Balancing Truth

SERMON: 2009-07-12--ac0924--balancing-truth SOURCE DURATION: 00:43:06.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: All provided candidates are part of a sustained devotional or prayer segment (benediction/pastoral application). Since there is no clear non-sermon material within the candidates, the final candidate represents the last spoken word of the sermon content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:38:58.100-00:43:02.220 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, we don't hear a lot of hellfire and brimstone preaching these days, do we? Time was when that kind of preaching was fairly common in the Christian church. And probably the most classic example of hellfire and brimstone preaching was Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Jonathan Edwards was a minister in Colonial New England in the 1700s. He is reputed to have been one of the greatest theologians that North America has ever known. But he was also a pastor who was deeply exercised about the worldliness of God's people in his day. And so on July the 8th, 1741, in Enfield, Connecticut, he preached the sermon that would forever make him famous, and that is often attributed to single-handedly beginning what is known as the First Great Awakening, a revival movement that spread throughout the New England colonies in the 1700s. This text was Deuteronomy 32 verse 35, the words, "Their foot shall slide in due time." And he mints no words picturing the graphic flames of hell that awaited all those who refused to submit to the authority and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Let me give you just a taste. Here's what he said, "The wrath of God burns against them, that is, the unbelievers. Their damnation doesn't slumber. The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot. Ready to receive them, the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is wet and held over them, and the pit has opened her mouth under them." And he went on in that vein for quite a long period of time, and you'll have to forgive my language, but he literally scared the hell out of people because that was the start of a huge revival in New England. As I said, we don't have a lot of that preaching anymore today. We're much more comfortable talking about the soft side of God, aren't we? His love, His compassion, His mercy, His long-suffering patience with the fallen world, and all of that is well and good. Because as the old proverb says, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." And the book of Romans says that it's the kindness of the Lord that is meant to lead us to repentance. But I wonder sometimes, I wonder sometimes if we perhaps, in leaning towards the soft side of God's character, haven't lost something of the biblical balance. When I read Scripture, I find that not only is there a lot of talk about God's love, God's power, and God's compassion, and God's desire to save, but I also read some very strong words about those who reject God's salvation, who continue to throw His love back in His face, and the Bible is filled with words of warning and damnation. And I find it interesting that as you listen to Peter, he seems to be able to arrive at that kind of biblical balance in the text that we have been looking at, because you will recall that he's been talking about the Lordship of Jesus, and he's been talking about God's desire to save those, the gift of forgiveness, the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who are near, and to those who are far off, and to their children, all those whom the Lord God will call. And then we come to verse 40, and verse 40 marks a shift in his speaking, you will recall, because here is what Luke says in reporting on his Pentecost talk, "With many other words he warned them, and he pleaded with them, 'Save yourselves, save yourselves from this corrupt generation.'" As we take a bit of time this morning to go through that verse together, allow me to point out three things, number one, the world is corrupted by sin. Listen again to how he puts it, "With many other words he warned them, he pleaded with them, 'Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.'" Now the word corrupt is the Greek word skolios, and it means literally crooked, bent, or twisted. And I wonder who of us here this morning can identify a fairly common medical term in English that derives from the word skolios. A lot of you have got it, it is skoliosus, and skoliosus means curvature of the spine, bent, crooked, twisted. And so the picture here is something that is twisted out of shape caused by sin, and I like to think of it in terms of a tree instead of growing up tall and straight and strong, it's bent and it's gnarled and it's twisted. And Peter says that is a fitting description of a generation that is alienated from God. As you know, God's design for all of creation was that we should have God at the center of our lives as we live in harmony with him, we live in harmony with each other, and all of creation was designed to be one harmonious whole. Sin comes along, and sin is fundamentally a rejection of God and God's authority. We come under Satan's authority, we listen to the lie. Instead of living for God, we live for self. The more we live for self, the more life begins to disintegrate. And the message of the Bible is that every problem that we face in the world today, no matter how complex, whether it's economics, politics, health-wise, relational-wise, doesn't matter where you find it, it all comes from being alienated from God, alienated from each other, and the nature of sin is as that alienation progresses, life becomes more and more chaotic. Here is how the apostle Paul describes it in that classic chapter, Romans chapter 1, where he talks about people deliberately rejecting God's authority, God giving them over to sin, and he says since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossip, slanderers, god-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. Paul really likes lists, you will notice. