Willful Blindness

book of Romans but if you would
I want to have you start this morning by turning to Romans
chapter one we will land in John’s gospel
here momentarily but I wanted to set the tone for something
that I see a theme if you will in this passage it will be treating
where Christ is brought before Pontius Pilate We know that the heathen world,
because of what Paul says here in this passage, is given over
to a willful blindness. And we want to observe that this
morning. But Paul discusses this willful
blindness. You might recall from our study
of the book of Romans that Paul was probably even being, slandered
or criticized because he had spoken of coming to Rome to preach
the gospel on so many occasions and yet at least to this point
had not done so and so he was probably criticized and in a
sense he’s giving here a defense or at least an explanation as
to why he hadn’t yet been there for that I want to jump into
verse 13 where Paul says I do not want you to be unaware brethren
that I have often planned to come to you and have been prevented
thus far in order that I may obtain some fruit among you also
even as among the rest of the Gentiles. Paul says that he desired
to go but it just in God’s providence had not yet happened. He desired to go to Rome to preach
the gospel. He desired the fruit that he
speaks of was to go and to glean great amounts of converts there
in Rome. If you would, verse 14, I’m under
obligation both to Jews and to barbarians, both to the wise
and to foolish. Thus for my part, I am eager
to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome. He wasn’t equivocating. He wasn’t playing fast and loose
with his words. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t talking
out of turn. When he says that he desired
to go to Rome, he fully intended for the sake of the gospel to
go to Rome. And then those classic verses,
verses 16 and 17, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it
is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the
Jew first and also to the Greek. There were some that were probably
saying something to the effect that maybe Paul doesn’t really
believe the gospel that he proposes to preach. Maybe that’s why he
won’t come to Rome. Paul says, I’m not ashamed of
the gospel. It’s not because I’m ashamed of the gospel at
all. Because in it, verse 17, in the
gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. From faith to
faith, as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith.
And what he alludes to there, he will expound upon really in
the entirety of the rest of the book of Romans, which we don’t
have time for today, essentially this. that God’s justice system
was so perfect, so precise, He reveals it to humanity in that
in dealing with sin, He was willing to send His own Son to pay for
that sin. It had to be paid for. But in sending His own Son, and
in calling sinners to place their faith in that finished work of
salvation, by Christ’s death on the cross, that it is by faith
alone in Christ alone. That’s the gospel. Well, Paul has told them that
he wants to come and preach the gospel. It isn’t because the
gospel is Faulty it isn’t because he didn’t believe in the gospel
There is great need to preach the gospel And that’s what he
addresses in verse 18 the very reason that I brought you into
chapter 1 of Romans Why preach the gospel why is it so urgent? Why is he so urgent to even go
to Rome and to preach the gospel the only thing he wanted to do?
Look at verse 18 for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth
in unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident
within them. Paul wanted nothing more to preach
the gospel even in Rome. He was eager to go and to preach
the gospel in Rome because God’s wrath was even then being poured
out. And Paul desired, with everything
in him, to go and to reach and to preach and to glean every
person he could from that wrath, who would place their faith in
Jesus Christ by faith. And you’ll note that Paul doesn’t
engage here in a lengthy treatise, some kind of an apologetics course
to prove the existence of God, because he says God has already
done that himself. God has already proven himself. That which is known about God,
verse 19, is evident within them. They know in their heart every
person ever born on the face of this planet knows that there’s
a God. We don’t have to prove there’s
a God. Every person ever born knows that there’s a God. It’s
evident within them. Why? Because God has made it
evident to them. Through book learning? No. Through preaching sermons? Because
there are many tribes that still are unreached. No. Look at verse
20. For since the creation of the
world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine
nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what
has been made, so that they are without excuse. You can’t ever
come across anybody ever on this planet that says that they don’t
believe in God because God hasn’t shown himself. Nobody’s told
me. Nobody’s proven to me that there’s a God. I still need to
see the Shroud of Turin. I’d love to see that boat up
on Mount Ararat, and then I would believe. No, you wouldn’t. God
has already given you abundant evidence of His existence. God
has proven himself over and over again, and what, especially the
heathen world, but what mankind in general does is suppress. Press down, putting a lid on,
suppressing in any way they can the knowledge of God. They suppress the truth, verse
18, in unrighteousness. They sin it up. in order to hide
the truth of the existence of God and people that’s exactly
what we see in chapter 18 as Jesus is marched in front of
Pilate an evil heathen king that was really now just turned into
a pawn in the hands of Jesus Jewish captors if you would from
Romans 1 where we see the suppression of the truth in unrighteousness,
the tendency of humanity. Please turn to John chapter 18
and we pick it up in verse 28. We’ve dealt with the trials. Before Annas, before Caiaphas,
before the Sanhedrin we have observed sadly Peter’s denials
repeatedly and it challenged our own hearts as we looked at
Peter’s stumbling. But now we come into Jesus’ trials
before the secular courts. We have one trial before Pilate
another before Herod and then back finally before Pilate for
his final trial. Today I just want to go through
verse 40 of chapter 18 beginning in verse 28. Then they led Jesus
from Caiaphas into the praetorium and it was early and they themselves
did not enter into the praetorium so that they would not be defiled
but might eat the Passover. Therefore Pilate went out to
them and said What accusation do you bring against this man?
