And he knew he was going to die,
and it bothered him.
It saddened him.
It troubled him.
You better believe it.
He didn't walk around going, you see him
going to die.
He didn't do that, although we like to
see that.
We like to present Jesus that way.
It's heavy.
When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane
and he sweat drops of blood, when it
pained him, when it hurt him, when it
tormented him, that presented Jesus none of us
are comfortable with.
Nobody likes to think of God suffering.
Nobody likes to think of God weeping drops
of blood, and sweating drops of blood, and
being troubled.
Well, if God's troubled, then he must not
have everything under control.
But they forget that Jesus was not only
fully God, but also fully man, and that
he had to go through the suffering and
the fear so that he would understand what
we go through when we suffer and have
fear.
He doesn't blame you for being afraid.
He was afraid.
He doesn't blame you for wishing it was
different.
He wished, God, if there's any other way,
let this cup pass.
The cross isn't easy.
He didn't say it would be.
He said you had to take it.
Sure you can have your moment of doubt,
your night of fear, that cup of pain.
But then you need to say with Jesus,
but nevertheless, not my will, but thy will
be done.
And go through it.
Because on the other side of the cross
there is a resurrection.
And it says Jesus endured the cross for
the joy set before him.
He looked through the cross.
He looked through the trial.
He looked through the death to the other
side of the cross.
And for the joy set before him, he
endured the cross.
Okay.
That presents a Jesus none of us are
comfortable with.
Nobody likes to think of God suffering.
Nobody likes to think of God weeping drops
of blood, sweating drops of blood, and being
troubled.
Well, if God's troubled, then he must not
have everything under control.
But they forget that Jesus was not only
fully God, but also fully man.
And that he had to go through the
suffering and the fear so that he would
understand what we go through when we suffer
and have fear.
He doesn't blame you for being afraid.
He was afraid.
He doesn't blame you for wishing it was
different.
He wished, God, if there's any other way,
let this cup pass.
The cross isn't easy.
He didn't say it would be.
He said you had to take it.
Sure you can have your moment of doubt,
your night of fear, that cup of pain,
but then you need to say with Jesus,
but nevertheless, not my will, but thy will
be done.
And go through it.
Because on the other side of the cross,
there is a resurrection.
And it says Jesus endured the cross for
the joy set before him.
He looked through the cross.
He looked through the trial.
He looked through the death to the other
side of the cross.
And for the joy set before him, he
endured the cross.
Okay.
The threat and terrors of hell and the
guilt of sinners.
Oh, this is a heavy subject.
How we have made the gospel impotent.
We often hear people say, I'm tired of
hellfire and brimstone preaching.
Well, I often reply to them, when was
the last time you ever heard any?
It is true that very few people preach
on hell.
It's no longer in vogue, you know.
We shouldn't scare the poor sinners.
No, that wouldn't do.
They're just poor, unfortunate, misguided souls, right?
Wrong.
The Bible clearly shows that they're criminals who
have robbed and dishonored the living God, infinitely
offending him.
They have no right to look at themselves
in any other way.
Listen, that's harsh, I got to admit.
That's really harsh.
That's black and white.
It is.
The law of God that condemns sin is
harsh.
The law is very harsh.
You know, it says that there are two,
justice and mercy, and mercy rejoices against judgment.
The law of God is black and white.
The justice of God is black and white.
The condemnation of the law is black and
white.
But the mercy of God is not.
The mercy of God will reach out into
the black to try to bring somebody over
to the light.
The love of God will go into hell.
Remember what David said?
David said, even if I make my bed
in hell, behold, thou art there.
That's heavy.
That means God is trying to reach people.
Why did Jesus go to hell and preach
to the sinners?
In hell.
It says he did.
Because he had mercy.
They were condemned.
But you see, God's mercy doesn't mean a
hill of beans to anybody out there listening
to the gospel.
Unless you show them what God needs to
be merciful toward them about.
What if the judge says to the guy
who's guilty of murder, Well, I'd sentence you
to death, but I don't want to freak
you out, so I'm acquitting you.
But, does that mean the same?
