In the sermon 'The Folly of Building Back Better,' Peter Allison explores the themes of judgment and repentance as illustrated in Isaiah 9. The passage describes God's judgment against Israel due to their pride and failure to repent despite repeated warnings. The people of Israel, likened to spiritually drunk individuals, fail to see the consequences of their sin and instead choose to rebuild their sinful structures, symbolized by replacing bricks with hewn stones and sycamores with cedars. The sermon emphasizes that God's judgments are not surprises but consequences of ignored warnings, using historical examples like Noah and Pharaoh. The speaker draws parallels with contemporary issues, such as the refusal to acknowledge the consequences of promoting the COVID vaccine, highlighting the dangers of intellectual pride. The sermon underscores the necessity of repentance, which involves a sincere turning away from sin and acknowledging God's chastening as mercy. The repetitive cycle of judgment due to unrepentance leads to greater destruction, illustrating the importance of genuine repentance and humility in seeking God's mercy. The sermon concludes with a call for the audience to recognize God's judgment as an opportunity for purification and renewal, encouraging them to be proactive in bringing about spiritual and cultural restoration.

Isaiah chapter 9. To begin reading at verse 8 this morning, hear God's word. The Lord sent a word against Jacob, and it has fallen on Israel. All the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, who say in pride and arrogance of heart, the bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones. The Sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.

Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of resin against him, and spur his enemies on, the Syrians before and the Philistines behind. And they shall devour Israel with an open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For the people do not turn to him who strikes them, nor do they seek the Lord of hosts. Therefore the Lord will cut off the head and the tail from Israel, palm branch and bull rush in one day, the elder and honorable, he is the head, the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and Those who are led by them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord will have no joy in their young men, nor have mercy on their fatherless and widows, for everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this His anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For wickedness burns as the fire, it shall devour the briars and thorns, and kindle in the thickets of the forest. They shall mount up like rising smoke, through The wrath of the Lord of hosts, the land is burned up, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire.

No man shall spare his brother, and he shall snatch on the right hand and be hungry, and he shall devour on the left hand and not be satisfied. Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm. Manasseh shall devour Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh. Together they shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, who write misfortune which they have prescribed, to rob the needy of justice, to take what is right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless. What will you do in the day of punishment, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down among the prisoners, and they shall fall among the slain. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." From his word we have learned long ago that His testimonies are sure, certain, established, and eternal truth.

Heavenly Father, your Word is powerful, it's living, it is active. And we ask that you might work that word upon us this morning to bring light, to bring truth, to bring conviction, to bring instruction, to bring comfort, and to bring these in each as they are needed. Lord, your word is comforting, for you speak peace to your people as well. We ask all of this and through Jesus Christ, we pray that you might work powerfully in us this morning by your word. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips to bring that word to us this morning, in Jesus' name, amen.

And I'm going to read it to you. Well, the other day I read an essay by someone that I know lamenting the loss of meandering writing. The loss of meandering writing. And by meandering he meant Writing that didn't have a thesis with rationally tight argumentation to support it, that's all summed up with a clear convincing conclusion and so forth. In that author's view, this meandering writing that he was reflecting on the loss of, reflected the finiteness and the brokenness of human knowledge and human experience.

But the Bible is precisely not meandering prose, reflecting the brokenness of human knowledge and experience. It is the perfect word of the omnipotent, omniscient, infinite, and eternal creator. The one who knows all things. The one who is all-powerful. The one who is infinite and eternal.

And our writing should seek to emulate the writing of the men who wrote as they were moved by and led by the Holy Spirit. And while the writing of these men, the scriptures, proclaims the brokenness and the finiteness or the fallenness of our human condition, and while that writing does indeed cover the range of human emotion and expression, and there are many different types of writing And so, this passage is, reflects that literary coherence, that those clear declarations which are succinctly supported by evidence And the entire passage here this morning is organized very neatly into four logically sequential stanzas. We have stanzas in our hymn book, and they represent sort of the progression of thought. Each stanza either opens up or continues the theme. And each of these stanzas is is marked off or and concludes by the refrain, for all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still so this whole entire message follows this of Isaiah here follows a very simple pattern God sends a word pronouncing his judgment and when that judgment comes as promised, when there is no repentance, when that judgment comes and there is still no repentance, then God sends greater judgments.

