John 6:41-47: The Good News of Total Depravity and Irresistible Grace

Scripture Reading

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Intro

What makes the difference between someone who hears the gospel, repents of their sins, and believes in Jesus Christ and someone who doesn’t?

Why does someone hear the good news of salvation and receive it with joy as the greatest treasure of their life, the best news they’ve ever heard...

While others can just walk away without a care in the world completely ignoring the message that could change their eternal destiny?

When you consider how dead the Bible says we are in our trespasses and sins, the question we are really asking is: How is anyone saved at all?

Can a dead man take medicine to heal his deadness?

How? How does he take it?

Does he get up and swallow the pill?

But how does he get up? Wouldn’t that mean he wasn’t dead?

If we are truly dead in our trespasses and sins how is anyone born again?

Here’s the answer.

We are born again by the sovereign and irresistible grace of God.

This is the good news of total depravity and irresistible grace…two doctrines that exalt God’s glory in His sovereignty over our salvation when without this grace none of us would be saved.

This is an offensive doctrine because it says man is so lost and dead in their sins, so wicked in our hatred against God, such slaves to sin...that we cannot come to God for grace unless God draws us by His sovereign grace.

But this is the grace Jesus preached.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

That’s what we are going to look at today in John 6:41-47 and my hope is that is that your love and thankfulness for God would grow as you see how impossible it was for you to be saved were it not for God’s sovereign grace.

Let’s start with John 6:41...

John 6:41–42 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

Allow me to remind you where we are.

The day before Jesus had done a great miracle.

After a long day of teaching and ministry, the people were hungry.

And so Jesus took five small loaves and two small fish and fed a great multitude of 5,000 men not to mention women and children.

So 15-20,000 people in all, all with one small boys small lunch.

After this, Jesus and His disciples went to the other side of the Sea, and the people followed Him there giving Jesus the perfect opportunity to share the good news of the gospel.

He said you aren’t seeking me because you want to follow me and be my disciples.

You are seeking me because you ate your fill of the loaves (John 6:26).

You’re following me because you’re hungry, but you’re not hungry for the right thing.

Physical food will never satisfy.

I’m the bread who came down from heaven to give life to the world (John 6:33).

John 6:35 I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Believe in me and I will give you eternal life!

That’s the gist of everything Jesus has been saying.

And So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

Just like their forefathers in the wilderness grumbled when God rained down manna, from heaven, these Jews grumble in the presence of the true bread, the true manna, from heaven revealing their hard-hearted and stubborn unbelief..

Verse 42...

They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

They did not believe Jesus had come down from heaven…that He was the eternal Son of God incarnate in human flesh.

We saw this all the way back in John chapter 1...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

Jesus is God.

And then verse 14: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

Jesus came to do what no man could do. Save us from all our sins.

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

But these Jews refused to see it.

They refused to believe Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God and by believing have life in His Name (John 20:31).

And so instead of running to Christ and taking the bread of life that would leave them to never hunger or thirst again…the bread of life that would give them eternal life…they grumbled instead.

Verse 43…

John 6:43–45 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

And here’s where we get to the main part of our text and one of the most controversial doctrines of our faith.

The Doctrine of Irresistible Grace.

And the force this doctrine is taught in John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

You’ll remember from last week that Jesus’ promise to raise us up on the last day is a promise to bring us the fullness of our salvation.

That every trace and stain of sin and death and the curse will be washed away.

That all those who come to Christ will be fully and eternally saved.

But look what Christ says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

That drawing is what we call Irresistible Grace.

But before we can talk about Irresistible Grace we need to understand another doctrine that make Irresistible Grace absolutely necessary for any of us to be saved.

And that is the Doctrine of Total Depravity found in the words No one can come to me…unless the Father who sent me draws Him.

And that is point number 1…

I. The Doctrine of Total Depravity

Notice Jesus says No one can come to me...

As in no one is able…that’s actually another way to translate what this Greek word actually says.

And in the context of John 6, coming to Jesus is unquestionably coming to saving faith in Him.

So what Jesus is saying, and what makes this doctrine so offensive to sinful man, is that...

No one is able to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ to be saved and forgiven of their sins unless God the Father draws them.

Why?

Because of Total Depravity.

We are so sinful and so corrupted by our sin that there is no part of us that is left untouched or unaffected by our sin.

