I liked you better before you
were saved." This was said to a young man
recently by a fellow worker. The young man told me about it. He said, I've been urging him
to hear some of your tapes. I've been urging him to come
and hear the gospel. I've been talking to him about
the Master. I've been trying to love him and show him the
grace of God, and one day in frustration he looked at me and
he said, I liked you better before you were saved. You know, some of you have experienced
this. Some of you here have been brought
to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus.
You've been brought to a knowledge of his free grace, the free grace
of God as it is in Christ. You haven't become a religious
fanatic or radical or belligerent soul winner. You
just love Christ. You love his word and believe
it. You love his cross and preach it. You love his gospel and defend
it. you believe in the Son of God.
There were times when some of you were worldly and blasphemous,
you were drunkards, you were openly wicked. But you had a
fairly good relationship with your kinfolks. All they did in
particular lacked the way you acted, the way you got drunk
and carried on, busted up the furniture. But you all had a
pretty good relationship. You got together and you were,
you You enjoyed talking about baseball and basketball and football
and politics and all, even some religion. But one day you met
Christ, the glorious, redeeming, conquering master. And since
then it hasn't been the same. They liked you better when you
were a drunk. That's right. They liked you better when you
were a blasphemer. Even though they themselves were
religious, but they can stomach blasphemy better than they can
grace. That's right, they take it better. They can stomach a
drunk better than they can a Calvinist, I'll tell you that. They'd rather
be around them. Even that whale couldn't stomach
a Calvinist, he'd spit him out on the beach. Some of the rest of you, though,
you were religious, in name only. You went along with the system.
You professed to believe what most folks believe, denying the
power thereof. You had a profession of godliness.
You had some rules and regulations by which you lived comfortably,
and you got along. You got along with your kinfolk.
You got along with Mom and Daddy. You got along with the folks
you worked with. But one day, God revealed his son in you.
He revealed the truth of the fall and the consequences of
that fall, its devastating, far-reaching effects. He revealed the helplessness
of human nature, the inability of men to please the Holy God.
Our righteousness filthy rags. In our flesh dwelleth no good
thing. There is none good, no, not one. That Christ is the only
Redeemer, that salvation is by purpose and plan and by the by
the payment which Christ made on the cross. It's an effectual,
sufficient sacrifice, that he redeemed us, that we belong to
him, that we're loved by him and redeemed by him and kept
by his grace. And things have never been the
same. You can't even talk to them about religion now without
a fight. You used to get together and
you could have a little bit of communication. I have friends
who were just real church-going, moral, religious folks. And they and their parents and
friends and relatives and neighbors just got along fine. You see,
having religion is one thing, but knowing and walking with
a sovereign Christ is quite another. It's quite another. Religion, the world understands.
and tolerates. A religious Catholic and a religious
Baptist can walk side by side. They can put up with one another,
though their creeds and catechisms are miles apart. But they don't
believe even one other, you know, I mean. And a seven-day Adventist and
a Methodist can walk side by side, no conflict, no trouble. Because religion, the world,
understands and will tolerate. Free grace, it neither understands
nor tolerates. It will tolerate it because it
doesn't understand it. Any two eras, believe me, I know
what I'm talking about, any two eras can walk together and permit
the other to exist. You go to your church, I'll go
to mine. You believe your doctrine, I'll believe mine. You worship
your God, I'll worship mine. You hold your Bible, I'll hold
mine. But truth cannot exist with error. They cannot walk together. They
just cannot walk together. And Christ is truth. It's impossible. Our Lord said in our text, look
back again at John 15, he said, he promises us this. He said,
you love one another, you're going to need one another. You
need one another, because you have a common enemy. It's all
people who believe in salvation, but worse, they're your common
enemy. It's all those who would go about to establish their own
righteousness. It's all those who reject and
deny the Lord Jesus Christ and his effectual work. They're your
common enemies. You'd better love one another. You're going
to need one another. For he says, verse 18, the world will hate
you. The world will hate you. That
doesn't mean the drunken world. That means the religious world
as well. That doesn't mean the world of open iniquity, that
means all men that are not in Christ, the world will hate you. You know it hated me before it
hated you. Now, I offer this for your comfort,
if this is any comfort at all. It's not really you that the
world hates, Charlie. It's your Lord. Now, that's right. Charlie, it's not you they hate.
