Tonight, we will be in first John again
and possibly finish up tonight.
I want us to just open up our
preaching and first John, chapter five.
Verse 13, you stand, we'll read God's word,
first John, chapter five, verse 13, these things
I have written to you who believe in
the name of the son of God so
that you may know that you have eternal
life.
Let's go the Lord in prayer.
Father.
Father, I have a great longing in my
heart this evening that your word go forth
clearly.
That it be a seed.
That it be as water.
That it be as a hammer, that it
be as a fire.
That it be all the things that it
says itself to be.
That you would open up the hearts of
people to receive the word.
Even my own heart, Lord, that you would
be glorified.
And our bearing of much fruit, that you
would be glorified in the conversion of men
in Jesus name, amen, may be seated.
The purpose of the entire book of first
John is that a man, a woman, even
a child might read it, pray over it
and come to know whether they truly are
of the faith.
Now, this is not an academic exercise in
itself.
I want you to understand.
There are so many people in our churches.
That are lost, some, of course, come on
Sundays and they're there, they're wild throughout the
week.
They know not God, they fear not God.
But there are others who are very, very
sincere in a sense, very religious in a
sense of about doing the work of the
kingdom and in trying to please God.
But but they really do not know him.
The evidence that you have come to know
God is not simply religious activity or morality.
But the realities of what we are finding
in first John, if you are a Christian,
will be realities in your own personal life.
When I said at the beginning that the
true Christian walks in the light, they live
a style of life that reflects the character
of God and conforms to the will of
God.
Is that a reality in your life?
When I say that a true Christian is
sensitive to sin, are you sensitive to sin?
And does the Holy Spirit lead you to
to pronounce that sin before him?
And then keeping the commandments, a reality in
the Christian life will be obedience to the
commandments of God, a habitual lifestyle of obedience.
And yes, a Christian may step off the
path.
That is true.
And he may run.
But according to Hebrews chapter 12 and many
other texts in the Bible, he will not
run that far.
God will bring him back in discipline.
And then there is, of course, walking as
Christ walked.
Is it your desire to be like Jesus,
to walk like Jesus?
Is that a reality in your life?
Not just a byword, not just a cliche
on the back of a Christian T-shirt.
But is it a reality?
And then there's loving your brother.
You cannot have the spirit of God and
be filled with hatred toward other believers.
Not only other believers, toward even your enemy,
because we are commanded to love our enemy.
Are these spiritual realities in your life?
And now we go on.
Another test is found in in chapter two,
verse 19.
I'm sorry.
Chapter two, verse 15.
Do not love the world nor the things
in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of
the father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh and the lust of
the eyes and the boastful pride of life
is not from the father, but is from
the world.
The world is passing away and also its
lust.
But the one who does the will of
God lives forever.
We have this sense in America that you
can somehow be a true Christian and have
an ardent, burning love for the world.
If I were to redefine Jesus' statement in
Matthew about the narrow and the broad way,
if I were to redefine it based on
what I see in people who call themselves
Christians, it would be this pass through the
narrow gate and walk in the broad way.
But no, there's not only a narrow gate,
there's a narrow way.
And that narrow way is the way marked
out by God's commands, God's precepts, God's wisdom.
And the world is not found in that
way.
Now, he says, do not love the world
nor the things of the world.
What is the world?
Everything that is a part of this fallen
system.
Fallen system of a thought and action and
politic, everything on this earth that does not
acknowledge God as Lord, every thought that does
not measure up to God's word, everything promoted
that is not of God, everything that comes
out of fallen man and the one who
leads him.
Who is himself the devil, this world, what
is it?
Everything that contradicts what God has revealed about
himself and his will.
Look around you, we swim in this world,
we live in this world, but we're not
supposed to be of it.
And a true Christian will not be of
it in the same way that a true
Christian will love the Lord.
He will disdain.
The very things that God disdains, I've said
to at times that this book is simply
it's given to us to guide our life
in this respect, to teach us everything that
God loves and to tell us to love
it the same way and to teach us
everything that God hates and to teach us
to hate those things the same way.
There are things in the Bible that we
are commanded to love with all our heart,
soul, mind and strength.
And there are also things that we are
commanded to turn our backs upon those things,
to walk away from those things as unworthy
of our calling, as unworthy of a child
of God.
And yet I see so many so-called
believers so wrapped up in the world do
not love the world nor the things in
the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him.
