In this sermon, the speaker uses an ancient Greek cultural reference to illustrate the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ. He describes a scenario where a small, powerless nation receives news of an army intent on destroying them. The people anxiously wait for updates, knowing that if their army loses, they will lose everything. The speaker then transitions to discussing the concept of judgment and the deceptive nature of human standards. He references passages from the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation to emphasize the idea of divine justice and the consequences for those who oppose God.

We have been talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the things I like to ask people, especially if I'm flying on a plane or just happen to run into someone, start a conversation, is simply this. Have you ever understood the gospel? Do you realize most people have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? Even many who attend church have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, the church in America, evangelicalism in America, has gone through much of what we've seen throughout church history and other things, such as Catholicism, Orthodox Church, all susceptible to something. It's called syncretism. It's when the church, instead of being the standard, adapts itself to another standard, and that's happened here in America, especially with evangelicalism, in that instead of holding to the text, holding to the scriptures, which is the only authority with regard to the historical person, life and work of Jesus Christ, instead of holding to the scriptures and what the scriptures say about Christianity, we have allowed American culture, contemporary viewpoints, postmodernism, the list goes on and on, materialism, whatever you want to say. We've allowed that to come in and twist what Christianity really is. And so the last two weeks we've been talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, the word gospel comes from the Greek word evangelion, or evangelion, depending on whether you want to use the ancient pronunciation of Greek or the modern day pronunciation of Greek. But anyway, it means good news. Now, sometimes we hear that and it becomes almost a powerless cliche. Let me give you an idea of kind of what that means. Let's say that we as a people, our little group here, that we represent a nation, a tiny, powerless nation. And we get the news that on our border is an army without number and firepower without limit. And they are intent on one thing, and that is to destroy us, to destroy us, our children, our lifestyle, to enslave us, every horrendous thing you can think of they want to do. And they're standing there waiting to come in and we send out our little army. And we wait. We wait, we don't know whether we want any news at all, we wait, what's going to happen? Because if our army loses, it means we lose everything. We lose our families, we lose our children, we lose our lives, everything is gone. And so as the days roll on, we think with more anticipation, what is going to happen? What is going to happen? Everything depends upon this one battle. And all of a sudden we see someone running towards us, sort of like in the ancient Greek culture, when a runner would come from warfare to report to the people what was going on, we see someone running towards us. We don't even know if we want to open the window and the door to let him in because we're so terrified of what the news could be. But then as he's running towards us, oh, and by the way, we're Greek now and as he's running toward us, he is screaming out, Evangelion, Evangelion, Evangelion. And we know that we are saved, that everything we feared to lose has now been saved. That is a good illustration and it can be adapted to the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ, because I want you to understand, regardless of man's vanity and all that he thinks that he is and all that he thinks that he has accomplished. He's wrong and he is in great danger, not only of death, but eternal death. And there was absolutely nothing in the power of humanity to fix this problem. We have sinned against a holy God. We have sinned against a righteous judge. We have sinned against one another. There is no hope to make amends. And then the very God who in his justice condemns us in his love comes down, walks upon the earth as a perfect man and then goes to the battlefield on the cross. He's lifted up our sins. The sins of his people are imputed to him and he is crushed under the very judgment that belongs to us. So there we see Jesus of Nazareth hanging on a tree. We hear him cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he dies and now we're all waiting. Was it a victory or was it a loss? For the religious Jew at that time. His death represented that he was a blasphemer, a false prophet, and had now died under the condemnation of God, because cursed is everyone who's hung up on a tree, the law says, and he was hung up on a tree. So do we believe the religious Jew and say, well, there it is, the one who proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, the Christ, has now died, condemned upon a tree. Now there's still no hope or we could be like the secular man today. It's just all political nonsense has nothing to do with religion. There is no significance whatsoever about the cross. Or we could even be worse than the secular man, we could be like the religious liberal who basically says the person in life of Jesus Christ represents a model of morality that we should follow. But any thinking man hears that and goes, that's absolutely absurd. I know what I am. I know I can't follow that. I've never followed that. I know in my conscience, I know from history, I know from the scriptures, I am a sinner separated from God. So if he is an example for me to follow, the battle has been lost because I can't follow it. And so as he lays there now in a grave, we're waiting for the message. Is there any good news? If he remains in that grave, it means that the. The religious Jew was