Stumbling Blocks of Faith

Well, we are extremely blessed and happy to have with us this morning, Ray Comfort as our guest speaker. Ray Comfort is the co-host of the award-winning television series entitled The Way of the Master, which either is already or is soon to be slated to be, seen in over 100 countries worldwide, via satellite. he is also a prolific writer, having authored, over 60 books throughout the course of his ministry and also other training materials that have been a huge help to, to churches and to Christians around the world, and we here at Cornerstone have greatly benefited.

by the materials and the training materials that he has provided.

the real passion for his ministry it's twofold, I suppose, and that is to give the good news of, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, through, Jesus Christ. but also his passion is to encourage, believers in, Jesus, and to equip them to share their faith in a competent, way. And we at Cornerstone have been greatly blessed by, that, twofold aspect of his ministry. Ray Comfort also gets around quite a bit.

my understanding is he has preached at over 700 churches throughout. the course of, his ministry over the years and we are extremely blessed to be one of those, 700+ churches. He was here about 5 or so years ago, and we're extremely blessed to have him, back with us this morning. So, Brother Ray, why don't you come, share with us what God has laid on your heart and let us give our brother a warm welcome.

Thank you, bro. After an introduction like that, oh. I can't wait to hear myself. There's an ugly rumor going around that I've been preaching a prosperity doctrine.

Thank you. I don't know where it began, but I, I want it to stop, OK? If I can get this off. Would you open your Bibles, please, at, Psalm 51.

I have a particular compassion and empathy for doctors. Because doctors are continually visited by people who have got a complaint. And so when I visit a doctor for the first time, I determined in my heart to cheer him up. And so I, I was getting a checkup and he put a little thing in my ear with a light on and began looking in my ear.

He must have been 30 seconds to 1 minute just looking for something in my ear. And after about 1 minute, he stood in front of me. And with a very sober look on his face, he said, I want you to grab the earlobe and pull it down firmly. So I did, I reached out, grabbed his earlobe, and pulled it down firmly.

He thought that was funny. I also had a plastic cockroach the next time I went to him, and when he was checking my chest and that lying on my back, I had the cockroach under my arm and boy he jumped. It was the same cockroach I used on my dentist. He came around, he said, Open up, and when I opened up, there was a cockroach on my tongue.

Payback time. May God open our ears this morning to what he has to say. Before we read scripture, let me share some thoughts with you. I took a shoulder camera to the streets some time ago and I asked Christians that we came across, is God angry at America?

And the normal answer was, no, we're the good guys. So I said well let me share a few statistics with you and ask you the question again. Do you realize that? And I base them on the, the 10 Commandments.

sixth commandment regarding murder. Do you realize that there were 200,000 murders in our country in the 1990s. From 1990 to the year 2000, 200,000 people were murdered in the United States. There's been more than 50 million Americans murdered through abortion since Roe versus Wade.

Seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery. 50 to 60% of married couples in our country admit to adultery. Premarital sex is practiced by more than 75% of women and more than 80% of men by the age of 1945 million Americans are infected with a virus that causes genital herpes. 1 in 4 teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

33% of all births are out of wedlock. Americans spend more than $13 billion annually on pornography. eighth commandment You shall not steal. Theft costs our country $500 billion each year, and we have 2,319,000 people in prison.

That's more than any country in the world. Ninth commandment, shall not be a false witness. Statistics tell us that 91% of Americans lie regularly, which is hard to fit in with the fact that 62% have a relationship with Jesus Christ, which is meaningful to them. 10th commandment, $50 billion each year is spent on gambling venues.

And people, when they heard that, Christians would say, Whoa, God is angry at America. That law, those 10 commandments, not only bring a knowledge of sin to an individual, they bring the knowledge of sin to a nation. Think of King David, most of you are familiar with the story of King David. He coveted his neighbour's wife and he stole his neighbour's wife, committed adultery with her and then murdered her husband.

