Well, amen, amen, good evening, happy Lord’s Day, it’s good to be with you. We are going to be in Revelation chapter 14, verses 6 to 13. Revelation chapter 14, verses 6 to 13.

And John continues and says, Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, fear God and give him glory, because the hour of the Lord is nigh. The hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. Another angel, a second followed, saying, fallen, fallen is Babylon, the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. And another angel, a third, followed him, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath. Pour it forth. Full strength into the cup of his anger. And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. And they have no rest day or night. These worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name. Here is a call. The endurance. Of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, write this. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed, says the spirit. That they may rest from their labors. Their deeds follow them. Whenever you watch those old, you know, like 19, well, really 1920s. It’s a 1960s movie. You see everybody with a cigarette in their hand, don’t you? It’s very cultural. And I remember growing up even, which is the 90s. You go into a restaurant and you would be asked by the hostess, smoking or not, right? Smoking or not. It’s like, is that long ago? But we figured out since the roaring 20s with all of its cigarettes, it’s not actually good for you to do it. It kills you. I read one of three people will be severely impacted by smoking cigarettes in old age. So it’s not a maybe thing. It’s a definite thing. And it says it right there on the side of the carton. Smoking causes cancer.

It does. And yet about 30 million people in America today still smoke cigarettes. There are things that are maybes and then there are things that are for sures. And what the the writer, John, relates to us is a sure message is a divine warning. And like all warnings, it’s given so that it would be heated.

The divine warning. The divine warning. The divine warning. It’s given so that people would avoid destruction.

Do we heed this divine warning?

Verse six, he says he sees another angel and we’ve seen angels do and say a lot of things. And angels are a lot of times they’re messengers. It’s what angel means in the Greek. It’s a messenger. And the angel is flying. And the angel is flying directly overhead. And we saw this same verbiage before. It means the zenith in the sky directly overhead. And so the angel in chapter eight pronounced judgment, the woes that were coming. And it said it was in the zenith of the sky. Why is that significant? Significant because in the zenith of the sky, that means everyone can see and hear. It’s a message for all people. And the message of this angel who’s directly overhead the whole earth. Is an eternal gospel. An eternal gospel to those who it says dwell on her. And I know I’ve said it multiple times, but to reiterate, whenever you see the phrase dwell on earth, that’s a reference to nonbelievers. So dwell on earth strictly means those on earth who are not followers of Christ. What’s this eternal gospel that this angel is preaching? Well, when we hear the word gospel, we rightly so think of the cross of Jesus and we think of his sacrifice and we think of our sins. We think of the resurrection and repentance and faith and all that. And that certainly is the climax of the gospel story. But I want to remind us in this passage reminds us that the gospel is is far more wide and deep than that. The gospel. The gospel is God’s whole plan that he had purpose in his heart before time began. And then time happened and it’s the fall of man and it’s Israel, God’s people in the Old Testament. And it’s working through the prophets and this coming Messiah. And it’s the life of Jesus. And it’s the birth of the church. And it’s the story of church history all the way to what we’re reading here in Revelation and how Jesus will come back and he will destroy evil and save his people. So the gospel. If we want to have it in the fullest sense of it, it’s this big, huge story of God. That’s the whole story of the gospel. It’s it’s an eternal story. It’s for ordained in the heart of God. It’ll come to pass in a new heavens and a new earth. That’s how it will complete. So the angel, then I want you to understand the angels, not so much pronouncing from the zenith. Even in the sky, the basic blocks of what one needs to do to come to saving faith. Given the context, the angel is talking about a specific aspect of the gospel. Which aspect of the gospel is the angel talking about? Judgment is the aspect. The book determines it. The context determines it. He’s talking about a soon coming. Judgment. You look back at verse seven. It says, and he said with a loud voice, fear God, give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come.

