In this sermon, the preacher passionately delivers the gospel of Jesus Christ, urging the listeners to repent and turn to God. He emphasizes the fallen nature of humanity, using examples of extreme acts of violence and the existence of laws as evidence. The preacher also highlights the need for mercy and the consequences of rejecting God's truth. He references Bible verses, such as Isaiah 64:6-7, to support his points about the sinful state of mankind. Overall, the sermon calls for a response to the message of salvation and warns of the eternal consequences of rejecting God.

It's a great privilege for me to be here this morning with all of you again, and every time that you're going to preach, there's always a kind of a fight within you and a burden because there are so many things in Scripture that you want to communicate to people, and it's just a burden because there are such great needs. There's so many misunderstandings about what it means to be Christian, about a right relationship with God, and about so many other things. And I want to depart a little bit and just a little bit from what normally we're going to do this morning. And I'm just so burdened about a few things, and I would like to share them with you from the Scriptures. I'm going to start in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 1. Paul says, I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and which also you stand, by which also you are saved if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Now, I spend a lot of time in universities and things, and I know when I walk on a platform what has already been said about me, the challenges that I'm going to have to face. The fact that in media today, anyone who is a Christian is portrayed as either a immoral villain or an intellectual idiot. I'm aware of that when I walk on a platform in a university. I'm also aware that the very ones who call me an idiot know nothing of logic, very little science, there's nothing of history, so on and so forth. But the greatest thing that Satan can do to a lost person is convince that lost person that they're right, even though they don't even know what they're right about or how to defend what they think they believe. It's an attitude of pride. It's an attitude of pride. Many people will come hear me speak just with the attitude of, well, let's go hear this bumbler. It'll give us something to laugh about after it's all over as we sit around in our dorm rooms. The fact of the matter is, what do you believe? And if you even can form an opinion about what you believe, then my next question is defend it. And so many people will say, well, I have a right to my own opinion. We always hear that, you know, someone, a reporter will go out and interview people about a certain political thing or social thing. And the person will say, well, I have my right to my own opinion. How come they only quote half of that? Do you know that, you know who said that? Benjamin Franklin said that everyone has a right to their own opinion. But that was only half of the statement he made. He went on to say everyone has a right to their own opinion if they can logically defend it. So whenever I stand before a group of people saying that that I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I believe that he's the truth, the way and the life, I know I'm going to get various reactions. I know that if I walk out on a university platform and I say I am a seeker of the truth, everyone will stand up and applaud me. But after they sit down, if I say and I have found the truth, they'll boo me off the platform. Because we live in a culture that prides itself in wanting to know what the truth is, even though no one's really investigating. And then if someone says they have found it, he's labeled an ignorant fool or an arrogant man. Or there's another reaction, whenever you're going to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, I'll be sitting on a plane, someone will say, what do you do? And I say, well, I'm a Christian, I travel around, I teach the Bible, I talk to people about Jesus, I'm a Christian. And they'll go, oh, that's nice. That's nice. That's nice. No, it's not nice, I tell them. It's not nice at all. As a matter of fact, it is a tragic, critical thing that I'm doing. Because if Jesus Christ is not the Son of God and the only way to be reconciled to God, then I'm a fool. I'm wasting my entire life. It's not nice. Don't patronize me. I'm either right or I'm wrong. If I am right, my soul is one and my life is full. If I am wrong, I am the most pitiful of all men, the greatest of fools. But then again, everyone has to say that, even all of you sitting here. Every part of your destiny hinges upon one thing. Is Jesus Christ the Son of God? For some of you, if He is, it means salvation. For some of you, if He is, it means damnation, that you will be judged by Him and cast into hell. For some of you, if He isn't the Son of God, it means you've wasted your entire foolish, pitiful life. And for others of you who do not believe that He's the Son of God. Well, just stay with your philosophy of eat, drink and party, for tomorrow we die. Because there's no hope for you either. And so it really comes down to this. Who is Jesus Christ? But don't patronize me. As one English scholar said one time, He's either a liar, a lunatic, or the Son of God. And every bit of history hinges upon that. And forget it. Now, as I said, I'm departing from what I was supposed to do. I hope that doesn't make you angry, but I am so burdened this morning, I have to. I want to set out for you what Christianity is. Not the stuff on television, not the stuff of religion, not the stuff of TV evangelists with big hair. What real Christianity is. And why do I want to do that? So that you can walk out of here loving it or hating it. But at least you'll know what you're loving, and you'll know what you're hating. So if you'll walk out of here worshipping Jesus Christ, or blaspheming His name like He was a devil. But you'll know what you're doing. You'll know what you're doing. Now, what does the Bible say? The Bible says many, many things, but we're going to only talk about a few of them today. The Bible talks first of all, and mainly, about who God is. Now, to go through all of that would take several years of my life. But there are some things that I just want to quickly speak to you about God. In Isaiah chapter 6, it says that God is holy, holy, holy. Now, in New York, they say, you got a problem with that? But I'm going to say the same thing, but not like a question. You do have a problem. What does it mean that He's holy? You hear, you know, holier than thou, you