All Natural Men Hate God

The Burden of Accurate Self-Knowledge

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, August 14th, 1988, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. In our consecutive reading of the Word of God, we read this morning that when the word of prophecy comes by the Spirit into a congregation of God's people, that one of the results of that is accurate and an almost threatening sense of self-knowledge. Paul said, If all prophesy, then the hearts of men are laid bare, and they will cry out, God is of a truth among you. And as we come to the ministry of the Word this morning, one of the great burdens of that ministry is that it is a ministry of the Word. It is a ministry of the Word. It is that God would indeed give to each one of us accurate self-knowledge this morning.

1:09 To that end, let us cry to him that he would, by the Spirit, through the word of prophecy that is contained in the words of Scripture, would draw near and minister to us. Let us seek the face of God together. Our Father, we thank you for your kind providence that has brought us in our regular, consecutive, reading of the New Testament to this fresh reminder that when your word comes with power and with accuracy by the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit, one of its blessed fruits is to bring us to accurate self-knowledge as well as to an awesome sense of the livingness of your presence. And we pray that those two great realities, will be our portion this morning, that we will know you to be here, and that we will know ourselves. Hear our cry and come with power. We plead through Christ our Lord.

2:23 Amen.

2:30 Almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth, has chosen to display the godness and the glory of his being in the vast, varied, and immense realm of all that he has created.

2:49 In Psalm 19, the psalmist celebrates this fact by exclaiming, With the burning heart of an adoring worshiper, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth his handiwork. The Apostle Paul, speaking in a similar way, but in a different way, in a different context, says that from the very creation that is about us, men know something of God's almighty power and of his godness. But the sad thing is that the vast majority of men live with little or no recognition of God's glory in his own creative handiwork. There are months, there are multitudes who go week after week, month after month, and year after year, and never experience what it is to look up into the vastness of the heavens on a clear night and feel something of the breathless wonder that impresses itself upon the soul of every man who beholds the heavens in their vastness, and in their glory. There are multitudes

4:17 who never know any wide-eyed wonder, no exclamation when they look full into the intricacy of a beautiful flower. The heavens do declare God's glory. All that he has made is smothered with his fingerprints of majesty and power, and yet precious few people ever consider, that manifestation of his glory. And that's sad, for God has revealed his glory that it might be appreciated and might come in returns of praise and adoration to himself.

5:00 But there is a fact that is vastly more sad, and it is this. This same God has made an even majestically more glorious revelation of who he is, particularly as a God of love, of justice, and of pardoning mercy. And this revelation he has made in the sending of his only begotten Son into the world to do what was necessary in order to extend the blessings of salvation from sin to lost mankind. And in that act of sending his Son, in the identity of the Son, in the life, the death, the resurrection of the Son, in the blessings that are held forth to sinners on the basis of who Christ is and what he has done, God has made the most full, the most glorious, the most brilliant display of his glory as God. But as there are few, who contemplate the lesser glory of God's self-disclosure in the heavens above and in the earth about us, there are fewer yet

6:27 who consider the greater glory of God's self-disclosure in the redemption of sinners. Now when we ask the $64 question, why? Why should men be indifferent to such a disclosure? Why should men be indifferent to such a display of God's glory and majesty, especially when that greater display of his glory and majesty in the person and work of his Son touches upon our own highest self-interest and even our own preservation from the flames of hell forever? Why should men be indifferent to that disclosure? Why should men be indifferent to such a display of God's glory? Well, the fundamental answer to that question is this.

7:26 The vast majority of men and women are pathetically ignorant of their true spiritual state and condition before God. It is men's ignorance of what they are that lies at the root of their indifference to what God has ordained them for. It is men's ignorance of what they are that lies at the root of their indifference to what God has ordained them for. has done in manifesting His glory in the person and work of His Son. Were men and women to see themselves as they really are, with biblically based accurate self-knowledge, they would of necessity be pressed to consider the manifestation of God's glory in the gift of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, this morning, as one who is jealous that God's glory in the person and work of Christ should be appreciated and loved and adored by all of this congregation, as one

8:39 who is deeply concerned that you may possess personally the priceless blessings of grace, life, and salvation, which accompany the believing appreciation of this manifestation of God's glory, I have one central driving burden in the preaching of the Word this morning. And I'll tell you up front what that burden is. You won't need to wait until half or two-thirds of the way through the sermon to wonder, what is the preacher driving at? What is he about this morning?

