Lessons: God's Attitude Towards Sin

Introduction: The Heart of Saving Religion

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, February 18th, 1990, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:17 Now let us turn in our Bibles to the Gospel according to Mark and the 15th chapter. And I shall read in your hearing verses 33 and 34. Mark 15, 33 and 34. And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

0:43 And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? Now let us again seek the aid of the Spirit of God as we, by God's help, will meditate again upon the great mystery of this cry of abandonment recorded by the Spirit through the pen of Mark, that we might know something of God's way of mercy in dealing with the sins of hell-deserving sinners. Let us pray. Our Father, we bow again in your presence. We bow again in your holy presence, conscious that you are indeed the Holy One of Israel.

1:44 And as we draw near again to this place so shrouded with mystery, and yet the place that is indeed the very fountain of life for sinners, we pray that the Holy Spirit who has come, sent from the now risen Christ, to take of the things of the world, and to bring them to you. And to take of the things of Christ, and to make them plain to the hearts of otherwise spiritually blinded men and women. Oh, that he may be sent upon us in copious measures, not to give us happy feelings, not to give us tingles up and down our spines, but, oh God, to pull the terrible darkness from our hearts, the shades from our eyes, and enable us to understand and to see something of the great mystery of Christ crucified. Oh, Lord, for those who have known in a saving way the power of that mystery revealed in the gospel for many, many years, may even for such our meditation today take them deeper into the reality of that great mystery, the great truth.

3:08 Oh, come to us, we pray, and meet with us for the good of our souls, and for the glory of him who loved us and gave himself for us, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. In our consecutive expositions of the gospel of Mark, we have come to that section which contains the record of those events in the life history of Jesus of Nazareth, which constitute the very heart and soul of all saving religion. For if the Bible makes anything plain with unmistakable clarity, it is the fact that the doctrine of Christ crucified is the only hope held out by God for hell-deserving humanity. For hell-deserving humanity. For example, the apostle Paul could write to the Corinthians, we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto Gentiles foolishness,

4:25 but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. And so I say, if anything is made...

4:40 If anything is made clear, unmistakably clear, in Holy Scripture, it is that the doctrine of Christ crucified is the only hope which God holds forth for hell-deserving sinners. Two Lord's Days ago, we considered the teaching contained in Mark 15, verses 24 to 32, and in that paragraph we had occasion to note, that we are given an unembellished affirmation that our Lord was crucified at the third hour, which would be nine o'clock in the morning, and then the Spirit amplifies the treatment He received in those first several hours of His crucifixion from the hand of unprincipled and ungodly men. While there is the simple affirmation, and it was the third hour when they crucified Him, there is amplification with respect to the taunting, the railing, the mocking, the blasphemy, and the reproach. And so in that paragraph our attention was drawn to the crucifixion and to the mockery which our Lord received at the hands of men.

The Shift to God's Activity and the Mystery of Abandonment

6:06 But then when we came last, Lord's Day, to verses 33 and 34, we had occasion to note that the emphasis radically shifts from the treatment which our Lord was receiving at the hands of men and at the tongues of men to the treatment He was now receiving at the hands of God. And in attempting to open up the substance of those two verses, we considered the visibility, the visible context of the abandonment of Jesus. The Holy Spirit sets the scene for the cry of abandonment by describing for us the physical context of one of a miracle of darkness from high noon to approximately three o'clock in the afternoon. And then we examined the vocal expression of the abandonment of Jesus, Jesus in verse 34, the cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then in conclusion, we attempted to begin to explain the significance of both that visible context of the abandonment, the darkness,

7:33 and the vocal expression of the abandonment, the cry of dereliction, which is now our nearsightedness. And in setting forth the biblical explanation, we saw from the analogy of Scripture, that is the overall teaching of Scripture. That the darkness signified that God was coming forth for an unusual work of judgment when He shrouded the brightness of noonday in the darkness of that miracle that He did in Egypt. Amen.

