All right, here goes. Sometimes
I try to put on paper in a form of an outline to kind of hold
me to within an hour, hour and a half. And then sometimes I
just can't put on paper. So I've just come to talk to
you. And we'll see if anything's there. If nothing's there, we'll
go home. Let's go to the book of Acts,
the 7th chapter, and then I'm going to read also from the 9th
chapter. In the book of Acts, chapter
7, and I'm sure you remember the story here of the man of
God being stoned to death right after calling the people a stiff
neck and uncircumcised in heart and ears. Verse 51 says, you
do always resist the Holy Ghost. Verse 54, when they heard these
things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on Him
with their teeth. But He, being full of the Holy
Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory
of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Verse
57, Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their
ears, and ran unto Him with one accord, cast Him out of the city,
and stoned Him. And the witnesses laid down their
clothes at a young man's feet, whose
name was Saul. They laid down their coats at
the feet of a young man, laid their coats down at a young man's
feet whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen calling
upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then chapter 8 and verse
1, and Saul, this Saul, where they laid down The coat at his
feet was consenting unto his death. He was agreeing with this
death. He was there. And then he shows
up again in chapter 9, verse 1, and Saul, yet breathing out
threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went
unto the high priest and desired of him letters to Damascus, to
the synagogue, that if he found any of this way, whether they
were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. The road to heaven is a slippery
slope. And it indeed is an absolute
miracle if you or I make it. David in the Psalms called the
road to heaven a slippery slope. And he asked the Lord God in
the 17th Psalm, he said, hold up my goings in thy paths that
my footsteps slip not. I am what I am by the grace of
God. Have you ever been on ice trying to walk? I also know that the older you
are when you're on ice, you're more prone to fall. Somehow or another, children
seem to be able to walk better on slippery slopes than us older
folks. Just a word of caution to you
older folks who are on the slippery road to heaven, don't think that
you're past falling. And don't stop giving God glory
for keeping you a mighty long time. And don't lose the joy
in your old age of so great salvation. Don't stop saying hallelujah.
Don't lose the thrill of having been converted by the Holy Ghost,
quickened and given life, born again, even down to hoary hairs,
Give Him praise and glory and honor. Isn't it a miracle that you are converted? Isn't it really? You've heard
me quote it. Isn't it really a wonder that Jesus found you? Out in that awful, horrible darkness. No light in sight. No light could
you see. And in that dark place, He put
His great arm under. And from sinking sands He lifted
me. With tender hands He lifted me
from shades of night to planes of light. I just had a little
chicken. He lifted me. Whatever happened to this guy
Saul, whatever happened to him, whatever took place on that Damascus
road, He never got over. He became a radical Christian once he was lost. But he got found. Once he was
blind, totally blind, religiously blind. You know, Saul of Tarsus,
we make much about his conversion. He wasn't a crack addict. He
was a church addict. He was a self-righteous, church-going,
tithing, Bible-thumping, Bible-reading, Bible-memorizing religionist. You think you're bad because
you were in the hood. I was in the church house hiding. That's where Saul was. Blind
and actually thinking. He was doing God a favor by putting
these Christians out of business. Somehow we've got a brand of
salvation today that when Junior gets converted, Mama doesn't
say, oh, what a wonder. Somehow we've got some kind of
little flippant Religious conversion where there's not a tremendous
change. There's something wrong with
that. Because what they said of Saul of Tarsus in the book
of Galatians, I was reading it this morning in the first chapter.
But they heard only that He which persecuted us in times past now
preaches the faith which He once destroyed. Has that happened to you? Once
you said, no God for me. I want God to keep His cotton-picking
hands off me. I'll be my own boss. I'll worship
at the altar of self-centeredness. I'll do what I want to do. I'll
go where I want to go. I'll be what I want to be. I was in that crowd. I was thinking
this morning about the crowd that crucified the Lord. Crucify
Him! Crucify Him! I was there. I was there. Many of you are
there right now in this building. You have not, you will not bow
the knee to Jesus Christ. You say, He's nothing to me.
You will not have this man rule over you. You wish there were
no God. You're glad that they crucified
Him. It's true. Many of us were there. Were you there when they crucified
my Lord? I was there. I was in that crown. Paul in writing to young Titus
said, haters and back biters. That's what are in the world.
