Recovering the Gospel

I want you to turn in your Bibles
to the Book of 2 Chronicles, Chapter 34. Now, young King Josiah began
to reign over Israel when he was 8 years old. And in the 18th year of his reign,
he was about 26 years old. He began to rebuild the temple
of the Lord. It's amazing. It's unbelievable,
the depths of sin and depravity and wretchedness to which Israel
had sunk. They had forsaken the Passover,
the feast. They had forsaken the temple. The temple was in ruins, just
total ruins, dust and dirt and cobwebs everywhere. They weren't
even using the temple. They had rebuilt the groves and
were worshiping idols. And every man doing that which
was right in his own eyes. The kingdom of Israel had sunk
to its lowest state. But this young king, 26 years
old, began to repair the temple of the Lord, the house of God,
and drove out the evil priest and burned their bones on their
own wicked altars. And while they were cleaning
out the temple, they found the Word of God. They found a copy
of Moses' writings, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. They found the writings of Moses.
And the priest dusted it off and brought it to the king. Now
I want you to read, beginning with verse 18. Then Shaphan,
2 Chronicles 34, 18, the scribe, told the king, saying, Hilkiah
the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the
king. They found the Bible, they found
God's Word. The king had never read it, he'd
never heard it. And it came to pass when the king had heard
the words of the law, he rent his clothes. And the king commanded
Hilkiah and Ahicham, the son of Shaphan, and Abdon, the son
of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Isaiah, the servant of the
king, saying, Go and inquire of the Lord for me, and for them
that are left in Israel. and in Judah concerning the words
of the book that is found. For great is the wrath of the
Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have
not kept the word of the Lord to do after all that is written
in this book. Now, the most humbling and challenging
thing that we face in 1976, and the great concern of our hearts
ought to be to experience that our generation experienced, that
this church and this city and this state and this nation and
our world experienced just what Israel experienced under Josiah,
a recovery of the gospel, a recovery of the gospel. Now, a message
like I'm bringing this morning is not easy to preach because
it's easily misunderstood. But I want you to think with
me a little while. King Josiah, Shaphan the priest,
Hilkiah, found the book, and they dusted it off, and they
brought it up to the king's palace and read it to him. And he said,
This is not what's been preached. This is not what I've been taught.
And he rent his clothes, and he told the priest, Go seek the
Lord for us, because our fathers have not taught us this book.
Go see if God will show mercy to us and allow us his grace
to return to the true gospel, to the true word of God. Now,
I'm convinced that what men today call the gospel, what I hear
preached and what I hear on television, what I hear on the radio, I'm
convinced it's not the gospel at all. I'm convinced that we, at least
a small beginning, somewhere, some small voice, some preacher,
begin to open the book and once again preach the gospel. Now, I'm going to give you five
things, and I want you to think on these five things. Will you
do that with me? Consider them carefully. I've
been thinking about this now for some time. Here are five
things. The first one is this. Today's
gospel which we hear, which we read. Today's gospel emphasizes
what men should do for God and not what God must do for men. Now that's right. Men today plead
with sinners to do something for God. That's the message today. That's what you hear. Won't you
please do something for God? Won't you please accept Jesus? Won't you please do something
for God Almighty, for Jesus Christ? The men of the Bible pleaded
with God to do something for us. The publican in the temple cried,
Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. The leper cried, Lord, if you
will, you can make me clean. The thief on the cross cried,
Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Paul prayed
for his friend, O Neciphorus, I pray that he might find mercy
and his house might find mercy of the Lord. Men today say, I accepted Jesus. Paul said, I obtained mercy.
Do you see the difference? Men today talk about their religious
experience and they say, now I accepted Jesus on such and
such a day at such and such an hour under such and such a preacher.
