this morning the book of 1st
John chapter 1. I want to begin reading with
verse 7 and read down through the first two verses of chapter
2. But if we walk in the light as
He, Christ, is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all
sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children,
these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. And he is the propitiation or
satisfaction for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for
the sins of the whole world. Not all without exception, but
all without distinction of nationality, race, and so on. God does have
a people that he saves out of all the races of the people of
the earth. The Apostle John here in our
text this morning presents us with a very clear testimony of
the doctrine of full and free forgiveness of sin. Notice in
verse 7, he says that if we walk in the light, and I believe that
the children of God have been delivered out of darkness, they've
been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of God's dear Son, and there's light in that kingdom. We are
spoken of in the Bible as being the children of light. the children
of light, and that's because we are in union with Him who
is the light of the world. And so it says that if we walk
in the light as He, the Lord Jesus, is in the light, that
we have fellowship one with another. and how wonderful that fellowship
is. To be able to fellowship with
those who are black-minded in the faith, to those who have
experienced that same deliverance, that same forgiveness that we've
experienced, those who have been delivered from the guilt and
bondage of their sin, oh, how we can fellowship one with another. And it doesn't make any difference.
You know, many times there are some little differences between
us, But these differences are minimal and they certainly cannot
interfere with our fellowship if so be that we really, truly
experience the cleansing of our souls if we've been delivered
from our sins. Now we go on to see here that
he says we have fellowship one with another and the blood, and
the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. I know in many circles to speak
of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is not considered proper
and there are many who have taken blood out of their hymnals because
they really are ashamed somewhat that it would be necessary and
that it would be said in their hearing that it was necessary
for one, an innocent one, that one whom God sent from heaven,
heaven's best the Lord Jesus Christ would have to come down
here and shed his blood in order that we would be forgiven, in
order that our sins be put away. You see, most people do not consider
themselves to be such sinners that it would be necessary for
God to go to such extremes to cleanse them or to save them. But beloved, it was necessary.
God would not have put His Son, would not have hung His Son on
a cross. It would not have been necessary
for the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to have been shed if our
sins were not so great, if our sins were not so many. If it
had not been that God could not fellowship with us, that God
could not have anything to do with us as we stood in our natural
state as sinners, it was necessary that the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ be shed in order that God might atone for our sin and
that God himself would be satisfied. You see, often we forget the
fact and look at verse 2 of chapter 2. He says, and he is the propitiation
for our sins. That word means satisfaction.
And oftentimes we forget, when we begin to talk about the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it was necessary for the Father
to do something for Himself. Someone had to satisfy God. God could not. forgive your sin. He could not pardon your sin.
He could not look at your sin and just ignore it. Somebody
has to pay for sin. God is a holy God, a just God,
an absolute just God, and somebody must pay for sin. And it says
here that He, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, is the satisfaction
for our sins. And what it means is that the
justice of God moved our Holy Father to deal with our sin,
to deal with it in the person of His Son. and the Lord Jesus
Christ suffered in our place. He suffered under the wrath and
vengeance of Almighty God in order that God would be satisfied. And as I stand here today, as
you sit there today, if you're one of those for whom the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ was shed, one of those upon whom
the blood of our Lord Jesus has been applied by faith, then God
is satisfied on your behalf. God is not dissatisfied any longer
with you, and as you sit here today, you can have assurance
in your heart that you're reconciled to God through the blood of God's
dear Son. But if you're here and you do
not know the forgiveness of sin, the cleansing of sin through
Jesus Christ, then, my friend, you cannot be assured that God
is satisfied on your behalf. And God will either be satisfied,
He will either deal with a substitute in your place, or you must perish
forever. Sin will be punished, it will
be paid for, either in you or in a substitute. And thanks be
to God, God has provided His Son, the Lamb of God, in order
to take away the sin of the world, the sin of the elect world, those
covenant people that God gave to His Son in old eternity. Now, Ben, I believe that in this
testimony that we have, in this scripture, notice, now John says
that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all
sin. A-double-L, all sin. We're cleansed
from all sin. If we say that we have no sin,
if we say that we don't have any, we deceive ourselves. Surely
there's not anybody here that would take that ground and say,
I have no sin. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God but me. Everybody has become unrighteous
and unholy before God but me. Surely you would not take that
ground. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. You don't
know anything about the truth, and you don't know the truth
about yourself if you say that you have no sin. Now in verse
9, and this is a glorious verse, if we confess our sins. If we
come before God and with honesty, judgment day honesty, if we confess
our sins, He is faithful. He's a faithful God and He's
faithful and He's just to forgive us. You see, God can remain God
and remain just in that that his son has been put to death
on our behalf, in that that he exacted from his son full payment
for our sin, God can remain just and yet forgive those that come
to him in the person of the Lord Jesus. And so he's faithful,
he's just to forgive us our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He can wipe the slate clean.
