Peachtree Baptist Church - Part 6 — Paul Washer

Romans 3:23 and the Need for Mercy

And I want us to go to the book of Romans, chapter 3. It was a message that I sought to preach last night, and yet I felt that the Lord led us in another direction. Romans, chapter 3, verse 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.

To declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time, His righteousness that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay. But by the law of faith. Let's pray. Father, Father, I know that there is no strength in me. I know there is no strength in me. I know there is no wisdom in me.

I'm needy, Lord. I'm needy. Lord, for the sake of the great love that you have for your Son, for the sake of your people, help us. Lord, that it would be good to you and pleasing to you to help us. That it would be pleasing to you to send revival, to grant repentance, to grant faith.

I have, Lord, for our eyes that we can see and in seeing with the new heart that you've given us, that we would be broken and restored, Lord. And I pray, dear Lord, that this church would get some benefit from this evening that would last throughout eternity.

But I pray most of all that Jesus Christ be preached rightly. Lord, that in some way by the power of your Holy Spirit that these old rags would be lifted up to speak a good word about your Son. Lord, I know you hear me.

The Inadequacy of Preaching and the Glory of Christ

I trust in you. Let Christ be my boast, in Jesus' name. Amen. There are, as I have said and I say quite frequently, preaching is a rather pathetic thing. It is a failure. As you walk up to a pulpit, you know you are bound to fail.

How can a man speak forth the things of God in a way that they ought to be spoken of? I can remember one time being so distraught before preaching on the gospel of Jesus Christ and crying out to God, Oh, I long for that day when I'll stand before you pure, sanctified, completely holy, glorified.

And, oh God, that at that moment you would grant me just once to preach Christ as he ought to be preached. An impression upon my heart was a rebuke. Even then, you shall not preach my Son as he ought to be preached.

You will never know him well enough. Your tongue will never be so refined that the only one who can give true praise and true glory and speak rightly about the Son is the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son himself.

We will spend all of eternity tracking down the glories of God in the face of Christ. Ever pressing in, we are told that the violent shall take the kingdom by force. I would submit to you that that violence will continue on.

It will be a joyful violence, but a violent passion throughout all of eternity, and when we have finished ten thousand eternities, you will still be panting and still not even begun at the foothills of the glory of God.

That's why eternal life begins with knowing Him, because eternal life is all about knowing Him. It's not about streets of gold. It's not about gates of pearl. It's not even about escaping hell. It's about Him.

And then a preacher comes to the pulpit like, I believe it was G. Campbell Morgan used to say, like a lamb led to the slaughter and a sheep before shears. What can a man say about these things? For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

The Gravity of Sin Against the Glory of God

You do not understand that text. I know it was probably the first you memorized after John 3 .16 as a little child, but I can assure you, you do not understand even at this present moment what this means, and neither do I, because if you did, the moment you heard it, you would fall down on your face and rend your garments and bury yourself in the dust.

The Puritan speaker would often say this, it is not against a small governor or a meager prince of a small province against whom you have sinned, but you have sinned against the Lord of glory, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

But how can you take that seriously? You drink down iniquity like it was water. When you are of unclean lips and you dwell among a people of unclean lips, how can you understand the vileness of sin? All have sinned.

I guess the best attitude of trying to even describe the grotesque nature of that thing would be that in your disobedience you have declared war on God and you have proclaimed that the only thing you desire is to rush into His throne room, knock Him from the throne and slaughter Him, and then walk out of the throne room without one ounce of remorse in your fallen heart.

Sin is a sinful thing. It is a horrifying thing. The Puritan is called sin insanity because it is. It is like cutting the branch out from under you that you are resting upon. It is like pulling the life support system, the plug from the wall in order to kill yourself.

It is absolute insanity and it is vile. And not only vile before God, but vile before all of God's creatures that obey Him. I use this illustration often. It would be this. Imagine God on the first day of creation and on throughout the days.

He commands everything and everything obeys Him. He looks at stars that can swallow up thousands of the star we call the sun. He looks at them and He commands them. He says, you put yourself in these places in space and you stay there until I give you another command.