They answered and said to him if this man were not an evildoer
we would not have delivered him to you So Pilate said to them
take him yourselves and judge him according to your law The
Jews said him we are not permitted to put anyone to death to fulfill
the words of Jesus which he spoke signifying what kind of death
he was about to die. Therefore Pilate entered again
into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, are you
the king of the Jews? Jesus answered, are you saying
this on your own initiative or did others tell you about me? Pilate answered, I’m not a Jew,
am I? your own nation and the chief
priest delivered you to me, what have you done? Jesus answered,
my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed
over to the Jews, but as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore Pilate said to him,
so you are a king. Jesus answered, you say correctly
that I am a king for this I have been born and for this I have
come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is
of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said to him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he
went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt
in him. But you have a custom that I
release someone for you at the Passover. Do you wish then that
I release to you Jesus the King of the Jews?” So they cried out
again saying, not this man but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a
robber. When we read in Romans 1 that the heathen especially,
mankind in general, suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
it begs the question, how? How do they go about it? Do they
plug their ears with their fingers and cover their eyes to the truth? There are many devices that are
used. by people by unbelieving people
to guard their unbelief to really enhance their unbelief. They
don’t want to be burdened with the truth. They don’t want to
interact with the truth. They don’t want to be troubled
with the truth. And so they employ many devices. Many devices that are really
designed to help them obscure the truth, suppress the truth,
because it’s the truth that they hate the most. I’ve called it
willful blindness. That’s what scripture presents
it. And there are many devices, there
are a number of them employed even in this short passage by
those who hate Christ the first one we see occurs there in verse
28 gross hypocrisy humanity hates Christ and they will suppress
by whatever means but one of the great means that is used
so frequently is hypocrisy they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the
Praetorium it was early they themselves did not enter the
Praetorium so that they would not be defiled but might eat
the Passover you can already begin to see some religious zealotry
here where they are overly cautious
overly scrupulous of even walking into a building or really probably
better a compound Matthew, Mark, and Luke all make it explicitly
clear here that by bringing Jesus into the praetorium, they were
really bringing him before Pilate, the governor. The praetorium
was a compound. Originally, the word originally
pointed to nothing more than the general’s tent, if they were
out on the field of battle, or his quarters, if they were at
home. in more formal quarters that
eventually came to refer to the governor’s land, his mansion,
his palace, his castle. And the praetorium would have
housed a large number of soldiers for security’s sake, and it also
would have had a jail. And for all of those reasons,
because it’s a heathen rulers mansion because it is soldiers
and because there are prisoners there the Jews in their over
scrupulous zeal refused to even set foot on the premises because
they didn’t want to be defiled so that they could run home and
eat the Passover This is just gross hypocrisy here. They’re
literally engaged in the practice of murder, dragging an innocent
man from place to place, preparing to have him executed. Our Savior. Pilate himself was no jewel. He was a Roman knight who had
been promoted, ultimately, to the procurator, the governor
of Judea, And his very first act as governor was to erect
a series of Roman eagles stands that the Jews hated because they
smacked of idolatry to them. They were meant to establish
authority in this new land under Roman rule. But to the Jews,
this was nothing short of idolatry. But in addition to this, Pilate
had this tendency to take Jewish funds for his own pet projects,
taxation, to the ridiculous extreme, and that further added to the
tension, the hatred of the Jews for this Pilate. All that to
say, there was no love lost between the Jews and Pilate and between
the Pilate and Jews. It was a mutual hatred. This
was a proud man, a cruel man, a superstitious man, self-seeking. But all that notwithstanding,
the Jews are engaged in a plot of murder and they are willing
to stoop to employ the assistance of this very governor. They were engaged, as one said,
in doing the most wicked act that mortal man ever did. Because they’re not just killing
any man, they’re killing God’s own Son. They’re killing the
Savior that God sent. They’re killing a perfectly innocent
man, even as we just read in Hebrews. What they wanted to
do was kill Jesus. And all they can think of is
dinner. Granted, it wasn’t just any dinner.
