[0:00] Spoofs and scams. I don't know, I expect if you're an internet person of any, been an internet person for any amount of time, you will have found that people try and aim spoofs and scams to you and send you letters that aren't really from the person that they're supposed to be.
[0:18] So you get something that claims to be from your bank or from eBay or PayPal which says, Dear Valued Customer, we have observing suspicious activities.
[0:32] And you think, is this really from PayPal or Barclaycard? Sometimes I get letters that say, Dear Philip Wells, we have noticed on a particular date a suspicious withdrawal from your account.
[0:47] Once somebody took over £1,000 from my account, but it was rectified pretty quickly. But can you spot the difference between those two? Would you know the real one from the fake one?
[1:00] Did anybody spot any differences? Adam ought to be able to tell us this because he's a professional now, aren't you? Yeah. What should we look for? Details, name, date, specificity.
[1:12] Specificity. Yeah, specificity. So this one, that's got a particular date. Some of the spoof ones have got the wrong date on them or no date at all. This one is actually addressed to me so the person knows my name.
[1:25] This person doesn't know me and just guessing that I'm a valued customer. Anything else in the wording there? Sorry? Observing.
[1:37] We have observing suspicious activities. It is worth reading the email carefully because often the ones that are not right don't have correct grammar.
[1:48] So it is worth looking at them. We have observing suspicious activities and not correct grammar. We have observed suspicious activities, might be. So you need to look for things. You need to look for things.
[1:59] And it is also sadly true in spiritual and religious matters that there are spoofs and scams. Just as you can get false emails which are not there to help you but will really steal from you.
[2:16] Religions can be false. They're not all true. Jesus was very exclusive in what he said.
[2:26] He said there is only one way to the Father and that's through me. No one comes to the Father except through me. And even things with Christian on the label aren't necessarily the real thing.
[2:39] So I'm sorry to include this harsh reality but not, don't trust everything that you hear that claims to be spiritual. Even if it's got a Christian label on it.
[2:50] What main points should we be looking for to distinguish between the real one that will help and the other one that's really just there to diminish us and steal from us?
[3:03] We've been looking at some of the main points and we looked at God who is the one creator and the one who rules everything and the one who is Trinity and the God who is good in his moral standards and also good in the sense of his compassion and mercy.
[3:23] And we're looking currently at, so those are the sort of basic ideas of what to look for in the message, what the message, the real message says about God. And now we're looking at basic points about what the real message says about humanity.
[3:37] We saw last week that humanity was made in the image of God. And we're going to look this week at the fact that humanity is lost in sin.
[3:48] And next week it'll be in the general area of human beings redeemed by Jesus Christ. So we're asking the question this morning, what does the message of God actually say?
[4:01] And what does it actually say in this matter of human sin? That's what we're going to look at. So on this sheet, which you might like to count down, this is two out of seven.
[4:25] Look up on there so you can see how it's going. My statement is that all human beings are made in the image of God. Whether they are mums and dads, boys and girls, single people, young people, old people.
[4:42] They're all made in the image of God. And all human beings are sinners. As God, the judge, looks at us, that's his verdict.
[4:53] They're all sinners. We all desperately need forgiveness. And even if we're not conscious of it now, our need will focus itself on the great day of judgment, the great day of God's wrath, which is coming up.
[5:16] And if we're not conscious of our sin then, we certainly will be conscious. If we're not conscious of our sin now, we certainly will be conscious of it then. So in other words, it's a problem of the present.
[5:27] We are sinners. But in a sense, it's a bigger problem for the future. So it's not just that we're perhaps feeling uncomfortable now with sin. We may or may not be.
[5:37] But one day, each one of us will stand before the judgment seat of God. And each one of us will have to be declared either blessed, forgiven, or guilty and expelled into a situation too awful for words.
[6:05] That's the statement that I'm making this morning from the Bible. There is one exception and only one exception. The only one human being who certainly was the image of God, but never sinned, never asked for forgiveness, and is himself the judge on the day of God's wrath.
[6:26] It's Jesus. And just in case you have a Roman Catholic background and you might have been taught that Mary was included, Mary's not included. In her song, she says, My spirit rejoices in God, my saviour.