Judgment. So imminent. And this flies right in the face, friends of the gospel. I think that we want to sell today. That’s sort of a happy, sappy say yes to Jesus. And Jesus will make your life better sort of pitch. That’s the gospel. It’s just Jesus wants to be your big brother up in the sky. But that’s not the gospel. The gospel is a command. And what is the command given here in many places in the scriptures? It’s a command to surrender or perish. The gospel is a command to believe. Or be judged. And so you have to admit we do a great disservice to God’s story when we emphasize everything about God and everything about the gospel, except for what we think people don’t want to hear about judgment.

And it’s not some people. It says those who dwell on the earth, every nation, every tribe, every language in every people. So this doesn’t mean some people. But every person, every nation, tribe has to stand before Jesus someday. Not Jesus as life coach. Not Jesus as supernatural help. Not Jesus is my buddy in the sky. But Jesus as judge. Jesus as creator. That’s who we all have to deal with Jesus as whether we want to or not or realize it or not.

So scripture gives then. In one remedy. It gives one remedy for those of us who have believed so that we would remain and endure. And it gives the remedy to the unsaved. And it’s not two different things. What you need to know and to do to continually walk the path of one who follows Christ. Is what a nonbeliever needs to hear so that they would start walking the path of following Christ. So there’s not this great chasm. Between the Christian life I live. And what I need to communicate to a nonbeliever. We think, well, I’ve been a Christian for years and years. And I know what my story and how I came to faith in Jesus. And I’ve studied the Bible. But if someone were to ask me, how would I communicate that to someone? Oh, gosh, I just don’t know. It’s not two different things. Maybe we make it far more complicated than it is to communicate it. So I want us to see this this evening. If you and I are to. He. God’s divine warning. We need to endure in the fear of the Lord. And in proclaiming the fear of the Lord, we need to ourselves endure in the fear of the Lord. And we also need to proclaim that.

When we hear the fear of the Lord. I think on the most basic building block of that, we just want it to mean like respect. You know, like I really. Respect something or someone. I have a certain fear for it. Or we think, well, that’s fears like an old English sort of word for reverence or respect. And I think we would be doing a disservice if we left it that small. It is that. But the fear of the Lord, I think, is is is much deeper. It’s a much greater spiritual reality. So I wanted to find fear of the Lord like this. The fear of the Lord is a deep spiritual awareness of God’s holiness and his power and his. Intolerance for anyone who contradicts it. OK, the fear of the Lord is a deep spiritual awareness of God’s holiness and power and his intolerance for anyone who contradicts his holiness at all. Complete intolerance. So fearing God is not. I acknowledge there’s a God. I acknowledge Jesus. I acknowledge he did something on a cross. I acknowledge what the Bible says. I give it lip service or what’s broadly defined as Christianity. Like, sure, I agree with that stuff.

Friends, but to truly fear the Lord the way that it’s described in the Old Testament. The way that John is writing about what it would mean to fear the Lord here in Revelation. Really, rather, if the fear of the Lord gripped you, we could really say. It wouldn’t be just this intellectual exercise of truth. I hold. If a sinner was gripped by the fear of the Lord, it would it would be a bone rattling, soul shaking occurrence. If God revealed to you how much of a sinner you are before him, a holy God, you would fall to your knees. You would not be able to eat. You would not be able to sleep. You would be sick to your stomach. Having realized you’ve offended. A powerful, holy God. And you would just wonder and you would plead. Is there some way that this God could relent?

Pilgrim’s Progress. The first quarter of the book, Christian Pilgrim has this horrible burden on his back. And he can’t eat. He can’t sleep. And he’s miserable. He’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders because he realizes how guilty he is before this holy God.

The fear of the Lord is not external. And I want you to see this. The fear of the Lord is not like some terror, some monster to constantly come near you and make you fearful of what you’ve done wrong. And it makes you fearful of what’s to come. And you’re left in that state. You can’t do anything about it. The fear of the Lord is really a grace because the fear of the Lord, it comes inside. It internalizes so that it breaks down my callus. It shows me how sinful I am. And it warms. It warms me to love this God and to desire to do right. Is the fear of the Lord dreadful and terrible? Yes, because it shows you how unholy you are in a very holy God’s universe.

