I want to invite your attention
to the book of Romans, first of all, and then we'll go to
the book of Philippians. I want to talk with you concerning
the most hideous sin. What is the most hideous sin? Romans 9, beginning with verse
1. address directly all of those
here who are religious. So, if you're religious, this
message is directed to you. Note, I didn't say Christian.
I said religious. And I would suppose that everyone
in here is religious. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. My desire
for all of you church members is that you might be saved. We
are more religious every morning in America near hell every night.
Everybody goes to church. Verse 2, For I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
The worst place to go to hell is from a church pew. talking
about God. You have a God vocabulary, it
means nothing. You have a zeal for God, but
not according to knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's
righteousness. Are you ignorant of God's righteousness? And going about to establish
their own righteousness. There's a big difference between
God's righteousness and your own righteousness, or what you
thought is righteous. The truth is, all of our righteousnesses
are filthy rags. So, everything you do that's
outward, in your flesh, in religion, is a filthy rag. And the connotation
here, the Apostle Paul is saying, They go about to establish their
own righteousness and it keeps falling over. So they have to
set it back up to establish their own righteousness. And have not
submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. You have to be as good as God
to go to heaven. So that puts you in a real pickle. They have not submitted to this
righteousness of God. At the heart of the gospel is
this righteousness of God. How God causes sinful men to
be made righteous. To be made righteous and then
refuse to impute to them their unrighteousness. refuses to charge
them with sin. The gospel will answer so many
difficult questions that you, as a child of God, have about
salvation and give you peace and comfort. Now listen, for
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, or law-keeping,
or doing good, or keeping the commandments. Christ is the end
of that kind of stuff, to everyone that believeth. Now
let's go to the book of Philippians, chapter 3. Finally, my brethren, verse 1,
rejoice in the Lord. Are you rejoicing in the Lord
today? Are you happy in the Lord today? Are you joying in God
today? You're glad there's a God? Or
are you religious and just as soon there were not? Are you
religious and miserable? Do you go to church because you
have to? Do you not try to steal because that wouldn't be good
or righteousness? Are you trying to save yourself?
Are you trying to merit this righteousness? Finally, my brethren,
rejoicing in the Lord to write the same things to you, to me
indeed is not grievous, but for you it's safe." Many times I'm
asked, why do you preach the same sermon every Sunday morning?
Why do you preach the same thing? Because for you it's safe. You
really need to hear the same thing every Sunday. You need
to hear the gospel. You really do, and I do too. Beware of dogs. That's two-legged
dogs. Beware of evil workers. That's religious people. Beware
of religious people. Beware of the concision, or those
who tell you you have to be circumcised in order to be saved. Beware
of those people. Or tell you you have to be baptized, or tell
you you have to be a member of a certain church, or whatever
they tell you, beware of them. For we, we Christians, are the
circumcision which worship God in the Spirit. We worship God in the Spirit.
We don't worship God this way. We don't worship God this way.
All that is outward in religion is all flesh, and the flesh profits
nothing. You making the sign of the cross
profits you nothing. God doesn't see you making the
sign of the cross, You've got a cross around your neck or you've
got a dove on your lapel and God says, isn't that sweet? It profits nothing. All that
is outward in religion profits nothing. What does profit? Your
spirit. What kind of spirit do you have?
A spirit that jumps with joy on the inside when you hear the
gospel. Jesus said this, Except you eat
my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part in me." And
now the whole religious world goes nuts. We've got to some
way magically turn the grape juice into the blood of Christ,
and we've got to say mumbo jumbo over the bread, and we turn it
into the flesh of Christ, and we all become cannibals. That's
how you get Christ in you. It profits nothing. You can drink
a gallon of wine, and eat all the bread in the world and you
will just be a glutton drunk. Because the flesh profits nothing. Oh, I wish you could get that
today. You wouldn't be counting on your
salvation being connected to some denomination or something
that you've done. We worship God in the Spirit,
we rejoice in Christ Jesus, now get it, and have no confidence
in the flesh. So, if you are a religious person
who's never been born again, you've never met up with Jesus
Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, you've never been regenerated,
you've never become a new creature in Christ, and those are things
only God can do, You are just a religious person. That's all. You are without God. You are
without hope. You're just going through rituals.
