Alright brethren, let's be turning
to Isaiah chapter 40. So good to come into the Lord's
house and worship with His people, isn't it? I look forward to it
the whole week. Let's go to the Lord before we
begin and ask His blessing. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
You for this day. Lord, we thank You that You've
made this gospel day through the blood and righteousness
of Your dear Son. You've called us to Christ and
given us eyes to see Him and rejoice in the great things He's
done. How thankful we are, Lord, that
You've worked this work in our hearts. And we do ask You, Father,
today that You would send the Spirit and that You'd teach us,
that You would exalt Christ to us one more time. Let us see
Him high and lifted up and work in our hearts Make us more consecrated
to Him. Strengthen our faith. Subdue
our sin nature. We ask these things, Lord, for
Christ's sake. In His precious name, Amen. Alright, Isaiah chapter 40. Alright, now you know the previous
39 chapters, there is some comfort in those chapters. It's mainly
a message of judgment and a message of warning. But when you get
to Isaiah 40, it changes. It's a marked change. And from
then on, it's predominantly comfort and easy to see Christ in it. Easy to see Christ. It's like the first 39 verses
is like the Old Testament. Christ is coming, and in Isaiah
40, it's like Christ has come. In the rest of the book, you
see Christ all through it. We looked at the first two verses,
now let's look at verses three through five. Isaiah 40, verse
three. The voice of him that crieth
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight
in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see together,
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken." Christ said in Malachi,
in Malachi chapter 3, He said, Behold, I will send
my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord
whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the
messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall
come, saith the Lord of hosts. That's who Christ is. He's the
messenger of the covenant. So in Matthew 3, in Matthew chapter
3, we have it declared that John the Baptist is who this speaks
of. He's the one sent before to prepare
the way. Matthew 3, I want to, if I can
find it. I should have marked it, huh?
Matthew 3, verse 1, In those days came John the Baptist, preaching
in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand. For this is He that was spoken
of by the prophet Isaiah saying, the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Now, I want to look first of
all here at this fact that the Lord did not send John the Baptist
into Jerusalem. He sent him into the wilderness.
He came into the wilderness. Why is that? Well, chapter 39
ended with the Lord declaring that Judah would go into Babylonian
captivity and they would stay there for 70 years. And that
literally happened. But by the time John the Baptist
came, Jerusalem, an organized religion, was Babylon. It was Babylon. They were in
spiritual captivity. And so, The Lord sent John crying
in the wilderness because it's like the gospel coming to an
unregenerate sinner who is the wilderness. And he's crying in
the wilderness. And that's how the gospel comes
to you and me. He's crying in the wilderness.
He's not going to where we've already have our religion organized.
He's going to come to us and disrupt all of that and create
all things new. I'll give you some examples.
They gloried in the temple. Remember how they gloried in
that temple it took so long to build? And that's what sinners
would do. Sinners glory in themselves.
They glory in church buildings. But Christ is the temple. And
He makes His people to be the temple. He's not worshipped in
buildings made with hands. He's worshipped in the new heart
He creates. And He's the temple in whom we
worship. And he makes his church his habitation. Let me show you
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20 tells us this. Ephesians 2.20 tells us that
at the very end, Ephesians 2.20 says, you are built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets. Same foundation. That
is what John came doing. He is coming to lay the foundation.
