Let's begin at the beginning, verse 23, for
all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.
This is not really the beginning.
You see, the problem is not really sin.
That may come as a surprise.
It is a problem, but it wouldn't be
a problem except for some other biblical truth.
And what is that?
God is righteous.
This is the one thing you must understand.
God is righteous.
He is perfect in any way you want
to describe that morally, ethically and always doing
what is right.
He loves righteousness.
He is righteous.
He loves righteousness.
And that's why sin is a problem.
Do you see that?
Let me give you an example.
If a mafioso, if a mafia man.
Who commits horrific murders and crimes and all
such things like that, if he walks into
a courtroom.
He may not be afraid at all, although
the charges against him are great, he may
not be afraid.
There may be no problem for him whatsoever
if the judge is corrupt.
If the judge is corrupt, that mafioso and
his crimes, there's no problem.
Why?
Because the judge is corrupt.
The mafioso, the criminal only has a problem
when the judge is not corrupt.
When he is a righteous judge, that's where
the problem starts, God is righteous, not just
a little bit, but perfectly righteous.
And that's both a good thing and a
bad thing, so to speak.
And you say, how?
Well, it's a good thing in this way.
It would be a horrific thing to have
an omnipotent God who was unrighteous.
It would be like having Hitler over the
entire universe.
So it'd be terrifying to have an unrighteous,
omnipotent being who could do whatever he wanted
to do and what he wanted to do
was unrighteous.
It'd be terrifying.
And you say, well, we draw consolation in
the scriptures because they say that God is
righteous.
He always does that which is right.
He always does that which is good.
And that's true.
That should bring you consolation.
But on the other hand, it should terrify
you.
The fact that God is righteous should bring
more terror to your heart than to know
that he is to think that he is
unrighteous.
And you say, what do you mean?
Several years ago, I had to speak to
a university in Europe, and when I walked
out on the platform, really hardly anyone was
Christian.
And I knew that they were very angry.
They were antagonistic, they wanted to to have
a showdown.
And so I was back there praying, I
said, Lord, what do I do?
What do I do?
You know, I know I just preach the
gospel, but it's not my desire to brag
about my martyrdom in Europe.
I want to actually help these people understand
what do I tell them?
And as I'm walking out there, something just
popped into my head.
And so I walked out there and I
said this, I am going to share with
you, those of you, you don't think much
of scripture.
You don't know the scripture.
You maybe don't fully understand Christianity.
I'm going to share with you from the
scriptures the most terrifying truth that is found
there.
Now, before I do, I want to warn
you, some of you may ought to leave.
If you have a weak heart, if these
kinds of things trouble you, please feel free
to leave.
I will not be offended.
This is the most terrifying thing that is
revealed in the Bible.
So they're all kind of ready.
And so I said, this is it.
God.
Is good and I could see them looking
at one another.
And finally, one of the bolder students said
this and broke in English.
And what's the problem with that?
Why is that so terrifying?
What's the big deal?
What's so terrifying about God being good?
And I answered, this is what's so terrifying
about God being good.
You're not good.
Now, what does a good God do with
someone like you?
You see, there's the problem.
God is good.
He loves good.
He loves righteousness.
He loves truth.
He loves life.
He loves what he has made.
You see that and the man, the natural
man, the man born into this world is
not like that.
All have sinned.
And fall short of the glory of God.
Now, why do we sin?
We don't have time tonight to go back
into the most intricate understanding of that concept,
but I really don't need to, because the
evidence is everywhere where it came from, how
it started is not that important.
The fact is, every person who is born
into this world is born into this world
with a fallen, radically depraved, sinful heart.
That is the testimony of Scripture, and that
is why.
Think about it.
The gospel is about the love of God,
God loving man so much that God becomes
a man and dies in man's place for
his salvation.
Then why is that message the most hated
message in all of America?
Because in order to believe that message, you
must also believe that man is radically depraved.
I've had so many people tell me, but
man's not like that.
I said, really, you read the newspaper, you
take two children, you take one child, put
him in a room by himself, give him
every toy that exists on the planet for
your child and then find out the ones
he don't want, he doesn't want and then
put them back in his hands and let
him throw it away.
Do that like four times.
So you've absolutely proved that this child doesn't
want that toy.
I can make that child want that toy
above every other toy that he's clings to
how I bring another four year old child
and set that child in front of that
child and give that child the toy.
And at that moment, what happens?
World War Three happens and that what is
going on right there is the very reason
we have genocide.
The very reason we have racism and murder
and everything else.
The reason why there's enough food in this
world to feed everybody four times and yet
children right now in South Sudan are dying
in their mother's arms and their mothers die
right after.
Why sin, sin?
It is everywhere and it's not something that
was thrown upon us by society.
I'm so sick and tired of hearing people
say this man is this way because he's
been molded by society and society is made
up of what?
Of men or to hear some some entertainment,
some some movie star stand up there and
say, I can't figure out why we just
can't get along.
And yet he's divorced four women.
The reason we can't get along as nations
is the same reason why he couldn't get
along with his four wives.
It's sin.
Something I remember years ago, I was a
young preacher and I was preaching at this
Bible college and afterwards, this reporter came up
to me and he was furious.
Christian reporter, he was furious and he said,
I don't believe man is that way.
And I said, what way?
Well, what you said, I said, I drew
that out of the book of Genesis.
That wasn't my opinion.
It was a clear text.
I don't agree.
I said, sir, listen to me.
We're in a big auditorium right now.
If I could pull out your heart.
And I'm going to say this to you,
if I could pull out your heart right
now, every thought you've ever had up until
this moment.
Every deed, every word, everything.
And I could show it here right now
on this screen.
