Well, to hear it again. Verse 36, and we'll read down through verse 41, Acts chapter two. Thus says the word of the Lord. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? And then Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. And with many other words he testified and exhorted them saying, be saved from this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. And that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. Let us pray. Our Holy Father, we come to you this morning with a great need. We come not in strength of our own. We come not with wisdom of words. We come not even with wisdom in our own hearts, Lord, but we come because we are presenting ourselves before the word of God. And we need your wisdom, Lord. We need you to correct us. We need you, Lord, to show us our sin. We need you to show us the Savior. And I pray, oh God, that through these words you would testify of the truthfulness of your word and that you will testify that Jesus Christ, this Jesus, whom they had crucified, is both Lord and Christ. And Father, my prayer is that if any are here today who have never bowed their knee to the Lord and Christ, that today would be that day. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. As we consider the text before us, I want to present to you the title here of this message is The Answer to Your Greatest Problem, and it's something that is common among all of us. We're entering in here into this passage again, and we touched on it last time we were in the book of Acts. And we're entering in in the middle of this sermon that Peter is preaching, and it's really the hinge point of Peter's sermon. that brought this crowd of devout Jews to a moment of inescapable crisis. Their crisis of belief and their crisis of their faith. Remember, these are devout Jews. These are men who had come forth to the feast of Pentecost. They had come as was required of them in the law of Moses, and now here they are, and they're hearing Peter's sermon. and they're confronted that they had crucified God's Messiah. Peter's accusations that they were responsible for this great horrific deed of crucifixion of the king and the Messiah, it hit them like a lightning bolt on a clear day. Nevertheless, God had made this Jesus, whom they crucified, both Lord and Christ. Their wicked schemes did not hinder in any way the plan of God's sovereign will. It did not alter his will, it fulfilled his will. That he would not only be just, but also the justifier of those who have faith in Christ. But what would become of them, these crucifiers? And that is really where we find this crowd and that's where we find Peter. Had they committed the unpardonable sin? They crucified God's Messiah. How could they possibly be forgiven? Was there any hope that they could escape the judgment of Almighty God? and be forgiven? Well, as we will see, they ask the right question. Look in verse 36 with me here. We proclaim again this glorious hinge point, this one verse that really lays the hammer down. Therefore, Peter stands up and he says, Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." As we consider their question, I first feel this great need to expound upon what their sin actually was. That once exposed led to this question, men and brethren, what shall we do? The crowd here is confronted with their sin. This sin is somewhat unique in one sense because it's presented not as an individual sin, but Peter is professing it to the crowd. You crucified him. And Peter is not dealing with this individual sin like what we would think of many sins today as some act in which they participated in, in the sense of maybe a sexual sin, the sin of dealing with someone who's been caught lying or someone who was a thief or someone who had sinned in some other actual way that you could point to and say, you did this. But rather, Peter is dealing with a group of people who are guilty as a whole. He says to the crowd, whom you crucified. Peter attributes this sin to the entire crowd for crucifying the Messiah. How is that possible? It's clear that the Roman soldiers took the nail and the hammer and nailed Jesus to the tree. These Jews did not do that. They did not have the authority to do that. But here Peter stands up in their faces and says, whom you crucified. How therefore can this crowd of Jews be guilty of the sin of crucifying their own Messiah when they did not do the act? This question has struck me this week. And I believe that it is important for us to understand the nature of sin. This one topic could be dealt with over many sermons, but I want to at least broaden our understanding of the guilt of sin. And bear with me, it will take a few minutes, but I hope to show you how this relates to the passage that is before us regarding the guilt of the crucifixion of Christ being laid upon these devout religious Jews who did not physically act in the crucifixion of Christ. And then how that relates to us. So let us begin with the basic definition of sin. Sin is any lack of conformity to or transgression of the law of God. So anything that you do that is against the law of God or anything that you fail to do that God commands you to do is a sin. In fact, 1 John 3, 4 says, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and then he gives us