I want to talk again and there'll
be two more messages after this on what really matters. I believe
so much in the local church. I believe it is one of the building
blocks of a solid society. 46 years ago, about this time,
I declared that God had called me to preach. 1964. But I believe
so much in the local church and years ago I said to the board,
we're going to establish a church and we're going to put this center
out of business. And that really hasn't changed. I really have
never become a CEO. I'm still a heart pastor with
a desire to preach the gospel. And I'm going to go out that
way. I'm going to go out kicking and screaming the gospel of Jesus
Christ. You know, in the Old Testament
with the prophet Philem, God made a jackass talk. And I figure
if God can make a jackass talk, He can probably use me. If God
can use anything, He can use me. Galatians 6 verse 15, For
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but a new creation. Galatians 5 verse 6, For in Jesus
Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but faith which works by love. You know, if everybody in here
could enter into those truths, a lot of your problems would
be solved. A lot of your religious issues could be solved. What's
really got to take place is really simple. You've got to meet up
with a Creator who can do for you what you can't do for yourself.
In the text that I have read to you, we have the essential
New Testament Christian gospel answering two questions. How
are men saved? And how are saved men and women
to conduct themselves? How are men saved? How are men
converted? There has to be a new creation.
A new creation. A creator has to be involved.
And then how do saved people serve? How do they live their
lives? And Galatians tells us how we
are to live our lives. with a faith that works not out
of fear but out of love, a love to Christ. That's it. That's
the Christian faith. Men are not saved by circumcision
nor uncircumcision. They are not saved by keeping
the commandment. There must be a new creation.
You're not saved or lost because you're married or unmarried.
The Apostle Paul deals with that in 1 Corinthians 7. but a New
Testament Christianity. New Testament Christianity over
and against traditional Christianity. You know what I mean by traditional
Christianity? Well, we've always been a Catholic. Our family has
always been Baptist. Traditional. You ask me if I'm
a Christian. You think I'm a heathen? I'm
a Methodist. That is what I'm talking about. We are not saved by tradition,
additions, those sorts of things. You must be made a new creature.
You must be born again. That's exactly right. New Testament
Christianity is not an external thing. It's not an external thing. New Testament Christianity is
not a human matter. New Testament Christianity is
a divine matter. Or to put it more plainly, New
Testament Christianity is not an external thing. New Testament
Christianity is not a human thing. New Testament Christianity is
a divine thing. It is something God does. You are not a Christian unless
God has acted on you. It's true. It's just true. We say men are not saved by externals
in which they involve themselves. Men are not saved by circumcision,
baptism, church membership, fraternal societies, moral codes. We believe
the Scripture which says, not by works of righteousness which
we have done, but by His mercy He saved us. We're saved by mercy. God had mercy on us. For by grace are you saved through
faith, by God's unmerited favor, and that faith is not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of
works of any kind, lest man should boast. And man will always boast
until he knows that God alone has saved him. It is not by any
system. It is not by any one thing or
several things collectively which men can do externally. Salvation
is not an external. Salvation is not in walking a
church aisle. No man is saved by walking an
aisle, following a counselor in a pet prayer. Whether they're
Roman superstition or Protestant superstition or Baptist superstitions
or Catholic superstitions, no man is saved by externals. I just want to make this so plain.
So plain. And we must cry out against these
things. They don't cut it. with God. They don't matter. It is not
by human means either. You see, men will say things
like this. Okay, it's not in externals,
but it's in the human mind. It's in the human emotions. It's
in the human will. It's in the human power. No,
no. No, no. No, not by might, nor by power,
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. The Spirit of God Almighty
must do something inside you, a new creation. So then it is
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. God must draw men. God must call
men. God must illuminate men. God
must regenerate men. God must give men new birth and
power in the new birth to repent and to believe the Gospel because
it's not of man. It's not in you. There is nothing
in you of your own. God must do something. It's not
a man's reasoning. No matter how smart you are,
no one out of his own head could have figured out the gospel of
the grace of God that is set forth in the New Testament. Nobody.
