If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Judges 10, beginning at verse 10. Judges 10, the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired word of God. It is our only rule of faith and practice. Amen. Judges 10, verse 10, hear God's word. Then the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord saying, we have sinned against you for indeed we have forsaken our God and served the Baals. The Lord said to the sons of Israel, did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the sons of Ammon and the Philistines. Also, when the Sidonians and the Malachites and the Mayanites oppressed you, you cried out to me and I delivered you from their hands. Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore, I will no longer deliver you." Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen. Let them deliver you in the time of your distress. The sons of Israel said to the Lord, we have sinned. Do to us whatever seems good to you, only please deliver us this day. So they put away the foreign gods from among them and serve the Lord. And he could bear the misery of Israel no longer. Let's pray. Father, what an amazing passage. What a word of great comfort for those blood bought sinners, bought by the blood of Jesus. Because there's not one of us here today, Father, who would fail to acknowledge that we sin daily. Sometimes grievously so. We've turned away from you times without number, but here we are. So Lord, we ask that your Holy Spirit would fall upon the preacher and everyone here. And Father, that we would leave here today with a desire to glory in the God of great mercy. We want to see Jesus, Father. We want to see the glory, the excellency, the majesty of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We might feed upon him today. We might be strengthened in him. And Lord, if there are any here today without Jesus, we pray that you'd open their hearts. that they could repent and believe the gospel. Lord, there is hope in none other but you. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. Now, I want you to think back for a moment to the time when you were born again. It might have been many, many years ago. Maybe you lived a pretty nice moral life. Maybe you were brought up in the church. Maybe you were religious. Maybe you weren't. Maybe you were far, far away from God, involved in all manner of sin. And yet God in his grace opened your eyes to see your sin, opened your eyes to see the glory and the majesty of the Lord Jesus. caused you to repent of your sins and to believe on Christ, and it might be that immediately you were conscious of a drastic change. My wife, who at that time was 18, we weren't married yet, but she said she was sitting in a church And she, everybody else had left and she bowed her head and she cried out to Christ to save her. And she said, she got up and she put her hand on the door of the church, the door of the knob of the church and left. She said, I'm a different person from this day forward. She knew it immediately. For me, it took a couple of weeks. It just began to dawn on me more and more what a wretched sinner I was and how merciful God was. Whatever your situation, You remember the stark contrast that God began to work in your life, and you no doubt were filled with great joy. It's amazing, God, you've saved me from my sins. I belong to you, you love me, you forgive me. But as I mentioned in my prayer, you battle sin, don't you? We all do. I dare say that when we had our moment of silent prayer of confession, you probably confessed the same sins you confessed last week. And maybe it's more of a ritual, maybe it's more rote than anything else, but if you stop and think about it, you say, why is that? Why can't I seem to get better? And sometimes you might even wonder, am I really in Christ? Now, when we battle sin, we can go on a couple of different directions. One way we could fall into despair and depression and doubt that we're in Christ. And again, we have to have assurance of our salvation, but you might fall into despair. Or on the other hand, you might just give up. I guess this is the way it is. I really can't get any better. And so you find yourself perhaps slowly, but surely increasing in accommodation to the world. Now, what do we find going on in this passage? This is about 200 years after Israel has gone into the promised land. And you know the story of judges. Time after time after time, they turn away from the Lord, they go into idolatry following all manner of gods, and God in His chastisement brings a wicked ruler over them, and eventually they cry out to God, And God in his mercy and grace comes and raises up a judge who delivers them. And then they live a number of years in peace. Sometimes it's six years, sometimes it's 20 years or longer, but eventually they go back to the same thing again. And that's what we're finding happening in this particular story. Now again, I want you to notice in verse 10, Israel is at it again. Here they go another time. Now you got to understand the context. I want you to go back to Judges 10 verse six. There it says, then the sons of Israel again, here it is again, did evil in the sight of the Lord, serve the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, The gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, the gods of the Philistines, all these false Johnny-come-lately deities, thus they forsook the Lord and did not serve him. And the anger of the Lord burned against Israel and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the sons of Ammon. They afflicted and crushed the sons of Israel that year for 18 years. They afflicted the sons of Israel who are beyond the Jordan. In Gilead, in the land of the Amorites, the sons of Ammon crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim. So Israel was greatly distressed. So because of that, because they've gone back into idolatry, now