You would run out of this building in
shame and you would never show your face
here again because you thought things so twisted
you couldn't share them with your closest friend.
As a matter of fact, you've thought things
about your closest friend that if they knew
they'd no longer be your friend.
As a matter of fact, even after my
last sermon, some of you thought things about
me that you wouldn't want posted up here.
That's true.
It's true.
What goes on in the heart of man,
and that's why all these religions that talk
about these principles and these ways of life
and all these different things, they're all just
foolishness, the foolishness.
Because in every one of those religions, we
can just open them up and we will
see the corruption that really goes on the
greatest moralist, the most famous preachers.
But the Bible says it's true.
All have sinned.
All do sin, and why do they do
that?
Because they are sinners, we're not sinners because
we sin, we sin because of something in
us, our very nature.
Here's another way of putting it that most
people don't want to touch this, but I'm
going to touch it.
And it's this, if I tell you today
in our culture, you're a sinner, you go,
yeah, we're all sinners.
Well, let me use another synonym, evil, evil,
that man is evil.
You don't like that, do you?
But that's what sin means.
Just open up your newspaper and tell me
it's not true.
And you say, well, I'm not like that.
It's only because you lack the power.
You lack the power, whatever culture you go
into.
This is the real thing that goes around
in the mind of the thinking man.
I remember one time hearing this story about
a Jewish man who suffered terribly in the
concentration camps.
And when the when the war crime trials
started, he was allowed to sit literally across
from the man who had tortured him and
tortured him and tortured him in that war
crime.
And the Jewish man is sitting there looking
at this man who had just destroyed his
family and everything else.
And he broke down weeping and someone asked
him, why were you weeping?
And he said, because when I looked across
that table, I saw that I was just
like him, just like him.
And that's what the Bible teaches.
And that's why men hate the Bible.
And that's why you take any other religion
and it will be very popular on the
movie screen.
You take Buddhism, you take Hinduism, you take
whatever kind of ism, any type of religion
that says you're good enough to do this.
And please, God, and everyone will love it,
even if it works them to death and
puts them in bondage because they do not
have to admit, no, I have sinned.
I am evil.
And that's where Christianity draws the line, says,
no, you are.
You and if you have not achieved the
evil deeds of Hitler, it is only because
the common grace of God has restrained your
evil.
And if God were to pull back from
you and let you go, you'd make Hitler
look like a choir boy.
Can't you see that's the very thing that
is happening in the West?
It is the very thing that is happening
in the West.
Don't you see that things that are applauded
now in the West only 25, 30 years
ago, they were considered unmentionable.
You wouldn't even speak about them in public.
And children grew up to be 18, 19,
20 years old without even knowing these types
of things existed.
And now they're being taught to grade school
children.
So when you think man's really not that
bad, you're not seeing it in a in
a full perspective of human history.
Let me give you an example.
Now, I'm not saying you can't ever walk
on a beach or do something like that.
Please understand me.
I just want to make a point that
what people who consider themselves to be Christians
would wear to a beach.
Today, if they had wore the same thing
only 50 years ago.
The secular, unbelieving, non-Christian authorities would either
find them, incarcerated them or had them admitted
for mental counseling.
For emotional unstability, you realize that.
What just absolutely flaunted today was considered even
by unbelievers 50 years ago to be either
criminal or mentally unstable.
Do you see that that we can't really
judge unless we have a standard and that
standard is the scriptures.
And why is it the standard?
Because it reveals to us the righteousness of
God.
God really is righteous.
And that's why all these religions that say
you can save yourself by your works, they're
doing one of two things or both at
the same time.
They're either diminishing how righteous God is.
God's not really that righteous.
You can make a lot of mistakes and
it's still OK with him or man's really
not that bad.
But the Bible says you're wrong on both
counts.
God is perfectly righteous and to stand before
him, you must be perfectly righteous.
In the account of creation and Adam and
Eve, Adam and Eve sinned one time and
all of creation.
Was brought under the curse and condemnation.
How many times have you sinned, all have
sinned, and you see, here's the problem in
our society today that laughs about sin, that
uses sin for marketing, that considers sin entertainment,
that's not a big deal.
You see, the righteous standard, God's law, honor
your father and your mother.
No, we do not believe that children who
dishonor their father and mother ought to be
stoned today.
We don't believe that.
But what we do know this, it is
such a heinous crime before God.
That it is deserving of an eternity in
hell.
And you say that's not fair.
It's only because you don't understand justice.
You don't love righteousness.
He does.
Another thing that you need to see is
that because very little is taught about the
attributes of God, no one can understand how
grievous sin truly is.
That's why when the Greeks had the opportunity
with their brilliant mind to create a pantheon,
they created gods just like themselves, gods that
were immoral, gods that could trick, lie, commit
all sorts of even sexual immorality.
Why they made gods in their own image.
But the God of the Bible is not
that way.
He is pure.
He is holy, he is righteous.
Another way of saying it that really gets
the critics off his case and really turns
the argument back on people is this.
God is love, which means he is righteous.
Pure.
And we are not.
In any shape, form or fashion.
We are not.
And because the attributes of God are not
taught, we don't see sin, but just look
at it this way.
Imagine here on the day that the days
of creation.
And God told stars that could swallow up
a multitude of our suns, S.U.N.
God told stars to put themselves in certain
places and they all obeyed.
God told planets to orbit in certain circles
and ways and degrees and speeds.
And they all obeyed.
God told mountains to be lifted up and
valleys to be cast down and they obeyed.
God told the sea, you'll come to this
point, you'll come no further.
And the sea worshiped.
And then God looks at you and says,
come and you go, no.
No.
That's why on the day of judgment, all
of creation will rise up and applaud and
worship God because he has rid the earth
of you.