[6:40] So she needed a saviour as much as anybody else. There is only one exception, which is Jesus. So here's the picture. Here's the theme of the teaching, that human beings are made in the image of God, which gives them value beyond measure and dignity beyond measure.
[7:02] And yet all human beings are sinful, which means that they're all terribly in need of forgiveness. C.S. Lewis put it rather well in Prince Caspian, where he has one of the characters in there say, of human beings, you are of the Lord Adam and Lady Eve.
[7:21] That is both honour enough to lift the head of the poorest beggar and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.
[7:32] And I think C.S. Lewis, as he often does, put that really, really well. If you are a human being this morning, I mean, you are, so I say, if you being a human being this morning, you have enough honour to lift your head made in the image of God, but the fact that you are a sinner is shame to bow the shoulders of each and every one of us.
[8:04] So that's the position that I want now to talk about. So what I'll do is look at what the Bible says and you can see whether you think that I've got the right end of the stick and then I'll look at some objections because you might be sitting there in your seat saying, don't agree with that, don't agree with that, that bit's wrong.
[8:25] So I'll try and look at some objections and then I'll try and bring it to a conclusion. So I've got a number of biblical statements which I haven't counted and five objections and then a conclusion at the end.
[8:36] So that's what we're going to do. Are you okay with that so far? Yeah, good. So let's, so you need your Bible. If you are reasonably confident with looking up pages, then you will find it worth making the effort.
[8:51] If it's just going to completely confuse you, don't bother because I'll read it out anyway. And the first place we're going to look is in Matthew 7.
[9:02] Matthew 7. I think, yeah, Matthew 7. I'm looking in the wrong place myself. Matthew 7. Matthew 7. Matthew 7.
[9:17] Verse 11. Somebody give us a page number if you've got there. 9, 7, 1. Jesus is speaking about prayer and in passing.
[9:30] He says, He says, Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone or if he asks for fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?
[9:50] It says it in passing. You know how to give good gifts to your children. You're not, you know, you do look after your children, most of you, by and large.
[10:02] And yet, he says, you being evil, though you are evil, that's quite striking that Jesus should say that. It's just as if, well, everybody knows that.
[10:15] You give good gifts to your children, well, you're an evil lot, aren't you? I find that really striking because Jesus is the most generous and compassionate person and he doesn't just take pot shots at people for no reason, but he just says you're evil.
[10:34] You all, the people that he's talking to, verse 18, a good tree cannot bear, I believe it's the same word there, evil fruit, bad.
[10:49] And the same word evil is in the Lord's Prayer, which is a page earlier, chapter 6, verse 13, where he says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
[11:04] So, Jesus says that rather shocking thing. If you turn on a few pages to Matthew chapter 15, Jesus, this is chapter 15, verse 16, so it can only be just a few pages further on from where you are now.
[11:26] In Matthew 15, verse 16, Peter's asked him to explain a parable and Jesus says, are you so dull?
[11:42] Are you so stupid? Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then comes out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come out of the heart, come from the heart, and these make a man unclean.
[11:57] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean.
[12:09] But eating with unwashed hands does not make him unclean. And Jesus there is talking about their thought that you could contract guilt for sin by not washing your hands, so as if it's something that you catch on the outside of your hands.
[12:25] And Jesus says, that's a very stupid thing to think because sin isn't contracted by, you know, like bacteria that you could wash off by washing your hands.
[12:38] He says, no, it's something that's ingrained in the heart. From the heart, he says, this is the problem, from the heart come these things. It doesn't use the word sins, but they are sins, aren't they?
[12:50] evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
[13:04] These are the things that make someone unclean. And Jesus seems to be quite categorical about this is the way the heart is. And again, I find it really quite surprising that Jesus should be so categorical, so emphatic about human nature and the heart of sin.
[13:31] So let's dodge around a bit now. Let's go to the early part of the Bible. So go right back to the beginning and we're going to look at the Ten Commandments.
[13:43] So Deuteronomy chapter 5. Deuteronomy chapter 5.
[13:58] So when somebody's got the page for that, could they give us the page number? Deuteronomy chapter 5. 184. Thank you. Now the Ten Commandments, or actually what they're called is the Ten Words in Hebrew, they function as a basic plumb line and a ruler to equip us to measure the dimensions and the directions of sin.