This was the Passover meal. This is one of the highest and
most sacred events in the Jewish calendar, the Passover meal. And all they can do is think
of that meal and of being pure, of being undefiled so that they
can celebrate this meal, not unlike what we do in unburdening
our own hearts of our sin as we engage in confession at the
outset of our worship service. Well these men are so fastidious
they’re so scrupulous that they don’t even want to set foot on
the compound grounds lest they be defiled so that they can rush
home and eat dinner. One called this the most characteristic
trait of a religious and godless nation ever put on record. To march Jesus up to authorities
that they knew had the power to put him to death for the very
purpose of putting him to death. They even acknowledge immediately
that they would put him to death if they only had the power. It’s
gross hypocrisy what we see here. These men are literally in a
hurry so that they can get to church. So that they can go engage
in their own religious activity. There are many occasions of hypocrisy,
gross hypocrisy recorded in scripture. You think of Ananias and Sapphira,
who under the auspices of doing something good, really were stealing. Pretending to do good, they were
stealing from God. And I’ll tell you, people, gross
hypocrisy did not end with Ananias and Sapphira. It continues to
our day. It continues to this day. Coming to church, it’s an
easy thing to do. It’s an easy place to be. It’s
an easy place to be a Christian. It’s an easy place for an hour
and a half or so to come and to put on your Sunday best and
to walk circumspectly and to speak carefully and to present
yourselves as something that you’re not. The rest of the week. As one very famous little phrase
goes, being in church doesn’t make you a Christian any more
than being in a garage makes you a car. Much of our lives are lived in contradistinction to what
our mouth professes. We say that we believe in Christ. We say that we want to follow
Christ. Jesus Christ puts a premium on
obedience. Jesus Christ puts a premium on
being what we say we are. And that if we’re not, as our
brother shared two weeks ago, if we are not, there’s good reason
to question, if those things are not ours and they’re not
growing, they’re not burgeoning in our heart, if the grace of
God is not flowing and coursing through our veins, if we’re not
seeing our life, little by little, transformed so that we are more
and more like Christ every day, then there’s good reason to question. There’s good reason, again, to
fall on our knees and to cry out for grace all over again.
There’s no harm in that. There’s no harm in examining
our Christianity. If our Christianity is a sham,
then there’s good reason to repent of it, right? So one of the devices that is
so commonly employed by people even still To obscure the truth,
to suppress the truth is this gross hypocrisy. To go through
religious acts all the while disdaining the Savior. But there
are others. The second device employed for
obscuring the truth is what I would call opportunistic evasion. opportunistic evasion. Now this
one is laid on Pilate’s doorstep. If you would look at verse 29
of John’s chapter 18. Therefore Pilate went out to
them and said what accusation do you bring against this man?
Now Pilate almost certainly knew This was a very nervous governor. This was a very nervous ruler. He wanted to know everything
that was going on. Remember they have already been
on record for chasing down every form of insurrection, every form
of rabble that would try and overthrow the government. And
that will become an important fact in a moment. The pilot knew. what was going on he knew who
Jesus was he knew that he was on the Jews radar he knew that
the Jews hated him but he demands here what he asks for is a formal
indictment what charges do you bring why are you here they answered
him in verse 30 and said if this man were not an evildoer we would
not have delivered him to you In other words, it’s almost as
if they say, stop asking your dumb questions. Let’s get right
to the point. You know exactly why we’re here.