Nobody. It is contrary to every conception
of man. You know why the message of grace
is hated? Because it is totally contrary. It is contrary to our way of
thinking. God could not love me unconditionally. God could not just simply sovereignly
have mercy on whom He will. It is not right. It's just not
right for God to choose out of a massive bunch. It's not fair. It's just not fair. But we're
not talking about fair. There's nothing fair in this
life. We're talking about the grace of God, not about being
fair. Man is basically proud, and the
Gospel humbles that pride. That's why there's so much resistance
to the message of God's grace. It's humbling. You were nothing
but a tumble bug and God found you rolling your little pile
of manure around in your life and sovereignly elected and saved
you by His sovereign grace. And to God be the glory. There
is no room for you to boast, no room for you to brag. You
see, man believes though he has failed that he will try again
and achieve. The Gospel says all have failed. sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God. You've missed the mark. And you'll
never hit it on your own. I don't care how moral you are,
how good you are, or how many of the commandments you think
you've kept. There is none righteous. There is none right. There is
none that seeketh after God. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one. No, not one. That's what God
said. Salvation is not by man. Salvation is God's thing. It's
what God does. So you already said that. I'm
going to say it ten billion times before I leave this world. Salvation
is God's thing. He initiates it. He did so before
the world began. He purposed to give His Son that
His Son should be slain. And in the fullness of time sent
forth His Son. God sent forth His Son on a mission
to save the elect. He didn't come down here to do
something or other in some way or other that will help somebody,
hopefully, if they will put in their two cents. God is not looking
for your two cents. You're confused about your two
cents. You're depraved. You're dead.
You're inactive toward God. God isn't looking to you to put
anything in. He's got to make you a new creation.
before you even want to put your two cents in, according to the
will of God. We don't bridge the gap, because
God didn't leave a gap. God bridged the gap. You know,
we sing this song, or used to sing it in the old church. When
I was a kid, we used to sing this song. Oh, the love that
drew salvation's plan! Oh, the grace that brought it
down to man! Oh, the mighty gulf that God
did span! at Calvary. He spans the gap. The Bible says God's grace has
done it. He's done it all in the execution
of salvation and in the application of salvation. Sinners are saved
because God Almighty saved them. If you are saved, it is because
God Almighty saved you all by Himself. Here it is. It's really
this simple. for whom he foreloved," foreknew,
he predestinated, he called, he justified, he glorified. Sounds like he did it all. The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for they
are foolishness unto him. With the natural man, it's foolishness,
this idea that God has come to earth. In the womb of a virgin,
Emmanuel, God came into the world, that He walked the Judean acres
without sin, went up on Calvary and died in the stead, room and
place for His elect, and then got up out of the grave on the
third day. Up from the grave, He arose to
save His people from their sin. The natural man doesn't receive
that. A dear friend of mine who's attending our congregation left
here Sunday and he said to me, that doesn't, I'm telling you,
you have totally, absolutely confused me. I am totally confused. And I said to him, that's so
good. That's so good. And what he was
telling me was, and I love him. I care about him greatly. And
I had the opportunity again this week to talk to him about the
Lord with some of his family members to drive him from self
performance. and self-righteousness and shut
him up to faith in Jesus, where there is no hope in self. You
lay the shotgun down. You raise and hoist the white
flag and say, All to Jesus I surrender. God forbid that I should glorify
Him in the cross. It's in Christ and Christ alone.
That's when the peace of God floods your soul and passes all
understanding. When you get to the place where
all human reasoning is gone, You say, I'm a dodo anyway. Why
should I be counting on Me to try to figure this out? Jesus
paid it all. Jesus paid it all. All the debt
I owe, sin and left to crimson stain. Hallelujah, He washed
it white as snow. The natural man is like a blind
man in a dark room full of treasures. That's the natural man. He feels
around and he feels something of them. has this vague, distorted
imagination as to what they are, but has no idea of the glory,
of the preciousness, of the riches that are at His fingertips. And
when God saves a sinner, here's what happens in that room. Two
things simultaneously happen. Number one, He gives sight to
blind eyes. Number two, He flips on the light
and all at once, We see the wonderful things that God has for us. And
the old songwriter, that's exactly what he meant when the old songwriter
wrote these words, Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast held in sin
and nature's might. Thine eye diffused the quickening
ray. I awoke the dungeon flamed with
light. My chains fell off. My heart
was free. I arose, went forth, and followed
Thee. Amazing love, how can it be that
Thou, my God, should die for me? That's what happens when
the light comes on. All of this is mine. It's all
mine in Christ Jesus. I'm a child of the King. I'm
a joint heir with Jesus Christ. It's all mine. I'll never be
taken out of the will. There's no judgment, no condemnation. Being a Christian then does not
originate in the will of man. This is where most religious
men go wrong. They think the origin of a Christian
to be in the will of man. I'm sorry, but it is not. No,
I'm not real sorry. It's not in the will of man.
We've made a God out of this free will thing. Your will is
enslaved to your nature. Do you know why two people as
intelligent and wonderful as Ms. Pam and I can't get along
all the time? Because of our stinking will.
