William Cooper is how you pronounce
his name. The man talks about sinners plunged,
guilty, dying thief. There may I though vile as he. Though vile as he. Present tense,
he wrote that. Only sinners Appreciate the gospel, and I want to send her right
good hymns. All right, Luke chapter 5. This is going to be a very, very
simple, very basic message. Our visitors are not here, Mindy.
It never fails. People call and tell you they're
going to show up, and I think about them while I'm preparing
a message, you know. I think, they need to hear this. This will be good. Just what
they need to hear, and they don't show up. I'm telling you, one
hundred out of one hundred times, that's the way it happens. So
it must be for somebody else. I'll tell you who it's for. This
message is for an old sinner. So there's one of those in here.
And it's simple. Anybody can understand this message.
Very, very simple. Let's read these verses again,
all right? Well, let's read verse 29, Luke
5, 29. Levi, I made him a great feast,
made Christ a great feast in his own house. And there was
a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with
them, and their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples,
saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto
them, They that are whole need not a physician, but they that
are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners, to repent." Last week we looked at this fellow
who was a publican, Levi, Matthew. A publican, we saw, was a rotten
fellow. I mean, no good. Rotten to the
core. They extorted money from their
their own people. They got rich off their own people. Nobody liked publicans. Nobody
liked publicans. They were kind of like politicians. Nobody liked the publicans. They
had to have them. Like I said, politicians. They
were kind of like lawyers. Worse yet, they were kind of
like preachers. They likened publicans, they
grouped publicans. When they talked about publicans,
they said publicans and sinners. One and the same, almost like
publicans is the worst. They talked about publicans and
even harlots, talked about them in the same sentence, publicans
and harlots and sinners. Well, when Christ called this
fellow. It says in verse 28 and 29, he
left all, he left everything. He rose up and followed him,
followed Christ. And it says Levi, this publican,
made him a great feast in his own house. A great feast, had
a huge eating in his own house. And there was a great company,
the scripture said, of publicans and others, publicans and others. You can't imagine what the others
were like. Here's this big group of—you
see, Levi, he was rotten, and he invited all his rotten friends. Everybody in this place was a
bad apple. And others, a great company of
them. This whole house was full of
these despicable, lowlife people. Can you imagine what a crowd
this was? This was not a group of people that you'd want. This
is not a party, a place that you'd want to go or have your
daughter or son go. That's right. And yet, Jesus Christ was sitting
right in the middle of it, eating and drinking wine. And the religious people, these
religious people saw this and they just, they couldn't believe
it. They could not believe this,
that this was happening. Now I'm talking Jesus Christ,
the holy. Listen to me now. Jesus Christ,
the holy, righteous. God manifest in the flesh, God
who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity, hateth it. It
absolutely repulses his nature. God, the holy, righteous, sinless
Son of God was sitting right in the middle of this group of
people. I'm in a place, right now, you wouldn't much want to
be in this crowd. Just being honest with you, I
wouldn't probably. The conversation that was going
on, Kind of like going to M.W.' 's stand. Kind of like going
to M.W.'s. That's exactly what it was like.
Did you know this is where you'd find Christ every time? If you wanted to find the Lord
Jesus Christ, you'd find Him sitting in the middle of a bunch
of people like this. Every time. Now listen to me now. That means that holiness must
be something different than what we think it is. That means Christianity, being
a good Christian, must be something different than what most people
think it is. must make a man act somewhat
different than most people think it makes him act. Am I right? I'm talking about
the Holy Son of God right in the middle of these people. You
say, well, he came to save them all. No, no, he didn't either.
He didn't come to save them all. He came to save, but not all
of them. There's another scripture that
I love and another fellow in here loves. a great deal, it says common
people heard him gladly. Common people heard him gladly. Who's common people? Well, back
then it had been construction workers, blacksmiths. Anybody, you ever met a blacksmith?
