(calm piano music)

- If you've got the prayerrequests before you,

let's just read a few of these.

Please pray for my mother,father, sister, and my brother

to get outta prison and find the Lord,

decide to go to church

with me and my father andjust start living a good life.

I have an addiction that has me running

to the casino every time I get money.

I'm asking God to heal meand take the desire away.

Please help my son and hisgirlfriend to be delivered

from their harmful addictions.

He wants to marry her, but she is so lost.

He knows God, but he has backslid.

And here, I just turned 10 years old.

My life is upside down.

A broken mother, no father.

I hurt all over; I'm very angry in life.

Lose control over and over,and ask God to help me

and my eight-year-old sister, please.

Let's just lift these to the Lord.

Lord God Almighty, we aren'table to solve these problems,

but you are, and Lord,deliver your people.

Deliver them from addictions.

Restore families,

restore fathers, restore children.

Restore broken lives, Lord God.

We turn and we surrender to you

because we are helpless in our sin.

Come and be with us, be Emmanuel.

Be God in us, all around us.

Give us your righteousness andrenew a right spirit in us,

Lord God, for we ask itin Jesus' name, amen.

And amen, you may be seated.

Today is our, I guess,our hurricane chapel.

To those in North Carolinaand South Carolina,

our heart goes out toyou because the storm,

while it's weakened,is still a major storm,

and is still headed towardyou at a category two.

The problem with it weakeningis it's actually gotten bigger

and so it's going to affect a larger area.

In Tidewater, Virginia, we'restill looking at storm surges

in a three-foot range,which for most of us

is not going to affect things.

It may affect transportationand travel to and from.

Probably affect my neighborhood

and (chuckles) prevent a lot of us

from getting out of our neighborhood

if you get into the neighborhood,

so getting in and out'sgonna be difficult.

But compared to whatNorth Carolina is facing,

what South Carolina is facing,that's a minor inconvenience.

They are facing some major damage

and potential for loss of life,

certainly the potentialfor loss of property.

When you're looking at 40 inches of rain

in a 24-hour period, myGod, let us pray for them.

I'll do that at theend of this, but first,

I wanna lay some theological groundwork

as to where we are on the Jewish calendar.

We're getting ready to gointo the Day of Atonement,

which will be Tuesdayand Wednesday next week.

It starts at sundown, Tuesday.

This is the holiest dayon the Jewish calendar,

and this is the day wherethey gather for atonement.

A variety of things have comeinto the synagogue service

that weren't there in the first century

when Jesus would do this.

Realize Jesus was an observant Jew.

He would do this.

But what is certain thatthere was a day of fasting.

The great halal, Psalm 113through 118 would be sung.

There was a temple service,

but the big issue wascorporate confession of sin

where the entire nation wouldgather to confess their sin.

If you can imagine three million,

four million people convergingon the city of Jerusalem,

all with one intent and goal,

and that is to makethemselves right with God.

The priest would provide atonement.

Biblically, it's Leviticus 16:30.

On that day, the priestshall make atonement for you,

to cleanse you that you may be clean

from all your sins before the Lord.

So there was confession of sin,

there was blood sacrifice for sin,

and then that bloodsacrifice would be carried

by the high priest to makeatonement in the Holy of Holies.

There would be 40 days priorto the Day of Atonement

for Teshuvah, which is return,or turning back to God.

So there's a 40-day preparation period.

We are praying 40 days for America.

The Jewish people havebeen praying for a turning,

and a repentance, and a return to God.

I encourage people to lookat a prayer that they pray

at Yom Kippur; it's called the Viddui.

I think it's one of thegreatest expressions

of the condition of mankind

where it's from our heartthat these things proceed,

and there's a beating of the heart.

No one has caused me to sin but me.

All of these externalthings that I want to blame,

I put them all away; thishas come from my heart.

And there is a incredibly detailed list.

You start reading through that prayer

and I guarantee you, you willnot survive it. (chuckles)

Before you come to realizationthat you have sinned

and have fallen short of the glory of God.

It is a complete list

and frankly, too long to do in an hour.

Otherwise, we would be doingit as a corporate body at CBN.

But that prayer is literallyexhaustive and exhausting.

In the orthodox observancetoday, there are,

within the prayer, periods of prostration

where you are on yourface before the Lord,

recognizing your own sinand your need to cleanse.

