Well, I got the statistics from last night. Sister Betty said I preached 44 minutes last night. Sister Lila counted. I said the word God 128 times. Is that correct? All right. And then Betty said I keep getting longer each night. So she brought some juice boxes so she can last an hour. right so there's that in in more seriousness I spoke with brother Gary Smith and we were talking about how we do revival and that we don't know how to do revival we don't We don't know how to go about and do these things, and we certainly have desires of things we want to see, things that we're praying for. I mean, things I think that are in line with the will of God, who wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth. We want God's church to be brought to a place where his people are on fire and engaged and serious about growth and sanctification and the Lord and his work and the gospel. We want to see all those things happen, but how we get from point A to point B is something that truly is beyond us. And God keeps reminding us over and over, he's God. And his work is above our pay grade. And so all we know to do is to try to be faithful. And speaking with Brother Gary, we were talking about services, and I know Brother Derek and I were talking about just different services that we had been in at times, and it seemed like things were going one way, and then God turns around and does something amazing, services that were amazingly quiet and have seen just profound testimonies and salvations and lives being radically changed, services that seemed like they were going really, really badly, and then God turned around and just amazingly worked. and save souls. And it's not just in services, but it's in life itself. I've enjoyed some of the fellowship. I enjoy the kids and looking over and watching them sing. We did a lot of that back in Anchorage, in the work there at the Anchor, and a lot of time spent working with the young people. And with music and it just really is a blessing to me to see that the seeds that are being planted and I just want to encourage the parents out there. I was enjoy the fellowship this evening with the Harper's and. Mobley's and Sister Betty again, and just talking about the things that God used. We're talking about homeschool curriculum, and I got my wife on speakerphone because she knows way more than I do about all that stuff. But, you know, sharing this is kind of the little things that you don't know what God's going to use. Our oldest daughter, Grace, Just kind of share some of her testimony some of you knew new grace and she she was in first grade and she was doing her a Becca and Bible class and she loved school. She loved to do all the things of school She loved to get her pencils and everything organized and and get dressed for school even though we're doing school at home and Mrs. Chapel and Becca first grade I think it was Bible and she was so into that and learning the memory verses and and one day mrs. Chapel was telling talking in the class about how you can't do the work of God unless you've really been saved. And that just really made Grace distraught. And it was something that, you know, we weren't really certain at the time, but God started to work in her heart to let her see that she needed to be saved. And then that summer, Brother Jeff's father came to Alaska, Brother Eugene Brown, and he did an evangelism conference for us. And while he was there, he left some tracks behind. It's pretty common for Brother Jeff's dad to have some tracks. And one of those tracks was a track I remember growing up with at Bethel, and it was a blue track, and it had all these check boxes on the front. Remember that? And it was like, you know, which of these things get you to heaven? And Grace got a hold of one of those, unbeknownst to us. And she went through that, and she checked all the boxes of the things that she thought would get her to heaven. And she brought it to us, because she didn't realize the whole point of the track was that none of these things will get you to heaven. And she brought that to us and was just so distraught when she found out that none of those things would get her to heaven. She came under conviction. We weren't even sure what it was at that point, if it really was that, but it was just a simple tract that had been left behind by Brother Brown. And then, you know, one of our habits as a family was to pray every time we go someplace. And I was joking, it's not a joke, it's true. Even now, you know, my kids are much older and we pray every time we go someplace, including to the gym, you know, five something in the morning when I go lift with Micah and Anna, you know, and sincerely praying that I don't get hurt trying to keep up with them. But, you know, Grace, we had prayer in the car one day going to church for a midweek service, just a regular midweek service, not even a revival. And we had prayer, and apparently Grace was burdened, and she kept praying, and we didn't know, and Josiah was back there, you know, bugging her, and I said, leave her alone, whatever, I didn't, I didn't know she was praying. But we got to church that Wednesday night, or Thursday, whatever day we had to have midweek services on there, and I started doing the preliminaries, just like Brother Derek's doing, and everybody got a thing on their heart, and Grace