I don't know if any of you saw
this past week or not, this new fellow in Rome. I hate to use
the word Pope, but you don't talk about that. That new elected
Bishop of the Church of Babylon, the Pope, he made a rather revealing
declaration this past week, asked about atheists and folks who
don't believe as it's put. He said, you don't have to believe
to go to heaven, just follow your conscience. That sounds sweet, doesn't it?
Just follow your conscience and everything will be all right.
Sadly, that's just about what the whole religious world believes
and declares. I read to you some years ago
an interview between Robert Shuler and Billy Graham. Shuler was
interviewing Billy Graham on one of his television broadcasts. And he asked Mr. Graham, do I understand you correctly
There is a universality to the love of God so that if a man
or a woman in heathen countries has never heard the name of Jesus,
just follows his conscience and does what he thinks to be right,
he'll be saved in the end. And Mr. Graham said, yes, that's
exactly right. There is a universality to the
love of God. Just do good. and everything
will be alright. Everything will be alright. All
men by nature really do believe just that. And the whole religious
world teaches just such nonsense. The whole religious world except
the Church of God. The whole religious world except
those who are born of God and taught of God. All men and women
by nature just are confident that somehow, somehow, if they
will just do right, or at least mostly do right, in the greater
part of their lives, if they behave well, God will accept
them. When men and women Begin to have
some concern about their souls and you will sooner or later
Some of you do now a man is born with a God consciousness an awareness
of God from which you cannot escape you try to shut out the
voice of God in your soul and with all kinds of things. And the time comes when you just
can't do it. And you've got to face the reality
that you're going to meet God in judgment. And you recognize
something about your sin and something about eternity. And
you begin to have serious thoughts about eternity, about judgment,
about heaven, about hell, and about the immortality of your
soul. And you ask a question. You may ask it of a preacher.
You may ask it of a neighbor. You may ask it crying out to
God in prayer. It's the question the Philippian
jailer asked when he feared for his life and he fell down before
Paul and Silas. He said, sirs, what must I do
to be saved? What must I do to be saved? When the Jews heard our Lord
giving instruction to them in the 8th chapter of John's Gospel,
they finally said to Him, What can we do that we may do the
works of God? What must I do to be saved? Every man, every woman, every
child most naturally under satanic delusion attempts to approach
God on the basis of his goodness. He attempts to bring something
to God by which he hopes for God's acceptance. Something by
which he could appease God's wrath. Something by which he
could make some atonement for his sin. And that's one reason
that works religion is so prevalent in the world and it prevails
very well because men are willing to make sacrifices. They're willing
to make great gifts. They're willing to do great works
in order that they may atone for sin, in order that they may
find peace with God, in order that they may soothe their consciences
and give themselves hope before God. Now, I want you to understand
what the scriptures teach. May God be pleased this day to
speak by his word to your soul. Turn to Micah chapter 6 again,
and let's look at this passage we read earlier. Micah chapter
6. In the first part of this chapter,
God's prophet Micah declares God's controversy with his people. God's controversy with the children
of Israel. Those to whom he had given his
law. Those to whom he had sent his
prophets. Those to whom he had given his word. Those among whom
he had established his worship. Those who profess to be his people.
God says, now I've got a controversy with you. Hear ye now what the
Lord saith. Arise, contend thou before the
mountains. Let the hills hear thy voice.
Hear ye, O mountains, that is, O mountains of Israel, the Lord's
controversy, and ye foundations of the earth. For the Lord hath
a controversy with his people. The Lord hath a controversy with
his people. What is God's controversy? O
my people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied
thee? But what have I required of you
to make you so weary and so tired? What law, what commandment, what
word have I given you to press you down? Testify against me. And then it says, this is what
I've done for you. I brought thee up out of the
land of Egypt. I redeemed thee out of the house
of servants. I brought you out of Egypt. I
redeemed you with the blood of a paschal lamb. I delivered you
by power, by grace, by blood. I brought you out with my mighty
arm. I sent before thee Moses, Aaron,
and Miriam. These three born in a time of
great bondage and judgment upon Israel down in Egypt. He says,
I raised them up to be deliverers to you. Then in verse five, the
Lord calls for us to remember what Balak, the king of Moab,
asked of Balaam when he sought God's blessings upon himself
and God's curse upon Israel. Now strange as it may seem to
us in our modern day when we don't any longer think about
gods of the sun and gods of the moon and gods of this nation,
gods of that nation, when men went to war, one against another,
one nation against another, one king against another, the first
thing they used to try to do in ancient pagan times is they
would try to get the gods of their enemies on their side.
