Session 5: The Problem is Enmity, Not Ethnicity with Darrell Harrison

Oh boy. I will. Can we, it says build black better. Thanks Jim. How am I going to get through this message with that thing staring at me? You guys are champs for hanging in here today. We've come with some really heavy stuff and y 'all are hanging in there with us so we appreciate that.

Enmity, Not Ethnicity: The Biblical Problem Behind Social Conflict

I want to talk to you this evening, I've taught this message because the problem is enmity not ethnicity. The problem is enmity not ethnicity because I can't do it man. I'm going to bust out laughing any minute.

The problem is enmity not ethnicity and I'm going to be speaking to you from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 14 through 16. I'm going to be reading that passage from the New American Standard Bible translation or as those of you who are familiar with the Just Thinking Podcast, the non -Armenian Standard Bible translation.

Ephesians 2 verses 14 through 16. For he himself is our peace who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances so that in himself he might make the two into one new man thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross by it having put to death that is by the cross having put to death the enmity.

It's a word that has all but disappeared from our contemporary lexicon. I mean think about it. When was the last time you used the word enmity or heard someone else use that word in a conversation? Exactly.

But despite its rare usage today, enmity is a word that carries significant weight and importance particularly when considered within the context of Scripture. By the way, speaking of context, I want to say at the outset of this message that I am rather dogmatic that when Christians engage in apologetics, that is when we engage the culture in a defense of the truths of the gospel, it is critically important that we begin that defense by defining our terms biblically.

Now every Christian in this room is an apologist. The only question that remains is whether you're a good apologist or a bad one. But every one of us is an apologist. That's 1 Peter 3 .15. Now I sort of emphasize the importance of defining our terms biblically because words have meaning.

Words have meaning. And it is the meaning of words which, for better or worse, establish the context for our apologetics. By not defining our terms biblically, we risk engaging the world using the world's terms on the world's turf.

Consequently, we run the risk of seeding the moral, ethical, and more importantly, the theological high ground to an unbelieving culture and end up losing the argument altogether. As Christians, to not stand on a solid biblical foundation as it relates to biblically defining the terms we use, that opens the door to pluralism.

Pluralism is the idea that all beliefs are equally valid, and that's exactly what the culture is trying to tell you today. As D .A. Carson declares in his book titled The Gagging of God, subtitled Christianity Confronts Pluralism, quote, entire vision of reality is at stake.

Let me pause here, by the way. That's why you're here. That's why you're here at this conference is because there is an entire vision of reality that is at stake. That's exactly why you're here. Quoting Carson, one thing is very clear.

It is quite impossible to be a Christian in any responsible use of that term and be a pluralist. The pluralist will explain the Christian and will doubtless conclude that the Christian is too tightly bound by tradition, naive in the area of epistemology, intolerant of other views, and so forth.

All those things are happening, by the way. If you're not being accused, if you're not experiencing one of these accusations or more of them, that is, you're being accused of being too tightly bound by tradition, you're naive of what's going on in the culture, you're intolerant of other views.

If you're not being accused of any of those things, you're living in some kind of bubble that you need to burst and get out of. Continuing to quote D .A. Carson, he says, pluralists are inconsistent in that they want to be understood univocally while insisting that ancient authors, let alone God himself, cannot be understood univocally.

So you're getting, let me pause here and say again, what you're getting is, even with the evangelicalism, you've got people like Tim Keller and others like that trying to argue, well, nobody can really understand what the scripture means.

You know, none of us is God. You know, so they're coming at us now saying, well, God can't be understood. How do you know, I mean, even as Virgil and I, and you have Jim here, who's not just an expositor of us, he's an exegete.

You can tell a person what a word or verse means in the original Hebrew or Greek language, and they'll say, yeah, but how do you know that? So it's a circular questioning, always trying to deconstruct what we know and how we know it, even when it comes to scripture.

That's what Carson is saying here, that the pluralists are inconsistent in that they would argue that they want to be understood with one voice while insisting that the original authors, let alone God himself, cannot be understood with one voice.

Carson says, they may have many religious experiences, but none of them deals with the heart of the human problem, the sin that is so deeply a part of our nature. Let me stop here again. I'm going to get through this quote, I promise you, I will.

See, what I run into many times, and I was saying this on Twitter just a couple weeks ago, what you're finding within the social justice movement and the critical race theory movement, and Black Lives Matter is a good example of this, because the payoff for them is to get paid.

