Shane Idleman delivers a powerful sermon titled 'The Day God Was Sorry,' emphasizing the pervasive wickedness of humanity and God's grief over sin. He reflects on the genealogies from Adam to Noah, illustrating how the increasing lifespan of man led to greater depravity. Idleman warns against the dangers of lust and superficial attraction in relationships, urging listeners to seek inner beauty and righteousness. He highlights the importance of repentance and the transformative power of God's grace, reminding the congregation that sin grows if left unchecked. Ultimately, he calls for a return to God, emphasizing that true spiritual hunger is measured by our pursuit of Him.

The title is The Day God Was Sorry. That title really struck me this week because the scarlet thread of redemption, they say, runs through the entire Bible. But so does the blackness of sin, the depravity of man. And we look, we're going into chapter five and we'll find out that Adam lived 130 years. Remember, I'm not reading exactly verse by verse, I'm just pulling out principles and then in some places, just going straight through the scripture. We find that Adam lived 130 years and then he had Seth. So all the days that Adam lived were 930. Now, we could talk for a while about the condition of the earth, the condition of the atmosphere, is that really 930 literal days? And I have no reason to believe it's not because if you look at the genealogy, you look at the time span, you look at the way things happened, it looks like, now it could be the, the Gregarian calendar, the Jewish calendar, the Roman calendar, what exactly is a year? But we know that there's an extended amount of time. Could have been that everything was very, very healthy, beneficial from the food that they consumed and the environment and all those things. See, the body wears down internally. Our cells can divide and multiply and keep going and keep living, but a toxic environment comes in and begins to wear us down and break us down because of the fall. And so Adam lived 930 years and Noah was 500 years when he had Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 500-year-old man. And then a very sad part of the Bible is revealed in chapter six. The title in many of your Bibles is probably the wickedness and judgment of man. In chapter six, verse one, now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men, they saw them and that they were beautiful and they took wives for themselves of anyone that they chose. Now I want to throw out a Bible trivia question here because my kids ask me answer, well, did they marry brothers and sisters? Like where did, what, I don't understand this. Well, by the time Adam fathered Seth, he had already lived 130 years, so several generations could have been born. Massive amounts of people. We don't have true numbers, but if you can run the numbers, and they have before statistics and without birth control, and with just, you know, it wasn't uncommon for people to have 10 children or more even 50, 60 years ago. I know a lot of my family came from families of eight, nine, 10 children. We've had a few families come here that have 11 kids. And it wasn't uncommon because if God is not, if birth is not being prevented, who knows what type of number, they just multiply and multiply. And so many, many, many people were on the face of the earth at least in that generalized area there. And so several generations could have been born and that's where marriage came from is this type of environment. But something that really stood out that might encourage some people or someone listening, the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful. And so we see the lust of the flesh. There's nothing wrong with being attracted to your spouse. Please be attracted to your spouse. But if the decision is made only on the basis of beauty, you can make some very bad decisions. Because that is the lust of the flesh drawing. And if that's drawing, that's not gonna be able to keep it. And that's why people get into trouble in relationships in marriage because they're drawn by the lust of all that person. Look at that person. I mean, everybody when I was growing up loved Brad Pitt. If I could just marry Brad Pitt and they would scream. But his marriage is probably, well, past marriage. And so if that's all, now that should draw you, but inner beauty should be the drawing. And then the outer expression of that is also attractive. So young people, single people, don't just look for beauty alone. Be drawn to the inner person. That God is, what God is doing in their heart. And they took wives. So it's a strong word in the Hebrew. It's a, you know, this is my wife. They took wives for themselves. And I actually do like the seven-day service because I can fix my mistakes for the next services. So you guys are the guinea pigs. And then verse three. