Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, come before you in the name of
your Son.
We recognize that apart from Him, we would
have no part with you.
And we rejoice in the knowledge of being
reconciled to you through the great work that
you've done for us on the cross.
And Father, it's our great desire that your
truth be made known to all nations, to
all peoples, beginning with this group here.
And Father, it's my deep desire that every
person hearing this message today might be concerned
for their soul, might be concerned for their
salvation, might be concerned about eternity.
Father, I pray that these words not fall
on hearts of stone, but that by your
power and in your mercy, you would even
now be melting hearts, turning them from stone
to flesh.
God, help us.
Give us wisdom to understand.
Give us power to prevail.
Give us grace to obey.
Guide us, Lord.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Yesterday morning when I preached, I beat you
thoroughly.
As a matter of fact, it was made
known to me after the service by quite
a number of you that I had thoroughly
condemned everyone in the building.
As a matter of fact, one person asked
me if love even had anything to do
with the gospel that I preached.
Well, that's why I warned you yesterday morning
that in order to understand the message of
the morning, you had to come to the
message in the evening.
Because in the evening we saw that yes,
love does have a great part in the
gospel.
And the reason that I beat you into
a corner in the morning and made you
feel bad about yourself is it's necessary.
It is very necessary for you to know
who you are apart from Christ so you
might understand the graciousness of God in giving
Christ for your behalf.
And it's also necessary that you know how
low you were in order to understand your
position now in Christ.
Last night we talked about the gospel.
Last night God spoke about the gospel.
And last night God moved among us, not
in condemnation, but in freedom and in love
and in joy.
The thing that broke my heart is simply
that the very people who seemed so disturbed
in the morning didn't show up at night
for the good news that was waiting for
them.
But that's a common thing that happens in
church today.
One old preacher that I'm quite fond of
used to say all the time, on Sunday
morning you see how many people love the
church.
Sunday night you see how many people love
the pastor.
Wednesday night you see how many people love
God.
That might be true.
Today we're going to talk about something that
I consider almost a heresy in the church.
And I think it affects so many of
you here.
And it's given you a false security.
There is an idea in the church today
that a man can be saved without ever
changing, without ever having a concern for God
or the things of God, without ever being
led in obedience.
Many of you have come to believe that
you're saved simply because when you were seven
or eight or nine, someone preached a sermon
including how much your grandmother wants you to
be saved, and emotionally you walked down an
aisle and you prayed a prayer.
And you were declared righteous, not by God,
but by some minister who understands very little
about Scripture.
Some of you have been bothered by your
salvation and about it, wondering whether or not
you were saved.
And you went to a minister and said,
I really don't know if I'm saved or
not.
And he probably said this.
Well, let me ask you a question.
Was there ever a time in your life
when you sincerely prayed to receive Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior?
And if you responded yes, they again declared
you saved.
And why did they do that?
Because they don't study Scripture.
Praying a prayer, writing down your name and
the date of your conversion in the back
of your Bible is not a biblical means
of knowing whether or not you have been
born again.
It makes no difference if you've prayed a
prayer.
It makes no difference if you've been baptized.
It makes no difference if you have weeped.
None of that matters a bit before God.
And yet that's the very thing taught in
the church.
Many of you are sitting here this morning,
believing yourselves to be saved, even though you
have little concern for God.
You don't seek Him.
You have little concern for the knowledge of
God.
The Bible has no place in your life.
You have little concern for godliness.
You love the world.
You love the things of the world.
And yet, your pastors and your parents and
other people have told you that you're saved.
Because salvation is by grace and not of
works.
And when they told you all those things
combined, they taught you false doctrine that will
damn your soul.
And you need to know that.
Biblical security does not come from looking back
at some time in your life when you
prayed a prayer.
Biblical security comes from an examination of your
life today in light of Scripture.
If you are not walking as a Christian
should walk, if you are not changing and
growing in the grace of God, you have
no means of knowing that you have been
born again.
If you love the world more than you
love God, and it's evident in your life
because you have no concern for godliness, no
concern for repentance and confession of sin, when
you break God's law, you ought to tremble
here this morning because you will hear nothing
from me about security.
Scripture teaches the security of the one believing
in Jesus Christ.
It does not teach security of the unbeliever.
