I invite you this evening to
turn with me to II Thessalonians chapter 3. My subject tonight is found in
verse 4, competence in the Lord. That's what Paul said he had
concerning them. He had competence in the Lord. I have no competence in myself. I have no competence in my abilities,
in my talents, in my speech, or anything else. I have competence
in the Lord, he said, concerning you. And he had a lot of things
he could have had competence in. Paul was a learned man. He could quote the poets when
he went down to Athens. He could quote their own poets.
They must have been impressed with him because they asked him
to speak. But Paul had no confidence in
himself concerning these things. He had confidence in the Lord
concerning them. Now in the preceding chapter,
the apostle gives us a brief summary of what was taking place
in his day. And it was taking away the hope
of the early believers, the early church. Somebody had come along
and said, the Lord's coming back real soon. And Paul said, no,
He's not. He's not. That's not according
to the prophets. It's not according to that. But
he then began to tell them what was going on. and why these men
were saying what they were saying. And not only was it going on
in his day, but he said it's going to get worse. And the Lord's
not coming back till it gets really bad. Then he'll be back. Then he'll be back. Well, what
was going on? Well, the spirit of Antichrist
was then appearing It had already poked up its little head and
it began to speak. And it would flourish as time
passed on until it would become, as it is in our day, a universal
force. It's not just a little group
here and there anymore. It's on every corner. They post my messages on the
internet and I get correspondence from all over the world. I got
one recently from some folks over in Australia. And New South
Wales, Australia, of all people. And talking about these things
and telling me that they were surrounded with these churches,
these free will churches and all of these things that I talk
about in my messages. This is Antichrist. That's what
it is. Antichrist. Antichrist just means
contrary to Christ. Against Christ. We tell folks
who Christ is, and they tell folks who Christ is, and it's
not the same Christ. Paul said they'll come preaching
another Jesus. That's Antichrist. He said, you
let them be counted accursed of God. Anybody come preaching
any other gospel to you other than the gospel I preached unto
you, he's accursed of God. Well, the spirit of Antichrist
was then rearing up its ugly head at the very beginning. And this is not talking about
some incarnate appearance of Satan. Hollywood has run off
the deep end with stuff like that. But he's talking about
a spirit and attitude brought upon men by deception and lies
and false teaching. That's Antichrist. Paul told
those converted Gentiles in Ephesians chapter 2, he said, you had the
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. What do you mean dead,
preacher? He's going to tell you. You walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience.
That's what it means to be dead. Dead. What does this spirit of Antichrist
do? Well, he tells us up in chapter
3 that it's after the working of Satan. Satan gets a bad rap. Now, I'm
not trying to defend Satan, but I'm saying to you tonight, he
gets a bad rap. He does. He gets accused of things
that he's got nothing to do with. Saturday night's the devil's
night. No, it ain't. Sunday's the devil's night. That's
right. That's when he rears his ugly
head on Sunday morning. Turn your TV on if you don't
believe me. That's Satan. That's Satan. He's often charged with things
that he has nothing to do with. They talk about men committing
adultery and all of these things that goes on on Saturday night.
That's why they call it Satan's night. But it's man's night. Our Lord said, out of the heart
of man. Not out of the mind of Satan,
out of the heart of man. What man? Every man. Every woman. Out of the heart of man proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, theft, false witness. All these things come forth from
within. That's what defiles a man. It's
not eating with unwashed hands. It's not eating corn on the Sabbath
day. It's what comes out of his heart.
Satan doesn't have to appear for man to be sinful. He's already sinful. He's nothing
but sin. He thinks sin, says sin. Everything
about him is sin. But I'll tell you what he does
say about Satan. His work is in the ministry.
His work is in religion. His work is a work of deception
and lies and falsehood. His ministers, it says in the
Scriptures, are ministers of righteousness. Not God's righteousness. Not the righteousness of Christ.
