What Is Real Christianity? — Paul Washer

It's a great privilege for me to be here this morning with all of you again, and every time that you're going to preach, there's always a kind of a fight within you and a burden because there are so many things in Scripture that you want to communicate to people, and it's just a burden because there are such great needs.

There's so many misunderstandings about what it means to be Christian, about a right relationship with God and about so many other things, and I want to depart a little bit and just a little bit from what we normally were going to do this morning, and I'm just so burdened about a few things, and I would like to share them with you from the Scriptures.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

I'm going to start in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 1. Paul says, I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and which also you stand, by which also you are saved if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

Now, I spend a lot of time in universities and things, and I know when I walk on a platform what has already been said about me, the challenges that I'm going to have to face, the fact that in media today, anyone who is a Christian is portrayed as either an immoral villain or an intellectual idiot.

I'm aware of that when I walk on a platform in a university. I'm also aware that the very ones who call me an idiot know nothing of logic, very little of science, there's nothing of history, so on and so forth.

But the greatest thing that Satan can do to a lost person is convince that lost person that they're right, even though they don't even know what they're right about or how to defend what they think they believe.

It's an attitude of pride. It's an attitude of pride. Many people will come hear me speak just with the attitude of, well, let's go hear this bumbler. It'll give us something to laugh about. After it's all over, as we sit around in our dorm rooms, the fact of the matter is, what do you believe?

And if you even can form an opinion about what you believe, then my next question is defend it. And so many people will say, well, I have a right to my own opinion. We always hear that, you know, someone, a reporter will go out and interview people about a certain political thing or social thing.

And the person will say, well, I have my right to my own opinion. How come they only quote half of that? Do you know that? You know who said that? Benjamin Franklin said that everyone has a right to their own opinion.

But that was only half of the statement he made. He went on to say everyone has a right to their own opinion if they can logically defend it. So whenever I stand before a group of people saying that that I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I believe that he's the truth, the way and the life, I know I'm going to get various reactions.

I know that if I walk out on a university platform and I say I am a seeker of the truth, everyone will stand up and applaud me. But after they sit down, if I say and I have found the truth, they'll boo me off the platform.

Because we live in a culture that prides itself in wanting to know what the truth is, even though no one's really investigating. And then if someone says they have found it, he's labeled an ignorant fool or an arrogant man.

Or there's another reaction. Whenever you're going to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, I'll be sitting on a plane. Someone will say, what do you do? And I say, well, I'm a Christian. I travel around.

I teach the Bible. I talk to people about Jesus. I'm a Christian. And they'll go, oh, that's nice. That's nice. That's nice. No, it's not nice, I tell them. It's not nice at all. As a matter of fact, it is a tragic, critical thing that I'm doing.

Because if Jesus Christ is not the Son of God and the only way to be reconciled to God, then I'm a fool. I'm wasting my entire life. It's not nice. Don't patronize me. I'm either right or I'm wrong. If I am right, my soul is one and my life is full.

If I am wrong, I am the most pitiful of all men, the greatest of fools. But then again, everyone has to say that, even all of you sitting here. Every part of your destiny hinges upon one thing. Is Jesus Christ the Son of God?

For some of you, if He is, it means salvation. For some of you, if He is, it means damnation. That you will be judged by Him and cast into hell. For some of you, if He isn't the Son of God, it means you've wasted your entire foolish, pitiful life.

And for others of you who do not believe that He's the Son of God, well, just stay with your philosophy of eat, drink, and party, for tomorrow we die. Because there's no hope for you either. And so it really comes down to this.

Who is Jesus Christ? But don't patronize me. As one English scholar said one time, He's either a liar, a lunatic, or the Son of God. And every bit of history hinges upon that. And forget it. Now, as I said, I'm departing from what I was supposed to do.

I hope that doesn't make you angry, but I am so burdened this morning, I have to. I want to set out for you what Christianity is. Not the stuff on television, not the stuff of religion, not the stuff of TV evangelists with big hair.

What real Christianity is. And why do I want to do that? So that you can walk out of here loving it or hating it. But at least you'll know what you're loving, and you'll know what you're hating. So that you'll walk out of here worshipping Jesus Christ or blaspheming His name like He was a devil.

