The Doctrine of Propitiation (Sermon #2 Camp Meeting 2024 - Randall Easter)

The Meaning of Propitiation and the Core of the Gospel

Don't have any fear. My bedtime is 9 o 'clock. I will be in the bed. You don't have to worry. In case you're interested, I am married. I think I forgot the years. Maybe 35, 36, I forgot. I do have four kids.

I do have four grandkids. But you probably don't know that I'm about to have five grandkids. So my son Caleb and his wife are expecting. So in December, we're hoping to have our fifth grandson, we hope.

But we'll see. All right. So anyways, it's not on Facebook because I don't even know how to get on there. But it's not on Twitter or X because I don't know how to get on there either. But anyways, you know.

Now you can post it. Yeah, there you go. Whatever. And if people are bored and have nothing to do with their life, they can read it. All right. Don't let me get started on that.

Okay. Thank you for letting me come.

And let's get to it tonight. I'm going to preach on the word propitiation. Propitiation. There are three great words in the Bible that I love. They are related. The word atonement, and the word expiation, and the word propitiation.

In Spanish there's only two of those, but in English there are three. Atonement means to have your sins covered. Expiation means to have your sins taken away. But propitiation is a totally different word.

And people that know what it means don't like it. And it has to do with the removal of God's wrath. It's customary in Southern Baptist conferences that when they preach, to pick on people like Joel Osteen because it's easy.

I have no time to pick on him. I want to pick on some Southern Baptist people in history. You may not know their names, but we need to take just a moment to set the stage so I have a pre-introduction to the introduction.

Alright? An introduction to the introduction. But we need to understand propitiation is at the very center or the core of the Gospel. And we need to know how it has been attacked in history. And so let me give you just a few little pieces to tie this together.

It comes from Germany. It comes from a guy by the name of Sleimacher. You don't have to worry about knowing the names. I'm just going to say them real quick and move on. But Sleimacher rejected the claim that the death of Christ is substitutionary or vicarious.

He said Christ did not die in the place of sinners bearing the wrath of God. He did not do that. Sleimacher is against that. Instead of that view, Sleimacher proposed that Christ's death and resurrection demonstrated God's love for human beings.

Rather than emphasizing wrath, it emphasized love. Another guy followed right up on his heels, stating that Christ died as a revelation of the depth of God's love towards sinners. All you need to hear in that is there's a moving away from God's wrath upon His Son to a focusing upon God's love.

That's where the move started. Since way back, they rejected any substitutionary or vicarious understanding of the atonement, proposing maybe a moral influence theory or some type of love theory. Another guy comes along by the name of Bultman.

Most of the adherents to these theories denied the wrath of God against sinners at the cross, which was presented as a political act with a great moral lesson. The cross becomes a moral lesson. Now, understandably, that's liberal.

I get it. I know that. A vast majority of Southern Baptists also were opposed to such a view, did not want to see us go down such a liberal road. But within the Southern Baptists themselves, there was an inherent problem.

It started in New Orleans Seminary, and it started with a guy by the name of Theodore Clark. Theodore Clark was in 1959. He was a professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He wrote a book, and this is what the book was titled, Saved by His Life, A Study of the New Testament Doctrine of Reconciliation and Salvation.

In this particular book, Clark argued that Christians put far too much emphasis on the death and resurrection of Christ as the foundation for sinners and their salvation. Did you hear that? The theological professor, Clark, claimed that Christians put too much emphasis on the death and resurrection of Christ.

He was teaching in a Southern Baptist seminary, New Orleans Seminary. He also denied the righteousness of God and the righteous demands of the law that required a penal sacrifice. He rejected that and taught his students that, who would go on to be pastors.

Clark openly rejected theologies of the cross that propose that the crucified Jesus was regarded as man's substitute or as man's sin bearer, taking man's place so that God's wrath would fall on him rather than on sinful man.

He rejected all of that. I hope you're hearing he's rejecting the core essential of the gospel. Now, to be fair to history, the president in 1960 at New Orleans Seminary was Leo Elderman, and Leo Elderman fired him.

So he was fired.

But it didn't go away.

