The weekend before last, I had 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 percent of
the population to 53 percent.
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 percent 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.
In our recent lifetime we notice that handicapped
people are being given certain help.
They have ramps of 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 the headline for an editorial, Born
Again?
Yes, I am born again.
I now follow the spirit of Buddha, Mohammed,
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.
Little pictures like that.
But ask any Chinese of your acquaintance, what
is 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 is 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 who what?
His journeys.
Surely that would be the first word of
the gospel.
You say, 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.
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.
Someone might say, but perhaps as gospel preaching
developed, the concepts became a little more sophisticated,
perhaps they changed.
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 in
their heart.
And they said, men and brethren, what shall
we do?
The Apostle Peter must have remembered what he
had been told to say, because he said,
repent and be baptized, every one of you,
for the remission of your sins.
Exactly what he had been told to say.
When he reached the climax of a 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 had come up to arrest them, and
they were hiding from him.
It just seemed too good to be true.
Here is 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 meet 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 meet 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 that he doesn't know
what the word means anyway.
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.
We had 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.
Although that's nearly fifty 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's originally spelt with
a K, but they dropped the K.
Well, he said, not in America.
I don't know how he 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 sweety, 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 tried to change, they tried to change
in Hungary, and they 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, the 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, 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,
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 as you would
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 there.
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, commanded him.
But he put his finger on his 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'll 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.
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.
That intrigued me.
I turned to the Acts of the Apostles
and I found to my amazement he was
right.
You know how it was.
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 liberty 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
them 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 called it 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 Christian speaker in the States
said to me, 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, and said, Mrs. Graham, when did you
become a Christian?
I said, 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 I had 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?
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 of the
National Presbyterian Church.
Red Harper, the youthful Christ evangelist, all those
were converts of that work of grace.
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 did he 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 would 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 Corn looked over at Stuart Hamlin
and he raised his hand.
I gave him a 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
the next day, but didn't come through.
Then a friend of mine, quote, led him
to Christ.
He used that verse of scripture, Behold I
stand at the door, 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, 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, I could do that, couldn't
I?
My friend was so pleased.
He flew Mickey Corn 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 through my mind.
He borrowed my friend's credit card and ran
up a bill of five thousand dollars.
He said, I was obliging the 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 Corn 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.
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.
Apparently she didn't know that.
I said, Look it up!
She came back the next day and said,
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.
That's what he said, Neither do I condemn
thee.
He said, Go and sin no more.
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?
If there is one, why is there 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.
Why does it put such a nice thing
as sex 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, has something
gone 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.
What I see the teaching of scripture is
it's wrong outside marriage.
Marriage is a contract, and it's wrong outside
that contract.
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 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 have 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 will be more joy
in heaven over one sinner who repents than
over ninety-nine 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 have 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 am 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 Mary and be glad that 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's 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 am no more worthy to be
called your son.
Make me a hired servant.
That was his repentance.
The fact that it is 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.
He 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 will result in a change of behaving
and a change of feeling.
One well-known youth evangelist said to me,
I just used Revelation 3.20. That's a
verse for a church.
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 Mary and be glad that your
brother was dead, but now he's alive.
He was lost and now he's found.
That's the end of the story.
We read no more about father, older brother,
or younger brother, or anyone else.
It's 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 am 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,
the left and 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 will 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 I
hope they'll change.
I said, why don't you tell them?
He said, in fact, I'm disappointed if they
don't change.
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, my mother prays for
you every day.
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, and he said,
where's Billy Graham?
Billy said he didn't know whether he should
introduce himself or not.
He stopped opposite Billy, he says, 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 it 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 in the point of
the sword.
Could you imagine British officers during the Battle
of the Falklands saying, fix bayonets, but put
a cork in 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, who says, I'll
close, speaking of a certain famous preacher, said,
oh, it was so inspirational.
So I said, what did he preach on?
Well, she said, 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 from the 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, we 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, the victim of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment.
Grant then, 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.