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The River ChurchSermons

The NEED

The NEED of the World

Matt Montgomery · Sunday, 4 May 2025 · Romans 1:18-32 · 48:29 · 8,002 words

Romans S2 · 1:18-32

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The sermon explains that God’s wrath is revealed against all ungodliness, and that humanity is inexcusably sinful, needing a Savior. It calls believers to examine their lives, stop tolerating secret sin, and return to God, warning that delaying repentance risks being turned away. The speaker urges the church to become a First Church of Mercy, showing compassion to those who are broken and sharing the gospel. He invites anyone who does not know Jesus to seek a relationship with Him and encourages believers to repent, pray, and live for revival.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

reprobate 7 lie 16 job 15 toy 6 away 20 sin 63 understand 33 maliciousness 5 agencies 3 whisperer 3 inescapable 3 penalty 8

Topics

Sin 16 Prayer 3 Salvation 3 The Wrath of God 2 Grace 1 Baptism 1 Condemnation 1 Government & Authority 1

Scripture referenced 19

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 1 3:18 Romans 1:18 9:31 Romans 5:18 10:08 Hebrews 10 11:10 Romans 1 14:13 Romans 1:19 14:20 Romans 1:19-20 14:21 Romans 1:21 15:15 Romans 1:20 15:15 Romans 1:21 18:23 Romans 1:23 18:59 Romans 3 21:30 Romans 1 21:37 Romans 1:24-25 21:37 Romans 1:24-25 22:16 Romans 1:26-27 23:48 Romans 1:28-32 25:12 Romans 1:29 32:08 Romans 1:30 38:56

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

this morning. I'm filling in for Pastor Justin, and I want to thank you for the hospitality and

for having me this morning. But one thing I've noticed, it seems like every time I fill in up

here, it's the hard message. So if you'll deal with me today and understand this is God's word,

not my word, so don't kill the messenger. But if we would, let's open in prayer and we'll go from

there. Dear Holy Father, we lift you up, Lord. We praise you. We honor you. We glorify you as the

God of God and the King of Kings. We thank you as we read forward throughout Romans. I'm excited

about this passage, Lord, and everything that you have to say through us throughout Romans,

knowing that ultimately you gave us a plan of salvation. You gave us an opportunity to be with

you forever, and we can't thank you enough for that. We're not worthy of it, and we'll see that

this morning. But Lord, I pray that each and every one of us will search our hearts, that you'll

speak through me, not my words, but thine, Lord. I just pray that each ear will be open and hear

your word as you would have them to hear. In Jesus' name, amen.

Precious name. Amen. So I don't know about you guys, but I was not always a perfect child.

So I'd love to say that I was, but I wasn't. I am the son of a pastor. That number one should

tell you everything, because us POCs are pastor's kids. We have a bad rap. But my parents were

wonderful. And the thing I love about is when I started studying today and I started looking at

the passages, I really thought about my dad. Dad was a pastor, but he was also my dad.

Right? So he was my spiritual leader, but he was also my father. And I can't tell you how many

times I would push my dad to the utter edge. And how many times would I go, Matt, don't go do this.

What do I do? I'm going to run over here. I'm going to do it anyway. Matt, don't do that. I'm

going to go run over here and do that. And then I've got the ultimate of Matthew Ray. I knew I

was dead. I knew that was the moment. And I think that's what we're going to study this morning,

is God's going to have that Matthew Ray moment with us. Right? He's got to tell us there is a

point where you're going to get in trouble. And I think Paul's trying to tell the church that there

are issues going on in the church that cannot continue. And we have to understand that sin is

sin. And the greatest thing about Romans is the Romans road. We're taught that as Christians.

That's how we lead people to Christ. Without Romans, we have no true understanding. And we

understand that through Romans, that sin is real. And that there's a penalty paid for sin. Because

it says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But what does that wage?

Well, the wage of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ,

our Lord. So we know that we can be saved. But this takes it to an extra step. He's saying,

listen, church, we have some issues in the church. We need to clear it out. And we need to cleanse

ourselves. And we need to get back to God. Worshiping the God that we are not even worthy

of serving. But we need to clean our lives up. So we're going to read, I'm going to read Romans

chapter 1, 18 through 32. I'll give you a minute to turn there. It should be up on the board as well.

