If I were to ask you tonight, you're
saved, you say, yes, I'm saved.
When?
Oh, so-and-so creeps, I got baptized
and I'm saved.
What are you saved for?
Hell?
Are you saved from bitterness?
Are you saved from lust?
Are you saved from cheating?
Are you saved from lying?
Are you saved from bad manners?
Are you saved from rebelling against your parents?
Come on, what are you saved from?
The Lord Jesus Christ is first, and for
Him I surrender everything.
To Him I give all.
To Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Savior,
He can command me.
He's ahead of my wife, He's ahead of
my children, He's ahead of my ambitions.
He is first, and everything else is last.
Anything else is not New Testament Christianity, brother
and sister.
Anything else is a compromise, and it leaves
people half-saved, confused, frustrated, bewildered, and in
the dark.
Jesus Christ is your exclusive Savior, and all
other relationships are determined and conditioned by this
one overwhelming, almighty relationship.
And we think all the great men of
prayer lived a hundred years ago.
There's a man who lives fifty miles away
from where I live, he's thirty-two years
of age, he prays ten hours a day.
Here in America right now, come on you
fellows at Pompeii and show your strength.
How much stamina do you have to pray?
How much vision, how much passion, how much
burden?
There's a man outside Waco, sixty years of
age, who prays six hours a day.
Brethren, what we need is the power of
God, and let the public think what they
will.
And if we have the power of God
on us and live like Christians, regardless of
what the world says, I don't care what
the world thinks of me.
Any man, anywhere, at any time, if he
be in Christ, he is a new creation.
He isn't patched up, he's made a new
creation.
He gets a new heart, a new spirit,
new desires, new hopes, new longings, that cannot
be satisfied at the broken systems of the
world.
He preached the greatest sermon the world has
ever had, it's got the answer for our
day.
Christianity has not been weighed in the balances
and found wanting.
Christianity has been tried, found difficult and rejected.
Christianity is not only too difficult for the
world, it's too difficult for the church.
God's problem in the world is not communism,
Romanism, Moonism, or any other ism.
God's problem in America is dead fundamentalism.
We know all the cliches, we know all
the words.
For me to accept Christ means that I
am to accept him in every part of
my being, and that I am to form
an attachment to him, an emotional, an intellectual,
a volitional attachment, which is complete, leaving no
part of the life unaffected.
If he cannot save, cannot control you, he
cannot save you.
And if he cannot control all of you,
he cannot control any of you.
And then it's to be an attachment that
is exclusive.
I mean that Christ is not to be
one of several interests.
My goal is God himself.
Not joy, not peace, not even blessing, but
himself, my God.
It is his to lead me there, not
mine, but his, at any cost, dear Lord,
by any road.
So faith bounds forward to its goal in
God, and love can trust her Lord to
lead her there.
Upheld by him my soul will follow hard,
till God has last fulfilled my deepest prayer.
No matter if the way be sometimes dark,
no matter if it cost be often great,
he knoweth how I best shall reach the
mark.
The way that leads to him must neither
be straight.
One thing I know, I cannot say him
nay.
One thing I do, I praise to all
my God.
The secret of the life of the apostle
was this, if you want to know, it's
this one thing I do.
He never got in sight track.
He never got into business like so many
preachers do.
This one thing I do, it will be
hell to get there.
I forget, one of the old Puritan preachers
said in the 1600s, you have to go
through hell to get to heaven.
You have to lose everything in order to
become the part of the bride of Jesus
Christ.
One thing I know, I cannot say him
nay.
One thing I do, I press toward my
Lord.
My God, my glory here from day to
day, and in the glory there, my great
reward.
Christianity hasn't been tried and found one thing.
It's been tried and found difficult and rejected.
And my dear friend, the only thing which
can turn the course of world history and
shatter the colossus of communistic power and bring
every false god upon its face.
The only thing that can resist the tremendous
powers of evil abroad in the world today
is the Holy Spirit released through spirit filled
man.
A force of evil can only be overcome
by a force of righteousness.
The weapons of our warfare are not common,
but they are mighty through God to the
pulling down of stronghold.
The church today is helpless without the Holy
Spirit.
He says, consider yourself dead to all the
worldly contacts.
Loathe them, hate them.
Hate what?
Well, have nothing to do with sexual immorality.
Have nothing to do with dirty mindedness.
Have nothing to do with evil desire.