We are sinful from head to toe.

That’s precisely what the Bible says.

Isaiah 1:6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.

We are sinful and we are sinful all the way down.

All of our heart, minds, love, will, affections, and desires...

Emotions, conscience, goals, motives...

Everything about us is corrupted by sin, and everything in us…every thought, word, action, and deed is motivated to sin.

Now what this doesn’t mean is that we are sinful to the nth degree.

We are not the worst possible sinners we can possibly be.

Just because you might hate your brother and so commit murder in your heart, doesn’t mean you are an outright, actual serial killer.

So Total Depravity does not mean you are as sinful as you possibly can be or that you are tempted by and commit every kind of sin.

We are all drawn to particular kinds of sin by our own particular lusts and desires.

But what it does mean is that everything about us is absolutely and utterly sinful.

That everything in us and everything about us from our very nature is hostile to God.

We are slaves to sin and born sinners with the seeds of corruption planted deep in our heart just waiting to bear fruit.

And even the quote unquote good things we do are not done for the glory of God and out of a pure love for Him, but out of selfish love and selfish motives.

Just hear what the Bible says about man in our sinful state.

We are slaves to sin (John 8:34).

Hostile to God (Romans 5:10, 8:7).

Children of Wrath (Ephesians 2:3).

Followers of Satan (Ephesians 2:2).

Haters of God lovers...of darkness (Romans 1:30, John 3:18-19).

Futile in thinking…darkened in our understanding (Eph 4:17-18; Rom. 1:21).

Deaf, Blind, sick and Lame. (Is. 6:10, 2 Cor 4:4, John 3:3, Is. 59:10 Is. 35:5-6).

Wise in doing evil, but ignorant of doing good (Jeremiah 4:22).

Dead in our trespasses and sins with evil, unbelieving hearts whose every intention and thought of the heart is only evil continually (Eph. 2:1, Heb. 3:12 Genesis 6:5).

That’s a pretty bleak picture.

Everything about us is touched and corrupted by sin.

As John Calvin said, “We are so entirely controlled by the power of sin, that the whole mind, the whole heart, and all our actions are under its influence” (MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 467–468).

My goal here is not to crush you.

My goal is to help you see how utterly hopeless and helpless we are in our sin.

When the Bible says we are dead…we are dead.

You want a one-liner for what Total Depravity actually means?

We are dead in our trespasses and sins.

How dead? Dead dead.

And because man is dead in their trespasses and sins…that left to themselves, they are utterly lost and hopeless.

They are doomed in their sin, destined to perish with absolutely no hope or ability to save themselves.

Hears what the 1689 London Baptist Confession says. Chapter 9 paragraph 3:

Humanity, by falling into a state of sin, has completely lost all ability to choose any spiritual good that accompanies salvation. Thus people in their natural state are absolutely opposed to spiritual good and dead in sin, so that they cannot convert themselves by their own strength or prepare themselves for conversion.

No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.

Theologians call this moral inability.

Luther called it the Bondage of the Will.

I prefer to call it spiritually inability.

We are so utterly lost and sinful and dead in our sins… so hostile to God and slaves of our lusts that we are absolutely unwilling and unable to come to Christ by our own power desire.

Left to ourselves we would never come.

Unless God saves, unless He draws us to Himself, unless He renews us from the inside out we will never be saved and we would all die in our sins.

This is key.

This is so fundamental to what you believe the Bible says about salvation.

How sinful is sinful man?

How dead are they in their trespasses and sins?

Are they just a little sick? Could they just take one sip of the antidote…one drink of the water of life and all would be well?

Well how does a dead man take the medicine.

He can’t! All He can do is lie there dead.

And that is all of us outside of Christ.

Dead men don’t hear. Dead men don’t think. Dead don’t see. Dead men don’t believe.

They have no power in themselves because that’s what dead means.

Dead in our trespasses and sins, we cannot move even one inch toward God to be saved.

We are dead.

Our only hope is God’s amazing and invincible grace.

And that takes us to point number 2...

II. The Doctrine of Irresistible Grace

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

The draws is where we get the idea of Irresistible Grace.

Some people take the word to mean woo, or invite, or persuade.

But this is not strong enough.