along with the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are
builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. You
remember Peter said, you're living stones, you as lively stones,
been given life, you're built up. By Christ, you built up a
spiritual house. God's house is a spiritual house. Children of God, born of the
Spirit. We're a holy priesthood, a different kind of priesthood
than that priesthood in the old covenant. This is a spiritual,
holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, the calves of our
lips, glorying in Christ, honoring him, and they're acceptable to
God by Jesus Christ. Another thing is in Jerusalem
they were glorying in their act of bringing the lamb. That's
what they thought their righteousness was. Not the lamb, not who the
lamb pictured, but the act of bringing the lamb. And this is
what unregenerate sinners would do in religion. They bring their
so-called great sacrifices and the works that they do in their
ceremonies and religion. But Christ is the Lamb. Christ
is the Lamb. John the Baptist pointed to our
Lord Jesus and said, Behold the Lamb of God. that taketh away
the sin of the world." He's the one that's been spoken of throughout
all the blood that was shed, from the lamb shed, slain in
the garden, all the way through all the Old Covenant. Christ
is that lamb. And John said, Behold the Lamb of God. He takes
away the sin of His people all over this world. They gloried
in the earthly priest. Men in religions today still
glory in priests. The Hebrew writer said, offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices that can never take away sin.
Men that speak negatively of Catholicism still treat preachers
like they're priests. And preachers like to be treated
like priests. But Christ Jesus is the one high
priest who that office typified. He is the high priest of his
people who entered into the holiest place who offered not the blood
of a lamb and a goat but his own blood. Look over with me
at Hebrews 9 verse 11. It says Christ being come a high priest of good
things to come by greater, more perfect tabernacle, not made
with hands, that is to say, not of this building. neither by
the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood. He took
flesh. That's the temple. He came and
took flesh. And by His own blood, He entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. And He makes you and me, His
people, to be kings and priests unto God. That's what He does. That's what they said in Revelation. Revelation 1-5, John was shown,
unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him
be glory and dominion for ever and ever. He's the one we're
worshiping. Our salvation is the Son of God. Our salvation is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's everything. He's everything
we need. He's everything this book declares. He's the manifestation of the
triune God in a body. That's who Christ is. So the
Lord sent John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, just like
Christ sends his preacher, crying, preaching to sinners who are
just wilderness. Just wilderness. And he's going
to make it all new. He's not going to use our religion
what we thought he's going to create an entire new creation. Now secondly, John was sent to
prepare the way. That's why he was sent. Now look
here in verse 3, Isaiah 40 verse 3, the voice of him that crieth
in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight
in the desert a highway for our God. Now Christ is the King. And in the days of kings, when
a king was coming to town, they would send a crier beforehand. And he would come through the
town crying out, the king is coming, the king is coming, to
prepare the way for the king. And they would come in and make
sure the town was safe, just like they do today with the president.
Go before him and prepare the way Because the King's coming. Well, that's what Christ does
when He saves His child. He's going to send His gospel
forth first and prepare the way. And He's entering in. The picture
here is of a highway being prepared and our Lord just coming in.
He's coming in in all His glory. And it says here, make straight
in the desert a highway for our God. And again, sinners are the
dry, dead desert by nature. The Spirit of God is preparing
the heart anew through a new heart through the preaching of
the gospel of Christ. You know, building a road, and
that's the analogy here, building a highway, it takes an expert
engineer, it takes some expert builders to build a highway.
Well, God's the builder. He's the builder. He's the one
who's building this highway. It's costly to build a highway.
And to prepare this way cost our Redeemer His precious blood. He laid down His life and prepared
this way. When you're building a road,
you're going to face a lot of different problems. There's valleys,
there's hills, there's curves, all of these different things.
Well, that's the same when the Lord comes to his people. Isaiah 40 verse 4, he said, every
valley shall be exalted. Now this is every elect, redeemed
child of God. Every valley shall be exalted.
When the Spirit of God begins to reveal to us our sin and show
us that it's not like we thought it was, that salvation's not
how we thought it was by nature, and He shows us our sin, they
begin to weigh on you, we become the valley. We become pressed
down, brought down by the guilt of our sin, and as believers,
this work of this preparing this way, it's done in the beginning,
but this is, the Lord's still working this work as the gospel
is going forth to His people. He's still, we need to be brought
up, we need to be brought down, we need to be made straight.
