Now, I see so many of you here
today, and I'm glad you're here, still out there struggling, struggling
with the demons. But you're here today. Deliverance
could take place today. This is an exciting day. You're
under the gospel. There's nowhere in the world
that you're going to find deliverance other than in the gospel of Jesus
Christ. I'm telling you the truth. Many
of us here are witnesses to that very fact, that there is deliverance
in the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. Ephesians chapter 1, and I'm
reading from the King James Version, beginning with verse 1, Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints
which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace
be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according as
he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself. according to the good pleasure
of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein
he hath made us accepted in the beloved." Many of you who have
been here at Grace Gospel Fellowship have heard the series that I'm
about to begin. Maybe you've heard it several
times, but it will do you good. I want to talk with you for the
next several Sundays. about how God accepts us. Do
you know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you have been accepted
by God Almighty? Tonight we're going to have our
marriage class at 6 o'clock. One of the awesome things, one
of the needful things in marriage is trust, trusting one another. We're going to talk about that.
But I want to say to you, some of you are being defeated. You've
got a head full of religious knowledge, but you have very
little assurance that God has accepted you. You weigh your
past and your present and your relapses and say there is no
way for God to And on the basis of that, you are defeated time
and time again. You're going to go to heaven
having had a hell on earth. That's sad. You can't keep the
rules. You can't stay sober for over
30 days. You can't stay out of the crack
house. You can't keep from messing up. Your marriage has gone haywire. You have no relationships. You
try hard, you've lost many jobs, and you just wore out. You've
been to all kinds of rehab centers, been in all kinds of churches.
Some of you here have been in the pulpit. Some of you have
been deacons. Some of you ladies have been
very powerful people in churches. But your life is shambled. And
one of the reasons for that, one of the most powerful reasons
is you don't know you're accepted. You don't have that peace. You'd
be surprised what a power it is, how powerful this is, to
know that when you've messed up, you're still loved by God
Almighty. That's a good thing. I've had
church people think they're telling me something spiritual. They
go like this, I won't be at church next Sunday because I know y'all
are taking the Lord's Supper. And I just, I'm not worthy. And
I go to them, you never have been. So come on out with the
rest of us unworthy people and say the blood of Christ is worthy
and able to cleanse the sinner and to make him or her white
as snow. Most of us, actually most of us seldom say what we
really mean. Most of us never expose our real
selves. And there's a good reason for
the cover-up. We fear rejection. I said to Rhonda last night,
this is a safe person. You can be real with her. You
know, most church people aren't real. Most church people are
not real. They're religious, but they're
not real. Because we fear if you know the real me, you won't
like me. Did I have a witness? The rest of you are liars. The
rest of you are hiding. It's true. Your secrets hold
you captive. This thing of acceptance is so
important. This is especially true, I think,
with young people. We need to talk about this in
church because young people are most vulnerable. Young people
are looking for acceptance. And they'll do about anything
to be accepted. They fear rejection. It's not
that that cute little 16-year-old enjoys being immoral. It's just that when other girls
get together and talk about their sexual experiences, she has nothing
to say. And therefore she's isolated.
She doesn't have some lusty story, and she's not accepted. Oh, you're
still a virgin? Huh, you're weird. It's true. It's not that that young man
really enjoys puking his guts out the next morning after drinking
himself half to death. It's always been weird to me. how people get drunk and say,
man, we partied down last night. And they hug the commode for
24 hours. Partying to me is enjoying and
laughing and talking and being able to go to bed and sleep for
eight or nine hours and get up the next morning and say, we
had such a wonderful time yesterday. One of the things in traveling
with men of grace, I've heard this, I'll bet you a hundred
times, We would be traveling, back when we traveled a lot,
and we'd sing one place and preach and drive like crazy all night
and half the day the next day to get to the motel and get ready
and go to church. Many times the guys would say,
I've never had this much fun in my life. We would laugh and
talk and joke. It was wonderful. Acceptance. Many wives. go far beyond the
call of God and duty with regard to their husbands because they
cannot stand for Him to reject them. Even to take abuse, they
cannot take the rejection. Many a child is pushed to the
brink by his drive to be accepted by mom and dad. In forty years
of ministry, I have observed a very sad fact, a fact in which
I think you can identify and sympathize with. And the fact
is this, not many professing Christians have a personal, experiential,
a daily realized assurance that God loves them. Am I talking
to you? Do you have a daily experience? This way, God loves me. I'm loved of God. Is there any
greater emotion, any greater feeling than knowing that you
are loved of God? What a powerful force it is,
that love. Let me back up. It is experiencing
that love that will keep you out of the crack house. It's more powerful than anything
you've ever known. I am accepted. How many of you
have gone to church and said, I'm never going to make it. It's
not going to happen. I can't do what they said. I
have never spoken in tongues. I don't have a word of prophecy.
