It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to bring the word of God to you, and I trust that the Lord will bless our time together as we come to his word, as we come to this particular time of conference. I'm struck by something I remember Pastor Ted Donnelly saying at one of the family conferences in Kentucky, Louisville, it turns out. And he said that, he said, he thought it was kind of interesting and the world would think it's strange that a bunch of people were getting together and using their family vacations to come to a conference to hear about hell. And he preached an amazing series, the Lord blessed that series in many different ways and in many different lives, that series that he preached on hell. But then he went on to say the benefit that there is to taking the time to consider the biblical doctrine hell. We're going to be considering over the next three days what have come to be known as the doctrines of grace or the five points of Calvinism, those five central doctrines that have to do with the way in which sinful men are saved by God. But we're going to begin this evening by taking the time this evening to consider something that's rather unpleasant to think about. When we think about our world, there's no doubt that the world is plagued with many different problems. There's ignorance, there's illness, there's poverty, there are broken relationships, there's war, there's all kinds of crime and tragedies of many different types. But the question that I would set before you this evening is, what is man's greatest problem? With all these kinds of problems that we might face, what is man's greatest problem? Well, I'm sure most of you know, if you're a member here, that man's greatest problem is what the Word of God tells us is sin. Man's sin. This fact of man's sin is recorded on almost every page of our scriptures. This reality of sin is pervasive in our culture, in our societies. Man's miserable problem is that he is thoroughly contaminated and undoubtedly blameworthy for sin. In other words, as it's come to be known, man is totally depraved. Now, that doesn't mean that men are as bad as they possibly could be. In Romans chapter 1, it talks about men who are under the wrath of God for their sin and who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And yet that passage goes on to describe how men even get worse when God gives them up to their passions and God gives them over to a depraved mind and God gives them up. And so they can actually get worse than that. As well, when we say that men are totally depraved or men are thoroughly contaminated and undoubtedly blameworthy, we're not saying that men can't do anything good in any sense. For certainly, we see that all the time. We do see some mothers who give birth to their children, there's a few of them here, as I saw all these children getting up out of the pews and walking out, who do give birth to their children, don't abort them, and then care for them and provide for them. We have men who risk their lives to keep us safe, police officers, first responders. Just think back to times not too long ago when we saw a hotel that's the most bombed hotel in all of Europe. And how many times did somebody come along and seek to save lives and help people in those circumstances? Or the recent tragedy in Las Vegas in America where a man opens fire on a crowd and people risk their lives to get people out of the way. People can do things which are in some sense considered good, but not in the sense that they provide any righteous standing before God. So while we have those qualifications, we still need to understand that man does have a very miserable problem. Sin twists everything. So I'd like for us to begin our time together by looking at this doctrine of man's miserable problem. And first of all, man is, by nature, thoroughly contaminated by sin. Now the word contaminated, you could think of other words that would be synonyms, corrupted, polluted, defaced, desecrated. It's like the dirt that gets on your clean shirt or the pollution that gets into the rivers and lakes or graffiti on a piece of on a building or on a piece of art. And no matter how small it might appear to be, it contaminates everything. So for instance, if you think of sin and how it contaminates things, think of it as, and I was asking for the proper way to say this, think of it as I'm offering you some brownies. Do you know what brownies are? Right, okay, I don't know if, I wanna make sure these brownies, and everybody loves chocolate, right? And so you got these chocolate brownies, and I tell you, I've made these brownies specially myself, or no, let's make it better. My wife made these brownies, and then I put in a special secret ingredient. I used a little doggy dirt. Just, just a quarter teaspoon. and we mixed it into the batter and we made the brownies and there's your 9 by 13 pan of brownies. How many of you are going to take a brownie? No, because the whole is contaminated. One drop, one small portion and it contaminates the whole thing. That's what we're talking about. We talk about sin and the way that it affects things around us. And I'm saying that man is thoroughly contaminated, totally, radically, the word radical goes back to the sense of the root of something or down to the root in its entirety, you could say, through and through, universally. These are the kinds of things I want us to consider as we see the biblical