Again, it's my privilege to introduce
Brother Fred Evans, pastor of Redeemer Baptist Church in Louisville,
Kentucky. And just in case you don't know
how, Fred and I know each other. Well, I almost stole my whole
life. Fred grew up in Lincolnwood Baptist
Church in Houston, Texas, where Brother David Pledger is pastor.
I grew up in Laird Street Baptist Church in New Caney, Texas, where
Jack Shanks was pastor. And from a young age, we knew
each other. But we really got to know each other when I lived
about a mile down the road from his house. And as a single man
living by myself, miserable, alone, Before I met my dear wife,
I'd go over to his house with his family, and they just made
me feel right at home. They were real loud. And then
Brother Fred started preaching at the hospital there in Houston,
Texas. And I went there to help him and led the singing, and
the Lord called him to pastor at Redeemer Baptist, and folks
there are thankful for him. I'm thankful for him. Brother,
you come preach the gospel to us. I ask this evening that you,
as I preach the gospel to you, that you would remember that
worship is not just passive, it's active. Pray for me. Pray for yourselves. That God
would give me the words for you and that God would open your
hearts to hear it. We are nothing. I read today about our nothingness, and one
man said, you even have to go to God for a broken heart. You
can't even have a broken heart unless He gives it to you. Isn't
that something? Isn't that something? Nothing. Nothing. But the message we have
is everything. It's Christ. You take your Bibles
and turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 3. Jeremiah chapter 3. Pray the Lord will bless this
to your hearts. We studied from this passage
yesterday, last evening. And I want us to be reminded
of the time in which Jeremiah preached, because it is vitally
important for us to realize that it is the same time we live in. It's the same time. Look in verse
6 of chapter 3, it says, in the days of Josiah the king. Remember, Josiah was a godly
king. He decreed the destruction of
all false gods and false religions and restored the worship of the
living God. He restored temple worship. He restored Passover ordinance. It was a time of great reformation,
a time in which men seemed to return to God. But this truly
was only a show of religion, not for Josiah, but for the people. On the outside, everything seemed
well. Men put away their idols. They
were afraid of being killed. That's why they put away their
idols. They didn't put them away because their heart had changed.
They put them away because that was the law. This man, as a despot,
he would have killed you had he seen those idols. They put
them away. They seemed to be religious and
moral, but Jeremiah's message, the message that God gave Jeremiah
at this time was not popular. Because it exposed men for what
they are. It exposed their hearts to be
wretched and vile and filthy. It's the same thing that the
Lord Jesus Christ said, you are painted tombs. On the outside
beautiful, but on the inside full of dead men's bones. Dead. You see the Lord tell this through
Jeremiah in verse 10. He says, And yet for all this
the Lord had taken away Israel, and yet Judah, not seeing it,
seeing that the Lord had taken away Israel, they didn't pay
any attention to this. He says, Yet for all this her
sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart. This matter of turning to Christ
is an all or nothing principle. This matter of believing on Christ
is an all or nothing principle. You cannot mix works and grace. Salvation is either all of Him
or you don't have salvation at all. There is no mixture in this. Either Christ will be Lord and
Savior or He will not be your Lord or Savior at all. He said, they had turned not
with their whole heart, but faintedly, saith the Lord. Their faith was
a lie. It was a deception. Their religion
was empty and their prophets were liars. May God the Holy
Spirit open our eyes to see we live in this day as well. Everywhere
there are churches and everywhere Men claim to worship
God and profess to believe on Jesus Christ. You know what I
have trouble finding in Louisville? Maybe you don't have such trouble.
I have trouble finding lost people. There's just no lost people. I'll tell you, the Lord came
to seek and to save that which was lost. You've not ever been
lost. You've never been saved. That's
just so. They claim to worship Jesus Christ. And if we were to view things
on the outward appearance of things, and that's the way most
people view things, they're just skimming the surface. They're
looking around and they say, oh, everything looks pretty good.
Look at all these churches and religion. Must be doing real
good here. On the surface, everything seems
well. But if we would know the truth,
We must hear John. He says in 1 John 4, 1, Beloved,
believe not every spirit. I tell you what, I trust your
pastor. I've heard him, his messages. I've heard what he preached.
I've heard, I heard who he preaches. But you know what? Every time
he preaches, I try him. And you would be wise to try
me and every other man. try the spirits The Bereans were
wise because they searched the Scriptures to see if these things
were so. You search out what Darwin said, you'll find he's
true. You'll find that's true. Exactly what he said was true.
Search the Scriptures. He said, believe not every spirit.
