Brother Ralph Barnard used to
say, the most humbling and challenging
thing we face in this day is to recover the gospel of God's
grace and God's glory. The great concern of our hearts
ought to be a recovery of that gospel. If there's one place where you
cannot preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in His sovereign
mercy and grace in this free land called America, it's in
the average church. You don't dare do it. That's
the one place. You can preach it out there on
the streets and the harlots and the drunks and the gamblers and
the profane swears, well, most of them will say that's fact.
If I'm ever saved, God will have to do it. But you don't preach
that in the churches. You see, they're in the process
of saving themselves. They're in the process of establishing
before God a righteousness of their own. They have a zeal for
God, they have an enthusiasm, but it's not according to knowledge.
They're going about to establish their own righteousness, and
that's the one place that you don't dare preach the gospel
which gives all the glory to God Almighty. I'm convinced,
beyond a shadow of a doubt, there may be those of you who hold
out some hope. I hope you're right. But I'm
convinced that what we call or what men call the gospel today
is not the gospel at all, but it's another gospel. It's the
same thing Paul was saying in Galatians chapter 1. I'm amazed,
I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called
you into the grace of God unto another gospel. And he said they'll
come, 2 Corinthians 11, 4, they'll come. They'll come preaching,
but they'll come preaching another gospel. They'll come talking
about Jesus, but it's another Jesus. And they'll come talking
about a spirit, but he said it's another spirit. And I think we're
in that day. And I spoke to a church up in
the mountains of West Virginia last Thursday night. And I set forth four things. that are wrong with today's gospel. And I'm going to give you these
four things, not at length, but briefly. This is my personal
opinion. I believe there are four things
wrong with today's gospel, what people are hearing and calling
it the gospel. It's a gospel that won't save.
It's a gospel that will not deliver. It's a gospel that will not result
in eternal glory. There are four things wrong with
it. Number one, what we call the gospel today emphasizes what
men should do for God rather than what God must do for men. Our Lord told us when the disciples
said, well, who then can be saved? He said, with men it's impossible. But we didn't listen. With men
it's impossible. but not with God. With God all
things are possible. My friends, salvation is not
something you do for God. Salvation is not something that
you do for yourself. Salvation is not something that
your preacher or the church does for you. Salvation is of the
Lord. The Bible declares that on every
page. Salvations of the Lord. Jonah
cried out from the depths of the whale's belly, Salvations
of the Lord. And you're in the same shape
he was in. There's no outside force or power can deliver you,
and no inside force or power can deliver you, only God. And
David said it two or three times in the Psalms. In Psalms 3.8
he said, Salvation belongs to God. And he says in Psalm 37,
39, the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. It's of the Lord. But men today, we hear preachers
today pleading with helpless, guilty, sin-loving, God-hating,
sinners to start serving the Lord. We hear preachers plead,
serve the Lord, sinner serve the Lord. But men of old pleaded
not with the sinner to serve God, but with God to show mercy. There's a difference. Men of
old cried, God be merciful to me the sinner. Today we plead
with the sinner to do something for God. We say to the sinner,
God's done all he can do. God's made an effort. God's put
forth an effort. God's done what he could do.
God's sent his Son. Now, you must do something for
God. Lord, the leper said, if you
will, you can make me clean. Bartimaeus was crying for Christ
to do something for him. The Lord Jesus was not standing
there waiting for Bartimaeus to do something for himself or
for the Lord. We hear men today talking about
what they've done for Jesus. I accepted Jesus. I decided for
Jesus. Men of old talked about what
God had done for them. Paul said, I obtained mercy. And the prophet wrote, Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. God didn't find grace in the
eyes of Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. I obtained mercy, Paul said. You who were dead, hath he quickened? The dead didn't quicken themselves,
God quickened the dead. God who separated me from my
mother's womb and called me by His grace was pleased, God was
pleased to reveal His Son in me. He could have passed me by,
but He didn't. And then secondly, today's gospel. It emphasizes what men should
do for God, rather than what God must do for men. Secondly,
today's gospel emphasizes heaven and hell. That's what we hear. We're on a steady diet of heaven
and hell. And today's gospel all but ignores the two true
issues, Christ and sin. This thing of salvation is not
a heaven, hell issue. It's a Christ and sin issue.