they cry out again. We have sinned against you for indeed we have forsaken our God Yahweh and we've served these false gods. So they're crying out again to the Lord. And how does the Lord answer? Yahweh spoke to them. Wait a second, didn't I just deliver, didn't I deliver you from the Egyptians and the Amorites and the sons of Ammon and the Philistines? How about the Sidonians? Didn't I forgive you? Didn't I release you from them, deliver them? And how about the Amalekites and the Mayanites? They oppressed you. You cried out to me. I delivered you from their hands. Isn't that what I just did? Haven't I been doing that for the last couple of hundred years? And the Lord goes further, yet you have forsaken me. You've served these other gods. Therefore, it's over. I've had enough. I'm not going to deliver you anymore, which has been going on for 200 years. Forget about it. Well, they've not heard that before. So what do they do? 15, God says, go ahead and call for these other guys, maybe they'll help you. Verse 15, the sons of Israel said to the Lord, we have sinned. Do with us whatever it seems good to you. We are laying ourselves at your mercy. We're laying ourselves at your justice. We sinned, we get it, we know we're wrong. Do whatever you must do. We are surrendering to your mercy, to your grace, to your justice. Do whatever it is you need to do. But we're asking you to deliver us this day. And here's something different. This is the only time in the book of Judges they do this. All these other times we're in their trouble, they cry out. This time they repent. So they put away the foreign gods from among them and they serve the Lord. They repented. They didn't just cry out because they're sad that they got caught again. They are repenting. They're turning away from their false gods. They're going back to Yahweh, the true and living God, the creator God, the one who's in covenant with them. They're going back to him. This is a big difference than what we've seen in the past. And then this amazing verse, this is the astonishing, the amazing mercy of God. He could bear the misery of Israel no longer. So what does he do? Well, we're not gonna read it now, but he goes on and he raises up Jephthah, the ninth judge, and he takes care of business with these people. Here's the one thing I want you to get from this. Glory in the God of great mercy, my friends. Thinking back now to what I set it up earlier, you're saved by the grace of God, you remember what he did, but then you have sinned and then you battle your sin every day and you beat yourself up with your sin and rightly so, But I want you to glory in the God of great mercy. Now, what does that mean to glory? Well, first of all, it means to rejoice. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts the Lord, loving kindness shall find him. He will rejoice in the Lord, he'll be glad. Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord himself is God, and as he has created us, we are his people. We are the sheep of his pasture. Bless the Lord, O my soul. All that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits, who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, who satisfies your ears with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. In Philippians 3, he says, rejoice in the Lord, to write the same thing to you again is no trouble for me, it's a safeguard for you. In other words, it's a safeguard when you rejoice in the Lord, when you boast in the Lord. And again, in Philippians 4, he says, rejoice in the Lord. Again, I say rejoice. Let your forbearing spirit be made known to all men. The Lord is near. To glory means to rejoice. It also means to boast. Paul says, I boast in nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ, the cross of Christ, to which this world is crucified to me and I to the world. He says, consider your calling, my brother, not many mighty, not many noble. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world to shame the things which are despised. God has chosen things that are not that he might nullify the things are that no man may boast before God, but by his doing you're in Christ Jesus who became to us righteousness from God and redemption and sanctification. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. You rejoice, you boast in the Lord, you glory in who he is and what he's done, not just for you, but for your family, for people all over the world. You rejoice and you boast in God. You know what it's like? I remember when our kids were younger and we had people in our church who were older and they just go on and on about their grandchildren. Yeah, every time you're around, we're talking about the grandchildren. Maybe you've seen those license plates on the front of the car. Let me tell you about my grandchildren. Well, I got 12 grandchildren now, and I tell you what, they are something. And it's so easy to rejoice in them and to boast in them. Now that's a trite example, but nonetheless, we're to glory in who God is and what he's done. Here's my question to you. Are you glorying in the mercy of God? Do you contemplate what he's done for you? So you're to glory in God. Now we know who God is, the triune God. the one who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, the one whom Jesus is the redemption in his blood, and who the Holy Spirit seals into the day of redemption. That's the triune God. He's a sovereign God. He says in Isaiah 45, I am God and there's no other, the one forming light, creating darkness, causing well-being, creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these. We know he's the one who hardens whom he desires and he softens whom he desires. Israel, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. He's the sovereign God in all the affairs of life. He's the sovereign God in our salvation, but he's also a long-suffering God. Throughout Israel's history, not