Try the spirit, whether they be of God. Because many false
prophets are going out into the world. The God of this religious
age has the name Jehovah. He has the name Jesus. He has
the name of the Holy Spirit. But when you try them against
scripture, you find them to be lacking. You find them to be
no gods at all. No gods at all. The God of this
age is not God at all because He is a failure. The God of this
Bible is not a failure. He has not failed in one thing
He has determined to do. Find it. You search it out. It's your soul. You better search
it out. What has God determined to do that He has not done? He
says, I will do all my pleasure. And who shall stand against Him?
Who? You? No. No. Whatever God determines to do,
He does it. And any God that determines to do anything and
cannot do it is not God. And He should be rejected. He
should be cast out. The Jesus of this age is not
Christ at all. What makes Jesus Christ? It's
not his last name. I was a kid, that's what I thought. I thought it was Mary Christ
and Joseph Christ. It was just foolish thoughts
of a child. But it's not his last name. No,
it's who he is. It is his office. He fulfilled
the scriptures. That's what proved he was Christ.
And what does the prophecy say? The prophecy said, you shall
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And Isaiah says, He shall not
fail nor be discouraged. And I tell you, when Jesus Christ
lived upon this earth, He accomplished righteousness, all righteousness
for all of God's elect. And when He died, He died on
the cross as a substitute for all God's elect. He paid for
all their sins. And He died. God was satisfied
and raised Him from the dead. Does that sound like the Christ
being preached today? Absolutely not. That Christ is
no Christ at all. He's no Christ at all. The Holy
Spirit of this age is trying to save men. He's pleading. He's begging for men to give
him permission to do something. That is not the Holy Spirit of
this book. And that's not the Holy Spirit
of my experience. I tell you, the Holy Spirit,
when He came to me, He knocked down the door. He didn't knock.
He knocked it down. He came in. He gave me life and
faith. None of which I had. I had neither
life nor faith. And He gave me both. And the
reason I believe tonight is because He sustains my faith. You see,
the Holy Spirit didn't come through. He doesn't breeze through. He
sets up camp. He sets up camp right here. Right
here in this heart, He's here. In this heart, He has never left
me and He will never fail me. Oh, thank God that God is God. Thank God that God saves. The
message of God to these who worship another God is the same message
we preach to all men. Turn! Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is
at hand. Repent. Forsake your gods and
follow Christ. Believe on Christ. This is the
message of God. Look at 12. He says, Go, says
to Jeremiah, Go and proclaim these words toward the north
and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord. And I
will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful. I'm glad God tells me He's merciful. How could we know such a thing?
That God is merciful had He not told us. I am merciful, saith
the Lord, and I will not keep my anger forever. Turn from those
false gods. Turn from those freewill works
religion. Turn to the only true and living
God and stop worshiping Him faintly. Worship him with your whole heart
With your whole soul Listen with your whole body It's easy to say I believe in
it Who couldn't say that Who couldn't say that I? Tell you someone who the Holy
Spirit has got a hold of You'll be able to see it You'll be able
to see it. You'll be able to see it. Why? Because the Lord said when
he plants, he'll bear fruit. He'll bear fruit. Stop worshiping God faintly. Stop compromising with the world
and its religion. Turn. Turn wholeheartedly. Some people today, they turn
to God, but they say this, but not with their whole heart. They
say, I know that God is sovereign. Everything you're saying is true,
preacher. I know God Christ is successful, that He died for
His elect. But I'll tell you, those other
preachers got good things to say. No, they don't. Get away
from them. Get away from them. The minute
you think you're strong enough, you'll fall. I remember that
a dear brother's preaching a message on 2 Samuel about that. I can't
think of his name right now, but man, he's so fast. He was
right on his feet like a deer. And Abner said, boy, you better
leave me alone. You better go mess with somebody
else. And sure enough, he kept thinking
in pride he could run in and run out without being hurt. He
died. Abner shoved that spear in his
fifth rib. I'll tell you what, don't play
around with this, friends. Don't play around with false religion.
You turn and you hang to Christ. You hang on. You believe on Him. Trust Him. These preachers have
nothing for you. Some say these preachers that
preach salvation by Jesus plus your free will are worse. Well,
they're just uninformed. I'm going to go and inform them.
No, they're not uninformed, they're lost. They don't know God. Don't mess with them. What did
the Lord say about the Pharisees? He said, let the blind lead the
blind. They'll both fall in a ditch. Leave them alone. Declare the
gospel. That's all we're here to do.
Declare the gospel. Not to argue the gospel, not
to debate the gospel. We're simply declaring the gospel.
That's it. No, these false preachers, these
false teachers, leave them alone. They don't know God. And the
one true God must be worshipped with all our hearts. To believe
on Christ, my friends, will cost you everything. This is what I say as my sales
pitch. Believe on Christ and you'll
lose everything. That sound good? Sounds good
to me. Because in that process I lose all my sin. My sin is
gone in Christ. That's a good trade. I like that.
