Well, it's so good to see you.
I want to tell you a little story, and then we're going to go to
John 3. I was sitting on deck 14 near
the pool when I was approached by a man who said to me, hi,
I'm Chuck. Looking me square in the eyes,
he said, may I sit down and talk with you? I was working on my
book, The Poverty Pimp and God's Purpose. And I said, you may,
Chuck, have a seat. And Chuck had been drinking a
bit. In fact, he had a glass in his
hand. And after sitting down with a,
I think he said it's a gin and tonic. I think that's what he
said. He said, so Kent, what do you
want to talk about? I was caught off guard. I thought
he wanted to talk to me. And I said, OK, let's talk about
God. Chuck said, I'm an atheist and
about as liberal as any man you've ever met. Oh, really, I said, smiling.
So you're one of those guys who are in favor of killing babies,
same-sex marriage, entitlement, and you believe that you are
the accidental formation of gas and dust. Chuck said, I perceive you are
a religious conservative. I said, Chuck, you perceive wrong.
I hate religion. I'm a Christian. Well, Chuck
said, I don't believe in your God. I believe in science. I believe in education. I smiled
and said, Chuck, is your mother alive? He looked at me and big
tears welled up in his eyes. And he said, no, she's gone.
But you would have liked her. She was an old time Methodist.
I imagine, I said to Chuck, she was a godly woman. She was a
good mother. I've been blessed, he said. I
said, Chuck, Are you ever going to see your mother again?" He
said, no, never. That's sad, I said. Chuck said
to me, oh, I know what's coming now. You're going to tell me
about the resurrection. Do you know anyone that's come
back from the grave? I said, only one. He said, have
you seen him? I said, I sure have. As a matter
of fact, I have. You saw Jesus?" I said, I've
seen Him many times. By faith, I said, I've been to
Calvary. Chuck was getting a bit upset. Don't start that faith stuff.
There's no proof. Oh, Chuck, but there is. Faith
is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things
not seen. Chuck said, now Kent, I can tell
you're an educated guy. You can't believe that garbage. I said, Chuck, let me tell you
about garbage. You have on a $10,000 to $20,000
Rolex. Do you know what makes that watch
so expensive? I said, well, if you took the
back off of that watch, you'd see all kinds of little wheels
turning, little springs. Lots of little minute things
that make up that $20,000 Rolex. And it works to precision. I
said, now Chuck, do you know what makes that watch so expensive? Well, yes, Chuck said to me.
It's a Rolex. I said, now Chuck, that watch
is expensive because that thing has been coming together for
the past 20 billion years. and to think of how it accidentally
formed itself and is yet precise in its timekeeping makes it very,
very valuable. Now, Chuck, that's garbage. I
said, Chuck, I have to meet my wife for dinner. I've enjoyed
talking with you and would like to give you a little book I wrote
entitled Foreknown if you would give me your cabin number. Ken,
I'd like that. My cabin number is 8130. We shook hands and I began to
walk away. Chuck hollered at me, put your
address in the front of the book. I'm going to send you a thousand
dollars. But I still don't believe in
your God. I said, Chuck, my grandmother
was a Methodist. I love the Wesleyan hymns. Chuck said, oh, you know about
those guys? I said, yes, I know them, Chuck. Men like Charles
Spurgeon, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, and John Calvin, great
preachers of the gospel. Calvin, Chuck said, his ears
perked up, you're not a Calvinist, are you? He said, you know, there's not
many of them left. I said, Chuck, I'm a five-point
Calvinist. I believe you found me sitting here by this pool
because God predestined it to happen. You're not here by accident."
Chuck began a phony, fake laugh. You know, you can tell when a
guy's really not laughing. And he said, so that's your flavor.
You're a Calvinist. You really believe God predetermined
this meeting? I said, what do you think, Chuck?