And then he goes like this, and such were some of you. Have you forgotten and such were
some of you? Have you forgotten where God
brought you from? Have you ever read the black
list of Romans 1? There are people sitting right
in here, right in this building. who have committed every sin
in that black list. It's true. And if you back up
just a little bit there in Romans 1, it says that the women changed
the natural use. They did not wish to retain God
in their knowledge. And the men lusted after one
another. And homosexual sin is not the
reprobate sin. But folks who are there and committing
those sins are headed toward reprobation, which is to simply
say, after not wishing to retain God in your knowledge and doing
everything to keep God out of your head and heart, you sink to a low where you begin
to change the natural use. That's why often here I say,
don't be too proud about your not being homosexual. If you're
without Christ, you just haven't gone there yet. And maybe many of you who are
now saved have gone there. Oh, it's getting quiet in here
now. But it's getting quiet in here because we just do not comprehend
and we're not there where we understand the wonder. A man who has sex with another
man but gets saved. Homosexuality is not to reprobate
sin. But it's showing signs. It's
showing signs that folks don't have God in their head and heart.
There's nothing you won't do outside of God. Unless God intervenes
in your life and converts you and gives you a new heart, there
is nothing you will not do. A woman without the love of a
man, without the tenderness of a father, never knowing love,
having been abused, will find solace in the tenderness of another
woman. Oh, I know where I'm going now.
I'm saying it's a wonder if you're saved. You ought to be shouting
all over this church that God has converted you. And me, out of that darkness,
that God in conversion, in delivering us, in regenerating us, in borning
us again, actually dug a ditch and said, you can go that far,
but no further. Because I'm going to born you
again and change you from the inside out. You didn't go as
far as you could have. He's brought you back from the
precipice. You know, this thing of the wonder
of being saved, we don't have it today in our church because
we're just not honest in church. We just won't go certain places. We really won't go there because
it just doesn't fit into the culture of our church. We've
got so fancy and so formal I was thinking this morning on
the way over here, Scott Richardson, an old preacher friend of mine,
said, when God found me, I was in spitting distance of hell. That's not real fancy. And Scott
used to say this, too. I'm not worth a warm pitcher
of spit. I said, oh, Pastor, that's so
So, you know, things like that should not be... I think things
like that should be said because we've got too fancy. We really
are not caught up in this wonder that God saved us out of our
total depravity. Do you know what it means to
be totally depraved? When I was visiting in Mexico,
the Maya Indians to the Maya ruins there, They had carved
out of a huge piece of rock the male organ. Male sexual organ. And they worshipped it. You say,
oh, pastor, pastor, those things shouldn't be spoken of on Sunday
morning. Some of you are nervous. Some
of you are laughing. Some of you are grinning because you're
nervous. But the truth is, Men, by nature, do not wish to retain
God in their knowledge. Isn't it a wonder that you're
converted? Where were you five years ago? Where were you ten
years ago? There'll be somebody on their
feet. I'm not where I used to be. I
remember where I was ten years ago. Isn't it a wonder? Isn't it a
marvel that you are here and in your right mind in the house
of God praising Jesus Christ? It really is. That's why the old songwriter
would say, and can it be? that I should gain an interest
in the Savior's love. I just can't get over it. That's why old man John was so
taken up all by himself on the Isle of Patmos. Behold! Let me
tell you this. You're never going to worship
God until you're in a state of behold. If you're not here today, you know, you can be here physically
and not be here. If you're here today and you're
not in a behold state, you're not worshiping. You know, let's get this thing
over. Arch Beats & Eats is downtown. I'm going to dinner. Let's get
this thing rolling, man. I hope the guy really isn't on
a roll today. We could be here till 1 o'clock. If you're not in a state of behold,
you're not worshiping. If you came in here angry, you
kicked the dog and the cat out of the house before you left.
You slapped the kids on the way over to church. You know, you
got in a fuss over in the big dorm. You got all kinds of mess
on your mind of what's going to happen this week. You're not
in a state of worship. Worship is to attribute worth
to God Almighty. He is worthy. sought me out of Lodibar. He
found me in the hog pen. He brought me back to Himself.
