I'm going to begin this message in a strange place. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should
be alone. I will make a helpmeet for him.
So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the
field. every fowl of the air and brought
them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam
called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to the cattle,
to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found
a helpmeet for him. So the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of
his ribs and clothed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib
which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and
brought her to the man. God said it's not good for man
to be alone. People need people. And believers need other believers. In Hebrews 10, Paul said, let
us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works and
not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, because believers
need other believers. And he said in Hebrews 3, exhort
one another daily while it is called today. encourage one another,
exhort one another, help one another, lest any of you be hardened
through the deceitfulness of sin. And he said again to the
Galatian church, bear ye one another's burdens, literally
take them upon yourself, and so fulfill the law of love, the
law of Christ, the royal law of Christ. And he said to the
church at Colossae, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, teaching one another,
admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace together in your hearts to the Lord. People
need people. Believers need believers. I need
you, you need me, we need each other. God said that. And we're
going to suffer without one another. We're going to be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. We're going to be lacking in
a growth in grace. Because the Lord's Church is
a family. The Lord's Church is a family of brothers and sisters.
And I'll tell you this, according to the scripture and according
to my own experience, it is a more close-knit family than a family
only joined together by name and common parents. Because this is an eternal family.
This is a family who's born of God. This is a family who love
Christ and who love one another. They're of one blood. That's
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they do love each other.
And this is the evidence that they love God. He said, by this
shall all men know you're my disciples if you love one another.
And he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he
love God whom he hath not seen? And he that loveth not knoweth
not God. You love one another, Christ said, as I love you. The
church is a family of brothers and sisters, and a church is
a fraternity. It's a fraternity of men and
women with the same beliefs, with the same interest, and with
the same goals. They believe God. They believe
God's Word, and they seek the glory of Christ. They're not
divided over the inspiration of this Not God's church. They believe God. And they believe
this book is the verbally, infallibly inspired word of the living God.
They put no question mark on his word. They find nothing in
there too difficult to believe. They find a lot of things in
there they can't understand. But nothing they do not believe.
their fraternity of people with common beliefs and common interest
and common goal. That's the church. And the Lord's
Church is a fellowship. It's a fellowship of heart and
mind. Believers enjoy togetherness. They have all things common.
Turn to the book of Acts chapter 2 a moment. Acts chapter 2. They have all things common.
They care about one another. In Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter
2, verse 42, it says these people that were converted continued.
They continued. Acts 2, 42, steadfastly in the
apostles' doctrine and fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers.
Fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done
by the apostles, and all that believed were together, and they
had all things common. What's mine is yours. You say, it's communism. No,
it's Christianity. In Acts chapter 4, verse 32. Acts 4, 32. And the multitude
of them that believed were of one heart and one soul. That's
what I said. They are a fellowship of heart
and soul and mind. They are of one heart and one
soul. Neither said any of them that all of the things which
he possessed were his own." But they had all things common. The church is a family. The church
of the Lord Jesus Christ is a fraternity. You say, I'm a member of the
church and those things are not true of me. You're the member
of a local church. I'm talking about the Lord's
church. I'm talking about the Lord's church. I'm talking about
the church he loved and purchased with his own blood. I'm talking
about the church which is his body. That's the church I'm talking
about. I'm talking about the church
of which Christ is the head, and we're all members, and not
a one will ever be lost. That's the church I'm talking
about. And it's a fraternity. And it's a fellowship. But the
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is also an assembly of people
