for whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call
on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed
the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath
believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the word of God. Now by way of introduction, let
me state four facts. Four facts plainly revealed in
Holy Scripture about every man, woman, and child in this world.
Four things that are true of you, of me, of your children,
and of my children. These things are plainly revealed
in Scripture and they are true of all human beings living in
this world. Number one, we are all sinners. We are all sinners. We hear that
so commonly, I think it hardly registers with us what that statement
involves. We are, by nature, obnoxious
to God. Sinners. All have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. This is what I'm saying, what
the scripture declares. There is not a just man upon
the earth, not one. We use the term good and righteous
and just very, very loosely. And in a relative sense, I wouldn't
attempt to correct everybody for making such a statement.
But our Lord Jesus met with that rich young ruler who came to
him and said, good master. And the Lord Jesus confronted
him right at the first statement he made. He said, why did you
call me good? There is none good but God. To call me good is to call me
God. There is not a just man upon
the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Some of us have
been saved by the grace of God. Some of you are still unsaved,
lost, and without Christ. But we're all sinners. We're
sinners by birth. We're sinners by nature. Our
hearts are cesspools of iniquity. Out of the heart springs forth,
out of your heart and mine, every evil there is in this world. Out of your heart and mine, by
nature, there's nothing but corruption that comes forth. And in our
hearts is all the evil there is in this world. We're sinners
by birth and by nature, and we're sinners by choice. The wise man
speaks of us as men and women who rejoice to do evil, as people
who devise to do evil. Don't you find that astounding,
shocking? We take delight in evil. We laugh at it. We even scheme
and devise to find a way to get by with doing evil. That's the
way man is. We're sinners by practice. Man
at his best estate, man in his highest form, man in his best
picture is altogether vanity. how abominable and filthy is
man who drinketh iniquity like water. Second, because we're
all sinners, depraved, willing transgressors of God's holy law,
all of us by nature are objects of God's wrath justly. We are all children of wrath,
just like everybody else. That means that we're children
who deserve God's wrath, men and women who have a wrathful
attitude toward God, men and women over whom hangs the sword
of divine justice by nature. God says, the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. By nature, by birth, by choice
and by practice, you and I are criminals against the throne
of the Most High God. We're criminals against the throne
of the Most High God. That means we've broken God's
law at every point, at every opportunity from our youth up. We have done so from the beginning
of life in this world and we continue to do so. Read the 20th
chapter of Exodus and tell me which commandment you haven't
broken multiple times today. We have broken God's law at every
point from our youth up. We have all taken the incarnate
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and crucified him in our hearts. All sin, you see, is an attack
upon God's throne. Unbelief is decided agreement
with our Lord's tormentors. Unbelief esteems him not. Unbelief cries out, crucify him,
crucify him. Let his blood be on us and on
our children. Unbelief says, nail him to the
tree. I won't have him. We've all sinned
against the goodness, grace, and mercy of God revealed in
the gospel. Our Lord Jesus speaks almost
astonishingly this in the 11th chapter of Matthew. He says,
if the things that you've seen and heard had been seen and heard
by those Sodomites in Lot's generation, they would have remained to this
day. They would have repented. If they had seen the things that
you've seen, if they had heard the things you've heard, they
would still be here. Judgment would not have fallen
on them. Oh, what mercy! We have seen and heard things
those folks at Capernaum never saw or heard. God's given us
the full revelation of the gospel of His grace in His Word. You
sit and hear it preached week after week after week after week,
and yet stop your ears and say, no, I won't believe, I won't
hear God, I won't bow to Him. Our rebellion and our sin against
the God of heaven is not an accidental thing. Unbelief is not something
that, well, it's just the nature of man. I know it is, I know
it's that, but it's much more than that. It is deliberate,
decided, and voluntary. You who rebel against God, rebel
against God because you want to. You who believe not, believe
not because you choose unbelief. You choose iniquity. You choose
your own way. And the wages of sin is death. Hell is what we deserve. Hell
is what justice demands. Until you acknowledge that you
justly deserve God's wrath, until you understand that, until God
makes you understand that, you will never seek his mercy in
Christ Jesus. Here's the third fact revealed
in scripture. We're all sinners, justly condemned sinners by nature,
and we have no ability to alter that fact and that state. We
have no ability to change our nature or our condition. Poor
souls. We are as helpless as we are
depraved. There's nothing you can do to
change your sinful nature. Nothing you can do to change
your will of rebellion. Nothing you can do to win God's
favor. Nothing you can do to escape
God's wrath. Nothing you can do to satisfy
God's justice. We cannot satisfy the offended
God in his justice. We cannot perform righteousness.