But you'll know what you're doing. You'll know what you're doing. Now, what does the Bible say? The Bible says many, many things, but we're going to only talk about a few of them today. The Bible talks first of all, and mainly, about who God is.

The Holiness and Distinctness of God

Now, to go through all of that would take several years of my life. But there are some things that I just want to quickly speak to you about God. In Isaiah chapter 6, it says that God is holy, holy, holy.

Now, in New York they say, you got a problem with that? But I'm going to say the same thing, but not like a question. You do have a problem with that. What does it mean that He's holy? You hear, you know, holier than thou.

What does it mean holy? This is what holy means. When it says God is holy, this is what it means. The word comes from a Hebrew word which means literally, in its most basic root, to cut. And then it came to mean to cut and to separate.

As though you were cutting up a bunch of vegetables. And as you cut those vegetables, you separate them off with a knife. You separate them, put them apart, make them distinct. The word came to mean, to say that God is holy means above everything else that He is apart.

He is separated, distinct, unique from every other thing and being. So we've confused this idea today. Most people, when they think of holiness, their idea of holiness is righteousness. God's holy. What does that mean?

He doesn't sin. No, that's not the primary meaning of holy. The primary meaning of holy is that God is totally and completely distinct. So much for the idea of me and Jesus got our own thing going. Or calling God the man upstairs.

Because He's neither. He's God. And He is totally and completely distinct. Now, let me give you a few ideas about this. Let me ask you a question. What is closer to being like God? An archangel in all its glory or the bacteria floating around in your toilet?

Which one is closer to being like God? Neither one. That archangel is no more like God than that bacteria floating around in your toilet. Because no one is like God. God is not just like us and bigger.

Or like angels but bigger and better. He is totally distinct from everything. Absolutely everything. There is no one holy like the Lord. You take a worm crawling on the ground. You take an archangel whose glory is so great it would destroy the earth.

And that archangel is no more like God than that worm on the ground. Because no one is like God. You understand what I'm saying? You hear all these men that, Well, you know, when I die I'll just go up there and talk to God.

No you won't. You'll melt before Him like a tiny wax figurine before a blast furnace is what you'll do. No one is like the Lord. He is holy. That means He is separate. Now, how is that holiness manifested?

It's manifested in all His attributes. He's holy in His eternal nature. He's separated and distinct from everyone else. He has an eternal nature. No beginning. No end. He is holy in that He's distinct from everyone else and that He's immutable.

What does that mean? He does not change. You change. You grow old and die. You change in your purposes, in your plans, in what you think. God never does. Because He's perfect. Being perfect, He cannot change and become better because He's already perfect.

He cannot decrease because He would no longer be God. He's righteous. And this is why, now listen to me very carefully, this is why you hate God. If you're not a Christian, if you're just your typical, average, run-of-the-mill person out there, having a good time, this is why you hate God.

You say, now hold on, I don't hate God. I mean, only the devil hates God. I don't hate God. Yes, you hate God. That's what the Bible says. The Bible calls all men who have not embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, haters of God.

Romans chapter 1, haters of God. Speaks about our enmity toward God. And you say, what do you mean? Why would anybody hate God? Here's why you hate God. I'll give you an example. Do you remember back when you were in high school or grade school or something like that?

Humanity's Hatred of God and Fallen Nature

At least me. I was always running with the wrong crowd. And we wore, tore up blue jeans and our hair was long. And we were rebelling against teachers. Just always that kind of stuff. Well, there were always students, okay?

That wore really nice clothes. Did all their homework. Answered the teacher with respect. And when they got out those school doors, we beat them up. We hated them. Goody-two-shoes. We didn't like to be in that crowd.

We didn't. Why? Because we were one way and they were another way. And we didn't like the way they were. And one of the reasons we didn't like the way they were is because they were doing the right things and we hated them for it.

Because we weren't. Every time we saw them, they were a rebuke to us even if they never talked to us. Why do men hate God? Because God is good and men are not. Men are not good. And that's why they hate God.