It's not you they hate at all. But how do you know that? Because
they wind up building monuments to you. That's exact. The world always winds up building
monuments to men they once hated. Could I show you that? They wind up building monuments
to men they once... It's not you they hate. It's
the truth of this word that they hate. It's the God who sits on
a sovereign, immutable, eternal throne. It's not you at all.
Because this is not your word. The gospel you preach is not
your gospel. The redemption you proclaim is
not your redemption, it's Christ's redemption, it's Christ's glory.
So it's not you they hate at all. Turn to Matthew, let me
show you this, Matthew 23. So we need not be puffed up with
pride, oh, I'm hated of the world. No, it's not you at all, it's
your Lord. And we needn't get a martyr's
complex, all men despise me. No, maybe they do, rightfully
so. Maybe you have some traits that
are worthy of being despised. Maybe you're antagonistic, maybe
you're an unlovely person, maybe you're a troublemaker. And you
bring trouble, you look for trouble. And if it's just over the gospel,
It's not you at all. Matthew 23, let me show you that
verse 29, "...worn to your scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. You build
the tombs of the prophets. You garnish," that word means
decorate, adorn, "...the sepulchres of the righteous." What our Lord
is saying to these Pharisees, the very men who were despised
and hated when they were here on this earth preaching, what
I'm preaching, Christ said, the They were hated and despised. And now you hate me, and you're
going down there putting a wreath on Moses' grave. You're down
there decorating, you're building the tombs of Isaiah. They hated
Isaiah when he was here. They hated Jeremiah. They hated Elijah. But here these
fellows are building monuments to him. Let me show you how that
comes all the way down through history. The Jews hated Moses. Moses, contrary to the movie
The Ten Commandments, Moses was despised by most of Israel. Why, they rebelled against him,
they hated him, even his own sister sought to cast away his
leadership because he married a black woman. All the sons of
Korah They complained, they said, what did you bring us out here
in this world in this part of town? Why didn't you leave us
alone? Why didn't you leave us in Egypt when we were there?
He went away for so many days to get the Ten Commandments.
While he was gone, they raised up another leader and built him
a golden cat. Well, they spoke against Moses. They hated Moses
in wrath, judgment. They just complained against
his leadership after his death. Put him on a pedestal. Wish we
had Moses back in Elijah instead of you. that hated Elijah. See, he was here, Moses was gone.
They always praise dead prophets and crucify living prophets.
Listen, they said in verse 22 of Matthew over there, where
I was reading a moment ago, Matthew 23, where was I reading? Verse
29, look at verse 29. You decorate the sepulchres of
the righteous, and you say, if we had been in the days of our
fathers, verse 30, we wouldn't have been partaker with them
in the blood of the prophets. We would have followed Moses,
we wouldn't have killed him. Our Lord said, you are guilty
of the blood of every prophet that ever lived, because you
are praising Moses and killing the prophet God sent to you.
That's exactly what it says. You are guilty of all their blood.
And they go on. They hated Moses. When Moses
died, they loved him, and they hated the prophets. And then
when Christ came along, they bragged on the prophets and hated
Christ. Why, they said, we have Abraham,
we have Moses, we don't need you. And then when Christ died
on the cross and was buried and rose again and went back to glory
and God sent Paul, they hated Paul and praised Christ. And then in the Reformation,
they praised the apostles and hated Luther and Zwingli and
Calvin and Huss and Burnham at the stake. Today we name our
sons Calvin, Luther, John Huss. We got monuments to those reformers
all over this country. We have Reformation Day in which
whole denominations praise Calvin. They murdered him, Luther. He
had the hat to save his neck. a friend hid him for months to
keep people from killing him. John West, they did burn him.
