God's Glory in the Accomplishment of Salvation #1

Introduction: Wonder, Privilege, and Reluctance in Preaching God's Glory in Redemption

0:05 I do want to respond very sincerely, not as a matter of social grace, though I do hope Yankees have a little bit of that, not much, but they do have a little, and say that I count it a great privilege to be here, to have the opportunity to see your pastor on his home territory, to see faces I have seen, a few of them in other places, and then to meet many of what is, in many ways, I regard as sort of an unofficial, extended second congregation. It's always a delight to meet those who say they've been helped by the ministry of the word of God that has come by means of the tapes, and to see face to face those whom the Lord has been pleased to touch by the ministry of his own holy word. And so I do thank you, Pastor Askell.

1:00 Thank you, Beacons, for the gracious invitation to come and share in this very special week, and I trust that God will continue to meet with us, and even as I leave to return to my own people on Saturday, that God will continue to meet with you throughout this week of meetings. Now, those of you who are familiar with the theme that has been announced, you are aware that that theme has been announced as the glory of God in the accountability. The accomplishment of redemption, the sermon for tonight, and then the glory of God in the application of redemption. Now, as we come to this vast and vital subject, I confess that I come to it with a deep sense of wonder and also of privilege. A deep sense of wonder that I, a sinner, who for 18 years saw nothing beautiful in Christ, nothing that captured my sin-loving, pleasure-loving heart. I heard of Christ in a real sense from my mother's threats, for I was privileged to be reared in a Christian home.

2:16 I heard of Jesus, learned songs of Jesus, heard sermons about Jesus, but Jesus did not capture my heart. The world had my heart. Popularity. For pleasure.

2:32 Those were the things that got me excited. Those were the things that possessed my heart. And as I thought of coming to you and speaking on this subject, a fresh sense of wonder filled my own heart. I said, what in the world am I doing speaking about the glory of God in such a thing as redemption?

2:54 And in that sense, I'm a wonder to myself that I'm here. To be able to speak of something not in a detached...

3:01 in an academic way that I trust, not only out of the word of God, but out of the fullness of my own heart. And so I come with a sense of wonder, but also with a sense of privilege, that I can stand in the midst of fellow sinners who deserve the same hell that I deserve, and speak to you about the glory of a God who has not consumed us in His wrath, as He could well have done it. No redemption was provided. No salvation was provided for angels.

3:34 When they got too big for their angelic britches and said, we'll be like God, God said, you've had it. And the Scripture says they were cast down to be held in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day. And when you and I got too big for our britches and said, we'll run our own life, we'll do our own thing, we'll live the way we want, God could have damned every last one of us and magnified the glory of His justice. And caused angels to worship Him in the damnation of every one of us.

4:08 What a privilege to stand among fellow hell-deserving sinners and talk about the glory of a God who, instead of damning us all, has sent redemption in the person of His own dear Son. But not only do I come before you with a sense of wonder and privilege, but as I thought upon this subject, I also had a renewed sense of reluctance and of impotence to speak on this subject. A sense of reluctance because the subject is so vast and so glorious that one wonders how in the world can a man with a human mind and a human tongue ever begin to do justice to something that the Bible says angels desire to look into. I believe there are angels who are tempted to do justice to something that the Bible says angels desire to look into. I believe there are angels who are tempted to covetousness and envy tonight. They would count it a privilege to speak of the great mysteries of God's glory revealed in the gospel.

5:18 And the subject is so vast and glorious that I feel a reluctance that I might spoil it by even attempting to speak upon it. And I feel that sense of impotence knowing that as much as I sought to prepare to preach to you, you. As much as I'll labor with every fiber of my being to preach with every cell of my being in dependence upon the Holy Ghost, I'm confident that I may as well be speaking in Chinese if I could speak in Chinese. You will understand just as much if I were speaking in Chinese, though I may speak in the plainest English, the most earnest, sinful language, unless God the Holy Spirit gives you eyes to behold His glory in the redemption accomplished and applied by Him, you'll go out of here saying, what's the big deal? And I have no power to open your eyes, and I feel that impotence, and yet in the midst of it I know that God's Word says He delights to take the weak things to confound the mighty, and the things that are not to bring to naught the things that are, but no flesh. So, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, let us all plead with God that God will come and

6:46 that God will give us to see at least a few flashes of the glory that's birthed forth from the biblical doctrine of redemption accomplished and redemption applied. Now, we've been sitting for a while, and you're going to be sitting for a while longer, and God knows that you're going to be sitting for a while longer, and God knows that you're going to be sitting for a while longer, and you're going to be sitting for a while longer, that we can't hear with prophet any longer than we can sit with comfort. And God understands that, so I'm going to ask that we all stand for a moment, and while we stand, in God's presence, let us pray together as I lead you to the throne of grace in prayer. Let us pray.

7:29 Holy Father, God before whom angels cry, holy, holy, holy. God who in sovereign perfect 막syato, has privileged us to come together in freedom, in soundness of mind and body. We thank you for the great privilege of being together in this place tonight. Thank you that we have the Scripture.

7:57 Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for the expectation with which we can come to the preaching of your word, believing that as we cry to you to give us the Holy Spirit, as a loving Father delights to give good gifts to his children, so will you give the Spirit to those who ask. And we are asking that he may be given to us, not to give us tingles up and down our spine, not to give us experiences that we may gloat in, but oh, to take away the blindness from our eyes and the dullness from our ears and the slowness from our hearts, that we may hear. Hear and see and feel the truth as the truth is in Jesus. Help your servants so to preach that the Spirit will take of the things of Christ and reveal them with power. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Defining the Terms: Glory of God, Redemption Accomplished, and Redemption Applied

8:59 Amen. Peace be with you. Now, the dear folk in the choir, I want you to know it pains me not to preach to your eyeballs. Wouldn't you assume that I've got two eyes back there and I'm conscious of you being there, and yet I don't want to have you have the back of my head every few minutes, you who are sitting before me.