You might as well be a Buddhist. Amen. Going about to establish
your own righteousness. Here is the most wicked sin in
all the world for you to actually think and act on that you can
save yourself. After all God has said, and after
all God has done, and you say, I will establish my own righteousness. You're busy about your churchanity,
about your religion. I know people that go to church
every single day. And they're no more closer to
God than when they began. They're no more nearer heaven
than when they began because it is not by works of righteousness
which we have done. Christianity does not begin with
a big do. It begins with a big done, finished,
accomplished at Calvary. Now, notice what the Apostle
says in verse 4. Though I might also have confidence
in the flesh." Those of you who are sitting here talking about
you fast and you speak in tongues and you do this and you do that
and you do the other. The Apostle Paul said, you think
you're something on the end of a stick. Let me tell you about
me before I was converted. If you're going to have confidence
in your flesh, let me tell you about me. The man who wrote 3
fourths of the New Testament says, if you're going to trust
in self, let me tell you about me. If any other man thinketh
that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. I
was circumcised on the eighth day. How do you like that? Just like the law says. Just like the law of Moses says,
I was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel. I was a real bona fide pedigreed
Baptist, literally Pharisee. I was a Pharisee. You ever have
said to anyone, are you saved? Oh yeah, I've been a Catholic
all my life. Wrong answer. I didn't ask you
if you was a Catholic. I ask you, have you been saved?
Have you been born again? Have you been washed in the blood
of Jesus Christ? Have you been converted? Have
you been regenerated? Have you been made alive by the
Holy Spirit of God? Have you trusted Christ alone?
Paul said, I had a pedigree of the tribe of Benjamin, that good
tribe, that good boy. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
See, there are so many, probably some sitting in here. My desire
is to see you saved. My desire is to take away from
you all of your churchanity and all of your righteousness because
it's not going to get you anywhere. I'm trying to steal your salvation. Because you don't need your salvation,
you need God's. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews
as touching the law, I was a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, I was zealous.
Persecuting the church, I did that. Touching the righteousness
which is in the law, I was blameless. If you could have looked and
observed the Apostle Paul, you would have found out he was clean
as a hound's tooth. If you went through the Ten Commandments
and you was watching him outwardly, you'd say, that man has got it. He was mean as hell because he
went about killing Christians. He thought he was better than
everyone else, right? How good do you think you are?
That's right. That's the right answer. No good.
Someone said to me a few weeks ago, you know, Pastor, you know,
I hear rumblings from some of your people that you're always
telling them how bad they are. And I said, well, what should
I tell them? I'm telling them the truth. Not only are you bad,
but your pastor's bad. There's nothing good. Listen,
folks, we've been talking about this now. This will be the third
week. that in my flesh dwells no good
thing. There is no difference between
the flesh of a saved man and the flesh of a lost man. There
is no difference between a saved man and a lost man in their flesh. All flesh is wicked. You can't
transform. You can't reform. You can't make
your flesh better. It's just wicked. is what we
are. We were born wicked. I'm not
talking about sins, plural, S-I-N-S. I'm talking about that the baby
comes forth from the womb with a nature that is sinful. That's
why when it gets about two or three years old, it tells mama
to shut up and sticks out its tongue. It lies like a rug. It all just comes so natural.
No little angels born into this world. They're born sinners.
That's why Jesus said you must be born again. Joining the church
won't cut it. You have to be born again. So
we've already learned that in the flesh dwells no good thing.
The flesh is just flesh. And so man in his natural state
in which he's born is just wicked, and that's all he is. He's wicked.