8:08 All of Egypt was plunged into darkness, but light was found shining in the tents of the Israelites. So here at noonday, by this breaking into the natural order which he created and controls, God is indicating that he is coming forth for a work of judgment. And then in the cry itself we saw that our Lord was not crying out in unbelief, O God, as though he had no confidence that his relationship to God was sustained through this trauma. He was not crying out that he was left at the hands of men, for he had deliberately placed himself in their hands, but rather he was crying out in what I've wrestled off and on through the weeks of preparation with whether or not I should even call it this. And yet I know not what else to call it. He was crying out of a temporary confusion in his own human mind with respect to the intensity of the ordeal through which he was now passing and from which he was about to emerge

9:29 and would again behold the brightness of his Father's countenance and thereby be enabled in his last words to say not, O God, or even my God, but Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

The Warrant for Considering God's Attitude to Sin

9:50 Now time did not permit any amplification or application of this cry of abandonment. And in our meditations both this morning and this evening, if I were to give them a title it would be this,

10:07 Considerations Necessarily Arising, Out of the Cry of Abandonment. Considerations Necessarily Arising, Out of the Cry of Abandonment. Having considered the visible context of that cry, the vocal expression of it, and the biblical explanation for it, there is pressed upon us by a kind of mental and logical necessity the need to consider, consider what lay behind of dereliction and abandonment. And this morning, God enabling us, I have but one central concern and consideration to set before you and God willing this evening several further. Consider what the abandonment reveals concerning God's attitude to sin. Consider what the abandonment, what the abandonment reveals concerning God's attitude towards sin. And under this heading I'll attempt to demonstrate first the basis and warrant for this consideration.

11:31 And secondly the main conclusion to which this consideration brings us or more simply the heart of this consideration. Consider what the abandonment reveals concerning God's attitude to sin. First of all then, on what basis and with what warrant do I say there is a necessity to consider what the abandonment reveals concerning God's attitude to sin. What is the chord of logical necessity that binds God's attitude to sin to the darkness and to the cry of abandonment?

12:14 What is the chord of logical necessity that binds God's attitude to sin? What is the chord of logical necessity that binds God's attitude to sin? Well, my answer has two parts. First of all, the fact that the focus in these verses is upon God's activity.

12:29 The darkened sky was His doing, not man. The bruises upon our Lord's confused face were the result of men striking Him. The blood streaking down was the result of men striking Him. The blood streaking down was the result of men striking Him.

12:49 The blood streaking down was the result of men plaiting a crown of thorns, pressing it upon Him, beating it deeper into His skull when they struck Him with rods. It was man's activity, not God's. The lacerated back that had felt the cords of the scourging, that was man's doing, not God's. And all of the other factors up until now, God has recorded in His own record concerning His Son that it was men who rejected Him.

13:28 It was men who tried Him, men who mocked Him, men who scourged Him, men who buffeted Him, men who spat upon Him, men who taunted Him, men who blasphemed and reproached Him. But here in these verses I say the focus shifts, radically, from the activity of men. In fact, it's as though God is saying, look, I don't want you at this point even to consider what men are doing. I will hide their activity from your eyes by shrouding the entire scene in blackness.

14:09 Darkness came upon the whole land. And though there is reason to believe that some may have lit torches, so that certain activities could yet be discerned, I say it is that though God is so determined to direct the attention to what He is now doing in the events of the cross, that He turns out the light on the whole scene surrounding the cross.

14:42 Human actors in that scene will be hidden from our sight and our attention will be drawn to the hand and to the heart. It is God who took, as it were, a thick shade and pulled it down over the sun at noonday. It is raised from the whole land. It is God that miraculously pulls down that curtain, saying, in all the scene where your eyes have been directed to men's activity and to men's words, do not think that I am absent.

15:20 I am the imminent God. I am the present God. The God who...

15:33 Your eyes of necessity have looked upon the horrible scenes of His buffeting, His bruising. Your ears have heard the taunting and the mockery. But now your eyes must be directed to me and what I am in conjunction with the death of my son. And as I have carefully re-read the four gospel records, seeking additional light on the...

16:07 the mystery of these hours, it is very significant that apart from a description of several events that occur at the conclusion of the three hours of darkness, with the very strong intimation that the sun once again was shedding its light upon the various scenes, nothing is said of any activity of men during the entire... the entire three hours of darkness.

16:42 He was crucified at approximately nine o'clock in the morning. And from nine until noon, many of the activities of men and the words of our Lord to men are recorded. And when we take the witness of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and bring that into one harmonious whole, if not harmonious, into one whole, where we may not...

17:09 yet be able to understand what peace fits where, one thing is clear. From those accounts that speak of the darkness, nothing is said of man's activity. Nothing about man's taunting. Nothing about man's mocking.