with a message. With a message. A message from
God, a message for the day in which they live. They have a
burning message. It burns in their souls and in
their hearts. And they've got to tell it. They've
got to preach it. Turn to 1 Thessalonians just
a minute, let me show you something. 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul is describing
those whom he believed to be the elect of God. Down there
in Thessalonica, in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 4, he said, Knowing,
brethren, beloved, your election of God. God chose you and God
saved you. How do you know we're elect,
Paul? Verse 4, verse 5, because our gospel came unto you not
in word only, but in power. You heard the gospel with the
heart. You heard the gospel in the Holy Ghost. You heard the
gospel in conviction, in conversion. You heard the gospel in power,
the power of God. Not only that, but verse 6 says,
and you came to be followers. You followed us and you followed
the Lord. And you received the word in
much affliction, in verse 7 said, and you became examples. I know
you're God's elect. You became examples to those
that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. But verse 8 says this,
watch it, and from you sounded out the word of the Lord. You
were a church of people who heard the gospel in power, in the Holy
Ghost, in much confidence. You were people who came to be
followers, disciples, learners, sitting at the feet of the Lord
and at the feet of His servants, waiting to be fed from the Word
of God. You were people who became examples in your attitude and
conduct and conversation in life. People could see that you'd been
with Christ. You were new creatures in Christ
and your lives manifested the grace of Christ. You became a
kind people, a gracious people, a considerate people, a generous
people, a people reaching out to others. But not only that,
from you sounded out the word of the Lord. You became a preaching
church. The Lord's Church is a preaching
church. They never forget the marching
orders from their risen, ascended Redeemer. Go ye! Sure, we are
family, and we enjoy family fellowship. Sure, we are fraternity with
the same beliefs. interest in gold. But I'll tell
you, never forget the words of our Lord when he said, go into
all the world and preach the gospel to every Christian. And
here in my text in Ephesians 4, if you care to turn back there
a moment, our Lord Jesus Christ, we are preaching church. We preach
even on our billboard out there. We preach the gospel there. We
preach in our bulletin. We preach on our television program.
We preach in the congregation, we preach in Bible conference,
we preach in revival meeting, we preach as the pastor travels,
we preach all over the world this morning as missionaries
whom we are privileged to support of preaching. And we preach by
tapes. About 200 a week going out of
here preaching the gospel. Preaching, preaching, preaching.
And it's not idle preaching. And it's not the preaching of
foolishness. And it's not preaching of promotion or denominationalism. It's the preaching of Christ.
And that's what he gave us to do. In verse 11 says, and he
that ascended gave gifts to men, and he gave some apostles, some
prophets, some traveling missionaries, some pastors and teachers. Now,
my friend, I know I can't sum up history
in a matter of the next 15 or 20 minutes. I don't know that
much about it. It's too vast. It's too vast,
and too many things have happened, too many things have happened
back in the past. But just touching here and there
on the pinnacles, on the high points, there's something that
seems to summarize that age, back yonder. It says, God spake
to our fathers by the prophets. We cover 4,000 years with one
statement. God spake to our fathers from
Abel to Malachi by the prophets. There's a prophet called Moses.
Christ said he wrote of me. There's a prophet called Isaiah
who said he was wounded by our transgression. There was a prophet
called Jeremiah who said the Lord is my righteousness. There
was a prophet and a king called David who said the Lord is my
shepherd. There's a prophet called Jonah who said, salvations of
the Lord. So all the way through those
4,000 years of human history, with all of its different nations
and governments and people and races and traumatic happenings,
with all of its powers, and its floods, and its Sodom and Gomorrah,
and its tabernacles in the wilderness, and its Egypts, and its deliverance,
and Exodus, and all these things. God spake to our fathers by the
prophets. And the message he spake was
Jesus Christ the Lord, the Messiah is coming. There'll be a prophet
like Moses, and a priest like Melchizedek, and a king like
David, but they preached Christ. That was their message. There
were days when the voice wasn't heard very loudly. There were days when it didn't
seem to be heard at all. There's a prophet sitting up
there under a juniper tree who's crying and asking God to kill
him because he says, I'm the only one left. The only one left. But then came
the apostles, and the apostles preached Christ to a religious
day. My, my, my, you talk about religion. The Jews were religious people.
