Well, thank you. What a joy it
is for us to gather together for this conference. I wish we
could do this every weekend and just be the body of Christ and
come together. As iron sharpens iron, so one
man another. You encourage me, I hope I can
encourage you, and our lives, I believe, are made stronger
in the Lord as we sing together, as we study the Word of God together,
as we make new friends in the Lord. And so this is a very special
time, and I trust that you will be able to just capture the entirety
of this day and that God will use it in your life for good.
Yesterday was a wonderful start to the conference, and I trust
that today we can push the fences out even yet further and capture
more of the truth that we want to consider. I do want to thank
Ligonier Ministries for having the vision to put together this
conference, and I'm a teaching fellow with Ligonier, and I'm
so proud of my association with this ministry. I do want to commend
this ministry to you. I pastor a church in Alabama,
and so I'm not full-time with Ligonier, and it's easy for me
to say this to you. As one who has gotten to know
not only Dr. Sproul, but Chris Larson, who
is the president, as well as almost everyone that works in-house
at Ligonier, this is a truly godly, humble ministry that is
committed to the truth of the Word of God. and to Reformed
truth with a high view of God and a magnification of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So I would encourage you to avail
yourself to the resources that are available through Ligonier.
You can go on the website. And in various ways, please attend
a national conference, which will be next February. And this
is such a unique gathering for us to come together like this.
And then to have R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur. I mean, it's really like having
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, you know, in one lineup. So, my desire
today is to get hit with a pitch, get on base, and let Babe Ruth
and Lou Gehrig bring me in. So, if you see me as I'm preaching,
kind of leaning, I'm leaning over the plate, okay, trying
to get hit with a pitch, just so I can advance the cause of
the gospel here for this. So, the topic that has been assigned
to me in this session is standing firm against the claims of atheism. And we are living in a day in
which atheism is coming out of the closet. And there is an unholy
boldness that is accompanying this movement as there are voices
that are being raised up by Satan to declare this new atheism that
is spreading and emerging. Someone was telling me about
a billboard that they saw here in Seattle very recently that
said, one out of four people are atheists. And so we are seeing
this new atheism as represented in the writings of Richard Dawkins
and Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. And this new atheism is militant
in its radical unbelief. that has launched a full frontal
assault upon every form of religion, but especially against Christianity. And we need to understand what
is going on here, and what is our defense in standing firm.
Writing in letters to a young contrarian, Christopher Hitchens
asserts, quote, I am not even an atheist so much as I am an
anti-theist. And in other words, it's not
just that he believes that there is no God, but that he is adamantly
opposed to any thought of God and will do all within his power
to bring down every thought of God. Hitchens writes, quote,
I am not only… I not only maintain that all religions are versions
of the same untruth. But I hold that the influence
of churches and the effect of religious belief is positively
harmful." In a different book entitled,
God Is Not Great, subtitled, How Religion Poisons Everything,
Hitchens, this apostle of hell. writes that belief in God is,
quote, without intellectual integrity, close quote, and is morally corrupting. Well, Hitchens has recently died
and he knows better. The new leading light of the
new atheism is an Oxford professor named Richard Dawkins. And in
his best-selling book, The God Delusion, Dawkins brazenly espouses
his zeal for atheism. He writes, quote, I am quite
keen on the politics of persuading people of the virtues of atheism. He goes on to say, the number
of non-religious people in the United States is something near
to 30 million people. That's more than all the Jews
in the entire world put together. He writes, I think we're in the
same position as the gay movement was a few decades ago. There
was a need then for people to come out. The more people who
came out, the more people have had courage. And he goes on to
now cite this parallel with the new atheism. And he is calling
upon atheists to come out of their closets and to come marching
down Main Street and to raise their voice. He writes, they
are more numerous than anybody realizes. Dawkins is so empowered
as he taunts and mocks theists. He writes, quote, "'Highly intelligent
people are mostly atheists.'" Now, let me get this straight. The atheist believes that nothing
times nobody equals everything. That's brilliant. He says, the number of non-religious,
excuse me, highly intelligent people are mostly atheists. Not
a single member of either the House of Representatives or the
Senate admits to being an atheist. He says, it just does not add
up. Either they are stupid or they are lying. And that is what
he says of us as we gather here this morning. Either we're stupid
or we're lying. And they have, referring to the
politicians in America, they have a motive for lying. Of course
they do. Everyone knows that an atheist
cannot get elected. His insight, or his intent, is
to bring down even God's design for the family and to capture
our children for atheism. And Dawkins writes, how much
do we regard children as being the property of their parents?
