Andrew Heard diagnoses the true problem with humanity and Jesus’ teaching on it.

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TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

0:02

G’day, I’m Pete Hughes and you’ve clicked on the Reach Australia podcast.Diagnosing a problem is the first step to fixing it, and diagnosing it well is important.This is the first of three talks by Andrew heard from our national conference in 2025.Here Andrew digs in and helps us to understand what the problem is that we are trying to address with ministry.

0:25

Enjoy.Matthew Chapter 7, verse 13.Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it, but small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to life, and only few find it.

0:49

Watch out for false prophets.They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.By their fruit you will recognise them.Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

1:09

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.Thus by their fruit you will recognise them.Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

1:34

Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name and in your name drive out demons, and in your name before many miracles?Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you away from me, you evil doers.

1:52

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.The rain came down, the streams rose, and the windows blew and beat against the house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

2:12

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell with a great crash.

2:29

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.Here enter the reading.Well Heavenly Father, we do ask.Please you not bless our time together.Please let it be the case that your word by your Spirit transforms and changes us.

2:49

We ask please, and we pray this for the good of our own life with you.But we pray particularly for the good of our country and world that you might do something wonderful beyond what we could hope for.Imagine.We pray in Jesus name, Amen.Well, I want to start by reminding you that as a movement, as a kind of network of churches, we’re all into clarity and outcomes.

3:10

So let me give you a clear outcome of where we’re going.So we’ve got three talks together.You’ll have to put up with me for the next bunch of mornings.And here’s what I what I want to do.Here’s where we want to go.Here’s the the great outcome.I want us to get to a place where you will value that which is most valuable.

3:28

There it is.I want you to value that which is most valuable.Grab your Bibles, have a look at Galatians chapter 6.Turn up there.The principle behind this whole idea is that we need to value what’s most valuable is that it’s sometimes possible to have something that you value but not really value it like you ought.

3:45

Do you know that kind of thing?You know, but you don’t know.You understand, but don’t understand.You don’t really.Well, Galatians chapter 6.Have a look there at verse 14.This is our key verse for the next three days.May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

4:03

May I never boast except in the cross of Christ.Now there’s the outcome.I want us to get to the end of the week, the our end of the time out together and have everyone who is in this space able to leave this place saying, that’s your prayer.May I never boast in anything else except the cross of Christ of our Lord Jesus Christ.

4:24

That’s the great outcome we’re after.I want you to be able to want that and really want that prayer to be your prayer.May I never boast in anything else.I want you to be able to say that.I want you to really be able to want that.I want you to be able to leave that.I want you to be able to grip by that, that may we boast in the cross of Christ.

4:41

Now, of course, we don’t control outcomes, right?You’ve heard that numbers of times I don’t control, we don’t control, but do influence them.And there’s a good book I know that talks about that actually outside that, if you want to grab it called Growth and change.It’s an incredible thing for the apostle Paul to say, may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

4:59

It’s an incredible thing for him to say.It’s, it’s, it’s a thing that’s so barbaric that he’s talking about, isn’t it?The cross of Christ.May I never boast in this thing.May I never boast in accomplishments, achievements, successes, houses, travel, holiday.

5:16

May I never boast in anything, family life.May I never boast in anything except this thing, The cross, the cross of Christ, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.It’s an incredible thing to say because it’s so barbaric, the thing he wants to boast in.It’s so full of shame and horror.The cross.

5:32

Now this is often done.It’s worth doing every bunch of years.We need to just keep saying to ourselves that the cross is an ancient form of execution, one of the most degrading forms of execution ever devised.It is like the electric chair.If you want to use some kind of example here, it’s like the electric chair, which means what he is saying is may I never boast except in the electric chair of the Lord Jesus Christ.

5:56

The thing of utter destruction, the thing of humiliation, the thing of shame, may I never boast except in that it’s arresting.It kind of pulls you up short.What Paul wants is to be ruled by that thing, the cross, what it means and what it’s done.

