The Bible, please, the Romans, chapter number one
tonight, if you would, please.
The book of Romans, chapter number one in
your New Testament Bible tonight.
Good to see you.
I hope that you've had a wonderful day.
I'm sure it's been very profitable.
And I praise the Lord for the good
day that He's given us to continue to
pray for the Robertsons.
They'll be going to their home in Beach
Grove, which is about probably, oh, maybe 15,
20 miles from where we based our ministry
out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
They've got a home there.
They'll be there tonight, and early in the
morning they'll leave.
The funeral is in Birmingham, Alabama at 2
o'clock tomorrow, and then Brother Doyle has
to leave and even go to Mobile.
And those of you who go to Pensacola,
you know that Mobile's way on down there.
And so he's got a long ways to
go to be back here.
So you pray for them.
Pray for Brother WC6.
Let me say this about the message that
I'm about to preach.
In just a moment we'll stand and we'll
be through.
I'll just make a few thoughts.
But if I were going to choose a
message to preach at the 2001 Staff Training
Revival, this would not be the message that
I would choose to preach.
But since I'm not doing the choosing, and
since I want to be a Holy Spirit
-filled and a Holy Spirit-led preacher, I
feel this is the direction He would have
me go.
I said the very same thing last year
when I preached the message, some of you
may remember, on What's Everybody Screaming About?
When I preached on Matthew 13, preached on
the doctrine of hell, and I said the
same thing then.
The Lord used it in a wonderful way,
and He's used that message many, many times
around the country.
But I do not understand why the Lord
has directed me to this area.
I could preach some little old microwave sermon,
just kind of pop it in, put it
on 30 minutes, and just let the thing
cook for a while, and just preach some
message that I've preached all over the country.
But I don't want to do that.
I want to be a preacher that's led
by God's Spirit.
And so I don't know what your needs
are tonight.
I know what mine are.
But the Spirit of God, no doubt, has
indelibly laid this portion of Scripture upon my
heart.
And so I hope the Lord will use
it in your heart tonight.
Romans 1.
Let's stand, please, and have respect for God's
Word.
Let your eyes please fall to verse 16.
I hope you've got a pen handy.
Somebody said that a short pencil is better
than a long memory.
So I'll give you just a few thoughts,
and then we'll be through, and I'm going
to my trailer and getting some ice cream.
All right, Romans 1.
And verse 16.
Paul is writing, he says, For I am
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it, that's the gospel, is the power of
God and the salvation to everyone that believeth,
to the Jew first, and also to the
Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith, as it is written,
The just shall live by faith.
For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
Because that which may be known of God
is manifest in them, for God has showed
it unto them.
Verse 20.
For the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even
his eternal power and Godhead, so that they
are without excuse.
Because that when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish
heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God
into an image made like the corruptible man
and the birds, and four-footed beasts and
creeping things.
Verse 24.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness
through the lust of their own hearts, to
dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed
the truth of God into a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature more than the
Creator, who is blessed forevermore.
Amen.
For this cause God gave them up into
vile affections, for even their women did change
the natural youth into that which is against
nature.
Likewise also the men, leaving the natural youth
of the woman, burned in their lust one
toward another, men with men working that which
is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense
of their error which was meek.
And even as they did not like to
retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not convenient, being filled with
all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full
of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, back
biters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, ghosters, inventors
of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding,
covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.
Knowing the judgment of God that they which
commit such things are worthy of death, not
only do the same, but have pleasure in
them that do them.
Tonight I bring you the simple message, God's
greatest enemy.
Thank you very much.
You may be seated.
Let's bow our heads in heart and let's
pray and ask the Lord to bless our
time together tonight.
Father, thank you for this privilege that you
have afforded me for the next few moments
as your servant, the preacher, to open my
heart, to open my mouth and open the
Word of God and preach the Bible.
And Father, I do not take that lightly
and I pray that you would empty me
of myself.
Dear God, help me to say all of
thee and none of me.
May I keep back everything that the Spirit
of God would not have me say and
may I not keep back that which the
Spirit of God would like me to say.
Father, speak to hearts tonight.
I pray that you would work as only
you can work.
Convict, convince, comfort, console, have your will, have
your way.
And Lord, I claim the Word of God,
that it is a sharp two-edged sword.
Lord, my message is not.
Use not necessarily me tonight, but Lord, in
spite of myself, I pray that you would
use the Word of God through me in
a very, very powerful way.
And we'll thank you, dear God, for everything
that you'll say and do, for we know
that you'll do great things, for we pray
it in faith and we ask it in
Jesus' name.
Amen.
If you're familiar with the book of Romans,
and I'm sure you are, most of you
being Bible college students, you will know that
theologically we would say that the book of
Romans is a greatly doctrinal book when it
comes to the issue of salvation.
We call that, as you know, the doctrine
of soteriology.
And the book of Romans, out of the
27 books of your New Testament Bible, is
no doubt the most doctrinal book in all
of those 27 books.
Every single chapter has some part, parcel, and
aspect of the doctrine of salvation.
In Romans 1, that we just read in
our hearing, I'll have you to know that
the Apostle Paul is writing to the church
at Rome.
Now, unless you misunderstand your Bible and misinterpret
it, he's not writing to the Roman Catholic
Church, he's writing to the saints which were
scattered throughout the province of the Roman Empire.
In chapter 1, he condemns Gentile humanity.
He condemns all of those people who are
non-Jews, all of those depraved, disobedient, deplorable
people about which we just read.
So in chapter 1, he condemns Gentile humanity.
In chapter 2, just to make sure the
Jew didn't think that he was off the
hook, he condemned the Jew in chapter 2.
He stripped them of their self-righteousness using
the Mosaic Law and showed them that they
needed to be saved by the grace of
God.
But just to make sure that he didn't
let anybody off the hook, in Romans 3,
he said, "...for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God."
And then in Romans 4, we have the
great doctrine of justification by faith using the
faith of Abraham who we preached on shortly
from Genesis 12 last night.
Romans 5, he deals with the doctrine of
reconciliation.
Now please understand that God did not need
to be reconciled to man, for God never
failed, God never went anywhere.
It was man who failed, it was man
who went away from God, and reconciliation is
the doctrine of God re-bringing back or
drawing back man to himself.
Romans 6, in verse number 1, Paul begins
to speak about death to self.
I preached last year, the very first service
as a matter of fact, on Romans 6,
verses 1 and 2, when the Bible says,
"...what shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound?
God forbid!
How shall we that are dead to sin
live any longer therein?"
And last year I preached on the subject,
why don't you just drop dead?
And he deals with that in Romans 6.
In Romans 7 and in Romans 8, we
have two paramount yet parallel portions of Scripture.
Paul says, when I want to do right,
I end up doing wrong.
He says, when I don't want to do
wrong, I still do wrong.
Who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?
Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And he talks about the struggles that he
had with the flesh.
Now certainly, if Paul had struggles with the
flesh, we're going to have struggles with the
flesh.
Then in Romans 9, he dealt with Israel's
past.
In Romans 10, he deals with Israel's present.