We cannot change our nature. We're dead, entirely without
spiritual life or ability. We have no capacity for change
and no ability to change our condition. Can the Ethiopian
change his skin? Are the leopard his spots? Then
may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Now here's
the fourth thing. The only way you and I can ever
be saved, saved from our sins, saved from the wrath of God,
is by the grace of God through the righteousness and blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinner's substitute. Salvation, God's
way of salvation is Jesus Christ alone. Neither is there salvation
in any other. For there's none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. He that hath
the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath
not life. Christ alone is God's salvation. Many years ago, I listened carefully
to an interview, a conversation between Robert Shuler, that fellow
who used to be on television, wore papal robes and smiled like
a possum chewing on briars, and Billy Graham. And he said to
Mr. Graham, asked him, said, what
about folks who've never heard the name of Jesus? Do you believe
there's a wideness in God's love to include them? And Mr. Graham responded, yes, I do. Yes, I do. Those people who die
having never heard the name of Jesus, believing what God has
revealed to them, they're included in God's love and in God's salvation.
Oh no, oh no. Christ alone is God's salvation. Christ alone. not the gods of
the heathen, not the saviors that men invent. Christ alone
is God's salvation. And the only way you can obtain
God's salvation in Jesus Christ is by faith in his son. We read
in Romans 10, 9, that thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Our Lord Jesus says, look
unto me and be you saved all the ends of the earth for I am
God and beside me there is none else. Turn over to John chapter
three, let me show you this. John the third chapter, John
chapter three. Everybody quotes John 3.16 and
uses John 3.16 to justify every ungodly thing in the world. But
the gospel is not in John 3.16. The Gospels in John 3, 14 and
15. The basis, the cause of the Gospels in John 3, 16. Let's
read John 3, 14. Our Lord Jesus says, as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must, even
so must the Son of Man be lifted up. He must be crucified, lifted
up on a cursed tree, because God so ordained it, because there's
no other means by which God can be just and justify the ungodly. Verse 15, he must be lifted up
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. Now here's the cause of it all.
For God so loved the world, God loved his people wherever they're
found throughout the world so greatly that he gave his only
begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. Now, let's look at Romans 10
together, verses 13 through 15. I have five words of instruction
for you. Instruction, plain instruction
for perishing sinners given in the word of God. Number one,
in order to be saved, you must call on the name of the Lord. In order to be saved, you must
call on the name of the Lord. But Brother Don, around here,
we're sovereign grace people. Around here, we're predestinarians. We believe salvations of the
Lord. God wants to save you, he'll save you. If he don't,
you won't be saved. That's all true. That's all true. But you
won't be saved unless you call on the name of the Lord. If you
would be saved, you must call on the name of the Lord. The
way of salvation is set before us very plainly in simple language
in verse 13. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Paul is telling us that a personal
acknowledgement of God A personal trust in God as he is revealed
in Jesus Christ is the way to obtain salvation. Look at the
verse more closely. Here's a very, very broad word,
whosoever, whosoever. Now I'm not a lawyer and I don't
understand legal terms and legal phraseology. I don't have much
interest in it, but I had been told that when making a will,
If you want to leave everything you own to one person, the best
way to do so is simply to say, I leave my entire estate to Shelby
Fortner. No declaration of any other kind. No mention of any particulars.
If you try to list two or three things, you may leave something
out. Everything will be messed up.
I leave everything to Shelby Fortner. Whosoever is a broad,
broad term. God Almighty gives no condition,
no character, no experience that must be met. He simply says,
whosoever, that includes me and you, anyone in the whole wide
world who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's
what Joel said in Joel 2.32, as he prophesied of this day
of the coming and outpouring of God's Spirit upon all flesh.
