Ben Brinkerhoff - Class 5: The Meaning Of One

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   I'm going to kind of take a little bit of a risk today. I had notes, you know, and I had a PowerPoint presentation, you know, and all that good stuff, right, to keep you awake, those of you that are visual.

2. 0:15

   But, you know, I still remember what it was like to sit in this room. I remember what it was like to sit in this room with my friends. Sometimes, some of my friends aren't in the truth anymore.

3. 0:36

   And I would have never thought, you know, I would have never thought it could happen. It breaks my heart still. So, you know, we can talk about the atonement. And my fear would be that somehow, because I've tried to give you an understanding of the power of that doctrine, that it somehow gets reduced to a series of correct statements and memorized answers.

4. 1:13

   And you get some impression about God that He's just really interested in your technical understanding of how He has saved you through the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's a risk in trying to understand the detail of it, that somehow in the process of doing that, I become right. You become right. You know, like, I understand this.

5. 1:47

   That person doesn't. I understand this. I'm right. And if that happens, what happens is you've lost all the power of that doctrine. It's gone.

6. 2:00

   Because the atonement can never be understood in terms of you being right. It can never be understood in terms of that person's wrong. It can only be understood and contemplated and appreciated from a perspective of humility. You know, it says there in Romans chapter 5, as our brother Jesus, as he started the reading, he says, we're saved by grace because of faith.

7. 2:36

   You know, faith can be lost. Why faith? Why faith anyway? Why do you think? Why? You know, let's say I could do something. Let's say I could somehow have done something of myself to earn this salvation. I guess the issue with guys like me, and there's probably some guys like you out there, is that you would have thought, hey, you know, I've done something.

8. 3:10

   Hey, I've really done something to affect my salvation. It allows there to be room for pride. There's room for, I've done it. I've somehow earned what I have coming to me. You see, if you follow the argument in Romans, and I know we haven't really been following the argument in Romans, but if you did, you would have seen in chapter 3 that Paul is talking to the Jew who is trying to commend himself to God.

9. 3:36

   Now, commend's not a word we use very often these days. You know, maybe you might be familiar with a letter of commendation. It's a letter, if I have a letter of commendation, what happens is I might come to an employer or come to a client and say, listen, you should work with me because that person over there, he commends me that I've done the right thing.

10. 3:56

    I've done a good job. I deserve your favor. Here's a letter of commendation to prove it. And the Jew is trying to commend himself before God. And God shows that's absolutely, completely false. It can't happen. Do you know why it can't happen? Because God provided the sacrifice. God provided the sacrifice. There's nothing a Jew or anyone else could do to add to it.

11. 4:19

    The Jew couldn't improve it. The Jew couldn't make it better. You can't make the sacrifice of Christ better. You can't improve upon it. You can't add to it. So you're sitting there going, well, what do I do?

12. 4:34

    What do I do? I've got to do something. And Paul says, well, you have faith. But faith seems so weak. But faith is the only means by which you can express an attitude of mind. You know, you can fake good works.

13. 5:01

    You can do the right thing for the wrong motive. Right, Audrey? Nice to see you, by the way. How are you doing? You can do the right thing for the wrong motive. Absolutely you can. In fact, often we do. Right? You can't fake faith.

14. 5:24

    Faith is an inside job. I can fake works. I can't fake faith. I can fake the works of faith. I can try to show you that I have faith in my works of faith, but I really, in my heart of hearts, I can't fake faith. It's inside. And Paul says, because we're saved by faith, we have peace.

15. 5:54

    Well, imagine if you had to earn your way to the kingdom. Is there any peace in that? Imagine if you're constantly sitting there going, I have to commend myself before God. I've got to prove myself before God. I've got to be made right by my works before God. And I'm constantly under this pressure of being more righteous than the next person and judging my righteousness by how righteous that person is and going, I'm a Jew of Jew.

16. 6:24

    I do more than that. I keep the law better than that person. And this person's going, oh, that's how you keep the law. I'm going to be getting more stringent because I need to be more righteous than you are.

