Let's turn in our Bibles to Matthew 24.
I've chosen something maybe a little different, maybe
a little unusual this morning to share with
you.
And I came to church and I was
very, very confident that I've heard from the
Lord.
It's just that during the last little while,
God's placed a burden on my heart for
the state of the church in these days,
and it doesn't go away, it just seems
to grow.
And so I had things that I was
running through my heart, writing down, and then
when I heard the two gifts of the
Spirit this morning, I was very encouraged, because
it confirmed the urgency and the clarity with
which I would like to speak to you
today.
And I do believe, and we're going to
look at some scriptures, that we are living
very close to the end times, and I
do believe that things are going to be
moving fast around us.
I don't think we've ever had the privilege
in Zimbabwe of driving in thick fog.
We don't know what fog is here.
We're trying to struggle with the idea of
rain, but fog is a mystery, you know.
But thick fog is like a cloud that
comes down and sits on the road, so
you can't see in front of you.
And many years ago, I've heard of them
talk about pea soup fogs in England, which
are real thick.
And years back in the 80s, we were
in the UK, and we were preaching one
night, and it was Guy Fawkes night.
It doesn't mean much to us here in
Africa, but in the UK, they go mad
on Guy Fawkes night.
And they all, every little sports club, they
make these mountains of wood, mountains, and they
put this poor little stuffed image at the
top, and then they burn the whole thing.
And what happens is it makes a lot
of smoke.
And just so happened that that evening, there
was Guy Fawkes night, a lot of smoke,
and then a thick fog.
And the smoke and the fog combined.
And we were driving back from the meeting,
the headlights from the car were not working.
We couldn't see the end of the bonnet.
And the only way we could watch the
road is I opened the passenger door, and
we watched the road, the embankment by here,
and as the road turned, we followed it.
That's how we knew the road was turning,
by watching the curb stones.
And occasionally, an orange glow would come past.
That was a road light, a street light.
You just prayed that no one had stopped
in front of you, because you were going
to run straight into him.
Now that's called a thick fog.
Anyone tries to drive in those conditions, it's
insane.
And I believe that spiritually there's a fog
that's come across the church in these last
times.
And it's there.
It's like we are not seeing clearly.
Old-fashioned truths of righteousness and holiness are
not being discerned in the church anymore.
Christian values are changing.
People that should be walking in godly manners
are not doing that.
And it's as though our spiritual perception has
become dull.
And it is a sign that Jesus said
what happened.
There would be unbelief in the Gentile churches
just prior to the return of Jesus.
He did say, will I find faith when
I come?
There will be a time of testing.
There will also be a great time of
men being lovers of themselves, and embracing the
things of the flesh, to the point that
even sincere Christians will get confused, wondering if
that's how the normal is.
And I believe that we are moving, or
are part of those times.
I believe that hell has been opened up,
and that demons that have never ever been
released upon the face of the earth are
being released on the earth right now.
And that we are facing, and going to
face, days of darkness and iniquity such as
no other generation has ever seen.
And what I want to share with you
today is this little subject of people who
believe but are not saved.
People who believe, sitting in church even, but
are actually not saved.
And it's because the standard of preaching has
dropped.
The message preached has been watered down.
And so, in order to have people join
the church, and in order to make the
church popular, the message today is, Jesus died,
do you believe that?
Just put your hand up, you're saved.
It's not true.
Just by believing doesn't make us a believer.
I'll show you this now.
And I want us to see, not only
in our church here, but I know that,
and I hope these messages are recorded, and
I know we live stream them now, but
that somewhere we would have this kind of
information that we can pass on to those
who are on the edge.
Because we are definitely living in dangerous days,
and days that are going to move very
rapidly around about us.
So let's read in Matthew 24 from verse
36.
But of that day and hour no one
knows, not even the angels of heaven, but
my Father only.
He is speaking about the return of Jesus
Christ.
But as the days of Noah were, so
also will be the coming of the Son
of Man.
As the days of Noah.
He uses that for a very important reason.
What happened in the days of Noah will
be a duplicate, very close, as a warning
to us.
For as in the days before the flood,
they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving in
marriage, until the day, until the day that
Noah entered the ark.
There's a very determined cut-off point there,
something very clear.
Okay?
Until the day that Noah entered the ark,
and did not know until the flood came
and took them all away, so also will
be the coming of the Son of Man.
In the same manner until the day.
Then two men will be in the field
and one will be taken and the other
left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill,
one will be taken and the other left.