It's a question he wants to raise. In other words, your children
don't belong to you. He says, it's one thing to say people
should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be
free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something
to be said for society to be stepping in? What about bringing
up children to believe falsehoods? He says bad ideas foisted on
children are morally wrong." In other words, it is morally
wrong for you to read bedtime stories to your children at night.
It is morally wrong for you to take your children to church.
It is morally wrong for you to raise up your children in the
fear and the admonition of the Lord. And he goes on to say,
it is the ultimate child abuse. This is what is the gathering
storm that is swirling in our godless culture. Gary Wolf, contributing
editor of Wired, writes, the new atheists condemn not just
belief in God, but they condemn respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong, it
is evil. Wills sees Dawkins as an evangelist
for atheism. He writes, evangelism is a moral
imperative for the atheists. Dawkins does not merely disagree
with religious myths, he disagrees with tolerating them. So this is the world in which
we find ourselves. This is in part, the spirit of
this age that is squeezing us on all sides. And so the question
is, in the face of this new atheism, how are Christians to stand?
Where do we stand? What should be our response to
such outright attacks on God and the Christian faith? And
the answer lies in part in a particular psalm to which I want to draw
our attention in this session. I want to invite you to take
your Bibles and to turn with me to Psalm 14. There is a psalm
that is devoted to the atheist. And I want to expound and exposit
this psalm. It is also repeated in Psalm
53 in virtually word-for-word form. And I want us to look today at
Psalm 14. I want to begin by reading this
psalm and setting it before your eyes. And I want you to drink
this in. I want you to take this in. This is God's Word. This is the
Word of the living God. This is the inspired, the inerrant,
the infallible Word of God. David is the psalmist. And David
writes, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have committed
abominable deeds. There is no one who does good.
The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men."
And as He looks down, parenthetically, He looks down upon the fool who
has said in his heart, there is no God. Verse 2, the Lord
has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there
are any who understand, who seek after God. This is what God discovers. They have all turned aside. Together
they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good,
not even one. Do all the workers of wickedness,
and included in this is the fool who says there is no God. Do
all the workers of wickedness not know, who eat up my people
as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? And there
they are in great dread, for God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel
of the afflicted, but the Lord is His refuge. Oh, that the salvation
of Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord restores His captive
people. Jacob will rejoice. We'll be
glad. I want us to dig into this psalm
in this session today, and I want us to consider standing firm
in the face of atheism. I want you to note first in verse
1, I want to set some headings before you as we walk through
this psalm. I want you to note first the
atheist's denial. In the first half of verse 1,
we see the atheist's denial. Here, David begins his psalm
by describing the atheist. And notice what he says, the
fool has said in his heart, there is no God. To say that there is no God,
the Bible says, makes one a fool. Only a fool would come to such
a foolish conclusion. Now the word fool, nabal, does
not mean a person of mental incompetence, it means one of moral perversity. They don't have head problems,
they have heart problems. Such fools are often very bright
people with high intellect and with impeccable academic credentials. They are not a fool in the sense
that they are moronic or they do not have the capacity to connect
thoughts together. No, they very often are some
of the brightest minds in all of the world. The problem lies
far deeper than their heads. Their problem is their heart.
