Let's open our Bibles to Ezekiel
chapter 6. Now tonight, I'm going to preach
to you from this chapter on the subject of repentance. Certainly
one of the most important, we would say most vital subjects
that believers can study and understand from God's Word. We find that in the salvation
of sinners, as it applies to our experience of it, when God
the Holy Spirit in sovereign power applies it to us in the
new birth, when it comes to our experience, that the goal of
faith is reached, faith being the gift of God, Not natural
to us now. Nobody has faith naturally. The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
But the gift of faith, the goal of faith is to bring us to repentance. Over in the book of 2 Peter chapter
3, I'll just read this to you, verse 9. It speaks of the Lord's
promise. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promise. Well, what is His promise? Well,
the promise is to save his people by his grace through Jesus Christ.
And the promise that Peter's talking about specifically here
is the second coming of Christ and the destruction of the world.
And he says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise
as some men count slackness. In other words, God doesn't measure
things, time, for example, the way we do. Men look around and
see their circumstances or their their infirmities or their weaknesses
or their suffering and they determine, well, this whole thing is on
delay or something. And it's not on delay at all.
Do you realize that everything that is happening is going directly
according to God's plan? That's what this book tells us.
I know people don't like to hear that. I told you about years
ago, a preacher I heard on TV, he said, I want to tell you all
something. He said, one of the biggest lies that Christians
have been told is that God is in control. And he's a popular preacher on
TV. I don't even remember his name. He's always talking about
money. I know that, and how you get
more money. But he's real popular. I mean,
every time I turned it on, flipping around, I see him somewhere.
And I said, well, you just told the biggest lie. My friend, if
God's not in control, we might as well pack it up and go home.
Now that's the truth. If God's not in control, who
is? Is Satan in control? No, you better read this Bible. But the Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to usward. He's longsuffering to usward.
Who's the us there? He's talking about God's people,
God's elect, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world. And he says, not willing that any should perish, that
any of this us-ward, any of his people should perish, but that
all should come to what? Repentance. I hear preachers and theologians
sometimes arguing about which comes first, faith or repentance.
I'm talking about as to our experience of it now. Both are the gift
of God. Somebody said that faith and
repentance are like two sides of the same coin. You can't have
one without the other. Or they said it's like a sheet
of paper. You've got one side, you've got the other side. You've
got to have both. But let me just give you something to think
about. The repentance that God gives to his people, and it's
a gift by the power of the Spirit given. If you repent, if you
are truly repentant in a godly way, That's a gift of God from
Christ. Repentance that God gives is
pleasing to God. I know it is because he gives
it. Well, without faith, it's impossible to please God. So
any repentance that becomes before faith is no more than legalism. And I'll show you what I'm talking
about. Now let's look at Ezekiel chapter six. The title of the
message is Repentance for the Lord's Remnant. Repentance for
the Lord's Remnant. Now the first thing that Ezekiel
brings out here as he is inspired and given the word of God to
the people is God's wrath against idolatry. Look at verse 1, And
the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, referring
to Ezekiel as totally dependent upon God, Set thy face toward
the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. And you know, when
the Bible talks about setting the face against, like God set
His face against, that's talking about the determination now.
In other words, you're to be like an immovable power here. You're not to be wishy-washy.
You're not to look this way or that way. You're to look straight
on and set your face to this message. And this message is
to prophesy against them. He mentions the mountains of
Israel. Well, what's he talking about? Well, look at verse three.
He says, and say, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the
Lord God. Thus saith the Lord God to the
mountains and to the hills and to the rivers and to the valleys.
What he's talking about is the whole nation, the whole land.
And he says, behold, I, even I will bring a sword upon you
and I will destroy your high places. Now there's your key,
the high places. You know what he's talking about
here? He's talking about idolatry. The mountains, the high places,
these are all symbolized places of idolatry. They were places
in the country, in Palestine, in the promised land. where Israel
and Judah either openly practice pagan worship or at least compromise
the worship of the true and living God by intermingling or tolerating
idolatry. The high places, the mountains.