That is why in Romans 10, verse 13,
he said, "...for whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved."
Because in this dispensation of grace, if you
will, in this church age in which we
live, they have the same, the Jew has
the same responsibility as the rest of the
world to call, to repent, and to turn
to Jesus Christ.
Then in Romans 11, we have Israel's future.
Romans 11 has nothing to do with the
church whatsoever.
It has everything to do with the Jew
being brought back to Christ during the tribulation
period, the times of Jacob's trouble.
Then in Romans 12, we have a parenthetical
portion of Scripture.
Because in chapter 12, in verse 1, Paul
says, "...I beseech you therefore..." You've been in
your Bibles long enough to know that when
you see a therefore, a wherefore, you look
and see what it's there for.
He's not referring to chapter 11.
He's not referring to chapter 10.
And he's not referring to chapter 9.
Those are parenthetical portions of Scripture.
He's referring back to the first eight chapters.
"...because you've been saved, because you've been justified,
because by faith you've been reconciled to Christ,"
he says, "...therefore, my beloved brethren, surrender your
lives completely, wholeheartedly, lock, stock and barrel, and
be not conformed to this world."
Then in Romans 13, he deals with civil
law and civil government.
Romans 14, he deals again with the subject
of faith, and the Bible says he that
doubteth is damned.
In Romans 15, he deals with the subject
of God's people who are in the Word
being a stumbling block to other people.
And we know what Jesus said about that.
Put a millstone around your neck if you'll
cause one of these little brothers and sisters
in Christ to fall away.
Then in Romans 16, he commends the people,
and he has the great benediction.
But in Romans 1, we have no doubt
the most doctrinal portion of Scripture when it
comes to the issue of salvation.
Now, what I'm going to preach on tonight
is a very controversial subject, and please understand
me, that is not why I preach on
it.
I'm not a confrontational person.
If there needs to be a confrontation, I'm
better at confrontation in the pulpit than out
of the pulpit.
You know, you can kind of be a
bulldog, junkyard man in the pulpit, and I
had a man come up to me not
long ago, I had my suit coat on,
obviously.
I had a suit on, and I just
got through preaching.
I was at my back at my tape
table, and he came to me, and he
started patting me on the back.
And I didn't know what in the wild
world this guy was doing, you know, and
I'm kind of thinking, what in the world
is going on with this fella?
And so he takes his hand, lifts up
my suit coat, puts it up the back
of my suit coat, and I'm thinking to
myself, now hold on just a minute, pal.
And so I turned around, I said, excuse
me.
He said, I was looking to see where
your wind-up mechanism was.
I said, my wind-up mechanism?
He said, yeah, I was wondering if your
wife wound you up before you got in
the pulpit.
I said, no, sir.
I said, she sprinkled gunpowder all over my
Cheerios.
I eat that stuff.
I chew on a matchstick, drink gasoline, beat
my head on the wall, jump on the
pulpit, and preach the devil out of everybody.
Amen?
So I believe in being confrontational if you
have to be confrontational.
But I do not preach this message tonight
just to stir up a controversy.
I guarantee you, simply because I never did
when I was in Bible college.
I never did when I was in camp,
and I very rarely did when I was
in church.
I never heard a full-fledged message on
the subject that we are going to deal
on tonight.
But before I tell you who God's greatest
enemy is, let's please go back to Romans
1.
Lay the groundwork.
Verse 16.
He says, for I, that's Paul, am not
ashamed.
He said, no matter who I'm with, it
makes no difference.
I'll not be ashamed of the gospel.
Now, we hear a lot about social gospel.
We hear a lot about medical gospel.
We hear a lot about all these gospels
around the world.
But I've got news for you, ladies and
gentlemen.
There's only one saving gospel.
That is the death, the burial, and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If we add anything to that, we do
not have the gospel.
If we take anything away from that, we
do not have the gospel.
1 Corinthians 15, the first four verses, tells
us that Christ died according to the Scriptures.
He was buried, and thank God, rose again
according to the Scriptures.
That is the gospel.
And that is the gospel that Paul said,
I'll not be ashamed of.
So he said, I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ, for it, the gospel obviously,
is the power of God, the dunamis, the
dynamicness of salvation.
It is the power of God and the
salvation to everyone that believes it, to the
Jew first and also to the Greek.
Now, the thought continues into verse 17.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith.
God's righteousness is revealed through the gospel.
For the just shall live by faith.
Now look at verse 18.
For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
who hold the truth.
Literally means to suppress down or to hold
down the truth.
We hear a lot about the love of
God.
Now, I believe in the love of God.
I believe in the grace of God.
I believe in the mercy of God.
But I want to just challenge you sometimes.
Study the Bible.
Did you know that you will not find
out that God loves humanity in so many
words as far as Him saying it?
You will not find out that God loves
humanity until the book of Deuteronomy.
That's the fifth book of your Bible.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Five books into your Bible before you ever
find out God loves you.
But the third chapter of the first book,
you find out God's holy and God hates
sin.
And something has to be done about it.
So yes, we should preach on love.
Yes, we should preach on grace and on
mercy.
But my Bible says the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven upon disobedience, upon ungodliness,
and upon wickedness and wretchedness.
And I believe the wrath of God is
something that needs to be preached.
And we've gotten far away from that in
America.
Hence, that's why we're in the mess that
we are.
But keep reading, if you would, please, in
verse number 20.
The Bible says, excuse me, verse 19.
It says, because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, for God
has showed it unto them.
Now, here's a perplexing verse.
For the invisible things of Him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen.
So it's obvious.
You can look around.
You see the trees.
You see the sky.
You see the stars.
You see all of this.
And I've got enough sense to know that
I could have had some kinfolk that swung
by their necks, but I never had any
that swung by their tails.
Alright, I'm not from a monkey.
I'm not from an amoeba.
I didn't come from the mud.
Genesis 2.7 And the Lord God formed
a man out of the dust of the
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life and man became a living soul.
There's no real such thing as an infidel.
There's no naturally born atheist.
Every man is born with the light of
Christ and every man has enough sense to
know that there is a God.
So how do you know that?
Keep reading your Bible.
Verse 20.
It says, for the invisible things of Him
from the creation of the world are clearly
seen.
Being understood by the things that are made,
even His eternal power and Godhead, so that
they are without excuse.
Because that when they knew God, they glorified
Him not as God, neither were thankful, but
became vain in their imagination, and their foolish
heart was darkened professing themselves to be wise.
So they thought they were a big shot.
God said, you become a fool.
Verse 23.
And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God
into an image made like to corruptible man
and to birds and to forfeited beasts and
to creeping things.
Notice what verse 24 says.
Wherefore, or because of this, wherefore God also
gave them up.
Would you look in your Bibles please, verse
26 now.
Skip down just one verse to verse 26.
For this cause, God gave them up.
Please look in verse number 28.
And even as they did not like to
retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not convenient.
Who is God's greatest enemy?
You say the devil?
Oh, the devil's a great enemy.
Verse Peter 5, 8.
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking
whom he may devour.
2 Corinthians 4, 4.
In whom the God of this world hath
blinded the minds of them which believe not,
lest the light of the gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine
unto them.
