My subject this morning is, there
is much rubbish. There is much rubbish. In Nehemiah chapter 4, verse
10, the last part of that verse says, and there is much rubbish,
so that we're not able to build a wall. There is so much rubbish, we're
not able to build a wall. Jerusalem had been destroyed
by Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonians had left such
destruction that when the people of Israel came to rebuild the
wall around Jerusalem, They found such complete ruin, such total
devastation, that they could not rebuild the wall because
of the rubbish. That's what they're saying here.
There is much rubbish. There's so much rubbish that
we're not able to build a wall. In order to build a wall, the
rubbish had to be cleared away. A foundation could not be laid.
And a wall could not be built until the rubbish had been cleared
away, recognized, shoveled up, and carted off. Now there is so much rubbish
in religion today that a true message cannot be preached, and
a true foundation cannot be laid. It is impossible. We cannot build
a wall of security and a wall of hope on the rubbish that is
about us in religious circles. It's got to be recognized, it's
got to be dealt with, it's got to be hauled away. And it's not
popular. Martin Luther once said there
are front lines in this spiritual war. There are front lines in
this spiritual war. There's a place where the kingdom
of Jesus Christ is being challenged. There's a place where the kingdom
of Jesus Christ is being attacked. There's a point of attack that
is most important to our Lord's glory and to our Lord's honor. There's a point of attack that
is most important to the sinner's relationship with God. Find out
where it is. and go out and engage the enemy. I believe I know where it is. I believe after twenty some odd
years in the ministry I believe after trying to go up and down
the country and even across the ocean, I've preached in a lot
of places, in a lot of churches, I've preached in a lot of countries.
After pastoring a church and dealing with the public for over
twenty-five years, I believe I know what's wrong. I can recognize
the rubbish when I see it. And there's so much rubbish today
in religion that a true message can't be preached, and if it
is preached, it's not even recognized. And a true wall, a fortress,
a wall of defense, a wall of hope cannot be built. Satan has
sidetracked this religious generation and confused it with the rubbish
of religion. Now, I want to point out three
things that I think are our major problems, our problem areas. I want to deal with three things
that I believe confront us today if we're going to build a secure
and solid wall, a wall of hope and a wall of refuge. The first
one is this. In religious circles today, And
I'm talking about 99% of today's religion, whether it's Baptist
or Methodist or Presbyterian or Catholic or whatever. I listened
to the Baptist hour this morning on the radio, and Baptists are
just as guilty as anybody else. The first area in which we've
got trouble, the first area in which there's so much rubbish,
is this. The holy law of God, the holy
law of God, which is the character of God and the holiness of God
and the righteousness of God, that holy law of God has been
whittled down It has been cut down to outward conformity alone. Now you turn with me to Matthew
23. In the 23rd chapter of Matthew,
our Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to the religious leaders of His
day. And He is accusing them of this
very thing, of whittling down His holy law to suit their purposes. they whittled down the holy law
of God to outward conformity alone. He said in Matthew 23,
verse 25, Woe, woe unto you! Scribes and Pharisees, these
were the religious leaders, these were the teachers of the people,
these were the examples. He called them hypocrites. He
said, you make clean the outside of the cup and the platter. That's where you exert your energy
and your attention and your strength, the outside of the cup. But on
the inside, on the inside, you're full of extortion and excess. Down in verse 27, he says, you're
like whited sepulchres, you're like graves, tombstones. places
where the dead are buried. You appear indeed beautiful outwardly,
but within you're full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. On the outside, things look good. On the inside, things are rotten
and putrid and filthy and corrupt. Now, that's the condition of
Saul of Tarsus when the Lord saved him. Saul of Tarsus was
a religious man. He was brought up in a religious
home. He was educated in the best theological
seminary of his day. He graduated from the school
of Gamaliel. He was a brilliant man. He was
a religious man. He was a moral man. He was a
teacher of the scriptures. He was a man who thought he worshiped
God. Turn to Philippians chapter 3
and let him describe himself for you. He was in his forties
in Philippians chapter 3. He describes himself. He was
brought up in a religious home, educated in theological school. He taught in the synagogue. He
was so brilliant that one ruler said to him, saw much learning
hath made you mad. You've studied too much, you've
been with the books too long, and you've lost your mind. He
was a recognized man, religious, moral man. Now watch him describe
himself. In Philippians 3, he says in
verse 5, I was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin. I was an Hebrew of the Hebrews. As touching the law, I was a
Pharisee. Concerning zeal, I persecuted
the Church, and touching the righteousness which is in the
law, I was blameless. Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain." He said, I never did it. Remember
the Sabbath day to keep it holy. I did it. Honor thy father and
thy mother. I did it. Thou shalt not make
unto thee any graven image. I never did. Thou shalt not kill. I don't. Thou shalt not steal.