The message of today is, wouldn't you like to go to heaven? I certainly
would. I certainly would. And I don't
know who wouldn't. And man's main goal is to, as
they say, somehow make it to heaven. The Apostle's desire
was to know Christ. There's a difference. Do you
see the difference? I see the difference. I see the difference
as clear as day. The Apostle Paul wanted to win
Christ and be found in Him. He wanted to know Christ. He
wanted, like Enoch, to walk with Christ. Today's religionist is not really
concerned about the man called Christ Jesus. He wants to make
it to heaven. If he can make it to heaven without
Christ, that'd be all right. If he could make it to heaven
without a knowledge of the Son of God, that would be all right.
And that's the reason he says, we're all headed for the same
place, we're just traveling different roads. We're not headed for a
place, we're headed for a person. Our Lord said to the thief, today
you'll be with me. The emphasis was not upon the
place, but the person. Paul said, I have a desire to
depart and be with Christ. He didn't say, I have a desire
to depart and walk on streets of gold and live in a mansion
and live where there are no sicknesses and sorrows and diseases. He
said, I want to be with Christ. There's a difference. And then
congregations are drenched with the terrors of judgment and hell.
They're made to fear hell. And somehow do all that they
can to escape hell. Do you know what men of old were
concerned about? being saved from sin. That's
what they were concerned about. Hell was not their primary concern
and heaven was not their primary goal. David said, blessed is
the man to whom God will not charge sin. If I can get out
from under the curse of it, if I can get out from under the
guilt of it, if I can get out from under the load of it, the
dominion of it, I'll praise him forever. If I have Christ, I have heaven.
If I have forgiveness of sin, there is no condemnation. There
is no condemnation, no judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus.
Listen to David, my sins are ever before me, oh Lord, purge
me, wash me, cleanse me, create in me, renew within me a clean
heart and a right spirit. You can't give a man a title
deed to heaven who is not vitally united with Christ. So the message
is not heaven at all, it's Christ. If he has Christ, he has all
that God has. He's an heir of God and a joint
heir with his Son. Wherever heaven is, it's where
Christ is. And my friends, Christ Jesus
didn't come down here to this earth to save people from hell.
The angel who announced his birth says, Thou shalt call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And I'll
tell you this, if you were to take a man to heaven who was
still in love with his sins, he'd turn heaven into hell. Wherever
he is, it's going to be hell. That's right. Wherever you have
an unregenerate man who's not in love with Christ, who does
not know Christ, who's not vitally joined with Christ, he'll turn
wherever he lives into hell, because the hell's in his heart.
Those are the issues. It's not heaven and hell. I don't
know anybody in Ashton who wants to go to hell, but I know a lot
of people in Ashton who don't want deliverance from sin. I
don't know anybody in heaven who does not want to go to heaven,
but I know a lot of people in this city who do not want to
know Christ. If they did, they'd be somewhere
seeking Him tonight, wouldn't they? That's why I'm here. I'm not here because it's Sunday.
I'm not here because it's my duty to be here. I believe I'm
here to seek the Lord and His face. Oh, that I might know Him
and the power of His resurrection. If I could turn your thoughts,
I would if I could, turn your thoughts away from heaven as
a place and set your affections on Him as a person. And turn
your thoughts and fears away from hell as a burning place
and judgment and punishment and all that sort of thing. And turn
your thoughts upon this thing of being forgiven, being cleansed,
being purified, being purged, our sins being taken away and
blunted out. I believe that I'd accomplish
what the gospel is given to accomplish. Thirdly, today's gospel. Here's a sermon to the head and
not a message to the heart. Brother Ralph used to say to
me, and he helped me so much when I was a young preacher,
he used to say to me, he said, you know what's wrong with you?
I'd say, well, I know some things. What have you got in mind? He
said, you preach to my head too much. You weary me. And what you say in soul, he
said, it's accurate, but you weary me. He said, I'd sure wish
you could learn to preach to my heart. I don't want you all the time
instructing me. He said, I'd like for you to
bless me. Isn't that partly our trouble? We know what we believe.
Paul said, I know whom I have believed. There's a difference.
I know what I believe. Yes, Paul said, I know whom I
have believed. Old Brother Shelton used to put
a lot of emphasis on, I know when I believe. But Paul never
said anything about that. But he said a whole lot about
whom I believe. We believe the Bible. The early
Christians lived it. We argue the Bible. The early
Christians found comfort and joy in it. We believe in God. They walked with God. We preach
the fall. They cried, O wretched man that
I am. We talk of heaven. They talked
of being with Christ. We believe in the resurrection.