What you'll find is that they want the problem to be something other than sin in the human heart. They want the problem to be something else. They want the problem to be something that they can target that will get them paid in the end.

So they'll say, well, the problem is racism, the problem is discrimination, the problem is, you know, the weight of my student loan debt. They want the problem to be something else, something that will reward them and give them the payoff that they want.

They can't afford to let the problem be sin and that the solution be biblical confession and repentance and coming to faith in Christ as a result, because that doesn't get them what they want. So scripture is not enough for them.

They need to have something else that's the problem that can be either identified as a problem with no solution, but as long as that problem gets them what they want, that's what they want the problem to be.

It's never sin in the human heart. So for instance, you've got the dialogue is ratcheting up again about gun control, an oxymoron of a term if ever I heard one. They want to blame the gun. They want to blame the gun.

Why? Well, because the goal is to, what's the what's the right word for it? Really, I think, is to, the target is the total deconstruction of the Second Amendment. That's that's really the goal. But what they're having to do is with the, especially with these mass shootings, they always want to blame the gun.

They never want to point to the motive or the intent in the heart of the person. Because I say all the time, the night before, or the day before the shooting in Texas, and then this recent one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before those incidents occurred, those those weapons existed.

But they hadn't harmed anybody the day before. Those same weapons existed the day before. Didn't shoot anybody. Why? Because there was no animate human being with the intent to pull the trigger, get the gun, aim it at targets, and then pull the trigger.

But they want to say it's the gun, because the goal is to minimize, if not eliminate, your right to own weapons. That's not Jim Osmond saying that, that's me saying that. So don't come at, don't come at Jim.

Continue with it with D .A. Carson. They may have many religious experiences, but none of them deals with the heart of the human problem, which is the sin that is so deeply a part of our nature. In short, we must deal with massively clashing worldviews.

Again, that's why you're here. This is really a worldview conference. It's got a cool name, the Equipping Conference. But what you're here to really talk about is, as D .A. Carson has put it, massively clashing worldviews.

And part of our responsibility, continuing to quote Carson, part of our responsibility is to explain competing worldviews from our vantage point. Let me stop here again. That's what an apologist does.

That's what a capable, equipped, prepared Christian apologist does. They explain competing worldviews from the biblical standpoint. That's why it takes virtually me three hours of an episode of Adjusting Your Podcast, because that's what we're attempting to do.

We're trying to help equip folks to understand things like critical race theory, deconstructionism, salvation, and other theological topics, so that they can understand and be able to articulate these issues, because that's what 1 Peter 3 .15 commands us to do.

And I want to challenge anybody here. I'm not trying to be condescending toward anyone at all, but if you know this in your heart this is true. If you're a lazy Bible reader, you need to repent of that.

You need to repent of that. And you need to get serious, become a serious student of the Bible. Don't just read it. You need to study it and dig into it. Get a Greek Hebrew lexicon and understand what these words mean in the Greek, what they really mean literally, so you can peel back the layers of God's Word, because I promise you there's more there than what's on the page.

Carson says we cannot possibly engage at that level unless we ourselves have thoroughly grasped the biblical storyline and its entailed theology.". Again, that's why you're here, as apologists for the gospel.

And as I said, every true believer in Christ is an apologist. It's vital that we not embrace the language of the culture as we endeavor to engage the culture. Did you understand that? You must resist the urge to embrace the language of the culture while you're attempting to engage the culture, because the language of the culture is going to change.

The language they're using today is going to be different tomorrow. Your job is to become so good at understanding and articulating the scripture, because you know scripture does not change. I don't care what the language and vernacular of the culture is, scripture is not going to change, and it's still going to be able to address that issue regardless of the language that the culture uses.

So you need to dig into that book. That's your job, is to become better at that book, understanding that book, not understanding the culture, okay? Christians ought to love others, yes, but not at the expense of the truth.

This is what narratology tries to achieve. It tries to make you feel guilty for standing on the truth, and then they'll accuse you of being unloving because you don't cave. This is why we have the I don't care mug on the Just Thinking website.

I don't care. Parenthetically, we have Galatians 1 .10 to give you context there, because Paul, the apostle Paul is saying, listen, if I'm trying to be a friend to the world, that would mean I'm not a friend of God, and guess which one of those is going to take priority.

Guess which one of those is going to win out, according to Paul. That's why we say I don't care. I don't really care what the world thinks. I care what God thinks. So yeah, Christians ought to love each other, but not love others, but not at the expense of the truth.

