The Trial Of The Ungodly

In a courtroom in San Diego, California, two men were on trial for a robbery and a prosecuting attorney was interviewing a witness and it was kind of loud and powerful and intimidating in his style. And he said to the witness, were you at the scene of the crime when the robbery took place? And the witness said yes. Next question was, did you see the two robbers commit the crime? And the witness said yes. And the next question was, and he kind of heightened the intensity and power of his question when he said, are these two men in the courtroom today? And the witness didn't even have to answer because the two thieves raised their hands. Now, that's intimidation. Well, God has a courtroom that is every bit as much and more so, intimidating. And that courtroom is found in the first three chapters of the Book of Romans, where Paul describes for us the guilt of all mankind before the holy bar of God, the judgment of God. In these first three chapters of the Book of Romans, and I invite your attention to Romans chapter one, we find a courtroom scene where God is the judge. All of us are on trial. In fact, all of mankind is on trial. Paul is the prosecuting attorney, marshalling the evidence for a guilty verdict on the part of all mankind. Now we've seen, as we introduced the Book of Romans in the first 17 verses, Paul introduces both himself and the gospel. And the gospel is good news. That's what the word means. Literally. The word literally means good news. And so Paul is getting us good news. He says in chapter one in verse 16, as he introduces his topic of the book, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile four. Reason is not ashamed, because in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed. And that becomes the theme of the book, a righteousness from God. That's what the gospel communicates. Our self-righteousness is not enough to get us to heaven. We need a righteousness not that's worked up to heaven, but that comes down from heaven, a righteousness from God. That's the good news of the gospel. God offers that to us. But then after communicating the theme of the book and that wonderful news of the gospel, a righteousness is available that comes from God. Verse 18 explodes onto the page in a shocking way. As in verse 18, Paul says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men. For 17, a righteousness from God is revealed. Verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed. Now that seems shocking at first. Paul's introducing good news. Why does he all of a sudden turn to wrath, judgment, condemnation? Paul's point is, and he will carry this out through the first three chapters, is that we cannot understand the good news until we get the bad news first. We really cannot understand the good news of the gospel and the righteousness that we can have as a gift from God until we realize why that righteousness is needed. And so as we saw in the introduction to the book, the first major section of the book, number one verse 18 through chapter three, verse 20, is righteousness needed and Paul deals with sin. So as a prosecuting attorney, Paul talks about why man needs the righteousness of God. Man is condemned, he's guilty, he's a sinner, and that's why he needs this righteousness from God. Now when Paul talks about the wrath of God, we need to understand what he's talking about here. That's talking about God's abhorrence of and hatred of sin. The word does not mean some kind of uncontrolled anger. This is not a red hot loose control, punch your lights out kind of anger. This is not a passionate emotional kind of anger. The word used for wrath here is a word which means a settled, abiding, controlled anger of God and it comes because of the sinfulness of man. Now in the next three chapters, Paul is going to give us the reason why God is justified in that anger. The guilty, or the verdict truly is guilty and why God is right in his holiness to be angry at man's sin. What Paul is going to do is he's going to take three different segments of society. First of all, pagan, wicked, ungodly, immoral, simple lifestyle kind of Gentiles. It's going to deal with them first. People who just really live wicked lives and he's going to declare them guilty. Then in the first half of chapter two, he's going to take good, moral, family, value, type of people who may not be religious, but they're good, moral people and he's going to say, you're guilty. Then in the end of chapter two, second half of chapter two is going to take religious people. People who are very careful about religion, people who go to church a lot and he's going to say, you're guilty as well. His conclusion is going to be, we are all in the same boat. We are all guilty before God. But this morning, we're going to look at the first of those three groups. Paul will call them pagan Gentiles, but we would know them today as people who have chosen to live a very openly wicked, ungodly, immoral lifestyle, just chosen to throw themselves away to sin. We're going to talk about the ungodly today and we will witness today the first of three trials, the trial of the ungodly. What Paul does in these next few verses actually through the end of chapter one is he gives us in a shocking description, three awful steps of rejecting God and Christ. If you're here this morning and you've decided in your heart, you don't need God, you're just kind of looking at things over here because somebody brought you or whatever, but you don't really need God, you don't really, you're not even sure you believe in God and you're here this morning because you've decided to go another way. You've decided to choose another kind of lifestyle. I want you to listen very carefully. If