I'm going to use an offensive
word tonight as a title for my message, and I'm going to make
some statements that will be probably offensive to some. But
you know the Apostle Paul said that the gospel of grace is offensive. Now I'll tell you why religious people will get up and walk out on a
proven veteran minister of the gospel when he is declaring the
very foundation truths of the Word of God, who is God, what
happened in the fall, what is the condition of natural men,
who is Jesus Christ, And how did he redeem sinners? I'll tell
you why. Men and women and young people
will get up and walk out. One word, ignorance. Our Lord said, you neither know
me nor my father. And the Apostle Paul said this
about himself. If you care to look at the scripture
in First Timothy, Chapter 1, verse 12, the Apostle Paul said
about himself in 1 Timothy 1, 12, talked about what he did,
a blasphemer. He blasphemed the gospel of Christ,
the name of Christ. I was a persecutor, verse 13,
1 Timothy 1. I was injurious, but I obtained
mercy, and I did it eagerly. I did it ignorantly. Unbelieving,
yes, but I was ignorant. And then over in the book of
Acts chapter 3, the apostle Peter speaking, talking to the Jews,
he said in Acts chapter 3, verse 13, the God of Abraham and of
Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his
son Jesus, whom You delivered up and denied him in the presence
of Pilate, when Pilate was determined to let him go, but you denied
the Holy One, you denied the Just One, the One who enables
God to be just and justified. You desired a murderer to be
granted unto you, and you killed the Prince of Life. You killed
the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead, verse 17.
And now, brethren, I want that through ignorance
you did it. You did it ignorantly. Ignorantly. And several times in Paul's writings,
he writes to the church and he says this, brethren, I would
not have you to be ignorant. Ignorant. But this is a religious
generation. Old A. Riley Copeland was speaking
out in Texas one time years ago. I was out there in a Bible conference.
And I suppose then he was in his late 60s, early 70s. And he said, the thing that has
amazed me throughout my ministry is that a man or a woman, if
they're going to go into the business, any business, they
were going into the florist business, they'll go to school, they'll
study flowers, botany, business administration, and all these
things. If a fellow's going into the
grocery business, he'll become an apprentice, he'll become a
learner, he'll become a helper before he goes in business for
himself. If a man's going to be a plumber and plumb a house,
especially his own, he'll study for a little while before he
starts putting pipes together. If a man's going to be an electrician,
he'll take at least a few months or years to study electricity,
but he said the thing that shocks me is ever mother's son is an
expert on the Word of God. Ever mother's son is an expert
on the Word of God, and they can't be taught. They're not
open to be taught. They're not willing to be taught.
They're ignorant. They're unlearned, untaught,
and especially in the critical issues of the Word of God. That's
where they are, in the critical issues. Now, my friends, to keep
from being too offensive, let me make two statements. Number
one, a man may be very intelligent, and this is an intelligent generation,
no question about that. I suppose the most intelligent
generation of men and women and young people ever to live on
this globe. They put me in on the moon. You
can sit in your living room and push a button on your television
and see people on the west coast almost simultaneously, hear a
man speak 3,000 miles away. They've got airplanes that fly
without pilots. They've invented so many things.
They're putting artificial hearts in people. This generation is
an intelligent generation, but a man may be very intelligent
in matters of the world and totally ignorant in the things of God,
just totally ignorant, as dumb as a moron. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter
2, he said, I have not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath
it entered the heart of man, the things that God has prepared
for them that love him. The natural man receiveth not
the things of God, they're foolishness to him. Neither can he know them,
they're spiritually understood. And I'm saying there are men
and women in this congregation who are brilliant, brilliant
in the things of this world. They can make handmade furniture,
they can do all manner of things that attract the eye and the
attention of men, brilliant. Things that many of us can't
even hope to do, couldn't even draw a picture of. But I'll tell
you this, understanding and knowledge of the things of God comes by
revelation, not by education. And then the second thing I would
say is this, a man may be very knowledgeable in the Bible, very
knowledgeable in the Bible, and still ignorant of how God saves
a sinner. One man said to Spurgeon one
time, he said, he said, I don't believe in election. And he said,
I want you to know that I read the Bible through 23 times on
my knees, and I've never seen election in the Bible. Mr. Spurgeon said, well, two things
wrong. Number one, you need to get up
in a comfortable chair. That's no position to read anything.
No wonder you didn't see it. You're too uncomfortable. I'm
surprised you said you saw anything. And the second thing is you're
reading too fast. Twenty-three times through the
Bible in the length of time you lived is too fast, son. Let me tell you something. The
Apostle Paul was a knowledgeable, well-read, intelligent, religious
man, and didn't know saving grace. He didn't know Christ. He was
ignorant, he said. I did it, I persecuted the church,
I hated the gospel of grace, and I did it. I was ignorant.
Not many folks here tonight stand up and say, I'm ignorant. But
they are. They're ignorant. If you don't know something,
you're ignorant. Isn't that right? If you don't know it, you're ignorant.
