In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of recognizing our own guilt before God. He describes a scenario where every action and word we have ever spoken is projected on a screen for us to see, exposing our hypocrisy and wrongdoing. The preacher argues that no one can claim ignorance before God, as our actions and words reveal our knowledge of right and wrong. He also emphasizes the need for people to understand their lost state and the importance of salvation through Jesus Christ.

I, Lincoln Prattney, is entitled, The Marks of a True Jesus Person. The last session we're going to talk about causes the seeds that fell on good ground and the essential conditions of salvation. Christian life is a religion where young people have the opportunity of sitting in a church once or twice a week, listening to a good sermon, so they can make it to heaven and stay out of hell. Now if after three sessions you still believe that, you've got rocks in your head. I had an illustration I've used for a number of times about witnessing. If you were ever along one day and you see a guy fishing in a waste paper basket, and you come up and you kindly ask, what are you doing? What do you think I'm doing? What does it look like? I'm fishing. You ask him kindly, have you caught anything? He looks at you and he says, no. But, I have found out what the problem is. I know what the problem is. You say to yourself, I know what the problem is. He says, I've been using the wrong reel and the wrong bait. But I just got some new bait and a different reel. I'm still catching him now. Fishing in an empty waste paper basket. As you walk away from that dude, you do know three things, two things at least about him. Number one, that there's something very wrong with that dude. And number two, that he's still fishing in the wrong place. And any discussion of genuine witnessing must also involve those two questions. If you have been fishing and you haven't caught anything, then first have a look at yourself. And secondly, have a look where you're fishing. We want to talk first of all then about the Christian, because as we said, genuine Christianity is not something you do, it's something you live. Christianity is not simply a number of things that you have to get out of the way in order to be accepted by the Lord. The Bible has never taught salvation by works. It never has and never will. But, the Bible does teach that a Christian is a certain kind of person who is radically different from other kinds of people in the world. Would you please turn in your Bible to the book of Luke, Luke chapter 8. Jesus is very kind to us in this parable, because he doesn't just leave us by telling us that some people didn't make it and some did. He tells us why. And that's the lovely thing about the Bible. God is always very practical. He never gives us things to tickle our ears, but to change our hearts and make us different. And in the Bible we are told, what are the conditions of a ground bringing forth good fruit? Good seed. Now understand, in this parable the sower is the same in each case. It's the same sower. There's not a word said about the person who sows the seed. Also, there's nothing wrong with the seed. The seed in each case is good seed. The thing that differs in each case is that the ground is different. The ground is not prepared. And so as we talk about true evangelism and true Christianity today, we do need to say a few things on how to prepare the ground so that the seed will grow properly. In your witnessing you will probably find every now and then, you may find at least, somebody who is open and receptive to the gospel. The man whose heart is broken over his sins, who really feels wrong about what he's done and hates what he's done, who comes to you and says, this is exactly what I really need to do. I know my heart has been broken. I have hurt God. I've hurt others. I'm a failure. I'm a washout. I really need to change my life. Then you will not need to do a great deal of what I'm going to tell you. You can simply take that young person, that man or that woman, and kindly point them to the Savior. From that point on it will be a simple thing. If you really hate what you've done, just simply tell that to God. Hopefully honest with Him, and then surrender your love up to Him. Let Him come into your life and change you. But most people that I have met on the streets are not like that. You may be totally different. You may rush out. You may come into houses. And every place you ever knock on the door, and every place you've ever done any witnessing in, why for goodness sake, you probably have a whole bunch of people. You come to them and you say, Hello, here I am and I'm a Christian, and I've come to tell you all about Jesus, and I understand you're really hungry and you're searching for God, and I've got this tract here that will tell you all about how to give your life to Christ. You may find people all over the place that say, Oh wow, this is what I've been always looking for all my life. If only somebody had come earlier and fall on their knees and give their lives to Christ. You may find a large number of people like that. But I confess to you that I have not found a great deal of people who do things like that from door to door. Matter of fact, not only from door to door, but almost anywhere. You can go to the average kid today, you can say that kind of thing to him. He'll say, Oh really? Well thank you very much, I do appreciate that. Now you see, what we need to do then is how to break up the soil. We need to learn how to furrow up the ground. So that the ground which is rocky or hard or weedy will be prepared for the gospel and that when the seed is sown, it will take root and bring forth fruit. We need to do, if you like, pre-evangelism. And I say this to you this afternoon. That God would rather have you do a good job of breaking up the ground and leave a man convicted but still unwilling to surrender to Jesus, but leave him convicted than to push him through to a phony repentance and a phony faith so that he says, I believe in Jesus and signs on the dotted line and when you come back he's the same man as he was before. So I say to you, it is better to leave a man in conviction but unconversion if he will not surrender than to push him through just to collect scalps on your belt. And it's so easy to go out and witness things and these are going wrong motives. To come back and say, How many of you win? Well I won 15, how many of you won? I remember once they were asking how many decisions were made during the day and people were putting their hands up and said, How many decisions did you have? I had five decisions, praise the Lord, you know, do the same. And there was David sitting there beside me and David said to me, I had 15 decisions today, 14 were against Christ and one was for