That's evil.
That's how evil sin truly is, and all
have sinned and in sinning, they have all
fallen short of the glory of God.
They have all fallen short of the glory
of God.
Now, in Western so-called Christianity, what does
that mean?
It means this, that God had a wonderful
plan for your life and you didn't achieve
it.
No, that's not what it means.
This is not about self-realization, this is
not about a plan, this is not for
you.
You know what it means?
You were made for him.
You were made for him, he is your
purpose.
He's the reason you were made.
He's the reason you are to breathe.
It's not about you.
You're not the center of the universe.
It's not your self-realization that's going to
make you happy.
You weren't created that way.
You were created for him.
And the reason why mankind is so miserable.
They've built every shape, form and fashion of
idol that you could imagine.
That's what Romans one is all about.
That professing themselves to be wise, they turned
from the one true God.
And what did they do?
They worshiped man, but they didn't stop there,
did they?
That's why you go into many tribes and
peoples and religions around the world.
And what are they worshiping?
Not man, but actually creatures that are under
men, snakes.
Monkeys.
Beatles.
Fictitional characters that they've created with a man's
body and an elephant's head rather do anything
than worship the one true God, and it's
led to nothing but futility.
And then in the West, they can say,
yes, that is just absolute absurd that someone
would be given to such superstition.
Oh, is it is it worse?
To make a monkey an idol or to
make a piece of metal called a car
an idol or to make prestige in your
neighborhood an idol or to make a certain
mark on your clothing to be an idol.
Or to make your own body the way
it looks an idol.
You see, we're all engulfed in it, and
that's the reason for the misery of man.
We have sinned and we have become fools.
And lived our lives for a while in
a way that is absolutely contrary.
Now, someone would say this, they say, yeah,
this is this this gigantic mega ego of
the Christian God that everything's about him.
Well, that's taking a biblical truth and twisting
it.
It really is all about him.
And I'm going to explain to you what
that means in Christianity, what does that mean?
If I desired to show the greatest love
that I could show to you in practical
means, how would I do that?
If I wanted to show the greatest kindness
to you, how would I do that?
I would do that by giving you the
greatest gift.
By giving you the thing or directing you
in such a way as to make you
most full, most happy, most complete, I would
give you the greatest gift I could give
you.
Now, in terms of reality.
If God wanted to give you the greatest
gift he could give you, what would it
be?
It would be himself.
You see, he truly is infinitely beautiful above
all things.
He truly is infinitely satisfying above all things.
He is truly glorious, infinitely glorious above all
things.
And for him to give you a thousand
worlds are universes of your own and direct
your attention to that beauty.
It would be judgment.
It would not be giving you the most
glorious thing.
The most glorious thing God can do is
recognize reality and reality is this.
He is the most splendid.
He is the most glorious.
He is the most beautiful.
He is the most satisfying.
And the kindest thing he can ever do
for his creation is do everything to draw
attention to himself so that your wandering eyes
can be caught with a glimpse of glory.
That would be so great.
You would never be able to exhaust it
and you would never want to turn your
eyes away from it.
That's what it means.
That's what it means, not some mega ego.
But one of the attributes of God is
that he is self-giving.
He is love.
Why?
You know, I hear when an athlete says,
you know, I'm number one.
You know, why is that bad?
Because he's not.
That's why he's bad.
He's not.
He can't even breathe.
Apart from the gracious work of God, he's
not number one.
Well, he's got to draw attention to themselves.
What's wrong with that?
They're not all satisfying.
That's why this idea that, oh, my husband
completes me or my wife completes me.
Listen, if your husband or your wife can
complete you, you're not a Christian.
You're not they cannot complete you if you
have become a Christian.
Your nature has been changed to such a
degree that if you were to gain the
whole world, it would not satisfy you.
And if you were to lose it all,
it would not take you down.
Because your passions have been raised to a
higher standard, and the only one who can
complete you is God.
That's why people go into these marriages with
such wrong views and so disappointed in their
husband or wife, because they are a disappointment.
But.
Only Christ, only Christ, and every time I
sin in doing this or you sin in
doing this.
Any time we say anything, dress a certain
way or do anything that says, look at
me, look at me.
Do you realize what we're saying?
Don't look at God, don't look at God,
don't look at God, look at me.
Look at me.
Do you see?
It's evil.
And stupid, and it shows a love for
self, but a lack of love toward everyone
else, because we're turning their attention away from
that which is greatest to that which is
not great at all.
Do you see?
So it says all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.
Now, what should be God's response?
I'm going to say certain things in certain
ways and go back and explain them, but
I'm going to say them in a certain
way in order to grab your attention.
What should be the response of a loving,
righteous God to sinful man?
Ready?
Hatred, seething, burning hatred.
You've probably heard a lot of sermons on
the love of God.
How many have you heard on the hatred
of God?
Because it's in the Bible.
Now, after saying that, though, I need to
explain myself.
I've heard people say this, God can't hate
because God is love, and I tell them,
no, God must hate because God is love.
You see, what do you mean?
Well, let's say that tomorrow or let's just
talk using human history.
If I ask you, what do you think
about the Holocaust?
And you go, well, you know, I'm pretty
neutral on it.
What do you think about 18, 19th century
slavery of Africans in Western Europe and America's
we think about that?
Well, you know, pretty neutral.
What does that tell me about you?
It tells me you're pretty immoral.
It tells me you're loveless.
Or what if I tell you that they
found a little boy that when he was
eight years old, he was kidnapped from his
mom and dad and for 10 years he
was kept in a jail cell in a
basement of a man's house and every day
he was tortured and beaten and they found
him just yesterday, but it was too late.
They found him.