9:29 Now, as we take up this subject tonight, I felt it was very important in our first study that we understand what we're talking about. The subject assigned to me, and I'm glad it was assigned to me, comes to us in some 25-cent or 50-cent words. The glory of God in redemption, accomplished, and the glory of God in redemption, applied. Now, first of all, I want to give you a working description and definition of what those words mean.

10:06 That's my first purpose. So we're going to school together. Some of you kids thought, ah, school was over at 3 o'clock and now the preacher takes us back into school. But don't you ever feel that way.

10:17 He says if you're to know God and His salvation, you've got to learn about Him and about His ways. Now, when we speak of the glory of God, what do we mean? Well, when I use the term in the sermon tonight and again tomorrow night, I'm speaking of nothing less than the outshining of the perfections of God. The glory of God is the outshining of God's perfection.

10:48 Let me illustrate. The sun, that burning star, off so many hundreds of thousands of miles from us, the sun sends out its beams or its rays. And we know that when we feel the warmth of its beams or we see the light of its rays. So the beams or the rays of the sun are to the sun what the glory of God is to God.

11:20 God is glorious in Himself. But when He manifests His gloriousness, His own perfection, the manifestation of His perfection is His glory. Some have tried to describe it as His manifested excellence. The heavens declare the glory of God.

11:48 What do the heavens do? They show forth the perfections of God. They show the perfections of His power. Who but God could fill out stars by the billions by the word of His mouth?

12:04 Who but God can hold the galaxies in their proper places? The heavens declare the glory of God. The heavens show His manifested excellence. The heavens are the outshining of the perfections of God.

12:24 And so in these two messages, we're going to be concentrating our attention upon considering the outshining of God's perfection. Our eyes are not going to be upon the preacher. They're not going to be upon mere notions and ideas. They're not going to be primarily upon our blessings and certainly not upon ourselves.

12:51 But we are going to fix the eyes, the eyes of our hearts and our minds upon the glory of God. That is the outshining of God's perfection. That's what we want to see in these two nights. Something of the shining forth of God's perfection.

13:13 Now, where are we going to look for that outshining? Psalm 19 says, The heavens declare the glory of God. But you see, you've already considered this week the glory of God in His creation. We're going to look for the outshining of the perfections of God in redemption.

13:36 Now, what's the big word redemption mean? Well, simply this. That's the word used in the Bible to describe God's mighty work of grace and power in releasing sinners from sin and its consequence, by the payment of a price. That's what redemption is.

14:00 God's mighty work of grace and of power releasing sinners from sin and its consequences by the payment of a price. That's why Peter could write in 1 Peter 1.18, For you were redeemed, not with corruptible things such as silver, and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. And the whole biblical idea of redemption takes its starting point from that which God did with His people when they were down in Egyptian bondage.

14:39 You remember the Egyptian taskmasters were holding them as slaves and making these terrible demands upon them and making life miserable for them. And when God, through Moses, delivered His people, that was called a redemption. It was a work of God's grace and power delivering His people from bondage. That becomes a picture of the great work of God's grace and power in delivering sinners from the power and bondage of sin and its consequences by the payment of a price.

15:19 Now then, what do we mean by redemption? A conflict. A conflict is a conflict of God's grace and power. A conflict is a conflict of God's grace and power.

15:26 A conflict is a conflict of God's grace and power. But when we speak of the accomplishment of redemption, we're speaking of that which God did, that is, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, the triune God did, in the life history of Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate Son of God, in order to secure the salvation of men. When we talk about the accomplishment of redemption, our minds are thinking about that which God did from Bethlehem's cradle to the cross and to Joseph's empty tomb and to his ascension back into heaven. The accomplishment of redemption is bounded by the life history of Jesus of Nazareth. So when you think of the accomplishment of redemption, your mind must always go back to Bethlehem, the life of obedience and humiliation culminating in the cross and the open tomb, and then that scene while they watched him ascend up into heaven, enveloped in clouds, taken out of their sight, and he sat down at the right hand of God the Father.

16:50 That's the accomplishment. That's the accomplishment of redemption. Now within that life history of Jesus, the accomplishment of redemption, come all those typical words, atonement, sacrifice, propitiation, reconciliation. Those words are not just used like a nose of wax in the Bible.

17:15 They refer to blessed realities that were accomplished in the life history of Jesus. Now then, what do we mean by redemption applied, or the application of redemption? Now think. If redemption accomplished pertains to what God did in the life history of Jesus of Nazareth, redemption applied pertains to that which he does in the life history of every single elect sinner.

17:54 Redemption accomplished? The life history of Jesus. Redemption applies the life history of every elect sinner. It is that work of God in which God confers upon every such sinner, working in him and for him everything purchased on his behalf when Jesus Christ lived out his life history upon the earth.

18:26 So within the application of redemption come all those typical words, calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, holiness, and glorification. And all of those fit not in the accomplishment of redemption, but in the application of redemption. Now you see that distinction? Suppose you were in prison.

18:56 You were in jail. Someone was going to post bail. And they posted your bail. Say this young man was, I don't know what you do so bad to land in jail, son.

19:05 I hope you never do. But suppose you were. You don't mind if I pick on you. Do I have your permission to pick on you?

19:11 Do I? Good. Thank you. I've got his permission.

19:14 All right? And they posted bail for $50,000. And a wealthy man took compassion on you and said, I'm going to post bail for that young man. He goes down to the proper clerk and posts the bail.

19:26 And the... The proper receipt is made out.