God is love. Men are not. They're not. It's like, you know, young girls, listen to me. When a guy tells you in this world today basically that he loves you, what he says is, I love myself and I want you.

He's not thinking about you. He's not thinking about laying down his life for you. He's not thinking about sacrificing for you. He's not thinking about giving up all the things that he might consider pleasures in order to serve you and please you.

No, he's thinking about himself. That's why he hates God. Because God is completely different. God really is love. Men are not. God really is truthful. Men are not. The Bible says all men are liars. Now, let's look at some things that the Bible says about men.

I do this quite often. Let's just go to Genesis really quick. Chapter 6, verse 5. Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man. It was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

I was preaching this at a university and a reporter came up to me. He was so mad. He said, how dare you say that the thoughts of men's heart are evil continually. I said, well, first of all, sir, I didn't say it.

I read it. He said, it's not true. I said, okay, take a test. He said, fine, I'll take a test. Okay, you take the same test right here, right now. If I could take out your intellect right now. If I could take every thought you have ever thought from your first moment of consciousness to even the thoughts you've had about me today, right now.

If I could take every thought you've ever had and I could put it on a videotape or a CD, DVD. And I could show every thought you have ever had on this screen right now. You would run out of this building and you would never show your face here again because you have thought things so wicked you cannot even begin to share them with your closest friend.

And you know that's true. And guess what? You would be so ashamed you would not be able to look at us and yet you know that we're the same way. You would be ashamed even though you're surrounded by people who are just like you.

So what will it be like on the day of judgment when you stand before a holy God who is absolutely pure in the presence of countless, infinite number of beings that are absolutely holy and that film is shown.

Like I said, you'll melt before him like a wax figurine in a blast furnace. That's what the Bible teaches. Go to chapter 8, verse 21,. And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.

This word can go back farther than that, from his childhood. I have two little boys that I would give my life for. One of them is one and a half, the other is three and a half. I love them so much it's almost, it's unbearable.

Never do you have to teach a child how to lie. Do you have to teach a child how to lie? No. What do you have to teach them? How to tell the truth. Never do you have to teach a child how to be selfish and self-centered and pathetically self-absorbed.

Never do you have to teach that. You have to teach them just the opposite. Anyone who would deny that reality has got their head stuck in a politically correct sand. It's true. And it has been known by cultures throughout the history of time.

It is a fact of life. We are born twisted. We are born wrong. We are born self-absorbed and self-loving. We are born idolaters. We desire to be God and not submit to God's truth. I remember one time I was debating a man from Spain.

If you know anything about Spain, their chief philosopher, at least among the old school guys, is a man by the name of Unamuno. Now, Unamuno wrote a book called La Vida es un Sueño, Life is a Dream. And in his book, his basic philosophy is this.

The greatest virtue a man can possess is that of seeking the truth. The greatest arrogance a man could ever demonstrate is claiming to have found it. So I'm debating with this fellow from Spain. And he's a brilliant man.

And we're going back and forth and back and forth. And his whole thing is just coming from Unamuno. I just knew it. I mean, it's the whole thing. I'm a seeker of the truth. Finally, I stopped and I said, Sir, I have finally figured you out.

I mean, a light has come on in my head. I mean, I understand you. And he said, Está bien. You know how they talk in Spain. And I said, no, it's not like you think, Sir. I now know why you desire to be a seeker of the truth.

But at the same time, you desire never to find it. Because the moment you find the truth, you're going to have to submit to it. And that is what you refuse. This is not a battle of the intellect. This is a battle of the will.

You desire to be God and Lord over your universe. And the moment you accept the truth of God as absolute truth, you are no longer your own God. There the debate ended. Not that I had convinced him, but with no response.

The only thing left was anger. Now, let's look at, let's go to Isaiah for a moment. 53, I'm sorry, let's go to chapter 64, verse 6. All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.

And all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. And there is no one who calls on the name of the Lord, who arouses himself to take hold of thee. Now, 64, 6, 7. Now, I want you to think about something.

First of all, he's describing man. He says, all of us have become like one who is unclean. And all our deeds are like a filthy rag. He could be talking, he could be making an illustration to the dead, because the dead were considered unclean.