He was breathing his last breath and he
was he had died after living that kind
of hell.
And I told you that and said, what
do you think about that?
And you said, well, you know, hey.
Doesn't really I mean, it's just.
People have their they desire to do certain
things, I mean, you know, how who am
I to judge?
Well, how do you feel about I don't
feel anything.
What does that tell me about you?
You're a monster.
That's what it tells me.
You're a monster.
Monster.
But you open up that newspaper and you'll
read about right now, South Sudan and the
orphans that are crossing the border into Ethiopia
and the mothers that are starving to death
and the war that's going on in the
conflict between the two tribes.
Are you here about this or that?
And you read it or some little child
was kidnapped and killed and brutally murdered and
everything else.
And you read it and I ask you,
how do you feel about that?
You say I burn with indignation.
So you have the right to burn with
indignation.
You have the right to hate evil.
But now, God, he has to be a
doting grandfather and be neutral and apathetic toward
all these things.
If you and I being evil, as Jesus
said, can so hate some aspects.
Of evil.
Then how much does a holy, loving, self
-giving God hate evil, he hates it.
He hates it.
Have you not read the judgments that fell
in the day of Noah when all but
eight were wiped off the planet?
Have you not read of Sodom and Gomorrah
and the judgment that fell?
Have you not read of the angels, the
non-elect angels that fell, that disobeyed God
and what was done to them, how they're
kept in bonds of darkness?
God hates evil, he hates evil.
And that hatred is not just against a
thing, it is against those who commit it.
I hear evangelists say this used to be
really popular in the 80s.
The first thing I want to tell you
people is God's not an angry God.
And I always go.
The first thing I want to tell you
is, well, actually, God is an angry God.
Matter of fact, the book Psalms says he's
angry every day.
And if he wasn't angry every day, being
omniscient and knowing every sin and grotesque crime
that's committed, if that left him apathetic, he
would not be holy or loving or righteous.
He is angry.
He hates evil.
And you say, well, then, Brother Paul, how
do you explain this?
You're telling me in one sense that that
God literally has hatred and wrath is manifest
against the wicked.
And yet you're telling me that for God
so loved the world, he gave his only
son that whoever believes in him shall not
perish, but have everlasting life.
How does this work?
You talk about a God of mercy, yet
you talk about a God of wrath.
And here's the way it is.
We're going to go on further to explain
this, but just for right now, I want
you to understand this.
God looks down upon the evil of men
and he burns with indignation.
But in one sense, the mercy of God
holds back his wrath.
With one hand and with another hand, the
mercy of God calls sinners to himself.
But know this one day, one day in
the life of every man before the Second
Coming or at the Second Coming, completely God's
hand of mercy will be withdrawn from men
and God's hand of mercy will no longer
restrain his wrath.
And then the only thing left is the
perfect.
Violent, holy, burning wrath of God against evil
men, people tell me all the time they
go, you know, hell is heaven's heaven because
God is there.
You're right.
They say hell is hell because God's not
there.
You're wrong.
Hell is hell because God is there in
the fullness of his wrath.
We think he just lit a fire and
walked away.
That is his wrath.
Because he hates evil in the same way
that he infinitely loves righteousness.
He hates it, and because preachers aren't saying
this anymore, people do not fear evil.
They do not fear it, nor do they
see Christ as precious.
Now, let's go on.
Verse twenty four.
In verse twenty three, he says, for all
have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God.
And he gets to verse twenty four.
He says, being justified as a gift by
his grace through the redemption which is in
Christ Jesus, being justified.
And who's he talking about now?
He's talking about Christians.
And what does he mean by justified?
It is a forensic term.
It is a legal term.
Now, what do I mean?
It is God looking at a man and
declaring that man to be legally right with
him, that the moment a person places their
faith, the moment a person believes in the
atoning work of God through Jesus Christ.
God legally declares that person to be right
with him.
Do you understand that?
And not only does he legally declare that
person to be right with him, but God
treats that person as right with him.
And remember that word, he treats that person
as right with him.
Now, that's very simplistic, but we're going to
go on, I want you to understand some
things now, let's talk about religion for a
moment.
Let's say that I have a Jewish man
here, Orthodox Jew.
A Muslim fundamentalist.
I could have Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, let's just
deal for simplicity's sake, we have the Jewish
man here, the Muslim man here and the
Christian man.
Now, when I say Christian, I mean a
real one.
Not American version of Christian, not the kind
where it says 60 percent of the United
States is Christian, not that kind of Christian,
a real one, one that has been regenerated
by the power of the Holy Spirit that
goes on believing the gospel and bears the
fruit thereof, a real Christian.
Now, the reporter goes up to the Orthodox
Jew and he says, sir, if you died
right now, what would happen to you?
Well, I believe, I hope, I believe, I
think that I would go to paradise.
Well, why do you believe that?
Well, I love the Torah, I love I
love the law of God and I walk
in the path of the righteous.
The reporter, secular, says, OK, I understand that
you'll go to heaven because, well, you've you've
done what's right, you've you've pleased God, you've
fulfilled your part of the bargain.
Goes to the Muslim, sir, if you died
right now, where would you go?
Well, my hope is that I would go
to paradise.
Why?
Well, I love the Koran and I have
I have the five pillars I have completed.
I've made the pilgrimages, the prayers I've given
the alms, I've done what I needed to
do.
OK, I understand that.
Goes to the Christian, says, sir, if you
died right now, where would you go?
He says to heaven.
Why?
Well, I was born in sin.
And sin did I come forth.
And I have broken every law of my
God.
The reporter goes, sir, I don't understand.
I mean, the other men, I understand they're
going to heaven because they've done what they
needed to do.
God owes them heaven.
