In this sermon, the speaker discusses the failure of a shepherd and how it reflects the failure of the church body. The shepherd's loss of reality and increasing professionalism is seen as a danger and a sign that he is on the way out. The speaker emphasizes the importance of identifying sin early and speaking the truth in love to correct it. The sermon also highlights the significance of walking before God and the need for constant watchfulness against temptation.

How many of us are the churches out of the land, out of the place of blessing, out of the spiritual Zion for the failure to hallow his name. That God would be severe in his punishment to Moses for that failure and be lenient with us would be a contradiction. More of us are out of the land than we know and it shows. Bible reading is obligatory, it's no pleasure. Witness is very rare. Prayer is an ordeal, a requirement in which there's no delight. Fellowship is shallow. We're out of the land, we're out of the blessedness that would be ours by entry and kept for the same reason for which he denied Moses. And I want to raise the question, if God in honoring Moses whom he called his friend and with whom he spoke face to face requires of Moses this severe dealing, what does that teach us? And if God had allowed Moses to get by on this on the basis of a long relationship in which you have been faithful and have borne much for my name. Because you know how ministers justify their sin? Look how much I've done for God. Therefore I'm entitled to this special recompense. He knows that I need it. If God had said because you have been so faithful I'll overlook this and permit you the same entry as the nation itself. What kind of statement would that be of God in leniency? His name would have been unhallowed. His own conduct of looking the other way and of not being appropriately severe in judgment would have contradicted himself as a holy God. And do you think that keeping Moses out of land did not cost God something as father? That he himself did not experience the hurt and didn't empathize with the anguish that Moses had to bear of dying without entry into the land? That that was as much an affliction for the father who required it as Moses himself who suffered it? That in all of our afflictions he's afflicted? In all of our judgments he experiences the moral anguish of it and yet does not withhold himself? You want to know what righteousness is? This is righteousness. You want to know what holiness is? This is holiness. God is not exempt from the moral anguish and the pain of his own judgments and his own requirements. He's not acting from some lofty height in which he's impervious and unaffected by what he requires of men. It hurt him to keep Moses out of the land, but he had to do it. His name required a judgment appropriate to the sin, to the transgression. So for God to be light in this and to look it over as we do with our own children and with ourselves, we are remarkably lenient. That's why Colbert says, if it were not for the crucified Christ and we have to assess our own morality and our own iniquity, we will always be a judge favorable to ourselves. We will always pronounce a sentence lighter than what is deserved, but God doesn't let us get away with that. As if we can determine subjectively either our own condition or its judgment. The cross is God's statement that saves us from self-justifying likeness about our own condition. That's the statement as God sees it, not your subjective feeling about yourself. Your subjective feeling about yourself is itself sin. It keeps you from the acknowledgment of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. So where does Paul say that he's the chief of sinners? As we came up in the morning's prayer time, is Paul talking about his past? Surely he was a murderer and a persecutor, but he doesn't say I was the chief of sinners. He says I am the chief of sinners and yet the chief apostle at the same time? How can that be? And if you can't answer that, you yourself then don't know as you ought to know. Why aren't you saying I'm chief? Ironically, as you grow in maturity in the knowledge of God and are becoming more conscious of your walk, at the same time there's an increasing consciousness of this inherent disposition to transgress. If not indeed in word and thought or omission, if not commission, I'm the chief of sinners. I know exactly what I'm capable of as I've never seen it before. What, David can fornicate and perform adultery and murder and I'm exonerated? You're only exonerated because life has not required it of you. But given the occasion and the temptation, you would just as equally fall as David himself, unless you think that you're made of better stuff. And your very thought that you are made of better stuff is the height of presumptuous sin. That you have not repented with David because you're waiting for the actual act to confirm the truth, that your sins are not before you always as it was for him, means that you yourself are in a state of deception with regard to your own condition because you're blinded by your own iniquity, your own transgression. It has dulled your own awareness of your own moral condition. Just let me finish those statements that I thought were so remarkable, that the cross was more for God than it was for men. It was given at the time foreseen and chosen by God for his marvelous display of his own holy character. To look upon that picture of the crucified Christ is a statement of God's holy character. For if he was less than that, he would have required less. But that he required that, and his only beloved son to suffer the severest and vilest of capital punishments is the statement of his holiness. We have to read it rightly. And if we don't read it