The Unchanging Gospel (Genesis-Revelation)

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So, we're delighted to meet some of you for the first time. Whether or not you know it, you are one of our sending churches to the mission field and we want to thank you for that.
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There are some things that you could pray for that are coming up immediately.
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When I get back, we are now basing our ministry out of eastern Kentucky. I represent the ministry and work of New Tribes Mission, as perhaps you know.
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So, when I get back on Thursday, I'm going to go to the Maximum Security Big Sandy Federal Penitentiary at Inez, Kentucky.
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Now, that's not Inez, Kentucky, that's Inez, okay? And you say hotel and motel and insurance, okay?
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I'm learning to do this, okay? Also, I see you have some pretty nice flares in the back there.
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All right? And occasionally, the para goes out on that round here, I would imagine.
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Anyway, I'm learning to do that after I've gotten over, say, and packed the car and some of those things.
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When I get back, I'll be going to that Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary where we hope to begin teaching in the same way that we teach tribal people who have no background in the
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Bible. Forty percent of the inmates at that penitentiary are in there for life, so it is a maximum security deal.
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So, you could be praying about that as you think, and pray that the thing will develop. I don't want to go there once.
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We want to go there about 50 times to get the gospel delivered from the bottom up to these folks, many of whom have no background in it.
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Then the next day on Friday, I will have devotions with the Paintsville High School football team.
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It's been my privilege this year to have those kids for lunch and have devotions with them, and so there are some good things going.
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Then we have some missions conferences coming up in Virginia, and meetings in churches around that neck of the woods.
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And so, we'll appreciate your prayers, and we do appreciate your support, and we pray for you and trust that you will be praying for us.
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I bring you a message of hope today. I think some of you who know me know that when we got to New England in 1980 and I began to pastor this church, since I had, among other things, taught
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United States history, I found myself in near heaven in Massachusetts. Went to the
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Worcester Antiquarian Society, found a pamphlet printed in 1756 which outlined the charges against a pastor bowman in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
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Among those charges, some, you know, part of the church wanted him out. The printer was on his side, wanted him to stay.
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And the printer listed about 15 charges that the other side was bringing against the poor pastor.
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And one of them was this, on three different occasions, he had failed to preach at least two hours.
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Usually, that's a message of despair when I tell that story, but I bring you hope this morning.
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I have a daughter, one of my cousins has been researching our family, and it turns out, it looks like there was one
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Nathaniel Bowman who arrived from Leek, England in 1630, was one of the first proprietors of Watertown, Massachusetts.
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There doesn't seem to be any other Bowmans. So this daughter of my cousin said, so they all got to be related, you're probably related to the guy in Dorchester.
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So those that are hopeful among you, could hope that I will preach less than two hours for this
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Sunday school lesson. Now you start getting nervous about donuts and coffee, right? About 10 o 'clock, so we'll,
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I'll try to restrain myself in all of this. Yes? Oh, Dorchester, yeah.
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You sure it's not Dorchester? Okay. Anyhow, it's good to be back, good to see you, good to meet many of you for the first time.
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And Charlie, I'll do a high -tech thing with you, okay? Like, I'll say, next. And that'll do the thing for the slides.
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I have a little ticklish throat this morning, and some of you will remember that happened to me. I grew up in Southern California, and everybody from the desert southwest has had a run -in at some time in their childhood with the
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Valley Fever. And so we're all basically immune to it, but when you get in just the right kind of circumstances, like San Francisco, or sometimes in New England, it gives you a tickly throat.
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So I have a cough drop here that I may slip into my mouth, and it's good that you're kind of sitting back.
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Whenever this happens to me, I'm always reminded of that young man that I told you about who was preaching his first sermon, and was terrified that he would forget what he was going to say.
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He asked an old pastor, what do I do if I get up there and I go blank? The guy said, just repeat your text, and it'll come to you.
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And so he was nervous, but he got up in the pulpit, and he looked down at the crowd, and it was just all water.
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And he went, behold, I come quickly. Looked back, nothing.
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Took a step back from the pulpit. Behold, I come quickly. Nothing. Took three steps back from the pulpit, and then he rushed toward the pulpit.
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And he stumbled as he got there, did a triple flip over it, landed right in the first row on the lap of an 86 -year -old lady, and got up, dusted himself off, said, oh, ma 'am,
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I'm so sorry. She said, it's my fault, son. You warned me three times. And I would not listen.
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And those of you that have heard that, that's courteous. Courteous for you to say that. What I want to talk to you about this morning is some things that have been going on in my heart and in my mind.
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I taught homiletics, that's the art and science of preaching at New Tri's Bible Institute.
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But this is not going to be an exercise in homiletics this morning. I just want to share with you some things
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I have been thinking about and praying over and asking the Lord to remind me about if it was really from Him.
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And I find that as I have recently passed my 25th birthday, that you can't sleep as well always as you used to.
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You young guys that just sleep through whatever, enjoy it. And I find myself awakened sometimes in the night, and I'm thinking some things.
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And you never know whether the things you think are from the Lord or whether they're from having gotten the wrong pizza with anchovies on it or something like that.