stood up and said, can I share my testimony? And I said, your what? And she told about the Lord saving her in the back of the car. She knew exactly she was at Medford Street. She looked up and saw it. She told us that. And we were, of course, like, she was about seven, and we're just like, is this even real? But God knew what he was doing. God knew what he was doing. And it was just those little things. I mean, it wasn't a big revival service, even. It was just those little things of trying to be faithful in life and honor God in life that God used to save her soul. And the Lord saved her soul in a car, and the Lord took her home in a car. a couple years ago. And I thank God so much. I thank God so much for all that he did in her life. And you know, sometimes I think we want these really big things to happen, and they're so exciting when they do, but let's not neglect the day of small things. Let's not neglect those things because they're such amazing, profound power. And just trying to be faithful to God in every day of your life. and the little things. You have no idea because God doesn't need anything from us. He can use the littlest thing from us to accomplish great things of eternal consequence. And so I want to rejoice in Him about that tonight. And yes, we're going to go back to Acts 17 and been praying about this and trying to see if there's something else to go to. But with God's help, I think we're going to finish this off tonight unless there's more that I haven't seen yet. Acts chapter 17, and just to remind everybody, I know not everybody's been here for each evening of the service so far, but this is a very profound message the Apostle Paul preached at Mars Hill. He was preaching to an entirely Gentile audience, people who are not raised with an understanding of the Word of God. They didn't have the reference point. They worshiped idols. And we've talked about how significant that is because that is the culture we live in more and more and more, people who don't have that reference point of Christianity as a background. And the ways that Paul speaks to these people and tries to connect to them and to bring the gospel, to bridge the gospel to these people, because God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, whether they've been raised in church or not. He wants all people to be saved, and so we have to know as a people, and maybe that's part of the purpose of this week, is for us to grow in our understanding of how to reach those in this world who haven't yet really been reached with the gospel. There's a lot of connections between that day and our day. And Paul had this great opportunity to preach to these people, and I'm gonna talk about the context of this a little bit more, but I'm not gonna read the whole sermon again, but there was an altar he had noticed among all the altars to all the different gods called the altar of an unknown god, a god they didn't know about. And we talked about how it was kind of like an insurance policy for the city, because in case there was a god they missed, they wanted to make sure all the gods were happy, so if they had one to an unknown god, Maybe this God wouldn't come and destroy their city or some bad thing happened to them. And so Paul used that, that ignorant worship of this unknown God and declared to them the true and the living God and explained to them that this God is the creator, that this God cannot be comprehend. He's bigger than all things. He can't be contained in temples. He doesn't need the things that you try to bring to him to offer to him. This God is so much larger. He's made us, he holds us together. Moment by moment, the breath in our bodies God's given to us. In fact, not just our breath, not just our life, but everything in our life that we have, God has allowed us to have. He's given these things to us, and that God has been moving the channels of human history through his hands. Even though we think we know what's going on, God has been moving the channels of human history to bring us to this point. He'd allow people to ignorantly worship these idols because he was looking past, it says winked in the King James, but he was looking past all of these things to a time when he would be ready to confront this ignorance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in the fullness of time, Jesus came. He was born of that virgin and he came and he lived that perfect life. We talked about how he was tested in all points and he never sinned, even though he faced all of that and he was that absolutely perfect sacrifice. And as that gospel was completed through the work of Jesus Christ, it was now ready where Israel was like a beacon put up for the world to see. The Lord takes the gospel, gives it to his church and says, you are the light of the world and go out, like with search lamps. take this gospel out, confront the ignorance in this world with the truth so that all nations, peoples, tribes, and tongues can know Jesus. We've been aiming for this the entire time, and this is where he wants the gospel to go. And here Paul has the opportunity to preach in Athens, the capital city of Greece, among all these philosophers and learned people who are certainly the types of people that the Lord was trying to reach. And the text we want to focus on tonight are just verses 30 and 31, these last two