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<v SPEAKER_00>Good morning, First Baptist Wimberly.

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<v SPEAKER_00>This is Mike Gibbons.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Welcome to Friday.

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<v SPEAKER_00>We are back in Nehemiah this Sunday.

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<v SPEAKER_00>I would encourage you to prepare yourself for worship in the Word by reading through all of Nehemiah 10 before Sunday.

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<v SPEAKER_00>As I did that this week, I went back to Nehemiah 9 just to review and remind myself of the context and was captured by a phrase in Nehemiah 9:17.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Let me read that verse.

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<v SPEAKER_00>They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them.

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<v SPEAKER_00>But they stiffened their neck and appointed the leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.

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<v SPEAKER_00>But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Here is the phrase, but you are a God ready to forgive.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Now I'm recording this at 9 a.m.

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<v SPEAKER_00>on Thursday.

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<v SPEAKER_00>The day has barely started, and I need that forgiveness already.

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<v SPEAKER_00>So this really captured my attention.

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<v SPEAKER_00>I went to the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, to see if he had any commentary on that verse.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Now he obviously used the King James Version, and in that translation, this phrase reads as Thou art a God ready to pardon.

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<v SPEAKER_00>But listen to what Spurgeon says.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Quote, we have this book of holy scripture written by the pen of the Holy Spirit, which tells us over and over again that the God whom we have offended is a God ready to pardon, a God whose mercy endureth forever.

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<v SPEAKER_00>I would call your attention to the expression a God ready to pardon.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Not a God who may possibly pardon, neither a God who, upon strong persuasion and earnest pleadings may at length be induced to forgive.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Not one who, perchance, at some remote period, after we have undergone a long purgation, may manifest a mercy which is now in the background, but a God ready to pardon, willing and more than willing, ready, standing prepared, or to use another scriptural expression, waiting to be gracious.

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<v SPEAKER_00>Not only are all things ready, but God Himself is ready, his own heart and hand already to bestow pardon upon the guilty ones who come before him.

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<v SPEAKER_00>There is forgiveness with him that he may be feared.

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<v SPEAKER_00>May the Holy Spirit lead us to feel the power of his mercy.