rightly, we have an inadequate knowledge of God, of holiness and of sin that will show up in our own walk. It's got to show up, it's got to surface, it's got to be revealed individually and corporately in the character of the church in our own walk. If we have not a right understanding of holiness as it is revealed in the keeping of the character of God by the willing sacrifice of his own son and his own son's willingness to bear that sacrifice. Father and son transacted in heaven before Jesus came down in his pre-incarnate life and he voluntarily agreed to serve this sentence and then would come down in the form of man in order to do it. This is a son's regard for the father's name that could not have been placated or met by anything less than his own sacrifice. And if he's the patterned son, that's what is required to hallow his father's name. What's required from us in such a generation of time as this? Where have we been callow and shallow and indulgent in our own walk and experience mindless about these things? How is it that God was so severe with Moses just for striking a rock rather than speaking to it and allowed Moses to take the tablets of the law inscribed by his finger on the holy mount and smash them at the base of the mountain when he saw the nation given over to idolatry and there's not a single word of reproof from God over that act? Can you dare break and smash the tablets of the law inscribed by God with impunity because you're moved to a moral indignation seeing that the nation while they were no longer waiting for you had given themselves to a golden calf? There's not a single hint of reproof or correction from God for that act. How do you figure that? We need to interpret God not only by what he says and by what he does but by his silences when we think he should be saying something. You don't cast your pearls before swine and you don't bring the holy lord down to a people who have given themselves to idolatry of the vilest kind. He was right to smash those tablets of the law. God does not reproof him because to offer that law to the people would have been a contradiction and a parody and a sacrilege for what is holy. He was required to make another ascent, another 40 days to come down again and it was justified and then he grinds up the golden calf and makes them drink it and you don't hear a whimper in the scripture from any of the sons and children of Israel in that requirement to drink their own idol. God silences approval and we need to drink it. We need to have the truth of our condition internalized, taken in, drink it. Now that I think about it, what did God say to Moses? Grind up the golden calf and make them drink it. Is he commanded so to do or is he in such union with God that his indignation is the father's indignation at that idolatry and that recompense of grinding it and drinking it was perfectly in keeping with God's heart and thought. It did not require a commandment, it just required a union of a holy man with a holy God to do it and the same holy man himself transgresses at a later time. Just as the author of the book of Proverbs who warns us about relationships with ungodly women and foreign wives himself later embarks on a whole career of a coterie of foreign women and contradicts his own holy calling having given us instruction out of his own wisdom of Solomon. Who then is safe? If Solomon falls, David falls, Moses falls, who then is safe? And how dare we walk in any kind of presumptuous upstart way as if we have it all together. Why aren't we walking as men who know that there but for the grace of God we would every one of us be fallen. How dare we critique and criticize and look askance upon a fallen minister as if we ourselves are morally superior to that very transgression forgetting that we ourselves have been guilty not too long ago of the very same thing. And given the opportunity we'd be equally as guilty again. There but for the grace of God. We ought to be a broken people, we ought to be sinners being saved by grace which the German theologian, life together, Bonhoeffer says what is the church, what is the fellowship of saints? A community of sinners being saved by grace who are not ashamed to hear the confession of any member or expressing their own because they acknowledge that they're sinners being saved by grace. Isn't that a remarkable paradox? We're saved and yet we're being saved. So to have it all together, overcomers is so contrary to the temper appropriate for true church that needs to be regained in proportion as we understand this. What shall we say of Peter after his betrayal of Christ? How many times before the crow croaked? And with host and with cursings, I mean a vile rejection and then the brokenness and the weeping, then the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But how long after that does he have to be corrected by Paul because of his hypocrisy of doing one thing with the Jewish believers and another thing with the Gentiles. There was duplicity that Paul said not for an hour will I allow this to pass for the truth of the gospel sake. That he had openly and publicly to rebuke Peter who's the rock and the first of the apostles because he himself is really slipping away and bringing others into the hypocrisy of his own deceit even that one who's called the comforter Barnabas is already reflecting Peter's transgression until Paul brings the ruthless correction the jealousy for God's honor and name. So what does it say in Hebrews while it's yet today to catch sin in its first inception while it is yet today to bring correction and reproof because by next Sunday it may be already too late the thing is already working, the leaven is in the lump and before you know it you have the most outrageous sin by people