9:19 I'm telling you on the very threshold of our meditation this morning that my central concern is to lead you by the hand of Scripture to an accurate self-knowledge that will bring you to a serious consideration of God's glory revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. More specifically, it is my aim to lead you to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm telling you to bring you to see that you and all men by nature are nothing less than haters of God. In my general concern to bring you to a biblically based accurate self-knowledge that you might have an appreciation for the person and work of Jesus Christ and the glory of God revealed in the Bible, I am especially and pointedly pressing home this one aspect of biblical truth. I want to

Addressing Objections: The Reality of Man's Hatred of God

10:34 demonstrate to you from the Word of God that you and all men by nature are haters of God. Now, I can almost hear the objections that are being voiced in your minds all the time. I'm trying to expect quite some of your opinions of England to be in the situation for which we have been. I am curious as to whether you are making it so clear that you mean well. Or else, I'm putting you at a disadvantage. But if I'm not hearing any of your opinions, or if you want to be assertive, please hear me out. I'm trying to be very inquisitive here in this sermon, and I'm asking you to give me the opportunity of speaking that we had before and hold a silent speaker. I'll be as silent as to your lips. Preacher, I've followed you up till now, but you've lost me because you've overstated the case so far beyond reality at the very beginning that you have given up any right to be seriously considered. If you had said it was your purpose to prove that people like Madeline Murray O'Hare are haters of God, then I could follow you. And if you said it was your purpose to demonstrate that men of the ilk of Hitler and Stalin and Mao Zedong are haters of God, then surely you would have my conscience on your side. But preacher, when you say you are setting out to prove that I am a hater of God,

11:45 I know you to be wrong before you even open your mouth.

11:50 You see, that's just the problem. You think that your assessment of what you are reflects the reality of what you are. Sin has so deluded and blinded you that you not only have no appreciation of who Christ is, you have no sure and certain knowledge of who you are. For you see, it is not this creature who in an attempt to drive at a given goal, albeit noble, has overstated the case as far as reality is concerned, but it is Almighty God Himself who describes you and me and every man or woman by nature as a hater of God. And I would ask you to turn to Paul's letter to the Romans, the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans and chapter 8.

12:56 Chapter 8. And our text will be verse 7.

13:05 Romans 8 and verse 7. Because the carnal mind or the mind of the flesh is enmity, or it could be translated as this very word is translated at least one other time in the New Testament, because the mind of the flesh is hatred, against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Now let me say just a word about the setting in which this statement comes to us. Paul is in the midst of describing by the guidance of the Spirit the great blessings which, which come to those who are in union with Jesus Christ. Chapter 8 and verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

14:19 And as he begins to unfold some of the glorious blessings that are the possession of those who are in union with Christ, savingly united to God's, son, the gift of his love, he begins to contrast such people as are in Christ, true believers, real Christians, with those who are out of Christ, not believers, not real Christians. And he does so in terms of this contrast, those that are after the Spirit, that's the term to describe true Christians, those who are in Christ, real believers, and those who are after the flesh, is his phrase to describe those who are not believers, who are not in Christ, who are not true Christians. All of us, by nature, are in the category of after the flesh. Some, by grace, have come into the category after the Spirit. Now in the midst of contrasting, their condition, their state, and what we would call the psychology of their basic perspective on life, he says in verse 7, the mind of the flesh, that is,

15:49 the governing principle of the whole inner disposition of everyone who is not a true Christian, who is not in Christ, who is not a believer, the mind of the flesh, the carnal mind, is enmity or hatred against God. So you see this phrase, hatred against God, is the spirit inspired of the very essence of the inner disposition of every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, in every place, in every age, in every culture, in any country, apart from the grace of God. And so I want to take this text, having demonstrated that we are not pushing some unusual pressure or putting some unusual and unwarranted pressure to extract this principle, and demonstrate to you this morning that you are a hater of God. That you were conceived and born, and you exist to this hour,

Hatred of God as Lawgiver: The Ten Commandments

17:16 unless the grace of God has transformed you by the power of the Spirit, you exist in this condition as one whose whole inner governing principle of life is enmity or hatred itself against God. And I want to demonstrate that in three specific areas. First of all, you hate God as a lawgiver. Then we shall see, secondly, that you hate God as a sovereign, and thirdly, you hate God as a dispenser of grace and mercy. First of all, you hate God as a lawgiver. Look at the language of the text. The carnal mind is enmity or hatred against God for, and here is Paul's concentrated point of emphasis, for it is subject to the law.