Wipe the slate clean. Many times we hear people say,
oh I wish that I could begin my life over again. I wished
I could start over. I just wished there was some
way I could go back and not make the mistakes, not fall into the
pits, not get into the circumstances that I got myself into. I just
wished I could turn over a new leaf. I just wished that my life,
I could start it over again. Well, beloved, according to verse
nine, that is possible and that can be done if we confess our
sins. If we confess our sins and you
don't confess your sins to a priest, you don't confess your sins to
a man, you confess your sins unto the living God because He
only has the power to forgive your sin and to put it away. So if we confess our sin, He
is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. He'll blot out your past. He'll
cover, as with a thick cloud, all of your sin. And all of your
past will be blotted out. And then John goes on to say,
if we say that we've not sinned, he hits it again. And he says,
if we say that we've not sinned, he says that on the behalf of
people that they listen to that and they say, well, maybe there's
an element of truth in this. Maybe I, maybe I ought to confess
my sin to God. Maybe I ought to repent. Maybe
I ought to turn and change my mind about myself and about God. Maybe I ought to get right with
God in my heart, but then really, really am I, really am I that
bad that I really need to do this? And so John comes back
again and he says, if we say that we've not sinned, if anybody
goes from this ninth verse and says, well, Well, it sounds good
and all that, but John says if we say that we've not sinned,
we make God a liar. We make God a liar. We're calling
God a liar if we say that we've not sinned. And his word, his
word is not in us. His Word has no place in our
hearts. We're not listening to His Word
if we say that we've not sinned and that we don't need the blood
atonement. We've not listened. My little
children, John says in verse 1 of chapter 2, these things
right I undo that ye sin not. that you sin not. And if any
man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. Now, beloved, it is most evident
to me that John is not afraid to set forth here the truth too
clearly to the Lord's people that God does indeed put away
sin. On the contrary, he makes this
statement with the view of promoting, I believe, sanctification among
his little children. The object of this bold declaration
that we find in verse 9 and also in the last part of verse 7,
when it talks about us being cleansed from all sin and about
the Lord forgiving us our sin and cleansing us from all unrighteousness
is, I believe, that we would love the Father and that we would
love Him so much for what He has done in putting away our
sin that we would not sin. That we would listen to what
He says in verse 1 here, that you sin not. I write these things
to you, not that you would feel that you could go on and live
in your sin, that you would feel comfortable going on and sinning
against God, but that you would sin not, that you would sin not. Now, John didn't think that if
he spelled out the truth about people being forgiven of their
sin that they would go on and live in licentiousness. He did
not believe that. He felt just the contrary to
that. And those who think that the plain preaching of the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace will lead people to sin and licentiousness,
I believe they don't know what they're talking about. They do
not know what they're affirming. I believe it has just the opposite
effect upon those whom God saves. For it is neither according to
nature nor to grace for men to find an argument for sin in the
goodness of God. If God has been good to you and
forgiven you all of your trespasses and sin, that's not going to
be an argument in your soul, surely, that it's okay for you
to go on and live in rebellion against God. Now, for as bad
as man is, even a natural conscience, I mean of most people, would
revolt at the baseness of sinning because grace abounds. Shall
I hate God because He's kind to me? Shall I curse Him because