And the Apostle Paul said I was ignorant. Tim James told us somewhere
in a conference, maybe here or somewhere else, about a little
sparrow sitting on a telephone wire. The little sparrow sits
on the telephone wire. He's supported by the telephone
wire in his position. And he has a firm grip on the
telephone wire. But he's plumb ignorant of the
message going through the wire. There's some voices in that telephone
wire. But he don't know what they're saying. He has no understanding
at all of what they're saying. And I've known many folks to
be sitting on the Word of God. They tell me, standing on the
Word of God. I've heard that all my life. Standing on the
Word of God, like that sparrow sitting on that telephone wire.
And I'm supporting my position by the Word of God. That's exactly
right. You can prove the moon's made out of green cheese almost
by the Word of God if you take it out of its context. And they're
supporting their position and they're standing on the Word
of God, but they're completely ignorant of the message going
through this book. There's a message in this book,
the message of a person. And that's the reason when the
Apostle Paul was brought out of his ignorance and obtained
the mercy of God, he began to say, oh, that I may know him.
that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. One songwriter
said the religious man stood at the judgment, but his self-righteous
rags would not do, for the men who had crucified Jesus were
all religious men too. Now our spiritual ignorance can
be attributed to several things, and I'm going to go through this
just briefly. to get to my main points. Our
spiritual ignorance, and I'm talking about we don't know,
we're ignorant, and that ignorance can be attributed to several
things. And remember I'm saying this, you can be a smart man
in the things of the world and ignorant in the message of grace.
And you can be a wise and smart and intelligent, educated man
in the scriptures. You can go to Bible schools and
colleges and have degrees and be a preacher, a deacon, an elder,
or a pastor, and be ignorant of God's grace. That's right,
the message of God's grace. Some of us have been in that
shape. And our ignorance can be attributed to several things.
Number one, our natural depravity. Blind men don't see. And it doesn't
matter how much light you have, they still don't see. You can
have a glimmer of light or you can have a room of light, but
a blind man doesn't see. And a deaf man cannot hear. I
don't care how loud the noise is, how clear the sound is, he
does not hear. And deaf men don't understand.
And God said you're dead in trespasses and sin. And that's one reason
why we don't understand. That's one reason, Gary, why
men are ignorant. They're dead. Dead. And the second
reason is the blinding influence of Satan. Paul said if our gospel's
hid. Now brethren, the gospel's not
hid in the sense that God's keeping it from people. The gospel's
not hid in the sense that it's somewhere where nobody can find
it if they're looking for it. The gospel is hid in the sense
that it's in Christ and they don't know who Christ is or where
Christ is or what Christ did. And therefore, men are looking
in other places to find salvation, but it's hid in Christ. Something
that's hid is easy to find if you know where it is. But you
can look all day somewhere else and never find it, and it'll
remain hidden to you till you find out, David, where it is.
And our gospel's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God
of this world hath done what? Blinded them. Blinded them. And I'll tell you, and we'll
show you something in a few minutes, about Satan. But the God of this
world, Satan, literally, in reality, actually has blinded men. They
may be somebody here tonight whom Satan has blinded to the
gospel. And thirdly, our ignorance may
be attributed not only to our deadness and our depravity and
to the influence of Satan, But a lot of times our ignorance
is attributed to the fact that we're indifferent to the Scriptures.
We don't read the Word of God. I know a lot of preachers who
do not read the Word of God. They read contemporary books
and magazines and articles and all these things, but they don't
read the Word of God. And church members do not read
the Word of God. My friends, I told somebody this
the other day. The older I get and the more
I try to preach, the more I'm driven to two things. I'm driven
to this book itself. Not what somebody says about
it, that's good, that helps me. But I'm driven to the Word itself.
God promised to bless His Word. He said, My Word shall not return
unto me void. It shall accomplish that which
I have said. He said, Of His own will begat
He us. Not with a gospel tract. I'm
not against them. Of his own will begat he us,
not with a good quartet song. Of his own will begat he us,
bless God with the word of truth. And I think that's vital. Don,
I'm seeing that more all the time. Give men the word of God. Don't preach about it. Don't
preach on it. Preach it. Read it. We don't know what the Bible
says. One young lady, you remember Todd down at Lexington, went
out down there preaching for you. She said, well, I don't
agree with him. Of course, said, I don't know
much about the Bible, but I know what I believe in. Well, she's
not alone. Ninety percent of this religious
population says the same thing in their hearts. I know what
I believe. I don't care what the Bible says,
I know what I believe. Indifference to the Word of God. And then
our blindness. and our deadness and our ignorance
can be attributed to a great extent, listen to me now, a great
extent to our religious tradition. And I think every one of us would
fall back in horror when I say that and say, Brother May, and
I'm not holding to any religious tradition, aren't we? Let's be
careful. One day our Lord Jesus Christ
came, it was a Sabbath day, and as a fellow had been lying by
that pool, I believe he was the one, 38 years. Now you think,
this man hadn't walked in 38 years. He'd been lying by that
pool. He was a well-known local beggar. He was a man who had
walked in 38 years. His legs, I'm sure, probably
weren't any bigger than your thumb. That little dried-up,
shriveled fella, dirty, rags on him. And everybody had seen
him. They'd passed by hundreds of
times, hundreds of times, and seen him lying there in his filth,
in his poverty, in his weakness, in his affliction. And Christ,
the Lord, came to him and says, take up your bed and walk. And
let me tell you something, that fellow didn't limp off. He stood
up and picked up his bed and put it on his back. Now, thank
God today, this man never had to walk. But my Lord's power
and grace and strength were so complete in his healing that
he became a weightlifter on the day he got healed. And he walked
down the road carrying that bed, and some religious fellows saw
him, and you know what they said? Glory to God who healed that
man. You know, so they said, what
you carrying your bed on the Sabbath day for? We'll run people away from the
Lord's table because they don't belong to our church. I've been in that fix. We'll take an unsaved Baptist
into the church without baptizing him, but we'll make somebody
else be re-baptized to protect our tradition. In that right
church, right, and you know it, we'll fight over how to take
up an offering, whether to bring it down here, take it back yonder,
put it in the place. And split a church! on whether
a woman ought to wear a hat or not. We're not married to our
tradition? I'd heap rather tackle you on
the gospel than one of your church traditions, I'll tell you that.