18:28 Neither indeed can it be. In this particular setting, Paul says that the clear proof that all men by nature are haters of God is that as long as they are governed by the carnal mind, they are subject to the law of God. In other words, they hate God as a lawgiver and the law which He has given. Now, if we are to understand the profound significance of this in coming to accurate self-knowledge, we must go all the way back to creation as it is recorded for us in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 and see this simple truth that God created man to be governed by God the Creator. Very simple truth. God created man to be governed by God the Creator. He was not to be governed by Himself and His impulses.

19:46 He was certainly not to be governed by the stars and become His own astrologer. He was made by God to be governed by God His Creator. And notice how clearly this is stamped on the face of the creation account. Genesis 1 and verse 27.

20:08 And God created man in His own image. In the image of God created He Him. Male and female created He them. And God blessed them.

20:21 God conferred His good will upon them. God endowed them with all that was necessary to please Him. His blessing was both an expression of His good will and a conferral of all the good things needed to please Him. But now notice, the next thing He does after blessing them, disclosing the fullness of His good will toward them, is He starts barking orders.

20:57 And God said unto them and there follow a string of commands. Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Now you see, set in the closest relationship is God creating them, blessing them, and commanding them. What does that tell us?

21:34 It tells us that God made man to be governed by God the Creator and that was not to cramp His style. That was in order. That He might attain to the blessedness that was conferred upon Him by the God who made Him. And we see the same emphasis in chapter 2 where we have the zoom lens account of creation.

22:05 Chapter 2 and verse 15, And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, And so as God puts Adam into that setting in which He is to glorify God by the work of His hands, the first expression of His mind to Adam is that of an imperative. He commands the man, saying, And then according to Romans 2, verses 14 and 15, He also wrote upon Adam's heart the summary of all of his duty in what later became known as the Ten Commandments, that summary of moral law given by the voice of God upon Sinai, written by the finger of God in tables of stone, underscoring this tremendous fact that from the very creation man was made to be governed by God the Creator. But sadly, chapter 3 of Genesis records man's defection and apostasy from God, and from the moment that Adam cast off the yoke of obedience to God.

23:31 And according to Romans 5, the essence of his sin was that of disobedience. It was this throwing off of the posture of an obedient subject. From that moment on, every person conceived, every person in this womb, conceived in his or her mother's womb, was conceived a creature whose disposition by nature is in its very essence one of enmity or hatred to God as a lawgiver. And the great proof of that is simply to bring one's thoughts, one's attitudes, one's motives, one's desires into close proximity to the full light of God's law, the Ten Commandments, realizing that those Ten Commandments address not merely where we go with our feet, what we touch with our hands, what we may put into our mouths, where we may go and what we may contact with our bodies, but God's holy law touches the motions and desires of the heart, the thoughts of the mind, the hidden motions and springs of desire

24:59 and impulse, that the law of God touches the whole of our being from the deepest recesses inward to the far extent of our actions and their impingement upon others outwardly. And so when we come to those Ten Words of Moses, Ten Words of God through Moses, do you see how they reveal that we are naturally haters of God as a lawgiver? For what does God say in that First Commandment? He demands unrivaled, whole-souled love and worship.

25:37 Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. He demands that He have all of our hearts. And we say, No, it's not fair. It's not fair that God should have unqualified, absolute, totalitarian rights over me.

25:52 Give me a God who's there to stroke me when I scrape my knee in life's journey. I'll have a God who throws some shekels at me when I'm in need, and I'll have a God who'll cradle me in His breast when I need comfort. But a God that demands that I love Him with all my heart, all my mind, all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, all my days, every moment of every waking hour? We don't like a God like that.

26:32 We find that cramps us. We want a little room to breathe. What we think is the rarefied air of doing our own thing. Since we see that we hate that God whose law demands such allegiance, in the Second Commandment He demands that His worship be pure and unmixed worship, that we're not free to choose how we shall worship Him.

26:56 He dictates how He shall be worshipped, and He abominates anything less than the worship He demands, and He curses the bringing of worship that He does not mandate. In the Third Commandment He desires sincere, non-hypocritical worship. He will not accept the body plunked down in the pew, the eyes on the preacher, but the mind on the girl, four pews ahead and three seats over. He looks upon that and He abominates it.

27:26 He doesn't accept it. He does not accept the lips that mouth the hymn while the heart is off on tomorrow's vacation or last week's pleasures. He says, This people draws near to Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. We take His name in vain when we worship insincerely and hypocritically.

