Please open your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 9. 2 Kings 9. Our sermon tonight is titled, Here Comes Trouble. And Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, Get yourself ready, take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth Gilead. Now when you arrive at that place, look there for Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and make him rise up from among his associates, and take him to an inner room. Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say, thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel. Then open the door and run. Do not delay. So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead. And when he arrived, there were the captains of the army sitting. And he said, I have a message for you, O commander. And Jehu said, for which one of us? And he said, for you, commander. Then he arose and went into the house, and he poured oil on his head and said to him, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord over Israel. You shall strike down the house of Ahab, your master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel. both bond and free. And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah. The dog shall eat Jezebel in the vicinity of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her. And he opened the door and fled. Then Jehu came out to the servants of his master, and one said to him, Is all well? Why did this madman come to you? And he said to them, You know the man and his talk. And they said, A lie! Tell us now! So he said. Thus and thus he spoke to me, saying, Thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel. Then each man hastened to take his garment, and they put it under him on the top of the steps, and they blew trumpets, saying, Jehu is king. So Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. Now Joram had been defending Ramoth Gilead, he and all Israel, against Hazael, king of Syria. But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds which the Syrians had inflicted on him when he fought with Hazael, king of Syria. And Jehu said, if you are so minded, let no one leave or escape from the city to go and tell it in Jezreel. So Jehu rode in a chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram was laid up there. And Ahaziah, king of Judah, had come down to see him. Now a watchman stood on the tower in Jezreel and he saw the company of Jehu as he came and said, I see a company of men. And Joram said, get a horseman and send him to meet them and let him say, peace. So the horseman went out to meet him and said, thus says the king, peace. And Jehu said, what do you have to do with peace? Turn around and follow me. And the watchman reported saying, the messenger went to them but is not coming back. Then he sent out a second horseman who came to them and said, thus says the king, peace. And Jehu answered, what have you to do with peace? Turn around and follow me. And the watchman reported, saying, he went up to them and is not coming back. And the driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously. And Joram said, make ready. And his chariot was made ready. Then Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot, and they went out to meet Jehu, and they met him on the property of Naboth, the Jezreelite. Now it happened when Joram saw Jehu that he said, Peace, Jehu? So he answered, What peace, as long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many? Then Joram turned around and fled and said to Ahaziah, Treachery, Ahaziah! Now Jehu drew his bow with full strength and shot Jehoram between his arms, and the arrow came out of his heart, and he sank down in his chariot. Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, Pick him up and throw him onto the track to the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. For remember, when you and I were riding together behind Ahab his father, that the Lord laid this burden upon him. Surely I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, says the Lord. And I will repay you in this plot, says the Lord. Now therefore, take and throw him on the plot of ground, according to the word of the Lord." Oh, and Ahaziah, king of Judah, saw this. He fled by the road to Beth-hagan. So Jehu pursued him and said, shoot him also in the chariot. And they did so at the ascent to Ger, which is by Iblium. Then he fled to Megiddo and died there. His servants carried him in the chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb with his fathers in the city of David. In the eleventh year of Joram, the son of Ahab, Ahaziah had become king over Judah. And when Jehu had come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it. And she put paint on her eyes and adorned her head and looked through a window. And as Jehu entered at the gate, she said, is it peace, Zimri, murderer of your master? And he looked up at the window and said, who is on my side, who? Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. Then he said, throw her down. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her underfoot. And when he had gone in, he ate and drank. Then he said, Go now, see to this accursed woman, and bury her, for she was a king's daughter. So they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands. Therefore they came back and told him, and he said, This is the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, On the plot of ground at Jezreel, dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel. And the corpse of Jezebel shall be his refuse on the surface of the field in the plot at Jezreel, so that they shall not be able to say, here lies Jezebel. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of God stands forever. Let's pray. Mighty God, our Father, show us yourself. Show us that your word catalyzes history, wrenches the arc of the moral universe towards justice. Show us your vengeance. Teach us to take refuge away from that vengeance under the blood of Jesus Christ. Help me to speak boldly those things which I ought to speak. Help me to declare the truth About your character, we pray these things in the name of your son, our Lord Jesus. And all God's people said, amen. Well, as far as I could determine in my research, this chapter has never been filmed. Crying oversight, one can imagine. Many far, far less dramatic parts of the Bible have been butchered on film numerous times. Here's a character that Hollywood can understand. Army captain, probably someone fairly high up the ranks, a general at the very least, perhaps chairman of the joint chiefs, in the Israel of his day, who gets a prophetic message and turns on his rulers and wipes them out, both in this chapter and in the following chapter. Now, where has our perspective been? As readers of Kings, does the narrator encourage us to have sympathy for Ahab? Do we see things mostly from the point of view of Ahab and Jezebel and the ruling elites of Israel and Judah? Not at all. The narrator's position is of a faithful Israelite, one who wants to worship Yahweh in the way Yahweh commanded, and one who is not impressed with Baal, Asherah, false religion, idols, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so, if we're reading the text the way the text wants to be read, our heart should be saying, yes, all through this chapter. At last, somebody is doing something about the relentless corruption and idolatry that has characterized northern Israel since its inception over a century previous to our text tonight. This is around 845 BC, 850 BC, and somebody is finally doing something about Baal. About all the idolatry and all the sin and all the wickedness. You know, we've seen so many domestically scaled vignettes of God intervening on behalf of his people. God restoring a widow's land. God giving oil. God giving an axe head back. Now we're firmly back into the realm of politics. Our eyes are on the royal palace. Remember we had the scene set up at the end of our sermon last week. Ahaziah, king of Judah, and Joram, king of Israel, are together in Jezreel, which just happens to be the place where Naboth lived and had his vineyard. Jehu is out the front at Ramoth Gilead. And all the pieces are in place. So what are we going to see about our God tonight? Well, that he's a God of vengeance, whose word drives history and wrenches the arc of the moral universe toward justice. What was that? Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail? The arc of the moral universe is long, but it curves toward justice. Well, it doesn't just curve. Word of God comes into history and wrenches things towards justice. That's the message of our text tonight. So we see basically in the first half of the chapter that God's word catalyzes history. Things have stalled out. The house of Ahab, the house is on the throne in both Israel and Judah. and there's little border conflicts and so on, but no major reformation or major change of any kind appears to be in the offing. Until chapter 9 verse 1, where we see the Word of God begin to set up King Jehu. Elisha sends the son of the prophet with this commission, go find Jehu anoint him and give him this commission. I have anointed you king over Israel." So the young man does so. He goes to the front to Ramoth Gilead where a battle with Syria is in progress. He finds Jehu sitting in conference with all the other senior brass. He barges right in and he says, I have a message for you, O commander. And Jehu, oh, which one of us? You need to talk to somebody lower down the chain? And the guy says, no. No, I need to talk to you, commander. So they go in the inner room, and what does the prophetic word say? Verse 7, you shall strike down the house of Ahab. Why did God make Jehu king? It was for this purpose. To strike down the house of Ahab, your master. Because what's God's purpose in it? That I may avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel. Why did God anoint Jehu? Because he's a God of vengeance. Because he's a God who says, you killed my people, my prophets, you're done, Ahab. I'm killing you. Of course, we saw back in 1 Kings 22 how Ahab met his end at Ramoth Gilead by a Syrian arrow that was sovereignly directed by God through the joints of his