Our will is enslaved to our nature. We are sinners. You better hope
the will of God crosses your will, because your will is off-base. Your will is a strikeout. This
is where most religious men go wrong. Not in the will of man. No more in the will of man than
the creation of this universe. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. And in the New Testament, in
the Corinthian letter, he speaks of a new creation coming through
Jesus Christ. Did the created order find its
origin in the will of man? Of course not. Did man stand
in the empty space and say, let there be? There was no man there. There was no man there. So it
is in the new creation. God Almighty, in the darkness,
in the chaos of man's fallenness, spoke into creation a new creature. God came to Dwayne and said,
live! And life came. God came to Quentin
and said, live! And God came to me and said,
Let there be a new creature! And it was so. That's how it
happened. God must come where you are.
And if God never speaks to you, can you imagine what the thief
on the cross felt? He said, God, remember me. Lord, remember me. Can you imagine
what he felt? I don't know whether it was two
seconds, three seconds, but it must have felt like an eternity.
Because if the one on the middle cross doesn't speak, the thief
goes to hell. Lord, remember me right now.
I'm helpless. I'm hopeless. Think about that
amazing cry of that thief on the cross. And the one he called
Lord was on the cross too. Isn't that a miracle? You are
trusting Another person who is on a cross beside you, you are
saying that He is Lord and King of kings and He is going to be
raised from the dead and you want Him to remember you. And
by the way, everybody else had hightailed it. There was nobody
left. All the disciples had forsaken Christ of the cross. One thief
said, remember me. You know, I've read that a thousand
times, and it seemed like there wasn't going to be a witness
there at the death of Christ. And lo and behold, from the cross,
there comes a witness. You know, the old church used
to say, Do I have a witness? Well, God had a witness, an amazing
witness that said, Remember me. And then there was moments of
silence. And then those sweet, wonderful, awesome words. Today,
thou shalt be with me in paradise. I'm taking you with me. Isn't
that amazing? And God must come to you and
to me in the same way. In the same way. Has God ever
spoke light into your dark life? Has God ever made you a new creature?
Isn't anything going to happen to you if you're made a new creature?
So it's not only God's will, but it's God's work that makes
a Christian. It is He that has made us and not we ourselves.
We are His workmanship. I'm a God deal. There's a God
deal going on here. I'm a God creation. I have been
made a new creation. Oh yeah, that old flesh still
hangs on me. All of that mar and mess, it's
still there. But one day, free at last, free
at last. One day, this old flesh is going
to go back and the worms are going to have a riot. They're
going to have a carnival. They're going to have a good time there. It's
going to be devoured. But there's a resurrection day
where I get a new body and the new me, the new creation is put
in that body, a new heavens and a new earth. I'm telling you,
things are good for us Christians. Oh, things are getting better
for us every day. You know, you get down and think,
well, what a mess. And it is a mess. It is a mess. But if you look out there just
over the horizon, the sun's coming up, a new day and a new heaven
and a new earth. were in developed righteousness.
Somebody said, well, who then can be saved? I want to tell
you, with men this is impossible. There is no priest, no pope,
no rabbi, no preacher that can save you. No altar, no parent
prayer, no little simple gospel that can save you. It takes power
to save you. In fact, it takes a creative
God, a God of creation. Yes, that's right. That's how
bad off you are if you're sitting here without Christ. You are
lost. You're not a creator. If I could
do anything tonight, it would be to cause you to step back
and at least think, I'm in a mess. I'm in trouble here because I'm
not a creator. If what that guy says is true,
and all of his yelling and screaming, if what he says is true, you
don't have to be impressed with me, but I hope you have this
question in your mind. If what he says is true, I'm
going to hell in my church animal because I have never been made
a new priest. That's your biggest problem.
You may think that some addiction is your biggest problem, but
that's not your biggest problem. Because there's power, wonder
working power in the blood of the Lamb. Power, power to change
you. Is there hope for the addict?
Yes! In the power of God and you being
made a new creation in Christ Jesus. He can bring you out of
the crack house and give you a new life and a new start and
a new walk and a new talk. He that hath begun a good work
in you. Oh, I love that. I love that. You don't know how many times
I've relaxed. No one in here has anything on me. Let me give
you the experience of a PK kid, a preacher's kid. Do you know
how many times I have relapsed? Do you know how many times I've
told God, I quit? The greater it is in you, the
neater it is in the world. You know, I'm just like y'all
quitting smoking. I quit five times. You never
quit. I've never quit either, really.
I just talked about it. Do you know how many times I've
told God off? I gave him a piece of my mind. Don't you know he
was impressed? After I repent, I always think
about an ant taking its fist and talking to an elephant like
this. I'm going to give you... You know how merciful God is?