this definition, and sin is lawlessness. The word is there could just be, if you love math, let's just make it an equals sign, sin equals lawlessness. Now this may come across as only dealing with things that we actually do or actual things that we fail to do. But what the Bible teaches us is that sin goes beyond just our specific actions. We need to understand the relationship between the law of God and God himself. So often, especially in our day, people want to separate the law of God from God. They don't like the law of God, but boy, they like God. It's because they have a false God. They've made into their own likeness. Charles Hodge wrote this. It's very helpful. Protestants teach not only that sin is a specific evil, that it has relation to law that that law is the nature and will of God, and that it takes cognizance of and condemns all forms and degrees of moral evil or lack of moral excellence. So if you go back to my definition of what sin is, it is the transgression of or the lack of conformity to the law of God, and that's kind of what he's saying here. He goes on, but also that the formal nature of sin is the lack of conformity to the divine law or standard of excellence. So the heart of the issue is that the law of God stems from the infinitely holy nature of who God is. And you cannot separate your understanding of God from the law of God because they flow from his nature. So if you look at the scriptures and you see laws that you don't like, those are areas that you're in rebellion against who God is. That's sobering to think of. And often we do that. I mean, we are enlightened, you know. We do have a good moral compass by which we love to judge God's laws. So you cannot separate God from God's law because they flow directly from his infinitely holy nature. Hodge summarizes his point this way, herein is sin that we are not like God. We're not like him. He continues to write this, all sin therefore is not an agency, activity, or an act, It may be and is also a condition or state of the mind. This is where I believe that we get really close to the issue that we see here in verse 36 when Peter says, whom you crucified. How is it that these people who did not put their hand to the nail and to the hammer are guilty of the sin of crucifying the Messiah? They were guilty because they likewise desired in their hearts for Jesus to be crucified. Calvin says this, this is more than sufficient to make them guilty in that they desired to have him put to death. So what it is is they rejected God's Messiah so strongly that they were willing to cry out, crucify him! And they thought that they would be innocent of the blood of Jesus Christ. Pilate, an unbeliever, a pagan, believed that if he literally took water and washed his hands and said, I'm innocent from the blood of this just man, that somehow he would not be guilty of crucifying the Lord's Messiah. James 1, 14, and 15 are instructive to help us understand how our desires are actually the seedbed for sin. He says, but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. It begins not with this outward act of nailing the nails into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. It began in their hearts and in their minds. Sin in its root is not an issue, or excuse me, sin in its root is an issue of the heart and mind and consists within our corrupt nature of all of us. We read it this morning in Psalm 51, in sin my mother conceived me. By nature, we are corrupt. By nature, we are sinful. We are not only sinful because of our actions, but we are sinful because of the guilty and corrupt nature of our hearts. Jesus said in Mark 7, 21, for from within. Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts and adulteries and fornications and murders and thefts and covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man. Not the acts. They do. But he said, that thought within defiles the man. So the crowd was convicted of sin. We see this in verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? They were cut to the heart. Now, I have more to say about this in just a moment, but suffice it to say for now that this conviction was good and necessary, but not sufficient. Now I want you to put that back there on the back burner just for a little bit and just let that simmer. We'll pull it off when supper's ready, okay? It's gonna be helpful for us. It was good and it was necessary, But that conviction was not sufficient. And I hope while you're hearing these things that they are hitting right in your heart and mind. Conviction's good and it's necessary, but conviction over sin is not sufficient enough to clear you from the guilt of sin. So here we have this crowd and their question. It is very important and I believe it's very specific. Notice what these men say. These men were religious. They were devout, it says. They had an understanding of the law of God. They had an understanding of religious principles. I believe that's why Paul was so so powerful in his preaching of the gospel was because he had the law of God in his heart, and it all came together and made such great, perfect, logical sense. And he could bring these principles forth, and so we have these men, devout men. We're told in chapter 2, verse 5, it says, and