Self-righteousness. of reward and obedience to the
law, self-righteousness. Look over here on the opposite
page here from chapter 4 verses 9 and 10 of chapter 2. He's describing this Antichrist,
this spirit of Antichrist, and it said, even him who's coming
is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and
lying wonders, large craft, Great campaigns and rewards. Any of
you ever watched a Billy Graham special? Unbelievable. I was talking to a pastor over
in Australia the other day and he told me, he said, when Billy
Graham came to Australia, he was the biggest thing to ever
hit this continent. He said they talked about him
and had his face in the newspaper and talked about his meeting
more than they did the president when he comes to visit. Large
crowd, great results, lots of emotion, lying wonders. I had
a man tail me up in a little meeting I got invited to, and
they called themselves Friends of Grace. I don't think they knew a whole
lot about grace. They knew a little bit about Calvinism, but I don't
think they knew anything about grace. And they were talking about knowing
that they were saved by such and such experience. I was laying
out on the battlefield and my throat was cut ear to ear and
was talking about making deals with God. If you'll let me live,
I'll serve you until I die and all this kind of nonsense and
talking about those things as the basis of their salvation. Lying wonders. Satan will take
a drunk and reform him. Make him a preacher. Everybody
will go hear him. You remember him? That's that
old drunk that used to go down there. And they'll come and listen
to everything that man's got to say. He don't know God. He don't know the gospel. He's
just a reformed drunk. Lying wonders. And then watch
this. This is Antichrist. This is how
he works. With all deceivableness, of unrighteousness
in them that perish. What on earth is the deceivableness
of unrighteousness? Well, that's when Satan convinces
you that your unrighteousness is righteousness. That's what
it is. That's the deceivableness of
unrighteousness. He convinces you that your law-keeping
and your Sabbath-keeping and your tithing and you're signing
the pledge card and you're accepting Jesus as your personal Savior,
He convinces you that all your unrighteousness is righteousness. And God's going to reward you
for your righteousness. He's going to show you favor.
Don't you bet your life on it. The Bible says all our righteousnesses
Not all my evil deeds, all my righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. Now, I won't make anybody blush,
but he's talking about a minstrel's cloth, is what he's talking about.
He's talking about the leper's rag. They had to cover their
face and cry, unclean, unclean, in that old pus-covered rag.
He said, that's what your righteousnesses He's talking about the garments
draped over a dead body and they lay there in that tomb and they
rot and the worms are on them and they go out and get that
cloth off there and put it on and says, this is my righteousness. Might be to you, but it ain't
to God. It's filthy rags before God. Our God is righteous. Beyond our imagination, righteous. Righteous. And not only do they proudly
sport around covered in their filthy rags, I can't even imagine. I've already told you what those
rags was. Just imagine a whole garment
built out of it. Like a quilt where you sew them
little pieces of rags together, whatever leftover rags, and they
make this beautiful quilt. Well, they take those menstrual
cloths and that rags off of the lepers and the dead men's clothes
and make them a garment and put it on and sport around in it. before God. Not only do they sport a round
cupboard in their filthy rags, but they altogether reject the
love of the truth. Now what that next statement
is, because of Satan's lies, his lying wonders, and his deceivableness
of unrighteousness, they have rejected altogether any kind
of love of the truth. They don't want to hear the truth.
This is condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light. They don't love the
light. My soul, they hated the Savior. And for this cause, God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe A lie. Now they all don't, but I'm telling
you some of them believe it. They believe it just as strongly
as you believe in Christ. God's given them over to strong
delusion, and they believe a lie that they all might be damned
who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. And the truth is, they've been
unrighteous. I know what Paul said, there's
none righteous. Who said that? God did. God did. He looked down from heaven himself.
He didn't ask his prophets. He looked down from heaven himself
to see if there was any who sought after God to see if there was
any good. There's none righteous. No, not
one. Well, you don't know my grandma.
Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. And she ain't righteous
either. They're non-righteous. Christ's
righteousness is the only righteousness there is. Well, how do you figure that? Because
He's the Righteous One. That's why. What did they call
Him? We just heard a message on God's
holiness. They called Him the Holy One of Israel. Isn't that
what they called Him? Not the Holy Two, the Holy One. Christ's righteousness is the
only righteousness acceptable to God. You have not on that
garment at the wedding, you're out. You're out. And it's a frightening
thing to look around and see the multitudes deceived and believing
Satan's lying wonders and his lies and deceit and they're just
running along after him like he was the best thing since gravy
and biscuits. Chase him around. But he don't
stop there. He goes on to thank God. He said,
I thank God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. Because
God has chosen you from the beginning. He's chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Wherefore, He called you by our
gospel. What did He call us to do? He
called us to obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, all
my soul. I can rest in His glory. You know what salvation is? It's
to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It's to
obtain that glory, to see that glory. I used to sit in the pew
and wonder, what in the world are they talking about, the glory
of God? What are they talking about? And they got to give me
eyes to see it, all my soul. He called you to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is how God calls
out His elect. This is how they're born of God.
