How Churches Sabotage the Love of God
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Well, professing Christians and pastors and churches all over the world are undermining the glory of God's love.
00:00:10.000 | How so? By advocating for God's love in denial of his other attributes and actions.
00:00:16.000 | That's what Pastor John explains today in a clip from his 1999 sermon on Romans 5, verses 9-11.
00:00:23.000 | Today's clip was sent to us from a longtime podcast listener named Grant Harms.
00:00:27.000 | And the sermon is based on Romans 5, verses 9-11.
00:00:31.000 | Let me read this glorious text first, then we'll listen to the clip.
00:00:35.000 | "Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
00:00:43.000 | For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,
00:00:47.000 | much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.
00:00:52.000 | More than that, more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
00:00:57.000 | through whom we have now received reconciliation."
00:01:03.000 | Pastor John is about to expound this main text in a moment after he makes a point from the book of Revelation.
00:01:10.000 | Here now is Pastor John.
00:01:12.000 | Revelation chapter 20, verse 15 says this, "If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life,
00:01:25.000 | he was thrown into the lake of fire."
00:01:30.000 | What's that? What's that like?
00:01:34.000 | Chapter 14, verse 10 of Revelation describes what it will be like in the lake of fire.
00:01:42.000 | "They will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb,
00:01:51.000 | and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever."
00:01:59.000 | This is fire or like fire?
00:02:04.000 | I've heard some people say fire is just a metaphor.
00:02:09.000 | I say just a metaphor.
00:02:13.000 | Just a metaphor.
00:02:15.000 | What are metaphors for?
00:02:18.000 | What are metaphors for?
00:02:22.000 | Metaphors are because you can't describe the reality.
00:02:27.000 | Metaphors don't overstate, they understate.
00:02:32.000 | Just a metaphor.
00:02:35.000 | It says fire, not because it's less than fire,
00:02:40.000 | but because we're groping for language to describe the horror of it.
00:02:45.000 | Okay, it's a metaphor, but if it's a metaphor, it's worse than fire.
00:02:51.000 | And it's torment, and it's forever.
00:02:57.000 | No getting out.
00:03:00.000 | This is not purgatory, which doesn't exist.
00:03:06.000 | Forever and ever.
00:03:08.000 | It's the strongest word for eternity in the Greek language.
00:03:13.000 | It's a phrase. Phrase upon phrase.
00:03:16.000 | Forever and ever and ever.
00:03:20.000 | This is terrifying.
00:03:22.000 | Terrifying.
00:03:24.000 | Terrifying.
00:03:26.000 | And the question is, who will rescue us?
00:03:32.000 | Who are you counting on to rescue you from the wrath of God?
00:03:38.000 | Because your conscience tells you,
00:03:42.000 | you have not lived up to his law, and you are under judgment.
00:03:46.000 | You don't need the Bible to tell you that, though it does.
00:03:51.000 | Who are you counting on to rescue you from the wrath of God?
00:03:56.000 | Now the answer of the New Testament is that there is one person who can rescue us from the wrath of God,
00:04:01.000 | and only one.
00:04:04.000 | God.
00:04:07.000 | Only God can rescue us from the wrath of God.
00:04:10.000 | Let me show you why I say that.
00:04:13.000 | There are five main verbs in verse 9 and 10,
00:04:19.000 | and they're all passive.
00:04:22.000 | Let's count them.
00:04:24.000 | Having now been justified, one,
00:04:29.000 | shall we be saved, two,
00:04:33.000 | if while we were enemies we were reconciled, three,
00:04:38.000 | to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, four,
00:04:43.000 | shall we be saved, five.
00:04:45.000 | Five passive verbs where we are being acted upon.
00:04:51.000 | We are being justified, we are being reconciled, we are being saved.
00:04:55.000 | So who's doing it?
00:04:58.000 | The Father or the Son?
00:05:02.000 | Answer, the Father.
00:05:07.000 | Why do I say that?
00:05:09.000 | God the Father is justifying, reconciling, and will save from His wrath.
00:05:19.000 | Why do I say that?
00:05:21.000 | Look at verse 10.
00:05:23.000 | It says, "We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son."
00:05:31.000 | Now you wouldn't say that if the Son were the actor here of the reconciling.