Have nothing to do with uncontrolled passion.
Don't lust after other people's goods.
You see, and it's hard to say again,
if Christ has been born in me, he
wants to live in me, he wants to
talk in me, he wants to walk in
me, he wants to work through me.
It's not a struggle that I'm trying to
be a Christian.
Life, life, life.
He says, I'm come that ye might have
life, and that ye might have life more
abundant.
I don't have to tell you that just
to accept Christ as your redeemer doesn't mean
you're saved.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you
just to know that your sins forgiven doesn't
constitute your salvation.
The fact that you happen to be on
the way to hell, and don't now happen
to be on the way to heaven, and
you don't now happen to be on the
way to hell, that doesn't constitute your salvation.
Your salvation, of course, derives from the fact
that as a redeemed sinner, no longer on
the way to hell, but already on the
way to heaven, Jesus Christ as God creator
has come to invade your humanity, to play
that role in you for which you were
created.
To give him the right 24 hours a
day in your business, in your home, in
your school, on your college campus, whether you're
on recreation, in vacation, in business, no matter,
at any time, under any circumstance, 24 hours
in every day, 7 days in every week,
you give Jesus Christ as God, the right
to be God in you without reserve.
Then you're beginning to get saved.
That's what it means to become a Christian.
We've conveniently reduced salvation to a moment in
time when we raise a hand, walk down
the front, or get baptized, or have our
name put upon a church roll, and we
call that salvation.
Nothing, of course, is farther from the truth.
That's totally divorced from the revelation given to
us in the Word of God, which is
our sole guide in every matter of faith.
Salvation involves the reoccupation by God of a
guilty sinner in such a way that Jesus
Christ has the unchallenged, absolute, perpetual right to
dictate the terms whereby that individual henceforth will
run his life.
For instance, where he's going to buy his
new home.
What vocation he's going to study for as
a student.
Where he's going to go next year on
vacation.
How he's actually going to spend his money.
Who's really going to run the church that
he goes to.
All this is embraced in his salvation.
And nothing less than that, of course, will
do.
Anything less than that shortchanges Jesus Christ and
cheats him of that for which his blood
was shed.
God is looking for men and women who
will be totally, totally, totally sold out to
Him.
You'll get stoned by your critics, you'll be
lonely.
I think the last time I went into
my office, my dear Paul was there, and
he was in the chair there, and he
said, Daddy, I've realized this, if we're going
to walk in holiness, we're going to be
lonely people.
I don't believe that any man is greater
than his prayer life.
I don't believe that any church is stronger
than its prayer life.
There was a day when men sang, Holy,
holy, holy, and oh, worship the King.
And they talked objectively about the greatness of
God.
Then we backslid into that gutter where we
still are, where everything's about I.
I'm so happy, I'm so blessed, I'm so
nice, I'm so good.
I am I, I always I.
Well, the difference between heaven and hell is
the difference between God and I.
Keep that in mind always.
And our churches, I am confident, from across
this land of ours, are filled with people
that are going to miss salvation, miss heaven
by 18 inches, because they have their salvation
up here in an intellectual comprehension, rather than
down here in a spiritual experience and the
presence of the Son of God.
My dear friend, listen.
The forces of evil are crowding on full
pressure today.
And there's a spiritual warfare which will never
cease until time runs out.
And the church of Jesus Christ has got
all the equipment, all the buildings, all the
plant, all the method, all the theory, and
all the technique, but no power to move
men to God.
And I say that to my own heart.
We've never been so well equipped, but so
lacking in endowment.
Now, for this, each one of us is
personally responsible.
The result is they die all around us,
and we say they backslid.
They never backslid, because they never were regenerated
to start with.
To accept Him is to accept Him with
a revolutionary acceptance.
It's to accept Him completely, all of Him
to all of me.
It's to accept Him exclusively, and not any
other hope but Him.
He alone is my hope.
It's to accept His friends as my friends,
His enemies as my enemies, His ways as
my ways, His rejection as my rejection, the
cross as my cross, His life as my
life, and His glorious future as my glorious
future.
That's what it means to be a Christian.
And my dear friends, it's worth everything.
And if we all had to believe on
Christ tonight and die tomorrow, we'd spend one
eternity thanking God with tender affection that He
allowed it to happen.
Yes, sir.
You can't afford to be lost.
So a cross is something you take up
deliberately.