But once you’ve feared the Lord for the first time and seen what a wretched sinner you are,

then, then the cross of Jesus is a wonderful bit of information, isn’t it? Then the resurrection is a wonderful thing to learn about. Then faith and repentance should be called for because the cross tells me I’m acquitted. The cross tells me, though I am guilty, Jesus’s cross has wiped out my sin in this holy, powerful God. He’s passed over me. And I’m empowered by God’s spirit to walk in the fear of the Lord and do right. So it doesn’t just change my mind. And what I think it doesn’t just reveal to me I’m a sinner. It makes me a brand new person with a brand new record. So the fear of the Lord cannot be external. The fear of the Lord must change the way that I actually live. I think one of the most powerful pictures of this is Abraham in the Old Testament. God tests him to see if he will sacrifice his one and only son to God. Genesis 22, it says, The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here I am. He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God. Seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

To fear God, friends, then it’s not to identify religiously. To fear God, then, is not to attempt to live morally. To fear God is to be rattled and shaken down to your core to the point where you realize you can do nothing. But finding in the midst of that despair and hopelessness, that very same God has sent his son, Jesus, to receive and absorb the wrath for you. That is why the fear of the Lord is so amazing. And that is why you and I as Christians must continually walk. In it.

The angel says, Fear God and give him glory. Because the hour of judgment has come. But he also says, Worship him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the springs of water. Which is also an undeniable outcome of someone who’s truly seen and believed. The book of Nehemiah is powerful in this way. Nehemiah is the story of God’s people being able to come back from exile. For the first time. For the first time in the rebuilding Jerusalem, the rebuilding the temple. And why are they in? Why were they in exile in the first place? Because they love other gods. They worship pagan gods. Notice what it says when they come back together here in Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 6. You are the Lord. And this is the most powerful part. You alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all that is on it. You are the Lord. You are the one who sees and all that is in them. You preserve all of them. And the host of heaven worships you. So God doesn’t just get a hold of me and make me a little different. The fear of the Lord transforms me to be new, to love God and to love righteousness and to love worshiping him alone. It reorients me completely. God doesn’t need outward superficial adherence. God’s not looking for lip service. He’s commanding. you. He’s commanding I. He’s commanding me, the nations, to fear and believe and obey and worship. So who needs to hear all that? Our first knee-jerk reaction is to say, lost people. Wrong. I need to hear this message, friends. If you’ve been walking with Jesus for 50 years, you need to hear this. Because I am deeply forgetful. And I’m deeply flawed. And I so often forget about impending judgment. And so it’s a grace of the Spirit to rattle me every once in a while and say, hey, judgment day’s coming. Are you ready? Are you living for judgment day? Are you worshiping the Lord your God the way that you ought to worship the Lord your God? Are you living to that end? And then, yes, all of the gospel and nothing less, we do need to preach it. And we don’t, we can’t sell it short. We’re pretty spoiled today with digital. Everything’s digitized. There’s no buttons on anything anymore. You think about, most people have digital watches or Apple watches or whatever. I was thinking about how an hourglass really tells the whole story, though. When you have an hourglass, you see the sand running out so fast. And you can see the bottom filling up as the top gets more on you. You realize how quick, how quick time flies. You know, when you play like an old board game, you got the little thing and you flip it and you got to give your answer and, however, that wasn’t 60 seconds. It was 60 seconds. See, there’s no more, there’s no more sand in the top. Friends, we must remember the day of judgment is coming upon us. And you know, as a side note, the business with Israel and all that’s happening there, there’s a great number of people that want to take their Bibles and show you exactly where this is and why this has happened today. And I think we need to be slow to do that, because one thing that we’ve been learning in this series in Revelation is that it’s trying to make a point, right? It’s trying to make a point. Judgment’s coming and it’s always imminent. It’s not trying to give us a special supernatural window into the exact chronology of when it’s coming. When Jesus was about to descend into heaven, the very first chapter of Acts, the disciples say to him, is now when you’ll establish the kingdom? And what’s Jesus say back? He said, that’s not for you to know times and seasons, but I’m going to send the Holy Spirit upon you. So it is interesting, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t look at current events, but what I’m saying is, we have to live every day like judgment is coming, because it is coming. And life is terribly short. Are you living for judgment day? Are you walking in the fear of the Lord? Are you preaching it like judgment day is coming for your non-believing neighbor?