And that's what he's talking about. So he's going to be talking
about repentance of idolatry. Do you know if God has brought
you to repentance? If God has brought me to repentance,
that we repented of idolatry, and somebody says, well, I never
was an idolatry. You were born an idolater. That's
the truth, folks. You didn't know God until God
revealed himself to you. Ignorance of God is idolatry. Because man by nature shapes
a God of his own imagination. That's why God says, you thought
that I was one like you, but you were wrong. But look on verse
4, he says, And your altars shall be desolate, your images shall
be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
In other words, the point that he's making there is their idols
will not be able to save them. Their idols will not be able
to deliver them. Look, verse 5, I will lay the
dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols. Listen, God's wrath against...
This is not God being mean. This is not God throwing a temper
tantrum. This is not the mean God of the
Old Testament that we don't have to deal with. This is the God
of judgment. Listen, God is the same God today
as He was then and He'll ever be the same. He never changes.
But where sin is imputed, where sin is charged, where sin is
accounted, God's wrath must come down. Now that's the way it is. That's justice. That's not anger. It's not anger in the sense that
we see anger. God is angry with the wicked.
But it's not like an emotional anger like what we have. But
it's His justice. Like God's hatred. People say
God doesn't hate anybody. Well, the Bible says different.
But God's hatred is not like yours or mine. If I hate, it's
sinful. Because my hatred stems from
selfishness. or pride. But God's hatred is
his justice, his wrath against sin. He must hate sin. Somebody
says God doesn't hate the sinner, he just hates the sin. Well,
the Bible says God hated Esau's sin, didn't it? No, it says he
hated Esau. Said he loved Jacob. And what
we know about Jacob and Esau, that Jacob was no better than
Esau. Jacob did not deserve God's love. He deserved God's hatred, but
God chose to love him. And again, I know people don't
want to hear that stuff, but that's what the Bible says. Well,
he says in verse 5, I will scatter your bones round about your altars.
He says in verse 6, In all your dwelling places the cities shall
be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate. See this idolatry
ran rampant throughout this nation. Your altars may be laid waste
and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and ceased, and
your works, you see, images may be cut down, and your works may
be abolished. Now their works are going to
be abolished. That could refer to the works
of men's hands in shaping their idols out of stone or wood or
whatever. That's certainly true. But I'll
tell you what it mainly refers to, the works of their hands.
It's their false gospel where their salvation is dependent
upon their works. Now that's idolatry. Do you know
that any sinner who comes before God pleading his works for salvation. You know what you have there?
You have idolatry and you have an idolater. You say, well, how
can that be? Well, those who come before God
pleading their works, they imagine in their minds and in their hearts
that God accepts that. The true and living God does
not accept that. Isn't that right? Salvation cannot
and is not by the works of men and any God That men think will
accept that as the ground of their salvation You know who
there was there worshiping an idol not the God of this book
the God of this book accepts one work On behalf of sinners,
and that's the work of Jesus Christ on the cross the blood
of Christ the greatest sin Now listen to him, the greatest sin
is committed where people are met together seeking to approach
God, seeking to gain anything from God, seeking to worship
God, but who refuse or fail to glorify God and preach His truth
of His grace in Jesus Christ. Without Christ, Without Christ,
all religion, no matter how it appears, is idolatry. There is no access to the true
God apart from Christ. There is no acceptance with God
apart from Christ and His blood. There is no forgiveness of sins.
Do you expect to be forgiven? Do you think you are forgiven?
On what ground do you expect that or plead that or think that?
If it's anything but the blood of Jesus Christ, that's idolatry. You understand how serious this
thing is? I'm telling you. Do you expect to hear God say
to you when you come before Him at judgment, well done thou good
and faithful servant? Is that what you expect? What
ground do you expect to hear God say that if it's anything
but the righteousness of Christ? Freely imputed and received by
faith You're an idolater That's how serious it is and
that's the works that will be destroyed and he says in verse
7 I And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and you
shall know that I am the Lord." You're going to know whose judgment
it is. That's what he's talking about.