They had their temples. They had their synagogues. They
had their rituals and rules and regulations. They had their ceremonies
and their feasts and their holy days. They had their special
sacrifices. They had all these things. They
had their laws. They followed all of these things
to the letter. They came on special days at
special times from far corners of the world. They had their
priests, they had their Sadducees, and they had their Pharisees,
and they had their scribes, and they had the most complex, complicated order of so-called
worship and religion you ever heard of, and these apostles
Eleven of them then Paul came along later Went to these religious
Jews and cried to them this same Jesus whom you rejected and despised
and turned thumbs down on and Spit upon and nailed her cross
God hath made him Lord and Christ You talk about an unpopular declaration
What you're doing is all wrong Your table is a snare and a stumbling
block Your water poured out means nothing but condemnation. Your
sacrifices and blood shed will do nothing but add to your condemnation. Your priests and your scribes
and Pharisees are unsaved blind men leading unsaved blind men.
It's all to no avail. God's angry. God has rejected
you. God hath made this Jesus, whom
you despise to be Lord of all, of whom you said, we'll not have
him reign over us. Neither is there salvation in
any other name but the name you're cursing. Another foundation can
no man lay than that which is laid, the foundation that your
chief elders and scribes and priests rejected. The stone that
the builders rejected, God's made the same, the head of the
corner. And then came the evangelists
and the missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, John,
Mark and Barnabas, Timothy, and took their message to the far
corners of the world and said to the pagan, heathen Gentiles
in Corinth and Ephesus and Galatia and Thessalonica and Asia that
Christ is Lord. a gospel they'd never heard,
a name they'd never heard. And God used them and blessed
them. And God raised up some powerful
bodies of believers, some assemblies all over that part of the world.
But then over the next several centuries, This religion became
back like it was when the apostles preached to the Jews. Roman Catholicism,
like a plague, like a flood, like a black smog, covered the
whole known world. Roman Catholicism with its priesthood,
with its idolatry, with its superstition, with its statues and pictures
and beads, with its so-called saints, with its heresy and apostasy,
with its potpourri, perverting, literally perverting the gospel
of Christ. There was scarcely anywhere in
this world anybody who believed anything about the living Christ,
who knew anything. It was rightly named the Dark
Ages. The Dark Ages. Over 500 years ago, God raised
up a man born of a German miner. He called him, his name he said
would be Martin. Martin Luther. We'll put him
in a monastery and make a priest out of him. But you can't even
make a priest out of one of God's chosen prophets. God said to
Jeremiah, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. Before
you came out of your mother's womb, I ordained you a prophet.
And God had ordained that Martin Luther should be a reformer.
at Martin Luther with the message of justification by faith in
Christ to shake the world, and he did. God Almighty in that monastery,
when Martin Luther was abusing himself, abusing his body, trying
to do penance, trying to work his way to heaven, trying to
establish for himself before Almighty God a righteousness
that God had spewed out of his mouth. God Almighty came to him in the
words of the scripture and said, Luther the just to live by faith. Martin Luther saw that light
reveal the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus and he took
that light and came off the dunghill of Catholicism. He took that
light and came out of the darkness and superstition of potpourri. He took that light and challenged
the world and held it up so high that all men could see that just
shall live by faith. What you're doing is wrong, he
said. Selling your indulgences, confessional boots, kissing the
ring of a man, bowing down to human beings is wrong! He said
you're wrong! And everybody was after him and
trying to kill him. And God was preserving him and
God built a hedge around him and he died of old age. You can't kill a man God sent
and you can't hush him up. You can't buy him off if God
sent him. You can't destroy him. God's
man and God's people are immortal till God sees fit to put them
away. and John Calvin and others cried out against this superstition,
this idolatry, and God Almighty sent a revival called the Reformation
based on three things, the Scriptures alone as opposed to any of the
dogmas and tenets and creeds of the so-called church. And
I'll tell you this. If ever you move from here and
affiliate with any other church and somebody comes at you with
a man-made Constitution and tells you to sign it, you tell them
you're not signing anything. This is all a Constitution we
need right here, the Word of God. And that's what the Reformers
said, the Scriptures alone, not what the Pope says, not what
the elders say, not what the religious leaders say, what God
says. That's our marching orders, that's
our only rule of faith and practice. Scriptures alone, Christ alone. Christ, not Christ in Mary, not
Christ in baptism, not Christ in the church, not Christ in
circumcision, not Christ in the law, not Christ in a profession
of faith, not Christ in an experience, not Christ in a feeling. Christ! I'm complete and healed, whether
I feel good or bad. Whether I'm dipped, sprinkled,
washed, or poured, I'm complete in Christ. That's right. Christ alone. And it's grace
alone. It's grace alone. All of grace.