John 8, 44.
Ye are of your father the devil, and
the lust of your father ye will do.
He was a murderer from the beginning and
a bold man of the truth.
Why?
Because there is no truth in him.
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of
his own, for he is a liar and
the father of it.
And everybody here tonight has an obstinacy to
know that God's one great enemy is the
devil.
We also know that a great enemy of
God is the world.
1 John 2, verses 15-17.
Love not the world, neither the things that
are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the plight of life is not
of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lusts
thereof, but he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever.
James 4, 4.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that
friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Whosoever therefore is a friend of the world
is the enemy of God.
So we got enough sense to know the
world's God's enemy and the devil's God's enemy.
Did you know according to Romans chapter 1,
God's got one great enemy?
God has one great enemy in the book
of Romans and this enemy is mentioned seven
times in your Bible.
One time in Jeremiah 6.30 and the
other six times are in your New Testament.
One of them being right here in the
book of Romans.
And tonight I preach the subject God's greatest
enemy is the Reprobate.
I want you just to help me just
for a moment for sake of illustration.
How many of you have ever heard a
full-fledged I hope some of you have,
but honestly, how many of you that you
can remember you have heard a full-fledged
message on what is a reprobate, who they
are, and why God has turned them up?
How many of you in this room have
ever heard a message on a reprobate before?
Put your hand in the air, alright?
Four of you.
You may put your hands down.
Now, some people have the idea that the
word reprobate means incapable of rational thinking.
It does.
But I got news for you.
It goes further than meaning incapable of rational
thinking.
For example, God gives us an example in
Jeremiah 6, verse 30.
He's talking about these people who had been
rejected.
He refers to them as silver.
He refers to them as silver that has
been rejected.
And the Bible says, call them reprobate silver,
for they had been refused of the Lord.
The word reprobate not only means incapable of
rational thinking, and we can obviously by way
of context see that these people could not
rationally think.
I mean, they couldn't put two and two
together.
I mean, they didn't know sign language much
less than eight of the twenty-six letters
of the alphabet.
I mean, these people were spiritually morons, if
you will.
They couldn't even think rationally because they had
been turned over to a wicked, depraved, and
disobedient mind.
And so, yes, that is a connotation.
But I want you to understand the word
reprobate literally means that you are incapable of
ever being saved because God has already given
you up.
Now, you hear me and you hear me
well.
If Evangelist Greg Watt gives you up, whoopee
-dee, there's still hope for you.
If your church gives you up, that might
be hard to swallow.
You might have to get a new church,
but there's still hope for you.
Hey, if your Bible college gives you up
tonight, there's still hope for you.
For you folks who go to Pensacola, if
Pensacola gives up on you, there's still hope
for you.
For you folks who go to Bob Jones
University, if Bob Jones University gives up on
you, there's still hope for you.
For the one that goes to Ambassador, and
that's my alma mater, and it says Ambassador
of the Romanoffian, God bless you, amen.
That's my flag.
Nevertheless, if Ambassador of Baptist College gives up
on you, big deal.
And I'm going to tell you something right
now.
If your parents give up on you, there's
still hope.
If the political system gives up on you,
there's still hope.
But friend, I got news for you.
When God gives up on you, there's no
hope whatsoever.
And my Bible tells me that although God
is a God of long-suffering love and
mercy and patience, that one day His patience
will wear out.
One day His patience will wear thin, if
you will, and there will come a time
when people will step the line, they will
go so far, and God will give them
up, and whenever God gives a person up,
they can kick, preach, praise, fall, scream, they
can jump on the Baptist street, they can
shake a hand, they can pray a prayer,
but when God gives you up, you'll go
to hell as sure as a marten to
his gourd, and there's not one thing some
preacher can do for you.
Now friend, you hear me tonight.
Here is a portion of Scripture that proves
that God will turn people over to a
mind whereby they are completely incapable of ever
being saved again.
I give you two thoughts tonight before we
go home, alright?
Number one, I give you the reasons why
God turns them over.
What are two reasons that God would give
people up?
By way of context, number one, they abuse
Him.
Use or abuse, whatever you want to put.
They use Him.
Look in your Bibles if you would please
at verse number 23.
Verse 23, the Bible says, and they changed
the glory of the incorruptible God into an
image made like the corruptible man and the
birds and forfeited beasts and creeped things.
Wherefore, now remember, He's talking about rank sin.
Wherefore, God also gave them up to the
uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts.
These people persisted in their sin.
They stayed in their sin.
They loved their sin.
They wanted their sin.
And God said, alright, you will only use
my mercy.
You will only use my grace.
You will only use my love and my
long suffering for so long.
And God said, if you use me, if
you abuse my grace, my Bible tells me
that because they used Him and because they
abused Him, the Bible says, wherefore, because of
this, that God gave them up to uncleanness,
that they would defile their bodies and that's
why these people lived so depraved.
That's why these people lived so ungodly.
That's why these people had a nonchalant, no
care, doesn't matter if there's a heaven, doesn't
matter if there's a hell attitude in Romans
chapter 1, because they used Him and God
gave them over.
But let me give you the second reason
that God will give a person over.
Not only because you used Him, but number
two, because you refused Him.
These people would not heed to the conviction
of the Holy Spirit.
We'll talk about that in just a moment.
Because our second point will be the duration
of our message.
But these people persisted in their sin.
These people loved their sin.
Look in your Bibles, if you would please,
at verse number 26.
For this cause, what cause?
Because they turned the truth of God into
a lie.
And for this cause, God gave them up.
Unto vile affections.
Now if God said it's vile, I'll tell
you what, friend, it's vile.
For even their women did change the natural
use into that which is against nature.
Now we're going to have the USA Today
and World Report, if you will, right out
of America.
You're fixing to find it in verse 27.
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural
use of the woman burned in their lust
one toward another.
We're talking about perversion, satanites.
Men with men working that which is unseemly
and receiving in themselves that recompense of their
error which was me.
And even as they did not like to
retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not convenient.
Now look at me in the face just
for a moment, alright?
These people use Him, He turns them over.
These people refuse Him, He turns them over
to a reprobate mind.
When they were turned over, when they had
crossed the point of no return, look at
the description that the Apostle Paul, through the
inspiration of God's Spirit, gives to these people
who the Bible says were just turned over
to a reprobate mind.
Look in your Bibles please at verse 29.
Being filled, I mean completely, thoroughly, through and
through.
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity,
whispers, even through the Gospels in for good
measure, verse 30, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
does it not sound like a world report
to you?
Does it not sound like reading the Time
Magazine, the U.S. Senate of Days, something
like that?
Despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things.
That's interesting.
Disobedient to parents.
Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful.
Now get verse 32.
Through knowing the judgment of God, that they
which commit such things are worthy of death,
not only do the same, but have pleasure
in them that do them.
My Bible tells me because of their abuse
of Him and because of their refusal of
Him, those were the two reasons evident right
here in the context that God gave them
over.
But here's my message tonight.
I do not necessarily want to spend the
duration of my message on the reason God
turned them over.
I want to give you secondly the result
of being turned over.
