I believe that everything that is to be
done in carrying out the marching orders of
Christ Jesus is to be done on the
authority of a local church.
And thus I go out, I'm a member
of a Salem Baptist Church in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina.
Where I go, people have a perfect right
to write that congregation and say, what about
this fella?
He's preaching up in our section.
And that's how we got those letters that
were written in the New Testament.
Somebody inquired, they'd write back, say, he's all
right, he's all wrong.
I believe in that.
While I'm the guest of this congregation, I
am utterly under the authority of this congregation.
I would do anything you asked me to
do.
If I couldn't, I would resign from the
agreement of ministering to you for a week.
I believe in that.
I believe a man cannot get to heaven
unless he's under the Lordship of Christ in
a local church.
I may ought to repeat that.
Everybody believes that Jesus is Lord, floating around
in the sky.
But the Lordship of Christ is exercised first
in the church.
And whatever else may be said about this
generation of church people, you folks included, we're
a bunch of spiritual outlaws.
We know nothing about salvation because we know
nothing about the discipline, the authority, the rule,
the Lordship of Christ as it's expressed in
the local church.
You've never been baptized, whether sprinkled or immersed,
unless you were baptized into the authority of
Christ as it's exercised in a local church.
That's what baptism is.
Most of you folks have never been baptized
because you do that which is right in
your own sight.
I believe that our congregations are to have
Ichabod written over them, the Lord is departed.
Our God may be gracious, and I pray
to that end and praise to that end,
that the Lord might be merciful.
And once again, he would exercise authority in
the church.
Of course, about half of this congregation, if
the Lord started doing that next Sunday morning,
they'd have to take half the members of
this church out before God would kill them.
He would.
Just like he did Ananias and Sapphira.
I'd love to see that happen, wouldn't you?
I wouldn't want to get killed myself, but
I look about half of you folks.
You know what would happen?
The other folks in this town would get
off the fence of religion, and they'd be
the far against Jesus Christ.
And that would be good, wouldn't it?
I believe, I only hope, it's the return
to the discipline of the Lord in the
local church.
I'm going to try to preach on that
tomorrow night.
I don't think the task is hopeless, but
I think it is, unless church people, from
the pulpit and the pew, will quit ignoring
the Bible and quit walking in tradition.
I was Baptist, and you Presbyterians, we're as
guilty as we can be.
You Presbyterians don't pay no attention to the
Bible, you just pay attention to the Westminster
Confession of Faith.
It's a fairly good little Westminster Confession of
Faith, because you don't believe it, but I
don't think it's full of holes, there won't
be enough to cover nakedness, because it's not
the book.
And us Baptists, we ain't got none.
We did have the Philadelphia Confession of Faith,
but we threw it out the window.
We just do as we please.
And I do not believe that a church
is a church, and less of it can
be said where two or three are gathered
together in my name.
That means under my authority, doing what I
tell them to do.
That's where the rope comes in.
Huh?
Gonna right call ourselves a church, and all
of us, and we're orthodox, and we're not
liberal, and we're not neo-orthodox, and we're
not modernists, and we're not this, and we're
not members of that, anywhere but the hill
of beans, when we're not gladly under Christ,
the great head of the church, under his
authority, as brothers and sisters meeting together.
I do not ask you to believe what
I say while I'm your guest.
I simply ask you to hear it.
I believe that's the way revival will come,
if it comes.
I believe I must be under such totalitarian
discipline that we never dreamed of.
Last fall, I was up in the Lewisburg,
I believe it is area, Williamsport and around,
and the pastor took me out to some
place where the New Tribes mission board, something
like that, have a training camp.
Whew!
Don't you ever go there.
And anybody wants to be a missionary, that's
an evangelist, that's a Christian, and feel that
the commander-in-chief has told them that
his place to represent him is over there
in the New Tribes, where they've never had
the gospels, that is.
And the young people say that's where the
Lord's told me to go, and so they
come there to that training school, and for
two years they learn to live on acorns
and berries and sleep on the naked ground.
And they make them forage to get anything
to eat.
They have to find it in the woods
somewhere.
And they, for two years there, learn to
live like they'll have to live, see, if
they get over where they say the Lord's
told them to go.