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And so I just ask the Lord in those kinds of times, Lord, if this is just what
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I'm thinking just is not from You, then just let me forget it in the morning. On the other hand, if this really is something you're putting on my heart and in my mind, then let it be nurtured and let it come back over and over to me.
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And what I want to share with you this morning is one of those kinds of things. I think it comes from perhaps age.
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You start thinking about some things more than others as you get older. I think it may come from the fact that in New Tribes Mission, when we deliver the gospel to tribal people, we do not start at John 3 .16
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or the Romans Road or four things God wants you to know or the four spiritual laws or any of that with people that have no background in the
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Bible. You don't start there. You start in the beginning, God. And we have seen remarkable periods of people coming to Christ in the tribes as we have delivered the gospel from the bottom up as our people have done that.
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When I was at the Bible Institute, I taught Pentateuch. That's the first five books of the Bible. And it's very different there.
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Some places you teach that and you go, well, you teach that because that's where it starts and so that's where it will start.
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But New Tribes missionaries understand that when they start in Genesis, that they are at the very beginning of the gospel.
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And I'll tell you what, as a teacher of that class, you get a hundred people in your Pentateuch class, it changes your perspective when you realize that when you start out in the beginning,
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God, you are looking at people that are one day going to be standing before a tribe explaining to people who never heard of him who he is and they will begin there.
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Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis says all of the doctrines of the church are in outline in the first 11 chapters of Genesis.
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I think he's pretty close to right. And so it's crucial that we start there.
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Anyway, having worked with that, we hope to do that in this penitentiary, I have come to realize that I have underestimated woefully the depth of my lostness before I came to Christ.
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And if you underestimate the depth of your lostness before you come to Christ, you will underestimate the value of the salvation that is in him.
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And so I want to talk about the business of people being lost that are outside of Christ this morning for just a few moments.
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I want to give you a few statistics. Charlie, put the first one up there. I don't know if you're familiar with the Barna Group.
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They're a group that does surveying among people all over the
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United States, but it's about Christianity and that sort of thing. Their definition of a biblical worldview when they are interviewing people are these things, that if that person, and they don't say, do you believe absolute moral truth exists?
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They just listen. But they measure up the answers according to these things. Absolute moral truth exists.
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The source of moral truth is the Bible. The Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches, that eternal spiritual salvation cannot be earned, that Jesus lived a sinless life on earth, that every person has a responsibility to share their religious beliefs with others, that Satan is a living force, not just a symbol of evil, and that God is the all -knowing, all -powerful maker of the universe who still rules that creation today.
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Now, you ask yourself, when the Barna Group starts going through the population and they're asking questions that speak to these kinds of things, how many people in the
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United States do they conclude have a biblical worldview? Next.
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5%. 5 % of Americans adopt and endorse those things.
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But, next, 88 % of Americans say they feel accepted by God.
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And you'll hear that statistic on the news all the time. 80 % of people in the United States believe in God.
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And I say to you, I'm going to step up here where I can see this a little better. And I say to you this morning, people in the
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United States are in the same shape as the tribal people that New Tribes missionaries go to all over.
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There's 3 ,400 New Tribes missionaries around the world. We're working in about 20 countries and over 200 tribes.
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They go in, they learn the culture, they learn the language, they begin to translate. And the assumption always is there is no biblical background.
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I think you can see from these statistics the people that live across the street from you, down the block from you, they've got cuter toys, but they're tribal as they can be.
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For that reason, you cannot go someplace and just say, for God so loved the world that He gave
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His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
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Because when you say God in the United States in 2009, there are 85 different definitions.
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And you'd better define it before you start throwing the Scripture out. I always had kids at New Tribes that came from churches that kind of saw the
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Bible as a little amulet. All we have to do is get in front of people and give them a verse.
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Because it's God's Word, it's going to do the job. And so I would always say to them, well, maybe we could do this.
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We could just go to the Gideons and get cases of Bibles. And then we'll just drive up and down the streets of Waukesha, Wisconsin, and we'll throw them at people on the street.
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And because it's the Word of God, it will get there, and it will overcome all of the things that they assume to be true or don't assume to be true or have never thought about or whatever.
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And, of course, they always go, no, no, no, that would be really dumb. Well, you know what? It's equally as dumb to study the culture of people that you're trying to witness to.
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And that would be our neighbors in the United States. One -third of the 80 % who feel that they are accepted by God, that should be of the 88%, say they are not deeply spiritual.
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Oh, yeah, I'm accepted by God. No, I don't think about spiritual things. I mean, add that up. That's 2 plus 2 plus 7.
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It's like the United States Senate. Okay? Well, that may explain a few things now that I think about it.
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Okay, one -third, or 50 % of the 88 % feel accepted by God but are not born again.
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Oh, born again. Don't go down that road with me, brother. Okay. 82 % of Americans say they are clear about the purpose and meaning of their life.
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And I think they've probably been smoking something. That's what I think. Okay, and it may interest you to know that in places that characterize themselves as evangelical, only churches, only 30 % of the people in those churches believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth.
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Now, an absolute truth is a truth that is applicable to all people in all places and for all times.