Watch therefore.
Open your eyes.
For you do not know what hour or
what time your Lord is coming.
But know this, that if the master of
the house had known at what hour the
thief would come, he would have watched and
not allowed his house to be broken into.
Therefore, you also be ready.
For the Son of Man is coming at
an hour that you do not expect.
Isn't that interesting?
We are expecting him to return.
The whole world is kind of, we are
expecting it.
He says, but I'll come at an hour
that you do not expect.
There's a few comparisons I would like to
make between Mr. Noah and the return of
Jesus.
First of all is, the time of Noah
was a time of great wickedness, great immorality,
great lawlessness.
And men were living without the fear of
God.
You can only live in lawlessness and wickedness
as a community when we do not have
the fear of God.
When the fear of God is there, men
don't live like that.
So whenever we see within the community a
rise of crime, corruption, immorality, worldliness, it's because
the presence of God is not there and
the fear of God is not there.
And it's all over the world.
Not only here in Zimbabwe we have our
own unique little set of problems, but everywhere
in the world, especially the western nations, they
have done their best to bury God.
And as a result, we are seeing country
after country pass rules concerning immorality, the reversal
of righteousness where wrong becomes right and right
becomes wrong, and down the road off we
go.
Why?
Because there's no fear of God.
In the days of Noah, so it is
today.
Men live today without the fear of God.
In the days of Noah, there was a
preacher of righteousness.
But he was a quiet, I want to
say a quiet, a solitary voice.
A man standing among the community preaching righteousness
to a community that didn't want to hear
him.
And he had next to him a boat
that he was building.
And I guarantee the boat looked unusual and
the boat was despised.
If it hadn't been despised, they would have
been on board it.
But they despised that boat.
They thought the old man was nuts.
And so we have the same thing today.
We have a few preachers of righteousness around
the world.
Not many.
Men who will preach the old-fashioned gospel.
Men who will tell the people the truth
about repentance and about salvation and about holiness.
Many, many preachers today are not preachers of
righteousness.
They are preachers of worldliness.
But there are a few preachers of righteousness.
Just as there was in the days of
Noah.
These men are often despised.
These men are often looked down upon.
And the world has lost its respect for
the church.
The church today does not look like a
place of safety.
Just as Noah's boat didn't make sense.
They could not see its purpose.
And men look at the church today and
they do not see the purpose of the
church.
They don't understand that the church is there
as a boat, a place of safety.
And so we are despised.
We are looked down upon.
We are belittled in many ways.
Especially if we are going to stand up
for truth.
In this world where truth is something that
is cheap.
And it's as though you can live...
Why live a godly life when you can
live in debauchery and never ever be held
accountable?
Why live in holiness when you can have
fun and live in sin?
And it's as though God isn't there and
everyone supports you.
It's like that today.
In the day of Noah, destruction came suddenly.
And it's said, that's why I read that
scripture.
It says, in that day.
Destruction came suddenly.
The day the door closed.
Nowhere in the Ark of the Bible says
that God closed the door.
And it's amazing.
Because they watched the boat being built.
They watched it coming to completion.
They watched the animals starting to collect from
all over the world.
Just starting to walk in the most unusual
phenomena.
Suddenly, all the sense of their natural instincts
changed.
And no longer are they migrating north and
south and east and west.
These animals are migrating to one point.
To a boat.
And they start to go aboard the boat.
And in their blindness, the sinners are laughing
at it.
Saying, now what's the old man going to
do?
Putting a bunch of animals in a boat.
He's gone nuts.
And then God closed the door.
Half an hour later, the clouds opened.
It had never rained.
Never.
It didn't just open.
They poured.
And when judgment came, it was irreversible.
And Jesus said, it's going to be exactly
the same in the days of Noah.
Men are going to be blind.
They're not going to see the seriousness of
sin.
They're not going to see the signs of
the coming.
They're going to despise the church.
And then suddenly, in a moment of time,
an event will take place that will be
irreversible.
And that will be the rapture.
That will be the second coming.
That will be in a moment of time
when mankind is looking at it.
And in the world's darkest hour, as it
were, suddenly, we are going to see Christ
appear in the sky.
We're going to hear the trumpet blow.
And the righteous are going to rise to
meet Him.
And the unrighteous will not be rising to
meet Him.
It doesn't matter how good our intentions are.
It is God who decides who is part
of the rapture.
Not your church membership.
And in the days of Noah, there were
those who helped Noah build the boat.