17. 6:35

    Imagine if that's what you thought God wanted. All out doing one another. Out-righteasing one another. Proving yourself. Commending yourself before God. Trying. You're going to add to the sacrifice of Christ. You're going to make it better. You know, is there any peace in that? There's no peace in that. In Romans chapter 3, Paul is going to say that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

18. 7:09

    Every single person comes before God's glory and His majesty and His brightness and they see it and they fall short. Every single person. They fall short of the glory of God. And what did you know what Paul says in Romans chapter 5? He says, We rejoice in the hope in which we stand.

19. 7:31

    God has picked you up off. You have fallen short. And He has picked you up off the ground. And He says, Stand! You stand here. You do not fall down. You are standing. That's what grace has done. It has picked you up off the ground and it casts you there and it says, No, no.

20. 7:53

    Because of what Christ has done for you, you are standing. You stand before the glory of God. Do you realize what that is? To stand. To stand before God's glory. Who among us would dare to stand before God? All of us, we cast ourselves down. And God has picked us up and says, No, by my grace you stand.

21. 8:20

    That's what faith does. You've got to have faith you can do that because you can't do that by your works. You can't do that by your righteousness. You cannot stand by your righteousness. You can only grovel.

22. 8:35

    But by faith you stand. You can't earn that. But you know, there is an instance young people. There is a way, young people, in which faith does not produce peace. And that is a faith in which you've lost something else. That thing is hope. See, why would you want faith without hope?

23. 9:24

    Hope is personal. You know, you could have faith that the kingdom is coming. Faith says the kingdom's coming. Hope is personal. Hope is personal. Hope is personal.

24. 9:50

    And if you have faith without hope, all you have is an expectation of judgment. in Hebrews chapter 11, when it talks about what faith is,

25. 10:11

    it says faith is a substance of things hoped for. So what happens? What happens if you lose hope, young people? Tell me what happens when you lose hope.

26. 10:27

    So if I've lost hope, why do I want to believe in a God who I don't hope in? Why do I want to believe in a God that's just making my life hard? Why do I want to believe in a God that's just going to judge me? I'd be better off if there wasn't such a God.

27. 10:50

    I'd be better off if there wasn't a judgment. And as soon as I conclude in my mind, somewhere in the depths of my thinking, may not even in the conscious part, maybe even in the unconscious part, that I'm better off that there's no God, faith is going to disappear. Because faith is the substance of something hoped for.

28. 11:19

    But there's two reasons I've seen, by and large, that people lose hope. And it just so happens that those two things Paul covered in that readings in Romans, and this is the thing about Romans, you probably didn't even perceive as our brother Jesus read that, you probably didn't even perceive that Paul was dealing with the two reasons people lose hope.

29. 11:46

    And he says, this is how you encourage people to lose hope. You probably didn't even perceive it, and it was there. And if you read carefully in Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter 5 is not an exposition. Paul is not expounding the atonement in Romans chapter 5. That is not what he's doing. Right?

30. 12:06

    Romans chapter 5, verses 1 to 11, is all about encouragement. And Paul identifies in Romans chapter 5 two reasons why people lose hope. And these are reasons I've seen people lose hope. And maybe even for brief seasons, these are reasons that I've lost hope. Those reasons are, number one, I'm going through too many trials.

31. 12:36

    You know what? My life is really hard, and it's really bitter. And if God loved me, I wouldn't be going through this trial right now. God must not be with me. I don't have hope. reason number one.

32. 13:01

    Reason number two. I am too great of a sinner. I'm too great of a sinner. God couldn't possibly save me. I don't have hope. I don't have hope. For those two reasons, because of trial, and because of guilt, eventually you conclude, I don't have a hope. Therefore, I don't have a faith. Therefore, I need to leave.

33. 13:37

    I don't know if your youth group will be different than mine. I will say this. This is a great group of kids. I would have liked to have grown up in your era, in your generation. Your parents have done a wonderful job, and I just think this is a fantastic group. You lost both volleyball games, but it was kind of close.

34. 14:02

    Right? Now, we won the volleyball game once. Why not? And do you know what happened? Is that, after we won that, that was the first time ever, by the way. Do you guys remember that, Jeff? You were on the losing side that time. And we won, you know, and what happened is that Luke Barrett and Caleb Lloyd, right, played Pomp and Circumstance.

