I don't want to sound like a
smart aleck or know it all, but if you stay in the scriptures
and in the ministry for a third of a century, a fellow
ought to learn something, ought to make some progress. If he
doesn't make some progress or learn something, then he's certainly
in the wrong vocation. And I believe if a man has, he
begins with the knowledge of Christ. Now, if he doesn't begin
with the knowledge of Christ, he's going to make no progress.
You can't grow in Christ if you're not in Christ. And if a man does
not have a sincerity of spirit, and only that man and God knows
that, the answer to that question, If we have any other objective
than the glory of Christ and the good of his people, we're
a washout. And ought to be. We've got to have that sincerity.
And I do want, and I've tried in these days, and I'm trying
harder all the time, to preach with a simplicity so that even
our children, at least in their heads, can understand what what
we're trying to say. Our Lord did. Our Lord spoke
in one, two, or three-syllable words. The Bible's a whole lot
easier for me to understand than most of the commentaries about
the Bible. I'll just be perfectly honest
with you. Most of the writers and preachers
today, it's high-sounding words and in beautiful, flowery phrases
and everything in the world, but truth simply put, And what
I'm going to deal with tonight, this, I believe, is one of the
missing notes in today's preaching. Now, you don't have to be smart
to know that most of what's said today is not worth listening
to. You don't have to be smart to know that most preachers are
not preachers. They're not God sent nor God
called, and they're not preaching God's message. Most preachers
are nothing but denominational cheerleaders. That's just so. That's what they are. They're
denominational cheerleaders. They're promoting themselves
and their programs. They're interested in numbers.
They're interested in money. They're interested in great and
beautiful buildings and impressive statistics and things of that
nature. They're not interested in the
individual. That cannot be said of this pulpit. Now, here's what I'm saying,
and here's the, I'm not gonna try to preach tonight, I'm just
gonna talk to you about this subject. The scripture clearly
teaches this. I'm as certain of it as I'm standing
here, and this is one of the things that's missing today.
The scriptures clearly teach that a work of conviction, I
mean conviction of sin, a work of conviction, a revelation of
sin, personal sin, individual sin, A work of self-judgment
always accompanies a work of grace, always without fail, Cecil. Now I didn't say it precedes
a work of grace because when a man comes to find out he's
a sinner, that is a work of grace. You can't have salvation, there's
no way that you can have a knowledge of Christ as your Savior unless
you have a knowledge of the sin from which he saved you. judgment
and grace. There's got to be. Now, our Lord
said, now watch this, He said, I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. In other words, a man who does
not see, understand, realize to some extent that he's a sinner,
that he is a sinner, is not going to be saved because Christ said,
I didn't come to call men who are self-righteous. But sinners
listen to this the son of man has come to seek and to save
the lost Listen to this come unto me all you that labor and
a heavy laden. I'll give you rest He said if
any man thirst let him come to me and drink suppose a man is
standing. Here's a desert There's a road
going through the desert Here's a man standing over here by a
plush, lovely, sweet-tasting well of water. And he knows it's
the best water available. There's the road out there. He
stands here, and as caravans come by, he cries, here's water! Here's water! Now, who's going
to be interested in what he has? Who's going to stop? get off
their camels or horses or chariots or whatever and walk over there
and ask for the water. Only one kind of people. Thirsty
people. Thirsty people. Anybody else
is going to wave at him and pass right on by. They're not interested.
Oh, they may be interested in observing his water, you know,
and seeing the grass around his well, or the flowers he's planted,
or maybe hollering at him, and you're doing a good job, you
know, and keep right on going. But that man who has come miles,
and his tongue's cleaving to the roof of his mouth, and his
lips are parched and cracked open, and he thinks he'll never
make another mile, he hears that sound, he hears water, and he'll
crawl to it. That's what I'm saying. The first
step that a man takes toward heaven, the first step that a
man takes toward salvation, the first step that a man takes toward
faith is not when he sees Christ dying for sin, but when he sees
a need for Christ dying for sin. Is that clear? Now, that's so.
Faith is not the first step towards Christ. It's an understanding
of sin. It's an understanding of need.
