So if you are a college age student, let me just go ahead and ask you a question. What are you doing Thursday night around seven o'clock? Well, if you're not doing anything, I'd love to invite you to our college gathering which meets here in our cafe at seven o'clock.

They're having trivia night and did I say food? So if you are a college student, go on our Church center app, just kind of rsvp, let us know that you're coming. And if you know a college student, let's let them know and let them point them to where they can sign up and that they can come and show up with us. I'm gonna go ahead and give a caveat. All right, off the bat, this is number one, it's a weighty message.

And number two, it's going to end and it's gonna feel like it's hanging a little bit. And here's why. Because this is kind of like part one of two. So like for my Marvel fans in the room, like it took us a year to find out what happened after Thanos snapped his fingers. And for Star wars fans in the room, it took three years before we figured out did Jabba the Hutt get Han Solo.

So, like there's a little bit of a hanging tension that's going to happen from this week to next week. And I don't know that we ever figured out who killed JR on Dallas or shot him anyway or, you know, if you watch the Office, every week he's figuring out, we're trying to figure out with Pam and Jim were ever going to get together. It's that kind of tension. We're going to start it this week and I will give you some application at the end. But the reason is because this week is titled the Problem and we need to dig into the problem.

We've got to talk about the problem. And next week we're going to dig into why the gospel is such good news. Because Jesus is the solution to our problem. In fact, just kind of thinking about movies, when you say I have a problem, there's probably a movie that comes to mind very quickly in your mind when you hear the word, we have a problem. What movie is it?

Apollo 13. But honestly, that's not exactly how it was said. If you look back at the, at the notes, the transcription of Command center back to the Apollo 13 capsule on April 13, 1970, that's a long time ago. I was born in 74, so it was before when I was born at around 9:08pm this is what you hear. You hear Jack Swigert say.

Swigert, say, okay, Houston, Jim Lovell, houston, Jack Swigert, we've had a problem here. That's what he said. Jack Lusma, who was the capsule communicator at Mission Control, said, this is Houston. Say again, please. Lovell then responds with a little bit of garble.

Houston, we've had a problem. Now, the problem that they had wasn't that the mission was in jeopardy. The problem wasn't that they wouldn't get to land on the moon. The problem wasn't that the mission as a whole was about to be a failure. The problem was that they wanted these men to survive and not die.

That was the problem. All of a sudden, the Apollo 13 capsule became an ark, in a sense. And as if you watch the movie, which is based on historical accounts, they turned that capsule into a way to keep them alive so they could get them back home. And thankfully, all three of those men survived. They were saved from dying.

And today, you and I, we have this glaring problem that every one of us face. It's a problem that you can ignore it if you want to. It's a problem that will not go away. It's a problem that no one can fix. Ponce de Leon did never.

He never found the true fountain of youth to solve this problem. But the problem, honestly, that we all face in this room today is death.

But is that really even the problem? It's the fruit of the problem. The problem that you and I have in our life. The problem in this world today, the problem that's always been around and the problem that is staring you and I in the face today is the. Is the problem of sin.

Sin is the problem. Everything in creation was good up until the moment that sin entered into this world. And we use this word saved kind of flippantly sometimes, but some of you, even in this room, may be like, I'm saved. What does that mean? Is that like a button that I get to put on my lapel?

Like, what? What is it? I think John MacArthur said it best in a message he preached when he said, so when you're talking about being saved, it's very important for us to understand what are we being saved from? That is the problem that's being addressed. And he says, I need to remind you that if you were to listen to what's being said today in the name of Christianity, he says, it would seem that you're being saved from unfulfillment or that you're being saved from dissatisfaction, or that you're being saved from poverty to prosperity, that you're being saved from inadequate feelings about yourself, or that you're being saved from a purposeless life.

That's not what you're being saved from. Now listen real carefully. Look at me. Don't write anything down. Just look at me.

If you're joining us online, look at me. To put it simply, you're being saved from God.

You're being saved from God by God. Now you're looking at me with bewilderment.

It's because our God, who is righteous and holy in himself, has a righteous standard on people, a standard that no one in existence and no one in this room today can meet that standard. And because of that, we deserve the judgment and the wrath of God. Yes, God is angry at us, and God is angry at our sin, but not in the sense of the way we get angry. This is righteous anger. And God has a right to be angry because he created everything.

