The weekend before last, I just finished lecturing
three hours a day in Pasadena, and then
I came down with a bronchial cold.
I was supposed to speak at Mount Hermon
to a pastor's conference near San Francisco, but
I had to cancel it.
My wife didn't want me to come any
further, but I said, I'll go.
She said, but it's going to be snowy
there.
I said, I know, but the doctor gave
me an antibiotic and some cough medicine, so
I came at a certain amount of risk.
You came at a certain amount of risk
tonight through the snow, so here we are
together.
I would be glad if you would pray
for me that my voice will hold out
throughout this whole series.
I'm sure the Lord will answer prayer.
I was talking to Dr. George Gallup the
other day, some months ago.
He told me that the number of people
in the United States who claim to be
born again has risen from 46% of
the population to 53%.
Some months ago, I quoted that to 50
,000 people in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena,
and some started to applaud.
I stopped them right in their tracks.
I said, I don't believe that.
I don't believe that 53% of the
population of the United States is born again.
I have lived in the same house on
the same street in California for 34 years.
That's a record for California.
You couldn't convince me that more than half
my neighbors are born again.
I asked Dr. Gallup how he reconciled that
with the present crime wave.
He said, I suppose it's what they mean
by being born again.
Surely there must be something wrong somewhere.
Now in our recent lifetime, we notice that
handicapped people are being given certain help.
They have ramps at post offices.
There's a concern among public health officers for
those who have birth defects, through some accident
of nature, have a handicap.
Has it occurred to you that maybe what's
wrong with us in the States is the
fact that many people who claim to be
born again really suffer severely from birth defects?
That they never fully understood what it meant
to be born again?
Do you remember some years ago, not too
many years ago, a certain notorious pornographer announced
that he was born again?
Well, I remember leading a gangster who had
done time for murder to the Lord, and
he's now an evangelist in Arizona.
So I thought, well, this is really amazing.
Let's see.
Now of course, I do not subscribe to
the hustler.
But some of the students at the seminary
got a copy of the first editorial published
after this man's so-called regeneration experience.
There was a headline for an editorial.
Born again?
Yes, I am born again.
I now follow the spirit of Buddha, Muhammad,
and Jesus.
The poor guy didn't know the score, and
apparently still doesn't know the score.
But whoever told him he was born again?
Therefore, it behooves us to ask some questions.
What does it mean to be born again?
What does it mean to be converted?
What does it mean to be a Christian?
And I'm going to begin by asking a
question of all of you.
What is the first word of the gospel?
Now when I ask this question, I get
very varied answers.
One man shouted, John 3, 16, love.
I said, thank you.
That's in the gospel, all right.
Someone shouted, only believe.
I said, yes, believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
That's in the gospel.
One man shouted, heaven.
Another man shouted, hope.
And someone said, civil rights.
Well, that's in the gospel, too.
One man was annoyed with me, and he
said, the gospel is so rich, it has
so many words of significance.
How could you say there is a first
word?
Well, the English alphabet has 26 letters.
Ask any kindergarten kid, what is the first
letter of the alphabet?
And he will tell you condescendingly, the letter
A.
So you say to him, why is A
the first letter of the alphabet?
And he will say, because it is.
And if you say, why because it is,
he will say, it always comes first.
A is the first letter of the English
alphabet, the first letter of the French alphabet,
the first letter of the Spanish alphabet, the
first letter of the Russian alphabet.
Alpha, the same letter, is the first letter
of the Greek alphabet.
Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Now, don't confuse me with Chinese.
The Chinese don't have an alphabet.
They use ideographs.
You know, the Chinese word for peace is
a little picture of a roof with one
woman under it.
The Chinese word for war is a roof
with two women under it.
But ask any Chinese of your acquaintance, what's
the first letter of the alphabet?
He will tell you the first letter of
the only alphabet he has ever learned, the
English alphabet, the letter A.
Now, could we say there's a first word
to the gospel?
You say, well, how would you establish that?
Very simply.
See if you follow me.
