In this sermon, the speaker discusses the concept of biblical Christianity and our role in experiencing it. He references Roy Hesson's writings on the Calvary Road and emphasizes the connection between revival and biblical Christianity. The speaker then focuses on Psalm 22 and highlights the suffering and abandonment that Jesus experienced on the cross. He emphasizes that Jesus bore the burden of the world's atonement alone. The sermon encourages listeners to reflect on what Jesus means to them and offers the message as a blessing to be shared freely with others.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.com. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, EFRA, PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we go through the message this evening, I would like for each one of you that can read this, keep gazing what's on the board. For those of you that can't see what is on the board is what does Jesus mean to me? Let's make it personal this evening and truly let's ask ourselves what does Jesus mean to me? As we ponder, pray, observe and look at the church of America today, what is the greatest need that we see? Brothers and sisters, the greatest need in the church of America today is right in our own hearts. What is the greatest need in our own hearts? Yes, these messages, especially the evening messages, I think, will be geared toward revival or evangelism. So, we think, I think many of us tonight realize and know that the greatest need in our lives is revival. But for tonight, as we go through the message, instead of calling it revival, let's call it biblical Christianity. The greatest need in the church today lies within our own hearts and that is to know what biblical Christianity is all about. In 2 Chronicles chapter 16, we read, this is what it says, for the eyes of the Lord run to the eyes of the Lord, to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. A perfect heart is a humble and a broken heart. A humble and a broken heart God will not despise. But, you know, I was so touched with that testimony tonight, thinking of my own testimony, I was tempted to change the message, but I didn't have a clearing. Brother, whoever you are, I know what it is to grow up in a home, in a very religious home. I grew up in an old Oral Amish home. All I knew in my whole life was going to church. I know what it is to go through the adolescent age, into the teen years. I know what it is to have the desire to get married. Then I joined an instruction class and I was baptized and I got married and I became a father. I was very religious, but I was lost. I had no reality of what biblical Christianity is all about. The Bible tells us that the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. I did not have that witness in my heart. The Bible also tells us that these things have been written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life. I had no witness of eternal life dwelling in my heart. That was no reality to my life, but I got to the place where I realized what does Jesus mean to me. Tonight we want to look at Jesus Christ. We want to look at the kingdom of kings, the Lord of lords. We want to look at Jesus in Revelation 1. We also want to look at Jesus in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Have you ever realized, turn your Bibles, for those who have Bibles, turn to Revelation 1. I must confess, I don't read enough of this book This is a beautiful book. It's a wonderful book. And you know, it's the only book in the New Testament or the whole Bible that it gives us the promise that blessed is he that read us and they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand. As we look at Revelation and we look at John the Revelator on the island of Patmos, and we know why, as students of the Bible, we know why he was put there. They tried to get rid of him. They tried to kill him. They couldn't kill him. They put him in a vat of boiling oil and they couldn't kill him. So they put him on the island for the beasts to devour. Beloved, let's look at the first chapter and let's see how John the Revelator got these seven messages for the seven churches in Asia. It is an awesome picture as you read down through these where John was, what he saw and what he heard. Let's look at Jesus in Revelations chapter one, starting in verse nine. I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom of patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as the voice of a trumpet. Verse eleven, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia, Ephesus, and unto Samarna and Pergamos, unto Thyatira, unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. And I turned, get a picture here beloved, this is John the Revelator talking, and I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothes which he garment down to the foot, and gird about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as if the sun shineth in the strength. Oh beloved, if anybody in here would be an artist, and you are a visionary, and you try and paint or draw how you see the Lord of Lords in these verses. This was John's experience on the island. Look at verse 17. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as death, and he laid his right hand upon me. The Lord of Lords came down from heaven and laid his right hand on John's head. I say on his head. It doesn't say that. It just says he has laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell and death. I'm going to cease there. But he goes right on with his right hand, and he laid his right hand on John the Revelator. He gifts the seven messages for the seven churches in Asia Minor. All the way through chapter 2. All the way through chapter 3. Down to verse 22 of chapter 3. At the end of chapter 3, verse 22. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. And then, after this, John the Revelator looked up, and behold, a door was opened in heaven. I do believe when the Lord Jesus Christ will appear in the clouds with power and great glory. In my visionary mind, I visualize that's what we're going to see. We're going to meet Him in the air. We're going to meet Him in the air. Sometimes study, in chapter 1, verse 12 through 16, of what an awesome, wonderful, powerful being and experience that John saw and had. But, this is Jesus Christ. This is John the Revelator. The Jesus that came into my life by faith in the spring of 1974. This is the same Jesus that we prophetically read about in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 50 and 52 and 53, but we wouldn't know Him from the picture we have in Revelations. We wouldn't know Him as a being if we paint the picture out of Psalm 22. Unless the church in America, this right here, is a portion, is a part of the church of America. Unless, if we are not at the place where we can testify that we know by faith what biblical Christianity is in everyday living, my prayer is that tonight, I don't know how many people are in here, but there's a lot of people here, you know, everybody is anticipating this is the first night of five days. But, as you gaze on the board, just tell your mind, this may be your last night. There's nobody inside these four walls that has the promise to see another sunrise. No one. So, just because it is scheduled to have meetings all day for the next four days and Friday evening will be the conclusion of it, that's no promise that that's what's going to happen. Tonight, we want to look at what our part is in being able to live biblical Christianity. Is that a works message by saying that statement? Do we have a part in being able to experience biblical Christianity lived out? Let me read you some of Roy Hessen's writings. Now, as you think tonight of revival, you think of biblical Christianity. And, as you think of biblical Christianity, you think of revival, because it is the same. This is what Roy Hessen writes about brokenness. We want to be very simple in this matter of revival. Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus Christ poured into human hearts. Jesus is always victorious. In heaven, they are praising Him all the time for His victory. Whatever may be our experience of failure and barrenness, He is never defeated. His power is boundless. And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relationship with Him, and we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service. And His victorious life will fill us and overflow through us to others, and that is revival in its essence. If, however, we are to come into this right relationship with Him, the first thing we must learn is that our wills must be broken to His will. To be broken is the beginning of revival. To be broken is the beginning of biblical Christianity. It is painful. It is humiliating. But it is the only way. It is being, not I, but Christ. The Lord Jesus cannot live in us fully and reveal Himself through us until the proud self within us is broken. This simply means that the hard, unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, at last bows its head to God's will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to Jesus, surrenders its rights, and discards its own glory. That the Lord Jesus might have all and be all. In other words, it is dying to self and self-attitudes. And as we look honestly at our Christian lives, we can see how much of this self there is in each of us. It is so often self who tries to lift the Christian life. It is self, too, who is often doing Christian work. We heard that tonight in the testimony, didn't we? It is always self who gets irritable and envious and resentful and critical and worried. It is self who is hard and unyielding in its attitudes to others. It is self who is shy and self-conscious and reserved. No wonder we need breaking. As long as self is in control God can do little with us, for the fruit of the spirit enumerated in Galatians 5, with which God longs to fill us, is the complete antithesis of the hard, unbroken spirit within us and presupposes that self has been crucified. Being broken is both God's work and ours. He brings His pressure to bear, but we have to make the choice. If we really open to conviction as we seek fellowship with God, God will show us the expressions of this proud, hard self that causes Him pain. Then it is we can stiffen our necks and refuse to repent, or we can bow our head and say, Yes, Lord. Brokenness in daily experience is similarly the response of humility to the conviction of God. And inasmuch as this conviction is continuous, we shall need to be broken continually. And this can be very costly when we see all the yielding