27:49 And then He demands that His worship be stated, concentrated, periodic worship on a whole day set apart unto Him. He says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And the fact that a whole day is God's day in a unique way, and He set His claims upon it, we see that we are haters of God. We don't like the thought that we are not free to do what we think we would like to do on His day.

28:19 But we are to do what He commands us. And we show that we hate God as a lawgiver who'd have the nerve to intrude into our weekly calendar and before we even sit down and mark out the activities, He puts a big red X over His day and says, Mine! You hate a God like that. And the way you've profaned His Sabbath through all your years is an indication you hate God as a lawgiver.

28:48 And then when we turn to the last six commandments, you see the case becomes all the more convincing. If you're honest before God this morning, He says we are to keep sacred the authority of our parents. Honor thy father and thy mother, that that authority is delegated by God. And yet, one of the first things we did by instinct was to learn how to con our parents, try to manipulate our parents, buck against our parents, disobey our parents, lie to our parents, why?

29:21 We're haters of the God who said, Honor thy father and thy mother. And then how little we have placed worth upon the gift of life. We have acted as though life was something we were free to do with. There's some of you sitting here who've blown your mind that precious gift of God on booze and drugs.

29:44 You've drugged your mind by hours of inordinate, mindless TV watching that has been a disgrace to the nobility and dignity of your life as a creature made in the image of God. You may have slain a life within your womb because that baby didn't fit into your convenient plans. Or you thought, well, you could go ahead and have sex without the commitments of marriage and just be careful, and you weren't careful enough. But you took care of that little slip by a trip to the abortion clinic and slew the life that God had implanted in the womb.

30:21 And Jesus said, when you entertain thoughts of ill will, they are of the very essence of murder. And when that ill will breaks out in terms of calling someone stupid, stupid jerk, you use terminology that demeans the fellow man or woman or boy or girl as an image bearer of God. Jesus said, that's in the direction of the violation of the sixth law. The law of the sixth commandment.

30:51 And then what should we say of the seventh commandment with its demands for the sanctity of sex? Our sexual capacities and appetites are not our own. They were designed and given by God and they stand under the pressure of the law of God. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

31:09 And according to our Lord, again that commandment touches the look of the eyes, the desire of the heart, as well as what I touch with my hands. And what I may do with my genitals. Almighty God has sovereign rights over your genitals, over your breasts. Sovereign rights over your thoughts and what you look upon that is erotically stimulating.

31:36 You show yourself to be a hater of God. You say, who's got to mess around with something so personal and private as my sex life? I'll tell you who he is. He's your creator who designed and made you.

31:48 A sexual being. You're a hater of God. If you could, you'd love to rip out that seventh commandment and have total liberty to do what your base's impulses move you to do. And then the sanctity of property thou shalt not steal.

32:09 How many times have we shown ourselves to be haters of God by our indifference to the property rights of others? By stealing when we were children in things that we were told. Oh, every kid goes through a period. It's innocent.

32:24 Is it innocent when God says, thou shalt not steal? That I shall recognize the sanctity of another's property as God has sovereignly deposited it in his hands and in his possession? And the sanctity of truth, lying, the scripture says, is native to human beings. They go astray from the womb speaking lies.

32:47 And the sanctity of a heart content with the will and with the gifts of God, thou shalt not covet. Why do we find all of those commandments so irksome? Listen to the text. The carnal mind is hatred against God for it is not subject to the law of God.

33:09 My friend, listen. I said at the outset I wanted to help you to accurate self-knowledge. For without it, you will go on despising and being indifferent to Jesus Christ and his work for sinners. Hear me now.

Paul's Testimony: The Law Reveals Sin and Hatred

33:24 The word of God describes you as a hater of God. First of all, in this particular, you hate God as a lawgiver. When we come to understand that God rightfully commands these things to be kept perfectly, continually and from the heart, then surely, we will begin to understand what Paul meant when he said in the previous chapter of Romans, and I direct your attention there, chapter 7, beginning with verse 7. Listen to his own testimony.

34:03 He despised Christ because he had no accurate knowledge of himself. But that all changed. What shall we say then, Romans 7, 7? Is the law sin?

34:15 God forbid. Howbeit I had not known sin except through the law. For I had not known coveting except the law said, Thou shalt not covet, but sin finding occasion through the commandment. All manner of, I'm sorry, for sin finding occasion wrought in me through the commandment.