I can't lay hands on. I have already committed adultery. I have already fornicated. It's
too late for me. I can't live up to their standards.
I can't meet their demands. I might as well eat, drink and
be married, for tomorrow I die." And so you just throw in the
towel. And some of you continuously get drunk. And I think you're
a Christian. Do Christians get drunk? It's
in the Bible. Do Christian people ever murder
anybody? It's in the Bible. I'm not recommending
any of that. I'm just saying people that God
loves have committed the most grievous of crimes. What keeps
them from doing those things that they used to do? It's experiencing
the love of God. Let me tell you, if you're a
Christian and you don't experience the love of God on a daily basis,
you are in a heap of trouble because it is experiencing the
love of God that sanctifies you. It's the love of God that constrains
you. Paul said, The love of Christ
constraineth me. Not the Ten Commandments, not
the law, not the church, not the preacher, not the priest,
not the pope. It's the love of Christ. When
I am alone and I am tempted, it is the love of Christ that
overcomes the temptation. To know He loves me, and I cannot
do that to Him. And I will not. Not many professing
Christians have a personal, daily, realized assurance that God loves
them. And when you have time to reflect and really think about
it, you will have to say that you do not have a consistent,
regular, daily experiencing the love of God. A sense. Isn't that sad? You know, you
come in here, and I get you kind of hopped up. We just sang at
the cross. I could sense, some of you, really
sense. There's a power in that. There's
a power in it. You know what you were feeling?
At the cross, at the cross. I can't pay the debt I owe, so
I'll just give myself away to God. I have this amazing debt,
and the only thing I know to do is just Become God-centered. Become other-centered. I just
give myself away. The love of God is a powerful
thing. At some point in this series, we're going to talk about
that old man on the Isle of Patmos, all by himself on an island,
isolated for the cause of the Gospel, said this, sitting all
by himself, just all by himself. Jumped up one day and said, Behold! What manner of love that the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God! He said that all by Himself.
He didn't need church to pump Him up. See, I can't be with you, all
of you, tomorrow. I will see a few of you. I can
kind of go like this today. But tomorrow the air is going
to leak out. The world's going to kick you.
Somebody's going to criticize you. Somebody's going to come
up on the street and say, what's that? Are you straight? Need anything? You know what
I mean. What you need to be able to say, oh, I have all I need
in Christ Jesus. I'm high right now on the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's nothing that will care
a drug dealer like that. I'm out of my mind right now
on Christ. They don't want to talk about
Him. Have you noticed when you start to talk about Jesus how
people just kind of, you know, they don't want to hang out with
you. Use it on the drug man. Use it on him. Praise God! Do you know Jesus? Let me tell
you about Jesus Christ the Lord. He'll take off. I know you're not surprised at
what I'm saying today. We all struggle from time to
time to a greater or lesser degree in this matter and this chronic
problem of assurance. The great thing about my life
the last few years is I'm constantly overcome with a consciousness
of God and His love for me. I see Him everywhere. I see His
thoughts toward me. He said, I thought about you
again. I got this all worked out for you. And I watch Him
as He reveals His special love for me. And I stand amazed and
wonder. in the presence of Jesus and
that of the Ring. We don't talk about our Mass
because we are afraid it will bring us down in the esteem of
others. Listen, if you've got somebody
you can't talk to about your Mass, they're not your friend.
That's why I like Christian community. That's why I like a Grace Church.
That's why I like Grace Centers of Hope, because it's all about
unmerited favor. I don't have to win you because
you know what you are. And so when I tell you what I
am and what I have done, that's safe with you. You will love
me anyway. In fact, you and I will get into
a fuss over who really is the chief of sinners, me or thee. Amen. You know, for every story
you tell, I've got one to tell. It's true. We need to put away
all these cares. And what we're trying to create
here is a safe church. Oh, there are churches that are
dangerous out there. I'm not saying you can tell everybody
your mess. You better watch who you tell.
