Well, we are approaching Halloween. It will be here on Sunday. And for many, it's a day about ghosts and ghouls and goblins and pumpkins and candy. But for some of us, the day serves as an annual reminder of the Protestant Reformation. Reformation Day reminds us how Paul's epistle to the Romans ignited a fire in Martin Luther's soul, a fire so bold that he stood against an entire religious system that wanted to shut him up and shut him down.

It didn't. It couldn't. Luther gave his life to preach the gospel of justification before a holy God through the vicarious substitution of Jesus Christ. This reformer epitomizes lion-hearted boldness. So where does such boldness come from? And why are sinners so fearful? As we move towards Reformation Day, this is a great clip from a 1993 John Piper sermon, a sermon on Proverbs 28.1 of all places, which reads this, "The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion." It begins with Pastor John mentioning Proverbs 14.16 and talking about the guilty conscience.

Here he is. "The fool rages and is bold." And the word "bold," "be bold," is the same word as verse 1 of chapter 28, "The righteous are bold as a lion." So fools can be bold and the righteous can be bold. Which causes me to think, like with so many Proverbs, you find this, that what is being said here in this verse is that in general there's something about wickedness that kindles fear and there's something about righteousness that kindles boldness, but it's not so absolute that there isn't a kind of boldness that the wicked can have and there isn't a kind of timidity that now and then the righteous can have.

And we all know that from experience and we know it from the Bible, that there is a reckless boldness that the wicked have, especially in the pursuit of their wickedness. Dirty needles, promiscuous sex, speeding, reckless crime. It takes a lot of stupid boldness to do what many wicked do.

They are not cowardly often in the pursuit of sin. They take manifold risks with their lives and their freedom and their eternity. So there is a kind of boldness that the wicked have. It's just not the kind that's being talked about in verse 1. The kind of boldness that's being talked about here is the boldness that's required in the atmosphere of justice.

And there's something about wickedness that in the atmosphere of justice flees even when there's no one pursuing. There's something about the righteous that is bold as a lion for the cause of justice. What is it about the wicked that makes them flee when no one is pursuing? I think you know the answer to that.

We can find it from the Bible. We can find it in our experience. The answer is a bad conscience, a guilty conscience, an evil conscience makes a person flee when no one is pursuing. When you see a police car, is your first response gratitude that there are law keepers?

When you played basketball or did play basketball or soccer or football, did the way you play affect the response you felt every time the whistle blew? When you're in a conversation, do you begin to defend yourself even before there's been any accusation or anything clearly said against what you think?

Fleeing because you can hear an accuser where there may even be none? We flee when we're not being pursued because we have a bad conscience. There are a lot of things stored up in our lives, bad things that we have done that we have not made right and a voice inside is telling us that someone is after us even when they are not.

Guilt is the parent of fear and our conscience is very creative. Conscience creates pursuers where there ought to be some and are not any. The breeze turns into a burglar, the shadows turn into ghosts, police turn into adversaries, parents turn into police, God turns into an enemy when they are not.

Verse 8 says, "And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." He wasn't pursuing. He didn't have a gun. And he said, "Where are you?" And Adam said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid." And we've been afraid ever since.

We've been afraid of him ever since. A guilty conscience will turn shadows into phantoms and ambulances into police cars and innocent inquiries into indictments and doorbells into threats and mailmen into warrant officers and school teachers into wardens and parents into cross-examiners and friends into traitors and simple office memos into termination papers.

The conscience is almost infinitely creative and the wicked flee where there is no one pursuing but there ought to be. The conscience makes up for what isn't by creating out of nothing the pursuers we need to have to bring us to justice and repentance and reconciliation, forgiveness with people we've wronged.

A guilty conscience creates pursuers where there are none unless you drown it with alcohol or numb it with drugs or blast it with constant loud music and constant escapes from solitude or endless denials. It isn't there. It isn't conscience. It doesn't count. It's not important. I can live without talking to them until you go so far in hardening yourself against this God-given voice that it ceases and you can no more hear the steps of God in the garden and that is a dreadful place to be.

Potent. Okay I'm going to fast forward in the sermon to get from the conscience section to Martin Luther. Here we go. "The righteous ones are the people who trust in the Lord and not in themselves and their own merit and their own deeds and their own righteousness. They trust in the Lord and His mercy and His steadfast kindness and then they are the ones who according to verses 1 and 2 have their sins covered and their iniquities are not imputed to them.

They simply are not counted because they trust in the Lord. Now that's who the righteous are in the Old Testament, the New Testament and everywhere in this universe. The righteous are people who trust in the Lord and bank on Jesus Christ for everything they have and need and they are as bold as a lion.

If you can have that kind of boldness with God like Martin Luther had so that you know as you look the almighty, holy, infinitely wise and beautiful God in the face, you know He imputes no iniquity to you, you will be as lion-hearted as can be with men. Fear with men is rooted in the fear of not being right with God.

If you knew God was standing at your right hand with infinite power, with His right hand on your shoulder, you'd be bold. You'd be bold as a lion. Now I want to take Martin Luther as an example of that. In 1521, the lion-heartedness came out. His whole life was one of incredible courage.

Let me close with one illustration of his boldness. It was the fall of 1521. It was in the city of Worms. Charles, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, biggest empire since Charlemagne, was there in the cathedral. Frederick the Wise, the local governor, was there. The bishop, the archbishop of Trier was there named Eck, and in a room this size, at least, it was filled with lords and nobles, every one of them against Martin Luther, and all of them having the capacity to sentence him to death for heresy and treason if he did not recant his criticisms of the Holy Catholic Church.

Eck said, "Do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors which they contain?" And first in German, and then they asked him to repeat it in Latin so that it could go down in the official register. He responded like this, "Since then, your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth.

Unless I am convicted by Scripture in plain reason, I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other. My conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.

Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen." The righteous are as bold as a lion. They are as bold as a lion because they are righteous in Christ. They look into the face of God and they see a smile which imputes to them no iniquity, but rather makes him who knew no sin to be sin, that they might become the righteousness of God.

And standing clothed with the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, they are as bold as a lion before God and before men. And my prayer for us in these days as a church is that God, by the gospel, by the gospel of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ through faith, might deliver us from fear of God and fear of men and make us valiant for the truth in this city.

So good. So where do you find gospel boldness? You find it in the gospel itself. The boldness is the product of the gospel, of the cleansed conscience. Amazing. This clip was taken from John Piper's sermon preached on May 2nd, 1993, titled "The Righteous Are Bold as a Lion," a sermon on Proverbs 28.1.

You can find the whole thing at DesiringGod.org. Thanks for listening to today's clip. These are crowdsourced normally. You tell us what bits of Piper's sermons changed your life, and we share that clip with the APJ audience. If you've got one, email me. Give me your name, hometown, sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio, and tell me how it impacted you.

Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. That's an email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. Well on the morning after the crazy November 2020 election here in the States, several culture commentators observed that amid all the confusion over who won the presidency, there was no mistaking who won the night.

Marijuana. Four additional states passed ballot measures to legalize adult-use pot for recreational use, and none of the votes were even close. As recreational use gains widespread support in red and blue states, it's raising new issues for pastors and parents in churches. We're going to look at those issues next time.

I'm your host Tony Reinke. We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday, and we'll see you then. 1 Pastor John, I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here.

I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here.