They look for His return. Isn't this what our Lord was
saying? You call me Lord with your lips, but your hearts are
far from me. Do we sometimes talk too much
about the well and not enough about
the water? Do we sometimes call men's attention to all of the
table and the setting different things and maybe don't talk enough
about the bread. Do we sometimes preach about
the gospel, as Spurgeon said, and we don't really come down
to preaching the gospel? I often think, when I close a
message and go away from the pulpit, I think now there was
a man or a woman there tonight who came in off the streets who
doesn't know God. and they're unsaved, and they
don't know the way to God. Did I make it clear? Did I instruct
them in the faith of Christ Jesus? Did I preach to them the gospel?
Or did I preach about the gospel? Did they go away knowing what
it is to be saved? Or how God saves sinners? I'm afraid most of our preaching
today is to the head. instructing men in the doctrine
of it, in the letter of the law, in the truth of Scripture. But
my friends, Christ is the truth. Christ is the Bible. Christ is
salvation. Christ is heaven. Christ is eternal
life. He's a person to know, embrace,
be united with, vitally joined with, rest in, trust in, a person. And then fourthly, today's gospel. Today's what we call the gospel
today. What does it call on men to do?
Stand up and be counted. Stand up and be counted. There's
a lot of hand raising, hour walking, hand shaking. We're declaring
our position. We're declaring where we stand. We're declaring for whom we're
standing. God commands men to bow down
and worship. That's what God commands men
to do. Turn to Isaiah 40. Here's the two-fold message of
evangelism. Here's the two-fold message of
evangelism. This is the message that strips
a man of his glory and gives all the glory to God. You know,
when Isaiah saw the Lord, the Scripture says that he spake
of his glory when he saw the Lord. And this effect, the results
of this kind of preaching, turn to Isaiah 40 and listen. In verse
1, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. God means
for his people to be instructed, to be comforted, to be taught,
to have a foundation on which to stand, to have a reason for
comfort and peace. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned. There's a deliverer coming, there's
a redeemer coming. For she hath received of the
Lord's hands double for all her sins, the voice of him that crieth
in the wilderness. Who is this? John the Baptist. The voice of him that crieth
in the wilderness. You know something? John's location. Where was John? In the wilderness. Why was he in the wilderness?
John's location in the wilderness declares the worthlessness and
emptiness and vainglory of temples and cathedrals and places that
man has constructed and built and erected mostly for man's
glory and comfort rather than glory of God. When God sent his
forerunner, this man coming to comfort and to bring the message
of peace and redemption, He didn't send him to Solomon's Temple.
He didn't send him to some big cathedral. He didn't send him
there to the palace. He sent him in the wilderness,
out there in the empty desert. And God is saying, read on. Have ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall
be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made low, the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it, and the voice said, Cry, and he said, What shall
I cry? The glory of God will be revealed. The redemption of God will be
revealed. The forgiveness of sin will be
manifested. Cry this message. What shall
I cry? Here's the first thing. All flesh
is grass. All the flesh is grass. All the goodliness thereof is
as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth. John's location. He declared
the worthlessness of temples and cathedrals. John's food,
what did he eat? He ate locusts and wild honey.
What did he drink? He drank honey. Where did he
sleep? He slept on the ground. What did he wear? Well, he wore the skin of animals.
God's revealing all of the vanity of our materialism. That's what
God showed. What about John's message? All
the religious leaders, all the folks with their recognizable
uniforms and degrees and credentials, they came out, the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, the Scribes, they all came out. He called them
a generation of vipers. John's baptism. What John's baptism
revealed, there he took people down, here was a river, the river
Jordan, he took people down in that river and they came down
into the river and he put them under the water and brought them
up. His baptism preached, you must die and be buried. You must
die and be buried. Bring nothing of the world with
you. It's a death, it's a burial. It's a resurrection to newness
of life. What about John's audience and
his attitude toward that audience? Well, the king, Herod, came,
and the religious came, and the soldiers came, and the peons
and the peasants came, and his message to all of them was the
same. There was no special provisions
for any. Why, he even turned to the king,
Herod, and said to him, it's not lawful for you to have your
brother's wife. All have got to come to repentance,
the glory of man. Here is God's forerunner, God's
messenger, the last Old Testament prophet. Not preaching in Jerusalem,
not preaching in the temple, not seated with the recognized
religious leaders, not drinking and eating the food that most
people ate and drank. God showing this glory. That's what he's saying here.
