...of Romans, Romans chapter 3, verse
19.
Now we know that what things soever the
law saith, it saith to them who are
under the law, that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty
before God.
Therefore by the deeds of the law there
shall no flesh be justified in his sight,
for by the law is the knowledge of
sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the
law is manifested, being witnessed by the law
and the prophets, even the righteousness of God
which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto
all and upon all them that believe, for
there is no difference.
For all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God, being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood,
to declare his righteousness for the remission of
sins that are past through the forbearance of
God, to declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness, that he might be just and
the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then?
It is excluded by what law works, neither
by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that no man is justified
by faith without the deeds of the law.
Let's bow our hearts in prayer.
Our Father, we would thank thee and praise
thee for thy word, given to us and
preserved for us throughout these centuries.
We have it as thou didst intend us
to have it, but more than having the
word in its many translations and paraphrases, all
to help us understand is how it was
given from thy heart to ours.
We rejoice that the very one who moved
upon men of old to record that which
thou didst want us to hear is with
us, and that thou wilt touch our eyes
to see and our minds to perceive and
our hearts to receive and our wills to
submit.
And we thank thee for the ministry of
the Holy Spirit by and through the word.
Speak to us today, in all of the
sessions, and grant that because thou art here
and we are here, that insights will be
given, decisions will be made, and that our
lives will become more effective for the glory
and the honor and the praise of the
Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name and for
whose sake we ask him.
Amen.
As you've surmised or known, my wife and
I had the privilege of going to Africa
in 1945 and going among tribes of people,
some ten, that up until that time had
had no contact, or if any, most sporadic
and occasional, with the gospel.
And there were occasions when great insight...
I spent seven years after high school getting
ready to be a missionary, and I thought
I was rather well prepared.
But I must say my training really began
when I arrived, not before.
I remember going into one community and wanting
to get a sample of the language.
I did, as we usually did, picked up
whatever was handy, a stick, a stone, a
leaf, something nature had produced, hold it up
and say, Who made it?
Who made this?
Always the answer would come back, a name.
And always the name of the one who
had made the world.
How interesting it was that in these primitive,
sin-darkened lands, God had succeeded in keeping
the testimony of creation His.
There was no challenge to that.
Now these people worshipped Satan by name.
They sacrificed to Satan.
But God had shut the mouth of Satan
and refused to allow him to claim creation.
The only place that he's been deprived of
that testimony is in the so-called Christian
lands, and we're the ones that have devised
very cunning and crafty ways by which we
can rob Him of the testimony of creation.
But there was no question about it.
He made the sun, He made the moon,
He made the stars, He made the stream,
He made the fish in the stream and
the birds in the air and the grass
in the field.
Always the same one in this particular tribe,
Wanamish.
Where is Wanamish?
Where was he?
And he said he was way off there
up in the Ethiopian mountains.
Way above them where the sun came up
in the morning.
That's where Wanamish lived.
And I said, do you pray to Wanamish?
No.
Well, we don't know what kind of prayers
he wants.
Do you sacrifice to Wanamish?
No, we don't know what he wants.
Who do you pray to?
And then they gave me another name.
It wasn't the name of God.
It was the name of Satan, Prince of
Darkness.
Is Wanamish bad or good?
Oh, he's good.
And then this other, he's very bad.
What does he do?
He kills our cattle, he kills our children,
he makes fire come down and burn up
our crops and sends the locusts in to
eat them up.
He's very bad.
Well, who do you sacrifice to?
And then they would use the name of
the evil spirit, Satan.
Why?
Because if we give him chickens, or we
give him this, or we give him that,
then he doesn't burn our fields, or he
doesn't kill our children, or we have rain.
Now we get moved on, and I said,
well, if what happens to you, if Wanamish
doesn't bother you while you're alive, what's going
to happen?
Oh, when we die.
Then it's Wanamish.
Then he's angry with us because of what
we did that was wrong.
What do you mean wrong?
What's wrong?
Now I'm coming to a people who've had
no contact with the Bible, never heard the
name of Jesus, and they're going to start
telling me what's wrong.
