In this sermon, the preacher uses a powerful illustration to emphasize the need for justice. He describes a scenario where a person's entire family is brutally murdered, and the murderer is caught and brought before a loving judge. However, instead of receiving punishment, the judge declares the murderer pardoned. The preacher highlights the injustice of this situation and compares it to the righteousness of God. He explains that through faith in Jesus Christ, believers are declared righteous and forgiven, based on the merit of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. The preacher urges the listeners to respond with fear and humility, recognizing their need for God's mercy and redemption.

Let's open up our Bibles to Romans chapter three, Romans chapter three, verse twenty three. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting it is excluded by what kind of law of works? No, but by a law of faith. Let's pray. Father, we come before you. In the name of your son. We are so needy. Of grace and mercy. Our time of need is every moment. We need the every hour. Father, if the accuser were to come against us, we could not stand on our own. And so we praise you, Lord, that we do not have to. That our elder brother has triumphed. And it's not a shame to call us brothers. We pray that tonight that he would get glory for himself. That his word be preached. And that the Holy Spirit may work among men. Changing hearts. And planting greater ideas. Greater thoughts about God. Filling. Men with the Holy Spirit. And leading them to a victorious life. To triumph over sin. To resist the devil and the world. To be an instrument of righteousness. God, help us. We will be helped. In Jesus name. Amen. I have read a passage that I think if our hearts were right. It would lead us to weeping. With joy. With praise, with adoration. In these simple verses, you have heard things that scribes and kings and teachers and prophets long to hear would have died a thousand deaths to hear. And throughout church history, some of the greatest preachers who ever walked on the face of the earth considered this passage to be the greatest passage in all the Bible. Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd-Jones referred to this as the Acropolis, the fortified city of the Christian faith. If I had to lose all the scriptures except one portion, I would choose to keep this portion for myself. There is enough truth here to lead us through a thousand eternities, and even after all those eternities are done, we would still not comprehend all the glory revealed in this passage. That is the gospel. I'm amazed at men that are so amazed at things about the second coming and are so filled with desire to know every nut and bolt of when Christ will come back and exactly how he will do it. But I can assure you this, you will know absolutely everything about the second coming on the day it occurs. But you will spend a thousand eternities in glory and not even begin to comprehend the glory of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the message above them all. I'm amazed at Charles Spurgeon, considered the prince of preachers, and I would consider him to be the prince of all preachers. And yet when you look at the way he preached, he broke every rule that we have today on correct expository preaching. And really, the man only had one theme. I mean, if you preach the same message all the time, you're bound to get good at it. He had one theme and it was Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead, every passage he took, he made a beeline for the cross. Now, let's look at this passage for all have sinned. If I could summon an angel to pull back the hood from your face, the thing that blinds you to the reality of this passage, it would have a tremendous effect on you. If you were a believer to understand these simple words, all have sinned would cause you to have such an appreciation of the cross of Christ. You would be beside yourself so full of joy that it might slaughter your heart. It would be too big a joy to fit within the realm of your human body. And if you as a sinner and without Christ. Could understand what it means, this accusation that all have sinned, if you caught a glimpse of the holiness of God. It would kill you with fear. To know that you have rebelled against this glorious God. You see, one of the reasons why men do not fear sin is because they do not know God. And one of the reasons men do not know God is because very few people are preaching about him. Really preaching about him, if God, as he appears in Scripture, were to be preached in most churches. Inside of a week, the church would be split and lose half its members, you would hear people running out of the church saying, I don't agree with that, that's not my God, I could never love a God like that. And what they're simply saying is this, the God I have is a God I made with my own mind, a figment of my imagination, I made him and I love what I've made. But if we truly had a glimpse of God and if we truly were not in Christ and did not have the assurance of salvation, we would tremble to the point of death to know that we have sinned against one so glorious. All have sin, what a terrible thing, a heinous crime deserving of an eternal hell. So many people often wonder, why is hell eternal? It just doesn't seem just that men should be punished for eternity. The punishment is immense because of the greatness of the one against whom they sin. And a God of infinite goodness, of infinite worth to sin against him demands a punishment of infinite duration. All have sinned, it's as though God stood there on the day of creation and he commanded planets to put themselves in a certain order and they all obeyed him. He commanded stars to spread them out, spread themselves out in the sky as he had ordained, and they all bowed and worshipped. He told mountains to be lifted up and they obeyed, he told valleys to be cast down and they did so, he told the brave sea, you will come to this point and you will go no further. And it obeyed. And then he looks at you and says, come and you go, no. All have sinned. All have sinned. The heinous nature of our sin is much more than a deed. Men sin because men are sinners, born so by nature, an evil brood born in sin, conceived in sin, coming out in sin, walking in sin. And hating God from the moment they draw their first breath. That's how the Bible describes men again, I hear so many people say, well, no, I've loved God all my life and