I never did. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
I'm not guilty. Thou shalt not covet. Not guilty. Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Not guilty. As touching, he said, the righteousness
of the law, blameless. Here was a moral, religious man. who lived by the law, who was
deeply religious even to boasting of his righteousness before the
law, and yet a man who did not know God, did not know Christ,
and was as unsaved as if he had been one of the thieves crucified
on a cross. That's what he says. Turn to
Romans 7. Now, something happened. Something happened to this religious
man. Something happened to this moral
man. Something happened to this theological
giant. You know what happened? The Spirit
of God came to him and interpreted the law of God, not in action,
but in attitude. Interpreted the law of God, not
in outward conformity, but in inward holiness and righteousness. The Holy Spirit of God came to
him and interpreted God's holy law, not in the light of men's
eyes, but in the perfect, sovereign eye of God himself, who looketh
not on the outward countenance, but who looketh on the heart.
And this moral, religious law-keeping man who said he was blameless
when God's Holy Spirit stripped him and exposed his heart and
his imagination and his thoughts and his attitude and his mind.
He said, I died. I literally died. Read it, Romans
chapter 7, beginning with verse 9. I was alive without the law
once, that is, without the true knowledge of the law. I had it
whittled down. I had it cut down to my size.
I had God's law fixed up so that I could keep it. I felt real
moral, real righteous, real religious, and I was alive without the true
knowledge of the law. Watch it. But when the law, the
commandment, came in the hands of the Holy Spirit to expose
my corrupt heart and my filthy thoughts and my vain ego and
pride, and my hatred and envy and jealousy and malice and unforgiving
spirit." He said, when that came, I died. And the commandment,
the law which was ordained to life and in which I thought I
found life, do this, do that, do the other, and you'll go to
heaven. Paul said, that commandment which I thought was the way to
heaven, I found to be the way to hell. That commandment which
was ordained to life I found to be unto death. It slew me,
it killed me, it stripped me, it exposed me, it wounded me,
it slew me! It slew me. Now then, now you
listen to me, I'm telling you the truth. You ask the average
religious person today, preacher or whoever, you ask them to give
you the way to heaven or the laws of the kingdom of God. You
ask anybody where you work, on the streets, in the pulpit or
anywhere else, to tell you the law of the kingdom of God, and
you know what they'll tell you? They'll tell you, if you don't
take God's name in vain, and if you don't kill, if you don't
steal, if you don't commit adultery, and if you don't drink, and if
you'll treat your neighbor right, and if you'll go to church on
Sunday, and if you'll pay your tithes, and if you'll give a
little money to charity every now and then, and you'll try
to live a decent, clean, moral life, you'll go to heaven when
you die. You're Christian. You're okay. And that's what the average church
believes. That's what the average preacher believes. But you know
the point is this, that the Buddhists, the Mohammedans, the moralists,
even the atheists can conform to that. Look at Luke 18. Here is the religious man praying
in Luke 18. This is the philosophy of religion
right here. In Luke 18, verse 11, the Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself, I thank you that I'm not as other
men are. I'm not an extortionist. I'm
not unjust. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not
even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I go
to Sunday morning service. I go to prayer meeting. I give
tithes of all that I possess. I'm a giver. He prayed thus with himself. In Matthew 7, verse 22, the people
stood even at the judgment, and they said, Lord, have we not
prophesied in your name? Have we not in thy name cast
out demons, and in thy name done many wonderful works? Religious
workers, church workers, serving God, in the name of Jesus Christ. And Christ replied, Depart from
me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity." Have you ever seen
the law of God in its true application, in its true holiness? Oh, you've
read the Ten Commandments, they've been on the wall, they've been
in the In the Bible, they've been quoted in the pulpit. You've
seen these commandments, and most religious people take great
delight in the fact that they pretty well keep those commandments.
