The Bad News

4 pax avoided their dental appointments to discuss God’s word at The Valley.

The discussion was based on Romans 1:18-3:20

The key portions are a) God’s wrath on unrighteousness; b) God’s righteous judgment; c) God’s judgment and the Law; and d) No one is righteous.  So that’s a lot of bad news.  Essentially it breaks down to God is perfect, we are not, nor will we ever be on our own.

An illustration I have heard of this is about swimming to Hawaii.  If we all started swimming from Los Angeles to Hawaii, and the distance we traveled was based on the merits of our faith, some of us (preachers and missionaries) may be able to swim a little (or a lot) further than the heathen or the atheist, but no one is going to make it on our own.  So it is with the merits of our faith and good works achieving salvation.  None of us is going to be able to bridge the gap between our imperfection and God’s perfection on our own.

Which brings us to…the Good News.  Which we discussed last week.  “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith…”  Romans 1:16-17.

God saves us through the perfect work that Jesus Christ did for us, and then perfected His work by taking on the punishment for our sins, dying, and being raised from the dead.

The passages in Romans also identify our sinful behaviors, which we should strive to stay away from, with the help of God.  The Bible also mentions that every human falls under the umbrella of unrighteousness, “For his invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world.” (Rom 1:20).

What does this tell us about God?  It tells us that God is who He is, not who we want Him to be.  God is.  We try to create and invent a God without wrath so that we don’t have to think about or deal with the consequences, but He is just.

What does this tell us about us?  It tells us that we born sinners and nothing will ever change our need for salvation.  It tells us that we need to be appropriately unashamed of the Gospel (Rom 1:16-17), and care more about the hearts of those who do not know the Gospel in their hearts.  When we are ashamed and fearful, we are being fearful of man (being ostracized or lampooned).  However if we truly love our neighbors more than we love ourselves, we would earnestly pray for them to know the full truth and freedom that is in Jesus Christ.  To that end, here are some prayers that I try to pray regularly for specific unbelievers in my life: http://www.behiswitnesses.com/five-specific-prayers-for-the-unsaved-people-in-your-life/

Aye.