It's impossible to please God
without faith. Really, that which is not faith
is sin. God forbid that I should glory
or boast saving the cross. Say, Pastor, what is God saying today? Here's
what God is saying today. Shut up. That's what God is saying to
you. And to me. Shut up. Be still. Look. Aren't those strange descriptions
of what God wants from me? Shut up. The Apostle Paul makes
that very plain in the book of Romans. The law wasn't given
to save anybody. The law was given that every
mouth may be stopped. Shut up! Quit talking about your
church and your membership and your baptism and your good works
and what you've done for God. Shut up! And trust God. You can't please God without
faith. That's where we start. We do
not have any confidence in ourselves. We embrace God, who He is, and
what He has done in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. And there's no salvation outside
of that. In fact, if you're here and not
a believer, you may be a church member, you may be a church-going
person, but God is not happy with you at all. Because God
has sent His only begotten Son into the world, and you have
refused to bow and surrender and lay the shotgun down and
trust His Son. This is my boy in whom I am well
pleased. So what does God expect? What
is God's plan for you? What is God's purpose for you?
Shut up. Just be quiet. Wouldn't it be
wonderful today if you could just shut up? Close down all
of those busy thoughts. Demons whisper in your ear. It
can't be just by faith. You know, that preacher, you
know, he ought to tell me something to do. I am telling you something
to do. Shut up! Be still! And trust God. Too simple. Well, if that's so simple, why
don't you do it? The last thing a man will do is trust God. Some
of you in here have been sprinkled or poured or ducked. How's that
working for you? Has that made you a new creature?
Have you overcome the things that hold you captive? I'll tell
you how you will overcome those things. Through Jesus Christ.
We're more than conquerors through Christ that loved us. Be still. The Gospel is the everlasting
Gospel. God has never saved anybody but
by one way. God is a one-way God. And what
God says is, I am the way, the truth, and the life. That's what
Jesus said. And no man comes to the Father
except he comes smack dab through the middle of me. Well, maybe
that isn't in the Bible exactly that way. But that's the interpretation. It's through Jesus Christ. If
I were you, I would not try to approach God through law keeping.
You've heard me say this thousands of times. I just kind of feel
like there's somebody here that says that they are attempting
to go to heaven through keeping the Ten Commandments. I'd like
for you to stand up and tell me the Ten Commandments. Name
all ten of them for me. I know if you're depending on
them to take you to heaven and bypass hell, surely you know
all 10. You have them memorized. This
is years ago, but when I was in Kentucky, pastoring in Kentucky,
I asked someone to name them. And this actually happened. They
kind of scratched their head, and they said, well, number one,
every tub sits on its own bottom. I said, I don't think that's
one of them. I think Grandma said that. What does God want you to do?
If God is going to save you, He's going to save you by grace.
You deserve. You don't want what you deserve.
All I want is what I deserve. If that's all you want from God,
don't worry about it, baby. God will give you that. I don't
want what I deserve. I want unmerited favor. I want
God to do for me what I cannot do for myself. So, God uses these
terms that every mouth may be stopped. Look unto Me and be
ye saved. Salvation is in a look. Can you
look? Can you look today? Can you see
one wounded and bleeding, four sinners bleeding, dying, unheeding,
dying for Me? Can you see it? Can you enter
into it? Can you embrace it? Can you say
it's nothing but the blood? Can you say there's power in
the blood? Wonder-working power? Can you
say there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's
veins? And sinners plunge beneath that
blood, lose all their guilty stains? God saved people in the
Old Testament just the same way He does in the New Testament.
They didn't have as much light as we have in the Old Testament. It was types and shadows in the
Old Testament. And God did that so many times.
For instance, when the children of Israel sinned against the
Lord in the book of Numbers, and God sent fiery snakes to
bite them. And then Moses interceded for
the people of God, and the Lord said, make a brazen serpent and
put it upon a pole. And all of those that are snake-bitten
who look Shall live. Oh, wait a minute. I want a doctor.
I want some snake bite serum. You're going to die. Look and live. And Jesus refers
to that in the Gospel of John. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. Lifted up on the cross. It was
a type. It was a shadow. Look and live. In the book of Exodus, the death
angel was going to pass by. God was going to bring the children
of Israel out of Egyptian bondage with a high hand. And God said,
here's what you do. Take a male lamb. Make sure it's
not an old, blemished lamb. It's not a leftover lamb. It's
not a garbage lamb. Make sure it's a male lamb. It's
young and it's without spot. Put it up for 14 days so you
can examine it and make sure. Because this is a type. And then
you kill that lamb. Burn the flesh. And take the
blood and strike it on the two sides of the door lintel. And
when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. That's a type. That's a shadow. But if Israelites
had said, oh, I don't I don't know about that. I mean, he's
wanting my best lamb. They believed God. And those
that didn't believe God experienced death in the household. When
the death angel passed over and saw the blood. When I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. Without the shedding of blood.