I accepted Jesus. Paul said, I, a persecutor, a
blasphemer, injurious, I obtained mercy. Paul doesn't talk about
what he did for Christ. He talks about what Christ did
for him. Men today say, I made a decision
for Jesus, and in a sense we did. We received Christ, we believed
Christ, we trusted Christ, we came to Christ, we sought the
Lord, but my friends, here is the background. Whom he foreknew,
he predestinated. Whom he predestinated, he called. Whom he called, he justified. Whom he justified, he glorified. We love him, John said, because
he first loved us. We call upon him because he in
grace and mercy called us out of darkness into his marvelous
light. Brethren, I think our eyes need
to be turned away from our congregations and away from the people of this
world, pleading with them and crying unto them and praying
with them to do something for themselves and do something for
God. And our eyes need to be lifted
to heaven, and we need to cry out of our desperation and our
depravity and cry, Lord, do something for us. do something for us. The gospel
is not what we do for God, it's what God does for us. Now I'm
not asking you to listen to preaching with a critical ear, but you
ought to listen to it with a concerned ear. Our Lord not only told the disciples
to take heed what they preach, but he told people to take heed
what they hear. I don't think we have to, like
a big mouth bass, receive everything that comes into our path called
religion. I think we ought to be selective.
The Bereans heard Paul preach, and they went home and searched
the Scriptures to see if that fellow was telling the truth.
That's what the Scripture says. They searched the Scriptures
to see if these things be so. And I'm finding, as I listen
to the preachers of this day, what they're saying is not so. Let us come boldly before the
throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. Preachers today have made
a beggar out of the Son of God. He's not a beggar. You're the
beggar. I'm the beggar. He's not the
beggar. And I say that they've deserted
and forsaken this precious book. And they're emphasizing today
to congregations what the people ought to do for God, and that's
not the message at all. The message is, Lord, be merciful
to me, a sinner. God needs to do something for
me, desperately. God needs to do something for
you. And we'll spend, I'll tell you, when we realize that, When
we see that, when we become concerned about that, we'll spend more
time in prayer, we'll spend more time seeking the Lord, we'll
spend more time crying at the throne of mercy, Lord do something
for us, do something for me, if you will, you can make me
clean. Now secondly, now think with
me, the second thing is this, today's
gospel, what they call the gospel. Paul said it's not another gospel,
it's a perversion of the gospel. But today's preaching emphasizes
heaven and hell, not God and sin. Men are made conscious of
heaven and hell, a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. I'll
meet you in the morning. Tell mother I'll be there when
we all get to heaven. Paul's desire was what? to win
Christ and be found in Him. The message from most pulpits
is, wouldn't you like to go to heaven when you die? Paul's message
was, oh, that I might know Him. Would you like to know Christ?
How long has it been since you've heard from the average pulpit
a message on that subject? To know Him and the power of
His resurrection, to know Christ, whom to know is eternal life.
We sing songs, when we all get to heaven, when the roll is called
up yonder, I'll be there. Paul said, I have a desire to
depart and be with Christ, which is far better. His heaven was
Christ. His heaven was not streets of
gold and gates of jasper and precious stone. His heaven was
Christ. His life was Christ. His heaven
was Christ. Congregations today are drenched,
and I'll tell you this, I don't like this film, The Burning Hell,
and it wouldn't show it in this congregation for all the money
in Fort Knox. Congregations are drenched with
the terror of judgment and the terror of hell. They're made
to fear hell. People devise ways to escape
hell, and they show pictures like The Burning Hell and have
50 folks down at the front. because they don't want to go
to hell, and no intelligent thinking individual would want to go to
such a place. But men of old were not concerned
about hell, they were concerned about sin. They were concerned
about sin. David cried, Ã¬Not hell is ever
before me, but my sins are ever before me. Can you see the difference? Has God given me and you enough
wisdom to see the difference? My sins are ever before me. Against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.
O God, create within me a clean heart. Renew within me a right
spirit. Blessed is the man to whom God
will not charge sin. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. My sins, O the bliss of that
glorious thought, my sins, not in part but the whole. are nailed
to the cross and I bear them no more. Praise the Lord, it's
well with my soul. There can be no repentance till
there's a consciousness of sin. When Paul spoke to the elders
from Ephesus in Acts 20, 21 and summed up his message for them,
he said, I have kept back nothing profitable unto you. I have not
shunned and declared unto you the whole counsel of God. I have
preached unto you Two things, not heaven and hell, but repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He summed up his
message. He said, this has been my message,
repentance toward God. And there can be no repentance
toward God where there's no consciousness of sin. There can be no faith
in Christ till sin is made real. You cannot give a man a title
to heaven without a union with Christ. Do you see that? You
cannot give a man the promise of heaven. Christ said, I'm the
way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. No man cometh under the Father
but by me. Turn to Ephesians chapter 1.