He could be making a reference to the leper, because the leper was unclean. Have you ever been around lepers? I have. Worked with lepers in San Pablo, on the border between Brazil and Peru. Now, I wasn't working with the worst kind of lepers.

There's like three types of leprosy. The third one you don't even want to know about. Now, I want you to imagine for a moment. We had a leper here today. The worst type of leprosy. You would have smelled him before you walked in that back door.

Now, he would be nothing but a living, seething man of rotting flesh. Body fluid, pus. A horrid thing. Now, let's say that all you find people come in and you look at that and you go, we've got to do something about this.

So, you go to Tucson or Phoenix or wherever the closest place is, and you find the finest silk from the orient that you possibly can find. White as snow. Beautiful. And you come and you bring that silk and you wrap that man from head to toe in that silk.

And you stand back and you say, look at the beautiful work that we have done. But then in a few moments, what begins to happen? The corruption of that man's body begins to bleed through that silk. And that silk becomes as filthy and as rotten as the man inside.

And that is the very reason why none of your supposed good works can save you. The Bible says that we are born in sin. Born in corruption. Born defiled. Born bent against God. It's what the Bible teaches.

And because of that, everything we do is contaminated by the same filth. Now, let me stop for a minute because usually when I'm speaking somewhere, someone will pop up and say, what about the good atheist?

Is he going to go to heaven or is he going to go to hell? And I always go, oh, he's going to heaven. They say, really? Yeah. Give me his name. Could you give me his name and his phone number? I'd love to talk to this guy because every university I go to, everyone's talking about this guy, but no one has his name, no one has his number, and no one can show him to me.

So I would really like to meet this guy. Let's just play along with the game for a moment. I'm going to show you how human-centered instead of God-centered that men are. Let me give you an illustration.

Let's say we have an atheist in Rio Rico. He has an arch enemy in Chicago. Or let's make it even worse, Detroit. He has an arch enemy in Detroit. Now, this atheist, here in this town, discovers that his arch enemy is dying in Detroit and needs a certain vial of medicine that can save his life.

So this atheist gets the medicine, sells everything he has, his home, his land, everything, buys the medicine and walks all the way to Detroit on broken glass, in snowstorms, uphill, both ways, gives the medicine to his arch enemy and his arch enemy lives.

Is that a good deed or is that a bad deed? Now, the general answer is, well, it's a good deed. Altruism, it's a good deed. No, it's not. It's sin and it will send the man straight to hell. So what do you mean he did man a good deed?

What did he do to God? Do you think sin is just what we do against other men? That is not sin primarily. Sin is sin because it contradicts and fights against God. That's why the Bible says, whatever you do, do for the glory of God, whether you eat or drink.

It's not a question of how well you treat other men primarily. The question is, what is your relationship with God? Because you're breathing His air. Your heart beats because He gives it its beat. Even the one who clenches his fist and puts it in the face of God and blasphemes His name does so by the power of God.

So what you need to see is that sin is not necessarily defined on with regard to how well you get along with everyone else. The question is, what is your relationship with God? You say, well, I didn't ask to be brought into this world by God.

It doesn't make any difference. He's Lord. He brought you into this world and you have to deal with it. Someone asked me, well, what about the atheist who goes out and mows the old lady's yard and fixes the guy's battery when the car is cold and won't start and does this and that?

I said, oh, he's going to hell too. And they said, why? Here's something you need to understand. I know I'm running around a lot of places, but I want you to understand some things. Why was Hitler as bad as he was?

Now here's a better question. Why wasn't Hitler worse than he was? Now here's an even better question. Why aren't you worse than Hitler? I'll tell you what the truth of that matter is. If God were to pull apart, to separate and give no influence whatsoever upon man at all, all men would rush headlong in a moment into evil, and evil so great that it would make Hitler look like a choir boy and the world itself would be destroyed.

That's how wicked men are. I include you and me in that mass of humanity. The only reason you do not make Hitler look like a choir boy is because God has restrained your evil. Okay? So now, let's say, let's go back to our atheist friend here.