He said, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall
be delivered. Deliverance shall come out of Zion. And that deliverance
is Jesus Christ the Lord. Peter said in Acts chapter two,
this is what Joel was talking about. Whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Those who call on the
name of the Lord are people who have been called by the Lord.
Joel said they are as many as the Lord our God shall call.
You won't call God till God calls you. That's his fact. But call
on him you must. The Lord called upon. The Lord
by whom alone sinners are saved is Jesus of Nazareth. Our Lord
Jesus, the Christ of God. There is no other God and there
is no other Savior. Listen to how Peter explains
that. Joel, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of
Christ. Christ is the Lord. Christ is
the God. Christ is the Savior who must
be trusted. The grace of God is not restricted,
however, to Jews, or to any single race, or any single nationality,
or any single social class. The grace of God reaches sinners
in every rank, in every place, in every condition, of every
tongue, of every tribe, of every people. Whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord. I prefer that the word read whosoever
than that it should read Donald Stuart Fortner. If it read Donald
Stuart Fortner, I would be convinced it's talking about another Donald
Stuart Fortner. But it says, whosoever. I have to believe
that includes me. Whosoever. Whosoever who is left
out, whosoever who is pushed aside, nobody, whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That draws a
circle around the whole globe, around the whole race, around
the whole course of history of the whole of humanity. Whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, here's
a very simple word, call. Call. What does that mean? What does that mean? You who
are fathers and mothers, you are out with your son, you men,
and the boy's just a little toddler, and he takes a pretty hard fall
and bruises his legs, scratches up his knees, and maybe cuts
his hand, and he looks up at you. Maybe the boy's too young
to even talk yet. He just looks up at you with
tearful eyes and his look is a call. He looks at you as if
to say, I know you care. I know you can help me. I'm hurting
and I need you. to call on the name of the Lord.
To call on him is to look to him, to trust him, to come to
him. Sometimes the call is expressed
with words of the mouth. Sometimes it's silent. The publican
cried, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. The disciples cried,
Lord, save us. We perish. Peter said, Lord,
save me. But there was a woman with an
issue of blood who had wasted all her substance on physicians
of no value. She had spent all and she heard
that the Lord Jesus was coming by and it was a great crowd of
people all around him. And she said, if somehow I can
get through that mess of people and just touch the hem of his
garment, I'll be made whole. And she didn't say a word. She didn't say a word. She just
pushed and pushed and pushed. She's already bowed over. She's,
as one crawling between the legs of others, she's just pushing
her way through the crowd. And finally, she gets near and
she reached out and touched him. And immediately, she was made
whole. That's what I'm talking about.
Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord. And here's a sure
word, shall. Isn't that wonderful? There are
no ifs in the text. No conditions to be met. No qualifications. This word is as sure as the throne
of the eternal God. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. If you or I look to Christ, If
you or I trust Christ, if you or I call on Christ, God says,
you shall be saved. Now I can't tell you much about
which I'm sure, but about this I'm sure. I look
nowhere else for mercy but to Christ. Jerry, that's called
faith. That's called believing God.
That's called calling on the name of the Lord. Shall be saved. Call on the name of the Lord
and you have eternal life. Call on the name of the Lord
and all your sins are pardoned. Call on the name of the Lord
and you're favored, accepted of God, received by God, embraced
by God, honored by God to be the son of God. Call on the name
of the Lord and you're an heir of God and you're an heir with
Christ. Here's my second word of instruction. In order to call
upon the name of the Lord, you must believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. You must trust the Son of God. How shall they call on him in
whom they have not believed? That child who's fallen, hurting,
looks to his dad and calls for his father to help. And the look
implies faith. The look implies confidence in
his father's strength and his father's goodness and his father's
ability to help. The mere fact that we call upon
anyone for help demonstrates that in measure we trust them.
We have faith in them. Call on him. That's to believe
him. You got to believe Him before
you can call on Him. Without question, you must call
on the Lord, but we must seek Him by prayer and supplication.