If the first word in the mouth of
John the Baptist were the same as the
first word in the mouth of the Lord
Jesus, if that were the same as the
first word in the mouth of the Twelve
Disciples, if that were the same as the
first word in the mouth of the Seventy
Disciples, if that were the same as the
first word in the Lord's last instructions to
his disciples, if that were the same as
the first word in the mouth of the
Apostle Peter at Pentecost, if that were the
same as the first word in the mouth
of Paul the Apostle throughout his journeys, surely
that would be the first word of the
gospel.
You say, well now, why didn't you mention
Billy Graham or Pope John Paul?
Well, Billy Graham and Pope John Paul have
to refer to the gospels to find out
what the first word is.
We're going right to the root of the
thing.
The first word in the mouth of John
the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, the Twelve Disciples,
the Apostle Peter, the Apostle Paul.
What could come before that?
So let's just establish it.
In those days came John the Baptist preaching
the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent ye,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Make a mental note.
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 4, verse 17.
Then Jesus began to preach.
Had he preached before?
No.
This was his first time?
Yes.
Then what did he say?
Then Jesus began to preach and to say.
That means he kept on saying this.
It wasn't a one-liner.
Then Jesus began to preach and to say,
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.
Make a mental note of that.
If you read the rest of the Gospel
of Matthew, you'll find that word occurs another
three times in the preaching of the Lord
Jesus, when he was most compassionate, when he
was most impassioned.
Now there are some good people who make
a distinction between the gospel of the kingdom
of heaven and the gospel of the kingdom
of God.
Out of deference to their odd view, I'll
say let's look at the Gospel of Mark,
which uses the phrase kingdom of God.
After John was put in prison, Jesus came
into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom
of God and saying that time is fulfilled,
the kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe the gospel.
The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God
is at hand.
That was introduction.
What was his first word of challenge?
Repent and believe the gospel.
Our Lord Jesus Christ trained twelve men to
multiply his ministry.
He coached them, rehearsed them in what to
say, and they went out and preached that
men should repent.
There's that word again.
If you read the rest of the Gospel
of Mark, you'll find the same word occurs
again in the preaching of the Lord Jesus,
when he was pleading with people, when he
was denouncing hypocrisy.
He uses that word.
Now someone might say, but perhaps as gospel
preaching developed, the concepts became a little more
sophisticated, perhaps they changed.
Well then, here's a fair test.
Let's look at the end of the Gospel
of Luke, when he was saying goodbye to
his disciples, giving their last word as it
were.
He said it behooved Christ thus to suffer.
Why?
That repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in his name to all nations beginning
at Jerusalem.
Did you take in the significance of that?
He said in effect, the reason why I
died on the cross was that repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be preached to everybody
starting at Jerusalem.
It must have been a great day for
the Apostle Peter to stand before a vast
multitude and preach the death and resurrection of
Christ.
They were smitten with conviction.
It says they were pricked in their heart,
the better word is they were stabbed to
the heart.
And they said, men and brethren, what shall
we do?
The Apostle Peter must have remembered what he'd
been told to say, because he said, repent
and be baptized every one of you for
the remission of your sins.
Exactly what he'd been told to say.
When he reached the climax of his second
great sermon, he said the same thing in
slightly different words, repent and be converted that
your sins might be blotted out.
If you read the rest of the Acts,
you find the Apostle Peter continued to preach
this message.
So what about the Apostle Paul?
We know that he was converted on the
road to Damascus.
We know that he had a vision of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
We know that he began to preach right
away.
But it does not tell us immediately what
he preached.
It does tell us that the believers were
scared of him.
He'd come up to arrest them, and they
were hiding from him.
Just seemed too good to be true.
And here's this man, he started to preach
the gospel.
But he told us many years later what
he said.
Whereupon, O King Agrippa, he said, I was
not disobedient to the heavenly vision.
But first at Damascus, then at Jerusalem, then
throughout Judea, and then to the nations.
I told them that they should repent and
turn to God and produce works made for
such repentance.