He has blessed me? No, the believer reasons just
the opposite. Is God so good that I will not
grieve Him? I will not deliberately, I will
not willfully sin against God and bring reproach upon His name. Is He so ready to forgive my
transgressions? Then I'll love Him and attempt
never to offend Him anymore. Loved of God, we feel we must
love him in return. Richly and divinely forgiven,
we feel that we cannot live any longer and habitually practice
sin. Since Jesus Christ died to rid
us from all uncleanness, we feel that we cannot crucify our Lord
afresh and put him to an open shame. No doubt some may pervert
this truth. No doubt some may do it. Had
there not been in all ages men who hold the truth of God in
unrighteousness? Absolutely. When were there not
evil men to rest the scriptures to their own destruction? Shall
we keep back the children's bread lest the dogs should steal the
crumbs? Shall we destroy health-restoring
drugs because fools may poison themselves therewith? Shall the
sea be drained or dried up because sharks swim in the water? Well,
let us never blush to preach the whole gospel, the plain gospel,
and to preach this full forgiveness of sin in the boldest and baldest
manner, because, beloved, John sets it forth plainly, and it
is to be stated plainly as it is set forth here, and we're
not afraid to do it. We're not ashamed to do it, neither
are we afraid to do it. We don't believe anybody's gonna
be hurt by being told that God does forgive sin entirely and
completely. Now Augustus' top lady who wrote
the hymn, Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in
thee, let the water and the blood from thy ribbonside which flowed
be of sin the double cure. He wrote this hymn. He only lived
38 years. He was born in 1740, died in
1778. And he took a mathematical approach
to sin. And he calculated that every
human being commits at least one sin every second of their
life. He said anyone who lives to be
80 years old will have broken God's law 2,522,880,000 times
in their life if they've lived 80 years. Now it's no small wonder that
he believing that wrote that hymn, Rock of Ages. No small
wonder. The blood of Jesus Christ effectually
cleanses us from 2,522,880,000 sins and more. All the evil thoughts, think
of it, all the hate, all the enmity, all the covetousness,
all the pride, all the rebellion, all the lust, all the guilt.
that we've committed in our life, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
covers all those sins and cleanses us from them. And the blood of
Jesus Christ, God's Son, presents us holy and unblameable and unreprovable
and faultless before His glory, before His presence, before His
face. Now that, my friends, is the
good news of the gospel, the glad tidings of the gospel, that
God fixes up his people so that not even he himself can find
any fault with them. He so blots out their past and
their sins that he cannot find any fault with them. Now I believe
that John here would do battle with two extremes. First of all,
presumption. He said sin not. We said a little
bit about that. But in God's mercy, we know that
God has had mercy on his people. David was one of those. But David
also, there came a time in his life when he turned off the joy
of God in his soul, and you know what happened? He was not able
to turn it back on himself. He could not do it. And so he
cried to the Lord, restoring to me the joy of thy salvation. So John would not have us presumptuous
and would not have us to, as it were, to get careless about
our life. You see, as God's people, we
know we still have that old nature in us, and it was kind of, you
know, to illustrate it, you could illustrate it like the hog and
the sheep. Hog falls into the mud hole and he'll stay there
and wallow in it. A sheep falls into the mud, get
out just as quick as he can. God's people are not presumptuous
and they will not go on and live in sin. We're commanded not to
sin. But the other extreme is this,
and that is despair. We do sin. Now we don't want
to, but we do. And how I think that every honest
soul will admit that. We talked about that earlier.