And that pattern repeats. When there's no repentance, the Lord sends further judgments. And so the first stanza then begins with God's mercy actually. God sends a word against Jacob, against Israel. Jacob and Israel are two names for that nation, just as they were two names for the son of Isaac.

God sends a word against Jacob. He sends that word through his prophets and he always announces his judgments. They should never be, and they never are surprises, though they often are seen as surprises because we ignore the warnings. And they catch us, therefore they catch us unprepared. For example, Noah spent 100 years preaching a coming judgment before God sent the flood.

God gave Pharaoh clear warning before the famine that he sent from that whole land. Moses gave clear and direct warning before each of the plagues. Elijah warned Ahab about the coming drought. And through Jonah, God gave the city of Nineveh 40 days. Warning before destruction, which they listened to and repented, resulting in several generations of faithfulness in that land.

Through John the Baptist, the apostate Jews were warned about the wrath that would come upon them. Forty years, roughly 40 years before that wrath fell on them. God sends and so God has sent many prophets to Israel and Judah. Five times in the book of Jeremiah, God says, I have spoken to you rising early, sending sending my prophets. And God explains this principle in Jeremiah 18, where God says, The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to either pluck it up, to pull down, or to destroy it, that nation against whom I have spoken, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of that disaster that I thought to bring upon it.

And the instant I speak concerning a nation, concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it, if it does evil in my sight, so that it does not obey my voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it. Now, God said to Jeremiah, they all therefore speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, thus says the Lord, behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now everyone from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good." There's the warning that God gave to, in this case, the southern kingdom of Judah. And when Those warnings are ignored or despised or made light of sooner or later, but inevitably, inevitably God's brings to pass what he has decreed. The judgment falls.

Sometimes that can be a long time by our standards. But remember with one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day to the Lord. And so the Lord has sent a word against Jacob and it has fallen on Israel. All the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria. But when this happens, when this judgment comes, the people are not humbled by what has happened to them.

They aren't convicted of sin. They don't see themselves as having done anything wrong or very wrong. There's certainly no sorrow or hatred or torrents of their sin. It's just the opposite. The response of the people is to say, let's do it again and just let's do it bigger and better.

All the sinful structures in our life that the Lord has broken down in his mercy, let's build them back bigger and better. Where there were bricks before, now we'll use cut stone. Where we had sycamores, now we're gonna put cedars. This insensitivity to punishment is exactly how the Bible describes a drunkard. According to Proverbs 23, the drunk says, they have struck me, but I wasn't hurt.

They have beaten me, but I didn't feel it. When will I awake that I may have another drink? Isaiah is saying here that these people are spiritually drunk, intoxicated to the point that they don't perceive God's rod of chastening upon them. And that's really a very dangerous situation to be in, brothers and sisters. It's dangerous because it's just like when the nerves of someone's hands or feet are numb or dead and they can't feel pain.

You're in great danger of physical harm. You can touch a hot stove and you won't know it. So you just leave your hand there because you're not aware that it's getting burned up until you start smelling the burned flesh. Whereas when the nerves are working right and you touch that hot stove you men immediately feel the pain and you Can respond well? These Isaiah is describing a people here who are spiritually drunk and their nerves are dead and they are in oblivious to the Chasing that God is bringing upon them see pride Has blinded the eyes and closed the conscience of these Israelites And so they're completely unaware completely insensitive oblivious to God's chastening.

We'll just build back better is the response of pride. And you know where we've heard that recently. Build back better to one of the great afflictions of our land that's come in recent times. Of course this isn't a problem that's unique to Old Testament Israel. Intellectual, this intellectual pride is all around us today.