armor. We see tonight the house of Ahab will meet their end. And that will be played out through the following chapters up through chapter 14. Remember the fourth commandment. I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. And what do we see? Well, we'll see, and I'll point this out as we continue through the narrative, that down to the fourth generation from Ahab, every king is assassinated. Why? Because God visits the iniquity of the fathers down to the third and fourth generation. The Word of God comes to set up Jehu and commissions him to be God's agent of vengeance. God says, I will cut off the whole house of Ahab. I'll make it like two other previous failed dynasties, the house of Jeroboam I and the house of Baasha. Oh, and by the way, no one will care enough about Jezebel to bury her. So then the prophet opens the door and runs right back out past the military brass without even a have a nice day. Little Jehu comes out and he's got this big oil streak in his hair. Kind of obvious. But the senior brass say to him, what did the guy say to you? And he tries to pass him off. Oh, you know the man and his talk. The word of God might come to you from somebody you know pretty well. It might even come to you through someone that you don't have a very high opinion of. That annoying person at work. That relative who always leaves a bad taste in your mouth. That might be the person who comes to you and says, You know what, the Word of God says this, and you're doing that, and you really need to change. The Word of God came to Jehu through somebody that he and the senior brass weren't too impressed with, so it appears. But of course, these guys knew the man and his talk well enough to say, no, you're lying, Jehu. He told you something important. Hello, you've got a big oil streak in your hair. What does Jehu say? He told me I'm king. Now did it take the military brass very long to decide who they wanted to follow? Did they say, well, I guess that's a court-martial for you. Sorry, buddy. We're with Jehoram all the way. No. They instantly pull out the trumpet. throw their cloaks under him and say, Jehu is king. The word of God catalyzes history. It sets up King Jehu to take vengeance because God is a God of vengeance. Now that's a little bit of a red hot message to preach, right? You're suffering. People have it out for you, but it's okay. God is a God of vengeance. and he'll let them have it. Part of the reason that that message tends to be so toxic is because there aren't that many people who have it out for us. We live in freedom and safety like few people in history have. But if we were a threatened underground church in Iraq that had bombs lobbed through our windows at various times of year, that had our building torched three or four times, that had people from our congregation kidnapped and held for ransom. Imagine, in those circumstances, somebody standing up and saying, you know what? God is a God of vengeance. And that means that we don't have to take revenge on our neighbors who are doing this to us. We can leave it in His hands. We don't have to vote for a pro-Christian party who will neutralize Muslims, we can leave it up to God. So that's what, that's our calling. Leave it up to God. God chose somebody to take vengeance on the house of Ahab. It wasn't Elijah. It wasn't Obadiah back in first Kings 17 and 18. It wasn't Joe Israelite who said, you know what Ahab, I've had enough of this. I'm going to assassinate you. It's not how it worked. God will take vengeance and he does it in his own good time. He let Omri reign 20 some years. He let Ahab reign 20 some years. He let Ahaziah reign a couple of years. And now he's let Jehoram reign 12 years. And only now, almost 60 years down the road, is he doing something about the evil that Omri brought in. God's vengeance may be delayed, way past when we think there's a crying need for it. But it will never, ever sleep. God does not forget when punishment is due. Well, the Word of God sets up Jehu, the Word of God sets up the agent of vengeance. The Word of God also choreographs action sequences. In this scene, expertly told from verses 14 to 26, again, make a fantastic chariot race sequence. Because what do we have? Jehu immediately binds himself in conspiracy against his lawful monarch, Joram. As soon as he's anointed, he says, okay, I'm king. I'm going to live like it. Don't let anyone else in this city leave. I'm going straight to the king and I'm going to become king. So he jumps right in his chariot. and rides straight to Jezreel. And he brings a significant portion of his army with him. He brings some backup. Verse 17, I see a company of men. Then the scene cuts to the watchman standing on the tower in Jezreel. So we stand behind him, as it were, and we look out over the plain and we see the dust of a company of horsemen and charioteers riding toward the city. And we hear the watchman say, passed down to the king, who's obviously down in the city below somewhere, I see a company of men. The king sends back, well, you know, what kind of a company of men? What's going on? Is it