There are two results of being turned over
to a reprobate mind.
There are two things that you will not
have whenever God gives you up.
By the way, you believe anything you want
to.
I believe there are people whose brainwaves are
working, their heart is beating, and their blood
is pulsating through their veins 90 miles to
nothing, but they have already crossed the line.
God has given them up and we can
preach, scream, shout, kick, and swallow, but they
will never be saved by the grace of
God for God has already turned them over.
I'll prove that to you.
First, result number one.
Result number one, when a person has been
given up, is first and foremost, no conviction.
You hear me?
No conviction.
And many of you are writing that down,
so if you write it down, then look
this way.
Now, how many of you in this room
tonight, just by a show of hands, help
me by way of this illustration.
How many of you believe, not because your
church says it, not because your Bible college
says it, but because you believe in the
Bible.
How many believe that we have, honestly as
a child of God, as a man, as
a lady, how many think we have a
responsibility to be faithful in the ministry of
evangelism?
We should knock on doors, pass out gospel
tracts, pray for people, preach to people.
We should do what we can to see
people saved.
I'm not commanded to win the world.
I'm commanded to tell the world.
How many would agree with the fact that
we are supposed to all be evangelists?
Would you put your hand high in the
air?
Alright, now put your hands down.
Did you know that we are living in
a day, please, do not misquote me.
I don't mind if you quote me, just
don't misquote me.
We got too much of that going on
in the tabloids already.
But you know what?
I believe that we have a responsibility to
personally evangelize people.
I believe that.
But we have so over-emphasized man responsibility
and so de-emphasized the Holy Spirit's responsibility,
we don't even know what real biblical evangelism
is anymore.
Let me tell you what I mean.
Did you know that you can go to
a center, hey, Big Joe, come to the
door.
So Big Joe comes to the door.
And you can pull out your King James
Bible and you can beat Big Joe's head
with it.
And you can loosen your tie, fellas.
And you can get red in the face.
And you can sing the star-spangled banner.
And you can quote Psalm 19, John 3,
16, the Romans road, John's highway.
And you can get red in the face,
spit all over the place.
You can stuff around, throw cold water on
this man's face.
You can preach on heaven.
You can preach on hell.
You can preach on everything in between.
You can preach on it all.
And you can beg that man to get
saved by the grace of God.
But you know what the Bible truth is?
If the Spirit of God does not first
put him under old-fashioned conviction, he's not
going to get saved no matter what you
do.
We can beat the doors down.
We can beg him to get saved, walk
an aisle, shake a hand, pay a prayer,
get in the baptismal booth.
But if the Spirit of God does not
put them under old-fashioned conviction, they will
not get saved.
So how do you know that?
Because Jesus said, no man comes to the
Father save the Spirit of God draw him.
And Jesus said, if I be lifted up,
I will draw all men unto me.
I live in what is referred to as,
around Tennessee, around in the South, they refer
to it as the Bible belt.
Now if that be true, it needs a
big buckle, that's for sure.
Because we're in a mass in Tennessee, Alabama,
Georgia, North and South Carolina, you know that.
And there's no such thing as a Bible
belt, alright?
I mean, Tennessee's going to hell just as
quick as Wisconsin's going to hell.
California's going to hell just as quick as
Florida's going to hell.
And there's no such thing as a Bible
belt.
But I say that to say this, I
get so frustrated sometimes.
You know knocking on doors these preachers, somebody
comes to the door and you get to
talking to them.
And you ask them about being saved.
You ask them about being born again.
They say, I did that in 7, 11,
14, 28, 32, 65.
And they go through the whole spiel about
how many times they've been born again.
And I suppose they think the song says
he must be born again, and again, and
again, and again, and again.
But it's a one time deal.
But I speak to so many kids going,
yeah, I've been saved.
And they're crooked as a dog's hind legs
or a fornicator, or a whore monger, or
a dope smoker, or an ungodly, they're wicked,
they're crooked as all get out.
I mean, they're going down to the snake's
navel on a wagon track.
And I've got news for you, if they're
saved, they didn't get what I got, that's
for sure.
And I think there's a whole lot And
I'm not talking about snuff, neither.
They need to be born again is what
they need to be.
And I believe with all of my heart,
there's a lot of people that knows the
terminology, but I don't think they've ever really
been put under old-fashioned conviction.
You know what, Brother Lewis?
I'm going to quit asking people when they
got saved.
I'm going to quit saying, tell me when
you got born again.
Amen.
Because they'll come up with something a little
fancy saying.
They'll talk about hearing their dead grandmother speak
to them back from the grave.
They'll start talking about seeing Henny Benny and
David Chicken and the rest of that crowd
in the middle of the night, you know.
And they'll start talking about seeing 900-foot
Jesus in their bedroom.
You see a 900-foot Jesus, you better
lay off the pepperoni pizza before you go
to sleep.
I'll do that right now, amen.
And they'll give you every side show and
everything in the world.
I mean, they'll give it all to you.
I'm going to quit asking them when you
got saved.
I'm going to quit asking when you got
born again.
I'm telling you, I'm going to start asking,
hey, why don't you tell me when you
got under conviction?
Why don't you tell me about the time
the Spirit of God showed you you were
a hell-bound, hell-bent, hell-deserving sinner?
You had offended the law of God, broken
the law of God, offended a thrice-holy
God.
Hey, why don't you tell me when you
got under old-fashioned conviction and the Spirit
of God, not some preacher begs you down
the aisle, but why don't you tell me
when the Spirit of God put you down
beside that lazy boy?
Why don't you tell me when the Spirit
of God convicted you and put you on
your knees beside that bed?
Why don't you tell me when the Spirit
of God put you on your knees at
an altar, at a college, at a school,
or at a church, or at a camp?
And I'm telling you, there's a whole lot
of people that say, well, I'm saved and
I'm born again, and they have never been
under the conviction influence of the Spirit of
God.
But you know what the interesting thing about
that is?
A person who is a reprobate, a person
who has been given up by God, will
never experience conviction again.
Now, how many of you believe that when
a preacher makes a statement, he ought to
back it up with a Bible?
You put your hand in the air.
I hope you believe that.
If you don't, you need to go to
another college, all right?
Now, take your Bibles and turn to Matthew
chapter number 13, would you?
Matthew chapter number 13.
While you're turning to Matthew 13, please let
me give you the context.
It kind of bothers me when these preachers
will take one verse and they pull it
out of context and they hobnob and hop
along on it and have three points in
the poem, and you get through it and
everybody says, man, great message.
What in the world do they have to
say?
And the reason they do that is they
pull this out of context, but I want
to give you the Scripture tonight with what
Jesus is saying in context.
Now, although we're going to be dealing with
Matthew chapter 13, what you must understand about
your Bible tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is that
Matthew chapter 13 and Matthew chapter 12 are
identical portions of Scripture for several reasons.
Number one, they deal with the same subject.
Number two, they're dealing with the same people.
And number three, Jesus has the same spirit
in the same way He is preaching this
message and it's not a little light rosy
little message.
I mean, He preached it done real straight.
