The mutual delight of sinners! Men delight in the corruptions of other men! Thieves rehearse together their latest crimes. Drunkards regale each other with the degradations of their last party. Men and women salivate together over tales of their most recent sexual conquests. The cleverest thief, the biggest drinker, and the most salacious tales receive the most applause as men and women feed their gargantuan and insatiable appetites for sin. Not only do men commit sin! That is bad enough. They are full of unrighteousness; and with unrighteousness proceeding from their reprobate minds, they are given over to sin and run in the way of sin. Yet more wicked than the deed itself is the delight that sinners have in sin. There is no shame! There is no contrition! The sinner loves sin for sin’s sake. He loves sin even if there is no personal gain in sin for him and even if sin destroys him. The liar will lie even if he knows he will be caught because the lie tastes sweet on his tongue. And loving sin for sin’s sake, the sinner desires that sin prevail in the world. Sinners have fellowship together in their sins, and they will that sin in general abound everywhere. With them righteousness and truth have no place and no fellowship. Righteousness and truth are the light that exposes the wickedness of sinners and their delight in sin. They hate the light and love the darkness.

A terrible delight of sinners! The end of their way is death. That death is not physical death. That death is hell. Death is the wages of sin, as God said in the beginning. And sinners take each other together on that way. They do not rebuke each other. They do not seek to pull one another off that terrible and slippery slope that leads to destruction. They delight to take others with them and rejoice when others join them on the path that ends in the wasting of hell.

A damning delight of sinners! They know the judgment of God! They know that those who commit such things are worthy of death. The condition of the sinner is that he is like the man who is slipping down a steep slope, being pulled by the inescapable force of gravity consisting in the judgment of God. The sinner knows this. And he enjoys the ride down. He knows this because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. The sinner knows this because of the testimony of God in the sinner that God is angry with the wicked every day. And God gives to the sinner a living picture of death as the wages of sin in the world around him. Everyone sees that the drunkard finally exhausts his body with his drink, that the fornicator ruins his health with his debauchery, and that the thief ruins his reputation with his crimes. The direction of sin is death. Sinners know this. They know that God is. They know his eternal power and Godhead. They know that God must be glorified and thanked. And they run together in the way of perdition and not only do these things but have delight in those who do them.

Will you preach hell and damnation to the sinner to save him? He does not care. He knows already that those who commit such things are worthy of death.

The gospel! The gospel! The gospel! The power of God to salvation. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed. That righteousness of God is that saving act of God in Jesus Christ to save his people from such a terrible condition. God justifies them and forgives their sins and imputes to them the perfect and complete righteousness of Jesus Christ. And the end of all whom God so saves is life. For the just by faith shall live.