. We say, yes, I am yours. Isn't that the same picture as we saw in the morning message about that marriage? The great relationship between God and us, His people, will come to its consummation. You are mine. says the husband. I am yours, says the wife. We're waiting for that consummation on that great last day. Isn't that a beautiful thing? Would you stand with me for prayer? Merciful, kind, gracious Lord, how we thank you that you spoke through the prophets in Old days, you promised and you fulfilled. You promised judgment, you promised grace and mercy and you fulfilled. And we thank you that we see both coming together in the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus, that judgment met and mercy was expressed. Our Lord, we pray that you would help us to believe these things, that you are for us and that we are yours, that you are the Redeemer, the only Savior, that you are our helper and the only helper. Lord, forgive us for we too become tired of you. We confess that we too become weak, weary, distracted. We look all everywhere but where we should for satisfaction. Forgive us, Lord. Help us to call upon You, to seek You, to pursue You, to give You the offerings of which You are worth in our energies day by day and week by week. Guide us, Lord. Please pour out Your Spirit on us. Please pour out Your Spirit on this congregation. Please pour out Your Spirit on the children of our families and of this congregation. You must do this work, Lord God, or our work is in vain, or all of our teaching is in vain. And Lord, in the rising generation in church and state, Lord, have mercy and grant us times of renewal and revival, we pray. Oh Lord, have mercy. Have mercy. Even as you did in the Europe of Isaac Watts' day, when so many amazing hymns were written, so much preaching, so many missions were carried out, that beginning of missions in the world, We thank you, Lord, of Protestant missions in the world. We thank you, Lord, for what you've done. We ask that you'd carry it on and do even greater things in our days. Lord, have mercy. We pray for us, especially those of us who deal with anxiety and crippling anxiety. Lord, help us to move beyond, to push through, and grant us confidence for living this week, we pray. For all those who travel, again, we ask that you'd watch over each one and fill our mouths with your praise. Watch over our bodies, we pray. All the glory and the honor, the worship, the thanksgiving be yours, Lord, for you are utterly worthy. We thank you for all the great things you've done for us. In Christ's name, amen and amen. Let's give thanks unto the Lord, Jehovah, using hymn number 613 together.