I want to remind you, when He is
preaching this message, He is not talking to
drunkards.
Did you know if you study your Bible,
you will find out in the ministry of
Jesus Christ, in the short three and a
half relative years somewhere up to that time,
from the time He was baptized to the
end of Matthew chapter 3, Matthew chapter 4,
verse 1, He was led of the Spirit
into the wilderness to be tempted to the
devil.
From that time on, you will find out
that the drunkards never gave Jesus a hard
time.
Do you know the harlots and the fornicators
never gave Jesus a hard time?
Do you know the crooked people and the
immoral people and the drug addicts and the
crippled people?
None of those people ever gave Jesus a
hard time.
He specialized in that crowd.
He ate with the publicans and sinners and
thank God He did or we'd all be
in hell tonight.
But yet, do you know who it was
that always gave Jesus a rough time?
It's that same crowd that crucified Jesus.
It was the theological people.
It was the people that carried around their
Bibles.
It was the seminary or cemetery students, however
you want to call them.
It was the Bible thumpers of the day.
It was the theologians, but apparently they didn't
know enough theology to blow the fuzz off
a small peanut because they didn't know anything
the Bible said.
They were so interested and so steeped in
the traditions of men that their eyes were
not enlightened to the doctrines of God.
So in chapter number 12, we're not going
to go back there and read for time's
sake, but beginning around verse number 32, Jesus
begins to preach to them about what?
What we call the unpardonable or the unforgivable
sin.
Somebody says, oh, preach a lot.
You don't have to preach on the unpardonable
sin because I heard a preacher on the
other side of the radio say the unpardonable
sin was suicide.
You need to change the radio station because
the unpardonable sin is not suicide.
I do believe as wild as it may
sound, I do believe that a blood-bought,
born-again, Bible-believing Christian can get to
the place where he or she is so
emotionally overwhelmed, where they are so spiritually inept
and dried up like last year's bird nests.
I mean, they can get to the place
where they are so discouraged, where they are
so defeated by the outside influence.
I believe a child of God, as rank
as it may sound, I believe a child
of God can actually get to the place
where he or she is so discouraged that
they take their own life.
And I've got news for you.
If they do that, if they were a
blood-bought, born-again child of God, they
will lift up their eyes in the kingdom
of God and be better for all of
eternity because suicide is not the unpardonable sin.
I don't care what somebody taught you.
That's not what the Bible says.
Jesus is telling them that they need to
be careful lest they commit the sin of
the continual rejection of God's Holy Spirit.
Did you know there is a principle in
the Bible that you will only say no
to conviction for so long before God says
no?
You see, you're not going to burn the
candle of life at both their ends and
blow the smoke in God's face.
No, no.
Galatians 6-7, God is not going to
be moved.
And there will come a time when you
say no for the last time.
There will come a time when you think
to yourself, well, you know, I say what?
Man, if I've got to say what my
friends say, what my family say, what this
person say, what this person say.
And there will come a time when the
Spirit of God puts you under old-fashioned
conviction and you tell Him no for the
last time and He will not convict you
again.
That is the unpardonable sin.
Jesus told them be careful that you don't
say no.
Let me prove that to you from the
Old Testament.
Remember last night I preached on Moses for
a little while when we preached on Mr.
Stephen preaching through the book of Exodus and
going out, the exotype?
Well, the Bible says there was a man
there by the name of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh was crooked.
Pharaoh was depraved.
Pharaoh was ungodly and he kept saying, Who
is the Lord?
Who is the Lord?
Did you know that Moses came to him
and he lifted up the rod of God
and he turned the water into blood and
he had that snake come out of the
rod there and he did all of these
miracles, all these signs, ten plagues and study
your Bible, study history, every plague was a
mock of one of the Egyptians' gods because
they had thousands of them.
But did you know that 18 times in
your Old Testament Bible from Exodus 12 through
Exodus 14, did you know that it says
18 times Pharaoh's heart was hardened toward God?
That's a lot of times, don't you think?
18 times Pharaoh's heart was hardened toward God.
But did you know if you study your
Bible, you will find out that nine of
those times Pharaoh hardened it himself.
The other nine times, God hardened it for
him.
You see, Moses said, Let my people go,
Pharaoh.
Let my people go, And Pharaoh said, No.
No!
And God said, Pharaoh, I'm sick and tired
of you saying no.
Now you let me say no for a
little while.
And God hardened Pharaoh's heart and he perished
in a watery grave.
And Jesus tells these people, You be dead
level careful.
He says, You look me square down in
the eyeball, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you
vipers.
He said, You be careful lest you push
away the conviction of the Holy Spirit of
God and you cross me and you cross
that line.
Matthew 13, they crossed the line.
Did you know in Matthew chapter number 13,
we have one of the great paramount portions
of Scripture in the Bible?
Do you know what happened in Matthew chapter
number 13 that had not previously happened in
the ministry of Jesus?
He began to speak in parables.
Matthew chapter 13, the first part of this
chapter, this is the first time that Jesus
ever opened his mouth and uttered a parable
one time.
So somebody says, Well, we know why he
did that.
So the common person would understand.
No, sir.
Jesus spoke in parables so that they would
not understand.
Look in your Bibles, please.
Matthew chapter number 13.
And I want your eyes to please fall
to verse 13.
Just a moment.
We're coming back to verse 12.
Matthew chapter 13 and verse 13.
Jesus said, Therefore speak I to them in
parables.
Why, Jesus?
Because they seeing see not, and hearing they
hear not.
Neither do they understand, and in them is
fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which said, By
hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand.
And seeing ye shall see, and shall not
perceive.
For this people's heart is waxed gross, and
their ears are dull of hearing, and their
eyes they have closed, lest at any time
they should see with their eyes and hear
with their ears and should understand with their
heart and should be converted and I should
heal them.
Jesus just said, The reason I speak in
these dark sayings, the reason I tell these
heavenly stories with great deep scriptural meaning is
not so that these people will understand me.
He said, But they rejected me so long
they turned me off and they quit listening
to what I had to say.
They would not listen to the truth.
They plugged up their ears like we preached
on last night and Jesus said, Because of
that I began to speak in dark language
that they would not even understand.
And in Matthew chapter 13, just after He
warned them not to step over the line,
they continued to step over the line.
They spit in the face of the grace
of God and they committed what Jesus called
the unpardonable sin.
Please look at verse 12.
In verse number 12, I hope this will
answer many questions that are perhaps going through
your mind tonight.
Matthew 13, 12, Jesus is talking, here's what
He said, For whosoever hath to him shall
be given and he shall have more abundance.
But whosoever hath not from him shall be
taken away even that he hath.
For the most learned scholar, which I are
not one, this is a very hard verse
to swallow.
Is that saying that Jesus, that Almighty God,
if somebody has a lot of money, a
lot of houses, a lot of land, that
Jesus is going to heap upon them more
riches and give them more that they'll have
more in abundance and then somebody doesn't have
a whole lot, Jesus is going to say,
Well, I think I'll be unfair about this
and I'll take away that which they have.
No, no, you know God better than that.
I know God better than that.
You know the Bible better than that.
That's not what He's talking about.
