Once again, I thank God that
he's brought you here this morning, and I pray that I'll have a message
here that he'll use to comfort us. We know that this is what
his Word will do to those that he's chosen, that he's called
by his grace in Christ. and reveal to him his gospel,
the gospel of how he saved the sinner based on Christ and his
righteousness alone. I appreciate Mark reading those
scriptures there in Romans 9. Before I begin our study in Romans
1, I'll go ahead and turn to Romans 1. We're going to begin
at verse 18 this morning. But before I begin, I would like
to make a few comments. that will lead us into this study
here this morning. And I do think, first of all,
like I said, I appreciate Mark, who just read in our opening
scripture that there is hope for an ungodly sinner. God has
chosen to have mercy on a people of his choosing, and his mercy
will not diminish his justice in any way as he does his. God's
elect are not appointed to wrath, but they're appointed to mercy.
The title of my message this morning is going to be The Wrath
of God Revealed. So, I'll talk to those scriptures
that Mark read this morning. It kind of helps us to lead into
what I'm going to be talking about. In viewing God's mercy
or right, the gospel must be preached heard and believed from
the heart. In order to believe the gospel
of Christ and His righteousness alone as the only hope for a
wretched sinner, God must, first of all, quicken. He must quicken
and regenerate His elect by His Holy Spirit. We must be born
again. Now, until God brings His elect
from darkness to this darkness that we're all in by nature as
we're born into this world because of Adam's sin. We all by nature
go about to establish a righteousness of our own because of this. Elect,
or by nature, children of wrath even as others. As we're put side by side prior
to regeneration and conversion, we're just like. by nature, those
that don't have any care whatsoever for the righteousness of Christ.
We go about to establish the righteousness of our own, just
like the non-elite. We know that because we know
we were in a religion prior to God saving us, bringing us from
darkness to light. We know we were there, and we
were side by side with others, believing the same thing they
were believing. of righteousness of our own, for God saved us,
brought us from darkness. After making these comments,
let's go ahead and begin our study here in Romans 1, beginning
in verse 18. I'm going to go ahead and read
these verses here. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who
hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it unto them. But
the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power in Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God,
they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. but became
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and
creeping things." If you would like, you can go
ahead and put a marker here. in Romans 1 here, because we're
going to be going back and forth to these verses here I just read. Having shown in the previous
studies that we've had here in Romans 1 that the gospel reveals
the only righteousness whereby God can be just to justify an
ungodly sinner, and he does it by the imputed righteousness
of Christ. The Holy Spirit, by the Apostle Paul, begins here
in these verses here, to bring the consciences of all men, Jew
and Gentile, before the bar of God's justice, to conclude that
all without exception, all by nature, and I'm going to be saying
this quite a bit, and you've heard it from these other men
here when we say, by nature. What we're meaning is all of
humanity, born of Adam, no exception. That's by nature, and we're all
the same. in that respect. We're all gilded
before God and deserving God's wrath, just like the non-elect. But at the same time, we know
that God's elect are not appointed to this wrath. Mark read some
of it just a little while ago. They're not appointed to this
wrath and to this condemnation. The sentence of condemnation
comes upon all men, all This is without exception, even upon
the elect of God himself, though, and that's very important, though
it is not executed upon God's elect, but upon their surety,
Jesus Christ, whereby the elect are delivered from this condemnation
and wrath. It was laid upon Christ. charge
to him as their surety. All by nature are ungodly and
in need of this righteousness revealed in this gospel that
we're talking about. The gospel is not clearly preached
until this righteousness is defined in all other righteousnesses,
which is anything that a sinner might imagine could recommend
unto God. As we look at this, until this
is preached, and preached clearly, that the only thing that will
recommend us unto God is the righteousness of Christ alone
and that being imputed. All these other things must be
excluded. Must be excluded. Anything done by the sinner.