Well, don't you know what's wrong?
Well, I think I do, but why don't
you tell me what's wrong?
Someone says it's wrong to lie, it's wrong
to steal, it's wrong to commit adultery, it's
wrong to kill, and so on, till they
get almost all of the Ten Commandments enumerated.
Well, how do you know these things are
wrong?
Where did you see them?
In the sky?
Do you see them in the stream?
Where do you find out these things are
wrong?
Don't you know?
You're a white man.
Don't you know where you find out these
things are wrong?
You find them out here.
Your stomach tells you.
That's where you find out it's wrong.
Because, you see, we say heart, but then
the seed of the personality wasn't heart.
They didn't know much about that.
It was the stomach.
Everything was there, because that was what gave
them the most trouble.
Hearts didn't bother them very much.
They didn't live long enough to have heart
trouble.
Stomach trouble they had in the time they
were little children.
So my stomach tells me it's wrong.
What do we find out?
We find out that God made the world,
that God is holy, that God doesn't trouble
them in their day-to-day life, but
He's going to deal with them when they
die because of the things they've done that
are wrong.
And they've enumerated the Ten Commandments until they've
gotten down to the place that they have
almost all of them.
Well, this is quite a bit of insight
that I'm getting in a little while among
a tribe of people that we're seeing for
the first time.
God is holy, and God is going to
judge them when they die for the things
they've done that are wrong.
Now, I made a mistake at that point.
You see, I made a very, very crucial
mistake.
What have I found out?
I found out that they know about sin.
And then I turned to them and I
said, Have you done things that are wrong?
Yes.
Have you lied?
Yes.
Why did you lie?
We wanted to.
Have you stolen?
Yes.
Why did you steal?
Because he had what I wanted.
And I remember I said, Have you killed?
And I looked right at one man.
Have you killed?
And I'm doing all this through an interpreter,
you know, an interrupter.
I didn't speak their language.
No white man in the world has spoken
their language.
And I said, Did you kill?
And he came back just like that.
Who are you?
Are you with the government?
And I said, No, I'm not with the
government.
I'm here for one of me.
Oh.
Well, he won't bother.
Yeah, he knows I've killed.
I've killed.
But if I was with the government, Oh,
hey.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to admit it.
Take the fifth if you please.
But you see, I've now induced them to
admit that they have done what is wrong.
In other words, they have acknowledged their sin.
What's going to happen to you when you
die because of these things you've done?
Wanamish is going to deal with us.
He's going to punish us.
Well, we don't know, but he's going to,
we don't know just what it is, but
he's going to punish us.
Well, now, isn't that a marvelous opportunity for
me to give the gospel?
It sounds like it, doesn't it?
He's acknowledged his sin, and he's going to
be punished and judged.
Isn't that wonderful?
And I said, Now, how many of you
would like to have peace with Wanamish?
You'd have to have peace with God so
you wouldn't be afraid when you die.
Oh, several hands.
I would.
So I took them into the inquiry room.
That was the next tree.
And I said, Those of you who'd like
to go, let's move over there, and I'll
talk with you.
So four came.
I didn't want to press too much.
After all, I've been with missionaries that have
been there for years, and they haven't had
any decisions, and this is the first forenoon,
and I got four.
Pretty good, huh?
So I took them over, and then I
taught them how to pray.
You know, God be merciful to me, a
sinner, and taught them the name of Jesus,
and they all nodded, and all smiled, and
it was great.
Well, I was only there another day.
They came the next day.
We talked some more, and I told them
some more.
And then I went in that night, and
I wrote my letter back to the church
in Grand Rapids, Michigan that supported me.
I wanted them to know what a good
investment they were making in this hotshot missionary
who got four converts the first day.
I figured that they'd really got to feel
a...
they'd pick the right one to put their
money on.
And so I wrote my letter and got
it all ready to mail, took it back,
sent it out in the post post.
About two and a half months later, I
came back to the same place.
I asked for the Jesus boys, and they
came.
You know what I found out?
They still went to the pig feast, which
were dedicated to Satan.
They still went to the demon dances.
They still sacrificed the evil spirits.
