Well, continuing in our verse-by-verse exposition of Revelation, we're up to chapter 16, verse 2, and I'll begin reading at verse 1. And I heard a loud voice from the sanctuary saying to the seven angels, go pour out the bowls of God's fury on the earth. So off went the first one and poured out his bowl on the earth and a foul and malignant ulcer appeared in the people who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea and it turned into blood like a dead person's. So every living soul in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and the springs of water, and they turned into blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, How just you are, the one who is and who was the Holy One, because you have judged these things, because they shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve it. And I heard one from the altar saying yes, Oh Lord God the Almighty your judgings are true and just Amen Father we thank you for your word. We come into agreement with your word It is our desire to continue to worship as we dig into this in Jesus name. We pray amen On Monday, I typed into a Google search thing, if there is a God, why? And I just ended it there. And Google returned 223,000 websites addressing that question, many of them by agnostics who questioned the existence of God. If there is a God, why is there so much suffering? And that question assumes we don't deserve the suffering that we get. And since there is suffering in this world, it either proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that there is no God, or if there is a God, that he's a very unjust God. If there is a God, why are there young children who are sick and dying? If there is a God, why is there so much evil in the world? Actually, one of the websites that had that question I thought had a rather clever response from a Christian who tried to paint a world in which God stopped all the sins just like these guys said that God should do. And not just the biggie sins like murder and theft and rape and things like that. He said, why do you stop there? All sins should be stopped, right? Logically, he pointed that out. And so he stopped people from even thinking sins. And I thought he did a rather good job of demonstrating if you reject the grace of God, which is what this website was doing. If you reject the grace of God, all answers are meaningless and you end up with a world either filled with robots or a world that's completely absent of humans. But it is interesting that this passage which describes exactly the same kind of pain and disease and suffering and physical calamities and death that the agnostics and the atheists love to use to rail against God and against his justice are used by this passage as proof positive that our God is a perfectly just God. It's interesting. Two totally different conclusions. that people come to. Revelation shows no embarrassment whatsoever about linking these atrocities with our good God. Those in heaven who think clearly because they have no sin, blinding their minds, say in verses five through six, how just you are. the one who is and who was the Holy One, because you have judged these things. Because they shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve it. And I heard one from the altar saying, yes, oh Lord God, the Almighty, your judgings are true and just. See what's going on there. The very same things that make atheists shake their fist at God, make true believers worship God and adore God. And the only difference is that a human nature or even an angelic nature that is without sin sees sin in an entirely different way than those who have an evil nature. Well, these three bowls are grouped together not only because they're symbolically connected as three festivals that belong together, but they are three connected judgments in history. They represent the last plagues poured out upon Israel in A.D. 136 and they showcase the total justice of God. Verse 2 begins, so off went the first one and poured out his bull on the earth. And the Greek word for earth there is gain, which generally speaking in the book of Revelation is a reference to the land of Israel. And so this bowl is being poured out as a judgment on a nation that had been intensely persecuting Christians. You remember in the first two centuries, two main enemies of the church were Israel and Rome. And Israel's persecution of Christians only intensified after AD 70. Pearson summarizes the historical evidence we have of this period saying this, Christians are being cursed in the synagogues and excommunicated. They're being persecuted and denounced as children of hell. These developments are not limited only to Palestine, but are apparently also felt in the Diaspora. The early church father, Justin, complained to the Jewish apologist, Trifo, So far as you have it in your power, each Christian has been driven out not only from his property, but even from the whole world, for you permit no Christian to live. We are taken away out of the earth. In another place he says, the Jews slay and punish us wherever they are able so that Bar Kokhba decrees that Christians alone should be led to cruel punishments unless they would deny Jesus Christ and utter blasphemy. Now the persecution of Polycarp and Justin Martyr is attributed to the Jews stirring up the Romans against them. And of course Jesus prophesied, this