There are six things the Lord hates. Yes, seven are an abomination to him. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord amongst brethren. The Bible makes it clear that God hates him. The great evangelical awakening was sparked by Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And for most of church history, preachers have thundered from the pulpit against the seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy, and pride. Today, very few people could even be able to identify the seven deadly sins, although an ice cream company in South Africa did some years ago produce a series of ice creams named after seven deadly sins, literally. You know, you ordered Lust or Gluttony, I mean, really and truly. We campaigned against enough Christian action and they did drop the line after a while. But, incredible. I suppose at least the people could maybe learn what the seven deadly sins were. Today it's much more likely that you could hear a sermon on God in the hands of angry sinners than sinners in the hands of an angry God. The old doctrines of sin and redemption and repentance are out of fashion. The modern therapeutic language of self-esteem, self-actualization and self-love, those are in. The emphasis in the church for centuries was what does God require of me? But today you'll be hard pressed to find a church that emphasizes what does God require of me. You're more likely to see the emphasis on what can God do for me? What can I get out of it? The word sin is rarely used in any serious context today. For many, the very concept of sin has become a topic for jokes, and vocabulary and ethics have changed dramatically. Drunkenness is now a chemical dependency. Gossip is frequently referred to as sharing. Pride has become a superiority complex or an inflated ego. Corporate executives no longer steal, they now commit fraud. People are no longer said to be living in sin, now they're living together. Fornication has become free love. And they are no longer adulterers, they're having an affair. And perverts are now described as preferring an alternative lifestyle. The Bible says, fools mock at sin, Proverbs 14, 9. And we read in Proverbs 14, 34, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach, a disgrace to any people. What God called sin, many now call sickness. And what the Bible defines as evil has now been described as error. What God calls an abomination, men today are more likely to call an alternative lifestyle. Sins against God are now seen as moral failures or mistakes that keep us from realizing our own individual potential and expectations. There's even preachers out there like Joel Osteen who claim that sin is basically against ourselves and not against God, and that even we come to worship not for God's sake, we do it for our own sake. They've actually taught that from the pulpit. The historic Christian doctrines of original sin inherited from Adam and actual sin which we commit and which distorts our nature is now seldom preached. Who we are is sinful. What we do is sin. And this has been replaced with the concept of the goodness of man. And we are victims of circumstances. Because anything that goes wrong is not my fault. Maybe it's my parents' fault. Of course, they can then blame their parents and it goes back all the way, I suppose. And it maybe is the teacher's fault, or the government's fault, or society's fault. But I'm a victim. It's not my fault. One of the most frustrating aspects of undertaking evangelism these days is most people seem to have no idea of sin. They know how to sin well enough, but they don't understand the concept of sin, of what constitutes sin. The very concept of personal responsibility is even in question. We heard a famous liberation theologian, Alan Bursak, standing up and railing against the sins of apartheid and the sins of South Africa, saying that out of the ashes of Pretoria will arise a new Jerusalem. While he was stealing from the poor, and betrayed and abandoned his wife and children and had an affair with who he ditched his family for with some journalist and you know just extraordinary he even when he came out of prison for the theft he'd done he was railing against everyone else there was no sense of guilt that he had stolen from the poor that he had committed adultery, that he had destroyed his own family, abandoned his wife and children. None of that came in. Personal responsibility was not the thing. False prophets can point the finger at others without realizing there's any fingers pointing back at themselves. It's extraordinary. The two World Wars left many people questioning the worth of traditional values. My own parents came out of the Second World War saying, you can't believe in God after experiencing the Second World War. And they were secular till the ends of their lives. And by God's grace, both got converted, but it was through heart attacks, strokes, emphysema, all sorts of horrible things before they really faced God and came to believe in him. But then the communist revolutions rejected the very concept of providential property or the existence of God. And then the sexual revolution rejected the very biblical concept of marriage itself. The Bible defines sin as lawlessness. Every one of God's ten commands are under a relentless attack. not just in theological seminaries, but there's a systematic attack in the secular humanist media. Much of Hollywood, most of our public universities, much of the news media attack the creator