All the days, He's working this. But when we get weighted down
as believers with our sin, we begin to mourn, we begin to cry,
we become like the valley. And our Lord is going to lift
us up. He is going to exalt us from
that low valley. Look over at Isaiah 61. This is what the Lord said He
came to do. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, this is
Christ, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek. That's the valley, the meek.
He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives
in the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our
God, and to comfort all that mourn. all that are of the valley,
mourning. To appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion, to give unto them beauty in the place of ashes, the oil
of joy in the place of mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. He's going
to exalt the valley. Then back in our text, Isaiah
40 and verse 3, I mean, verse 4, it says, every mountain and
hill shall be made low. Every mountain and hill shall
be made low. When the Lord comes, he's going
to find us in our self-righteousness. And when he starts revealing
to us our sin, he makes us to know our chief sin is our self-righteous
pride. Thinking we're mountains, thinking
we're hills. Somebody said, but we're only
ant hills. We're only mole hills, we're
only dung hills. That's what we are. The gospel
that our sin is our self-righteousness and our pride will bring us down. When blessed by the Spirit of
God, it doesn't puff up more. Now the gospel goes forth and
without the Spirit of God, it will puff up, but by the Spirit
of God, it's gonna make that mountain and that hill come down.
You think about our self-righteous pride, think about sinners imagining
that we accept Jesus, that we accept the Lord. You think about
that. Think about that. Do you see
here that the whole work is the work of the Lord preparing us
and making us so that God will accept us? You see how that's
a mountainous, prideful thing to think, well, let me think
about it if I want to accept Him or not. The God of glory,
with my holy God, I'm going to decide if I want to accept Him
No, he's going to have to make me accepted of God. Imagining
God will receive us by our works. All our righteousnesses are filthy
rags. This would be like a, you take
somebody that's lived on the street, somebody that has been
homeless, they're dirty, they're in rags, and imagine them walking
up to the White House and expecting to walk in and just get the ear
of the president and be boasting that the reason they ought to
be able to come in there is their fine dress and how they're dressed
and how washed they are and how clean they are when they're just
dirty and in rags and in tatters. Well, brother, that's us trying
to come to God by our very best deeds. And the Pharisees had
all this, I mean, if you looked at them, the Lord said they're
white as sepulcher, they're shiny white on the outside. But he
said, it's just filthy rags. That's pride, that's a mountainous
pride. Remember in Zechariah 4.6, I
won't have you turn there, This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel,
saying, Not by my power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord
of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, going to be brought
down, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings,
crying, Grace, grace unto it. This is grace. This is all salvation
by grace. He said there in Isaiah 40, again
in verse 4, and the crooked shall be made straight." The crooked. You picture a highway here being
prepared. The valleys are brought up, the
high places are brought down, and the crooked is going to be
made straight. The Spirit of God, when He comes
and begins to teach you and me through this gospel, He's going
to make us to see we are malice, We are guile and hypocrisy and
envy and all our evil speaking. And here's what it all involves.
We were trying to steal Christ's glory, like robbers. We were
trying to rob Christ of His glory. By nature, man's crooked. crooked. We tried to rob Christ of His
glory. Natural man envies Christ having
all the glory. He envies God the Father giving
His Son all the glory and the salvation of His people. Man
envies that by nature. Just like I heard, who was it
that just died, Warren Buffett's partner, Charlie Munger, I saw an interview with him and
he said, and he had a good point, he said the world's not motivated
by greed. He said the world's motivated
by envy. And he said, I feel it more dangerous
now than I did back in the days of the Depression. He said, and
we're about 600% more profitable in this time than we were then.
Because people envy what other people have and they want to
take it. They want to take it. Well, that's true with men to
men, but it's more so with us toward God. Trying to steal the
glory that belongs to God. We spoke evil of Christ saying
things like this. Sal is sweet. He loves everybody. He loves everybody. He laid down
his life for everybody. But see, that's stealing His
glory. What that's doing is exalting the sinner, and that's bringing
Christ down. We said He really didn't accomplish
redemption. That it's up to the sinner to
do that. That's robbing Him of the very glory He's declaring
right here in His text, that He declares He accomplishes in
His people. That's robbing Him of this glory.
