A Deadly Condition

Main idea: Christian, remember your former condition so you will pursue your current commission.

1. The Christian's former condition: D.E.A.D.
   
   • Dead because of sin (Ephesians 2:1-2a)
   • Engulfed by sinful powers (Ephesians 2:2b)
   • Attracted to sinful living (Ephesians 2:3a)
   • Destined for wrath (Ephesians 2:3b)
2. The Christian's current commission: Bring life to the dead. (Ephesians 1:18-20; 2:4; 2:12b; 3:10; 4:1; 4:17-19; 5:1; 5:11)
   
   • Where? To the world (Ephesians 2:2a)
   • When? Now (Ephesians 2:2b)
   • To whom? The sons of disobedience/the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:3)

• Automated Transcription
• 0:22
  Good morning, Faith Bible Church. It's really good to be back with you all. For those of you who don't know myself or my family, Claire, my wife, and I both grew up here at Faith Bible Church and in Spokane. And just over two years ago, we were sent to the Czech Republic. Let's open up God's Word now, and please stand for the reading of God's Word. We are in Ephesians two, verses one through three. Continuing on in the exposition of this incredible book, we come to a very heavy passage this morning. That's necessary. We need to hear it. We need to camp in it. We need to stay in it beyond this morning as well. Ephesians two, one through three. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray, God. As the song saying, we do pray that you'd help us see Christ even in this passage. We need these reminders of the Christian's condition before you gave us life, before you rescued us from death. There are certainly those still not in Christ gathering here today, and they need to hear this as well. Lord, God, would you, by your Spirit, work in our hearts and in our minds to show us the light of Christ and light of the very dark truth that we see in this passage about our state apart from Him, God, give me grace to preach with faithfulness and to declare accurately Your Word. And for the purpose that would be for the purpose, Lord, that we would be moved and compelled to respond to the glories of the gospel with lives that are faithful to display the glories of the gospel as well. For your glory, for the sake of the elect that are yet to be saved, we pray these things in Christ's name, Amen. May be seated. I'm titling this morning's message "A Deadly condition, you'll see why. And the main idea I think we as believers need to gather from this passage is this: Christian, remember your former condition, so that you will pursue your current commission. Remember your former condition, so that you will pursue your current commission. There's some hypothetical questions many of us have come back to over our lifetime. If you spend very much time with kids, you might find yourself asking these fun icebreaker type questions. Something like, if you could have one meal for the rest of your day, every meal, what meal would it be? Donuts, pizza, Japanese curry, or perhaps the question: If someone gave you $100,000 today and you had one place that you could spend it, where would you spend it? Japanese curry. But there's a hypothetical question, unfortunately, that many of you have actually had to act on lately, recently. It's very become very real for some of you. Unfortunately, you've had to answer the question: If you had only moments to get out of your house, what items would you take with you? This is a question we usually ask to get to know someone's deepest values. What's important to them? Hypothetically, the most important things come to mind first, and then you have to weigh your options. And the interesting thing about answering this question hypothetically is that we have so much time to stop and think about it, and that actually makes it harder because. There's so many things to pick from, and I have 20 minutes to have this conversation if I want to. But when the question's no longer hypothetical, the measures of what you value look a lot different, and the decision process becomes a lot more urgent, doesn't it? I imagine that for those who lost their homes recently, some of those items that were grabbed very last minute have become more valuable to you, haven't they? Not because they increased in financial value, not because they became more useful or anything like that, but simply because of what they remind you of. They remind you of that day.
  
