Let's open our Bibles together to the book of Romans. Romans chapter number two. Romans chapter two. If you're able, would you stand with me as we read Romans chapter two? We'll start reading in verse number five of Romans chapter number two. But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasures up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality in eternal life, but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile, for there is no respecter of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law. And as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged 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 of the mean while accusing or excusing one another. in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Father, I thank you for the privilege it is to gather together. Once again, I ask that you would use your word, Lord, to draw us closer to you. Lord, these are fearful words that we're looking at here this morning, and I pray, Lord, that Hearts will be drawn to your holiness, your truth, your righteousness, and the Lord as your people, that we would realize that the world is lost and desperate, and in desperate need of salvation, and Lord, may it encourage us, may it inspire us, may it convict us to witness to a lost and dying world, that they might know that only Jesus Christ can save. We love you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, thank you so much, you may be seated. I really am working towards the good parts of the Book of Romans. I'm amazed at how much time, personally, I've spent in these last two chapters. And the more time I spend studying these two chapters, the more I understand how how the Lord feels. And I'm not trying to put myself in the place of the Lord, but we find out that God is angry at sin, that God is wrathful and full of judgment and indignation. And we find out in chapter number one and chapter number two that man deserves God's wrath and man deserves God's judgment. In Romans 1, verse number 18, we looked at this several weeks ago, but in chapter 1, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man who hold the truth in unrighteousness. That God's wrath comes about when men are ungodly, when men are unrighteous, when men suppress the truth and live an unrighteous life. In chapter number two, he turns from talking about them and their sin, in chapter number one, to those that would be religious. One last time, let me show you this. Look at chapter number one, verse 20. 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 and Godhead, so that, what's the next word? They are without excuse. But that, verse 21, but 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. So chapter one is about the ungodly, immoral, heathen. How they have rejected God as their creator. They have rejected God as the one that gave them the law and principles. They've seen God's creation, but they have denied Him as the creator. They will not recognize His power, His Godhead, or His authority. And the Bible says they are without excuse. But in chapter 2, he goes from talking about them to chapter number 2 talking about thou. In the King James, thou is singular. It is talking to the individual, chapter 2, verse 1. Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For when thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doest the same things. And so now he's talking not just to the heathen that are doing these wicked ungodly things. Now he's talking to the moralist. He's talking to the religious. He's talking to the Jew. He's talking to the clean-cut Baptist. He's talking to those that have some form of religion. saying that it's easy to see that they are guilty, but it's harder for us to see that we are guilty. It's easier to see their sin than it is to see our own sin. It's easier to see their mote in their eye than to be able to see the beam in our own eye. And boy, does he turn that thing around. In chapter number 2, verse number 5, he says, He's now going to reveal four for things about this judgment of God, for things that are fearful things when we talk about God's judgment. He says, listen, you have a hardness of heart. You are stubborn. You are calloused. And because of that, you're impenitent. You will not repent. There's no contrition. There's no sorriness for your sin. There's no recognition of your sin. There's no brokenness for your sin. Psalm 34 verse 18, the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and save as such as be of a contrite spirit. God looks around for men that are broken, men that are sorry, men that realize they've offended a holy and righteous God, men and women and people that are willing to admit that they fall short of God's glory, that they have not met His commandments and not kept His expectations. And he's looking around and people aren't confessing, they're not forsaking, they're not repenting, they're getting harder in their sin. They're getting more stubborn, they're getting more rebellious, and they're impenitent, they will not repent. Even though God's been good, in verse four, or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance, God is good even to the unjust. We found out last week in Matthew 5, verse 43, Jesus said, you have heard that it hath been said that thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. Verse 45 says that you may be the children of your father, because that's what the father does. The father even loves his enemies. The father is even good to his enemies. And if we're his children, we should be good to our enemies. Well, how's God good to his enemies? For he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. That God's goodness, He's good to men every day. When He sends the rain, when He sends the sun comes up, when we have food on our plates, when we have oxygen in our lungs, it's proof that God is a good God. And yet men will eat that food and not thank God for that food. Men will take, inhale that breath, and exhale that breath, and curse God with that very breath. "'Cause I've been good to you, but you'll not repent. "'You're still hard.'" In Acts chapter number 14, verse 15. And saying, "'Sirs, why do ye these things? "'We also are men of like passions with you, "'and preach unto you that