There's never been a more troubled
day than the days in which you and I are living. I believe that. I think we're in the great falling
away. I think we're in the end days. I think we are experiencing days
where God has shut up heaven. And many who attend church are
not even sure there is a God. but just in case we will attend. Some think there is and have
pretty well given up on any kind of organized religious exercise. I myself just take the philosophy
that between us girls, we all are a mess. The only cure, there
is a cure. There is a cure. It's for God
to speak. That is the great tragedy that
has led us to the place where no God. Are you positive beyond
any shadow of a doubt and on a daily basis, my God is real? Because you experience God, you
hear from God, you know God. Well, that's the only way it
works. It's hard to love somebody you don't know. Intimately. The
truth is that people, even that we love, die and our memory fades
a bit. It gets a little foggy about
some particulars of our relationship with that person. We used to
sing and experience, He walks with me and talks with me a long
life's narrow way. You ask me how I know my God
lives? He lives within my heart. is experiencing God. We have
gotten into this mess because we've lost the message. We've
lost the message from heaven. And when you lose the message
from heaven, you lose the power of the message. The gospel is
the power of God under salvation. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creation. I think there was a time when
The message was being preached in our country and people were
being converted. And it was those conversions
and the experience of the reality of God speaking from heaven that
held the forces of evil back. The truth is, when you get one
person saved who is over, let's say, in the drug rehab program,
You have won a tremendous victory for society because now you have
a better rescue mission. You have a better Seneca Street.
You have a better Pontiac. You have a better Michigan. You
have a better United States of America because there is a new
creature now who hates the use of drugs. who despises every
evil life, a person of character, a person of principle, a person
who has the Spirit of God in them. Am I right about that?
Absolutely, I'm right about that. I have one goal. Not to reform
you. Otherwise, we'd have a reform
school or a reform rescue mission or a reforming church of some
kind. I'm about people becoming new
creatures. And the gospel is the power,
the dynamite of God. So it must be hammered. It must
be preached. And it must be proclaimed. And
any watering down of that gospel contaminates it. And so people
get religion but aren't saved. And I'm not talking about simply
liberal churches. I grew up basically in a church
that emphasized rules and regulations more than it emphasized the gospel.
So I had people who didn't smoke, well, at least where anybody
could see, didn't drink, didn't play pool, at least hid it, didn't
dance, didn't do cards, that sort of thing, and professed
Christianity, but they didn't know God. I became very confused
myself about the whole religious matter. I was wounded by friendly
fire. I can remember days in my own
life where I said, if this is all there is to it, I quit. In
fact, I led two lives for many years. I went to church. I did
all of the right things in front of people. But my best friends
were not in the church. My best friends were outside
of the church that I attended. What a shame that is. But because
of the hypocrisy, and now I look back with great anger, about
my growing up years. I have issues. Anybody in here
have issues? I've got issues with religion.
And I know what happened. We were weaned away from the
gospel to rules and regulations. See, if a man has a new heart,
you don't have to feed him law all the time. Or any time, for
that matter. Law is not what sanctifies us. It's grace that sanctifies us. It's love to Christ. It's appreciation. So, we've lost the Gospel. Now,
I'm going to give you a dose today. I don't know how many
of you know this, but I give myself vitamin B12 shots every
day. Right in the muscle. So, sometimes
if you see me and I'm really hyped, I've just got one of them.
I'm going to give you some vitamin B12 today. I'm going to give
you some antibiotics today. And it's going to be strong medicine
for sick people. You know, people that are dying
with cancer, they give them some powerful stuff to try to cure
that. I'm going to give you some powerful
stuff. I hope you don't choke. Jeremiah 18, I want us to go
to the potter's house today. We've got to go to the potter's
house. The church needs to be taken back to the potter's house.
