Tsunami of Sin — Ralph Sexton

Justification, Eternal Life, and the Gift of the Gospel

If you would, turn with me now to Romans chapter five, Romans five, verse number eight. But God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet what sinners died for who? Us. Boy, aren't you glad that's in the book?

Christ died for us. And then verse nine says, much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from what? Through him. And when we look at these verses, we realize what a powerful gift the gospel is.

What a powerful gift eternal life is. That God's love was intentionally pointed in our direction when I was lost. And yet, he loved me anyway. Romans six, verse 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God, it's eternal life through Jesus our Lord.

The Destructive Power of the 2004 Tsunami

On December the 26th, 2004, a world changing event powered into our lives. The Sumatra deep under the Indian Ocean, a super-sized earthquake 9 .0 on the Richter scale startled our world awake. Exploding with such power that it actually, according to scientists, interrupted the rotation.

Some report that the island of Sumatra, 100 modern nuclear weapons, this deadly energy rips over 500 miles into the crest of the earth. That crust was of the type and size that were dropped on Hiroshima.

A hundred feet of the earth's floor broke loose and moved up. You could have had the same effect on the shore by taking a giant rock and dropping it into the ocean basin. If you've ever tossed a rock into a pond, you see those ripples.

Instead of the rock entering from the top, the rock entered from the bottom. With the force and energy that created massive shock waves. And these shock waves are now traveling over 500 miles per hour towards the shorelines of 12 different nations.

This wave, when it reaches shallow water, has no place to go, so it rises up out of the sea. As that energy wave, that tsunami wave is reaching shallow water, as it comes up, it has this effect of a giant vacuum.

It gathers the water off the beach, the shallow water. Some reports said that the beach was exposed 2 ,000 yards. Other reports said that in some places, that it took the water back 20 ,000 yards, as it gathered it up.

Have you followed the stories about all the children dying in this tsunami? You see what happened as that water gathered back with this energy, it's building this powerful shock waves coming. And for it to be handled, the water is pulling back in a massive rip current.

One man said that he stood on a beach with hundreds of people down the beach already in the water playing on vacation. And he said the next moment, the water just starts moving out with a giant rip current.

People screaming, and they disappeared. And he said 60 seconds later, what happened when that water pulled back, the ocean floor was exposed. Beautiful corals and shales and flopping fish were left there.

And children that were not in the water, but were on the beach playing, they saw the shales, they saw the coral, they saw the fish. And adults even ran out into where the ocean bottom had been to pick up a shale, to pick up a fish, to get a souvenir.

Not realizing that building was this giant wave of water, this giant ripple called a tsunami. And as they gathered up their trinkets and their souvenirs, this massive wall of death and destruction comes crashing in.

The Asian tsunami is now taking its first victims. This massive wall of water crashes into the private world of thousands. This crushing monster with no mercy kills hundreds with its first wave. As the power and energy of that water fell and broke buildings and boats and piers apart, it now regathers for its second shockwave.

It pulls all of that water back, mixed in with it are humans, animals, tin, glass, buildings, all kinds of trash from the beach, trees, logs. Now it's building. This time when it comes, it's a crushing bulldozer because it's armed with missiles.

Because in the water are flying projectiles. People are killed that survived the first wave are now killed by the devastation of the second wave. Because it's carrying all of this from the first broken lives.

Some say that some communities got seven shockwaves, seven tsunamis. Some three feet. Some 15 feet. Many average 20 and 30 feet. If you go to the Acre province there at Bondi, the capital city, they say that their particular community received a tsunami wave up in their harbor of 60 feet tall.

It literally put fishing trawlers on top of buildings. But as I followed the reports of this Asian tsunami, I was reminded of another world changing event. According to the word of God, Adam and Eve were placed in a beautiful garden.

Adam, Eve, and the Entrance of Sin

They were prepared in that garden to live forever. Bodies that would not decay. Bodies that would not die. Everything they needed for life was in that beautiful garden. But one day Eve was beguiled by the liar, the devil himself, and he tricked, he beguiled Eve.

