So it is March the 18th, and we are of chapter 20, article 20, the gospel and its influence. It seems to me like there's a lot of discussion about the gospel here lately with a lot of the atheists and agnostics. A lot of people that I've dealt with lately dealing with You know, you're talking about the gospel and the standards of the gospel and you say things like, you know, for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. And and so many people are. I used to be a Christian, that's why I posted the thing online to absolute impossibilities. Number one, I'm an atheist and number two, I used to be a Christian. There is no such thing as it used to be Christian. You can look at it from a couple of perspectives. I'm going to look at it from number one. If God saved you, when did He save you? What did He save you from? And how did He save you? Did He save you in eternity past according to the Scriptures? Did He save you according to Galatians when He nailed the certificate of debt that you owe on the cross with Jesus Christ? Did He save you in His own sovereign election of you? Did He save you at a certain time and place when He brought you to repentance and faith? You've got to think about it. When we're talking about repentance, What is required? I know we're jumping in here. What is required for you to actually repent and actually believe the Gospel? Well, you have to have a regenerate heart. That's true. What else? You have to believe. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. In order to be saved, you have to realize that you're lost. You have to realize, you have to come to this conclusion, a spiritual mental conclusion, that you deserve to burn in hell for eternity because of how wicked you are. And the problem is, is most people don't believe that. Most people don't start with their foundations that are secure. And that's why Jesus talks about the different foundations. You know, the one made out of sand, or the one on solid ground. He claimed to be a Christian, And yet, there's no foundation. You're not even sure if God exists. I do this all the time at school. I ask the whole group, 200 some odd kids, been doing it for how many years, Kristen? You've seen it happen. How many Christians are in the room? And pretty much everybody raises their hands. How many of you guys know for a fact that God exists? And most people put their hands down. And then I show them the Scripture in Hebrews that tells us that it is impossible without faith, it is impossible to please God, for you must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him diligently." See, here's the point. If God has saved you, if you truly are saved, what's He saved you for? He saved you to spare you from the wrath of God. Now, when does that happen? Not just when you die. He is appointed. Remember that? A day when he's going to judge the world in righteousness. Remember that Bible verse? It's called the day of God's wrath. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of salvation. But there's going to be one day when God's going to judge the world in righteousness. Now think about this. When somebody says to you, I'm an atheist, number one, we can point to the scripture and say, no, you're not. We're going to actually look at that in a minute. But because the Bible says, a fool says in his heart there is no God. I actually had this long discussion with a young man who continuously was telling everybody he's an atheist. But he used to be a Christian. And I told him, I said, number one, you have a biblical impossibility. You cannot have been saved brought to Christ, brought under certain conviction, unless you know that God exists and you know that He rewards those who seek Him diligently. That statement is talking about salvation and the life of a Christian. I have one person tell me, he says, I know that people can lose their salvation because, listen to this argument, I know that people can lose their salvation, and I know for a fact, because I went through this trial, and he says, it was so terrible, and it was so awful, it changed my life. And I said, really, are you an atheist now? He says, no, I'm still a Christian. And I said, wait a minute. You still believe? He goes, yeah, it was terrible, terrible time, but I know people could lose their salvation and turn to atheism. I said, how do you know that? I said, so I was pointing him to Scripture. I'm pointing him to Scripture. Romans 1, Romans 2. I'm taking him to Scripture. I'm taking him to Hebrews. I'm taking him to different passages of Scripture. Okay? I take him to Jesus saying that for all that the Father has given to me, I'm not going to lose any of them. But I'm going to raise them up on the last day. I go through that and I say, OK, how can you lose salvation if salvation is something that God grants to people and not something you did? So I said, the point is, if you did it, yeah, you can lose it. If God did it. And God has truly saved you, it's impossible because he's the one that saves you based upon his reputation, not based on yours. But I asked him, I said, my question is, How can you lose your salvation? And he goes, well, I, he says, I had this trial in my faith. And I said, so you're not, you're not a Christian anymore. And he goes, no, I'm a Christian. And I said, see, that's the point. He just, I don't know. He just couldn't understand it. And I think it's because of the