Bear with me, because I'm old and I'm blind. So I've got to be able to read. And it's never fun

when you start out with, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and

all unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what

can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible

attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since

the creation of the world in the flesh.

Things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not

honor him as God or give him to him or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking

and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the

glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping

things. Therefore, God gave them up to the lust of their hearts.

To impurity. To the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Because they exchanged the truth

about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creator, the creature or the creation other than

the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable

passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with

passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving into themselves the

due penalty of their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up

to the debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteous

evil, covetousness, malice. They're filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They

are gossips, slanderers, haters of God. They are filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

Insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to the parents, foolish, faithless,

heartless, and ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such

things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval of those who practice them.

And as I read this, I thought, boy, this is really, really deep this morning. It's a hard

message. It's hard to look at. It's hard to take in. But we have to understand that

God is our Father. He wants the best for us. And right now, he's chastising the church. Paul's

chastising the church because he's like, guys, you are so deep in sin, you can't see what's going on.

And you have to understand the timing of all of this going on. When the churches were created,

you know, on Sunday nights, we're studying the Revelation, and we talk about the end times of

the seven churches. And when you look at the period of those seven churches, and the fact

that the apostles really were the pastors of those original churches, Paul here is saying, hey, as

I'm telling you, you need to get your sin squared away. Get it out of your life, because you're to

the point, you're to the brink of destruction, where God's going to turn you away. And this was

always a scary thing. There's two things in the Bible that scared me so much as a young man,

that I could be so caught up in my sin that God's going to turn his back on me. The second was,

when you stand before the throne of judgment, and he says, turn away from me, you worker of

iniquity, I knew you not. And they said, but God, God, I did all these miracles, and I did everything

in your name. I preached in your name, and I did everything in your name. And I did everything in

your name. I rose the dead in your name. And what does God say? I don't know you. Turn away from me.

That's scary, because it's a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that gets you into heaven.

It's salvation, right? A lot of people can play the game. I can turn on the TV any day and find

a televangelist that I feel is playing the game. You can get rich if you send me so much money.

You can do this if you give me money. You know, the realism is, it's been the lie of Satan since

day one, you know? Well, it's not that bad, you know, just a little sin. And, you know, I tell

I was talking to my girls one day, and I was talking to some others, and I thought, you know,

Satan didn't completely lie in the Garden of Eden when he said, hey, Eve, did he really tell you

you couldn't do this? And she said, well, yeah. And he's like, well, really, it's, you know, you'll

know things if you do it. Like, you'll know more. Was that a lie? No, what she was going to learn

was what sin was, and the penalty of sin, and what that brought. So he didn't completely lie to her,

but he led her astray. And I find that in our own lives. We let sin get in, and we let that sin fall

and foster. And as that sin fosters in our lives, we let it get so far out of hand that we no longer

can control it. Next thing we know, we're hiding ourselves in our nakedness before God, because we

know the sin is so strong that we can't accept the penalty. We don't want to even think about the

penalty of that sin. So we have a hard time going to him and asking for forgiveness. So we're going

to break this down verse by verse. It's a lot. I mean, I'll try not to run over. I'm not promising

anything. I'm one of those guys, but I'm usually pretty good about it. But the first thing we need

to understand is that we are a world of sin. We are a world of sin. We are a world of sin. We are a

world in the need of a Savior. That's the whole premise of this message is we need Jesus Christ,

right? So we understand that because of verse 18, we can figure out a couple things. God's wrath

is contemporary. It's not for the past. It's not for the present. It's not for the future. It's

all-encompassing. It's a contemporary wrath. And I always run into people that say,

how can you believe in a God that's so full of wrath? And I said, well, how can you love your

father who gets mad at you when you do something wrong? No different. He has to

save me from myself. And it's hard to accept for this world. So we know that it's contemporary.

And I want to read Romans 5, 18, that up on the board. It says, for the wrath of God is revealed.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads

to justification and life for all men. So we know that as one trespass entered this world,

the condemnation happened for all men. We know that all are sinners, right? And this is repeated

throughout Romans. But then it says God's wrath is all-inclusive, right? We know that against all

ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men. It says that in verse 18. And then we know that God's wrath

is completely inescapable. Inescapable. We can't get away from it. The wrath of God is a real thing.