In John 6:45, the very next verse, Jesus expands on what it means that the Father draws sinners to Christ and says Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

No one who is drawn by the Father fails to come to Jesus.

And even in verse 44, Jesus promises to raise up those whom the Father draws.

Remember…raise up is the fullness of salvation…the consummation of our eternal life.

So this drawing cannot be a general invitation to come to Christ.

A wooing or inviting that can be resisted or refused.

If it were, Jesus could not say He will raise them up on the last day.

Everyone would need to be saved!

So this is a powerful or efficacious drawing. One that actually and effectually brings the sinner to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

In fact, the word draw could be translated as dragged or hauled.

The word implies resistance to the force that draws with the one drawing ultimately being victorious in the end.

Word Study

Let’s just do a quick word study of this Word in the New Testament.

In John 18:10, its used to describe Peter drawing his sword from his scabbard.

He does not woo it out. He draws it out.

In John 21:6 its used to talk about hauling a net overflowing with fish back to the shore.

If you’ve ever been fishing you know you aren’t just inviting fish into the boat.

Well what about John 12:32 where Jesus says “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Well in context Jesus is talking about all kinds of people…all nations Jews and Gentile.

That He would save all His elect from every tribe tongue and nation.

So Jesus is drawing all people to Himself. He is drawing all nations through the preaching of the gospel.

Let’s go outside the Gospel of John.

In James 2:6 its used to condemn the rich from dragging the poor man into court.

In the book of Acts, Acts 16:19 and 21:30, the word is used for when Paul is seized and dragged to the authorities.

You can be sure they did not woo Paul to persecution or the poor man into court.

They dragged or compelled them.

So given how this word is used in the New Testament it is obviously much stronger than too woo or persuade.

It implies an overwhelming and compelling force that overcomes all resistance to where the one doing the drawing or the dragging is successful.

Defining Irresistible Grace

That is Irresistible Grace.

We were dead in our sins.

Hostile to God.

Everything in us hating God and despising Him with no hope or ability to save ourselves or move even one inch towards God or faith in Christ.

Remember what Jesus said. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

We were spiritually dead. As dead as dead can be.

But God in His grace made us alive again in Christ by the Holy Spirit.

He overcame all of our sin and opposition to Him and dragged us to Christ.

Not in a way that we came kicking in screaming.

Sometimes people get the wrong idea of Irresistible Grace.

God draws us in such a way that we are made willing.

That’s what we call the New Birth.

We are dead in sin. God makes us alive again.

He gives us a new heart, new mind, new will, new loves, new affections desires…

He opens our eyes to the good news of gospel so that we see our sin, our judgment, our miserable condition... and we flee to Christ.

But, and this is key for the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace, the reason we flee to Christ is because God made us alive.

Regeneration, being born again, the call and work of the Holy Spirit…precedes faith.

We believe is because we are born again not the other way around.

And that being born again is what we call Irresistible Grace.

Its not that people do not and cannot resist God’s grace.

They do it every day.

God has a general grace has towards all people.

He gives rain to the just and the unjust alike.

But does sinful man turn from sin? Do they worship Him?

No! They resist His grace.

They suppress the truth.

They do not give thanks to Him or acknowledge His Name (Rom. 1:21-23).

People also resist God’s grace in the good news of the gospel.

They can hear the gospel.

They can hear the good news of God’s salvation. They can hear it a hundred times, and yet not believe.

that’s exactly what’s happening here with the very people Jesus is talking to.

So Irresistible Grace does not mean that people cannot or do not resist God’s grace.

What it means is that there is a particular and saving grace God has towards the elect - all those God has predestined before the foundation of the world to believe in Jesus Christ.

And at some point in time God effectually and efficaciously draws them.

And its irresistible Grace because all who hear that call obey, and come to Christ.

He overcomes all of our sin and natural resistance to Him by making us alive again and opening our eyes to the gospel so that we freely and willingly run to Christ.

But that running to Christ is a work of God’s sovereign grace.

Because left to ourselves we would still be dead.

God’s grace Irresistible in the sense that all who God draws to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit will be saved.

This is why this doctrine is sometimes called Effectual Calling or Efficacious Grace.

All God draws, God saves.

And nothing, no sin or resistance to His will thwarts that grace in the life of the believer because God elected them to be saved.

That’s the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace.