And at the close of every day, do we not have to confess? I've
said things I shouldn't have said. I've thought things today
that I should not have thought. I have done things that I shouldn't
have done. And we have to admit that every
day of our life. In my flesh, There is no good
thing. In my flesh, I never pleased
God. I believe that sin is dejected in a believer, but it is not
ejected. Every child of God has sin left
in their own nature. Now, I cannot breathe without
sin, the smell of decay and death. is in me and upon me. Why do you use mouthwash and
deodorant? Because of the decay of the flesh,
the corruption of the flesh. You are decaying, you're dying,
and all of that is because of the sin that dwells in your own
nature. Now we cannot preach or pray
or sing or worship without the presence of sin. Most of our
giving is given out of self-love, and my sanctification arises
out of my self-righteousness. I think I'm making progress because
I feel like I'm a little more righteous than somebody else
is. And my service to God reeks of self-glory. My feelings of
holiness arises out of my ignorance of God and of myself. I think
that God is less than He is. Now, we oftentimes find that
to be true, that we think God to be less holy than he really
is and think we're more holy than what we really are. And
so our holiness is because of our ignorance of God and ourself.
There's enough tender, and I think most of you will say amen and
you'll agree with this, In most moral men and women, the most
moral men and women in the world to keep the flames of hell burning
for all eternity, I've got to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, I want to deal with something
here. Now, I want you to know that
our sins, though we still have them, and though we would not
commit them purposely, though we would not presumptuously presume
upon the grace of God, Our sins, when they are committed, now
I want to get to this, he says that if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous. Now if any man sin, we have this
advocate. And my point is that our sins
do not deprive us of our interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our
sins have been put away, they've been cleansed, we still sin,
we have sin in our members, but that sin will not deprive us
of our interest in Christ. It does not say if any man sin,
he has forfeited his advocate, but we have an advocate, sinners,
though we are. We have an advocate. It does
not say if a man does not sin, no, you watch this, you watch
this, this is the beauty of the text, that if we do sin, we have
an advocate. All the sin that a believer ever
did or can be allowed to commit cannot destroy his interest in
the Lord Jesus Christ. It cannot. Into whatsoever he
may be suffered to fall, yet none of these things can by any
possibility touch his title deed to glory. Indeed, Jesus is only
mine when I can claim the name sinner. A sinner is a sacred
thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so.
The only way that a man will ever really know he's sinned
is if God has revealed it to him, made it known to his heart. We are by nature sinner is our
name. I cannot have an advocate unless
I do sin and I do not want one except I know my sin. I do not
want one to go before God in my place to plead for me before
God. I do not want one to come into
the presence of God and to plead what he is himself in my behalf
unless I know that I'm a sinner. Who wants an advocate to plead
his cause in a court of law if there's no suit against him?
If there's no suit against you, you'd be foolish bringing a lawyer
and coming to court, wouldn't you? And the Lord Jesus Christ,
he comes to court for his people and he's their advocate and that's
because they need one. Now that's because you need one.
That's because you all are guilty, we all are guilty of sin. Now
an advocate, the word advocate is a metaphor taken from the
Romans and the Greeks. And the proper office of an advocate
is to defend the accused person against his adversary. An advocate
is a person designated to defend the accused against his adversary. Who is the accused? The sinner. The sinner, who is the accuser? Well, in a sense, Satan accuses
God's people. But it's the law of God that
accuses us. It's the justice of God that
accuses us before God. Because you see, sin is the breaking
of the law. Sin is the breaking of the commandments
of God. That's what sin is. What is the
charge against these sinners? Well, there's 2,522,880,000 charges
against this sinner. And we need somebody to defend
us. The penalty of sin, Romans 6
and 23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now the penalty
then is hell fire. That's the penalty. Those that
die their sins still being on the books of God, they never
having been remitted and cancelled out, they face an eternity. Listen, eternity is infinite,
and it'll never let a sinner have enough time to pay his debt
to God. You go to hell, you're there
for all eternity. It's the wrath to come, the wrath
to come, the wrath to come. It never is any different, the
wrath to come. And if you live and live and
live and you will in hell fire, you'll never be able to pay your
debt. Who is the advocate? Well, we
read here that it's Jesus Christ, the righteous, the Lord Jesus. He's the one to plead for us. Now some think that the more
religious that you are, when you come to the judgment, the
better off you'll be. But my friend, I won't have anything
to do with it. It won't help you a bit. Say, well, I've been
religious, a little bit religious, all my life. Won't that count?