The only thing that saves us is the blood of Jesus Christ, the remission of sins. Without that, we're

lost in sin. We're condemned to death. So it says God's wrath is inescapable. If we look at Hebrews

chapter 10, 26 through 30.

It says,

You think we'll be deserved by one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, who has

profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the spirit of

grace. And then, for we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again,

the Lord will judge his people. And last but not least, it says it is a fearful thing to fall into

the hands of the living God. And I always thought, you know, I'm not going to be able to do that.

Man, that's a tough ending. Because he just said, vengeance is mine. And then he says, it is a fearful

thing to fall into the hands of the living God. What do you think that really is encompassing this

morning? How do you feel about that statement? I know when I started searching my heart, I thought,

man, I sin every day. I hate to admit it. But I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner saved by grace.

My family will attest to you every time I get behind the wheel of a car. Probably going to

sin. Whether it's my attitude, whether it's stupid drivers, now I'm sinning. Whether it's me

speeding. I don't always keep the law. I don't always do the right thing. So I know I have to

fight that in my daily life. I know that as I get behind the wheel, I have to make a cognitive effort

to try to not sin. And I fail at it a lot. And there's many other things in life that I have.

See, the great thing is, it doesn't matter who's preaching for this pulpit. It doesn't matter who's

talking to you. We're all sinners. And sometimes we want to lift up the pastors as they're some

kind of beacon and light. And they are. And they're to be revered. And they are to be respected. But

the fact is, they're still a sinner. They're still a man. They're still a man saved by grace. And

grace is so important for us to understand. And that's what Paul's trying to say here is, listen,

you know, we can't escape God's wrath. Understand that sin has a penalty. So he goes into these

depths to let them know that. And then it talks about, we're in need of salvation because of the

complete depravity that we're in. And we learn these things throughout Romans in chapter 1,

verse 19 through

32. And it says, the inexcusable sin of man. When you look at verses 19 through 20, it says,

this was an inner or subjective revelation. That's which may be known of God and manifest

in them. So he's letting them know this is being shown in you, right? For the invisible attributes,

namely his eternal power and divine nature. So we all know in scripture, it says, even if you

don't have somebody here, you will know God through nature. You will know that he's real. You will know

that there is a God, a divine creator. So he's saying, and you've been clearly perceived ever

since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

So he's letting us know there is no excuse. We have a God. We can see that in front of us on a

daily basis. But then he goes to verse 21, because you understand in verse 20, when we look at the

objectiveness of what we think versus the revelation that's given, we see the progressiveness of the

and there are steps that lead to this downward spiral. See, we plunged mankind into spiritual

and moral ruin, and it's continued to become more and more and more. Because when we look at the

garden of eating, when that first sin happened, what do they do? They run and they hide from God.

They realize their nakedness. They realize they're in sin. And really the sin at that point was,

we just said, we did what we were told not to do. But within two chapters, you see the first murder.

Cain killed Abel over jealousy. And as that sin progresses, it gets deeper and deeper and

deeper and harder. And it's something that we have to deal with in our own lives. As sin starts to

take control, it's easier and easier to do worse and worse things. I grew up in a very religious

family, obviously. I grew up, I was a pastor's kid. I went to a Christian school. I was astonished

at some of the things I saw when I got out of school of kids who allegedly served God their

whole entire life and how crazy they went, including my own family members. My brother

was a great example. God rest his soul. I love my brother. But he ended up paying with

his life for the sin that he had led throughout his life. The drugs, alcohol, things that he went

into took a toll on his body. Ultimately, he made it right with God at the end, but that sin took

its toll. And I see that in everything we do with sin. It may not be an outward sign like it was

with my brother, but inward, we know that we're breaking down. We're crumbling. We're struggling.

We get to the point where we cry out, God, just please take this from me. Take it away.

I'll do anything, right? I hate to admit it. I'm one of those dumb kids that decided,

oh, I'm going to go out and party with some friends. I'm going to do my thing. I'll never

forget. I got so sick. And I was like, God, I'll never do this again, I pray. Please just heal me.