6:19

He wants his whole life to be captivated by it.You’ll see there in the next part of that verse through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world will come to this in future times together.But he wants the cross not just to be the doorway through which he enters the Christian life.

6:35

He wants the cross to be the walls, the roof, the the the the floors, the every the ceiling.He wants it to be the whole of the he wants to boast in that for all his days.That’s the thing that he wants to live in.That’s the play.It’s the shapes, everything about him, the cross, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.It’s incredible.

6:51

May I never boast Now it’s a kind of a prayer, isn’t it?May I never boast except in this, which suggests that he knows the temptation of sometimes not boasting in it like he ought.That he has to say, may I never, because I know that it’s possible not to always boast in this thing.

7:10

Which brings us to a further point, that you can be a Christian.You can be in a Christian Church, you can be a Christian pastor, you can be a leader somewhere.Believe in the cross, of course, but not boast in it and not boast in it as your boast, not be captivated like we ought.

7:29

And this will be I, I, I really hope for us over this next couple of days, it’ll be a, a point of self reflection for us.In what sense and how much are we able to be captivated by the cross and boasting in it?Not boasting in anything else except the cross.I hope that becomes a moment for you over the next few days of self reflection.

7:48

This journey is a necessary one to think into this.Maybe not both.Accepting the crossing crisis.It’s a necessary journey because we are impacted by all kinds of cultural winds, forces that do shape us, that we live in the world, we live around with people, they mould us.

8:04

It makes it very hard sometimes to see the cross the way we ought to see it.And it’s important to be alert to that fact of the world we live in and what it does for us and the way we think about the cross.Because again, you can be reflective and aware and be forewarned.So just in terms of going down this path a little bit further, think with me about our world and our culture.

8:24

Just take a moment to reflect on it and in particular, think with me about the problems of the world.Think with me about the problems of the world.If you were to sit with a friend, not a church friend, just a friend you’ve met in society, in the culture, the community around you, a neighbor, A workmate, whatever.

8:40

If you were to sit with a friend and let them sort of ask them, what do you see the problems are in the world around us?What are the problems that you’re identifying?What do you think they would say the problems were?What would they say the problems were?This is not Christian, this is not what would they say the problems were?Now I want you to do just a quick exercise.

8:56

I do this in our church all the time.Just take 20 seconds.Talk to the neighbor, put next to you.What do you think your friends would say the problems of the world are for it very quickly. 20 seconds.OK, that’ll do.Probably only 10 seconds, but let’s stop.That’s enough to get some problems out quick.

9:14

Let’s see if you can pull this off.What?What would your friends say the problems of the world are?Just quickly?Trump.Unless you’re in America.Yeah, But yeah.Wow.

9:30

Religion, war, security, insecurity or security?Security is a problem or insecurity problem.Yep.Yeah.I’m with you though.Climate change, greed, mental health, injustice, racism, so on.

9:46

So you’ve got a bit of a picture emerging here.Now, what I want you to do is on your own, just reflect yourself.Take 10 seconds, which will end up being 5.Take 10 seconds.And I wonder what you do is go.What would you say the problems of the world are dark. 5 seconds on your own.OK, now this is this is awkward, this is difficult.

10:08

But let me ask you a question which you don’t need to answer.Please don’t answer publicly.Outlet.But how many of us said the problem with the world, The great problem the world is facing is the fact that there is a holy righteous God who is angry with his world.

10:28

How many of you thought that?How many of you thought to yourself that we’re rushing headlong?The great problem is that we’re rushing headlong towards the righteous judge of the living and the dead, and we are in the danger of the fires of hell.None of our friends think that’s the problem.

10:48

How many pastors think that’s the problem?How many of us think that’s the problem?Now, what I want to do with you in this session is a deeply sobering activity, a deeply serious session.This is not a time for fun and games and laughter.This is AI want to take you through a walk through Matthew’s gospel.