of rights and selfish interests that this will involve and the confessions and restitutions that may be sometimes necessary. For this reason we are not likely to be broken except at the cross of Jesus. The willingness of Jesus to be broken for us is the all compelling motive in our being broken too. We see Him who is in the form of God, counting not equality with God, a price to be grasped at and hung on to, but letting it go for us and taking upon Him the form of a servant, God's servant, man's servant. We see Him willing to have no rights of His own, willing to let men revile Him and not revile again, willing to let men tread upon Him and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above all, we see Him broken as He meekly goes to Calvary to become man's scapegoat by bearing their sins in His own body on the tree. In a pathetic passage in the prophetic psalm, He says, I'm a worm and no man. Those who have been in tropical lands tell us that there's a big difference between a snake and a worm when you attempt to strike at them. The snake rears itself up and hisses and tries to strike back, a true picture of self, but a worm offers no resistance. It allows you to do what you like with it, kick it or squash it under your heel, a picture of true brokenness. And Jesus was willing to become just that for us, a worm and no man. And He did so because that is what He saw us to be, worms, having forfeited all rights by our sin except to deserve hell. And He now calls us to take our rightful place as worms for Him and with Him. The whole Sermon on the Mount with its teachings of non-retaliation, love for enemies and selfless giving assumes that to be our position. But only the vision of the love that was willing to be broken for us can constrain us to be willing for that. By dying to self is not a thing we do once for all. It will mean a constant healing to those around us. Listen to this. Individuals, for our yieldedness to God is measured by our yieldedness to man. I just felt I want to read just a portion of that as we go through the message. You know, if we're serious about biblical Christianity and we truly want to pray the Lord's prayer in Matthew chapter 6, Thy kingdom come, we must first pray, My kingdom go. And one reason that it is so necessary for us to first pray with a sincere heart, My kingdom go, is because if the Lord Jesus Christ does not have freedom from sin, He does not have freedom from sin and He does not have liberty and He does not have free course in your life as an individual, in your life as a father in the home or in your church life. If the Lord Jesus Christ does not have free course and have His liberty and freedom, it is somebody else's kingdom. Kingdom fruit is brokenness. Beloved, we do not need more revelation and information, but we need more desperation and inspiration. And we do what we do not because it is convenient, but because it is right. As we saw and got a glimpse of a picture of the Lord of lords and the King of kings that is alive forevermore, He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He is the Amen. He is the faithful and true witness. Let us turn to Psalm 22 and try with our minds to find a picture of this King. Psalm chapter 22. And as we go through these scriptures, beloved, look on the board and ask the question to your own heart. Truly, what does Jesus mean to me? These prophetic scriptures in Psalm 22 were accurately fulfilled in the Jesus of Nazareth many centuries later. They would not have been any more accurate had they been history instead of prophecy. With this in mind, let's read Psalm 22, a prophetic scripture of the sufferings of the King of kings, very accurately fulfilled hundreds of years later. And like I said, they would not have been any more accurate had they been history instead of prophecy. With this in mind, let's go through this. And beloved, as we go through this, I realize there could be a message preached out of every verse. Psalm 22, again, take your minds back to Revelation chapter 1 when the Lord of Lords laid his right hand on John the Revelator and gave him the message that he was supposed to write in the book for the seven churches in Asia. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? My God, my God, why hast thou abandoned me? Why hast thou left me to myself to suffer all alone? God did not interpose to rescue him, but left him to bear those dreadful agonies all alone. He bore the burden of the world's atonement by himself. My God, my God, why overwhelmed was grief and crushed was pain. Beloved, let's go back in the high priest's prayer, back to John 17, and let's look at the relationship that was between the Father and the Son in heaven. And here, the Son said to His Father, I am the Father and the Son of the Father. My God, my God, my God, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The Father of mercies hath withdrawn from His only Son as if He was a personal sinner. In some sense, beloved, Jesus Christ experienced what the sinner will experience, what the sinner will experience when he, for his own sins, he will be at last forsaken of God and abandoned in despair forever. Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not in the night season and am not silent. Verse 2, I cry day and night. Thou does not hear and answer my prayer. He was permitted, this King of Kings was permitted to suffer without being rescued by divine power. Through the disappointment that we sense in the first two verses of my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Look at Christ's humility in verse 3, His humility toward His Father. He says, thou art holy, thou art righteous and blameless. Though His prayer seemed not to be heard, not to be delivered, He did not blame God. Verse 4 and 5. I'll just paraphrase Give me the same deliverance as You gave our fathers that trusted You the same way I'm trusting You. Verse 6, in contrast with the fathers who trusted, prayed, and were heard, they confided in You, God, and were treated as men. I am left alone, forsaken, as not worth regarding. In other words, I'm treated as if I were the most insignificant and the most despicable of all creatures, despised by the people and forsaken by God. Verse 7 and 8, they laugh and mock at me. He professes to belong to God. Let Him rescue Him if they are friends. The people standing around Golgotha mocked and laughed and said, Let His Father rescue Him if they love each other. Verse 9 and 10, For Thou art He who took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when I was in my mother's breast. I was cast upon Thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. In verse 9 and 10, it seems to me His mind goes back as far as He can remember. And this is what He's saying. At my earliest remembrance I trusted You and You kept me safe. I always did those things which pleased You, but I am so alone. Verse 11 and 12, Do not withdraw from me. Deep sorrow has come upon me. I am approaching a dreadful death. Around the cross, His friends were unable, His foes unwilling to help. His foes were men with the fierceness and fury of strong bulls. Verse 13, This verse 13 denotes the greediness which the enemies of the Redeemer sought for His life. Let's look at verse 14 and 15. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melded in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a pot-tread. My tongue cleaves to my jaws. And Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. Physical, mental, agony and torment. My bones are, all my bones are out of joint. Do we take that literally or do we spiritualize that? Let's just take it the way the Bible says. Verse 16, For dogs have come past me. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. Men who resemble dogs, harsh, snarling, fierce and ferocious. Philippians chapter 3, we read about to beware of dogs, talking about evil men. Revelations 22.15, for without are dogs and sorcerers, talking about evil men. Around the cross, at His dying hour, were men that resembled dogs. Verse 17, I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me. I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me. As you look at what's on the board, ask God for a vision of the center cross of Golgotha in light of these verses. What do you see and what does Jesus mean to me? I may tell all my bones, what is that saying? You brothers that know the German language, this is what it says in the German. I can count all my bones. From the whippings and the beatings His body received, was His flesh ripped from His bones? What do you see on Golgotha, on the center cross? Let me share some with you right now. For anyone of you that ever saw or watched the Jesus film, I am not saying that film hasn't helped many people come to an understanding of who Christ is. I'm not going to say anything about that. But I'm here to tell you that the Jesus on that film is not the Jesus that we see in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Not one drop of blood, not one physical bruise on His body, a shining body that just came out of the sun room is what it looks like. For the people that use that to evangelize, I'll let that. But it's not the Jesus in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. What's the beatings and the whippings He took? Did it rip the flesh off His body? Was He hanging on the cross? Could He count His bones? I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon Me. Who is there? Here in verse 17, I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon Me. Who is there? Is it the bones? Or is it the audience on Golgotha around the cross? Let's turn to Isaiah chapter 50. Isaiah chapter 50, verse 6. I gave My back to the smiters and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not My face from shame and spitting. 52, verse 14. In relation to these Scriptures in Psalm 22, as many were astoned at Thee, His visage was so marred, more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? 