Sin, like it says here in verse 13 of Romans 7, sin has got to
appear to be what it is, sin. It's got to become exceeding
sinful. Now let me tell you, let me show
you what I'm talking about. Bartimaeus would never have called to Christ
if he had not been blind. He had never, old Bartimaeus
would have been somewhere else. He wouldn't have been there,
Bob. But because he was blind, and because he was hopelessly
blind, because he was helplessly blind, when he heard of Christ,
he said, that's my only hope. And he cried, Jesus, thy son
of David, have mercy. Would the publican even have
been in the temple if he'd not been a sinner? The publican who
cried, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, would have never cried. He would never have come to the
temple. He would never have even been there, except for one reason. He was lost. He was a sinner. With the harlot, now you think
about this a moment. You remember our Lord came to
the Pharisees' home, and they were reclined around the table,
whatever it was, and they were eating and drinking. And there
was a woman slipped in the door. and came up behind Christ and
wept, washed his feet with her tears, and dried his feet with
the hair of her head, and kissed his feet. And she received mercy. She received
forgiveness. She received pardon. She received
mercy. She went away white as snow. She went away a child of
God. But if she had not been sinner. She had not been broken under
the feeling of guilt and sorrow and grief. She wouldn't even
have been there. She'd have been down in the tabernacle
somewhere trying to be pious, but she found herself at the
feet of Christ because she was a sinner and needed Christ. That's
what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Let it
clearly be known that Christ declared, to whom much is forgiven,
They love much. Now, the revelation of sin, and
this is something we can't reveal Christ to the heart, we can't
give faith, and neither can I reveal sin to the heart. The Holy Spirit
has to do that. But I'll tell you this about
it. I know this from the Word and from experience. A revelation
of sin. My sin to my heart is real, it's
painful. It's painful, It's devastating. A revelation of sin. A revelation
of sin strips you, humbles you, it brings you down in the dust.
It's a real, it's a painful, it's a devastating and permanent
experience. It's humiliating to find out
what you are in God's sight. And it's an experience from which
you'll never recover. Now, you may find the peace of
forgiveness, and many do. You may find the peace of pardon.
But you'll never lose this awareness of sin. You'll never lose this
embarrassment before God. You'll never lose this humiliation.
You never will. The apostles didn't. The men
in the Old Testament didn't. Listen to them. David kept saying,
my sin is ever before me. You read tonight, who am I and
what is my house? It just, every time they were
recipients of God's mercy, it overwhelmed them. Every time
that they were recipients of God's grace, it overwhelmed them. It astounded them. Who am I? Listen to Job. I abhor myself. Listen to Isaiah. I'm a man of
unclean lips. Listen to Paul. He kept, Paul
just kept getting lower and lower. He started out saying, I'm not
worthy to be an apostle. And then he came forth with this
statement, I'm less than the least of all the saints. And
then he came forth with this, I'm the chief of sinners. This
is what I'm saying, and I believe it. I believe that a revelation
of sin, which precedes a saving union with Christ, which precedes
a real saving faith, a union with Christ, we have to be broken. We've got to be stripped. We've
got to be, by the Spirit of God, before the law of God, exposed
to ourselves, not to others necessarily. I'm not asking you to come down
here and tell everything you've done all through your life. Just
leave that alone. We don't need any of that. But God will tell
you about it. He'll convict you of what you've done, what you've
said, what you've thought, and worst of all, what you are. He'll
strip you. He'll break you. He'll knock
your foundations out from under you. He'll reveal to you what
you never imagined before in his presence. The awful searchlight
of his law will so expose you that you'll have a time lifting
up your head in your own presence, let alone in somebody else's.
You'll lose the desire to show off. You'll lose the desire to
demonstrate your piety. You'll lose the desire to teach
anybody, feeling that you ought to be taught. That's right. It's
a painful experience. It's a real experience. It's
a devastating experience. It's a humiliating experience.