Another guy comes along by the name of Stagg, Frank Stagg. 1964, Stagg moved, not to New Orleans, but he moved to the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Stagg stridently denied any penal or substitutionary character of the cross.

Professor Stagg repeatedly and emphatically rejected what he called bloody cross religion. Bloody cross religion he rejected. He vociferously denied the necessity of the cross, insisting that, quote, God did not have to arrange a killing at Calvary in order to forgive sin.

In his influential book, New Testament Theology, which was published when he was in New Orleans Faculty Seminary there, he said, quote, God is free to forgive. The Father does not need to punish the Son in order to win the right to forgive.

Were the Father paid off, then there would be no forgiveness. God himself forgives, and in so doing, he assumes responsibility for the sinner. Stagg is saying the cross is not necessary. Later, there's a man by the name of Fisher Humphreys that comes along.

1978, Humphreys sought to shift the church away from penal substitution understanding of the atonement. Still moving away from this idea of propitiation. He wrote a book. Sounds like a book by John Owen, but it is not the same.

His book was titled The Death of Christ. But in this book, he emphatically denied that the Father punished the Son for our sins on the cross. In his own words, quote, Men punished him for alleged crimes, probably blasphemy and revolution, but God, who knew he was righteous, did not disapprove of him at all.

He approved of him. To put it another way, Jesus experienced the pain which a man might feel if he were being punished by God for great sins, but he was not punished by God. This move continued until it ended up in a debate forum, in which Paige Patterson debated Humphreys, and they had it out, but it was hoping to find some common ground, but it actually made the divide far greater than what it actually was.

Now, Patterson stood his ground, and he stood his ground on penal substitution based on Romans 3, and I'm glad that he did. Patterson argued that God has revealed himself to be bound by the necessity of his own character, which is the very point of Romans 3.

Now, you say, I don't understand all this. That's fine. It's not fine. But understand that the idea, the truth of Scripture, that God would pour out his wrath in the absolute full upon his Son on the cross in your place.

Is the heart of the Gospel.

But there are those liberal and liberal-leaning that cannot envision a God who would do such an act upon his own Son. Some would even call it divine child abuse. Or you will remember perhaps a story not too awful long ago where the Gettys wrote the song, In Christ Alone.

Well, the U .S .A. Presbyterians, Mary Louise Bringle, who was the chair for the Presbyterian committee, she wrote in the Christian century that some committee members objected to the line in that song.

They objected to this, quote, On that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. We like your song. We just don't like that line about wrath being satisfied on Christ. And so they submitted a letter to the Gettys and said, Could we change that line?

And they said, What does the line change to? They wanted to change the line to say, The love of God was magnified. Instead of the wrath of God satisfied, let's sing, The love of God was magnified. That sounds a lot better.

Could we change that? Thankful to the Gettys, they said, No. You can't change our song. And when they talked to Getty, he said this, He said, When we wrote in Christ alone, we wrote it to tell the whole Gospel.

The whole Gospel. If you take out the wrath, you don't have the whole Gospel, because at the centerpiece is this issue of the wrath of God. Now, that's the pre-introduction to the introduction. Now, let's begin in thinking this through.

Christ as the Propitiation in Romans 3 and Hebrews 2

Hoover Dam is located between Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936. At the bottom of Hoover Dam, it is 660 feet wide. At the top, it is 45 feet wide. It is 726 .4 feet tall. On the back side of this massive wall, there's water.

248 square miles of water. That's 28 .9 million acre feet of water. An acre feet of water is 325 ,000 gallons. That's a lot of water. Now, if you could imagine, for just a moment, if you will, a man standing at the bottom of the Hoover Dam.

He's standing there. And a man walks up to him and he says, Sir, the dam is breaking. There's a crack. And if you stay here, what's on the other side is surely going to consume you and you will be destroyed.

And the man looks at him and he says, Sir, they've been saying that for years. And nothing has happened. The dam will hold. However, if the dam does break, don't fear. And he pulls up. He pops his umbrella and he says,.

I've got an umbrella.

And it will keep the water off of me. The other man says, Sir, when that dam breaks, you're going to need something bigger than that umbrella. Propitiation is the removal of the wrath of God. Understand, God's wrath is precise.