How it Works

Here’s how it works.

Romans 10:17 Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

The Spirit works through the preaching of the Word; the good news of the gospel.

This is what we call the outward call of the gospel: the free offer of God’s grace towards sinners in Jesus Christ.

But because of sin and the spiritual corpse that is the sinner...

That outward call is ineffectual without the powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

Merely hearing the gospel is not enough.

Until we are born again gospel has no impact on us.

How can it? Our ears our dead.

We do not understand it and more than that we are not able to understand it.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The outward call alone is not enough.

It is a free and genuine offer of the gospel. If they would believe they would be saved.

But they will not believe because they are dead in their sin.

This is why we need Irresistible Grace.

The inward, effectual call of the Holy Spirit.

John 3:5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

Water is a reference to atonement cleansing God offers in the New Covenant.

And that atonement cleansing only comes through the gospel.

What does Ephesians 5:25 say? Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

That’s the gospel.

But not only do we need to be born of Water - the atonement cleansing of the free grace of Christ proclaimed in the Word of God, we also need to be born of the Holy Spirit.

This is the outward call and the inward call of the gospel by the Holy Spirit working together.

Through the gospel, the Holy Spirit, makes us alive again.

He opens our eyes to our sin and our great need for Jesus Christ and thus through that work God draws us to faith in Christ by His grace.

And so we willingly come to Christ because we are made willing.

God doesn’t violate our will. He renews our will. He frees us from the bondage of sin and slavery.

Where we once loved our sin and hated God, in the New Birth all that’s changed.

We are irresistibly drawn to Christ by His great love.

Jeremiah 31:3 I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.

Question 35 of the Baptist Catechism gives us a really good summary of Effectual Calling or Irresistible Grace.

Question: What is Effectual Calling?

Answer: Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery [There’s our total depravity], enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills [There’s the New Birth and Irresistible Grace], He persuades and enables us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the Gospel.

And that’s good news, because without it none of us would be saved.

If the gospel was just out there somewhere for us to choose whether or not to believe it…every single one of us would still be dead in our sins.

But the grace of God overcomes our sin and by His almighty power He draws us to Christ and we are saved.

And that’s what I want to focus on in point number 3...

III. The Good News of Irresistible Grace

John 6:45–47 “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”

When Jesus says “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God,’” that is a reference to Isaiah’s promise God’s salvation in the New Covenant.

Isaiah 54:13 All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.

In fact, all the Prophets that talk about the New Covenant take up this idea of God supernaturally teaching His people in what we would call the New Birth.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah...I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Ezekiel 36:25–27 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Both of these promises talk about the Sovereignty of God in our salvation.

God is the one who writes His law on our hearts.

He puts His Spirit within us.

He’s the one that takes out our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh.

They will all be taught by God…this is God’s drawing. This is God’s Irresistible Grace.

Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

Again, this drawing is only for the Elect.

Some people who don’t like this Doctrine says, Well, God draws everyone equally.

That’s not true. According to this verse If everyone were drawn, everyone would be saved.

Even earlier in verse 36: All that the Father gives me will come to me.

In Romans 8:30, the great unbreakable chain of our salvation, those He foreknew, He also predestined...And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

That calling is Irresistible Grace.

All God calls, all God draws are justified - declared righteous and forgiven of their sins.

And All God calls are glorified. I will raise them up on the last day.

Only the elect are drawn effectually by God.

And this is really the only way it can be.

Faith is a Gift

Think about it.

If God drew everyone equally or gave everyone enough grace where they would be free to choose to believe the gospel or not believe the gospel, then what would be difference between the two?

What would be the difference between this person who believes and this person who does not believe?

Well I said yes to the gospel.

Yea…that’s what we are talking about. What made you say yes?

Were you more righteous than that other person?

More intelligent? More spiritually inclined?

Less of a sinner? Your parents took you to church? What was it?

You see…any theological system that says God goes 99% of the way and leaves us to make up the other 1%.

Leaves it up to us to choose and believe.

That little 1% becomes a reason to boast.

Something you do to contribute to your salvation.

Now I’m not saying we don’t actually choose and we don’t actually believe we do.

No one will be saved without coming to Christ and repenting and believing the gospel.

What I’m saying is even our faith is a gift of God’s grace.