Do you long for the city whose builder
and maker is God?
Are you longing for that day when the
kingdom is consummated, when all things, every promise
is fulfilled and Christ reigns?
Or are you happy and content in this
present age?
And do you seek after the very things
that the rest who don't even profess Christ
seek after?
Not enough is preached about separation, not enough
is preached against the world and the things
of the world and its pleasures and its
trinkets and everything else.
And because of it, many, many even Christians
are bound to the point that they are
no longer useful to God.
He says, if anyone loves the world, the
love of the Father is not in him.
How can you love the very things?
For which Christ was crucified, can you love
the nails, can you bless the hammer, would
you kiss the hands?
That crushed his head with a crown of
thorns, because when you say, you know, Christ
and you are a disciple of Christ and
yet you love the world, you do that
very thing.
Oh, my friend, there is a great divide,
a great separation.
The scripture warns us that those who are
not separate now will be separated on that
great day from the sheep and they will
be labeled goats and they will find their
place in hell, says verse 16, for all
that is in the world, the lust of
the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the boastful pride of life is not
from the father, but is from the world.
Every desire that you have that is not
conformed.
To the will of God is a lust
of the flesh.
Now, let's take this to a whole new
level instead of just being theologically minded.
Everything that you see.
Everything that you see, everything that you desire,
the book should be opened up to determine
whether it is a thing from God or
a thing outside the will of God.
You are not your own.
You were bought with a price if indeed
you belong to him.
Everything in your life is to be guided
by God's principle, by God's word down to
the clothes I buy, the way I take
care of them, the house I own, the
car I drive, everything we ask.
Is this your will, oh God, or is
it simply something deviant, a lust of the
flesh, a lust of a wicked, fallen flesh,
or is it according to your will?
The lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, we are so drawn today, especially
men above women by the lust of the
eyes, the things that we see, but most
of what we see is a deception.
It is held before our eyes like the
the old cartoon character who's riding a donkey
and takes a cane and sticks it out,
hangs up, hangs a carrot off a string
from the end of the cane and gets
the donkey to chase after the carrot and
thus make the donkey move.
So Satan rides on the back.
Of many men and women and sits out
in front of them, sits out in front
of them, trinkets that sparkle like gold, but
they're nothing more than hay, wood and stubble,
and they will burn.
They will burn.
We are so attracted by the eyes.
Young men, perfect example, when they're thinking about
finding a mate, many of them are drawn
away by their eyes and they look more
to the physical than the virtue of the
girl.
And vice versa, look more to the outward
than the internal.
Look more to the things of the world
that sparkle instead of the things of God
that often come in the appearance of something
quite dull.
How are you?
What do your eyes chase?
What does your heart long for you?
What does your heart long for?
Treasure in heaven.
Does your heart look to heaven because that's
where your treasure lie?
Or have you gathered so many trinkets around
you, you can't even get your head above
them to see heaven?
Lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, the boastful pride of life.
How can I find an example of this
when it runs rampant all around us?
I think the best thing is an athlete
in the Olympics.
He gets the gold and they interview him.
How did you do this?
Well, I've I've trained hard.
I've trained for years, I've disciplined myself.
And he goes on and on and on.
And the little tiny parasite doesn't even know
that he can't breathe apart from the power
of God.
It is to seek to accomplish things that
are not inside the will of God.
It is to seek to accomplish things that
are not empowered by God, things that men
claim they have gained apart from God's grace
and God's will.
Men build their bridges and their towers and
their buildings and their businesses and everything else,
their bodies, but not in accordance with God's
will and not in submission to his lordship.
We are to be brought in every part
of us into subjection to the lordship of
Jesus Christ, even our thoughts, even our thoughts.
The world is passing away and also its
lusts, this word here can can go two
different ways with this idea of passing away.
It may mean not just simply passing away,
but being pushed out, being pushed out would
indicate a judgment fallen upon this godless age
that God's kingdom is advancing and that as
time rolls on and we draw near to
that final hour, all these things of the
world are being pushed out by the judgment
of God.
And on that day, the only thing that
will remain is that which is done and
has been done in his name and for
his glory.
Or it can be simply kind of indicating
a parade of fools dressed up in clown
suits with little tin horns, and they march
one by one off the cliff into eternal
death.
The world is being pushed out.
But the man, the woman, even the child
who does the will of God will abide
forever.
You young people should understand the world is
on vapor, life is a vapor, it's a
morning dew on the hottest summer day in
Texas.
