Steve Camp - Jesus Christ: The Perfect Sacrifice

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Your time with Steve is going to be with certainly a lot of preaching and teaching from the Word of God.
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And if you haven't spent time with Steve, let's just put it this way. This man is not just a musician, he is a theologian.
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And he's respected by the entire Reformed community. And that's what we'd like to dedicate this time to Steve.
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So you get a double blessing today, not just in his music, but also in his teaching. Would you welcome
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Steve Camp? Thank you. I have more people these days tell me that they used to listen to my music when they were very young.
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I had a gentleman earlier say, I have an 8 -track of yours from 1979. That will really show you how far
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I go back with this. This marks my 26th year in serving the
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Lord in contemporary Christian music. A lot of changes have happened during that time.
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Most of the Christian labels, if not all of them, I don't know if you're aware of this, are now owned by three large secular conglomerates.
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EMI Liberty Capital, Zamba Music, and then AOL Time Warner sold
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Word Music just this last year to the folks that own Seagram's Liquors. And so I never thought
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I would see the day where the world owns all of God's music, literally.
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I left the industry 10 years ago because the Lord deeply convicted me of my own waywardness in regards to the method of ministry.
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I was deeply convicted by reading of Spurgeon's life and the downgrade controversy. If you've never read that, you can go to Spurgeon .org,
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Phil Johnson's label. It's a fantastic resource and read of the downgrade controversy there.
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Dr. MacArthur, in his analysis of it, said something very profound. He said that the downgrade began not with a theological shift, but with a methodological one.
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And the method gave way to a faulty theology, which ultimately infiltrated the church and the gospel.
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And we've seen that happen since Spurgeon's time over the last 100 years, haven't we? Spurgeon has been vindicated in his warnings.
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Even his own brother voted him out of the Baptist Union. Sometimes living for Christ and standing for the gospel will cost you even your relationships with your family.
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Well, here, about 10 years ago, I felt deeply convicted that I was charging for concerts, hefty honorariums, tickets, and so forth.
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One gentleman told me last week in Florida, he said, hey, listen, about 12 years ago, I paid $15 to see you.
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Can I get a refund now that you've repented? And I said, listen, if that'll mend the breach between us,
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I'll be delighted to. But the Lord led me on a journey during that time the last 10 years.
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Rather than partnering with promoters, I wanted to work with pastors. Rather than charging for concerts, we are under the mandate that freely we have received, freely we should give.
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It is his gospel, isn't it? It is his word. And we cannot profit from it.
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That cannot be the motive. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2 .17, we are not like many who copulas the word, who make retail merchandise of it.
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It's used in the lexicon in the Septuagint in Isaiah 1 .22 of your wine is mixed with water.
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And it's using something of a watered down substitute, presenting it as genuine and authentic, and then selling it for full price.
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This is what Paul is warning against, selling a cheap gospel that's been watered down and representing it as true.
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And we're in that world today, aren't we? And so here the Lord really challenged my own heart on this.
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And I began a journey of repentance on this issue. I left the agency and the labels and so forth that I was with.
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I was under wonderful pastoral counsel. And they encouraged me that if I continued on, that I would be unequally yoked, a violation of 2
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Corinthians 6 .14 -7 .1. We cannot partner with the world in the work of the ministry.
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Even Chevrolet two years ago sponsored a large worship tour. Chevrolet presents an evening of praise and worship.
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I said, boy, this gave a whole new meaning to corporate worship. And I won't mention the artist and the speaker's name.
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They're fine folks, but yet they profited handsomely through the world, profiting from the gathering of God's people for worship.
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I think second only to Constantine charging his soldiers to take communion before they went into battle, that this stands out in all of church history as being an unprecedented event.
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And it was unfortunate that evangelicalism bought into it. They were still charging you $40 to $50 a ticket.
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To come worship the Lord, doesn't that mark you as strange? That we charge people tickets now to pray, tickets to worship, tickets to praise the
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Lord. There's not one area of Christian ministry that the church does not require money for, except for the sacraments today, the ordinances of the church.
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Everything else has a price tag, whether it's worship or evangelism or counseling or discipleship, it all has a price tag to it.
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And we cannot serve both God and man. It is his work.
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It is his gospel. And we must give all that we are for all that he is for the sake of the glory of Jesus Christ.
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Wouldn't it be free to be free from this avenue of money where we can just throw open the doors of any church in any venue and say, come and worship the
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Lord. Come and hear the good news of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And not have money as a prerequisite.
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Amen. And so here, this is what led me in a journey these last several years.
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And just about a year and a half ago, we started a ministry called Audience One Ministries.
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www .a1m .org We'd love to have you check it out. James is one of our primary links at this site, as well as Phil Johnson and others.
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We kind of enjoyed a partner with these other ministries, even if it's through the web. And I love this title.
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It's for an audience of one. It's not about us. It's all about him. And that here, I wanted to share with you just briefly, as we begin here on our text.
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In this logo that we chose for our work is called Luther's Rose. This is the actual
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Luther's Rose from his church in Lutherstadt in Wittenberg. I was there several years ago.
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While I was there, I penned a document called the 107 Theses, a call to reformation for Christian music in the church.
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We printed 10 ,000 copies of it. I wasn't trying to better Luther. I just had more ground to cover than papal indulgences.
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And it was a wonderful journey here. We sent it out to every artist and record company manager, agent, bookstore, radio station we could get our hands on.
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But this is the rose that is at the top of the cathedral where Luther preached. And just to let you know what it stands for, the black cross is the darkness of our sin.
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The red heart is God's love demonstrated for us in Christ Jesus that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.
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The white petals describe the new life that we have in him. The blue background, which it's hard to see on this screen here, but the rich blue background stands for the eternal reign of Christ as sovereign
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Lord. And then the gold band which encircles it signifies that our life in Christ is eternal and not temporal.
