Thank you, Pastor.
Well, I got back to the office today
to try to make a little money to
buy meat and potatoes.
Found everything's still there.
If you have your book, and I trust
you do, I was impressed the first morning
I was here of the number of Bibles
I saw as people go out.
I'm glad that you're true to your name,
and I trust that that will continue to
be so.
You know, when a fella goes to play
golf, he takes his golf club, and when
he goes fishing, he takes his fishing rod.
I think when he goes to church, he
ought to take his Bible.
But I won't scold you if you don't
have it.
I didn't come to scold you.
I didn't come to chide you.
I came, I trust, under God to help
you.
But now I need to qualify that a
little.
That's my purpose, and that's my prayer, to
help you.
But like my dentist, I went to school
with him.
We've known each other a long time.
And I say, Jim, are you gonna hurt
me?
He says, yes.
But he says, I'm not gonna harm you.
He said, I'm gonna hurt you, but I'm
not gonna harm you.
I may hurt you, but I don't mean
to harm you.
And I think the pastor's going to preach
after I leave on Sunday morning, I think
his text is Isaiah 40, verse 1.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
He didn't tell me he was, but I
just kind of think he might be a
good idea, because what I'm preaching is not
all that's in the Bible.
It's in the Bible, I believe, or I
wouldn't be saying it.
But it's not all that's in the Bible.
There is a message of comfort.
That's not my purpose, to comfort you this
week, but it's my purpose to help you,
under God.
And I trust it by his Spirit.
And if he doesn't do it, we've missed
the mark.
And if he doesn't speak to you, we've
missed the mark.
All you heard was this old carpenter sawing
away, while you've missed it.
But if you heard the voice from heaven,
in the book, by the Spirit, it's been
well for us to be here.
Let's pray.
Lord, we've asked ourself a serious question tonight
in that song.
Burn that question into our hearts till we're
unsatisfied with an unsatisfactory answer.
Lord, we're here tonight, and probably most of
these dear people here tonight, because somebody was
faithful to their trust and diligent about their
task.
We pray that thou would use these few
nights that we've been together to cause us
each one, and me, to be more diligent
about our task.
May we hear thee, Lord Jesus, say afresh
tonight, go ye, go ye.
We ask it in thy name.
Amen.
A word of review, and I'll try to
stay on the track a little bit more
tonight.
I must confess, last night I got off
the track on my favorite subject, and that's
the Lordship of Christ.
That's my favorite subject.
Somebody said not too long ago, less than
two weeks ago, he said, I believe that's
your hobby.
Well, I don't want to be a hobby.
I don't want to have a Bible hobby.
There's too many Bible teachers and even schools
that have a little hobby, and they want
to ring this special little doctrinal bell, even
though it's a true one.
But they can get a hobby on some
particular strain of truth, and just beat on
that for the exclusion of others.
I hope I don't have a hobby.
You know, there's only one difference between a
hobby and a horse.
You can get off of a horse.
But if I do have a hobby, and
it's a Bible hobby, and a Bible subject,
I believe I'd just as soon be the
Lordship of Christ as any other, if I
do.
I'd like to review a little bit, and
I'll try to stay a little closer to
where we want to go tonight.
And I'd like to take a little time
to review tonight.
I believe in review.
I don't want to be boring, but I
do believe in review.
Will you look at our text that we've
had for these nights?
And tonight I think I'd like to read
just a few verses down a bit farther,
but we'll still come back to our text.
Paul said, verse 3 of 1 Thessalonians chapter
2, "...for our exhortation was not of deceit."
God help us not to be deceitful, especially
in holy things such as exhortation.
"...nor of uncleanness, nor in guile.
But as we are allowed of God to
be put in trust with the gospel, even
so we speak, not as pleasing men, but
God, which trieth our hearts.
For neither at any time used we flattering
words."
Won't get you anywhere, anyhow.
"...as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness.
God is witness.
Nor of men sought we glory."
God help us.
"...neither of you, nor yet of others.
When we might have been burdensome as the
apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among
you."
May the Lord help us to do this
too.
"...even as a nurse cherished her children."
So being affectionately desirous of you, of you,
"...we were willing to have imparted unto you,
not the gospel of God only, but our
own souls, because you were dear unto us.
For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail.
For laboring night and day, because we would
not be chargeable unto any of you, we
preach unto you the gospel of God.
Ye are witnesses.
And God also, how holily and justly and
unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe."
May the Lord help us as witnesses to
have this testimony.
To be holy, to be just, to be
unblameable, and behave ourselves among people of the
world, and among them that believe.
"...as you know how we exhorted and comforted
and charged every one of you, as a
father does his children."