They tried to get the gods of their enemies on their side.
So Balaam called for Balaam. He said, I want you to come and
curse Israel and get God's Israel's God on my side. Look at verse
five. Oh, my people remember now what
Balaam king of Moab consulted and what Balaam the son of Beor
answered him from Shittim until Gilgal. Now here's the reason
that you may know the righteousness of the Lord. Remember what Balaam
told Balak when Balak tried to get him to curse Israel. that
you may know the righteousness of the Lord. We'll come back
to that in a little bit. Then in verses 6, 7, and 8, using
Balak and Balaam as examples, he raises the question that I
want to answer in this message. What does God require? Wherewith
shall I come before the Lord? How can I come to God? How can
I come to God? I've been having people ask me
that question since I was 17 years old. Preacher, how can
I come to God? How can I come to God? And they
want me to tell them to do something. Say a prayer. Go through some
school of repentance. Do this, do that. That's how
you come to God. How can I come to God? How can
I come to God and bow myself before the high God? Shall I
come to him, shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with
thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Those
are things he commanded in the law. Or shall he be pleased if
I give my firstborn, my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit
of my body for the sin of my soul? Balaam taught Israel to
join the worship of God with the worship of idols and do what
the idol worshipers do. You bring your sons and daughters
and sacrifice them like you do rams and like you have rivers
of oil. He has showed thee, O man, What
is good? What does God require of thee?
But to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with
thy God. Now, this is the one thing I
want you to see, and I want you to see it clearly. Salvation
is altogether God's work. All of it. It is altogether God's
work. Forgiveness. Redemption. Righteousness. Sanctification. Perseverance. Heavenly glory. It is all God's work. Salvation, the whole of salvation,
everything required to bring sinners from the gate of hell
to the gate of heaven is God's work. Absolutely nothing about
God's salvation depends on you. Absolutely nothing about God's
salvation is determined by you. You mean, Brother Don, Good works
don't have anything to do with salvation. You heard me. Well
You mean? Salvation is not my decision
No, you made a decision long ago. You make it every day and
your decision will land you in hell Salvation is not determined
by you and salvation doesn't depend on you Salvation is God's
work and whatever it is that God requires of a man God gives
to him Please write that down somewhere
and ask God to stick it in your heart. Bill Raleigh, whatever
God requires of you, God gives. Does God require faith? That's
his gift. Does God require righteousness?
That's His gift. Does God require life? That's
His gift. Does God require atonement? That's
His gift. Does God require sanctification?
That's His gift. Does God require a new birth?
That's His gift. Does God require that you persevere
in faith? That's His gift. Does God require
that you be perfect? That's His gift. Whatever God
requires, God gives in His saving grace. Now, I'll give you my
message under two points, just these two things. First, we're
going to look at man's presumption and then at God's revelation.
In Micah 6, 6 and 7, we see man's presumption. Every man's proud,
vain presumption that he can and must do something to save
himself. You talk to somebody about grace,
and they'll say, well, I recognize that. We know that you've got
to be saved by grace. We know that you've got to have
Christ. We know that you've got to have blood atonement. We know
that you've got to be called by the Spirit. But it just stands
for reason that God expects something from us. It just stands for reason. Walter, if I understand correctly,
you were raised a papist. Is that correct? Taught all your
life, you've got to do something for God. Got to do something
for God. You got to have blood atonement.
