Jeff Durbin | Acceptance In Christ

If you would, please open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 14. We are on our series, Wisdom from Above, working through this incredible book of wisdom. In chapter 14, you notice we're doing some bouncing around.

I hope that's understood by this point in terms of how the book itself is put together. The first section, very thematic, huge chunks on themes. And then it gets, in the middle section, towards more...

You'll see some thematic stuff in a single chapter, but it'll sort of change up on you in terms of different forms of wisdom, patterns of wisdom, lanes of wisdom. And then, of course, it gets to the very end into a huge thematic section about the wise woman and the excellent wife.

But we're in chapter 14 now, in verse 9. Hear now the word of the living and the true God. Fools mock at the guilt offering, but the upright enjoy acceptance. Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's praise God's people.

Father, we have this incredible privilege of your grace to be able to come boldly before your throne of grace. Lord, in your limitless knowledge, God, you know the people that you've saved. You know what you have forgiven at the cross.

You know all about us, God, and you knew all about us before you ever saved us. Before the foundation of the world, you chose us in Christ. And so, God, we're grateful for this grace. We stand before you, counted righteous apart from our works, and that you do not count our sins against us.

You remember our sins no more, and Lord, we acknowledge that that just seems so incomprehensible. Lord, we're aware, because of the work of your Spirit in our lives, of our own failings, our own sin, whether they're high-handed sins, knowing the right thing to do and purposefully violating it, or if they're sins that we just don't even realize we're doing, God, you've saved us, and you're, Lord, sanctifying us, and so, God, we just rejoice.

We rejoice that we are accepted by you, that we have, Lord, your favor and your grace. We're grateful that we have, Lord Jesus, in you the offering for our guilt. And so, Lord, we praise you that we stand in this grace, that you promise, Lord, to finish what you've started in us, that, Lord Jesus, you say you'll never lose us or forsake us, and so we ask, God, today that you would, Lord, renew our minds, strengthen our hands and our feet, put us on a solid rock, God, help us to look up to you and the forgiveness that we have in you with joy and confidence, and we're just so thankful, Lord Jesus, for your life and death and resurrection.

That is the only way of our redemption. It's the only thing we cling to, Lord Jesus, you and your work. We pray, as we always do, Lord, and please, that you'd move by your Spirit through your word today, that it would not be the words of a mere man, but they'd be words empowered by your Spirit.

We pray, Lord, again, as always, that you would allow your people to forget me and remember what they've learned from you today. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name, amen. Fools mock at the guilt offering, but the upright enjoy acceptance.

It's interesting, there's, if you can look this up on your own, I just pulled a couple of them just to read at random. Understanding where we get our Bibles from and how we get to English translations or other language translations is important for us as a Christian.

I think that there's some good resources for us as believers that we need to understand about how we got our Bibles. Was it the church that created the Bible, or did the Bible create the church? Which one is it, guys?

Who knows? What's that? Okay, we're going to change the sermon up right now, on the spot. Okay, did the church create the Bible, or did the Bible create the church? There you go, very important. We need to know where we get our Bibles from, how we get to English translations, and why are there differences between English translations.

But on this particular verse, it's interesting, there's a wide variety of different translations, English ways to translate from the original text or the original language. The Holman Christian Standard Bible says, fools mock at making restitution, but there is goodwill among the upright.

The English Standard Version, the one that I'm reading from today, most of you probably have in front of you, because that's the more favored translation that I use from the pulpit, it says, fools mock at the guilt offering, but the upright enjoy acceptance.

The King James Version, which we love, by the way, it's a great English translation, even though Pastor James wrote a book called The King James Only Controversy, which by the way, you should have in your library, so it most of all teaches you how we get our Bibles and how we get to English translations.

Good translation says, fools make a mock at sin, but among the righteous, there is favor. The New American Standard Bible says, fools mock at sin, but among the upright, there is goodwill. The NIV says, fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright.