way he had been taught. And I said, but the point is, you're still a Christian, right? And he goes, yeah. I said, behold, the power of God. He kept you. But there's another point. When I'm talking to kids about their axioms, what am I talking about? When I say axiom, what am I talking about? Okay, I'll give it to you. A presuppositional foundational starting point. An axiom, now you can continue that on by saying it has no other starting point. It can't go to anything else. Think about it this way. If I say to you that I believe in evolution, well, why? Because of the millions of years. Why do you believe that? Because of the rock layers. Why do you believe that? Because of the asteroids that were spinning around. in space. They had to have brought life here. Why do you believe that? Because stars explode and then produce the asteroids. Well, why do you believe that? Because over billions of years, these stars came together. Well, why do you believe that? Because we see that these stars are very, very old, okay? And how did they get formed? Or over 14 billion years ago, we had the Big Bang. Wait, where'd you get that? Oh, well, we see that because of everything's the way it is. Oh, okay, so it's the way it is. Where do you see that presuppositional starting point? Oh, well, we believe, according to our theories, that we have the Big Bang. Okay, what caused the bang? Well, it was that infinitesimal speck for all eternity. So you believe in an eternal state universe. No, no, no. We believe that the universe didn't exist and something came out of nothing. Richard Dawkins actually says that. His philosophical pre-substantial starting point has what's called an infinite regress. There's always something behind it to lift that up. So he doesn't have an axiom. He's still looking for something else to shore up, something else to shore up, something else. And that's why they keep going back. We watched this video about creation versus evolution and the Big Bang. And as they were going through it, they looked at all of the scientific teaching books from the 1920s forward. And it started out with 6 million years, and now we're up to 13.8 billion years. It started out with 6 million years. That's how they did it. Why did they have to stretch out the time? Because the data wasn't fitting. They had to stretch out and say, well, it takes a longer period of time for this thing to evolve to this thing. This thing evolved from this thing. For a planet to form, it takes this long time. And it takes this long, we think, for it to cool. What I say, we think. They keep on supposing. They have to shore things up. And then I go, okay. So they don't have an axiom. They don't have a starting point. But how do I know the Bible is true? Because God's Word says it's true. How do I know who God is? Because God's Word says it's that way. How do I know how the universe was created? Because God's Word says it was done this way in direct confrontation to the world system. And it works. It has to conform with reality. There's a word, comport with reality. It has to be in confirmation with reality. It can't go against reality. It's kind of like the idea of miracles. All a miracle is, is God intervening at a point in time to cause something to happen, and when He stops doing the miracle, everything goes back to exactly the way it is. Kind of like the idea of this. It was a miracle that Lazarus came forth out of the womb, out of the tomb, yeah, right? He came forth, and it was a miracle, and everybody saw it. But you notice Lazarus still isn't coming forth, right? He did it one time, and Lazarus died again. Think about it. The miracle wasn't that he lived for all eternity. He's not vampire, he's not Dracula, he's not immortal or anything like that. The miracle was it happened and he died. Those people, every single person in the scripture that got healed, they all died eventually. They went back to the normal working of reality. God just was able to intervene. And this God who exists outside of time, space, and matter was able to intervene into the universe and create the universe. He created time, space, and matter in the beginning God. He created the heavens and the earth. We have time, space, and matter. All of that. We have force. All those things which comport with reality. And you say, well, how do you know all that? Because our axiomatic statement is the Bible says so. We have a foundational truth, the scripture. Now, some people will say, well, our starting point is God. OK. And yes, it is. But God tells us who he is through the scripture and all he's done through the scripture. So your actual starting point is the Bible. which tells you about the God that we know. And that's what we've been talking about here. And going back, that's what we've been talking about here in point number one and two. And as we're in point number three, we are now talking about how God has done what he's done. OK, that's what we're talking about here. This is talking about the fact that Natural man can't come to this knowledge naturally. They can come to a general revelation of who God is just by looking through nature. We can see, you know, the gospel influences that. We see the wickedness that man has through nature because we don't even conform to reality. I'm talking to an atheist the other day, no kidding. I asked him, I said, what kind of universe do you live in? Does God give you good