is exactly what's going to happen, that the Jewish leaders would hound them out of towns, arrest them, beat them in the synagogues, imprison them, and kill them. Now I'm not saying that the Romans were guilt-free. We're gonna be seeing that most of these plagues that we're going to go through fall equally upon the Romans as well as upon the Jews, but it's important to realize that Rabbinic Judaism, or what is sometimes spoken of as Talmudic Judaism, was not a friend of Christianity. Especially in those first two centuries, they were the bitter enemies of Christianity. Kenneth Gentry documents how the Jews pushed and connived to get the Roman government to join in persecuting the Christians, especially Jewish converts to Christianity. And so this section shows judgments that would fall upon both seats of government, but the locality where the judgments falls, not out there in Rome, it's right there in the land of Palestine. And notice that this judgment consists of some kind of disease that manifests itself in eruptions on the skin. Now there are a number of diseases that fit this and there are medical doctors who have looked at the evidence back then trying to figure out, you know, was it bubonic plague? What kind of plague was this that has boils or abscesses or ulcers? This doesn't name the disease, it only names the symptoms. It says, and a foul and malignant ulcer appeared in the people. Disease ran rampant in AD 136. In fact, according to Dio Cassius, The disease killed more people than the sword killed during that time. We've already seen that the sword killed millions of people in AD 136. The sad part of it was the Emperor Hadrian refused to allow anyone to bury the dead that had been slaughtered at Bithar. They were putrefying everywhere. In fact, there were the macabre walls that he had constructed around vineyards and around fields just made up of bodies. And there was so much blood in the soil that second century sources say that the Gentiles used that blood to fertilize the fields for seven years. They talk about the hyenas and the wolves. going through those areas and eating the body. And so because of this gross, gross lack of hygiene, it's no wonder that disease spread like crazy. And it did. This bowl happens immediately after the judgment that we looked at in chapter 14. And who died as a result of this disease? It says, a foul and malignant ulcer appeared in the people who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Now, back when we discussed the mark of the beast and what it consisted of, we saw that prior to 8070, the only people who had the mark of the beast on them were Roman soldiers. They would routinely tattoo themselves or sometimes brand themselves as a sign of honor with the name or the number of Caesar. But after AD 70, 100% of the surviving Israelites were branded or tattooed with the mark of the beast as well. And they offered up a pinch of incense to Caesar. And we went through some of the quotes from the Talmud and other places that showed the rationalizations, why they felt this was not a compromise to bow down to the image of Caesar to do this. But they continued to side with Rome and to use Rome as a tool of exterminating Christianity all the way up to the beginning of the war, AD 132. Actually, initially, Emperor Trajan and Hadrian were very, very supportive of the Jews. Even Hadrian told them, you can rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. He changed his mind later. But because they continued to wear this allegiance to Caesar, it's no surprise in the histories that millions of Jews died of this horrible disease after the defeat of Bithar in AD 136. They had compromised with the beast by having the mark of the beast in their skin, so God afflicts them in their skin. And though Tabernacles is not specifically mentioned, I believe the disease of this bull began to appear during the week of Tabernacles in 8136. In any case, it was shortly after the massacre at Bethar. Now I just mentioned that the Jews aren't the only ones in the land of Israel wearing this, and so they're not the only ones to die. And if you read the histories, Dio Cassius mentions even the Romans were, they were dying off. It was affecting them. They were dropping like flies. And of course, virtually all Roman soldiers were tattooed or self-branded with the mark of the beast. So both the Jews and the Romans had massive losses. In fact, Hadrian was so ashamed of the losses that he had received during that war, he had no triumphal entry. It was unheard of. They always had triumphal entries in Rome to celebrate. their victory, and toward the end of the war, he had lost so many people, I mentioned before that he had to conscript boys to serve in the army. Now, Legion 22 ceased to exist altogether, and historians assume it was because every soldier to a man was killed off during that war. And so, though the ball was poured out on the land of Israel, it affected both Romans and the Jews who were there. Now the next bull happened less than a week earlier on the second to last festival day, the Day of Atonement on Ab 9. Now remember we proved last week that in terms of this chiasm of the book, it goes forward and then it starts going backward in time along with the chiasm. And the Day of the Atonement was the day that Bithar was destroyed, the day that I documented so heavily at