who once were the most estimable in their holiness. So what is true fellowship? People so related in truth that they can discern almost immediately where there's a bit of erosion and turning away and bring a word of correction. Speak the truth in love is not speaking abstract biblical truths it's speaking the truth about a brother or sister that you're privileged to see not to exalt yourself but in brokenness to bring that correction and that attention to the one who cannot see it because he's blind to his own blind spot. This is true fellowship not only for the saints not only for the sheep but for the shepherds and the failing of shepherds which is so notorious in our generation is the statement that they themselves have not submitted and been accessible for the correction that would come out of their own body. That the church, the fellowship is as much God's provision as I've said so many times for the shepherd as well as for the sheep. So the failure of the shepherd is an indictment against the body itself for its failure either to identify the incipient stages of sin early enough to bring correction or to be totally oblivious to it and their human admiration for the ministry and therefore the consequence is an indictment upon themselves and their failure to speak the truth in love even to the shepherd and that the environment was not conducive because he's in a little ivory tower man of faith and power thing where you don't dare see or address him in his own defect. So how often have I said why didn't you catch it in his voice? Why didn't you notice that he's moving from a certain kind of naturalness toward a professional tone in his preaching and every week it's getting worse and he's losing that sense of immediacy and reality which you so appreciated and knew at the first. Why is he moving that way? Why is he losing his sense of reality and becoming every week more professional? He's on the way out. He's in danger. Why didn't you tell him? You're embarrassed or you didn't discern it? Or who are you to bring correction when you yourself need to be corrected? We're in something together saints that brings an obligation but our ability to discern is relative to the correctness of our own walk. If we ourselves are dull to our own indulgences our own moral lapses how shall we discern the condition of the need of another? And if we have not the courage to speak it after seeing it what does that mean? We regard man more than the holiness of God? We're more deferring to man than hallowing the name of the Lord? That's not an invitation for an open field day just to open up and blast or what do they call it? Roasting the preacher every Sunday but it is an invitation to be the church. Speaking the truth in love Paul says growing up into the fullness and stature of the perfect man even Jesus Christ. It's an active involvement that requires humility and love truth, a whole sense of holiness and the issue of what's at stake here is the name of God and his witness in the world. Because sin is so rife the temptation is so manifest that it's almost an hour by hour watchfulness walk thou before me where do you not walk? As I said to somebody the other day you walk into your bedroom to the dining hall to the classroom there's no place where your walk will not take you and God says walk thou before me why does he choose that one word? Because it is so all encompassing there's no activity except from walking that's why Jesus' feet need to be pierced through so a walk is a remarkable requirement and we're not sufficiently attentive we're not jealous and our walk is casual, slipshod and paving the way for yet more serious failing if we will not keep our hearts, keep our walk more than just daily but hourly flee from temptation or any appearance of evil it's amazing the liberties that we take where others, like when they counsel a woman will keep their office door open or call somebody else in they'll not counsel a woman alone even though they are circumspect just the very appearance of the prospect has a possibility that one cannot indulge we're not that careful okay, the last statement maybe I'll come back to this again the sacrifice on the cross demonstrates for the first time what God is and shows that in times past and present he is the same of purer eyes than behold evil God could not be just without the sacrifice of Christ for Christ did not die that God might seem to be just but that in fact he might be just in the very act of justifying the believer and in the last paragraph of another dictionary of the Bible about sin while a person may certainly be conscious of immoral acts and false motives the reality of man's sinful state can never be perceived merely by self-knowledge to think that it can be is itself presumptuous sin the totality and inclusiveness of Adam's sin and the consequent depravity of all is an issue that is only truly made known in the cross are you writing that down? you need to should I go back over this? while a person may certainly be conscious of immoral acts and false motives the reality and this reality dear saints is the nexus of all reality if you miss reality here on the issue of sin and judgment righteousness and holiness where then shall you know reality? this is the root of the whole subject of reality this is why the world is schizophrenic and freaking out because it has lost reality this is the nub of reality so the reality of man's sinful state can never be perceived merely by self-knowledge because self will always disguise it self will always give it a better interpretation more honoring and flattering to itself it will not see it as evil the totality and inclusiveness of Adam's sin this issue of depravity this Adamic taint to which we are all subject and the