How do you start your week without
being in God's house? The whole week is off when you're
not in God's house with God's people. Forsake not the assembling
of yourselves together. And then for you young sprouts,
remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the
evil days come. The evil days are upon me. That
means days when you have aches and pains, you don't know where
they're coming from or why they're there. But in spite of those,
the Lord has promised good to me. I want you to turn in your
Bibles to the book of Acts, the 18th chapter. The book of Acts,
the 18th chapter. And while you're turning there,
I'm going to read one passage from 2 Timothy, chapter 2 and
verse 10. This is 2 Timothy 2.10, wherein
I suffered trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds I was put in
jail, but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure
all things for the elect's sake, that they, the elect, may also
obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal
glory. And then in the book of Acts
chapter 18 verses 9 and 10, Then spake the Lord to Paul in the
night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and
hold not thy peace. For I am with thee, and no man
shall set on thee to hurt thee, where I have much people in this
city. For the past several weeks now,
we've been talking about the five points of grace, which is
truly the gospel. We've talked about total depravity. And mankind, because of sin,
finds itself in a worldwide cemetery, dead in sins, inactive toward
God. And that man in and of himself
cannot save himself. He does not desire to be saved. He is inactive toward God. He
is dead to God. And so if man is to come out
of his spiritual death, there must be a source outside of himself
that comes to his grave and speaks life. That there is no difference,
all have sinned and missed the mark. And that those of us who
are here today in the house of God, believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ, when there was no difference, God intervened and made a difference. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? And that question can only be
answered by election. That it was the election of God
that made the difference. When there was no difference
between you and someone else, God chose you and made the difference. Now I know that that doesn't
suit well with your flesh and mine. We're all Arminians by
nature. We all believe salvation is by
works, by nature. We're all self-righteous by nature.
And so when the preacher says, it is God that made the difference,
not you, not your will, not your decision. God made the difference. And we pop up with all kinds
of questions because of our depravity and because of our desire to
have a part in saving ourselves and not giving God all the glory.
We always say something like this, that's not fair. But we're not talking about being
fair. We're talking about the grace of God. If you want to
talk about being fair, God ought to send Saul to hell. Nobody
in here who understands grace at all or understands the Bible
at all would want God to be fair. What we want is for God to be
merciful. We do indeed. So here we are
at election, that God has chose a number of people under salvation
that no man can number. We're not talking about a few
people. We're talking about more people in heaven than are in
hell. We're talking about God choosing a number that no man
can number. We're talking about the elect
being a big family, being made up of as many people as the sands
of the seashore all over the world. If you could count every
pebble of sand on all the seashores, you would not have the number
of the elect that will be in heaven praising God. So many
times people say, well, I certainly don't believe in election because
you people only believe that a little handful is going to
heaven. We believe a handful, and it's God's hand, a handful
of God's people, are going to heaven in the hands of God. And
that's a number that no man can number. I suppose I could say
to you, it depends on how big your God is. If your God is a
big, big God and has big, big hands, we are in His hands and
no man can pluck us out of His hands. And so God's got us. So when we talk about election,
let's not number the folks that are going to heaven to a little
small crowd, but a number that no man can number. According as ye have chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, before I formed
thee in thy mother's belly, I knew thee. Before thou camest forth
from the womb, I had already set your side and ordained you
to be a prophet. Yea, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love, and in tender kindness have I drawn thee. You see, because you were elected,
God drew you. 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 pray not for the world, but
for them which Thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine they
were, and Thou gavest them Me. Yea, I have loved Thee with an
everlasting love. Jesus in John 17, said, Father,
You love them as You love me, and You love me before the foundation
of the world. Now, little elect child of God
here today, contemplate this for a little bit. God loves you
as He loved His own son. Just let that simmer a little
while, like cooking beans. Get all the flavor out of that.
That God has loved you with an everlasting love as He loved
His own son. Don't fight this. David danced,
as we saw last week, over being chosen of God. It's a wonderful
truth. Not something to fight over,
it's something to dance over. God has chosen me. When you really enter into it, when you really begin to look
at it, aren't you amazed? Why would God choose you? You were no good before you got
saved, and you're still no good after you got saved. You don't hold out? You don't
hang in there? You got drunk before you were
saved and you got drunk after you were saved? What about sanctification? You
tell me. Some of you got too much goody,
goody, goody two-shoes in you. Why you don't praise God? You
know what you are. You know in your flesh dwells
no good thing. So don't be lifted up in pride and haughtiness.