the last part of chapter 14. When the blood of Christ was rejected, their blood was spilled, and again, it was right on the day of atonement. Verse three says, then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like a dead person's, so every living soul in the sea died. Now, is it really possible that the Sea of Galilee became one big lake of congealed blood? Well, by now you know me. If God says it's congealed blood, it becomes congealed blood. I mean, He's a God of miracles. He can do anything that He wants. But there is documentation on this. If you remember the last sermon that I gave on chapter 14, that phrase, blood up to the horse's bridles, that three Jewish authorities from that time said it was blood up to the horse's noses, same as up to the bridles, right? And I gave a number of quotes from Jewish authorities that showed that there was plenty, plenty of blood. It was copious. It would have filled up the Sea of Galilee and more. Now, obviously, modern historians say that's ridiculous. There's no way. It had to be gross exaggeration, and it may have been exaggeration. I'm not going to say one way or the other, but the historians do say that it happened. And even modern historians tend to agree that this war was the bloodiest war in recorded human history. In any case, the Tanaitic rabbis of that period claimed that 80 million Jews were killed. The Jerusalem Talmud claims that there was a flash flood of blood that lifted huge boulders and carried them downstream, and that the blood flowed for miles to the Mediterranean. Well, obviously, it's gotta be a miracle, because blood will congeal. It's not gonna be flowing like water like that. So something odd is going on. And even if you counted up all of the 80 million Jews and the Romans that were there, 80 million pints of blood, or you triple that, it's still not gonna be enough to fill Galilee. So it seems like there's something more that's going on. In another place, the Talmud says that the Mediterranean Ocean was stained with blood as far northwest as the island of Cyprus. That is a long, long distance. And so there was more blood to go around than just for the Sea of Galilee. Some rabbis of the period described streams flowing into Galilee as being one part blood to two parts water. Now how it became filled with blood, I'm not certain. Some have suggested it wasn't real blood, that it's like what scientists have recently been discovering. It's called blood rain, but algae that falls and it makes the waters look like blood. But God could have just done a miracle like he did in Egypt and just, boom, turned the water into blood. I don't think we need to know the details. History said it happened. and how it happened, I don't know. But whatever the source of the blood or the blood-like substance, the Sea of Galilee as a whole was polluted and 100% of the sea creatures died. That massive fish kill would have added to the stench of the human bodies that were already accumulating from the previous week. So what God is highlighting here is his sovereignty over pollution. Okay, when nations rebel against God, God no longer allows them to continue to enjoy the bounties of nature. So it should not be any surprise in our own day that the most polluted nations in the world are the communist nations. In other words, the nations that hate God the most. I see pollution as one of God's judgments on nations. He allows their evil trajectory to catch up with them. Now it wasn't just the Sea of Galilee that got polluted. It goes on, it says, all the springs and rivers that fed into Galilee were defiled by blood as well. Over the previous week, I believe. Verse four says, then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and the springs of water and they turned into blood. The whole land of Israel was polluted. The water was undrinkable, and yet to survive, both the Romans and the Jews who were allowed to survive had to drink that water. They had no choice. They became ceremonially unclean. And all of this is said to flow from the hand of a God of holiness and justice. Verse 5 says, And I heard the angel of the water saying, How just you are, the one who is and who was the Holy One, because you have judged these things. I want you to notice there is not the slightest bit of embarrassment declaring these judgments to be holy and just. Why? Because he says God did the judgments. He's the definition of justice. You can't even define what justice is apart from God. When people say if there is a God why is there evil in the world you ought to respond Hey, if there is no God, there is no such thing as evil. You can't even define evil. If we're just animals, then, you know, you kill each other off. It's the survival of the fittest. It's just what Darwin says is good. There is no such thing as evil apart from God. The complaints of modern men against God's wrath and judgment flow from making man the measure of truth. But man is himself corrupt. He is incapable of adequately discerning truth from error. So our judgment must always line up with God's word, or to use Paul's expression in Romans 3, 4, let God be true and every man a liar. If it comes to that, we just say, okay, I believe God, I'm not going to believe man if they're gonna contradict him. Now verse six continues this theme. Because they shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, they