Would you turn with me to the
book of Romans chapter 3? Romans chapter 3, and we'll begin
reading at verse 21, and read through the end of the
chapter. Romans chapter 3. But now a righteousness from
God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the law
and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes
through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is
no difference for all of sin and fall short of the glory of
God. and are justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice
of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate
his justice. because in his forbearance, he
had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate
his justice at the present time, so as to be just, and the one
who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where then is
boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law?
No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is
justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God the
God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles
too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there
is only one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and
the uncircumcised through the same faith. Do we then nullify
the law by this faith? Not at all. Rather, we uphold
the law. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Father, how good to come into this place
after a week of work and dealing with the world as it is and finding
once again that you are the same yesterday, today, and forever,
that you are the Lord and you change not. Therefore, us sons of Jacob the scoundrel, are not
consumed. Lord, we thank you for your grace,
for we realize were it not for your unchanging grace, we would
be consumed. We confess that in our flesh
dwells no good thing, and that you are a God of justice who
must punish evil, and it is right for you to do so. We confess
that of us, Lord, but we confess even more that through Jesus
Christ, where sin abounded, grace abounded even more. We cannot
imagine, Lord, how great our sin is. Much less can we imagine
how great your grace toward us is, that it is even greater than
our sins. But while we cannot get our minds around it, Lord,
we believe it and trust in it and take your word for it. Lord,
bless our worship service. Forgive our sins. Through Christ, we believe the
record is clear in heaven. We pray also that through Christ
Jesus, the record will be cleared in our own conscience so that
we may serve you in a way you want to be served, not as crouching,
craving slaves, but as freeborn sons who have
the confidence of the Father's acceptance. Lord, bless our country. Forgive
its awful sins. Hold back the judgment it deserves.
For it is written, you are a God who delights in mercy. Delight
yourself in being merciful to this people for the sake of your
people who live among them. Bless our children and the young
people that attend this congregation. Lord, make their hearts to know
their need of a savior and teach them also that Christ Jesus is
the savior that they need so that they will call on his name
and confess him to the saving of their souls. Bless all who come in here to
worship Lord and bring more if it pleases you. Add to this number
that we may rejoice in new works of grace on your part. In Christ's
name we pray, amen. If you would, open your Bibles
back to the third chapter of Romans, beginning at verse 21. I have been all over the place
as to what to preach on this morning. Last Friday, I had one of those
days that's typical of my particular emotional makeup, when my emotions
felt like a burn on the skin. It hurt all by itself. You know
how burn is, it just hurts. And boy, if you touch it, It's
worse yet. And so there I was in that condition
and then received the news of what our Supreme Court has done.
And I was absolutely miserable the rest of the day. It just
wasn't anything I could deal with. I put two or three things
up on Facebook and after a while I took them down because I thought
they sounded too negative. They were true, but they Seem
to sound kind of negative to me and not have anything of the
gospel in them. And, uh, had a hard time getting
to sleep, but by the Lord's good grace, when I did wake up, I
felt a whole lot better and was able to see things in a, in a
better light. And so I determined I'm not going
to preach on what went on. I'm just going to ignore it.
And I tried desperately to do just that. And I thought what
I would do is just ignore that and write a short article for
the bulletin, a few words of encouragement for believers who
have to deal with what's going on in the world. And after that
short article ran on to three pages, I realized that that wasn't
going to work either. And so I just went to bed. And
this morning, I thought I would, first thought
I would preach from a portion of what we went over in the Sunday
school class on the need for perseverance. And I didn't get
any of what we call liberty. I don't know that that's what
it is, but that's the word they use. Just couldn't get any traction
with it, and then something else crossed my mind and seemed good
for a minute, and then there's no traction with that. But I
do believe now that maybe I've got something that'll do us all
some good. I've entitled this message, The Need of the Hour.
