Paul Washer: God's holiness and man's depravity

Summary

Paul Washer's sermon delves into the profound nature of God's holiness contrasted with humanity's inherent sinfulness. He emphasizes the importance of understanding sin in the context of God's holy nature, dismissing the notion that sin is simply error and instead asserting it is active rebellion against God. Washer argues that the true depth of man's depravity is often overlooked or minimized in modern teachings, but is essential for comprehending the necessity and majesty of Christ's redemption.

Highlights

• Washer emphasizes the need for the Gospel to remain unchanged and central. 📜
• Sin should terrify us because it defies the very nature of a holy God. 😟
• He illustrates sin as more than a mere mistake but a willful rebellion. ⚔️
• The universality of sin traces back to man's innate sinful nature. 🌍
• Understanding God's holiness is crucial to comprehend human sinfulness. 🙏
• Hell is depicted as a justified response to unrepentant sin. 🔥
• The righteousness of God demands accountability from humanity. ⚖️
• Many perceive hell as unjust due to ignorance of sin's gravity. 🕳️
• God's wrath against sin is premeditated, reflecting His nature. ⚡
• The mercy of God offers a lifeline amidst inevitable judgment. 🌈

Key Takeaways

• Understanding sin as rebellion against God highlights its seriousness. 😲
• God's holiness is beyond human comprehension, revealing our moral failings. 🌠
• The ignorance of God's true nature is widespread, even in churches. 😮
• Hell is a place of perfect justice, reflecting the severity of sin. 🔥
• God's mercy is available, but His righteous judgment is certain. 🛡️

Overview

Paul Washer opens his sermon with a call to remain steadfast in the gospel, reiterating that it is unchanging and must be at the heart of our faith. He critiques modern tendencies to alter or simplify the gospel to suit contemporary tastes, warning against the temptation to diminish its power and truth. Washer insists that understanding God's holiness is paramount in grasping the severity of sin, which is often trivialized in today's teachings.

Washer paints a vivid picture of mankind's inherent sinfulness, contrasting it starkly with the righteousness and purity of God. He argues that sin is not merely an error but an active rebellion against God, deeply rooted in the human heart. This sin nature, he asserts, is universally present and must be recognized and repented from before receiving God's grace. The discussion escalates into the depiction of hell as a place of perfect justice, deserving of humanity's guilt before a holy God.

In conclusion, Washer delivers a powerful message on the importance of God's mercy in offering salvation through Christ. He stresses that God's wrath is real and calculated against sin, but His mercy provides a way out, urging believers to appreciate the magnitude of God's grace. The sermon underlines that a true understanding of God involves recognizing both His love and His judgment, which together articulate the fullness of His character.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction In the Introduction chapter, the focus is on the centrality of the Gospel in personal lives, ministries, and churches. Previous sessions emphasized the importance of making the Gospel the core of all aspects of religious practice. The chapter sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the themes in Romans chapter 3, urging readers to prioritize the Gospel in their spiritual and communal lives.
• 00:30 - 01:00: The Essence of the Gospel The chapter emphasizes the sanctity and immutability of the gospel, underlining that it is divinely ordained and should not be altered to suit modern or contemporary societal norms. The key message is the importance of remaining true to the original doctrine and the truth as it was first given.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Significance of Romans Chapter 3 Romans Chapter 3 discusses the universal sinfulness of humanity and the righteousness of God that is revealed through faith in Jesus Christ. It emphasizes that no one is righteous on their own, and all have fallen short of God's glory, thus underscoring the necessity of faith for salvation. The chapter highlights both the justice and mercy of God and the importance of faith in establishing a right relationship with Him. It serves as a critical theological point on the nature of sin and redemption in Christian doctrine.
• 01:30 - 03:30: Sin and the Fallen Nature of Man This chapter underscores the critical nature of a pivotal biblical passage, often regarded as the cornerstone of Christian faith. Emphasizing the necessity of understanding these truths, it asserts their fundamental importance for a thorough comprehension of the faith's core tenets.
• 03:30 - 04:30: The Universality and Nature of Sin This chapter discusses the concept of sin from a religious perspective, emphasizing its universal nature. It highlights the idea that many people are not opposed to the teachings of Christianity but are simply unaware of them due to a lack of proper dissemination by those who are responsible for spreading the gospel. The reason for this ignorance is attributed to the fact that many religious leaders do not prioritize or truly appreciate the message of the gospel, thereby failing to convey its importance to the public. This negligence results in a society that, while not necessarily rejecting the gospel, remains uninformed about its teachings.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Rebellion Against God The chapter "Rebellion Against God" discusses the misconception within Christianity where initial teachings are perceived as mere transitional stages towards something greater. However, the core principle emphasized is that all individuals have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, as stated in Romans 3:23. The passage reiterates the concept of justification as a gift granted by God's grace through the redemption provided by Christ Jesus. This chapter seems to underscore the significance of acknowledging one's own sins and understanding justification as an integral aspect of Christian faith.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Sin as a State of Being The chapter discusses sin as a state of being and how it relates to faith in Jesus. It explains that God's righteousness is demonstrated through Jesus' sacrifice, which serves as a propitiation for sins. The distinction is made between the law of works and faith, emphasizing that righteousness comes through faith in Jesus and not by personal boasting or adherence to a law of works. The chapter underlines the idea that God is both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus, highlighting the transformative nature of faith in overcoming the state of sin.
• 06:00 - 07:00: The Depravity of the Human Heart This chapter explores the concept of justification by faith as opposed to justification by adherence to the law. The text discusses how faith, rather than works, leads to righteousness. A prayer for understanding and interpreting these truths is also offered, emphasizing the depth and significance of this theological concept.
• 07:00 - 07:30: The Innocent Appearance of Sin The chapter discusses the profound depths of truth inherent in scripture, emphasizing that even if one were to devote a lifetime to studying a particular passage, the complete exhaustion of its truths remains unreachable. This serves as a call for divine assistance in both conveying and understanding the significant truths contained within the scripture, for the glory of Jesus and the benefit of the people.
• 07:30 - 08:30: A Deep Dive into Human Sinfulness This chapter focuses on the concept of human sinfulness from a Christian perspective, as it revolves around the teachings of Christ. It emphasizes honoring Jesus and recognizing his true worth. A key biblical verse highlighted is 'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,' which underscores the theme of universal human sinfulness and the need for redemption through Jesus Christ.
• 08:30 - 09:30: Human Ignorance of Sin The chapter 'Human Ignorance of Sin' reflects on how repetition can dull our appreciation and awareness. Using a personal anecdote from a visit to Norway, where the natural beauty of the forests, rocks, islands, sea, wind, and mountains initially amazed the narrator, it illustrates how locals, accustomed to this scenery, may overlook its beauty. This serves as a metaphor for human ignorance of deeper, meaningful aspects in life, including the concept of sin, due to familiarity and repetition.
• 09:30 - 10:00: Righteousness vs Human Goodness The chapter opens with an analogy about the mundane nature of often-repeated things, comparing it to how people become desensitized to phrases or concepts when they are frequently heard. It mentions how the impact of hearing 'I love you' for the first time can fade over time as it becomes more routine.
• 10:00 - 11:00: Humanity's Misunderstanding In the chapter 'Humanity's Misunderstanding,' the narrative explores the phenomenon of how frequently repeated words or phrases, such as 'I love you,' can lose their impact and meaning over time due to repetition. The text suggests that when statements, including significant ones like religious confessions, are reiterated without deep contemplation, they can become routine and lose their power. It highlights the idea that understanding the true gravity of certain declarations, like the notion of sin in a religious context, should invoke a profound reaction, underscoring humanity's general lack of understanding or appreciation of these concepts.