again, no, you loved a figment of your own imagination. You made a God and fell in love with what you made. Most people in churches today have to understand that that Sunday morning is the greatest hour of idolatry in the week, because most of the people that are in there worshiping don't even know what they're worshiping or they're worshiping a God. That's nothing more than a figment of their own imagination. And if someone were to begin to expound God from the scriptures, they'd be angry. Just think of all those silly TV preachers, all the ones that get all the great crowds. How many times do they do a conference? How many times do they do a crusade on the attributes of God? They can't touch that sacred pole. They have nothing to do with such preaching, they preach about frivolous, stupid things for carnal people. They preach about money and wealth and prosperity and health because the people who listen to them do not want God, they want the very things the men are espousing all have sin. How heinous is your sin? Some of you reject Christ, want nothing to do with Christ, how heinous is your sin? Well, let me share with you. The last thing you will hear when you take your first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and worshiping God because he has rid the earth of you. That's how heinous your sin is before a holy God. All have sinned. You say that doesn't bother me, then be terrified. Could it be that even now he's turned you over and there's no hope for you all have sinned. And fall short of the glory, what does that mean to fall short of the glory of God? Since most of Christianity in America today is wrapped around man and he finds himself plopped in the center of it. It means that God had a wonderful purpose for you. But you didn't meet up to that wonderful purpose that he had for you, and God's doing his best to get you back there, because the most important thing is that you have purpose. That's not what this passage teaches. Falling short of the glory of God has to be interpreted in light of the context, Romans one, that although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor give thanks. You were made not for you, you were made not for your purpose, you were made for him. You were made for him, and as Augustine said, you will be restless until you find him. Or he allows himself to be found by you. You were made for him, your heart beats only for him, you are given breath only to praise him. That's why your sin is so vile. You suck down the breath God gives you, you take that beating heart and with it do all manner of corruption and think not that it is God who gives you life. You take all of his goodness as though it were your own spoil and like a pirate, you run away with it. And for that, you will die in hell, you say, oh, my goodness, I've never heard anything like this. If you'd lived 100 years ago, you would have heard it all the time. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This falling short of the glory of God is also a good word for the believer. In what sense do you realize that American Christians are the richest, wealthiest. Most protected. Group of Christians that have ever walked on this planet, and yet you go into all those silly little bookstores of ours and 75 percent of all the books that are there are written about how empty we are. Why are we empty, Christians were empty for the same reason Jesus never was, he said, I have food to eat that, you know, not of my food is to do the will of him who sent me. Why are we empty? Because we're all about self and our self is not very large. It's not even big enough to fill us. How are you filled? You're filled with him. By thinking great thoughts of him, by crying out for him, by doing his will. His kingdom, his name be sanctified. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thee be the glory for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now, let's go on speaking about Christians now. He says this being justified. What an amazing thing. Being justified, some preachers are fond of saying being justified means just as if I'd never sinned. No, that's not what it means at all. Being justified. Some people in marginal Christianity have said that being justified means that the moment you believe in Jesus Christ, he makes you righteous, he infuses you with a with a power so that you can do righteous deeds before him. No, that's not what it means. To be justified before God is a legal declaration. It is a forensic term that the moment a man. Even though he be a mighty sinner, the moment a man regenerated by the Holy Spirit repents of his sins and believes the gospel, he is declared before the throne of God to be right, justified. Justified. And he goes on being justified as a gift by his grace. Now, this is rather redundant, it's though he's saying the same thing twice. Being justified as a gift, I'm sure you're familiar with the passage that says they hated him without a cause. The same word is used here as a gift, and what it means is this. They hated Jesus without a cause. Did Jesus Christ ever give anyone a cause to hate him? Did he ever sin against someone? Did he ever make someone stumble? Did he ever be was he ever abusive with someone? Never. He never gave a person a cause to hate him in the same way this passage is teaching. God justified you without a cause. You never gave God a reason to declare you right with him. Never, never. Let me even go further, you never gave God a reason to save you. One of the most difficult theological questions to answer is, why does God save men? You say, well, that's easy, what's difficult about that? God saves men because he loves them. But you've just moved the question back one step. Now, here's the next question, why would a holy, righteous God love evil men? You said, well, I don't see the problem. Well, let me set it out for you. Let's say that they interviewed a man on television and he said that he loved Hitler. What would you think about the man? You'd think that he was just as much a monster as Hitler. Goodness cannot love evil. Evil loves evil. If someone says that Hitler's just all right with them and they love Hitler and they appreciate Hitler and they would do ever what they could for Hitler, it means that in their own nature, they're just like Hitler. So how can a God who is righteous by nature love? A wicked man, he does so without cause of man. When the question is asked, why does God love men? He answers with the tauntology. He answers by saying this, I