doctrine of sin. Man by nature is thoroughly contaminated. Every human being that has ever lived since Adam, every human being is contaminated. And every faculty of every human being is contaminated. And that's what I'd like for us to consider as we think about the biblical doctrine of Sin, and in particular this first point, man is thoroughly contaminated by sin. The Bible tells us that our bodies, our physical bodies are defaced by sin. Ever since the fall, men suffered death and everything that leads up to death, disease and injury. We read in 2 Corinthians 4.16 that we have this outer man that is decaying. Decomposing, as it were, in some sense, right before our eyes. Romans 5, Paul writes, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. So with that sin of Adam, the entire human race has been contaminated. and it affects our bodies and we face death. But sin also pollutes the mind. We don't often think of the fact that sin affects the way we think. And so our intellect tends to run after error rather than running after truth, tends to embrace error. Have you ever found it interesting to recognize how easily things I call brain lint stick to your brain? All those unnecessary facts. But yet when you go to memorize a scripture or memorize a psalm that you're going to sing, you have to work really hard at it. That's one of the effects of sin in man's mind. Man's mind has developed amazing technologies, amazing treatments for various illnesses, structures that have been built, amazing things that man can conceive and do. And yet, Paul says that with all their knowledge, they lack understanding. With all their knowledge, they lack understanding, for no one seeks after God. No one understands. Paul paints for us a rather grim picture of man's mind. He says that sinful man actually suppress the truth. I went to a debate between a scientist, a Christian scientist who was defending intelligent design against a secular biologist at Princeton University. And the secular biologist made this very interesting statement in public. He said, we tell our students that when they're doing their studies and they see something that looks like design, to remind themselves there is no design, there is no design. So suppress the truth, that obvious truth that comes to you. Suppress that truth. This is what sin does to the mind. It suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. It exchanges the truth of God for a lie. Probably the most extensive description of this is found in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, verses 17 and 18. Paul writes, now this I say and testify in the Lord. that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, and again, using this description of those who are outside the covenant community, outside the true knowledge of God, unbelievers, he says of these Gentiles, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. See, unconverted men, their minds are darkened. Their minds are polluted by sin. They do not have the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ that can be described as eternal life. In fact, Paul goes on to tell us that they're actually blinded. Satan actually blinds them in their unbelief. The God of this world, we read in 2 Corinthians 4, 4-6, blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. Sin defaces our physical bodies, sin pollutes the mind, sin contaminates the desires, that is our affections. And so As sin does its work in mankind as they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, we read in Romans 1.21 and Romans 1.24 that God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. Jesus tells us that men love darkness and hate the light, John 3.19 and 20. And Jesus goes on to tell us that what we see in this misery in our societies and the way that people deal with one another and the sin that shows itself day after day in our culture and in our interactions with people, Jesus says the root of that is that we have hearts that are set upon sin. In Mark 7 we read, For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. Why? Because we have this affection set upon that which is opposed to God. Sin also perverts the will and the conscience. This is something we have to be very careful to state. Just thinking about the 500 years since the Reformation when there was an address to some of the errors that had been embraced in the Roman Catholic Church and were seeking to be set straight. Well, the Roman Catholic Church and others get it wrong at this very point. That the will is somehow just bent or just slightly asleep. It's not as affected by sin. as the rest of us are. And so God does His part and we, through the exercise of our will, do our part. We'll see that's just folly. The fact of the matter is, you can't separate the will and the conscience from the affections and from the intellect. Pastor Albert Martin used an illustration at this point to try to show how these things are intertwined. He talked about a man sitting at a table with two plates of food sitting before him. One was a full plate of Ulster Fry. At some point I'm told I'll get to eat some of that. I don't know if I can eat all of it from what I hear, but I'll eat some of it. There's an Ulster Fry. And then on the other side is something that's been taken from the garbage heap and from the trash and all of the waste and it's got little green fuzzy stuff growing on it and it smells Imagine that the man who is sitting there