In the book of the Revelation
here in chapter 2, I'd like to read to you the first seven verses,
if you would follow as we read here this morning. Unto the angel
of the church of Ephesus write, These things saith he that holdeth
the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst
of the seven golden candlesticks. I know thy works, and thy labor,
and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are
evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles,
and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast borne, and hast
patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember,
therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove
thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. But this
thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which
I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. him that overcometh
will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst
of the paradise of God. I want this morning at the outset
of our service here this morning to ask a question of you that
I hope that you maybe would be enabled of God to ask yourself
as we go along in this service today. Here is the question. If you were arrested and charged
with being a Christian, with being a Christian, a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you were hauled into court I
want to know, and I want you to ask yourself this question,
would there be enough evidence to convict you? Now, you think
on that a little bit. If you were arrested for being
a Christian, and you were hauled into court, would there be enough
evidence, could they find enough evidence to convict you that
you are indeed a Christian? I think that's a valid question.
I do not think that that is in any way, shape, or form our place
for a preacher to ask a congregation that question. I believe it to
be a valid question. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ here,
in our text this morning, we see is a most careful observer
of churches and of individuals, and nothing is hid from his observant
eye. The Lord Jesus Christ knows all
there is to be known about us this morning. He knows everything
about us. The scripture says that all things
are open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And
so we see here that the Lord Jesus, who holds the seven stars
in His hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks,
and what that simply means is that the Lord Jesus is present
when His people meet together. When we meet in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus is there. The scripture says that where
two or three are gathered together in my name, I'm there in their
midst. I'm right there in their midst. And so the Lord Jesus is walking
in our midst here this morning, and he's very observant, and
He knows our hearts. All things are naked and open
unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. He is the faithful
and the true witness. We find that very clearly spelled
out here in this chapter. He is the faithful and the true
witness. Now, it would be a great thing
to have as much said in our commendation as was said concerning the church
at Ephesus. It would certainly be a wonderful
thing, would it not, if the Lord could truly, after observing
our lives, after He looked upon us, and looked us over, if He
could commend us as He commended the church here at Ephesus. He says, I know thy works, He
says, And thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst
not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which
say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars. And listen to this, And you've
borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake you've labored,
and you have not fainted. Now isn't this quite a commendation?
Now, beloved, we know that the churches here that our Lord is
writing to, that these churches, that they were, I suppose, brought
into existence very shortly after the death and the very own resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ. They live closer to the times
of the facts of the gospel maybe than you and I or maybe than
we can imagine as the Lord's people. But I want us to know
that while the facts of the gospel are made clear to us by revelation
of the Spirit of God, these people not only had the facts of the
gospel revealed to them by the Spirit, but they also lived at
a time when these events were still fresh upon the minds of
men as something that had recently occurred. And we know that they
had a great deal of persecution. They lived in difficult and trying
times. It's not that their day was easier
than ours, and therefore they were able to accumulate all of
these various things that cause the Lord to commend them, where
that we live in so much harder days, and so we're not able to
do that. These folks lived in difficult
and trying times. And we see that the Lord said
to them, that he said, you've labored. And he said, I know
that you've labored. I know that you've labored. I
know that you have worked. You're not indolent, and you're
not lazy. You have worked. And he says,
I know that you've been patient. I know that you've waited on
me. I know you've trusted me. I know you've stayed under the
load when the pressure was upon you to give up. I know that you've
stayed under the load. He even mentions here in the
next verse that they had not fainted. Now, beloved, when the
Lord commends a person for not fainting, you don't think He
would have done that if those people hadn't been in a red-hot
furnace. I mean, those people had been
under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure and a lot of persecution. They'd experienced a lot of suffering