But we praise these men and kill the very folks that are preaching
what they preach. Isn't that right? So I say, you
say, where does that leave you? Someday they're going to build
a monument to me. Someday I wrote this down, son,
you'll be venerated and The poor soul that's preaching in your
pulpit will be hated of all men, preaching the same language.
That's human nature. So really, it's not you they
hate at all. That's the message. If we can
learn that, we'll not be puffed up with a martyr complex, nor
will we be cast down with a defeatist attitude. It's not you. You're not the issue, it's not
you at all, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. He came down here, you
turn to Isaiah 53, and I'll show you, that's what it's all about.
That's the enmity, that's the hatred. It's the mustache. In Isaiah 53, it says, verse
2, you grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out
of a dry ground. He hath no form, nor comeliness,
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire
him. He is despised, he is rejected of men, he is a man of sorrows,
he is acquainted with greed. We hid our faces from him, he
was despised, and we have seen him not." He's the issue. That's
it. And Paul, over here in Galatians
5.11, if you want to turn over there, Paul talked about his
message. And he called it an offense, an offense. It's offensive. He called it
the offense of the cross. You see it there? And brethren,
if I preach circumcision, if I preach good works, if I preach
human righteousness, if I preach salvation by cooperation and
effort on the part of men, why are they persecuting me? There's
no offense to that, he said. The offense of the cross is gone.
Any time you give man the glory or the credit or even something
to contribute to his redemption, the offense is gone, because
the offense is in the gift. It's in the gift. And let me
tell you this. This may surprise you. I don't
think it will surprise many of you, but the greatest hatred
and the greatest rebellion against you and your message because
of your Lord will not come from the It'll not come from the drunkard. It'll not come from the openly
wicked. It'll come from the religious.
That'll shock you. That's what'll take your breath
away. When that sweet little old lady
that's president of the WMU down at the local church, when you
confront her with the gospel of God's redeeming grace, she'll
murder you. I said, she's the one that will
do it. It won't be that old fellow down there striking around, holding
on to keep from falling down, and you tell him, salvations
of the Lord, he'll say, that's a fact. That's the truth he ever
told me. But that little old lady down
there, she's so good. She's raised good. She's never
done anybody any harm. She served the Lord all her days.
She's taught the scriptures in Sunday school and given her time,
and ain't no way God's going to get the glory for saving her.
She's going to have a part in it, and she's not going to let
you preach that to her. And that good preacher brother
down there, he'll declare war on you, too, and he'll put you
out of business, the king. If he finds out that you're preaching
what he's not preaching, he'll put you out of business. He says
he wants all we want. Everybody come to know the Lord,
everybody but you, because you're a heretic. And we burn heretics. Everybody, every believer that's
ever been burned at the stake was burned by a religious man.
Every believer that's ever been martyred, every believer that's
ever been murdered, was martyred and murdered not by the politicians,
not by the heathen, not by the pagan, but by religious people. That's so. That's church history.
You go back and you'll find it so. There are four things I'm
going to give you this morning, four reasons why men hate the
pregrace of God. This message we're trying to
preach, and this message is simply summed up in one word, glory. Who gets the glory? That's what
it's summed up. Who gets the glory? Who gets
the credit? Who gets the praise? In this
matter of eternal grace, in this matter of incarnation, in this
matter of righteousness imputed, in this matter of sacrifice fulfilled,
in this matter of resurrection and ascension, eternal power,
in this matter of redemption and salvation and regeneration
and sanctification and justification, who gets the glory? Either it's
all of grace or it's all of work. It's either all of God or all
of man. Either God gets all the glory,
all the praise, or man gets it. And that's where your conflict
is. Man's just got to have a part. And there are four reasons. I'll
give them to you briefly, and I won't carry along on any of
them so you won't get weary. First of all, this is what makes
the free grace of God, the gospel of his glory, offensive And it
is offensive. It is the word. It needs a stronger
word. It's despised. And this is the
first reason, because it addresses all men as sinners. And that offends man's dignity. Now, he's not perfect, mind you. He'll confess, I'm not perfect,
but I ain't no sinner. That's what the Pharisees said,
we'd be not sinners. There was a dear lady who stood,
a friend of mine, I think a lot of her, she's been in church
all her life, she stood and talked to me just recently. And she
said, Brother Man, pray for my children. They're away from God,
they're indifferent to the gospel, they don't attend church, they
don't worship, they don't love the Bible. Now, remember, they're
good, good children. Now, don't misunderstand me.