35. 14:22

    Da, da, da, da, da, da, and we walked into the room, right, like this. So you guys think you had some showmanship, you know? We did too, but that aside, besides the fact you're losers, beside that, right? This is an awesome group. I would have liked to have been a young person now, you know, and be friends with you, you know?

36. 14:46

    But that being said, there will still be either, amongst people in this room, people that lose hope. they might lose hope because their parents' relationship breaks apart. They might lose hope because a loved one passes away. They might lose hope because they've taken a relationship too far, and they feel such guilt about that.

37. 15:15

    They might lose hope because, you know, they've, they've hurt somebody so badly. They might lose hope because they don't feel identity amongst this group of people, and they look for friends at other places that are more fun. I don't know. But I am going to give you Paul's solution to people that are losing hope.

38. 15:41

    And you might not remember my words. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, because I hardly remember any of the talks that I heard when I was your age. It's just the way it is. Nothing, no problem with that. But you will remember Romans chapter 5, verses 1 to 11, and you can take that with you your whole life, because it's always going to be there.

39. 15:57

    The first thing Paul is going to say is regarding trial. He's saying, you know, people have trial, right? And, but Paul's point is that trial is not a reason to lose hope. You don't lose hope because of trial. In fact, Paul says that trial brings hope, because you can see, look at, look at Paul.

40. 16:21

    Everywhere Paul went, he was beaten, he was abused, he was hurt, and sometimes he was stoned, sometimes he was whipped. And you go from the outside, and you're going, Paul, why would you have hope? Why would you have hope? Everywhere you go, your life is hard. Everywhere you turn, there's, there's, there's someone lying in wait to kill you, Paul.

41. 16:47

    Of all people that shouldn't have hope, you shouldn't have hope, Paul. And Paul's saying, do you know, in my experience, Paul's saying, it's not that, that trial reduces hope.

42. 17:02

    Paul's saying, trial increases hope. How could that be? Well, then Paul says, well, this is how the logic works for me, Paul says. He says, listen, trial, or tribulation, tribulation, it's that word, the word means pressing. You ever felt that, that you feel pressed? You know, you just, you feel like there's a weight on, you just feel pressed.

43. 17:27

    That's what that word really means. And Paul's saying, when I feel pressed, when I have trial, something happens to me. And what happens, is that there's a separation, between what reality is, and what my will for reality is. I'm, I'm separated from my will. I want something to turn out this way. I want my parents' relationship to stay together.

44. 17:57

    I want that girl to like me. For years. I, I, you know, I want, I wanted my friends to stay in the truth. I, I, I had things I wanted. Right. And I'm separated from them. My, my will's not happening. And, and you know what, there's nothing I can do to change that.

45. 18:20

    You know, if I can, because if I could, I would, right, I would, I would express my will. I would do something. I would act a certain way. I would do a certain thing. I would just do something to make my will happen, because I want my will to happen. And so what happens in the trial, is I'm separated from my will.

46. 18:39

    What I want to have happen, isn't happening, and I can't do anything about it. I can't make it better. I can't change it. It just is. Patience. And suddenly, I'm forced into this situation, which I really don't like at all. And Paul calls that situation patience.

47. 19:00

    It has to be patience, because if I could make it happen, I'd just make it happen. I wouldn't have to be patient. You know? If I want a turkey sandwich, and I'm at the grocery store, I can buy the materials, and make myself a turkey sandwich. There's no trial there, because I, I can use my actions, my will to make it happen.

48. 19:17

    But if I'm locked in a prison, and I'm behind closed bars, like Paul was, he just can't order the food he wants, as a lame example. But the idea is, you can see that you're separated from being able to do what you want. And so Paul says, that brings patience. But Paul says, patience is a wonderful thing.

49. 19:38

    Why is the patience? So now I'm separated from my will, and what's magical about being separated from your will? Now you can see God work, Paul says. Because you know what? If you're just making it happen, and everything you're making happen, and you're doing it, and your actions, and your activities, and your will, and you're just forcing yourself on the situation, and it's happening just the way you want, just the way you want.

50. 20:04

    Could you look back and say, God was working in that. Look, it happened just the way I wanted it. I forced it to be that way, but hey, it's God's will.