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And this is the Luther's Rose that signified the reformation. I thought, boy, I can't think of a better logo, a better insignia to have associated with music.
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Luther was a tremendous musician. And can I dispel an ugly rumor that's been going around for about 400 years?
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A mighty fortress is our God. It was not a bar room tune simply put with great theology. Luther was an accomplished flutist.
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He was a trained classical musician. They used the style of the day, but Luther was writing these glorious melodies filled with great theology.
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I'm all for taking the contemporary sound of today, but let's make sure the message is Christ -centered,
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God -conceived and spirit -controlled. Let's make sure it stands with the authority of scripture, not as what
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I like to call God is my girlfriend songs, but that they speak clearly of who our
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Lord is. The world makes music without Jesus a whole lot better than Christians do. And if I can encourage you, if you're going to spend $75 to go see a concert, don't go see a
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Christian artist, man, go see Springsteen. You may not like his politics, but it'll be the best concert you've ever seen.
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Go see U2, you know, go see Andrea Bocelli. It'll be an incredible evening and they won't confuse you spiritually.
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But here, if we're going to go see a Christian artist, it ought to be marked by a Christ -centered message in everything that we do.
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I want to be in the world. I just don't want to be of it. So please pray for us as we're trying to, with Audience 1 ministry, slowly reclaim and reform and recapture
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Christian music for the glory of the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And wouldn't it be great if there was, you've heard of missionaries?
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I'm a musicianary. Wouldn't it be great if there was musicianaries launched from their local church with the authority of God's word in song to go into all the world and to share the gospel and encourage other believers absolutely free of charge because it's his word.
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Anyway, if we can, we'll begin here this seminar. Justification and evangelism, the heart of the gospel,
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Romans chapter 3 verses 21 to 26. And may I have you stand here in honor of God's word as we read together this great text,
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Justification by Faith. But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
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Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe, for there is no distinction.
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For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, whom
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God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.
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This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration,
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I say, of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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Let's pray together. Dear Lord, we are so grateful for your eternal word. It is inerrant.
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It is infallible. It is free from adulteration and corruption. It is forever settled in heaven, a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
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We do not need to be reduced here, Lord, in this society as drunk, says it were, staggering around in a fog, not knowing which way to turn or how to find our way.
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Your word provides us the light and as Jeremiah said, the necessary food for our lives.
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It is the joy and the rejoicing of our heart. And so, Lord, I thank you for Dr.
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White. I'm just so privileged to count him as friend and a co -labor in the Lord.
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Thank you for the other speakers that are here. It is an awesome privilege to be ministering with them and with these dear people here today.
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Lord, you are no respecter of person. And therefore, as we look at the great need in our culture, the great need that exists within the local church, we can only step back and say this is way beyond us.
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It is too much to handle. But Lord, we know that all things are possible through you.
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And so we would ask if you would grant it in our lifetime that we would see another reformation occur in America.
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More than revival, more than renewal, a return back to the authority of God's word, the accountability of the local church, the ascendancy of who you are and giving you glory and praise.
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And Lord, that we would do all things according to the authority of scripture.
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Lord, forgive us for walking away from conferences with crowded notebooks, but not change lives.
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Forgive us for being effectual hearers, but ineffectual doers. Lord, may our lives be so transformed by the living act of sharp truth of your scriptures that the greatest witnessing tool this world will ever see, may it be the transformed life lived sovereignly out in the sphere of influence that you have placed each one of us.
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Hallelujah for the great salvation with which we have in Christ. In this brief time together, use it for your glory and yours alone.
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For it is in Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. A church congregation decided to have four worship services one
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Sunday. There was one for those new to the faith. There was another for those who liked traditional worship.
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There was one for those who thought they'd lost their faith and they wanted to get it back. And then there was another for those who had bad experience with churches in the past and they were constantly complaining about it.
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The church met with their leadership and they came up with names for each of these services. Finders, keepers, losers, weepers.
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So much of contemporary Christianity is noted by those things. What is it that we should be noted for?
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What is it that we should be given credit for, not credit for, but evidence of in our true faith in Christ?
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This great text out of Romans chapter three is one of the few texts in all of scripture that I believe every one of these verses here lays out for us, unfolds for us the five great solas of the
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Reformation. You know what they are, solus scriptura. The Bible is the only authoritative word of God, not tradition.
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It expresses a conviction that scripture is self -interpreting and authoritative for all matters of life and doctrine.
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Solus Christus, that Christ Jesus alone is the way, the truth, and the life. And that there is no other name by which men can be saved, neither by Mary, neither by the saints, neither by false gods, nor the sinner himself can ever bring salvation.
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It is through Christ alone, isn't it? Sola gratia, grace alone, salvation comes not through any merit or part of the sinner.
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The salvation is an unearned gift. Sola fide, salvation comes through faith, not by works.
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This is the means of grace. The doctrine is that salvation comes as Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 puts it, by grace through faith in Christ.
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Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone. Neither the church or any other party or adjunct system has an actor or a place in the scheme of God's salvation.
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Sola deo gloria, to the glory of God alone, all the glory is God, since he did all the work. Not only the atonement on the cross, but even the granting of faith, which allows us to be saved through that atonement.
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The five great truths of the Reformation. But ladies and gentlemen, we are in a crisis in evangelicalism today, aren't we?
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The activities that are coming upon the scene are profound. You already know these things, open theism, new perspectivism, inclusivism.
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Where one evangelical recently in a book published a few years ago by a mainline evangelical publisher said that there is an ignorance exception to the gospel.
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That if you lived in nations and in places where the truth of the gospel has not yet been exposed, that if you are only condemned through unbelief, then how can you be held responsible for not being presented what you should have believed in to begin with and therefore have never had a chance to reject its truth?
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Because of that state of ignorance, God grants you a special grace for eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. That is absolute heresy.
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It is only through Christ, Sabellianism is on the rise again.
