In this sermon, the preacher tells the story of a man named Sam who is set free from slavery by his new master. Sam chooses to serve his new master out of gratitude for being set free. The preacher emphasizes the importance of death as the key to life, referring to Jesus' death on the cross as the ultimate act of love. He encourages the audience to repent of their sins, trust in Jesus as their Savior, and rely on His blood for salvation. The preacher also emphasizes the need for revival in churches, urging believers to focus on spiritual growth rather than worldly success.

Well, I'm glad to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings. Trust that God has been working in your life. You know, last week was a special day. I didn't tell you, but it was my birthday. You know, we have to have one of those things once a year, whether we want one or not. And the gray hairs are really beginning to stack up around the ears, and receding hairline, and the body begin to break down in different places, feet hurt. All that stuff goes along with life, I guess, and all the years of doing different things begin to take their toll on the body. But I tell you what, Jesus is getting sweeter and sweeter, and all the years rolling by just telling me He's getting closer and closer. And He may be coming soon. The old body may be breaking down, and they may even give up the ghost. But whatever it is, you and I are rolling on towards eternity somewhere. I wanted to be with Jesus. I've made my reservations with Jesus. I've done what He said to do. Repented of my sin, trusted Christ as my Savior, trusting in the blood of Christ to get me there. Not trusting in myself, my good works. Can't trust in my baptism. God said it wouldn't work. You know, what should it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? My friend, what will it profit you? You go through all kinds of games, and you miss Jesus. I got a little card I hand out to people. It says, if we meet and you forget me, you've lost nothing. But if you meet Jesus and lost and forget Him, you've lost everything. Jesus is the key of life. I'd like to share with you again today some things on loving Jesus. Maybe take a little bit different slant today, would you? It's really exciting to get up in the day, in the morning, and have the Lord just fill you with joy, be filled with the Spirit. You've got more problems than probably anybody in town, but you've got Jesus, and you know He's going to work you through all those problems. And as you go along, He's wanting you to minister to people. You know, several years ago, we made the decision that we would try ministering to people, not programs. Whatever it took to minister to the most people that we could, this is what we would do. We ministered to family, friends, strangers, whatever. And sometimes we do unusual things, and we go unusual places, just to be available, and let God meet our needs. Let God bring in work, let God bring in supply, whatever the situation. We want to be an encouragement to you. We moved into a church to be an encouragement to a pastor. A man used to be under my ministry, went off to seminary and got training, and God told me to move in and be His servant. We didn't know how long we'd be here. We didn't plan on being here this long, but we've been here longer than we thought we would, and the Lord knows I'd love to get back in the pastorate. And I don't know if He's going to do anything different here in the next month or two, but I have a sense in my spirit that something's different. I don't know what. Got to do that to you. But just being in His will is the most precious thing. And we have to be careful as we're going around that we don't get sidetracked onto other things. There's a lot of different programs around, a lot of different preachers, and you don't know me. Some of you do, and you don't know me, but whatever I say has to be backed up by the Word of God. Whatever someone says to direct your life, to influence your life, you better make sure it's backed up by the Word of God. And you need to be directed by the Word of God and by the Spirit of God. Heavenly Father, I pray that You direct us today. We're needy, we're dependent upon You, and we ask that You would guide us through today. Lord, that we would understand what You want us to understand. I ask that You'd bless the preaching of Your Word, and that You'd open up our ears to hear what You want us to hear. In Jesus' name, Amen. Last week, I closed up with the area of bearing his reproach. Do you know that I have found that life is so fragile? We've seen in our church here recently, many that have been going through some severe trials, facing even death. And the preacher and I was talking the other day, we didn't think it was a coincidence. We think that God is trying to say something. That so many situations of death are just popping up all around us. Major heart attack, and things like this. Our life is fragile. We need to keep ourselves healthy by staying tuned on God. And one of the things I find that it's so easy to get off of basic commandments that God has given to us. Take this one, for instance, in Romans 12. God said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. If you're having trouble knowing the will of God in your life, then let me challenge you to go back up to the first part of the verse and see if you've brought confusion into your life by being conformed to the world. Now, it's a lot deeper than you might think. For those of you that are believers and you're listening today, the church has become so worldly that you can be led astray, even in your own fellowship. And you can assume that things that you're doing are right, because that's the way we're doing it. I remember back in the early, in the later 60's, when I was stationed near a town, and I joined the church, how there was a fellow that came in there and he began to change the music. I didn't know, I knew he was probably somebody important or something, he was really good at music. I think he was a music guy that had to get into the military. But anyway, he influenced the whole church in the music area. And the Spirit of God, less than a year later, told me to get out of that church. Get out. He said, this is a social church, it's worldly. And I left that church. Went over to another church where they was preaching the Word, and I was pretty new in these