51. 20:18

    Be tough to conclude that, right? It was actually probably your will being thrust and foisted on the situation. So now when I'm in this position of patience, I have to sit back and say, okay, I can't make my will happen. I guess I just have to wait and see. And Paul says that patience leads to experience.

52. 20:43

    Experience, it really means as the idea of to prove by experience. You guys know how that is, right? So, the issue is that when I'm forced to sit back and wait,

53. 21:07

    my will can't happen. I can see things happen around me. I'm now in a situation where divorced from my will that I'm able to learn.

54. 21:23

    And the problem with this is that we preempt what God's will is. People make this mistake all the time. They presuppose the providence of God, right? They say, oh, I know why this is happening to you. I know this is happening because of that, right? I know why this trial is happening. This trial, and especially when we do this for other people.

55. 21:48

    Don't do this for people. Don't take someone in the midst of their trial and tell them what God's doing for them. It's foolishness. That is absolute foolishness. And it doesn't help. We presuppose the providence of God. What we need to say is, here's a trial. I don't know what's behind it. I don't know what I'm supposed to learn in it.

56. 22:16

    I can plainly observe that here's a trial. But I know that God loves me. And I know if I patiently endure in this, that by testing and by experience, and by experience, God will show me.

57. 22:39

    I have a very personal example I can't give you details for. But the fact is, I didn't want to move to Christchurch. You guys know that, right? And I thought, what am I doing? Why am I going there? And it wasn't more than six months after being there that God very powerfully showed me, Ben, this is why you're here.

58. 23:07

    And I would never, ever, ever have guessed. It would be, it would have been the absolute farthest thing from my mind. If I had presupposed this is why God's, you know, calling me there, I would have been miles away. And He showed me in a way I would have never expected.

59. 23:29

    And do you know I sat back when that happened? I said, God's working with me. This is what, this is what He wants me to do. This is what I've learned. I didn't learn it because I knew it was going to happen. And I could have only learned it because my will was separated from my reality.

60. 23:49

    And I had to patiently wait. And I patiently waited in confusion for a long time. And then God, in almost unexpected ways, He shows you. And do you know what you think to yourself? God is working with me. This is what I had to learn. This is what I have to do. I'm going to do that work.

61. 24:08

    God's working with me. God's working with me. I have hope. And you could only know it. And you could only appreciate it because God did it. You didn't do it. God did it. the letter the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the Generations of believers because of his suffering.

62. 25:04

    Paul says when he's in prison, I can see that I'm in prison, but do you know what's happening, he writes? He says, because of my imprisonment, people are bold to speak the truth.

63. 25:19

    Because they see me here and they see that I'm not scared. He says, because I'm in prison, I'm able to preach to Caesar's household. Paul could see by experience, not by foresight, that this was what God had done through his suffering.

64. 25:45

    And so suffering doesn't take away your hope. If you wait patiently, and that's the hard part, if you wait patiently, and you love him through it, in tears, he will reveal it to you.

65. 26:08

    And when he does, you'll say, God is, he is with me. I thought he was gone, but he is not gone. He is not gone. He is working with me. I have hope. And so often, and so often, it won't be, it will not be for you. He will have done it for someone else.

66. 26:35

    He will have done it for someone else. Because God loves more than just you. And your suffering, and your example, will have been what that other person needed.

67. 27:00

    So you might be in a situation right now, where you're suffering. And you're questioning why. And you're hating it. Please have patience. And your friend might be in a situation where they're suffering right now, and they're in trials. And you might want to comfort them by supposing upon that person, this is what God's doing.

68. 27:24

    Please don't. Please just encourage them that God hasn't forgotten to love them. But that's only the first reason that people lose hope. It's almost as if Paul in Romans 5, he can see the heckler out there, and the heckler saying, Paul, how do I know that hope won't be ashamed? How do I know that I won't be ashamed because of my hope?

69. 27:58

    You know, how do I know? I have a hope for the kingdom. How do I know that I'm going to get to the judgment seat, and Christ is going to look at me and see through me and see nothing? And I'm going to be ashamed because I'm a sinner.

70. 28:18

    And Paul says, hope will not make ashamed. Hope will not make ashamed because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the truth, by the Holy Spirit. Well, what does that mean? Why is it that Paul says, I don't need to be ashamed because of God's love? We're talking about issue of quality, then, aren't we?