  5:35
  They remind you of where you were rescued from. They remind you of the home that you love so much, and what might have otherwise been sold at a garage sale in a couple years, instead you might now put somewhere in your house where you can see it regularly and remember the sweet times from your previous home, and be thankful for it, and be thankful for where you are now. The construction of the burnt areas is going to be forever a reminder of what happened in those areas. Hopefully, maybe a memorial will be erected or something like that as a as a reminder, my friends. This morning, Paul in Ephesians two gives us another reminder, and it is not a pleasant one, But it's one which, when we remember it, causes us to be more thankful for where we are today, and it's something every sinner must hear if they are going to be saved from the danger they're in. It's also something that every Christian must remember if they're going to live out the glories of the gospel that we are commissioned to, and that is not optional. That's what we're called to. It's what we're saved to. This morning is a reminder of our deadly condition without Christ. Christian, we need to remember our condition before we had Christ. It's not normal to intentionally hang up disturbing art in your house, but in this case, this should be one of those pictures we hang up and that we look at regularly. No matter how grim it is, and so I want to ask Christians this morning: When was the last time that you thought about being dead in sin? When was the last time that you thought about the sinful spiritual powers that engulf this world? When was the last time you thought about the curse of man's insatiable attraction to the very sin that kills him? When was the last time you thought about people being destined for wrath, Christians. These once described you. This was your condition, and without the power of Christ that Dan preached on last week, the power of Christ, His resurrection, that power toward you. Without that, you would still be in this condition. In fact, that that describes the majority of people in your life. I bet it's safe to say that of the 60,000 people or so that were evacuated, at least 59,000 of them are still in this state. They need to know the truth. They need to know the gospel. They need to know the only try that only the triune God can pierce through the thick smoke of spiritual darkness that engulfs this world. They need to know that only the steadfast love of God can outpler the enticements of sin and end the panicked longings of their soul. Only God Himself can rescue desperate sinners from the wrath of God. Who's going to sound the alarm? Ephesians makes it crystal clear that this is your job, church. This is our job, Faith Bible Church. And many of us have probably wondered this week. I wonder what plans our elders are making for helping out our community. Great question, but as far as the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ going to Spokane, Washington, you're the ones in the neighborhood. You're the ones in the workplace. You're the ones at the business firm. You're the ones at the construction site. You're the ones at the grocery stores in all the areas that you regularly frequent. You're the ones that can start the conversation on Tuesday, pick it up on Friday, pick it up again in three months from now, and keep it going. God has people near you every single day that will perish in the deadness of their sin if you don't talk to them about the gospel. This is our job, Faith Bible Church. So, Christian, having been rescued from the flames of hell, will you not, with the power of the resurrected Christ? At your side, for the sake of rescuing sinners, go back to the fire and preach the gospel. So, our main point again this morning is: Christian, remember your former condition, so that you will pursue your current commission. We'll observe this with two points, and admittedly heavy on the first point, because that's what the text calls for.
  
  10:22
  Secondly, we'll get into our second part, naturally being second of the Christian's current commission. So first, first the the Christian's former condition. We'll do that in four parts. Second, the Christian's current commission. So the Christian's former condition. We'll call it Part One. We're going to use the the acronym DED, D E A D. Not that I had to spell that for you, but dead. And so this morning, both the word and the acronym describe our former condition, and also the first D does too. Dead. D is for dead. So point one, from verse one, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. The Christian's former condition: D, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Now, this is probably the most important question or the important point to explain because it has the potential to be the most confusing. In verse one, it says you were dead, but then in verses two through three, there's a bunch of other verbs that describe us living. So, as far as I know, only things that are living live, and only things that are living can do the things that the verbs in these verses describe. So, what does it mean that we were dead in sin yet very much alive in this world? What does that mean? I'll answer that briefly, and then we'll keep expounding briefly. To be dead in sin means dead very simply because of sin. Dead because of sin, and we were dead because of sin because we did not yet have life in Christ. And to be alive in Christ means to be alive because of the power of Christ. Dead because of sin is the opposite of alive because of the power of Christ. Certainly, this is talking about spiritual death. A spiritually lifeless soul is what we're born with, dead in our sin. But we know also that the condition of our soul is very much played out right in the condition in the context of our life. So, in a very real sense, though this is talking about spiritual death, we are also dead because of our spiritual death. We're dead in our ability to really live this life rightly, if we don't have Christ to its fullest, rightly in relationship with God. Romans six also helps answer this question further. I encourage you to turn there. There's a few crucial verses to look at. Turn over to Romans six to keep answering the question, what does it mean that we were dead in our sin? Again, Paul is addressing believers just like he is with his letter to the Ephesians, and so he's describing to them that because of the power of God through Christ's resurrection toward them, now they're in their new condition. They must consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God. This is the believer's new condition in Christ, verse verse 11 in Romans chapter six. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. So if that's our new condition, it invites the question: What was my old condition? What was I like before? If I'm currently dead to sin and alive to God, that must mean that previously I was dead to God but alive to sin. Well, what would alive to sin mean? Look at verse 12, and it simply just says that alive to sin means that we would let sin have rule over our lives. Therefore, now let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. To be alive in sin means to let sin have rule over your life. What does that mean? What does that look like? Verse 13. Keep going. It describes what that means. It means that your that you present your body. We presented our bodies. We presented our lives, our members to sin in order to obey its passions, so that our lives could be used for unrighteousness, that defined us before we were in Christ. Being alive to sin means I live very literally in order to sin. That's that's why I lived before I had Christ. I lived so that I could just sin more. Do whatever my sinful flesh told me to do. I lived in order to sin. That defines our hearts without Christ. Bump over to Romans chapter eight. Should just be a page turn or two. Spells this question out even more.
  