This is Old Testament. There is no remission of sins.
Thousands of goats and bullocks were offered on the altar in
Old Testament days. all with an index finger pointing
to the Lamb of God who was going to come and die in the sinner's
stead. And Father Abraham, Jacob, Isaac
embraced that by faith and believed that the Messiah was coming who
would take their place. We call that the substitutionary
work of Christ. I so rejoice in this today that
God invaded history. Shut up now. I know you're talking
to yourself. You're saying things to yourself
like, that ain't right. That can't be right. If God saves you, He will save
you all by Himself. And He'll do it by faith so you
can't strut. You have to trust outside of
yourself. Somebody outside of you has to
invade you and cause you to trust Christ. That's called the Holy
Spirit. And I pray He does that today.
Somewhere in this auditorium. Surely there's a sinner somewhere
in this auditorium. A sinner that needs a Savior.
Say, Patthew, you're a little outdated in your message. This
message is never outdated. This is God's everlasting Gospel. This is the truth of this Bible.
The B-I-B-L-E. This is what it's all about.
There's never been any other way than by grace. You look at
Father Abraham, the father of faithful, down in Ere of Chaldees.
He was a heathen. He was a Gentile heathen. And
God called him out. Made a great nation of him. And
Abraham believed God. Not he believed in God. Everybody
in here believes in God. Now you have some kind of God. In fact, the biggest thing in
your life is your God. I'm talking about believe God. When God says, this is my boy.
This is the apple of my eye. He's the way, the truth, and
the life. Trust Him. He's the fairest of ten thousand.
He's the lily of the valley. He's the bright and morning star.
He's the author and finisher of my faith. He's the great shepherd
of the sheep. Trust Him. Now, I want you to
go with me to the Old Testament. And all I want to attempt to
do today is, why does God tell us to shut up and look? This
is very simple. This is really simple. You can
really get this. Why God says that every mouth
may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. Why
God says, just look and live. Why God says, be still See, if
you're doing something, you're active, right? God doesn't want
you to be active. Not in this situation of salvation.
He wants you to be still, shut up, and look. And you don't get
your head stuck in your belly button because there's nothing
in there good. You look away from yourself. You look to the
Christ of the cross, and you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, why does God fix it that way? Why did God Pour it in concrete
that every mouth may be stopped." So, boasting is excluded. Totally and completely excluded. Listen, between here and heaven,
you're going to lose your strut if you go. Between here and heaven,
you're going to upchuck it. Jesus paid it all. All the dead
eye, all sin had left a crimson stain, but He washed it white
as snow. That's what you're going to say
between here and heaven. You're sure going to sing it
up there. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory
and honor and praise both now and forever. Amen. When we all
get to heaven, that's what we all are going to do. Right now,
for the most part, that's what this church does. We're practicing. We're going to be in the big
choir, and so down here we practice. Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever
you do, do it to the glory of God. This church, you know, this
past week, I think it's 26 newspapers across Michigan on the front
page. Guess who was on the front page?
Clutch Cargo being changed to a church. Tomorrow I will meet with three
millionaire business guys that wanted to meet with me. And I
will ask them for a half a million dollars to make sure we can finish
what we've begun over there. I'm going to do it. I got the estimates right here. This place is extraordinary for
one reason. And I so guard it. Some of you
say, well, he preaches the same thing all the time. That's right.
And you know what? Why would I switch? If it's not
broke, don't fix it. God keeps blessing. God keeps
blessing. There's one reason for that.
We give Him all the praise and all the glory. We do. I want
you to go to the book of Judges. Most of you have heard this story
in Sunday school. I'm going to take about 15 minutes
here. We'll tell this story again. And what I want you to get out
of this is simply that God has always saved people one way,
and this faith is a big factor. Faith, that is the gift of God.
God gives you faith. It's a gift. It's all by grace.