17:27 Nothing about man's blaspheming. All of the attention, I say, is directed upon the God who pulled the curtain. And the God...

17:39 who is now having dealings with His Son. And then the second part of the warrant for this consideration is not only that the focus of these verses is upon God's activity, but the focus of these verses is upon God's dealing with human sin. The focus is upon God's dealing with human sin. You will remember, I trust, in our study last, last Lord's Day, when I came to our third heading and sought to open up the biblical significance of the abandonment, that we directed our attention to two pivotal texts, Galatians 3.13 and 2 Corinthians 5.21. He hath made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.

18:37 And to those verses could be added the unmistakable emphasis that comes through repeatedly in Isaiah 53. And you may wish to turn and follow as I simply highlight several phrases from that chapter. Here, in this description of the suffering servant of Jehovah, notice the close conjunction between his sufferings and God's dealings with human sin. Isaiah 53, But he was wounded for our transgressions.

19:16 He was bruised for our iniquities. His wounding and his bruising had an intimate connection with our transgressions and our iniquities. Verse 6, All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way. And Jehovah, hath laid marginal reading, has it hath made to light or to strike upon him the iniquity of us all.

19:54 Jehovah,

20:00 our iniquities. Further on, verse 10, Yet it pleased to bruise him,

20:14 put him to grief, bruising. Jehovah is bringing his servant's soul to deep grief. Verse 11b, He shall bear their iniquities. Verse 12b, He poured out his soul unto death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bare the sin of many.

20:49 You see, the focus of these verses in Mark's gospel is upon this aspect of God's with his own son in turn, in terms of human sin. And so, by summary, my warrant for saying there is a necessary consideration from these verses in Mark's gospel with reference to God's attitude to sin, the warrant for that statement is that all the gifts of verses 33 and 34 is upon activity, not on sin, not man, and the folk in conjunction with the sufferings and death of the servant of Jehovah. Therefore, we cannot come to the darkness and to the cry seriously what they reveal of mental disposition and attitude to human sin. Now, having given you the warrant or the basis of this consideration,

God Takes Sin Seriously and Judges it Severely

22:15 what is the heart of this consideration? When we look at Mark 15 verses 33 and 34, asking of these verses the question, what do they reveal with reference to God's mental disposition towards human sin, what answer is forced upon us from these verses? Well, the answer has, as two simple assertions, and this is all I'm attempting to do this morning, is to open up and apply these two assertions. God takes sin seriously.

23:02 God judges sin severely.

23:08 Now, I trust every one of you, if you miss everything else, will go out of here this morning with those two simple statements etched upon the tablets, the tablet of your mind and of your heart. God takes sin seriously.

23:29 God judges sin severely. Now, where and how do we see this in Mark 15, 33 and 34? First of all, God takes sin seriously. How does God react to human sin?

23:54 That's the question. That little thing which in the English language, when thinking of its meaning biblically, refers to everything that we are contrary to the law of God. Everything we are that is not in our righteousness is holy law. Whether what notion and desire and attitude of the heart and mind, or whether it breaks out into deeds all within their service, feet and hands, members of our, or body, is he inenient towards indulge? Well, these verses which depict the text and the cry and answer very clearly sin.

25:16 He does not. What other sin can you give for the mere atonement? If darkness is the symbol of being forth to judgment, as we saw from at least six or eight passages from the Old Testament through the Revelation, so that this is not a fanciful interpretation that I have forced upon that context of the abandonment, but rather the teaching of the Word of God, we, for this same judgment, in connection with the cross of the Lord Jesus, if God is not taking sin seriously, if Christ, whatever he is doing upon the cross, is doing something in reference to sin, and if God envelops the whole darkness to say judgment, I say God is a cruel jokester if he's not taking sin seriously, because he is saying by that darkness

26:43 that enveloped the land and our Lord from high noon to three in the afternoon, I've come forth in dead seriousness to deal with him. I've come forth in dead seriousness to deal with him. I've come forth in dead seriousness to deal with him. I've come forth in dead seriousness to deal with him.

