In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of recognizing our sinful state before God and the severity of standing before Him in judgment. He highlights the need for a revelation of our own wickedness and the purity and holiness of God. The speaker warns against presenting a gospel that only focuses on God's love without addressing the reality of our sinfulness. He urges listeners to seek a complete understanding of the gospel and to pray for revelations of these four key truths.

Many of us that are here tonight, it's almost like we find ourselves in a maze called American Christianity and we're trying to find Jesus in this maze. And just picture this in your mind, there's all these dead ends in this maze and there's just thousands of different voices saying, come down this way and come down this way and so many different voices out there proclaiming that they have the path to God. And I spent many years, having not grown up in a Christian home, and spent many years seeking reality and seeking to know the Creator. Even after conversion, going to this church for a while and seeing things in the scripture that didn't line up and going to this church for a while. And many times I found myself discouraged and to the point of almost wanting to quit, trying to find my way out of this maze called American Christianity. And one day God said, just sit down in the maze and quit trying to find me through these paths because the answers I've already given to you in the scripture. So what I want to do tonight is just turn to the scriptures with all the confusion that's out there and with all the different voices saying many different things. I just want to be faithful to call us back to the simplicity of the scripture and I want to do it in the most foundational of areas, the gospel, because there's many people saying many different things about the gospel. So if you have your Bible, I'd encourage you to try to turn with me for sake of time. I'll probably go through at least a dozen or two verses here. But I just want to look at the gospel and we're going to be sharing tonight, two messages tomorrow and one on Sunday. And it's going to be a theme throughout the whole weekend. And I'm going to call it 16 Revelations of the Gospel. And we'll try to do four tonight. The gospel, a lot of people don't realize that the gospel means good news. And so many different people are saying, well, this is the gospel. And other churches are saying, you know, this is the gospel and this is how to know God. And you drive down a road in America for 10 minutes and you'll pass a dozen churches all saying totally different things from the Bible, saying, you know, this is the gospel. But let's just go to the scriptures with a humble heart and just see what the gospel is. Because it's almost like there's many different facets to the gospel. It's one thing, it's the gospel, but there's like different facets to it, like a crystal. If I were to take a crystal and put it under this light, you know, the guys over here may see green and the guys over here may see red. It's one crystal, but there's different facets. And there's the gospel, but there's like different ingredients to it. There's different aspects of it. And unfortunately, what's happening in America and in the world for that matter is many that claim Christ, many churches that preach the Bible, they're only showing one or two aspects of the gospel and not the full gospel. But if you look at Galatians chapter one, Galatians chapter one and verse six, Paul writing to a church there that he had planted, who had been influenced by someone in the church that was pulling them back to the legalistic righteousness. He says in verse six, I am astonished that you're so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and they're trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned. As we have already said now, so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you have accepted, let him be eternally condemned. Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I'm still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. So there's only one true gospel, or you could say complete gospel and a gospel that's not stripped of any aspect of it. And it's almost like, it's almost like if the devil, if the enemy can get us off on this one thing, then everything after that is going to be wrong. They say if you fly from New York City to LA and you're off one degree, you'll end up in Texas, just on your calculations. And if the enemy can just get us off a little bit in this area, right off the bat, the starting point of our journey to know the creator, if he can get us off in the area of the gospel, then we'll just get farther and farther away from knowing God. And that's the essence of a counterfeit. Nobody counterfeits toilet paper. Nobody counterfeits something that's not valuable. People counterfeit what's valuable. And the enemy has counterfeited the gospel with so many other gospels. And they look like a counterfeit. It looks so right. And there's verses that you can turn to in the Bible, and it sounds so good. But it's so important for us, for everyone here, to examine, even if we have a counterfeit. Supposing you were a dual citizen in Iraq in 2003, right before the war, and you're being told to get out of the country, and you have a plane ticket, and you know, okay, I have to leave in a week, because they're going to start bombing. And then that whole entire week, you're packing, you're preparing, you get all ready to go, and you get to the airport, and you hand them your plane ticket, and it was a counterfeit. And for that whole week, you'd been prepared to leave, and now you can't leave, because you had bought a counterfeit. And unfortunately, that is what's happening all over the world. Many people are banking their eternal soul on a counterfeit gospel. It looks right. And maybe they're sincere, they're going to church, they're involved in ministry, but they don't even know Jesus, because they've been sold something that doesn't line up with God's heart and the scriptures. And you know, there's a story that kind of illustrates this perfectly. I think it was a World Series in the 40s. It was, I think it was like game seven, each team had won three games. It was the bottom of the ninth inning, and the team was down by three points, and the bases were loaded, and a guy got up to bat, and he hit a grand slam. So they win the game. He runs around first, all the, you know, people are cheering, and he goes around second, goes around third, all his teammates are sitting at home, waiting for him. And he jumps on the plate, home plate, and the ref says, out. And the whole, you know, stadium gets silent. What do you mean out? I just had a grand slam home run. You know, we won the World Series. He said, you didn't step on first base. You're out. And that's what it's going to be like in the day of judgment. People are living their whole life in a sincere way, seeking after God, but they missed first base. And, you know, Paul says this in Romans about religious people, they have a great zeal for God, but it's not according to knowledge. And you look in this country, there's a lot of zeal for God, but it's not according to the knowledge of the scripture. So it's really advantageous for us to go to the scriptures this weekend with a sincere heart and say, do I know the gospel