Would you take your Bibles, please? And let's turn to 2 Corinthians 7, verses 8-11. 2 Corinthians 7, verses 8-11. Paul says, For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent. For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance. For you were made sorry after a godly manner, that you might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world works death. For behold, this self-same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you! Yea, what clearing of yourselves! Yea, what indignation! Yea, what fear! Yea, what vehement desire! Yea, what zeal! Yay, what revenge in all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. Okay, so I know it's the Thanksgiving season and you're expecting to hear Thanksgiving messages. Give me some time. There's next week and the week after that. But this may seem inappropriate. It may seem too sad. But quite frankly, I look at godly sorrow as a subject which cuts a path and makes room for joy and thanksgiving. Kind of like digging a well. You dig down deep, you can get more water. And so God would use a godly sorrow in our lives to make us better, joyful, thankful people. The goal is to separate the sorrow of the world from godly sorrow. And we can get those really mixed up. And we may have both things working in our lives, or we have the temptation to have that working in our life. So we need to look at what this portion of the letter means in its context. Paul had dealt with a sinful issue in the Corinthian church when he wrote his first letter. He made it known to them that he had found out that there was a type of fornication going on that was, and by fornication, I'm using it in the broader sense, sexual sin. And he said, this is so bad, you don't even hear the Gentiles doing this, that a man would live with his father's wife, took his stepmother and, yeah, We're not talking about wedding ceremonies. I don't know that that always happened back then, but they just started living together. And this was considered incestual. And so Paul said, now you guys are sitting around doing nothing. You should be grieving about this. You should be examining your hearts. You should be, you should be, uh, asking God to search you out to see how something like this could happen in your church. And it's gone undealt with, as if unnoticed. But everybody knew. And Paul accused him of pride. He says, you're puffed up. You think you're so good at so many things that this somehow can just be overlooked. It doesn't matter. We think we buy God off sometimes if we're really spiritual about this or that. Then we've created a little space there for slack. And that's really not how God's holiness works. So he told him what to do. You can read about it in 1 Corinthians 5. And he told him what to do and was sparing you the details. They did it. They confronted him, they corrected him, and they put him out of the assembly until he repented. And the good news is he did. He did. Now Paul writes a second letter and he starts talking about it right away in chapter 1 and part of chapter 2. and he's trying to make them careful. Now, make sure you follow through and you forgive and you restore. You don't want this guy over-swallowed up with sorrow and grief and feeling ashamed. You gotta help him now. He humbled himself, he obeyed the Lord, and now you need to comfort and encourage him because we know the devil. And he'd take advantage of a situation like this. You can destroy a person if you don't carry out church discipline correctly. If you don't carry it out at all or if you don't carry it out correctly, but it must be done with love. And you know, I'm finally talking about it when it isn't an issue where we have to do it. You know, we've had like five times in the 18 years I've been here where this has had to be done. And I always pull out a teaching and have everybody reading it. And it's usually a just a, it's a miserable, difficult time. And I'm not really going to talk about it that much, but the subject is broached here. that if we don't correct and confront our brothers and sisters, we don't love them with Christ's love. And we also are not exhibiting Christ's love to the world. Now, I remember in my long memory back there, a lot of churches just had this, I called it sending them on a slow boat to China in the middle of the night. We just somehow get rid of them. We don't want everybody out there to find out. It's an embarrassment. And so they just sort of have them disappear. That's not loving that person. You know what? The world finds out. They love dirt. If you don't believe me, watch the news. Read the newspapers. The world feeds on dirt and it spreads quickly. I don't know why I'm bringing this up right now, but a lady had a plaque on her desk, and she says, I never repeat gossip, so listen very carefully the first time. Well, they missed the point. It spreads, the world knows. What the world needs to know besides that, hey, we're sinners and we fail, is that we also care and we love the Lord enough to deal with things and help people through it and do what's right. So there's a chance to glorify God. There's also a great opportunity to restore somebody who is destroying their life with open sin. Okay, so Paul commends them. He cautions them to make sure you remember the love and the restoration and the forgiveness and the healing and build them up now. Because you weren't doing this to destroy them, you were doing this to save them. from themselves. And he brings it up again here. Some of you may remember a month of October where I spent four weeks discussing 