34:37 All manner of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. And I was alive apart from the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

34:50 And the commandment which was unto life I found to be unto death. What is he doing? Talking double talk? No, this is what he's saying.

34:58 He said, I actually thought I had eternal life based on my keeping God's law. I thought that I was a lover of God and therefore showed my love of God by loving His law.

35:16 Until he said, by the operation of the Holy Spirit I came to understand the meaning of the tenth commandment. And it was the peculiar inwardness of the tenth commandment. Thou shalt not covet, that as it were, broke open the secret of all the other commandments. Up until then, Paul thought of the commandments in terms of external behavior.

35:38 He had never risen up and spit in his mother's eyes, slapped his father's face. He had never had illicit intercourse with the neighbor's daughter, the neighbor's wife. And he thought those commandments were fully kept by him. But when under the illumination of the Spirit he came to the tenth commandment, Thou shalt not covet, he asked the question, Does one covet with his feet?

36:01 Does one covet with his hands? With what organs of the body does one covet? Well, you see, coveting is a holy inward disposition of the heart. And he said, When I came to that discovery, then as it were, the hard shell of my ignorance of what I was was broken.

36:23 And when the shell was broken, I saw myself to be a veritable pus-sack of uncleanness and sin and a hater of God. My friend, if you don't come to see that that's what you are, you will never appreciate the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It's tragic that you don't appreciate the glory of God in his handiwork. But oh, how tragic that you see nothing glorious in the gift of God's Son.

37:00 You see nothing glorious in his perfect life, lived in humiliation and independence upon the Father. You see nothing glorious in his agonizing bloodletting upon a cruel Roman gibbet, buried beneath the billows of divine wrath. You see nothing glorious in that. Why?

37:21 Because the shell of your heart remains uncrapped. You've never seen yourself as a hater of God. But that you are. And specifically, you hate God as a lawgiver.

Hatred of God as Sovereign: Resisting His Will

37:36 But secondly, you hate God as a sovereign. You hate God as a sovereign. You say, Pastor Martin, what do you mean by a sovereign? Well, a sovereign is one who is supreme, and independent in his authority.

37:56 In other words, a sovereign is someone who sits on a throne, a throne of real power and real authority, and there is no throne next to his with whom he shares that authority and power. There is no council chamber on the same level with whom he consults before he can exercise that power. To be a sovereign is to sit upon a solitary throne exalted above all other sources of authority. That's exactly how Isaiah saw the Lord.

38:36 In the year that King Isaiah died, he says in Isaiah 6, I saw the Lord high and lifted up sitting upon a throne. There he was in solitary exalted splendor as the sovereign of heaven and earth. He consults with no one but himself when he wills and when he acts and when he plans and when he purposes. When God created man and created the world, everything he created was but the expression of his actions as a sovereign. This is celebrated in that well-known text in Revelation 4 and verse 11. The four and twenty elders fall before him that sits upon the throne and they worship him and listen to the essence of their worship. Worthy art thou our Lord and our God to receive the glory and the honor and the power for you did create all things and because of your will and were created they worship God as a sovereign who willed

40:03 and none was there none was there to change his plans. He did not send his drawings to the local planning board for approval. He didn't send them to any board of standards to see if they met code. God created and all things are what they are because of his sovereign will.

40:38 Now from the very first act of disobedience what was a delight to Adam before his sin is now a source of hatred in man's heart. Having sought to usurp the throne of God by refusing to obey the mandate of God with respect to that special tree mankind having fallen in Adam every individual one of us is conceived with a disposition that is described in Romans 8-7 Haters of God not only haters of God as a sovereign but we are haters of God as a law giver but we hate him as a sovereign. Many will tolerate a God who sits in the wings waiting to patch up our messes when we get in trouble. They'll have a God like that. They don't want a God who vacates his universe.

41:39 They want him in the wings within earshot so that when things get rough and they say, Hey God! He'll be close enough to come and patch up the mess and then go off to his benign distance and leave us alone to do our own thing in the meantime till the next mess and then we can call out. They will tolerate a God in the wings waiting to come and patch up our messes. They'll tolerate a God whose crisis will be there to somehow sort out the mess or close enough to blame and say if there's a God how come this happened to me?