When you give him a good cussing and tell him to go to hell. Don't
act like you don't ever get mad at God. Things aren't going right. Not the way you think they should
go. That's how I've relaxed. Now there's some things I'm not
going to tell the church. I should, but when I'm in relapse mode,
I'm crazy. So I won't share with you. The Christian is God's creation. And in our baptism, and this
is one of the things that's why it's important to be immersed,
you're actually saying, I'm a new creature. So we've got to bury
that old dead guy. And we're going to bring this
new guy. that God has made in the power of the gospel, who's
going to walk and talk Jesus Christ in newness of life. I'm
a new creation. Oh yeah, I got my works, but
I'm a new creation. If I get drunk, I'm going to say, I am
insane. It is my flesh. I hate what I
just did. How could I love Jesus Christ
and do that? Yeah. That's the way you're going
to talk. There's going to be a fight going on inside of you. Christ ruins all crack houses
for the people who come to know Christ. I mean, the drug dealer's
worst enemy is Jesus Christ. He's the one the drug dealer
ought to fear. Jesus Christ. And isn't that
good news? Because right here, that's who
we declare. And you show me a man that claims
to be a Christian and doesn't cease from his drunkenness, and
I'll tell you he's a contradiction, not a Christian. You are going
to quit getting drunk if you're a Christian. I believe that. Without a radical change, there
is no Christianity. It's impossible to go from no
faith to faith with no change. Just absolutely impossible. The
Christian is not sinless, but sins from a different perspective.
Oh yeah, you're not perfect, but you sin totally from a different
perspective. You know, I get a good cussing
or some of our staff gets a good blast almost every week from
somebody who's sinning. And all we're trying to do is
try to keep them from dying. A Christian who's out there,
if you've truly been converted, I guarantee you, you're not going
to cuss one of God's children too many times. And if you do,
you're going to call and apologize because greater is He that's
in you. There's going to be repentance. There's going to be godly sorrow.
Now, I tell you, my friends, no godly sorrows, no new nature,
no new creation. I'm sorry. I don't care how much
Bible you know, but if you can live like hell and no resistance
to it, no shame, no repentance, no turning from it, you or me
or whoever it is, is an outright contradiction. It's true. You are a contradiction. will damn you. God will take
all of yours and your self-attaining and your self-centeredness and
take you and throw you into hell. There must be a new creation.
Somebody said, well, you know, I don't know about that hell
part. You know, I'm mighty thankful there's a hell. Because there's
a whole lot of people need locked up. There's a whole lot of people
putrid, decaying, self. I'm a new creation. And that's
my hopes for you. And that's why we preach the
gospel here. I know there are some here tonight who just worked
and worked and worked and worked. You know, in your flesh you thought
things like, OK, I'm going to get religion. I'm going to become
a Baptist. I'm going to get converted. I'm going to go to Catechism.
I'm going to turn over a new leaf. This is a new year. I'm
going to turn over a new leaf. I'm not going to do this as much.
I'm not going to do that as much. Now I'm going to get in the church.
Someone called me this week just in the throes of One of the worst
situations I think I've ever heard of. It was a millionaire.
Just in the throes of some of the worst mess I've ever heard
of. And, you know, he's gone through
all of the big books and rehab and all of it's not working and
this person said to me, I need a new spiritual insight. You know, I'm not making light,
but that person doesn't have a clue. What that person is thinking
is, Okay, I've tried this and this and this. That didn't work.
I'm going to try this now and see if this works. It won't work.
That's why I say that little old program over there that we've
got, you've got to know this. Unless God does something in
here, that little program over there is just another rehab. Only this time it's religious. And you know what? You'd save
yourself a lot of heartache. I mean, you can do a lot of other
things that you really want to do in other rehabs that you can't
do over there. You can get over there. I mean,
they don't have the rules, they don't have the accountability,
the responsibility. Here, I mean, you could be much
happier in your flesh. Amen. It might cost you quite
a bit, but, you know, you'd get to be more self-centered. You
wouldn't have to face all the gook. You wouldn't have to listen
to this God thing. You could get into that higher
realm, pure higher realm. See, I'm telling you, I think
I've had a baptism in the Holy Spirit. I am so energized. I am angry and happy and delighted
and ready to get in the ring. Enough is enough. And there ought
to be a voice in this wilderness crying out. As long as you're
listening to me, I'm going to stand between you and hell. I'm
going to go like this. The bridge is out. The bridge
is out. Don't go that way. Don't do that. Don't go back out there. Haven't
you learned? Alcohol isn't a sickness. You
don't have a disease. You have a sin problem. You have
a sin, S-I-N, sin problem. If you have a disease problem,
it looks like by now they would have found something that would
fix you. In the cellar, something, shoot
them. I got a note, I got a message
from somebody who shouldn't be making fun of people like that. Why, you say it. Don't you? Every
addict in here says it. What is insanity? Doing the same
thing over and over expecting different results. That's what
I'm saying. If they can say it, I ought to be able to say it.