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive, which is fight against man forever. For he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. Now, it's either a countdown to the flood, which was, it took a long, long time, or the maximum life expectancy. Those are your options. I would probably lean towards life expectancy, that God begin to shut down the life expectancy of man because we see that Adam, Methuselah, Noah, all those, Shem, or not Shem, but Enoch, he was taken by God. But you see, these people living tremendous amounts of years and then God says, enough of this foolishness. Enough of this, I'm gonna limit the lifespan of man. And it kind of showed me that the older people were becoming, the more evil they were becoming. Because when you're evil, you can wipe out good. You can kill those people who are good and righteous and they can't, they're not evil, so they're not gonna fight back. Or was all of man's heart depraved? And I don't know, I just know the length of life began to fuel evil, it appears. And then verse four, I know what everyone's thinking. They're waiting for me to get to this part. There were giants on the earth in those days. And again, all we have is scripture. The word, again, if you look at the language that it was written in, something was different about these people. The giants, the word, it's kind of where we get a word enormous or beyond normality. And there's a, whoa, I mean, if you ever, if Shaquille O'Neal walked in here, I mean, have you ever seen those guys in person? It's like, it's amazing. And it could be even greater than that. The height, I mean, if we take the height of Goliath literally, I mean, almost, I think around nine feet tall or so. But it's not hard to believe because you can see how the body could keep growing and growing and expanding. God designed us to be able to grow. So somehow there were giants on the earth in those days and also afterward. Here's what caused that. When the sons of God came into the daughters of men, they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men of old, men of renown. So to me, this language suggests there's something different. There's something, I mean, to say giants and mighty men of renown, that's not language it would normally just follow some type of, like when Ezra came and rebuked the children of Israel because they had taken pagan wives and they had corrupted themselves. And you don't see that type of union maybe being talked about here. Many theologians, a theologian is those people who have a degree in theology. They've apparently went to a university and they've worked many years and they've written dissertations and they have a PhD. Now that is good, but without the spirit of God, you don't impress me. Because you can be well-learned intellectually but miss the heart of God. The most powerful theologians that you will ever meet is men, even women that have studied the word of God. They're saturated by the word of God. They're led by the spirit of God and they might have a degree, they might not. That really doesn't matter. And that's why I often say I'd rather have a degree from the master than a master's degree. And not putting down schooling, I think education is very important. Fortunately, God put in me a very type A self-discipline personality where I love to study and study and study and read systematic theology and books on theology and church history and you gotta have that desire. But ultimately, are they filled with the spirit of God? Are they directed by God himself? So let's talk about this for a minute because it's interesting. The significance of the sons, the significance of the sons. It's the sons of Elohim. When you, the sons of Elohim in that word here actually doesn't have to necessarily be lined up with goodness. Because there's other references where these people are not necessarily good because you hear the word Elohim and you instantly think, oh, must be godly and righteous, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. So looking over this, Jewish expositors said that they were the men of high rank. I don't think so. Number two option, the sons of Elohim were godly Sethites. And Benson commentary said this, the posterity of Seth did not keep to themselves as they ought but intermingled with the race of Cain. Now that's a little bit more compelling than number one because what he's saying is there was a godly lineage, the godly lineage of Seth and was not to intermarry, intermarry, intermingle, be part of this wicked line of Cain. But also we see that all of man's heart was depraved and we see that the wickedness was just about everywhere. So the third option is very interesting. They were angels or better said demons. And if you look up, I think I gave some references there that you could look up in Jude and second Peter. And people say, well, this couldn't be angel shame because Jesus said in Matthew 22, that like the angels, there is no marriage. However, Jesus didn't say they could not marry or they did not marry or they didn't have the ability to procreate because we see angels often taking human form. An angel would come to Abram and Sarah and say, you're gonna be with child. Oh no, I don't think so. Angels came as human beings and pulled out Lot and his family from Sodom and Gomorrah. So I'll tell you what, I don't know, it's interesting, but here's what really got me, Job 1, 6, the exact same word. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. So if you look at the totality of Scripture, it would appear that this demonic type of creation, the angels, maybe fallen angels, intermarried, intermingled with man and produced this perverted race. That would be where I would lean at this point. I went back and forth over the years and all we have is Scripture and it's really not a hero to die on. And you can tell somebody's heart, I love those people that they'll send an email about this long and they'll say, no, no, that's impossible, you're a false prophet, you're a false, guys, no, no, no, no, no. We're allowed opinion when God's word isn't crystal clear. And we can show, hey, here's some ideas, but if you look at the sons of man and you look up other Scriptures in the context, it could be that this happened. And that's where I would probably hang my hat because we need more people making righteous judgments. And we need some people who are making judgments to be quiet for a while and humble themselves and put their pride and arrogance on this altar and never open their mouth until God says. That's what's hurting a lot of people and doing a lot of damage in the church, prideful, arrogant people who wanna quote Scripture at people and beat people up with the Bible. It has to come first from a heart that has been broken before God because it takes broken people to break people, a broken man to break men. And again, I wanna just really encourage you to listen to that message last night. I felt the fire of God the whole way through, talked about the blessing of brokenness, that the desperate need to be broken and humbled before God. When Moses was broken on the backside of the desert, then God could use him. When Paul was broken and knocked off his beast, then God could use him. When Isaiah saw the living God, he said, I'm a man undone. I'm undone. God, I have seen the risen Savior. I've seen the risen Lord high and lofty on his throne. The angels are crying, holy, holy, holy, holy, and the whole temple is shaking. Holy, holy, holy is our God. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a people who are unclean and I have seen the risen Lord. When you have a picture of who God really is and all his holiness and all his beauty, you will fall on your face and not be able to handle the magnitude and the gravity of that sight. It will break you. It will break you. One thing we started doing a long time ago at this church, so many people wanna get involved in it and they wanna serve. But we ask, has God broken you yet? Has God humbled you? That's the key to ministry. That's the key to service is being broken by God and getting off your high horse. Verse five, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth. And I also could believe that this is what caused great wickedness, this unholy union, this gone crazy. Angels caught on camera. What was that one? Yeah, I don't wanna say it, but angels gone wild. And just something, just depravity, the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent and the thoughts of his heart was only on evil continually. Can you imagine living in that environment? Sometimes we feel like we are. It's like, can the news get any more perverted with the stories out there? It's just, I don't wanna upset your morning, but it's just, can we get more perverted than this? In verse six, this is what really just has been on my heart all week. And the Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. So again, it appears that wickedness increased the more time we are here or increases the more time we're here. Now, of course, the age old argument, why was God sorry if he knew? And there are those out there who would say, God didn't really know how people are going to choose. It's kinda like, and I can't really embrace that view, but maybe creating and then knowing. And do you ever know something and then when you finally see it, it really hits? Because you know, for example, someone's gonna get married that you know they shouldn't, you know, and a couple of years go by and then the marriage falls apart, maybe in your own child's life. And then there's a grieving, you're sorry, even though you knew it, the reality hits in. And we see this is clearly even Romans one, the more suppressed and the deeper you go in sin, the more wicked and depraved you become. I don't remember his name, it just actually just came to me now, but I haven't thought of this in a few years. The man who James Dobson visited in prison, a serial killer. Bunyan or Bun, no, not Jeffrey Dahmer. Bundy, there we go, Bundy, I knew it was Bunyan, something like that, Bundy. And I watched the interview and it was just, I'm not gonna go into detail with what he did, but he told Dobson that it all started with innocent, what he considered pornography. And then that wasn't enough. And then got deeper and deeper and deeper. And you'll see this, and probably Jeffrey Dahmer, some of you mentioned, it started out with killing cats in the neighborhood. See, sin does not stay static. It either grows or withers, depending on whether you feed or starve it. And in this case, they begin to just, their sin begin to grow and grow, and it became so depraved. When God looks down and is sorry, that just broke my heart. And so obviously, I would encourage you, I don't know if I put it up there, I might've thought about this later, but turn away from sin today. Turn away from sin today. I'm not standing up here as a perfect man. I'm standing up here as a man who wants to deal with sin every day. Pride comes into my heart. Bad moods come into my heart. Anger comes into my heart. Bitterness comes into my heart. And you've gotta lay it at the foot of the cross, take those thoughts captive, repent and get on this altar if you need to be. And then the cleansing, redemptive work of Christ and the Holy Spirit comes in and changes your heart. It's amazing. I still can't get over this. I don't know if he'll hear