And they all bow and say, yes, sir. Thy will be done. He tells planets to put themselves in tracks and trace around in orbits. And they all bow and say, thy will be done. He tells mountains to be lifted up.

He tells valleys to be cast down. And they say, thy will be done, master. He looks at the sea and He says, you come to this point and you come no further. And the sea obeys. And then He looks at you and says, come.

And you go, no! The wretchedness of our sin. How can we see it? We ought to pray that God would give us eyes to see. So that we would hate sin as God hates sin. All have sinned. All have broken His laws.

All have failed to conform to the righteous standard that God has set before us in His Word and placed within us in our hearts. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. You. You. You. You. If I had time to point my finger at everyone to come down from this pulpit and point you right between the eyes and cry out, you have sinned.

And your sin is so vile that if you reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the last thing you will hear when you take your first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because He's rid the earth of you.

How vile your sin is. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Modern day interpretation of that passage is that God has a marvelous plan for your life and you've fallen short of it. The context tells us something quite different.

Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God. We are so humanistic in every way we look at Scripture today. What does it mean that we've come short or fallen short of the glory of God? It means that God made you for him, for his glory, for his good pleasure.

And against that purpose, you have rebelled. And it is for that reason that you are broken and tired and hungry and dirty. Even among those of the household of faith, isn't it amazing? We are the most secure, the most prosperous Christians in the history of Christianity.

And yet you go into these so-called Christian bookstores and more than half the books are written about how empty we are. And why are we empty? For the same reason he never was. He had food to eat that we know not of.

His food was to do the will of his father because he came to glorify his father. And Christians by and large in America today live for self. Everything is for self. My good, even salvation is for self.

Oh, let's take it back farther. God is for self. For man. But Scripture says another thing. He is not. The reason why we are so empty is that we live for self. Instead of laying down our lives and realizing we were made for one purpose.

To serve him, to worship him, to adore him. You are given breath in order to return it in praise. Your heart beats for one purpose. For the glory of God. And until you align yourself with the very divine purpose for which you were made.

You will be restless and your life will be useless and stupid. It's like trying to shoot arrows out of a guitar. Or trying to play music with an archery bow. One has one purpose. The other has another purpose.

You were made for a specific purpose. And it is not for you. It is not to have your best life now. It was for him. By him. For him. You were made. You were made. This is the great problem, isn't it? Humanism.

We come back to it again, don't we? Everything for us. A great preacher once said this. He said, the liberal. The liberal. Through his humanism. The liberal doesn't know anything about whether or not there's a heaven or not.

So his basic core of his religion is this. Make man as happy as he can be now. And fundamentalists have done exactly the same thing. They just moved the time. Make man as happy as he can be in heaven.

Repentance for the Glory of God

Why should men get saved? You don't want to go to that dirty old hell, do you? I said it earlier in my preaching. And I'll say it again. And it is this. My dear friend. You should repent of your sins.

Even if God sends you to hell. Because he is worthy. You should believe in Jesus Christ. Whether he saves you or not. Because he is worthy. You should spend all of your life in prayer and worship and service to God.

Whether he saves you or not. Because he is worthy. But no. The preachers today tell you to do it for you. Do it for you. No, you do it for him. You do it for him. For his glory. For his glory. Now he says, After setting before us, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Preaching Sin to Reveal the Need for a Savior

Now, before I go on, let me say something about preaching. For those of you young preachers here. We are told today that we should not preach a condemning message. Well, if you believe that and in order to believe that, you must deny the first three chapters of the book of Romans.

Because Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but using every power of intellect and thought that the man has, he does nothing for three chapters but seek to do one thing. Condemn the entire world.

To shut up every man's mouth and lay them in the dirt. To cut off every possible humanistic hope. Because only in that manner, only in that manner, will men seek God. Only in that manner. I want to tell you that by not preaching on sin, we have done a great injustice to the gospel, and to God, and unto humanity.

Let me give you an example. I always use this example. Just listen. The sound of keys doesn't make you happy. Why? Because you're not locked away in a dungeon. If you were locked away in a dungeon, the sound of keys would spark a hope in you that would possibly burst into joy.

