Please be seated. In the classic Lord of the Rings books, a small remnant of men are taking refuge in the fortress called Helm's Deep. An overwhelming number of evil forces amass outside the walls and begin to attack. The good King Theoden, one of the defenders of the fortress, sees the battle is turning against him and realizes the situation is dire. He then says this, now my heart is doubtful. The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure. How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate? Now like King Theoden, we can find ourselves doubtful and discouraged in the face of reckless evil. We don't have to look far to find it either. Now, just a few weeks ago in North Carolina, a young Ukrainian woman was going home on the train. She had fled to America to flee the violence in her own country and hoped to find peace and safety here in America. Instead, she was brutally murdered, not as a robbery, not for any particular conflict, but just out of raw, malicious hate. And just a few days ago, Charlie Kirk was coldly murdered Perhaps we should say, martyred, as he sat peacefully debating with students and simply speaking the truth. Now in both cases, there are now countless people online who are excusing, defending, even celebrating these acts of evil. Now what should be done in light of such reckless evil? Well certainly, executing justice on the perpetrators of these crimes is high on the list. We are right to call it evil and to cry to God to avenge, as David did in Psalm 140. He says, let burning coals fall upon them. Let them be cast into fire, into miry pits, no more to rise. Let not the slanderer be established in the land. Let evil hunt down the violent man speedily. The one key instrument God uses in that, to answer such imprecatory Psalms, the civil magistrate, right? Romans 13 says the authorities should be a terror to evildoers, that they are the servants of God as an avenger who carries out the God's wrath on the wrongdoer. We should support and pray for them in that mission. But there we find a deeper problem. The Ukrainian woman's killer had already been arrested 14 times, actually, before, several for violent crimes. Yet various judges and local magistrates intentionally chose to release him again and again. The authorities that were supposed to be a terror to a criminal like that became enablers, and thus disobedient to their charge from God to punish the evil. The murder itself turns out to be merely the fruit of more and deeper evil behind the scenes. Sadly, it's not a one-off case either. This seems to be happening more and more all over the country. Why is there so much corruption? Why do we have so many bad judges and wicked rulers? How did we get here? We find a few answers in the book of Nehemiah. There we find the people of God in far worse shape than we are today. The entire northern kingdom of Israel, 10 whole tribes, almost completely wiped out by the Assyrians. Jerusalem, along with the famous Temple of Solomon, completely destroyed by the Babylonians. And now there's just a small remnant of people left in Jerusalem, and even those are slaves of the Persians. So in Nehemiah chapter nine, we find a few faithful priests leading the remaining people in a time of confession, just as we are this morning. Here's their prayer to God, starting in verse 36, describing the situation. Behold, we are slaves this day. In the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress. How low Israel had fallen after being so famously freed from slavery in Egypt, raised into a powerful nation. They are now decimated and slaves once again. How did they get there? The priests began to explain this in verses 1 through 25, where they summarize the history of Israel. They show how God raised up the nation, saved them by Moses. But Israel repeatedly rebelled against God. Yet in his mercy, he preserved them, even brought them into the promised land. But then, verse 26, nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you, Lord, and cast your law behind their back. Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in their time of suffering, they cried out to you, and you heard from heaven. And according to your great mercies, you gave them saviors, who saved them from the hand of those enemies. Verse 28. But after they had rest, they did evil again before you. And you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies. They carry on, give one more example. Verse 29, yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through your prophets. yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the land." Three times now we see the same cycle repeated with a clear, although uncomfortable, takeaway. Evil rulers, corrupt government, widespread evil, were not the main cause of their problems. Those were the fruit, the judgment on a nation that had already ceased to obey God's laws. Now only when they repented and turned back to God did he grant them the power they needed to subdue those enemies. If we want to be free from evil in our land, we need to cry out to God, repent, and obey his ways, starting with us in the church. Only then will we have his power in us to fight the battles ahead. And there are quite a few battles yet ahead. But we have a ways to go. Here's some survey data I found, taken in just the last few years, so it's fairly recent. And it is among people who both identify as Christian, and many people will identify as Christian versus, say, Muslim, but you don't know if they're a real Christian, right? So this is people who identify as Christian and who say that they regularly attend a conservative Christian church. So that makes the filter a little better. Here's what they say. 15% to 20% admit to periodically yell, scream, or otherwise berate a spouse during arguments at home. Why do we not have more civil discourse in the public sphere? One in five Christians aren't gracious to their own spouse in their own house. How much more a public opponent? We need to repent. Now how about this one? This one gets me. Why can't we seem to settle this whole Jeffrey Epstein situation? Where are all the men with the backbone to fight against the abuse and the exploitation of women? Survey says 54% of Christian men admit to being regular pornography users. We will never have the moral strength to fight an evil if we're secretly participants in it. We need to repent. Thinking of the murders this week, how come there are 1,200 murders a month in America? It's one murder every 37 minutes. How come there's 96,000 abortions every month? That's two murdered babies every minute. Had to kind of double check that number. It can't be that bad, but it is. Survey says 50% of Christians don't support the death penalty in cases of first degree murder. 55% of Christians don't support making abortion a criminal act. If we are this confused about God's clear and repeated command on dealing with murder, our nation will continue to be plagued by more murders. We need to repent. Nehemiah 9 gives us a stunning encouragement, though, if we do repent. Verse 17, but you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. So even when it seems bleak, even when we're discouraged at the evil around us, or maybe in us, we find that God is not only able to forgive, he stands ready to forgive and ready to restore. The people in Nehemiah's day go on in chapter 10 to recommit themselves to obey all God's ways in all areas of their life. Today is a good day for us to likewise commit ourselves to walk in his ways. Commit ourselves to study the Bible more that we might better know what those ways are. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to convict us of any particular or practical ways in which we're not walking as we should. Let us first be people of truth and then boldly speak the truth no matter the cost. Let's pray that God will grant us and all our grieving brothers and sisters in this nation a deep desire to follow King Jesus with our whole hearts that he might hear our prayers and rescue us from evil. This reminds us of our need to confess our sins. So let's do so now silently remembering that our God is gracious, merciful and forgiving God.