Worship Service - August 16 2020

Be in Colossians chapter three. And let's go to the Lord in prayer before we read his word. Most gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity as a corporate body to open your word, to read it, Father.

Thank you, God, that you gave us a book to read and to study and to exegete and to extract the truth from it that, Father, we can apply it to our lives. Father, thank you for the songs that we sing. We pray that as we read your word, we sing your songs and we hear the preaching of the word today that, God, everything that is said and done in this service would be honoring to you.

And, God, I pray that you would take the cares of this world that pull us on every side and that, Father, you would cast them from our minds for this moment in time that, Father, we could focus on you and worship you in spirit and in truth, in Christ's name, amen.

The Call to Worship and Prayer Before the Reading

Colossians chapter three. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, where he is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you will be revealed with him in his glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body to be dead to immorality, to impurity, passions, evil desires, greed, which amounts to idolatry, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come on all the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked when you were living in them.

But now you also put aside all anger, wrath, malice, slander, any abusive speech from your mouth, and do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with all of its evil practices, and you put on the new self, who is being renewed to the true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free man, but in Christ all and in all.

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion and kindness, gentleness, patience, bearing one another, forgiving one another. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord had forgiven you, so also you do to one another.

Behold, all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called into one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ rail richly within you, and with all wisdom, teaching, admonishing one another in psalms and hymns, spiritual songs, singing with the thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks through him to God the Father. And now, wives, be subject to your husbands, as it is fitting to the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. And fathers, do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart.

Slaves, in all things, obey those who are your masters on this earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity heart, fearing the Lord. And whatever you do, do your work heartily, as unto the Lord rather than men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance.

And it is the Lord Jesus Christ whom you serve, for he who does wrong will receive the consequence of his wrong which he has done, and will receive it without partiality. This is the word of God.

As we not only seek wisdom and direction in what we do when we gather together, we seek direction on how to do it, and in what spirit we do it. And I couldn't help but think about it this morning, as Brother Mike got up to read in his prayer, that God would bless the reading.

And then Brother Keith, as he was about to sing, and he's a real preacher, he can't get away with just singing, he's gotta preach and pray. And you know, brothers and sisters, friends, this is the greatest privilege in all the world, to be able to gather as the people of God, and to worship the true and living God.

And we ought to understand that as we gather together, that there are so many that know not what we know this morning, and know not who we know this morning. So as we come to prayer this morning, let us be sincere, let us be honest, let us be willing to pour out our hearts to this great and glorious God.

The privilege that we have, not only to pray for ourselves, but to pray for others, to pray for a world that is lost, a world that, unless they repent, will one day and forevermore know the judgment of God in that place that God has reserved.

So let us pray, let us lift up our voice in sincerity and truth to the God who both hears and sees. Let us come together, let's pray. Oh, our great and glorious God, to you all praise belong. To you, Lord, you are the creator.

You spoke this world into existence. Out of nothing, Lord, by your decree, you spoke and it was. You have fashioned it, you have created the heavens and the earth. You've created so many glorious creatures to praise you, and to cause us to marvel at your power and your diversity.

God, you're the great artist. You are, you're the great mathematician. You are great overall, Lord. And so we gather this morning in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we are able to come to you.

We gather by the power of the Holy Spirit by whom we are able to know you and to pour out our hearts and thank you, Lord, that even he, the Holy Spirit, God himself, he makes intercession for us, for we so often do not know what to pray for or how to approach you.

So God, may we come to you this morning with open hearts. May we come before your mighty throne to seek help, to intercede not only on our own behalf, but on the behalf of others. And oh God, I know I say it so often, but I mean it from the depths of my heart.

This world is such a mess. There are so many, Lord, that don't know you. There are so many that cannot think straight. They are, as the prophet Isaiah said, they go to and forth like drunken men. They grope in the darkness.