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. He wants to make sure nobody misses his point. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve those who practice them. Notice that last verse in particular. They not only continue to do these very things, but they also approve those who practice them. In other words, their thinking has really become twisted. There's one thing to do wrong, and to know that you're doing wrong. Because as long as you know that you're doing wrong, you can still be rescued and redeemed. But when God gives people over to sin, they lose the ability to know the difference. They no longer only do it. They approve of those who do it. Black has become white. White has become black. The prophet Isaiah put it this way, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Such is the nature of sin. It produces a corrupt generation, a generation that is gnarled and twisted, that suffers scoliosis not only of the spine, but of its very character and its very nature." And you don't have to look very far and wide sometimes, including our own hearts and our own lives, to see evidence of that kind of corruption. So that's the first thing I want us to note in the verse that we're looking at this morning. The second thing that I want us to note, and this may strike you as strange, is that it's our job to save ourselves. For listen again to Peter's words with many other words. He warned them and he pleaded with them. What does he say? Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. And some of us hear. We look at that and we say, "Isn't that at odds with everything the Gospel declares? Haven't we always been taught we cannot save ourselves?" And it's true. We cannot save ourselves. The Bible says, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." And earlier in Peter's Pentecost sermon, when he quotes from the prophet Joel, he says, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." It is Jesus' name that is a mighty tower and a stronghold of safety. That's why when we look at those little circles that we peek at periodically, we have the cross of Jesus as the crossover point between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of our God. So what does Peter mean when he says, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation"? Well what he means is that God having done everything that needs to be done in Christ to get us from the one kingdom into the other kingdom, it's now your job and my job to lay hold of that salvation. Paul later on says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure." Think of the analogy that I used last week. Think of the world as a ship of civilization that is sinking out of the middle of the ocean. The shore is hundreds of miles away. Some of us don't know how to swim at all. Some of us know how to swim maybe a mile or two miles or even three, and maybe some who are really good swimmers can swim to 30 miles, but none of us can make it to shore. God launches His lifeboat for our salvation, and the lifeboat comes along to each of us where we are. It is our job by faith to climb into that lifeboat and to lay hold of all the benefits that God has provided for us through faith in Jesus. You say, "How do we do that?" Well, we do that first of all by turning to the Lord Jesus in repentance and faith. That is to say, I come to grips with the fact that whether I'm a good swimmer or a bad swimmer, the shore is so far away, I cannot make it. I have to humble myself and allow myself to be pulled out of the water and hauled into the boat. If my pride or my arrogance stands in the way, then I'm going to surely drown before I get to shore. Some of you remember my helicopter story, the man who found himself on the roof of his house because he was experiencing flooding. He cried out to God, and he said, "Oh, God, please save me," and along comes somebody in a boat. He says, "Why won't you get in?" He said, "No, I've prayed to God, God's going to save me." Somebody else comes along in another kind of boat and same kind of thing, and then along comes a helicopter, and each time the answer is, "No, God is saving me." Of course, the water continues to rise, and eventually the dude drowns, and now he stands before God, and he's all irritated with God, "God, why didn't you save me?" And God says, "Well, I sent you a boat, and I sent you another boat, and I sent you a helicopter, but you didn't avail yourself of the means of salvation that I provided for you." That's how it is with the Lord Jesus. God has already done everything. Peter says, "God has given us His great promises that through these we may have everything that we need for life and for godliness to be saved from this corrupt generation." But it means humbling ourselves. It means admitting that we're not good enough, we're not strong enough swimmers, we need to allow Him, we can't even climb ourselves into the boat. He's got to reach out and drag us in and bring us to safety. So we need to turn to the Lord Jesus in repentance and faith, deliberately turning away from our self-sufficiency, deliberately declaring that we owe Him our life, and then of course what we need to do is we need to avail ourselves of what in church circles is often called the means of grace, that is to say the methods that God has established for us to continue in the faith. It's not good enough just to get pulled into the boat. We got to stay in the boat because the human tendency is to say, "Well, I see land now. Thanks for getting me out of my mess. I'll do the rest on my own." Means of grace are things like prayer, Bible reading, gathering together with God's people for regular worship. "Let's not give up meeting together," says the writer to the