It's a permanent experience. And I'm not talking about, now
listen to me, I'm not talking about a general awareness of
the guilt of Adam's race. I'm tired of hearing that. Everybody
knows Adam's race failed. That's evident. Wouldn't have
all these graves out here if that wasn't so. We wouldn't have
the blight on the trees. We wouldn't have all the hospitals
and insane asylums and these sort of things if Adam's race
hadn't fallen. That's not what I'm talking about. And I'm not
talking about acknowledging the violation of a few rules of moral
conduct. I get tired of people hearing
people say, I never drank or smoked or cussed. I'm weary of
hearing people say that. I never did do this and never
do that. I'm not talking about an acknowledgment of a violation
of a few rules of moral conduct. And I'm not even talking about
a sense of guilt over a particular sin. A particular offense. A man has never been convicted
of sin if he harps on one particular offense. Not yet. Because if that wasn't there,
he'd be a good fellow. Now you think about what I'm saying.
Nobody's been convicted of sin who sits around and mourns over
and grieves over one weakness He's saying if I didn't have
that I'd be all right What am I talking about? I'm talking
about this this conviction of sin. Most people never have experienced
it all redeemed people have all people who love Christ like the
harlot at his feet. She was broken. And no woman
is going to find herself at the feet of a man kissing his feet
and washing them with her tears and drying them with the hair
of her head till she's been totally devastated. And that's all there
is to it. Totally devastated. Totally broken. Totally. I mean out in public,
right in front of all those people. I mean the high muckety mucks
of the whole town. She was totally devastated, and
most of us have never been devastated in that way yet. We've never
been completely stripped. We've never been totally broken. We've never been totally humiliated,
not yet. But this Holy Spirit conviction
will do it. Now Isaiah was, and Job was,
and David was, and Saul of Tarsus. God put him off his horse in
the dust, blinded him. left him staggering around in
the darkness led by somebody else's hands. This proud, arrogant,
haughty leader of men. God successfully broke him. And
here's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a heart and
soul crisis of the greatest magnitude. I'm talking about realizing that
my SIN and my SINS and the filth and guilt of my righteousness
is a violation of God Almighty's holy character and law to the
greatest extent. I'm talking about a sin that
is not just an action, but a sin which is a principle that literally
reigns in me, lives in me, reigns in me, and remains in me. so
that in my flesh there is not one particle or taint or atom
of good. Not one. Not even a splinter
under the fingernail of good. I'm talking about a nature of
corruption, which God describes in this light fashion, from the
sole of your feet to the top of your head, there's no soundness
in you anywhere. Nothing but open running sores
now, which have not been bound up, neither treated, but are
in the worst condition. This is what we are, and this
is what a man realizes. I'm talking about a sin nature
and a sin principle that's impossible to change, impossible to alter,
impossible to remove, impossible to cleanse by any effort on the
part of myself or anybody else in the flesh. You with me? I'm talking about saying this,
that I am such a guilty, wretched sinner before God's law and in
God's sight, before His throne and His holiness, that I deserve
to go to hell. Now, here's what I'm saying.
I'm saying that God Almighty, if He gives me, not us, me, what
I deserve, can you say it? He'll eternally separate me from
His presence because He in His holiness cannot have company
or communion with me in any way. He must be just. If He damns
me, He'll be just. If He saves me, He'll be merciful.
He has to be just. God's got to be just. He may
be merciful. Mercy is optional. Now, mercy
is not optional generally. Somebody said, God could have
saved everybody or damned everybody. That's not so. That's not so. God could not have damned everybody
and not be God. God is love. And God is just,
God is holy, God is righteous, and God is love. And love's got
to be demonstrated. And it will be demonstrated.