you know Christ this morning, I also invite your attention so that you might know how to deal with and relate to those of your friends and neighbors and coworkers who may have chosen the kind of lifestyle we're going to talk about this morning. Paul gives us three shocking steps as to what happens to a person who rejects God and rejects Christ or at least this is one of the tracks a person like that may take. The first step is the suppression of truth. Verse 18, Paul says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them for since the creation of the world. As invisible qualities his eternal power divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. Paul talks about the suppressing of truth in verse 18. What he means by that the word suppress means to hold down to try to stifle something which is like the elephant in the room. It's very obvious. Reminds me of the little boy who knew that he was not supposed to bring the dog into the house but he had brought the dog into the house and he had the dog up in his room and he hears his parents coming toward his door. And so he took the dog and he stuffed it down in his toy chest, closed the lid and sat on the toy chest. Now you can imagine what happened next. Barking, clawing, screeching, yelping, it's obvious the dog is in the room but he's trying desperately to hold the dog down and to keep down the evidence that is so obvious that there is a dog in the room. It's exactly what Paul's talking about here. People who recognize, who see overwhelming evidence but hold down that truth, suppress that truth. It is in our nature to do that. Now what is the truth which is being suppressed held down stifled although it's so obvious. What is the truth being suppressed? He tells us in verse 19, since what may be known about God, okay, it is a truth about God, it is some kind of knowledge of God, what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. Well how did God make it plain to them? Where did He make it plain to them? Verse 20. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power, divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. So what Paul is saying here is that in God's creation, in the material universe, in the human body, in all of creation, there are some things about a creator that are clearly seen. Truth about God can be clearly seen in the creation. Now it's very limited truth. Paul says there are only two things you can really learn about God from looking at nature. One, and both they're both invisible qualities. He says one is his eternal power, the other is his divine nature. You can look at creation and it is very obvious. It is the dog in the box that cannot be ignored. It is very obvious that there must be a person of great power, eternal power that put all this into place and he's got to be bigger than us. He's got to be divine. He's got to be bigger than man to do that. And so God's eternal power and divine nature can be seen in creation. You cannot see the full blown plan of salvation in creation that takes a more full kind of revelation found in the Bible. But anybody in the world who looks at the natural creation can at least see very clearly the fact that there is a powerful being bigger than me that has put this into place. That is the Bible says clearly seen in creation. And that is the truth that man stifles. It is there. It is inescapable. It is obvious in the complexity of creation, in the magnitude of creation. It is impossible to ignore the creator. It is clear that that truth is there. Man must stifle that. Sit on the lid of the box. Try to ignore it. Pretend that it is not there in order to go in other direction. It is exactly what Paul is saying. Someone has illustrated it this way, the great complexity of creation and how it shows God. Someone has illustrated it this way. If you had ten pennies in your pocket and numbered them with a little piece of paper, one, two, three, all the way to ten, each penny had a number, if you were to reach in your pocket and pull a penny out for that penny to be number one, you would have one chance in ten of that happening. If you were to put it back in your pocket, jingle them back up, mix them back up again, pull a second one out. If that one had number two, you would have a one in one hundred chance of that happening. To back in your pocket, mix them up again, pull out a third one. If that one has number three on it, a one in a thousand chance. To pull all ten coins out, consecutively one to ten, in order with that design would be a one in ten billion chance that that would happen. Now that is just ten coins in your pocket. The amazing incredible complexity of creation goes far beyond those numbers. Even the human cell itself, which decades ago scientists thought was a pretty simple organism, but it isn't. As molecular biology has grown and people have been able to study the human cell more intricately, they have found that each cell has eighteen parts, eighteen components called organelles. And each of those eighteen organelles, parts of the cell, must be functioning at the same time, and they must have come into being and started functioning at the same time, with the order and complexity that each cell has for the cell to even exist. And scientists estimate that you have between fifty and a hundred trillion cells in your body, each with eighteen organelles, all of which fifty to a hundred trillion of them must be organized and functioning all at the same time for your body to operate correctly. It is impossible for that to happen on its own. That's why molecular biologists Michael B. He would write a book, unbelieving Professor Lehigh University, wrote a book called Darwin's Black Box, and indicate that