I thought about this subject
a few weeks ago, this subject of sounding a clear note on the
gospel trumpet and the need to sound a clear note. Now Paul
in Galatians chapter 2 and verse 21, a verse following the verse
that Mitch quoted to you a while ago, Paul said, I do not frustrate
the grace of God. If righteousness came by the
law, then Christ died in vain. Now what he meant by that when
he said, I do not frustrate the grace of God, he meant I do not
distort the grace of God. I do not confuse the message
of the grace of God. He says I do not complicate the
message of the grace of God. He was saying to these Galatians,
if you had your way, the Lord Jesus Christ would die in vain,
because you're teaching that righteousness comes by obedience
to the law of Moses, And if that was the case, then the Lord Jesus
died in vain. So Paul said, I don't distort,
I make it clear. Righteousness does not come by
law keeping. It does not come through a man's
obedience or a man's merit toward the holy law of God. Righteousness
comes by faith, and Paul preached that all throughout his epistles. It's clear, he says, this is
not something that needs to be distorted, confusing, or complicated. It's very plain, righteousness
comes by faith. It does not come by our works
and by our law-keeping. And so, beloved, we want to sound
a clear note. We want to be useful in the kingdom
of God. And I do believe that God sends
men with a message unto his people, and that those men have his message
indeed. And we know that as these men
take the Word of God, they don't distort, they do not confuse,
they do not complicate the message, they speak plainly. Now out of
1 Corinthians chapter 14, listen as I read three verses. And even
things without life, 1 Corinthians 14, 7, giving sound, whether
pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds,
how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet
give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the
battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter
by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known
what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air. Now, beloved, those whom God
calls and sends They speak not into the air, they speak and
sound a clear note on the gospel trumpet. Now, John the Baptist
was a man sent of God, the Bible says. There was a man sent from
God is the language of the scripture, whose name was John. Now, beloved,
the name is not significant, but the fact that he was sent
of God is very significant. He was sent of God and he was
sent with a message. The Bible says he came to bear
witness of that light. And that light, of course, was
none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He was asked
by those around Him. He was asked, Are you this One
that we're looking for? And He said, No, I'm not the
One. He says, I came to bear witness
of the light. I came to bear witness. Are you
the prophet? Are you that prophet? Or are
you Elijah? No. John the Baptist said, I
am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. God is the one
doing the crying, but He's using my voice. Prepare ye the way
of the Lord. Make straight His paths. And so John the Baptist was one
who came with a plain, clear message. Behold the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world. And he said, I'm not worthy
to unlatch the shoes of the one to whom I'm referring to, and
the one that is preferred before me. I'm not worthy to unlatch
his shoes. Very plainly, very plainly saying,
he must increase, but I must decrease. He was a sent servant
of God, and he had the Lord's message, a very plain message
for the people of his day, sounding a very clear note on the gospel
trumpet. Now, beloved, there are three
things that make up, I think, good preaching, and I think we'll
just consider them very briefly. First of all, knowledge of God. and of Christ. Those men who
preach the gospel, if they're going to make a clear sound on
the trumpet, they must know God. They must know God. If they do
not know God, if they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ in
their own soul, how can they declare the truth about Him? Beloved, you cannot tell somebody
something you don't know anymore. You can come back from someplace
you haven't been. These preachers that do not know
the Lord Jesus Christ, do not know God, they might polyperate
somebody that does, but if they don't know Him personally and
experientially in their own soul, there is no way that they're
going to sound a clear note on the gospel message and all the
distortion and the confusion that's going on in the religious
world, my friend, can be traced back to the fact that men don't
know God. And Jesus told the Pharisees,
you know not God. You don't know my Father. You
do not know God. And that's one of the things
that's necessary. If you want to listen to anybody,
listen to somebody who knows God and who's been saved by the
grace of God. Now the second word would be
sincerity. Sincerity. There needs to be
sincerity in good preaching. Now there are two motives, I
believe, that needs to characterize the man that is preaching. Number
one, that is the glory of God. Sincerely, we want to glorify
God. We have no desire whatever to
spend one ounce of our strength to breathe one breath for any
other purpose and motive than to glorify the God of the Bible.
