Your hands to God with me.
Open your heart to him.
Father, we stand here before you, open to
you, open to your word, open to your
truth.
Father, none of us are here just to
be entertained.
None of us are here, Father, just to
hear another message.
None of us are here, Father, just to
have our ears tickled.
We want to know truth.
Father, we genuinely are asking you to open
the eyes of our understanding and to change
our whole orientation.
If we have blind spots, if there are
areas where we become numb or dull, if
we're missing anything, God Almighty, we ask you
to speak to us, to show us, to
make it plain, to change us.
Help us, Lord, to put into practice what
you give us.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
You can be seated.
I want to read two passages to you,
first from Isaiah 30 and then from 2
Timothy chapter 4.
And I want to speak to you about
the theme, Itching Ears, Isaiah
chapter 30.
As you're turning there, let me give you
a perspective.
We become accustomed to the environment we find
ourselves in.
And what is normal for an American might
be extravagant for a Scotsman or luxurious for
an Indian.
We get used to things a certain way.
We do things a certain way in church
in America, and it seems normal to us.
And if you did the same thing in
parts of Europe, it would seem like hype
to them.
Or if the way things were done in
Europe were done in churches in America, it
would seem low-key, just different styles sometimes.
I'm not talking about right and wrong, sinful
and not sinful.
I'm just talking about different styles that are
neutral in themselves.
We get used to certain things.
Maybe you've been saved for five years and
you've watched a lot of Christian television and
you think that's normal.
That's what you've been raised with.
Maybe your particular church preaches a certain emphasis
and never really brings a message of repentance
or holiness, and you think that's normal.
And when someone comes and brings a different
kind of message, it shocks you.
Maybe you were raised in a church that
didn't believe that the gifts and powers of
the Spirit were for today.
And you go to a church and they
pray for the sick and people are healed,
and you're shocked because you didn't know what
was going on.
To one extent or another, all of us
are products of our environment, and all of
us have at least some blind spots, and
that's why we need the rest of the
body.
Amen?
Many of us have become so accustomed to
the American gospel, to the American style, that
we have not realized how far it has
departed from the biblical norm.
You know, we have a concept, especially in
Southern America, in the Bible Belt, like where
we are here in Pensacola.
We have this expression of holding a revival.
They find it comical, that expression, in Britain,
don't they, brother?
All of the Americans are holding another revival.
We're holding a three-day revival next month,
praise the Lord.
Oh, our church is holding, we scheduled a
revival for May 4th through the 15th.
We scheduled a long revival.
What we mean in America is, you know,
a series of special meetings with special speakers,
special music, all hyped up, all these special
offerings, and then you leave the same way
you came in, but you're excited for that
moment anyway, you're charged.
And I've told people here, week in, week
out, you can no more hold a revival
than you can hold a hurricane.
You can no more schedule a revival than
you can schedule an earthquake, but that's American
Bible Belt terminology.
If you take it to other parts of
the world, it sounds utterly foolish, because revival
to them is a visitation, is God coming
down.
We schedule God to visit our church next
month, from exactly 11 to 12 on Sunday,
but we have some other activities right after.
So we've scheduled a one-hour visitation.
We have, we are holding a flood.
It's foolishness, but that's the way we talk,
it's our terminology.
The same way, I've had missionary friends who've
been overseas working in the harvest fields for
years, being in nations where maybe 1%
or less of the population is truly born
again.
Even so-called Christian nations, nations that have
had the gospel for up to 2,000
years, since the days of the apostles.
And to this day, maybe 1% of
the people are saying, maybe there's never been
a national revival.
And there are people, missionary friends out there,
pouring their lives out, pouring their hearts out,
day in, day out, laboring, preaching, teaching, serving,
giving.
And then they come to the States, and
they are shocked sometimes by what they see.
I remember a pastor from Canada, who got
saved and kind of came to the Lord
in a closed environment, was not that exposed
to a lot of the other trends out
in the church, had a pure time in
the Word and prayer and seeking God.
Came to America with some friends to visit
Leonard Ravenhill, before he went to be with
the Lord.
And they flipped on television, and there was
a preacher.
Guy got off TV for a while after
that.
But there was a preacher, and they were
shocked.
They thought it was a comedian mocking the
gospel.