things? Did you enjoy breakfast today? Everything I talk to everybody else about, no different. And I say, you know, what kind of world do you live in? He says, I don't see how you could say God is good. This world is evil and wicked and awful. And I said, yes, man is. But without man, what do you have? He said, this whole entire world is just terrible. And I said, have you actually looked outside today? I said, what's the weather like out there at your house? I said, is it a million degrees? I said, is there some place on the planet that you live that I don't? Because it's pretty nice here. I said, even in the wintertime, it's not 700 below zero. I love making fun of this stupidity. You ate breakfast just a little while ago, and it tasted good. Why did it not taste like cardboard? If God is so evil and capricious, and you know what his answer was? Oh, well, maybe this God is one of those gods that he likes to dangle this stuff by a string. And I said, okay, but he hadn't pulled a string yet. There's been nobody been able to account for him pulling a string. He lets the rain fall on the good and the evil in the same way. He gives good blessings to both the good and the wicked. I said so much so that most of the time the wicked prosper. And I said in the Bible says the goodness and kindness of God should lead us to repentance. So we're talking through this. And this man's mind is blinded. And my heart was broken for him. I did, I prayed for him. I finally, you know, I finally after four days of talking to the guy and him trying to argue with everybody else on the sun, it was very apparent that all he was doing was trolling. He wasn't looking for actual wisdom and insight, he was trying to argue. But he had to actually admit that his worldview, in his worldview, he could not know anything for certain. I've never had anybody directly come out and say that. He said, I don't know anything for sure. And I said, then how do you think you know anything? I said, the problem is you don't live that way. He goes, what do you mean? I said, I would hate for you to drive a car down the road and live in a random chance mindset. I'm not sure if this person's turning right, so I'll just floor it. I'm not sure if that's really what that... Does that line actually mean green today? Does it actually mean red today? I said, you don't live that way. And you think about it, he doesn't, and neither do we. The very fact of the Word of God, the very fact of a solid, steady universe, Leads us to say we're the only ones that actually have an axiom that can be founded upon biblical truth on Foundational truth that cannot be assailed so We're doing good So let's look here on point number three. The revelation of the gospel unto sinners made in diverse times and by sundry parts with the addition of promises and precepts for the obedience required therein as to the nations and persons to whom it is granted is merely of the sovereign will and good pleasure of God. It's not on here, but I think Hebrews 1, 1 should be in here, 1 and 2. I think this would be a perfect place to think about what it says. God who at sundry times and diverse manners revealed the truth of the word of God in all sorts of different ways, right? All kinds of different ways to mankind. Gary, if you want to, I'd appreciate it if you'd get up there and read it. I'm going to read Psalm 147, 20. Chris, I'll let you do that. And let's look through that, and then Gary, I'll let you read Hebrews. Think about what it just said here in this passage. God has not dealt so with any nation. He's dealing differently with Israel than He is with any other nation, is what it's saying. Okay? And as for His judgments, they haven't known them. Paul Washer has said this a long time ago. I don't know if he still talks about this or not. I haven't listened in a while. Jacob and Esau. How did God prove His hatred for Esau? Did He cause lightning bolts to be cast down? Monstrous fire demons come out of the ground? Lava monsters come out? Godzilla come out to destroy us? No. He let him have every blessing in the world. He had every blessing in the world, and He let him go free. Let him do whatever he wanted to do. If you look at America today, and look at our teenage population, twenty-something population, they are running rampant. They do anything they want to, and their conscience is absolutely seared. to any truth, any morality, any humility. They actually see it a good thing to have government dictatorship. They actually see it as a good thing to, with reckless abandon, give away all their freedom. They actually see it as a right thing for us to, I mean, racism now is the thing. There's this person on television now, and they're talking about it all over the place, who is shaming this guy Bruno Mars. I don't know him. I don't know anything. He sings, and I don't know anything about him. I'll just put it right up front. He could be the most vile man in the universe. I don't know. He could be the most holy man on the planet. I don't know. OK, I know I don't know if I've ever even heard a song he sung. OK, and I'm not OK, but I'm not either way condemning or justifying. Here's what I'm saying. He's not black, he's just using the black voice and he's just getting in here using our genre and he's doing he's he's just using us and and well, he's not black. Wait a minute. If you live in a system, in a society that lives off of