We are an entitlement people in and out of the church. We
have everybody owes me mentality, but mostly God owes me. God has
become kind of a thuddy-duddy God who really does not have
hands on. We don't believe this. You don't
believe this. Some of you here don't believe
this. You make this statement, but you don't believe it. There
go I, but for the grace of God. I wonder how many in here have
said that, but you don't believe that. And I'll show you you don't
believe it. If you get angry while I'm preaching,
really angry, you don't believe, there go I, but for the grace
of God. In other words, what that statement is this. If it
were not for grace, sovereign grace, free grace, powerful grace,
I'd be worse than that individual right there. We don't believe
that. People don't believe that. The
church doesn't believe that. Jeremiah 18. When we get to believing
that, we're going to get in a state of praise. Nobody's going to
have to make you go to church. You're going to be saying this,
I have a debt. I am a debtor to the grace of
God. I can never repay God for what
He's done for me. It's not I have to. I want to. I'm happy about it. Jeremiah
18. I've been reading this chapter
this week. This has nothing to do exactly with the message.
But I want you to look. I'm going to back up and read
about the potter's house. But quickly, I want to read verses
11 and 12 of this chapter to you. Now therefore go to speak
to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying..."
Listen. Listen to this. Jeremiah was
a weeping prophet. Israel had departed from the
living God. "...Thus saith the Lord, Behold..." You better look
at this. Look! Look at this! Jeremiah
is saying, can I have your undivided attention? There is a startling
thing, pronouncement, here that is about to be made. I framed
evil against you, a device against you. Return ye now everyone from
his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good." And they
said, there is no hope. One or two things are going to
happen in this country, and I hope it happens here. The good happens
here. Either you and I are going to
say, yes, this is a mess. But there is hope. Some of us
here believe there truly is hope. There's real hope. That's right. If God be for us, who can be
against us? There's real hope because God is God. Some may
give up and say, there is no hope. Therefore, let us eat,
drink, and be married, for tomorrow we die. Let us live like hell.
There's no hope. Gone too far. Done too much.
This thing can't be turned around. But the truth is, I am a preacher
who has tremendous hope. But it's not in you. It's not
in me. It's not in Grace Centers of
Hope. It's not in rehab programs. It's in the power of God in the
Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ. And they said there is no hope,
but we will walk after our own devices and we will, every one,
do the imagination of His evil heart. That's the two choices. We can go back to God, believe
God, or we can do our own thing and be turned over to our own
evil imaginations. My cry is, God, don't leave me
alone. Some people's cry is, God, keep your cotton-picking
hands off me. My cry is, don't leave me. Don't
forsake me. I'm a wild-asses colt that can't
be tamed. He's a tamer! That's what the
Bible says we are, and that's what we are. Now, Jeremiah 18. The word which came to Jeremiah
from the Lord saying, Arise and go down to the potter's house.
I want you to come with me to the potter's house today. And
there I will cause thee to hear my words. And then I went down
to the potter's house and behold, now here's the lesson, behold,
he wrought a work on the wheels. He had a lump of clay. A lump
of clay on the wheels. And He had His hands on the clay. And He was molding it and making
it. Have you ever sung that song,
Lord, mold me and make me? It's referring to the potter's
house and what the potter can do. I want God's hands on me. I want Him molding me and fashioning
me. Not my will be done, but Thy
will be done. The will I'm afraid of most is
mine. I don't talk about my free will.