They still got dunked.
And everything they'd done before, I write, they
were still doing.
Now, it was kind of shocking, because this
was my first real occasion of getting there,
and I believed if anyone was in Christ,
he was a new creation.
But I'm finding out that people I'd dealt
with before slept between sheets, ate with silverware,
put on clothes.
Before we ever talked about Jesus, that was
part of their culture.
Now I'm with people that have their culture,
which is going to the...
sacrificing the evil spirits and going to the
beer feast and the pig roasts were dedicated
to Satan, going to the witch doctor.
The only difference was I'd give them a
hell insurance policy, see?
They didn't need to be afraid to want
a mission anymore.
And I began to realize what missions had
done, what I had done, what the church
at home was doing.
We were making a very fundamental error.
We were failing to distinguish between a function
of the mind and a supernatural operation of
the Holy Ghost.
It's the function of the mind to remember
sin, and it's the function of the mind
to know the law.
But it is the supernatural work of the
Holy Ghost to convict of sin.
And there's a difference between recollection and conviction.
And our churches have been filled with the
unconverted because we've not distinguished between recollection and
conviction.
But I was just beginning, and therefore I
had the freedom and the option to undo
what I had done.
And I didn't know how to rebuild, but
I did have sense enough to disband that
little group and give them no encouragement to
think of themselves as Jesus boys any longer.
They'd fallen into the hands of an unskilled
amateur workman who didn't understand the work of
God in the human heart, but who'd been
brought face to face with it.
Now, I was in much better state than
C.T. Studd was.
He had been nearly 18 years with some
115 churches established in what was then the
Belgian Congo when he came to the realization
that it was a new cultural phenomenon that
he had planted and not a church of
Jesus Christ.
So after 18 years, he disbanded all the
churches and disbanded the organization and began again.
Mine was after less than 90 days.
When I made the discovery that there's a
very real difference and distinction between the natural
phenomena of recollection of sin.
Now, let's turn to the 2nd chapter and
find out how it was that these people
should know that they had sinned.
I begin reading in verse 12 of chapter
2 of Romans.
For as many as have sinned without law
shall also perish without law, and as many
as have sinned in the law shall be
judged by the law.
For not the hearers of the law just
before God, but the doers of the law
shall be justified.
Now, when the heathen, that's the word for
Gentiles, which have not the law written in
a book, do by nature the things contained
in the law written in the book, these
having not the law are a law unto
themselves which show the work of the law
written in their hearts, their conscience also, here
a bearing witness and their thoughts the meanwhile
accusing or else excusing one another.
Now, why is it that these people knew
that it was wrong to steal and wrong
to lie and wrong to kill?
The answer?
Because everyone who comes into the world comes
in with the law written on their hearts.
I have in the last four months been
dragged kicking and screaming in opposition into the
twentieth century.
Associates of mine have agreed and I had
to consent that we would do some work
with small micro home computers.
I had studiously closed my mind to the
fact that computers existed.
I used to get cards, the cards you
know in letters do not fold or mutilate
and after being harassed by a computer that
kept sending me a bill for that you
owe zero zero point zero zero and unless
you pay zero zero point zero zero we
are going to turn it over for collection.
I figured the only way to do it
was to mutilate.
So I put on my golf shoes and
put the card down on the floor and
stomped on the card with my golf shoes
and sent it in and then the computer
had a nervous breakdown and they stopped sending
me this zero zero point zero zero bill
that was going to be turned over for
collection.
And I just figured computers had no place.
I used to say whenever computers would go
bad well what can you expect of the
Iron Maiden?
Absolutely no way you can deal with it.
But all of a sudden I'm being told
we are going to buy computers.
So I find out the little Commodore computer
that we got had ROM memory.
R-O-M.
I still don't know what it means.
I mean I don't know what R-O
-M stands for.
It's an acronym but I know it means
the part of the memory built into the
computer that won't erase when you shut it
off.
That I know.
I think.
And then there's a RAM memory and I
know RAM means random access memory and that
means that when you shut it off everything
you put in is flushed away.
It's gone.
It's erased.