God's wrath is patient. God's wrath is powerful. God's wrath is a judgment that will be specifically and pointedly applied to rebellious sinners who have transgressed His most holy law. And that wrath of God will be applied eternally.

God's wrath is building every day. Mounting higher, larger, thicker, and fuller. It keeps mounting until that inevitable day in which the dam breaks and His wrath bursts forth. In the book of Romans, this is going to be some related text, but in the book of Romans, God's perfect righteousness.

In Romans 3 and verse 25. And all the texts around there are very important, but I'm only going to have the time to just deal with some specific verses. In Romans 3 and verse 25. Whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith, this act, this work, this thing that God did had a purpose.

It was to show. It was to demonstrate. It was to make known. It was to show what? It was to show or to display God's righteousness. Because in His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins. But the sins must be dealt with.

The Old Testament saints died. They believed the Gospel. They believed Christ. They died. They went to glory. But sin must be dealt with. Sin must be paid. Something has to be done. God's been patient.

God's been kind. But now, in Romans, God has set forth, displayed. The Apostle Paul, earlier in this book of Romans, chapter 1 through chapter 3, he has set forth the clear calamity of mankind. Namely, God's wrath is to be poured out on sinners.

This great calamity that is to come is going to come because all are sinners. If there is no propitiation, the wrath of God is to be poured out specifically on the sinner. The wrath of God has to be dealt with.

The righteousness of God demands that lawbreakers be punished for their crimes. The mercy of God demands that the good be rewarded. In the person of Christ, the substitute, sin is fully punished and mercy is fully displayed, fully demonstrated.

As the substitute for wicked men, Jesus absorbs the fullness of God's wrath. God's justice is satisfied. Since justice has been satisfied upon the substitute, mercy can be granted to the wicked. This transaction, the greatest transaction in all of history, shows God to be just and the justifier of the wicked.

This is why we need propitiation. God has to be seen as just and there has to be a way to justify wicked people like you and I. But you know this to make sure your theology doesn't go astray. It's very important, a very noble point we need to consider.

There's a payment. There's a transaction. Sin has to be paid for. But who gets paid? Who gets paid? Because I will tell you, there are charismatics, there are non-theological people out there that are promoting things that are not biblically accurate, and they say that the devil had to be paid.

No, no, no.

That's not how this works. Payment is made to the one who is owed. God is the one who is offended. Sinners are the ones who offended God. Whatever payment is made on Calvary, it must satisfy the offended party.

Namely, God.

You see, God made the law. God made the requirement. The law is broken, and God must be reimbursed. And the only one who can reimburse Him is the God-man. If you want to have a biblical framework to see that in living colors, if you will, just go back to the Exodus.

Go back to Pharaoh and look at Pharaoh and look at all the judgment that came and look at everything that happened there and ask yourself this question. How much did Pharaoh get paid for Israel to be redeemed?

He didn't get paid anything. As a matter of fact, he was stripped of everything and then he was drowned under the water.

Right?

Look, the devil's not getting paid by Christ on Calvary. God is receiving the payment for the crimes that have been committed against Him. God sent His Son to be the propitiation for sinners. There's no man who could do it.

It would have to be the God-man. I invite you to turn to the book of Hebrews 2. Verse 17. God's perfect righteousness. Romans 3 .25. God's perfect priesthood. Hebrews 2 .17. Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

The function of the priest was to make atonement, to make atonement for the people. He would take the unblemished animal. I'm using words on purpose. I'm not trying to hear myself talk. But pay attention.

An unblemished animal and that animal was slaughtered. It was slaughtered. It was bloody. It was ugly. I remember preaching in the heart of Mexico one time out in the desert. I remember the pastor tying up a goat just outside of the church building because on the last day they were going to cook that goat for us.

I knew what that goat was tied up for. I knew what was going on. And I remember Sunday morning at 5 in the morning I remember the pastor going out there with his knife and I heard that goat. As his throat was cut and the blood was poured out and he skimped that goat and he quartered it up and he put it in the ground and he cooked it and we could have it for lunch.

It's a violent death. It's a slaughter. A cutting of the throat and the blood is poured out. This is what the high priest did. I'm not trying to be cruel or ugly or abrasive. This is the whole 6 ,000 year history of Israel is we slaughtered unblemished animals in order that blood could be poured out to make an atonement for sin.