I want to be enslaved by Jesus Christ. I want to be a bond slave
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I want to be. Behold,
He brought a work on a wheel, and the vessel that He made of
clay was mired in the hand of the potter. Everybody in here
is one or the other. You are either a marred vessel
or you are a vessel of honor, a vessel of mercy. You are either a vessel of wrath
or a vessel of the mercy and the grace of God. Now, I want
to say it plain so you can understand it. Nobody in here can mess God
up. He makes vessels. who are dishonorable,
like Pharaoh. You say, well, preacher, what
does God have to do for a man to go to hell? Just leave him
alone. You better hope God doesn't leave you alone. Brother Barnard
was preaching in Texas in a revival meeting. There was a young lady
on the second row from the front. While he was preaching, she was
just bawling her eyes out. At the close of the service,
Brother Barnard went up to her and said, young lady, may I help
you? And she said, for God's sake,
preacher, leave me alone. And he said, for God's sake,
I will. And she left that service and
hit another car head on and died and went out into eternity. The
worst thing that could happen to you is for God to leave you
alone. Everybody in here ought to be considering this. God doesn't
need you. He's the Creator. God is not indebted to you. God does not owe you anything
but justice. Some of us are excited because
we got both justice and mercy in Jesus Christ, outside of ourselves. One vessel was mired in the hand
of the potter, so he made another vessel, as seemed good to the
potter to make it. It seemed good to the potter
to make this vessel of honor. And then the word of the Lord
came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you
as this potter, saith the Lord? Behold, as the clay is in the
potter's hand, so are ye in my hand." Listen, my friends. This is gospel. And this is the
gospel we've lost. God can save you or damn you
and still get glory. He can save you or damn you. God is not in a box. God is not hurting. God does
not need you. He is not an impotent beggar. He does not pass out enablement
checks. I today am not attempting to
get you to feel sorry for God. I listen to these preachers on
TV. If you had a heart of steel, you would feel sorry for Jesus. Jesus is King of kings and Lord
of lords. He is sitting on His throne. You are in God's prison house
on death row. And the King is walking by with
the keys to your cell, swinging at His side. But you ought to
cry out, Pass me not, O gentle Savior, while on others thou
art calling. Do not pass me by. He can pass you right on by and
never look at you. What you ought to be crying out
today is, Thou Son of David, have mercy! I'm over here! You know, it's worth a try. It's
worth a try. If I were you, and I was a sock-crack
heroin drunk, I'd be considering that God is not in trouble. That He might Just leave you
in the crack house and let you stay there all the days of your
life. And then send you to hell and
be just in doing it. God's not in trouble. God is
not in trouble. We need to go to the potter's
house. You know why there's no praise? I'll tell you why there's
no praise. Because men and women actually
think they did God a favor. I'm going to give my heart to
Jesus. Yeah, I'm going to help Jesus. And one day that same
Jesus You're going to stand in front of Him and He's going to
say, depart from Me, you worker of iniquity. I never did foreknow
you. I never did love you. I never
did call you. I never did justify you. Oh yeah! And you're going to
say, we did many wonderful works in your name. I don't know you!
You need to go to the potter's house. The reason the church
doesn't praise, the reason we do not shout, The reason our
hands are not up in there is because we actually think that
we had something to do with saving ourselves. Somebody said, well,
Pastor, it doesn't sound like you have much of a burden for
souls. I want you to go to Romans 9.
In fact, I'm going to tell you this. No man has a burden for
souls who doesn't preach the Gospel. I want to see people
saved. That's why I preach the Gospel.
The gospel of God's free grace. The gospel of God's sovereign
grace. Men hate the gospel. I've been
doing this for 45 years. 45 years. It's a jungle out there. And I'm not talking about in
the inner city. I'm talking about it's a jungle
in the church. You go into most churches in
this country and preach the gospel, they'll throw you out. I'm not
exaggerating. You think because you come here
and I preach sovereign grace that there's just all kinds of
people. Bring your mama, honey. Bring your mama here and let
me preach the gospel to her. I don't know how many of you
brought your parents here and you said, you know, you've got
to hear Pastor Clark. You've just got to hear Pastor Clark.
He's a wonderful preacher of the gospel. Come on over and
hear Pastor Clark. And your mama and your daddy
come over and they go like this. This is a cult. You've got to
get out of here quick. Because what happened to you
has not happened to them. As you said under the gospel
of God's free grace, you were converted, you were reinvigorated,
you were quickened, you were made alive, you were born again
in the Spirit of God. In Romans 9, Paul said, I say
the truth in Christ, I lie not. My conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost. that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish myself a curse
from Christ for my brethren, for my kinsmen, according to
the flesh." And then he proceeded to write one of the most rejected
chapters in the entire Bible. Most Bible studies today, when
a preacher is doing a study on Romans, he will skip Romans 8
and 9. He does not want to deal with
the fact that God is sovereign in salvation. that I am God's
workmanship. I am saved because of God. I owe it all to the Almighty
God, my Father. I don't want any of the glory.
God's people don't fight the doctrine of election that God,
before the foundation of the world, chose them to salvation.
Let me tell you this, if you hate the doctrine of God's choice
of you, you are a sick puppy. You know what I do? Listen, I've
been hearing this doctrine all of my life. All of my life. It's not a doctrine to me. It's
honey to me. It's sweeter than honey. And
every time I hear it, I don't care who's preaching it, I go
like this, in my heart or literally with my hands. God chose me.
