Can you say that, what we just
sung, from the heart? Beyond my highest joys, I prize
her heavenly ways, her sweet communion, solemn vows, her hymns
of love and praise. Can you say that? Really. If
you can, you're so blessed. That means the Lord has saved
you from this untoward generation. That's the message. Verse 40. Acts chapter 2 verse
40, with many other words did Simon Peter testify and exhort,
that means urge, urgent, exhort, saying, save yourselves from
this untoward generation. Untoward means just that. going of the way. That means
untoward, not seeking the Lord, not going to God, running from
Him. Not wayward, meaning headed the
other way, just as fast as you can. I saw a bumper sticker one time
on this fella's car, among all the other stickers where he'd
been in a Prada. People do that, they're proud
of everywhere they've been, you know. And it said, I don't know
where I'm going, but I'm getting there as fast as I can. He thought that was funny, but
that's exactly what people are doing. I'll tell you what God's Word
says where they're headed. He said, Peter, there was a lot
of people there, 3,000. He said, save yourselves from
this untoward generation, men, women, and children. Save yourselves
from this generation that's headed to destruction. Save yourselves.
What do you mean, Simon? You know, God's Word, the truth
seems contradictory to the world and even religion, doesn't it? Salvation is of the Lord. And
yet he said, save yourselves. Didn't he? Faith is not of yourself. It's a gift of God. And yet we
say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe. Except you believe, you won't
be established. You won't be saved if you don't
believe. Right? They're both true. No man, you know, Scripture says,
you will not come unto me that you might have left, Christ said.
No man can come unto me, He said. No man can come unto me, except
the Father which hath sent me draw him. No man can, and you
will not. And yet Christ stood and said,
come unto me. Come. I say, come to Christ. Come to
Christ. Scripture says, Whom he did foreknow,
he did predestinate. Whom he did predestinate, that
is, who he chose, he predestinated everything about them. Whom he
did predestinate, he called. We will be saved as many as the
Lord our God shall call. And the Scriptures also said,
Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. If the Lord doesn't call us,
we won't call. We won't be saved. If you don't
call on the Lord, you won't be saved. Is that right? It's both
true. If I'm saved, if you're saved,
if we're saved, it will be by the Lord. It will be of the Lord.
It's His choice, His will, His work, His call, His power, and
it will be completely 100% for His glory. He gets all the credit. If anybody is ever saved, He
gets all the credit. He did it all. Right? But if I'm lost, if you're lost,
you're going to get the blame. Because you would not call. You
would not come. You would not believe. And you
shook your face and said, I won't do that. I won't do that. You see, people think it's a
contradiction. God's people know. They know. They know. And the older I get,
The more I study, the more I preach and watch, and I watch and observe
those who hear me preach. Over and over again, same message.
It's an urgent message, isn't it? It's the message of salvation. Scripture says today is the day
of salvation. Today. When? Right now. Today. The gospel is being preached. And so it makes it clearer and
clearer to me the more I preach as I greet people that walk out
the door who just blank, our kids and even someone else. How's
the weather? It was going to rain today. Just
heard the gospel. Is it supposed to rain? It becomes
clearer and clearer and clearer to me that salvation is of the
Lord. That there's nothing I can do.
There's nothing I can say. There's nothing I can do. No
way can I say it loud, soft, crying, not crying. Nothing I
can say has any influence whatsoever over one single person, adult
or child. And so before every message, every message, I'm begging him,
help. And I'll be honest with you,
I often say, what's the use? What's the use? The older I get, the more I read
and preach, the more fearful I am of those who don't believe,
that the longer they sit and hear this gospel. and don't believe,
I'm afraid. And people leave, I'm afraid
for them. I don't want my flesh to
come out in this at all, my fleshly frustrations. I don't want to
self-pity. I'm not doing that at all. If Satan can get you mad at me,
you're going to leave the gospel. And you know, there's plenty
you can find to get mad at me about. There's plenty of thought
you can find with me. Yes, there is. But you cannot
find thought with what I'm preaching. And the fact that I've been preaching
this faithfully for years. I haven't swerved from this,
ever. And God help me, I'm not going
to. And I'd lose a lot of sleep over people that don't even like
me. I fear for them. God forbid that
I should ever preach in such a way that, well, let me get
my message over with and go home and go home. What will be, will
be. If they're saved, they're saved.