53, verse 2. For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was His despised and we esteemed Him not. There are many messages in Isaiah 53, but unless we see the brokenness of Jesus Christ, how He broke His body, how He broke His spirit, in order for us to be broken and experience biblical Christianity, we will miss the mark. He hath no form of comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. The perfect relationship between the Father and the Son in heaven throughout eternity, and when God sent Him to earth in the flesh, God forsook Him, God abandoned Him, and God Himself found abundant satisfaction to see His Son go through these prophetic Scriptures in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. The Father Himself found satisfaction. Isaiah tells us, it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. When He saw the travail of His soul, it satisfied the Father. This is the same Jesus that John met on the island and got His messages for the seven churches. But, the sufferings, the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost brought in a new covenant. We live in the best covenant or the best dispensation that ever was and ever will be. God at Sinai made a covenant with His people of which the sanctions were materially understood. Therefore, the Mosaic church was temporary. But the sanctions of Jeremiah's church are spiritual, written in our hearts. Let's look at Jeremiah 31. And look at the two covenants. Jeremiah chapter 31. The old covenant is a beautiful picture yet today. Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, although I was a husband unto them, sayeth the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, sayeth the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Note the beautiful picture of the old covenant here in Jeremiah. In verse 32, God was to them a husband. And if you are a husband, you have a wife. And He took His wife by the hand to lead them out of the flesh pots of Egypt and they disobeyed. That is a beautiful picture of a husband taking his wife's hand and leading her out of the flesh pots of Egypt. In verse 32, the old law could be broken. And it was broken. To remedy this, God gifts, so to say, not a new law, but a new power to the old law. The old law used to be a code of morals, externals to man, and obeyed as a duty. In biblical Christianity, it becomes an inner force shaping a man's character from within. And the new law, the new covenant, is not a mere code of morals with external obedience, but the new law is I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more. The foundation of the new covenant is the free forgiveness of sin. It is the sense of this full, unmerited love, which is the new covenant, which so affects the heart as to make obedience henceforth an inner necessity. The new covenant, beloved, is a heart issue. It is our hearts. I know what it is to be an adult. I know what it is to be religious. I know what it is to long for something, for peace in my heart. But I know what it is to be defeated in my daily life with sins that I could not overcome. I know what that is. I know what it is to cry out to God. And I could take you to the place. In fact, less than a year ago, I had my family in the area where I was converted in 1974. And I drove down this country road. I wanted to show my children where their father met Jesus Christ as a Savior. And beloved, Jesus Christ died to save me. But Jesus Christ does more in His death than to save us. He was buried and He was resurrected also to change us. Salvation is more than just being saved from sin. It is a changed life. It is a victorious life. It is not a perfect life. But it is a life that is not defeated and pulled down by sin. It is a victorious life. It is only in Jesus Christ, if we see the King of Kings in Revelations chapter 1, and we look at Golgotha, and we see the picture that we see in Psalm 22, my Jesus hung there free-willing. He hung for my sins. My sins nailed Him to the cross. I was a father and I was a husband. And I was religious. I was serious. But I had no reality in my life. But the day came that I found Jesus. I took my family this summer, last June, to this place, and I wanted to show them within 10 feet where I stood, where God gave me a brand new heart. And you know what? I pulled in the driveway and I said, it was right in the middle of that two-car garage that's attached to that house. Somebody built a two-car garage to that house right outside the porch, took a porch away and built it. I said, right there it was. Beloved, Jesus Christ, I am here as a witness and to testify that external obedience will not suffice and give you peace of heart. It won't. It won't. But I tell you what, if the Lord Jesus Christ comes in and the power of the blood washes away your sin, from within there's a motivation for obedience. Oh, beloved, the church needs desperate revival. We need biblical Christianity lived out in our daily lives. And it's a personal issue for everyone's personal hearts. The home won't be any stronger than the individual hearts in that home. The church won't be any stronger than the homes it represents. It is a personal issue. But I tell you what, the new covenant is a powerful covenant. It's an everlasting covenant and it will go through eternity. Some of us may feel that we are a failure because of our failures. But just because we fail does not say we are a failure. If we refuse to come to Him with whatever holds us back, we are a failure. If we miss eternity, we are an eternal failure. And we will never experience what He has for us in this life. He has so much more than the majority of the people of the church are experiencing. It's biblical Christianity lived out in our daily lives. There's a couple scriptures in closing. I want to share three scriptures for true worship that brings biblical Christianity. True worship. Biblical worship. You know, for many years I had the