the way that Jesus has preached it in the New Testament? I find it ironic, Alan had sent out this Facebook thing. And, you know, a few years ago, there was a lot of things stirred up in the town, you know, that he was from. And somebody had seen this weekend, you know, on Facebook, and they had kind of made a little post on the wall below that. And I just happened to notice it. And I think they were serious. I hope they weren't. But they basically said, I'm not going to be coming. And they said, and I quote, So as I blissfully follow my Lord, though he may be wrong, I won't come. And what I got out of that is like, well, even if I'm wrong, I don't care, because I'm just going to blissfully follow, you know, what I've always been taught. And, and that's, unfortunately, the way it is with a lot of people. When, when you get a revelation of what the gospel really means, and it and it saves you and it transforms you and it gives you peace and joy, and you try to show it to someone else, and they just don't care. Because there isn't a love for the truth. It's like, it's like that person has that counterfeit ticket. And you're saying, Listen, you're not gonna be able to leave the country, though, the bombs are going to come, you're going to die, that ticket isn't going to get you on the plane. And they just want to believe that that ticket is, and you convince them that it isn't and they just don't care. And unfortunately, that that's the way it is, you know, I mean, for 1000s of years, people believe that the world was flat. And then people would come along and say, you know, look, as the ships go out into the ocean, you know, the, the sails get smaller and smaller, it can't be flat, it has to be round. And they plead with people that, you know, it's round, and they know it's flat. My dad believed it was flat, my granddad believed it was flat, the world is flat, and then they threatened to kill them. You need to quit saying the world is round, or we're going to kill you. And it's the same thing today with the gospel, people have believed for years, their dad believed something and their granddad believe something. And, and they don't want to know anything different. You know, Stephen is preaching to the religious people in his day, and it says they plug their ears. You know, they just shut up, you have to shut up, and they gnashed upon him with his teeth. And my prayer is that, myself included, that we would not shut our ears, that we would look at the scriptures in this area, that we would have a love for truth, no matter what that truth was, no matter where it took us, we would follow truth at any cost. You know, look at this verse, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, very important verse in this regards of loving the truth. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and I understand the context here is ultimately in reference to the end times, but there's a principle here that applies to what we're speaking about. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 9, the coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan, displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth, and so be saved. For this reason, because they refuse to love the truth, for this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, so that they will believe the lie, and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth, but have delighted in wickedness. So, notice the root problem for the people that he's speaking about here is they did not love the truth. When truth was shown to them, they didn't love it. And look at the ironic thing in verse 11, for this reason, because they did not love the truth, God sends them a powerful delusion. So, you see, I have my flesh is deceiving me, the devil is trying to deceive me, false prophets are trying to deceive me, but this verse says, if I don't love the truth, God is going to deceive me. God is going to send a deluding spirit, so that I'll believe a lie. I'll believe something, and I'll be totally sincere about it, and devoted to it, but it will be false, and God will allow me to be deceived. Now, I don't know about you, but that scares me. Maybe I can resist my flesh deceiving me, maybe I can resist the devil trying to deceive me, maybe I can resist false prophets, but if God's trying to deceive me, I'm done. There's no way I'm going to be able to resist God trying to deceive me. And you turn on the cable TV and turn it on to some religious channel, you know, some of the cable networks, there's like 10 channels in a row, and just watch it. Just turn to this channel, turn to that channel, and the crazy things that you see people doing, and they're totally sincere. I don't question their heart, their sincerity, I don't judge them for that, but people barking like dogs, and having laughing sessions, and all kinds of crazy things, and they're deceived. Why are they so deceived? Because at some point in time in their life, when presented with truth, they didn't love that truth. We have to have an absolute love for truth at any cost. Supposing I'm driving to a meeting, or I have an appointment at somewhere, and I'm 15 minutes away, and I have to be there in 15 minutes, but I'm a half an hour from being there. Now, I could take my clock and set my clock back 15 minutes, and say, oh, I'm going to be on time, you know, and everything's fine. But just because I set the clock back, that's not reality. See, this is reality. And see, that's what many people are doing. They're deceiving themselves that everything's okay, because they're not loving the truth. Truth is reality. Reality is time. Reality is, you know, what we're in. And in my mind, I can change that, but I'm still subject to the laws of reality. And it's the same in the spiritual realm. I can believe certain things, but if they're contrary to God's truth, I'm ultimately going to reap from my false beliefs. And, you know, just like a mirror. I'm looking in a mirror. A mirror is reality. I might have this image that I'm six foot five and skinnier than I really am. But when I look in the mirror, reality sets in. I'm like, bummer, you know. And it's the same thing spiritually. I may have this image in my mind that, you know, this is what God's like, and this is how I am spiritually. But when God's mirror comes, the spiritual mirror, the way God sees me, how I really am, the way my motives are, the way my heart is, when he really sees me, that's reality. And it's my prayer this weekend that we all could see reality. That all the deception, the self-deception, all our delusions would be ripped away. And that we would be in total reality before God. Because that's the essence of the gospel. You see, I mean, God's doing something in this area with Alan and some of his friends and people coming to Christ. And it's important in a time like this to lay a deep foundation. You know, when they build a skyscraper, they lay the foundation for years. They're still building the foundation to the New World Trade Centers. After years, they just go deep and deep and deep. And as God begins to do something in this area, it's really important that you guys lay a deep foundation in this area of the gospel. Because unfortunately, a lot of college ministries, coffee shops, you know, churches that are trying to be relevant to their culture, this is what they kind of pass over. This deep foundation of the