If the guy is sentenced to death, and
he's waiting two years on death row, and
he's coming up to the last minute, and
he's waiting, and he's praying God to have
the governor or the president grant a stay
of execution, and he's waiting, and he's waiting,
and he's waiting, and he's sweating, and the
priest comes, and he leads him off to
the chamber, and he's got his last meal,
and he's walking toward it, and at the
last minute, the guy's about to pull the
switch, and they say, Wait a minute, the
governor just called.
You're free.
That's the gospel.
The law has got to condemn.
We're going to get to the law in
a minute.
We cannot remove the threat and terrors of
hell.
Jesus, oh God, Jesus preached about hell.
He talked about, remember the sheep and the
goats?
He takes this almost awful picture of how
the ones on the left are going to
go to everlasting damnation.
What about the guy in Matthew 24, where
it says that this guy will be cut
into pieces, and assigned to his place with
a hypocrite?
In another place, with the five foolish virgins,
he says they will be kept out into
the outer darkness, where there's weeping and gnashing
of teeth.
He didn't rinse from talking about the penalty
of not serving God, but we do.
We need to have people see themselves as
criminals, not poor, misguided souls.
Now, we might be able to look at
them as poor, misguided souls.
We can go look at that poor sinner.
He doesn't realize what he's doing.
But you can never let them look at
themselves that way.
You know, you can't.
A person needs to be convicted.
Nobody can be convicted of being a poor,
misguided soul.
You know, poor baby, oh yeah, that really
convicts me.
I really am poor, misguided.
Gee, I need to repent.
When your little three-year-old boy does
exactly what you tell him not to do,
you don't pick him up and go, oh,
poor baby, don't understand.
Now, you might say, well, maybe he doesn't
understand, or maybe he doesn't understand.
But man, that'll help him understand it.
He'll understand quick enough, a few of those.
That's the law's way.
Remember, there's a two-edged sword.
Behold the goodness and severity of our God.
I'm going ahead of the teaching.
I just want to say that we don't
have any right to remove what Jesus didn't
remove.
We don't have any right not to talk
about hell, because I want to let you
know Jesus talked about hell almost as much
as he talked about everything else, if not
as much.
I haven't taken a scale and cut up
the Bible and put this verse here and
this verse here.
But I can honestly say that when I
read the Bible, there is verse after verse
after verse about the threats and punishments of
being disobedient to God.
And I'm not talking about the law of
Moses.
I'm talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
He was scared for sinners.
That's why he warned them.
But we're scared of scaring, so we don't
warn them.
He was scared for their ultimate fate.
We're scared for the instant fear that we
might produce in them, and we don't care
about their ultimate fate enough to be able
to scare them a little bit.
You know how you hate to go to
the dentist?
Everybody hates to go to the dentist.
I don't want to go to the dentist,
man.
You might find I need a root canal,
and I don't want a root canal.
I know a woman who died of breast
cancer.
She wouldn't go to the doctor.
She was afraid that she had breast cancer,
and so she wouldn't go to the doctor
until her chest was throbbing, and boils were
starting to show up.
It started breaking out and bleeding.
And she went to the doctor, and the
doctor says, You have breast cancer.
And she says, Well, I didn't want to
come to you because I was afraid that
I had breast cancer.
He says, If you would have come to
me even three weeks ago, I could have
saved your life.
But I can't now.
It's too late.
She was afraid of finding out what was,
because it was.
And all the fear in the world that
people have that they're going to hell won't
keep them from hell.
All the fear in the world that they
need an operation.
Now, he would have had to save her
life by removing her breast.
A horrible thought.
But she had children, five, ten years old,
and she died within six months.
Some people are afraid, like I said, to
go to the dentist because they're afraid they're
going to have to get their teeth drilled.
They can't think of anything worse than having
their teeth drilled.
So they don't go to the dentist, and
then they lose their teeth.
Fear of having something does not make you
not have it.
And our fear that we're going to hurt
somebody isn't going to help them at all.
I told my wife, I know there's a
lot of problem with peer pressure today with
kids, but my kids are going to have
something stronger than peer pressure.
They're going to have father pressure.
It's going to be stronger than peer pressure
because I love them more than their peers
do.
I love them enough to make them not
like me for a little while so that
they'll eventually love me because I watched out
for them.
And that's what God does.
He'll hang you on a cross that hurts
until you're squirming and screaming.