• 11:00 - 12:00: The Reality of God's Justice The chapter titled 'The Reality of God's Justice' delves into the profound impact and understanding of sin and how it relates to God's justice. It opens by discussing how acknowledging the depth and seriousness of sin can be psychologically challenging, almost dismantling the human psyche and heart. However, in modern times, the concept of sin often doesn't leave a significant impact on people's lives. The narrative encourages readers to comprehend God's attributes, which in turn helps in truly understanding the nature and gravity of sin. This comprehension is crucial as it connects directly to the divine justice that God embodies, inviting individuals to reassess their perceptions and reactions towards sin and its consequences.
• 12:00 - 13:00: Misinterpretations of God's Wrath The chapter delves into the profound nature of sin as perceived by Puritans, emphasizing the 'sinfulness of sin' - its vile, loathsome, and abominable characteristics. It is argued that sinners must recognize these aspects to some extent for conversion, suggesting a fundamental step towards repentance and spiritual transformation. Moreover, Christians are encouraged to continuously deepen their understanding of sin's true nature as part of their spiritual growth.
• 13:00 - 14:30: Holiness: God's Unique Attribute In this chapter titled 'Holiness: God's Unique Attribute,' the focus is on the attribute of holiness that defines God's nature. It addresses the concept of sin and how holiness is starkly contrasted with sin. The discussion delves into the universal nature of sin, emphasizing that all have sinned since Adam. The purity of God through Christ encourages believers to turn away from sin, cultivating a hatred for sin as part of their spiritual journey.
• 14:30 - 15:30: God's Anger Against Sin The chapter discusses the nature of mankind by highlighting sin as the defining characteristic of human beings, rather than virtue or moral merit. It emphasizes that moral failure is evident not only in individual people but also in the human race collectively.
• 15:30 - 16:00: Consequences of Ignoring Sin The chapter 'Consequences of Ignoring Sin' discusses the devastating impacts that come from ignoring or trivializing sin. It highlights historical and current tragedies, such as wars and abortion, attributing them to the pervasive nature of sin in society. The chapter emphasizes the serious and often catastrophic consequences that arise when sin is not addressed.
• 16:00 - 17:00: Hell as Perfect Justice The chapter titled 'Hell as Perfect Justice' explores the concept of sin, using the Greek word 'amarano,' which translates to missing the mark. The speaker uses the metaphor of shooting an arrow at a target and missing, not just the center but the entire target, to illustrate the idea of sin as failing to meet a standard or expectation. This sets the stage for a deeper discussion on the nature of sin and its consequences.
• 17:00 - 17:30: Invitation to God's Mercy In this chapter, the focus is on the concept of missing the target of God's revealed will. The author uses the metaphor of an archer failing to pull the bowstring back far enough, resulting in an arrow that does not reach its target. This target is equated with the law of God, as revealed through the scriptures and inscribed upon every person's heart and conscience. The chapter explores how humanity, as a whole, has fallen short of adhering to these divine expectations.

Paul Washer: God's holiness and man's depravity Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 uh please open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 3 in the last two sessions we had an introduction with regard to the gospel we looked at the exhortations to make the Gospel Center in our lives in our Ministries and in our churches we also Al looked at the
• 00:30 - 01:00 warnings that the gospel is the gospel of God we have no right to change it and we have no right to repackage it in order to make it fit to a new and modern or contemporary Society we must be faithful to the gospel we must be faithful to the doctrine to the truth that has been once and for all hand
• 01:00 - 01:30 handed down to the Saints I'm going to continue to try to talk a little slower even than I did last night so that the translators can have a a breath in between words so it's kind of hard for me because usually I get going and I don't know when to stop so I'm trying to be very paused we'll now look at a passage of scripture which has been con considered
• 01:30 - 02:00 by many theologians to be the most important passage in the entire Bible some have referred to it as the Acropolis or the Fortified city of the Christian faith the things that are found here are not anything less than Essentials it is absolutely mandatory that you understand the truths In this passage if you are to truly understand
• 02:00 - 02:30 the Gospel of Jesus Christ and as I've said today I said yesterday the world is not so much hardened to the gospel as it is ignorant of the gospel because the gospel is not being preached and I think it's not being preached because so many men today in the pulpits Do Not Delight in the gospel they do not see the gospel as worthy of first place but as some kind of uh first
• 02:30 - 03:00 class in Christianity or some kind of baby step in Christianity only to go on to supposedly greater things which is simply not true well let's read our passage let's begin in verse 23 for all have sinned Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God being justified as a gift by his grace through the Redemption which is in Christ Jesus who whom God displayed
• 03:00 - 03:30 publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith this was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration I say of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus where then is boasting it is excluded by what kind of law of Works no
• 03:30 - 04:00 but by a law of faith for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law let's go to the Lord in prayer father I come before you today well aware that this passage and the truths that it contain are worthy of much more than what any man can give
• 04:00 - 04:30 them Lord that if we were to spend our lives looking at just this passage we would still not even begin to exhaust the truths that are found here but Lord with the time that we have please for the glory of your own son for the benefit of your people help us to both communicate and to receive and understand the great truth that are found in this
• 04:30 - 05:00 text that Christ might be honored that he might be esteemed with the worth that is truly his in Jesus name amen we start with a simple verse that most of us studied when we were children probably one of the first verses that most people memorize for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God when some becomes
• 05:00 - 05:30 common when something is heard over and over again it loses its meaning for example when I came here to Norway and I saw some of your beautiful forests and the the rocks and the small Islands coming out of the Sea and the wind and the and the mountains that you have I was amazed at the beauty and yet you walk by them every day
• 05:30 - 06:00 you see you see them all the time and so you're not so amazed it's like that in scripture we hear something over and over until it no longer has much meaning another illustration could be this the first time your wife or your husband the first time they ever told you I love you what a shock ran through your body when you heard heard those words but then 20
• 06:00 - 06:30 years later you say I love you back and forth every day and it doesn't seem to have the same power it's become common you just say it you hear it without even hearing it often times and so when we see something over and over it loses its meaning he says for all have sinned if we truly understood who God is is this statement would terrify
• 06:30 - 07:00 us it would almost disintegrate our psychi it would tear open our hearts and but we hear sin today we hear about Sin and it doesn't have that big of an impact on our life and so one of the things that scripture calls us to do is to understand the attributes of God and in that understand what sin truly is
• 07:00 - 07:30 as the Puritans used to say the sinfulness of sin the heinous nature of this thing how vile how loathsome what an Abomination that sin truly is now this must be discovered by The Sinner at least to some degree before he can be converted and then as Christians you and I in a s sense should grow in our
• 07:30 - 08:00 loathing our hatred of sin that the more we taste the purity of God in Christ the more we will turn from sin hating sin now he says for all have sinned here we see first of all the universality of sin all have sinned since Adam ever Every Man Has sinned as
• 08:00 - 08:30 a matter of fact if we were to take one characteristic or one yes one characteristic and use that to identify man that one characteristic would be sin it would not be virtue it would be sin it would not be moral Merit it would be moral failure not only with each individual man but as the human race as a whole now now think about it if you look at at just go back even less than a
• 08:30 - 09:00 hundred years the wars that we have experienced terrifying tragic loss of humanity what was the cause of it sin the fact that even today as I speak thousands of unborn babies around the world will be murdered in the womb and what is that the result of it's the result of sin
• 09:00 - 09:30 now what is sin here we're using the Greek word amarano which means to miss the mark now the way to illustrate this would be if I had a bullseye or a Target in the back of the room and I had a bow and arrow and I pulled back the bow and I shot the arrow and I missed the center of the target not only missed the center of the target but missed the target completely that's kind of the idea or if
• 09:30 - 10:00 I didn't draw the bow back far enough and when I let the arrow go it didn't even reach the Target now what is the target the target is the revealed will of God that's the target the law of God that he has revealed through the scriptures but he has also revealed to every man every man writing it upon his heart and the conscience of every man bearing Witness so we have all fallen short of
