In this sermon, the preacher begins with a vivid illustration of a person returning home to find their family brutally murdered and the murderer being pardoned by a loving judge. The preacher then reflects on the burden of preaching the gospel, acknowledging the difficulty of fully conveying its greatness. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the true gospel of Jesus Christ, stating that many people may have never truly heard it despite attending church. The sermon concludes with the preacher highlighting the problem of God's goodness in relation to humanity's sinfulness and questioning how a good God should deal with sinful individuals.

Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 3. It is a both wonderful and terrible burden that is placed upon the preacher of the Gospel. It is a wonderful thing to be able to speak the greatest things of God that are found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a terrible thing to be given a lifelong task in which every time you seek to complete it, you know that you will fail. I can remember one time walking out in a field, crying out to God about this very thing. How terrible it is to be given a message so glorious that you fail in every attempt to even share what you know, knowing that you do not even know the tenth part of it. And I asked God, I said, just on the day that I step over into glory, a glorified body, that He might grant me the opportunity to preach one last time. In a way, with a glorified mind and a glorified body and glorified tongue, that I might be able to preach the Gospel in a way that was worthy of Jesus Christ. I asked Him to give me that. And I didn't hear a voice or anything like that, but as quick as a razor cut or the lightning shining in the sky from the east to the west, this one thing was impressed upon my heart. Even then, Son, you will not preach Him as He deserves to be preached. The message of Jesus Christ is so glorious, so infinitely beyond the voice of seraphim or men, that we would have to relegate the only true Gospel preaching would come from Christ Himself. Only Christ Himself is able to proclaim Himself and what He has done. But it is a glorious chase. Eternal life is a present tense thing to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Americans have such a materialistic view of heaven. It's not that much different from most secular utopian ideas. Perfect place where everything is fine. I suppose the most perfect place in the world, being finite, that given enough years would drive a person mad. It may take a long time, but the finite will always lead to boredom. What makes heaven heaven is an infinite God. He has revealed Himself in an infinite Gospel. That even after a thousand eternities in heaven, we will still not have reached the foothills of how glorious God truly is. Or how glorious His Gospel. One of the greatest evidences of true conversion is that you begin to chase. And you continue chasing all the days of your life. Many think of the race, the Christian race, as a race of sanctification. And it is that to some degree. As a race to grow in knowledge. It is that to some degree. But it is a race because it is a chase. And it is chasing after a person. I'm going to share some things from the Gospel today. And it will take a while. And if you have to leave, that will be okay. But these are the things that you must know in order to be proper in your behavior toward God. These are the things that you must know in order to be godly. These are the things that you must know to be pleasing to God. Paul tells us quite plainly that the mystery of godliness. The thing that produces godliness, that leads to godliness. Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of you think you've heard the Gospel. Do you realize that some of you sitting in here have been in churches all your life and you've never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ? You may have heard something about spiritual laws or five things God wants you to know. But maybe you've never heard the Gospel. We're going to go through the Gospel. And I wish that I was a better man. I wish that I had a greater mind. I wish that I had speech beyond what I know I possess. And even in prayer for this, I cannot pray that God would honor a man, but that God would honor a message. That God would help you to understand that any other driving force in your life other than Jesus Christ is pure idolatry. That everything in our life comes from and goes to Jesus Christ. That ultimately, He is the reason for everything. I don't love my wife principally for my wife's sake. It would be idolatry. I love her for Christ. I don't want to be moral for morality's sake, but to be moral for Christ. I mean, you can even take all these great terms, holiness and sanctification, put them all in a basket, I'll have nothing to do with them in comparison to Christ. All of them are only for Him. Not to rejoice in our power, not to rejoice in our holiness, not to rejoice in our growth in Him. But it is all about Christ. Everything is Christ. And the more that we enter into that, it's just so sometimes depressing. I mean, I'm 49. I should have made some progress by now. Sometimes I envy the antediluvians, the men who lived prior to the flood. They were given 600, 700, 800, 900 years to work these things out. To make progress in their knowledge of God before they come before Him. We're given just a brief moment in time. Sometimes it doesn't seem fair. But then again, we have to be careful. Because it's not even the correctness of our knowledge or our comprehension of deep things that saves us. But it is Christ. It's Christ. Don't be mesmerized by anything except Christ. Don't be propelled by anything but Christ. It says here in Romans 3, For all have sinned, verse 23, and fall short of the glory of God, being justified, and we've spoken of that, as a gift, by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law of works? No, but by a law of faith. Many theologians and great preachers, two of my favorites, of course, Martin Lloyd-Jones and Charles Spurgeon, referred to this text as the Acropolis of the Christian faith. The fortified city of the Christian faith. The most important passage in the Bible. Think about that. That's saying a lot when you realize the dust of this book is gold. And then to say from this, that this is the Acropolis of all of it. It's an amazing thing and it's something that we should know. And we've spoken about part of this, but let's go on. Being justified, in the last meeting we explained what that means. As a gift by His grace, and I'm going to have to go through this rather quickly, but it seems rather redundant that he would say this, doesn't it? Just look at it, as a gift by His grace. It seems that there's a repetition here, and I think there is something of a repetition. It's very important. It's the emphasis on grace. All of grace. You see, because only grace is the only thing that will lead to a religion that glorifies God. This is not a union of God and man. This is not a cooperative work. This is not us teaming up together to do something. This is not God putting in His part and me putting in my part. This is all of God, and therefore all glory to God. All glory. Justified as a gift by His grace. The word gift here is used in another place in the book of John where it says, they hated Him without a cause. The word is dorian. They hated Him without a cause. And what he's saying here is we were justified without a cause. What does grace mean? You were justified even though you never gave God a cause to justify you. You see, what you need to understand is that it's not that there is some emptiness in deity, or something lacking in Him that He had to create, or even that He had to return and save what He created. Absolutely not. Creation and everything that God does is not a result of some lack in Him. It's a result of the overflow of His person. The superabundance of who He is. He needs nothing, cattle on a thousand hills. Absolutely nothing from you. Even if you had maintained a