Did you take in what he said?
Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient
to the heavenly vision.
What does that mean?
The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him in
person, and told him what to preach.
The Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus, had not
been among the company of the disciples.
They had been told what to preach, but
not Saul.
So he said, I was not disobedient.
I did what I was told.
What was he told?
I told them they should repent and turn
to God, and produce works made for such
repentance.
How can anyone avoid the conclusion that the
first word of the gospel is the word
repent?
If the gospel is the sword of the
Lord, the word repent is the point of
the sword.
I almost feel like pausing, as we do
in a marriage service, and say, if anyone
has any objection, let him now speak, or
forever hold his peace.
Do you disagree with what I said?
What was the first word in the mouth
of John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, the
twelve disciples, the Apostle Peter, the Apostle Paul?
The answer is the word repent.
Quite frankly, the average American Christian, Catholic or
Protestant, whatever denomination, doesn't know this.
The second mystery is he doesn't know what
the word means anyway.
Now, words do change meaning.
When I came to the United States in
1935 as a young lay evangelist, I had
a united campaign in the city of Seattle.
We used the Moore Theater, with all denominations
supporting us.
The meetings were organized by a Presbyterian doctor.
Not only did he do a good job
organizing, but he had me stay in his
own home.
It was my first taste of American hospitality.
I wrote to my mother back in the
old country, and told her how wonderful it
was.
When I was saying goodbye, I thanked him
for all the good work he had done.
I wanted to say something nice about his
good lady.
So I said, I think your wife is
one of the homeliest women I've met in
my life.
Now, although that's nearly 50 years ago, I
still remember what he said.
He said, what?
By extrasensory perception, I realized I'd used the
wrong word somewhere.
So more carefully, I said, I think she's
one of the homeliest ladies I've met in
my life.
Well, he said, she isn't exactly a movie
star, but she's pretty, don't you think?
I said, yes, she's pretty, but even more
homely.
He said, what do you mean?
I said, what'd I say?
He said, what does homely mean where you
come from?
I said, sweetly means sweet-like, nicely means
nice-like, quickly means quick-like, and homely
means home-like.
I said, you see, it was originally spelt
with a K, but they dropped the K.
Well, he said, not in America.
I don't know how we got it twisted,
but he said, the word here means ugly.
Now, I was surprised.
I said, what have you got against home?
I said, isn't home sweet home an American
song?
Oh, he said, you mean homey.
All right, if you want to talk baby
talk.
She sang so sweetie, he played so nicey.
Oh, no.
Now, I'm not joking about this.
Outside United States, and possibly, I'd say, Canada's
rather ambivalent about it.
They know what the word homely means up
there, but the word homely in English means
home-like.
How did that word ever change?
I haven't the foggiest idea.
My son, Alan, who came up through California
high school, he said, well, Dad, it means
some woman who's so plain she ought not
to leave home.
Now, that was accidental, but sometimes they change
words deliberately.
When I was last in Europe, I noticed
that Eastern Germany is called the German Democratic
Republic.
Abraham Lincoln said democracy was government of the
people, for the people, by the people.
But Eastern Germany has been stuck with the
same dictatorship that was fastened on them by
Stalin at the end of World War II.
They've tried to change, just as they've tried
to change in Hungary, and they've tried to
change in Poland, yet they call themselves the
German Democratic Republic.
Don't you think that's deliberate?
That's meant to fool somebody?
You'd be surprised to know that behind the
so-called Iron Curtain, they call themselves the
democracies.
Now, would it not be a masterstroke of
the enemy of the Christian faith to take
the very first word of the gospel and
change its meaning in people's minds, so that
it doesn't have any effect anymore?
Well, that's exactly what's been done.
The meaning of the word repent has been
perverted.
Sometimes its necessity is denied.
Some people restrict its application.
Now, I take it that most people who
earn their living don't have much chance to
learn Koine Greek, New Testament Greek.
The Greek word that's translated repentance is metanoia,
M-E-T-A-N-O-I-A.