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and sneakily brought in a lot of other chapters of 2 Corinthians. I'm not going to make this a long series. So listen very carefully the first time. He's commending them, and while he's telling them, you did the right thing, and you got the right results, and I wrote you this letter, and it made me sorry to make you sorry, but I don't repent of that. because after you sorrowed, you sorrowed with a godly kind of sorrow, therefore you repented, and therefore I rejoice. So I'm glad I didn't, did it, I didn't like doing it, and you didn't like doing it, but we did it, now we're all happy and rejoicing in the Lord, and we're clear. Okay, we've cleared things up, we've made things right. What a satisfying feeling to follow through. Okay, so, In this discussion, he makes it very clear that there's two kinds of sorrow in the world. When you boil it down, there's godly sorrow, and there's the sorrow of the world, the sorrow of this world. That's an intriguing and challenging thought. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. You see that in verse 10? But the sorrow of the world is deadly. It's deadly. I think it's important we make clarification here. Now, if you look at verse 11, and I'm going to be cautious here because verse 11, I compared it in about five translations and amalgamated all these words. This may rub you funny, but these are words that God gave us, and I didn't do an extensive Greek study. I just didn't have the time. But I compared these major translations and came up with a list. But notice what I said. With godly sorrow, a person sorrows towards God. They run to God, not from God. This kind of sorrow will bring positive action. Now, the word positive is going to throw you, because positive means have a nice day, big smile, What I mean is we're not being passive, lethargic, lazy, shove it under the table, sweep it under the carpet. Positive action means we're going to get something done about it. And sometimes positive has some hard negative things. So you're going to see some words that may raise your eyebrows. Bear with me. And if we have to, we'll study this together more some other time. But it tells us from verse 11 that godly sorrow makes carefulness, creates diligence and earnestness. Okay, we really find out where our loyalties are. We really find out what matters. How much do we care? That one wasn't too hard to figure out. Eagerness to clear yourselves, to vindicate yourself. Now the word vindicate might cause some confusion, but vindicate means at the end, you've made things right. Righteous people can fall, can sin, but it's how they get up. The Lord will pick them up. I don't judge people by how they fail. I judge by how they get back up on their feet. And when they're being honest and sincere and towards God and cooperating with those who are trying to help in the name of the Lord, there's this eagerness to clear yourselves or to vindicate yourselves. In other words, I'm not going to justify something I did wrong in the past. The church can't say, well, we were just kind of waiting a while. We thought we'd let this go for a couple of years and see if God just spoke to them. That's not a vindication. That's a justification that's false, which we'll get to that in just a moment. But once they realize, hey, we are not on the job, they snap too. And it gave them this eagerness, this diligence, this carefulness, this earnestness. And indignation and fear are mentioned. Indignation. Okay, that's when you get mad at something. Sometimes it takes a little anger to get the gumption to do what's right. As long as we're being wet noodles, we don't have any backbone. There needs to be a certain amount of righteous indignation. You're used to people saying, boy, I was mad as hell. Well, they ain't seen nothing yet. They ought to find out what mad as heaven looks like. It's yet to be revealed. Romans 1 is going to talk about it. 2 Thessalonians 1 is going to talk about it. I can bring you into Revelation and show you. You think hell's mad? You ought to see how mad heaven is against sin and Satan and the rebellion that's going on in this world. And that magnifies the great patience, forbearance, and grace of God. He has restrained himself greatly. His anger towards the sin in this world is showing in bits and pieces, but not the full amount. And so there is a righteous indignation. In other words, we caught on with how God feels about this sin. We're not here to get like the devil about it. We're here to get like God about it. And there's sometimes you braid a whip and snap it and you tip over tables and you drive animals out and you know, there's sometimes that anger will show and it's scary and it's uncomfortable and people don't expect it because we're supposed to be nice. But we need to take a good look at Jesus and how he dealt with the Pharisees. He would show compassion to any fallen person. But the ones that were self-righteous and making others twofold more the child of hell, he gave them full barrels, both barrels for their pride and their hypocrisy. And yet he never did anything sinful, anything rash, anything that he'd have to apologize for. Even that day he cleansed the temple from the people who were selling animals for sacrifice and marking up the price and taking advantage of people. He drove out the animals. They could be regathered. And he tipped over the tables and the money rolled out. They could pick that up. But when it came to the birds, there were cages of birds. He didn't open up the bird cages and let the birds fly out. He said, you take those. I just wanted