perfect love cast without fear. In order for you to get through
the next few years, there's something you need to know, and that is
that you know that you know the Lord Jesus Christ. Because as
I start out today, you're probably going to get a little depressed.
Don't hold on to that. I'll try to give you some relief
toward the end here. But the truth is, we live in
a world that has been overtaken by fear. Whether you want to admit it,
whether President Obama wants to admit it, we're in a religious
war with extremist jihad. that hate the name of Jesus Christ
and all that love and serve him. Count on this, Isis hates you
if you are a Christian. Just this week, a Catholic priest
performing mass in France had his throat cut and several in
the service died along with him at the hands of Isis. Thousands
of these religious terrorists are daily permitted into America
by this present administration, and you have reason to fear that.
Say, Pastor, I just wish you wouldn't get political. I'm talking
about your life. I'm talking about what's going
to happen in this country, and we, and especially a pastor,
has a responsibility to stand up and say so. There is a known list now of
churches and synagogues here in America that are on their
hit list. I pray we're one of them. I want to give hell more trouble
than hell gives me. I want hell to know that we're
here. Iraq, Iran, This week said that
they will have thousands of missiles soon that will wipe the nation
of Israel off the map. I've got news for them. God's
going to wipe them off the map. Two more police officers were
murdered this week, bringing a total of 39 men and women in
blue that have been savagely slain. More individuals in this
country are buying guns to protect themselves. I'm one of them.
To protect themselves and their families. Because they fear as
the police become more under attack, they will not be able
to protect and keep law and order. Fear is rampant in our country. And many are paralyzed by it
and do not wish to confront the issues. But you and I denying
it will not make it go away. You can deny it all you want,
have all the conventions you want and say it is not true.
It does not do anything. The fact is they are here and
there's a war going on. I heard this week a very compassionate
plea by a wife and daughter. begging the husband and father,
who was a police officer, to quit his job because they feared
for his life. Ladies and gentlemen, this church
respects the men and women in blue. Are there bad cops? Are there
bad white people and black people and red? Absolutely. But the
truth is, without law and order, you have chaos. I don't know whether this is
the end or not. Many of you have been asking me what I think about
present-day circumstances. We will definitely know after
this election. We're going to turn right or
left. Say, there you go again, Pastor, you're getting off track.
No, I'm right on track. I'm looking you square in the
face and telling you this election's going to determine a way this
nation goes. You need to vote, you need to
be registered to vote, and you need to vote as near God as you
can. Say, well, how can I do that,
Pastor? Well, one way you can do it is
vote pro-life. That wasn't a very loud amen.
You've been broke. There has to be a change in Washington. Or I will know that we are at
that point of no return. I believe that with all this
within me. We will go over the falls, the explosion will have
incurred, and we will be waiting for the implosion, that is, for
this country to go down from the inside. We should know very
soon whether the Holy Spirit, according to the Thessalonian
letter, is withdrawing himself. The Thessalonian letter says
there's going to, before the end, come a great falling away. And the Holy Spirit, you need
to know this, the Holy Spirit is the one that holds back evil. You see, this nation and this
world is not as bad as it could be because the Holy Spirit is
here. He holds back evil. But according
to the Thessalonian letter, the Holy Spirit is going to be taken
out of the way, not taken out of the world, but taken out of
the way. And then men and women will do
that which is right in their own eyes, and this world will
go berserk. It is the beginning of the end. You watch it, and it's all right
for you to fear in one sense, a godly fear. I have a godly
sense of fear, and I'm going to do something about it. What
I'm doing this morning is resisting with you from this pulpit what
many pastors our cowards to do to stand before their church
and say, this could be the end unless you become responsible
and accountable. You and I have a responsibility.