consequent depravity of all is an issue that is only truly made known in the cross to void the cross is to lose any prospect of the true estimation of our condition in that he takes our place it is decided what our place is the cross of Christ itself and the condemnation of human sin that it represents reveals the objectivity and total depravity of our sinful state how righteous Paul Paul says that the gospel is the revealing of the righteousness of God because it could not have been revealed by anything less the cross is the ultimate revelation of the righteousness of God and the truth of our condition that would never have been revealed except by it and God knows that and therefore he did not stop short of providing it or else we would have been locked into a subjective place of self-esteem by which we would never have seen the truth of our condition nor have remedied it the cross reveals the truth and how far God had to go in meeting that condition so those who avoid the cross as Judaism has done and even as Christians have done by diminishing its reality and allowing its athletes to wear diamond studded crosses who are making 50 million a year or whatever they make in immoral sums of money just to play sport and the rap artists wear the cross Madonna wears the cross because we have provided an environment conducive that allows that kind of what's the word travesty that's God's judgment on the church that the cross has become a popular symbol by people who are involved in the vilest forms of sin and have become our culture heroes and whom we are rewarding with millions any single Madonna tour reaps 70 to 80 million dollars of clear profit why does she enjoy the adulation of the millions willing to pay to see this slinky thing who is learning Kabbalah and doesn't know God and wears a little red thing around her wrist as if that annuls sin in the worst forms of idolatry and wearing the cross heavy on that bosom is God's judgment upon the church that has not maintained the appropriate understanding of what that cross represents has come back to haunt us in its misuse the cross reveals the holiness of God and the depravity of man as no other single act of God is calculated to bring it to reveal it have we esteemed it rightly have we, I'm including myself to preach about it and to fall short of its appropriation and the deep sobering of it is to compound the sin we would be better off to shut our mouths but now that we're speaking along these lines we have the greater obligation to honor that cross and you have the greater obligation to pray for the men who are so speaking because the enemy will go out of his way to bring them down explicitly as being the foremost threat to their darkness and if they can bring down the man who is the expositor of the cross by some transgression and failing of his own what a triumph the kingdom of darkness that you have allowed by your failure to uphold these men in your prayer and in your intercessions because you're too dull to realize that they are the object of the enemy's severest attacks and will bring temptations at the moments when they are weakest and most reduced by their own exhaustion in God's labors and then when they fall you cluck your tongue and even secretly enjoy their fall because by that means you have been exalted we're all indited we're all in something together we have not recognized the war that we are in for truth and for righteousness against sin and transgression our own failure to pray is a sinful neglect we have not understood seriously what's at stake so this is a great conclusion the totality and inclusiveness of Adam's sin and the consequent depravity of all is an issue that is only truly made known in the cross in that he takes our place it is decided what our place is the cross of Christ itself and the condemnation of human sin that it represents reveals the objectivity and total depravity of our sinful state Jews are in a most despicable condition because they have rejected this revelation of the cross and only the cross would have revealed not only the truth of their condition the holiness of God and even the triune nature of God for there's the son crying out to the father why have you forsaken me who is giving his life by the eternal spirit as a sacrifice unto God for sin the triune God is revealed at the cross most powerfully as in no other place as is the revelation of depravity and of the holiness of God all encompassed in one epical event that we have allowed to fall into disuse and make of it a parody Jesus Christ superstar the cross dangling around the necks of the most vile sinners shows how the church has not upheld the center of its own faith that Paul begins in the book of Romans I'm not ashamed of the gospel I determine not to know anything but Christ and him crucified you see how singular a passion is this issue of the cross for Paul the apostle and how much less it is for us and this ground needs to be regained this article on sin devotes considerable attention to the first sin of Adam and Eve because in it are all the constituent elements of all sin anything that's given at the first is always revelatory of something that is ultimate so we need really to ponder that let me read a part of this that she Eve had acceded to her his assault upon God's veracity maybe women are more prone to this I don't know but Paul gives this reason Paul cites Eve's culpability as the reason why women are not to be given the place of authority in the church that by their nature they are susceptible to temptation of this particular kind to doubt God's veracity she gave to the tempter the place that belonged to God only she accepted the most blasphemous assault upon the integrity of God she coveted for herself divine prerogatives in her