Believers in Jesus Christ alone, you who are God's elect, you
who are redeemed by Christ, do not be taken in by these so-called
religious reformation. God says to you, return. Return,
O Israel, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you,
for I am merciful. Verse 14, he says, Turn, O backsliding
children, sayeth the Lord, for I am married unto you, and I
will take one of a city and two of a family, and will bring you
to Zion. Turn. Turn. When God calls sinners, where does He first call them
to? Where does he lead sinners? Well, he says to Zion. To Zion. Zion, friends, is his church.
You see, this is the only place I know of in this place. I hope
that there are more. I pray that God would raise up
a multitude of preachers. This is the only one I can confirm.
This is a place where God has his name. This is where the gospel
is preached. Right here. This is Zion. This is His church. This is where
His name is lifted up. Where the free grace of God is
preached. How can you know that? God says,
and I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed
you with knowledge and understanding. This is the purpose, this is
God's purpose. God's purpose is to bring his
children to hear the gospel from his man that he has called to
preach. Jeremiah was a man. How did the
people of Judah get this gospel? Jeremiah They didn't hear the
Lord Jeremiah heard the Lord and Jeremiah preached what he
heard. That's all we do All we do is
declare unto you what we've received You see I'm not up here trying
to preach what I don't know I'm just gonna tell you who I know
I'm gonna tell you what I know I know you should turn away from
those gods and I know you should turn to Christ. And I know this,
everyone that comes to Him will come by the gospel that is preached. He'll lead them to Zion. He'll
lead them to His man, to hear His gospel. How many will God deliver? How many will God deliver? As
many as He will. As many as He will. in acts thirteen
forty-eight it says as many as were ordained to eternal life
believed you believe that's because you were ordained to eternal
life you believe because you were ordained and god says here look at this
in verse fourteen how many will he take he says i'll take one
from a city. A city. You mean one from a whole
city? Absolutely. One from a city? Give God the glory! For had God
not purposed one from a city, the whole city would have perished. Two from a family. Had God not
purposed two from a family to save, the whole family would
have perished in hell. You see, all this matter of salvation
gives God the complete glory. Does that make you mad or glad? I bet if you're the one from
the city, you're glad, aren't you? If you're two from the family,
it makes you glad. Therefore, God does have a children,
it doesn't matter how many. God does have a people. He hasn't
elect people His purpose to save, and because His purpose to save
them, He has given His pastors, His men, to preach the message
of His own heart. Oh, I love... It's, I believe,
Psalm 45. He says, My heart... This is
God speaking. He says, My heart is indicting
a good matter. This is God's heart. He says,
My heart is overflowing with the good matter. And what does
He tell them about? He tells them about the majestic
Christ. The majestic Christ who rides majestically to save His
people from their sins. We have a message, a sure message. It is a message of an accomplished
salvation. I'll tell you what, believing
preachers, we have some differences, but I'll tell you this is one
difference we will not tolerate. We believe in a successful Christ. I'll tell you that's the only
matter really that we're splitting over, a successful Christ. His Word will accomplish His
purpose, and He will save His lost sheep. Anyone who believes
that God can save men by any other means than the preaching
of the gospel, I'm telling you, you're denying the Word of God.
If you deny that, it's because you're proud. That's it. You
won't bend to the Word of God. Go to Romans 10, where he was
just from. He was just out there. Go to
Romans 10. Verse 13, it's just what Darwin preached. Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Well, how
then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe on Him in whom they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they
preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. You know what's wonderful about
that? It says, how beautiful are the feet. You line up a group
of men in here in the front and all you can see is their feet.
You can't tell one from the other, can you? We don't matter. Our message matters. Our Savior
matters. And we declare unto you, repent
and believe the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
the successful Christ, the one who accomplished salvation. That's
the Christ you should believe on. That's the Christ you should
worship. That's the Christ you should
bow to. That's Him. No man has ever heard or believed
the gospel without God sending him a man. And a man after his
own heart. And you should be faithful to
this man. You should be faithful to this man because he has been
called of God to preach the gospel to you. I'll tell you, if you're above
learning, oh, you're in a bad state. If you think you know
it all, you're in a bad state. You know a sheep when he's all
by himself, he's either lost or he's sick. That's just so. God give you a faithful pastor,
you should attend to it. What? He says that you would
learn. He said, I will give you pastors
according to mine heart which shall what? Feed you. You need
to be fed. Who doesn't need to be fed? Who
thinks they'll feed themselves? You're just lying to yourself.
You think you feed at home. You think if all you get is your
little study at home, you're missing out. I tell you, God
has given you a pastor to feed you with knowledge and understanding. And this is our message. This
is a message of faithful pastors. Our message is to sinners. Look
at verse 20. I'll try to close up quickly
here. Our message, this message of
God, this message of repentance is towards sinners. Verse 20,
"...Surely, as a wife treacherously departed from her husband, so
have you dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith
the Lord." The Lord called Israel a treacherous wife, a wife that
left her husband not for just one affair, but because she was
a common whore." Do you hear what God called you? He said, you're a common whore.