there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men. These were no slackers when it comes to understanding their scriptures. These men realized that they had sinned and I believe they rightly understood that they deserved ultimate punishment, thus their question. They had crucified the Messiah and they did not deny it. You know, one of our great problems is that we don't understand the nature of sin and the guilt of sin. We believe we can toy with it and still have clean hands. You see, these men rightly understood that even though they did not nail the nails into the hands and feet of Jesus, they were guilty of the deed because they had gone along with it and they cried out for it. Notice, they did not ask, what shall we believe? What should we say? No, men and brethren, what shall we do? I'm not for one second professing a works-based salvation, but these men, I believe, had the beginnings of understanding as we need to understand that true repentance is not what we say and it's not what we believe, but it is proved out in what we do. Notice Here, what Matthew Poole says regarding this, he says the same thing. Not what shall we say, what shall we believe. Conversion, he says, if real, goes further than profession and is in the heart and indeed, not in speech and word only. They desire to know if there can be any hope. that such sinners as they might obtain forgiveness of their sins. Think of it. These devout Jews are coming face to face with Peter saying, you crucified your Messiah. And they cried out, what shall we do? No doubt they felt hopeless. The long awaited Messiah that they had heard glimpses of from Genesis chapter three, They had crucified on this generation? We did this? Is there any hope? You know, I've heard it over and over again from people, God can't save someone like me. God saved the men who partook in his crucifixion. He can save you. Next we see in verses 38 through 40, the right answer. I hope that's still simmering back there, what I said. Don't forget it. He says this in verse 38, then Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God would call, and with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation. Repent. What is that? I feel like I need to take a bit of time and peel back the layers of repentance for us this morning. We're approaching, as you may well know, the anniversary of Luther's 95 thesis being nailed to the door there. In 1517, he began what we understand as the Reformation. And today, I desire to continue that. Always reforming. We're not reformed, we are reforming. Always reforming to the word of God. And so as we think about this, I just want to share with you, and I sent it out to you this week, but his first three points were talking about this very thing regarding repentance. And I just want to read these first three that he wrote down in his 95 thesis. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. We should be called repenters. You know, I've never seen that. I've never seen repentance Baptist Church. That'd be a good one. It'd be better than Corinthians Baptist Church. Anyway. Number two, this word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance. That is confession and satisfaction as administered by a clergy. He rejected this notion that this clergyman could somehow grant you repentance because you give him a gift. Number three, yet it does not mean solely inner repentance. Such inner repentance is worthless unless it produced various outward mortifications of the flesh. That's what we're talking about. They cried out, men and brethren, what shall we do? Because all true repentance will be borne out in fruit. That's what John the Baptist was professing to those religious leaders. Bear fruit worthy of repentance. So let's pull that former thought back from the burner that we had just spoken about moments ago. So conviction of sin is good and necessary but not sufficient. What did I mean by that? If strong conviction that caused them to cry out, men and brethren, what shall we do? If that was sufficient enough, then Peter would have not have said, repent. He would have stopped his sermon there and says, hey, you're good. I'm glad you feel sorry for that sin. You should feel sorry for that sin. That was a bad sin. Go on home now and serve the Lord. He didn't stop there. Conviction, listen to me, children, adults, all of us, conviction over your sin is right. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. You must repent. It literally means you're turning away from sin. It is a change of course, and it is born from a change of thought and understanding. You acknowledge that this is sin, God is right, I am wrong, and we turn from that thing. But there's more. This is why sin is so tricky, it's so slippery to grab hold of and to just let's lay it out there as what it is. So I wanna walk us through a very insightful commentary on repentance, and forgive me for the length of it, but I believe every word is a treasure. Listen to what this commentator says regarding repentance. I'll read it slow so we can meditate upon it as we go. Repentance implies sorrow for sin as committed against God. along with a purpose to forsake it. It's not merely a fear of the consequences of sin or of the wrath of God in hell. It is such a view of sin as evil itself as to lead the