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Mainline evangelical leaders who deny the Godhead, deny the existence, the coexistence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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There are even Christian artists, mainline Christian artists that you would know of that you sing their songs in your churches that deny the existence of a
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Godhead, that deny the Trinity. I'm on a radio forum of about 400 broadcasters all around the country, all mainline gentlemen.
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And it's interesting, as we discuss this issue, the Trinity a few months ago, most of the comments on that forum came back saying,
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Steve, what's the big idea about the Trinity anyway? We all have holes in our theology. As long as we believe that Jesus is the only way, aren't we serving the same
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God? The definitive answer is no. You deny the Godhead, you deny the
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God of the Bible. But this is being tolerated. One radio programmer called me and says, you know what this artist you're speaking about is constantly on our playlist.
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And he says, we just don't feel that this should be something that we should offend them by questioning them on.
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And then lastly, this is the most dangerous because it comes under the radar in such a specific way, political activism, the politicization of the local church, where evangelical leaders have sought today to turn the local church or the body of Christ into some sort of political action group or some sort of lobbyist effort to further the voting privileges of the religious right.
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And nothing could be further from biblical Christianity. Phil Johnson has a wonderful article on this on the
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Master's Fellowship website called Ecumenical Politics. I would encourage you to read it.
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You see the joining together of people from all kinds of faiths, even those who are atheistic, only to work on a common co -belligerence to tolerate what's going on in society and to stand coldly against the in front of immorality.
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They feel that they are justified in such a partnership and such a co -laboring for the cause of Christ.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the church has never been a political action group. It is not Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Christians.
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How dare evangelical leaders today that claim to be a spokesperson for the gospel reduce the gospel of Jesus Christ and trade in its authority and power for that which is sub -part of the gospel and that's only to affirm legislation.
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We saw recently in the boycotting and the petitioning against the homosexual community.
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Homosexuality is a sin forbidden in scripture. God's holiness cannot be compromised, but folks, his mercy cannot be restrained.
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What Rosie O'Donnell and company needs is not the Christian church today, the body of Christ picketing them.
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They need to be heralded with the life -giving truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They do not need legislation because it cannot change the heart of man.
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They need life transformation, regeneration, and that only happens through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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All of these things, open theism, Sabellianism, inclusivism, new perspectivism, political activism, these things were not born in the womb of local church ministry, in the womb of effective pastoral leadership and eldership.
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These things were born in the halls of scholarship and academia primarily, and it saddens me to say this, in the halls of most seminaries, evangelical seminaries in this country.
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We are reaping what we have sowed. When seminaries adopted a university model of education for training men for ministry, as opposed to a biblical model, a local church model, we are paying the price for such suasion in our time.
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You see this seminary, you lock a guy up for four years and out pops a student, but it doesn't make a shepherd.
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That's a call of God. And that must be produced through and of the local church.
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Because Paul says to Timothy, just don't watch your doctrine closely, watch your life and doctrine closely.
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And the life must be watched on the accountability and the authority of the local church. This is a different time we're in.
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This is an unusual time. I saw Bill Maher last night on HBO.
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Did some of you watch that program after the evening meeting last night? It's okay to put up your hand. You can admit to watching
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HBO here. Okay. It was fascinating because in that program,
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Bill has been really forcefully critical of Christians. But I want you to know that it's specifically in that environment that he needs to see believers, not as politicians, but as sinners saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
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I hope you're praying for him. Wouldn't it be great if he was our brother in the Lord? The answer is yes, for those of you who hesitated.
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It would be wonderful. You're a tough group here. So we come to this text, the heart of the gospel.
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This is the heart that pumps through its veins, the great truth of saving faith and brings all of Romans into six wonderful verses.
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In here is the heart of the gospel. Paul has argued that all people deserve God's wrath and judgment.
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Not even the covenant people are an exception since they have failed to keep the Mosaic law. Indeed, the burden of chapter two, verses one to 29, which is summed up in chapter three, verses 19 and 20.
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Here where Paul says, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.
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Because by the works of the flesh, pardon me, by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.
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For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. The law only reveals the transgressions of both the
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Jew and the Gentile. And thus the reliance on the law or Jewish distinctives is a false path for righteousness.
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Romans 3, 21 to 26 turns the corner and it represents the saving righteousness of God is not available through the law, but has been revealed in Jesus Christ and his atoning death.
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The promises made to Israel have been fulfilled and they have been fulfilled in a surprising way through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
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Those who put their faith in him are thereby right with God. The grace of God has provided redemption through the atoning death of the
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Messiah, Jesus. Both righteousness and redemption are gifts of the new age, signaling that God has now intervened on behalf of his people.
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And the death of Jesus Christ, both the saving and judging righteousness of God has been realized. The flow of thought is paraphrased as follows.
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God's wrath has been revealed against all sin. Nevertheless, this righteousness of God fulfilled was promised in the
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Old Testament scriptures. The saving righteousness of God is available through faith in Jesus Christ.
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For there is no distinction. All have sinned. All fall short of God and his glory. All then must be made righteous.
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The elect as a free gift of his grace through the ransom accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross.
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It's a once for all sacrifice never to be repeated. Verse 25, God set forth his sacrifice to set his wrath, to satisfy his wrath and to wipe away sin through his blood.
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And this gift becomes available to us by faith. He set forth Jesus as a sacrifice to demonstrate his judging righteousness because in his patience, he had passed over the sins previously committed.
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And this passing by sins called into question whether he truly judged sins, but it was satisfied in Christ, Solus Christus.
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So let me say again that he set forth Jesus as the once for all sacrifice to demonstrate his judging righteousness in the present era of salvation history.
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He did all this so that it would be clear that God is just and the one who justifies through saving faith.
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Dark and dismal is man's condition. This darkness and despair is unfathomable and universal. It envelops all of us.
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Even if you're born in Wheaton like I was, the Vatican too, the holy city. The light of the glorious gospel comes streaming in and the hope revises from the deadness of the trespasses of our sins.