It's gone like that.
Yesterday, I was nine, today I'm forty three,
tomorrow I will be ninety.
It flies, it's running from you.
Death is coming and hell is moving and
it's drawing nigh unto you.
If I stayed in this pulpit long enough,
I'd bury many of you.
Many of you will meet your maker before
you think it's time.
How then shall we live?
We are mortal.
Our lives are just that, a spiderweb over
a flame.
How then shall we live?
I'm constantly pleading with people, I'm constantly telling
people this, we should live between two days,
the day when Jesus Christ hung on that
tree before men and the day all men
will stand before Jesus Christ and then bow.
Those two days ought to be the great
motivation of our life.
Everything else is fleeting, everything else.
You are fleeting.
Your youth will be gone like that.
You'll be left with nothing.
Your strength will wither like an autumn leaf.
Your mind, you may have the greatest of
minds, you may be a Stephen Hawking, you
may be maybe the most brilliant man on
the face of the earth, but one day
that thing will turn to powder.
How then shall we live?
Because the earth and all the things of
it are passing away.
Go look for Rome, that mighty empire, and
tell me when you find it, because it's
nothing but a bunch of rocks and stone
and monuments and relics.
Hunt down Babylon and tell me about how
glorious it is.
All you'll find is dust in a place
where jackals howl.
Will any of you be greater than George
Washington?
And yet, do any of you mourn his
death?
Do you think anyone will mourn yours?
The world is passing away.
How then shall we live?
There are so many who claim to be
Christians and yet live for the world and
they're deceived.
When the foundations of this earth are shaken.
They will be shaken out of it like
ants out of a popcorn bag.
They will fall to the ground and be
smashed by the judgment of God.
It's passing away.
It is.
It really is.
Now, let's go to another test.
Verse 19, chapter two.
They went out from us, but they were
not really of us, for if they had
been of us, they would have remained with
us.
But they went out so that it would
be shown that they are not of us.
What does this mean?
A true Christian will persevere among other true
Christians.
Now, that doesn't mean if someone comes to
this church and they they join the fellowship
and such, and then three years later down
the road, they decide that they're going to
go to another church.
We don't quote this verse and say, well,
there they weren't Christians because they didn't stay
with us.
Now, what it's talking about is someone who
makes a claim to be a Christian and
someone who makes a claim to be a
part of the body of Christ.
And then they depart.
From any sort of fellowship with any biblical
body.
Now, let's just look at this for a
moment, because it is so prevalent in America,
I go to conferences sometimes with the so
-called experts or teaching, and they claim they
say this, they go, we have such a
problem in the church today, we're getting so
many people saved, but they don't stay in
the church.
So many people are being born again, but
they're just as many are going out the
back door is coming in the front door.
No, my friend, that's not true.
Problem is, we've got a bunch of people
out there preaching a gospel they don't understand
because if they truly are saved now, they
might not be led of God to stay
in this church, but they will be in
a biblical body.
They will go to a church where the
word of God is preached and they will
grow on to sanctification.
But if they so supposedly get saved and
then depart from this fellowship and did not
join up with any other biblical fellowship or
or any fellowship that can be identified with
historical Christianity, my dear friend, they were never
saved.
I'll never forget in Peru, a dear pastor,
a friend of mine, Ernesto Zacarias, great, great
evangelist.
And when I say that, I don't talk
about someone who goes to churches and preach.
I'm talking about a guy who knocks on
doors.
Any coward can get in a pulpit and
bellow out the gospel, it's the man who
stands in front of H.E.B. with
tracts in his hand, it's the man who
knocks on doors, that's an evangelist.
We need to do some of that.
Amen.
But he came to me and he goes,
he goes, I'm never having an evangelist in
my church again.
And I said, well, why?
He said, we had a revival last week
and a hundred people were saved.
I said, well, that's wonderful.
And not one of them showed up for
church Sunday.
But you can bet that evangelist went right
down the road and bragged to everybody how
many people got saved.
I want you to turn quickly with me
to John.
Chapter 10, John, chapter 10, verse
26.
But you do not believe because you are
not my sheep, you are not of my
sheep.
Now, notice he doesn't say you're not my
sheep because you don't believe.
But he says rather something that is kind
of a hard thing for some to accept,
he said, the reason you do not believe
is because you're not of my sheep.
You're not of my sheep.
Not a part of the elect of God.