know, holy. What does it mean holy? This is what holy means. When it says God is holy, this is what it means. The word comes from a Hebrew word which means literally, in its most basic root, to cut. And then it came to mean to cut and to separate, as though you were cutting up a bunch of vegetables. And as you cut those vegetables, you separate them off with a knife. You separate them, put them apart, make them distinct. The word came to mean, to say that God is holy means above everything else that He is a part. He is separated, distinct, unique, from every other thing and being. So we've confused this idea today. Most people, when they think of holiness, their idea of holiness is righteousness. God's holy. What does that mean? He doesn't sin. No, that's not the primary meaning of holy. The primary meaning of holy is that God is totally and completely distinct. So much for the idea of me and Jesus got our own thing. We've got our own thing going, or calling God the man upstairs, because He's neither. He's God. And He is totally and completely distinct. Now, let me give you a few ideas about this. Let me ask you a question. What is closer to being like God, an archangel in all its glory, or the bacteria floating around in your toilet? Which one is closer to being like God? Neither one. That archangel is no more like God than that bacteria floating around in your toilet, because no one is like God. God is not just like us and bigger, or like angels but bigger and better. He is totally distinct from everything. Absolutely everything. There is no one holy like the Lord. You take a worm crawling on the ground. You take an archangel whose glory is so great it would destroy the earth. And that archangel is no more like God than that worm on the ground, because no one is like God. You understand what I'm saying? You hear all these men that, well, you know, when I die, I'll just go up there and talk to God. No, you won't. You'll melt before Him like a tiny wax figurine before a blast furnace is what you'll do. No one is like the Lord. He is holy. That means He is separate. Now, how is that holiness manifested? It's manifested in all His attributes. He is holy in His eternal nature. He is separated and distinct from everyone else. He has an eternal nature. No beginning. No end. He is holy in that He is distinct from everyone else and that He is immutable. What does that mean? He does not change. You change. You grow old and die. You change in your purposes, in your plans, in what you think. God never does, because He's perfect. Being perfect, He cannot change and become better because He's already perfect. He cannot decrease because He would no longer be God. He's righteous. And this is why... Now, listen to me very carefully. This is why you hate God. If you're not a Christian, if you're just your typical, average, run-of-the-mill person out there having a good time, this is why you hate God. You say, no, hold it. I don't hate God. I mean, only the devil hates God. I don't hate God. Yes, you hate God. That's what the Bible says. The Bible calls all men who have not embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, haters of God. Romans chapter 1. Haters of God. Speaks about our enmity toward God. You say, well, what do you mean? Why would anybody hate God? Here's why you hate God. I'll give you an example. Do you remember back when you were in high school or grade school or something like that? At least me, all right? I was always running with the wrong crowd. And we wore or tore up blue jeans and, you know, our hair was long and we were rebelling against teachers and, well, just always that kind of stuff. Well, there were always students, okay, that wore really nice clothes. Did all their homework. Answered the teacher with respect. And when they got out those school doors, we beat them up. We hated them. Goody two-shoes, all the other... We didn't like to be in that crowd. We didn't. Why? Because we were one way and they were another way and we didn't like the way they were. And one of the reasons we didn't like the way they were is because they were doing the right things and we hated them for it because we weren't. Every time we saw them, they were a rebuke to us even if they never talked to us. Why do men hate God? Because God is good and men are not. Men are not good and that's why they hate God. God is love. Men are not. They're not. It's like, you know, young girls, listen to me. When a guy tells you in this world today basically that he loves you, what he says is, I love myself and I want you. He's not thinking about you. He's not thinking about laying down his life for you. He's not thinking about sacrificing for you. He's not thinking about giving up all the things that he might consider pleasures in order to serve you and please. No, he's thinking about himself. That's why he hates God because God's completely different. God really is love. Men are not. God really is truthful. Men are not. The Bible says all men are liars. Now, let's look at some things that the Bible says about men. I do this quite often. Let's just go to Genesis really quick. Chapter 6, verse 5. Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man that was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I was preaching this at a university and a reporter came up to me. He was so mad. He said, how dare you say that the thoughts of men's heart are evil continually. I said, well, first of all, sir, I didn't say it. I read it. He said, it's not true. I said, okay, take a test. He said, fine, I'll take a test. Okay, you take the same test right here, right now. If I could take out your intellect right now, if I could take every thought you have ever thought from your first moment of consciousness to even the thoughts you've had about me today, right now, if I could take every thought you've ever had and I could put it on a videotape or a CD, DVD, and I could show every thought you have ever had on this screen right now, you would run out of this building and you would never show your face here again because you have thought things so wicked you cannot even begin to share them with your closest friend. We know that's true and guess what? You would be so ashamed you would not be able to look at us and yet you know that we're the same way. You would be ashamed even though you're surrounded by people who are just like you. So what will it be like on the day of judgment when you stand before a holy God who is absolutely pure in the presence of countless, infinite number of beings that are absolutely holy and that film is shown? Like I said, you'll melt before Him like a wax figurine in a blast furnace. That's