They seek to understand what only you can give in true understanding. And so, oh God, this morning, we pray for our nation. We pray for those that have rule over us. Oh God, that they would be led by you.

We consider how this nation was established on the premise of a sovereign God and that the government was even established on the premise of being under the dictate of a sovereign God. And we have moved so far, Lord.

We have become a nation of heathens. We have become people who call good evil and evil good. We abuse each other, Lord. We kidnap each other. We kill each other. We divide, we devour. And oh God, we pray that you would be with those that have authority over us, that you would move in their hearts.

You would cause them to look to you, the wisdom that is above all wisdom. And Lord, not that just we might prosper, that we might live a quiet and a peaceable life and that you would be honored, not only for this nation, Lord, but for the governments of the world, for those places where there is such darkness of truth, where there are rulers who seek only power.

We pray, oh God, that you would pour out your grace. We confess, Lord, too often we think that it's too late. We think that it is beyond revival. And yet, Lord, you have, in some of the most of darkest times, you have brought great revival.

And even as the prophet said, the summer has passed, the harvest is in, and we're still not saved. So save, oh Lord. Show your hand. Show why Christ went to Calvary's cross, that he might raise sinners to himself, that he might take men and women, that he might take ugly men and ugly women and make them new creatures in Christ.

Be with us this morning. Be with us as we are to live as living epistles known and read. May men and women know that we know you. May they see in us a work of grace. Oh God, that we might have an outreach even in this community.

We thank you that we can support Set Free. We thank you that we support The Nest and their efforts to help women. Oh God, even in that, what a grievous sin we commit in our own country to murder babies.

But Lord, we know that you're able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all we ask and all we think. And we should never lose hope, Lord, for you are the one who does whatever he pleases to do in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and who can stay your hand and who can say to you, what are you doing?

So Lord, with great assurance we pray, knowing that you can and that you will save until that day. Lord, it is just my conviction that in that day when the last sheep enters the fold, when the last one that you have elected before the foundation of the world, when that last one comes to know Christ, the door will be shut and there will be a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness.

So God, may we proclaim the gospel freely and fully, both from here in this community and to the ends of the earth. Hear our prayers this morning, God. Pour oil, Holy Spirit, on them. May our words be exceeded by your power.

Lord, even as Brother Keith now would come and set forth your word, may it be your word that you would tear us down and build us up. Oh God, whose other hands should we desire to be in than to be in your hands?

So have your way with us, Lord. Cause us to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of that one who so loved us that he gave himself for us and that he ever lives to intercede on our behalf. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving our souls.

Thank you for making us whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me your great salvation so rich and so free. In Christ's name, amen.

The Reading of Colossians 3 and Prayer for the Congregation

I wanna invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter three and hold your place at verse one. We're going to be reading verses one to seven. While we're preparing to read Genesis three, I wanna remind you of another passage as sort of a prelude to what we're going to read.

In the sixth chapter of Ephesians, the apostle Paul admonishes us to put on the whole armor of God that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. In the ESV, the word wiles is translated schemes.

The Greek word methodeos comes from the same root as we get our word method. And so what the term wiles or schemes means is the methods of Satan, but more so specifically the evil methods. Methodeos means organized evil doing, methodical, strategic evil.

In short, the devil is very good at being very bad. Most of us are familiar with the mafia. You've seen movies, heard terms about the mafia. And we know low level criminals are not known for their grand schemes and their sophisticated plans, but the mafia is famous because their crime is organized.

They have a plan. They employ a method to allow themselves to stay just outside of the reach of justice. Well, in a way the devil engages in a form of organized crime against God's people. He is not randomly knocking over convenience stores.

He is working systematically to maintain the corruption of the world and the corruption of the church. Is there corruption in the church? I hope you would agree that there is corruption. Part of the reason for the reformation was that the church had become so corrupt that a movement of Protestants, meaning to protest, that a movement of Protestants had to stand up against the corruption that had gained a foothold in God's church.