Now, I guess I've said quite a mouthful,
haven't I?
I guess I need to go to Scripture
and back some of this up.
Well, let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a
new creation.
Let me read something to you today that
I wrote down so that I wouldn't make
a mistake.
Much is said today about salvation.
God has saved me.
But not much is said today about conversion.
God has changed me and is changing me.
The problem with that is this.
You cannot have salvation apart from conversion.
Salvation is conversion, whereby a man is changed,
and I want to say it this way,
by which a man is converted from a
spiritually dead, depraved enemy of God into a
new creation that knows God, loves God, obeys
God, and has God as the very center
of all his affections and purposes.
What I'm trying to say is that the
Bible knows nothing of an impotent, powerless salvation
that cannot change man or that can only
change some men.
The Scripture only teaches a salvation that changes
all who embrace it.
In other words, the man who claims salvation
and yet is ignorant of God, does not
love God, does not obey God, he is
wrong about himself.
If any man be in Christ, he's a
new creation.
Notice that it doesn't say, if some men
be in Christ, they are a new creation.
We have almost different levels of Christianity in
the church today, and we're wrong.
We have the level of the spiritual Christian,
the one who reads his Bible, the one
who seems to love God, the one who
serves in his local church, the one who
cares about godliness, and the one who repents
when he sins.
We call them the spiritual part of the
Christian community.
Then what we have is the carnal Christian,
one who shows no evidence of salvation or
very little evidence at all.
And then we have what we call the
lost.
Three categories.
The problem is there are not three categories
in the Christian life.
There are two.
Saved individuals and lost individuals.
But people always come to me after a
service like this, and they say, well, what
about 1 Corinthians chapter 3?
Paul said, are ye not carnal?
Wasn't he saying there that there are carnal
Christians in the church?
Yes and no.
Carnality is a state in which a Christian
can fall, but only temporarily, because if he
has truly been born again and belongs to
the Father, and he falls in to a
carnal way of living, a worldly way of
living, according to Hebrews chapter 12, he will
be disciplined by God, and he will be
brought out of that way.
Those of you who have lived in a
continuous state of carnality since your conversion were
never converted.
And you need to know that.
You see, I watch people.
Maybe I watch people too much.
I especially watch people during the service, the
worship service, because you can tell a lot
about a person in the worship.
And when I go to places to preach,
I preach to meet men's hearts, so I
look for men's needs.
And I watched you.
And it's evident that there's quite a number
of you that could care a little about
worshiping God.
And I watched you yesterday when I preached.
Even though I preached a very hard thing
and a stern thing, you took it so
lightly as though I was handing out peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches.
Do you know what that means?
There's very little evidence of God working in
your heart, and you ought to be afraid.
You ought to be very afraid.
When the Word of God preached like a
hammer has no effect upon your heart, and
then when love is preached and in the
same way has no effect, you ought to
be afraid.
Because if any man truly be in Christ,
he's a new creation.
Old things pass away, and all things become
new.
Now, when I was a young preacher, I
used to say that the evidence of being
saved is that you are changed.
I no longer believe that.
I believe this.
The evidence that you are saved is that
you are in a process of being changed.
I am not talking about perfection here.
I am not saying that the moment a
man is born again, he's immediately done with
sin and he lives a perfect life.
No.
That contradicts Scripture and that contradicts the image
I see every time I look in the
mirror.
But what I am saying is this, that
when a man is truly converted, when a
woman is truly converted, when a child is
truly converted, they enter into a process of
change that is noticeable and powerful.
And when they walk out of the will
of God, the power of God's discipline comes
and shows even more evidence that they have
been born again, because God will not let
them alone to themselves.
If you can sin and live in it
and enjoy it, and if the world means
more to you than Christ, you're lost.
One time down in Peru, I was dealing
with a young man and he'd gone to
so many churches looking for security.
He just had no assurance of salvation.
And so I took him through the entire
book of 1 John, which we're going to
go through in a moment.
And after we were done, he said, I'm
still not sure, Pastor.
And so I remembered something that Luther said
about a million years ago.
And I looked him squarely in the eye
and I said, Boy, do you know any
taverns?
He said, Yes.
I said, Well, do you know any really
bad places?
And I mean some places where you can
do sin.
I mean in a great way.
He said, Well, yes, I do.