right, he was a blasphemer and died under the judgment of God, if he remains in the grave, it means the secular man was right, this was nothing more than something to do with politics. It had nothing to do with a God, even if there is one. If he remains in the grave. There is no hope, but the good news about the gospel is not just that Jesus died on a cross for our sins. The gospel is this, that on the third day he rose again from the dead. Now, this is something you need to understand, because so many times we will hear the gospel preached or we'll hear someone shares the gospel with someone else. And it is all around the one singular column that Jesus died. But what you need to understand is that in the gospel, there's not a singular column. There are twin columns. He died. And he rose again from the dead in the early church, when an elder would come before the church, we're talking about the primitive church in the first centuries of the church, when an elder would come before the church to preach, many times he would say this, Christ has risen and the congregation would say he has risen indeed. Because the question was not whether or not he died. The question was, did he rise again from the dead and that resurrection would help you interpret his death. To find meaning in that death. Now, before we go on to the resurrection, I want to back up a minute and I want to just review what we've talked about, because even in what I've said about Christ's death, it can be rather confusing. And for the secular man, it can be rather vulgar. I mean, all this talk about the judgment of God, all this talk about blood, all this talk about wrath. For a secular man. It's like, what is this some primitive tribal theology, I mean, the shedding the blood of animals and goats and chickens. Why do you talk this way? Well, it goes back to this and I want you to understand something. First of all, we do not live in a thinking culture. So if you're here today to battle with me, I want to share with you something. You did not come to your conclusions. I can assure you your philosophical and theological conclusions. You did not come to them by sitting for days, hours, years, contemplating the great truths of our existence or researching the thought, historical thought down through the ages. We are not a thinking culture. Most of what we think about God, right, wrong, morality, existence, everything else comes from pop culture. Even the science that most people understand today is not science. It is pop science. And so when we hear something of the justice of God and we cringe and think that's a gruesome, antiquated thought, it is only because the culture you come from is so unthinking and superficial. And so guided by the humanism that exalts man over everything and makes him the measure of all things. You see, you either live in a humanistic culture. Or a theocentric culture. So let's talk about the gospel for a moment just to review when we talk about God, I usually ask people, would you want God to be just? That means righteous, good. Or would you want him to be evil? Well, saying that he is God means that he is omnipotent. And to have an omnipotent. Being that is evil, I can hardly think of anything more terrifying. I mean, you want a just God. So if if someone were to come to you and say, I know who God is, you'd be sitting there going, OK, he exists. What's he like? Well, he's just well, well, that's good. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I would hate for him to be evil or amoral. I mean, I would want him to be good, but then the thinking man, the moment he was relieved because he heard God is just the moment he heard that and went, if he's a thinking man, that comfort would be immediately taken away and replaced by even a greater fear. What would it be? Oh, no. God is good. Oh, no, God is just. Where can I run to get away from him? Where can I hide? What do you mean, why do you want to hide? I didn't say he was evil. I said he was good. I know that's the problem. Can't you think? If he's good, if he is perfectly just, if he loves all that is true, all that is life, all that is good with a perfect love and he hates evil with a perfect hatred, then where do people like me go? So what do you mean, where do people like me go? Well, you're just an average person. I know I'm just average. I lie. I'm jealous. I hate at times I lost. I reduced humanity to a thing or object to be used by my own mind. I get in fights with my wife. I mean, I wouldn't want people to know what's in this head of mine sometimes. And if you're telling me there's this omnipotent, omniscient God who is perfectly just and will render to every man according to what he deserves, then where do I go? That's a great question, isn't it? That was Augustine's question. That was Paul's question. It was every man's question. Who's ever thought he's just? What will he do with me now in our culture today? We just simply say, well, he just needs to look over all this. Why can't he just forget about it? And in that is revealed our hypocrisy. I remember one time speaking to a group of students. And and they were not at all compliant with what I was saying. I mean, I was the social dinosaur that they'd brought in to crucify that day. And and. He began this one student gets up and begins to talk, and I thought, I'm just going to let him talk, just let him talk. And he was railing on the idea of a personal God. He said he goes, if there's a God, why are children starving to death? If there's a God, why doesn't he do something about these evil corporations? Why doesn't he do something about these governments? Why doesn't he do something about this? Why doesn't he have a law? Why doesn't he enforce it? He goes on and on. I just let him go. Let him go. Are you finished? Yes. And that's proof that there is no God like the one you describe. So after about another half hour of lecture, then I said, let's talk about the law of God, not in a in a macro sort of way, but a micro sort of way. Let's talk about the law of God with regard to you. This is what God has commanded with