The fool has said, in his heart. The fool is one who spurns the
clear evidence that is set before him concerning the reality of
God and makes a fundamental decision of unbelief based upon the evidence
that is presented to him. There is, by this fool, a deliberate
and intentional rejection and refusal of God Himself. The heart here refers to the
entire inner person. It's not heart as the Greek thinks
of heart, which is simply more the affections. To the Hebrew
mind, the heart represented the entire inner life, the mind,
the emotion, the conscience, the will, the entire inner being
of a person. The atheist, the fool, has said
in his heart." He says, there is no God. You should know in
the original Hebrew language, the words, there is, is not found
in the original manuscript. The translators have supplied
there is to make this read more smoothly. And in the original
language, it simply says, the fool has said in his heart, no
God. In other words, the evidence
for God has been presented and there has been a deliberate,
intentional refusal of God. It would be as if I had come
to your house and I sat down at your table and in the distributing
of the portions of the food for the meal and you pass, let's
say, the potatoes to me and I clearly see the potatoes and I put up
my hands and I just say, no potatoes for me. I see it, there it is,
and there is an adamant rejection. It's not that I do not believe
that the potatoes are there. I see them and there is a decision
on my part to turn away from what is presented to me. That is what David is saying
here. The fool has said in the depths of his soul, no God. There is no God for me. I will
have nothing to do with God. But on the inside, there is the
recognition that there is a God in heaven, but I do not want
God to run my life or tell me how to live. I will go my own
way. I will be the captain of my own
ship. I will be the master of my own destiny when God is presented
to me and the evidence of God in creation and God-consciousness
and the truth about God is made known to me, I will adamantly
set my jaw and say, no, God." Now, there are different kinds
of atheists. There is the intellectual atheist. who claims that there
is no God, but on the inside he knows that there is no God,
no matter what he may say. And he intellectually says no
to God, but in reality he knows that there is God. And there
is also the religious atheist. who has said no to the one true
living God as presented in the Scripture, and chooses to go
after gods of his own making, or gods who have been invented
by other men. And then there is also the practical
atheist, who actually believes that there is a God, but chooses
to live his life independent of God. Paul talks about the
atheists in Romans chapter 1, and I would invite you just for
a moment to turn with me to Romans chapter 1, and there are some
verses that I want us to consider. In Romans chapter 1, they've
already been discussed in this conference, but in the context
of atheism, I want us to consider this. If Dr. Sproul were delivering this message,
he would have made a beeline straight for Romans chapter 1. And he would have come immediately
to this text. We need to hear this text. in
Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, and I want you to note
just even where this is found in the book of Romans, which
is the clearest presentation of the gospel of Christ to be
found in the Scripture. Right here, front-loaded, chapter
1, after the opening prologue in verses 1 through 17, beginning
now immediately in verse 18, this is front-loaded, this is
on the front doorstep of this book. is immediately beginning
to address the atheists. Verse 18, for the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men. That is the state in which the
world finds itself is that it is already under the wrath and
the judgment of God. Now notice what he says, of men
who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. In other words, the truth about
God is made known to them and they intentionally choose to
suppress the truth that is all around them. And he will go on
to say that the truth about God is made known to all men everywhere. And there will be an intentional
suppression and rejection and refusal of the truth. And when he says, in unrighteousness,
meaning the rejection of the truth and a choice to live in
unrighteousness. And verse 19, because. Why would
anyone suppress the truth in order to cling to their unrighteousness? He says in verse 19, because
that which is known about God is evident within them. There
is a knowledge of God within every person. It is within them. There is a God-consciousness.
And God has placed that God-consciousness within every man. Solomon will
say in Ecclesiastes that the Lord has set eternity within
every heart. For God made it evident to them.
