In this sermon, the speaker shares a powerful story about a woman who witnessed people on a road heading towards a fire, unaware of the danger they were in. The woman desperately sought help from a church, but the people inside were too preoccupied with their own activities to assist her. The speaker reflects on the sincerity of these people who were willing to give their money to a statue that appeared to cry, yet they were still without Jesus and destined for hell. The sermon emphasizes the importance of true salvation through being born again and being filled with the Holy Spirit, rather than simply going through religious motions.

I think it's been certainly a blessing. It's been a joy and a privilege, and I just want you to continue to pray for me. I sometimes feel like I have a strange ministry, just testifying of the sufficiency of Jesus, but He is sufficient. I have found Him sufficient, and it's a real privilege. My wife says that, well, I know that I'm stronger now than I have been since 1970, but my wife says it's because I got up here in Oklahoma and got some Indian blood. I'm sure that helped. Jerry Don said I had 10 units, but I had 16 units, actually, and it was quite an experience of visiting up here, and I wouldn't care to go through it again, but it was good. These churches really, really took care of me and just blessed me so much, and I really appreciate it, appreciate all the visitors that visited with me and just stood by me, because it was a unique experience. For days, I didn't even know I was really alive, and so the Lord was good. I'd like to leave something with you tonight as sort of a, as a challenge. I realized last night we were talking about a challenge, but I was challenged by this some time ago, and I'd like to leave it with you, and I'm actually going to be dealing with the first and second book of Corinthians, just in general, but I'm going to take a passage out of second Corinthians, the sixth chapter, just one verse, and really, I really wish you would read, when you have time, the entire chapter, the entire chapter. The second verse said, he said, I've heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I circled thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Realizing, of course, that this is brought out of the Old Testament, talking about the day of salvation, that verse puzzled me a great deal when I first began to study it. I was somewhat disturbed about it. I, in fact, I was using that verse to draw the net on a lost sinner almost daily, and telling that lost sinner today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time, and got a great deal of blessing out of that, but I really felt that this verse had something else to say to me, and I think if you put that verse in its context, that you'll find its primary interpretation is to the saint instead of the sinner, lost sinner, but of course it's applicable to the lost sinner. You just check it out when you have time to check it out, and I just couldn't understand what the Lord would be saying to the saint. Today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time. Until I realized that Paul was writing to some people, that he, some of them at least, were considered babes in Christ. Some of them were even considered carnal people. Babes in Christ are people who haven't had the chance, I feel, to grow up, and they're still growing. Carnal people are people who have seen the light, the word, the truth, and have rejected it, and Paul was dealing with this type of crowd, and of course there were some spiritual people in the crowd, and he kept giving them different types of arguments. One was, know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and to me, for a saint of God to realize that God has a dwelling place in heaven, Jesus has a dwelling place in heaven, but the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit is this body, should sober us, motivate us to really sell out to Jesus. So Paul's constantly giving this argument to, for maturing in these two books, but here he comes up with an argument that is so unusual, he's saying to them, today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time. What could he be saying? He's saying to the church at Corinth, today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time. My wife and I flew to Mexico City years ago to visit a man by the name of Dr. F.J. Hagel, and while we were down there, we went to visit some missionaries, and we were up on what they called Missionary Hill, and up on that hill was an airplane pilot that wanted his kids influenced by those missionary families, and so we had lunch with this man, and while we were having lunch, we saw some film of the native people, the Mexican people, and so I got some idea of what was going on with the people around there, and after lunch I walked out in the backyard and looked down over the cliff, down to the bed of a river, and across that river I saw these people working what you and I would call a very small garden, and from the film I realized that what they were doing was growing corn, and they would take that corn and cure it, shuck it, shell it, beat it up, make tortillas out of that cornmeal, and take the cornmeal, the tortillas out of the cornmeal downtown, sell them, and take those pesos, and put those pesos in little bags and purses and such like, and keep those pesos and go back out to their houses, which really was nothing more