11:03

I’m going to go through the whole of the gospel with you, which is going to why I’m speaking quickly.We’re going to go through a great deal of content now, and if it takes 2 hours, we’re going to take two hours.Come with me to Matthew chapter 4.Matthew chapter 4, I want to do this whole journey through Matthew’s Gospel, so I want you to feel the weight of this.

11:30

I want you to sense the nature of what’s being said by the Lord Jesus Christ himself.Have a look there in chapter 4, verse 17.From that time on, Jesus began to preach.This is his beginnings to his preaching.He begins to preach.Repent for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.

11:46

Repent for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.Kingdom of heaven.What is the Kingdom of heaven?It’s the concept that the the rule of God will one day come into our world in an uncontested way.God has always been the sovereign Lord of the universe, but one day he’ll come in as the uncontested ruler.

12:01

All opposition will be crushed, will be put beneath his feet, all sin, rebellion, evil will be destroyed.And therefore the coming Kingdom of God comes with judgement, which means you need to repent.He commands repentance because the consequence of the judgement of God, the Kingdom of God coming is to get right.

12:17

And the way you get right is to repent.It’s to turn 180°, not 360°.People talk about 360.It’s 180° to turn away from self rule towards turning towards God.Repent.Get ready for this great day, this extraordinary day.Without repentance, a person is lost when the Kingdom of God comes into our world.

12:36

Then jump with me to the first major teaching block, chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount.A few paragraphs later, you’ll notice that verse 3, the the the beatitudes, which is kind of the doorway into the Sermon of the Mount begins and kind of ends there in 3 and 10 with teaching about the Kingdom of heaven, the Kingdom of God.

12:54

It begins with blessed of the Paul.There’s the Kingdom of heaven, verse 10, there’s the Kingdom.That’s the kind of headline is a Kingdom preacher.The Lord Jesus is the Kingdom preacher.He preaches the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of heaven in between.In those beatitudes, what you’ll find is that the Lord Jesus Christ is most concerned about your future experience and he says the truly blessed ones are not the ones who are having a great time in life now.

13:19

It’s of no account what your life is like now.What matters most is what your life will be like then.Blessed are you even though but one day you will be when the Kingdom comes, Do you see, without repentance lost, the Kingdom is coming.Make sure that whatever your circumstances are now do not matter compared to the fact of what they will be then.

13:38

Jesus is a Kingdom preacher.The kingdoms come and get it right.The consequences if not getting right are horrific.Come to chapter 5, verse 21.You have heard that it’s said to the people long ago you shall not murder and anyone who murders will be subject to judgement.But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement.

13:54

Anyone who says to a brother or sister, Rucker is answered to the court.Anyone who says you feel within danger of the fires of hell, Jesus is talking to us about the nature of life and in murder and he makes the point that that God is not just concerned about not murdering, He’s concerned about the whole thing and heart behind it, but the consequences of that issue.

14:17

Verse 22 is an explicit expression about judgement in the future adultery.Verse 29, He is again concerned with the heart about last.But look, notice verse 29 and verse 30 there, if any, if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out, throw it away.

14:36

It’s better for you to lose one part of your body, then your whole body be thrown into hell.And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.It’s better for you to lose one part of your body than your whole body to go to hell.Jesus again focused on the coming judgement because the Kingdom, the rule of God is coming.

14:55

He’s going to be uncontested, He’s going to destroy, and He’s deeply concerned if your right eye causes you and so on.This is the first sermon he preaches, and there’s a repeated concern about the coming Kingdom and the judgement as a consequence of that and being right with the king and the judge on that day.

15:12

So concerned is with that future thing that your present circumstances are of little account compared to that future.He teaches on prayer, chapter 6, verse 9, and there’s six requests in the Lord’s Prayer and only one of them concerns your daily bread.

15:29

The rest are all Kingdom prayers, all concerned about the Kingdom.He goes Kingdom, Kingdom, Kingdom.Oh, and pray for your daily bread.But get back to Kingdom issues.He is dominated by the coming Kingdom.Now we’re near the end of the first sermon, but we’re still in the first sermon.He focuses again on eternal things there, Chapter 7, verse 13.