But when he's done putting you through the
washing machine, you're going to be clean.
And part of that washing machine is saying,
you need to get into that horrible machine
called repentance for your sin and self-denial
and being made into the image and likeness
of Jesus.
It'll spit you up and chew you out,
and you will hurt.
And part of it is first telling you
that you're a wicked, rotten criminal.
I love you, but you're a wicked, rotten
criminal.
It's that simple.
I realize you may not even realize that,
but you've had it unless you turn from
your sin.
Why is the Bible full of stories about
hell?
Because God cares enough to tell people the
truth.
If that doctor would have come over and
the woman would have been having pain in
her chest, he would have cared enough to
tell her, look, you might have breast cancer.
I've got a relative that's the same way,
man.
She will not go to the doctor unless
she's near death.
She is so scared of hospitals and doctors.
She's had two husbands die in the hospital,
and she's almost died two or three times.
And the reason she almost died two or
three times is because she got to the
hospital when she couldn't stand to live anymore.
It hurts so bad.
If you wait till that long, you might
lose your life.
And we need to stop worrying about...
Can you imagine if a doctor was squeamish
about operating on people?
I don't want to hurt the poor guy.
I'd like to go home and die.
I don't want to cut out your cancer.
Man, that's going to hurt.
No, he tries to make it feel as
good as it can possibly feel.
He puts you under, and he tries to
take away the pain as much, but he's
got to get down to the root of
the problem.
Okay.
We, smart as we are, have decided to
help God alone.
He doesn't understand our generation as well as
we do.
The things Jesus emphasized in his preaching were
all right for the Jews, but our generation
needs a more gentle, loving tone.
Tell them about heaven.
We talk about heaven, about the rewards of
being born again, but we completely neglect the
other side of the two-edged sword.
What right do we have to remove things
from the gospel that Jesus himself gave great
place to in his own preaching?
The law of God preached to convict one
of sin.
Pages could be written on this, but there's
only room for one brief example.
When the rich young ruler came to Jesus,
he asked a very direct question.
Good master, what must I do to inherit
eternal life?
Now, try to imagine what the minister today
would say to him if he asked that
question.
Just admit you're a sinner, accept Jesus as
your savior, go to church, pay your tithes,
try to be good, and you're in.
Right?
I mean, really.
But what would Jesus answer?
You know the commandments.
If you wish to enter life, keep the
commandments.
The commandments?
Commandments.
Isn't this the age of grace?
Listen.
Try to imagine your average evangelistic service.
Okay?
They're out there, guys preaching away.
All of a sudden, the mayor of the
city, the mayor of Atlanta, the mayor of
Los Angeles, the mayor of New York City,
the guy Billy Graham is preaching in New
York, and the mayor stops him and says,
Brother, I've got to repent now.
I can't wait.
What must I do to inherit eternal life
now?
That's what happened.
Remember, Jesus was walking along, and the guy
came running up on the road and got
on his face and says, Whoa, I've got
to get saved now.
What do I do?
All the people are watching.
His disciples are watching.
The multitudes are watching.
The people are healed.
The people are going to heal.
And say, Billy Graham, he's in front of
70,000 people.
It doesn't matter who it is.
Some great preacher.
Can you imagine somebody today saying, Have you
tried the commandments?
Can you imagine somebody preaching the do's and
the don'ts of the Bible anymore?
I just, it burns me up to think
that we are so smart that we have
removed, and we have all these stupid excuses.
Well, you know, Jesus hadn't died yet, so
he couldn't preach, you know, believing in the
death of Christ, you know.
That's called dispensational preaching, right?
Well, you know, the Holy Spirit hadn't been
given yet, so Jesus had to give him
a different answer.
But, you know, Paul and Peter and all
the other people did a different.
Well, listen, folks.
It is no different when Jesus preached.
Don't you remember?
He also preached what Paul and Peter preached.
Remember when he got the blind guy to
see?
He said, He says, Lord, what must I
do?
He says, Believe.
What was the exact words?
Oh, do you believe in the Son of
Man?
Right?
The blind man says, Well, who is he,
Lord, that I might believe in him?
He says, He is the one who healed
you and the very one who is talking
to you.
He says, I believe.