peace? Joram wants to know why all these men are fleeing from Ramoth Gilead. What happened? Now in the king's mind is not, oh, it's a coup. What's in the king's mind is the Syrians just won a major victory. My forces have been routed and they're running back to Jezreel. That's what Joram is thinking. He has no reason to suspect that any of his officers are disloyal. So he wants to know how bad the news is. Why are all these people coming from Ramoth Gilead? And the idea is that a single horseman can ride faster than Jehu's heavy war chariot. Horseman can ride out, get the news, and ride back faster than Jehu can ride in his big chariot. So they send a horseman out. The camera shifts back to the plane. We see up front, or up close and personal, this interview. Horseman says, is it peace? Just a single word, shalom. which is basically the way the Hebrews said hello to each other, but also a way of asking, what's up? What's happening? Is there peace? Is everything all right? Jehu gives his cryptic answer. What do you have to do with peace? Follow me. Cut back to the walls and we see the watchman saying, I don't get it. He's not coming back. He's following Jehu. Why would the messenger do that? Well, clearly Jehu is a man with some kind of commanding presence. It was said recently, right, when Donald Trump hired Marine Corps General John Kelly to be his White House Chief of Staff, if a Marine general can't bring some order in the White House, no one can. Well, think of Jehu as some kind of a marine general. If he can't exercise leadership in this mess of a country, no one can. But of course, he does exercise leadership. And when he says, turn around and follow me, that's exactly what the messenger does. So does the second messenger. And the watchman, of course, is completely baffled. They're not bringing any news. Why are they not bringing news? Why are they riding at chariot speed rather than at horseback speed? We aren't baffled. We know. But Joram doesn't know. Joram gets no points for savvy. Joram says, well, I'll go ask him myself. Oh, what a brilliant idea, King. So Joram saddles up, gets his chariot ready, and he rides out. Then he encounters Jehu, it just so happens, on the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. And it doesn't take a literary critic to see the implications here. The narrator is making it crystal clear. Ahab stole the property of God's people. Ahab denied God's promise of life in the land by stealing Naboth's vineyard. Ahab was cursed for that crime. Where is it? that Ahab's son meets Jehu, well it happens to be right on top of the plot of Naboth the Jezreelite. It doesn't get any more aggressive than this. God avenges the blood of his servants. God's promises mean something when God says you can have title to this land as a sign and a seal of your title to the promised land of heaven forever. If somebody tries to take that from you, God deals with that. That's the message here. So the Word of God avenges the blood of God's servants. And Joram have this little interview. Joram is like, okay, finally, I'm here meeting with my senior military commander and I'm gonna find out what happened. Is it peace, Jehu? And Jehu just absolutely unloads on him. What peace can there be when the whoring and witchcraft of your mother is so plural, so multiplied? Well, okay, you got to give Joram a few points. He was a relatively fast learner. When he heard that, he immediately said, treachery. Oh, this guy doesn't like me anymore. And then the Hebrew, it says, he turned his hands. He's driving a chariot. He's got the reins wrapped around each hand, turns his hands. What does that tell the horse to do? Turn around and go the other way. Again, just a very, very vivid picture of what's going on in this encounter. So Joram turns his hands, gets his chariot yanked around the opposite direction, presenting a perfect target on his back for Jehu's arrow, which pierces his heart. And he flumps over in the chariot. leading Jehu to indulge in a little bit of historical reminiscence. Oh, Bidkar, he says, don't you remember the good old days when we were in a chariot behind Ahab? Oh, that must have been 10, 15 years ago now. We were with Ahab here on this very piece of ground, you and I. We were there with him on that day when he came to take possession of Naboth's vineyard. You remember that, Vidkar? Throw this corpse out. This is his final resting place. To which we, contemporary Western readers, say, what? Jehu, you're confessing that you were personally implicated in stealing Naboth's vineyard. You're letting spill that you were there as a military honor guard for Ahab in case any trouble should happen with Elijah. You were there, not on Elijah's side, but on Ahab's side on that morning after the murder of Naboth and his sons. And now you're on your moral high horse saying, yep, yep, yep. See, the word of the Lord always comes to pass, children. How can Jehu do this? What's the big idea? Well, the big idea is that the Bible perfectly balances individual and corporate responsibility. Ahab sinned and took Naboth's vineyard. Ahab