Apostle Paul, he went to religion
and there he reasoned with people. That's what I'm going to attempt
to do today, to reason with you. If you're the weirdo I was talking
about, you're not reasonable. Nothing makes sense to you right
now. Not life, not this world, not what's taking place. You're
in a state of confusion. perhaps even depression. And Paul, as his manner was,
in other words, he often did this. He went into the synagogue,
Acts 17 says, and on three Saturdays, reasoned with them out of the
scripture. The Apostle Paul, the former
Saul of Tarsus, went right to the seat of religion. And there
he took his Bible, and there he reasoned with them out of
the scriptures with regard to whether Jesus was the Christ,
the Messiah, who was to come into the world. I think it's
most interesting that in the Corinthian letter, with regard
to the Corinthian church, rather, the apostle Paul was about to
leave the city of Corinth And the Lord said to him, don't leave
this city. It was such an awful place, such
a corrupt place. And the Lord said to him, don't
leave this place because I have much people in this city. I wonder, does God have some
people here? Does God have some people here?
Is this message, I mean, you think you're here by accident.
But you're here on purpose today, weirdo. You're here. What a great thing that God has
brought you here to Grace Gospel Fellowship. There's so many passages I could
I could read, but in that 17th chapter of the book of Acts,
the Bible says that Paul went there and he reasoned with them
out of the scripture and they began to search the scriptures
daily to see if he was telling the truth. I hope all you weirdos
have a Bible. And that you're going to search
the scripture to see whether the old guy in the pulpit is
telling the truth. Is that really what the Bible
says? But at the same time, when I say weirdo, I simply mean this. You know, people often say things
like this. Are you crazy? Yeah. Are you crazy? I mean, are you here really mixed
up, confused? Maybe you're here and you've
used drugs for years, for years and years. And finally, you ended
up across the street here at Grace Centers of Hope. Maybe
you're here, and you know, you started off as a child. Your
parents took you to catechism. I mean, you've gone through the
whole religious thing, and finally you totally dropped out of church,
and then you hear about this inner city place that's turning
a city upside down with a message of gospel truth. And so you came
over to check us out. You're religious. I mean you have a form of godliness
but without any power in it. And you're really messed up about
mass and church and just all kinds of religious things. You've
pretty well been bored with it so you've given up. I want to
reason with all of these folks that I've mentioned today. To whom is this invitation extended
here in the book of Isaiah? When the Lord says, come, let's
reason together. In other words, hey, let's talk
about it. Let's just talk about it. What
a great God that we have, that he would even say to messed up
people like us, let's talk about it. Let's reason together. I wonder if you're here today
and you're like a brute of creation.
There's nothing you haven't done. Let's talk about it. To those chained to the habit
of sin, chained to the hand and foot like rotten apples affect
other apples. Everybody you get close to, you
corrupt. You have done that most of your
life, and now you find yourself in a situation where it seems
like you're questioning everything. You're the person I'm talking
to today. You're totally depraved, and
you know it. You're wicked, and you know it. You don't understand it. but
you know it. There's no soundness in you.
Isaiah said in the first chapter, in the first few verses, from
the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, you are totally
corrupt. Now, to those of you who are
here and you're not Christians, and I've already offended you
by calling you a weirdo, you've already checked out. I'm talking
to you weirdos now. I'm talking to you that are really
confused. You may be depressed. It may take the form of depression. But life has lost all of its
meaning. You've done it all. You've been
there. You've had it all. Here's what the Scripture says.
Come to Christ. Come to Christ. just as you are without one plea,
but that his blood was shed for thee. Come to Christ. And you
know what? Some of you are at a point, having
been brought there by the Spirit of God, where you are right on
the verge. I mean, you could come right
now. I mean, it really could happen that you can't stand it
any longer, so you're just gonna come throw yourself down up here.
You don't know exactly what's going on. You don't know Genesis
from Revolutions, but you are coming. You're not a Bible scholar,
but you are a sinner and you understand that. Are you burdened? Let's reason together. Are you
heavy laden? Jesus invites you to come to
him just as you are. You're a sodomite? You're a lesbian? You a drunkard? You a Pharisee? Let's reason about this. Everybody
I just mentioned, come to Christ. The Spirit and the bride say,
come, let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let
him come. Is there a desire in your heart
to come to Christ? I looked up in the dictionary
what it means to reason. I thought I knew, and I think
I did. The reason is to think. The gospel is such a powerful
message. It's such an awesome truth. I've
heard people say, you know, you're still preaching the old gospel,
are you? Hell is hot and heaven's real,
preacher. You're still, you know, as if
it was something below them. It's the most awesome, the most
wonderful, the most educational, the most glorious message in
all of the world to think. A rational ground or motive. Your religion doesn't make sense.