Well, that was after Jesus' preaching, wasn't it?
Jesus hadn't died yet, and he could preach
that to him.
Why didn't he preach that to the rich
young ruler?
Because the rich young ruler wasn't ready.
Because the rich young ruler needed to have
a little lesson in the law.
He needed to have the scalpel of God,
the master surgeon, apply directly at what would
stop him from getting saved.
But we don't have the eyes of the
law anymore.
We look at somebody, and we see them
as a big fishy that we can mount
as a trophy above our pulpit.
You know, wow, man, the mayor of New
York.
This would look so good in Christianity today.
When they talk, when they show this on
TV, the mayor got saved.
The rich young ruler, this guy was rich.
He was young.
He was a handsome ruler.
The guy was probably well known throughout the
land.
He probably would have been a main speaker
at full gospel businessmen luncheons from coast to
coast if he would have gotten saved.
This guy, this guy was a catch not
to be let go.
What he could have done for Jesus' ministry.
Why his mailing list could have doubled.
His reputation would have gone up so high
if he wouldn't have just let the big
one get away.
His disciples were going, now we'll get accepted,
right?
Now they'll let us preach in the synagogue,
man.
We'll fill up the temple tonight.
Then he preaches something that the guys at
the seminary in Dallas would rebuke him for
preaching because it would have been the wrong
answer according to them.
But Jesus used the law to dig down
to the cancer that was in this man's
heart.
Now of course Jesus being God knew it
was wrong.
But probably wouldn't have taken too much to
understand.
He probably had a ring the size of
a basketball on every finger.
He had a slave to carry his Kleenex.
I mean the guy was probably a hot
and cold running slave left and right and
had the mansion of mansions.
And loved pleasure and loved luxury and loved
opulence.
And it was obvious that his righteousness was
that he did everything since he was a
boy.
I haven't committed adultery, I haven't stolen, I
haven't murdered, I haven't done anything wrong.
Man, Jesus knew what he'd done.
Well the truth is that Jesus wasn't preaching
the commandments to him as the way of
salvation.
He was using the commandments to specifically convict
him of his particular sin.
Read, that rich old boy loved the bucks
and Jesus knew just how to flush them
out of the bushes.
Preach the law.
And that's exactly what the law is for.
As Paul said, for through the law comes
the knowledge of sin.
I'll never forget the first time I saw
that scripture.
When I was reading a book called Today's
Gospel by Walter Chantry.
I couldn't believe it.
I said, well I've read that before but
I didn't know what the heck it meant.
Through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
I mean that just was one of those
theological bye-byes, you know.
The law must be preached.
Not as the way of salvation.
But as a searchlight put on the sinner's
heart.
So he can see how utterly rotten he
is compared to the way God requires him
to be.
But today again we're wiser than God.
Our preaching isn't filled with do's and don'ts
anymore.
No, we don't want to scare the liberated
generation away.
If we said that fornication was wrong or
drugs or abortion or any other specific sin,
people would feel all condemned and then how
could they get saved?
But that's just it.
Jesus preached the law to the rich and
rulers so that after feeling condemned about his
greed, he could turn and obey Jesus and
find, as Jesus said, true treasure in heaven.
Go and sell all you possess.
Give it to the poor and you shall
have treasure in heaven and come follow me.
Unless people are truly convicted of sin, if
they do not fully see that they are
totally condemned by the requirements of God's law,
then it is virtually impossible to show them
a need for a savior.
So what would they need to be saved
from?
Fun?
If nobody's convicted, like I said, the judge
tells the guy, I would tell you that
you've got to go to the electric chair
but you feel bad, so I'm not going
to tell you.
If the guy doesn't see that he needs
to appeal to the governor for a state
of execution, then he's already let go.
That's what we do.
We tell people they're forgiven before they see
a need for forgiveness.
Now Jesus did that a couple of times.
Remember the guy was laid down on the
pallet and they said, is he going to
heal on the Sabbath?
And he bends down and he says, well,
is it easier to say, tell a man
your sins are forgiven or what?
But that you know that I have the
power to forgive sins.
Now do you think Jesus, being God, didn't
know the guy had a right heart?
