Let's turn to Romans chapter
7 again, please. Romans the 7th chapter. The Bible clearly teaches. I
want you to get the introduction of my message this morning is,
I believe, the most important part of the message. It's what
the message is all about. What I'm going to say right now,
the introduction. The Scriptures clearly teach.
clearly teach that a work of judgment always precedes or accompanies. Now, which word to use there,
I'm just not certain. It's like somebody said, which
comes first, repentance or faith? Well, it's difficult to say. Repentance and faith, Mr. Spurgeon said, is like a piece
of paper. You've got to have two sides. You can't have faith
without repentance. You can't have repentance without
faith. No man has ever turned to God unless he's turned away
from his idols. And a man who turns away from
his idols must turn to God. He must turn to God. You can't
turn to nothing. Every man has a master. No man
can serve two masters, but every man has a master. We are the
servants of sin or we're servants of God. We're the servants of
self or servants of God. So what I'm saying is the Scriptures
clearly teach that a work of judgment, conviction, conviction
of sin, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, always accompanies a
work of grace. There's no man ever been brought
to Christ who has not been delivered from sin. There's no man ever
been brought to Christ who has not been made aware of his evil,
of his sin, of his need of Christ. Now, this is what Paul said in
the book of Acts, chapter 20, when he was talking to the elders
at Antioch. He said, I have preached the
gospel, testifying both to the Jews and to the Greeks, two things.
Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of
God. I've kept back nothing profitable unto you. I have been true, he
said, in the declaration of this twofold message, judgment and
grace, conviction, conversion, repentance and faith. You don't
have one without the other. It's like in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1, he wrote to the church at Thessalonica and he says,
I know your election of God because you heard the gospel, not in
word only, but in the power of the Holy Spirit and much conviction
and assurance. But he said, you turn from your
idols to serve the living God. So be assured of this, no man
has ever been brought to Christ without being convicted of sin.
No man has ever believed on Christ to the saving of his soul who
does not have in his heart genuine repentance and sorrow over sin. Sin has to be dealt with before
grace is applied. There's got to be a hunger before
a feeling. There's got to be an emptiness
before there's a feeling. One preacher said this years
ago, and I think it's very good. If a person misses Holy Spirit
conviction, He's going to miss repentance. If a person misses
repentance, he's going to miss Christ. If a person misses Christ,
he's going to miss eternal life. So the beginning of the work
of salvation is conviction of sin. What do you say are the
first steps that a man takes toward heaven? What's the first
step? Somebody says, well, the first
step that a man takes toward heaven is to believe on Christ.
Don't think so. The first step that a man takes
toward heaven is feeling his need of Christ. The first step
that a person takes toward God is not believing, but being convicted,
being broken, overseen. Let's take some Bible examples.
Here was Bartimaeus sitting by the wayside. Bartimaeus was healed
by our Lord, by the power of Christ. But Bartimaeus sitting
there in his blindness and darkness felt a need. He felt a need for
mercy, a need for help, a need for Christ's help. And so Bartimaeus,
what did he do first? He didn't believe on Christ first,
he cried out for Christ's help. It was a feeling of his need.
Had he not been blind, had he not been in darkness, had he
not been sitting by the wayside begging, there's a good possibility
he never would have sought Christ's help. The same thing is true
of the publican in the temple. He came in there crying, God
be merciful to me, a sinner. The same thing is true of the
leper in Matthew chapter 8, who said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me whole. Christ said the well do not need
a physician, but folks who are sick. I've come not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repent. So the first thing in this thing
of the conversion of the soul is the conviction of the heart.
The first step toward God, the first step toward grace, the
first step toward saving interest in Christ is being brought to
realize that I'm a sinner. Now this revelation of sin, now
listen to this, this revelation of sin to the heart, and it is
a revelation to the heart, it's not just an awareness that everybody's
a sinner, it's not just a belief in the fact, well I know man's
depraved, I know everybody's a sinner, but this revelation
of sin is a real crisis We've been reading in Romans 7 about
a real crisis. It's a real disturbing crisis
when a person realizes that he is a sinner. And it's a crisis,
it's a traumatic experience from which a person never fully recovers. Now you may find by God's grace
the remedy for sin, you may find the pardon of sin, you may find
the forgiveness of sin. But if you ever enter into this
crisis, and it's a shocking, traumatic experience, and not
everybody has experienced it. Everybody who's saved has experienced
it. Everybody who's been saved has.