atheistic Darwinistic teaching, if you've ever read the Darwin's theory of everything basically, all of it is the descent of man into lower species. It's talking about racism. He was out to seek how to normalize racism. Why is it that the white male is the best and this person, this group is less than them based upon their racial species that comes from these different apes and animals and these different genetics and everything else? And if you read his book, you will find out that this man was racist, okay, through and through. And he was teaching it, and our kids are learning it, and now an entire group of people who were, you know, assaulted and offended and attacked and harmed by racists, who were primarily, and I want to say this, mostly of the Democratic Party who started the KKK and went out and voted against everything they could do against black people having a voice. Now they're using that voice to silence everyone else. This guy, Bruno Mars, I know he's not a white Caucasian male. I know that much. But he's just not black enough. Come on. When you start teaching people socialism and wickedness like this stuff and throw out that God made man in His image, that's why you have segregation. That's why you have hate and anxiety. And you look in our society and you have a whole universe of people that are totally devoid of any moral grounding. Let me give you an example. Yesterday, I went over to a sporting goods store. I walk in, me and the boy. Gracie, were you with me? We walk in, we go in, we go back to the back, and I'm looking for one of the big medicine balls to work out with. And I'm looking on Amazon, I'm looking online, everything else. And the price is like 50 and 60 bucks or 40 bucks, and they're expensive. And I'm like, I don't want to buy these things for this. And I'm looking for a best buy that I can find. Clarence is our best friend, Diane. We love Clarence. He's a great guy. He's a great seller, too. So we're looking around, and lo and behold, what do we find? we found a ball sitting in the clearance section for $5.99, $5.99, little red tag. I'm looking, I almost got two because it was $5.99, okay? And I was like, well, no, it's a special, it's on special, so I'll just get one, that's all I really need. I take it up front and the lady says, oh, you've got a $10, coupon thingy on your card you want to use it I said praise the Lord this thing's free hallelujah I mean I'm like you know I'm about to do a you know Holy Ghost revival dance here I mean I'm getting this thing for free and I'm going oh praise the Lord yeah I'll take it absolutely you know no problem she rings it up that'll be 37 or 30 something $39.99 or something like that I about fell over I said, no, no, no, no, no way. I said, there's a little sticker down there. It's supposed to be on sale for, I said, for $5.99. If I'm wrong, but I didn't realize, you know, that they were doing $5, you know, $39 or $49 or whatever it was. She goes back. Yeah, I don't remember what. She goes back. Well, it was $49.99 plus the $10 discount that I would have gotten with my $10 off. So it came down to $39 something. So she has a little girl go back to back, and she's just like grimaced real quick, and she says, oh, let's go ahead and ring it back up. I said, well, how much is it going to cost for it? Because I figured it was going to be like, she said, they put it in the wrong spot. I said, what? She said, the people that had done all the work, they put it in the wrong spot, and they weren't paying attention. They put it right on this 599. She said, we're going to give it to you for 599. Everybody else in the universe is going, yay, man, go for it, yo, bro, woohoo, yeah, man, you got a deal. My conscience. I was on fire because to me, I believe in fairness. I believe in right. I believe in upholding a standard. I'm not going to try to swindle somebody. And even if they're wrong, I just, in my conscience, I'm going, I want people to treat me fairly, and if I make a mistake, I don't want to attack, you know, have somebody attack me for it. So, I mean, it tore me up. The manager's right there, and she looks at me, and I said, look, I can't do this. I said, I can't do this. I said, what was it for, the $5.99? She says, oh, they got this chalk on sale. I said, OK, give me that. I'll buy it for $5.99, and that'll make up the difference. I said, I'll feel OK if I do that at least. And she goes, no. We made a mistake. It's for $5.99. Here it is. And she sold it to me. She insisted. I felt so bad. I said, because I understand people make mistakes. And I know that people want to, oh, you've got a deal and all that stuff. But it's still the principle. It's still in my heart. I'm going, OK, look, if that's your policy, I'm going to reluctantly understand it. But she refused to sell it to me for the price, for full price. Yeah. Well, I understand. I understand that. But it's just the it's the heart. But what I'm getting at is, yeah, what I'm getting at is we live in a society where the only thing that is wrong is if somebody else's says something or if their color or if their personality if you belong to the NRA if you have a gun if you if you even support You know free speech if you're conservative if you're not this group if you're not this color It's okay to hate you because I'm offended at you being a person You can't even have a thought outside of our thoughts They had this big