Some time ago, over a period
of time, different people have asked me three questions. One Sunday, after I'd preached,
seemingly with a little bit of liberty and a little bit of power,
I was standing back shaking hands at the door, And an individual
came through the door and shook hands with me, a visitor. And he introduced himself and
I introduced myself and we talked a moment. Then he looked at me
with great seriousness and he asked this question. And I didn't
resent it at all because I knew he was serious. He said, Do you
really believe what you preach. Do you really believe that?" And knowing where he was coming
from, and knowing that he suspected that many people who preach do
not really believe what they preach, I answered him. I said, yes, sir. Yes, sir, I
really do. I really believe what I preach.
I believe the Bible is the Word of God. I believe it. I believe the Eternal Almighty
God created all things as they are for His glory. I believe
the Eternal God elected a people in Christ before the world began.
I believe that. I really believe that. I really,
honestly, sincerely believe that God Almighty is sovereign, absolutely,
unchangeably He does all things according to his will in the
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of this earth. I
believe that. I sincerely believe that. I believe Jesus Christ is God. I don't understand how God could
take on himself human flesh. I don't understand that. I can't
explain it. I can't explain the Trinity.
I believe Father, Son, Holy Spirit. I cannot, in the slightest vein,
explain to you the Trinity. I don't understand it, but I
believe it. If I could comprehend God, I'd
be God, but I believe it. I believe that Christ came into
this world. I believe He, before the law,
tested in all points as we are, yet without sin. I believe that
Jesus Christ is our righteousness. As Spurgeon said on the back
of the bulletin this morning, son, put on my robe and God will
accept you. And I'm in that row, my own row. And I can't explain how God in
human flesh can die, but he did. And he was laid in a grave, and
he rose again the third day. And he is seated at God's right
hand. And God has an elect people. I don't know who they are, but
I believe it. And I believe that he's holding this whole universe
together for those elect to face. So the covenant of grace is not
only finished in its redemptive work by Christ, but finished
in its Holy Spirit calling work. He calls out every one of His
elect, and they come. And when He makes up His bride
and makes up His jewels and makes up His church and saves His elect,
He's going to wind this thing down. And I believe that there will
be a resurrection of the dead, small and great, rich and poor,
old and young. And that all the dead, the dead
shall give up the dead, graves, hell, and men are going to stand
before God, and judge be judged, not by their own righteousness,
but by the lack of Christ's righteousness. And there's going to be a new
heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, and there's
hell. I don't understand hell. I'll be perfectly honest with
you, I despise the thought of hell. I hate to preach on hell, but
I believe it. I can't explain it. I've got
to believe it. Whether it's annihilation or enduration or whatever, I
believe it. God will do right. God will do
right. That's what Abraham said before
God went down into Sodom to visit his wrath on that city. He said,
the judge of the earth will do right. He'll do right. Man sat
across from me the other night and said, what do you believe
about babies? I said, well, I believe they're saved, but God will do
right. Stay in good hands. Let's go on to something else.
It's not babies that are overly important to me right now. It's
these big babies out here in front of me. They're the ones
I'm nervous about. I ain't nervous about them little
ones, but I'm nervous about these big ones. Because we're prone
to play games with God. And that's dangerous, but I believe
it. Yes, sir, I said to him, I believe what I preach. And when the day comes I don't
believe it, I'm going to quit preaching. When the day comes
I don't believe it, I'm going to quit preaching. The second
question was asked, this was the question, why do you preach
the gospel if you believe like you believe? Why do you preach
the gospel? I preach somewhere nearly every
night, and I'll be honest with you, I get weary. Awfully, awfully
weary. And I get weary of traveling.
Somebody says, do you like to travel? No sir, I really don't. But the doors are open, and God's
given this church the privilege of being ambassadors of Christ,
and I'm in. So I go. I go and preach. But why do I preach? I'll give
you several reasons. Number one, because the Lord
commanded me to preach. He gathered His disciples about
Him. When He went back to glory, He
gathered them about Him. And He said, now all that harvest
is given unto Me in heaven and earth. You go. You go. Go ye therefore into all the
world. Isn't that what He said? I don't
see any use in preaching missionary sermons around here. I believe
every believer is a missionary. I believe everyone who knows
Christ desires the salvation of men and women from every tribe,
kindred, nation, tongue unto heaven. Don't you? I have people
ask me, well, what does your church think about you traveling
so much and preaching in all these places? I said, they thank
God for the privilege of sending their pastor somewhere to tell
somebody about Christ. Barbara said to a friend of mine
recently, said, Do you go out and preach a lot? He said, As
often as I can. He said, We don't let our preacher
go but two weeks out of the year. That's all we let him go. If he goes any more than two
weeks, he'll answer to us. That's what he said. My friend
sitting in the chair said, Well, I answer to God. I don't answer
to men. I'm his servant. And I preach
because God commanded me to. He commands us to preach. He
commands us, right? He commands us to send these
tapes out. He commands us to preach on television if we have
the money. He commands us to send missionaries. He commands
us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every Christian.