what the Bible teaches. Go to chapter 8, verse 21, And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth. This Word can go back farther than that from his childhood. I have two little boys that I would give my life for. One of them is one and a half, the other is three and a half. I love them so much it's unbearable. Never do you have to teach a child how to lie. Do you have to teach a child how to lie? No. What do you have to teach them? How to tell the truth. Never do you have to teach a child how to be selfish and self-centered and pathetically self-absorbed. Never do you have to teach that. You have to teach them just the opposite. Anyone who would deny that reality has got their head stuck in a politically correct sand. It's true. And it has been known by cultures throughout the history of time. It is a fact of life. We are born twisted. We are born wrong. We are born self-absorbed and self-loving. We are born idolaters. We desire to be God. And not submit to God's truth. I remember one time I was debating a man from Spain. If you know anything about Spain, their chief philosopher, at least among the old school guys, is a man by the name of Unamuno. Now, Unamuno wrote a book called La Vida es un Sueño, Life is a Dream. And in his book, his basic philosophy is this. The greatest virtue a man can possess is that of seeking the truth. The greatest arrogance a man could ever demonstrate is claiming to have found it. So I'm debating with this fellow from Spain. And he's a brilliant man. We're going back and forth and back and forth. And his whole thing is just coming from Unamuno. I just knew it. I mean, it's the whole thing. I'm a seeker of the truth. And finally I stopped and I said, Sir, I have finally figured you out. I mean, a light has come on in my head. I mean, I understand you. He said, Sorry, I don't. You know how they talk in Spain. And I said, No, it's not like you think, Sir. I now know why you desire to be a seeker of the truth. But at the same time, you desire never to find it. Because the moment you find the truth, you're going to have to submit to it. And that is what you refuse. This is not a battle of the intellect. This is a battle of the will. You desire to be God and Lord over your universe. And the moment you accept the truth of God as absolute truth, you are no longer your own God. There the debate ended. Not that I had convinced him, but with no response. The only thing left was anger. Now, let's go to Isaiah for a moment. 53. I'm sorry. Let's go to chapter 64, verse 6. 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. And there is no one who calls on the name of the Lord, who arouses himself to take hold of thee. Now, 64, 6, 7. Now, I want you to think about something. First of all, he's describing man. He says, all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our deeds are like a filthy rag. He could be talking. He could be making an illustration to the dead, because the dead were considered unclean. He could be making a reference to the leper, because the leper was unclean. You ever been around lepers? I have. Worked with lepers in San Pablo, on the border between Brazil and Peru. Now, I wasn't working with the worst kind of lepers. There's like three types of leprosy. The third one you don't even want to know about. Now, I want you to imagine for a moment, we had a leper here today. It was the worst type of leprosy. You would have smelled him before you walked in that back door. Now, he would be nothing but a living, seething man of rotting flesh. Body fluid, pus. A horrid thing. Now, let's say that all you fine people come in, and you look at that and you go, we've got to do something about this. So, you go to Tucson or Phoenix, or wherever the closest place is, and you find the finest silk from the Orient that you possibly can find. White as snow. Beautiful. And you come, and you bring that silk, and you wrap that man from head to toe in that silk, and you stand back and you say, look at a beautiful work that we have done. But then, in a few moments, what begins to happen? The corruption of that man's body begins to bleed through that silk, and that silk becomes as filthy and as rotten as the man inside. And that is the very reason why none of your supposed good works can save you. The Bible says that we are born in sin, born in corruption, born defiled, born bent against God. It's what the Bible teaches us. And that's what the Bible teaches us. And because of that, everything we do is contaminated by the same filth. Now, let me stop for a minute, because usually when I'm speaking somewhere, someone will pop up and say, what about the good atheist? Is he going to go to heaven, or is he going to go to hell? And I always go, oh, he's going to heaven. And they say, really? Yeah. Do you know his name? I'd love to talk to this guy, because every university I go to, everyone's talking about this guy, but no one has his name, no one has his number, and no one can show him to me. So I would really like to meet this guy. All right, let's just play along with the game for a moment. I want to show you how human-centered instead of God-centered that men are. Let me give you an illustration. Let's say we have an atheist, okay, in Rio Rico, okay? He has an arch enemy in Chicago. Or let's make it even more, it's Detroit, okay? He has an arch enemy in Detroit. Now, this atheist, here in this town, discovers that his arch enemy is dying in Detroit and needs a certain vial of medicine that can save his life. So this atheist gets the medicine, sells everything he has, his home, his land, everything, buys the medicine, and walks all the way to Detroit on broken glass, in snowstorms, uphill, both ways, gives the medicine to his arch enemy, and his arch enemy lives. Is that a good deed? Or is that a bad deed? Now, the general answer is, well, it's a good deed. Altruism, it's a good deed. No, it's not. It's sin, and it'll send the man straight to hell. So what do you mean, he did man a good deed? What did he do to God? Do you think sin is just what we do against other men? That is not sin, primarily. Sin is sin because it contradicts and fights against God. That's why the Bible says, whatever you do, do for the glory of God, whether you eat or drink. It's not a question of how well you treat other men, primarily. The question is, what is your relationship with God? Because you're breathing His air, your heart beats because He gives it its beat, even the one who clenches his fist and puts it in the face of God, and blasphemes His name, does so by the power of God. So what you need to see is that sin is not necessarily defined on, with regard to how well