just in the book of Judges, but in 1st and 2nd Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, all the way through, all the prophets are speaking about, turn back to Yahweh, turn away from your sin. He'll bless you if you'll repent and come back to him. And finally in Jeremiah 29, he says, when the 70 years for Babylon are completed, then I will visit you. I will restore your fortunes. I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare not calamity to give you a future and a hope you will call upon me and you will come to me and you will pray to me and I will listen to you don't Don't lose sight of the amazing statement there. Israel has this long history, hundreds of years of turning away. And he says, when you call on me, I'll listen to you. You will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with all your hearts. I will restore your fortunes. I'll take you from the nations. I'll gather you from the places where I sent you into exile, declares the Lord. This is the God we know. He's a God of mercy. He's a God of grace. I know what you're saying, though. My sin is great, and God sees it all. Glory in the God of great mercy. What is mercy? Well, you know, mercy is not getting what you deserve. In Titus 3, he says that he saves us, not according to our deeds and righteousness, but according to his mercy. Through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, mercy In Habakkuk 2, Habakkuk is praying to the Lord when they're about to be invaded by that contemptuous people, the Babylonians. He says, Lord, in your wrath, would you remember mercy? In other words, Lord, I know we deserve wrath, but God, would you be merciful? Would you not give us what we deserve? We know what grace is, right? Grace is undeserved favor. And Titus 2, he says that at the proper time, salvation has appeared. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, teaching them to deny ungodliness and worldly desires to live sensibly, righteously, godly in this present age, waiting for the blessed hope and the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's grace, undeserved favor. Now, if you struggle with a particular sin, I'm gonna give myself an example. So, one of the things I struggle with the most is impatience. I'm a very regimented person. I like my schedule. My wife calls me Rain Man. Remember the movie Rain Man? And Raymond has to always be watching Judge Wapner at five o'clock. He's got to have regimen. If he's not on his regimen, he gets all out of sorts. So I'm very regimented. And so when things don't fall right into my schedule, I can get impatient. It's sin, because what it is, it's not acknowledging the sovereignty of God in all affairs of life. Maybe that big traffic jam I got in yesterday as I'm trying to get on the 400, you know, on the north end of 285. And by the grace of God, I wasn't too upset actually, but usually I would be. And so what I need to realize is, well, maybe God's slowing me down because maybe there would be an accident up 400 and I might get caught in that. Who knows? We don't know what God's doing, but there are times that I lose my patience. And so here's what, if I were God, here's what I'd do. I'd say, all right, Al, that's the 1,211th time you've been impatient. It's over for you. How many times do I have to continue to forgive you? That's what's happening here in this passage. God says, okay, it's all over for you. But he's a God of mercy. We don't get what we deserve. Glory, my friends, in the God of great mercy. But how do you do it? How do you do that? How do you do it the first time and then how do you do it every time? The first time is when God opened your eyes to see and caused you to be born again to a living hope. What did you do then? You confessed your sins, you called on the name of the Lord. You repented and believed the gospel. Whether this verse was used with you or not, it still has the same effect. And he says in Romans 10, that salvation is from him. And he says, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified and confesses with his lips and so he's saved. So at that point in time, the first time You receive the mercy and grace of God. God opens you up to repent and believe. But what about every other time? That's the first time. What about every time? You do the same thing, my friends, not in a way of salvation, that's already settled. But when you sin against God, you come back to him and you confess your sin. In 1 John 1, he says, if we say that we have fellowship with him and deny that we walk in darkness, If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another in the blood of Jesus. His son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves from the truth that's not in us. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What does that mean? I've put it this way before. John Calvin said, we don't know one one hundredth of our sin. And so when you sin, if you knew all of your sins, you couldn't take it. It'd be too much for you. You'd be so depressed, you'd want to die. But God does allow you to see some of your sins. And when you confess your sins, he says, he's faithful and righteous to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, even those things you don't know about. I can't remember if I gave you this illustration. I think I did last time I was here, but I think it's apropos again, the highway of holiness. When you were born again, you entered onto that highway of holiness, Isaiah 35, and it is a road leading up to Zion. It's leading up to the glory of heaven. It is bathed in light, and you're walking with all the saints from whatever nation they are, and you're giving praise to God, and you're in fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus is constantly cleansing you from all sin. But in our folly, We sin and then we get off the road into the darkness. How do we get back on the road? We get back on