• 10:00 - 10:30 this now if I just say that sin is falling short of the standard it seems like sin is an error sin is a mistake sin is just something that we happen to do that we don't want to do but when you look at the full teaching of scripture with regard to sin that's not the case at all sin is rebellion sin is a crime sin is when man puts his
• 10:30 - 11:00 will his valtion against the person of God and against God's law sin is not a mistake sin is obvious Rebellion intentional rebellion and all of us have rebelled against
• 11:00 - 11:30 God now when we talk about Sin we need to understand that sin is more than just an act people are not Sinners because they sin people sin because by Nature they are sinners and that's very important to understand if you see sin as simply an
• 11:30 - 12:00 act or a decision you will treat sin superficially and you will try to find a superficial cure but sin is not merely a decision it goes all the way into the heart of man a heart that is Fallen a heart that is can be properly called morally depraved a heart that is spiritually dead now we're we're going to take a look for just a moment at that
• 12:00 - 12:30 heart and I want us to go to the Book of Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 this is prior to the flood of Noah as a matter of fact it's the reason for the flood of Noah says then the Lord saw that the wicked Ness of man was great on the
• 12:30 - 13:00 earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually now listen to the language it's very important language he says that the wickedness of man was great now this is in God's estimation it was it was gigantic it was pervasive it was it was
• 13:00 - 13:30 through and through affecting absolutely everything that man is and that man did that it was great on the earth and every intent of the thought of a man's heart was only evil every intent was only evil and then the adverb continually always ongoing again pervasive evil now
• 13:30 - 14:00 someone may object to that and they may say well no my thoughts aren't like that well let me do something to you that I did to a young reporter many years ago when he said that we were in a very large Auditorium he came up he was very angry he said I don't believe man is as bad as you say he is and I said sir I did not say that man was bad I read the scriptures and the scriptures said that men were bad because he
• 14:00 - 14:30 claimed to be a Christian he said men are not that bad I said sir if I could take out your heart right now and I'm say the same thing to you if I could take out your heart right now all the thoughts that you have ever had from the moment you begin realizing that you were thinking even until now even the thoughts you've had in the last 15 minutes in this
• 14:30 - 15:00 room and I could take those thoughts and I could put them on a DVD and I could show that DVD here today you would run out of this room and you would never show your face here again you know that's true you would do everything in your power to keep me from showing everyone the thoughts of your
• 15:00 - 15:30 heart throughout the full course of your life now I want you to think about this you would be utterly ashamed even though you know everyone in the room is just like you you would still be utterly ashamed now imagine this the day of judgment and you stand before God a holy God
• 15:30 - 16:00 and all this is revealed in front of him and before a holy Heaven you see man his own heart testifies to the truthfulness of scripture let's let's go on Genesis chapter 8 verse 21 the Lord smelled the soothing Aroma and the Lord said to him self I will never again curse the ground on
• 16:00 - 16:30 account of man for the intent of man's heart is evil from his Youth and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done it says the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth the flood washed away almost all men from planet Earth but here we see after the flood that not even the flood could wash man's heart
• 16:30 - 17:00 even from his youth the word can mean more than just a youth to go back to to a child or children and this is something that is very important very debated but nonetheless the scriptures are clear and on this I I look for no compromise I I hope to make no truce the scriptures are clear men are born in sin men are born radically corrupt sometimes I will hear you know some type
• 17:00 - 17:30 of song about you know the world would be full of Peace if only children led us obviously the person who wrote that song has never had a child let me give you an example let's take a a four-year-old child or even a three-year-old child let's put him in a room all by himself and let's give that child every toy
• 17:30 - 18:00 imaginable I mean just Place one toy after another after another in front of that child and then as we're doing that we find a toy that the child does not want and so we put the toy back in the child's hand and the child throws it away we put it back in the child's hand he throws it away he even becomes angry he doesn't want the toy and he throws it away and we do it again and again to prove the child does not want the
• 18:00 - 18:30 toy but I can make that child want that toy more than all the other toys that he loves how I bring another child of the same age into that room and I give that child that toy that that other child does not want and what happens World War I now I want want you to look at that
• 18:30 - 19:00 now we laugh and I know this story is funny but I want you to realize something that is the reason for World War II that is the reason for 30 million Russians dying in World War Two that is the reason for 6 million Jews dying in World War II that is the reason for all the murders that will happen
• 19:00 - 19:30 today notice that you do not have to teach a child to be selfish you do not have to teach a child to be angry or even violent you do not have to teach a child to lie as a matter of fact you have to spend a great deal of energy to teach them to do the opposite and that's why the world and its social ideas are so wrong to the point of
• 19:30 - 20:00 absurdity absurd absolutely contrary to reality people say no you just you just make Society better and the child will be better do you realize and it's hard for us because we no longer study history if you're living in the United States Canada or Western Europe you have the most effluential easiest life that history has ever
• 20:00 - 20:30 known and yet we are the most violent and in uncontent Inc content people there's no contentment about us constantly wanting more constantly Waring constantly angry constantly depressed my dear friend people say well it's society that deforms the child do you not realize of what so Society is
• 20:30 - 21:00 made of adults just like the child sooner or later all this problem has to make its way back to man and the heart of man and that is the problem man must be changed he must be because he is a sinner the Bible says that man loves self more than God that man loves the pleasures of sin more than
• 21:00 - 21:30 the righteousness of God the Bible teaches that all men are born as haters of God if you ever hear someone talk about well you know we just um someone who is outside of the Christian faith outside of scripture and they say well I love God no they do not they don't or someone says every since I was born I loved God no you did not you
• 21:30 - 22:00 say yes I did no you didn't you loved a figment of your own imagination you loved a God that you made and then you loved that God you made do you see that that is why oftentimes if a pastor asks me to come to his church and teach on the attributes of God I will say are you sure it's kind of dangerous don't
• 22:00 - 22:30 you think and he'll say what do you mean it's dangerous and I saidwell I don't want to split your church split my church we're we're Christians we're religious we are our our thing is about God why are you saying this brother Paul and I say this listen if I stand up before your church and I teach the classical view of God as it is revealed in scripture and it is
• 22:30 - 23:00 held by at least the reformers and the old evangelicals if I teach that view of God you will have people in your church after about the third or fourth day that are so mad they can't stand it and many of them may even stand up and say I could never love a god like that that's not my God no it's not it's not their God and the god they worship every Sunday is not the true God it's a
• 23:00 - 23:30 god they made in their mind according to the lusts of their own heart and that's much of Evangelical Christianity and much of what is coming into Norway from the United States is people who have made a new God a god of prosperity a god of easy life a god of Miracle a God who takes away all suffering a God who would never demand anything from you except what
• 23:30 - 24:00 your flesh would approve that's not the god of the Bible and that's why so many people are running to that God and like I've said so many times if we gave a conference on signs wonders healings and easy life we would have the entire Stadium full but if we gave a conference on the attributes of God you would find it difficult to get a hundred people there why because the Christianity for the
• 24:00 - 24:30 most part within evangelicalism has a god that is no God at all and that's all there is to it now you say what right do you have saying things like this you standing there all by yourself against most of evangelicalism and there you are who do you think you are well if I was up here telling you something that was new it was just my interpretation you ought
• 24:30 - 25:00 to have some doubts but here's the thing if we go back through 2,000 years of Christian history and we look at the god of our fathers and their fathers and I'm talking about our spiritual fathers if we looked at the god of the early evangelicals the god of the reformers the god of the underground Church during the reign of Catholicism the god of the first century church we would see that that God looks nothing
• 25:00 - 25:30 like most of what's called God in the Evangelical Community today nor does Christianity look like what Christianity as it is seen today looks like yes we are living in very very disturbing times now since man is a sinner he hates