It is obedience to Christ.
It is doing what the Lord commands you
to do and then taking the consequences.
And if the consequences mean a cross, then
take the cross.
And Paul says, that's what the world is
to me.
It's a system of corruption and rottenness and
vileness.
It's anti-Christ from the world ago.
Is the world crucified to you tonight?
Or does it fascinate you?
The Lord Jesus did not shed His blood
so that you could have a release from
a guilt complex, so that you might escape
the punitive consequence of your sin.
The Lord Jesus died upon the cross not
just to get you out of hell and
into heaven.
He died upon the cross to get God
out of heaven and into you.
And the measure in which you are saved
is the measure in which God out of
heaven in you is in function.
Actually calling the shots.
Actually controlling what you do with your hands.
Actually controlling where you go with your feet.
Actually controlling what you say with your lips.
Actually controlling what you think with your mind.
Actually controlling the decisions that you make.
That is the measure in which you are
saved.
So don't kid yourself that because ten years
or fifteen years ago you walked down the
aisle or raised your hand and you've been
paying your tithe and you've been through the
tub.
Don't fancy that.
Constitutes your salvation.
There are hundreds of thousands of men and
women who troop to church every Sunday who've
gone through all of that and they're not
even regenerate.
They're unsaved believers.
They're conforming to denominational patterns that have become
a substitute for a personal spiritual relationship to
Jesus Christ and they know nothing, nothing really
of the life that is the birthright of
the newborn.
And there are going to be some tragic
surprises in the day the dust has settled.
The first group that I am mentioning is
not because of of its size or its
priority but simply because of the habit of
my thinking and therefore I give it to
you first.
The first group are those people that have
met the forgiving Christ.
They discovered their sin through some means or
another.
They realized they'd been caught and they didn't
know what to do about it.
They were told that they were in hell.
In hell they weren't so sure but they
figured they'd better be on the safe side.
So someone said accept Jesus.
Their primary reason for accepting him was to
be inured and immunized against hell.
They wanted to have an insurance policy.
And so their primary concern in Christ is
that he fulfill what they've accepted him for.
They were so grateful when they learned that
Jesus Christ had died for them that they
wouldn't have to die.
Well, put it in more colloquial terms.
They were so happy when they learned that
Jesus had taken the rap for them if
I may express it that way.
They were so happy that he died.
They have mistaken their pleasure at the fact
he suffered for them as being the witness
of the Spirit.
But their whole concern about Christ is that
they should be protected from suffering and from
punishment.
They've only met the forgiving Christ and they've
never gone beyond that.
When they want to see someone saved actually
what they want is to see someone else
come to the place that if they die
they won't go to hell.
When they speak of revival what they mean
is to have their hearts feel the same
joy that they felt when they first came.
There's an upper limit to their interest in
the church and in Christianity and it all
relates to them.
They have met the forgiving Christ.
There's a second group.
These are the people that have met the
utilitarian Christ.
They were in great need and they prayed.
And when they prayed God answered prayer.
Perhaps someone else prayed and answered prayer.
But they were impressed with the fact that
God was tremendously useful and handy to know
because they were in a dilemma.
They didn't have any answer to it.
Prayer brought the answer.
They were sick and God healed them or
they were otherwise in trouble and God brought
them out.
And so today they are extremely grateful, so
grateful that they've joined the church, submitted to
baptism, learned doctrines and tithed.
But the whole of their interest in Christianity
and religion is that they should be where
God can take care of them if they're
in trouble or in problem.
They've met the utilitarian Christ.
Today we have very popular a cult of
the utilitarian Christ.
We find that it has nothing to do
whatever with this person as the sovereign God.
It's just that faith in Jesus brings answers.
And you will find people whose lives are
seemingly just indescribably wicked that have learned faith
and then they write articles and say, I'm
so glad I wanted to be the queen
of Hollywood and so I asked Jesus and
this utilitarian Christ made me a success.
And this, I say, is a cult that
it lacks every biblical evidence of being a
movement in the stream of Christianity.
The utilitarian Christ.
It has varying degrees.
The forgiving Christ, the utilitarian Christ.
Then there's a third group of people that
have met the status-giving Christ.
They were born in such a way that
they didn't have the privilege of belonging to
the country club.
They weren't very accepted in society.
They had gregarious impulse and need and so
they were taken into the church.