It belongs to him. So, yes, I want him to be mad at my sin because he loves me so much. And he doesn't want that in my life. And he doesn't want it in your life either. That is the problem, is our sin.

And so today, what I want to do is I want to dig into a variety of different texts to paint the picture of how serious the problem is. And that when you leave today, I want you to hate sin as much as you hate death. I want you to loathe sin so much, number one, that you want to steer away from it at all cost. But that when you look at the cross of Christ, you don't look at it from the ugliness of the death. He died.

But that's the death that you and I should have. That's what I want us to see. So I want to see. I want you to ask you to stand with me and I want to read, Starting in Romans 6, 21. And I backed up, just to give a little bit of context.

Paul is arguing in this chapter that you are enslaved to one thing or another. There is no gray area. You are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ. You're either a slave to sin or you're a slave to Christ. Which one is it going to be?

And when you're enslaved to something, you operate and behave according to that master. So listen to how he summarizes it. Therefore, what benefit or fruit were you then deriving from the things of which now you are ashamed? In other words, he's saying, what good did Sin do in your life anything you know you're going to say, it made me feel good, kind of pulling the water boys quote out of the back pocket, it made me feel good. Is that what sin did in your life, made you feel good?

He says, for the outcome of those things is what? Say it loudly. Death. Don't be afraid to say it. It's there because it's the problem that we like to dance around.

But the truth is, it's there. If you choose to sin based on what God's definition of sin is, we will suffer because it always leads to death. Verse 22. But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God again, there's only one of two things you will be enslaved to. You derive your benefit again, fruit.

What's being produced when the outflow of your life that results in sanctification and the outcome, eternal life. Was he saying that you earn eternal life? No, he's saying when you give your life to Christ, he's about to argue about the Holy Spirit living inside of you. This is what begins to bear out. Not the fruit of sin, not submitting your members to unrighteousness.

As he started this chapter, he says, but for the wages of sin and death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Father. Speak loud, Lord. Take away any extra words that I might speak that in any way, shape, form or fashion would not call us to the seriousness of sin today.

In Jesus name, Amen. So if you funnel down to that verse. Let me just back up again. He's saying that the outcome, the fruit, the result of sin in our life is death.

It's death.

And for us today, when we stand here and we think about that, you're like, well, I'm not that bad of a sinner. Remember, that's the problem we talked about a few weeks ago, that in America today, most people, the majority of people believe they're pretty good people. Well, if I'm a pretty good person, getting by pretty good, then I don't have a problem.

But see, here's the thing. R.C. sproul kind of said it like this. We're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.

We don't have a behavior problem. We have a character problem.

And that is what he's saving me from. This body I live in is a body of sin. It's a. A body of flesh, it's a body of death.

And because I'm a sinner, that's the judgment that I deserve. You know, why the gospel today isn't as impactful as it used to be because there's no accountability to the gospel. We do go up, as John MacArthur said. We go up and say, hey, do you want a better life? Then believe in Jesus.

Do you want to get your life on the right track and have purpose? Then believe in Jesus. But honestly, this might be, you know, this is your hellfire, brimstone moment. If we don't believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, submit to him and repent, we will go to hell someday.

It's got to sit there. Because here's the thing. You can leave here today and feel pretty good about yourself, or you can leave here today set free from the sin and the death that enslaves you. That's a big difference. This isn't about being a pretty good person.

This is about passing from death to life.

I want you and I to have as much hatred for sin as we do for the reality of death in our world. When you look at Romans 6:23, there are four primary words and you can even where the word is occurs twice, you can put an equals mark. Wages equals death, and gift equals life. You see, we feel like in this world today, we're entitled to a lot of different things. The only thing that you and I truly are entitled to by scripture is death.

The only thing that you and I deserve is death, according to scripture. Now, that's hard, isn't it? Because we live in a society that talks about a lot of our entitlements. The only thing that I have earned, the wage that I earned is death because I'm a sinner. But the life I get.

Now let's flip this around. The life I get is an absolute free gift that I did not earn, that I don't deserve from a loving, abundantly loving God whose standard says this and whose judgment says death. But in his love, he decided to take the wrath of God on his son that I would not have to bear if I would trust him. There's the good news. Yes, we're being saved.