We'll stay friends longer, me not believing the gospel, than
cracking one of your church traditions. The average person, that. If
I can't prove my church came from John the Baptist, I can't
fellowship with certain people. I can preach anything, as long
as my church came from John the Baptist. That's tradition. And
I'll tell you this, when you get so blinded by your tradition,
and it's up here in front of your face so strongly, you can't
see Christ. You can't see Christ. God's not
going to reveal anything to us. Our tradition keeps us from Christ. Our tradition keeps us in ignorance,
defending a position that we didn't get from the Bible. We
certainly didn't get it from the spirit of grace anyway. And
then some of our ignorance is due to pride. Oh, what proud
creatures we are. Our Lord one day said, I thank
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You've hid these things. What are these things? Well,
these things are mentioned often in the Bible. What shall we say
to these things? whom he foreknew, he predestinated,
whom he predestinated called, and he called, he justified,
and he justified, he glorified. What shall we say to these things?
Thou hath hid these things from the wise and prudent, smart alecks,
and revealed them to babies. Oh, I tell you, if we could just
come down like little children, my little grandchildren, one
five and one six and a half, and they'll just sit by my chair
and believe about anything I tell them. They ain't no smart alecks. Big Daddy who's God? And I'll
try to tell them. Big Daddy who's Jesus? And I'll
open up, they won't argue with me. They're little children,
they can be tough. But we're smart. We graduated,
you know. We can't learn, we can't learn.
Our pride won't let us sit at the feet of Christ and learn
like a little child. Oh, may we be enabled by the
Spirit of God to learn, to learn from God's Word. Over here in
John chapter 6, I want you to look at something for just a
moment. In the 6th chapter of John, I want to be delivered
from ignorance. Ignorance. In the 6th chapter
of John, verse 44, our Lord said, No man, no man. I don't care
who he is. Whatever is background, heritage,
ancestry, no man. Whatever is natural gifts, intelligence
or ability, no man. Black or white, Jew or Gentile,
no man. Preacher, deacon, no man can
come to me, believe on me, embrace me, lay hold of eternal life. No man can come to me except
my Father which sent me. Draw him, draw him. draw him. And I'll raise him
up at the last day." Now listen, it's written in the prophets,
and they shall all, they shall be all taught of God. And every man therefore that
hath heard, and what? And learned. Of whom? Of the Father. He comes to me. He learns of the Father. Who
taught you? Who taught me? If we learn from
some preacher, we learn from God. Old Brother Barnard used
to say, if my voice is the only voice you hear, you're going
to hell. If my voice is the only voice
you hear, you've got to hear Him speak who speaks through
Him. You've got to hear Him speak
who speaks through His Word. You've got to hear Him speak
who speaks in quickening time. You've got to hear him speak
who speaks with divine authority. You've got to hear him speak
who speaks lyric in the dead sinners. Oh, he speaks through
men by his own will, by his own purpose, according to his own
decree and design, but he still speaks. Our Lord, when he sent
his disciples out, he said, now go preach, and he that heareth
you, heareth me. And he that heareth not you,
heareth not him that sent me. Taught of God. Want to learn
something? Want to learn something? Well, let's turn, first of all,
to 1 Corinthians 10. Now listen to me, and I'll try
to be brief on each one of these, but I think they're vital. And
when I brought this message to our folks recently, some of them
were so enthused about it, they wanted to get the tape, and we
went too long and missed the message, and that's one reason
I'm preaching it again tonight. But Paul said in 1 Corinthians
10, we're trying to keep me down in some kind of time limit, Don,
and that's so hard to do. But in 1 Corinthians 10, verse
1, moreover brethren, I wouldn't have you to be ignorant. I wouldn't
have you to be ignorant. Don't want you to be ignorant.
About what, Paul? Well, verse 4 sums it up, and
they did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
That rock was Christ. I wouldn't have you to be ignorant,
men and women, of the Old Testament types and pictures and patterns
and prophecies and promises. They're all Christ. You know
what this book's all about? The first 39 books of the Old
Testament, Genesis to Malachi, loudly proclaim someone's coming. That's what it says, someone's
coming. And the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we ordinarily
call the Gospels, they all declare he has come. His name is Jesus
of Nazareth. And the epistles boldly declare
he's coming back. But this is his story. This is
a hymn book, H-I-M, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is his story.
