God’s Sovereignty Over the Nations

Transcript

GRM 1167
07/24/2016
God's Sovereignty Over the Nations
Romans 13; Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We've talked recently about the sovereignty of God and in our last study we talked about God's sovereign control over good and evil. He is not the one who causes evil in the world, but His plan includes evil and he is in control of the evil that is done. It is all according to His plan to accomplish His purposes so that He can even use the sinful desires of sinful people to accomplish His purposes.

I want to talk a little bit about the sovereignty of God in a broader context just as it relates to His creation and as it relates to the nations of the earth. We often do this in the context of the political situation and as we come to a time of political issues, electing candidates for the leadership of our country, good for us to be reminded that the One who is sovereignly in control of all of this is our God. He rules over all, He is sovereign over all. And that is to affect the way that you and I conduct ourselves, the way we express ourselves. It serves to give us confidence, peace, that sense of security that is lacking in a fallen world.

Turn to Romans 13. That's a very familiar passage with many of you and it forms sort of a basis for what we want to talk about. The Apostle Paul is not bringing new material when we come to Romans 13. What he has done in the book of Romans is unfolded the Gospel of Jesus Christ, talking about our sin, our lostness, our need of a Savior. Every single one of us in the opening chapters of Romans he demonstrated “there is none righteous, there is none that does good.” We are all sinners, justly condemned by a holy God. But He has provided a Savior. That Savior is Jesus Christ and in Him the righteousness of God is provided for sinful people. Amazing! God had His Son come and pay the penalty for our sin so that we could experience forgiveness. He made new within, He brought into a right relationship with God Himself. He has emphasized how we conduct ourselves, and the provision of God for us to live in the power of His Spirit now as His children.

But then with Romans 12:1 he said, “Now therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Not be conformed to this world but be transformed.” So from Romans 12 he moves on to talk about the practical areas of our lives, how we are now to live in the power of the Spirit, in the new life He has given us in Christ. How amazing God's provision for us is! He comes down to the very practical areas of our lives, and that's where we are when we come into Romans 13. Every person on earth lives in some form of government or another, lives within an authority framework of some kind or another. Paul is writing to a church that had been established in the city of Rome. The Romans ruled the world at this time, Rome is their capital city. This church functions at the very heart of the Roman Empire, the home if you will of the emperor. Now the Roman government was not by any means a pure or holy government. There was no holy Roman Empire. The Roman Emperors could be some of the most corrupt and vile people because they had such power that as fallen beings they tended to use that in many ways in a very corrupt way. Their moral lives were less than admirable.

Yet Paul writes to this church in Rome and says in Romans 13:1, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.” Every person, no exceptions. Now he is writing to believers, of course it would be applicable, the truths would be for everyone because Rome ruled with an iron hand. But Paul is reminding believers that being made new in Christ, being new creatures in Christ did not remove them from their responsibilities as Roman citizens. Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities “for there is no authority except from God.” He has established all authority “and those which exist are established by God.” Those Roman Christians could make the same mistake that some people make today. Well, surely this isn't the person God has appointed and established in power. Think of Nero, he is going to be responsible for the death of the Apostle Paul, for the Apostle Peter and many other believers. A vile man. He would use Christians as torches in the coliseum, tie them to stakes, soak them in oil, light them on fire. And yet those authorities which exist are established by God.

This is not new information, the Apostle Paul who was well versed in the Old Testament, these truths are established there. Now if God has established all authority and even the present ones are established by God, the next statement follows. “Therefore, whoever resist authority has opposed the ordinance of God.” That's not difficult. Someone who has great authority may appoint someone under them, in effect, to represent and carry out their purposes and so if the person under that person disobeys, they are disobeying the authority. The emperor was in Rome but he had authority spread throughout different places. You understand when you resist authority, you are resisting God. Now believers have to understand that because it is easy to see the despicable character, perhaps, of the person, his moral depravity as would be true with these Roman rulers, kinds of things that they practice which were open knowledge that we wouldn't even talk about in a service like this. And yet we are to obey them. That doesn't mean you obey them when they say you are not allowed to preach the Gospel, you are not allowed to call sin, sin. There comes a time we say we must obey God rather than men. But in the general flow of our lives we obey them.