I'm going to tell you something. Adam wasn't tricked. Adam just loved. He loved his Eve. He loved the woman that God had put in his life. Adam wasn't tricked. Nor was he deceived. His fellowship had been broken with his precious wife.

And he took of the fruit freely, willfully, knowing he made a choice between God and between Eve. And when he did, Adam and Eve had sinned against the holy God. And when they did that, you know what Adam and Eve did?

They tossed a giant rock into the human bloodstream. They took a rock of sin and they tossed it out. And how do you know that? Because when I went to the hospital with my wife and our first baby was born and I saw this innocent baby girl there and I thought, Boy, what a miracle!

Look at this innocent baby! But yet in the blood veins of my baby girl was blood that was polluted with a fallen nature. She had to have a Savior. My grandchildren have to have a Savior. My sons have to have a Savior.

I've got to have a Savior because of the ripple effect of this tsunami of sin that has rolled down across generations since the Garden of Eden. Sometimes we forget about the power of sin. And David, if anything that's talked to me out of this tsunami experience is the similarities about the power of sin and the power of nature.

What's man going to do when there's a wall of water coming down? It's an unbelieving thing. Twelve nations are on their knees today and they're bowing down to the fact we couldn't save our people. Reports this morning, as I came in, said 141 ,000 dead.

They believe it'll go for 150 ,000 before this week's over. They estimate another 50 ,000 may die with disease. The greatest tsunami on record was in 1755. If you remember your history, the great tsunami that hit Lisbon, Portugal in 1755, it took 100 ,000 lives already.

This Asian tsunami is the greatest natural disaster we've seen as far as these type of events have ever been recorded. Why are you alive during this event? Is there a lesson for you that are Bible believers?

Is there a lesson to see what a wave's crushing power can do? And then to see the energy and the crushing power of sin? I began to watch those reports and as I would write and make notes, I started seeing the similarities that I find in the Word of God.

Sin’s Tsunami Against Families and Culture

Because just like the ocean floor has cracked with seismic pressure, the foundation of families have been cracked open. The culture has been cracked apart. Lives have been fractured with the evidence of sin's destructive power.

We're living in a tsunami of sin. America, with its prosperity, its proud and haughty look, we've got everything we need. Oh yeah, we've got the money. We're the first on the scene. We've got the helicopters to go and carry the relief efforts.

But my friend, we're losing the most precious thing we've ever had and that's our own children, our own teenagers, our own families in America. We're powerless against that tsunami. The only hope we've got is some people of faith, some mothers and daddies of courage.

It'd be different if once again we'll go get that old black-backed Bible and say, you know what, we're going to go back to what God gave us, to what God ordained. We're going to build a home on the Word of God and the principles of God and we're going to put a hedge around our children.

You say, well Brother Ralph, you shouldn't be so emotional. Then you come to my house and answer the phone. Would you not be emotional if you were walking through the bodies of the tsunami of Asia? Would you not be emotional if you were in Sumatra or in Thailand and the bodies are littering the beach and you're standing there talking to the woman who watched her husband and four children swept out in the sea and she's screaming, I'm the only one alive.

Would you not be emotional if you stood with that grandfather that said, my three daughters perished, my son perished, all my grandchildren are gone, my wife drowned. Would you not be emotional without feeling your heart break for what he's suffering and wondering and imagining how is he even breathing with that kind of pain?

But I submit to you as your under-shepherd that every week right here in Trinity Baptist Church, every week right here in Asheville, North Carolina, right here every week in Nation, the tsunami of sin is doing the same thing.

And we're powerless because we go to church, we have religious words, we have a form of godliness, but we deny the power thereof. I want to spend time in the Word of God and in the Holy of Holies and cry out to the Holy God of this universe and say, God, I will pay the price to see your power and your presence on my life.