and a lot of affliction in their life. And the Lord commended
them and said, You've not fainted. You've been patient. You've stayed
under the Lord. He said you've born and have
been patient. He says that twice. That they
have been patient. That they had waited on the Lord
and that they had stayed under. They hadn't jumped and run whenever
the heat was upon them. And when persecution come, they
weren't looking for a mountain somewhere to run and hide in. They stayed out front and kept
on in the ways of the Lord, was faithful to God, and pressed
on in the ways of the Lord. And so they received the commendation
of the Lord. And happy is the church and the
man whose works are known and accepted of the Lord. There's
a verse of Scripture that has meant a lot to me in the years
gone by. It's in the 6th chapter of the
book of Hebrews, and it's verse 10. I'd like for you to look
at this verse. Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 10. It says here, For God is not
unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have
shewed toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints,
and do minister. Now that is a tremendous verse
of scripture. It tells us that God's not unrighteous,
to forget what you have done in your labor, in your love toward
His name, and your love toward the saints of God, to minister
to them in their weaknesses and affliction, and for you to be
willing to be used for the honor and glory of God and for the
encouragement of the saints of God. Now, some are merely Christians
as to profession. That's the reason I asked the
question at the outset this morning. There are some that are just
Christian as to profession. And we see that when the Lord
here talked about those that this church had tried. He says,
you can't bear them which are evil. You can't bear those whom the
Lord hasn't changed. You can't bear those who are
not controlled by a principle of the grace of God and righteousness
in their lives. You can't bear those who do not
have a holy purpose and holy desire in their lives, and those
who do not want to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ,
but are evil people. You cannot bear these people.
You're against these people and you can't bear them. And then
he goes on to say, now these people were those that were Christian
in profession maybe only, but didn't have the root of the matter
in them. They did not have the root of
the matter, I say, in them. They were not truly converted
men and women. And he said, you have tried them
which say they are apostles. You've tried them that said they'd
had an experience with God, and that God had chosen them or called
them to be His spokesmen, and that they were apostles worthy
of being imitated and worthy of being followed. And He said
you've tried them, you've put them to the test, and you've
found out that these people are not really apostles at all. but that they are liars, that
they have made a profession, but they are liars. Now this
church had an eye for the work of God in the lives of men and
women. They could tell when God had
done something in an individual's life, and so they tried those
people on the basis of what the grace of God had done in individuals'
lives. And they could tell if a man
was not what he ought to be, and they tried these people,
and they found them to be faults in their profession, they found
them to be telling a lie when they said, that God had touched
them and had done something with them. He says that these people
in their practice, you have discovered that they really are not genuine,
they really are not the Lord's people. He said, I know thy labor,
and he says, I know these people too, I know both. cases, and
you know the scripture says, the foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. So
God knew who was His and who wasn't, who the false apostles
were, and who those were that were evil among them. I know
you're boasting of what little you do, and certainly the boasting
of many in our day and time is sickening as to how much they've
done for Jesus. how much they've been accomplishing
for Jesus. But it is more than most of us
dare to hope that the Lord Jesus Christ will ever commend us as
He has commended the church at Ephesus. And this word, patience,
you know, this morning early, the Lord did something in my
heart which I was cause to praise Him for, to give thanks to God
and it just simply made my day early this morning and that is
that the Lord spoke to me in my heart and gave me a calm spirit
and gave me something from this word patience. Gave me something
that just came all over me and really affected me and helped
me. Patience. And I thought about
many, many things in connection with this and about many of the
situations that have occurred in my life wherein I was ready
just simply to give it up. Just simply to abandon the work
and to give it up. And I started in this thing real
early. I started in this thing when
I was 16 years old. And I've been at this thing a
long time, and as I thought about some of the things this morning,
I thought about the many who I have known that started. They
started, labored for a short season, and then they fainted,
and they gave up. And I had to thank God. I just
had to thank God and to praise God. God poured out upon me the
spirit of supplication and praise. I had to praise Him that that
had not been the case in my life. When I thought about the many
times that I was at a crossroad where I could have very, very
easily said, it's all over, I'm quitting, I'm going back, I'm
done, I'm tired, I'm worn out, and I'm going to give it up.