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I needed that gospel. All my Wheaton upbringing, all of my wonderful religious heritage.
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I was showing up to church 11 o 'clock sharp and leaving 12 o 'clock dull. It didn't mean anything in the sight of a holy
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God. I didn't dance. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I didn't play cards, but I was a whitewashed tomb.
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On the outside, I may have fit the role. Inside, I was nothing but a corrupt man full of dead man's bones.
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I was the almost Christian that Matthew Mead talks about. I had nothing better than my civility.
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I was closed with the stench of my own righteousness. I had nothing more to boast of than my own human fleshly morality.
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And I didn't need to repent because I was civil. I needed to repent because I was no better than civil.
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I needed a righteousness that surpassed the scribes and the Pharisees. And in my own righteousness, it was nothing but dirty, filthy rags.
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And so what's the solution? What is the gospel? What is the heralding of the truth that we are to be about?
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It's in this text. Will you look with me here? Number one, number one.
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I hit it. Here we go. Number one, sola scriptura, verse 21.
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The cross declares the word of God. The cross declares the word of God.
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Notice here with me. But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested and being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
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The but now, that is at this present time, at this very strategic moment in the history of redemption, it's what
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Galatians 4 .4 called the fullness of time. A righteousness from God has now been revealed.
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This righteousness goes into effect apart from the law, which can only mean that it was not and cannot be earned by man's obedience to the law.
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It was and is a righteousness apart from the works of the law. The works that the writer of Hebrews called dead works.
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Paul's presenting now something that has never been heard of. No, on the contrary. He is speaking about a righteousness attested by the law and the prophets.
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Paul had already quoted in Romans 1 .17, Habakkuk 2 .4, behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the brightness will live, but the rightness, pardon me, the righteousness will live by his faith.
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Undoubtedly, he also has in mind other passages. Genesis 15 .6,
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Psalm 32, one and two. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
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How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile.
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Here we have forgiveness of sin, atonement of sin, and the doctrine of imputation and substitution.
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The Old Testament is not inferior revelation. The Old Testament itself promises again and again that God will one day fulfill his saving promises to lost man.
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Therefore, the righteousness mentioned here is not the judging righteousness mentioned of earlier.
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Notice here in chapter three and in verse five, but if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say?
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The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is he? I'm speaking in human terms.
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Here, Paul is using the righteousness of God in his sovereign judgment of sinful man.
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The sovereign judge of the universe sits on his throne. He looks and judges my life.
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He measures it by the plumb line of scripture, by the plumb line of the law and the prophets, and the gavel falls, and I am declared guilty as charged.
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But here in the gospel, the Old Testament affirms the cross is the wonderful declaration of the word of God.
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The righteousness mentioned here is a saving righteousness. It's God's saving righteousness apart from the law, and it was done by our
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Lord after his resurrection. As some of those who went up, Luke says, went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the woman also said in Luke 24, but him they did not see.
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And he said to them, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the
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Christ to suffer these things and to enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets,
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Jesus explained to them the things concerning himself in all of the scriptures. The cross was fulfilled, pardon me, the cross fulfilled the full declaration of the old covenant in Christ.
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Also in Luke chapter 24 and verse 32, it says, they said to one another, were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was explaining the scriptures to us?
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And then in verses 44 to 47, he says, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you.
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That all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
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Some of those great chapters, Psalm 100, Psalm 110, Isaiah 53, Psalm 16,
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Psalm 22, on and on it goes. The great chapters of the old covenant promising the coming of the advent of Messiah, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
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Acts 26, here even the apostle Paul, and he says, so having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was gonna take place, that the
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Christ was to suffer and that by reason of his resurrection from the dead, that he should be the first to proclaim light both to the
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Jewish people and to the Gentiles. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.
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Here is the testimony of the old Testament. Here is the testimony of the fullness of scriptures. Even Paul in 1
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Corinthians 15, in that great chapter on the resurrection of the dead, he says, now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which
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I preached to you, which also you received, which also you stand, which also you were saved, if you hold fast the word which
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I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as a first importance, which
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I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to what? The scriptures.
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And that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures.
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Paul is not reinventing anything here. He is not creating something new. He is saying here that through sola scriptura, through the word of God, that the cross declares the authority of God's word.
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It was fulfilled in Christ. But the second great sola that we see here, sola fide.
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Sola fide. The heart of the gospel. The cross defined salvation by God.
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Let me just interject before I forget this thought that comes so fleeting these days. Every one of those believers in Jesus Christ that's introducing those heresies to the church these days, they need not our patience and tolerance.
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They need to be reminded to repent. They need to repent, don't they?
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The gentleman we heard last night, he needs to repent. It is a different gospel.
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And I say that with brokenness and with love in my heart. Sola fide.
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This is the great message of the cross. This is the great declaration and heralding of what we need to be proclaiming to a lost world.
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May I ask you, where are the sovereign grace evangelists of today? We've seen the
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Armenian ones, haven't we? I always thought if we were Calvinistic in singing,
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I have decided to follow Jesus, at the end of the meetings, we would say, he has decided that I have decided to follow
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Jesus. He has decided that I have just, anyway. Probably wouldn't work.
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We'd have to have a new song. But where are the sovereign grace evangelists going into all of Los Angeles and heralding the truth of scripture, declaring it for what it is, the word of God, and then proclaiming salvation through faith.
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Sola fide. This is the heart of it. Notice what Paul says, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe.
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Paul is now stating what he had previously said in Romans 1, 16 and 17. I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, listen, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith.
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This is the great theme of Romans. The righteousness of God through faith. Galatians 3 .11.
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Not that no one is justified by the law before God, is evident for the righteous man shall live by faith.
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And now the object of the faith is Jesus Christ. We need this righteousness.