this or he'll be here later, but if any of you heard Tito's testimony, when he gave, I think you'll be okay with sharing this, but his emails to me a few weeks ago weren't very nice. He was leaving the church. You know, I go on rants, I'm to this. I'm like, well, I'm sorry, I'm just, you know, it's what God's called me to do. And then God breaks his heart. Repentance takes place. Love comes in. He's crazy. I see him on a Wednesday night. I'm like, oh my goodness, this isn't good. Man, I preach in the, I'm looking around. I know that person is like me. I know that person about ready to leave. I know, and you gotta still be faithful. The only person that, the only reason that guy's there is because his wife drug him in. The only reason that teenager's up there is because his parents, and I've got this whole environment. They hate me. They can't just wait to get to this altar. This person is judging every single word I say. We've got one person here who emails me after every sermon. Every single sermon where I messed up. And so you have that whole, you'd be amazed at what goes through my mind. And so I see him Wednesday night. I'm like, oh, whew, okay. And then here he comes afterwards, and he's crying. And God just broke his heart. It was just amazing to watch those things. How do you go from that to that? Jesus. Jesus in the mountains. Jesus in the streets. Jesus in our church. Oh, Jesus in our homes. Exalt the name of Christ because he sets the captives free. God was sorry. Now there's an interesting topic as well for Bible students. Is he literally sorry? Or I'll let you read the word anthropopathic. I put up there so in case I mispronounced it, you can read that word. You try it. Anthropopathic. Literal or anthropopathic. Meaning literally he was grieved. He was sorry. Or the big word, we put our own emotions onto God in describing him. If we can grieve the Holy Spirit though, and so somehow we just know that the Bible says that God was sorry. He was grieved in his heart. And then you immediately think in the New Testament how you can grieve the Holy Spirit of God by sinning and by holding in bitterness and anger and pride and all these things that grieve the heart of God. And the Bible does talk about God having emotions. That he was angry. That he was jealous. Wait a minute, that jealousy wasn't good. Well, just like anger. There can be righteous indignation. There can be good anger because it's okay to say I'm angry over these things that break the heart of God. And that anger is okay. It actually, that anger might propel us to take godly action. But then there's a good type of jealousy. Husbands, you should be jealous if somebody's hitting on your wife. Woe be the man who says I don't care. That guy who says that has a girlfriend. On the side. And that's not good. If that's you, you need to repent big time today. You need to find yourself on this altar. You need to just call out to God and repent of that sin. Oh, one person claps for that too. See, this is a. But God says I'm a jealous God. The reason he says that God is jealous is because he's jealous of you. Jealous for the affections of the children of Israel who began to follow other gods and they would give their hearts over to these other gods. They would bow to these other gods. They would worship these other gods. They would burn their children on the searing hands of Molech in this type of sacrifice of children. And God says I'm jealous to have you back. You've given up your affections to another. And he called it spiritual adultery. And it still happens today. Many believers, oh, they'll come and worship God on Sunday and they lift up holy hands on Sunday. But they're going and they're leaving and they're worshiping these other things and giving their heart to other things. But Shane, can you be a little more clear? Yes, where is your time and where is your money? Let me see your checkbook and your calendar and I can tell you who or what you worship. Is that not true? We don't have little altars anymore. We don't have little statues and idols, you know, like Buddha and Hindu, they do. But we have plenty of altars. We call it an entertainment center at home and it's 50 inches. And we give it all the time we can give it and we love this. And church every night of the week at six down, no, give me some Netflix. Give me some voodoo. Give me some media and some entertainment. And let me bow down and worship these gods. Let me give these gods my time and my energy. Let them influence me and begin to captivate my thinking. And I begin to center my day around these gods of entertainment. God is jealous for his people to get back to the real church of Jesus Christ and come and lay down their sins at the altar. Can you put God on your calendar again? What is wrong with us when God is not the priority? When we might squeeze him in if he fits into our schedule. No wonder we are dying spiritually. No wonder we are starving for more of God's food. No wonder we are thirsting at a well that will never satisfy. Jesus said, come and drink of my water and you will never thirst again. And believe it or not, we're just not having church every night at six because we think it's a great idea. It's actually not a good idea if God's not in it because it will burn you out. It will burn us out. But it's a wonderful way of saying, God, you are our priority again. As the days get darker, the light has got to