evolution cannot handle the concept of molecular biology. It cannot explain the cell. That's why Michael Dinton, a biological researcher in Australia, would write a book called Evolution a Theory in Crisis, because he recognizes from all of his molecular biology research that is impossible for evolution to explain the human cell. Even the human cell blers out its testimony of a designer and a creator, but move from the microscope to the telescope and look at the starry universe and recognize that astronomers estimate their ten to the twenty-first power number of stars in our universe. That's one with twenty-one zeros behind it. That's the figure that you can't count to. I can't count to. We can barely even imagine. Now, we're not talking about planets and comets and asteroids and other heavenly bodies. We're just talking about stars like our sun, ten to the twenty-first power number of them. The complexity, the grandeur, the majesty of the universe all cry out. There is a designer. There is a creator. It's clear, it's like the dog in the toy box. It cannot be shut up. It's there. It's obvious. But man stifles that. There's overwhelming revelation of God. But man stifles that. Man suppresses that. Does not want to accept that. Does not want to recognize that there is a God. To whom, if there is a power greater than me, that put all into place, to whom I must answer. So man suppresses it, tries to ignore it, tries to shut up the crying loud voice of creation, the suppression of truth. Now if you do that, you may take the next step. The suppression of truth may lead to the perversion of truth. In all likelihood, it will lead at least to this second step, the perversion of truth. Think at verses 21 to 23. For although they knew God, in other words, although just by looking at his creation, they have, if objectively have to recognize this kind of design, cries out for a creator, although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile. And their foolish hearts were darkened, although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Now what Paul's talking about there, especially with that word, exchanged the glory of God for images, he's talking about a perversion of truth. Now by the word perversion, I'm meaning what the word literally means, twisting, a twisting, something that was designed to point us in a direction, creation, designed to point us to show us in the direction of a creator that is twisted, that evidence, that recognition is twisted into something it was never intended to be, Paul's talking about the perversion of that truth that's given to us in creation. It's twisted to the point that man ends up worshipping the creation rather than the creator. And that may take many forms. It may take the form of worshipping Mother Earth. It may take the form of worshipping Me and My plans and My goals and My life and what I want in life, it may take the form of worshipping many other things in life. But it's twisted to the creature and the creation rather than the creator. It's a perversion of truth. What Paul does in these three verses is he gives us five step progression in this perversion of truth. Notice it very quickly with me. First step is no recognition of God. Although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God. Now this is the first step. Seeing the creation, recognize the incredible complexity and design, but unwilling to admit that God caused it. The first step is no recognition of God. Unwillingness to admit that God is responsible for this. That's the first step. Second step is they become unthankful to God. They glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him. I mean, after all, if God is not responsible for what's here, then why give Him thanks for rain, sunshine, food, things that come to us through this earth and in nature? Why give Him thanks if He's not responsible for it? So the second step is unthankful to God. Third step, empty reasonings. Think at it. Paul's describing the progression very clearly of this perversion, but their thinking became futile. You see it there in verse 21, their thinking became futile. It means empty, vain. Here's what Paul is saying. If you will not admit that God is responsible for what's here, then you have to explain it somehow. And so to twist and pervert the evidence, to avoid responsibility to God, you've got to come up with some other explanation. And Paul says that this kind of thinking is empty and futile. empty reasonings, evolutionary theories, foolish explanations as to how things got here. And that's why more and more scientists who study the intricacies of natures are coming to the conclusion they are real problems with the theory of evolution. Now they're shouted down in the academic community still because the reigning academic theory is evolution, but it is an empty, futile attempt to replace the real purpose for what we see in creation. More and more people who are willing to stand up to their peers who are willing to say, I'm going to look at the evidence objectively like Michael B. He and Michael Denton and others who are unbelieving secular, molecular biologists are willing to say the evidence does not stack up to support evolution. Evolution is a futile, empty imagination of man to try to do away with God. That's exactly what Paul says here. But once you reach that step, the fourth step in this perversion of truth is, and this gets more chilling as it goes along, no more light. Verse 21, and their foolish hearts were darkened. There can come a point where because you have rejected the light, the very clear light from creation, and you begin to substitute something else as an explanation that the light is shut off. No longer do you see the light of