So here's Hosea 14,

and this is one of the laterprophets talking about return,

O Israel, return to the Lord your God

for you have stumbledbecause of your iniquity.

Take words with youand return to the Lord.

Say to him, take away alliniquity, receive us graciously,

for we will offer thesacrifices of our lips.

As Christians, what do we thinkof when we hear the phrase,

the sacrifice of our lips?

We think praise, right?

We are wrong.

(congregation chuckles)

From a Jewish perspective,the sacrifice of your lips,

while praise can certainlybe considered a subset,

in the context of this verseof take words with you,

it's referring to the third...

Three components ofTeshuvah of repentance,

and it's the third one,

verbally confess your sin before the Lord.

That is the key.

That there's three components.

One is remorse for sin, two is commitment

that we will not repeatthat sinful behavior,

and the third one is verbally get it out.

There is something that happenswhen you verbally confess.

Have you ever noticed that?

When you confess to someone else

that what you've reallydone and you get it out,

and you're not justconfessing in your mind,

and you're not just confessing privately,

but you verbally get it out.

In the New Testament, there'splenty of room for this.

Confess your sins to one another.

There is plenty of room to get it out.

And in that getting it out,some amazing things happen.

One, we discover thatthese sins are common.

You read through the Viddui prayer,

actually, I'mmispronouncing, Viddui prayer

and you start thinkingthat this is a prayer

that's been in existence for 2,000 years

and you go, wow, we haven'treally changed, have we?

There's just a power to that understand

the commonality of our sin andin that commonality of sin,

we actually find fellowship

that we collectively need a savior.

That you can be observant all day long,

you read that prayer and you go,

how many times have I missed it?

You don't even have to gothrough the 613 commandments

of the Old Testament,just the big two ones.

Do you love the Lord your God

with all your heart every moment?

Do you love your neighboras yourself every moment?

And the answer to that,for me, is no, I do not.

And I need a savior and Ineed to have my sins forgiven,

but I have to acknowledge I need it.

And I have to get that out.

I have to confess with mymouth that Jesus is Lord.

That I have no righteousness,none whatsoever.

I am in desperate need of a savior.

Not just a onetime thing thatI did when I was six years old

and I walked up the aisleof the Baptist Church

and I shook the preacher's hand

and I then went through water baptism.

I need it every day.

Let me go back.

This is one of the commandments

that they take very seriouslyon the Day of Atonement,

and it comes from Deuteronomy 30.

There's an echo of thisin the New Testament

and I'll get to that in a minute,

but this is what is part ofthat confess with your mouth.

Deuteronomy 30:11, for this commandment

which I command you today isnot too mysterious for you,

nor is it far off.

It is not in heaven, that you should say,

who will ascend into heaven for us

and bring it to us, thatwe may hear it and do it?

Nor is it beyond thesea, that you should say,

who will go over the seafor us and bring it to us,

that we may hear it and do it?

But the word is very near you,

in your mouth and in yourheart, then you may do it.

Here, Moses is talking aboutthe entirety of the Torah,

but he's also specifically talking

about what's in your mouthand what are you saying.

Are you confessing, areyou doing that third part,

are you confessing yoursin before the Lord.

For the Jewish people,

it's not enough to have remorse for sin,

it's not enough to have a vowthat you'll never do it again.

You must verbally confessthis is what I've done

and I need forgiveness.

As we look at this and my thought here

is that for us corporately tounderstand the underpinnings

of the Day of Atonement aswe go into it next week,

but also in preparation for that,

that you understand fromthe Jewish perspective

what is involved in atonement,

what is needed on therecipient's part for us to do.

It's not sufficientjust for the high priest

to do his part with the blood sacrifice.

It is also imperative upon us

as the congregation of the Lord

to observe those three things,

that we have remorse, weturn from it, we confess it.

In doing that, we need to keep in mind

the nature of God and his attributes.

The Jewish people talk ofthe 13 attributes of God.

Those 13 attributes comefrom this verse in Exodus 34.

So as they're preparingfor the Day of Atonement,

they keep in their mind theseattributes, what is God like.

This verse is an answerto the prayer of Moses.

Here, there's a wholesequence of the burning bush,

I'm not worthy, I don't speak well.

God's saying to him, who made mouths.

Moses asking, well, whenthey say who sent me,

who do I tell 'em, andthe great revelation,

a revelation that evenAbraham did not receive,

I am the I am.