The Need of the Hour. I do believe that what happened
this past week is a watershed moment for our nation and our
culture. That doesn't mean I know where
the water's gonna go. But it was a remarkable action
that our Supreme Court took. There has always been an underground
of all kinds of evil. We know that. We believe that
every kind of evil that can be done is being done at virtually
all times. But the worst outbreaks of it
are normally kept underground, or as the phrase is often used,
in the closet. But now this particular form
of sin against God has not only come out of the closet, but marched
down the aisle and the Supreme Court has given its approval. And in as much as said that all
of us must also give our recognition. I don't know any other way to
take it. than this, look back at Romans chapter one beginning
in verse 24. Now I'm no prophet, that is I'm not
one of those foretelling prophets. I don't know what God's gonna
do. All I can do is look back at what God has already done
in similar situations and look at what he's recorded in his
word and apply that best that I can. In Romans chapter 20,
or Romans chapter one, it describes how men suppress the truth by
their wickedness. You find this in earlier verses,
and one of the ways they suppress that truth is by denying the
God of scriptures, the God of creation, and setting themselves
up gods of their own. And because they would not, they
would not believe the God of scripture, It says in verse 21,
for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God,
nor gave thanks to him, but their thanking became futile, and their
foolish hearts were darkened, and they exclaimed to be wise,
but they came fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals
and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over
in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for
the degrading of their bodies with one another. Now, this is
just a reference to common immorality, sexual immorality. And it is
so common in our culture, we hardly recognize it anymore.
My wife and I were watching a television show that we like to watch when
really you just want some noise going on for the most part. And
this couple, it's one of those reality shows, but this couple,
it says they'd been married for two years and had a child one
year old. And I said, well, there's an
amazing thing in our day and age, when people wait until they're
married. I did point out to my wife with
the biological technology we have today, that doesn't necessarily
mean that they waited in their morality, but at least they didn't
bear any children before they entered marriage. Now that began
with my generation. Any of you of my generation,
you remember the 60s. You say, oh yeah, but all that
was going on, not like it started going on in the 60s, and not
with acceptance and approval. but it gained acceptance and
approval. And along with that became the
acceptance and approval of destroying children in the womb, which I
suppose was a handy offshoot for those who found themselves
in the embarrassment of an unwanted pregnancy. And now for two or
three generations, We have denied the God who made
us. Now when I say we, I'm just talking
about the nation at large. And I realize you young people
didn't go through this, but I was there. I was given the benefit of being
raised in a home where we were taught that these things were
wrong and that we shouldn't do them. But I saw it going on. And I felt the same temptations
as everyone else. And it became common. In fact,
this is one thing that surprises me, is that people are surprised
when folks get married without first trying it out by living
together. And I, you know, I'm sorry, but God's against that. He just is. But we went on that way and new
forms of depravity began to exert themselves and show themselves
within the public. And we find this in verse 26
of Romans 1 because of their immorality and exchanging the
truth of God for a lie and all that. And we've seen all that
go on because of this. God gave them over to shameful
lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural
ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relationships
with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men
committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves
the due penalty for their perversion. It is happening before our eyes.
We're watching it and we cannot help But Theolite Lot, of whom
it says, his righteous soul was vexed by what he saw. Now, I don't know why in the
world he moved to Sodom in the first place. That was a bad choice
on his part. His brother Henry Mahan once
said, why in the world is Lot in Sodom? There's no church there.
There's no group of believers in Sodom for him to worship with.
He left. the only group of believers in the whole land where he lived.
But nonetheless, for all his foolishness, he was one of God's
people, and he was vexed by what he saw, and so are we. And I'm certain that today, in
many pulpits, this issue is going to be addressed. There will doubtless
be a lot of calls, a lot of moral outrage expressed. And I can't
say that that's wrong, but there's going to be a lot of red-faced
moral outrage as preachers self-righteously denounce what may be the only
sin they're not tempted to. I've noticed that about preachers.
They're always against sins that they have no trouble with or
they secretly have terrible trouble with and pretend they don't.
There will be calls for political action. There will be many in
churches today that say that the church must redouble its
efforts to impact the culture. They will say that we need to
make sure and vote in people that will change this Supreme
Court ruling. I've already seen calls for a
constitutional amendment. as though that's the problem. But it'll happen. It is happening.
Some will say we need to exercise love and understanding. Well,
they're right. In everything we are to exercise
love. I don't know that understanding
is the right word. I guess I understand what they want simply because
I understand sin. That means I agree with it. And there are even some, and
this really shows the depravity of our culture, there are many
places today where the name of Christ is declared And yet they
will celebrate this and say it's time that we all learn that we
need to accept everyone's love for whoever they want to love.