He quickened me. He gave me life. He saved me
by His grace. He gave me a new heart, a new
start, and a new life. It's a wonder. That's why the
Apostle Paul in Ephesians would say things like this. I'm praying
that you may know the power. The power. The power that it
took to turn you around. The truth is you will die using
crack unless there is a power greater than yourself. You will die religious in the
choir singing, oh how I love Jesus, and go to hell with the
crack addict who will not bow to Jesus Christ. That's true. We are saved to His glory. Something must happen, and I
think it will happen, when we recover the Gospel in our churches,
we will have a shout and a conversion encounter that we never get over. Somebody said, your preachers
say this all the time. You ought to witness. No, you
shouldn't ought to. Nobody ought to have to preach
to you to tell you. You ought to go out there and
tell somebody about Jesus. If you ever get converted, I
mean really converted, you're going to tell somebody. Jesus
would go like this to people He would heal. You think about
healing a man and going like this. And a man's been impotent
for 38 years and Jesus goes like this. Now I've made you whole.
Now go your way and don't tell a soul. And the first guy he
meets up with, hey! That's what he did to me! The truth is, if you ever get
converted, it's going to leak out on you. It's going to leak
out. You may try to bite your tongue,
but it's coming out. It's coming out. What a wonder
it is to be converted. I hope every one of you just
go back. You know, there are certain things
we ought to remember. When we get to heaven, we're going to
be shouting worthy. Somebody says, oh, we're not
going to remember. You know, the former things have passed. We're not going to remember.
Well, why are you going to say He's worthy if you don't remember? Oh, you're going to remember.
You may not shout much down here, but you're going to shout up
there because your memory is going to be sharp and quick. It's going to take your breath
away. Do you see how close you were?
You were in spitting distance of hell. You could smell the smoke. You were almost home. Been there, haven't you? Some of you know what it is to
nod out and wake up and say, thank God I'm alive. Thank God I'm alive. You owe it all to Him. When you were not and He was
there. Hallelujah. When you were not and He was
there. When you had no consciousness, He was there. And you won't shout
and praise Him? God help us all. And those of you in the church,
you had a double darkness. You had the depravity of your
own heart, and then you had a religious darkness that was covering the
depravity. I feel sorry. I feel deep sorrow
for you religious folks who are hiding from God in the church
choir. You reverends, you deacons, who
may be listening to this message at some point in time, I feel
deeply sorry for you because you have camouflaged yourself
in a religious institution and you have your own natural depravity
and you are covering it with a cloak of religious depravity
and God will damn you for that. Somehow or another, we've got
to get to the place where we see what we were and know that He came to me.
He came to me when I could not and would not come to Him. He
came to me. I did not find Him. He found
me. God was not lost. I was. God was not in trouble. I was. God does not want, if
you're here without Christ, God is not asking for your pity.
God does not need your pity. Somebody said, well, I feel sorry
for Jesus. You know, all those folks rejected Him, and so I
felt like I ought to give Him a chance, the good person that
I am. I gave Him my heart. And the sovereign Lord Jesus
Christ will damn you. Because conversion is not feeling
sorry for Him. He does not ask for, nor does
He need your pity. He demands you bow. Put the shotgun
down. Surrender. Hoist the white flag. Kiss the sun. Lest God be angry
with you. Well, pretty soon now you're
going to know that I'm preaching the same thing I always preach. My second point is this. Not
only is it a wonder that He converted me, It is a wonder I stay converted. I am so sick of me. I pray every day this prayer.
Fix me! I am so sick or prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love. I am sick of it. I'm sick of not being able to
shout with joy, to experience the joy, to know the joy of the
Lord, to be robbed by my flesh. I want to walk out of this world
in through the pearly gates with a shout in my soul and joy in
my heart. It's a wonder I'm still saved. It is, it really is. Because
you know, I got saved or converted when I was 8 years old. That's
52, 50, how far, how long is that? That's 57 years ago. 57
years ago! And I'm still converted! Oh my
God, what a miracle that is! Man, I've done a lot of bad stuff
in 57 years. Lord, have mercy. My thoughts
are even worse than what I've done. And if all of you were blind
and deaf, I would have done it. It wasn't that God was watching
that I didn't do it. It was that you were watching.