He's God's alphabet from Alpha to Omega. He's God's only spokesman. No man knows the Father but the
Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him. It's grace alone,
grace alone, not grace plus anything, grace alone. And any man who
gives a tithe or keeps a day, any man who obeys a law or goes
to a service, any man who circumcised or refuses to be, any man that
wears a uniform or no uniform by his actions trying to seek
acceptance with God, Christ profits him nothing. If righteousness
come by any obedience on the part of the sinner, Jesus Christ
died in vain, but he didn't die in vain. Salvation by grace. And I reject and refuse any efforts
on the part of any man to get me to believe in the slightest
fashion that I make any contribution to the cleansing of my soul,
the justification of my soul, or its sanctification. It's in
Christ. I'm complete in Him. As late as 200 years ago. Then,
what were we plagued with then? Intellectualism. Puritan self-righteousness. They began to write volumes on
doctrines, not on Christ. They began to preach three-hour
sermons that nobody understood and they didn't either. People
began to sleep through the services. We had a cold-head fatalism. We invented our London Confession
and Heidelberg Confession and Westminster Confession and all
the confessions. Churches got to be cold, dead,
dry places with a pulpit about 20 feet in the air. Paul, you've
seen them over there in England. I preached in one one time. Zion's
Chapel. Old Joseph Irons Church. There
was a people way, there wasn't very many of them, but they were
way down there. I climbed about 15 steps. Went in the little
box and shut the door and there I was in that little box up there
looking down at the people down there. They said they were elevating
the word. They were elevating that man,
too. And those places became like
dogs walking through dry leaves. Dirty, dry, cold, intellectual,
legalistic. I know, I read those fellows.
Clear back yonder, took Martin Luther this way. So God raised
up some Whitefields. Wouldn't even let him preach
in the church, he had to preach in the field. Raised up some Whitefields,
and he raised up men like Brainerd, and Maxine, and old Isaac Watts,
and John Bunyan. Put him in prison for 12 years. You know who put him in prison?
The Calvinists. It's exactly right. The Anglicans,
with their 39 articles, the Church of England, with its perfect
doctrine, said, John Bunyan, you preach what we say, you preach
or you go to jail. He said, then I'll go to jail.
I'll go to jail. In fact, one time, hundreds of
ministers, preachers of the gospel, were shut out of their churches
because they wouldn't preach what the states had preached,
the state church. Isn't that right? Shut them out. And it got cold and dead. So
God raised up some Spurgeons, and some Whitefields, and some
Newtons, and some Bunions, and some folks like that. to preach
Calvinism on fire, grace on fire. God raised him up to preach the
gospel of Jesus Christ, calling mourners to the feet
of the Son of God, and yet looking to God for his free love and
grace. Well, we've taken another circle. You see, men are so fickle and
foolish and stupid. You know, somebody says one time
to me, he said, well, you know a certain church, God must not
have been in it because it's gone now. The Lord uses whom he will, when
he will, for his own glory at a certain time. Spurgeon's church,
after his death, burned down. There's no church over in North
Africa now. Used to be some thriving churches
over there. Galatia's not there. Ephesus is not there. Colossi's
not there. Thessalonica's not there. But
God was in them when they were there. One day this place here
may be a motel. I don't know. But Almighty God
doesn't preserve what men do. No, he doesn't preserve what
men do. The Lord preserves the message of Christ, the gospel. He preserves the gospel, and
he'll preserve it where he will, when he will, and he'll raise
up whom he will. The church out of which Walter Gruber came,
Milton Howard, David Pledger, Jack Shanks, that church is now
a Pentecostal church. It doesn't even exist. No gospel
been preached there in ten years. But God raised it up, blessed
it, and then put it away. And he'll do that. We better
redeem the time. We better occupy while we can. Like all generations before us,
but we have a message. There's a message for this day.