They completed their part of the bargain.
God has to complete his.
They've done it.
You, sir, I don't understand.
They're going to heaven based upon their virtue
and merit.
How are you going to heaven being such
a failure?
And the Christian says, because I'm going to
heaven based upon the virtue and the merit
of another Jesus Christ, my Lord.
Now, that doesn't take away from the fact
that once someone truly believes, having been regenerated
by the Holy Spirit, that they become a
new creature and they live a different way
and they grow in holiness and godliness.
I'm not taking away from that, but the
hope of these three men are very different.
We see two hopes.
We see hope of self-righteousness based on
works and yet deception because they're not seeing
the wickedness of their own heart nor the
holiness of God.
And yet over here we see the person
who has come to grips that cataclysmic, catastrophic
encounter with truth.
I am evil.
God is righteous and there is no hope
for me outside of what God has done
for me rather than what I could do
for God.
That's the fundamental difference of everything with regard
to religion.
If you want to know, there it is
in a nutshell.
One is man.
And.
Now, look at this, I want you to
think about something, the man who claims to
be right with God through his own works
has set himself above God, for now God
is his debtor.
God must pay the price of eternal salvation
because that man has earned it.
And the one who owes is under the
one who is calling to be paid.
Yet in Christianity, it is completely different.
Even though.
And I can say this without even blinking,
historically, I'm backed up on every page.
Most of the hospitals in this world were
because of Christians.
Most of the universities, orphanages, I can just
keep going down the line, so I'm not
saying that a person lives like the devil
and is saved.
I'm talking about a person who realizes they
have no hope whatsoever.
They look upon Christ.
They are saved.
Having been regenerated, they're made a new creature
and they go out doing good.
But in no way would they consider even
their greatest works for one moment to be
the reason for their salvation.
It is only Jesus Christ crucified and raised
from the dead.
That's Christianity.
And so all our hope is in a
completed fact carried out by a perfect person,
and therefore it is hope it is a
sure hope he says here being justified as
a gift by his grace.
Now, that's redundant.
Paul is known for that.
And it's not bad Greek.
It's just he's trying to make a point.
He's almost saying something like this, that we
are justified.
We are right with God as a gift,
as a gift.
Now, this word right here that I want
you to see this phrase, it says here
being justified as a gift is translated from
the Greek word Dorian, which is very, very
important.
Why?
There's a place in scripture in the book
of John where the scriptures are cited from
the Old Testament.
And it says this about the Messiah.
They hated him or they hated me without
a cause.
And what is being said there is that
the people who showed their hatred toward Christ
never had a reason to do it.
There was no Christ never gave anyone a
reason to hate him.
And in the same way, what Paul is
saying is you never gave God a reason
to justify you.
You and I only gave God a reason
to condemn us, we never gave him a
reason to justify us, he justified us.
By his own sovereign grace and his own
sovereign work through the person of Jesus Christ,
through his doing, not our own, you didn't
contribute one thing, one thing, zero, it's not
it's not, you know, point nine, nine, nine,
nine, nine, nine, nine, God and point zero,
zero, zero, zero, zero, one, you.
Because if it was, you'd have no hope
of salvation because you couldn't even fulfill that
part.
It is 100 percent the saving work of
God from beginning to end, and that's what
Christianity is about now.
Now we come to the greatest problem in
all of Scripture.
This is what the gospel is all about.
And I want you to listen to me.
This is what it's all about.
And I call it the divine dilemma.
I want you to think about this.
Now, think put on your thinking cap.
If God is righteous.
He can not forgive you.
If God is righteous, he can not forgive
you.
You see that you say, well, why?
OK, let me give you an illustration.
Let's say that a man murders your entire
family, all of them, and you come home
to find him standing over the body of
the one he has just been killed, his
hands covered in blood, your family dead.
You've got there he is.
He's trapped.
You call the police, the police come and
get him and they take him to jail
and the court is gathered.
You're in a small town.
The court is gathered because of this this
terrible crime.
The judge takes the bench.
Everyone in town has come to the courtroom
because they all knew your family.
It was such a heinous crime.
And the judge looks down at the man
that slaughtered your entire family, and he says
this, I'm a loving judge, slow to anger
and abounding in loving kindness.
Therefore.
I forgive you, you're pardoned, go.
How would you respond?
Would everyone in the town, would you yourself
go, wow, that was just loving judge.
Is that what you would do?
No, you would write and you'd call the
newspaper, you'd be in the media, you'd be
writing senators and congressmen even trying to reach
the president to point out that there is
a judge sitting on the bench that's far
more corrupt than the criminals he lets free.
This man has committed murder.
Can a judge just dispense with justice?
No.
Can God you say God can do anything?
No, God can do everything.
Except that which contradicts his most holy nature.
God can do anything, but he will not
contradict who he is.
I've heard evangelists say this instead of being
just with you, God was loving.
And I think, does no one teach logic
anymore?
Because what that evangelist is saying is God's
love is unjust.
God cannot God, you know, you hear theologians
talk about God's perfect.
You just think that means he does things
right all the time.
What you've got to understand is it also
means there is no conflict within the nature
of God.
He never will set aside his justice in
the name of love.
He will never lay aside his holiness in
the name of mercy.
He'll never do that, he's perfect, there's perfect
harmony.
And this presents what the gospel is all
about.
This is the heart of the gospel.
And yet so rarely do I ever hear
it preached.
It is this the greatest problem in all
the scripture is if God is righteous, he
cannot forgive you.
His righteousness demands satisfaction.
And until that righteousness is satisfied, God's wrath
will be kindled against the sinner.
So the question is this, how can God
be just and at the same time justify
the wicked?