I wouldn't have you to be ignorant, brethren. That rock that Moses
smoked, that was Christ. That Passover feast that they
observed, that was Christ. When that high priest went under
the veil into the Holy of Holies and put the blood on the mercy
seat, that priest was Christ. That blood was his blood. That
mercy seat is Christ. That tabernacle is Christ, that
cloud that guides them through the day is Christ, that pillar
of fire at night is Christ, that eastern gate is Christ, that
altar is Christ, and that lamb is Christ, and that incense is
Christ. It's Christ throughout the Scriptures. That ark floating
yonder on the waters of God's wrath is Christ. Turn to Hebrews
chapter 4 a minute. Hebrews the 4th chapter, listen
to this, verse 2. Those folks, talking about those
folks over there in the Old Testament, it says in Hebrews 4-2, unto
us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. How was the
gospel preached unto them? That's what I've been talking
about. That rock was Christ. That manna from heaven, that
bread, he said, I'm the bread from heaven, that bread was Christ.
Abraham saw it and believed. Moses wrote of it and believed.
Isaiah saw it and believed. All the way through the Old Testament
there were those who saw these pictures and tithes and believed
in the redeeming God, Jehovah, God my Savior, who would redeem
by blood the blood of His own Son. But that gospel didn't, listen,
the word preached didn't profit them because it was not mixed
with faith in them that heard it. Now I want you to hang on
to your seat just a minute. Old Brother Shelton used to say,
Grab ahold of your seat, we're going to jump a creek. But over
here in John chapter 16, now listen to me, John 16, why don't
you stay with me and listen. In John 16, I'm saying this,
that from the first prophecy in Genesis 3.15 to Revelation
22, the last verse, it says, even so come Lord Jesus, every
picture, every promise, every prophecy, every pattern, every
type in the Old Testament throughout the Word is Christ. Men have
always been saved by Christ. They've been cleansed by his
blood all the way through the world. And the business of the
Holy Spirit is to reveal Christ. Whether he's revealing Christ
in a promise, God says, the seed of woman grows the serpent's
head. Whether he's revealing Christ in Abel's offering, whether
he's revealing Christ in the Passover blood, whether he's
revealing Christ in the smitten rock, whether he's speaking to
Joseph, saying, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, whether he's
announcing it to some angels on a hillside under the earth
born a Savior, Christ the Lord, or whether he's preaching it
to you tonight from the Word of God in clear, unmistakable
terms, the business of the Holy Ghost, if not to astound people
with gibberish language called unknown tongues, or to cause
lame people to get out of chairs and walk, The business of the
Holy Ghost is to reveal Jesus Christ. Now look at John 16. Our Lord Jesus Christ said this,
verse 13. Howbeit when he, the Holy Spirit
of truth, is come, he'll guide you into all truth. He will not
speak of himself. Is that clear? Number one, David
Carley will not speak of himself with it. Anytime you hear somebody
talking about the Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, he hasn't
got the Holy Ghost. When you hear a man preaching
Christ, Christ, Christ, he's got the Holy Ghost. He's preaching
the Christ to the Bible. He'll not speak of himself, listen,
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he'll
show you things to come, he'll glorify me. Everywhere I listen
to these fellows that got the gifts and the tongues and all
these other things, they're not glorifying Christ, they're glorifying
the gifts. They're not seeking Christ, they're seeking the baptism
or seeking the gifts or seeking the tongues or seeking something
else. They're not seeking Christ. Christ is not glorified, the
Holy Ghost is glorified, the gifts are glorified, the tongues
are glorified, the healing glorified, everything glorified but Christ,
so I know the Holy Ghost is not in it. And somebody said one
time, well, now that's the unpardonable sin. Don't ever, oh preacher,
whatever you do, don't say anything about the Angeleys and the Roberts
and the Bakers and all these other fellows. You might be blessing
in the Holy Ghost. I ain't even concerned. You know
why? They're not preaching Christ.
Now I'd be afraid to say something about his preaching. He preaches
Christ. I'd be afraid to say something
about your preaching. I'd be awful careful. Awful careful. Because
you're preaching the Christ of the Bible, the Christ of God,
the creating Christ. The Eternal Christ, the Incarnate
Christ, the Righteous Christ, the Crucified Christ, the Buried
Christ, the Risen Christ, the Ascended Christ, the Seated Christ,
the Interceding Christ, the Sovereign Christ, the Coming Christ, the
Risen Christ! I'd be scared to death saying
that. See what I'm saying? I'll tell you where this stuff
came from. You turn to Matthew 12, and I'll show you where they
got it. Now listen, you want to learn something, or you want
to go on being ignorant? You want to learn something and
quit being so superstitious? Oh, don't say anything about
anybody's religion! You might as well have seen the Holy Ghost!