verses of the sermon itself. And it says, in the times of this ignorance, of the idolatrous worship, God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. That's the conclusion of the message. At that point, Paul was cut off. Now what I wanna point out as Paul ends this message on this note about the resurrection of the dead, everything had been leading up to this point. In fact, it's the reason he was preaching this message. And I say that because, go back with me for a moment and let's start reading about what happened here before this sermon. Verse 16, Paul was waiting for the brethren. He was in Athens, and when he was in Athens, it says, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. So Paul was waiting for Timothy and Silas, who were behind in Thessalonica. He was waiting for them. They hadn't come yet, so he was supposed to go there and stay there and probably be good. But he gets there, and he's so burdened by everything he's seen, he has to start telling people about Jesus. I mean, he just sees this whole place completely given over to idolatry. And he just has this burden to start speaking about Jesus. So he says in verse 17, he disputed, therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews. So he did what he always did, which was go first to the Jews. and with the devout person. So those were Gentiles who believed in the God of the Bible. So those were the devout person. So he was talking to the Jews and he was talking to the Gentiles that believed in God, probably went to synagogue, and then also in the market daily with them that met with him. And so he would go into the open market, which is beyond just the Jewish people, beyond just the Gentiles who believed in the Old Testament God. He went and just started talking openly to everybody. It's like basically going outside Walmart and talking. You're going to eventually run into everybody. Then certain philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics, so these were the Gentiles, they encountered him in the marketplace, no doubt, and they said, what will this babbler say? Others, some said, he seems to be a setter forth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. So Paul was already out there talking about the resurrection. And when they heard this, they were like, we've never heard anybody talk about something like this before. And they then took him and brought him into the Areopagus saying, may we know what this new doctrine is that you speak of? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears, we would know therefore what these things mean. For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, that's the context for this sermon. And so when Paul brings this sermon to a head, to the close of what he gets to say, he's bringing it to the resurrection. This was the whole reason he was there in the first place, because Paul had been talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And all the groundwork that Paul has been laying is about trying to bring them to a place where they could understand the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And what we find in this message is that Paul connects the resurrection of Jesus with what? The command to repent, the fact that there is a day of judgment, and that Jesus Christ is the judge. That is the connection Paul makes with the resurrection. And that's what I've been spending today just kind of praying and reading and studying, trying to understand why is this connection made here. And I felt like the Lord was having to kind of change the way I looked at some things a little bit. which was good, and I needed this, and I want to try to share these thoughts that are on my heart. The first thing I want us to see here, and kind of go back to where we were last time, we saw that God has commanded all men everywhere to repent. That's the command for you tonight. If you don't know Christ, the command to you is to repent. You're lost, you need to know Jesus. And that command is going to stay the same until you get saved, or until you die and go to hell. That is the command for you. That is the command. That's the message you need to hear. I'm here to tell you no new thing because God's word to you has not changed since last night. You need to turn from your sin. You need to turn to Jesus Christ. Why repent? Why repent? Paul gives us the reason, verse 31, because You need to repent now. Why? Because He, God, has appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness. God has appointed a day. He has set a day. It is on God's calendar. And every moment, every minute, Every hour, every day, every week, we get closer and closer and closer to that day that has been fixed and set by God, that is on His calendar. We are closer to that moment now than we ever have been. And that day is a day, it says, a day of judgment, that God is going to judge. Well, judged for what? You know, we know what a judge does, and we have a sense of it, right? If you've watched, been to court, or you've watched court on TV, or seen something, you know the judge sits there at the bench, and there is a complaint brought to him about someone doing something wrong, and the judge has to decide whether they did something wrong or not, and if they did do something wrong, what's gonna happen next? What's the consequence? What's the punishment? What's