19:29 Well, you see, when that money is placed on the counter and the receipt is made out, your relief has been accomplished. But you're still behind bars until the man who keeps the jail comes and takes the key and opens the door and says, you can go free. That's the application of your release that was accomplished. You see?

19:50 Accomplished at the desk with the clerk when the proper amount of money is paid, but applied when the jailer comes, turns the key, and lets you free. Accomplishment. Application. Now, that's not difficult to see the distinction, is it?

20:05 Now, that's what we're talking about in these two nights. We want to behold the glory of God, the outshine of the perfections of God in His work of accomplishing redemption for sinners and in the application of that redemption to the same sinners, to the same sinners, for whom it was accomplished. For when the man puts up the $50,000 for my young friend in jail at the desk, he doesn't expect the jailer to let some other fellow out of jail, but the one for whom the payment was made. You see it?

20:48 So the accomplishment and the application are just two parts of the one and the same redemption. Purpose and design for the same sinners. And that's what we're going to talk about, God willing, in our time together. Now, in summary, as we consider this matter of the definition, when we bring all of this together, you see now what we're going to attempt to do as we study the Word of God.

The Biblical Backdrop: Man's Tragic Condition as a Sinner

21:21 We want to catch some gleam, some little measure of the glory that breaks forth from the work that God has done in the redemption of hell-deserving sinners. Now then, the second thing I want to do tonight is sort of spreading the table, is I want to sketch in the biblical backdrop to the glory of God revealed in redemption. We should not only have an understanding of the terms, and I've tried to give that to you, but we must sketch in the biblical backdrop to the glory of God revealed in redemption. And here again, let me use a simple illustration.

22:02 Imagine, if you will, some of you young ladies, that a young man has set his heart upon you, and you have not only, quote, fallen in love, but don't ever get married because you just fell in love. All right? The divorce courts are full of people who fell in love and got married because they fell in love. Falling in love is not the basis of a good marriage.

22:26 Commitment in biblical love to live by the Word of God, that's the basis. That's the basis for a good marriage. Okay? So let's assume, young ladies, you've had sense enough to wait until there's commitment in biblical love before you say, I do.

22:41 All right? I'm getting a little fatherly bite on the side. All right? And I'm thankful I've seen one of my daughters go that route of commitment to biblical love, and the other one well in the process.

22:54 So I think I've earned the right, maybe, to say a few words. But anyway, back to my illustration. And the time comes when the young man is going to get you a ring. And he's searching.

23:03 And he searches, and searches, and searches, until he takes almost his life savings. He wants to show his love. He gets a diamond that is registered. I mean, right at the top of the screen.

23:16 Perfect in color. Cut perfectly. Polished perfectly. Now, that diamond has an intrinsic, a self-contained beauty and glory simply because it is a flawless, perfectly cut, perfectly polished diamond.

23:32 Now, no matter where you put it, that diamond has a glory in itself. It might be placed in a pocket. It still has its glory. It might be placed in a dresser drawer.

23:43 It still has its glory. You might take and bury it in mud. Don't ask me why you would. But even if you did, it would lose none of its intrinsic glory and beauty.

23:54 You can take it out and hold it up against the clear blue sky. No matter where you put it, in the sand, in the mud, in your pocket, in the dresser drawer, against the sky, the diamond in itself, because it is a flawless, perfectly cut, polished diamond, has its own intrinsic...

24:14 But if you want that beauty to be fully displayed, what do you do? You take a dark piece of black or navy blue velvet. Make sure there's no lint on it. And you place that diamond right in the center of that piece of velvet.

24:32 And then you shine a light upon it at such an angle that it maximizes all of that facets, and then all the beauty and the glory that is there in the diamond. The velvet doesn't create beauty. The light doesn't create its beauty. It simply puts it in a backdrop that does what?

24:54 That highlights and lets it manifest its own intrinsic glory. Now that's exactly what we've got to do with the glory of God revealed...

25:05 Revealed in redemption accomplished, and redemption applied. God's glory is revealed in redemption. Whether we see it, whether we appreciate it, whether we try to bury it in the mud of woolly thinking, whether we try to stick it in the pocket of indistinct thinking, whether we try to cover it in the drawer of indifference, God's redemption in Christ has an intrinsic glory and beauty. But what we want to do is put it on the backdrop of the velvet of what God has revealed in His Word as the backdrop on which the glory of His redemption shines forth. And do you know what that backdrop is? It's nothing less than the undiluted teaching of the Bible regarding man's tragic, horrible condition as a sinner. The glory of God in redemption is set against the backdrop of the horrible tragedy of man's terrible condition as a sinner.

26:20 Now follow me closely. In direct proportion to our ignorance or indifference or denial of that backdrop will be our failure to see the glory of God in the redemption in Jesus Christ. It is only when we take seriously the biblical backdrop to redemption that all the facets of its glory sparkle and dazzle before our eyes and cause us to cry out, Oh, the death both of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past tracing out. For who has known the mind of the Lord or being His counselor is of Him. For of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things to whom be the glory forever and ever of. You see, it's only when we take seriously that backdrop and so I would not be a faithful teacher and preacher if I came assigned to speaking on the subject, the glory of God in redemption, redemption in its accomplishment, redemption in its application, if I didn't take time to define my terms

27:47 and then take the time to sketch in the biblical backdrop of the glory of God in that redemption. Every facet of redemption accomplished and applied is God's gracious answer to a facet of man's need as a sinner. There are no luxuries in God's salvation. No extras.

28:13 There's no stripped down model and then a loaded model. There's only one model. That's the redemption in Christ accomplished and applied and every part of it is needed because it answers to a certain aspect of our need as sinners. Downplay what we are as sinners and you will downgrade the glory of the redemption for sinners in Jesus Christ.