Fine. If they want to God's leg, fine. Don't worry about it. God
forbid that I should approach this in that way. You know, Peter said he exhorted
them and he said in Hebrews, exhort one another so much more
as you see the day approaching, so much more. So I worry, I fear, I do, I lose
sleep. Simon Peter preached Christ in
this message, didn't he? Oh my, he preached Christ. I
do too. The gospel is the power of God and salvation. Christ
crucified. Simon Peter preached not this
helpless Jesus, you know, who wants to save you. No, he preached
the Lord Jesus, the true Christ. This is salvation, to know the
true and living God and Jesus Christ, whom God sent. God is
God. God is holy. And I don't ever
preach God in such a way that I make him to be, you know, hateful
or what is it? God is love. God is merciful.
God is gracious. God is so good. God in great
love and mercy and grace and goodness sent His Son down to
this despicable place to save some of these people that didn't
want Him, that hated Him. That's what He did. He sent His
Son. And that Son, the Lord Jesus Christ came and is proof that
men hate God and hate the truth and love themselves and love
sin because they killed God's Son. And did I? Yes, I did. I went years. I don't care about
this. My dad preached this message.
I said, as soon as I'm old enough, I'm out of here. I can't wait
to get out of here and get out in the world. Why? Because I'm
not interested in God. The God who clothed me, the God
who fed me, the God who protected me, the God who provided for
me all my days. And I went through so much, never
saw the hand of God watching over me. Now some of you can't
believe this, because you did. You went through things. And
looking back, you see how God saved you from destroying yourself. And
that's what's going to happen. If God doesn't have mercy on
our children, they're heading out in the world now. And I know
how powerful the world is. I was there. I know how powerful
it is now. This is an urgent message. Isn't it? That's just another
Sunday. I hope not. Save yourselves from this untoward
generation. That's what Peter preached. He
preached Christ. He preached Christ high and lifted
up at the right hand of God in the reigning and ruling. Christ
who came to die for sinners and save them from themselves and
from sin. Satan, the archenemy, which the
world laughs at and scoffs at. But he did. And he sat down on
the right hand of God, and Peter ended his message by saying he's
going to make his enemies his footstool. Every knee is going
to be bowed. Every single knee is going to
bow, and every single tongue is going to confess, you know
this Jesus? He really is Lord, isn't he? And I didn't make him
that. And now it's too late. Lord and Christ, only one, only
Messiah, only Savior, only way, the truth, the truth, and the
life. He that hath the Son hath life.
If you don't have Jesus Christ, you don't have life. You're just
waiting to die. Dying and dying, waiting to die.
Is that right? Some of you, by God's mercy,
heard this. They stopped your wild career.
Didn't he, Patrick? Us. You and me, Patrick. That's
what he did for us. Young, wild, you know, out in
the world, but God. He sat us down. We heard the
gospel. Just a man. Oh, we've heard God preaching
to us. God speaking. Spoke to us. We believe. We love the kingdom now. Hate
the world. Hate the sin. Hold on now. You know, there's a lot about
the world I enjoy and, you know, nothing wrong with the things
of the world, nothing wrong at all, but it's this thing called
sin that's in it that ruins everything. And it's in me. Hate it. Simon Peter preached Christ high
and lifted up, and everybody is in his hands. It's not, what will we do with
Jesus? That's what false religion says. That's not it. The question
is, and what everyone should be crying is, what is he going
to do with me? What's he going to do with me?