you get along with everyone else. The question is, what is your relationship with God? You say, well, I didn't ask to be brought into this world by God. It doesn't make any difference. He's Lord, He brought you into this world, and you have to deal with it. Someone asked me, what about the atheist who goes out and mows the old lady's yard, and fixes the guy's battery when the car is cold and won't start, and does this and that? I said, oh, he's going to hell too. And they said, why? Here's something you need to understand. I know I'm running around a lot of places, but I want you to understand some things. Why was Hitler as bad as he was? Now here's a better question. Why wasn't Hitler worse than he was? Now here's an even better question. Why aren't you worse than Hitler? I'll tell you what the truth of that matter is. If God were to pull apart, to separate, and give no influence whatsoever upon man at all, all men would rush headlong in a moment into evil, and evil so great that it would make Hitler look like a choir boy, and the world itself would be destroyed. That's how wicked men are. I include you and me in that mass of humanity. The only reason you do not make Hitler look like a choir boy is because God has restrained your evil. Okay? So now, let's say, let's go back to our atheist friend here. He's doing all these good things. He's not an ax murderer or anything else. But here's what's going on. He is only able to do them because the common grace of God restrains him. Whatever thing he does do that is positive is even done by the power of God. But as an atheist, he denies the very one who keeps him from evil, and claims it to come from his own self, making himself God. And for that is reserved judgment. You say, I don't believe it. Read your newspaper. You don't believe it. Last time I was preaching in British Columbia. I was preaching there, traveling for a few weeks, and there was a great big court case going on. Why? Because five teenage girls didn't like this other girl in their high school, so they made her their friend, and they tricked her, and they got her to go out into the lake with them. And while they were in the lake, they beat her up, and they drug her out there while she was still alive. All these five little precious girls stuck her head down in the mud, stood on her head, and sang rock music while she died. You say, I'd never do something like that. You lie. The only one who restrains you from... What makes you any different from them? This is what the Bible is teaching us. We really are fallen. We really are. And even cultures that were not Christian realize that. That's the purpose of law. The very fact that we have government is a demonstration of our fallenness. The very fact that there are laws against murder. Laws against crime. It's a demonstration that men are really fallen. Now, let's go from there. Now we have the great problem. And it's this. God's holy. God is righteous. Now, righteousness not only means that God always does that which is right, but it also means something else. God hates evil. Let me give you an example. I had someone tell me one time, no, God doesn't hate at all. God is love. And I said, no, stop there. If God is love, He must hate. Let me give you an example. Let's say that I ask you, what do you think about the Holocaust? Nazi Germany, Holocaust. And you say, well, you know, it's no big deal to me. I'm pretty apathetic towards it. I mean, I don't really care. Could you then turn around and say that you love the Jews? No. Can you honestly say you love Jewish people unless you can also say, and I hate the Holocaust? If you really love that which is good, you must hate that which is evil. For example, someone says, I love babies. Oh, I love children. I love babies. Well, do you hate abortion? No. It's a logical contradiction. It is a logical contradiction. Of course, they don't teach logic anymore in schools. They say, well, you just don't understand the things about abortion. And you've never watched little babies squirming around in a trash can either, have you? In abortion clinics. And you've never seen them pulled out by their feet and then having before their body is fully brought out of the womb because you can't kill them afterwards because that would be murder. So while part of their body is still in the womb, you jam four sets up into their brain and kill them. Then you can pull them out, throw them in the trash can with all the others and let them wiggle around and cry. So that doesn't go on every day. And why? Because men love money. All you free thinkers out there are so happy about how intellectual you are because you understand so much more than all those stupid Christians. You haven't even begun to think. Men are evil. And God hates evil. Now, let me put before you the greatest dilemma in all the Bible. It's what the whole Bible is written about. And if you don't understand it, you can't even understand the Bible. This is what it is all about. Every last bit of it. It is about this one thing. And I want you to hear me because if you can understand this one thing, you will understand the why of everything in the Bible. And it is, this is the problem. This is the problem. A dilemma. A dilemma is something that seemingly has no solution or no proper solution. If God is just, He cannot forgive you. That's the problem of all Scripture. If God is just, He cannot forgive you. You say, well, I've never heard of that. You don't hear a lot of things in Christianity or supposed Christianity in America anymore. But this is the basis of all of it. This is the problem. If God is just, He cannot forgive man. Why? Well, let me give you an illustration. Let's say you go home from church today and you find your entire family laying on the ground, slaughtered by an assassin. And the assassin is standing over your family with blood on his hands, wringing the life out of the last member. In rage, you run. You knock the man to the ground. You tie him up and you call the police. The police come and they drag him off to the judge. The judge looks down at this man, guilty as he can be. Everyone knows it. Everything else. The judge has already declared he's guilty. And the judge says this, I'm a very loving judge. I'm a very forgiving judge. So, being a loving judge as I am, you're free. Go. What would you do? I'll tell you what you'd do. The first words that came out of your mouth is, I demand justice. You'd call the newspapers. You would call the television. You'd have CNN. You'd have everybody here. And what would you be saying? There is a judge on the bench that's more criminal than the criminal. There is a man so wicked on the bench