27:00 If God does not take sin seriously, why the unexplained and the unparalleled agony for three hours, which finally toward the end of those three hours burst the dam of our Lord and issues forth in a lie? Did you abandon me? You see God is not a cruel jokester A folkster who performs a capricious miracle to confuse us. Everything he has said throughout his word about the symbolism of darkness is true. When the servant of Jehovah is being made sin, the sinless one being charged in the court of heaven with all the sins of all of his people of all the ages, God says, I take it seriously. I'll envelop the face of my dealing with sin in the thick darkness that shows that I come forth with all the seriousness of the day of judgment in my train. And the Lord Jesus is not an effeminate, unbelieving coward

28:25 crying out of self-pity when martyrs who merely are sinners and mere creatures are amidst flames and blood. Blessed is their heavenly Father in the midst of the greatest of torture. Unless we would turn God into a cruel jokester and our blessed Lord into an effeminate, unbelieving coward, then we must affirm that what these verses show us is that God takes sin seriously.

29:07 All sin. Free. Sin. Any kind of sin.

29:14 Sin of the heart. Sin of the mind. Sin of the affection. Sin of the desire.

29:21 Sins of the tongue. Sins of the eyes. Sins of the ears. Sins of the feet.

29:26 Sins of the sexual organs. God.

29:31 Seriously. And if you're ever tempted to doubt it, then I ask you, you come and take this pulpit and you expound the three hours of darkness. And you...

29:45 You expound the cry, My God, my God, why did you forsake me?

29:55 But I say in the second place, this passage not only sets before us the consideration that God takes sin seriously, but it also tells us God judges sin severely.

The Severity of God's Judgment on His Beloved Son

30:15 Now I wrestled with that word severely because it has bad press.

30:22 I did not say God judges sin excessively. I did not say God judges sin with unprincipled severity. But God judges sin severely. In the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the bottom of the formal definition where synonyms and descriptions are given to help us get a feel for the significance of a word, the following occurs.

30:52 The word severe applies to a person or thing that is strict and uncompromising. It connotes a total absence of softness, laxity, and frivolity. And it is precisely in that sense that I use the word God judges sin severely. That is, with a total...

31:19 with a total absence of softness, laxity, or frivolity. Now I know it is not popular to speak of the severity of God.

31:35 And I could feel in my own soul what I trust I did not wrongly discern to be the opposition of hell itself as I contemplated a public assertion that God judges sin severely. And every man a liar. For we are told in Romans 11 and verse 22, Behold, the goodness, the severity,

32:29 are commanded to contemplate the severity of God.

32:36 And you say, Pastor Martin, how? How in verses 33 and 34 of Mark's Gospel?

32:47 Severe manifested well. Look at the passage.

32:56 In darkness, offering servant of Jehovah, it is the Father's well-beloved one. It is the eternal God and was face to face with God who in Mary's womb by the supernatural agency of the Spirit had taken to Himself a true human soul and body. It is this one who at the end of all of His years of maturation having lived, in relative poverty, in a large family, in humble surroundings, amidst all the sinners. He comes to His maturity and to the threshold of His public ministry. The Father speaks from heaven as He stands in the waters of Jordan. This is my Son, my well-beloved, in whom I am well.

34:01 This is the one who could say I raise the things that please my Father. The one who is the Father and the Son of God. The one who is the Father and the Son of God. The one who is the Father and the Son of God.

34:09 The one who is the Father and the Son of God. The one who is the Father and the Son of God. who said on his way to the cross,

34:14 I, life of myself, no man takes it from me. This commandment have I received of my Father, life of the sheep. This is the Father's well-beloved One, the Eternal,

34:42 now the Eternal, the Godless Jesus, who throughout every period of prenatal development, until the birth,

34:58 until the birth, never once felt a motion in the deepest springs of his own human soul that was contrary to the strictest standards of God's law, never once entertained the first motions of envy to his brothers, jealousy to his sisters, disobedience to his parents, retaliation to his classmates and playmates and schoolmates, who came, who came up through the years of pre- and into puberty and into young manhood, never once illicit desire toward those of the opposite sex. On principle, they came through all of the struggles leading to this very hour, amidst all the concentrated spewing forth of the very folders of hell to the hands and lips of men. He opened not his mouth, he never spoke a word of biting sarcasm when they taunted, when they went through the mock coronation and put a scepter in his hand and a robe upon him and kneeled before him,

36:23 pressed the crown upon him, not once,

36:30 I just motioned of sinful self-vindication, let alone of sinful vengeance.

36:43 A lamb before her shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

36:49 Yet it is this one, it is this one, who now, at the end of three hours, can no longer contain the pressure of the agony of his soul to the point and the only vent it can find is the cry with a loud voice, My God! My God! Did you abandon?