But since you do not know, because you have not been told how vile and how close to death and condemnation and hell you actually are, you take no joy in the gospel. You'd rather look at a clock and hope that its arms move quickly rather than listen to the very words of salvation.

Oh, my dear friend, if only, if only, if only, only, only, we would seek our lives, young preachers, to learn to paint a picture of Christ, of His glory, of His perfect death, of His powerful resurrection, of His majestic reigning in heaven, and also paint the pitch black picture of sin.

Sin might see the difference between the two and be drawn to Christ. For all have sinned. Paul says this as a conclusion to a great argument, of saying there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none that doeth good.

All our works of righteousness, all our good works are nothing more than filthy rags. That every imagination of a man's heart is evil. I said that once, preaching, and a reporter came up to me afterwards, and he was so furious with me.

He says, that is wrong, that is wrong, that is wrong, your interpretation of that text, because it was a Christian university. He said, that's wrong. I said, young man, I did not interpret the text. I read it.

You interpreted it. And correctly, I might add. He said, but it's not true. We're not that evil. I said, young man, if I could take your heart out right now and put every thought you've ever had from the first moments of infancy to even right now, take every thought you've ever had, put it on a film strip, and show that film in this Coliseum here this evening, you would run off this university campus and you would never show your face here again because you have thought things so vile, so perverted, you cannot share them even with your closest friend.

Because even against your closest friend, you have thought wicked things. What could he do? The same thing you must do if you're honest. Bow your head in shame and cry out for a Savior. It's true. It's true.

Conversion Beyond Superficial Evangelical Formulas

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, speaking about the Christian, in verse 24. Now, again, when I say Christian, I have to be very, very careful. In a country that at least, probably 70 of it, believes itself to be Christian.

When I would submit to you that among Baptists, I would be joyful to know that even 15 of us were actually converted. And why is that? Let me say this, because it's my last night. I'll say it over and over and over again.

We have reduced the Gospel down to a few evangelical hoops that if someone jumps through, we declare them to be born again. It comes from stupid preaching. Unbiblical preaching. Terrible preaching. Again, ask someone if they're a sinner.

If they say yes, go to the next question. Do you want to go to heaven? If they say yes, ask them if they want to repeat a prayer. Superstition. Every bit of it. Worthless jargon. Talk of fools. Does not matter if a man recognizes he is a sinner.

The question is, has God done such a work in his heart that he now hates the sin he once loved? Does not matter if a man wants to go to heaven because everyone wants to go to heaven. The question is now, does he now desire the God that he has spurned and hated?

And it is not a question of whether he wants to receive Jesus into his heart. It is a question of whether he desires to repent of his sins, believe the gospel, and follow Jesus Christ. And the evidence of all profession is a lifestyle of sanctification authored by God Himself, which will produce practical evidence that can be seen by even the smallest of spirituality.

It can be seen. The difference in one's lifestyle is the seal of God upon the assurance of salvation that we claim to possess. Now, but speaking about the true Christian, he says, being justified. Being justified.

Justification as a Legal Declaration

Now, I've heard preachers say, being justified means just as if I'd never sinned. No, that's not what it means at all. Being justified. Some people and some sovereign grace people now are going back to this, and it's a Catholic heresy.

That justified means that God, when He saves a person, when that person believes in Him, that God makes them righteous so that they can live a righteous life. That's not what that means. When God justifies a man, He does not make that man righteous.

Because if that man were truly made righteous, he would never sin again. To be justified does not mean that God makes the believer righteous. It is a forensic or legal term, and it means this, the moment someone truly believes unto salvation, God declares them to be legally right before Him.

He looks down and says, this person is right. Now, I want to go on to say something that is very, very important. I always tell people, you are saved not only because Jesus Christ died for you, you are saved because Jesus Christ lived for you.

People say, oh yes, I know, the resurrection is important. Well, yes, the resurrection is very important, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is this, to be saved, you must be more than pardoned from your sins.

To go to heaven, you must be absolutely righteous. It's not just that you don't have any negative, it is that you have the very righteousness of God if you plan on standing in His presence. And who may ascend that holy hill?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Someone who is righteous, and none of us qualify. But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, stepped out of heaven, took on the robe of humanity, and walked on this earth as a man, and He lived a perfect life.