Let me show you something here. In Ephesians chapter 1 beginning
with verse 7 and reading through verse 12. Ephesians 1, 7-12,
in whom we have redemption, through his blood the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath
abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure
which he has purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the
fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even
in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to
the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ." That is heaven. It's in Christ. It's in a union
with Christ. It's in the presence of Christ,
in the power of Christ, in the work of Christ. Christ is the
Bible. Christ is salvation. Christ is
eternal life. Christ is heaven. You can't give
a man a title to heaven except in union with Christ. And if
he has Christ, he has heaven. If he has deliverance from sin,
he has deliverance from the penalty of sin. and from the power of
sin, and from the practice of sin. So our message ought to
be, not would you like to gain heaven, but would you like to
know Christ. Not would you like to miss hell,
but is the concern and desire of your heart to be forgiven
of your sin. That's our message, Paul said,
repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
thirdly, today's gospel, and I say it's another gospel or
a perversion of the gospel of Christ. Today's gospel is a message
to the head and not to the heart. We know what we believe, don't
we? I know what I believe. Paul knew,
he said, whom he believed. Can you see the difference? The
disciples were called Christians because they loved Christ, because
they believed Christ, because they knew Christ, because they
followed Christ. They were called C-H-R-I-S-T,
Christ, Christians. Today we are called Lutherans,
Baptists, Calvinists, Wesleyans, because we have a mental concept
of what these men taught, and we are persuaded that they were
accurate and right. We believe what they have taught,
and we are identified by what they taught. We know what we
believe. Paul said, I know whom I have to name. Our heads today
are full of doctrine, they are full of creeds, they are full
of religious information. The religious world today, they
know what they believe, they know where they stand, they know
their denominational preference and persuasion. Our heads are
full of information, and our hearts are empty of love and
grace and affection and compassion and a knowledge of Christ. Our
Lord summed that up In this way, he said, you call me Lord with
your lips, but your hearts are far from me. We believe in the
sovereignty of God. Noah moved with fear. Can you see the difference? We
believe in the sovereignty of God. We believe in the power
of God. We believe in the authority of
God. We believe in the universal kingdom of God. Noah moved with
fear. We believe it up here. Noah down
here. We believe in the fall of man.
Yes, sir, I believe in the garden. When Adam took the fruit, he
fell and he died and we died in him. Paul cried, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? We believe in the atonement. We have our accurate descriptions
of the extent of it, the power of it, the efficacy of it. Thomas reached out and touched
those wounds and cried on his knees, My Lord and my God. You see what I'm saying? We believe
in the resurrection. What do you believe about life
after death? People are always writing and asking me questions.
Will we know each other up there? Will we retain our identity?
We believe in the resurrection, the disciples walked with the
risen Lord. Preachers today go forth, ordained
by the Church, men of old went forth, sent of God. Everybody wants to be a preacher
now and get his authority from the Church and be ordained by
the Church and sent out by the Church and sanctioned by the
Church. Men of old went out anointed, ordained, sent of God with a
burning message on their hearts. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John. We have in this town and all
over the United States multiplied thousands of preachers ordained
by the Church. How many prophets do we have
whom you believe have been raised up by God for our day and given
a message? Preachers go forth today armed
with degrees and credentials. The disciples went forth in the
power of the Holy Spirit. There's a church down in Louisiana
without a pastor right now, in a town where I recently held
a meeting. They're going to call a pastor, but they have two requirements. Number one, he must not be over
45 years of age. Number two, he must be a graduate
of the seminary with three degrees. Preachers go forth today armed
with their degrees and their credentials, and the disciples
went forth endued, anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Ye shall be my witnesses, Christ, and ye shall be endued with power
after the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Preachers today are hired,
that's right, they're hired to preach what the churches want
to hear. And if they don't preach what
the people want to hear, they shall be fired as quickly as
they were hired. But prophets of old were sent
to rebuke and reprove and exhort with all longsuffering. Paul
said in the text I read a few moments ago, if I please men,
even myself, I'm not the servant of Christ. Not only if I preach what you
want to hear, but if I preach what I want to hear. Preachers today give themselves
to programs and visitations and promotion and committee meetings
and community activities and business. They give themselves
to these things. The disciples gave themselves
to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Is that not right? When preachers today preach,
men are persuaded in their heads and transfer their membership.