You're only a sinner saved by grace. And if God ever takes His hand
off you, you're crazy as a June bug. There's nothing you won't
do if God takes His hand off you. You are grateful that greater
is He that's in you than he that's in the world. I endure all things
for the elect's sake. Wanda, God didn't save you, baby,
for you to sit. He saved you to endure all things
that you might be an instrument to save somebody else. You see,
there's a lot of Wandas out there. You need to be finding them. That's right. See, space, there's
a lot of messed up, spaced out space-o's out there. That's right. And so the elect of God endure,
endure. We went through all the craziness
of the raid here. The devil did his best to put
us out of business ten years ago. We stuck. And the truth is there are no
ifs and ands and buts with God. But had we not have stopped ten
years ago, many of you here today would not have been saved. Enduring. Enduring. God has saved you to
endure all things. The world is a mess, but you
endure because you know what God has done for you. And there
are many, many more out there who have been elected of God.
They must come to know Jesus Christ. So we endure. Real quickly here, Acts 18. The Lord spake to Paul by night
in a vision. The Lord doesn't speak in visions
anymore. I know some of you don't believe that, but the Lord has
said everything in His Word. We have a complete revelation
in the Bible. If you want to hear from God
in the wee morning hours, get your Bible out. And began to
read it, and God in the power of the Spirit will speak to you. Really. Just like the women of
grace, they were singing Amazing Grace. Actually, Wednesday night,
I felt like God spoke to me while they were singing here on Wednesday
night. And I said to myself, God's going to use them in a
powerful way. Yesterday morning, Wanda gave her testimony in the
Women in Grace. I thought to myself, it's true.
God's going to use them in a mighty way. That's the way God speaks. They were singing the Word. Wanda
was testifying to the grace of God. That's the way God speaks to
us. Here's what God told Paul in
the vision. Be not afraid. God's still saying
that. As a Christian, do you ever get
afraid? Don't be lying now. Don't be
afraid. Fear not. Moses was afraid. I read that
in Scripture. Down in the desert, he was afraid.
David, when he was on the throne as king, was afraid. I read that. Elijah went in a cave. and hid. He was afraid. John the Baptist
got locked up in prison and he was afraid. I read this years
ago about Martin Luther. He said, because I seem to be
always strong and merry, men think that I walk on a bed of
roses, but God knows how it is with me. Sometimes so afraid. Even the
Apostle Paul was afraid. So those of you, including myself,
who are working in His kingdom work, and you get sick of yourself
and your cowardly ways, don't think that you're undergoing
something unknown to other Christians. Sometimes do you ever feel unique?
It's insane. I think it's self-righteousness.
I'm the only one that's ever been afraid. Oh no. You know, there's more said in
the Scripture about being afraid than there is about the holiness
of God. Be not afraid, little fly. Moses said, I'm afraid, I can't
speak. And God said, who made your mouth? Joshua couldn't lead the people
because he was afraid. And God assured him. When we're
afraid, we go to the Word of God and let Him speak to us.
We hear from God. Be not afraid. I was thinking
the other night when I was thinking about preaching from this text. Just about in my own life, how
many times I've been afraid. I thought some of the craziest
things When I was a young preacher, I'd see a well-dressed man come
in in a black suit. I thought, man, he was an older
man, and I'd be preaching. It'd scare me to death. I'd think,
he's an older preacher. He knows more than me. Much better
speaker than me. Come to find out, the guy's an
undertaker. I can remember people coming
to hear me preach who were highly educated, and unbeknownst to
them, they scared me to death. You know, I used to always be
afraid of being laughed at, until I found out the truth is,
I really am ridiculous. There really was, I know it's
hard for some of you to believe this, but there really was a
time when I didn't like publicity. I didn't like to be seen. I really
didn't like the spotlight too much. It was too much to find
out about me. And I found out that that really
wasn't modesty. That was a cowardly way in myself. Be not afraid. God's soldiers
must be bold. We all have a closet. So the
best thing for us to do who are fearful that somebody's going
to find out something is admit it first. I've got a closet. I've messed up. But God is still
right. God is still on His throne. Sin
is still sin. Whether I've got a closet or
not. Really and truly, a Christian ought to be afraid to be afraid.
If you're going to fear anything, fear this, that you don't think
your God is big enough. Be afraid of being afraid. Who
said that? The only thing we have to fear
is fear itself. Was that Winston? Was that Roosevelt or Churchill?