things, I'd just been saved a couple years. And I got plugged into a guy that was a Bible preacher. Man, he preached the Word. I went back and told my other pastor, I said, you ought to come hear this guy. I was so naive and dumb, you know, to go tell him. I didn't know he was dying inside, spiritually, but he left us soon after that. But I got plugged into the Word of God. And man, was it powerful. And I learned that I could not be conformed to the world. That I was to be transformed by the renewing of my mind by the Word of God, that I might prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And Paul went on to say, You know, it's a humbling thing for a whole church to recognize that they've gone astray. And we see this happen. It's a humbling thing for a pastor. And this is what I had to do. I had to recognize that I'd gone astray. I'd gone through all the years of training, but yet I'd missed out on the Spirit-filled life and the power of God. And I had all this education, all this knowledge, and I thought I knew how to do everything that needed to be done to make a church run. And I didn't know beans. I still don't know too much anyway. But what I do know, I'll share with you. Alright? Now listen, let's just do some talking today. In our churches, we need revival. We're all hung up on counting nickels and noses. And that's alright if you want to count the nickels and noses. You need to know what the offering is. And you need to know, I guess, how many people are coming so you know how to make plans to build a bigger building for God's blessing. But if you're down or up according to the nickels and noses, then you're worldly, you're carnal, you're fleshly. You're not zeroed in. Let God do the adding to the church. If you keep yourself clean and hot with God, then God'll do the adding. Now, I want to take you a little bit today onto some practical stuff. How do I get out of this system? If I've been ingrained into this worldly system, and it's deeper than you think, our churches are saturated with worldliness. We've taken on the spirit of the age into our churches. And many of us have no concept of how far we've gone. And I'm not out to attack your church. God's given me a ministry of encouraging churches, encouraging pastors. And I know it sounds negative because there's so much bad stuff around, but really it is positive. And we are excited, and we are happy, and we rejoice in the Lord, and we have a good time. But boy, when we go into church, the pastor that I'm working now is fixing to go off to Montana. Him and the prayer man with him are going to go up into a place. My friend, they're going to work. They're going up onto the front lines. They've been there. They were there last year. The pastor was by himself and his family this year. They're going to go to work. There's some stuff that needs to be done. When it comes to cleaning house, getting roots of sin and things out, it's work. But if you want the joy of the Lord, then you have to go through the process of death. Now, how do I get out of the system of the world, or how do I get it out of my heart, my mind, my thinking, my church? But yet still stay in the world, and still be a person that people can get along with, people that enjoy. Here's how I'm going to share with you how to do it. The only way out of any world is by death. The only way out of any world is by death. Now, I'd like to take you back over to Romans 6, and I'd like to just read down there through this passage with you. And I want you to follow along. I'm not going to give you any great exegetical study on it. We're not going to dig into all the meaning of the Greek words and everything like that. But I just want to flow down through there, and I want to emphasize one word, and that's the word death. Because, you see, that's the key word. Death. Death is the key. I asked my kids the other day, we were sitting there one morning, I said, what's the key to life? And they said, well, Jesus is. And I said, what was it about Jesus that made it so significant? And they said, His death. He died. And then He rose again. Yeah, you have to have the death before you have the resurrection, though. Now, let's go through Romans 6. Paul said, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? My friend, one of the things that we've done in our churches is that we have continued in sin to such a point to where not only have we taken on the world's view of things, but we think that they're normal. It used to be everybody knew that adultery was wrong. Everybody knew that divorce was wrong. It was a thing that the scriptures had laid out very plain. For thousands of years past, it was wrong. Now, the world has taken on and absorbed the world's, the system of adultery, fornication, divorce. The world has, this is the way the world is. But you go in the church and the church has absorbed the ways of the world to where the world is in the church. And you're the weirdo if you stand up and say, God says it's wrong. And so what we say, well, God's grace covers us. We're going to allow it to go on. God's grace covers it. And Paul says, God forbid, God forbids it in the church. And so when the preacher allows it, he's doing what God has forbid. And this is why the world has no respect for the church. This is why the unsaved have no respect and they're not drawn to the church. You try to get them in, you say they won't come anymore. Why should they come? Our church, we've been trying to get the world out. There's been lots of crying and complaining. But we notice that the more of those that leave, that are crying and complaining, those that are hungry and they're tired of all of that stuff, are coming in and saying, I'm tired of it. I want Jesus. Just making more room. We have a small church, been wanting to get a big one. But I guess God just wants us to keep cleansing ourself. But why is it we just violate Scripture? God says he forbids sin. God forbid, verse 2, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? I'll tell you how we're living. How come we can go on living in it? It's because we haven't died to it. We haven't died to sin. And this is what happens when you get saved, when you receive Jesus as your Savior. He comes into your life. You die to your old life of sin. That's what the Scripture teaches. That's what the early Christians, when they got saved, the Jewish believers, when they got saved, they