I said, Go there tonight.
He said, What?
I said, Go there tonight.
And do what, Pastor?
And sin with all your might.
He was so taken back, he couldn't hardly
breathe.
He said, Pastor, what are you telling me?
I can't do that.
You can't, huh?
I wonder what the reason for it is.
Why is it that you can't?
Why is it that when you do, you're
broken on the ground and you lay in
pieces before God repenting?
Why is it?
Could it be that God has done a
work in you?
Now, if I told some of you that,
you would say, No big deal, Pastor.
I do it every night.
I go to Hannibal and as soon as
I can get away from that religious crowd,
well, I tell you what, I go to
the birds of the feather who flock together.
And you're lost.
And I don't care what your pastor says.
And I don't care what your mom and
dad says.
And I don't even care what anybody, even
the authority in this school tells you.
If there's no evidence of salvation in your
life, you ought to be very afraid.
Very afraid.
Look at what else it says here.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a
new creation.
The old has gone.
The new has come.
All this is from God.
I stop there for the emphasis.
And here is our main problem.
We've turned salvation into some little human decision
where you decide to jump on a bandwagon.
My friends, salvation is a mighty awesome work
of God that comes from God, starts with
God, and ends with God.
And when God saves a man in His
power, that same God who has the power
to save him has the power to change
him, and the love of God is so
great, He will not let him go.
I'll give you an example.
Look at Jacob and Esau.
Jacob I loved.
Esau I hated.
If you study those two lives, you know
what you'll find out?
Esau was blessed.
Oh, he was blessed.
And so was Jacob.
So how could it be that God hated
Esau and loved Jacob?
Let's take a look at the life of
Jacob.
He suffered and suffered and suffered under the
discipline of God.
God was almost his enemy.
Everywhere Jacob turned to do the will of
Jacob, God cut him off and beat him
to pieces.
Esau suffered none of that.
No discipline.
No working of God.
Only blessing.
Only an easy life.
Only material things.
That's what he got.
He also went to hell.
You see, the evidence of the love of
God in your life is that He will
not let you alone to yourself.
And if as a Christian you enter into
a life of sin, mark my words, the
Father will be after you.
I remember one time, I was nine years
old and it was the first day of
school.
And my mother dressed me in white pants.
Any mother in her right mind ought to
know you should never dress a boy in
white pants when he's nine years old on
the first day of school.
And she told me, she said, don't go
fishing with your friends, Rance, John, and Bruce.
Well, I went fishing with my friends, Rance,
John, and Bruce.
I fell into the pond and you can
imagine what happened to my white pants.
When I walked home with my friends around
me for protection and comfort in my time
of need, my mother saw me from the
door and came running towards us.
She grabbed me.
She did nothing to the other boys and
I immediately pointed out her inconsistencies.
I said, Mother, they're as dirty as I
am.
And she said in a voice that seemed
frightening, they're not my children.
If you want to know if you're saved
or not, run from God as fast as
you can.
And if you escape, you never belong to
Him.
And if you can come to a school
where you do sit in chapels and you
do hear the Word, and yet you can
run from this place and go sin with
joy in your heart, you are lost.
You're on your way to hell.
What should you do?
Come forward at the invitation.
No.
You've done that a thousand times.
Go home.
And cry out to God as though hell
itself was opening its mouth below you and
sucking you down.
Cry out for the mercy of God until
your soul is converted.
Then come back and tell somebody you got
saved.
People have told you too long that you're
saved and you don't know it for yourself.
Let God confirm your salvation.
All this is from God.
I want us to go to Ezekiel for
a moment.
Ezekiel 36, 24.
Chapter 36, verse 24.
I think we have here again in the
Old Testament one of the most beautiful pictures
of conversion that we could possibly ever see.
And again, I don't know who the Old
Testament professor is here, and I'll say the
same thing I said last night.
Problem with you Christians is that you're all
New Testament Christians and you're not biblical Christians.
You don't know anything about grace because you
don't know the Old Testament.
You don't know anything about holiness.
You don't know anything about God because He's
found there.
Everything found and explained in the New Testament
has its basis, its root, and its beginning
in the Old.
Take every Old Testament class you can.
You might walk out of here knowing something
about God.
Ezekiel 36, 24.