What are the chances of that? I wouldn't even have chose me. And He knew all about me. I got
up this morning thinking, you're rotten to the core. You are rotten. It seems like the older I get,
the more I detest my flesh. I say hallelujah to that. That's
a good thing. I don't trust me. Lord, often I plead in my mind
and in my purse, God, keep me. Somebody said, well, you know,
you've got to watch these young bucks around here. You better
watch the old fool. Just because I'm 65 doesn't mean
the fire's out, folks. I haven't got sanctified yet. There's trouble in my way. I've
got to moan sometimes. The Apostle Paul said in verse
6, Not as though the Word of God hath taken none effect, for
they are not all Israel which are of Israel." You say, well,
what does that mean? That means just because you're
a Jew doesn't mean you go to heaven. It simply means that
the entire state of Israel, just because you're born of Jewish
heritage, doesn't mean that you automatically are in. There is
a true Israel made up of Jew and Gentile, of little Isaacs. like we heard about during the
conference, promised kids, miraculously born of the Spirit of God. I was asked the pastor this week,
do you believe in miracles? I held my hand up and I said,
I is one. On TV, it went all over the world,
I is one. I am a miracle. Shoot, being
healed of cancer is nothing. I've been born of the Spirit
of God. Listen, folks, I was dead in
sins and prejudices. I was inactive toward God. I hated God. And when I could
not come to Him, He came to my graveyard. He brought me out
of the grave. He quickened me and He gave me
life. That's a miracle. And He did it on purpose. It
wasn't an accident. My mother once said to me, you
know, boy, you were an accident. We weren't planning on you. And
later I said to myself, but God was planning on me. He had already written my name in
His book. Isn't that something? Before the foundation of the
world. I am not an accident. I'll tell
you what gets me through. And what gets me through on a
daily basis. I am His and He is mine. This
is what gets me through when my flesh is raging. who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect. It is Christ that
died, yea, rather, is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession. I've got a lawyer. Oh, I've got
a lawyer in the high court of heaven. I have an attorney that's
never lost a case. And I am persuaded that neither...
Life! Life! Life! I'm telling you this, if
anything could separate me from the love of God, it's my life.
You know you. You're not nearly as holy as
you look to some of us. You know you. You know what's
going through your mind this week. You know what you've thought.
You know the enmity that's in your heart. You know the sexual
perversion that lies underneath it. You know how self-centered
you are. You know how you use people and
manipulate. You know how much fear is in
your soul. You know how you've been chipping
all week. You know, the most astounding thing to me is that
God saves us as sinners. And as soon as we get saved,
and I think we've been taught to do this by the preacher and
by the church. As soon as we get saved and get
in the church, we try to prove to everybody else that we're
not. I can't believe you thought I would do something like that.
Or how about this one? Don't give me that. As soon as
somebody does this to me, oh yeah, you're guilty. You know
why? Because I've done that. Really where we ought to be when
we come to understand the Gospel and somebody says, you know what?
You did such and such. What you ought to be saying is,
I'm far worse than that. But we get our hair stands up. I can't believe you'd say something
like that about me. How long have you known me? Long
enough to know you're a hypocrite. Amen. This church is full of
hypocrites. What I want to do, I don't do.
What I don't want to do, that do I. Lord, help us. We've got to get back to the
Gospel. How about verse 13? Romans 9. Jacob have I loved,
and Esau have I hated. Say, well, now, now, now, Pastor,
I think that's talking about nations. Well, that's even worse. He loves one nation and then
hates another one. That's talking about individuals.
Doesn't that make you feel a little strange inside right at first?
It's because your roots don't go deep enough into the Gospel.