When this boy from Yugoslavia in Australia asked for tapes,
we have to send them. We got no choice. We have to
send them. But we want to. And that's the
second reason why I preach. I love the gospel. I'm not only
commanded to preach it, but I love it. I genuinely, enthusiastically
love the gospel. I said to the folks down there
in Osceola, North Carolina, where I was preaching Thursday and
Friday night, I really believe that I love the gospel more now
than I did five years ago, ten years ago. I love the Word. A young man got up and read a
passage of Scripture, and I'd read that Scripture so many times,
but one of the encouragements to me and evidences that I know
the Lord is that passage of Scripture thrilled me more this time than
I'd ever been thrilled before by it. That's good evidence.
I tell you this, if the gospel ever gets old, you're in trouble.
If the Word of God ever gets mundane, you're in trouble. That's
right. If the Word of God ever, ever
becomes to you something that is not exciting, and something's
not precious, then something's wrong. I preach the gospel because
I love it. I love the gospel. It's exciting. It's a blessing. Then thirdly,
I preach the gospel for the glory of God. We're taught in the Word,
do all that we do for the glory of God, whether we eat or drink,
Whatever we do, we do it for the glory of God, for the glory
of God. That's right, we're doing it
for the glory of God. Old Noah preached 120 years,
and I read that letter from that Yugoslavian missionary working
with his people in Australia. He said, we've been here two
years and no converts. You know, you've heard of Judson,
haven't you, the great missionary Judson? He was in Burma seven
years without a convert. And they urged him to come home.
And he said, well, God sent me to plow and to water and to preach
and to sow seeds. He didn't send me to be the Lord
of the harvest. He's the Lord of the harvest.
Can we remember that? Can we get our eyes off results
and get them on the glory of God? Noah preached for the glory
of God and didn't see a convert, but that didn't dampen his enthusiasm. He kept building. And then fourthly,
I preach the gospel to warn sinners. The Lord God said, Ezekiel, I
made you a watchman over the house of Israel unto the house
of Israel, somebody. You warn them. You warn them.
I'm warning them of death. I'm warning them of judgment.
I'm warning them of an eternity without Christ. I'm warning me.
I'm warning me that there's only one refuge, and that's Christ.
There's only one hiding place, and that's the Son of God. I'm
doing my best to warn me, to warn them. There's a young man came to hear
me Thursday and Friday night, down there in North Carolina.
And he said, did you ever have this happen to you? I said, what? Well, he said, I'm trying to
preach the gospel of God's grace. And I'm trying to preach the
gospel of Christ. I'm trying to preach to this
church. And I've been there a year. And
he said, I believe the things you preach and you believe. And
he said, I'm trying to preach them. And he said, they're giving
me a hard time. Last Sunday he said, Two men
spoke out while I was preaching. He said, I was reading a scripture
and talking about God's sovereign elective grace in Christ. And
one of the men stood up and said, that's not so. That's just not
so. And he said, you'll have to do
that. I said, well, not exactly like that. But he said, it's
rough. It's rough. Well, I'm warning
men that you can't get by with that. That is, election is in
the Bible. It's the Word of God. And men
are going to stand responsible for what preachers are preaching.
And then fifthly, and I don't believe that fellow's going to
get away with that. I don't believe it. That young man, that strong
and gallant young man, is standing there preaching, telling the
truth, and that fellow's causing him unhappiness and sorrow, and
God's going to deal with that man. He said, touch not my anointed,
do my prophets no harm. And I just believe that those
who put a stumbling block in the way of faithful ministers
are going to pay for it. I believe that. I warn you. I
warn you. Hear the word. And then in the
next place, I preach because the gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. It's the power of God unto salvation.
Paul said, then, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power
of God and the salvation. And I'm going to declare this
as long as God gives me breath. Yes, I believe in eternal grace,
I believe in the covenant of grace, I believe in the election
of grace, but I know this, I believe in the preaching of grace. And
the believing of the gospel, and a man who does not believe
the gospel is going to perish. I can't explain that more than
I explain heaven and hell and incarnation and crucifixion and
resurrection. I can't explain those things.