We have a responsibility to vote. We have a responsibility. I know this. When we get beyond
this Sunday, it'll get gooder. But here for a few minutes, I
have to paint this picture for you. You have to see things are
bad. There has to be a turning from
and a turning to the Lord Jesus Christ. What you are experiencing here
is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is not happening
everywhere. You need to understand you and
I are being clearly blessed. You look at what God is doing
here. Also take a look at what is going
on here. We're saying to you be the glory,
to you be the honor, to you be the praise. I know some of you are fretful
and fearful and even paralyzed. Permit me to read the text again
to you. Perfect love casteth out fear. He's got the whole world in his
hands. He's got the little bitty baby
in his hands. He's got you and me, brother,
in his hands. So for the next few weeks, I'm
going to talk about the love of God, and I believe this, God's
little children are going to get bold, and it's going to drive
the fear out for you to come to know who you are in Jesus
Christ. And for you, just not simply
to say, well, Pastor Clark's always talking about Romans 8,
28, but you really begin to believe it, that everything is working
for your good and for God's glory. Now, in 1 John, John is looking
for a lover. You know, to find love, you must
find a lover. So John soars above this old
world. And using his eagle eye, looks
over history and all space and down through time, and at last
he poises himself over one spot. For he has found that for which
he was looking, a lover. And he says, herein is love. Herein is love. I have found
love. Let me ask you today, are you
looking for love? Everybody in here is. I want to be loved. Herein is love. Why later on, John will say something
like this. Behold, what manner of love is
this? He's amazed at this love, at
this gospel. I know there are traces of love
in thousands of places like drops of rain on leaves of trees in
the forest. But when you get to the ocean,
when you get to this one place, you say, here is water. In other
words, there's a big difference between a drop of rain on a leaf
in the forest. But when you get to the massive
ocean, you say, here is water. There are many places you can
find small beams of light. But when you gaze into the sun,
you say, here is light. So it is with old man John as
he looked into the eyes of the Lord Jehovah, he said, here is
love. This is it. This is all of it. This is the fulfillment of love. He doesn't point to his own heart
and say, herein is love. He doesn't talk about freewillism. He doesn't talk about what you
do for God. He said, herein is love. He didn't point to the church.
He didn't point to the thousands who gave their lives for the
cause of Christ and say, herein is love. He pointed to the great
God of the condescension in the giving of himself on the tree
of the cross and said, here is love. Here is the great ocean of love.
Here is love at its utmost height. Love at its climax. Love outdoing
itself. Herein is love. Not that we love
God. Oh, I want to talk about that
a little bit. Not that we love God, but that He sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. You see, The love of God
is to the loveless. I'm gonna tell you flat out,
there was nothing that would cause God to love you. You need
to get over yourself. God didn't love you because you're
good. God didn't see a spark of righteousness in you and say,
I'm gonna reward that boy. What a good boy. God looked down
through time and said there is none good, no not one. And I got to thinking in my study
this week about what if we did love God from our earliest childhood? What if we did? Let's just say
total depravity wasn't true and that from our childhood we loved
God. Let me say this to you. Our love
is so little and so insignificant, what little love we can give
to him can never deserve that he should fix his love on us. Just know that, that your love
for God is so little in comparison to his love. It would not merit
his love for you or me. Did you get that? I hope you
did. If an aunt were to love an angel,
It would not therefore follow that the angel ought to be in
love with the ant. Are you getting the comparison?
There is no difference between an ant and an angel compared
with the difference between us and God. If I love God from my
childhood, let's just suppose that were possible, which it's
not, but let's suppose that was possible. It would not be even
comparable. It would not be merit on your
part for God to work everything for your good, to save you, to
lift you from sinking sands with tender hands. It would not be
notorious. You don't deserve it. I don't
deserve it. Let's get it through our heads.
We are saved by amazing grace, unmerited favor. The truth is we're just nothing. He is all. Now I know you're
not going to hear this from most preachers. the power of positive
thinking, and all of that stuff. You and I are nothing. And it's
when we come to know that and realize that, and yet He loves
us, that we stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene,
and wonder that He could love us, a sinner condemned unclean. Oh, how wonderful! Oh, how marvelous
is the Savior's love! me. Oh what a wonder that Jesus
found me. Out in the darkness no light
could I see. He put his great arm under, and
wonder of wonders, he saved even me. How awesome, but just nothing. I guess if we should have loved
God from our youth up, and we had always loved God, It would
not be as much a startling thing or an extraordinary thing for
God to have loved us. But what's startling about this
whole thing is we hated God. This is startling. Not, you ought
to underline in your Bible in 1 John the word not. Because
often you will hear from preachers, hearing is love. God is love. But they always stop there. How
about this? Not that we love God, but that he
first, hallelujah, loved us. This is the startling thing,
the negative, not that we love God. And then the most amazing
positive, but that he loved us. Negative, positive. It's easy to love those that
love us, but it's almost impossible for us to love those that do
not love us. And especially those who do not
love us, who owe us. But God, in whom we were and
are deeply indebted, we ought to have loved Him with all of
our heart and soul. His goodness should have led
us to repentance, Romans says, not that we love God. While we
were yet His enemies, He loved and sent His Son to save us. Isn't that amazing? You were
in debt. The air you breathe is not your
air, it's God's air. The house you live in, the car
you drive, the job you have, all of the goodness of God ought
to lead you to repentance, except you're crazy. You hate God. There are people
here today who hate God. You don't like what I'm saying
at all. If one does love God, and is
saved because of that, it's not great love. That's not so great. It is a detestable thing not
to love God. Loving God cannot be considered
meritorious. Who can help loving a kind father
who cares for him all his days? Who can help loving one who has
saved him from death? Many of you Have OD'd and you're
still alive. You're still alive. Why don't
you love God? You ought to love God because
the reason you are alive while we're burying people out here
in the cemetery on Perry Street is because God has been good
to you. When we love him, it's not an
awesome thing. And I mean it in this thing.