It's a machinist. That's what it is to me. It's
a machinist. spitting and a cussing and a
chewing and, you know, just mean as snakes. Chew nails. Blacksmith. I know one fellow
that does my shooing for me. I wouldn't want to go to a party
with him. I'm telling you, I wouldn't want to sit down and eat with
him. He can shoo my horse. But I don't want to eat with
him. Blacksmiths, that's who it was, construction workers,
common people. Blacksmiths, fishermen, longshoremen,
that's teamsters. That's who that is, Joe. Teamsters. Is there one out of a hundred
that you go home with? Teamsters. Truckers. Is there? They're a rotten bunch, aren't
they? Turn on your CB. It says they heard him gladly. They loved to hear him preach. That means preaching must be
something different than what fellows are doing today. They
love to come hear Jesus Christ preach. Blacksmiths, construction
workers, let's go hear the preacher. He must be saying something that
other people aren't saying. You follow me? Not me. Follow him. They love to come
here. He must be saying something different
than what the average preacher. I'll tell you what happened here.
When Christ would preach, this is what would happen. Religious
people, good man, hated it. Religious people. I mean good
Sabbath-keeping, respectable Religious people hated what he
had to say. And common people, boy, I like
that. Yes, sir. Oh, man, let's go. Let's hear
him. It must be something different
then than what our generation is doing, right? Going to church
and the preacher and preaching and all that must be. People do something wrong, aren't
they? They're doing something wrong. Well, here Christ sat right in
the middle of this crowd, a lowlife. And look at verse 30. It says,
Their scribes, he sat down with these publicans and others, and
their scribes and Pharisees murmured. Their scribes. Theirs. Every
one of them had a preacher. They were all religious. Publicans
went to church, too. Their scribes. You see that,
John? their preacher, their priest, their rabbi, their rector, their
reverend. It says they murmured. Read on. Their scribes and Pharisees
murmured against his disciples. They were afraid of him, Christ. They couldn't answer him. They
didn't deal with him. They murmured against them. They
went to them. Do you notice that? Every time
they go up to them. murmured against, said something
to them. If they said something to him, he put them to shame.
Well, evidently, you see, his disciples were right here with
him, weren't they? You see that? Tracy, you see
that evidently? Well, Levi was there, we know
that. And evidently, his disciples were right in the middle of this
group with Christ, sitting with these publicans and sinners,
eating and drinking. And these religious fellows murmured
against them. Have you ever heard this murmuring?
I've heard it. I hear it all the time. Can you believe that? I cannot believe that. Did you
see that? Can you believe the murmuring? They're supposed to be Christians. Look what they're doing. Look where they're at. Look at
that. Can you believe that? And they said to them, they talked
to the disciples, verse 30, they said to them, why are you eating
and drinking with publicans and sinners? Talking to the people,
to these disciples. Why do you eat and drink with
publicans and sinners? Huh? Who else are you going to eat
with? I don't know, it comes right down
to it. Well, you can eat with no good gutter sinners or churchgoing
sinners, you know, but they're all sinners. You know, really, if you think
about it, who else are they going to eat with? Even if the man ate alone, he
said, well, I'll eat alone. He's eating with a sinner. He's
eating with the most rotten, the chief of sinners. And you
know this is what many religious groups do, though, you know,
they try to separate themselves from this world of sinners. Many
religious groups of people live to themselves or think they are.
And when they're, when really they're the worst, that's the
worst sort of sinners, these separatists. It's another word
for self-righteousness. God hates that word. Can I be very blunt here? Our
Lord did. God hates it worse than prostitution. I'm not condoning that. Goodness,
that's a vile, despicable thing, but Christ said that publicans
and harlots will get into the kingdom of heaven before Pharisees
and scribes. Well, Christ answered for these
They talked to the disciples, and Christ answered for them.
Now, right there's a good lesson in this. Isn't that a good lesson,
John? The Word answered for you. They can't stand up to the Word.
They can put you down. They can make you, you know,
belittle you and make you ashamed and leave you without answers,
but not the Word. He's going to answer them in
their folly. Well, Christ answered them, verse
31. Jesus answered and said unto them, They that are whole need
not a physician, but they that are sick. They that are whole need not
a physician, but they that are sick. In other words, modern
language, people that are healthy and well don't need a doctor.
only the sick. Now, if I announced this morning, if I stood up and announced this
morning that there is a physician, there is a physician, just one,
but there is a physician who heals leprosy. I mean, completely heals all
lepers. Are you interested? I don't have leprosy. All right,
there's a physician who heals smallpox, completely gets rid
of smallpox. Who's interested? There is a physician, there's
only one, but there is a physician who heals completely, eradicates,
completely heals. makes completely healthy all
who have tuberculosis. Bubonic plague. You know, if I told his name,
everybody in here would forget it. A fellow named George Simonovich
heals leprosy. All lepers, completely healed.