That's the business of this church, and we believe that to sound
a clear note on the gospel trumpet is the way to glorify the God
of the Bible, to lift Him up, to exalt Him, to honor, to give
Him the praise. That's due Him in our church
life and in our individual lives. We need to glorify God. This
is involved in sincerity. If a man talks to you about being
sincere, but yet he has no desire for the glory of God, enough
desire to preach the Word of God plainly and clearly, and
not try to distort or to cover up the truth of God, then, my
friend, you need to question that individual. You need to
question his sincerity. And the second motive is the
eternal good of those to whom we preach. That is our motive,
the eternal good of those for whom we preach. Now, beloved,
there's a difference for me saying that I'm interested in your good
Well, that may mean many things. But for me to say that I'm interested
in your eternal good is a very important thing for me to say. Because I'm concerned about your
soul, your never-dying soul. I'm concerned enough about your
soul that I will pray that I'll talk to God about your soul. Now, beloved, listen. We know
that as we think upon the eternal good of men, we know that we
cannot talk to men about God unless we can talk to God about
men. And so if a man doesn't pray
for the people to whom he preaches, if he's not praying constantly
as he preaches, then my friend, there's something wrong with
that man's motive for being in the ministry. Those whom God
sends, they number one, seek the glory of God. They seek only
to say those things that would exalt and glorify their God.
And number two, that would do everyone who hears them some
eternal good, that their soul might be rescued from that everlasting
place of burning, that they would come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, my friend, the third
thing that's involved in gospel preaching and good preaching,
I think, is simplicity. Simplicity. Now we recognize
that Paul the Apostle was an educated man, a very educated
man. He graduated, I suppose, from
one of the leading universities of his time, and he was a very
intelligent person. But yet he talked about the gospel,
and I remember on one occasion where one of the kings said to
him, Paul, much learning hath made thee mad. Why you've been
studying so much that you're actually, you're mentally disturbed
you've been studying too much. But it was the Apostle Paul that
said to the Corinthians, he said, I know nothing, I knew nothing
among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He said, I
preach the Word to you not in the language of man's wisdom,
but in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. He said,
I preach the Word to you not with the wisdom of man, lest
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ be emptied out. of its power
to say, he said, I just preached with simplicity. Now beloved, this is very important.
We surely, if God is called, this can tell men and women who
He is. who the Lord Jesus Christ is,
that He's the Son of the Living God, that He's the Sovereign
of the Universe, we can surely tell men and women what He did
when He was here in this world, what He did on Calvary's cross,
what He did when He was answering to God on the cross for our sin,
when He was suffering in our room and stood in place. Surely,
we can in a very simple way tell men and women that, and then
where He is now. Simply tell where He is now. I am here to report to you this
morning, the Son of God has been raised from the dead. He is not
in the tomb. He's at the right hand of the
Father. And He's making intercession. He's pleading. He's my advocate
before the Father. And He is pleading my case before
the Father. And this, my friend, is simple
preaching. Just plain preaching. That's
where He is. And it's good to be able to reflect
on the fact that not only He is there, but we all who are
believers are in Him right there this morning at the right hand
of the Father. We're in Christ. at the right
hand of the Father. And so beloved, let us desire
and let us long to be able to in a very simple way. We know
that some have educated themselves right out of the ministry. educated
themselves right out of the ministry. They are preaching on subjects
that nobody understands, nobody cares what they're talking about. After you hear them, you say,
well, so what? So what? What good is that going
to do anyone? And then they are answering questions
that nobody is asking, answering questions about frivolous things
that have nothing to do with the eternal good of the souls
of men. And so these three things, then,
you might think about them a little bit. Knowledge, and simplicity,
and sincerity. These three things make up, I
think, good preaching. So someone would ask, well, what
is preaching anyway, preacher? What is it? Well, beloved, I
believe that preaching, number one, is the proclaiming of the
gospel. It's a declaration. In 1 John,
Chapter 1, two or three times over, John tells us that what
he had seen and heard, he declared unto us. He declared unto them
what he had seen and what he had heard. And so preaching is
a proclamation of what a man has experienced in the way of
salvation and in the way of walking with God in this world. It's a proclamation of the gospel,
not necessarily an explanation of the gospel. Now, believe me,
we can make every attempt in the world to explain the gospel. But nobody understands the gospel
until it's revealed to them. God must reveal the gospel to
a soul before they can believe it. Nobody believes in a Jesus
that has not been revealed to them. And the only people to
whom He is revealed are the sheep of Christ. And when they hear
the gospel declared, The Spirit of God is pleased to open their
sin-blinded eyes and to quicken their dead hearts into life. And they're made to live before
God. But, beloved, it's a proclamation.