And the moment someone believes in Jesus Christ, they are not only pardoned of their transgressions by virtue of the cross, but that life that Christ lived perfectly before the Father is granted unto them.

We have one here who is greater than Joseph. Joseph had a coat of many colors that he would not share with his brethren. But Jesus Christ, a coat of righteousness, and He clothed every one of His brothers in that coat.

A greater than Joseph, a greater than Joseph. Justified. Declared legally right with God. Now, let's go on. Being justified freely by His grace. Now, this is by all means redundant. Freely? By His grace?

I mean, why didn't Paul just say freely? Why does he emphasize grace so much? Why does he repeat himself, it seems? I'll tell you why. Because men hate grace. What? Men hate a free gift? Yes. And why would any man hate a free gift?

Because it requires him to humble himself and say, I cannot. I am not. Man would rather go to hell with his chest out than to heaven on his knees. But it's amazing this word here where it says being justified freely.

You know, it says in Scripture that they hated Christ without a cause. They hated Christ without a cause. Did Jesus Christ ever give anyone a cause to hate Him? No. That's the same word that's used here.

God justified you freely means that God justified you, declared you legally right with Him, but He found absolutely no reason in you to do it. He justified you without you giving Him any cause to do it.

As a matter of fact, the only thing you ever gave Him was a cause to do just the opposite, condemn you in hell throughout all eternity. That's the cause you gave God. But God declared you right with Him through no cause of your own, but because of grace.

And it says, whom being justified freely by His grace. By His grace. Why is it so necessary to preach on the radical depravity of man? How else can grace be grace? Grace cannot be known in a perfect world.

Grace cannot be known. Unmerited favor cannot be known where everyone merits the favor. Oh, my dear friends, you cannot magnify the grace of God and magnify humanity at the same time. It is absolutely impossible because then it turns the grace of God into nothing more than a trite cliche.

Redemption Through the Blood of Christ

Men happy about themselves and pleased with God. No. Men who loathe themselves and look only unto the grace. Now, being justified freely by His grace through something. Through the redemption. What a word.

There's a lot of music I can't stand. There's a lot of songs I can't stand. And not just contemporary ones, southern gospel ones, and many such things as that. Screaming and hollering out words without even the smallest understanding of what they mean.

There are certain words in Scripture that almost ought to be spoken with a whisper. This is one of them. Redemption. Liberation. Liberation from imprisonment, from slavery, by the paying of a price. I think if there's anything that overwhelms me, it is this.

And again, ask the liberal denominations that's done it. Take away the blood. And you've lost all devotion. You've lost all piety. You've lost all salvation. That we were redeemed, but not with the stupid coins of our heathen fathers.

Not with silly religious ritual. We were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And His blood was precious blood. Redeemed. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed. One of the bones that I have to pick with contemporary preaching is that it seems salvation is no longer enough to move men to piety.

They have to be promised a good life. They have to be promised health. They have to be promised wealth. They have to be promised that their desires are all going to be met. Since when is salvation from hell not enough to make us happy?

If He were to crush me and roll me up in a ball and throw me into a distant land, if there was nothing left but a finger to lift to heaven in praise, then a finger should I lift to heaven in praise. If everything is taken away, why?

I have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. What more shall I ask from Him? I knew one preacher, he says, come to Christ. God offers you two things. Eternal life and death on a cross. Come to Jesus.

Come to Jesus. Leonard Ravenhill used to joke, room at the cross? Room at the cross for you? There's no room at the cross for you. There's room on the cross for you. You have been redeemed. What more?

If tomorrow my tongue is cut out, if my legs are broken, if all the ministry I've ever done in these last 20 some years, it appears that it's nothing more than dust and fodder and it will all be burned, I still have infinite cause to worship Him.

I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. He goes on and he says, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ Jesus, God has no part with thee. Some young man one time came to me after I preached and he said, Brother Paul, you're right.

Jesus is all we need. And I said, young man, Jesus is all we have. Apart from Him, there's nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing but Adam. There's nothing but condemnation. There's nothing but death.

There's nothing but transgression. It's why Paul literally goes wild in chapter 1 of the book of Ephesians. The longest run-on sentence in the entire Bible. And what is it all about? In Christ. In Christ.