regard to each individual on the planet, either through the written law or the conscience, the law written on the heart. This is what God has commanded. The same student jumps up and says, I am a free being. No one has the right to impose their law upon me. And I just let him rail, let him go. And then when he sat down, I said, you are the finest representation of the hypocrite I have ever met in my life. You are railing, even denying the existence of God because he will not supposedly, in your words, make a law and enforce it upon all these wicked corporations and nations and everything else. But the moment I begin to talk about God giving a law and enforcing it upon you, you become furious. You see that. Well, the fact is, the Bible, all I can tell you is what it says, the Bible says that God is just, God is just and that the greatest philosophical theological problem in the entire Bible is this, if God is just, how can he forgive men? And the answer is this, as we have been explaining for the last two weeks, God sent his son, God became a man. There's a whole idea of the Trinity. I've heard so many cults today will say, well, Trinity is just a Catholic idea. It's just something that was invented in those councils, you know, in the third and fourth century. No, it's not. Now, there were some councils in the third and fourth century, but it wasn't to invent the doctrine of the Trinity. It was simply to describe what was in the scriptures and to defend it from those who denied it. And see, here's what you need to understand. If there is no Trinity. Then we can't say God is. Love, not eternally. Not consistently, not constantly throughout all the. Eternity past. You see, the Bible says God is love, the showing of benevolence, of affection, of desire toward another, and what we see in the in the Godhead is this. We see. The father and the son and the Holy Spirit of one substance, yes, of one substance, three distinct and real persons of one essence, not three gods, but one God, but existing in a relationship of eternal love and delight. And the reason for creation itself is not that God had some need. He was fully satisfied in himself, the father and the son, the son and the father, and his one preacher said, and the Holy Spirit just standing back and shouting for joy. So there was no need. He created the world out of the superabundance of this relationship to lavish this love upon a creation. To demonstrate the greatness of it. So this God. Who judges man, who condemns man. Because he is a good God, he condemns man because he is loving and cannot tolerate evil, yet this same God becomes man and walks upon this earth as a perfect man and goes to a cross. And on that cross, we have the doctrine of imputation, and that is that God considers considers the sin of all of humanity to rest upon his son and then the justice that should have been ours. He suffered. God quenched. Are paid the demands of his own justice against us, he quenched his own wrath against us by dying in our place, that's what the cross means, that's what happened there. Now, he died when we go to First Corinthians, chapter 15, we realize that Paul said that the gospel is this, that Christ died according to the scriptures, that means that had been prophesied and it had been ever since Genesis 315. In Genesis 315, we have the Protoevangelium or the first promise of the gospel that after the fall of man, it was said by God that someone would come and crush the head of the serpent. Serpent would bite him on the heel. But he would give a mortal wound to that serpent. And man would be redeemed, someone born of woman, that's what we're talking about here at Christmas, that a virgin gave birth to a son, so he died according to the scriptures. Then Paul says he was buried and then Paul says on the third day he was raised from the dead according to the scriptures, Psalm 16, different places in the Bible, Psalms 22, Psalms 24, others that talk about the resurrection of the Messiah. But it's interesting that Paul said, I always wondered, is it Paul just being redundant or trying to put some poetic structure? Is it a Hebrew idea? I mean, what is he trying to do when he says Christ died for our sins, was buried and was raised from the dead? Why does he put was buried in there? Why is that so important? What we see later on, even to the second century, we see why it's so important. Even the first century, what did they say? Basically, he swooned. There's a swoon theory, yes, my dear friends, liberal theologians have what's called a swoon theory. That after being mutilated and pierced through with a lance, after hanging, being crucified, so on and so forth, he merely passed out. And he rolled the stone away himself and he escaped to some northern part of Judea. Paul said, no, he really died, and I can prove it to you, he was really buried. He was buried as a dead man and he rose again from the dead. It was necessary not only that he suffer the wrath of God as a living person, but that also he die for the wages of sin is death. And he died in our place on that tree. Now, the Bible, the great testimony of Scripture is that he has risen from the dead. You see, you go back into history, you hardly have any person in history until modern times. Any person in history that denies the person of Jesus of Nazareth or that he died upon a cross, the historical evidence behind that is so great that only. A very educated fool with an axe to grind would try to deny it. He died. But the question is, did he rise again from the dead? And the answer, according to Scripture, is yes. And the answer, according to now, understand me, the answer also, according to the church, is yes. Now, I'm not putting the authority of church on level with the scriptures, and I'm not talking about church as an ecclesiastical organization or even as a group of people, necessarily with some, like I say, some organization. I'm talking about 2000 years of people who have been radically transformed by this person, Jesus of Nazareth, people who before were skeptics, even haters of the gospel as the Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus. But down through the ages, even until today, that modern media would try to make you think that everyone who believes in Christianity is an is an ass. Is some moron, some redneck, some bigoted, narrow minded person. No, you see some great scientists. Great enemies of the faith who then came to know Christ. You see, down through the ages, you go into some of the countries where we work and we travel into Pakistan and you see Christians being slaughtered, but they remain true to their faith. You go to the Middle East, you go to the quantity of people who died in Russia. They could not deny that Christ had risen from the dead, and why is that? Because they knew him. They knew him. We've come to the point where we believe that that knowledge. Well, no, we don't believe this because we're so hypocritical about it, but we say that knowledge is basically scientific knowledge. That if you can't map it out, you can't put it in a test tube, you can't figure it out mathematically, but the people who say that don't realize that when they say that, they're also denying everything that has to do with social science. The social science is not a science because it's based on theory. There's more than just some type of scientific knowledge, there's legal knowledge, there's historical knowledge, and there is simply experience. Experience, I know what has happened to me, I know what I believe, why I believe it, I know when that turn occurred, he has risen. Now, why is that important? We're going to look at some texts today to see why that is important. And I want us to go, first of all, to Romans chapter one. Verse four. Paul is speaking about the gospel. Well, let's just read in verse one, Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Again, we're coming to something Paul talks about quite frequently. We see it in First Corinthians 15. What he's going, look, there's some amazing prophecies that are very, very old that have been fulfilled uniquely and perfectly in the person of Christ. He goes in verse three concerning his son, who was born of a descendant of David, speaking of Mary, born of a descendant of David, according to the flesh. He's saying humanly and as a man, according to the flesh, that means he was a descendant of David through Mary. But who was declared the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now he's saying something very important. You must understand he's not saying that he became the son of God at the moment of the resurrection or through some miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. He's not saying that he was the eternal son of God. What he's saying is the resurrection was the public declaration. God's public declaration of the sonship of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, many times when we think of son, because of the Gospel of John, most of you have read the Gospel of John, the son, the son, the beloved son, the only begotten son, the unique son. And it has the flavor of his deity. Now, is he the son of God? He's got the son. And that is certainly in this text. But here's something, since we are not Jews, we're not from the Middle East, there's something that we miss. And that's the idea of sonship equated with kingship. David was God's son in the sense of what? In the sense of being his king. We go back to Psalms two that was that was read. Talking about the son, that the nations have been given to him, that God has placed his king. So when he was raised from the dead, it is a declaration that he is exactly who he said he was. This is God's proof that Jesus is deity, that Jesus is Messiah. And with that messiahship, that he is king. And we'll expound upon that a little later. So there's something very important I want you to see here. A skeptic might come to me and say, I need more proof. I understand that you're not going to get any, just not going to get any. And Jesus said, even if you got more, you still wouldn't believe it. Even if a man came back from the dead and told you. Why? Why? Here is why the problem is not intellectual evidence or proof, that's not the problem. And I want you to see that even the existence of God, the problem is not intellectual. The problem is will. The problem is will. I was just reading an article actually written, it was a and I shouldn't I shouldn't mention it because I can't quote it right now. But it was actually evolutionists who were lamenting the fact that most college students, not just college students, high school students, not just them, but but postgraduates, everything that they meet that claim to believe in evolution only do so because they're going with the flow that almost none of them have thought through any of it. They're just going with the flow. OK, and so the point that I'm trying to bring out to you is it's not that you're all these knowledge seekers and people looking for the truth and and you don't party and you don't get drunk and you don't fornicate, you just in school in order to learn, learn, learn because you want to know the truth. No, you want to have a good time. You want to get a really good job, make a lot of money. See, we're really not seekers of the truth and the problem is really not intellectual, the problem has to do with the will. The problem has to do with what we are. That's why the Bible, when it talks about a fool, it's not talking about someone who has who lacks the intellectual capacity to learn, it's talking about someone who is either immoral or amoral. Who understands certain things and doesn't even follow what he understands. Let me give you an example. I was I was speaking in London, no, in Ashford a couple of years ago. And when I stood up and said I was a creationist, there was a whole row of students from the university there and they laughed their heads. They were laughing while I was trying to talk. So I stopped them and I said, obviously, you think I'm a social dinosaur, prehistoric, all these different things, some bumpkin from the United States. And obviously you think I'm an absolute idiot because I do not accept