We try to steal His glory in doing the very work this text
speaks of, making a new holy heart, That's what he's talking
about doing here, making us new, making a new holy heart, making
us righteous. We try to steal that glory. We
were crooked, crooked, crooked sinners, trying to take that
glory from Christ, saying things like, well, we did something
to make ourselves be born again. Sinners may give some lip service
that the Spirit of God has to make you be born again, but the
unregenerate religious man will tell you He had some part of
it. It was his will or something. That's us, brethren. And we want
to try to steal his glory claiming we made ourselves righteous by
our works and our self-sacrificing and made ourselves holy by our
great, grand, and self-denial. But you know, in all of that,
think about this. The self that we could never
deny. You hear men bragging and boasting
about self-denial. The self we could never deny
is this vain, self-justifying, self-sanctifying, proud sinner
that's in every one of us. We couldn't deny him. All our
so-called self-denial and all our so-called self-sacrifice
was nothing but pride Like a great mountain trying to steal the
glory that belonged to Christ. The sinful heart hates Christ.
That's what he said in Romans 8. Enmity against the Lord. He
didn't say that we're at enmity against the Lord. He said the
sinful nature is enmity against God. That's all it is. That's
all it is. Will not, cannot submit to the
Word of God. God's just not going to use anything
that's of us. That's why He didn't send John
to Jerusalem. He went to the wilderness. And He's going to
make us know we're the wilderness, we're the desert. And He's going
to bring these proud mountains down and He's going to make us
honest by the Spirit to confess, all I am is sin. That's it. That's it. He's going
to make us restore that which we've stolen. Like Nicodemus,
when he called him down out of the tree, and Nicodemus said,
if I've stolen anything from a man, he said, I'm going to
restore him fourfold. Well, we've stolen something
from a man. We stole something from the God man. and He's going
to make us see the glory belongs to Him and He's going to make
you give it all back. He's going to make us give it
all back to Him. We're going to stop stealing His glory. We're
going to stop claiming we made ourselves holy and made ourselves
righteous or that we had any part of this work of salvation.
We're going to start giving Him all the glory. The mountains
got to be brought down. The hills got to be made low.
We've got to be found in Christ's righteousness alone. He's the
sanctifier. He's the one. Who's working this
work here? Who's the one who's turning the sinner from our vain
way? John's message was repent. Turn
from everything you thought was salvation. Behold the Lamb. Here's salvation. He says, and
the rough places will be made plain. The rough places. That's all the natural heart
is, is a stony, jagged, rocky heart, the rough places. They'll
be made smooth, they'll be made plain. The Lord said, I'll give
you a new spirit, I'll give you a new heart, I'll give you a
heart of flesh. A heart of flesh, that's a humble
heart, that's a broken and contrite heart, that's a feeling heart.
That's a meek and quiet spirit that submits to the Lord. submits
to the Lord, a heart who loves Christ and loves our brethren.
It's a merciful, forgiving heart because you see how merciful
God's been to you for Christ's sake. It's a forgiving heart
because you see how much God has forgiven you for Christ's
sake. That's how he makes this heart.