him. Francis Schaeffer calls pre-evangelism taking the roof off. He says, Here's a man and he's safe and sheltered inside this house. He's safe inside that house. Now the house he's talking about of course is not the physical house he's living in but the house he has built to shield himself from the gospel. You come up to this man and say, Do you want to be saved? He'll probably laugh in your face because he doesn't think he's lost. So you need to spend enough time with that man until he really sees he's lost before the word saved means anything to him. Now what does the word lost mean to a person who's sitting down in a chair watching television and enjoying himself. You say, Hey, I want to tell you how to be saved. And he says, Oh really? So there is a song that was given in the World Congress of Evangelism called How Lost Can a Man Be and they gave this Christian song to a group of kids and they asked them to shoot slides on the theme How Lost Can a Man Be. And first of all the kids went out and they shot an old wino down in the slums How Lost Can a Man Be and then they shot a kid with a needle in his arm overdosing How Lost Can a Man Be and then they got clever the next round when they shot him they shot a guy smiling with a big old sports car How Lost Can a Man Be They saw two kids happy with each other and they put them, How Lost Can a Man Be Maybe that's a little closer to the truth You see, there's possibly to be lost and still be fun Jesus said there's two roads a broad road and a narrow road and he said the pleasures of sin in effect are for a season, so there is some fun in sin Listen, when I was living selfishly I used to have an awful lot of fun But it's kind of a cotton candy Have you had that cotton candy? We call it candy floss in New Zealand And I used Lauren Cunningham was telling me about this one time That's exactly how I felt You feel this, you know and it's only 35 cents It's a huge thing, oh boy I really zipped him out of this And you take a bite on that thing constantly, and the first time I bit it I thought I missed it It disappears The devil's like that and his fun is like that There's a pleasure in sin but it only lasts a little while and at the end of that way, there's a way of death God's way sometimes costly, but the end of the way is life, life everlasting Now, we must then take the roof off, people If they're hard, we must learn to use the gospel First of all, we must learn to use the law as a way of taking the roof off It comes to a man who is safe in his little house, and I pull the roof off and the wind whistles in, see and then I pull one wall down and then I pull another wall down and then I tear all his clothes off and he's standing there dark and naked and unclothed and scared skinny and then I talk to him about the gospel Do you see, that's what we need to do People today have forgotten They don't believe in sin anymore They don't believe in wrong anymore They just simply live like that And it's high time we learned how to take the roof off Now, in the Bible it tells us what happens It tells us that those by the wayside are those that hear then comes the devil and takes the word out of their hearts lest they should believe and be saved I want you to look in the book of Corinthians keeping your finger in this place and see why it is important for us to pray before we speak to people 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 2 We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully but by demonstrating the truth we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God Now, you have one friend who is with you when you talk to the lost man and it's his conscience Conscience is part of the facet of the human spirit Comes from the word sciento to know and con with so it's to know alongside of with And conscience is God's link with the law that men ought not to be selfish which is written on every heart Now understand this, when you go out speaking to people people understand in the depths of their hearts that they ought not to be selfish The word sin has lost its meaning today but the word selfishness has not So I use the word selfishness more than I use the word sin It is one and the same word In essence, sin is selfishness It is living to please and serve yourself first instead of God It is refusing to treat God as if he really was God And then remember we said, all we like have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way That's selfishness, that's the essence of sin Now there's a funny thing about selfishness and that is this, no matter what country or what language people speak, what colour what creed, what religion, all of them know that you ought not to be selfish Even the people who are selfish know that they oughtn't to be selfish And P.S. Lewis brings out one of his little books called Mere Christianity, he says, you've all heard kids arguing and they go their arguments go something like this Give me a piece of your orange, I gave you a piece of mine You know, little kids see Or another one's like this, that's not fair I had this chair first, that's mine And he said the interesting thing about this is, these are little kids Nobody's ever told them what fair is, but they just know that it's not good to be selfish And when they say I had that first, they are both appealing to a law that both of them intuitively understand but neither of them have really been taught I gave you a piece of mine, give me a piece of yours, that's only fair And that rule of fairness or if you like moral law, is written on every heart, and every man you speak to knows that he ought not to be selfish, but the Bible tells us that when we go out and we speak the truth to people and say this, you ought not to be selfish God can speak right to their consciences and say that's right So when I speak to a man who is lost, I can say to him listen, the trouble with you is that you're selfish, and the Holy Spirit says yes Do you remember when you lied? When you stole? When you cheated? Were you immoral? In the back of this guy's head And I'm saying selfish and the Holy Spirit is saying immorality And he says, oh and I have never met a sinner who has done anything except these three things when I've accused him of selfishness. Number one they've said, well no ah not always, meaning I give candy to babies sometimes help little old ladies across the room and the road and various other things. I'm not selfish all the time sometimes I do things for other people too and the next question you ask is why and I say well because I like doing it and then you say why well that's what I like to do Oh really? Well that's selfishness. And you see if if there's no other standard of right and wrong other than what you like to do, you could take that same little baby that you fed candy to and cut it in half if that's what you like to do and that would be