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I'm going to give you an example. I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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No man comes to the Father but by me. Now you understand why in the
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United States in 2009, in 2009, there is such hostility to Christianity.
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It is part of the post -modern baggage brought on us by the 60s kids, which says there is no absolute truth.
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There are only stories. Everybody has a story. All of our stories are equal.
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And if you attempt to tell me that your story is better than my story, then you're pulling a power play.
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Don't do that. We're all equal. You see, and we Christians run around the landscape saying stuff just like that.
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No, that's nutty. Here's the truth right here. Oh, no, you
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Christians are trying to pull a power play. That's why the hostility to Christianity in this country.
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Go on, Charlie, or I'm not going to get done. Why the disconnect?
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And I put this slide in last night because I thought of Bethlehem Bible Church. As far as I know, from its inception, certainly during the time
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I was here, and now, there has been a premium on the solid exposition of the
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Scriptures. In depth, not broadly.
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This is George Barna. He says, it seems to me that few people in churches have a biblical worldview because most preachers seem intent on teaching broadly rather than deeply.
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That's the little counseling session that goes for 20 minutes on a Sunday morning in some churches. That's the little encouragement to get your life cleaned out and your garage cleaned out at the same time in little churches, in little homilies that will not irritate you, but make you feel better and make you think, maybe
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I could get through to the next Sunday if I just do that. So, folks, you are in a place of great blessing, whether you know it or not.
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Even when they even try to irritate you, okay? Because the
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Word is taught here in depth, and I know that. And I trust that you know it, too.
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Okay, next, Charlie. Let's talk about godly sorrow for a minute. Why is it that 30 % of people in evangelical churches don't think there's any absolute truth?
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And I think it is because there is not such a thing as godly sorrow over sin in the
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United States anymore. Paul said to the Corinthians, godly sorrow leads to repentance, as he talked to them about harboring a guy that was in immorality in their midst.
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And then the guy got restored. Paul said, that's great. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. That results, that repentance results, or that godly sorrow,
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I should say, results from a proper fear of God. Now, right away in the United States, we start getting crawly when you start talking about the fear of God.
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Oh, that's Puritan talk, right? Oh, oh, oh, we don't really mean fear of God. We mean we just have great respect for Him.
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Oh, we just have great reverence for Him. And I think we've missed it when we do that.
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We soften it. We're always attempting to soften it. We're always attempting to turn reality into a marshmallow.
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Okay? Now, I think when the Scriptures speak of the fear of God, they mean you ought to be afraid under some circumstances of God.
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And I'll talk about that this morning. That proper fear of God results from an appropriate appreciation of His purity, power, and majesty.
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And I'll get to the next point in a minute. When we start in Genesis with tribal people, a typical teaching span goes like this.
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The missionary, once he's learned the culture well enough, once he's learned the heart language, this isn't an interpreter deal.
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Okay? I've preached with interpreters. You never know if they're saying what you're saying, for one thing. In fact,
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I know about a deal in Africa where this poor fellow, a pastor came from the United States, and this poor interpreter...
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How many of you have heard Spanish spoken and you don't know it? How does it sound?
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Real slow? No, it sounds real fast like that. Well, guess what? English sounds the same way to them.
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I have a friend in South America that said, Oh yeah, muy rapido, Don Roberto. And you hiss.
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Okay? So they can't follow. Well, anyway, this poor guy in Africa, this pastor started preaching.
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Oh man, he was going at it. And this interpreter was telling our language consultant, he said,
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I kept getting further and further behind and it wouldn't stop. And he just kept rolling on.
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He said, finally I got so far behind, I couldn't even figure out where he was or where I was.
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And so Wayne Gill says to him, Well, what did you do? He said,
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Well... He kind of put his head down like this. He told them a story about going fishing and they loved it.
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Okay. And I suppose the pastor went back and said,
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Hey man, I preached, they loved it. Thousands were saved and all that kind of thing.
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In any case, when we start with these tribal people in their mother tongue, knowing their culture, so you know what they're thinking when they say some things.
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I mean, you know what I'm thinking when I say, Let's get down to the bottom line. Don't you?
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I'm sure you do. That's because you're English speakers. And our language, like every language, is filled with idioms.
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But you say, Let's get down to the bottom line to a Quechua from the highlands of Bolivia.
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And he's going to go, Where is it? Okay. And so on.
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That's a problem. You've got to speak from the heart language. You've got to know what the thoughts are behind all of the words and so on.
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So as we start, the missionary will teach typically three months in the first evangelistic lessons.
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He will teach twice a day, five days a week. Usually you can pull that off in tribes. He will not mention
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Jesus Christ by name until he has taught for two months.
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But by the time he gets to Jesus, the people understand something about the purity, power, and majesty of God.
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In fact, in the Moke tribe of West New Britain and Papua New Guinea, when the missionary comes to the events surrounding
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Sodom and Gomorrah, the people say, We are just like those people. Now hurry up and get on to the end of the story.
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They became afraid that God would judge them. Probably hasn't happened on your block any time recently, right?
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Okay. I think that godly sorrow and the repentance that comes from it and that appreciation of the purity, power, and majesty of God is the result of a few terrifying encounters with him.