That's how he makes his heart. And all this work's done by the
Spirit through the preaching of the gospel. It's so clear
that's how he saves. You know, when we read that passage
in the Psalm, this is the day the Lord hath made. We will rejoice
and be glad in it. He's talking about this gospel
day. Go to Psalm 118 and read that. He's talking about this
gospel day in which Christ, and how did he start? He sent John
the Baptist He was born six months ahead and He came preaching this
gospel. And that's how the Lord prepared
the way. And that's how He always prepares
the way. He sends the gospel. Now lastly, go back to our text
Isaiah 40. When this work is done, Christ
reveals to us in the new heart His glory. He says there in verse
5, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. The glory
of the Lord shall be revealed. And all flesh shall see together,
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Now you see here,
this is by divine revelation. You can't study your way into
the understanding of God. This is divine revelation. The
glory of the Lord shall be revealed. How? Paul said, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. Revelation. Everybody looks at the book of
Revelation and they're looking for all these cryptic things
and you know, what all. Read the title of it. It is the
book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. That's what it is. The
glory revealed is Christ our wisdom, our righteousness, our
sanctification, our redemption. He's the glory. Moses said, Lord
show me your glory. Where did he put him? He put
him in the cleft of the rock. Christ is that rock, and the
glory he saw is the glory we see in Christ, how God can be
just and justifier of his people. Christ and his righteousness
is the glory of God. I can show you this. Paul said
in 2 Corinthians 4, when he shines the light, he reveals the glory
of God in the face of Christ Jesus. We're talking about the
glory of God being revealed. When He makes us behold the Lamb
of God through faith, that's when we behold the glory of God. Remember when they were stoning
Stephen? And he looked up, and the Scripture says he saw the
glory of God and the Lamb standing at his right hand. The glory
of God is Christ. The glory of God is Christ. Let
me show you this now. Exodus 19, 5. Exodus 19, 5. You remember this? Whenever the
Lord was given the law, this is what He told them. He
said in Exodus 19, 5. He said, Now therefore, if you
will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant. That's his
law. The law is the covenant. If you
will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall
be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people for all the
earth is mine. And you shall be unto me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation. And that's what Moses, he went
and preached that to them. But then the Lord made Himself
appear on that mount and it began to tremble and quake and was
on fire. Because that's what you hear,
that's what you see when God reveals your sin and makes you
see what He requires for you to keep the covenant. He makes
you see you've sinned and broken the covenant. You've broken the
law, the whole law of God. You can't keep the covenant.
He makes you see that. And what did they do? They cried
out and said, Moses! You go between us and God. You be the mediator between us
and God lest we die. We can't come to God or we'll
die. That's what we have to be taught by the law. That's what
Paul meant when he said the law was our schoolmaster to bring
us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. That law
teaches us. That schoolmaster was a pedagogue
and his job was to make that child feel like that child couldn't
do anything right. He was just smacking that child's
hands and whipping that child constantly because the child
couldn't do anything. The child might be the heir of
the king, just like God's children are, but while he's a child,
while he's a servant, that schoolmaster is pouring out all this discipline
on him. That's what the law did. and
it made us see we're sinners, we cannot come to God in the
law. But listen, Christ Jesus entered,
when the Lord spoke to Him and He entered covenant, the Son
of God entered covenant with the Father to do this work, that's
what the Lord Jesus, that's what God the Father said to Christ
right there. He said to our Lord, this is what I require of them,
if you'll obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, you'll
be a peculiar treasure to me above all people for all the
earth is mine, you'll be unto me a kingdom of priests and a
holy nation. And our Lord Jesus heard that
and He said, I will do it for them. I'll keep that covenant
for them. It's going to require you go
down there and become a man. I'll do it for them. It's going
to require you be made flesh and be made sin for them. I will
do it for them. It's going to require you bear
the wrath of God. I will do it for them. And that's what Christ came forth
and He did. And when He reveals His glory
and He shows you that He's the righteousness of God, that He's
kept the law, that He's the only one that's ever done it, and
that He's made you a king and a priest unto God, go to 1 Peter
2.9. 1 Peter 2.9, He's made you a king
and a priest unto God, that He did all this work, that it's
His righteousness by which you're saved. You believe on Him, and
believing on Him, That covenant keeping that he accomplished
is all imputed to you. God says you've kept the whole
law of God with no sin whatsoever. And this is what God... Remember
what God promised you'd be if you kept His covenant? Verse
9. You are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should
show forth the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light, which in time past were not a people,
but now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now
have obtained mercy." You see that? Everything God told them
they would be if they kept it, they saw they couldn't. And they
cried out for a mediator. He makes you see you can't keep
the law. That's how he's preparing the way. That's how he's bringing
up the valley and bringing down the mountain and making the crooked
straight. And then he makes you see Christ did it all. And when
he brings you to believe him, he makes you know all those things
he said you'd be, Christ has made you by what he did for you. That's what he makes us know.
