Romans chapter 2, we are beginning with verse 1. This great doctrine epistle of the Apostle Paul, beginning with verse 18 on through chapter 3, verse 20, The Apostle Paul presents the biblical doctrine of sin. It's very important to know what the Bible teaches about sin. A faulty understanding of sin can lead to a faulty analysis of one's relationship of himself and one's relationship to God, as well as his fellow man. In verses 1-18-32, Paul talked about people who thought they were wise, exchanged the truth for that which was false. became darkened in their imaginations. They fell into gross sin, and we have quite a catalog of sin in chapter 1, beginning with verses 24 through 32. Tonight we look at the first 16 verses of chapter 2, and we have given to us the divine principles of judgment, or the principles of divine judgment. There are four of them enunciated in this section we're reading tonight. Let's look at them as we read. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things." But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to, and here is the first principle of divine judgment, it is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasureth up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Principle number two, not only according to truth, but in verse six, who will render every man according to his deeds. To them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. But glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Principle number three, not only according to truth and according to your deeds, but there is no respect of persons with God. It is an impartial judgment. For as many as have sinned without law, without the revelation of God's word, shall also perish without that revelation. And as many as have sinned in the law, contrary to what they knew, God said, shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, These, having not the Bible, the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men," and here's the fourth standard of shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel," according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Four principles of divine judgment we want to look at this evening, according to truth, according to one's deeds, according to impartiality, and according to the gospel. Let us bow our heads and ask God to open our minds to this part of his word. Shall we pray? We thank you, Lord, for the privilege of sharing your word tonight. We pray that you would open our eyes, as the psalmist prayed, that we might see wondrous things contained in this thy law, thy revelation. You have been so good to provide for us this clear teaching that reveals to us the examination that we must all stand and take. We now know the principles, and I pray that you would open our minds as we listen tonight and as we hear the voice of thy Spirit applying it to us individually. May we be doers of thy word as well as hearers. Close us in now with thyself, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. In chapter 1, verses 18 through 32, we learned of God's verdict against gross, outbroken, willful sin. God declared these who are guilty of this form of sin in verse 20, without excuse. And in verse 32, he proclaims them worthy of death. And the amazing thing about sin, as enunciated in the last part of chapter 1, that people can know the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death," spiritual separation from God, and they not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do likewise. There's another segment of mankind who are equally guilty and without excuse. That is the section that we read tonight in our hearing These are the ones who would look upon those mentioned in chapter 1, that catalogue of sin, homosexuality, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder. The list runs on, a very sorted, depraved listing of sin. And there's a great host of people who would look at that catalogue and say, thank God I am not as those. They would look at others from a self-righteous perspective. These are the clean-living, morally upright, sweet-smelling, law-abiding sinners who pride themselves in their ethical values and self-imposed standards of morality. And I run up against these kind of people all the while. It's very difficult to share with them their need of a Savior, saved from what? Saved to what? I'm quite a nice fellow. I'm religious. I believe in God. I try to pay my taxes and keep my yard and obey the law and be an upright, moral citizen. What more do you expect? Well, it's not what I expect. It's what God expects. And God reveals that His judgment rests upon morally upright good fine folk who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior. In these verses, these 16 verses, we find that these folk are just as spiritually bankrupt as those listed in chapter 1. Let's look now at his principles of divine judgment. In verses 1 through 5 we have five verses that tell us that God's judgment is according to truth. There are some mistakes we make when we look around at our fellow men and begin to evaluate our life in comparison to their life. There are some very fatal mistakes we make, and these mistakes in human judgment are based upon two fallacies. First, based upon what you feel. And we're prone to feel that other people's sins are worse than our own. Aren't we? I'm glad I'm not like that. I have my problems, but at least I don't And we