We dilute the message of the gospel when we exchange biblical terms for the vernacular used by the world. John MacArthur says it this way. He says, the health of the church and the impact of the church is always based on the church's ability to keep objective truth clear.

The church is the pillar and ground of the truth, and the health of the church is always based on her ability to keep objective truth, that is biblical revelation, what we have in scripture, clear, and never to blur the line between truth and error.

When theology is watered down, MacArthur says, that line between truth and error is rubbed out, and I'm sad to stand here and say that the enemies of the church aren't just outside the church. We have enemies within the church who are trying to do this very thing, who are trying to water down the word of God so that that line between truth and error is rubbed out.

This is why you have many evangelical churches embracing the LGBTQ agenda, saying we need to make room for them. They're embracing critical race theory. They're embracing liberation theology because they think the church is some big tent.

As I said on one of the episodes, they think the church is like a Fred Flintstone Water Buffalo Club. As calls for racial reconciliation and social justice increase, both in fervency and in frequency, Christians must be willing to call a thing what the word of God calls it.

The word is homosexuality. It's not gay. What the culture calls racism, the Bible simply calls hate. That's 1 John 2 verses 9 through 11 and 1 John 3 .15. Listen, what the world calls racism, the Bible calls hate.

Listen, there's only two attitudes you and I can have towards one another. One of two attitudes. I either love you or I hate you. Period. There's no isms. There's no phobias. I either love you or I hate you, according to scripture.

That's clear. Read 1 John. I either love you or I hate you. The only question is how that love or how that hate manifests itself. There's no isms. To show ethnic prejudice or ethnic partiality, which is a more biblically accurate term, ethnic partiality from what society calls racism, to show ethnic partiality toward another image bearer of God is sin.

That's period. There's nothing else to say about that. This James chapter 2 verse 9. Hatred of any kind is a matter of the heart. That's why enmity, not ethnicity, is the root cause of the societal disharmony we are witnessing in the world today.

The Biblical Meaning of Enmity and the Reality of Sin

Now just a little bit of exegesis here. In its singular form, because the plural form of the word occurs in Galatians 5 verse 20, the word enmity appears only eight times in all 66 books, across all 66 books of the Bible.

Those eight occurrences are found in Genesis 3 .15, Numbers chapter 35 verses 21 and 22, Deuteronomy 4 .42, Ezekiel 25 .15, Ezekiel 35 .5, as we just read in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 15 and 16. And in each of those instances, the word enmity denotes a very intense, fierce, intentional, and deep-seated spirit of animosity or hostility between parties that are in opposition to one another.

The 18th century Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards elaborated on that reality when he said this, quote, natural men are greater enemies to God than they are to any other being whatsoever. Natural men may be very great enemies to their fellow creatures, but not so great as they are to God.

There is no other being that so much stands in sinners way and those things that sinners chiefly set their hearts upon as God. Men are wont to hate their enemies in proportion to two things. One, their opposition to what they look upon to be their interest and their power and ability.

A great and powerful enemy will be more hated than the one who is weak and impotent, but none is so powerful as God. Man's enmity to others may be gotten over, time may wear it out, and they may be reconciled, but natural men without a mighty work of God to change their hearts will never get over their enmity against God.

They are greater enemies to God than they are to the devil. Yea, they treat the devil as their friend and master and join with him against God, unquote. In the book titled Man's Enmity to God, the 17th century Puritan theologian Stephen Charnock says this, he says, every action of a natural man is an enemy's but not an action of enmity.

A toad does not even every spire of grass it crawls upon, nor poison everything it touches, but its nature is poisonous. Certainly every man's nature is worse than his actions. As waters are purest at the fountain and poison most pernicious in the mass, so is enmity in the heart.

And as waters relish of the mineral vein they run through, so the actions of a wicked man are textured with the enmity they spring from. But the mass and strength of this is large in his nature. There is in all our natures such a diabolical contrariety to God that if God should leave a man to the current of his own heart, it would overflow in all kinds of wickedness.

For the mere nature has fundamentally and radically as much of this enmity as the worst. For the disposition is the same. Though the effects may be restrained in some men more than in others, no man is any more born with a love to God than he is with knowledge of the highest sciences.

There is indeed an active power to the attainment of those by the assistance of a good education, but man hath only a passive power to the other as being a subject passively capable of the grace of God.