Hebrews, "as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another." And all the more as you see the day approaching. They said years ago if people spent as little as 15 minutes a day just earnestly pursuing God, seeking after Him, and seeking to lay hold of His blessings, what a difference it would make. Instead, we're often calloused. We think we are safe and secure without having made provision to really lay hold of the faith that is in Jesus. Listen to how Jonathan Edwards put it in that famous sermon years ago. He says, "Almost every natural man that hears of hell flatters himself that he shall escape it. He depends upon himself for his own security. He flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Everyone lays out matters in his own mind, how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives wealth for himself and that his schemes won't fail." They hear indeed that there are but few saved and that the bigger part of men who have died heretofore are going to hell. But each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have done. He doesn't intend to come to that place of torment. He says within himself that he intends to take care of himself in ways that shall be effectual and to order matters so for himself as to not fail. Listen again to Paul. He says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Fear and trembling. There isn't a lot of fear and trembling. There isn't a lot of fear and trembling in my life, and I suspect there isn't a lot of fear and trembling in your own life. Why? Because we just sort of assume all is well, but let's understand something. The kingdom that God is building is based on His holiness and His righteousness. And the only way that any of us can get in there is to abide in Christ, to plead with Christ not only for His justification, but also our sanctification because the book says nothing impure will ever enter yet, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And some of you now are saying to yourself, "Does that mean that I have to be perfect because if I have to be perfect, I'll never make it in there?" Remember, our perfection is in Christ. But it means we walk in repentance, we walk in forgiveness, we walk in reconciliation, we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. We don't just walk around jauntily and saying, "Well, I've sinned, but sin's no big thing. God will forgive me anyway." Well, He will, but we need to come to Him in repentance. We need to plead with Him. We need to seek hold of God's grace to be transformed for His glory because His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom of holiness and purity. And in Christ, God has given us everything that we need, but we better lay hold of it and we better lay hold of it seriously lest all of a sudden we discover ourselves in a place where we're called to meet God and we're not ready to meet Him. So Peter says we live in a world that is corrupt by sin. Peter says it is our job, in the way that I've just described, to save ourselves. And then he says it's the job of the church to warn the peoples of the world and to plead with them. Listen again to verse 40, "With many other words," words not recorded in Scripture, "many other words," this was not a short sermon, just for the record, "with many other words He warned them and He pleaded with them, 'Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.'" Now the word "warn," as you know, means to point out or alert someone to danger. Don't touch the stove, you'll get burnt. If you don't pick up the pace, you're not going to hold onto your job or pass your course. If you drive while you're drinking, you're going to get yourself into serious trouble. The world is full of warnings that we give to ourselves and to each other. Wise people heed warnings. Now to plead includes an emotive element. It means making an emotional appeal. Please don't get in that car with that drunk driver. Please give me your keys. Please study so that you can pass your course. Please don't hang around with the friends that you're hanging around with. Warning and pleading usually go together, don't they? Don't go out with those friends because they'll lead you down the garden path. Don't drive while you're drinking because the police could pull you over or worse yet you could find yourself in a serious accident. Don't do drugs that'll fry your brains. Pleading and warning. And the Bible is filled with examples where people are pleading and warning. Paul says, "I warn you as I warned you before. Those who do such things," and this is after a whole list of the works of the flesh in Galatians chapter 5, "I warned you as I warned you before. Those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." And writing to the Corinthians, he says, "We are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We beseech you, we beg you, we appeal to you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God. Warn them. Appealed to them." Why? Because wrath is the reverse side of God's love. Think of cancer and a doctor. Cancer threatens its host by taking over life, and a compassionate physician who wants to save your life isn't going to mess around, but he is going to take an aggressive attitude towards that cancer because that cancer is left unchecked. It will kill you. That's how it is with God's wrath unseen. Here is how Paul describes it in Romans chapter 1 verse 18, that classic passage, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and the wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness." God hates sin, and He hates the corruption that is caused by sin. And He hates it because, first of all, it is an affront to His majesty and to His power. How would you feel if you were in God's place? You've created this whole world, you sustain it daily by the word of your power, you pour out blessing upon blessing on the righteous and the unrighteous, and people just pass on by and