gospel. And they get sidetracked on the ministry and ways that we can affect the culture. And they kind of get affected by man's philosophies and what kind of music we're going to have and how we're going to look different. I'm going to put gel in my hair and wear jeans, you know, and that'll be cool. And we'll have a coffee shop and all that stuff's fine. But the foundation has to be the gospel first. And if that foundation isn't laid deep, then whatever ministry there is, it'll just be powerless. And that's what we see. I mean, how many college ministries do you know about? All over the country, you go to any college and there's 50 different college ministries. But how many colleges are seeing revival? You know, seeing souls saved, lives changed? I mean, it's very rare, even though there's many ministries. And the reason this isn't happening, the reason is because, unfortunately, sincere Christians that want to help people are being more influenced by men's philosophies and Christian post-modernism than they are by the gospel. So, I'm just begging us, let's turn to the scripture and look at these 16 different aspects of the gospel so that, you know, we can see reality. If you look here at John chapter 12, Jesus says in John 12, 48, he that rejects me and receives not my words has one that judges him. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. So, what I get out of this verse is when I die and I stand before Jesus, he's not even going to judge me. His word is going to judge me. So, God has had mercy and he's kind of like, it's kind of like a teacher giving you a test and they give you the textbook too, you know, so you can find all the answers there. You don't have to worry about forgetting anything. Here's the test, here's the textbook. Jesus says in the last day, I'm not even going to judge you. My words are going to judge you. So, it's extremely important for us to line our lives up with his word because that's what we're going to have to give an account to in the day of judgment, his word. And again, so many different groups, they're getting away from the importance of God's word and caving into culture, to fads. You go into so many Christian bookstores and there's so many different ideas about how to have a church and all these, they sound fine, but is it lined up with the word of God because that's what's going to judge me in the final days, God's word. So, as I said before, the gospel is kind of like your grandma's recipe. She's got this really awesome cake and you eat it and you're like, that is the best cake in the world. Can you give that recipe to my wife so she can make it for me? Let's say my wife gets the recipe and she says, well, I don't want to put so much of this in and I don't want to put that ingredient in and it's bad for you. And maybe I can add some of this ingredient. And she kind of changes the recipe a little bit. Is the cake still going to taste the same? No, it's going to taste different because the ingredients are different. And it's the same thing with the gospel. When we look at the gospel and the scriptures, it's like a recipe. And what Christianity has done is they've taken some aspects out and maybe even added other aspects. And so subsequently, the result that we're seeing is different than when we look in the book of Acts. When we look in the book of Acts, we see people radically saved, lives changed, things happening, people delivered. And we look around here and it's like, man, it's discouraging. And the reason is we've taken the recipe and we've added to it and taken from it. So, I want to look at 16 different ingredients, if you will, of this gospel. These are not 16 different things you have to do to be saved. I'm not saying that. But if you take and dissect the gospel, these are 16 different vital ingredients and many of them are lacking. And I would bet that probably half the people here, by the time we get done, will say, man, I never even heard that before. And here it's a key ingredient to the gospel and they never even heard about it before. So, really important to love the truth and say, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that the gospel that I received was not the real gospel. Because, you know, a lot of times when we see somebody sincere, we can justify things. And, you know, I can be sincere and I can start driving north and say, I'm going to Texas. And I'm totally sincere, but I'm sincerely wrong because I'm never going to get to Texas by going north. And as we look around, we see millions of people that are sincerely wrong. And I'm not saying this out of a judgmental attitude. Well, they're wrong because I'm right. I'm a total loser. And if you knew my past, you'd agree. But I believe that I've just said, OK, I'm not going to be influenced by men. I just want to look at the scripture and I just want to believe what it says and not turn to a commentary and eloquent men that kind of say, well, it doesn't really mean what it says. You know, when they have the three peanut things, you know, and you don't know what happened. And so many people, they read the Bible and they see, yeah, that's what it says. And then they go to their pastor and they, well, it really doesn't say that. Oh, I guess it doesn't say that. And you go away, you know, not believing the Bible, but it made sense while he was doing it. And see, we have this lust. Mankind has a lust for sex. Mankind has a lust for money. Mankind has a lust for food. There's all kinds of lusts in us. And one of the lusts that mankind naturally has is religion. I've been to deep, remote parts. I've been to villages in Africa where they've never seen white people before. I've been in villages in Haiti where they've never seen white people before. I've been to India where there's a billion Hindus. Everywhere that I've been all over the world, there are people that are religious. They're just naturally religious because mankind is a sexual being and he's a religious being, and he'll carve a piece of wood and worship it or find some animal and worship it because we are just religious in nature. But being religious is not what I'm speaking about. I'm talking about reality. See, I can make a piece of wood and worship it and say it's God, but that's not reality. And I may be sincere, but I'm wrong. And it's the same thing in America. There are millions of people that are sincerely singing the same songs that we sung tonight, going to church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Tuesday night Bible study, Wednesday night church, Friday night youth group, volleyball, Bible study every week. And they're just singing, you know, Jesus, I love you. I know you're mine. And they're sincere. But we need to see that that doesn't mean that they have a reality. There is a lust for religion. And they may have taken their existing lifestyle. And they may have found a Jesus that fits their existing lifestyle. Look at this verse. It's real eye-opening in Exodus chapter 32. Exodus 32. And we all know the context, I assume, where God goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go. And Pharaoh says, no. And then there comes the plagues. And eventually Pharaoh says, okay, you can leave. Supernatural miracle after miracle after miracle. God finally lets Israel be released from this bondage. They're free. And then Moses goes away for a while. And then we get to chapter 32, verse 