but the Lord had enabled me to be patient." Now this church
labored for many years, not in some spasmodic effort, but in
a continued strain and unabated zeal for the glory of God. This church at Ephesus, they
had continued and continued and continued. And it's those who
continue in the Word That are disciples indeed, the scripture
says. A man that continues. Beloved,
let me say that there is no place to quit. There is not a quitting
place for a child of God on this side of the river of death. There is no place to quit for
those who know the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot quit. Could we win this praise, I ask? Could we win a commendation from
the Lord for having continued unto this day, for having been
patient and having stayed unto the Lord? Let me skip on here
a little bit to get to something else. In verse 3, they bore the
persecutions, the difficulties, the hardships, the embarrassments,
and the discouragements, but they continued. And the question
is, have we? Can we claim to have continued? Well, there are three things
here that I want to mention briefly this morning. One is, what was
our first love? What was our first love? Now
we get to verse 4 here, and the Lord, after commending them,
after the Lord has spent this time in giving them His thoughts
as to them, and like we said, He's very observant, He knows
what's going on, He says in verse 4, nevertheless, I've commended
you and you're worthy of commendation, but nevertheless, nevertheless,
I have somewhat against thee. I've got something against you
because thou hast left thy first love. Because you have left your
first love, I've got this against you. You don't love me like you
did when you were first converted, when you were first saved. And
so what was our first love is the first question. The second
thing is how did we lose it? And thirdly, let me exhort you
to get it again. I want to exhort you to get it
again. Well, number one, what was our
first love? Well, the scripture says, in
verse 5, it says, Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,
and repent, and do the first works. Remember therefore from
whence thou art fallen. Now, do we remember back when
God first saved us, back when there was a work of grace that
took place in our life? Do we remember And for some of
us, we don't have to go back very far, and others of us have
to go back maybe even quite far to be able to remember, to think
a little bit about what it was, how the Lord affected our hearts,
how we were dealt with when we first were saved, what it was
that we experienced. And the love that we had to Him,
these days were, as I look back upon them, were very happy days.
They were filled with trial and tribulation. But I cannot forget
the early days of my Christian life. I cannot forget it. I have
been greatly impressed, even this morning, with some of those
things that took place in my life when I first was converted. when I first knew that my sin
was forgiven, when I first knew that the Lord Jesus Christ had
come into my life, when I first knew that the Spirit of God,
the Holy Spirit, was shedding abroad His love in my heart. And I knew very little at that
time about the Bible. I knew very little about the
Word of God. But as I thought back, I didn't know anything. I didn't know a fraction of what
I know now. But when I first knew these things, my, what a
tremendous impression this made upon my life and how it affected
me in the service of God and how earnest we were and how zealous
we were at that time because of what God had done in us. There was not a single thing
in the Bible at that time but what was very, very precious
to me. And I remember when the Lord
first saved me that I could not wait for study halls to come
in high school. I was a sophomore in high school
when the Lord saved me. I could not wait for a study
hall to come because I read the Bible in study halls. I read
the New Testament and memorized much of the scripture that I
know to this day. That's where I first come in
contact with it was in that day. And everything in the Bible was
precious to me at that time. And everything in the Bible was
precious to me at that time. And never were the doors of the
house of God open without me being there. I was always there
when the house of God was open. At prayer meeting, at any hour
of the day or the night. I was there when the doors were
open. I'm not preaching myself. I'm
just telling you how it was, as I remembered from whence I
had fallen possibly. I wanted to remind you that in
the early days, in the early hours of our conversion, there
was a time when things maybe was a little different with us.
than what they are at this time. And I remember back in those
days that I walked to church all the time, that I had no transportation. And you may say, well this is
another one of them stories where a fellow walks five miles to
school and the children may say, well I've heard this talk. But
listen, let me tell you this. I do not think that even Mike
over here or Grace Anna or any of the other children, my children
were present, that they'd probably tell you that they never heard
this before. Because I don't talk about it,
never have talked about it. But I will tell you this. that
when the Lord first saved me, I walked three and a half miles
to church one way, and three and a half miles back on Sunday
morning, and three and a half miles on Sunday night, and three
and a half miles back from church on Sunday night. And on Wednesday
night, I'd get home after school, and my dad had a blacksmith shop
in a garage, and I would work from the time I got home at four
o'clock in the evening until just barely enough time for me
to run, to run as much as I could to get to the church building.