Can I remind you what He's talking about
in context?
For two chapters now, He's been talking about
the Spirit of God.
For two chapters now, He has been talking
about the blasphemy, the pushing away of the
continual conviction of God's Holy Spirit.
For lack of a better terminology, we refer
to that not only as conviction, we refer
to that as light, like Romans 1, verse
20, the light of Christ.
So Jesus is telling these people, When you
get convicted, when the Holy Spirit shows up
and shows you face to face that you
are lost, that you are undone, and that
you need to be saved.
He said, If a man responds to that
conviction, if she responds to that light, God
will give them more light and eventually bring
them to a place of being saved by
the grace of God.
But, if that person has light, if that
person in context has the convicting ministry of
the Holy Spirit, but they push it away,
then eventually the conviction gets less and less
and less, and God takes that light, God
takes that conviction that they do have away,
and they'll live forever in obscure darkness in
a place called the lake of fire where
the worm dies not, there shall be weeping,
wailing, gnashing of teeth, Matthew chapter 13, verses
41 and 42, verses 49 and 50.
And Jesus looks at these religious people who
thought they knew their Bible, who thought they
walked the straight and narrow line, who thought
that they were not crooked and not perverse,
and He said, you have touched it in
your righteousness and in your family genealogy, He
said, but you have rejected the ministry of
the Holy Spirit, and He said, you people
are about to commit the unpardonable sin.
Matthew 13, they committed it, and Jesus began
to speak in language that they could not
understand, for God had turned those people over
to a reprobate mind.
I was at the Temple Baptist Church of
Martinsville, Virginia.
I've been there many, many times.
The Robertson family and I have been there
together this past January, and we'll be back
next January.
It's a routine meeting every single year the
good Lord willingly goes.
Three years ago, I was there.
When I was preaching in that church, I
suppose on Sunday morning, the church maybe runs
about 95, maybe on a good Sunday, average
about 100 people.
And Friday night, we had 225 some odd
people jammed into a little building that would
only really comfortably seat about 150.
I mean, they were everywhere.
In the choir loft, all over the place.
My wife had probably 25 or 30 kids
in her children's revival hour.
I mean, it was so thick in that
place, you could have cut it with a
butter knife.
I mean, the Spirit of God was working.
And I preached that night a message that
I preached on this pulpit on Luke chapter
15, the prodigal son.
Some considerations before you pack your bags.
I preached that message that night, and I'm
telling you God's Spirit was working, God's Spirit
was moving.
While my wife was in the back, we
had some hot-headed rebellious teenagers out in
the parking lot with some .22 pistols shooting
them off in the air trying to break
up the meeting.
But I'll be honest with you, I don't
think the devil could have resurrected himself and
broke up that meeting.
I mean, God was pouring out His blessings
upon His people.
I mean, it was packed in there.
We had some special singing in that night,
and I was doing the preaching.
And I mean, people had been praying 15
and 20 and sometimes 30 minutes before the
service trying to get ahold of God.
And I preached that night on the prodigal
son.
There was a young lady there whose name
was not Sandra, but will be for my
message.
And so, sorry Sandra, but we'll have Sandra
here.
And so, this lady, I always call her
Sandra in this sermon, alright?
So here's Sandra, and she knew, she knew
she was lost.
How do you know that?
Because every day we had been driving back
and forth for the past three or four
days to brother Steve Robertson's school, Gospel Light
Christian School, and I'd been preaching their opening
revival for several days.
And the pastor told me on the way
down there on Friday morning, he said, Miss
So-and-So, Sandra's mother, called this morning
early, about 2.33 o'clock, and said,
listen, you've got to pray for Sandra.
She's lost.
She's weeping.
She won't sleep at night.
She was dating some lost boyfriend who she
was not willing to get up.
And she was being not right at that
time.
She was being immoral about things, and she
just would not get right with God.
She knew she needed to be saved.
And so, she called early in the morning,
weeping, pray for Sandra, pray for Sandra.
So, we did.
So, that night, I preached the Bible.
I'm telling you, unusual liberty came over me,
and I mean, I preached and preached and
preached.
I gave the invitation, and I had never
in my life, brother Tom, I had never
seen anybody up until that time, nor since
then, under so much Holy Spirit conviction out
preaching.
She was to my left.
She was sitting in the second pew.
The auditorium kind of smoked around like this.
I'll never forget it.
All these people packed in this place, kids
in the back just screaming, We
began to draw near to the end of
the invitation and I told brother Don Riddles,
the pastor, I said, brother Don, I said,
I don't believe the Lord is going to
speak through tonight.
I said, I'm going to go talk to
her.
I said, just keep on singing.
Everybody's heads were still battered.
Everybody's eyes were still closed.
And I remember I walked over there in
front of all of those people I had
my Bible.
And I walked over and I turned around
sideways so that all the people behind me
could not hear.
I didn't want to embarrass her and put
her on the spot.
And I put my hand on her shoulder
and I said, Sandra, I said, honey, everybody
in this room knows you're lost.
I said, we've been praying for you all
week long.
I said, it is evident you are under
conviction right now.
I said, why don't you let one of
these ladies take you in a side room,
get you down and open the Bible and
answer some questions.
I said, why don't you let somebody help
you?
I said, you know you need to be
saved.
I said, you know you're lost.
I said, everybody in this room's been praying
and weeping.
I said, look at you, you're weeping, you're
under conviction.
I said, won't you let somebody...
And honestly, I thought you'd bail out.
And I don't mean just begin to bust.
And I don't mean just run to the
altar and get saved.
Everybody have themselves a glory shouting fit.
All of a sudden, she bowed her back
like a Banny Rooster and her face all
of a sudden got the color back in
it.
Her eyes bugged out like they're fixing to
pop out of her head.
She had a vein that shot across the
top of her head.
And I'm telling you, she looked at me
with the most cold, dead, devilish stare you've
ever seen in your life.
And she stuck her finger right in front
of my face and she said, why don't
you and God and everybody in this church
just leave me alone.
I walked out of that service that night
and I thought to myself, that's probably the
most defiant person I've ever seen in my
life, 17 years old.
Two years later or the next year, I
suppose, I went back and in the mornings
I was going to Brother Steve Robertson's gospel
life.
On the way down there, my heart was
surged for Sandra.
I turned to Pastor Reynolds as he was
driving me and I said, Brother Reynolds, whatever
happened to Sandra?
He said, you remember that night in Revival
Meeting last year or so when she told
the Spirit of God to leave her alone?
I said, yes, sir.
He said, He's just left.
I'm going to tell you something, friend.
You better be real careful what you tell
God.
You better be careful about bargaining with God
because He may just take you up on
your bargain a whole lot quicker than you
want Him to.
And number one, a result of being a
reprobate is no conviction.
But number two, a result of being a
reprobate is no concern.
Can I please set some of your minds
at ease tonight?
I have had good, well-meaning people come
to me in a service like this.
I just started preaching this sermon last week,
but I had another sermon on preaching the
unpardonable sin.
I've had good, well-meaning people come to
me and say, Brother Greg, how do I
know if I've committed the unpardonable sin?