They're good, moral children, but they just aren't saying it.
That dear woman, that dear, lovely, sweet lady just couldn't get
it out of her mouth, my children are wicked. She couldn't say
it, and the way she could say it, you'd choke her to death,
pull her fingernails out one at a time, she couldn't say it. And she wouldn't stop there,
and she said to my brother, I want you to pray for him. Now, don't
listen, he's a good, moral man. She just kept nailing me with
that. I bit my tongue. But I just got through preaching
the gospel, I knew Euston was getting in a fuss. It's just,
if I had said, but all the people would have said, oh, I agree
with you. That's what she would have said. I agree with you,
but my children are good. We just cannot, we cannot bring
ourselves to say that from the sole of our feet to the top of
our head, there's no goodness in us. There's no soundness,
there's no morality, there's no righteousness. We're nothing
but open running sores. That's awful, isn't it? That
haven't been bound up, mollified, nor helped, nor clothed. In our
flesh, well, it's no good thing that when God looks at us, he
sees the maggots He sees the lepers. He sees the dead, the
corrupt, the rottenness of human flesh. That in God's sight, every
imagination of our heart is evil continually. That the only righteousness
we can possibly have is to be robed in his righteousness and
washed in his blood with dead, gangrenous, maggot-infested flesh. Is that too hard, Joe? But that's
so. Now that ain't dignified. You can't be dignified and preach
the prophecy. You might as well forgive. You
can't do it. You just cannot. You can't maintain our Sunday
morning dignity and tell sinners what they are. And that's offensive. Brother Walter Griever told me
that he and two other men went to a prison in Louisiana. They
were permitted to go there and preach to the prisoners. Now
here are men up for murder, rape, robbery, all kinds of things,
confined to a prison in Louisiana. And Walter and these two men
went in there and stayed three days. They ate with them, they
socialized with them, they fellowshiped with them, they preached to them,
hundreds of them. They were allowed to stand out
in the walking yard, in the recreation center, in the mess hall, and
speak to them. Walter said in the whole three
days he didn't find one guilty man, not one Not one man that
would say, I'm here because I deserve to be, I'm no count, I'm no good,
I can't be trusted out there, I am a guilty criminal getting
what I deserve. Not one. I wonder, the scripture
says Christ died for sinners. Is there one in this congregation?
I wonder, the scripture says Christ died for the ungodly. Come on now, is there one here?