Get me to church. Make me feel better. But then the dumb kid forgets about it and goes and does

something stupid again later on. See, I'm not perfect, but I've turned away from that because

I know that that doesn't do any benefit to this temple, that I know that God is real. I need to

stay or stay away from that sin, run from that sin. So we know that there's a progressiveness

and it's going to get worse and worse. And then what I've noticed when I got into sin

and I would have somebody talk to me, I'd get very angry because I wasn't thankful.

I wasn't caring. My gratitude for what God had for me became ingratitude, became anger,

and he couldn't do anything with that. God can't bless that. And then in verse 21, it says again,

because they became vain in their imaginations or their reasoning. So how many times have we

looked at the TV and saw what's going on in the world? And we think, how can they think that's

okay? How can we think that that is okay? But you understand sin, as it evolves, changes your

mindset. It changes your imaginations or your reasoning. And then you start making excuses.

And then idolatry in verse 23. This is a hard one for me because I think there's a lot of

religious groups that still worship idolatry and don't even realize it. And understand anything

can be an idol. If my car, like, let's say I decide I'm going to go and buy a car. And I know people

are very wealthy. So their Ferraris and their Lambos or their nice cars become more important

than even their own family members at times. And now that's their idol, right? And it could be

anything. It could be anything that I put in front of God is an idol. It could be my children even,

which is scary because I don't want God taking my children away because I care about them more

than I care about God. And we have to be very careful. There's a fine line, but we have to

understand that our total reverence and our total love should be to God the Father first.

God said, I'm a jealous God. It doesn't mean because he's jealous, like we understand jealousy.

He's jealous because he made us. What was the whole entire purpose of God making us?

The whole entire reason we were created was to worship him. It's exactly what's going to happen

in Revelation. If you read the book of Revelation, our job is to worship Christ, to throw a crown at

his feet, to say, God, you're almighty. This is what I'm here for. I can't wait. Who loves their job

and wants to think that's the greatest thing in the entire world and you want to do it forever? I don't. I definitely

don't want to do my job in heaven. I'm in government security, so my life is a little

bit in turmoil, a lot. I work around the clock. I have to deal with different nations, different

countries, different things that come into play. Wars definitely don't make it easier for me. So

the last five years have not been fun for me. And I can tell you, looking forward to heaven.

I'm looking forward to heaven that my job is to praise God at all times. But then I look at myself

and I think, that's my job now. So how do I forget that? Why do I let my

regular job become more important than my real job, which is to give myself completely and submit it

to God? So again, when I point the finger and I'm talking to you this morning, I'm looking at myself

as well. This is a hard message for me to study for. But we understand that there's a consequence

for man's sin. Just like I said, for all of sin and the penalty for sin in chapter three is going

to lead us to understand that it's death. But he says here in Romans 1 and verses 24 and 25,

he starts spelling it out. He says,

I know if I go out and I put corns and I plant for corn, I'm not going to get apricots in the spring.

So I'm sowing sin. I'm going to receive sin. If I'm receiving goodness of God, I'm going to receive

goodness of God. So don't be mocked. God's not mocked. He understands. But then he goes into

verses 24 and 25 and he said,

we revert back to our sin nature. And this is talking about sexual immorality,

you know, uncleanliness. One of the biggest problems in the world today,

this device right here has become one of the biggest sexual device material, easy to get,

destroys families, can destroy families, can destroy homes because we don't have the ability

to just turn it off. Everybody that I've talked to that has a pornography addiction or anybody

that's got an issue, it usually is because it's so easy.

