Today, about the most important subject in all
the world, God, and when one is speaking
about revival, if they're not speaking about God,
they're speaking foolishly.
Tonight, I sense the urgency of speaking about
the favorite theme of Americans.
Virtually everybody appears to be in favor of
it, but I'll take a rather unpopular position
tonight and speak against it.
And do you know what theme I shall
address?
The issue of sin.
There is a great cause for the need
of revival which is so profoundly great in
our society, sin.
And there is a great barrier, it appears,
almost insurmountable to revival, and that again is
sin.
Tonight I want to deal with a problem.
Lord willing, tomorrow night I'd like to deal
with a lovely solution.
And for the few of you who take
notes and like to prepare yourselves for meetings
in advance, I'll suggest to you now the
scriptures I intend to employ tomorrow evening, though
everything one ever projects to do is subject
to change.
But Lord willing, tomorrow night I'd like to
deal with three passages, all interrelated.
Genesis chapter 17, verses 1 and 2.
I'm mentioning these so that, as I said,
those who wish to prepare can read them
in advance.
I repeat, Genesis 17, verses 1 and 2.
First Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 30.
And Ephesians chapter 1, the entire chapter, but
give particular focus in your preparation upon verse
4.
And Lord willing, we shall take those up
tomorrow night, but tonight we're going to read
together a passage of unusual consequence out of
the book of Genesis.
And I invite you to be turning there
with me now.
The early part of Genesis, indeed, chapter 4,
and beginning at verse 1.
Listen now as we heed the word of
the Lord.
Genesis 4, verse 1.
Now the man had relations with his wife
Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to
Cain.
And she said, I have gotten a man
-child with the help of the Lord.
And again she gave birth to his brother
Abel.
And Abel was the keeper of flocks, but
Cain was the tiller of the ground.
So it came about in the course of
time that Cain brought an offering to the
Lord of the fruit of the ground.
And Abel, on his part, also brought
of the firstlings of his flock and of
their fat portions.
And the Lord had regard for Abel and
for his offering, but for Cain and his
offering he had no regard.
So Cain became very angry and his countenance
fallen.
Then the Lord said to Cain, why are
you angry?
And why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well, will not your countenance
be lifted up?
And if you do not do well, sin
is crouching at the door, and its desire
is for you.
But you must master it.
And Cain told Abel his brother.
And it came about when they were in
the field that Cain rose up against Abel,
his brother, and killed him.
Then the Lord said to Cain, where is
Abel, your brother?
And he said, I do not know.
Am I my brother's keeper?
And he said, what have you done?
The voice of your brother's blood is crying
to me from the ground.
And now you are cursed from the ground,
which has opened its mouth to receive your
brother's blood from your hand.
When you cultivate the ground, it shall no
longer yield its strength to you.
You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer
on earth.
And Cain said to the Lord, my punishment
is too great to bear.
Behold, thou hast driven me from the face
of the ground, and from thy face I
shall be hidden, and I shall be a
vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.
And it will come about that whoever finds
me will kill me.
So the Lord said, therefore, whoever kills Cain,
vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.
And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain,
lest anyone finding him should slay him.
Then Cain went out from the presence of
the Lord and settled in the land of
Nod, east of Eden.
And Cain had relations with his wife, and
she conceived and gave birth to Enoch.
And he built a city, and he called
the name of the city Enoch, after the
name of his son.
Have you ever pondered these words?
Sin is crouching at the door, and its
desire is for you, but you must master
it.
It's very easy for any and all of
us to become extremely careless in our attitude
towards sin.
In fact, it would be correct for me
to say that we live at a time
when there is a colossal carelessness in connection
with sin, and relatively few care.
One doesn't hear much of the words that
I'm about to utilize, but they're the kinds
of words that were frequently voiced from the
pulpits of the land in earlier generations, but
not much any longer.
But let me give you a series of
what might be called theological terms, and yet
they are much more than theological terms.
They represent vital biblical issues.
Let me give you these terms.
The universality of sin.
Where are you going to find anybody that
is not contaminated?
Who is there even among us that knows
nothing of sin?