Why, Paul?
"...that ye would walk worthy of God, who
hath called you."
He did the calling.
Oh, Augustine said, "...by thy shouting thou didst
cause my deaf ears to hear."
He said, "...by thy shining and flashing thou
didst cause my blinded eyes to see.
He called you, who called you unto his
kingdom and glory."
A little review.
Our trust, we found in verse 4, is
the gospel, the Christians' trust.
And we pointed out that we are not
meant, God never called us to give sleeping
sinners the gospel.
He never called us to run up to
sleeping sinners and tell them John 3.16.
We pointed out that how God called us
to preach the first message of the cross
first.
And the first message of the cross is
the law.
We pointed out that it was as though
God sheathed the sword of divine justice in
the bosom of the Son of God, the
first message of the cross.
The bad news before the good news.
Remember this.
We saw that God not only showed mercy
and love on the cross, but we see
the wrath of God and the law of
God not mitigated, not saying, well, we'll take
the law away.
No, he didn't mitigate his law.
The law was fulfilled in Christ, our trust,
the gospel.
Secondly, we pointed out our task was to,
so to speak, you see it in that
text, even so we speak by life and
by lips, the good news.
We pointed out three things about our task.
We've said we want to be sure about
our motive, our motive for carrying the gospel
to people.
We pointed out two things about our motive.
Our first motive should be God's clear-cut
command.
If you can read that text tonight as
a Christian and say that you love the
Lord Jesus and read that text, go into
all the world and preach the gospel and
have no desire, you may not go about
it so diligently, but if you can read
it without a desire to make the gospel
known, I wonder about the ground of your
assurance.
I wonder about you.
Oh, I didn't say, I'm not, when I
talk about make it known, I'm not talking
to run up somebody and grab them by
the shirt collar and ask them if they're
saved.
I'm not talking about that.
We've had enough of that to drive people
away.
I'm talking about Holy Ghost guidance and wisdom
and prudence in witnessing the gospel.
Our right motive is God's command.
May I just stop there a bit tonight
and and maybe I won't get off the
track now, I'll come back.
But we had turned to John 17 in
this connection.
I think I want to emphasize this a
bit tonight as we go by again, because
this is all I'm trying to do this
week, is just make these couple points.
And if the Holy Spirit makes these couple
points with you, oh brother, we've made it.
Would you look at John 17 verse 4?
Because you see obedience to God, and that's
what I'm saying about this first motive, ought
to be obedience to God's command, is also
the glory of God.
We're called to glorify God on the earth.
How am I as a carpenter meant to
glorify God?
Well how did Jesus glorify him?
I have glorified on the earth.
How did he do it?
I have finished the work which thou gavest
me to do.
Can you, can you get it any clearer
than going into all the world and preach
the gospel?
Can that be any clearer?
Do we have to turn to the commentaries?
Do we have to call in a specialist
in Greek exegesis?
Eh?
No.
If we would obey that clear command we
would glorify God.
Notice how Jesus went on to say he
glorified the Father.
Verse 6, I have thy name.
That's what we want to do, manifest his
name.
Notice verse 9, I pray for them.
He did it that way too.
Notice verse 14, I have given them thy
word.
And I want to call your attention to
verse 18 in connection with this thought, and
that is a right motive for carrying the
gospel.
Ah, he's praying now.
As thou hath sent me into the world,
even so have I sent them.
And I'm here tonight because somebody from now,
from where I stand this second, back through
a line to the Son of God, somebody
obeyed that.
And I'm here tonight because a chain of
people heard that voice and obeyed it.
First motive, obedience to the revealed, unequivocal word
of God.
That's clear.
Nobody ever argues with me about this, what's
meant by this.
The second motive, of course, we pointed out
was man's need.
Our Lord had compassion, and if we would
be like Christ, we would have compassion.
And then we spent a great deal of
time, not only on our motive to fulfill
our task, and make sure that we have
a right motive and have them in order,
but we pointed out that we ought to
have the right message.
And especially we pointed out one great truth,
and that was that our message is not
only trust Jesus, that's half of our message.
And if you keep harping that message, you
only got a half a message.
The other message is turn.
Because God didn't send, Jesus Christ did not
come primarily to keep people out of hell.
Not primarily to keep people out of hell.
That's a byproduct of the gospel.
That's, he did come to save us from
that.
But if you look in Matthew, in your
Bible, in Matthew chapter 1, verse 21, you
will find out in this text that you
see on Christmas cards, when Joseph was found
that Mary was with child, and a bit
concerned to take her to be his wife,
the angel appeared to Joseph.
And that angel told him something that I
trust you'll know tonight as you think of
our message.