And I walked in the church building several times and sat down in
a chair and somebody behind me would take a Kleenex or something
and wipe the grease off the back of my ears where I'd been under
an old car or where I'd been working on something. got grease
on me, didn't have time to wash it off before I got to the church
building. I'm telling you, that's the truth.
It's a gospel truth. I got up and went to church and
walked all of those miles because the things of God was precious
to me in those days. And I'll tell you this, that
if I get old, to the point where I can't drive and I don't have
anybody to take me to the house of God, if there is one within
walking distance that I can get to by daylight, from daylight
till the time the service starts, I'll be there. I'll be there
because I believe that if a man loves Christ, he will be there,
he'll want to be there. And he'll walk if he has to.
And so I think we need to remember some of these things, because
I think that it'll stir our hearts a little bit. Now then, how jealous
we were for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in those days. Oh,
if somebody opened their mouth in cursing. I remember how God
delivered me from swearing. I was a young man, 16 years old,
but I knew about every word there was in the vocabulary of the
wicked, and God Almighty was pleased to deliver me when He
saved me from cursing. He delivered me from that. And
I'll tell you what, I was jealous for his name. If I heard anybody
take the name of the Lord in vain, I collared them, I told
them about it, I told them they were wrong, I told them they
were breaking the Word of God, and that the curse of God would
be upon them. How we stayed in the closet in
those days. I remember how I won many, many
victories before the Lord in prayer in those days. How that
I cried to God, I prayed when I was walking, I prayed unto
God in the closet, I prayed unto God in an old upstairs room where
there was no heat, prayed to God and I saw the hand of the
Lord on many occasions. saw God come down and visit me,
my life, turn my heart, listen to me, the impetus that I gathered
in those early days was what has driven me unto this very
hour and made me serious about the things of God. And if you
don't have a genuine conversion and love to Christ when you begin
this thing, You will never have the impetus and the strength
to go on. Paul said, the love of Christ
constrains me. What he meant by that was that
the love of Christ is like a stream of water that is rushing along,
and if you get into it, That stream will bear you along in
the things of God and keep you moving, and keep you faithful,
and keep you going in the direction that God's purpose would take
you. And he said, the love of Christ constrains me. And where
there's an absence of love, listen to me, where there's an absence
of love, then there's going to be the absence of all things
that are good. Do we love the Lord? Do we love
the Lord as we did in those days? Well, I think this is very important. These peaceful hours you once
enjoyed, how sweet their memory still. Oh, what would we give
this morning if we could fill that aching void that the world
can never fill. What would we give if the Lord
was to bless us with that love? The same love we had at the first
is all that can ever fully satisfy a child of God. Now I'm telling
you the truth. I'm telling you the truth. You
say, preacher, I'm deep in my spiritual knowledge. The water
of truth runs deep in my soul. I agree with you. I agree with
you. This church here, I think there's
some people here that are the most solid people that I know
of anywhere in the United States in churches. And there are people
here, listen to me, I know what you believe and I know what you
stand for. But I'm going to tell you this,
that unless the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, that sweetheart
love that you had for the Lord Jesus when He first saved you,
if that love is not in you, you are not satisfied. You are not
happy in your heart. Well, listen, did you and I lose
our first love? If we have, then we need to go
back where we lost it, and we need to think about what we've
lost. When you lose the foundation,
I tell you, when you lose the foundation of love, then every
good thing is gone. The love of Christ must constrain
us. Now some of us, where did we
lose our love? Now I think this is important
for us to see this. Where did we lose it? Well, some
of us lost it in the world. Some of us, the scripture says
that if a man is a friend of the world, he's an enemy of God. And John Owen said, when he was
a dying, he spoke of this world, he said, this dying world, this
dying world, and some of us have lost it in the world. Now, too
much of this world is a bad thing for any man. Now, we find in
our reading this morning in Revelation chapter 2, down in verse 14,
where the Lord speaks here concerning the church at Pergamos, and He
says, But I have a few things against you, because you have
there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam. who taught Balak to
cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat
things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So
hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,
which thing I hate." Now I want to say just a word about this
doctrine of Balaam because it's in essence the doctrine of worldliness
really now this doctrine the children of Israel were on the
way to the promised land and King Balak wanted to stop them,
and he offered Balaam, who was a prophet of God, a large sum
of money to curse Israel. And when he tried to curse Israel,
God would not permit him to do it. Instead, he put a blessing
in his mouth for Israel. But Balaam, he did not want to
lose that money. He wanted that reward that had
been offered by King Balak. And so he did something else.