They actually helped him cure the timber.
They were the carpenters that assembled and planed
the planks.
They were the blacksmiths that made the nails.
They helped him construct it.
But they died in the flood.
And the same is in church today.
There are men and women who are in
the church.
They'll even help wash the windows.
They'll help do things in the church.
They are part of the church.
They are part of the church because they
accept the fact that Jesus came and died.
But they have never surrendered their lives.
Just because they helped Noah build the boat
gave them no special privileges.
They should have been on that boat.
They should have come to the understanding that
this man is a prophet.
He understands something.
There is something sovereign about this boat.
Mr. Noah, can I and my family be
part of your boat?
Like Rahab and the spies.
She saw these spies.
She understood that these spies represented something far
beyond her people.
And she said, remember me.
And they said, you put the little red
cord outside your window.
When the walls of the city fall down
and judgment comes, your family will be spared.
There was no one in Noah's time who
could see that.
The boat had a space for them.
No one.
There are people today, and the thing that
has really grieved my heart, is that churches
all over the world have people, church members,
who will not be going to heaven.
People who believe, but are not saved.
People attend church.
People who pay tithes.
People who are doing natural things and part
of it, but if you ask them, is
Jesus coming?
Yes.
Do you believe Jesus died?
Yes.
Is Noah building a boat?
Yes.
But the difference is, they have never actually
surrendered their lives.
What a tragedy.
What a tragedy to be a person who
has been sitting in church, part of the
Christian community in the flesh, but not part
of the Christian community in the spirit.
Is it possible?
It is possible.
In fact, it is very possible, because in
the carnal state of the church today, many
people in church attend church on a Sunday,
but their lives have never actually changed.
Alright.
I want us to look at a few
scriptures now.
Come with me to Matthew chapter 7, and
then we go, in fact, you can turn
to Romans chapter 6.
That will be where I want you to
go.
Because Matthew 7 says something very simple.
Jesus simply says, By the fruits you will
know them.
So, it's not a matter of me saying,
Oh, I believe.
It's a matter of the condition of my
life, the fruit of what the Holy Spirit
produces in me, that decides whether I'm actually
a true Christian, or I'm simply a person
who is there, giving lip service to my
faith.
And what I want to look at, first
of all, is the reason that God gets
people saved.
He does not get you saved to forgive
you of our sins.
That's our benefit.
We come into the church, He forgives us
of our sin, and we are so happy
for that.
It's like, yippee, He's forgiven me.
Here I am, I'm a child of the
Lord.
That's one thing.
But there's a purpose that God has.
There's a reason that God wants us in
the church.
There's a reason for the church.
From verse 18, Romans chapter 6, And having
been set free from sin, set free from
sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.
So there's a comparison here.
There's a demarcation, where sin is put to
one side, and righteousness is put on the
other side of the line.
So righteousness becomes part of the equation.
Verse 19, I speak in human terms, because
of the weakness of your flesh.
For just as you presented your members as
slaves of unrighteousness, and of lawlessness, leading to
more lawlessness, so now present your members as
slaves of righteousness for, what does your Bible
say?
Holiness.
So do you think holiness is part of
the church?
I think it is.
Do you think that when God looks at
the church, He sees part of His purpose
is that the people in the church would
lead godly lives?
Or are we not going to answer my
question?
1 Peter chapter 1, from
verse 15, But
as He who called you is holy, so
also be holy in all your conduct.
Do you think there's a requirement that Christians
would live godly lives?
Not by law, but because our hearts changed.
Because it is written, Be holy, for I
am holy.
And if you call on the Father, who
without partiality judges according to each one's work,
conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay
here in fear, knowing that you are not
redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold
from your aimless conduct received by tradition from
your fathers, but you are redeemed with the
precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot.
So we will often focus on the last
part and say yes.
And so we have people sitting in church
who have made a verbal acknowledgement.
Did Jesus die?
Yes.
Did He rise from the dead?
Yes.
Did He change your life?
No.
I just said that.
I just said yes, yes, yes.
And I call myself a Christian.
No, you're not a Christian.
I'm sorry.
There's no change of heart.
Are we clear on that?
Now at the children's church camp, Gavin used
a little illustration.
And when he used it, it began to
fit into what I wanted to share this
morning.
So I'm going to...
Gavin, can you get that cross for me
please?
We had to make one this morning.
It's nice having Gavin around.
Both of us like stories.
I want to show you something.
Remember, just lay it down there so I
can...
There we go.
Stable.