deserve it. Now did Bar Kokhba's armies deserve it? And I think we'd have to say absolutely yes. They were brutal in their torture and killing of men, women, and children. And as they did to others, God did to them. But there's something more going on here. This is more than simply retributions for the killings that happened under Bar Kokhba. They were still being punished for the sins of their ancestors. They were still being punished for the sins of their ancestors. Christ pronounced judgment not just on that generation that had killed Jesus, he did pronounce it on that generation, but also upon their succeeding generations, their children. There was a covenantal relationship with evil. in our previous generations that must be broken for the curse to be broken. And that there was a curse on Israel is clear from many, many passages. 1 Thessalonians 2 says, For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God, which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us. And they do not please God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. And of course, Israel pronounced this self-curse upon themselves. You remember when Pilate washed his hands, ceremonially said, I'm innocent of the blood of Jesus. What did the leaders say? His blood be on us and on our children, right? So that was a curse. They had pronounced a curse upon themselves and upon their descendants. And apart from Jesus bearing that curse for them, they continue to be under that curse to the uttermost. They're still under the curse, even today, a curse which can only be broken by faith in Christ Jesus. Now you might say, well, that's anti-Semitic. And I say, hey, the same thing's true of us. We're under the curse of our ancestors. Even though I was a Christian, I struggled for years under the sins of my ancestors until I put those generational sins under the blood of Christ, cut off the legal ground that gave Satan the ability and his demons the ability to mess around in my life. No one can escape the fact we live in a covenantal world. Even if you don't believe in the covenant, it doesn't matter, you still live in a covenantal world. And even Satan and his demons must function within the legal framework of God's covenantal universe. So like it or not, God's covenant continues to affect men and demons generationally. And people will object and say, but it's just not fair. It's not fair for God to be judging women and the children who died at Bithar simply because they're connected with a previous generation or they're connected to Bar Kokhba, their king. They point out, look at all of the children that died at Bithar. at the city of Bithar alone. The rabbis claim that Bithar, which by the way was a rabbinic headquarters, it had 500 schools for children, each of which had at least 500 people. So that's at least 250,000 children, only one child survived, okay? Surely those children were innocent. Surely you cannot say that they shed the blood of saints and of prophets. But you see, they covenantally were related to their fathers. It's just the way life works. This is why it's so critical that when people come to Christ, they self-consciously renounce the sins of their ancestors and break off any curse of their ancestors in their own lives. Four times in the law of God, God emphasizes that God is always, quote, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, unquote. And if you don't know how to break off the covenantal curses that may be there from your ancestors, talk to me. It's a very easy process, but it is so critical that we do so. You got to remove the legal ground from demons to mess around in your lives. But beyond their connection with their fathers, it's important to note that children are not innocent. Rodney made allusion to that this morning. Psalm 14 is quoted by the Apostle Paul in proving that every man, woman, and child is corrupt from conception on and continues to grow in that corruption as that child develops. According to Romans 3, every one of them has the poison of asps within them. And you say, surely not. My children are innocent. I actually wasn't planning on saying this, but my wife and I, we have had students at our house many, many times. I remember these two Taiwanese girls, they were having devotions with us. And we were going through a passage that talked about even children having a sin nature. And they said, no, no, no. Children are innocent. They don't have any sin. And my sweet little daughter, Elizabeth, who has never done an ornery thing in her life that I can remember, smacked one of the girls that she was sitting on her lap, smacked her in the face. And we're trying to get her to apologize. She would not apologize. She was just being ornery. And I thought, wow, the Lord withdrew His restraining grace in her life for an illustration. We said, see what I'm saying? There is depravity even in our children's lives. But here's what Isaiah 1, verse 4 says. He says, they are children given to corruption. That's why our children need salvation just as much as adults do. He tells adults, quote, you were called a rebel from birth, Isaiah 48, verse eight. He's saying they're not innocent, they're rebels. Psalm 58, verse three says, the wicked are restrained from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. So in an absolute sense, there was no such thing as an innocent person who