Oh, it's a miracle this guy is still converted. It is a miracle
that I'm still persevering. Oh, yeah, I'm persevering. I'm
working at it. Paul thought it was a miracle.
He said, what I want to do, I don't do. What I don't want to do,
that's what I do. And he had been converted 30
years, and he said, oh, wretched man that I am. Not I used to
be, not I once was. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Praise God, Jesus
Christ already has. The victory is already mine. What have you thought about this
week? Yeah, what have you thought about? You volunteering up at Arts Beats
& Eats and past the Budweiser stand. What have you thought
about this week? Bumped into the crack man uptown. In that great Arts Beats & Eats
celebration. Or they sell foolish people junk
and feed us dough with sugar on it,
dipped in grease. What was that we had yesterday?
Lord, have mercy. Isn't it a wonder you keep on
keeping on? How many times this week have you said, I quit? Want
to go out and get me a job and buy me a house and make $15 an
hour. But you didn't. Because greater
is he that's in you than he that's in the world. You would have
quit a long time ago. How many of you have gone out
and come back? Well, every hand in here. All of us have gone
out and come back. Oh, he or she relapsed. But they're back. They're back. Really, it ought to be this way.
They're back! They fell, but they got up! They relapsed, but
they came back! They came back praising God and
asking God to help them and brokenhearted about their transgression against
God. We ought to shout when folks
come back. We ought to shout this way. Oh, my God kept them
alive out there. And my God brought them back. Thanks be unto God. That's the
way it ought to be. Praise somebody who relapses
and comes back. We say, thank You, Lord, for
bringing her back. Thank You, Lord, for bringing
him back. You and I judge one another in
this life. How silly is that? You know,
if the person who loves you the most knew what was in your heart, and the person you beat up on
the most and accused the most If they knew your secrets, you would get a mouthful of your
own doo-doo. That's right. You're accusing
folks of stuff. You're accusing folks of stuff. You know, when you point that
finger, you got several pointing back. Forgive one another as God has
forgiven you. How many of you have ever said...
I mean, you're just giving somebody down the road. You know, just
giving them down the road. And all the time you're giving
them down the road, you're thinking on the inside, if they only knew
what I knew. Everybody has enough ammunition
to shoot back. Do you know that? If they only
knew. Isn't this something you still converted? Isn't this something
you came back? You ought to praise God for that. Just this little third thing
and then I'll get this off my mind and maybe I can make notes
for next week's sermon. It's not only a wonder that you've
been converted. Not only is it a wonder that
you're still converted, It's going to be the wonder of
wonders. And you're going to make it all the way. It isn't
what the Apostle Paul said. That old blasphemer. That old
persecutor. That murderer of the saints of
God. He said, I obtained mercy. I didn't get what I deserved.
I obtained mercy. And then in Philippians, he said
this, He who hath begun a good work in you... Boy, aren't you glad that he
didn't just begin the good work in conversion? Aren't you glad he didn't just
save you and say, okay, now, y'all take care of yourselves.
I'll see y'all when you get to heaven. Y'all do your best. Hope you make it. Hope you make
it, Jeremy. Hope you make it. I know you can. I know you can. You're good boys and good girls. Not worth a warm pitcher of spit. And if God ever takes His hand
off you, right back to the hog pen you go and stay. God didn't convert you to lose
you. Jesus Christ didn't die on the
cross for you and pay your sin debt to lose you. His name shall
be called Jesus, for He shall save His people. Not He might. Not if they cooperate. He's going
to save every last one of us. All His kids are going to come
home. They're all going to be at the
table. They're all going to be in the choir. Oh, they're going
to mess up. They're going to relapse. They're
going to fall back. They're going to lose ground. There's going
to be some short burst sprints where they're going to move forward
real quick and say, OK, I got it now. But it's a slippery slope. It's
a slippery slope. And you know what makes it slippery?