Do you think Jesus, if the guy was
a swindler and says, boy, when I get
healed I'm going to go out and find
the first prostitute I can find, that he
would have said your sins are forgiven?
Do you think that when that woman who
was caught in adultery, who was ready to
be stoned to death and knew that she
was going to be, she was already condemned
by the law?
Right?
The Pharisees, the highest religious leaders in the
land, had dragged her out of an adulterous
bed, put her in front of the people,
probably dressed in nothing but a towel, and
they said, Jesus, what does the law of
Moses say now?
Are we going to do it or not?
This girl had already died.
She had written her life off.
It was all over for her.
She knew it.
The law had killed her.
Do you understand?
She was dead.
She had been sentenced to death.
And Jesus, like the governor, the governor in
heaven, granted her a last minute state of
execution.
And then he says, your sins are forgiven.
I do not condemn you.
Go and sin no more.
But in this case, Jesus knew that this
guy's heart wasn't right, and he wanted to
convict him.
Let's even say, condemn the sin in his
heart so that he could feel that condemnation.
And sure, he walked away.
It doesn't say he never came back.
He might even have been Nicodemus, for all
we know.
He could have been Joseph of Arimathea.
He had some rich followers that later gave
up some of their riches.
Maybe he was even Zacchaeus, the guy that
climbed up in the tree that later gave
away his fortune.
He was ready for him.
Maybe he had fought it over.
I don't know.
And that is why our modern gospel must
dwell on all the good things God will
do for you if you just accept him.
Because we can't convince a sinner that he
needs a Savior by just getting him to
admit that, well, generally, yes, I am a
sinner.
He must see how the law of God
condemns him specifically as a sinner.
And then the beauty of the gospel, the
glory of the cross, the marvelous power of
Christ's blood will all be able to penetrate
his anxious, waiting mind and heart.
Only by the preaching of the law can
a man fully desire to be saved from
his sin.
For I would not have come to know
sin except through the law.
That's a separate scripture than the other one,
although it sounds almost exactly the same.
It's in Romans 7, versus the other one
is Romans 3.
It's in a separate place.
So, for closing this first installment, I just
want to say that there's no formula for
preaching the gospel.
This is an in-depth dissection of what
Jesus preached.
Now, Jesus didn't preach it all every time
he preached.
That would be impossible, wouldn't it?
He didn't get up and say, you know,
I mean, he didn't get up and say,
you know, well, you want to get saved?
Well, first you have to tell about the
blood.
I'm going to die in blood, and then
there's going to be a cross and everything.
He didn't go through step by step by
step, but with the mindset of knowing his
Father's view of sin and salvation, he gave
the explicit and specific directions for the person
to come right to God.
Jesus didn't have to talk about the blood,
or talk about the cross, or talk about
sin with the guy in the pallet.
That guy had been so whipped to a
wet noodle by his state, and had heard
that Jesus had come to town, and probably
just cried to God, God, if you just
get me out of this deathbed, I'll serve
you the rest of my life, please.
I've been a filthy rotten sinner my whole
life, fought in bitterness, blame you for me
being this way.
You understand?
So Jesus just had to give him the
right word at the right time.
What I'm going through here are the things
that we have removed, and remember, whenever you
remove something that's necessary, you always have to
replace it with something else, or else the
whole building is going to fall down.
If you take this wall out of here,
you better put some pillars up, or you're
not going to have a room.
Okay, we'll go to part two in a
while.
In our last session, we got as far
as, we didn't get to the fear of
God and the judgment seat of Christ, that's
what we're going to start with.
Just by way of reminder and review, we've
already gone through three or four of the
removed parts of the gospel.
We're going through what's wrong with the gospel,
section one, the missing parts, and we've talked
about the blood of Jesus, the cross of
Jesus, the threat and terrors of hell, and
the guilt of sinners.
We didn't really go over the guilt of
sinners that much, but that's what leads to
the threat and terrors of hell, is the
guilt of sinners.
We really need to not, as we said,
look at them as poor, misfortunate, misguided souls,
unfortunate, misguided souls, but as people who have
offended God.
That's the guilt of sinners.
We talked about the law, the rich young
ruler, and how his case would not be
the case for today, but his case was
a case that Jesus pointed to his sin,
and today we would point exclusively to Jesus,
without pointing out why he needed Jesus.