The American Standard Version says, a trespass offering mocketh fools, but among the upright, there is goodwill. The Complete Jewish Bible says, guilt offerings make a mockery of fools, but among the upright, there is goodwill.

The Hebrew Names Version says, fools mock at making atonement for sins, but among the upright, there is goodwill. So, a variety of different ways in the English to translate. There's more literal ways to do translation from a language, like a hard literal translation, versus more of a dynamic translation.

This is what the author is intending, or this is what they're getting at, but it's, I think, important to note that if you look at verse 9, fools mock at the guilt offering, the word there in the Hebrew for guilt offering is actually a technical Hebrew term, asham.

It's a technical term that's actually used in Leviticus, chapters 5 through 7, and it refers specifically to a very particular offering that God prescribes for the people of God to deal with, interestingly, not simply sins that you just weren't aware of, you know, unintentional sins, things you didn't, I didn't know I was doing that, oops, I did that.

Actually, there's a specific asham term for guilt offering that relates in those chapters directly towards some intentional sins, high-handed sins. I know exactly what the right thing is to do, I know what God's law says, I know what his standards are here, and I'm going to do the opposite.

I'm going to do the very thing that I know that God commands against, these high-handed, very intentional sins, and so the terminology there, asham, is a term you'll find throughout the Old Testament, but it's actually a technical term used in Leviticus, you can see it in chapters 5 through 7, the discussion there about guilt offering, and so let's go there so you can see an example.

Go to Leviticus chapter 6, Leviticus chapter 6, and again, if you want to get more details on this and what it looked like for the offerings for sin, guilt offering, I'd say start in chapter 5, go through 7, and get a little more of a context.

But in chapter 6, here's what God's word says in verse 1, it says, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, if anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor, notice the two parties there, a sin against God and a sin against neighbor, and it says, if anyone commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security or through robbery or if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely, and any of all these things that people do and sin thereby, if he has sinned and he has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt.

And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish, note that, without blemish, out of the flock or its equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.

So that terminology for guilt offering, very specific, and it is interesting to note that that particular offering, because you had a number of different offerings for sin, you had the day of atonement, you have atonements that are just for sin generally, even sins that you didn't know you were committing, and then this particular one is for even sins that you know, you know, that's your neighbor, you've deceived them, you know what God says about that, you did it intentionally, and it's interesting because what God does here with the people of God is honestly, if we think about it in terms of just being humans and where we're at today culturally, these sound like some pretty strange things.

You have to offer an animal without blemish, there has to be bloodshed, there has to be representation, there has to be a sacrifice, and then there's the issue of even restitution. You knew what the right thing to do was, and you chose purposefully to violate God's commandment and to offend God and neighbor.

And so this guilt offering contains not only repentance, the confession of sin, but also a sacrifice for this terrible violation, it's a high-handed sin, and even restitution. So this particular asham is a technical term, again, you find it here in Leviticus and elsewhere, and it has to do even with these high-handed intentional sins.

But okay, so there's the context, but getting back to Proverbs chapter 14, verse 9, it says that fools mock at the guilt offering, fools mock at the guilt offering, and scripture obviously has so much to say about being a fool, the fool says in their heart there is no God, we see throughout the book of Proverbs how fools live with a lack of wisdom, defying God, they are scoffers, they are the unteachable, they have no just standards, they don't think about the future, God says so much about being a fool in scripture, and as we've said before so many times, when scripture uses the terminology of fool, it's not using it in a sort of petty name-calling sense, right?