Total depravity.
It isn't merely that we have a problem.
We are absolutely and totally unable to do
anything in and of ourselves that is acceptable
to the Lord God, omnipotent, who reigneth.
The imputation of sin.
Children don't learn to sin.
Sin was imputed to them.
Through their father, and his father, and his
father's father's, all the way back to Adam.
Not one has ever been born free of
this imputed sin, original sin.
I never spent a lot of time as
a pastor, but I did have one season
when I was pastor of a church that
had a big sign out front that said,
and by the way it said erroneously, it
said, Central California's Largest Church.
There were 5,000 families connected with the
church, so it wasn't small.
And we had a lot of deaths in
a church that size.
I never counted, but I suppose the funerals
averaged between 20 and 25 a week, and
many of them were infants and young children.
And all the parents, no matter what their
state in terms of God was concerned, wanted
me to say something sweet and comforting about
their innocent babe received into the arms of
Jesus.
And they objected strenuously to the whole idea
of original sin.
Nonsense.
Infants are born sweet and lovely, clean and
pure, holy in the eyes of God, and
even more than acceptable in his sight.
But that's not in keeping with scripture.
Every infant, no matter how sweet and lovely,
is in the grip of original sin.
Or this expression, sin as a reigning principle.
It isn't merely that we are occasionally subjected
to severe temptations and fall.
Sin is a reigning principle, and until the
reign of sin is broken, it indeed reigns
over us.
Sin is crouching at the door, and its
desire is toward you.
If you do not master it through the
power of Jesus Christ, it will master you.
The reigning principle of sin.
Or this expression, rarely used in our day,
the
propensity
to sin.
You know that word, propensity?
Some of us use the term tendency, but
sin is not merely a tendency.
We have a propensity to sin and irresistible
urge.
Not an individual here has the strength in
and of themselves to resist this propensity to
evil.
You spend much time thinking about these words
and expressions describing the problem of sin.
You need also to remember this expression, sin
as an acquired habit.
Now, that's not to say that the only
sins are the sins that are acquired as
a habit.
That's to say, with all the other evil
that naturally accumulates in your life, you can
and probably will even stoop so low as
to cultivate a certain sin and let it
become as a habit in your life.
For instance, in our day, shocking to know
how many ministers have cultivated the habit of
looking at pornography and are now in the
grip of pornography, and they don't know how
to break it.
An acquired habit, as is tobacco and alcohol
and so on.
Many, many sins that one would not naturally
fall into that they have indeed acquired, and
these sins have gripped them as an acquired
habit.
And then I'll just mention one more term,
one I should suppose that few of you
ever heard, aggravated sin.
Do you know that term?
Aggravated sin.
Do you know what I mean?
You say, what is an aggravated sin?
Sin that is made the worse by some
circumstance.
Mr. Sapien reports to me that he has
circulated many copies of a message delivered in
another church in this area a year or
so ago that was entitled, Breaking Faith with
God.
A message on the great sin of Moses'
life at the end, when he and his
brother Aaron, having emerged from an astonishing session
in which God revealed his glory to them,
then proceeded to commit the sin of sins,
as far as their lives were concerned, in
breaking faith with God.
That was an aggravated sin, a sin made
much worse by the fact that they had
just emerged from the glory of God's presence
and plunged into the sin.
In the book of James we read about
another of these aggravated sins.
To him that knoweth to do good and
doeth it not, to him it is sin,
indeed more than mere sin, an aggravated sin,
a sin made the worse by the knowledge
of the great evil, by the knowledge of
the fact that God himself has forbidden it.
But now let's turn over a leaf and
go from the use of theological terms to
the New Testament.
A few of you may know the great
book by R.C. Trench entitled Synonyms of
the New Testament, and that dear man listed
eight different terms in the New Testament, all
of which deal with the subject of sin.
Let me quickly and yet carefully mention these
eight.
Sin is a missing of the mark, a
faulty aim.
For every one of us here, without any
exception, God has placed a target in front
of us, and our lives are to hit
that target bullseye.