That's the greatest problem in all the scripture.
It's what the gospel is about the whole
gospel.
That's what it's about.
Now, I want to go through for just
a moment the scriptures and show you this.
Go to Exodus for a moment.
Exodus 34, verse six.
Then the Lord passed by in front of
him.
That was Moses and proclaimed the Lord, the
Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and
abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps
loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression
and sin.
Is this not wonderful news that he is
this kind of God and that he forgives
iniquity, transgression and sin?
That's something of a Hebrew parallelism.
It is a repetition upon a repetition.
And what it's saying is he forgives all
types and kinds of sin.
And we say wonderful.
But now here's the problem.
Let's read further, who forgives iniquity, transgression and
sin, yet he will by no means leave
the guilty unpunished.
Hold it.
You can't have both things.
Do you see that he forgives every type
and kind of sin?
And yet he will leave not one guilty
person unpunished.
How does that work?
I mean, how can he do how can
he do both things?
How can he justify?
And yet be just.
When the ones he's justifying are guilty, he's
declaring them legally right when, in fact, they're
all legally wrong.
Where's your justice, God?
Where's your justice?
Go to Proverbs for a moment, chapter 17,
verse 15.
He who justifies the wicked and he who
condemns the righteous, both of them alike are
an abomination to the Lord, he who justifies
the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
The word abomination is about the strongest word
in the Hebrew text.
I mean, there's nothing worse than that.
So hold it, Romans three just told us
that God justifies the wicked.
And here in Proverbs, it says anyone who
justifies the wicked is an abomination to God.
How can you have both things?
How?
How can you do that now?
Let's go back to Romans three.
As you get to Romans three, just jump
on to Romans four and look at verse
seven.
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been
forgiven and whose sins have been covered.
Let me ask you a question.
Who's writing this, David?
David's being quoted.
Is that not true?
What do you call a judge who covers
sin?
Corrupt, what do you call a judge who
sweeps sin under the rug?
Do you call him just corrupt?
Do you see the problem?
Maybe you've never seen this before, but this
is what the scriptures are all about.
This is what the gospel is all about.
How can God be just and being just
punish every sin and every sinner exactly what
they deserve and yet at the same time
pardon sinners?
How can he do that?
The answer is found in only one place.
In the person and work of Jesus Christ.
What happened there?
God in his righteousness condemns man.
And his wrath is kindled against him, but
God in love for his special people became
a man.
And he lived the perfect life, they could
not live that they did not live, and
then he went to a tree.
And that crucifixion was not a martyrdom, but
it was according to the fore knowledge of
God, which means more than just he could
see it coming, he planned it, he planned
it.
And on that cross, what happened?
Well, he was carrying the sin of his
people upon himself.
To that tree and upon that tree, as
Spurgeon said.
And as is clearly written throughout all the
scripture.
And then what happened?
So many things that we don't have time
to go into tonight, but here's what I
want to put before you.
So many people look at the cross and
I'll ask them, you know, what happened there?
Well, the Romans crucified Jesus, the Jews rejected
him, the Romans crucified him.
How does that pay for our sin?
The Romans beat Jesus up and because of
that, our sins were paid for, they nailed
him to a tree and that paid that
satisfied God's justice against our sin.
No, it was part of it, but not
the whole of it.
What happened?
Do you remember when he cried out, my
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
You see, God is holy and our sins
have separated us from our God.
It is a breach, a chasm that no
man can cross.
God is holy.
He cannot even look upon evil.
You and I should spend eternity separated from
God by our own choosing.
You and I should spend eternity separated from
God in order for us to be drawn
near to God.
Someone had to suffer that separation.
God's favorable presence pulled back from his son,
withdrawn.
Now to you, that might not mean much.
Here we're talking about the son of God.
Everything God's ever done, everything the father's ever
done, he's done it for his son and
everything the son has ever done was for
the father.
And one of the things, especially in a
Muslim evangelism, why this is so good is
because even they will acknowledge to some degree
that God is love.
But here's the problem.
God is eternal.
So how can God be loved if he's
eternal unless there's someone upon whom he can
lavish his love?
And there wasn't a creation.
Creation's not eternal.
But you see, the father and the son
and the Holy Spirit lavish their love upon
one another.
The son was always a delight to the
father and the father to the son, and
they needed nothing.
The world was not created because God had
a need.
The world was created because of the super
abundance of God overflowing.
And on that cross, the son was forsaken
of God.
You should be forsaken of God throughout eternity
in hell.
But on the cross, the son was forsaken
of God.
And then when he's in the garden, he
cried out, let this cup pass from me.
What was in the cup?
I've heard so many preachers say, well, you
look forward and could see the cat of
nine tails coming across his back and it
terrified him and the cross and the nails
and the crown of thorns.
So the captain of our salvation is weaker
than the ones who died as martyrs for
his sake.
We know of Christian martyrs even till today,
because about 500 Christians a day are being
killed now.
Christians that have gone to crosses praising God
and with joy and their wives telling them,
play the man, go and die in a
manner worthy of your savior.
And yet the captain of their salvation is
cowering in a garden saying, let this cup
pass from me.
Do you really think that's what Jesus was
talking about?
He was afraid of a whip and the
cross.
No, what happened on that garden?
Is the reality of it all the final
battle when sin was placed upon him, he
would be separated from his father and then
all the wrath, the fierce, righteous, burning hatred
of a holy God against you was cast
down upon him.
Have you never read in Isaiah 53, and
it pleased the Lord to crush him.
What was in the cup, the wrath of
almighty God, all the fierce, holy hatred of
God against evil was thrown down upon the
head of his son until the wrath of
God was entirely extinguished so that there remains
no wrath for the people of God, for
those who have found their haven in Jesus
Christ, for the ones who have said Rock
of Ages cleft for me, let me hide
myself in thee.
