I believe men come to church because there is forgiveness. In the Christ of the church there is forgiveness. It may seem strange to some, when we hear of all the horrible crimes committed today, and the judicial system so lax in it’s attitude toward punishment. We may get the conclusion sometime as we look at our society that really sin’s not quite so bad as we’ve made it out to be. But having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, the body of the church still yet today testifies that both, of the hatred of God for sin, of the hatred of God for that which simply ought not to be done, in our individual lives, in our collective lives, in our society, in our government, in the world in general, there are just those things that ought not to be done, and we bear witness of that.

And we bear witness also, of the forgiveness, of the loosing from the grasp of the old habits which are so hard to put to death. You know we, we are yet living in such permissive times, this is such a humanistic world, and we do not often hear of the absolutes of God, the world simply does not pronounce them, but the church yet says and declares loudly the words of God saying “the soul that sins shall die!”

We believe, contrary to the sentiment and the idea of most societies and the world in general , we believe that God is a God of love, but we also believe God is a God of wrath and that He is not simply a sentimental indulgent father who says to His erring son while patting us on the back “There, there, son, I’m sure you didn’t mean to do it” when in fact we know we did mean to do it and we had the mind to do it, we committed sin out of the free volition of our hearts and our lives, and thus we come to church  thus we seek the face of God because at the face and throne of God there is forgiveness, a valid reason we should come to church. – HWT

Here the full sermon here.