Something happening now. Religion is all about us, but
religion's always been about us. There was religion in the
Old Testament. They even sacrificed their children
to pagan gods. That was religion. There was
religion up to their eyebrows when Christ came to this earth.
There was religion in the Dark Ages, superstitious religion
of idolatry. There was religion in Whitefield's
day. A lot of it is religion today. And the message is the
same. The message is the same whether
you're Moses, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, James, or John, or Polycock,
or Ignatius, or whether you're Luther, Calvin, or Whitefield,
or Spurgeon, or whether you're me. Same message. Christ and
Him crucified. Christ and Him crucified. Same
message. The message hasn't changed. The
gospel hasn't changed. Sin hasn't changed. The need
hasn't changed. It's still the name which is
above every name, the name of Christ. That's the message. But
each day has its issues. And wise is the man who can discern
the issues of his day and meet them and deal with them. Luther was raised up for his
day. He met the issues head on. They tried to kill him, but he
wouldn't back down. He met the issues. The 11 apostles,
the 12 apostles, all of them were martyred except John, who
was exiled to Patmos. Why? They met the issues. They
didn't play church. They didn't just preach. Whitefield
was cast out of the church. He met the issues. Bunyan was
put in prison. He met the issues. Spurgeon was
the most unpopular preacher among preachers of his day. Do you
know that? And all the preachers love him, now he's dead. But
when he was alive, he said scarcely, any minister of any reputation
will have anything to do with me. That's what he said, out
of his own mouth. Because he met the issues. He
faced baptismal regeneration head on. Most unpopular message
he ever brought, but the most blessed message he ever brought.
It tore England from one end to the other. And we're going to have to meet
the issues of our day. And it's no task for the weak-hearted.
It's no task. Never has been. Never has been. If we're going to meet the issues
of our day, and we're going to deal with the things characteristic
of and peculiar to our time, then we're going to sound the
note that God would have us sound. And it's not the job for the
weak-hearted. And it's not the job for the
ambitious. You can lay aside your ambitions.
And it's not the job for the covetous either, because nobody's
going to be standing in line waiting to fill your pockets
if you tell them the truth. And it's not the job for those
who would please men. Paul said, if I please men, I
know I'm not the servant of Christ. And it's not the job for those
who would leave monuments and their names on school buildings.
and other things erected to the honor of men. This is a task
for a voice in the wilderness to meet the issues of this day.
The gospel is no different. The gospel is no different. You
could bring Martin Luther back and stand him in this pulpit
today and the gospel he preached would be the same. But he wouldn't
be dealing with the issues that need to be dealt with in this
day. God raised him up for that day. There's no need for him
to spend an hour and a half condemning the Pope here. Somebody said, if you want to
have liberty, pick something that everybody's against and
preach about it. They're issues of this day, and
I'll tell you what they are. I'll tell you what they are.
Number one, the issue of this day is who is the Lord God? Who
is the Lord God? My generation doesn't know who
the Lord God is. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. Do you know that? There are very few people today
worshipping God. There are a lot of people pretending
to, but very few really worshipping God because they don't know God.
They've never met God. They've never seen God. Moses
did, and he took his shoes off. Job did, and he put his hand
on his mouth. Isaiah did, and he cried, I'm
cut off. Daniel did, and he said, my comeliness
melted into corruption. John did, and he fell like a
dead man. My generation knows nothing of
the holiness of God. the awesome, immaculate, infinite
holiness of God. The preacher doesn't. How can
he preach what he doesn't know? God is flippantly referred to. There's a familiarity with God
that's nauseating. Richard Roberts stood on the
platform on a television broadcast recently, talking to people,
and he stopped talking for a moment. Believe it or not, he stopped
talking for a moment. And he lifted his eyes up to
the right, and he said, All right, Lord, I'll tell them that. And
he told them. And then he stopped talking,
Charlie, again. God, his God was talking to him. Everybody in the Bible to whom
God spake fell down. Moses stood in the presence of
the Lord, and when he came down off that mountain, he had to
put a covering over his face. And he just came from the presence
of the Lord. I tell you, we don't know the
holy God, the sovereign God. I mean sovereign in every area,
in creation, providence, and salvation. Sovereign in the past,
present, and future. The almighty, eternal God who
says, cannot I do with my own what I will? Cannot I make of
the same lump one vessel unto honor and another to dishonor?