mind to hate and forsake it. Laying aside all views of the punishment of sin, the true penitent hates it. Listen to this, even if sin were the means of procuring him happiness, if it would promote his gratification and be unattended with any future punishment, he would hate it and turn from it. Let's be honest. If you knew that you would never be caught and you would never be punished for it, would you hate it? Because it is sin. He continues, the mere fact that it is evil and that God hates it is a sufficient reason why those who are truly penitent hate it and forsake it. False repentance dreads the consequences of sin. True repentance dreads sin itself. These persons whom Peter addressed had been merely alarmed. They were afraid of wrath, and especially of the wrath of the Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified. They had no true sense of sin as an evil, but were simply afraid of punishment. They crucified the Messiah. What was God gonna do to them? This alarm, Peter did not regard as by any means genuine repentance. Such conviction for sin would soon wear off. unless their repentance became thorough and complete. Have you ever noticed conviction? Give it a little time. It'll wear off. But not true repentance. Hence, he told them to repent, to turn from sin, to exercise sorrow for it as an evil and bitter thing, and to express their sorrow in the proper manner. He gives us five things to learn from this that are priceless. Number one, there is no safety in mere conviction for sin. It may soon pass off and leave the soul as thoughtless as before. Number two, there is no goodness or holiness in mere alarm or conviction. The devils tremble. James 119, you believe there is one God, you do well. The demons also believe and tremble. A man may fear who yet has a firm purpose to do evil if he can do it without getting caught. Number three, Many are greatly troubled and alarmed who never repent. There is no situation where souls are so easily deceived as here. Alarm is taken for repentance, trembling for godly sorrow, and the fear of wrath is taken to be the true fear of God. Number four. True repentance is the only thing in such a state of mind that can give any relief. An ingenuous confession of sin, a solemn purpose to forsake it, excuse me, a genuine confession of sin, a solemn purpose to forsake it, and a true hatred of it is the only thing that can give the mind composure. Such is the constitution of the mind that nothing else will furnish relief. But the moment we are willing to make an open confession of guilt, the mind is delivered from its burden. The convicted soul finds peace. And until this is done, and the hold on sin is broken, there is no peace. And lastly, number five, he says, we see here what direction is to be given to a convicted sinner. We are not directed to tell him to wait. nor to lead him to suppose that he's in a good way, nor to tell him to continue to seek, nor to call him a mourner, nor to take sides with him as if God were wrong and harsh, nor to advise him to read, to search, and postpone the subject to a future time. We are to direct him to repent. to mourn over his sins and to forsake them, religion demands that he should at once surrender himself to God by genuine repentance, by confession that God is right and that sinners are wrong, and by a firm purpose to live a life of holiness." End quote. You can see every syllable is good for the soul. After reading that earlier this week, I wondered if I had ever truly repented. Years ago, I read something like this. I'm not sure if it was a Puritan, but it sounds like a Puritan. He says, after we have repented, we should then repent of our repentance because it was so empty of genuine hatred of sin and so full simply of the fear of the consequences of it. bound to have been a Puritan. Quoted this morning was 2 Corinthians 7.10. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world produces death. Please note, godly sorrow is not repentance. It produces repentance. So I wanna ask you a very odd question. And just follow with me and I'll hope to make it plain. And this is very personal to each one of you as you consider. Is it possible that what really restrains you from more heinous acts of sin is actually just another type of sin rather than a true desire for holiness in the inner man? Is it possible that what really restrains you from more wickedness is actually just another type of sin rather than a true desire for holiness in the inner man? Let me name some sins that I believe actually hinder us or causes us to be restrained in sin. Sin restraining sin. This is interesting. You can see why I hesitate to bring it up. But listen. Pride. Self-righteousness. Hypocrisy. fear of man, self-preservation. What is restraining your sin? Is it that you hate sin because God hates sin? Is it because of your love of God? Is it because of your desire, your true, genuine desire for holiness in the inner man? Or is it more based upon your concern of what other people would think about you. I think the point is being proven even in our general society that we see in America because these sins that used to be unspeakable are now popular and applauded. because the fear is removed. This desire or this fear of being thought bad of or being