Not necessarily from God. We're being saved from the wrath of God, which is more than justified. But because his son died a cruel, cruel, horrible death on a cross and shed his blood and died the death that I deserve, the wrath of God is not being stored up for me. Someday, if you would trust him, it won't be for you as well. So following your study notes as I kind of dig through this and I want to take my time, I'm watching the clock.

I want to Take my time. You have a lot of verses in this, and I hope that you will be like the Bereans. You'll go back and read these verses, dissect these verses, study these verses. Because these are five realities about the problem that we face. The problem that we face.

First one is this. The curse of sin is death. Where does that come from? Well, I want to invite you to rewind mentally. You don't have to turn there.

Stay there. At Romans 6:23, I want you to rewind the tape to Genesis chapter three. God's created everything. He's created man and woman, and they've named all the animals. He's instituted marriage.

And in chapter three, as you have heard probably a million times in your life, Eve's in the garden. God had told him not to eat of the knowledge tree, of the knowledge of good and evil. And he comes up to Eve and he says, hey, did God really say that you would die? He questions the validity of the truthfulness of God. God cannot lie.

It's not in his nature. He said, the day you eat of it, you will surely. What? Die? And she looked at the fruit and the temptation of being her own person and being in charge and not being under the control of God because God had created things this way.

Here's God, here's man, and here was creation. That man was to be in control of creation, to subdue it, to oversee it, to tend it, to be responsible. But Satan appears in the form of a created being and tempts Eve. And at that point, man submitted to creation and reversed the responsibility order of life. Now man is serving beneath creation.

It's no wonder when we get to Romans chapter 1, verse 18, that it says that the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man, who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness, and then begins to submit and worship what's been created rather than the Creator. Sin flipped this around, but this is what else sin did. The moment that Adam and Eve eat and they're mashing the flesh of that fruit in their molars and they swallow. They didn't sit there and go, wow, we know everything now. The first thing they saw was shame because they had sinned.

Now, hold on. Because why. Why would it be that they rushed to go cover their private parts? You know, why Don't. Don't worry.

I'm not going really weird with this.

These are parts of intimacy.

And because they sinned, now they're no longer intimate with God. And so the parts that brought Adam and Eve together to becoming one flesh that seals a marriage are now the very things that's a source of shame. The very place that her future children would nurse and be intimate with the mother is shameful. Are you following? Y' all ever looked at it that way?

They covered their shame because sin had entered into the world and it goes on down through there. And when he gets to the point where he curses Adam, he says, cursed be the ground because of you. Because you have taken this creative order and reversed it. Creation as well as you are now under the curse of death. That's why we have hurricanes and earthquakes and all the natural disasters.

That's why we have man made abuse and all the other things, because sin is in the world.

You can try to find any other reason to explain it, but the curse of sin is death.

And he said, from dust you came and to dust you returned. What would his state be different? You go back to chapter two, when God formed him intimately in the dirt and breathed life into his lungs. Now in this state, the breath of God is gone. You go all the way up to Noah and before Noah's ark, before God comes in to wipe out sin on the face of the planet.

He says, my spirit will not strive with man forever. But. But his days will be limited to 120 years. Without the presence of God and the Spirit of God, the breath of God, life will be expired. Your life, as the Bible says, is just a wisp.

It's just a wisp. It's here and it's gone. The psalmist wrote, as my lifetime is nothing in your sight, surely every man at his best is a mere breath. That's a problem, because in the state of the garden before the fall, before the sin, man was asked to tend the garden. And now he's going to go out to a creation that is hostile to him, producing thorns and thistles, and by the sweat of the brow would have to work even harder to bring in the food to stay alive.

The curse of death. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:1, and you were dead in your trespasses and sin not hindered, not held back. He said you were dead in your trespasses and said, dead things don't move, dead things don't breathe. In your sin and mine, we are dead. We can't do anything about it because we're absolutely incapable.

So I'm asking you today, how serious are you about the problem of sin?

See, we get comfortable in our Christianity and we forget from the depths of hell that God rescued us. We were like a spider dangling over a pit. That at any moment the flame could lick that web and we would drop into an eternal furnace. But God in his mercy and his grace has rescued you and saved you from sin and saved you from death. And that is the essence of eternal life.

That before you could say, I'm going to live forever with God, I have to admit, I've got to be saved from the thing that's killing me. You know, it's that time of year. I think I counted 10 skunks from here to my house last week. I don't know if the rain drives them out of their holes. I don't know what it is, but there's nothing worse than driving over a skunk and that odor coming into your car and just kind of hovering there.