They thought that this guy, asking for money
and doing things the way he was doing,
was actually a comedian mocking the gospel.
And they said, my God, God is going
to be displeased with this man.
Think of the judgment that's going to be
on this guy.
And then they found out it was actually
a popular American preacher.
And he was well respected by many.
They were shocked.
I've had missionary friends come back, or native
workers from other parts of the world, and
they find the latest trend, the latest fad,
the latest new craze in the church, and
they're thinking, what is going on?
Your country's going to hell all around you.
You're consuming so much of the world's resources
on yourself.
People are dying out there without Jesus.
What in the world are you doing?
You know, now we've got the latest spiritual
trend fad, you know?
The latest Christian diaphragm, the latest Christian aerobic
video.
We don't realize sometimes how much we have
departed from a strong, clear, biblical word.
How much we have been softened by our
environment.
When I wrote the book, It's Time to
Rock the Boat, I wrote a chapter in
there called Connoisseur Christians and a Gourmet Gospel,
where I had some of our pampered pew
sitters of today counseling John the Baptist, and
Jeremiah, and Joel the prophet, and some of
these others.
Giving them counsel because their message was too
hard, it was too negative, they were going
to scare the people off, they'd never amount
to much.
I mean, if John the Baptist had listened
to the counsel I gave, he could have
lived a good long life.
I even tried to help Jesus out with
some counsel.
If we used the same standards that we
put on people today, on the biblical authors,
we would have tuned them all off.
I want you to see something.
This may be an eye-opener for some.
This may just confirm the burden of your
heart.
But let's start in Isaiah, the 30th chapter,
verse 8.
Go now, write it on a tablet for
them, and describe it on a scroll, that
for the days to come it may be
an everlasting witness.
Speaking to the rebellious people of Israel and
Judah.
These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling
to listen to the Lord's instruction.
They say to the seers, see no more
visions.
And to the prophets, give us no more
visions of what is right.
Tell us pleasant things.
Prophesy illusions.
Lead this way, get off this path, and
stop confronting us with the Holy One of
Israel.
We've heard enough of this holiness message, Isaiah.
We've heard enough of this judgment is coming,
judgment is coming message.
We've heard enough of this repent, get this
sin out message.
In fact, Isaiah's favorite title for God, he
called him Kedosh Yisrael, the Holy One of
Israel.
That was his favorite title of God.
They didn't want to hear it.
Quit talking to us about the Holy One
of Israel.
It makes us uncomfortable.
It makes us feel like something's wrong with
us.
Makes us feel like God is angry with
us.
Quit it, man, he's our father.
He's a loving God.
He made us the way we are.
He understands our needs.
He understands our desires.
Tell us good things.
Pleasant things.
Prophesy illusions.
That's a self-deceived person speaking.
This is what the Lord speaks.
Verse 12, therefore this is what the Holy
One of Israel says.
It's never wise to tell a prophet to
shut up.
Stop confronting us with the Holy One of
Israel.
Therefore, this is what the Holy One of
Israel says.
And here is a message of judgment.
Because you have rejected this message, relied on
oppression, and depended on deceit, this sin will
become for you like a high wall cracked
and bulging.
It collapses suddenly in an instant.
It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered
so mercilessly that among its pieces, that a
fragment will be found for taking coals from
a hearth or scooping water out of a
cistern.
But the people said, stop it.
2 Timothy chapter 4.
2 Timothy 4 follows on the heels of
2 Timothy 3.
Paul has written to Timothy how he's known
the Scriptures since he was a child, the
Scriptures that are able to make him wise
for salvation through faith in Messiah Jesus.
In 3.16, all Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for, notice this, what is
the word useful for, what is Scripture good
for?
Teaching.
We love teaching.
Keep reading.
Rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
Speaking of discipline there.
So that the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Notice he didn't say the word is useful
for teaching and encouragement and building faith and
making you feel good.
Although some of those things it is useful
for.
He said no, it's useful for teaching and
rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness.
Three out of the four things he lists
are pretty confrontational and pretty strong.
In other words, the diet is not candy
bars, soda, and ice cream.
The diet is vegetables and fruit and juices.
Steve sometimes talks about brussel sprouts versus Twinkies.
He talks about choking on brussel sprouts.