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We need a perfect righteousness to stand into the presence of a holy God. And it can only be obtained through faith in the
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Savior and through the triune God reveals himself. This faith is a gift from God, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, and comes from the hearing and the preaching of God's word,
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Romans 10, 17. I can never understand this for the life of me.
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Why is it that a preacher of God's word would ever want to take time in the pulpit to tell his little vacation stories, to read
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Dr. Seuss manuals, to tell us of some new ways of getting in touch with our little crippled wounded inner child, rather than proclaiming and heralding the truth of God's word and the authority of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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That man should resign from the ministry. He's not worthy to stand behind the sacred desk. If he thinks his own stories and opinions are on a par with scripture, this is serious, isn't it folks?
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We're dealing with men's souls. Hey, if we're just trying to pass an election, it doesn't matter.
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Say what you want, the populace will forget in a month anyway. We can claim amnesia politically.
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Biblically though, it's serious. Sola fide, by faith alone. That means that works has nothing to do with genuine regeneration of life in Christ.
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Only that which is by faith. Vance Havner used to describe faith, that little acronym, forsaking all,
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I trust him. Romans 4, 3 to 11 gives us a great passage on sola fide, probably the finest in all the
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New Testament. Will you turn with me there? Romans 4, 3 to 11. What does the scripture say?
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Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Not of the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but what is due, verse five.
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To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.
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Just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness. Again, quoting here out of Psalm 32.
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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, whose sins have been covered or atoned for.
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A reference to the mercy seat. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account, who does not impute his sin to him.
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It's what the Psalmist says in Psalm 103, that the Lord has not rewarded us according to our sin, nor has he dealt with us according to our iniquity.
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And aren't you glad? For the just reward of the rags of our own righteousness is to inherit an eternal hell.
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God's wrath being poured out upon us and unmitigated fury engulfed forever and ever without release.
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And this blessing then came, is this blessing then come upon the circumcised or the uncircumcised also?
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For we say faith was reckoned, Abraham, as righteousness. How then was it reckoned?
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Verse 10 here. While he was circumcised or uncircumcised. Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.
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And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had while uncircumcised.
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If you remember, the promise came in Genesis 12, the covenant came in Genesis 15, but the circumcision came in Genesis 17.
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He was reckoned by faith. He was brought close to God and made, as it were, declared righteous in the eyes of a holy
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God through faith. Abraham believed God. He had this while uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to them.
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This is it. It's by grace through faith alone in Christ alone.
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It is faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction to the Jew and to the
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Gentile. Isn't that the great message of the hope of the gospel that we are privileged to go and tell unbelieving people to?
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What a great message of hope. Faith in Christ alone. It was interesting, a few weeks ago, a couple of women knock at my front door,
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Jehovah's Witnesses. They were trying to sell me a magazine and a few items. They said, could we speak to you?
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And I said, well, let me go get some bottled water or whatever, and I'll bring it out, and we'll sit here on our front porch and talk, and we did for a while.
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They whipped open their JW Bible, and the beginning was the word, and the word was a God. And I went, whoops, we got a little problem here.
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And so I said, can I tell you, you don't have a good Bible. Can I give you a new Bible? I have several here.
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Can I just give you one so you have a genuine scripture? I said, what do you mean? I said, well, your Bible says in the beginning was the word, and the word was a
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God. It's really in the word was the God. The word was God. And I said, can
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I just share with you a Bible? They said, what do you mean our Bible is false? And they said, sir, you probably don't realize this, but in the
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Greek, it says this. And I said, tremendous. Let me go get my Greek New Testament, and you can show that to me in the Greek language.
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And she says, well, I really don't speak Greek. I said, I didn't think so. And we talked for a while, and she says, can
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I ask who are you? And I said to these ladies,
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I said, honey, I am your worst nightmare. We had a wonderful time to talk.
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They said, well, listen, we really need to be going. I said, not so fast. You came and knocked at my door. I'm not done with you yet. And I said, sit down.
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We're going to talk. I opened up this passage. I said, I'm studying on this passage to teach in a few weeks.
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And I said, I'd love to share with you its truth. And I followed them down the walkway or the sidewalk as they were trying to get away.
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And my next door neighbor came on out. And she says, Steve, what's going on? I said, oh, these are
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Jehovah's Witnesses. And I was sharing them the gospel. And she says, what do you mean? And I said, well, where do you go to church? She says,
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I'm Roman Catholic. I said, oh, this is perfect for you. This is wonderful. Isn't the
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Lord gracious in bringing those wonderful opportunities? A couple of Jehovah's Witnesses and a Roman Catholic. I was a blessed man.
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Sola Fide, salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone.
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Number three, the heart of the gospel, Soledad Gloria. Soledad Gloria.
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The cross demanded the glory of God. The cross demanded the glory of God.
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You see, the cross defines salvation by God. It's through faith. It's not a works, lest any man can boast.
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The cross declared the word of God because it fulfilled all the testimony of the law and the prophets. But here, the cross demands the glory of God.
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Notice with me a familiar verse. All have sinned, say it with me, and fall short of the glory of God.
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This is it. This is our condition. One man may stand at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
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Another may stand at the top of Mount Everest, but neither can touch the stars. All have sinned. All fall short of the glory of God.
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Whether you were born in the church like me or whether you came from the street, there is common ground around the cross.
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We are sinners not because we commit acts of sin. We are sinners because we are conceived in sin, born sinful, born and conceived with the nature of God's, by children of wrath by nature.
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We are dead in trespasses and sin. We are not sinners because we do sinful things.
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When we do them, we are only being true to our nature. All whose sin die, and that's why even little babies die.
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They are not innocent. They stand guilty before a holy God. They are conceived in sin as we all are.
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All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And let me be very specific.
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No baptism of an infant can save them. It is only the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. All have sinned.
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All fall short of the glory of God. Man by his nature is corrupt, totally depraved as the reformers would say.
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The great Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards says this about sin. Sin is naturally exceedingly dear to us.