Every one of you young people are in his hand to do with, as
he pleases. He can have mercy on you or not. He can save you from the world
or leave you to it. That's it. And I'll tell you this, if you ask him, he'll save you. Yeah, he will. He's promised. Yeah, he will. Are you listening? Andrew, John Thomas, I'll let
you. You old people, Dan, Marty, you
ask him, he'll hear you. He'll answer you. He'll save
you. Who's whoever should call him? Old, young, he's so good,
he's so merciful, kind. That's what Proverbs 1 says,
I've stretched out my hands and I've called all you sons of men,
all you fools. That's us, fools. The world's
got us fooled, we've got ourselves fooled. You're a pretty big fool,
aren't you, Kelly, when you fool yourself? Fool nobody else but
yourself. That was me, a fool. I called one day. I wouldn't have
called if he hadn't called me, but I called one day. Lord, have
mercy on me, please. He preached Christ and 3,000
men, women, and children, 3,000. were moved with fear, not knowing
what the Lord was going to do with them. And that's what they
all cried. What are we going to do? We've rejected God's Son. We've
rejected the truth. We've lived all our lives thinking
we're something, we're nothing. What are we going to do? And
here's what Simon said. Now look at verse 38. Here's
where he didn't quit preaching. He kept preaching. Repent. What's repent mean? It means
call on the Lord. It means cry unto the Lord. It
means plead with the Lord. Plead for mercy. It means this.
This is what repentance is. God be merciful to me. I'm a
sinner. Have mercy on me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of thy tender
mercy. Blot out my transgression. Wash me throughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight.
All my day I'm just sinning in your face. Lord, please have
mercy on me for Christ's sake. Repent. Repentance is toward
God. Faith is toward the Lord Jesus
Christ. Repent means to turn. That's what it means. Turn from
yourself. You may come to Christ and say,
deny yourself. Deny any good in yourself. Deny
any worth in you. Deny that you're not worth saving. Deny yourself. Turn from self. Turn from the
world. He said come out from among them. Turn from them. And be baptized. Every one of
you. That's what sign of peace. Every
one of you be baptized. Confess the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don't, He won't confess
you. That's what Christ said. If you're
ashamed of me, if you're ashamed to confess Him before men and
get up in front of people and confess Christ, you must not
know Jesus Christ. If you don't confess Jesus Christ
and believe His baptism, you won't be saved. That's what He
said. Didn't He say that? He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. I'm not going to qualify that.
The Lord said that, didn't He? Huh? Every one of you said, be baptized. Every one of you. No exceptions.
And I must conclude, if someone doesn't confess Christ, they
don't know Him. They're ashamed of Him. And then
he said here in verse 38, you shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost
bears witness with our spirit that we're the sons of God. The
Holy Ghost is sent by Christ to lead and guide and teach and
bless God's people and keep them from killing themselves, from
destroying themselves. He's the spirit of truth. He
leads and guides in all truth concerning Christ. He keeps showing
them Christ. He gives them a love for Christ.
He gives them a love for the gospel. He gives them a hunger
and a thirst for Christ, the Holy Spirit. And he bears witness
with their spirit. You're a child of God. He will
not bear witness with those who don't bear witness to Christ. I remember, you know, before
I confessed to the Lord, I thought I believed Him, but I had no
assurance whatsoever. And I'm not saying you get your
assurance from baptism, but I'm telling you, our Lord said, do
it. Confess me. Why wouldn't you? Okay. Lord, I will. I'll do it. And sometimes people are waiting
on a feeling or waiting on more faith or waiting on to feel more
sinful or waiting on something, you know. But we're not confessing
ourselves. We're confessing Him. When I
finally realize that, then I'll never feel just right to be baptized. But do I believe Christ? Yes,
I do. Then I'm going to confess Him.