It won't count. My friend, you must know the
Son. It's He that hath the Son that has life. He that hath not
the Son of God has not life. Well, as a believer, as a true
believer, as one who has his sins put away and pardoned, I
don't need Saint Jude to pray for me, do you? I don't need
him to pray for me. I don't need Mary to pray for
me. I believe the Gospel so strongly
that I don't want her prayers, really. She's a sinner just like
I am, and she can't pray any better than we can. And if we're
in Christ, we could pray better than she could, unless she also
was in Christ. About Mary praying for the Lord's
people that their sins be forgiven, or any of the saints praying
for them that their sins would be forgiven, we have Christ.
The Father always hears Him. And he cannot fail, said the
prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 42. He's the great, the faithful
high priest, and he prays for us. He prays the Father. He says,
listen to me, he says to the great Father in the day when
the sinner stands arraigned at the court, he says, yes, my Father,
that sinner was unrighteous. But remember that I was accepted
as his substitute. You accepted me as his substitute. And I stood to keep the law for
him. I stood, I lived under the law. I obeyed every jot and tittle
of it. I satisfied you by my living under the law. Jesus never
broke the law. Jesus kept the law. Jesus did
that which the Father demanded that we all do in the holy law. And he kept it. And then he gave
that active obedience of his, gave it unto us. He lived vicariously
for us. That's what that word means.
And so he lived that good life, that holy life for us. And then
he said, and he's saying this to the Father as he pleads our
case, I went up to the cross and I bled and so I gave them
my passive obedience also. You know the Lord Jesus Christ
humbled himself and became obedient, the Bible says, unto death, even
the death of the cross because as we told you earlier, blood
must be shed because without it There cannot be any remission
of sin. And Jesus would say, I've covered
him from head to foot with my doing and my dying. I've covered
him, and he's clothed with my doing. I've adorned him in garments
of white. I have given him the righteousness
of God in myself. and He's as righteous as I am
before you, Holy Father. I'm becoming to my people the
Lord their righteousness. I've taken the jewels out of
my crown to beautify them, the garments from my own back to
cover them. What more can the sinner need?
And all of this, not because I do not sin, but if I do sin,
I have Jesus Christ the advocate. Well, with all your faults and
all your failings and all your wonderings and all your backslidings,
He is your God and you're His children. He'll be your God to
eternity and you'll be His children world without end. Glory to His
name. What a bold thing to say. Now
this is a bold and open statement of the fact that all the sin
that a believer can commit can never mar his interest in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Though it may mar his enjoyment
for the present. Now I understand that when a
person commits sin that the scars left I understand there is and
I understand that there's horrendous consequences many many times
to our actions and to our deeds in this life and I know just
like David he lost four of his sons because of his sin with
Bathsheba and because he murdered by proxy her husband And I know
that there's horrendous consequences to pay for sin, and it'll mar
our enjoyment. You cannot read the 51st Psalm
without seeing how David's enjoyment of his relationship with God
had been marred. I say that this doctrine, instead
of driving men to sin, will draw them to love that gracious and
immutable God who notwithstanding all of our sin and care and woe
will never suffer us to perish even though in this life. Many,
many times we suffer because of our failures and our weaknesses. Now, Jesus Christ the righteous,
who is this advocate? Now, not only his character is
he talking about, but it's his plea. He pleads his righteousness. Well, where is he now? Hebrews
9.24 says that he's in the presence of God, that he's there. making
intercession for us. Hebrews 7.25 says he's able to
save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him seeing that
he ever liveth to make intercession for them. I sin. I often do. We do all the time. We do. In
the flesh we can do really nothing else. We sin and we have a guilty
conscience and an aching heart and feel that we're not worthy
to be called God's son. But still we have an advocate
because I am one of the any men that sin. He has an advocate.