I tried eating brussel sprouts one time.
I know some people love them, and I
prayed that God would give me a love
for broccoli and brussel sprouts.
Either I have to act on my faith
more, or just discipline myself, or just accept
that there are other healthy things to eat
aside from broccoli and brussel sprouts.
I only tried brussel sprouts once.
I don't know if it was my mental
attitude or the taste or the texture, but
I almost choked on it.
It's the way some of us are with
truth.
On the other hand, I'd rather choke on
a brussel sprout than on truth.
Amen?
We have a lot of, what, vegetarian fanatics
here or something?
It wasn't a healthy amen.
Some of you think I should rather choke
on truth than a brussel sprout.
Now he goes on.
In the presence of God and of Christ
Jesus, who will judge the living and the
dead this is an awesome charge.
And in view of his appearing in his
kingdom, I give you this charge.
Preach the word.
Be prepared in season and out of season.
Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and
careful instruction.
Here he's giving pastoral instruction to Timothy, or
Timothy who would have oversight over several of
the churches.
Even as a young man, he's giving him
pastoral wisdom.
And he's telling Timothy how to minister the
word.
And he's saying, don't ever forget this.
I want you to remember this.
This is a charge of the presence of
Almighty God and of Jesus who's going to
judge the living and the dead, who's going
to return.
Timothy, you preach and you correct and you
rebuke and you encourage.
Part of the preaching of the word.
Part of the ministering of the word.
Confronting what's wrong.
Setting it right.
The word of God says in the book
of Proverbs, the 28th chapter, that he who
rebukes a man will have more favor in
the end than someone who speaks with a
flattering tongue.
It says in Proverbs, the 27th chapter, open
rebuke is better than secret love.
The kisses of an enemy are profuse, but
faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Somebody may tell you all the good things
you want to hear, make you feel good,
flatter you, never say anything that's cutting or
painful.
Not even in love, they won't ever say
that to you.
They'll just tell you, oh man, you're going
to be okay.
Oh, your preaching is terrific.
Oh, the way you're raising your kids is
great.
Oh, don't worry about that.
Over and over and over and over and
over.
They never tell you, you're hell bound.
Or they never tell you, you're on the
path to destruction.
Or they never tell you, you're only preaching
half the message.
They just pat you on the back.
Oh, that book is awesome.
It doesn't need any correcting.
Don't listen to that editor.
Don't listen to that publisher.
And in the end, that person has hurt
you.
And the one who told you something you
didn't want to hear, sir, if you don't
go on a diet and get in shape,
you're going to die.
Ma'am, if you don't change your whole
attitude, you're going to alienate your kids.
The one who told you those words that
you didn't want to hear, that was the
true friend.
And the one that just had a smooth,
nice word, never confronted, never warned, that person
is really an enemy.
I told somebody just the other day, 14
-year-old, came up for prayer, and said,
listen, I'm not living right.
I don't have any godly friends around me.
And I know I'm making wrong choices, and
I've got to get right with God.
It was very clear she wasn't living right.
It just happened recently.
And I said to her, listen, there's no
room for playing games.
I said, I feel it's so strong in
me.
I've warned other young people sometimes, felt it
so clearly, and seen what they didn't hear.
It happened.
I said, listen, if you don't get right
now, you'll be pregnant when you're 15.
Or you'll hang out one time with the
wrong person, get some sexually transmitted disease.
There's no room to play games, young lady.
Maybe somebody else would have just said, hey,
honey, you're going to be okay.
And then maybe they'll be speaking at her
funeral three years later.
Robert Murray McShane said it like this, if
we had more love, we would warn people.
If we had more love, if we weren't
so selfish, if we weren't so concerned about
what people thought of us, we would warn.
So Timothy receives these words from Paul, for
the time will come when men will not
put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will
gather around them a great number of teachers
to say what their itching ears want to
hear.
They will turn their ears away from the
truth and turn aside to myths.
Now there's only one problem here.
Nobody thinks they are doing that.
If you're in the church, you believe that
you have sound doctrine, don't you?
I mean, do any of you pastors get
up and say, now I'm going to preach
something very unsound today?
I want you to know that what I'm
preaching is not true, it's not according to
the Word.
No, we all think that what we have
is sound doctrine.
And I want to help you distinguish some
things today.