  15:18
  Romans eight verses five through eight. I'll kind of cut and paste and summarize a little bit here. I won't read every single word. Follow for those who live according to the flesh, Romans eight five through eight. For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on things of the flesh, jump to verse six. For to set the mind on the flesh is death. Jump to verse seven, halfway through. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot submit to God's law. So now. connect this all back to Ephesians chapter two, verse one. Jump back over there, and let's try to simplify this a little bit. We don't really talk like this. Dead to things, dead in things. We don't really talk like that. So let's just simplify a little bit. It sounds kind of weird, but it's really simple. Since we lived in order to sin, and since that sin is death, we were dead in our sin. Since we lived in order to sin, we were dead in our sin. So the very thing we lived for was the very reason we were dead and staying dead. Therefore, our condition before Christ, dead, without Christ. Why is it necessary to call it death when we live in sin, this condition that we had. Why is it necessary to call it death? Can't we just call it being really, really sick? No, because to live in sin means to live without Christ, who is life. If your heart stops beating, if your brain starts stops working like mine just did when I said starps. If your heart stops beating and your brain stops working and your lungs shut down, you're not sick. You're dead. Being dead in our trespasses and sins means we were completely cut off from the very thing, the only thing which offers true spiritual life, which is Jesus Christ Himself, and this is how Scripture talks about Jesus: that He is life. He's not just a hero. He's not just a moral example. He is the exact representation of what eternal life means, what it looks like to have eternal life. Write down Colossians three three through four for you Christian Colossians three three through four you Christian have died your old self has died your life your new life is hidden with Christ in God when Christ who is your life appears you also will appear with him in glory. Or consider John one verse four: In him Jesus was life, and the life was the light of men. John 17 two through three. Jesus prayed to the Father, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, as Dan preached on last week, why did God give him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all who have been given to him? And then, what is eternal life? This is eternal life, Jesus says, as he's praying to the Father that they know you, and you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. It is eternal life, and it is the only eternal life to know Jesus Christ and God. Without it, we do not have life. So the condition of being called a sinner isn't just a bad spiritual diet accompanied by poor life choices. Being a sinner means that there is no spiritual life flowing through your soul. The only thing animating you, which gives the kind of the appearance of life is the electrical jolts of passion and desire, and you're just twitching yourself through life, not actually living, if you don't have Christ. To which someone might respond, "But I don't feel dead." I like the idea of Jesus. I I can't really relate to what you're saying. I think we all need God. I don't feel hostile toward God. I think God and I are probably on we're on good terms. Sure, sometimes I'm not the best person I could be. Just discouraged. Life isn't what it could be, but I don't feel dead the way you're talking about it, Paul. Well, that's kind of the point. A corpse doesn't feel the sunshine. A corpse doesn't feel the the prick of a needle or the cut of a surgical knife.
  