But before we call Him, we must believe Him. Without faith, it's
impossible to please God. I stand before you as a sinner
calling upon the Lord God for mercy and grace in Christ. The fact that I look to him for
grace implies that I trust him. I'm calling upon God for mercy
because I know I need his saving mercy. That's the result of Holy
Spirit conviction. He comes and convinces sinners
of sin. Sin, because they believe not
on me. He convinces sinners called by
His grace that their problem is their hatred of the Son of
God. Their problem is their willful
unbelief of the Son of God. No sinner will ever seek Christ
and the grace of God in Christ until he's brought to realize
his need of Christ. I love the picture of the prodigal
son, Luke 15. That son took his goods and left
his father's house and ran off to a far country and wasted his
substance and riotous living. And he would have filled his
belly with the husk the swine ate, but he couldn't do it. And
finally he said to himself, I have, my father has many hired servants
in his house, who are better off than I am. And the scripture
says, he did that when he came to himself. When he came to himself. You see, sinners by nature are
insane. They're mad. They're mad. They don't think right. They
don't think right. None of them do. None of them.
I don't care how smart they are. I don't care how well-trained
they are. They all think wrong. Their minds are depraved. Oh,
but if ever God causes you to come to yourself, you're gonna
realize that the husk of the swine, self-righteousness and
your good works can't satisfy your soul's need and you'll look
to your father's house who has bread enough and despair. I'm
calling upon God to say, because I believe God has provided salvation
in his son. Jesus Christ is the wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption that God gives to chosen sinners. He has performed righteousness.
He has made propitiation. He has satisfied divine justice.
Salvation is in him, for he is God's salvation. I'm calling
upon him. I call on the name of the Lord
because I believe that he is a Savior of whom Micah speaks,
who delights in mercy. He delights in mercy. He's able to save. But more than
that, he's willing to say. He bids sinners come to him and
say, I'll give you sure mercies of David. Come to me, thirsty
soul, and I'll cause there to be in you a water, a water of
life, rivers of water springing up unto everlasting life. Come
to me, you who are hungry, and I'll feed you with bread which
will cause you to have complete satisfaction so that you'll want
no other bread. The fact that I'm calling on
Christ, seeking mercy, grace, and salvation by him testifies
that I do in some measure trust him. Not like I want to, not like
I should, but I do trust him. I look for hope to no one else. I'm looking to Christ and Christ
alone. I have all other confidences
cast away and I fall flat down on Jesus Christ the Lord. Live or die, sink or swim, I
trust Him. He's all my hope. He's all my
trust, all my confidence. How about you? How about you?
Now, here's the third word of instruction. In order to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you must hear the gospel of the grace
of God in Christ. How shall they believe in him
of whom they have not heard? It is impossible for sinners
to believe in Christ until they've heard the gospel of Christ. The
word heard here is used in a very loose way. It's not just talking
about hearing with the physical ear. Some folks are deaf and
they can't hear with the physical ear. It's talking about learning. It's talking about acquiring
knowledge, acquiring learning by the gift of God. It is a learning
that comes by the preaching of the gospel. The fact is you cannot
believe what you don't know. You can't know what you don't
hear or read or by some means learn. You must come to know
the Gospel because it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. how to say this with enough emphasis. So I'll say it real quietly.
Are you listening? There is but one Gospel. There is but one Gospel. If I thought that fellow right
across the road there was preaching the Gospel, I'd either join up
with him or have him join up with us. I wouldn't have two churches
within spitting distance of each other. That's foolish, if they're
both preaching the same thing, serving the same God. That's
absurd. That's absurd. Well, Brother John, we're all
serving the Lord, just serving Him a different way. No, we're
not. We're either serving ourselves or serving God. We're either
serving our lust or serving God. There is but one gospel. And that one Gospel is the Gospel
of God's dear Son that declares how that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures. Mark and Donna Daniel, when I
first heard about them were in the Ivory Coast of Africa. Their
mom and his mom and dad, God had saved them. Mark and Donna
were down in the Ivory Coast of Africa, serving as missionaries
of the Free Will Baptist Church. The Free Will Baptist Church.
