Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 3, I fear. I think I can enter into that. Looking into your faces. Oh, God help you to hear me. Looking into your faces, I fear. I know you and I are but a breath from eternity. We are eternity bound. I fear for you. I fear, lest by any means the serpent, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Now, that's my subject this morning, the simplicity that's in Christ. There is no substitute for simplicity, sincerity, especially in the preaching of the gospel. Hold your hands here and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 for a minute. God's preachers do not strive for soaring eloquence, flowery oratory, moving illustrations, are the impressive words of man's wisdom, education, and imaginary intelligence.

For years now, one of the major newspapers in London, I've forgotten the name of it, but for a long, long time, every year has a preacher contest. Every year, they send in a sermon, been written out by preachers, see who's the best preacher in the country. You won't find one of God's servants entering. Not going to happen, not this one, not any other. How come? God's preachers are not interested in popularity and approval. They're interested in being understood in the souls of men and the glory of God, and strive for simplicity.

Look here in 1 Corinthians 2. The Apostle Paul said, I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the singular message of God's service. Well, how are we going to declare that message? How are we going to preach Christ to sinners? Well, we need to use logic and rhetoric and telling stories and moving illustrations and get folks so that they just can't resist our message.

Look at what it says in verse 4. Here is the most well-trained preacher probably who ever lived. This man was a learned man in philosophy. in law and in theology, as learned as any in the day, in this day of great Greek wisdom, in this day of great, great intelligence, this man stood out as a great man indeed. And when it comes to preach, he said, my speech and my preaching was not with the enticing words of man's wisdom. Isn't that amazing? I didn't try. with logic and reason. I didn't try with enticing persuasive words. I didn't try with entertaining words to persuade you of the truth. My preaching was not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit of God and of power.

Oh, if God will speak, oh, if God will speak, you're going to hear God. If all you hear is a man, what you hear won't do you one bit of good, spiritually and eternally. Won't happen. You may go out impressed with a man, good or bad. You may go out impressed with this man, good or bad, but it won't do you any good. He said, my preaching was in the demonstration of the Spirit and power.

But boy, why strive for this simplicity? Why strive for this singularity? Why strive to speak with such plainness? That your faith should stand, should not stand in the wisdom of men, but that it should stand in the power of God. Now Skip, this is what that means. This is exactly what it means. If I can persuade you that something is true by my logic, by my reason, by my intelligence, by my argument. If I can persuade you that you got it, somebody else smarter than me come along and persuade you otherwise. But if God persuades you, all hell can't un-persuade you. Understand that? That your faith stand in the power of God by hearing his word.

That's it. When our Lord Jesus preached, He spoke in such language that people understood him. Some years ago, I was preaching for a fellow. He had a young seminary student working as his apprentice. And he was so impressed with this fellow's brilliance. He said, you know, he never preaches. He never talks at all. But what, I don't have to go home, get my dictionary out and look up something he said? And I said, that's sorry preaching. That's sorry preaching.

When our Lord spoke, nobody had to go get a dictionary to find out what He said. Every farmer around knew what He said. Every fisherman around knew what He said. Every young child around knew what He said. Our Lord spoke with simplicity. He spoke with sincerity. There were no hidden meanings in His words, no attempts to cover things up so that, you know, if you come along and say, were you saying? Well, no, not really. No, you misunderstood me. Oh no, no. When our Lord spoke, everybody knew exactly what He was saying. They understood it. They may not have believed Him, but they understood His words. He certainly caused their traditions to be offended, and their pride to be offended, and He showed the contempt He had for their customs. But they understood Him. They were unwilling to bow to Him. They would not submit to His claims. They would not receive His doctrine. But they understood Him. The Pharisees, we're told, were offended. when they heard his doctrine, but they heard it. The scripture tells us that when they heard these things, they were filled with wrath, but they heard them. When our Lord said, I and my father are one, then the Jews took up stones again to stone him because he made himself God. But they understood he was making himself God. They understood very clearly what he was saying.

Now it's essential. absolutely essential if I would be faithful to your soul, if I would be faithful to the Word of God, if I would be faithful to the glory of God and the gospel of His grace. It is absolutely essential that I speak with such language that everybody here understands what I'm saying. There's no excuse for doing otherwise. None at all. The only excuse for compromise, the only excuse for being unclear is because the preacher wants to be unclear or is ignorant about what he's talking about. There's only excuses for it.

Well, what are you saying, preacher? If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battle? That's what Paul said. He said if you're out in the battlefield, and the trumpeter stands up and plays taps when he ought to be calling you to battle, he's in trouble, and he's destroying your soul. Paul says the trumpet must speak with clarity, trumpeting out the gospel so that men be prepared for that which is to come.