Now I want you to look at the
emphasis here.
It's not on what you're going to do
for God in order to get saved.
It's on what God is going to do
for you.
And you can see that by the pronoun
I and the verb future tense will.
Look what it says, verse 24.
For I will take you out of the
nations.
You say, well, I'm saved.
I just haven't taken myself out of the
nations yet.
I haven't taken myself out of a worldly
life.
It's God that takes you out of there.
And if you're not out, it's because He
didn't take you.
And if He didn't take you, it's because
you're not saved.
For I will take you out of the
nations.
I will gather you from all the countries.
And I will bring you back into your
own land.
Salvation is the work of God.
And if you've experienced that work, you've been
changed.
I will sprinkle clean water on you.
And you will be clean.
I will cleanse you from all your impurities
and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart.
And I will put a new spirit in
you.
I will remove from you your heart of
stone.
And I will give you a heart of
flesh.
And I will put My Spirit in you.
And I will move you to follow My
decrees and be careful to keep My laws.
You see, salvation is the work of God.
And when that work of God truly happens
in your life, God will do these things
in your life.
If He has not brought you out of
a worldly life, if He has not changed
you and cleansed you and put His Spirit
in you, and if He does not move
you to keep His commands and to repent
when you don't, you have no part with
God.
When I became a Christian, I decided it
was my duty to go to my hometown
and witness to every house there.
It's not a big deal.
Only about 1,200 people in my town.
But I took the next three weeks and
I knocked on every door in my city.
And you know what I found out?
Everyone in Brookport, Illinois is saved.
They don't go to church.
They don't read their Bible.
They don't love God.
And they hate Christians, but they're saved.
Let me ask you a question.
Let's say you're walking down, I believe it's
Highway 61 here.
Let's say you're walking right down, smack dab
down the middle of the road.
And all of a sudden, a semi-truck
weighing 30 tons and going 120 miles an
hour runs you over.
Oh, let's make you feel better about this.
Runs me over.
Are you going to have to walk out
on the highway and tap me on the
shoulder and say, excuse me, Brother Paul, I
don't know if you're aware of this, but
you've just been run over by a 30
-ton logging truck.
You're not going to have to tell me,
are you?
Because at least for a fraction of a
second, I am going to know that I'm
about to have an encounter with something much
larger than myself that's going to change my
life forever.
And you're not going to have to stand
out there with road signs saying, for all
who are concerned and can't understand what's going
on here, Brother Paul has been run over
by a truck.
Everyone is going to know because my physical
appearance is going to change.
Every way about me, the way of walking,
it's all going to change.
Why?
Because I've had an encounter with something much
larger than myself.
Let me ask you a question.
What is larger, a 30-ton logging truck
or God?
Isn't it preposterous to think that the Almighty
Creator of the universe has entered into the
heart of a man and left him unchanged?
Poor old God.
He's only got the power to change some.
Well, you've got to let Him do it.
My friend, if you've got to let Him
do it, He's not God.
And if it ever depended on you, you'd
be in hell forever and never have a
chance.
I want to tell you something.
I don't understand the full ramifications of how
a man gets saved and no one does,
but I'll tell you this.
It is the work of God.
And if you are saved, it will be
noticeable.
It will be noticeable in your obedience.
And it will be noticeable in your disobedience
because you will find no pleasure in it.
And the discipline of God will come.
Now, let's go to 1 John.
Look at chapter 5, verse 13.
This is the most overlooked text, I think,
in Christianity today, if we could say such
a thing.
This is the most necessary book for biblical
Christianity and biblical assurance.
And yet we totally have misplaced God's Word
with the traditions of men and left people
without biblical security.
Look what it says.
Verse 13, I write these things to you
who believe in the name of the Son
of God so that you may know that
you have eternal life.
People come to us today and say, I
don't know if I'm saved, Pastor.
And we say, well, let me ask you,
was there ever a time in your life
when you prayed a prayer to receive Jesus?
And were you sincere about it?
That's about as weak and as useless as
the gospel we normally preach today.
It's ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
Has no biblical foundation whatsoever.
But look at the book of 1 John
in the Scripture, the Scripture.
Not psychobabble.
Scripture.
Look what Scripture says.
These things I have written unto you, to
you who profess to believe so that you
might know without a shadow of a doubt
that you have security, that you have eternal
life.