Here’s a question. If we aren’t preaching the fear of the Lord, a holy, wrathful God judges on judgment day, I want to submit to you, the reason why we don’t is because we fear man more than we fear God. There’s a book by a man named Ed Welch, and the book is entitled simply, When People Are Big and God Is Small. And he says in that book, Scripture gives three basic reasons why we fear other people. And we fear people because they can expose and humiliate us, ridicule and reject us, attack, threaten, and oppress us. These three reasons have one thing in common. They see people as bigger, that is more power, more powerful, and more significant than God. And out of that fear that it creates in us, we give other people the power to tell us what we should think and feel and do. Since sin entered the world, we see God less clearly and are less attentive to Him. But, we are acutely aware, if not painfully aware, of other people’s scrutiny. Ooh, that hurts. It hurts because it’s true. Isn’t it? How often do we claim to walk in the fear of the Lord, yet we let the opinions of other people really shape and form the minimalistic evangelistic activities that we do? Friends, lift your eyes to Jesus as judge. Walk in the fear of the Lord and proclaim that gospel. So I want to remind you, and it’s something we talk about often, your story is your own greatest weapon in evangelism. Tell someone else how Jesus saved you. We keep some literature out there to help jumpstart conversations, little tracks and things to help you communicate that. Who, what relationship, what son, what daughter, what friend, what neighbor, what stranger needs to hear about impending judgment?

The second thing we need to endure in, if we’re going to really hear this divine warning, is we need to endure in resisting godlessness and false kings. Godlessness and false kings. Verse 8 in chapter 14, it says, And another angel, a second followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual morality. And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast in its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night. These worshipers of the beast in its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name. So the reference to Babylon goes back to the Old Testament. So like we were talking about Nehemiah, the reason why God’s people went into exile is for their unfaithfulness. So God used Babylon to enslave them. So they were foreigners in Babylon. And once they got to Babylon, they realized what have we done? We’ve abandoned the one true God. Yet there they were for 70 years. There they were, surrounded and saturated in a godless, wicked culture. Yet God still said he would judge Babylon for what they did to God’s people. And what you’re seeing here in Revelation chapter 14 is a fusing of two Old Testament prophecies. The first one is Isaiah 21 9. And behold, here come riders, horsemen and pairs. And he answered, Fallen, fallen is Babylon and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground. And then again, Jeremiah 51 7. Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, making all the earth drunk, and the nations drank of her wine. Therefore the nations went mad. Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken. Well for her, take balm for her pain, perhaps she may be healed. So that’s Babylon in an Old Testament sense. But when we come to the New Testament for John, it’s Rome that is Babylon. It’s Rome that serves to be that place of godlessness and wickedness that is oppressing the ancient infant church. So when we come all the way to the end time here to Revelation, John is making a dual reference, both to Rome, but he’s talking about this end time spirit of the Antichrist that will be over the whole world. As we’ve kind of talked about, the dragon and the dragon has the Antichrist, and the Antichrist has his false prophet. It looks like it’s winning. It looks like it’s going to be victorious. But in the end,

we’re told both it’s false king and the false city. They’re going to fall. Fallen, fallen. It’s Babylon.

And in verse 9, it gets really explicit. And I want you to look at the language with me. It says anyone that’s done this compromising, it’s taken the mark of the beast. You know, hey, I’d like to buy bread for my family to eat tonight. And, you know, I know it’s not ideal to take the mark of this beast, but I’d like to buy and sell and trade. And you can only do that so you can’t It says that they will drink the wine of God’s wrath full strength. It means undiluted. It’s not mixed. It’s not cut. So you would have cut maybe like a really strong wine with spices or maybe with water so it wasn’t so intense. What is God saying here? And this goes back to an idea in the Old Testament and the Psalms of drinking God’s wrath down to the dregs, the psalmist says. It says that they will experience God’s wrath full strength. It’s unmit. And it says torment with fire and sulfur in the presence of the true king and his holy angels. And it says the smoke goes up from that forever and ever and there’s no rest. There’s no rest.