Now the world would say he had some weaknesses within his character, but in truth, King David was a covetous man, a devious liar and thief, an adulterer, a murderer who dishonored his parents and caused the name of the Lord to be blasphemed by the enemies of God, the God who had lavished his goodness upon him. So Nathan was commissioned to reprove the king. God said, you go and reprove him. So what did Nathan do?

Did he come before the king and say, God has a wonderful plan for your life. What has that got to do with anything? David was a devious criminal who had to be reproved and rebuked for his sin. Did you come before him and say, David, there's a God-shaped vacuum in your heart, only God can fill.

No, he didn't do that. He came before the king and he told him a story about a little lamb that was taken by another man. And when David stood on his high throne of self-righteousness and said that man will die. Then Nathan said, You that man, why have you despised the commandment of the Lord?

And David cried, I've sinned against God. And once he acknowledged his sins and saw the seriousness of his transgression, then Nathan gave him the good news or the gospel. He said, Nevertheless, you shall not die, for God has put away your sin. Look in Psalm 51, verse 1 and look at what happened to David.

After he was reproved by Nathan. Look how he owns his sin. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. That word transgression is a direct reference to God's law.

He had transgressed the law. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. That's his lawlessness, and cleanse me from my Sin. First John 3:4 says, sin is transgression of the law.

David understood that he had despised the commandment of the Lord. He says, for I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. See him owning his sin. He's not justifying himself.

He's not blaming other people. He's not saying that everybody else has done this. Against you when you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. That you might be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge.

When you and I take someone through the 10 Commandments, and we open up the spiritual nature of the law, what we do is we actually justify God. We show them that God is perfect, holy, just and good. That's what the Bible says about the very character of God. But it says of the law, the moral law of the 10 Commandments, the law is perfect, holy, just and good.

So that law actually issues out of the character of God. That law is eternal. It is written in stone. And when we open up the law, we're explaining the righteousness of God Himself.

There wasn't a time in eternity when God says, well, what is right and wrong? Yes, it's wrong to steal and to lie. Now, that law is eternal. And what it does is produce a fear of God.

Within the heart of the sinner. And that's why Jesus used the law in Mark 10:17. A man came running to him and he said, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus then reproved the the man's understanding of the word good.

He said, Why are you calling me good? There's none good but God. Proverbs 20:6 says, Most every man will proclaim his own goodness. We think we're good people until that law is applied to the conscience.

And when we see that good means moral perfection and thought word and deed, we end up saying, oh, only God is good. And Jesus did that by going through the commandments with that man. Paul did the same thing in Romans 2:21. This is what he said, and notice how he personalizes the law in addressing the sinner.

You therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You preach that a man should not steal? Do you steal? You who say that a man should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who are poor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through the breaking of the law? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. And if you and I leave out that law, the 10 Commandments, it paints God as a tyrant, and that's why we have so many people running around saying, How could a God of love create hell?

It's a very common question people have. How could a God of love create hell? Without that law, judgment makes sense. But let me reason with you about the existence of hell.

What would you think of a judge? Who saw that a man had committed rape and murder, but he turned a blind eye. He just looked the other way. He didn't want to bring that guy to justice.

Well then, that judge isn't a good judge. He's a wicked judge and that judge should be brought to justice himself because if he's a good judge, he must do everything he can to make sure justice is done. Remember those 200,000 people that were murdered in the 1990s? It's about 20,000 each year, 10 year period, 200,000 people.

According to the FBI, there's about a 50% success rate in homicide investigations. That is only about 50%. of murderers are brought to justice. So that means in that 1 10-year period in the 1990s, just in the United States, 100,000 people got away with murder.

They rape someone, cut the throat, cut their body down the drain, acid, never brought to justice. No body, no justice. Is God going to turn a blind eye to murderers? Is he gonna, is he going to let them go away scot-free?