I wouldn't want to lose my life climbing
the cross.
Alright.
This is where the rubber hits the road.
Jesus said, Enter in at the narrow gate,
for broad is the way that leads to
destruction, and narrow is the road that leads
to life.
Now, when he was saying that, standing on
the sides of the hill outside Jerusalem, he
was looking down towards the city, and they
had the great big open gate, the pedestrian
gate, through which all the camels and the
donkeys and the people all went through.
But at night time they closed it.
And to one side was a little gate
that only one person could get through at
a time.
It was for security reasons.
And it was designed that when you went
through that gate, you had to bend down.
So that if you were a troublemaker, the
guy on the other side with his sword
could just knock your head off.
Because you can't fight very hard when you
are bending down.
So you're like, excuse me, excuse me, can
I come and kill you?
Excuse me, excuse me.
You haven't got a chance.
He's just going to whack you on the
head.
And the other problem was, you couldn't carry
anything on your back through the gate, because
the gate was too narrow.
So whatever you were carrying, your baggage, stayed
outside the city.
Sounds like Zumra, doesn't it?
It stays outside the city for inspection.
And you can come through customs without anything.
You can't declare.
Everything you want to declare stays outside the
city at night time.
You can fetch it in the morning.
And that is the idea.
That when we come to Christ, the cross
is the narrow gate.
Now what happens is, we stand at the
base of the cross.
We come to the point, where we come
here, and we see the cross in front
of us.
The cross is the bridge that God built
between heaven and earth.
It's the bridge of forgiveness.
It's the bridge of redemption.
It's the bridge of mercy.
It's the bridge of God's love.
It's the only bridge that protects us from
the river of God's wrath.
You must understand that.
Look up the word wrath in your Bible,
and you'll understand how often it appears in
the New Testament.
There is a judgment for sin that is
coming upon the earth.
There is a judgment for sin that God
places upon the heads of every human being
who stands against the authority of God.
Now that is a river.
And there is a little bridge that goes
over that river, and that's called the cross
of Jesus Christ.
It takes me from this realm in my
world, and it allows me to access the
grace of God, and come into God's kingdom.
It's a bridge of mercy.
It's a bridge of love.
The cross is a bridge that takes me
from one kingdom to the other kingdom.
Here's the tragedy.
We come as natural people with all our
lifestyle, all our sinful baggage, all our likes,
all the likes of our flesh, all the
things that have, can I say, fascinated us.
We come to the base of the cross,
and we say, I believe.
I absolutely believe that Jesus died.
I actually believe He rose again.
But where am I?
I'm at the foot of the cross.
I haven't gone up the bridge.
There's a problem.
In order to go up the cross, I
have to leave my life behind.
I can't take it with me.
I've got to leave, I've got to be
willing to take everything of my flesh, all
my desires, all my little carnal issues, and
they've got to die at the base of
that cross.
Just the verbal confession is not enough.
I've got to take this journey by faith.
I've got to come up this cross and
say, Lord Jesus, You are my King, You
are my Lord, and on the other side,
as it were, on the other side of
the cross, I am born of His Spirit,
I have His nature, and I have His
desires embedded in my soul.
Here's the tragedy.
At the base of the cross, I would
tell you that I love Jesus.
Why?
Because I'm in church.
And I look at this cross and I
know He died, and I say, you know,
I love the Lord, and I believe He
died, and I want to be a Christian,
and I want to do right.
And here's the problem.
In order to do right, it has to
be works, because my heart hasn't changed.
So I'm doing good things, but I'm doing
it in my own strength, and it frustrates
me.
So holiness frustrates me.
Righteousness frustrates me.
I'm continually between two.
Like, I know I should be doing this,
but I find myself doing this.
And I know I should be doing this,
but I find myself doing this.
And I struggle, and I struggle, and I
struggle.
And when I hear someone talk about holiness
and righteousness, I say, it's law.
It's law.
You're putting law on me.
No.
It's not putting law on you.
You're putting law on yourself, or whoever it
is, simply because we are trying to do
what we, in our flesh, what we are
not, we can't do.
The law of the Old Testament was there
to point me to Christ.
It wasn't there to make me like Christ.
But once I have died to myself, once
I have embraced this cross, once I have
lost my life, once I have come on
this side, the Bible says God took his
laws and did what?
He wrote them upon my heart.
Suddenly, righteousness is a desire.
It's not an outward conformity.
It's not an outward standard.
It's a desire.
Spiritual things are a desire.