you to get a glimpse of how under control a holy God is. when he's angry with sin, and yet he has not lost control of himself. And as the Son of God did that that day, he sinned against no one, but he sure got their attention. Okay, other words than fear is alarm. If I just walk up and say, oh, the house is on fire, Yeah, what'd you say? I'm kind of busy right now. But if I say, the house is on fire! Now, according to my marriage counseling rules, the only time you're allowed to yell is if the house is on fire. Just keep that in mind. But there's a time to really make it clear. And so this alarm, this sense of urgency, this isn't something to just let slide by. We're also told of strong desire, concern, and zeal. I don't think I have to explain that one anymore. The last one, well, now Pop and I, I suppose, revenge? We do not mean revenge for yourself against someone who has done wrong to you. We're talking about a type of vengeance in which we are representing the Lord. And when Satan attacks this church, we go at it with a vengeance. That doesn't mean we hate the person, but we hate the sin. Don't we say that about God? God loves the sinner but hates the sin. We got to do that too. We got to hate that sin. And church discipline isn't to vindicate my hurt feelings or something or yours. It's God has been offended. His reputation has been smeared. And we should take vengeance on those things that mar the reputation of our Holy Lord. And like with the bird cages, we don't hurt people. Oh, they may get hurt, depending on their response. But if they feel the pain and they show godly sorrow, then good things are about to happen and we're going to be so glad we did this. But revenge is a strong word. It's not personal revenge. It's vengeance, godly vengeance against ungodly things that are hurting the reputation of Christ and the work of Christ and the kingdom of Christ. So words like vindication, punishment, readiness to see justice done, that's in that category there. And that is, you know, if you want to know, I look at the King James, the New King James, The New American Standard, I look at the NIV, the ESV, and sometimes when I have a chance, I'll even go to the New Living Translation. My problem is on my computer, I haven't got room for five, and I have to do something to switch one of them out. If I'm in a hurry, I just say, okay, you five are good enough. Sometimes I do though, because I want to see how others may be reading it, your Bibles. I may have mentioned a translation you use, or somebody's going to hear this message. Or you may just like to know, I've examined a cross panel and had a discussion. Okay, folks, what do we have here? So there you go. Now for the sorrow of the world. It's going to take two columns for this one. And I don't have one exact Bible verse. Verse 11 was so handy. Verse 10 and 11 were so handy to show what godly sorrow looks like. So I had to reach in deep and meditate and come up with things that I could back up with Scripture. And you'll notice there's a list at the end that you can do some of that yourself. But the sorrow of the world, the above qualities are lacking, that's obvious. But the love or the sorrow of the world, expresses itself by the following feelings. We'll get to actions later. These are feelings. Feelings are very important. From feelings stem actions, but let's look at the feelings. Sorrow for yourself. Depression. Shame and embarrassment before others. And we're not talking about God here. Hating yourself. Suicidal thoughts, I might add destructive thoughts there. Hating the consequences of wrong that has been done, which may mean not necessarily hating the wrong itself. I'm mad I got caught. I'm mad for the consequences, the penalties. Now, sometimes people can kind of do both. But by and by, what's really important here is what is wrong before God. and not what it's costing me. Sin takes us farther than what we want to go, costs us more than what we want to pay, and keeps us longer than what we want to stay. Think about that one. But now I go to the sorrow of the world and how it can produce these actions. And some of them are related directly to the feelings I just mentioned. Withdrawal from others. You just close in. You become more hermit-like. You avoid people. Hardening of the heart. This was hard to put in a short statement. The hardening of the heart is an action. It's not just, oh, my heart did this. No, you did it. It's like when we talk about a soul. You don't have a soul. You are a soul. Your heart is you. And if you ever study Pharaoh with Moses, it starts out where Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Understand the judicial hardening here. First, Pharaoh started hardening his heart, and God says, okay, have it your way. And he's letting calamity come upon Pharaoh. But Pharaoh started this. Keep that in mind. The hardening of the heart, self-excusing, self-justification, blaming others, including God, anger towards others, including God. This is what hard hearts do. And we'll let this happen. Then there's distracting activities. Oh, I feel really bad. I'm going shopping. I'm going to order some stuff on Amazon. I'm going to go out and drink. I'm going to go out there and, I don't know, I'll just grab a fishing pole or a gun and go kill something. I'm not against hunting. Please, at a time like this, I could lose my job. I'm not against hunting, but just saying, I'm gonna go out and entertain myself, I'm gonna drown my sorrows with activities, pleasures, or something like that. Well, doing other things to take attention away from the problem, trying