Lately, if we took a poll, if we went all around here, every
one of us in some way would justify, say, well, I may have done this,
but I've never done that. I'll tell you one thing I wouldn't
do. What is it? I'd like to know. You nailed
God's son to a cross, and that's not bad enough. You tried to
throw God off his throne in your daddy Adam. Man's dignity will not allow
him to admit to the fall or any part in it. Can the Ethiopian
change his skin? No, sir, he's black. Can the
leper change his spots? No, sir, that's his nature. Neither
can you do good, let alone sin. There's not anything you can
do that God can look at it and say, good. There's not any thought
you ever thought, or word you ever said, or prayer you ever
prayed, or deed you ever performed that God Almighty could look
at it and say, good. And if he can't say good, he
can't have anything to do with it. To be accepted, it must be
perfect. Man's dignity will not allow
him to admit in his flesh, well, it's no good thing. Man's dignity
will not allow him to admit that his righteousness is filthy rags,
and therefore our Lord turned to the best men of his day. Listen
to him. Christ said this. He turned to
the Nicodemuses and the Gamaliels. And all the rest of these half-falutin'
religious moral leaders, and he looked them right in the eye
and he said, the publicans and harlots enter heaven before you. That's what he said. He said, you're going to find
yourself outside and them inside. And brother, you talk about taking
a fellow back. You're talking about wounding
his dignity. They said in their hearts right
then, we'll get you. You're not going to get away
with that. We'll get you. We may have to lie on you, we
may have to get false witnesses, but us good fellows will get
you. We're not going to have that kind of pressure. It's offensive. Secondly, the gospel of revelation. Now listen, this is what's offensive. Calling a man a sinner is offensive
in all that the word implies. Secondly, the gospel of revelation,
revelation offends man's wisdom. You mean, preacher, now come
on, you mean, are you standing up there saying, here I am a
sane, rational, reasonably intelligent person. I have a good job. I make my living with my brain.
You mean to tell me that by reading and studying the Bible, that
with my intelligence and wisdom and ability to decipher and to
unravel, even medical terms, legal terms, political, economic,
that I can't understand this gospel? That's exactly what I'm
saying. You can't any more understand
it than a blind man can see the sunshine. That's offensive, isn't
it? You can't understand it any more
than a deaf man can hear a concert. You can't any more understand
it than a total imbecile can understand Einstein's theory,
or relativity, or whatever it is. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's offensive. They're not
going to take him, they're not going to have him. And I wouldn't
say that, Scripture didn't say it. Turn to 2 Corinthians, this
is what the Scripture says. Our Lord, 2 Corinthians 2, there
was a man, let me tell you something, I preached on this Sunday a week
ago or so, there was a man of the Pharisees. That's high as
you can go in religion. a ruler of the Jews, high as
you could go in political power, ecclesiastical power. He came to Christ, and our Lord
looked at him and he said, except you're born again, you cannot
understand the kingdom of God. That's what he said to him. He
said, I've told you earthly things and you don't understand. How
can you understand if I tell you heavenly things? You don't
understand. He told him about regeneration, he told him about
the work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth, and Nicodemus
said, how can these things be? And Christ said, are you a ruler
in Israel and you don't know these things? You don't know
these things? And men don't by nature. Look
at 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural man. And I'm talking about a
genius naturally. I'm talking about a man who can
draw the blueprints of a skyscraper, a man who can draw the blueprints
of eight-lane highways and bridges and overpasses and underpasses.
I'm talking about men who can govern nations. I'm talking about
men who can put together legal documents that are unquestioned.
They do not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for the
foolishness to him, neither can he know them, they are spiritually
understood. Mystery. Mystery. Our gospel be hid as hid to them
that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded them."
Our Lord said, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifesting. Now listen to me. Listen carefully. I'm going to tell you the truth
here. This is so. Any natural man can understand
religion, free willism. That's no problem. That's just
a bargain. It's just the preacher stands
up and says, you ought to be good, because God says be good.
And if you be good, God will take you to heaven. It's like
the lady said, you mean to tell me that I've taken care of my
mother, she's lived in my house, I've fed and clothed her and
nursed her and taken care of her, and I'm not going to get
some credit for it? You mean to tell me the only
way I can be saved is to believe on Jesus Christ and all this
is not going to count in my favor and make me... People understand
that kind of thing. If you give to God, he'll bless
you. They understand that. If you do this, God will do that.
They understand that kind of religion. I'll tell you something
else they understand. They understand cold dead fatalism. They understand
what we call hyper-Calvinism, that God made a plan and there's
no way you can change it. If this is set, what will be,
will be. What won't be, won't be. It's set, nothing you can
do about it, so just sit down and wait for the lightning to
strike. But grace, they can't understand.