But God doesn't have to be merciful to me. You see what I'm saying,
Ed? He'd be merciful to somebody,
but not necessarily to me. If he gives me what I deserve,
I'll go to hell. Now, this is so, I'm telling
you, and this is the experience that Paul had right here. Now,
you know who Paul was. He was a very religious fellow,
but aren't we all? We may not be religious to the
extent he was. We may not be on a higher pedestal
as he was, we may not hold ourselves in quite as high a regard as
he held himself, but somewhere near where he was, we everyone
have been. That's just so. And here's the
way he described his experience, and this is what I'm saying,
and I'm saying it loud and clear to me and to you. When God brought me to believe
on Christ, and to receive him as my Lord and Savior. That was
grace, great and marvelous grace. But when God stripped me, and
when God broke my heart, and when God humiliated me, and when
God shut my mouth, and when God put me on the dunghill scratching
my balls of flesh, sitting in my own corruption, spiritually,
that was grace too. That was a great act of grace,
when God showed me what I am. Have you ever seen what you are? In his sight, I'm not talking
about in the sight of people. Don't be comparing yourself with
people. Somebody said that's one worm comparing himself with
another worm, or one maggot bragging on another maggot. If all you
got's maggots, so what? I'm going to look better than
the other one. But when you're talking about archangels, you're
talking about something else. When you're talking about God,
you're talking about something else. And if you miss this, I guarantee
you, if you miss this, you're going to miss Christ. Every one
of us, if we miss this guilt, if we miss this sense of understanding
of what we are, we're going to miss Christ, going to go the
religious road to hell. That's the road Paul was on.
He said, any of you got any confidence in the flesh? I'm over. He said,
any of you got anything to brag about? I'm over. Any of you speaking
in tongues? I'm over. He said, I'll top every
one of you. But he was walking the religious
road to hell, the doctrinal road, the theological road, the pharisaical
road, the self-righteous road, the dominational road, the Jewish
road. He was walking the road of religion
to hell. It's the broad road that most
people are trapped in. Never been broken, never been
lost. You've never been lost, you've
never been found. All right, here's the four steps in his
conviction. He said in verse eight of Romans
7, look at it. He says in the last line of verse
eight, without the law, sin was dead. What does he mean, without
the law, sin was dead? He wasn't without a knowledge
of the law. Everybody here, even children,
have a knowledge of the law. Thou shalt have no other God
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any grave an image.
Remember this Sabbath day. Honor thy father and mother.
Thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, bear false witness,
covet. We all know the law. Did Paul
know? Yeah, he knew the law. He'd heard it and read it from
his youth up. He had memorized it and taught it. In fact, he
boasted of keeping it. He boasted of keeping it. One
of our preachers here at the church told us one time that he had
gone through the law and marked the ones he'd kept and left blank
the ones he hadn't kept, you know. We all go that route sometimes. What Paul is saying here is this.
You see verse 8, that without the law, sin was dead. He's saying
this. Without a true spiritual understanding
of what the law requires, And what the law demands, and what
the law teaches, sin lay dormant and dead. It was there, but he
couldn't see it. Now let me tell you something.
When a man, say here's a man, and he becomes interested in
spiritual things, and suddenly he comes to realize what a great
sinner he is. Did he just then become a great
sinner? Oh no, he's there already, James. He just saw. It was there,
but it was dormant. It was hidden. It was dead. That's
what Paul was saying. He said, without a knowledge
of God's holy law, and this, without a knowledge of what the
law really said. Now, sin was there, but it was
unrecognized, it was not admitted, it was not acknowledged. It was
dormant, it was dead, as far as his conscience was concerned.
This was some of Paul's talk, and this, I've heard this, some
of you have said this, but I'm not as bad as some people. And
that's what the public Pharisee said in the temple. I'm not like
that public. I've heard people say this, well, there's certain
things I've never done. Most likely the reason is you've
never had the opportunity. You've never had the money to
pay for it, maybe. But sin is there, it's dormant,
it's dead, without a knowledge of the law, without an understanding
of the law. What do we mean by that? Well,
let's turn to Matthew 5. All of the Pharisees were like this.