to forget about what has been done, trying to make up for the wrong that has been done. And that was pretty deceptive because you may actually, I don't know, maybe you know somebody like this. They do something awful to you. They deride you publicly. They scathe you and embarrass you. And then later, they don't apologize, but they bought you a little present. And I don't know about you, that's maddening. Who wants your old stinking present? You could talk like that to me, and I've had it too. I've been derided publicly. Somebody comes in private, oh, I want to tell you I was wrong when I said that. And I say, I'm willing to forgive you, but you should be in front of all those people apologizing to me. And that doesn't always happen, does it? And then there's the ugly, awful truth at the end there is self-punishment. And that can include suicide. But I did not realize how bad the problem can be. I grew up in a pretty sheltered life. I didn't know what cutting meant. I found out over the years that people start doing terrible things to themselves. They'll slash themselves and they have scars all over the place because they get so mad at themselves they want to destroy themselves. Sometimes they try to kill themselves and fail and other times they're just going up to a certain point and somehow they think that atones for it. I won't illustrate any more there but there's more forms of self-punishment and self-destruction than that. Now, we come to some examples. I've offered some Bible references. I'm just going to talk this through. I'm not turning to these. Examples which illustrate the contrast between godly sorrow and the sorrow of the world. Now, first of all, Peter shows us what godly sorrow is. He had said, Lord, I will suffer for you. I'll go to prison for you. I'll die for you. And I'm here to tell you, Peter meant that. Don't pick on Peter. I'm his guy. I have first and second Peter to know what a wonderful job the Lord did in his life. And we learn from Peter's training time and where he had failures and weaknesses. But we need to look at him afterwards and what a glowing tower of faith that man became. What a powerful servant of God. He's not my only hero, but people love to pick on him and impetuous Peter, impetuous Peter. Yeah, well, I know impetuous Alex, so I'm shutting up. Okay, so Peter said he would do that. He meant that because when they came in the garden to take him, he pulls out a sword. He wasn't aiming for any ears. He was aiming for a whole head. God in his grace, one minister said it gracefully, says an angel of the Lord just deflected his sword a little bit so he didn't commit a crime where he'd have to die. And to make it even more amazing and confusing is Jesus puts the ear back on the man's head. And the passion of Christ has one moment that is, I guess it's almost funny. It's a very not funny movie, but when everybody goes away, the disciples run, the soldiers take Jesus, everyone goes away, and Peter and this guy are left there standing looking at each other. What just happened? We're arresting a man that can put ears back on? rebuke his servants for fighting for him with a sword. Peter's saying, Lord, I was trying to fight for you. You don't seem to appreciate my efforts. You healed the enemy. And they're just left there standing at each other. For that one brief moment, what an amazing thought. And people still had the nerve to arrest that man and beat him and falsely accuse him and have him crucified. Oh, well, I'm digressing. Peter still loved the Lord enough to follow the crowd into town. He got around a fire. It's, you know, it's pre-dawn. It's a little nippy. He's warming himself there and people start catching on. Hey, aren't you a Galilean? You sound like one. Aren't you one of his followers? And he kept denying, denying, denying. And Jesus had said, before the cock crows twice, you'll deny me thrice. And one of the Gospels makes it very clear, on the third crow, and at this point Peter is cursing his name. He's cursing, I do not know this man, and he used oaths. The rooster crowed and somehow across the area, however big it was, their eyes met. And we're told that Peter went out and wept bitterly. Okay, we're going to pause there and take a look at Judas. Judas never made great vows about anything. Judas had a secret agenda. He was a zealot. He's trying to get Israel turned around as a nation and break the bondage of Roman government. And he's looking for the poster boy that's going to stir people to rally around the great rebellion that Judas hopes to be a part of. Jesus is talking just right. Jesus is doing great things. He's winning the crowds. They trust Him. They love Him. Look at Him. This kind of power, just think if we could get some military might there. Instead of five loaves and two fishes, let's take some swords and shields and some flamethrowers and machine guns. Maybe He can multiply those for us. Let's start the rebellion. But Jesus kept talking about this matter of dying. And he often mentioned that he would rise again, but nobody seemed to catch it. Well, it's not normal. So you only hear what you expect to hear. You have to have something told you several times if it's a surprise or a mystery to you. And anyways, Judas kept hearing, dying, dying, dying, dying. I need growth, forward, fighting, winning. And he finally realized this is getting too much and he's at some point at that Lord's table the night before. And Jesus says, whatever you're going to do, do it quickly. Judah should have said, wait a minute, how do you know? But he made a deal. And the deal was to help the