There are 3,100 passengers on this ship, 1,100 employees on
this ship, and you walk up to me and say, let's talk. By the
way, Chuck, when you said your mother was a good woman, you
said you'd been blessed. Who blessed you? Chuck said, I only meant I was
fortunate. So you're a Calvinist. You believe
in predestination. So, he said, Kent, you don't
believe in helping the less fortunate. You only believe in helping the
predestinated. You're anti-entitlement. He wasn't
too drunk. I mean, he was pretty sharp.
Chuck, I didn't say I didn't believe in helping the poor.
Well, you don't. You don't believe in entitlement.
You don't believe in helping the less fortunate. I said, it's
true. I don't believe in entitlement,
but there's a big difference between helping a person who's
trying to get ahead and a person who can work and won't. Chuck
said, Tim, do you know what I do? No, but I'm sure I'm about to
find out. What do you do? He said, well,
I cruise. I drink liquor. and give away
scholarships to unfortunate children's causes. I'm a millionaire." Oh,
I said, Chuck, now I know why God sent you to me. He ignored what I just said and
continued telling me his answer to the world's problems was educating
children. Education's the answer to humanity's
ills," Chuck said. I said, Chuck, do you know what
the Bible says about the atheist? No, Chuck said. But I got a feeling
you're about to tell me. I said, the Bible says the fool
has said in his heart, no God for me. Kent, I don't believe
in your God. So, Kent, tell me what you do. and stop trying to convert me.
Chuck, this predestitarian is a pastor. I'm pastor of an inner
city church. I'm pastor of a homeless shelter.
We have a $5.7 million budget getting people back into the
mainstream of life through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We actually
see folks go from homelessness to home ownership, something
government can't do. Chuck goes, I should have known. You're a preacher. Well, he said,
why aren't you wearing your God collar backwards? He's looking
me square in the eye. I mean, the guy's looking me
square in the eye. He said, I know why you're not wearing that God
collar. You snuck off down here with us liquor drinking heathens
to get away from all that religion. Chuck said, patting me on the
shoulder, it's okay, I won't tell anybody you're down here. Then again, I said, Chuck, I've
got to meet my wife for dinner. He gave me his cabin number and
told me he was going to send us $1,000 once again. I shook
his hand, turned away, and as I got about 20 feet from him,
He said, I still don't believe in your God. And I never saw
Chuck again on that ship. But I just have a feeling I'm
going to see Chuck again. I dropped the book off at his
room and left it there by the door. Went back to make sure
it was gone, and it was. So somewhere, There's a gin and
tonic Chuck reading about the amazing grace
of God to poor sinners in Christ Jesus. Wherever you go, wherever you
are, don't be ashamed of the gospel. And God will send His
elect and cross the path of the elect. I know Chuck didn't have
any idea when he walked up to me and said, may I sit down and
talk with you, that we were going to have that kind of talk. Somewhere
there's a millionaire who now knows about Grace Centers of
Hope. Who knows about the doctrines of grace that are the most compassionate,
the most helping, The most blessing truth of the Word of God. God's
grace. That God actually could have chose Chuck before
the foundation of the world. Chuck who was lost in his inheritance
from his very, very wealthy father. Just traveling around on cruises. Trying to find somebody to talk
to. out of loneliness. Gin and tonic
was his comforter. But he found out about a God
who's real. I never, ever frowned at Chuck. I never rebuked Chuck as to his
language. I never gave any evidence that
I was religious, because I'm not. Many, many people in church.
Men and women like Chuck can't get near because we're so stinking
religious. Christ came to save sinners.
Don't go out there trying to find good folks. Trying to find
a real bona fide sinner. So, let's go to John chapter
3. You remember last time I went
on vacation. I met a very, very wealthy lady.
Sure as shooting, God's going to give us clutch cargo. Somebody's
going to pay for that. It sure is a whirl. John chapter 3. This is one of
the most well-known chapters of the Bible where our Lord is
talking to Nicodemus and saying to him, you have to be born again.