1. And it says, when the people saw that Moses was so long and coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, come make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow, Moses, who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what happened to him. Aaron answered them, take off the gold earrings from your wives and the sons and your daughters, the ones that they're wearing and bring them unto me. So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they had handed him and made it into an idol cast into the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, tomorrow there will be a festival unto the Lord. So the next day, the people rose up early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward, they sat down to eat and drink and got up and indulged in play. So notice something here. They take this gold, they form it into a calf, and then they say, you know, that God that did all the miracles that brought you out of Egypt, this is him. This is that God. Now, what was that God's name in the Old Testament? Anybody know? Jehovah. He says, this is Jehovah. And hey, guess what? Tomorrow, we're going to have a feast to, and notice what it says in verse five, we're going to have a festival to Jehovah. And here he is. And they paid money to this Jehovah. They did sacrifices. They're really sincere. And then they had a party afterwards. And that's exactly what we see in American Christianity today. People take an image that they have made, and they call it Jesus. You see, they're going along a certain way, living a certain lifestyle. And then they take that lifestyle because there's this lust for religion. And they make that lifestyle into a God and call it Jesus. And that's why you have people spending, notice all the money that they spent. There was sacrifice in this. They gave up their jewelry. They gave up their money. And it's the same thing today. There's many, many groups that are sacrificing money. They're sacrificing time. They're building buildings. They're giving to the poor. There's a lot of sincerity in this. But notice, they were sincerely wrong. Was that golden calf Jehovah? No. And as we look around in this country, and we see all these different Jesuses, they can't all be right. It's impossible. There's one Jesus, and then there's false Jesus. And you have, there's a phrase that's really important. It goes like this, you will either live what you believe, or you will believe what you're already living. There's another phrase that goes along with that, which is morality dictates doctrine. So what that means is, if I'm living my life a certain way, I'm either going to take what I believe and reconcile it with how I'm already living. Or I have to take how I'm living and reconcile it with what I see truth to be. And that's what a lot of people refuse to do. They don't want to reconcile how they're living to the scripture. They want to reconcile the scripture to how they're living. So that's why you have churches that say, Jesus was a homosexual. And he, you know, his lover was John. And they say, David and Jonathan were homosexuals. And they sing Bible songs, and they have a cross, and they have a building, and they're really sincere. Okay, but this one thing, they say, we're different on this one thing. It's okay to be homosexual. The New Testament doesn't condemn that. Well, I'm not here to condemn them. I'm just giving this as an example. That's where morality has dictated doctrine, you see. And I'm not just saying that about them. There's so many different groups. You have churches saying that it's God's will for you to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, and that God wants you to prosper. And if you're not prospering, if you're not wealthy, it's sin. Well, it's really easy to preach that in the United States. Well, until about two or three months ago, before the recession. But, you know, see how morality dictates doctrine. So some guy in the United States makes $150,000 a year. He's got a $400,000 house. And he says, look, it's God's will. God wants us to be wealthy. And in fact, if you're not wealthy, it's a sin. Well, go preach that in India, or in Haiti. You know, it's impossible for them to see that this is the way it has to be. There's no jobs. There's no hospitals. But that's just a simple example of how somebody takes their existing lifestyle, and they read into the Bible how they're already living. And there's so many examples of this. And my plea tonight is that we peel away from our existing lifestyle, from our morality, and that we be willing to look at the Scripture and reconcile our life to Scripture instead of vice versa. Okay, so let's look at four of these real quick. Number one, and I'm going to call these instead of ingredients, 16, I'm going to call them 16 revelations of the gospel. And what I mean by revelation is, I could sit up here and spew forth knowledge. And you can intellectually agree with that knowledge and go away, not knowing God. But see, revelation or illumination, when it comes, it's supernatural. I'm just a, you know, bag of dust, loser guy that is nothing. But if God somehow can speak through his word, and illuminate things to a person or give them revelation, then that can actually have an eternal effect on someone. So what we need is revelation, not just an intellectual understanding. So I'm going to call this 16 revelations of the gospel. And each of these, we, myself included, we need to see them as like a revelation, like wow, and not just an understanding in our head. So number one, the first revelation of the gospel, a revelation of your unholy, vile condition before a holy, pure creator. A revelation of your unholy, vile condition before a holy, pure creator. And unfortunately, this is one of the main missing ingredients in today's modern day American gospel. Sincere men have watered this down in an attempt to make the gospel more appealing. But that's really dangerous. Because how are we going to be saved, unless we see what we need to be saved from? You know, if I say, you need to be saved, to Joe Schmoes walking down the road, hey, you need to be saved. From what? Well, you just need to come to church. You know, he needs to see what he needs to be saved from. And what's happened is that there's been this great watering down of the first element of the gospel, which is this revelation comes upon a lost soul, I'm wicked, I'm vile, I'm unholy. And it within that same number one ingredient, a revelation of God in that he's holy. But today, the way the gospel is presented, and I would encourage you go to any Christian bookstore, go to the back of your church, pull up any gospel track. I should say 90% of gospel tracks. And you'll see a pattern. You're a sinner. You're going to hell. Jesus came to pay for your sins. It's summarized. You're a sinner. You're going to hell. Jesus came to pay for your sins. You know, and if you say this prayer, you'll be saved. And the aspect of you're a sinner, it's just kind of like one sentence of the message of the gospel. And you listen to a lot of gospel preachers, you read a lot of Christian books, and it's just mentioned in passing almost. I was at a Christian concert last night, really good band that I really appreciate. The guy preached, you know, a little three minute salvation message. Everything he said was true, and I agreed with him. But the problem