you should turn "'from these vanities unto the living God, "'which made heaven and earth and the sea, "'and all things that are therein, "'who in times past suffered all nations "'to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filled our hearts with food and gladness. And Paul says to these heathens, listen, God's been good to you. He's filled your belly with food. He's given you gladness. He's given you goodness. But instead of repenting, instead of turning to God, we are more determined to turn away from God. And he says, because of this, verse number five, because of thy hardness and penitent heart, treasures up unto thyself wrath. What a thought this is. He says, you are, in your hardness, you are amassing, you are amassing God's wrath. You're accumulating the sin and rebellion. You're treasuring it up. You're amassing it. You have this giant reservoir of things that God's now looking at you, and you're not making it right, and he's gonna bring it back on this day of judgment and on this day of wrath. And some of you might say, well, pastor, it's not that bad. It's worse than I can convey to you. I'm out of words, I'm out of analogies. Well, pastors, it's not that bad. The reasons that he's stipulated in chapter number one were fully on display for the world to see during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I did not watch the Olympics, I did not, I don't have a TV, I don't watch television. I did see enough snippets of the opening ceremonies to make myself nauseous. And as I watched, all I could think of was Romans chapter number one. I just need to let you know, for those of you who didn't see it, we're probably good that you didn't. We're talking about before all of the nations of the world, to see, and to participate. We have all types of satanic imagery. We have images of people that are beheaded. We have a false god personified. This god that was personified in these opening ceremonies was Dionysus. He's the god of wine, fertility, insanity, and debauchery. And he is, in full display, sodomy, transgenderism, rampant, for every nation to see and to participate in. And the chief of it all is to portray our Lord and Savior at the Last Supper And Jesus being a female, surrounded by disciples that are transgender, and that's how they're gonna betray Jesus Christ. What am I saying? Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap. In Matthew 25, Jesus says, when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all his angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations. Before him. And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divided the sheep from the goats, and he shall set up the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Verse 46, and these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. that these are the things that bring about the wrath of God, to deny His deity and His authority, to pervert His ways, to disobey His commandments, to mock His holiness and His righteousness, treasures up His wrath for the day of judgment. They. It says thou. Let me give you four Four truths about this day this day of judgment that is going to come God is long-suffering and he is patient and he is kind and that goodness should lead to repentance, but instead it leads to hardness and And he says, you're treasuring up for thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. I want to talk about what are the elements of God's righteous judgment. I've shared some of these truths with you before, so let me say them quickly. Number one, God judges by truth. God judges by truth. I won't spend a lot of time on this because I've already talked about it. Verse number two, we are sure that the judgment of God is according to what? Truth against them which commit such things. The Bible says in Psalm 31 verse five, into thine hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth. Isaiah chapter 65 verse 16, that he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth. He that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth because the former troubles are forgotten and because they are hid from mine eyes. He is referred to oftentimes as the God of truth. Listen carefully. Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 4. He is the rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment, a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is He. We are living in a day that we have no idea what truth is. There's no truth in our school system. There's no truth in our government. There's no truth in our news media. There's no truth in our entertainment. Is this right? That we don't know, we don't have any idea who to trust or what to believe. Is this fake? Is this true? Is it a lie? I want to tell you this. God's a God of truth. And God is a God of truth, Jesus Christ is truth, and his word is truth. Sanctify him through thy truth, thy word is truth. So on this Judgment Day, there'll be no, there'll be no, well, I can't recall. There'll be no lying, there'll be no fake news, there'll be no misrepresentations. That God's the God of truth and on that day all the truth will come to the surface before the God of truth. God judges by truth. Number two, God judges by the deeds of men. Verse number six, who are rendered to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life, but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath. He says that when God, the God of truth, judges man, he will judge them by their deeds. Paul is quoting Psalm 62, verse 12. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renders to every man according to his works. Proverbs 24, verse 12. If thou sayest, behold, we knew it not, doth not he that pondereth the hearts consider it? And he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? And shall not he render to every man according to his works? So it's not based upon who we are, it's based upon what we have done. And there are two primary categories of works that he talks about. There are those that are continuous, in verse number 7, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality and eternal life. There are those people that seek to continue in the ways of God, and those that do will have immortality and will have everlasting life. More about that in a moment. Those that say this is what God's word says and this is what I will do. This is God's law and I will obey. And those individuals will receive eternal life. Not just because they obeyed the law or kept the law. More about that in a minute. But the second group are the ones that did not continue in the law of God. They're contentious, verse number eight. but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath. So the ones that are continuing will receive honor, glory, immortality, and eternal life, but those that are contentious, those that are unrighteous, will receive indignation, wrath, verse number nine, tribulation, and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil. So our works are either in accordance to God's law and God's commands, or they are against God's law and against God's commands. Now, I've had people say, after service, I've had people say to me personally, who are you to tell me what I'm doing is wrong? I've had people say that to me. What makes you think you can tell me that what I'm doing is wrong? Who made you the authority? Nobody. I'm not the authority. I have no authority. When it comes to what is right and what is wrong, God is the authority. And He has been very clear about what He will accept and what He will not accept, what He calls sin and what He calls righteous. And now as the preacher of the gospel, it's my obligation to preach it, but it's God that gave it to us. And there are those that are going to continue in it. This is what God's Word said, and this is what we will do. When somebody asks, well, tell me a little about your church. Well, normally I say, well, we're crazy. We're all nuts, but we're screwed on the right bolt. I don't know how I'm going to word it, but. So if I had to sum up our church, I'd just say that we're a group of people saved by grace. Don't deserve it, but glad to have it. We're a group of people that we just kind of, we study God's Word, and we try to do what he tells us to do. And when we don't, we try to confess it and make it right. We read God's Word and try not to do what He tells us not to do. We want to continue in His law. We want to make Him happy with our local assembly. We want to do what God told us to do. There are those that are just constantly contentious. Contentious means that they know what God wants and refuse to comply. My dad was an authoritarian. How many of you ever met my father before? Now, he was not the same with his grandchildren, OK? He turned into a different person with his grandkids. But for us, he was an authoritarian. And my whole family was scared of him, a reverence for him, and my cousins. And my cousins live below us. And my uncle was not an authoritarian whatsoever. He was pretty soft with his children. Well, when my cousins would do something wrong, my uncle would say, hey, if you don't behave, I'm going to tell your Uncle Wayne, my father, I'm going to tell your Uncle Wayne, no, you're the father. You're using my dad to scare your kids. We were down there one time, me and my cousins were down there, and my uncle told my cousin not to touch the television, don't touch the TV. Here he goes, up to the TV. I'm touching it. Son, I told you not to touch that TV. You better not touch it again. I'm touching it again. If you touch it a third time, you're really in trouble. Now, I'm sitting there mortified because if I touched it the first time, I would be dead. My dad didn't say, son, come here, I'm gonna count to three. No, he's not counting. My dad used to say that's three beats of disobedience. I'm gonna get you on the first beat. You're gonna get beat the first beat. That's really what it's saying. Son, I'm gonna count to three. Never count to three. This is what I told you as your father and you will obey. That's our earthly father. I think a lot of our society has a problem with God's authority because the father was never the authority that they were supposed to be in the first place. There's definitely a disconnect there, for sure. But he says, you're going to be contentious and disobey me, and you think that everything's going to be all right. Well, I'm telling you that I'm going to judge you according to your deeds. When he says according to your deeds and according to what you do, I guarantee the Jews are saying, well, yeah, Lord, get those Gentiles. Get those heathens. But that's not what he says. What does he say? He says at the end of verse number nine, the Jew first, and also the Gentile. He says it again in verse number 10, but glory and honor and patience to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Well, wait a minute, it sounds like you're putting the Jew and the Gentile on the same level here. Yeah, because number three, God judges by impartiality. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or you're a Gentile, verse number 11, for there is no respecter of persons with God. There's nobody that's gonna be able to say, well, you know, Lord, do you know who I am? Do you know my background? Do you know what position I held? Do you know what nationality I am? Do you know where I was born? None of those things count on Judgment Day. Not one of them. I tried that once. I got pulled over once in this story. And I kind of tried to throw out who my dad was. I said, hey, do you know who my dad is? Major Sparks. He goes, oh yeah, yeah, I know him. He's right in the, yeah, you know him? Yeah, yeah. And I said, well, you still gonna give me a ticket? Yeah. But don't you know who my dad is? Yeah, I do know who your father is. Because of who he is, you should know better. Oh. Do you know that's exactly what he just told the Jewish audience of this letter? Look at verse number 11. You have the law. You know what God's word said. You should know better. But you're being rebellious. You're being ungodly. You're being sinful. You're being disobedient. And you should know better. Verse 13, for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. I'm afraid that even in Christianity today that we equate knowing the Bible as being right with God. And that's not the case. Knowing the Bible does not make us right with God. Knowing the Bible makes us more accountable to God. We have the law, we have the word, but we're supposed