You got to have that. You got to have Jesus. You got
to have the Spirit. You got to have the new birth. But God requires
something from you. Every man ask wherewith shall
I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? What
shall we do that we might work the works of God? That's the
question men ask, presuming that they can meet the demand, whatever
it might be. What folly? What insanity? Do you remember how the children
of Israel spoke to Moses when he went up on the Mount Sinai
to receive the law? They said, you speak to God for
us and then come down here and tell us what God says and we'll
do it. We'll do it. All you gotta do is just tell
him what God said, we'll do it. We'll do it. Fallen man can't
steal heaven by sin, so he tries to buy it with righteousness.
He's willing to bow in ceremonies and religious rituals and keeping
of holy days and in the bodily exercise of religion. He's willing
to go through fastings and put ashes on his head on Ash Wednesday.
If bowing his head and doing penances could gain God's favor,
if taking pilgrimages could win God's mercy, if that will ingratiate
the Almighty, tell me what to do and I'll do it. Shall I come
before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Hold
your hands here, Micah 6, and turn back to the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah. Shall I propitiate God? Can I
turn away God's wrath by offering something for my sin? Can I meet
God marching against me with burnt offerings and thus make
peace with God? Can I appease God by something
I do? What does God think of all that?
What does God think of all the sacrifices and services and devotion
and religious activity of men without Christ? Now, I don't
want to be severe. I don't want to be harsh. I don't want to be mean. But
God, help me. I want you to understand the
truth. Look around Danville, Kentucky, Boyle County, Kentucky. Baptist churches, papist churches,
Presbyterian churches, Methodist churches, Pentecostal churches,
no kind of churches, churches, just look around. Look around
everywhere. Look around everywhere. Look across the state, across
the country, around the world. Look at it. Judaism, what's called
Christianity, Islam, look at it all. What does God think of
all that religion? What does God think of it? Such
devotion, such devotion. Just every little bit, if you
watch any television at all, somebody says something good,
they'll refer to that woman they call Mother Teresa. Such devotion, such devotion. I read in history of men putting
themselves in leper colonies. to go among lepers and make themselves
lepers so they can convert them to the Pope. What does God think
about that? What does God think about that?
I read in history of men selling themselves into slavery so they
could go preach to the slaves. Oh, what devotion. And they're
devoted. That takes devotion. What does
God think of it? What do you think of sodomy? What do you think of sodomy?
Now I'm not talking to folks on the street, I'm talking to
folks in Grace Baptist Church in Danville, Kentucky. What do you think of
sodomy? If I read this book correctly,
and I do, sodomy is the most debasing, dehumanizing, moral
perversity known to man. Don't call sodomites gay, they're
not gay, they're sodomites. It is the most debasing, the
most dehumanizing, moral perversity known to man. Worse than murder,
worse than rape, it is the most debasing, most dehumanizing,
moral perversity known to man. That's how God presents it in
this work, in this book. Listen to how God speaks about
religion without Christ. Listen to how God speaks about
all works religion. Listen to what God says about
all people who presume by doing good they can win God's favor. Hear the word, Isaiah chapter
1 verse 10. Hear the word of the Lord, ye
rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God,
ye people of Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah had not existed
for hundreds of years. God swept them away in judgment.
But here he speaks to men and women of Israel and calls them
people of Gomorrah and rulers of Sodom. Verse 11, to what purpose
is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Sayeth the Lord. I'm
full of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beast. I delight
not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he goats. When
you come to appear before me, who has required this at your
hand to tread my courts? Well, you can read this book
right here. You've got it in front of you. He commanded it. He commanded it. God commanded
it, but not the way they were doing it. You see, the Jews had
lowered the worship of God to nothing but idolatry. And they
dared to presume that by their puny attempts at obeying ceremonial
ritualistic religion, God would accept them. And when they did,
God said, you may as well offer swine's blood or the blood of
a man. It's not what I call for. or
preacher. God commands us to read the Bible.
God commands us to go to church. God commands us to pay our tithes. God commands us to live a good
life. Surely this is what God requires.