Anyways, some mess up said that. And they were right. You ever been afraid of what
your family will think? I know you don't understand this. I
used to be afraid of being put out of the denomination that
I belonged to. I used to be afraid that I was
going to say something in the pulpit that they were going to
catch me on and put me out. And then finally they put me
out and I didn't have to be afraid anymore. Don't be afraid. If God be for
us, who can be against us? If I'm on God's side and God's
on my side, what do we have to fear? I said, well, what are
you talking about? What does that have to do with
election? A lot. I said, don't be afraid,
but speak. The truth is, I have preached
election in churches where they have escorted me out because
of the doctrine of election. You know everybody doesn't believe
in election. You've heard me say this thousands
of times. I've been thrown out of more churches than you have
bars. It's been a while. I must be slowing down a little
bit. I'm compromised. Speak. Speak. Don't be afraid. Speak. Speak to your kids. Speak to your mother. Speak to
your father. Speak to your family. Speak.
Don't be afraid. Has God saved you? Then speak. Tell it. Don't be ashamed of it. Speak.
Don't be afraid. We're debtors. Are we not debtors?
I was thinking about all the people I'm a debtor to. I'm a
debtor to every Sunday school teacher who personally witnessed
to me and told me the Gospel. I'm a debtor to my parents, though
we had a dysfunctional family like yours. I'm a debtor to my
parents because they did train me and taught the Gospel to me. I am a debtor to Hayden's generation. I'm a debtor to speak the Gospel.
But if I keep my mouth shut and her generation does not have
the Gospel, well, God's going to take care of that. God takes
care of that through raising up voices. It has pleased God
through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. We're
debtors. We're debtors. We've got to pay
that debt. Debtors to keeping the gospel
alive in the world. I think about this. I think about
where America is today. And I think in this manner. Am
I paying my debt? Am I paying my debt? Somebody
has not paid their debt because we have got to where we are in
this country. The gospel has been lost because
people have not paid their debt in America. Preachers have not
preached the gospel and paid the debt in that sense. Cowardly silence. I don't care who I am with. I
am so conscious of this that God puts me in places not to
keep my mouth shut. If I'm coming with a man that's
running for president, I must speak the gospel. Or wherever
I am, I must not become a coward in regard to the gospel. Speak. God said to Paul this. Don't
be afraid. Speak. I am with thee. I am with thee. Let me ask you
this. Do you know what it is to have
the presence of God in your heart and with thee. When all of hell
is popping around you, some of my greatest encounters with the
Lord, for instance, now that we're about to have a little
Caleb come along, a grandson, I have more thoughts about our
little Stuart. Maybe that's an old man's way.
I have thoughts about my baby. I just have thoughts about my
son. My greatest probably, not probably, beyond any shadow of
a doubt, my greatest experience with God was at that baby's grave. The reality of God, the presence
of God. You don't want to ever live and
die as a Christian without some great times of the presence of
God in your life. I used to love to hear Milt sing,
My God is real, for I can feel. Him in my heart. I am with thee, and no man shall
set on thee to hurt thee. God's protection. Have you ever
thought about this with regard to election? Every Christian
in here, God has an elect for you to take the gospel to. God saved you to be an instrumental
Savior to somebody else. God doesn't save people in any
way. He saves them God way. And your mother and father, you
may have been a drug addict when you came here, addicted to whatever. And your mother and dad may not
know the Gospel. You came here and heard the Gospel
of Jesus Christ and got saved. You may be the person to win
your mom and dad. That's right. Do I have a witness in here?
That's right. I can't do that. But that mother
and father who saw you toiling in your addiction and your craziness
and got you over here, and God saved you, and now He's made
you a missionary to go back and tell them the good news and the
glad tidings. Very, very true. No man shall
set on thee to hurt thee. God says this, touch not my anointed. Do my prophet no harm. What a
comfort. God's predestination. God's election. Let me tell you this. You are
invincible until that elect that God has you ordained to take
the gospel to. You are invincible. The greatest
protection you have of God is that God has ordained you to
take the Gospel to somebody else. And God has ordained you to do
that. And God's going to keep you alive.