George Simonovich. Thirty minutes later, you will
have totally forgotten his name. Right? You don't have leprosy. You don't have tuberculosis.
Right? Well, if I announced there was
a physician who cures cancer, now, some people might get real
interested. Right? Some people, if they even
heard the mention that there's a cure for cancer, Man, they'd
clamor to get here. I'm going to announce this morning
that there's a cure for cancer. I'm going to announce for the
whole world. You'd think this county wouldn't hold to people. Right? AIDS. There's a physician. There's one physician who can
absolutely eradicate AIDS completely, totally. And his name is... Be dying to hear his name, wouldn't
they? Be clamoring to hear his name,
to get to him. I'll tell you where he's at. But nobody in here is interested
now. Well, what if I said that every
one of us had cancer? We do. Everybody in here, young and
old, has AIDS. We do. Yes, we do. Cancer is a flesh-eating thing. It consumes flesh until it kills
you, destroys you. AIDS is where your immune system
is totally broken down. You can't fight off anything.
We've got it. We have it, young and old. It's
called sin. And it's eaten, we're eaten up
with it. And if somebody doesn't do something
about it, it's going to kill us. God's going to kill us. And
AIDS, we have an acquired immune deficiency syndrome. We're not
immune to any temptation, anything of the flesh. We acquired it
from Adam. Just say no? Well, that's good advice, just
say no to drugs, but I'm telling you, unless God does something
for you, you can't say no. You can't say no. And even if
you do say no to drugs, you can't say no to the temptations of
sin. You can't do it. And you'll fall in a gutter.
that you may never get out of unless somebody picks you out
of it. I don't know. I'm telling
you from experience. This world. See, I'll never fall
prey to this world. You know, I'll never, you know,
you young girls, I'll never, I'll never this, I'll never that,
you'll never what? By the grace of God, you'll never. But by the sovereign grace of
God, plucks you as a bran from the burning. That's the only
way. Well, it says that only the sick need
a physician. You know, there may be somebody
in here with physical cancer and doesn't know it, right? Experts say that there are literally
millions who have AIDS and don't know. The symptoms haven't started
showing themselves yet. They say there are millions that
have AIDS, a fatal disease you're going to die from, that don't
know it. That's the way it is with sin,
too. You know, most people don't know it. Most people don't know
it. They don't know it. All right, look over at Revelation
3 with me. Revelation 3. Our Lord said only
the sick need a physician. Only the sick. Revelation 3.
You know, this is a mercy of God to show a man, show a woman,
show a young person just how sick they are, sin sick. Revelation
3. And here's a great, here's a
real, here's the problem. Our Lord says in Revelation 3
concerning some that don't know they are this way, look at verse
17. You got it? Revelation 3, verse
17? It says, Because you say, I am
rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. And
no, it's not. You don't know that you're wretched,
miserable, poor, blind, naked. Because you say you're rich and
increased with goods and have need of nothing. Now here's the
problem. Here's the problem. People don't know they have this
deadly disease called sin because they're rich and increased with
goods. Number one, material goods. Material goods is material good. This generation,
this is the most affluent generation ever. You can talk about Rome,
you can talk about ancient Athens, Greece and these societies, Persians
and so on with all their affluence, never, never has there been a
generation like the United States of America that's more affluent.
And I'm talking about us. That has more things, rich and
increased with goods. And so, who has time for God? Ain't nobody got time for God.
Too much to see, too much to do. You know, life's a game.