If you're questioning God like this, well, I don't believe that
doctrine of grace. That would be totally unfair. We're not talking about being
fair. We're talking about free grace. Grace isn't about being
fair. Grace is about what God does
sovereignly. That He saved you, you unworthy
skunk! That He saved you! He knew all
about your crack-using, church-going hypocrisy. And yet, He reached
down into the muck of dung and saved you. He didn't have to. He saved you for His glory. We're just not shut up to this
grace thing yet. But you know what? Here's the
secret. God inhabits the praise of His
people. You're not going to praise until
you find out it's all of grace. It's grace that put me in the
way, leads me along the way, and takes me all the way. When
I was a kid growing up, we had the booger bear gospel. The booger
bear gospel was that God is going to get out His movie projector
when we get to heaven, and He's going to show everything that
you've ever done up there on the big screen, and everybody's
going to see it. I'm going to tell you flat out,
if that's going to happen, I ain't going. Do I have anybody that
will agree? Obviously, a lot of you aren't
too sanctified like me. You don't want that on the big
screen in glory. And so they try to booger bear
us into serving Jesus. They guilt all over you. The
gospel is good news, glad tidings. Probably the biggest problem
my dad and I had was over this judgment seat thing. And whether
Baptists were the bride of Christ. Thank God dad knows better now.
He's up there with that harlot who was taken in the very act
of adultery. Who wasn't a Baptist? I don't
think. Or maybe she was a Baptist before she got sick. I know a
lot of Baptists. Well, when we get to the place
where we see, I was a poor sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus
Christ is my all in all. When we get to that place, when
we get to the place, I did not first love Him, He first loved
me. I did not first call on Him, He called on me. I did not first
seek Him, He sought me. I did not first find Christ. By the way, the reason you didn't
first find Christ is because Christ wasn't lost. Christ is
not lost. You don't have to find Him. He's
found. You're lost and He found you. He left the 99 and went down
to the slough of iniquity, over the mountains of vanity, and
lay hold on you in Lodibar, and brought you out of Lodibar, and
set you at the king's table. That's what the grace of God
does for you. Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. There's
a good possibility there's some folks in here God hates. Not
only does God hate you, but you're sitting here hating God. Oh,
yeah. See, some of you God-haters in
here think like this. You know God's a granddaddy God.
And one of these days when I get through smoking crack, when I
get through using women, when I get through getting drunk,
when I get through partying down, I'm going to give Him a chance.
But the book of Proverbs says, when you get ready, He's going
to laugh at you when your calamity comes. When the heavens are falling,
when the mountains are melting, when you're fleeing from the
wrath of God, He's going to laugh at you. And I know some of you
are going in here, and I hope there are some in here going
like this, I wonder if God hates me. I guarantee you this, if
you have that thought, He doesn't. All of you who don't give a rip,
He does. Now you need to go home and think
about that, because when you get home and you get to thinking
about it, You begin to think, well, if I'm questioning whether
He loves me, I must have some interest in Him. While some of
you are sitting here and you can't wait till this is over.
You already know. You've looked at your watch from
11.30 on and know I've been up here about 45 minutes now. You
can't wait to get out of here. You've got plans today. You hate
being here. You hate the rule over the sinner
that You have to come here. Oh, you will take the food. Oh, you will take the bunk bed.
Oh, you will take the shower. Oh, you will use the soap. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You freely receive
that. But you hate God. And I don't
know whether this has ever entered your head or not. He hates you.
And you're going to go straight to hell. Now some of us in here
know He doesn't hate us. And not only that, but we don't
hate Him. It's just this narrow. The chief in the man is to glorify
God. And we've got a message where
men and women in and out of the church have never been to the
potter's house. They have never learned the lesson
of the potter. Look at verse 21. Hath not the
potter power over the clay of the same lump? That's what we
were, a lump. To make one vessel unto honor
and another unto dishonor. What if God, willing to show
His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? Powerful verse. And I want you to get this one
more time. You know, I just don't believe
in that kind of God. Well, that's the God of the Bible.
And more than likely, you do have a God. Some kind of God.
And it's probably one that fits your imagination. I mean, you've
molded Him. You've made Him. And you kind
of move Him around. When He gets in your way, you
put Him over here. And then if you're going that
way, you move Him back over here. He kind of fits your little pea
brain. And you know what? I'm going
to tell you this. My God is so good. My God is
so good. My God is so good to you. You know when you're having a
cold beer plant in your garden and you're drunk or in a skunk
and you've just beat your wife and you're planting beans and
corn in the same row in your garden? God will cause it to
rain on your garden just like He does the righteous man. My
God is so good to you, rebel. My God is so good. My God has
seen you with needle tracks up and down your arm. You just keep
shooting up and using and cursing God and using His name in vain
and using other people. And you're a burden to this world. But my God is just long-suffering.