• 25:30 - 26:00 God Society by and large hates God the one true God you could walk down the street of almost any major city in the world and you could cry out Buddha and no one would be angry with you you could cry out Muhammad and no one would be angry with you but if you cry out Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead they will turn on you
• 26:00 - 26:30 if you talk about a god of love they will have you on every TV station in the world but if you talk about a god of righteousness they will call for your death not only outside of Christianity but inside of Christianity men hate God now here's the question why do men hate God the answer may be a surprise men hate God because God is
• 26:30 - 27:00 good why do men hate God's law because it's good or why would anyone hate a good law from a good God they would do so only if they are inherently evil I will sometimes mention the law not just in a secular University but even in a Christian setting and often times even among those those who claim to be Christians I see their face twist
• 27:00 - 27:30 up and they get angry and they start talking about legalism and they start telling me you're not going to impose that law upon us we're free and so I'll always ask them this question so you're you're telling me that the law is oppressive to you and to your actions yes they say and then I'll say this which one which
• 27:30 - 28:00 law is it the one that says you shall not lie bear false witness does that oppress you if it oppresses you it's because well you're a liar and you love your lies is it oppressive to you and evil to you that God says you shall not commit adultery is that oppressive to you if it is it's because you're an adultery
• 28:00 - 28:30 you know I always ask people which law is it that you hate and if you do hate these kind of laws then what does that say about you do you see that and so here we see in in the Book of Genesis that from the very beginning this is what we are do you realize that so many people
• 28:30 - 29:00 today even within the Evangelical Community they believe that hell is immoral I mean that's the big question how could God send men to Hell such a terrible place for eternity they think it's immoral and you know what their reasoning is correct they think it's immoral because they do not believe men are
• 29:00 - 29:30 evil they think men are basically good mistaken misguided misunderstood and therefore logically they would conclude that such a punishment as hell would be immoral for someone who is mistaken and just in error but here's what I want you to see if we take seriously what the scripture says about men all men then this is what you need to understand
• 29:30 - 30:00 well let me let me put it this way if I said that Hitler was in Hell which he is hardly anyone would have a problem with that I mean look at all the people he killed even in your own country so if I said Hitler was in Hell most people would say yeah that that's right melini is in Hell okay
• 30:00 - 30:30 right see here's the problem you think Hitler was an anomaly that he was a rarity here's the other problem you think he's worse than you see what you don't understand is this what do you see in unbelieving men when they do acts of some sort of kindness or when they don't murder a lot
• 30:30 - 31:00 of people you think that's a good man no that's the grace of God restraining men if it were not for the common grace of God restraining the human race we would all make Hitler look like a choir boy so what you're seeing when you see normal people is you're not seeing normal people what you're seeing are people given over to evil who are
• 31:00 - 31:30 restrained by the grace of God so that the world does not tear itself apart so that history can continue and God can do a work of redemption but on Judgment Day the grace that you see will be removed from that person and you will see what they really are and you will no longer believe that hell is immoral but that it is just and it is right right see we don't understand man
• 31:30 - 32:00 he is a fallen creature someone always asks me they always go what about the good atheist and I always answer by saying this well could you give me his name because I hear about him everywhere and I would really like to talk to him but I've never met him the good atheist what about him here's what you need to see let's see that there's an atheist who who helps elderly women is basically a nice
• 32:00 - 32:30 guy if the your batter's dead on your car because the weather's so cold he'll give you a charge he's a he's a decent person what about him what about him maybe the most severe Judgment of God is revealed is waiting for him and you say why because the only reason he's able to do those things is because of the common
• 32:30 - 33:00 grace of God restraining his evil the very God he denies so he takes credit for his virtue when actually it's not virt his virtue it's the virtue of God's grace the very God that he denies do you see that again let me say it very clearly if it were not for the common grace of God restraining the evil of men we would all
• 33:00 - 33:30 make Hitler look like a choir boy and that is the argument basically in Romans chapter 1 you see in Romans chapter 1 there is this long list of brutal sins horrible sins that are mentioned throughout the entire chapter now many people think well those sins will result in the Judgment of God if a society commits those sins it will
• 33:30 - 34:00 result in the Judgment of God that's not what that passage is teaching that passage is teaching something completely opposite it's saying basically this although they knew God they did not honor him as God that's the great sin therefore in judgment God turned them over to the lusts of their own flesh so that they then committed all these crimes so if you see these types of sins
• 34:00 - 34:30 in society it does not mean that God is going to judge your country it means he already has and what is the great sin of Romans 1 although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks therefore God turned them over now even in that turning
• 34:30 - 35:00 over there's some restraint that Still Remains but on the day of judgment even that restraint will be pulled back and in Hell there will be no such restraint and all you will see are monsters another thing that you need to understand about hell the reason why it is eternal because you make a terrible mistake you think that people who go to hell repent and are sorry and want to get out and that's not true because they
• 35:00 - 35:30 are now turned over to their evil and if God were to throw open the door of hell right now and tell everyone you are free to come out all you have to do is bow your knee to my sovereignty they would slam the door in God's face why they hate him that much and why do they hate him because he is
• 35:30 - 36:00 good why would anybody hate a good God only because they are evil there was a man who worked in in criminal law and he was a policeman and he was over many policemen I heard about this this man years and years ago and he gave us he gave a talk and he said after all his experience on police forces dealing with crime everything else this
• 36:00 - 36:30 is the conclusion he came to let's say you're holding an 18-month-old baby in your arms and that baby reaches for your watch and you say no and it reaches for your watch again you say no and it reaches for your watch again and you say no and it starts screaming and moving its arms and frailing and twisting its body he said from my experience if that 18-month-old baby had the strength of an 18-year-old man it would Slaughter its
• 36:30 - 37:00 father and mother at that very moment rip the watch off their arm and walk out the door leaving bloody Footprints without feeling one ounce of remorse in their heart now why am I saying this isn't it amazing that God would send his son to die for people like
• 37:00 - 37:30 that why am I saying this because it's true why am I saying this because very few people are this is what you and I are apart from the grace of God and that is why you would not want your thoughts to be published here this morning even
• 37:30 - 38:00 now even just the thoughts you've had while being at this conference even the thoughts you've had about me as I've stood up here speaking do you see Hitler is not an anomaly he's a picture of what every man is apart from the restraining Grace of God all have
• 38:00 - 38:30 sinned and then it says fallen short well let let's go a little bit farther on that before we close let's go to Isaiah 64 Isaiah 64 verse 6
• 38:30 - 39:00 for all of us have become like one who is unclean and all our righteous Deeds are like a filthy garment and all of us wither like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind take us away like one who is unclean this is possibly a reference to leprosy at least we'll use that as an illustration of what this means I don't know if any of you have ever been around
• 39:00 - 39:30 lepers I have lepy comes in different kinds and different stages but the worst kind of leprosy is well if that leper was outside this room you would smell him before he came in and let's say he did come in and he's standing here and he's just a mass of rotten flesh blood body fles fluid infection and you all decide that you
• 39:30 - 40:00 want to do something to help him so you go to the largest city in Norway or maybe go down to Paris France and you buy the most beautiful white silk or cloth that you can afford and you bring it back and you wrap the man from head to toe in that beautiful cloth and for a moment he looks presentable but then what happens the corruption of his body begins to bleed through the
• 40:00 - 40:30 cloth until the cloth becomes just as corrupt as the man inside that is the reason why your good works cannot save you they are utterly permeated and corrupted by the sin Within by the moral Corruption of your heart our most righteous Deeds before God are like filthy rags and that is why we cannot be saved
• 40:30 - 41:00 apart from a supernatural Grace abounding work of redemption this is why the death of God's son having suffered the wrath of God was absolutely essential there could never be thought we could never think of a more severe remedy than the cross of Christ why did it have to be so severe