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And we love it, don't we? Depart with it as compared to plucking out our eyes.
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Men may refrain from wanton ways of sin for a little while and may deny their lusts in a partial degree with less difficulty.
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But as heart rendering work finally depart with sin, to give our dearest lusts a bill of divorce, utterly to send them away is a work of grace.
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But this we must do. If we would follow those that are truly turning to God, we must not only forsake sin, we must renounce it.
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We must forsake all the world. Luke 14 .33 he quotes, Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple.
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Thomas Watson, my favorite of the Puritans says this. Another subtlety is to draw men to evil.
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The pirate doth mischief by hanging out false colors. So Satan by hanging out the colors of religion, he puts some men upon sinful action and persuades them much goodwill will come of it.
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He tells them in some cases that they may dispense with the rule of the word and stretch their conscience beyond that line of scripture that they may be in a capacity of doing more service.
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Listen to this. As if God needed our sin to raise his glory. What is the glory of Paul speaking about here?
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A couple of things that it is not. This is not the doing of all things for God's glory.
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Romans 3 .10 -18 settles that issue. Secondly, it is not the future glory of glorification.
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When we are home with him and we have a new body, when we will forever and ever in unbroken fellowship, sing worthy is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
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Can you hardly wait for that great day? This is not speaking of glorification. If it was,
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Paul could have used the future tense here rather than the present tense. The term glory of God means glory imparted by God in the sense of approval, approbation, and praise.
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Following this line of thinking, you could translate this verse by saying all are unworthy of God's praise.
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Some learned men have done so. Paul here also could mean in verse 23, the means of conformity to God's image, as William Hendrickson says.
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All have sinned and as a result are now in a state in which they are falling short of or lacking which they possessed before the fall, namely the inestimable blessing of having the approval of God resting on them.
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Spurgeon says this, consider this believer, you have no right to heaven in yourself. Your right lies in Christ.
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If you are pardoned, it is through his blood. If you are justified, it is through his righteousness. If you are sanctified, it is because he has been made of God unto you sanctification.
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If you shall be kept from falling, it will be because you are preserved in Jesus Christ for eternity. If you are perfected at the last, it will be because you are complete in him.
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Thus Jesus is magnified for all is in him and by him and for him and through him. And thus the inheritance has made certain to us for it is obtained in him.
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Thus each blessing is the sweeter and even heaven itself the brighter because it is Jesus our beloved in whom we have obtained our all in all.
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This is the rich meaning of this, isn't it? That Paul is saying here, it's not only conformity to God's image, but it is here that which follows a sense of approval and praise.
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All stand unworthy to receive a right word of praise before a holy God. All have sinned, and therefore
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God had to be satisfied. And in him being satisfied, the full payment of our sin, thus
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God was glorified at the cross. No greater evidence of God's glory than the incarnation, the sinless life, the once for all death, the burial and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ the righteous.
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The heart of the gospel, sola deo gloria, the cross demanded the glory of God.
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But then fourthly, sola gratia, sola gratia. And we're moving quickly here, we have limited time.
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Sola gratia, the cross distinguished the grace of God. There's probably no more sweet word in all of scripture than grace, is there?
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God's righteousness at Christ's expense. G .S. Bishop one time said that grace is a provision of men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the acts of justice, who are so corrupt they cannot turn to him, that are so adverse to God in their own natures they cannot save themselves, that are so deaf they cannot hear him, so blind they cannot see him, and so dead that he himself must open their graves.
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That's grace. That is grace. It is all of grace. Last year on the cruise ship,
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I had a chance to share with a gentleman. He was asking what we were doing on board and he said,
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I said, we're on an apologetics cruise. He said, who do you have to apologize for? What's going on with that? I had a chance to talk with him and he said,
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Steve, I understand what you mean about the gospel. He said, he goes, it's like if I fell overboard and I was going down for the last time and I was drowning and then
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Jesus throws me a life preserver and I grab onto it and he pulls me in. That's salvation, right?
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I said, no. It's as if you went down for the third time. The salt water filled your lungs and you drowned.
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Your lifeless body sunk 4 ,000 feet to the depth of the ocean floor. And then there are the scavengers at the ocean floor tore your lifeless body limb from limb and ate the flesh off of your dead bones and scattered them to the four winds.
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And then in that helpless condition, God in his grace reached down and breathed new life into you. Now that's salvation.
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Amen. You have no say in it. Can I say that this is one election that you'll never have a chance to vote in.
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It is only by grace. It is only by grace. Notice here verse 24 for being justified as a gift by his grace.
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As a gift by his grace. This is the first time that Paul uses this word to justify in a positive sense to set forth a great declaration of justification by faith alone, through grace alone and Christ alone.
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He uses it in chapter 3 verse 4 for divine vindication. He uses it in chapter 3 verse 20 to indicate the impossibility of salvation by works.
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He uses it in chapter 2 verse 13 to contrast the doers from the hearers. But here justify means to declare righteous justification that may be defined as the gracious act of God whereby on the basis solely of Christ accomplished mediatorial work on the cross.
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He declares the sinner just and later accepts this benefit with a believing heart.
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Justification then stands in stark contrast against condemnation to be justified, to be declared not guilty.
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But ladies and gentlemen, it's more than a declaration. It is the imputation of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ to the believer.
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As Dr. White and others have so wonderfully laid out for us and Pastor David here this morning and Phil Johnson and the
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New Perspectivism, they deny imputation, but we must be clothed with the
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Savior's righteousness. The sinner's sin, guilt and penalty is imputed to Christ.
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The Savior's righteousness is imputed to the sinner. I love what Dr. MacArthur said. He was treated as if he lived our life so that we could be treated as if we lived his.
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The great doctrine of imputation. Justification is a matter of imputation.
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Sanctification is the matter of transformation. Notice here with me. Being justified, some of your versions might say freely.