In Him. In Christ. In Christ. Everything God has to do with you is in Christ. If not, then the only thing God has to do with you is wrath. Only in Christ. He is that rock of ages cleft for me. He is that city of refuge to where you must run to be saved.

He is that strong tower and the righteous run in and are safe. That is Jesus. It is only Him. Only Him. Only Him. You see, there's something you need to understand. The Christian, the true Christian, is the only religious man who can claim heaven and not be boasting.

Salvation Rests on Christ Alone

You speak with the Orthodox Jew and ask him if he's going to go to heaven. Say, yes. You ask him why. You say, well, I love the law of God. I walk in the way of the righteous. I am a righteous man. Okay?

Make sense? You ask a Muslim. If you die, where are you going? He'll say to paradise. Why? I love the Koran. I have made the pilgrimages. I've been obedient to the praying. I've given alms to the poor.

I am a righteous man. Then the reporter comes to the true Christian and says, Sir, how is it with you? If you died right now, where would you go? And the Christian says, Heaven. The reporter asks, Well, why?

And the Christian says, In sin I was conceived and in sin I was born. I have broken every law of my God. I deserve the fullness of His wrath and righteous indignation against all that is wicked. And the reporter stops the Christian and says, Christian, I don't understand you.

Now, the other two men I understand. They're going to heaven because they're righteous men who have done righteous things. You tell me with joy on your face that you're going to heaven, but how is it so when you deserve just the opposite?

And the Christian cries out, I'm going to heaven upon the virtue and the merit of another, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Upon Him. He's our boast. He's our boast. He is our boast. And apart from Him, every help is dumb and excrement.

It will fail you in the day of trouble. Only Christ is that strong tower. Only Christ is that rock of ages. Only in Him is salvation found. Now we go on. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation. Whom God hath set forth.

I heard a very popular preacher on the radio say a while back, this was several years ago, but I have no indication to believe that he's changed. He said, I mean, this is a fundamental preacher on the radio, and he said, if those Jews 2 ,000 years ago would have taken Jesus in and crowned Him as the Messiah, we would all now be walking around in the millennium.

My dear friend, if Jesus Christ had not gone to that cross, there would be no hope whatsoever. It was not something that God left up to men to decide. But it was foreordained by God before the foundation of the world.

Someone asked me one time, and I'm pushing the envelope on this. Someone asked me one time, well, the cross was necessary because of the fall. I said, no, the fall was necessary so that there could be a cross.

Don't ever think that the cross is plan B. That Adam fell and God had a backup plan. My dear friend, without the cross of Jesus Christ, you would never know God as you can know Him now. The cross was necessary not only that a people might know God in a way they never could without it, but all of creation, angels, and all might know Him.

Because apart from this cross, no one would know Him as He is known now. That is why angels long to look in these things. Without a fall, just listen for a moment, without a fall, how are you going to demonstrate mercy in a perfect world?

How are you going to show grace in a perfect world? Although the fall was squarely the fault of man, it was squarely within the ordained counsels of God that He might get glory for Himself. And it is a mystery so deep that we should be very afraid to enter in.

Propitiation and the Vindication of God

But at the same time, be careful that you do not make the cross into some necessary plan B because it was not. Now, we go on. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation. Now, the word set forth, Martin Lloyd-Jones here likes to use the word placard, which makes a lot more sense in the United Kingdom than here.

Placard is a billboard. Or to placard something, to use as a verb. That God placard Him. God displayed His Son publicly. And there was a purpose in it. Do you realize God could have put away sin in a hidden place, in a cave?

But for some reason, in the major religious city of the entire universe, His Son is publicly made a spectacle and crucified. And there's a reason in it because salvation and the work of the cross is not primarily for you.

It's primarily for God. And you're going to see that. Now, let's go on. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation. About two years ago, I was preaching up in Detroit and when I got to the church, they told me, well, you'll be the second speaker.

And I said, well, who's speaking right now? And they said, well, go in and see. And I went in there and there was O 'Vernon Higham preaching. The man who preached Martin Lloyd-Jones' funeral. And I got up and my topic was propitiation.