So I'm not really interested in computers but
I tell you I'm interested in people.
And you know what I discovered?
That part of the ROM memory of the
human spirit is the law of God.
It won't erase.
You can't close it out.
It's there.
It's built in.
And everyone who came into the world came
in programmed with the law of God.
Now Charles Binney had a marvelous illustration on
this point.
He was saying why can you go to
the heathen that have never heard the name
of Jesus and preach the law and expect
conviction to resolve these edits because God has
built into the human spirit the millstone, the
lower millstone with ten grooves on it.
That's the law.
And you bring down the outer revelation of
the law from the book upon the human
spirit and when the outer revelation meshes with
the inner revelation the human spirit is ground
as is the bread of wheat exceeding small.
Because God has built, if you wish a
lower millstone of the law or if you
want to use a 20th century illustration he
put in a ROM memory of the law.
It's there.
It stays.
And you can go to people wherever they
are whatever their skin color red or yellow,
black or white or sharp-toothed with pink
polka dots wherever they are as they breathe
the breath of human life you can preach
the law of God and expect the spirit
of God to work conviction in the heart
because it's the outer revelation from the book
coming down upon the inner revelation in the
heart and the human spirit is ground between
the same.
Now, about a hundred years ago plus or
minus a great crime was committed two crimes
were committed I can only speak of one.
In England there was a great move of
God under a man whose name comes to
the present as the embodiment of believing trust
in Christ George Muller from Bristol, England.
But George Muller knew the Lord and he
knew how to pray and he prayed and
God answered prayer but he also had all
the gifts and manifestations of the spirit as
well up at that Bristol assembly.
But he had something else he didn't like
the formal organization and so they were in
a very closely organized religious community of Britain
Bristol brethren were free and there was no
pastor and there was great freedom in worship.
Well, down in another part of England at
Plymouth there was another group that liked particularly
the idea of freedom from the hierarchy of
the Anglican church but they did not wish
to be associated with the wildfire and the
fanaticism going along with the name of George
Muller and the Bristol brethren and so they
called themselves by a place name Plymouth Brethren
and one of the among the group was
a dear good man by the name of
John Ian Darby an earnest and sincere follower
of Christ undoubtedly who was very concerned about
how he could show that the supernatural had
no place in the 19th century as then
it was and they came into his hands
a monograph that had been prepared by a
Jesuit monk in Spain translated into English and
in that monograph he had established that the
reason why the supernatural had disappeared was because
God dealt with man in different economies different
periods or the word dispensations was coined and
God would have one way of dealing in
this period and another way of dealing here
one way of being saved at one time
another way of being saved at another time
and under the law people were supposedly I
can show this from the scripture absolutely erroneous
but they were supposed to be saved by
keeping the law but in grace they were
saved through faith in Christ and there was
very little carry over from one dispensation or
one economy or one period to another so
much so at one of the schools in
this state one of the teachers who was
utterly committed to dispensationalism and may I say
as one having come through that training that
dispensationalism is like pregnancy there is no such
thing as a little bit of it if
you accept the seed concept it will grow
until it fills you but at any rate
this particular professor was saying that in this
day of the church we do not have
the privilege of accepting the promises in the
Psalms for a basis of our prayer expectations
and one of the young students said yes
but professor George Mueller used the Psalms as
the basis of his prayer and God answered
and the professor so it was reported to
me made the statement yes but God didn't
have any right to he did it but
he didn't have a right to that's the
concept of economies of periods of dealing of
dispensation now you can see what's going to
happen next can't you since people were saved
by keeping the law now we're in the
age of grace so what do you do
you no longer preach the law and in
one fell swoop the spirit of God had
been disarmed from the only tool he'd ever
taken to prepare them for grace do you
hear me the only instrument that God ordained
to use to prepare men for grace was
the law and by one fell swoop one
plop of the side the spirit of God
was disarmed from the only instrument that he'd
ever taken to prepare men for grace namely
the wise and rightness of the law and
so for fifty nearly seventy years in America
the total bible school domination of the preachers
of this land has been to say the
law had no place in the period of
grace we were to preach the gospel the
