Glock, David: Week Of Meetings-2008-03 ~ We Love Self For Our Own Sake-2

I remember those, uh, songs myself, uh, and when I was, uh, would have been Greenwood Hills. Any Greenwood Hills people here? When I've been Greenwood Hills, after we'd sing those songs and have a message from whoever, we'd go out and play softball. So let's go play softball. That's what I feel like doing. I play third base. Do we have a team with us? Anybody play first? First as a first baseman, second baseman? Second... shortstop. I'll take third, right field. Uh, right field was center field. Left field, we're getting left out now. And a bench. And, and now all I do when I sing songs like that is stumble out to the golf cart and go back to my room, you know? The progress of age. Uh, our program, as we're going through these, is to, uh, in the evenings, uh, present the subject, and then in this hour have a little discussion. Do you like discussion, anybody? Yeah, nowadays, uh, that's the about the only way to teach. As we move from lecture to participation, people say, you know, the students learn more from one another than they do from the faculty nowadays. That being the case, let's just put them in the dorm and let them learn, you know. Uh, I don't think it really works that way, but uh, there are changing attitudes toward education over the years, and we understand that. By way of review, we are looking at the various stages of, uh, our affections. We come into this world loving ourselves. We are self-centered. That's what we looked at last evening, and we'll review a little bit of that and have some interaction. Uh, tonight we will, uh, look at the fact that there was, uh, the time of, uh, our lives between our birth and conversion where God touched us with what we call prevenient grace, the grace of God in our lives, before we ever knew it was happening, before we came to salvation. That's an exciting subject. It, it starts to get positive. So many said, well, that was a discouraging message last night, you know, we're so bad. It gets better, okay? That's where we all started. It was bad. That's the fact. Tonight we'll look at his, uh, work before salvation, and tomorrow morning we'll talk about that some, and so on down. Uh, the fact that we come to love God for God's sake once we are saved. We'll talk about that then in the morning and keep following that pattern. So today we are basically reviewing and discussing the text that we did not look at last evening, uh, that are in your packet. But I would, uh, like to put forth some of the statements I made, read to you, uh, for your, uh, observation. How do you like this one? No unregenerate man can properly respect himself. Self-respect belongs only to the man who lives in God and who has God's image restored in him thereby. True self-love is not love for the happiness of the self, but for the worth of the self in God's sight. And this self-love is the condition of all genuine and worthy love for others. But true self-love is in turn conditioned by love to God as holy, and it seeks primarily not the happiness, but the holiness of others. The unregenerate man cannot have a valid self-worth image. Do you like that? Does that trouble any of you? I'm happy to have you participate. These are not rhetorical questions I'll be asking. Yes. No, we hear, uh, the response was the NEA will not agree with that statement. The world will not agree with that statement, by and large. Uh, our whole desire is to get people to have a, a, uh, good self-image, no matter what that self is. And if we, and this is the struggle you all went through last night when we were looking at our own previous to salvation condition, it's an ugly picture. It is an ugly picture. Sin really did touch us, messed us up badly. Uh, it's one thing to think about Adam before the fall and all the beauty of the garden and the harmony between God and man and his wife and the creatures of the earth. That didn't last very long, and and the fall is properly named. It is an enormous fall and impacted on us all in terrible ways, yet we hang on to this picture. Uh, we do as Christians, knowing better, the unsaved world ha- has no other vision than that, that we are basically good creatures and, uh, worthy of respecting ourselves. The self-image is, uh, to be, uh, generated and encouraged, and and much of our education is on, uh, a good image of yourself. We joked about softball. Competition's a terrible thing nowadays. Everybody's got to win. So we, we put it that way, uh, we don't even keep score anymore. Why play? You know, uh, that's the point of it. It's an interesting world to not harm a person's self-image, and in reality, you can't really have a good image until the image is in conformity to Jesus Christ. Then we have basis for it. It's a tough statement, tough in our era. I, uh, mentioned that in relationship to the, the basic concepts of sin, that different theologians, different folk have had different basic views. Luther and Calvin felt that sin, uh, is unbelief. Augustine and Aquinas, uh, said that it's pride. Strong and Rari, and I like this myself, uh, define sin as selfishness. Do you have any opinions on those options that are out there? The three big words, selfishness, pride. Uh, self-esteem and self-concept. That was really big, uh, mantra in the 70s and 80s. Uh, parent effectiveness training, all of that sort of stuff, the