Not the way you think. Not the way you think. You see,
the only people who were ever accepted of God in the Old Testament
coming to the tabernacle or coming to the temple, bringing their
morning sacrifice and their evening sacrifice. bringing their their
their oblations and Lifting their hands in praise and worship to
God and lifting their hearts to him before his altar The only
people who were ever accepted of God as they had kept their
Sabbath days their holy days their solemn feasts the only
ones were the ones who came and they They brought a lamb or a
turtle dove or a ram or a bullock and they said God I trust your
son, the one represented here. They're the only ones. Those who can't understand that
this Passover lamb, it speaks of one to come, who is Christ,
our Passover, who shall be sacrificed for us, the lamb of God, accepted
of God from eternity. All who came. Presuming that
by their works and their sacrifice they are called here sodomites
Sodomites read on verse 12 I was 13 bring no more vain oblations
Incense is an abomination to me The new moons and Sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. It is iniquity. Even
the solemn meeting, your new moons and your appointed feasts,
my soul hateth. They are troubling to me. I'm
weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your
hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you make
many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Well, Brother Don, do you mean
that we've got to come to God with nothing in our hands? I
can't do that. I told you before, Brother Bruce
Crabtree went to visit with his dad when he was dying. And Bruce
told me this story, just heartbreaking. His dad had been a preacher,
works preacher. And Bruce tried to witness to
him and he said, Dad, You've got to let go of all your righteousness
and trust Christ. And his dad looked at him and
said, son, I can't do that. I can't do that. Come to God
with nothing. I can't do that. Will you hear
me? Oh, God, help you to hear me. Come to Christ. Right where you
are. right now with nothing in your
hands. That's the only way you can come
to Him. I'm not calling for you to come
down here to church, in front of the church building. That
won't do you any good. You may as well go to a confessional
booth. I'm not calling for you to come
to an altar in a Baptist church. That won't do you any good. You
may as well go to a papist to confess your sins. Come to Christ. Right where you are right now
with nothing. That's the only way you can come.
Nothing in my hands. I bring simply to thy cross. I cling naked. Come to thee for
dress. Helpless. Look to thee for grace. Foul eye to thy fountain fly. Watch me, savior, or I die. That's the only way a sinner
can come to God. Robert Bellarmine, the infamous,
famous papist theologian, made this statement. He said, good
works are the price and purchase of heaven. One who believed what he said
made this statement. He wasn't a papist. He was a
Protestant. I would swim through a sea of
brimstone that I might come to heaven at last. You would too. You would too. If I could convince any man or
woman, aware of judgment and eternity, that by sacrificing
his own child, he could win God's favor, he'd sacrifice his own
child. That's the nature of humanity.
Read history if you don't believe me. Just read history. Convince someone that if you
had hot coals here, and if you just go barefooted and walk from
that door down here to this pulpit on hot coals, God would forgive
your sin. Folks would strip their shoes
and socks off and start walking. Convince them that they'd climb
on their knees up a mountainside. They'd climb on their knees up
a mountainside. Convince them to say Hail Mary
and rub rosary beads to their gold, and they'll do it. Men
want to do something. Give me something to do. That
makes me God. That's the issue. Give me something
to do. That makes God my debtor. That's
the issue. Give me something to do. That
gives me reason to boast before God. Martin Luther said such
are the devil's martyrs. They buy damnation at a high
price. They buy damnation at a high
price. Shall I give my firstborn for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
Oh, what horrible thought. Nothing more absurd and yet nothing
more precious to man than the foolish idolatry of works religion. Now, I know very few people who
would assert openly assert that salvation is by works. I know
a few, but very few. I know very few who would even
dare to assert salvation is by a combination of works and grace.
Very few. I know some, but very, very few.