She shall bring forth a son, thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people from their sins.
And the consequences, of course.
But notice the order.
If you look in Titus chapter 2, verse
14, you'll find the same truth.
I think I'll read somebody, and I have
been accused of this before, of preaching law
and not grace.
Because I preached obedience.
If you look at verse 11, you'll see
this.
For the grace of God which bringeth salvation
hath appeared to all men.
What's this denying ungodliness and worldly lust that
we should live soberly and righteously and godly
in 1963, right now.
And if grace didn't teach you that, you're
living in disgrace.
Don't you go around hollering about the grace
of God.
If grace didn't teach you that, you don't
know anything about the grace of God.
That's what I read grace teaches me.
But my point was in verse 14.
Who gave himself for us that he might
redeem us, not from hell, he does do
that, but from all iniquity.
Our message is not only trust, but turn.
I think a great little verse that illustrates
repentance.
I read it to you out of the
Westminster, but there's a great verse I think
found in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 9.
That I think is one of the best
verses I feel that I've found to illustrate
and portray at least three aspects of repentance.
And I do believe there's three aspects of
true Bible repentance.
You'll find in that text that they turn
to God, they turn from idols.
And may I remind you dear heart tonight
that an idol is anything which we give
that which is alone due to God.
And the sad part about it within our
churches, usually our idols are legitimate nice kind
of things.
For instance, I say an idol is that
which takes the place in my affections.
That's my idol.
I don't care what it is.
It might be my son.
And God gave my, God gave me my
son.
He gave you your children, but he didn't
give them to you to be idols.
A man's wife, as much as it is
ordained of God, can be his idol.
And I say we who sit in the
pew need to be careful about legitimate idols.
The text says they turn to God from
idols.
And I say to you tonight, an idol
can be a good thing in itself.
Let me tell you what it is.
It's that which takes the supreme place in
your affections.
It's that which has a molding influence on
your life.
It's that which is the dominating power in
your life.
That's your idol.
I don't know what it is.
I hope you don't have any.
But it can be your car.
It can be your job.
It can be some legitimate thing.
Or it can be something that's obviously evil.
But the place that we have to watch,
we Christians, is not in that which is
obviously evil, but in that which, the evil
in that which appears to be good.
So we said the message is both trust
and turn, and we emphasize it at great
lengths.
Because of this common idea in our generation
that you just trust Jesus and live like
you please and do as you please, and
then we got to, then we have to
try to introduce a second work.
And most people, not all I don't say,
but most people are trying to find in
a second work what God meant for them
to have in a real work of salvation.
That's right.
Right method.
We talked about right methods last night.
We have to have a right motive for
carrying out our task.
We've got to have a right message.
We've got to be straight in the message,
and we have to be straight on God
-honoring methods.
And we pointed out that we cannot huckster
Jesus off as a celestial bellboy that comes
flipping into you every time you have a
little need.
That's not the one that's in the Bible.
The one that's in the Bible is Lord
of all.
He's Lord.
We pointed out about crying out for mercy.
So much for review.
Now tonight we want to talk about another
little aspect found in that text.
Our trial as we seek to do our
task.
Now I've looked at this and I've read
some commentaries on this verse, and I believe
that what this is talking about, our trial,
is that God tries our hearts.
He knows our motives.
He knows whether we're straight.
And down underneath, God tries our hearts.
I think that's the true exegesis, but I
want to apply it two ways.
I think it has another aspect, and I
believe as I read this context, in this
thing, Paul talking about his exhortation not being
of deceit nor of uncleanness.
And then he went on down farther to
talk about his exhortation again.
I believe that it's talking about honesty with
God's truth.
And my dear brethren, tonight I never heard
anyone else say this, nor did I read
it.
And I'm very careful about any thoughts I
got of my own.
They're usually wrong.
I never had an original thought in my
life, hardly.
But I never heard anyone say this, but
I have found this to be true.
And that's this, that I find it more
hard to be honest with people spiritually than
I do to be honest in business.
I find it most difficult to be honest
with people about spiritual things.
And if I find it this way, we
need to pray for our pastor and our
preachers and men who do speaking and deal
with the souls of men, because it's hard
to be honest with people about God.
It's difficult.
And I believe it tries our heart.
I believe it tries our heart to deal
honestly with men and women about God's truth.
Let me give you an example of what
I mean.
I'm an officer in a church.
We have a discipline problem come up.
The first thing you know, I hear one
of my fellow deacons, and I'm guilty too,
so don't don't get the idea that they're
any different than I am.
Say, well if we, and we have one
right now, we got a very serious problem
right now.