When Peter preached, they were pricked in their hearts and cried,
Men and brethren, what shall we do? When preachers today pray, the
organ plays softly. When Elijah prayed, the fire
of God fell. We are so afraid, preachers today
are so afraid. They move in fear and trembling.
They're so fearful that they're going to offend someone, and
Paul was scared to death that he wouldn't. That's right. He said, if I please men, if
I preach circumcision, the offense of the cross is ceased. He called
his message the offense of the cross. We're so afraid someone's
going to leave the Church, someone's going to quit. Aren't we? That's the average preacher and
the average congregation, the average deacon. They're so afraid,
they walk on eggshells. Don't hurt anybody's feelings,
they might quit. One day our Lord turned to his
twelve faithful apostles and invited them to quit if they
wanted to. He said, will you also go away?
You're welcome to leave. And they said, Lord, to whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Is that not correct? I know it doesn't please this
flesh. I know that that kind of talk
and that kind of preaching does not pacify the flesh, but let's
get us a Bible and blow the dust off of it and open it up. And
like King Josiah, we might find out that somebody, as Barnard
used to say, has thrown us a curve, and we have taken it and been
called out. But I'm not willing to accept
what I've heard. I want to hear what God says.
I want to dust off this old book and find out what it says. And
if it's offensive, let it be offensive. I do know this, I
know the atonement offends man's pride, does it not? Man wants
to do something for his salvation instead of trusting Christ to
do it all. I know that Holy Spirit revelation
offends man's wisdom. You talk to these educated intellectuals
of our day and tell them as you read the Bible, without the Holy
Spirit's aid, you can't understand that. The Word of God is a mystery. It must be revealed. You may
understand your books of science and your books of mathematics
and your other books, but you can't understand this book unless
God teaches you. And that's offensive. That's
offensive to man's natural wisdom. He figures because he's above
his equals in the world of carnality, that he ought to be above everybody
else in the world of spirituality. But God says he that's least
in the kingdom of God is greatest. It's a reversal. He that is most knowledgeable
and talented and gifted is first in the world of materialism.
In the world of spirituality, he that's most talented and knowledgeable
and gifted is supposed to be the least. Huh? The Lord is known to them of
a broken heart. The Lord saveth such as be of
a broken spirit and a contrite heart. Pride goeth before destruction
and a haughty spirit before the fall, whether it's natural pride
or spiritual pride, whether it's pride of face or pride of race
or pride of place or pride of grace. God hates it. Number one on the list of seven
things God despises is human pride. We're preaching to the head,
we're appealing to the head, we're appealing, oh brother,
we ought to be so glad if somebody real important and somebody real,
real powerful graces God's little church with his presence. He said, James said, if one comes
in wearing a gold ring and fine apparel, don't you bring him,
escort him down to the seat of honor and the seat of prominence? You let him sit somewhere else.
If somebody comes in in rags, poverty-stricken, in need, escort
him down to the place of prominence. Paul preached to Lydia, and God
opened her heart. I don't want to preach to men
and have my wisdom and intellect and knowledge open their heads
and have them transfer their membership and change their denomination
and come and grace God's little group with their presence. I
want to preach and have the Spirit of God open somebody's heart
and just break it and smash it and humble it and bring it down
in the dust until that sinner, be he high or low, be he old
or young, until that sinner begins to besiege the throne of grace
and cry for mercy. Oh God be merciful. If somebody
would leave our congregation not thinking about what a great
message they've heard and begin thinking about what a great Lord
that they've listened to. leave our congregation not deciding
whether or not they'll unite with us, but whether or not God
might be pleased to show mercy to them, and let them have a
little fellowship with God's people. Don't you go off and debate whether
or not you'll join this church. I tell you what you'd better
do is go and cry before the Lord and ask him if he'd let you be
a member of his congregation. Lord, you reckon you'd condemn
sin. You reckon somewhere in that
group of people there might be a place for me. You reckon I
might sit at your table, Lord, and feast on the good things?
You reckon an old tramp like me, an old hobo, you reckon an
old beggar from the dunghill might be enabled of the Spirit
of God to sit with the sons of God? We've got it so backwards in
this day. I want you deacons to go out and visit the mayor
now. He just might join up with us. Or go out and visit with
the fellow that owns that store down there. He'd be a good giver.