You think about all the mess you've got going through your
mind. that mess your daddy did, the mess your mama did to you,
the family disruptions, you know, the next door neighbors, the
uncles, the aunts, the world has beat you to a pulp. All kinds
of things happen. You lose your house, you lose
your car, you lose your job, the economy, the baby dies in
childbirth. Where's God? Then you go to,
you know, go into all of that. You know, have you ever thought
about if we could pile up all our individual mess out here
in the yard It would reach to the glory land. Boy, what if
we could push a delete button and all that stuff just... Wouldn't
that be great? Well, one day the delete button
is going to be pushed. Just think about it. Can you
imagine the first few moments in heaven? Now, what you need to think about
is this. You have a perfect body, a perfect spirit, and you're
in a literal place where there is no sin. No snakes up there if you're
scared of snakes. They're all in hell. I'm talking about real
snakes. No crack men. No cancer up there. No sickness. No sorrow up there.
No child abuse up there. In fact, when we get up there,
it seems like there's going to be only one occasion, and it's
right at the first, when we get to heaven, that we're going to
use our new glorified tear ducts. And I think that has something
to do, you know, heaven's such a mystery to me. I'm always thinking
about heaven. I wish I could preach a message
on heaven. You know, I don't like the streets of gold stuff
and people with pickaxe trying to, you know, steal something
up there, take it to the jewelry store and cash it in. Streets
of gold and pearly gates and all that. But just think about
all the mess is gone. You're in a perfect body. For
the first few moments, you remember maybe all your mess. Maybe for
a few moments. And then God the Father takes
His big white handkerchief and the Bible says, He wipes all
tears. A compassionate Father who loves
like a compassionate mother takes His handkerchief and wipes all
tears from their eyes. And He comforts you. Have you
ever thought about all the things you cry about? Maybe you don't
cry literal tears. You just mourn about. I mean,
all of the ache on the inside. Could you shout about this one
day? They're all going to be gone. Walk on streets of gold. No more
crying there. No more crying there. Isn't that
going to be something? Something to shout about. He
found me. He indwells me. Keeps me persevering. And He's going to take me all
the way home. It is a marvel. I know you all
don't believe this. I know you all don't believe
what I'm about to tell you. You don't believe this. You just
don't believe this. But I want you to know I believe
this. I look at space and I can truthfully
say, I like Him, I love Him, I appreciate
Him. It really is no wonder to me that God saved Him. Because
I really don't know Him the way I know me. I'm telling you the
truth. I know you don't believe this.
I am totally... I deserve to go to hell. There is no doubt in my mind
that I deserve, before I was converted, and deserve it today,
in my natural strength. How longsuffering He is with
me. how good He is to me, how He keeps me when I don't even
want to be kept. Anybody ever get to the place
where you get? Just leave me alone and let me pout. Let me feel sorry for myself
and let me moan. Let me hate other people. I want
to hate them. And let me hold a grudge against
folk. I'm tired of smiling. I know y'all are better people
than that. And then I got so many mental
issues. Somebody said, well, so-and-so is mentally handicapped. Sometimes I think to myself,
you know what? Your reasoning is so far off
base. You ever get to the place where
you don't know what to do? And then I blame God. Well, you
said your book has all the answers. I can't find it. Or how about this one? You said
everything's working for my good. I know this is not. You can't be that big to take
this big mess of mine and work it to my good. Don't give me
that baloney. I'm smarter. Oh, really? Oh, really, you are, huh? By the way, I never win. Just
so you know, I never win those arguments, but I have them. Sometimes
I give God a piece of my mind. You ever give God a piece of
your mind? I don't know what He'd want with your mind, my
mind, because we're all crazy. Thirty seconds. Five seconds
after you leave this body and you wake up in the presence of
Emmanuel's land. Won't that be something? And
I bet you'll look different than you do now in this sense. Let me pinch myself. You probably
walk up to Abraham, am I here? Am I really here? Heaven's going to be a wonderful
place. And then this is just how simple it is. If we could
ever get to this place, we'd really have church. We'd have
a little heaven on the way to heaven. We're going to circle
the throne. and never get bored. See, you
really do not know how good God's been to you. You don't know.