15:46

Have a look at Chapter 7, verse 13.Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.But small as a gate, narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

16:04

He has again this deep concern that your choices now have eternal consequences.Make sure you make the right choices now, because that eternal consequences either life or destruction.It’s no game.He is deeply concerned and it’s deeply serious.

16:24

Near the end of that very first sermon, he warns again, look at verse 21.Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven.Not everyone will enter.I will tell them plainly, depart from me, you.

16:44

We will do us, the Lord Jesus obsessed with this coming day.What fills his heart and his concern is God’s Kingdom being established.And what comes with that day is his judgement, his righteous judgement, which will mean loss for many people.

17:08

And in light of that, Jesus is saying, are you happy now?It doesn’t matter.Are you sad now?It doesn’t matter.What matters is that you are right with the judge on that day.Jesus carries this burden and it’s for your soul, your eternal destiny, this life.

17:30

He keeps seeing through the lens of the coming Kingdom and the seriousness of what that means for every person, for men, women, children, everybody.Now the rest of his ministry.This thought is never far from his thinking.Come with me to chapter 10.Now, just a few chapters later, 10 chapter, chapter 10, verse 15, he speaks of the coming judgement.

17:51

It’ll be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement.Have a look at chapter 12, Chapter 11.Let’s race through Chapter 11, verse 22 and 24.He talks again about the realities of the coming judge will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on that day.

18:08

He keeps coming back to this same theme.Have a look at chapter 13.You rush through to there.He has a series of parables in chapter 13.Look at verse 37.He said to them, one who sowed the good soy is the son of man.The field is the world.The good seed stands for the people in the Kingdom, the weed to the people of the evil. 1 And the enemy sows, that is the devil.

18:27

The harvesters will come, but then you look down first further. 41 The son of man will send out his angels.They will weed out his king out of his Kingdom, everything that causes sin, and all who do evil.They will be thrown into the blazing furnace where they’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

18:47

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.He comes back to this.He cannot leave off teaching this future judgement and the consequences of it.Why?Because it’s true and because it matters so much.

19:07

If you look there at 47, chapter 13, verse 47, once again, the Kingdom is like a net that’s LED down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.Verse 48.But the whole thing ends with judgement.The angels would come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace where they’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

19:28

He is back to the same principle and theme again.You come to chapter 16.Flip across to chapter 16, verse 25.Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

19:47

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul?What can you give in exchange for your soul?The Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glories with the with the angels.Here we find this again extraordinary concern about the future coming.

20:05

What good is it to have wealth and homes and happiness and pleasure and success?It is of no account, says Jesus, in light of your circumstances into eternity, these things do not matter.Chapter 18 Come across to chapter 18, verse 8.

20:26

If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble.He repeats again this concept, Cut it off and throw it away.It is better to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

20:45

Chapter 22.He’s back there again.Come across to chapter 22.He warns there about the danger of judgement, the danger of being cast.Verse 13/22/13 Into Darkness, where there’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

21:02

And then chapter 25 is most explicit, perhaps the most explicit where the judgement is described as the separation of the sheep from the goats, where the sheep, verse 4625, verse 46 go into eternal life, what is hoped?

21:20

Verse 46 What is hoped for them but the goats into eternal judgement.Dear friends, these things are almost unspeakable, but Jesus speaks of them repeatedly again and again and again.

21:46

This future event, the coming Kingdom, the rule of God being re established in his creation and so the eradication of sin and rebellion and evil judgement.

22:06

Jesus is captivated by this fact and that event of the coming Kingdom of God and the judgement to follow means people will either be received into life or cast out a consequence that leaves him in tears for those who were lost.

22:31

He weeps before Jerusalem.The problem, the great problem facing our world is not global warming.It’s not racism, it’s not oppression, it’s not greed, it’s not social inequality, it’s not Trump, it’s not the right, the left.