37:21 You see, if ever God was going to show any softness, any laxity, any laxity, any leniency in the face of human sin, would it not be when his sinless well-beloved was bearing sin, not committed by him, but bearing that sin vicariously, voluntarily, being charged with the guilt of sin of his own?

37:54 The smile of his estimation of his son in the physical universe! He would have turned the brightness of the sun up a hundredfold and concentrated its light upon his well-beloved to show that he was the darling of his heart. But rather than turn up the light of the sun a hundredfold, he pulls down the curtain, shrouds the whole scene from his cry. The external darkness in the physical, visible world was but a picture of the darkness that was hurled into the soul of the man. He was not a man. He was not a man. He was not a man Look at the soul of the Son of God when all the pangs and realities of outer darkness, eternal darkness, the blackness of darkness forever as it is described in the book of Jude.

38:56 It was in these hours that in our Lord in a way that we can never fathom and even to preach upon it Our Lord experienced the agonies of hell itself. That sinless soul, that spotless soul that knew no sin was being made sin. Oh the boldness of the language of the apostle without in any way being defiled to his person he is made. And I say if ever the father would be lenient, soft and lax it would be now when he's dealing with isolated upon his son. The sins of all of his people of all ages.

39:53 But what does God do? He concentrates the demands of his righteousness and his justice upon his son. And undiluted fierceness of fury breaks upon the son until Jesus cries the cry of abandonment. And no answer is given from heaven.

40:20 No. No answer is given from heaven. What is God saying to us? He's saying I not only take sin seriously but I judge sin severely.

40:35 I do not judge it with a judgment that is in excess of what it deserves. But I judge it to the full measure of what it deserves. If that were not so then you and I would have no savior. Had the father been lax in his dealings with the son there would be some sin.

41:00 Yet calling for the severe judgment of God on the part of his people. But when his last cry was uttered it is finished. Tetelestai it has been accomplished. It stands accomplished.

41:17 We then suck sweetness from such texts as Romans 8. 1. There is therefore. For now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

41:35 Why? For what the law could not do. God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. In the flesh of our Lord Jesus.

41:49 In the soul of our Lord. Body and soul. Peter emphasizes the one in 1 Peter. 2.

41:57 He bore our sins in his own body up to the wood. Literally. He carried sins in his own body. The prophet says when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.

42:13 In the totality of his humanity he was offered up and the offering was consumed by the fiery righteous judgment of almighty God. And therefore I say if these verses tell us anything about God's attitude to sin. They tell us. He takes sin seriously.

Application: Do You Take Sin Seriously Now?

42:38 He judges sin severely. Now. In my application as I bring our meditation this morning. To a conclusion.

42:48 Let me ask you some very pointed questions. Boys. Girls. Men.

42:54 Women. Teenagers. Anything in between. Beneath.

42:57 Above. Within. And in the sound of my voice, those of you sitting in the foyer, those of you in the nursing room downstairs, I ask you these very pointed personal questions. As you stand with me upon the place of the skull, Golgotha, as you stand with me in your mind's eye and you feel the darkness, no longer can you see the soldiers casting lots for his garments.

43:28 No longer can you see the passers-by taunting. You are held in that eerie grip of the supernatural darkness that comes at noonday. And you've had the courage to stay through those three hours. And toward the end of those three hours, the restrained silence of the awesomeness, of that darkness, is pierced by a cry that comes from the direction of the cross.

44:00 My God! My God! Man is sin severely.

44:24 Sin. Disobedience to parents. Lies. Selfishness.

44:28 Pride. Envy. Lust. Greed.

44:31 Hypocrisy. The sin of showing respect to the persons of which we heard in the previous hour. Do you really believe that God takes that? Sin seriously?

44:52 Well, if you did, you would not rest until you know that that God has pardoned you justly and righteously. And that God will never, never deal with you in the court of justice concerning your sins. You would run to be forgiven and be pardoned. You would in your life then be, more serious about the issue of sin.

45:27 Mention sins and feelings with God, the blood of his Son. You would sin.

45:46 Have a far more tender conscience. And be far more frequent at the cross of Christ. And far more careful in the mortification of your remaining corruption. You see, the fundamental problem is, you really don't believe the significance of the darkness and of the cry.