This whole thing, it's grace that puts you in the way, leads
you along the way, and takes you all the way. And anything
good that comes out of you, God put in you. Don't forget that. Don't be patting yourself on
the back. You know, when we look at this number, we're going to
hit that million dollar mark really soon. And if you just
think a little bit, you're going to say, how did we do that? We
didn't do that. God did that in us and through
us. And it's a miracle. We have no
millionaires in this church. Amen. Not yet. Let's go to Judges,
chapter 6. In the book of Judges is the
story of Gideon and Israel and the Midianites. And in chapter
6, verse 1, it says, The children of Israel did evil in the sight
of the Lord. And the Lord delivered them into
the hand of the Midianites seven years. I don't want to do evil
in His sight. The greatest evil you can do
in the sight of God is just not give Him glory. Just not trust
God. Oh, I know you're not committing
adultery, fornication, or stealing, or that sort of thing, but are
you giving God all the glory? Do you say, good morning, Lord?
Or, good Lord, it's morning. Do you say, another day, another
dollar? Or do you say, this is the day
the Lord's made. I'll rejoice and be glad in it.
See, that's the way to live. That's the way Christians are
supposed to live. Having a little heaven on the way to heaven.
Praising God. He could have passed me right
by. Sometimes we sing, Pass me not, O gentle Savior, while on
others thou art calling. Over here! He could have passed
you by. Aren't you glad He didn't? You and I were on death row.
Condemned to hell. And King Jesus, King Jesus comes
walking with the key of death and hell at His side. And He
stopped at your cell. And if the Son sets you free,
you're free indeed. You're free indeed. I love it
when you're waving at me. I know you're getting it. They
sinned against the Lord. And the Midianites prevailed.
Israel hid in the mountains and caves and strongholds. And verse
2, the Midianites destroyed all their crops. In fact, the Bible
says they were like grasshoppers. There were so many of them. And
they entered and consumed and destroyed everything. And Israel was impoverished for
success. And verse 7 says, And when it
came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord,
because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet. And
that too is God's way. And what that prophet did was
he reminded them in verse 8, the Lord God of Israel, I brought
you up from Egypt. I brought you forth out of the
house of bondage. I delivered you out of the hand
of the Egyptians. So don't be acting like you did
something. I did all of that for you. Verse
11 says, And there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an
oak. One of these days I'm going to preach on the trees that people
sit under. Nathaniel was sitting under a
tree, remember? And the Lord said, I saw you under the tree.
The fig tree. I don't know what was going on
under the oak tree. But God mentions the tree here.
Look at verse 12. He's going to call Gideon. And
He's going to talk to him. And the angel of the Lord appeared
unto him and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty
man of valor. And I know, I know Gideon did
this. You talking to me? I'm a mighty man of valor? You
got the wrong address. And Gideon said unto him, verse
13, Oh my God, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this
befalling us? If you're the Lord God, how come
all of this has happened to us? And where be all His miracles
which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring
us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord hath forsaken
us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And
the Lord looked upon him and said, Go in this. Go in this thy might. Gideon's
still not getting it real good. Thou mighty man of valor. I read that and think, I know
times in my own life when God has spoke to me and said, you're
going to win. I'm going to be with you. I'm
going to empower you. So get going. I've had the same
thought. Who, me? Oh, you have too. I mean, it has crossed your mind.
Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the land
of the many knights. Have not I sent thee?" Oh, what
hope there is for America if God will send a voice. I believe
that. I don't want to get off on that
this morning because I would really chase that rabbit. But what America
needs is a voice in this wilderness. A voice crying out. Verse 15,
And he said unto him, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel?
Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh. You ever thought that? I'm nothing. I'm a nobody. You know, God didn't come to
save somebodies. In fact, He only saves nobodies. He only saves sinners. All you
good people have no hope. There's no hope for you. But
we can find some real bad folks here today. Impoverished folks. Some nobodies of this world.
We've got some good news for you. Where was I? Verse 15, And the
Lord said unto him, Surely I will be with thee. Imagine that. That's all you need, you know.
I'll be with you. If God be for me, who can be
against me? And the Lord said to him, Surely
I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as
one man. I'm going to perform a miracle.
And of course, like many of us, don't be too hard on Gideon.
Watch this. Verse 17. He's still a little shaky. And
he said unto him, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then
show me a sign that you're talking to me. Well, the Lord was right
in front of him talking to him. And he was talking back to somebody.