23:00

The great problem facing our world is the fact that we are rushing headlong towards the coming of the kingly rule of God our Creator, and his terrifying judgement that awaits us.God will establish his rule over all opposition and so will condemn one day sin, rebellion, and evil wherever he finds it.

23:32

This is this is deeply disturbing.And Jesus preached it repeatedly and it was disturbing.It’s so disturbing that our community has largely dismissed it as a relic of a superstitious, brutal past.

23:51

And if we believe in God today, we we basically do believe in God, but we believe in him as a gentler God, as a softer God.And churches, if churches think much of God today, we tend to think of him as love and all love and only love.

24:13

And so if there’s a judgement, we soften it or dismiss it.We soften it with a number of strategies.I’m going to go through those with you in a moment.Or we dismiss it entirely because we think it’s inappropriate.Let me go through this with you to try and keep digging into this thing together.

24:30

One of the strategies, well, I’ve got 4 strategies we typically use to soften the teaching on hell.First one we use is it won’t be eternal.It’ll be annihilation, the eradication of existence, it won’t be eternal.

24:47

Second is it won’t be torment. 3rd, it won’t be God actively punishing.It’ll be us left to ourselves punishing ourselves by our own foolishness and stupidity.There’s not God doing it, it’s us doing it.

25:02

The fourth is that there’ll be a second chance.There’ll always be second chances.This is the famous CS Lewis that hell is locked from the inside and anytime we come to our senses and want to leave, we can.These strategies are used to soften the terror of this reality, or we come finally just to dismiss it entirely.

25:27

It can’t be regarded as fair or just, and so we don’t believe in it anymore.As a way of stepping further into this and spending some more time, let me consider each of these in turn.The first one, is it eternal?Is the judgement of God and the consequences of it eternal?

25:45

In Matthew chapter 8 and verse 8, hell is an everlasting fire that can never be quenched.Mark Chapter 9 verse 45 where the worm never dies.Mark Chapter 9 verse 48 quoting Isaiah 66 verse 24.And at least in three places, New Testament, Old Testament, the condition of those in hell is aligned with the condition of those in heaven.

26:09

That is to say, Matthew 25, verse 46.Everlasting punishment is placed alongside everlasting life.So whatever everlasting means, if it means eternal, everlasting conscious joy in heaven, it means the same thing as everlasting conscious judgement in hell.

26:32

It’s very hard to avoid that.The Bible intends us to understand that hell is eternal.It is forever.Second is a torment.Now it isn’t torture that suggests sadistic abuse, but it is described as torment.

26:57

Revelation chapter 14, verse 11, chapter 20, verse 10.The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.It is a conscious suffering forever. 3 Is God active in this?

27:15

Yes.Matthew chapter 5 verse 29.The body that ends up in hell is thrown there by God.Hell is not humans taking themselves there as if they’re in charge of their future.

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We are not in charge of our future.We are mere creatures.God rules, He directs, He isn’t passively responding.He is sovereign over our destiny, and he is the one who sends and throws.

27:52

We embrace this idea, of course, of us choosing and God simply passive to somehow protect God from seeming like the cruel one.We say He is love.It’s the Sinner who actually puts himself there who takes himself there.But God is the just judge, He is the sovereign Lord, and the Bible doesn’t seem to have our concerns in trying to protect the reputation of God.

28:14

The Bible simply asserts that he is Lord, he is the sovereign judge, and he passes verdict and he sends.God is active. 4th We keep thinking perhaps there are second chances.

28:31

There are no second chances.If it is God the just judge, who has sentenced someone to hell, there is no coming back.It’s been popular to speak of hell being locked from the inside and the ID being that we place ourselves there and we keep ourselves there, and anytime we wanted to return from there we could.

28:55

And so it seems much fairer to express it like this.Now.There is something of that in the Bible.We are responsible agents who make choices.But it is God who casts us, and we are, it seems, in eternity, in hell, given over to our sin forever, which confirms the justice of the judgement.