Now stay with me, I'm saying this, that this work of judgment,
this conviction of sin, this stripping by the Holy Spirit,
and it's a stripping, This laying bare of the heart by the Holy
Spirit, this tearing out of the foundations, this humbling of
the mind, this devastation of man's pride, this revelation
of sin, sin, sin, like we're talking about here. Here was
one of the most moral men on the earth, Paul. Here was one
of the most dedicated men on earth. Here was a man who wrote
more scripture, preached more sermons, organized more churches.
Here was a man who was consecrated in full time in one pursuit,
and that it was to make Christ known. And yet here this man
talking about a wretched man that I am, a law of sin, warring
in my members, a body of death. The things I would do, I do them
not. The things I would not do, I do. This man has gone through
a traumatic crisis and experience. He has been so humbled and broken
by the power of God's Spirit that he has seen firsthand, for
himself, with a personal realization and understanding what an awful,
guilty, corrupt, evil creature he is by birth, nature, choice,
and practice. And this is a crisis from which
a man never recovers. I say he may find the pardon
of sin, he may find the forgiveness of sin, he may find the remedy
for sin, but he never gets over his consciousness of sin. He
never recovers. Actually, his awareness of sin
and his sinfulness grow stronger every day. That's right. All right, let's give some Bible
examples. Here's David, probably 60, 65 years of age when he wrote
Psalm 51. And here he is crying, my sins
are ever before me. In his early days, he was writing
psalms like the Lord is my shepherd, messianic psalms of that nature.
In his older days, he was talking about my sins. and how God was
just when he condemned and righteous when he spoke. Listen to Job. Here was Job, a man who for many
years in his life spoke quite often of his knowledge of God
and he spoke rightly. He had a knowledge of God because
God at the end of all this experience said to his three friends, you've
lied on me. Job told the truth. What Job has said is true. And
yet I hear this man Job, this man of whom God says, among men
he's righteous, among men he shuns evil. But here Job speaks
of himself after this realization, after this revelation, after
this traumatic crisis when God let him see what he was. In the
light of God's character, in the light of God's holiness,
in the light of God's purity, Job says, I hate myself. Now,
I know the psychiatrists say you're supposed to love yourself,
and you're supposed to hold yourself in high esteem, and I'm okay,
you're okay. This is the spirit of this day.
But Job, after he saw the Lord, said, I hate myself. I repent in sackcloth and ashes.
He said, I've been popping off, I've spoken, I've said things
far too wonderful for me. I'm going to put my hand on my
mouth. He said, I'm not going to say
anything else. Now I'm going to say, listen to Isaiah. Isaiah
in chapter 6 said, I saw the Lord, the Lord in His glory,
the Lord in His holiness. This was the revelation. Now
you're never going to have this experience comparing yourselves
with other people. Because you just come out looking
pretty good. And we usually pick somebody,
you know, down here to compare ourselves. We come out looking
pretty good when we start comparing ourselves with outward laws and
statutes and all these different things. We come out looking pretty
good, other people. But God let Isaiah see himself
in the light of God's holiness. And Isaiah said, woe is me, I'm
a man of unclean lips. And you see, This was Isaiah's
life. He was a prophet. He was a prophet,
a man who was supposed to speak good things and glorious things
and spiritual things, but he picked his stock in trade, he
picked his real gift, he picked his point of excellence, and
he says, that's unclean! A man of unclean lips. And I
dwell among a people of unclean living. Take Paul here, the chief
of sinners. Take Daniel. Daniel, the man
of men in the country there, Darius' kingdom. And yet he said,
when I saw the Lord, my comeliness, my beauty melted into corruption. Now, what I'm saying is this.