they pretend, you know, you don't even exist. In fact, they credit all your blessings to other things and to other beings, perhaps a parent whose love is thrown in his face by his teenage son or teenage daughter comes closest to being able to understand that pain. And it's not just personal for God, it's also because His heart aches at the destruction that sin causes in all the world. I mean, look around you. Look at the reality of death confronted again, as I said earlier, by two deaths just this week alone, by people associated with this community of faith. Death is the final enemy. Jesus wept at Lazarus' grave. You and I get used to the fact that there is death, perhaps, but it was never intended to be that way. It is an offense in the sight of God. And then think of all the heartache and all the brokenness and all the cruelty and all the wars that get waged in the name of selfishness and in the name of self-righteousness, and you begin to understand why God's heart breaks at the corruption that exists in the world and why He has done everything that He can in the gift of His Son to try to reverse that. And so while God is incredibly patient and He allows wickedness and sin to run its course, don't ever mistake that for weakness on God's part or that He turns a blind eye to sin. God doesn't wish that any should perish, that all should reach repentance, and so God allows the wheat and the weeds to grow up together. But there comes a time that the Bible calls the Day of the Lord when God says wickedness has gone far enough. If I allow it to go any further, it will utterly destroy all of creation beyond redemption. And so throughout history, what do you see God doing? He steps into history when the time is right and He moves in judgment. As I said, that's called the Day of the Lord, and the Day of the Lord in the Bible happens periodically in history as in the days of Noah or in the days when God's judgment falls on nations or on individuals, and it's all a preparation for the great day of judgment when God says my patience has run out, my mercy is finished, the full number of the elect have come in, and God says it is time to sweep the place clean and to make a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness reigns. And I want each of us to know and to believe in the deepest places of our hearts that when that happens, when God says it is time to sweep the room clean, that's the day when the age of grace and mercy is passed. And on that day when God moves in judgment, it is relentless, it is ruthless, it is without mercy or without compassion. Listen to how the book of Revelation puts it, "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Many years ago a good friend of mine was the subject of prayer from his wife and her friend. That's not unusual because a lot of wives pray for their husbands. But this guy was a great guy, but he was nonchalant spiritually. And as they prayed, God began to work in his life, and tragically as he was in the construction trade, he was sitting up on the rafters one day when something went awry, all the rafters came flying, and with it he did. And he hurt himself badly, and he was hospitalized for a long period of time. And as he was hospitalized and had time to begin reflecting on his life, God began to speak to him. And then in the course of being spoken to, he had a vision, he had a revelation. And I always thought that was curious because it was such a clear sign of God working in his life because this guy was as sober a Dutchman as you can find and not given to visions or to revelations. But in his revelation, his eyes were opened to the flames of hell. He saw the judgment of God coming and he said he could literally smell the burning sulfur. That's brimstone in older language. And brimstone is the flame of hell. A lot of people say, "Well, it's just symbolic. It's not literal. It's not real." Well, you can believe what you want, but when I read Scripture, it's not a very pretty place to be. Listen again to how Jonathan Edwards put it. He says, "Consider this, you that are here present that yet remain in an unregenerate state, a place where you haven't been born again. He will have no compassion on you. He will not forbear the executions of his wrath or in the least light in his hand. There shall be no moderation or mercy. God will not then at all stay his rough wind. He will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much. Nothing will be withheld because it is so hard for you to bear." Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of God's patience, and today is the invitation, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." So let me ask you first of all, what's your own state with regard to the wardings of God's judgment upon the world? Oh, I know you come to church and you probably pray at home or read your Bible or go through spiritual exercises or motions, and that's all a perfectly good thing. But have you come to the cross? Have you been to that place where you have said, "Outside of Jesus, only the terrors of hell await me." God has provided His lifeboat. Have you jumped into the lifeboat, and do you know that you have? Because God's Word says, "By this we may know that we have eternal life when we have the Son." And are you living a life of repentance and faith? When you fall into sin, as we all do, when you get cross with your spouse or your impatience reaches the sky or you share in the corruption of the world and the Holy Spirit convicts you, what do you do with that conviction? Do you just brush it aside, leave it alone, justify your own behavior, everybody else is doing it? Or do you get down on your knees and you say, "Lord God, I messed up again. I thank you for Jesus. Forgive my transgressions. Change my heart." You see, that's what enables us to stand in confidence for the coming of the day of the Lord. Edwards goes on to say in his