Like you're just trying to pop off at the mouth of somebody, you're angry, and so you call them a fool, like calling them an idiot, or calling them stupid, or you know, making fun of their weight, or something like that, it's not just trying to offend the person with a word, being a fool in scripture is a moral indictment, it's a moral failing, being a fool is a sin against God, and in the text here in Proverbs 14, God's book of wisdom, here's what it says about the world and how they live, it says fools mock at the guilt offering, so we ask the question, how do fools mock at the guilt offering, we can say generally, that people who don't know God, who defy His ways, who hate His character, hate His law, hate Him, rebel against Him, they mock at sin generally, you see it all the time in the secular world that we live in today, generally atheistic, or agnostic, but generally secular, they don't want God's ways, they don't see the world through the lens of God's word, in a Christian worldview, and so we see how the world responds to God's standards in culture and society today, it's obvious today, how do people who are fools mock at sin, or mock at the guilt offering, I'd say, well generally about sin, people just don't want to obey, and not just not wanting to obey, they actually celebrate their rebellion, go with me to the text of God's word here, Romans chapter 1, as we think about the identity of the unbeliever, the fool, the scoffer, the person who rebels against their creator, Romans chapter 1, a familiar text for our church body, when Paul opens up with explaining the good news, in the first three chapters, he lays out an indictment upon humanity generally, fallen humanity, and he also indicts the Jew who is prideful that in their Jewish status, like I'm a Jew, I'm a child of Abraham, they claim, I've got the Torah, I've got the scriptures, I've got the word of God, I revere this, I think this is the revelation of God, these are the words of God to live by, and Paul indicts the unbelievers, the world itself, Gentiles, those who are outside of that covenant, he also indicts the Jew himself, he says, you've got the Torah, yes, you've got the law of God, but you don't do the things that are in the law of God, so you are also under sin, you are also condemned, and so Jew and Gentile alike are all under sin, it's this universal indictment, we're all lost, we all need Jesus, but note what the Apostle Paul says about what happens in this world of sin, he says in verse 18, for the wrath of God, chapter 1, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them, so we'll just hang there for a moment, scripture clearly teaches here that people who are made in God's image will actually know the truth, know it clearly, know it so well that it's truth that God gave to them, he's the one that gave the revelation to them, they know it, but the problem is, is they don't want it, they don't want to listen to God, they don't want to have God in their thoughts, and that's what the text says there, they don't want to have God in their thoughts, they don't want to be thinking about God, they suppress the truth of God, and so the text goes on to say that people who are in rebellion towards their creator know God so clearly, it's so obvious to them, but they're just holding it down and switching God for some other kind of God, they can't escape it, they're made to be religious, they're made to be worshippers of God, they can't escape that, they're neomago dei, but they don't want the true God, so they switch him for something else, but it's really important to note what Paul says after the exchange happens, of course we know the famous section here where they exchange God, they know him, they don't want to think about him, they don't want him in their heads, their knowledge, they want to just get away from that thought, so they're switching God for something else, and it goes into all kinds of sexual perversions, but in verse 29, or 28, it says, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up, God gave them up, you don't want to acknowledge me, you don't want to know me, okay, I'm going to let you have what you want, I'll leave you to yourself, I'll leave you to your own devices, your own desires, you don't want me, here, I'm going to give you to it, he gives them up to a debased mind, to do what ought not to be done, they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, they are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ruthless, here it is, though they know, note that, these are the words of God, though they know, they're not oblivious to it, they're not blind to it, they're not ignorant of it, it says, though they know, God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them, and so when we think about what the proverb is saying in Proverbs 14, 9, that fools mock at the guilt offering, or fools are making a mockery of sin, any need for reconciliation, any need for atonement, you see it right here in this inspired description of the fool and of the fallen one, this is what they do, they know the truth, God's made the revelation of himself so clear to every single person, that every image bearer of God in this world knows, not some kind of God, they know, according to Romans 1, the true God, the real God, how do you know?

Paul says through inspiration, that God has shown himself to them, and it says about their knowledge of their sin and their guilt, it says what? It says, though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them, so how do they mock?