It's free. It's readily available. You can get to it. And it's not unlike this time. These people

were, you understand other religions were centered around sexual immorality. When you look at any of

the Greek or Roman gods and the temples that they built, those temples were built for really sexual

immorality. It's a bad situation that doesn't mix with God. God says to be pure in heart, mind,

and soul. So we started looking at these things. So he's like that perversion or that prostitution

procreation is the one that will ultimately mark man's depravity. And I believe that's what's

happening in the world today. And then it gets a little deeper because in verses 26 and 27,

it starts talking about homosexuality. And a lot of people don't want to hear this today

because they want to have an accepting heart or understanding. God says it's wrong. Matt's not

telling you it's wrong. God says it's wrong. And he's saying here that God gave them into vile

affections. And when it talks about, it's talking about man to man and woman to woman. It spells

it out very plain as day in the scripture here because they didn't have a limit to what they

were practicing. And it was contrary to how God had created man. See, when God in the Garden of

Eden, when he gave man life on the sixth day, he breathed into us out of his nostrils life. He made

us from the ground, but he breathed into us his own breath. He doesn't do that with anything else

that he creates. But not only that, he said, I made you in my image. Didn't do that with anything

else either in the Garden of Eden. So when we look at that and understand, not to make us more in

important, but God had a specific plan and purpose why he made us the way he did. And when God looked

upon Adam and said, I want to make a helpmate for him, he made Eve. And it's very important to

understand that that is the way nature was intended. Verses 28 through 32, it says, God gave them over

to a reprobate heart. Anybody ever been called a reprobate? We had an old lady in our church who

used to call everybody a reprobate. No matter what you did wrong, you were a reprobate. And I used to

laugh at that. I just wondered if anybody else went through that. But it's one of those old term words.

What it is, is it's just turning away from God. It's turning to sin. Like when you're in a sin

nature, you're a reprobate. You're doing what's wrong. And the mind is so important because the

mind controls the heart 90% of the time. What I see and what I want to do, this mind can utterly

get in the way of everything else this body's intended to do. So we understand that we don't

want to be turned over to a reprobate mind. See, when man is born again and he's in the Holy Spirit,

he's in the faculty of his mind and it's renewed. You know, Paul says, my old man, I put it away and

I became new. I'm a new creature. I'm a new man. That conversion or that thing that has to take

place, the mind has to change. The heart needs to be cleaned. You know, when we get baptism,

when we do a baptism, what do we do? We bury you in the likeness of Jesus, raised to walk in

newness of life. We're getting rid of all of that dirt and that sin. That's not saving you,

but it's an outward sign that you've been saved, that you've gotten that sin out of your life.

But he goes further. He says, all unrighteousness. You see, this is a violation of justice. And then

he talks about all wickedness, all covetousness, all maliciousness, all envy, all murder, all strife,

all deceit, all malignity. And that's just a whole spirit thing. It's like a cancer. It just eats away

at you. You can't get rid of it. You have all these vile things that just continue to process

themselves in your life. And you look at this list and you're like, well, I don't, you know, I'm not

that wicked and I'm not very malicious. I'm sorry. From the moment you were born, have you ever seen

a two-year-old with a toy?

You know, young parents, you'll be going through it more and more, but it's my toy. Give me my toy

back. It might be the other kid's toy, completely the other kid's toy, but it's my toy now. That

maliciousness, that normal selfness, that point of where I have to have it, it's mine. And we do

this all the time as adults and we don't even realize it. But yet that is what he's talking

about. He's talking about your covetousness, your maliciousness, how you branch out. You might not

be a murderer, you know, as he spells out, but envy.

You're very envious. I can get envious all the time. And I try not to, but it's really easy to do,

you know. Deceit. Anybody in here ever told a lie? What happens when you lie? Then I got to tell the

next lie to fix the first lie. And then I've told the third lie to take care of the second lie,

take care of the first lie. Next thing I know, I'm 20 lies deep and I can't figure out who I am and

what I even said. And I get caught every time. And you'd think I'd be bright enough to realize I'm an

idiot. As a kid, I was terrible at this. I never wanted to get in trouble, so I'd lie about everything.

And then I'd end

up getting a hundred times more trouble and take a whooping because I couldn't get out of my own way

and couldn't stop lying. And what I learned was that's a really stupid way to go down this path.