Listen to what our Lord said in Matthew 5, verse 21. Now he, and you've heard somebody
say, well I've never killed anybody. Bet you have. Bet you have. Matthew 5, according to this
law you have, you have heard that it hath been said by them
of old times, thou shalt not kill. Verse 22, but I say unto
you, whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause,
shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say in anger
to his brother, Rekha, shall be in danger of the council,
and whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell
fire. In other words, our Lord says here, a bad feeling in the
heart is murder in God's sight. Look at verse 20. You've heard
other people say, well, I've never committed adultery. I've
kept myself pure, my life pure all my life. Let's see, verse
20 says, bet you have. You have heard that it's said
by them of old times, thou shall not commit adultery. But I say
unto you, whosoever looketh on a woman, vice versa is true too. To lust after her, desire her,
had committed adultery already with her in his heart. Oh, let's
see verse 38. One thing I've never done, or
down here in verse 38, or verse 33, I've never blasphemed. Wait,
let's see. Bet you have. Never take God's
name in vain. You've heard it said by them
of old times, I shall not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto
the Lord thine oath. But I say unto you, swear not
at all, neither by heaven, it's God's throne, nor by earth, it's
his footstool, nor by Jerusalem. Neither shalt thou swear by thy
head, and so forth. Let your communication be yes
and no. That's sufficient. You ever said
anything more than that, then you've blasphemed God. You can
go on and on. This is what James said to Finn
in one point is to be guilty of the whole law. Paul wrote
in Galatians 4.21, you that would be under the law, don't you hear
the law? God's law, my friends, God's law demands perfection.
It demands a holiness in love and truth and integrity and honesty
and truth equal to God's own character. That's what the law
requires. That's what it requires. And anything short of that, we
come short of God's glory. Anything short of that is an
offense. It's a transgression. It's to
be guilty. And what the law saith, it saith
to every one that every mouth may be stopped. And what Paul
is saying in Romans 7, without the law, that is, without a clear
understanding of it, without a clear perception of its true
values, spiritual requirements, my sin was there, but it was
dead, dormant. All right, let's get to the next
line quickly. Verse 9 says, and I was alive. I was alive. Without that knowledge of God's
law, without that knowledge of God's holiness, I was alive.
And what does he mean by that? Well, an ignorance of the nature
of the law and the guilt of sin always gives a man a false refuge
and a sense of security. When sin is dead, He didn't have
a knowledge of the spirituality of God's law, and his sin was
unacknowledged and unrecognized and not admitted, and therefore
he was very much alive. He, I had much to say about myself. I, I thank thee I'm not like
other men. I tithe, I give alms, I fast
twice a week, I pray, I have my devotion. I'm not, I, you
see, I is alive. I is very much alive. Without
a true knowledge of sin, when sin is dormant, depressed, and
dead, I is alive. And I not only has much to say
about itself, but I feels a sense of security. That I feels a sense
of security. Look at the Pharisee sitting
on the high seat up here, and this woman is down at Christ's
feet. Now, he's the same way Paul was.
See, she was a sinner. Sin was very real to her. He
had no knowledge of the law. It was dormant. Sin was dead.
He was alive. He said, if this man were a prophet,
he wouldn't let that woman touch him. You see, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. I always
find some security. I always finds a defense. I always
finds a refuge. I. I. And there's another thing
about I. I always indulges in judging. When I am judging myself, I'm
not judging anyone else. When I'm down here on the bottom
of the ladder, it's kind of hard to find somebody beneath me to
talk about. See what I'm saying? When I'm
up here looking down, I can always find something wrong with this
one and that one and the other one up here. But from a lower
seat, there's nobody down there. There's nobody there. Everybody's
up here, you know. You see what I, that's what Paul
is saying here. He says, without the law, without
a knowledge of God's law, His holiness, His immaculate perfection,
My sin, it was that all the time. But dormant, dead, depressed,
covered over. I didn't see it. And as a consequence
of that, my ignorance, I was very much alive. Very much. I,
I. All right, let's see something
there. But, he said, when the commandment came, oh boy, when
the spirit gave this old Pharisee a glimpse of God's holiness. When the Spirit gave this old
Pharisee a glimpse of the holiness of God's love, when the Spirit
of God brought the law from outward conduct to inward attitude, when
the Holy Spirit brought the law from manners to motive, from
actions to thought and imagination, it's a whole new ballgame. It
is a whole new ballgame. Yes, sir. When the preacher quit
preaching on gambling, and picture shows, and drinking, and short
shorts, and all this stuff, and began to preach down there where
the deacons and the good ladies of the church lived, it was a
whole new ball game. You know what I'm talking about?