How do they mock? They don't want to acknowledge their sin, they do the things that they know God hates, there's the internal tension that even the rabid atheist has daily in his life, he may deny God's existence, deny God's character, deny God's standards, but he can't live that way, he can't live that way, you guys remember the, how long ago was it, I thought I guess a year and a half ago, maybe or so, the debate that pastor James and I had in Salt Lake, our second debate together with atheists, where was that, University of Utah, University of Utah, two atheists, well basically both atheists, one was a self-professed atheist, hard atheist, and the other guy was sort of a mushy atheist agnostic kind of guy, I mean he basically was an atheist and fundamentally held to an atheistic perspective, but if you watch that debate, go watch that debate, in the cross-examination section I think is the most important to reveal some of what you see identified here in Romans chapter one, because they were debating the topic, the topic was essentially that the triune God of scripture is necessary for ethics, in other words, if you want to have an ethical system, if you want to say that there is a right and there is a wrong about anything, we were saying that you need the triune God of holy scripture, without the scriptures, the revelation of God, you can't make sense of any of your ethical claims, and you can see it in the cross-examination, where this man came to debate that his atheistic system, his humanistic system can provide a foundation for right and wrong, and during the cross-examination the wheels just come completely off, and I knew that they would, because we know his system, he's an image bearer of God, and yet he's at war with his creator, and so he develops a worldview and system to try to live in God's world by some framework, and he just can't do it apart from God, and so I challenge him in the debate, because he believes there's no ultimate foundation for ethics, that all of us are cosmic accidents, that we're just stardust in a purposeless universe, and so I asked him when we talked about pedophilia, let's go for a big one, pedophilia, is it absolutely morally wrong, is the pedophile absolutely morally wrong in your system, and he says that he doesn't like pedophilia, but then he says, well they're not absolutely wrong, technically they're intersubjectively wrong, what does that mean, nothing, and so I challenged him on his system, he knows it's wrong, but his system can't provide a justification against it, and so he wants to rail against evil in the world, but he cannot actually do it, because he admits publicly in a debate about ethics, that there are no absolutes, he even said that the Green River Killer, Ted Bundy, all these guys, pedophilia, all that, that none of it is absolutely wrong, he says actually they're all part of the conversation, the conversation, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, part of the conversation, let me just say, not part of my conversation, they're not even welcome in the room, and you could say that as a Christian, but here's my point, the unbeliever can't escape what they know is true about their sin, about their injustices, about their failures, about their character, my character versus the character of God, we know, and it says in the text here, that they know what God says about these things, but they don't just do them, they give hearty approval, they applaud at the sin of the world, they applaud an injustice, yes Penny, good job, they applaud, that's what they do, fools mock at the guilt offering, I don't need atonement, I don't need forgiveness, I don't have to acknowledge my sin, they mock at that idea, that's what they do, they don't want to obey, and they celebrate their rebellion, next in Proverbs 14, what else do they do in terms of their mockery, well they mock the guilt offering, they're mocking even the idea of sin in the world, but they don't care about the consequences, look here in the same chapter, chapter 14 verse 16, just a few verses down, the word of God says, one who is wise, that constant contrast in the book of Proverbs, the wise and the fool, it says, one who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, one who is wise is cautious and they turn away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless, fools aren't doing what, well they're not thinking about the consequences, they're not thinking about the future, you see that's just the devastating nature of sin and how it lies to you, lies to you, you don't think about the consequences, you're not thinking about the future, you're just thinking about the moment itself, you're thinking about the gain of the moment, you're thinking about the pleasure of the moment, they don't think about the consequences of sin.

I'm sure you guys have seen this last week, and I'll be careful of how I talk about this, but you've seen the news reports everywhere of this woman, this OnlyFans woman, who, again be careful how I say this, spent time with over a hundred men in one day.

Anybody seen the news on that? It's all over the news. OnlyFans woman spending time with over a hundred men in one day, and when she initially is talking about it, she's celebrating it. Oh, I've always dreamed of this.

It's always been a great thing, and you know, and she's proud of it, but then comes the release of a little documentary that was filmed surrounding this day and what she decided to do, and I was thinking when I initially heard this, I thought to myself, oh, that poor woman, that poor woman, she doesn't understand the devastation that she's brought into her life.

She's, you know, she's not thinking about the consequences of a future with any man, with any man of a future husband and a family. She's just thinking about the moment and the money. No thought of the future whatsoever, and I thought to myself, there's no way to escape.