Did you know that one of the chemicals in the spray of a skunk will combine with water and evaporate? And almost like some kind of Batman movie, it will hover miles away from that. That. From that source. Because of its chemical makeup, folks, sin sticks to us worse than the smell of a skunk.

And you can get all the tomato paste you want, you're not going to scrub it off on your own. Number two, the effect of death is pervasive. The effect of death, the curse of death, it's pervasive. It affects every person. Everyone is a sinner.

Everyone and all of creation is affected by the sin of man. And notice I'm trying to stick with the phrase sinner because committing a sin doesn't make you a sinner. You sin because you already are a sinner. It's your character. You need to be changed.

It's why I love the refreshment of trying to stick with the words in scripture that says you must be born again because in the nature right now you fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory God. Not some. Not the ones who just think that they're bad.

All. Romans 5:12 says, Just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men. Why? Because all what sinned, it's pervasive. And you get down to Romans 8, 19, 20.

You see how it affects creation? Because remember, God intended for man to rule over creation. But when he submitted to creation, now that which is created is ruling over man. Look at what it says. For the anxious longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

For creation was subjected to futility. Why because man sinned and thwarted his responsibility.

I don't know about you, but that's a problem in my book. And we live in a culture today that diminishes, redefines, neglects, ignores the God given definition of what sin is and is not. And then you wonder why there's so much death, why culture feels so cold, why sometimes you go into a church and there's no life. Because there probably isn't.

Jesus said, I have come to give them life and give it more abundantly. So I asked you a minute ago, how serious is sin? Now I'm going to ask you this question. How are you allowing culture today to minimize the seriousness of sin? Are you comparing yourself to other people?

Going, well, you know, I'm not that bad. I'm just, I feel good about where I am, even if I'm only 10% of where God is. I don't know about you, but I'm a math guy and I could either live life on my 10% righteousness or I could live in the 100% righteousness that Jesus Christ wants to give me the free gift of God. So what standard are you living under? Are you allowing culture to continue to dictate your definition of sin?

So I ask you, are you mad enough yet? I hope I make you so mad today that you're so ready to fight the sin in your life and that you're willing to give pity to those who are stuck in it. Number three, the penalty. The verdict of judgment is certain.

The verdict of judgment is certain. Do you believe that? Because, I mean, we can come in and have all the warm fuzzies and the feelings, but the truth is, as Paul said in Acts 17:30, 31, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, there's a lot of it in our world today. I would almost argue, maybe even more so. I don't know.

God is now declaring to all men and all people everywhere that they should repent. Repent of what? Sin? Because why? Why should we repent?

So I can feel better about myself, so I can impress my grandmother. Because, you know, I've lived a pretty despicable life and I just really want to feel better about myself. Because he's fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he appointed. And how do they know? Because God raised him from the dead.

Romans 2, 5, 6. But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, he's getting onto them for judging other people, saying like, well, they're not as good as I am. You are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of Wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who were rendered to each person according to his deeds.

And if you go to the verse before that, he says, or have you forgotten the kindness and the tolerance and the patience of God? That the kindness of God is what led you to repentance? So if he's calling people to repentance, it's his grace and his mercy that's giving you the opportunity. Unless you're not taking it serious. Hebrews 9:27 says, Inasmuch as it's appointed for men to die once physically, and after this comes the judgment.

Now we can stop there. When you die, you will face judgment. You have one of two things that's going to happen. Either A, as we'll read in a few minutes, you're going to stand before the bema seat of Christ and he's going to judge you according to your good and your worthless works, and rewards you as you come into heaven into glory with him. For those that do not, you'll stand before a great white throne judgment where books will be open and whoever's name is not found in the Lamb's Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire.

There's one of two judgments you're going to face, one of two outcomes. Which one will it be for you? Because just as sure as that judgment's coming, we can be sure. As verse 28 says in Hebrews, Jesus will appear a second time. The very one who paid the price for the judgment we deserve is the one who's coming to judge the righteous and the unrighteous.

2nd Thessalonians 1:7 through 9. Let me give you this one, starting verse 8, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty. Eternal destruction. I told you it was heavy.

But we need to be reminded that there is coming a day fixed in the future, and that day is certain. The curse of sin is death. It is pervasive. And this future is sure. How are you living in light of the future?