We got a girl that's pregnant and not
married.
Now do we blink as a church and
forget about the purity of the church?
I've sat on that meeting and been on
my knees with these men about this thing,
but the devil says to you, well the
whole family will leave the church if you
do anything.
And we've discussed this just in the last
two weeks, and I've thought of this text
in relation to my own, because I'm probably
one of the last ones that want to
face it.
I don't want to appear like a hero
or somebody that's brave.
I have this problem of being honest with
people about God's truth.
I see the truth in the Bible about
the purity of the church.
It's hard.
Well, we're gonna call her in with her
family.
We're not gonna blink and go on.
I know when it happened once before.
I sat there, listened.
I saw somebody excommunicated from the church publicly,
not rudely, because two things come out of
that.
We got to think of the other girls
in our church.
And our motive is to, one, to warn
others, and this is the only motive I
think for Christian discipline in the Christian church,
to warn others, and to win the wonder.
But you can't win them by blinking.
I'll just give you some examples.
I was talking to somebody this week, and
his little boy plays football.
Every father loves his son.
He loves to see him play football.
I'd rather see these boys play football than
crochet and styles nothing little things.
I like boys that are boys.
So I see this little boy, he says,
my son came to me.
He said, Dad, he said, uh, he said
the game, we got rained out.
He said, and the coach and all, they're
gonna play on Sunday afternoon.
You know what a father's heart wants to
say.
I do, if you don't.
I know what a father's heart wants to
say.
Well, we'll let it go this time.
But there's a voice from heaven that says,
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
It tries our heart, but you got to
be true to God.
That tries your heart.
But that'll give a testimony to him that'll
live till he dies.
He'll remember that day.
But it tries your heart to be truthful
with God's truth.
Oh, God help us to say a thing
because it's right, and forget about the consequences.
God help us to do things because it's
right, or not do them because they're wrong,
and let the chips fall where they will.
It tries our heart.
Now I want to come more to the
point tonight what our whole theme is about.
It tries our heart in witnessing to people
about Jesus Christ, to be honest with them
about their soul.
I remember very vividly one morning, not too
many months ago, oh maybe it's about a
year now, I've been witnessing and talking to
my bonding company man, the fellow that represents
the company.
Oh, maybe for seven years I've given him
books, sent him Bibles, read the Bible to
him.
I've talked with him for hours about his
soul.
We have meetings in the morning.
I do find these salesmen, we'll listen to
you if you're buying.
We pay our bonding company, insurance company, about
a hundred thousand dollars a year.
And sometimes I take advantage of that captive
audience, because these salesmen, they'll really listen to
you.
Now I don't know what's going to happen
about them listening, but they will listen.
And I've taken advantage of that, I hope
in the right way.
But I remember this morning we were having
breakfast together, and I don't talk to him
about his soul every time we're together.
Maybe I might skip two times.
But I have a space, and I remember
when I, what did we talk about the
Lord last time?
So I was in the hotel, we eat
breakfast in the hotel, and I don't know
if he had a bad night or what.
But I started to talk to him, and
I said Ken, and we got into it.
And he looked at me sober, and with
a strong stare in his eye.
And this is his words, quote verbatim.
He said, Ernie, why in the hell are
you bothered about my soul?
Well, what do you say?
My heart was tried.
You know what I did?
I reached in my pocket, and I took
out my little testament.
I said, Ken, I said, how could I
believe what's in here, and call myself your
friend, and say that I love my fellow
man, and believe what's in this book, and
allow you to race on to hell?
I said, can I say with my lips
and tell God that I love you, and
can be silent and have my lips sealed
about your destiny?
Eh?
Oh, I didn't tell him that loud.
I told him nice.
My mother got on me last night for
being a little vociferous.
She didn't get on me, but she said
I was a little loud.
Not very Presbyterian-like.
But I looked at him across that hotel
table, and that's what I told him.
Let me tell you a little more about
that story.
A few months later, we were having breakfast,
and he said, Ernie, I wish you'd been
with me.
He said, I almost called you on the
phone to come to my house.
He said, I learned three things about my
son in five minutes.
His boy's a college student, second year.
I don't know.
I never know whether this, whether people hear
you, whether it does any good.
Neither do you, and don't you witness for
that reason either.
But this is what he said to me.
He said, I learned three things about my
son in five minutes.
He said, my wife and I were at
a dance at the country club.
He said, about one o'clock in the
morning, we got called.
I got called to the hospital.
He said, I went in, and there my
son was, all covered with blood and bandage,
smoking a cigarette and drunk.
And he said he was cursing, cursing.
He said, I learned that he cursed, he
smoked cigarettes, and he was drunk.