It's a declaration of the Gospel. And that's what we... Oh, somebody
said, well, you want to make sure you explain that real well.
Free on it. We just preach the gospel, proclaim. Somebody says it's going to hurt
somebody if they hear that doctrine of election. I know it's a despised
doctrine, but it ain't going to hurt nobody to hear the doctrine
of election. The only people who's going to
believe it are the ones that God reveals it to, makes it known
to. And we know there are many truths
that people will take and misuse. We know that. People misuse everything. They misuse their good automobiles,
they misuse medicine, they misuse all kinds of things in this world. And so we know that people will
misuse the doctrines of the Bible. Preaching, good preaching is
proclaiming, declaring the Word of God. Secondly, and preaching
is, as we said, preach the Word. It's the Word of God. The Word
of God. Timothy was told in season and
out of season, you preach the Word. It's always right for a
preacher to preach the Word. Now someone may invite a preacher
to come to a certain club meeting and have him to give maybe a
little speech to a banker's club or something like that. And I'm
always reminded of what Charles Spurgeon said about this. He
was invited to come to some kind of a club and speak to them and
he said, I'll come, but he said, what I've got to say is going
to sound very much like preaching. He said he's kind of like the
fella that I talked to one time. He was an artist. And somebody
come to him and said, I want you to paint me a giraffe. And the artist said, well, I'll
paint you a giraffe, but it's going to look very much like
a horse. Because that's what I paint best, is horses. And
so it's going to look very much like a horse. Now beloved, listen
to me, that when a preacher, and if he's sent of God, if he's
anointed of God, if he has that burden we talked about, about
the glory of God, and the eternal good of souls, that man is going
to preach the gospel wherever you find him. And wherever he's
at, he's going to preach the gospel. And so this is what is
so important. Not current events. I know that
the religious world is screaming today to have men get up and
lecture them upon current events. Beloved, this is no place for
it. Men and women are sitting here
that's on the verge of hell. They're ready to drop into the
pit and the gospel is to be preached in this place. We don't have
time to deal with current events. Somebody said, preach more on
prophecy, just to satisfy those who are curious, I suppose, about
the events of eschatology. We need to preach on these things,
somebody says. Well, brethren, what we need
is to preach the gospel. Remember the two things again,
the glory of God and the eternal good of our hearers. And we need
to think a great deal on that. So then that takes care of preaching. With this exception, I want to
say that preaching is communicating with the people. It's communicating
with the people. Now our Lord was a very plain
and simple teacher of truth. And he used earthly stories to
illustrate heavenly truths. and our Lord, but he was very
simple. Now I didn't mean that everybody agreed with him and
everybody believed what he said. No, no, no, no, no. We go back
again to the fact that they could hear him and be astonished at
what they heard and go off saying, speaking of his authority and
no man ever spake like this man and so on. But my friend, he
spoke and he communicated in a way, in a plain, simple way
with the people. And this is important for us
to understand that we need to do the same. Plain and simple.
Keep it plain and simple, brother, sister, that people will know
what you're saying to them, whether they're willing to believe it,
whether they're willing to accept it or not. Keep it plain and
keep it simple. I must hurry on. I want to do
that this morning. There's some things that weigh
on my mind this morning that I want to impress upon your heart. And I want to talk to you a little
bit about. Now, you hear me this morning.
Just listen to me for a while. You can talk about and you can
think about other things when this is over. And it will be
over, if God wills, in about 30 minutes. But you listen. to
what I have to say, because you may never hear it again. That's
why I felt so urgent that I preached this message this morning, because
we have no way of knowing whether we'll ever get back under the
sound of the plain, simple gospel of Christ or not. So in order
to make a certain plain sound on the trumpet, I say these things. Number one, I do not know whether
you will ever repent or not. I look at you each one of you,
and I look at you and I do not know whether you will ever repent
or not. I do not know whether God will
take you out of this world unrepentant. I do not know whether He will
or not. Now, beloved, repentance, repentance. Oh, what a change. Somebody said
it's a change. Isn't that what it is? It is
indeed a change. But oh, what a change. Now, I
want to sound a clear note to you on this. Isaiah 55 tells
us, let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man
his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and the Lord will
have mercy on him, and to our God who will abundantly pardon.