And I can't explain how that God Almighty has ordained the
means by which His people are saved. He that believeth not
will be damned. He that believeth not will be
damned. I know that. The gospel is the power of God
and the salvation of His own will, beget he us with the word
of truth. And this incorruptible seed by
which we live is the Word of God in the hands of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit's the agent, and the Word of God is
the seed. And I warn you, every one of you here, don't ever fall
into the trap of fatalism, hyper-Calvinism, or dead Calvinism that says a
man doesn't have to hear the gospel to be saved. You better
not fall in that trap. That's one of Satan's traps.
And he lines it with soft downy padding so you won't get hurt
when you fall in it. So you'll think you're in God's
will, but you're not in God's will. How shall they hear it
without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sinned? And how are they going to believe that they've
never heard it? Huh? I preach because I must preach. And I
preach in the next place for the edification of the saints.
I preach that they might grow. God left pastors and teachers
that the saints might grow. And I preach in the last place,
and this brings me to the next question, I preach in the hope
that God may be pleased in my day to visit us with an outpouring
of his Spirit, a refreshing from heaven, a revival from heaven. All right, the next question.
Do you think God will send revival in this day? Well, turn to the
book of Acts, chapter 2, and we'll give you a brief outline.
Acts, chapter 2. Now, this chapter begins with
the word Pentecost. Acts 2, verse 1, "...and when
the day of Pentecost was fully come." Well, you see that word
Pentecost, what do you think of? The word Pentecost, "...and
when the day of Pentecost was fully come." What do you think
of? Well, most people, when they see that word, the average person
thinks of the coming of the Holy Ghost. We sang, Lord, send the
old-time power, the Pentecostal power. The floodgates of heaven
on us, blessings on us, throw open wide. The average person
thinks of the coming of the Holy Ghost, and he did come. But secondly,
we also think of the supernatural gifts. The cloaking tongues of
fire, the rushing mighty wind, and the disciples began to speak,
preach the gospel in other languages, in other tongues, and it says
there were folks there, Parthians and Medes and Elamites and Mesopotamians,
Mesopotamia and Cappadocia and Pontus and Asia and Phrygia and
Pamphylia and Libya and Cyrene and proselytes from Crete and
Arabia and all, everywhere, and they heard the gospel in their
own tongues. And when you mention Pentecost, the average person,
they think of the denomination, the Pentecostal denomination,
people who are trying to duplicate these gifts. They're trying to
duplicate the tongues and the gifts of the Spirit, the discerning
of spirits and interpretations and healing and all these different
things. They think of the gifts. Well,
some people, when they think of Pentecost, they think of revival.
Revival, because it says in verse 41 of Acts 2 that about 3,000
people were converted there at Pentecost. 3,000! 3,000! That's about 10 times what's here this
morning. 3,000 people were converted,
and we have reason to believe they were converted because they
continued in the faith. But what exactly was Pentecost? Well, I'm not going to go back
and read all this, but if you take your Bible later and read
Leviticus 23, Leviticus chapter 23, you'll find the origin of
the Feast of Pentecost. Why were all these people there
in the first place? They were there, never were. Why were they
there? Well, there were some feasts, prayerful feasts that
God gave in Leviticus 23. One of them was the Feast of
the Passover, and you know that originated in Egypt. The judgment
of the Lord was about to come on Egypt, and God ordained the
Passover. The blood was to be put on the
door, and the Lord passed over and saved the firstborn in the
home where the blood was on the door. And that feast pictures
the death and sacrifice of our Lord. Christ, our Passover, is
sacrificed for us. You know that. is a memorial or a pattern or
picture of the death of Christ. The next feast was the waving
of the sheep. The waving of the sheep on the
first day after the Passover Sabbath, which would be what
day? Sunday. So you got the Passover
Sabbath and then the next day, Sunday. Israel brought a handful
of the firstfruits of the harvest. They brought a handful of the
firstfruits of the harvest and waved it before the Lord. That's
the waving of the sheep, the waving of the sheep. It's called
the Feast of the Firstfruits. And I think it's referred to
somewhere as the Feast of the Tabernacles or something. But
anyway, that was the Feast of the Waving of the Sheep, the
firstfruits. And they brought it on Sunday. on the first day
after the Passover Sabbath. Well, you know what that's a
picture of, the first fruit. You see, what they were saying
when they weighed that sheep, that first fruit, was that everything
from the soil, every product of the soil, all the results
of man's labor is from God and of God. Do you realize that everything
we have came from the ground? Everything we have came from
the ground. Even the glass in those windows came from the ground.