Oh, no, no, he wouldn't be good if he did so. The Bible says God is good and because he's good by nature, he must see that justice is done. And the Bible says, God will punish murderers. But God is so holy and so good and so just.

He's going to punish those that wanted to murder someone and never have opportunity. The Bible says he that hates his brother is a murderer. God requires truth in the inward parts. He sees the thought life.

He's not going to punish murderers, he's going to punish rapists also, and thieves, and liars, and fornicators and adulterers and blasphemers, and those who desired to commit adultery and never had opportunity. Those who desired to commit fornication never had opportunity because Jesus said, whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already with her in his heart. So when you think of those murderers. And the fact that God is good, instead of saying, how can a loving God create a hell, we end up with saying, how could a loving God not create hell?

How could God being good not punish murderers and thieves and liars and fornicators and blasphemers. That law makes judgment makes sense. It makes it reasonable. Remember when Paul and Acts, I think 24, reasoned with Felix of temperance.

Righteousness and judgment to come. Felix trembled. And that's what should happen in the heart of every single person. Once they understand that God is perfect, holy, just and good.

And because he's good, he has appointed a day in which he'll judge the world and righteousness. And if you're not right with God today, if you haven't repented and trusted in the shed blood of Jesus, you should tremble. And if you're not trembling, you need to. The Bible says through the fear of God, fear of the Lord men depart from evil.

If you don't fear God, if your understanding of God's character is erroneous, you won't fear Him. If you've created an image of God in your mind, and you say, my God is the God of love and mercy, he would never create hell, then you've made an idol, an idol you feel comfortable with, an idol you can snuggle up to, an idol that you don't fear because your idol is dumb. He has no moral dictate. He can't speak.

He has no brain. He doesn't exist. But the God of the Bible is to be feared. And once you see him in truth and understand him, you'll say with Job, my eyes have seen you, and I abhor myself.

You'll see your sin in truth and like David, you'll say, have mercy upon me, oh God, according to your loving kindness, according to tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Do we hear popular preachers speaking that message? No, we don't. Why?

Because as a nation we have forsaken that law in the pulpit, in the pew, and in the streets. Popular preachers don't warn every man that he may preach that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Why? Because if you leave out the law, then the sinner is just unfortunate.

He's not seen as a criminal. In desperate need of God's forgiveness, and God becomes nothing, nothing but a divine butler whose chief end is the happiness of man. Do you remember the story of Lazarus and the rich man? Jesus gave a story of about a poor man who was at a rich man's gate.

The rich man didn't bother to feed the poor men, they both died. And in hell, the rich man lifted up his eyes, being in torments and saw Abraham afar off. This is Luke 16:23. You may like to turn there, and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy upon me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and call my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.

He found himself in hell, this rich man. In verse 27, then he said, I pray you, therefore, Father, that you may send them, that you would send them to my father's house, for I have 5 brethren, that he may testify to them. Least they also come into this place of torment. Hear what he said?

He said, I have 5 brethren. Send Lazarus to them, he may testify to them, at least they also come into this place of torment. Could you imagine if the rich man appeared here today in front of you people? And he said to you, testify, please testify.

What does he want you to testify? To go out there and say, God has a wonderful plan for your life, or to testify, there's a God-shaped vacuum in your heart, only God can fill. Phil. No, he said testify, lest they come into this place of torment.

Scripture makes our message very clear. We have the same commission. We are to testify at least the world end up in that place of torment. We have the ministry of Nathan.

He was called to reprove and rebuke David for his transgression of the law. And if you go out into the world, you'll find there are people just like David, adulterers, thieves, covetous, liars, rebels, blasphemers. The Bible says preach the word, the instant, in season out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. We're called to reprove and rebuke and to do it with patience and based on the word of God.

Verse 29 of Luke 16, and Abraham said to him, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead, they would repent. And he said to him, if they hear not Moses, that's a reference to the law.

If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. Let me explain what. If you today won't hear Moses, you won't be persuaded though one rose from the dead. Why should you be persuaded?