There are some Pharisees out there that will nail you to a
cross. Amen. They're out there. But the question
I want to ask you, since you're in here, Do you daily, consciously,
experience, live your life with the sense that God loves me? If you can live your life with
that sense, God loves me. That's why I keep preaching this
grace message to you. Because when you add up the sins
that you have committed, you're in a heap of trouble. If salvation
is not by unmerited favor, if you have to earn salvation, if
you have to work for it, if you have to be good enough, you're
in trouble and so am I. But if it's unmerited, how about
this? If the worst about me doesn't
matter to God. And how about this? And the best
about me doesn't matter to God. I am accepted in Jesus Christ. has nothing to do with the best
about me, has nothing to do with the worst about me. I'm accepted
in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a power in that. There
is a power in that. And I become stronger because
of that fact. I'm more joyful because of that
fact. And I'm more useful because of
that fact. I see it happening in your life
throughout the year. Up, down, up, down, up, down. And you just can't get away. You keep chipping. How many of
you understand chipping? I understand chipping too. How
you doing? Pretty good. 30 days clean. Two days later, you've been chipping. You run out there and get a good
job and start to buy a car and do all that stuff, you know,
and you think you're going to get it all together. You won't
come to church on Sunday because you get paid overtime on Sunday.
You stay away from the community because, you know, you've got
things to do. And before you know it, You're
not experiencing on a daily basis the love of God. And the next
thing you know, you throw your hands up in wonderment. What
am I doing in the crack house? Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. When's it going
to stop? I'll tell you when it's going
to stop for the Christian. When you are overwhelmed on a
daily basis with the love of God. That's when it's going to
stop. When you're able to say, I just
talked to Him this morning. When you're able to say, He walks
with me and talks with me a long life's narrow way. You ask me
how I know He lives. He lives within my heart. That's
when it's going to stop. You're not going to be praising
God. He loves me. He loves me. Walking into the
crack house, it ain't going to happen. You're not going. You're not going. I want to live
in that light on a daily basis. The primary reason we do not
live in this light is because all of us bring baggage from
our past lives and past experiences over into the Christian life
and the Christian experience. Many of you know, a few, I don't
know, last year I guess it was, I carried a suitcase in here
every Wednesday. Miss Pam kept asking me, when
are you going to open the suitcase? When are you going to tell us
what's in there? I don't have to tell you. I don't know what's
in your suitcase. I just know you've got a suitcase
full of mess. And it may be different than
mine, but you will not let go of that suitcase. Even though
it's filled with awful mess, you won't let go of it. And in
that suitcase, I'll tell you this. In that suitcase, some
of you have this. You don't think your parents
loved you. And maybe they didn't. There
are little children in this auditorium today. Obviously, their parents
don't love them. They're not here. They're off
in who knows where. We haven't seen them for months
or weeks or years. It's one of the great things
about Gracie House, Gracie Centers of Hope. We're going to let every
child we come in contact with, mom may not have loved them and
they may not know where mom is. There's a whole lot of love around
here. And that child can make it if he or she knows she's loved. One day, all of these kids up
here getting those dollars for A's and B's, Lila and the rest
on their birthday, they know somebody loves them. When they
get 40, 50 years old, they're going to remember. Lila will
remember. The pastor sat down here with
her and counted out $7. They'll remember. That will happen. And that gives
sustenance to be loved and accepted. But some of you have this idea. My mother and father didn't love
me, so why would God love me? I really never knew, or some
of you live in Christian homes, and your parents were real churchy,
but they were real legalists. And you went to church. Some
of you are preacher's kids in here. You're PK kids. I'm a PK kid. I know what it
is to grow up in a preacher's house, where everybody's looking. I can remember my dad, and I
had wonderful parents. We were a dysfunctional family,
but wonderful parents. But my dad used to say to me,
you're going to ruin me. And I remember the thought that
ran through my head, what about me? What about me? I know what it is to go into
a football practice in full gear. because our church didn't believe
in wearing shorts. That would take you straight
to hell. So I would practice in full gear.
I know what it is to be taught you can't go to the pool hall
or there is sin in the Monopoly game because it has dice in it.