pristine, holy place before Him, He would still not need you. But we were vile and corrupt. Enemies of God, hating and hating one another. And He looked at you and me and found no cause for salvation, but every cause for condemnation. So He did not save you because of you, He saved you in spite of you, and that leads to great gratitude and great humility on the behalf of the one that's been saved. I do want you to understand the depth of your need, the greatness of your sin, so that you will revel in Christ. It's like I always ask people, I say, where did all the stars go this afternoon? Did some gigantic cosmic giant come and pick them all up and throw them in a basket and take them to the other side of the world? Where did they all go? They're still there. They're there right now. Then why can't we see them? Because of the light of the sun, we cannot see the stars. But when the black night appears, we see the glory of the stars. In the same way, our sin acts as that pitch black night upon which the glory of God's grace shines through. If you do not want this part of Christianity, then you cannot have a Christianity with any glory or any power at all. You must take this medicine or you won't be able to see Christ, at least not the Christ of the Bible. This is being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption. I've read several old men and heard men speak that there were some words in the Bible that you should only say with a trembling lip and afterwards hold for a moment in silence. This is one of them. Be very careful how you handle the terms of Scripture. Be very careful how you even pronounce the name Jesus. Redemption had no cause to redeem us, but He did redeem us. He redeemed us not because of who we are, but because who He is. He redeemed us. But how did He redeem us? There is in that place we find the value of this. How did He redeem us? Not with trinkets, not with gold, not by emptying all the coffers of heaven and laying them before someone's feet. No, He redeemed us through the blood of His Son. There is one sense in which the Christian man, the Christian woman, the man of God is free. He's free beyond anything you could ever imagine. Free. And there's another sense in which he is a prisoner in chains stronger than anything you could imagine. Anything that could be forged by men or angels. Stronger than the chain that will wrap the devil and hold him in his place in the abyss. There is a chain around someone who truly understands the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What is that chain? It is the Gospel itself. That we become a prisoner to this marvelous, wonderful thing that God has done for us. We can't escape the fact that He died for us. That He shed His blood for us. That controls our life for all the days of our life. I knew a young man who was saved in the university. And he went from being sort of kind of a guy on campus to know to a guy standing out in the middle of the campus handing out tracts saying, Jesus saves! And everyone mocking him. And I remember once telling this story about this young man and his friends came to gather him and take him into the library and sit down with him and say, Can't you see you're ruining your life? Your possibility of career and everything else. And the young man's only reply was, Did He shed His blood for me? If He shed His blood for me, I have no choice now. I'm not my own any longer. Paul referred to himself as a prisoner in chains. He wasn't talking about Rome. Well, he was, but that was just a small, small thing. The chains that bound him were the chains of the Gospel. You see, my hope is that the Spirit of God would do two things. That He would illuminate your mind to know the Gospel. And that He would change your heart, regenerate your heart, so that you could appreciate what you see. Your only need here is to see Christ. To see His Gospel. He shed His blood. Now down through the ages, there have been some very peculiar interpretations with regard to just to whom was the payment made. Early church fathers, some of them even came to the point of saying it was made to the devil himself to set us free from his chains. Absolutely not. And this is the amazing thing about the redemption paid. It was paid to God. It was paid to God's justice. I remember one time hearing Dr. R.C. Sproul talk about your problem is not so much sin, your problem is God. God's coming after you. You see, when a person is saved, sometimes someone will tell me, they'll go, well, I've been saved. And I say, saved from what? Well, I've been saved from my sin. Sin wasn't coming after you. If you have been saved, from what have you been saved? You have been saved by God. You have been saved for God. And you have been saved from God. In your sin, His justice is coming for you. A payment had to be made. And that's why we have this word here. We have the word redemption. And then in verse 25 we have the word propitiation. What is a propitiation? A propitiation is a sacrifice that does what? Satisfies justice. Appeases wrath. And makes it possible for a righteous God to forgive the unrighteous. Now, I've said this one million times. And I'm going to say it again. Do you really understand the core of the Gospel? Do you really understand what the great problem of all of Scripture, of all of theology truly is? What the Gospel is all about. What the Bible was written about. There is one issue that is superior to all the others. It comes to the forefront. It must be solved. It can even be called a divine dilemma. It is a great problem. And it is what the Gospel is all about. Do you know what that is? I'll tell you what it is. It's this. If God is just, He cannot forgive you. You see, people don't talk that way anymore. Because they don't think biblically. We are not a people who has a sense of righteousness. The great problem in Scripture is this. If God is just. If God is good. He cannot forgive you. Some of you have never heard it put that way. And yet that is the very core of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's why people tell me America is Gospel hardened. No, it's not. It's Gospel ignorant. It's Gospel ignorant because it's preachers are Gospel ignorant. What is the Gospel? If God is just. If He is good. He cannot forgive you. Let's look in Proverbs 17.15. It was mentioned yesterday, I believe. It's just a text that wonderfully illustrates this problem. Proverbs 17.15. Look what it says. He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. The word abomination is one of the strongest words in the Scriptures. It is a terrible thing. The worst of things before God. And what does it say? Anyone who justifies the wicked is an abomination before God. Now herein lies the problem. What have we talked about yesterday and this morning? God justifying the wicked. Do you see the problem? The entire Christian faith is wrapped around this. That God justifies wicked men. And yet the Scriptures themselves, and Scriptures cannot be broken, say that for anyone to justify the wicked is an abomination before the Lord. So how can the Lord justify the wicked without being an abomination? That is the question of the Gospel. This is it. This is the core. You don't get this. You don't really get the Gospel. How can a just God simply pardon, forgive wicked men? What is worse? How can a just and holy God declare wicked men to be legally right with Him? It's the problem of Scripture. Of everything. Let me give you an illustration. Very vulgar, but it functions. Imagine you were to return from this conference and go to your home and find that everyone in your family has been slaughtered. And the murderer is standing over them with blood on his hands. In a fit of rage, yet withheld by justice, you run over there, you grab the man, you knock him to the floor, you tie him up and you call the police. The police take him, and after a few months, he's called to trial. Since it's a small town, everybody in the town has gone to the courtroom. And they're all awaiting to see what happens. This man who brutally murdered your family and their friends. Then all of a sudden the judge appears, he stands up and he says this, I am a very loving judge. Compassionate and slow to anger. Because of that, I pardon you. You're free to go. And the man who murdered your family walks out of the courtroom. What will be your response? Are you going to say, that was absolutely wonderful. No, you're going to write the Congress. You're going to write the President. You're going to write the Mayor, the Governor. You're going to be calling TV stations, writing newspapers. You're going to say that there is a judge on the bench that is far more vile, corrupt, abominable, than the very criminals that he sets free. Why? Judges do justice. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? You see, therein lies the problem. Do you understand? Maybe you understand now what I was leading to yesterday when I told those university students their greatest problem was terrifying. It was this, that God's good. Why is that a problem? Because we're not. And what's a good God supposed to do with us? Some evangelists will tell you that instead of being just with you, God was loving. Why do they not teach logic anymore in high school? Because if God has turned away His justice in order to be loving, then His love is unjust. Now understand this though. I have seen it put forth in popular literature in a way that is not appropriate. Where people will say, well, there is this principle of justice that God Himself cannot even violate. Therefore, God must do something about justice before He can demonstrate love to the wicked. That's not true. There is no principle of justice hanging over the head of God, independent of God, that He has to submit to. The justice that must be satisfied is God's own justice. He's perfect in all His attributes and in all His works. And God does not love at the expense of justice. He does not diminish His holiness in the name of loving the wicked. God is a perfect God. In order to demonstrate forgiveness toward the wicked, He must satisfy His justice that makes claims upon them. Do you see that? And that's what God has done in the person of Jesus Christ. That's what the cross is all about. That someone has to die carrying the guilt of man, carrying the sin of man, and being crushed under the full force of God's wrath. Under the full force of God's anger. Under the full force of God's hatred for evil. Now, I've used some language here that disturbs some of you. Because most of you have never heard a sermon on the hatred of God. Most of you have never heard a sermon on the anger of God. As a matter of fact, some popular evangelists, the first thing they will do when they climb to the pulpit is say this. Some of you believe that God is an angry God, but I'm here to tell you God is not an angry God. I'm here to tell you that the book of Psalms says He is. That He's a God that's angry every day. He is an angry God. He is very angry. And one day He will show His anger. You say, but I thought God is love. He is love. And God is angry every day. You see, you can't take one part of the Scripture and throw out the other part. Let me give you an example. You pick up a newspaper and you read that some little child has been kidnapped by some man and held in a basement, tortured for 15 years. Are you neutral about that? Do you feel neutral? Does it not move you? If you're a human being at all, it sets you on fire. It burns you with anger. If you were to be unmoved by that, we would almost conclude that you're as immoral as the man who did the deed. You see, I love children. If I love children, I must hate abortion. I love African-Americans. I must hate slavery in the early part of the foundation of our country. If I love Jews, I must hate the Holocaust. Do you understand? If you love what is righteous and true and perfect and beautiful, if God in His own glory loves everything that is conformed to Himself, I want you to know He hates evil. Also, you've probably heard the thing, God loves the sinner and hates the sin. It's a beautiful cliche to put on the back of a Christian t-shirt. There's only one problem. It's unbiblical. You probably need to stop doing it. Because whether you go to Psalms 5 or Psalm 7 or on throughout the Bible, you will find that God makes direct statements where He says He hates all those who do wrong. It does not say He hates the sin. It says He hates the sinner. God does not throw sin into hell. He throws the sinner into hell. And hell is hell not because God's not there. Hell is hell because God is there in the fullness of His wrath. This is the God of Scripture. No, it's not the God of American evangelicalism. No, it's not the God of the Sunday morning pulpit. But it's the God of Scripture and the God of history. And unless you understand that His righteousness moves Him to a holy anger and a holy hatred of evil, you can never appreciate the cross and you can never appreciate what was done there. The question is, what can be done for those of us who deserve the hatred of a holy, righteous, loving God? What can be done? In the great mystery of God's providence, things that the greatest minds cannot even begin to understand, God decreed and designed a means to satisfy His justice that railed against us. And that is through a sacrifice. Now we know that that sacrifice had to be a man because the blood of bulls and goats will not satisfy justice. It is Adam's stock that has sinned. One who participates in Adam, one who is a son of Adam, must die. Man has sinned. Man must die. If someone is to die in man's place, it must be a man. But not only that, the one who dies must be God. It is the very Judge who condemns humanity, that takes off His robes of glory. He doesn't lay aside His deity. He lays aside the glory of it and takes upon Himself human flesh. In the incarnation, in the kinesis, God did not become something less than God. He became something God had never been. He did not lay aside His deity. He was the fullness of God. The fullness of deity, but in bodily form He took upon Himself the form of a man. Now why is this necessary? Well, let's just look at some things. First of all, Isaiah makes it very clear that God is Savior and He does not, does not share that office with anyone. Not even an angel. If Christ is not God, He is not our Savior. Because God does not share that office. That's why the doctrine of so many of these cults that deny the deity of Christ, this is why their doctrine is so abominable. Because according to their religion, they are forced into seeing God creating a creature and sending the creature down to do something and become our Savior. And that is not the case. It is God who condemns us rightfully in His holiness and His righteousness, then takes off His robes of glory and comes down to pay the price for us, to satisfy His own justice by the death of His Son. He had to be God. He had to be God, the Puritans say, because who could withstand the wrath of God? But God. The mountains melt and run like water down a slope, the prophets tell us, before the wrath of God. The seas dry up before the wrath of God. Everything in its path is absolutely disintegrated. Who can withstand this? And rise again. And I believe that they were right in this, but I give you some caution. Know this, that when Jesus was suffering on that cross, He was suffering as a man. He was sustained by His deity in some way, but know this, there was a man there suffering and dying under the full force of God's wrath. And he had to be God. Well, one time a student raised his hand. He goes, I've got a problem. Your message. I said, okay. What is it? He said, how can one man suffer for a few short hours on a cross and pay for the sins of a multitude of men and save them from an eternity in hell? I looked at him. I said, son, thank you so much for that question. As a matter of fact, it's my most favorite question in the whole world to be asked. That one man could suffer a few short hours on that cross and 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 suns and moons and crickets and clouds and mountains and molehills