He's saying the glory of God is going to be revealed, the
redemptive glory of God. The glory of Christ, the Redeemer,
the forgiveness of sins is going to be revealed, but before it
is, all the glory of man has got to be destroyed. He's got
to die. John brought him. He said, anybody
interested in this, come to the water. And he put him under the
water. I dismiss and relinquish everything. And I come empty,
I come dying to this world, I come buried, I come giving myself
to God. I don't have anything. You can't,
to the grave, you don't take anything, you see. Baptism's
a burial and a resurrection. And when a man is put in the
tomb, in the coffin, you don't put a thing in there with him.
Not a thing. Not a thing. And the results
of this kind of preaching, the results of this kind of preaching,
will be a sense of the exceeding sinfulness of everything about
us, everything connected with us, and the awful presence of
a holy, eternal, sovereign God, and it breaks the proud heart,
and it strips the proud center. Go through the Bible and you'll
find every time that God revealed his glory, that there was a stripping of
the flesh when that glory was revealed. Take Isaiah. He said,
when I saw the Lord, I cried, woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a
man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips. When Daniel saw the Lord, he cried, All my
comeliness melted into corruption when Job saw the Lord. He said, I've heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes see of thee wherefore
I hate myself. I repent in sackcloth and ashes. I've spoken once, twice, I'll
never speak again. Saul of Tarsus, that proud Pharisee. God unhorsed him and blinded
him and brought him into the dust, scratching around there
in the dust. Here is that man, recognizable
by even kings as a brilliant man, prone on the ground. Helpless,
having somebody to lead him about. There is man's glory in the dust. John on the Isle of Patmos, John
the Beloved, John who leaned on the breast of the Son of God
at the Lord's table, John said, I heard his voice, sensed his
presence, and fell like a dead man. Now we can go on if this
is what you prefer. You can go on appealing to this
flesh and catering to this flesh and calling on men to do something
for God and stand up for God and give their lives to God and
make their decisions for Christ and all of that, but I'm telling
you, this is the two-fold message of true evangelism. Down, center,
down. Like old Nahum, when he came
there to the tent of God's prophet, Elisha. And the servant Gehazi
came in, and he said to the prophet of God, he says, there's somebody
out there. I mean, he's somebody. He's got
a caravan you wouldn't believe, and he's got a uniform and medals
and servants and gold and silver and change of arraignment, and
he represents the king of Syria. And he's got, well, the prophet
said, what does he want? Well, he wants to be healed of
his leprosy. Well, the prophet of God said,
you go out there and tell him to go dip in the River Jordan
seven times, and he'll be made whole. And so the servant went
out to that proud general, and he said, my master said that
if you go dip in the River Jordan seven times, you'll be made whole.
Now brethren, that involved a humbling experience. That man was from
Syria. He said, he got angry. He said,
are not the rivers of Syria, Abednon, Pharaoh, aren't they
far superior to Jordan? Well, I'm a king. I mean, I'm
a general. I thought your master should
come out here and speak some words and call on his God. This
is a special occasion. I'm somebody. Before you'll be
made whole, Elisha said, you're going to come down. There'll
be a stripping of your medals, and a stripping of your uniform,
and a stripping of your earthly glory, and a stripping of your
pride, and a humbling of your nature, and you'll go down just
like any old naked common sinner into the waters of death to self
before you come out clean. Gone, if we preach this message,
all flesh is grass and all the glory of man is like the flower
that is here today and withered and gone tomorrow. And if we
declare this message, gone will be the proud voice of the proud
sinner who stands in the church and debates whether or not he'll
patronize the Son of God. Will I let Jesus in my heart?
Will I let God save me? Instead, there will be the cry
of a broken spirit and a contrite heart that says, Depths of mercy,
can there be? Mercy still reserved for me.
Can my God his wrath forbear, and me the chief of sinners there? What is the two-fold message
of Bible evangelism? It's the glory of man is as the
grass of the field. There's nothing to it, there's
nothing in it, and the glory of God, the Word of God, is eternal
and abideth forever. Preachers today, oh, it's sad,
but it's true, they're licensed and ordained by the Church. Men
of old were called and sent of God. There's a difference. Preachers today go forth armed
with degrees and credentials. Men of old went forth anointed
with the Holy Spirit. There's a difference. Preachers
today are hired to preach what the Church believes. Men of old
came preaching, thus saith the Lord. Preachers today preach,
and men moved to membership. Men of old preached, and they
were pricked in their hearts. Preachers today pray, and the
organ plays softly. Elisha prayed in the fire of
God saying, oh, preachers today afraid they're going to offend
somebody. Paul was afraid he wouldn't. Did you know that?