The Frightening Reality of Human Guilt

28:37 It always happens. Now then, how can I sketch it in? Well, let's try to look at that fabric and see it comprised of four, if it were, pieces of cloth. The first one is this.

28:53 The frightening reality of human guilt. The frightening reality of human guilt. To be guilty before the law is to be liable to punishment. Man, as God's creature, was obligated to keep God's law.

29:13 And when God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he didn't sit down and say, now Adam and Eve, look, I've made you. And you see, he's happy about that. But now we need to negotiate on how we're going to operate around here. And you know, I wouldn't want to bully you and I wouldn't want to appear as though I was overbearing and overpowering and intimidating.

29:30 So Adam and Eve, let's sit down and talk on how we're going to run things around here. Is that what God did? No. It says he made the man, made the woman, took the man, put the man, told the man, and commanded him.

29:45 That's what the Bible says. He took the man, put him in a garden, and commanded him, saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is in the midst of the garden, you shall not eat, for in the day you eat, you shall die. And then he told the woman, now look, I want you to sit around and figure out what you're rolling. I wouldn't want you to feel that I'm a chauvinist.

30:05 I wouldn't want you to think that I'm a chauvinist. I wouldn't want you to think that I'm a chauvinist. I wouldn't want you to think that I'm a chauvinist. I wouldn't want you to think, you see, that there is any kind of concept that women have distinct roles than men.

30:17 So, Eve, you go off down a rock somewhere and scratch your head, and when you come up with a list of what you think you'd like to do, come and we'll discuss it. That isn't what God said. God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper answering to his needs.

30:29 And it says, he put the man to sleep, made a woman, brought the woman to the man, and he said, now Adam, here is the counterpart. He said, now Adam, here is the counterpart. He said, here is the woman made for you. And in our day, the feminists say, look, girls, find your identity totally independent of men, of marriage, and of the home.

30:51 That's high treason against the God of heaven. Treason against the God of heaven. You precious young ladies, don't you buy that clack-clacking junk. It's hog-swilled.

31:05 That's what it is. It's been sitting around for so long, it stinks in its homes. It's that bad. You ever seen swilled-it-stinks-in-bones I have?

31:14 Makes you want to barf. That's right. That's right. And that's what that business is.

31:19 This is not an innocent thing. I grieve that that schoolteacher lost her life. I'm not a hard-hearted man. She had no business leaving her family for four months and leaving a little girl crying, Muppet, please don't go.

31:31 Please don't go. My Bible says the older women are to train the younger women to be keepers at home. And don't you allow the feminists to say you're not a woman. You're a man.

31:42 You're a woman. You're a woman. You're a woman. Just say your liberty comes in finding your identity on your own.

31:50 Ease liberty within doing what God made her to do. So God put them there. And God says you're accountable to me. And everything was fun.

31:57 What fun? Wonderful. Full of joy and fellowship with God. A perfect man.

32:02 A perfect woman in a perfect environment. And God says it'll go on being this way just so long as you continue to be preachers and let me be God. As God, I call the shots and I tell you what to do. And as long as that arrangement continues, you're fine.

32:17 But the minute it stops playing, death will come and the day you will die. And you know what God did with this strange thing? He took Adam and he piggybacked the whole human race on Adam. That's right.

32:31 He piggybacked the whole human race on Adam. And he said to Adam, Adam, when you stand, all the human race stands in you and with you. You fall and the whole human race falls. And my Bible says in Romans 5, 12, Wherefore, who one man sinned and two men sinned and three men sinned in the world and death passed upon all men?

32:58 Why? For that all sinned. When did all sin? All sinned when our first father sinned.

33:04 And when Adam took that fruit from Eve and disobeyed God, in a real sense, my hand was in Adam's hand. And my mouth ate with Adam's mouth and my heart went astray from God and sin entered into the world and death passed upon all men for that all sinned in Adam. That's why Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, As in Adam all die. What is the backdrop to the glory of God in redemption?

33:38 The backdrop to the glory of God in redemption begins with the frightening reality of human guilt. And where did our human guilt start? It started in the garden of Eden. Don't let anybody give you this stuff about we're not sinners till we come to an age of accountability.

33:59 Our age of accountability is thousands of years past in the garden of Eden. That's not fair. I wasn't asked to vote on it. No, you weren't.

34:17 Nor was I. But that's reality and God runs His world, not you and not me. Reality is a stubborn thing. You might meet a six foot thick man in the garden of Eden.

34:30 You might say, I don't like it. It's in my way. I don't like it. Butch your head against it.

34:36 Concrete wall isn't going to stay out. You'll go away with a bloody head. That's all you'll get for your troubles. And that's reality.

34:44 Men, women, boys, girls. God arranged it that if Adam stood we would have stood with him and in him. But when he fell we fell in him and with him in that first sin and we are guilty of the head of the human race. And redemption comes to us against the backdrop of the guilt.

35:07 That guilt that is ours because of the sin of our first father but also that guilt which is increased because of our own personal sin. Our individual sins. Psalm 58 3 says they go astray from the womb. Speaking lies.

35:29 The psalmist says they hardly have breathed their first breath and cried their first cry and wet their first pamper before their lying. They go astray from the womb. Speaking lies. Scripture tells us that the wave is of sin death and all have stinged and come short of the glory of God.

36:01 All we have is a sin of sin. What does that mean? Every single time I have not perfectly loved God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength I am guilty. Every single time it and God is committed to punish that sin? Yes. Every single sin. God knows. God sees it. Sins of the heart. Sins of thought. Sins of tongue. Sins of desire. Sins of intention.