But have you ever seen those commandments as interpreted by
Christ himself? Turn with me to Matthew chapter
5, and let's let the Lord interpret these commandments. This is what
Saul of Tarsus saw for the first time when he was 40 years of
age. Paul, the apostle, Saul of Tarsus. This is what he saw.
This is what killed him. This is what stripped him. This
is what exposed his inward, true self. The Lord Jesus said in
Matthew 5.21, You've heard that it was said by them of old time,
Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall kill shall
be in danger of the judgment. We take great delight in the
fact that we've never taken human life. We wouldn't take human
life. I hear people sitting around
saying, how in the world could anybody ever take a human life? We're not guilty of murder. We
don't feel like murderers. We are not convicted as being
murderers. But listen to Christ. He says
all of us at one time in our lives have been murderers, maybe
right now. He said, I say unto you that
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger
of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother Raka,
that is, vain fellow, shall be in danger of the counsel, but
whosoever shall say, Oh, he's angry now. He's been wounded,
he's been offended, he's been hurt. You know what that fool
did. Christ said, you're in danger
of hellfire because you've murdered that man in your heart. You didn't
take a gun and take his life. You wouldn't do that. You couldn't
do that. You saved, but in your heart
you've murdered him. Hatred, malice, personal vengeance
in the eyes of God is murder. That's what slew Saul of Tisus.
That's what whittled him down. We have preachers who preach
on, thou shalt not kill, but we don't have many who say, to
hate is murder. And I don't care whether a man
is hated for his religion, for the color of his skin, for his
differences with you, you are a murderer. And no murderer is
going to enter the kingdom of God. Now that's the law of God. You look good to men. Let's read
on down verse 27. You have heard that it was said
by them of old times, Thou shalt not commit adultery. We take
great pride in the fact that we have been faithful to our
husband or to our wives, and our lives have been pure and
clean and straightforward and faithful. There are no adulterers
here this morning. No, everybody here is an adulterer. Listen to Christ. But I say unto
you that whosoever looketh on a person, To lust after that
person in your heart is already guilty in the eyes of God, already
guilty. To desire that which is not yours,
to covet that which does not belong to you, to engage even
in your imagination or even in your thoughts or even in your
dreams or even in your subconscious, Christ said, is adultery. And then down here in verse 43,
listen to our Lord. You've heard it said by them
of old times, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy.
It's all right to hate your enemy. I say unto you, love your enemy. Now, brother, we can get up and
preach on Don't Go to the Picture Show, but I'll tell you, if we
want to get down to the nitty-gritty of where people live and where
they're having their problems, let's talk about the subject
of forgiveness. I want you this morning to pick
the person in your lifetime, I don't care who it is, when
it occurred, if it happened 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 15 years
ago, if it happened yesterday. Pick out the person in your life,
in your experience. that did you the most harm, the
most wrong, the person for whom you have the most contempt. Are
you thinking with me? I want you right now to love
that person with all your heart. I want you to totally forgive
him. I don't want you to say another word about it. I want
you actually to love that person like you love yourself. Absolutely
forgive them of every word. I don't care how right you were
or how wrong they were. Christ said, love your enemies.