Now, let's dress this pig of a man up with a clerical collar
and a long black or white robe and put on him or her Put them
in the finest church with padded pews and pipe organ and candles
and spooky music and a baptismal pool. And what do you have now
that you've done all that? You have a dog eating its own
vomit. We have a dressed-up pig, camouflaged,
disguised, hiding, looking like a pig out of place. No matter
how you dress up a pig, a pig is a pig. And you can put on
your filthy rags of righteousness all day long and be as churchy
as you wish, and God will turn you into hell. Well, read your
Bible. Lord, Lord, in that last day,
have we not done many wonderful works in your name? Everybody
said they were wonderful works. We did wonderful works. We cast
out demons in your name. Rebuild churches in Your name.
And the Lord will say, Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity. You went about to establish your
own righteousness and would not submit to the righteousness that
is in Jesus Christ. I encourage you, don't be baptized
and don't join anybody's church until you know Christ. The best
place for you to hide from God is to camouflage yourself in
some church and just hide there and lie every day of your life
about what you are. Only a sinner. Only a sinner. That's what you are without Christ.
Only a sinner. Some of us in here can say, I'm
only a sinner saved by grace. Some of you in here can only
say, I'm only a sinner. You need to be careful about
that. Two men went up to the temple to pray in Luke 18. Two men went up there. One was
a Pharisee. And the Pharisee, like I said,
was really, truly, honestly so religious you couldn't get...
They were a porcupine religionist. You get too close, they'll pick
you. You know, I just don't like to be around religious people.
Because, you see, I'm a mess, and they think they're not. They're
always judging me. Never looking at themselves.
They think they're better. Two men went up to the temple
to pray. One was a Pharisee. This kind
of preaching is what got Jesus in trouble. In the book of John,
you just see the Pharisees constantly after the Lord Jesus. He healed
a man who'd been impotent for thirty-some years. by the pool
there. And they said, hey, they saw
this guy carrying around his bed after 30 years of being paralyzed,
not able to walk. And you know the first question
the Pharisees asked him? What are you doing carrying your
bed on the Sabbath? Not, praise God, you were a crack-smoking,
heroin-using addict, and now you're born again and saved!
Hallelujah! What are you doing sharing your
bed on the Sabbath? In the book of John, they found a woman in
adultery. She was committing adultery.
And they thought, we'll get him this time. We'll get him this
time. So they take the woman, half-naked, caught in the very
act of adultery. They throw her down at Jesus'
feet and says, the law says, Moses says, the Ten Commandments
says, kill her. What do you say? The Bible so
wonderfully says, that the Lord Jesus stooped down. High contact
with the woman taking in adultery. And He says to that bunch of
Pharisees, you that are without sins have to first go. All of
a sudden, all those guys started dropping rocks. Kind of disappearing into the
shadows. And Jesus goes to her, where
have all your accusers gone? And she said, I have none, Lord.
And he said, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. That's
the gospel. That's the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Two men went up to the temple
to pray, and the Pharisee got up real close in his churchy
garments, and he says, I thank thee, God. Religious people always
use grace and God and Jesus and praise the Lord, but they don't
have anything to praise the Lord about. It is awfully confusing
to me for people to say, it was my will, my works, and my baptism.
Praise God. Praise God for what? Tell me
something to praise God for. You're bragging about what all
you've done. You didn't brag on God. Remember this, the acid
test is who gets the glory. What you're trying to do by establishing
your own righteousness is to get glory to yourself. And I'm
going to tell you this, God won't have it. God will not give His
glory to another. We are saved to praise God. That's what we're going to do
when we get to heaven. Praise the Lord. I thank Thee that I'm
not as other men. I tithe. I do this. I do that. But the old publican, not republican,
publican, the old publican stood afar off
with his head down. And he wouldn't so much as lift
his eyes, but said, God, be propitiation for me. God, be propitiatory
toward me. God, be the appeasing factor
for me. Pour your wrath on the substitute
and set me free. And the Bible says this man went
down to his house justified rather than the other. The most hideous
sin in all the world is for you. Try to establish your own righteousness. What would I have you do today?
