Alright, let's go to the Gospel
of John chapter 4. Anybody ever gone to sleep in
a church house during a service? Well, five of you and the rest
of you are lying. Anybody in here been bored in
a church service? I mean, literally bored. How
many of you have left church service in your mind and gone
fishing? Or to the lake, or on vacation? That shouldn't be, right? Because
we worship God in spirit, and if our spirit is excited, we
don't go to sleep. And if our spirit is excited,
we're not bored. We're glad when it is said, let
us go up to the house of the Lord. We're glad when Sunday
comes. This is a day the Lord's made.
I'll rejoice and be glad in it. Of course, this is the story
of the woman with five husbands who is living in adultery in
John 4. I love this chapter, the fourth
chapter of John. I love these words in verse 4.
And he must needs go through Samaria. I've got to go through Samaria,
our Lord said. And he must need to go through
Samaria because he had an appointment. An appointment that was made
before the foundation of the world. An appointment with a
woman with five husbands. And who was living with a man
who was not her husband. Oh, Jesus is the friend of sinners.
Aren't you glad? He is a friend of mess-ups. And when we will not come to
Him, He comes to us. And most of the time when the
Lord is dealing with sinners, one of the first things He does
is get rid of the disciples. They kind of had a religious
bent to them, and they were constantly getting in the way. In the Gospels,
the Lord was talking to the Syrophoenician woman. And the disciples were
amazed that He was talking to this woman who was nothing but
a dog. In fact, the Lord called her
a dog, but He also saved her. She got the crumbs that fell
from the Master's table. Jesus must need to go through
Samaria. There's quite a discussion about
that. It was out of the way. The disciples thought they explained
that to the Lord as if He didn't know. And He said, I must go
through Samaria. When He got to Jacob's well,
He sent the disciples into McDonald's to get some hamburgers to get
them out of the way. And a woman came, carrying her
water bottle or jug, to draw water at the well. When the Lord
meets up with sinners, He's always going to cross their path. He'll
cross your path. And when this woman came, He
said to her, I'm thirsty. Give me some water. And Jesus
said to her, if you knew the water that I could give, you
would ask me, and I would give you water where you'd never be
thirsty again. Jesus can satisfy your thirst,
satisfy your longings. Give me to drink. And she noticed
that Jesus didn't have anything to draw water with. That's because
He is the water of life. And she said, you have nothing
to draw with. And the well is very deep. And
he then explained to her about the water. And she said, sir,
give me this water. There's some kind of desire happening
there for a drink of this water that you'd never thirst again.
And Jesus said, well, we got a little problem here. He said,
go call your husband. Uh-oh. I wonder why Jesus said
that. Go call your husband and come
hither. And the woman answered and said
in verse 17, I don't have a husband. And Jesus said, that's right,
you don't. You have no husband. You've had five husbands and
the one you're living with now is not your husband. Oh, that
got her attention. That got her attention. This
man knows about my sins. Jesus is always going to show
you you're a sinner. If you're going to get saved,
if you're going to be converted, the first thing that's going
to happen is you're going to see you need to be converted.
If you don't need to be converted, there is no need. You don't need
a Savior, right? Christ came to save sinners. So now the woman has been quickened. She's still religious, though. She tells Jesus about how her
forefathers worshiped in this mountain. And then Jesus said
to her in verse 21, Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me,
the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor
yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. In other words, there's
not going to be just a place of worship where you have to
go to worship. You worship you know not what,
verse 22, we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews,
or through the Jews, the Savior comes. But the hour cometh and
now is, the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father
seeketh such to worship Him." The only way to worship is in
spirit. God is spirit. They that worship Him must worship
Him in spirit, from your spirit and in truth. The woman saith
unto Him, I know that Messiah cometh. which is called Christ, the Messiah,
God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God come down. When He has come,
He will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that
speak unto thee am He. What do you think happened in
that woman's spirit? She must have been out of her
head. She must have said hallelujah. But now the disciples have got
back from McDonald's, in verse 27, "...and upon this came His
disciples and marveled that He talked with the woman. Yet no
man said, Why seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her?" See,
Jesus wasn't religious. Jesus was not religious. The
disciples still had religion in them. Boy, just think how
great it would be if we could get religion out of all of us
here. Everybody in here is tainted.