You look religious, you look like all sorts
of things, but you are not a part
of the elect of God because you don't
believe because the elect of God will believe.
Now, that's not my whole point.
There's four or five sermons right there in
that verse.
But look at the next verse.
My sheep hear my voice and I know
them and they follow me.
Do you see that I hear people today
saying, well, the reason why so many people
are getting saved and not staying in the
church is that we're not discipling one on
one.
My dear friend, we need to disciple one
on one, but that won't keep anybody in
the church.
What will keep them in a church being
born again by the power of God?
You won't be able to beat them out
of this church.
You'll offend them.
I won't shake their hand and all sorts
of other terrible things, but they'll stay.
Why?
Because they're God's sheep.
They're God's sheep, and even if they had
enough of us and head down the road.
They'll link up with another body, it's biblical.
It's true because they're not following man.
They're following Christ and they're following of Christ
because they were elect before the foundation of
the world and they've been born again by
the power of God and he who began
a good work in them, even before the
world was formed, will finish it when the
world has been dissolved by flames.
So are you a type of person that
say, well, I was a part of that
like the rich young ruler.
Can you imagine talking to him two years
down the road?
Someone comes up and witnesses to him and
he says, oh, I tried that.
Didn't work for me.
My dear friend, this has nothing to do
with pragmatism, has to do with the power
of God.
You don't become a Christian because it works.
You become a Christian because God changes your
heart and you become a new creature who
desires the things of God.
Now, let's go to another test.
Verse 22, who is the liar but the
one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?
This is the Antichrist, the one who denies
the father and the son.
Whoever denies the son does not have the
father and the one who confesses the son
has the father also that it is impossible
to have a relationship with the father apart
from the son.
You say, well, what kind of test is
this?
The true Christian is going to acknowledge everything
that the scriptures teach about the person of
Jesus Christ.
They are going to accept fully that he
is God and they are going to accept
fully that he is God who became man
for the sake of his people to die
on a tree.
They are going to embrace the fullness of
Christ person.
They're not going to be like some cult
that springs up, almost every cult that springs
up in the past has sprung up in
the past and springs up today has a
problem with the person of Jesus.
They'll either deny his deity or they'll deny
his humanity.
And then there's liberalism, which, of course, would
not deny his humanity because they want Jesus
to be a humanist.
They deny his deity and they're wrong.
The Christian accepts Christ as God.
And Christ as man, but that's not really
a problem in the evangelical movement today, is
that all those conservative evangelicals, none of them
are standing up saying, well, I doubt his
deity or I doubt his humanity.
But let me throw something else at you
to accept the fullness of the person of
Jesus Christ.
We must also accept his lordship, his lordship.
Isn't it amazing?
Jesus is the only Lord who can't tell
anybody what to do.
My dear friend.
He can not only tell you what to
do, he can make you do it and
he won't apologize for violating your so-called
free will.
He lays his hand on the table and
no man will pry it up.
He raises his hand to swear by his
own name and his own glory and no
man will pull it down.
He opens a door no one will shut.
He tells the sea stop and it obeys.
You say, well, you know, I've taken Jesus
as savior, but it's going to be a
while before I take him as Lord.
Oh, my dear friend, you take him not
as Lord, you take him not as savior.
I always hear these fellows using, you know,
the the revelation, chapter three, verse 20 passage.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
You hear my voice and you want just
open that door and I'll come in.
But unless you open that door, I won't
come in.
First of all, that verse has absolutely nothing
to do with evangelism.
It's talking to Christ.
It's talking about Christ and his relationship with
the church had grown cold.
It's not a verse for evangelism.
But I one time I was preaching and
I just for the sake of it, I
addressed that issue because there were a lot
of men who were using that to evangelize
and such.
And I said, well, let me if you're
going to use that verse, let's just throw
something in.
At least we can make it a little
more biblical.
And they said, what?
I said, here's what you tell them.
If they've decided they want to that Jesus
is on the other side of the door
of their heart and they want to grab
that doorknob and open it up, tell them
that the moment they reach for that doorknob,
they're going to hear somebody's throat clear.
And the throat that's going to clear will
be the throat of Christ and he will
clear it.
He says, hold it one moment before you
touch that doorknob and open this door.
Let's get a few things straight.
When I walk into this room, it's mine.
Everything in it is mine.
Now, do you really want to open up
that door?
Because when I come in, I come in
as Lord.