And I want us to look at verse 6. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. And that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. There is no more important truth
for the sinner and the saint. than the two messages that I
shall bring to you this Sunday and next. Important for the sinner
to know he has not the nature of Christ. And important for
the saint to know that he does have the nature of Christ. You
see, the saint has been born twice. The sinner has been born
once. And that which is flesh is just
flesh. Are you following me? The flesh
of a godless man or woman or child is dangerous and desperately
wicked. Who can know it? There are folks
sitting in here this morning in this service who is nothing
but sin. That's all you are. You've been born of flesh and
you're nothing but flesh. That's all. You have no check.
Only a man in a blue suit with a badge and a gun. That's the
only check you have. If there were no laws, no police
officers, and you could do what you do, it would only be sin.
The flesh of a godless individual is like the troubled sea, the
Bible says, casting up its mire and dirt. Romans 3, I think,
is an adequate description of flesh. Let's go over there and
let me read just a few passages. Romans 3.10. As it is written, there is none
righteous. If there is none righteous, no,
not one, what is the opposite of righteous? Unrighteousness. All flesh is flesh. There is none that understandeth.
How many? There is none that seeketh after
God. How many? They are all gone out of the
way. How many? They are together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is
an open sepulcher. You ever smell rotting flesh? That's the way God describes
the way you are outside of the new birth. You're a stench in
the nostrils of a holy God. You're just flesh. With their tongues they view
deceit, they're liars. The poison of Asp is under their
lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is
no reverence. of God before their eyes. No reverence of God, Jack. No reverence of God. No fear
of God before their eyes. That's the flesh. You see, those
of you who are here and you're over at the center and you're
going through the program, there's no hope for you in the program.
Because there's nothing to work with there. You don't have a
conscience. You're just wicked. You have no check. You'll use
again. People often say to me, Pastor,
are you disappointed about so-and-so relapsing? Not so much disappointed
yet. Let's see if they come back.
Let's see if anything happened while they were here. Let's see
if they've got a check. where they cannot continually
do what they once did. Let's see if they have been born
of the Spirit of God. That which is flesh is flesh. Who can adequately describe that
which lies in the flesh of an unregenerate human being? It's
like a rattlesnake in the baby's bed. Flesh, alien to all righteousness
and holiness. and goodness, flesh that is pure
darkness with no light. There's no light in you. Without
Christ, there is no light in you. You live in that dark cellar
of self, impurity unmixed with that which is pure and right
and holy. The flesh is dead to God. Chuck
could say, I don't believe in your God. There was no check.
Although God could be doing something with His unregenerate spirit
in bringing him to me, you see. He's either going to get saved
or give us money, one or the other. There was some purpose
for God to bring him to me. I went back to my room and I
said to Pam, you're not going to believe what just happened
to me. This fool just walked up to me. And asked me if I wanted
to talk. And then asked me what I wanted
to talk about. I really get away on vacation
so I don't have to talk. The will of the flesh is enslaved
to itself. That's why you go through this
battle in your addiction. But you're not battling good
versus evil. You're just battling and have
a hatred for that which bit you. And the pain it brought you don't
like, but the feeling it brings you love. And so you're just
fighting yourself. And you die mean and ornery and
hateful and no joy. Not many of you this morning
have been freed from the captivity that chains you. That addiction
that chains you. The pain and the hurt and the
misery may give you twinges of desire to escape, but you cannot,
because you're without strength. You're dead within yourself.
You are dead to God. Dead, but alive to sin, because
that's what you are. You're nothing but a sinner with
no life. How long have you felt misery?
Since you were 15? Hating and loving the very fleshly
things that bind you. Loneliness, just you and the
total disgust within. Blaming others while rabid yourself. Totally, completely controlled
by evil within. You consist of nothing but fallen
human nature. Void of spiritual life. Your
aspirations, your motives and desires are all darkness. That which is flesh is flesh. You must be born again. This is what the Bible teaches.