I would have you do this. Lay the shotgun down. I would
have you do this. Save me or damn me. I'm trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. I'm trusting Christ. I'm trusting Christ alone. Listen
to the Apostle Paul here in Philippians again. Seven. But what things were gain to
me? At one time in my life, I was
stockpiling all these good things. I could remember everything good
I'd ever done. And I was doing it all for God, killing those
Christians. They were gain to me. Let me ask you, what's gain
to you? What is gain to you? But what
things were gain to me? Those I counted lost for Christ. You ever got a bargain? I'm telling
you, my friend, to trade your filthy rags for the righteousness
of Jesus Christ is a real bargain. It's a real bargain to think,
He took that and gave me this. What a deal! Yea, doubtless I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things. Hallelujah! I've suffered the
loss of everything. I've thrown it all away. I've
put it all overboard. And to count them but dung. My
church anity is dung. My baptismal papers is dung. My good works, my keeping the
commandments is dung. You've heard me tell this story
many times that in the Carolinas on the Indian Reservation, they
have all of this, like a little carnival thing. There was an
old Indian that had little pieces of two before. And he was carving,
and he would carve hound dogs out of them. And a man went up
to him and said, how do you do that? He said, I cut off everything
that doesn't look like a hound dog. And what I'm saying to you
and what I'm trying to do is to cut off everything that doesn't
look like Jesus Christ. It's Christ and Christ alone. You must believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, you've already gone
too far, haven't you? You've already done too much
to earn salvation. I mean, what are you going to
do to undo what you've already done? How can you pay for for
all of that fornicating drunkenness, drug using, all of that mess
that we all have. You say, well, I'm going to start
tomorrow. I'm not talking about tomorrow.
I'm talking about what happened yesterday. How are you going
to take care of that? Most of us, all of us in here
actually have committed enough sin to damn us all this morning. You got up this morning and said,
oh my back, rather than, oh my Lord. You sat down and ate and complained
about what you were eating. Just ungrateful. We've got to
be shut up to Jesus Christ. Some of you, I believe this in
this auditorium, some of you work so hard to try to save yourself.
I don't know anybody that works harder than a drug addict who's
really seen what drugs does to try to quit. You can't. You're powerless. You're just
powerless. You need a power, an external
power that's greater than crack. And you try and try and you say,
Pastor, doesn't that count? No! The only thing that counts
is that God sent His Son down here to be a substitute. It's
the blood of Christ. That's what counts. Are you covered
by the blood? The kids used to sing in our
church when I was a kid, Yes, yes, yes, my sins are gone. Buried
in the deepest sea. That's good enough for me. I
shall live eternally. Praise God, my sins are gone. There's no condemnation to those
that are in Christ Jesus. You say, well, you know, Father,
I just can't believe that God would just make it so simple
as to just trust? Oh, really? Well, if in your
flesh dwells no good thing, that means there's no faith there. That means that the Gospel is
the craziest thing you've ever heard. That God actually came
down here to earth. That God in the person of His
Son, Jesus Christ, died on the tree of the cross, was buried
and rose again, ascended back into heaven, and we're to trust
Him. If it's so easy, why don't you do it? Why don't you just
leave your nice church anity over here, take off all your
filthy rags of righteousness, and just trust Jesus Christ alone?
If it's so easy, why don't you do it? Faith is the last thing
you'll do. If I ask you to come to this
altar, you'll come. If I say, we're going to have
a baptizing next Wednesday, you'll come get dunked. But if I tell you, don't move
a muscle, right where you are, trust Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved. What? You telling me that's all? Yeah,
you phony, that's all. He said, well, I want to do something
I know you do so you can get some glory. But it's a faith
so you get no glory. So, now, I know some of you here,
you are what some would call partial Calvinists. You are three-pointers
or four-pointers, but you ain't no five-pointer. See, you don't
believe that Christ really redeemed everybody. You believe He came
to give everybody a chance. So you're still trusting in your
flesh. You're saying that some people get saved because some
people are luckier, or some people are better. But you're not going
to say God did it all by Himself, because that would make God actually
sovereign and choosing whom He would save. Not that, preacher. Some of you hate predestination.