parent effectiveness training. Uh, how does this idea of self-respect and, uh, self-acceptance, self-love fit in when you think of, uh, what the Lord taught, or, you know, all the way up through Deuteronomy six, that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your, your soul, your s- your, your mind, and your strength. And of course, they would have learned that, you know, the, that shema of Israel, even, uh, before they learned, you know, they would learn to pray before they learned to, uh, really, uh, have a full vocabulary. How would that fit in with the, the whole emphasis on loving the Lord right from, uh, day one, just about, where they int- you know, they taught that, so. In the New Testament equivalent, from a child you've known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation. We, in fact, teach our children, as in the Old Testament and the New, biblical principles from the get-go. We hold them accountable to that, but in both instances, uh, the unregenerate man will not turn that way naturally himself. We guide them, we direct them, we command them. No lying, that sort of thing. Uh, with the concept that in time that will become personal through salvation in Jesus. We show them what respect for God and for the word is, that they hopefully one day will imitate themselves through the exercise of faith. Uh, you- you're right, I don't expect my children or grandchildren to live apart from the principles of the Judeo-Christian ethic, but it's not really real until they come to faith in Jesus Christ. They're following us, that's all. Now that raises a big time question. They may think that's all they ever have to do. And they live so much like a Christian, do we ever have to come to faith? They're the hard kind of questions to deal with, but I- I think in both instances we have the standard, and uh, bring them to that standard, but it is only a reality when they come to faith in Christ or faith to the revelation of God in the Old Testament. Does that help? I think that's the way we have to come at it. It's not that we say live like a pagan because that's what you are until you come to faith in Jesus Christ. From a child, you train them, and then they are delivered from that. Becomes personal. In the formal churches, that would be, uh, the concept of, uh, infant baptism, where you put them on holy ground. That's the theory. And then at confirmation time, they themselves say that what you have taught me, I believe personally. Would it be safe in that context to say that, um, man needs to get saved not so much because of what he's done as because of what he is? Because man's not a sinner because he commits sins, he commits sins because he is a sinner. That's right. That's one area of sin that guarantees that early on we commit personal acts of sin. I, uh... I, I don't think many of us, when we come to faith in Christ, recognize the sin nature question. We recognize the individual sin question that we have offended God through individual sins. Later on, we find out, now I know why I did that. That's what David says. We'll look at that psalm even today. What David says at the get-go. Uh, fewer of us ever come to realize, uh, the impact of imputed sin in our lives. Uh, we will a- attend, uh, funerals, and we will hear people say that he died of old age, or he died of cancer, or it was a terrible car accident. That's not why he died. That's how he died. Why he died is one act of sin in the Garden of Eden, and we don't think about that very often. Uh, the concept that death is appointed unto man once to die, every one of us, and after that the judgment, whether it be the judgment seat of Christ or the great white throne judgment, it's appointed unto man once to die. That's a result of one act of sin in which none of us participated. We don't come on that very often, but recall we, we did identify these three uh basic categories of sin that touch us all. The sin nature, how we are born, individual acts of sin, thousands of, multiplied thousands of them that break fellowship with God, and finally the last reach of sin when we come to that appointed time of death. Yes, sir. You have given the one word definition for sin of being, um, uh, selfishness, pride, or unbelief. Right. What I've always been taught, it was really none of those, but rather rebellion. Rebellion is the issue of sin, but I just wanted you to discuss on that a little bit. Rebellion is an act that follows a state. Because I am selfish, I rebel. Or you would say because of pride, I want to be first, I rebel. Or because I don't believe what God really says, I rebel. But there's something prior to rebellion, and I think there is something prior to pride and prior to disbelief. That's why I think selfishness is the best definition. I don't believe that. I'm first. I- I want someone to, uh, worship me. I want to be like the most high God. I'm first, that's why. And that's why I think the concept of, of strong and hard is another, or selfish, that selfishness is the best one word definition. Me first. Now that has manifestation in pride and rebellion, uh, in unbelief, because I'm going to determine what I believe. I'm a free moral agent or a free immoral agent. I will, I will decide however I want to decide. And that's me first. That's selfishness. And that is, uh, so much a part of each one of us, as I've mentioned. Now, I- I- I went over this