running protest running around all over the place the other day. Student walkout thing. There were students going out. Number one, there were students that said, I will not be a part of this because I don't believe in this. And they were being suspended from school for not doing what the crowd said. OK, they don't have the right to dissent anymore. Then there were those that were being threatened with arrest When everyone is holding up these big signs of, you know, you know, end guns now and no more guns and take away the Second Amendment and, you know, kill the NRA and kill, you know, all these people and people destroying stuff in their house, they're holding up a sign that says, guns did not kill anyone. These wicked people did. Let's legislate and let's stop these wicked people. and they're being threatened with arrest. Saw one principal running out there, grabs a hold of a guy and starts yanking him down the road. And it's like, are you serious? But here's the reason. We live in a society right now that is gospel-less. We live in a world right now that has no gospel understanding. We would rather be on Facebook, on social media, we'd rather be getting our Snapchat on, getting our face up in the pictures, getting in the clouds, and having people talk about what our latest pouty-faced picture is. We'd rather have somebody talking about all that silly stuff than biblical truth. Do you have Hebrews 1? Think about what he's saying. This very section, long ago and many times in many different ways, using the prophets and the apostles, God spoke to us in all these different ways, and it's basically talking about the fact that He gave us further and further and further understandings of the truth of the Word of God and the Gospel. we continuously grew in our understanding of the Word of God and the Gospel. And then you see that with addition of promises and precepts for the obedience required therein. You had Jesus Christ coming in. Look at John the Baptist. He came in and He gave a certain amount of truth. And then Jesus Christ came in and He fulfilled the whole law. And He upheld the standards. He talked about righteousness. He's the one that expounded who God is and gave us the very presence of God incarnate on earth. And then the apostles were brought in to give out more and more doctrinal truth so that we had the apostles' doctrine. We had the theological and doctrinal truth today that we hold to. And all this was built up to tell us what God would require of us. You know what is what is obedience to God look like well first thing is is number one you gotta realize you're not Number two you gotta realize you can't be and number three you have only disobedience in your life You're a rebel against God and then from there you have to realize that you're a wicked vile sinner and that can only happen You know you're blinded. You can't see it. It can only happen by the power of God Why I go ahead and read Acts 16 7 there buddy there were believers who wanted to go take the gospel to the world in obedience to God's command. After they had went to Messiah, they had in their intention their heart to go to Bithynia. And what happened? The Holy Spirit would not let them do it. You guys understand that there are people that God rejected, rejects because of their wicked vileness and will not gospel them? I'm going to say it to you this way, and I know when people hear this they'll get all upset and offended, but every single person alive today that never hears the gospel, they are still in deserving of the wrath of God. You know, people ask the question all the time, what about those poor innocent people that never heard the gospel? They're a pygmy in Africa. I think there's pygmies in America. that have never heard the gospel. And then the question is, what happens to them when they die? The same thing that happens to everyone else that rejects the gospel. Everybody wants to say, well, there's different degrees of sin. No, if you've offended in one point, you're guilty of all of them. You are guilty of all of it because it's not this different degrees idea and there are passages that talk about The differing ideas of these degrees, but it's not that's not the point Yes Hating somebody being angry at somebody is not technically physically in our minds the same as the actual committing a murder But Jesus said if you hate your brother, you're a murderer already. If you've committed adultery in your mind, you've already committed adultery in your heart with physical adultery with this person, even though you've not physically done it. We're talking about what God sees. God sees your intention. Because with every action there is intention. He's not going to condemn you of an accident when there was absolutely no volition to it. You accidentally ran somebody over in a car and you did not mean to do it. It never was in your heart to hurt them and you are, you know, tragedy stricken that something bad happened. God's not going to say you murdered her. God would not condemn that. But when you look at that person and you say, oh, you're white, or oh, you're black, or oh, you're this color or that color, you're Mexican, you're whatever, kill them all and let God sort them out. and you go kill them, you run them over, because, oh, you're Christian, or, oh, you're Jewish, or, oh, you're Muslim, let's kill them all, and let God sort them out, then God says, you're