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And when we short circuit the Old Testament, we miss those terrifying encounters.
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I'm quite convinced that there are people sitting in our churches all over this country that are really thinking deep down inside.
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I wouldn't say it to the pastor. Deep down inside. Is this God in the Old Testament? Is this the same one that I read about in the
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New Testament? It isn't because we are very, very amable.
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We are very... We like. We like.
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Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me. You know what? Jesus loves me is almost meaningless if you don't understand where that love goes.
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And we won't understand where that love goes if we don't appreciate the situation we are in concerning the majesty, purity, and power of God.
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Now, you can have those terrifying encounters with him either directly, and some have, or vicariously.
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That's what the Old Testament is about. We need to meditate on the Old Testament. We need to think through some of the things that we read there, and I'm going to do that with you in a few minutes this morning.
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So, if there is no godly sorrow, there is no repentance. If there is no repentance, there is no salvation because the preachers of the
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New Testament, as you know, always went to, you must repent, believe
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Peter on the day of Pentecost, repent, believing upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and be baptized.
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It always went that way. Now, don't get on me about, oh, you mean repentance is a work of salvation.
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No, no, no. It's nothing like that. Repentance will not save you, but you can't be saved without it.
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Repentance means to turn the other way, to change your mind. Guess what? You can't turn from sin to Christ without having repented.
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It won't work. It's like saying I want to walk out of this room, but I'm not going through the opening there.
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I'm going to do something else. So, if there is no repentance, I suggest to you there is no salvation, and I think there are people sitting in churches all over this country this morning who are not saved, and they are not saved because they have not repented and turned from sin.
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They have come to Christ for all kinds of reasons. I sat in a membership class in a mega church in the
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Midwest, and I heard testimonies like this. Well, I was just so alienated and lonely and disaffected, and I went through the divorce, and I had tried yoga, and I had tried this, and I had tried that.
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I just thought I had tried God, and it was so wonderful. And I'm sitting there going,
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Yes? Is somebody in this class going to say, Dear lady, you've got a problem.
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Went by. Went on. That lady was not saved.
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It wasn't about sin and a Savior. It was about my disaffection, my alienation, my problems, my this, my that.
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It's all about me. And when Jesus is all about me, that's not biblical
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Christianity. That's Oprah Winfrey. Okay, next. I want to run down quickly just what the situation is here.
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We're going to come to Genesis chapter 3 pretty quick. And I want to just kind of explain by these diagrams what the situation is with mankind.
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First of all, I think the distinction in the Scriptures between the spirit, the soul, and body is an important distinction.
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Some theologians will say, Oh, well, the spirit, the soul, you know, those things are interchanged. No, no, no, no. In Genesis we read that God created
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Adam. I symbolize God there with the triangle. It's the best
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I can do. Okay. And then after He had created him out of the dust of the ground, and it goes out of its way with Adam to say
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He breathed into him the breath of life. Now the words that are used there for breath, for wind, for all those things are the same words that are used for spirit,
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Holy Spirit, and so on. When God breathed into Adam the breath of life,
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He gave him spiritual life. That is that connection, that direct connection between God, the spirit.
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God is a spirit. They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. And there is a direct connection in the beginning between God, the spirit, and Adam's spirit.
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Adam also has a soul. He has a mind with which to reason. He's created in the image of God. He has emotions with which to feel after God.
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He's created in the image of God. He has a body that will permit him to live here on this earth, created by God.
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And his soul, his mind, his emotions, his will, all get their information from his spirit, which is alive because it is connected to God in the beginning.
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Then you know the rest of the story. Go, Charlie. Adam chose to sin.
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That's one of the features of his soul, right? His will. The ability to choose between this and that.
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And by the way, there is no such thing as free will. It does not exist.
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If you think free will exists, you just will yourself to fly out of here this afternoon and let's see how far it goes.
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Okay. You have some choices you can make, but they're not infinite choices.
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Only God has free will. Alright? Adam chose to align himself with Satan and he fell into sin.
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That connection between God the Spirit and Adam's spirit, that was severed immediately. But Adam's still had a soul and he's still had a body.
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But since he was no longer getting input through his spirit from God, his soul, his mind, his emotions, his will began to be run by the passions of his body.
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You'll hear the Bible talk about that over and over again. There's a reason for that. He's dead in his spirit.
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So now the body rules the day. And many of the lists of sins that you see in the
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Scriptures, they are related to a body out of control.
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Okay, next, Charlie. Then comes Jesus into the picture. And when
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Jesus comes, He is characterized by the Scriptures as full of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus, the second
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Adam, operates only more so since He is the God -man.
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He operates just like the first Adam did before he sinned. And all the information comes from His Spirit.
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And all that He does comes from Him. I only do what I see the Father doing. I only say and hear what
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I hear the Father saying. It's repeated over and over again in the Gospels. And so Jesus comes on the scene.
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He is the second Adam. Next, Charlie. And He comes into a world of men with dead spirits, but living souls and living bodies.