Why do you need a savior if you don't understand you've sinned? But once you understand your sin, then you'll see a need of the savior. Let me explain. Have you lied?

Have you stolen? If you say you're just little things, just told little lies, then you are a lying thief. There's no such thing as a little lie or stealing a little thing. You say I just stole, just something small, what, a diamond ring?

The value of that which you've stolen is irrelevant. If you open my wallet and you take out $1 you are a thief as as much as if you took out $100 if you could find it in my wallet. And have used God's name in vain. He said, oh, yeah, just let it slip.

What? God gave you life. He gave you eyes to see with, ears to hear good music with, taste buds to enjoy good food. He lavished his goodness upon you and you took his holy name, hallowed be thy name, and brought it down to the level of a four-letter filth word to express disgust.

That's called blasphemy. And the Bible says the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. What about the seventh commandment? You shall not commit adultery.

I remember years ago, I looked at that commandment as an unsafe person and thought, well, I've never committed adultery. If there's a heaven, I'll get in there. And then I read the words of Jesus. But I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already with her in his heart, and was like an arrow pierced my heart.

I thought, I've done that a million times over. If God has seen my whole life, I'm in big trouble. Now think of it. If you said, yeah, I've committed those, those sins, then you're a lying thief, a blasphemer and adulter at heart.

And that's only 4 of the 10 commandments. All I did was put you on the stand and as a prosecutor examine you under the light of God's law. And you'd be wise to say I'm guilty, not to try and justify yourself, but justify God. Say God is right.

I'm a sinner. And the Bible says all liars will have their part in the lake of fire. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. God sees sin from the point of view of holiness, not from how we see sin.

I live in the city of Bellflower not too far from here, and often I look around the cities around us and they've got a really bad smog problem. Every city and the whole circumference of our area has got a bad smog problem. Not our city where I am, it's clean, fresh air. Hm, until I get into a plane.

When I get on a plane and look down, I see the whole of the Los Angeles basin is covered with this filthy black poison, including our city. But when you're in it, you can't see it. And it's the same with sin. Yeah, everyone else is a sinner.

I can see that. Yeah, look at him. He's a rat. He's an adulterer.

He's a pervert. You need to get up to God's point of view. The Psalms say God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, and there were none that did good. Sin is a filthy smog that inhabits the heart of every single sinner.

We all need God's forgiveness, and if we die in our sins and God gives us justice, he could damn us forever and do that which is right and just and holy and good. But the Bible says God is rich in mercy. And God became a human being. God was manifest in the flesh, the Bible says, and the reason God became a human being.

was for the specific purpose of giving his life as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. Jesus said, no man takes my life from me. I powder lay it down. I pow to raise it up.

He gave his life as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. Now most people know that, but they don't understand it. What was happening was this, you and I broke God's law. Jesus stepped in and paid our fine in his life's blood.

And some of his last words on the cross were, it is finished. Another rendering is the debt has been paid. You broke the law, Jesus paid your fine. That means God can dismiss your case.

God can commute your death sentence. You don't have to be damned. You don't have to go to hell because someone stepped in and paid your fine. Christ has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God.

And then he rose from the dead, defeated death. The Bible says it was not possible that death could hold him. And now all who repent and trust in Him receive remission of sins. God imputes righteousness to us.

He gives us righteousness. He justifies us. That means he makes us as though we'd never sinned in the first place. So on the day of judgment, we're clean in his sight.

You don't confess your sins to God. You don't just believe in Jesus, you confess and forsake your sins. That's repentance. And so many people say, I believe in Jesus, but if you believe in a parachute and jump out of a plane without putting it on, you're going to find you made a big mistake.

God doesn't want you to believe in Jesus. He wants you to trust in Him. Like you trust a parachute. You put him on, put it on, and the Bible says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, trust in him.