Does it bother you that there are people who are going to face this?

Does it eat at you to know that someone could die in their sins? And we use the phrase, sometimes bust hell wide open.

I don't want anyone to go through this. Do you? I don't even want. I would never. If you ever use the word, go to hell.

Stop it. That is awful. That, to me, is the worst thing you could ever say to somebody that you would wish this for somebody. Eternal damnation.

John Stott said this. Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us. You may not have been the Roman soldier there holding the nail that was driven into his hand, but it's just like you were. You may say, no. If I was there, I would have been weeping.

No, you'd have been walking by and mocking him too. Romans 5:8. For while we were sinning, Christ died for us. While we were enemies of God, Christ died for us. Did you hear that?

While we were in our sin, this merciful God looked down and saw somebody incapable and. And unable and decided to grab me by the nap of the neck and pull me out and save me from perishing. Because here's the truth and this is why we can have confidence. We're going to shift this a little bit. There's two things I want you to hear about the problem.

Number one, that when God judges, his basis of judgment will be truth. It will be truth. It is based on his character. God cannot lie. So when he looks at us and judges us based on a righteousness, everyone fails the test.

And everyone has the opportunity to believe in Jesus and be saved and receive the righteousness of Christ. Everyone does. Listen to some of these verses. Psalm 19, verse number 9 says, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true.

They are righteous all together. See, that gives me hope and security because it is a thorough judgment. In Romans 1:18, we already talked about that. But he goes on to say, after he says, the wrath of God is being revealed. He said, because that which is known about God is evident within them.

For God made it evident to them. We have no excuse because God has revealed his truth through His Word, through his creation, through His Spirit. He's revealing these truths to us, and we can trust this, that it's true and it's certain. But here's what else you can trust. Hebrews 4:12 says that the word of God judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

His judgment is thorough. He knows exactly why you do what you do or why you don't do what you should do. Or sometimes while you do the right thing with the wrong motive, which is still the wrong thing, when you really begin to inventory the sin in your life, you will see just how needy you are, not how despicable you are how needy you are. Thank God that we have a Savior who loves us despite all of my Failures. All of my shortcomings, all of that neediness.

He just picks me up. I'm that scared lamb that's in the wilderness with no direction and not knowing where I'm going. And I hear something rustling over to my side, and I begin to tremble, and I begin to shake. But I look up and I hear my master's voice. Who's left the 99 to come find me.

Come on. That deserved an amen. Come on. This is what Jesus did for us. His judgments are sure.

And someday, when we leave this world, if we're a believer, we will stand before him at the bema seat of Christ. And it says in Second Corinthians 5, 10, to be recompensed for our deeds in the body. Whatever was good, whatever was worthless, will be cast aside. It'll be burned with fire so that what is left is eternal. His judgment is sure.

But here's the last point I want to give you. The judgment of sin is right. It's the right thing. We sometimes think, how could God be so cruel that he would send someone to hell? God doesn't send anyone to hell.

Jeff Ingram says that hell has a door with a lock on the inside. If you're in hell, you've chosen to be there because you're suppressing the truth of God in your unrighteousness. Maybe the greatest thing that you and I can take away from this today is go. God, I am so ignorant of my life, of your expectations. I'm so needy.

But in that neediness, lean on him. Listen to what he says in Proverbs 24:12. I love this verse. He says, if you say, quote, I didn't know this. End quote.

Does God not. Is not God the one who weighs the heart and keeps your soul? And will he not render to each man according to his word? God's judgment is right because he knows all the excuses, he knows all the reasons, and yet he still chooses to love you and me. Matthew 16:27.

For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father and repay every man according to his deeds. It is a heavenly perspective, coming down from heaven, seeing all and knowing all. When you go to Matthew 25:31,32, the judgment of the sheep and the goats, it says, but when the Son of Man comes in his glory, his glory, showing his power, his majesty and his authority, and all the angels with him, he will gather the nations and separate them. Why his judgment is right? Because it will bring light to everything.

It will expose every deed, as Luke 8:17 says, for nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known. I want that. If you go to the dermatologist, you want him to see every inch of your skin, right? You don't want him to skip anything. You don't want him to overlook anything.

You want him to bring in a black light and go over your entire body to see if there's any blemish, any mole, any growth. You want that from the judgment of God. You want his judgment to be right. And the reason it's right is he's the only one that can be right. So I've given you.