He who ends with the most toil is wins. Life's a game. Rich increase with goods. Never
been a people with more riches, yet poorer toward God. Listen to this riddle from the
Proverbs. See if you understand what this
riddle means. Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. gave this
riddle. He said, There is he which maketh
himself rich, yet hath nothing. And there is he which maketh
himself poor, yet has much riches. Material things. Rich and increased
with good. Moral goods. Scripture talks
about He says they are rich and increased with goods, material
goods and moral goods, people who have a personal goodness,
self-righteousness. The radio message this morning
was on that subject, people going about to establish their own
righteousness, Romans 10. There has never been a more religious
generation than this one, has there? There has never been a
more affluent. materially wealthy generation, there's never been
a more religious generation than this one. Look at the church
houses, so-called. Every corner, literally, on every
corner, never been a more religious generation than this. A zeal
for God and Jesus, never been more zeal in the name of Jesus,
going about to establish a righteousness, yet they know not, Revelation
3 says, they know not that they're wretched. Wretched. Miserable. Miserable. Don't know they're
miserable. Say they're happy and jealous. My pastor always
says that most people have just enough religion to make everybody
around them miserable. And make themselves miserable,
you know. Know not that they're wretched,
miserable, poor, blind, and naked. They know not. They know not.
They know not. They know not. Our Lord said, and I'll go back
to the text there. He said, the well don't need
a physician, but they that are sick. We don't go to a doctor
unless we're sick, do we? I mean, really sick. I remember
this one. Who was that Dr. Mindy that said, told us this? Some doctor we knew said that,
he said this. He said, after treating all these,
you know, thumbnail, hangnails and and sore throats and sprained
ankles and, you know, all these serious problems that people
would come to him for. He said he was tempted. He said
he was tempted one time to go out there in the waiting room
and say, Is there anybody out here who's really sick? I mean,
really sick. I'll see you. Otherwise, everybody
would go home and take two aspirins. Now that was back when they weren't
so money hungry, you know, that was back when. Now they want
to see everything mailed. Thirty-five dollars, thirty-five.
Seventy-five dollars, at least. Unless you have insurance, then
it'll be thirty-five. Unless you don't have insurance, then
it'll be thirty-five. Well, it says they don't know. Don't know. parents raised us in our family,
that they just did not take us to the doctor unless, you know,
unless our arm was hanging by one ligament, severed, practically
severed. And then, you know, even then
they tried the doctor at first. And that's just so. And so if
you people, if you call me up, I want you to understand When
you call me up sometimes trying to get my sympathy for whatever,
you know, I'm not going to, you know, I'm this. And if I don't
react just as, if I don't empathize with you the way you think I
ought to, understand it's my mother's fault. It's my father's
fault. We just didn't go to the doctor
unless it's, let me tell you about my doctor. This is true. This is true. My family doctor
growing up. As the song leader in our church,
he was his doctor, too. And he went to him one time and
had a knot on his neck. He had a knot on his neck, and
he said to the doctor, he said, he said, Dr. So-and-so, he said,
I'm concerned about this knot on my neck. He said, let me look
at it. And he looked at it, and he said, well, I'll tell you
what. He said, you go home, he said, and you come back. He said,
if it gets to the point where everybody's asking you, what's
that knot on your neck? Come back and save me. We'll
cut it. That was my family doctor. If
it gets to the point where somebody asks you, what's that knot on
your neck? Then come on back. So, you know, we only went to
the doctor if it was serious. And all kidding aside, all joking
aside, all that aside, this gospel is for the serious. This is serious. This gospel is for sinners. I'm not talking about people
who have marital problems. Marital problems. I see that
all the time. People want my advice and so
forth. One young couple came to me.
They were wanting to get married, and they said, We want to have
a Christian marriage. Well, that's good. I'd like for you to have
one, too. But I told them, I said, You've
got to be a Christian before you can have a Christian marriage. And both of them, I said, I was
just blunt with them. They said, Neither one of you
know Christ. How are you going to have a Christian marriage?
I said, I'll tell you what, I said, this Wednesday night, I said,
I'll marry you if you keep coming. If you keep coming to hear the
gospel, I'll marry you. If you keep coming to hear the
gospel and hope the Lord will save both of you, make you a
husband, make you what a husband ought to be, make a wife what
a wife ought to be. Christian, that's the only kind of true
wife or true husband there is. If you keep coming to hear the
gospel, we're going to have a service this Wednesday night. That was
on a Tuesday. We'll have a service Wednesday night. And you keep
coming, show me you're really interested in having a Christian
marriage. Is that hard? Was I being hard
on them? You reckon they were there Wednesday
night? No, sir. They weren't serious. Are they
still married? They got married anyway. Are
they married now? No, sir. It lasted about six
months. This is serious. Oh, preacher,
I've got marital problems. Well, come to church. Go to a marriage counselor. I've got financial problems.