Why, he said, if the offense is gone, then I'm not preaching
the cross. If I don't offend the flesh,
if I don't cripple the flesh, if I don't wound the flesh, then
I'm not preaching the cross. In order to make room for a display
of God's glory in Christ, there must come a withering, a withering
of all flesh in all its glory. Somebody said one time, there
are two things that men must learn. One is a lesson to the
preacher and another to the sinner. Number one, the preacher must
learn that there must come a work of conviction before there will
ever be a work of conversion. The work of judgment precedes
the work of grace. In other words, God always empties
before he fills. Always. In other words, God always
slays before he gives life. God always wounds before he heals. God always strips. He'll take
away from Adam even his last fig leaf. before he'll clothe
him with the skin of the animal, the robe of Christ's righteousness.
God always abases before he exalts, and God will destroy every foundation
of sin before he'll lay the cornerstone of Christ Jesus. And if the preacher
doesn't learn that, he can't preach the gospel. We are ministers of the law and
ministers of the gospel. What does the law do? It wounds,
it breaks, it strips, it humbles, it brings us down. We realize
we sinned and come short of the glory of God. And then God reveals
that Christ obeyed perfectly and restored all that we lost
in the fall. We realize that our sins deserve
the judgment and wrath of God, that hell is not something that
is debatable. Hell is something that we deserve,
that God's just when he condemns, and God's righteous when he separates
men from his presence, that God ought to be angry with the wicked.
And when we see that, we'll see all the mercy of God and the
grace of God in giving us Christ Jesus to bear our sins. When
we realize what our sins deserve, the judgment and wrath of God,
we'll see the grace of God in the death of his Son. But you
don't come to... It's like I was talking to a
preacher on the telephone yesterday. I said, what are you preaching
on tomorrow? He said, I'm preaching on the subject which of them
will love him most. I said, what are you doing? Using
that scripture of the harlot that came to his feet? He said,
that's right. He said, Christ, do you remember, was in that
religious man's home, that Pharisee's home, and he was eating? And
that woman came in off the streets and began to bathe his feet with
tears and drive them with the hair of her head and then kissed
his feet. And the religious man was offended.
And Christ said to him, he said, Simon, I've got something to
ask you. He said, suppose a man owed a fellow a whole lot of
money, and he forgave him. And another man owed him a very
little amount, and he forgave him. Which of them is going to
love him the most? He said, well, the one to whom he forgave the most. He said, that's right. I came
in your home, and you didn't give me a kiss at the door. You
didn't give me any oil for my head, to anoint my head. You
didn't give me any water to wash my feet. This woman, since I
came in, has not ceased to wash my feet with tears and dry them
with the hair of her head and kiss He said, her sins, which
are many, are forgiven. Do you see what Christ is saying? This woman was nothing. She had
nothing. She was the dirt of society. She was the dust under people's
feet. And yet, our Lord forgave her. There was a basis for the demonstration
of grace. There was a basis for the revelation
of grace. In her heart, Christ could become
everything because it was empty. In her life, Christ could become
everything because there was nobody, no rival in her life
for Christ. Her only interest was mercy. And then that brings me to the
second thing. Sinners must learn that they bring nothing to Christ.
You bring nothing to Christ. You bring nothing but empty hands. Now I may surprise you, but this
is true. And I know, like the man wrote
me last week, he said, you confuse me, I don't understand your preaching.
Well, that's alright, I can't help it. A natural man does not
understand the things of God. Now here's what people want preachers
to preach so that they can understand. I want to preach so that men
can be saved. I don't want to preach so that
natural men can understand and figure out a program or a plan
or a way to heaven. I want men to know what God is
saying and then cry to God, Lord, show me what you mean. Show me
what you say. But now, I ask God for mercy.
Do you ask God for mercy? I ask God for peace. But instead
of peace, I'm bowed down under a greater sense of God's wrath. Is this the answer to my prayer?
Yes, sir. It sure is. I don't understand. What do you
mean? I prayed for God to deliver me from my sin and he revealed
more of it. Is this an answer to my prayer?