If I say this to you, did you first choose God or did God first
choose you? Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He first loved us. You have not chosen me, but
I've chosen you. Now, which are you going to accept?
I'm going to bow to this. God chose me. I'm glad about
that. You don't have to fight over
this. This is really, this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you can really
find out where you are. The acid test is who gets the
glory. Now, who are you going to glorify for your salvation
or for what you say is your conversion experience? I'll tell you this,
I'm going to give Him all the glory. None? None for me. Well, you know,
Pastor, God gives us all a free will, doesn't He? No. Let's go
back to this, what I've been talking about for three Sundays
now. In my flesh dwells no good thing. So you are born an ugly
thing when you're born. You're born a sinner. That's
what you are. You grow, 3, 4, 5, 6, 15, 18, and sin completely just abounds. You don't get better the older
you get. I thought when I got my dad's age, I was going to
be purely sanctified. I found out he wasn't, nor was
I. Now I know that. But you're born a sinner. You
continue on in your sin. There has to be an intervention.
You remember? I told you there has to be an intervention. Well,
who decides who to intervene in on? Why didn't God just... Did space
get lucky out there in that lobster boat? Did he get lucky? Well, he's drunker than a skunk
and higher than a kite. So it wasn't space. It wasn't
space. I mean, if I was God, I wouldn't
even have been attracted to space. Just kidding. I love you, space.
You know I love you. We're all that way. But God in
infinite, matchless, sovereign, free grace found Spacey out there
in his craziness. Yeah. Intervened in his life. And he's a wild man for Christ.
He is. I mean, his testimony is it was God that did it. That's
mine too. Why won't you give him all the
glory? When I say things like this, some of my staff is saying
things like in our staff meeting, I just leave those meetings so
confused after pastor talks. Well, let me try to help clear
your confusion. The Bible says this, according
as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
What do you say? I say, Amen. I say God chose the people before
the foundation of the world. Father, Thou hast loved them
as Thou hast loved me, and You love me from the foundation of
the world." I say amen to that. We're bound to give thanks for
You, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. What do you say to that? I say
amen. God says, before I formed thee
in that mother's belly, I loved you and ordained you and predestinated
you to be a prophet. What do you say to that? I say
amen. If it be by grace, it's no more by works. If it be by
works, it's no more by grace. It can't be both. Right? It's either all grace or all
works. It's like oil and water. You
can't mix. I do not frustrate the grace of God, the Apostle
Paul said. You go to Romans 9, or Romans 8, and it says that
all things work together for good to them that love the Lord.
to them who are the called according to His purpose." You mean God
is the God of purpose? Yeah. It wasn't luck. It wasn't
rabbit's foot luck that you're converted. You're not here. Listen,
you're just like Chuckie that I talked about a few weeks ago.
Yeah, Chuckie. Three thousand people on that
ship and a thousand employees on that ship, and Chuckie comes
to me and wants to talk. See, you came to God because
you were a Chucky. I don't know whether Chucky's
going to be converted or not, but I do know this. Everybody
who comes to God, God is the cause of them coming. No man
can come to Me except the Father which has sent Me. Draw him.
All the Father giveth Me shall come to Me. I like that. All of the chosen are going to
come. It's just a matter of time. You might have been eight or
you may be fifty-eight. You may be 80 or 90. I think the oldest
man I baptized was 100 years old. 100 years old. And he came to Christ in his
98th year. He'd outlived four wives. He
was about to get married again. The old boy was still cooking. As long as you have breath, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Is that
right? You go to Romans 8 and it begins to talk about forelove.
He foreloved. And then the word predestination
comes in in verse 29 and 30. I believe in predestination.
You know why? Because it's in the Bible. What do you say about predestination?
Well, I don't know about predestination. I think God probably predestinated
everybody to what? And if He did predestinate everybody
to be saved, how come everybody doesn't get saved? But if He
did predestinate some people to get saved, and they get saved,
what do you think about that? Predestination is a sweet word.