name the other guy sin. We look around at the drunkard, we look at the harlot, the hoodlum, the child abuser. We pride ourselves on our morality, our respectability, our usefulness, our church membership. The comparison makes us feel very good. Why? Why? Because we're basing our evaluation on what we feel about right and wrong. It's based on a mistake in human judgment, based upon what we feel. It's based upon a second factor, what we forget. We're forgetting one very important, crucial fact, and I draw our attention to a passage I mention over and over and over again. Let's look at it again, 2 Corinthians 10. We must not forget this passage in 2 Corinthians 10-12. If we forget this advice, we will feel quite moral, we will feel quite religious, we will feel quite respectable as we compare ourselves with others. And that's because we've forgotten the Bible warns us explicitly in 2 Corinthians 10-12 not to compare ourselves among ourselves. 2 Corinthians 10-12 reads, for we dare not, we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves, are not Wise. Why is it unwise to compare yourself by others? You're using the wrong measuring stick. Simply that simple. When we look at other people and stand up to them figuratively in our mind and compare our righteousness and our lifestyle and our moral practices to theirs, we are using the wrong yardstick. And people do this every day and get a feeling that since I'm not that bad, that I know I need improvement, but there are sure a lot of people who need it a whole lot worse than I do. And that's probably quite so. But it's sort of like a person, you know, they're all out there in the middle of the ocean drowning. And they're all going to be drowned. And one guy looking at the other guy and says, you know, he can't swim as well as I can swim. It's sure a shame that he didn't learn better. He's going to drown. Everybody out there is going to drown. And what comfort is it to know you're going to last five minutes longer than the other guy if you're going to end up dead just like he is? It's foolish for us to compare ourselves among ourselves or by ourselves. God says we dare not. He says it's not wise. Romans chapter 1 verse 18 tells us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against two things. And you can summarize, take any aspect of sin, sin defined as contrary to what God's word requires. 1 John 3.4. You can take any form of sin and categorize it in two major groupings. In verse 18, the word ungodliness, failure to allow God to be God in your life in some area or the other. that God says is ungodliness. If God is not in total control in every area of your life to the degree that he is not in total control, to that degree you are, by definition of the term, ungodly. The second word he uses in verse 18 is unrighteousness. You cannot have ungodliness without unrighteousness, because to the degree that God is not God in some area of your life, it is to that degree you will be in violation of his holy standard. And the word unrighteousness means failure to measure up to his standard. And so, any sin and every sin falls under the two rubrics, the two classifications of ungodliness and unrighteousness. And that's not nice terminology, is it really? We normally don't like to think of a white lie as ungodliness and unrighteousness. We want to have an infinite category of shades. That we didn't tell an out-and-out lie, and we didn't out-and-out tell the truth, we just stood all in between. And that's not quite as bad as out-and-out lying. And on human, relativistic terms, you're right, not quite as bad as an out-and-out lie. But from God's standard, it's just as bad. Ungodliness and unrighteousness. How indignant. when we hear of rape? How indignant when we hear of murder? How indignant when we hear of old people brutally beaten and robbed? And yet how indulgent when we look at ourselves, we excuse bitterness, we excuse unforgiveness, we excuse this and that because you know, we understand exactly why it is we're having trouble with that area of our life. Verse 1 says that whoever judges another person of their sin and has sin in his own life, no matter how mild the form, that that man who judges another is judging himself for thou that judgest doest the same thing." Now, the phrase, the same thing, does not refer to the same category or activity of sin. To be a sinner does not mean that you indulge in every form of sin. It simply means that if there is willful sin in your life, you are by definition a sinner. and being by definition a sinner because of willful, known, allowed sin in your life, you are the same classification as that other person who has willful, known sin in his life, though he may be exercising a worse form of sin, murder, some extreme, horrible aspect. And then Paul goes on to say, that God's righteous judgment is not going to be based upon such mistakes in human judgment that we're prone to make, what we feel, or forgetting things. He says that in verse 2, we are sure, we can be assured that the judgment of God is according to truth. against such who commit such things. Truth, not based on a mistaken judgment, but based on a mandate from heaven. And that mandate is that every one of us will be measured by the truth. What is truth? Pilate asked that question to Jesus. Jesus answered that question in his high priestly prayer. He said, Thy word, from Genesis to Revelation, thy word is truth. The thing that will measure us is this book, the good old faithful, trusty Bible that's been with us for so many centuries. His judgment is going to be according to truth, measured by the standard of truth, and then truth in another sense it's going to be based upon the actual facts of what we are. The actual condition, we remember in Galatians, be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man, woman, boy, girl sows, that also shall he reap. Verses 3 and 4 tell us that we must not be deceived. We must not think contrary to what Paul is writing. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things? You're judging those who have a more extreme form of wrongdoing. There's wrongdoing in your life. You think you're going to escape the judgment of God? And then he says something in verse 4 that I'm sure most people would deny was reality in their life. But he says, do you not know that you are despising, counting of no value the riches of his goodness and the forbearance The fact that fire has not fallen from heaven is no sign that you're getting by or I'm getting by with anything. God is long-suffering. He works with us a good long while. He gives us opportunity after opportunity to encounter truth, to decide what we will do with truth, to even recognize truth. But he says, you know why God is so good? You know why God blesses you with health? You know why God allows the sun to shine upon the just as well as the unjust, and the rain upon the wicked as well as the righteous? Why is God so good? Verse 4, the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. God is not willing that anyone should perish. God does not delight in the death of the wicked. We read in Ezekiel chapter 3, again in chapter 18, again in chapter 33, three times repeated over and over in those chapters, that God is not pleased when any sinner dies. It's a heartbreak to him. It is the result of deliberately choosing self-determination, self-will, over God's will and God's way. In His goodness, He works with us. He brings close calls. He brings things to shape us up. We hear of this and that, and it causes us to think on our way. Such understanding brings light on a passage in Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, where it says to go to the house of noon is better than the house of feasting. Why to the house of morning is it better than to go to the house of feasting? Why would it be better to attend a funeral than to attend a banquet? Because it's at such times and places that we think seriously about the meaning of life and the certainty of death and the need to be prepared to meet them. The goodness of God I've heard Brother Steve testify many times as he's appropriated this verse to his own life. The goodness of God led him to repentance. The goodness of God, if we're saved here tonight, it's been the goodness of God that brought us to that place of repentance. It was his kindness. It may have been severe kindness. For some of us, he put pressure on us. He didn't put pressure. You just came to that time through his kind dealings. But if you're saved here tonight and you know him as your personal Savior, it's been through God's goodness. Amen? And so the first thing that we want to remember is that God's judgment is going to be on the basis of truth, according to the facts of the case as revealed by his word. And those who refuse to accommodate their life to God's sovereign control can be assured that this is producing hardness of heart, verse 5, and you are storing up unto yourself God's wrath, because the wrath of God will someday be revealed and be poured out upon all those who refuse to make God, God, according to truth. The second principle is found in verses 6 through 11. It's enunciated in verse 6 and then explained. It's according to a man's works. If it's a little easier to remember by alliteration, the first principle, according to truth, you can think about the Word of God, the Word. According to a man's deeds, you can think about his works. the word, his works, and I'll give you the others in a little bit. Verse 6, who will render to every man according to his deeds. There's two things we must keep crystal clear in our thinking when we talk about salvation. We are not saved by works. The Bible makes it In Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8, 9 and 10, especially verse 8, that we are saved by grace, and grace is that unmerited favor to undeserving sinners in that context. We are saved by grace through faith. Faith is belief in what God has said and trust in what He promises. It has the characteristic fruit of obedience. There can be no faith, saving faith, without obedience, but obedience does not earn you salvation. We are saved by grace through faith. Judgment. our judgment will be based on what we have done, how we have lived. And so when we read in verse 6, "...who will render to every man according to his deeds," according to his works, we're not talking about salvation here. We're talking about the divine principles of God's judgment when we stand before Him. It's going to be upon what we've done. Verses 7 and 8 give us the fact that there are reasons for what a person does. Verse 7, the characteristics of the saved, to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor and immortality, These characteristics of saved individuals who want to glorify God, who are seeking to both bring honor