I'm not worried. If I find one of those healers
preaching Christ, I'll keep my mouth shut, but I never found
one yet. In Matthew 12, they get it right here, verse 31,
I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven
unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven
unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word
against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him,
neither in this world nor in the world to come. See what I
told you, preacher? You're in trouble. No, I'm not. Why did
Christ say that? What had taken place beforehand?
Anybody know what had taken place before him? We have got Bursitis. We're sick with Bursitis. The
Camelites got Acts 2.38. Somebody else got something else. And the Black Steamers against
the Holy Ghost got these verses, but they didn't go back and look
at verse 22. Listen. There was brought unto
him one possessed with the devil, blind and dumb, and he healed
him. in so much that the blind and dumb both spake and saw."
Are you with me? Now, whom did He heal that man?
The Holy Spirit. He had the Holy Spirit without
measure. Our Lord Jesus Christ walked in the Spirit. He spoke
the words of God with the power of the Spirit. He healed men
in the power of the Spirit. He arose with the power of the
Holy Spirit. But He did every bit of that
to reveal who He is. Our Lord wasn't showing off,
he was revealing who he is. John sent two disciples up and
said, you heed, or do a little of my letter. He said, you go
back and tell John the blind see, and the dumb speak, and
the deaf hear, and the dead raise, and don't leave without paying.
I'm heeding. And our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father, tells us who He is, the Word tells us who He is, the
works tell us who He is. The Holy Spirit is revealing
Christ, and these people in verse 23 all of them were amazed, and
they said, Is not this the son of Abraham?
Is not this the seed of woman? Is not this the son of David?
Is not this the priest at the other Melchizedek? Is not this
God our righteousness? Is not this the covenant? And
here's the unpardonable sin. When the Pharisees heard it,
they said, no, he's not the Christ. He is not the Christ. This fellow
casteth out devils by the power of the devil." You see that? That's clear to bear with me.
And our Lord Jesus Christ said this. You say what you want to,
and some of you said a lot of things about Jesus of Nazareth.
Maybe he is the bastard son of a Jewish woman by a German soldier,
like one fellow said. Somebody said, well, he's a bad
winebibber. Somebody else said, he's a glutton. Somebody else
said, this Jesus of Nazareth is this, that, and the other.
But now wait a minute. When the Holy Ghost comes, And in unmistakable
terms, let you know who he is. Huh? He ain't no winebibber.
He's the son of David. He's not a carpenter only. He's
the Messiah. When the Holy Ghost comes, you
might commit the unpardonable sin right here tonight. I don't
know. God may cut you off. How many times does God have
preached gospel to you? I'll tell you this, if a man preaches
the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, in the power of the Holy
Spirit, it never fails. We always triumph in Christ.
To some, we're life and delight, and what? He's twice dead. He's dead while he lives. Death
upon death. Isn't that what it says? There's
your deadline. You've rolled right over it tonight.
And you're shaking hands with a dead man. Judicially blinded
is dead. God behind it is dead. And God
said they wouldn't receive the love of the truth. Who's the
truth? Christ is the truth. And the Holy Ghost reveals it.
And they wouldn't receive the love of the truth. And so God
sent them strong delusions. And they believe a lie and they'll
wrap themselves up in a refuge of lies and be damned. You see
that? There is a veil to me, the unpardonable
sin, is to deny blatantly, with an open face, a clear revelation
by the Spirit of God of who Christ is. Now, you play church all
you want to, but when you come to this business of who Christ
is, you better get down to business. Who can be anything that I am? Anything this hand is, what do
you say? We believe and assure that they
are to Christ. Blessed are you. The eyes you
have, my Father gave you. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
that to you, but my Father in heaven, they've got eyes but
they don't see. And I'll tell you, if that darkness
in you, if the light you've got is darkness, how great is that
darkness. Twice dead, plucked up by the root, as sure for hell
as it is already there. That's where it is. That's exactly
where it is. It's men attributing a revelation
of the Son of David to the heavens. That's the Holy Spirit's business,
to reveal Christ. I wouldn't have you ignorant
turn to Romans 10. Romans 10, I tell you, that rock
was Christ, that man is Christ, every Old Testament picture is
Christ, God's way of redemption is Christ. Oh, my soul! There's
so much material to preach. You could preach 10,000 years
and never exhaust one verse, Jim. Here in Romans 10, brethren,
listen to me. Verse 3, they're ignorant. They're
ignorant. His generation was ignorant too.
Now, he said they're religious now. He said in verse 1, I want
my people to be saved. I bear that record. They have
an enthusiasm for God. They go to the Sabbath. They
go to the temple every Sabbath day. They keep the Sabbath day. They keep the feast. They pay
the tithe. They read the law. They have
an enthusiasm for God. They have a zeal for God. The
first part of the knowledge is ignorance. Well,
he said, they're going about to establish their own righteousness,
and they're ignorant of the righteousness of God, who is Christ. Ron Trabrant told a story when
he spoke at our church recently. The United States purchased some
land from somebody called the Louisiana Purchase from the Mississippi
River to the Rockies. Was it Jefferson was president?