This is the desperate situation. I can dunk you. I can write your
name on the church roll. And you'll still go to hell. Because something has to happen
to you. A miracle has to take place.
The Bible says, in sin did my mother conceive me. How many
preachers I've heard take that text and say, this is a woman
who's committed adultery. This is not talking about a woman
committing adultery. This is talking about, let me
illustrate it this way. We were talking to Amber on the
way home from the airport and she was saying, Hayden is just
so at point self-willed. And Hayden is this and Hayden
is that. And sometimes I have to just
say to Darren, you're going to have to handle her, I'll kill
her. And I said, Amber, wonder where
she got all those traits? He said, oh, in sin. He's talking about that you came
out of the womb a rattlesnake. Your mama and your daddy were
rattlesnakes. Your grandma and your grandpa
were rattlesnakes. They were sinners. Poor Fido. He always gets blamed for stealing
the cookies. It was the dog that did it. Johnny,
were you in that cookie jar? No, mama. Fido. And sometimes
we go, isn't that cute? You know what that is? That's
flesh. It starts to leak out real quick. It's not cute. It's a lie. That's flesh. That which is born
of flesh is just flesh. I was thinking last night, oh
God, save our children. Wouldn't it have been wonderful,
before you ever took that first drink, before you ever had that
needle in your arm, before you ever tasted heroin or cocaine
or whatever your drug of choice is, wouldn't it have been wonderful
if you had been born again at eight years old and have never
experienced all of that. That's what we ought to be praying
for here. We just don't have a Sunday school
and a nice little kids program downstairs. But our children
hear the gospel and they hear that they must be born again.
I even thought this morning, if I hadn't been using the language
I was using, I'd have the kids stay up just to hear this one
point. You children are sinners. Your
mom and daddy were sinners. And you're like your mom and
daddy. You come out of the oven lying. I don't know whether there's
anything to this or not, but I do know this. Babies cry when
nothing's wrong. Little liars. Little liars, nothing's
wrong. You go in there and put your
hand on them. Check the diaper, nothing there.
Lying little rascals. Don't be surprised if your children
lie. They came out of you. Remember
what you were before God found you. Remember, you didn't find God. Chuckie Baby got more than he
was looking for. Now I'll pray for him every day.
And I think about him every day since that second day on that
cruise. God, what are you doing with Chuck? Just flesh. Let's go to Romans
chapter 1. The flesh at birth is just flesh.
So, don't have big expectations of your children being righteous
and holy and good boys and girls. Again, before they're born, put
your hand on mama's belly and pray that God will born them
again in time. Because if they don't, one, it's
going to be wicked. You can't be shocked that they're
children. They're you in different flesh.
That's all. They're me. I remember when I
was a young kid and I'd done something. I can't remember what
it was. Elderly mother in Israel said to me, and you call yourself
a preacher's kid. You know what? Being a preacher's
kid didn't change my nature at all. I was wicked as I could
be being a preacher's kid. It doesn't make any difference
if mom and dad are Christians. You're just flesh. You've got
to be born again. Romans chapter 1. Now this is
adult flesh. Let's say the child has now grown. Not a child anymore. Let's look
at what the child does. I call this the blacklist. Do you know where the blacklist
is? Look at verse 29. This is an adult flesh being
filled with all unrighteousness. If you're full, can you get any
more in? No vacancies. That's what it
means to be full. It's all there, filled with all
unrighteousness. I hear people say this all the
time. I would never do that. Looking at somebody else, I would
never do that. You're about to. You're about to, because you've
got too much strutting you. What you think you'll never do,
it's there. The person you need to fear the
most, whether you're saint or sinner, is you. The flesh. Fornication. How long did that take? Thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen? Sixteen? Seventeen? When did you lose your virginity?
Fornication. Whoa now, now we're being real.