• 41:00 - 41:30 because our malady was so severe our malady is so severe this is what we are now let's go back to Romans chapter 3 so many people object to talking about Sin as a matter of fact fact some of the popular preachers in America now boast
• 41:30 - 42:00 that um they don't mention sin in their churches well I can tell you this if they do not mention sin in their churches the holy spirit is not in their churches and he is not working in their churches at all and you say how can you make that statement I can make it biblically because Jesus said that when the Holy
• 42:00 - 42:30 Spirit comes he will convict the world of sin one of his main Ministries would be to convict the world of sin so if you see a minister walking around who boasts that he does not talk about Sin but he wants to be more positive I can guarantee you the holy spirit is not in his ministry at all here's the funny thing is some people
• 42:30 - 43:00 will say but how can you say that well because the scriptures said that when the Holy Spirit comes he will convict the world of sin and then they go but still how can you say that well because the Bible says you see people don't listen to the Bible anymore they they find a way around it if you go into a group of people and they're all doing crazy things that are not in the scriptures and you say this is not in the scriptures then what happens they go well we know
• 43:00 - 43:30 it's not in the scriptures but that doesn't mean it's not of God hold it you're doing things that entire entirely contradict the scriptures yeah but that you can't limit God I can limit God I can limit God to not contradicting his scriptures God will not contradict the scriptures he has
• 43:30 - 44:00 written now I want you just to think for a moment in the Bible we don't have a book of the Bible that would be considered a Systematic Theology okay but the closest thing that we do have to that would be Paul's letter to the church in Rome now he writes 16 chapters I find it very interesting that the
• 44:00 - 44:30 first three chapters are dedicated almost entirely to sin to man's sin and to showing men their sin Now isn't that amazing Christianity has a lot of things to talk about I mean a lot of things but Paul dedicates the first three chapters with one solemn purpose and what is that purpose to condem everybody just look for a moment at
• 44:30 - 45:00 verse 9 of chapter 3 what then are we better than they not at all for we have already charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin that was Paul's charge against them and now he's going to bring scripture after scripture after scripture to prove his point there is none righteous the right righteous means Conformity to a standard or being straight so if this is my
• 45:00 - 45:30 standard and I'm like this then I'm righteous I'm conformed to this standard but if the standard is like this and I'm like this I am not righteous another word that can be used I am morally twisted or perverted and so the Bible says there is no man who is righteous and then I find it interesting that Paul says no not
• 45:30 - 46:00 one it's almost as though he anticipates man's objection he says there is none righteous and someone says yes I know but and Paul says no not one then he goes on there's none who understands there is none who seeks for God no one seeks for God in the Greek
• 46:00 - 46:30 this means no one seeks for God God is the initial Seeker God is the one who seeks for man many old preachers used to say it like this man seeks for God in the same way that a criminal seeks for a
• 46:30 - 47:00 policeman man does not seek for God and man does not understand and you say what do you mean he doesn't understand if in the last 2,000 years there have been great great strides in technology in the last 20 years the world has been transformed by an increase in knowledge and yet as we see man increasing in his technology he becomes more and more
• 47:00 - 47:30 absurd with regard to the primary truths of our existence as Evolution begins to prove itself to be more and more absurd scientists are now looking for Little Green Men Who came and deposited garbage or something on our planet that eventually evolved into us even though in one aspect our intellect
• 47:30 - 48:00 increases in another we become more and more absurd no one understands now you say how can God judge a man if the man doesn't understand the man does not understand not because he lacks the capacity to understand he does not understand because he does not want to understand he lacks the will it's not that he cannot he will not
• 48:00 - 48:30 and why does he will not because he hates God it's just like when someone says and Jesus says man cannot come to him man cannot come to Christ men cannot on their own initiative come to God why is it because they lack the fact faculties to do so no they have the faculties to come to
• 48:30 - 49:00 Christ to come to God why don't they because they hate him because they hate the light and the closer they get to the light the more it is exposed that their deeds are evil that's why men hate Christ why do people hate Christianity I mean think about it why would anybody hate a God who so loves the world he sends his only begotten son to die for that
• 49:00 - 49:30 world why would you hate a god like that well here's the reason because he says we're wrong and that's something we can't tolerate you can believe anything today as long as you do not say that someone else is wrong the moment you say say someone else is wrong people start yelling for your
• 49:30 - 50:00 execution that's the same way I don't want the love of God if he's going if he does not accept me as I am and we see that reverberate through everything in society there is none who understands there is none who seeks for God all have turned aside together they have become
• 50:00 - 50:30 useless here's one thing to think if you're a church member that I think is very important so many people believe they're Christians within the church when they are not one of the characteristics of a person who is not Christian is that they are useless to God so many people think that because they attend church on Sunday they've done they've completed fulfilled their
• 50:30 - 51:00 moral responsibility but they are not useful to God they do nothing in God's name and according to God's will to advance his kingdom they come they watch they leave but they're useless one of the great characteristics of a truly converted person is that what what will happen they will will bear fruit he says they've become useless now
• 51:00 - 51:30 here's the big one verse 12 there is none who does good there is not even one now if we were to leave this building right now and go throughout all of Norway all of Europe United States Canada anywhere else and we asked people if you died right now where would you go to he would you go to heaven those people who do believe that God exists
• 51:30 - 52:00 and those people who do believe there is a heaven and a hell almost all of them would say I would go to heaven why because I'm good because I've never killed anybody I guess that's the the evidence that you're good we've kind of lowered the standard haven't we most people answer I'm good and yet look at what God says there is
• 52:00 - 52:30 none who does good there is not even one one of the reasons are the only way you can think that you are good is to lower the standard those people who believe they are good enough have done one of two fatal made one of two fatal errors or maybe both of them at the same time they
• 52:30 - 53:00 have either believed that they are better than they are or they believe that God is not as good as he is and remember what God Said to Israel in the Book of Psalms you thought I was like you he said that was your error you thought I was like you he is not like us in any shape form or fashion so it says there
• 53:00 - 53:30 is none good not even one then verse 13 their throat is an open grave with their tongues they keep deceiving the poison of ASP is under their lips now I've seen an open grave I don't know if any of you have seen open Graves but I've seen open Graves after people have been buried in them for a long time I remember one time in Peru there was a great flood and it washed up all
• 53:30 - 54:00 the caskets out of the cemetery and floated them into the center of the town all right an open grave is not very appealing and he says here their throat is an open grave now he's talking about the mouth with the tongues they keep deceiving the poison of ASP is under their lips the mouth of a man the Bible talks about
• 54:00 - 54:30 the mouth Isaiah said I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips Jesus said out of the mouth what is revealed the heart the way we talk about people the things that come out of our mouth and it just keeps getting worse and worse in our society a few years ago I was in London and I was teaching on family and a person asked me about homeschooling so I started sharing it
• 54:30 - 55:00 and one person stood up and saidwell if your children are homeschooled and they're not with other children all the time how will they be socialized that's always the question and so I looked at them and I said you know last night after I preached it was late and I was hungry so we went down to High Street looking for a fish and chips and while I was walking down High Street there were teenagers everywhere I'm talking about girls you know 12 13 years old just masses of young people in
• 55:00 - 55:30 their young teens and I said as I walked through there I heard 13-year-old girls say things and do things that I never heard in my worst days when I spent most of or my worst days and nights when I spend most of that time in bars and taverns I heard those girls talk like I've not heard Harden Sailors talk in my
• 55:30 - 56:00 day so just how do you want those children to socialize and influence my children do you know that sometimes I've been in some of the most darkest places in the world the jungles in midst of false religions in Eastern Europe all sorts of things I have a sense of more darkness and more evil when I walk through a public
• 56:00 - 56:30 school than when I'm in those places the things that come out of the mouth today it just demonstrates the heart and this is the case in many human elements let me give you an example art art I remember in I was in the the city of Lima where I lived in Peru and and always in the plazas they would have