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Well, bodies are on the way to dying to be sure, but nevertheless alive. And then when any of those men come to Christ, next, they are said to be repeatedly in the
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New Testament, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. And now, the
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Spirit is alive. That's why Paul writes in Romans 8, 10, your body is dead because of sin, but your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
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And the righteousness is not your righteous behavior. You and I don't have righteous behavior.
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Even as Christians, we do not have righteous behavior. We're working on it, but we don't have it.
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But we do have this. We have the imputed, that's the Old English, the reckoned, the counted righteousness of Christ Himself which makes us acceptable to God.
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That's what we have. On the worst days of my life, and there are quite a few, as far as a spiritual experience is concerned, on the worst days of my life,
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I possess sufficient righteousness that I can stand before a holy God, not because of me, but because of Him.
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So, I begin to get information. Does the Scripture not say, the
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Holy Spirit takes up residence in your body? Indeed. Indeed. So, now the
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Spirit has come into my body. His Spirit bears witness with my what? With my spirit that I am a child of God.
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Romans 8 again. His Spirit intercedes for me with words too intense to be uttered in my spirit.
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In my spirit. So, when we have come to Christ, our spirits have become alive. God now communes with us in our spirit, and we can begin to get information for our mind, for our emotions, and our will that comes again once more from the
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Spirit down. That's why Paul prays for the Thessalonians. I pray that your whole spirit and soul and body...
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We always say this, don't we? Oh, my body, soul, and spirit. No, no. I pray that your whole spirit and soul and body may be kept perfect till the coming of the
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Lord, and so on. That's a paraphrase, not a translation. Next, Charlie. The problem that we have right now, this side of heaven is, that we are very used to taking information from our bodies.
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We are always looking out for our own comfort. We are always looking out for our own physical well -being.
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And it's a great problem because our bodies are often given a sinful information, even as believers.
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However, when our spirits are alive, we begin to get some input spiritually.
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You see it's little there in that diagram. But we can cultivate listening to the
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Spirit, listening and being sensitive to our spirit, where God's Spirit bears witness with us that we are
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His children. Okay? So that's kind of the deal. That's what's happened. From the fall, through the coming of Christ, to the new creation.
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I want to go to the third chapter of Genesis. Probably you have your Bible, unless you are
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United Baptists. That's a group, dear people.
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But they have really taken the passage in John, which says, the Lord is going to give you the words to say when you need to say it.
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And so what they do, is they just get up in the pulpit, and they open their mouths and expect the
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Lord to say something. And Mike and I were talking about this, and he said, I think the Lord is saying, pick up your
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Bible. Okay? But that's not how they interpret that. And some of them are even offended if you take a
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Bible into the pulpit. Okay? But you probably have your Bibles with you this morning. Okay?
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The third chapter of John is the fall of man. Next slide, Charlie. I'm down at verse 20.
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Now the man... First of all, I'm not going to rehearse the curse, because you all know about it. But it ends with,
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By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust.
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And you know about the Proto -Evangelium, the first mention of the Savior in Genesis 3 .15, where God promises that the offspring of the woman, and you notice it's the offspring of the woman.
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No man is mentioned in that. He will destroy
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Satan, even though wounded in the process. That's verse 15, if you haven't looked at that before. And then from verse 20, we go right to verse 21,
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And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. I am interested in verse 20 and a half.
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Something went on there between verses 20 and 21, where God communicated to Adam some things that are not said explicitly.
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You say, how do you know that? I know that because Cain and Abel knew they were to go and make sacrifice.
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Now they didn't come up with that just because they were exceptional children. Some place along the line,
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God had communicated to their father what he needed to communicate to them. As I thought about that,
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I thought about, I wonder what the dialogue was between God and Adam, right there at verse 20 and a half.
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And so I infer the dialogue which I read to you now. You say, wait a minute, it's just Bethlehem Bible Church.
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We don't infer. We don't infer what might be in the Bible. I want you to be aware of the fact that what
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I read to you now is my inference that comes from all the rest of the
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Scriptures. And I have the advantage of being 3 ,500 years down the road looking back at the whole deal.
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So I'm going to say in this dialogue some things that have turned out to be true.
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And I'm going to suggest that perhaps God gave these things to Adam, at least in their outline form.
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And as I got rolling on this, you know, it got to be more than an outline. I know that will shock some of you to think that.
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But I did write it. And I don't write much. As some of you know, I don't write much. But I did write this because I do not want to be imprecise.
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I do not want to wander from the Scriptures. Okay? You tell them like that.
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And so here's what I suggest happened. God said, from dust you came and dust you will return.
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Okay? I'm going to call my wife Eve because she's the mother of all living. Adam speaks, why don't you take us from our bodies right now?
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Why do you delay the return of our bodies to dust? The Lord answers him, because I've already promised that I would fix the mess you've made and that I would do it through an offspring of the woman that I gave you.
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It's not possible for me to break my word. That is not part of my nature of being. You therefore must have descendants from whom that offspring will come.
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Further, my remedy will save some of your descendants from suffering the fate of Satan who deceived you.
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They will be reunited with me. They will be saved. Some will not be saved, but will bear responsibility for rejecting my effort and provision to save them.
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All of your descendants will be born dead. They will have no connection in their spirits to me.
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They will be destined to physical death as well. Some of them I will permit to live physically till their bodies wither away.