A doctor who writes extensively on this substack recently wrote about all the people in his experience, particularly civil magistrates, and he catalogued a number of them, who had heavily promoted the COVID vaccine, proclaiming again and again how safe and effective it was, who then became injured by that very vaccine, but refused to acknowledge any connection of their injury to what they had been promoting. Or other people, personal connections that this doctor knew who knew that they had been injured by the vaccine, but knew that they couldn't say it. They couldn't acknowledge it for fear of being canceled or for fear of being ostracized by their friends, or in some cases of losing their job. And there are. See, this pride of And fear of being mocked made them unwilling to admit the obvious.

And we're really no different. There is only healing when we acknowledge and confess our errors and our sins. And David writes about this in Psalm 32. He said, When I refused to confess my sin, my whole body wasted away while I groaned in pain all day long. For day and night you tormented me, you tried to destroy me in the intense heat of summer.

Then I confessed my sin. I no longer covered up my wrongdoing. I said I will confess my rebellious acts to the Lord and then you forgave my sins. See it requires a humility to acknowledge that the pain that we are enduring, the affliction that we are under may be the result of our sins. Well the Lord continues his judgment when there is no repentance.

This pattern continues. When these people do not repent, when they are insensitive to God's chastening, then God brings even more fiercer judgments. See, they think that they are in control of the situation and that they can escape the consequences by simply building back better. They simply think that they can ignore God in this matter. But God cannot be ignored.

So God, the next phase, God stirs up the enemies of Rezin. So Rezin was the king of Syria. So it's speaking here indirectly of us Syria that God stirred up the enemies of resin and brought them against Israel. And a few short years from when this was given, Israel was conquered by the king of Assyria and taken into captivity. And the land was populated with people from other captive nations.

And So Isaiah says, the Lord set up the adversaries of Rezin against Israel and they will devour Israel with an open mouth. God sent the Syrians against them and they were trapped between the Syrians on the south and the Philistines on the other side, sorry the Syrians on the north and the Philistines on the south. The new buildings that they had built back better, they're all demolished. And then comes the refrain of this stanza, for all this is anger is not turned away and his hand is stretched out still and so the pattern then repeats itself in the next stanza the people Do not turn to the one who strikes them. The people don't turn to the one who strikes them.

That word for turn, the Hebrew word for turn there is the word that means repent. It means, that's what Repenting is, it's turning. A good example of this is Ezekiel 14, which uses that same word three times in one sentence. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord, repent. Same word.

Turn away. Same word. Turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations. That's describing the action of repenting, turning away. In Israel's charge, Isaiah's charge here is that the people did not turn to the Lord who strikes them.

Now to the natural man that may seem very strange that someone would turn to the person who is inflicting pain on them in some way who is striking them But that is what repentance is It's turning to the Lord who strikes us See turning from sin begins with a conviction of sin and acknowledgement. And what we've done is simple. It begins with seeing our sin as truly sinful, realizing that it is an offense against God. And that is the change of mind that is at the heart of repentance. It's an acknowledgement to ourselves that what we have done is wrong.

That's the work of the Holy Spirit. There's also a sorrow for the sin. And that sorrow produces a change. This is not sorrow is not a mere regret over the consequences that are painful of our sin. It's a grief over the corrupted heart itself from which that sin proceeded.

Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 7, for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation not to be regretted, But the sorrow of the world produces death. And the difference is one is a regret for something that causes pain, and the other is a sorrow for the sin itself. There is a confession that's acknowledging, that's speaking and acknowledging of our sin before God without making any excuse, without pleading special circumstances or extenuating circumstances. In turning, of course, there is the actual turning away from it. Turning away from the former ways, ceasing sinful practices and turning to God in faith.