Let me walk you through this outline. The problem is, the curse of sin is death. Do you take sin serious? The predicament is that the effect of death is pervasive. How are you comparing yourself to others?

The penalty, the verdict of judgment, is certain. How are you and I living in light of this future judgment to come? The principle, the basis of that judgment is truth. Does your truth line up with his truth? And even the way you ask that question should convict you.

I need to be in line with his truth always. And if his judgment is right, then how can I keep looking to myself? To save myself?

I need to submit the lord. Listen to second Peter 3, 7:9. But by his word, the present heaven and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. Why? Because man was supposed to be over creation.

So if God judges man, he judges everything. But this time he will not cleanse it with water. He'll purify it with fire. But do not let the one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years. And a thousand years is like one day.

Now, I could stop there, but I want to give you some hope today. But the Lord is not slow about his promise. What promise? That judgment is coming as some count slowness. But he's patient towards you.

Aren't you thankful he's patient? Some of us. God's given 20 million chances. Well, today's 20 million and one. You can't clean yourself up enough to come to Christ.

You can't go, get all your life squared away. Get all your stuck ducks in a row. You come to Christ so that he will forgive you and set you right, give you his righteousness. Here's what I observe. The weakness of the faith of professing Christians is the quickness to forget the destructive reality of sin.

Sin leads to death, and death abounds in sin. So if you choose to continue in your sin based on your definition of sin, you will suffer. You'll suffer here. But if you don't know Jesus Christ, you'll suffer in the future. Here's the last point.

The gospel is good news because the wrath of God has been satisfied. Romans 6:23. The end of that verse says, but the free gift, the charisma, I love that. That's what it says in Greek, charisma. The charisma of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Are you in, Are you out? Are you in or are you out? And so I want to invite you today to think just like Apollo 13, you have a serious problem. A serious problem. We're sinners that deserve death and we need to be rescued.

Back in 1970, Gene Krantz if you watch the movie, you do get a little bit of an embellished perspective of what was going on in that room. You hear him say in the movie, failure is not an option. But after the movie was re released, Grant went around correcting people because he said, that's not what I said. This is what he said. I have never lost an American in space and I sure as heck aren't going to lose one now.

This crew is coming home. You got to believe it. Your team must believe it and we must make it happen.

In this Is Love, John wrote, not that we loved God, but he loved us and sent his son to be the covering for our sin. So I want to ask you to stand with me, bow your head, and as we come to this time of decision, on the back of your study guide today, we've added something new because some of you were like, you know what? I just. I don't know that I can walk down to the front and that's okay. Our staff will be around afterwards.

Fred's down here, I'm down here. Randy will be around here somewhere. If you're lost today and you do not know Jesus Christ and you know that this is your future destination, do not leave this place today until you've come to that place where you repent of your sins and put your faith in Christ. Don't do that today. You can't come down during the altar call.

This altar is going to be open for prayer. It's always open prayer. You can pray for whatever needs you have. But if you say, you know what, I have a question today, or you know what, I have a prayer that I want to pray, or you know what, I made a decision today, there's now a QR code on the back with my study notes. You can take your phone.

When you put the camera over it, it'll have a link. You click that link and it'll take it. And we will get a text from you where we can call you and say, hey, let's talk. Because whatever that problem is, we want to pray with you through it. Whatever that prayer request is, whatever that question is, we want to walk you through it.

If you made a decision today for Christ, we also want to know that as well. I want you to listen to this last quote. If you want to go ahead and start playing, just, that'd be awesome. Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, said this. O sinner, consider the fearful danger that you are in.

It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and a bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath that you are being held over in the hand of God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed, as much against you as against any of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing around, ready at any moment to be singed and burned asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do to induce God to spare you in that moment.

Whose wrath is it? It's the wrath of God.

But don't you love the word but in a sentence? But Jesus, he looked down, saw your sinful condition, and while you were steeped in your sin, like a teabag in a cup, he pulled you out and he rescued you. So if you're saved today, thank God for it. If you're saved today, want that for your lost friend. And if you're lost today, I think I've done a pretty good job laying out the problem in front of you.

What are you gonna do about it? Father, we love you. We ask you, God, to work in our hearts and our lives today to embrace the seriousness of sin, but also to come with appreciation and thankfulness that you did something about it. In Jesus name, amen.