As believers, we are called to stand against the wiles of the devil, against his schemes. But to do so, it is important that we understand them. It is a common maxim in battle that we must know thine enemy.

It's important to recognize the strategies that he employs. Like men going into battle, it serves us to know both the weapons and the schemes of our enemy. And here's the only positive thing that we can come up with in the midst of all this is the one positive thing is the devil has been using the same schemes from the beginning.

The same schemes that he started in the garden are still being employed today. And today we're going to see what these are. We are going to recognize the schemes that the devil used against Eve, and we're going to see that those schemes are still being employed today in our world.

So if you would stand, I'd like to read Genesis chapter three, and we're gonna read verses one to seven to give honor and reverence to the word of God. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.

Father in heaven, as I seek to give an exposition of your word, I pray that you would keep me from error. For God, I am a fallible man, and I am capable of preaching error. And for the sake of your name, and for the sake of your people, and for the sake of my conscience, I pray that you would protect me from error, but also Lord, that you might protect me from cowardice.

That I would not fear those who are listening, that I would not fear the world, but that I would fear you. And in doing so, preach your word with boldness and truth. Father again, I pray that your Holy Spirit would be present and the teacher.

For Lord God, without the Holy Spirit, my words will go into the air and mean nothing. I pray that the words will be used by the Spirit to go into the ear, through the mind and to the heart. And Lord, for those who are believers today, that they will be instructed, corrected, rebuked where necessary Lord, but ultimately edified.

And Lord, for those who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, that they would understand that today is the day of salvation. And that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

And we pray all of this in his name and for his sake. Amen. Last week, we spent an entire message on Genesis chapter three and verse one. We discussed the fact that the devil is real. We discussed the fact that he took the form of a serpent, that the devil himself is not just a symbol for evil and the serpent in the garden is not just a metaphor, but that this is a real event that happened in real history.

Genesis is not mythology. Some read of the talking snake and they immediately say, well, this can't be literal. But the text lays a foundation for the rest of Scripture and for the rest of human history that cannot be ignored.

If we take Genesis one and two and three and say that's not literal, then we have to then go and begin to say, well, maybe Noah and the Ark isn't literal and maybe Abraham wasn't a literal person and maybe the nation of Israel itself.

We begin to go and go and go and go and we end up finding ourselves in a pit of despair because we realize that we have written off the entire Scripture as being mere folklore. Genesis chapter three is not only a real event in history, I would say Genesis chapter three is one of the most defining moments of history because it is at this point that man will never be the same.

From this moment on, from Genesis chapter three verses one to seven, man will never be the same again. Up until now, he has lived in sinless innocence, but after that, his innocence will be no more. One of the great unanswered questions of Scripture is the question of how long was Adam and Eve in the state of innocence?

A lot of people wanna know how long did it take for them to go from creation to the fall? John Calvin in his commentary on this passage cites Augustine and did you know Augustine believed they fell the same day they were created?

Augustine said they stood upright for only six hours. Now, he has no reference for that and I would say that's incorrect because on the seventh day, which is still yet to be, everything was still good.

So some people would then come after Augustine and say, no, it wasn't on the sixth day that they fell, but it was on the seventh. Satan tempted them on the seventh day so that they would profane the Lord's holy day.

Okay, I can see the argument, but again, it's not in the text. All of this is conjecture, we don't know. What we do know is this, and this is what Calvin points out in his commentary. He says, what we do know is this, they were not innocent and in that state of innocence long enough to bear children.

And therefore, it could be said that we could assume that it was a relatively short time because no children are born in their state of innocence. So therefore, likely a shorter time than some people have conjectured.

Well, maybe they were thousands of years in a state of innocence. I don't believe that. There's no children formed. There's no children procreated at this time. So I don't believe that it's thousands of years, but I don't know how long it was.