The blood of animals was never sufficient to deal with man's sin issue. Hebrews 10 .4. It was a type. It pointed to the need of a perfect sacrifice. Christ is known many names, but of what name? The Lamb of God.

You remember that great and glorious day? 400 years of silence from the prophets of old. Not a word spoken from Malachi to Matthew. Nothing's being said for 400 years. Not one man of God opened his voice and preached.

And then there's that glorious day. There's that guy clothed in rough clothing and eating locusts and wild honey. And there he is ministering to those guys around him. And he looks up and he says what?

Behold, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the unblemished one has arrived. That's the one we're going to slaughter.

He's the one that's going to go to Calvary.

He came to take away sins. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, became a man.

Why?

That He might offer up Himself as a sacrifice. Jesus, the great High Priest, He is the propitiation for the sins of wicked people. His sacrifice was eternally sufficient for the forgiveness of sins and for the averting, the turning of God's wrath.

The propitiatory work of Jesus was accepted by who? Was accepted by God. It was accepted by God and God vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead. There is never going to be a need of another sacrifice.

I don't care what the dispensation would say. I'm not waiting on a temple to be rebuilt. I'm not waiting on the sacrificial system to come back.

We don't need it.

Christ is the temple. Christ has already fulfilled everything that's necessary and no more sacrifices are needed. The only hope that man we have of escaping the coming wrath of God.

Is to be in Christ.

I note one more time, not to belabor, but to make sure we understand. The death of the Old Testament sacrifice was a violent death. These words may not bother you. They bother lots of people. It was a violent death in which the animal was slaughtered.

Jesus surely was slaughtered at the hands of Roman soldiers. I don't have the time, but as briefly as I can, that's what happened in Genesis 22 when Abraham took Isaac up on the mountain with the knife and the fire and put him and bound him up on the altar and raised the knife to slay him and his hand was stopped by the angel of the Lord.

That's not the end of the story. That's the intermission. They drew the curtain. The ram was supplied. Isaac and Abraham came down. But on Calvary, no one stopped the knife. The Father's hand came down and slaughtered His only Son on Calvary.

It was a violent, bloody, and ugly death. It was on the cross that the Father unleashed His furious wrath upon the Substitute. On the way to the cross, and again, check in and pay attention. On the way to the cross, Jesus knew where He was going, He knew what He was doing, and He knew what was about to happen to Him.

But get this right. Hollywood does not get this right. If you watch Hollywood movies about the cross, they miss it because they can't illustrate it. Jesus knows He's about to endure the wrath of His Father.

He knew that the cross was the place of propitiation. The dread in the garden, the sweating of drops of blood, all of that agony and turmoil was not because Jesus was afraid of the Romans. It's not because He's afraid of the Jewish Sanhedrin.

Look, think it through. Think about the martyrs of old. The martyrs who were burnt at the stake, like Polycarp and so many other history of people that were burnt at the stake and mauled by wild beasts.

They didn't cry and suffer like this. They sang hymns on their way to be slaughtered.

Why?

Because they didn't count their lives as nothing. Why did Christ so agonize in the garden? Because He was taking on a weight that no man can bear. He was taking on the weight of every bit of wrath that God has was about to be unfolded upon top of His head.

He's the dry sponge that's about to take all of it.

And soak it all in.

And no man has ever dealt with this or ever will. Not. And satisfy God. And if you'll turn to 1 John 2. 1 John 2, verse 2.

It states,.

He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. The phrase, quote, for the whole world has been understood in lots of ways. A lot of presuppositions for this phrase.

But I'm going to submit to you that the key to rightly understanding this phrase lies in a correct understanding of the word propitiation. If you don't understand propitiation, you're never going to get this phrase right.

So, if we understand that propitiation satisfies the wrath of God, it's going to help us. Think. If God's wrath has been satisfied, then it has been satisfied. If it's been satisfied, it's satisfied. If God's anger has been placated, then it has been placated.

If God has accepted the sacrifice of His Son, then He has accepted it. When John says that Jesus is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, this is what he's saying.

Anybody on this globe.