He's doing all these good things. He's not an ax murderer or anything else. But here's what's going on. He is only able to do them because the common grace of God restrains him. Whatever thing he does do that is positive is even done by the power of God.

But as an atheist, he denies the very one who keeps him from evil and claims it to come from his own self, making himself God. And for that is reserved judgment. You say, I don't believe it. Read your newspaper.

You don't believe it. Last time I was preaching in British Columbia. I was preaching there, traveling for a few weeks, and there was a great big court case going on. Why? Because five teenage girls didn't like this other girl in their high school, so they made her their friend and they tricked her and they got her to go out into the lake with them.

And while they were in the lake, they beat her up and they drug her out there while she was still alive. All these five little precious girls stuck her head down in the mud, stood on her head and sang rock music while she died.

You say, I'd never do something like that. You lie. You're the only one who restrains you. What makes you any different from them? This is what the Bible is teaching us. We really are fallen. We really are.

And even cultures that were not Christian realized that. That's the purpose of law. The very fact that we have government is a demonstration of our fallenness. The very fact that there are laws against murder.

Laws against crime. It's a demonstration that men are really fallen. Now, let's go from there. Now we have the great problem. And it's this. God's holy. God is righteous. Now, righteousness not only means that God always does that which is right, but it also means something else.

Divine Justice, Mercy, and the Problem of Sin

God hates evil. Let me give you an example. I had someone tell me one time, no, God doesn't hate at all. God is love. And I said, no, stop there. If God is love, He must hate. Let me give you an example.

Let's say that I ask you, what do you think about the Holocaust? Nazi Germany, Holocaust. And you say, well, you know, it's no big deal to me. I'm pretty apathetic towards it. I mean, I don't really care.

Could you then turn around and say that you love the Jews? No. Can you honestly say you love Jewish people? Unless you can also say, and I hate the Holocaust. If you really love that which is good, you must hate that which is evil.

For example, someone says, I love babies. Oh, I love children. I love babies. Well, do you hate abortion? No. It's a logical contradiction. It is a logical contradiction. Of course, they don't teach logic anymore in schools.

They say, well, you just don't understand the things about abortion. And you've never watched little babies squirming around in a trash can either, have you? In abortion clinics. And you've never seen them pulled out by their feet and then having before their body is fully brought out of the womb because you can't kill them afterwards because that would be murder.

So while part of their body is still in the womb, you jam four sets up into their brain and kill them. Then you can pull them out, throw them in the trash can with all the others and let them wiggle around and cry.

So that doesn't go on every day. And why? Because men love money. All you free thinkers out there are so happy about how intellectual you are because you understand so much more than all those stupid Christians.

God hates evil. Now, let me put before you the greatest dilemma in all the Bible. It's what the whole Bible is written about and if you don't understand it, you can't even understand the Bible. This is what it is all about, every last bit of it.

It is about this one thing. And I want you to hear me because if you can understand this one thing, you will understand the why of everything in the Bible. And it is, this is the problem. This is the problem.

A dilemma. A dilemma is something that seemingly has no solution or no proper solution. If God is just, He cannot forgive you. That's the problem of all Scripture. If God is just, He cannot forgive you.

You say, well, I never heard of that. You know, you don't hear a lot of things in Christianity, or supposed Christianity in America anymore. But this is the basis of all of it. This is the problem. If God is just, He cannot forgive man.

Why? Well, let me give you an illustration. Let's say you go home from church today and you find your entire family laying on the ground, slaughtered by an assassin. And the assassin is standing over your family with blood on his hands, wringing the life out of the last member.

In rage, you run, you call the police. The police come and they drag him off to the judge. The judge looks down at this man. Guilty as he can be. Everyone knows it. Everything else. The judge has already declared he's guilty.

And the judge says this, I'm a very loving judge. I'm a very forgiving judge. So, being a loving judge as I am, you're free. Go. What would you do? I'll tell you what you'd do. You'd say, I demand justice.

You'd call the newspapers. You would call the television. You'd have CNN. You'd have everybody here. And what would you be saying? There is a judge on the bench that's more criminal than the criminal.