But however long it was, whether it was hours or days, the faithful moment finally came. The woman was confronted by the serpent. She was deceived by the wiles of the devil. She took her forbidden bounty back to her husband and they both indulged.

And from that moment on, mankind would never be the same. But what methods did Satan use? What methods did the serpent employ to deceive Eve? I have observed three methods that Satan used. Three schemes that Satan used.

And I'm gonna put them up on the board. Thank you, Nate, for putting them up there. This is the three, this is the outline of today. And what we're going to look at is we're going to see three methodologies or three schemes, three wiles of the devil that I believe are still employed today.

First is the question. The second is the contradiction. And the third is the motivation. The question, the conviction, and, or excuse me, contradiction. Question, contradiction, and motivation. And each one of these is actually longer.

I didn't have space to put it on the screen, but it's actually the question regarding God's word. It's the contradiction regarding God's punishment. And it's the motivation regarding man's pride. So it's really a longer point, but to keep in our mind and keep it short, I made it three short bullet points.

The question, the contradiction, and the motivation. So we're going to look at each one of these. We're going to read through the text, and we're going to see how these were used by Satan to deceive Eve.

Let's look first at the question. This is actually still in chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

This is the first time we have a question mark in the Bible. Now, one might argue that the original language did not have the same punctuation that we have today, and that's true. There's no question mark in the Hebrew Bible.

But this is the first time we see a question, the form of a statement of a question. And the question comes from the mouth of the serpent as an illegitimate question. And I say it's an illegitimate question because the question is formed in such a way that its purpose is to malign Almighty God.

We know this because he does not even represent God properly in the question. Notice what he says. He says, has God said, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? That's not what God said.

That's not what God said. If you go back to Genesis 2, verse 16, God said, you may eat of all the trees of the garden except one. You say, well, what's the difference? The difference is this. God has given a positive invitation to man to eat of all the trees except one.

Satan is focusing on the negative. God has told you, you may not eat of all the trees because he held one back from you. You see the difference in the form of the construction? You see, when God gives the statement, it's a statement of liberality.

You can eat of all of the trees except one. When Satan comes in, he says, God doesn't want you to eat all the trees because he held one back from you. You see, it's Satan's way of questioning the Word of God by turning the good command on its head.

By turning the liberal allowance into a negative prohibition. He focuses not on what's given, but what's held. He focuses not on what is offered, but what is held back. What is forbidden. Jim Boyce, in his commentary on this, he says, Satan suggests that God is essentially prohibitive.

That he is not good. And that he does not wish the very best of all worlds for his creatures. You see, that's the point of the question. Trying to get Adam and Eve, Eve particularly at this moment, to see God is not good.

I want to make a point about something. Adam and Eve did not eat because they were hungry. Let me say that again. Adam and Eve did not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because they were hungry.

Because they had all the trees of the garden from which to eat. They weren't hungry. They weren't desperate. They weren't like a criminal who steals because his family is going hungry and they need food to take home and they can't get a job and the economy is down and everything is desperate.

And so they go and they steal a few apples off of a cart and they take it home to feed their hungry children. They are not desperate. They are absolutely kings in the Lord's garden. They have every tree from which to eat.

They have nothing missing. And Satan comes in and says, uh-uh, God is holding back from you. You got all the beautiful fruit and all the beautiful vegetables. You are able to eat from every tree. You are able to eat from every plant.

You are able to eat from everything. But God doesn't love you because He is holding this one thing back from you. God doesn't love you because He has got this one thing that you can't have. The ESV says, did God actually say?

The King James, I like the King James at this point. Yea, hath God said. You see, because the whole point of Satan in this question is to cause doubt. And the response of Eve exasperates the question because she doesn't even know the command of God.

Look with me at verse 2. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

You know there is no prohibition against touching the tree? If you go back and read Genesis 2, it doesn't say anything about touching the tree. This has caused a lot of speculation on behalf of interpreters because they are saying, did Eve add this in?