They're born, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the
Word of God. And if you'll bother to read
down from verse 23 to verse 25 of 1 Peter chapter 1, He'll tell
you what that Word is. And this is the Word which by the gospel is preached
unto you, at the gospel of Jesus Christ, according to the Word
of God. Paul said, I'm preaching to you
the same thing that God preached to me, how that Christ died for
our sins. No, that ain't what he said.
He said that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And that He was buried and rose
again according to the Scriptures. This is how men are born again.
That's the gospel seed. That's the seed of regeneration.
There's not going to be a birth without a seed. The seed has
to be planted. What did Paul say God called
him to do? Plant seeds. One of us plants and one of us
waters, but God gives the increase. He'll make that seed grow. And
that seed will produce fruit. This is how God calls out His
elect. It's how they're born of God. It's how they're enabled
of God to be partakers of the inheritance of enlightened saints. And it's just more anti-Christ
propaganda that promotes any other means than the means that
God has chosen and revealed in His Word. And you can laugh these
little ministries to scorn if you want to. Many do. But it
has no effect whatsoever on how God works, on who God calls,
and what God does in this world. It has no effect on it whatsoever. You know, all those men, the
Bible said, I think it's in Acts chapter 4, that all the Gentiles
were gathered together, and all the Jews, and here's the Romans,
and here's the judge, and all of these things are all happening. And the Jews had nothing to do
with the Gentiles. The Gentiles really had no respect
whatsoever for the Jews, but they all got together in this
thing of crucifying Christ. They all got together. They all
held hands when that happened. You know what they did? They're
killing the Son of God. You know what they did? They
did what God's hand and God's counsel determined before to
be done. That's exactly what happened,
isn't it? It had no effect on how God works. Let Antichrist roar. God has
a church in this world. It's the pillar and ground of
the truth. And He'll use it. And He'll call
out His elect. And all the devils in hell can't
do anything about it. Now here's where I'm going with
all this. The success of our ministry, what's that? That's the victory that you see
in the hearts of chosen sinners. It's in God's hands and not ours. Is that right? Paul said, it's not of him that
runneth. I thought it was. That's why
I was running. Not of him that willeth. I thought it was. That's what I was told. That's
why I walked down the aisle. It's not of him that runneth. It's not of him that willeth.
It's of God that showeth mercy. And Paul said, I know what you're
going to say. If nobody can do anything about the will of God,
why does he yet find fault? And here's the answer. You ready?
Here's the answer. Who art thou, old man, that replies
against God? You going to call God into question
about how he does things? Huh? You think about how ridiculous
that is. Who art thou, O man, that replies
against God? Shall the thing formed say unto
him that formed it, wisest thou made me thus? What if God, willing to show
His wrath and make His power known, He took that same lump
and He formed something out here? And that form that He has, He's
going to show in that form His wrath, His justice. You going to hold that against
Him? You don't know anything about righteousness and justice.
Only God does. And those vessels of mercy are
forward prepared unto glory, even you whom the Lord has called. Now I'm telling you, The success
of our ministry, the victory in the hearts of chosen sinners,
is in God's hands. It's not in mine. It's not in
yours. Now God does use men. He has
ordained the preaching of the gospel, but I'm not talking about
using men. I'm talking about the success
of their ministry. That's in God's hands. I'm talking about whether or
not what I preach is effectual. Not in my hands. Boy, I want
to. Sometimes I get in a way and
I'm talking to somebody and they seem a little interested and
I just want to stop them and unscrew their head and pour it
in. I want them to believe. I want
them to hear what I'm saying. I want it so bad I can taste
it. But it's not in my hands. It's
in His. It's in His. Paul believed with all of his
heart that God would use the gospel he preached to save sinners. And God was faithful to do that
very thing. He established churches all over
Asia through that man. But Paul was quick to give God
all the glory for it. Now over here in 2 Corinthians
chapter 3, Paul is talking about the ministry. And he is talking
about what he believed concerning the ministry. And down in verse
4, he said, and such trust. And what he's talking about here
is, he said, I don't need any letters from you Corinthians.