Meta means change, noia means thinking.
We have words like that in English.
When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it changes
form.
Sprout swings, flies away.
It's still the same creature, but it has
changed form, so we call that meta, change,
morphosis, form.
Now, the word metanoia, without any fear of
contradiction, means a change of thinking.
But that's not what it means to the
average person in America.
A lot of people think the word means
to feel sorry.
It doesn't mean to feel sorry.
It might involve feeling sorry.
It might involve feeling glad.
The essential meaning of the word repent is
to change.
You say, well, how did it get mixed
up?
It was an error of translation.
Our first English Bible was translated from the
Latin, and they borrowed a Latin word, penitentia,
to translate metanoia.
Now, penitentia means a sense of suffering.
We talk about sending a man to the
penitentiary.
We talk about penitence, but the word doesn't
mean that.
One of the greatest Greek scholars of all
time was Richard Trench, Archbishop of Dublin.
He defined repentance as that mighty change of
mind, heart, and life, wrought by the Spirit
of God.
That mighty change.
Whereas we treat it as a sentimental, emotional
thing.
He repented, that means he started to cry.
No, no, the word doesn't mean to feel
sorry.
It means to change.
You who don't have time to study New
Testament Greek, may have seen a little translation
called the Amplified Version.
It gives shades of meaning.
It defines metanoia, repentance, to think differently, to
amend your ways.
By the way, the French word for repent
is amendez-vous, same word, to amend your
ways, to abhor your past.
In other words, a change of thinking, a
change of behaving, and a change of feeling.
You say, well which is it?
All three.
When Nicodemus came to the Lord by night,
what was his problem?
Was he an immoral man in the grip
of some awful addiction?
No, no, he was a good living man,
a member of the Jewish council.
But when the Lord Jesus said to him,
if I explain earthly things to you and
you don't understand me, how can I explain
heavenly things?
His problem was thinking.
Just as for example, if a Buddhist priest
came into this meeting and talks to me
about Christ, do I tell him about his
sins?
No, Buddhist priests are good living men, the
eightfold way is excellent ethics.
Christians say do unto others you'd have others
do unto you, the Buddhists say don't do
unto others what you wouldn't want them to
do to you.
The ethics are the same then.
But a Buddhist is an agnostic, doesn't believe
in God, so he can't believe in the
deity of Christ, so he must change his
thinking.
Now take for example, the woman taken in
sin.
What was her problem?
Confused thinking?
No, no, she was caught in the act
and she didn't deny it.
What did the Lord tell her?
Go and sin no more.
It was a problem behaving with her.
And if an old drunkard came in here
tonight and I spoke to him about the
Lord, I said what do you know about
Jesus?
He might say in his maudlin way, Jesus
loves me, this I know, for the Bible
tells me so.
He knows that all right.
It's not thinking, it's his bad habits.
Take the rich young ruler who came to
Jesus and said, I have kept all the
commandments since I was a boy.
Note the Lord didn't contradict him.
He loved him, commended him.
But he put his finger on this problem.
He said sell all that you have and
give it to the poor.
He went away sorrowful.
Why?
He loved his money more than God.
And if a Wall Street broker who gets
his kicks out of money making comes here,
we have to tell him no, no, you've
got to put God before mammon.
You see, it's a very rich word.
The word repent is used in such a
sense that when John the Baptist used it,
he said repent and bring forth fruits for
such repentance.
And the Apostle Paul said the same thing,
I told them to repent and turn to
God and produce works meet for such repentance.
Now there are some good people who teach
that the gospel of repentance was preached to
the Jews only.
A famous Canadian gave me a tract he
had written which was entitled Peter or Paul.
In it he said Peter preached a gospel
of repentance to the Jews, but Paul preached
only belief to the Gentiles.
And even when Peter spoke to the first
Gentile converts, he didn't use the word repent.
Now that intrigued me.
I turned to the Acts of the Apostles
and I found to my amazement he was
right.
You know how it begins.