If Uncle Paul, from Romans 1, verse 18, proceeds to do just
that. In this section, God reveals
the essence of the total depravity of all men by nature. We are
ignorant of God's righteousness, and therefore we go about seeking
to establish a righteousness of our own. We all, by nature,
are totally opposed to obtaining such a righteousness based on
the obedience and death of God, of a God-sent substitute, a righteousness
that will not allow for any contribution nor consideration on the sinner's
efforts. This describes every natural
descendant of Adam before true conversion. We hate the light,
which is his gospel, and we love darkness, the way we're born
into this world. It applies to the moral and to
the immoral, the dedicated religionists and to the totally unconcerned. Again, all things vital to religion
must be reduced to the ground of salvation. Those things that
have to do, being vital, to how God saves a sinner based on the
righteousness of Christ. No matter what our situation
or personality, we all by nature believe that our efforts and
obedience to some degree contribute in saving us, keeping us saved,
or recommending us under God. We all do this by nature. Before
God saves us, brings us from darkness to light. This belief
of all of us by nature is opposed to God's promise of a free justification
based solely upon the imputed righteousness of Christ. In order
for God to let those that He chose, in order for God to let,
to be able to see the truth of total depravity, our condition
before Him. God the Holy Spirit must quicken
and regenerate the sinner. Once again, we must be born again.
We must see how holy God is, and that He will require nothing
less than perfection in thought and in deed. Once God convinces
His elect of sin and of our helpless estate before He then reveals
his gospel of justification by Christ's righteousness alone.
The sinner will then willingly plead to Christ for refuge and
for salvation. God makes us willing in the day
of His power. Our first verse here, Romans
1 verse 18, reads, "...for the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold the truth in unrighteousness." Beginning here, Paul shows us
why we as sinners need the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel.
It is because of sin and guilt of the whole human race. In Adam,
we all fell into sin and death. We are all born in sin, spiritually
dead. God's law reveals that we all
have sinned and come short of this righteousness, the righteousness
of Christ, that standard whereby God judges. Romans 3 verse 23
says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,
and because of this we all equally deserve God's wrath. In Romans 6 verse 23 it says,
For the wages of sin is death. God's strict law and inflexible
justice is no respect for persons nor circumstances, and no one
sinner is more able to stand before a strict justice than
another based on our character and conduct. One sin or ten million
sins bring about guilt and defilement. God will by no means clear the
guilty, and the wages of sin is death. God has concluded all
unto sin, therefore all by nature owe a debt to God's law and justice,
and nothing can pay that debt. and remove God's wrath, except
perfect satisfaction to law and to justice. Thank God that Christ
stood in the place of God's leg. As he suffered, he bled and died
for our sins, sins that he had no part in producing. He was
holy and harmless and undefiled. But those sins were imputed and
laid to his account. They were not imparted to him
or imbued to him. They were imputed and charged
to his account. Christ got the job done. He paid
all the sin debt as he hung on the cross of Calvary. The next
part of verse 18 says that the wrath of God is against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men. is His justice against all sin
and unrighteousness. Salvation means to be saved from
God's wrath. Some say that the wrath of God
is not revealed in the gospel, but His wrath is revealed in
the gospel as it is being consumed by the Lord Jesus Christ as He
stood in our place. This is why God's legs are not
under His wrath. surety, and in our law place,
took the full measure of our punishment, that he shed his
blood on the cross of Calvary. God's wrath came down upon Christ,
his Son. The ungodliness that is spoken
of here refers to man's offenses against God, and the unrighteousness
here in verse 18 speaks of sins of man against man. This is a
breach against those two great commandments, love God perfectly
and love our neighbor as ourselves. James 2.10 says, For whosoever
shall keep the whole law, and yet offend one part, he guilty
of all. All men, after looking at the
law of God, should flee to Christ for salvation. But instead, we
all by nature go about to establish a righteousness of our own. This
is ungodly, and this is unrighteous. The last part of verse 18 here
states to hold the truth in unrighteousness. Fallen sinful man by nature will
always suppress both the truth God reveals concerning salvation
by grace in Christ and what God reveals in creation and in conscience
of all men. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says, but
the natural man, those all men without exception, born of Adam,
perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned. Every truth revealed to man by
God has been fought against, has been disregarded, and deliberately
obscured. Men obscure the truth of God
when they preach another righteousness, or when they preach a cleverly
disguised system of works, and they call it grace. They also
describe it when they preach a gospel, which is no gospel
at all, but which is another gospel. In Romans 1.19, it says,
"...because that which may be known of God is manifest in them,
for God hath shown it unto them." Our sinnerhood and God's wrath
against sin, along with the fact that we know there is a God by
nature, is manifest in them. are in our natural conscience.