He could have squashed you like an ant a long time ago. Long
time ago. But He's long-suffering with
you. The goodness of God ought to lead you to repentance. If
you have a job and you're a crack-using addict and hate God, God's goodness
to you about giving you a job. If you have a car, God's been
good to you. You drive to work. If you have
food on your table in a house, God's been mighty good to you.
And if you've lost it all down there in Lodi Bar and you've
lost everything and you're just an outright tramp and eating
out of a dumpster, God's still good to you because He should
have killed you a long time ago. The very fact that you're still
alive through all of your shenanigans is the goodness of God. The goodness
of God. God is not in trouble. He's the
Potter. And I hope you leave here today
shook down to your very roots. I hope somebody leaves here thinking,
I've got to find out. I've got to find out when I'm
one of those vessels of mercy. He said, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy. That's called sovereign mercy.
And when you began to see it and when you began to realize
it, that God has been merciful to you and good to you, that's
when the praise comes back. We've got to get back to this
gospel of sovereign grace. We've got to go to the potter's
house. We've got to know that we deserve the wrath of God,
but that He's just and justifier of the ungodly. Thank you, Jesus,
for not giving me what I deserve. And I'm going to tell you this,
the reason you're so stinking mean to other people and you
call yourself a Christian and you're always judging fruit is
because you really don't believe there go I but for the grace
of God. You know, since God's taught
me the Gospel, I've never seen a man or woman too dirty that
I could not bend over and help them up. And I say to that little prostitute
out there on Saginaw Street, in her halter top and short shorts,
her life is totally a wreck. With a little liquor on her breath
because she can't stand her own life, come on and sit down here
in the house of God with the rest of us sinners and maybe
God will save you. Sinners are welcome here. The
reason there's so much hypocrisy in the church is because the
Gospel is not preached. We don't have that spirit of
gratitude. It's a very simple lesson. Once
you learn that God has saved you for His glory, all the fussing,
all the fighting, all the self-righteousness is over. Somebody says, well,
Pastor, how come you didn't preach in the Bible conference? Because
I really wanted We had plenty of preachers here, but I wanted
Joe and Darren to preach. Brother Webb and Brother Sasser
and Frank Wright. I have a bit of jealousy. Not
a bit of jealousy. I'm real confident in who I am
in Jesus Christ. You can't replace me. Ha! I don't fear you're going to
fall in love with Bill Sasser. And I'll tell you why there's
no jealousy here. Because first of all, and by
the way, I love this fact. I listen to when you say Amen.
I listen to these preachers preach. You say Amen at the right time.
I have taught you the Gospel for 30 years. 30 years I've been
teaching you the Gospel. And you know what? It's a Gospel
that removes jalousy. That's jealousy for those of
you who don't understand speaking in tongues. That's jalousy. Jealousy. Paul said, I've heard there's
envy and strife and jealousy reported among you. What's the
cure for that? The Gospel. The Gospel. We are
a different church. God's going to use this church.
God is using this church. We've got to keep going to the
potter's house. And we've got new lessons there
to learn every day. When in your flesh, jealousy
pops up, envy pops up, fear pops up, that's not of God. Go back
to the Gospel. The other thing is this. Your
greatest enemy in mine is our self-centeredness. This Gospel
is far, far from self-centered. It will produce the fruit of
the Spirit. It will produce the fruit of
the Spirit. But if you don't know the Gospel, if you're not
caught up in the wonder of this, you've got to get caught up in
the wonder of this. And in order for a church to get caught up
in the wonder of it, that I am saved, while somebody better
than me You know, there's some folks sitting in here right now
that are morally better than all of us in here and are going
to go to hell. Because that's not it. Here's
the spirit of a Christian. I am a servant. And I don't care
if you're a deacon, you're an elder, or whatever you are, preacher's
wife, or whatever you are, you are a servant. If we have 300
people here in this church, we must have 300 servants. You know, Jesus Christ was a
servant. It's all about serving, serving
one another. I told you, my greatest thrill
was walking over on Seneca Street yesterday and seeing all of our
kids in one of the rooms, or a bunch of them in a room over
there. to see them riding their bicycles,
to see the fellowship that they're having with one another, to see
that. You know what produced that?