Do you get it?
Isn't it nice, our little gospel now, that
the Lord only calls some of his people
to that sort of stuff.
Now, isn't that a bunch of sassafras?
Huh?
No, that's for all his people.
Isn't that right?
Endure hards to be good soldiers.
We don't know anything about it.
We're going to have to learn, or we're
going to have to keep having our aching
hearts sobbed as we watch a world tear
itself to pieces.
We can't get close enough to it to
say halt.
I ran across a statement in my reading
sometime since that challenged me and introduces me
to the text of the evening, Matthew chapter
four, Matthew chapter four, and while you're turning
to it, those of you who desire to,
and some man said, and it struck me
and I copied it down, to any who
have had the blessed privilege of hearing the
gospel story, that's privilege facing
demand.
To any who've ever had the privilege of
hearing the gospel story, that's privilege facing
demand.
That was the sin of God's elect covenant
nation Israel.
That's the reason God took their election away
from them and turned the gospel to the
Gentiles.
They talk much about privilege, but refuse to
face the demand that God brings to everyone
who's been privileged to hear his voice.
That's exactly a perfect portraiture of what we
call churches today.
I suppose you people would not get offended
if I mentioned the word election in a
Presbyterian church.
Many Baptist churches would get a club and
go to fighting if you use that word.
I know, but you're supposed to believe in,
but you just believe in half of it.
You believe in the privilege, but not the
responsibility.
To any person who's ever dared to say
he's one of the only people between the
eternities that'll ever hear from God, my sheep
hear my voice, nobody else does.
But brother to hear from him that speaketh
from heaven brings responsibility that it crush the
strongest shoulders of any human being except for
the grace of God.
And our churches now are going out of
business and they ought to be.
Because we're repeating the same sin of Israel.
You Presbyterians talk about, boy I'm one of
God's elect by his grace, hallelujah.
But you've never put your arm around your
next door neighbor and wept until the tears
made a puddle at your feet.
You know nothing about the demand of God.
We spawned a generation of young people in
our churches and spoken peace to them when
God hadn't done anything.
And they're not here tonight and they're not
in anybody's house of God most any time.
But Papa and Mama and everybody's told them
they're Christians and they haven't the slightest conception
that privilege brings responsibility.
That to hear God speak to the spirit,
that's salvation.
That his last word is not I say
but his last word is I claim.
That a God of holy love brought us
to possess us, to own us, that's what
happened on Calvary.
And that it's silly to talk about being
a child of God unless it can be
said of us, you're not your own.
You don't belong to yourself.
You can't be a spiritual outlaw.
You can't do that which is right in
your own sight.
You're born with a prize, therefore, and where
there's a therefore in the Bible you need
to pause and find out what it's there
for.
Therefore, glory to God in your body.
For those who heard the glorious gospel story,
it's privilege facing a demand.
When my Lord began his public ministry as
God's prophet to prepare the way for his
work as a priest and king, he faced
the people with a tremendous privilege and a
tremendous demand.
In verse 12 of chapter 4, the preceding
verses, our Lord has been dealing with the
tempter in the wilderness.
And when the devil in verse 11 leadeth
him, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Now when Jesus had heard that John was
cast into prison, he departed into Galilee.
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in
Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast in
the borders of Zebulon and Nephthilim.
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by Isaiah the prophet saying, the land of
Zebulon and the land of Nephthilim by the
way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of
the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness
saw great light.
And to them which sat in the region
and shatter of death, light is sprung up.
There's some people in darkness now, God going
to turn the light on.
There's some people in the shatter of death,
God going to turn the light on.
From that time Jesus began to preach, there's
the light turned in the darkness.
Here's the wonderful privilege, here's the voice that
speaketh from heaven, here's the gospel pronouncement.
From that time Jesus began to preach.
And what was his message?
To say repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand.
Now, I'm not a pastor.
A pastor has to be a general practitioner.
All of our churches ask the pastor to
do what the New Testament says takes five
men to do.
That's the reason he has hard time.
No man living can do what is asked
of the pastor today.
We don't pay attention to the Bible.