enemy find Jesus in private. We don't want a big public display. We might have a mob. So we want to find him in private so that nobody's there to insurrect. By morning, we're going to have this man finished. Signed, sealed, delivered, and he's going to be put to death. But we got to find him at a secret time. And Judas says, I got a plan. I know where he goes. I know where he prays. He's going to be praying tonight. So for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave, He sold out Jesus. Using a kiss. Judas got his money, Jesus was delivered. When he saw them mercilessly beating him, and he saw the Roman flogging, and folks, a person doesn't look human after a Roman flogging, those whips are embedded with metal and glass, and they're ripping the skin off him, they're ripping muscles and nerves and things, and it was a horrible sight. Isaiah tells us way ahead of time, he says, his visage was so marred, he did not look like a man. And somewhere, Judas got sorry. And he walks in to the Pharisees after Jesus is already in the hands of the Romans. He says, I betrayed innocent blood. And he tries to offer the money back and they don't want it. They more or less said, that's your problem. You deal with it. So he threw the money down, gave the Pharisees a little pause. for conscience and say, hmm, it's blood money. We can't really put it back in the temple. Oh, we'll buy this field and it'll be a place for poor people to be buried. And next, next business. Well, Judas went out and he hung himself. And, you know, it's not pretty. You have to put scripture together for this, but he tied a rope around his neck and he tied the rope to a tree and he jumped off a cliff. And his head popped off and his bowels gushed out on the ground. I'm telling you what the Bible says. And once in a while we need to know the awful, awful truth. The sorrow of this world works death. This man knew his guilt. He felt shame, remorse, but he had no godly sorrow. Perhaps he thought, I can't go to Jesus now, it's too late. I can't go to the disciples, I can't find them. And what will they think of me? And he felt hopeless. And I believe the demons of hell surrounded that man and plagued that man. And again, if you watch the Passion of Christ, which I haven't done for a while, but it's still embedded in my mind, that the demons of hell tormented that man. The very devil that entices you, condemns you too. You know, Satan, the word means enemy, And devil means a deceiver or accuser. And there's no reward with doing the devil's work. And so he killed himself. Well, then there's King David. King David, at a time when kings are going to war, David wasn't. He sent good men out there, war's going well, he had reports to look at, but he didn't go out there. So he's sitting around the house, nothing was on television, so he looks out the window, and he can look down in a courtyard. They had these back courtyards, and from eye level, you wouldn't see, there's a wall, but from up above, he could look down, and here's this gorgeous lady. She's the wife of Uriah, a great soldier. And she is something to look at, boy. And she's out there taking a bath. And David justifies a thought. He says, doesn't she know that I can see her from here? She did that on purpose. She must want me. Well, whatever it is, he's the king. He ordered her to come up and he took her and he did what he did. And then he found out later she's having a baby. So he tries to get Uriah back to do some messenger work. And by the way, there's a little time here. Go be with your wife. Spend some time with your wife and that way the baby won't be a question. Uriah is such a man. How can I go back and enjoy my wife when my comrades are out there fighting for their lives and sweating and in danger? So he slept outside the king's door instead. Boy, what a man. And David did some dastardly things after that. He wrote a note. Uriah, would you deliver this? Uriah isn't even going to look at it. It was his own assassination orders. Put this man out in the worst battle and then withdraw and leave him out there. What's his name? I just forgot. But anyways, he looks and probably shrugged his shoulders. He must have messed up somehow with David. So he just does what he's told. Joab, that's who I'm thinking of. And so he dies. And all of a sudden, there's a proposal. All of a sudden, she's in the harem. Everything's going to be right now, right? No. Nathan walks in and he says, there's a man that had a lot of sheep and company came and he wanted to have dinner for them. So he didn't want to use his own sheep. So he took his neighbor who had one lamb that he loved like a daughter. I know that sounds weird, but he loved it, like made a pet out of it, I guess. He took that man's lamb and killed it and fed his guests with that man's lamb. And David, boiling, his sense of indignation was really rolling. That man should pay four times for what he did and then he should die. And then Nathan says the words that are still echoing today. Thou art the man. Thou art the man. I don't think David even had to pause and think very long. He got it. He got it right here. And he looked at Nathan and says, I have sinned against the Lord. And the Spirit of God told Nathan to tell him, yes, you have sinned against the Lord, but you will not die. You will be forgiven. But you have caused the enemies of the Lord to mock and to reproach. Therefore, the sword will not leave your house." There's going to be consequences, David. You're going to pay four times for this. And I can't take the time to tell you right now, but four deaths in his family