Now, he sure would be a good giver, and we could use some
good givers. I'd love to have some good receivers.
That's right, somebody with a hungry heart, somebody with empty hands,
somebody who'd love to hear from the Lord. I'd love to have some
folks come in here that wasn't going to bring a thing, but some
folks who'd take something away. You see the difference? Ain't
many folks do, because not many folks got any spiritual wisdom.
They conduct the house of God just like they do their business.
But this is not a place of business, it's a place of faith. The fourth
thing, today's gospel, today's preaching, which is not the gospel,
calls on men to stand up and be counted. Stand up for Jesus. Stand up and be counted. This
book calls on men to bow down in worship. Down, center, down. One great old evangelist of past
days said this in his white-haired years, the two-fold message of
true evangelism is, all flesh is grass, And behold, you're
God. That's it. The twofold message
of true evangelism is all flesh is grass. And behold, you're
God. Paul said, God has committed
to my trust the gospel of his glory. not the Baptist glory,
the glory of the denomination, not the glory of the Puritans,
the glory of God. Brethren, the results of the
preaching of God's glory, the results of the preaching, listen
to me, the results of the preaching of God's grace to helpless sinners,
will be a sense of the awful presence of the Lord. breaking
the hearts of sinners and bringing them trembling to the feet of
Christ and crying for mercy. When Isaiah saw the Lord, he
cried, Woe is me! He saw the glory of the Lord.
And that's what we're trying to accomplish in our preaching.
We're trying to preach the gospel of his glory. And if men see, as we preach,
the glory of the Lord, they're going to cry like Isaiah, Woe
is me! I'm a man of unclean lips. Job saw the glory of the Lord. He said, I've heard about you
now, I see, I see! He that seeth the Son and believeth
on him. You can't believe on him until
you see him. And I'm not talking about with these eyes. You see
him in his word. You see him in his gospel. You
see him in his message. And he said, I've seen the Lord,
therefore I hate myself. If we preach the gospel of his
glory, if the Holy Spirit of God is pleased to visit us one
more time, if we preach the gospel of his glory, now watch it, Gone,
gone, gone will be the voice of the proud sinner who stands
back there in the congregation and debates whether or not he'll
let God save him, who debates whether or not he'll patronize
and recognize the Son of God. Think about it. Gone will be
the proud, the voice of the proud sinner who hears the preacher
preach and stands back there and debates whether or not he'll
recognize King Jesus who's knocking at his door. Shall I let him
in or bid him to be gone? Instead, we just might hear the
heartbreaking sob of some object of God's grace crying, depths
of mercy, can there be? Mercy still reserved for me. Can my God, his wrath forbear,
and me, the chief of sinners, spare? I may be a fifth wheel in this
generation, but when I'm preaching, that's what I'm expecting. That's
what I'm looking for. That's what I'm praying for. Old Jonah came down to Nineveh
and he laid them out. And that old king of Nineveh
went aside and said, Let's put on sackcloth and ashes. Who can
tell? Who can tell? God just might
repent of the wrath he has determined to show this city, and he might
show mercy. Who can tell? But when we get
through preaching in this day, That sinner stands back there
in the back, and you have to send somebody after him. And
they come back there and they begin to reason and argue and
beg and persuade. Won't you let Jesus, won't you
trust, won't you accept Jesus, won't you go down the aisle,
won't you join the church? You ought to before it's too
late. And he stands there. He likes all that attention.