“Those who have opposed,” the end of verse 2, “will receive condemnation upon themselves, for rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior but for evil.” Now again you look at the Roman rulers and what I've even mentioned about a man like Nero, and you say he was opposed to good behavior, preaching the Gospel. But the general principle holds. You know the peace that Rome established across their empire was of great benefit to the Apostle Paul, to the Apostle Peter. Paul could travel from country to country presenting the Gospel, and he experienced a relative peace because Rome exercised authority. That's true of government everywhere. We are thankful for the government we live under. We are here and enjoy a relative peace, relative liberty, freedom from fear that people are just going to storm in and harm us. Talk about terrorism going on in the world, but that tends to emphasize the importance of authorities controlling the situation and enable us to have peace. We are glad that we have police operating through our city, provide protection for our homes and so on. So it was in the days of Rome and Paul could claim and was willing to claim certain rights as a Roman citizen. He exercised those rights. We have the right and the freedom as believers to proclaim the truth of the Scripture. We're glad for the governmental framework that provides that. Where that breaks down people live in fear of going out the door of their house.

So the principle is true, they are not a cause of fear for good behavior but for evil. Our concerns would be where there are breakdowns of law and order that create chaos. “Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, you will have praise from men.” Basically that is true and we experience even as believers, we maybe have many disagreements with policies, with things promoted by our government, but basically I've never been arrested for preaching, for sharing the Gospel. We have a freedom. The only fear I have is if I am going over the speed limit and I am watching, I hope those sneaky police aren't trying to arrest good citizens like I am. I'm only going 40 miles over the speed limit or whatever. We are glad when people go blasting by us, we go by and they are stopped. It's when they pick us up that the police don't have anything better to do. But we have no fear of authority when we do what is right, it's just a general principle God has established. It was true at Rome, it's true down to today.

“It's a minister of God,” verse 4, “to you for good.” That's the principle and we need to remember that, we need to be respectful of it. God doesn't say these are godly people but they are His provision for the relatively orderly functioning of a fallen world. You come down to verse 6, this is why you pay taxes. “Rulers are servants of God,” He intends them to be supported by the people that they rule over. There are movements where I'm not going to pay certain amount of taxes because I don't agree. Paul wouldn't have agreed with everything that the Roman emperor did, some of these Roman emperors bankrupted the Empire with their extravagant and often godless living. It's not Paul's responsibility, our responsibility is we pay our taxes. That doesn't mean we don't get to have a say in our form of government, we get to vote, we can express ourselves. Believers need to be very careful that we function within and upon our biblical framework, on our biblical foundation. We are not part of the political process. Paul was a Roman citizen but he did not involve himself in that. Biblical Christianity operates within whatever system. He doesn't talk about good government, bad government, different forms of government. Whatever it is, it has been appointed by God and they all serve generally the same purpose. Some are more conducive to Christianity, some are less.

So this is the principle of God's sovereignty over government. That's why whenever you find Paul confronting a governing authority, he always shows them honor and respect. He may not be being dealt with fairly but he deals with them with honor and respect. When opportunity comes, he reasons with them about sin and coming judgment, we have that recorded in the book of Acts. But he deals with them with respect, shows honor to the position that they have. We need to be very careful.

Now in the Old Testament we have two things going on. There is the principle that God rules over all of His creation. That is true always, at all time, in every place. It has not changed from the day of creation, it will never change. God is the Creator, He is the sovereign ruler over everything. It is also true in the Old Testament that He chose a nation to belong to Him, the nation Israel. That would be the nation in which He would focus the manifestation of His person and His provision of salvation in the world, the only nation. His power would be demonstrated as He used other nations, but the only nation in which God had revealed Himself and revealed His plan and purposes for salvation was in the nation Israel. It was only within the nation Israel that there was a priestly system established whereby people could come to a representative God had appointed who could act on their behalf to offer sacrifice so that they could have forgiveness of sins when they came and offered that sacrifice by faith. No other nation had that, no other nation was provided in that. God appoints all the rulers in every place, but He appointed the ruler in Israel who was to represent Him and carry out His will. He established, if you will, the constitution for the nation Israel, which we have as the Law of Moses, given in the book of Exodus primarily. There was an earthly nation that was to be ruled according to God's purposes and God's plans.

