In Pastor Steve Hopkins' sermon titled 'The Wrath of God Revealed,' he delves into Romans 1:18-20, exploring the theme of God's wrath against ungodliness and unrighteousness. He emphasizes that God's wrath is revealed against humanity due to their intentional suppression of the truth about God, which is evident in both the created order and human conscience. Hopkins discusses the dual revelation of God—through scripture and nature—and asserts that all humanity knows God in some capacity but often chooses to suppress this knowledge due to moral corruption. He warns against the false belief that atheists truly disbelieve in God, emphasizing that everyone inherently knows God but chooses to deny it. The sermon also critiques the notion that those who have never heard the gospel are innocent, arguing instead that they are guilty of not acknowledging the God they inherently know. Additionally, Hopkins reflects on personal experiences with suffering and the importance of glorifying God through adversity. He uses the story of Jeremiah Denton, a Vietnam War veteran, to illustrate the challenges of prosperity and the moral decline associated with it. The sermon concludes with a call for reliance on the Holy Spirit for spiritual regeneration, stressing that true belief in God requires a transformation of the heart initiated by God Himself.

Welcome back to Burnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the Book of Roman. We're going to be, Lord willing, resuming our exposition of Romans chapter 1, picking up in just a moment with verses 18 through 20. But before we do, I have some things I want to read so I may go long today. Second Corinthians chapter 12, and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. Amen? Amen.

I've been thinking a lot about life and death in the last couple of months, especially with the loss of Mr. Stubblefield and the 20 some odd days in the hospital and hundred and some odd hours there and being with him when his spirit left his body and then just all of the The pummeling that I've been experiencing since then nothing like some that we know so I don't want to overdo it, but more than I've experienced since my my 20s when I had severe ulcerative colitis. But I've been thinking a lot about life and death and the preciousness of life, the preciousness of every moment of life and just the small things, the little things in life that are just so, so amazing, so wonderful. Just the daily things that God gives us in his goodness. He's so good.

And one of the things I was thinking about with regards to death is how death forces to release his grip on anything and everything that he's holding tightly to in this life apart from Jesus Christ. Whatever your hands are holding on to, whatever you are so attached to in this life, whatever your grip, whatever you find yourself gripping so tightly, drawing to yourself so closely, death will cause that, you to release your grip on everything other than Christ. One of the things I was thinking of. There's something about excruciating pain that tends to make the Christian at least think in ways he may never have been so so blessed to think apart from yesterday was one of those days the most I guess painful day experience of pain since like I said in my 20s. But it was also a day when once again, the unbearable becomes bearable.

You realize I can't bear this, There's no way that I can bear this. And then you go through it and you go, I can't bear this. Eyes on Christ. It was a day when pain that I was trying to describe it convulses in an uncontrollable scream from the center of my gut, from the center of my belly that can't be restricted by any resistance whatsoever at the throat. But yet gives way to praise to the God who does all things well.

Another thing, calling on the name of the Lord is not just something you do on the day God saves you and brings those words from your heart to your lips. It's the life of the Christian. I've spoken in the past of how God brought me to a place in my 20s where instead of in those three years where I was going through ulcerative colitis events, 30 and 40 of them a day. Where instead of crying out in agony, God gave me grace to be able to cry out instead of screaming out, God help me, to begin to scream out, God thank you. But I'm having to learn that all over again.

And many times I fail. But something I've learned now that I didn't know then, and that is that it's also okay to cry out, God help me. The scriptures are full of the places where in the Psalms, the psalmist cries out, Psalm 30 verse 10, have mercy upon me, be thou my helper. He is our helper and our shield. Psalm 34, 6, this poor man cried unto the Lord and the Lord heard him and delivered him out of all his troubles.

Psalm 72-12, he shall deliver the needy, and when he cryeth the poor and him that hath no helper, he will be his helper. He delivers us, and we're to cry out for deliverance. But we're also to thank Him for pain, thank Him for suffering, thank Him for the worst situations of our lives. He is our deliverer. Sometimes He delivers us from the pain and the suffering back to health.

