Third indictment, a failure to
address man's malady. When I look at the book of Romans,
which is one of my favorite books of the Bible. It is not a systematic
theology, but if you could say any book in the Bible was a systematic
theology, the book of Romans would be the closest. Isn't it
amazing that Paul spends the first three chapters of that
book seeking to do one thing, bring all men into condemnation? Bring all men into condemnation. But it is not that condemnation
is his great sunum bonum in his theology. It is not his end or
his final purpose. It is a means to bring salvation
to his readers. Because men must be brought to
a knowledge of self before they surrender self over to God. Men are made in such a fallen
manner now that you must cut away from them absolutely every
hope in the flesh before they can be brought to God. This is
important in everything, but it's especially important in
evangelism. I remember, I was 21 years old
and had just been called to preach, and I walked into an old store
where they would sell suits to ministers for half price. They'd
been doing it for 50, 60 years. And I walked in there and I was
looking for a suit in Paducah, Kentucky. And all of a sudden,
the door opened. I heard the bell ring and it
closed. There was an old, old man standing
there. I never caught his name, but
when he walked in, he looked right at me and he said, You've
been called to preach, haven't you? I said, yes, sir. He was an old, old evangelist. He said, you see where that building
is right outside this building? I said, yeah. He said, I used
to preach there. The spirit of God would come
down and souls would be saved. I said, sir, please tell me about
it. He says, there wasn't anything like this evangelism today. He
said, we would preach for two and three weeks and give no invitation
to sinful men. We would plow and plow and plow
and plow the hearts of men until the Spirit of God began to break
their hearts. I said, sir, how did you know
when the Spirit of God was coming to break their hearts? And he
said, well, let me just give you an example. He said, many decades ago, I
walked into this store to buy a suit. Someone had handed me
$30 and said, preacher, go buy you a suit tomorrow. And when
I walked through the door, the young clerk taking care of the
shop turned around and looked at me. And when he looked at
me, fell down on the floor and cried out, who can save a wicked
man like me? And I knew that the spirit of
God had fallen upon the place. Now we just walk in and talk
to them, give them three exploratory questions and ask them if they
want to pray a prayer and ask Jesus to come into their heart.
And we make a twofold son of hell. who will never again be
open to the gospel because of the religious lie that we as
evangelicals have spewed out of our mouth. I'll say something
that Leonard Ravenhill used to say. Now you understand why I
preach in a lot of places once. But that is the truth. When we treat sin superficially,
first of all, we are fighting against the Holy Spirit. And
He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin. There
are very popular preachers today who are more concerned about
giving you your best life now than they are eternity. And they
brag about the fact that they do not mention sin in their preaching. I can tell you this, the Holy
Spirit has nothing to do with their ministry, lest He be working
against it. That would be the only thing.
Why? When a man says he has no ministry dealing with the sin
of men, the Holy Spirit does. It is a primary ministry of the
Holy Spirit to come and convict the world of sin. And so know
this, when you do not deal specifically, passionately, lovingly with men
and their depraved condition, the Holy Spirit is nowhere around
you. Also, we are deceivers when we
deal with the malady of men lightly. Like shepherds of Jeremiah's
day, they have healed the brokenness of my people, superficially saying,
peace, peace. But there is no peace. We are
not only deceivers, but we are immoral. Like a doctor who denies
his Hippocratic oath because he doesn't want to tell someone
bad news because he thinks that person will be cross against
him. We'll be angry with them. We'll
be sad. And so he does not tell them
the news most necessary to save their life. I hear preachers today, they
say, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand, Brother
Paul. We're not like the people of the day of John and Charles
Wesley. We are not like the culture that Whitfield addressed or Edwards.
We're not as hardy as they are. We're broken. We don't have as
much self-esteem. We're feeble. We can't bear such
preaching. Listen to me. Have you ever studied
the lives of these men? What they preached, their culture
couldn't bear it either. No one has ever been able to
bear the preaching of the gospel. They will either turn against
it with the fierceness of an animal, or they will be converted. And to give you a thing about
us being more feeble and not having the self-esteem, our country
and this world is overrun with this disgusting malady of self-esteem. Our greatest problem is that
we esteem self more than we esteem God. We are also thieves when we do
not speak much about sin. We are thieves. Let me ask you a question. This
afternoon, this morning, where did all the stars go? Did some
cosmic giant come by in a basket and pick them all up and throw
them in and carry them someplace else? Where did all the stars
go this morning? They were there, but you couldn't
see them. But then the sky grew darker
and darker and darker. And as that night turned black
as pitch, the stars came out in the fullness of their glory. When you refuse to teach on the
radical depravity of men, it is an impossibility that you
bring glory to God, His Christ, and His cross. because the cross
of Jesus Christ and the glory thereof is most magnified when
it's placed in front of the backdrop of our depravity. She loved much
because she's been forgiven much, and she knew how much she had
been forgiven because she knew how wicked she was. Oh, we're
afraid to tell men of their wickedness, and they can never love God because
of it. We've robbed them the opportunity
to boast not in self, but to follow the admonition, let him
who boasts, boast in the Lord.