Consider what all by nature know and desire without any special
revelation from God, knowing by natural conscience that there
is a God and that he must be of peace toward us due to our
sins as we are born into this world. First of all, all men
desire atonement or reconciliation for sins. We know by nature that
we have offended this God and that he's angry. We all know
that by nature. Therefore, we go about attempting
to make reparations for our sins and our mistakes. We establish
a righteousness of our own, being ignorant of God's righteousness,
that righteousness that Christ worked out. We know there is
a hell and we want to avoid it. Men will sacrifice for it, they'll
give, they'll reform, they'll abstain in order to remove God's
wrath. But this desire, unenlightened
by God's revealed testimony, is unholy and unrighteous. When
inspired by Satan, we by nature seek this atonement based on
things God's already excluded, which is anything and all things
other than the blood and the imputed righteousness of Christ
alone. These works that are done in an effort to appease this
God of our imagination, the one we build up in our own minds,
and we all do it, we all have different kinds of gods as we
come before God reveals himself to us. I can remember thinking, who
is this God as a young person, you know, and I envision him
An old gray-haired fellow up there with scales right here
that somehow or another he was going to weigh those sins that
you do and he's going to come. Somehow or another they were
going to have to balance out if you're going to be saved.
This was the dawn of my imagination, one that I built up in my mind
and one that Ben fostered with false preachers that continue
to tell me these things and lead me this way, along with parents
and kin people and everybody else. But, like I said, this is our unenlightened
by God's revealed testimony, it's unholy and unrighteous.
These works that are done in an effort to appease this God
of our imagination, they're dead works, and they're fruit unto
death. And second of all, all men desire
favor and blessings from God, We know there is a heaven, and
we want to attain it, whatever way we conjured up in our minds
that we think we can attain it. But this desire, unenlightened
once again by God's revealed testimony, is unholy and unrighteous. When inspired by Satan, we by
nature seek this favor based upon the righteousness of our
own in opposition to God's glory. revealed in the Gospel of Grace
in Christ. An example of this is given by
the Apostle Paul here in Philippians, in chapter 3. Now, this is where
Paul is talking about who he was before God converted him,
what his thoughts were, and what he did as a man coming up. Paul says, though I might also
have confidence in the flesh, If any man think that he hath
whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcised the
eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of Hebrews, as touching the law, he was a Pharisee, the same one
that Bill was talking about back there this morning. He was a
Pharisee, the most religious of men. Concerning Bill, persecuting
the church. touching the righteousness which
is in the law blameless. He thought that he kept it perfectly,
everything he meant to the full extent trying to keep it. You
can see by what we just read that Paul, before conversion,
he thought mighty highly of his works and had a lot of confidence
in the flesh. We can see those things that
Paul did to seek favor and blessing from God. Now, as the Apostle
Paul here being our example, we then look at how he sees himself
after conversion, after God has done a work, after God has brought
him from darkness to light by his Holy Spirit through the preaching
of the gospel. Let's turn here to Philippians
chapter 7, beginning at verse 10. Paul here says, but what things
were gained to me? What things were gained to Paul?