Yes, sir. It sure is. But what I want for it is peace.
I don't want to see more of my iniquity and more of my evil
and more of my wickedness. You're not going to come to a
full love for Christ, to like that woman you see, you're the
worst woman on the block. You got to get down. And that's
the way God brings you down. Now if you just want a little
bit of it, a little insight, If you just want a little glimpse
of the worthiness of Christ, then you look through the eyes
of the Pharisee. He just owed a little. If you
just want a little glimpse of the mercy of God in the death
of his son, then you look at it through the eye of one of
these religious leaders, or your own eyes, like the shape you're
in right now. But if you really want to see, if you really want
to see, for revelation of His mercy. You're going to have to see it
from down here in the bottom. You have to be brought all the
way down. All the way down. I prayed, Lord, heal me, but
He wounded me even more. Is that an answer to my prayer?
He's answering your prayer. I prayed, Lord, clothe me. What
does He do? He strips me a little more. He
reveals a little more of my nakedness, more of my nakedness, more of
my sinfulness. Is this the answer to my prayer?
That's exactly what He's given you. I pray, Lord, wash me, wash
me, cleanse me, but He plunges me deeper into the ditch. Is
that an answer to my prayer? Yes, sir. It's one thing to wash your hands. But it's another thing to be
so dirty and so filthy that you stand outside the door of the
house and say to your wife, I can't come in till I get a shower,
till I'm washed all over. I'm too filthy to associate with
folks. I'm too filthy to be even a part
of the family circle. I'm too filthy to even walk in
the living room. I need to be bathed. I better go to Crete
and wash. You see what I'm saying? They must be brought home to
us, the total sinners of death. You know who appreciates mercy
most? The man who's in jail for 30
days, or the fellow that's sitting there in the dungeon under the
shadow of the gallows. Huh? Huh? You know who. You go into these folks that
are just in jail for about 30 days or two months, and you say,
unlock the door and say, I'll set you free! Well, but you're
blind. But you go to that man who's under judgment, and the
sentence of death, and the shadow of the gallows is over his bunk,
and he's lived with it day in and day out, and day in and day
out, and he hasn't got a friend in the world, hasn't got an outside
contact, and hasn't got any relatives or friends or any hope or any
plea, and you walk in and say, I'm setting you free, boy, he'll
kiss your feet. He'll kiss your feet. He's liable
to go home with you to stay. He's not liable just to do that.
So this is the message, and this is the missing note. There's
nobody made to feel naked today. There's nobody made to feel wretched
today. There's nobody made to feel guilty
today. There's nobody brought low today.
There's nobody declared they must be stripped. and broken
and humble and contrite before a sovereign God who can show
mercy to whom He will. And that by the death of His
Son, that God's justice, His holy justice in regard to your
sins has got to be satisfied. And the only thing in regard
to your sins that can satisfy God's holy justice is the very
death of His most beloved one, His Son. The only way God can
save me from eternal hell is to send His Son to the cross.
That's the only way. That's how bad I am. That's how
rotten we are. What's the two-fold message of
evangelism? I'll tell you what it is. It's
all flesh is grass. Everything connected with it,
associated with it, identified with it is grass. It's the flower
of the field. It's got to be withered. It's
got to be blown upon by the Spirit of God, and become as nothing. Fly away
in the glory of God. Thinking about Brother Roth,
I'll tell you a story he told me one time. This is a true story. He was in the seminary. Roth
was converted when he had finished college, Hardin Simmons University. God saved him, and he went to
the seminary to study to be a preacher. And while he was there, he met
a man named Foster, Brother Bill Foster, W.A. Foster he called
him. And he said Brother Foster was
39 years old when he was converted, never had finished high school.