God and exalt idolatry. They promote political idols, music idols, sex idols, sports idols. They even have TV programs called Idols. Blasphemy is promoted as entertainment, and what had never been allowed in the films before is even now included in some so-called Christian films. Sabbath desecration is considered an essential part of any work week. The undermining, you know, make Sundays fun days, make Sundays run days, and so on. The undermining of the authority of parents is incessant. The stupid deadbeat dad is a stereotype. And even in family-friendly films, the dog often is more intelligent than the father. Even in business matters, like in Beethoven, there's the dog, understood that the business partners the dad was trusting him were untrustworthy, whereas the father seemed oblivious. And continue to get this, the kid knows better, the dog even knows better than the dad, the dad is deadbeat and stupid. And that's a family-friendly problem. The sanctity of life is undermined by the promotion of abortion and euthanasia, and the culture of death is celebrated in so many blood-splattered horror slasher films. I have no idea why anyone would want to see a horror film. And it's bizarre how many people, there's a market for it. people actually go to see horror films. And I stayed in somebody's home in Sofia, Bulgaria, where they had bolts up, down, sideways, a whole bar across padlocks, multiple locks. And I said, is there a serious problem with crime in Sofia? And I thought, no, but I watch Stephen King movies. and read Stephen King novels. Well, that would do it indeed. So slasher films, the sanctity of love, the sanctity of marriage is undermined on every side. The sanctity of private property is eroded and undermined continuously too. There's a relentless war against truth itself. And we have fact-checkers deleting the truth and de-platforming those who try to speak it. The sanctity of conscience is undermined at every turn. You're not even allowed to have freedom of conscience. There's wars against that. You're called selfish if you want to breathe fresh air. With every one of the Ten Commands under such ceaseless attack, it's no wonder the very concept of sin is being questioned. Contemporary society celebrates what was once condemned. Pride is now lifted up as self-esteem. Envy is the engine of the tabloid culture. In fact, a lot of marketing plugs into the fact that whatever you've got isn't good enough. You need the next step. You need the next version, and so on and so forth. Lust is an advertising strategy. A woman in a bikini's got nothing to do with the car, but stretching them across a vehicle is meant to sell the car. Anger is an acceptable expression of those who've been aggrieved. If you consider the victim class, screaming, blue murder, burning down cities is considered just fine. And many pastors feel they're competing in a consumer culture, a buyer's market. They cannot afford to alienate potential parishioners. I've even heard at church conferences organized by some seeker-friendly churches, pastors are warned, your people do not want to hear that they should cultivate humility. or self-discipline or virtue. They don't want to hear about self-sacrifice. They don't want to hear that they need to listen to their conscience or repent of their sins. You need to focus on what the people want. And they've made a science of it, how to have purpose-driven lives, seek affinity churches, and as a result we have a religious culture now that defines God in purely selfish terms. What can God do for me? Churches are no longer to be focused on God and what pleases Him. Churches must now be focused on man and what increases man's sense of self-esteem. And people will embrace any religious faith, it seems, as long as it makes no real moral claims and demands of them. Churches must console, not judge. The style of praise and worship now must even be designed to please men rather than to please God. And often we get meaningless, mindless repetition of choruses that focus on our feelings. You know, you ask me how I am, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed and I know that I am. I mean, that's actually a song that churches sing over and over and over. Rather than sing of God's power and glory, a lot of things I sing about my feelings. The pleasure of worship has been replaced with a worship of pleasure. And this was well documented in the American gospel documentary, which shows that in the average sermon, and you could just as easily quote the Nigerian gospel or the South African gospel too, but it's been very refined in America where you are the star of the story. And if God has a supporting role in helping you to achieve your goals, you are the star of the whole story. And you know, you'll even hear, and I've had this speaking at Kelvin Grove to a women's group some years ago, asked to speak on Esther, Queen Esther, one of the most remarkable women in history. And after I finished speaking, I felt like I'd failed because the hostess stood up and said, you're all Esther's. I look out and I see everyone here is an Esther. I mean, one of the most remarkable women in the world, in history, in the Bible, is now turned into, you're all Esthers. I mean, I suppose we're all Daniels and we're all Davids too now. Just waiting until we're all Jesus Christ, or we're all God. You know, when does this stop? The Apostle Paul warned the time would come when people will not endure sound doctrine. We read in 2 