Purchased that in 1803. And everybody thought he was
a fool. And so he sent an expedition out to scout it out, find out
what was over there. Nobody knew what was over there
in the Mississippi to the Rockies. Sent two fellows named Lewis
and Clark. And one of them had a black slave
by the name of York. And York loved his master, and
his master loved him. They'd been together a long time.
And they took York with them. He shined his boots and took
care of things, you know. They were very attached to one
another. Old Black York. Black, he was black-black, blue-black. And so they stayed together,
and one morning they got up, and York was missing. And Clark,
I say it was Clark, the black man, he came and asked Lewis,
said, you seen York? He said, no. Anybody seen Yorke? Nobody seen Yorke. Lewis said,
he's run away. Clark said, no he hasn't. No,
he hasn't run away. He wouldn't do that. Not out
here anyway. He said the Indians got him.
So they started looking for him. And they went out down to look,
and they topped the hill, and as they came up the hill, they
heard the awfulest yelling you ever heard in your life. Yelling
and screaming and yelling and screaming. And they rushed up
there and fell on their heads, looked over the hill, and a bunch
of Indians had captured Yorke. And they'd never seen a black
man. Never, never, never. Not one
this black. And they had him out there in the creek with his
clothes stripped off, and they was trying to rub that black
off with sandstones. You laugh at those Indians? We've been doing that for years
now, trying to rub off the black with our religious works. But
you know the black man, the Ethiopian, can he change his skin? No, sir. And you can't with sandstone
either. And you can't with religious works. Amen. Can his skin be
changed from inside by God? God give you new nature. That's
what the Lord Jesus Christ came down here for, to give us a perfect
righteousness, to take away our blackness, blackness of heart. And that blackness of heart goes
all the way through. It starts in the deepest recesses
of our old rotten, corrupt heart, and it permeates our whole being
from the top of our head to the sole of our feet, and only God
can make it whole. But He does it with a substitute.
I have a perfect righteousness with His spotless garments on.
I'm as perfect and righteous and holy as God's Son. Turn,
if you will, quickly to 2 Corinthians 2. Here's another ignorance I
would not have you be plagued with. In 2 Corinthians 2, listen
to this, verse 11. Paul said, Lest Satan should
get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. Let me tell you something, my
friends. Let me tell you something. We have a real enemy. And that
real enemy is powerful, he is cunning, he is deceitful, he
is crafted, he is subtle. We're not wrestling against flesh
and blood. If you are a true child of God, if Christ is your
Lord and Redeemer, you're not wrestling against flesh and blood,
but against principalities. and powers and rulers of the
darkness, spiritual wickedness in high places, and every bit
of it, all the antichrists. And you say, what's an antichrist?
It's anybody that's anti-Christ. There may be antichrists here
tonight. Christ said, He that thought with me is what? Anti-Christ. Isn't that right? Against is
anti. Isn't that right? That's not misusing the language.
He that thought with me is anti-Christ. But the great antichrist is Satan. And let me tell you something,
don't look for him in the beer joints, that's not where he operates. Don't look for him at the red
light houses, that ain't where he operates. You want a way to
look for Satan? In the pulpit, in the church,
on a deacon board, in a Sunday school class. Satan changes himself
into what? An angel of light. You know what's
that? What kind of light? Religious
light. And his ministers are ministers of what? Righteousness. His ministers are not ministers
who are trying to get you to deny the Bible's the Word of
God. He's got more sense than that. He knows this Bible's the
Word of God. He said in Christ, catch yourself
off. He read it as written. Quoting
the word of God, Clare Spell did miss a note. Paul said, I'm not ignorant of
his devices, I ain't no fool. I hear these preachers on television
say, tell the devil to get back to hell where he belongs. Job
tried that. What about Peter? He couldn't
cope with him, could he? Neither can you. And I'll tell
you, I don't want to wrestle with it. I don't want anything
to do with it. And he has more bait. A little
old bag swimming down in the yacht said, You ain't caught
me yet. I said, I ain't used all my bait
yet. I got one that'll just fit you. That's what we're talking
about, Jim. Somebody here tonight said, I've never hauled him.
He ain't used the right bait yet. But he has it. He knows
you. It might be a new job. It might be an inheritance. One
old preacher years ago called a congregation together and said,
Let's pray for Brother Floyd Uppingham. And they said, Why?
Is he sick? No, he's not sick, he just inherited
a large sum of money. He's going to sure need our prayers.
For every man that's fallen by poverty, ten thousand have fallen
through prosperity. Satan knows what bait to use.
His sole purpose is to take you away from Christ. He'll give
you knowledge of the Millennium so you can preach it. He'll give
you knowledge of prophecy so you can work on it. He'll give
you some special gift so you can use it to keep breaking Christ.