Sometimes that deliverance means being delivered back to health. Sometimes that deliverance comes by way of death, as it did for Mr. Stubblefield. He was delivered out of all his troubles and is now no longer suffering, but in the presence of his Lord and Savior in glory forever. He suffered greatly, but God sustained him and received him into glory When he was dying, I've mentioned this before that he he spoke much of the goodness of God He just kept saying God is so good Hard sometimes to make out the words, but He would He would pray.

God, You're so good. You remember I read his last prayer where he prayed for the church. He prayed for our family And he just started off by saying God is so good People say God is good all the time a Lot of times when Christians say God is good what they're actually meaning is God gave me something I needed or something I wanted. Something pleasurable happens and they say, oh God is good. But God is good whether or not we get what we want.

God is good when we get exactly the opposite of what we want. God is good in life. He's good in death. He's good in health, and He's good in sickness. God is good.

He's so good. There are no human words that can express the goodness of God. And His goodness to His people is displayed ultimately in that He determined to deal with our sins and the punishment of His Son in our place. There is goodness. God would have been just and He would have been good even if He had not shown mercy to any of us.

Amen? But He chose to have mercy upon a people, His people, whom He foreknew and whom He foreloved before time began. Bless his holy name. There are a couple of different ways that people deal with pain and with suffering. There's many different ways, but In the scripture, things were coming to my mind this morning, how we deal with pain.

In Revelations, it says, and they nod their tongues for pain and blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains and because of their sores. So some blaspheme the God of heaven, they cry out against God, they don't believe God is dealing with them justly, but God is dealing with them perfectly justly. And then there is Job. Satan said, skin for skin, right? Let me touch his flesh and he'll curse you to your face, God.

Even his wife said, after he was stricken with boils and sores from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head, curse God and die. Why don't you just curse God and die? Job's response, what? Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord? And shall we not receive evil?

That word is not evil, as in wickedness, that evil means injury and calamity. Shall we not also receive injury and calamity at the hand of the Lord? And of course it's a rhetorical question. Yes, we should receive both injury and calamity and adversity and affliction at the hand of the Lord. And then we should be as Job, after losing his health, all of his wealth and all of his children said, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. This past week, we went and visited the memorial over in Georgetown, the field of honor with the children, just remembering so many who have served in our country and so many who have died so that we could have the freedoms that we have and enjoy today, even this freedom to meet here today. And at some point in time, I remembered the name of a man. I can't remember how it happened, but I remember the name of a veteran who died I think in 2014 at the age of 89 if I remember correctly.

How many remember a man by the name of Jeremiah Denton? Anyone remember Jeremiah Denton? Jeremiah Denton was a man who was a Navy flier in Vietnam and I believe it was 1962, 63 somewhere in there, that he was shot down leading a mission of 28 planes over Vietnam. He and his co-pilot had to eject. And there's a movie about it and there's documentaries and I watched it with the family after previewing it and I do recommend it.

He was a believer and he spent seven and a half years in a communist Vietnam prison camp, Hanoi Hilton and one of the one of the others and was treated brutally, brutally, brutally over that period of time. And he made a decision at one point that he needed to somehow get word out to the world what was going on. And they offered him an opportunity to broadcast. The Japanese were going to come in and do a third party broadcast and they wanted him to say he was being treated fairly and everything and that he was a criminal working against the people of Vietnam and he never should have been there, etc. Etc.

And he agrees to this broadcast and so he goes to the broadcast and some of you will remember this from history, your history lessons. He goes into the broadcast and instead of saying that he says the exact opposite. He says he knows he's going to be just brutalized afterwards, But he goes in and he says, you know, whatever, I don't know what's going on in the world, but whatever my government is doing and our commander in chief, I support our government. I'm a member of the United States government and I support whatever they want. And all the while in this broadcast, Jeremiah Denton is blinking Morse code.

See, you want to remember what he was blinking T O R T U R E again and again, torture. They're torturing us. And they were concealing that, of course. And it greatly helped the situation. And of course, he was taken back and just brutally brutally tortured after that because they figured out what he did and he had betrayed them.