Oh, now that you explained it that way,
maybe I need to pray a little more.
Oh, maybe you do.
Maybe you do.
It's accepting the fullness of Christ's person.
Now, let's go on to test number nine,
verse twenty nine of chapter two.
If you know that he is righteous, you
know that everyone.
Also, who practices righteousness is born of him.
Now, look at that, I mean, it is
not this is not rocket science.
Look what he's saying.
If you know that he's righteous, you know
that everyone also who practices righteousness is born
of him.
Remember when my first boy was born, they
said not a doubt on the face of
the earth who this boy belongs to.
Looks like his father and acts like his
mother, he is definitely belongs to you, too.
There wasn't a doubt.
Wasn't a doubt at all.
You know, God is righteous.
Do you act righteously?
What does it mean to act righteously?
Righteousness is conformity to the law or will
of God.
Does your life conform to the will of
God as a style of life?
Is that a reality?
Are you desiring to know God's will and
are you desiring to conform your life to
that will?
Now it goes on.
Look in chapter three, verse three.
Oh, look at this.
And everyone who has this hope fixed on
him purifies himself just as he is pure.
One of the greatest evidences that you have
become a Christian is that you are purifying
yourself.
I want to tell you something.
I believe in the sovereignty of God, the
sovereign grace of God, a thing called Calvinism.
I do believe in that.
But I want to tell you something.
Many people who embrace that doctrine become what
I call antinomian.
They begin to think, well, well, God is
sovereign.
If he wants me holy, he'll make me
holy.
No, my friend.
God commands those who are his to strive
to be holy, to practice holiness, to seek
after holiness.
We are to pray.
We are to seek God that we might
be holy.
We are to read his word that we
might be pure.
We are to do spiritual exercises.
Whatever is given to us in Scripture, we
ought to be seeking to be holy.
Anybody tells you any other thing, they're selling
you half a gospel.
God is at work to make his people
holy and he will do it.
But God uses the means.
God uses means also to do that.
And you, my friend, if you truly are
a Christian, you are going to desire to
be pure.
Now, let me ask you a question.
Let's just lay out your life right here
and right now.
Let's just lay out a life of yours,
a week in your life.
Where will I find you seeking to be
pure?
Now, be honest, I'm not angry, but I
am passionate.
Be honest.
If we were to open up a week
in your life or two weeks or a
month, where would we see you seeking to
be holy?
Where would we seek you separating from the
things that God does not like and drawing
unto the things that please God?
Where would we see you weeping over sin?
Where would we see you in Scripture?
Where would we see you memorizing?
Would we see it at all?
Do you desire to be pure?
And is it reflected in your outward man?
Is it reflected in your outward person?
Do I look at you, young man?
Or old man, for that matter, do I
look at you just the way you are,
the way you handle yourself, the way you
dress?
And do I see a person who is
seeking to be pure?
Dear sister, dear lady, dear girl.
Now, look, can anyone look at you and
say there is a person who is seeking
to be pure, seeking to be holy?
I have that question for you, because I
want to tell you something.
You can judge a book by its cover,
according to Jesus Christ.
And it is terrible.
I have spent my life preaching around this
country, and I want to tell you something.
It is terrible when the guest preacher has
to walk in with his head down because
he's afraid that he will be caused to
stumble by other believers.
Can I look at you?
You say, judge not, lest ye be judged.
And I say, twist not scripture, lest ye
be like Satan.
Can we look at your life?
I'm not talking about necessarily you have to
dress up like a Puritan.
But my question is, is there modesty?
Is there decency?
Is there the beauty of the Lord or
is there the sensuality of the world?
Do you seek to be pure?
He goes on and he says, everyone who
practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is
lawlessness.
What is he trying to point out for
us?
That sin is not just some kind of
little mistake.
It's not just some little quirk in our
personality.
Sin is absolute, unflinching rebellion in the face
of God.
It is breaking free and joining Antichrist.
Never forget, he's called the man of what?
Lawlessness.
It is joining the ranks of hell.
It is bowing down to Satan and saying,
your kingdom come, your will be done.
Sin is a terrifying thing.
And those who practice it as a style
of life, habitually loving it, unflinching, their hearts
are not broken.
What does it say?
It's lawlessness.
Verse five, you know that he appeared in
order to take away sins and in him
there is no sin.
What's he saying?
The same thing he has been saying, he's
light and there's no darkness at all in
him.
So if you're walking in darkness, you're not
a part of him.