That's all those things we just got through talking about that
he taught Hylia. He says, those I count at loss
for Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them, but dumb, that I may win Christ. and be found in him
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law," the one
he just got to talking about, but that which is through faith,
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his
death. Now, it is only when the Holy
Spirit convinces us of righteousness and causes us to say, God bless
me for Christ's sake alone, then and only then can we view the
true God as a just God and a Savior based on the imputed righteousness
of Christ. Also, in Philippians 3, in verse
3, the Apostle Paul says, For we are the circumcision which
worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. anything that we do, or anything
we're unable to do, we have no confidence in. Turn with me here
to Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3. In the following verses here,
Paul gives all the glory and honor to God for his salvation
by Christ alone. Paul said, "'Blessed be the God
and Father by the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spirits of blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according that
he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated on us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ, who himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made
us accepted in the Beloved, in Christ. Until we're enlightened
by God's gospel, we will always hold the truth in unrighteousness.
Taking what we know of God by natural conscience, and using
it in a way and in ways that dishonors God's redemptive character
and casts shame and reproach upon the person and saving work
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Soul to gravity is revealed,
and our refusal to seek these things in God's revealed Word
according to that which glorifies Him exalts Christ and excludes
all grounds of boasting in the center. Self-righteousness, self-love,
and religious pride will always motivate us to speak peace to
ourselves and to others based on things God has already excluded.
By nature, men will refuse that gospel revelation which exposes
all false grounds and refuges, and we will fashion a God who
will accept us based on something other than the atoning blood
and imputed righteousness of Christ. This is idolatry and
this is unrighteousness, and we all are there by nature until
God comes to us in time by his Holy Spirit and reveals his gospel
to us, reveals himself to us, reveals how holy he is, and he
will not accept anything but perfection. And we know by nature,
and that's the reason so many times when you tell this to individuals
They say, well, I know that's not so, because none of us can
be perfect. And they hide it. They obscure
it. When they do this sort of thing,
and they go to their pastor, and the pastor tells them the
same thing. But God does require perfection.
Christ gives that standard of holiness and righteousness that
we must have the same for. Now, back in Romans 1.20, If
you look at that, for the invisible things of him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead, so that they
are without excuse. Now, here I am talking this morning,
and I'm talking quite a bit, speaking on all these verses
and telling you that there's no excuse for man because of
creation, God's power. what God has created here, and
we know there is a God, and it should cause us to start seeking
him out. And as we look at God's law, instead of seeing how holy
it is, we go about saying that we can keep it. But God says
here, so that they are without excuse. That ought to be enough
to say, well, that does it for me then. All men by nature without
excuse. God said it. But God goes to all kinds of
extremes in his word to not only say these things, but just prove
it in his word. We see here that God is just
in his condemnation. We see the majesty, the wisdom,
and power of God in the various works of creation, and this evidence
along with the witness of our natural conscience. that we're
actually born in those things that God puts in our natural
conscience. It leaves us without excuse.
By nature, we know enough so that God is just in his condemnation
of sin. By nature, we know enough about
this condemnation of sin, even though by nature we do not know
the way or the ground of salvation. God has to reveal it to us. God
has to come and he has to make us willing in the day of his
power. He has to reveal the gospel to us, bring us from darkness
unto light. Turn with me now to Romans 2,
beginning of verse 12. We see here in these verses how
there is no excuse for man. As we start reading here in verse
12, it says, For as many as have sinned without the law, speaking
of the Gentiles, shall also perish without law. And as many as have
sinned in the law, speaking of the Jews, shall be good by the
law. For not the hearers of the law
are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles which have
not the law do by nature the things contained in the law,
these having not the law are a law unto themselves. which
show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the meanwhile, accusing
or else excusing one another. And you can think back on yourself
with that. That's what we go through life
doing, excusing. We either accuse somebody and
we excuse somebody, and that's before we even know anything
about the gospel. God here, and we do this because we're trying
to We're trying to appease God somehow
or another to make ourselves put ourselves in a better light
in some way. All men are responsible to make
good use of those things which we know by nature, but self-consciousness
and self-love and religious pride, which reveals the evil of our
own hearts, causes us to seek after salvation and cry peace
to ourselves and to one another based on things that dishonor
God and deny Christ. Continuing here in Romans 1,
19, 20, these are also truths concerning
God that man can know naturally, such as in creation, this revelation
is given by God to man, and by which man should seek the Lord.