at this table has never eaten anything in his life except for that kind of garbage. And he has been told in his mind, this is food that is good for you and that you should eat. And having eaten it all of his life, he has a taste for it and a desire for it. He sits down at this table and what's he going to choose? His intellect says, this is what I have always eaten. His affections say, this is what I like to eat. And the will is going to be driven and directed, or first the conscious is going to say, well, this is what I ought to eat. And the will is going to choose based on what the mind and the affections tell it is best. And that's what we see. So though we act as free agents, unforced by anything from outside ourselves, we act as responsible creatures with a will that acts consistent with the judgment of our mind and our affections. And since our mind and our affections are defaced and polluted, contaminated with sin, then our will will choose that which is sinful. But we don't just need a logical and illustrative picture to try to come up with that. Paul tells us that himself in Titus chapter 1 verse 15. In Titus 1, he says, of every unbeliever, To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their minds or their wills, as the New American Standard translates it, and their consciences are defiled. Or as Paul says in Romans 8 and verse 7, for the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit itself to God's law, for it is not even able to do so. It doesn't submit. What does that mean? It doesn't bend its will to the will of God. Men choose in keeping with their nature, and prior to being saved, because men are slaves of sin, they will choose to sin, unless they are restrained from something outside. So, we put the composite picture together, we see that man's mind is thoroughly infected, From the very moment of conception, David says, he was brought forth in iniquity, he was conceived in iniquity. The heart continues to be deceptive and desperately wicked. It's futile in its expectations and is in rebellion against God. But it's worse. For Paul tells us man is not only completely contaminated by sin, he is dead in his trespasses and sins. This is the picture that the Bible paints for us of sin. Man, by nature, is thoroughly contaminated by sin. And man, therefore, is undoubtedly blameworthy for sin. In other words, I could have chosen the word guilty, culpable, responsible, deserving of judgment, or even depraved. But I like the word blameworthy because it sets before us those two very clear pictures. This is what they deserve. Blame. Condemnation. Judgment. They're guilty. And it's obvious. And it's undoubted. The evidence is too much. It can't be denied. It can't be controverted. It can't be questioned. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is where man is. And see, this is part of the problem. It's not just that man has a disease called sin. But man with this sin is a guilty criminal before the throne of God. And that's even a worse condition. It takes our condition and elevates it. It's not just that we're somehow out of step with something that would make life better. We're actually condemned before the throne of God. And so man is undoubtedly blameworthy. Here again, the Scriptures plainly teach this. God made man upright, Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes. But they have sought out many schemes Or Solomon wrote in another part of his wisdom literature, Who can say I have made my heart pure? I am clean from sin. And the answer is no one. And that's how Paul answers the question, having read his Old Testament properly. And then putting that together in Romans chapter 3, he paints that picture. But the summary statement is this, there is none righteous. No, not one. For all have sinned, regardless of ethnicity, economic standard, education, age, sex. All have fallen short of the glory of God. That means we all are criminals in the courtroom of God. For sin is lawlessness. But I've only broken this one. Haven't you heard that before? Take out the trash. You forgot to take out the trash yesterday. Yeah, but I made my bed and I cleaned up the yard. Well fine, good, but that doesn't solve the problem that you didn't do this. James tells us that we are guilty if we've broken even one of the laws. Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. So there's no making up for it, no super irrigation, no piling it up and getting a balance. Whenever anyone is confronted with the law of God, their mouth therefore is shut. They have no way to give account. The word account there is a legal term which describes someone who has lost any possibility of disproving their guilt. So, when the law comes, the law is like that big spotlight. You thought something was really clean, but then you turn the spotlight on it and it shows everything. Or another illustration is I was taking my smartphone the other day, and I thought, you know, okay, I need a new screen saver, screen protector on here. And so I took that little lint-free rag that they send and cleaned it all off, blew on it, sprayed it, wiped it all off, got it so. And I said, no, that is perfectly clear. There's not a speck. And I put that screen down there, and I pushed it all the way down, pushed all the bubbles. And right in the middle is this one little dot. And you know that one little dot aggravates me. And it can't get rid of it. But you see, that's what we're like. See, we spread it, but there's still, there's still that defect. And that's what the law does, is it highlights those defects. As Paul tells us, that's one of the purposes of the law. And so man is undoubtedly blameworthy before God for his sin. It's plainly taught. We're all criminals, and there's nothing we can do to merit any favor with God. For anything that we bring forward that we think, this is a righteous deed, this will surely earn me some points. This will earn me a brownie point or two. Toward that badge of righteousness or holiness that I want to put on my garment? No. You know what Isaiah says, right? All our righteous deeds are as polluted garments. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, Solomon writes. No, the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God. It does not submit to the law of God. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So what can we learn from this truth? What applications can be drawn from the doctrine of total depravity or from looking at man's miserable problem? Well, the first thing is it really puts to us a question. Do you see yourself the way the Bible sees you? Do we see ourselves in light of the Scriptures and see ourselves as the Bible tells us we see ourselves? Or are we going to try to argue with God who knows all things and sees all things and never lies and has told us this is what every one of us were like at birth by nature Before God we were these kinds of people or are these kinds of people? Are we really going to come to grips with the fact that this is our greatest problem? Are you looking at yourselves the way the scripture describes you? If you're outside of Christ tonight If you have not embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as your Redeemer and your Savior, and His blood has not cleansed you from your sins, do you see this is what you are, who you are? You are thoroughly contaminated and undoubtedly blameworthy. And nothing you can do can resolve the problem. It's too great a problem. And when you try to get a hold of one area and maybe push it down because the problem is just a little bit too complex and messing up your life, then it just pops up somewhere else. And then you turn to step on that one and try to put that thing aside, then it comes back. And even if you could somehow hold all of them down, you've already committed them. There's still the stain and the guilt of your sin that has to be dealt with in the courtroom of God. You haven't done anything. to make yourself right with God. You're still at odds with Him, and He still looks at you as this kind of person. Blameworthy, worthy of condemnation. Worthy of judgment. Deserving of judgment. This is one of the most important reasons for this truth being taught to us. That we might see ourselves in our great need and by the grace of God flee to Christ for forgiveness of sin. And stop trying somehow to make ourselves a little bit better so somehow we can gain something. If you refuse to accept this explanation about your condition, then all that we're going to see in the coming sessions is going to be, in some sense, pretty useless. Because you won't need the Savior we're going to paint. You won't care about God choosing some because He won't choose you. You won't want to persevere to the end because You're not headed to an end you want to think about. If you refuse to believe the Bible's explanation of your condition, you will not need or not want a Savior. You'll need a Savior, but you won't want Him. But you see, here's the wonderful thing about the Scriptures, isn't it? The Scriptures tell us that Christianity, biblical Christianity, is a sinner's religion. It all starts here and rests down here. It's sinners that Christ Jesus came into the world to save. Christ died for the helpless. Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for his enemies. Christ died for sinners. Maybe you're in bondage to some sin and you really can't stand the way that it's eating up at you and you've tried to get rid of it but you can't. I'm here to tell you that there's hope for you. God already knows your problem. And God has already given an answer for that problem in the person of Jesus Christ. There's a poem that captures some of this very well. It says, "'Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus, ready, stands to save you, full of pity, joined with power. Come, ye weary, heavy-laden, bruised, and broken by the fall. If you tarry till you're better, you'll never come at all. Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires is to feel your need of him. This he gives you." And it ends with these words, venture on him. Venture wholly. Let no other trust intrude. None but Jesus can do helpless sinners good. But I presume, and I think it's a fair presumption or assumption, that many of you are children of God. So what does this doctrine teach you? Well, it teaches us, one, this is the gospel we need to proclaim. We need to proclaim the gospel that God has given to us. Because if we don't see men in this particular state, then our gospel will be defective. And many in churches around the world have a different gospel. Their gospel is, come and we'll make you feel better about yourself. Rather than deal with your greatest problem, we'll anesthetize you with entertainment. We'll intoxicate you with excitement. Salvation for some, who don't understand the biblical teaching on man's sin, think that the answer to