I can't do it, preacher. All right, there's the law of
God. There's the law of God. I say unto you, do good to them
that hate you. You pick out the man that hates
you with a passion and take him a bouquet of roses and tell him,
God bless you. That's the law of God. And you
prayed. It's easy for us. We just prayed
for Brother Thornberry's grandson. That just comes natural. And
we prayed for Carl's sister-in-law. But did we pray this morning
for the North Vietnamese? Did we pray this morning for
our archenemy? Did we pray this morning for
the man down the street who hates us, who said evil things about
us? He said some cruel things about
you, and he was wrong. But you're wrong to hold a grudge.
You've broken the law of God just the same as he. You stand
on the same level he stands on. You're in the same dunghill.
I'm talking about me and you both. This is the law of God.
Now, I'm sick and tired of the rubbish that we're having to
put up with that calls itself religion. The churches today
are filled with haters. The churches are filled with
jealousy and envy and competition and wrath and all manner of evil
that's rotten and corrupt in the eyes of God. On the outside,
men appear beautiful. On the inside, they're full of
extortion and excess. They're full of dead men's bones,
and God's angry. And we're not going to be able
to build a foundation till somebody shovels this mess out of the
room. Gets the rubbish out. We whittle the law of God down
to a bunch of outward rules and regulations. Turn to Matthew
15. Matthew chapter 15. I think that
every believer ought to live a godly life. He will. An honest life, a godly life.
I think if we know something offends our brother or offends
our neighbor, we ought to avoid it. I think you ought to avoid
things that offend people, even though you may have liberty to
do that. I think we ought to conduct our lives in such a way
that we're good testimony for Christ. But at the same time,
listen to this. In verse 17 of Matthew 15, do
you not yet understand that whatsoever entereth into the mouth is goeth
into the belly and is cast out into the draught, but those things
which proceed out of the mouth," they come from the heart, Christ
said. That's what defiles us, that which comes from our heart.
We've got heart trouble, not hand trouble, not head trouble,
not feet trouble. We've got heart trouble. What happened to love? What happened
to forgiveness? What happened to patience? What
happened to kindness? What happened to faith? What
happened to messages on the gifts and fruits of God's Spirit? What
happened to spiritual growth? Not just believe some facts about
Christ who died, Not just believe some facts of religion, not just
mechanically go to a church, not just mechanically direct
your life in a moral fashion, but what happened to that inward
spiritual work whereby we are, here's workmanship created in
Christ Jesus unto holiness and love and faith and patience. Listen to it. Out of the heart
proceeds evil thoughts. Out of the heart proceeds murder. Out of the heart proceeds adulteries
and fornications and thefts and false witnesses and blasphemy.
These are the things that defile a man. Turn to Matthew 22. In
Matthew 22, listen to this, verse 36. Matthew 22, verse 36. Master, which is the greatest
law, the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus said, Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. O God, I've broken that one,
the whole table of the law. And the second is like unto this,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. What have we done? I'll tell you what we've done.
With our rules and regulations of religion, we have created
a generation of Pharisees. That's exactly what we've done.
With our rules and regulations of religion, we've got all these
so-called religious rules and religious ethics and religious
moral standards that we've set out, and that's religion. Well,
somebody says out there on the street, one of these days I'm
going to quit drinking, smoking, run around, become a Christian.
No, you're not. That's not the way you become
a Christian. That's not even Christianity. You can quit all
those things and go straight to hell, and that's where most
religious people are going. Christianity is a person. Christianity
is a living union with a person, Jesus Christ. Christianity is
Christ formed in you. Christianity is the life of Christ
in you. Christianity is to be joined
with the Son of God as a branch to the vine, as a body to the
head. Christianity is to have the life
of Christ within. Christianity is to become a new
creature, not just in habit, but in thought and in attitude
and in devotion. Christianity is not just to have
a destination. Christianity is to have a Lord
and a King. And we've degenerated this thing,
we've brought the law of God down, whittled it down to outward
rules and regulations, and we've got the whole world
confused about what it is to be saved, what it is to know
Christ. Now, the second thing, quickly.