I was telling some of our visitors last night we had this Monopoly
game. I love to play Monopoly. I think
that's why I like Seneca Street. But we had a ritual at our house.
Every new Monopoly game I got, my dad would take the dice and
we would go to the back door of the parsonage and we would
throw the evil dice over across the street into the church parking
lot, which I never understood exactly because I thought we
contaminated the church parking lot, you see. But at any rate,
then we would go back in and he would write on a piece of
paper, one, one. Two, two. And then he would do
the numbers, you know, and then we would draw numbers out of
a hat. That was not sin. How many of
you understand what I just said? Have you been in that kind of
church? Some of you girls have been in a church where you couldn't
wear makeup. Some of you have been in the black socks church. where you wore black nylons and
that was godly. I had a preacher say to me, in
90 degree weather in North Carolina, I saw this lady, she was mowing
her grass. She had on her skirt down past
her ankles and her sleeves down to here. And that guy goes like
this, the pastor goes like this, such a godly woman. I said, oh,
do you know her? He said, never seen her before.
Did you see what she's wearing? There is something sick about
that. So everybody who does not mow their grass in 90 degree
weather with a long black skirt on is not sanctified. Church will kill you. Religious
people will kill you. Church will take your joy away.
And church will make a hypocrite out of you. A church that doesn't
preach the gospel of God's free grace will make you a hypocrite
because you'll shut up and pretend You will pretend that you're
something you're not. And you won't be able to help
anybody around. Some of you in here just will not confess. You just don't want anybody to
know how bad you are. You don't. And you are a worm. And the only thing that can wash
you white as snow is the blood of Jesus Christ. And you're going
to be miserable all your life. Because you're always trying
to put forth a facade that is not real. The fact is, you are
a sinner. And Christ came to save sinners.
Amen. But if mom and dad didn't love
me, maybe God doesn't either. Another reason we have trouble
living in this joyous gospel life of the love of God is we're
constantly muddying the waters of the gospel with a legal perception
of the gospel. which I just covered to some
degree. Yes, yes, I'm a Christian. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I've repented of my sins. But you know, there are many
things still bad, wrong about me. And if I don't take care
of those things, if I don't get rid of those things, then God
really can't love me. You've already perverted the
gospel. That's a perversion of the gospel. The gospel is that
God loves you unconditionally in spite of you. in spite of
anything you've ever done, in spite of anything you'll ever
do. Some of you just will not let go of your old churchiness. And I try to kill it. That's
why some of you get mad at me. You don't like me to, you know,
because you've proved to everybody that you're a spiritual person
and you've talked in tongues. You've laid hands on somebody. You've
done this or that. They didn't keep you out of the
crack house, honey. Amen. Come on now. Where are you going
with me? And some of you are scared to
death to get out of your church because you think you'll go to
hell if you leave your church. They've got you. They've got
you. You've got to be a member of
this church in order to go to heaven. It's the only church.
There are no other churches that will take you to heaven except
this church. The reason some of you are Baptists is because
the Baptists believe they are the Church. Some of you are Methodists
because the Methodists believe they're the Church. The Catholics
believe they're the Church and hate the Baptists and the Baptists
hate the Catholics. I can remember when in our house,
which was a Baptist house, when John F. Kennedy, if I would have
been of voting age, I would have voted for Kennedy. I loved the
way he gave his speeches. I was so impressed with John
Fitzgerald Kennedy. But if I had told that to my
mother and father and Baptist friends, I would have been excommunicated.
The Antichrist had just been elected president. I can remember
that night. The whole world was going to
hell when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected. That's the way my
Baptist friends looked at it. You know what? The world was
already going to hell before John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Amen. Perverting the gospel. The gospel is the gospel of God's
free grace. And we are accepted in the beloved. I want to tell you today, you're
accepted in the beloved. You're accepted. That's it. Bottom
line. Accepted. I'm accepted. How long has it been since you
just meditated on that? Oh, I wish you could get a hold
of that. There'd be a power in your life. I'm accepted. I don't
have to prove anything to pastors. I don't have to prove anything
to my fellow man. I'm accepted. God has accepted me. Yeah, I'm
a mess, but I'm accepted. Yeah, I mess up, but I'm accepted. My parents didn't accept me,
but God has accepted me, totally outside of myself. Totally outside
of myself. Ooh, that makes me so happy.