I want to help you understand what some
of God's message must contain for the world
and for the church, compared to the itching
ears kind of message.
I'm just laying some foundations now.
One message tells the people what they want
to hear, the other message tells the people
what they need to hear.
John Wesley made the comment, we're all approved,
few profit.
It doesn't matter if you're going to be
accepted because of the message, it doesn't matter
if you're going to lose crowds initially because
of the message, the question is, do you
have the favor of God?
Are you delivering His message His way?
Yes, in love, yes, in the power of
the Spirit, but is it true?
The Word of God is not only a
lamp to our feet, the light to our
path, Psalm 119, 105, it's not only a
tree of life to all who take hold
of it.
Proverbs 3, 18, it's not just that, but
it's also like fire.
Jeremiah 23, 29, and like a hammer that
shatters the rock in pieces.
It's also sharp as any two-edged sword
and pierces to the very depths of our
being, according to Hebrews 4, 12 and 13.
Where is that piercing word of truth that
sets the cold on fire, that smashes the
hardness of heart and brings repentance?
Problem is, though, that nobody thinks they themselves
have unsound doctrine.
Let me illustrate my point.
If you are a Baptist, one of the
Baptist mottos is, we preach the whole counsel
of God.
Apparently, if you're not a Baptist, you only
preach part of the counsel of God.
If you are Presbyterian or Reformed in your
doctrine and theology, you have the orthodox doctrine.
Everybody else is just poor unorthodox guys.
You have the orthodox.
If you are Pentecostal, you are full gospel.
We're a full gospel church.
Where do you go to?
I go to a partial gospel church.
If you believe, if you hold to a
schismatic doctrine like Jesus only, what do you
believe?
We have the apostolic doctrine of the Lord
Jesus.
What about your church?
No, we just made it up in our
church.
My favorite, of course, is the word of
faith.
I go to a word church.
You go to a word church?
I go to a word church.
What kind of church do you go to?
We don't use the word in our church.
We use the phone book on Sunday morning.
We're not a word church.
See, that's the mentality.
Our church is a word church.
Our church is a full gospel church.
Our church preaches the whole counsel of God.
If you're into the restoration movement, you go
to a New Testament church.
Whether you go to a New Testament church,
I have two answers.
Yes and no.
If someone says, do you go to a
New Testament church, I just say yes.
And that discussion's simple.
But the more truthful answer would be no
and neither do you.
And if there was a New Testament church
on our block, we'd probably excommunicate it for
being too radical.
We'd say, those guys are off.
They're extremists.
We don't believe in that stuff.
I go to a New Testament church.
What about you?
No, our church is called the traditions of
men church.
See, everybody thinks they've got...
I remember hearing a guy on the radio
when I was a new believer, and his
teaching was certainly not in depth, to be
polite.
And it was lacking in some other areas.
I mean, I just, even as a new
believer, I knew that we're just getting little
bits and pieces.
But I remember him laughing on the radio,
and the only preacher on the station was
Sound Doctrine.
How many have heard shows on the radio
called the Sound Doctrine Hour?
Why doesn't everyone else just give that guy
their own air time?
Because he's got the Sound Doctrine.
Nobody is willingly deceived.
Okay?
Nobody comes up to you and says, Listen,
I'm a con man.
I want to con you out of all
of your life savings.
And you say, Okay, great.
What's the scam?
I'll sign it on the dotted line.
I am a cult leader, and I'm going
to lead you straight to hell and destruction,
and everything I tell you is a lie.
Follow me.
Nobody does that.
People get deceived and don't realize they're deceived.
Let me illustrate that again.
Does anyone here go to the First Assembly
of the Misled?
The Congregation of the Deceived?
You know, I start, Let No One Deceive
You, out with that question, you know.
Who is willingly deceived?
Everyone says, Don't be deceived, don't be deceived.
Maybe the ones warning us about being deceived
are deceived themselves.
People are so worried about receiving a false
spirit, in the meantime they reject the true
spirit, which is a worse deception.
How can we distinguish them?
What's God really saying?
What's the message we really need to hear?
We all want sound doctrine, don't we?
Everyone here wants the truth at any cost.
Even if it hurts.
Even if it stings.
Even if it brings up evil.
We want the truth.