Because it doesn't say it. So did Eve add this prohibition? Or maybe Adam added the prohibition. Maybe he was concerned for the safety of his wife. Don't even touch it! Eve, don't go near it! You know, we don't know, the text doesn't tell us.

But what we do know this, she's added to the command of God, she's confused a bit about the command that's going to come back. Because when Satan responds to her, we're going to see Satan quotes God directly.

Satan knows the word of God better than Eve does. By the way, if you go back to Genesis 2, she wasn't there when the command was given. Genesis 2, 16 and 17 come before the creation of the woman, which is Genesis 2, 18 and following.

So there's a good chance that she heard the command from Adam. So she has the command second hand, and therefore, Adam maybe did include the prohibition of touching. And in that case she wouldn't be wrong because she's simply repeating what her husband told her.

And from her position, he is in the position of her authority in the same way God is in the position of their both authority. Therefore, she's not necessarily wrong. But at this moment, she's not really fully understanding God's command.

You know what the Bible says about men and their wives? It says men are supposed to teach their wives the word of God. Do you know that? 1 Corinthians 14, it says, Woman, if you have a question, go and ask your husband.

You know what that tells us husbands? You're supposed to know the word of God so that your wife can feel confident that when you teach her the word of God that you're teaching her correctly. That puts a burden on you.

Your wife sits under your teaching as the pastor of your home. That's an important responsibility. So getting back to the text, the first method Satan is employing is questioning God's word. It's founded upon speculation.

Has God really said this? Has God truly said this? Hath God said? And it's confounded by the fact that Eve didn't really understand what God had said. And honestly, this is the same method that Satan uses today.

How many people, how many people do you know that this is the first distortion that they fall into? Did God really say all those things in the Bible? Did God really mean all those things that He said?

Is God really and truly saying those things? And are they really right? I mean, we go to evangelize and what do people always say? Well, I don't know if I believe the whole Bible is true. Well, what would cause us to question the word of God?

Well, I have an education. I have a degree, a bachelor's, a master's degree. And I was told in my religious history class that the Bible has been put together over thousands of years by many different people.

It's been redacted, edited. Over time, it's been told to this one and that one and all the changes have happened and we have no idea what Adam and Eve really knew about. We don't even know if they really existed.

We don't even know if that was just a myth created by Moses. We don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know. It's always, we don't know. Turn on the History Channel. We don't know.

That should be the History Channel motto. The History Channel. We don't have any idea. Because it's all about questioning the word of God. It's always about, we don't know what God said. When I talk to people who are unbelievers, when I have conversations with people who are outside of the faith and they don't want to believe the attacks always and this is my experience, you may have a different experience and experiences come and change and go but my experience is this, it's always an attempt to try to disprove God's word.

They say God's word is unreliable. God's word is untrustworthy. God's word is untenable. You look up any source where there is a website or a book that's trying to disprove God's word or trying to disprove Christianity, it always starts with trying to disprove God's word.

The Bible's untrustworthy, corrupted, contradicted, filled with historical and scientific inaccuracies and all of these are the common starting point for attacking the faith. We've had people come here.

People come into this church and they say or we don't know if the Bible is the whole we don't believe the Bible is the word of God. Well this ain't the church for you. Now I ain't trying to be ugly. You can come in here and you can sit and you can learn but you ain't joining this church unless you affirm the Bible is the word of God.

I mean this is who we are. You say I don't believe the Bible is the word of God sit and listen but you ain't joining the church. Part of the covenant community that we have here is an affirmation that the whole Bible all 66 books is the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of the living God.

And the world will tell you that the Bible's corrupt. The world will tell you the Bible's wrong. The world will tell you the Bible has historic and scientific inaccuracies. The world will tell you the Bible's impossible to be harmonized.

The world will tell you there's contradictions. Just come listen. Spend some time in the word of God because the world is following the prince of the power of the air who from the beginning has said what?