Almost everyone I know and almost everyone you know would assert
as we do rightly. That salvation is by the grace
of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone plus nothing
minus nothing And out of the other side of their mouth Talking
about hope talking about salvation talking about the reason why
they hope to go to heaven The reason why they hope for heavenly
reward and eternal life. I'll guarantee you 99 out of
100 999 out of a thousand will look at
you and say well, this is why I did this. I Felt this I Experienced
that I was there. I don't want that But my brother
John, you don't know what I was like before God saved me. I used
to be drunk. I'm sober now. I Used to cuss every other word
down because we hit myself with them with a hammer. I I'm not
the same man I used to be. I'm not the same woman I used
to be. That's the reason I have good hope. What did I tell you? Everybody loves to think he's
good. Everybody loves to mix in his
works, his righteousness by which he seeks to find favor with God. Those who would teach work salvation,
they say you got to be baptized, Got to take the Lord's Supper,
you got to have the sacraments. Others wouldn't say that. They
wouldn't say that at all. But now, if you want to have
assurance of salvation, how many of you, don't raise your hands,
I know it's true, you start to feel bad. You don't feel close
to God like you used to. You don't, your heart's cold. indifferent. And you say to yourself,
well, I need to go to church more. So instead of coming once
a week, come twice or three times. Now, I encourage you to be here
three times a week. I don't, I don't labor in the gospel so
you can ignore it. But that's not going to help
you to have assurance. If it does, your assurance is
a delusion. Well, I need to pray more. I
want to set my clock and get up an hour early so I can pray
more. That won't do it. I want to start reading three
chapters a day, every day. That won't do it. That won't
do it. We all tend to revert to works because it's our nature.
Well, Brother Don, how do you have assurance? The same way
I got salvation. I trust Christ. Frank, can I make that clear?
Trust Christ. That's all. That's all. We recognize
we're saved by grace, but that doesn't mean your works don't
count for anything. Skip, that means your works don't count
for anything. They don't count for anything. But what about
sanctification? Is it necessary to be holy to
be saved? That's what sanctification is,
isn't it? Is that necessary? Well, of course. What is that?
By grace or by works? Is that God's gift or your work?
No, sanctification, holiness is what God gives you. It's called
the new birth. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. We live before God by faith in his son. That's all. Oh, foolish people. Who hath
bewitched you? Paul wrote to the Galatians.
Having begun in the spirit, are you made perfect by the flesh?
Did you receive Christ by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith? By faith. Well, having begun
in the spirit, are you made perfect by the flesh? What foolishness.
Others who might even recognize sanctification like justification,
redemption is God's gift. They say, well, but if you if
you're not a really good Christian, Merle, if you If you don't really
do good, you're going to lose some rewards in heaven. What are the rewards of heaven?
Answer me. Are they salvation or are they
not? What is heaven? Is it the consummation of God's
grace and salvation? Of course it is. That's God's
gift too. And the reward of heavenly glory
was earned for us and purchased for us by Jesus Christ alone. Everywhere in this book, everywhere
in this book, when the scripture speaks of God's salvation, Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. But what must I do? I recall
years ago, I was preaching for Brother Dan Park's father, my
pastor down in Winston-Salem. And Dan and Sandy hadn't been
married very long. And they were at services that
night. And they left, and we were still standing around talking
about 10, 15 minutes. They drove back up in the driveway.
They were headed out of town somewhere. And they both said,
Sandy wants to talk to you. And so Sandy and I went back
to one of the rooms and talked a little bit, and she said, God
showed me I'm lost. What can I do? I said, seek the
Lord. And I left. And Dan told me later,
he said, I just expected you to say something else. So what
do you do? Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. I'm not going to talk you into
doing something. I'm not going to twist your arm. I'm not going
to play with your mind. No, no, no. I'm going to preach
the gospel to you and wait for God to work. If you get faith,
God will have to give it to you. I can't. If I can give it to
you, somebody down the road can talk you out of it. Understand
that? Salvation by God, by God's grace,
by God's goodness and mercy in Christ Jesus, the Lord. All right. That's the first point. The second
one will be brief. Because I want to pick it up
a little bit tonight. God's revelation. This is God's revelation. Verse 8. He has showed thee,
O man, what is good. What doth the Lord require of
thee? Oh, now. This is it. To do justly, and
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. As I've said to you many times,
I don't read garbage. I only read good commentaries