the judgment for that wrong thing? What does the Bible tell us that we're going to stand in judgment for? Well, first of all, I want you to notice that it says He's going to judge the world. The world, like everybody. We saw in verse 30 that He was telling all men everywhere to repent. That's all of us. That's all of us. And some of us have repented. Some of us have come to faith. But it doesn't change the fact that we will all have to stand before God. And I want us to keep that in mind tonight. This passage is emphasizing that every single person in this room tonight is going to have to stand before God. And God is going to act as judge. Jesus is. We'll talk more about that in a second. Well, what is He going to judge? Jesus said, I say unto you in Matthew 12, 36, every idle or careless word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. So everything you've ever said, you're going to have to give an account for. Even what you think is a careless word, something you told a friend or you kind of muttered under your breath, Something you said about your brother, or your sister, or your mom, or your dad, or your teacher, or your neighbor, you know? All of those types of things. Your boss, the co-worker, the person who is not driving so well on the road. Jesus is not exempt anything. We're gonna have to give an account for every word. He says the secrets of men will be brought for judgment. Romans 2 16 Paul says in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. According to my gospel. Things that you think and you hope that nobody else knows about in your life. are gonna be brought up and broadcast and made clear like they were on the news, like they were going viral on social media. It's gonna be put out there, it's gonna be brought up, it's going to be made clear. Everything hidden will be brought to light and exposed and God will be judging that. God's gonna judge our works. 1 Corinthians 3.13 says, every man's work will be made manifest. For the day shall declare it." What does that mean, the day shall declare it? It says, because it'll be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try or test every man's work of what sort it is. The fire of God's judgment, the day of judgment, is going to have a way of going through the things of our life, the works of our life, and testing those works, those things. And only those things that have been made and done with and through Christ, through the power of God, through His help, are going to endure. I believe that there's a very real sense that there are physical things that we can do in this life, things that we can build. You build a church building, you do those things, you know, you give somebody food to eat, you give them something to drink, and you say, aren't those things going to be burned up, you know, in the day of judgment? Yes, there's a sense that, you know, this building's not going to be here. But if these things are done unto the Lord, they are never going to be forgotten. Those works are going to endure. But there are many, many, many things that you can invest your life and your talents, your energies into. And if they're not of the Lord, for the Lord, through the Lord, they're going to burn up, even if they're things that seem really good. You know, you could become the best pianist in the world. You could be the most beautiful singer in the world, and you could make records, CDs, and put stuff online, and you could sell millions and billions of copies of it. You could be bigger than Taylor Swift and be so impressive in all these different ways. But if it's not been of God, through God, it's all going to become absolutely nothing. It'll be a life completely wasted because it will all be gone and you can pour countless hours and tears and blood and sweat and all these things into accomplishments and it will just disappear as if nothing. Because the only thing that can make the efforts and the work of your life even last is doing it through the Lord, through His power. Just like my daughter learned that as a child, as a six-year-old, that if you're not saved, you can't do the work of God. You can't really do it. You need God in your life to do the work of God. You need God in your life to do anything that's going to last. And finally, and the most important thing that's going to be judged is your relationship with Christ, and that is the thing. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and I am known of my sheep. My sheep know me. And this is the most significant thing that's going to be judged, because it is whether or not you truly know Christ, whether you truly have a relationship with Him. That's going to determine your eternal destiny. That's going to determine whether you are ushered into heaven or whether you're going to be sent off and cast into hell, an absolutely horrible place. And it all comes down to this, whether you know the Lord. And Jesus said, I know who my sheep are. And my sheep know me. Then I want to ask you that question. I want you to consider that question tonight. Do you really know the Lord? Do you really know the Lord? Have you encountered him? Have you come to a place in your life not just that you believe in him? Folks, the devils believe in tremble. It doesn't change their eternal state. But it's whether you have a relationship with Him. Whether you've come