Has God really said? Is the word of God really true? They're following after their master. And it makes sense. That's the first issue. That's the first thing we all face. The question about God's word.

Is it really true? And this is what starts Eve down a path by the way. Think about Eve at this point. The very first thing Satan does is, has God really said? And Eve, in her mind, she says, well God said this but I, you can imagine Eve there going, well maybe he didn't.

Or maybe, maybe he didn't mean it. Or maybe, oh, maybe he's just wrong. So it always begins with the question. Hath God said? But the next thing we see in the text is the contradiction. And the contradiction regards God's punishment.

Look at verse 4. Because Eve just said, if we eat of the tree we will die. And what does Genesis 3, 4 say? But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. God's command is clear. Go back to chapter 2 and look with me.

Chapter 2, verse 16, you don't even have to turn the page in your Bible, just look. Chapter 2, verse 16, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it...

Now the ESV says, you shall surely die, but the Hebrew is an idiomatic phrase. And the Hebrew actually says this, dying you shall die. Dying you shall die. And what that construction indicates is it intensifies the sense of certainty.

You will most certainly die. We see this same construction 49 times in the Old Testament. In fact, you guys remember Abimelech? When Abraham had his wife Sarah, and he was going into this place and he knew that Sarah was beautiful, so he decided instead of saying he was her wife, she was going to be his sister.

Because that solves the problem, right? That's going to solve everything. It creates a whole new problem because when Abimelech finds out that this is his sister, he says, well I'm going to take her as my wife.

And he takes her in as one of his many wives or concubines and before he can lay a hand on her, God speaks to Abimelech. And I'll read it to you. In Genesis chapter 20 verse 7, it says, Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.

But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours. That phrase, you shall surely die, is the same construction as is in Genesis 3 verse 4. If you don't return Sarah, you're going to die.

Certainly. Dying, you will die. You will die if you don't return this woman. That's the same construction God is using in Genesis chapter 2 verses 17, 16 and 17 when he says, on the day that you eat of the fruit dying, you shall die.

Now we're going to talk later in our study about the fact that they didn't die that day. They didn't die physically for another 900 and some years. But they did die spiritually the moment they ate of the tree.

And they began to die physically because even though their body didn't catch up for another 900 years, they started having all the problems that people have who are dying. Every one of us is dying, right?

Dying from the moment we came out of our mother. We have been dying ever since. We've been growing to death. Because eventually we're going to die. Adam and Eve weren't in that condition. Up until the fall, they were growing to life.

But after the fall, now they're growing to death. The promise will not be revoked. Dying, you shall die. That's the command God has said. You do this, you shall surely die. Now go with me to chapter 3 verse 4 and notice this.

But the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die. That's the ESV, but in the Hebrew it says this. Not dying, you shall die. Not dying, you shall die. You see what Satan does is he takes the word of God and he contradicts it word for word.

He gives an exact quote but he adds the adversative. Not. He gives a direct quote. God says dying, you shall die. I tell you not dying. You shall die. You shall not die. See, Satan doesn't just want us to question the word of God.

Satan wants us to contradict and deny the word of God. Because that's what he does. God says you're going to die. I tell you what I think. I think God's a liar. God says you're going to die. I tell you what.

You're not going to die. There is no more common deception in the world today than people who doubt the willingness of God to punish the wicked. Let me say that again. There is no more greater deception today than people who disbelieve that God is willing to punish the wicked.

I mean how many times have you heard people say God's not going to send anybody to hell because God is love. Let me say something about that statement. God is love. That is true. The Bible says God is love but it doesn't say love is God.

That's an important distinction because that's how it's been turned on its head. God is love but God is also justice. God is also wrath. All of those things. In fact, there's only one thing that God is threefold and that is holy.

God is holy, holy, holy. And if your understanding of God's love does not include an understanding of God's holiness, you don't understand God's love. If you don't understand God's holiness in view of His love and His love in view of His holiness then you don't have a good understanding of God.