And I'm telling you, from then on, I felt like, bearing witness
was my spirit. I'm not ashamed of it, he said. Baptism is such an old thing,
isn't it? It's been around for years, and
people scoff and mock and laugh at baptism. He was baptized and
baptized. That's so out of date and out
of fashion. and so wrongly appear on this
Methodist, this Methodist building. Do Methodists sprinkle? Is that
what they do? Sprinkle? They don't put them
in a, do they? You were a Methodist. Okay. They
had on their, they have right now out there on their sign,
congratulations so and so for your baptism. Do you understand what's wrong
with that? We're to be praising God to high
heaven if somebody confesses it. We don't congratulate people
for confessing Christ. No, no, no, no. God commands it. And if we've
done all that's required of us, it's still unprofitable service.
And it doesn't save us. But what I'm trying to say here,
and what Peter said here, save yourselves from this untoward
generation. Repent. That's old-fashioned. Well, if
you don't repent, you'll perish. Be baptized. If you don't be
baptized, don't confess Him, He won't confess you. The remission
of sins. We have sinned. We must confess
them to Christ. We must confess Him. He said
the promise is to you and your children. This is the promise.
Repent. Confess. Confess Him. Your sins will be gone, and the
gift of the Holy Spirit, you'll be led by the Spirit of God all
your day, and He'll present you faultless before the presence
of His glory. And with many other words, He
said, save yourself. Now one more time, let me say
this. We don't save ourselves, you know that. God saves us,
Christ saves us. We're saved, we're justified,
sanctified, pardoned, saved by the blood and the righteousness
of Jesus Christ our Lord. By the work of God and the Holy
Spirit in us and for us. By calling, by coming to Christ,
by believing Him, by trusting Him, by gathering together, by
hearing the Word and rejoicing, by singing these hymns from the
heart, by hearing the Gospel and loving it, you prove that
this proves He has saved you. All of this is another word for
faith. You really do believe the Lord Jesus Christ. You really
do love Him. You really do love hearing the
Gospel. Let me ask you a question. How
do you keep yourself from starving? Eat. Can you keep yourself from
going hungry? Yeah, you can. You eat. Now, did you feed yourself or
did the food bless you? You see, you don't get any credit
for eating. It's the food, isn't it? How do you keep from being thirsty? I didn't relieve my thirst, the
water did. But blessed are they that hunger
and thirst, they'll be filled. Are you hungry? Eat. Thirsty? Drink. Listen to some of these
scriptures I wrote down, cut and pasted. It took too long
for me to type. Listen to this. It's a concern
to yourself. Save yourself. Right in the book
of Genesis. Jacob called all his sons and
said, Gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which
is going to befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves
together and here I'm going to tell you what's going to happen
to you. I'm going to bless you. All sons
of Jacob, they all came to him and they gathered together. What
am I doing? Same thing. Gather together now. Come on,
gather yourselves. How are you going to hear? You're saved by hearing the gospel. How are you going to save yourself?
You come here. How are your children going to
be saved? They're going to have to hear
the gospel. If they're not here, they're not going to hear it.
If you have any control over your children at all, any influence
over your children, your grandchildren, it is your responsibility to
have them hear the gospel. If they're in your house, your
purpose in life, Your hope, your one thing that
you want for them is them to be saved. If you have any influence,
if you believe this, if you really believe that they must hear the
gospel to be saved, you will have them here to hear this gospel.
And by doing that, you will save your children. And you know you
didn't save them. You know the gospel saved them.
But they're not going to be saved if they don't hear the gospel.
Is that right? That's right. Assembly is this. Draw near together, ye that are
escaped of the nations. What we're doing right now is
so out of fashion. Millions and millions of people
I heard that, you know, so-called church attendance is just waning,
waning, waning. It used to be 40 or 50 years
ago, you know, everybody went to church of their choice. Not
anymore. It's a bunch of foolishness.
The further we get from Y2K, the further people get from,
he's not coming. Where's the promise if he's coming?