God is the revealer of Himself to every man on the planet. There is general revelation,
and there is special revelation. And general revelation is made
known to every man, every woman, every boy, every girl on the
planet, and it is a general revelation of the fact of God, of the existence
of God, of the being of God, of the person of God. Now general
revelation is not enough to know that God. There must be special
revelation which is found in the gospel of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. And not everyone receives special
revelation. There are people on this planet
who are born, live their lives and die without ever hearing
the name of Jesus Christ. But they nevertheless have general
revelation. It is not enough to save them,
but it is enough to condemn them. And it is enough to hold them
accountable to God. And he will say in verse 20 that
no one is without excuse before God. So at the end of verse 19, God
made it evident to them. It is clear. It is obvious. And
verse 20 explains how God has made it evident to every man
and every woman on planet earth. The word for introduces an explanation. And verse 20, for since the creation
of the world, that means from the very beginning of time, from
the dawn of human history, since the creation of the world, His
invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature, please
note this, have been clearly seen. It is obvious. It is glaring. A blind man can
see it. Have been clearly seen. How? He says later in verse 20, being
understood. through what has been made. It's a very simple philosophical point that every effect must have an
adequate cause. And the mere fact that there
is creation around us necessitates and adequate cause. And there
is only one reasonable, rational explanation for the universe
and for creation, and it is that there is a Creator, capital C. There is no corporation who could
have created everything out of nothing. There is no individual,
there is no religion, there is no philosophy that could have
made everything out of nothing. And as R.C. Sproul has said,
if there was ever a time when there was nothing, then there
could never be anything. Because before creation, there
had to be a Creator. There had to be God. Out of nothing,
nothing comes. And so one should look at creation
all around and see something not only of the fact of God,
Creator, but to know something about Him. that He is a transcendent
Creator. He is an immense Creator. He
is a powerful Creator. And He is created with genius
design. He has built into creation order
and beauty. And my father was a professor
in medical school for over thirty years. And he would say to me,
Stephen, just take the human eye. That is clear testimony to the
fact of a master creator, a master designer. There is no way that
the human eye has evolved and emerged out of nothing, or out
of mud, or out of slime. The perfection with which it
functions. Or take the human heart, or take
the human brain, or take the human lungs, or take any part
of the human body. No. intellectual integrity and
honesty would be able to look at creation and the changing
of the seasons and the spinning of the earth and its properly
being held on its axis at just the right angle, never any closer
to the sun, never any further away. That there is a God in heaven,
a Creator who has made all of this and who has made us. And he says in verse 20, it is
clearly seen. It is understood through what
is made. Note the end of verse 20. We're
in Romans 1 still. So that, or so they are without
excuse. Even the atheist is without excuse. For God has revealed Himself
through creation and the world that He has made, and internally,
within the conscience and within the heart, this essential truth
that God is. And the God who is is not silent,
and the God who is has made Himself known to us. Now, verse 20 addresses
the problem. For even though they knew God,"
excuse me, verse 21, for even though they knew God, and that
does not mean they knew Him in a personal relationship, here
it means they simply knew about Him. Of course they knew about
Him. It's obvious. For even though they knew God,
about His attributes, His character, His existence, His being, no,
they did not honor Him as God. There was an intentional choice
to withhold the honor and the praise and the glory that should
be given to this all-powerful, all-glorious God. They chose
not to honor Him as God or give thanks. They chose to refuse
the revelation of God. And that begins the downward
spiral. And verse 21 goes on to say,
"...but became futile in their speculations." They turned away
from the light of truth and they stepped into the darkness, the
darkness, the deep darkness of futile speculations about life
and the meaning of life and what it's about and about themselves. And the result at the end of
verse 21, "...and their foolish heart." Their foolish heart. Psalm 14 verse 1, the fool has
said in his heart, their foolish heart was darkened. If you will not receive the light
of the truth of the existence of God, and if you intentionally
resist that light and turn away from that light and turn towards
the darkness of dark unbelief, then God will give you over to
the darkness. God will give you a push in the
direction that you want to go away from Him, and God will turn
out the lights. So, verse 22, professing to be
wise. They claim to be wise with a
worldly wisdom. But it is a wisdom that is sheer
foolishness. It is idiotic. Professing to
be wise, they became foolish. Do you not hear Psalm 14 verse
1 in this? The fool has said in his heart,
there is no God. They became foolish. Foolish
does not mean they lose their intellect. No, they still teach
at Cambridge. They still teach at Oxford. They
are towering intellects with soaring IQs. It's just that they
cannot see the truth anymore as they are so hardened. in their
unbelief and foolishness." So, verse 23, an exchange. They exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God, the glory that was made known to them all
around them. God's fingerprints clearly seen
in all of His creation, testifying made by God, made by God, made
by God. And even the moral law of God
written upon their hearts, as Romans 2, 14 through 16 They exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God, meaning the true knowledge about the true
God. They discarded that for, and
this is what they embraced, for the image, for an image in the
form of corruptible man. Talking about making an idol,
something that the human hands would make, for an image in the
form of corruptible man, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling
creatures. That's how brilliant the atheist
is. Yet in his fallen degeneracy,
there is not even the crafting of an object to worship. He instead
worships himself. He worships his own mind and
his own abilities. Now, atheism is a religion. Atheism is the final step. in the downward spiral of rejecting
God, it is the ultimate form of idolatry. Atheism is the rejection
of the knowledge of God and replacing it with the worship of self and
of man. This is the insanity of atheism. Atheism claims that everything
came out of nothing. and that the design and order
and beauty that we see in the world just happened. We'll come back to Psalm 14,
if you would. What Paul says in Romans 1 is
precisely what David says in Psalm 14. This is the atheist's
denial, that when the truth about God is made known to them, In
reality, they're not saying there is no God. They are saying no
to God. I do not want you in my life. And they lie even to themselves
in saying there is no God. I want you to note second, not
only the atheist denial, but the atheist depravity, beginning
in the middle of verse 1. We read, they are corrupt. Who
is the they? Well, the they is the fool who has said in his
heart, there is no God. These are not good people, these
are bad people. These are bad people just like
you and I were bad people before we were born again from above.
