I was reading something this morning and I
want to share it with you this afternoon
before we seek the Lord in prayer for
revival in our nation.
And what I read was a news article
that the Barna Group published concerning pastors in
America.
They interviewed evangelical conservative pastors for the last
two years and the research they performed was
under the direction of George Barner and his
research group, and they disclosed that 90%
of the pastors they interviewed did not preach
on controversial subjects because they did not want
to upset their parishioners.
And when poll pastors were asked how did
they describe themselves as far as if you
could know that their church was successful or
not, and they said that to find if
their church was successful, they listed the following
five factors which determined a successful church.
Number one, attendance.
Number two, giving.
Number three, number of programs.
Number four, the number of staff.
And number five, square footage.
In other words, the biggest churches with the
largest buildings and the largest group of people
was considered successful.
So why would a pastor with that mindset
preach on an offensive message that would drive
off his comparable membership, which makes up his
successful church?
Well, certainly he would not.
So what this means, friends, that out of
the churches in America, 90% of them
will not preach the real gospel with its
scandalous cross because the real gospel speaks of
a bloody cross because of sin.
And the real gospel speaks of man's duty
of repentance and the necessity of regeneration for
a person to be truly born again.
And the real gospel warns sinners of their
great danger of dying in their sins and
being cast into a burning place of misery
called hell.
And the church of today determines that success
is not found in the spiritual life of
a person, but rather in the number of
persons you can get to join your church
and in the amount of brick and mortar
you have on campus.
That's the shape we're in today in this
country, friend.
And we wonder why people aren't getting saved
today.
And we wonder why the nation's growing more
and more wicked every day.
The answer is found in the great apostasy
of the American church.
So this afternoon, before we prepare our hearts
to pray for revival, I must bring you
a heart burden.
And that heart burden is just a description
of what the true gospel is.
I will bring you a brief exhortation on
what true religion is, because chances are you
won't find it in the majority of our
churches today.
And I'll sum it all up with a
little story about a monkey and a nut.
Do you know how they catch monkeys down
in the jungles of South America?
A monkey catcher will go into the jungle
with a glass jug like the kind you
keep apple cider in.
And that monkey catcher will take a nut
like an acorn or some favorite nut that
monkeys like, and he will drop that nut
into the mouth of that jug.
And then he'll set that jug down and
he will back up and hide himself in
the bushes.
And he will wait until a monkey climbs
down out of a tree and smells that
nut.
The monkey will go over to that jug
and take his paw like this.
He'll stretch out his fingers until they are
elongated and then slowly shove his hand into
that jug to where his arm goes down
deep into it to get that nut lying
there on the bottom.
Then the monkey grabs that nut in his
paw and makes a fist and goes to
bring his arm out of that jug.
But he can't do it, friends.
His fist won't fit through that opening of
that jug.
And that monkey refuses to let loose of
that nut.
So he'll scream and holler and jump and
kick, but he won't do what's necessary.
And the necessary thing is to let loose
of that nut.
So here comes the monkey catcher out of
the bushes, and he grabs the monkey and
gets him in a chokehold and takes that
monkey's arm and forces the tendrils of that
little monkey's paw to let loose of that
nut.
And the monkey catcher has him another monkey.
And that monkey is like the sinner who
won't let loose of his sins.
He will gladly accept Jesus as his Savior
and join the church and scream and holler
and jump up and down during the music,
but he won't let go of his sins.
And standing back in the shadow is the
devil, and he's on his way to catch
another sinner in his sins and drag him
down to hell, all because that sinner, like
the monkey, won't let go of his sin.
He clutches it tightly.
He holds it to his bosom and cradles
it.
He hugs his sin and won't let loose
of it.
And there comes a day when the old
jug of death rolls down that hill and
lands at his feet, and he dies in
his sins.
And there is the devil, the monkey catcher,
so to speak, and he has caught yet
another fool in his sins.
This is very somber, friends, and you better
pay attention to God's word, because if you
sleep through it and if you ignore it
and if you disregard its warnings, then you
will have no excuse if you die in
your sins and drop into hell.
My text is Ezekiel 18, 4, which states
the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
We live in a day, friends, where chances
are you won't hear the true gospel preached
in your ears.
That's because 90 percent of the churches refuse
to preach it.
