IVCF, 1/21/05

To Geneseo IVCF: Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak tonight and for listening to my feeble attempts at laying out the doctrine of sin. My hope and prayer is that, hard as it may be, you will meditate deeply on the difficult doctrine of sin and learn to love Christ all the more. I realized that I plowed through the 7 points of application quite quickly, so here they are again:

Having a deep and penetrating understanding of the doctrine of sin and eternal punishment accomplishes the following:

1. It causes us to be totally dependent on God
2. It causes God’s grace to be magnified
3. It magnifies the joys of heaven
4. It motivates us towards obedience by freeing us from God's wrath
5. It causes us to remain humble, especially around unbelievers
6. It causes us to have mercy towards unbelievers
7. It brings glory to Christ – the work is all His! Many still trust from time to time in their own works to gain approval with God. Meditation and understanding of our terrible sinful state reminds us that Christ is our only hope.

Please feel free to ask questions or make comments in the "comments" section, and I am looking forward to seeing you next week!

(By the way, my regular readers are of course welcome to join this discussion as well).