I mean, does it make sense that a priest can sprinkle water on
your head and now the original sin is gone when you know it's
not gone, it's still there? You don't even remember when
you were sprinkled as a baby, but you've been taught to believe
that that took away original sin. That makes no sense to me.
Why is it getting quiet in here? To reason with someone is a statement
offered in explanation or justification. To talk with another so as to
influence his or her actions or opinions. To talk with another
so as to influence his actions or opinions. To discover, to
formulate through reasoning. The Apostle Paul in the Corinthian
letter said this, it has pleased God through the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe. What did I do on Sunday? I'm
reasoning with you. And I know some of you are unreasonable.
In fact, in the book of Isaiah, that first chapter, there's some
interesting Verses, before we get to the text verse, when it
says, come let us reason together, look at this verse. Verse three
of chapter one, the ox knoweth his owner. You ever heard anybody
say, you're dumb as an ox. This is what it has reference
to. The ox knows his owner. And it even gets worse. And the dumbass, it doesn't say
dumb, but we often use that term, do we not? The ass, his master's
crib. But my people do not consider,
they do not acknowledge that I'm the one that feeds and clothes
them and takes care of them, that my providence and my mercy
and my goodness. Everybody who is here today,
you're alive by the grace of God. Should have been dead sleeping
in your grave a long time ago, but God's been good to you. And there are many in here that
he is bringing to a knowledge of himself. Amen. Let's reason together. Let's talk about it today. And one of the greatest examples,
I think, of reasoning is some verses in the book of Judges,
and I want you to turn there. That's in the Old Testament. Let's go over there and look
at a few passages together, and let me reason with you. It's
only 1138, and so we got a few minutes here for me just to talk
to you. And what I want you to sit there
and do is something like this. Is he talking to me? By the time you ask that, it'll
be evident to me and probably to yourself, yes, I am. I'm talking
to you. You see, the only way you're
going to reason, because you're not a reasonable person by nature,
by choice and by practice, you're totally deprived. Dumb as an
ox. Come and let us reason together. Let's talk about it. Though your
sins be as scarlet, And some of you here today are
asking this question, have been asking it for weeks as you have
attended the services here. And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's love? Died he for me who caused his
pain? Can it be? In the book of Judges, the 13th
chapter, there's a wonderful story about Manoah and Mrs. Manoah, and you've heard me mention
these passages before. And Mrs. Manoah was childless, and she wanted to have a baby,
a male baby, and she had been praying to the Lord. And the angel of the Lord appeared
to her and said, if you began in the 13th chapter, the first
verse, and we can't read all of these verses, but the angel
of the Lord, and who is the angel of the Lord? But the Lord himself.
In the Old Testament, the angel of the Lord is the Lord Jesus.
And he makes several appearances in the Old Testament to bless
particular people there. And so he, Manoah is the guy's
name. I don't know their last name.
So I call her Mrs. Manoah. So the angel of the Lord
appeared unto Mrs. Manoah and said, I've heard you
praying. And by the way, this angel of
the Lord in verse six is called a man of God. She said, a man
of God appeared to me and told me that I was going to have a
baby. Well, one of the first things
she did was went and told her husband, hey, the angel of the
Lord appeared to me and told me I'm going to have a baby. I know some of you are wondering,
well, why didn't the angel of the Lord go to the man? Because
here was a woman who had some depth, maybe more depth than
her husband. What a great thing it is, by
the way, for a husband to have a wife who knows the Lord and
is there to help him. Well, Pastor, you know, I've
heard you say women aren't as factual, they're emotional. I
know all that, but there are instances, by the way, when Miss
Pam says something to me about some of you, Like, you know, if I was you,
I'd watch that person. I always listen, because women
have that instinct about people. I always listen to it. Now, sometimes
I act like I don't. I go, you know, OK. Act like
I don't, but I do. You don't want Miss Pam to say
that to me, because I will start watching you. Anyway. Manoah, she runs and tells Manoah,
hey, the angel of the Lord appeared to me. And Manoah says something
like this, we're gonna die. The angel of the Lord then later
appeared to Manoah too. And he said, we're surely gonna
die because we have seen God. The scripture says, You can't
see God and live. That's outside of Jesus Christ.