gospel in its element is this Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures bearing
grace again the third day according to the
scriptures that's the gospel and anything other than
that is the word and we were to
preach the gospel that Christ died for our
sins so how do you know about that
everybody knows why because it's there but there
was the difference that everyone knows they've sinned
that's recollection so what have we done we
have brought into profession and faith in Christ
through our evangelism for the last sixty or
seventy years people like those I dealt with
in Africa that have a recollection of sin
and have little or no conviction of sin
now conviction is a supernatural operation of the
Holy Ghost on the human spirit and it
is the result of the right use of
the law and for by the law is
the knowledge of sin not the knowledge that
one has sinned but the awareness of the
nature of sin not the knowledge of the
events the incidences of the kinds of sin
that's not what it says when it talks
about the knowledge of sin it's talking about
the nature of it what is it in
its essence sin is a committal of the
will to the principle and the policy of
pleasing oneself and governing one's life by their
own whim and their own fancy and it
is the supernatural operation of the spirit of
God to convince the sinner that he is
a criminal much of our preaching today I
remember speaking on the university campus in the
University of Minnesota when I was a student
there I was sitting on the bench reading
my testament between some classes I'd been studying
and I picked it up and started to
read and the young man on the other
end of the bench said what are you
reading that's a funny little book I never
saw that here oh that's the New Testament
we got to talking and came around the
subject of sin and he said I'm a
sinner and he began to enumerate some of
the things he did I said well why
do I do that well I remember I
was in Bible school just out of it
and I said well it's because you have
a fallen sinful nature he said you mean
to say that the God you serve and
worship sends me to hell for doing what
I can't help doing what I was born
with mandatory that I do you couldn't help
doing he said the reason that I thought
I sinned was because I wanted to and
I tried to talk him out of that
to get him theologically straightened out until I
began to discover that that ignorant university student
was right and that Bible school graduate was
wrong that the reason that he sinned because
he wanted to sin he chose to sin
he made a committal of his will to
the principle and the policy of pleasing himself
as the end of his being strange isn't
it how that the deviations in theology create
the heresies isn't it interesting you hear certain
groups of other days say as in Adam
all underlined three times capitalized die so in
Christ shall all be made alive but somebody
else comes along and he says as in
Adam all die so in Christ shall all
underlined three times and capitalized be made alive
and the one is capitalism and the other
is universalism and they both come out of
the same verse because they both missed the
point missed the point why was it that
Adam died because he chose to govern and
rule and control his life why do sinners
die because they choose to be rebels against
the Holy God anarchists so if one is
born with a congenital disease a venereal disease
and the doctor says you have congenital syphilis
or whatever that person can feel terribly sorry
for themselves but they can't feel convicted because
they're guilty of no crime a congenital disease
does not bring guilt to the victim only
to the parents that passed on the disease
you cannot view sin as a congenital disease
and see conviction so if you're going to
treat it as a congenital disease it's a
good idea to get rid of the ministry
of the Holy Ghost producing conviction because it
won't work only when you see sin to
be a crime a crime certified at the
age of accountability when all did as first
parents had done and turned to their own
way all have sinned said the scripture Augustine
was asked asked the question why why did
they do it and he answered it he
brought the world into darkness with the answer
that the scripture didn't give if you tell
me why one hundred percent of all the
people alive before the fall sin then I'll
tell you why one hundred percent of the
people after the fall have sinned and the
scripture doesn't tell us why it tells us
that and how much time is wasted on
trying to produce whys that the scripture don't
give answers to if the scripture doesn't tell
us why let's not discuss it let's stick
with what it says it doesn't say why
it says that the moment you move into
why you get into philosophy you get into
metaphysics you get into all the morass and
quagmire that Augustine went into and he turned
to heresy the heresy of manichaeism and dualism
gnosticism to find the answer to the why
and made heresy synonymous with orthodoxy stick to
that what the scripture says it doesn't tell
us why it tells us that it tells
us sin is a crime and it tells
us that when he the Holy Spirit the
spirit of truth has come he will convict
the world of sin and he does it
by the law he does it by the
law applied to the consciences of men now