God, whatever it takes, whether I'm going to walk in the fellowship and the Holy of Holies, I want to be a mother that's in touch with God, I want to be a father that my children know, I want to be a grandfather and a grandmother that my grandbabies can walk into the room and know one thing, with your real estate developer, they don't need to know whether or not you can build another plaza, they need to know whether or not...

Spiritual Grief and the Loss of God’s Presence

I thought earlier in the week that my heart would break as I tried to get the international stories and watch them and it seemed like I was just being buried in hour after hour of melancholy and sadness and brokenheartedness and then God reminded me of the heart of the Holy Spirit.

Every day, He's grieved as we play with the holy face of God. There's over a hundred Baptist churches in this county today, but I wonder if there's a brokenness and a burden in those hundred Baptist churches that God's presence and power would be back on His people?

That we once again would be a peculiar people? Or have we gotten so caught up in being popular and having something that makes people feel good and we go through a religious motion and commotion that we've traded off the touch of God?

Our plans and our pals and our parties have all been swept away into a cascade of heartaches as they see the horrors of lives that have been devastated by sin. Rising out of the lust of the flesh, the tsunami of our senses turns the parties of paradise into deceit and pain and ultimately death.

The Waves of Sin and the Escalation of Temptation

Romans 6 .23 says, For the wages of sin is... I would not be pushing the Scripture too much if I changed that word in there wages of sin for the point of an illustration and said the waves of sin produce death.

You say, what do you mean, pastor? Well, sin doesn't stop with one sin. Sin doesn't stop with one sin. No, no. There's not one person today that's a drug addict or someone that's hooked on alcohol or consumed with the lust of the flesh.

They didn't wake up one morning and say, you know, I think I'll just ruin my life. I think I'll be an alcoholic. I think I'll just destroy my family. I'll be a drug addict. They didn't do that. No, they went to a party and someone said, you want a joint?

You want to do a pill? You want to do ecstasy? You want to do some LSD? Somewhere they started. They just took a little swale, just a little way and they thought, you know what? Let me jump on this little surfboard of pleasure.

I can ride right through this. Everybody's doing it. I'm just going to have a few beers. I'll just have a drink. I'll just smoke a little joint. I can get through this. They didn't decide that they would be a crackhead.

They didn't decide they'd be a heroin addict. They didn't decide they would be consumed with all the cravings of alcohol or the lust of the flesh until they're destroyed with the sexually transmitted diseases and their life is nothing but a shallow hollow walking dead person.

They didn't decide that. No, they wanted to go party a little while. They wanted to be popular. I can handle this. Pastor, you're just overly stimulated by watching all this. You're just excited Pastor.

You know, I'm just going to party a little while. I'll be right back. I'm on my surfboard of pleasure. I can ride the swales of sin and I'll be back to the house of God when I'm ready to settle down. I'm just going to take a little trip.

I'm just going to have an affair. It's not a serious thing. It's just a pleasure thing. Nothing serious. I'm just meeting another man. My husband and I have just been having a little tension. I'm just trying to find a little release.

Nothing serious, Pastor. I'm just jumping on this board. You don't understand. I'm on a website. I know I shouldn't be there, but I can handle this. I'm just going to be surfing through this experience.

I just want to see what everybody else is doing. I'm just taking a few pills. I'm just drinking a few drinks. You don't understand. I can handle this preacher. Yeah, you can handle that three-foot swale, that four-foot swale, but what you don't understand is that tsunami of sin is building.

You've seen the little bright shells on the beach that the devil has thrown out. You've seen the flopping fish of excitement of the party in the crowd, but you've yet to see death. It's crashing in on you and your family.

The devil doesn't play fair. He's a dammer. He's a destroyer. The New York Times reported on December the 29th in a story by Amy Waldman that something most unusual happened on the Nicobar Islands, not very far from the epicenter.