But when Jeremiah Denton came back to the United States after seven and a half years, It's a very touching video when he comes off of the plane and he just praises God as God that bless America. He doesn't realize that the America that he's come back to has changed greatly in seven and a half years. The Beatles have struck. The moral decline of the country was such that he couldn't even believe it. And he ended up going into politics and trying to change things and became a senator in Alabama.

But one of the things that he said, and I wanted to pass this along before we open up the scriptures, is that he lamented not only the great moral decline but he lamented the prosperity of the nation. Listen to what I'm saying. He lamented the prosperity of the nation. He said this in one of the interviews and it was very sobering to me Because of where we've gone since then all we've had is prosperity since then in this country absolute unprecedented in history prosperity And he said I'm very concerned about this country. He said, men deal with adversity very well, but men do not deal with prosperity well.

And I just want us to take that to heart. And I have many more things that I would go into and talk about and I think I'll save those for next week. With that, let's open up the Scriptures. Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 20. Let's stand for the reading of the Word of God.

Read together with me. Verses 18, 19, and 20. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Let's pray. Father, We are just so grateful, Lord, once again, Lord, to be able to come here and gather and worship you, God, in spirit and in truth.

What a blessing it is, God. What an incredible blessing to worship the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Lord, we ask once again that you would be honored in this time and glorified in this time that you would open up your word to us God the understanding of your word. I pray you sustain your servant Lord through this message oh God for your glory in the advancement of the kingdom of your Son, our Lord Jesus, who suffered and died for our sins, is risen at your right hand, exalted forever, coming again in the heavens with great power and glory. Amen.

Let's be seated. So in our last session we talked about justification in the sight of God by faith. And we talked about Luther and how this passage from last week, verse 17, actually 1 through 17, but 17 had such an incredible impact upon the Reformer and how the Gospel was restored and how the Gospel has been marching on ever since the Reformation. So in our last session, justification in the sight of God is by faith and faith alone, in Christ alone. And that Faith is a gift of God.

It's by grace alone. All of God's free love, favor, mercy poured out upon sinners who have no righteousness of their own and merit only God's wrath. Paul has to this point laid down the foundation of the gospel of grace, that it is upon the basis of faith alone that the righteousness of God is imputed to ungodly sinners like you and me. Now that the apostle has established the gospel of grace by which men are saved, he will now proceed to lay all mankind in the dust, guilty before God. He's going to lay everyone guilty before God.

There's not gonna be one creature who's going to have any hope of any righteousness of their own by the time he is done. They are all going to stand guilty before God and without excuse before their Creator, even those who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ, even those who have never been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. All mankind will be laid in the dust, guilty before God and meriting the eternal wrath of Almighty God, except the Lord Jesus. Save them. As we pick up with verse 18 this morning we read, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

Men are ungodly, men are unrighteous. But look what it says, all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. And we'll look at that word hold here in just a moment. When I preach on the streets, Romans 1, 18 has been the text I begin with more than any other. It is an appropriate text for opening up somewhat of the knowledge of the God of heaven and somewhat of the corruption of man to people who have never heard the truth about God, who have never been exposed to the God of the Bible.

All men need the righteousness of God which comes by faith in Jesus Christ. That's what Paul has been teaching. If they would escape the wrath of God, the wrath of God which is already abiding upon them and which will rain down upon their heads eternally for all their ungodliness and unrighteousness whereby they have since the day they were born offended God." Paul speaks here of the wrath of God being revealed from heaven. American church, we like to talk about the love of God. No one wants to talk about the wrath of God.

In eternity, the wrath of God is going to be a very important subject for every person who has not escaped that wrath. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Look at what the word says here, who hold, your version may say, suppress. Who hold the truth and unrighteousness. That word translated hold from the Greek can mean to hold onto something like having it firmly in your grip, or it can mean to hold something in the sense of holding it down, suppressing it, like a spring that is depressed with the tension coming up against your hand when you press it down, or like a beach ball or a volleyball being forced underneath the water.