Letters of recommendation or letters of acceptance. He said,
you are my epistle. My letter is written on your
heart. God wrote it there. I don't need any letters from
you. I don't need a diploma. I don't
need your okay. God's already written that okay
on your heart. He's joined us together forever.
We're one. One in Christ. And he said, in such trust have
we through Christ to God worked, not that we're sufficient of
ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. who also made us able ministers
of the New Testament. Who did? God did. There's countless ministers in
this world. There's a few able ministers. There's a few. There's countless
ministers all having the proper documents and ordination papers
and letters of recommendation. There's a few whose sufficiency
is of God. You see what he's saying? All right, now let's go down
and look at my text. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 beginning
in verse 1. Finally, brethren, having said
the truth before them, Told them how it is. Now he says, finally,
brethren, pray for us. You know that what we're doing
is according to the will of God. Pray for us. You know that what
we're doing is according to the Word of God and for the good
of chosen sinners. Pray for us. Secondly, you know that this
is how God called you. If He has indeed called you,
you know this is how He did it. Paul said, where unto He called
you? Remember, I read that to you
a few minutes ago. He reminded them. Pray for us. Pray that God will teach us and
at the same time keep us humble. Boy, all you got to do is learn
a few things. Man, your head swells up like a beach ball. I'm somebody. No, you're not. No, you're not. You're just a
clay pot. It's the treasure in you that
people are looking at, not you. I tell you, my wife and I love
flowers, and at the end of the year, we go out there and dump
them all out because they're annuals. They're going to die,
so we dump them all out. The only thing left is a pot.
I don't even leave it out there. I put the pots up. They ain't
worth looking at. It's what was in the pot that
we were looking at. Paul said, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels. We got them in clay pots that
the excellence of the power might be in Him and not in us. See
the treasure. See Him, not me. I'm not preaching
me. That's what Paul told them. I'm
not preaching me. I'm preaching Him. Pray for us. Pray that God will
teach us and at the same time keep us humble. Pray that He'll
use us, but keep us from being puffed up. Pray that we'll be
enabled of God to bear whatever persecutions and sufferings come
our way for the elect's sake, whatever those are. But more especially, in this
text, He asks them to pray for Him that the Word of the Lord
may have free course. That's what's important, isn't
it? That's what's important. And be glorified even as it was
with them. A free course. I like that, don't
you? Unobscured with obstacles. One
laid out by divine providence. One attended by a sovereign spirit
and made effectual by His power, not mine. A course directed to
His people. Paul said, God sent me to you. I'm glad He sent somebody to
me. A tongue and a heart ready to
set Christ before dying men. Oh, you don't know how long to
see men and women arrested by God. Stop their forward motion and
turn them around. Huh? That's what he has to do. God don't intervene. You're a
goner. He has to intervene. Oh, to see
men arrested by God, and stripped of all their false hope, and
shut up to Christ. Hadn't heard it in a while, but
I love to hear sinners when they come to me and say, Bruce, I
ain't got no hope. Thank God. Thank God. Now I can tell you about your
hope. Now I can point you to Christ. Oh, to see men and women hunger
for the truth And then God lay out a feast before them. Come
and dine. Come and dine. You know He said
that to an apostle that quit the ministry and went back to
fishing. That's right. But He was one of His. And He
said, come and dine. I got something I prepared for
you myself. Myself. And pray, he said, that the word
of the Lord be glorified. How in the world is the gospel
glorified? Well, it's glorified when it's
presented in the power of God's Spirit without compromise. A brother was talking to us about
the holiness of God, and the only thing I've ever heard on
that that really made any sense to me was something Henry Mahan
said to me years ago. He said the holiness of God has
something to do with the wholeness of God. These perfections that
the brother was talking about a while ago, these perfections
are in perfect harmony continually all the time. Anything God attaches
His name to has to be in harmony with His character. That's why
they call this book the Holy Bible. Because it's in harmony
with the character of God. And He's not going to save you
any other way except in the harmony of His perfections. Be ye therefore
holy, for I am holy. After a while you'll start thinking
that way, won't you? Huh? Sure you will. You're being
conformed to the image of Christ. glorified when the gospel is
presented in the power of God's Spirit without compromise. The
gospel is an uncompromising message. Somebody told me one time, said,
you need to quit being so dogmatic. You need to give in every now
and then. I said, I can't. I'm not going to compromise God's
name to let anybody in. The gospel is an uncompromising
message. And he's not going to compromise
his character for anybody, not even his son. You don't believe
me, you go read about the cross. God spared not his own son. He will not compromise his justice
to save sinners. Justice has to be satisfied.