You let other people say it to you? You say it. Am I crazy? Yep. I'm just agreeing with you. I'm hoping some way when you
come to church, you shouldn't be able to sleep through church.
I would rather you leave here saying this, that old, whatever
you want to call me, I almost said it, made me mad enough to
eat nails that I had to catch him out there by himself. I hope
you either leave that way or you leave, thanks be to God,
for his unspeakable gift. And I don't want you to leave
here as gray matter. There's neither black nor white.
You just kind of leave here numb. I'm either going to make you
mad or make you glad. One or the other. No middle ground. No middle ground. The best friend
you have, the person who loves you the most, the person who
tells you the truth, it's true. The person who says, if you go
to hell, it's over my dead body. Because I'm going to keep telling
you the bridge is out. I hope you'll trust Christ. To
my friend who's left here saying I'm confused, you know what he's
confused about? Here's what he was confused about. He was confused
about this. I'm trying to do all this stuff
before I die. You know, good stuff. That's
all. I'm helping you, aren't I? That's
what was said. And I said, yeah. Yeah, you've
been a help. But you can't buy heaven. No,
that's not the way. No. And, you know, nobody's going
to buy me with money either. I'm not going to be bought. You
can't buy me. Christ already has. I've been
bought with a price. I've been bought with a price.
And, you know, I know this is going to happen. My pastor, Charles
Spurgeon, I consider Charles Haddon Spurgeon my pastor. Been
dead a long time. But when I need preaching to,
I greet Spurgeon. He's my pastor. But I'll tell
you this story. You've heard me say it several
times. Spurgeon built the Metropolitan Tabernacle in the worst part
of London. In the worst part of the city.
In the slum. And taxis, the horse carriages,
the taxis, on Sunday he would preach, you know, to 5,000, 6,000
people in the Metropolitan Tabernacle. On Sunday night you had to have
tickets to get into the service And he would tell all his church
members, now everybody stay home tonight because this is visitors'
opportunity to come and hear the gospel. And you had to have
a ticket to get in. Not a paid ticket, just somebody
had to give you a ticket to get in to have service. But the taxi
cab drivers, people would get in the carriage-drawn taxis of
that day and say, over the bridge to Charlie's house. Over the
bridge to Charlie's house. That would be like over the tracks,
the other side of the tracks. the slum, over the bridge to
the Metropolitan Tavern where we can hear from God. We're never
going to get fancy here. Spurgeon would have the Queen
of England come and sit and listen to him preach. And they drew
pictures of Spurgeon and would put them in the paper. They had
a lion's tail on him. They had his hands all up like
this. You know, he was a wild man in the book. He was a screamer. He was a pulpiteer. He was a
John the Baptist. And they'd make fun of it. The
elephants came to know Christ. And what would happen is this.
Spurgeon would say, now 400 of you church members need to go
about 20 miles upriver here. We need a church plant over there.
400 people would leave the tabernacle. And Spurgeon would say, we're
going to support you. The tabernacle will buy the building.
And the gospel spread and spread and spread. And Spurgeon is still
preaching. I'm not going to tell you how
many sermons you've heard by Charles Adams Spurgeon, but there
have been many. Most are tainted with Spurgeon's
messages. Most of my messages are not tainted
in a bad way, but they have C. H. Spurgeon in there, the power
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he stuck to that. He preached
the gospel over and over and over, and God blessed it, and
God anointed it in the power of the Spirit of God. And people
were saved, got in that church. That church had an orphanage.
What church? I'm talking about the church
in the slums of London, England. The church in the slums. The
church like this. They had an orphanage. They had
a preacher school. They had an outreach program.
They turned that city upside down with the gospel of Jesus
Christ. And God kept opening the windows
of heaven and pouring blessing after blessing after blessing
upon that tabernacle. That tabernacle, Spurgeon said,
I will not preach a message so that tabernacle is paid for. And by the day that that tabernacle
was ready to open, millions of pounds, dollars, came in and
that building was completely paid for the day he opened it.
And the day he opened it, it was too small for the crowd.
God said, try me. See if I won't open the windows
of heaven. You ever thought about God opening the windows of heaven?
What could happen? Things we've never seen before.
Let's stand together and praise Him.