I don't know yet. But we're going to get a great
education. And the education is going to
take throughout eternity. See, you could have died of measles
when you were a baby. You could have died with a chicken
pox You could have had polio. And maybe you had it. But the
angel of the Lord stood by. And maybe, you know, there's
years and years and years in your life you never even saw
God. There's years right now that you look back and you can't
see God anywhere. It was so black. It was so messed
up. It was so filthy. It was so off the wall that you
can't even imagine God was there all the time. And He's going
to show you personally and reveal to you. I was right there with
you. I had your back. I held off death. Because you
had to end up at Grace Centers of Hope and get saved. You had an appointed time. I
had predestined. That's why Paul goes like this.
Totally caught up. I wish we could get caught up
like he was in Romans 8. I am persuaded. Think about Paul. Think about Paul as he thought
about, I held the coach while they stoned Stephen. I went right
after that and got the papers and went to Damascus. I was going
to kill those folks down there like a bloodthirsty dog. But I obtained mercy." He must have been thinking that
in Romans 8 when he said, And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love the Lord, to them who are
the called according to His purpose. And I would suspect that probably
this was his shouting verse. For whom he did love with an
everlasting love. He also did predestinate. Think
about it. Predestinated you. Predetermined
you. Foreordained you. Fixed it. Poured it in concrete. Built a fence on the highway
to heaven. Kept the lion on the other side
of the highway with the fence. He just runs up and down the
fence on the highway to heaven and roars at you. But he can't get on the highway.
And by the way, it's not a toll road. It's a freeway. The highway
to heaven. He did predestinate. Sometimes
you're on the right side of the road. Sometimes you're on the
wrong side of the road. Sometimes you're in the middle
of the road, but you're always on the road. You wander this
way to heaven. Nobody in here makes a straight
shot to the glory land. Some of you have to stop off
at the crack house on the way to glory. Some of you commit adultery on
the way to heaven. Some of you fornicate. Amen. Some of you become Bible-thumpers
and self-righteous and don't even realize you're on the highway
to heaven. And it's a freeway and you did
nothing of yourself to get there. He predestinated you way back before He ever created
the world. You were nothing. Not even the
matter was made yet. No egg. No sperm. Just in the
mind of God, there was a Vanessa. In the mind of God, He wrote
her name down. Isn't that something? Isn't that
something? Wrote her name down in the book. And one day, God was looking at the book.
What year was you born, Vanessa? Sixty-one? I wish I hadn't asked that. You're
just a child. 1961 was a special day in the
Lamb's Book of Life. And God called one of the angels
by name and said, Vanessa just came into the world. Be her guardian
angel. Wherever she goes, you go. I don't know what year you were
converted, but that was a special day because God said the Holy
Spirit, catch her out, quicken her, regenerate her, born her
again, give her life. It's true. He called her. He justified her and he will
just as surely glorify her. It's fixed. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? I am persuaded that neither life... I'm glad he put life in there.
Does life ever try to separate you from the love of God? The
things that happen in life... Do you ever say this? I wonder
if God loves me. Because of things that are happening
in life. If God loves me, why is all this
mess happening to me? God loves you in the mess. Sin
is the cause of mess. You know most of the stuff that
happens to you, you caused. Well, not many amens on that. But most of the mess are just
consequences of what you've said or done or actioned. And it just
comes back on you. It's true. Life mess. Life cannot separate
you from the love of Christ. Your own mess can't separate
you from the love of Christ. And what about when you've got
all this mess? By the way, anybody in here 65
yet? 65. Six and five. Johnny, you're not 65. You're
just feeling sorry for me. I want to tell you this. I'm
the only 165 in here? Listen. Oh, thank you, brother. Thank God. Was you Maryland? Almost. There's three of us. They're close. Oh, one more.
Two. Thank God. You got honest, I
feel better. What I was going to say is this.
You began to deal in your mind with your mortality. It crossed
my mind this morning. You know, you better pick it
up a little bit. You don't have, humanly speaking, whether it's true or not, you
begin to think that way. I'm glad he put death in there.