There's no way to escape. You can try. You can try to blind yourself to it. You can pretend that it's not there, but there's no way to escape the consequences emotionally and physically of a pursuit like that as an image bearer of God and God's world.

Sure enough, this little piece of a documentary comes out, and it's a, it's it's what took place with her that same day after all these men visited, and you see this moment where she went from proud, and I've always wanted this, and it's gonna be so great, to where she's breaking down about what just happened to her and what she just did.

She's breaking down. You think, oh, let's pray for that woman. I pray she finds Christ. I pray she gets healed from that, and then you find out that she made so much money from it that now she's decided that her next day will be with a thousand men.

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil. See, sin is so deceptive, right? It's so deceptive. The moment seems like just a moment, and it's exciting, and it's, maybe it's something I'll do, and I'll never do it again, and, you know, won't really have any consequence, but it has lasting consequences.

All sin has lasting consequences. For me, for the people next to me, the people that I hurt or violate or victimize in whatever way, small ways, large ways, even in terms of sexual sin, sexual sin, we think, oh, you know, it's, you know, maybe it's something I'll do now, no real consequences for the future, but we all know if you have sexual sin in your past, the kind of devastating consequences it has even today in your life, the things that you think about, how you just wish to God that it never happened, or you weren't a part of that lifestyle, or you wish that you could just have had a marriage where you both were just there for each other.

It has devastating consequences, and a wise person, even a wise young person, a wise young person will be cautious, and they will turn away from that evil. They will think about the consequences. They'll think about the future, but a fool is reckless.

They're reckless with their mind. They're reckless with their hands. They're reckless with their money. They're reckless with their mouth. They're reckless with their bodies. A fool is reckless and careless, and why?

Well, at least one of the reasons is a fool mocks at the idea of sin, the idea of atonement, the necessity of atonement. They mock at the guilt offering. They mock at the idea of needing a substitute or even a payment for their sin.

They think that they can sin without consequence. You see this oftentimes, right, everyone? If you've gotten a chance to go out with Apology of Church to any event we do locally in the public square, whether it's the Friday nights, the what's it called? First Friday.

First Friday downtown. Thousands of people show up, or you're part of the crew that goes to Mill Avenue, or you go to downtown Gilbert, or you go to the Mormon Temple, or you go into the abortion mill.

Wherever it is, when you go to proclaim the necessity, the need of Jesus Christ, and that atonement, that cross, that guilt offering, that forgiveness, that salvation, when you're proclaiming it to passers-by, people are just mocking at the idea.

Like, you guys are idiots. You're wasting your life. I don't need to think about Christ. I don't need any of that stuff. That Bible is stupid. You guys are the fools. Well, that's what fools do. They mock at the idea of a need for reconciliation.

I don't need peace with God. I don't need peace with others. I live my life for pleasure, when ultimately they're really choosing pain. You think about the fool. They're oblivious to their own hypocrisy.

Think about our world today. We have a public education system that needs to die quickly, a government education system that is just a system of indoctrination. It is a worldview indoctrination center.

They are teaching children a metaphysic, an ontology, a view of reality, who we are, what we're made of, our purpose. They teach people a view and perspective of how we should live our lives. They are indoctrination centers.

And think about how oblivious they are to their own hypocrisy. Think about the current secular and atheistic society that we have. Christian Church owned education before. We owned it. We dominated it.

Some of the greatest educational institutions in the world that are still standing today, no longer Christian, taken over by the secularists, were actually produced by Christians and the Christian worldview.

When the Christian Church was running education in this nation, and it was private, we had the highest literacy rates. We were advancing in almost every area of life, you could name it, whether it's physics, mathematics, whether it's language and storytelling, whatever it was, the Christian Church was having the world excel with the minds.

And today we live in a time where fools own the system and they're oblivious to their own hypocrisy. They say, and they teach our children, they say, there is no God. There is no God to be accountable to.