He enticed some of the men of Israel to go to the heathen temples
and defile themselves with the maids who stayed there indulging,
they stayed there and indulged in the religious orgies. Now
this brought the curse of God upon Israel and he slew 24,000 men in Israel in order to clean
out the corruption that had been brought in because of Balaam
and because of his enticement of the men of Israel. And some
in the church apparently in 1 Corinthians Paul was talking about this,
had joined themselves with the idols and the religious orgies
in the day of the Apostle Paul and eating things offered to
idols, 1 Corinthians 10, 20-22. And so the essence of Baalism
today is warliness. And the church has made union
with the world. You can't tell where the church
ends and the world begins. And the world is so churchy and
the church is so worldly that you can't tell the difference
between the two. And this, of course, has brought us into terrible,
terrible times. Now, the ship and the water,
it is said, is a thing of power and beauty. But when water gets
into the ship, the results are tragic. And so the church in
the world, yes, that's where it belongs. But when the world
gets in the church, that is very tragic. Listen to me now carefully. I'm talking about where you lost
your first love. You say, Preacher, I don't know
whether I'm worldly or not. Well, listen to this. We cannot
sing, I'm going home by the way of the cross, unless we also
sing, then I bid farewell to the ways of the world. You can't
stand beneath the cross of Jesus unless you are content to let
the world go by. You can't properly survey the
wondrous cross unless you sacrifice the vain things which charm you
most. You can't sing, my Jesus I love
Thee, until you can say, all the follies of sin I resign. You can't be a real Christian
and a Balite at the same time. And I do feel that we, many of
us, have been dabbling too much in the world. And the scripture
says that because of the iniquity that abounds, the love of many
waxes cold. And I think that it's had an
influence on us and I think that we've lost our first love and
we need to go back and do some repenting about our worldliness.
Now also the doctrine of the Nicolaitans is mentioned here.
And the word means to rule the people. That's what it means.
Now there were theotrophies among the people in those days that
wanted to assert the authority and to have the rule over the
people of God. They were selfish, had selfish
ambitions, and they wanted to rule the people. And Jesus Christ
is to be the head of the church And the Bible is our only rule
of faith and practice, and the Word of God, through the Word
of God, we are ruled. The Word of God makes that plain,
that Christ is the head, and that no man has the authority,
this church is not my church, This church is not your church.
This church is the Lord's church. And that's what the Nicolaitans,
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which God said, taught. That man could rule the church
and do with it whatever he wanted to do with the people. Well,
God hates that doctrine. Let's get back to the subject
this morning, and that is how have we lost our first love?
Well, we lost it maybe in the world. The second thing is maybe
through prosperity. And somebody said, I've never
prospered, preacher. Well, I think you've prospered
more than you realize you've prospered. Now let me tell you
something here. Of all the temptations which
God's children are exposed to, I think the worst is, this is
the worst. Prosperity is probably the worst,
and that's because it is the one thing that people do not
dread. People will try to be prosperous. Everybody would like to get a
hold of a little more than the providence of God's will that
they have. Am I not telling you the truth?