71. 28:59

    What's the quality of God's love? And Paul says, I'm going to demonstrate you the quality of God's love upon which demonstration, if I do, you have to promise me you're never going to have that thought again.

72. 29:16

    If I can prove to you that God's love is greater than your sin, you've got to promise me that you're not going to have that thought again. So Paul says this. He says, let me prove to you about God's love because obviously, if you think you're too great of a sinner, there's something about God's love that you don't understand.

73. 29:37

    Paul said that Christ died for the ungodly. He says, when we are weak, when we were without strength, I think the King James puts it, we were without, that without strength is this word for weak. It's the same word from Matthew 23 where it says, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

74. 29:59

    Okay? The word actually is a very strong word. It almost means helpless. Now, what do you mean when we were without strength, Paul says, when we were weak, Christ died. Well, let me tell you about the time that Christ died. Right? He says, when we were weak, when we were absolutely helpless. Now, we can see that that's true in a, in sort of a, a sense of we're a sinner.

75. 30:29

    but it's also got to be true in an emotional sense, that we're weak in an emotional sense. I mean, that, that our hope cannot possibly depend on our will. Right? Our, our, our salvation cannot possibly depend on us exerting the right amount of willpower to earn God's love. That's not going to happen.

76. 30:48

    Right? So, so when we were, when we were weak and then Paul says, not only when we were weak and absolutely helpless, he says, Christ died in, in due time. Now, that word due time means the right time. Now, you may be thinking, well, the right time, like the 70 weeks prophecy and it very accurately described when Christ would live and die.

77. 31:11

    It's a, by the way, you want some faith to study the 70 week prophecy. Absolutely nails the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. You might say, that's, Christ died at the right time as in prophetically at the right time. That's not what we're talking about here. Christ is not, Paul's not saying that Christ died in the right time from a prophetical point of view.

78. 31:32

    He's saying that Christ died at the time when the sin of the fathers was full. Christ didn't just die at any time. He died at such a time. Now, Christ didn't come like when Solomon had set up the temple. Christ didn't come during the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah. Christ didn't come, you know, when Gideon had thrown out the Midianites.

79. 32:02

    Christ did not come at a time of spiritual revival in the land. Christ came at a specific time, at a time when he would be condemned by both Jews and Gentiles. He had to come at a time when he would be condemned by both. He came at a time where he said, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah are going to rise up in the judgment and they're going to condemn this generation because that's how wicked this generation was.

80. 32:31

    Why? Because other generations were wicked because they'd gone after false gods. This generation was wicked because they used God to destroy his son. That's wickedness. That's wickedness. Men so completely devoted to the idea that they could earn salvation, so completely devoted to that idea that they killed a sinless man. They're so devoted that they could earn salvation via their works that they killed a sinless man and did the most heinous of all works.

81. 33:07

    That was that time. That's only once this week. That's really impressive actually. That was the wicked. So Christ died when we were completely helpless and he died at the most wicked of all times. When both Gentiles and Jews were in a specific, had the specific ability to condemn Christ. He couldn't just be condemned by Gentiles and he couldn't just be condemned by Jews.

82. 33:41

    He had to be condemned by representatives of all of mankind at the same time. So Christ died for the worst of all people at the worst of all times.

83. 33:58

    That's when Christ died for the ungodly. That's hard. That's hard. That was how God demonstrated his love. love. And so Paul doesn't think it's just merely enough to say, hey, the reason that you have hope is because God's a loving God. He needs to prove it. He wants to prove it and the way he proves it is he talks about God's love in contrast to the depravity of man's love.

84. 34:29

    And so he tries to draw this contrast so that we can understand it. And so he says, listen, for a righteous man, for a righteous man, someone wouldn't die. You know, people won't even die for someone that's righteous, that's good. I mean, I can think about this. If my whole ecclesia was, for horrific circumstances, my whole ecclesia was there about to be killed and I had the ability to save them but I had to take Ari and offer Ari so that the whole ecclesia would live.

85. 35:02

    I would scarcely do it. I would scarcely do it and that's for righteous men. So Paul's drawing a contrast between God's, I mean, men will hardly die for righteous men. And then he changes, Paul changes the example. He says, well, for a kind man, for a pleasant man, one would dare to die.