36:51 That's why Jesus said hatred in the heart is murder. It's not just murder when the man pulls the trigger and hits his mark or takes the dagger and plunges it into the heart. All you've got to feel in your heart is, why could I kill her? God says it's as good as done. Guilty of murder. The hands of your soul are red with blood and hatred. That's why he said, whoso looks to lust upon a woman has committed adultery already in his heart. God says adultery is not only in the act of the joining of the body of one to another in an illicit relationship, but when the heart is committed to it and you say, if I kill her, I'm going to kill her. If I kill her, I'm going to kill her. If I kill her, if I kill her, I'm going to kill her. If I kill her, I'm going to kill her. If I kill her, I'm going to kill her. If the circumstances were right, Jesus said that's adultery. Now is it true that God's holy law is the standard by which God judges every thought, every motive, every attitude, and anything short of absolute obedience to his law makes us guilty and provokes his wrath? Who sitting here tonight would dare to stand up in the love of God's standard of perfect righteousness? From the very moment that I can remember anything

38:16 I've loved God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, every moment of every hour of every day of every week of every year I live, who among you is so stupid as to even think that you could make such a claim? Now what is the glory of God in redemption? It's never to be understood until we see that we've got real guilt, provoked by real sin. And that that guilt is a frightening reality. Why a frightening reality? Because we read in Hebrews 10, 30 and 31, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

39:17 God has said every sin will receive just punishment. If God bards the garden of Eden to Adam and Eve for one sin, my friend, what will he do to you and to me for the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of sins? Dr. Robert Shuler parades his rotten, hell-producing gospel of self-esteem. If what we need, he says, is to be convinced we're not half as bad as we think we are. That's not our problem. We're not one hundredth the part aware of how bad our plight is. And the glory of God in the redemption of Christ will never be appreciated until there is returned again to the church. This backdrop of a consciousness

40:15 of the frightening reality of human guilt, when God is permitted to uphold his law and punish every sin. Who can escape? Why, the Bible tells us in the day of judgment in that horrible picture in the end of Revelation 6, in that day the kings of the earth, the great ones and the little ones, the slaves and the free, what will they do? When God begins to pour out his wrath, this is what they'll do. It says in Revelation 6, 15 and 16 that they will hide themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains. And they'll say to the mountains and to the rocks, who can escape? Who can escape? Who can escape? Who can escape? Who can escape? Who can escape? Who can escape? Who can escape from the place with heaven on earth? And after that day they will face up the down and the hell

41:26 the people will face on the head and they can't escape. And they're always thinking, how can everybody have no other choice? The best is to fall on those who know not God and obey not the gospel. Vengeance is mine, God says.

41:34 I will repay. Vengeance is never right for you and me. Never right for us to get even. But one day God will get even.

41:43 He'll get even with sinners who say, I don't care what God says. I'm going to do my own thing. I don't care that God says I'm to love Him with all my heart. I want to love my friends more than God.

41:52 I want to love my sports. I want to love my fun. I want to love my pleasure. I want to love my business.

41:57 I want to love my weekend cottage. I want to love my bonds. I want to love my golf clubs. I want to love this.

42:03 I don't care what God says. Oh, I'll give Him a little corner of my heart, but not the whole heart. Who the world's God think He is? No, sir, I'll give God just as much as I want to.

42:12 And I don't care if God says remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Who cares what God says? I've got to have a day in the week, man, when I can putter around the house and watch the football games and do my own thing. Oh, yeah, I'll go to church, throw a little pot to God and stab my conscience and say, I'm going to do God a favor, but keep one whole day unto God as a day for specific worship?

42:33 A whole day unto God? No way, man! God's got no right to mess around with my leisure time. Honored by Father and by Mother.

42:45 I'm not going to do that. Why should I? I know more than my old man knows. I know more than my mom knows.

42:50 I know more than my daddy knows. I'm not going to honor them. I'll only honor them so much as I take it. You see what that's saying?

42:57 It's saying I don't care about God. I don't care about God's law. Then what does God do? Does he split the heavens with thunderbolts?

43:03 No. He patiently builds one upon another, upon another, upon another, upon another, upon another, until Paul says, each sin is like putting money in the bank. You pray, but you're not allowed. Every sin, you're putting more money in the bank.

43:17 And you're gaining interest. Put it in the bank. Put it in the bank. Put it in the bank.

43:21 And what building? The capital of divine wrath. And a day is coming when God says, I'm going to open up your bank account. And you're going to open your bank account.

43:27 And you're going to open your bank account. And you're going to open your bank account.

43:30 And you're going to open your bank account. I'm going to open it up. And then what do men do? They go and they find the nearest mountain.

43:34 They start praying to a mountain. They wouldn't pray to God. They'd pray to a mountain. Oh, mountains, fall on us!

43:40 Oh, Lord, come move down upon us. Why? They realize God meant this. God meant this for them.

43:46 And they see the wrath of the Lamb coming. My friends, the glory of God in redemption is set against the backdrop of the reality of human being. Have you ever felt your gift? Have you ever felt your gift?

44:00 Have you ever felt your gift? Have you ever felt your gift? Have you ever felt your gift? Have you ever felt and known the fact that every sin you've ever committed has been a voice that cries up to heaven, bearing God to damn your soul in hell?

44:21 Every selfish, mean, ugly, envious, covetous thought was a voice that cried to heaven's court for judgment.

44:33 My friend, if you've never taken that seriously, you'd better begin. Please, for you'll never, never see the glory of God in the redemption that is in Christ. You'll never have a clue about what the cross is all about. The cross will be to you just a lovely, mushy symbol of something called the love of God.

44:55 But you'll never see the cross in its true light as the place where hell came out of hell and passed upon the Son of God and where the... ...fury of God's justice burned in white hot heat until it consumed the Son of God. The cross will be nothing to you until you see that backdrop of the reality of your guilt. But then I must say, the backdrop also has a second strand or patch of cloth in it. And it's not only the frightening reality of human guilt, but the sickening reality of human defilement.