There are five gifted men with offices and
takes the ministry of all five to make
a minister out of you.
One man can't do it.
He gave some apostles, and I thought the
twelve, that's apostles, Barnabas, and Timothy, and Titus,
Paul, and those fellows.
He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and
some evangelists, and some pastors, and some teachers.
And those five men doing what God gave
them to do with the gift God gives
them, they can make ministers out of you.
They can make ministers out of you.
I come back, they all are blamed mostly
for the condition of our churches on us
preachers.
That's a little hard for us to take,
but we just haven't expounded the truth in
our day.
We've copied from men and the Puritans who
were so greatly used of God in their
day.
They're going to ruin all of us because
we're still copying them.
But they're dead, and they were a million
miles away from the Bible truth about the
ministry.
I was saying today to somebody that a
certain church, I was hopeful that it would
call a certain man to be its evangelist
and send him forth.
You do that for your missionaries.
Well, there's no difference between being a missionary
and an evangelist.
And every congregation ought to have missionaries and
evangelists, and you pay the bill, send them
forth.
That's what Ephesians 4 said.
Every church ought to have apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors, and teachers.
That's right, that's scriptural.
I don't think we pay attention to that
because we've been following men all of our
lives, and we're not paying attention.
So he asked the poor old pastor to
be the apostle and the prophet and the
evangelist and the pastor and the teacher.
Is that right?
Just can't do it, brother Bob.
Just can't be done.
Can't be done.
I claim to be an evangelist.
An evangelist in the New Testament planted churches
and corrected churches that were already planted.
We do not have the job now of
planting churches.
Some evangelists we call the missionaries have had
that blessed privilege over on what we call
the foreign field.
That's silly now, foreign field.
I want somebody to tell me where we
could find a heathen land any worse off
than this heathen land of America.
That term foreign missions, it's just missions, just
being the great commission.
And the Lord says, well, I'll let you
represent me here, and I'll send you over
there.
That's all right, isn't it?
And all of them were to go out
sent by a church.
You believe that, don't you?
And sent by, that means they're under your
authority, and that means you support them.
Is that right?
Now, an evangelist, today we don't have many
of them.
They've helped to get us in the mess
we've got.
I wouldn't let the average evangelist preach to
my chickens, I'll be honest with you.
I'm an enemy of what's called evangelism and
have been these many, many, many decades.
But I do believe that the great commission
was given to the church, don't you?
And I think it's about time we start
paying a little attention to it, don't you?
At least I'm talking to you about it.
Now, an evangelist has just got one message.
I never have.
I've got the one sermon I haven't had
in 43 years.
I went preaching as soon as the Lord
seen me, just like you did, only mine
was public and yours was one by one.
Amen?
Ain't no such thing as being a Christian
unless you're a preacher, a proclaimer of the
gospel.
But I've been a public preacher, as they
call it, all the days of my Christian
experience, if I am a Christian.
In the last 36 years of my 43
years in the ministry, I've been what is
called an evangelist.
I've just had one sermon.
It has three points.
Sometimes I preach on point one, sometimes point
two, sometimes point three.
Every sermon ought to have three points.
We had an old colored fellow down in
the south that preached on blind Bartimaeus.
And he said, Brother and Sisters, I have
three things to say about this man Bartimaeus.
He said Bartimaeus was blind, number one.
He said in the second place, he was
blind in both eyes.
And he said in the third place, he
couldn't see a leg.
Now, that's pretty good preaching.
Just keep saying the same thing.
But the evangelist just says one thing.
He don't preach on the second coming.
He don't preach on the Holy Spirit.
He don't preach on Federal Council Church of
Christ.
He's got one thing, and that's repent.
He's everlastingly to be calling somebody to repentance,
i.e., them calling a church to repentance.
That's in the Bible, the book of Revelation.
The risen Lord said, If you don't repent,
you're going to stick away.
Churches need to repent for walking under the
traditions of man and not the teaching of
the Word of God.
Amen?
Now, it's not popular.
The last 20 years of my life, I've
preached a quail of a lot to young
preachers.
And I just got one message, repent.
The gospel you preach is the gospel of
a little teeny weeny bit of Jesus that
couldn't transform a flea if you did trust
him.