And whenever we miss the target that God
has set in front of us, it's sin.
Whether you shoot wide at the target or
the arrow of your life falls short of
the target, the missing of the mark is
sin.
Another synonym of the New Testament, when interpreted
into English, means an over-transgression or an
over-passing of the line.
Indeed, God has laid out a line, and
he has said, Thus far and no farther.
You dare not cross this line.
You must not cross this line.
You cannot cross this line with impunity.
And if you overshoot the line, if you
pass over the line, you have indeed committed
sin.
A third synonym comes right down to disobedience
of a voice.
God has spoken.
He has told us what he requires of
us.
And any acts of disobedience to the voice
of God, and in particular to the voice
of God, as it echoes through the pages
of Holy Scripture, is indeed a most grievous
sin.
Disobedience to a voice.
Now, that can include failure to listen when
God speaks, and that can include refusal to
hear.
But any time you are disobedient to the
voice of God, you have indeed committed a
sin of vast consequence.
And may I insert here that no sin
is of minor consequence, because all sin is
against God.
You may think concerning a particular sin, well,
it's really not all that bad.
Nobody is being hurt by it.
This is part of the so-called new
morality.
You determine the severity of a sin by
asking the question, is anybody hurt?
Here are two consenting adults, and they agree
to fornicate together, and they have a lovely
time doing so.
So it's not really sin, because both parties
enjoyed it.
On the other hand, rape, now that is
another issue, because that involves force and somebody
doing something against their own will.
So that's not so nice, but consenting sex,
that's all right.
That's the new morality.
But the old morality makes it crystal clear
that any disobedience to the voice of God
is sin.
Or consider this fourth expression, failure to stand
when one should.
I've been in many a situation where a
grievous wrong was being committed, and I've talked
with those around me, and we've all agreed,
oh yes, it's wrong.
Well, then let's take a stand against it.
And they say, go ahead, Mr. Roberts, you're
used to doing things like this.
You'll be the spokesman.
And then I look back for my supporters,
and lo, I stand alone.
They've retired into the woodwork.
Sin is a failure to stand upright, a
falling when we should have stood firm.
Now, I haven't time to develop this, but
one of the most stirring accounts of a
human life in scripture is the account of
that young boy, Joash, who became king and
leaned upon the high priest for years.
And when the high priest died, his leaning
post was gone, and he fell flat.
You'll find it in 2 Chronicles.
If you'll contemplate it, it will be helpful
to you.
We have many leaners in the church that
never did learn to stand alone.
Their strength is always found in somebody else
upon whom they lean.
But sin is always present when one who
is ordered by God to stand, fall.
A fifth synonym, ignorance of what one should
have known.
Now, we all know the expression and may
even have been tempted to use it when
a police officer's siren sounds behind us and
he pulls us over.
Oh, officer, I'm so sorry, I didn't know
this was a 35-mile-an-hour limit.
Ignorance is no excuse of the law.
That goes vastly beyond civil matters.
Surely, above all else, that pertains to the
law of God.
A sixth synonym deals with the diminishing of
that which should have been rendered in full
measure.
You know perfectly well what you should do,
but you say to yourself, I'm not prepared
to do it in total, but I will
do it in a reduced measure.
The Lord lays it upon your heart to
give a certain sum in support of a
very needy cause, and he's asking you for,
say, a hundred dollars, and you think, well,
that's an awful lot of money right now
when there are so many demands upon my
thin means.
I'll give fifty.
Well, that's a poor illustration, but all of
us are tempted to render in part what
God orders in full.
And any time we do that, we sin
against the God who made us and who
has every right to demand from us total
obedience.
The seventh word that is utilized, usually translated
iniquity or lawlessness, means simply the non-observance
of law.
And we would have to admit, if we
were to speak honestly to our own hearts,
that there have been more than one occasion
when we knew perfectly well what the law
of God required of us, and we simply
said, I will not obey.
And the final term, discord in the harmonies
of nature.
Someone may say, now he's about to go
from preaching to meddling, because I say to
you that part of the discord in the
harmony of nature is the role of men,
women, and children under God's order.