You know, it's not very bright, but yet we lie to ourself every day. We lie to ourself every day

when we say, I'm okay. I don't need God. I'm going to be all right. How many times have you gone

through life trials and tribulations? You think, oh, I don't want to tell anybody. I don't want

anybody to know. Happens all the time, right? But what happens? You become lonely. You get caught

up in self. Next thing you know, you're so deep into it, you can't even

reach out to talk to anybody. I've been there. Why do you think the world's full of depression

today? What's the answer for depression in the world today? There's a million self-help books

out there right now that says, oh, you got to love yourself more than you can before you can love

others. You ever heard that term? You know, that goes completely against God's word. God's word

says, love others more than self. If you start concentrating on others, my mother was great at

this. My grandmother was the best at this. Oh, you're bored? Oh, I'll give you something to do.

You know, and she gave me the worst job in the world. Or quit feeling

sorry for yourself and get up and go do something for somebody. My grandmother told me that all the

time. To the point where we were, my brother and I, we're in a bit of a tussle and we weren't being

the best kids. And my mom worked at the church. And my grandmother got so upset with us that she

drove us over to the church to go work at the church all day long so that we would forget about

ourselves. Because we couldn't get past each other that day. And I learned a very valuable lesson.

Number one, my brother's much bigger and older and he can kick my butt. Number two, probably didn't need to argue about what we were arguing

about. And three, my penalty for doing that was way worse than had I just stopped. Because we

ended up laying tile with my father, who was in no mood to have two bratty kids with him at that

moment with a church full of people trying to lay tile to get ready for a Sunday service. And we

worked all day, all night. When I could have just hung out with grandma and enjoyed my time. I just

couldn't get through my head. I had to be that guy. So you see, God has given us a way. So there's a

lot of things I really wanted to talk about today. You know, when we accept Christ, we have the Holy

Spirit that comes into us. And when we start reading 29 through 32, he says in these verses,

the Holy Spirit lists 13 evil characteristics. And this is the things that can lead you to being

turned away to a reprobate mind, which is scary to me. And then sometimes I can see some of these

own things in my own life. Because not only does the sin becomes overwhelming and overpowers your

life, but we start to see in verse 29, he's a whisperer. He's a

stirrer of trouble. Has anybody ever been in a church where you had one of those? The gossiper,

the whisperer, the one that would cause problems or dissension in the church. You know, I've seen

more church splits and church divisions over the last five years than I've seen the majority of my

entire life. It started with COVID, drove people away. And then as people started coming back to

church, a lot of them didn't come back. And then there was a lot of problems because of sin. Could

have been there was sin in a pastor's life and it was caught and it causes a church division, or it

was the sin of one of the leaders. But you know what? Satan's really good at what he does. There

is a Satan and he is our adversary. And he's walking around like a lion looking who he can

devour. Bible says that. So we understand who Satan is and what he wants. He wants to destroy

us. The destroyer is after us every day. So that whisperer, that one that has to go around and tell

those untruths, even if it is a truth, gossiping can kill people in the church. A backbiter. Anybody

ever had one of those? My wife and I, we both had pretty interesting jobs over the years and

it seems like we've always had a backbiter in one of our positions. That guy that just

loves self-glorification and buries everybody else around him. Whether it's good, bad, and

indifferent, it doesn't even matter if you're doing the right thing. They'll still bury you

somehow. Backbiters. Those that slander others. Those that kill character. And then it gets deeper.

We're starting to see this today. The God-hater. Those that hate God or just want nothing to do

with God at all. You know, I see it all the time and I'm amazed when I look at what our world has

done. Especially America. How many kids no longer believe in God? You know, when I was a young man,

I never thought I'd see America where it's at today. Where 80% of the youth have no understanding

of Jesus Christ. Don't even know who God is. Youth workers, God bless their hearts. That is a tough

job nowadays. And I'm so thankful for them. Those that really want to train children in the admonition

of Jesus Christ. Because it's a difficult job out there. And pastors who are willing to stick at it

people don't want to know that there's sin in their life. And if you tell them they're a sinner,

the hatred that comes out of them is unbeknown. Like I've never seen in my lifetime. 20 years ago,

I could have a conversation with an unbeliever and not end up in a fight. I could actually just

have a real conversation. And they would tell me how they felt. Now it's if you don't feel the way

I do, then you're a loser. You're a bigot. You're a hater. You know what? I can be any religion I

want to be in this world until I mention Jesus Christ. And as soon as I mention Jesus Christ,

I'm a terrible human being. And guess what? I'm in Washington, D.C. all the time. I'm one of the

most hated people in my industry. Because I'm not going to shy away from Jesus Christ. And we've

seen a turn and a lot of things have happened. I've lost jobs because of it. I physically lost

a job because I wouldn't do what was wrong. Because I believe in Christ. And I can tell you,

God is in control of all municipalities and all things. He's the God of God, the King of Kings.