to be doers of it and not just hearers of it. Verse 14, for 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 means while accusing or else excusing one another. This is what he's saying. He's saying, listen, God is not, he's gonna judge by impartiality. Who you are he doesn't care what your background is he is going to judge you by your deeds Let me run a couple verses Leviticus 19 verse 15 you shall do no unrighteousness in judgment Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor or honor the person of the mighty but in righteous But in righteousness shall thou judge thy neighbor don't we want judges like that? Well you know I know they killed certain amount of people, but you know they grew up poor doesn't matter I That judge should be impartial. Just on the other end of the spectrum, well, you know, I know they killed those people, but they're pretty wealthy and they're in politics, so they should get away with it. Neither one of them should get away with it. Neither one of them. How about this one? Psalm 98, verse number nine. Before the Lord, for he cometh to judge the earth with righteousness, shall he judge the world and the people with equity. You know, our world today is about equity, aren't they? Oh, equity, equity, equity. We want the government to produce equal outcomes. That's communism. That's not equality, that's communism. Equity. The Lord's gonna judge the world in equity. Equity truly means justice, what is right. Equity is the impartial distribution of justice. Does not matter that you are a Jew. Does not matter that you are a Gentile. And the point that he's trying to make about the law is this. The Gentiles would say, well, we're off the hook because we didn't have the law. And the Jew says, well, we're off the hook because we have the law. And both of them were wrong. The Jew says, yeah, you have the law, and you're more accountable. And Gentiles, you might not have had the written law, but you had God's conscience in your heart and in your life. By your own consciousness, you knew what was right and wrong. With your conscience, you excuse, and you accuse, and you judge. You know what's right, and you know what's wrong, even in your conscience. Do you remember I told you the story before when I was doing public school Bible studies in Connecticut? And I'm in this one class, and they're like, well, we don't think religion should have any part of school or any part of society. And back then, we were talking about the Ten Commandments. And no, the Ten Commandments should have no part in society. That was their stand, these 40-some-odd public school kids. The Ten Commandments should have no part of society at all. Like, okay, all right, fine, no rules. We'll have no rules in society. I said, is everybody okay with no rules? And somebody says, well, we should have some rules. I said, all right, what are the some rules? And one of them said, well, I don't think we should be killing anybody. That's a good one. Let me write that down. Don't kill anybody. All right, so we got one rule, guys. Is everybody okay with this rule? Well, I don't think anybody should be taking my stuff. Okay, don't take other people's stuff. Well, we shouldn't go around lying to people. Good one. Don't go around lying to people. Why? I think children should listen to their mom and dad. Good one. Children, listen to your mom and dad. The ones that said they did not want the law, did not need the law, still had the law written on their hearts. They came up with five of the Ten Commandments on their own. They know. And because of that, they are guilty, and they will be held accountable. Now, the most shocking thing that he's gonna say, in my opinion, up to this point, is found in the very next verse, in verse number 16. Are you still with me? He says in verse 16, in the day. Now, in the day is at the end of this parenthetical statement. He's drawing back to verse number 12, all right? For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged. He's talking about that day, the judgment. And then we have the parenthetical from chapter, from verse number 13 to verse number 15, and then he ends it in verse number 16. Are we all okay so far? So that's the day he's talking about. He's talking about the day of judgment. Now, he's gonna say two mind-blowing things about this judgment. Number one, he said, listen, God judges by truth, God judges by the deeds of men, God judges by impartiality, and then lastly, he says this, God judges by his son. In verse 16, when God shall judge the secrets of men, Now, the term secrets of men, the thoughts that he's gonna judge the secrets of men, should strike fear in the heart of any living, breathing individual. Secrets? Secrets. Ecclesiastes 12, verse 14, for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. Luke 8, verse 17, for nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest, neither anything hid that shall not be known and come abroad. Secret. I'm not here to ask you if you have any skeletons in your closet. But I would imagine if we went around this, we went around, we got everybody an opportunity. All right, we're gonna put down this screen. And we have some secrets that we'd like to share with the congregation. You might get a lump in your throat. You might decide that you gotta go outside and leave. What am I saying? I'm saying that every motive, every word, every thought, every deed, Now we can sit here, we are very good. We are very good at cleaning up ourselves. We're very good at photoshopping Facebook accounts. Putting our best spin on things, giving ourselves a story. Every secret thing. With that, where were you? It's got really quiet in here. Every secret thing. The things that we don't want anybody else to know about. Things we don't want our spouse to know about, or our boss to know about, or our pastor to know about, or our church to know about. Those things, yeah, those things. And as embarrassed as we would be in front of individuals when they... Have you ever been embarrassed by something you did in front of somebody else? Have you ever been embarrassed? This isn't in front of your coworkers, your peers, other church members. This is in front of the Lord himself. Every secret thing. He says this, God judges by his son. What an unbelievable statement. I would like you to think about this in verse 16, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Meaning, this is part of the gospel that, listen, Jesus died, was buried, rose again on the third day, and there is a judgment day coming. And in essence, this is the case. Either Jesus is going to be your advocate, or he's going to be your judge. Your daysman. your mediator, your intercessor, or your judge. Now, this was probably a pretty big surprise to the receivers of this letter, the Book of Romans, that it's gonna be Jesus Christ that does the judging. 