was, it wasn't complete. You see, he said one sentence in reference to our sinful state before God. And then he spent a lot of time, you know, talking about God's love, and God's love is important. But all I'm saying is, all of these ingredients are important. And this is the first one. It's foundational, that the revelation that comes over me, that I am evil, that I'm wicked, that I'm unholy. And the revelation, I look at God, I see how pure he is, I see how holy he is. And this hits me like a ton of bricks, and it sobers me up, and it causes me to be broken before him. It's hardly spoken on, especially in emergent type churches and coffeehouses. Because it's, I mean, who wants to say that to somebody? I mean, it's not a positive thing. Like, hey, do you realize you're wicked? It makes you feel uncomfortable saying that. But it's so important, because we need to see what we need to be saved from. And you look at the story of Adam and Eve, and God said, don't eat the tree. And it says she saw that it was good, and she chose to disobey God. What was the essence of that sin there in the garden? The essence was, she chose the thing that was created over fellowship and relationship with the creator. She'd rather have the created thing than the creator. And when I say we're all wicked, we're all vile, I'm not saying we're murderers and we're rapists. A lot of times that is the standard in our mind. When you think of evil, you think of Hitler or Osama Bin Laden or something. When I talk about evil, here's my definition. Whenever I choose a created thing over fellowship with the creator, that's evil. I mean, what did they do that was so immoral in the Garden of Eden? It doesn't say they got drunk, or they killed people. They ate a fruit. What's so evil about eating a fruit? God said, you can have all the fruit in this whole garden, just not this one fruit. And they chose that created thing, knowing that the punishment was death. They said, we don't care. We want Adam more so than Eve. We'd rather have this created thing than fellowship with the creator. And my encouragement tonight is that we see that that is evil. God has made us for fellowship. He's made us for a relationship. And we all, from time to time in our life, have said no to that. And we've chosen things. And that's the essence or one of the essences of evil. We've broken his laws. I have four kids. I love my kids. I train my kids. You're not allowed to go out into the street. Because I love them, I don't want them to get by a car. I have a rule. If you go out into the street, there's punishment. God has made us. He knows what's best for us. He set up rules for us to live by. And when we violate those rules, that's called sin. And let's look at this real quick. Romans chapter three. And then we'll move on to the next one. Romans chapter three, verse nine. And I'd encourage you to ask yourself, how many times do you hear this type of Romans chapter three verbiage in modern day preaching or gospel tracts? A lot of times it's so positive. And it's true. God is love. God is mercy. God loves you. He died for you. That's all true. I'm not downplaying any of that. But how many times do you hear this? Romans chapter three, verse nine. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? No, not at all. We have already made the charge that the Jews and the Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, there is no righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They've all together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. Their tongues practice deceit. Poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways. And the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Some people say, man, that's pretty negative. Well, sometimes if we're going to build a house, we have to tear down an existing house. You see, sometimes it's necessary. Like it says in Ecclesiastes, there's a time to build, and there's a time to tear down. And it's necessary for us to tear down in order to build that which is proper. And if we're always emphasizing the positives of the gospel and never the negatives, then our results are not going to be right. And Paul is laying out here in the book of Romans, a foundation, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, pleading with a self-righteous man. See, in the same way that man has a lust to be religious, man is self-righteous. We somehow always think that we're better than the next guy. You talk to a guy that's a drunk and he says, oh, I'm not a drunk. I know a guy who is a drunk. He gets drunk three times a day. And you talk to the guy who gets drunk three times a day. Oh, I'm not a drunk. I know a guy, he's really drunk. He gets drunk four times a day. And we all do that to some extent. We all think we're not that bad, but we know other people that are. And what Paul is saying here is, no, there's none. We're all evil. We're all wicked. And a lot of times people don't see their own wickedness because they don't see God. And because of sake of time, I'm not going to turn here. But if you look at Isaiah six, he sees God for who God really is. And he falls on his face. He says, woe is me. I am ruined. I'm wicked. He's on his face because he sees God. And it's important when we're preaching the gospel, when we're teaching the good news of how a soul can get to know the creator of the universe, that we pray for them to have a revelation of who God really is. Because when someone sees how holy God is, how righteous he is, then they see themselves. This light's a perfect example. As I step back here, it's darker. As I come closer to the light, I see more of myself. As I come closer to God and see more of him, his light shines on me and I see more of my sin. So the first element, the first ingredient of salvation is that we have to see what God is like. And through seeing that, we're going to see how much we're not like him. Let me read this verse here. You don't have to turn, but Job, after 40 chapters of God dealing with Job, he finally says in Job 40, verse four, behold, I am vile. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand to my mouth. After 40 chapters, Job finally says, I'm vile. And my question to you tonight is, have you received a gospel that has brought you to that point where you say, I am vile? I remember hearing a story of a woman on her deathbed and someone trying to lead her to Christ. And she said, I want to say the prayer and get saved. And she was a wealthy, influential woman in the city there. And the next woman over in the same room was a prostitute and she was also dying. And the man leading the wealthy woman to Christ, he said, okay, before I can do this, you have to see that you're as wicked as this woman that was a prostitute. And she got all defensive. I'm not that wicked. I've never been a prostitute. I've always gone to church. And he said, I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't lead you to Christ. There's no hope for you until you see that you're just as bad as her. There's no hope for you. And he went home and she died. But today's gospel, they would have led her through a prayer. All you have to do is believe in Jesus, ma'am. I mean, I admit you're a sinner. Well, yeah, I know I'm a sinner. I mean, who's not going to admit that they are a sinner, you know, but it's more than just admitting you're a sinner. It's seeing like Job here in