You know exactly what this man has done. He’s an enemy of your
government as well. And if he wasn’t a troublemaker,
we wouldn’t be here. Don’t bother us with your little
games. They’re irritated at Pilot right
from the start. They’re in a power position here,
and you can tell. Pilate is in a position now to
do what is right. He knows already that the Jews
don’t have a case. They don’t have a case that he
needs to try at all. What they really want Pilate
to do is just rubber stamp their case and to put Jesus to death. They want Pilate to carry out
their sentence. And so because of that, they
haven’t come prepared for what Pilate wants. They haven’t come
prepared with a formal accusation, a case, if you will. Blasphemy,
which was certainly an offense in their own religion and would
have been grounds for condemnation and even death in the Jewish
religion, wasn’t a crime to Pilate. Pilate could care less about
their charge of blasphemy. Luke’s gospel adds here that
they started to accuse him stridently. We found this man misleading
our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar. Now that
will get Pilate’s attention and saying that he himself is Christ
a king. And now they’ve got Pilate. Now
they’ve got Pilate in their hip pocket, they know exactly what
they’re doing. This deceit, this false charge that they’ve drummed
up now. Note the disdain that Luke records
there in referring to Jesus as this fellow, this guy, this rabble. The funny thing, the amazingly
hypocritical thing here is that they completely leave off the
case that they had just indicted Jesus on, just found him guilty
in their official meeting before the Sanhedrin. There they accused
and condemned Jesus for blasphemy, but blasphemy, a religious transgression,
will never fly in a civil court. And so in between the time when
the gavel slammed down in their own court and the moment that
they come skulking into Pilate’s presence. The case totally changes
and what they cite as their first stab as an official charge for
Pilate is being a seducer, an imposter, one who leads people
astray. Basically what they charge him
with is treason and they know that will get Pilate’s attention.
Sedition Now their charge really is totally
vague. It’s without merit or any support. But the second charge that they
bring forward is completely false and they know it. They’d already tried to get one
of these political allegations to stick. In Luke 20, it’s recorded
that They tried to trap Jesus. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes
to Caesar or not? And Jesus answered their question,
show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription
does it have? And they said Caesar’s. And he
said to them, then render the things that are Caesar’s and
render to God the things that are God’s. Jesus never told them
not to pay taxes. Jesus never engaged in what he’s
being accused of here. But thirdly, for Pilate’s sake,
they bring up this little word, king. Now that has his attention,
king. That was sure to provoke the
secular authorities. If it didn’t provoke Pilate,
it certainly would provoke Herod and Caesar. Jesus had always
recoiled, if you recall, from attempts to promote him to the
status of any kind of earthly king. all the way back to the
beginning of John’s gospel, Jesus eschewed the title of earthly
king. And so Pilate takes it at face
value. And he says, take him yourselves,
verse 31, and judge him according to your law. Take your little
charge of blasphemy, take your other little charges of sedition,
go judge him according to your law. And in a sense here you
see at least a glimpse of nobility in Pilate trying to get out of
what is an obviously sticky situation. He wants the Jews to deal with
the case themselves. Eventually he will send this
case to Herod. He will release Jesus, he offers
rather to release Jesus. But the Jews won’t have any of
it, verse 31. The Jews said, and we’re not permitted to put
anyone to death. They’ve already announced now. They believe this
is a capital crime. They believe that this warrants
the death penalty, and they can’t put anybody to death, so it’s
back in your court, Pilate. That whole thing points to a
fulfillment of what Christ had already spoken, that he was going
to die on a cross, a Roman cross, and now everything has fallen
into place. It’s God’s providence. The scriptures
made it clear that Jesus would suffer that cruel death, the
cruel death on the cross. And so Pilate engages in what
could only be called a leader to leader meeting. Let’s talk
governor to king for a moment, shall we? And he enters into
this dialogue beginning in verse 33, very short, brief this morning.