Flesh is flesh. If you think your child is going
to grow up without sexual desires, and our churches never, never
talk about it. We act like it's not there. The elephant is in the living
room, and we walk around it. Am I right? Wickedness filled with fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things. I'm telling you,
The attic is the greatest inventor. Some of you ought to put a patent
on your pipes. I remember when I first came
to Grace Centers of Hope, I saw that pop can with all the holes
in it. I said, that's his pipe. The Coke can? Yeah. I saw a guy had this, I think
I still have it because I confiscated it. It was a bunch of bolts and
nuts. A stem that was metal. That was
his pipe. What about your radio antennas? Well, some of you are going to
have to tell me some of the new ones so I can tell new stories about
that. Inventors of evil. You're going to think of something.
You're going to think of something. And you're going to think you
invented it, but somebody beat you to it already. You're not
an original inventor. Whatever sin you commit, you'll
find somebody else already has a patent on it. You're not nearly
as unique. You and I are not nearly as unique
as we act like we are. Right? You say, Pastor, I came
to church to feel good. Not this morning. No, I want
you to feel bad. And maybe some of you who are
Christians in here will say, oh, what a wonder that Jesus
found me. Maybe it will bring praise and glory to God today
because you will see you were out there in your flesh. And then lastly,
baby flesh, adult flesh, and then religious flesh. Right there
in Romans, here's what your flesh will do. By the way, all flesh
is religious. Chucky baby worshiped Chucky. That's right. He was proud of how smart he
was and how he was helping poor children. I mean, he just oozed
with pride. That's why I was trying to sink
his ship. Oh, religious. You going to worship
something? You won't worship God, but you will worship something.
Here it is. Look at Romans, chapter 1, verse
21. Because when that they knew God,
uh-oh, we already have a problem. I said to Chuck, Chuck, you know
there's a God. Then he cussed a little bit.
I said, you can do that all you want, but you know there's a
God. You know that Rolex. It didn't take 30 billion years
for that Rolex. Somebody made that watch. And somebody made you, Chuck.
I said, here we are in St. Thomas. You've just seen this
beautiful island, the different colors of the water. You can
see the bottom at 20 feet. You're on this beautiful ship.
You can't, man, look at your body, how intricately you've
been made. You can't believe that this is
all an accident. He said, yeah. And maybe I will
come back sometime. He said, you know, probably some
planet will explode. I mean, I'll go out of here as
dust and somehow be hooked up with some planet, and it'll explode
again, and I'll come back in some form. I kind of smiled at him and gave
him one of these. You're going to be religious,
though. Listen, you are either going to die worshiping a God
that you've created, or you're going to find out there's a Creator
God who came to this earth. Religious flesh always glories
in itself. Now, this may ruffle your feathers,
but that's okay too. You may be a Baptist, a Catholic,
a Methodist, or a Presbyterian and die and go to hell. It is
of the utmost importance that God receives all the glory. You're
not going to go to heaven as a Baptist. You'll go to heaven
as a Christian. You'll go to heaven through the
blood of Christ. You won't go to heaven because you went to
Mass. Because if you think you're going
to heaven simply because you've gone to Mass three or four times
a week most of your life, you're just a mess. You are indeed. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. And God's not going to have it
any other way. Two men went up to the temple to pray. Jesus
tells the story. One was a Pharisee. The other,
a publican, a tax collector. But the old Pharisee says this.
This is what the Pharisees always say. This is what flesh says.
I thank thee God, I'm not as other men are. If on your deathbed that spirit
reigns within you, you will surely perish. To God be the glory, the honor
and the praise. The prodigal son, the older brother,
The older brother's attitude was, and by the way, the story
of the prodigal son is really not about the prodigal. It's
about the older brother. Because Jesus was talking to
the Pharisees who thought themselves to be something when they were
nothing. And the elder brother goes like this, I stayed all
this time with you. You never gave, that's right,
did all the work. You never gave me a party. But
now this boy who has wasted all his inheritance comes home. You
say, kill the fatty calf. Bring forth a robe and put it
on him. A ring and shoes on his feet. What is your attitude? Is it this? God could have passed
me right by and still been God. I'm telling you, God has done
something for me I'll never get over. He saved me. He found me. He sought me. He bought me. And
He caught me. Jesus said to the Pharisees,
the flesh profits nothing. So, flesh. You say, I'm a Baptist. That's all flesh. I'm a Methodist.