That's like going into a hospital and all
of a sudden the guy takes his scalp
out and says, well, you need an operation.
He starts operating on you.
First they have to counsel with you, sit
down and explain why you need an operation.
Maybe you need a second opinion.
God never rushes anybody into a decision, ever,
although we Christians and evangelists and so on
are so excited to see people saved, either
for wrong motives, like we want to report
how many numbers of people got saved in
our newsletter or whatever, or possibly for right
motives.
We're just so excited.
We don't want to see anybody get away
that will pull a fish in before they're
really hooked and they'll fall off eventually.
Or you ever heard about the guy that
planted his garden and he went out every
day and dug up his seed to see
if they were growing?
Didn't get much fruit from that.
In our zeal or in our misguidedness, we
cannot go ahead of the Lord in the
plan for salvation.
God was so patient with me.
Two years he waited.
He waited my whole life, but I prayed
to him in 73 and almost two years
to the date I got saved.
I surrendered.
He didn't push me.
He didn't send people along to prod me.
He waited.
He waited until I was ready.
Can you imagine if you went up to
some girl and took her by the neck
and said, you're going to be my wife?
Took her by the collar.
I love you.
You better marry me or I'll knock your
head off.
God doesn't do that, but we Christians, man,
we just punch people out for Christ.
I used to do that when I was
a brand new Christian.
Just say the prayer.
You can be a Christian.
Jesus never did that.
Somebody wasn't ready, he left them alone.
Today evangelists would think that was stupid.
That doesn't mean he became unconcerned.
Remember when the rich young ruler went away,
Jesus wept.
No, his heart went with him.
But he didn't stop and say, you know,
wait a minute.
I've got a special deal for you.
Salvation at a discount rate today.
Okay.
The fear of God and the judgment seat
of Christ.
These two things have been removed from the
gospel.
Of course you understand why the fear of
God has been removed.
Because the God that we believe in isn't
awesome anymore.
Instead of the awesome majesty of Jehovah, today
the Lord is presented as sort of an
ice cream man Santa Claus.
And the church is the candy store where
you can get every good of your heart
desires.
Jesus himself is portrayed as a sweetie pie.
So good, so loving, so forgiving, and so
gentle that you can almost hear the preacher
whisper, aw, he wouldn't hurt a fly.
But what happened to, it is a terrifying
thing to fall into the hands of the
living God.
Or the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom.
At the bottom of the page, under footnote
10, you will see just a few of
the scriptures on the fear of God.
And these are the heavy ones.
I didn't put in, I mean that's not
every scripture.
I didn't just go through my Straus and
Cordens.
I read every single one of these things.
And only picked I'd say about a third
of them.
That was in the Concordance.
Because these are the ones that just, that
you never hear preached on today.
You just don't.
You know I always, I give a test,
a comparison test sometimes in concert.
I said, you realize the church loves to
preach on the scriptures that are nice, and
are easily swallowed and feel good as they
go down.
They love the hot fudge of the scriptures.
But man the ones that got bones and
grizzle, and you know they're hard to swallow,
the liver and onions of scripture, you know,
they don't like that.
So how many of you have ever heard
a sermon on this scripture?
Those who endure to the end shall be
saved.
And usually out of maybe 5,000 people,
maybe 5 people raise their hand.
Now, to show you that the gospel is
being manipulated, the Bible is being torn apart,
and they're placing the good stuff on the
plate, and the other stuff they're throwing out
to the birds.
How many of you have ever heard a
sermon on this scripture?
God loves a cheerful giver.
And almost everybody raises their hand.
I said, which one of those statements are
more true than the other?
You know, aren't they both just as true?
Then why do we choose the second one?
Because the church loves fearful givers more than
they love faithful endures.
They're looking more for the financial security rather
than the true eternal security.
They're looking more for financial stability rather than
spiritual stability.
Because if your church is financially stable, we'll
deal with the spirit later, but let's get
to the meat of the problem.
We need money.
Sound familiar?
Phew.
Wise new editors of modern preaching rhetoric have
conveniently wiped out every reference to the almighty's
severity while emphasizing only his kindness.
This they do, ignoring the balanced biblical view
of Paul.
Behold, then, the kindness and severity of our
God.