A pastor said to me this week, I've
discovered that every serious disruption that we have
in our church has been caused by some
woman who would not accept her God-ordained
role.
I hope he's wrong, but what more outstanding
discord in the harmony of God's nature do
we see today than women who will not
accept their God-appointed role?
Everybody who's using their head knows that God
ordered things simply.
He himself at the top, man underneath him,
women underneath man, and children underneath the whole
pile.
Is it any wonder that children are acting
so wildly and committing such grievous evils?
How can you expect children to stay in
line when mothers are out of line?
And of course, many a mother can honestly
say, well, there was a problem that preceded
my disorder.
My husband has never put himself under God's
authority.
It's very hard going for me to put
myself under the authority of a man who
will not put himself under the authority of
God.
Disorders in the harmony of God's nature, that's
sin.
But now we have read the most significant
passage, and let's come to it.
I hope you realize that sin is never
willing to be merely your companion.
Sin is determined to be your Lord and
your Master.
Some folk act as if they could safely
give way at least a little to sin,
and it wouldn't be all that disruptive or
dangerous.
Sin is never content to take a subordinate
position.
Sin always demands top billing.
Sin strives not for occasional conquest.
Sin strives for perpetual control.
Sin is a tyrant.
You either master it, or it masters
you.
And you understand, I hope, that when I
say you either master it, I don't mean
you and you alone.
I mean the blessed Son of God who
died and was buried and rose again for
your sanctification.
Now, dear friends, let me insert this obvious
fact.
We desperately need revival, and yet we see
no signs of genuine revival at this time.
Sin has provoked the immense need of revival,
and sin still stands as the barrier to
revival.
One would like to think that a godly
people, a careful and a prayerful, a thinking
people, would quickly recognize what sin has done
by way of destruction in the work of
God, and understand their role in this destruction
by their participation in sin, and immediately humble
themselves and pray and seek God's face and
turn from their wicked ways.
But I don't know anywhere in America where
there's any real evidence of people doing this
on any large scale at all.
You know something of the passage that we
have read?
Let's look at it.
We don't have a lot of time.
You folk are used to listening a lot
less than I'm used to preaching.
Most of the places I go, I make
it clear that they can give me no
time restraints.
But I've come here without that understanding.
And I'm not going to presume upon the
kindness of your invitation by complicating the affairs
of the life of this church and of
you, dear people, by taking extra long tonight.
You'd like to hear a long sermon.
Reuben's been pushing some of them on tapes.
But I want you to look at this
passage with me.
You understand, don't you, that Cain was the
firstborn son of the first created man, and
woman.
You know as well that Cain was the
son of fallen sinners.
But these fallen sinners nonetheless believed in God.
Did you notice these words in verse 1
of Genesis 4, Eve speaking, I have gotten
a man-child with the help of God.
That's worth remembering.
No matter how far Eve had fallen and
how distant was her relationship now after the
garden with the Lord God Almighty, she still
retained in her knowledge the remembrance of the
fact that the son who was given to
her was with the aid, with the help
of the Holy One.
Isn't it sad when you realize that millions
in America today can bear children and not
even recognize this primitive truth?
But that child came to them with the
intervention of the Almighty.
We, at least for the most part, are
keenly aware that Cain was a farmer, a
killer of the ground, and we know that
his brother Abel was a shepherd.
We also know that both these brothers had
sufficient interest in the things of God to
offer in the course of time, a sacrifice.
We know that Cain's sacrifice, his offering, consisted
of the fruit of the ground.
We know that the sacrifice made by Abel
consisted of the firstlings of the flock and
of the fat portion.
We know that the Lord had regard both
for Abel and for Abel's offering.
And we know as well that God had
no regard for Cain or for his offering.
And we know that Cain became angry, and
he expressed that anger.
And this is recorded in verse 6, and
it's worth looking at again.
Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are
you angry?
And why has your countenance fallen?
Many people have said to me, or I
have said to many people, What are you
angry about?
And they say, I'm not angry.
What are you angry about?
Well, what makes you think I'm angry?
Your fallen countenance.