You want security?
Read the book of 1 John over and
over and over and over and over and
allow the Holy Spirit to use the sword
of the Spirit to either confirm your salvation
or show you the need for it.
There are tests in the book of 1
John that we are asked to take.
And by taking those tests, the Holy Spirit
will assure us that we are born again
or tell us that we're not.
And don't think I'm preaching something strange here.
Just go back about 150 years ago and
you'll find this preached in every pulpit.
The church in Corinth basically came to Paul
one day and said, What is this about
our salvation?
Paul said, Examine yourself.
Test yourself to see whether or not you
are in the faith.
Do you see how it goes with 1
John?
Do you want to know if you're safe?
Test yourself.
Don't look back at some date written in
the back of your Bible.
Don't look back at some stake driven in
the ground.
That's talk of evangelists who should have studied
their Bible before they ever began a ministry.
What you need to do is examine your
life in light of Scripture and if there
is no fruit, there is no seed.
Jesus said you will know them by their
fruit and you can know whether or not
you're safe by how you are living and
how God is working in your life.
Every time I preach, someone stands up in
the crowd after the service and says, Don't
you judge me!
And you know what I tell them?
I tell them, Don't you twist Scripture!
Because that's not what Jesus is talking about.
When He said, Thou shalt not judge, He
said it in the same chapter that He
said, By their fruit you will know them.
When He says, Thou shalt not judge, what
He is saying is this.
He was talking about the critical, unloving spirit
of the Pharisees who simply wanted to tear
one another down.
He wasn't talking about the sincere man of
God or sincere woman of God or sincere
pastor that comes to you and says, My
dear friend!
My dear professor of faith!
It looks to me like you might ought
to be concerned for your soul.
You know what's wrong with the American church
today?
It's thin-skinned.
In Peru, if a pastor sees a man
walking out of line, he goes to him
and says, My dear brother, I'm concerned for
your soul because you're showing evidence that you've
not been born again.
You do that today, you'd probably get sued
by people who even profess to be Christians.
You can't live without rebuke and you can't
live without scrutiny and you can't live without
the words of others when they're sent to
you in love.
Now, what are these tests?
We're going to take a look at them
quickly.
I just had my eyes operated on and
I'm really glad about that because I'm seeing
very fuzzy.
I can't tell what time it is on
that clock.
1 John 1.
I just want you to look really quickly.
Verse 5.
This is the message we have heard from
Him and declared to you.
God is light.
In Him there is no darkness at all.
If we claim to have fellowship with Him,
yet walk in darkness, we lie and do
not walk in the truth.
Now, look what it says.
If we claim to have fellowship with Him,
if we claim to be Christians, yet walk
in darkness, we lie and do not live
by the truth.
What is walking in darkness?
Well, first you have to understand what darkness
is.
It has two meanings here.
Usually when John is talking, he's always doing
double meanings on words.
It's really strange what he's doing, but it
helps a lot when you start studying him.
Darkness can refer to moral impurity or that
which opposes or contradicts the nature of God.
God is light.
God is holy.
And anything that contradicts His nature is a
contradiction to Him.
It's darkness.
But it can also refer to revelation.
And what John is saying is that God
has revealed to us who He is and
how He is and what He requires of
us.
The man who walks in the knowledge of
who God is and an understanding of God's
will shows himself to truly have communion with
God.
But a man who says, I know God,
but continuously lives in darkness, loves the darkness,
walks outside of God's will, outside of God's
character, he's a liar if he says he's
a Christian.
Now, we have to temper this a bit
because there are some of you who are
dear Christians and you're struggling with sin and
you're thinking to yourself, well, could it be
that I'm lost?
Well, it could be if you weren't struggling
with sin.
I'm not talking about struggling with sin.
I'm talking about living it and loving it.
And I want you to look at the
proof.
Look what it says in verse 8.
If we claim to be without sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in
us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness.
What John is saying here is this, is
that one of the evidences of being a
Christian is not only that you walk in
light, but that you are well aware of
your own weaknesses and sin.
You see, the lost man, as some of
you are lost, is not concerned at all
about sin.
As a matter of fact, he seeks it
out.
And when he does sin, it's not a
big deal in his life.