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Some of them I will destroy if or when they offend my holiness egregiously. Some of them
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I will seek out and destroy because I choose to do so. Any of them not destroyed immediately by me are the objects of my forbearance, my grace, my mercy.
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Why do you hate us so? I don't hate you. I love you. But I don't like you.
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It's going to cost me more than you can imagine to repair the damage you've done and save some of you. My anger at your sin is not an expression of my love or my hatred.
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But my plan to restore some of you is an expression of my love. You have sided with Satan.
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You have rebelled against me. You have violated me. I find your disobedience repugnant.
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I find you repugnant. We are now at war. It didn't seem like a big deal.
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It was just a piece of fruit. That's what your offspring are going to say.
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Any violation of my word is a big deal, an enormous offense, a violation of my person.
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I told you that you'd die if you violated my word. If I do not carry out that sentence,
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I would violate my own word. That is not possible. I sentenced
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Lucifer to eternal destruction, and should I violate my word with you, he will expect that I could violate it with him.
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If I violate my own word in the slightest way, neither the visible nor the invisible universe would remain.
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I created it by my word, and I sustain it by my word. Your transgression threatens the existence of all that is created.
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Adam, will I ever be able to enjoy your presence again?
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The Lord answers him, maybe, but not while you live on the earth. You may not approach me.
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You have become repulsive, and I am holy, now totally other than you. You threaten the very existence of all that is.
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Your descendants may not approach me because you were created in my image, and because I created you different from all the rest of my creation.
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You will have a remembrance of knowing me. You must tell the ones that come after you what has happened here.
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Your descendants will be aware of my existence, though they cannot approach me or know me. They will bear the remnants of my image through you.
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They will try to make sense of their existence, assigning causes for every effect and every event, but because they are dead in their spirits, the reasoning will be futile.
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Their conclusions will not account for what they observe. They will have a need to assign rightness or wrongness to their behavior, but will be unable to decide which is which because they will only be connected to you and not to me.
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They will sense emptiness inside and devise various ways to feel after me and reach out to me so they can feel whole.
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Those attempts will be a failure as well as an affront and an offense to me. Their self -effort will be as revolting to me as your sin, not to mention the lame attempt to cover your nakedness with fig leaves.
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They may even attempt to worship my creation, including themselves, thinking
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I will be pleased. I may kill them outright when they try this, or I may extend grace and mercy to give them time to repent if they will.
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That will be up to me, Adam. Then there's nothing we can do.
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How will any of us survive? You're right. There is nothing you can do.
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You see these animals? I'm going to kill them now instead of you now. I will accept their death in your place for now and delay the moment of wrenching you out of your bodies and returning them to the dust.
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The animals have done nothing wrong. Indeed, they are incapable of choosing to do right or wrong.
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It's not part of their nature. You have sided with Satan and rebelled against me.
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Nevertheless, I will take their innocent lives in place of yours. I will pour out their blood, for their life is in their blood.
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When you or your descendants desire me or attempt to approach me, I will not kill them if they bring a life of my choosing for me to take in place of their own.
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When I see the blood, I will pass them by and let them live. Without the shedding of blood,
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I cannot overlook their sin, for sin causes death. If they do not do this exactly as I say,
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I may kill them outright. I will certainly reject them, even if I delay their death by my mercy and grace.
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You must instruct your children to follow my instructions precisely. Do not make the mistake again of believing that I will not keep my word.
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You have never seen death, but now you will see the devastation that you have brought on my creation as I take the lives of these innocent animals instead of yours.
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I will make of their skin a covering for your nakedness and shame. That covering will remind you that sin causes death.
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And then we come to verse 21. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
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I have no idea what you're thinking as I read that, but my guess is that in the United States and the world in which we live, people go, oh, that's really tough.
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Our picture of God dealing with Adam and Eve after they fell is that He was grieved and He was sad and He just wished
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He didn't have to do it all. And I say, no, He was angry. Next, Charlie. He was angry.
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For the 24th verse says, He drove the man out of Eden. It doesn't say with tears in His eyes, see you later.
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It wasn't that. He drove them out of Eden. By the way, He drove them out to the east.
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And this is another whole deal we'll do some other time. I don't think the Garden of Eden was at the Tigris and Euphrates like some people do over in Mesopotamia.
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It was Eretz Israel. It was where Israel is. That little piece of real estate is the navel of the
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Bible. When Adam and Eve were without sin, there they were, in a perfect place.
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God drove them out to the east. Guess what's east of Eden? Sounds like John Steinbeck, right? Guess what's east of Eden?
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Babylon. What is Babylon always in the Bible? Beginning at the Tower of Babel.
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It is the seat of rebellion against God. So you see to say, the folks that say it was over in Mesopotamia, they fall into the trap of our evolutionary friends believing that all things continue from the beginning now as they were from the beginning.
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That's not true at all. We even know that's not true from our observations. But we are unable to come to correct conclusions because of our lostness.
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I'll go to just a few places. There's not time to do this. God drove the man out. I sense that there is anger there.
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He put cherubim in the place with flaming swords and said they're not coming back. I don't see so many tears in the eyes and all of that that we like to think when this comes.