That’s explicit and that’s explicitly dreadful. And if judgment’s offensive, if judgment’s offensive, if judgment’s offensive, friends, you better believe the doctrine of hell is offensive. We just, a lot of you just don’t want to believe it anymore. A lot of people don’t. There’s kind of this argument that floats sometimes. Well, hell is symbolic. If that’s true and hell is symbolic, what in the world could it be symbolic for that’s not much worse? If fire and sulfur and misery and suffering and smoke going up forever, if that’s symbolic, what in the world could it be symbolic for that’s remotely pleasant? Nothing. Nothing is the answer. Jesus talked about hell way too much. The whole of the Scripture talks about hell and eternal suffering way too much for us to write it off as some barbaric uncivilized idea. I’ll give you ten. Isaiah says that the worm is undying and there’s unquenchable fire. Daniel speaks of everlasting contempt. Matthew speaks of eternal hell, the fire of hell. Matthew speaks of eternal punishment. Mark speaks of the undying worm and unquenchable fire. Second Thessalonians speaks of everlasting destruction. Jude speaks of the punishment of eternal fire. Jude 13, black darkness reserved forever. Revelation 14, the smoke of the torment that rises forever and ever. Revelation 20, the lake of fire. There’s no room in faithful orthodox Christianity for us to write off the doctrine of hell.

Not at all. There’s only a humble, fearful embracing of the plain truth that it sets forth. And you think, well, wrath. Wrath. Is God really loving if he has wrath and he’s willing to do all this? George Owen Ladd says something in his commentary that I thought was really good. He says, God’s wrath is not a human emotion. It is the settled reaction of his holiness to man’s sinfulness and rebellion. Unless God in his wrath finally purges the world of all evil and rebellion, his kingdom cannot come. Therefore, in the largest sense of God’s redemptive purpose for men, his wrath is a necessary correlative to his love and mercy. In other words, God does not love his own holiness and God does not love you, his people, if he’s willing to let his enemy and sinfulness and evil exist in his universe. God has to vanquish evil and all those who choose to be evil if he really loves his own holiness and he loves you. And much more than that, what a waste of the cross of Christ that he would endure and suffer so much and yet God wouldn’t really and truly vanquish the enemy of God and those who pay legions to God’s enemy. Friends, the cross accomplished everything and it was through the cross that sin and Satan and all those who don’t surrender to the Lord Jesus, they will find eternal destruction. And that doesn’t cause me to go, well, lucky me. Not lucky me. Oh, what grace and mercy has been shown me that I would surrender to the Lord Jesus because I am just as wicked of my own accord as anyone else. So this doctrine of hell, friends, it’s serious business and it’s all but forgotten in the church today.

Jesus loves you so much, he’s willing to remind you so much that hell exists. Hell is a wonderful motivator to live right for God’s people. When I go in the parking lot with my children and my son starts running across, I don’t go, I told him like three years ago to be careful because cars drive really fast in parking lots, so I’m sure he remembered me saying that three years ago.

Dawson! This happened just this past Saturday. I said, Dawson, when you cross, we had a soccer game, when you cross, look for cars. I watched him, run across, and not even look right or left. I said, you didn’t look! He said, sorry, and kept running.

Friends, that is you and that is me. I need to be reminded of this doctrine and what exists at the very end for those that do not submit to Christ. And yes, yes, we need to proclaim this doctrine to those who don’t believe because we don’t want to. We want them to experience eternal suffering apart from the goodness of God and King Jesus and in a city that will never end.