the highway of holiness the same way we got on it the first time. We bow down at the cross of Christ, we humble ourselves, we confess our sins, we repent, and we're now back on the highway of holiness. And we have to do this all the time. Is that something you do? Are you conscious of your need daily to get back on the highway of holiness, to glory in the God of great mercy? What's going to result from that? Well, several things will result from it. First of all, you will have power in your life. You'll have power in ministry, and you'll have power in holiness. In Acts chapter one, he says to his apostles, and you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Their power was not in their training, although their training was excellent. Their power was not in the fact that they were rubbing shoulders with Jesus for three years and that they'd seen the resurrected Christ as glorious as that was. It's not even in the fact that they were going to see him ascend into heaven in just a few moments. No, their power would come when the Holy Spirit came upon them 10 days later. in the upper room. That's where their power came from. So when you are walking in holiness, that means you're not grieving the Holy Spirit. It means you're not quenching the Spirit. It means you're not resisting the Spirit. It means that you're seeking fellowship with Him and you're being filled with the Holy Spirit. And when that happens, you have power in ministry. You have power in holiness. If we In Galatians 5, he speaks of walking according to the flesh or walking according to the spirit. We set our mind on the things of the flesh, we set our mind on the things of the spirit, that we have power and victory if we set our minds on the things of the spirit as we walk in Christ. So that's important. You have power, but you also have boldness. In Acts chapter 4, After James and John are released from the Sanhedrin, the people are gathered together. And the place where they were gathered together was shaken. And it says they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak the Word of God with boldness. Boldness. Paul asked the Ephesians to pray for him. that he would have an open door for the gospel, and then he would speak forth the mystery of Christ with boldness as he ought to speak. Boldness means you don't nuance the words. You know, nuance means hidden. You hide things. You don't really give it the truth. You kind of give it a certain spin. That's what a lot of preachers do. They kind of nuance things. No, you just lay it right out there. Boldness means you're willing to speak forth the Word of God, regardless of what other people think, regardless how it plays out with others. That's boldness. And when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you have boldness, you have power, and you have efficacy. In John chapter 16, Jesus says, but it's to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. Concerning sin, because the world does not know me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you'll no longer see me. Concerning judgment, for the rule of world is judged. In other words, when you're walking on the highway to holiness, you have power, you have boldness, and because you're filled with the Holy Spirit, when you speak, things happen. The Holy Spirit brings conviction, so when you're speaking the Word of God individually, when you're shepherding someone, when you're discipling someone, when you're sharing the gospel with someone, the Holy Spirit uses your words in a powerful, effectual way. And it does something to them. It doesn't just roll off like water off a duck's back. It does something to them. They're pierced to the heart. They're convicted. They do something with what they've heard. That's what we need. So we sin. What are we to do? where we're daily to get back on the highway to holiness. You and I battle sin every day. Let me give you a story. When I was in high school, there was a guy was in my class, and he was a tough, tough guy. Really mean football player. You don't want to get hit by this guy. And he would often come to school with his face swollen and his eyes blackened. And we said, oh, well, Gene got in another fight with his old man. But we didn't know what the fights were about. He had a sister two years younger, and my wife reconnected with her a few years ago. And that's when we found out that their father was sexually abusing their daughter from the age of eight till about the age of 13 or 14. And so Gene was often fighting his old man, trying to keep him away from his sister. Now, this woman is a Christian now. She is born again. She loves Jesus. But she's got issues. She's highly manipulative. She's defensive. She plays the victim card a lot. She's hard to get along with. She's tried to commit suicide several times. I have no doubt she's a Christian, but she struggles with sin. How would I know that she's a Christian? And what about you? How do you know you're Christian? I mean, after all, you're still battling, so how do you know? How does she know? Check this out. 1 John 3. Beloved, let us not love in word or tongue, but indeed in truth. By this we will know we are of the truth, and whatever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. What does that mean? The Christian is not someone who never sins. The Christian is someone, however, when he does sin, eventually, maybe not at the first, but eventually that sin pierces his heart and brings deep conviction and deep remorse and God judges his heart. I'm not worried about those in the church that say, I sinned again, and they're really repentant like Israel was at this particular time. I'm not worried about people like that. The ones I'm worried about are the ones in church that say, I got it all together. I never sinned. I don't have any problems with sin. What about you? You say, I can't, I can't believe, I battled this sin. I can't