thought somehow like you're some sort of strange weirdo that now people clap when you do that. I fear that often the only thing that keeps many people from unspeakable sins are their perceived consequences and the public shame of that sin as opposed to a true desire for holiness. What I mean by this is that much of our outward holiness is not really holiness at all. but rather a societal and cultural pressure to be conformed to what we term the norm. And that can happen right here in this church. Christian culture can press you to conform to certain norms. Much of external holiness I fear is merely hypocrisy because it does not stem from hatred of sin, but rather fear of punishment, fear of shame instead of it's sin and God hates it. The issue and danger lies in the reality that much of our efforts are simply to please others and to be thought well of. rather to live before the face of God to please Him. John 12 and verse 42, we get a hint of this. Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in Him. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. What restrains your sin? The depths of the depravity of the human heart are astounding. What truly is restraining you? Brothers and sisters, it does not matter what men think of you. What matters is what God knows about you. He knows you. He knows every thought, every word, every deed. Darkness is light to him. Paul tells us that we are laid bare before him. There is nothing to hide our true nature from God. I believe that one of our greatest delusions is that we minimize the effect of the fall and see sin as only a spot on our garments. I don't know if y'all have ever noticed this. I got a pen mark, drives me crazy. But that's not my problem. It's a little bit north of that spot. How do you view sin? Is it just a spot on your garment? Or is it gangrene? Is it sepsis of the soul? We neglect to recognize sin for what it actually is. I think it's important that we realize that what we see sin as, as being a spot on our garment instead of gangrene of the soul, we will see this issue between the sin and the remedy of it. You see, if we're not careful, we're going to view the cross as simply a stain remover. as opposed to life-giving regeneration. Can you imagine the soldier? We'll pick a Revolutionary War time. That was when gangrene was a little more regular and happened often. Can you imagine him with gangrene on his leg and he's worried that he's got a blood stain on his shirt? Got to cover that thing up. Somebody might see it. Sir, you're gonna die. Minimize sin and you will minimize the payment for and the grace required to bring satisfaction of that sin. What do you think of when you think of the cross? when you consider what God did in order to save you. If we don't see and understand sin for what it actually is, we will minimize the cross. We will minimize the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We will think he only came to clean us up a little bit because we're really good at heart. We are vile, we're filthy, and often the only thing that restrains us from being worse than we are is our fear of man and being thought bad of. God help us to see sin for what it is. It is gangrene of the soul and it is destruction and is corruption of our very nature. We don't need help. We need life. We need to be regenerated. We need to be born again from the Holy Spirit of God. We need a radical transformation. We need to be a new creation. We need to be delivered from this body of death. We so wrongly view natural man. Listen to Paul's statement in Ephesians in chapter two, verse three. He says, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. I get so disgusted when I hear people say, Sweetheart, they're good at heart. Men are, they're just a little broken. They just need a little help. Romans, Paul says it again. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved by his life? Have you ever considered yourself, and if you're lost here today, do you consider yourselves an enemy of God? If you're lost without Christ and if you've never repented, genuine repentance of your sin, not perfect because it's not capable that we understand the weight and the fullness of the offense of our sin against God, but repentance of your sin and faith in Jesus Christ. Do you consider yourself as God considers you as enemies? It's not a pretty picture, folks. The fact of fallen man is that by nature we are children of wrath and enemies of God. The thoughts and any thoughts that you have about the goodness of man apart from Christ is faulty. Man is evil. The only thing that keeps man from acting out in more evil and fulfilling all the lust of his heart is simply the fact of what Romans chapter 1 tells us in the sense of the opposite of which it says that God gave them over to a debased mind. God restrains so much evil in this world, it would blow your mind if you could see it. And here's the truth be known, He restrains so much evil in your very soul. If you believe that we would never hear, if you believe that we would not find out, if you believe that you would never be punished and God does not see, what would you do? It's terrifying. Remember the guilt of these religious Jews was not that they nailed the nails, but that they agreed with it. How much sin do you agree