The apostle wrote, I do not frustrate the grace of God. That is, I don't confuse, complicate, distort, and make void and nullify the gospel of God's grace. I sound a clear, unmistakable word with regard to God's saving grace. I can't force men to turn from their idols. I can't compel sinners to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to bow to Him. I can't cause men and women to be born again, but I can and I must warn you and instruct you in the plain language of Holy Scripture about the things of God. You may not believe my message this morning, but God helping me, if God will be pleased to speak by me, you're going to walk out of here knowing what I've said. You're going to understand what I've said. There's absolutely no excuse for you not doing so.

Brother Scott Richardson said one time, if preachers would just stand up on their hind legs and tell the truth, God just might be pleased to use them. Oh, God, give me grace simply to tell you the truth, to tell you the truth, and wait on Him to use it as He will.

The Word of God is so clear, we make excuses for folks and say, well, you know, they just They don't know, they don't understand. The scriptures, one of them I was reading back in the office last week sometime. The scripture talks about man's ignorance. It says they're willfully ignorant. Willfully ignorant. Preachers and others alike who are ignorant of this book are willfully ignorant. Things written in this book are written so plain that anybody who's willing to see can see. Anybody who's willing to hear can hear. Anybody who's willing to understand can understand. The problem is men despise God so they will not submit to his word.

There's no question about what happened in the garden. Now you can debate and fuss about it all you want to. Adam fell and we fell in him. Adam sinned and we sinned in him. Adam died and we died in him. Adam came under condemnation and we came under condemnation in him. Adam was cursed and we were cursed in him. Let's just play his nose on your face. 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." That's just as plain as it can be. That means that you came into this world with your fist shoved square in God's face, and you've lived all the days of your life with your fist shoved square in God's face, and if you could, you'd kill it. Man by nature hates God. Hates God. That's the nature of our flesh. And we don't hate our notions about God, we don't hate our, you know, our little Statues of God. We don't hate our little figurines of God. We don't hate our little ideas about God. But God, as he's revealed in this book, every human being on this earth by nature hates. Because we want to be God. A God you can tote around your pocket, he's all right. A God you can pull out and use whenever you want to, he's all right. But a God who rules you, a God who governs you, a God who's absolute God, no man will have unless God conquers his heart.

Man's ruined. We understand what happened at Calvary. Make no mistake about it. The Lord Jesus Christ, by the sacrifice of himself, put away the sins of his people. Jesus Christ came into this world to suffer and die in the stead of guilty sinners. He was made to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, because there was no other way for God in righteousness, justice and truth to forgive sin, except by punishing sin in a substitute to the full satisfaction of His justice. And now Jesus Christ, having redeemed us from the curse of the law, having put away our sins, has obtained eternal redemption for His people. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, he did not kind of roll the dice and hope it turned out all right. He didn't go to Calvary and die and say, well, I hope somebody's pretty pleased that we'd be their Lord. He didn't go to Calvary and die and say, I wonder if anybody will ever be saved now. Oh, no, no, no, no. Jesus Christ, by the sacrifice of himself, obtained redemption for somebody. He put away somebody's sin. He removed the curse of God's law from somebody. Those for whom he lived and died are now justified, forever justified, sanctified, and shall be glorified in him.

The new birth, it's no mystery. You stop and think. Now, I'm not going to tackle Billy Graham. He's getting to be an old man and his mind's going. But he and Charles Finney and others like him, the whole world around us, They tell you, you just come forward and say this little prayer, you repeat this little thing after me and you'll be saved. Do you really think anybody is so dumb as to think that's salvation? Well, anybody who does is willfully ignorant. You mean a dead man can live by moving? You mean a dead man can wipe away his sin by doing something? You mean a corrupt, vile, dead sinner can give himself life and righteousness with God if he'll just give God permission from his will to let God save him? Such stupidity. Spiritual stupidity. Men receive only because they're willingly ignorant.

Well, preacher, how are men born again? The book says, you hath he quickened who were D-E-A-D, that's graveyard stone dead, dead in trespasses and sins. Now I'm talking to you, you who are without Christ, you're dead sinner, you're dead, you're dead. You will not come to Christ. You will not bow to Christ. You will not believe on Christ. You will not have any sense of your guilt, corruption, and depravity before God, except illegal terror. You will not have any kind of life in you, except God Almighty, who alone can give life to the dead, comes to you and gives you life.