and everything that exists on this planet and any other planet that's ever been made. You empty all the value of heaven touching not the throne of God, and you put it all in a scale. And then you put Jesus on the other side of that scale, and He outweighs them all. He outweighs them all. When theologians talk about Christ as a perfect sacrifice, they're not just talking about His sinless perfection, His impeccability. They are talking about the infinite value of His sacrifice. And see, this is what I want for you more than anything. I want blazing white holiness out of you, but I'm not going to get it from you through principles and laws that I myself cannot subject to. I'm going to get this out of you if you could just catch a glimpse of how valuable He is! He's everything! Everything He is! He's everything! And more and more and more on top of that. And the more you see of His glory, the more you see of who He is and what He's done, the more your heart, if it's been regenerate, yields to Him. Yields to Him. Force you into some prison of do's and do nots. Now, put before you Christ in all His glory. Christ in all His glory. Isn't it amazing that in all your studying, even some of you went to seminary, you've hardly spent any time studying the attributes of God. Almost nothing. The attributes of Christ. How many of you have spent several months studying the beauty of God? No. We've become a religion of principle, of ritual, of say this prayer at the end of the track and you're in. Of come and do good by showing up on Sunday. This is not Christianity. Not at all. It's not even close. It's being engulfed in this glorious Person. And the more you know of Him... Now, listen to me. You know, if I came to you right now... I'm making something of a detour. If I came to you right now and said you need to love God more, you would rightfully look at me and go, yeah, I do. Preachers will always tell you you need to love God more. It's funny that absent most of the times is how can you do that? How can you make yourself love God more? Have you ever thought about that? You know you need to love God more. How can you make yourself do that? You can't make yourself do that any more than you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. I have been married for many years. And I loved my wife when I married her. I love her more now. Why? Because I know more about her now. I know more about her attributes, her qualities. I've experienced more of the good things in her character. The more I know her, the more I love her. Now, if I can say that about a human being, how do you love God more? You get to know Him more. And the more you know Him... See, this will be one of the ways you'll know whether or not you're converted. The more God is preached to a converted heart, the more that converted heart longs to be conformed to God and be dedicated to Him. The more God is made known to the true Christian, the more the true Christian's heart is inflamed with God. But the more the lost carnal churchman hears about God, the more he kicks against Him. Your great need is to know God. Jeremiah was right when he said rich men shouldn't boast in wealth, strong men in strength, or wise men even in human wisdom, but the one who boasts should boast in this, in God, that He knows me, God says. You say I don't love God as I ought to. Study the attributes of God in the Scriptures. Call out to Him. It's amazing to me. I go to most churches that have never even studied the attributes of God. I think what on earth are we doing? What are we doing? To know God. The more you know of Him, the more you will love Him. And the more you know the Gospel, the more you will be moved by the Gospel. Now I want to talk for a while about several things that are oftentimes said, but not often explained. Let's go to 2 Corinthians. Oh, before I do, let's stay here in Romans for just a second. I want you to see something. Look what Paul says in Romans 3.25. He says, "...whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Now, notice the word publicly. Publicly displayed. Martin Lloyd-Jones said publicly placard, like put on a sign. Christ is lifted up at the very center of the religious universe. There in Jerusalem. For all the world to see. God is wanting to publicize, make public something. What is it? He tells us. This was to demonstrate His righteousness. God had Christ publicly crucified. He put away sins publicly on a tree. Why? Because God wanted to demonstrate something. What did God want to demonstrate? God wanted to demonstrate that He, God, is righteous. Now, why should God have to do that? I mean, did God do something in history that would kind of make us believe that He wasn't really righteous? Yes, He did. What did He do? Let's look. Verse 25, this was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God He passed over sins previously committed. So why was it necessary to demonstrate to the whole world that God is truly righteous? Because in the past, because of His forbearance, He passed over sins. See, there's the problem. If He's a just God, He can't pass over sins. Let me give you an example. Noah. He should have died with everyone else. Abraham. God called him a friend. He believed God and God reckoned him to be righteous. But He put His wife in jeopardy. See, He lied and sometimes He doubted. David called God his son. A man after my own heart. How could God do that? David lied, murdered. His pride led to the death of many of His people. Committed adultery. You see, here's the great problem. Throughout history, God has shown mercy to wicked men. How can He be just? Imagine the great accuser standing before the throne of God. God, I thought You were just. I rebelled against You. And perfect justice was poured out upon me. Noah. He should have died. Abraham. Abraham's your friend. He believed you and you counted him to be righteous. He was not righteous. He put his wife in jeopardy. He lied. He doubted. Are we forgetting the incident with Hagar? Oh, and David. David, your son. A man after your own heart. He was a murderer. And a liar. And proud. And an adulterer. How can you just forgive them? Two thousand years ago, God answered that question. Do you want to know how I can save Noah from the deluge? Do you want to know how I can call Abraham my friend? Do you want to know how I can call David my son? Because now my son dies for the sins of all of them. The Lamb slain. Planned before the foundation of the world. He died on that cross for Noah, for Abraham, for David, for you, and for the last one who will ever be redeemed on this planet. His death demonstrated once and for all that God is righteous. Do you want to know how much God hates sin? When our own sin laid upon the shoulders of His Son, He crushed Him. Sinner, what do you think He'll do to you? Do you know what it took to save you, believer? To end all accusation? Look in verse 26. For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. You say, well, I'm justified by faith. By faith, I'm accounted righteous. But that presents a problem unless there's a sacrifice. Because it still doesn't solve the problem of how can God declare you to be righteous when you are not. Justice demands satisfaction and will have it. There's only one way God becomes a man. He takes upon Himself the sins of His people, those whom He declares to be righteous, and He dies under their punishment so that now He is just and the justifier of those who have faith in Christ. That's the Gospel. I can't tell you how many places around the world I've preached this message and people who are believers for 30 years come up to me crying and saying, I've always believed in Christ and I've believed that His death saved me, but I never could figure out how Him being beat up by Roman soldiers actually paid for my sins. I never understood why all this actually had to happen. Some of you have never heard the things I have just shared with you. What on earth are we preaching? What are they teaching in seminaries and Bible institutes? The Gospel is what must be preached. Now let's go to 2 Corinthians 5.21. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Now, you've read this many times. What does it mean? He made Him who knew no sin to be sin. You know, some of the greatest commentary writers in the history of Christianity have looked at this passage and said something like this. Let it stand on its own. They fear to make a comment because they do not want to say too little about it and so take away glory from Christ. And they do not want to say too much and blaspheme His holy name. What does it mean? I think the answer is found in the second part of this verse. So that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That tells us how Christ was made to be sin on our behalf. Remember what I said. Now listen, saint. Listen very carefully. The moment that you believed savingly in Christ, you were justified. That means that God declared you to be legally right with Him. You see that? But now let's throw in another phrase. The moment you believed in Christ, God declared you to be legally right with Him and treated you as such. He treats you now as right with Him. That word, it's small. It's extremely important. You'll miss everything if you don't get this. He not only declares you through faith to be right with Him, but from now on He treats you as right with Him. Do you see that? God always deals with you as one with impeccable righteousness. This is amazing. You talk about freedom? This will give you freedom. He deals with you this way. He treats you this way. When Christ was on the tree and He was made to be sin, does it mean that somehow in His character He devolved? He became corrupted? That He became defiled? No. He was always the spotless Lamb of God. Then what does it mean? The same thing. On that tree, our sins were imputed. In putare, to think, to consider. Our sins were laid upon Christ. The guilt of our trespasses was laid upon Him. God declared Him to be legally guilty and God treated Him as such. Do you see that? It was an imputed guilt. And God treated Him as the guilty one. Although He remained undefiled, pure, spotless Lamb of God, our filth was placed upon Him. And then God treated Him as He should have treated us so that He could treat us as He should always treat Him. Now I want you to think about this for a moment. Imagine some of you fine young ladies who maybe you've been home-schooled and never watched television and you're just as absolutely pristine as a person can be on the planet. And that's a good thing. And you decide to go hand out tracts in some place where there's rampant prostitution. And you begin to hand out tracts. And right then the paddy wagon shows up and the officers come and grab the prostitutes and throw them in the paddy wagon, but they take you with them. They grab you just in the same way, thinking you're a prostitute. They throw you in the paddy wagon. Now while you're there in that paddy wagon, all those prostitutes are going to be filing their nails, talking on cell phones, laughing and giggling, calling lawyers. They've done this a thousand times. It's no big deal to them. You are going to be terrified. You are going to feel soiled. You are going to be so nauseous beyond the ability to breathe. You're pulled out of the wagon. You're taken into the precinct. They fingerprint you. They throw you in jail. You're sitting there in a corner terrified while all the other people just laugh. That doesn't even begin. It almost shouldn't even be used as an illustration. You and I have no idea what it means to carry guilt or to be separated from the Father. We have no idea of that any more than a fish has an idea of being wet. We have always been guilty. We have always been filthy. We have always been separated from God. Without foreigners, strangers to the promises and the covenants, without God in this world, without hope, we're just that type of creature. But Christ, holy, holy, holy. Never forget what Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6. In the year the king Isaiah died, I saw, so the Lord high and lifted up and His train filled the temple. And above Him stood the seraph and each one having six wings with two, they covered their face. With two, they covered their feet. And with two, they did fly. And one cried unto the other, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. That was Christ He saw. According to John. That was the Son of God. According to John 12, that was the Son of God. You see, the Son has been the mediator in everything. God created the world through His Son. God reveals Himself to the world through His Son. God saves the world through His Son. God sustains the world through His Son. God judges the world through His Son. Isaiah saw His Son. And now His Son is hanging on a tree. And not only that, bearing our guilt, our filth, but the separation. You see, the one thing that most just literally boggles the mind of the theologian is the Trinity. Some people look at the Trinity and go, well, I don't want to talk about it because it cannot be explained that well. Almost ashamed of it in debate. I want to hide it in a corner somewhere. Absolutely not. This Trinity is the most phenomenal thing. As a matter of fact, if God was not triune, we could not say God is love. But because He's triune, we can say that God is love and His affection is going from one person to another. The Father looking at the Son. The Son looking at the Father. The glory, the relishing, the delight in His own reflection in this perfect Son of His. The beauty throughout all of eternity. The Father delighting in the Son. The Son delighting in the Father. And as one old country preacher said in the Holy Spirit, just crying hallelujah. But Christ bore our sin. He bore our sin. The Scriptures declare this. Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law so as to perform them. Galatians 3.10 That's you apart from Christ. Cursed. Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law to perform them. Apart from Christ, that is man. Now that doesn't bother you that much because maybe you need to understand a little bit about what it means to be cursed. To be an abomination before God. To be a thing of loathing and hatred before God because of the vileness of your character and your deeds. I try to describe it this way. What does it mean that we were under a curse? It means that because of our sin, we were so vile, not only before a holy God, but also a holy heaven. Now listen to me. We were so vile that the last thing we would have heard when we took our first step into hell would be all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because He's rid the earth of us. And if you don't understand it that way, you can't understand the Gospel. But Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. That thing that I described to you was placed upon Him. He bore your sin and was treated by a holy God as you ought to be treated. Now, you're all familiar with the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn. On and on. Beatitudes. The word means blessedness. Let's just look at that. Let's change it around. According to the Beatitudes, the blessed are granted the kingdom of heaven. Well, then the cursed are refused entrance. The blessed are recipients of divine comfort, but the cursed are objects of divine wrath. The blessed are satisfied. The cursed are miserable and wretched. The blessed receive mercy. The cursed are condemned without pity. The blessed shall see God. The cursed are cut off from the presence of God. The blessed are sons and daughters of God. And the cursed are disowned in disgrace. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. He became a curse in our place. Now, in the 27th and 20th chapters of Deuteronomy, don't turn there right now, but God does a unique thing with Israel and there are two mountains. Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. In Mount Gerizim were placed all the blessings that would come down upon the head of the covenant keeper, the one who kept the covenant by obeying the law. In Mount Ebal, all the curses came down upon the head of the one who was not the covenant keeper, who broke the covenant, the disobedient man, you. Now, on the cross, all the curses of Mount Ebal fell upon the head of the Son. Now, I have written all these out and I have put them in a way as to show you how upon that tree Christ not only bore your sin, but Christ bore the curse of all your disobedience against God. R.C. Sproul said this, and I heartily and completely agree with him. When Christ cried out, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? The Father in Heaven slammed the door of Heaven and cried out, God, Your God, damns You. The Lord send upon You curses, confusion, and rebuke until You are destroyed, until You perish quickly. The Lord smites You with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart, and You will grope at noon as a blind man gropes in darkness with none to save You. The Lord delights over You to make You perish and destroy You. You will be torn from the land. Cursed shall You be in the city and cursed shall You be in the field. Cursed shall You be when You come in and cursed shall You be when You go out. The heaven which is over Your head shall be bronze and the earth which is under You, iron. You shall be a horror and a proverb and a taunt among all the people. Let all these curses come upon You and pursue You and overtake You until You are destroyed, because You would not obey the Lord Your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded You. This was for You. And it fell upon Christ. As Christ bore our sin upon Calvary, He was cursed as a man who makes an idol and sets it up in secret. He was cursed as one who dishonors his father or mother, who moves his neighbor's boundary mark or misleads a blind person on the road. He was cursed as one who distorts the justice due an alien orphan and widow. He was cursed as one who is guilty of every manner of immorality and perversion. He was cursed as one who wounds his neighbor in secret or accepts a bribe to strike down the innocent. He was cursed as one who does not conform to the words of the law by doing them. There's a passage in Proverbs that says this, like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, so a curse without cause does not alight. So how did a curse fall upon the impeccable, sinless Son of God? Because on that tree He bore the sins of His people. David pried this out. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Yet on the cross, the sin imputed to Christ was exposed before God and the host of heaven. He was placarded before men and made a spectacle to angels and devils alike. The transgressions He bore were not forgiven Him. The sins He carried were not covered. If a man is counted blessed because iniquity is not imputed to him, then Christ was cursed beyond measure because the iniquity of us all was laid upon Him. There's an interesting thing that is said in the renewal of the covenant in Moab with the nation of Israel. I want you to listen to the language because I believe that all things are Christological. All things are pointing always to Christ. Sometimes we don't know exactly how, but I believe they are. You cannot look at the Bible except Christologically. If you do not look at it that way, then the Old Testament just turns into a bunch of quaint moral stories. It's all about Christ. This is what it says in the renewal of the covenant in Moab. The anger of the Lord and His jealousy will burn against that man. Against what man? The covenant breaker. And every curse which is written in this book will rest upon Him. And the Lord will blot out His name from under heaven. Then the Lord, now listen to this, will single Him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in the book of the law. There has only been one Jehovah's witness. Only one true witness of Jehovah. And that is Christ. There has only been one servant of Jehovah. And that is Christ. And there has only been in all the history of man one covenant keeper. And that was Christ. Absolute perfection. Always His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, but on that train. On that train. Isn't it amazing? It says, He who knew no sin was made sin. He who knew no sin... Do you realize what that means? As I shared yesterday, I think it was, do you realize there has never been one moment in your entire life, not one moment, when you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Do you realize there's never been one deed you have ever done in your life perfectly for the glory of God, not even once? Do you realize that? There's never been one time when you loved God as He ought to be loved. Not one millisecond of your life have you done that. And yet Christ, there was not one moment in His life that He did not love the Lord His God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. There was never one moment in His life, one deed that He did not do everything for the glory of God. Impeccable, perfect, spotless Lamb of God, but on that tree He bore our sin. He carried our curse. Why don't you go for just a moment. Go to Numbers 6. Here we have the benediction of Aaron to the people of Israel. In Numbers 6, verse 24, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace. And the answer ought to be not if God's just. Not if God's just. This presents a great theological problem. If God is just, how can He bless His people? How can He keep them and not reject them? How can He make His face shine upon them? How can He be gracious to them? They're idolaters. They've broken every one of the commands. They've wandered through the wilderness because of their disobedience and unbelief. They're marked by it. So how can God bless a people like this? There's only one way. Because He cursed His Son. Let's rewrite it. The Lord curse you and give you over to destruction. The Lord take the light of His presence from you and condemn you. The Lord turn His face from you and fill you with misery. Now I want you to understand, Christian, I have a dear friend, Dr. Nathan Berry. Every time you ask him, Dr. Berry, how are you doing? He says, blessed. I mean, blessed. I mean, on the day when I'm hovering over his deathbed praying for him, he will say, blessed. And you say that you are blessed. And you speak rightly. You have no idea how blessed you are. But here's what I want you to understand. Every time you have the slightest inkling that you are blessed, know this, it was only possible because He was cursed. Every time you say, I'm blessed. Why? And it brings you back. Because He was cursed. That's why. When you get it wrapped up in all this North American evangelicalism and contemporary Christianity and everybody marching around. I'm blessed. I'm blessed. I'm this. I'm that. What will bring you back to reality is when you go, oh, I'm blessed. Hold it. I'm blessed because He was cursed. Maybe I shouldn't be so frivolous. Maybe I shouldn't think of it in that way. It brings you back to reality when you realize that the only way that you can say the word blessed is because Christ was cursed in your place. Let's talk about the wrath of God for a moment. This is a point that I speak about quite a bit. The cross. Sometimes when Jesus is in the Garden, He cries out three times, let this cup pass from Me. Let this cup pass from Me. Let this cup pass from Me. And I have heard the most astounding interpretations with regard to this. I've heard even one man say that Christ was bleeding drops of blood. He was sweating drops of blood because He just didn't want to go to the Roman cross because He knew there He would have to face the devil. Or others that say He looked forward in His omniscience and He saw the cat of nine tails and the nails being nailed into His feet and hands and the whip across His back and the crown of thorns on His head and on and on and on and on. And I'm going, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. I can hardly go to some of these Easter sermons where they turn Christ into a martyr. Where they speak all about what the Romans did to Jesus and speak nothing about what really happened. The pain of the cross is not the nails in His