And you have no dread of it, do you? You have no dread of
it. You have no dread of being more prosperous than you are
right now. That's the reason why that this
is one of the worst things that can happen sometimes in a life
of a believer is for God to give them everything they want and
more too. because it will end up bringing them to a place with
this subtle temptation, it'll bring them to the place where
they no longer have this sweetheart love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, we've forgotten how much, I think in the next place, that
we owe to the Lord Jesus Christ. We've forgotten how much we owe
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when we started, I
remember when the Lord started with me and what an amazing change
took place in my life. I didn't know, as I said earlier,
I didn't know hardly anything about what the Lord had done
for me. I knew that He saved me, I knew He laid hold of me,
I knew He saved me. But I didn't know the depths
as I know it today about what the Lord Jesus had done for me
as my substitute, how that He had died in my room and stayed
in place, how that He took my hell upon Himself and suffered
my hell for me. I never understood those things
like I understand them now. But I started as a poor sinner. That's how I started. I started
as a poor sinner. I the chief of sinners am, but
Jesus died for me. I learned that early. I was the
chief of sinners, but Christ had died for me. I remember reading
recently in one of Charles Haddon's virgin sermons, how that he said
that he could not come I believe this was in the Sword and Trowel
paper the other day, I think I read this, how that he could
not come, he could not always come as a saint to God. He could
not always come as a saint. The devil would tell him how
bad he was, and he would have to agree with the devil. And
he would say, well, if I can't come as a saint, I'll come as
a sinner. That's how I'll come. I'll just
come as a sinner. And that's the way that we need
this morning. We need to come back to the realization
of what Christ really done for us when he saved But we would
be now if the Lord had passed us by. And so the prison house
of the dam, that's where I'd be. And I might even be in hell
this morning. I might be in hell today. because
only Christ had the key to bring me out. And this will bring us
back, I think, this will help to bring us back to our first
love to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now my business in this message
this morning to the church here is to exhort you to get back
to your first love. He said, remember, he said, repent,
and he said, do the first works, or he said, or else, or else. Now then you may think, well
the preacher's message is not very serious. But it is serious. It is very serious. He said or
else. He said, or else I'm going to
remove the candlestick from you. I'm going to take the candlestick
out. Now what do you suppose that
that means? Well, I believe it means that
the Lord will no longer look upon or consider you to be His
church. He'll remove His presence, and
He'll leave you to yourself, and leave you to your own devices,
and the chastening hand of the Lord will be upon you. He said,
or else you repent, or else. And so I hope this morning that
we can learn something from this. Now, if we lose our first love and
if we don't come back to it and the Lord takes his candlestick
away, what will the world say? What will the world say about
this little group of people? I say not for your name's sake.
Because what difference does it make what people think of
us, really? as far as we're concerned, that
in that we're connected with the God of heaven. In that, that
we're in union with the living Christ. In that, that for His
namesake, and the church at Ephesus, you know, it was for His name. Look in verse 3, and for my namesake,
you've labored, and you've not fainted. Well, what will the
world say if we do not remember, come back, do the first works, We're just going to get more
cold, more careless, more indifferent, more asleep. Ah, says the world,
it was never anything more than a spasm with those people. It
was just a spiritual excitement they had. It was never anything
more than that. They never really loved the Lord
with all their hearts. They never really had an experience,
an experience that changes men. It's all gone. They're just like
us really. Nothing really ever happened
to them. Now listen to me this morning. This is something that
I've thought about a great deal. This is a very serious thing
with me. And I want you to listen to what
I'm saying to you. I want every one of you to listen. Just a
little bit, I'm going to let you go just right away. But I
want you to listen to this. Now, we don't know how far we've
slipped. We don't know how far we've gone
down the hill. We don't know how far away from
our first love we've come. Sometimes I get a little glimpse
of it. My own heart. My own life. Now listen to me. I'm going to tell you what's
going to happen one of these days. Let me tell you what's going to happen.