quickly, how this selfishness manifests itself. I mentioned avarice. That's selfishness in relationship to what I want. Pride, it's for me. It- it's the kid saying mine. I mentioned the selfishness of ambition that says I want power, I want control, I want to be in charge. I'm number one. The selfishness of vanity where I want esteem others to honor me for whatever accomplishments there may be. And then the selfishness of pride that sets me apart from everyone else. I will be like the Most High God is where we see that originating. I like this, uh, good way of saying things. Selfishness. Self-sufficiency instead of faith. And that's a statement. When we slip from dependence on God to self-sufficiency, that's sin. Even as Christians, we have a tendency. Do you ever feel like you got it all under control yourself? Everything's going just according to my schedule. I can handle this. Do you ever feel that way? I love to feel that way. When my day goes just the way I planned it, and everything is falling into place, and I think I got it made. And periodically we're reminded that w- we're never independent like that. We are never self-sufficient. And the Bible tells us that in him we live and move and have our being. James says, look, when you make a plan, you got to say it this way, Lord willing. Because our breath is in our nostrils, our breath is a vapor. Have you noticed that? One bad breath and our plans are gone for extended periods of time. Uh, that happened with, with Mel's, uh, recent hospitalization. Uh, I'm doing devotions with the faculty and staff, and we have a time of prayer, and we took the prayer request, and everybody closed their eyes, and my son came in, grabbed me by the arm, and said, we got to go take mom to the hospital. What that messed up my day? Messed up this wonderful week for me. You know, I call Melzi and tell her I'm having a wonderful time. She... I can't tell her that. I have to tell her it's really bad. We ran out of food, you know. We haven't had a good time at all. Everybody, now you know I can't do that, obviously. But, you know, one moment of time. Have you all noticed how one moment of time can change everything you're doing? But we think we're in control. Self-sufficiency instead of faith. Self-will instead of submission. I'm going to do it my way. I have a tendency to do that. Can I tell you a very carnal thing about myself? I, I kind of enjoy Frank Sinatra's song, I Did It My Way. Oh yeah, listen to that thing. Any- do you all know that one? Oh man. Uh, that's such a independent, I'm in charge kind of a thing, isn't it? And there's something in my German genes that I've inherited that matches up with that. My children know that. Oh, bad, you know. Self-seeking instead of benevolence. Seeking what is for me instead of benevolence, uh, seeking the other good. We, we learned that that's not the mind of Christ, but this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Don't look on your own things only, but also on the things of others. That's the mind of Christ. That's a hard lesson to learn, isn't it? You mentioned the, the great command, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and Jesus says, and your neighbor as yourself. We don't love our neighbors as ourselves, do we? Even as Christians, we don't. I remember on one occasion, uh, I was staying in one of the trustees' homes when I first, uh, started to teach at Emmaus, and there, there was a ambulance that came nearby. We lived a block away. Uh, man, that's at the intersection where my kids are playing. So I walked down the street, and I saw a crumbled bike under a car. Oh man, my heart started to beat. I got closer, and I found out it was one of the neighbor's kids. How do you think I responded? Praise God. Yeah. You really love your neighbor as yourself, don't you? You know? Now we were sympathetic and all that sort of thing, but I was relieved. And self-seeking instead of benevolent, self-righteous instead of humble. As I stood in that hospital room and I looked at my wife and looked at this, this lady in such dire distress, there was a very real temptation to say, why, how can you be that dumb? How can you be that hardened? Oh, glad I'm not, and you're starting to be the Pharisee. Understand how easily that happens. That is Christians, and the unsaved world has this as the running way of life. This is the way we go at it. Well, let's look at some of these verses that we have in front of us, because it accounts for this whole ugly question of sin. Isaiah fourteen is the first section. These verses for contemplation. This is where sin started. There are 2 passages in the Old Testament that, uh, relate to... Ah, there's a clock over there. Uh, we'll do this one. There are two passages in the Old Testament that relate to the origin of sin, one in Isaiah, the other in Ezekiel. And the chapter arrangement is very nice, Isaiah fourteen and Ezekiel twenty eight. If you remember that, you got both passages, uh, of where sin starts. Isaiah fourteen, double it, twenty eight. go a little further into the major prophets, Ezekiel, and you have it. Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28. And what is being described is the angelic power behind the kings, uh, that were ruling in that day. And you have description of the, the worldly king, and then you have, uh, right connected to it, description of heavenly beings, spirit beings, that are the empowerment of the, the nations that, that move through, uh, the prince of the power of this age. And in both instances, there are descriptions of Lucifer, Satan, and, uh, the origin of sin. Here it is. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the further sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Sir. Uh, he was perfect in all his ways. So, and with what nature was Satan Lucifer created? In the, uh, account in, uh, Ezekiel, it says he is the anointed cherub, full of beauty and wisdom. The sum of beauty. It is the best thing God could create as a being, as an angel being. He was number one, The anointed cherub, having to do with the approach to God. Perfect in all his ways. And then it goes on to say this, and this is the verse of scripture that identifies the origin of sin. Sin was found in him. That is passive. God did not create sin. God did not put sin in him. It was found in him. Now I have a theory as to how it worked out. You want to hear it? Uh, this helps me. It may not help anybody else, it helps me. Satan's problem, Luci- Lu- Lucifer's problem is he wor- woke up one glorious morning. That sounds like part of a song. He woke up one glorious morning in heaven, if they have mornings in heaven, and uh, he said, you know what, I'm not number one. That's what we just read. I, I want to be God. I want to be number one. And uh, as soon as that thought entered his mind, there was sin. Sin was found in him. The problem with Lucifer was he would not accept his role. He wasn't satisfied with his role as he saw it. It's a question of authority. In Jude, when Michael and Lucifer get in a fight over the body of Moses, and that's interesting little verse itself. Michael, a good, holy, elect angel, two phrases, two words related to angels that are mysterious. Elect angels. Whoa, what's that mean? Holy angels. Uh, there were some, some way preserved from the change that took place in the other angels. They were holy and they were like the other angels, evidently not, uh, because they went and sinned in the rebellion. Lucifer, Satan, and Michael are in this battle. Michael recognized that here was this angel who was in authority over all other angels. He is the anointed cherub, and he would not bring a railing accusation even against this fallen angel. You see, Michael understood the question of authority. That is a big time question to understand. The faith that the Lord Jesus commends most is the faith that he saw in the centurion. Do you recall that story? Who had a servant that was sick, and he says to Jesus, you don't have to come. You can say, I'm a man under authority, and I can say to my servant, go, and he goes, and come, and he comes. You can do the same thing. And Jesus says, I've never seen faith like that in all of Israel. And it's faith in relationship to role and authority. The perfection of the Godhead, which is, here's my theory, a higher order of perfection than angelhood, because angels are not equivalent to God. The perfection of the Godhead and the strength of the attributes of the Godhead is the only setting in which the question of submission can be handled without rebellion. There is the first and second and third members of the Godhead. We say that for a reason. The reason we say it is that the Father, this comes out of the Upper Room Discourse, the Father sends the Son, and the Son says, I will pray the Father, and he will send the Holy Spirit, and when I return to heaven, I will send the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. The Father sends the Son and the Spirit. The Son sends the Spirit. Godhead is submissive to itself. There is a hierarchical structure, functioning structure in the Godhead, and it relates to role and authority. It takes the perfection of the Trinity to be able to handle that without rebellion. The perfection of angelhood couldn't do that. The perfection, same concept when he created man and woman, he said they're good. No sin there, but they were at a lower level even than angels, and they could not handle the question of authority. That's where it comes in. Perfect beings, but not as perfect as God. I know you can't say perfect and more perfect, but when you're dealing with different levels of being, you certainly can. The strength of God's perfection is complete. The strength of angel perfection is less than God. The strength of human perfection is less than angels, less than God. And hence, when we see something outside of ourselves, greater than ourselves, that less than God perfection allows for sin to be found. That helps me some. I hope it helps you. Was found in him. God is not the author. Yes, sir. It would seem that Lucifer had a choice. Absolutely. Whereas man had no choice. I think Adam and Eve did one. Man is, uh, biased to evil from the start and is unable to make an unbiased choice. I don't think Adam was. From then on, that's the case. Adam was perfect just like Lucifer was before that choice. I will agree, this is part of the fall. Once fallen, the original game of, of mankind is instituted. It is hide and seek. Men hide, God seeks. There's none that seek after God. How many? No, not one. It takes the intervention of God to start that motion in us to come to him. We would never come otherwise. And I could say something about seeker-friendly churches, but I won't. Echelon of authority reflected in the church. Christ is the head of the church. Absolutely. And Christ, God is the head of Christ, Right. and Christ is the head of the man, and to what degree is that echelon of the party recognized today? Well, there's great debate. In fact, uh, the next two steps are man, woman. There's a lot of debate on that in church life presently. We are doing a senior seminar with all of our Bible majors on, uh, the, the hot button issue of, uh, egalitarianism in the church or role in the pr- in the church, and that's under question. It, it's making it into the family too. It's not only that we have an authority structure in the Trinity, God, Christ, uh, the Holy Spirit, in the church, God, Christ, man, woman. We have, excuse me, authority structure in the home. So husband's the head of the, the wife. uh, the parent children are to obey the parents. We're playing games with that too. It's reaching all the way down. And uh, whenever we cross the line of, of uh, hierarchical structure that comes from God, we do that with great danger to ourselves. The Apostle Paul will say that, uh, to the Corinthians who had that all messed up, he said, look, you're the only church that's got this out of order. And he goes on to say what, uh, what action to take. He says, if you want to ignore it, ignore it. You be- want to be ignorant, be ignorant. Just keep on going that way. You- you have mom not, uh, the wife, uh, not recognizing the hierarch- hierarchal structure of the husband and the wife, and we turn around and wonder why children don't recognize it as well. You see, it's not real complicated, and yes, in each level, because it's the hardest thing to do, and that's why Jesus said, I haven't seen this kind of faith in all of Israel. Now, I have to say, as we discussed this particular issue of getting out of line of how God has arranged things, that the important thing to recognize, that role has nothing to do with, in talking about self-esteem, role has nothing to do with your personal worth. Every year I teach students, uh, there's nothing quite like God on earth and a teacher in his classroom. You realize that? You're in charge of it all. You pass us down. If you don't like a person, you can flunk them. You know, you can mess with that. Uh, and I give assignments, and they do them. Every year, there are people in my classes who have a much greater native ability than I have. They're just younger, that's all. Give them forty or fifty years, and they'll be way down the line if they keep moving. Much smarter. Role doesn't make me smarter. Role doesn't even make me more spiritual on a given day. Even though I'm the teacher and they're the student, they're the young, immature person, well, I can be an old, out of touch with God person, and they can be closer related to God on that given day than I am, but you're still in charge. You understand, role and who you are don't necessarily go together. I think it may be raining. We want that, don't we? And we should not be afraid of that. Uh, in our day, the ladies struggle with that some, because we men have told them that sometimes. Oh, we're going to have a theological discussion, don't you want to go cook? You know, that- that's an insult. We have more knowledge and not love. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Uh, they operate as if we all have knowledge and not love. That doesn't count. That's a zero. If I give my body to the environment without love, that's a zero. That's a bummer, isn't it? That's very much mistaken. You sit there and you say, how do you like that guy? He says, nothing. Wrong motive. That makes you feel pretty bad. Right? That was only one little section of scripture. Man is from God's standards. Sure. Sure, the further we deviate from the truth, the more responsible and darker. Absolutely. Let's look at the next section. This is where sin broke into the human race. We won't look at the whole section, uh, you know it. The test that God gave, the failure of man, Satan comes down. Now Satan can only do evil continually. That's all he does, even when it seems good. He's appearing as an angel of light for evil purposes. So he comes down and tempts our, our first parents. Yea, has God said. And what ensues is the fall of Adam and Eve. And, uh, we see how things come, uh, unglued initially. Look at verse nine: Then the Lord God called to Adam and said, where are you? This is hide and seek. Up until now, they walked together. Now it's hide and seek. Man is hiding, God is seeking. He said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself, which is a good idea generally. And he said... Don Cole on one occasion said from the platform, once you're forty, clothes are your best friend. And that's the truth, isn't it? No. He hid himself. I was thinking, he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I command you should not eat? As if God didn't know, but he asked this question. Then the man said, here, here it starts, ladies. Uh, how many of you ladies have been in this position in your lifetime? This is why this hierarchical structure is so hard. The man says, the woman now gavest me. It's one of my favorite verses at home. I, I quote it all the time. Uh, my wife will say, if she were here, she said, I've heard it a million times, don't laugh at it, please. Uh, but it it's good. The woman thou gavest me. We want to blame somebody else all the time. I'm the victim. Is that