There was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius,
a captain of the Italian regiment, a devout
man who feared God with all his household,
gave liberally to the people, and prayed to
God always.
There was a good living man.
Sure enough, if you read the rest of
the chapter, you find not one word telling
him to repent.
But I once heard Dr. Campbell Morgan say
a text without the context is nothing more
than a pretext.
So I read on into chapter 11.
When the Apostle Peter went back to Jerusalem
to tell the Jewish Christians why he had
broken the rules of segregation and had been
eating and drinking with Gentiles, which was forbidden,
he said, if then God gave them the
same gift that he gave to us when
we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who
was I to stand against God?
When they heard this, they were silenced, and
they glorified God, saying then to the Gentiles
also, God has granted repentance unto life.
Whatever it was that Cornelius did, the Holy
Spirit caused repentance.
You say, just a moment, you say the
word means to change?
How did he change?
He was a devout man.
Did he cease to be devout?
No.
He feared God.
Did he stop fearing God?
No.
He gave liberally.
Did he stop giving?
No.
He prayed constantly.
Did he stop praying?
No.
Then how did he change?
Think it through with me.
Up to that time, Cornelius, who was what
was called in Greek a God-fearer, was
trying to be saved by his good works.
After that time, he put his trust in
the finished work of Jesus Christ, and that
was a change.
A well-known woman, Christian speaker in the
States, said to me, well Edwin, I didn't
repent when I became a Christian, I just
believed.
I said, maybe you misunderstand.
I was converted on my ninth birthday.
My own mother led me to Christ.
I still remember this as if it were
yesterday.
She said, son, isn't it time you put
your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as
your personal savior?
I said, but ma'am, I do believe
in Jesus.
She said, but can you say he was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for
our iniquities?
I finished the verse for her.
I knew the whole of Isaiah 53.
I said, the chastisement of our peace was
upon him, and with his stripes we are
healed.
I said, I believe that.
Mother was struggling for the right words to
say to her little boy, so she said,
can you say he was wounded for my
transgressions, he was bruised for my iniquities?
And somehow or other, it got through to
me.
If you were to say, when did you
become a Christian, I would say on my
ninth birthday.
Up to that time, I shared the Orr
family religion.
I believed what the family believed.
I answered what they would have answered, in
my own way.
But after that, it was my faith.
It was my experience.
I heard someone interview Ruth Graham on television
recently, said, Mrs. Graham, when did you become
a Christian?
She said, well, I don't rightly know, because
I was brought up in a missionary home
in China.
We read the Bible every day.
But she said, I did find my old
Bible when I was a little girl, and
in Isaiah 53, I found out written, he
was wounded for Ruth's transgressions, he was bruised
for Ruth's iniquities, the chastisement of Ruth's peace
was upon him, and with his stripes Ruth
is healed.
She said, I know I was a Christian
then.
Ruth Graham was converted exactly the same way
that I was.
It wasn't a dramatic conversion.
I assure you, before my conversion, I hadn't
shot a single policeman, or robbed a bank,
or anything like that.
But it was a change for me.
So you see, some people misunderstand.
But when people say that only Jews are
supposed to repent, and Gentiles are supposed to
believe, there's something wrong here.
That means the next time Billy Graham has
a crusade in the Madison Square Garden, he
has to say, you Jews from the Bronx
need to repent, but you Gentiles from Jersey
City, you need only to believe.
That's what some people teach.
But it's not in scripture.
The Apostle Paul spoke to the faculty club
at Athens, those professors of philosophy.
He said, God commanded all men everywhere to
repent.
Only Jews?
There wasn't a Jew present.
When Paul said goodbye to the church at
Ephesus, he said, God's my witness.
For two years, from house to house, I
preached repentance towards God and faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Besides, it was the Lord Jesus who said,
repent and believe the gospel.
You say, well then, are you telling me
I need to do two things?
To repent and to believe?
Not two things, it's really only one thing.
If I said, leave Washington and go to
London, is that one commandment or two?
It sounds like two, but it's really only
one.