Theologian J.C. Ryle has said, The watchman who keeps silent when he sees a fire is guilty of gross neglect. The doctor who tells us we’re getting well when we’re dying is a false friend. And the minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man. So let me be faithful to talk about the doctrine of hell and let us be faithful to teach and to warn people about the doctrine of hell. So here’s the question you have to ask yourself. Here’s the question. Do I love people enough to tell them about hell? It’s really that simple. Do I love people enough to tell them about hell? And maybe we say, nah, I probably don’t. Well, friends, let us look to Jesus and see what a wonderful sacrifice he is, not just for our sins, but the sins of the world. Let’s ask for a broken heart for lost people. Let’s be reminded of the shortness of life and the foreverness of heaven and hell and our no do-overs. Let’s love people and let’s resist sin. Because we love Jesus? Yeah, because we love Jesus? But because I don’t want to go to hell. God doesn’t want you to go to hell. Jesus talked about hell almost more than he talked about anything else. Because it’s unpleasant. And he says to us in our short lives, follow me, fear me, resist godlessness, resist false kings that want you to surrender to a world that’s soon fading.

Verse 12 in chapter 14.

It says, Here’s a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write this, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed says the Spirit that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them. Friends, we need to heed this divine warning that we would receive. By God’s grace, the divine blessing. God wants to bless you. God wants to bless you. God loves you. And God wants to bless you not in the way that we talk about so often, you know, in evangelicalism. He just wants you to be happy and he wants you to have that big house you want. He don’t want you to have any problems. That’s so subpar. God wants so much more for you. He wants you to have an infinite scale and temporary happiness. He wants you to have the happiness of heaven and of his presence forevermore. And the way that God blesses us is when you and I endure in fearing the Lord, when you and I endure in resisting godlessness and though it’s a great labor and John says it’s a great labor. It’s a great labor. It’s a difficult labor. Yet the end of it, the Spirit says, is eternal rest. It’s the blessing of eternal rest in Jesus forever.

So brother, sister, we’re given a call here to endure as saints. Let’s endure. Let’s walk in the fear of the Lord. Let’s believe the gospel and let’s preach it to everyone, every nation. And in the end, we will have eternal rest.

The Pregnancy Center did their 5K fundraiser a couple weekends ago and it’s my job to do the mid-station water. So when they get halfway through that 5K, I’m standing there with the cups of water and handing them out and it’s interesting to see all the different people and you get the pros and they’re like, and they don’t want no water. More people keep coming, they don’t want no water. People start slowing down and they’re fighting and they probably still don’t want water but it gets to a point, man, where there’s people and they need some water. They want some water. And then you get some more people and they’re just dying and they’re just like they’ve never seen water before in their life. And you just get all the varieties of runners. And then it was over, I thought, and we were waiting for the tail end of the 5K. It’s like a police officer telling it. He goes, where is it? Where is it? And we’re waiting there, waiting way down that street, man. I could see just this old lady and she was just barely scooting along. And it was almost like the police car would keep tapping her back in. She eventually made it up to the water station. She says, does this only mean I’m halfway there? I’m like, well, yeah. She’s like, is it all downhill from here? And someone said, I think maybe if you turn that corner out there, it’s going to get better. She said, okay. She just kept going. She just kept going. I don’t know where you are,

what you’re dealing with. God’s good to keep you going. Just keep going. In the end, there’s unspeakable joy and eternal rest in Jesus. Let’s pray.

Lord, your word gives us promises that are really too wonderful for us. May we pause and dwell on how good you have been to us. How you have looked on sinners and given them the inheritance of eternity. Lord, open our eyes and open our minds to all that you’re calling us to be in Jesus. Give us the power, we pray, oh God, in the Spirit to endure for Jesus’ name. Give us the power to resist sin on every side, to resist culture, to resist false kings and false messiahs. Give us a broken heart for non-believers.

Lord, those who are on their way to hell, Lord, let us speak with the clarity and the conviction of the Scriptures. Let us speak in terms of absolution, that it’s real, it’s not a maybe, it’s there. Lord, help us love, with your love. Help us speak only your words. Help us trust only your Spirit can do this.

Father, we just ask that you would be our wisdom and you would be our power from on high. And oh God, that it would be for your glory. Thank you for the rest that we have in Jesus. Amen.