He was 39 years old when God saved him. And he went to a little
Baptist church, and he showed some evidence of being able to
preach after some time. And so he finished high school
through a correspondence course. He felt like he needed to get
some high school, so he finished high school through a correspondence
course. And he felt like he ought to
go to college, so he went to a Baptist college and got him
a degree. By that time, he was about 45. And then he felt like he ought
to go to seminary. This was his idea, as most preachers'
ideas are, that they need to do these things, and so he started
a seminary with Roth. And there he had been, 39 years
old, converted. He had a family, a wife and children,
and they skimped and saved and lived on beans, almost nothing
for these five years. And he's in the seminary. He's
46, I believe, years old. I believe at that time, 47. He
was a classmate of Brother Barnard. One day he got chest pains. And
so he went to the doctor, and the doctor examined him. This
was years ago. The doctor examined him, and
he said, I don't want you to to go by what I tell you, but
he said, my friend, he said, you're a very, very sick man. You don't know, it's just not,
I'm not able to tell you just how sick you are. He said, I
just don't see how you can, you can live but a few months. He
said, I don't take my word. I want you, I'll give you the
name of another physician and you go there and you consult
him. And I want you to do it. So Foster was upset, terribly
upset. So he went to another doctor,
Roth said, and the other doctor examined him and brought in some
more opinions, and finally they sat him down. And they said,
the man's right. He said, you just can't make
it. So he said he went home. He told
Roth later, he said, Brother Roth, he said, I got to where
I couldn't pray. He said I couldn't sing. He pastored a little country
church, two country churches, go one one Sunday and the next.
So he said I got to where I couldn't preach, I couldn't study. He
said I was bitter, found fault with God's providence. He said
God what? My wife and I, I had a good job
when I was saved. I quit that job, went to school. We raised our children on nothing
just so I could be a preacher, so I could equip and prepare
myself to preach your gospel. I don't understand that. I don't
understand that. And he said he couldn't sleep.
He told me he couldn't sleep. And he said, at night, I'd get
up. We lived out in the country, next door to this little old
church out there. We were out in the country and
had a hill behind the church and had a little stream. He said,
I'd go down there at night and I'd just stand there and stare
into the dark sky. And he said, my soul was so vexed
and troubled. And he said, one night, Ralph,
he said, I left the house midnight, one o'clock in the morning, two
o'clock, couldn't sleep. And he said, I walked down that
hill, and I walked beside that little stream. And he said, I
looked up into heaven. And he said, the Spirit of God
seemed to say to me, see those stars? Long after they've ceased
to twinkle, you're going to shine in the kingdom of God forever.
And he said, I looked down at that little stream and it's flowing
under my feet. And he said, the Spirit of God
seemed to say, you see that little stream that ripples over the
rocks and into the creek and into the river and then into
the sea and back up into heaven long after that little stream
has ceased to flow. You're going to be standing by
the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of
God. What do you care for these things down here? Why do you
care? Why do you set your affections
on these things? The important thing is to know
Christ and you know Him. To go to be with the Lord, and
that's where you're headed. We've got to be stripped. I don't
know how long it'll take God to do it, but we've got to learn
this message, two-fold message. And we're not going to learn
the second part until we learn the first part. All flesh is
grass. And all the goodliness of the
flesh is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth and
the flower fadeth because the Spirit of God blows on it. The Spirit of God reveals to
us the vanity. Solomon went through all this,
everything, and when he got to the end, he said, Vanity! Vanity! Vanity! Always vanity! But the Word of God endures forever. This is it, and this is the Word
of the Gospel that's preached to you. It's the Word of promise. It's the Word of certainty. It's
the infallible, inerrant, verbally inspired word. It's God's promise. And Abraham, listen to me, Abraham
believed God, that he was able to do what he said. And as a
consequence of that, he's willing to leave his country, and his
home, and his family, and his father, and his mother, and his
friends, and his job, and wander in the wilderness, never having
a city to dwell in, because he looked for a city. which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Turn it loose. Turn it loose and see the glory
of Christ. But now let me tell you, let
me warn you. If you say, Lord, forgive me of my sins, He'll
do this first. He'll show you, give you a better
glimpse of it. He'll do it. If you say, Lord,
heal me, I'll tell you what He'll do first. He'll wound you. If
you say, Lord, clothe me, He'll strip you. I don't know how far
down we have to be brought, but I just know we have to be brought
down from where we are. If you say, Lord, I want to see
your glory, I tell you what he'll do. He'll show you what yours
is first. Your strength and beauty and
wisdom and intellect and all these things, that's what he does first. Our
Father in heaven, make this message to be our message, not just the
one we preach, but the one we hear. Oh, to behold. Lord, show me your glory. Show
me your glory. The glory of your grace, the
glory of your mercy, the glory of your dear Son. Help us to
turn loose of these things that have meant so much. Gain to us
must become loss. Those things in which we put
so much stock and emphasis must become rubbish that we may win
Christ and be found in Him. Do a work of grace in our hearts,
permanent grace, effectual grace, eternal grace. Reveal Christ
in His glory. For His sake we pray. Amen.