It was a whole new ball game. When he started talking about
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind,
soul, and strength. When he talked about thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself, when he talked about the thought
of foolishness as sin, when he talked about those things, when
he talked about covetousness and greed, greed, when he talked
about Misrepresentation. When he talked about forgiving
somebody 70 times 7, when he talked about these things, what
the law of God requires, what it demands. Something happened. What happened? Well, he said
here two things. Here's number four. Sin revived. My sin. That sin of hate and
jealousy and envy and lust and ambition and pride, me, self. Sin revived. Sin appeared in
its true character. Sin appeared to be what it is. Sin appeared to be exceeding
sinful. Sin appeared to be against God.
What Paul had never considered became a reality, Jay, became
a reality. When he sat around and talked
about what others were doing, he realized it lived in him.
When he talked about murder, he realized he was a murderer.
When he talked about the folks committing adultery, he realized
he was an adulterer. When he talked about the thieves,
then he was a thief. That which he had never considered,
that which was dormant and covered over with his veneer of religion,
with his make-believe religious world, it suddenly, when God,
when the Holy Spirit took God's holy perfect law and and revealed
it to his heart, seeing just ugly, ugly, looked him right
in the face and he said, that's me, that's me, that's me. What he had never acknowledged,
he had to acknowledge, that's me. You want something that'll
kill all ill feelings, misunderstandings, hard feelings, gossip, and all
this scandal, slander, all this. It's for God to show the whole
church their own sins and bring them to Christ. It'll wipe it
out. It'll wipe it out. Totally. This is the experience most people
have never had. I'm simply saying that it's,
it's, it's, it's prefaces faith. It's things that accompany salvation.
If God never whittles you down, he'll never lift you up. Just
won't do it, not gonna do it, because you can't even understand
the principles of grace if you've never understood the principles
of sin. Grace is not grace. If man's never been lost, he
can't appreciate grace. If he's never been stripped,
a man who's not thirsty will never appreciate water, and a
man who's not, I told Arce the other day, we ate a meal, I was
starving to death, I said, I'd love to eat when I'm hungry.
Do you? And it's amazing. I ate fresh
asparagus. If you'd have told me 10 years
ago that I'd eat raw spinach and fresh asparagus, I'd have
never believed that. But I did. I was hungry. And
I'll tell you, when a man's hungry, boy, food's good. And when a
man's a sinner, Christ is good. Oh, his robe of righteousness,
feels so good, and his water of life tastes so good, and the
manna from heaven is so necessary. But we just don't need him that
much. We just don't need him, and we're
dabbling, we're playing, we're flirting with the gospel. And
it's passing us by. If we ever get to the place old
Bartimaeus, plumb blind, in darkness, hopeless, helpless, wretched,
and somebody says, Christ is passing by. Now, everybody better
move out of the way. Because somebody's going to get
run over. I'm going to get to Christ. Now, you won't have to
pull them down now. You won't have to get them by
the aisle and say, I'll go with you. If he's thirsty enough,
he'll thank you, go without you. if he's thirsty enough. Just
move out of his way. You may get hurt. You may get
run over. You just may. If he's hungry
enough, he'll get to the table. That's the reason I abhor, I
despise this personal soul-winning, this button-holding and collaring
people and talking them into a profession. Let me tell you
something. If a man's hungry enough, you
show him the table. He'll get there. If he's thirsty
enough, you show him the spring. He'll get there. And if you have
to pull him down to the spring, he ain't thirsty. Oh, Paul said, I died. I died. Have you died? Well, not yet,
preacher. That's just about right, isn't
it? Most of us hadn't. The eye that bragged on its righteousness
died. The eye that folded its arms
in security. Well, if anybody makes it, I
will. That died too, didn't it? The
eye that never bent the knee, the eye that never wept over
sin, the eye that never needed mercy, the eye that looked for
reward, the law killed that eye because that eye couldn't live
in such light. Oh, I'll tell you this, that
eye, you see, eye is a creature of darkness, Jay. Eye is a creature
of ignorance. And eye cannot live in the light
of holiness or the light of truth. It kills eye. Just like those
little old bugs. You walk out in the woods and
there's a log, a dead log, and everything around it's nice.