to God and have God's honor, who are desiring eternal life, immortality, these are the goals and the motives behind a Christian's behavior. He says, To them who pursue eternal goals, there's going to be certain rewards. Verse 8, the characteristic of the sinner. But unto them that are contentious and disobedient to the truth. Not only that, but they continue in unrighteousness and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, what will be their reward? God's indignation and His wrath. In the light of the reasons for a person's behavior, God gives us the results in verses 9 and 10. Verse 9, the retribution for the sinner. Tribulation, anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil. There's no exception nationally, whether you're a Jew or Gentile, Jew or non-Jew, it's the same. The rewards for the saved in verse 10. But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. God's principles of divine judgment according to the truth, his word. according to your deeds, your works." And then in verses 11 through 15 we come to the third. There is no respect of persons with God. It is an impartial judgment, and of course such impartiality would call for a great wisdom in being able to discern the reality of a situation. an impartial judgment according to God's wisdom. Verses 11 and 12, he's going to consider, first of all, in light of his infinite wisdom, as he impartially judges us, a person's advantages. He's going to take your advantages into consideration. Let's look at verses 11 and 12. For as many as have sinned without the law If you did not have the advantage of knowing God's word, being where God's word was disseminated, preached, sung, God's not going to judge you by what you do not have or did not have or do not know, assuming that you had no opportunity. As many as have sinned without law, without the scriptures, they shall also perish but their judgment is not going to be based upon the scriptures that they did not know. And as many as have sinned in the law, for those that had the advantage of the word of God, they shall be judged by that advantage they had." So he's going to consider a person's advantages when they stand before him, and disadvantages. He'll take that into consideration. And in verses 13-15, he also will consider a person's attitudes. Let's look at our attitudes, and attitudes are revealed by two things. In verse 13, it's revealed by your conduct. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Your attitude is reflected in your conduct. Did you respond in obedience to what you did know? You might not have known as much as this person. Maybe you knew more than that person. What did you do with what you did know? Your conduct reflects your attitude. And then there's a second thing that reflects your attitude. It's your conscience. In verses 14 and 15, What did you do with the voice of your conscience? The Bible has a lot to say about a conscience. Listen to these verses again. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, they do not have the revealed word, they did not at that time. There's a great host of non-Jewish people in this world who have yet not received a copy of Scripture in their own language. So when these people who have not received the Word of God do by nature the things contained in the Word of God, these people, having not the Scriptures, are, as it were, Scriptures to themselves, which shows something. What does that show? It shows the work of the Scriptures written in their hearts. their conscience. And here's the role of your conscience. It bears witness. It sits as a judge upon the judgment seat in your own mind. And as you evaluate what you do and what you said and where you go and how you respond, that little register is responding good, bad, right, wrong. It's sitting in judgment, either accusing, wrong, or excusing that was all right. And the day when, okay, let's think about that just for a moment. The word conscience. The word conscience comes from the word that means literally knowledge shared with oneself. The Bible talks about six kinds of consciences. We certainly would not have time to study them, but let me just list them so you can get an idea that we're talking about various kinds of consciousness or consciences. A good conscience, a weak conscience, a convicting conscience, a defiled conscience, a seared burned, scarred, hardened conscience? An evil conscience? God designed your conscience to be as a goad. You ever seen a goad? We're not in the days of animals and pulling Well, I'm not from those days either. Pulling plows, I guess. I couldn't even think of what they pulled for a moment here. Plows, buggies, carts. In the good old days, in the book of Judges, we read about a guy named Shamgar. How many of you have heard of Shamgar? Okay, a few of you. Shamgar was quite the fellow. He killed 600 enemy Philistines with an ox goad. An ox goad was a piece of wood, something like a hoe handle, shovel handle, pointed sharp on one end to help the ox move along when it wants to stop. He gets the point of what you're saying and he moves on. Pardon my corny joke. On the other end of the ox goad would be a metal or a wooden hatchet type of hair sharpened where you'd scrape the mud off the plow. Conscience is designed to be a goad and not a guide. Perhaps you've heard someone say, let conscience be your guide. How many have ever heard a statement like that? That's an