If God really saves, if God really reveals himself in saving, redeeming
mercy through Christ to an individual, the first thing the Lord's going
to do in order that that person might really believe on Christ
and really trust Christ and really lean upon Christ and really receive
Christ and really love Christ and really appreciate Christ,
the first thing God's going to do Before He robes him in the
beautiful spotless robe of His Son's righteousness, He's going
to strip us naked. Now He sure is. He's going to
take every fig leaf, apron of self-righteousness, every little
thing we hide, He's going to take it and burn it and destroy
it and leave us standing there without anything on, and knowing
we have nothing on, and then we cry for covering. Before God
brings a man to bread, Christ, the bread of life, That man's
going to be hungry. That man is going to be so hungry
that Christ will be the sweetest honey he's ever tasted. And before
God lets a man see his glory, he's going to let him see just
how much darkness he's really in. You know, there's nobody
here this morning that would appreciate those emergency lights
back there, because we don't need them. But I'll tell you
tonight about nine o'clock, if the lightning hits and all these
lights go off, and it's pitch black in here and you can't find
that door, that light will be mighty precious when there's
no other light. And this is what I'm saying,
is that before the Lord brings a man to the water, he's gonna
thirst. There's gonna be judgment before
grace. There's gonna be a stripping before clothing. There's gonna
be a humbling before an exaltation. There's gonna be a blindness
before the light is revealed. And I'm saying this is a traumatic
crisis, this is an experience that you never get over. When
God shows me what I am, if God shows me what I am, I'll never
forget it. Now, preachers may stand here
in the pulpit and tell you what sinners we are and you go off
and this afternoon you forget what that preacher said, but
I'll tell you this, if God ever lets you see just how low down
we are by nature, how helpless, without God, without strength,
without Christ, without hope, you won't ever forget it. And
it grows, it increases as you get older. You realize, and this
is not just an awareness, as I said before, of the general
guilt of all men. That won't get it. Well, everybody's
guilty and all sin comes short of the glory of God. We can recite
that just so flippantly, carelessly. This is not just, now listen
to me, This is not just an acknowledgment of the violations of a few rules
of moral conduct. Most people here right now, in
thinking about sin, are pinpointing it to one thing you did some
time ago. If you hadn't have done that,
you'd be in pretty good shape. If you hadn't have said this,
you'd be in pretty good shape. Sin, my friends, is a whole lot
broader than that. It's everything you've ever said's
been wrong. In God's sight. You know, we
go back and remember the time we stole that baseball or that
watermelon. Or we said something to our dear
old mother, we said something back to her, we sashed her. Every
good thing you've ever said has been wrong, too. In God's sight.
I'm talking about God's sight. He says from the sole of our
feet to the top of our heads, there's no soundness in us. He
said, there's none that understand it, none that doeth good. So
this awareness, you see what a crisis it is? You know, we
weigh our lives and think about them and we think, I shouldn't
have done that, I shouldn't have done this, I shouldn't have said
that. If I hadn't said that or done that, I'd have had a good
day. And we just pick out little personal violations of moral
codes. This thing of sin, is a principle,
it's a nature, it's a root, it's a being, it's a body of sin. Everything before God that I've
ever said or ever done has been evil. That's so. And it's not just a feeling of
guilt or earthly sorrow over offending another party or person. This is a heart crisis, this
is a soul crisis of the greatest magnitude. This is a site of
personal personal corruption and personal evil and personal
sin against God, a principle of evil, an all-consuming principle
and nature of evil that bows down the heart and overcomes
the soul in despair before God. I'm a sinner. Have you ever understood
that? You'll understand that before
Christ will ever become precious to you. I won't be able to do
it for you. There's no way in this world
that I can stand up here and mechanically lead you in the
conviction of sin. And nobody else can. You're not
going to find it out reading somebody's book on total depravity.
This crisis, this traumatic experience, this judgment of self, this judgment
of self, this revelation of sin that'll so crush you and break
your heart, and so humbled you and so stripped you before God
and lay you bare before God. that like the publican in the
temple, you'll smite upon your breast in the presence of God,
and you won't even look up, you won't feel worthy to sing, or
worthy to pray, or worthy to call his name, it'll just be,
oh God, oh God, oh God, be merciful, be merciful to me, thee, you
know that that word, that is a definite article, that's not
a sinner, that's thee sinner. This man was so overwhelmed with
the grief of his sin that he said, I am the sinner. Paul was
brought to that place. He said, Christ came into the
world to save sinners of whom I, Paul, am the chief, the greatest,
the leader. That's what I'm talking about.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's something you don't
get over. And it's something that bows
you down and brings you just a sense of overwhelming grief
before God. I'm not talking about a cowing
before men. They're all made out of the same
rotten flesh you're made out of. They're all dug out of the
same pit. They're all hewn out of the same
rock. Don't be looking down your nose at anybody. There's nobody
beneath you. You're just low as anybody can
get. We're all down here on the same level, all sinners. Some sinners in jail, and some
in White House, and some in prison and slave camps, and some are
in Congress, but they're all sinners. Some in the pulpit,
some in the pew, and some in the gutter, but they're all sinners.
They're all flesh. In the flesh, there's nothing
good. And this is a crisis. This is a traumatic crisis. This is an overwhelming crisis. This is a period of utter, complete
despair. And some preacher comes and tells
you to be baptized and wash that away, you say, mine's too deep
to wash away with water. And some preacher says, well,
just come down and believe certain religious facts and your sins
will be put away. You say, my sins are too great
for believing facts. I'm going to have to have a miracle.