That wants to have their sins propitiated must have them propitiated in Christ. Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras. Any man in this whole world that is going to be right with God will have to have his sins propitiated by Christ.

The whole world must come in faith to the substitute Christ for the remission of sins. From the four corners of the world come one, come all, but you must come to Christ alone or your sins are not propitiated.

Jesus' propitiatory work is globally effective. There will never be another work that will be accepted by God as a means of satisfying His holy law. The propitiation for the sins of the world was not theoretical.

It was not hypothetical. And it was not a mere potentiality. But rather, it was an actuality. What Christ went to do, He did. You see, Christ accomplished His mission. He didn't come... Listen, He did not come to make men savable.

Are you with me?

Are you ready to go home? I promise we'll go home before. 9. He didn't come to make it possible or to make you savable. He came to save. Every person the Father gave to Christ comes to Him and is saved by Him.

The Lamb, Jesus Christ, will have the reward for His suffering.

What He did on Calvary.

Will not be fruitless. I don't care if there's two people here or 10 ,000 people here. The numbers don't matter to me. Why do they not matter to me? Because the number will come. All of those in the whole world who've been elected by God the Father will come because Christ has placated the anger of God in their stead.

Love, Justice, and the Meaning of 1 John 4:10

1 John 4, verse 10. In this is love. It's not that we loved God, but that He loved us and He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Whatever love, you note from the beginning, that's what they want.

The love of God is magnified. That's what they want. Still using this word. Whatever love may or may not be, it is for sure that we did not love God first. We know that. Humanity was born into sin. Psalm 51 .5, Romans 5 .12.

Humanity is at enmity with God every day. Herein is love. Not 1 John 3, verse 16. Herein is love. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. Humanity is made up of rebellious, prideful, immoral, self-serving people who desire to appease their own flesh even at the expense of God and neighbor.

Now, this may be hard to stomach, but God would be absolutely right to bring down His just judgment upon all of humanity for their trespasses. I would even submit in Genesis that if He drowned everybody, He would still be just in His action.

He didn't have to spare eight. And He didn't have to spare you. You know, a further thought to make it a little more problematic is if God's judgment came and consumed us all, the angels of heaven would fill heaven with rejoicing in the just judgment of God that He displayed upon lawbreakers.

However, God's work of justice and mercy have kissed. They've kissed. And now the angels have filled heaven with rejoicing at all over the magnanimous work of grace that God has shown. And Peter says they stooped down to look.

How in the world?

How in the world did you save Alan Nelson?

How did you pull that off?

How did you save Jonathan Murdock? How did you save Cody Torres?

How is this possible?

What kind of love is this? Love is an action, not a feeling. Love is sacrificial. Love sheds blood. Love dies. Love does not think of self. Love does that which nothing else will do. Love redeems the unredeemable.

Love forgives the unforgivable. Love gives life to those who desire nothing but death. Whatever the world is saying about love is not what the Bible is saying about love. You want to know what love looks like?

Look to Calvary. Look at the propitiatory sacrifice and see one there absorbing wrath in your place, paying a debt you couldn't pay in order that God would be satisfied, in order that you could be justified.

The Tax Collector's Prayer and the Call to Humble Faith

And one more text. If you will turn in your Gospel to Luke, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18, and let's read verse 9. Luke 18 and 9. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

This is what he said. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed. Now, I'm going to pause just for translation purpose.

Standing by himself prayed. You could translate, he prayed to himself. He's just praying to himself like so many people do. And this is what he prayed. God, I thank You that I'm not like other men. Not an extortioner, not unjust, not an adulterer, or even like this tax collector.

I don't like self-righteous people. You can throw rocks or whatever, I don't care. Self-righteous Christian church ladies working at the hospital. I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about somebody for a fact in my head.

You give out snacks to people.

When they come to the hospital. You call them the pink ladies and they serve people when they come in. And this Mexican lady walks in last week and they don't give her no snacks. They only give snacks in her own country.

That's what she said.

You see, we white people are so much more important than those Mexicans. Get their snacks in Mexico. Nice little church ladies. Self-righteous in their own eyes. That's the way this guy is here. I'm not an extortioner.

I'm not unjust. I'm certainly not a Mexican. That's the way people talk. You want to go to my hometown?

What do they talk about there?