[14:28] so rather like if you're on a building site and you wanted to work out where the doors and windows went. I suppose you could just guess but it would be better if you got a ruler and went this way and that way and you could get a measurement of things and whether it's the right way up.
[14:46] And these ten words function as a basic plumb line and a ruler. they're not the only plumb line and ruler and I would say that they are not you know they they're basic they're not the last word on righteousness because I think Jesus is the last word on righteousness but they're a basic toolkit for righteousness and this is what they say this is Deuteronomy chapter 5 so this is Moses gathering together all Israel and he says to them that they've been taken out of Egypt and in verse 6 it says I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery that's the introduction and there are ten things that they're not to do number one you shall have no other gods before me number two you shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth below or on the waters below you shall not bow down to them or worship them and the third one is in verse 11 you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name
[16:07] I'm only scanning through these but what I want to say is the first four of them are to do with how people relate to God and the first one is basically saying you don't replace God by anybody else you have no other gods before me that the God who wrote this that's the one you should worship you shouldn't replace him with anyone else and the second commandment is saying that you're not to make up your own version of the true God so you're not to say well we worship the God of the Bible but he's like this he's rather like a calf or a cow or an eagle or something invented people do that nowadays don't they they say I like to think of God as you know a great spirit or a great force or something like that so and it's saying you don't have a different
[17:09] God and you don't make up your own version of the God in the Bible and the third commandment says we're to respect God you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God unfortunately some people do have a habit of calling on the Lord's name when they don't really mean to call on the Lord's name at all it's just a habit of speech and I if people did that to me I'd be very annoyed but and I wouldn't like to say what God thinks of it but the commandment here is do not misuse the name of the Lord your God and the fourth commandment Israel is told observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy as the Lord your God commanded you six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God and just putting that very simply it's commanding us to have time for God and it's also looking forward to the time when we will enter the ultimate
[18:10] Sabbath and we will have rest with God so the first four are saying things about how we relate to God or how people are to relate to God and then we follow on from that verse 16 says honour your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you so it's that respect for parents and then verse 17 the sixth commandment you shall not murder his respect for life verse 18 you shall not commit adultery is to do with sexual faithfulness you shall not steal is the eighth commandment which is to do with property the ninth commandment you shall not give false testimony against your neighbour is to do with truth and particularly truth in relationships and the tenth one you shall not covet your neighbour's wife you shall not set your desire on your neighbour's house or land his manservant or maidservant his ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbour so that is essentially a command for contentment not making yourself ill wishing that you had things that other people have got that you haven't got and as you can see
[19:31] I've not quite copied what they've said but I've enlarged on it because it invites enlargement so here is the Old Testament telling us the dimensions and rightnesses of relationship with God and with people and not to do that is sin so I just point out that it's pretty comprehensive isn't it it's not only it's worth noticing it's not only saying how we treat one another it's saying also how we treat God and it's not only outward but the final commandment is to do is very much to do with what we think in our hearts the one about coveting so although they're framed mostly in outward terms if you think about it if you use the plumb line and see what it's leading us to it's really to do with inward things as well so
[20:45] I don't know what do you think do you keep all those do you think that if you put that plumb line and that measure and put it up against your own life and your thoughts you'd say yep that's good that's good that's good that's good that's good yeah all square and correct and everything no sin there not only the the ten commandments show us that actually we're sinners but years and years of biblical history and if you know your Hebrew scriptures you'll think of the great heroes of biblical history like Abraham you know the father of faith the great example if you like in the sense of the leader and great father of the Jewish race lied about his relationship to his wife to save his skin whether you know the story so not without sin and
[21:58] Moses the great leader and framer through God of a huge body of laws and yet didn't do what God said in the matter of smiting the rock and was excluded from entering the promised land and David the shining example of the king who committed adultery and had his had Bathsheba's husband murdered in a sort of by remote control way or if you think of the history of Israel and Judah the two kingdoms when they split after the time of Solomon and you think of what the history of those two peoples shows well what it shows is you can privilege people a huge amount but privilege doesn't mean that they will honour the privilege that they have been given because both