And we'll celebrate, I saw this in the newspaper yesterday, a
cartoon that set forth the idea that God was in approval of this
and happy about it. When I was a kid, if you wanted
to get punched in the nose, just accuse some guy of being gay. Now, if you want to get punched
in the nose, act like there's something wrong with it. That's
where we've come in 40 or 50 years. What do we need? What do we need? What is the
need of this hour for us? The same need we had before the
Supreme Court issued its ruling. Our need has not changed. The need of this nation has not
changed. We are no more lost now than
we were then. We may be a little closer to
the precipice so far as a nation is concerned. We are not more
sinful. We are not any farther out of
the reach of God's grace if he's pleased to reach. And you and
I as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ do not need anything more
than that which has sustained us even to this day. Paul lived in a society like
ours is becoming. Now it had already been that
way for quite some time by the time Paul got there, but it was
a similar society, very depraved, very fleshly, full of every form
of wickedness you could imagine. So much so that Paul said, not
only the Roman culture, which I think he referred to mostly
in Romans chapter one, but then he turns on to the Jews. And
he says, you're a Jew, you think you're somebody? You're no better.
And then he says in verse 9 of chapter 3, what shall we conclude
then? Are we any better? Not at all. Now it would be a very easy thing
for us to look at the situation that's come up in our nation
and do as I have seen some people do, act with such disgust towards
them as though such a thing were not possible for us or wouldn't
have been done by us had God not restrained us from going
that direction. As though you and I or anybody
else has a right to point a finger at them as though we are adequate
judges of them. Now, we are adequate judges of
their behavior because all we got to do is look at the scripture
and say, that's wrong. But we cannot set ourselves above
them. We have already made the charge,
says Paul, that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. Yeah,
all under sin. As it is written, there is no
one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have
together become worthless. There is no one who does good,
not even one. That leaves you and me out, doesn't
it? I mean, not even one. Their throats are open graves.
Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their
lips. Their mouths are full of cursing
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know. And it's all wrapped
up in this, there is no fear of God before their eyes. You
might say, well, well, Joe, we fear God. Yes. The big question is why? We fear God because of his grace. But until he came and gave life
to our dead spirit and turned on the light of truth in our
hearts, that's all we were, what's described right there. There
was no fear of God before our eyes until God revealed himself
to us. And if there is any wickedness
into which we have not gone, It's only because God prevented
us from going there. The Bible says, all we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. And it doesn't matter which way you turn. When you
turn to your own way, you turn the wrong way. And all of us
were going our way until Christ came and rescued us. What is the need of the hour
then? Verse 21, but now a righteousness from God apart from the law has
been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. When I see what's going on in
our culture and know that the same things or same kinds of
things would be ruling in my mind unless God had interjected
himself into me and my life. When I realize that, I see how
important it is that there be some righteousness other than
mine to take into consideration. You know, there's going to be
a lot of calls for morality and for the church to go out and
moralize people. I want you to think about it.
If we could, If we could right now, by some force granted us
as a religious assembly, if we could go and confront the Supreme
Court and talk to them and get them to change their decision,
all of them would still be lost that were lost before. If we
could go to all the homosexuals right now, to the ones that have
already in their states been granted so-called marriage, and
get them to say, we renounce our marriage, if we could do
that. If we could get them all to say, yes, my homosexuality
has been, or acting on it anyway, has been a sin against God. And
I now renounce it. If we could get them to do all
that, if we could get them to marry someone of the opposite
gender, they'd still be lost. They'd still be lost. The need is not for greater morality. And what the church must engage
itself in is not now to turn its guns, as it actually has
been now for the last several generations, as it has been turning
its moralizing guns upon the world and trying to make the
world behave. The world never has and never
will behave. What the world needs is not a
command to be righteous, but a message that a righteousness
has already been produced by someone else and is given freely
through faith. Now all of us have private sin
and I do not recommend that you reveal your private sins. I've
always said what God has been pleased to keep covered, don't
uncover. We've all got it. And if we could get rid of it,
we'd still need this righteousness. One that comes from God, not
one that we render to God. If I could render a righteousness
that God would accept, that is, if I could actually work righteousness
that God could look upon and say, I'm pleased with that, then
I wouldn't need God, I wouldn't need Christ, I wouldn't need
this Bible, I wouldn't be standing in this pulpit. People sometimes
think that preachers are better than other people. Well, some
preachers think that too. But you know why I preach? It's
not because I think I'm better than anybody. It's because by
the grace of God, I have learned what a wretched sinner I am,
or at least I've learned something of it. And I know the need of
a righteousness from someone else. That's my desperate need. And it's your desperate need.