And after I got through preaching, I was kind of intimidated. I mean, sitting there preaching in front of this man. Walked with God for so many years. And to preach on what Martin Lloyd-Jones called the Acropolis of the Christian Faith, that this is the most important passage in the entire Bible.

So I'm preaching on propitiation. And when I came down, that old man, he walked up to me with his Bible open like this and just tears running down his face. And he said, we got the Word back in the book.

And I said, what do you mean? He said, there's a turning of the tide in England among the young preachers and others. They've left off all these foolish liberal ideas and many of them are coming back to the fact that Christ died as the propitiation.

My friend, this is possibly the most important word in the entire Bible. Do you understand it? Probably. No, not probably. It is. It's the meaning. It's the explanation of everything that is written in this holy book.

The word propitiation. Now, he says, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.

Now, what does that mean? It means something absolutely amazing. That Christ was crucified publicly and that the primary purpose was not the justification of men, but the justification of God. I said, what do you mean?

Well, that word justification when applied to God, the word could be used the vindication of God. Now, what is that? It means this. I don't want to get ahead of myself. Let's back up a little and look at propitiation and then we'll deal with that question.

Propitiation. In ancient Castellano, in Latin, we have this word propitio. In Spanish, propitio. And it's used quite frequently through the ancient La Reina Valera and the other old, old translations of Scripture in the Spanish language.

Propitio. You'll hear it used something like this. Amo, sed propitio a mi. Master, be propitious to me. Which means, Master, be merciful to me. The word basically means mercy. Now, what is a propitiation?

A sacrifice that enables, makes it possible for a just God to show mercy to the wicked. Now, I want to show you something that's very, very important. I want you to go to the book of Proverbs. Chapter 17, verse 15.

Here we're going to see the greatest problem in the entire Bible set forth for us. The reason for everything you find in the Old Testament, the reason for the sacrificial system, the reason for absolutely everything you see is found here in Proverbs 17, 15.

Now listen. He that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord. Now, let's use the first part connected to the second part. He that justifieth the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.

Now, just listen to what I'm saying. Now listen. This is important. You understand this? You'll come closer to understanding the cross. He that justifieth the wicked is an abomination to God. Now, do you see the problem?

The problem is this. Romans chapter 3 that we've been studying. We talked about the wickedness of man and then we say that God justified the wicked. Scripture cannot be broken. There is no contradiction.

It says the one who justifies the wicked is an abomination before God, and yet in Romans 3 it says God justified the wicked. And that's why God must be vindicated through the cross of Jesus Christ. And it comes down to this.

God's Justice and the Necessity of the Cross

The greatest problem in all the Bible and everything in the Bible centers around this one thing. If God is just, He cannot forgive you. If you went home to your house tonight and find that someone slaughtered your entire family and you see the murderer standing over your smallest child, their lifeless body in his hands.

He drops the child on the ground. He runs out the door. You run out the door. You knock him to the ground. You take him to the police. The police take him to the judge and the judge looks at him and says, I'm a loving judge.

I forgive you. Go home. What's going to happen? The first thing out of your mouth is going to be, I demand justice. You're going to call the newspapers right, the congressmen. You're going to say that there's a judge on the bench in this county that is more wicked than the criminals he sets free.

Do you see? Now, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? If God is a just God and you are wicked, then God cannot forgive you. And that is the greatest problem in the Bible and Paul sets it forth in Romans 3 saying how can God be just and the justifier of the ungodly, the unrighteous.

That is the greatest problem in the Bible. Let me give you another illustration. Let's say we're in Spain 500 years ago. Valladolid, Spain. No, 16th century. And I'm a slave. And the law is this, if a slave is caught stealing, he dies at the gallows.

If a slave is caught stealing, he dies at the gallows. So I'm a slave and I'm in there and I'm stealing from my master and my master comes in and he catches me red-handed. He grabs me around the collar and he's dragging me to the gallows where I'm going to swing by the neck.

But as he's dragging me, I throw myself down on the ground and I cry out, Amo, sed propicio a mi. Master, be merciful to me. Now, since our society, our culture, knows nothing of justice, I'll have to explain this.