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 for you. I fear for your souls. I know you and I are but a breath
from eternity. We are eternity-bound sinners. 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 2 for a minute. God's preachers, God's preachers do not strive
for soaring eloquence, flowery oratory, moving illustrations,
or 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 sermons, 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 gonna 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 servants. Well, how are we gonna declare
that message? How are we gonna 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 four. 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 he 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 peace. Oh, if God will speak through
this empty pipe. Oh, if God will speak, you're
gonna 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. What for? Why? Why strive for
this simplicity? Why strive for this singularity? Why strive to speak with such
plainness? That, that, 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, say, you got it. Somebody else smarter
than me come along and persuade you otherwise. But if God persuades
you, all hell can't persuade you.
Understand that? That your faith stand in the
power of God right here in 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, now, 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 were 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 him 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 he's 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 gonna walk out of here knowing what I've
said. You're gonna 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 a 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
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, we came under condemnation in
him. Adam was cursed and we were cursed in him. That's to 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, 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 alright. A God you can pull out and use
whenever you want to, he's alright. 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'd turn out all right. He didn't go to Calvary and die
and say, well, I hope somebody's pretty pleased that it'd be their
Lord. He didn't go to Calvary and die and say, I wonder, 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 gonna 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? Why, 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 sinners. 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 a legal 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 gonna
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. Now,
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. 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. Old 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 gonna perish. Repent. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call ye 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. You can debate and fuss and argue
about repentance, what it is, what it's not, all you want to.
Divide it up this way or that. Or you can simply understand
this. You're either gonna repent or
you're going to hell. And this is what it means to
repent, Merle. 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 pastures. 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 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, where they find tribes who still eat
one another. That kind of culture we live
in. Just like they lived 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, a 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're 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 went back and 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. Merle, 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. Accept, 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. Accept, you repent.
Go into hell. God teach you repentance. I know
this too. 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, they'll come to Christ.
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 the bones. And he did, and he said, now
prophesy to the wind. And he did. Here I stand and
preach to you dry bones. Well, preacher, you're not very
complimentary to us. I know it, I'm telling you the truth. Just
dry bones. Dead, empty. Your skull's just
as empty as a skull laid out in a field for 300 years. Spiritually,
empty, empty. Oh, 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 slain. Listen, the wind blows where
it willin'. 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 of the Spirit. When God the Holy Spirit
moves, dry bones stand up and live. 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 thee. And behold, thy time was the
time of love. And I sit in thee, Leah. And I spread my skirt over thee.
You became mine. 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, saith the Lord. 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,
you, and I hope you'll hear what I'm saying now. 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, you'll find me. 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 sin. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that
flood lose all their guilt The dying thief rejoiced to see that
fountain in his day. And there may I, though vile
as he, wash all my sins away. Preacher, you mean, you mean if I believe on 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. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I stand before God right now,
washed white in the blood of the Lamb. 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 fact. 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. I don't know if you'll ever believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ or not, but I know this, he that believeth
on the Son of God hath everlasting life. I'll 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 His Son. 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 gonna
meet God in judgment. But I do know this. you're going to meet God in judgment. And 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 and you're going to get your own way. 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, in his merit. 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 forever. God help you to believe on his
side. Amen. Lindsay, you come lead
us in a hymn, please.