Up and down the road in this part of the country, you'll find
signs that say Free Will Baptist Church. Brother Bill Clark was
driving through here one day. We were driving across Southern
Ohio. He said, this is the only place in the world where folks
advertise apostasy. Free Will Baptist. That's what
it was. but you weren't serving God,
you're serving your lust. Oh, but they lived in poverty,
you're still serving your lust, trying to do good, trying to
make yourself, am I telling the truth? That's just fact, that's
just fact. And then God saved them by his
grace. How's that? They heard the gospel,
never heard it before. Somebody cared enough to send
them a message on cassette tape, and they heard the gospel, they'd
never heard it before. Now, there are some vital things
involved in the gospel. The gospel of God declares salvation
by grace. Now, let me give you a second
word, alone. Any mixture of something with
grace is not grace. I don't care whether you're talking
about reading your Bible, saying your prayers, or being a preacher,
or a missionary, or sacrificing your child on an altar, or getting
baptized, I don't care what it is, anything you put with grace
ain't grace. Salvation by grace alone, it
is the work of God alone. And any preacher, anywhere, who
mixes something with grace is not preaching the gospel. He's
preaching a false gospel. And this comes as a shock to
folks. I don't know why it does. It just comes as a shock to folks.
God doesn't save sinners by religious lies. God may use a false prophet to
preach the gospel. But when He does, He'll take
a fellow who spends his life telling lies and make him tell
the truth. There was a fellow named Balaam
who didn't know God from a billy goat. This fellow named Balaam,
he wasn't the smartest of all fellows. You read about him,
he's talking to a jackass. He's carrying on a conversation
with a jackass. But when God speaks the word by Balaam, Balaam
spoke nothing but grace in a redeemer crucified for sinners. Salvation
by grace alone. The gospel all about Christ alone. Salvation accomplished by the
doing and dying of the Son of God. The Gospel declares H-O-W,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Well how did he die? He died
voluntarily. Nobody took his life from him.
He died vicariously. He died in the room instead of
his people. He died victoriously, having
accomplished everything he died to accomplish. Jesus Christ is
a successful, sovereign substitute who accomplished eternal redemption
for his people. And folks who preach and teach,
as Everybody around us does. Everybody
around us does. All through this county. I don't
know of a preacher anywhere else in this county. Merle Hart, when
you all first asked me about being your pastor, I made this
statement and I stand by it. If there's somebody here preaching
this, go join up with them. Don't call me. That's foolish. Everybody else in this county
denies that Christ is an effectual Savior. They deny it, they deny
it. Every preacher in the county,
Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Patronist, and any other kind
you can find, doesn't matter who they are, they deny it. But
Christ is an effectual savior. He redeemed his people. To say
he didn't is to blaspheme God and deny the gospel. And God
doesn't save folks by religious lies. The gospel is a declaration
of salvation by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith
alone. Through faith alone. Now, this
is the idea most people have of faith. Most people have the
idea that God loved you, and Christ died for you, and Christ
made it possible for you to be saved. Now Mark, if you'll just
pretty please give him permission to do so, then your faith in
Christ will make God's grace and Christ's blood effectual
for your salvation. Now, you will accomplish justification. You will accomplish redemption. You will accomplish salvation
if you'll just believe in Jesus. Now, nobody really uses those
words, Skip. I never heard anybody use those
words, but everybody says that. Everybody says that. They say
that, no, no, no, we wouldn't say means his own Savior, but
you, you know, God made you with a free will. And God's picked
something from you, and it just stands for a reason, you've got
to do something. If you add anything to what Christ accomplished,
you'll perish in your sins. Salvation is receiving God's
grace and salvation in Christ by faith alone. We don't justify
ourselves by faith. We receive justification by faith.
We don't make atonement by faith. We receive atonement by faith. It is receiving the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this salvation comes to many
women by the preaching of the gospel. There are many ways in
which you might hear the gospel. But the primary means employed
by God for the salvation of sinners is preaching, the public preaching
of the Word. There was a eunuch who had been
up to Jerusalem, listening to a bunch of false prophets, reading
from the law of God, teaching folks to worship after the manner
of Moses in the law, being circumcised, keeping Sabbath days, keeping
holy days, and all that religious nonsense. And that eunuch had
gone up there And he comes back down from Jerusalem, and he's
just as empty as he was when he went up there, just as hungry
as when he went up there, just as thirsty as when he went up
there. And the Lord God sent a eunuch. I said, Philip, down
to that eunuch. And the eunuch was reading from
Isaiah 53. He's reading from Isaiah 53.