You know this is so, and I know it's so. This is the rubbish
we've got to clear out. Worship has degenerated into
form. How many of you this morning
have really, now come on, have done any worshiping this morning?
worship has degenerated into form. The worship of the Lord
has been lost in organization and in decisionism and in ceremony. He said, These people draw nigh
unto me with their lips, but their hearts are far from
We can come and sit in a church auditorium and switch our gum
from one jaw to the other, and our minds can wander around from
our family to our jobs to our sports to our jokes to everything
else and not one moment ever center on the person and work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we never sit there and weep
over our sins and cry for God's mercy. and ask him to reveal
himself and reveal his face and reveal his purpose and thank
him for all his mercies to us. Just sit there and thank God,
thank God, thank God, praise God. Not much worship is there. We have lost the simplicity of
calling on God. We've lost the simplicity of
worship. We've lost the true meaning of
praise. We've lost the broken heart.
You know what our churches are today? Our churches are filled
with reports and recognition of men. I was in a church last
week, had a big board up here. On top it had number in Sunday
school today, number in Sunday school a year ago. Who cares
how many was in Sunday school a year ago today? And the record
attendance. Who cares the record attendance?
They probably gave away a bunch of fried chicken that day to
get everybody out. And then under that, offering
today, offering a year ago today, and record offering. Reports
and recognition. Officers and organizations. Everybody's
got to have an office. If you don't give them an office,
they'll lose interest, and they won't come. We've got to have
an organization for the girls and an organization for the boys
from one to one hundred. We've got to have a choir for
the older people, a choir for the middle-aged people, a choir
for the young people, and a choir for the children. We've got to
have all kind of announcements and anthems. We've got to have
robes and rituals. We've got to have promotion and
potluck supper. We've got to have contests and
competition. We've got to have business meetings
and budgets. And we've got to spend thousands
of dollars a year on buses to go get people who live next door
to another church and bring them to ours. And we've got to have entertainment
and enthusiasm. If you don't have enthusiasm,
you can't keep them coming. If you don't have entertainment,
we have spats and splits. That's the order of the day.
I want to read you something. Turn to Matthew 21. And I wish
that this could be done today. I wish we'd have an enactment
of this deed today. I wish we'd have a rerun of this
right now. Lord Jesus Christ came to the
church, to the temple, in Matthew 21, verse 12. And he went into
the temple, and he cast out all them that sold. And we've got
a special offer today. If you'll send a dollar, we're
going to send you Don Pitzer's new song book. It's going to
have a living picture and living color of Don, suitable for framing
on page two. And it's going to have all kind
of songs in it that you've heard your mother sing. Now get your
dollar in the mail before midnight tonight. This offer just holds
true tomorrow. This is the work of faith. And
if you don't send your dollar, we're going off the air. Rubbish.
The quicker you go off the air, the better. We're going to give
you today, we're going to give you a little cup that came from
the Holy Land, genuine olive wood that came from the Garden
of Olives, and on Easter Sunday. Who knows when Easter Sunday
is? Today it's the 14th of April, next year it's May the 1st. This
is not the anniversary of Christ's resurrection. It changes according
to the moon, doesn't it? It's some heathen holiday that
some Babylonian deity thought of. Christ rose on the first
day of the week, and every Lord's Day we celebrate his resurrection.
But the whole religious world is caught up in this farce, this
rubbish. And everybody's religious today,
but tomorrow they'll be back on their road to hell. I'm telling
you the truth. I'm telling you the truth. And
we'll send you this little... Be sure and send some money,
though. We've got to have money. We can't operate this thing without
money. We've got to have lots of money. And we've got to beg,
borrow, or steal, but we've got to have money. And Christ went
in and threw them out of the temple, all them that sold. And
we're not selling, preacher, we're giving it away. You're
selling it, you dishonest huckster. You bought them to sell them.