But the Christian who can and does, as
we all do, fall into sin and sin,
the moment he does that, he's broken about
that sin.
Or if he's not broken about it, the
Holy Spirit comes and tugs at his heart.
And if that's not enough, the discipline of
God comes.
You see, a Christian can sin, but we're
miserable about it and we can't stay there.
You know all those carnal Christians in 1
Corinthians?
Well, read 2 Corinthians.
You know what happened to them?
They either repented or God killed them.
Yes, as some brother told me last night,
and I thought it was really interesting, he
said, the God of the Bible kills people.
The God of American Christianity today is about
par with Santa Claus.
But the God of the Bible, the real
one, He's not a tame lion, as C
.S. Lewis said.
He's God.
It says you're a liar.
But if you're struggling with sin and that
sin breaks you and causes you to fall
before God, asking for mercy and wanting to
begin again, you're born again.
Now look at chapter 2.
Verse 3, We know that we have come
to know Him if we obey His commands.
The man who says, I know Him, but
does not do what He commands is a
liar and the truth is not in him.
The man who says, I know Him, I
know Him, but does not do what He
commands is a liar.
I was doing some street preaching.
I used to live with the street people
down in Fort Worth.
And I was preaching on the street one
evening and this big old Texan walks up
to me, drunker than you could possibly ever
imagine, having a wonderful time about it.
And I was preaching and I handed him
a track and I said, How is it
with your soul?
He says, Oh, I've been born again.
I remember the first Baptist church here in
town.
I said, You're a liar.
It took three men to pull him off
of me, but he was.
He said, How can you judge him?
I said, Oh, please.
He said, Well, a Christian can get drunk.
Yes.
He can.
He can't have a good time about it
and he won't be boasting about church membership
while he's drunk.
Some of you, and I want to say
this and I'm saying it exact.
This is not me just being overzealous.
You've got the most limp-wristed, weak Christianity
I've ever seen in my life.
It's pitiful.
Where man has all the rights and God
doesn't have a right to say or do
anything.
I tell you how much you love God.
I'll start preaching about who He really is
and the ones of you who really get
mad ought to be afraid.
Because you like God the way you got
Him, but you don't have the right one.
The man who says, I know Him, but
does not do what He commands is a
liar and the truth is not in Him.
Now, I want us to go very quickly
to chapter 2, verse 9.
Anyone who claims to be in the light
but hates his brother is still in the
darkness.
Whoever loves his brother lives in the light
and there is nothing in him to make
him stumble.
But whoever hates his brother is in the
darkness and walks around in the darkness.
He does not know where he is going
because the darkness has blinded him.
My friend, this is not talking about your
neighbor.
This is not talking about a poor man
on the street.
This is talking about a Christian.
And one of the true and most exciting
evidences that you have been born again is
that you love Christians.
You love the people of God.
Now, when I look at the church and
I find myself in the middle of her,
do you want to know what I find
out about us?
We are hypocrites.
We are a mess.
We profess things many times that we do
not live.
We struggle.
Sometimes we stink really, really bad.
But you know what?
There is no place on earth that I
would rather be than with a bunch of
messed up, stinky Christians who seem to never
get anything right.
Do you want to talk about rebellion?
I was a weight lifter.
I know it is hard to believe now.
In the university, I was a weight lifter
and there was a church right across from
my gym.
And every Wednesday when they would all go
to church and our gym would be open,
I would throw open all the doors and
put in the tape Highway to Hell from
ACDC and turn it up as loud as
I could so that all those people going
to church would hear that music.
Rebellion?
You have got nothing on me.
I zealously served the Lord.
I zealously served Satan.
But I want you to know the moment
I was converted at the University of Texas,
standing by a coffee machine in the library
all by myself, the first thing I wanted
to do was be with the people of
God.
Follow them around.
Like one man said, if the preacher washed
the windows on Thursday, I filled my pew.
I sat there and watched him.
I just wanted to be with the people
of God.
If you do not want to be with
the people of God, it's because you're not
one of them.
If you make fun of the people of
God and their attempts at serving God, if
you make fun of them because they can't
do it right, if they don't look like
the in crowd, you're lost.
Congratulations, you just assigned yourself to Hell.
You identified yourself with the people who are
excellent, but they hate God.