The Nicobar Islands are located there in the Indian Ocean. Most of them are not over five feet high. That's the highest point on the whole island. Let me read to you the report. The island is so flat that residents say water did not just wash in from the sea during the tsunami that struck on Sunday morning, but came up through cracks in the earth opened by the quake before it.

They said that not only did the tsunami come, but that the earth broke open and the fountains of the deep spewed out water to add to the waves. The first thing I thought of was the book of Genesis and chapter number seven and verse number eleven where God judged Noah's generation and He said He broke open the fountains of the deep to add to the total waterfall that was coming from the heavens.

You can read about it also in Genesis chapter eight and verse number two. And I thought about another verse that says as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be also in the days when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back to this earth.

It's not an accident that we're living here. It's not an accident that we're seeing these things. When have you ever heard of the fountains of the deep breaking open? I've not heard of that since Genesis seven.

Verses thirty-eight and thirty-nine are important, but thirty-nine says and knew not until the flood came and took them all away. I thought boy is that not a picture of that tsunami. They didn't know what was coming.

They didn't know that they were about to die. One guy that reported early this morning, he said all I can tell you is that one moment we were standing looking at a postcard. Calm sea. Beautiful blue green water.

An island of paradise and palm trees. And he said the next moment we went from paradise to a raging hell. He said it just came up out of the sea and swept us all away. I'm telling you this morning, the world wants you to talk like the world.

The world wants you to act like the world. Dress like the world. Get on that board of pleasure and think you can handle it. Write it out. Why do we want to be like the world? Why do we not want to be like the Lord Jesus Christ?

Resisting Worldly Values Through God’s Word

It's because of this right here. His flesh wants to be satisfied. These graphic images I believe of the Asian tsunami remind us of how weak man really is. You say, well, Brother Ralph, you're worried about nothing.

I can handle this. I can ride this board out. Your rules are not for me. Your values are not my values. How many times have I heard that one? It's not my rules. It's not my values. It's that Word of God, that authorized version that declares what is right and what is not right.

It's the devil that's trying to twist what the values and the rules are. He's the one that's making people do what's right in their eyes. Those small swells of three and four feet you can handle. It's those 20 footers and 30 footers and 40 footers that come crashing in.

The devil never plays fair. The waves with such power recorded events that concrete buildings exploded with the tons of water that fell on them. Sin is exactly the same way. It is deceptive. It is dangerous.

It is deadly. With life destroying power, wave after wave of sin comes crashing in. Have you ever noticed the devil never gives up? He never takes a holiday. He never goes on vacation. You don't fall after that temptation.

He just gives you another one and another one and another one until that tsunami experience comes. You say, well, Brother Ralph, it doesn't matter. We're in another generation. We're just living together.

We're just deciding if we like each other. Now you're not married and that tsunami will crash home. We're just doing recreational drugs. We're just having fun. That tsunami will crash home. Well, it's just an affair.

I'm not going to leave my wife. I'm not going to leave my husband. That tsunami has consequences. You don't understand. It's just music. I don't really listen to those rap words. I'm not listening to that filth and that vulgarity.

I'm just enjoying that tsunami. It's crashing home in your brain. But you don't understand my job. It requires me to be a social drinker. That tsunami will crash home. You've got to understand that the devil's just trying to get you to step out on that little board of pleasure and satisfy your flesh rather than doing what's right.

Sin’s Hidden Consequences and the Warning of Scripture

The floor of the ocean shifted on December the 26th. Where did it shift? Out of sight. Down in the darkness. No eyes to report. No one to see. Thousands of miles away, the effects were later felt of what happened in the dark.

Many times we think our acts of sin are covered. No one knows about them. But Numbers 32 23, be sure your sin will find you out. This tsunami can rip a child out of a mother's arms. This tsunami we watched in Asia literally took a railroad train off its track and killed a thousand people in one train.

I'm telling you, a tsunami of sin takes a marriage and destroys the natural affection of a mother and a father that they won't even see those little innocent tear-filled eyes saying, Mommy, don't leave.