Here, God observes the fallen countenance of Cain.
What are you angry about?
Now, dear friends, there are some complications in
this passage, and it is not the easiest
passage in holy scripture to interpret, right?
There are some important parallel passages that have
to be brought into line with this.
For instance, Hebrews 11, verse 4.
By faith, Abel offered unto God a better
sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the
testimony that he was righteous, God testifying of
his gifts.
And through faith, he, though dead, yet speaks.
And we know they were both brothers.
We know they both had the same parents.
We know they both came from the same
home.
We know they were both prompted to worship
God at the same time, and apparently in
the same place.
We know that they both arranged an offering
which was suitable to their occupations.
Yet one was acceptable to God, and the
other was rejected.
What is the real issue here?
It is the issue that one was of
the fruit of the ground, and the other
was of the firstling of the flock.
Well, some preachers have certainly made that the
issue.
It was the issue that one was bloody,
and the other was bloodless.
Now, in the passage out of Hebrews that
I just cited, the statement was made that
the sacrifice of Abel was better than the
sacrifice of Cain.
Now, what does that mean?
Better?
Well, let me suggest what a variety of
the translations say.
The old Reims translation, the sacrifice of Abel
was fuller.
The Weymouth translation, the sacrifice of Abel was
more acceptable.
The Goodspeed translation, the sacrifice of Abel was
greater.
The Berkeley translation, the sacrifice of Abel was
superior.
The Moffat translation, the sacrifice of Abel was
richer.
Get those words.
Fuller, more acceptable, greater, superior, richer.
Is it important that in
Genesis 4, 3, it says one was fruit,
using the word in the singular form?
And the other, verse 4, firstlings is a
plural word.
Is that what is implied by fuller, greater,
superior, richer?
Can we say concerning Cain's offering that it
was mean, that it was stingy, and concerning
Abel's offering that it was large, sacrificial, costly,
generous?
Well, we can say something else with far
greater certainty.
Abel offered in faith, and that is not
said about Cain.
Abel's sacrifice, we have read, bore testimony that
he was righteous, whereas Cain's offering testified of
his lack of acceptance with God.
Notice these words from 1 John 3, verses
10 to 12.
By this the children of God and the
children of the devil are obvious.
Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not
of God, nor the one who does not
love his brother.
For this is the message which you have
heard from the beginning, that we should love
one another, not as Cain, who was of
the evil one.
And slew his brother.
And for what reason did he slay him?
Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's
righteous.
From these words we can safely deduce that
Cain was a child of the devil, because
he did not love his brother.
Cain was not of God, because he did
not practice righteousness.
Cain slew his own brother, because his deeds
were evil, and his brother's deeds were righteous.
Now think for a moment of these general
principles that scriptures teach on the theme I'm
drawing your attention to.
1 Samuel 15, 22.
Has the Lord as much delight in burnt
offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice
of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and
to hearken is better than the fat of
wrath.
Or these words in 1 Samuel 16, 7.
But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not
look at his appearance or at the height
of his stature, referring to Saul, because I
have rejected him.
For God sees not as man sees, for
man looks at the outward appearance, but the
Lord looks at the heart.
And these summary words in James 3, 16.
For where is jealousy and selfishness?
Where they exist, where ambition exists, there is
disorder and every evil thing.
Now, dear friends, the portion of this message
that has gripped my heart and which I
hope and pray will truly lay hold of
your heart before you leave tonight is found
in the words that I have twice cited
already.
Sin is crouching at the door, and if
its desire is for you, then you must
master it.
Notice now in verse 7 that the words
I've just cited are preceded by these words.
If you do well, will not your countenance
be lifted up?
If you're innocent, if you're sinless, if you,
like Abel, present a right sacrifice in a
right spirit, if you will retrace your steps
and amend your offering and your intent, your
countenance will be lifted up.
Would it be out of the way if
I were to pause and ask the state
of your countenance now?
Answer out loud.
Do you have a countenance that is lifted
up, or do you have a countenance that
has fallen?
What really is meant when it speaks about
your countenance being lifted up?