Godly things are a desire.
Righteous things are a desire.
It's within me.
Now, within my desire, I might have a
few conflicts with my flesh, and God have
to deal with me.
That's not the issue.
He will take me on to perfection.
The issue is, what's your desire?
How do you live?
Romans chapter 8.
I'm going to read from verse 1.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus.
We all go, Amen.
To those who do not walk according to
the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Now, the picture behind this word walk is
that of the Holy Spirit walking in front,
and I am following behind.
So, it's the idea of an adult going
down the road, and a child following behind,
or whatever it is.
And it has this contrast.
Either the Spirit of God is leading, and
I am following Him, or my flesh is
leading, and I am following it.
And He distinguishes these two camps.
And He says, there are two groups of
people here.
One, born of the Spirit, led by the
Spirit, desiring to follow the Spirit, the other
one, not born of the Spirit, still led
by the flesh, and find themselves wanting to
follow the flesh, or all the things of
the world, all the time.
And this group of people are continually debating
spiritual things.
So, we will be in church on Sunday,
and we will agree, but on Monday, our
lives are back in the world.
We are living just like the world, on
Monday.
We come back to church, we hear what
is preached, we get uncomfortable, we even respond
to the altar, we make a few mental
decisions, but on Monday, and it's not our
fault, because we are doing what we are
naturally doing, we are very comfortable in the
world.
We are not convicted by holiness.
Because holiness is not a natural part of
that person's life.
So, no problem.
For us, on Monday, to go and scream
and shout and fight with our wives.
No problem to get drunk at home, to
have alcohol, to mess around.
No problem to go to church, but I
have a girlfriend on the side.
I justify it.
I even have a little house, you know,
little houses, small houses.
Or if I'm not married, I'm a teenager,
but I'll sleep with my girlfriend, and I'll
come to church on a Sunday, and I'll
say, you know, it's okay, because we love
one another, and it's alright.
You know, we're going to get married, we're
going to serve the Lord, our hearts are
in the right place.
The problem is, it's not alright.
The problem is, we are doing it because,
excuse me saying it like this, you are
not saved.
If you were, you couldn't do it like
that.
You wouldn't be free to do it like
that.
So, we are doing it, and we hear,
you know, oh, Brother Richard, stand up on
a Sunday, and preach unrighteousness, and walk out.
There he goes again, putting me under law,
making me condemned.
No, if you feel like that, it's because
it's a natural part of your life.
You are in the wrong environment, you are
not comfortable in holiness, you are not comfortable
in righteousness, you are comfortable in iniquity.
And the red light should go on, beep,
beep, beep, because if you're comfortable in iniquity,
beware when Jesus returns.
Born of the Spirit, means I'm going to
walk in the Spirit.
I have a desire for the Spirit.
Okay?
For the law.
The law is something powerful.
Not the law in the sense of rules.
It's like gravity.
What he's talking about here.
You can have the law of gravity, and
the law of lift.
And when you put a little airplane in
the sky, and he's flying along, and his
engines are working, he's got something happening over
his wings, that's more powerful than gravity.
Gravity is there.
It's pulling him down.
Lift has conquered it.
He can go as far as he likes,
as long as he has life in his
engines, and he's above gravity.
Doesn't have any effect on him.
That's what he's speaking about.
He says there's a life in the Spirit.
The law of life, or the Spirit of
life, has made me free from the law
of sin and death.
Both are forces.
One will lift me up, the other one
will pull me down.
Without the life of Christ, I am bound
to gravity.
I am bound to sin and death.
But with Christ in me, I am no
longer a slave to sin and death.
I'm no longer a slave to my carnal
nature.
I'm no longer a slave to the world.
Something greater is living on the inside of
me.
And it bears its fruit.
It's a natural part of who I am.
We have too many folk, who because they're
coming to church, but they've never found the
fullness of the freedom of Christ.
And they struggle with righteousness, and they struggle
with holiness, and they struggle with godly things.
We come along with elastoplasts.
We get emotional.
It's okay, my brother.
I love you.
We know you've got two girlfriends, and they're
both fighting, but we love you, and it's
going to be okay.
We're going to sympathize with you, and just
tell you, serve the Lord, it'll come right.
It's not going to come right.
They don't need an elastoplast.
We don't need some sympathy.
We need to come to the point of
true repentance.
Okay, let's continue to read.
For what the law could not do, in
that it was weak through the flesh, the
natural rules, God did by sending His own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on
account of sin, He condemned sin in the
flesh.