They are corrupt. This word corrupt means destructing
and wasted and rotten and ruined. The word is used of milk that
is soured. Their character is rotten on
the inside. It is true of the atheists. It
is true of every person in this world outside of Jesus Christ. They are corrupt. Paul will take
this verse and insert it in Romans chapter 3 when he makes his case
for the depravity of the whole human race. And the atheist is
included in that. They are corrupt. And they have
committed abominable deeds. Their rotten character produces
rotten fruit. And it is rotten deeds of abomination
and irreverence and blasphemy and there is no restraint on
their tongue as they speak out against the God of heaven and
they shake their puny fist in the face of God. He concludes, verse 1, there
is no one who does good. That is a universal statement
referring to everyone outside of Christ, but specifically in
this context and in this psalm, it refers to the atheists. We need to have God's perspective
on the atheists. They're not just merely mistaken,
they are malevolent. They are corrupt in their hearts
before God. And look, notice verse 2, the
Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men. It is as
though God is having to look down and squint with His eyes
to see the small stature of the one who says, there is no God. The Lord has looked down from
heaven upon the sons of men as though He's having to search
and look for this puny little person who is standing up and
declaring His rejection of God. And as God looks upon the sons
of men, what is He looking for? Notice what He goes on to say
in verse 2, to see if there are any who understand. to see if
there are any who understand the insanity of their rejection
of God when they have the knowledge of God, the existence of God
made evident within them clearly. Do any understand the irrationality
and the stupidity of the choice that you are making. And it is
a rhetorical question, the answer of which, the answer is no. They
do not understand. They are blind leaders of the
blind. They are in the dark to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God. The answer is no. They're not
seeking God. They're running away from God
as fast as they can. They have all turned aside. Together
they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good,
not even one. Oh, God has weighed the atheist
in the balance and found him deficient and wanting. He has
fallen short of the glory of God, but he is no different than
anyone else. who attends church but who has
never been born again in their heart. They have fallen short
of the glory of God. This is what God discovers as
He looks down from heaven and scrutinizes the atheist. I want you to note third, the
atheist dread, because there is a day that is coming. when
the atheist will be faced with the reality of God. There is
a day that is coming when it will be made more fully known
to him of the existence of God and the reality of God, and that
will come on the last day when they stand before God and give
an account of themselves to this God. Note verse 4. Do all the
workers of wickedness not know? And included in these workers
of wickedness is the fool who has said in his heart, there
is no God. Do they not know? Do they not
know that the Lord looks down from heaven upon them? Do they
not know that the Lord sees them? Do they not know that the Lord,
before the Lord they are storing up wrath until the day of wrath?
Do they not know this? The answer is no, they have tried
to put God out of their mind and God out of their thinking.