It's not an awesome thing when we love God, we ought to love
God. We ought to love God. It would
be little enough return for the great love for with he has loved
us. If we gave to him all, all the love that we can ever bestow
upon anyone. If we gave it all to him, it'd
still be a little thing. The songwriter wrote this. This
is why I love the old hymns. were the whole realm of nature
mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so
divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Somebody asked me this week who
my successor was going to be. I'm not having one that I know
of. I'm going to praise him every single day. Lastly, I've been supposing,
I've been supposing here that someone would love God from their
early years. But you know that's not true.
The text says it's not true. In fact, the text says just the
opposite, not that we love God. What a terrible fact. Some of
you are just in here, some of you religious people are here
and you've got your foot in the church and all of that. I'm talking
to you too. I'm just not talking to crackheads
here. I'm talking to you, you folks that are trying to get
to heaven by going to church. The truth is we were indifferent
to God. Somebody has said to me over
50 years, why don't you take a different text? Why don't you
preach a different sermon? Listen, I haven't got over this
yet, that God Almighty came into this world and loved the unlovable. What a terrible fact. We didn't
love God. We were indifferent to God. Every one of you in here, God
has come to you many times. He has crossed your path in many
ways. And you turn thumbs down. We did not want to see him or
hear about him. Some of you here dread Sundays
and Wednesdays. You have to cross the street. We all were insulting to God. We spoke bad words about God. We used his name in vain. We
talked about grace in a bad way. He says you don't have to be
baptized and you don't have to go to church and you don't have
to do nothing. You're saved by the amazing grace
of God. I know that's not true. I'm glad you're wrong. Yet he loved us. Doesn't it just,
I'm talking to the little child of God now, doesn't it ring your
heart when you think that he loved you when you were a blasphemer? Loved you when you were an addict
and couldn't do a thing for yourself? Loved you when God himself could
not see anything that was lovable in you. Think about that. God
couldn't even see anything lovable about you. and yet he loved you. There was not a spot of merit,
nothing as big as a pin's point upon which God could rest in
your self-merit. Until you get to that place,
salvation's not so amazing. It's when you get to that place
that salvation becomes amazing. Wonder of wonders. Have you ever
tried to love someone who didn't love you? I have every day. Hot dogs again? When are they going to get new
mattresses here in the big dorm? You know, Pastor Clark's running
a boot camp here. You ever tried to love someone
who treated you like dirt? It's the most difficult thing
you'll ever do. That's why God's love is so amazing.
Isn't it amazing God loved you? Think about all your mess. Now it's this that I'm going
to major on because many little children of God in here today
have not been taught the truth of grace. You don't know the
truth of grace yet. And many in here who even know
the truth of grace still do not have blessed assurance. Perfect
love will cast out fear. You're seeing things happen in
this country you can't explain. You don't understand. The Republicans
are nuts, and so are the Democrats. They don't have an answer. You
don't know how to stop the murdering of police officers. You don't
know how to — how's it going — are we going to have a race
war between blacks and whites? Oh, we won't hear. Because we love one another. And I might as well say it, I
think it. White lives matter. Black lives matter. But you know,
with God, there is no black or white. I detest the idea that one is
better because he's white or because he's black. That's self-pride. That's haughtiness. And by the
way, in case you don't know, slavery is rampant. In fact,
there's more slavery now than there has ever been in the history
of the world. Perfect love will cast out fear.
