about the hymn that we sang there,
the coming of the Lord Jesus. I guess, in reality, there's
not too many that really looks for him. And I know this much about the
second coming, that when he does come, there's going to be a vast
difference in his person. Because the first time he came
as an infant, the first time he came in obscurity, was born
in Bethlehem's manger. But the next time, when he comes
again, he's not going to come as an infant, he's going to come
as infinite. The first time he came to the
manger, but this next time it will be a throne. no more crosses born in poverty
but when he comes again he'll come in splendor first time he
came, he came as a lamb when he comes again he'll come as
a king certainly going to be a difference
in the treatment that he'll receive in his second coming and what
he received in his first coming first coming it says he came
into his own but his own received him not it says he was a man
of sorrows acquainted with grief but when he comes again Lord
Jesus he's going to come to rule he's going to come to judge he's
got the keys of death and hell and he can shut the door and
no man can open he's going to come rule and reign. The scriptures say there, I think
in the second chapter of the book of Philippians, that when
he comes and makes this earth his footstool, every knee is
going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus
Christ is God or Lord to the glory of God. There is going
to be a vast difference in the treatment of his person when
he comes again. The first time when he came,
he came to satisfy justice. next time he comes, it'll be
to administer justice. Not satisfy justice no more.
First time he came to take away sin, but when he comes again,
he'll come without sin, unto them that look for him. Come
to satisfy justice the first time, but the second time now,
watch it, he's gonna come to administer justice. Gonna be a vast difference on
Thursday. Well, turn with me this evening here to Luke chapter
14. Lest I forget, now, another thing
in regard to the coming of the Lord. In the book of 1 Corinthians
there, maybe in the last chapter, I don't know, it says, If any
man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. If any man loves not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Let him be cursed. Now, you know
what that means? When it says, If any man loves
not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed, it means let
him be damned when Jesus comes. If any man loves not the Lord
Jesus Christ, when Jesus comes, let that man be damned. That's
what the Scriptures say. You'll read that in the Bible
here. You'll find it. I think it's in 1 Corinthians
chapter 16. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes
a second time without sin unto salvation to those who look for
him, if he finds any man that does not love him, let that man
be damned. Tell me it's not important to
love God in Christ. The only thing, boy, that'll
last when this world's on fire is love for Christ. Love for
Christ. That's what's important. Service
is important. Obedience is important. Of course,
they're merely the by-products of a washed heart. They're merely
the by-products of a cleansed soul. Service unto God. Love to God in Christ. Any man
loving up the Lord Jesus, let him be damned when Christ comes. Not many look for Him, are they?
Not many. Not many preachers looking for
it. Not many preachers preaching about it, really. Preachers too
busy, in our day, too busy. They're too busy being a advertising
man or a promoter, organizer, after-dinner speaker, toastmaster,
and what have you, to preach the grace of God. To preach,
to preach to Nine men. Eternity bound sinners
of the grace of God. Too busy trying to get them straightened
up. Too busy in organizations. Like the little colored boy,
I think it was, that was going to school. Loaded down with books. The fellow stopped him, asked
him, said, Where are you going? He said, Going to school. He
said, What are you learning? He said, Nothing. He said, Why? He said, I'm too busy going to
school. That's the trouble with most preachers today. That's
the trouble with most churches today. They're too busy. Too
busy organizing. Too busy doing this, too busy
doing that, and haven't got time to sit at the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ and learn a hymn. That's what the Lord admired
in Mary, wasn't it? Martha said, the Lord said, Martha's
too busy here. Or Mary, he said, look at her,
she's not doing anything. He said, I've got to do all the
work here. He said, you're too busy, Martha. He said, Mary hath
chosen the good part, and that part she hath chosen shall not
be taken away. There Mary was, just sitting
at the feet of Jesus, basking in the sunshine of His glory,
just worshiping Him. Her heart was responding to His
great love. She just bowed before Him, soaked
it in, loved Him. He knew her heart. He said, that
part might be taken away from her. She's chosen the good part.
Well, in this 14th chapter of the book of Luke, some things
here in this, well, beginning there at verse 24, some things
that we ought to consider about our religion, for I say unto you that none
of these men which were bidden shall taste of my supper, none
of them. Now went great multitudes
with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to
me, any man come to me, and hate
not his father, and his mother, and his wife, and his children,
and his brethren, and his sisters, ye, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple. I think that that means hold
them in preference to Him. That's what it means. Hold them
in such a relationship to your heart in preference to God Almighty,
in preference to the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't make our wife,
we love our wives, and wives love their husbands, we love
our children, we love our homes, we love our neighbors, but not
in preference to Him. We love, our love for them we
hold loose. We can let it go real quick.