I'm going to have to have an act of God. I'm going to have
to have an act that will enable God to be just and deal with
a fellow like me. Now look at Paul here, as he
says in verse 8, the last line in verse 8, and here Paul had
this crisis, this traumatic experience that he was never the same after
this. Up to this time, Paul was religious and proud of it. Up to this time, he was moral
and boasted of it. Up to this time, he felt secure
and let folks know about it. He says, verse 8, the last line,
without the law, sin was dead. Without the law, sin was dead.
Now let me tell you something. Many people right here in this
congregation, some members of this church, are right here where
Paul was. You say, without the law. What
do you mean without the law? What does Paul mean without the
law? Certainly he was not without. I know the Ten Commandments,
Preacher. I'm not without the law. I know the Ten Commandments.
Paul did too. He knew them. Brother Barnard
said he could have recited them coming down the stairs At midnight
on his head, he could have recited the Ten Commandments. So he's
not talking here when he says, without the law, sin was dead.
He's not saying he never heard it. He's not saying that he never
memorized it. He's not saying that he never
taught it. Why, he knew it from his youth up. What did the young
man say when our Lord said, keep the commandments? He said, I've
kept them from my youth up. What did Saul of Tarsus say?
I was blameless. What did the Pharisee in the
temple say? I'm not an adulterer, I'm not
an extortioner, I'm not unjust, we be not sinners. So what does
Paul mean here? Without the law, sin was dead. Here's what he means. He did
not understand, and had not been taught, and it had not been revealed
to him by the Holy Spirit. the true content of the law,
the true spirituality of the law. You who would be under the
law. Paul said, don't you hear the
law? Have you ever heard the law of God? Have you ever heard
it? Turn to Matthew 5. Paul had Matthew
5. Now listen to this. He's saying
here, without the law, sin was dead. Sin was dormant. Sin was inactive without the
law. Here's what Paul is saying. I
knew the law in my head. I knew the Ten Commandments.
I knew it said, Thou shalt not kill. Look at Matthew 5, verse
21. Christ said, You've heard that
it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill. You've heard
that. You know that. And whosoever shall kill shall
be in danger of the judgment. But I'll say unto you, here's
what you haven't heard. That whosoever is angry with
his brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment. So
we know the law. The law says I shall not kill
and Paul knew that law. Paul knew that law. But he only
knew the law in its letter. The law in the letter. The law
on tablets of stone, the law in his mind. He didn't know the
spirituality of the law, the real content of the law, the
real requirements of the law. The law says, thou shalt not
kill, and what the law is saying is this, you shall not even have
that feeling that leads to murder. And these religious folks, and
today, you say, well, I'll never kill anybody. You wanted to. You've wanted to. You see what
I'm saying? I've never struck anybody across
the face. You've wanted to. I've never,
I've never, I've never done any harm to anybody. You've wanted
to. And that's what our Lord, that's
the spirituality of the law, you see. And go on down. He said,
verse 27, you've heard it said by them of old times, thou shalt
not commit adultery. These Pharisees brought him a
woman. They were trying to trap him to see where he stood on
these things. If he'd have freed her, he wasn't a friend of Moses,
and if he'd have stoned her, he wasn't a friend of the people.
So they brought this woman to him and threw her at his feet
and said, she was found in the act of adultery. You know what
they meant. They meant she was found in the
outward physical act of adultery. Christ said in verse 21, you've
heard it said, I shall not commit adultery, but I say unto you,
whoso looketh, whoso looketh, and desireth in his heart." This
is the thing. Purity is not solely an act. It's in spirit and attitude and
imagination and thought. And this is the content. This
is the spirituality of the law. This is the spiritual content.
Look at verse 38. You've heard it said an apple
and I had a two foot two. Whatever men do, you get even,
you know. This is only fair if he knocks
your tooth out. It's only fair if somebody knocks
his out. That's reasonable. That's justice. But our Lord
said, I say unto you, this is what the law is saying, resist
evil. Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn the
other. I can't do that, preacher. That's what I'm saying. If a
man sue thee at the law and take away your coat, the fellow takes
you to court and takes your coat, let him have your cloak too.