Timothy 4 verse 3. According to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. They will turn their ears away from the truth, and they will be turned aside to fables. They will heap up teachers who will tickle their ears with what they are itching to hear. Some time ago, I was in Colorado at a biblical worldview conference. primarily for homeschoolers, and there's a lot of homeschoolers there. And I just happened to be free that Saturday night to join in and sit at the back of the hall and listen to the test series, just test me evening. And I normally was not there for Saturday evenings, I was normally traveling somewhere else for Sunday service somewhere else. But that particular time, either Sunday morning services in Colorado Springs. So I heard the testimony evening and the amount of people who stood up and gave testimonies like this, you know, my parents judged me because I wanted to have nose rings and tattoos and body piercing, you know, multiple piercings in my ear and belly rings and so on. My parents are so judgmental. And God appeared to me and he said to me, I love you just the way you are. You don't need to change a thing. God spoke to me and said, you do not need to change a thing. And that's just bad enough, but there were amens throughout the hall. And that is not possible. Where in the Bible do you read an apostle or prophet or an adventurer saying, you don't need to change a thing? Is there anybody in the Bible who says you don't need to change a thing? No. You hear a lot of calls to repent, lots of calls to change. I can't recall anybody in the Bible saying, God loves you just the way you are. You don't need to change a thing. That's a false gospel. That's an idol. That's a lie. That's blasphemy. God didn't speak to them at all. They listened to their culture, they listened to their feelings, maybe their friends, but they sure didn't listen to God. They weren't studying the Bible. And so frequently we see the truth. We are our own worst enemies. Now friends don't let friends drive drunk. That's a good slogan of a good advertising campaign some time ago. A good friend stops you from a self-destructive pattern. A good friend doesn't help you over the edge of the cliff to destroy your life. And so it's impossible that God could say to somebody who's self-destructive, you don't need to change a thing. I mean, God might say, I love you in spite of your sin, but you need to change, for sure. How can it be you don't need to change a thing? It's self-deception to assume that the creator of the universe, the eternal judge, our holy God, has no higher standards than that of contemporary society and no higher thoughts than those of our own. To think that God doesn't call us to repent, to renew our minds, to be transformed in every part of our attitudes and actions is self-deception. This is self-deception, but worse than that, it's actually idolatrous and it's blasphemous. People who claim that God spoke to them and told them we don't need to change are guilty of having created a false god, an idol, a myth. factory of their mind. It doesn't exist. It's blasphemous to claim God spoke to us when we're just listening to our own feelings or to the society. To a world in rebellion to God and presenting a culture as God spoke to me is blasphemous, idolatry, and it's deception, just a lie. How many times have you heard people say, and God said to me? And it's almost always a lie. If God spoke to you, you should be able to quote the chapter and the verse from the Bible. We know what's in the Bible is God's word. Many churches have become therapeutic, pragmatic, and utilitarian, even narcissistic in cases. It's all about me. It's all about you. The gospel has been left out. In the early 1980s, I read a prominent news report. Somebody presented me this cutout from the Sunday Times. Miss South Africa at the time, I think this is 1981, Miss Sadafka, she said she was a born-again Christian and she belonged to Raymond. She liked Raymond Church because they never preach any doctrine and they don't judge me for living with my boyfriend. What a testimony. I'm a born-again Christian who rejoices that I'm not being taught any doctrine and my church says nothing about me living with my boyfriend. Well, no wonder we've got a problem in our church. Proverbs 28, 13 says, He who covers the sin will not prosper. Whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. In Matthew 5, verse 17, our Lord Jesus made it super clear that God's law remains in force. Do not think I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill, Jesus said. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle, not the smallest stroke of a pen, not the single dot of the law, will be able to pass from the law until all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. How much clearer could the Lord have made it that the law of God remains in force? God's law applies today. The Bible emphasizes the depravity of man, the sinfulness of man. We are sinful. We are personally responsible for our attitudes and actions. However, the modern antinomian, hostile to God's law, egalitarian society where everything's equal, emphasize the goodness of man, which is not a biblical concept. Frequently, when you're witnessing on the street, you hear people say, I am a good person. When you press them, they say, I'm a very good person. But those same people will admit that they have been guilty of lying, stealing, blasphemy, lust, even hatred in their heart. But