He says, Wilma and I have been doing
some talk, and he said that Christy, our
little daughter in high school, said to me,
or said to his mother, Mother, what do
you believe?
And she started to go over what the
church is meant to believe.
Christy says, Mother, I'm not asking you what
the church believes.
I'm asking you, what do you believe, Mother?
And he said, Ernie, my wife and I
didn't know what to tell our children.
He said, would you come over some Sunday
morning and have breakfast with us?
In a very informal way, he said, kind
of like those talks we have in the
morning, and talk to us as a family
about God.
Tries our heart to be truthful with men.
I want to say another word about this.
I believe this will get you in a
little trouble.
I believe if you're honest with people about
their soul and about their spiritual condition, no
matter how gracious you try to do it,
I believe that there'll be a time and
again when you'll find yourself causing a division.
You'll find yourself being disliked, maybe, possibly.
I believe in the beatitudes when our Lord
says, Blessed are ye when men shall revile
you and persecute you and say all manner
of evil against you falsely.
I believe there's a measure in which we
know this today, even today by being honest
with God's truth.
I believe when it says in 2 Timothy
3 12, Yea, and all that will live
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
I know there's a lot of persecution complex.
I hope you don't get that.
That's worse.
But I believe there's a two place where,
first of all, when you're persecuted, the first
thing you ought to do is survey your
heart and life to see whether you're getting
persecuted for the miserable way you're going about
things, or whether you're getting persecuted, as Jesus
said, for righteousness sake.
Entirely different.
Deal honestly with souls of men.
Now let me go a step farther tonight.
Let me tell you an area where I
think we must be extremely honest with people
as we would carry out our task witnessing
the gospel.
And that is in the invitation.
As we invite men to Christ, we got
to be extremely honest.
And how can I look young people in
the eye and tell them that they can
go to heaven on flowery beds of ease,
when I know in my heart it's a
lie.
It's a rough road.
It's a strange path.
It's a narrow gate.
One of the things about Jesus Christ is
this.
He was honest with people on this score.
And he didn't trap them in a great
big funnel like and then start narrowing it
down as he got them in and say,
now you're going to do this.
He made it narrow at the outset.
He was honest with men at the beginning.
That's why he said it's a straight path,
narrow gate.
He wasn't lying to anybody.
I believe well, if we do any different,
we deal deceitfully as Paul's talking about in
verse 3.
We deal deceitfully.
Listen, we want to look at a couple
invitations of our Lord tonight.
I just want to turn you to one
or two.
I've looked at this and given it thought.
What I'm saying to you, I say not
thoughtlessly.
Turn to Luke chapter 9.
I want to show you one of our
Lord's invitations.
Verse 23 to 26.
And he said unto them all, if any
man will come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross daily and
follow me.
I would remind you tonight, dear heart, that
that invitation is at the outset.
And I would remind you that this is
what he said unto them all.
And don't come to me afterwards and tell
me that you become a Christian and then
you become a disciple.
I'll have nothing to do with it.
That's just as bad as this blasphemous idea
that you can trust Jesus as your Savior
so you don't go to hell and then
at some convenient time to you, take him
as your Lord.
And that's from the pit.
I will remind you in Acts chapter 11,
verse 26, it says this.
And the disciples were called Christians first at
Antioch.
They were called Christians because they were disciples.
That's why they were called Christians.
And our Lord put that thing that my
flesh hates and your flesh hates, and we
cringe against any kind of discipline.
I say our Lord put it on the
front door.
And I believe if we were more honest
at the front door, we would have less
trouble at the back door.
I'm glad somebody told me, one of your
elders told me, in this church you have
more people come out than you do members.
Healthy sign, healthy sign.
Hope it stays that way.
Be honest at the front door.
Jesus was.
I remember I was at Sandy Cove.
I was the chairman of a meeting there
for the Eastern Regional of the CBMC one
year.
And I asked my wife to let me
go alone so I could rent a room
by myself.
I wanted to spend time alone.
I had a lot of things to do.
So I got a room by myself, not
for selfish purposes.
I wanted to be alone with God, and
I had lots of things to do.
So I had this room for myself.
When I got to the registration desk, they
said, Ernie, we see you have a room.
You're the only one in your room.
They said, we have a young lawyer.
We'd like to put him in with you.
And this is what they told me.
They said, he trusted Jesus as a Savior
at one of our meetings, but you know,
he still has a lot of trouble.
And we believe you could do him some
over the weekend.
If he'd just get in your room and
you could talk to him at night.
I didn't say, well, I planned it otherwise.
I thought, well, if the Lord is in
this, I'll say yes.