The context of the passage reveals to us that it is truth that is being pushed under. It is truth that is being held down. It is truth that men in their wickedness, in their corruption, in their unrighteousness, in their ungodliness, intentionally and willingly and willfully suppress and hold it down. It is being held down, it is being held under. It is the truth that is being held down and suppressed in the unrighteousness of man.

And verse 9 reveals that the truth that is being suppressed is the truth men know about God. That all men know about God. All men know God. That which may be known of God is what the passage says here. That which may be known of God, and guess what, provokes God to wrath.

God is furious. He is angry with men. They are an offense to Him. They are continually provoking His righteous anger and His just fury because they suppress the truth they know about Him in their unrighteousness, which He has made clear to them through the created order and manifested to them in their conscience. There are two kinds of revelation that God gives to men.

There is a revelation of Himself in the Scriptures, which the Apostle has just laid down. There is the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. And then there is the revelation of God in nature, in the created order. Everyone is a witness of that. Everyone does not witness nor hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When I was a boy, I heard two different things coming out of the independent Baptist churches where I was raised. One was that the ridiculous notion that everyone hears the gospel before they die. That was the dumbest one that I was taught. Everyone hears the gospel before they die. No, that's not true.

The other one was that the African or native living in a tribe somewhere who has never heard the name of Jesus is innocent and he goes to heaven. That's also a lie. Of course, if that were true, then the greatest gospel mission in the world would be to take the gospel to no one in any place in the world because if they don't hear the gospel then they're innocent and they'll go to heaven. So it's a lie straight from the pit of hell. But Paul is saying that even apart from the revelation of Scripture, all men are under the sentence of death, under the sentence of divine wrath.

Everyone is under the sentence of divine wrath. Why? Because they know God. Everyone knows God. Not savingly, not relationally, but they have the knowledge of God's existence.

They know God is, but what they know of God they suppress, they deny, they hold it down, they refuse to acknowledge it, And they do that in their wickedness because they have a corrupted nature. There are, in fact, No atheists. There is, according to scripture, no such thing as an atheist. Everyone knows God. When you run across someone and they say, I'm, you know, I'm an atheist, tell them what the Bible says you're not.

The Bible says that you suppress the knowledge that you have of the God you know. Everyone knows God. Not savingly, not relationally, but everyone knows God. How? Through the internal witness of the conscience he manifested within them and the external witness of the created order about them.

You have creation screaming at you 24 hours a day, God, God, God, God, and you suppress the knowledge that you have of God in your own righteousness because you're a sinner, because you hate God. Turn to Psalm chapter 14 and verse one and let's look at this passage for just a moment. This is the fool passage. The fool is set in his heart, there's no God. Psalm 14 one, the fool, yes they're fools.

It's not that we go up to somebody and say, you fool. You're such a fool. No. They evidence that they are fools by their profession, that By their speaking the words there is no God or by speaking in their heart that there is no God But look at this notice what the text does not say The fool has said in his heart. There is no God the text does not say the fool believes in his heart.

There is no God but that he has said in his heart there is no God. The fool, the one who rejects the knowledge of God that God gives him through the internal witness of the conscience and the external witness of the created order all about Him. That fool has to keep saying it over and over again to himself and others repeatedly. If you don't think something exists, You don't constantly go around saying it doesn't exist. It just doesn't exist and you don't worry about it.

You have to continually say over and over and over again to yourself, there is no God. There is no God. There is no God. Suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress. There is no God.

There is no God. There is no God. You have to continually say in your heart, no God. Why? Because you know God.

You know God. The problem is not an intellectual problem with the unbeliever. The issue is not intellectual. The issue is moral. It is a moral issue.

It is an issue of moral corruption. It is an issue not of necessity for or lack of evidence. It's not a lack of evidence issue. The evidence is all around the unbeliever, even staring him in the face every morning when He looks in the mirror. He knows this cannot be without the creator God.

Even the evolutionists, think about them for a moment, how utterly ridiculous. The components of the body necessary for you to stand up on your feet have to all be in place for you to be able to stand up on your feet. The eye, to be able to to function and to take in light, what is the eye in the evolutionary process? What is the value of the eye in the evolutionary process on the way to becoming an eye? And what is it apart for the brain that transmits the data?