Allow me to assure you, you couldn't possibly
go to London without leaving Washington.
And you cannot truly believe without repenting.
If you profess to believe without repenting, then
it's false faith, not true faith.
You say, does the Bible mention false faith?
Well, the brother of our Lord James said,
what does it profit though a man say
he has faith and have not works?
Can that kind of faith save him?
In other words, what's the test of believing?
It shows through the repenting.
That's why we are seeing whether or not
this notorious pornographer had changed his lifestyle.
That should follow.
It doesn't happen all at once, but it
certainly starts when a man says, God be
merciful to me, a sinner.
I was chaplain of the Hollywood Christian group
some thirty years ago.
A well-known Presbyterian Sunday school teacher, Dr.
Henrietta Mears and I started what was called
the Hollywood Christian group.
Some of the converts you know, I'm sure,
ever hear of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Colleen
Townsend.
She's the wife of Louis Evans in the
National Presbyterian Church.
Red Harper, the Youth for Christ Evangelist, all
those were converts of that work of grace.
Now one night I was leading a meeting
in the home of a famous producer in
Beverly Hills, when whom should I see sitting
in front of my wife, but Mickey Cohen,
the gangster.
I can almost tell your age by saying
whether or not you recognize the name.
In 1950, he certainly was the leading racketeer
in the United States, with the government working
overtime to try and trap him and put
him away.
He was too clever for them.
They finally got him.
But there he was sitting in front of
my wife.
This was a meeting for movie stars.
My first thought was, how do you ever
get in here?
Then I found he was brought by Stuart
Hamlin, you know, the man that wrote the
song, It is No Secret What God Can
Do.
He was another convert of that work.
That night the speaker was Billy Graham, but
he gave no invitation.
However, I knew they were ready for some
kind of invitation.
Some had brought their friends in the entertainment
industry, hoping they'd be converted.
So I said, if there's anyone here who
would like to talk to Dr. Graham directly
after the meeting or by appointment tomorrow, would
you just raise your hand, we'll see, and
talk to you afterwards.
Half a dozen raised their hands.
All came through, by the way.
Then Mickey Cohen looked over at Stuart Hamlin
and then he raised his hand.
I gave him the New Testament.
Dick Halverson talked to him.
Bill Bright talked to him.
Jim Voss talked to him.
And he had an appointment with Billy Graham
next day, but didn't come through.
Then a friend of mine, quote, led him
to Christ, unquote.
He used that verse of scripture, Behold, I
stand at the door and knock, if any
man hear my voice, will open the door,
I will come in and sup with him,
and he with me.
He said, Mickey, all you need do is
to invite Jesus into your heart.
Mickey says, is that all?
He said, well, that's what I did.
Now, this publisher was a Baptist minister's son
who had wandered away, and he knew the
gospel, of course, came back again.
So Mickey said, well, I could do that,
couldn't I?
My friend was so pleased.
He flew Mickey Cohen from Los Angeles to
New York, put him up in the Waldorf
Astoria to hear Billy Graham preach for a
week in the Madison Square Garden.
But he never really came through.
I still remember it flashing to my mind.
He borrowed my friend's credit card and ran
up a bill of $5,000.
He said, I was obliging a sucker.
They parted bitterly.
He said to my friend since deceased, you
didn't tell me I had to give up
my career.
He meant his rackets.
You didn't tell me I had to give
up my friends.
He meant the gangsters working for him.
You didn't tell me this.
You didn't tell me that.
If that's your Christianity, I want no part
of it.
Mickey Cohen had heard that Roy Rogers was
a Christian cowboy, and Colleen Townsend was a
Christian actress, and Tim Spencer was a Christian
songwriter, and Don Moomaw was a Christian footballer,
and Frank Carlson was a Christian senator, and
Mickey thought he could be a Christian gangster.
You laugh at that?
Wouldn't you agree that in our churches today,
there are young people who think they can
be Christian fornicators?
At a famous Christian college, a girl came
to me and said, my boyfriend says there's
nothing in the Bible against premarital sex.