Man makes you go a mile, go with him too. Verse 43, you've heard it said,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. I say unto
you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do
good to them that hate you. Pray for them that despitefully
use you. So here's what Paul said. Will
you listen to me? Without the law. He's not saying
I didn't know what it said. He's not saying I didn't approve
of it. He's not saying I didn't try to keep it. He's not saying
I didn't preach it or teach it. He did. But he's saying I didn't
know what it was saying. I didn't have an understanding
of the spirituality of God's law. God's law demands perfection,
not only in deed, but in thought, not only in act, but attitude.
Not only in my manners, but in my motive. And I don't have that. I don't, and to offend in one
point is to be guilty of the whole law. I might be, I might
have just a fence up everywhere around the pasture and a fence
down in one place and that's where the cows get out, Bob.
That's where the crops, so I might as well not even have a fence.
Somebody says, well, I tell you, I've got some good points. Well,
you might as well not have any. That one makes you a sinner. That one makes you a violator
of God's whole law. That one destroys the whole pasture,
the effectiveness of the whole pasture. So this is what Paul
earned. And before he had a knowledge
of the spirituality of God's law, sin was unrecognized. It was there, but it was dead.
That is, it was unrecognized, it was unadmitted, and it was
unacknowledged. It was dormant as far as his
conscience was concerned. I'm not as bad as a lot of people.
Have you often said that? Well, I'm not such a bad fellow.
I don't know why the preacher always talks about total depravity
and conviction of sin. There's a lot of things I've
never done. I wanted to, but I never did. All right, look at the next line.
Verse 8. So that's verse 9. That's what
verse 8 says. Paul says, without the law, though
I was religious, though I was trained in Gamaliel's school,
though I had a lot of facts and understanding, he said that the
law I didn't have a knowledge of the spirituality, and sin
just wasn't real to me. It wasn't real. It wasn't real
in its ugliness, in its viciousness, in its evil, in its corruption.
It was dormant. It was there, unrecognized, unadmitted,
unacknowledged. All right. I was alive. I was
alive without the law. That means, here's what he said,
having no consciousness of sin, I was alive. I thank thee, Lord,
I am not like other men. I'm alive. I tire. I give alms. I fast. I was alive. I is so big when
seen as small. I'm not like this publican. That's a sense of security and
pride. And you know something? If old
Paul had met a publican, he would have given him room. He would
have avoided him. I was alive, you know. I. You're dead, but
I'm alive. I'm important. I'm needed. I'm
great. I'm secure. I thank thee, Lord. I'm not. I'm alive, see, without
the law. When the law, you say, well,
what people who are selfish and self-centered, I was alive, you
see. They don't have a knowledge of
their sin. They've never been whittled.
They've never been stripped. They've never been broken. And
I is alive. I is sensitive. You know why some people are
so easy to offend? I is alive. That's right. I was alive. That's what Paul's
saying. Without the law, I was alive. I fasted, I tithed, I
gave alms, I'm not like other men, I'm not an extortioner,
I'm not a... I, I, I was a liar. Whoo! Alright, look at the next line.
But when the commandment came. Verse 9. When the commandment
came. The commandment, the law, when the law came. Now the law
was there. You see what, the law was there.
But it wasn't understood. Spiritually, it wasn't understood.
But when it did come, when the Holy Spirit brought the law home
to this man in its spirituality, in its spiritual content, what
happened? He said, I died. I died. When God, by His grace,
was pleased to give this man a glimpse of God's holiness,
He saw his own corruption and sin when God gave him a glimpse
of the spirituality of the law, when God brought the holy law
home to him in the power of the Holy Spirit. And it must be done.
This is what must be done. All the preaching of rules and
laws and regulations and statutes will go unheeded until the Holy
Spirit in power gives a man eyes to see within, not only without,
but within. What happened? Paul said, I died. When the commandment came, sin
revived. Sin became evident. Sin became
so obvious. Sin appeared to be sin. What
I'd never considered to be sin before was revealed to be sin.