The name of God is given to Moses.

Then later in the journey, God reveals,

I'm going to send my angels with you.

You're gonna have angels withyou, but don't offend them

because they don't havethe power to forgive.

In the middle of all of those revelations,

Moses does somethingvery bold where he says,

"Show me your glory."

I've seen your mighty acts,

I want to know your ways.

I want to know the behavior pattern,

if you will, and I want to see your glory.

This is the answer to that prayer.

And the Lord passedbefore him and proclaimed,

so this is God Almightycoming and proclaiming,

"The Lord, the Lord God,merciful and gracious,

"long-suffering and aboundingin goodness and truth,

"keeping mercy for thousands,

"forgiving iniquity andtransgression and sin

"by no means clearing the guilty,

"visiting the iniquity of thefathers upon the children,

"and the children's children to the third

"and fourth generation."

You don't hear this versemuch in the Christian church.

And perhaps we need to recoverit, that yes, there's mercy,

but we have to keep inmind God is not mocked.

Whatever we do, the iniquity of what we do

is visited on our childrenand our children's children.

Here are the 13 attributes from that verse

according to the rabbis.

Ha-shem, the name,

so you're having thegreat revelation name.

I am the one who causes everything to be.

It's repeated, I am the onewho causes everything to be.

So that 13 attributes, there'sa double emphasis here.

And then the third one, I'm God.

So I cause everything to be,

I cause everything to be, I'm God.

Merciful, number oneattribute after the name,

I cause everything to be, I'm merciful.

I'm gracious, I'm long-suffering,

I'm abundant in goodness, I am truth.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am truth.

Keeping mercy unto thethousandth generation.

Isn't that awesome?

Forgiving iniquity, transgression,

and sin, who cleanses.

That's the 13th, who cleanses.

We do not have the ability

to cleanse ourselves from sin, God does.

So as we pray and we ask for forgiveness,

we're keeping in mindthe 13 attributes of God.

That is the focal point of the turn.

As we turn from ourwickedness and we look at him,

these are the attributeswe are keeping in mind.

Now, there is a parallelin the New Testament.

In the New Testament era, isanything based on our works?

Are you guys, am I not doing a good job?

(congregation laughs)

If any rhetorical question was set up

for you to hit a home run...

(congregation laughs)

Nothing is based on our works,lest anyone should boast.

Okay?

We don't go to God and say,

boy, I've confessedmore than anybody else.

(congregation laughs)

I've done a really good job of confessing.

No, it's not based on ourworks, it's not what we do.

Are deathbed conversions effective

to get people into heaven?

The answer's yes.

Are jailhouse confessionssufficient to get you to heaven?

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes, and amen.

Let's get our theology right.

You get saved, you get saved all the way.

He who is faithful, hecan present you spotless

in his presence with exceeding joy.

It's because he does it.

He does it.

It's not based on us.

So Paul has a dilemma, doesn't he?

'Cause he's had this great revelation.

He's the Pharisee of Pharisees.

He's of the tribe of Benjamin.

He has done everything rightin his zeal for the Torah.

He says these evil Christians,we gotta knock them out.

I'm gonna drag 'em off to jail.

I don't care if they'rewomen, they're going to jail.

I'm going to consent to Stephen's death

because he's earned it.

He's a blasphemer under the Torah.

I'm gonna collect everybody's cloak

and stand by while theystone him to death,

and I'm gonna feel right about it.

He's got a problem because what do you do

with a Day of Atonementin the New Testament?

How do you deal with that?

He does it veryeffectively, Romans 10:6-10,

But the righteousness offaith speaks in this way,

do not say in your heart,who will ascend into heaven?

Who's he echoing here?

Moses.

That is, to bring Christ down from above,

or who will descend into the abyss?

That is, to bring Christ up from the dead.

But what does it say?

The word is near you, inyour mouth and in your heart,

that is, the word offaith which we preach.

That if you confess withyour mouth the Lord Jesus

and believe in your heartthat God has raised Him

from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart onebelieves unto righteousness,

and with the mouth confessionis made into salvation.

Hallelujah.

- [Congregation] Amen.

- Hallelujah.

This, for us, is that signaturefor the Day of Atonement.

What is our confession.

Jesus has taken all of my sin

and covered it under his blood.

- [Congregation] Amen.

- I need to confessthat all day, every day.

He is Lord of my life, he has redeemed me

from the pit of destruction.