Let it go. If we're called upon. We can't
hug, we can't hug these, these darling idols that we have to
our breast in preference to Him. Any man come to me, I want him
to consider some things. I want him to take a hard long
look at this because this is important. Welfare is at stake. Come to me. I want you to know
that it won't be difficult. Whosoever doth not bear his cross,
don't bear your cross, he said, don't you think about coming
after me. Don't you think about coming to me. Don't you think
about being identified with my religion. Whosoever doth not
bear his cross and come after me cannot, not will not, but
cannot be my disciple. Now he says, which one of you tends to build a building, sitteth
not down first, and considers the cost of that building, or
counts the cost, whether he has sufficient money or material
to finish the building. Which one of you? That's what
he's saying. He's saying, Consider some things
here. Consider. First off, let me say
to us this evening here, and I say it to all of us, to my
own heart first, a religion that does not cost anything is not
worth anything. A religion that costs nothing
is worth nothing. It's just that short and simple,
Darrell. If a religion that you and I hold costs us nothing,
it's worth nothing. A religion that does not cost
you trouble, does not cost you time, does not cost you thought,
does not cost you you self-denial, does not cost
you conflict, or does not cost you labor of any kind, is worth
nothing. You can set it down. Mark it
down. A religion that costs nothing
is worth nothing. If you don't know that now, it's
about time you find it out. That's right. A lot of people
are trying to slip through this life like a greased eel without
becoming involved. with the hardships and the difficulties
of the religion of the Lord Jesus. You cannot be divorced from them.
There's no shortcut to heaven. No shortcut. There's no divorcing
from the conflicts and all of that. No, sir. A religion that
does not cost you trouble and time and thought and prayer,
reading of the Bible and searching of your own heart and searching
of the scriptures, doesn't cost you that. It's not worth anything. Such a religion that doesn't
cost anything will never save a man's soul. This easy-believe-ism
that we see in our day that's propagated on the television.
I heard a fellow, I read here recently where a fellow said
that he turned on the radio station or the television station in
Southern California. He said he was a preacher. And
he said on Sunday night he said, He said, I stayed at home. I
don't know why I didn't go to church. But he said he stayed
at home to rest. He preaches everywhere, he said.
And he said, I turned the television on. He said, I wanted to see
what kind of programs was on the television at that time of
the evening. He said they had 12 channels
there in Southern California. And he said that there was nothing
on any of the channels that was worthwhile. Not a single solitary
thing that was worthwhile. He said everything was that had
any religion in it was sex-involved or orientated. The fast music
and all of that. And he went on to say this. He
said there was not enough gospel preached to make soup for a sick
grasshopper. I like that. Wasn't enough gospel
preached on 12 stations in Southern California to make soup for a
sick grasshopper. Such a religion as this will
never save yourself. People just think of the multiplied
thousands of people tonight that's dependent upon this 20th century
religion. This religion, it doesn't cost
anybody. They're dependent on it. They're
dependent on it. Now, this religion will never
save your soul. It'll never give you peace while
you're alive. It'll never bring no peace and joy to your heart.
When you lay down to sleep at night, you can't have a true,
solid peace that you can say in your heart, if I don't wake
up, I'll wake up in the arms of Him who loved me and gave
Himself for me. You'll not have no peace. It'll
never bring you any cheer in the time of trouble, nor will
it support you. in the hour of death, this kind
of a religion. You see, a religion that costs
nothing is worth nothing. And that's what our Lord's saying
here. He said, I want you to consider this, my religion, God's
religion, there is a religion, the religion of God. It's right
here in the Bible. The religion of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Which of you, he says, intends
to build a building? He said you don't sit down first
and count the cost to see whether you got money enough to erect
the building. Which of you do that? A religion that costs a
man nothing is worth nothing. I remember here, we were talking
here in the last week or so about Joshua and the deliverance of
the Israelites from Egypt into the land of Canaan. You know,
there was thousands upon thousands of the children of Israel that
perished in the wilderness. We pointed out to you there in
the first part of the book of Joshua, where of all the eligible
men that was of a particular age, during the sojourn in the wilderness,
only two made it across, and that was Joshua and Canaan. All
of the other men died, perished in the wilderness. Thousands
and thousands of men, they died in the wilderness, they perished
in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan. Now, I'm going to
tell you, they left Egypt full of zeal, as if nothing whatsoever
could stop them. Boy, they had They had everything
going for them. They said, nothing can stop us.