And it's the desperate need of all people. Because it says,
there is nobody righteous and there's no one who does good. That's the need of the day. That's
the first part of it, the need of the day. We need a righteousness
that comes from somewhere else. other than ourselves. Verse 22, this righteousness
from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. The second thing that's needed
is faith. God-given faith. As I said, there will be calls
for morality. I find it interesting that in
the messages which we find recorded in the book of Acts as the apostles
went out to preach the gospel, you don't find the apostles calling
on people to mend their ways. Isn't that interesting? No calls for the alcoholic to
throw away his bottle. I'm not saying that these aren't
good things to do, I'm just saying that's not what the apostles
called on them to do. Did not call upon men to stop
doing this, that, or the other. The message of the apostles was
to set forth Christ and his righteousness and called on men to believe.
Believe. Hang your hopes upon what he
has done, not what you think you might be able to do in the
future. Paul described faith in this
way, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. A three-part definition of faith, I know whom I have
believed. Paul was not trusting the doctrine.
Paul was not saying, well, I'm going to heaven because I believe
in free and sovereign grace. He didn't say, I'm going to heaven
because I believe that you shouldn't sprinkle babies, you should only
dunk believers. He didn't say, I'm going to heaven
because I believe that Jesus Christ is God. He says, I know
him. I know him. He and I have met. And you say,
preacher, have you ever met the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, I'll
admit, I never met him quite like Paul did. But in my heart,
I've had transaction with him. I've called out to him. And in
my heart, I've heard his voice in the preaching of the gospel.
He says, I know who I have believed. He said, I'm trusting somebody. I know whom I have believed and
I am persuaded that he is able. The second part of faith, saving
faith is this, a persuasion of the abilities of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We put no trust in our abilities,
do we? Oh, we have a natural tendency
to do so. And so much does it still work in our minds, even
as believers, that when we fail to perform as we think we should,
it sometimes, maybe often, maybe always, brings some doubt in
our hearts as to whether we belong to God. But we were never told
to be persuaded about what we can do He says, I'm persuaded
that he's able to do something. He's able to do what? Keep that
which I've committed unto him against that day. Third part,
saving faith. Committed. Now he doesn't mean
commitment like people say, well, I've committed my life to God.
To meaning to devote themselves to the service of God. It's not
at all what he means. He's talking about to keep something,
like if you go down to the bank and you've got some stock certificates,
bearer bonds or whatever, that you need to keep safe. And you
get you a little, one of those safety deposit boxes. And you
go in there and you open up that safety deposit box, you put that
paper in there, you lock it, and you have committed that to
the care of that bank. To keep it. To protect it from
theft. to keep you from losing what
is important to you. And Paul says, in essence, I
have put my soul on deposit with the Lord Jesus Christ. I have
delivered it into his hands to care for, because when it was
in my hands, I just made a mess of everything. And I know him,
and I did this because I know him, and I'm convinced, I'm persuaded
that he's able to take care of this. That if my soul's in his
hands, everything's OK. Okay now okay even to that day
when he shall return and judge the world in righteousness He
will not be coming after me. He'll be coming for me, but he
won't be coming after me He'll be coming for me to raise my
vile body to be a body like his He was a martyr Paul was died
for the faith died for preaching they cut his head off and Lord
Jesus Christ is going to come back and put it back on. That's
not all he's going to do. He's going to take all those
molecules and whatnot that made up his body and reassemble it.