hands, not the crown of thorns on His head, not a spear in His side. The pain of the cross is not what the Romans did to Jesus. It's what God the Father did to His only begotten Son. Let me prove this to you. After the resurrection and ascension of Christ, for the next three centuries at least, Christians were crucified on trees. They were crucified on crosses. And if you've read Fox's book of Martyrs and other books on martyrdom, you understand that many of those Christians went to the cross singing hymns, rejoicing that they could suffer for their Lord. So here we have the followers of Jesus Christ singing hymns as they're carried off to be crucified, some of them upside down and some of them covered with brea and set on fire in order to provide lights for the streets of Rome at night. And they're singing joyfully at this opportunity to die while the captain of their salvation cowers in Gethsemane so full of anguish that he's sweating drops of blood. I don't think so, folks. American Christianity is so full of Romanticism, you can hardly ever find the Gospel. It was necessary that it be a bloody sacrifice. It was necessary that He be nailed to that tree. It was necessary the crown of thorns, the whip on His back. I'll take nothing away from that. You can preach sermon after sermon upon it and be correct, but you will not be correct if you miss the main point of the tree. I was in Europe several years ago and I was in this Germanic seminary. And I was teaching. I was tired. I walked into the library. I was looking for something to read. And there was something in English. And it was the Cross of Christ. Not the one by John Stott. That's a very good book. But another one. The Cross of Christ. A small volume. I pulled it off and just began to kind of thumb through it to find out what is the author speaking of. And this is what he said. I kid you not. The Father looked down from heaven. He could barely look upon His Son. He would quickly turn away because of the anguish it would cause Him. But He looked down from heaven and saw what the Romans did to His blessed Son and counted that as payment for our sins. You know what? I can go into most evangelical churches and if I didn't prep people and I just said that, they would accept it as Gospel and not realize it's heretical. What was in the cup? The Roman cross? I remember one time teaching at a school. It was an amazing school. Reformed school. Well, theologically reformed school. And I said I was going to teach in the chapel. And I said, well, who's going to be in the chapel? And they said, well, first grade to seniors. And I said, well, that kind of makes it a little difficult. I said, I'm going to teach on propitiation today. And they said, it won't be a problem. I said, okay. So I walk in there and I'm teaching. And all of a sudden I said, what's in the cup? What's in the cup? And a little girl raised her hand. I'll never forget this. And I said, okay. She got out of her seat, put her hand on her desk in true scholarly fashion. Straightened her shoulders back and she said, Sir, the wrath of Almighty God was in the cup. I almost fell over. I said, you know more than most evangelical pastors. That's the closest I ever came to ordaining a woman into the ministry. I couldn't believe it. Sir, the wrath of Almighty God was in the cup, she said. Listen to this. The first is from Psalm 75. The next is from Jeremiah 25. The first, for a cup is in the hand of the Lord and the wine foams, it is well mixed. He pours out of this, surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs. For thus the Lord, the God of Israel says to me, take this cup of wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. They will drink and stagger and go mad. What was in the cup? The wrath of God. The full force of God's just and holy hatred, indignation, anger against our sin. I want you to imagine a dam a thousand miles high and a thousand miles wide and filled to the brim with water. At the edge of that, the bottom, the foot of that tiny dam is a little village about a quarter of a mile, eighth of a mile away. Houses made of adobe and straw. And all of a sudden, you walk out of your house and you hear a crack like thunder. The entire wall has been removed. This heaving, destructive force is coming straight for your home. It doesn't matter the strength, fleet of foot, the strength of your arm to swim. It doesn't matter. You're gone. You're dead. There's no hope. There will be nothing left of you. And right before, right before it enters into your village, a great gulf is opened and swallows the entire thing down so that not one drop of that deluge even sprinkles your pant leg. Imagine a millstone, ten thousand pounds, and on top of it another millstone. And they're both moving in counter direction. And you take a tiny grain of wheat and you put it in the shaft. It goes into the stone. At first, for a fraction of a second, the whole is under tremendous pressure. Then it bursts and it's ground to nothing. So Christ on that tree. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies at a bite of the loam. But if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit. Someone had to die under the wrath of God. Now, I'm going to take, as I said, this is going to go on for another probably 20 minutes or so. I want you to listen to one of my favorite writers of all time. The first volume of his works. Please read it. It is John Flagle. The Meditorial Glories of Christ. Years ago I came across this dialogue that he wrote depicting the dialogue between the Father and the Son in eternity. I can read it as poetry. I've read it a million times and I still love every moment as though it was the first time I read it. I call it the Father's bargain with the Son. First the Father speaks. My Son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves. And now lie open to My justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. Do you understand the predicament? What shall be done for these souls? And thus Christ returns. Now the Son speaks. My Father, such is My love to and pity for them that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their guarantee. Christ is taking the responsibility of you upon Himself. Now listen to what it says. I love this part. Bring in all Thy bills that I may see what they owe Thee. I know young men that will sometimes be so excited about getting married and then after a few days of marriage they think to themselves, what have I done? I had no idea it would be like this. You see, they made all these great statements and these great commitments before they actually knew what they were getting into. Not Christ. From eternity He said, bring in all Thy bills, Father, so I may see what they owe Thee. He knew exactly what He would have to pay. And He went anyways. And He says, bring in all Thy bills that I may see what they owe Thee. Lord, bring them all in. And believer, if you would just catch this next truth, it would make you so happy in the Lord. He said, bring them all in so that there may be no after reckonings with them. Bring in every bill they will ever owe so that when I make this payment there will never be another reckoning. They will have to pay nothing. That is amazing. Most of you, many of you are living a Christian life in which you think you're having to continue to pay. You blow it. You sin. You turn away from Him. You do something that devastates your own heart. You're ashamed and you're sure that you need to go sit in a penalty box for a while before you can come back and even seek Him. There's no after reckonings. It's been fully and completely paid. At My hand shall thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer their wrath, the wrath that belongs to them, than they should suffer it. Upon Me, My Father, upon Me be all their debt. Now the Father answers. This is terrifying. But Son, if Thou undertake for them, Thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatements. If I spare them, I will not spare you. There will be no abatement because you are My Son. There will be no diminishing of punishment