I'm pretty sure that we're going to see more turmoil. Things are
really going to get bad. But I do believe this, that our
God is so big. There's hope for revival. There
is hope for awakening. There is, there really is. And
it would be just like God in a total disaster like this to
show up and do something great. And the way I know that's going
to happen is because the more you praise Him, the more you
lift Him up, the more He shows up. He inhabits the praise of
His people. And what happens when you get
to the place where you know this truth, this truth, that God loved me? And actually,
the reason I had Greg read Romans 8 is because in the next few
weeks, we're going there again. Hey, I'll just give you a preview. To every one of you Christians,
did you know that God loved you before you loved Him? For whom He did foreknow. Hey,
I'm foreknown. That doesn't mean God simply
knew about you. That means God loved you intimately.
I'm preaching next week's messages. God foreknew you, foreloved you. Say, oh yeah, I know that. God knows about everybody. That's
not what it's saying. Because what it's saying is this. Not only did God foreknow you,
but he predestinated you. Do you know you're predestinated? Nothing can stop that. And whom He predestinated, He
called. Oh, out there in the crack house,
He will come calling. He will call you. You think you got here by accident.
You're not here this morning by accident. You're here on purpose.
You think you ended up, God just let you wiggle and wiggle and
wiggle till you got yourself in such a mess that you lost
your life, lost your job, lost your house, lost your kids. You
lost it all and ended up across the street. Oh, we're going to talk about
it. I'm accepted. God has accepted me. Not because
of the best about me. And he does not reject me because
of the worst about me. I'm accepted in Jesus Christ.
I'm an heir. I'm a joint heir. All things
are mine in Jesus Christ. Specifically here in 1 John,
and you guys can come and get ready to sing. Specifically here
in 1 John, when he said, perfect love casts out fear, he said
something like this. We have no fear in judgment.
Some of you fearing facing God? I mean, things happening, you
know, this week on Saturday, the kicker for Michigan State,
former kicker in 2016, he and two of his friends were killed
in an automobile accident. on their way back from a children's
camp where they were three kickers in college who were teaching
kids how to kick the football. They were in a camp. And two
of them died immediately. And the other is in critical
condition. I don't know whether he's died
yet or not. But my grandson was having quite a bit of trouble
with that. I mean, he played with this kid,
played football at State with him. and kind of relayed to me,
I don't understand. You know, there's a lot of things
about life I don't understand, but I know this, I know this,
God is working everything for good. I don't know what's gonna
happen here in our country, but he's got the whole world in his
hands and he's got you as an individual. Some of us in here
can remember when he first called us, John, What? It's me. No, I don't believe. It's me, John. I'm pretending
a little bit. I'm trying to break it down for
you. Something inside, a calling that
you can't get away from, which says what that yelling, screaming
preacher is saying is true. He's not crazy. He hasn't lost
his mind. Salvation is in Jesus Christ. John trusts him. John goes, no. I'll shake you. Some of you are
going to leave this house today, but I'm going with you. This
message will go with you because the Holy Spirit will take it
with you. And you'll have to say as the
old songwriter, I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my
Savior calling. Did you say Savior? I thought
you didn't believe in a Savior. Now you're talking my kind of
talk. I'll go with him. I'll go with him. What are you
talking about, man? Sounds like you're surrendering.
Sounds like you're laying the shotgun down. Sounds like you're
trusting Christ. Sounds like you're hoisting the
white flag. That's what I'm talking about. You are called, and you have been declared not
guilty, and that's what 1 John is talking about, that we can
have boldness in the day of judgment when you stand before God. You
can have boldness. I have every intentions of having
boldness. Say, well, that's kind of proudful.
Oh, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. Kent Clark,
what right do you have to be here? Well, Your Honor, I'm not
here on my rights. I'm here on the rights of that
one with five wounds, five nail scars. I'm here by his grace,
through his blood, by his mercy. Welcome, my son! Welcome! That's what I'm talking about.
And you see, all he foreknew, he predestinated. All he predestinated,
he called. And all he called, he justified,
declared them not guilty. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified. You're headed for heaven, my
friend, if you know Jesus Christ. There's no stopping you. Crack
can't stop you. Heroin can't stop you. You can't
even stop yourself. You are an overcomer through
the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the truth. And therefore,
today I stand before you without fear. I don't know what's going
to happen. I know we win. I just know the outcome. I know
the score. Demon zero, Jesus Christ 100%. I know the score. Let's stand and praise our God.
You, back there, without Christ, trust Him, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and do it now, will you? Come and tell us about
it.