We live in a day of a great
famine in the land, a famine for hearing
the word of God.
We live in a day where God is
absent from our churches and the Holy Spirit
has been grieved away by our sins, and
we feed poor sinners, a diluted gospel that
has no power to save.
The watered-down gospel of your day and
mine couldn't save a flea, much less an
in-for-help church member who refuses to
let go of their sin.
Rather, we preach a sin in religion today.
We speak of half a God, a God
of only love.
We hand out a shrunken Jesus to people
who feel no need of him in the
first place.
So they take him like what a piece
of chewing gum and chew on him for
a while.
And then when the flavor goes away and
their excitement and their religion cools, they just
spit him out because they never really needed
him anyhow to begin with.
They were just fine without him because he
came with no conditions attached to him that
you can leave him or take him when
you were good and ready.
And when you finally do accept this modern
version of Jesus, you can have him and
go to heaven and still hug your sins,
still clutch your sin like that monkey in
his nut and still stay out of hell.
That's what we're told today.
That's what the churches tell us today.
There's no need to repent.
Just believe.
Why didn't you hear that the gospel's been
modernized to keep up with modern man?
You don't need to repent to be saved.
Only believe, friends, only believe.
The problem with that philosophy is that it's
from the pit of hell because the devils
believe and tremble and they are eternally doomed
and damned.
But Jesus said, unless you repent, you shall
all likewise perish.
Listen, friends, the bottom line of true religion
is not how long you've been a member
of a church or whether you serve on
a deacon board or sing in the choir
and attend your local church faithfully and give
your money to support it.
But rather, the dividing line of true religion
is whether a person is a false professor
or a true convert, or are they truly
born again?
And this is where the fruit of the
tree must be examined in the life of
a person.
But when a person loves the mercy of
God so they can gain heaven, but they
love their sin more and they hate holiness,
they demonstrate through their life's actions that they
only wanted Christ as a benefactor, but not
a sovereign ruler over them.
A true convert will embrace all the demands
of Christ and his gospel.
And through that vital union with the living
Lord, he will hate what God hates and
love what God loves.
He will want to obey God and his
commands, and he will deny himself, take up
his cross and follow a crucified Savior by
living a crucified life.
All that means is this.
Who is sitting on the throne of your
heart, friend?
Is it you or is it the Lord
Jesus?
You see, friend, when a person comes safely
to Christ, something happens.
A self is dethroned and another is enthroned
there of the Lord Jesus Christ.
No longer will you clutch that nut of
sin and hang on to it for dear
life to your own destruction, but rather you
will loosen your grip on sin and turn
in repentance from it to God.
The bottom line of a person's faith is
the foundation they rest upon.
Is it a false foundation through a false
profession or is it a sound foundation of
a sound convert?
Well, how will you know?
I can't read a person's heart and neither
can you.
There are weeding tears in every church.
At least that's what my Bible tells me.
But I can say this, friend, you personally
will know if you are like that monkey
or not.
If you are clutching your sin with a
firm grasp and you refuse to part with
it, then you must be aware that a
sin will always take you farther than you
want to go and leave you there longer
than you want to stay.
And if you stay in your sins, friends,
you risk dying in your sins and dropping
into hell.
Now, that's pretty plain, isn't it?
Here is the monkey clutching that nut and
refusing to open his paw to let that
nut go to the risk of his own
life, because the monkey catcher is in the
shadows watching his every move and ready to
pounce upon him and catch his prey.
And here is the sinner who is clutching
his sin and refusing to let it loose
to his own great peril, because in the
shadows lurks the devil just waiting for that
sinner to hang on to that sin long
enough to die in it.
And then he and his demons will pounce
on you and have their prey and drag
you down to hell for the soul that
sinneth it shall die.
At least that's what my Bible says.
My Bible says that when a person exercise
repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ,
that person will be pardoned and saved.
Their sins will be washed in the blood.
And when that happens, God gives a person
a new disposition for holiness, for without no
one will see the Lord.
Listen to what God says about it through
his through his word in Romans.
For if you live after the flesh, you
shall die.
But if you through the spirit to mortify
the deeds of the body, you shall live
for as many as are led by the
spirit of God.
They are the sons of God, a monkey
and a nut.
Now you've just heard the gospel in a
nutshell, friend.
What will you do about it?
Let us pray.