sinned by denying the character of God and saying, God doesn't keep his promises. He can promise you land, but somebody can get in the way of that promise. God can give you an inheritance and someone more powerful than you can stop you from receiving it. God said, I don't like it when people lie about my character, and so I'm gonna curse you, Ahab, and your entire family. So even though Jehu served in Ahab's army, was a professional soldier under Ahab, rode in the chariot behind Ahab that day, J. Hugh is able to recognize it's not just Ahab who's guilty. It's Ahab's entire family. Yes, fathers should not be put to death for the sins of their children, and children should not be put to death for the sins of their fathers. Each man should die for his own sin. That's what God says, I believe, in Deuteronomy. And yet, at the same time, Ahab's sons consented, at least implicitly. They continued the policies of Ahab. They didn't give back the vineyard, so far as we could tell. They were perfectly happy to benefit from their father's crime. But basically, the bottom line is, at least tacitly, they had consented to their father and mother's activities. And we can say the same thing today. There are not only wicked individuals, there are wicked institutions and wicked structures. And God's vision of corporate responsibility is obvious to us. In every ghetto, in every disease, in every heartbreaking tragedy that happens on this planet. Why do some kids grow up without a chance? Why do some cities have huge slums where so many people wither and die? The answer is because we're sinners, and we're sinners because our first parents sinned, and the whole human race is implicated in that. Why does Ahab's whole family have to die? Because they're all sinners like Ahab, they're implicated in his sin. And rather than repenting, they continue to sin, just like Ahab. So Jehu confesses that he was following Ahab that day, and yet God uses dirty instruments. God is not a surgeon who always operates with sterile things. Far from it. I told you before about the Christian radio station my parents listened to as I was growing up that routinely played this song whose chorus ran, God can only use a soldier he can trust. Well, it's pretty obvious that any of us would be fools to trust Jehu. God didn't use Jehu because he could trust him. God used Jehu because he was a good man for the job. Doesn't mean that he was a good man, but he was effective at doing what God wanted to do, which was to take vengeance on Ahab. Because God is a jealous and avenging God. So God avenges the blood of his servants. God said, I will repay you in this plot. Ahab killed Naboth and his sons. God killed Ahab. and his sons. So take and throw him on the plot of ground according to the word of the Lord." J. Hugh, theologian. Well, God's word said he would die here. Look at that. I just shot him and he died right here. What a deal. Throw him out, Bidkar. Bidkar throws him out. So God avenges the blood of his servants. He wrenches the arc of the moral universe toward justice. But God's word doesn't just avenge the blood of God's servants. God's word also destroys the corruptors of God's people. Ahaziah married Athaliah. God's word destroys him. There's a longer story in Chronicles about how he traveled all over northern Israel trying to get away, but they finally shot him too. He died in Megiddo, but at least they brought him back to Jerusalem and buried him with his father. That didn't happen to Ahab's son. Why? Because David's line is stronger than Ahab's. God's promise of mercy is more powerful than God's threat of vengeance. God's promise to David's line triumphs over his promise of vengeance on Ahab. Nonetheless, don't corrupt God's people. Don't ally yourself with the wicked. Fathers, this applies to us. Don't lead your family into wickedness. Don't lead your family into worshiping false gods. Ahaziah led Israel, or led Judah, into false gods. Look what happened to him. Jehu said, well shoot him too. He's connected to Ahab. He was buddy-buddy with Joram. He's Joram's nephew. Go ahead and kill him. Uzziah had become king of Judah in the eleventh year of Joram. Obviously the previous chapter says he reigned in the twelfth year of Joram. That's because there's different ways of counting years. You can count the year based on the day the guy came on the throne. You can count one year from that, and a year from that, and so on. Or you can count more like, well, he became king in March, so 2017 was his first year. 2018 was his second year. So even though he reigned from March of 2017 to February of 2018, we can say that he reigned two years because he reigned in two years. And both these ways of counting are used at various times in the Old Testament. And here, they're used back to back. In the 11th year, counted one way. In the 12th year, counted the other way. But the basic thing is that Ahaziah only reigned about one year. He was 22 years old. And Jehu's arrow found his guts. Why? Because God is a God of vengeance, and his word destroys the corruptors of his people. It might do so in