that the man who assassinated my entire family was set free by him be in the name of love. Isn't that preposterous? Of course it is. But that's your idea of God for many of you. God's love. God doesn't judge anybody. God's love. God won't send anybody to hell. God's love. God just forgives everybody because God's God. Well, if that's the case, he's as vile and wicked or more so than the judge who works the criminal. What are the complaints of all the countries? I lived in Latin America for 11 years. What were our great complaints? That the judges were corrupt. Go to Romania. What's the same complaint? Judges are corrupt. Here in America, what's the complaint? Judges are corrupt. They don't do justice. Why is society falling apart? Many scholars have said, when the United States is destroyed, we will look back and place the blame squarely on the judicial branch. Corrupt judges. And what's a corrupt judge? A judge who doesn't do justice. And what is justice? If a criminal commits a crime, justice falls. We don't expect a judge to forgive. We expect him to do justice, and if he doesn't do justice, we call for him to be removed from the bench. Have you ever read Proverbs 17.15? I know it's a little obscure text. Have you ever read it? He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them are alike, an abomination to the Lord. He who justifies the wicked, that is, he who pardons the wicked, is an abomination to God, a loathsome thing, a thing worthy of hatred before God. Anyone in the Scriptures, according to what God says here, anyone who justifies the wicked is an abomination to God. Now here's the problem. What do most of us sing about in this building? God justifying the wicked. God says it is an evil, abominable thing to justify the wicked, and yet, all throughout the New Testament, we hear that God justified the wicked. See the problem? If God's truly just, and the judge of all the earth, He cannot forgive you or me because we are wicked. The judge of all the earth must do right and must judge, sin, and that judgment is death, and every one of us ought to be in hell. And the question, the great dilemma in all of Scripture is how can God be just and at the same time save or forgive those who justly ought to die? That's a great problem. What do we do? Let's go to Romans 3. Just a second. Verse 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's a verse that many of you, even people, you go just about anywhere and ask them, what's Romans 3.23? Well, all have sinned. Everyone has sinned. Hey, we're all sinners. We know not what we say. Everyone has raised their fist in the face of God, blasphemed His name, declared war against His throne, and written out a declaration that their only desire is to knock God off His throne and slaughter Him like a pig. That's what it means. That men hate God and refuse to submit to His will. That's what it means. Let me give you an example. Here is God. There on the day of creation, He tells stars that would swallow up 6,000 of our suns, He tells stars, you put yourself there and move in this orbit and you walk in that orbit until I give you another word and they obey Him. He tells planets to move in certain circles and they all bow and obey. He tells mountains, be lifted up. Valleys be cast down and they submit to His will. He tells the sea, the great seas, you'll come here and not go any farther. And then He looks at you and says, come, and you go, no! That's what it means when it says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And not only sin, but fallen short of the glory of God. What does that mean? Well, to modern day preachers, it means God has a wonderful plan for your life and much glory for you, and you have fallen short of it. That's not what the Bible says that means. The Bible says it means although they knew He was God, they did not honor Him as God. God made everything for Himself and for His own glory. Man was made for God and God's good pleasure. And man has refused that high calling out of their hatred for God. That's what it means. And all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And then He goes on. I want us to go down to verse 24. Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation. A propitiation. What is a propitiation? Well, those of you who speak Spanish and the very, very old translations in Spanish, we have the word propicio. Sed propicio a mi. Be propitious to me. What does the word mean? Be merciful to me. Be merciful to me. Propicio. Mercy. Now, let's imagine for a moment. It's 1512. We're in Valladolid, España. And you're a slave. And if a slave is caught stealing, he's killed. He's hung on the gallows. So your master walks out of the room and you begin to steal things. Master comes in with several witnesses, catches you stealing. You know what's going to happen. Now, the law in Valladolid, España is you must die. That's the law. Now, that master grabs you by the collar of your neck and begins to drag you towards the gallows. And as he does, you fall on your knees and you cry out, Sed propicio a mi. Be merciful to me. And you think, well now, the master has to make a choice. He's going to be merciful or not. No, it's much deeper than that. But then again, we don't understand the law of justice in this country anymore. You see, you're not just asking the master to be merciful to you. You're asking him to break the law. The law demands that you die. You're saying, master, I know I broke the law and I know the law demands that I die, but I'm asking you to break the law and not have me killed. I'm asking you not to do justice. Now, the law was established by good and righteous men so that the society wouldn't fall apart. And if that master just says, well, I'm not going to do justice, he's not just setting free a slave. He's doing harm to society. You see, these are things they don't teach anymore in school. And the question comes back, how can he be merciful and at the same time be just? How can he do it? How can God be merciful and still be just? There is a price to be paid. The justice of God must be satisfied. Have you ever heard preachers say, God could have been just with us, but he loved us instead. You know what they're saying? God has unjust love. That God is a wicked God who loves the wicked. That's what they're saying. It's not that God was not just, but rather decided on mercy. It's that God somehow has to be just and merciful. And how does He do it? I'll tell you how He does it. God has the right to condemn. God has the power to save. But without being inconsistent in His own nature, justice must be done. God becomes a man. See, that's the problem with Jesus Christ. He's not a