suffers with the exception of Jesus. Psalm 14 and Romans 3 says, they have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt, there is none who does good, no, not one. So we cannot accuse God of injustice when there are children who die through collateral damage. The upshot is that John says in Romans 5 that death passed to even babies because of two things. That's Romans 5 verse 14, he says, Death pass to babies, and you have to read John Murray's commentary to see why I'm saying it's to babies, but death pass to babies for two things. First, because of the imputation of Adam's sin to them, and second, because they got their own sin nature that deserves death. And for those who object and say that is not fair for God to impute Adam's sin to all of his posterity, Paul's response is you can't have salvation without imputation. If you think imputation of sin is unfair, then the imputation of Christ's righteousness is unfair, justification by faith alone is unfair, and salvation is absolutely impossible. Because both 1 Corinthians and Romans says that God imputes Christ's righteousness to us in exactly the same way that he imputed Adam's sin to us from the time that we were conceived. He does so immediately, not immediately like the Roman Catholics say, immediately. So Adam's fall guarantees that death comes eventually to everyone and our own sin nature is also guaranteed the same death. The death of babies should not surprise us, even though it troubles us. Now, men who kill babies are guilty of murder. but God is not. So that would be my second response. There is no such thing as a totally innocent person. They may be innocent of crimes and thus not worthy of death from men, but they're not innocent of sin and thus not free from judgment from God. All are in need of salvation. That's why we need to pray, Lord take my child, save my child. I'm not trusting that they're innocent and that's how they're going to get into heaven. I'm trusting your salvation is from generation to generation. My third response is that there is strong evidence that these 250,000 children at Bithar had been groomed by the rabbis to blaspheme Jesus, and we actually have the exact statements that they were teaching to these kids to blaspheme Jesus in the synagogue schools. They were being taught to hate Christians, to kill if they could do so. When you read the descriptions of these children, it makes your hair stand up. You realize they were just as demon-possessed as the adults were. Okay, the rabbis taught these children, for example, to chant. They have their pencils, you know, they're in school. To chant with these pencils, we will bore out the eyes of our enemies. I mean, they had murder in their hearts as well. In any case, whether we think of their own sin, the imputed sin of Adam, their covenantal relationship to their fathers or their covenantal relationship to the king of Israel, Bar Kokhba, God was inflicting every death and He was doing so in a just way. He was just in making survivors have to drink. from the blood defiled springs and rivers. And verse 7 says that all just and holy creatures should be able to say amen to God and to agree with His judgments. to agree with His justice and truth. And I heard one from the altar saying, yes, oh Lord God, the Almighty, your judgings are true and just. Now can you say that? Can you say God was just in inflicting this judgment at Bethar upon Rome and upon Israel? Or does it make you cringe? Can you say God is just in sending men to hell Or is that a doctrine that you just downplay and are ashamed of? Can you say God is true and just when he wiped out the Canaanites under Joshua? Or is that something you're ashamed of? If there's anything in the Bible that you are ashamed of, it shows a heart that is drifting away from God. Jesus said, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with his holy angels. Mark 8, verse 38. You see, we cannot make a false god in our own image. Some people try to make God nicer than he is, nicer than even what they are. Now we cannot make God nicer than what the Bible describes Him to be. He is who He is and we worship Him, we adore Him for who He is, even if we do not always understand His ways. This was the way it was with the disciples. They didn't understand why Christ would chase away His disciples with some of the offensive statements that He made, but they knew not to question Him. All of the crowds had left Jesus. And Jesus gave the disciples the opportunity to leave too, asking them, do you also want to go away? But Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and to know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So when people claim that God cannot exist because of all of the evil that is in the world, I think we can respond that you cannot even define evil apart from God. If we are simply animals, there is no such thing as evil. Nature becomes red in tooth and claw and on an evolutionary scale, that's supposed to be a good thing. We must learn that though we may not totally understand why God does things the way that he does, we can trust him. Now in conclusion, let me clarify four things that I absolutely want you to not misunderstand. First, though God is allowed to kill and make alive, men cannot play God by doing so, okay? These Romans and Jews who were killing each other were guilty of murder and they should