to that place in your life where He showed you your sin, and He showed you your brokenness, and He showed you your need, and you turned from yourself, and you looked to Him, and you found Him, and you found that peace. You found that relationship, and He took away that fear of judgment from you and gave you something else in your heart. I mean, that is the fundamental question, and that's the question upon which eternity is at stake for you, because that is what's at stake. Jesus said in Matthew 25, he will say to those on his left, and these are the ones who didn't know him, depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It goes on and says, these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. That's what's at stake, just forever. That's all that we're worried about tonight, is just forever and ever and ever and ever and ever with no end. That's what's at stake here. It's your forever. You may live to be 90 or 100 years old and you've not even touched forever. Whether you get to live to be old or whether you're taken out of here young. And we know that can happen. I know that can happen. Forever is on the other side of your last breath. Forever is on the other side of your last breath. And that's what's at stake here. And what's also at stake is eternal rewards, because those things that we build in Christ, on Christ, through Christ, they're going to endure. There are eternal rewards the Lord spoke about. And there's blessings that we can enjoy forever in heaven. That's what's at stake. So when is this day? It's on the Lord's calendar. He has established a day. Even back in the Old Testament it says the Lord has a day reserved for judgment. When is it? No man knows. Jesus said even he while on earth did not know. The angels in heaven don't know that day. Only the Father. We were given a marker. Jesus did say in Matthew 24 The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. We're given a kind of a marker or indicator that the Lord is going to take this word and he's going to get it out to all the nations, and then the end will come. The word nations in the Greek is ethnos, ethnicities, people groups. Well, how do you define people groups? I don't know. Maybe it's clear here someplace. I've not figured it out yet how you define people groups according to the Lord. And even if I could define people groups, that doesn't mean that I can really track where it has and hasn't been. I know there are folks that try to do that, and they've estimated where the gospel's gone and where it hasn't gone, but something that really stuck with me, Brother Kent Welch, as he's gone to Pakistan, and Brother Jeff Elliott, and they've gone to that place, and they've been taking, you know, there are people there who are saved, and they're trying to help them and grow them, and trying to further that work there. Brother Kent made the statement, he said, look, the gospel came to the area of Pakistan before it ever came here to the United States, historically. way back in the day, it was there before it was ever here. You see, I don't know how God accounts for these things. I don't know what that looks like. I know that today, the word has traveled all over this world and it's constantly reaching new places. And however God does this, it's only the God that knows. But when God says, I've reached all the people I'm gonna reach, that's it, and the day is here. And I can't tell you when that is, but I know that that day is closer right now than it ever, ever has been. You ever dreaded a date on the calendar? I know as a young person, I dreaded revival. I knew what it was. And I knew I was lost. And I knew I was gonna spend that week feeling uncomfortable. And I knew that I didn't like people talking to me about it. I knew I wanted to ignore it. I knew I couldn't wait till it was over because I just dreaded feeling like that. The fact is that sin hung on me every single day. But it was in the presence of God's people and the presence of the preaching of God's word and all of that that God was making it really clear to me. And I didn't like that. Sometimes I've dreaded going to the dentist, and it seems like as you get closer to that day, isn't it interesting, like you can look forward to summer break, and that day can't ever seem to get here, but when it comes to something you're dreading, oh my goodness, time just flies. And I tell you, when it comes to the end, and it comes to the end of your life, or it comes to that last day, whichever comes first, I don't know what it's gonna be, you'll look back and you will say, what a wasted life. How much time have I wasted? How this has flown? I know Sister Betty is about to be 90 years old, and I bet she can look back and say, wow, it's gone fast in a lot of ways. It's gone really fast in a lot of ways. So judgment is coming. The apostle Paul is saying this judgment is for all men. You see, they were setting up this altar thinking it was an insurance policy for the city. And Paul was saying, you have not gained insurance from anything because what I want to tell you is that this God who you worship ignorantly is going to hold all men everywhere accountable. We will all have to go before God who is going to judge us all. And not only does he speak about this judgment, but he points out here in this verse 31, he says he has set a day in which he's