The gospel. The gospel. And it's this gospel. And I'm
determined. I am determined. And you know,
we do a lot of fundraising. We have to raise nearly $4 million
over there. And then we have a church budget
and all of that. so determined that we keep the
main thing the main thing. Because you can raise money,
but if God isn't here, nothing happens. We can raise money,
but if you don't know the Gospel, nothing happens. We can have
men of grace, but it'll go to their head if God's not here.
Men of grace need to go to the potter's house every day. Because
they're going to be a number one group here pretty soon. And
if they don't remember, hey, I've been to the potter's house.
I am what I am by the grace of God. They'll get the big head.
You get to thinking you're something when you're nothing. And God
doesn't inhabit that kind of thing. More than anything else,
I want God to speak. It would have been a great day
for me today if somebody came in here who hated God, fell on
their face, fell on their face before Him. Oh God, I know You're
there. I know You're real. I know You
know what I am. I don't know you. I don't understand
everything that preacher just preached. But I know I need you. And I want you to love me. I
know what I am. I deserve to go to hell. Now
we've got something going. Now we've got something going.
I long for the day when God speaks during our service in a mighty
way. I'll tell you, I preach for results.
And I usually have them. 300 people come, 300 leave. But that's not the kind of result
I'm talking about. I want somebody to get saved
while I'm preaching. I want somebody to shout while I'm preaching.
I want somebody to say, thank you, Jesus. I want to see somebody
all by themselves, not intimidated by other people, just say, 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.
Oh, what a wonder that Jesus found me. That's the way we walk
through life. He made me a vessel of honor.
You know, Pastor, sometimes I listen to you preach and you know it's
so deep. Don't give me that baloney. I don't preach deep. I just tell
the truth. Plain truth. Plain truth. It's not too deep for you. I'm
saying it. God chose a people before the
foundation of the world unto salvation. And you use the excuse
that that's deep because you don't want to believe that. It's
not about being deep. It's about, Lord God, You chose
me. You chose me! You saw my mother
and father didn't want me. I raised myself from the time
I was 12 years old. I was never accepted, never wanted,
always rejected. I was in foster care. I've been
abused. My uncle sexually abused me.
This has happened to me. This has happened to me. You
saw it all. And some of it, Lord, I did it
myself. You know, I've been in this thing
myself. But you chose me in spite of
all of that. You chose me. You know what?
It's all right not to understand that God elected you. In fact,
you will never understand it. That's why God's going to reveal
the riches of His grace. While the ages pile themselves
one on top of another, you're going to say, hallelujah, I didn't
know that. Oh God, you saw that? You turned
the bullet away? Oh God, I could have shot up
that bad stuff, but you spared me. Oh God, the measles could
have killed me. Oh God, polio could have taken
me. But oh God, you spared me? His eyes on the sparrow and He
watches over me. caught up in the wonder. All
of our songs, good songs, are written from the standpoint of
wonder. Then sings my soul. Does your soul ever sing? Does
it ever sing, How great Thou art? Do you ever get caught up
in this? And when I think that God, His
Son not sparing, sent Him to die, For me, I scarce can take it in that
on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to
take away my sin, then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee. How great Thou art! That's worship.
Anything short of that, anything short of wonder is not worship. It's not until you're caught
up in the wonder, grateful, appreciative, with a hallelujah deep down in
your soul, do you worship. If I was many church people out
there, to go to the dry bone valley of First Pentecostal Presbyterian
Baptistic Methodist Episcopal Church, I wouldn't even go. I don't want to hear spooky Halloween
music. I don't want people in robes.
I want that plain, old, unadorned gospel. I want to hear about
a bloody cross. I want to hear about a substitute.
I want to hear about a Savior that left the glory land. I want
to hear about a Father who sent His only begotten Son. I want
to hear about Jesus who stepped out of eternity into time and
condescended down to this earth to save the likes of me. I want
to hear about a Savior that went down into the coal mine of sin.
I want to hear about a Savior who reached down into the pit,
the marmy clay, and lifted me out and set me on a solid rock. I want to hear about a Savior
who is able to redeem poor sinners. Let's stand together and praise
our God.