man's problem is education. Others think the answer to man's problem is a change of lifestyle. But in order to be saved through the gospel, it will take more than education. It will take more than a change or reformation of life. It will take more than a little religion. It will take more than embracing the story of Jesus as a good example. It will take more than throwing a little money at it or even a lot of money at it. The answer to men's problems is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to them, to those who are dead in their trespasses and sins. Knowing this truth will urge us to make sure we get our gospel right, but it will also press us to make sure we pray, for only God can save a sinner like that. I can't win an argument to get him into the kingdom. One of the problems with American Christianity today is the emphasis on apologetics. You say, how can that be a problem? Because the emphasis on apologetics goes something like this. If I can argue down the path far enough to get them to believe and think what I think is right, then they'll be saved. If I can answer all their questions, then they will automatically come to Christ, right? If I'm just a better arguer and can know all the questions that they might answer and I can address them, then they will come to Christ. But you see, you could answer all of their questions and all of their objections, but if they're dead in their trespasses and sins, they will still not believe. Unless Christ, unless the Spirit does a work to save them. So it will drive us to not only know our Bibles and be good apologists, but it will drive us to pray. that God will save them. But secondly, for believers, this is a very humbling truth because this is who we were by nature. Paul says that this is who we were. We were children of wrath, even as the rest. In and of ourselves, we are no better than anyone else. By nature, we were children of wrath. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Paul writes to Titus and says, you need to remind the Christians that we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. We need to remind ourselves of this because Paul says to the Corinthians, remember that those who are called brethren were not many wise, not many powerful, not many of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things in the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things in the world to shame the wrong. He chose the low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, so that we would not boast in anything other than God. A very humbling truth to recognize this is who we are in and of ourselves. We're nothing great. He didn't choose us because somehow we could sing better. He didn't choose us because somehow we were a little bit smarter. He didn't choose us because he knew with all their gifts, I can do a lot. This is also a motivating truth, brethren, is it not? Knowing that this is how pervasive and how persistent I like words, not just Greek words, but English words. And this word that kept coming back to my mind, pertinacious. It sticks and it's impossible to be erased. It's this thing that just sticks with us. And isn't that what remaining sin is? It's the same in kind, but different in power and position in our lives. But it sticks with us and clings to us. And if we recognize that this is what sin is, and where we were when we were dead in our trespasses and sins and all that we need to turn away from and constantly be working against. We'll say, I need to be motivated to work hard to get rid of this sin. Paul was not overstating it when he said, having these promises, therefore let us I'm working with two different translations here. I've been trying to convert everything to the ESV. Paul says, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of body and spirit. perfecting holiness or bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. You see, perfecting is dealing with our sin of body and spirit. We won't just stop with external obedience and external morality. We'll go down to the depths of the heart and say, why is it that my heart even longs after those things? Why is it that my mind wants to gravitate toward those errors and embrace that logic that lets me go down that path of sin? Knowing that this is what we were like and what we need to battle against, we will be diligent to labor against a heart that is still at times deceitful and prone to lie to us. We will labor against the affections that are marred by disaffection, that is, they are prone to love darkness and hate the light. And we will labor to fill our minds with truth and do away with the mind that is tainted with darkness and is prone to believe lies and deny the truth. And we'll look at our conscience and all of its defilement that wants to call evil good and good evil. And we'll say, I've got to get back into the gymnasium and I've got to work to understand the truth that I might be able to discern between good and evil properly. Hebrews chapter five. Brethren, we need to work because we have in our hearts something called moral insanity. That's in essence what Solomon called it. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 3, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil and madness, the ESV says, the New American Standard says, insanity is in their hearts while they live. And there's a lot of remaining moral insanity in each one of us. I pass over several other things, certainly I have to quote Romans 12, 1 and 2 though, don't I, at this particular point where Paul says, I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. He says, stop being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect. He says, work on your mind to get your mind thinking the way God thinks. Why? So that you'll do what is right. So you'll know God's will and you'll do it. This doctrine is also a patience-producing and a pity-producing truth. Pity in the right sense. You'll see that person sitting next to you who's lost and dead in their trespasses and their sins, and you won't just be disgusted with them because of their sin. However ugly their sin might be, however overtly anti-God their sin might be, you will pity them, for they are in the bondage of a cruel ruler. You'll feel for them. but it also produced patience because the people sitting next to you in the pew have this kind of enemy in its remaining effects that they're dealing with. And just like you're wrestling against sin, you'll see them as wrestling against sin. You say, oh, you know what? I need to be a little more patient with that brother or that sister and try to help them deal with their sin. It's also a love-expanding truth. Jesus said that the woman loved much. What does he said? There was a reason for that. This woman who came into the house who washed his feet. She said he said because she was forgiven much. And I'm afraid that for some of us, our love for Christ is stunted. Because we think our sins that we were saved from were small. I grew up going to church. Never known a day in my life when I wasn't under the sound of the gospel. But I wasn't saved. I was a nice, outwardly moral, inwardly orthodox, unbeliever. And when I got saved, I thought, well, you know, there's no big deal. Well, Jesus saved me from a few little sins. I mean, I was a good kid. I didn't go around lying. I was good. I was sitting against light. I knew better that Christ alone had saved me or could save me. And yet I was going on in unbelief. We need to see our sin for what it is so that we will have a deeper and a more abiding love for our Savior who saved us from sin and the wrath of God. And finally, my brethren, my friends, this biblical truth gives us the ultimate answer to the question, why? When things like Las Vegas happen, men just naturally ask the question, why, don't they? Why? It's kind of ingrained, it seems to be ingrained in the human psyche to want to ask the question why, right? Your kids, they just start getting aware of the world. Why, Mommy? Why, Daddy? Well, because, well, why? Well, because, why? Don't ask me why. And we keep doing that, right? We grow up, we say, well, no, why? Why would a man take a room on the 32nd floor and break out windows and go through all of that trouble to hide himself and protect himself and then all that ammunition and all that money spent so that he could go up there and start shooting people? And all the police and the FBI, they're all taken up with this question, why did he do it? Was he radicalized by this Muslim group over here? Was he radicalized by this white supremacist group over here? What was it? Why? And they're all asking the question, why? Well, as one young teacher said to his students when he was pressed with this question, He said to his students, what happens if they can't find an answer for why? And that leaves you sitting next to people that they might do this. Or living in a world where that could happen, I could do that. So we're all searching for the question why, so somehow we can put it in a category and protect ourselves from it. But the fact of the matter is, this doctrine alone ultimately answers the question, why? Because the Bible tells us of sin. And sin is moral insanity where people will do things that will harm themselves and others, sometimes for no apparent reason. But here's the problem. So parents need to remember when their children, why do you keep doing this? How many times have we told you? My dad used to say to me, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. Well, dad, it was probably more like 10,000. Why do you keep, why? Because I have sin in my heart. that says, I want to live for myself and not for God. My mind is affected, my affections are affected, my will is affected, my conscience is affected. I am thoroughly infected and contaminated with sin. And even remaining sin still clings with me so that that which I want to do, I do not do, and that which I don't want to do, I do. Here's the answer, brethren. It's why citizens do unspeakable evil crimes against other citizens. It's why humans, when dealing with suffering, have come back to this. Why? Because of sin that's affected the world. An accurate understanding of the biblical teaching on sin will deliver us from confusion, depression, and oversimplification in dealing with the evil that's in our world. man's miserable problem of being totally depraved is only answered by the person and work of Christ. So understanding it will bring us back to the proper answer. May God help us to learn from his truth. Let's pray. Father in heaven, be merciful to write your word upon our hearts. We ask that you would do this for the glory of your name and for the good of our souls and for those around us. And we ask this pleading with you in the name of your beloved son who gave his life that we might be redeemed from sin and from the curse. And we pray in his name alone, amen.