Now God still rules over all in every place, a general universal rule of God. For that time Israel was the focal place of God revealing Himself on the earth and having His will carried out, it was supposed to be carried out in the nation Israel. The nation Israel as a nation in which God was carrying out His purposes and plans came to an end, really we had two captivities—the Assyrian captivity of the northern ten tribes, then the southern two tribes, then with the coming of Christ and their rejection of Him, God working through an earthly nation. The king that He had appointed, earthly priests that He . . . All that system was set aside, the church was established.

Now we are talking about this because we have to have an understanding of what God is doing in the world today. The church is not a political entity. Israel was a political entity, as well as it was to be a spiritual entity. The church is a spiritual entity but is not to be a political entity. And so you find the church established and Rome continues to rule, and no intention for Israel to be reestablished, and the king of Israel to be reappointed. God says He will some day in the future establish a kingdom that will have no end, but during the time in which the church is functioning, it has a spiritual purpose, not a political purpose. We don't have an earthly kingdom. We have God ruling over all His creation, over all the kingdoms of the world, but we do not have an earthly kingdom where His will is to be carried out on earth. We have a people who belong to God who are to be carrying out His will, but not as an established political entity. Now the failure to distinguish that brings all kinds of confusion.

Come back to Psalm 33, we're just going to pick up a few verses. And you'll note, and we'll just take a sample, God is the Creator of all, as such He is the ruler of all. He is sovereign over all of His creation. Now people reject Him as the Creator, they also reject Him as the sovereign who must be obeyed. For example look at Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, by the breath of His mouth all their hosts.” Verse 9, “He spoke and it was done, He commanded and it stood fast.” Now note verse 10, “The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations, He frustrates the plans of the people. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” And in the Old Testament that nation was Israel. There has never been a nation like that since that He has chosen specially for Himself. But you see as the Creator He sovereignly determines. Men make plans but God sovereignly determines what will be accomplished and when it will be accomplished.

Come over to Psalm 145, almost to the end of the book of Psalms. Look at verse 13, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, your dominion endures throughout all generations.” This is in contrast to mere mortal men who might reign. Look down in Psalm 146:3, “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs and returns to the earth, in that very day his thoughts perish.” I mean, we have a God who rules and is sovereign over all. Rulers come and go, God's kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. He has ruled, and He always has over His creation. But there is a promised earthly kingdom. It was previewed with the nation Israel when God appointed a king like David, but the nation He chose persisted in rebellion against Him, they were placed under judgment. And God established the church, not to replace Israel, but to function as God's representatives on earth during the time in which Israel was set aside under the judgment of God, until the time that He sends the King that He has appointed to establish the kingdom which will have no end.

Before you leave Psalms, come back to Psalm 29. We go back before Israel was established as a nation. God chooses Abraham in Genesis 12 and then the nation will be formed, five hundred years later they will come out of Egypt as a nation of 2 million. But even before Abraham we have the flood in the days of Noah. And in Psalm 29:10, “The Lord sat as king at the flood, yes the Lord sits as king forever.” So even before there was a nation Israel, God was king, ruler, absolute sovereign over all His creation. We talk about His universal kingdom, He has always been the sovereign ruler over all that He brought into existence, which is everything outside of God Himself—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He has ruled, He has reigned, His purposes are done in the world and in the nations of the world. Listen to Lamentations 5:19, “You, O Lord, rule forever, your throne is from generation to generation.”