He puts rulers into power and he takes them away. And we have to rely on him to understand that.

So whatever happens to us, it doesn't matter. It fails in comparison. God is in control. So God

haters, we see them being insolent, brutal, overbearing. We see the haughty, pride that

just swells up and it's just like an empty wind. It just blows and takes control. Boastfulness,

vain braggers, bragging about everything, even whether it's right or wrong, or even if it has

anything to do with them, they brag about it. I see that a lot in a lot of centers. I see that

in the world today. The bragging of everything that is so against God that it makes me sad.

We see them inventing evil things. There are things now that I will never understand

how sin has progressed. I remember two years ago, I had to go to training,

a government training at a government facility. And it's actually for one of the protection

agencies, one of the three letter agencies. And I sat in a hour and a half long training on the

67 different types of people. When I was born, there was a man and a woman. Now there's 67

under the government standards. And we're starting to see our new, a new government's

going away from that. But I was amazed because there were things there I had never heard of in

my entire life. I'm like, you're a what? I don't even know what that means, right? There's so many

terms now, just like my children have their own language now, which I always thought I was really

cool and hip. And now I'm realizing I'm not. I've gotten old because I have no idea what they're

saying sometimes. It's the same thing with this. Sin gets so far that I can't even fathom it

because I don't understand what they're saying. I don't even know what that verbiage is. And how can

you all of a sudden be that? How does it?

It happened. But it happens because sin is all encompassing. It just devours you. And one thing

becomes okay and the next thing becomes okay. And then because of that sin and we invent these evil

things, we become so unregenerative, right? Like we don't want to even think of anything else. We can

never be born again. We can never create anything new. Everything just keeps continuing down the

bad. And then it even brings up the point he is disobedient to parents. I didn't want to leave

that out because my girls are here today. So I just want to let you know that.

I wanted to make sure you understood that. Romans 1.30. Just joking. But it is true. It starts in

the home. Parents, your job is to raise your kids rear to be grammatically correct. And my dad used

to always say the reason why the word rear is the most important is so I can tell you, spare the rod,

spoil the child. I used to laugh at that. I'm like, that's really not what it meant, but it worked for

him. But understand that our children need to understand who Jesus is. And we're failing in the

church. We're failing in the home. And I'm looking at the major crimes. You know, I get these lists

from the agencies and we look at major crimes, worldwide crimes. And when you look at the

statistical data versus who's in the home, typically it's a single parent home to the point

of 88% of the major bad crimes were committed by those that didn't have a father figure in the home.

And that's not a beat up on the mom because God gave me a job as the dad and the father of what

I'm supposed to do.

And we're failing greatly at that. So disobedient children, there comes a point where they can be

turned away. I saw this in my own life with my brother. Dad was a pastor. Mom worked at the

church her whole life. My dad screwed up, had some sin in his life, left the ministry, destroyed my

brother. My brother became so hateful and so full of himself that he couldn't turn back to God.

Brother ended up making a ton of money. My brother made millions and millions and millions of dollars

in his lifetime. Didn't have one penny when he died.

Because he went to drugs, alcohol, partying, being the guy, being the main guy, being boastful.

But you know what he did with me when I was 18 years old? He pulled me aside and said,

don't be me. Don't be me. He knew he wasn't happy. He knew the course that he had taken

was affecting his life. And it wasn't until we sat in a driveway two weeks before he died

that he finally gave himself back to God because he knew what he was missing. And he knew the time

was near. Don't wait till it's too late. Don't wait till you're out of time. Don't wait to be

given up to your sin. Change yourself. Change yourself. Change yourself. Change yourself. Change

yourself. You're a covenant breaker. You know, that's a hard one because any agreement that you

make between you and God is a covenant. When I ask for forgiveness and I ask him to change me

and I continually break that with sin in my life, I'm breaking the covenant between me and my father.