We're on our way. They soon found dangers and difficulties
in the way and their courage soon cooled down. Got tired of
the way. Tired of the way. A lot of people,
you know, they get involved in some religion and sometimes even
in God's religion. without and within, and their
zeal soon is vanished and their courage is swept away. You see
these people, the children of Israel, they found that going
wasn't so easy. They found that they didn't have
any meat. They found that the food didn't come too easy. They
found that at times they didn't have any water. And they found out that there
was times it had to walk a long ways. And the first thing you
know, they said, why? Why? What are we doing out here? What are we doing out here? It's
like that time some of us went to Montana to go out to preach
for John to hunt a few days. We took Stanley Borders with
us. And we got out there and we noticed that Stanley was getting
kind of long at mouth. And we noticed he didn't have
much to say. And he wasn't enjoying the hunt.
And so, he was laying there one night, before we went to sleep,
Stanley had a hard time sleeping. And I'd mentioned to him before,
or I'd mentioned to him then, I said, Stanley, I said, I bet
you feel like I used to feel when I first came out here about
four or five years ago. First time I'd come, I said,
I bet you feel the same way I feel. He said, how's that? And I said,
what am I doing out here? I said, that's the way you feel?
He said, that's the way I feel. What am I doing out here? He got home
and said, looked like it was pretty good when we started.
Told a lot of jokes and laughed, and we had a good time. But after
we got out there, he said, I want to go home. I want to go home. The war was over. We had to go
back to Great Falls and put Stanley on the airplane and send him
back home. He never would admit to that, but the brethren will
tell you that's what happened. And you know how I love old Stanley.
I love old Stanley. Fine fellow. He didn't consider
it, though, you see. When we left, he didn't consider
it. He didn't consider being away from his family for a week
or ten days. He hadn't been away from his
wife and his children all that time. He didn't consider it.
It got on him. He's homesick. Lots of fellas that way. Lots
of fellas are grimming right now, but if I could take you
out there for about ten days, out there in the wild somewhere,
you was away from your wife and your children for ten days, And
I'd whisper to you sometime, what are you thinking? You wonder
what you're doing out here? You'd probably say, yeah, I wonder
what I'm doing out here. Way out here, no radio, no television. Sitting out here shooting them
deer. That's the way the children of Israel
was. Their courage soon cooled down. They said, well, I'll tell
you what we'll do. He said, Moses, you brought us
out here to kill us. Turned on their leader. Turned on the one
that loved him the most. You ever notice that? A fellow
will always do that. He'll turn on the one that's
done the most for him. They'll do it every time. They
turned on old Moses. They said what? They said, you
rascals, you led us out here to die. He said, well, let's
just form a company and let's go back to where we came from.
You remember how they cried out? Take the straw away from them.
Make them gather their own straw. And still produce the same quantity
that they did when I supplied the straw. Oh, they cried and
they moaned. They said, we can't do that.
We can't do it. It's too much force. You're asking
the impossible. Now, you see. Now, you see, they've
lost their zeal. They've lost their courage. They
said, let's go back. Go back where? Go back to making
bricks. That's what a lot of people want
to do. I want to go back to making slime. Get back in the slime
and make some more bread. I heard of the way. God says, listen, you're going
to be involved in my religion. You come to me. The Lord Jesus
said, you come to me. He said, you've got to bear your
cross. He said, you come to me. He said, it's going to cost you
something. It'll cost you your time. It'll cost you your prayers. It'll cost you trouble. It'll cost you your all if you
come with me. Better think about it. They hadn't considered this,
had they? Well, they lost everything. And the Bible says that their
carcasses was strawing throughout the wilderness. And then, there's
many hearers, as I said, of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many hearers of the Lord Jesus
Christ went back and walked no more with Him. here in John chapter
6 and verse 66. Turn with me for just a minute
there this evening. John 6 and 66. Listen to this verse. Oh boy,
a religion that doesn't cost you something is not worth anything.
Listen to this now. Verse 66 says, From that time
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
Now what do you suppose caused them Here the Lord Jesus has never
harmed any man. What about doing good? Healing
the sick, providing the necessities of life for people, breaking
up funeral processions, doing good always, everywhere and every
place. But it says here, from that time,
many of his disciples, the word disciples means learners, many
of his learners went back and walked no more with him. Now
why? Verse 65 tells us why. Look what
he says in verse 65. He said, that's the Lord Jesus,
and he said, Therefore said I unto you, No man can come unto me
except it were given unto him of my father." No man can come
to me except it were given him of my father. Well, these fellows
had cashed their lot with the disciples and had followed him
without thinking of the consequences. They found out that there's hard
doctrines to believe, hard work to be done, hard treatment to
be received, and they gave away and proved to be nothing at all. They walked no more with him
when he said, he said, no man can come to me except it. The coming, the it refers to
the coming to me. That's what he's talking about.