Preacher, are you saying I'm shut up to God's grace? You heard me. That's exactly right. Are you saying, Brother Dodd, I'm going to hell unless God stops me? Yes, sir. That's what I'm telling you. Are you saying unless God does for me what I cannot and will not do for myself, I'm going to perish under his wrath? Yes, sir. That's what this book says. You're dead in trespasses and sins. When God the Holy Spirit comes in saving power and grace, he gives life to the dead. He causes dead sinners to live. He causes the dead to rise from their graves and follow Christ.

You see, the gospel of God's grace is a profound mystery. So great, so deep, so wondrous that no man can comprehend it. And yet it is a mystery revealed and preached with such simplicity and clarity that any sinner in all the world can understand it as he believes in it. I want this morning to make some plain statements. I want to shoot some barbed arrows right at your heart. I pray that God, the Holy Spirit, will stick every one of them in your heart and mind. Here's the first one. I don't know if you'll ever repent. I don't know. But I do know this. Our Lord said in Luke 13, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

Repentance. Brother B.B. Caldwell said, we don't hear much preaching about repentance these days, but then preachers only preach things they do. And they only preach things they know. And they only preach things they've experienced. But unless you repent, you're going to seek you the Lord while he may be found. Call you upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way. That's what it is. The wicked forsakes his way. The unrighteous man forsakes his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and he'll have mercy on him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Now, you can debate and fuss and argue about repentance, what it is, what it's not, it's all you want to. Divide it up this way or that. Or you can simply understand this. You're either going to repent or you're going to hell.

And this is what it means to repent, brother. If you and I have repented and are repenting, we've changed our mind about God, sin, and ourselves in this world. We've changed our mind. God changed them, but we've changed them.

If we have repented, if we are repenting, we've experienced and willingly, day by day, experienced a change of masters. I'm no more my own. I've been bought with a price, have you? I have somebody else to rule me, because I want it that way.

We've changed our manners as well. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians who were living in that pagan, Gentile culture, just like the one we live in today. We think, well, we're not as bad as they were, or we're worse than they were. No, just like ours. Read the fourth chapter of Ephesians. Just read it. Just the kind of culture folks would have in New Guinea, Find tribes who still eat one another. That kind of culture we live in. Just like they lived in back in Ephesians 4. The kind of culture they lived in in Romans chapter 1.

And Paul said, you didn't learn Christ this way. You didn't learn to live like this by following Christ. Those who follow Christ learn to live differently. The grace of God that brings salvation teaches us, if the grace of God brings salvation to us, it teaches us to deny ungodliness, worldly lust, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly right now, in the here and now, in this present evil world, no matter what goes on around you, no matter what.

I recall years ago, I had began to correspond with a fellow in Europe, sharp fellow, and we've had some good exchanges A friend of mine, I consider him a friend, but this fellow wrote to me and expressed something that so expresses the desensitizing that men experience in this culture. It was when Faith and Doug were engaged and we were planning the wedding, and I wrote to him, I told him what we were planning. He said, well, it's so good to see a young couple wanting to marry one another. He said, these days, even Christians just live together. And I wrote back, I said, not Christians. Oh no, not Christians. No, no, believers don't live like other people. They fall into this sin or that, any sin, but they don't live like other people.

Believers are men and women who seek God's glory. Is that right? That's what this book teaches. They've repented and they continue to. They change their mind about all things and they change the master and they change the manners because God's changed our motives.

Merlin, if we know God, there's something more important than us. Is that so? There's something more important than us. Something more important than what pleases me. Something more important than the gratification of my desires, no matter how noble those personal desires may be. Something more important than my family, more important than me and mine. It's called the glory of God. Believers are motivated by the glory of God.

except you repent. I don't care how many times you've been baptized, I don't care what church you're a member of, I don't care how orthodox your doctrine is, except you repent. You're going to hell. God teach you repentance. I know this then. I don't know whether you'll ever experience it or not, but I know that except a man be born again, he can't see the kingdom of God, and he'll never enter into it.

There's so many pictures of the new birth given in scripture. I think it's best illustrated sometimes rather than preached on. There's Lazarus laying in his tomb, been dead for four days. And the Lord Jesus came and said, Lazarus, come forth. Well, he can't do that. No, he can't. But if the master calls, he can. Watch him. He came out of the tomb, didn't he, buddy? And when God speaks by his grace to dead sinners, There's that valley of dry bones slain in a dreadful battle, parched and dry, bleached, cast into the open field. Ezekiel saw those bones and the Lord said, Son of man, can these bones live? And he said, Lord, if you say they can, they can. And he said, prophesy to those bones. And he did. He said, now prophesy to the wind.