prophet only. He's not a teacher only. He's either God or a liar. God becomes a man. And as a man, God lives a perfect life. And as the God-man, He goes to a tree by His own doing, His own plan, predestined before the foundation of the world. He goes to a tree. On that tree, all the sins of God's people were placed upon Jesus. And He became the curse. Now, let me just, you know, Galatians chapter 10. Chapter 3, verse 10. Cursed is every man who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law so as to perform them. Cursed is the man who breaks God's law. And you say, big deal, big deal. Do you want to know what a curse is? Let me describe to you what it means. If you have broken God's law and you are not a part of Christ, let me explain to you what it means to be under a curse. This is what it means. It means that before a holy God in a holy heaven, before all the angels and creatures, principalities and powers of glory, of goodness, of heaven, of righteousness, before all of heaven, now listen to me, if you have broken God's law, you are under a curse. And this means that before all the righteous creatures of heaven, you are so vile, you are so disgustingly wicked, that the last thing you will hear when you take your first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because He has rid the earth of you. Do you understand what I'm saying? We think that we're okay. Why? Because we compare ourselves with ourselves and that is not wise, the Bible says. Because God in His judgment already upon our society hides Himself so that we cannot see His glory and His holiness. I've heard young people say, get back at their parents, they have this idea, yeah, I'll go to hell and you'll be miserable. I'll go to hell and you'll be miserable. No. Your parents will stand up and lift their hands before God and applaud Him because He has rid the earth of you. You say, but they love me. Ah, let me just tell you something about that love. Let me just tell you, first of all, love will always recognize justice. But let me tell you another thing. You were born radically depraved. Nothing in you, nothing in you that a righteous creature would love. You were born radically depraved and there was nothing in you that a righteous being would love. You say, but my parents are Christians and they still love me. Okay, do you want to know why? What they love is this, even in your radical depravity, there is a common grace in your life. God restraining you from evil and God giving some pleasantness about you. And so what they are loving is not the radically depraved creature that you actually are, but the graces of God that are upon your life even though you deny Him and revel against Him. But on the day of judgment, all that that your parents love will be pulled from you and you will be seen for what you are, a dragon. And your parents will turn from you in disgust as a holy God will. And you will hear, depart from me, I never knew you. And it will be fulfilled, the words of the book of Revelation about you when it says, and there was no place found for them. But Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law becoming a curse for us. All the vileness of God's people were placed upon Christ. And then what? I was flying to somewhere, I forget, and I was sitting beside this kid from the University of Miami. I began to talk to him. It was during the time that the movie The Passion was on. And he began to talk to me about it. And he was very secular. Sitting there, he was actually reading pornography while we were sitting there trying to talk to him. A very secular young man. And he said, well, I guess you're going to tell me the Jews killed Jesus. I said, no. No, I'm not going to tell you that. And he goes, well, the Romans killed him then. No, no, no, they didn't kill him. Well, who killed him? God. I said, what? I said, what are you talking about? Jesus Christ was on. If you're saved here today, you are not saved because the Romans and Jews rejected Jesus. You are not saved here today because they nailed Him to a cross. You're not saved here today because they put a crown of thorns on His head. You're not saved here today because they put a spear in His side. If you're saved here today, you were saved because when He was on that tree, He bore your sin and the Father in Heaven crushed His only begotten Son under the fierce fury of His holy hatred against your wickedness. God hates sin. And we made ourselves hateful before God in our sin. For justice to be satisfied, a man had to die under the fierce, furious, holy, just, righteous, violent anger of God on that cross. Christ bore the sins of His people. He cries out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? And all those silly little tracts that most people carry around. They have God on one side because He's holy and man on the other because He's sinful. A separation, we are told. And that is true. Someone had to die separated from God. His presence, His power, His good pleasure. On that cross, Christ died abandoned. And then someone had to drink down all the wrath of God. When Christ is in the garden, He says, And you hear all these silly little preachers say, What was in the cup? Some say, Well, it was the cross. It's such a terrible death. Others were saying, Oh, it was the violence of Satan. It was the violence of the Romans and the Jews and on and on and on. What was in the cup? I'll tell you what was in the cup. The wrath of God was in the cup. Let me ask you a question. Here we have Jesus Christ, the great Captain of the hosts of God, the great Lord and Savior, the author and finisher of our faith, and He's in a garden and He's trembling. Do you think it was because of a cross? Being nailed to a tree? If that's the case, then many of His followers are braver than He. How many countless Puritans, how many countless men in Asia right now, Middle East, all over, will die today? Terrifying deaths. About a thousand Christians a day are being killed as martyrs. I don't know if you knew that. How many of them will die, burned at the stake, other things, and will be singing hymns while they die? And singing hymns in prison before they get to the stake. Are you telling me that our Lord and Savior has less courage than they? Why was He trembling in a garden? Because He was going to face something that none of them could face. No archangel in heaven could face the displeasure of His Father. The wrath of God was going to fall upon Him and crush Him. Have you never read it pleased Yahweh the Lord to crush Him, to grind Him to powder? Imagine a 10,000 pound millstone and set on top of it another 10,000 pound millstone and take a kernel of grain