they're still going to heaven when you question them. If you were to die today, would you go to heaven or hell? Heaven. Even people who've admitted they are lying, blasphemous, adulterers, and murderers at heart. So there's a schizophrenic disconnect between our reality and what we think. Absolutely bizarre. And this, to a large extent, can be attributed to our entertainment industry, which has popularized and justified lust and pride and greed in so many attractive heroines and heroes that many have come to accept what would have previously been condemned. And you think how many heroes in movies, they smoke, they drink, they swear, they fornicate, they commit adultery, they gamble, all of that. And many people think, well, that's acceptable. I mean, this is a hero. Compounding this problem, you now have religious messages passing over the uncomfortable realities of sin, and focusing on feel-good themes. And as a result, conviction of sin is rare, even in churches. Religious leaders who excuse sin, who deny its existence, and who tickle the ears of the hearers by telling us what we want to hear, instead of what the Bible proclaims, are actually doing the people a disservice. It's like a doctor doesn't want to concern his patients, so he won't tell them about the symptoms of cancer or whatever it might be in their life. That's not doing a person a service. You might make them feel better for the moment, but they're not going to feel better when the symptoms of the disease start to come to fore and they are suffering. The holiness of God, the law of God, the sinfulness of man, the sacrifice of Christ, the need for repentance and faith, these are central to the Gospel. This is at the heart of the Gospel. That is why we sing, when I survey the wondrous cross, why do we need a cross? Why did Jesus come to die on the cross if sin is not so serious? Sin is to be super serious. if God had to send his son to die on the cross and suffer for us. A sick man cannot prove he has no fever by breaking the thermometer. And rejecting the law of God and ignoring what the Bible says on the subject of sin will not solve the problem. You know, shooting the messenger doesn't prevent the bad news from coming. And the biblical picture of sin is leprosy. I don't know if you've seen a leper. I've seen lepers. It's ugly. It's loathsome. It's hideous. These poor lepers, they lose all sense of feeling in the extremities of their body. And there was a leper colony in Sudan at the hospital of Louis where They'd wake up in the morning missing fingers and toes, which the rats had nibbled away. And they couldn't feel it, because they'd lost sensation. Leprosy is like sin. It's ugly and it's loathsome. That's the picture of sin. And the Bible is clear. The wages of sin is death. In Isaiah 59, verse 1 to 3, we read, Behold, the hand of the Lord is not shortened, that it cannot save. Nor is he a dull that he cannot hear. But your sins have separated you from your God, so that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity. And so Isaiah 59, one to three tells us, it's our sin that separates us from God. God is holy, we are not. And when we violate his laws, we separate ourselves from God, from his fellowship, from his answers to prayer, from his blessing and intervention, from his protection. Jesus said, he is the vine. and we are the branches. He that abides in Christ will bring forth much fruit, but those who do not abide in him will wither up, they'll dry out, and they will die. They'll be cast into fire, we read in John 15. Hebrews 3, we read, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as those in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me and tried me. Therefore I was angry with that generation. In fact, the Lord condemned that entire generation to die in the wilderness. Only two, Caleb and Joshua, were allowed to enter the Promised Land. All the rebellious generation died in the wilderness because God was angry with them. Romans 1.21 says, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, but nor were they thankful. But they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Sin hardens the heart. Sin withers the soul. Sin darkens the mind. And sin is serious. If sin was not serious, our Lord wouldn't have had to come to this earth and die on the cruel cross, suffer such a horrendous death. as he did at Calvary. The doctrine of sin is not popular, but it is vitally important. And it's worth noting that the middle letter of sin is I. And the middle letter of lie is I. And the middle letter of pride is I. The middle letter of Lucifer is also I. I, sinful self, selfishness, is at the core of sin. Right at the heart of sin is pride and lies and I. We are our own worst enemy. It was asked of Charles Spurgeon once by visitors to the Metropolitan Tabernacle, which member of your church has given you the most trouble? And he said, it's Charles Spurgeon. They said, do you have a member here called Charles Spurgeon? I referred to myself, said, Charles Spurgeon. Nobody has given me more grief than I've given myself. And that's true. At one point, Martin Luther was asked, who's the worst pope you live under? Now, there were 10 popes that drained while Martin Luther was working for the Reformation. And so, which was the worst pope? Was it Pope Leo? Was it Pope Julian? And so on. And Luther says, Pope self, the pope that sits on the throne in my heart that should be reserved for Christ and His Holy Spirit alone. has