Pastor, man, you're not going to get anybody to come talking
like that. You're not going to get any good people. Good, I
don't want good people. I want sinners in need of mercy. I want common whores. Because
that's what God calls sinners, a common whore. He says that
in the beginning of this chapter. He said, you've slept with everything
underneath every green tree. That's what He called them. He said, you're a common whore.
Though all God's people were chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world, excepted in the beloved, we weren't born that
way. All of us were born dead in sins and trespasses, and were
by nature guilty of Adam's transgression. The Lord made a covenant with
Adam, and that covenant was also with his whole race, you and
me, so that when Adam sinned, wherefore as by one man's sin
he entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed
upon all men. Do you know this? You are a sinner
at conception. You were an inheritor of Adam's
transgression. The imputed transgression of
Adam passed from him to you. How do I know that? Do infants
die? Why do they die? They're sinners. Get that? Every one of us were
conceived sinners by the imputed sin of Adam. Death passed upon
all men. Wherefore, all have sinned. All have sinned. In Adam, all
died. In Adam, all died. Sinners. That's why we're born from the
womb speaking lies. We are nothing but wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores. God says in Jeremiah 30 verse
12, you have an incurable disease. It's called sin. This is a condemnation that has
come into the world that men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds are evil. Against the God that ruled the
sky, I fought with hand, uplifted high. Madly I ran the sinful
race, secure without a hiding place. Oh, that men would see their
sin. That God would open the eyes of the blind and give them
life. This is why I preach, because
God promised He would. God promised He would. I tell
you, if you've never been blind, you've never been given sight.
If you've never been dead, you've never been raised from the dead.
And if you say you see, you'll die in your sins. Second, we
preach this gospel, behold the cry of sinners. Look at 21, the
voice was heard upon the high places, weeping in supplication
of the children of Israel, for they have perverted their way,
and they have forgotten the Lord their God. I tell you, when the Lord reveals
to man who he really is, this is what happens, a man will cry
for mercy. Every true sinner will cry to
God for mercy. This is part of salvation is
being stripped, isn't it? Being exposed. I tell you, Adam
and Eve would still be under the tree, hiding, had God not
exposed them. And so would you. And so would
I. Praise God, He exposed us. And what did we do? We cried
for mercy! We didn't wait for things to
get better, did we? You see, He said they cried while they
were in the high places, while they were on the high places.
That's when you cry, you don't wait for things to get better.
Come now! Believe now! Cry for mercy now! Don't wait! Don't wait! And look at this precious promise.
Here it is, the Lord says, return. Return, you backslidden children,
and I will heal your backsliding. What a message for somebody who's
wounded! Somebody who's dead! What a message
for somebody who's so vile and wicked as we are! God says, return! God says, who in the world would
ever call back a wife who'd become a common whore? Who would call
back their wife from that? He said, yet I've called you. I've called you. Oh, God is righteous,
but I tell you, God is good. Righteousness, I read this also,
that is very good. Righteousness is doing what is
according to the law. Goodness is doing above and beyond
what the law requires. God is not only righteous, He's
good. He didn't have to save you. He didn't have to have mercy,
but He's good, and because He's good, He shows mercy. I'm so
glad for that. I'm so thankful for that. Be
you reconciled to God. This is the message God's given
us. Be you reconciled to God. Is it not true that only those
estranged from God need to be reconciled? Only those who have departed
from the Lord need to return. And only those who are sick need
the great physician. I'm not sick. Not talking to
you. Not talking to you. I need somebody
sick. I've got to message somebody
sick. Somebody's got sin. My message is a man. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. What do I do? Nothing. Why do I have to do this? No,
nothing. Don't come up here and don't go back there. Ain't nothing
up here, ain't nothing back there. You don't have to go anywhere.
Christ has done it all. We like everything free except
this, huh? And you tell a man I got a free piece of property
in there, 10 million, I'm gonna show up. You tell him I got free
salvation and nobody shows. I'm so thankful. Come. Why will you tarry? Why will
you die? Christ has accomplished it. And look at this, I'll just skip
down. Return unto the Lord, and he
said, look at chapter 4 verse 1, he said, If thou return, O
Israel, saith the Lord, return unto me, if thou wilt put away
thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not be
removed. How do you put your abominations
out of the sight of God who sees all things? You don't. Christ already has. He has removed my sins from me
as far as the east is from the west. So far has He removed my
sins from me. Only the fit man could have carried
our sins away. Jesus Christ is that man. Oh, cast your soul on Him. He
does not fail. May God feed your soul with that.