And I took that as a being of
God.
So I said, all right.
They put this young lawyer with me.
I think he was about 35, maybe, no
more.
He had already tried about 20 murder cases
and was well on the way to a
good reputation as a criminal lawyer.
He talked to me the first night, a
fine chap.
We had lots in common as far as
our experience is concerned.
We were both in the Navy and we
talked and talked.
He wanted to talk about religion too.
But about one o'clock in the morning,
I felt like saying to him, Dave, I
think you better go back and raise your
other hand because you sure didn't get anything
when you raised it the first time.
And let me tell you, we got a
lot of people in our churches that need
to raise their other hand.
About seven or eight months later, or we
talked, became fast friends, but I couldn't give
him any idea of assurance that he knew
God and he'd ever met the son of
God.
I'd have been lying to him.
I wouldn't have been truthful with him.
Even though it tried my heart, I couldn't
lie to him.
I had no reason to believe that he
was saved.
Now notice, I did not say he wasn't
saved.
I can't go there.
I had no reason to believe that he
was saved, nor did he have any reason
to believe that he was saved, nor did
the world have any reason to believe that
he was saved.
That's an entirely different statement than saying somebody's
not saved.
You better not go around saying that.
That doesn't come under the head of your
business.
Months later, I got a phone call on
a Friday.
He says, Ernie, this is, and he gave
me his name.
He said, you remember?
Oh, very vividly.
He said, I'd like to come to your
town tonight.
Will you rent me a room at a
hotel, engage a room for me?
I want to talk to you.
You going to be home?
Yes.
He says, I'll be there in time for
dinner.
He says, you, uh, make me reservations in
the hotel.
He came.
We had our dinner and I took a
Christian lawyer with me to talk to him,
Dee Dee's brother.
Uh, so we went down.
My friend ordered a drink.
He had a couple of drinks, had dinner.
We talked, talked about all these things.
We went to his room.
He says, I either want to, he says,
I'm miserable.
He says, I was better off before I
ever heard anything about religion.
And he said, I want to go back
to my city and I want to dismiss
this as nothing, or I want something that's
real.
He said, I'm not sure there's anything to
be had that's real.
But he told me that he felt that
I was honest with him in that room.
And he said, that's why I thought of
you.
We went to his room, we talked.
Now listen, dear heart, there was no use
me giving this fellow John 3 16.
He knew it forwards and backwards.
There was no use me telling him some
scripture verse about salvation.
He knew the verses.
I felt strongly convinced that he had responded
to a wrong kind of an invitation.
I felt, and I was right, it turned
out later, that he responded to a kind
of an invitation to somebody that would keep
him out of hell, but leave him live
like he pleased.
I didn't know what to do.
I don't think I ever did this before.
I'm not sure I ever did it since.
But God brought to my mind this text
that I read to you tonight, which I
thought was one of the invitation of Jesus.
And I took that Gideon Bible in that
hotel room and put it in his hand.
And I turned to Luke chapter 9, verse
23, and I said, Dave, I want you
to read this to me.
And I made him read on.
I had him read verse 23, verse 24,
Whosoever will save his life shall lose it,
but whosoever will lose his life for my
sake, the same shall save it.
We stopped there a while, and I'd remembered
a good commentary on that verse.
I got reading a missionary book once.
That sounds like double-talk, but I remember
that when that verse opened up to me
in a real way, I was reading a
missionary book, and I read this statement in
the book.
It said this about this verse.
The missionary said, He is no fool who
gives what he cannot keep to receive what
he cannot lose.
He is no fool who gives what he
cannot keep to receive what he cannot lose.
And I said, Dave, someday you'll lose your
five kids.
Someday you'll lose your wife.
Someday you'll lose your practice.
Someday you'll part with your money, because that
grim reaper is bound to come, and you
will lose all these things.
I said, Is a man a fool to
give up anything that's out of the will
of God, that he can't save anyhow, to
receive what he can't lose?
He said, No.
He said, You're trying to work on my
emotions.
That's what he said.
I said, Oh no, Dave.
I said, That's not emotional.
I said, That's the truth of God and
the words from the holy lips of Jesus.
I left.
We prayed with him.
Left.
Next morning I had breakfast with him.
This is what he told me.
I don't know what he did, but this
is what he told me.
He looked different.
He didn't have a drink in the morning
anyhow.
Maybe he didn't drink in the morning, but
I believe he did.
He didn't have one.
He said, Ernie, when you left last night,
he said, I took the pillow off the
bed.
He said, I put it on the floor.
He said, I got on my knees on
that pillow.
He said, I died to my practice, because
he had some very bad kind of practice,
and he needed to die to it.