Now the first part of that verse says, let the wicked forsake
his way. He's been going a certain way. Let him forsake his way. Let him turn around and go God's
way. Go in the direction of God. That's
repentance. Let him forsake his ways. And then He goes on to say, let
him return unto the Lord. Let him return unto the Lord.
Let him go to God. Let him go to God to seek forgiveness
of that way in which he's been walking. Let him turn from it. Now, beloved, that's sounding
a clear note on repentance. But Jesus said, and I want you
to listen to this. He said, except you repent, you'll
all likewise perish. Now that's sounding a clear note
on the gospel trumpet. God says He commands all men
everywhere to repent. And He says, except you do it! Except you do it! You will perish. You will perish in the lake of
fire except you repent. Now the second thing I say is
this. I do not know whether you will ever be born again or not.
I look at you and I, my friend, if I didn't believe in the power
of the Holy Spirit of God to regenerate a soul, I'd have absolutely
no confidence that you would ever be a born-again believer. Now, beloved, I know what being
born-again is. It is not walking down an aisle. It is not shaking hands with
a preacher. It's not signing a card. It's
not you taking a trip into the inquiry room. That is not being
born again. The Bible says that being born
again is being born of God, being born from heaven, being born
by the will, by the spirit and the power and the word of God. That's what being born again
is. And so God must be involved in this thing. And if you're
born again, it's only because God has been pleased to quicken
you. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth. It was God's will that we were
begotten. And then Peter said in 1 Peter
1, he said, being born again not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. For all flesh is grass, and all
the glory of man is the flower of the grass, and the grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away. But the Word of the Lord
endureth forever. You must be born by the Word
and by the Spirit of the living God, born from heaven, born from
above, and there isn't anybody. And Jesus said, clear note on
this trumpet, Jesus said, Except you be born again, you will in
no wise enter the kingdom of God. Now isn't that plain? Isn't
that simple? Except you be born again, you
will in no wise enter into the kingdom of God. And I say that
for your eternal good. Now, I want to say in the next
place, I do not know whether you will ever believe on Christ
or not. I don't know whether you will.
I just don't know. Some of you have heard over and
over the message of the gospel. But you show no indication that
faith ever has dropped into your soul. You show no indication
of that. Now, beloved, it is evident by
the reading of the Word of God that unless you believe the Gospel,
unless you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will never,
never miss Hell. You will never be saved unless
you believe on the Lord Jesus. John 3 and 36, listen clearly. A clear note is this. He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not
the Son shall not see life. But the wrath of God abideth
upon them. The wrath of God abides on you,
my friend, if you do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But
what shall we say to you? What shall we say to you? We
do not know. We do not know what more to say.
We have told you over and over again that we are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And we speak plainly with a burdened
soul that you might hear it in your heart and that you might
be enabled by the God Spirit to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Next, I do not know whether you
will ever in this life bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ
or not. I know what you will. Now my
friend, this concerns me a whole lot. I believe Jesus to be Lord. Amen? He's Lord. And I believe
He's everybody's Lord. Everybody's Lord. You say, I'm
not giving in to that idea. I'm not giving in to that. My
friend, listen to me. Listen to me carefully. He's
everybody's Lord. And thanks be unto God for all
those who have bowed their knee. in this life to the Lord Jesus
Christ and confessed Him to be Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
Everybody that's been enabled to do it, you can say Amen because
you've already bowed your knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It's not something you did many
years ago. It's something you keep doing
every day, bowing to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But my friend,
those of you that have never bowed, oh, don't think. Don't
think that you're going to get by with that business living
God's world and looking God in the face every day and denying
Him legal right as it were to your own life and soul. My friend,
you're going to bow after this life if you don't bow before.