Now, I don't know how to drive this home to your heart. It is
not if any man be prayerful, not if any man be careful, not
if any man be godly, not if any man walk scripturally, and so
on, but if any man sins, he has an advocate with the Lord Jesus. Oh my soul, there is the music
of God's heart, I believe in these words, music such as the
prodigal heard at the festival which welcomed his return. Now
lastly, this truth is so divine that I think it ought to be practically
remembered. so divine it should be practically
remembered. When? Well, I think at all times
if God would be pleased to give us the ability to remember it,
we certainly would be blessed if we kept it in our minds at
all times. Well, to try to walk as a saint
in this world, but in order to do so, I must continually come
to Christ as a sinner. I don't get above that. I would
seek to be perfect. I would strain after virtue and
forsake every false way, but still as to my standing before
God, I find it best to sit where I sat when first I looked to
the Lord Jesus Christ on the rock of His works. I looked to
Jesus When I was just a young boy, I looked to Jesus and depended
upon the rock of his works, having nothing to do. with my own righteousness,
but only with his. Depend on it. The happiest way
to live is as a poor sinner and nothing at all, having Jesus
Christ as your all in all. That's the way to live, my friend.
Never put anything where Christ should be. You can have your
graces, you can have your developments, you can have your virtues, if
you will, but they're no substitute for Christ. Christ is the substitute
for all things Nothing is a substitute for Christ, and don't ever forget
it. Nothing is a substitute for Him. If you've begun in Christ, finish
in Christ. If Christ is your Alpha, make
Him your Omega. Don't think you're going up when
you get beyond this. Somebody said, you know preacher,
I was a sinner once. I was a sinner once. Well, don't
think you're getting up in the world if you can say, well, I'm
rising above that. Listen to me. I think you're
going down. I think you're slipping down
to your ruin when you get away from admitting every day, I'm
still a sinner. I still need the advocate. I still need his work on my half.
Still a sinner, but still having an advocate with the Father Jesus
Christ the righteous. Let this be the spirit. of the
everyday of our life. Next and lastly, make this essentially
the rule of your life on particular occasions. When the Spirit of
God gives you a clear view of your own depravity, mind you,
hold to this whenever you begin to see what you really are. You
know there's a lot of people that, and I know that they never
really saw themselves as God sees them, I know they've not,
because they're still proud and they're still haughty and high-minded,
they still think that they're somebody. But when the Spirit
of God reveals, you didn't think you could be as bad as your heart
revealed, as it's revealed to you, as you did when the Lord
revealed your heart to you. You didn't think you could be
that bad. We must say, I yet know that if any man sin, we
have an advocate with the Father. And I, black, foul, and filthy,
more foul and filthy than I ever thought myself to be, put my
case in the hand of my advocate and live there forevermore. That's
where we ought to live. And whenever we see more of ourself,
just keep coming back to this, that Christ is our advocate.
When you fall into some sin, oh, you wish you could forget
it, don't you? You have used the language of
David many times, maybe in Psalm 51. Against thee and thee only
have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Now, but you cannot
get rid of that sin. You feel that it's right there
and you can't seem to get rid of it. That sin, like a cancer,
just eats into your conscience. Now's the time. The text. The
text that that old preacher preached about on a Sunday morning. That
if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. Christ is of no use to you if
he only saves you when you have no sin. Remember that. Your sin has been put away. It
was put away. David said, blessed is the man
whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Psalm chapter 32. Have you sinned so as to bring
a scandal upon the name of God, upon his church, and upon his
cause? You've wept over it and you've
given up ever being restored. And as we said, there may be
some horrendous consequences to what you've done, and you
may have to bear it, but I dare not shut the gate when God has
opened it at our text. If you have fallen into sin,
there is forgiveness. God is faithful. It didn't say
anything about the preacher being faithful. It said God is faithful
and He is just to forgive and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Quit looking around and look
to God. Whatever has happened in your life, and God will forgive
you of that sin. Oh, what splendid mercy is this! Archangels never dreamed of such
mercy as this to sinners, to real sinners, to vile sinners,
to black hellish sinners, to devilish sinners, to such as
no adjective can be found to describe them. Do you believe
this text? Do you believe that God is faithful
and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness? I say to you this morning, return,
return, return. The Lord will bless you and forgive
you for Christ's sake and put away your sin. We have an advocate,
Jesus Christ the righteous. Mike, would you lead us in here?