evolution. I said, so would you help me? Would you humble yourselves as the university students that you are quite brilliant and just help me? I'm going to give you two reasons why I cannot accept evolution, just two. And then you tell me, stand up right here in the middle of the auditorium and explain to this poor, ignorant evangelical why he's so wrong. The first one is irreducible complexity and the second one is punctuated equilibrium. And all the students just went like this, they're just looking at each other and I sat there and go, OK, help me, help me. And then I said, you know what, you can't help me because not only do you not know the answer, you don't even know what I'm talking about. And yet you laugh at me as a bumpkin. You see, so our problem is not not knowledge, it's not intellect, it's the will. See, the problem is we don't want God. And so according to the book of Romans, chapter one, we'll make up every excuse possible, even hollow intellectual ones not to submit to the truth that he is. So when I talk about the resurrection. And you say, I need more evidence, no, you've got all kinds of evidence you've already thrown away, you really don't care. But here's what I want to tell you. God says this is the evidence I'm going to give you. And if you will go ahead and search it out and you will cry out to me and you will seek me, you will know that it's true. God has resurrected his son from the dead. He's given us the proof of his deity and his kingship. Now, let's go look at another passage just quickly. 425, Romans 425, he who was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. You may not know it, but this is very hard text, very difficult because of the prepositions here in Greek. The word because can go a couple of different ways. And so we need to we need to really look at this. The great majority of commentators down through the ages and today, I think some of the best scholars would go with this, he was delivered over because of our transgressions, he was delivered over to bear our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. And it's simply saying this, his resurrection is the evidence that that through him, man might be justified with God. You see, if he has not been raised from the dead, God did not accept his sacrifice in place of us. But God's resurrection of his son from the dead is proof that when Jesus said it is finished, it really was finished. As I said a few weeks ago, when he was on the cross right before he died, he cried out, it is finished, which in Greek is actually a commercial term. He's paid in full. The wages of sin is death. When Christ suffered the wrath of God and died in our place, he paid it in full. And God's resurrection of the son is his evidence that, yes, it has been paid in full. Every sin past, present and future has been accounted for and has been punished in the death of his son. Now, let's go to another text. We need to move along quickly. Acts chapter two. Let's look there for just a moment in some of the preaching, first apostolic preaching, Acts chapter two, verse thirty six. Therefore, well, let's just back up a little. Verse thirty four, for it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Some of the resurrection and the ascension. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So the resurrection and then later on the ascension of Christ was proof. That God, well, instead of using my own terms, let's just go hold your place and just go to Psalms chapter two. The resurrection is proof of what? Look in Psalms two verse six. But as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Now, people have have real problems with this idea of you are my son. Today I have begotten you. And it's simply because they do not understand the Semitic ideas that are going on here. This is the idea of kingship. This is when someone is crowned king. He is considered a son, a son of God. In that he rules as a vice regent in the place of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is God's evidence that this world not only has a savior, that we can be justified through him, but that this world has a king. A king, so in this preposterous American idea that in order to be saved, you must accept Jesus as savior. The king thing is negotiable. That that's not true. That's not true. Well, Brother Paul, it says as many as receive him to them, he gave eternal life, hold your place really quick and look in John chapter one. Let's go to that text. I want to clear something up just really, really quick. Look in John chapter one, verse 12. But as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God. Brother Paul, all you have to do is receive him. Messiah. Yes, but who is him? Look in the verse that precedes it, he came into his own and those who were his own did not receive him. How did they not receive him? They say specifically will not have this man rule over us. Will not have him as king, will not have him as Messiah, never forget in Messiah and only in Messiah, as we see in Zechariah, the prophecies in Zechariah, only in Messiah does kingship and priesthood come together. And this idea that you're going to accept Jesus as priest, the savior, but you don't accept him as king, that is totally foreign to the Old and New Testament. Do you see that? It's very, very important. Now we're going to get back to kingship in just a minute. But before we leave the book of Acts, I want to look at one other thing. Not only that he has been accepted as king or been declared to be king, but also look in Acts chapter 17, verse 30. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all by raising him from the dead. Then the resurrection of Christ from the dead is proof that the world has a savior. It is proof that the world has a governor or king, but it is also proof that the world has a judge, that the world has a judge. And one day all men will stand before Christ and be judged. I've said this many times, if I could open up your heart, if you knew I had the power and was going to open up your heart, open up your mind, take every thought you've ever thought, put it on a DVD and show it here today, you'd do everything in your power to stop me, wouldn't you? Because you've thought things that you wouldn't want your best friend to know. Yet on the Day of Judgment, those things will be exposed, not before fellow sinners, but before a holy God, and you will be judged in perfect righteousness. When we talk about hell today, people get very, very angry, and one of the reasons they get angry is because of a wrong view of hell. I don't know how many of you have read Dante's Inferno, but that is not a biblical view of hell. Hell is not a place of this masochistic type of torture. OK, now I believe in a literal hell. Don't get me wrong. I just don't believe in Dante's version of it because it's not found in the scriptures. God is not this cruel deity somehow delights in this almost impish type of torture upon mankind. You say, well, that's good news. No, it's not. It's worse, actually, at least to a thinking man. It's worse. What do you mean? Hell is. You get exactly, exactly what you deserve. Hell is perfect. Blinding. Burning white justice, you see, you judge yourself, let me put it, let me just give you an idea about standards and how deceptive they are. We think we're pretty smart. All right, by what standard, for example, as I've used this illustration many times, several years ago, a friend of mine sent me a book on logic. Friend of mine from British Columbia said, hey, read this. So I read through it. I studied logic at the university. I read through it, read through the first chapter three times. And I thought this is some of the this is some of the best. Stuff I've read, I never read anything like this in the university, it's also extremely difficult. So I read through the first chapter about three times, took a break, went to the kitchen, get some milk on there, forget this, and I came back with my milk and I happened to look at the front cover of the book, which I hadn't looked at prior. And it was a picture of of children. Standing in a line and a headmaster leaning over them like he was quizzing them, and I thought, what is this doing on this book? And then I realized I opened it up and I read The Fly, this book was used by grade school children in the colonial period. I'd never had anything like that at the university. So we think we're smart, but by what standard? We think we're good, but by what standard, what are you going to apply as a standard? I want you to think about it. What are you going to apply as good? Let me give you an example. You go to the beach. Now, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying you go to the beach. And you can tell we must really be in an economic crisis because people don't have enough money to buy clothes to go to the beach with, seems like. But you go to the beach and people are running around doing all their beach stuff dressed in a certain way. Now, I'm not saying right or wrong. I just want you to think about standards. If you had dressed that way. In our culture, 65 years ago. You would have been arrested. Now, I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm just stating a fact, and what I'm trying to say is when you think, oh, God's going to judge me according to what I deserve, I'm not that bad of a person. But realize your standard may be skewed. Lying really may be bad, a lot worse than you thought. A hatred and jealousy may be a lot worse in God's eyes than in your culture's eyes. Oh, and lust, which, you know, why is this puritanical language and talk about all these kinds of things? I mean, haven't we got through the sexual revolution? I mean, the lust, the whole. Do you understand the hatred of lust? Do you know why God hates lust? In a way, lust is murder. It's murder. And you say, why? You are without another person's permission. You are reducing them down to a thing. You are destroying their humanity. And then you're going to use it in your own mind. With no idea of commitment, no idea of love, no idea of self-sacrifice, you see, you think it's it's fun. God hates it. And he will judge every thought of it, like college students here, and I promise I'll get on. But I was speaking one day and I forget where it was somewhere in Europe and some guys came in, kind of laid into the thing. It was at the university. It was at a university. And they came in and they were kind of laughing and things. And I was talking about chastity, moral purity. And they just railing and laughing and everything, and so I just kind of stopped again, I said, you guys, it's Friday. What are you doing here? It's Friday night. Aren't you going to the bars? Yeah, we're going to the bars. Why? Get drunk? Well, well, you know, no, tell me. I don't know. They didn't know how to put it. I mean, how do you put it? Hook up? That sounds pretty. You know, it doesn't sound too bad. Because we don't use words like fornicate. Could commit immorality or anything, but I said, OK, that's what you're going to do, right? And you're cool with that and you're mad at me because I'm telling you God's not cool with it. Well, let me tell you why God's not cool with it. You're going to go out and you're going to hurt tonight is what you're going to do. Are you wanting to find a girl and make a commitment to her? Are you wanting to do that? Self-sacrifice, give yourself away, be a blessing to her, commit your life to her. No, you're going out hunting tonight to feed off another human being, to gain pleasure from them without making one commitment whatsoever. That's what you're going to do. You're going to feed. And the response, I knew what it would be. Well, she wants the same thing. Is it OK? Got me there. She wants to feed off you and you want to feed off her. Look what we've become. But let's just go back another step, then. I have a daughter, little daughter, even if my little daughter wanted to participate in such a mutual feeding, how would it dishonor me as a father? How would it break my heart in a million pieces to know there was someone like you out hunting down my daughter, even if my daughter. Was putting herself in a place to