He is righteous.
Therefore, everyone who practices righteousness is of him.
And those who practice unrighteousness that live outside
God's law and word, they're not of him.
In him there is no sin.
Those who habitually practice sin as a style
of life do not know him.
He goes on and he said, verse six,
no one who abides in him sins.
No one who sins has seen him or
knows him.
Now, what does that mean?
Again, it is not speaking.
It is not saying that the true Christian
is sinless.
But what it is saying is the true
Christian is not involved in the habitual practice
of sin.
It will be a life of seeking God
that, yes, there will be sin there that
one can see.
It is the difference between, I don't know,
I think I use this illustration maybe the
first night.
It is the difference between following me around
with a photo, just a camera that takes
snapshots and a video camera.
If you were to follow me around with
a camera that takes only snapshots and you
could catch me one day when I'm nailing
old tin back on a barn of ours.
And if any of you have ever lived
on a farm, that tin is as hard
as it can possibly be.
And I'm up there nailing away.
And all of a sudden I smash my
thumb.
I throw the hammer.
I fall off the ladder.
I kick the dog and you take a
picture.
See, I told you Paul Washer was not
saved.
You could take that one instance in my
life of sin and you could use it
to say he's lost.
But if you followed me around with a
video camera, you would get a much clearer
picture.
Although you would see sin, you would see
a style of life.
That is different from one who habitually practices
sin or is given over to it.
And that's what he's talking about here.
Now, he says, verse seven.
Now, this is so important.
Little children, make sure no one deceives you.
The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just
as he is righteous.
The one who practices sin is of the
devil, for the devil has sinned from the
beginning.
Now, just think for a moment, brothers and
sisters in Christ.
Think, what are we so caught up with
today in America?
Well, he's not living like a Christian at
all.
But you can't say he's not a Christian.
I know he's been carnal for five years,
but now you don't judge.
You can't say he's not a Christian.
I think John was so just his mind
made clear by the Holy Spirit.
Look at the way he addresses that.
Now, little children, what are little children so
easily deceived?
Little children, make sure no one deceives you
with what with what I just said.
He says, look, the one who practices righteousness
is righteous.
Just as he is righteous and the one
who practices sin is of the devil.
For the devil has sinned from the beginning.
You see, little children, don't be deceived.
If your life is one of practicing unrighteousness.
It's because you're not righteous and you're not
righteous because you're not of God.
What do we see in your life?
Do we see your life marked by righteousness?
Now, the Son of God appeared for this
purpose to destroy the works of the devil.
That is a somewhat terrifying statement.
What he's saying is, now, listen, those of
you who claim to be Christians, but you
live a style of life that's marked by
unrighteousness and ungodliness.
God came, Christ came to destroy the works
of the devil.
He has done it and will do it.
Be careful you're not destroyed in the same
wave of wrath that will fall upon this
earth.
You say, Brother Paul, you can't grow a
church preaching like that.
It is not my responsibility to grow a
church.
It's my responsibility to preach the truth.
Now, I want to finish up with one
more test and we're going to bring this
series to a close.
This is in 1st John, chapter 5, verse
13 or verse 12.
He who has the Son has the life.
He who does not have the Son of
God does not have the life.
The one thing that will be most prevalent,
I guess you could say, in the life
of a true believer is this.
If you were to mention to them that
their salvation somehow was a result of anything
or anyone other than Jesus Christ, they would
become nauseous.
The true Christian is going to acknowledge that
nothing in their hands do they bring.
It is only Christ, only Christ, only Christ.
So often, I have so much trouble with
men, so much trouble, because they'll say, I
believe in Christ.
If you died, where would you go?
I'd go to heaven.
Why?
Well, I'm trusting in Christ and...
And what?
That and just killed any hope you ever
had for salvation.
Let me give you an example.
You've heard people use that illustration about the
chair.
What does it mean to trust, you know?
And someone will say, well, that's a chair
and I believe it's a chair, but that
doesn't mean I'm trusting in it.
I'm not trusting in this chair until I
sit down in the chair.
And they say, that's a definition of faith.
No, it's not.
Look at your feet.
This chair falls.
You spring back up.
This is faith.
As one old Scottish preacher said, I plan
to swing out into eternity on that scarlet
thread, the person and work of Jesus Christ,
old deacon in my church that I love
so much, one of the godliest men I
have ever known.