They say, I would have been home earlier, but there was a Mexican at the gas pump. If he had stayed in his own country, I could have gotten gas quicker.

People talk like that.

Because they think they're so good because they're white and they're middle class. I certainly not like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I go to Providence Baptist Church. I give tithes of all that I get.

Well, I lie about that. I just give some of the things I do. But the tax collector is a whole different subject. Now we're going to deal with something real. The tax collector, he stood far off. He would not even lift up his eyes to heaven.

He just beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. And the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

The tax collector in the Gospel of Luke understood something very important. The only acceptable way to respond to a holy God. This is the only way for you, for me to respond. He bowed down in absolute humility before a holy God with a desperate shaking voice and this is what he pleaded.

Now I know what the text says in the ESV as I read it. Let me read it now in a more clear translation. This is what he bows down and says. Listen carefully. God, you must be propitious to me, not a, the sinner.

You want the sinner's prayer?

Here's the sinner's prayer. God, be propitious to me. I've surveyed the entire world and I am the sinner. There's nobody worse than me in heart.

And if you won't supply propitiation,.

I am going to be destroyed in hell.

This is humility.

There's no argument.

There's no claims of righteousness.

I'm the sinner.

I'm the one.

I need propitiation. He knew God had wrath toward him. He knew it was personal. He knew wrath was building. He knew that if God's wrath was not turned from him, he would certainly be undone. Notice, he offered nothing to God.

He made no promises to God. His cry was one, I'll give you three words, despair, dependence, and definitiveness. You say, what do those three words mean? He despaired of the judgment to come. He depended on somebody else for help.

I need somebody else to help me. And he was definitive. I'm calling out to God and I'm not calling out for anybody else. There's no other place that I'm looking. I'm in despair. I'm depending on you. I'm calling up on you.

And you can reword it like this. God, if you don't save me, I know I'm going to hell. There's no one else that can help. It is Christ and Christ alone. Give me eyes of faith. Grant me mercy.

There's no other option.

In coming to this terrible predicament, he concluded God alone could help. God be propitious to me, the sinner. It is as if he had said, God, if you don't turn your wrath away from me, there's no one else who can turn it away.

Now I understand, it may not be you, but I understand humanity in some sense, that there's nothing more that the flesh hates than the acknowledgement that it can't help itself. The flesh is filled with pride.

It despises the thought of absolute dependence upon another. Hey, can I help you with that? No, I got it. Hey, can I help you with that? No, I got it. Hey, you want me to pick that up? No, I got it.

It's just the way we are.

I can do it myself. I want you helping me.

We struggle here.

You can't help. God save you. At the end of the day, you're either going to despair of your sin and depend upon Christ alone and refuse to look for another, or you're going to have to bear the penalty of your sin yourself.

You remember that man standing at the bottom of the Hoover Dam? That man is you. The wrath of Almighty God builds every day. And before too long, the dam, his wrath, is going to break. And there you stand.

With your umbrella.

My umbrella? Yeah. Good works, self-righteousness, man-made religion. There you stand. Your umbrella is not going to work on judgment day. You need someone else to turn away the magnanimous amount of wrath on the other side of this dam.

The good news of the Gospel.

Hello? We're here with the Gospels.

Good news.

The good news of the Gospel is that according to Romans, God has put forth His only Son and displayed Him as righteous as the propitiator for your sins. For whoever would repent and believe, whoever would come, He will not cast out.

You'll get the implications. It's not all that creative. But maybe you could picture another scene. A man standing at the bottom of the Hoover Dam with a tree. He says, when this dam breaks, I'll absorb all the water on the other side in your place.

And everyone who believes in Him will be spared from the wrath to come. What should you do? You should do the same thing the tax collector did. Whether you're 10, 15, 20, 50, 80, 90, whatever age you may be, you should do the same thing the tax collector did.

You should cry out in despair, in dependence and definitiveness. You should say, Lord, be propitious to me, the sinner!

Why?

Because that man went down that day.

Justified. Right with God.

The other man was not justified.

Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. But the one who humbles himself will be exalted. God now looked upon the tax collector with favor because in Christ, this wrath was turned away. God's wrath was absorbed by Christ in the place of the tax collector.