  20:38
  A corpse doesn't know it's a corpse. It's it's dead. So so here's what you need to know. If you think you're on good terms with God, on your own, without receiving Christ as your life, as your Lord, as your Savior, you're still dead in your sin. If you think God is just this person that you can choose to be close with sometimes, but other times not so much, or someone if if you just make a few life changes and shift things around a little bit, make my priorities a little bit better, that God will accept me. You don't understand His holiness. You don't understand your sin. You don't understand what it means to be dead in sin. Dead people don't move themselves to get closer to God. They can't. You can't rearrange a dead person's body to make them more appealing. What does a corpse have to offer God? The dangerous difference between saying I want to be accepted by God versus saying Jesus is my life. The dangerous difference is that wanting to be accepted by God implies that you believe that the basis of that acceptance could possibly be something that you have to offer God as a dead corpse, it doesn't work. It can't, Christian. This is this was this was us, helpless, lifeless. The only way God can accept you is if you present to him not just a life, but a pure, spotless, blameless, holy, righteous, 100% good all the time, sin free, full of love, perfect life that always rightly acknowledges God as the holy Creator that He is. Have you done that, friends? There is only one life who has done that. Therefore, there is only one life that God will accept-the God-Man, Jesus Christ. And so, if you want life with God, you need His life to fill your dead soul and raise you from the grave. If Christ is not your life, you are dead in your sin, and there's nothing you can do to fix that. God, who is life, cannot accept sin, which is death, unless through faith you come to Him, trusting only in the power of Jesus Christ to make you alive. Our Lord Jesus doesn't call sinners to like him. He calls sinners to worship him, to present their entire life to him as a worship of him, as the King of Life that he is. If this is not how you view Jesus, I fear you are dead in your sin. If you just think he deserves anything less than that? Fear you were dead in your sin. But the thing that makes it hard for someone to believe this is if they're simply following the course of the world. Look at verse two, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world. The course of this world is just another way of saying the way people think in our day and age. It's hard to accept that people are dead in sin because nobody talks this way. Show me a Facebook or Instagram or post or anything that has a page where people are talking about these things outside of the church. The course of this world is to say if life is peppy and and I'm not hurting anyone, then there's not much to worry about, is there? Because there's no right and wrong, there's nothing to worry about. If there is a God, He ought to work for me. And and why does it matter if I've wronged anyone, let alone God? If I'm happy, this is the course of the world. When it's when this is the thinking of the time, it's hard to even consider the possible. That perhaps you've wronged a holy God, believers. Just remind, just remember, this was how blind you were. This is how blind I was. This is how I thought. We were dead because of our sin. We were we were lying down in the same cold beds of of other dead people, but because everyone was kind of breathing the same sour air, we felt comfortable hanging up our dirty curtains and settling in. We felt very at home in the morgue.
  