The moment you do that, remission of sins, everlasting life, you'll pass from death to life, from darkness into light. God will make you a new creature. And you'll love the things you once hated and hate the things you once loved. Because God has made you a brand new person on the inside, and he causes you to walk in a statues.

And after 36 years of being a Christian, I'm still shaking my head and saying, I cannot believe the radical thing that God did in my life that night in April 25th, 1972. I called upon the name of Jesus Christ, brand new creature, new heart, new desires, all things pass away, all things become new. Now I was looking in the mirror some time ago admiring my physique. I had my shirt off and I looked in the mirror and said, Could be worse And I hear my wife say not much.

I've got something on our mirror that can make me feel better about myself. It's a light dimmer. When I look at myself and the full light I think yeah, a bit saggy, so I just dim it a little and things look a little better. Listen to what Charles Spurgeon said about light dimmers.

He said this. Lower the law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt. This is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain, for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary, that's its most powerful weapon when you have set aside the law.

You've taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ. They will never accept grace until they tremble for a just and holy law. Therefore, the law serves the most necessary purpose and it must not be removed from its place. Well as a nation, As I said, we have removed that law from its place.

We've removed it from the pulpits. Our preachers have popular preachers have become nothing more than motivational speakers that talk about every other issue except the fact that man has sinned against a holy God and he's under his wrath and he needs mercy. We've lost God's blessing. And if you follow the history of Israel, You will find again and again, Israel turned their backs on the law.

They then got into idolatry, creating a God in their own image. When they got into idolatry, they lost the fear of God. They bowed before the golden calf, so to speak, and then into sexual sin. And that's exactly what has happened in the United States.

America, contemporary America has embraced an idol. A God who has a wonderful plan, whose sole aim is to fill that vacuum in your life, to give you real lasting happiness. We've created a God who has no sense of justice, righteousness and truth, a God who is not to be feared. And so as we embrace this idol who has no moral dictate, then we give ourselves the golden calf, to money and then to sexual sin, and that's exactly what's happened in America.

America has thrown its clothes off and after that, as happened to Israel when they made that golden calf, came judgment. And that's what's happened to our nation. Now if you don't think we're a nation that's under the judgment of God, let me just give you some thoughts. Each year in the United States, there are more than 189,000 new cases of prostate cancer.

And 203,000 cases of breast cancer. Over 2,300,000 Americans will get cancer in this next year. ABC News recently published an article titled More than 60% of the United States in drought. With onslaughts of floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes.

think about it. Every time you turn the television on, there is some state that's flooded up to its eyeballs. We've got tornadoes that just don't come one at a time. They come in 20 or 30 at a time now.

We've got hurricanes that don't just come one at a time on the east coast, they line up to a point where they run out of names to give them. who's in charge of the weather department? We're at war with an with an enemy and we can't seem to win a national debt is currently $9 trillion. If you're not sure what 1 trillion is, it doesn't sound much, but it's $1 trillion is $1000 billion.

So what's the answer for America? A new president? Nope, it's not. It's been well said.

The only thing that man learns from history is that man doesn't learn anything from history. Now I am a big fan of having Christians in high places politically. I think it's wonderful we have a man up there who's standing for righteousness, maybe proclaiming the gospel. But if you study the Book of Acts, the agenda of the early church was not a political agenda.

Peter didn't say to Paul, let's infiltrate the Roman government, get a high political office and bring in righteous legislation, huh? That wasn't their agenda. Because you think about it. If we got all our Christian guys right at the top of the political ladder and they brought in legislation that outlawed abortion, outlawed homosexuality, outlawed pornography, outlawed violent television and movies.

Outlawed the whole lot. Righteous legislation, and we brought America back to as it was in the 50s. Well, the wrath of God still abides upon the nation for sin. It doesn't deal with the problem.

The agenda of the Book of Acts Church was to proclaim the gospel and everywhere they went, they preached sin, righteousness and judgment. They said we cannot but speak that. What you've seen and heard. And sadly, we're not doing that.