Boy, if there's any passage of scripture you can read and learn
the gospel on your own, that'd be it. But he's reading the 53rd
chapter of Isaiah and Philip walked alongside him. He said,
the fellow must've been reading out loud. He said, do you understand
what you're reading? And the eunuch looked down at
him, he said, how can I? Except some man showed me. Philip
said, scoot over, buddy. Let me tell you who he's talking
about. And the eunuch believed. That's how God saves sinners. He sends a preacher with his
word to proclaim the gospel of his grace in Christ Jesus. Fourth, in order to hear the
gospel, someone must preach the gospel to you. How shall they
hear without a preacher? How shall they hear without a
preacher? Preachers are needed. No. Preachers are necessary. No. Preachers are vital. Vital. God speaks to sinners
through his word by the mouth a vile, dirty, worthless, ignorant,
helpless, sinful man like this one, like this one. And I'm going to tell you a little
secret. If you The other day, Shelby
and I were driving down to North Carolina, and we stopped at McDonald's
to get some coffee. We found out if you want fresh
coffee, and if I'm gonna pay a dollar and a half a cup for
it, I'm gonna get fresh coffee, you go inside. Otherwise, they're
gonna give you stuff that's been sitting up there for an hour
or two. So she went inside to order some coffee. And the fella
wasn't the brightest bulb in the room, but he was doing best
he could, I reckon. He finally put on some coffee,
and then he got the cup out. And this is what he was doing. watering his hands around on
the lip of the cup. It just wasn't no coffee getting
done. And when he started to pour the coffee in the cup, Shelby
said, could I have a fresh cup too? Now I'm gonna tell you a little
secret. Tell you a little secret. If
we had been coming in off of two days in the desert with no
water, and the fella had just, he'd been chewing tobacco and
rubbing it off on his lip, and there's water in there, I wouldn't
have cared what that cup looked like. I said, it'd be handsome. Ah, so thankful. Well, look at
the cup. I ain't interested in the cup.
I'm interested in the water. If God ever puts a thirst in
your soul for his word, you'll drink out of a dirty cup
gladly, gladly. You see, God's servants are men
just like you, just as dirty as you, just as vile as you,
just as corrupt as you, just as depraved as you, just as sinful
as you. But God's glory is to put the
treasure of His grace in these clay pots, these earthen vessels,
that the excellency of the glory may be of God and not of us. One last thing. In order to preach
the gospel effectively, in order to preach effectually, the preacher
must be sent. Scent. Scent of God. Scent of
God. Scent of God. Not just initially. Eric Waller just got your eye.
I can't think of anything I desire greater for you than God send
you out to preach the gospel. I pray you do that, my grandson.
Would to God every man here were a prophet. Would to God so. But
it's more than just being sent initially. I came here this morning, begging
God to send me to you with a fresh message on my heart, burning
in my heart, bursting in my soul, that's just got to get out, a
message that's got to be delivered. Some of you have traveled with
me, some of you men. My wife will tell you that I don't give
things out, hashed out, rehashed stuff. I just don't do it, I
just don't do it. I don't come here to preach to
you what I preached last year or the year before. I prepare
every message fresh. I was just talking to a young
preacher yesterday. I said, don't ever let yourself get in the
habit of just pulling out some old notes and preaching. That's
not preaching, that's not preaching. If the message doesn't burn freshly
in my heart, it won't burn freshly in yours. I beg of you, pray
for me that God will send me to you every time these doors
are opened with a message from God for your soul. so that I can speak for God to
you, so that God will speak by me to you. Pray for me. These other brethren who labor
in the Word, pray that God will send us with every open door
of utterance that he will make it an effectual door and send
us with his word to preach the gospel to you. Because faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And you can't
hear and I can't preach unless God sends me to you with his
message. Now, God, send your message to
these, your people, for Christ's sake. Amen.