I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and whom I will I'll
harden. Old Pharaoh, he said, I raised
you up to dump you in the river. That's why I raised you up. You
know what he said? I raised you up to show my glory. Judas was a son of perdition
from the beginning. Is that what he said? Reprobate. He talked about them perverting
the scriptures, twisting the scriptures, hating the truth. And they followed the way that
was ordained for them. By whom? God. Well, then I'm
talking about a righteous God. Shall not the judge of the earth
do right? Yes, he will. Right. And right is right because
God does it. God doesn't do anything because
it's right. It's right because he does it.
He is right. And God is just. He's just. He's faithful. Almighty God's
eternal, in the beginning God. He's the fountain of life, the
source of life, the giver of all things. Nobody here this
morning can bat an eyelash without his power and strength. The devil
can't move his tail without God's permission. I'm talking about
a sovereign God who reigns over the dust of the air. and over
the leaf that's green and turns brown. And by the hand of God,
each one is plucked off and dropped to the ground. And it floats
down to the ground on a course and a path charted by His omnipotent
hand and wisdom and purpose. And it falls right where He said
for it to fall. And it lies there and rots and
decays and goes back to the dust and makes strength and nourishment
for that tree to have the sap come up and produce another just
like it. Multiply that by the leaves on the trees in all the
world. And not a little sparrow flying
through the air, lights on a branch and falls to the ground without
his wisdom, purpose, and direction. That's the God I'm talking about. And he's not the man upstairs
either. He's the God who's everywhere.
God doesn't live upstairs. He inhabits all things. He's not the good Lord. He's
the living God. And He's not a superstar. He's
the King of kings and Lord of lords. And my generation doesn't
know Him, hasn't met Him. And unless God's pleased to raise
up a voice in the wilderness and let somebody once again see
His glory in the face of Christ Jesus, my generation's gonna
die and go to hell. reading their Bibles and singing
their ditties and carrying on their programs and building their
synagogues of Satan. That's exactly right. Following
preachers. They never met God. And I'll
tell you, our Lord summed up and defined eternal life. He
said eternal life is to know the only true God. And Jesus Christ whom he has
sent. Now you can make excuses for them all you want to. You
can say, well, people can be saved without hearing the message
of sovereign grace. What did the Lord say eternal
life was again? To know the only true God. If you preach another
God, you can't be saved. And Jesus Christ, whom he sent,
not one whom you imagined, not one whom you concocted, not one
whom you design, not one that appeals to you, but the one whom
he has sent." Is that right, Satan? Then if that's eternal
life, a man who hasn't heard about the only true God, they
can't call on him whom they haven't heard. Isn't that what it says? A man who hasn't heard with his
ear and heart of the true God. And of Jesus Christ, the name
above every name, the victorious Savior, the creating Savior,
the conquering Savior, the incarnate Savior, the victorious effectual
Savior, the crucified, buried, risen Savior, the exalted Savior,
the interceding Savior, the only one who's the mediator, the coming
Savior, then he's heard the wrong Jesus. He can't be saved. He'll be saved when he hears
of the Christ whom God sent. I'm telling you, salvation is
not to be religious, it's to know God, the true God. Salvation is not just to live
moral and do right. It's to know Christ, whom he
had sent. Is that correct? How shall they preach except
they be sent? My generation doesn't know what happened in the garden.
Doesn't have the foggiest notion of what happened in the garden.