Even when I was an unconverted little boy
on the farm, I remember him coming over
and fixing our hay wagon or fixing our
baler or something.
And just everyone on the farm, our family,
everything mad and cursing and everything else.
And he would come just out of Christian
love, just an opportunity to minister and fix
everything and walk away.
It's Ed Douglas.
He said that one time, as I've shared
with you before, he was wondering, what does
it mean to trust in Christ?
And he's standing there in his hayloft and
he said he looked up and it dawned
on him and he said this, I'm going
to trust only in your son.
And if that is not enough to save
me, then I'm going to hell because I'm
not going to trust in any other person
or thing.
Christ and Christ alone.
Now, John wrote this in such a way,
this last test, so that we would not
get involved in creedalism.
It is so easy to take even a
great confession or a wonderful creed and say,
I believe all that.
I'm saved.
No, my friend.
Is it a reality in your life?
And is the person of Christ precious to
you?
I'm not praying that my boys become great
evangelists or great missionaries or great preachers, because
I've seen many of them that I couldn't
even have fellowship with them.
My desire is that Christ be most precious
to them.
That Christ be most precious to them.
And that Christ is not only all you
need, he's all you desire.
That should be our goal, to be consumed
like a moth drawn into a flame.
Christ, I want to know Christ.
I want to know Christ.
I want to sit at his feet.
I want to gaze at his glory.
I want Christ.
Heaven for me is Jesus Christ.
And that one desire is so great that
things like gates of pearl and streets of
gold and shiny crowns mean nothing.
I want to see him.
Now, we've gone over a bit, and I
want to share with you something.
Brother Robert, could you come forward and get
me a microphone?
I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Something has happened in my family that is
a mighty thing.
To some of you, it might seem scandalous.
Those of you who are saints, it will
be precious.
It will be precious.
My wife has been married to me for
12 years.
She has served with me through a war.
I mean a real war.
Bombs, machine guns, people dying.
She has shot down rivers with me, asleep
in the bottom of a boat that was
leaking, going through the very places where a
boat is lost once a day.
She has preached with me in the jungles
of Peru, traveled with me to Europe.
Been a friend.
Tremendous friend.
I've often looked at her life and saw
such morality, discipline, virtue.
But two days ago, my wife came to
me and said, Paul, I'm lost.
I don't know Christ.
I know I don't know Christ.
All my life, since I was 14, I
just wanted to be a missionary.
I wanted to obey God.
All these things, and in my flesh, I
have done as much as I can possibly
do.
I am wore out.
I am frustrated.
I am bitter.
And I'm lost.
And I had been praying for the last
three years.
I would say, Lord, I've never met a
woman that would...
Everyone always told her, You're the only person
that could have ever married that man.
Who else would have gone into a tent
in the jungle and stayed there?
Who else would have?
But I knew all of her virtue and
all of her thing, but it seemed like
works.
It seemed like a burden.
It seemed like doing the right thing.
And I cried out to God, and I
said, I never told her this, never, until
the day she told me two days ago.
And I used to cry out to God
and say, God, she's more of a Christian
than I am.
What will she be like if she ever
gets saved?
And so we got home, and God began
dealing with her actually in a tremendous way
when we were out preaching on the street
in San Antonio.
And that evening, I didn't say anything to
her.
I felt like the best thing I could
do was get totally away.
I didn't want any emotion.
I didn't want anything except the Spirit of
God to work.
And I went to bed and tried to
fight with God throughout the night.
And early in the dark morning, she came
to me and she said, The Lord has
saved me.
I know that He has saved me.
And I know I belong to Him.
And it's no longer this is what I'm
supposed to do, or I want to be
good, or I want to be moral, or
I want Him to even love me, or
I want to look like this or look
like that.
I know that He's saved me.
And I just want her to come up
for a second and share why.
Well, simply this.
This is exactly what I've been preaching.
You can be so much.
And yet not know the Lord.
The patience, the love that the Lord has
had.
Like Paul said, I have served as a
missionary and I have witnessed to people.
I guess the only explanation for that is
that the Lord can speak through me also.
He can use an unbeliever even to carry
the gospel if that's His will.
And I grew up in a moral home
and went to a Christian school, went to
Bible college.
Desire felt in my heart.
I thought at the time that I needed
to serve the Lord.
And it was just doing the right thing.
But there was no life in me.
There was no desire for the Word.
It was my quiet time or Bible reading
was in my to-do list.