He's not going to let you in with anything other than a perfect
righteousness. Why? Because He ain't going to
compromise His character. That's why. He's not going to
compromise His righteousness to make chosen sinners acceptable. A righteousness must be wrought
for them. And Christ did that. He's the
end of the law for righteousness. Now listen to everyone that believes. Well, I believe, but I don't
believe in that. None of you don't believe? It's just that
simple. Well, I've heard the gospel.
I've heard it in the power of God. Paul said the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, for
therein is the righteousness of God revealed. You don't believe
in His righteousness? You've never heard the Gospel
in power. You've never experienced that power. Our God is an uncompromising
God and His Gospel must reflect that to men. How is the Word
of God glorified? It's glorified when men and women
are drawn by the Father to hear it. They murmured at it. We know
him. We know his mother and his brothers
and his sisters. We know him. Joseph is his dad. He marries his mother. We know
him. How's he talking about coming
down from heaven? The Lord said, don't murmur.
No man can come unto me except my Father draw him. He has to
be taught of God. See, he can't teach himself. It's glorified when men and women
are drawn by the Father to hear it and given ears to hear. It's
glorified when it's received by those to whom it's sent. Those Gentiles heard what Paul
preached to them and they said, boy, we're glad. We're glad. It's glorified when it's embraced
and cheerfully obeyed. It's glorified when it brings
forth the fruit of life and faith and love and repentance. Pray for us that the Word of
God, this Gospel, be glorified. And then thirdly, he would have
them to pray for him that he might be delivered from unreasonable
and wicked men. For he said, all have not faith. My friend, no man can be brought
to faith in Christ until God enables him to reason with Him. People like to reason with me.
We had a young man who attended our church two or three weeks,
and then he disappeared. And he wanted to debate. He wanted
to debate. He said, well, I see in the scriptures
what you're saying about God's sovereignty and God's grace,
but man is accountable. I said, well, who is man accountable
to? Who were you accountable to when
you were little? Huh? Your father. Why? Because he wouldn't let you get
away with it. That's who you're accountable
to, the sovereign. If he's not sovereign, you're
not accountable, is he? The fellow said, well, you obey
me or go to hell. And he said, well, you told me, he said, God
couldn't save me. If God can't save me, he can't
send me to hell. Makes sense, don't it? Pray for me that I might be delivered
from unreasonable and wicked men. Our Lord said, come let us reason
together. I can't say that, but He can.
He can. And when He does, you will. You see, this is the very heart
of the ministry the preachers understand and are helpless to
overcome without an intervention of God. When Moses took God's
Word down to Egypt, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had
no power to make Pharaoh. He was raised in Pharaoh's house.
He knew he had no power to make Pharaoh hear it and that Pharaoh
had no character about him to make him reasonable. Who did
he depend on? God. See, I know the same thing about
you. I know the same thing about men and women all over the world.