a murderer. You're a murderer at heart, because your intention was to kill, and if you go through the Old Testament, God used the wickedness of the hearts of many for His purposes. The Chaldeans I go back to the Chaldeans all the time. They they Their intention was to wipe out Israel Okay Their intentions to wipe out Israel. They wanted Israel destroyed and wiped off the mat They wonder cats dogs ducks chicken and everybody else gone. They wanted the whole entire group gone. They hated them all And what did they do? They captured all of Israel They took care of them. They made them their bond slaves for a time. They took care of them. They fed them. They clothed them. They watered them. They did everything they needed to let them sustain and live and survive. Because God changed their hearts. God caused them to capture them and then protect them, the people of Israel. That's what God did. Everybody says, oh, God was so wicked and evil. No, he protected an entire nation of people. There were other people who were so wicked and vile that God caused them to turn upon other people who were wicked and vile to protect Israel. I mean, all through the Scriptures we see people who would have wiped out nation after nation. Don't think for a second that Adolf Hitler wouldn't have wiped out everybody. He wouldn't have stopped at Jews. He would have wiped out everybody. He'd kill everybody. That man didn't have any love for anybody but himself and he hated himself. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and he would have found genetic proof of everybody's indiscretions or everybody's family history. He would have went on my23andme.com and he'd have found every single person that ever had a genetic flaw in their family line. He'd have killed them all. These promises of the gospel, that the gospel is going to go out all over the world. The gospel has two purposes. Number one, the primary purpose, well, is to glorify God. Okay? So you can say it has three purposes. Glorify God, to save God's people, and to condemn those under greater condemnation who hear it and reject the gospel. Think about it. The Bible says if you've heard this truth and you reject it, there's a greater weight of condemnation for you. I mean, if he's heard the truth and he's a false teacher, yeah, absolutely. Think about this. wrote just to say that there was this concept in the scripture that in the book of Revelation, when the Antichrist comes, all those who have heard the gospel and rejected it, their hearts are going to be hardened, they're going to be conscience-seared, they're going to believe a lie and not be able to hear the truth, and they'll never come to Christ. They'll never hear the gospel and be able to repent and believe. And so I asked him one day, I said, let me ask you a question. Which gospel are you talking about? The true gospel or the false gospel of the world? And he didn't think about it. He was like, good question. I said, because if you look, most of the people that are dealing with the gospel today aren't dealing in truth. Most of the people today that are talking about the gospel are talking about a a powerless God who is not mighty to save, who doesn't have a purpose and doesn't know what he's doing with sin, who doesn't understand how he's going to judge the world in righteousness, condemn sinners, bring the righteous to eternal life, who doesn't even know who they are until at the very end, You know they pop up and say oh, I was really one of the elect. You know they make their own decision their own choice I talked to him about all that stuff. You know because I'm gonna tell you you know you have to look at the scripture for what it what it claims and when you do You look at the gospel and you say it is God's intention to save his people It is also God's intention to condemn those who refuse salvation. The problem is that's everybody, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. Is it God's purpose to be the justifier of all men at the expense of His justice? Because both of them are glorious attributes of God. You know, I've even asked the question many times. Is God wrong to judge righteously? To uphold justice? Well, no. So is God wrong to intend that a wicked sinner does not receive the gospel and receives eternal condemnation because of his wickedness? Pharaoh. I mean, we have the perfect example of Pharaoh. But we also have the perfect example of an even more wicked one who came to faith in Nebuchadnezzar. Think about it. We've got two kings. One, the greatest king or the one with the most landmass, the greatest king that ever lived. Nebuchadnezzar had more authority and more landmass and was king over more people than anybody that's ever been. The greatest king that's ever lived. And what did he say at the end? Who is going to shake their fist at God? Who's going to say, what have you done? Everybody's accounted as nothing. He's the God of the universe. I mean, every theologian I've looked at that's worth anything says that that was his salvation song right there. Anyway, I just want to throw that in real quick. Start thinking about stuff like that, because when you talk about the gospel, there's two purposes in it. It's not our purpose to condemn anybody. It's our purpose to proclaim the gospel to the glory of God to everyone we can. We let God do as He will. We don't try to force it upon people. You want to pray? Go ahead.