chapter 40, I am vile. I lay my hand in my mouth. I'm going to shut my mouth because I know nothing, Lord. You know everything. He goes on in chapter 42. He says, I've heard of you in the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you. Wherefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. He says, my whole life I heard about this God. And maybe you're here and you grew up in the church and you've heard about him, you know, your whole life you heard in Sunday school messages. But when salvation comes, you see him spiritually, you get a revelation of how real he is and how powerful is, how holy is. And then you abhor yourself. My question tonight is that there ever been a time in your life when you've seen yourself for who you really are, how evil you really are, how self righteous you really are, how conniving you really are. And you just, oh, I abhor myself. Or has the gospel that you receive kind of just been you're going along a path and you kind of just added it to your existing life. So, you know, again, I understand it's not popular. I mean, you turn on the TV and there's Joel Osteen. And, you know, I just don't want to tell people that they're going to hell. People don't need to hear that. They need to hear positive things. And that's why millions of people will watch somebody. And that's why you can buy, you know, a football stadium and pack it every Sunday with people. People love to hear positive things. But they need to hear reality. You know, people need reality, not positivity. Is that a real word? So, okay. You know, think back to the song Amazing Grace, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And churches are actually taking that and changing it to that saved someone like me. Because it kind of gels more, you know, with the culture that we're in. Well, I'm not a wretch. I'm someone, you know, like me. It doesn't sound as, you know, as bad. And you see this all throughout our culture. But you go back and you look at church history, you look at Finney, and you look at Charles Wesley, and you look at Whitefield. These guys would preach for weeks on the holiness of God, in the judgment of God, in the sinfulness of men, before they would ever even tell people how to be saved, before they even got to the subject of Jesus and the cross. They would just preach on sin for a week straight, to the point where people would say, hey, I mean, are you going to tell us what we can do now? I mean, like, get off this subject, you've been hitting it every night. And they'd say, no, you still aren't seeing how evil you are. And they'd say, come on, you just feel like going crazy. In fact, in one area, there was an actual disease called Wesley-Redfield disease. Because back then, you weren't allowed to get drunk. If someone found you drunk, you had to go to jail. So if somebody got drunk and passed out, they'd go to jail. And whenever this evangelist would come into town, people would be fainted on the ground. And they had to get a name for this disease so that these people wouldn't go to jail. They would see their sin so much that they would faint before God, just laying there. Oh, God, I'm waking. They'd faint. And then somebody would come by, and then they'd say, oh, is he drunk? And they'd try to smell his breath. Well, if he doesn't have alcohol in his breath, he's got Wesley-Redfield disease. We know Wesley was in town, so just leave him alone. We won't put him in jail. I mean, that's how these old-time guys preached. They preached hard on sin. They preached hard on the holiness of God. And you look at Martin Luther and the time that he went through before he came to Christ, where he saw his needs so much that he wanted to die. And then when the gospel came to him, boom, he responded. But nowadays, we want to just skip this thing, because it's not that pretty. It's kind of like getting an x-ray. And who wants to see what the inside of their body looks like? And you look at old books like Pilgrim's Progress, the slew of the spawn, where they're just walking through this swamp. And it's like, and they see how sinful they are. And then as they come out of that swamp, they see the cross. And this is such an important element, which brings us to the second ingredient. Number two, a revelation of your unbroken will. A revelation of your unbroken will. We must see that the root of all sin is ultimately this, me doing my will instead of God's will. It's the height of pride, because in essence, what I'm saying to God is, your will isn't what's best for me. I know what's best for me. It's my will. And let's turn and look at this in the scripture, Isaiah chapter 14. Isaiah chapter 14. This is the chapter that talks about Satan or Lucifer. And as you look into the chapter, you see that he was in heaven. He was an angel. And he eventually got kicked out of heaven. He didn't get kicked out of heaven for murdering or lying or stealing or getting drunk, committing adultery. He got kicked out of heaven for one thing. And it's right here five times in this chapter. Look at Isaiah 14, verse 12. How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, which doth weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt thy throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the high. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Five times Satan says, I will. And that's the root of sin. How many times have you done something that you know wasn't God's will? Maybe it was morally, maybe it wasn't even morally, but you knew this is not God's will. And I'm going to do it anyways. Have you done that more than five times? I know I have probably done it 5 million times. I knew what God's will is and I didn't do God's will anyways. I said, I will. And all it was was five times. And that's what got Satan cast out of heaven. So as we look at the gospel and as we look at the ingredients, the second ingredient is so important that we see that it's my unbroken will. Isaiah chapter 53 says, we've all like sheep. We've all gone astray. We've all turned every man to his own way. In essence, every one of us have said, I'm going to go my way. I'm going to do my thing. We're going along a self chosen way, doing what we want to do. And that's the essence of sin. John the Baptist said that, you know, when Jesus comes, he's going to lay the axe to the root. He's going to lay the axe to the root of sin. Well, when we think of sin, we think of murder, lying, cheating. Okay. And then maybe we get a little bit lower into evil speaking and judging and, you know, but the ultimately, the root of all sin is me doing my will instead of God, instead of God's will. And think about it. You think about Satan, he said, my will. What did Jesus say? Not my will, but thine be done. And that's the contrast there. Satan said, I will. Jesus said, not my will. Salvation came when someone finally said, not my will. And salvation will come to us when we submit to God and say, no longer my will. But this is not preached. This submission of my will to the creator. It's not emphasized. What's emphasized is the means, the death, the burial, the resurrection, the blood. Those are the means of salvation. But before we get to the means, we have to emphasize to people their will, the submitting of their will to a holy God. And notice this, you know, think about this, Alan and some of the guys that live here in this house. Suppose you