because you are My Beloved. If I spare them, I will not spare you. Now let's stop for a moment. Flavel is right in everything that he said. But I want to make sure you do not misunderstand. Never think that the Father desired our destruction and the Son interposed to save us from Him. It was the Father's love that sent His Son. When the Father decreed wrath against the wicked, even against you, I want you to know, the Son said, Amen. It was the love of the Father that sent the Son and the love of the Son that came. Do you understand? The Son, content Father, let it be. Let it be so. Charge it all upon Me. I am able to discharge it. I love that passage. I am able to discharge it. Men can't say that. Angels can't say that. Only deity, only the mighty Christ puts on His armor, His breastplate of righteousness, His helmet of salvation, His sword, and He comes to earth and He says, I alone am able to discharge it. The right hand of Jehovah. Oh, He's glorious in power. He says, I am able to discharge it and though it prove a kind of undoing to Me, though it impoverish all My riches, empty all My treasures, yet I am content, Father, to undertake it. Why? Isaiah tells us the satisfaction that would come from a redeemed people. Believer, let me just interject this to you. After Christ has done all this for you, do you honestly think that the first time you meet Him, He's going to have a scowl on His face or give you that look of disappointment? Do you think He did all this so that the first time He meets you, He can chastise you and rebuff you and reprove you for all the failures of your life? He didn't go to these great extents to do that. He did all this to love you. To love you. To forgive you. It's not about you. It's about Him. God's relationship with you does not rest upon you. It rests with Christ, the One who is able to discharge it. Now, I want to close by doing this. One of the most epic narratives of the Old Testament. Abraham and his son Isaac. God comes to Abraham and He says this. Now listen to this language and tell me it's not Christological. I'll fight you tooth and nail. Listen to this language. Tell me there's not something more being said here than what's being said. Just listen to this language. God comes to Abraham and He says, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. So the old man obeys. And when the old man's hand is finally submitted to his will which has submitted itself to God, he brings his hand down to slaughter his only begotten son. His only son. God stays His hand and cries out and says this. Abraham, Abraham, do not stretch your hand against the lad and do nothing to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. Now at the sound of the Lord's voice, Abraham turns around and he sees a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. And he says, Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide. Isn't it a terrible thing when TV preachers use this phrase to describe getting a Mercedes? It's blasphemy. Utter blasphemy. The Lord will provide a lamb, a ram, a sacrifice. And so we hear that and we say, oh, whoa, that was a good ending to that story. It got tense there for a moment, but wow, it ended fine. No, that's not the ending of the story. That's the intermission. Hundreds and hundreds of years pass and the curtain opens up again. And it's the Son of God, His Son, His only Son, whom He loves, hanging from a tree. And God takes the knife out of Abraham's hand. And with all the force of God, He throws back His arm and then comes down and thrusts the knife into the heart of His only begotten Son. And there on that tree, He is slaughtered. Because the only way to get Isaac out of death, the only way to save Abraham and His Son, His only Son, the Son whom He loves, is by God sacrificing His Son, His only Son, His Son whom He loves. And now as believers, we can say something of what God said to Abraham. God, my God, I now know that You love me since You have not withheld Your Son, Your only Son, whom You loved for me. If He gave You His Son while we were yet sinners, will He not give You all things? He did not do all this so that You could spend the rest of Your life groveling and trying to earn some presence of God. He did not do this so that believer, your first thought would be fear when you hear judgment day. He did this to make you alive for you to be with Him in the greatest, greatest joy. This is just my imagination. But sometimes I think it will be this way. I know if the Lord appeared here right now, I know that I would want to say I was sorry. I would want to explain why I have not been as devoted as I ought to be. I would want to say so many things. But that face, the love, the glory, it wouldn't let. It would just be, I know, Paul. I love You! I know! I love You! I know! I love You! Oh, believer, this is the thing that drives us to godliness, to love, to missions, to marriage, to trying to care for widows and orphans and keeping ourselves unspotted in the world. This is what drives us. This is one thing. I need nothing else. I do not have a very religious life to be honest with you. And I do not know a whole lot about principles and this and that. I don't find it that necessary. The whole thing has been swallowed up in the Gospel. Just the Gospel speaks to us, teaches us to be godly, moves us, drives us so that only the Gospel would be Yours. If you're here and you don't know Christ, please, don't go to hell. Don't dishonor God. Repent of your sins and believe the Gospel. If you're a Christian, don't love the world. Don't love the world. But not for religious reasons should you not love the world. Not for principles and morality should you not love the world. You shouldn't love the world turning away from it as though it was a sacrifice unrewarded. No, you just turn away from the filth and the sewer of something that cannot satisfy the Christ who satisfies completely. Do you see that? As I said, the most horrible thing there is and the most wonderful thing is to be a preacher of the Gospel. You can sit up for years while everyone is sleeping. You can study and read and pray, look for a better and clearer way to say it, but only to find yourself once again having failed to even reach the foothills of the beginning of the hills leading to the Everest that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some people ask me, they say, Paul, you know, we hear you just preach the same thing. Haven't you ever studied anything else? I go, yeah, I have. Just everything pales. Guys, I could preach this sermon you heard today seven days a week, seven times a day for the rest of my life. I will not be bored of this. Also, for you young men who are thinking about being preachers, do you realize that some of you have been in church for many, many years and you sat here today and you said, I never heard things like that in my life. So if a preacher asks me, when are you going to preach something else? I'll say, when you start preaching this. Some of you, if you heard that we were going to do a conference on the Gospel, you would go, well, why would anybody do that? I mean, it's clear what the Gospel is. I mean, we all know the Gospel. I mean, we learned the Gospel the first day. You will spend an eternity of eternities in Heaven and you will not even begin to have understood the Gospel. Take this and just allow it to be the tool that leads you to piety, to true piety, to love, to proper affection. God's blessing upon you. Let me pray for you. Father, I pray for every person that's here that salvation would prosper in their house, for themselves and their children and their children's children, even to a thousand generations of those who love you and keep your commandments. That, Lord, the Gospel of Jesus Christ would become known to them and precious to them. And that the beauty of the Gospel would drive them joyfully to holiness, to devotion. Father, thank you for this opportunity. Lord, just, oh, that praying, preaching just all seems so weak right now. Please bless these people. Please, for Christ's sake, in Jesus' name, Amen.