You got the slime on you. You came out of Baptistism, Catholicism,
Presbyterianism. Some ism is clinging to you. And every once in a while you
get poked here as I try to take the slime off all of us. We've been talking for the past
three Sundays, this will be the fourth, I believe, about the
flesh and the spirit. The flesh profits nothing. Jesus said, except you eat my
flesh and drink my blood, you have no part of me. And, of course,
in a fleshly way, the Pharisees I began to question
him and ask things. This is in John 6. How are we
going to eat his flesh? And then religion comes along
and says, we're going to say, hocus pocus, genera morocus.
And we're going to change bread into the flesh of Christ. We're
going to do something magical. And we're going to change wine
into the blood of Christ. And that way you get Christ in
you. Jesus said that prophets nothing. I have Jesus in me, but not by
eating some unleavened bread and drinking some wine. I'm not
a heathen. I'm not a cannibal. I'm not a
flesh eater. That's not the way you get Christ
in you. And if you ate all the unleavened bread and drank all
the wine, you'd just be a drunk full of bread. The flesh profits nothing. It's the Spirit. It's entering
in to Christ died. He was crucified. He was in great
pain and agony. The wrath of God rested upon
Him. And He shed His blood for the
remission of my sins. And then your spirit jumps. Yeah. Some of you say the Protestant
rosary. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you,
Jesus. But you don't mean a word of it. It's just you think that's
what you should say. Right. Talk about the Catholics
saying their Hail Marys, but you've got a Protestant Rosary
too. Unless your spirit says, Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus! The flesh profits nothing. I
wish we could get that. Then maybe we could worship.
You see, Religious people. Fleshly folks. I'm not talking
about adulterers and fornicators. They are that, but they secretly
do that. But on the outside, they go to church. They go to
mass. They do the religious thing all the time. Fleshly. It's all fleshly. It's all outward. It's all to be seen of men. Fleshly people. Unsaved people. People who know nothing about
spirit worship. We worship in spirit. By the way, do you know
God is here? Isn't that exciting? No, I don't
see Him. That's because God is spirit.
The only God you're going to see when you get to heaven, Christian,
is going to have nail scars. You're not going to see a man
with long flowing white hair and a beard. You know why we
have no pictures on the walls here, or very few pictures? I'm
not sure about this one. It's a little religious. It has
a cross at the top. But I want to tell you why. Because
God is spirit. We don't bow to a picture. That's
a real thing. And if the spirit of the living
God is not here, there's no need for us to be here. Nothing's
going to happen. We're just going to go through this ritualistic
form. Right? And we've made it so convenient
now. You can go to church on Saturday night and get it over
with. Go fishing on Sunday morning. Go to the lake, sleep in, do
your own thing. We just want to make it convenient.
And most people are bored in church. But they're guilty if
they don't go. Someone, a young woman told me
a long time ago, I hate church. I just hate church. I said, you
do? She said, yes, but I go every Sunday. You do? Yeah. She said, I'm afraid God
will kill me if I don't. So now, wait a minute. You think
God sees you sitting in a church pew or somewhere with a steeple
on it, and you hate every minute of it, and you think God says,
looky there. How sweet. You think God thinks
that? You think God is impressed with
you sitting in here bored to tears and wish you were somewhere
else? That's not worship. Religious
people, fleshly people always point to that which is outward
in religion, outward in observances. This woman, instead of confessing
her sins and seeking how to be forgiven, she talks about her
forefathers. Oh, my great-granddaddy was a
Pentecostal preacher. You're talking about the wrong
stuff. God wasn't impressed by your granddaddy or grandmother. Unless they worshiped God in
spirit, your pedigree means nothing to God. It's all outward. We're
all a mess anyway. Everybody in here is a mess.
You're a flunky. You're an addict. You're a mess.
We're all a mess. But don't we put on a good show. Yes, sirree. Hallelujah. So instead of confessing her
sins, saying, you know what? I've had five men. I'm committing
adultery with the one I'm living with now. Please forgive me. She said, well, our forefathers
worshipped in this mountain. And see, Jesus already knew all
about her. That's why He goes like this,
call your husband. You know Jesus knows? He knows. So all of this phony front we
put on, call religion. He knows you're a mess. Don't
act like you're something on the end of a stick. Something,
you know. The carnal heart dreads the contact
of spiritual truth. See, some of you are getting,
probably before this service, you're going to get very uneasy.
Because your being here today and sitting in one of these seats
amounts to nothing to God. Unless, in your spirit, you've
been to Calvary. You know about the cross, the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ. You're trusting Him and Him alone. And every time I mention it,
your spirit jumps. Really and truly, everybody in
here who's a Christian, your spirit jumps when I preach the
Gospel. Oh, you may not shed a tear.