Well, there's a loan officer down in First Virginia that will
get you on a budget, you know. I've got drinking problems. AAA has a meeting down at the
basement of the Lions Club. Thursday night, go there. I hear
they're doing great things. I'm a sinner. I can't do anything
but sin. Hey, I've got good news. You see,
this gospel is for sinners. Now, I'm talking about religious
or irreligious. And persons that realize they
have a sin problem. Romans 7 center, that's what
I'm talking about. You know what a Romans 7 center
is? Let me tell you what a Romans 7 center is. I'll quote Romans
7 for you. Here's a Romans 7 center, or
a Psalm 38 center. You know what a Psalm 38 center
is, John? You sure do. You quoted it to
me. Here's a Romans 7 center who
says, I am sold under sin. That which I do, what I do is
what I don't want to do. And what I would, what I want
to do, I can't seem to do it. What I hate, that's what I do. He says, I in me dwelleth no
good thing. Oh, wretched man. that I am. Here's a man who knows
he's wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Preacher, I
don't understand the Bible. I'm hearing this over here. I'm
hearing that over there. I don't see. I don't understand. I'm blind. Hey, got a serious
sinner here. And there's none so blind as
religious blind. Our Lord said, because you say,
you see. Religious people have got all
the answers, don't they? All these people that ask me questions,
they're not asking for information. No, they're not asking me questions
for information. They're wanting to trip me up
and wanting to tell me something. But for a serious seeker, A serious
sinner, blind, wretched. And you know who it takes to
make a man wretched in his own eyes? Miserable? Poor? Poor in spirit? Blind? I don't
understand. I just don't understand. Naked? Naked takes the Spirit of God, that's
it. There's an old wise preacher of the gospel who once said this.
See if you can understand that. He said, A sinner is a sacred
thing. The Holy Spirit hath made him
so. Do you understand what that means? A sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Spirit hath made him
so. John 16, 9 through 11 says when he comes, he will convince
That's sin, righteous judgment. Well, you know, like I said,
religious and irreligious. Christ said He didn't come to
call the righteous. Look at the next verse. He said,
I didn't come to call the righteous, here in Luke 5, verse 32, but
sinners to repentance. Sinners to repentance. Not the
righteous, self-righteous, that is. There's none righteous. Scripture
says there's none righteous, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Huh? That's what it says, Psalm 14,
Romans 3. It says there's none righteous. No, not one. There's
none that do it good. No, not one. Well, Christ said,
I didn't come to call the righteous. Well, there are no righteous.
Well, there's some who think there are. Well, he said, I didn't come
to call them that think they're righteous. But sinners, those who know themselves
to be nothing but sinners. And do you know, a man can be
self-righteous sitting on a bar stool as much as he can sitting
in a church house. I'm not just talking. I've run
into them. I've run into them. I've heard
them, you know, slobbering and slurring their speech, saying,
I'm just as good as those down at that church house. Yeah, granted,
yes you are. Have you ever seen any of those?
They're just as self-righteous, huh? I'm just as good as they
are. That's right. No good. Because there's none
yet. Huh? That's like that fellow
told his wife one time. She wanted him to go to church
with her. He said, I ain't going down there with those bunch of
hypocrites. She said, well, come on, one more hypocrite won't
hurt. Come on, one more won't hurt. You know, God looks on every
human being, whether they're sitting in a pew or sitting on
a barstool, there's no good. in themselves. Is that too hard? There's none righteous, no, not
one. God said that. It says in Psalm
14, look down upon the children of men to see if there were any
that did seek after God. He said they'd all together become
filthy. The word means stinking. There's
none that doeth good, no, not one. There's none righteous,
he said. Not one. So a man can be self-righteous
on a bar stool or in the church house. And salvation is when
God makes a man realize this. This is what salvation is. God
makes a man realize that they aren't worth saving, whether
they're religious or irreligious. God makes a man realize that
they're no good. They're just no good. Whether
they're dressed up, no good, or dressed down, no matter where
they're sitting. They're no good. A woman, whether
she's on the street or in the pew, God makes them realize they're
no good. This gospel talks about mercy. And it's the reason this building's
not full. This gospel talks about mercy.