I had nothing to do with my acceptance. It was not my performance, my
churchiness, my this, my that. I'm accepted outside of myself
in Jesus Christ. That's a good thing. That's why
we need to preach this gospel. I hope you'll consider it. A
third reason we do not have a daily conscious experiential sense
that God loves me and accepts me is because things go wrong
in life. This will be my last point. It's
only half of the sermon, but we'll close with this. Things
go wrong. How many of you know that things
go wrong in life? All right. Things go wrong. In some way or other, we have
come to believe that as Christians, especially faithful, obedient
Christians, that we'll never get sick, never have the flu. I can remember a young lady coming
up to me. This had been years ago. Actually, she told another
church member who came and told me, I got the flu and I was sick. And she was a young Christian.
But she went to one of the church members and she goes like this.
The holy man can't be sick unless something's wrong. When Miss
Pam had the car accident and our firstborn died in that accident
and was stillborn, one of my deacons in Bridesville Baptist
Church said to one of the other deacons, he must not be living
right. The next week his house burnt
down. I swear I did not set it on fire. But I found out he said that,
and I went and told him. I was young then. You must not
be living right. Things go wrong in life. Last
night, Andy Anderson's wife was in our home. Andy Anderson owned
those tire dealerships on Telegraph. And she was telling me, You know,
Pastor, when we went to the doctor, and by the way, I had just had
dinner with Andy some time ago, and we always got Amber's car
from Andy, and he would always give us a good deal. He was a
friend of Grace Centers of Hope. You know, he was a wonderful
man, Andy was. Anyway, she said, showed a little
spot on his pancreas, and showed a little spot on his liver, They
said it was some kind of fatty something or other. But then
later they called him, had him come back in, said it was cancer
and gave him just several months to live. He lived about two months. But she said, you know, all the
time that he was dying, Andy kept saying, God's got something
else for me. I know he's got something else
for me. And he did, but not what Andy thought. He had heaven for
him. I'm going to tell you this flat
out. Things, because you're a Christian, aren't going to go all the time
the way you think they ought to happen. This world is messed
up. But you're still accepted. Not
only that, but I want you to think about this, far beyond
just what I just said. I want you to think about this.
But every bad thing that happens in your life, God is taking and
using for your good. You know, we quote this, and
we know. Not all things, but do we really know? If we really
do know that, why are you cast down? If you really believe that
everything that happens to you, God is going to take and make
it for your good, why are you discouraged? Why do you throw
in the towel? Why do you give up? You know,
often I talk to parents who raise their children in the church
And they think their children are going to be model children.
Why would you think they'd be model children? They're yours. They came from you. Some of you
have the opinion because you've been taught that because you're
a Christian, your business is just going to do great. There's
no stopping you. And you go bankrupt. Oh, God's
punishing me. I hear people say all this, all
the time. God's punishing me. God's punishing me. And some
of you are pretty morbid about it. Oh, that's great. I'm glad
God's finally punishing me. I needed that. I need a little
abuse. Here's what Job said, though
he slay me, yet will I trust him. You know, when things are
really going bad, I began to watch out for God to show up.
You really need to know this. I'm loved. I'm accepted. The worst about you has nothing
to do with it. How many of you, I don't want to raise a hand,
but I think many of you just spend your life thinking about
what you've already done, the mess you've already made. Some
of you older guys, you know, you just will not leave it alone
that you've messed up for 30, 40 years. 30, 40 years, you need
to leave it alone. God's brought you here. Amen. God's brought you here. You know,
when we put people out of the center, and we do put people
out of the center sometimes who are Christians, I think they're
Christians. But they just don't get it. God
loves you. And they just cannot accept that. That's why they keep relapsing.
I'm telling you, this is a cure-all for relapse. If you're a child
of God, if you experience God on a daily basis and know He
loves you, you'll never go back in the crack house. I'm telling you the truth. God
accepts me. I don't have to feel bad about
myself. I'm accepted. I'm a child of God. I'm a joint
heir with Jesus Christ. All things are mine. You say,
yeah, but somebody's always reminding you, yeah, but you're a mess.