Mere confession, mere acknowledging that what we've done wrong and not feeling good about it without any turning away from it is not repenting because it's not turning to the Lord. There must be a turning to the Lord with a new obedience that bears fruits, as John the Baptist said, worthy of repentance. New obedience is obedience through the enabling grace of the Holy Spirit instead of obedience by the arm of flesh. New in the scriptures often refers to the whole to what the Holy Spirit produces in believers. Those in Christ were said are called new creatures.

They have a new heart. They have a new name. They are a new man. Lord puts a new song in their mouth. In each of those cases, and there are other things, Lord does a new thing and so on.

But in each of these cases, new is describing the result of the work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate and to make new. There's a hatred of sin, not just a recognizing that it's wrong, not just a sorrow over it, but a loathing of it. Not just leaving it, but not just leaving it because it has bad consequences, but a loathing of it. And this is really the key between repentance that is a mere change in behavior and repentance that is of the heart. Is there a loathing of the former sin?

Is there a change in the very desire of our heart? If it's not, then things always become a battle between the conscience and what we want to do. And in that case, the conscience will generally always lose. For there to be repentance there has to be a loathing of sin, a change of our desire. Ezekiel describes this in chapter 36 where he describes the saving work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer And it's a passage that brings all these aspects of repentance together in one place.

And I'd just like to read it. Because Ezekiel 36, then I will sprinkle clean water on you. That's the water of baptism. That's the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And you will be clean.

And I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Now what's the result of the cleansing of the Holy Spirit? There's something new. I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. There's the fruits of repentance.

Then you will dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you will be my people and I will be your God and I will deliver you from all of your uncleanness And I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields so that you never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. And then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good and. And you will load them yourselves in your own sight, not loathing them because of the bad consequences or because you may it. Other people look down on you, but loathing them in yourselves in your own sight.

For your iniquities in your abominations. That's what Isaiah says Israel doesn't do. They did not turn to the Lord who struck them. Repentance is a beautiful thing because it is a work of the Holy Spirit. And He produces beauty.

In repentance, He produces beauty from the mess that we make in our lives. And there is no mess that he cannot redeem. There's no brokenness that he cannot heal when we repent and turn to Him. When we turn to the Lord who strikes us, it's because we understand that His striking us is done in His mercy. And it flows out of His compassion for us.

It's done for our good. It's done to remove the impurities that stain us. It's done to purify us. You know, isn't this the response that we desire as parents when we chase in our children, the rod, the use of the rod flows out of love for them. And ideally, ideally, it should result in arms that are stretched out to us to embrace the one who struck them.

That's godly chastening. And that's the fruit of godly chastening. And that's what we should want to see, not only in ourselves, but in our children. That's not how that's not only how we should respond when the Lord chastens us, but it's how we want our children to respond when we chase in them. Well, the people do not repent.

They don't turn to the Lord who strikes them. They don't seek the Lord of hosts. And so this pattern continues. Notice there's a Therefore, as there have been throughout this passage, therefore, therefore the judgment continues, cutting off, removing the leadership. He takes all the leadership out of the land from the highest to the lowest, from the palm branch to the bulrush, from the most prominent to the least prominent.

He cuts off the head and the tail. That's a way to refer to everything. It's called a mirrorism. Day and night means all the time. High and low means you searched everywhere.

The head and the tail mean all the leadership is cut off. It affects the civil rulers and the church rulers, the elder who is the head and the prophet who is the tail. This removal, God says, is sudden in a day, which only serves to make it more shocking. This nation is a nation that's judged by the collapse of government. You know, even tyrannical governments can preserve a measure of peace, albeit at the cost of freedom.

But the collapse of all government is worse. The entire, you see, the entire nation here is affected by this. They can't run from God. We can't run from God. You can run from the church.

You can throw your Bible in the trash and say, I don't believe in God anymore. So I'm not going to listen to his word. I'm not going to I don't believe in that stuff anymore. That doesn't apply to me. You can you can quit obeying God, but God is still in control of your life.

You can't run from God. And if in His mercy, He makes that path hard, as Saul learned, It's hard to kick against God's prodding. That's his mercy if it makes that path hard for you. It's it's it's his giving you over that makes that path easy. Notice that the leaders are judged because they have failed in their calling.