I remember Leonard Ravenhill telling me repeatedly, here
he was in his 80s, he went to
be with the Lord in 87, passionate for
God, meditated dearly on the judgment seat, dearly.
I don't know for how many decades he
did, but was awestruck at the thought, and
preparing his life to meet with God.
In fact, it was such a serious topic
to him, even though he knew the joy
of the Lord, and intimacy with Jesus, he
had a broken heart for the state of
the church, and the state of the world.
And the subject of the judgment seat was
overwhelming to him.
Not that he was afraid God would damn
him to hell, no, he was a believer,
and he knew the Lord, and he knew
the Lord's love for him, but he knew
he was going to have to give a
count to God one day.
Think of that.
He was going to have to give a
count.
And when he was 87, he had a
stroke, never came out of it for about
two months, could respond sometimes to family just
by squeezing a hand a little bit.
When hymns would come on, he would kind
of, he had one hand that wasn't paralyzed,
he would kind of conduct the hymns.
I wasn't there with him, but his wife
Martha would be telling me.
Then after two months he went to be
with the Lord, but in the midst of
this, when I was talking to his dear
wife Martha about it, she said to me,
it's good that he had this extra time
just to prepare to meet God.
Nothing else except focus on the day that
he was going to stand before him and
give a count of his life.
That's how seriously he took the subject.
We have to know the truth now rather
than find it out then.
I'd rather God rebukes me now and humbles
me before the whole world and gives me
an opportunity to change than I stand before
him and it's too late.
I'd rather be embarrassed now than embarrassed then.
I'd rather someone told me you're going the
wrong way after I've been traveling for 50
hours than after I've been traveling for 10
years have to turn around.
We need to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves.
We need to be ruthlessly honest with those
that we witness to.
When we are doing one-on-one witnessing,
there's a certain way we do it.
When there's public preaching, there's another thing.
When you're speaking through book or television, each
of these is different, and always we need
wisdom, and always we need sensitivity because we're
dealing with human beings that are precious in
the sight of God.
Our goal is not to look big and
strong and powerful and anointed.
Our goal is to communicate the truth to
sinners and to saints alike.
But there are several essential ingredients of the
gospel that we must preach.
There are several truths that we must preach
and that itching ears don't want to hear.
One Puritan said it like this.
He said, Ministers are physicians, not cooks, and
therefore should not study to please the palate,
but to cure the patient.
Your goal when you bring the Word is
not to serve up some tasty dish that
everybody loves.
Mmm boy, this tastes so good.
He's a good cook while the patient's out
there dying of disease.
Your goal is to expose the sickness and
bring people to the great physician.
Now let me read you something that Charles
Finney said about the gospel.
This may surprise you, but these were Finney's
words.
Listen to what he says.
Here is the sinner in rebellion.
God comes with pardon in one hand and
a sword in the other.
Notice he describes the sinner in rebellion.
Someone who is not saved is in rebellion.
They're not just lost.
They're not just hell bound.
They are in rebellion.
Here is the sinner in rebellion.
God comes with pardon in one hand and
a sword in the other and tells the
sinner to repent and receive pardon or refuse
and perish.
That's the gospel.
Double-edged sword.
If you repent, there's life, there's pardon, there's
forgiveness, there's mercy.
If you turn and say, Oh God, have
mercy on me.
Save me from my sins.
I put my faith in your son to
save me and deliver me and cleanse me.
By his power I turn from the life
I'm living and I turn to you.
Pardon.
If you refuse, you perish.
Which is it?
Now listen to what he said.
It is of great importance that the sinner
should be made to feel his guilt and
not left to the impression that he is
unfortunate.
Isn't that symptomatic of our preaching today?
Everything is a disease, a disorder.
Instead of gluttony, it's an eating disorder.
I'm not talking about some of the legitimate
thyroid problem or something like that, which is
the tiny, tiny minority.
Not gluttony.
It's an eating disorder.
It's not the sin of alcoholism.
It's a disease of alcohol.
That person that's committing all those sexual sins
where they were abused when they were little.
You know how God looks at it?
The person who abused them is guilty of
sin and they who are now committing sexual
sins themselves are guilty.
Both are guilty.
We make it like no one's guilty because
the guy that abused the girl when she
was little, well, he was abused when he
was little, so nobody's guilty.