You may not be a hand-raiser. You may not be an outward Bible-thumper. You know, you may not stand up.
You may not clap. But you're like the swan, if
you're a Christian, on the lake. Oh, you're very calm on top,
but underneath? Not everybody's a hallelujah
person, but every Christian is beneath. Not everybody cries. Not everybody shouts. I've heard people say, you know,
they go crazy over there doing their services. Some of us. And that's okay. Some of us sit
very passive, and it looks like nothing's going on. That's because
you only see the surface stuff. Don't judge me because I'm not
doing this. Because underneath, I am doing
this. We're all different, aren't we? We have different emotions,
different ways of expressing ourselves. Often people say things like
this, you know, pastor, your church is about You're like a
black church over there. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't
know that black folks are the only ones that get excited about
the gospel. I thought white folks could do that too. Amen. Snowballs can do that too, you
know. We're all different. That's okay. But I am telling you this, Christians
worship God in their spirit. That's where the main thing goes
on. You know, years and years ago, 32 of us or 30 of us met
in here. There was no carpet on the floor.
The floor squeaked and we were meeting in old pews. And there
wasn't much, you know, outward stuff going on here, but a lot
of inward stuff. And look how God has blessed
this inward stuff. God's not impressed by holy places,
holy times, holy customs. Jesus lets this woman know that
her questions are not important now. For the hour has come when
externals is abolished, and ritualistic things are done away with, they're
put away. A purer, simpler, and more spiritual worship is to
take place. It's to come from here. It's
to come from here. The reason you're bored in church,
if you're a Christian, listen, if you're bored in a church,
you need to get out of it. Because your spirit needs to be hopping
most of the time. If not, you're going to get down
really low. Don't you need spiritual food? Don't you need some joy? Do you
go through this world all week and then go up to the house of
God and it too is a drag? The time has come for a distinguishing
kind of worship. Christ says true worshippers.
Are you a true worshipper? True worshipper. Outward worshippers
were now false worshippers, and only those who pressed into spiritual
worship were regarded as true. I'll tell you how you can tell
if you're a true worshipper. If your spirit jumps, at the
thought of Calvary, at the thought of substitution, at the thought
that God chose you, you didn't choose God. By the way, this
woman didn't come to Christ. Christ came to her. He said,
I've got to go through Samaria. You know, you can see God as
a creator, God as a preserver, as a great Lord of the universe.
But until you see Him as near kin of us, as our Father, as
the beloved of our souls, until you see Him as God come down
to earth to save you, to redeem you. There's not much exciting
about this outward stuff. You can do this all day long
and just get an arm ache and a shoulder hurt and have to go
to the chiropractor. It doesn't impress God. True
worship, gospel worship comes from God Himself. It's a work
of grace. God does a work of grace in you
that transforms your spirit. Your spirit jumps. Does anybody
know anything about spirit jumping? I mean, overcome. Just overcome. Flooded with the love of God.
I've told you this story about Flavel. I love this story. Flavel
was an old Puritan preacher. He had about four hours to ride,
to preach at a certain place, horseback, and he was riding
along and he was thinking about Romans 5 and about the love of
God. And Quable tells the story that
the horse stopped somewhere near a lake. And unbeknownst to him,
he was there caught up in the Spirit for nearly three hours.
The horse wasn't moving. Flooded with the love of God.
Have you ever been flooded with the love of God? Have you ever
been overcome? Just overcome with the truth where your spirit,
when you sing, amazing grace, and your spirit is caught up
into the amazing grace of God. You're caught up with, oh, what
a wonder that Jesus found me out in that darkness and mess
No light could I see. He put His great arm under, and
wonder of wonders, He saved even me. That's what I'm talking about.
Or at the cross, at the cross, where
I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away. True worship, gospel worship,
comes from God Himself. There's a great difference between
the living worship of the chosen of God and the dead formal worship
of the world, which lieth in the wicked one. Mankind will
worship God with robes, incense, flowers, banners, but not in
spirit." That's a little too emotional for me. Really now. You sorry rascal. Do you get
emotional about anything? I know that feelings doesn't
save us. I know Jesus saves us. But I'm telling you, when you
go up to the house of God and the Gospels preach, you've got
to feel something. You're going to feel something.