[22:58] Israel and in the end Judah fell into idolatry and they broke the first command and the second command and were excluded from the land and you think in the time of Jesus of the Pharisees and Sadducees who were if you look at contemporary literature you'll say well they were pretty good examples of their faith but Jesus said well you're pretty good examples of your faith but God thinks that you are rubbish at commending faith to other people Jesus had some of his sternest words for these fine gentlemen and that was looking at one particular ethnic group if you think of the other ethnic groups well they don't even begin to be counted as examples of righteousness they just don't know one end of righteousness from the other the rest of the nations so I'm just saying as the
[24:06] Bible looks at it well as Paul says in Romans 3 23 they've all sinned the Jews have sinned in a particular way dependent on their heritage and history and the Gentiles have just sinned anyway all human beings sin and fall short of the glory of God which is a terrible statement that's what the Bible says and the New Testament it is that spells this out in sort of teaching propositions and statements so as Jack read to us in Ephesians chapter 2 and Paul is talking to Christians so Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 somebody give us a page number for that 1172 1172 and again as he is going through in passing almost no that's not fair on him he's saying this is the way the plan of salvation works he's headed for the grace of Christ but he does it by saying what Christ has saved us from
[25:27] Ephesians 2 verse 1 as for you you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air and chapter 2 verse 3 all of us like the rest we were by nature objects of wrath and it is hard to grasp the weight of statements like that it is such a strong statement he doesn't say some of you were a little bit handicapped by sin some of you were a little bit morality impaired he says all of you were stone dead in your transgressions and sins dead I mean you lived but you were living entirely immersed in a world of disobedience to God insensitivity to God and well that's what he says you are dead in your transgressions and sins and you were by nature objects of wrath that's what you were so those are the statements and I could have brought loads and loads more but I tried to pick a helpful selection and I would like to say this in conclusion on these biblical statements there is such a thing as sin
[27:07] I was pondering how much I needed to explain that and I don't think I need to explain it at all really I don't think there's anybody in this room who doesn't know really what sin is who doesn't know really what it is to feel guilty for sin there is such a thing as sin and it affects all of us and it affects our inner thoughts that's where it starts and it's our outward words and actions is where it goes to and to say that it is actually far worse than we realize because the discipline of having to stop and think about this did make me stop and think about it and how little we consider the matter of sin we think whether things are fun or whether things are enjoyable or whether we'll make money or lose money we think about all those things but not very much do we think is this sin and it's far worse than we realize if you really want to know how bad sin is
[28:23] I don't recommend that you look at the Ten Commandments although that's certainly a good place to look if you really want to see how awful sin is and what terrible damage it does and what it costs I suggest you look on the hill called Golgotha which means place of a skull where three people were crucified two of them who deserved they said exactly what they were getting and then the one in the middle who suffered so much that he called out my God my God why have you forsaken me and the one in the middle who wore a crown of thorns and the one in the middle who had a robe put on him and was mocked and beaten and the one in the middle who bled and that one never committed any sin at all but he got what sin deserved and we may not know and we cannot tell what pain he had to bear but we believe it was for us he hung and suffered there and the one in the middle shows us how bad sin is and if we think that sin is not that big a problem and not that much of an issue then why on earth did Jesus have to go through hell to save people from it so there's the biblical statements so I'd like to look at five objections and you might be thinking these or you might not you might be thinking he's got it wrong he's being really negative this morning because actually people are really basically good with just a few occasional evil people so if you put a row of people they're all good occasionally you get
[30:16] Jimmy Savile who was a notorious undetected child abuser for many many years and you get the occasional sort of world leader like Hitler but everybody else is basically good so you might be thinking come on that's the way it is to which I would answer to which I would answer yeah there are certainly worse sins than others there are certainly worse sins than others I'll give you a couple of examples Jesus having preached and sent preachers to his local villages this is Matthew 10 15 I'm going to try to be quite quick on it so if you can't find it doesn't matter he goes to the local villages and they reject what they're hearing and Jesus compares them with the notorious cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and he says
[31:17] I tell you the truth it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town it's interesting he's saying that you know they will come off worse and presumably he's saying you know their judgment is worse because if you weigh it all up their sin is worse than those people and the amazing thing is that the the worst at the he says he mentions Sodom and Gomorrah notorious for homosexual rape and he says actually it's worse for you little villages because of what you heard and what you rejected and it was put before you so plainly it would be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you it's rather shocking isn't it but it does show that some situations are worse than others and Jesus said to Pilate specifically in John 19 11 the one who handed you over handed me over is guilty of a greater sin so there are degrees of sin that's certainly true but please don't think that the Bible is saying that that matter of degrees means that some people aren't sinners they're all sinners it's just some are worse sinners than the other bad sinners that's what it says and I ask you if you're saying people are basically good