42:16 The God who orders and governs and disposes all things hear me now who orders and governs and disposes all things from the internal energy of every single atom out to the mighty light and size and mass of the largest star in the farthest galaxy of a God who controls of the into the farthest and don't want a God like that who controls everything from there to there and in between without exception. A God who does according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the man of men the God of whom the Psalmist spoke when he said our God is in the heavens he has done he has done whatsoever he has pleased. And it's interesting that in this very epistle Paul shows that men hate a God who is sovereign even when that God would be merciful to the creatures who hate him. Turn to Romans chapter 9 and listen to the language of this irritation of hatred against God as sovereign

43:45 in Romans chapter 9 the apostle is demonstrating that God's promises to save Israel have not failed but those promises were not to be fulfilled in just the literal physical seed of Abraham but fulfilled in an elect seed chosen from among the literal seed of Abraham yes but also chosen from the vast hordes of the Gentiles so that God's promise to save Israel will come to expression in the salvation of all of whom he has sovereignly marked to be the recipients of his salvation. Verse 11 for the children being not yet born neither having done anything good or bad that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calls it was said unto her the elder shall serve the younger even as it is written Jacob I loved but Esau I hated now look at man's response what shall we say then is there unrighteousness with God that's not right it's not right for God to be a sovereign in the exercise of his mercy it's not right for God to say I choose to set my love upon Jacob though he by nature is a sinner though by nature he hates my law though by nature he hates my sovereign rule I nonetheless set my love upon him to change him by my grace Esau he is conceived he is born

45:15 a sinner he is born he also hates me as a lawgiver he hates me as a sovereign and I choose to leave him to bear the just deserts of that state of mind and heart and to perish in his sin I choose to set my redemptive love upon Jacob I choose not to set it upon Esau and men say well that's not right verse 15 for he saith unto Moses I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion so then it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs but of God that has mercy verse 18 so he has mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardens Paul answers the objection by saying God has a right to be sovereign even in the dispensing of his mercy to God sovereignty look at verse 19 thou wilt say unto me why doth he still find fault for who has resisted his will Paul if you've got a God like that he sits on the throne and he orders everything even the ultimate destinies of men how can a God like that find fault we're just caught

46:41 in the jaws of this horrible Paul's answer he says but nay you to reply against God you misunderstood me I wasn't saying that God sovereignly chose some and bypassed others you misunderstood me I wasn't saying that God's free to show mercy to some and not to others they did understand and they understood so well that they objected and showed their hatred to God as sovereign and Paul's answer is not to water down the reality of God's sovereignty but to whittle man down to size he says who are you O man shall the thing formed say to him who formed it why hate me thus in other words the only place for a creature in the presence of a sovereign is with his head bowed and his mouth shut bowed on his face but you see that's not where you are is it you hear about a God like that why does God allow the tragedies that cause the bodies of little babies to be mangled and burnt to the Vietnam War why does God this and why does God as though the sovereign of the universe is answerable to you that's your hatred

Hatred of God as Dispenser of Grace: Undermining His Glory

48:10 to God as sovereign rather than putting your hand upon your mouth and saying O God there is much that perplexes me much that disturbs much that I cannot reconcile with what you've revealed of who you are God and I am the creature O Lord that you are and I will lay and consume within my breast every that would be raised about your rights to be God no you'd rather stand back and rear back on your hind legs and make God accountable to you my friend that's what Paul meant when he said the carnal mind is hatred against God you not only hate God as a law giver you hate God as a sovereign but thirdly and finally you hate God as a God of grace you say wait a minute pastor you really have left me now all men are glad that God is a forgiving and a merciful God you didn't hear me I said you hate God as a God of grace you know what the word grace means grace speaks of God's unmerited salvation through God's salvation from its tap roots in election

49:39 to its full flowering in glorification it is a salvation of the unmerited giver of God still deserving from beginning to end so much so that the scripture says for by you have been saved as though grace itself were the savior well we know grace is not the savior the spirit applies the salvation the savior was sent from the father the father the son and the spirit are the savior yet the text says by grace you have been saved why not that Paul would substitute Christ and the spirit and the father with the commodity called grace but the father and the son and the spirit are so motivated by grace and the application of salvation that it is not stretching reality to say by grace you have been saved grace has effected a method of salvation in which there is a way of just forgiveness righteous acceptance a lawful attainment of heaven by hell deserving sinners and you see all of us by nature hated God by grace for two basic reasons follow closely now as I try

51:09 to bring this to a pinpoint conclusion you see in a salvation that is all of grace that is God is conferring upon sinners exactly the opposite of what they deserve for nothing in them solely for things in himself that being so then the sinner must take the whole that God has placed upon his head and put it at the feet of his savior and say not unto me but unto you be praise and honor and glory for conferring upon me for no cause in me but for reasons and causes and motives exclusively in yourself you see a salvation that is wholly gratuitous all of grace and it's recipient to glory only in the giver of that salvation the scripture says in first Corinthians one thirty and thirty one but of him are you in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption that according as it is written he that has not