They have led the people into error and destruction. God says he's going to judge them for, for, verse 16, they've caused the people to err. But also notice that the people are judged as well. The people are judged for their own sin in allowing themselves to be led into error. And this is the principle of the watchman or the leader.

Leaders have a duty to teach the truth and to lead out of error, to warn of impending judgment. And if they fail to do so, they bring on themselves the same judgment that they were to warn others about. And you can think of we all have positions of leadership in one way or another. But regardless of whether the leaders are faithful or not, the people that they lead are still responsible for their own sins. They can't blame someone else for the way they are.

We can't justify our unjust anger or fiery temper on our bloodline or something that we inherited from our father or mother because it's ours now. We can't justify believing error because that's what we were taught or that's how we grew up because we're to be like the Bereans searching the scriptures every day to see if these things are so. We have that responsibility. You can't justify apostasy as many people today want to do because some church elders sinned against them. Yes, that sin is made more heinous by the fact that it is against someone who was caused to stumble.

But that person that stumbled is still responsible for their own apostasy. You can't justify our sin because of bad leadership and bad examples. The people double down on their sin, They are judged themselves because they are hypocrites and evildoers. It doesn't matter. God says if you're a widow or you're poor or you're needy or you're an orphan, those who are hypocrites and evildoers are destroyed.

Are destroyed. God's anger is against all who act wickedly regardless of the poverty of their condition. The next chapter, verse 2, brings this distinction out. Because this is where the social gospel and the welfare state go seriously astray. In that view, being poor or an orphan or a widow is is something that gives you a pass.

It doesn't those things do not bring God's favor on you simply because you are them. God doesn't have a regard for those people simply because of their poverty or their condition as widows and orphans. And so in verse 2, this is brought out. These are speaking of, this is in the fourth stanza, but they robbed the needy of justice and take what is right from the poor of my people. It's the poor of God's people that he has a special regard for.

The orphan and widows of his people. And when Jesus said the same thing in the New Testament, when he said, is it's better that a millstone be put about the neck of someone than than that they lead one of these little ones who believe in me to go astray. Well the third, second stanza concludes with the same refrain. For all this is anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. And when there is no repentance, the judgment continues, it's only worse.

The land is scorched and the people become fuel for fire. Again, this is not an unannounced judgment. The sanction here of the land being burned and the people being at fuel for the fire. This is exactly what God promised when he established his covenant with Moses and the Israelites as they came out of the land of Egypt and the covenant. There wasn't just made with that generation.

It was made with every succeeding generation. It means it's made with us. Deuteronomy 29 says, I make this covenant and this oath not with you alone, but with him, but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today. The generations that are not yet born. Because remember this covenant is an everlasting covenant.

And this is I think where the definition of a covenant is simply an agreement between two parties falls a bit short. God sovereignly establishes His covenant. It's not, it is unilateral. It's not bilateral. It's not a bilateral agreement between two parties who stand on the same footing.

God sovereignly establishes His covenant. God made it and God continues it. God continues in Deuteronomy 29, He made this covenant so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of these nations. And so there may not happen when he hears the words of this curse that he blesses himself in his heart and says, I shall have peace even though I follow the dictates of my heart as though the drunkard could be included with the sober. The Lord would not spare him for then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him.

This is the law that was preached throughout Israel. Every synagogue every week from the time of Moses, James tells us in Acts 15. So there is there is ample warning that is given to all these people. And And Moses goes on that the Lord would separate him from all the tribes of Israel for adversity according to the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law. So that the coming generation of our children who rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a foreign land when say when they see the plagues of the land and the sickness which the Lord has laid on it.

The whole land is brimstone salt and burning. It is not sown nor does it bear nor does any grass grow there like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah which the Lord overthrew in his anger. All the nations will say why has God done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean? And the people are going to say, this is what it means.