So here comes Ezekiel announcing to his hearers, these exiles,
that God would bring warriors against the mountains, the hills,
the ravines, the valleys, the places where people worshiped
at pagan shrines or compromised the worship of God. And that
God would level it all. and their works would be abolished. You know something, idolatry
begins with man's ignorance of God and his fashioning for himself
a God like himself. Dead works. You know, the Bible
talks about repentance of dead works. You know what dead works
are? They're the works of men aimed
at establishing a righteousness for themselves before God. That's
what dead works are. Paul in Romans chapter 7 verse
5 calls them this. He says they're fruit unto death. Fruit unto death. You know what
the essence of idolatry is, don't you? Look over at Isaiah chapter
45 with me. Isaiah chapter 45. And the only
hope that we have to be brought out of idolatry is for God to
reveal Himself to us and bring us to faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at verse 20 of Isaiah 45. He said, Assemble yourselves
and come. Draw near together you that are
escaped of the nations. They have no knowledge that set
up the wood of their graven image. A lot of times when you talk
about idolatry and people say, well, I never did bow down to
a piece of wood or a stone idol. You may not have, but let me
tell you something about idolatry. It begins in the mind and in
the heart before it's ever shaped in anything like that. It begins with they have no knowledge. They don't know God. They don't
know the true and living God. You think you know God. But you
don't know God until he reveals himself to you. And until you
know God, what do you do? You fashion a God like unto yourself.
And it may be yourself. Even the atheist is an idolater. He worships himself, or he worships
humankind, or he worships Mother Earth, or Mother Nature, or something. Or the fates, or physics. You
know, there's some that worship physics. I heard a fellow interviewing
an atheist one time and they said, well, if atheism is true,
then why should we go by any morality? I mean, you know, you
believe evolution, that's where the argument's starting. He said,
you believe survival of the fittest. So it's every person for themselves.
Only the strong shall survive. What keeps the strongest from
killing the weakest? All this and that. And he said,
well, it's like the law of, I think he said, thermodynamics. Now,
I'm no physicist, so don't, you know, if I get this wrong, don't
get on to me. But he says, for every action,
there's an opposite and equal reaction. So if I go out and
kill somebody, that means I'm going to be killed. Well, you
know that's a bunch of hogwash. Now, physics, that may be true. But morality, that doesn't even
touch it. So what does he worship? He's
worshiping physics. They have no knowledge, it says,
that set up the wood of their graven image. And then look at
verse 20, it says, and pray unto a God that cannot save. I hear people talking about a
God who cannot save you unless you let Him. Pray unto a God that cannot save
you unless you let Him. Well, that's an idol. But look
on verse 21. He says, Tell ye and bring them
near. Yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath declared this
from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time?
Have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside
me. And look at how God identifies Himself. Look at how He reveals
Himself. The true and living God. A just
God and a Savior. There is none beside me. There
is no God like that. A God who is both a just God
and a Savior. That's the verse that I call
the proverbial two-by-four that the Lord used to hit me on the
head and get my attention. Brother Mayhem was preaching
from this verse, a just God and a Savior. Been in religion all
my life. Grew up hearing about this God
who can't save you unless you let Him. That's what I was under.
Hearing lies in the name of God. studying other religions, trying
to figure out what's right and what's wrong, come to a point
where I just wanted to prove him wrong. And I heard this phrase
of just God and the Savior, and it dawned on me, you know, in
all my readings of other religions and all my time that I spent
in what I thought was Christianity, I had never, never been confronted
with this phrase and this term and this idea of God. And I just said to myself, I
need to learn what that means. And God showed me from his word
how he can be both a just God and a savior, how he can be both
a righteous judge as well as a loving father. And then look
at verse 22 of Isaiah 45, look unto me and be saved all the
ends of the earth for I'm God and there's none else. That's
the look of faith that brings a center to repentance. Look at Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. Now, Isaiah, of course, that we've
been reading, Ezekiel, to whom were they preaching? They were
preaching to Israel, Judah specifically, the southern kingdom, the Jews,
the people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. who
were under the old covenant. And yet they didn't know God.