Clothes I got on my back came indirectly from the ground. We
have cotton. Even the lambs, the wolves, they
feed off the soil. The milk we drink comes indirectly. Everything's from the ground.
And they waved that first fruit and they said, everything's from
God, everything's from God. Well, that was the day on which
our Lord rose from the tomb, the first fruits of them that
slept. Christ is the first fruit. He's
raised by the power of God, his work of redemption, the results
of his sacrifice, and the resurrection of his body from God and of God. Then the third thing was the
Feast of the Pentecost. Now, the word Pentecost is an
adjective. And it denotes 50th, 50th, 10
times 5, 50th, 50th. That's what Pentecost means.
It's an adjective denoting 50th, but in this case it's used with
the word day, which makes it a noun, the day of Pentecost,
the day of Pentecost. Now, how'd you get that day to
take the time for them to observe it? Well, Israel was to number
7 Sabbaths, 7 Sabbaths with 49 days. They were to number seven
weeks and one day. And then they would hold a holy
assembly before the Lord, and they would renew their vows,
and they would dedicate all that they were and all that they had
to God. That's what they did on Pentecost,
that fiftieth day. They dedicated all that they
had, and they offered a lamb, a sacrifice And it was a day
of dedication. Well, on this day, the Holy Spirit
was given, as our Lord promised. He said, you know, Luke wrote
the book of Acts, but Luke wrote the book of Luke. And he quoted
the Lord in the book of Luke, and the Lord told him that Tarry
and Jerusalem, they'll be endued with the power of the Holy Ghost,
the power of God would come upon them. Well, on this day, the
Holy Ghost was given. He came with power on the apostles,
and there followed a great revival. And that revival continued for
a time until almost every nation under heaven heard the gospel
from that feast of Pentecost. Well, let me ask you this. There
they were at Pentecost, that special day of dedication, the
day when the Holy Spirit What was the dominating factor of
Pentecost? Pentecost was a revival. Pentecost
was a refreshing from heaven. Pentecost was a visitation of
God. Pentecost was a time of conversion. Pentecost was an unusual, earth-shaking
event. Well, what was the dominating
factor of Pentecost? The dominating factor. Somebody
said, well, the Holy Ghost was there. Yes, he was there. He had great, unusual power.
But you know, the Holy Ghost didn't call attention to himself.
Peter didn't talk about the Holy Ghost here, except to say, this
is a full film of the Prophet Joel. That's about all he said
about the Holy Ghost. They listened to the apostles
preach, and they said, well, those fellows are drunk, they're
tough. We hear, everybody hears that message in his own tongue,
and Peter got up and said, we're not drunk. This is just a full
film of Scripture. The Holy Spirit's come. And that's
all he said about the Holy Spirit. He didn't call attention to the
Holy Spirit. And the apostles were there. You say, well, that
great revival, the Holy Ghost was there, but the apostles were
there. Now, these were the elite. These
were the powers in the Church. These were the men of great renown
and posture and influence, the eleven apostles. But they didn't
glorify themselves. Peter didn't name all the fellows
and say, now I introduce to you all Brother John. And Brother
John was a fisherman all his life until he met the Lord. And
Brother John's now an evangelist. Hooray for Brother John. And
this is Brother Nathaniel. I give you Nathaniel. He was
in Catholicism. And he was in something else,
and he was in cocaine and all that, and he got converted to
God. I give you brotherhood. No, no,
he didn't make you no salad, did he? He didn't even introduce
them, as far as I can tell. But we do today. We get a whole
line of them up here, and we introduce the mayor, Pro Tem,
and Past Tem, and Future Tem, and all the rest of them, you
know. We're going to really let folks know who's here. They ought
to know who's here. Shouldn't they know who's here?
No, except the Lord. He'd be good if he was here,
wouldn't he? But I don't see that the disciples had anything
to do with this revival, and the crowd was there, too. But
I failed to find any report. Somebody failed to count the
number. I found out how many were saved, but I failed to find
out how many attended. Nobody counted the crowd. Well, what was the key practice
of Pentecost? Let me tell you what it was.