Man, however, by nature, will not seek the true and living
God. He rejects the truth of God revealed in this creation,
and he either turns it into his own way, and you can think of
the evolution that they do with this creation, or he turns it
into idolatry. We can also see something of
the majesty, the wisdom, and the eternal power of God in this
creation. Psalm 19 once is a heaven declared,
the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Once again,
this evidence, along with the witness of our natural conscience,
leaves us without excuse. All men are responsible to make
good use of those things which we know by nature, but self-righteousness,
self-love, and pride, which is the evil of our own hearts, cause
us to reject and to ignore God's revelation of himself. It causes
us to seek after our own way, and there are so many ways that
we seek after by nature. Either way, men cannot charge
God with hiding himself so as to excuse their unbelief, their
idolatry, and their sin. Scripture is full. God reveals
himself right here. And men, sinners, ought to seek
him out. We know that we here at this
place have had the gospel preached for many years. I know our former
pastor had it on TV out here for probably 15, 16 years. Had
it out there, and he said men come up to him and say, I heard
you on TV, you know, and I like you, and I like what you're saying.
But they don't do anything with it. They've heard the gospel. So many men have heard the gospel,
even in this place. Even in this place. Romans 1.21,
it says when they knew God. God has revealed to us, at least
twice in history, we feel like, that the gospel was preached
to the whole human race. First of all, immediately after
the fall, it was preached to Adam and Eve. And immediately
after the flood, it was preached to Noah. It didn't take long
before the majority of sinners rejected God, rejected his gospel,
which meant they refused to glorify him as God. Like Cain before
them, they insisted upon a God of their own evil imagination,
a God who would accept them based on something other than the imputed
righteousness of Christ. And we think about these two
different times, and we know that. Adam and Eve, Adam taught
his two boys the gospel, and we saw what happened with Cain
before long, brought the works of his hand and presented it
to God. And, of course, after Noah, it
didn't take long before they did the same thing. They take
the things that are revealed to them, this gospel, not only
that, and creation and everything else, and they'll take it. and
they'll make a god of their own imagination before long out of
these things, they will not pray to Christ as their only hope.
Now, the vanity of all this, which is the excessive pride
of our minds, is the offspring and source of idolatry and wickedness. It is seen when we think that
anything could recommend us unto God other than the merits of
the blood and the righteousness of Christ. Many times in these
few verses, our total depravity, our alienation from God, our
being in a state of lostness and being ignorant of the true
God, all of this is attributed to our minds being blinded by
the God of this world. We were vain in our minds. And
our foolish minds, our affections and wills were darkened and became
ignorant. All of these things that we're
talking about here, the foolishness, the lust, the unlawful desires
of our heart, the truth and lies, knowledge and reprobation, and
without understanding, all have to do with our minds and the
way we're born into sin in this life. In Ephesians 4 verse 17, you
don't have to turn to that, but it says, This I say therefore,
in testifying the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not, as other
Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. This means to be blinded in our
minds by the God of this world. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4 says,
"...in whom the God of this world hath blinded the mind of them
which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine unto them." Now, being
blinded in our minds causes us to think that peace with God
can be gained and maintained by something other than the imputed
righteousness of Christ. And we can go in all different
kind of areas with that. Now, we can easily see from all
this testimony that an enlightened mind is absolutely vital if we
are going to be able to worship the true God and not a God of
our imagination. This enlightened mind must not
come from natural conscience, but in a direct revelation from
God. His revealed testimony is the
only way. Colossians 1.21 says, "...and
you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled." We see here in Paul's letter
to the Colossians. how that they were in times past
enemies, enemies of God in their minds, and it was manifested
by their wicked works, going about to establish the righteousness
of our own. Continuing in verse 21 here,
Romans 1, the problem is not that man did not know God in
the ways described above, but that man refuses to glorify him
as God. We see this in Adam's fall when
Adam, in a state of perfection, chose not to glorify God. We
see this in Cain when he sought to be justified before God based
on his works rather than bringing the sacrifice that would have
pictured salvation by God's grace in Christ, the Promised Lamb.