The inherency of this enmity in our nature, the psalmist expresses when he tells us the wicked are estranged from the womb. They are estranged from God from the womb. They go astray as soon as ever they are born.

That's Psalm 58 verses 3 and 4. They go sinfully before they go naturally. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent, which you know is radically the same in all of the same species.". Now whether we want to admit it or not, the fact is that you and I are congenital enemies of God.

We're born, we're conceived as enemies of God. Consequently, that makes us congenital enemies of one another. Enmity, not ethnicity, is why there can be no horizontal reconciliation that is between us one-to-one human beings apart from, first of all, having vertical reconciliation between us and God.

But in either case, whether vertical or horizontal, it is faith in Jesus Christ by the power of his Holy Spirit and regenerating sinful human hearts that makes that reconciliation possible. Not any man-centered or man-concocted method.

As the 18th century Welsh minister and Bible commentator Matthew Henry said, if God justified and reconciled us when we were enemies, much more will he then save us when we are justified and reconciled.

Now sadly, the church's understanding of the biblical doctrine of enmity is so languid that it is virtually absent from our preaching and our apologetics. But there was one individual on whom the doctrine of enmity was not lost.

His name was Jupiter Hammond. Jupiter Hammond. Jupiter Hammond was born a slave in October 1711. He died a slave sometime around the year 1806. Literally every breath, every heartbeat, every blink of his eyes, every cough, every sneeze, every hiccup that Jupiter Hammond experienced over the course of his 95 years on this earth was as a slave.

On September 24, 1786, Jupiter Hammond gave a speech in New York City at the inaugural meeting of an organization called the African Society. Hammond's speech was titled An Address to the Negroes of the State of New York, also known as the Hammond Address.

Among the remarks Hammond made in that speech was this sobering admonition, quote, now you may think that you are not enemies to God and that you do not hate him, but if your heart has not been changed and you have not become true Christians, you certainly are enemies to God and have been opposed to him ever since the day you were born, unquote.

Now I want to remind you at this point that Jupiter Hammond took every breath, literally, of his nearly 100 years of life in this sinful world as someone else's property. And yet the biblical doctrine of enmity is something that Hammond clearly understood.

Now contrary to what was a common stereotype concerning slaves, Hammond was not unintelligent or uneducated. Both of Hammond's parents, his father was named Obadiah and his mother was named Rose, they were both literate, meaning they both knew how to read and write.

That was rare, of course, but it was a common stereotype that if you were a slave, no slave could read or write, but Hammond's parents could. They were both literate. And those slave, Jupiter Hammond's owners were husband and wife Henry and Rebecca Lloyd.

They were Anglican, okay, and they provided for Jupiter Hammond a rather rudimentary education through what was known in the Anglican church as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

That was the Anglican church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. As a result of that education, Hammond would go on to become the first black poet in the history of the United States to have his literary works published.

Jupiter Hammond was a Christian who was convinced of the sovereignty of God. Convinced. So convinced was Hammond, in fact, so convinced was Hammond that God was in absolute control of everything that occurred in his life that he saw even his own enslavement as God's divine providence in his life.

Now let me ask you, let me pause and ask you, no show of hands. What is there going on in your life right now that you're complaining to God about? Here's a man who lived to be almost 100 years old and every tick of the clock of those 100 years he spent as a slave.

Yet he attributed that. He attributed his station in life to God's sovereignty. Now I don't know what's going on in your life, but you're not a slave. So whatever it is that's going on in your life that you're complaining to God about, as Hammond declared in the aforementioned address to the Negroes of New York, quote, listen closer to this, Hammond said, we live so little time in this world that it is no matter how wretched and miserable we are if it prepares us for heaven.

What is 40, 50, or 60 years when compared to eternity? Unquote. What are you complaining about in your life? Though in bondage physically, Jupiter Hammond was a free man spiritually, perhaps freer even than some of you who are within the sound of my voice tonight.

Hammond firmly understood that emancipation from his slavery to sin was a far greater concern and importance than being liberated from his physical shackles. It's my personal belief that Hammond's understanding of what scripture teaches about enmity demonstrates that he was more orthodox in his theology than many formerly trained theologians who have earned seminary degrees.

This guy was a slave. But regardless the level of theological acumen Hammond may have possessed, I'm convinced he would be criticized if not altogether ostracized by many evangelical social justicians today for holding to what they would undoubtedly regard as a hermeneutic of passivity, for having the temerity to believe that his subjugation to his white slave owners had been providentially ordained by God before the foundation of the world.