He literally passed the judgment, and said, sin,
you are bound, you are guilty, leave the
room.
Gone.
That the righteous requirements of the law, holiness,
the character of Christ, might be fulfilled in
us, might be evident in us, might be
naturally a part of us, who do not
walk according to the flesh, but walk according
to the Spirit.
It's possible.
For those who live according to the flesh,
here's the key, they set their minds on
the things of the flesh.
It's natural.
The man who lives according to the flesh,
his mind and his natural desires are wrapped
around fleshly things.
He doesn't have a problem with alcohol.
He doesn't see anything wrong with alcohol.
He doesn't see anything wrong with cheating on
his wife.
He doesn't see anything wrong with immorality.
He sees nothing wrong with pornography.
He doesn't see anything wrong with stealing from
his boss.
He doesn't see anything wrong with lying.
As long as he's not caught, it's fine.
His mind, his natural mind is set on
natural things.
That's his world.
He can come to church on a Sunday,
and he goes, yes, yes, yes, but where
is his mind?
It's in the world.
His heart has never actually changed.
He's standing at the foot of the cross.
He has never walked up that bridge.
He has never given his life.
He has never lost his baggage.
He's still at the foot of the cross,
saying, I believe, but not enough to get
in the wheelbarrow.
Verse 5.
For those who live according to the flesh,
set their minds on the things of the
flesh.
Okay, verse 6.
For to be carnally minded is death, but
to be spiritually minded is life and peace,
because the carnal mind is enmity against God.
That means it's an enemy of God.
For it is not subject to the law
of God, nor can it be.
The carnal mind is at the base of
the cross down here, and this guy, he
looks up, and he sees what God wants.
He sees how Christians live.
He reads his Bible.
He sees what's required of him, and he
says, I can't do it.
The standard is too high.
I don't see any reason to live like
that.
I want to believe.
I want to keep my little character.
I want to keep my lifestyle.
I want to live like this, and call
myself a Christian, because when I die, I
want to go to heaven.
Sure, I want to go to heaven, but
why should I change?
Look at that.
He thinks that's ridiculous.
That kind of Christianity is narrow minded.
That kind of Christianity is unreasonable.
That kind of Christianity is legalistic.
I want freedom.
You have it, sir.
Freedom from Christ, but not freedom from anything
else.
Amen?
So then, those who are in the flesh
cannot please God.
Now, you are not in the flesh, but
in the Spirit.
Meaning, you're born again.
For indeed, the Spirit of God dwells in
you.
Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit
of Christ, he is not his.
You do not get it written any clearer
than that.
Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20.
We know this one.
I have been crucified with Christ.
Stronger than just believing.
It is no longer I who live, but
Christ lives in me.
And the life which I now live in
this flesh, I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me.
The danger.
How can I put it to you?
A sinner, a man who has had no
contact with the Gospel, very often will come
into church, he will hear the Gospel, it
will strike a chord in his heart, he
will see his state, he will forsake everything,
he will climb the Word of Righteousness, surrender
his life to Jesus Christ and get gloriously
born again.
You say, wow!
Miracle!
And he will serve the Lord.
The one who has been in church for
five years and believes, has become anethetized to
conviction.
We have justified our state, we have wriggled,
we have squirmed, we have pretended, we have
done whatever we can.
At the end of the day, what are
we holding?
Our lives.
Do we live godly lives?
Do we struggle to live godly lives?
The answer is yes.
Do we want to live godly lives?
The answer is no.
Do we believe?
Yes.
Do we become a church?
Yes.
Do we think Jesus, even tell it, Jesus
Christ is coming back?
Yes, that's fine.
But it's not fine.
Because somewhere, I've never come to true repentance,
I've never taken my life, I've never let
it go, I've never come to the point
of identification where my life has been surrendered
to the authority of Jesus Christ, that I
may be truly born again by the Spirit.
There are many people sitting in what I
would say modern churches all over the world
exactly like that.
And for me, it's a tragedy.
Too many pastors are too afraid to step
on toes.
Too many pastors are too afraid to say
to folk, this is the road you need
to take.
We would rather make it easy so that
people feel comfortable in church without having to
lose their lives and surrender everything to the
service of Jesus Christ.
What happens at the bottom down here is
called true repentance.
It's more than just the term surrender.
It's true repentance.
It's a man or a woman saying, Lord,
I realize my state.
I confess my sins.
I acknowledge my iniquities.
I am prepared to lay my life down.