And what is it apart from the circulatory system that keeps it all together? All of the parts of the faculties of the body must be in place, intact, instantaneously at one point in time for any of them to be operational or functional and these atheists know it. They suppress the knowledge that they have of God in their unrighteousness and the Bible calls them fools. The evolutionist has said in his heart, there is no God. But his problem, the problem of the professing atheist, because there are no such thing as atheists, the problem of the professing atheist stems from the corruption of his nature.

He was born with a nature corrupted after Adam's kind. It is a moral issue. He knows something that he refuses to admit. You ever meet people that you know that they know something but they refuse to admit it? It's just irritating, isn't it?

The atheist, the professing atheist, he knows that which he refuses to admit. He does so because he hates God. He is a God hater. He hates God. He hates the God he knows.

And the more that he knows about the God he hates, the more he hates the God he knows. He refuses to acknowledge the God he knows because he despises the God he knows and the more he learns of him the more he hates him. He does not want God in any of his thoughts. God is not at all in his thoughts and so he suppresses, he struggles to hold down the truth he sees clearly in front of him and all around him and he uses whatever means he can to deaden his conscience and Deny what God has shown him and continues to show him every day of his life It is an ongoing process in the life of the unbeliever to deny and suppress the truth of the God that he knows. John 1 18 tells us no man has seen God at any time.

The substance of God, his essence, his nature, is invisible to the eyes of man, but the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the things God has created." That's what we're reading in this text this morning. The invisible things of God, God's invisible, you can't see Him, You couldn't lay your eyes on Him and live. But the invisible things of Him are clearly seen from the things God has created. They're not obscurely seen. They are clearly seen.

Look at the text. They are clearly seen It's all very very very clear. It's not like it's hidden and you know God you just didn't give me enough evidence and you know all of this sort of thing. No, it's absolutely clear as the noonday sun so that the man who says I just need more evidence is nothing more than a truth suppressor and a denier of the God he knows, of the God who has clearly revealed himself to him in nature, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that men are without excuse. No one has an excuse.

The tribal guy had never heard the gospel and never got the word of God and no one ever reached him and he died. He died in his trespasses and sins and he died in rebellion against God. He had the created order about him and He could have worshipped and served the Creator and sought the Creator who is blessed forever, but he worshipped and served the creature. And that's what happens in every single one of those uncivilized civilizations, every one of those tribal cultures. You look and what do they do?

There's totem poles and there's images made of birds and beasts and four-footed animals and this and that and they worship the creature and they do not serve the Creator who is blessed forever. Paul is bringing all of this out. Every person on earth stands under the just wrath of God for failing to acknowledge the God they know, for failing to worship Him as He deserves to be worshiped, for failing to serve Him as He deserves to be served, and for not being grateful, which we'll get to next week. Evidence, again, as we close, is screaming God at the unbeliever 24 hours a day. There is a debate between what are known as evidentialists and suppositionalists, or presuppositionalists.

I fall into the presuppositionalist camp, but I also use evidence. And I'll just tell you the difference. So the evidentialist says we give evidence in order to convince people that God, by evidence and by reason, that God exists and then we hope to convince them of the existence of God. Okay, well, no, they hate God, and the more evidence you give them of God, the more they hate God and the more they resist Him. They're not convinced.

They despise God the more they hear of God and the more evidence they see of God. The precept positionalist says, no, everyone knows God. They just suppress the knowledge that they have of him. And to rely upon any type of evidence in order to convince someone that God exists is to put God in the place of judgment and man in the place of the judge to judge God. So I understand that and understand that that's not what we want to do.

We are to expose that all men according to Romans 1 18 know God. You know God. You don't have to have any more evidence than you've got. But do I give evidence? Yes, I still give evidence, right?

Yes, I do, absolutely. I say build ark replicas, talk about archeological finds, show evidence, facts, artifacts, what? Go through history, prove this, that, everything. Give evidences, give evidences, Why? Because it brings glory to God to show forth His wonders and His praises.