is like four times that. But the part where David said the guy should be killed, God said, no, I stopped there. You're going to live. You're going to live with this. And you're going to be my humble servant. And I still have plans for you. And it's an amazing thing. But the fact is, David simply said, I have sinned against the Lord. Now, that'll mean more to you when I talk about King Saul. Now, this is his predecessor. I decide to put things in order, the godly sorrow, then the sorrow of this world. So here I am in order. And here is Saul. He was told to kill the Amalekites and King Agag particularly, all to be wiped out. Don't even keep any animals. I want them all destroyed. You talk to God about why he was being that way, but that's what God said. So Saul goes out there, mighty man of valor, conquers the Amalekites and captures Saul and the best of his sheep. He's gonna keep King Agag, I don't know, for entertainment, you know, maybe to talk king talk with him sometimes. I don't know what he was going to do with them. And in walks Samuel. Now Samuel had been spoken to by the Lord. Samuel spent all night weeping for Saul. And keep this in mind, before you ever rebuke or challenge somebody, you better first sow in tears so your heart is in the right position of humility and submission to the Lord and as much grace as God will give you before you go and do heart surgery on somebody else. Saul wept all night and he comes in and he tells them, you know, God said kill them all. Saul says, well, I saved them. I did do what the Lord said. I killed everybody and I just saved a few for sacrifice, some really nice ones. I thought, let's have a nice sacrifice. Don't you think it'd be a nice idea? No. No. Now, you talk to the Lord about what Samuel did, but Samuel took Agag and hacked him in pieces right in front of Saul. There's some real irony to that, but I can't tell all the story right now. Because Saul, when he was being all righteous one time, he had somebody hacked in pieces and carted around the country. But I can't explain that one. So God says, you like this kind of body language? I'll give you some body language. So right in front of his eyes, it had to be a gruesome thing to see. And we're not even talking about those sheep. They're not a fit sacrifice because the Lord wants obedience rather than sacrifice. Rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. And Saul, more or less, in my paraphrase, says, oh, all right, all right, all right. But listen, would you honor me in front of the people? We have a celebration for the victory going on. Would you stand up with me? So give me a little attaboy. I want to keep my ratings up. Now Saul told him, God, because you've been rebellious, disobedient, and untruthful, God is done using you as a king. And if you watch Saul's life, it deteriorates to more demonic activity, more bitter, awful things. His way he treated David, I mean, it's a terrible story. But catch this, the sorrow of this world is, okay, if that's gotta be, but let me look good for now. appease things for me. I want to still feel good." Amazingly, Samuel did that. He did stand up with him, but it was all deterioration afterwards. And it did lead to a suicide. You can call it military if you want, but he killed himself. He fell on his own sword. After consulting a witch, by the way, that's another story. But there was no repentance. David repented. And if you don't get anything else out of this story, read Psalm 51 to see how a man after God's own heart comes back to God, makes no excuses, completely justifies God and agrees with him and makes himself, lays himself bare and open to God's discretion. And he asked for mercy. He asked for grace and he gets it. Psalm 51, don't forget that. Well, Pharaoh, I kind of hinted about him. He kept doing stuff. Yeah, yeah, Moses, your people can go. No, no, I changed my mind. Back and forth, back and forth. There'd be a plague. Pharaoh would be sorry. They were told they could go, then Pharaoh hardened his heart. No, you can't go. This went on, you know, for a long time until God finally said, have it your way and I'm gonna start hardening your heart. But there's this one particular place. And I really, I wanna read this one to you. Just bear with me. I can turn there quickly in Exodus chapter nine and verse 34. This is how good it can sound, folks. It can sound like the real deal. Exodus 9, verse 34. And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart, he and his servants. Okay, every time the pressure was taken off, he went back. But let me read just a little more. I'm going backwards here, forgive me. Verse 27. Verse 27, and Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said unto them, I have sinned this time. The Lord is righteous and I and my people are wicked and treat the Lord for it is enough that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail and I will let you go and you shall stay no longer. Wow. He said everything right. You know how many people day after day, week after week, month after month, keep asking Jesus to come into their heart. They just keep saying the same old prayer thing. You know, there comes a point where either you have truly called on the Lord and you're His and He doesn't have to be asked back into your heart because He didn't leave your heart, or you've been lying all along to yourself and your conscience is killing you. The older we get, the more polished we get. We know the right words. gets frightening. And it looked like Pharaoh finally got it after this particular plague. I am wicked. My people are wicked. The Lord is righteous. I have sinned. Boy, it sounded great. Put it on a plaque. Put it on a t-shirt. But I kind of went backwards here. You get to verse 34. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. Neither would he let the children of Israel go. And the Lord had spoken as the Lord had spoken by Moses. I had a whole bunch more of these, but I thought this is probably enough for the day. These examples. So I want to give you a practical little list here. And even this list, I probably could have made it longer, but let's try this. What do you do when you are in a sinful situation? First of all, don't lie to yourself. Be honest with yourself. Accuse yourself. Take sides with God against yourself, which implies the next two items. Change your mind about what is wrong and repent before God. Now, repentance is not to be confused with penance. Penance is when people try to make up for what they've done wrong. Repentance is about a change of mind. Metanoia. 180 degree turn. I changed my mind. I was wrong. I want to be right. God was right. He's never wrong. I want to be on his side. So it's like I do an about face. But if Peter and Paul talk about repentance for salvation, they're not talking about being saved by works. And many people get confused on this. Repentance is one thing. John the Baptist said, repent and do works meet for repentance. He's showing a difference. Repentance is the initial change of mind, change of heart. And that opens the door to faith. Without repentance, Jesus says you can't believe. He told the Pharisees, you repented not that you might believe. You got to change your mind. You got to agree with God, which is the essence of the word confess that's found in 1 John 1 verse 9. To confess means to speak the same thing. You agree with God, take sides with God about your sin, and then you need to believe in God's forgiveness and cleansing. And you need to walk closely with Him. You need to strive to change thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that leads to such sin. You know, every now and then somebody sends you a funny gif, little picture. It's just a loop. It just keeps going over and over. Here's this guy in a tractor, and he's trying to pull out this small little, like a spruce tree or something. And he pulls up the tractor. The tractor stops. The front end tips up, and the tree comes down and whips him on the head. Okay, it's pretty funny, but the gif keeps doing it over and over. So here it is. Vroom, pop, vroom, pop, vroom, pop. Yeah, I was just about on my knees laughing. So, you know, they say insanity is thinking that if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you'll get a different result. Okay, so we look insane sometimes, don't we? And listen to what God hears. I'm sorry. I'm sorry again. I'm sorry some more. Sorry, sorry. Please, please, please, sorry. Same thing, same thing. Over, over, over. Okay, God will forgive. And if he told Peter 70 times 7 in one day, I believe the Lord can outdo that. He'll forgive him, forgive him, forgive. But he also says, don't go back to your foolishness. So what we have to do is go to the throne room of grace and after we've gotten forgiven and he's promised cleansing, now we say, Lord, what got me here? There may be something that we don't see that led to the sin and it's over here and we're not dealing with it. We're still pulling the tractor, getting hit in the head saying, sorry, Lord, sorry, Lord. Maybe there's something we need to do differently here. You know, like get a backhoe, dig up that tree. And God in his grace has things that maybe he hasn't given you victory over yet because there's a deeper problem that he hasn't dealt with yet and you haven't. And we need to find out. So we strive to change thoughts, attitudes, and behavior that leads to such sin. So instead of just saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's saying, Lord, is it okay to do this? Forget that statement that's easier to say you're sorry than ask permission. That's from hell. Ask permission. You feel tempted, start talking to God about your temptation. Don't wait till you've done it again and say, oh, Lord, I'm sorry. Better that you say ahead of time, Lord, I feel it coming. What's wrong here? What else do I need to know? And I'm told if you ask in faith in James 1, God won't yell at you. But don't be double-minded with him, he can tell. So what about something you've done wrong to somebody else? There's a need to confess to anyone you have wronged. I'm not talking about a confessional where you have to confess to somebody else all your sins. I'm talking about when you've wronged somebody, and just so you know, that's James 5.16, confess your false one to another, that you can forgive each other, okay? So I need to go and make it right with somebody. And if it's possible, make things right with others. It's called restitution. These are good things. Restitution without repentance and apologizing and getting forgiven is no good. Restitution at the end is right. So we have some helpful scriptures here. The first two Psalms, Psalm 10 and Psalm 36, deal with how awful the sorrow of the world is by looking at the wicked. They are so puffed up and so proud. God is not in all their thoughts. They think he doesn't know or he doesn't care and he won't do anything about it. And one of the Psalms there, it says that their sin becomes hateful because there's no remorse. There's no effort at all. And it gets disgusting after a while. We don't want to be that person. Psalm 38 is different. This is showing a proper response to God when I'm feeling conviction. This first part of Psalm 38 has some really important things. And verse 18 ends with, I will be sorry for my sin and that before God. Psalm 51 is the centerpiece of Psalms for how to truly have a broken heart and confess to God the way you should. Isaiah 55, 6 and 7, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Don't wait till he has to hunt you down with bloodhounds. You run to him. Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord or return to the Lord and he will abundantly pardoned. God wants to know about what's going on in your head, roving around in your heart, not just what you're doing with your body. Romans 3 and Romans 10 and Acts 3 are for those who don't have a relationship with God through Christ. They need to be saved. That explains the whole thing. You need to believe in your heart that the Lord Jesus Christ died for your sins, that He rose again, and you need to confess Him. You need to call upon the Lord and ask for this salvation. Get the relationship. One time is enough if it's the real thing. You only need saved once. Just like birth, one birth, one good healthy birth is enough. But for those who are erring children of God, like me, we got the wonderful 1 John 1 5 through chapter 2 verse 1. And I've already mentioned some of it. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have no sin, we make them a liar and the truth isn't in us. Okay, so again, back to that first step. Don't lie to yourself because you're also lying to God. God's there. He's right there in the theater with you, watching the screen of your mind and heart. You can't fool Him. Don't even try. Confess. Agree. See how much He wants to save you from your sins more than you want to be saved from them. And then there's the appropriate place of confessing to others when you've wronged them. Now, if I had more time, I'd get into godly sorrow when it pertains to the whole group of Christians or a church or like praying for our nation. There's a lot of work that could be done there. But basically, I just want you to know in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.'" And mourning here is not just about feeling sorry for yourself, or maybe you've suffered some things and you're naturally sorry. God cares about that. But the blessing here in Matthew 5, and I think it's verse 9, I'm probably wrong about that. But, "'Blessed are they that mourn' has to do with grieving over the things that grieve God." to love what he loves, to hate what he hates, to be grieved when God has been offended and disrespected and disobeyed. And so we start having mourning for our nation, for our whole church, for Christians. We start there in the house of God and we grieve to Him. Ezekiel 9.4 is going to tell you about people that grieve inside for the abominations being done. Malachi 3.16 talks about it. I just, I can't go there right now. But God says he writes in a book everybody that sighs and cries and they get together and they speak often with each other. And you know what, when we have a moment and either our prayer time in church or some of us gather together and we start talking about the griefs going on in our nation, that's a moment to say, let's stop and pray. Let's transfer this to God's heart. Our hearts are affected by what affects God's heart. So God makes a note, he puts it in a book. A book of remembrance. He sets a seal, a mark on them in Ezekiel 9, 4. Take care. Take care of these things. Knowing the Lord brings lots of joy, but the ability of the Lord to have joy and sorrow at the same time is amazing. And the closer we get to Him and become like Him, we can do this too. Not losing our joy, we sorrow to God. Sorrowing to God, we still maintain joy. And that means thanksgiving, celebration, at the same time of sorrow, repenting. And you know how much you like to be comforted when you're hurting? Someone just cares. I'm going to take a chance and tell you that God really likes it when people come alongside Him and show Him and tell Him that they care. I see what's going on, Lord. And maybe this is an inconvenience to me, but it's an affront to You. Do you know what the word abomination means in the Hebrew? It means it's something that makes you want to throw up. And any good parent cares about their children if they're nauseous, or you care about your spouse, or even if you know a friend is nauseous, we care about that. God is nauseous at what's going on. I know he's full of joy and full of love and he's full of grace, but he's also nauseous and grieved and feeling pain. He looked at the world in Noah's day and it grieved him at his heart that he had made man. Because the thoughts of their hearts were continually violence and wickedness. And here we are, he lives in us and we belong to him, we are his and he is ours. And don't we show any sympathy, not even a card? This could revolutionize prayer life and Bible reading. But I must submit it to you as what my offering is today. And may God give you the thoughts you need for today. And may this type of thinking permeate your future. You know what to do when something you've done wrong or something wrong is going on around you. You know how to grieve to God. with godly sorrow. Heavenly Father, please bless these words, these thoughts, these scriptures, and grant your people godly sorrow that will produce repentance and faith and make more way for joy and thanksgiving. I ask, Lord, that you'll meet the need in each heart today. If someone here needs Christ as their Lord and Savior, may this be the day they truly call upon the Lord and receive him. We ask it for Jesus' sake, amen.