You're not going to sit there like a gnat on a log. If you do, there's
something wrong. I used to go to these pastors'
meetings. They were called Calvinistic
pastors' meetings. And they would ask different
pastors to deliver a paper." That means you gave this little
boring speech to a bunch of preachers and the preachers critiqued you.
I only went once. Because I don't want to hear
a preacher delivering a paper and the rest of the preachers
arguing about that. I want to hear about the blood.
I want to hear about substitution. I want to hear about forgiveness
of sin. I want to hear some good news. This is true worship. When God
comes into the soul of a man and He knows he's a sinner. Many
of you here this morning have gone to church all your life.
Still don't know you're a sinner. Doesn't bug you. Doesn't bother
you. Some of you used crack for years and years and years. Destroyed
your life. Everything's messed up your life.
And you still, you won't go there. Oh, you'll come to church. You
got your baptismal papers, because Mama gave them to you. You don't
remember a thing about it, but you got sprinkled. And you're
just sure. And you are a church member. You are a church member. You're
a member of Holy Redeemer. But you're not holy. Your spirit
never worships. Some of the meanest people I
ever met have been five-point Calvinists. You know, a five-point
Calvinist can go to hell. You know, you believe everything's
predestinated. All men are depraved. You don't
have any feelings, though. You're meaner than hell. Mean
to people. Mean, mean, mean, mean, mean. You know it is the
Spirit that makes you sweet. Did you know that? If God's been merciful to you,
and you know it, You're merciful to other people. If God's been
gracious to you, you're excited about the grace of God and can
be gracious to other people. You know, this is a church where
everybody's nobody. We're all flunkies. Just a bunch
of flunkies excited about Jesus Christ. Your spirit feels it. Once I was lost, but now I'm
found. Once I was blind, but now I see. I'm resting upon God's appointed
sacrifice. Oh, I get excited about that.
Sometimes on Sunday morning, Miss Pam's listening to all these
preachers that I'm passing through, and I'll hear them say something
so off-base, and I go, I'm glad that's not true. That's just
not true. That's so fake and phony and
unreal. By the way, Talking about fake
and phony, just so you know what I'm talking about, go to Rome. Watch the news. All these gray-headed
guys in red robes are going to be locked up, and we're either
going to have black smoke or white smoke. And all it is is smoke going
up. It's all smoke going up. That's all. You talk about a
mess. I know some of you are feeling
uncomfortable right now. But that is dishonoring to God.
That's all on the outside. Do you know that there is only
one Holy Father? And He's Spirit. And you can't see Him. Do you
think God is really impressed by those guys going in there
and voting on a pope? And let me tell you this, that
pope, whoever that pope's going to be, whether he's from Boston
or Italy or whoever they choose over there, is just like you. Isn't that scary? He has the same thoughts you
have. Isn't that scary that the leader of our church is just
like me? Or the Apostle Peter. Peter was
the first pope, you know. A saint. Isn't he the guy that
cussed and said he never knew the Lord? Yeah, that's the guy.
Isn't he the guy that took out his sword and cut the guy's ear
off? Yeah, that's the guy. And he'd head of your church,
huh? Listen, get thee behind me, Satan. Yeah. That's all flesh. Are you
getting the picture a little bit? God doesn't care whether
you wear a tie and a suit and a white shirt, or you wear your
jeans. Thank God. And you know, the
addict who stumbles in here, the alcoholic who stumbles in
here, is welcome here as long as you don't cause a disturbance.
Just shh. God might convert you today. Have you ever thought about this?
Your body, one of these days you're going to die. All of us
in here are going to die. It's a fact. And Quentin's very,
very sick over there. And when I thought about that
this last night, I was thinking about him. But you know, if Quentin
leaves here any time soon, you know, His Spirit lives here. I mean, Quentin isn't going to
stop worshiping. I mean, when I've been with him,
he's prayed, he's talked about the Lord, he's ready. But you know when that body gives
out, he keeps on praising. It's true. His spirit goes to
be with the Lord. Right now, right now, the spirit
of just men made perfect are watching us have service. Hebrews
talks about the spirit of just men who have been made perfect.
They're in heaven. Abraham. Listening to me preach
this morning. And he's the guy that laughed
at God. Oh, yeah, Abraham. Didn't Noah get drunk? Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's right. Thomas the bipolar. But their
spirit worshiped God. And when we die, our spirit leaves
here. It makes death. It kind of takes
the sting out of death. Well, it's all over. Oh, no.