That's the glory. Remember when, in John 17, 22,
when Christ was praying to the Father, he said, the glory which
thou gavest me. What glory is that? It's the
glory of fulfilling this covenant and being the wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption of His people. The glory of being
the salvation of His people. The Father gave Him that glory
in eternity. And Christ said, the glory which
you've given Me, I've given them. I've given them My righteousness.
Why? Why did He do this? I've given
them My holiness by which I made them perfect. Why? that they
may be one even as we're one. That's the only way we're going
to be one with God. The only way is in Christ and
what Christ accomplished on our behalf and all that he brings
you to do. The messenger of the covenant
comes to you. He sends his John the Baptist
in his leather girdle and he's just a plain man crying in the
wilderness. And the message of the covenant
comes to His temple. He comes to the new man He's
made. And He enters in and He shows you His glory, that He's
your righteousness. And when He does that, brethren,
He brings you under the everlasting covenant of grace. And the only
thing He requires of you is, is believe on Me. And He gives
you the faith to do that. And He keeps sending this gospel
to you and increasing your faith so you can keep believing on
Him. He keeps exalting the valley when you are down too low. He
keeps bringing down the mountain and the hill when we get too
puffed up. He keeps making us straight when we start trying
to be crooked and rob God. This is what He keeps doing.
This is what He keeps doing. This is salvation of the Lord.
Look back now at Isaiah 40. One last thing, Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40. He said, the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see together
that all his elect are going to see him. There will not be
one that he does not reveal himself in. All shall see him by faith
and all shall see him one day in glory. All shall. And in that
day, in glory, all are gonna see Him. Even those that meet
Him without faith in Christ are gonna see Him, and they're gonna
bow their knee and acknowledge He is exactly who this book said
He is. He is the glory of God, the righteousness
of His people. And how do you know that's gonna
be so? How do we know all this is gonna be certain, that Christ
will not lose one, that He will successfully reveal this gospel
and keep every one of His people? How do we know that? Look at
the last word. The mouth of the Lord has spoken. That's how we go. That's how
it's done in us. That's how it was purposed from
the beginning. That's how it's worked in us. That's how the
gospel goes forth. And that's how come it comes
to pass exactly as he said. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Everything by the word of God. By the word of God. Let's go
to him. Our great God and Savior. What amazing, what just, Lord, that you would speak it from
the beginning, purpose it from the beginning, declare it from
the beginning, then bring it all to pass, exactly like you
said you would. Lord, what a wise Savior we have. We thank you that you have sent Your Son to keep the
covenant. He said Your law is in His heart.
That law was in the ark. It was under the mercy seat,
under the blood. And Lord, we thank You that He
kept that law. He honored it and magnified it
now by You giving us faith, making the way plain, That very same law that condemned
us says we're righteous. Lord, help us to understand that.
Help us to quit doubting and look into our hand. Lord, help
us to remember that it is as you say it is. We are righteous in Christ. Help
us to see that and remember that, Lord, and believe you. We thank
you so much for this gospel. We thank you that you've established
it here. We pray you keep the gospel here.
We pray, Lord, you don't let us turn away. Keep us believing
Christ and keep the work here. Help our brethren, Lord, that
are troubled and bring your people unto the gospel. Bring them back
to hear the gospel. Make us be at one in Christ. Forgive us, Lord, our sin. Forgive
us, Lord. We need Your forgiveness. We need it for Christ's sake.
View us in Christ, behold us in Him, and receive us only for
His sake, Lord. We ask it, we beg of You. In
His name, Amen.