They had taken that old covenant and turned it into a legal system
of work salvation based upon human effort. It's what people have done to
the gospel today. They've taken it and turned it into a system
of works based on human will or human effort. But listen to what Paul writes
here in Romans 10, verse 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. I'm praying
for their salvation, as we're to pray for the salvation of
all. For I bear them record, they have a zeal of God, but
not according to knowledge. Remember what Isaiah said, they
have no knowledge. Well, now these fellows that
Paul's talking about here would never dream of carving out some
kind of an idol or stone out of wood or stone. But he said,
they had a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. What
are they ignorant of? Verse 3, for they being ignorant of God's
righteousness. That's what they're ignorant
of. God's justice, God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness. Any sinner who's going about
to establish his own righteousness in order to be recommended unto
God or to earn or merit God's favor, That's what he is. And he says, they have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. Well, what is the righteousness
of God? Well, look at verse 4. For Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it.
Idolatry is to be ignorant of God's righteousness and trying
to establish one of your own. We're told, for example, in John
chapter 4, that God Desires of people to worship him in spirit
and in truth You see we must worship God in truth, but look
back at Ezekiel chapter 6 now That's idolatry Coming before
God pleading anything But the blood and righteousness of Christ,
that's idolatry Well look at verse 8 Now here's a remnant
brought to repentance. He says, yet will I leave a remnant
that you may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations
when you shall be scattered through the countries. And they that
escape of you shall remember me among the nations whether
they shall be carried captives because I am broken with their
whorish heart. Some say that's the same as the
grieving of the spirit. And what it's saying is that
God is displeased with their whorish heart. They're talking
about spiritual whoredom now. Idolatry. And he says, which
have departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a-whoring
after their idols, and they shall... Now this remnant, now look what
he says about them. He says, they're going to remember
me. They're going to remember what they did. Their whorish
heart, their whorish eyes going after idols. And they shall loathe
themselves. Now what does loathe mean? That
means to despise themselves. Now, whatever God is bringing
him to, it has nothing to do with feeling good about yourself. I hear these preachers today
on TV, you know, that's their goal. They want people to walk
out of church feeling good about themselves. I don't want you
to walk out of here feeling good about yourself tonight. No, I
want you to walk out of here feeling good about Christ. And feeling secure in Christ
and safe in Christ. But not about self. They shall
loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in
all their abominations. Verse 10 says, And they shall
know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain
that I would do this evil unto them. They believe God. That's
what he's saying. What's he talking about? He's
talking about repentance. For a remnant. God bringing His
people. Turn to Hebrews chapter 9 with
me. Here's what he's talking about. It's repentance of idolatry. It's repentance of dead works.
That comes how? By remembering the Lord, which
has to do with a saving look to Jesus Christ as my only salvation,
my only righteousness, my only forgiveness, my only hope. And
when I see the glory of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit,
what happens? and I come to see him and submit
to him as the Lord my righteous, what happens? I turn away from
everything else. That's repentance. You know that
word repentance in the Old Testament, repent, means to change directions.
It means to go the opposite way. In the New Testament, it's a
change of mind, not meaning that it's merely intellectual, but
meaning that it reaches to the heart. That's what that mind
means. It's a heart repentance. And look here in verse 13 of
Hebrews 9 he says if the blood of bulls and of goats that's
the old covenant blood of animals The ashes of an heifer sprinkling
the unclean sanctified to the purifying of the flesh if that
animal blood set Israel apart according to the flesh in a ceremonial
way And that's all it did accomplish verse 14. How much more shall
the blood of Christ? You see that who through the
eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God purged your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God. That's
repentance. I no longer trust in my works or my efforts or
my will. I no longer trust in my trying
to establish my own righteousness before God. The God that accepted
that was an idol. I repent of Him. I repent of
myself. I come to Christ alone. No dead
works. I plead the work of Christ. His
work is not a dead work. His work is a living work. When
God brings His people to repentance, He brings them through faith
in Jesus Christ. Look at Philippians chapter 3.