  25:32
  And even if there was a part of us, even if there was a part of us that would second guess on occasion if this was how things should be or not, that was quickly snuffed out because everywhere you turned, you were engulfed by sinful powers which snatched those thoughts away like birds snatching seed off of a path, which leads to our second point. Christians, remember, you were not only dead in your sin, but you were engulfed by sinful powers. The world was is is engulfed by sinful powers, and you were in that world, engulfed by sinful powers. That's the e of d e a d. Engulfed by sinful powers. From verse two, the second part of it, following the prince of the power of the air, this is what we were doing. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Flames engulf a building and it crumbles. The powers of evil engulf this world, and the souls of the people are paralyzed, trapped, stuck in slavery to do his bidding. Look again, prince of the power of the air, the spirit at work in the sons of disobedience. And I'm sure someone will go into this more when you get into chapter six of Ephesians. But here's what you need to know about that phrase, prince of the power of the air, the prince. There is a ruler over this world, and God has allowed him some time to rule, carry out his rule. Second Corinthians four four describes this ruler as one who blinds the minds of unbelievers. First John 519 says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. He's not all powerful, but he's far more powerful than any of us. He was a mighty angel who rebelled against God, who was cast away from heaven, from the presence of God. He's highly intelligent, strategic, has millions of demons at his disposal. His nature is to be a liar and a murderer, and as goes his nature, so goes his method. Everything he does aims at the purpose of blinding people to the truth and bringing destruction upon God's image bearers. Scripture gives him many names, but you know him as Satan, he poses as an angel of light to look good, so as to deceive and lead people astray. And he can appeal to the deepest desires of our heart and our mind and our body with the allurements of the world. He influences cultures, worldviews, false religions, governments, arts, major philosophies of the ages, without anybody knowing about it. How does he do this? With the powers of the air, our verse says, "The powers of the air are those mentioned again later in chapter six, verse 12: the devil, rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness. Present darkness. This wasn't just true of Paul's time. It's now spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. These are demons. These are evil angelic spirits and beings. And these are powers which have existed for 1000s of years, which means they are smarter than you. They're stronger than you. They know more than you. They're crafty and tricky and clever, and they operate in the shadows. They're real, and they rule the air of this world. The air. What does that mean? On the Greek "air" means air, just just to help you out there. But what does it mean? Wherever we are, they are. Hence, saying the world is engulfed by evil powers. They are wherever we exist, you can't reach out and touch them, but they are there. Like the wind, you can't see them, but you can see their effects, and their influence is so normal that the world breathes it in without even noticing. Why do we need to spell it out like this? Because for. We believe the scriptures, don't we? They don't hide these realities from us. In fact, we ought to spend more time thinking about it. Second, I believe something that C.S. Lewis wrote: that humanity falls into two equal and opposite errors regarding demons. One of them being disbelieving in their existence. Christians, we don't have to fear these things personally. They can't harm our souls, but they can tempt and they can entice.
  
  30:27
  But we ought to fear them for the sake of those who are still not saved. If we forget that there's an evil ruler against them, that he has influence over this entire world, that he has resources beyond what we can imagine, we will forget the desperate condition that our souls were once in, and we'll forget the desperate condition that perhaps some of your friends and family are still in, blinded, but blinded to the fact that they're blinded. That was us. That was me. Not only were we dead spiritually, which means we were completely defenseless, but hovering all around us, influencing the world around us, conducting covert schemes in as many spheres of influence as possible. We, as God's image bearers, had an enemy who wanted to keep us dead in our sin. Here's the scary part. That wasn't the scary part. Here's the scary part. When we were dead in our sin, we didn't even resist this because they made it look so good. Granted, I'm not setting aside the fact that our flesh is very involved in all of this, but we have an enemy. Verse two says those dead in their sin followed, or were ruled by, or lived according to the prince of the power of the air, and it says that this power is at work in the sons of disobedience. That's an active work. There is effort being put toward the sons of disobedience to keep them that way. That was the condition we were in. It was at work in us. It was at work against us, among us, between us. And we wonder why we needed the power of the resurrected Jesus Christ. It's because this was the power opposing us. Not only were we dead in sin, not only was the prince of the power of the air ruling in us or against us, but we were sons and daughters of disobedience. It's just another way of saying we had disobedience in our DNA. It was in our genes. It made up who we are, who we were, and the prince of the power of the air knew just how to use that against us. He influenced the thinking of the ages in such a way that harmonizes with our sinful genetic makeup. It is attractive to our sinful genetic makeup. So, what did that mean for us? Our third point: we were dead in sin, engulfed evil powers. A, we were attracted to sinful living. We liked it. We were attracted to sinful living from verse three, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. When we Christians hear the condition our souls were in, probably one of the first things that comes to mind is, "What was I thinking? Why did I take so long to repent? Looking back, we see that. Or perhaps today is your first time viewing the gallery of spiritual corpses, and you're thinking, "If that was me, I'd be getting out of there. Verse three tells me that's not true. Our spiritual DNA wanted this. No one had to strap you to a metal table and inject you with a needle. You were free to roam around because, in your deception, you liked where you were. I liked where I was. Being deceived. Look at verse three. Among whom, again, the sons of disobedience, whom we were among, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. Passions, desires, though those describe the soul's wanting muscles. And you were at the gym every day taking every earthly supplement you could to make those muscles stronger. So, were we a victim of our spiritual enemy? Yes, yes, we were. But we were also guilty of friendship with him and with sin. With the enemy, it was this sickening relationship, and yet we loved it with every part of our being. We were happy to be there without Christ. Again, to which someone might respond, "Well, I don't want that. That sounds bad, but I'm not sure I want Jesus either. I mean, I want Jesus around, but I'd like if He didn't tell me what to do. Well, then you want death. You only get Jesus as life if Jesus is your Lord. And you might say, "Well, sure.
  