Well, it's obvious, isn't it, why should I
take time to explain what is so perfectly
obvious?
When a man's ways please the Lord, even
his countenance is lifted up.
I didn't find that in scripture.
I just put a couple of thoughts together,
but it's true, isn't it?
And what drags the countenance down with great
rapidity?
The inner secret knowledge that a believer has
that he has sinned again.
Everywhere I go, I am encountering believers whose
countenance are cast down.
I am listening to preachers whose messages are
without authority.
If my own heart does not condemn me,
we read in 1 John, then I know,
I have confidence that what I ask of
God, he does.
Men enter the pulpit and they say, Oh
God, bless what I'm about to do.
And their conscience rises up and says, You
miserable hypocrite, why should God bless your preaching?
They're defeated before they open their mouth.
Another man enters the pulpit saying, Oh God,
quicken this word and make it lively in
the hearts of all auditors and let it
be a transforming word.
And their own conscience says, Well, of course,
God will quicken this word.
You have been walking in the spirit and
in the beauty of holiness.
Is your countenance lifted up in the service
of the Lord and in the love of
Christ, or is your countenance downcast because there
is some sin that has been lurking at
the door of your heart?
Sin is crouching at the door.
Have you ever weighed seriously before the Almighty
those enormous words?
Sin is crouching at the door and its
desire is toward you.
Oh, if somehow we could come to understand
that much worse than a giant lion, sin
crouches at our door.
And every time we give in to it,
we've fed that lion of desire.
And we've encouraged that lion of desire to
expect far better meals in days to come.
There seem to be so many Christians that
think that if they can resist the devil
and please the Lord in certain sweeping areas
of their life, all is well.
But that isn't true.
The devil awaits even the tiniest opportunity.
He crouches perpetually at the door, awaiting even
the slightest breakdown in your walk with God.
And as I have been saying throughout this
week, the nature of sin is that it
is like a gigantic magnet.
I used at some point this week a
rather almost silly illustration, and yet profoundly important.
I asked people if they had ever ridden
on a subway in a major city, say
like New York, and you get on the
subway and you're on one of these long
cars where there are seats along the outside
and straps above that people are hanging on
to, and you find a seat and you
get yourself comfortable, and you're aware of the
fact there's about three quarters of an inch
space next to you on your left, and
a quarter of an inch on the right,
and then the car stops at the next
station, and through the door comes one of
these great big fat aggressive New York women,
and she spots that three-quarter inch space
between you and the next one on the
left, and she takes her great bulk, and
she sits down in that tiny crack, and
with a motion or two, she's got all
the room she desires.
And at the next stop, coming from the
other end of the car, is another one
of these bulks, and she's spotted the quarter
of an inch on your right, and she
makes her seat there.
Sin, when once accommodated, is like those beefy
New York women.
You dare not give even a crevice for
sin to settle in your life.
It is like the lion crouching at the
door, and its desire is toward you.
What I hope is clearly understood, this nation
is in a most precarious condition because the
churches of America have grown very careless in
dealing with sin, and we are faced not
merely with the personal sins of millions of
people who talk about being born again, we
are faced with the terrible gross corporate sins
of tens of thousands of churches that do
not walk in the beauty of holiness, and
who have never, ever dealt with their corporate
sins.
Some of you may have good memories, and
you may be able to roll back your
memory with me to a number of years
ago when evangelicals became very arrogant, and they
themselves declared a certain year as the year
of the evangelical.
Do any of you remember that?
I was at one of the great interdenominational
conventions at that time, and one of the
most prominent preachers in America stood and declared
with victorious sounds in his voice, America is
in the midst of the greatest revival she
has ever known.
I thought, strange, I never noticed.
Been deeply, vitally interested in this matter of
revival for decade after decade.
I would have liked to think when revival
gripped the nation, I would have observed it.
But no, I hear the announcement from a
great platform.
But as I say, that was the year
of the evangelical.
That was the year when the miserable, lowly
world acknowledged that we were a great force,
that we mattered, that our opinions had to
be weighed, that they couldn't just shun us,
that they couldn't push us aside and regard
us as nothing.