You ordered a whole thousand of them, knowing you'd get $10,000
for them. That's why you did it, to keep
the program on there. Be honest, sell them, and be
done with it. Christ threw them out of the
temple, those that sold and bought in the temple, and he overthrew
the table of the money changers and the seats of them that sold
doves. And he said, It's written, My house shall be called the
house of prayer. And you've made it a den of thieves. That's what you've made it. Most churches today will talk
more this morning about tithes and offerings than they'll talk
about the cross, I guarantee you. They've got to raise money
to pay everybody that's on the payroll. They even have to pay
a piano player and an organ player and pay the head usher and pay
the soloist and pay this and pay that and pay the other. Because
we're all religious hucksters, that's what we are in this generation. I want you to notice something
here. When our Lord got the promoters out of the church, when our Lord
got the program chairman out of the church, when our Lord
got the planners out of the church, what did he do in the next verse?
Well, if some folks in need came to him, the blind and the lame,
and blessed your heart, he healed them. Wouldn't that be wonderful
if we could get all of the financiers and all of the planners and all
of the promoters and all of the program chairman. We could get
them all, just run them out of the church with a cat-of-nine-tails. And our Lord would be pleased
to reveal his precious, wonderful presence. Maybe some sinner would
come to know the Lord. Maybe once again in the house
of God we'd see some tears. Maybe once again in the house
of God we'd see some broken hearts. Maybe once again in the house
of God we'd see people who would put their arms around one another
and say, I thank God for you, I love you, I appreciate you,
please forgive me, I was wrong, I said this, I shouldn't have
said it. Maybe then God in his Spirit And God in his power and
God in his presence would visit his people because they'd be
a praying people and they'd be a worshiping people. They wouldn't
be there to show off their Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. They'd
be there to meet the Lord. And who cares if they got overalls
on or a $200 suit? Who gives a hoot? If the Lord's
there, if the Lord's there, he's not in this day. You don't meet
the Lord in the average congregation. They're there to break last Sunday's
record. They're not there to meet the Lord. They had 499 last
Sunday, and the pastor before this one had 501. He's got there
502 in order to beat that fellow. And if the pastor don't go see
somebody, they'll quit church. We get offended so easily. We're
worshiping the flesh, that's what we're doing. We're in the
flesh, we're worshiping the flesh, and that which is born of flesh
shall never inherit the kingdom of God. Worship, where is it? It's degenerated. It's degenerated into form and
organization, and God's not within 10,000 miles of it. And the average
church could go right on today just like it's going if God were
dead. Now that's so. We don't need the Holy Spirit,
we've got a choir, a quartet. We don't need the Holy Spirit,
we've got an educated preacher. We don't need the Holy Spirit,
we've got everything financed to where our people are obligated
to give so much a week. We carry this program on whether
God blesses or not. The last thing, and I close with
this, you know it so, they couldn't build a wall, it's too much rubbish.
They came there and they found so much rubbish, they said, we
can't build a wall here. Well, the prophet of God says,
you'll have to get the rubbish out. So they went to work. And
we come to the average church and we face this. A pastor comes
and he looks around. I can't build anything here.
There's so much rubbish. Well, get started. People have
got to unlearn what they've learned. It's all wrong. They've got to
shovel out their traditions and their customs and the flesh and
human nature, they've got to get it out of the way and seek
the Lord. Here's the last thing, here's
what's wrong. The message of substitution has been replaced
with the gospel of sinner saves ourselves. That's so. The only place in the days of
the Bible where the gospel of sacrifice and substitution was
preached. The only place. You know where
it was? It wasn't in the synagogue. It wasn't in the temple. It was
out in the wilderness where a man called John the Baptist stood
out there and cried, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. Jesus Christ, my friend, did
not die as a martyr. He died as a substitute. Jesus
Christ did not die as an example, he died as a substitute. Jesus
Christ did not die as a reformer, he died as a substitute. He came
down here into this world to face the law of God, to impute
unto those who believe on him a perfect righteousness. That's
why he was on this earth. That holy law that I read to
you a while ago, I failed, I couldn't keep, I can't keep, it's too
much for me. Christ Jesus came down here as
my representative, as my substitute, and met that law and obeyed it
for me. That's what he was doing here.