get brighter. And the only way to find the brightness and the glory of Christ is to begin to seek him like never before. There's a promise that I will always hold onto. God doesn't say maybe if I'm in a good mood, if I'm not on vacation. He says, whenever you seek me, whenever you seek me, lay down these other idols, you will find me. And the more you find me, the more you seek me, the more you seek me, the more you love me. And it's an all-consuming fire. Isn't that true? True spiritual hunger is measured by how much we seek God. Why do I have to come to church to do that? No, you don't. You can do it at home. And I'm gonna ask your wife if you're doing it to see if you're just playing tough guy. Listen, I can see through facades. I'm not a little infant. And the same thing applies to many of you. We know what's really valuable. We know that our hunger and our desire can be measured for God. On that note, I've seen it so many times over the years. And I just, now I don't argue with these people. I just pray for them. Might be some of you in this room. Might be some that have left the church. But anytime I talk about these kind of things, like drawing into God. Do you know we have a 7 a.m. service? We used to put on worship at 6 a.m. There was 45 people here at six in the morning for the prayer meeting this morning. And there was a hunger. And I'm just talking about true things, guys. And without a shadow of a doubt, hard-hearted people would always come to me and go, I don't need to be there. I do that at home. Number one, if you really do that at home, you don't need to come up and lecture me because you're convicted that I said something. If you really do, you don't need to tell people. And so out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth is going to speak conviction and blame and excuses keep us away from the power of God. Oh, I know there will be breakthroughs. I know, and that's what compels me to be passionate. I'm not angry, I'm very passionate about what God wants to do in our hearts. But if we're not here, he won't move. Are you saying God won't move at my house? Of course he will. He'll move in your car. He'll move at a restaurant. He'll move in a field. It doesn't matter, but there is something when we lay down our agendas and we say, I've got to find God like the woman with the issue of blood for many years. Move, move, move, move. If I just touch the hem of his garment and he said, somebody touch me, but they said who all these people, somebody know I felt power go out because the woman had faith. And last night I talked about the group of people they got there and the crowd was too great. They couldn't get to Jesus. You know how many people say, well, time to go in and out. I've talked to people. Man, I wanted to visit your church a couple months ago. It's not my church. Never say that, it's God's church. We're just steering the Titanic before it hits the icebergs in America. But it's so crowded. The parking lot, I just, I went and ate lunch. Do you know you can park in the dirt? I mean, but see, we love to make excuses when we don't want to do certain things. We will find, I just, remember back in the old days on Black Friday before the internet? Even my wife, I'm like, you're up, it's 4.30 in the morning. God, we gotta go shopping. We gotta get to Target first. We gotta get, but no, there used to be lines. People would bring sleeping bags and tents and they would stay right outside of Best Buy. I gotta get there the night before to get my child this. Oh, if we could get that hunger for God, you might see God run the heavens and break down and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. Oh, can you imagine that hunger for God? They're sleeping out front. Where is that? Because the God of the universe still wants to speak to us. You buy a $600 toy that your kids eventually fight over and don't even use anymore. Where is the hunger for the things of God? And people get so, what is God doing in America? Where is God? Why didn't he give us this person in office or this or this? Where's your hunger for God? And again, God was sorry. He grieved. Can you imagine looking at everything you created and grieving over it? That's a good reminder today. If you are grieving the Holy Spirit, leave that on the altar this morning. Leave it in your pew if you don't wanna come to the altar. Leave it somewhere, but don't leave it in your heart. Because sin does not remain static. That word means neutral. It either grows. Did you know sin will grow? Or it will wither depending on whether you feed or starve it. And so many people say, I got this. I got this. I'm in control. You can never manage sin. Let me tell you. As God is my witness, it will manage you. It will control you. Sin takes you farther than you ever wanna go. Keeps you longer than you'll ever wanna stay and costs you more than you'll ever want to pay. That's why repentance, the balcony's excited, okay. But that's why repentance will set you free. Jesus said, for this reason I have come. The whole reason that I have come. He reads the scroll of Isaiah. He said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's called me. He's anointed me to set the captives free, to break open the prison doors, to lead the poor to salvation, to preach the good news to them. What is the good news? That there is bad news. And without repentance, you will not know the good news. Disciples, go