Come over to the book of Daniel, in Daniel 2 and we reviewed this recently. But you see what Daniel says, God has revealed truth in a dream to Nebuchadnezzar, then to Daniel. In Daniel 2:20, “Let the name of God be blessed forever, for wisdom and power belong to Him. It is He who changes the times and epochs, He removes kings and establishes kings.” You see who is sovereign here, you keep this in mind. We are going to have an election, the election ultimately won't be determined by the voting of the people of the nation, it will be determined by the sovereign will of God. Now God works in various ways, sometimes He works directly. An example would be when He closed the mouths of the lions so that they wouldn't eat Daniel. That was direct intervention. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the book of Daniel, they are cast into the furnace. He directly intervenes. He didn't give them an asbestos suit or cause the fire to miraculously go out, He just directly intervened so they could walk through the fire, and it has no effect on them or their clothes. Sometimes He works indirectly. People talk about “Mother Nature” and the forces of nature. Sometimes God uses an indirect way. For example Jonah tried to run from God and a storm overtook the ship. Jonah recognized it was God who caused that storm and put the ship in danger of sinking. That was an indirect action. For the sailors it just looked like an act of nature—you are on the sea and you are caught in a storm. But Jonah recognized God was acting to cause the storm to come. We view that as an indirect action. The providence of God, we often refer to, where He is using an indirect means to accomplish His purposes.

In the Old Testament He would anoint a king like David, send Samuel to anoint David. But in our process the people will go to the polls and vote. Do you think God is waiting up there to see who wins so He can plan accordingly? He has already appointed it. This is the context in Daniel 2. Nebuchadnezzar thought that he, by his power, his military wisdom and might, had conquered and become the empire of power at the time. Daniel is telling him God put you in power. It was the providence of God in that sense, He gave Nebuchadnezzar the wisdom, put him into position, arranged with the other nations of the time and just at the right time . . . How many times do they say in history, I have a book on my shelf, Turning Points in History, major events that seem to alter the course of history. It was the sovereign God who is making the turns to change.

So He removes kings, He establishes kings, and that's because a king was that form of government. In light of what we just read in Romans 13 that's true whatever the form of government. So keep that in mind when we talk about Presidents. Not saying we shouldn't vote, God uses means so we in our political system have the opportunity to have input. I don't think that means God is not in control. He just directs the voting of millions of people so that His purposes are accomplished. So does that mean the best person, the most godly person will get in? No, it means the person that God is going to use for His purposes, which may be very negative. It was God who determined that Nero would come to the throne and subsequently carry out such vicious persecutions of God's own people. Otherwise we are at the hands of fate.

Come down to Daniel 2:44, we'll just carry it to the end because remember we said there is a coming kingdom. Daniel talks about, verse 44, “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, not left for another people. It will put an end to all these kingdoms and endure forever.” That is yet future. So God is sovereignly ruling, in that sense yes, He is a king ruling His kingdom. But the nation Israel was the manifestation of His rule on earth for a time, but now they've been set aside. And there is no earthly manifestation of God's rule. His church, His people function as His people spread throughout the kingdoms of the world, but the United States of America is not the nation God has chosen in the way that He chose Israel. Every nation exists by the sovereign determination of God, but the uniqueness of the nation that reflects God's rule, “God's people” does not exist right now. It will exist in the future when the Messiah comes.

A terrible thing happened in history when Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Empire, come down to about the 4th century. And it seemed this is wonderful. Do you know what it did? It wed Christianity to a political system. Now, and it seemed like the persecution is off for Christians, and now we have the authority of the government behind Christianity. Can that be bad? It has been terrible! It brought the corruption of the church. The Roman Catholic system is built on that, of course, with their bishop at Rome and the joining with the Emperor. And now those who don't worship, aren't Christians will be persecuted. But then we have a corrupted Christianity, but now we have the authority of the political power to support the corrupted Christianity. And so genuine Christians become the object of persecution. When the Reformers in the 16th century realized the Gospel of grace, they came out of Roman Catholicism. Martin Luther was a Catholic monk, John Calvin, these men we know as the Reformers. Do you know what? We call them the magisterial reformers. Do you know why? They believed in the wedding of the political system and Christianity, they believed you use the political power to support and enforce Christianity. They thought there wouldn't be any way for us to spread Christianity and bring its influence if we didn't have the backing of the political system. It's a disaster, it was a corrupt system. And so it ended up genuine believers who recognized the error of that became the subject of their persecution. And they thought they had to be executed because the welfare of the state is joined to the religious system. Then we just have what we had in paganism, now under the guise of Christianity.