Repent and do good works and preach the
Jesus of the Bible.
That's not very popular.
And sometimes I have the privilege of preaching
to men who admittedly are not in saving
relationship with Christ.
So I just got one message, repent.
Repent, for heaven has invaded this earth.
God has not created the world and gone
off and left it to muddle its way
through the best it can.
But in language that would cause the devil
to worship, if he were the devil, it
is true that God has visited this earth
in Jesus Christ.
That he's landed on the earth as a
man, Christ Jesus.
That he came down here to institute the
rule of heaven right here on this earth.
That he's invaded the Satan's territory.
That the rule of God is in the
earth.
That's the announcement.
That's the grandest thing I ever heard.
That God has come down here to wrestle
with the powers of hell.
And to snatch men as burning brands from
the power of Satan and sin.
Put them in the kingdom of God, which
is the rule of God.
That's a tremendous announcement.
Anybody's ever heard that?
That's privilege, brother.
Facing a demand.
He made an announcement.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The rule of God's at hand.
God's invaded the stronghold of hell.
He's down here to defeat his enemies and
he's going to keep working at the top,
the bible says.
To every one of his enemies the natives
footstool.
And everything is brought under subjection to his
authority.
Hallelujah.
That's wonderful.
That's good news.
I have a way of saying over and
over again, try and get somebody to listen
to me.
The first time you ever hear the gospel
as gospel, you'll be ticked if it ever
is good news to you that Jesus came
down here to establish the rule of God.
You say, oh I sure need somebody to
rule over me.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have somebody that
got the strength of God in his right
hand to take me by the hand and
pick me up here on the desk that
I dug myself.
Put a song in my heart.
Establish my feet on the rock.
Give me the life of the spirit.
Tell the way to heaven songs in the
night.
Lead me to the desired heaven.
If that ever becomes good news to you,
you'll close with it just like that.
I've had the expression, used to have the
expression that the south was the bible belt.
It may have been once before I was
born.
But I've heard say, but gospel heard now.
Most people have never heard the gospel as
gospel.
They've heard the gospel, but it wasn't gospel.
It wasn't good news.
If I ever got to the place they
told me about somebody that hung on a
bloody cross under the stroke of the anger
of almighty God's wrath against sin, and that
he had the penalty, the awful curse of
God laid upon him, and that he did
that in my stead.
If that ever strikes me as being blessed
good news, I'll close with it just like
that.
If it ever comes and tells me that
that one can transform me, make me a
new man, give me a new start, bless
God, a new heart, a new motive, a
new desire, a new ambition.
Transform me with a transforming change that'll never
let go until I'm utterly conformed to the
very image of the son of God's love
and holiness.
If that's ever good news to me, I'll
close with it like that.
First thing Jesus did when he began his
ministry as a preacher, he brought up the
good news of the gospel.
What is it?
The kingdom of God's here.
I said the rule of God is here.
Yeah, I'm him.
I'm the rule of God.
The kingdom of God is me.
The rule of God is here.
To re-establish the throne of majesty here
on this earth, make every human being a
willing or an unwilling subject of the rule
of God in Christ.
That's the gospel.
Men can be born of the Spirit.
Men can have a taste of the powers
of the age to come.
Men may enter the sphere of Christ's rule
and the realm of his blessings.
Taste of the powers of the age to
come.
That's the gospel.
Men can be saved.
Salvation means to be translated, the scripture says,
from the rule of darkness into the rule
of God's dear son.
That's salvation.
And that can happen.
His world going to pieces.
The spirit of antichrist blows hard everywhere.
One wonders what a day will bring forth.
Lawlessness rules our homes, our churches, our schools,
our government, our society.
Reach out and you can cut the spirit
of lawlessness with a knife.
Now, it's sick.
But thank God, there's one thing that's wonderful.
A man can be picked up out from
under the rule of the powers of hell
and put under the present rule and Jesus
Christ, amen.
That's the gospel story.
And with this story and this announcement, this
proclamation, my Lord, brought a demand.
Repent.
What for?
I'm here.
The kingdom of God's here.
The rule of God's here.
The demand of the gospel.