And I should expect to be punished for that. I expect that he wants me to be the right kind

of child for him. And then last but not least, in the last couple of verses we see,

we become unmerciful. I had noticed this in my own life.

I was playing the game. I was playing the pieces. I always did the right things. Gave my tithes,

made sure I did all the right things, was involved, but I wasn't merciful. About six,

seven years ago, I really went to God and asked him to break my heart. And I'm tearing up right

now. You would have never seen this eight years ago, nine years ago. I was hard. I was a pastor's

kid. There was a game to play. Church was business, right? God's made it real for me now. God's broken

my heart. And when I read this and understand that there's people that are dying and going to go to

do what? We had one command from Jesus. Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the

gospel, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, right? Teaching them

to observe all things. See, I love it because a lot of people just stop. They don't talk about

the next verse. We need to teach them. We need to train them. We need to be involved in their lives.

We go to a lot of churches and you can tell from the moment you walk in the door if people have

a heart for Jesus or not. And remember that because when people come to visit your church,

you never know when that one guy who doesn't have Jesus in

his life is broken so bad that he needs to come in this door. You know, my friends,

they wrote a song called First Church of Mercy. And the song's about a drunk coming to a church

and the drunk was afraid to come to that church. And when he walked in, he expected to be just

beat up. But the verse goes, he came to me and said, it's okay. You're in the right place.

We're glad to have you. Welcome to the First Church of Mercy. And I want you to examine our

hearts this morning. Are we truly the First Church of Mercy? Are we truly bringing people in and going out of

our way to keep people from the last part of this judgment, being turned away from God, to not know

that they have a chance to be with God? In closing, I just say, if you don't know Jesus this morning,

this is a heavy message to listen to. And I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry because God's real.

God's truth is real. God's word is real. And every time I pick this up, I love the movie,

The NeverEnding Story. I used to tell my kids it's the greatest movie ever.

This is The NeverEnding Story because I can read it and read it.

And it changes every single time. And he gives me exactly what I need because God is real.

You'll never know anything better. You'll never know anything sweeter in your life than to know

Jesus Christ. So if you don't know him this morning, I beg you, even if you're just inquisitive,

come talk to me. And if you wait and you decide to come back next week, talk to Pastor Justin.

But I'm begging you to know Jesus. And for those of us that are saved and that we know that Jesus

has saved us, are we really looking at all these aspects in our life? Can we say we're not doing that?

I know none of us can. I just pray for us to examine our hearts this morning. Give ourselves

back to God. I want to see a revival in this world like we've never seen. The Bible said it will

happen. In fact, those are, they're going to have to give their life for God. I'm willing to do that.

I told my wife, I don't think I would have been years ago. I pray that I won't have my Peter

moment where I deny him three times. But if it ever happens, I want to know that my life is right.

But I'm letting you know, there's nothing better than Jesus Christ.

There's nothing sweeter than salvation. Let's bow our heads.

This morning, I just pray that each one of you will just pray and think about what God had for

you this morning. Pray that we reach deep and understand that he has a purpose and a plan for

us. See, the Bible says the moment you were conceived, God had a plan for you. It takes a

lot of questioning out of our lives. We may not always know what that is. We may not know what

that understanding is. But I'm saying if you need prayer this morning, I just ask you to just raise

your hand this morning. Nobody looking around. Nobody, nobody peeking, please. It's time to get

in control. It's a tough message, but I just want to pray for each and every one of you this morning.

Lord, as we close, I want to thank you for your blessings. I want to thank you for your word. I

want to thank you that we know that we are sinners. We are sinners saved by grace. We know that you

and you alone are our salvation. We want to know that everything that we do in our lives,

that we just give that over to you. If we turn that over to you, that our lives will be so much

better, so much sweeter. Lord, I pray that the indwelling of the spirit will take control of the

morning. Indwell people, Lord. I'm praying that you will give them guidance on a daily basis,

that they will search you wholeheartedly, 100%. That we lay away our sins that besets us, Lord,

as Paul said. We lift you up. We honor you. We praise you. We thank you for all you do.

Bless these people. Bless this day. Thank you for all you do in Jesus' precious and wonderful name.