What's mercy? Well, those people on Bethel
Row right now would love to have some mercy. They know what mercy
would be if Governor Jim Gilmore would say, we've decided to have
mercy and pardon you. You're going to die today at
7 a.m. But, Governor Jim says, Governor
Jim who's rich in mercy says, set him free. and you who were dead and trespassed
in sin, but God who is rich in mercy." Mercy is for the guilty. This building is not full because
there is nobody guilty. This gospel talks about grace.
What is grace? It is a handout. That is a good
definition of grace. It is a handout. God—everything about us is a
handout. It comes from his hand, by his grace,
isn't it? A man can receive nothing except
it be given him. We're charity cases. Yes, sir. Grace. Grace. People don't like
that. It's the independent society,
you know. I don't think Grace, this gospel for helpless,
no-can-doers. Not do-gooders, no-can-do-gooders. That's who this gospel is for.
And so consequently, the building is not full. Peace. The gospel talks about peace.
Peace, peace, peace. God hath said peace, let peace
toward John date. Peace. What's peace for? Who's peace for? Let's ask this fellow named Lefebvre. Now, he's the son of Saul. And
there's a fellow named David sitting on the throne. David,
the rightful king, God's king, God's anointed, God's elect,
sitting on the throne. There's this fellow named Saul,
who was a rotten, no-good bum. God killed him. Who thought he
was king. Everybody followed him. Saul,
Saul, Saul. Well, God killed him. God hated
him. God despised him. Well, Saul had a son. His name
was Lefebvre. And every time a king got on
the throne, he just wiped out everybody that was in that other
king's family. Just killed them all. Couldn't
have insurrection, you know. Couldn't have somebody rising
up and wanting to be king. Kill them all. Kill them all.
David did. Killed every one of Saul's sons.
But one. An old lame fellow sitting down
in a shack named Phipps here. King sent two of his trustee
servants down and said, go down and apprehend, lay hold on him,
carry him all the way up here to the house, sit him right beside
me at the table. I got some good news for him.
And boy, when they got a hold of him and fed him a shift, he
thought, I'm done. I'm done. I'm King Saul's son. He's going to kill me like he
did my brothers. And they brought him up there and he thought,
surely he's going to slay me. King David's going to slay me. Here
he is, he wants to see me, he's going to cut my head off." And
King David said, "'Mathemasheth?' He said, "'Yes.'" He said, "'I'm
going to have mercy on you for Jonathan's sake.'" That's the kind of sinners God
saved. Peace. "'Mathemasheth?' Peace
toward you for the blood of Jonathan's sake.'" Sit right down here, you'll be
one of my sons. And Mephibosheth, look at this, look at what our
Lord says, "...came not to call righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Here's repentance. Here's repentance. Mephibosheth
said, well, somebody finally gave me my due. Somebody finally
recognized me for what I'm worth. He loved me because I ought to
be loved. Huh? After all, there's some
good in me, and I just need to be brought out, you know. I just
need to be reformed. Ah, yes, I can add something
to King David's court. I have something to add. Here's what my pivot chef said.
Who am I? That you should show such mercy
to a dead dog. I'm roadkill." That's what he
said. Dead dog. Didn't he say it? He stopped on the side of the
road and picked up this dead dog. Go learn what that repentance
is. That's repentance. That's repentance. And, you know,
let me say this, too. I've got to say this. That's
realizing what you are. That's repentance. That's when
God, the Holy Spirit, makes a man or woman realize what they are.
And he has to do it for you, whether you're in the gutter
or whether you're in the pew. Let me give you an example of
this. My sister and I were poles apart
growing up. My sister, when she became a
teen, she was a model child. My sister was a model child.
I mean, just everything admirable in a young girl, a daughter,
and just obedient and respectful and disciplined and responsible
and just everything. She won everything, award in
school and obedient to the parents, loved them, a dutiful daughter
and all that, went to services every time she could, you know,
raised up sitting in a pew and just a fine, fine girl. But one day, through the preaching
of the gospel, God convicted her of her sin. See, her sin
was she thought she was a fine girl.