What I'd never understood and never acknowledged to myself,
I saw and I felt. I saw my thoughts and my imaginations. I saw my guilt before God. I saw my utter, complete ruin. And you know what happened? I,
I died. I died. The I that bragged on
its goodness died. The I that folded its arms in
security, if anybody makes it, surely I will, died. The I that
looked down on everybody and criticized and gossiped and found
fault with their weaknesses and infirmities, died. The I that
bent its knee but never bowed its heart to God in repentance,
died. The I that never cried for mercy
but only sought for reward, died. The law killed I. eye. It always does. Eye is a
creature of darkness and it can't live in light. Eye is a creature
of ignorance and it can't live beside the truth. And this is
what Paul is saying, and this is traumatic. This is a crisis
of the greatest proportions, of tremendous magnitude. Here
was a man in total security and confidence Talking about I was
a Hebrew of Hebrews and an educated man and a blameless man and a
leader and an overseer and a teacher. And he said, without the law,
I didn't have an understanding of what sin really was. I didn't have an understanding
of what guilt was. And because I didn't have an
understanding of God's law, God's holiness. But when the commandment
came, I saw sin revived. It just came up in such proportions. It just flooded me where sin
abounded, sin overflowed. I didn't see one little offense
in 1929, and one little offense in 1947, and one little offense
in 1958, and one over here in 1980. I saw my whole nature was corrupt. It was a body of sin. It was
from the sole of my feet to the top of my head, and I died. I
died. I didn't have another thing to
say. All my hopes of the past were
destroyed. All my pride in the present was
destroyed. All my hope for the future was
dashed to pieces. I've been judged by the law,
found guilty, condemned. And it doesn't get any better.
And that's when he cried, Romans 7, turn over here, if you will,
to verse 24, and that's when he was brought to this place.
He said, verse 22, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man. This is a converted man talking. I see another law, verse
23, in my members warring against my mind, bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, wretched, wretched,
wretched man that I am. who shall deliver me from this
body of death. Is there any hope? Yes, sir. The law can't do it.
Walking down an aisle can't do it. Water can't do it. Church
membership can't do it, but Christ can. I thank God, verse 25, I
thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I've got to have an
act of mercy. I've got to have a miracle, a
miracle from God. permeated, totally depraved,
wretched, sinful creature, with whom it's so much easier to do
wrong than to do right, for whom it's so much easier to hate than
to love, who has to cry, O wretched man that I am. Is there any hope?
Yes, there's hope, but it's not in anything mechanical or material
or physical or outward. It's not in making the sign of
the cross or burning the candle or crawling so far on my knee.
It's God revealing in his son a perfect righteousness in regard
to this law. Christ came down here as a man
and he kept that law. He kept it. And he was my representative. And God's got to purge this old
sin. God's got to cleanse it. It's
filthy. The vessel can't be for God's
glory until it's washed, not on the outside, But inside, purged
and washed and cleansed, and only the blood of Christ can
do that. The blood cleanseth the soul. He died for my sin. But though
I have in Him a perfect righteousness and though He died for my sin,
this consciousness, this crisis, has never let up. Because each
day I realize, Jay, more and more how much I need Christ.
And I need him. You say that harlot sure needs
Christ. Not anymore than this preacher.
She just spells her name different. You say that murderer sure does
need Christ. Not anymore than this elder down
here. He just lives in a different location, Cecil. He's behind
the bars and you're on the outside. But by nature, you're both murderers.
He did his and we kept our, we were restrained by the restraining
hand of God. We were restrained. This is so. And if that ever happens, getting
men saved is no problem, getting men lost is the problem. Everybody
who's out there in the water sinking is crying for help. And
everybody who's sitting up here on the shore thinks he's all
right, you know. And that's the difference. That's
the difference. And when a man really has, when
he comes to this experience, when the Holy Spirit does it,
if you ever get stripped, you'll want to be clothed. If you're
out there in the cold, biting wind of God's wrath, without
anything to shield you, you'll cry for refuge. If you ever feel
held, moving up to meet you, you're coming. That's the help.
I'm just sure of it. And you'll turn to the only source
of help, and that's Christ. You'll turn to Him, and you'll
lay hold on Him, and boy, as the days go by, you'll give thanks
for Christ more and more. It won't take anybody to make
you praise Him. You'll praise Him. Our Lord said,
to whom much is forgiven, he will love much. Yes, sir. May God do it. He has to. Our
Father, we don't thank You that we're
sinners, but we thank You that we know it. We don't thank you, Lord, for
the corruption that's in our hearts, because that's all our
own doings. But we're sure thankful that
you didn't leave us in darkness and blindness. The sin is there. It's always been there. But it's
only by thy grace that we've been permitted to see it and
able to see it and to look to Christ for help and for hope
and for mercy. He is our hope. He is our refuge. and our only refuge. We lay no
claim to any righteousness of our own. Actually, our religious
righteousness is polluted as our carnal righteousness, even
more in thy sight, because it's false. But we look to Christ. Do this work of grace, which
no one can do but thee. Let us see ourselves as we really
are. Reveal our hearts to us. Strip
us by thy power. According to Thy will we pray,
for Christ's sake, Amen.