Oh, I know that. I do know that. I'm going to tell you this flat
out. All God's blessings come out
of pure grace. You do not earn not a one of
the blessings of God. No blessing, come by you earning
them. They're all by grace. Michelle
has Joe back. You know why? Not because Michelle's
been a good girl. I think she is. Not because she's
been a good girl, but because God has been good to her. Amen. Come on now. Come on. Give God
the credit. See, somebody... well, you know,
I don't know whether I believe that. I think maybe Joe just
did the right thing. Yes, he did. But God does not
bless people because they do or earn His blessings. Do you
know why? God would have killed the whole
bunch of us this morning when we got up. We had enough thoughts,
enough anger, enough mess for God to wipe us all out and none
of us would be here today were it not for His unmerited favor. Cut the crap. Cut the facade. Stop the pretending. And began
to praise God for His unmerited favor. I'm accepted in the beloved. We're going to be talking about
that until you get sick of me saying, I'm accepted in the beloved. Maybe you won't get sick of it.
Some of you may. But others of you are going to be able to say,
I'm accepted. I see it now, Pastor. I see it
now. I don't need to run to the false
gods. I'm accepted. I do not need to sedate my hurt
and my pain. I never had a daddy that loved
me, but I've got one now. And he loves me in spite of everything
I've ever done, in spite of anything I've ever said, he loves me.
And he's not going to take me out of the will. He's in it for
the long haul. I'm His and His forever. Whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate. Whom He predestinated,
He called. Whom He called, He justified.
And whom He foreknown, He also glorified. Everybody He starts
out with here, He ends up over here. I am persuaded that neither
life, nor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate
me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. I'm accepted
in the beloved. How marvelous that is. Next week
we're going to talk about how can God accept us? How could
He? He's a holy God. He's a righteous
God. He's of pure eyes and to look
upon sin. And I am sin. How could He accept
me? How is it that He takes me into
His bosom? How is it that He goes down into
the coal mine of sin and lays hold of a filthy rebel like me
and says, you sorry rascal, I've always loved you. How is it that
he goes to the dung hill and picks up two pieces of dung and
says, I want this one? But both of them look alike.
Yeah, but I want this one. Lays the other one down, saves
this one. How is that? Everybody in here
who has even the slightest knowledge that God loves you ought to be
a shouting individual. I'm loved! I'm loved! Loved with everlasting love. Now those of you who have never
come to Christ, let me say this to you. You will never qualify. You'll never be good enough.
You never will. You can't earn it. You can't
go to church enough. You can't reform enough. You
can't lay the crack pipe down enough. You can't. It's by unmerited favor. So you,
without Christ, here's what I want you to do. Lay the shotgun down. Just surrender. Say, Here I am,
Lord. Save me or damn me. I deserve
to be damned. I'd be mighty happy today if
you'd have mercy on me and accept me. Just as I am without one
plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me, O Lamb of God, I
come, I come. The Spirit and the Bride say,
Come. Let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let
him come. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And when He comes to me, I'll
not turn thumbs down. You say, but Pastor, if He knows
everything I've ever done and I come to Him, surely He'll reject
me. No. He's promised to receive
you, to welcome you, to pardon you. Hallelujah! To cleanse you. And though you've wallowed in the
stables of sin, though you're as black as all hell, come to
the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
and you'll be washed white as snow." This is my old story about
that. Old Brother Barnard was in Yellowstone
National Park driving an old model T-Ford. It broke down,
he got out, worked on it, got it started, cranked it back up,
went on into the park, but he wiped his hands on his dirty
handkerchief. All of that grease. He got up to where Old Faithful
was, and there was a sign that said, if you have a piece of
cloth that's dirty, if you drop it here in this hot boiling water,
walk 50 feet downstream, pick it up, it'll be white as snow.
Brother Barnard said, I'm going to give it the task. He pulled
out that greasy handkerchief. He dropped it in. He walked down
50 yards. Here it came downstream. He picked it up and he said,
Ladies and gentlemen, it was white as snow. And he said, I
began to sing. There's a fountain filled with
blood, blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, Sinners plunge beneath
that flood, lose all their guilty stains. He said somebody tapped him on
the shoulder. He turned around and there was
about 40 people. He said, can we join you on the second stanza?
The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and
there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. Dear dying lamb, thy precious
blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed church
of God be saved to sin no more. Sinner, chief of sinners, black
sinner, filthy sinner, relapsing sinner, drug addict sinner, crackhead
sinner, preacher's kid sinner, Pharisee sinner, Come to the
fountain filled with blood. It'll wash you white as snow.