They're all the same. They're all sinners. They're
all sinners. And I know beyond a shadow of
a doubt that I've got no power to make them hear this message
and that they've got no character in them to believe it. But my
confidence concerning you is God. Do you see what Paul is
saying in this text? I tell you, you get a hold of
this and it will fire you up in the ministry. You will start
to see how the ministry can be effectual. It is His. Paul's dependence, therefore,
was completely on the Lord. And now Paul prayed, deliver
us. That's his request from unreasonable and wicked men, for all have
not faith. Faith is of such a nature that
men must be made meat to receive it. It's the gift of God, not
of worthless any man should boast. But he's not ready to receive
faith. He's got to be made meat to receive it. He must be born
again. Except you be born again, you
can't perceive the kingdom of God. You have to be born of God. Evil men, if left to themselves, God may
give them over to a reprobate mind and let them believe a lie
and be damned. And they'll believe it as surely
as you believe the truth. They'll believe it and it has
an effect on them as surely as true faith produces fruit in
you. False faith will produce its own. Except he don't call
it fruit, he calls it works. The Lord said, they so believe
it that when they put you to death, when they put you to death,
they'll think they're doing God a service. Paul stood by and
held the coats of those who stoned Stephen. Gave his approval of
it. He smiled. He thought he was
doing God a service. What do you think? The very heart of Satan's ministry
is a deceivableness of unrighteousness. They believe that their unrighteousnesses
are righteous. And we're plainly told that there's
an unrighteous. We're told that the righteousness
of God without the law has been manifested in Christ, wrought
out by Christ, freely given to believers, justified freely by
His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Yet deceived
men insist on producing one of their own. Scripture said, of God are you in Christ Jesus. That's
the only way you can get in Christ. God has put you in Him. When
did He do that? Before the world began. Of God are you in Christ Jesus,
now listen to this, who of God is made unto us wisdom. We don't
know anything apart from Christ, do we? Everything I thought I
knew was just garbage, just junk. That's what Paul said, all these
things I trusted in, I took them out and threw them on the dung
heap. That's all they was, refuse, just trash. He's made unto us
wisdom, righteousness. Oh, ain't you glad He is? Oh, Paul said that I might win
Christ and be found in Him not having my own righteousness. Be found in His righteousness. And He's made unto us sanctification.
and redemption. What makes religious men's work
wicked is that it's not of God. It's not according to His Word
or in any way glorifying to the character of God or to the Son
of God. Now I don't care what you do.
You read Isaiah 1. They were doing things that God
commanded them to do. But they didn't know why they
were doing it. And they were doing it for the wrong reason.
He said, when you come and raise your holy hands to me, he said,
that's an abomination. You ain't a mention. Turn your
TV on. They're out there doing this
and waving them on. Abomination to God. Wicked, unreasonable men. Now watch this, and I'll quit.
But the Lord is faithful. He's faithful to His Word. He's
faithful to His purpose. He's faithful to His promises.
He's faithful to His means. He's faithful to His elect. He's
faithful. The Lord is faithful. Who shall
establish you? I thought I was establishing
myself. That's why you're having trouble. The Lord's faithful
who will establish you. Now what's this? And keep you
from evil. You know in the Lord's prayer,
that outline of prayer that He gave us, He said, deliver us
from evil. You know what that means? Literally. If you translate that literally.
It means deliver us from the evil one. And that's what he's
talking about here too. And so it is here in our text
in 2 Thessalonians 3. He shall keep you from the evil
one. We've been predestinated to the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself, made acceptable
in the blood. And none can stay God's hand
or even question what He's doing. He's God. And there's nothing
iffy in the salvation of God's elect. They're going to be saved.
All of them. You won't be able to tell them
apart. You might see one here and put him on a little higher
chair than what you put me. But not in heaven. If you're
going to look around, everybody's going to be the same. And that's
how they are here. We just don't see it that way. Sure it is. He sees us in Christ. And thank God he does. There's
nothing iffy in the salvation of God's elect. His counsel shall
stand. He'll do all his pleasure. His
gospel be preached, his elect to be called, his pastors and
evangelists should be successful, and all God's elect should be
taught of God and brought to Christ and sealed by the Holy
Spirit of God. Every last one of them. Well, why then would Paul say
pray for us? Because prayer is as much ordained
of God as preaching. That's right. Our Lord prays. He preached. He was the Son of
God. How many times did he tell them,
I could call on my Father and He'd send ten legions of angels
down here? There ain't no need for Him to
pray. Then why did He pray? Because
it's ordained of God. And I'm going to tell you something.
It's needful. It's needful. And here's the last thing, and
I'll quit. He said in verse 4, this is where I began the message.