29:24

But we are not free to leave as if we wanted to.We could.The rich man in Luke, there’s a chasm so that added to the curse of God against the Sinner is despair.

29:44

There is no coming back from that judgement.Who is now not more disturbed?Eternal conscious torment with no hope of release.

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This is.There is no wonder why Jesus taught that it is better to cut off any part of your body that causes you to go there, then go there.It is truly better to live life in misery and grief here and now for the years that we have, and yet be right with God and find yourself in eternity, than to gain the whole world and forfeit your soul.

30:34

And no wonder the apostle Paul had unceasing anguish for those of his brothers who were lost.Unceasing anguish.How do we make sense of it?How do we make sense of all of this?How can it be so that this is true?

30:54

How can it be fair?We struggle with the rightness of hell for at least two reasons, and this is old thinking.Basically, we struggle with the reality of hell because we think too much of ourselves and too little of God.

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This is one reason why we must face the fact of hell, because it helps us properly see ourselves and see God.And our inability to face hell means we continue to think too much of ourselves and too little of God, hence our time this morning.

31:32

And if I might offer an illustration, a little bit of a light, more light hearted illustration, just to give us some beginnings of a sense of this, I’ve, I’m going to RIP off an illustration from my dear brother, Dave Jensen.I don’t know if he’s in the room.I’ll have enough permission, but I don’t care.Dave, there you are.But Dave’s, Dave’s got one really good illustration and this is it.

31:56

No, no, that’s not true.He, he, he, he shared an illustration about during a football game.Just picture the, the, the rugby match happening or the league match, whichever you care about.And during the game, we don’t talk, I feel.But during those, one of those two games 2, two men emerge out of a tackle and they’re furious with each other and one takes a swing at the other, smacks him in the jaw, knocks him unconscious, and the ref rushes in and pulls them apart.

32:23

Well, he doesn’t have to pull much apart because he pulls them apart and he penalises the man who punched and they get a kick in.The game goes on, but when the game’s over, the same man comes to the ref and takes a swing at him and knocks him unconscious.

32:41

Now there’s no just penalty happening.Now what happens now we call the police.This is a far more different issue the police had called for.But when the police arrive, this same man does the same thing.He takes a swing, connects with the policeman, knocks him down and now he’s arrested and thrown into the and in court when he’s brought to the courts because this king ratcheting up when he comes to the courts, what he does is he climbs out of the dock and hits the judge on the jaw and knocks him out.

33:11

And the sentence now is not just a fine, it’s he is in jail, except he escapes and he finds his way into Britain.Who understands Dave stories anyway Anyway, he he finds his way to Britain and he breaks into Buckingham Palace, which which is where the King lives.Who cares?

33:28

We’re somewhere there.He finds the King, grabs the king, the king of all the Commonwealth and takes a swing smack knocks the king unconscious.Actually he just blows on the king and he knocks his unconscious.But he doesn’t seem that strong to me.

33:45

But anyway, there you go.Think King Charles is out like a light on the ground.And now we’re not just talking a prison term, we’re talking life treason.Did you see what’s happening now?The point of the illustration, it’s really good illustration.The point of the illustration is same, same action, same violence, wrong violence is wrong.

34:06

The same action.But each occasion it’s more serious, the punishments more serious each time, because not just because of the nature of the ACT, but the one against whom the ACT has been made.Do you see it?It’s brilliant.And as the nature of the person the ACT is performed against grows in majesty, significance, so the nature of the ACT takes on a greater seriousness.

34:35

And you see where it now lands.Our sin is not against a friend in a football game.It’s not against a mate.It’s not even against any other human.It’s not against the representative of the law.

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It’s not against a king.It’s against the King of kings.It’s against the sovereign Lord of the universe.It’s against the Creator of all things, who made us in His image, who upholds and sustains us, life, breath, and everything else.

35:15

He is entirely other to us, and we have sinned against Him.Do you see the difference?We have spent a great deal of time making God relatable for good reason.He isn’t absent, and He’s not an impersonal force.