They found warmth and welcome and so because
they wanted fellowship, this was what they accepted.
They were willing to submit to the doctrine.
They were willing to pray.
They were willing to be baptized.
They were willing to tithe, do anything that
was required of them.
But when they testified, their testimony is, I
am delighted to be a Christian because there's
such wonderful people in the church.
I'm so happy because there's such grand people
in the church.
It's such a joy to be with such
wonderful people and think we'll be together forever
in heaven.
They've equated status with the whole purpose of
God.
Their status, satisfying their needs for social expression.
And then out of this group is another
group that become to some degree psychopathic and
equate their own status in the group with
the glory of God.
And anything that pushes them up is to
God's glory and anything that would bypass them
or diminish their influence is just the opposite.
And these are the ones of whom we
spoke about a year ago when I gave
you a quotation from Christianity Today's article of
November 1960 entitled, Crucifying the Pastor.
This is the group that you find all
over America.
Just this past week I've been with a
group of 50 pastors down at Summit Grove.
And they've talked to me of some of
the experiences they've had where people who have
felt that somehow they were bypassed and their
status wasn't recognized have used every nefarious, wicked
means it was possible to discover in order
to bring grief and heartache into they would
rather ruin the church than to let for
one little moment their own personal status be
affected.
Well now this is this third group, the
status-giving Christ.
So we have three, forgiving Christ, utilitarian Christ,
and the status-giving Christ.
Then there is a fourth group.
This is the group of people that have
met the emotion-satisfying Christ.
Oh, they love to go to church because
they enjoy the syncopation and the rhythm and
the emotional appeal.
And if they can weep or laugh or
do both at the same time or in
subsequent then they go away saying, my what
a wonderful meeting.
But the whole purpose of Christianity and religion
is to satisfy their emotional needs primarily.
And so we have people, they have all
the same doctrine, they've all been baptized, they're
all in the same religious organization.
And when they speak of revival, the forgiving,
those who know the forgiving Christ say, well
I want to have others come to know
forgiveness and those that have met the utilitarian
Christ say, well I want to see others
help and those that have met the status
-giving Christ say, well I want to see
others come into this wonderful fellowship and those
that have met the emotion-satisfying Christ say,
well I want to feel the way I
felt back there in July 6th in 1903,
back at that camp meeting.
Oh, then we'll have revival.
But it's all below the level.
Then we have another group called number five.
These are the people that have met the
Holy God and the Sovereign Christ.
These are the ones that have seen God
in his majesty, have seen God in his
sovereignty, have seen God in his holiness, have
seen Christ in his glory.
These are the ones whose eyes have been
opened to God and in the revelation of
God they've seen their immense unworthiness and their
terrifying sinfulness.
Obviously they've known forgiveness for in that brokenness
of heart because they'd sinned against such a
holy God they cast themselves on the nail
-pierced hands of Christ.
They were forgiven.
God has obviously answered prayer.
And they have certainly found status as a
child of the King and their hearts have
been satisfied with joy and peace.
But thus we find in this fifth group
are these who've had a revelation of the
glory of Christ and are living only for
his praise.
They're broken.
They've committed themselves to him.
They've submitted to his sovereignty.
The cross has pierced them through.
And the one end of their being is
that he be glorified.
Now this is his church.
This is his church.
The religious organization can include other groups.
But his church is here.
His church is on this level.
He is saying, if any man hate not
his father and his mother and his husband
and his wife and his brother and his
sisters, yea, in his own life also, he
can't be my disciple.
The lordship of Christ transcends all human relationships.
And his one purpose is the glory of
God.
And he's heard Christ say, if anyone doesn't
take up his cross and come follow me,
he can't be my disciple.
And he's gladly gone with Christ out to
the cross.
And there he's brought his ego and his
ambition and his vanity and his pride and
all the things that once motivated and controlled
him to the cross.
And he has no plan, no purpose, but
the glory of Christ.
This is the one that's heard Christ say,
if any man does not forsake all that
he has, he cannot be my disciple.
He doesn't give a seventh of his time
and a tenth of his money.
He holds that everything is Christ.
All is Christ.
This is his church.
He said, if any man come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his
cross and come follow me.
And Paul says, that's what the world is
to me.
It's a system of corruption and rottenness and
vileness.
It's anti-Christ from the world go.
Is the world crucified to you tonight?
Or does it fascinate you?