died to their old life. When they were baptized, they come up out of the water. They were immersed under the water. They come back up. They're saying, I'm dead to the old life. I'm a new me. And I have a new life. And Jesus is my life. They didn't want nothing to do with the old life. They needed some extra food, extra houses. They said, I've got some extra food. I've got an extra house. Need an extra camel. I've got it. You can have it. They were dead to the old life of covetousness and selfishness and misery. They were excited. They said, we're going to throw you to the lions if you don't repent. Throw me to the lions. That lion will be a sanctified lion. Man, they were excited about Jesus and they turned the world literally upside down because they were dead to the old life. And they, the Christians, took over the world up to about the first part of 300. About 300 years later, then Satan changed his tactics. In 313, when Constantine made Christianity a state religion and mixed Christianity together with paganism and come up with Roman Catholicism, then we had a new ballgame. And this is what he's been doing ever since, trying to infiltrate and mix and mix. Until today, we don't even hardly have anything of Christianity left in our churches, except we've got a building. We've got a form of service. We've got a preacher or whatever. And we go through the ritual. But the early church was a vibrant, lively body that functioned. They ministered to one another. And how did they do it? What was it? They didn't have the world in their system. They were pure. They were spirit-filled. And this Romans 6 is the key. Let's go down there and look at it now and see how you line up to it. Verse 3, Paul said, Know ye not that so many of us, as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Now let's just stop there. Here we're talking about a baptism. He said, Know ye not that so many of us, as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Here we have identification with Christ, with death. And he comes on in verse 4, and he says, Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. Christ died. When you came to Christ, you died. Your whole life died. It's dead. It's destroyed. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ, now catch this, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. This is it. It's a new life. It's a new life. We're walking in a new life with Jesus. And then he says in verse 5, For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death. You see, Jesus was dead to that old life. When he come up out of the grave, he didn't go back to the old life of walking around the country with the disciples anymore. That was finished. He would show up on the scene here and there. For 50 days, he showed up here and there and ministered to them and talked to them. But that old life was over. He rose to a new life. He was back with the Father. Now, when you and I come to Jesus and we identify with him, we receive him as our Savior, we die to the old life and we walk a new life with Jesus and the Father. The Spirit of God leading us. He fills us. He controls us. He indwells us. It's a new life. So he says in verse 5, For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. What was that? It was power. Nothing but power. Sheer power. 100% power. And that's what we are missing today. We don't have the power of God in our lives. We don't have the power of God in our churches. We don't have the power of God. And what is it? We've missed out on the dying. We haven't died. If we die, there's power. Just like he says in John 12, Unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies, it springs up into life. There's power. Life is power. And so, verse 6, Knowing this, that our old man... Do you know this? That your old man was crucified. When you received Jesus Christ as your Savior, the old man was crucified. He has no right in your life no more. He's dead. He's crucified. This is what the Scripture says. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. If you're still serving sin, maybe you need to get saved. Maybe you need to understand that that old life is finished. This is powerful. Now notice verse 7, For he that is dead is freed from sin. Are you free from sin? You say, no, I've got a sin I haven't been able to break. For he that is dead is freed from sin. My friend, you need to die. Die to it. Recognize that you've died to it. If you are saved, then you need to recognize that you've died to the sinful nature. You're dead. You don't have to do it anymore. You're willfully rebelling against God. If you're a Christian and you still have a sin in your life, I don't care what it is, if it's fear, anger, lust, greed, fornication, whatever it is, you're in willful rebellion against God and you're in trouble. God's been on your trail. Many of you have been trying to blame the devil and it's been God. He's turned him loose on you. Actually, if you will not obey God and what He said about clear revealed scripture, you open yourself up to demon invasion. They can harass you, confuse you, mess you up, cause things to happen in your life. That may be the problem with your washing machine. Who knows? And you've been trying to, you've been going to all kinds of things to get these problems straightened in your life. Maybe going to some professional counselors. Wow, isn't that wonderful? And all you need to do is repent of your sin. Get right with God and walk in the Spirit. Listen, verse 8. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. When's that gonna happen? My friend, that is going on right now. It's gonna be in eternity too. But my friend, the salvation I've got, start of the day I got saved, I was bought by the blood of the Lamb. My sins were covered by the blood of the Lamb and I started walking with Jesus. Right at that point. Now, if we be dead with Christ, that's the key. You have to be dead with Christ. Identify with Him. We believe that we shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over Him. Now, how does that affect us? Well, look at verse 10. For in that He died, He died unto sin once. But in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves. To be dead indeed unto sin. It's a matter of understanding it and putting into practice that you are dead to sin. And alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you understand that? It's simple. But yet we try to confuse it and make it something hard to understand. You know, let me get it down to it. Let's put the cookies down a little bit lower in the shelf. Let's say that you die this week. Literally, physically you die. You're laying there in the coffin. You will not have one temptation for lust. You will not have one temptation for greed. Your eating problem will be over. Your financial problems will be over. Your problem with your neighbor will be over. Or your wife or that neighborhood dog that does things in your yard you don't like. All your problems are over. You're dead to all of those things now. You're dead to it. Now what God wants us to understand is that when we receive Christ as our Savior, we're to just consider ourselves dead. Just like laying in the coffin there. We're dead to all the old life. And we're alive to a new form of life. And it's Jesus. Everything that we do, we check with Him. Well, Lord, now that I've received You as my Savior, what do I do about this habit of smoking? And God says, You're finished with it. Don't do it anymore. And you say, Yes, Lord. You're my master. And He gives you the power not to do it anymore. The reason many of you have not got victory over sin in your life is because you've been trying to do it in your own power, and you haven't been drawing on His power. He gives you the power and the ability and the strength to do whatever you need to do. So when you come to the Scripture in verse 12 of Romans 6, Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof. You need to understand that that's a command. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. You choose to obey or disobey that command. Verse 13, He says, Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead. And your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. What you're doing now is you're yielding yourself to a new power. And it's God. Before you're yielding yourself to an old power, the world, the flesh and the devil. And it just ran havoc with your life. Now you have a new master. One of my favorite illustrations, I don't think I've shared it for a while, I was raised in the deep south. Down there where we had the cotton fields, all around you could see the cotton fields. Raising that cotton. And back, if I can take you back in a little story. Back 150 years ago, on an old plantation down there, and I may have to close up with this if it gets long, but if you can just imagine, here's an old Sam out there. He's a slave. And I wasn't for slavery. But imagine he's a slave out there, he's been hoeing cotton all of his life. And old Sam is getting tired and old, and the master decides, old Sam, he ain't worth his keep anymore, I'm going to sell him. So he takes old Sam down to the auction block, and he auctions him off. And the new master buys old Sam. And they're walking away from the auction block, and old Sam's got his head hung down, he's walking along, got his chain, dragging his chain. And the new master turns to him, he says, Sam? He says, yes sir. See these papers? Yes sir. These are your papers, Sam, I bought you. And he takes those papers, he says, Sam, watch this. And he rips those papers in two. He says, Sam, you're a free man. I didn't like the way that old master of yours was treating you. And I bought you to set you free. You're a free man. Here's the key, take off that chain. He reaches down, takes off that chain. He says, what you going to do, Sam? Here's some money, to get you a start in life. He says, boss man, I don't want that money. He says, what do you want? He says, all I want to do is come home and serve you for the rest of my life. Any man that would love me enough to die for me on the cross, I want to serve him. You see, Jesus died for me on the cross. And I'll serve him. Just like old Sam, he went home and he served his master. Any man that would set me free, I'll go home and serve him. Jesus set me free, I'm going to serve him. He set me free from the old master. And many of you need to be set free from the old master. You've thought in your minds, you were saved. You thought in your minds, you're free. But the reason you've never had a day of freedom in your life and you've gone to church all your life is because you've never received Christ as your savior. You've thought about it. You've done it in your mind. You maybe even walked the aisle. But my friend, when Jesus comes in, he is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. And when he comes into a life, you know it. He changes your life. He sets you free. He won't let you get away with sin. He's a master. And old Sam went home with his master and he served him. But you know what happened? One day he was walking down the road back by the old cotton patch where he used to hoe cotton. And the old master saw him coming and he hid behind a tree. He's going to pull a little joke on Sam. Sam had worked all his life out in that cotton field. And when he got up to the tree, the old master jumped up and he said, Sam, what are you doing? Get out in that field and hoe cotton. And the old Sam was about scared to death, jumped 40 foot up in the air and landed out in the field, grabbed the hoe and started hoeing cotton just as fast as he could. He was hoeing along there for a few minutes. He said, wait a minute. What am I doing hoeing cotton? I'm a free man. I don't belong to this man anymore. And he threw that hoe down and walked back out to the road. The old master was laughing. He walked by him with a disgusted look at him and went on home to his new master that treated him right. And you know, many of us are like that. We've received Christ as our Savior. Then the old devil, the old master has come back and tricked us. He's tricked us somehow into getting back into the cotton field and you've been hoeing cotton and it's hard and it's hot and you're getting tired and you're getting old and life has no joy. Life has no pleasure. Why don't you come home? Why don't you come back? Why don't you confess to your heavenly Father that you've been loving and obeying another master, the old master? And he says, neither yield ye members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. You come back and say, God, I yielded myself to the devil. I've yielded myself to him. Our time's gone. Till next time, I trust that God will continue to bless you. And remember, Jesus Christ is all you need. But is he really all you want? God bless you.