Here is one of the best descriptions of saving faith and repentance
you will find in all the Bible. This is one of the best. Philippians
3. Listen to what Paul writes in verse 3. Philippians 3. We
are the circumcision. Now he's talking about circumcision
of the heart there. He's talking about the new birth.
We've been born again. We're the true children of God.
And he's speaking of both Jew and Gentile there who have been
brought to faith in Christ. We worship God in spirit. Means
two things, we worship God as he reveals himself, not as we
think him to be. You see, if you worship God as
you think he is, that's idolatry. But if you worship God as he
reveals himself in his word, truth, you see, that's another
thing, that's true worship. And he says, and we rejoice in
Christ Jesus, you know the word rejoice there means, it's the
same word translated glory in 1 Corinthians 1, let he that
glorieth glory in this. and glory in the Lord. And the
same word translated glory in Galatians 6.14, God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross, the finished work of Christ,
His blood, His righteousness alone. So we glory in Christ
Jesus. The word means to boast. We've
got something to boast about. But I'm going to tell you something,
it has nothing to do with anything we've done or anything we are.
It's all Christ. We boast in Him. We're bragging
on Christ. And so he says, we glory in Christ.
Our confidence is in Christ. And we have no confidence in
the flesh. And then he lists all those things
as a lost man that he was in. He was circumcised the eighth
day, the stock of Israel, all of those things. But look at
verse 8. Yea, doubtless. Now here's faith
and repentance. Yea, doubtless, I count all things
but loss. There's repentance. It's all
loss. I used to think highly of it.
What do people think highly of today? You talk about people
talking about, well, I was saved, here's what happened to me, and
they start telling you their experience. That's what they're glorying
in. That's their hope. But it's all loss, Paul said. Their baptism, their church membership,
their attendance, their giving, all of that. You see, there's
nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves, but if
you glory in them, then it's idolatry. Dead words. And he said, I counted all but
loss. Now by what standard, by what light do you do that? For
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. There's
faith that brings repentance, for whom I've suffered the loss
of all things and do count them but dumb, that I may win Christ
or gain Christ. and be found in Him, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ." You see, repentance is no preparation
for salvation. Repentance is salvation. Some
might say, well, you've got to repent before God saves you.
My friend, any repentance that comes before salvation is legalism. Repentance is the convicting
work of the Holy Spirit as He reveals Christ. to our hearts
and our minds. He shows us our sinfulness and
our depravity and the fact that we cannot be justified or declared
righteous before God based on our best efforts to keep the
law. It's all loss. And then He shows us the glory
of Christ. Repentance is unto salvation
and life because it's manifested only in sinners who look to and
rest in the Lord Jesus Christ who is our salvation. And who
is our life? Repentance is not legal, it's
gracious. Because it leads us unto the
Lord. It gets us to a position in our
hearts that we can find no relief, no hope, no glory, no confidence,
except in Christ. Now if you can find relief, salvation,
peace, confidence anywhere else, It's not godly repentance. Repentance
is much, much more than reformation of character and conduct. It's
a change of heart. A new heart. Ezekiel is going
to talk about that in chapter 36. He said, I'll give you a
new heart. A new spirit. It's a change of
life. Repentance is a change of God's. Whereas before I worshiped an
idol. Now I worship the true and living God. When God brings
His people to repentance, He brings them to repent of dead
works and idolatry. And as I said, dead works are
works performed by a sinner trying to establish his own righteousness
before God. Seeking to earn or merit salvation,
forgiveness, justification, eternal life, blessedness, glory. And
idolatry is the false God that that sinner imagines will accept
those things. You know, idolatry is natural
to the natural man because by nature we don't know God. But
in salvation, God brings his people to know him through the
Lord Jesus Christ. Jeremiah said it, he said, they
shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. Christ
himself said it, he said, this is life eternal that they might
know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent. They shall be all taught of God. Now, back here in Ezekiel
6, think about this remnant. Why did God preserve this remnant? You see, He is talking about
destruction of the whole nation and all their idolatry. But He
says in verse 8, Yet will I leave a remnant. I am going to leave
a remnant. Now why did He leave a remnant? Was it because that this remnant,
whoever they are, had not done the evil that the rest of the