be hunted, how would it kill me? How does it demonstrate love toward me? How does it demonstrate respect? How does it demonstrate all this unity and why we just can't get along in a secular world? You tell me. You say you don't think it's bad. College students don't think it's mad. You see the way God looks at it. It's absolutely he gets mad. Yes, I'm sorry. Moral beings do get angry. It's called righteous indignation. When you heard about the children who were killed this weekend. Did you simply it didn't bother you, you just you just pass it well, you know, whatever anybody wants to do. No, you if you had any humanity in you at all, you righteous indignation. Then how much does God, who is holy, unlike us, holy. I hate such things. No, hell is not Dante's affirmation, apart from possibly what's written on the door there. Abandon all hope, ye who pass through these gates. Yes, you've made your choice. I think one of the possibly the greatest descriptions of hell is possibly Romans chapter one. As a matter of fact, that God turned them over. God turned them over to the lust of their own heart. You see, even Hitler, even Hitler, God restrained his evil. He loved his mom. He didn't kill puppies. God restrained his evil, but to say, I'm going to just turn the whole lot of you over to the desires of your heart. And that's where you'll be. Filled with the desires of your heart. Now, as a Christian, you have to be very careful when you think about the judgment of God, you think about hell. Why? Let me give you an example. Right now, there are places where we are constantly praying to raise up missionaries, where they are selling children in the sex trade. Well, it's Asian countries, a lot of different places I don't need to mention, but they are there and it is horrendous. And there are men, powerful men in Europe and the United States that will pay literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to go over there for a week. All right. Now, I want you to think about, I mean, these these horrid places, unmentionable what's going on there. But there are men here who would delight in going there and do go there and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go there. But if you as a Christian, if I could transport you in one second from where you're seated to that place where all that is going on, it would literally rip your heart in two. You'd be beating against walls trying to get out of there, such a horrid, nightmarish place. The only way you only reason you feel that way is because the work of the spirit of God in your heart. Do you see that hell is a turning them over when the most frightening things Jesus Christ ever said was this. God gave them their reward in full. Now, I want to finish up by by putting something before you. Let's just go for a moment. I want to throw away this idea of little Jesus in a manger. Now, he was a little boy in a manger, but any type of theology who would keep him there. I want to destroy that. Let's just go for just a moment to the book of Daniel, chapter seven. If you've ever read this text, it's one of the most amazing texts in all the Bible. In verses nine through 12, you see the ancient of days that God comes together and he calls together a courtroom scene in judgment. And what's amazing in Hebrew, if you look in verse nine, it says, I kept looking until thrones were set up. And what it basically says is I kept looking until thrones were thrown. And the whole idea is that everything is just going on, just just kind of, you know, commonplace. And without any warning, thrones are thrown down and God sits upon them. It's this judgment, it's this thing that happens that quick. And he's described, it says, in the ancient of days, took his seat, his vesture was like white snow and his hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were burning, a burning fire. A river of fire flowing and coming out from before him, thousands upon thousands were attending him, the myriads of myriads were standing before him, the court sat and the books were open. See the same thing, don't we, in the book of Revelation, chapter 20. Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which horn was speaking, I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire as of the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away. But an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. Now, I'm not going to go through Bible prophecy. I've already preached longer than I probably should have. But we'll go we'll see what this means in just a second, because all of a sudden something happens, something happens that causes verse 11 and verse 12, verse 13. I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like the son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. Now you've heard, I know in gospel you've heard preachers say the son of man, Jesus called himself the son of man because he was demonstrating his humility. Right. He was wanting to know he's one of us. No. No, that's one of the biggest, as one theologian says, one of the biggest misinterpretations of our age. The son of man. This is what he's talking about, that's why they said he's talking blasphemy, him calling himself the son of man. He's not putting himself on a humble level, he's saying, although I have come to seek and save the lost, although the son of man now serves, you need to know who I am. I am the son of man. Do you see that? Now, it says here. One like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom that all the people's nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. There will never be a changing of the guard. He will never be voted out. Remember, Psalms chapter two, again, God laughs at the nations when they fight against his Christ and he says, as for me, I've established my king. John Calvin said this when the nations rail against Christ and Christianity. God does not judge at that moment because it is his time of laughter. What it's basically saying here is that God has given this Christ, Jesus of Nazareth kingdom, and that if all the armies of hell and heaven and the earth