going to judge the world in righteousness, meaning in righteous principles. What he's going to do, the way he's going to judge is going to be perfect, exactly right, it's going to be fair, it's going to be clear. I know we can sit here and say, oh, it's not fair for God to send this person to hell or that person to hell. My friend, on that day, when you are in the presence of the Lord, it's going to be very clear that he is nothing but fair. It will be very, very clear when you stand in any sense of the holiness of God, and you shrink away, recognizing you aren't worthy to be in that place. That God's saying, you can't come in, you are sent to hell. There will be a very real sense that you're not prepared, ready, right, to be in that other place. Now, you're not going to want to go to hell, and you're probably not going to like that. But, I tell you, you're going to understand in some sense that He is fair, He is just. because he's gonna judge righteously. But he points out, Paul points out that he's going to judge by that man whom he hath ordained. And he's speaking of Jesus. What Paul is saying is that the Father, God the Father, this God that is unknown to you, has committed the role and the office of judge to his son. And Jesus is the one who will stand as judge. And this is something that was a little bit different, that I never really had thought about this very much, because as I often have preached or taught through this type of topic, I've often used the illustration of Jesus being like the lawyer. Because the Bible in 1 John speaks about how we have an advocate with the Father. Oh, he's speaking to Christians right there. He's speaking to Christians. For us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our advocate. But there is a sense in here, the real courtroom scene of standing before the Lord is standing before Jesus Christ, who is the judge. He is the one, the one who died for your sins, the one who knows your sin, who carried it on his shoulders. He is the one you will have to stand and look into his eyes as he pronounces judgment upon you. The Scriptures tell us in Zechariah, and it's quoted in John's Gospel, In fact, that is quoted again in the book of Revelation, speaking about the return of Jesus Christ, that he will return, and every eye will see him, and that those who have pierced him will look upon him, and there will be weeping and wailing. It says, Beholdeth, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, even so. Amen. Every eye seeing him. And you will meet Jesus someday. But if that is truly the first time you meet him, you will meet him as your judge, as the one who will stand there and look into your soul and say either, yes, I know this one or depart from me. I never knew. You see, Jesus is the one who said that in Matthew chapter seven, and he knows what's going to be said because it's going to be coming out of his mouth. Those are those last words you'll hear of Jesus. Right now, you're hearing words from Jesus. You're hearing of what he's done, of his love, of his sacrifice. You're hearing all these words of Jesus. But if you die lost, the last words of Jesus you will hear are, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you. You people who live like you had no law, like there was no command, like I hadn't told you to repent, like I hadn't given you truth, and you just did what you wanted to do. I never knew you. You never surrendered to me. You never turned to me. You never repented to me. And so depart from me. Depart from me. as Jesus stands there and you look into his eyes. Folks, the preliminary judgment, the preliminary verdict for us standing before God, each and every one of us has already been rendered. You don't have to guess about what's going to happen when you get there on that day. It says in John 3, 18, whoever believes in him is not condemned. Those who have repented and put their faith in Christ, we have already been told that we're gonna be declared innocent, not because we're good or better or anything, but because the Lord Jesus took our sins and he gave us his righteousness so we will stand before him and he will see in us something he recognizes. And he'll say, come on in. Come on in. I know you. And we'll still have to give an account for our works. But we're going to be ushered into that holy and wonderful and beautiful place of paradise. But for those who have not believed, it says, but whoever does not believe is condemned already. This is Jesus speaking. This is the judge telling us how he is issuing justice. He said, whoever does not believe, whoever's not been saved is condemned already. Because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. The verdict on your life has already been rendered and it is guilty. That is what's hanging over you right now. It is guilty. It's not neutral. It's not null. It is guilty. You are guilty, guilty, guilty. And the weight of your sins will pull you into hell. And right now you have an opportunity to go to the one who is the judge and to seek his mercy, to seek his relief from this. Then he has made a way for you to do this. He has made a way for you. You have to go to the judge. You know, I've talked to my kids as they go into school and college, and I've told them, and some of them have learned this, that, look, you need to build a relationship with