Because if you don't love the people of
God, as messy as we are, you don't
love God.
One last test and then we're going to
go.
And I apologize for not being able to
see the clock.
Chapter 2, verse 15.
Now get ready.
Do not love the world or anything in
the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him.
For everything in the world, the cravings of
sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and
the boasting of what he has and does
comes not from the Father, but from the
world.
The world and its desires pass away, but
the man who does the will of God
lives forever.
This is a description of many Baptist churches
in America, especially many First Baptist churches.
You can tell why I preach in a
lot of Baptist churches once.
We are a fleshly people.
But you need to realize something and you
need to be very afraid.
If you love what the world loves, you're
loving what God considers an abomination.
If you love your physical beauty for your
physical beauty's sake, it's an abomination to God.
If you love the heroes of the world,
you are of the world.
If you love riches and wealth and Rolex
watches, if you love their television shows, if
you love their beautiful women and their excellent
men, you're lost.
You say, but Brother Paul, don't you ever
struggle?
Oh, my goodness.
Sit down with me after this service.
I'll tell you how I struggle.
But you know what?
I hate the world.
Because of my own wickedness, yes, there are
times I take a glance.
There are times I walk down a wrong
path.
But I want you to know it leads
to a destitution of my soul.
I want you to know that it causes
me to hate myself after I've betrayed Christ
in such a way.
But if you can walk with that world,
love that world, hold up that world, want
to look like that world, mold your life
after that world, you are of that world.
What are you now?
Is it well with your soul?
If you're sitting there right now and you're
a Christian who's struggled with sin, but you
have struggled and struggled, and you're saying, oh,
my goodness, this man's telling me I'm lost.
No, dear friend.
Take another look.
I'm not preaching perfection here and I'm not
preaching salvation by works.
What I'm preaching is this.
If God has come into your life, He
begins to work and direct your life.
And He changes your desires.
And even when you fall and struggle, He's
there and He loves you.
If you're sitting here and you're wondering whether
you're not saved or whether you are, just
envision for a moment.
Stand beside a student you know to be
an unbeliever.
Are you like them?
Do you have the same desires and concerns
that they have?
Do you dress the same way?
Talk the same way?
Is your morality the same?
Is there no concern for God in your
life just like there's no concern for God
in theirs?
Does the Word of God not have a
place in your life at all?
You ought to be very afraid.
But if you're a struggling Christian and you
put yourself beside that unbeliever and yes, you
do see a difference, then rejoice.
Rejoice.
Now, I've given you a lot to think
about.
Now, go.
Just go.
I want you to carry this.
I don't want you to come down here
and make some little decision.
I want you to go.
Now, I want you to know something.
Satan can steal this Word right out of
your heart.
But you go.
And you go to God.
And you say, Oh God, confirm or deny.
Help me.
And if you begin to see your lack
of concern for the things of God and
everything else, then you get on your knees
and you cry out, Oh God, convert me.
Oh God, save me.
Do you know what we do in Peru
when someone comes forward with a profession of
faith?
We don't say in front of our church,
A man was born again today in our
church.
No, we don't say that.
We don't have any way of knowing that.
You can't show me where we have any
way of knowing that.
What we say is, a man has come
forward to profess Christ publicly and we rejoice
in that.
And then we tell him, by himself, we
say, Sir, if you leave this building and
your concerns and your desires and your way
of living does not change, you've got nothing
here today.
But if you walk out and your concerns
and your desires and your way of walking
reflects the work of God, then rejoice that
you have been born again.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, thank You for the patience of Your
people.
Father, I don't take it lightly that I
took this time.
I just felt it was so necessary, Lord.
And I pray for these young people that
they might consider the evidence of salvation in
their life and rejoice at the confirmation of
God's Word and mourn if there's no evidence
of salvation in their life.
And I pray, God, I turn them over
to You.
Work in their hearts.
Call them forth.
Change their hearts.
Put Your Spirit inside them.
And move them to keep Your commands.
Paul, can these dead bones live?
Thou knowest, Lord.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
I want to finish by simply saying this.
I felt such an urgency to keep going,
but I do apologize to the faculty and
staff knowing that your classes are extremely important.
Extremely important.
But please bear with me and have patience.
I hope that God will somehow use this
to save people and to straighten out a
few others.
God bless you.