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Over at Leviticus 10, 1 -3, we see... and I'm not going to have time to turn there because I know you're getting nervous about donuts.
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Leviticus 10, 1 -3, we have the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and they bring what the
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Bible calls strange fire to the Lord. And what happened there, you can't understand unless you go to Leviticus 9.
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And what happened in Leviticus 9 is Aaron made the first sacrifice on the altar that was prescribed by God for the tabernacle and then everybody stepped back and fire from heaven came down and consumed that sacrifice and lit that altar up.
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Now apparently, Nadab and Abihu thought, that's cool. So we'll just go get fire from some place.
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The rabbis see this. They went and got fire from some place and came and offered to do that.
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Guess what? Fire from heaven fell again and consumed Nadab and Abihu.
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Why? They did not come in the way that God had prescribed. God said, I will light the fire on the altar.
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I will take care of the sacrifices. That's why you're going to keep it going perpetually because I light it, not you.
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These guys presume to light it and they get lit up in the process.
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In Numbers 11, 1, we find the people complaining against God. They said they are like people who seem distressed and they complained and it was in the presence of God and the
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Lord heard it. And it says, his anger was kindled. I'm using here the
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Greek word. And we get a little bridge, as you'll recall, in the Greek translation of the
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Old Testament called the Septuagint. And we go over there to Leviticus and we see how those
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Greek scholars a century before Christ, how did they translate the
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Lord's anger was kindled against them. The Greek word is orge. It means I am angry.
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I am angry. I am angry enough to punish you. You have presumed to do something that ought not to be done.
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And indignation is written all over the Greek word orge. And yet it's not the most intense expression for anger that is in the
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Greek New Testament or the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. By the way, for those of you who find that Septuagint just rolls off of our gringo tongues nicely, you've got to get the emphasis on the right syllable.
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It is the first one and it is Septuagint. And I think maybe that came from Eastern Kentucky because in Eastern Kentucky it's hotel, motel, insurance.
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Well, this is Septuagint. Tell that to Michael. Okay. Now, and what happened when the
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Lord's anger was kindled against them is fire came and burned the outskirts of the camp.
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And the people scattered and they came to Moses and said, stop him. Just like they did at the giving of the Ten Commandments.
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When the Lord gave the Ten Commandments to the people and they said, we were wrong. We can't stand direct communication with the
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Lord. Why? They were sinful. We cannot approach Him. Let us come to Him through you.
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Don't have Him speak to us anymore. We'll die. Okay. You see, we need to see all of those things in the
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Old Testament so that when we begin to realize that we are lost like those Old Testament people, we understand that God is not just shedding a tear in heaven over it.
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He is out to get us. We are at war with God. Number 16.
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We certainly don't have time to read that whole chapter. This is the account of Korah's rebellion. The deal went like this.
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The Levites, Korah's family, one of the Levite families who were to serve at the tabernacle came and said, hey,
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Aaron's family, they're the high priests. Well, you know, this sounds sort of like Washington, D .C.
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Hey, you know, we're all equal here. Why do Aaron and Moses and Aaron's family, why are they the priests?
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I think we should be able to offer whatever we think we ought to offer. Does this sound familiar to you?
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Sounds 21st century to me. I think we ought to be able to do whatever we want to do. Okay?
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So Moses said to them, isn't it enough for you Levites that the Lord has set you aside to come and serve me in the tabernacle?
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Isn't that enough for you? Okay? And so the Lord said, Moses, you and Aaron, you stand back.
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I'm going to incinerate them all. And Moses interceded for them and said, oh, it's only these guys from Korah's family that are attempting this.
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Okay, then tell the people, get away from these guys from Korah's family because I'm going to do something to them all.
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So Moses said, okay, you guys that we're all egalitarian here, that we're all equal and so on, you come the next morning and you bring with you censers and you have fire in those censers and we'll put it before the
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Lord. You know the end of the story, don't you? They put it before the Lord. The ground opened up and swallowed them.
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The Scriptures say that they went alive straight to Sheol. That's how it characterizes that.
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This is not God shedding a tear about His person being violated. This is God finding sin and sinners repugnant.
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We always say, and this is a little softer for us and we're for soft in the United States. We always say, well, we've got to separate the sin from the sinner.
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God didn't. The earth opened up and swallowed them. That's a lesson, by the way, on the
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Tenth Commandment and it convicts me. How many times did I want to be John MacArthur?
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Well, not a lot. But you know, if somebody else has a ministry, oh man, there's a commandment about that.
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Don't envy. These guys envied the position of Moses and Aaron.
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They went straight to Sheol when the ground opened up. Okay? Then we come to Uzzah.
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You know this story. They were going to bring the Ark of the Covenant with David and they decided they'd put it on a cart pulled by oxen.
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Okay? And what was the problem with that, by the way? How was the
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Ark of the Covenant to be carried? By rails that went through it and carried by people.
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But no, no. We're moderns. We have better technology now. Okay? So we're going to put it on a cart and as they get to a threshing floor, the oxen stumble and the cart goes like that and Uzzah, with every good intention, puts his hand up to steady the
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Ark. Now here's what the Bible says. I don't have time to turn there this morning. But the Bible says that God burst out against him.