creation. No longer can you even admit or even question that there may be a God. The light is off, foolish hearts pursuing folly become darkened and the light is off. No more light. And then finally, the fifth step in this perversion is idolatry. Because man must put something in the place of God. There must be something, some purpose for living, some reason to exist, then that reason becomes himself or something in the creation rather than the creator. That's exactly what Paul says it will lead to. Verse 22, although they claim to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man, birds, animals, and reptiles. Man has to worship something. Man must have some reason and purpose for existence, something bigger than himself to look to. And if he's already replaced God, then he's got to find something else. So he finds an image. You say, well, no, wait a second. I don't see any images in anybody's homes around here of birds and reptiles. I add, all that look like men. Well, we've become a little more sophisticated in our images. Our images may bear the mark of a dollar bill or a particular brand of car or particular style of home or particular line of clothing. Or it may be fame, power that we've made an image of that we're pursuing that we're living for that's really bigger than us. But you've got to have some purpose for existence. You've got to have some reason to get up in the morning, something to live for. And if it's not God, you'll find something to put in his place. It will be your image. It will be your idol. It will be what you live for. It's what brings you purpose and meaning in life. And it may not be a four-footed beast or an idol of a person, but it will be something that you live for, something that brings you a reason to get up and go in the day and a purpose to live for. That's your idol. Maybe your job. It may be reaching the top of your profession. It will be your idol. So the ultimate progression of this perversion of truth, when you suppress the very clear truth about God in the creation, that leads to twisting and perverting what was intended to show God into something that ultimately leads up to living for you and living for what you can get out of this world. But that's not where it ends up. There is a chilling, horrible progression beyond that. And it's described for us in the rest of the chapter. The third step away from God once you reject Him and Christ His Son, our Savior, is the judgment of God, the judgment of God. Now I want you to notice a very chilling, repeated expression in these next few verses. The expression is, God gave them over. Verse 24. Therefore, God gave them over. Verse 26. Because of this, God gave them over. Verse 28, furthermore since they did not think at worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over. Three times it is described that God gave them over. People who had suppressed the truth about God in creation and twisted it to replace it with something else, God gave them over. What does that mean? It literally means that God takes the restraints off and allows them to reap the consequences of their own choice and their own lifestyle. In other words, God at some times, at some point, may say, if that's what you choose to do, I will take my hands off, I will give you over to the power of the direction you have chosen. What you may not realize is the downward spiral that direction may take. Now what we're going to read next is what Paul says, those who choose to replace God with themselves and with sin, this is the path, this is what it looks like. It's a very dark and depressing picture. It's one of the most terrible portions of Scripture. It's ugly. It's depressing. It's very little to smile about here. What we have described in these verses is the depths of the gravity and wickedness that a person can plunge to if left to himself, if left to herself to just reap the consequences of their own choices. I know what some of you may be thinking. John, you're way out in left field. I know what Romans 1 says. I know the types of terrible sin. It talks about, I don't live that way. I don't believe in God. I don't care about God. I don't want anything to do with God, but I don't live that way. Well I will freely admit this is not the choice that every person makes. Come back for the next couple of weeks and you'll see that he also talks about good moral people, even religious people, but he will end up saying we're all in the same boat. We're guilty. But today let's focus for a few minutes upon that person who does say, I'm going to throw caution to the winds. I don't believe I'm going to answer to God someday, so I'm going to live for myself. The way that's going to look for me is it's going to just indulge myself in every sinful passion and lust of the flesh I possibly can. You only go around once, get all the dust though you can get, live it up, have fun, get into life, really enjoy it, just let yourself go and live to the fullest, the sinful lifestyle that is so appealing to our sinful nature. I'm going to talk about that kind of person for a few moments. The way God takes his hands off and says, okay, you can choose your sin, you cannot choose your consequences, but you will live the consequences of your own sin. Here's what God gives them up to. God gives them over to, first of all, physical sin versus 24 and 25. And this describes our culture, friends. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. In other words, because they did not want to recognize God, the clear picture of him in creation, they twisted it, put a lie in its place because they did that worship and serve created things more than the creator who has forever praised Amen. What Paul is saying is that there is a natural human tendency when you do away with God to begin to worship the creation. And in this case, when you choose the path of sin, you begin to worship the body. And sex becomes what you live for. It becomes everything. Our culture is a testimony to this very path. God gave them up, took the restraints off and said, okay, if that's the way you want to live, you will be given over to physical sin, sexual impurity. And the idea here is that sex and sexual thoughts and various forms of immorality become what everybody lives for. And it permeates the entire culture. That is where we are today. I watched a couple of the West Virginia games when they were in the tournament. And I was watching with my family, including two grandchildren. I was shocked at some of the commercials. Some of them very blatant uses of sexual themes to try to sell products. I was embarrassed for my grandkids. I wanted to get them out of the room. What have we come to when we use sexual innuendo to sell everything? But that's where our culture is. It's all we think about. It's what a lot of people live for. I used to think the weather channel was safe. I usually turn to weather channel on when I'm getting ready in the morning. Kind of see what the day is going to shape up to be. How warm it's going to be. It's going to rain. That kind of thing. In recent months, one of their early morning programs has become very attuned to off-color jokes, sexual innuendo's. What does that have to do with the weather for crying out loud? But it just shows that's where our fascination, our focus is as a culture. We have been given over to sexual immorality. Everything has to have that little sensation of excitement of thinking about sexual encounters with someone. That's where we come to. God gave them over, he says, to physical sin. Secondly, God says, if you choose this path, another way that I may give you over is to emotional sin. Notice this versus 26 and 27. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts or desires of their own hearts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men who abandoned natural relations with women were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed in decent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Clearly, when Paul talks about these shameful lusts, and as he describes them, clearly he's talking about homosexuality. You made dispute what the Bible means. You cannot dispute what it says. It is very plain. It is very clear. Homosexuality was very, very common in Paul's day. In fact, the Greeks considered this to be the highest form of love. And so most high-born Greek men in high social positions had male lovers on the side. Fourteen of the first fifteen Roman emperors were homosexual. It was so permeating society and so much accepted in that day that Paul was speaking truth which needed to be heard desperately in his day, especially to the Roman church. And it desperately needs to be heard in our day as well. Because homosexuality has become widely accepted, tolerated, promoted today, even in religious circles. God's view is very clear, even in the words that are used in just these two verses alone. Even if you don't consider 1 Corinthians 6 and other passages in the Old Testament, these two verses alone, case closed about what God says. Notice the words, the words shameful, unnatural, indecent, perversion, and receiving the just-do or worthy of judgment. I mean, nothing could be clearer than that. You may disagree with what the Scriptures mean, but you cannot miss what they say. It's very clear. Homosexuality is sin. It is not an inborn tendency. It is not an alternative lifestyle that you may choose with no problem at all. It is sin. It is not a disease. It is sin. Now, I want to make it very clear, it's not the only sin, and some people act like this is the only sin. It's not the only sin. There are some of us who are very hard on homosexual behavior and homosexual sin who are just as guilty before God because of our gossip or are out of control anger. I will freely admit, not every sin has the same social consequences, but every sin is an abomination in the sight of God. So don't get too self-righteous about this sin, okay? It is sin, yes. But rather than point the finger at someone else, point the finger at yourself and say, of what sin am I guilty? You see, God gave them up, and one of the ways He gives up individuals or a culture is to sexual immorality or to homosexual perversion, but another way He gives them up is to mental sin. Mental sin versus 28 to 31 describe another way that God gives people up when they abandon Him and put themselves on the throne. Verse 28, furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He keeps going back to that, doesn't He? Remember, it all started since they didn't think it was cool, academic, cultured, you know, intellectual to retain God when they looked at creation. Since they didn't think that was worthwhile, He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. And then He describes the mindset, the way of thinking of a person or a culture who has been given over, God's taken off the restraints and said, okay, you want to live this way? Here it is, you can have it. And this is what it looks like. Again, it's not a pretty picture. Verse 29, they have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, that's a general word for sin or evil, greed, the itch for more, depravity, a word which means the desire to injure and get revenge on people. They are full of envy. That's wanting to pull someone else down because they've got something you don't. They've reached a position you haven't reached. They've attained something you haven't gotten. And so you want to pull them down