It's just beginning. No more cancer. No more sorrow. No more sin. No more death. Yeah, no more bad breath. Eternal worship. Right? Be happy about that. I thought
of myself. Miss Pam said to me last night,
you know, Kenny boy, it's almost over. I said, what? She said,
well, you know, we're getting older. It's almost over. But my friends, it's not almost
over for the Christian. It's just beginning. It's in
its bud stage. That's the Christian faith. It's so important to keep it
simple, this thing of worship. That's one of the reasons we
don't have all the decorations in here of faces of Jesus and
crucifixes all over the place. Because God is Spirit. God is
Spirit. You know what religion does?
Religion dresses up the Gospel in these phony clothes. How long
for the day of naked religion? Naked Christianity. Just the
bloody cross. Substitution. Tell it like it
is. Don't dress it up. Don't make it fancy. Cain tried
to dress it up. Abel brought a bloody sacrifice. Don't dress it up. You know,
the false church is trying to raise up and revive those beggarly
elements bowing before a cross, a piece of bread inside a box,
the Holy Father, the this, the that. They're all rotten rags. They're all relics. You know
why God said to Moses, you've got to grind up that brazen serpent
because somebody's going to put it around their neck if you don't. You read the Old Testament. You'll
find out that that brazen servant that they looked to and lived
from the snake bites, God said to Moses, you better grind that
thing up. You know why we haven't found Noah's Ark? Because some
preacher is going to take the splinters and sell them for $5
a piece on TV, where you can wear a splinter around your neck. I don't want Noah's Ark around
my neck. It probably has a fishy smell
anyway. Listen to me really close now.
True worship has to do with worshiping the invisible God. God is here. God is Spirit. It's really important you get
that. I was going to entitle this,
What Does God Look Like? Because as a kid, I can remember
thinking, OK, I tried to figure out what God looked like. You
had God the Father, and then you had God the Son, God the
Holy Spirit, these three are one. And I tried to figure out
what God looked like. You're going to have to see Jesus
to find out what God looks like. True worship, the invisible God.
In fact, in the Bible, God says this, I'm tired of your sacrifices. You think God ever gets, oh no,
they're doing it again. You think God ever gets tired
of that? If I were in some of those churches, I'd get tired
of that stuff too. I'm not blaming you for getting bored at all.
In fact, thank God you get bored because you Christians, that'll
drive you out of that church. Somebody ought to say amen, that's
true. I'm not going to go to this place every Sunday, every
Sunday, year after year, dead in a doornail. I know churches
that are going this way. Do you know why? No spirit in
them. They say, well, they're, you
know, they're five-point churches. I've been in five-point churches,
Calvinistic churches, predestination churches, all my life. And some of those are dead as
a doornail. People are amazed that this church says hallelujah and praise God. We have drums and bass guitars
and we jam. Why wouldn't we? We're not in
a morgue. We serve a risen Savior. He's alive. He's alive. Naked worship, that's what I
long for. Stop dressing it up. You know, we have people in here
that are pretty. And we're glad you're here. We're
glad you're here. But we have some, you know, what
I would consider folks that come over here, and I thank God they
come over here. You know why? Because the well
went dry where they were attending. There's something appealing about
the message of this place to the child of God. That's what
draws. You don't have to give away Schwinn
bicycles to get people to come to church and have Bozo the Clown
Day. Just preach the gospel. It'll
draw God's people. You know what? My study's a holy
place. I don't have to go to a holy
place. My bathroom's a holy place. Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever
you do, do it to the glory of God. You know you can praise
God sitting on the john? In fact, you ought to praise
Him if you have a good bowel movement. He's the... Oh, you've gone too far, Pastor! You've gone... You've done it
now! You've gone... You've gone too far! Well, just wait until you get
stopped up and see how. You know, I'll tell you how this
is. Let me tell you how this is. I know some of you are not
coming back now, I know. But let me tell you how this
is. The chairman of the board and I were bowling at the boogie
bowl, boogie bowl. Somebody came in and said to
me, there is pepperoni on the pizza. I said, yeah, they're
all pepperoni and cheese. But it's Lent. What are we going to do, Pastor?
I said, pick the pepperoni off the... Do you think the Lord was actually
watching you take the pepperoni off the pizza. And God said,
look at him worshipping me. Isn't it amazing? The things
we do and call it worship. Do you think God is impressed
with stained glass windows in a church building? That's why I kind of like clutch
cargo. The smell of beer is there. Liquor is there. We're going
to take it all out. And we're going to worship God
in spirit. All right. I got to quit this. It's just to say to you that
God seeks spiritual worship. If I were you and I wasn't getting
anything out of church, I'd quit. I wouldn't go. I wouldn't go. But the truth
is, if you're a Christian and you're not getting anything there,
you're going to seek sheep food. Someone called me the other day.