He'll give the Church some attraction to keep them from looking to
Christ. He'll bring in some sort of crafty teacher, a clever person,
to divide the congregation and get their minds off Christ. They
creep in, they snoop in. Satan doesn't come in saying,
I'm a warlike lion, I'm a raging wolf, I'm a sheep. He said, among
the sheep. And wolves in sheep clothing,
huh? You know the enemy? Do you know the enemy? Paul said,
I'm not ignorant of his devices. Oh, how crafty he is, how clever
he is, how clever, oh, how clever. He said, I'm afraid like he deceived
our mother Eve, he'll take you away from what? The simplicity
of Christ, the singleness of Christ. And then, watch this,
I'm going to skip this one here, turn to Psalm 73, but you know,
in the meantime, Paul said this, he said, I wouldn't have you
ignorant concerning spiritual gifts. My friends, those gifts
were real, those miracles were real that those men, that God
gave them. They spoke in other languages,
those men heard the gospel in their own language. They didn't
speak this gibberish, they spoke in languages. They did heal men,
they did raise the dead, they did all those things, several
reasons. Number one, the Word of God wasn't complete. It wasn't
finished. They just had the Old Testament.
And here were a bunch of ignorant, unlearned—to the world they were
ignorant—but a bunch of unlearned, uneducated fishermen coming along,
telling all those religious people that Jesus of Nazareth is the
full fulfillment of Old Testament scriptures. And God gave them
gifts and wonders and miracles and signs to confirm their ministry,
as proof that God sent them. We know this man came from God.
No man can do the miracles he does except God be with him.
Also, these men were Christians, a bunch of Gentiles who didn't
even have their own testament. They didn't have a tabernacle,
they didn't have the rabbinical law, they didn't have the Mosaic
law, they didn't have any of those things. And here are these
men going out there, they're a bunch of heathen hot-and-tots
preaching the gospel, with no Bible to say, Turn to Galatians
1.14. They needed gifts. They needed miraculous things.
But I don't need them. The Bible's complete. I don't
need to heal anybody. Besides, tongues are a sign.
Now listen to 1 Corinthians 14.22. Tongues are a sign. You say,
I want a sign. Somebody says, tongues are a
sign. You've been baptized with the Holy Ghost. Signed to whom?
To you and to the church. Tongues are a sign not for believers,
but for unbelievers. Believers don't need signs. They
don't walk by sign, they walk by faith. Anybody here who needs
God to give him a sign for anything, our Lord said, this is a wicked,
adulterous generation, and no sign shall be given. But what? Glory to God. Father Abraham sent Lazarus down
there. And Father Abraham said, well,
they got the Bible. They got Moses the prophet. Yeah,
it's one verse from there, they believe. You got it wrong, son. They won't believe though one
rose from the dead if they hear not the word of God. And I'll
tell you this, if I could heal every sick person in this building
tonight, it'd make me famous, it'd make me notorious, it'd
make me rich, but it wouldn't make you a Christian. And it
wouldn't glorify Christ. And it wouldn't make you believe
the gospel either. People will follow me around like a pied
piper, and that's what those guys want. They throw diamonds
at my feet. Heal my body. This old world's
interested in the flesh, they're not interested in their souls.
Lazarus was raised from the dead, but he died again. But when Christ
raises a man from a spiritual grave, he'll never die. He that
believeth on me will never die. Never, never, never, never. We
got the whole book. I don't need those things. I
don't need it. And no preacher that I've read
after, and no Puritans or our forefathers ever had those gifts.
Luther, Zwingli, Cowden, Huss, Knox, Whitfield, Spurgeon, Edwards,
Gill, name it. Never had them. Never talked
about them. Except like I'm talking about them right now. They were
for that day. Now, if God wants to restore
them, that's God's business. But I don't want to make it up.
I want to see it. I don't want to make it up. I want God to
send it. He divides to every man as several as he will. But
look at Psalm 73 quickly, verse 22. David said, Psalm 73, verse
22, So foolish was I in ignorance. I was ignorant. David was ignorant? Yeah, we can be too. Why was
he? What was his trouble? He misread
God's providence. In Psalm 73, verse 2, he said,
As for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps were well, and
I slipped. I was envious at the foolish. I saw the prosperity
of the wicked. That's what Brother Scott said
a while ago. Those people said, Wait a minute! We've lost our
providence! We've lost our faith! Our brother,
our aunt, our nephew's been killed! Well, where's God? A good mother,
a good church member? Where's God? And that's what
David's saying right there. He said, I've been abused, I've
been persecuted, I've been afflicted, I've been inflicted, I've been
all these things, and I look over there at those people that
are wicked, that hate God, their little bands in their damn, their
eyes stand out with fatness, everything they touch turns to
gold. Their children aren't sick. But believers have all these
headaches, and sorrows, and trials, and afflictions, and when does
it go wrong? Oh, David said, read on, verse
12, Behold the ungodly, they prosper in this world. Verse
13, If I cleanse my heart in vain, wash my hands in innocence,
all the day long I've been plagued and chastened every morning.
If I say I'm going to talk about this, I'll offend against the
children of the grand generation of our children when I thought
to know it was too painful until I went to the sanctuary of God
and God taught me their end. I saw that the wicked weren't
prospering. They were on their road to hell.