But the truth is that the gospel actually reveals
God. Now, this is where the reasoning
began. Let's just think about this a little bit. In your heart and in your soul,
in the power of the Holy Spirit, I believe that there are many
of you here today who have been regenerated. You have been born
of God, and I know some of you theologians who are here may
not agree with this, but I would dare to say that there's no one
here that can remember the day you were born. Isn't that scholarly? You don't remember when you came
out of your mother's womb, but you were already born. You had
life before you knew you had life. You say, well, how do you
know that? Because you were messing your
diapers, you had to be fed, you had to do this. You were showing
signs of life, that you were alive. You add life. I look across this congregation,
and some of you have got your phones out, and you're doing
this or that, and you're talking to one another, and I know there's
not much, but some of you, you can't hide it. There's something
going on inside. You're listening to a man preach
and sometimes get loud and, you know, this is not a formal type
of religious exercise going on here, but you listen like this. And sometimes though you try
to hide it, a tear trickles down your face and you yawn like yawning
was making you cry. It's such an exciting thing to
be able to reason with people. While there are others of you
here that come and go, and this whole thing is meaningless. You
won't hear anything today, but if I can find out who God told
me to preach this sermon to. I'm talking to somebody today. I know that there's somebody
here that's really confused and messed up. Come let us reason
together. Now I want you to see how spiritual
Ms. Manoa was and what she said. Look at verses 22 and 23. And Manoa said unto his wife,
we shall surely die because we've seen God. But his wife said,
don't you love the butts that are found in scripture? You were
dead in sins and trespasses. But God, who is rich in mercy,
Manoah said, we're going to die. There's no hope for us. What
a weirdo Manoah was. He should have had more death
than that, but he didn't. But Mrs. Manoah, his wife said unto
him, if the Lord were pleased to kill us, oh, I love this. If the Lord is sovereign, he
could kill us, and he could justly kill us. If the Lord gave us,
I hear people say this all the time. People say things like
this to me, and I know they're born again. I know they're showing
signs of life. I know and believe in my heart
they've been regenerated. So it's these kind of people
that I'm talking to, people say like this, it's God punishing
me. Is God punishing me? Did this happen or that happen
because God is punishing me? Let me tell you, God could have
squashed your head when you came out of the womb because you had
a sinful nature and He saw it. He knew you were going to be
a little rattlesnake. He knew you were going to grow
up and sin against Him and be ungraceful. He knew that already. God is not going around with
his hand uplifted, finally saying, ah, now I gotcha, now you're
gonna pay. And suddenly something happens
in your life, somebody dies, somebody close to you, and you
start thinking this way, is God punishing me? That's not because
you don't have spiritual life, it's because you do. You say,
well, pastor, What what really you're confusing me pastor you're
you're confusing me just stay with me Here's what ms. Manoa
said if the Lord were pleased to kill us He would not have
received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands.
Oh That's in the Old Testament You see in the Old Testament,
what the Old Testament says is this. Listen, I'm reasoning with
you now. You've got a Bible. You who have
not been in church for years and finally drugs have caught
up with you, something's caught up with you and you end up in
a homeless center or you wander into this congregation and you
really don't know why. Oh, there's such a glorious reason.
God all the time was drawing you and bringing you, and His
providence was maneuvering things around to get you in the position
where a crazy guy like me could call you no good for nothing,
worthless sinners, and God has been merciful to you, and you
began to say, hallelujah, that makes sense to me. An accepted sacrifice, that's
what you ought to get in your mind. Some of you have your head
stuck in your belly button. You're always looking around
in there for something good. You're gonna do something good
today, because you did a lot of bad things yesterday, but
today you're gonna do something good. Now, same old mess is in
there. Here's the truth. Here's where
it all centers. Just think about this. Let's
just reason a little bit. Has not God accepted Jesus Christ
as the sacrifice for your sins? Isn't that true? You say, well,
I never thought about it that way. Well, that's why I'm reasoning
with you. I want you to think about it
this way. Did God accept Jesus Christ in my roomstead and place? Does God have a sacrifice, a
meat offering, Mrs. Monoa said, didn't we put
the kid on the rock? Didn't we kill the kid? That's
a goat, not a kid like we talked to. Some of you looking at me,
oh, they killed a kid. No, we're talking about a goat. They killed the goat, put it
on the rock, shed its blood. The fire burnt the flesh. What
happened at Calvary was God put the kid who was the rock, Christ
Jesus, on the tree of the cross, and he bare your sins in his
own body on the tree. I hear preachers say this all
the time, will you accept the blood? The blood wasn't offered
to you, it was offered to God, and God accepted it on your behalf. And what you do is this, what
you do in the power of the Spirit of God, you come to faith in
Jesus Christ. You trust Him as your sin bearer. So you're a dumbass? You're as
dumb as an ox. That may be, but in the power
of the Holy Spirit, being quickened, being regenerated, being born
again, it all makes sense. Say, for years, pastor, I just
didn't understand that until this happened and that happened.