So yes, give them. So I kind of stand in them and a little bit of a middle ground there. Give evidence. But when you give that evidence, understand that the response of the unbeliever is only going to be rejection and he's going to be storing up more wrath unto himself against the day of judgment because he will reject the evidence unless God Changes his heart we must remember that it is reliance upon a work of God The Holy Spirit and God's Holy Spirit alone by which men are regenerated by which they're given new hearts and eyes to see and ears to hear and raised from spiritual death to spiritual life if we don't understand anything else from this message we need to understand this men cannot believe apart from a supernatural work of God in regeneration and they will not believe unless God changes their heart. You can give evidence and you can give presuppositional arguments from morning to evening and the unbeliever will remain stiff-necked and hardened in his suppression of the truth he knows about God deep down inside.

Unless God removes his heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, as Ezekiel said, He has to have an operation upon his heart before he will be changed. So yes, do all these things, make all these arguments, engage in apologetics, give evidences, do all these things, but pray and say, God, unless you do a work upon the heart of this person, this person will not believe. They cannot believe. They will continue to reject the God they know because they hate you. And unless you change their heart, they will go on hating you.

At the end of the day, after all the evidence and philosophical wrangling, the unbeliever will look you in the face and say Things like this and I've heard this on the streets I've heard this in many encounters. You've given an everything you've given them all the evidence You've given them all the arguments you've given them the scripture. They hate God They they express their hatred for God and many times they express it like this. They say, I could never believe in a God like the God that you are telling me about. And that's when I say, exactly, that's what I've been trying to tell you.

You can't believe. It is an impossible task for you in your unregenerate, corrupted state to believe in the holy, righteous, triune God who created the universe. You've finally gotten to the place where I want you. You've admitted that you cannot believe in a God like the God of the Bible, unless he changes your heart. You don't have it within you.

You don't have it within you. You don't have it within you. We'll end with 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 14. The natural man, that is the man in the state in which he was born in nature with his corrupted nature, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are a foolishness unto him." They're foolishness unto him. And then look at this word, because this is so important, neither can He know them.

That word can has to do with ability. He does not have the ability to discern spiritual things because he has not the Spirit of God indwelling him. He must be given a new spirit. He must be raised from spiritual death to spiritual life or he will never believe. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.

Why? Because they're foolishness to him. Neither can he know them. He doesn't have the ability to know the spiritual things. He knows God and what he knows of God he suppresses and he hates the God he knows.

But he cannot know God in the spiritual sense and understand the spiritual things of God and he cannot have a relationship with him unless God initiates that work. Why? He cannot do it. It's an impossibility. He doesn't have it within him.

He cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned. It must take a work of God. And with that, we will close. Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful for your word, oh Lord, and we're so grateful for the work that you've done in the lives of those here, Lord, whose eyes have been opened, whose hearts have been made pliable, whose hearts have been changed by you, who have been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life.

We thank you and praise you, God, because we know that it was not of us. We are not so bold, Lord. We are not so arrogant, Lord. We are not so proud as to lift up our voice and say, Oh God, I use the grace that you gave me different than other people. The difference was in me.

Lord, we admit and acknowledge that the difference was in you and your work, a work of your Spirit, a work of your Holy Spirit, a work of your Holy Spirit applying the precious, precious blood of your Son Jesus Christ to our hearts and our lives and opening up our understanding and giving us eyes to see and ears to hear and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life so that we could for the first time in our lives believe and trust and melt before you God crying out upon the name of Jesus for salvation. We love you Lord and we ask that you would use this time now as we prepare to share in the Lord's table to help us to discern, to look, to examine ourselves first if we be in the faith, if our trust is in Christ and in Christ alone, in none of our own works, or supposed righteousness. And then second, Lord, if there be any wicked way in us, anything that we need to repent of that we've been holding onto, anything that we need to discard in our lives, anything We need to relinquish, confess, and forsake with the intent never to return to it again.

Give us grace in this time, O God. Use it for your glory. As we eat of that bread and drink of that cup, proclaiming Jesus died for me until his return. For it's in his name we pray these things. Amen.