35:30

He is close to us.He is near to us.He became flesh and dwelt among us.But when that coming close and imminence of God is not part of the larger picture of His transcendence, something very significant is lost in the way we understand and relate to God.

35:50

He is the holy God.He is outside of us and other to us.He is God over all to whom you cannot compare anything or anyone.We need to use language that that isn’t he.

36:06

We have to find words that can’t really capture because he is so entirely He’s God, we’re he’s creatures.He sustains everything by his word of power, the law, the gracious, the compassion. 1 He was also just and does not leave the guilty unpunished.And it’s against Him that we have sinned.

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You know, I dare say, I dare say we even find it hard now as you’re hearing all of this, to kind of relate to the significance of what’s being said.You probably might find yourself still not feeling it.And I think that itself speaks to sin.

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We have a nature that conspires together with the world around us, and a satanic power who wants us to conspire in this way.We have a nature that wants to diminish God so that we can sin against Him without feeling the horror of it.

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We have thought too little of Him, and therein lies our chief problem.But it’s also that we have thought too much of ourselves.Think with me about sin for a moment.There are many different words in the Bible that are used to describe sin, to express sin.

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We’ve fallen short, we’ve missed the mark, we’ve transgressed.Idolatry is sin.It’s an act of the sin.But what is the heart of sin?All of these different words and thoughts people have identified 9 keywords and thoughts.

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All of They’re not a potpourri of words that you can just pick and choose whenever you want.They have a relationship to each other.That is, some of these words are the thing that sin does.Some of them express more clearly what sin is.

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Some spring from the heart of sin, and some are the heart of sin.What’s the heart of sin?Proud rebellion.Proud rebellion.It is to break His holy law proudly.

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Well, it’s to break his holy law.Why does it matter to get this right?Well, because sin isn’t accidental.Sin isn’t good intentioned but mistaken.And I fear that that’s something of how we’re communicating the nature of sin amongst people today.

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It’s possible to gain the impression from some of our portrayals that really sin is just I tried to do the good thing, but I just missed.I fell and I and and you find yourself going, OK, look, I’m not perfect, but why send me to hell now?

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I think the way we’ve conveyed idolatry is something of that.Many people suggest to us that the sin that’s the issue is that we take what’s good and make it the ultimate family.We take what’s good the family and make it the ultimate.

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We make it an idol and there’s sin.There is sin that is sin.But the danger in that conception is that you can give a sense that people are trying to pursue what’s good they’ve just missed.

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And if you give that sense of what sin is, it feels like it’s just a weakness in us.In making a mistake, I was pursuing what was good and I just got the wrong thing.God what is.Yes, sin does make the good the ultimate, but it does it from a heart that is sent against God.

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Idolatry is sin because our thinking has become foolish.Having failed to honour God as God and give thanks to him, we have exchanged the glory of God for images made to look like mortal men, burdensome.We rebelled in our pride and we rejected his rule.

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In this same way, the most terrible thing about sin isn’t what we do to each other.It isn’t the horizontal.It isn’t because we’re selfish and and and hurt each other that is the working out of the consequences of our proud rebellion against our king God.

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Psalm 51 David, who sinned in all kinds of ways, says against you only have I sinned because he saw where sin really lie.And this attitude of rebellion against God is the core of who we are.

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Outside of Christ we can look at each other as very civil and respectable and polite people.But before the God of the universe, he sees proud rebels throwing off their Creator.

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And this is baked into the very fibre of our being.Every human is born with this nature baked in.We are by nature objects of wrath, and it’s worse than that if it could be worse than that, because this sin problem is now out of our control.

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Romans chapter 8.The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God.It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God, not by compulsion but by necessity, says Calvin.

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The biblical portrayal is is most horrible God.God is far more majestic and holy than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to see, and our rebellion against Him is so much more terrible than we let ourselves see.And it’s left us.

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It’s left us completely at his mercy.We are in the hands of an angry God.There was a very important sermon preached many hundreds of years ago now by Jonathan Edwards.