willingness to parley with the tempter in her failure to meet with horror against his suggestions and in her acquiescence there is disclosed the process that preceded the act of eating the forbidden fruit here we have the origin of sin and we are pointed to its true character sin does not originate in overt action it proceeds from the heart and mind the property of heart registered itself in the transgression of the commandment Adam and Eve became first estranged from God and then they committed the actual transgression they were drawn away of their own lust and enticed how this could happen in their case is the mystery of the origin of sin we need to contemplate this what's the disposition of heart that allows itself to be enticed and is not horrified by the suggestion that the tempter is making how is it that we can have erotic dreams in early morning hours and not awaken from the horror of it but even allow ourselves to lull back into that half sleep half awake state that we might have more reveries of that sensual kind I'm ashamed that I'm not horrified and don't awaken in the horror but allow myself to fall back into that slumber because of the erotic things that it arouses something is wanting in my own moral acquiescence that should be horrified she was not horrified and where was Adam when he's allowing his wife to carry on this conversation why didn't he shut her up in the same way that I do why didn't he act as he should in his authority because his wife is already going beyond where she should she is transgressing and allowing himself to be silent he's condoning and making himself one with that transgression that's why it's the judgment of Adam and Eve here's the anatomy of sin you guys and any sin that we perform has the same auspices and the same permissive condition by which they fell we need to be instructed by it he's despised and rejected of men and men of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised we esteemed him not surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten with God and afflicted but he was wounded for our transgressions and he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace what should have been rightly required of us was upon him and with his stripes we are healed all we like sheep without exception everyone have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all he was oppressed he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he's brought as a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before his shearers is dumb so he opens not his mouth he was taken from prison and from judgment who shall declare his generation for he was cut off and out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people was he stricken and he made his grave with the wicked with the rich in his death because he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief and when you shall make his soul an offering for your sin he shall see his seed and he shall belong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities Lord great son of God who bore this my God of what should rightly have come upon us what shall we say to you you were marred more than any man there was nothing left of any beauty that we should desire you stricken smitten of gods your face splattered my God with blood and with spit naked and open to such abuse my God that should never have come upon a holy son of the abandonment of your father you bore the stripes Lord you were the ultimate sin offering and we have all transgressed we are everyone guilty in going our own way unwilling even to acknowledge the truth of our condition thank you Lord for what shall we say my God for this condition so pervasive for all mankind without exception shared in that sin God forbid we should add to your suffering now God forbid that we should crucify the son of God afresh God forbid that we should add my God in any way to what you have already borne by our own light regard to the truth of our condition so may may we be humbled may we see may we understand the evil my God that your father's holy name required to be requited at your expense and that you were willing you didn't let that come past you drank from it to its drinks and we ask you forgiveness Lord for our own failure and that of the church to uphold this reality which is at the heart of all reality and we're mocked by Madonna's cross and all of these athletes with their diamond studded things as if it's a piece of jewelry a little cheapy that anyone could string around his neck or put up in the architecture of the church but that's about as close as we come to it or know of it forgive us Lord forgive us Lord help us afresh with real revelation my God that you were wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities put something Lord deep in our inner man this truth this reality Lord that will temper our every conversation our whole demeanor my God has got to be affected by this apical once and for all event thank you Lord oh precious God without this foundation what are we Lord glib, facile anxious, cheap church services programs for the benefit of men their pleasure, their self esteem there's no basis for our esteem at all Lord this was required of you because of our of the truth of our condition truly that there's no good thing my God so we bless you precious faithful obedient son unto death and that this death was pleasing to the father who laid it upon you or you would not have been resurrected that he raised you out of a sealed tomb a sealed cave guarded by the bravest of the brave of these gentile centurions lest your body would have been stolen and the end would have been worse than the beginning despite all that you were raised from that death in the statement of the father's approval of the efficacy of