what's the right use of the law what's
the right use of the scripture anybody who
begins by trying to prove the existence of
God begins communicating on that basis is foolish
if God isn't going to begin his Bible
by trying to prove his existence then why
should we begin communicating about him by doing
what he doesn't do he doesn't begin by
trying to prove he exists you know as
the Bible began with the first chapter on
proving the existence of God I wouldn't believe
it that chapter or any that followed but
it just begins the way it has to
begin in the beginning God and you know
something the only problem I've had with the
Bible were those first four words when I
went to the University of Minnesota I expected
to be jolted but I didn't realize what
a jolt I was going to get because
so many of my professors looked at this
recent graduate from a Bible school and decided
that he was fit for a good brainwashing
and after they'd been working on me long
enough I got a little bit shaky and
so I said well I've got to read
the Bible again in this atmosphere and see
if it holds water the way I thought
it did so I began the process and
of course I started at the beginning and
in that particular process I got to the
end of the first four words and my
mind started to work you know you only
read until you take off in flight and
thought and I got the first four words
in the beginning God and I began to
weigh that and think about that and meditate
on that that here was a being that
existed with dependence upon no one he had
to rely on no one for his being
he was able to support and sustain himself
no one had brought him into being he'd
always been and I guess I was two
weeks and my main intellectual preoccupation was in
the beginning God and finally I came to
the point where I could accept the first
four words and when I came to the
point that I could accept the first four
words I had accepted all the rest of
them because if God could exist with dependence
upon no one then it was absolutely possible
for me to have the entire words why?
if it had told me not to the
whale swallow Jonah but Jonah swallowed the whale
I'd have said well it was a big
dope but I guess he did it I
wouldn't have had any problem because I'd accepted
the first four words in the beginning God
because once you have a being that can
exist apart from all others with dependence upon
none a being who thinks and feels and
wills you can see and understand comprehend and
accept that you aren't going to have any
problem with anything that follows that solved it
at least it did for me now when
you're preaching when you're witnessing when you're trying
to communicate you do not need to prove
the rightness of the law any more than
you need to prove the existence of God
you don't have to do it all you
have to do is preach it proclaim it
assert it affirm it why?
because God wrote the law on the heart
it's standard equipment there's never been a generation
or a model of the human family that
came into being that did not come in
with the raw memory of the law that
didn't come in with that lower millstone of
the law it's there so don't try to
prove it affirm it proclaim it someone came
to Charles Spurgeon said this terrible thing of
liberalism and modernism and attacking the inspiration of
the scripture Mr. Spurgeon you've got to you've
got to speak in defense of the Bible
he said nonsense you don't have to defend
the Bible the Bible is a lion turn
it loose it'll take care of itself and
I would just ordain in order that they
preach the holiness of God and the justice
of God and the law of God as
the revelation of His holiness and His justice
until some people got under conviction of sin
now last night we talked about the work
of fear that good and godly operation of
God the Holy Ghost upon the human heart
that teaches us to fear the justice and
holiness of God it's one thing to know
you're in trouble it's another thing to know
the kind of trouble you're in you don't
just want to get out of trouble the
reason that God awakens the heart shows us
our bondage brings us to fear is to
make us alert to hear what He's saying
to us and if you do not follow
that up with the application of the law
to the heart and you lead a person
from awakening to a profession of faith you're
going to short-circuit the new birth it's
like an obstetrician that's having all of his
patients deliver the baby at the end of
the first two months because it's so much
more comfortable that way you don't have to
worry about those seven uncomfortable months yes, it
helps the mother but we call it abortion
it abhors years ago I was preaching like
this at the great missionary convention in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania one of my schoolmates in Bible school
Dr. Mervyn Rosell who was then the first
to reopen Big Evangelism in America in Philadelphia
I believe it was in 1942 or 3
city-wide campaign he'd gone to Des Moines
Christian New Periodical said there were 4500 decisions
in three weeks in the fairground campaign in
Des Moines or wherever it was Mervyn heard
me preaching somewhat the way I've been speaking
to you and so he said tonight after
the meeting I want to come to your
room and I want to talk how long
will you talk with me till I finish?