have been opposed in that murderous war. The fact that God raised up Babylon in the Old Testament to judge Israel was not used by the prophets to say Babylon is good, Babylon's justified in what they're doing. No, Babylon was just as evil as Israel was. God was simply letting his mutual enemies wipe each other out. It's kind of the lex talionis principle. They both got what was coming to them. In fact, you've probably heard a plague on both their houses. Well, that's literally what happened here. It was a plague on both their houses. Secondly, just because God uses pollution as one of his judgments does not ever justify us in polluting waters. God owns the waters. We do not. In fact, God judges individuals and he judges nations that pollute. The waters. God is simply allowing a nation's sin and rebellion to exhibit its logical conclusions. Proverbs 8 verse 36 says, but he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death. All anti-God systems love death. Initially it may not look like it, but eventually you will see the fruits of that bearing out. We're seeing the logic of our nation's unbelief bearing fruit and how the GLBT movement involves itself in more and more self-destructive behavior and is burning itself out, how humanists are exterminating themselves through abortion and homosexual desire, how the FDA protects contaminated products, how the Federal Reserve has sent us into a despot. I mean, eventually, every Christ-hating system will end up in a self-destructive mode, but That does not mean we should justify it. We should oppose these things just as the people of that time should have been offended with the pollution of the waters. Third, God never allows pollution or war to permanently ruin His world or to ruin His plans for a redeemed planet Earth. Though the Sea of Galilee was absolutely trashed, It had become what looked like a useless lake. The stench of this blood was eventually washed out and fish from upstream eventually repopulated the waters. God has built incredible self-regenerated processes into planet Earth. And to me it's amazing how quickly the earth regenerates itself from pollution and volcanoes and ice ages and other disasters. It really is amazing how quickly it is restored. We need not fear that the world will be destroyed forever. As nations repent and begin to follow God's law, God will reverse the curses and will begin to bless every aspect of nature on their behalf, and he's promised to do so in Deuteronomy, his covenant document. But blessings flow in nature to godly nations, and we're living on the last remnants of blessing that were given to a previous generation. We're gonna be entering more and more into the curses of Deuteronomy, unless there's repentance, of course. And then finally, while we can agree with the justice of God and His judgments, it is perfectly appropriate to minister to people who have undergone those judgments. That is not at all fighting against God. Always keep in mind these are temple bowl judgments. In other words, they're what we saw before, redemptive judgments. And the church did indeed step in to pick up the pieces and they established a vibrant church in the land of Israel that lasted for for many, many generations, several centuries. Indeed, Christians, I believe, should be at the forefront of seeing opportunities to minister the kindness, the mercy, the love, the forgiveness of God to those who have experienced trauma through their own fault, through their own bitter fruits of their sins, okay? Jail ministry is a wonderful ministry. We might hate the crime and we should hate the crime, but still show the mercy of God to the criminal. We should be the first ones to hate ungodly wars and yet be right there to minister to soldiers who have PTSD. We should be the first to hate and oppose the horrible sex trade trafficking that is fueled by our pornographic society and yet be willing to pick up the pieces and minister God's healing grace. Sin is always hateful whether God uses that as judgment or not. Sin is always sin and must be opposed. So don't ever take our agreement with God's judgments as a reason to not care. It was a caring, compassionate church that began picking up the pieces from this disaster and won multitudes to Christ. May we be a part of a church that continues to do so. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word and it is our desire to reflect your heart and your character that despite judgments, You flow in mercy and bring repentance and draw your elect to yourself. Father, all of us are deserving of the judgments that this chapter speaks about. All of us are worthy of hell. and yet we glory in the redemption that you gave to us in Christ Jesus. Father, may we never grow tired of thanking you, of blessing you, of declaring ourselves to be your bondservants. Yes, you have exalted us to the status of sons and daughters, but in many ways, we glory in the privilege of being your bondservants. And so I pray that you would be with this your people, that you would help them to never be ashamed of you or your words, but to glory in who you are, to be proud of bearing your name, and to go into the world to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ, the mercy of Jesus Christ to those who are suffering from their own faults, from their own sins. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.