52:38 grocery was not bread and bread and water and the earth and the ground and all the stars the earth and the earth and all the mountains and the sky and the wings embraces His gracious salvation, the sole credit for what they possess. And man, the creature, doesn't want God to have the sole credit. But then secondly, because the salvation is all of grace to those who deserve the opposite. Listen, the perception of grace is always the pressure of unqualified obligation to the giver of grace. The pressure of grace is always the pressure of unqualified obligation to the one who gives the grace. If I deserve to be burning in hell, and yet God, for reasons holy in Himself, due to nothing in me that He saw before,

54:01 the virgin was pleased to save me with a salvation, all of grace, then what is the question? What is the question? What is the question? What is the question? What is the question? What is the question?

54:07 What limits dare I place upon my obligations to such a God? That's why Paul said the love of Christ constrains us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all died, and they who live should no longer henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again. My friend, listen, the greatest proof that you've been taught the doctrine of a your heart has felt this pressure of the unqualified response of whole-souled abandonment to Jesus Christ that is always the constraint of grace. And you see, you hate the God of grace because you hate the thought of giving your life to another, lock, stock, and barrel. That's why you hate the God of grace, because you don't want to lay all the laurels at His feet and say, worthy is the land that was slain. To receive blessing and glory and honor and power and salvation. It's very interesting, we don't have

55:19 time to open up the passage, but in Romans 10, 1 to 4, Paul describes how his own countrymen hated the God of grace and would not submit to the righteousness that grace provided. And they went about to work out their own righteousness so they could pat themselves on the back. God will not have it so. The cause of His salvation is sovereign mercy. The grounds of His salvation are all in the work of Christ. And therefore the praise for that salvation is due to Christ and Christ alone. Now my unconverted friend, listen, we come around full circle to where we began. I said the reason so many put so little value and appreciate so little the glory of God revealed in the person and work of Christ.

The Good News: Christ Died for Haters of God

56:11 And I was saying it for that very reason. What does the second part concern me? Well, I've so many words in there that we've had a deal, which is the same one that we've had in the first couple of talks, that don't erode everybody into the deep. And I would like you to take this and say, remember what I was saying earlier?

56:25 Ah, they can't neredolve over everything. I don't know what I was surprized about and it wasument regarding salvation. I saw the first twovity that iketh oh the glory of Jesus, and now I've seen you cannot and ah will not ever disobey. Do you know what I meant when you said, oh you disobey?

56:38 When I said, I don't do anything. I said, did I? Did I disobey? Now, now I said, what are all those who disobey me?

56:41 Lord, I love you, and I do hate you as a God of grace. Oh, God, you've cracked the shell. I see the horrible mass of sinful pus that is my human heart. Ah, my friend, this is good news that I have.

57:00 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Jesus came for sinners just like you. For sinners like you, he was willing to go to the confines of Mary's womb and there to develop as any ordinary fetus for nine months. For you, he was willing to be expelled amidst her groans and cries of birth pangs.

57:31 For you, he was willing to be wrapped in swaddling clothes. For sinners the likes of us, he was willing to be reared in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. To live in poverty, to be humiliated, the infinite God of all wisdom, having to learn his ABCs, to tie his shoes, to button his shirt, living that life of self-imposed humiliation. For you and for me, sinners the likes of us, he was willing to bear the scorn and the reproach of men,

58:07 pray until sweat drops of blood oozed from his brow and fell to the ground. For sinners like us, willing to go to the judgment hall and be spat upon and mocked and clogged and whipped and hung between earth and heaven until the Father shrouds the heavens in inky black darkness as one black poet described it, darker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp.

58:38 Shrouded the heavens in blackness while he poured out his wrath unmixed with mercy upon his son. Until it rung from his holy heart the cry, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

58:55 And then the cry of triumph, Tetelestai, it has finished. It is being, it stands accomplished to yield up his spirit, to have his body carried and placed in a tomb. The third day to rise from the dead, to go back to the right hand of the Father. Listen, my friend, all of that was done that sinners who are haters of God like you and me might have all the expressions of that hatred of God in all of their deeds, all of sins and transgressions and iniquities, the full mountain of them leveled by the blood and the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus did all of those things that we sinners might have a refuge from the wrath of God we deserve for our sins. He lives to send his Holy Spirit into our hearts, to break the chains that bind us, to give us eyes to perceive spiritual realities through the Word, to give us hearts to love spiritual realities through the Word, to give us wills to follow in the ways of God. My friend, when we talk about Jesus and salvation and the Savior, that's what we're talking about.