The Sickening Reality of Human Defilement

45:39 What does it mean to be defiled? It means to be unclean, to be polluted, to be filthy. And the Bible makes it abundantly clear that when sin ends, we not only got a problem up in God's court and became guilty, sin entered the human soul and defiled the entirety of man's soul and his being, so that the human heart could not be defiled. It means to be defiled.

46:09 It means to be defiled. It means to be defiled. It means to be defiled. That is now nothing but a set pool of sin.

46:14 You say, where do you find that in the Bible? Very quickly, we'll go from Old to New Testament. 4 Peter, Genesis chapter 6. You all know about the flood in Noah's day.

46:25 Why did God send the flood? Well, the Bible tells us very clearly why He did. Genesis 6, 5. The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, now notice, and that, that every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.

46:50 What did God see that provoked him? What did God see that caused the Lord to say, it repents me that I've made man, I will destroy man whom I have created? What did He see? Notice, so the chapter begins by saying that there was this horrible condition of the godly seas mingling with the ungodly, the earth was full of violence, the thing that provoked God to send the flood, the thing that most triggered God's anger was this, the condition of man's heart.

47:29 Do you see it? And it says the imagination of the thought of the heart. And you can't get any deeper than that. Here's my heart.

47:38 The seed of my being. I think a thought. Behind the thought is an imagination. Behind the imagination is something that triggers that.

47:48 In other words, it's describing the very first spring of human thought and desire and perspective. It was evil continually. Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually. That's why Jeremiah said, you all know the verse, don't you?

48:09 Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? It's so polluted that the prophet asked, who can plumb the depths of this death pool called the human heart?

48:33 Who can reach down with a stick and measure its depth? Who can put it into a flask and take it into the laboratory and analyze the density of its filth and its vileness? The next verse answers the question, I, the Lord, only an infinite God can plumb the depths of the pollution of the human heart. That's what the text says.

48:58 Then you come into the New Testament in Mark chapter 7, and you have Jesus dealing with these Pharisees. They were the people that thought, well, religion is believing the right things, being in the right place at the right time and going through the right motions. If you do all that, you're all picked up. You know anybody like that?

49:24 If they're in the right place, at the right time, saying the right thing, believing the right... And people like that are very concerned about preserving their man-made traditions.

49:38 And Jesus was dancing and walking to the beat of a different drum, and they didn't like it. Everywhere Jesus went, there they were. Ah, ah, there he goes, praising one of our traditions. There he is, praising one of our traditions.

49:54 Look at that. What is he doing? He's sitting down with him. Oh, he's going to be defiled.

50:00 How can he be a holy man? He's sitting with pilots and with the riffraff of Jerusalem and the Palestinian mafia. Look at that. And look at his disciples.

50:09 They come into the marketplace, and they grab an apple and a banana, and they don't go through all these washings like some Gentile might have been there in the marketplace five hours before and seen. And some of them they couldn't see. It's on their bodies. That's defiling.

50:24 How terrible. And so they came to Jesus and said, how come the disciples don't keep the traditions? Traditions. We've got to keep our traditions.

50:35 Jesus said, you bunch of hypocrites. You bunch of hypocrites. God isn't concerned about the skin and whether or not you've got the vapor from a Gentile's nose on your skin. He's concerned about the heart.

50:49 You draw near with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. And listen, in direct proportion to people deemed all taken up with their human traditions, they lose the reality of true religion. And Jesus said, you people will never get back to true religion until you understand something. And then he told them what they need to understand.

51:08 Look at Mark chapter 7 and where Jesus takes them. He says, defilement is not something that comes from without. It's something that comes from within. And now he says in verse 19, he says, there's nothing from without can defile a man.

51:28 That is food. It may have a few Gentile germs on it. It goes into, not his heart, but into his stomach. And it goes out in the processes of bodily elimination.

51:38 That's exactly what Jesus said. And then he says, verse 20, that which proceeds out of the man, that defiles the man. For from within, out of the what? Out of the hearts of men.

51:52 Evil thoughts proceed, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness. Look at this. An evil eye, reading in bad motives all the time, taking the works of people, listed right along with his other sins, railing. You know what railing is?

52:12 Mouthing off. That would be a contemporary rendering of the Greek word, abusive speech, mouthing off, railing. That's what it means. Pride.

52:25 Pride of faith. Pride of background. Pride of clothes. Pride of body.

52:29 Pride of ability. Pride of heritage. Pride in your church. Pride, where does it come from?

52:34 Out of the hearts and follies, trollies, sinful follies. These things come from within. From within. You see what Jesus is saying?

52:41 Every man has within him, every woman, every boy, every girl. You know what you have within you from your conception? An idol. An idol.

52:48 An idol. An idol. An idol. An idol.

52:52 An idol. An idol. An idol. An idol.

52:56 An idol. An idol, an idol. An idol. An idol, an idol, an idol, an idol, an idol.

53:05 It's not an idol. It's below. So again, I stronglyました that. Professor.

53:10 Professor, truth poverty, true liberty, exam, unduemediateness, unrepeated irony, yty, despair. I'm sorry. You know what, I thought we were going to calm ourselves down only, I thought we were going to remarks this morning. Well, You see how we're being brainwashed? Somebody goes down the street in cold blood, intelligent enough to know who he wants to shoot, intelligent enough to put a shell in the chamber, intelligent enough to take off the safety lock, aim it and shoot it, and the moment a guy topples over, the first question people ask is, who afflicted this poor man that he did such a horrible thing?

53:52 Who can we blame in society? And they start looking for someone to blame. Oh, murder doesn't come from the heart. That's what Jesus said it does. Adultery comes from the heart. Pride comes out of the heart, not from the pressure of society, not from a bad example, not from a poor self in it, out of the heart, out of the heart.