46:09 It's just so much more stuff that Pastor Martin had to preach because it came up next in the Gospel of Mark. And while I admire him for his effort to preach the unpreachable, to explain the unexplainable, to explicate and to open up the mysterious, it's just so much more preacher's talk. Because you see, you've come through this period of the exposition, still wedded to your sins, still unbred, under the wrath of God. You've not fled to Christ.

46:44 You've not gone to Him in brokenness and in faith. You've not sought from Him a pardon for your lies, for your disobedience, for your lust and your pride and your envy and your ambition and all the sins that you know, even as I flee, and all the reasons of ways in which we sin against God. Oh, in the language of the hymn we sang this morning, you who sinned, think of sin but lightly, nor suppose its evil great. He who is to its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.

The Cross as a Preview of Final Judgment

47:44 These verses force upon us the consideration of God's attitude to sin. And they tell us that He takes it seriously. He will judge it severely. Now hear me and hear me carefully.

48:02 As God demonstrated His attitude to sin most fully at the cross, every other striking manifestation of God's attitude to sin in a sense was but a pointer to that greatest display of His attitude to sin at the cross. Eden, the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, all the others, all the manifestations that God takes in serious, God takes in seriously and judges it severely. They were all views. But the full display He made at the cross, now hear me, and the display He made at the cross as it had previews in all of those singular displays of God's breaking into human history and judgment, as it had its previews in that history, as it had its previews in that history, it will have its postscript in the day of judgment. And I would be bold enough to say that the day of judgment is just another affirmation of the truth of the cross that God takes sin seriously and God will judge every sin severely.

49:31 How do we know that? Turn to the book of the Revelation with me and look at these two passages.

49:40 The Lamb who died, blessed be God, has been raised from the dead. He sits at the right hand of God the Father and an hour is coming when He will come forth to judgment. And here in Revelation 19 He is pictured in this way, the same Lord, 1915 of the book of the Revelation. And out of His mouth, proceeds a sharp sword that with it He should smite the nations and He shall rule them with a rod of iron.

50:17 Now notice this language. And He treads the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God the Almighty. He treads of the wrath of the sinarch track. He treads the winepress of the wrath but know it is bounded on the one side by the words.

50:53 It is the fierceness of the wrath of God. And it is the wrath of God the Almighty One. My friends, doesn't it make you tremble?

51:22 And I say it is but an affirmation of the truth of Mark 15, 33 and 34. When God shrouded the heavens in darkness, and forced from the heart of His Son the cry of dereliction. And you who take sin lightly now, will you take it lightly then? Turn back to a parallel passage in Revelation 6.

51:49 For in the book of the Revelation there is this cyclical treatment of things that go from the now to the end and back to the now to the end. And here is a picture of the same coming forth of the Lamb of the Lord Jesus. It's in the day of judgment. And we read in verse 15 of Revelation 6 and the kings of the earth, the great ones, the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich and the strong.

52:18 But then write down to every slave a man who doesn't even own himself. And every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. Rich men hiding in caves. I thought they lived in palaces.

52:34 I thought they lived in palaces. I thought they lived in palaces. Kings and princes, don't they have servants on them in their houses of luxury? But now, not in the mountains,

52:51 until they even pray that their mountain home will cave in on them. Verse 16, And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Far from the face of him that sits on the throne,

53:13 conjunction of ideas, the loan which before it shears is dumb, is now the exalted, and when he comes forth, that God tends seriously, and God does his sin severely,

53:40 begging mercy by falling upon them, and hiding them from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath is come, and who, who is able to stand? None can stand.

54:08 My friend, if ever anyone could have withstood the fierceness of the wrath of the earth, the almighty, it was the sinless Son of God. He had no galling conscience for sins of his own. He had no haunting memories of sins of his own. But when sin was charged to him, and God...

54:39 The Son of God... Have you a battle?

54:47 What will you do when that same one exalted comes forth in power? You'll then take your sin seriously. But you see the door of mercy. It will be forever shut.

Urgent Call to Flee to Christ and Live in Holiness

55:02 You see, every man, woman, boy or girl within the sound of my voice must take sin seriously.

55:10 The Christian is one who takes it seriously now. So seriously that he knows unless he can somehow enter in to the virtue and to the benefits of what Jesus did as the sin bearer, he dare not of his own sins and unforgiven sins, to sin. He'd rather have mountains cave in upon him and crush him to powder. You who think you're pretty smart, some of you kids, that you withstand all the overtures of mom and dad and preacher and Sunday school teacher and all the rest.

55:52 Oh, kids, listen. It's the devil deceiving you because he wants to drag you into hell. Take your sin seriously. God takes every one of those lies against mom and dad seriously.

56:07 Every time you snitched a nickel from mama's pocketbook, God takes it seriously. Every time you told a quote, little white lie to your teacher, God takes it seriously. And if the day comes, you will know God took every one of them seriously. For Revelation 20 pictures the same scene in terms of God opening up a big bunch of books.

56:36 And in the books it says he has recorded all their deeds. And God will read out all those lies. Every time you took the nickel in the quarter, every time you disobeyed, God will take them all out and he'll say there's the record. What do you plead?

56:56 The day of judgment will be but a confirmation of the cross and God takes him seriously. I beg of you. Take it seriously now while a just and righteous pardon is held out in the Lord Jesus Christ. Gamable Lord Jesus, and go to him.

57:17 Now, Jesus, I don't understand why you would be willing to be charged with the sins of men, things you never committed. But, oh, Lord Jesus, I do believe that that darkness was real, and I believe your cry was real, and I believe your word, which in other places says, if I will come to you as a needy, guilty, helpless sinner, you would not cast me out. And you go to the Lord Jesus, saying, Lord Jesus, I do take my sins seriously, because I see in your death, in the darkened heavens, in the horrible cry that your Father did to me, and to me upon the cross, and before you. Come forth to judgment, Lord Jesus. Hide me in all the virtue. Hide me in all the blessings of your death upon the cross for sinners.

58:17 Cleanse me in the blood that you spilt, for the likes of me. And you who claim to have fled and who continue to flee, who claim that you have righteous pardon and just forgiveness through the blood of the cross, one of the most certain marks that your faith is real is that you take sin seriously now in a way you never did before your professed conversion. You see, the forgiveness of the cross never leads to a lax disposition, to sin never, never, never.

58:59 Any professed faith that does not put you of seeking to have a tender conscience to sin and pursue universal holiness, that faith is a delusion and is merely turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. And you see, at the heart then of the Christian's tenderness about sin is not so much the fear of what the sin may do, do to him if he gets caught.

59:35 It's the grief of what the sin did to Jesus when he was caught.

59:43 Voluntarily caught with our sins upon the cross. And the wrath of God was poured out upon him. And in temptations hour when we think of the blackened heavens, when we think of the cry of dereliction, that sin that had begun to appear, so delicious and so delectable, in the light of the darkness and the cry, turns sour in your stomach and you want to vomit out the very temptation, let alone not to speak of the actual commission of the sin.

60:26 That's the message of the darkness and the cry. I say it forces us to consider God's attitude, our attitude to sin. And child of God, because you're justified through the blood of His cross, God's attitude to sin has not changed. He hates sin as much in His children as He does in those who are still not His children.

Prayer for Serious View of Sin and Saving Grace

60:54 And may God grant that our attempts to gaze upon that from which we would naturally recoil may be owned of God to give us all a renewed commitment to a life of universal truth, holiness out of gratitude to the lord jesus who not primarily by his teaching though he did it again and again in his teaching but by his death upon the cross has forever settled the question of god's attitude to sin god takes it seriously seriously god judges it severely let us pray our father we confess with shame many of us that there was a time when we drank iniquity like water we sucked into our soul that poisonous venom which caused you to blanket the earth in darkness and plunge your son into the bitterness of hell itself we confess with shame our years of indifference

62:13 to the darkness and to the cry but we thank you that many of us in this room this morning have been brought at least in some little measure to begin to view our sins as you do we thank you that you've brought us to turn from them unto you through the lord jesus but oh lord we want our disposition to sin to be heightened and intensified many times over let us pray lord we would be like you in your detestation of all that is contrary to your person and to your law and we pray for those among us who've never taken their sins seriously boys and girls men and women teenagers oh god in mercy arrest them this morning before they come to that horrible day when all unforgiven sinners will be forced to take their sins seriously may your spirit be with them and may your spirit be with them and may your spirit be with them and may your spirit apply the word with power and make it a saving word and a sanctifying word hear our cry oh lord cleanse us even of unworthy thoughts of you as we've attempted to meditate upon you we feel so keenly oh god the limitations of our own narrow hearts and our own dull minds

63:37 oh help us help us we pray seal your word to our hearts we beg of you for the sake of your son and the good of our souls amen