And it will not be a body subject to the laws, as they say, the
second law of thermodynamics or entropy, that everything put
together falls apart. Right now, this whole creation
is subject to corruption, subject to falling apart because of the
sin of man. But Jesus Christ has worked such
a great work in his work on the cross that he is going to restore
his people to a condition where they don't fall apart. Nothing
wears out. You that are less than 30, you probably don't know anything
about what it is to have parts wearing out. But once you get over that hump,
it starts happening faster for some of us than for others. And eventually they wear out
so much that they just completely fall apart. Oh, our Lord is able to keep
these souls of ours pure. He washes them clean in his blood.
He lets no stain come back upon them. He's able to keep it and
protect it. And in the day of Christ, when
he comes to judge the world, instead of judging us, he's going
to make us like himself. Faith. We need a righteousness from
somewhere else. We need faith to lay hold of that righteousness
and to believe, not in things which we see, but in things above. As I sat there and considered what's going on and what might
come of it, I was struck by how weak my faith
in these matters are. I thought about if this pattern
continues, the time will come, and maybe not long from now,
when it becomes costly to name the name of Christ. And I'll just be honest with
you, it went through my mind, I could lose this house. I've kind of grown fond of my
house. We've been working on it ever since we moved there,
one way or another, and it's just getting to where we like
it. Really nice. And I could see either by way
of persecution or by God's judgment because he does come to cultures
such as ours sometimes and visit them with economic disaster.
We read about that in the book of Revelation. And when God visits
such economic disaster on the general population, it falls
on his people too. We find in the book of Revelation
several series of seven judgments. And in all those series, believers
participate in six of the seven. The only one they don't participate
in is the seventh, the ultimate judgment, eternal destruction. And I thought to myself, well,
what if God does? What if God says I've had enough
of the United States of America? My patience has worn out. And he gives us a little taste
of what the sin of our culture deserves. Understand this, unbelievers
won't be the only ones that suffer. And I thought, boy, what if we
lost this stuff? And I felt so bad to think that I would be
concerned about the things of this life. When I don't have that much life
left to begin with, And the life that is to come is filled with
blessings unspeakable. Oh, to have the faith to see
beyond the veil of this life and to have one's affection set
on things above and not on things below. If our heart is set on
things below, we're going to be troubled about all the things
that are going on down here below. If our hearts are set, are fastened,
and anchored in the things of God, and the things of eternity,
and the things of Christ, then we will not be so much moved
by what goes on down here. We'll not run around, oh, what's
going to happen? We won't have to spend days like
I did on Friday, way down in the basement of emotions and
in despair. But we will look beyond what
can be seen and see that which cannot be seen and rejoice that
nothing that goes on down below affects what goes on up above.
faith. We're in need of it and we may
be in need of stronger faith in days to come, but this is
my confidence in him that when the need for stronger
faith comes, stronger faith will be given. I'm reminded of a fellow
that came to Spurgeon and said, Brother Spurgeon, I'd like to
pray for you. And he said, well, okay, what
would you like me to pray for? He says, well, I need dying grace.
Spurgeon looked at him and said, well, are you dying? No, he said,
not that I know of. And he said, then what do you
need with dying grace? When you're dying, God will provide you dying
grace. And if the time comes to suffer
for the cause of Christ, grace to suffer will be given. If the
time comes to watch everything in this world be taken away,
then the grace to endure that will be given. Faith. A righteousness from somewhere
else, a faith that is given. And then we need, and this world
needs an understanding of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 25, God presented him, Christ Jesus,
as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood I have read
that we might understand that meaning better if we move some
of the words and it's really God presented him as a sacrifice
of atonement in his blood through faith. Without the shedding of blood,
says the scriptures, there is no remission of sin. The first
lesson about forgiveness that God taught to Adam and Eve after
they fell, was that there were no way to put away sin other
than by the death of an innocent substitute. And he pictured that
as he killed some of the animals there and skinned them and made
clothing for Adam and Eve. And evidently, Cain and Abel
were taught that, but Cain didn't believe it. He thought the works
of his own hands would do, And he brought a sacrifice of no
blood, no death, no atonement, and God rejected him. Abel brought
a sacrifice of a lamb, pointing to that one who would come who
is called the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
And God had respect to Abel's offering, and therefore he had
respect unto Abel. What the world needs now from
the church, more than anything else, is a clear, bold, and unyielding
declaration of the grace of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it needed it before last
Friday and it needs it now, just the same. The only hope for anyone's
soul is that sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether they
were what the world would call good people or whether they were
what the world would call evil. And by the way, good and evil
are always changing in this world. But it doesn't matter what the
world thinks of a man. It's of no consequence what a man thinks
of himself. Here's what God says about man.