particular sermon that most people that have died never figured they would be dying. They all thought they had the endurance, the constitution, the way paved clear so that judgment would never come their way. But nobody is guaranteed because both young and old die, and we're all called to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. So let me ask you again, what have you done with a lifeboat that has been offered to you? And are you working out your salvation with fear and trembling, or do you depend on cheap grace that says somehow or another, "God is going to make the exception for me." Why should He make the exception for you when it has cost Him everything that He could possibly do to make your salvation possible? And then I ask you, who is there in your circle of acquaintances that is still out there in the sea, dog-paddling his way in the mistaken notion that somehow or another he can make it to shore? Who is there in your circle of acquaintances that continues to reject the cross of Jesus and who continues to believe that somehow or another their own righteousness, their own strength, their own good deeds will enable them to stand in the judgment of God? Who is there among your acquaintances who perhaps has jumped into the lifeboat but continues to deny the reality of that salvation and therefore continues to indulge knowingly, deliberately, and rebelliously in a lifestyle that is at odds with the calling of God on His holy children? Who is there in your world that you know is in danger of the wrath of God on that final day? And then let me ask you, what are you doing about it? You know, the book of Ezekiel says that if we do not warn those who are in danger of damnation, then their blood is on our heads. Those are sobering words, are they not? If on the other hand we warn them and they refuse to believe or to accept them, the responsibility is there. So let me ask you again, in your circle of acquaintances, those who are still dog-paddling their way to the shore, who refuse the offer of the lifeboat that Jesus has come to bring for whatever reason, thinking they can do it better themselves, have you ever warned them? Have you ever explained the gospel to them? Have you ever challenged them? Have you ever invited them to put their faith and their hope in Jesus? Have you ever pleaded with them? You know how hard that is? We live in a world where we don't want to be obnoxious. We live in a world where we want to be nice. And I'm all in favor of being nice, and Scripture is all in favor of being nice, because Peter puts it this way, "In your heart's reverence, Christ as Lord, always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence and keep your conscience clear, so that when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame." I'm not suggesting you become a religious bigot. I'm not suggesting that you pull your truck up in front of somebody's door and dump everything that you have always been afraid to say in the name of God. It won't do any good. You catch more flies, remember, with honey than with vinegar. But all things being equal, often we're motivated more by self-love than we are by love for God or love for others. And if we really believe the gospel to be true. If we really believe that people outside of Jesus perish. If we really believe there is a heaven and a hell. If we really believe there is a Jesus who is exalted at the right hand of God, who is coming again in judgment to judge the living and the dead. Then like Paul, our love must constrain us, he says concerning the Jewish people. He says, "I wish that I myself were accursed for the sake of winning them to Christ." Moses had a similar love in the Old Testament when he said, "Take me out of the book of life if that will but save these sinful and these rebellious people." And so let's pray that God will give us his heart. And again, let me say, I'm not suggesting that we rudely embarrass people or go the other way. I don't know how many of you saw any of Michael Jackson's memorial service this past week, but one of the pictures in the news was this picture, "Jacko in Hell. God hates Obama. Westboro Baptist Church had a delegation there sporting these signs." Really not a good idea. Not speaking the truth in love. But it is our obligation in listening to the Holy Spirit to challenge people's lifestyle and to call them to God. If they listen, we have saved their souls, so to speak. If they don't, the judgment is on them. But at least we have been true to the integrity of the gospel. And so with many words, Peter warned them, he pleaded with them, and he said, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:38:58.100; remove through 00:43:06.000] Lord, pour out your spirit on all the peoples of the earth. Let your sons and daughters speak your words of prophecy. Let the strength and wisdom reveal the secret of your heart. Lord, our faith is rising. Let no heavens sound the calling of your name. There's gonna be a great awakening. There's gonna be a great revival in our land. There's gonna be a great awakening. There's gonna be a great revival in everyone who calls on Jesus, saying, "Amen," we say. Lord, pour out your spirit on all the nations of the world. Let them see your glory. Let them fall in reverence one. Show your mighty power. Shake the heavens and the earth. Lord, the world is waiting. Let our creation see the coming of the land. There's gonna be a great awakening. There's gonna be a great revival in our land. There's gonna be a great awakening in everyone who calls on Jesus, saying, "We'll be saved." There's gonna be a great awakening. There's gonna be a great revival in our land. There's gonna be a great awakening in everyone who calls on Jesus, saying, "We'll be saved." In everyone who calls on Jesus, saying, "We'll be saved." [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:43:06.000; resume after this marked segment]