And I heard you preaching and it was, for me, it was kind of
sudden. It's like, I saw it. I believed
it. And my burden was lifted and
I was set free and my chains fell off. You see, Ms. Manoa said, we won't
die because the victim died. The victim has been consumed. It was grace that taught my heart
to fear and grace my fears relieved. And some of you right now, this
morning, have seen, perhaps for the first time, Not your infant
baptism, not your churchanity, but Jesus Christ dying as a substitute,
as the propitiation, and he is your mediator and intercessor
at the right hand of God. And it all makes sense. And then Ms. Manoa said this,
if God meant to kill us, he would not have showed us all these
things. You know, if God was going to
kill you, he would just kill you and never show you your sins.
You know, one of the great things about God, one of the first things
he does is turn you inside out and let you see yourself. He
takes you by that cellar door that I so often talk about that
you've been ignoring all of your life. You've lived in this tabernacle,
in this house, you've used drugs, you've fornicated, you're an
adulterer, you've gotten drunk, you've done this, you've done
that, you've gone here, you've gone there, and you act like
that door, that cellar's not there. You know, you write your little
check to Grace Centers of Hope feeling good because you've helped
those who are homeless. Well, what you need to understand
is that about 98% of the homeless are drug addicts. Well, let me
say that again because you didn't say amen as powerful as I'd like
to hear you. About 98% of the homeless people
who come to Grace Centers of Hope are drug addicts. And the people who don't come
to Grace Centers of Hope, they're drug addicts for sure. We're
all addicts of some kind, right? We're all addicts. I don't want
to leave you churchy people out of this, because you churchy
people don't have to turn from crack, but you have to turn from
the church to Christ. You can't be a Catholic Methodist
or Presbyterian and go to heaven on that basis. I'm about to get
happy here by myself. It has to be in Jesus Christ
alone. you turn to Christ, that cellar
that's in your heart. Right now, this is making sense
to you. You know there's a little hell on the inside full of demons. That's called the cellar. Isn't
it, isn't it, isn't it awesome? Sometimes awesome in an ugly
way. What comes out of that cellar?
And for years you've been ignoring it. But now God's got you looking
at yourself, and you don't see any reason for you to go to heaven.
There is no reason there for you to go to heaven. I mean,
within yourself. You're looking for something
good. You're looking for some way to cover up all the bad things
you've done. You're gonna start over tomorrow.
You're gonna make a New Year's resolution, which never gets
kept. By January 1st, that afternoon,
you've already broken all the resolutions you made. You were
not going to eat that pie and cake. You were going to lose
50 pounds. You were going to do this, you were going to do
that. All of that's out the window before we're out of January.
A lot of things on the inside there. Something else God showed
you, not only that you have a cellar, but God has showed you that there's
really nothing in this world that'll satisfy you. I know people, honestly, that
drink to stay alive who are millionaires. They drink to stay alive, they
just drink and drink and drink and drink, because they can't
live without drink, because they haven't learned yet that everything
in this world is nothing but vanity. Nothing but vanity of vanity.
All is vanity. Has the world become a dead thing
to you? The world a dead thing to you?
Have you found out that this world has nothing to offer? You
start out, you're just gonna use a little marijuana and a
little crack and next thing you know, you were using heroin and
you broke out in handcuffs like Darren always says. You found
yourself in jail and you said to yourself, never believed I'd
be here. I'll never use again. As soon as you got out, within
three days, gone again. You must be born again. I'm reasoning
with you. For those of you who are across
the street and in the one-year rehab program, it's not going
to do you any good unless you come to know Christ. It's knowing Christ. The world
is a crucified thing to me, it really is. I have such a tremendous hope.
And here's what Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled. You
believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are
many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you that where I am, there
you may be also. That's my hope. And it's a good
hope. If Christ were going to kill
you, he wouldn't be revealing these things to you. He wouldn't
be showing you these things. Come now, let us reason together.