invite some guy, you know, he needs a place to stay. He comes in here and he says, you know, Alan, I don't like that refrigerator in the kitchen. He just picks the refrigerator up and he says, I want to put it right in front of the fireplace, you know, and I don't like this, your organ, Alan. I'm just going to put it on the front porch, you know, and he just kind of does what he wants to do. You're not going to want to live with somebody like that. It's not going to jive very well. They just go into your room and do whatever they want. And you're not going to be able to have a relationship with someone that's doing their will. And ultimately, heaven is a place of people that are submitted to God's will. Nobody wants to live with someone doing their will. And God is the same way. Heaven is for those. It says God is preparing a place for them that love him. And I'm loving him. And we'll look at that. That's one of the aspects later on. And I'm submitting to him because I believe that what he says is best. My view of God is that he loves me. He cares about me. And everything he says is for my best. So I'm just going to do his will instead of my own will. But see, this whole thing about me doing my will, it's the essence. It's the essence of Satanism. You know, there's a satanic Bible. It was written by a guy named Anton LaVey. And they have 10 commandments in the satanic Bible, just like God has 10 commandments. And the number one commandment in the satanic Bible is this, do what thou will, thus saith the law. So this is you can look it up in satanic Bible, the number one commandment, do what you want to do. That's like the New Testament says, love God, and love man. That's the whole law. The satanic Bible says, whatever you want to do, do it. That's the law. That's the main thing. And a lot of people don't realize that's the essence of Satanism. When you know, when I think of Satanism, I think of a bunch of guys in front of the thing, you know, maybe with horns or some pitchfork or something and listening to crazy music. But no, the essence of Satanism is, if I could influence you to do your will, instead of God's will, I'm satanic. That's Satanism. And that seed, Anton LaVey's seed spread forth in the early 1900s. And it influenced culture. Anton LaVey lived a very wicked life. A hundred years ago, he was into heroin. A hundred years ago, when when culture was more moral, he was fornicating and molesting children. And he was, you know, very evil. But his seed that he put into culture was do what you want to do. And that seed went into colleges and went into music. And you look at bands like the Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and they have a lot of these different cut out cardboard pictures of people. And Anton LaVey is on the cover of their album. In fact, Sgt. Pepper is in reference to Anton LaVey, if I'm remembering correctly. There's another satanic teacher, it may be him, but I think it's Alistair Crowley. Yeah, Alistair Crowley. But, you know, bands like Led Zeppelin, you know, the guitar player for Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, bought Alistair Crowley's Mansion, you know, and Ozzy Osbourne sings about it. And so, that was about 60s and 70s, it started getting into music, it started getting into movies. And this seed of do whatever you want to do, and it just sprouted. And now it's just it's in movies, it's in music, it's in advertising, you know, obey your thirsts. You know, Sprite, obey your thirst. He who dies with the most toys wins. You know, these things like just do what you want to do. You know, life's short, play hard, you know, like just my will be done. But the message of the gospel cuts that at the root. It's no longer about you, about you doing your will. It's about you submitting to the Creator and doing His will. You know, I have a one-year-old baby and you take your finger and you put it in his hand, he just grabs it. We come into this world, grabbing, grabbing, grabbing. And Jesus came into this world and He let go. You see, He said, not my will. So, we have to emphasize this in the gospel. Okay, number three, we'll move along quickly on these last two. The number third revelation is a revelation of the fear of God. A revelation of the fear of God. And some of these kind of go hand in hand, but you can kind of see them building like a foundation. Man seeing his need for God and how holy God is. And then man seeing that the essence of his sin is him doing his own will. And then he kind of moves on from that and he has a revelation of a fear of God. And the Bible says in Proverbs chapter one, verse seven, very familiar verse, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. I mean, this is the beginning to show someone that they need to fear the Lord. What is the fear of the Lord? When I talk about the fear of the Lord, you know, people say, well, what is that? Let's look at that in Proverbs chapter eight. It kind of defines the fear of the Lord. Proverbs chapter eight, verse 13. It says, the fear of the Lord is so here's what the fear of the Lord is to hate pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth do I hate. So again, the fear of the Lord, when I get a revelation of the fear of the Lord, when it comes on me, then I begin to see the pride of man, I begin to see the arrogancy of man, the evil of man, the froward mouth and my own mouth, I begin to see pride in myself, I begin to see this. And then I fear God, because I see that I'm so unlike him. I'm so different than his character and his attributes. And it causes me to fear him. You know, some people, you know, when I talk about this, some people say we shouldn't fear God, we should love God. Well, true, we should love God. But we should fear God, because it's all over the Bible. And for sake of time, I'm not going to show one 10th of the verses, but you get a chance, just type in on the internet, fear of God into, you know, a Bible program. And there are tons, and tons and tons of verses that talk about fearing God. I'll just read a couple more here. Proverbs chapter 16, verse six, by mercy, and truth, iniquity is purged, and by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. So what what will cause someone to depart from evil, the fear of the Lord, psychology is not going to cause someone to part from the fear of evil man's philosophies. Positivity is not going to cause someone to depart from evil. When I see God, and see how evil I am, and I fear him, that will cause me to depart from evil. There's another verse in Psalm 211 that says serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. So now we're actually talking about I'm so afraid that I'm actually trembling. And you know, Philippians chapter two, verse 12, wherefore, beloved, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And my question to you tonight, as we look at the gospel, as we examine ourselves and see if we've received the real gospel, when is the last time that you've actually trembled before God in fear of him? Maybe in the middle of night, you wake up and you fear you're trembling, like, I'm so on Christ, like, Lord, have mercy on me, and you're trembling. Or is the gospel that you received this ticket to heaven, you're a sinner, you're going to hell, if you receive Jesus, you'll go to heaven and nothing will ever take that away. You're forever saved, everything's fine, you