Whenever a person asks me that, here's my
answer.
You haven't.
I know that.
Because if you're worried about it, you've never
committed it.
Let me tell you something about a reprobate.
Let me tell you something about a Romans
chapter number one, depraved, disobedient lunatic.
They could care less if they go to
heaven.
They could care less if they do go
to hell.
It doesn't make six in one, half dozen
in the other.
They could give a good glory flip of
a wooden nickel.
There will be no concern in the heart
of a reprobate.
When God turns a person over, He completely
allows them to 180 degree turn, and they
have no concern.
They don't care if they committed the unpardonable
sin.
It doesn't bother them.
And I'm just going to be honest with
you.
Get mad, fold your arms, pluck like a
magic dragon, fall like a camel, I'm going
to tell you something.
In our churches, in our schools, and around
this country, all over this place, I guarantee
you there are some people that have walked
an aisle that have made some false, phony,
baloney profession that do not have a possession.
They still live ungodly.
They still live immorally.
And I want to remind you, my Bible
says, that liars and sorcerers and whoremongers and
idolaters and effeminate and the rest of that
crowd shall not enter into the kingdom of
God.
And I guarantee you there are people on
Baptist church rolls who one day will stand
at the great white throne judgment and they
will go to the lake of fire for
all of time and for all of eternity
because they really never had any concern for
the things of God whatsoever.
And here is a group of people in
Romans chapter number 1 that proves that to
us.
They could care less what happens.
They could care less what the Bible says.
Now, I normally do not do this in
this sermon, but I've got just a quick
burden that I'm going to share with you.
I give you my closing thoughts and we're
done.
There are Bible colleges that you and I
know of.
There are none that I know of that
are represented here tonight.
Thank God for that.
I respect and endorse all the colleges that
are here.
I was enrolled in Bob Jones University before
I went to Ambassador.
I never actually took a class there, but
I was enrolled and paid some money.
Good hefty cellar money.
It made Bob Jones leave, but none the
less.
And I ended up going to Ambassador.
The reason was because God changed my heart.
Told me to go there.
It was started by an evangelist.
I wanted to be an evangelist.
I appreciate all the schools.
I'm going to tell you something about schools.
There are schools around this country who unscripturally
train their preachers and train their soul winners
with some wicked methods.
With some methods that are not of God.
Let me tell you what I mean.
Great big, beer belly, robust, wicked, wicked man
comes to the door.
He drinks his Budweiser, smokes his dope on
the weekends.
He's a compulsive gambler, compulsive liar.
Beats his wife.
Beats the devil out of his kids.
He's a fornicator.
I mean, he's an adulterer.
Everybody knows this guy is crooked.
Everybody knows this guy is wicked.
Everybody knows him to be the biggest reprobate,
as most people would like to term it,
in town.
They know him to be this way.
So these preacher boys were zeal in their
heart because they've been taught wrong.
And they knock on that door.
That's what I'm talking about.
They've got the zeal of God within them.
Thank God for their sincerity.
And then that guy comes to the door
and says, What do you want?
And they say, Oh, we're from such and
such a church.
Slam!
Slams the door in their face.
Here's what they've been trained.
Believe it or not, you study, you find
out.
They're trained to do whatever you can to
keep that line of conversation open.
Hey, man, stick your cotton pick and foot
in the door.
If you have to, break your toe.
I don't care.
Just get that man to pray some prayer.
Here's the first thing they say to that
man.
Sir, would you like to go to heaven
when you die?
I've got a better question for you.
Show me that where Paul, Jesus, or anybody
else has ever asked somebody that in the
Bible.
We have so cheapened the gospel in the
day.
How many people have you talked to, said,
Would you like to go to heaven when
you die?
No!
I want to go to hell.
Leave me alone, you skinny little runt.
Get off my front porch.
How many people have you met like that?
You might have met a couple because they
might be a rebel, but they were no
concern.
But we have taken the sting out of
salvation.
Let me tell you what we've done.
We have preached for the years.
I mean, for over 1900.
I'll tell you why our country is so
sorry and why we don't have America and
why fundamentalism is going down the drain.
I'll tell you why.
Because we have began to quit preaching the
holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the
wrath of God, the holy word of God,
and we started preaching a feel-good gospel.
Here's what I've preached a million times.
I've preached it myself.
I had to get right with God about
it.
I mean, I hear preachers all the time,
especially in camps.
They say, Well, you know what, young people?
You know what, ladies and gentlemen?
You've got a God-shaped vacuum inside of
you.
You've heard it.
You've got a God-shaped vacuum inside of
you.
And then you're sucking drugs and you're sucking
immorality and you're sucking the movies and you're
sucking Hollywood.
Nothing ever fits.
And you'll never get real peace and love
and joy and long-suffering and gentleness and
meekness and goodness and faith and temperance against
such words and law.
You'll never get that until you get Jesus.
And you hear me and you hear me
well.
At the expense of being misunderstood tonight, love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, temperance,
meekness, all of those things.
Those are legitimate fruits of salvation.
If you are saved, you will exemplify those
fruits.
But it is not legitimate to use those
fruits as a draw card for salvation.
And I tell you what we've done.
We've said, You come to Jesus and He'll
give you fulfillment and everlasting joy.
So they come to Jesus and put Him
on like they would a parachute.
They come to Jesus and they use Him
like they'd use dope.
They come to Jesus and use Him like
they'd use a Budweiser.
No Bud, you better be wise and leave
that mess alone.
But nonetheless, they come down and they use
all of these things.
And when Jesus don't work, when the high
wears off, all of a sudden they're out
of church, you can't find them with a
pack of hound dogs, and we call them
an inoculated backslider.
Now, they never got saved by the grace
of God.
I'll tell you what we're supposed to preach.
I'll tell you what we're supposed to warn
this world of to flee from the wrath
of God.
That there is a hell to shun.
There is a heaven to gain.
And we've sold sheep in the Gospel.
We'll use anything in the world.
We'll preach on Mary had a little lamb
and Yankee Doodle Dandle if it'll build our
church and get the baptismal water stirred.
And I say God pity our movement for
it.
And so they knock on the door and
he says, Yeah, I'd like to go to
heaven.
He says, okay, repeat after me.
Dear God, dear God, Lord, my sinner, Lord,
my sinner.
Please come to my heart and save me.
Save me from heaven or die.
In Jesus' name, amen, amen.
And so they shut the door and they
walk away and they pull out their pen
or paper and they say, what's that fellow's
name again?
Joe Blow.
So they write down Joe Blow.
They get up in chapel.
They get up to that microphone and they
say, I don't want to brag or anything.
You heard that?
I don't want to brag or anything, but
the Lord's had me win the most wicked
man in town just down the road.
And everybody stands up and says, Wow, glory
to God.
He must be the greatest soul winner since
D.L. Moody.
Six days go by.
I believe people give time for the process
of sanctification.
Six weeks go by.
Six months go by.
Six years go by.
That man still beats his wife.
He's still an old, dirty, rotten, filthy God
cusser.
He's still a fornicator.
He's still a drunkard.
He still never goes to church.
He still doesn't have any regard for the
Bible.