There's nothing I can do to change myself
outside of the power of your blood and
your grace.
Here I am.
And I surrender my life to you for
you to use on your terms.
I will give you my life.
If it means tomorrow I die for the
gospel, I'm willing to do so.
I'm willing to confess Jesus.
He's the supreme authority of my life.
I'm willing to put my life in the
wheelbarrow.
I'm willing to let you wheel me across
this great big gulf between life and death.
You're the only security I have.
You will become everything to me by faith.
When that happens, we will be born again
because God will change our lives.
But as long as we stand at the
base of the cross, as long as we
negotiate with God, as long as we hold
our lives, as long as we have an
appetite for worldly things and the fruit that
we are producing is worldly fruit.
Folks, it doesn't matter what we give mental
agreement to.
If we're not born of the Spirit, our
lives will not produce the fruit of the
Spirit.
Amen?
Is that clear?
Please don't shout at me.
Because when I say things like that, it
is going to rattle cages.
Don't leave church saying, I'm not sure.
If you're not sure, then you need to
know you're not sure.
If you're born of the Spirit, what I'm
telling you this morning is like, Amen, brother.
I understand that.
If you're not born of the Spirit, you
go, that was tough.
It's hot.
I don't feel happy here.
Because the Holy Spirit is knocking on someone's
door saying, it is time, my friend, for
you no longer to play games.
No longer to pretend.
You can leave church on a Sunday and
on a Monday you're comfortable in the world.
You're comfortable with your worldly friends.
You're comfortable with your worldly activities.
Your heart is not convicted by those things.
Then I would suggest that you need to
search your heart very, very seriously.
Very seriously.
We heard the Lord say that He is
the Good Shepherd this morning.
Amen.
But what did He say?
I'm looking for those who are lost in
the thicket.
That's the rebellious little lamb and sheep that
ran away from the herd and got caught
in the snares of the world.
There are people in church who are in
thickets.
People in church who are caught.
People in church who have had a knowledge
of Christ but never known the power of
Christ to change their lives.
I don't have tears in my eyes at
the moment.
The other day when I was thinking about
it and I was starting to read the
Scriptures and look, I must admit that it
broke my heart to think that we could
have people in church who will never make
it to heaven.
It broke my heart to think of people
who come to church but the testimony of
their lives is that the world looks at
them outside the church and sees no difference.
One of the things that we discovered on
camp from so many of the children, they
said, my mom and dad go to church
but they don't serve Jesus.
My dad does this, my mom does that.
They go to church on a Sunday but
they don't serve the Lord.
There's no encouragement for the children.
There's no example.
There's no point.
We have a Sunday go to church face
and a Monday go to world face.
The fruit of our lives is not what
we look like on a Sunday.
It's what we live normally when we are
by ourselves.
Folks, it is not my heart to try
and condemn a single person.
That's not my heart.
It is my heart to stand up and
blow a trumpet, yes.
It is my heart...
You know there's a scripture in Ezekiel, 33
I think it is.
God says to the prophet, I want you
to speak, son of man.
If you do not warn the people, their
blood will be upon your hands.
I never want to know that someone was
in the presence or the sound of my
voice and they didn't hear a message clear
enough and they can stand before God and
say, Richard never told me.
It can't be like that.
We are living in a fog.
We are living in a time of a
spiritual lack of clarity.
We are living in a time in which
many people call themselves Christians and do worldly
things.
We are living in a time in which
the Christian church is not a Christian church.
We are living in a time in which
righteousness is almost mocked and despised.
We are living in a time in which
the light of the gospel is dim in
many people's lives.
We cannot march to the beat of someone
else's drum.
We've got to understand and know Christ for
ourselves and live in the righteousness that comes
from the impact of Jesus Christ upon our
own hearts.
We are living in a time, folks, in
which days are going to get shortened faster
than you understand.
And you can be sitting here today and
within three months you are out of church,
you are back in the world, you are
somewhere else and you will never come back
again.
I've seen it happen all the time.
And I can't chase after you.
Do you understand that?
It's not the church's responsibility to do follow
-up and to gather you around and to
say, come serve the Lord, come serve the
Lord, come serve the Lord.
You can't pump a tire with a puncture.
We've got to only pump a tire once.
If it's got a permanent puncture, you can't
blow it up.
If we're not serving the Lord, if Christ
is not in us, then the puncture is
too big.
No matter how much we chase after someone
and try and follow up and encourage, they
will never come right.
Because the center of the heart has got
to change.