Here I stand and preach to you dry bones. Preacher, you're not very complimentary to us. I know what I'm telling you the truth. Just dry bones. Dead. Empty. Your skull is just as empty as a skull laid out in a field for 300 years. Spiritually. Empty. Empty. I don't like that. I'm smart. You may be smart as a whip in all things natural, but you're dumber than a box of rocks in all things spiritual. That's exactly right. That's plain enough, isn't it? Man by nature is like dry bones, dead. And until God, the Holy Spirit comes, the dry bones will never live. Oh, Spirit of God, come. Come, breathe upon these. Listen, the wind blows. You hear the sound of it, but you can't tell from whence it comes nor where it goes. So is everyone that is born. When God the Holy Spirit moves, dry bones stand up.

Ezekiel's infant cast out, an aborted child, naked, polluted, cast out in the open field, corrupt in its own blood. And there it lays in its death, none to care for it, none to minister to it, none to meet its needs, despised and cast out and unwanted. And the Lord God says, I pass by this. Behold, thy time was the time of love, and I said unto thee, leave me. I spread my scourge. That's what happens when God saves sinners.

I don't know if you'll ever seek the Lord or not. People talk about seeking Him all the time. I hear folks say, I'm seeking the Lord. Had a fellow tell me one time, I've been seeking the Lord for 20 years. As in, you're lying to yourself and me and God. If you're seeking Him, you'd find Him. That's what the book says. Our Lord said, I will be found of you. That's what He said. He said, you shall seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

Sometimes some of you folks, and I hope you'll hear what I'm saying now. I hope you'll hear me well. You'll call me up or you'll want to chat. Boy, I'm disturbed. I want to know the Lord. I want to be saved. I want to seek the Lord. And I know what the problem is. I know exactly what it is. You're playing games with God and playing games with your soul. You're just playing games. The devil may convince you that you're as sincere as you can be, but you're just playing games. You're faking it. Trying to pacify your conscience. Trying to make yourself feel a little better. Trying to get over a temporary surge of guilt.

If ever you seek Christ, you'll find Him. If ever you do. That's what he said, when you seek me with all your heart. I said not unto the house of Jacob, seek ye me in vain. God never said to anybody, seek me for nothing. Seek me, and you'll find, seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you. Ask, and it shall be given you.

I don't know if you'll ever be washed in the blood of Christ or not, but I do know that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all

There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilt this day. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. There may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins.

Preacher, you mean, you mean if I believe in the Son of God? You mean if I just fall headlong into that fountain filled with Emmanuel's blood, I'll come up clean and white from all my sins? I stand before God right now, washed white. My sins are gone, gone, forever gone, never to be remembered against me again, anymore, forever.

I don't know whether you'll ever be robed in the righteousness of Christ or not. I don't know. But I know that Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. I know that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord our righteousness. Multitudes like the Jews stumble over the stumbling stone and miss Christ's righteousness because they're seeking to establish their own. And this is just that. This is just fact. If Danny Imes or Don Fortner, if either of us, should miss the righteousness of Christ, it's because we're trying to establish our own. We're too good to be saved. We can fix ourselves up. We can fix ourselves up with this thing or that, but we don't need Him. And that'll take you to hell.

Our Lord said, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. We must have his righteousness and only his righteousness if we would stand accepted with God. I don't know. Are you listening to me? Pay attention to me. God help you, pay attention to me. I don't know if you'll ever believe on the Lord Jesus. But I know this, he that believeth. I preach, I don't know whether I believe or not. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You know whether or not you trust somebody else. You know whether or not you're resting on somebody else's merit. You know whether or not you trust somebody else's righteousness. You know whether you trust somebody else's good credit before God Almighty. You either trust yourself or him, one of the two. Do you or do you not believe the Son of God?

The foundation of our faith is the Word of God. The object of our faith is the Son of God. We believe the record God has given concerning him. Well, boy, I don't know what that means. Come on. Come on. Sammy, anybody knows what that means. Either believe what God says or you don't. Either believe the revelation of God or you don't. Either trust Christ or you don't. I don't know when you're going to meet God in judgment, but I do know this, that you're going to receive from God forever exactly what you deserve. If you go to hell, it'll be because you stand before God and insist on standing before God. on the merit of your own works. If you enter into glory, it's because you stand before God and insist on standing before God, washed in the blood of Christ, robed in his righteousness. And God's going to give you your way. He's going to accept you in a substitute and reward you with righteousness and everlasting life. God helped you to believe on his