were to come against it with their full force, it would be like a tiny gnat beating its head against a world of granite. That's who he is. Now, there's something very, very important here. It says this one like the son of man was coming up and he came up to the ancient of days and listened to the language and he was presented before him. And then after he's presented all dominions given to him, we see this lined out for us in the book of Genesis with the man called Joseph. He is in something of a prison, a dungeon, and within a matter of just a few minutes, he's taken out of the dungeon and it says clearly, he is presented before Pharaoh. And this is what is said to Joseph. Now, listen, without your permission, no one shall raise his hand or foot in all of Egypt. And what is being said here, Christ has been raised from the dead. He has been ascended to the right hand of God. And God looks at him and says, without your permission, not one foot, not one hand will be raised in the cosmos, in the universe. You are my king. Now, what is very important here is Christ says in John, chapter 17, when he's praying there in the priestly prayer that he desires that his glory return to him, which we had with the father before the foundation of the world. And you say he regained that glory. No, he regained much more because the one who now sits there in glory is not only the son of God or God, the son, but he is one of us. He has not abandoned his humanity. And so the one who reigns upon the throne is a man. God, yes, but a man, the one who mediates for us is a man who is tempted and always like us. And yet without sin and knows how to give aid to those who seek him, the one who judges the world will be a man. There'll be no one on that day giving some argument. You're God and you don't understand humanity because the one who will judge humanity as humanity is a man. Now, going back to verse 12, as for the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. What I want you to see is this, according to Romans, chapter 13, we are to honor the government in this church. You should not ever speak hard words. Mocking words against the president, whether you agree with him or not, you can disagree with him. And you can say that you disagree, but the office itself shall be honored. And we shall seek to be a peaceable people in every manner possible, even if our lives are being taken. But here's what I want you to see. At the coming of Christ, all the kingdoms of the world came to an end, all the beasts that are mentioned in Daniel, they came to an end. The last one being Rome, Persia, the Medes, all of them, they came to an end. Rome came to an end at the coming of the Messiah. But look what it says in verse 12, as for the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. You should not fear the governments of this world. You should pity them because they are like a cut flower. They are like little men sitting with on paper mache crowns, paper mache thrones with little tin crowns on their head. There is a king. His name is Jesus. And he reigns in one day, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord. Do not fear men. Do not dishonor them. Never rise up violently against them. We have been called to die and not to kill. But know this, this world has a king, this world has a judge and this world has a savior. His name is Jesus Christ. And it will be for this cause. That many of you young men, young women. Will suffer greatly in this nation. Most people don't realize it. If one political activist or something is killed somewhere, it'll be all over the news. By the evening. But it is estimated right now that somewhere between 500 and 1000 Christians die every day as martyrs around the world, you never hear it. You will not be persecuted as Christians, as a matter of fact, Christians will persecute you. You'll be persecuted. Well, let me put it this way. The first and second century Christians. They were persecuted as atheists. Did you know that? Atheists, why? Because they said all the gods of Rome do not exist, they're false, there is only one Lord, there's only one God. So they were hated as atheists. If you guys want to be kind of hold on to some of your Christianity. But be extremely popular today in the world and on talk shows and everything else, you only have to change one article to your Christian faith. And I don't mean article as statement, but article as in the a definite article, a indefinite article. If you want everyone in the world to love you, you can hold on to everything in your Christian faith. You only have to do one thing. Change the the to an ah. What do I mean? No longer say that Jesus is the Savior. Say he is a Savior and everyone will love you. The reason why Christians are hated. The reason why you're considered narrow minded, bigoted, everything else is because you've come to believe that Jesus is not a Savior. You've come to believe he is the Savior. And that's what's going to wreak havoc on your lives, as most evangelical churches around here today is probably telling you come to Jesus and he'll make you rich. Come to Jesus and he'll make you prosper. Come to Jesus and he'll heal you. Come to Jesus and he'll do all these wonderful things. I'm telling you, come to Jesus and he will give you eternal life. And across. He'll fill you with joy, he'll teach you to love, he'll teach you to sacrifice for people, because in the new covenant, in real Christianity, you need to understand something. Love is not part of it. It's all of it. People ask me, how can we pray for you? Pray that I'll learn how to love my wife as Christ loved the church. Because you can love people a thousand miles away, but the person closest to you. So we've gone through a lot today and I apologize for rambling. I sometimes I just thought to be put in a cage after a certain period of time. These are true things. These are eternal things, these are substantial things. You need to think about them. If you want to talk more about this with me or the elders here, Anthony or Mark or anyone here, please feel free to do so. Let's pray.