Folks, we're living in a day and a
time in which I don't believe we have
long.
And I think it's difficult sometimes for people
to have faith.
We have too many excuses, our minds are
too active, too many voices.
But there's one thing you must understand, that
God gives grace and He gives faith.
And when the Holy Spirit knocks on our
hearts and says, We must not question it.
We must not question His love.
We must not question His capacity to sustain
us and to keep us and to look
after us.
We must not question what we're going to
leave behind.
We must not debate with God.
We can only do one thing.
Say, Lord Jesus, I surrender my life.
I will get in the wheelbarrow no matter
what the risk.
But I want You to be Lord of
my life.
It's more than just believing.
It's a surrender of all that I am.
Amen.
All right.
Can we have Seb and his team on
the platform?
I am going to pray.
And I am going to give you an
opportunity to respond.
And if you respond this morning, don't feel
if I walk to the front, everyone's going
to think, there goes a sinner.
No.
But there goes somebody who wants to put
their life clear with God.
If you doubt, you'll walk with the Lord.
And you know the Holy Spirit is saying,
come, it's your time to put your heart
back with me this morning.
Then you do so.
You do so.
And Father, today, I pray for the church.
Everybody in this building is precious in your
eyes.
I don't believe we hear about mistake today.
I don't believe we heard the gifts of
the Spirit speak to us without direction, without
purpose.
I don't believe, Lord, that you stirred my
heart to talk in this manner and confirmed
it in the way that you did.
And Father, the cry of my heart is
that none of us would take a tarpaulin
and pull it over our hearts and put
our fingers in our ears and our hands
over our eyes and say, no.
But that rather we would allow the Holy
Spirit to search our hearts.
We would allow faith to be kindled again,
a faith in Jesus, a faith that says,
the wheelbarrow is Jesus.
I'm going to follow you, Lord.
I'm going to give you my life.
Not because I have any strength, but because
it's only out of my brokenness and my
surrender that you can change me.
The grace of God is amazing.
God doesn't look at our condition.
He doesn't look at our mistakes.
He doesn't look at our failings.
Because there's no perfect human being.
If God had a look at those things,
none of us would be here.
He doesn't ever consider that.
His love for us is bigger than that.
The bridge is stronger than that.
He looks at one thing.
Can I have your heart?
Give me your heart, He says.
I'll forgive you.
Give me your life and I'll write my
laws upon your heart.
The law of life of Christ is stronger
than the law of sin and death.
Come up this bridge.
Walk away from the life of sin and
death.
Come up the bridge of the cross.
Come up this narrow road.
Come up to the place of safety.
Come up to the place where you and
I are reconciled and you can walk with
me.
The heart of God is never rejection.
In fact, God doesn't reject us.
It's us who say no.
It's us who debate and query and wriggle
and put it off.
We walk away from the bridge and we
come back and we walk away and we
come back.
But there must come a time where I'm
going to walk away and stay away.
Where I'm going to walk up the bridge
and go from life, from death to life.
We can feel the challenge of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit.
How He humbles Himself to talk to us.
How He humbles Himself to engage our lives
in the midst of our rebellion, in the
midst of all the questions that we have
and the attitude that we have.
God ignores those things.
He comes back and He knocks on our
door again and again and again.
He says, come, cross the bridge with me.
Cross the bridge.
There's a river of wrath that a day
of my accountability is there.
I want you to cross that.
You can't cross that river by yourself.
Come.
And He gives faith.
He actually gives faith.
And I don't know where you are today,
but I do know that somewhere it's, for
some of us, it may be time to
say, here's my life, Lord.
I need to be cleansed, forgiven.
More than that.
It's more than that.
Today, I want to surrender my heart for
your use.
In your way, on your terms, without any
conditions.
What about my boyfriend?
That means today you say goodbye to him.
He's not a Christian.
You say goodbye to him.
What about my girlfriend?
Goodbye.
They're not the bridge.
They're a weight.
Goodbye.
You will live without them and you will
live in freedom.
And God will give you someone who's pure
and righteous, who will serve the Lord alongside
you and not drag you down.
Don't ever let the flesh argue against the
grace of God.
Never do that.
Oh Lord, strengthen every heart today.
Strengthen every life.
Do a wonderful thing in our hearts, in
our lives.
A wonderful thing, Lord.
Thank you, Jesus.
This message was brought to you by Southern
Park Christian Church.
We hope you have been blessed.
For more information visit www.southernparkchurch.org