God's going to protect you. Usefulness is the greatest assurance
that God is going to keep you alive. If God ever quits using
me, I know I'm a goner. I get sick and have the aches
and pains of life, but I think about it this way, you're not
through with me. You're not through with me. That's
the greatest assurance I have, that I'm going to live and live
and live till God gets through with me. You know, one of these
days, the last elect that God has ordained me to preach to
is going to be saved and I'm gone. And I don't believe they're all
in yet. I'm still calling the chicken. Yeah, chick, chick,
chick, chick. Do you believe that? Yes, you
should believe that. I want you to believe that. You
are invincible. God didn't call you to sit. God
called you to invade. God called you to attack. God
didn't call us here to hold the fort. He called us to take the
gospel. Think about it. Just think about
it. You are so special. God has elected you. And God's
got someone else out here that He loves and that He chose before
the foundation of the world. And He's going to use little
old you to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's true. Well, you know, I just want to
invite people to come and hear you pastor. You take the Gospel
to them yourself. And then we'll have a pep rally
after they get saved. You can bring them over here.
Amen. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. And here's what the Lord told
Paul. This wicked city of Corinth,
Paul was getting ready to leave. Thought he was going to get in
trouble. All kinds of uproar, problems, wicked city. And God
said, Paul, I'm with you. Stay right here. Don't be afraid. I got a whole lot of elect in
this city. There's a whole lot of people
here I've chosen. You know what I know about Pontiac. Why do you think we're on the
radio? Why do you think we talk about picking people up and leaving
papers on people's doors to invite them to come here to church?
Why do you think we do what we do? Because we're looking for
the elect. I make no bones about that. God's going to save somebody
here in Pontiac. God has elect here in Pontiac.
I'm positive about that. God's getting ready to turn this
city upside down. God's going to save a slew of
people. I've had people say this to me.
You know, if I believed like you, I'd just sit down. Because
God is predestinated and the elect are going to be saved.
But my friends, election doesn't cause you to sit. It causes you
to get busy. It causes you to labor. To be
missionary. Because it has pleased God through
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. There's
someone here today, no doubt, hearing the Gospel. I mean really
hearing it maybe for the first time, saying that's true. What he's saying is true. I see
it. I'm not an accident. Yes, I did
wander in here. This was the only place left
for me to go. But now I understand it. God
ordained me to be here. and to hear the gospel of Jesus
Christ. So election is no check on missionary
endeavor. In fact, the doctrine of election
assures success. It assures success. You just
luck. You ought to do a little history
of this place if you doubt it. You know, I can remember when
we had no carpet. We had no chairs, soft chairs. We had pews. The
floor squeaked. There was just old raggedy pews
in here. And we had about 25 people. But
God has an elect. And He's calling them out and
calling them to salvation. And honestly and truly, the reason
we need a bigger building is because there's hundreds of elect
to be brought in. Very, very true. People look
at me so often, even laugh. You know, when we throw a picture
up of Quetzalcoatl, they do it in a nice way. But I know what
they're thinking, surely you're not. Yeah, we are. You know why? Because we believe
God has an elect people that must hear the gospel. We must
make room. And always when I see kind of
empty chairs, I'm thinking, Ah, what's going on here? You know,
the reason we went to two services is not to have empty seats, so
more people could get in. So I think to myself, okay, you
need to bear down a little more, preach it a little harder, make
it a little clearer, exalt God higher, right? And watch God
work. Paul, speak and hold not thy
peace, for I have much people in this city. usefulness is the
best protection we can have. Because when God means to save
people by any man, that man is invincible until that chosen
person comes to Christ. So here's what I want you to
think about. God has saved you. God saved you. And He has somebody
for you to be the instrumental Savior. Am I right about that? You can't pay me to do that.
God has ordained you to do that. Now here's what I want you to
do. The old church used to talk about the burden of the Lord.
Are you burdened about anybody? What about your children? They're
going to spend eternity in heaven or hell. Do you know Christ?
You ought to be working on your kids. Well, you know I can't
save them. You can be an instrumental savior.
You can talk to them about God. What about your wife? What about
your husband? What about your mother? What about your father?
What about your cousin? What about people you use drugs
with? Lost. Lost like you were lost. You
remember when you were lost? How lost you were. And how hopeless
you were. You know how hopeless the drug
addict is? If they haven't reached the point
already, they're nearing the point where death looks better
than life. You know there's hope, don't
you? You've been saved by the grace of God. You know there's
a better life. You know there's a better life.
You know there's a heaven. You know there's a Savior. You
know there's a God. You know there's abundant life.