and stick it in between the two and what comes out on the other end is what happened to Christ. Ground to powder by the wrath of God crushed under the weight of our sin and His Father's furious anger and righteous anger against it. And He lifted up that cup and He drank it down and He cried out, It is finished, and turned that cup over and not one drop fell out. He paid the price for His people. This is Christianity. This is the cross in the back of the store that no one wants to show anymore. He died. He died. And on the third day, He rose. Someone asked me one time, How could a student... Oh, I praise God for these guys sometimes. He stood up. The student goes, Well, how can one man suffering on a cross for a few short hours save a multitude of men from an eternity of judgment? And I said, Oh, young man, I'm so glad you asked me that question because the answer is my most favorite answer. That one man could suffer a few short hours and save a multitude of men because that one man on that tree was worth more than all of them put together. And the Bible talks about the perfect redemption of Christ. And it talks about the perfect price that is paid. It's not just talking about the shamelessness of the sacrifice. It's talking about the worth of it. The worth of it. Take the largest scale you can find. Put in that scale on one side every country, every king, every cricket, every crown, every crumble, every mountain, every molehill, every star, every sun. Put it all on one side of that scale. Put Jesus on the other side. And He outweighs them all. It wasn't, as the Puritans say, it wasn't an inferior prince who died for thee on that day. It was the Lord of glory. And this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made Him both Lord and Christ. That's why all these, oh goodness, people walking around say you need to make Jesus Lord of your life. I don't recommend you do that because you can't make Him Lord. The only thing you can make is an idol. Make Jesus Lord of your life. He is Lord of your life. He is Lord of heaven, earth, and hell. He is Lord of angels and demons. He is Lord of everything. He is Lord of the servant who follows Him even to martyrdom. And He is Lord of the most God-hating man on the face of the earth. He is Lord of them all. And even in your rebellion, you will not outrun His providence for He will do with you what He wills and every word of repentance is governed by His sovereignty. It is not making Him Lord. It is throwing down yourself before Him and acknowledging His sovereignty, His Lordship, and His salvation. What must you do to be saved? You must repent. And you must believe. What does it mean to repent? You know, so many times repentance is taught in a way that almost makes it like a work. It is something you do. Acknowledge this. Let me tell you something. Your heart is so hard and so full of hatred against God that unless God first moves upon you and changes your heart, you will never repent. If you are sitting here right now and the only thing you are thinking about is boy, this guy is preaching on through the second service. You are sitting here today and the only thing you are thinking about is boy, I'll be glad when I get out of here. You better get down on your face and you better cry out to God. This heart of mine, oh God, is like a chain around my life and it is going to send me to hell because even though I have sat here for an hour and heard the precious things of Jesus Christ and what You have done for me, I care not. It is as though His blood were on the floor and I was trampling it with my own feet. Look how monstrous You are. What does it mean to repent? It doesn't mean to turn around and do a bunch of good things. It literally means, more than anything, I have searched this word out so much, the only thing I can say is it means to collapse. To just fall on the ground in utter hopelessness and put your hand over your mouth and not offer one excuse. For very, very noticeably wicked people, you know, drinking and partying and doing all this stuff, what does it mean? It means look and realize that there is a law of God and the righteousness of God and every bit of it condemns you and your wickedness and you need to cease, fall down and cry out for mercy. Throw yourself on Christ and faith. For those who are religious and clean, but just as filthy. The old timers talked about this. They said repentance from good works. What does it mean? There are so many people that are hoping to get to heaven through their good works. A lady on the plane when I was coming here, she's a good person, she said. Repentance is when you look at those good works as filthy rags. You turn away from them as something of disgust and you fall before God and wait upon His mercy. Someone asked me one time this. You might be asking right now. Can I be saved? Well, let me give you an answer. You're probably not going to hear in most places. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. I said that in a really big church a while back. I thought the preacher was going to flip over in the back of his seat. I said, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Well, let's look and see if you can. Did you come here today thinking about, oh boy, I'm coming to church. Get this over with. Have you been sitting here the whole time hearing me? You're not really concerned. Maybe you're bothered a little bit, but you're just kind of biding the time until you get out. That's what you've always done. Right now, there's no real fear in your heart. Christ doesn't seem precious to you. There's no desire. Just go home. That was nice. He's a really good speaker. You cannot be saved. You cannot be saved. At least not right now. There is no evidence whatsoever of God doing a work in your heart. You just sat under, although a pitiful message, at least a message about Jesus Christ and His death, and yet you are not moved to forsake all things and follow Him. You cannot be saved. Your heart is as hard as a stone. Now, if that scares you, maybe there's some hope for you. Preacher, my heart is as hard as a stone. What should I do? I'd recommend going into a room by yourself, going home, getting in your car, crawling under a tree, falling down right where you're at, and crying out for God as long as it takes until He changes that wicked heart of yours. God, grant me repentance. But if you're sitting here today, and maybe you came in, you had no more one to go to church, a man on the moon, you don't care about things of God, there's a little bit of religion in you. After all, no one wants to be a follower of the devil. There's a little religion in you, but you know, because I'm