I said, you must be kidding.
Well, I couldn't think of a verse.
I said, I'll give you one.
The Apostle Paul said, flee fornication.
Every other sin that a man commits is
outside the body, but the immoral man sins
against his own personality.
She said, what does that have to do
with premarital sex?
I said, that's the meaning of the word
fornication.
Oh, she said.
Apparently she didn't know that.
I said, look it up.
She came back the next day, my boyfriend
says, don't quote the Apostle Paul to me.
The Lord Jesus was more understanding.
He said, neither do I condemn thee.
I said, finish the verse.
Well, that's what he said, neither do I
condemn thee.
He said, go and sin no more.
I said, that was adultery, not fornication.
Technically there's a difference.
Adultery is extramarital sex.
Would you like a verse of scripture of
what the Lord Jesus said about premarital sex?
She said, if there is one.
Oh yes, there is one.
He said, it's not what goes into a
man that defiles a man, but what comes
out of him.
And out of the heart come evil thoughts,
murders, fornications, thefts.
She said, why does it put such a
nice thing as a relationship in such bad
company?
You've got a point.
Sex is the tender passion.
Normal sex can be the highest expression of
love between a man and a woman.
Sometimes I wonder when I read of these
ghastly rapes and assaults and murders, there's something
going wrong these days.
But normally you could say it's the highest
expression of love.
If some thug punches an old lady in
the face and steals her handbag, he can't
feel very thrilled about it, but the sex
relationship is a tender feeling.
But I said, the teaching of scripture is
it's wrong outside marriage.
Marriage is a contract.
And it's wrong outside that contract.
But lots of people today don't seem to
realize this.
There's something further I should say about this
subject, is there are lots of good people
today in the United States who tried to
win souls to Christ without the word repentance.
They've never mentioned it.
I was reading the fifteenth chapter of Luke,
what we call the gospel parables, devotionally, and
I decided to see how does each one
finish.
When the shepherd found his sheep, he called
together his friends and neighbors and said, rejoice
with me, I found my sheep that was
lost.
That's the end of the story.
You read no more about shepherd or sheep.
But the Lord Jesus quickly added, just so
I tell you, there'll be more joy in
heaven over one sinner who repents than over
99 people who don't need to repent.
Why did he say that?
If he had not said that, some would
have said the sheep never repented.
You don't need to repent to be saved.
Take the story of the lost coin.
When the woman found it, she called her
friends and neighbors together saying, rejoice with me,
I found the coin I lost.
You read no more about the woman or
the coin, or her neighbors.
But the Lord Jesus quickly added, just so
I'm telling you, there is joy before the
angels of God over one sinner who repents.
Why did he add that?
If he had not added that, some theologian
would have pointed out that a coin is
incapable of repenting.
Therefore repentance could hardly be required.
Take the story of the lost son, the
prodigal son.
How does that end?
The father said it was fitting that we
should make merry and be glad, for your
brother was dead, but now he's alive, he
was lost and now he's found.
That's the end of the story.
You read no more about father, older brother,
or younger brother, or anyone else.
It was strange to relate.
The Lord Jesus didn't say a word about
repentance.
Why?
It's in the story.
When the young man said, I will arise
and go to my father, I will say,
father, I'm no more worthy to be called
your son.
Make me a hired servant.
That was his repentance.
The fact that it's underlined in two places
and left in the other, emphasizes that repentance
is part of our evangelism.
Yet it's not preached today.
Instead of that, we tell people to invite
Jesus into our hearts.
They misunderstand.
I suppose Larry Flint thought he could invite
Jesus into that mess in the Hustler.
Never realized that Jesus wanted to take him
out right away.
You can invite Jesus into your heart, but
that's not what the scripture says.
The scripture says, repent, that means change your
attitude.
It'll result in a change of behaving and
a change of feeling.
One well-known youth evangelist said to me,
well, I just used Revelation 3.20. By
the way, that's a verse for this church,
for a church, not for unbelievers.
But he said, I use it, but he
said, I hope they'll change.