God's perspective, no, everybody outside of Jesus is
guilty.
Instead of nobody, it's everybody.
I think this is a very prevalent fault,
and he said, particularly in books on the
subject, that are calculated to make the sinner
think more of his sorrows than of his
sin and feel that his state is rather
unfortunate than criminal.
Oh, you poor sinner.
You've had such a rough, tough life.
Now, maybe they have.
Maybe there are poor sinners also, but they
also need to be confronted as people in
rebellion against God whose sins nailed the Son
of God to the cross.
We preach a message to the lost that
gives the impression that Jesus is in need
of them, that Jesus is standing waiting at
the door for them.
It's Jesus again.
Won't you open up?
I'm knocking at the door of your heart.
I've been waiting so patiently.
Now that you've finished that affair, now that
you've finished that drug addiction, I'm still here
knocking.
It's cold and rainy.
Won't you let me in?
Yeah, I decided to give Jesus a try.
You know, I figured he's been waiting for
me all that time.
No, that's not the way it is.
He knocks and says, open or perish.
We are in need of him.
He is not in need of us.
But how often do people after our altar
calls realize that?
How often do people that we're witnessing to
realize that?
We tend to offer them a better life.
We tend to point to all the benefits
and all the good things, and there are
awesome, wonderful, good things that come out of
knowing Jesus.
But that's not the heart and soul of
the gospel message.
You say, but didn't he promise a hundredfold
return if people would follow him?
No.
He told those who had left everything, they
had already left everything, he told them, follow
me and I'll make you fishers of men.
They had left everything and they said to
him, by the way, we've left everything.
What do we get?
We left families.
We left houses.
He said, well, you'll get a hundred times
more families, houses, everything left.
You'll get a hundred times more in this
world with persecution and in the world to
come, eternal life.
But he didn't cut some deals.
He said, all right, now, if you will
follow me, we have a special today, three
hundredfold return if you give up your house,
one hundredfold return if you give up your
family, and if you'll follow me now, we
offer forgiveness of sins and straight tickets to
heaven.
Now, how many will come?
No.
He warned them because he had the goods.
He was Jesus.
He didn't have to cut deals.
He walked in, crowds came everywhere.
He walked in, they came running with the
sick.
He walked in, just to hear him, he'd
have to go out in the boat because
the crowds were so large they'd be swarming
him.
He had to go out to sea just
a little bit so he could speak to
all of them safely.
Sometimes the crowds were such he couldn't even
eat.
There he is in the midst of ministry,
can't even do anything.
They open the roof, drop somebody down for
healing.
That's the environment.
Everybody's swarming.
He said, now, wait one second.
Wait one second.
If you really want me, if you really
want to be my disciple, you've got to
leave everything.
That's what he said.
If anyone would come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me.
That's entry level.
Anyone who does not forsake everything he has
cannot be my disciple.
Those were the words of Jesus.
And read through Disciple in the New Testament.
That's not to supersede.
That's just what followers of Jesus were called.
I tell you, if God was moving in
our midst in greater power, if God was
moving in our churches throughout America in greater
power, and in different nations in greater power,
and God was healing and setting people free,
and touching lives radically, people would be swarming
from everywhere.
Crowds would not be the problem.
Dealing with the crowds would be the problem.
But crowds would be coming.
The question would be sorting them out and
finding the true disciples from the not true.
We've been having that in our school now
with such a flood of people wanting to
come.
We're making our application process more stringent.
Making our recommendation process more stringent.
Because this school, man, God's moving.
We've got awesome faculty.
Classes are anointed.
The Spirit moves in chapel.
God may just come down during classes and
take over class time.
It's an incredible environment.
And you're in the revival too.
We want to make sure are you really
willing to take up your cross?
Do you really realize the demands we're going
to put on you?
Do you really realize the holiness standards you're
going to be held to?
Do you really realize the purpose in coming?
Jesus didn't say, won't anybody please follow me?
He didn't stand there on the mountain and
say, please, I'm lonely.
Ask me into your heart.
He warned people.
He said, one day the door's going to
be shut in your face.
One day you're going to say, but we
ate with you.
We dragged you in our streets, you're in
our homes.
And he's going to say, I never knew
you.
You were churchgoers.