  35:39
  At times, I like the sound of religion, believing in something. There are times where I'm really not happy with my life. Might be nice to have something to believe in. You might even be thinking I haven't ever heard this condition described this way, and I really don't like how it sounds. And I would just say, prove it. Turn away from death today. If you don't put your faith in Christ today for life, for salvation from your sin, then you will walk out those back doors just as dead as when you came in. You have to hear how terrifying that is-that you would hear all of this and you would go right back to it. That in your spiritual depravity you still want this. Forgive me for the slap, but I want God to wake you up to the reality that you're in, to the condition that you're in. Believers, we need to be reminded this was us. May the gospel become more precious to us because of what we've been rescued from. I want God to wake you up. You've all seen it, or you will one day if you haven't. I pray it's not in your own life, but we've all seen someone who is being destroyed by their sin, and yet they believe they still just have to have it. They must have it. Don't be that person. You don't have to be. And before you limit your thoughts about that kind of a person to just the alcoholic, or just the gambler, or just the addict, or the arsonist, for that matter, consider also: there is no sinner who is more dead than the next sinner, or less dead than the next sinner. Being born sinners, we're all dead. There's no scale of deadness. You're just dead. Loud sins, quiet sins, sneaky sins, shameless sins. All of them are used to blind us to the truth. All of them appeal to our sinful passions. All of them are at the disposal of the devil as well, and all of them will receive judgment. Therefore, my friends, there there is nowhere safe for us outside of Christ. No one is safe outside of Christ. Consider the person who lives a quiet life, not causing anyone any trouble, including themselves. Humbly making Thiry through high school, college, a career, a family, healthy retirement, doing good to their neighbor along the way, seeking always to be kind and generous, honest. One day, caring for their grandchildren. That person is also blind to the truth of their deadly condition. If Christ is not their life, if they don't have life in Christ, here's why: it's not about how much you've sinned or how little you've sinned. It's not about that. It's about who you are-dead, a rebel against God-and who we are doesn't want God. It's not just sinners who go out with a bang that are going to be God's enemies. It's also every sinner who never wanted to bend the knee to Christ as their Lord and their Savior, but instead wanted to remain quiet in their autonomy, dying, hugging their sin. Look at verse three again. It describes the passions of the flesh, wicked desires, wicked body and mind, and then the phrase that sums all of that up: We were by nature children of wrath. We felt at home in the grave. This was our condition, Christian. Our nature was wrathful, characterized by wrath, and that means several things. If we were born this way, if we lived this way, if this is what we loved, then it is only the just and righteous response of God for us to spend eternity this way. We were destined for wrath in our condition before Christ. Without Christ, that's our fourth point: destined for wrath. D destined for wrath. D E A D. Some of you hear all this again, and perhaps you think, "Well, my life isn't so bad. You describe this wrath life. If you're saying that describes me, my life's not that bad. Could definitely be worse. I know I'm not a perfect person. That's exactly where the devil would like you to stay. In that thinking, you've smelled the smoke, but it's bearable. So we'll stay put. We'll push that off for now. That's how I used to think, Christian. Isn't this how you used to think?
  