The one great, and I look for a word. I was preparing this
message last week down at Brother Jim Byrd's and his wife, the
schoolteacher. And I said, I want a word. the
word which says the key dominating factor in a situation. I want
a word that I can use that will call attention, the people's
attention to why this happened, what was here, what was here
that must be there, and the dominating key factor of this whole thing. Well, she said, I want a word,
and we got that little old book out, looked at different words,
and it's the word vital. What's vital at Pentecost? What's
the feature? Well, I came down with this word.
What was the dominating principle of Pentecost? Well, you know
what it was? It wasn't the Holy Ghost, it
wasn't the disciples, it wasn't the crowd. It wasn't all influential
people. You know what it was? Pentecost,
by the power of God, was a revelation of the redeeming Christ. The
Holy Ghost and the Apostles introduced Christ to those people. That
was the dominating factor. That's exactly right. The disciples
preached Christ, the Holy Ghost glorified Christ, the Holy Ghost
spake of Christ, the Holy Ghost took the things of Christ and
showed them to the people, and the people heard Christ preach. Will God visit us in our day? Will God send revival in this
day? Will we ever come together somewhere,
sometime? An experience of Pentecost. Only if God is pleased to reveal
Christ to the hearts of the people. Only if the preacher, under the
power of the Holy Spirit, clearly and positively preaches Christ. And that's exactly right. You
can be sure if we experience any on a small scale, medium
scale, or great scale, if we experience any visitation of
God's power today, any conviction and conversion of sinners, any
edification of the Church, any growth in grace, any revival,
it will come as a result of God revealing to the hearts of men
Jesus Christ in his redeeming person and work. I know that. I know that. A friend of mine
was holding a meeting years ago. I can't even tell
when it was, but it was years ago. And there was a member of the church,
a lady, a member of the church. She was always there. And she
wanted the pastor and evangelist to come eat with her one night.
And the pastor told the evangelist, he said, now, she's a faithful
member. But her husband doesn't ever
attend church. In fact, he runs a local tavern. He owns a tavern, and he never
comes. But he said, for her sake, I
wish you'd go with me and let's eat with them. He'll be there.
He'll be gracious, kind to you, open his home, feed you. But
he's not going to come hear you pray. So my friend went, and
they were sitting at the table eating. The fellow said, well, I guess
he knows I hadn't been to the service. The evangelist said,
yes, I noticed you hadn't. He said, I never go. Well, he
said, that's all right. He said, I'll tell you why I
don't go. He said, if a preacher comes here, he said, I ask him,
how can I be saved? How can I become a Christian?
They all tell me I have to sell my tavern. And he said, I'm not
going to sell my tavern. And my friend looked at him and
said, uh, you don't have to sell your tavern to be saved. He said,
I don't? No. He said, I won't save you.
I won't save you. Sell your tavern and I won't
save you. He said, I believe I'll come here to you first.
So he came. And, uh, my friend prayed to
Christ. The redeeming Christ. The saving
Christ, the interceding Christ, the glorious Christ, the indwelling
Christ, the precious Christ. And that man was saved. He came
to know Christ. And you know what he did? He sold his father. We get this
thing. My whole religious generation
is compiled up. It's frustrating to me. I don't
even know how to talk to them. I don't even like to talk to
them because they don't talk my language. We get the cart before the horse.
It's Christ, my friend. It's Christ. That's the way God...
And we're not going to see revival or visitation of God in this
day till somebody begins to preach Christ. And I don't mean just
the name. I mean Christ in His person.
I don't mean just using the name Jesus. They're using that name,
and they're using blood. Like the sign I saw on the Methodist
bulletin board. It said, Methodists believe in
justification. Yeah, define it for me. Everybody
believes in justification, but what does it mean? Methodists
believe in justification. Sure they do. Catholics believe
in justification, but they sure define it differently from the
way we define it. And everybody believes Christ
died, but why did he die? What did he do? What did he do
in dying? Yeah, everybody believes in the
blood of Jesus, but how effective is the blood? How effectual,
how sufficient is the blood? Tell me. Define it. Come on,
define what you mean. And that's what I'm saying about
preaching Christ. Look here at Peter's sermon for just a few
moments. In verse 22, the first thing he said, he said, Ye men
of Israel, now here is his message. Ye men of Israel, hear my words
now. Jesus of Nazareth, a man. Now here's where Peter starts.