We have that error perpetuated to today, so we have evangelicals going to be a voting bloc, evangelicals going to influence the vote here. It's not biblical, it's built on an unbiblical model, built on the idea that we are the “new Israel,” if you will; the kingdom is in force, we must enforce the principles of the kingdom. Not biblical. Paul and other believers from New Testament times, the genuine line, stand recognizing the sovereignty of God at all, but recognizing God has not ordained the church to be a political entity. At least Roman Catholicism is honest, they acknowledge they built their whole priestly system on the model of the priestly system in Israel. They operate with their high priest and their subsequent priests, and they see it as a political movement. So in Roman Catholic controlled countries there is not much freedom for evangelical Christians. And they work with the political system. We as believers are different. We support whatever government is—if we lived in Russia, we would support their government; if we lived in another part of the world, we would support . . . That doesn't mean we agree with everything. Nero was not a man you would have agreed with a lot of his moral principles in conduct. We respect him because God has appointed him. You note Daniel when he deals with Nebuchadnezzar, deals with him very respectfully.

He does that in Daniel 2, when you get to Daniel 3 you have Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being cast into the fiery furnace. Do you know why? They wouldn't bow down and worship the image that Nebuchadnezzar had made of himself. And all the nations had to bow down. That gives you a preview of where we are going, the coming seven years when the Antichrist reigns and an image is made of the beast and all the world is required to bow and worship. And those who won't must die. Because you see the welfare of the political system is joined to the religious system, they are part and parcel of one another. Not God's intention for the church. There is power in religion, there is power in the political movement and when you put the two together you are going to have trouble.

So you come to Daniel 4 and you have the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar, one of the most remarkable accounts of conversion in all the Old Testament has to be Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel. Verse 2, now this is the man who in Daniel 3 was having people cast into a fiery furnace because they wouldn't bow down and worship before his image. Now verse 2 he says, “It seems good to me to declare the signs, the wonders the Most High God has done for me. How great are His signs, how mighty are His wonders, His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, His kingdom is from generation to generation.” All of a sudden it's not all about me, I'm going to pass off the scene, but God who is king over all isn't passing away. He will reign always.

You come over to Daniel 4:17, and this decision is made, pick up in the middle of verse 17, “in order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, bestows it on whom He wishes, sets over it the lowliest of men.” Be careful when we say I don't think God would have them become President, be ruler, be in that . . . He sets over it the lowliest, even the basest of men. He is sovereign. You come down to the end of verse 25, “You recognize the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, bestows on it whomever He wishes.” The end of verse 26, “Your kingdom will be assured to you after you recognize it is heaven that rules.” The end of verse 32, “The Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, bestows it on whomever He wishes.”

Sometimes I listen to those who claim to be evangelicals, I see pastors being interviewed on news programs. I say, have they ever read the Bible? Well, I'm an evangelical Christian. Well, what are you doing all tied up in politics? We pray, according to 1 Timothy 2, for rulers and those in authority. Why? So we will have peace. Why? God wants men and women to be saved. So we are about using the opportunities we have. It's like I mentioned earlier, we complain, what's going to happen to the world? What is happening now? How many times do we share the Gospel through a week? How many people do we tell about Christ and we're worried about a day may come when we won't have the opportunity. What good are opportunities we don't use? We miss the opportunity of today, this will happen if we don't get the right person in place and this means the Supreme Court will go this way, and then the whole Congress may . . . What's going to happen to the world? What did Jesus say? Don't worry about tomorrow, each day has enough trouble of its own. What has He called us to do today? Shine as lights in darkness. May look at our country and say, believers there don't do anything anyway, won't make much difference to the testimony of the Gospel if they are there or not there.

God appoints the ruler. That's our security, isn't it? Otherwise we fall into the fears and the hopelessness of the world. Their whole hope depends on whether we get a Democrat or Republican as President. My whole confidence is in the fact that God is sovereign and His plan will be done. And I can't tell you what His plan is in that area. I don't think He'd want this person in, I don't think He'd want that person in. Well, the person will be in that He is going to use for the accomplishing of His purposes, and you understand the world is going from bad to worse. We are going to the tribulation before we go to the kingdom. Now some believers, Reform people, Covenantalists, they think otherwise. They think we are in the kingdom and we are establishing all these and we have to do . . . That's why we have to be careful we have our theology biblically, and then we live in light of it.