No way, if Hammond were alive today, there is no way he would survive within wokeism. Absolutely not. Within the church. Because they would say, you're crazy. How could it have been God's will for you to spend 95 years on this earth as a slave?

I have no doubt whatsoever that Jupiter Hammond, were he alive today, he would be labeled either a race traitor, a coon, an Uncle Tom, a house negro, or worse, he would have been accused of not being enlightened or woke enough to the historical struggle for justice in America by those who are of a similar shade of melanin as he was.

In other words, Hammond would be denigrated and dismissed, especially by many black social justice advocates today, for not beholding to what I refer to as a gospel of perpetual grievance. Jupiter Hammond was a slave for almost 100 years, yet his belief in God's sovereignty was so deep, he didn't complain.

Now let me just put Darrell in the mirror. Darrell, could you do that? Whatever it is, whatever, whatever, see, listen, unless, I don't see, I don't hear any balls and chains clinking around here. So unless I'm in this guy's shoes, look at what people are complaining, look at what people are saying they're oppressed about today.

I'm tweeting from my $800 iPhone in the comfort of my air-conditioned BMW, from my two-story house in suburbia, from my office, home office desk, where I work remote, that I'm oppressed. Listen to what Booker T. Washington had to say about people like that.

Booker T. Washington, in his book titled My Larger Education, he wrote about people like that, people who all they do is just walk around preaching a gospel of perpetual grievance, just everything's grievance, everything's oppression, everything's woe is me.

Listen to what Booker T. Washington had to say in this story here, please listen closely. Washington writes, he says, a story told me by a colored man in South Carolina will illustrate how people sometimes get into situations where they do not like to part with their grievances.

In a certain community, there was a colored doctor of the old school who knew little about modern ideas of medicine, but who in some way had gained the confidence of the people and had made considerable money by his own peculiar methods of treatment.

In this community, there was an old lady who happened to be pretty well provided with this world's goods and who thought that she had a cancer. For 20 years, she had enjoyed the luxury of having this old doctor treat her for that cancer.

As the old doctor became, thanks to the cancer and to other practice, pretty well to do, he decided to send one of his boys to a medical college. After graduating from the medical school, the young man returned home and his father took a vacation.

During this time, the old lady who was afflicted with the cancer, okay, called in the young man who treated her. Within a few weeks, the cancer or what was supposed to be the cancer disappeared and the old lady declared herself well.

When the father of the boy returned and found the patient on her feet and perfectly well, he was outraged. He called the young man before him and said this, my son, I find that you have cured that cancer case of mine.

Now son, let me tell you something. I educated you on that cancer. I put you through high school, through college, and finally through the medical school on that cancer, and now you with your new ideas of practice in medicine have come here and cured that cancer.

Well, let me tell you, son, you have started all wrong. How do you expect to make a living practicing medicine in that way? Here's the point. Washington went on to say this. He says, I'm afraid that there is a certain class of race problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out, they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.

If the patient gets well, an entire industry of victimhood will get cancer and die. This would be the best thing for the black community. Until blacks throw off the shroud of victimhood, they will be at the mercy of doctors who treat a cancer that does not exist, but that they are paying for.

You get the point. Washington's words are important for us to consider, because you're hearing a lot today about systemic racism in America. But for something to be systemic, hear me out here. Again, I said earlier about why it's important for us to define the terms.

Understand this. For something to be systemic, it's by definition to mean that it is literally everywhere and in everything. That's what systemic means by objective definition. To say something systemic is systemic means it's everywhere.

So if America were a systemically racist nation, I wouldn't be standing here today in the middle of Idaho. Do me a favor, look up the percentage of black population of Idaho, will you? I mean, seriously.

If America was systemically racist, why would I be here? Listen, the problem not only in America, but in the world at large, it's not systemic racism, it's systemic sin. Now, sin is everywhere. Sin is the most systemic reality on the face of the earth.

But as I said, see, the woke don't want that to be the problem, because God gets the glory for that. They get nothing. They get nothing. You got a V? We doubled it. We doubled it? Gotcha. Two percent.

Two percent. See, we do our research on the just thing. We research everything. The British preacher and writer J .C. Ryle reminds us of the systemic nature of sin in his classic book titled Holiness.