The mystery of grace. The grace of God which says,
God before the foundation chose a people and gave them to his
Son, and in time by his Spirit he comes and calls through his
gospel. And with their hearts they hear
and they believe and they willingly, lovingly, savingly, intelligently
reach out and lay hold on him. There's a group recently that
didn't want to sing, reach out and touch the Lord as he passes
by. You'll find he's not too busy
to hear your heart cry. That's so. It's like he is reached
out. Wonder whether he is reached
out. John Barnet is reached out. He's on the cross reached out.
If you ought to say it, you'll reach out too. You sure will. I won't stand there. I know you
won't. But it's so anyhow. If so, I
don't understand what makes that light burn, but it's sure burning.
Now, some of you fellows do. Aaron, you do. You wired it.
You know what makes it work. I don't. I don't. But I'm going
to accept it. And I'll tell you the same thing
about this. I know it works. I feel it. I've experienced it. I love it. And to a certain extent,
I understand this, this gospel of grace. Turn to 1 John. I'll
show you what I mean by understanding it. 1 John 5, verse 20. God reveals it. God reveals it. Look at 1 John 5.20. And we know
that the Son of God is come. We know this, that the Son of
God is come and has given us an understanding that we may
know him that is true, we are in him that is true, even in
his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Understand that, Joe. God gave
me that understanding. He gave us an understanding.
The natural men resent that. They say, I can figure it out.
Listen to me and be warned. God says your thoughts are not
my thoughts. And there's a way that'll seem right to you. It'll
seem reasonable, rational, and right. But God says you'll wind
up in destruction. And you ought to watch that way
that seems reasonable, it seems rational, it seems right. It
may not be scriptural. That's exactly right. You see,
the cross is foolishness, sheer nonsense. It's not rational,
reasonable, nor in our eyes, fair. But it's right, the cross. To the religious, it's a stumbling
block. But to them who are the called
of God, it's the wisdom and the power of God. Wisdom, they have
a revelation. Thirdly, I'm going to sum this
up pretty quick. This is what makes it offensive.
This is the foundation. Calling men to praise sinners
offends their dignity. Shutting them up to the revealing
work of God's Spirit offends their wisdom. And thirdly, salvation
as a free gift, totally free, offends man's pride. That's exactly
right. It's a free gift. Somebody says,
well, I know that Christ died, but, no buts to it, he died. And by dying he redeemed me.
Oh, preacher, I know, I know we're saved by grace, but, just
hold it right there, just don't add another thing, we're saved
by grace, Jim, period. No but about it. Well, I know
salvation is by, I know that, I know it's by the love of God
and by the power of God, but, I beg your pardon. But I say
a man has to receive it. That's all. God doesn't require
you to produce a righteousness, he requires you to receive one.
I tell you, I'm going to go home and pray about this. Well, I
hope you do pray, but I'm telling you this prayer won't save you,
Christ saves you. Well, I'm going to turn over
a new leaf, I'm going to straighten up my life, I hope you do. But
that's not going to save you, Christ saves you. It's a free
gift. I am redeemed by the grace of
God if I never open my mouth again. But I will open it if
I love him. That's the motive for the whole
thing. If I love him, I will open it, and I will pray. From
Alpha to Omega, what are you preaching? that in the redemption
of my soul, in the justification of my soul before God, in the
righteousness and sanctification of my soul before God, Jesus
Christ is all and in all. That's exactly from Alpha to
Omega. I'm chosen in him, redeemed in
him, loved in him, accepted in him, and glorified in him. I made no contribution whatsoever
to it in his shape, form, or fashion. My observance of the
communion, my preaching, reading the Bible, praying, whatever,
even my faith is to get to God. Even the will to repent, God
worked it. That's so. It's all of grace,
all of grace, all of grace. And men just won't have it. They
won't have it. They've got to, they must have
a part, even however small, they must have a part. I know, remember,
I know. I know if a man does this, he's
not saved. Somebody asked me one day, I finally found the
right answer. Somebody asked, Are you saved? I said, Answer
me a question. Is Christ still on the right
hand of God? He said, Yes. I said, I'm saved. I'm saved. There's no other reason for me
to give. I don't have any other, as long as he's at the, that's
what Paul said, who is he that It's Christ that died, yea, rather
is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also
makes intercession for me. That's my whole plea. As long
as he's there, I'm saved. If he ever advocates, I'm a goner.