Kick it over and there's a bunch of bugs. And boy, they'll just
ski-daddle in every direction. They love darkness. They can't
live in the sunlight. And I'll tell you this, if the
sunlight, that matchless, magnificent, miraculous sunlight of God's
holy law ever shines on us, I will head for the darkness. It won't
stay out there in public. I can't stand light and I can't
stand truth. And that's what happened to this
old Pharisee right here. When the law, when he didn't
know anything about the spirituality law, oh my goodness, sin was
dormant. But when the, and he was a liar,
that old I was a liar, but when the law came, the commandment
of God came in its genuine spirituality, he said that sin, the ugliness
of my nature, the ugliness of my attitude, the ugliness of
my spirit, the ugliness of my flesh, in God's holy presence,
was revived. And old I, we had a funeral,
John. Old I died. I died. All my boasting was destroyed. All my pride was destroyed. Worse
than that, all my hopes were destroyed. And I died. And that's the reason he said
over here, I'll give you one more word over here in verse, if you
will, verse 24. He came to this conclusion even.
He came to this conclusion, oh, wretched, wretched man that I
I know a lot of our brethren won't read, I was, but that's
not what that says. And you can't make it say that,
I am. I am. And I'll tell you this, even
when you know Christ, that old flesh, it's not, it just keeps
raising its ugly head. In fact, actually, this is bad
news, I know, but actually, the longer you know the gospel, the
longer you know Christ, The more you see of yourself, really,
and the more wretched that nature becomes, and the more conflict
is presented. That's the reason I'm glad folks
don't live 700 years like they used to. Wouldn't that be something? That would be something. If we become more aware of our
sin when we get 50 or 60, think what it'd be when you got 650. But Paul says this, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body, the body of
this death? I've got a deliverer. I thank
God. And it's not the mourner's bench,
or the baptistry, or the law, or a preacher, or a high-toned
evangelist, or Billy Graham, or the Pope, or Mary, or a profession
of faith, or church membership. It's Jesus Christ, my Lord. He's
my deliverer. I'm going to flee to him. I don't
want anybody in the way. I want it between me and Christ.
I'm going to fall on my face at his feet like the harlot in
the Pharisee's home, and I'm going to weep over my sin. I'm
going to tell him I'm a sinner undone without his sovereign
grace. I'm going to lay my case before his throne of mercy. And
I'm going to put a rope around my neck and say, Lord, if you
hang me, you'll do the right thing. If you send me to hell,
you'll do the right thing. But I don't want to be hung, don't
want to go to hell. I want mercy. And I'm looking to you for mercy.
Will you save me? Well, he says, how can I save
you? How can I be just and justify you? Because Christ died for
me. because he died for my sins, because he obeyed the law. That's
my righteousness, Christ's obedience. That's my satisfaction, Christ's
blood. That's my hope, Christ's mediatorial
work. That's my hope. I look to Christ.
I take everything I am and have and ever shall be, I take home,
family, sons, daughters, grandchildren, friends, church, ambition, everything,
and lay it at the feet of Christ. I say, Lord, I'm yours. I'm yours. Will you have me? Will you have
me? Wash me, cleanse me, and make
me thine own. That's where it is. And that,
my friends, that's... I'm telling you that you know,
even somebody here that doesn't know a great deal about the Scripture,
now that, you know that's the message. That's the message.
This little thing, you want to go to heaven, you want to meet
mother? Well, who doesn't? Well, come down now and shake
my hand, and we'll meet in the problem. You know better than
that. There's no glory for Christ there. This is the gospel. I
know it, Paul. This is the gospel right there.
What I preach to you tonight is the gospel. And that's where
you start. You start where we are, lost. You can't do anything
about a problem if you know what it is. But when you know what
it is, and you know what you can't do, and you know who can
do it, then you'll put it in his hands. That's the first thing.
And that's where preachers better start, telling people what the
problem is. Because they don't know. Paul didn't know. God has
to break you before he heals you. He's got to kill us before
he makes us alive. He's got to strip us. And it's
embarrassing. But when he does that, thank
him for it. Boy, thank him.