• 56:30 - 57:00 these artists that would come and paint these beautiful scenes of the Amazon or the Andes Mountains and the just just beautiful talented people you just couldn't believe but there in the center of the plaza they had a an area where they would always have these uh indoor art exhibitions and that's where all the real artists showed their stuff and it was always dark and morbid and distorted I remember walking in this one
• 57:00 - 57:30 room and it was just White Walls and a white background there was nothing in the whole room it was just all white and at the end there was a little television set like this with the DVD player or video player and you walked over there and it was Art and you pressed the button and it was a naked woman in a bathtub cutting both her wrists and bleeding to death if you look at Art today and the darkness of it and the Distortion of it you see the inside of
• 57:30 - 58:00 man and you also see even in something like Picasso you see that it's not trying to imitate the Creator but taking the Creator what he has done the image of a man and distorting it entirely so it's completely something else a figure with both eyes on the same side of the head that it's just a distortion of the creative work of
• 58:00 - 58:30 God these are all expressions of the interior of a man and then it says in verse 14 whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness their feet are Swift to shed blood mouth full of cursing and bitterness would anyone dispute with me on that you know sometimes I try to look up a weight weight training program or something for my sons for their weightlifting or whatever they're doing
• 58:30 - 59:00 and and I even on that I have to go and I have to make sure that the whole thing is not filled with obscenities even a children's film or children's cartoons are now filled at least with grotesque images SpongeBob and the like it's all a reflection of the heart of man and their feet are Swift to shed blood destruction and misery are in
• 59:00 - 59:30 their paths and the path of peace they have not known that is a description of human history war after War what was it World War II was the war to end all wars or was it World War I it didn't end all wars did it as a matter of fact there's never peace as one man has said if we pass through a day that seems like there's peace in the world it's not
• 59:30 - 60:00 it's just that both sides are reloading their guns and that's the truth look at us just look and then even in our media which proclaims that they want to have peace in the world look at most of the movies are not most of the movies filled with violence filled with
• 60:00 - 60:30 violence the hero is a violent man it's all about violence and now even our our fighting has evolved to become on television to become so cruel and harsh do not be surprised if the days of the Gladiators make its way back make their way back where we're actually watching Men kill one
• 60:30 - 61:00 another because this is the kind of people that we are and the devil is the ring master of this circus Leonard Ravenhill used to say this the old preacher Leonard Ravenhill he would say on the tombstone of America it will be written they entertained themselves to death I remember my first class in philosophy in
• 61:00 - 61:30 1979 my freshman year at the end of that course we did a u a Whata if scenario which was an absurdity an impossibility what if there was a machine that a young person could get into that gave them a completely different reality okay and caus caused them pleasure would it be worth abandoning
• 61:30 - 62:00 normal life in order to live within that machine and experience the pleasure of that false reality even though their entire body deteriorated into mush well we we did arguments back and forth but always in the context of this is an absurdity an impossibility something that will never happen video
• 62:00 - 62:30 games they entertained themselves to death they lived not in reality now the the reason for all this verse 18 there is no fear of God before their eyes and why is there no fear of God Before Their Eyes well in part it's because they're
• 62:30 - 63:00 immoral they hide their head in the sand they do not want to know the ways of the Holy One they choose ignorance now but there's another reason now you listen to me when was the last time you heard most of the these preachers preach on who God is when was the last time you heard
• 63:00 - 63:30 preachers preach on themes like the fear of God the Holiness of God the righteousness of God the Judgment of God the wrath of God my people perish for a lack of knowledge because of these false prophets that say peace peace when there is no peace in e eel because of those false Shepherds that build a weak wall and put
• 63:30 - 64:00 on it whitewash and plaster and it looks so nice but when it falls then people will ask them where is your wall there is no fear of God verse 19 now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God now what does this mean many people are kind kind of confused on this text it's in reality referring to the
• 64:00 - 64:30 Jews and what he's saying is now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law now there's a sense in which everyone is under the law but Paul is dealing with the Jew Gentile thing right now and what he's basically saying is this the Jews were given the law the covenants every opportunity the temple worship and everything so in a sense the Jews rep represent whether you like this or not the Jews represent the best of
• 64:30 - 65:00 the best and they did not keep the law and so what he's basically is arguing from the greater to the Lesser so if the Jews who had the law the covenants the temple worship the sacrifices everything they had this they were under the law and yet they did not keep the law at all what about the rest of you none of us have kept the law and so
• 65:00 - 65:30 now through God's revelation of the law every mouth is closed and all the world may become accountable to God this is necessary before you can be saved your mouth with with regard to your own righteousness has to be closed you have to come to a point where you acknowledge I have no righteousness at all before God none that's the only
• 65:30 - 66:00 way you can be saved and that's the purpose of the law the law was never intended to save it was to condemn so that men might be saved so that men might recognize they have no righteousness and they turn to God and then he goes in verse 20 Because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight for through the law comes the knowledge of
• 66:00 - 66:30 sin why do men not want to know the law of God because the more they know the law of God the more their knowledge of their own sin increases now this is just a glimpse a glimpse and nothing more of man's sin for all have sinned and then it says fall short of the glory of God
• 66:30 - 67:00 now what does that mean well there's been a turn in the interpretation in the last many years as as the church has become increasingly more humanistic fall short of the glory of God for a lot of people today means God has a wonderful plan for your life and God's Great goal is for you to fulfill that wonderful plan so that you will feel
• 67:00 - 67:30 fulfilled that's not what this text is talking about says we fallen short of the glory of God what is Romans 1 although they knew God they did not honor him as God nor give thanks they exchanged the glory of The Incorruptible God to worship corruptible things what does it mean that we have fallen short of the glory of of God it means not that we were made even though there's truth in it the
• 67:30 - 68:00 primary idea is not that we were made for some glorious purpose to find our fulfillment the idea is that we were made for the glory of God we are his we were made for him and we were made to worship Him and serve him that's the idea and that mankind will forever be empty y will forever be miserable unless it submits to the
• 68:00 - 68:30 purpose for which it was made now I make long bows that you can hunt with they're very strong bows they're made all out of wood you you could you could hunt a bear with one of them if you can pull it back they're very very good hunting bat but you cannot play a song on them there are people who make really
• 68:30 - 69:00 good guitars but I would not recommend going bear hunting with a guitar it's not made for hunting bear and my bows are not made for playing music things be the greatest of things become useless instruments and miserable when they are used for something for which they are not made you were made for
• 69:00 - 69:30 God and nothing can fill you nothing nothing it's almost as though you had an infinite hole in your heart and only something infinite can fill it and that is God now as a Christian this becomes even greater and should be pressed upon you all the time nothing can fulfill you or complete you
• 69:30 - 70:00 except submission and communion with God I he I'll hear these marriage counselors and teachers say that your wife or your husband is supposed to complete you let me share with you something if your wife or husband can complete you then you're not a Christian they can't complete you they can't fill you one of the reasons why there's so many divorces is because we're expecting things from our spouses
• 70:00 - 70:30 they were never intended to give my wife can't fill me if she can if I can be filled by another human completed by another human no only God in Christ can fulfill me and complete me see you put all these standards on your mate they're supposed to do things that only God can do and when they fail you you think you married the wrong
• 70:30 - 71:00 person you if you are a Christian you are such a high creature now that if someone gave you the world and all the universe it would not complete you or fill you and if someone took it all away from you it would not make you empty because the one who both fills you the one who fills you is
• 71:00 - 71:30 God so it says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God now we've G on for about an hour and 10 minutes but I'm going to go just a little bit further because I need to get through this to get through get through other things the only way you can truly understand sin is in the context of who God