God said, in the day ye eat, ye'll what? Die, ye die. Did man die? Well, he didn't
die physically. He lived another 800 years. Well,
how did he die? God said he died. The Word said
he died. He died spiritually. He literally,
actually died spiritually. By one man's sin. By one man's
sin came into the world. And what? Death by sin. So death
passed upon all men. That's what this book says. That
when Adam fell, we fell. When he sinned, we sinned. When
he died, we died. He died to God. He died to truth
and holiness and spirituality. By one man's disobedience, many
were made sinners. In Adam, we all die. The will
is in bondage and slavery, and salvation is actually impossible
for any man to accomplish. You will not come to me that
you might have life. No man can come to me except
my father was sent me drawing. My generation doesn't know what
happened in the garden. My generation knows nothing about
what sin is. Sin to my generation is stealing
a watermelon. A man steals a watermelon because
he is a sinner, because he has sin in his heart, because he's
a thief. Sin to my generation is drinking a bottle of beer
or whiskey. Sin to my generation is playing the horses. Sin to
my generation is doing this, that and the other. You know
what sin is. You know what this is, shooting pool, dancing, going
to the movies. This is all sin. But you know
Adam in the garden didn't have a movie to go to, a pool to shoot. He didn't have anything to covet.
Everything was his. See what I'm talking about? And yet,
he sinned enough before God to die. We're going to have to get
to the root. We're going to have to find out
and declare what sin is. It's a nature. It's a principle. And all these other things are
the results of sin. They're the products of sin.
They're the fruit of sin. They're the fruit of my nature.
God's got to change me. That's why the new birth is essential. He must be born again. That which
is flesh is flesh, and we've got to be born again. Our generation
doesn't know who Jesus Christ is. Very God of very God, they
don't know what he did. In fulfilling the law, the average
church member, you ask him, well, why was Jesus Christ born of
a woman? Why didn't he just come down here on a white horse? Why
was he born of a woman? Why was he born in a stable?
I know we sit around trying to get people to feel sorry for
him because no room in the inn. And Mary had to take him to a
stable. And then when her newborn baby was born, she had to wrap
him in some clothes, swaddling band, and put him in a manger.
While a bunch of cows and pigs and goats and horses stood around,
and nothing but shepherds. Christ was identified with me
and you in that birth. Born the lowest of the low. If
he'd been born in a castle up on the hill, he couldn't have
identified with the people in the Yucatan. But he was born
as poor as they are, as low as they are. No man's ever been
born any lower than the Lord. And he was born a Jew to fulfill
the Levitical law. He was circumcised. He shed his
blood that way first. He was baptized to fulfill all
righteousness. He was made in the flesh. He
was tempted in all points. He walked this earth for a purpose,
God's purpose, for a need, my need, for a law, God's law, for
righteousness, God's righteousness. And in Him, and through identification
with Him, and vital living union with Him, I have a perfect sanctification,
and a perfect holiness, and a perfect righteousness, fully complete,
having nothing to add to it. Why did he die so terribly, horribly
on that cross? Bearing our sins. Bearing our
guilt. Enduring our hell. Forsaken of
God. You see, the death of Christ
is the essence of hell. Some thing that people say, they
say Christ descended into hell. I don't believe a word of that.
Not if they mean that the hell that I'm talking about, punishment
for sin. His death on the cross was hell.
He was separated from God like the lamb of old, his body was
burned on the tree. Like the lamb of old, his blood
was shed from his body. Like the lamb of old, it was
offered as a sacrifice for sin. Why did he do that? That God
may be just and justify. Christ didn't die to get you
to feel sorry for Him. Christ didn't die to set an example
for the world to follow only. He died and shed His blood and
sacrificed His blood and made that sin offering to God. If you don't appreciate it, it's
unto God. That God may be just and holy
and righteous. That God may still be God. My
friend, we cannot be saved at the expense of God's holiness
and God's character. That's the reason I substitute,
get all this, and my generation doesn't know anything about that.