No man can come to me except it. The coming to me were given
unto him, my Father. He didn't come to me willingly
or voluntarily on his own, apart from the operation of God's Holy
Spirit. That's what he's saying. No man
can come to me in his natural state. That's right. Not a single
soul that ever lived, ever responded to the gospel call in his native
state. Natural state. Can't do it. Can't
do it. That's humiliating! Self-abasement! You mean that I can't rise up
out of the wickedness of my sins and make a decision or turn over
a new leaf or decide to do better and God will recognize me and
be obligated to do so? No, God will not. You can't come
to Him. You can't come to Him. No man
can come to father. Can't do it. When these people heard that,
made them mad. Made them mad. How many times
have I made people mad preaching that? I'll bet you if I had a
dollar for every time that people said, I'll never hear that fellow
preach. I'll never go hear him preach. I bet you I'd have a
lot of money. That's right. I'll never hear him. Why? Oh,
To hear Him tell it, you haven't got anything to do! To hear Him
tell it, that God doesn't recognize your labors! To hear Him tell
it, your righteousness is as filthy rags! I'm not going to
go near Him. Well, Jesus said, No man can
come to Me except it were given unto him of My Father. And from
that time, from that time, you see, they had associated themselves
with the disciples. When they found out that there's
hard doctrines to believe and hard work to be done from that
time, they found that out, many of his disciples went back and
walked no more with him. How many did walk with him out
of that multitude? You read the rest of it and you'll
find that there's only about twelve and one of them was the
devil. One of them was the devil. One of them was old Judas. Well, they gave way and proved
to be nothing at all. Well, I'll tell you what bothered
them. The same thing that bothers every other man in his natural
state. The out and out gospel of God's sovereign grace. That's
what bothers them. That's what bothers every man.
That's the issue. The issue is the gospel of God's
sovereign grace. It's not whether I believe the
women ought to be silent or not. That's not the issue. That's
not the issue. The issue is not whether we don't That's not it. All them side
issues. Side issues. That's something
to fight about. That's not the real issue. The real issue is not that we
don't pass an offering plate. That's not the real issue. The
real issue is not that we don't have a Sunday school. That's
not the issue. I know people find that they're offended by
those things. They're offended. They think
we ought to have a Sunday school. Ought to have a place for the
children. We ought to have this and we ought to have that. We
ought to have missionary societies. We ought to have women's groups,
boys' groups, girls' groups, and all of that, and we don't
have it. And they said, we just couldn't go along with them.
People, they're crazy. But that's not the issue. The
issue is the gospel of God's sovereign grace. That's the issue.
The issue is this. No man can come to me except
it were given him of my Father. That's the issue right there.
That's it. the out and out gospel of the
grace of God especially when that hated word sovereignty is
mentioned with it. When you talk about the sovereign
grace of God. I don't like that. I don't like
that. I want something different. Well, let a man dare to say that
God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and he'll be
mad. in their natural state. Well,
that's what our Lord's telling us. He said, now listen. He said,
if you're going to follow me, I want you to consider some things.
If you're going to come to me and bear your cross, you've got
to hate your father and your mother and your brother and your
sister and your own life. You're going to be my disciple.
He said, consider these things now. He said, if a man's going
to build a house, he said, now don't the man set down and say,
wife, let's put the money out here on the table and see if
we've got enough money to finish this house. If we don't have enough
money to finish this house, wife said, people's going to laugh
at us and say, well, you started something and you couldn't finish.
You see what I'm talking about? That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
is saying right here. He said, now, I want you to know at the
outset here, if you're going to come to me, it's hard work,
self-denial, difficulty. There's hard doctrines to believe. You say, well, I was talking
about the women question there. You say, well, that's a hard
doctrine. It's a hard doctrine. It's got
to be believed. It's got to be believed. Well, I wouldn't go
to that church. Women can't preach. Women can't
pray. It's a hard doctrine, isn't it? A hard doctrine. But the
Scriptures say, the Scriptures ask not for a woman not to teach,
nor to usurp authority over men, but let her learn in silence.