I'm a Catholic. I'm a Lutheran. I'm a Presbyterian.
I'm this. I'm that. That's flesh. You can
join any church you want. As long as you meet the stipulations,
right? It's all flesh. Say, well, you know, I'm a Lutheran.
Well, I believe Luther was a Christian. I believe he found Christ to
be real as Savior and Lord, or Lord and Savior. But I don't
believe many Lutherans are saved. John Calvin started the Presbyterian
Church. But many Presbyterians will perish. Amen! Come on, you're still with
me. You get what I'm saying. You
hanging on? Let go of that church! That's
your flesh. Alright, real quick, before I
get to preaching here, I want you to see this, and then we'll
go. Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God,
neither were they thankful. Chuck was a millionaire. Was
he thankful? No. He was very ungrateful. But became vain in
their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools. I could tell Chuck thought he
was something on the end of a stick. And I thought he was too. And changed the glory of God,
the uncorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible
man, to birds, four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Isn't it
amazing what people will worship? You know, and God knew that.
You know why He said, when that serpent was put up in the Old
Testament, and the people had been bit by snakes, and God told
Moses, put up that serpent. Moses made a brazen serpent. And God said, everybody that
looks will live. And they looked, and a lot of
people got healed. And then God said, take that thing down and
grind it into powder. Cast it up in the wind. Let it
blow away. You know why? Because somebody would have got
a chain and put a piece of that brazen serpent around their neck. You know why you can't find Noah's
ark? Because someone would hang a piece of the ark around their
neck. Getting quiet in there now. We worship this God we do not
see except by faith. We believe that He came to earth.
Died on the tree of the cross. Got up out of the grave the third
day. And this is what Chuck said to me. You can't believe that God came
to earth. You can't believe that He was
born of a virgin. You can't believe that He lived
this endless life. You can't. See, Chuck knew something. He knew something. You can't
believe that Christ died as a substitute, rose again, got up out of the
grave. You can't believe. And I said,
Chuck, I know I can't, but I do. I really do, Chuck. And I'm smiling. He's not smiling. In fact, at
that point, he said to the waiter, give me another gin and tonic. That's when I said. Then that's when I said, I got
to go to dinner. In all seriousness now, go home. Go back to the mission. Go back
to that disgusting place where the real you lives. That cold, dark cellar of discontent. And cry out, if you will, Cry
out if you can. Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
while on others thou art calling. Do not pass me by. That's your
only hope, my friend, that God will come to you because all
flesh is flesh. You're not going to stop using
unless God does something. Next Sunday we'll talk about
the godly man and the flesh. And I'll just give you a little
peek. If you're a Christian, your flesh gets no better. It's no better. You're a sane man running around
with a flesh that hangs on your back Like a corpse. That's why the Christian many
times says, I hate what I do. I experience that every day in
my life. I'll tell you what keeps me from judging you. I know me. I know my flesh. It's important
for Christians to know their flesh. And I'll talk about that
next Lord's Day. Because if you as a Christian
don't understand the difference between your flesh and having
been born of the Spirit of God, that which is flesh is flesh,
but that which is spirit is spirit. And these two don't get along
at all. They don't get along at all.
I mean, they fight every day. Every day. That flesh says God is nothing
but a horse dung God. See, I'm getting nice toward
the end because you're going to go home and tell everybody
the pastor was cussing during church. It's all right for you to use
that word at home, but in here, oh no, no, no. Yeah, I'm doing my best. I've
been gone a while, but I'm home now. I'm back now.