loved you because I loved you. God loves because he is love and God expresses that love to demonstrate his glory on the earth and in heaven. I thought for a while that God must surely have a sense of humor because it seemed like every time I got up to preach, some lady would come up and sing a special didn't matter what church I was in, would sing a special. It would always ask the question, oh, God, what did you see in me that you loved me so much? And I would be like a schoolboy in the back of the class with my hand raised. Oh, pick me, I'll tell you. And I'd go up to the platform not wanting to crush her light. But having to set things straight, God saw nothing in you. To love you. God loved you because God is love. And he elected to love you to demonstrate his glory. Oh, God, I'm so glad you never gave up on me. He never gave up on you because he never put any confidence in you to start off with justify. He declared us right without a cause. Now. Let's just look for a moment, let's just do some comparative studies on religion, take the three major religions in our world today and see the extreme difference between the three. Let's say that we have an a Muslim Orthodox Jew and a true Christian. I have to say true Christian in the United States because there's so many false ones running around. You come, the reporter comes to this this Muslim and says, sir, if you died right now, where would you go? And he says, I would go to paradise. And why is that? I'm a righteous man. I've read the Koran, I've obeyed the Koran. I've given alms, I've made the holy pilgrimages, I pray every day, I am a righteous man, I should go to heaven. OK, reporter understands that clearly, there's a logic to that. So he asked the Orthodox Jew, sir, if you died right now, where would you go? I would go to paradise. Why? Because I love the law of God and I've walked in the way of the righteous. I am a just man. Reporter says, I understand that comes to the Christian says, sir, if you died right now, where would you go? Christian says, heaven. Well, sir, what's your reason? In sin was I born. And in sin did my mother conceive me. I have gone astray since my mother's womb. I have broken every commandment that God has ever given. I deserve the greatest of punishments for offending my God. And the reporter stops him and says, sir, hold it. The other two men, I quite understand there's a logic to what they're saying. I don't understand you. These men are going to go to heaven based upon their own virtue and their merit. How are you going to go to heaven? And the Christian smiles and say, I go there upon the virtue and the merit of another Jesus Christ, my Lord. This is being justified as a gift. By his grace, salvation is authored by grace, grace is the source of salvation. If you are saved, you are saved only by grace, God's unmerited favor. Sir. If it was point ninety nine percent, God. Point one percent, you'd be in hell. It's amazing to me that. So many times I'll address people who say they are believers in Jesus Christ, but as I press with Scripture upon them, eventually they begin defending themselves by all the goodness that they have done. But the Christian walks from that as far as he can get, claims no merit at all and looks only to Jesus Christ, they say, Brother Paul, then you are validating all the Christian testimony here in this country where people are constantly saying they're believers and yet they live in wickedness. You're saying that's OK. Not at all. Salvation is only by grace. Salvation is only by faith. Salvation is a work of God. But salvation is not just justification. It is also regeneration where God changes the heart of the one who has believed and that one who has believed becomes a new creature and new creatures do new things. Now, it is being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption. I don't remember the Puritans name, but it was said that there was one Puritan divine that was so given over to the things of God that he believed that there were certain words that when they were spoken. A man ought to be silent. And his lip ought to tremble, if that's true. This is one such word. Redemption to pay a price to purchase a captive. Or a slave and what price was paid, not the silver and gold. Of all the world didn't rip up. The roads in heaven and deposit it in someone's account, the price that was paid was the blood of God's own son. This ought to be the controlling, the one great controlling factor in your life. All morality and ethics should spring from this one great truth. The son of God shed his blood for me. If not, it is idolatry and it is twisted. Why do you love your wife? Because Jesus Christ shed his blood for me. Why do you serve your brother? Because Jesus Christ shed his blood for me. Why do you walk in the way of the righteous? Even when there is persecution, because all who desire to live godly in this age will suffer persecution because Jesus Christ shed his blood for me. Why should you come to Christ? Because he shed his blood. It's the one thing that controls us. That consumes us, that constrains us. We could say this, that the Christian, the wise Christian lives between two days. The day when Christ hung before men and shed his blood and the day when all men will stand before Christ, those days ought to control us. Our thoughts, our deeds. I'm always hearing we ought to live for eternity, and that is true, but that is secondary, we ought to live for Christ. And for what he has done. Paul, the apostle, called himself a prisoner. In chains. For Christ, and yes, he did bear physical chains, but I think that behind those words, he meant something much deeper. When the reality of the death of Christ, the death of the Messiah on his behalf, came to him through the gracious working of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the gospel, he became captured once and for all, his entire life controlled by one thought. He shed his own blood for my soul. Paul. That is why much of the preaching in America today absolutely disgusts me, I loathe it. Come to Jesus, you'll fix your marriage. And if he doesn't, you're not going to come. Come to Jesus, he'll balance your checkbook. Come to Jesus, he'll give you self-esteem. Come to Jesus, he'll buy you a new car. Come to Jesus, you'll have nice friends. Now, come to Jesus because he's worthy, even if it costs you your life, come to Jesus. Old Leonard Ravenhill used to say. God promises you two things. When you come to Christ, eternal life and a cross. Do