The consequences that followsin, he has canceled out.

He has become a curse so Iwould not be under that curse.

He has set me free fromthe law of sin and death.

I no longer am bound to it.

But I have to confess that.

I have to proclaim that.

I have to say he is overthat sin, he has done that.

What happens to me if I keep it?

I'm gonna challenge the Baptists.

What happens if I keep it?

Where do I go with that?

I'll make it easy for theBaptists 'cause I'm a Baptist.

Sorta.

(congregation laughs)

Bapti-costal.

I'll make it easy; why livea life of guilt and shame?

Why live a life where I have doubt,

where I'm wondering, is he able?

Why hold onto that darkness in my heart?

Why have anything to do with darkness,

anything to do with sin,anything to do with the old life,

the old man, the old waythat Gordon used to be?

I should not have anight of the living dead

where my old self comes back into life

and has any ground in me.

The way to get rid of it is to confess it.

And just say, Jesus, set me free.

We can do this all the timeat the communion table.

Let us not be unworthy when we take it.

All the time, just say at communion,

Lord, I receive your nature,I receive your flesh,

I receive your blood,become that new in me today.

This is why we take communion.

This is why we confessour sins to one another.

This is why, because wewant to be free of them.

On that last day, we don'twant to stand in front of him

and say, well, look atall the miracles I did

and look at all the demons I cast out,

and have him say back, awayfrom me, you lawless one.

We don't want that.

Our hearts need to be right before him.

Amen?

- [Congregation] Amen.

- So we are praying for America.

Yesterday, we laid some foundation

for let judgment begin with me.

Today, we lay the foundation,judgment beginning with me,

examining my own heart, myown soul, my own spirit.

What do I need to get rid ofand let's confess it before him

and take the confession thatPaul has so laid out for us

that he is our Lord.

If we believe in our heartthat he is the savior

and as God has risen him from the dead.

We believe that in our heartand confess it with our mouths,

we shall be saved.

And let's do that for America.

Let's have a returning to God by America.

Not by laws and politicians,but from our own hearts

let us return, amen?

Let's pray.

Lord God, we just come to you

and we confess that we have sinned.

We have fallen short of your glory.

We have fallen short of your two basic,

your two greatest commandments,

to love you with all of our hearts.

Lord, forgive us of the timesthat we have complained,

the times that we have questioned,

the times where we havewondered, where is God?

The times we've wondered, whywould God let this happen?

Lord, we acknowledgethat as sin against you,

holy and righteous God, whosevery attribute is mercy,

and compassion, and forgiveness.

Lord, forgive us of this.

Set us free from this.

And Lord God, the times thatwe have not loved our neighbor,

that we have not loved one another,

the times that we havepreferred ourselves,

where we put ourselvesfirst and not others first,

the times where we haveasserted our own rights

instead of recognizingthe rights of others.

Lord, forgive us of this.

Set us free from this.

And as a nation, as a people, set us free.

We proclaim that we'reone nation under God.

We proclaim that in God we trust.

But I confess that ourheart is far from you

and we trust in other things.

We trust in money, we trust inpower, we trust in politics,

we trust in things thathave nothing to do with you.

Set us free, forgive us of this.

As a nation, as a people,turn our hearts to you

that we may see your glory,

we may understand your attributes,

the greatness of your powertowards us who believe.

And now, Lord, we joinwith the prayer of Paul

and we don't ask for anyoneto come down from heaven,

or anyone to go across the sea,

or anyone to go down to the depths.

The word is already here

for we are gathered together in your name

and your promise thatyou, the living Word,

would be in our midst.

So be in our hearts, be in our mouths

as we confess that you are the savior,

Yeshua, the one whosevery name means savior,

and you were sent by Godto save us from our sins.

And you died and Godraised you from the dead.

And forevermore you sit at his right hand

and you ever give intercession for us.

We proclaim you as Lord,we proclaim you as savior,

and we confess that now with our mouths.

Save us from our sins,save us from our nature,

and give a new nature to us.

Write your Torah in our hearts.

Renew a right spirit, Lord God.

Let our hearts draw nearer to you

that we may have yourgrace and your peace.

So lift up your countenance on us.

Cause your face to shine upon us

that we may be marked as your people.

Do it, Lord, for we ask itall in Jesus' name, amen.

- [Congregation] Amen.

- And amen, God bless you.

(congregation applauds)