He describes them in the middle of verse 4, who eat up My people
as they eat bread. Because they hate God, they hate
the people of God. They hate the truth of God. They
hate the work of God. and they desire to devour the
people of God as though they are eating bread. They want to
grind them up with their teeth. They want to devour them and
just remove them from the world scene. And who do not call upon the
Lord. They refuse Christ. They refuse the gospel. They
refuse to humble themselves before the Lord, and they are defiant.
Christopher Hitchens died a few months ago, December the 15th,
2011, and his last words were to you and me, in which he asked us not to pray
for him. He said, we could pray for him
if it would make us feel better. And then he warned against any
claims that on his deathbed that he might change his mind. And
he said, if you hear anything from my lips other than total
defiance of God, you are to assume that I am under the influence
of the drugs that they are giving me. or that I have lost my mental
faculties." Now, they are adamant in their
refusal to call upon the Lord. But look at verse 5. Notice verse 5. There they are. And when he says, there they
are, he is looking and anticipating to a time when The atheist, the
one who says there is no God, will suddenly be filled, note,
with great dread. Verse 5, there they are in great
dread. It certainly does not refer to
their present state, for they are not in great dread. They
are cavalier and full of hate towards God. But there is coming
a day at the end of the age when they will be in great dread.
They will suddenly be filled with terror and panic and alarm. Their eyes will bulge. Their
hearts will melt. Their knees will buckle. Their
legs will shake. Their palms will sweat. It will
be the worst nightmare. of reality that has come upon
them. It will be a day of dread in
that final day. And here is what they will realize.
Note the next line in verse 5. Four, that introduces the explanation
of why they are in great dread. Four, God is with the righteous
generation. God is not with them, God is
against them, but God stands with those who stand with Him
by grace. And they will come to the shocking, haunting realization
that there is a God in heaven who has created them, and He
has created this final day of judgment, and He has created
a place in which He will send the devil and His fallen angels
and all who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ. There they are
in great dread. Their eyes will be bursting out
of their skull. The Lord is with the righteous
generation. God takes His stance with those
who have come to Him by faith. Verse 6 continues to describe this atheist. David now speaks
to him directly in this psalm when he says, He is speaking
directly to the fool who has said in his heart, there is no
God. This is God speaking through David to the atheist. would put to shame the counsel
of the afflicted." The counsel refers to the truth about God. The afflicted refer to the believers
whom they have sought to intimidate and badger and persecute and
come against. They are afflicted because the
atheist has risen up in his voice and has sought to bring much
perversity and difficulty and affliction upon the godly. And
David says, you would put to shame, you would intimidate,
you would seek to do harm to the counsel of the afflicted.
Please note, they would put to shame not just the afflicted,
the person, referring to the believers, what they hate is
the counsel of the afflicted. What they hate is the mention
of the name of God. What they hate is being told
of their accountability to this God. What they hate is the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they seek to put to shame,
not the messenger, but the message of God Himself. Make no mistake
about this. They rise up in their unholy
hatred against God Himself and the counsel of the gospel that
we would bring. But note the complete antithesis.
Note the stark contrast, but the Lord is His refuge. This refers to you and to me
who are the afflicted of this world, as all who desire to live
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. You know, living in Seattle is
a great challenge. This is not the buckle of the
Bible belt. y'all. There is much darkness, and it's
not just from the clouds overhead. There is a great moral and spiritual
darkness in this land, and you are trophies of God's And God
has rooted you and planted you in a very important place where
you are the remnant You are those who are standing in the gap and
who have been called upon by God to continue the work of God
here. And as you look to your left
and to your right, you do not see vast numbers of men and women
standing with you for the cause of Christ. But you look up and
you see your God and you are reminded that God plus one always
makes a majority. And God is your refuge. God is
your stronghold. God is your fortress. And it
matters not how the atheists would rage against you and how
liberalism that would seek to throw off any divine authority
would seek to squeeze the life out of you. God is your refuge. And you can stand against any
gathering storm that would swirl in this area and bring opposition
against your faith. In fact, the greater the storm,
the deeper the roots of the tree grow. And no one can take God down.
And when God is your refuge, you are immovable. But the Lord is His refuge. God is the unassailable stronghold
of all who call upon His name and who put their trust in Him.