They say that there's no ultimate meaning in life. I mean, you have children in front of you and you're telling them there's no ultimate meaning or purpose to you. And we wonder why the high suicide rates.

We wonder why the children feel so meaningless. We wonder why they're on drugs to essentially calm their minds. We wonder why we're giving children drugs to make them feel better and working on mental health issues.

And it's such, it's this huge problem with teenagers who wonder why. I wonder what would be the consequence of telling an image bearer of God, there is no God, you have no purpose, there is no meaning, nothing is ultimately right.

You live, you die, and you're gone. You're gonna be buried, turned to dust, you are stardust. It's where you came from, it's where you're going. You mean nothing. What do you think the consequence is gonna be of telling people that?

It's the same consequences we're seeing all around us. The obvious consequences. You tell them there's no ultimate purpose, there's no ultimate right and wrong, that there are cosmic accidents. But think about the obliviousness to the hypocrisy.

Yet this atheistic society, this society of fools that says that there's no God, no meaning, no purpose, no ultimate right or wrong, nothing above us but only sky. That's what's above us. These people still call the police when someone breaks in their house.

How do you make sense of that? Right? The person who says there is no God, there's no meaning, there's no right, there's no wrong, and then someone breaks into their car while they're having dinner with their wife in the restaurant, they come out and they're indignant.

How dare this person, how dare this stardust bump into this stardust and this way, right? It's just they're oblivious to their own hypocrisy. I thought there was no meaning. I thought there was no purpose.

I thought there's no right, there's no wrong. I thought there's no sin or need for justice or atonement or reconciliation. I thought all this is just sort of happening. It's just moving along with no purpose.

It's just time and chance on matter. It's chaos. Or like Shakespeare says, sound and fury, what? Signifying nothing. I thought that's what he believes. So what are you doing phoning the police and calling for justice?

They're oblivious to their own hypocrisy. I don't need a guilt offering. I don't need reconciliation. I don't need peace. There's no justice necessary for my sins. They're oblivious. They call the police when someone breaks in or they're violated.

They still take people to court. Interestingly, they still file lawsuits. Unbelievers, atheists who believe the atheistic perspective of origins and ethics, they file lawsuits. That's hilarious. That's hilarious.

Acting like somebody violated them in some objective way. Hey, you stole from me. Hey, it doesn't matter in your world. There is no right, there is no wrong. I thought you didn't need sacrifice. I thought you didn't need reconciliation.

I thought justice is just a made-up thing. It's meaningless. Think about the hypocrisy that we saw the last couple of years. People want to mock God. They'll even look at Leviticus in those chapters of five through seven and say, this is just weird, right?

Someone has to acknowledge their guilt. They have to go find a way to make peace and pay the person back for what they stole. They got to have an animal, no spot, no blemish. So it has to be a perfect representation.

It has to be a substitute. Blood has to be shed. And they're saying, that's so strange. You don't need that kind of justice. You don't need to have that kind of peacemaking between us and God. You don't need it.

And then we saw a couple of years ago, and it just seems like, doesn't it seem like it's a million miles away in terms of time, the COVID weirdness, and it was all coinciding with like the no justice, no peace, right?

All the Marxist fists going up on our nation, running down the streets, no justice, no peace. These are the same Marxist atheists who are telling people that they are purposeless, meaningless, cosmic accidents.

What's with the fist? What's with the fist acting like there's a need for justice? You're oblivious to your own hypocrisy. Fools mock at the guilt offering. They make a mock of sin. They say there's nothing to it, and there's no need for justice.

And yet they walked down the streets and burned down cities with a slogan, no justice, no peace. Think about the hypocrisy of the fool. I don't need the guilt offering. I don't need reconciliation. I don't need peace.

However, they demand justice, and they think people should pay. They still demand justice, and they think people should pay. And here it is. Just not them. Did you get it? The fool mocks the guilt offering.