Two-edged sword, folks.
The gospel definitely has a balm of love.
It has a sweet, honey-like, loving substance
that God pours in before he applies his
razor blade to cut out the cancer.
And afterwards, too.
And in the midst of it.
Sure, the love of the gospel, the love
and mercy is the weightier thing than the
law.
I agree.
In my blindness, I have been guilty in
the past of overlooking that because the other
had been so misplaced and so abused and
so overlooked that I would overlook the other
to make my point.
And I don't want to play the game
on the other side of the fence.
Yes, the grace of God is the most
wonderful thing that he's ever done for me.
But I can tell you this.
It's better for somebody to be afraid that
they're not saved than truly be.
And for somebody to think they are saved
than truly aren't.
Everybody is so afraid that you're going to
condemn somebody into thinking they're not saved.
Well, that is a sorry state.
I've seen people that are really Christians that
are under condo.
Condo-bondo.
They're walking around, they're afraid of their shadow
and are terrorized of God.
That's a bad state to be in.
But if they're authentically saved, I would still
rather have that than to walk around going,
hallelujah, praise God, I'm a Christian, and inside
you're a ravening wolf and you've never been
converted at all.
And you have all kinds of security, but
it's false security.
It's better to have a bad marriage than
to commit adultery.
It's better to have a bad marriage, to
have a marriage that's lots of friction, than
to commit fornication.
It's better to have a commitment that you're
having trouble keeping than to just enjoy the
pleasures of sex with no commitment.
It's better to have a salvation that you're
doubting than to have no salvation that you're
sure of.
Don't you agree?
You've got something, at least.
You've got something to work on.
You've got something to be assured of.
The other thing is made out of cotton
candy.
You put it in your mouth, it just
melts and turns to nothing, except a nice
little sweet taste that doesn't do anything for
you.
Repentance, this is one of the things removed
from the Gospel.
Repentance is necessary for forgiveness.
It is always amazing how the Church could
have evolved in such a state as it
is in now, with such clear, direct teaching
from the Lord Jesus as to what is
necessary to be right with God.
Please read the first five verses of the
13th chapter of Luke.
We better do that.
Luke 13.
Now, on the same occasion, there were some
present who reported to him about the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
And he answered and said to them, Do
you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners
than all other Galileans because they suffered this
horrible fate?
I tell you no, but unless you repent,
you will all likewise perish.
Or do you suppose that those eighteen on
whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed
them were worse culprits than all the men
who live in Jerusalem?
I tell you no, but unless you repent,
you will all likewise perish.
When he says you will all likewise perish,
that doesn't mean that you will perish with
a tower falling on you.
It doesn't mean you will perish with Pilate
mingling your blood.
It means you will die in your sins
the way they died in their sins.
And they didn't die in their sins because
they were worse sinners than you.
They died in their sins because that was
the time God took their souls.
Remember when God said to that rich guy
who was building bigger barns?
He says, you fool, tonight your soul will
be required of you.
There comes a time for everybody when God
takes out the sickle and says, let's pick
this one.
Okay, in the first, please read the first
five verses of the thirteenth chapter of Luke.
Here Jesus is told the news about some
Galileans who were executed by the Romans.
He then says, unless you repent, you will
all likewise perish.
Using another example, he then repeats the same
exact sentence.
I cannot conceive of conversion without repentance.
And yet, today, that's what's being preached.
You can be saved, but you don't need
to repent.
God's already forgiven you.
A friend of mine, a famous preacher, says
that people are coming forward to the altar
and they're not receiving forgiveness, they're forgiving themselves.
Because if you don't repent, you cannot be
forgiven.
Jesus says, unless you repent, you will all
likewise perish.
That's the truth.
So when you get out of the altar
and the preacher says, oh brother, now you
can have forgiveness.
Just believe.
What did Peter say?
Repent and believe.
No, we just scratched that out.
That's too hard to explain.
We don't have the time.
We've got all these big campaigns.
And we've got to reach 40 million people
this week.
So just take out the repent part because
you have to explain that.
The believe part is really easier because people
believe in astrology and they believe in tarot
cards and they believe in Ronald Reagan or
they believe in Rona Barrett.
So tell them to believe in Jesus.