thought in my heart that before we can worship the Lord, we have to be clean and clear from sin. But if the Lord has shown you something tonight, if the Lord has put His finger on your heart who is a backslidden or apostate, or if the Lord has shown you, I've never been born again, you can come to the altar tonight and worship. Matthew chapter 8. Look at these three verses in Matthew chapter 8 of what the Bible calls worship. When He was come down from the mountain after the Sermon on the Mount, great multitudes followed Him. Matthew chapter 8, verse 1. Look at verse 2. And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Beloved, we know what leprosy was in the Bible, but we know today what spiritual leprosy is. Spiritual leprosy is a type of sin. And if you have sin in your life, if you have unconfessed sin in your life, you can come to the altar and worship by confessing that sin. Matthew chapter 9, starting in verse 18. While He spake these things unto him, behold, there came a certain ruler and worshipped Him saying, My daughter is even now dead, but come and lay thy hand upon her and she shall live. And Jesus rose and followed Him and so did His disciples. And behold, a woman which was deceased, who was an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment. For she said within herself, If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned around, turned Him about, and when He saw her, He said, Daughter, be of good comfort. Thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus came into the ruler's house and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, He said unto them, Give place, for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, He went in and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame thereof went abroad unto all that land. And we know all throughout human history what physical death is. And we know today what spiritual death is. Spiritual death is a type of sin. And if we know we're spiritually dead, we can come to the Lord as an individual or as a family, as a concerned father, and we can worship and bring that to the foot of the cross and experience what biblical Christianity is. In Matthew 15, starting in verse 21, Then Jesus went hence and departed into the coast of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David! My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. But He answered her not. A word, and His disciples came and besought Him, saying, Send her away, for she cries after us. But He answered and said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me. But He answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou willed. And her daughter was made whole from that hour. Vexed with the devil. Yes, vexed with the devil is spiritual bondage. It is strongholds. And there are many people today in this country that are vexed with the devil. They are living under bondage. There's all kinds of witchcraft. Out there. And there is people that name the name of Christ that are involved in witchcraft. But it brings bondage. They are not living a victorious Christian life. They're not living biblical Christianity. There is water witching. A milder term is water smelling. Let me tell you, that is witchcraft. It is witchcraft. I'm going to give you a testimony tonight I was brought up in a home that was superstitious. And I was taught. I was taught all my life. And my mom and my grandparents, my mother and my grandparents, they taught us that these things are real. And I'm telling you, water witching works. It does work. And that there's a power that makes it work. But I'm here to tell you, I grew up and as a young boy, six and seven years old, I could find water. I could find water pipes. And my parents and grandparents told me that they said, it is just electricity in your body. There's electricity in the crevices and in the veins. And those two make contact. That's how this whole thing works. And I always gave nature the benefit of the doubt. And I did this. And I grew up. And I was converted. I got born again. And I was never convicted of this. But one day, let me back up a little. As I grew up, when I was courting my wife, she gave me a 17 joule pocket watch for my birthday. And in three or four months, the thing was shot. I could never wear a watch. Those old fashioned pocket watches, when the digital watches came out, in three or four months, the watches were gone. So for years, I didn't carry a watch because I made myself believe I have too much electricity in my body and I can't wear a watch. And I'm telling you, today I wear a watch. But I'm telling you, one day, I saw a man smelling for water. And he said, right here is two veins. And then he took that long stick. That stick started bobbing up and down. And I asked him, I said, what is that all about? He said, that's telling me how deep the water is. And I tell you, it's just something, the spirit just moved in and made me awful uncomfortable. And I counted that stick went up and down 178 times. And they brought a well driller in and he dug 178 feet and hid lots of water. The next day, as I was going down the road, I could not get rid of what I saw. And I said, Lord, I said, all my years, I was trained and taught from young up. And I gave nature the benefit of the doubt. If this is not from you, I