They have forsaken the covenant of the Lord, And they went and served other gods. That's what this means. And so the people destroy themselves. Collectively and individually. The land is burned up.

The people should be as fuel for the fire. But then no man shall spare his brother and he shall snatch on the right hand and be hungry, devour on the left hand and not be satisfied. Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm. Sin is destructive, very destructive. Sin is its own judgment.

When people do not repent, they are judged by God removing his grace and allowing them to fall into an even greater sin and so sin the destruction of sin brings its own judgment And here it's described in quite graphic and might even say gruesome terms. But this is exactly again what God has promised in his covenant sanctions. Leviticus 26 details these sanctions and cannibalism is listed among the sanctions that come with continued refusal to repent. Leviticus 26, after all this, if you do not obey me but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury and I even I will chastise you seven times for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

And we're seeing that in our culture today. It's a part of satanic activities, but it's even extends beyond that. We are seeing this division. God says he's going to turn every every one will turn even ask the show the bar Ephraim Ephraim and NASA. These are brothers.

These are brothers that are devouring each other. And it's apparent, right, if you look at all, this division in our culture, We have doctors today that are losing their license to practice medicine taken away by other doctors. There's a number of them. These are doctors who have done good. Mary Taylor Bowden right here in Houston, Peter McCulloch, Sherry Tenpenny to name a few, And there are many, many others.

Doctors who treated patients brought healing are losing their licenses to practice by their medical boards for doing good. Now, That's one brother devouring another. Employees are fired because they have a different view of medicine from their employer. Lawyers are losing their license to practice law because they defended innocent people. You know this is all around us right now.

For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. And the last stanza deals with the concerns of judgment on the rulers themselves. They have enacted laws. To rob the needy of justice and take what is right from the poor of my people. So this is legalized theft.

This is theft that deprives people of their property, but it's legal. These are unrighteous decrees. This is what the Bible speaks of as evil by law. And I know we've talked about this before in this in our series on Isaiah, so I'm not going to dig into that more. But this is where the poor, the widows, the orphans, the fatherless are especially hurt in this in these times.

And God's anger says is especially hot to any who would mistreat orphans and widows and the poor. And so God says he's going to bring their judgment, their own unjust punishment on their own heads. The very things that they've been beating out to others, God will bring upon them. And that's what Psalm 82 is about as well, that God sits among these rulers. God judges among the gods.

They're called gods there. Elohim. Speaking of people. Because they bear God's authority, but they need to remember that God is in their midst. He's there in their counsels.

He sees their injustices. And the crimes that they commit against people. And God promises to repay them to bring it on their own heads. The very things that they're doing to others. God's judgment is painful.

But it. It also cleanses impurity. So we need to see God's judgment as an aspect of his mercy. He judges the church to purify her, to sanctify her, to bring perfection, to bring that means completeness, maturity. And this happens in two ways.

Those who persist in their proud rebellion, those who refuse to acknowledge the Lord's judgment that's upon them for their sins, these people are destroyed. But the land is cleansed, the land is purified, the culture is restored. And so when you see a judgment coming on a culture. That's the Lord purifying that culture, preparing it. For his church.

To go in and bring the gospel, bring light to rebuild from the ruins. But those who are in Christ and who humbled themselves and confessed their sins and turned to him. God cleanses them. They're sanctified and purified and made holy. So we pray this morning may the Lord's chastening be to our cleansing and sanctification and not our destruction.

Almighty Heavenly Father we we thank you that you are God of mercy and that you do not chase in in your wrath your people and we ask that in these times that we might be quick to turn to you quick to acknowledge where we have erred quick to humble ourselves before your mighty hand. We ask Lord for your grace in this. We ask Lord in our that as we look around our land and we see the unmistakable signs of your judgment upon us. That we may also see this as an opportunity, see these opportunities of your cleansing, of your renewal. May we be those who are prepared to, with Nehemiah, rebuild the wall.

May we be those who are prepared to teach your statutes to the next and coming generation. We ask this through Jesus Christ. Amen.