That's it.
Repent.
How does one receive the life and obtain
the righteousness?
Find the life of the spirit which imparts
the life of the future age.
Thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is
Lord, Romans 10.
Believe in thine heart that God hath raised
him from the dead thou shalt be saved.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to the
Philippian jailer and thou shalt be saved.
We could have filled a whole library full
of things, said John, but these are written
that you might believe that Jesus is the
Son of God and believing have life in
his name.
Are those empty words?
Or are they just verses to be quoted?
To confess him as Lord, does that mean
just to take him, take his name and
say Jesus is Lord?
Or to have a creed?
The answer is no!
They involve after, after, after, surrender
to the claims of this one who bought
you, to possess you and claims you and
will not let you go.
It will be your rebellion against his claims
that you will have to face when he
sends you to hell.
It will be your bowing to his claims
to rule you.
It will be your salvation.
The future judge, Jesus Christ, confronts me and
is God's great demander.
It's not an invitation, it's a demand.
It's a demand, it's a duty.
Man's under deep responsibility to do what God
demands that he do.
It's not optional.
And when we face the teaching of the
scripture that man does not have a choice
as to whether he'll obey this demand, he
just has some kind of a choice as
to when.
For obey it you will.
You'll be brought up under the sovereign rule
of Jesus Christ, whether you like it or
not.
But if by the grace of God you
could be brought to a willing, voluntary commitment
of yourself to sweetly bow to the blessed
rule of the Son of God in your
life, you'd receive a pardon and be made
a member of the family of God, hallelujah.
But you don't have to, but you do
have to bow to the rule of Christ
now or then.
Let me briefly, and I'll copy it down
so I can finish in a moment or
two, a few minutes, four things about this
surrender, this bowing, this acceptance of the sword
of the rule of Jesus Christ.
It is a resolute surrender.
Man's got to mean business, brother.
It's a once-for-all, resolute commitment.
In Luke 9 I read, and it came
to pass that as they went in the
way, a certain man said unto Jesus, Lord,
I'll follow thee with us wherever thou goest.
And the Lord said unto him, Foxes have
holes, and the birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man hath not
wherewith to lay his head.
You've got to mean business now, and you
say you're going to follow me.
I've got nowhere to go except to a
cross.
And he said to another, Follow me.
But the man said, Lord, suffer me first
to go and bring my father.
And the Lord said unto him, Let the
dead bury the dead, but go thou and
preach the kingdom of God.
And another also said, Lord, I'll follow thee,
but let me first go bid them farewell,
but you're at home at my house.
And Jesus said unto him, No man having
put his hand to the plow and looking
back is fit for the kingdom of God.
My dear friends, the old man, that's Rothbard,
becomes a new man only by receiving a
new master.
The true line of freedom is positive obedience.
Its condition is a positive authority.
We can answer the revelation of God in
Christ only by choice or resolve or committal.
Do I trust Him with my whole self?
That's the question.
In the second place, it must be a
radical surrender.
I read in the word of God, and
from the days of John the Baptist until
now, the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and
the violence taketh by force.
I read in the word of God, the
law and the prophets were until John.
Since that time, the kingdom of God, that's
the gospel, that's Christ, is preached, and every
man presses into it.
You'll never get in any other way.
I read in the gospel where the Lord
says, Strive agonized to enter in at the
S-T-R-E-I-T, straight gate.
For many, I say unto you, will seek
to enter in and shall not be able.
I read in the word of God, this
thing's so serious that if your eye causes
you to stumble, pluck it out.
Better to go to hell with one eye,
to heaven with one eye, than to hell
with two.
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut
it out with your foot.
This thing's radical, brother.
This thing's radical.
I read in the Bible where my Lord
says, Think not that I am come to
send peace on earth.
I came to send, not to send peace,
but a sword.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer compares the cheap grace that's peopled
our churches today full of folks that know
nothing of commitment to the redemptive program of
Christ and love for his glorious person.
He compares the cheap grace that's enabled us
to say we're Christians, but not disciples.
We're Christians, but not missionaries.
We're Christians, but not involved in that silly.
And then he has us to say about
true grace.