He paid it all.
Him on that tree.
In the garden with his entire life, you
see that.
I was teaching this one time and a
student stood up in an auditorium at a
university and he said, I got a question
for you.
I said, OK, what is it?
He goes, how can one man suffer for
a few short hours and save a multitude
of men from an eternity of wrath?
And I said, oh, thank you so much
for asking that question.
That one man could suffer a few short
hours on that tree and save an eternity,
save a multitude of men from an eternity
in hell, because that one man was worth
more than all of them put together.
You take everything that is.
And I can say this by scripture and
by my own heart, you take everything that
there is, planets and worlds, mountains and mole
hills.
The greatest things on this planet, the tiniest
specks of dust, you take angels, you take
everything ever made, the most glorious of all
glory, and you put it on a scale
and you put my Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, on the other side of that balance
and he outweighs them all.
He outweighs them all.
So now, how can God pardon a wretch
like me?
How can he at the bar of his
justice declare me to be right with him?
Because Jesus Christ paid the penalty.
By taking my sin upon himself and by
suffering the wrath of almighty God, by becoming
a curse, by becoming sin.
And we may talk about that tomorrow morning.
Now, look at our text again.
What I've described to you is, first of
all, in verse 24, through the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus redemption.
What does it mean?
Redemption is a sense of paying a price
to redeem or to save a captive or
a slave or a prisoner, to set them
free by paying a price.
The Greek fathers were so wrong in some
of the ways in which they thought, thinking
that somehow that Christ paid some sort of
ransom to the devil, Christ paid the ransom
to God's justice.
You see, it wasn't.
So much the devil coming after you.
It was God coming after you, as R
.C. Sproul has said, God saved you from
him, from his justice.
By satisfying his justice, and I love to
say he saved you.
From himself, by himself and for himself.
He paid the price, it was the blood
of God's own son, and here's what I
want you to understand, listen to me.
There's not a law or a morality in
the world strong enough to captivate my heart,
there is not a law, a principle or
a style of life that was strong enough
to capture Newton's heart.
It wasn't a law or principle or a
style of life or self-realization that caused
him to lay down the chains of being
a slave master and become one of the
greatest hymn writers and theologians of his time
and the time of the church.
It wasn't a bunch of rules.
It was a style of life.
It was blood.
The high price of the son of God
that melted the heart, I've told people before,
there's not a proper bone in my body.
I don't care about being pretty and I
don't care about anything, I care about one
thing.
Jesus Christ shed his blood for me.
And if I had no other knowledge, that
would be enough for any man to propel
his heart through an eternity of piety.
He.
Shed his blood.
He suffered the wrath of God, he satisfied
justice.
Redemption.
Propitiation is in the next part of the
text, verse twenty five, whom God displayed publicly
as a propitiation in his blood through faith,
a sacrifice.
That satisfies.
The demands of God's justice and makes it
possible for a just God to forgive wicked
men while still being just, while maintaining his
justice.
Now, I want you to look, we're going
to finish here.
This was to demonstrate his righteousness.
Now, look at this.
Maybe you've never really, really looked at this.
Verse twenty five, whom God displayed publicly, literally
Martin Lloyd-Jones would say it this way,
God placarded him.
If you go to some places in the
Appalachian Mountains and the Smoky Mountains, you see
literally you can't see the mountains for all
the street signs.
All the big banners about Gatlinburg or this
or that you can't see anything.
All these placarded things.
God placarded his son as a propitiation.
He put him in the literally religious center
of the universe, hanging on a tree for
all to see.
He did it for all to see.
Why would he do it for all to
see?
Well, he's going to tell us this was
to demonstrate his righteousness.
Why would God have to demonstrate or prove
that he's a righteous God?
That's a really good question, isn't it?
He is righteous.
So why?
So the cross of Christ is not not
only about atonement.
But it's to demonstrate something about God, something
that apparently has not been understood.
Christ was placarded before the whole universe for
this purpose, to demonstrate that God is righteous.
Now, why would God need to demonstrate that
he's righteous?
Here's the reason.
Because in the forbearance of God, he passed
over sins previously committed.
What does that mean?
Well, I'm going to give you the closest
thing I'm ever going to do to a
drama.
I want you to think about this.
We know so little about the fall of
Satan, we do a lot less than most
of these books will tell you.
But we know that there is a Satan,
there's a devil and we know he fell.
And we know that when he fell, there
was perfect justice.
And when those non-elect angels fell with
him, there was perfect justice.
Do you ever notice this?
God did not send a savior to his
fallen angels.
So remember this man in humility, he didn't
have to send you one.
Do you realize that?
But there was perfect justice.
And then then God creates this ball of
dirt and upon it, he makes this thing
out of clay and animates it.
And this man and woman rebel against God.
What should be the accusers accusation?
Where where's your justice?
Well, where's your justice death?
You said death.
Where is your justice?
And then you look at the problem, the
ethical moral problem of Noah's Ark.
You say, what do you mean God showed
his justice?
He destroyed the entire world.
He should Noah should have died along with
the other seven.
How do you explain that, God?
Where is your justice?
Noah was a sinner.
His wife, a sinner, his children, sinners, his
in-laws, sinners, none of them should have
been saved.
They should have all died.
You say, well, faith, faith does not remove
sin.
They deserved to die.
And then he calls Abraham.
Can you imagine Abraham?
The devil says you call him a friend.
Man of faith, I can count countless times
when he doubted you, where's your justice, God?
Oh, and Israel, Israel, your your treasure, Israel,
idolatrous, even after the deliverance from Egypt for
40 years, they worshipped me.