one way or the other, that's envy. Full of envy, murder, strife, that's a word which means to be contentious. A word which means you love to argue, love to quarrel, deceit, all forms of lying or deception, malice, the desire to hurt someone else with no purpose at all, just the desire to hurt someone else. They are gossips, that's secret talking about someone else. Slanderers, that's open, public in your face, speaking evil of someone else. God haters, insulin, that means you have pleasure in insulting other people. That's what the word insulin means. Erragant puffs up with a high opinion of themselves. boastful, speak of themselves. Erragant has to do with the opinion. boastful has to do with the speech. Speaking of yourselves more highly than you ought. Notice they invent ways of doing evil, constantly thinking about new ways to fulfill the lusts of their flesh. They disobey their parents. They are senseless. In other words, no understanding of spiritual things. Faithless, they are not bound by their promises. I think the King James says covenant breakers, they make promises with no intent of keeping them whatsoever. They are heartless, the word has to do with a natural feeling for family. Just heartless, no concern for family and ruthless, ruthless, very cruel. Now that's where it ends up when a person says, I don't want God. I'm just going to follow me. I'm going to be my own God. This is the kind of mindset it leads to. God gave them over to mental sin. But notice the fourth way that God may give someone over. And this is as low as it gets, really. This is the end of the list. Verse 32. Vicarious sin. Now by vicarious, that word literally means substitute. It means if I can't do the sin, or even if I do, I'm going to enjoy others doing it. I'm going to sin vicariously. I'm going to sin and enjoy the sins of others. Notice that's exactly what Paul says in verse 32. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also a proof of those who practice them. Support, enjoy, live out their own sins through others. Probably Paul had in mind the Roman Colosseum, the ultimate of watching the sins of others, the ultimate of the lowest form of entertainment, to be entertained by watching all of these kinds of sin that we've talked about being played out on the floor in front of the Colosseum. Violence, murder, all kinds of immorality. Being played out there for you to clap for, enjoy, cheer for the Roman Colosseum. Watching the sins of others, living out your own passionate lusts as you watch others, we have our own form of the Roman Colosseum today. It's our television sets, our movie screens, our computer screens. And while there may be some forms of degradation and sin that we would not dare go toward ourselves, we may be guilty of the lowest form of sin, the end of the list that Paul talks about. We glory in those who do them. We enjoy watching those who practice them. We live out what we would like to do as we watch someone on the screen doing that same thing. My friend, that's a sign that God has given you over. You better be careful. If you're involved in pornography, if you're involved in an uncontrolled desire to see things on your television or the movie screen or your computer screen that really enables you to live out your passionate lusts, if you're involved in that, you are very close to something very dangerous and chilling. And that is the judgment of God where he takes his hands off and says, that's the path you've chosen. I'm taking off the restraints. And it is not a pretty picture where that ends up. Vicarious sin. And what I've described here, what Paul has described of the judgment of God is not, the worst of it, my friend. There's coming another judgment someday. I mean, this is as bad as it can get this side of eternity on this earth where God just takes his hands off and says, okay, you can choose your sin. You can't choose the consequences. You have chosen a path that will lead you into some consequences. You had no idea where you're going to end up. But it's going to be bad. Now, this is bad as it gets this side of eternity, but there's coming a day when there will be another judgment when we stand before God. We need to think about that judgment. If you have chosen a lifestyle that says, I don't want God, I don't need God, I've got other explanations for what I see. I've been taught these things by lots of people with PhDs. I don't need God. But you've begun to substitute other things for God, and they're beginning to take you down a path that is becoming enslaving to you. Then you need to think about a time when you will stand before that God, the one who did create all things. And all the accounts will be settled in that day, that judgment. I'm reminded of the story of a farmer who did not believe in God, claimed to be an atheist, hated the little country church that bordered one of his fields. And so every Sunday morning he'd rev up the tractor, and he would make sure he was plowing beside the field that was closest to the church, make as much noise as he possibly can, try to disrupt the service in that little country church just to throw his hand in the face of God. And he had a bumper crop that year, so he wrote a letter to the pastor of that little church. He said, see pastor, there is no God, look at how well I did. The pastor wrote him a note back and said, my dear friend, God does not settle his accounts in October. And he doesn't, my friend. He doesn't settle them in October. He doesn't settle them this side of the grave. They will be settled someday, however. And you will stand before the very God you may deny. You need to think about that. You need to give that some long and serious thought. Would you pray with me?