yeah and so he told me how God
had been dealing with him how after that
Des Moines campaign when the paper said there
were 4550 decisions he got on the train
to go back to California not the plane
because he had to be alone for a
few days he took a bedroom on the
Pullman and he said he didn't really, hardly
went to bed he was sitting up, he
was on his knees he was crying out
to God asking God that in the 4500
and more decisions that had been made in
Des Moines that there would be at least
one person that had been truly born of
God he said I became desperate I was
seeing these great thongs come he said I
went back and I went to the, he
named a half a dozen nationally known preachers
and I said look, there's something wrong with
this these people come, they don't understand what
it's about they make a profession and nothing
happens nothing takes place what are we going
to do?
oh Merv, you just got too Merv, God,
you're doing great, the Lord's blessing Merv, look
at the result and he said all of
these men that I should have found counsel
he said they all just patted me on
the back and said I was under too
much pressure and get a little rest he
said Precious, you're the first person that's spoken
to the fear of my heart he told
me, he said I made up my mind,
I took six months cancelled all meetings just
to stay and search the scripture and I
promised God that during that time that I
would from that point on preach and preach
the holiness of God and the justice of
God and the law of God until people
were slain and convicted of their sins and
really came to know Christ and he said
I went to a city-wide meeting in
Chicago determined to do this I spoke Sunday
night the house was full one person came
forward I spoke Monday night it was full,
two people responded I found that both had
been having God deal with them before that
meeting began but after I'd finished with those
two the committee waited on me and they
said Merv, we spent a lot of money
on this meeting we don't know what's happened
to you but you're not the Merv Rizal
we asked to come and conduct this meeting
this is going to be a successful meeting
Merv either with you or without you now
we did not put all this money into
this to have this a failure and therefore
you've got tomorrow night you either fill the
front of the church with people that come
whatever way you want to do it so
that it's successful in the eyes of the
public and the newspaper reporters or we're going
to have a standby reservation for you to
go back to California tomorrow night, you choose
and we've got somebody else in the wing
to step in on Wednesday night and preach,
we'll do what we want done and so
he said I went back and I wept
before God and I said God it's not
my fault it's the people, man that wants
the success in their evangelism they want to
equal their success in their business and they're
buying me and I feel like I'm a
prostitute but what can I do it's the
only way I'm ever making a living he
said as I went in the next night
sick at heart and I did what I'd
been doing I flashed a smile all over
my face and I gave an invitation and
they filled the aisles and filled the front
and they all came and said oh that's
great he said something died in me
and I heard you speak and it made
me realize what it cost well I said
well Murr we all know that it's only
two or three percent of the people who
make first time professions of faith in Christ
in America they give evidence of the new
birth a year later he said Paris what
do you mean two or three percent then
he told me about going to someone a
mutual friend and he said he and I
agree that today one half of one percent
who make first time professions of faith in
America give evidence of the new birth a
year later that is make first time professions
of faith in our big evangelistic enterprise and
effort he said Paris it takes two hundred
professions to get one person that goes on
with Christ as a consistent follower after a
year think of it why?
have they polluted the gospel?
no has it been perverted?
no has it been distorted?
no are they preaching the gospel?
yes what is the gospel?
Christ died for our sins according to the
scripture what are they failing to do?
they are not preaching the law for by
the law is the knowledge of sin and
by the law does the Holy Spirit bring
conviction to the hearts of men and it's
only the right use of the law that
can prepare the rebel and the traitor and
the anarchist for grace and therefore we must
have a revival of the right and proper
preaching of the law the holiness of God
the justice of God the righteousness of his
edicts and his demands until sinners begin again
to cry out what must I do to
be saved?
then the gospel then the gospel the gospel
ought to be whispered not broadcast but whispered
into the ears of the Philippians and jailers
of the world that have nowhere to turn
and in their desperation because they discovered their
lostness then to them we can tell Christ
died for our sins according to the scripture
then it has meaning then it makes sense
then it's important so what is the right
and the proper use of the law?