you need more? Is salvation no longer enough to motivate a man to come to Christ? Escaping the judgment of hell is no longer enough. The blood of Jesus Christ is no longer enough. I know of a college student years ago who was quite quite the man about campus. One day heard the gospel and he went from being the man about campus to some fool standing where the students would walk, handing out tracts and telling people to repent and believe. And some of his friends grabbed him one day and they pulled him off to the side and they said, don't you understand? You're ruining your reputation. What are you doing? Everyone thinks you're out of your mind. And he asked them one question, he said, did Jesus die for me? And they said, well, of course we know that we're Christians, too. What else can I do? He asked them, what else can I do? My life is now gone. He shed his blood for me. I no longer have a will. I no longer have a way. I no longer belong to me. I've been bought with a price, the power of simply understanding redemption. And that's why it so angers me. When the gospel is treated as Christianity 101, the little tiny baby truth that you learn and quickly grasp and then march on to greater truths, there are no greater truths. There is enough motivation to carry you through eternity in the small word redemption. If you understand it correctly, it says through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Paul tells us about that in the book of Ephesians, doesn't he? He runs wild with the longest sentence in the world. Ephesians chapter one, he goes on and on and on over and over in Christ, in him, in the beloved. I was preaching on that one evening and a young man walked up to me after the service and he goes, you're right, Brother Paul, Jesus is all we need. I said, young man, Jesus is all we have outside of him. We have nothing. If we are not in Christ, we are in Adam, you see, the Christian, only the man, not Christian, but man can only walk in two spheres. There are two spheres laid out in the Bible everywhere, two opposing spheres. You're in Adam or you're in Christ. You're in condemnation or you justify you're in death or you're in life, you're in the flesh or you're in the spirit. There's only two realms, I pray to God that you be in the one that matters in Christ. I so love the Apostle John because he identifies himself not as the one who loved Jesus. But as the one who Jesus loved in him, in him, no boast. No plea. We have only one thing. I am found in him and I am found in him by his own doing so that not even of my faith I can boast, not even of my repentance, for it is a gift of God. Can I boast it's all him, every bit of it from A to C, from the first stitch to the last, it's only Christ. He goes on, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation. Whom God displayed publicly, God could have put away sin in a corner. But he chose the central city on the face of the earth, the most religious place in the world, and at the crossroads he saw to it that his son was hung on a tree for all the world to see, as Martin Lloyd Jones used to say, placarded him. You can't drive through Las Vegas without seeing the filth placard on billboards. God placarded his son, he displayed him publicly for all the world to see. And why is that for us, for us? Yes, for us. But for more than us. He placard in there for God, because through the cross, let me just put it this way and we'll explain it later, did Christ die for men? Most certainly. But I think principally you can say this, Christ died for God. Did Christ die to justify men? Most definitely. But above that, he died to vindicate God. You see, we always think that everything's about us, don't we? You mean it's not? Christ loves men. Christ died for men. But principle in all his endeavors was God. So God displayed him publicly. Why? To reveal something through the cross. And we're going to see in a little while what that is. Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation, propitiation other than the names of God. Without a doubt, the most important word in the entire Bible, can you define it? You can't even understand the gospel apart from this word. Do you know what it means? For so many years in different translations, this word has been taken out of the book. Because it says some things carnal men do not want to hear. Remember several years ago, preaching in Detroit and had the privilege, I was preaching and Vernon Hyam was there, one of the great saints of old. And after I got through preaching, he walked up in tears, running down his cheeks and he had his Bible open and he said, we got the word back in the book. And he was talking about a certain translation that had taken propitiation out and replaced it with another term. But he said, finally, they put it back. That word propitiation, what does it mean? We have a word in Spanish, an ancient Castiano propitio. And says, go something like this, if, let's say, a slave speaks to his master and says, I said propitio, I mean. Master, be propitious to me, be merciful to me. A propitiation is a sacrifice that makes it possible. For a just God to justify wicked men, it is a sacrifice by which the justice of God is satisfied and the wrath of God is appeased. And it makes it possible for that God. To forgive. To declare right, wicked men. Now, I want us to go for just a moment to the book of Proverbs, just for a moment. Chapter 17, I'll show you the greatest problem in all the Bible, Proverbs chapter 17, verse 15. He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. Now, let's just put both ends together on this. He who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. He who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. What is an abomination? It's about the worst thing you can be. It goes beyond description in language. Anyone who justifies wicked men is an abomination to God. Do any of you sense the problem? I have just stood here for 15 or 20 minutes explaining to you how God justified wicked men. And yet the same God says anyone who justifies wicked men is an abomination to God. Here is the divine dilemma. The greatest problem in all of Scripture is this. If God is just, he cannot forgive you. If God is just, he cannot forgive you. This is what the gospel is all about. And yet I travel all over the world and people look at me with jaws dropped saying they've never heard such a thing before. Yet this is the gospel. The great problem is this. A just God cannot forgive wicked men. Let me give