And you can flip your dial in vain for that message. You can
turn your radio in vain for that message. You can play your tapes
in vain for that message. They'll say, believe on Jesus,
believe on Jesus, confess Jesus, accept Jesus. Jesus who? Who? Tell me who he is. Tell me what
he did. Now tell me why he did it. And
tell me where he is now. Standing outside somebody's heart's
door with no latch on the door? Poor Jesus. Why didn't he blow
the door down like he did the walls of Jericho? Standing outside
the walls of some house and all that ivy, vine growing everywhere,
he's standing there with his little light. I thought he was
the light. Can you imagine the Son of God, the Omnipotent Savior,
the Risen King of Kings carrying a light? John said there's no
light there, the Lamb's alive! Now you're standing outside the
door. That's your Jesus. That's not
this one. I guarantee you that's not this
one. That's a pretty picture. It's blasphemy. My generation
Got their eyes closed and their hands over their ears. They're
not going to hear! And they're not going to listen. And they're not going to see,
David. Leave us alone! You're not Southern badness. Leave us alone! You didn't go
to seminary. Neither did John the badness. Leave us alone. One of these
days God will leave us alone. He said, Ephraim has gone to
idols, leave him alone. Leave him alone. And I'll tell
you this, if he ever intimates, even without saying, leave us
alone, just go on and blow your brains out and get it over with.
Go on to hell real quick and get used to the fire. I'm telling
you the truth. If he ever leaves us alone. I
don't want him to leave us alone. I don't want God to probe us
and prick us and stab us and and push us and test us and do
what he will. But don't leave us alone, Dick.
Don't leave us alone. I don't want to fall into that
old lethargy and superstition and deadness. Don't leave me
alone. Please don't. And my generation
doesn't know what salvation is. I'll tell you this, I know what
it is. God purposed it. And on the cross, he executed
it. And in time, by the power of his Spirit, he applied it.
God separated me from my mother's womb and was pleased to reveal
his Son in me. In time, the Holy Spirit, through
a preacher, preached it and applied it to the heart. And God sustains
it. God sustains it. And one of these
days, he's going to call us out of the tomb and perfect it. And
when we get the glory, we'll say, unto Him, unto Him who loved
us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, to Him be the
glory. Well, you say, preacher, what
would you do if you was a sinner today? I'd do what that fellow
did in Matthew 8. You want to look at it? I'll
quit. Matthew chapter 8. I'd do what that fellow did.
Because you're not going to change the truth of his character, the
truth of our sin, and the truth of his Redeemer's effectual work. Matthew 8, verse 1, When he was
come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
And, behold, there came a leper. That's us. And worshipped him. Bow down. Bow down. And said, Lord, King, If you
will, salvation is by the free will of God, not your free will.
If you will, you can make me clean, if you will. And it says, And Jesus put forth
his hand and touched him, and he said, I will make thee clean. Can you do that? If I'm going
to be found, I'm going to be found at his feet. looking into
his face, acknowledging his right to do with his own what he will,
me. If you will, you can make me
whole. Our Father, this is a difficult day, and we are ashamed and embarrassed
and troubled and frustrated by all that is about us in the name
of religion, supposedly in the name of God. Our hearts are troubled, broken. We know this is not thy
doing. We know this is not thy gospel.
We know this God being preached is not the true and living God.
And this defeated and frustrated so-called savior is not the conquering
Christ. This is another Jesus. This is
another gospel. And this so-called spirit of
screaming and emotionalism and fleshly healings is not the Holy
Spirit. This so-called spirit that's
babbling in tongues, calling attention to himself and his
guilt is not thy spirit, for thy spirit will not speak of
himself. He shall take the things of Christ
and glorify Christ. And Lord, our day is a dark day. It's a day of famine. Oh, we have plenty. physically, materially, but it's
a famine of hearing your word. It's a famine of preachers preaching
the gospel. Lord grant that at least here, and in other places too, that
we might have the preaching of the word of the living God, preaching
of the glory of the living God, preaching of the gospel of the
conquering Christ. Thou hast not left Thyself without
a witness. O Lord, do not leave us without
a witness, a witness of that light, Christ
Jesus our Lord. In His blessed name I pray. Amen.