Bill Bright in his book The Coming Revival said that only 2% of Christians in America regularly share their faith with others. Oswald J. Smith said, Oh my friends, we're loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected. The modern church is doing everything but that which has been commissioned and commanded to do.

In Luke 19, Verse 26, Jesus said, Whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory and in his father's and of the holy angels. Now if I was to ask the average Christian, are you ashamed of Jesus? he would say, Are you kidding? I've got a fish on the back of my car.

There's more fish on the backs of cars in California than there are in the ocean. Ashamed of Jesus? What are you talking about? I'm not ashamed of Jesus, but listen to his words.

Whoever shall be ashamed of me and my words, it's not Jesus we're ashamed of. The world thinks Jesus was a great teacher, he taught some wonderful things. No, it's his words that worry them, and it's his words that worry us. I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes to the Father but by Me. Wow. How can we justify that? Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father by by him. No Muslim, no Jew, no Hindu, no Buddhist. It's the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. There is only one way to God.

Whoever transgresses and abides not in the doctrine of Christ has not God, whether it be Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever. If he doesn't have Christ, he doesn't have God. Can you answer? When someone says to you, Is Jesus the only way to God?

Or do you balk and say, well, for me he is. For me, personally, but, other people are sincere. What, what would you say if someone said, are you saying Jews go to hell? Do how to answer that?

Because the Bible says study to show yourself approved. A workman that needs not be ashamed. You need not be ashamed if you study to show yourself approved. If you don't study, you want a better answer.

Every skill you've obtained in this life. You've got it because you studied it, even if you don't remember it. You learn to crawl, you learn to walk, you learn to use a fork or a knife or a spoon. You learn to ride a bike, you studied it.

You learn to drive a car. Remember the first time you drove a car? now, Yeah. Thank you.

We get confident as we study it and do it. And it's the same with evangelism. The first time I stood on a soapbox to preach to unsafe people, I was terrified. I was more than terrified.

Whatever comes above mortified, I was up there. Absolute I've had guys that have said to me, I have skydived many times. But when I got up to preach on a soapbox, I was more scared than the first time I jumped out of a plane. It is terrifying because you've got to battle a spirit of fear.

But as you do it, you'll become confident in it. You'll come away from the first time when some guy said to you, so Jews go to hell, huh? And you say, I don't know how so you go and study it. Next time he asks you, sir, I've got the answer.

Jesus was Jewish. The disciples was Jewish. Christianity didn't come from America, it came from Israel, from the God of the Jews. The 1st 3000 people to become Christians were Jews.

The next 5000 people to become Christians were Jews. The gospel is universal. It went to the Jew first, then to the Gentile, and any Jew who wants forgiveness of sins. can partake in that universal invitation.

Oh, everyone that thirst comes, whosoever will may come. But being a Jew doesn't mean to say you're going to escape the justice of God. The only way you can escape the justice of God is to put your faith in the Jewish Messiah, who can wash away your sins. I'm Jewish as a person.

People say you can't be Jewish and a Christian. So the last time I checked my blood was Jewish. I didn't, didn't drain out of my veins when I became a Christian. If you're Chinese and you become a Christian, you still remain Chinese.

If you're Jewish, you become a Christian, you still remain Jewish. It's in your blood. Of course, God's not going to damn the Jews that come to him and seek his mercy in Jesus Christ. It's open to all humanity.

So here's another stumbling block. How do God exists? A lot of people feel intimidated when someone says, I'm an atheist. You think, oh, an intellectual.

It's the exact opposite. The Bible says an atheist is not an intellectual. He's a fool and he's the, the, the fool of fools. It's crazy to say there's no God.

What would you think of a man who looked at a building and said there's no builder? You're nuts. No building happened by itself. How can a building happen by itself?

It has windows and doors. It has carpet. It's got seats in it. It's got electricity running through it lights.