it's to prepare men for grace never, never,
never did God intend the law to be
the means of salvation it never was it
never will be never has been in the
old testament they weren't saved by keeping the
law they were saved by grace through faith
in the one who was to come who
was pictured by the offerings for when an
Israelite came and he brought a little lamb
under his arm and he stood at the
gate of the...
he was looking at Christ here was the
blue, the heavenly dweller here was the white,
the sinless one here was the scarlet, the
one who would die and the purple, the
one who would be enthroned he was looking
at Christ in the four or five panels
at the gate of the tabernacle and he
brought the lamb and the priest would say
why are you here?
and he would say I've broken the law
it was by the law that he discovered
his sin and the law prescribed what he'd
do he'd bring a lamb and he'd hold
his hands in the head of the lamb
and he'd confess his sins and the knife
slashed and the hand caught the blood and
the embers, the smoke came from above the
other side of the curtain and he knew
that sometime, somewhere there would be not a
lamb but a man pictured who would be
known as the lamb that taketh away the
sin of the world now, now, now don't
ever tell me they were saved by keeping
the law in the Old Testament they were
saved by grace through faith as they were
ever never been any other way no other
door, no other way there are as many
world of sinners as there are sinners in
this world there's only one door by which
men may enter in it's the lamb that
was slain the Lord Jesus Christ and by
the law is the knowledge of sin the
eternal revelation of the character and the nature
of God what's the right and proper use
of the law?
to prepare men for grace prepare people for
grace oh, what a better day it was
the day when even with all the other
things that came with it they taught the
shorter catechism and they taught the Ten Commandments
and the law was built into the minds
and memories of men but as was said
last night they've taken the Ten Commandments out
of the schools they've pretty well taken them
out of the churches and out of the
homes and the consequence we have a generation
when Finney preached his task was not so
great there had been a proclamation of the
nature and holiness of God but today we're
dealing with those that are totally and utterly
ignorant therefore we have to begin but we
begin with this that written upon the human
heart is the law of God and we
proclaim it we preach it you don't have
to build it in it's the raw memory
of the sinner nothing can wipe it away
or flush it away or move it, it's
there all we need to do is to
bring the outer revelation to bear upon the
inner revelation and when he, the spirit of
truth is given the tools that we took
from him to with which to work the
world will indeed again be convicted and we
can't wait for the world to do it
en masse it will be happening and is
happening one by one how glad I am
today that the God of the Bible is
the God of justice and righteousness and holiness
of law and that the purpose and function
of the law is to prepare men for
grace for by law is the knowledge of
sin God gave the law that it might
give to sin the character of transgression that
sinners might cry out God be merciful to
me, a sinner I ask again have you
ever been lost?
have you only, he died to save only
lost people if you're lost and you do
not know him oh, the best news in
all the world is you're on the threshold
of forgiveness that he came to save lost
people father in heaven we lift our hearts
to thee this morning thank thee and praise
thee that thou didst work oh father how
wish we that thou didst have ideal conditions
with which to work sometimes when we preach
we preach as though we must wait for
the ideal because we're so seeking to establish
the principles and the truth but father thou
didst work with so little with which to
work thou didst move with such little tools
few tools and little help from us oh
that we might become more effective more fruitful
more effective in every way as we deal
with men and father that which we plead
for we plead for again with thee give
us lord a return to the preaching of
the law which is a reflection of thy
nature and thy character thy holiness thy justice
thy righteousness until we shall find again lord
that the holy spirit as the spirit who
brings conviction who convicts the world is working
and we hear that cry that must rejoice
thy heart heart of thy son god be
merciful to me a sinner oh that it
might be heard again lord we might hear
it from some of our loved ones and
some of our friends oh that we be
willing to give up sleep lord be willing
to give up rest willing to forego anything
in order that we might deal with those
who come to us bitten by the revelation
of thy holiness broken because they've learned or
lost them we cry out to thee for
this to occur again in our day in
our time as it has in other days
in other times thank you now for this
day we spend together in thy word bless
the service that is to follow and all
who will join us in your heal we
ask in Jesus name amen