an example that I use all the time. If you were to go home tonight. And find your entire family slaughtered on the floor and the murder standing over their bodies. And by your own strength and the adrenaline flowing through your veins, you grab the man with blood on his hands, you throw him to the floor, you tie him up and you call the police. The police come and take him off to the jail. In the jail, he is brought out after a few days and brought before the judge. And the judge looks down at this man who slaughtered your entire family and says, I'm a very loving judge. I declare you pardoned. You're free. What would you do? You would scream out, I demand justice. You would write the newspapers, you would be on television. You'd be writing letters to congressmen and senators and presidents and everyone who would listen to you. You would say that there is a judge on the bench who is more vile and more corrupt than the men he sets free. Isn't it amazing you demand such righteousness and justice from your own earthly judges? And yet you think that the judge of all the earth, the one true judge, the only truly righteous judge, can just simply forgive men? That's the greatest problem of all of Scripture. How can God be just and justify wicked men? Now, I want us to be careful here, because sometimes it comes out in literature and in preaching in a way that it should not come out. There is not some principle of justice higher than God that he has to submit to. I've heard people say there's a principle of justice that even God can't violate. He must follow that rule. He must appease justice. He must satisfy it before he can forgive. That's nonsense. The justice that God must satisfy is his own. His own nature, his own character. You see, that's why we understand so little about the gospel, because we understand so little about the nature of God, because so little is preached about it. The gospel begins not with God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. It begins with who God is. He is just. And how can a just God forgive? Pardon, declare righteous, wicked men. There's only one way justice, God's own justice must first be satisfied and his wrath must be appeased. Now, let's talk about wrath for a moment. If I had a dime for every time I heard an evangelist, especially on TV, say, now, the first thing I want you to know is God's not an angry God. Well, the first thing I want you to know is God is an angry God. The Bible says he's angry every day. I want to talk to you for just a moment. About both the anger and the hatred of God. Let's talk about the hatred first. God hates that's the first thing you need to understand, there are many scriptures throughout the Bible that says God hates. Now, here's something else that you need to understand. Oftentimes we hear this beautiful evangelical statement. God hates the sin and loves the sinner, God loves the sinner and hates the sin. Well, that's really nice. The only problem is it's not true. Have you ever read Psalms chapter five? Let's go there for just a second. Psalms, chapter five, verse five, the boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all who do iniquity. Does it say he hates iniquity? No, it says he hates all those who do iniquity. And then I think it even says he hates all those who do wrong. Do you see that now what's immediately popping into some people's heads is this. Well, what about John 316? What about it? It's inspired. It's in the Bible and we ought to believe it. What about Psalms five? You see, you can't take one part and leave the other part out. Especially when both parts explain each other. People always talk, well, God so loved the world. Yes, I agree with that. Praise the Lord. But he also says he hates those who do iniquity. So we just believe the whole Bible. Well, then, good. Let's do it tonight. It says that. That there is a real sense in Scripture in which the hatred of God is against wicked men. I had someone say to me one time, no, God doesn't hate because God is love. God is love and he can't hate. And I say, no, God is love. Therefore, he must hate. Is it what you mean? That doesn't make sense. Of course it does. Let me give you an example. Do you love Jews? Hope so, then you must hate the Holocaust. If you tell me you're basically neutral about the Holocaust and it was really no big deal, then you really can't tell me that you love Jews. You love babies, then you must hate abortion, you love African-Americans, you must hate slavery. If you truly love that which is excellent, that which is righteous, that which is good, that which is lovely, then you must hate that which contradicts those very things. What would you think about a person who was neutral? And even whistling a tune as he read the newspaper about a little child whose life was destroyed by a pedophile, you would say that individual was as pathetic and wicked as the pedophile. There is a sense even in us of a righteous indignation, of a hatred of evil. It's part of that fingerprint of our creator. When we hear that a man who murdered 12 people was fined one hundred and fifty dollars, we become angry. Whoever told us to become angry. Whoever taught us that we should, we become angry and we don't even know why. Why? There is a real sense in which we were made in the image of God despite the fall. There's some of that remains. There is this imprint of God upon us. We hear of wicked things. We become angry. We say we hate what was done. God is love. He loves all that is conformed to his character. His attributes. And his hatred. Is against. All that opposes it, you said, well, Brother Paul, what about God's love? What about God's love for sinners? Well, it would take several lectures to get through that. Let me simplify things grossly, let me simplify things. There is a real sense in which the scripture teaches that the hatred of God. Is revealed against wicked men. And yet the nature of his love is such that he is able to demonstrate love even towards the objects of his hatred. There is a real sense and again, oversimplification. There is a real sense in which the mercy of God cries out to man with one hand and says, come, he who is thirsty, come, he is hungry, has no money to buy bread, come. And there is another sense. Which the hand of mercy holds back the wrath of almighty God. So with one hand, mercy holds back the wrath of God. With the other hand, it bids men come the vilest of men to come. But one day you must understand those hands will be withdrawn. And the wrath