It wasn't, I need to do this.
I just thirst for God or I need
the Lord in my life like every breath.
It was so duty-oriented always.
And it's so amazing that God allowed me
to go for so long.
And almost like a car, you know, you
can take a brand new car and drive
it until, you know, you run out of
gas first.
Then the red light comes on.
Then you need oil.
Then you need all these things.
And then it doesn't matter what you do.
If you don't do the right thing, it's
not going to work.
And that was me.
I was doing the right thing and there
was no life in me.
And I would not even mention that to
Paul.
I didn't know that he had noticed all
these things.
But I would doubt that I belonged to
the Lord so many times and think, no,
it's just me.
Maybe I'm having a bad day or all
kinds of things.
But I wouldn't sit down and look at
the Scripture.
I would just avoid that.
I would always think, oh, you're going to
be such a bad testimony if you ever
tell people that, how you feel.
Or if you become a Christian, you know,
you just need to be a good person.
And it was unbearable for the longest time.
And I kept thinking all these things.
And eventually the Lord kept telling me, you
need to stop and pray.
You need to stop and pray.
And when Paul would preach these messages, I
would squirm in my seat and just know
that I needed to get with God and
pray and seek Him to really tell me
what was in my heart.
I had a lot of trouble with anger
in my life towards a person that had
hurt me for many years.
And I wouldn't let go of that.
And I kept thinking, if I was a
Christian, I wouldn't feel this way.
I would at least cry out to God
and say, Lord, help me to overcome this.
But it was like a rebellion in my
heart.
I don't want to overcome this.
This person deserves my anger and my hate.
And that verse that Paul preached on this
morning about loving your brother and if you
don't and you hate him, you're the darkness
and you're blind.
That was me.
Friday night when I read that verse, it
was like, God, just let it all just
come out.
And I was able to see just my
life from the beginning.
The good kid that had always done the
right thing, had gone to church, been around
good Christians, gone to camp.
The missionary and all these things.
And it was almost like Satan was also
saying, no, but look, you've done all these
good things.
That can't be nothing.
And I also worried.
I thought, well, if I do admit that
I'm not a Christian, then this person that
I have trouble with is going to say,
well, no wonder.
You haven't been a Christian all these years.
No wonder we don't get along or all
kinds of stuff.
And it was this horrible battle until God
just told me, you need to repent.
There was no repentance in my prayer when
I was 14.
There was no just great need for God's
forgiveness.
There was no recognition of sin.
It was just, OK, sure, I want to
go to heaven and I'll pray.
And it was just amazing, just God's patience
through all those years.
And I can look back and honestly say,
I really, I don't care.
Looking back at all that stuff, it meant
nothing.
But it means the world to me that
God didn't spare anything to bring me to
this point and let me know, you know,
now I belong to him and that, you
know, he has saved me.
I want you to see that it's the
most amazing thing.
Also, when people start to ask you these
things and God begins to deal with their
heart, our greatest tendency to jump in there
and try to push the thing along.
We turn everything upside down and ruin it.
And it's hard just to obey the Lord
when he says, shut thy mouth, old man.
And cry out to me.
And, you know, I'm so amazed that this
has happened in this time of my life
and her life.
And I am just so happy with what
the Lord has done.
Someone just the other night, it was like,
what's what are people going to think?
What are people going to say?
And my answer was this.
I really don't care because I know that
a genuine work of salvation has occurred.
And please understand, this is exactly what I'm
talking about.
It's not just the rebel that calls himself
a Christian and hates God, but it can
be an extremely moral person and a person
who wants to do everything right and everything.
But they know not the Lord and the
commandments of God are burdensome to them.
And I'm not necessarily going to have an
invitation tonight, except for this.
If this has dealt with you, if you're
struggling with this, please come talk to me
tonight.
One of the pastors.
If you want to go talk to my
wife, if you're a lady and you're saying,
man, what she said was just, it's me.
Again, God loves you and we love you.
And I want to tell you that I
just couldn't be any more pleased with what
God has done.
And I think it's a lesson to all
of us with regard to our children and
the way we should handle them.
We have to be very, very careful that
we don't turn them into just good children
who know not the Lord.
But saved children who desire the things of
God.
Let's pray.
Father, I would pray that your hand would
be upon us all.
With great grace that you would save the
lost and encourage the brethren.
Lord, I thank you so much for what
you have done for my house.
For my house.
You are a faithful God.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
God bless you.