The Bible says that every knee shall bow, every tongue shall
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. You will bow your knee. Let that be a clear note on the
gospel trumpet this morning to your soul. You will bow to the
Lordship of Jesus Christ. But then, it'll be too late.
too late. All right? And again, I must
hurry. I do not know whether you will
ever leave your self-righteousness and holier-than-thou attitude
and be clothed in Christ's righteousness or not. I don't know whether
you will. I think sometimes, you know, and I know that self-righteousness
is our greatest enemy. It's our greatest enemy. This
business that we've got a little bit of something about us and
who we are and what we are and it's so inbred into us. that we all have this self-righteous
attitude, and we've seen it until it's nauseating. Self-righteousness. Jesus Christ said, unless your
righteousness, He told His disciples this, exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no wise enter the
kingdom of God. Now He told them, He said, you've
got to be better than this bunch of religious folks. You gotta
be righteous, more righteous than these religious Pharisees
and these scribes. Somebody said, well where can
we get a righteousness that is better than theirs? Where can
we get it? Where can we get it? Well, let
me make it plain to you. He was made to be sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. It is in Jesus
Christ. You say, Preacher, it's so difficult
to find mercy. Oh, my friend, I'm sorry that
it's so with you, that you have difficulty in finding the mercy
of God. But I'll tell you where the mercy
of God is. It's in Jesus Christ. That's
where it is, it's in Christ! If you want the mercy of God,
it's in Christ! If you want that garment on you
that's woven from the top to the bottom with the doing and
dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, then trust Christ! Beg God to
give you the ability to believe, only Son. It's in Christ! And friend, lay aside your self-righteousness,
or unless You have His righteousness, you're not going to heaven. That's
a clear note. You must be. Hear me out for your eternal
good. I don't know whether I'm preaching
my last sermon or not. I have no way of knowing. Just
like you have no way of knowing when you're hearing the last
one you're ever going to hear or not. But I am going to tell you this.
that you don't want to leave this world unless you've got
the righteousness of Jesus Christ down to your account, imputed
to your account. You must be as righteous as Christ
Himself to be accepted into eternal heaven. You must be. And the
only way you can be is through faith in Christ. You must be
in Him. So, my friend, I say this. I
do not know whether your name is in the Lamb's Book of Life
or not. I do not know. You know, we think about that
a whole lot. And you remember when the disciples came to the
Lord Jesus and said to Him, they were rejoicing because the spirits
had been subject to them. Demons, they'd cast out demons
and the spirits were subject to them. He said to them, he said, fellows
don't rejoice in that the spirits are subject to you. You rejoice
that your name is written in heaven. Rejoice that your name
is written down in the Lamb's book of life. Now my friend,
I want you to know that that is the Lamb's book. And I want
you to know this, according to Revelation 21, 27. That unless
your name is in that Lamb's book of life, you'll perish. You'll go to hell. You'll die
the death that never dies. You're going off into that lake
of fire. You cannot. Your name must be in that Lamb's
book. But that Lamb, that's His book. And he's the one who wrote
them names in there, and he wrote them names in there before the
foundation of the world. Now I'm just telling you the
truth. Those names are in that book, and there is nothing. Now
you hear me. I don't want you to get the idea,
like some preachers are giving people every day, that they,
through what they do, put their names in the Lamb's Book of Life.
I don't want you to get that idea. That is not right. The
idea is not right. Your names are written in the
Lamb's Book of Life. It's from the foundation of the
world. Nobody knows. whose name is in
that book. I have not seen that book. I
have not looked upon that book, upon them pages in that book.
And I don't know whose name is there. But I am going to tell
you this. Now you listen to me. The Bible
says, you say, I've got, it's a mystery to me. A mystery to
me. Well, there are mysteries. connected
with the Gospel of Christ. The Bible is clear that there
are many mysteries connected to the Gospel. But you know what
the admonition of the Word of God is? Are you ready for this?
The admonition of the Word of God is, make your calling and
election sure. You make it sure. You say, well,
you mean to tell me there's something out of it? Peter said, make your
calling and election sure. And if you do these things, he
said, you'll never fall. Now I didn't say that that was
going to put your name in the book. I said if you're interested,
you're interested, then get busy studying the Word of God, meditating
upon the Word of God, praying and seeking the face of God,
and just maybe the light will be turned on in your soul and
you'll have more light to follow. I'm telling you, if our names
are not in that book, we're goners. We're goners. Now then, let me
hurry on here. I do not know when we will die. I don't know when you're going
to die, and I don't even know, I don't know a thing about my
own death. All I know is this, that we've been dying ever since
we came to life. Ever since there was life given,
wherever and what point that was, we've been a dying. And
the Word of God teaches that it's appointed unto men once
to die. It is appointed unto men once to die. We will die. There is no discharge from this
war. We're not getting out of this
alive in the flesh. We're going to die. Now, beloved,
this is an appointment that you and I are going to keep. We have
a life to live. We have a death to die, we have
a judgment to face, and we have an eternity to spend. Every one
of us in this room, those four things ought to make you a sober
individual. A life to live, a death to die,
a judgment to face, and an eternity to spend. And we ought to face
those things this morning because we do not know when we're going
to leave this world. This may be the last message
that you'll ever sit under. People are dying every day on
our highways. You hear about it, you read about
it, people are leaving this world, making their exodus. from this
world. And I'm here this morning to
sound a clear note to you. Face it. You're dying every day. You are now in the vestibule
of death. You're right there right now.