What are you going to do about it? Huh? What are we going to
do? Cut it out? Tear it out? We're going to believe
it, right? We're going to believe it. Going to accept it? Going to submit to it? That's
hard doctrine. Hard doctrine. There's not very
many that'll accept that. There's not many that'll accept
that among sovereign Greece people. I don't care who they are. There's
not many that'll accept that. And I'm not... I marvel that we believe
it. I marvel every time I think of
that, I marvel that the people at the Canaan Baptist Church,
including their preacher, believes that. That's hard. My soul, it's a wonder we have
anybody come to this church. If it wasn't for God Almighty,
we wouldn't. You know that? If it wasn't for
God Himself operating in our behalf and working in the hearts
of men and women, we wouldn't have anybody come. People wouldn't
come. They'd pass us. They'd pass us like a freight
train passes a hobo going up to some other building. Hear
somebody else preach. wouldn't come down here, listen
to such drivel as that. Hard doctrine, Jesus said. He
said, if you dare to come to me, you dare to come to me. He
said, you've got hard doctrine to believe, hard work to be done.
He said, it's hard praying, hard praying, hard work. Well, you
know, these people here, they gave away, proved to be nothing
at all. You know, The natural man and the religious
man, he not only hates the doctrine of free grace, but he raves and
rages at even the mention of it. He'd sooner, and I've said
this before one time, he'd sooner hear you blaspheme God Almighty
than say anything about God's sovereign election. You tell
him, you tell any man that God has elected a people before the
foundation of this world, and the people that God elected Christ
died for, and the people that Christ died for, the Holy Spirit
in time will quicken them, and God will not lose a single solitary
one of those that he has elected, and people will rage. They'll
rage. They'd sooner hear you take God's
name in vain than preach like that. They'll gnash their teeth. We ought to hear that. What do
we want to hear? We want to hear free will. We
want to hear something about man. We want to hear something
about what we can do. Isn't that right? What we can
do. God's in our hands and we can
manipulate Him and do as we want to. If we want to come to Him,
why, if we want to make Him a success, we will if we don't. election that God Almighty chooses
men unto Himself, whomsoever pleases Him? We don't want to
hear that. Which sooner that you'd curse
Him, which sooner that you'd profane His name than tell us
that. Preach unto us smooth things,
easy things. Preach them kind of things unto
us. I'm amazed, brethren, that you fellows hear me. I'm amazed
that I preach It's only by the grace of God that I do it. It's
only by God's Holy Spirit that works in my heart that works
in your heart that we're able to communicate, to have this
feeling, to enter into these things. It's only by the grace
of God. Natural men would never stand
for it. Ah, he'd rather hear you blaspheme
God's name than for you to preach atonement by the Son and regeneration
by the Spirit of God. The gospel which is after men
will be welcomed by men. You can't make it tasteful and
palatable to the natural mind. Well, I'm going to quit, but
I want you to consider these things. That's what he said. He said, consider these things.
come after me? If any man's gonna build a tower,
count the cost. Hard doctrine. Hard doctrine
to be believed. Well, if you believe it, you
believe it, boy, you've come to Christ this evening, and most
of you, as far as I know, have. Most of you here, as far as I
know. I've no reason to doubt that you haven't come. And you
have no reason, I don't think, to doubt that I haven't come.
Of course, we're just looking on the outside, and only God
Almighty knows our hearts. But humanly speaking, if we've
come to Christ, if we've come to Him, we've embraced the Lord
Jesus Christ, and we've embraced this hard doctrine, this hard
work, and we've entered in and become involved in His service,
we can thank God and bless God's name forever. Because there's
very few that do. Did you know that? Very few.
You're in a choice company. Choice company. Broad is the
way, wide is the gate that leadeth to destruction, and many go in
thereat. There is the way, there is the
gate that leadeth unto life eternal, and few, f-e-w-b, therein that
find it. That's God. Oh, my soul. I rejoice this evening. He's
called my sovereign grace. Me? Poor country boy. No background. None whatsoever. That is my way of environment. Circumstances in my life point
the other direction. In fact, one time, I'll tell
you this. I'll tell you this, just to show you, just to show
you, this is a grace of God. There was a fella that was about
my age, went to school together, and he had a brilliant future
ahead of him. He was highly intelligent, highly
intelligent. His dad and mother had money,
and he was the only child, the only boy. In 1942, right after
the war broke out, I joined the Navy. And shortly after that,
this boy joined the Navy. I was a common sailor. This boy,
fulfilling his potential as far as being brilliant in books and
so forth, became a Navy pilot. And in the Pacific, he was lost at sea. lost his
life. And his mother said to a friend
of mine who told me later, and I have no reason to doubt her,
she said, and this woman was a Christian, supposed to be a
Christian, she said, why? Why would God take my son and
leave him go? I'll tell you why. By God's sovereign
grace. I was up here tonight to preach
the gospel of sovereign grace. That's the reason I didn't die
over there in the Pacific. thirty some years ago by the grace of God alright bless
his name