Ephesians 2:8–9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

What is the this? It is being saved by grace through faith.

All of it together.

This is in the neuter form. Grace and faith are both feminine. Saved is masculine.

So the neuter is used in Greek to encapsulate it all together.

Faith is part of the gift of God, not our own doing so that no one may boast.

Verse 46:— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.

This makes it clear that this salvation is never independent of God’s Revelation in Christ.

As the only one who has seen the Father, that’s John 1:18, Jesus is the only one who can reveal the Father.

That’s why Jesus said I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

There is no other way to be saved. That’s why verse 47 goes on to say Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

There’s the free offer of the gospel.

Its not inconsistent with irresistible grace.

Whoever believes will be saved.

That is a true and genuine offer to everyone who hears it.

But the only way to hear and benefit from it is to be born again by God’s sovereign grace.

This leads some people to say that God is not fair in Irresistible Grace; similar to the way they do in the Doctrine of Election.

How can God judge someone who cannot come to Him anyway?

But remember…God is not obligated to save anyone.

Salvation is not something that is owed.

If it was it would not be grace.

So every man dies for his own sin.

There is no injustice on God’s part.

God does not tempt or draw anyone to evil (James 1:13-15).

Men are drawn away by their own sinful hearts and desires which are slaves to sin.

Jesus said as much in John 3:19–20 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

The sad truth of the state of natural man is that they will not come to Christ because they love their sin.

So here is Irresistible Grace.

All of us were dead in our trespasses and sins sins running headlong, as hard and fast as we could straight into hell.

But God, being rich in mercy out of the good pleasure of His will chose to save some.

While were running as fast as we could, God grabbed us by the scruff of the necked and dragged us out of the fires of Hell into the arms of Christ.

Any man that does not come to Christ Jesus says “loses his own soul” (Mark 8:36).

God does not lose it for them.

And that would be everyone were it not for God’s sovereign, irresistible grace in Christ.

We should not look at the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace and say God’s not fair.

We should look at it and say, I cannot comprehend God’s amazing grace.

Thank God it is not a weak grace that I could stop, resist, or overcome by my sin.

A grace that depended on me and my own wicked heart.

But a strong grace… An invincible grace that saved me when it was impossible for me to ever save myself.

And that’s even the point of this whole passage.

Non Christian

When Jesus told the Jews No one can come to me unless the Father draws he wasn’t letting them off the hook saying, “Well don’t worry. Its not your fault you don’t believe in me. You can’t help it anyway.”

No. What Jesus was doing was confronting them with the depth of their sin and need for God’s grace.

And that’s what this doctrine does for us.

Let me give you the bad news. Without God’s mercy and grace it is hopeless.

You can never be saved.

But the Good News is God is a God who is fully of mercy and grace.

You might be here today and you’re not a Christian.

And you’re hearing this message and you’re thinking what am I supposed to do?

You’re telling me I need to believe in Christ to be saved and then you’re telling me I can’t come to Christ unless the Father draws me?

What hope to I have?

And that’s precisely the point!

Flee to Christ.

Pray God, be merciful to me a sinner!

I can’t save myself, you’re my only hope!

Cast yourself wholly on God’s grace and God’s mercy.

Renounce all your sin and self-righteousness.

Come to Christ and say will you please save me? There is no where else I can go.

And do you know what Christ says?

Just a few verses before All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out (John 6:37).

I will never shut out or throw away.

I will receive. I will take as my own. I will was them and cover them in my blood and you will be saved.

Flee to God’s merciful grace and see whether or not God is merciful towards sinners.

Christian

And for the Christian that is the same message we are supposed to hear today.

We had no hope were it not for God’s amazing grace.

There was no where to go. There was no where to turn.

But…

Ephesians 2:12–13 Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

When we were lost, dead, and without hope God saved us in Jesus Christ.

Total Depravity asks the same question the disciples asked in Luke 18:26: Who then can be saved?

And what did Jesus say? What is impossible with man is possible with God.

God did the impossible by His irresistible grace.

Our response should be worship. Thankfulness.

A life of holiness and obedience living all of our life for God’s glory with a relentless, unquenchable thirst for godliness.

To worship the Lord with joyful hearts whose glory and Name is: The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin (Exodus 34:6-7).

Conclusion

Let’s Pray