and good theology. That is as good as I can get. But the commentaries, almost
without exception, take these words from God's prophet Micah
to mean this. I just got through reading a
half a dozen again this morning. This is the sum of all virtue
and morality. This is the sum of it. Do justly,
love mercy, walk humbly with our God. If you, if you would,
if you'd come to God, what you've got to do is be just and honest
in all the affairs of your life. What you've got to do is be merciful
and gracious and kind to men. Forgiving and forbearing and
lenient and charitable and give alms and those things. If you
would come to God, what you've got to do is not just bring your
sacrifices, but you've got to be just and merciful and you've
got to walk humbly before men. Got to walk humbly. Gotta be
a humble man. Gotta be a humble man. So folks,
see that you're a humble man. Well, there's two problems with
that. To understand the text that way
is to say that you earn God's favor by doing good. And that runs in the face of
everything in the book of God. That runs in the face of everything
in scripture. And the other problem is, there's
not a word in the text about what you do before men. Look
at it. He says, do justly, love mercy,
and walk humbly with thy God. Now that's another story. How
are you going to do justly with God? Chris, did I catch your
name right when you came in this morning? Is that right? How are
you gonna do justly with God? How are you gonna love mercy
with God? How are you gonna walk humbly
with God? Oh, now that's a puzzle. Not much, not much. To do justly,
is to take sides with God against yourself. It is to take sides with God
against yourself. Turn to Psalm 51 and I'll show
you. Psalm 51. Here is David confessing his
sin. Verse 4. Against thee The only have I
sinned it done this evil in thy sight Now that's not right. That's not right David sinned
against Bathsheba David sinned against Israel. David sinned
against Uriah. David sinned against his wives.
David sinned against his sons. David sinned against all Israel.
David sinned against everybody in the world who knows his name.
But David said against thee, thee only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight. David said the issues not would
be in man, the issues would be in God. The issue is with me and God.
Why has he spoken like this? Watch what it says, that thou
mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou
judgest. He says, God, if you send me
to hell for it, it's right. If God sends you to hell, it's
right. And you're going to have to take
sides with it. That's what it is to confess your sin. Confessing
sin. In papist churches, they go to
a priest, and they get in a little booth, and they rub their rosaries. I reckon I've never been there,
and they confess their sin. Not much. They don't want to
say too much, but enough to soothe their conscience a little bit.
The priest tells them what to do, and they go away, and they get some forgiveness.
In Baptist churches, they come down to the front and they shake
the preacher's hand and they mumble a little prayer and the
preacher mumbles a little prayer with them and they confess their sins and
they rub their rosary beads and go home and feel better. What's this talking about? To
do justly. If we confess our sin. Oh, I've been an adulterer. I've
been a thief. I've been a murderer. I, uh,
I've been a liar. I've been a deceiver. No, that's
not it. That's not it. That's not it. I want to ask you to do something
and you can't do it. You won't do it unless God does
it for you. Rip open your heart before God. Hide nothing. Hide nothing. Hide nothing. You can't do that
with any man. You don't dare do it with any
man. You don't dare rip open your
heart to your husband or your wife or your son or your daughter
or your mother or your father. You don't dare. But there's no
hope for your soul if you don't rip open your heart before God.
Confess our sin. Confess what you are in the inside. But listen to what God says.
If we confess our sin, He is faithful. Faithful to His Word. Faithful
to His Son. Faithful to His Honor. He's faithful
and just. Just! just because Christ died
for sinners, just because Christ made atonement for sinners, just
because the blood of His Son has purged away our sins. He's
faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. So I say to you, confess your sin to God and go
home justified with God. Confess your sin to God and go
home a new creature in Christ. Confess your sin to God and go
home with life everlasting. But what about loving mercy?
Loving mercy. Turn to Luke chapter one. I'll
show you. Love mercy. Zacharias is speaking concerning
the ministry of John the Baptist and God's performance of mercy
to Israel God's elect he says in verse 68 Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people He hath
raised up in a horn of salvation for us talking about Christ the
Lord look at verse 72 To perform watch this Not mercy the mercy
To perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember
his holy covenant. To love mercy. To love mercy is to love salvation
by Christ. To love mercy is to love Christ
the Savior. To love mercy is to love substitution. Christ performed mercy in the
accomplishment of righteousness, in the performance of redemption,
in the accomplishment of our forgiveness and justification.