And if you think that man got saved
by the grace of God, you ought to
soothe your brain for non-support tonight.
And we have so cheapened the Gospels in
churches and in Bible colleges around America.
And I'm telling you, a person that has
been turned over to a reprobate mind, number
one, will have no conviction.
And number two, they will have no concern
for the things of God.
I prove it to you in this illustration
we close.
Two weeks ago, just two, I was at
the Lighthouse Baptist Church of Columbus, Georgia.
The Robertson family was there on Wednesday morning.
I took my wife Melissa to the ear
specialist, to the doctor.
She'd been having some swelling there in the
side of her face.
Her ears were bothering.
This turned out to be her wisdom teeth
and she also had an ear infection.
You pray for her.
She's still having that trouble looking for a
good dentist to help her out.
If you've got some wire flyers selling, we'll
hold her down at the service, amen.
We'll rip them suckers out of her mouth.
But that'd be a little cheaper on me.
But nonetheless, you pray for my wife.
She's not in here.
I can say that tonight, amen.
But she is here with me outside.
But nonetheless, the cell phone rang.
Hello?
Hello.
This is your father-in-law.
He goes to a church in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
Grace Baptist Church, Pastor David Bueller.
Well, there was a lady who got up
on Sunday night and said pray for my
father.
He's lost.
He's got 60% or 67% I
believe it was of blockage in his heart.
He's had a terrible heart attack.
He's on an oxygen tank, blah, blah, blah.
And he lives in Columbus, Georgia.
Immediately a light bulb went off because my
father-in-law knew that that morning the
Robertson family, myself and my dear wife Melissa
had started a revival meeting just across town.
So he says his number is 3148 so
-and-so street.
Can you go and visit him?
I said tomorrow we'll go do it with
the preacher.
Something came up.
I had to go and preach another chapel
across town.
We were having double services all week long,
Monday through Friday.
We had morning church services and evening church
services.
So it worked out I couldn't go until
Friday.
So I went on Friday.
I never forget.
I don't remember the name of the road
but I'll never forget.
3148.
Because every time the preacher would drive by
I'd say there goes 3148.
He'd drive by this one.
There goes 3148.
Finally we got to 3148 where we're supposed
to be.
I put my coffee in the holder.
We get out.
We got our Bibles.
We got our suits and ties on.
It's about 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
We got dinner at 5 and so we're
not really rushed for time.
We go and knock on the door and
a lady enters the door and says she'll
happen to be one of his daughters.
She was there and she went to a
large charismatic church in the area and the
reason we knew that is because he was
working at that time on his oxygen tank.
There was a man who said listen we'll
be about 15-20 minutes if you'll let
me talk with him.
He's one of the home healthcare nurse type
of fellas.
I suppose this guy was in his late
80s something like that.
On his last leg he'd been preached to
by all kind of preachers but he wouldn't
listen.
And so he says come on in fellas.
I mean cordial.
Nicest guy you'd ever met in your life.
Come on in.
Y'all want some coffee?
No, no.
Y'all want some tea?
No, no.
Want some pie?
No, no.
We'll just sit here and wait on you.
So he goes in the back and we're
talking to this lady and she says listen.
She says we appreciate y'all coming.
She said this guy's been talked to by
a lot of people.
He's been prayed for blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah and he'll be cordial about it.
She said now sometimes he'll be mean to
my cushion.
He said but he seems like I'm sitting
on the couch and I don't believe when
somebody just gets in I don't believe just
pulling out the Bible and just chop and
just chopping them up.
I mean you got to start slow.
I mean you got to just kind of
you got to give them some time to
respond.
I mean you can tell he was a
little bit tensed up.
Got two Baptist preachers sitting in his living
room who look like IRS agents or something.
No FBI.
I'm not going to do it.
I'm from the FBI.
Fundamental Baptist Independence.
Amen.
So he's not going to do it.
Here's this guy.
He's sitting in there and so I said
Mr. So and So I said let me
talk to you about this.
I'm going to talk to him about his
family.
Well after he talked about this he began
to talk about his heartbreak and he said
yeah I'm on this crazy oxygen tank blah
blah blah blankety blank this bleepety bleep this
and all this kind of stuff and so
I said well you know then I began
to talk about life began to talk about
death quoted in Hebrews 9 27 so I
started giving this man the gospel and just
jumped right into it you know and you
know I was like wow man the Lord
just kind of opened up this door and
I just slid right inside the door you
know just cracked it right open and I
just started preaching this guy and he's listening
all of a sudden honest truth right in
the middle of this stuff but here I
was brother Mick I'm telling this guy about
the gospel and I'm telling him about the
Bible staff and he says have you met
my grandkids right in the middle of my
discussion have you met my grandkids I said
well I turned to the preacher I knew
I'd never met his grandkids I turned to
the preacher I said have you met his
grandkids I said has this grandkids ever been
to the meeting oh no no no I'm
trying to keep the conversation all of a
sudden oh no no have you met his
grandkids and I said man ain't it wonderful
to have kids I said man what a
responsibility to have kids and grandkids boom just
put it right back in the gospel great
responsibility we have in the list of God
blah blah blah and so I just jumped
right in there I got talking about three
or four minutes boom turned me right off
would you like to see some photographs would
you like to see this I mean just
turn me up he said you know I
had a heart attack man he said I
thought when you had a heart attack it
would hurt you he said it didn't even
hurt me he said I just had shortness
of breath I mean just change the subject
about three or four times and I said
mister so and so I said I appreciate
all that I said but I said I
don't want to waste your time I said
I said let me talk to you just
for a minute about the gospel and I
began to go down to Romans Road I
began to tell him about God's love started
giving my testimony been there you know we'd
already been there 35-40 minutes and so
I'd been talking to him about 8 or
9 minutes he kept interrupting I'd been done
and so he kept on talking kept on
talking so I'm preaching to this guy and
I'm talking to this guy and you know
I'm excited I'm letting the preacher talk a
little bit you know Brother Winn he's saying
yeah God bless you brother lots of people
and he's talking to him he said yeah
yeah yeah he's giving his testimony and I
start talking to this guy he got oxygen
tubes in his nose he got a big
oxygen tank right there fizzing like that I
mean this guy's getting ready to be dead
friend if anybody ought to be listening to
the Bible it should be this guy he
puts his hands on the side of his
lazy boy recliner kicks his legs back while
I'm talking to him two Baptist preachers sitting
there I got my Bible open talking to
this man passionately kicks his legs back folds
his arms closes his eyes puts his head
on the pillow sit behind him and went
to sleep while I was talking to him
about the Bible he said hey why don't
you go over and wake him up and
say hey mister you're going to hell you
need to get saved by the grace of
God I'm going to tell you why because
if the Holy Spirit wasn't there I wasn't
going to bother nobody's sin I certainly wasn't
going to mess with nobody's sin and whenever
God turns you over to a reprobate mind
whenever God gives you up you can forget
about ever being convicted and you can forget
about ever being concerned and you can put
on every fake false phony baloney mask you
want to but the truth of the matter
is you're lost and you're going to hell
wherefore God gave them