He says it's costly.
True grace is the treasure hid in the
field that'll make a man sell everything he's
got and buy the field so he can
get the treasure.
True grace is the pearl of great price
that a merchant will go sell everything he's
got and go purchase the pearl of great
price.
True grace is the kingly rule of Christ
for whose sake a man will pluck out
his eye, which causes him to stumble.
True grace is the call of Jesus Christ
at which the disciple will leave his nets
and follow him.
There's one way you can put it down.
The spirit of Antichrist might be hot now,
and you'll live to see the day when
you're going to have to get off the
fence.
It ain't going to be popular much longer
in this country to be a Christian.
And I'm glad to see it's coming, anything
except this fence straddling, saved but not committed,
saved but not under his discipline.
It's got to be a radical surrender.
It's going to be a costly surrender.
It'll cost some of you your home, your
business.
That's why it would cost the rich young
ruler.
He'd have to sell everything he had and
give it to the poor and go to
hell.
Maybe that'll be what you'll have to do
if that's your controversy with God.
It may cost you your loved ones.
My Lord said, think not that I'm come
to send peace on earth.
I came not to send peace but a
sword, for I'm come to set a man
at variance against his father and the daughter
against her mother and the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law.
And a man's foe shall be they of
his own household.
He that loveth father or mother more than
me is not worthy of me.
And he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me.
I'm perstricted.
It may cost you and it will your
very life.
My Lord said, he that taketh not his
cross and followeth after me is not worthy
of me.
There's one thing I know, you can't be
saved without dying.
You're gonna have to die.
What does it mean, take up your cross?
It means exactly what it said, D-I
-E, die.
It's an eternal surrender.
My Lord said, I say unto you, whosoever
shall confess me before man, him shall the
Son of Man also confess and confess and
testify.
A difference, you know.
Him also will I confess before the angels
of God.
Confessions are always true.
Testimony may not be.
But he that denieth me before men shall
be denied before the angels of God.
He said, whosoever thou showest forth shall be
ashamed of me and of my words.
In this adulterous and sinful generation of him
also shall the Son of Man be ashamed
when he cometh in the glory of his
Father with the holy angels.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a human being born
a rebel against the law of God and
the rule of God.
So are you.
I'm headed right smack toward six feet of
earth and a grave.
So are you.
I'm headed right smack toward the judgment when
all over the heaven and the earth try
to flee away, they find no place to
hide.
God help us.
God says, your and my destiny is decided
by bowing or rejecting to the sweet rule
of Jesus Christ in this life.
Bowing to him who hung naked on a
tree between two thieves on a hill called
Golgotha nearly 2,000 years ago.
One day he'll appear as the Son of
Man in glory to bring final full salvation
to the sons of the kingdom and to
bring a just condemnation to the sons of
damnation.
Today the throne is not a throne of
judgment.
It's a throne of mercy.
The proclamation of a pardon is still proclaimed
to every rebel.
Throw down your shotgun, kiss the sun, willingly
bow to his rule.
Pardon.
Grace of God is precious.
And I think that it simply means that
the debt's already due.
I'm condemned already.
I'm guilty of rebellion against the rule of
God in Christ.
But judgment is held back and the good
news is proclaimed to tell the story of
the king whose subjects rebelled against him.
And he sent his army out, put the
rebellion down, crushed it.
Most all of the rebels threw their weapons
down, bowed to the sovereign rule of the
king.
But some fled to the swamps and others
fled to the mountains.
Kept their weapons and stayed in rebellion against
the rule of their king.
And the king caused the giant candle to
be built and had it placed upon the
tallest steeple on his castle.
And then he had them lighted.
And then he sent messengers all over his
kingdom who were to go in loud voice,
herald, proclaim that as long as the candle
burned, every rebel hiding out there with a
shotgun still pointed at the king's rule, by
the candle burned, every last one of them
who bring the shotgun and lay it down
and bow to the rule of the king
will be granted a pardon.
That's the grace of God.
That's the glorious provision of the gospel.
Hallelujah for such a gospel.
The question is, have you thrown your shotgun
down?
Are you still in rebellion?
Let us stand.
Brother King, pass me not, O gentle Savior.