Daddy, please don't leave us. But they can't see them. The tsunamis come crashing in. All they can see is their pleasure and their desires. I'm telling you, church, we need to be careful with our words, our deeds, and our actions.

That tsunami of sin can make you a casualty. Even if you've been saved, we're not above temptation. We're making a mistake. We need to pray daily one for another. You say, well, brother Ralph, we're doing the best we can.

We're just living together and the kids, they know we love each other. Yes, and you're living together without marriage. And you're teaching him, you're teaching her that marriage doesn't matter. Don't be upset at the gay lesbian lifestyle when you're doing more damage than he'll ever do, because you're living it in front of your own children.

You'll have to hunt a job next week. Well, then I'll hunt one. But while I'm here, I'm going to tell you what God's Word says. We better get right and we better live right, or we'll play with our patience.

You can talk about your church. You can be critical of the pastors. You can be critical of the programs. You can be critical of the staff. You can do that. You can be critical of Sunday school. You can do that.

You can go through that, but you just remember there's little ears and little hearts recording every word you say. And when they get 15 and 16 years old, all of a sudden they'll say, I don't want to go to church.

Nobody's real. I don't believe any preacher because they're acting and sounding just like you. Allowing the form and fashion of this world to dress our babies. Wanting our little girls to look like Vegas showgirls.

And the whole purpose is to draw attention to their little bodies. Exposing her tummy. Shortening her hemline. Helping her to fall in line to be a Britney Spears wannabe at Tsunami's yet to land. A loss of childhood and a loss of innocence.

Passed off to the world to be used and abused. You need to pray that you don't get on the wrong board. Proverbs 14 12 says, there is a way which seemeth right unto man. But the end thereof are the ways of death.

Verse 14 says, to the church, the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways. You know how you can tell when you're backsliding? As you start having your will and your way ahead of God's will and God's Word.

That's how you can tell you're in trouble. Sin takes everything. It takes your life. And it takes your loves. And the story of these tsunamis is they've taken everything from so many. Proverbs 28 13 says, he that covereth his sin shall not prosper.

But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. One man reported that he ran through the resort and he said, something's wrong. Run, run, run. And he said, many did run, but he said a lot of them just looked at him and finished their drinks.

And he said, the tsunami came crashing in even on the inside of the resort. They responded to the danger, but they responded too late. In the Bible, 20 different times we see the wicked man dies. The wicked man dies suddenly.

Noah, Sodom. What about in the community of Sodom? Hell literally rains down from heaven. They died suddenly. Proverbs 29 verse 1, he that being often reproved, hardened his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed.

And that's without remedy. God's warning us over and over and over again about the tsunami of sin. Teenagers are warned. Young adults are warned. Singles are warned. Moms and dads are warned. Grandparents are warned.

Protecting Children Through Godly Training

Officials say that over probably 150 ,000 people before this week is over will be the body count. And they say the cause of the events and how it happened, that one-third to one-half of the deaths may be children.

You think of that. Children. You think of that. Children. There's four reasons that children, maybe up to 75 ,000 children died last Sunday. There's four reasons they died. If you want to write them down, you say there's an outline in a tsunami.

There's four reasons those babies died. I believe with all my heart the Lord gave me this. Number one, they died because they had no protection. Nobody was warning them. There's a verse of Scripture that says that no man cared for my soul.

Mom and Daddy, if you don't love your children enough to do business with God, you tell me who will protect your children. Who will pray for your babies? Who will stand at the PTA? Who will stand at the public school?

Who will stand in the community? If they don't have your protection, who's going to protect them? Who's going to write to the television stations? Who's going to write to the cable operators? Who's going to write to the video game makers?

If you don't protect your children, you tell me who's going to protect them. Those babies died because they had no protection. Number two, they died because they're not as strong as adults. Many of them stayed alive for a little while, Lorne, but they couldn't hold on.