and preach repentance. John the Baptist preached repentance. Revelation calls us to repentance. Genesis says, oh, if they would've just repented at the coming, or Jesus actually said, looking at the city of Jerusalem, if they would've just repented at the coming of the Son of God, they would not have all these calamities come upon him. Yes, I know this is not popular, but it is powerful. It does not tickle the ears. It challenges the heart. It's not soothing to the heart. It cuts to the heart. It divides. The word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword. There's a reason the Bible doesn't call the word of God a soft pillow or a little cute bunny rabbit. It says it is a sword. There is nothing more powerful than that in Paul's day that it goes and it penetrates the heart. It cuts and it divides. And you'll either say, oh my God, we need you, or you'll leave here and you'll despise this sermon. Because it's cutting, it's dividing. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I've created. You see, sin cannot go unpunished. Sin cannot go unpunished. On this issue of sin, how it grows, I forgot to mention it at this third service. That's why every service is different, right, Joe? All kinds of things going through my mind to share with you. It speaks to people differently. But I mentioned a guy by the name of serial killer, Bundy. Do you remember that name? I watched a very intriguing interview with him many years ago. I don't even know how many years, 25, 30 years ago. James Dobson interviewed him while he was on death row, before he was executed. Horrific things. And he said, I'll never forget, he said, what started all this? And he said, I'll never forget. He didn't even, he said, I'll never forget. It's when I began looking at pornography as a kid. And it got more perverted, more twisted. Remember the name Ariel Castro? Who held up a couple girls in his house for years? He said the same thing. You talk to people, incarcerated. You talk to people who have done the unthinkable. It started with not the unthinkable. It started with the small compromises, the small sin. Once he gets root, it grows and it grows. We've prayed for so many times, so many people, God's bringing so many people addicted to certain things and setting them free. It's amazing. You don't know one-tenth of what God is doing here. I wish we could share more of it. We do a Monday through Friday on testimony nights and different things. But many times, I could control it when I was younger, but now it's destroyed me. It's held on. The alcoholic can't go back to his beer and try to have one. Once he opens that door, the opiate user, marijuana user, you name it, sin does not just stand still. It is sent to destroy and to take you out. And the thief cometh but to kill, to steal, and to destroy. Folks, I think the major problem with the American church is you don't hear things like this anymore. It's not very popular. Is it? It's not very popular. I know what other churches out there in the Valley say about me. Oh, that guy's so extreme, so radical. He must be mean at home, and he's angry, and what's wrong? Oh, that poor guy's a legalistic Pharisee. No, I've just fell in love with Jesus Christ, and I'm filled with God's Spirit. I wanna see people set free. I wanna see people set free from the bondage of sin and death. For whoever the Son sets free is free indeed. How do you help someone get released from bondage if you don't talk about what's binding them? How do you not talk about the blackness and depravity of man if you don't also share the glorious light of Jesus Christ? You can't just talk about positive things and seven ways to enjoy your life and 11 steps to financial prosperity, 12 ways to get a breakthrough. Come on, folks, we gotta get back to the old time, preaching of sin and bringing redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ. Though I will fall, God will hold me up and restore me again. The same with you. Encouraging and building up. A murderer cannot stand before a judge and list all the good things he's done. Bundy, right before his execution, cannot say, hold on, hold on, judge, let me show you this list. It goes 40 feet long of all the good things I've ever done. Would any judge let him go? Why? Because they understand the action of that sin requires the punishment that nothing can wipe out. Now you understand the precious gift we have by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Because nothing we can do, nothing. God doesn't even, he actually says, your good works are but filthy rags. And I know self-righteous people get upset at this point and you should. Because you cannot stand before God no matter who you are or what you did. And we realize that my good works can never measure up to God's grace. And so for those of you wondering, and I'm sure people listening, I don't understand this. I don't understand that. How could God take this from me? How could God allow, and I don't know, I just know this. I'm not gonna go to hell over a mystery. I'm not gonna live the rest of my life upset at God and be depressed and miserable and die a miserable death over a mystery. I'm gonna rest in the sovereignty of God. If he takes me next week or 30 years from now, I'm gonna rest in the sovereignty of God. When I look in the news and I see hell and depravity, I'm gonna rest in the sovereignty of God. I'm not gonna let the