the professor. You need to do it. You need to know the teacher. I know it's easy to just go in class and sit there and to show up and take the test and do those things, but you need to know the teacher because you need to be able to go and ask questions. And when you're struggling with something, to be able to ask for help. And ultimately, they're the ones who write the grade. And I'll tell you, my oldest son has learned this very well, that if he builds that relationship with the professor, you know, and he goes in there at the end and things are really close, if they know you, They're going to bump up your grade. They're usually going to do that if you've built a relationship with them, because you know the person who is assigning that grade. That's how I got through engineering school a couple times. Honestly, my electrical engineering class, praise God, I got a C. Well, something like that. Anyway, but it was just barely, because I talked to the professor. But my friend tonight, you need to talk to the judge. You've got to talk to the judge. There is no other way. And this is also beautiful in that the Lord set this out there through the Apostle Paul to these people who were idolatrous, telling them, look, you're going to be judged. And the one that God has set to judge all this is Jesus. There is no other way. He is the way, he is the truth, he is the life. There is no end run around him. You can't go to God by some other means. There is one way that has been set forth and it's Jesus. He will be the one that everybody will have to answer to. So you need to go to him. This is just absolutely brilliant. As you look into it more and more, it's inspired, isn't it? It's inspired. And I wanna tell you something too. that we live, as I preached the other night, we live in this but now age. We saw that in verse 30. God had overlooked the ignorance of idolatry, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. We live in this age where the truth of Jesus Christ has been spread. where everybody in this room tonight has been given the opportunity to hear about Jesus, to hear about his suffering, to hear about his death, to hear about his love, to hear that you can go to him and you can find mercy and forgiveness, that you can go to him and you can be saved. Everybody in this room has had the chance to hear that. And that is a wonderful opportunity and it's resulted in the salvation of thousands of people. But I'll tell you that with this knowledge comes a great responsibility. Because as God has come to you, and God has delivered to you the word, and God has allowed you to hear about Jesus, and God has worked in your heart through his spirit to trouble you and show you that you're lost. If you don't respond to that and get saved, do you know what Jesus told his disciples? As they started this new era of going out with the gospel, he said, when you go to some city and you tell them about Jesus, and if they don't listen to you, if they don't hear you, if they don't respond, well, then you wipe off the dust of your feet. You kick it off because you've gone and you've done your duty. And you know what else Jesus said? It'll be worse for those people on the day of judgment than it is for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, if you're familiar with the Bible, you know Sodom and Gomorrah. They were just exceedingly wicked people. Young people, these are all the people your parents would never, ever, ever, ever, ever let you play with. They would never let you go to their house. They wouldn't even want to take you through the city because of all the rampant wickedness, all the things that they're trying to protect you from. And certainly those people, God sent down a fire and brimstone from heaven and he obliterated those cities because of the wickedness of that people. But I want you to know that Jesus said, and Jesus knows because he's the judge, that if you do not respond to the gospel, if you do not seek Him and find Christ, it will be hotter for you in hell. It will be worse for you in hell than the people at Sodom and Gomorrah who God sent down fire and brimstone on because you have been given the opportunity to know Jesus, to hear with such clarity this message, to know the judge that was never preached to those people. You have been given this, and if you reject Jesus, if you turn away the judge, there is nothing to look forward to but just fiery indignation, the anger and the wrath of God, the hottest parts of hell reserved for those who've been given opportunity but have turned it away. This is incredibly dangerous. That makes this night incredibly important. That makes this opportunity so precious. If God is dealing with your heart, if God is showing you that you don't know Jesus and that you need to be saved, you have this opportunity, this window before that day, before you die, whatever comes first, to be saved. Because if you don't, I cannot even begin to scribe to you. I can't be loud enough, passionate enough, cry enough tears to try to convince to you, to show you how horrible that would be for you forever and ever and ever. The message is repent because God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ. And it says here at the end, that he has given assurance unto all men and that he has raised him from the dead. I know it is a temptation and Satan