young, I've got to do stuff. And you had no concern at all, but you came in here, and while the preaching was going on, something began to change. You began to think, hey, this is, whoa, I'm understanding something. I never saw this before. I didn't know that my heart was in this condition. I didn't know what Christ had done. Oh, I would give anything to have this precious Christ. I would give anything. That's the workings of repentance. There's hope for you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. But let me warn you about something. I was raised on a farm. I've been a farm boy most of my life. And so I take most of my illustrations from the farm. You burn off a field, catch it on fire, burn it off, every cottonmouth, every rattlesnake, and every copperhead, every venomous snake in that field will run from that fire, but there's still a snake. Your desire is only to escape hell. That will not save you. You're still a snake. But do you more than want to escape hell? Do you want to follow Jesus? Has He become precious to you? The sin that you love, do you now hate it? And the Christ that you hated and despised, do you now love? That is the question. And then I will finish. I just want you to listen. I'm not even going to tell you where I'm going to read from until I finish. Because I just want you to listen. I've heard so many people doing evangelism and they'll say, well, you know, the guy will say, man, that's just not for me. Okay, man, I understand. That's not for you. Okay, well, have a good day. I'm not going to leave you that way. If you're sitting here, I'm not going to tell you, okay, you know, if this is not for you, well, that's fine. This is what I'm going to tell you. If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. The knowledge of the truth is this. You heard today that Jesus Christ died for your sins and that He is the only way to be reconciled to God and have your sins put away, bringing an end to transgression. He's the only means of salvation. He's the only hope. But if you continue to go on sinning willfully, that means you know who He is and you willfully turn away and say this is not for me. There no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. There is no other sacrifice. There is no other means. There is no other instrument. No other name through which we might be saved. I'm sorry. Nothing remains for you. But this, there is one thing that remains for you. A certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Now notice two words here. First of all, terrifying. The Bible very seldom uses this word. Look what it's saying. Not just judgment. Terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. You say, hey, you know I'm not against Jesus. It's just not my thing. You're either for me, Jesus said, or you are against me. You know not that you either follow God or you follow the prince of the power of the air, the current that runs through this world, the devil himself. And it goes on and it says, anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. That means there is a law of God. Anyone who breaks it and broke it in the Old Testament would die. That was just a law. An impersonal law. Like, do this, don't do that. Anyone who violated this died. Then he goes on and he says, how much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace. What does that mean? There is no such thing as, hey, you know this Jesus thing is not for me. The rejection of Jesus Christ upon hearing the gospel is to do the following. To trample underfoot the son of God. You know when I used to work in Peru and I used to go into some places where there were a lot of terrorists and the military was sometimes very harsh. I would go alone. I would not take my wife. Because why? Well, if I get pulled off a bus and a bunch of military guys rough me up a little bit out there in the middle of the jungle, big deal, dust my pants off, you know, go on. But if one of them laid a hand on my wife, I would have probably ended up getting killed. And what I am saying is, my sons, do whatever you want with me, I am going to defend my little children to the death. I might not need much, but everything I have got is going to be coming against you if you lay a finger on one of my little boys. And what he is saying is, the Father in Heaven, when you reject what His Son has done for you on that tree, to Him you are trampling under your feet His own Son. And then he goes on and he says, trampled underfoot, the Son of God has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant. Whose blood is that? The blood of Jesus Christ. You are looking at the blood of Jesus Christ. For me, that is pig's blood. The dog of a blood. The blood of a dog. Someone clean it up. What? Do you think I am being harsh? Do you not understand the only thing I am doing is exegeting Scripture? What do you think it means to consider something unclean? The two most unclean animals in Palestine were dogs and pigs. You have got to realize something. Christ is not just something. He is everything. And to reject Him is the greatest offense to bring upon God the Father you could ever imagine. It is a horrendous thing. And he goes on also and he says, and has insulted the Spirit of grace. There is only one messenger, only one carrier who can bring you to Christ. You offend this preacher all day long. You have done nothing wrong. You offend the Holy Spirit who is the only one who can make known to you Jesus Christ. And you have sealed your fate to hell. And then he ends. And this is where we end. For we know Him, Paul says, or the writer of Hebrews, he says, I know who I am talking about. We know Him who said, Vengeance is mine. I will repay. Vengeance is mine. All the great captains of the earth, the mighty men and all their power and all their armies gathered together amassed in one place to finally break free the bonds of God. But the moment He appears, they cry out for the great rocks to fall on them, to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. I have broken all courtesies here this morning. I have not been cultured. I have not been polite. I have not kept my place. I have not finished when I should. I have done nothing appropriate. But I have preached to you the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I have preached it as I rarely preach it. And that can only tell me something. That there is someone here, at least someone, that needed to hear an extraordinary thing. Now will you repent from your rebellion? And will you turn to God? Will you be saved and swallowed up in the mercies and the greatness of His grace? Or will you die and spend eternity in hell, hating and being hated?