  40:53
  But for some of you today, understand that you've actually smelled the smoke of God's wrath your whole life. You've seen it all around you. Part of God's wrath has been seen in the fact that He lets us have our sin. He lets the world drink the poison it's been it's it's chosen. And God's holy wrath requires that He holds to the promise that He gave to Adam and Eve that in the day you eat of the forbidden tree, you will surely die. He has to keep that promise, and so the consequences of our sinful condition. Every person has been born into a sinful nature, and every person will die. Period. Every facet of life on this planet has been infected by the curse of sin. There's nothing it hasn't touched, but you have to realize that God is merciful. We have to realize that God is still in this moment, up to this point in your life, has been merciful to you. He, but you also have to know that as He extends the hand of mercy to you, in this other hand, He's holding back a billowing wall of flaming wrath that he has to let go of one day because he's holy and he's just and he does what he says. He wants to rescue you, but he has to do what he says. He has to be wrathful. He has to be holy. He has to be just, but he wants to rescue you. I. I, I'm amazed that God is this merciful. I mean, it's it's not only that God has restrained His punishment or or withheld it for now. It's not only that He's restrained His punishment, but also He's restrained the consequences of our sinful condition. How? By keeping us back from being as destructive as we're actually capable of. God has let us become has God has not let us become who we are capable of in the deadness of our sin. But do not mistake that with being safe from the wrath of God, because of. Christ is not your life, it doesn't matter how peaceful and quiet your life has been. Doesn't matter how problem-free your life has been. You are still dead in your sin, which means you are still hostile to God, which means you are still anticipating the fullness of His wrath still to come. Christian, I understand not a single one of us enjoys talking about this. I didn't pick this text. We have to hear it. Even just as we were singing, I love the songs we're singing. But there was a line that said something like, "Even though a 1000s fall beside me, I'm butchering it. The 1000s fall beside me. Essentially, still you came after me, and the song just kept going. 1000 are falling beside you. We don't enjoy talking about these things, but we need to also sound the alarm. We need we need these this to be out there that nobody can escape the wrath of God, and it would sure be nice if just the things that made us feel uncomfortable, we could we could just say, "Well, that's not that doesn't exist. I don't like it, therefore it's not. That's not how it works. You don't let your children think that way. God doesn't let us think that way. And we might hear of the wrath of God and say, "I don't like how that sounds, Jared. Paul, I'm not sure I like the God of the Bible. That doesn't change anything. God is just. God is holy, and His mercy is available to you. But you have to know that the wrath of God is coming. God made life, and therefore, there is coming a day when God will do away with everything that has to do with death, Satan, his demons, and dead sinners who refuse the King of Life. It is coming. If you don't believe me, hear from God's word itself. Not a single inch of this earth will be safe. The armies of every rebellious nation will be judged. Isaiah 34, one through four. Listen to this. Draw near, O nations. Draw near, O nations, to hear and give attention, O peoples. Let the earth hear and all that fills it. Let the world and all that comes from it hear.
  