Don't need God. Don't care about the sin. Don't need the reconciliation. Don't need the atonement. They make a mockery of it. They say it's all this is, you know, just old, archaic, ridiculous ways of thinking.

We don't need any of that. Make a mock of it. And yet they still demand justice in the world around them for everybody except them. See, a fool has no self-awareness. And why do they have no self-awareness?

Is it that they're ignorant? No. Romans 1 says about them, the unbelievers, that they're not ignorant. It's not that they don't know. They know. God has shown it to them. And I want to say this. If the eternal, all-powerful, unchanging God sends a message to one of his creatures, that message always, always gets through.

And so they know. But they suppress that truth. And it even says that they know what God says about these sins. And they do them anyways. And they give hearty approval to those who practice them. Now, skeptics and critics of the Bible will mock the idea of atonement, sacrifice, guilt offerings, and the need for peace.

They'll say things like, that seems so strange. Blood sacrifice, the need for a payment for sin, the need for peace with God and our neighbor. They'll say it's silly. What is all this archaic way of thinking?

And yet, secularism and man-made religion, both systems, both religions really, can't solve the problem of sin, the need for justice, and bringing peace. Remember what I said when we gave the example of what we all got to witness a couple of years ago, where people who are saying, you know, fundamentally most of them with a Marxist system saying, there's no God, there's no future ahead of us of, you know, a day of judgment.

None of those things. We don't, we don't need to think about our sin and the need for our peace with God. But they still demand justice. But they can't make sense of that. And I want to say that we can.

We can make sense of this demand for justice, this demand for peace. Now this is, by the way, one of the most powerful and beautiful aspects of the Christian faith. It truly is. And I've said this to us so many times, brothers and sisters, I hope that we've caught it.

Because it is truly an identifying mark of consistency in terms of God and man and sin. See, other religious systems, you know, there's obviously so many of them, they know that there's this problem of guilt.

They know that there's a problem of shame and guilt and right and wrong. And so they'll create some version of a God, right? We need to have something to worship. I'm made in the image of God, can't escape it.

So they have some version of a God that looks a lot like them, by the way. And then they have to find some way to solve the problem of their own guilt and shame before this God. And then what it ends up looking like is just some injustice, right?

They know they're guilty. They know that they've victimized others. They know that there is sin to be dealt with. And so man-made religion can't really solve the problem and keep their God or goddesses just.

What they hope for is that they'll just do good enough somehow to be able to please their God. And that somehow their God, who's supposed to be, I guess, kind of just, will just decide one day to say, you know what?

Kind of like you. You've done all right so far as it goes. I know you've got some sins and some injustices. And yeah, you really hurt this person. But I think you've done sort of well so far as it goes.

And so I'll go ahead and just decide to forgive you. What is that? What is that? It's unjust. Because what does it forget? It forgets the victims. It forgets those who were sinned against and violated.

It forgets those who were hurt. And so man-made religion can't solve the problem of justice with God. But the Christian worldview can. The unbeliever can't make sense of their own hypocrisy. Their system makes no sense at all.

They realize that they're guilty, but they just want to pretend like it doesn't exist. They don't need a guilt offering. They don't need any of those things dealt with. But the Christian worldview actually says, no.

God is holy. God is the only God. You are made in God's image to glorify him and to enjoy him forever. That's your purpose. That is your chief end. That is your primary purpose, to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

It's what you're made for. And yet God is a righteous God, a just God, a holy God. Though he is merciful and though he is loved, his mercies renew every morning. He is the judge of all the earth and he will always do right.

His standards are perfection. His character is perfection. And you were made in his image to know him, to glorify him, to worship him, to enjoy him forever. And you are a sinner against the God who created you for his glory.

How are you going to solve that problem? You can't say, oh God, I just hope you'll just forgive me. That you'll just forget about all the sin and evil and injustice and you'll just sort of let me go. No good judge simply lets the perp go.

And you and I are the perpetrators, the offenders in God's universe. And we're in his court. And what God cannot do without violating his justice is he cannot simply say, I'll let you go. So what does he do?