than shacks up in the mountains, and there they would go around those rocks and get those animals that they call Mexican chickens and eat those things, rather than buy meat with those pesos, because they would save those pesos for an occasion during the year where they would make a pilgrimage to a statue of Jesus Christ up in the mountains, and there the terrain would be so rough that they would have to crawl on their hands and knees to get to that statue, and by the time they would get to that statue, according to the film I saw, they would be bleeding all over, and there would be a priest there that says, now look, you've come all of this way because you love God, now the thing that you want to do is give to Him, and they'd reach into their little purses and sacks with their bloody hands and pull out those pesos they'd saved, and throw those pesos into those washtub looking apparatuses with a hole in the bottom, the chute that went down under that statue, and there they would hear a message in Latin, of which they could not understand, and then they would say, look, Jesus is crying, and I can, this is a documented issue, look, Jesus is crying, and there'd be big drops of water coming out of that stone statue's eyes, down his face, Jesus is crying, he's sad, and my friends, they would reach into their purses again, he's sad because you haven't given right, and they'd reach in those bags and purses again, and pull out more money, and give all the money they had, and there, my dear friends, would be a person down underneath that statue with a hand water pump pumping tears through that dead statue's face, and I, knowing that, then I saw those people, and I realized there was a sincerity in those people that I possibly had never, never, never seen in this country, and yet, my dear friends, those people were there without Jesus Christ dying and going to hell, and it shook me, and there the Lord and I begin to talk, and we had some talk right there that changed my life about some things. I begin to wonder why I was standing there, saved by the grace of God, with clothes on that cost more than those people would even see probably in a lifetime, and there they were, lost, without Jesus, dying and going to hell. Now, I realize there's many different theological implications that could come out in this message, but I'm actually wanting to deal with the practical side of it, and so I want to stay out of some of the theological rabbits that we could chase on it, such as sovereignty and such like, because I believe, because of the foreknowledge of God, God's sovereignty is not violated, and so as we go into it, I was there talking to God, wondering why those people were saved, why I was saved, and they were not saved, and my friends, I wanted to come up with some ideas. I wanted to really come up with some theological ideas as to why I was there, saved, and they were not saved. But one of the things I begin to realize is that, you know, God really loved me, but He loved them. You know, Jesus loved me, but He loved them. The Holy Spirit loved me, but He loved them. Then I begin to realize about my heritage, and I begin to realize the price that my mother had paid in praying for me, walking like Jesus wanted her to walk before me. And I begin to go through her life and realize, my dear friends, that her faithfulness to God, her obedience to God, her walk with God had something to do with me standing there, saved by the grace of God. And her mother and her dad's obedience to God had something to do with me standing there, saved by the grace of God. And their generation, and their generation, and their generation. And so what I came up with was the law of imputation, the obedience of one, righteousness. The obedience of one, righteousness, see, was carried on. The disobedience of one, sin and death, was brought in. The absolute concept of the law of imputation. And I begin to realize, my dear friends, that I was standing there saved by the grace of God, because Jesus loved me. God loved me. The Holy Spirit loved me. But because also a people down through the ages who saw the vision of God, embraced the cross, paid the price, that the glory of God may work through their life. And through them, beloved, one day salvation came to me. I think history really put it right. At least the history books I studied from, I wouldn't be a bit surprised what you came up with today. But when people went to South America, the history books say they went looking for gold. But when they came to America, they were looking for God and liberty. That should say something to us. It said something to me that day. The forefathers of those little people down there, that were lost, headed to hell without Jesus, my dear friends, went looking for gold. But the forefathers that I knew, went looking for God. And the law of imputation worked. See, Paul was dealing with the church at Corinth. And it was full of baby Christians and carnal Christians, some spiritual people. And here's what happened. And I do not have time to go into this. But there are 18 characteristics in these two books of immaturity, which might cover the baby Christians and the carnal Christians. And all 18 of these characteristics in these books and these two books definitely show that these people at the church of Corinth were doing things to please themselves. Even to the taking of the meal that was related to the Lord's Supper. They ate it to