I said, why don't you tell them?
Well, he said, I hope, he said, in
fact, I'm disappointed if they don't change.
Now, when I was last in the Philippines,
I met a missionary and I asked him,
when did you become a Christian?
He said, I went forward in the Billy
Graham crusade.
I said, thank God for that.
I've met converts to the Graham crusades everywhere.
But Billy told me, once he was flying
east, the little stewardess was fussing, Dr. Graham,
would you like some more coffee?
He said, Dr. Graham, you know, my mother
prays for you every day.
Are you sure you wouldn't like some more
coffee?
There was a big man up front, under
the influence of drink.
Loud, profane, making passes at the stewardesses.
And it so outraged this little girl that
she went up and said to him, tremblingly,
sir, I must ask you to be quiet.
Did you know that Dr. Billy Graham is
flying with us today?
And the big mountain of a man got
up, came down the aisle.
He said, where's Billy Graham?
Billy said he didn't know whether he should
introduce himself or not.
He stopped opposite Billy and said, you're Billy
Graham.
Billy said, that's my name, sir.
Billy, he said, put it there.
Your sermons have really helped me live the
Christian life.
What was the difference between the missionary in
the Philippines and the drunk passenger?
They both professed.
The difference was repentance.
If you want me to put as bluntly
as I can, returning to that word, born
again.
The only evidence of the new birth is
the new life.
Yet this note is missing so much from
our evangelism today.
And if, please God, we see another great
awakening, it'll come through a preaching of repentance.
It's the first word of the gospel.
Have you ever seen men learning defense in
gymnasium so that no one gets hurt?
They put a cork on the point of
the sword.
Could you imagine British officers during the Battle
of the Falklands saying, fix bayonets, but put
a cork on the point of your bayonet
so no one gets hurt?
Oh no.
Yet we find that we are being shackled
today.
And the tragedy is, every time you quote,
lead a person to the Lord, unquote, without
his understanding repentance, and his heart doesn't change,
it's ten times harder for somebody else to
lead him to Christ.
Because he says, I went forward once.
How many times have I said that?
I went forward once, or I signed a
card once, or I did this, or I
did that.
You say, what's the connection between this and
the subject of our week's lectures, Revival and
Awakening?
Every great awakening has meant a renewal of
the preaching of the first word of the
gospel.
A lady came to me, with this I
close, speaking of a certain famous preacher, said,
oh it was so inspirational.
So I said, what did he preach on?
Well, she says, I can't remember the subject,
but it was so inspirational.
Well, I said, what was his text?
She said, I don't remember the text, but
it was inspirational.
I said, what was his topic?
She said, I can't remember that either.
This is February the 6th.
I'm over 71 now.
I don't know how many more months or
years the Lord will give me.
But if I should see you again, I'd
be very disappointed if you didn't remember what
I preached on.
What did I preach on?
What does it mean?
Now you're on the spot.
I call God to witness.
You know what the word means now.
Whether you're a minister of the gospel or
a humble worker in the church, any time
you seek to influence anyone for God, don't
forget the first word of the gospel.
That's your duty.
It doesn't mean you must reform yourself.
It just means you must change your attitude.
If I had time, I'd give you quite
a different talk on the use of the
word repent to believers.
It occurs seven times in the seven letters
of the churches.
But there's no time for that tonight.
Let us stand for prayer.
Oh God, when we think of the need
of our country, of the multitudes who are
living in sin, of the grossness of immorality,
and yet of the millions who call themselves
Christians and claim to be born again, yet
their lives have never changed, help us to
be faithful.
We pray thee pour out thy Holy Spirit
first upon the church, upon all true believers,
to revive us to what we ought to
be.
Then pour out thy Holy Spirit upon the
masses, to convict them of sin and of
righteousness and of judgment.
Grant them, Lord, that we'll be faithful in
pointing them to Jesus Christ the way he
taught us.
Now may grace, mercy, and peace from Father,
Son, and Spirit be our portion now and
forevermore.