I'm not going into all that.
He needed to die to some of his
practice, and some of the methods he used
to get some of the cases he needed
to die to.
He said, I died to my practice.
He said, I died to my wife.
He said, I died to my kids.
He said, I got peace.
I'm going back home after breakfast.
Now, you say, what am I trying to
say?
I say, I believe the Lord showed me
what we're trying to say about what tries
our hearts to be honest with men at
the outset.
To be honest with men at the invitation.
Will you look in Luke chapter 9, another
invitation.
At the end of the chapter, at the
end of the chapter, I want to call
your attention to another thing along this same
line, and I do not believe I'm resting
the truth, or I wouldn't be doing it.
Verse 57, And it came to pass, as
they went in the way, a certain man
said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee
whithersoever thou goest.
Jesus said unto him, listen to this honesty,
will you?
Jesus said unto him, the foxes have holes,
the birds of the air have nests, but
the Son of Man hath not where to
lay his head.
Not a very good way to get customers,
is it?
Huh?
No, no.
Not a very good way to get customers.
We'd have taken down the bars and told
him how successful he'll be in business, or
some other thing like that.
I say that our Lord was honest with
men, and as I face men tonight, especially
young people, as I look in a church
and see young girls, young fellows, and I
stand here with the idea of any kind
of effort to invite them to Christ, this
thought goes through my mind, that to be
obedient to that invitation may take them to
South America.
To be obedient to that initial invitation I'm
talking about, to be obedient to that call,
to be obedient to the voice of the
Son of God that says, come unto me,
to be obedient.
I have a dear friend tonight.
If I say his name, many of you
will know him.
And I'm sure that when he brought it,
when he invited his son Ed to Jesus
Christ, that he never thought of the ramifications
of that invitation.
Because that invitation, to come to Jesus Christ
and follow the Lamb with us wherever he
goes, led that, led my friend's son Ed
out of law school.
And it led him to the shores of
South America, there to die with a sword
or a spear in his side.
Obedience to the invitation.
How can I look at a young person?
How can I look at a man?
I know a man now that is clothed
savingly, I believe, with Christ, that's having a
tremendous problem with his wife.
When I talked to that man about Jesus
Christ and invited him to Jesus Christ, I
knew that he was going to have a
problem.
Could I be less honest than the Son
of God in my invitation to sinners to
close with Christ?
I say to you, my dear, we've got
to be honest and try as our heart
at the outset.
Now this won't help your statistic poll.
And if you want to sacrifice truth on
the altar of statistics, that's all right.
If you want to sacrifice truth on the
altar of statistics, you may.
God help us to be truthful with men,
though it tries our hearts, as we invite
them to the Savior.
A fellow called me from Philadelphia today.
I'm not getting very far tonight, Pastor.
I wanted to get to the Westminster Confession
on the Doctrine of Assurance.
We'll try tomorrow night.
A fellow called me from Philadelphia today.
He said, Ernie, I'm down here in a
little meeting.
He said, I'm down here in a few
meetings.
He said, any chance of you coming over
to Philly?
I said, I'm coming almost there tonight.
So we went on.
Let me tell you about him.
His father ran for governor of Florida.
I met him in Florida at a layman's
meeting where I spoke, and he was moderating
the meeting.
We became friends.
Let me tell you a story.
Nice kind of fellow.
Personality plus.
College graduate.
Everything looked good.
He started a radio station in Central Florida.
He even tried to start a church, and
a few of them got together and started
a church.
Not even a gospel church.
A little Presbyterian church there.
As far as I know, and that's just
his testimony, I'm only known with that, one
of them was saved.
Not one of them knew the Lord, but
they thought they needed a church in this
community.
Odd, but true.
Good men.
Nice fellows.
Good in the sense that we call good
as we measure each other with each other.
Good.
Started church, and the thing grew a little
bit.
They finally needed a preacher.
So they applied to Presbytery for a preacher,
and apparently they still have a few sound
men in the Southern Presbyterian Church, I guess.
Thank God for that.
But they said to him, well, we got
a young fellow.
We'll send him to you.
They said, we believe he might be good
for you, and we believe that you will
be good for him.
So they sent this fellow.
Young fellow.
First message, he said.
He preached on, you must be born again.
And then he preached for six months, telling
them why they needed to be born again.
And that was getting pretty tough for some
of these fellows.
One little fellow said, they had a meeting.
They liked him.
He was zealous.
He worked, and he was out there trying
to get people.
There was many things that he did that
they really liked.
If he just, one old millionaire said, Tom,
he said, he talks too much about hell.
I guess he thought they were all going
there, and that's why he should.