You were religious people.
You had the form, but you didn't have
the content.
I never knew you.
This is one of these Friday morning feel
-good messages.
Listen to Finney.
Make the sinner see that all pleas and
excuse for not submitting to God are acts
of rebellion against him.
Tear away the last lie which he grasped
in his hand and make him feel that
he is absolutely condemned before God.
That's how Finney preached the gospel of grace.
Listen to Charles Wesley.
I preached from George Whitefield's pulpit, the wall.
They preached outdoors because churches wouldn't have them.
I preached from George Whitefield's pulpit, the wall.
Many, I am persuaded, found themselves stripped, wounded,
and half dead and are therefore ready for
the oil and wine.
They realized their need.
They realized their sickness.
The gospel message to lost sinners.
I'm going to talk the rest of the
time about the gospel message to the church.
But the gospel message to lost sinners must
make them see that they are lost.
Go through the preaching in the book of
Acts and follow that pattern.
What does Paul do with Felix in Acts
the 24th chapter?
Felix is a leading man in the Roman
government.
He comes in to talk to Paul, the
prisoner.
And he comes in with his wife, Christela.
And Paul talks to him about faith in
Christ Jesus.
So if I said fill in the blanks,
what did Paul talk to him about?
Faith in Christ Jesus.
What do you think he would have preached
on?
You know, we can think, well, he'd probably
talk about the love of God, talk about
the cross, talk about the blood of Jesus,
talk about salvation from sin through the blood
of Jesus.
He may have told them all of that,
but that's not what Luke records.
Luke says, as he discoursed about righteousness, self
-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was
afraid and said, I've had enough for now.
Slight paraphrasing.
I've had it for now.
I'll tell you when it's convenient.
We'll talk again.
And he gets out of there.
First thing is this.
Felix's wife, Christela, was not his own wife
originally.
According to the historian, she was a beautiful
young woman married to someone else.
And Felix spoke every law of God and
of man to take her as his own
wife.
He was living in adultery, just like Herod,
whom John the Baptist rebuked.
And what has Paul taught?
He comes in with his wife.
Sure, they strut in.
The big man with his beautiful wife.
He was just a prisoner.
And Paul talks to him about righteousness, self
-control, and the judgment to come.
And Felix panics and wants out.
Let me ask you something.
Lost people that you know, lost friends, lost
relatives, you may not be able to come
right to this in your very first conversation,
but those that you've shared the gospel with
for a period of time, those that you've
had opportunity to witness to for a period
of time, have you clearly warned them of
the consequences of rejecting the message?
Have you told them that although God loves
them so much to send his son to
die for them, that God is angry with
the wicked every day?
Do they understand that they are sinners in
rebellion against God?
Or have they just heard a soft Jesus
has done so much for me, he can
do so much for you kind of message?
There's more to it than that.
What happens, listen, let's say somebody was messed
up.
Their marriage was messed up because of their
sins.
They were drinking.
The wife gets saved.
The husband gets saved.
They're in love.
Things are doing wonderfully well.
Their marriage is solid.
They're going to church.
Everything's doing great.
And now this is a country where there's
some persecution for the faith.
And now the husband is confronted with the
gospel on his job.
And he stands up and says, I cannot
deny Jesus.
I am a Christian.
And he's arrested and put in prison for
ten years.
And he's tortured.
If he's following Jesus because things go better
for you when you follow Jesus, now what
do you tell him?
If he's following Jesus just so his marriage
can get back together, now he and his
wife are separated.
There's got to be a deeper motivation.
Listen, in the parable of the sower, Jesus
warned us about those whose soil was shallow.
And when testing came because of the word,
that plant that had grown so quickly withers
just as quickly because there were no deep
roots.
When shaking comes, when persecution comes, when tests
come, when hard times come, don't think that
just because you prayed a prayer or you're
feeling better about life that you're going to
make it.
You've got to have some roots that are
planted deep.
And if we don't get people soundly converted,
the roots are going to be shallow.
Do you know what most major evangelistic campaigns,
major evangelists, fine evangelists, some of the best
names in the world, they will readily admit
that of all those that come forward to
receive Jesus, five or six percent are actually
added to the church.
In other words, over 90% of those
who come forward and say, I want to
receive Jesus, do not end up in the
churches.