Just have them replace all their other idols
with Him.
Put Him on a pedestal and then go
to heaven.
That's not our computer game.
I cannot conceive of conversion without repentance.
The teachings of Jesus and the apostles are
full of commands to repent and be saved.
Repentance is not merely being sorry.
It's not just being sorry.
That is only conviction.
Repentance is not merely a change of heart
and a change of mind.
It is a change of action.
Of course, it is a change of heart
and mind but then produces a change of
action.
God requires that if we are sincerely convinced
that sin is wrong then we will turn
from it to God and commit ourselves to
not take part in sinful deeds any longer.
God blesses such decisions and commitments with abundant
grace.
And it is by that grace that we
can fulfill the desires of the spirit within
us.
It's like a partnership, folks.
God can't forgive you until you see you
need forgiveness and are willing to turn from
your sin.
Then God, through the Holy Spirit, will help
you to turn and will bless your decision.
You take a step toward God, He'll take
20 toward you.
That's the way it works.
Now God...
Well, we'll get to this first.
Let's read the last verse in this part
here and we'll go back.
It is true that without God loving us
first we could not be saved.
He made the first move.
He always does.
But He will not do what He requires
of the sinner himself to do and that
is to repent.
In other words, God made the first move.
He gave us Jesus before we were even
born.
Jesus died.
Do you realize that God has done everything
that He possibly can to save the whole
world?
The work is finished.
Jesus said it's finished.
It's done.
It's like a husband who gives his wife
shampoo and a shower and clothing, clean clothes
and soap and hairbrush and says, dear, here's
all your tools.
Be ready.
I'm coming back tonight.
We're going to the ball or whatever.
Be ready.
We're going to a wedding.
And she sits there and she ain't ready.
And He comes back and says, why aren't
you ready?
And she says, well, you know, you didn't
help me.
Well, I gave you wisdom.
I gave you the tools and I gave
you a mind and so on and so
forth.
Why aren't you ready?
Jesus gave us His blood.
He gave us the cross.
He gave us forgiveness available to us upon
repentance and faith.
And there's nothing more God can do except
rule us.
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
I can't walk for my little boy.
I can coax him.
I can pick him up when he falls,
but I can't walk for him.
I can tell him when he makes a
wrong decision, but I can't make the right
decision for him.
Let's go back and read that other verse.
But because there is so little real conviction
of sin brought about by the preaching of
our modern gospel, we cannot truly require repentance
anymore.
This is very important.
Let's read that again.
Because there is so little real conviction brought
about by the preaching of our modern gospel,
we cannot truly require repentance anymore.
If we did, no one would come forward
at all.
Because, remember, what produces conviction?
The law.
What makes people want to repent?
Conviction.
If we don't preach the law, people aren't
convicted.
If they're not convicted, they've got nothing to
repent for.
If they have nothing to repent for, they
can't be converted.
Therefore, we have to invent a whole new
system based on gooey, sticky, kindly preaching that
doesn't produce repentance and I don't believe really
produces salvation.
If we did, no one would come forward
at all.
For repentance is easy to him who sees
how ugly and horrible sin is.
But repentance is impossible where the law does
not convince the sinner of his wicked heart,
compelling him to turn from his sin into
the arms of a waiting, compassionate God.
You see, in all these removed parts of
the gospel, you see that all these removed
parts of the gospel are connected.
In God's wisdom, every aspect of the appointed
way of salvation is irreplaceable.
You take out one car from a train
and the rest of it just stays in
the station.
They all follow the other.
Okay.
God's sorrow and broken heart over sin.
Now, this is, I think, the most neglected
part of the biblical gospel.
I don't think it's the most important part
of the neglected part.
I think that most likely repentance and the
cross and the blood is the most important
parts that are usually neglected.
But this is universally neglected.
Nobody preaches about a tearful, sorrowful God.
I don't think I've ever heard one sermon
in my whole life in the traditional church
or from a TV or radio preacher on
this subject in my whole life.
In the church, I got saved and I
never heard one sermon on it.
The first person I ever heard that talked
about this was a guy named Winky Prattney.
And then I went to the Bible and
I started reading other people and I went,
where have these preachers been?
Don't they see that God is broken hearted
over sin?