We had arrived.
Well, we had arrived.
We had arrived at the peak of arrogancy
that had never happened before in this nation.
And we have never known a time since
then where we have repented of this most
grievous sin of pride.
Sin was crouching at the door.
Its desire was toward us, and the door
was opened to the lion of sin, and
he was invited to have a small place.
But he's never content, as I've said, with
a small place.
He never has been, he never will be.
Sin desires to have mastery over you, over
us, over the nation of churches.
And we either conquer it, it is placed
under our feet just as we are under
Christ's feet, or it has mastery.
Do you have mastery over sin through Christ?
I'm not talking about some great, gross, notorious
sin.
I'm talking about sin, the source that I
began with when I used those various theological
terms, exactly what I described when I gave
you the eight synonyms of sin in the
New Testament.
Have you got mastery over sin, or does
sin crouch perpetually at your door with its
desire toward you?
It would be lovely, wouldn't it, if we
could end this account of Cain by saying,
Cain saw the significance of the word of
God, and Cain gained ascendancy over the evil
desire that crouched at his door.
But instead, God rendered to him, because of
his refusal to repent, a rather mild judgment.
And Cain assailed God, insisting that his punishment
was too great to bear.
But let's end.
Let's ask again.
Have you got mastery over sin, or in
time, will it gain mastery over you?
We began this evening, and I mentioned a
defining moment where things penetrate our hearts and
cause us to change our way of thinking.
Brother Roberts mentioned that tomorrow evening he'll bring
a continuation of the other side of this
message to us.
How many of you want to see our
country change?
I think we all do.
I think there's a chord in us that
says, Lord, we really want what you want.
We want to thank you, Pastor Chuck and
Pastor Gary and all you folks here at
Calvary Chapel for allowing us to come as
we are going to different places in the
Pacific Northwest, and to be able to allow
Brother Roberts to minister the word of the
Lord to our spirits.
Could we stand as we close this evening?
I want to just mention to you again
that we will have this tape available in
about 15 minutes, and then of course we'll
have many of them available for you tomorrow.
Please stop by the tables and let the
fellows serve you with any of the materials
that Brother Roberts has published and put out.
But could you grab the hand of the
person next to you as we just conclude
in a word of prayer?
The way that I'd like to leave this,
if I could, is that the people that
made the most impact in my life was
my principal, because he's the one that gave
me swats.
My probation and parole officer, because he's the
one that had the key that could let
me out or keep me in.
The judge, because he's the one that could
send me up or set me free.
And the word of God, that could bring
me freedom or cause me terror.
And when I am challenged like this, I
like to say to myself, Reuben, why don't
you think about this?
Why don't you take some time and just
let your heart really mull this over and
chew on this?
Do you have that sense with me this
evening, that God brings words to us that
you can't in no possible way just process
everything in a moment's time, because we just
had some of eternity dropped into our souls?
So I'm going to ask you as the
Lord leads you between now and tomorrow night,
may you find a quiet place in a
quiet time and just say, God of heaven,
may you help me to digest these eternal
words that I have heard so that I
can bring eternal glory in a temporal world
to you.
Again, thank you.
Let's just close in prayer and then you're
dismissed.
And thank you so much for your graciousness
and allowing us to be here.
Let's pray.
Father, you are wonderful.
I'm reminded why I need you as my
Father, because I need to be corrected.
And I'm reminded again that I need you
as my Father because I need to be
loved.
And so, Father, we thank you this evening
for this house of worship and these spiritual
parents and these children of the Most High
God and this place that desires to lift
you up that the whole earth might see
you.
Lord, may you take us under the shelter
of your wings and may you cause us
to hear the concern and the desire towards
us that you have.
Bless this house.
Bless these people.
Bless the word of God to our spirits,
our souls and our bodies.
And may we come back tomorrow evening excited,
anticipating again that more of eternity will be
dropped into our souls.
We thank you, Lord.
We ask these things in Jesus' name and
all of God's people said, could you give
the Lord a hand clap as you're dismissed
tonight?
Thank you.