We have confidence in the Lord touching you, that you both do
and will do the things which we command you. What do preachers
command of their hearers? To believe. Oh, I thought that was a request. He commandeth all men everywhere
to repent, God does. If I'm here speaking on His behalf,
He said, he that heareth you, heareth me. It's not so much me commanding
you as it is the God of whom I'm the ambassador of. He commands
you to believe. He commands you to repent. He
commands you to be baptized. I'm getting so sick of people
looking at baptism as some kind of an option. It's not an option,
it's the commandment of God. Find me anybody, anywhere, all
the way through the book of Acts, every example of a crowd or an
individual that believed. The Philippian jailer, he was
converted at 2.30 in the morning. And him and his whole house was
baptized immediately. Not now. Not now. They say, we believe. Ten years
later, they come and say, well, you know, I'm getting a little
convicted. I think I need to be baptized. You reckon? I'm not going to blame it on
them. I'm going to blame it on me. Ever how those men preach the
gospel of God's grace, they preach baptism as the commandment of
Christ. And those people, you listen
to this, you go into all the world and preach my gospel. He
that believeth and is what? Baptized shall be saved. You don't want to confess me
before men, I won't confess you before my Father. So you go on
neglecting His commandments. You better not. You playing with
fire. You better not. He commands these
things. He commands men to believe. and
to repent. Oh, we have confidence in the
Lord touching you that you both do and will do that which we
command you. So where's my confidence? I'm
standing here this evening at your request and at my acceptance,
and I'm standing here in the office of a pastor, a preacher,
and sometimes an evangelist. What encourages me? Where's my
confidence? What makes me think the Lord's
in this at all? What makes me think anybody's
going to hear me or take what I'm saying to heart? Where's
my confidence? In the Lord. In the Lord. That's where it's at. We have
confidence in the Lord touching you. I went too long. I'm just going to put that up.
And I'm going to give you an illustration, and then I'm going
to quit. Back in the mid-1800s, there came on the scene at Niagara
Falls a man. He was a Frenchman. Jean, I think
that's how you pronounce that, G-E-A-N, Jean Francis Gravelow. But his stage name that he took
to himself was the Great Blondin. And he was the first to walk
a tightrope over that Niagara Gorge. Now, I've been there.
This ain't no creek. This thing has rapids they don't
even know how to measure. And this man stretched a manila
rope. That's all he had back in that
day. Stretched it across that gorge. put some guidelines on
it, staked it down on the bank on either side, and he walked
across that gorge. He was the first man to do it.
As time went on, he hired a promoter and a manager named Harry Colcourt.
And this man, that average guy, he called himself the Great Blondin.
He did everything that you can imagine on a tightrope. This
is all documented. This is real-life stuff. He rode
a bicycle across that road, across that gorge. He walked across it on stilts. He pushed a wheelbarrow across
it. And he laid down, he walked out
in the middle of it and laid down, put his hands behind his
head, just laid there like he was going to take a nap. Right out in the middle on that
little skinny road. And one day he took a box camera
back in that day, back in the mid-1800s. They had these old
box cameras. You've seen them in these westerns.
And they throw that thing up over their head and the gunpowder
goes off and they take it. He's out in the middle of this
rope with that thing over his head taking pictures of the crowd. And then the grand finale was
that he took a line out there And he lowered it down to the
maid of the mist. That's that boat that takes you
up there and lets you see the falls and comes back down, the
maid of the mist. He lowered the rope down there
and got a bottle of champagne and a glass and pulled it up
there and poured himself a drink and took a drink. And he come
back over to the bank and there his promoter, old Harry, was
standing there. And he said, well, Harry was just applauding. Man, he couldn't say enough about
him. And he come over and he said,
well, what do you think now, Harry? You believe what I told
you? I can do anything on a tightrope.
He said, you believe that now? He said, I do. He said, get on. And shaking and terrified, old
Harry climbed up on his back. And that man walked him across
that gorge and set him down on the other side. You believe what I'm telling
you tonight? Get on. Get on. Believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He'll carry you all the way and
set you down. You're going to be trembling
the whole way across, but He ain't going to fall. And He's
going to carry you across and He's going to set you down on
the other side. And you'll love Him forever. God bless you.