He wasn't trying to change the world. He came down here to change
men's hearts. Our Lord didn't come down here
into this world to change political powers and parties. He didn't
come down here as a Reformer, he came here as a representative,
as a federal head, as a Redeemer, as a Messiah who was sent by
God to save his people from their sin. And he obeyed the law for
them, and he went to the cross and he died not as a failure,
not as a Reformer, not as a martyr, not as an example, he died as
a substitute. a sacrifice. He was the Lamb
of God who was slain on the cross for our sins. He was God's sacrifice,
God's Lamb. Everything that Christ did was
purposed and ordained before he did it. He said, The words
that I speak are not my words, they're the words of him that
sent me. The works that I do are not my works, they're the
works of him that sent me. He talked about the cross, and
Peter said, don't go to the cross. Christ said, for this cause came
I into the world. Get thee behind me, Satan. Christ
Jesus the Lord was God's lamb, God's substitute, God's redeemer
who came down here to save his people from their sin. That's the message of substitution. And listen, last night we were
watching this greatest story ever told. It was well presented. I'm not being critical. But here's
what I'm saying. We've lost the message. I found
myself, the way that that story was told and the way it was portrayed,
when Christ was carrying that heavy cross and when his hands
were being nailed to that cross, I found myself feeling sorry
for him. That's right. I found myself
in the very condition those women were in who followed him, weeping
and lamenting and wailing. I found myself feeling sorry
for the Lord Jesus. While I watched that, it never
entered my mind. I'm the one who needs pity. My sins nailed
him there. Christ turned and said, Don't
weep for me. Did you hear him say that? Weep
for yourselves, did you? Weep for your children. If they do these things in the
green tree in the day of God's personal visitation, if men are
so depraved and so rotten and so corrupt that they put God's
Son on a cross in the day of personal visitation, what are
they going to do? He's not here in person, in the
dry, in the famine, in the parched years in which we live in right
now. I found myself feeling sorry
for Jesus. Brethren, don't weep over the
cure. Weep over the cause. Don't weep over the remedy. Weep over the disease. We're
sinners. We've broken God's law. Our hearts are filled with envy.
Our hearts are filled with covetousness. Our hearts are filled with malice.
Our hearts are filled with greed. Greed is killing America. We
are the greediest people on earth. We're destroying our freedom.
We're destroying our nation. We're destroying free enterprise
with greed. We're religious greedy people. We're unbelieving believers.
We're unchristian Christians. We're destroying the very thing
God's given us. And the trouble's in here. It's
not how you walk, how you wear your clothes, where you go. It's
what you think, that's your problem, that's my problem. And the message
is that Christ took the place of those people and died for
them, and when he saves them, when he regenerates them, his
Holy Spirit comes here and he replaces greed with grace. He
replaces hatred with love. He replaces malice with kindness. and he makes them a new creature.
Mechanical Christians, that's what the Pharisees were. Is that
what we are? Are we living, vital, stoned
in the temple of God to the praise of his glory? Our Father in Heaven,
O help us, O God, by the power of thy Spirit, at least in our
personal at least in our homes, at least in our own church here,
where we're responsible, help us to clear away the rubbish.
O God, that a solid, secure wall of hope and refuge and defense
and strength might be raised on the foundation of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that we might worship Thee and call upon Thee, that
we might not make a pretense at prayer and a pretense at worship
and claim our own righteousness and goodness and walk in the
mechanics of religion, but that we might have the pulsating,
living, vital Life of Christ in our heart. that I might know
Him and the power of His resurrection, that I might win Christ and be
found in Him. God mold me and break me, crush
me, and bring me to the feet of the Savior, His adoring disciple. Lord, Thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love Thee. How long has it been? that we in affection have adored
our Lord. I love Thee, my Jesus, I love
Thee. In Christ's name, amen.