This shows our ingratitude as well as our natural unbelief,
self-righteousness, and religious pride. The last part of verse
21 says that they became vain in their imagination, and their
foolish heart was darkened. Man's thoughts became futile
in seeking salvation in his own way, by his own works. Psalm 39 verse 5 says, Verily,
every man at his best estate is altogether vanity. Then in
Romans 1 verse 21 says, And their foolish heart was darkened. man's
foolish heart which when anytime we hear this about our hearts
it's our minds and our affections and our will it's not mystical
but it's been darkened by sin then uh man's foolish heart has
been darkened by sin this can refer to the fact that the natural
ignorance of fallen humanity breeds more ignorance but also
the fact that God's judicial blindness of those who continue
to reject the truth. In Matthew 13, verse 12, Christ
himself says, For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he
shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not, from
him shall be taken away, even that he hath. Therefore speak
I to them in parables, because they seeing not, And hearing
they hear not, neither do they understand. Also, in 2 Thessalonians
2, and I know I'm pointing out a lot of scripture, but I think
all of it is relevant. And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. shall send them strong delusion,
that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned
who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness."
Now, in Romans 1.22, it says, "...forfetching themselves to
be wise, they became fools." Man in his natural wisdom will
always be foolish when it comes to the issues of seeking the
Lord of salvation. The wisest of men in the worldly
matters are the most foolish and ignorant in the matters of
how God saves a sinner. Now, there in 1 Corinthians it
says, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness. But to us which are saved, it's
the power of God. Now, God's wisdom is in Christ
and salvation by His blood and righteousness. It is clear in
1 Corinthians 1, 24-31, that God has commanded all men to
seek salvation by his grace in Christ alone, and he has forbidden
sinners to seek it anywhere else. Now, our last verse here, and
then I'll close, this morning, is in Romans 1, verse 23. This is, and change the glory
of the uncorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible
man and the birds and the four-footed beasts and the creeping things.
Now, this image here that's spoken of is an icon. It's an icon, and it's a dangerous
thing to change the glory of an incorruptible God into an
icon of your own choosing. Here we see that the natural
decline of man falls when he begins to worship creatures rather
than the Creator. This is the problem with man's
natural religion. It is always an attempt to diminish
God's glory and to exalt himself. It is man's attempt to recreate
God in his own image. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether. such as one as thyself, Psalm
50. Man wants to set his own standard
and to deny God's standard, but every man did that which was
right in his own eyes, Judges 17, 6. By man setting his own
standard, he can view himself as right and righteous in his
own When we as sinners are brought
to see the reality of our sinfulness and how that we by nature deserve
God's wrath, that is when God the Holy Spirit changes our supposed
glory into corruption and shows us the incorruptible glory of
God and the free salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. You must
be born again. God must make us willing in a
day of His power. We've talked the last few studies
in Romans 1 here about the gospel, about the gospel of God, the
gospel of Christ, this gospel wherein the righteousness of
God is revealed. And we tell men this is the way
God saved the sinner. He requires perfection in every
way, and the only way you're going to find it is in Christ,
in his righteousness alone. And I tell men, flee to Christ,
thinking about that refuge, that rock. Flee to Christ as your
only hope of salvation now and throughout eternity.