Paul's explanation for why the gospel, the unveiling of God's justice and salvation, is urgently required is that the tree is rotten to the core, and might come crashing down at any minute.

idols get their power because humans, in sinning, give it to them. Deal with sin, and the idols are reduced to a tawdry heap of rubble. Deal with sin, and the world will glorify God.

God's judgment often consists in giving people what they want and letting them experience the self-inflicted consequences of their choices. He allows them to choose ways of thinking and living that are self-destructive, tearing down the honor and dignity of others and themselves.

On the one hand, for each of us, sin is the claim to the right to myself, and so to my way of seeing things, which—far more than class, gender, race and generation—is the ultimate source of human relativity. On the other hand, sin is the deliberate repudiation of God and the truth of his way of seeing things. If my way of seeing things is decisive, anyone who differs from me is wrong by definition—including God. No

The first level of understanding necessary to faith is becoming critically aware of our dilemma in life without God.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

I, a guilty sinner, can never work to get right with God—it is impossible. There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ.

It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll.

One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll.

Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.

What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration.

Our repentance is merely the result of our personal realization of the atonement by the Cross of Christ, which He has provided for us. "Christ Jesus . . . became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). Once we realize that Christ has become all this for us, the limitless joy of God begins in us. And wherever the joy of God is not present, the death sentence is still in effect.