unbiblical statement. Conscience is not designed to be your guide. Your conscience is designed to be a goad. And let me illustrate with the life of King Herod. When we study the life of King Herod, we find that this man had taken his brother's wife, a case of adultery, it was improper. John the Baptist came along and accused Herod of incest, and King Herod didn't particularly like what John had to say, but he would listen to the preacher as he preached because he had a striving conscience. He wanted to be right with God, but yet he knew he was doing wrong. There came a time when he got tired of hearing John preaching against his lifestyle, and so he decided that he would silence this man, and he put him in prison. He didn't want to hear any more about this, and as a result, King Herod had a silenced conscience. He wasn't being disturbed and bombarded by this rugged, preacher who would appear from time and time and point his bony finger at King Herod and preach against his sin. He didn't like that, so he threw him in jail. He didn't have to listen any longer, a silenced conscience. Finally, one day, the result of a semi-drunken stupor, an extended banquet party where there was wine, women and song, his wife's daughter had been wantonly dancing sensually in the midst, and King Herod, heated by the sight and the wine, makes a very foolish statement. He says, Ask what you will to have my kingdom and I'll give it to you. So she rushes out and says to Mom, Herod's wife, Mom, what shall I ask him? My stepdad, what shall I ask him? And she said, Ask him for John the Baptist's head on a silver platter. She hated him. So she comes back in, and of course, before the nobles, he's put himself publicly on the spot. And she says, I want John the Baptist's head. on a silver platter, on a charger. What could he do? His heart smote him. He's between a rock and a hard place. He either repents, refuses, admits he's wrong, or he maintains his public position and what he would feel would be valuable, the esteem of those around him, and he chooses the latter. And John's head is brought in. Finally, he has a seared conscience. And what's the result? Later, we find that Jesus is brought into his presence, and King Herod wants to see a miracle. He's heard about miracles. Do a trick. Do something great! Do me a miracle! Come on! Jesus answered him not a word. Finally, he ended up mocking Jesus, had him dressed, he thinks he's a king. Men, put one of my kingly robes on him. Let's make him a king. A conscience that strove, a conscience that was silent, and then a conscience that was seared. You see, you can cultivate a good conscience You can make your conscience more sensitive through study of God's Word and prayer and applying yourself to truth. Or you can make your conscience less sensitive. It is something that is pretty much in your control. This is why it's not trustworthy to say, let conscience be your guide. Think of the poor women who have been taught in India that to appease the river gods that they must toss their child to the crocodiles in the Ganges River. torn between maternal instinct and love for that infant child and also torn between the religious teaching that says to appease these gods, you must do it. And they do it because their conscience would convict them if they failed in that area. So your conscience is not a safe guide. John Huss was one of the great defenders of the faith of an early century, and he was condemned by the religious world because he dared to believe what the Word of God said rather than what the traditional church taught. And so they condemned him to death at the stake by burning. And a poor old widow came along bearing a faggot of wood, a piece of wood. She requested the official that was in charge for approval to put it on the pile that was heaped around his feet and legs as he stood tied to the post, and she asked, I would like it as close to John Hus as possible. And as John Hus looked at her, not recognizing her, a total stranger to him, he wonders what it is about him that she should hate him so fiercely. Wood was very scarce at this particular time in history, in that location. It was costly, and here this poor lady, you could tell she was poor the way she dressed, had brought this faggot, this piece of wood, very expensive for her, and was putting it on the pile as close to him as she could. And so he says to her, What have I done that you should hate me so? And she said to him, You are a heretic. And it is a good work to give a piece of wood to have a heretic burned. You see, her conscience said, give a piece of wood to burn him. That's a good work. John Huss's conscience said, give your body to be burned, don't compromise. You cannot trust your conscience. It is not a safe guide. It is designed by God to be a goad. It must be educated, it must be monitored by the Word of God, because apart from this, the divine revelation, it's a very faulty faculty of the soul. It's just like a compass in an airplane. Compasses have to be checked from time to time to make sure that they are accurate and they are on. Because if they get off, and they do get off, it can cause not only loss of location, but eventually it could cause loss of life. And how much more serious a conscience is. Remember this, that God's judgment is an impartial judgment. In his wisdom, he knows what your advantages have been or not have been, and he knows what