Huffington Post and Drudge Report and Fox News and CNN control my emotional stability. I'm gonna rest in the sovereignty of God. God extended his favor to us. Grace is what saves us. Look at Ephesians 2.8. Many of you know that verse. For by grace we have been saved. By faith, not by good work, so no man can boast. Grace is the essence of the gospel in Acts 20, 24. They said we have testified to the grace of God. And then also grace gives us victory over sin. Grace gives us victory over sin. Did you know that? James 4, 6, but he gives more grace. Therefore, it says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Could it be that God is currently opposing you because of pride and arrogance? There's a wall built up and God's grace cannot flow through you in a mighty, powerful way because the pride and arrogance of the human heart keeps God at a distance. And God says, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. In due time, I will exalt you. My grace will overflow you if you humble yourself. The only thing that gains us access is the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That's why there's so much, believe it or not, I can't even wait to get into Leviticus. Because you start to see Christ in everything. That there was, in the temple, there was a holy of holies. You step in there, you're dead, you're toad. You can't go into the holies of holies where the high priest once a year would make atonement for the sins of the people. This big curtain, he would just go and I don't know if it's true tradition, they said it was like a rope was even tied on his foot and he had some bells and if he didn't return, they would pull him out because nobody's going into the holies of holies. There's not biblical support, but I like the idea. And so, I mean, they would just, they would get their hearts right. They would go through all the ceremony, like, I'm stepping into the holies of holies. Every, can you imagine? Like, God could just strike you dead and you're going to make us sins. You're probably trembling. You've got the blood of the goat, the sacrificial, and you're doing this. Don't mess up, don't. And you're interceding for the people and you've got the high, I'm glad this is over. I can't do this again for another year. And you're interceding. But then, when Jesus paid the price on the cross, something that a lot of people don't realize, why would the Bible say that the veil in the temple was ripped, 20 foot section of it was just ripped from the top to the bottom? Now, what everyone was scared of now, he says, boldly come into the throne room of Jesus because of the blood of Jesus Christ. You can walk straight into that holies of holies. Say, God, I can stand before you because someone paid my price. No intercessor, priest, Roman Catholicism. You don't have to go talk to a man. You talk to the mediator who is Jesus Christ, wants paid for all the sins. And you walk boldly into the holies of holies and you can stand there because the shed blood of Jesus Christ has covered you. There is no shame, there is no guilt. Oh, now you can see how deep the father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son and make a wretch his treasure. And we're gonna focus on those wonderful, beautiful lyrics. How deep the father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure that he would give his only son and make a wretch his treasure. And that talks about with searing loss, the father turns his face. Did you know that God separated for an instant from his son? At least reading text and you see the pain in Jesus crying out, Eli, Eli, Lama Zabatchini. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The only explanation is that when he absorbed the entire wrath. Can you imagine absorbing the entire wrath of God on all of mankind, all of the sin, the billions, the trillions and the magnitude of the sin and that's why they say the nails didn't keep him there. The sin kept him there, paying that final price and saying, father, where have you gone? Why have you forsaken me? At that moment in time, it's the only alternative. The only answer is that the wrath of God, the word propitiation in the New Testament means he absorbed the wrath of God. See, there had to be a penalty, Bundy. There had to be something has to be paid. The righteous judge is not gonna say, oh, look at all those good words. The righteous judge says there has to be a penalty. There has to be a cost. There has to be a penalty. The wages of sin is death. We are under the condemnation and wrath of God and then someone steps up and John the Baptist says, there comes the law of God, the lamb that taketh away the sin of the world and he came before us and he paid that price and he said, father, father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And the last words to tell us that, it is finished. If that doesn't cause you to worship, folks, you're in the wrong place. Go hit the in and out line before it gets busy. Go stop at Jack's place. If that doesn't dig deep into your heart and say, I've got to worship him. Folks, something is wrong. You need spiritual resuscitation. Wake up spiritually. Wake up. And so if you don't know Jesus today, the Bible says repent of your sin and confess Christ as Lord and Savior. Stop playing games. I haven't said this in a long time, but I was reminded of it. If you don't like what I'm saying, it's because you need to hear what I'm saying.