You know you're a sinner. You know there's nothing in the
world. What's left for you? You see you're being drawn to
Christ by the Spirit of God. Do you have longings to be free
from sin? You say, well, you know, Pastor,
kind of weird. I don't wanna ever use again. I would love to be absolutely
sinless. In this life, you're not going
to be because in your flesh dwells no good thing. Flesh, you know,
with time you will be when you get to heaven, you'll be and
I'll be without sin. If God meant to kill you, he
wouldn't be showing you this stuff. You see, the truth is,
here's what you don't know. Some of you. You don't know God's
got a purpose for you. You didn't get over there at
Grace Centers of Hope for no reason. You're not here from
some other church for no reason. God has a purpose in your life. You're being moved by the purpose
of God. You're here on purpose, for a
purpose. And it's not simply to listen
to me preach. Not just simply for that. God's
got a purpose for you. I say this, you know when the
heroin addiction is going to be overcome? When thousands of
you get saved. And I don't mean that there's
not going to be any temptation there in your life, but when
we have an awakening, a revival, and people are coming to Christ,
there is such a high in that. There's no high like the most
high. You really wanna get high? Come to know God in Christ Jesus.
Come to know that there's no condemnation for you, that hell
is not yours. If the Lord were gonna kill you,
he wouldn't have said to Ms. Minoa, you're gonna have a baby.
You're gonna have a baby. The Lord wouldn't say things
like this to you. Some of you are up there now,
you're almost 30 years old. I mean, you're really getting
up there. I will not fail thee nor forsake
thee. The Lord wouldn't say that to
you if he's going to kill you. I will not fail you nor forsake
you. Is that where your faith is?
In Christ, I'll not fail you. I'll never leave you. I'll never
forsake you. A mother may forsake her suckling
child, but I will never leave you nor forsake you. Oh, you
have a good life ahead of you. I was thinking this early this
morning. I mean, really early this morning. If the Lord meant to kill you,
he wouldn't have sent me over here to preach to you. Hey, my
life would be really kind of blah without you. I'm here to
preach. God brought me here to preach
the gospel to you. If he meant to kill you, he would have killed
you a long time ago. You'd never heard the gospel,
I wouldn't be here. Why do you think this building was given
to us? Why do you think the things that are happening? Because God
has a plan and a purpose and he is saving, regenerating his
people. I thought this last night. There's
someone here. I know you're just filthy. You
are just absolutely, I would agree with you. There is nothing
you haven't done. I'll just go along with it. Let's
just say you're not. Because I would have to argue
with you about that. But let's just say, you are the
worst sinner that ever lived. You are the worst person that
has ever lived on the face of this earth. You have lied and
cheated and abused your sexuality. You have done it all. There is
nothing that you have not done. And you enjoyed it when you were
doing it. And for a period of time, you
just kept on doing it. And then weird things began to
happen in your life. You ran across somebody who said,
like stories like this, I've told you about Greg Coles, who
was in bed with a prostitute and they had used and abused
themselves and And Greg began to talk to her about his life.
Isn't this just like God? I mean, some of you church folks
now, you're not gonna find this, you're not gonna like this, but
that's okay. Christ is a friend of sinners.
But this, Greg Coles began to tell this prostitute about how
miserable he was and how life meant nothing to him. And she
said, you know, you need to go to Pontiac Rescue Mission. Those
are not accidents. God will take one dumb ass and
send him or her to another dumb ass. God can make a jackass talk.
Did you know that? He did in the Old Testament.
Say, well, pastor, I've never heard, I've never been in a church
where the preacher cussed so much. I just want to tell you
that ass is not, that's an animal, folks. That is an animal. Our
churches are so unreal, just so unreal. And we pretend like,
you know, people aren't depraved and things aren't bad and men
and women aren't sinners. And we don't know how to forgive
one another and deal with this thing of the glory of the gospel
in Christ Jesus. We're going to keep it real here.
Amen. We're going to keep it real here.
Amen. I want us to stand and sing. I want us to sing How about just
as I am? Could we sing that, Duane, or
would that mess us up? Let's stand together. I want
you to come to Christ just as you are. Maybe you say this.
Well, let me see if I get this straight, Pastor. What you said
today is, though my sins be as scarlet, Christ can make me white
as snow. That's what I'm saying. In Jesus
Christ, we are without judgment. We are without condemnation.
Come to him. Will you believe the report today
that God has come into this world to save poor sinners? And will
you come just as you are without one plea but that his blood was
shed for you? Do it today. Do it now while
we sing.