with? Quietly, maybe not shouting out, maybe not applauding, but thinking to yourself, well, they're sweet people and to each his own. Or does sin grieve your soul? Does sin disgust you? Do you rebel as if you're tasting something bitter to your taste or secretly do you like it? So get the doctrine of man correct and the glory of the gospel will shine ever brighter. The backdrop is dark, darker than this. The glory of the gospel shines even brighter when we understand the darkness of the human soul. It makes his regeneration of the human soul that much greater. It makes it the greatest miracle that has ever happened. And let me be honest with you, I have wrestled over speaking this directly with you. If any congregation could handle it, it would be you. But I have wrestled over this. I've asked men to pray for me. I've even sent parts of my sermons to men and say, brothers, is this okay? Can I say this? My heart is for you. I want you to feel the sinfulness of sin. I'm speaking these truths, not just to one type of person this morning. There are believers here who acknowledge these things to be true and they understand, I hate sin and I want to be done with sin. There's also believers here who are actually sinning and they're minimizing their sin. And in their mind, they may not say it with their lips. It's okay. I'm forgiven. Jesus' blood paid for all my sins, right? And then there's also unbelievers here who think I'm a pretty good person. I've never murdered anybody. I've never stolen anything. I don't lie. I'm a pretty honest person. And they fail to realize that you're not only guilty because of the acts that you commit, but you're guilty because your nature is sinful. You're guilty even to approve of those things that are done by them in secret. So lest I quench a smoking flax or break a bruised reed, I want you to know this, dearly beloved saint, I'm speaking here right now to the true believer who does grieve over their sin because it is sin. And I want you to understand you're not saved by how genuine your repentance is. Because our repentance is never genuine enough. But rather we are saved and forgiven because of the object of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. the sufficient and perfect sacrifice for our sins. We are saved through faith in Christ. And that is not to negate everything I just said. I was so thankful. Someone this morning I was sharing this with and they said, but you can't do all that. That is the work of the spirit of God. So my prayer for everyone here this morning is that this same word would come into you and into your hearts and into your minds and that it would just be a bomb. For some, that it would produce salvation within you because of the work of the Holy Spirit. For others, I pray that it would bring such conviction upon your sin and your soul that you would truly repent and hate sin because it's sin. and turn from it, and for you, dear saint, that are just fighting against sin and that you hate your sin, and yet you say, who will deliver me from this man of death? That you can say thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. May God's word do that. I have so much more here to share with you. but I believe we'll have to save it for another time. So let me share with you some points of application so that I don't get tangled up into a whole nother point and keep you so much longer. Some things that you can take with you. Number one, lack of sinful actions does not make you guiltless. The lack of your sinful actions does not make you guiltless. Sin is of the heart, and then it grows. It conceives and gives birth to sin, more sin, to the action of sin. Number two, conviction does not equal repentance. Number three, genuine repentance is more than simply turning from sin, it involves the motivation of your repentance, and that is what determines the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. And hear this, your only hope to be forgiven is through faith in Christ's completed work on the cross. Repent and believe the gospel, and as we will see next time, Be baptized and declare that your only hope is Christ. Because your repentance will never be genuine enough. Your eyes are not on your repentance. Your eyes are not even on your faith. Your eyes are to be on Christ. And Christ alone. And lastly, Do not wait one second. Today is the day of salvation. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, even those guilty of crucifying their Messiah. Let us pray. Holy Father, I pray, oh God, that your word would do its intended effect. Lord, you have called us to this moment. You've allowed us to hear the things that we have heard. And I pray, oh God, that your spirit would do the mighty work that only you can do. Lord, we in ourselves are truly helpless. I can convert no one. But you do tell us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You tell us also how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach unless they are sent. So Lord, I pray that these strugglings and efforts, Lord, of my mind and my heart and my prayers, Lord, would be effectual to the saving of souls, Lord. by the work of your Holy Spirit. May your word rest upon every heart in exactly the way you intend. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.