Everything continued just like it was. Don't forsake the assembly of
yourselves together. You want to save yourself? Don't
forsake the assembly of yourselves together. You hear me? You want
to be saved? The gospel is the fire of God
and salvation. Don't forsake the assembly. If
you don't, you won't be saved. If you don't come here, you won't
be saved. Is that right? Moses said, consecrate yourselves
unto the Lord, devote yourselves, total commitment, total communion,
total conformity, total commitment. You know, we give ourselves to
things in the world and we get them, we go after them, don't
we? If there's something you want, you go after it, you get
it, do you? Cost what it may, whatever time
it takes. How badly do you want to know
the Lord? How badly do you want to be in
God's kingdom? Save yourselves. You see what he's saying? He said, now, in Isaiah 8, listen
to him. He said, if you associate yourselves
with the people of this world, you'll be broken in pieces. Don't
get with them. That's a confederacy. It's a
bunch of rebels against God. Don't get with them. You'll be
destroyed with them. This is what Moses said to the
sons of Korah and all that, didn't he? He said, who's on the Lord's
side? Let him come unto me. Don't stay
with the sons of Korah. Don't do it. The earth's going
to swallow them up. And it does just that. This world swallows
people up. Swallows them up. Moses said
this man, who's on the Lord's side, let him come to me. Come
to me. I'm on the Lord's side. I'm preaching
the truth here. Come on now. If you associate
yourself, how can you? How can light have fellowship
with darkness? How? It's the most dangerous thing
in this world for believers to do is to associate themselves
with people that don't know and don't love God. You're not going
to rub off on them. Especially if you're not telling
the truth. They're going to rub off on you. Evil communications
corrupt good manners. Save yourselves. Come out from
among them. Be separate, saith the Lord.
And you'll be my son, my brother. See that? See what he said? Listen to this, Ephesians 5.
Speak to yourselves in psalms. Speak to yourselves. in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord. Anybody ever full of bitterness? I didn't mean to laugh because
I confess I get so bitter against people. Even against some of
my brethren. Like they mistreated me or this
or that. I get bitter. Get angry? Anybody ever get angry? All the enamel is about gone
off my teeth. Grinding my teeth. For whatever
reason, anger, wrath, malice, anybody?
Save yourselves from that. This gospel, this gospel is the
only thing to save us from killing somebody. Killing ourselves. Come in here and hear what God
has done for us, how patient God is with us, how long-suffering
God is with us, how God has put up with us all these years, how
God ought to just wipe us out, stuff us out. We do the same
thing we did before, and yet God has mercy and grace on me.
Come in and hear that. It softens us. It kills this
old man. It brings it. It mortifies this
old man. And that new man's grateful.
It saves you from bitterness and anger and wrath and malice
And, you know, it'll cause you to love your brethren like Christ
loved the church. Only thing will. Only thing will. You leave, you go off, you get
mad at people, you know what you'll get? Madder. And madder and madder till nobody
can sell you anything. You're just mad at the world. Right? I know it's so. Speak to yourselves. I keep telling
us this over and over again. Sing. Sing. If an evil spirit
is in you, you know, rises up in you, sing. Sing. Come thou fount of... Get in
the shower, get in the closet, start singing. I'm telling you. Have you not found it to be so? Turn off this secular crap that
just... You know, I like so much music.
I really am a lover of music. But I tell you, it gets in you
and it won't get out. There's only one way to get it
out. Rock of ages, clap for me. I'm telling you. I'll leave you
on it. I'm telling you from experience.
And this is what God says. Save yourselves. Save yourselves. Submit in yourselves one to another.
Submit in yourselves one to another in the fear of the God. This
will save marriages. This will save relationships,
brothers and sisters. Submit yourself. That is, deny
yourself. Well, you know, she didn't even
speak to me. Well, who are you? Who are you anyway? Well, I'm
me. Well, pooty poo. Should she speak
to you? Should anybody speak to you?
No. You speak to her. Submit in yourselves. Kill yourself. Mortify yourself. Hate yourself. Put that old self down, okay?
Our Lord did, didn't He? I mean, He denied Himself for
who? Gave Himself 24 hours a day for
33 years. He was blessed. He was happy. No bitterness. He says, building
up yourselves on this most holy thing. Building up yourselves.