I don't care what I do, serve, say, give, what, I'm a goner. If he ever advocates, I'm in
him. That's what we're seated in him.
Last of all, here's what's offensive. That's offensive now. That's
offensive to a lot of grace badness. It is now. It is. It sure is. But if you preach that
way, people will live like they please. That's exactly right.
Exactly right. But those who know Christ, please
to live for his glory. But if you preach that, if you
preach the salvation, all the grace and all the free gift of
God, man makes no contribution whatsoever, how are you going
to get people to give? I'm going to quit getting them to let God
get them to. We've been trying to do God's
work all along, now why don't we let him do it? How are you
going to get people to attend church? How are you going to
get people to give? How are you going to get people to forgive one
another? I'm going to quit trying to get
people to do anything. When they come to the knowledge
of Christ, they're his sons and his servants and his children,
and if he can't motivate them, I ain't going to waste my time.
Does that make sense, Bob? That's so. That's so. If you're not motivated by that
love for Christ, the love of Christ can strain Paul. Nobody
had to pump him up. Nobody had to pledge him. He
was married to Christ. And this brings me to the last
thing. This offends man, too. The demands of Christ's Lordship.
Lordship will offend man's love of himself. Now, today's religion
is this. You know it so. This is today's
religion. Make Christ your Savior, your
personal Savior. And I wish somebody would find
that term in the Bible, accept Jesus as your personal Savior.
That was never uttered by one person in this book. I'll tell
you what you do. You want to be saved? I don't
tell you accept Jesus as your personal Savior. I tell you,
if you want to be saved, you bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. You bow. Now, you'll come pretty
close to being received if you do that. But this little thing,
they say, except Jesus as your personal Savior. Now, never mind
his lordship, never mind his kingship, never mind his dominion. The Bible doesn't know anything
about a fire escape named Jesus. It doesn't know anything about
a doormat named Jesus. The Bible knows something about
a living, unchangeable, eternal, infinite Lord. who is the King
of Glory, who has all authority in heaven and earth, who has
all power over all flesh, who has all preeminence, who has
the name given him of God, which is above every name, the Bible
knows something about that Lord. Today, I tell you what we do.
We accept him as our personal Savior, we tip him with the tithe,
we pacify him with our We honor him with our lips, we come together
and sing some silly songs on Christmas, and on Easter we all
dress up and buy a corsage and dress up the kids, and they're
miserable all day. And then we have Lent and we
give up this, and then we build a church and we get our little
officers, you know, while we fuss and fight, get our little
officers and do our little duty, but the rest of the time it's
our lives. It's my life, it's my money,
it's my children, it's my wife, it's my family, and it's your
hell when he conquers you to judgment. That's the way, that's
the sum of it. A man who's saved is a man who's
married to Christ. Christ is his master, his Lord,
his King. It's not my money, it's his.
It's not my life, it's his. It's not my wife, it's his. It's
not my children, they're his. Now, my church is his, and my
people are his. Everything is his. He's the king.
That's right. He's the king. He's Lord. He's
Lord. And everybody that confesses
him as Lord, God said he'd save them. The people on the cross
called him Lord. The old Saul of Tarsus fell on
his face and looked up with blinded eyes and cried, Lord, what will
you have me do? That's the difference. I know
it's offensive, but I didn't write it. Our Lord Jesus Christ
said, if you love your mother, father, brother, sister, husband,
why? More than me, you're not fit
to be my disciple. He said, he that cometh to me,
he'll take up his cross and follow me, or he won't be my disciple.