Pilate entered again into the praetorium and summoned Jesus
and said to him, are you the king of the Jews? This word king
got his attention. And the you here in this sentence
is emphatic, are you? You poorly dressed, impoverished,
weakling of a man, are you the king of the Jews? You have no
army, you have no crown, you have no throne. Are you the king
of the Jews? Pilate only really ever addresses
that third and final charge of Jesus being a king. One pastor said it this way,
the humble attire, the lowly appearance of our Lord can hardly
fail to have struck Pilate regardless of what he had heard of Jesus
A rumor very prevalent throughout the East at this period fed initially
by biblical prophecy that a king was going to arise among the
Jews who would obtain dominion over the entire world. Each of
the four gospel writers distinctly record that this was the first
question Pilate put to Jesus. Pilate was very concerned at
this report. Are you that guy? Are you the
king? And Jesus, very graciously, he
allows Pilate such an out here in verse 34. Are you saying this
on your own initiative? Jesus knew. He’s giving Pilate
ample opportunity here to exonerate himself and to say, look, I’m
in a really tight spot here, Jesus. These people have, this
rabble has brought you before me. They’re trying to build a
false case against you. Look what they’ve done to me.
Are you saying this on your own initiative? Or did others tell
you about me? Pilate doesn’t take the back
door of opportunity here. He stands on his own human authority.
He stands on his own civil authority and he reminds Jesus of who’s
boss. Look at verse 35. I’m not a Jew,
am I? A harsh retort to a gracious
reply by Christ. Your own nation and chief priest
delivered you to me. What have you done? In other
words, you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t done something to
warrant this. Jesus replies in verse 36, my
kingdom is not of this world. He tries to put Pilate at ease
again. Look, Pilate, you have nothing to worry about. When
you hear this idea of a king, it’s not an earthly kingdom at
all. It’s an eternal kingdom. And I believe that Jesus is preaching
the gospel even here to Pilate. My kingdom is not of this world.
If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting.
Look at the evidence around you. So that I would not be handed
over to the Jews, but as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Pilate heard the word king and
seized upon it. Pilate still hears and only hears
the word king. In verse 37 he says, so you are
a king. And for Pilate that would be
enough. Jesus answered, you say correctly
that I am a king. For this I have been born. For
this I have come into the world to testify of the truth. Everyone
who hears of the truth hears my voice. In other words, he says, I do
have a kingdom. I am a king. I do have a kingdom,
but it’s a kingdom that wasn’t begun on earth. It isn’t propagated
on the earth. It isn’t defended in this world
through armies and other means. It’s a spiritual kingdom. It’s
an eternal kingdom. As I said, I believe here that
he was offering Pilate the gospel. He’s preaching forth the gospel
even to this wicked man. And Pilate so classically here
says, what is truth? You see, that’s what the world
says. That’s why they’re suppressing it. That’s why they suppress
the truth because they don’t want to know the truth. They
don’t believe that there is any truth. And so even a faint glimpse of
hope faint glimpse of truth leads them to engage in these many
and varied devices to suppress it. Here pilots hopeless, really,
reply skepticism, coldly, aloof to any hope of the truth claiming
that there is any such sort of one way to God. Pilate was hopeless. And when
he had said this, verse 38, he went out again to the Jews and
said to them, I find no guilt in him. Pilate had heard enough from
Christ to determine that not only was he not a dangerous rabble,
he wasn’t treasonous, he believed that probably Jesus was a little
cuckoo. His kingdom wasn’t of this world,
he’s not somebody that I need to be bothered with. And through
this interrogation, even though this interrogation with Jesus
was brief, it was to the point, It was conclusive. Pilate officially
judges Jesus as innocent of any crime against Rome. Luke here mentions that Pilate
spoke to a crowd. And I think he did that. Luke
records that because he wanted it to work against the Jews.
He wanted to employ the crowd. He wanted to call them into account.
Remember, Jesus had a modicum of popularity with the people,
but the crowd will still be turned in just a short period of time.
In order to wrap up this point, would you do me a favor and turn
to Luke’s gospel? The gospel of Luke, chapter 23. Luke records here this transition
that Pilate uses to shuffle Jesus off to Herod. Remember this is
opportunistic evasion. He has heard Jesus proclaim again
and again the simple gospel that he is a king, that his kingdom
is not of this world. But he seizes hold of one little
opportunity to shuffle Jesus away. Look at verse 5 of chapter
23 of Luke’s gospel. This is the crowd now, but they
kept on insisting. He stirs up the people, teaching
all over Judea starting from Galilee even as far as this place. Oh now they’ve said the magic
words. Even though subtle, the mention
of Galilee was calculated. It was shrewd. This was crafty
on the part of the crowd, the Jews, but it was effective. Pilate
had a particular disdain for the Galileans, and the mere mention
of the place probably irritated him, and the trick worked. Pilate
perked up when he heard this, but the trick is about to backfire
on them. Look at verse 6, when Pilate
heard it, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when
he learned that he belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent
him to Herod, who was himself also in Jerusalem at this time.