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You sinners in the hands of an angry God.And here is our great problem as a world.We live in a world that is hostile to its God, who are entirely at the mercy of that God for life, breath, everything else.

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He holds us every moment of our lives.And the God who holds us is angry with us.It’s terrifying if you have the eyes to see it.Now we’re here to talk about the glory of the cross, but we’re going to do that tomorrow because I want us to sit in this.

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We’re also here to talk about your life’s choices and our priorities and how we use our time and what we do in our ministries.We’re here to talk about our pastoral office and the work that we have.As you look out on the world, what is the most important?

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What is the greatest problem confronting us?It’s not politics.It’s not relationships of power and greed and oppression.These are all terrible politics.These things are all very messed up, many of them dreadful.But if there’s anyone in our world that should know what the greatest problem is, it’s meant to be us who are the ones who have our eyes open to see what’s the unseen truth and reality revealed to us by the Word of God, by His Spirit.

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We’re the ones who are meant to be the guardians of that insight, and they’re the we’re the ones who should see and understand what really matters most.Listen to the words of David Bentley Hart friend gave this to me the other day.

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He was engaging with a, a philosopher, a Christian philosopher, churchgoing philosopher who believed in these kinds of things we’ve been talking about.And, and Hart says I cannot take the claims of this philosopher entirely seriously from any angle, for the simple reason that his actions are so resplendently, so resplendently belie what he professes to believe.

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If he truly thought that our situation in this world were as horribly perilous as he claims, how would he be able to rest for a moment?Because he would be driven ceaselessly around the world in a desperate frenzy of evangelism, seeking to save as many souls from the eternal fire as possible.

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I think of him as a remarkably compassionate person, you see, And so he’s more or less sedentary and distractedly scholarly.Style of life, to my mind, speaks volumes.Even libraries, if he were really absolutely convinced of the things he thinks he is convinced of, but still continue to go his merry recreants way along the path of happy professional contentment, he would have to be a moral monster.

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But I don’t think he’s a monster.So I have to think instead that in his heart of hearts he thinks in the end, all will be well and all manner of things shall be well.Do you see what Hart’s saying?Hart doesn’t believe what we believe, but what he is saying is you can see how much the truth of what Jesus is preaching means to us, how much we believe what he actually believed and taught and spoke on repeatedly.

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You can see how much that captivates us by the lifestyles we’ve chosen.And you can see how much we believe it by the way we’re running our ministries now.We haven’t got all the answers now, but it is a time of self reflection.

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Is it possible that our lack of urgency, our distraction, our flirt, flirting with other priorities is because we haven’t allowed ourselves to sit in this most dreadful truth enough?I find myself needing to sit in it more.

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I’m glad Christians get into politics and pursue many different priorities and concerns, but if we do it at the cost of dealing with this great problem facing humanity, we have failed to actually be the people we need to be and our churches are far off centre.

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It’s hard to know what to sing after this, isn’t it?Let me tell you, we do have an answer.More tomorrow.But the crucified, risen Lord Jesus has saved us and we have victory in his name, and we are completely free of the judgement of God.

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And we can rejoice and delight in that and think hard on these things as well.Let me pray, Oh, our great God, the Holy One, we I confess on behalf of us that we have failed to appreciate you as we ought.

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We’ve failed to see you in all your glory as we ought.We failed to see our sin as we ought.We’re sorry.Please forgive us, but please give us eyes to increasingly see these things and give us your grace to have the power to be able to see them and not be undone and destroyed by them, but to come to you, to flee to you as the gracious, loving Heavenly Father who is the holy God.

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And know that in Christ we have an extraordinary hope.May we never boast except in the cross of Christ.We pray.Amen.Well, that was Andrew heard, and I think the most appropriate thing to do right now is to stop and pray.

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And I want to encourage you to do that.But continue on to hear the next two talks that Andrew gives in this series.I’m Pete Hughes, Chat soon.