Hear my humble cries, number 707.
While on others thou art calling, do not
pass me by.
As verse of scripture in the Old Testament,
I think I know what it means.
It says, my people shall be willing in
the day of thy power.
Breaks my heart.
This is not the day of God's power.
This is the day when God seems to
have hidden from us.
This is the day when we hear our
gray-haired fathers and mothers tell us about
way back yonder the spirit came.
We don't see much of it now.
Seems like God's angry with us.
My heart goes out to anybody still under
the rule of sin.
I don't guess you'll ever be willing for
Christ to rule you.
For to have so little of the manifest
power of the Holy Spirit.
Isn't that heartbreaking?
I'm under God's lead.
I'm as old as I am.
21 years old and infidel like I was
living in this outfit today.
I expect I go right slap-dap to
hell.
The spirit spoke to men more than it
does now.
Brother Mack, that's the God's truth.
I can't explain that.
But if you're here tonight locked in God's
cell down in condemnation row condemned already under
the righteous judgment of a thrice holy God.
You shut up in that cell.
The door's locked.
You don't have the key.
You can't get out.
You'll never bow to my Lord lest the
grace of God comes to your spirit.
That's right.
You're too proud to bow to my Lord.
I am too.
Nothing but the conquering grace of God ever
make a rebel like me or you bow
to the Lord Jesus.
Well, I wish we could have the spirit
of God one more time, don't you?
Split men, conquer their rebellion, pierce their wicked
spirits, crush their stubborn will.
Make them cry out, Oh God, have mercy
on me.
Don't have much of that today.
Move you down there in that cell.
You could try, Lord, while you're passing by
unlocking the door of somebody else's cell, don't
pass me by.
Have mercy on me.
Stop at my cell door.
You got the key.
God raised you and put you on the
throne.
Made you a sovereign and a savior to
grant repentance and forgiveness of sins.
Lord, hear my prayer.
Amen.
While we sing it, you could sing it
as a prayer if you have need.
Let us sing it, brother King.
God bless you.
God bless
you.
When the demands of the living Lord and
the Lord of life are honestly faced, you'll
face the fact that each day will demand
another repentance.
Each day will demand another exercise of surrender.
That's right, dear ones.
You face the absolute demands of Jesus Christ
and the self-complacency and familiarity of what
passes for Christian today will go out the
window pretty soon.
You can't face the great demander with his
great demand.
He says, take up your cross, how often?
Daily.
Brother, that'll make you understand why John Wesley
says my tears need to be wept over.
My repentance needs to be repented of.
My prayers need to be prayed for.
That's the reason the only evidence of you've
been born from above is repentance and faith.
And it's a daily repentance and faith.
That's the reason we can't have prayer meetings
anymore.
That's the reason we don't have confession meetings
anymore.
That's the reason we do not confess our
faults one to another that you may be
healed.
We don't confess our fault.
We haven't got any.
You have, but I haven't, you know.
Now we talk about them.
I wonder what happens in our congregations if
we buy a survival and start paying a
little tenue.
It tells us to confess your faults.
Boy, what a healing ministry.
Healing of wounded, broken spirits.
Instead of gossiping about your faults, we confess
them one to another.
Amen?
Oh, my.
I wonder if you couldn't get next to
your children if they found out you was
a sinner that needed to repent every day.
But you're so good and pious and religious
that you can't even get your kids to
Jesus.
They don't even think you're a human being.
I wonder if it wouldn't be good if
we'd come down off our religious high horse
and admit that we're wretched sinners desperately in
need of a Savior.
Amen?
Able only to say I'm vile, but He's
precious.
Amen?
I bet if the unchurched people around us
found out that we're what we are instead
of what we claim to be, we claim
to be the nicest sort of folks that
there ever were, if we just admit we're
sinners ruined by the fall.
Amen?
We need the Lord, don't we?
I need Him today as much as I
ever needed Him.
You can't win your neighbors to Christ because
you're so blooming religious.
I wish you'd lose your religion because Christendom's
for sinners, isn't it?
For sinners like me.
Amen?
Let me at thy throne of mercy find
the sweet relief.
Can you go a day without this?