style, it might do so in an incredibly choreographed action sequence, but it still destroys. Well, finally, the word of God makes dog food out of those who openly defy it. Jezebel, Resolves to die like a queen. She apparently had been watching the whole thing from the wall or heard the reports pretty quickly. Jehu comes riding in. Jezebel does her makeup, does her hair, looks out the window, boldly challenges Jehu to his face. And even he doesn't quite have the heart to shoot her. Instead he has the eunuchs throw her out the second story window. She falls on the ground, and he decides he's going to drive over her. Why not? It's been a tough morning. He has lunch, and then his conscience bites him just a little bit. And he says, well, why don't you go bury her? And they go out to bury her, and what do they find? Oh, well, I guess the dogs were having lunch, too. And where do God makes dog food out of people like Jezebel who say, I don't want to listen. God, I don't care what you say. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. That was 100% Jezebel's attitude. Do you now rule in Israel, Ahab? Because if you do, go ahead, lie, cheat, steal, murder, do whatever it takes to keep your power and to get whatever you want. Jezebel's attitude. And Jehu, of course, says, oh, the dogs ate her. Well, come to think of it, I guess God prophesied that too, didn't he? On the plot of ground at Jezreel, dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel and the corpse of Jezebel shall be his refuse on the surface of the field. You know, it's about this time of year that down in Colorado, you can find my brother in the cab of a manure spreader. He drives back and forth, sprays sheep manure all across hundreds of acres to help the crops grow better in the spring. Well, that's Jezebel. Someone to dump in the belly of the manure spreader. She'll fertilize the fields. Oracle of the Lord. No one will be able to say, oh, that was Jezebel. So do you want to defy God's word? Do you want to corrupt God's people? Do you want to kill God's servants? No. God is a God of vengeance. God is the one who says, I saw that, and I am not going to let that go unpunished. Write that, oracle verse 26, yesterday I saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons. God says it's right in front of me, I didn't even have time to forget it. Well that might have been 15 years previously, 20 years previously, and yet in God's mind, it was yesterday. If you're suffering, if you're hurting, if you're attacked, if you're in trouble, if you're pursued, if you have had someone trying to cut off your kingdom inheritance, what's God's message to you in this chapter? Well, God's message is found in Elisha's name. God saves. But sometimes He saves by eliminating the wicked. Sometimes he saves by making the persecutors of his people into dog food. Of course, when did his vengeance fall the most? We talk about God as a God of vengeance. We see his vengeance most clearly at the cross of Christ. Not beautifully choreographed in one sense, right? Christ was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a dunghill between two thieves. And yet in another sense, far more beautifully choreographed than the luckiest shot Jehu ever made. Choreographed in that God's wrath fell on Christ, the innocent one. God's vengeance was taken out on his sons so that we could be spared the fate of Ahaziah, Joram, and Jezebel. We're implicated not in Ahab's sin, but in Adam's sin. And God has promised to judge sinners. It's easy to forget. Easy to ignore. Easy to think like Joram. Oh, somebody's riding towards me quickly. Well, they have no intentions of harming me. That's a friend. Not. God's judgment and vengeance is real. But his mercy is real, too. God was showing mercy on Israel by destroying Ahab's family. God showed mercy on you by slaughtering his own son. So fear God's judgment and take refuge in his mercy. Jesus came to save you from God's avenging wrath. Let's pray. Father God, give us heart in trial and temptation. Teach us to celebrate that You are the God of vengeance. Shine forth, Father. We do pray that You would bring wrath to Your adversaries and repayment to Your enemies. And we pray much more for their conversion, for their salvation. We thank You that Ahaziah made it to his father's tombs. Not because he was good, but because of Your promise to David. And we pray too that You would give us A peaceful death and life in your presence in the world to come in joy and bliss. Precisely because of your promise to David. Because of your vengeance on our sin that fell not on us, but on Jesus Christ. Don't make us dog food, Father. Don't let us corrupt your people. Don't let us harm your people. We pray that especially for those of us who are leaders in homes and in your church. Keep us from that sin. Make us righteous and holy people who edify one another and build each other up. We ask these things, Father, in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and your Holy Spirit, one loving, avenging God in three persons forever and ever. And all God's people said, Amen.