They can't hold on as long. Their body strength is not as much. Their upper body gripping powers is not as strong. And they held on for a little while. They held on. And then it said when those second waves came, it tore those little children through out those resorts.

And they said, you can hear the children screaming. And then it got silent. You know why, Al? Because they were gone. They couldn't hold on. They're not as strong. And they're not as strong in this world either.

They've got to have some men and women, some moms and dads that love God, some grandparents that will say, we're not going to give up our town. We're not going to give up our school. We're not going to give up our nation.

We're not going to give up our values. We're not going to put our children on the altar of sensual pleasures and watch them be consumed by the devil. They're not as strong. They can't hold on. Imagine a tsunami.

Yep, they thought those flopping fish were exciting. They thought those pretty colors of coral were something new to pick up. The rocks were something new. They were deceived. They didn't know that the fish and the rocks and the shells would be their death.

And neither do they know what you know from life experience if you start down this path where it'll take you. You've been there. You know how sin hurts. You know what it costs to break our hearts enough that we wouldn't want our children to have the same pain of sin that we've seen and experienced.

Number four, those children died because of a lack of training. A lack of training. One little girl testified this morning. She said, I am alive out of my family because my daddy taught me to swim. Ten years old.

She said, I swam through dead people. I swam through buildings. But she said, I'm alive because my daddy taught me to swim. Your baby's to swim through this world. He's going to teach them that that old 1611 is the inerrant, infallible Word of God and they can believe it and they can trust it.

It can't be shaken by the tsunamis of people that want to adulterate and water it down and take the virgin birth and the blood out of it. It's God's Word and it'll get you through life. Who's going to train them in warming a fuse?

Who's going to train them to be a soul winner? Who's going to train them to pray and to go and work in missions? A lack of training. Who's going to train them to be Christian and business men? Christian and business men and women that love God will teach them to give and support the things of God.

I'm telling you today, sin is hunting your children. Hell is planning a tsunami for your family to sweep away your morals and your values and even your conscience and only God can keep us from what's coming.

Intergenerational Responsibility and Hope in Christ

One other thing about children, teenagers, you have a little brother, you've got a little sister, young adults, single adults, you've got a brother, you've got a sister, mom and dad, do you have somebody you love in your family?

A niece? A nephew? Younger than you? God's given you the opportunity and the responsibility to live and to pray that they might know there's a right way to walk in this day and hour. You might be the life preserver for your sister's boy.

For your brother's daughter. You might be the one that keeps a grandchild out of a life of sin because you got hold of the rock of ages and you wouldn't turn lips. Devil, you can't have my little girl.

You can't have my son. You can't have my grandchild. I'm declaring by the Word of God that there is a rock of ages and there's a refuge from the storms of life. Have we prayed for healing for our marriages?

For our homes? You say, Brother Ralph, I've given up on my wife. I've given up on my husband. I've given up on my daughter. Why don't you just keep knocking on the door and say, God, I'm back. You say, well, Pastor, is it all bad news from over there?

No. God illustrated grace and mercy to me yesterday. They were working in Bondiache, the capital of that province which took the brunt of the tsunami. The backhoes are trying to clean the streets littered with hundreds of bodies with muck and mud and trash.

They moved part of a building and one of the rescuers, Eddie, sees some movement. They thought the mud was moving, the muck was moving, and they went over and there was a man been buried alive for five days.

No food, no water. They handed him a bottle of drinking water and he sat up and drank it. Just had some scrapes on his leg. Buried alive for five days. I thought five was God's number of grace. You know where I was when He dug me out?

I was mixed up with all those dead bodies. I was dead and trespassing sin. I was in the mud and the muck of life. I had no hope and no future just like you. And here comes Jesus. Now the tsunamis of sin are powerful, but God's love is greater.

God's grace is greater. There is no sin greater than the blood of Jesus Christ. Let's bow our heads and pray.