And there is a door that swings open into eternity from right
where you're sitting this morning. Face it. Before you start down
the highway hurtling 70, 75, 80 miles an hour, think about
it. You're going to die. And you
need to be right with God. You need to be right in your
soul. Now then, I've just got a couple
of more things to say and I'll be done. I do not know when the
Lord will come. I don't know when He's going
to come. I do not know. There are many that are very
excited, thinking that maybe the Lord will come back in our
day and time. Well, that's fine. That's fine. I certainly am praying for His
coming. Even so, come quickly. We're
taught that in the book of Revelation. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. But
there are many people excited, many people writing books. Many
are preaching sermons on eschatology. But let me remind you that no
man knows the day or the hour. No man knows the day or the hour
when the Lord Jesus Christ is coming. He said, if I go and
prepare a place for you, what did He say? He said, I will come
again. He's coming. He's coming. The Lord Jesus is coming again.
That's one of the mysteries of the faith. that Christ was resurrected
and that He's coming again. It's almost too much to believe,
isn't it? That this same Jesus, who was
caught up into heaven, is going to come again in like manner.
It's just almost too much to believe. But He's coming again.
He's coming again. Oh, in clouds of glory, He's
coming again at the last trump. In an hour that you think not,
The Son of Man is coming. He's coming. Well, the Bible,
all through the Scriptures, very plain, simply warning men to
be ready for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be ready.
You say, well, preacher, what would you advise? How would I
ready myself for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well,
believe this message. Believe it. the best you can
and act upon it. Surely there is something that
touched your soul this morning. Surely there was something that
was said that should send you in a certain direction. And you
know in your own soul right now what you need to do. There are
those of you that have trifled with the truth for years. And
if I didn't feel that I had in my soul everything that you suppose
that people who claim to be believers have, I would just admit that
I didn't think I had it all, but I wanted it by the grace
of God. If I wanted it, I would say so
in the face of God and before God, I would admit that's what
I want. And I believe that that is the
inward motions and workings of the Divine Spirit. Don't sit
and trifle with truth. If you believe what has been
preached, then I want it. I want to be there. I want this
to be right. I want to make my calling election
sure. I'd like to have the assurance that my name's in that Lamb's
Book of Life. I want that assurance. I want
it. Well, I pray God that you will
never be the same after this morning. I felt an unusual burden
to preach this message. And I don't know anything about
this coming week. Know nothing about it. But God knows. He knows the end from the beginning.
And we get up every day, commit our lives, do we not? Into the
hands of the Lord. Why do we do that? Because they're
there. They're in the hands of the Lord.
And we need to commit ourselves day by day into those hands,
recognizing that every breath we breathe is by the grace of
God. Well, I started out telling you
that I wasn't going to distort, confuse the grace of God or the
truth of the Word of God. I was going to try to make a
clear sound on the trumpet. And we've done so by the grace
of God I trust. And we preach for two reasons,
glorify God and for your eternal good. May God own it and honor
it. Father, in Jesus' name, we pray
for your Holy Spirit to work in each heart, each life. Accomplish
thy purpose. Bring to pass, Lord, bring to
pass those glorious things that we've seen and witnessed in time
past. You've seen your hand work salvation. faith drop into the heart. May
it come from heaven to some of these poor souls. Thy will be
done, O Lord. Thy will be done. Father, lead
this church, direct this church, direct our minds, our hearts,
and help us to walk in that manner that is glorifying and pleasing
to You. In the Savior's name we pray, Amen. Brother Mitch,
you have a hymn that