The only reason people don't like predestination is they want
to go about to establish their own righteousness. The reason
you hate the message of predestination is because you don't want God
to do it all. Now, pastor, pastor, well, let's
put it a different way so you can really see it and I can expose
you. Well, now, pastor, I believe
this, that God does it all except, except what? Well, He gives us
all a free will. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
We've already established that when you're born, you're born
a sinner. You are dead in sins and trespasses. So, your will is enslaved to
your nature. Jesus said, you will not come
to me. You will not. You won't come
unless there's an intervention. The only way you're ever going
to come to Christ is for Christ and the Holy Spirit's power to
quicken you and give you life. Once you have life, now you're
not dead. You have spiritual life. And you begin to hunger
and thirst like a little baby just born. Where's the milk?
Where's the milk? You know, I saw some little piglets
born years ago, and it was amazing to me how quick they went to
the nipple. I mean, they popped out of that
old sow, and as soon as they popped out, she took the stuff
off their face where they could breathe, and they ran right to
that nipple. You know what God's people do?
As soon as you're born again, you've got to find a place that
preaches Christ alone. You're hungry for the message
of grace. The reason people don't come here knowing that we preach
predestination, a doctrine of election and atonement and effectual
calling, is because they want some of the glory. I am telling the truth. I'm telling
you the truth. They want some of the glory.
Why don't you let go of it? Your will is messed. Look where
your will got you. About 98% of the people in here
have used. Let me put that different. 100% of us in here have used.
We have used something. We have used something. Say,
is he dirty? Yep, we're all dirty. We're all
dirty. And look where your will got
you. You willed to use crack. You willed to go to bed with
somebody. You willed to use heroin. You
willed, you willed. That's where your will will get
you. When the sweet, comforting Holy Spirit quickens and makes
us alive, we have a spiritual nature. We've been born of God.
And we love the sincere milk of the Word. We love to hear
that God first loved us. We love to hear that we're not
accidental. We have not been accidentally
born again. But on purpose, God has saved
us. That He sought us out of our
lowly bar. That He came to our hood and
did for us what we could not do for ourselves, making us alive. And we want to worship Him and
praise Him And we say, to God be the glory, great things He's
done. We want none of it. See, if I've
made you mad, there's probably something wrong with you. It's true. Listen, I don't want
anybody to sit under the ministry of Kent Clark in a church and
die and go to hell. I don't. I don't want to stand
before God and have you stand there and say, Pastor, you didn't
make it plain. Pastor, if you'd just told me,
I'm telling you today, your blood is not on my hands. And all of
you that are clinging to that freewillism, that you've done
something, that's why it's so important to give it all up.
Because I'm going to tell you, you're going to fail. You're
going to relapse. Everybody in here is going to
relapse. We are relapsers. Well, why are you all looking
at me that way? You're going to fail. And then,
because in your flesh dwells no good thing, right? So, you
haven't gotten rid of your flesh, right? So, you're going to fail.
Your flesh is going to get the upper hand. Does it ever? Has
it already this morning? Your flesh is going to get the
upper hand. So, you better not be depending on anything you've
done, because you're going to mess up. When I say you, I'm
talking about us. I'm not putting myself above
you to even the slightest degree. We're all going to fall down.
The glorious thing is, greater is He that's in us than he that's
in the world. We get up. Right? We get up. And we go on. We persevere to the end. But
we persevere this way, in Christ alone. In Christ alone. I am complete in Christ. I'm
trusting Christ. Some of my great glimpses of
Jesus Christ and the power of the blood has been in my great
failures. I have rejoiced more, I think,
in the power of the blood when I have been defeated by my flesh
and I'm down and nauseated at myself. And I rejoice that there's
power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of Jesus Christ. And what I want you to do, and
we'll go home, I hope, wouldn't it be great if about ten people
who are members of some church got saved today? Wouldn't it
be great if somebody cried out in here, oh, for the first time
I see it, right? And I'm trusting Jesus Christ
alone. All of my churchanity, I throw it away. I count it but
dung. And I come to Christ as a sinner,
trusting Him and Him alone.