86. 35:34

    Well, the issue there actually, the key word there is the word dare. You see, I'm reminded of 9-11. We're in 9-11, these brave firemen and they rush into the building, right? And some of them perished, many of them did. And you know, men, especially, and girls, you just don't get this about us, but we have this thing called testosterone and what happens is that in the midst of a moment, right, we can make a momentary decision of courage and we're going to rush into danger, right?

87. 36:08

    We're going to, we have this hero complex. We're going to rush into danger and we're going to save as many people as we can. and, you know, we, but it's that momentary, and guys, you know this, there's a momentary flush of courage that we get. And so maybe for a pleasant or a kind man, we might dare to die.

88. 36:33

    How about this? God contemplated the death of his son for thousands of years. It wasn't just a momentary flash of courage. He had planned this death for thousands of years.

89. 37:14

    Men can't do that. So by contrasting, the problem we have with understanding God's love is that we can't help but compare it to our feeble love.

90. 37:29

    And Paul's saying you can't do that because men wouldn't have been able to do this. Men would not have sent their precious son for the helpless people, sinful, helpless people at the worst of all times to die for the worst of all people. Men couldn't do that. So Paul says stop comparing God's love to man's love.

91. 37:54

    Stop looking at the love of men and saying that's what this is like. Stop looking at all the broken relationships and all the people that let you down and looking at yourself and all the people you've let down and say God's love is like that. I can't depend on that.

92. 38:10

    Stop comparing God's love to the love you know naturally. It's nothing to do with it. It's nothing like it. It can't be compared is what Paul's saying. Paul's saying if you're sitting there and you're thinking I'm too great of a sinner, you have a problem understanding what God's love is all about. But then the key point.

93. 38:30

    So Paul's been building all that up. So in Romans chapter 5 he comes to the key point. And we read there. But God shows His love for us verse 8 in that while we were yet sinners not pleasant not righteous while we were sinners at that point Christ died for us. You know that would have been personal for Paul.

94. 39:02

    What kind of person do you think Paul was when Christ died? Literally. Big sinner. In Jerusalem likely. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Okay. Now the key. Now the absolute key. Verse 9.

95. 39:37

    Since therefore we are now justified by His blood much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. I don't this can I don't some of you have ESV I know some of you have King James Version but most versions have much more in there. Okay. So you take out a pencil and you see in verse 9 of chapter 5 of Romans you see that word much more I need you to circle that word or highlight that word come on pull your Bibles out do this because it will help you remember this is a kinesthetic part of the class right pull out your pencil go into Romans chapter 5 look at verse 9 and I need you to circle or underline or highlight or something the word much more what does much more imply much more implies a contrast much more when you say much more you're saying there's something over here and this is much more so the words much more imply there's a contrast so that's exactly what's happening Paul is meaning to contrast something here I don't want you to lose the thing he's trying to contrast so what's he contrasting he's saying if God sent his son to die for the worst of all people while they were sinners at the worst of all times and that he contemplated for thousands of years if God did that that's hard if that's if God did that you think he's not going to save you really you think your sin's that great that God went through this he went through this to save you he put his son through that

96. 41:33

    to show and to testify to you of the quality of his love as a demonstration of what that love is to show you that that love is so different than anything you can experience or understand as a man that God did that to his son and he's going to look at your sin and he's going nah I put my son through this but nah I'm not going to save you I got news for you young people saving you is the easy part the death of his son was the hard part saving you that's easy you think it's hard it's not hard the death of his son is hard saving you when you have faith that's not hard much more much more if he's put his son through that much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God for if we were enemies for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life if God has done that if he's done that he will absolutely save you because he did not do that to reject you so if you're sitting there and you're thinking to yourself I don't have hope I'm too great of a sinner then I just put forward to you the idea the concept that just perhaps just perhaps you have not understood the love of God maybe just maybe God loves you enough young people please don't lose hope there's some trials coming there's some trials coming and there's some sins you're going to do that really

97. 44:13

    make you hate yourself there is a way of reconciliation young people there is a way it's not hard have faith don't lose hope tell tell about