• 71:30 - 72:00 is God is Holy now what does it mean that God is Holy many of you when you hear that you think it means that uh God is without sin well that's not really the primary meaning of Hol of Holiness that's a secondary meaning as a matter of fact many people confuse Holiness with righteousness what does holiness means Holiness means in its most basic root to cut and then it means to cut and
• 72:00 - 72:30 separate okay to cut and separate the Holiness of God means that he is separate that there is no one like God to put it another way God is Not Like Us just bigger and better God is Not Like Us at all it's not a quantitative difference it is a
• 72:30 - 73:00 qualitative difference he's not in our category no one is in his category in one sense philosophically there is greater difference between the number one and the number two than there is between the number two and six trillion because once you step out of one you've lost the uniqueness there is
• 73:00 - 73:30 other but there is no one like God let me give you an illustration taken not verbatim but taken from RC Sproul that I heard many many years ago what is more like God an archangel or a worm that is crawling on the ground which one is more like God the answer is neither of
• 73:30 - 74:00 them neither of them that God is in a completely different category there is no comparison all right right now my head is above everyone else in this building by by at least a half a meter right all right so should I stand up here and brag that I'm closer to the Sun of our solar system than the rest of you that'd be idiotic wouldn't it because I'm a half a meter closer that means
• 74:00 - 74:30 nothing in light of how far the Sun is away from us but with God that illustration doesn't even stand because he's not even in a category that if you traveled far enough you could reach to it's an outside category he is not like us at all and the problem is it enters Into the Heart of man when man does not study the
• 74:30 - 75:00 attributes of God as they are revealed in the scriptures automatically he begins to think that God is like him and that's idolatry and that's where a great portion of evangelicalism is today idolatry God is not like you or any anyone else or even a sarapin
• 75:00 - 75:30 now this uniqueness can also be seen in in this for example if an alien were to come down to Norway I understand that there are already many who do live here no I'm just kidding if a man from or something from outer space came down to Norway and as I was walking to my room tonight he blew
• 75:30 - 76:00 by and he looked at me and he said who are you you know I could use comparison to demonstrate who I am because there are seven billion other creatures on this planet pretty much like me I could point to I could say well I'm like him and I'm like him I'm even like her I'm like him her him look around you want to know who I am I I am like them Moses asked God who are you God Saidi am who I
• 76:00 - 76:30 am he cannot Point outside of himself at least until 2,000 years ago when someone said God who are you and he pointed down to Jesus of Nazareth and said I am like him there is no one like God he's not in your category you're not in his now the reason why the Holiness of God and sinlessness are often so brought
• 76:30 - 77:00 together in the scriptures is because the one unique characteristic of man is that he is sinful and in comparison to man the one great characteristic about God that makes him so different from man is God Is Not sinful now in his Holiness and and his righteousness his rightness his ethical his moral Purity
• 77:00 - 77:30 the fact that there is no flaw in him in that he stands against sin now you know in the Book of James where it says that God cannot be tempted many people again greatly misunderstand this passage they think that what it means is that when there's a Temptation God can always resist it that's not what it means what it means is this there is no temptation to God he
• 77:30 - 78:00 doesn't have to resist it he hates it there is nothing in God that that can cause sin to draw him to it he hates it you and I even if we're Christians we still have to deal with the Fallen flesh that can be tantalized by sin and we must resist it God doesn't have to let me give you an illustration let's say that we have the most you know Wonderful meal prepared by the best chef
• 78:00 - 78:30 in Norway and we we're very hungry we look at it we really want to eat it if we do not eat it what do we have to do we have to resist it because everything in US is Desiring to eat that meal but now I I don't want to be gross but I'm going to be if someone puts a plate of dog vomit in front of you you don't have to resist
• 78:30 - 79:00 it there's nothing in that that draws out your affections do you see that when God sees sin he doesn't have to resist it he hates it completely perfectly now let's talk about the hatred of God for a moment and we need to I know that you're all familiar with the phrase God loves The Sinner and hates
• 79:00 - 79:30 the sin I know that's you know very popular and I will say there is some truth in the statement the problem is the statement is not biblical and it is very misleading and it is dangerous because you're actually contradicting scripture when you say that because there are places in the Bible where God says he hates the sinner now yes we must interpret it correctly but it's there and if you're a preacher you
• 79:30 - 80:00 have to deal with it for example Psalms 55 God hates all those who do wrong in some older translations God hates all those who do iniquity the word is hate it means hate in Hebrew it's really hate that's why they put hate there now we when I say that people say well what about John 3:16 for God so Lov the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life
• 80:00 - 80:30 what about that well my answer to you is yes I agree it's in the Bible but here's the problem so is Psalms 55 you see you you got to stop this thing where you're looking at only one side of the coin you've got to look at the whole thing because if you don't understand the hatred of God you can't understand the love of God first of all
• 80:30 - 81:00 people will often say well God can't hate because God is love that's not true God is love therefore he must hate for example I have a special love for Jewish people when I go to Israel I I hurt I want them to come come to know Christ if I love Jewish people I must hate the
• 81:00 - 81:30 Holocaust if I walk up to you and I say what do you think about the Holocaust and you go well I'm neutral about it doesn't really bother me then I'm going to say you're as immoral as the persons who killed them do you see that if you love African-Americans or Africans you must hate slavery if you think slavery is okay then you don't love African-Americans if you love babies children you must hate
• 81:30 - 82:00 abortion and abortion must bring forth indignation on your part now people say I hear preachers say this all the time especially evangelist the first thing I want you to know is God's not angry with you well no that's not true the Bible said that God is angry with the wicked
• 82:00 - 82:30 every day let let's just for a moment just go with me to the Book of Psalms hold your place in in Romans and let's just go to the Book of Psalms first look at Psalms 55 it says 'th boastful shall not stand before your eyes you hate all who do
• 82:30 - 83:00 iniquity I don't know if that I hope that's your translation in verse six okay go to verse six the boastful shall not stand before your eyes you hate all who do iniquity now men if you're preachers let me ask you a question have you preached this or is your preaching only one-sided or did you not even know this was
• 83:00 - 83:30 there now as far as the anger of God look in Psalms chapter 7 verse 11 God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day it's 12 in your text God is a righteous judge and a God who is who has indignation every day who is angry every day now let's just look
• 83:30 - 84:00 at that for a moment you say what that's not my god well then your God is not the god of the Bible but let's just look at some people say well you know God getting angry that's just foreign to me I don't like that I don't agree with it okay well let's just look at something for a moment let's say you read in the newspaper that a 15-year-old girl was found dead yesterday and they have come to discover
• 84:00 - 84:30 that when she was 5 years old she was kidnapped by a man and she was kept in that man's basement for 10 years where she was starved and beaten and raped she escaped but her body was so worn and so weak that when she got out into the winter before she could find refuge in someone's house or let someone know she died in the snow all alone now I know that the European people are much more cultured than my
• 84:30 - 85:00 people but if you tell me that does not make you angry I would not have very much respect for you at all are you going to tell me that would not make you mad that would not fill you with indignation that would not cause you to speak and say something must be
• 85:00 - 85:30 done so we reserve that right for ourselves don't we we would think a person would be a monster not to be angry about something like that so you have the right of indignation and you deny that right to God God is Holy what you laugh about makes him angry so when he looks at the sin that's
• 85:30 - 86:00 in this world how much does God hate sin Adam sinned one time and the entire universe was thrown into chaos and judgment how many times have you sinned God is perfectly righteous and because of that against the wicked he manifest his hatred in his anger and
• 86:00 - 86:30 if you go on we have read Psalms 7: 12 in in your Bible God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day now look at the next verse if a man does not repent he will sharpen his sword he has bent his bow and made it ready he has also prepared for himself deadly weapons and he makes his arrows fiery
• 86:30 - 87:00 shafts not only is he angry he has intentionally now think about this premeditatedly designed the Judgment that he is going to throw down on the head head of the wicked he's designed it he's thought about it when we talk about the wrath of God a good way to talk about it is calling it