fill their own stomachs. All of these characteristics that I mention here. I'm of Paul. I'm of Apollos. No one, my dear friends, can have division in their heart except they are trying to esteem their own opinion to glorify themselves. That's right. All of these different characteristics reveal that these people were pleasing themselves. They were sensual, if you please. Sensual meaning that you are doing something for the purpose of pleasing yourself. And they were very sensual. And I'm not saying all of them, but many of them were sensual. And they were doing things to please themselves. And as they were doing this, playing around, pleasing themselves at the church of Corinth, my friend, the day of salvation. For John, Bill, Joe, and Mary was coming, going, and be passed while they were sitting there playing church. The day of salvation was at hand and passing by for this person. There's a story that I've heard ever since I started preaching. I think it's the story of a dream of Amy Carmichael. She had a dream. And as she dreamed, she saw hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people coming down a road. And as she saw these people coming down the road, she realized behind her was a lake of fire. And these people were headed to that fire. And so she began to try to stop them. And she started trying to stop them. And all at once she realized they were not only headed down that road to the fire, but they were blind people. And she saw a church building over to her side. And she said, I know I can get some help from that church. And she ran over to the church, looked in the window and saw the people in there. And she ran inside and told the people, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people out here dying. They're going to fall in that awful fire and die. Would you please help me? And the people said, we can't. And she said, why can't you? They said, because we have something to do. And she said, what are you doing? And she looked down and they were cutting out paper dolls. You see, there is a day of salvation. There is a time of salvation. But many of us tonight need to realize that, my dear friends, that today is the day of salvation. And wake up to our responsibility. And turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. And yield ourselves to holiness. Yield ourselves to the fullness of His Spirit. And yield ourselves to the commission of God for glorifying Him which is bearing fruit. Because, my dear friends, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. Boy, how grateful I am tonight for a mother who really loved me, who really paid the price. You know, I don't know how we have come to the conclusion, but some way, somehow, it seems to me, and I've traveled this country 30 years as an evangelist, and I've watched it very closely, we have come to the conclusion that we can get people saved without the power and the person of the Spirit of the living God. So no longer does it take a holy person, a Spirit-filled person, and a person that pursues God's will. Because we can just get them saved anyway. But, my dear friends, they aren't saved until they're born again. They aren't saved until they're born from above. They aren't saved until they're quickened by the Spirit of the living God. Until they're sealed into the day of redemption. Today is the day. Now is the accepted time. One of the probably most piercing illustrations I know that fits into this message. There was a church back in the 30s that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to missions. It wasn't a Baptist church, it was a Christian Missionary Alliance church, and that church gave hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to missions. And one day the glory God left that church. Some years passed, and there was two preachers in this town, an elderly preacher and a young preacher, and the young preacher was to preach in that old church that one time had the glory of God all over it. So he was looking forward to this meeting. They were in the past, these two preachers in the same hotel, and the young preacher knew that the elderly preacher had been in this old church, had some understanding of it, so at one of their meals he asked, the young preacher asked the old preacher, what about this old church? My friend, the old gentleman said, when you drive up to the church tonight, he said, when you drive down the street from the hotel, you'll come to a red light. He said, when you come to that red light, take a right, start up to the church, you'll see it on the hill. He said, drive carefully, because on the way up there, your questions will be answered. You've asked me why that old church lost its glory. He said, on the way up there's a sign that will tell you why. And on the way up that night, the boy got to the light, took a right, started up that hill, and he was looking carefully to that sign, watching carefully, and my friends, all at once his lights caught that sign, and there it was. And you know what he said? Caution! Children at play! At Corinth, that was the day of salvation. Paul said, today is the day of salvation. Now is accepted time. But my dear friends, the church at Corinth were going through the motions of religion to please themselves. And when you do that, when you please yourself, you have nothing but religion to offer people. But when you please God, you have Jesus to offer people. And Jesus makes the difference. Thank you.