[32:37] I ask you how do you see the world then for only occasional bad people how do you see the world how do you see yourself by what stretch of the imagination can you look into your own heart and say oh yeah that's pretty good I'm pretty pleased with that I know God's got probably got slightly higher standards than me but I'm pretty pleased I can't see that he would find anything to find objectionable by what stretch of the imagination do you think that about your own heart forget Jimmy Savile second objection but our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds and again let me commend you for your creativity and the fertile nature of your imagination where on earth did you get this idea from where on earth did you get this idea from where on earth did you get the idea that your good deeds in inverted commas are weighed up against your bad deeds whoever told you that
[33:59] God never told you that God never said anything of the sort and if you think of the nature of evil deeds evil requires cleansing it's like a stain that needs bleaching away and no matter how much you clean the other bits or no matter how much paint you put on the other bits unless you can clean away the stain of sin it remains what God says is that sins need atonement so where's the atonement in your good deeds and let me actually say that I am not at all optimistic that your good deeds are good enough by any stretch of the imagination the Bible says if righteousness could be gained through the law Christ died for nothing in other words if there was a route by which sin could be dealt with by something that you could do you know a rule that you could follow get up in the morning for five minutes bow this way and for ten minutes do this and for sixteen minutes help somebody across the street if there was any sort of rule that could achieve righteousness righteousness then why on earth did Jesus have to die it's an insult to Jesus for you to think that you can manufacture your own atonement by having the affrontery to say to
[35:42] God here's some good deeds they outweigh my bad deeds who do you think you are to say that sort of thing to God by what right do you think you can stand before God and say look at me objection three of course you're quite a persistent person but you say no no no there is surely a spark of good in everyone it would be unchristian to say there's not a spark of good in everyone and I say I think I can see where you're coming from but your theology is slightly askew what we've got is the idea of the image of God which is ruined so think of the castle it is a castle you can tell it's a castle but it's a ruined castle and I want you to think of this castle where every wall has got a crack in it every door has got a split in it every window is broken and although all the things well perhaps are substantially there not a single one of them is what it should be and this is the picture that the Bible gives of human nature in the image of God but spoilt in every part so the creative faculty that human beings have you do have a creative faculty we're made in the image of God but the things that people make are not the way
[37:25] God wants them to be made our physical makeup well just look around at all the specimens of perfection we have here this morning if we were photographed there would be a lot of scope for Aaron to get out his what's the program called Photoshop and he'd spend years putting us all right so physically we're totally affected our moral makeup we do have a moral makeup we know good and bad but it doesn't work properly does it and the things that we know are bad we still do them the intellect the bit which is supposed to dispassionately order arguments for and against and make up our minds in a dispassionate way that bit doesn't work properly because we go for the bit that we feel most akin to particularly when people argue about God they don't argue straight they argue from a skewed position and the bit of us that does choosing doesn't choose properly there's no bit that works properly it's not the same thing as saying everybody is as evil as they could possibly be the technical expression is total depravity it means that not a single bit of the human makeup works properly it's not saying that every bit is as bad as it could be as yet and there's another bit of theology called common grace
[39:01] I'm not sure that's a very good word it doesn't really come across very well it means God's general goodness by which he looks upon society and he holds us back from things that we might have done I don't know if you've ever had that experience you think oh I'm just gonna and then something steps in to stop you doing that stop you saying that or doing that and in many ways like that God's goodness prevents people from being as bad as they could be people still do good in a sense but it's never what it ought to be and there is no part of the natural human makeup untouched by sin so say there's a spark of good isn't right that's not what the Bible is saying but you say I'm not going to let him get away with that there are good kind people there are charity workers and there are carers and goodness sake there are missionaries and nurses and they're all they do they're good people school teachers yes school teachers well I'll still put it in it's really sort of the same objection over and over again isn't it that by God's grace people do do things that are good in a limited way but interestingly if you one missionary was St.