00:05:37.000 | You don't say, "The Son reconciled us to God through the Son."
00:05:46.000 | You can't say that. That doesn't make sense.
00:05:48.000 | The Son reconciled us to God through His Son.
00:05:51.000 | You say, "God the Father reconciled us to God through His Son."
00:05:56.000 | And so I say, "Who is the Savior from wrath?"
00:06:02.000 | God the Father saves us from His wrath.
00:06:08.000 | Oh, this is important.
00:06:11.000 | It shouldn't surprise us.
00:06:13.000 | Look at verse 8. We're not on verse 8 this week, but we've been on it.
00:06:17.000 | Verse 8, "God demonstrates His love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
00:06:25.000 | God loves you.
00:06:31.000 | And God is so angry with you,
00:06:37.000 | that His love will rise to the heights of rescuing you from His anger.
00:06:44.000 | Now let me make something really clear here, because this is so important.
00:06:49.000 | Don't make the mistake of defending the love of God by denying the wrath of God.
00:07:00.000 | Because what you do when you try to defend the love of God by denying the wrath of God is destroy the love of God.
00:07:08.000 | Why? Because in the Bible, the highest point of the love of God is His rescue from the wrath of God.
00:07:16.000 | If there's no wrath, the whole fabric of the Bible unravels.
00:07:21.000 | The greatest love that God ever showed you was rescuing you from wrath.
00:07:28.000 | That's the point of verses 6 to 8, is it not?
00:07:34.000 | Oh, there's so many people, there's so many people who try to rescue God as a God of love by denying the fabric of the Bible.
00:07:43.000 | By denying the wrath of God.
00:07:48.000 | You destroy it, at least the way the Bible conceives of it.
00:07:52.000 | The highest point of love toward you was the cross.
00:07:58.000 | And the only reason there had to be a cross is because of the just wrath of God.
00:08:06.000 | Were there no just wrath about to be poured out upon the world, He would not have bruised His Son.
00:08:15.000 | And that was love. Oh, that was love.
00:08:19.000 | So please, please let's not join the crowd of liberalism.
00:08:25.000 | I'm defining liberalism for you. If you wonder, "What's liberalism?" I'm defining it.
00:08:32.000 | Liberalism removes the just wrath of God and the substitutionary atonement that describes the love of God as the rescue from that wrath.
00:08:44.000 | It has a benevolent Father and a Son who sets an example of how much the Father loves in suffering.
00:08:55.000 | That is a destruction of biblical religion entirely.
00:09:00.000 | Amen. Pointed critique, very necessary.
00:09:03.000 | That clip was from a John Piper sermon titled "Much More Shall We Be Saved by His Life" preached on December 12th, 1999.
00:09:11.000 | The clip was sent in by Grant Harms. Grant, thank you.
00:09:14.000 | "Hello Tony and Pastor John," he writes, "in the evenings my wife and I are listening through Pastor John's sermons on Romans."
00:09:19.000 | Great series.
00:09:20.000 | We just finished sermon number 58, so we're only about 167 more to go.
00:09:26.000 | "This clip is great at explaining why portraying God as only a God of love and not also a God of wrath actually robs Him of His greatest demonstration of love, that is, dying to save us from His wrath."
00:09:40.000 | Amen, Grant. Great find. Thank you.
00:09:42.000 | And thanks for listening to today's sermon clip.
00:09:44.000 | All our clips are not crowdsourced.
00:09:45.000 | You tell us what bits of Piper sermons caught your attention or changed your life, and we share that clip with the ABJ audience.
00:09:51.000 | And if you have one, email me.
00:09:53.000 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, and the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio, and tell me how it impacted your life.
00:10:00.000 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email, and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:06.000 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:11.000 | Well, if my repentance is genuine, why do I keep confessing this same sin?
00:10:16.000 | And if my repentance was genuine, wouldn't I stop committing the same sins?
00:10:21.000 | I don't know of any Christian who has not asked these types of questions before, and I'll ask it of John Piper next time.
00:10:27.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We're rejoined in studio with Pastor John when we return on Friday.
00:10:31.000 | We'll see you then.
00:10:32.000 | [Music]
00:10:36.000 | [Music]