And the contrast could not be any greater here between the
fool who has said in his heart, there is no God, who in the final
day will stand in a day of dread. And between you who have put
your faith and who have put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, truly, truly I say unto you,
he who hears these words of mine and acts upon them is like a
very wise man who built his house upon the rock. And when the rains
came and the winds blew and beat against the house, it did not
fall because it was built upon the rock. He who hears these
words of mine and does not act upon them is like a very foolish
man A foolish man who built his house
upon the sand. And when the rains came and the
winds blew and beat against the house, great was its fall because
it was built upon the sand. My brothers and sisters in Christ,
let us take confidence. that as the gathering storm of
atheism swirls around us, as they come stepping out of their
closets and would seek to intimidate, let us be reminded that they
are but fools who have built upon the sand and that there
is coming a final storm in the last day. It is that day of God's
wrath. It is that day in which it will
become a day of dread. And all who refuse the revelation
of God and refuse to build upon the rock, who instead build upon
the sand, great will be its fall and they will fall all the way
down into the bowels of hell. Let us take courage that we who
have built upon the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has
said, I will build My church and the gates of Hades will not
prevail against Let us take confidence that God
is our refuge and God is our strength. And we know that there
is a God, for God has made it evident to us and it is clearly
understood within us and around us. And it is God by His Holy
Spirit who has brought the special revelation of the gospel home
to our hearts. And God has opened our eyes and
He has opened our ears. And He has opened our hearts
to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and He's done this by His sovereign
grace. Let us rejoice that we are not
the fool who has said there is no God. Let us be humbled. Let us be contrite in spirit
that it is grace that has taught us that there is a God in heaven. and He is the Lord of heaven
and earth, and that every knee will bow and every tongue will
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. As I close, I want to ask you
this question. Have you come to put your full confidence in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you understand that you have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? Do you understand
that two thousand years ago upon the cross, Jesus Christ was lifted
up to die for sinners? and that He died in the place
of all those who will call upon Him, and that through His death
and through the shedding of His blood, He has made the only atonement
for our sins by which we may find full and free acceptance
with God. Have you come to repent of your
sins, to turn away from a life of independence and autonomy
from God? Have you come to confess and
acknowledge that I have sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God? Have you come to commit your life and surrender your
life to the King of kings and to the Lord of lords, this risen
Christ? He is the Good Shepherd and all
of His sheep He will safely transport to heaven one day. If you have never believed upon
Jesus Christ, if you have never called upon His name, I urge
you this moment, this very second, in your heart of hearts, to turn
to the Lord and say, Lord Jesus, I am a sinner, but you are the
friend of sinners. You have come to seek and to
save that which is lost. Lord Jesus, receive me into your
kingdom. Him who comes unto me, Jesus
said, I will in no wise cast out. You will find a willing
and loving Savior who will embrace you in his arms. and bring you
into his kingdom, and clothe you with his perfect righteousness,
and wash away all of your sins, and who has prepared a place
in heaven for you. No greater offer could ever be
extended to any one of us here than the free offer of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. For he has come to seek and to
save that which is lost. And if you have never acknowledged
that you're lost and that you need to be saved, turn to him
this moment and he will save you and he will save you forever. But if you do not, there is a
day of dread that is coming and it will be shocking in that day.
If you stand before him without an advocate, you must settle
out of court. You must settle this with Him
today. Let us pray. Father in heaven, how we thank
You that You have made Yourself known to us through the works
of Your creation. It is so obvious. It is so clear.
As we see Your handiwork all around, we look up into the skies,
we look around at the towering mountains, we see the beauty
of the ocean and the thunder and the power of its roar. We understand something of what
You are, and You give us good things to eat. You're a good
God, a gracious and providing God, and we understand the greatest
provision You have ever made for us is in living bread from
heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that you have opened
our hearts and our lives to eat of Christ. We are satisfied forever. One sip, one taste, and our hearts
have been made at peace and are full of contentment because Christ
is everything and Christ is all-sufficient for us. how we praise you for
your goodness that has been lavished upon us. And for any here today
who have not yet come all the way to Christ, may you use even
your word this day to be the instrument of their new birth.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.