He said, he talks too much about hell
for me, but I like him, Tom.
So they went, let's talk to him.
So they got him, they had a meeting
with him.
They said, and they gave him all the
compliments first.
You know, this is the way you do
it.
If you're an executive, you'll learn this a
little bit.
You say all the nice things, and then
you get the sword out.
And then you always close with something nice.
Don't ever go away like that.
You're a poor executive if you do that.
You got to call that fellow in and
say, Joe, you're doing a pretty good job
out there, but I've got, but then you
put the sword in and you take it
out.
Now I know you're going to do better.
And I don't know, these men must have
been executives, but they said a lot of
nice things about this young preacher.
A lot of nice things.
They said, there's just one thing.
We'd like to talk to you about your
preaching.
Tom told me this.
This is the words he told me.
He said, Ernie.
He said, we started to talk to him.
He said, he bowed his head.
He looked at the floor.
He said, after a while, he raised his
head, and he looked at us as gracious
as you could.
He said, gentlemen.
He said, this fellow didn't have anything.
He needed to get off to the right
start, and this was hard.
He said, gentlemen.
He said, I guess if you want a
different kind of preaching, you'll have to get
a different kind of preacher.
Tom said, for the first time in my
life, I saw somebody that believed something.
He said it had a profound effect on
me.
Tom was going to Fort Lauderdale later.
He said that young preacher made him promise
to go to church.
He said, I had no intention to go
into church.
He said, but I promised.
And he said, I've always been a man
of my word or tried to.
And he said, on Sunday morning, I got
up.
I was playing cards around the cartel, and
he said, it came to be pounded on
me that I promised that preacher I'd go
to church.
And he went over to Bethany Presbyterian Church,
sat way in the back, like all you
good Presbyterians do.
And he sat way in the back, and
old Larry Love was preaching.
And Larry Love was preaching, and his subject
was the gospel in reverse.
And his text was Galatians 2.20, where
it says, I am crucified with Christ.
Now the gospel, Christ was crucified in that
message.
The gospel in reverse is something else.
That's where you're crucified.
Who's crucified in Galatians 2.20?
I am crucified.
So he was preaching in the gospel in
reverse.
I'll make it short.
Needless to say, my friend Tom closed with
Christ that day, as he was offered, and
all of his officers yielded their hearts to
the Lord to go to the mission field.
But he went back to that little church
up in northern Florida.
He thought, how am I going to tell
these fellows?
So he called them all together.
He wasn't going to tell them one at
a time.
He called them all together.
He said, gentlemen, he said, I've got something
to tell you.
He said, we've had a death in the
church.
Who died, Tom?
Who died?
Tom said, I died.
You know those Greeks who came to Jesus
in John 12?
He said, we, sirs, we would see Jesus.
Read it.
He said, except a grain of wheat fall
on the ground and die.
I didn't get very far tonight.
I'm going to stop right there.
My point is this, very simple.
I'm trying to say that to carry out
this task, to deliver the trust to the
world that we've been entrusted with, to carry
out this task, tries our heart in this
area of honesty with men.
May God help us to be honest in
holy things.
Honest at the invitation.
Tomorrow night, the Lord willing, I want to
deal with honesty in another area, and that's
honesty in giving people assurance.
I don't know a bigger curse today than
this proof text salvation that's a million miles
from Bible assurance.
There's more people deceived by proof text salvation
and proof text assurance than I know.
And it's a million miles from the kind
of assurance that's in here.
Let me suggest to you tomorrow night, if
you want to come, read what the Westminster
Confession says about Bible assurance.
And I'll try to crowd in tomorrow night,
the Lord willing, the assurance, where we have
to be honest with people in relationship to
assurance.
And I'd like to talk about the perseverance
of the saints a little bit too, because
I think there's something ought to be said
before we close these meetings about he that
is saved will persevere to the end.
And it'll be within the framework of that
old doctrine expressed here.
Let's pray.
Dear Lord, as we seek to take men
what they need, Lord, we think of those
men around us and women who don't know
why they're here.
Lord, they don't know why they're here or
where they're going.
And they never will, Lord, until they've encompassed
and closed with that wonderful gospel, the glad
tidings, that restores in men the lost image
of God.
Oh, Father, help us, help us, we pray
Thee, as men and women, to be diligent,
not only to make our calling election sure,
but be diligent in the task that Thou
hast given us to do.
Make us faithful to the trust, diligent in
the task, and though it tries our hearts,
blessed Lord, help us by Thy Spirit to
be honest with men and not deal deceitfully
with their souls.
We ask these things in the holy matchless
name of Jesus Christ, the Lord, the Lord.
Amen.