of God will fall upon men so that the great captains of industry and armies will cry out for rocks to fall upon them and to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. And we'll spend an eternity in hell under the wrath of God. Now, here's another evangelical cliche. Fallacy, when you hear people say that heaven is heaven because God is there, that's true. And then they say hell is hell because God's not there. That's not true. Hell is hell because God is there. In the full force of his perfect justice. And his wrath now be very careful because we're not we have these images of hell based on Dante's Inferno instead of scripture. Hell is not some sort of twisted torture, God gleefully torturing wicked men. No, hell. Is perfect, pristine, blazing white justice. This. In which every man will receive exactly what is due him. Not one ounce more and not one ounce less, his his punishment in hell will be so just that even the wicked will have to raise their hands and say, the God of all the earth has done right by me. This is not a tame God. C.S. Lewis got it right when he said that. This is not a tame God. Although Americans seem to have they seem to think they've domesticated him, they've not domesticated him, they created another that was domesticated to start off with. But he's not the true God. You see, someone had to die. Someone had to die. And satisfy the justice of God and appease the wrath of God and make it possible for a righteous God to forgive wicked men and to declare them right before him. Now, we're going to go on. Some of you are probably thinking, well, isn't it time? If it's time for you, then you need to leave. But I'm going to keep preaching. I'm going to get through this. I don't want to stop. It says in Romans. That God displayed him publicly as a propitiation. Christ. Died. And only Christ could die, no one else. The one who died on that tree, first of all, had to be a man, he had to be a man, don't you see? The blood of bulls and goats will not cleanse us, will not take away our sin. Adam has sinned. A son of Adam must die. He must be a man. But not only must he be a man. He must be God. He must be God, the one who dies on that tree must be not only man, he must be God. And why is that? Well, let's just look at a few things. First of all, a little passage from Jonah that is so very important. Salvation is of the Lord. That's why the doctrine of the Jehovah Witnesses is so it's such blasphemy. They pretend that it was a creature who died on that tree, if a creature died on that tree, then we have a creature as a savior. God created some innocent thing, gave it life and sent it down to do the work of reconciliation. No, salvation is of the Lord. Lord, God does not share that title with anyone. No one is savior, but the Lord, the Lord became a man. Another thing that's very important, I always seem to think it quite unusual, but the one who died had to give his life away. You ever thought about that? Who has life to give away? Only God has life inherent. All other life is borrowed. Who has life to lay down, who has authority to lay down their life and take it back up again? It was not the life of another that he laid down. Was his own had to be God, who but God can withstand the wrath of God and rise again. Mountains melt before the Lord's anger. Rivers dry up. The great sea, the great and brave, mighty sea bends down in fear and trembles at the wrath of God. Heard men both say, well, I'll stand before him on that day. No, you won't. You'll melt before him like a tiny wax figurine before a blast furnace. That's what you will do on that day. Who can withstand the wrath of God, another thing that is so important and most important to me, I was speaking several years ago at a university, it was question and answer, and there was a young man who didn't like me very much. And so he stood up and he held up his hand and he says, I've got a problem. I said, OK. He said, how can one man suffer for a few short hours on that tree? And save a multitude of men from an eternity in hell. I said, oh, son, I thank you for that question. That one man. Could suffer on that tree a few short hours and save a multitude of men from hell, because that one man on that tree was worth more than all of them put together. When theologians talk about the perfection of Christ's sacrifice, it's not just the sinlessness of his sacrifice, it's the worth, the infinite worth of that sacrifice. You take everything that is mountains and molehills, crickets, clowns, dust, stars, men and mice, everything that's ever been. And you put it on the scale and you put Christ on the other side and he outweighs them all. It's his value in these soupy songs, they say God looked all over for a man, but he couldn't find one who was who could die, who was sinless. That's preposterous. Even if there had been a sinless man, he couldn't have died for us. It had to be deity on that tree. It had to be God. An angel in heaven would not have worked, take all the millions, the unnumbered creatures so glorious that if we saw one of them, our hearts would split in two with fear. Take them all and they're not worth enough. To pay for your sin, he had to die, but how did he die during the Mel Gibson film, which I never saw, I don't have any problems with it, I just never saw it. I got so many emails from people all over the all over saying, you know, this is this about this movie and this is that. And I've got problems with this and that, and I'm sure there were problems with it. But most of those preachers who wrote me railing on Mel Gibson, I would write them back and I said, I don't have near the problem with Mel Gibson and his movie than I do with you and your preaching. Because the problem is not Mel Gibson, the problem is not some film on the passion, the problem is that the very men who ought to be the friends of Christ don't even understand his greatest work. During that movie, I heard a very prominent preacher, he came on the radio, National Radio, and he said, there's been much talk about the cross, so I'm just going to take the entire time and tell you about the true meaning of the cross. I said, praise God, finally, somebody. And I listened and I waited and I waited and I waited and I waited. He never did it. He gave them what I used to call in Latin America, El Evangelio Romantico. The romantic gospel, but not the true one. He preached Jesus as a martyr, but not as a savior. Now, what's my point? This is my point. Several years ago, I was in a seminary in Eastern Europe, a Germanic seminary, and I'd been teaching a group of pastors and things, and I was very tired. I went into the library. It was all in German. I don't read German. So I was trying to find something I could read, and I came across a book entitled The Cross of Christ. Now, it was not John Stott's book, but it was another book written by an author that I never knew. The cross of Christ, and if you're boring like me and you've read a lot of books, you open up a book and you start thumbing through it to find out what the guy really wants to say. And this is what he said. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, God, the father, looked down from heaven and saw the suffering that was afflicted upon Christ, the suffering that was placed upon Christ by the hands of evil men, and he counted that as payment for our sin. That's heresy, do you recognize it? It's heresy, our sins are not atoned for because of what men did to Jesus Christ or merely for what they did to Jesus Christ. Our sins are atoned for because of what God did to his only begotten son on that tree, all those little tracts of ours that that have man on one side because he's unholy and God on the other because he's holy and there's a great divide between the two. How do you suppose that divide is going to be closed? Someone had to die bearing sin. Bearing sin, he who knew no sin became sin, Galatians says, cursed is every man who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law so as to perform them. You know what it means to be under a curse? Means that you are so vile before a holy heaven, as I shared earlier, that the last thing you'll hear when you take your first step into hell is all of creation applauding God because he's read the earth of you, you are a curse. To everything holy, to everything right, to everything good, you are a curse and Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Becoming a curse for us, he took upon himself our sin, have you never heard? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I hear preachers all the time say the father looked down at the suffering of the son and he loved him so much he could not bear to see his suffering. So he turned away from him. That is a lie. That's not what Jesus said. Jesus, when he was on the cross, he said that God, the father, forsook him. And why is that? God cannot look upon that which is unclean. God turned away from his only begotten son. Someone had to die outside of the favorable presence of God, like the serpent lifted up in the wilderness, like the scapegoat. Israel would come out and lay their hands upon the head of the goat, symbolically transferring, transferring their sin to him. And then the goat would be led out into the wilderness where it would wander and die outside of the gates of the city. So Christ died outside of the gates of the city, forsaken of God and forsaken of God's people. Bearing their sin. In Psalms 22, it begins by saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And puts out the complaint by day and by night, I call out to you, but you do not answer and then comes with the argument saying there's never been a time in the history of your covenant people, Israel, that a man cried out to you and you did not hear him. You did not answer. But I cry out to you day and night and you do not listen. And then he gives the answer. He said, but thou art holy. And I am a worm. I am a worm, someone had to die, bearing your sin and die outside of the wrath of God. You see, our great problem. So we understand nothing about holiness and righteousness, we laugh at sin. We take awkward glances at sin, second looks, we giggle under our breath at sin. We think it's funny when someone talks in seriousness about sin, how sinful. Is sin the son of God had to become a man, go to a tree and bear the sin of his people and be forsaken by his own father and crushed under the full force of his wrath to put away sin. Is the only way. He died forsaken of God. But more than that. He's in a garden and he cries out, Father, let this cup pass from me. Three times, let this cup pass from me, let this cup pass from me. I have heard preachers say the most absurd things about that cup. Oh, the cup was that Roman cross. Heard one preacher say the cup was Satan, Christ was afraid of the wrath of Satan. Father, let this pass from me, sweating blood breaking through his skin, such anguish and terror at the thought of drinking some cup. What was in the cup? I hear people say, well, it was that Roman cross and the Roman whip and those crown of thorns. No, do you realize that after Jesus ascended into heaven, after a few years, a terrifying persecution fell upon the people of God? Do you realize that since the death and resurrection of Christ, they estimate that over 50 million Christians have died tortured? Do you realize that many of those Christians died, crucified upside down, covered with pitch and set on fire to provide lights for the streets of Rome? And yet most of them went to the cross with their chest out singing joyfully. Are you going to tell me that men can do that, yet the captain of their salvation hides in a garden trembling because he's afraid of a cross that they joyfully embrace? Do you honestly think that he was afraid of a Roman whip or some nails? I was teaching at a school, a reformed Christian school years ago, and I'll never forget this. I walked in the school and they said, you're going to be teaching kindergarten through the 12th grade in chapel. And I thought, well, that's a wide group. And I said, be kind of difficult, and they said, no, it won't be difficult here for the Paul. I said, well, I'm going to teach on propitiation. No problem. We've been teaching the second graders about propitiation for about six weeks. So I go in and I get through the middle of the sermon and I say, young people, what was in the cup? And I'll never forget a little girl, she couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old. She raised her hand and I said, yes. And she stood up out of her seat, put one hand on the desk and she said, sir. The wrath of almighty God was in the cup. Here is an eight year old who knows more than most evangelists in America. What was in the cup? The fierce, just, holy, righteous hatred and anger of God against wicked men, his fury against evil fell upon his only begotten son. Have you never read? And it pleased the Lord to crush him. Someone had to die under the wrath of God that his justice might be satisfied and his