How do you build yourself up? Well, I'll tell you what will
tear you down. This world will tear you down. You keep listening
to the world. You keep running with the world.
It will tear you down. What's the world talking about?
You got some friends out there and you talk to them. What are
they talking about? What are they talking about? The world.
And it'll just bring you down. Everything in the world is bitterness
and anguish and spirit and darkness and dimness and it's just bad.
It's just bad. It's all bad. All the news is
bad that you hear. Well, get with somebody that's
got some good news. And it'll build you up. Come
on. Get associated with somebody
that will build you up on this most holy faith. It's bad out
there, isn't it? Yeah, but God's good. Oh, look
at all the evil. No evil shall befall us. Find
you a man who's got a good report, like those Joshua and Caleb. Oh, the virus. God sent it. He's our shield. And come what
may, it's all good. Yeah, but I'm facing this. I'm facing that. God sent it.
God sent that. Say so. And this bitterness and
this fear and all this doubts and anxiousness and apprehension
will leave you. And it'll build one another up.
That's why we go through them. Because we all go through them.
We're all going through the same thing. And we're supposed to
build one another up. Build you up. I told you about
me and Donnie walking up the peaks of Otter, you know. He
wanted to quit. I said, no, come on, we're going. A little while
later, I wanted to quit. He said, no, you brought me this
far. And we had to keep exhorting one another all the way up that
peaks of Otter End. And we finally got there. And
when we got there, all that trouble just faded. And we talked about
the Lord the whole time we were on that mountain, looking around.
Look, look, look now. Oh, look over here. Built you up. Boy, it was a long
climb, wasn't it? What climb? Oh, yeah. No, it
wasn't nothing to do with that. Like that, wasn't it? Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Now hold on now. Only He's able to keep us and
present us faultless for us. If He loves us, we're loved forever.
But how do you know He loves you? How do you know He loves
you? Simon Peter. He's the one that preaches it.
He's sitting around a fire with some people. He's sitting around
a fire with the people of this world. Are you hearing me? He's
sitting around a fire with some people that hated Jesus Christ,
trying to warm himself around their fire. He's in the wrong
place. He should have been with his
disciples. He's sitting around that fire with those people that
hated Jesus Christ, laughing, scoffing, and mocking at Jesus
Christ. Look, he's dying. Look at it. There's nothing to
that. It's a Jewish fable. It wasn't unto that. And somebody
came and said, you're one of his disciples. I said, no! Hell
no, I'm not. He did it three times. And the
Lord had positioned himself, positioned Peter in such a way
that the Lord could look on him. Just a look. And the Lord looked
at him. And he broke his heart. And he
went out and wept bitterly. And for three days and nights,
he didn't know if he was a child of God or not. He thought, there's
no way, no way I could know the Lord. I denied Him. No way that
I could be a child of God. I do that. And then the message
came. The news came. He's alive. He's alive, and he sent word
for you, Simon. Simon, he said, come on back. And Simon was in a boat, and
he dove out of the boat, coat and all. And he got to that,
he swam, he drug himself to shore, he couldn't get to the Lord Jesus
Christ fast enough. And the first thing the Lord
asked him was, Simon Peter, Do you love me? Lovest thou me? Yes. How do you know? He kept coming. He kept coming. He kept coming. Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Go right back where we started.
This is where the love of God is preached, the real love of
God, the saving love of God, the eternal love of God, the
love of God that's in Jesus Christ. Outside of Christ, God's just
consuming fire. In Christ, I can tell you, if
you know Christ, if you believe Christ, if you love Jesus Christ,
smile, God loves you. Yes, sir. But if you're not in
Christ, God doesn't love you. If you're not with His people,
God doesn't love you. Keep your sense. Do you see that? Now it doesn't make sense, it's
just so. It's a contradiction to the world. That's the best I can do with
that. Okay, John, you come. Number 233.