There is a man so wicked on the bench that the man who assassinated my entire family was set free by him in the name of love. Isn't that preposterous? Of course it is. But that's your idea of God for many of you.

Well, God's love. God doesn't judge anybody. God's love. God won't send anybody to hell. God's love. God just forgives everybody because God's God. Well, if that's the case, he's as vile and wicked or more so than the judge who lets the criminal free.

What are the complaints of all the countries? I lived in Latin America for 11 years. What were our great complaints? That the judges were corrupt. Go to Romania. What's the same complaint? Judges are corrupt.

Here in America, what's the complaint? Judges are corrupt. They don't do justice. Why is society falling apart? Many scholars have said when the United States is destroyed we will look back and place the blame squarely on the judicial branch.

Corrupt judges. And what's a corrupt judge? A judge who doesn't do justice. And what is justice? If a criminal commits a crime. Justice falls. We don't expect a judge to forgive. We expect him to do justice and if he doesn't do justice we call for him to be removed from the bench.

Have you ever read Proverbs 17 .15? I know it's a little obscure text. Have you ever read it? He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous both of them are alike an abomination to the Lord.

He who justifies the wicked that is, he who pardons the wicked is an abomination to God. A loathsome thing. A thing worthy of hatred before God. Anyone in the scriptures according to what God says here anyone who justifies the wicked is an abomination to God.

Now here's the problem. What do most of us sing about in this building? God justifying the wicked. God says it is an evil abominable thing to justify the wicked and yet all throughout the New Testament we hear that God justified the wicked.

See the problem? If God's truly just and the judge of all the earth he cannot forgive you or me because we are wicked. The judge of all the earth must do right and must judge sin and that judgment is death and every one of us ought to be in hell.

And the question the great dilemma in all of scripture is how can God be just and at the same time save or forgive those who justly ought to die? That's a great problem. What do we do? Let's go to Romans chapter 3 for just a second.

Verse 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You know that's a verse that many of you even people go just about anywhere and ask them what that verse you know what's Romans 3 .23. Well all have sinned you know everyone has sinned.

Hey we're all sinners we know now what we say means everyone has raised their fist in the face of God blasphemed his name declared war against his throne and written out a declaration that their only desire is to knock God off his throne and slaughter him like a pig.

That's what it means that men hate God and refuse to submit to his will. That's what it means. Let me give you an example here is God there on the day of creation. He tells stars that would swallow up 6 ,000 of our suns.

He tells stars you put yourself there and move in this orbit and you walk in that orbit until I give you another word and they obey him. He tells planets to move in certain circles and they all bow and obey.

He tells mountains be lifted up valleys be cast down and they submit to his will. He tells the sea the great seas you'll come here and not go any farther. And then he looks at you and says come and you go.

No that's what it means when it says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And not only sinned but fallen short of the glory of God. What does that mean. Well to modern day preachers it means God has a wonderful plan for your life and much glory for you.

And you have fallen short of it. That's not what the Bible says. That means the Bible says it means although they knew he was God they did not honor him as God. God made everything for himself and for his own glory.

Man was made for God and God's good pleasure. And man has refused that high calling out of their hatred from God. That's what it means. And all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And then he goes on.

I want us to go down to verse 24 being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation. A propitiation. What is a propitiation.

Well those of you who speak Spanish in the very very old translations in Spanish we have the word propicio sed propicio a mi be propitious to me. What does the word mean. Be merciful to me. Be merciful to me.

Propicio mercy. Now let's imagine for a moment. It's 1512. We're in Valladolid España. And you're a slave. And if a slave is thought stealing he's killed. He's hung on the gallows. So your master walks out of the room and you begin to steal things.

Master comes in with several witnesses catches you stealing. You know what's going to happen now. The law in Valladolid España is you must die. That's the law. Now that master grabs you by the collar of your neck and begins to drag you towards the gallows.

And as he does you fall on your knees and you cry out sed propicio a mi be merciful to me. And you think well now the master has to make a choice going to be merciful or not. No it's much deeper than that.

But then again we don't understand the law of justice in this country anymore. You see you're not just asking the master to be merciful to you. You're asking him to break the law. The law demands that you die.