that sacrifice thank you Lord thank you Holy Father, thank you for raising Jesus up as the approval of his sacrifice that we might be justified by his death thank you Lord thank you my God Lord precious God, great father, holy for this piece of history this act give us a hatred of iniquity when we see what it required, that we would not even dare to allow the appearance of it seeing what it required that we would love righteousness seeing what it required that we would take your admonition to be holy as you are holy, singing what it required come Lord and restore your fear, we heed your words by whose stripes we have been healed bring this revelation to your people Israel, we have suffered my God so long all these millennia for the want of this understanding, we're still suffering we've rejected your provision and therefore what is the covering for our sin going to the synagogue on Yom Kippur and fasting for one day and doing mitzvot and good deeds is that a suitable equivalent for the blood of your son we are open to the enemy, we're a target to suffer havoc and ruin and devastation because we have not the covering we have not known, we've rejected my God your great provision and the church has been guilty in not persuading us of its truth though you have said this gospel is the power of God and the salvation of the Jew first, we've not gone we've allowed them to languish in their susceptibility to the attack of the evil one because they are uncovered and their little bini, their yarmulke does not do it, our transgressions are upon our heads my God only your blood would have saved us and it is an offense to our Jewish sensibility and it has not been commended to us by those who know about it so mercy Lord mercy Lord awaken the church to its mandate and its ability to perform it by the grace of your spirit and to demonstrate the power of this foolish message to everyone who believes, will believe to the Jew first and also to the Greek, their blood and sense Lord is upon our hands our indifference and our neglect leaves them susceptible to every attack of evil, we have not made your cross known we have not told them that this is the Yom Kippur that is God's great atonement that you gave us 40 years to consider it and when we still did not consider it you destroyed your temple you destroyed your altar you scattered your priesthood there was no possible continuation of biblical sacrifice after that we were left with our sins and have been left with our sins since and are in that condition to this day and their blood is on our hands so my God so my God help us in your mercy help these people in their ignorance who oppose themselves in their own ignorance and think that the dictums provided by their rabbis has equal weight with your word and with what Isaiah says in chapter 53 which is never read in a single synagogue service its meaning is too woe unto them who oppose the truth and unrighteousness and hinder its promulgation for those who would be saved by it leading the world in abortion in incest in vilest forms of obscene self indulgence, making the films, the plays, the music, the rap my God my God what a hole we are digging for ourselves who are called to be a nation of priests and a light unto the world and promulgate the world's filth and lead us in it in our ingenuity, surely we deserve my God such judgment and those judgments will come and are now even presently coming, save out of it we pray a remnant upon whom your eye is set, and by then my God, restore and redeem your nation that they might be a holy people and a nation of priests, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and them to whom much was given have the greater responsibility those who have boasted upon the Holy Spirit, His power and His revelation are most to be judged for their failure, rightly have the Jews dismissed the church as the arrogant kingdom all they've seen is hot shot televangelists living sumptuous lifestyles in baronial mansions with private jets advantageing themselves in this religious world my God they've not seen your humility they've not seen your brokenness they've not seen the Lamb communicated by His people, and we're guilty in paying the bill and even aspiring to come into such prosperity and prominence ourselves in ministry holy God that you have withheld judgment upon the church is a marvel, it's a marvel Lord, we so deserve the stroke we're doubly guilty considering our privilege thank you for the mercy my God has withheld your stroke in your hand thank you for your patience, even pleading with us when you see us turn up our nose when the phrase the wrath of God is expressed the recoil in your students who are among the cream of the crop is visible like they don't even want to consider that alien statement wrath of God so Lord if your best are in that condition, what shall we say for the rest so mercy Lord continuing mercy continuing blessing Lord help us with a little help as we plot and probe and try to find our way back to truth and reality at the cross God forbid Lord that this is mere head trip and that we're not stricken moved, affected, broken help us in your great grace of mercy Lord through our own hardness of heart the subtlety of our pride may we see it in our boastings inwardly if not verbally that our voices betray us that the truth of our condition is revealed in the way we conduct ourselves, our posture even when we quote scripture, we're most guilty so when we attempt to be spiritual that the truth of our condition is most painfully revealed so we're asking Lord mercy, mercy, mercy and when we will receive it we will be able to extend it that they might receive it because we need your mercy Lord we have trafficked in holy things and have reduced them to the common place