[40:25] Paul and you might put him down as a pretty good guy and what he says about himself is the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing so he was conscious of sin inside him and here's a picture which I think is helpful we look at people's lives and we say well what's wrong with that person missionary doctor school teacher and we look at their lives it's like a ship that has wonderful sails and wonderful rigging and sets across the sea and you say well what could be wrong with that it's going and you know it's doing good work look at the way the sailors run the sails up and down and you say look at this ship over here it's tatty and when the captain says run the the sails up they delay and some of them pull on the wrong ropes and they make a bit of a mess of it but look this ship is a pirate ship and not a single thing that they do is done for the king and this ship for all its tattiness is the king's ship and things are done for the king and I think that's quite a helpful illustration this charity worker who does wonderful stuff does it very very well very effectively raises loads of money helps a lot of people for example is it done for the king no that makes a big difference fifth and final objection and you might be thinking this you might be thinking yes I know that lot of sinners he didn't have to convince me of that but when it comes to me
[42:20] I've got a little secure space that I go into and I retreat into that and this is surrounded by a wall which says my sins not my fault those people sin those people are evil those people are evil but me no doesn't touch me because my sins not my fault it's my parents because I had such a bad upbringing I wasn't taught the right thing it's their fault or it's the family that I was put with and they never loved me and so on they abused me maybe or somebody who was close to me that did harm to me means that no sin is ever my fault that I commit or if you wanted to be theological you could say it's actually Adam's fault because Paul's told us that we're sinners because of Adam nothing to do with me or you could even say it's actually
[43:27] God's fault his incompetence because of his negligence of the way he let my life go the way he let my life run that now I can be secure in the fact that no sin I commit is my fault to which I'm going to say there are things that have happened to us or been done to us and the person who did them they will pay the penalty the price themselves God won't let them get away with that and the way that's affected you God knows that too God fully knows that and God fully takes that into account fully fully but my sin is my fault it is not my job to say ah this particular sin well that's you know that's why
[44:43] I always you can never allow me to tell the truth because it's somebody else's fault that's how I've been the only thing to do with sin is to confess it the thing to do with sin is not to say oh here's the explanation for it here's the sociology of it here's the biology of it the only thing to do with sin is to say I was out of order that was wrong I should not have thought that I should not have said that the only thing to do with sin is to confess it I'm going to say that we need the work of the Holy Spirit to do that properly because it is in the nature of sin to blind us so that we don't see the enormity of it we don't even realise we're doing it we need the work of the Holy Spirit
[45:43] Jesus says that he comes to convince or to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgement and as people go out on Monday Tuesday Wednesday we need to pray that the Holy Spirit will convince the hearers that they're sinners in need of forgiveness let's close with this picture this story that Jesus told in Luke 18 and maybe well have I convinced you of the truth of sin or not I don't know but Jesus says here are two people here are two people that that go up to try and meet God two of them two men went up to the temple to pray Luke 18 from verse 9 two men went up into the temple to pray one was a Pharisee the other was a tax collector the Pharisee religious religious expert moral expert written books on ethics things like that he knows the right thing to do and this person goes up to the temple and he prays about himself
[46:51] God I thank you that I am not like other men I am not a robber I am not an evildoer I am not an adulterer I am not even like the chap just a couple of yards away from me thank you thank you for me basically thank you for me I am okay thanks and the guy a couple of yards away is a tax collector it is an unhappy profession to be in in those days involved you in all sorts of compromises and temptations and you would think God would say he is a bit of a failure that guy and the man comes up to God and he says I've been convinced by the sermon this morning and I haven't got a single thing to say an excuse but I feel very much affected by all this and he doesn't look up to God but he beats on his breast and he says
[47:53] God have mercy on me a sinner he is not trying to win anything or earn anything say but but I had no choice did I he just says God I was wrong I need forgiveness for no good reason other than you are a merciful God God be merciful to me a sinner and Jesus says which of those two people went home right with God and Jesus I think to everybody's surprise says it was that one the one who knew he was a sinner and asked for forgiveness and the Christian take on this is that there is not only the need for forgiveness but the way of forgiveness and an achievement of forgiveness that
[49:02] Jesus died on the cross to do everything that was necessary so that somebody like me could be forgiven I totally need what Jesus did on the cross which of those two are you how will you go home let's sing together