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Verse 24, mine says as a gift. We are justified, Paul says as a gift.
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Absent, in other words, of any human merit, man cannot earn the great and awesome blessing of justification being made right with God.
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We can only accept it as a gift. Notice here, sola gratia, not just freely, it is by his grace, freely by his grace.
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The two are inextricably joined. It is unmerited. It is unmerited.
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Grace is a provision that we receive solely by faith in Christ. It was accomplished through grace on our behalf.
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It is undeserved. It is unmerited. And then notice here, through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, redemption is deliverance by means of a payment of a ransom from the guilt, power, and punishment of sin.
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And all this was accomplished by grace. The cross distinguished the grace of God in matters of our salvation.
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It is his unmerited, undeserved favor being given to his own through Jesus Christ, the righteous, redeemed, justified by grace through Christ alone.
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But at the great pinnacle of this text, solus Christus, solus Christus, verses 25 and 26, solus
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Christus, we see here first and foremost that the cross displayed the satisfaction of God.
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Notice here in verse 25, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.
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The cross was the public display of the propitiatory work of Jesus on the cross.
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This is something Mel Gibson could not show you in the Passion, could he? This is something that he giving us his
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Roman version of the cross was absolutely stunted in from proclaiming because wicked men had gone down Galgather's road before.
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Sinful men had been punished by Pilate with their bowels ripped open, their backs laid bare.
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Wicked men had been thrust up on crosses that line the Roman road but only
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Jesus Christ in the garden was wrestling with drinking not the cup of dine but the cup of God's wrath.
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It took the sinless life lived. It took the unblemished lamb and it took a perfect high priest and all three of those things are contained in Jesus Christ.
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And therefore, God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith and this was on account of Christ Jesus on our behalf.
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As you know, propitiate means to avert wrath, to avert anger. On the cross, our Lord not only took the fullness of our guilt, the fullness of our sin of the elect and the fullness of the penalty against that sin, but he took the fullness of the wrath of God that burned against that sin.
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And we can never fathom this in this life, can't we? But on the cross in a miracle of miracles, the eternal wrath of a holy
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God was compressed into time and it was thrust out on Jesus the wrath again that you and I deserve in an everlasting hell.
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And he drank that cup of wrath to the very drags for us so that as Paul says in Romans 5, 1, seeing therefore, you've been justified by faith through the
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Lord Jesus Christ. We have, I reine prostathon, we have peace with God.
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And that's the hope of the gospel. How can a man or a woman have peace with God? It is solus
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Christus. It is through Christ alone. The cross here publicly displayed the satisfaction of God.
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God's holiness and justice had to be satisfied before we could be loved by an eternal
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God unto salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And this is the message of hope. You see the cross, ladies and gentlemen, and the message of the gospel is not how do we get sinful men and women to a holy
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God. The issue of the cross is how does a perfect holy God come to a sinful, wicked man like me without violating his holiness and his justice?
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And the answer is the cross. The answer is the cross. He is our propitiation.
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And Paul says this was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance
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God passed over the sins previously committed. Not only did the cross display the satisfaction of God, the cross demonstrated the righteousness of God.
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If we want to see what the perfect righteousness of God looks like, we must come to the cross.
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It is Jesus Christ, the righteous. This is something Mr. Gibson could not portray.
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You know, they're selling the Passion movie in CDs and DVDs everywhere for Christmas, just when you're at Sam's Club buying your copy, which
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I hope you do not do. But if you go on sinning so that grace may abound, that's between you and the
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Lord. But while you're there, and if you notice that people have the Passion DVD, you might just tap them on the shoulder and just say, boy, it's sad that Mr.
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Gibson couldn't show the real suffering of the cross, isn't it? And just let that sink in.
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And soon you'll have a few carts around you in the checkout line at Sam's wondering what is going on.
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Then you get to share with them this great doctrine of propitiation and satisfaction and righteousness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
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See, the cross demonstrated the perfect righteousness of God that he always demanded through the law, but no man could never fulfill.
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Moving quickly here. Thirdly, the cross delights in the character of God.
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The cross delights in the character of God. See, when Jesus gave himself for us, he gave us all the rights and privileges which went with himself so that he, although now as eternal
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God, has essential rights to us as the creature may venture to pretend, as Spurgeon says, yet as Jesus, the mediator, the federal head of the covenant of grace, he has no heritage apart from us.
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All the glorious consequences of his obedience unto death are the joint ridges of all those who are in him and on those who believe he accomplished the divine will.
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See, he enters into his glory, but not for himself alone, for it is written, whether the forerunner is entered for us in Hebrews 6 .20,
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does he stand in the presence of God? He appears in the presence of God for us. All of this was accomplished in Christ.
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God in demonstrating his own righteousness at that present time so that he would be the just and the justifier of all who would believe.
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The cross looks backward all through the Old Testament age of redemptive history and the cross looks forward for all of us who have not seen, but yet believe and now have salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteous.
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And therefore, we can say that not only us, but Abraham was saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, was he not?
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The cross is the great crossroads of redemptive history so that God would be the just.
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He previously overlooked the sins committed, looking for the cross, looking toward the cross.
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So all of the sins of the elect would be placed on Jesus and dealt with thoroughly in Christ our
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Lord so that he would be the just and the justifier, the one who has faith in Jesus alone.
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This great message of the cross, this great message of the cross is the message that we are given as a mandate to go into a lost world and herald.
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I am concerned that we have an opportunity. Would you click this for me and move these slides as we tap in just a minute here?
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I'm concerned, ladies and gentlemen, whether it be Christian music or the pulpits or the authorship of people today in evangelical circles, do we have a burden for lost souls?
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And are we going to take this life giving truth to them? I so thank the
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Lord for these dear men of faith that are here today. I learned so much for them. And one thing
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I know that each of them have is a passion for unsaved people to share the gospel with them. And I just think in our time and in our life, where Satan never attacks at the area of the trivial, but the area of the essential, that we need to have a recovering of the gospel, not just getting it right theologically, but to have the courage and the grace and the humility and love and compassion to go to a lost world and share it.