given me the most grief. My selfishness has been the Pope that's caused me the worst grief. The Pope that lives in my heart. And so, selfishness is at the heart of our problem. We are our own worst enemy. The Bible defines sin as missing the mark. It's actually an archery term. To miss the mark. Violating the law of God is to miss the mark. And St. Augustine defines sin as every work, every word, every wish contrary to the law of God. Emphasizing sin is not just the bad thing to do, sin is the good thing we fail to do. Sins of omission as well as sins of commission. James 4.17 declares, therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him that is sin. Now, if you've ever seen the crisis caused by pollution, like when we had these Chinese oil freighters sink off our shores, and we had thousands of tons of crude oil dumped on our beaches and our shores, that's a picture of sin. That is pollution, the pollution of sin. And you just think of when Biden's administration did the eco-terrorism of blowing up the Nord Stream, a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. And you have thousands of tons of pollution coming into a sea. That's a picture of what sin is. Disruption, degradation, destruction caused by sin, gushing out of the rebellious hearts of men and women. And out of the heart, the mouth speaks. It's not what you say you are, it's what you say that reveals what you are. And what do you talk about? What do you think about? What do you text about? The reality of sin should cause us to turn to God and kneel at the cross of Calvary. We dare not live in denial and tolerate sin. Over a century ago, the founder of Salvation Army, General William Booth, warned, a time may come when churches will preach a saviour without a cross, salvation without repentance. Heaven without hell, Christianity without holiness, politics without God. Claiming that time has come. Isn't it amazing that 120 years ago, William Booth, at the end of the greatest century of missions, the 19th century, could predict what was going to come in the 20th century. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter proclaimed, repent, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The first sermon of the church that launched the Pentecost revival that brought so many thousands of people to Christ, the message was a message of repentance. The Ten Commandments are not just a list of prohibitions. Each of the Ten Commandments includes an implicit call to action. We are to worship God alone. We are to resist idolatry, never bow before idols. We are to speak respectfully of God and His Word. We are to work six days and rest on the Lord's Day. We are to honour our father and mother and to respect other authorities in life. We are to respect life. We are to protect the sanctity of marriage. We are to respect private ownership of property. We are to be people of integrity. We are to maintain a clear conscience before God and man. Praying the Lord's Prayer requires action. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus taught, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. So the Ten Commands teaches us to respect God, to respect people, to respect God's creatures, to respect property. And we're commanded, be doers of the word, not hearers only deceiving ourselves. God will judge each one of us. He will judge the wicked. He will reward the faithful. An eternal hell awaits the unrepentant. A glorious heaven is promised to all who truly repent of their sins. Those who trust in Christ alone for salvation. Those who follow the word of God in obedience. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. So the heart of the gospel is a changed life in Christ. But each one of us has to make a choice. God will change your life and he will change your eternal destiny, but you must choose to trust and obey. Our Lord Jesus began his earthly ministry with the words, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And our Lord's last recorded words in the book of Revelation to the church of Asia was, repent, each one of the churches, God's call is to repent. The first time our Lord Jesus came to earth as a savior, as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And all who turn away from sin in repentance, who trust in Christ, who follow him, are saved. We read in 1 John chapter 1, this is the message that we have heard from him and declared to you. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, but we walk in darkness, we lie, and we do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He has faith in Him just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him to be a liar and His word is not in us. That's 1 John chapter 1 verse 5 to 10. Our Lord Jesus Christ will come again, but he will not come as a lamb, he will not come as a saviour. The next time he comes, he will come as a lion, the lion. He will come as the judge, as a conqueror, king of kings, lord of lords. All who have not repented and obeyed his law will be condemned and eternally punished in the lake of fire. Either we surrender to Christ as saviour now, or we will face him as judge on that day. So the question is, is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, or is he your judge? It's not whether we will bend the knee to Christ, it's when we will bend the knee to Christ, because every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. The question is, where will you spend eternity? God now commands all men everywhere to repent.