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That would be a pretty literal translation. And he died there.
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And the word there in the Septuagint, which is carried over into the New Testament, is thumas.
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That's not like orge. Orge is, this makes me angry and we're going to settle it.
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But we're going to be kind of... Thumas is more like what I do when I drop a 2x6 on my foot.
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Okay? It's just intense. It's instant. And it's translated here,
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God burst out against him. And guess what? Then David had thumas.
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And David had thumas for the same reason that you and I do when we think about that story. Wait a minute! The guy was just trying to keep the
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Ark from falling on the ground. Why did you kill him instantly?
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Because I told you not to do that. That's why. And then David's thumas went...
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Okay, I got it. Romans 2 .8
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I want to turn there. I'm going to get done. And I'm going to try to make that not a pastoral statement to make you rest easier.
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Okay? To those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth...
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This is Paul writing the indictment against all mankind for sin. They will have wrath and indignation.
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The two words are orge and thumas. They will have orge and thumas. Okay? They will have the judgment of God because He is angry at sin, but He will burst out against them.
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I took Lindsay to work on Friday. And as I was coming home, I flipped on the radio and there was
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John MacArthur, of all people. Okay? And he happened to be talking about Romans 2 .8.
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And he went into this whole orge and thumas thing. And I thought,
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I don't remember him calling me to ask about how this deal was supposed to go. But anyway,
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I got by that. But I liked the way that he described thumas.
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And he went into this whole orge and thumas thing. And I thought,
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I don't remember him calling me to ask about ways to... And he went into this whole orge and thumas thing.
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And I thought, I don't remember him calling me to ask about sellers of sacrifices out of the temple.
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Okay, next. We come to this matter of sellers of sacrifices out of the temple.
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Okay, next. We come to this matter of sellers of sacrifices out of the temple.
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Okay, next. We come to this matter of not only making amends for wrong, but it is satisfying the anger of the one that was wronged.
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Christ is the one that relieved God of orge and thumas when
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He shed His blood on the cross for us. That's how that deal goes. We have an advocate with the
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Father. He is Jesus Christ the righteous. And not for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world.
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He is the propitiation. Not just for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. Now let me give you this quick example.
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If you were to run over my... I'm not even going to tell you which one... car in the parking lot. Okay. And total it, the insurance company would give me a third of the value of the car.
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It's got 112 ,000 miles on it. It's just a little over three years old. And, you know, they'd say,
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Are you kidding? We're going to... Okay, we can give you, you know, a third of its value. And in that case,
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I would have been expiated. Okay. That would be expiation. I would have been legally dealt with for the wrong that was done to me.
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But here's the problem, folks. I would have no wheels. And I cannot buy a car with real wheels for $8 ,000 anymore.
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And it ticks me off. Now, expiation is not going to be good enough.
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I need propitiation. And what that means is, you and I go down to the nearest new car dealer and you buy a new one for me.
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Okay? Then I would consider myself propitiated. My anger would subside.
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I would no longer want to punch you in the mouth. And all of those other thumos -type things that creep up in situations like that.
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That is exactly what has happened with God as Jesus poured out His blood on the cross for us.
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Let me just leave you with this. You could not sit there.
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I could not stand here today even discussing these things if God did not see the blood.
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He has been propitiated by the shed blood of Christ. Next, Charlie.
01:00:04
The war is over. Romans 5 .1 says, Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Now to most warm and fuzzy Americans, that means, oh, now having been justified by faith,
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I have tranquility. No!
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What it means is God has stopped looking for you. God has stopped thinking maybe you're the one He chooses to kill outright just because He chooses to do it because you're a sinner.
01:00:34
What Romans 5 .1 means is the war is over for the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
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And for His resurrection, we have been predestined to His adoption of sons.
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We are no longer repugnant. We have become lovely in His sight for Jesus' sake.
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You say, well, we're all believers. So, you know, you don't have to give that fire and brimstone stuff to us. But you know what?
01:01:00
I think as believers, we have to leave. We have a long drive to get back to eastern Kentucky and we have to get back.
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So, we won't be here for your worship service. But as you come to worship this morning, understand that if the
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Father did not see the blood, He might incinerate this place. If you think
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I've come to worship and I feel in a really good singing mood this morning and God will be excited about my enthusiasm.
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No! God is excited about the blood shed on the cross. And so we come and He sees us lovely in the person of His Son.
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Okay? I know we come boldly to the throne, but not apart from the shed blood of Christ.
01:01:55
And we're so fortunate that God is no longer angry for His sake.
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We ought to remember it as we understand what we were before we knew Him. We will come to embrace what we are because we do know
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Him. And the worship will really be something then. Something like we read about in Revelation 4 and 5 at the great scene in heaven.
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Let's pray. Thank You, Father, for Your Word. Forgive us,
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Father, for not fully understanding the anger that was deserved toward us.
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And we praise You and worship You and embrace You, Father, for having provided Your precious
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Son to shed His blood to rise again that we might be adopted into Your family and found lovely by You.
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We worship You this morning for that. And we praise You for what