It happened with no builder. Anyone who said that's got to be a fool. The building is proof there's a builder, absolute, 100% scientific proof. The painting is proof there's a painter.

Paintings don't happen by themselves. Imagine now, if you said, see this painting, Mona Lisa. No one painted it. There was just nothing.

And then there was, and then there was a canvas and then paint fell from the sky. Like eyes and nose and mouth and hear, it's crazy. Every painting is absolute proof there was a painter, and creation is proof there's a creator. You cannot have a creation without a creator.

Just look in the mirror. We're fearfully and wonderfully made. Our eyes have 137 million light sensitive cells. There's no camera lens on the face of this earth anywhere as sophisticated as the human eye, or the brain is so sophisticated, unless it's an atheist brain is so sophisticated.

There's no computer as anywhere near as intricate as the human brain, and it goes on and on with the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, the skeleton, the skin, the blood, everything about us screams the genius of God's creative hand. And all you got to do is say to an atheist, see the building? How do there's a builder? He says, oh, the buildings there.

Same with the painting, creation proves there's a creator. And don't stain his intellect, then go to his conscience and take him through the commandments because the intellect is the place of argument. The carnal man or the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not.

Subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So if you're going to argue apologetics for too long with a carnal person, a carnal mind, you're just going to get enmity. You've got to go to the conscience, the work of the law written on the heart, because the conscience will be a witness. When you say to someone, it's wrong to lie, don't you?

it's wrong to steal, they'll begin to nod in affirmation. Because they know what you're saying is true, because the work of the law is written on their heart. He said what about suffering? That proves there's no God.

Suffering and pain and disease and death. Just the opposite. We have suffering because we live in a fallen creation. Before the fall, the rebellion of man against God, everything was perfect.

There was no disease, suffering, pain, or death. But when the fall came, as by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, and so death passed on all men for all of sin. That's when suffering came. So, suffering is proof.

That what the Bible says is true. So never let anyone use suffering as an excuse to reject God as a very real reason to accept Him. why doesn't God stop evil? OK, imagine if today was judgment day.

God's going to stop those murderers and rapists and terrorists. He's gonna line them up and judge them. How thorough should God's judgment be? It's not just murderers and rapists and terrorists, but he, he'll be thorough.

Thieves and liars and fornicators and blasphemers. Jesus said, God's justice will be so thorough, it will grind to powder. When you grind something to powder, you do a thorough job. And God's going to judge right down to the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Every idle word a man speaks, he'll give an account of on the day of judgment. So if you're not a Christian today and God had judgment, How would you be? You'd be guilty. You end up in hell, and all of God's judgments are righteous and true together, and you can just thank the mercy of God that He is rich in mercy.

And he's holding back his judgment, not willing that any perish, but that all come to repentance. So today If you're not a Christian, I plead with you, confess and forsake your sins. Be like David, who cried, Have mercy unto me, oh God. Forgive me, blot out my transgressions against you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight.

No one else can do it for you. Perhaps the greatest gift God's ever given you is your individual free will. Well, yield that to God today. Obey his command to repent.

Some people say, oh, you're just trying to make me scared. Fear is good. Do that? You don't step off 1000 ft cliff because you fear the consequences.

You don't put your hand on fire because you fear the consequences. Fear is good, so listen to it today because through the fear of the Lord men depart from evil and put your faith in Him who suffered and died on the cross for you. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish. but have everlasting life.

This is your eternal salvation we're talking about. This is God's gift of everlasting life. So today repent and put your trust in Jesus and you'll pass from death to life. Let's bow in prayer and ask God to seal this word to our hearts.

Father, just in the stillness of this room, I pray you'll cause every conscience to do its duty, and those who are lukewarm, perhaps false converts who have never repented today may they flee from sin and wholly put their trust in Jesus. May they surrender themselves to you. Those who have never repented, may today be the day of salvation for them. May they pass from death into life.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.