54:13 And that's the sickening reality of human defilement, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wishes. Let me ask you something. Have you ever fallen in the presence of God, acknowledged, oh God, there's not a thing I've ever heard about, committed on the face of the earth, that's left to myself, I'm not perfectly capable of doing? Have you ever had such a sight of your heart that you really believe that? Have you? If not, my friend, I doubt you've ever seen your heart with eyes opened by the Holy Ghost.

54:53 God wonderfully restrains my heart. My God. I'm a godly example in a Christian home. By godly standards, while I was playing football in high school, can you imagine an 11 o'clock curfew?

55:11 If you want to know something, I entered marriage a virgin because of that curfew.

55:17 And things began to get steamy with the girlfriends about 10, 10.30, and I had to get the bus home. I thank God for those standards. I thank God for those standards.

55:30 And though God kept me from a lot of outward sin, I stand before you. There's nothing I've ever read in the Bible of what anyone's ever done. There's nothing I've ever heard poured out in the counseling room over 30 plus years in the ministry. There's nothing I've ever read in the papers of what I've had to say.

55:46 Oh God, oh God, what's your grace?

55:53 My heart is capable of that. If you would withdraw your, can you say that?

56:04 Well, you've got the heart of a pharisee. Oh, my God, I'm not like you, Buster.

56:10 Pre-establishment. My friend, you don't know anything about the redemption in Christ. He didn't come for people who preen their feathers that their hearts are not so bad. He came to bring a redemption for people with hearts just this bad.

56:29 He came to bring a redemption to people in the midst of the frightening reality of human guilt, yes. But in the sickening reality of human defilement. But then the back dropped in here. He came for a people in a condition of what I'm calling the withering reality of human bondage.

The Withering Reality of Human Bondage

56:55 The withering, the withering reality of human bondage. What is more withering to the spirit than to say, I'm a slave, I'm held in chains, there's no hope. And yet that's precisely the condition every one of us is in by nature. Jesus said in John 8 in verse 34, Whosoever commits sin.

57:16 Is the born slave of sin. The committing of sin is the evidence of our slavery to sin. And in Romans chapter 6 where Paul describes the condition of every Roman Christian before he became a Christian. Notice how he describes their condition in Romans chapter 6.

57:41 Romans chapter 6 in verse 17. Thank thee to God that whereas you were. The slaves of sin. He said all of you were the slaves of sin.

57:53 And in the Roman church you had many people who were Roman slaves. They knew what slavery was. Not by reading about it in a book. Man, they were slaves.

58:01 They had been taking some of them from their homelands in the Roman conquest. And brought against their will to Rome. They knew to be a slave meant they had no will of their own. Their will was the will of their master.

58:14 They had no freedom to their own. They knew what slavery was. And when Paul said you were the slaves of sin. Then in verse 22 he says the same thing.

58:23 But now being made free from sin. And become slaves to God. He said before you become God's slaves. You're the slaves of sin.

58:31 And that's the withering reality of human bondage. Can you imagine going by a man who's chained to a post. With chain links. Two inches thick.

58:40 And the chain is 40 feet long. You drag this chain around. 30 feet this length. 30 feet that length.

58:49 And he breaks out of the post. And the chain is 40 feet long. I'm a free man. I'm a free man.

58:57 I'm a free man. Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. He's only as free as the 40 foot chain. And when he stretches that chain out to 40 feet.

59:05 He'll know. And gain his power. And the slaves are the slaves. You may not think you're a slave.

59:13 Do you want me to prove it to you? Right here and now. You determine. That you will start loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.

59:21 Right here and now. Try it. That you will here and now. Take that envy.

59:29 That pride. That vicious, slandering, gossiping tongue. That evil ear that listens to gossip. Those sins that are your sins.

59:37 And say. I'll just take them and throw them behind you. Try it. He will know his bondage.

59:47 When he seeks to stretch his chain. That's what Paul said happened to him. He thought he was free. Until he began to realize what he was left with.

59:56 And he said. The galling bondage of my sin. Romans chapter 7. My friends.

60:05 The glory of God in redemption. Is set against the dark backdrop. Not only of the frightening reality of human guilt. The sickening reality of human defilement.

60:15 But the wizarding reality of human bondage. And finally. The humbling reality of spiritual death. Thank God for the song our brother sang tonight.

The Humbling Reality of Spiritual Death

60:25 The humbling reality of spiritual death. The humbling reality of spiritual death. Would God say to Adam. In the day you eat you'll die.

60:33 And we read in Romans 6. Two ways of sin's death. If he eats one more you'll be made alive. Who were dead through your trespasses.

60:43 What does that mean? It doesn't mean we're six in stone. We can think. We can ask.

60:51 We can laugh. We can cry. We can make choices. union with God, the knowledge of God, delight in God, we are as separated from that as the soul of a dead man is separated from his body. And I tell you that's a humbling reality.

61:15 There's no other spark of divine life in you that can be tanned into the flame of spiritual life. We are spiritually as dead as Lazarus was in that tomb. And what Lazarus needed was not somebody to come and put a warm cloth on his head and rub his wrist. And he didn't need to have somebody come and speak some sweet words in his ears. He needed a voice of omnipotence that could say, Lazarus, come forth! He needed a voice that could impart the power to a ghost. Lazarus didn't come out of that grave patting himself on the back saying, hey, you know, I decided to have you pray today. He didn't come out of that grave to pray. He prayed. What was that feeling? Hey, everybody listen! I made my decision

62:02 today to get out of the grave! He didn't do that. He went around and people said, you Lazarus. You look like Lazarus. He said, sure, look at you! And said, somebody broke your dead mind. And with that voice, gave him life. And who was that somebody? Jesus of Nazareth.