Christ performed the mercy God promised. And the Lord Jesus
comes in the revelation of His grace. Sinners who tormented themselves, trying
to make themselves righteous. Learn to love mercy. Oh, don't
you love mercy? Don't you love mercy? Mercy revealed
in the crucified Savior. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. What is it? that God requires. Confess your sin, do justice,
love mercy, trust his son, and walk humbly with thy God. Walk humbly with thy God. Turn to John 16. I'll wrap this
up. John 16. John 16. Let me talk to you about
humility. I know a lot about it. I really do. I really do. Not many folks do. I really do. In the opinion of
a man, I am anything but a humble man. Do you have any idea how
many times I combed all three hairs here this morning to get
them in place? I really did. I had to be careful
because I cut my head with the comb because I want to look my
best. When I've tied my tie, I make
sure it's tied just exactly right. One thing my daddy taught me
how to do is tie necktie. I make sure it's tied just this way
and I spend some time with it and I make sure it lays right
at the top of the middle of my belt. That's where the tie's
got to lay, just right there. Otherwise, I'm not satisfied.
Well, you must be a proud man. I am. I acknowledge it and I
hate it. I hate it. I want to look my
best in the way I look. I want to look my best in the
way I act. I want you to think best of me. And that's pride. And I hope there's something
besides pride in it. But having said that, that's got nothing
to do with this humility. Humility is to trust Christ alone. To give yourself to God entirely
by faith in his son. Now watch it. John 16, 7. Nevertheless,
I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you. It's
necessary for you that I go away. The Savior is talking. It's necessary
for you that I die. For if I go not away, if I don't
go to Calvary and redeem you, the Comforter will not come unto
you. The Comforter. But if I depart,
I will send him unto you. The Comforter. The Comforter. Oh, now brother Don, now you're
getting down to things. We love to hear preachers talk
about comfort, don't we? Comfort you, comfort you, my people.
That's the command, the comforter. And I want to comfort you. I sat here this morning, right
where Shelby's sitting now, while Lindsey was teaching, before
we started teaching, I prayed, God, give me grace. Give me the
message that will comfort your people in the midst of all they've
got to face. Well, how does God the Holy Spirit
comfort sinners? He makes them miserable. He makes
them miserable. That's why He does. For when
He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will reprove, the word is
convinced, the world of sin. Not everybody in the world, but
of men and women scattered around the world. I get done here. In an hour or two, Larry will
have this message posted. Folks all over the world are
going to be listening to it. And I'm praying somebody, including
some of you here, will be convinced of sin. Of sin. Not convinced that you ought
not commit adultery or steal or commit murder or get drunk. You know that. You know that. You know that's horrible. You
know that. That's not what the Spirit of God does. Not convince
you you ought not go to the picture show or smoke cigarettes or wear
shorts or put, you men put earrings in your ears. You know better
than that. You know better than that. What's
he talking about? Convince your sin. He'll convince
you of what you are in your heart because you believe not on me.
Ah, but once He makes you miserable, what comfort He gives. If He
convinces you of your sin, I'll guarantee you, He'll convince
you of righteousness. Of righteousness. Not that you
ought to do righteousness, but that you can't. He'll convince
you, righteousness is done! Because I go to my father. Christ
came down here. What did we say in Daniel 9 last
week? He came down here to bring in
everlasting righteousness. He could not go back to the father
except Jerry. He had brought it in. He said
he'll convince you of righteousness because I go to my father. And
he'll convince you of something else. He'll convince you of judgment. Of judgment. Brother Don, I've
believed in judgment all my life. I know it. That's what I was
talking about. That's what I was talking about. He'll convince
you there ain't any. He'll convince you judgment is
over because the prince of this world is judged. Remember what
the Lord told Israel when we began this? He said, you remember
what Balaam said to Balak, what I forced Balaam to say to Balak,
that you may know the righteousness of the Lord. Well, listen to
what he said. Behold, I have received commandment
to bless. God hath blessed and I cannot
reverse it and here's his blessing. He Hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is
with him Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob What does God require me? Sirs,
what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Amen.