will try to work and say, no, this is real. Just ignore it, put it off. I know, I know they're scaring you with all this talk. It's just, you know, there's a bunch of crazy people. I know they're nice, but you know, they're kind of crazy. And you just, just ignore this and put it off. There'll be another opportunity. I mean, he can give you any excuse you want. I find that when somebody doesn't want to do something, any excuse works pretty well, right? And so if right now you're not responding to the Lord, whatever excuse you're using, even if you are waiting because I'm preaching right now, whatever your excuse is, it's not a good excuse. You need to talk to God about it. But what the Lord is wanting to impress upon us is, look, I've proven, I've proven that this is real when I raised Jesus from the dead. I've proven that this whole thing, that I'm telling you that Paul was preaching, he told them, he goes, I tell you that this is 100% real because the proof is that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. And I know to these people that sounded crazy, but the apostle Paul was willing to live and die for that conviction. The Lord had appeared to him, those apostles who had seen Jesus and disciples who had seen Jesus after he resurrected, they were willing to die for that fact. They were willing to die for it because they knew it was real. And those of us who have tasted and seen and experienced the Lord, we know that He is a living Savior. And we're willing to come out and spend our Thursday night in this place when there's always a million other things we could be doing and hold these meetings and pray and continue to try to do the Lord's work because we know this is real. Jesus' death on the cross proved that judgment for sin is real. There's not some little pardon and goodbye for everybody at the end. Jesus died on that cross. He died on that cross. He was buried in that grave. And he stayed there until that third day in that grave, dead in the flesh. There has never been a stronger set of shoulders than those of Jesus Christ. And sin, when it came upon him, drove him to the grave. How could you escape? If Jesus Christ himself, when sin was laid upon him, could not escape the wrath of God, how will you escape? Well, you won't escape. The resurrection was there because he died, because judgment for sin is real. We also see that when Jesus was resurrected, He rose to the right hand of the Father. That Jesus is there in that position, that Jesus has been given this position as Lord, as Judge. When the Apostle Peter was preaching at Pentecost, that day when the Lord filled His church with the power of His Spirit, and they began preaching out in the streets, and it was to the Jewish people there initially. And Peter, as he was preaching, he said these words. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, speaking of Jesus, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he, Jesus, has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David didn't go up into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him, Jesus, both Lord and Christ. He, Jesus, is Lord. He has the power. He has the authority. He will have this position as judge. And he adds on there, this Jesus whom you crucified. And when these people heard that message, They said, what do we do? And Peter's message to them was the same thing Paul told these people on Mars Hill. You need to repent. You need to repent. When the apostle Peter later went to the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius and he spoke to the Gentiles for the first time, he told those people in that sermon that the Lord had made Jesus judge. and that they needed to look on Him. And they did. Jesus Christ is the judge. He is in that place. He rose from the grave. He lives to be able to do this. And finally, we see from His resurrection, repentance works, that there is a way. that God took care of that sin problem, that God made a way, and that Jesus, having satisfied God's wrath, He rose from the grave, and He ever lives to make intercession to those who would come to the Father by Him. Repentance works. There is a way, there is a path for you. And so what God is calling you to do, what His Spirit is telling you to do, to come and to seek Him and to repent. Folks, this works and the resurrection of Jesus Christ proves it. You have a preliminary verdict of guilty. You are guilty. And you are awaiting the punishment of that verdict in your life. Tonight, you need to go to the judge and you need to repent. You need to ask him to help you. You need to ask him for mercy on your soul. Because there is a day appointed, a day of judgment appointed. And that day is drawing near. And it's closer now than it ever has been. and you need to be ready. So we have a song tonight. Will you go to the judge? Will you go to the judge tonight? Will you talk to Jesus? Try to convey to you the significance of all these sayings the Apostle Paul has been saying and all the things he was trying to lead those people to that point when they would understand why they need to repent. Hell is real. God's wrath against sin is real. The resurrection is real. You can be saved. You can know this. You can have the promise. You can be declared innocent, but only by going to Jesus. As we stand and sing tonight, I encourage you to seek the Lord.