won't ever have to worry about anything. And so then you sin after that, and there's no longer a fear of God. I mean, maybe you're afraid that you'll get in a car accident or something, but you're not going to end up in hell. But the message of the gospel here is serve the Lord with fear and trembling. And look at this. It's amazing to me, this verse, when the Lord showed me this about 10 years ago, it changed my life. Let's turn to Revelation chapter 14, verse 6. This verse, when the Lord gave me revelation on it, it totally changed my life. It says, And I saw an angel fly in the midst of the heavens, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people. And what is this everlasting gospel that this angel is flying around all over the earth? What is this angel saying? It says in verse 7, saying with a loud voice, fear God and give him glory for the hour of his judgment has come and worship him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains and the water. So we see here that the everlasting gospel is fear God. Notice this angel doesn't fly all over the earth saying, get saved or accept Jesus or say the sinner's prayer. It takes the whole message of the gospel and it sums it up in two words. It takes this message and it says, fear God. And why do we have to fear him? People say, why should we fear him? We should just love God. Well, we should love God, but we should also fear him. Jesus tells us why we should fear him. In Luke chapter 12, Luke chapter 12, verse 5 says, But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear. Fear him, which after he has killed the body has the power to cast you into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear him. So Jesus in Luke chapter 12, verse 5 tells us why we should fear God. You know, he says in the first above, don't fear man who's just able to kill your body, but fear him who after he's killed the body is able to cast you into hell. So the reason that we should fear God is because he has the power to cast us into hell, eternal separation from him. And this brings us to the last ingredient that we're going to look at tonight. The fourth one, number four, a revelation of the reality of death and of the coming judgment of God. The revelation of the reality of death and of the coming judgment of God. The reason that we should fear him is because someday we're going to have to give an account to him for all that we've done. And this is a key ingredient in the gospel. And many, many have taken this ingredient out because it's not positive. We all need a revelation that our life is like a vapor. Time is moving. We are in this thing called a time space capsule. And our life is going along and it's going faster and faster and faster. And just think back to when you were in junior high and the thought of being in high school and graduating, it just seemed like a million years away. It just seemed like it would never eventually come. And then all of a sudden you graduated from high school and maybe you went to college and the thought of graduating from college seemed like so many years away. And I remember I had to wait four years to marry my wife because her father would not let us marry until she graduated from college. And the thought of waiting four years to marry my wife just seemed like an eternity. And then we got married and then we had a daughter and now she's nine years old and we have three others and time is just moving faster and faster. In fact, many old people will attest to the fact that as you get older, the years get shorter and shorter and shorter. It's like a snowball effect. So our life here, it's a blink of an eye compared to eternity. It's a vapor and it's moving along and the statistics are out there. 10 out of 10 die. Every one of us is going to die. And as soon as we die, we're going to stand before God. And this is a revelation that must come upon a lost sinner and that must come upon someone when they're trying to seek God. They must see the severity. They must see that the reality that someday they will stand before a holy God. This creator has the ability in that day to separate me into an eternal lake of fire. And this is, it's very, very serious. And in that day of judgment, he'll play a videotape of my life. Everything I've ever done, every word I've ever spoken will be brought up in that day. And I don't know about you, but that brings a fear of God to me. And the only hope that I'm going to have in that day is if I'm in Christ. But see, if the gospel is just presented only as a positive thing, then you're skipping this key ingredient. Let's look at Revelation chapter 20. As we saw earlier, we're going to be judged in the day of judgment by the word of God. And it's amazing. God has actually given us a glimpse of the future. He's given us a glimpse of what is going to happen in the last days, in the day of judgment. And it's in Revelation chapter 20 verse 12 here. It says, I saw the dead, small and great stand before God. And the books were open and another book was open, which is the book of life and the death and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead, which were in them and death and hell were delivered up, death and hell delivered up the dead, which were in them. And they were judged every man, according to their works and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Someday, every single one of us sitting here will see this happen. We will stand before the God of the universe, this great white throne. We will see people cast into the lake of fire. We'll see people be welcomed into the kingdom of God. And we, every single one of us will be in this line, standing before God, contemplating our lives. And I don't know about you, but when I'm standing in that line, waiting to be judged, I don't want to have any questions. I don't want to have any insecurity. In that moment, I want to be sure that I'm going to be saved. And that's the message of the gospel. And look at Revelation chapter 21, and we'll close with this verse. Revelation chapter 21 says in verse seven, he who overcomes will inherit all things. And I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. It's only after a man sees that he is vile, he sees that the ultimate root sin is his self-will, and that the fear of God comes on him and the reality that he's going to stand before God. It is only after all this that we can then get to the good news of salvation. We cannot skip over this and present a gospel that is simply a positive thing, one that can be added to someone's existing life. So I just pray that as we spend time between now and the next message, that we would contemplate these things and beg God to give us revelations, these four revelations. Maybe you've received a gospel that hasn't presented it like this. Maybe you've banked on a false gospel. There's hope. He will have mercy. He will pardon all who will repent and turn to him, and that's what we'll be looking at tomorrow. Let's close in prayer. Father, I just pray that you would use these words for your kingdom's sake to draw many to Jesus, that you would grant repentance and acknowledging of the truth. I love you. I thank you for tonight, and I just ask that you would just fill all of us with your spirit. Give us revelation. Save us from self-deception. Save us from ourselves. Help us to see all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.