I mentioned earlier that there's two books you need to have in your library. Actually, there's three. If you have not read J .C. Ryle's Holiness, I commend it to you. Please get a copy of that book and read it.

It will change your life. It really will. J .C. Ryle said this. He said, sin is the universal disease of all mankind. Search the globe from east to west and from pole to pole. Search every nation of every climate in the four quarters of the earth.

Search every ranking class from the highest to the lowest. And under every circumstance and condition, the report will always be the same. Excuse me. Wow. The report will always be the same. The remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, completely separate from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, beyond the reach alike of Oriental luxury and Western arts and literature, islands inhabited by people ignorant of books, money, steam, and gunpowder, uncontaminated by the vices of modern civilization.

These very islands have always been found when first discovered, the abode of the vilest forms of lust, cruelty, deceit, and superstition. If the inhabitants have known nothing else, they have always known how to sin.

The sinful attitudes, biases, and prejudices that you and I harbor toward one another all have the same root cause and origin, sin in the human heart of the individual. Jesus makes that abundantly clear in Mark chapter 7, verses 17 through 23.

When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples questioned him about the parable that he had given them in the previous verses. And Jesus said to them, are you so lacking in understanding?

Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him? So it's not that the culture is not the problem. The gun is not the problem. White supremacy is not the problem. Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him?

Because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated. And he was saying that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. Virgil and I are both biblical counselors. We have a passion for that. My wife and I do biblical counseling back in LA through Grace Community Church.

And one thing we try to make clear, I don't care if it's premarital or marital, I don't care what the specific issue is, the root cause is always sin. Somebody in that relationship does not want to give up their sin.

They don't want to give it up. They do not want to give it up. For the young people here, I know we have a boyfriend and girlfriend here. We may have some, I think there's an engaged couple here, or soon to be engaged couple.

But especially for young people, because my heart is with you all. Before I met Melissa, let me just be transparent with you for a second. Before I met Melissa, I came out of an abusive marriage where my wife was the abuser.

God used that situation to put me on the path to becoming a certified biblical counselor. I've just never understood why spouses sin against each other. I don't understand it. I just don't get it. But if you're taking notes, there's a book I want to recommend to you.

It's called When Sinners Say I Do. When Sinners Say I Do by Dave Harvey. And if I could just put on my biblical counseling hat for one second, the one piece of marital advice that I would give you, I don't care if you've been married 40 years, you need to remember that you are married to a sinner.

And the best thing that you can do for your marriage is to pre-forgive that person for when they sin against you, you will forgive them. Because they're going to sin against you. They're going to sin against you.

That's the one piece of marital advice that I have for you. You get that for free. We're not billing that to Jim, to the church. This is just free. You need to remember that you are married to a sinner.

So When Sinners Say I Do by Dave Harvey. I commend that book to you. It was the 19th century Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon who said this, sin poisons the wellhead. Sin is in our brain. We think wrongly.

Sin is in our heart. We love that which is evil. Sin bribes the judgment, intoxicates the will, and perverts the memory. We recollect a bad word when we forget a holy sentence. Like a sea which comes up and floods a continent, penetrating every valley, deluging every plain, and invading every mountain, so has sin penetrated our entire nature.

I gotta say one more thing about the whole marital thing. When you, many of you probably had marriage vows that you exchanged with one another when you got married. The thing about vows is that, and I want the young people to hear me here, young people who are not married but who may want to be married someday.

Do your marriage vows. Do them however you want. Just understand this. What makes a vow are not the words. It's not the words. You know what makes a vow a vow? What makes a vow a vow is a heart that has the intent to live by those words.

Then it becomes a vow as you live those words out. And until you do that, they're just words on a piece of paper. Worthless. Worthless. So do your marriage vows. But understand this. If your heart is not motivated to commit to the words that compose, that comprise that vow, worthless.

The Gospel, Race, and the Myth of Racial Reconciliation

And it's pragmatic zeal to partner with the world on matters of social justice and racial reconciliation. The evangelical church today has succeeded only in complicating what the gospel makes very simple.

So simple, in fact, that a child can understand it according to Luke 18, 16. That simple gospel is this. Each of us has sinned against a holy God. That's Romans 3 .23. Our sinfulness is congenital. That's Romans 5 .12.

Our sin makes us subject to God's wrath. That's John 3 .36. But by faith in Jesus Christ and his atoning and propitiatory work on the cross, sinners like you and me can be reconciled first and foremost to God.