your attitudes are. He'll take those things into consideration, what you knew and didn't know, and how you responded to it when you stand before him. Well, that's good news. That's good news. Good news, because we're not going to be judged by anyone else. We don't have to measure up to anyone else. The measurement is individual. Were we what God wanted us to be? Lastly, verse 16. It's according to the gospel. a person's works, God's wisdom, and if you want another W, the gospel according to Christ's wounds. And let me explain what I mean. In the light of all that Christ has done for you and for me, his humiliation, by humiliation we refer to the fact he willingly divested himself of the prerogatives of deity, the homage of angels, equality with God. He stepped off the throne. He assumed human flesh, born of the Virgin, born in a manger, reared as a carpenter's son, three and a half years' ministry, misunderstood, and at the end of his life, he is beaten and sentenced to die the criminal's death. Now, in light of all that he has done, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his love, his faithfulness, you see, he knows us. He became man so he could suffer the things that you and I suffer. He knows all about us. And He loved us. He gladly paid the price. He talks about, for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the shame, despising, not letting it deter Him from His path, the cross, for the joy that was set before Him. What was that joy? That He might have many sons and daughters, spiritually? He loved us so much, He willingly gave His life. He died for us. In the light of the wounds of Christ, the gospel message, we will be judged. How shall we escape? The writer of Hebrews says, if we neglect so great salvation, in that day the sins that you choose instead of Christ will be renewed. Paul said, in that day, the secrets of man shall be judged. They'll be exposed in the light of the gospel message. It's important to know the principles of divine judgment. It's according to truth. It's according to your deeds. It's going to be impartial, and it's going to be according to the gospel. Aren't you glad that we can have our sins go before us. By confession and forsaking them, God takes them and blots them out. The records that are being kept in heaven are sins blotted out to be remembered against us no more. Isn't it good to know that enmity and strangeness and separation between us and God can be joined, breached by the man Jesus Christ? There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Let us walk in the light of his word, so that these principles of divine judgment would not loom over our head as a threatening sword, but rather they would guide us in paths of righteousness for his namesake, that we would be careful to do the truth, to live according to his truth, his that our deeds would be worthy of His name. And so when we stand before Him, we will not fear what He will say, because we will know that the blood has been applied, and all is well with our soul. Isn't that what you want? I'm sure it is. That's what can be so for you, every one of us, because Jesus loves you. Shall we stand and bow our heads for prayer? Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you for making me whole. I thank you for your presence here tonight as we've shared these sixteen verses, the principles of divine judgment. May we not fall into the error of evaluating ourselves by what we see in others. But may we always measure it by what we see in Christ, who is the full man. Help every one of us tonight. Our desire in preaching this message is not so much to bring pressure but rather to bring enlightenment that we might remember that there is a day of judgment coming that need not strike fear to our hearts. We can know that we are secure in Christ. And that's the knowledge I covet for everyone here tonight, Father. if there are areas of their life that are not what they should be, that they would not gloss over them, they would confess them and apply to Thee for the power for the change, and then to walk with You in paths of righteousness every day. Thank You, Lord, for giving us not only your revelation, but not leaving us alone, saying, OK, I've told you how to live. Now go live like that. But you give us your Holy Spirit to be our helper and guide. Jesus Christ Himself to live in our hearts, to empower us. We can join with Paul. I can do all things through Christ. who strengthens me. May we see that you have not commanded the impossible, but with your charge you give grace, you give the power, you give the wherewithal to live that life. With our heads bowed and eyes closed tonight, I don't feel particularly constrained to give a public altar service. But perhaps there's someone here who is struggling, struggling with some decisions, some very personal decisions, and you haven't really got it settled yet. You want to do the right thing, and you purpose, by God's grace, to do the right thing. And you want to be remembered in prayer that God would help you to do that. Would you slip your hand up for prayer this evening? I see those hands. Yes, yes, yes. God bless you. God bless you. Many hands. Anywhere else? Pastor, I have a battle. I need help in prayer. I see that hand. Yes, I see that hand. God bless you. Oh, may God give you the strength and the power to settle it. I'm going to ask Brother Henry, won't you pray the benediction?