He starts with Christ and he starts telling he was a man,
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. But he was a man approved
of God, appointed of God, ordained of God. He's the God-man. He's the Christ. Among you, by
miracles and wonders. His miracles and wonders and
signs testified who he is. Christ said that. He said, John
the Baptist told you, my works tell you, the Father told you,
and the scriptures tell you. Which God did by him in the midst
of you, as you yourselves also know. Now watch verse 23. And he was delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. You see, this is sovereignty,
this is election, Peter's preaching. This is God's covenant, God's
eternal purpose. He said, you crucified it. You
with wicked hands crucified him and slew him, but everything
you did, God ordained." Do you see what he's doing? Do you see
how he's preaching Christ? Well, you're not supposed to
preach these things to sinners. Somebody ought to have told Peter
that before he got up and did it. These are family truths,
Peter. You don't talk about predestination
and foreordination and God's determination and purpose. You
just say, Christ died. No, Peter went into the aspects
of his death. He said, you crucified him, but
God ordained him, God determined it, God foreordained it, God
purposed it. You just carried out his divine
will. That's what he preached to these poor, ignorant sinners. And then he said in verse 24,
and God raised him from the dead. God literally, actually, in reality,
raised him from the dead, having loosed the pains of death, because
it's not possible that death should hold Christ. It's not
possible that a grave should hold Christ. It's not possible
that sin should hold Christ. It's not possible that flesh
should hold Christ. It's not possible for anyone
to contain Christ. He's God Almighty. He was raised
from the dead. And when we preach the resurrection,
we preach the meaning of the resurrection. And then he said
the scriptures all prophesied him, even David. And they all
knew David, and he quoted David. And he said David told about
Christ. When David wrote that psalm over there and said, My
heart was glad and rejoiced, and I would not suffer thy holy
one to seek corruption, he said David wasn't talking about himself,
he was talking about Christ. Because he said, Brethren, David's
dead and in the grave. And we all know it, and visit
his grave. David wasn't talking about himself.
That's what the Ethiopian eunuch said to Philip, said, is this
man talking about himself or somebody else? And Philip said,
he's talking about Christ. And Peter's standing here saying
that all these Old Testament pictures like you use so effectively,
Charlie, in your preaching, they're not talking about themselves,
they're talking about Christ. He's talking about Christ. Lo,
I come, David wrote, and the volume of the book is written
of me. To do thy will, O God. David wasn't talking about himself.
He's talking about the Son. And that's what Peter goes to
the strongest extreme, to try to point out to these people
that the Old Testament scriptures speak of Christ, of Jesus of
Nazareth. He was a man. He was a God's
man. He was delivered of God, approved of God. by God's purpose
and will, he was crucified by you, but God raised him from
the dead. And David told you that in the
Scripture. Everything that happened at Calvary
is told in the Scripture, all the way through the Old Testament.
In verse 33, he said, This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we
are all witnesses, therefore being by the right hand of God
exalted. There's the priest. The Mediator,
there's the Advocate, there's the Intercessor, the Lord Jesus
Christ is seated at the right hand of God, exalted! He's the only Mediator between
men and God, and having received of the Father the promise of
the Holy Ghost, He has set forth this which you now see and hear.
And then in verse 36, He said, Let all the house of Israel,
everybody know assuredly, that God hath made this same Jesus,
this son of Mary, this, as you said, carpenter, this wine-bibber
and gluttonous man, this friend of publicans and sinners, this
crucified, suffering victim, this buried scapegoat, God hath
made him Lord in Christ. Lord and Christ, that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess
that he's Lord. Now, verse 37, when they heard
this, when they heard what? When they heard this message
of Christ. And when they heard it, they were pricked in their
heart. That's where the work, these
people were seen. These people were seethed with
fear. These people were seethed with
a knowledge of what they'd laid their hands on God. They had
despised God. They had crucified God in the
flesh. They were guilty. There was no
hope. They said, what on earth are
we going to do? That's the key to heavenly blessing.
That's the key to revival. That's when we're going to have
revival. when somebody preaches it, and not only preaches it,
when somebody, Bob, hears it. When you hear it. And we're seeing,
we're seeing here and there in yonder, we're seeing on television and other places,
there are people who are saying, I've come to the knowledge of
Christ. I've come to the knowledge of
Christ. And God's not left himself without a witness. And we're
seeing people converted here and there in yonder, not to the
extent we would We would like and we would rejoice, but they're
being converted by hearing this and when they heard this. And
it'll be on whatever scale God's pleased to send it. In the day
He's pleased to send it on whatever scale or magnitude, but this
will still be the message. Christ Jesus the Lord. In terms that are being defined
and clearly, clearly pronounced. because nobody's going to call
on Him of whom they haven't heard and whom they haven't believed.
Let's turn in our hymn books to number 129 and sing Isaac
Watts' great old hymn at the cross, number 129.