He likes those folks gathering around him and begging him, pleading
with him. I'll tell you, if we preach the
gospel, if the gospel of God's glory, if God's pleased to visit
his house, and he hasn't many times lately, but if he's pleased
in the message, in the gospel, to come down among us, it's going
to be the heart-breaking sob of sinners, crying, Can there be mercy reserved for
me? The glory of the church used
to be the presence of the Lord. That's right. Paul said they'll
come in, they'll come in and they'll fall on their faces and
say, God is here! God is here. Now the glory of the Church is
the size of the building. Now the glory of the Church is
the number in Sunday school. The glory of the Church is how
many members they have. You tell somebody you had a special
meeting, I guarantee you the next question they ask you is
this. How many decisions did you have? How many? Two preachers
will meet and shake hands when I'm going to say, How many of
you are in Sunday School Sunday? The glory of the Church used
to be, Greetings, my brother. Was the Lord with you in your
services yesterday? But the glory of the Lord has
departed. And over all of these, what they
call churches and synagogues today, you can write one horrible
black word, Ichabod. The glory has departed. And today
we'll give away candy bars and bicycles and footballs and anything
in the world to get people to come to God's house so we can
break our record of last year. It may be too late, I don't know,
it may not be too late. And the fifth thing in closing,
and I want you to listen carefully to this, today's gospel, today's
preaching, it's not the gospel, but today's preaching emphasizes
the security of the professor rather than the perseverance
of the Saints. Now, I know this is so. I see
it going on around about me, and I don't laugh about it, I
cry over it, because it's the poor people who are being made
merchandise of, the religious hucksters, in the name of religion,
in the name of God, are making fools out of people. But the
Church schedules what they call a revival meeting. They advertise
it. They bring in a showman singer
or a bunch of quartets or trios or something like that. They
bring in a specialist preacher. He's got his messages all cut
and dried. He's preached them a half a dozen
other places in the same order. He's got his jokes and his stories
and his methods and his high-pressure invitations. And dozens of people
walk the aisle and join the Church. Gallons of ink, hours of argument,
volumes of books are wasted trying to prove that these people are
saved. And although they rarely ever come back to worship, and
although they rarely ever pray or rarely ever seek the Lord, they tell me that they will be
in heaven when they die. And those people who believe
that they backslide They have the same kind of revivals. They
have the same kind of show. They have the same kind of owl-pulling
pressure. And Hollywood evangelism. They
get people down the aisle and call them saved, too, but then
they go out and don't come back to the house of God, and they
say, well, they backslid and they lost, and you know where
they solved their problem? They just have another revival
and get them down to the altar and get them saved again and
again and again and again. There's no difference. One group gets them saved once
and says they're secure, the other one says they're saved
and they backslide, but no problem, we'll get them saved again, and
again, and again, and again. The scriptures teach neither
position. The scriptures teach that those who, by the power
of the Holy Spirit, under the preaching of the Word of God,
are made conscious of their sins and broken before God because
of their and brought to see Christ as their Redeemer, as their Savior,
as their Substitute, and they're brought to embrace Him to sell
out, to sell all, and buy that field and possess that pearl. They embrace Him with a broken
heart, they embrace Him with a willing heart, they embrace
Him with a loving heart, and they are progressively sanctified,
and they grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ,
and they cling to Him until someday they are conformed to Him. And neither height, nor depth,
nor width, nor breadth, nor length, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor angels, nor any other creature can separate
them from the love of God. You can't run them off, you can't
drive them off, you can't pay them off. They're his sheep. They were given him by the Father,
and he loves them, and they love him. And he says, they'll not
depart from me, and I'll not depart from them. And like Ruth,
when they've lost everything they've got, they cling to the
skirts of Christ and they say, Entreat me not to leave thee.
Entreat me not to leave thee. Thy people shall be my people.
Thy God shall be my God. Thy home shall be my home. Thy
land shall be my land. Thy friend shall be my friend.
Christ is my life. You see the difference? I don't
know. I wish in some of these places
somebody, somebody, somewhere, like Hillcower would find the
book and dust it off and bring it to the pastor and say, Preacher,
look here, look here what God says. You fellas hadn't been
telling us what God says. and the preacher to rent his
clothes and go to his study and cry unto God, Lord, bathe me
with power, I can't function without Holy Spirit unction.
Give me a message and give me a people that want to hear it. In 1976, in this day of apostasy
and heresy and another gospel and perversion of religion more
than ever before, somebody wants to hear that message. Our Father,
bless the word. It's thy word we want thee to
bless, not our words. O God, may we return to the gospel. May we experience in our day
a recovery of the gospel. Lord, speak to our generation,
speak to our young people. Lord, it's not I found it, it's
he found me. He found me. to discover under
us the subtlety of Satan, oh, how crafty he is, to take some
truth, a little truth, and pervert it and lead whole generations
to damnation. Lord, give us spiritual understanding,
wisdom. Give us the courage and the boldness
and the faith to walk with Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.

Recovering the Gospel

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Recovering the Gospel

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