wrath might be appeased. God became a man, went to a tree, bore the sins of his people and was crushed under the full force of his own judgment. That's amazing. How can God be just? And justify the wicked. That's how. That's how he died. And he rose again from the dead. Rose again for or because of our justification. It means that the resurrection is the public declaration of God, that that sacrifice on that tree was sufficient. To atone for the sins of his people. It was God's word, God's vindication of his only son, and then that same son. That rose from the dead. Conquered death, ascended up into heaven, I love the patristics, I studied them quite a lot when I was in when I was in seminary, it was one of the one of the few blessings I actually had while I was there. But it was amazing, some of the things I mean, the patristics, the guys of the first five centuries of the church, sometimes they could get kind of wild, but they said some things that were beautiful. And one of the things I noted in a lot of the old guys who break some of the rules like I do. They would always go to Psalms. Chapter 24. The Ascension song. Verse seven, Christ ascends. Christ, very God, yes, but man, one of the things we have to be careful about as evangelicals is we are always defending the deity of Jesus Christ, and that's extremely important because that's one of the things that Satan is always going to attack first, the deity of Christ. But at the same time, we must never forget. That he was man. He died for us as God, as man, he rose again from the dead as God, as man, he ascended up into heaven. There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, he ascended up as God. But as man now, permit me a little freedom here, but in this text in verse seven. A verse of chapter 24 of Psalms, Christ, the man. Comes to those great and mighty gates that no man has ever approached. And he cries out, lift up your heads, old gates and be lifted up, old ancient doors that the king of glory may come. Can't you just imagine? Heaven hearing that. Angels in silence, in awe, mouths shut, some even maybe angry, saying, who is this that calls out to these gates? No man has ever spoken a word to these doors. Who dare lay their hand to the latch? And the answer comes back, who is this king of glory? And Christ responds, the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle, lift up your heads, old gates and lift up you ancient doors that the king of glory for the first time. Of all time, the doors were open for a man, every time I think about that, I think about that old song. Or hail the power of Jesus name, let angels prostrate for bring forth the royal diadem and crown the immense, immeasurable joy of glory. He approaches the throne. And as no man has ever done. He sits down at the right hand of the majesty upon high. Father. It's finished. Son, it is finished. Indeed. This same Jesus. Whom you crucified. God has made him both Lord and Christ. And now God, who has not done this thing in a corner, commands all peoples everywhere to repent. And to believe the gospel. To repent and believe the gospel. What is it to repent? Repentance is a work of God. He begins to work in the heart through the preaching of the word, through the work of the Holy Spirit, exposing sin, things that we laughed about, things that we boasted of, things that we joked about. He begins to show us the sinfulness of sin, and we see ourselves as blind and wretched and naked and poor, covered in filth and worthy of damnation. And we want more than everything else we want. To get as far away from what we are as we can. Who will save me from this body of death, oh, wretched man that I am. And in that work of grace, he also reveals Christ and the sinner set up on the dung heap, looks for the first time in his life at the face of a savior. And because God has done such a work of regeneration in that person's heart, recreating that heart and true righteousness and true holiness, when their eyes fly open and they look upon Christ for the first time with that new heart, he is altogether lovely and they're irresistibly drawn to him because of his beauty and his grace. And they fall upon him and they claim no righteousness of their own. And through faith, they are declared right with God. Christ. Based upon the virtue and the merit of Jesus Christ, the Lord. What will you do? What will you do? Know this. I've preached, but I can do nothing else for you. Look around your mother, your father, your friend can not help you. If God does not move on your behalf, exposing sin, revealing Christ, there's nothing for you. There's no hope. If you can walk out of here nonchalant and the same way in which you came in, be utterly terrified. Be utterly terrified. And let that terror cause you to fall on your face and cry out for God to have mercy on you. What you've heard tonight, you won't hear much. These are the old ways. These are the old things. That old men now in heaven stood on and died for. You won't hear this much, but it's true. It's true. If I lose sleep tonight, it will be not because your checkbook is not balanced. Are you tottering on not having self-esteem? If I lose sleep tonight, it's because one day you will stand naked before a holy God and it's not right with you. And on that day, you will be separated as so many goats from so many sheep. And you will be thrown in hell. Jesus said, do not fear the one who can kill the body and harm it no more. I will tell you who to fear, fear the one who, after he kills the body. Can throw the man in hell. I don't like that. You're off balance, Brother Paul, you know, let me say this. Years ago, I was preaching in the meetings, I got up one night and I preached on the holiness of God, the holiness of God. And afterwards, men met me at the back door and they said, we've got a problem with your preaching. I said, OK, state your case. They said, you preached on holiness tonight, not once did you mention the love of God. And I said, men, I have a problem with you. Last night you were here and I preached on the love of God and not once did I mention the holiness of God and not one of you had a problem with it. Do you want men to tickle your ears, to tell you things that are not true? To line their own bellies. With your applause. Or do you want to know God? The one true God. Who both makes alive and kills, who saves and condemns. But has done a great thing on behalf of sinful men and made a way for them to be saved. Through faith in Jesus Christ. Let's pray.