Application to Unbelievers: Go to Christ

60:18 Amen.

60:20 You, my unsaved friend, have you come to see that you do hate God?

60:26 The Scripture says Christ died for his people while they were enemies. Go to Christ. Tell him what you are. Tell him what you've seen yourself to be.

60:39 Your sin is not too great to keep you from Christ.

60:44 It's your pride and your lack of appreciation of what a sinner you are that keeps you from Christ. No amount of sin can keep a sinner from Christ. For he came to save us from our sins.

Application to Believers: Love for God as Lawgiver, Sovereign, and Gracious

60:59 Go to him this morning. Child of God, for your comfort, sitting here this morning, many of you have been able to say, Thank God, where once it was true I hated God as a lawgiver, I can say with Paul in Romans 7, I now delight in the law of God after the inward parts. Lord, I love your law. I don't keep it as I ought.

61:25 I must confess. It's my need of cleansing every day. But Lord, I love your total claims over me. And I never feel more safe or happy than when I'm nestled most fully under the gracious bonds and constraints of your holy law.

61:44 Loving you with all my heart, seeking to keep your worship pure and real and sincere and stated and periodic on your day, never more blessed and happy than when independent, dependent upon your spirit, I am able to give that honor due to constituted authority in the home, in the church, and in society, than when I have respect unto life and the sanctity of sex and property and truth. Oh Lord, I thank you I no longer hate you as a lawgiver. Can you say that this morning? My friend, if you can, it's because by grace you have been saved.

62:25 Can you say I no longer hate him as a sovereign? Some of you sat there this morning and said when I described what a sovereign is and that this God controls the inner motions of every least atom to the outer reaches of the farthest galaxy and everything in between, your heart said hallelujah. I would have it no other way. My friend, it's grace that's made you love a God who is sovereign.

62:52 And if when we describe God as a God of grace who has contrived the salvation, that secures all the glory to himself and unlimited obligations upon its recipients, if you could sit there and say, oh God, that's just the salvation I love. Lord, I don't want a salvation that leaves one little diamond chip in my crown. I want all the chips and all the parts of the crown to be upon the pierced head of my savior. Upon that brow that was scarred with thorns, that's where I'd have it to be.

63:30 And you could sit there and say, oh Lord, my only grief is not that you have total claims over me, but that I so feebly render to you the claims which are your rightful due. Could you say those things inwardly as I preached? Then my friend, why in the world are you doubting you're a Christian? Only almighty God by sovereign grace makes men lovers, lovers of himself as lawgiver, as sovereign, and as a God of grace.

64:06 And remember this, Christian, though the dominion of sin has been broken, you're no longer fundamentally a hater of God. Remaining sin will strike again and again at those three areas. And your remaining sin, fueled by the pressure of the world and the subtle work of the devil, will constantly fight, to stir up controversies within you, to God as a lawgiver, God as a sovereign, and God as a God of grace. And you will make progress in the Christian life in direct proportion to your ability to maintain, by the grace of God, a comfortable relationship to God as lawgiver, sovereign, and gracious. Let us pray.

Prayer for Self-Knowledge and Saving Mercy

65:09 O our Father, many of us have felt even in the preaching of your word the sense of shame and horror that we would have, some of us for many years, hated you. You're a God worthy of being adored and worshipped and loved and honored and obeyed, and we regarded you in such an unworthy light. O Father, remember not against us the sins of our youth. Many of us can come to you, and many of us can confess that by your grace we do love you.

65:45 We love you for who you are. We would not change you. We love you as lawgiver. We love you as sovereign.

65:54 We love you as gracious. But for those who cannot say that, O God, may that accurate self-knowledge be given even now. And may they in brokenness of heart cry out to you for mercy. And may they find themselves, before their heads this night, as those who do indeed love you.

66:17 Use your word. Use the proclamation of your gospel. Use the proclamation of your law to effect a saving mercy in the hearts of many. May your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place.

66:32 May the enemy of our souls not come like the fowls of the air who follow the farmer and pluck up the seed that is sown. May that seed be enfolded in our hearts and bring forth fruit unto everlasting life. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.