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I was in Washington, D .C. a few years ago. We were doing a
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World AIDS Day concert. December 1st is World AIDS Day every year. It's a great opportunity for a missions outreach for your church.
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And here is a few weeks earlier, I had a chance to be at the
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World AIDS Medical Conference in San Francisco. And there was a concert going on that evening of 8 ,000 people at Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland, California.
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They said, Steve, you have 30 minutes. I was the only Christian invited to be there. They said, you can say whatever you want to say.
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That's always dangerous to give me those instructions. But they said, you have 30 minutes. And I sang my songs and then
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I got out and I shared this gospel of grace and repentance. The man who introduced me at that event had a beautiful pink chiffon dress on.
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Never been introduced by a man with a dress before. And my manager who was there,
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I said, this could get a little rough. You might want to keep the car running. And here, you know, calling them to a gospel of repentance, a gospel of grace through faith in Christ alone.
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I looked at that dear man and I said, sir, that means if you come to Christ, you'll take off that dress and live as a man.
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If you're gay here, I said, that means when you're saved that you will live your life as a heterosexual for the rest of your life.
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If you're a transsexual, it means that you will live your life in that original sexual condition that the Lord created you in.
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Repentance. Repentance. And I sang a song I wrote for people with AIDS called, Do You Feel Their Pain?
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When that was said, all the stuff started hitting the stage. All these things they were throwing. I was walking down the corridor going to my dressing area and my manager said, hey,
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I'll be by to pick you up in a minute. And the security was supposed to walk with us. And mine was just a few minutes late in getting there.
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And 12 guys from this group act up, came up from behind the curtains and threw me up against the wall and just started to minister to me.
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It felt like it went on for 30 minutes. I know it was probably only about a minute or two. Got beat up pretty good.
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I could have used James being there. But these men, the security finally came.
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They said, do you want to press charges? And I said, no, but they are going to listen while I share with them the gospel. We had a lovely opportunity to talk.
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We went to this event in Washington, D .C. and we had, I don't know, a few thousand folks that gathered for the concert. We invited all the gay, lesbian task force and the different ones there.
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Those were HIV infected. And we had Frank Young, who at that time was head of the Food and Drug Administration. And we had several congressmen and leaders out from that administration and different artists came.
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And we had pastors and people bring folks that were HIV infected at their churches and they brought them to hear the good news of the gospel.
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It was so wonderful at the end of that night and the gospel was called for repentance by grace through faith in Christ.
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That next morning, as we met with several of the pastors in that community who are our follow up team, they're the elders and the pastors of those various churches, that out of the 300
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AIDS patients that attended, 290 received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Isn't that great?
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And here is one AIDS patient told me, he says, Steve, I know there's no cure for HIV, but I've been cured of SIN. I went into a hospital room the next day and I had a chance to share with a man who was too sickly to come to the event that night.
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He died just a few weeks later. He didn't receive the Lord, but he died a few weeks later. Can you imagine if we would have gone to those dear people and simply picketed them, boycotted them, tried to pass a constitutional amendment against them, we would have lost an opportunity to share the gospel of grace with them.
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Ladies and gentlemen, in this day and age, may we repent of our political activism. May we repent of our open theism.
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May we repent of our new perspectivism. May we repent of our inclusivism. May we repent of our
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Sabellianism. And may we honor the Lord through the heralding of his once for all faith delivered to the saints once again, because there's a world that is in dire need to hear of the life -giving, a life -preserving truth of this gospel of grace.
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And isn't it our joy to be his representatives to that lost world? Amen. As concluding this time here, could we sing together this wonderful song,
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Wonderful Merciful Savior? The great triune.
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Turn this up, please. Thank you. The great triune work of our God at the cross.
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Let's sing this together. Wonderful Merciful Savior.
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Precious Redeemer and friend. Who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of men?
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Oh, you rescue the souls of men.
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Counselor, comforter, keeper. Spirit we long to embrace.
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You offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost their way.
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Oh, we hopelessly lost the way.
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You are the one that we praise. You are the one we adore.
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Oh, you give the healing and grace our hearts always hungered for.
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Oh, our hearts always hungered for.
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Almighty, infinite Father. Faithfully loving your own.
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Here in our weakness you find us falling before your throne.
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Oh, we're falling before your throne. You are the one that we praise.
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You are the one we adore. You give the healing and grace our hearts always hungered for.
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Oh, our hearts always hungered for. You are the one that we praise.
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You are the one that we praise. You are the one we adore.
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You give the healing and grace our hearts always hungered for.
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Oh, our hearts always hungered for.
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Lord Jesus, we thank you. We are so indebted, Lord, for eternity as to the wonderful work on the cross that you have done for us.
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And Lord, because of that, as Paul says in Titus 3, we have empathy for those who don't know you because we were once ourselves foolish and disobedient, slaves to various lusts, hating and hateful of one another.
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Oh, but Lord, then you reached down and you saved us, not according to works that we had even done in righteousness, but according to your work on the cross alone.
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Thank you, Father, for this great gospel. May we be uncompromising in it.
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And Lord, if for any of us in this room are given a chance to have a voice to the marketplace, a voice on mainstream radio or television, no matter what the source may be.
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May we not be PC. May we not be politically correct. May we not simply talk about that which is temporal and expedient.
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Oh, but may we speak of that which is glorious and eternal in calling a lost world to you.
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May we not be concerned about whether we'll be an invited guest in the future, but may we with winsomeness and with grace and with reverence and respect and with love and humility in our hearts, never fail to give an opportunity for men to repent of their sin.
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And to come to Christ. Forgive us for using this lost world as a means by which to further our own name and our own ministry.
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May we repent even this day. We love you. In Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, y 'all.