with the world? Yes, it is. The woman thou gavest me. A little while later, we see Cain and Abel come on the scene, and Cain kills Abel. Did sin have a lasting impact? Look what, look what God says. Uh, I'm gonna give you three sets of curses. I'm gonna curse the serpent, the vehicle through which, uh, Satan worked. And, uh, I'm going to curse the ground, and I'm gonna curse man and woman. And because of that, because of that, man, uh, his responsibility to be the breadwinner particularly, by the s- sweat of his brow, will work day after day after day and finally die exhausted because of sin. Isn't that right? That's what happens. And to the woman he says, uh, I will greatly multiply your sorrow in your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children. Would any of you ladies like to give a testimony to that at this point? A product of the fall. You know, they, they, they give you all this mean instruction. The husband goes in now, and you learn how to breathe with your wife, yeah, all that sort of thing, you know, a deep breath, you know, relax, all that. And, and when it comes time for delivery, watch out, you know. You know, that kind of thing happens. Some of you men will have experience. Well, we're probably all too old. I was back in the day when you sat and waited. Thank God. Yeah. Because I'd have passed out on the floor. That's what I would do. It is painful. I mean, let's hear a series of female amens to that, can we? Listen to that, guys. It's the truth. It's sort of like kidney stones for the men, okay? Same level. There's a verse that says, and your desire shall be toward your husband. That word for desire is the same thing that, uh, the desire of a, the, uh, animal is at the door. It's crouching. This is not a positive statement. This is a statement that you are going to forever be in rebellion against your husband, and hence he must be the ruler over you. We inherit that situation in life because of sin. The ground is cursed as well, and that has all impacted on us. That's part of sin. It is a horrible fall from walking with God in a beautiful setting, face-to-face communion with God on a daily basis, to all the barriers that God himself establishes for worship. You see it in the tabernacle. All the details that say you can't come into my presence, as opposed to let's take a walk. The sin has impacted on us. The Genesis six passage is interesting. How bad do we get? The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Is that a statement? Every intent of his heart was only evil continually. That doesn't leave any wiggle room. And God saw that early on as man, uh, continued to multiply, and he made a decision that it was going to destroy the race. I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. Now, that looks like God changes his mind. It's one of the, uh, questions that we must deal with when we come to the, uh, doctrine of immutability. Any change in God is either for better or for worse. And if he needs to change for better, he is not perfect. And if he needs to change for worse, he becomes imperfect. God cannot change. And there are statements that say that. Uh, there is no, uh, James one seventeen— there is no shadow cast by his turning. Uh, Hebrews thirteen— Jesus Christ the same to yesterday and today and forever. God is immutable. He does not change. Then what is this kind of language? This is, uh, what I call linguistic anthropomorphism. Doesn't that help? It's God talking the way human beings talk, so we can understand his feelings. It's not really saying, I'm gonna kill everybody, it's all over. That would be plan B, and God doesn't have any plan B. He works all things after the counsel of his own will. So what we have in this statement is a statement that you and I may have made about a number of things. I'm sorry I ever decided to do that. It's just not turned out right. Have any of you ever said anything like that? Felt that way? You may have said it in relationship to who you are. My father said to me on one occasion, you know, if your brother, and I had one brother was, uh, stillborn, he said, if Paul hadn't have been stillborn, you'd have never been here. Talk about self-worth. I mean, I wasn't planned for at all. I was an afterthought. That's why I'm so insecure, you understand. Uh, sometimes I say, man, if I'd have known it had turned out this way, I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have bought that car if I'd known that was what was going to happen. I wouldn't have purchased this home. I wouldn't have taken that job. It only lasted six weeks after I had it. And we know the, the frustration of a thing like that, don't we? Well, God puts it in our kind of feeling. He is, uh, angry over the rebellion of men. They do evil continually. No wiggle room. This is the same thing that said about Satan. He only does evil continually. Once the fall came, we really fell. It's not just, oh my, I'm good some of the time, but every once in a while evil comes. No, we do evil continually, left to ourselves. I have a grandson who has some learning problems, and, uh, they were teaching about how Lucifer, Satan's always evil, and he said, nobody's evil all the time. Well, Satan is. And the same words are used by God to describe human beings. That's our fault. Psalm fifty one, the next one. This is a beautiful thing. This is why David is a man after God's own heart. All of us, like David, have sinned, right? We haven't done the same thing David did, thankfully, but we've done the same kinds of things that David did. And David, after hiding it for all those months, and Nathan finally coming and saying, you're the man. Write the psalm like this. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. And here's the verse. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. Now, the fact of the matter is he sinned against a lot of people. Against Bathsheba, against Uriah, against his generals when he gave them that horrible instruction to retreat and let him be killed. He lived a life for all those years, alive for all those years. There were plenty other people who were touched by his sin, but he says, I understand the essence of sin and the standard against sin. It's you, God, against you, and you only have I sinned. And when he came to that point, there is restoration, and he cries out, restore to me later the joy of my salvation. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, verse five, um and in sin my mother conceived me. That's David's understanding, great theological statement, that we have an inherited sin nature, and we act that way. Sin has really touched us, personal acts of sin, here a sin nature. I like the passage in Isaiah. What's the most famous passage in the whole book of Isaiah? Isaiah six. Nine, that's a good one. My most famous one. Isaiah six. And we get some insight into music. Bert, you'll love this. What's the favorite song in the Old Testament? The Seraphim are singing, holy, holy, holy. Get over to Revelation, guess what they're still singing? Holy, holy, holy. It is the dominating attribute of God. We'll look at that directly. Isaiah sees that. What's his initial response when he sees that? What's he say when he sees the holiness of God? Woe is me, for I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the Lord. Later on in the book, he writes, never got over that, but we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. The end of the book, he writes that way of himself and of the nation of Israel. Once we see the holiness of God, once we come to understand that a little bit more from reading scripture, we understand our own condition that much more. They bring an adulterous woman to Jesus, and they want to trap him. You know the story. Can you tell me the order of how people left? The oldest to the youngest. Why is that? We are a group of the oldest. We would have been the people to leave first. Why is that? Pardon? That's part of it, more sin. And that's right, we're convinced of our nature finally, aren't we? Boy, that's a tough one. I, I hear it said, uh, you know, be careful how you take the bread and the cup, because you can be eating and drinking judgment to yourself. And that was true in Corinthians, it's true now. But there's a verse that says, examine yourself. And I've taught myself, and I've heard others say this, that, you know, if you're living in sin, you, you shouldn't be participating. You should examine yourself. I think I need to examine myself every time, and I come up finding this, that even on the way to breaking a bread, I sin. In earlier days, when the little kids are in the back of the car before you had to strap them in like they're going to the moon, you know. Uh, they're flailing away back there, and I'm correcting them in a loving way as they reach over the seat, you know, try to make contact with whoever happens to be going by at that moment, you know. I've even had to put some cold water on bare legs when I whack them a little too hard with my three fingers. Yeah. Anybody ever do that? Uh, such an embarrassment. Yeah. And in other ways, we come in to break bread. And I examine myself, and I come up with the same conclusion every day, every Lord's Day. But for the grace of God, I shouldn't be here. But for the grace of God, I shouldn't be able to break bread. I have not lived a perfect week yet, have you? No. And it says Jesus in his great grace, they'll fo- tell them to examine themselves and then eat. Not say, oh, Lord, I blew it again, Lord, I sinned just twenty minutes ago. Yeah, confess the sin and eat. Because that's the way it's going to be always, until finally sin is taken from us. Isn't that right? If you wait for perfection to take the bread and the cup, you'll never be able to remember the Lord with the saints. Isn't that right? Yeah. We understand. And then the great passage in, in Romans three that, that tells us all about who we are. I have to stop with that, the conclusion. No man ever hated his own flesh. We're this kind of people. We're totally selfish, self-centered. We, we think the world reva- revolves around us as we come into the world. And once we're saved, that kind of mentality still sticks with us. The struggle we always have. We've come to recognize the struggle at least, and are seeking for conformity in Christ. We'll stop at that point. I doubt any of you are going to go any place. This would be a nice time to stand out on the deck, but, uh, we should close in prayer. Let's pray together. Father, it's good for us to recognize how severe the fall was, because, uh, he who has sinned much loves much, and if we only understand the sinfulness that each of us have been delivered from, we would love you that much more. So help us to do this, we pray for your glory and for our benefit. Amen.