want no part of it. And the Lord was so sweet to me. He did not condemn me. He did not stomp me in the ground. He just gently convicted me. And I got on my knees and I repented of any involvement I ever had with water smelling. And from that day forth, I could wear a watch. That's been many years ago. It works, but there's a power that makes it work. Vexed was the devil, it's bondage, it's strongholds. But the Lord Jesus Christ, if the Lord spoke to your heart and you know what is in your life, in your life that keeps you held back, you might have failed, but you are not a failure. Because if you want freedom, if you want victory, if you want peace of heart and peace of mind, beloved, we live in the covenant where the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ forgives us our iniquities and remembers our sins no more. That is for us today. That is not an external thing. That is an eternal heart issue that sets men and women free from the captivity and the bondage of sin. What does Jesus mean to me? Unless the body of Christ, the church of America, humbles our hearts and breaks and we come to Jesus Christ in brokenness. The Lord Jesus Christ broke His body, His spirit, and let me tell you, there that scripture in Isaiah, where it says, when I see the travail of His soul, I shall be satisfied. Oh beloved, most of those scriptures in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 are physical torment, physical agony, physical pain. There is a lot of mental pain there too. But all that physical pain has nothing compared to the agony of His soul. Beloved, when He was in the garden and He sweated like drops of blood, His sweat were like drops of blood, He looked into that cup. What was in that cup? What was in that cup? He looked at that. He said, Lord, if it be possible, please pass this cup from me. But He came back in His obedience and He said, but not in My will, but Thy will be done. What was in that cup? When Jesus Christ looked in that cup, what was in it? Saddam Hussein's sins, Hitler's sins, Osama Bin Laden's sins, my sins, your sins, your sins, your sins. Every agnostic, every hypocrite, every atheist, every fornicator, every adulterer, every man's sins were in that cup. And my Jesus looked at that cup. He said, it's too big, God. I can't bear it. Please just let it pass from me. Let it pass from me. Beloved, for you that truly know what it is to be under condemnation and conviction and so heavy with guilt and condemnation, you know what that feeling is. You know what that guilt is in your hearts. He was made sin for us who knew no sin. Listen, everyone in here that is born again has a testimony of what guilt and condemnation is and what freedom is. And everyone that is a Christian knows what it is to have failed the grace of God and to have failed the grace of God. Since you're a Christian and feel an awful weight of guilt and condemnation till the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us. You take your personal experience as a believer and you take all your sins, your religious sins, your atheistic sins, you take all those sins and you take them and you take them 13, 14 billion times. That's what Jesus Christ saw when He looked in that cup. He became sin who knew no sin. He was the perfect Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. And listen, how you failed, that brother that shared his testimony tonight, how he failed was how I failed but Jesus Christ can come in and cleanse that and give us peace. But in the garden, on that cup, on that cup, all the sins of the whole world were in there and He bore those sins for me, for me, for you. And you know, it brought the Father great satisfaction to watch His Son suffer for my religious sins, for your alcoholic sins, for your fornicating and your adultery and your cheating on your wife, your robbery and thievery. He took all those upon Him. Tonight we live in a covenant where there is forgiveness of sin. He forgives us our iniquities and He remembers our sins no more. Once and for all, they are washed away. They are washed away. Comprehend, the travail of His soul was more than all the physical pain that we can visualize in the whole Bible. There would have been no salvation if He went through all the physical pain but wouldn't have drank that bitter cup and became sin for us. Sin. He became sin for us. He tasted that sin. It seems to me He carried the same guilt that we carried till we came and worshipped the Lord Jesus Christ with all that Jesus did to make biblical Christianity possible and as God showed us where we're at and what is holy and what is holding us back, what does Jesus mean to me? Very little unless we come to Him in brokenness, in a contrite heart. We come to Him and worship Him and He will fill us with what He has waiting for us. Let's rise to our feet. I'll turn the time over to whoever. Somebody can come and close the meetings. 371 in your songbooks. As we sing, the altar is open. If you need to come and pray and do business with God, will you come tonight as we sing? And this evening, but I pray tonight that if God has touched your heart today, if you've come to do business with God, that you go ahead and come tonight to the altar and lay those things down. And then the rest of the week, my, what a difference it will make.