2 Timothy chapter four, verse one. I charge thee therefore before God and before the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead as appearing and its kingdom. John chapter 5 verse 22, for the Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father, which hath sent him. Verse 27 of chapter 5, and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man. It's going to be Jesus. In Acts chapter 17 verse number 30, At the times of his ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Now imagine, the world that hates Christ, the world that's rejected the Gospel, the world that's rejected the Bible, the world that's rejected God's righteousness, the world that's rejected the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, will one day, in their rebellion, in their sin, in their darkness, in their disobedience, stand before Jesus Christ on the day of judgment. I have two overwhelming thoughts. One, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. That is going to happen. The ones that mocked him over this weekend are gonna bow their knee. The ones that have perverted sexuality are going to bow their knee. The ones that are religious but still never truly been saved are going to bow their knee. Every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord in the glory of God the Father. On that day, Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7, many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? Have we not cast out devils? Have we done many wonderful works in your name? And he says, depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. I never knew you. You never got your works of iniquity under the blood. You've never accepted me as your savior. Depart from me. I never knew you. That's the religious folks. That's the vows of chapter two. The ones that thought were good enough. Last thought I have is this. Imagine the tragedy of Christ looking at someone that has sat in church for 20 years and never been saved. The tragedy of looking at someone that's a drug addict and in a gutter somewhere and never been born again. For that individual to stand before Christ the one that died for them, the one that shed his blood for them. But instead of them coming to him as their savior, he now looks at them and says, depart from me. I believe that Jesus still has the scars on his hands and on his feet. And that very hand that says, depart from me, workers of iniquity, were the hands that were pierced for that individual. But they wouldn't repent of their sin. They wouldn't turn to Christ. They continued to treasure up sin and rebellion and were never saved. And so instead of standing in front of him as their savior, they stand in front of him as their judge. And all the secret things and all the bad things that he could have saved them from are still on their account. and says, depart from me. So, are you saved? Do you know Christ is your Savior? And if you are saved, do you believe that this day is coming? The things that happened this weekend should grieve us. Our neighbor being lost without Christ should burden us. that we know that this day of judgment is going to come, that everyone will stand before God and give an account, and without Christ, they will spend eternity in the lake of fire. We're the ones that are supposed to tell them. We're the ones that are supposed to share the gospel. We're the ones. We're the ones. Father, I pray that you'd help us, Lord, to realize how holy and righteous you are, how loving and kind and merciful you are, And your holiness, your righteousness, and your love were all satisfied at Calvary. Lord, I pray for those that are here this morning that don't know Christ as their Savior. Lord, I pray that today they'd realize that because of their sin they cannot enter into heaven, because of their unrighteousness that they deserve judgment, and that today they'd put their faith and trust in Christ, in Christ alone. Lord, for those of us that are saved, we do believe that this day is coming. Our hearts are grieved and vexed at what we see happening in our world, and we can complain, and we can write letters, and we can vote, but the most important thing that we can do is share the gospel with others that are around us. Lord, would you give us a greater burden, I pray. With every head bowed, every eye closed, let me ask you this. Who here this morning would say, you know what, Pastor, I'm not sure if I'm saved. If I were to die today, I don't know for sure that heaven's my home. If you're not sure of your salvation, would you allow me to pray for you? Would you slip your hand up right now and say, Pastor, I'm not truly sure. If I'm on my way to heaven, please pray for me. Anyone at all? Christian, do you realize that this judgment day is coming? There's no avoiding it. There's no skirting around it. And you have family members and coworkers and neighbors. that don't know Christ and will stand before Him as their judge and spend eternity without Him in darkness. Let's pray for those around us. Let's pray for our own hearts that we might live a life pleasing to him. Father, I pray that you'd bless this time of invitation. Lord, I pray that we could, that this day could be real to us, that we would realize that you're holy and righteous and that Jesus can save folks that are around us so that we would be a better witness. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Every head bowed, every eye closed as the piano plays, I want to give you an opportunity to maybe come thank the Lord for saving you from your sin. Come and pray for those around you that don't know Christ as their Savior.