seem to get past this. Three steps forward, two steps backwards, sometimes two steps forwards and three steps backwards. Blessed are those who mourn, Jesus said, for they shall be comforted. Mourning over what? Mourning over your sin. I am grieved and broken by your sin. Here I am again. God, here I am again getting impatient and traffic, not trusting your sovereignty. God, how can I do that? God, how can I not have a burden for souls like I ought to have? How come I don't even pay much attention to the people around me? God, forgive me for that. It breaks my heart. That's how you know you're in Jesus, if your heart is broken over your sin. And again, it may not be at first. You might try to justify yourself. When your heart condemns you, that's how you know you're in Jesus. Now, in closing, in Hebrews chapter 12, it says, But we've come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, and to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn who are rolled in heaven, and to God and God who judges all, and watch this, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect. What does that mean? The moment that you were born again, the moment that this woman I was talking about a moment ago was born again, she received, you received the righteousness of Jesus Christ, what we call an alien righteousness. You didn't have it in yourself. God gave you that righteousness. God imputed it to your account and took your sin and placed it on Jesus on Calvary. Jesus' death and resurrection brings that about because he was righteous. He became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That's what happened. So this woman and you, if you're in Christ Jesus, you are righteous in a positional sense. You're to grow in that righteousness and holy sanctification, but he looks at you and he declares you righteous, but you know you sin all the time, right? Well, here's the thing, listen, this is so glorious, it's so magnificent. When you close your eyes in death, your righteous soul will be made perfect. No more indwelling sin, no more original sin, no more actual sin, no more of these things you have to find yourself confessing just like every Sunday morning. Your righteous soul at that moment will be made absolutely perfect. What a God we serve, amen? Glory, my friends, in the God of great mercy. Now, if you're here today, and this doesn't make any sense to you, maybe you're a younger person, you've never called on the name of the Lord. You're never going to get it anywhere else. Islam won't do it for you. Political action won't do it for you. Hinduism won't do it for you. Materialism won't do it for you. Nothing else will. There is only one name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And what you must do is you must say, I am a wretched sinner. Repent Jesus save me give me a new heart cause me to be born again right this moment. I call on you for mercy Do it right now Today's the day of salvation. You may not have tomorrow. I don't know Don't wait right now call on the name of the Lord. I And you tell one of the elders here that you've done that, or tell me that you've done it. They'll help you grow in grace. But for the rest of us, glory, my friends. Glory in the God of great mercy. Let's pray together. Father, we bow before you. We acknowledge that we're not all that we should be. Father, I know this is dangerous. It sounds like antinomianism sometimes, but it's not. If we walk in newness of life, then we have the Holy Spirit who indwells us. But we still sin. But Lord, we grieve over our sin. We don't take it lightly. This is not a license to sin. No, the real believer grieves over it, it bothers him, he's convicted by it. At the same time, we realize that you are long-suffering. You listen to your people as we repent. So Father, thank you for this great truth. And may it make a difference today, Lord, in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we now move to the Lord's Supper. And as we do so, let me remind you, the Lord's Supper is for believers. If you're not yet a Christian, we would ask that you not partake, but that you ask yourself the question as you're sitting there, why am I not a believer? What's holding me back? Why would I not want Jesus? But if you are a believer, you come and you feed on Christ and his blood. Now we speak of communion as a means of grace. You see, as you heard the sermon, You're probably thinking, I really do struggle in this one particular area. And I don't rejoice like I should, and I don't really glory in Christ like I should. What should you do now? You go to Jesus. How do you go to Jesus? You go to Jesus and you, in a spiritual sense, eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Just as you are famished after a hard day of work, and maybe you've not eaten much all day, you're famished and you're hungry. and you want food. I want you to understand that you now have a desperate need of Jesus like I do. Y'all take communion every week, right? There's a reason for that and it's good. You need it. We need it every week. We need to feed on Jesus. We need his blood every week. Why? Because we fail. Tomorrow you don't have communion. What do you do? You go back to Jesus. Every day you go back to Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's where we gotta be. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, and he broke it, and he gave it to his disciples, which I now do, ministering in his name. And then he distributed it, as I will do. And let's pray as we distribute the elements. Father, in the name of Jesus, now we ask that you would set aside these ordinary Elements for an extraordinary purpose. Because we believe, Jesus, you're here spiritually. And we believe that you will feed us. We need it, Lord Jesus. We need to feed on your spiritual body. We need to be nourished. We want to come back to you today. Hear our prayer in your name. Amen.