God is going to lay hold of one of these young people here in
this church. God's going to lay hold of them and He's going to
save them. He's going to save them. And He's going to put His
love in their hearts. It's what He's going to do. And
these people are going, these young people that God saves and
lays hold of and changes and does for them what He did for
me back there in the early 50's, let me tell you what's going
to happen. They're going to stand up in our face. is what they're
going to do, and they're going to point their finger at us and
say to us, what in the world are you people about anyway?
What are you about? You have very little compassion
for anybody outside the congregation. And you, as it were, almost hide
as if you had a contagious disease that you don't want anybody else
to catch. And they're going to stand up
in your face. They're going to have a zeal for the things of
God and zeal for the ways of the Lord. And you know what you're
going to say? You know we're going to be ashamed
of ourselves? I tell you we're going to be ashamed of ourselves,
and I'll tell you what we're going to say. We're going to
say, well, we did the best we could. Well, let me tell you
something, that is a lie. We are not doing the best we
can, and we must take serious the fact that one of these days,
God's going to lay hold of one of these children here and show
up this bunch for what we really are. We had better get on the
stick or the Lord is going to take this thing out of here and
it's going to be over. Now I'm serious about it. I believe
it with all my heart. And I know what can happen when
God Almighty puts His love in an individual's life. You say,
Preacher, I'm a little concerned about you. Well, listen, you
better be concerned about me because I'm just about ready
to fall in love with the Lord Jesus Christ one more time! I'm just about ready to do that,
and if I do, God help me if I don't, then you're going to see a little
bit different preacher than what you have witnessed over the past
few years. I'll tell you this, I believe
that the love of Jesus Christ will move His people to be what
He wants them to be. And I think we've got a little
complacent. Now, you may be here this morning, you may say, Preacher,
it's not true of me. I'm not guilty. It's not true
of me. Well, if not, I ask you again,
this morning, at the close of this service, if you were arrested
this week for being a Christian, hauled into court, could they
find evidence, when they look through your records, when they
look through and examine witnesses, could they find any evidence
that you loved Christ, that you were a follower of the Lord Jesus
Christ, anything other than you met with a few Baptists on Sunday
morning, and listen to a preacher for an hour or 45 minutes on
Sunday morning. Could they find any evidence
that you were a Christian? I tell you what, I don't know
how much confidence you have in me. I don't know. I don't
know. I love every one of you. I love
you all. I love you all dearly. You're
very dear and special to me. And there's some people here
that has helped me all they could possibly help me, and they would
cut off their right arm to help me. And I know that. But I'm
telling you this, we've got to, every one of us, begin to look
and remember from whence we've fallen. It is not enough to sit
back on your blessed assurance and say, let the world go to
hell, we're not concerned. What I've got is not a contagious
disease. What I've got, the world needs,
and the people around me needs it. And I need to be alive in
presenting it and preaching that message that God has given me
to preach. Now, lots of preachers can preach
better than I can, but there's no man got a better gospel than
I got. I know THE gospel, and I preach THE gospel. And I intend
to do that and I want to preach it with more earnestness and
zeal than I ever have if God will give me breath and strength
to do it. Let's fall by the grace of God
in love with the Lord Jesus Christ again. Let's do it. Let's fall
in love with Him. Lord, we thank you this morning
for this privilege of preaching. I pray that you will bless this
congregation. And I do ask, Lord, even though
it might be to our shame, that you will lay hold of our young
people. Lord, that you will lay hold
of these boys and these girls, and that you will do a great
work in their lives. And I do pray, Lord, that if
you wouldn't be pleased to use the older folks here, if you
wouldn't be pleased to use us, that you would use them and you
would raise them up and shed abroad your love in their hearts.
and give them that desire, our Father, to bust a gut or whatever
needs to be done to see to it that the gospel of the free grace
of God is preached openly and spread throughout this state. May your will be done. May you
work mightily in us all. I pray for Jesus' sake, in His
name, Amen.