Some of you are old enough to remember the Moral Majority. Now what in the world was the Moral Majority? It was led by a group of Christians who put their head in the sand and forgot everything about their theology. We're finding out, where is the Moral Majority? What does the Bible say about the heart of fallen men? It is “deceitful and desperately wicked above all things.” Only God knows the depths of its depravity. And yet people were parading around, The Moral Majority, The Moral Majority. Where do we get that?

Now God is sovereign over all, He is moving it, there is one thing we have to close with. You know what this means. God makes clear He is sovereign over all. He will ultimately call every single person to an account before Himself. “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” There will be no exceptions. Every single person on the face of the earth who has ever lived is going to be called personally before God to be judged. That's what God has said, the One who rules over all.

Two verses. Amos 9:2, note this, no escaping God. “Though they dig into Sheol, the grave and beyond, from their My hand will take them; though they ascend to heaven, from there I will bring them down; though they hide on the summit of Carmel, I will search them out, take them from there; though they conceal themselves from my sight on the floor of the sea, I will command the serpent who will bite them there.” You cannot escape the sovereign God. The world lives in open rejection of God and as though there were no consequences. There is no person too small, no person too great who will not be called personally to give an account to God.

Come over to Revelation 20, this is the last judgment of Scripture. “I saw,” Revelation 20:11, here is how it's all going to end, think about it. Every unbeliever is going to appear here, just as real as you are sitting in this auditorium it is going to happen. “I saw the Great White Throne, Him who sat on it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them.” You see the same thing we read in Amos, no place was found for them—there is no hiding from God, there is no getting away from Him, there is no escape. “I saw the dead, the great, the small, standing before the throne. The books were open, another book was open which is the Book of Life, the dead were judged from the things written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead which were in it, death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them. They were judged everyone,” there is not a person who has ever lived who can escape this judgment, “according to their deeds. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.” You'll note there are two kinds of books here—the Book of Life and the book of our works. People are judged out of the book of their works, but the only people who are not going to be cast into the Lake of Fire are those whose names are in the Book of Life. You can't get your name in the Book of Life by doing good works. “By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, declared righteous.” They are being judged on the basis of their works because their name is not in the Book of Life.

So there in eternal hell which burns with fire and brimstone forever they will be sentenced. He is a sovereign God, He rules over all and you cannot escape accountability to Him. You can cover things up here, you can hide in a certain way here, but all things are open and naked before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. It will all be there, He missed nothing, the judgment will be sure. For those who are in the Book of Life, we go into Revelation 21-22 and it's eternal glory in the presence of God, in a kingdom that will never end. For those who have not bowed before God, placed their faith in His Son, His death on the cross as payment for their sin, trusting Him alone, trying by their good works, their religious activity and a host of other things, they will find their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, the lake of fire.

We serve a sovereign God, that's our confidence. As people who have placed their faith in Christ, we live with this confidence and hope. We are not caught up in the turmoil of the world, we're not caught up in the fears of the world and our hopes are not in the next election. Our hope is in the God who has promised and the assurance. I'm not saying you can't vote, you shouldn't vote, I'm glad it doesn't depend upon men who are swayed by this and by that. The sovereign God is moving all things toward His appointed climax—coming judgment, coming separation, glory for God's people.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, in days of turmoil, in days of fear, in days of evil, growing rebellion against You, everything is under control. The future is under control, our tomorrows are secure. As Your people we live in a world of darkness, we shine as lights, telling a lost world of the Savior, that there is a God who in love has provided a way for them to be cleansed from their sin, from the defilement, from the ugliness, from the consequences. That Savior is Jesus Christ. Lord, may we as Your people manifest that assurance and confidence in Your Word, in Your promises, remember who we are, why we are here, that we might serve You faithfully. We pray in Christ's name, amen.