nation had done? Was this remnant a better class
of people? Let's say, more cooperative? Less stubborn? Less rebellious? Let's say, did this remnant,
did they exercise their own, what men call today, free will
to accept what God had to offer? Is that what it says here? Well,
look at verse 9 again. He says, they that escape of
you, that's that remnant, shall remember me among the nations,
whether they shall be carried captive, because I am broken
with their what heart? Their whorish heart. They had
a whorish heart too, didn't they? Which had departed from me. They
had departed too. With their eyes, which go a-whoring
after their... No, they weren't any better than
the rest of them. They were idolaters too, and they shall loathe themselves
for the evils which they committed in all their abominations." Doesn't
sound like it's describing a better class of people to me. Doesn't
sound to me like they're describing a more cooperative, less stubborn,
less rebellious bunch there. I'll tell you why God preserved
this remnant, because of a promise that He made before the foundation
of the world to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
the only reason, to save a people for himself. By nature, they're no different,
no better than the rest of fallen, sinful, depraved humanity. Paul
wrote about that in Ephesians chapter 2. You hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins, who walked according to
the prince of the power of the air. whose conversation was just
like the rest of fallen, evil, sinful, depraved humanity. You
were by nature, he said, children of wrath even as others. No better.
He wrote about it in Romans chapter 3 when he brought in all men
and women without exception guilty under the law in Adam. And he
said, Jew and Gentile, he said, are we any better than they?
And he said, no and no wise. Why did God preserve this remnant?
I'll tell you exactly why. Because God, out of His sovereign
mercy, chose to. There's no reason in this. He
didn't look down through a telescope of time and foresaw that this
remnant would be a better class of people. He said they're going
to repent. They're going to be brought to
repentance of their whorish heart, their idolatry, and the abominations
and evils that they committed. And you know how they're going
to get there? God's going to bring them by His sovereign power.
It's not of their own power. Somebody said, well, then why
didn't God just save everyone without exception in this nation?
You take it up with Him. It's just His sovereign work.
I know this. God's not willing that any of
them perish, but they should all come to repentance. And you
know what's going to happen? They're all going to come to
repentance. These last verses just shows The children of Israel
are going to be brought to acknowledge the Lord God in judgment. Let's
just read in verse 11. He says, Thus saith the Lord
God, smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say,
Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, for they
shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.
It's the three ways that God sent judgment on them. He that is far off shall die
pestilence. He that is near shall fall by
the sword. And he that remaineth in his besiege shall die by the
famine, thus will I accomplish my fury upon them. God's wrath,
God's justice will be exacted. And he says in verse 13, then
shall you know that I am the Lord when their slain men shall
be among their idols round about their altars upon every high
hill and all the tops of the mountains and under every green
tree, under every thick oak, the place where they did offer
sweet savor to all their idols. Idolatry will not help. No place
they can go will help them. So will I stretch out my hand
upon them and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness
toward Dibloth, that was a place of great destruction, a desolated
wilderness, desecrated, and all their habitations, and they shall
know that I am the Lord. The Bible says that every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord. In every generation, God's judgment
and discipline is misunderstood by the natural man. He always
responds in self-righteousness. Remember, the Lord spoke of that
in Luke 13 when He talked about those places that were destroyed. And men would say, well, they
were destroyed because they were great sinners. Remember, He looked
at the crowd that He was speaking to and He says, I tell you, nay,
but except you repent, you shall likewise perish. You know what
God's message in His manifestations of judgment is all about? I'll
tell you exactly what it's all about. It's all about sinners
who need mercy in Christ. If you see any desolation, any
great manifestation of God's judgment, don't look at them
and say, well, that's what they got what they deserved. Because
I want to tell you something. We don't deserve any better.
Lord, don't give me what I deserve. And if God spares us in any of
those situations, what are we to do? We're to run to Christ.
Begging for mercy. Saying, I have nothing to recommend
me unto God. There's no reason in myself that
God should save me. It's all His mercy and grace
in Christ.