• 87:00 - 87:30 The settled wrath of God that means that God isn't someone who just bursts forth without any reason that would be frightening but settled wrath is actually more frightening because what does it mean he's sitting there and it says in the scriptures in different places that the wrath of God against the evil men is being stored up and stored up and stored up and he sits
• 87:30 - 88:00 there and he calculates the Judgment he looks at the sin every crime every sin every moral error every pain and he calculates it and the Wrath is stored up and stored up until one day it bursts forth upon the world and you say well brother Paul the you know wow what about
• 88:00 - 88:30 Mercy let me share something with you I was preaching many many years ago in a church and I preached on the Holiness of God one night and all I preached on that entire night was the Holiness of God I didn't preach on anything else I didn't mention anything else all I preached on was the Holiness of God when I finished there were some preachers in the back and they were angry and they said we are angry with
• 88:30 - 89:00 you and I said why they said you are unbalanced I said why they said you preached on the Holiness of God tonight and not once did you mention his love you're unbalanced and I said okay were you here last night they saides last night I preached on the love of God and not once did I mention his Holiness
• 89:00 - 89:30 or his judgment and none of you had a problem with that you see if I preach on the love of God all day long no one has a problem with it but if I even mention the Holiness of God people are all up in Arms This is unbalanced this is Twisted isn't it amazing some of you have never even heard a preacher talk about the hatred of God which is in the Bible or the anger of God and right now you're
• 89:30 - 90:00 thinking this is unbalanced unbalanced you've been a Christian for 25 years and you've never heard a preacher preach on this I would say you are unbalanced do you see look what's happened and some of you need to really examine your heart because you might be saying my God's not like that and look what you're doing you say my God is not the kind of God that sharpens his sword and has his bow
• 90:00 - 90:30 bent and has made it ready and has prepared deadly weapons and fiery shafts for his enemies my God's not like that then your God is not the God of this book because that's what I just read he said it do you see that now we are going to be preaching about the love of God soon but you must understand this first you must understand this you see here's what you need to
• 90:30 - 91:00 understand if God sent every man woman and child to hell he wouldn't have to give any explanation for it it's when he loves people and saves them that he has to give an explanation for it because he is forgiving people that ought to by Justice be condemned now you say well brother Paul how does this love of God and the Judgment of God how does it
• 91:00 - 91:30 work it's very simple God's judgment is being stored up against the wicked and then I want you to imagine that Mercy the mercy of God not something separate from God God himself his Mercy with one hand god holds back the mercy of God holds back the wrath of God with the other hand the mercy of God
• 91:30 - 92:00 calls Sinners come before it's too late come come come now before it's too late so God's mercy God's love manifest toward all men he holds back his wrath with one hand and with the other hand he calls men to come have you never read Isaiah and again in the Book of Romans all day long he holds out his hand to an obstinate people come come but we all know this truth what is going
• 92:00 - 92:30 to happen one day he's going to pull back his hand of invitation he's going to pull back his hand that is holding back his wrath and the only thing left for the sinner is Judgment now we don't have time to talk much about hell but let me say a few things about hell in conclusion one is often times many of the popular preachers today and some of
• 92:30 - 93:00 them that are popular in Norway from America whenever they're asked about why they don't preach on hell they usually answer this well you know we just want to you know preach on the love of God we just mainly want to to teach on the teachings of Jesus now when someone says that it can mean only one of two things they're ignorant of the teachings of Jesus or they're a liar and I'll tell you why if
• 93:00 - 93:30 you read the Old Testament you know what you find almost no reference to Hell there's little little glimpses of things but there's no great concrete teach we know nothing about hell from the Old Testament if you read the Epistles of Paul and the apostles we find very little about hell we know only almost nothing about hell from them even though they do make reference to it everything we know about hell in
• 93:30 - 94:00 Systematic Theology comes from the teachings of Jesus Jesus taught more on Hell than he did Heaven do you see that so when these preachers say we just want to teach the words of Jesus they're lying to you we wouldn't know anything about hell if it wasn't for the teaching of Jesus Now isn't this amazing the one whom we all know is the most perfect
• 94:00 - 94:30 most loving most compassionate and kindest man in the world ever Jesus Christ the son of God is the one who talked more about hell than everybody else in the Bible put together now think about that think about it and isn't it amazing even though our primary Proclamation should be the gospel and
• 94:30 - 95:00 the Deliverance that is found there there is a sense in which a disciple his goal is to be like his master if we took that seriously we would be talking about hell because our Master talked again let me say it this way again he talked more about Hell by himself than all the other books of the Bible and all the other teachers of the Bible put together now another thing that I want
• 95:00 - 95:30 you to know about hell when we think of Hell most people have this idea of Dante's Inferno whether in art or in literature we have this idea of hell as this horribly dark place where demons are torturing people gleefully with pitchfork and all this kind of stuff that is Dante's Inferno that's not the
• 95:30 - 96:00 Bible what is hell it is where God gives to every man exactly to the final Penny what they deserve it is the place of perfect Justice that's what hell is and you
• 96:00 - 96:30 think oh that's not so bad wow that's better no you're not hearing me it is the place of perfect Justice you see here's our problem we don't know how evil sin is and therefore we don't understand the degree in which which it must be punished every last
• 96:30 - 97:00 thought every word Every Act will be paid to the very last sent now remember this Adam sinned and the entire universe was thrown under judgment it's perfect Justice it is also a place taking this from Romans 1 an extension of being
• 97:00 - 97:30 delivered over to your own lusts a place where the conscience that was given you by God is removed a place where every shred of Grace that had been given you to restrain your evil is taken away I do think CS Lewis had it right when he
• 97:30 - 98:00 talked about in some degree I'm not going to verbate him but the idea is this that there is no common person and what he means by that and what I mean by that is every person you see will one day if in Christ Be So Glorious a person that if you saw them in their future Glory now you would have a tendency to fall down and want to
• 98:00 - 98:30 worship or every person will be a monster Beyond any of the hellish thought of Hollywood Beyond any horror you have ever ever conceived they're no common people they will spend eternity as GL Glory or eternity as monstrous turned over to their own
• 98:30 - 99:00 evil and not wanting Freedom let me give you an example we'll close here there are places in Southeast Asia where men go horrible places drugs
• 99:00 - 99:30 opium little children being prostituted everywhere all in one room I want you to think about something I mean Beyond any horror you could imagine exists right now and it's going on with little tiny children if I could all of a sudden snap my fingers and transport you to that very place and you opened your eyes you opened your eyes and there you were you would think you were in Hell the things that you would see
• 99:30 - 100:00 monstrous horrifying terrifying things that make you throw up you'd never forget it you need counseling for the rest of your life and yet think about this there are businessmen in Europe and America that pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go there and enjoy it all the while nashing their own tongues because they have no satisfaction no
• 100:00 - 100:30 peace in Hell men are turned over to what they really are without the grace of God monsters now this has been dark but it needs to be dark you see let me let me ask you a question where did all the stars
• 100:30 - 101:00 go think about it they're not there in the sky did some gigantic troll come and put them in a basket and carry them to the other side of the planet where did all the stars go well they're still there aren't they but you can't see them why can't you see them too much light sun came up the stars are still
• 101:00 - 101:30 there when can you best see the stars in the pitch black of night when can you best see the grace of God when it's displayed upon the radical depravity of man that's why I drew such a dark picture so that when we return and talk about salvation you'll see that it is salvation you see you think almost that
• 101:30 - 102:00 well it's right God wouldn't be God if he didn't save you that's not true toer said if all the world was blind it wouldn't diminish the glory of the sun and the moon and the stars they'd still be just as glorious and if all men were cast into hell it would not diminish or lessen God he would still be God the full fullness of all his attributes you think God had to save you he did
• 102:00 - 102:30 not Satan fell and the angels far superior far more beautiful than you did he send them a savior he did not did he have to send you one he did not the fact that he did is the Marvel of Marvels let's pray father thank you for your word that
• 102:30 - 103:00 instructs us sets before us the darkness of our lives so that when Christ shines we see it as true light True Light and we Marvel at its beauty in Jesus name amen