62:19 And who did it? He didn't talk about his making his decision come out of the tomb. He talked about Jesus who decided to seek life in the midst of death. I wraps it up completely.

Summary of Man's Desperate State and the Necessity of Redemption

62:30 My friends, the glorious God in redemption has set against that battle. Now I've spent more time on this than I thought I would, but I've not preached this message before, so I didn't know where it would go and how long it would take to get there. But I do believe, I do believe that God spares us and we're able to come together tomorrow night. Though I'll have to condense what I hope to say tonight about redemption, the conflict.

62:56 We'll give a little mini-sermon of that, and then the sermon I prepared on redemption applies. I believe, though we won't be able to go into as much detail, I hope our appreciation will be greater, because we'll look at it against that backdrop. Now friends, I have not painted the picture. I've not painted the backdrop dark as it is.

63:17 I can't paint it as dark. I've only sketched, I've only sketched the human situation in the reality. The reality of real guilt and the wrath of God hanging over our heads like a dark, but pregnant cow about to burst upon the head of every sinner. The reality of sin and defilement, the heart, the mind, the affections, all defiled and polluted.

63:50 The withering reality that we are bound to our sins and cannot break our chains. And the humbling reality of spiritual death. No wonder the Bible says redemption comes to this kind of people. When we were without faith, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

64:12 We were by nature children of what? Children of innocence until the day of accountability? That isn't what my Bible says. It's even truth.

64:21 It says we were children of wrath, even as the wrath. The Bible says we're so bad off that we can't even see the remnant. When it's set in front of us. For the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.

64:36 Neither can he know that. We're so bad off when the remedy's in front of us we can't see it. We're so bad off we can't even come to it when it's offered to us. For no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me to draw him.

64:51 Now my friends, I didn't write the Bible, but I am committed to preaching it. Now that's our conviction. We're that bad. We're that bad.

65:03 Now has that ever tripped you? Not as a doctrine. The Bible's doctrine of human sin and guilt and depravity. But has it ever gripped you as the revelation of what you are?

65:17 Guilty before a holy and a righteous. Polluted in every fiber of your soul. Bound and chained by your sin. Dead and devoid of the life of God.

65:37 I can't answer for you. But not for me. My friend, I plead, not as a preaching device, but with all of my heart. Had I the time, I'd start with you kids and I thank God for your attention to the Word.

65:49 May you never get too big for your business to listen attentively to the Word. I thank you for the way you've listened to God's Word tonight. But I'd like to take every one of you, put my hand on your shoulders and look you straight in your eyeballs and ask you, Have you ever seen that that's what you are? Guilty?

66:08 Polluted? Chained? And dead? You say, well what a terrible thing to see that.

66:16 Oh no, my friend. Because the gospel is this. Christ Jesus came into the world. Sinners to save.

66:26 Sinners to save. What kind of sinners? Guilty. Polluted.

66:31 Bound. Dead. Sinners. And that's the only kind of sin.

66:37 And He has accomplished and He applies His redemption. Not to people who think it's a luxury, but to those who've come to see it is a necessity. And nothing less than redemption by His blood and the mighty transforming power of His Spirit can take away the guilt, can cleanse that fountain of sin, can break the chains, and can bring it to life. That's the redemption that's in Christ.

67:14 Not patching up sinners with a little bit of religion. A little bit of Jesus, a little bit of the Bible, a little bit of church. My friend, that's the devil's trick. It's to patch you up with just enough religion to make you stupidly unaware that you're on your way to hell.

67:28 God's in the business of making Christ the pearl of great Christ. Making Jesus the altogether lovely one. Making Jesus in our eyes so lovely and beautiful and attractive that we want to give the whole of our being to Him. Oh, if you don't see Him, it's just for the Holy Ghost showing to you tonight.

Call to Repentance and Faith in Christ

67:51 And may you throw yourself upon Him and say, Lord, I don't understand everything I heard. But if the preacher preached, and if your word was read and quoted and expounded and illustrated, oh God, oh God, I've been conscious, I've been conscious. Somebody else has been here besides the preacher. Oh God, I don't understand all that I know.

68:13 I know. I see myself. Like I've never seen myself before. And God, I don't want to walk out of this place with that dark, fragile cloud of your wrath hanging over me.

68:23 I know I deserve it. I know I deserve hell. And Lord, you can just break that cloud upon my head and send me to hell. But oh God, have mercy on a sinner like me.

68:36 Have mercy because Christ died and Christ rose and Christ lives. My friend, you have the promise of God. Him that comes to me. I'll ignore what's passed on me.

68:47 I won't ask you to raise a hand. Christ is nearer than the end of your family. The Bible says the word of faith we preach is near in your mouth and in your heart. There, sitting where you are, looking to Christ alone, laying hold of Him and His promise.

69:07 God says, Christ is yours if you will have it. Oh, may you lay hold of Him by faith. And know the blessing of yourself. Let us pray.

Prayer of Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication

69:23 Oh, our Father, what thanks can we give to you for such a Redeemer as your dear Son. We confess, Lord, that we feel afresh the horror and the shame of what we are to sin. We would acknowledge again our guilt and our pollution and our bondage and our death. But we would glorify you, every one of us who has fled to Jesus for mercy.

69:55 We would glorify you by acknowledging that we do believe that all of our guilt is removed because of His obedience unto death. We believe you have credited to us the perfect record of your own Son. We believe that by grace your Spirit has come and taken out our hearts of stone. That you have cleansed us in the blood of your Son.

70:22 You've broken our bondage. You've brought us to life. And we glorify you for so great a salvation. Oh, Lord, for those who have no such joy, no certain knowledge of this salvation.

70:37 Mercifully open their eyes to see their desperate state. And then give them to see your glory in the face of Christ. And draw them to your Son. We ask these mercies for His glory.

70:52 Amen.