That's what it said. That's so, that's what the Master
said. No man can serve two Masters. Christ is a master. He's not
a personal Savior. He's a master. He's a Lord and
Savior. He said, you call me Lord, you
say, well, so I am. And this is what the preachers
have thrown a curve. I don't care who they are. The
Falwells and the Grahams and the Humbards and the Bakers and
the Robesons and the Swaggarts and every one of them are deceivers
of men. They are hucksters of men's souls.
They are making merchandise out of people, and they are telling
a lie. Salvation is not in walking down an aisle and accepting Jesus
as your personal Savior. It is not. I beg your pardon.
The world is doing that and perishing. They have no peace, no rest,
no joy, no comfort, no unity of spirit, no love. Our churches
are hell, hell on earth is what most of them are, full of division
and strife and discord and fussing and fighting. One man said to
me one time, why go to church? I've got enough hell on the job,
I don't need it on Sunday, I'll just sit in front of my TV and
read the funny paper. I said, I don't blame you. Do
you blame him? You've been members of those
churches, you blame him? Where's the love of Christ? It's in Christ. That's the way it is. And we've
got people accepting him as their fire escape, accepting him as
their doormat, accepting him as their insurance policy, so
they can go to heaven when they die, and they're perishing. Christ
has never become their Lord. When he becomes a man's Lord,
he adjusts his life. He adjusts his thinking, he adjusts
his attitude and spirit. He breaks his heart. Everything
is weighed in its relationship to Christ. It's not in its relationship
to myself. Well, in this, what am I going
to do? Nothing. I'm not going to do anything.
It's how does this fit his Lordship, his gospel, his kingdom, his
glory. That's where we fit in. Christ
is King. Now, that's offensive. And if
Billy Graham and these fellows will stand up in their mass meetings
with all these crowds, you know, and quit singing Just As I Am
and getting people to come because they want to go to heaven and
accept Jesus and tell the whole crowd, in your heart, in your
spirit, in your mind, Father, submit to Christ as Lord of your
life. Don't start tithing. Adam messes
you up, you'll become a legalist. Just commit everything to him,
it's his. Then take what he wants. Use
you and your family, let them kill him or let them live. Let
him bless them or whatever he wants to do. He's the king. He's
boss. He's my Lord. Now then, that would be different. But that's the way it is, Jack.
I'm not just popping off. I'm telling you the truth. That's
where the offense is. But I'll say that's where the
blessing is. If Christ is my Lord and your Lord, we're going
to walk together as brothers in mercy. If Christ forgives
me, I'll forgive you. If Christ loves me, I'll love
you. If I love him, I'll love you. There'll be unity of spirit,
accord, happiness. We'll look not on our own things,
but on the things of others. We'll seek not to please ourselves,
but please others. We won't hate any man, because
we realize if it weren't for God's grace, that's what we'd
be. You don't hate the black man or the red man or the yellow
man or the communist or anybody else. They disagree with their
principles. You don't hate. You don't hold
grudges and vengeance. You forgive because God forgave
you. Christ lives in you. The principles of Christ, the
life of Christ, the love of Christ, the person of Christ. And if
it weren't for God's grace, what would you be and where would
you be? Our Father blessed the message.
give us the courage to preach it wherever we go. Not to offend
deliberately, but to preach Christ and him crucified, man's guilt. The sovereign work of thy spirit,
the effectual work of thy Son, the Lordship, the demands of
Christ's Lordship, which are unquestionable, give us that
boldness and that courage. And yet that compassion and affection
that loves loves them for Christ's sake, genuinely, sincerely, affectionately,
prays for them. Bless this message to the heart
of every person here, according to your divine will. The Lord,
break our hearts, our haughty spirits, our arrogant
natures, crush them, bring us down at thy feet.