Here’s Pilate. not only with the grand opportunity
to interact with the gospel but the grand opportunity as a ruler
as a governor of this case to do the right thing to exonerate
this prisoner to declare him innocent and to release him but
he doesn’t he doesn’t And so this trick
that was intended to prejudice Pilate against Jesus, it backfires. And instead of working in their
favor by producing an immediately guilty verdict, in a commensurate
sentence, Pilate uses this as a potential way out. It’s a potential
way out of the gospel. It’s a potential way out of this
mess. It’s a potential way out of him declaring Jesus guilty
and sentencing him to death. It’s a way out. And Pilate takes
it. Why, he’ll just send the prisoner
to Herod and let him decide. And then his conscience is clean. Or is it? The original word translated
here as sent was used as a technical legal term to refer to remitting
or remanding someone to a higher court. It’s possible that Herod
just wanted or the pilot rather just wanted Herod’s opinion on
the matter or wanted to show Herod a favor or some sign of
respect or perhaps there was an element in all of this a gesture
of goodwill respect to the Jews a cowardly shifting of the blame
and people opportunistic evasion didn’t end with Pilate. It continues
to this day. Whenever we change the subject,
whenever people try to change the subject from Christ or say
that talking about religion isn’t something that we’re supposed
to do. Or they want to brush Jesus off so quickly like Pilate
did. Just the mere mention of the
name Galilean We use different terms now. We will politely say,
oh, he was a good man. Or as some religions, he was
a prophet. Oh, we believe that he was a
prophet. Or they’ll dismiss him as a carpenter’s
son, or the son of Joseph, or the guy from Galilee, or as a
mere man, he was just a man. And he was a poor man anyway. After all, he was a Nazarene. There are many ways that we employ
this same kind of opportunistic evasion with regards to the gospel
of Jesus Christ. We fail to interact with the
truth of the gospel. We suppress it. We suppress it
in our gross hypocrisy, going through our religious motions,
and we suppress it in our opportunistic evasion, taking every means possible
to avoid interacting with the truth that we are sinners. And
we’re sinners in the hands of a holy God. And then unless our
sin is dealt with, we incur the wrath of God. That’s
where Paul started, remember? rather than engaging this morning
in gross hypocrisy in order to suppress the truth, rather than
engaging in some kind of opportunistic evasion, avoiding even interacting
with the question, would you pause as we examine our hearts
before a holy God? Our merciful God, We do humble ourselves before
you and Lord, as Paul said, we see it so plainly in our world. A world that you have made a
world that testifies of you every day in every way. The birth of
a little child. The weather patterns that our
world. Enjoys the growth of food and. The rain that falls from
the clouds. All of the patterns of life,
the process of the seasons, all of it, Lord, testifies, proclaims
so loudly and so clearly, the God of all creation. But Lord, we also see such a
tendency, such a distinct tendency, the people of our day even still
to suppress the truth in any way that they can. Whether it’s
gross hypocrisy, going through the motions, going through religious
rituals and doing things, all the while their hearts are far
from God, refusing to acknowledge even their own sin, refusing
to call on Christ for forgiveness, Lord, we we see that that’s one
of the many devices. That we also take every opportunity
we can in our fallen state. To avoid and evade. The truth. Lord God, we pray that. Your
truth. The truth would prevail even
today. But no one would walk out of
this room without acknowledging that they are sinner. Nothing more nothing less. And that as such they are in
desperate need of a Savior. Lord what good news. You’ve already
provided Christ and he is already paid for sinners penalty on the
cross. And he’s paid it in full. It seems too simple. It seems
too easy. That all we have to do is place
our faith in Jesus Christ and we are forgiven. But that is the simple gospel. And those of us who have already
tasted of it rejoice. We rejoice that it didn’t come
down to our works. It didn’t come down to our faithfulness.
It didn’t come down to our family tree. It didn’t come down to
our denomination. It didn’t come down to our efforts
or works at all. You engendered faith in our hearts
and love for a Savior who first loved us. It’s in Jesus’ name
that we pray. Amen.