They worshipped my goat demon gods, they turned
from you every time they had the opportunity.
Oh, and David, David, David is your son,
a man after your own heart.
He's an adulterer and a murderer.
Where is your justice?
Because all of redemptive history seems to demonstrate,
God, you are not just.
Where's your justice?
Two thousand years ago, it's as though God
said this.
Do you want to know how I can
give a proto evangelical?
You want to know how I can give
a first promise of the gospel in Genesis
315 right after the fall of man and
still be just.
Do you want to know how I can
save Noah from the flood?
Do you want to know how I can
call Abraham my friend?
And do you want to know that those
believing within Israel, how I can call them
my treasured possession?
And you want to know how I can
call David a son and forgive him his
trespasses.
Look now to Calvary.
There's your answer for there.
My son dies for them all.
My elect people down through the ages, various,
and so we stand there one day.
Before God and all accusation silenced.
Why, because of the lamb, only one reason,
the lamb of God who was slain for
our sin.
This is the big story.
This is the big picture, this is what
this is, what it's all about, and everything
else pales to nothing and anything, any good
thing that is set beside this gospel message
becomes heresy.
If it's made an equal or set above
it, this should be the theme of everything
you say, Brother Paul, this is about the
family, the families about the gospel.
And the only way a family can function
biblically is to understand the gospel, appreciate the
gospel.
What is the greatest gift I can give
my children?
What is the greatest gift for them to
look at me?
And know.
That that gospel is worth appreciating.
It's worth clinging to that the outstanding feature
of their father was not his morality or
his rules or his success in obedience or
his properness, that the one outstanding feature of
their father and their mother was that they
would cling desperately to Jesus Christ.
And they loved him because he was their
only hope.
That is family, that is family.
And to glory, glory in him, to glory
in his life, to glory in his death,
to glory.
I mean, in one sense, I haven't even
shared the gospel with you yet, haven't gotten
to the resurrection.
And this is what your family needs, you
know, men think, oh, family devotions to my
family devotions.
Good.
You just keep doing them.
But when it talks about washing your wife
in the water of the word, it's not
talking about you sitting your wife in a
chair and preaching to her half an hour
a day.
That's the easy part, especially when the constant
sermon seems to be submission.
Do you know what that really means?
Washing your wife in the gospel, telling her
about Jesus, about what he's done, and every
time she fails and this will be my
greatest sin.
Every time she fails, you give her the
grace of the gospel.
Every time she falls short, you give her
the grace of the gospel.
Every time your husband falls short, you give
him the grace of the gospel.
You gospelize your wife, you gospelize your husband,
you gospelize your children.
Oh, yes, there are rules.
Yes, there's time for for for rebuke and
reproof and all those things.
I don't want to take away from that,
please.
I'm just coming at it from another angle.
But the main thing is this.
When I looked at my father, I want
my children to say, I saw a man
who believed the gospel and told me about
the gospel and begged me to cling to
the gospel.
And his whole life was about the gospel.
And my wife looks at me, she won't
go, oh, there's an American hero or there's
this outstanding this or outstanding that or is
this broad shoulder, deep chested man in whom
I could trust that would defend our family.
No, that she would say he clung.
Desperately to Jesus.
And sometimes he was so broken and so
wrong and so small and so stupid, but
there was one thing Jesus was his prize
and only hope, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
I know I may sound foolish to you.
But just Jesus, he's enough.
That's what family is about.
If you came to my house.
I don't think you would see hypocrites.
But you'd probably not see the perfection you'd
be thinking you'd see, but you would be
seeing.
A lot of times a husband that was
sorry, clinging to Jesus.
A wife that every day was just saying
Jesus is all I have.
Parents that would sit in a room at
night and talk about.
Today, we were angry with our children, we
so need grace.
Today, we were this or that, you'd see
children, hopefully they're learning all we have is
Jesus.
Jesus, everything is about Jesus.
Jesus.
And I'll tell you something to move in
that kind of context is really freeing and
it doesn't cause you, if your heart's been
regenerated, to want to slack or to give
up on being more holy or to teach
your children the right way.
No, it doesn't.
When you see this freedom, though, it causes
you to boldly go out and want to
be more.
And yet there's grace when you don't reach
that standard and when your children don't reach
that standard and your wife doesn't make that
standard and so on and so forth.
There is great progress, brothers, don't don't.
I'm not trying to tell you that the
Christian life is just a powerless failure.
It's not.
There are families here who are growing and
doing well.
There are men and women who are being
changed in my own life, even though it's
slow.
I see progress over the last 30 years.
I see progress in my wife.
I see my children coming to understand certain
things about God.
Yes, there is power in the gospel, not
just for justification, but to change us and
make us different.
But I want you to see that.
I guess you don't fight fire with fire.
You fight everything in the home with the
gospel.
Your problems with your wife or your husband
with the gospel.
Teaching your children the gospel.
And all those other things are very good
in their place, and some of you have
a better balance at it than I do,
I'm sure.
And what I'm coming tonight at you, I'm
not coming to you with a balance.
I'm kind of almost it seems like I'm
depreciating the other.
I'm not.
It's good.
But I want you to see, children, it's
all about the fact that someone loved you
enough.
To die for you.
And it's devotion to him.
All right, well, let's pray.
Father, I pray.
That you would work in the heart of
people or even as you're stirring, you stir
my own heart to think about how much
more I want to be pleasing to you
because of what your son has done and
what you have done through your son.
Lord, help us, Lord.
To gospelize one another, to think great thoughts
about your son and to love him.
And that that would be, Lord, the topic
of our conversation.
Our great joy.
To speak much about Jesus.
In Jesus name, Amen.