It was last Saturday, I think. He said, what are you doing,
preacher? I said, I'm getting sheep food. They go, what does
that mean? I said, I've got to feed sheep
tomorrow. And they don't eat tin cans. They've got to have
sheep food. They're not goats. You know,
an old goat will chew on a tin can. It'll eat anything. But
not sheep. They've got to have the blood.
They've got to have substitution. They've got to have grace. They
have to. God Himself is a Spirit, and
He is to be worshipped in a spiritual way. Don't be inventing your
own way to worship God. Don't be inventing your own way.
It's an insult to God. Every mass that is offered on
the Romish altar is an insult to heaven. Because in that mass,
and I know some of you are probably former Catholics here, and I'm
not just after Catholics. I'm after naked, real, spiritual
worship. Because it's an insult to God.
But somehow, how we can do this magical stuff and baptism becomes
something magical that washes away your sin. I took a shower three hours ago
and already there is a perspiration. Water doesn't wash away sin.
Otherwise, you could just dunk yourself real good every morning.
and have a sin-free day. Ritual. Ritual. Ritual. Ritual. Blasphemy to God. Christ died
once and put away sin. And that's what I glory in. I
don't crucify Christ every Sunday morning in the Mass. I don't
do that. He died once. And he did a good job. He put
away my sin. He made an end of sin. What do you think God's impressed
with? How is your life, Christian? You know, I can tell you this.
Truly, I mean this. One of the things that's constantly
on my mind is keeping the main thing the main thing here. This
thing will go out of business overnight. if we stop preaching
the gospel is the glory of God. If we stop giving God glory,
this place goes down. I guarantee you that. Because
God honors this place, and God is here. God is Spirit, because
we honor His Son. We give Him all the glory, all
the praise. The most dangerous thing that
could happen is for us to dress it up. I would have never talked
about the John story, going to the bathroom, except it is so
far out there that it brings you back. It shakes you a little
bit. The pastor was talking about
having a bowel movement in church. And everybody goes, what, what,
what? Because we worship God in spirit. We keep it real here. We are
hurting sinful people. This is a sinful world. The greatest place of hypocrisy
is Sunday morning religion. The place where people hide from
God is in a church house. When I was going to seminary,
that's another dead place. Seminary. When I was going to
seminary, I rented a room for $25 a month, an attic. You've heard me tell about Oscar
the Rat, or Hoffman the Rat, and me and Hoffman lived up there
eating the same protein. But anyway, I can remember laying
on that attic floor and pounding the floor and saying, there's
got to be more than this. There's got to be more than this.
Just Hebrew class and Greek class and boring class and class and
class and class and no spirit. I couldn't bear it. I had thoughts of, you know,
catching a freight train or something and just disappearing. Just disappearing. Because religion had kind of
made me the up-and-coming young Baptist. I played the role and
was as miserable as all get-out. It's all phony. And as I am now,
68 years old, I have lost all complete, complete confidence
in religion. I know that we're all hypocrites,
we're all phony, and the only hope is to have something real.
And to worship God not in my flesh and decorate religion,
but to worship God in my spirit. This morning service was over
and there was a young man sitting about as far back as you can
get. He's sitting on the back row. And Darren came to dismiss
us, and I was making my way up the aisle, and I got to that
back aisle. He'd been sitting in the middle, so he made his
way all the way over and grabbed me and delight in his eyes and
face. I know something happened to
that young guy. He got it. He really got it. That's what
I'm talking about. Really, if we were right, and
if the Spirit of God overpowered this place, We wouldn't have
to stand, sing, give everybody an opportunity to confess Jesus. You'd be popping out of there
like crazy. While I'm preaching, just come fall all over the place.
You don't know what to do other than, I just think something
happened to me. I think I got saved. I think I just got delivered.
I think I've been born again. There's something inside of me.
I'm rejoicing, Pastor. I'm rejoicing. That's what I'm
talking about. We don't put on a theatric. event here. We're not actors
here. I'm not performing for you here.
I'm thinking this. If I preach the gospel, some
dead person may get life. Because God's here and He quickens
men and women. He borns them again.