Now he said, show me a sign. You know, you have to be careful
about signs. You know, the Lord doesn't have to bargain with
you. Once He tells you, He doesn't have to give you a sign. I mean,
it's okay once in a while, but don't be always looking for a
sign. But anyway, you know, He asked that the fleece first be
wet and everything else dry. And then He reversed it. Put
out the fleece. And God gave Him that sign. And then when you get down to
about verse 22, He's still thinking about, I'm going to die because
I've seen God. Even though he has been given
the sign, now he's talking about, I'm going to die because I've
seen God. And I thought to myself, well,
Gideon, God just told you that you were going to win the victory.
He's not going to kill you if He's going to use you to bring
victory. Listen, if God tells you something that He's going
to do with you, count on it. He's going to give you victory.
And you know what? Don't be telling too many people.
You know, you start running around telling what God's going to do
and you know what's going to happen. I remember when we raised
33 million pennies here, when we paid with quarters for this
building, bought this property and paid cash, $275,000, raised
$33,000, $330,000 for the remodeling of the learning center upstairs. And I had 12 million
pennies in my garage. And I was going to sell them
to banks. And I went home to Her Majesty and told her, I heard
this guy at the Rotary Club, and he was from the Mint. And
I told him what we were trying to do. He said he was making
pennies seven days a week, 24 hours a day at the Mint. And
I said, I have $12 million in my garage, and we're trying to
do a learning center for our kids upstairs. And I thought,
while you were talking, I'd write the 20 largest banks and sell
them our pennies. And Miss Tam said something like,
you know, She's a believer, but I was all hyped up about it.
I wrote that, and you remember what happened? Two banks. Have
you ever had a branch truck sent to your house? Have you ever
raised 33 million pennies? Have you ever had pennies stacked
up in your garage, knee-high, where you can't park either of
your cars? God takes little bitty things.
a loaves and a couple of fishes and feeds 5,000 men. You think about this, some of
you in here. I feel like God's calling me,
but you know when God calls you, you know the first thing the
devil will remind you of? What you were doing five years
ago. Or of something where you've really messed up. And your conscience
will feed your fear. Ah, you know what I'm talking
about. God ain't going to use me. How could God use me? I was
a prostitute. I mean, how could... I was, you
know, I was an addict or I was a... God doesn't care about what
you was. You're not what you was. You are now what you're going
to be. Amen. Don't let your conscience talk
to you that way. Gideon was having that kind of problem. Sometimes
a deep sense of sin. I'll tell you something else
too. I thought of this when I was studying last night. Remember
how Quentin used to tell about being under the bridge? Heroin
addict. I've had some people say to me,
man, I wish I had that kind of testimony. You better be careful. I have no desire to say I was
under the I-75 bridge for 15 years. Let me tell you this. If you were in church for 15
years, all self-righteous, happy with yourself, a Pharisee of
the Pharisees, and God went in there and got you, it's a miracle.
Anybody here get saved in the church? Anybody get saved out
of the church where God had to bring you out? Yeah, God will
go into some of these churches and save somebody. It's a wonder.
And most churches in America, people don't know what to do
when somebody gets saved. You've heard my old joke. I've
told it a thousand times. My family says I need to tell
some new stories. But an old boy, rough as he could
be, got saved. And he wandered in one of these
churches. I call it scary Halloween music.
You know. Anyway, it was one of those highbrow
churches. Well, the preacher said something about, you know,
Christ coming into the world. And he got to amening. This old
boy got to amening the preacher. And the usher tapped him on the
shoulder and said, hey, you can't do that here. He said, but I
got the Spirit. He said, I know, but you didn't
get it here. It's a miracle when folks get
saved in church. Church is a place where folks
hunker down. Not this church. I'm not going
to let you hunker. If you go to hell, you're going to go to
hell very uncomfortable here. And if I can take salvation away
from you, I'm going to do it. Because you never had it anyway.