Something's wrong there.
Something's wrong.
It's not just the follow-up process.
Well, if they were followed up better, it
would help.
The big problem is they haven't been presented
with a truthful message.
Or, they haven't been presented with a clear
enough warning.
Some of our evangelists are bringing a fine,
truthful message, but perhaps there's more to the
story.
Perhaps there's more that people need to hear.
Here, let me give you a famous example.
Mickey Cone was a gangster who heard the
gospel at an evangelistic meeting in the 1950s,
and he thought about it and chewed on
it and was he going to follow or
not and back and forth and he wasn't
sure and one of his friends really encouraged
him to ask Jesus in.
Someone urged him using Revelation 3.20, I
stand at the door and knock, to invite
Jesus Christ into his life.
This he professed to do.
And his life subsequently gave no evidence of
repentance, that mighty change of mind, heart, and
life.
He rebuked his friend telling him, you didn't
tell me that I would have to give
up my work, meaning his rackets.
You didn't tell me that I would have
to give up my friends, meaning his gangster
associates.
Now listen to this.
He had heard that so-and-so was
a Christian football player, so-and-so a
Christian cowboy, so-and-so a Christian actress,
so-and-so a Christian senator, and he
really thought that he could be a Christian
gangster.
Let me stop for a minute.
I was doing a radio interview in New
York one time.
I was in Jersey doing an interview by
phone into New York, New Jersey area.
And someone called in and they wanted to
attack Pat Robertson.
And I said, I'm certainly not going to
sit here and throw stones at Pat Robertson.
Thank God for the good he's done, and
if you differ with certain things, then you
differ with certain things.
I'm not here to defend it, because I've
been appointed an adjunct professor of Old Testament
and Jewish Studies at Regent University School of
Divinity, the school that Pat Robertson founded.
So I said, I'm certainly not going to
just sit here and, you know, you're asking
me to attack him, I'm not going to
attack him.
And he said, well, it didn't mean I
agreed with everything he had said or done
either.
And he said, well, on a recent show,
now this is just what the guy's telling
you, he said, on a recent show, he
had on Hulk Hogan, the wrestler, and some
female bodybuilder, and they were giving their testimonies,
Christian testimonies.
Professional wrestler, one of the most stupid, violence
-exalting sports.
Shouldn't call it a sport on the one
hand, because there's no athletic competition, but these
guys are monsters.
They're athletes in a different sense.
But to think of someone in the midst
of that being a believer, maybe what it
means is that he's a good guy, you
know, in the wrestling scene, that he's not
one of the bad guys.
Well, I understand he's become a bad guy
now.
Or maybe it means that he's not sleeping
around or on drugs, but he's a Christian
professional wrestler.
Somehow, that strikes me as odd.
I have to tell you, it strikes Christians
as odd in other parts of the world
that we have Christian boxers.
Here's a guy laying in the corner, bloody,
got a concussion, you know, his nose broken,
his eyes cut up.
He's laying there in the corner, knocked out.
The other guy's raising his hand.
I have to give all praise, honor, and
glory to the Lord Jesus.
I couldn't have done this without Jesus.
We're used to that in America, and I
believe some of these men are genuine Christians,
but the standard of Christianity in America is
so low that they can do what they're
doing and be part of the church.
If the standard was raised to where God
wanted it to be, we wouldn't have any
of that.
We wouldn't have it.
And then, you know, the guy's in this
Christian lady bodybuilder.
She was wearing such a skimpy bikini that
they couldn't even show the full, you know,
they, you know, blocked out some of the
picture that was on the screen just to
show her muscles.
This is Christian.
Give her the testimony.
The Lord's really helped me to be disciplined.
The Lord's really helped me to work hard
to build my muscles.
I was, and I don't know what she
said, but I'm making this, you know, I
was told when I was little I couldn't
do anything but Jesus come into my life,
and now he told me I can be
the best, and now I'm the best, you
know, female bodybuilder there is.
Something's wrong there.
I'm not saying it's absolutely sinful if a
woman has muscles.
Read Proverbs 31 and that woman there's a
whole lot of stuff.
She's probably got some muscles too.
But I'm talking about the outfits, I'm talking
about the poses, I'm talking about the whole
scene.
But see that's...