He is wicked, and so wicked that nothing less than me killing
my own son can put away their sin. And yet, for those for whom
that sacrifice was made, when they hear that message, and in
their hearts they're enabled to see Christ crucified, they
see in Him all that is necessary to put away their sins. It was 13 years ago when I last
preached the baccalaureate service of our local high school. And I ended with these words. No matter how good you are, you
are in desperate need of the Lord Jesus Christ. And no matter
how bad you are, Christ is all you need. And that is the message
of the gospel. And men need that set before
them. They need to be taught that they do indeed need a Savior. No matter what condition they
perceive themselves to be in, they need to know they need a
Savior. And they need to know that Christ
is all the Savior they need. And now how do they learn that?
How are men taught that? Well, they aren't taught that
by us. What we teach them, what we set
before them is Christ, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin
of the world. We set before them Jesus Christ
in His person. We tell them who He was, God
in human flesh. The one whom God sent to be the
representative and substitute of his people. We tell him what
he did. That he took upon himself their sin. And bore their sin
in the presence of God. And God then responded as he
always does when somebody comes before him in sin. He punished
him. And that punishment was put on
display in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. More was
going on than a Roman crucifixion. But that crucifixion gave us
kind of a window that we can look in and see what God's been
doing or what God was doing. And we find that God was satisfying
His justice against the sins that Christ bore. So much so
that those sins are no longer in the presence of God. It says
of God's people that in that day there shall be a search made
for their iniquity and for their transgressions. And they shall
not be found. Why shall they not be found?
Because they've been put away. They are gone. They don't exist.
And you can't find something that doesn't exist. It was all put away by that atonement.
And we tell people that. And the Spirit of God takes that
message and He impresses it on their heart. And when they see
Christ crucified for sinners, they say, oh, what a sinner I
am, that that's what it took to save my soul. And what a savior
he is, that what he did is all that it takes to save my soul. Here's one thing that is not
needed. Verse 27, where then is boasting? is excluded. The one thing you and I need
none of is boasting, boasting about ourselves. I'm very sad
about what happened, but I shouldn't be surprised. Knowing myself
as I do, I kind of wonder what took so long for our culture
to degrade. Why did the Lord make it such
a slow path. You say, well, it seemed to have
happened awful quick. This last step may seem quick, but it's
been going on a long time. Oh, how patient God has been
with this nation. No nation was ever given so much,
and no nation has ever shown so little gratitude for what
it's been given. They neither glorified him as
God, nor gave thanks. That this should be happening
to us, it should be no surprise. And we, as Americans, have no
right to boast. None. Not before God, certainly. We, as believers, have no right
to boast. Not on ourselves. But we do have this. Paul says,
God forbid that I should boast in anything. other than the cross
of my Lord Jesus Christ, by which I've been crucified to the world.
What's that mean? So far as Paul said, because
of my glory and my boasting in Christ and him crucified, his
cross, because of that, the world counts me in a cursed thing.
It counts me like a man that's been crucified. And he says, I've been crucified
to the world. and the world has been crucified
to me. The world in the days of its
greatest morality, says it's crucified to me, means nothing.
The world in the days of its deepest expressions of depravity,
says I'm crucified to, or it's crucified to me. It's just an
accursed thing. I do not mean to suggest that
there will be no suffering on the account of this. I do not
mean to suggest that there shall not be tears over it. But I do mean to say this, 100
years from now, no one here is gonna care. And that's no matter where you
are. Whether you are under God's eternal blessing or at that time
under God's eternal judgment, it will mean nothing to you that
on Friday, June the 26th, 2015, the Supreme Court said that people
of the same gender should be allowed to get married. Because 100 years from now, every
one of us shall have stood before God And in his presence, the
only thing that means anything is Jesus Christ. Well, may God add his blessing.