  45:36
  For the Lord is enraged against the nations and furious against all their host, he has devoted them to destruction. He has given them over for slaughter. Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise. The mountains shall flow with their blood. All the hosts of heaven shall rot away. The skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall as leaves from the vine, like leaves falling from a fig tree. Jesus, the Lamb of God, who was slain for the sin of rebels, who was raised from the grave, will one day return as a conquering warrior. Here, Revelation chapter nine, verses 11 through 16. Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true. Therefore, he does this. And in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems. He has a name written on, written that nobody knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. The armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen. You don't want to be on the other side of that. The armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty on his robe and on his thigh. He is name a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, rightfully so. And finally, we must hear the warning of those who choose yet again to reject the giver of life. Second Thessalonians one seven through nine. The Lord will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. Christian, that's good news for you. We get to be with him one day, but for the rest, he will come from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might. Christian, this was your condition: dead and helpless, engulfed by evil powers, attracted to the very things that were killing you, and destined for eternal destruction. I encourage you to regularly do activities that don't let you forget this. Set this up as a reality before your eyes regularly. Read about the wrath of God. Read the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Read the the book "The Mortification of Sin. There's there's dozens and hundreds of other great books on these things. Those are just famous ones. Read about sin. Walk through graveyards. Visit a prison, talk with homeless people, be friends with unbelievers, and have meaningful conversations with them. Meditate on these kinds of verses once a week. Someone kind of jokingly said, "Jerry, that was that was enough of a reminder to last me for six months. And I said, "Please, no. You need this tomorrow. You need this Wednesday. You need this Friday. Someone ought to talk about it next week. We need these reminders. Set it before us regularly. Shoot, shop, shop for some art that makes you feel a little uncomfortable and reminds you of this, and hang it. Somewhere really awkward in your house, like first thing when you see walking out of your bedroom, or the front door, or across from the toilet, or or something, something that reminds you of this regularly. The point is, we can't forget this. I pray that as we're reminded of this, that you're compelled to carry out the commission God has given you in Christ. I pray it makes you so thankful for what Christ has accomplished for you that you are compelled in your commission for Christ, which is what we'll briefly finish with here, part two. Let's call it the Believer's Current Commission. And admittedly, this is not a great commission text, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it.
  
  50:42
  I want to do justice to what the passage focused on, but there is implications of a mission in this text that's very unfortunately easy to miss. Did you miss it? I missed it at first. We're so familiar with these verses, and and we can't be too familiar. We we ought not be too familiar with these verses, we need to revisit them regularly. Here's here's where the mission comes from. By noticing that even though we we often use this passage to compare our new life to our old life, we often don't notice that this passage also describes the lives of the majority in the present. Skim over it again. The course of this world, that course, that age is being traversed by people right now, today. The deceptions of the times are being believed by real hearts, real souls, real minds right now. The sons of disobedience, in in whom Satan is now at work, like right now, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. That's a lot of people, and God's word has made it clear this morning. This is no hypothetical scenario. This is not a what if conversation. This is a moment to make a real decision, and no one knows that they're going to have another 24 hours to make this decision. This week, Christian, is a real moment for us church to begin talking with people about their need for Christ. Tell them what Christ said, Matthew 1625. Whoever would save his life on his own, whoever would protect and guard and keep his life, whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for the sake of Christ again. Who is life? We'll find it. The house is already burning down. The people all over are still scrambling to find some way of escape with their life in their hands, but what they have to do is drop it, so that they can grab onto Jesus. Only in Christ will they be rescued. Next week, Joe Gruy gets to teach on the next section. Lucky guy, but we had to hear this, didn't we? Verse four was what Joel will be in. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love which with with which He loved us, do do you remember what we just described? The great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace. You've been saved. God showed His love to sinners by initiating a rescue mission to raise them back to life, church. You don't think God's done showing His love, do you? If you have received God's love, what do you suppose He wants you to do with it? He wants you to go back into the fire for the sake of rescuing those who are still dead. That's our commission. Let's pray, Lord. Such passages are ones that are hard to wrap our minds around, and possibly because of that, we avoid thinking about it too often. But Lord, I pray that as a result of this morning, you would teach us to learn how to block out the things of less. Significance in our daily thinking. Teach us how to reflect on these eternally dreadful truths that we've heard this morning, but so that we would be drawn to greater faithfulness to you, using our lives to display the glories of the gospel to a world that is dead-not just dying, but dead already-that needs to be raised to life in Christ. God, cause us to respond accordingly to this passage. We pray these things in Christ's name and for His glory, and for the sake of His elect. Amen.

Jared Millican

Former college pastor at Faith, Jared and his family are currently Global Outreach Partners in Czech Republic. They were sent in 2024. He and his wife, Claire, have four children.

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