You don't change places with any of them. God chastens his
children. God afflicts us. Why? To teach
us things we need to know. make us like his son, to teach
us patience. Maybe God puts you through a
trial so you can sympathize with somebody going through that trial
someday. You can't weep for those that weep unless you wept. You
can't sympathize with those who sorrow until you sorrowed. You
can't walk around with a man and hold his hand unless you've
been there first. God knows what he's doing. Quit
arguing with God and quarreling with God and finding fault with
His divine providence. Don't be ignorant. God's the
first cause. You know what God said? Of all
things. I can't explain it, but I do know one day I'll understand
it. For all things work together, all things in heaven, earth,
and heaven. All things, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. All things,
big and little, past, present, and future. All things work together
for the eternal good to those that love God. And when you put
your baby in the coffin and stand there and watch him lower it
in the ground, don't find fault with God's providence. You'll
know someday. But he has a reason. If you're
his child, and it's for your good, it's for the good of his
kingdom, it's for the glory of his Son, it's for the blessings
of his people. And I'll tell you this, if we
won't hold so tight to these things, God won't have to break
our hands to get them out. That's why I turn them loose.
I can't give them up. You must. Christ will be Lord
of all, or he won't be Lord at all. Best way so you won't weep
too much when you bury your son is bury him now. That's what
Abraham did. He killed that boy before he
ever climbed that mountain. Yeah, he did. He believed God would
raise him from the dead. And in his heart, that boy was
dead. And we'd better put all of our earthly possessions and
relationships and everything else, let's take them out to
the cemetery and have a funeral and put them in the ground and
walk back with Jesus. And then when the Lord does it,
we won't find any fault. We'll say they're already dead,
they're just flesh. And then that'll bring us to
this, and we'll quit, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians chapter
4, he said, verse 13, I wouldn't have you to be ignorant, brethren. I wouldn't have you to be ignorant
concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as
others who have no hope." I don't want you to be ignorant. There's
a little girl, I told this story some time ago, you may have heard
it, but there's a little girl playing out in the backyard,
her daddy was cutting the grass, and some bird, some kind of bird,
had built a nest low enough that she tiptoed up and saw the little
blue eggs in the nest. And she called her daddy over,
and she said, look what I found. The bird was gone. He said, honey,
don't touch it. Now, though it can be your treasure,
and that can be your find and your secret, but don't ever touch
them. Leave them right there, because
they belong to the bird. And she'd go out every day, and
she'd see the bird sitting on nested leaves, she'd go out there
and peep and look at her eggs. And so some time passed and things
happened. She went away somewhere on vacation,
came back. First thing she did when she
got home, she ran out of the backyard and tiptoed up and the
eggs were gone. Just a few shells. She looked
down under the tree and there in the grass, some little blue
shells. And she gathered up the shells, and one of the time it
appeared this way, and she got the shells and brought them in,
and she said to her mother, she said, My treasure is gone! And she held those shells, and
her mother said to her, Honey, the little birds that lived in
those eggs are hatched out, and those little birds are living,
and those little birds have flown away into the air, and all you've
got left is the shells. Don't cry over the shells. Your treasure is free. And let
me tell you something. When you have to stand over a
casket, don't cry over the shell. The little bird's free. This old shell, it ain't nothing
to this thing. Some of you found it out. It
ain't nothing to it. This old house, that's a good
song, in a way. It ain't worth a dime. But I
tell you, this prisoner in here is going to fly out someday.
And when you see the share laid in a casket, don't cry too much.
Just sit there and wish you was where I am. That's right. Don't cry over the share, little
bird. Gone home. Gone home. I wouldn't have you
to be ignorant. But let me show you something
before I quit. In 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 38. Now, I don't want to be harsh. Brother Don Bell said that he
listened to one of my tapes, and a lot of the harshness was
gone. I don't want to be harsh, but I want to be truthful. And
sometimes to be truthful, you have to be pretty strong. But
it says here in verse 38, If any man be ignorant, let him
be ignorant. Isn't that right there? If he
wants to be ignorant, let him be ignorant. And Peter called
it a willing ignorance. They really were ignorant, he
said. They said, where's the promise
of his coming? Since the father's passed away, everything continues
as they are. He said they really were ignorant. Well, I'll tell you, I want to
share a story with our preacher brethren, because they especially
love them, and they'll like this story. But one time there was
a preacher sitting on a train, riding, looking out the window,
and he was meditating and thinking. Some fellow walked up and sat
down beside him. And he just glanced at him, nodded, and kept
looking out the window. And the fellow that sat down
beside him said, uh, good morning. Of course, the parent didn't
want to talk, he wanted to think. He said, good morning. The fellow
said, uh, I'm in the jewelry business. The preacher thought
a minute and remembered that scripture in Malachi. It said
that when he makes up his jewels, you heard that? When God makes
up his jewels, he turns and says, I am too. And the fellow said,
well, I travel a lot for my company. The preacher said, well, I do
too. The fellow said, well, I'm in business with my father in
the jewelry business. The preacher said, well, I am
too. And the fellow said, well, we
only deal in the very best jewels. The preacher said, We do, too,
the very best. The fellow didn't say anything
while he said, Well, I'm on my way to a meeting with my father.
The preacher said, I am, too. And the fellow closed, finally
realizing that the preacher wasn't going to do much talking. He
said, Well, I hope when I meet him I can give a good account.
And the preacher said, I do, too.