You cry out, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood
and righteousness. Alright. The Lord says to him,
peace. Peace be unto you. Oh, what a
wonderful thing that is. Do you know you can't comfort
anybody if you don't have peace yourself? You know, this is a
great testimony. If God saved me, let me tell
you a little bit about me. And you tell that person, if
God saved me, He'll save you. Amen? You've got to have comfort
yourself. You can't be looking at people
like, you don't want to get saved like me, do you? There has to
be a peace and a comfort. There has to be something about
you. that leads other people. Fear not! Thou shalt not die. How are you going to die if God
is for you? You know, fear will make cowards
out of us with our conscience. You know that? Your conscience,
which will cause fear about your past, tells Satan to get behind
you. God is going to take you all
the way. I know your mess. You say, well, how do you know
my mess? Because I know mine. There are no people in here without
mess. We all have mess. And the reason
we don't see it is because we all hide it. Would you like somebody
to see all your thoughts all day? Or what you thought while
you've been sitting in here? You're not nearly as sanctified
as you act. Well, all right. Anyway, it's a wonderful story
how God, 30,000 people, 30,000 men get in hats And God says, your army is too
big. He said, we've got to cut your
army down. Well, I thought the Midianites
were like grasshoppers. They are. You're going to have
to cut your army. You've just got too many. And
God begins to cut the number all the way down to 300. And
those 300 were real impressive. They lapped water like a dog. That's what God says. When they
go down to drink, those that lap, water like a dog. That's the ones I want you to
take with you. Oh, I got my 300 there. You bunch
of water lappers. I was reading last night, I was
reading on in And in the 8th chapter it says, the 300 men. Gideon came to Jordan and passed
over. He and the 300 men that were
with him, faint yet pursuing. Just got a little off course
here. But for those of you who are so being used of God, don't
forget to take a little time to rest. They were faint, but
they were still pursuing. You know, you can waterlog. Yeah. I know. I've experienced stuff
like that. I have learned to some degree
to get away, and Ms. Pam helps me a lot with that.
There are times when you need to, even in, you know, I'm in
the Lord's army. I never want a church where all
of our members are busy every night. Stay home with your family. Amen. Take your wife out on a
date. Amen. Really. These water lappers. What they
were doing is they were busy. And that night, the night before,
they had broke the pitchers and blown the trumpet, and the many
knights were all defeated. And they were wore out. You can
get wore out. But anyway, this whole story
has one purpose when you read it. And there are many, many
stories in the Scriptures just like this. I want you to look
at Judges 7. And here's the whole of it. Here
it is. Judges 7 and verse 2. The Lord said unto Gideon, The
people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites
into your hands. There's too many. Watch this. This is what I want you to get.
Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, my own hand
hath saved me. God said, I can give you the
victory. You'll get to thinking with 30,000 plus men, you'll
get to thinking you did it. I'm going to cut it down where
it's going to be impossible. Humanly speaking, impossible.
You know, usually when God shows up, it's when you're laying flat
on the floor. When you've hoisted the white
flag. If He saved you with you having your fingers in the pie,
you'd take a little credit. I'm going to bust your bubble
right now. There are people in here that actually believe that
your free will saved you. That God did everything except
violate your will. You better hope God violated
your will. You better hope God made you willing. My people shall
be willing in the day of my power. How has your free will worked
for you? How's it working? Oh, I'm saved,
but I know this, it was by the grace of God. And I know there
was a time when I was dead. I wasn't dead to sin. I was active
in sin. But I was dead to God. Leave
me alone. Keep your hands off me. I'm going
to do as I please. I'll be the captain of my own
ship. How'd that work for you? You worked so hard, you ended
up in a homeless shelter. Something got a hold of you,
you couldn't turn loose. Aren't you glad there's a power
bigger than crack, bigger than heroin? I hear folks talking about crack
around here, and I'm on this crack thing a little bit, but
I haven't used the word. I promised you I wouldn't. But
it's not like this. Crack and Christ, same power.
No, no, no. No, no. Crack is a demon personified,
but Christ can wipe that out with His pinky. Think about this. Think about
what praise God gets. Think about this. You know, I
pick on Wanda all the time and space and some of you in here.
That deserved to be picked on. I tell people this all the time
about Wanda. She gets happy sometimes in here. And I say this to them,
if God had brought you where He's brought her from, you'd
be happy too. Christians ought to be happy.
Because I should have been in hell. I should have been dead
a long time ago, sleeping in my grave. But God, in His infinite
wisdom and providence, and in sovereign grace, why would He
save somebody like me? You know, I've been trying to
figure that out now for about 60 years. Ooh, 61 years. I think I got the answer. Because
He wanted to. I mean, that's about all I can
come up with. Because He wanted to. This is how He shuts us up
to this thing of faith alone and not vaunting ourselves. I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And whom I will? All hardness. Oh, you're already
hard. You already have that hard heart. But you know, God can be just. God can save you or damn you
and still be just. Amen. God found a way to go down
into the coal mine of sin and lay hold of you and not get Himself
dirty. Isn't that something? Go down into Lodibar. Go down
into the hood. You're wallowing around down
in that garbage and take hold of you. When we had the bus stop
in front of the mission, God brought you all the way from
Lodibar and let you out right in front of Grace Centers of
Hope, and you thought you got lucky. Shut up. God's brought you all
the way. Hadn't He brought you a mighty
long way?