I'm persuaded that neither life nor death. You know, death is
a mystery, isn't it? One of these days, we had Frank's
funeral, had his body appear. And then they took him out and
he was cremated. That's a mystery. That's a mystery. We say the body, doesn't he look
good? I don't know how you can look
good dead. Dead is a mystery. You're not
moving. Not talking. No eyesight. I don't know how you look good
dead. Just dead. They put you in a grave. Dig
a hole. Put you in a furnace. Go back into the grave. Skin
worms have a carnival on your body. Death is a mystery. I'm glad
he said death. What about all those boys in
World War II when they bombed us over there in Hawaii?
Thousands of them, blown to bits. Shark bait. And yet, the Apostle Paul said,
one of these days the trump of God shall sound. The dead in
Christ. I wonder what's going to happen
in the ocean when all those particles begin to... I've tried to figure
that out. How those bodies are going to
come out of the water. I mean, I don't understand all
that. But I'm glad it's true. I'm glad He said, nothing shall
be able to separate us from the love of Christ. Neither life
nor death. What about all those demons out
there? Heroin. The Pharmacia. What about all those demons out
there? Principalities. Oh, I'm glad he said principalities.
Demons can't separate us from the love of Christ. Aren't you
glad there's somebody greater than crack? Or your drug of choice? Or whatever? There's a mighty
Christ? And then he just threw other
things in. Or powers. Just in case there's some power,
some authority that you're afraid could be able to separate you
from the love of Christ. Maybe a government that persecutes
Christians and kills Christians. Maybe powers could... No. Life, death, principalities,
powers. Things present. You got things
present, covered Lord? Yes. Things present can't separate
me. Right now. I made it yesterday. I need a
present God. I need to know He loves me right
now. And nothing can separate me right now. Not my thought.
Not my action. Nothing can separate me. Principalities,
powers, things present. What about tomorrow? I don't
know about tomorrow, but I know who holds tomorrow. Nothing can
separate me. Principalities, powers, things
present. things to come. And then he just
throws this in, nor any other creature. I'm persuaded. Are you persuaded? Then go on your way rejoicing
today. Going like this. He found me. He converted me. He borne me
again. He regenerated me. He indwells
me. I have a power working in me. That's a great power. I know
sometimes I think I'm going to go crazy. Sometimes I think I'm
going to run away from life. Sometimes I just think life is
too much. I can't bear it. Sometimes I
think I have too many needs. I can't get my needs met. I can't
get love like I want to be loved. I can't. I just can't. It's too
much. Nothing, not even me, can separate
me from the love of Christ. What if you get Alzheimer's?
Lord, have mercy. If you all ever see me in the pulpit
and I am really strange, I mean stranger, than I already am,
I get to wondering. What if that happens? Can't separate.
What if I forget who Jesus is? Nothing shall be able to separate
us. Because salvation is of the Lord. Let me close now. The chief end
of man is to glorify God. I was watching all the pastors
on TV today, and there was really some good stuff. I mean, some
really good stuff. teaching some good stuff. And
it was practical stuff. It was, you know, how to live
the Christian life stuff. It was just good stuff. And I
said to myself, I know God's people need that,
but I'm not that kind of preacher. Maybe the other elders can fill
in here. That stuff. I'm this kind of
preacher. And I know the church needs to
be taught. But if we don't get to the place where we do what
we do out of love to Christ, out of appreciation, out of a
heart filled with wonder, out of a shout and joy, I can teach
you stuff until the trumpet sounds. and you will not do that stuff
for the right motive. It is the love of Christ. So,
when you go home today and you say, well, pastor preached the
same thing he preached Wednesday. And he preached the same thing
he preached last Sunday. You know, if you get his tapes,
you'll find out he just, he's probably not studying. He just
preaches the same thing over and over. Yep, you're stuck. You're stuck. I'm going to keep
reminding you and keep reminding me. Oh, what a wonder it is that
Jesus found me. I'm going to keep reminding you.
And if you can just walk through life filled with a heart of love
for Christ, you'll be doing things like this. I saw the Tiger pitcher night
before last when the game ended. He did this. He looked straight
up into heaven. I thought, you know what I said?
Yes, and me too. Thank You, Jesus. And I wasn't
thanking Him because the tigers won. I was thanking Him for saving
my soul. Thank You, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank You, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank You, Lord, for giving to me salvation so rich and free. Let's stand and sing.