I used to, with my father, hunt quail. And oftentimes, the dogs would
point a cubby of quail. And I was just 12 years old.
But when the cubby would come up, I would just shoot up amongst
them. And my dad used to say, boy,
you've got to pick one of those quail out. Just don't be shooting
up at the cubby. You might accidentally hit one.
You got to pick one out. That's what I'm saying to you.
Don't do this in a general way. Start praying for little Johnny.
I'm praying for Caleb and he's not even born yet. That God will
save him. Am I talking to anybody today?
Anybody hearing me? I'm praying that God will save
Hayden. I'm praying. I'm picking folks out. Pick folks
out. You know, you ought to go talk
to somebody. You might be surprised what God will do. You know, God
has put people on my heart, and I have gone to, and they broke
like matchsticks. I've said things like this, you
know, I just feel like God put you on my heart to come and talk
to you about the Savior. And almost immediately they began
to weep, because God was already there. You know God works on
both ends. You know that, don't you? He
takes the preacher and then He takes the Ethiopian eunuch. The
Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts was reading about this
Savior, this Christ. And God, in the power of the
Holy Spirit, had told the deacon to go down into a deserted place
and join yourself to a man in a chariot. And you know That
Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah 53. And Philip goes up
to the chariot and says, do you understand what you're reading?
Aren't you glad God works on both ends? That was no accident. Would you really like to be used
of God to bring and to be used to bring someone to Jesus Christ?
Have you ever thought about this? I know when we get to heaven,
It's all going to be different. But I thought about this. I think
I told you about this some time ago on Facebook. A woman in her
40s wrote Pam and sent a picture on Facebook to Pam. She was 8
years old when I preached in Sanford, Florida at Jordan Baptist
Church. She was 8 years old. And unbeknownst
to me, God saved that little girl. during that meeting. And
40 years later, she sends an email and a picture and tells
us that she got saved during that meeting. Have you ever thought
about heaven? I think about heaven this way.
What about all the people that are going
to be in heaven that God has used us to speak to that we don't
know about? It's going to be a wonderful time up there. When
people come up to us and say, you didn't know this, but your
life was a powerful testimony to me. Just the things you said,
your kindness, your smile was a witness to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. It was a means of drawing me
to faith in Christ. This church, in order for us
to do what Darren says about getting out of the bleachers,
and into the game. Getting into the game has to
do with you telling somebody of the saving grace of Jesus
Christ. And let me tell you this, I've
always been a self-righteous religious type person. I haven't
been in the crack house. I've been in the church house
and I know all the mess that's there. You crack addicts don't
have anything on us religious people. But I want to say this
to you. You see, I can be used, Maddie
and I can be used because we're PK kids. We're preacher's kids. So we know all of the hypocrisy
and the mess that goes on in the church. We know all about
what takes place at home, stays at home. All of the mess, you
know, my folks wouldn't buy new furniture because what would
the church people think? My dad wouldn't drive a Cadillac
because who would stay something? And now I'm the kid, I don't
give a rip, I'll buy a Cadillac if I want a Cadillac. I'll drive
a Hummer. You know, Manny and I are kind
of different. But, the crack addict, who can tell a person
of the saving grace of God more than a person who's been on heroin
for 20 years? Or a person who's been on crack,
who can tell another addict about the glory of life after addiction? in Jesus Christ. So when we talk about election,
it ought to encourage us to know that God has elected a lot of
crack heads. A lot of people that are in the
hood right now who don't know God are coming this way. Being
brought of God. You think about your friends
out there. Your friends out there that are still in the hood And
here you sit, knowing God, and have abundant life. Go to the
gospel. Take the gospel to them. Those
of us who've been saved, who've been in church all of our life,
and we've been hurting, I have such a burden with regard to
foreknown, because I know how I was raised. Hiding in the church. Self-righteous hiding. All of
the mess that's in the church. And there are hundreds and thousands
of little foreknowns out there. No place to go. Nobody to talk
to. I was a little boy in the Baptist
church. Nobody to talk to. I knew I was
a mess. I knew I wasn't living up to
what those people said you must live up to. At that time, I didn't
know they weren't living up to it either. But I know it now. I know they were as phony as
all get out. But it put pressure on me. To a point where I thought,
I'm going to hell and the world's going to hell and everybody's
going to hell. And now I know there's a peace that passes all
underpasses. I know there's a joy unspeakable
and full of glory. I know my God is real and that
He loves and saves sinners.