equally true and you could take that little old lady that you're helping across the road and take a handbag off her and beat her to death with her own handbag and it would be no different you see you must have some better guidelines than just that what you feel like doing if everybody does their own thing here's a philosophy that sounds beautiful do your own thing as long as you don't hurt anybody and I say amen, that's what the bible teaches providing you put God in do your own thing as long as you don't hurt God and others, and that's just what Jesus said, you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your brother as you love yourself and then when you find a kid who says that's my philosophy, say why don't you live it then that's hypocritical if you really loved God, then you wouldn't hurt him if you really didn't want to hurt people, then you'd acknowledge the God who holds your being together you're not thankful, you've never thanked him he holds your whole life together he gives you your next heartbeat and you'll hurt him the next thing a kid will say is well well well, nobody's perfect by which they mean as long as you're a human being you're going to be selfish, that's not what the bible says we have a new theology today and I want to talk about it in a little while it has been propagated by various preachers and teachers here is the new theology in the parables of peanuts, I think probably sums it up in popular form and it goes something like this man is sinful because he is man because he is man and being a man is being equivalent to being a sinner but that's not what the bible says the bible says man is sinful because he has chosen to be because the Lord Jesus Christ became a man and this is what the new theology says man is finite and sin is anything that comes short of being infinite and only God is infinite therefore man is sinful because he's not infinite so everybody in heaven will still be sinful because they'll always be finite there's only one infinite being and that's God, so everybody will always be sinful because they are finite but that's not what the bible says sin is, the bible says that man has been given a real choice and he's made a real space time choice to hurt God he's chosen to be selfish and that's why he is guilty not because of what he is but what he has chosen to be and I have heard preached so long and so often, man is guilty because he is man, I really believe a lot of people believe it, but the bible doesn't now let me show you the logical consequences of this thinking some of you may have seen the tablets of peanuts and the almost Charlie Brown here's Samuel Taylor quoted, I believe and hold it as a fundamental article of Christianity that I am a fallen creature that I myself am capable of moral evil but not by myself capable of moral good that an evil ground existed in my will previously to any given act or assignable moment of time in my consciousness I am born a child of wrath Samuel Taylor colored, some of you know how he wrote some of his lovely poems under addiction to opium and of course if you believe that man is sinful because he is man then you'll never change your life because he can't whose life can ever be changed who will ever seek to be finite, the answer is nobody, but read the Lord Jesus who was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, great is the mystery of godliness the bible says, God was manifest in the flesh and he did not give in to sin, don't you dare tell me that sin equals being a man, the Lord Jesus Christ became fully human and he did not give in to sin and this thinking carries over and I want you to show to see, just see this on the side if man is sinful because he is man then the new theologians do this Adam made all men sinful and they had no choice in that matter of fact the new theologians would go earlier and say, God made Adam sinful God is the one who is responsible for evil, he made Adam sin he invented evil Adam was finite so Adam was created sinful and no man will ever be infinite, so no man will ever really be clean, but since all of us, God is angry with man because he is finite God is angry with you because of who you are and not what you have chosen to be he is angry with you whether you have done anything or not he is just angry with you but Christ has done a beautiful thing see, he didn't want his father to be angry with him so what he did is he came and he died for all men and this is their thinking man will never be clean so Christ has died to save all men and now I want to read the results of the new theologians under the paragraph or the passage which is called the good news of the great joy they say this Christianity is not, nor has ever been the bad news of a cosmic penal system bent on selling fire insurance for eternity I say right on, alright, that's fine it is instead the good news that any and all penalties against man have been dropped and I say no way that there will certainly be no fire for anyone but only great joy for all and that man may begin even now to live in this joy by living towards the future the only fire that will ever exist for any of us is the fire we talked about in the last chapter the hell recognized or unrecognized that most certainly exists within us now, and as much as we attempt to live our lives on any other basis then the assurance of Christianity is good news let me explain that for you because that sounds kind of cunning doesn't it what it means is this God has forgiven all men and all men are saved, whatever they've done whoever they are, they are already now saved, however if they don't believe that, they'll go through hell on earth because they won't know about it of course when they die they'll suddenly realize how foolish they were and they'll all, they'll have a miserable time down here on earth not knowing that they're assured of salvation so the Christians task then is to go out and tell men that they have been saved that's exactly what it says, now let's move on the Christian message is true of all of us that no less than God himself loves us and will always love us without qualification and that finally nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord then he quotes a number of new theologians and then he says the joyful good news of Christianity then is that God's salvation falls freely upon all men that nothing can finally separate any of us from this great joy that God is not only the source from whom everyone comes but he is also the ultimate goal of everyone then he quotes another scripture and then he goes on and he says both the Christian and the non-Christian all are destined to eternal life with God, but there is a difference, the Christian knows it and then here is the new witness then good friends the job of the Christian then the wise guy who knows this is to simply acquaint the others with the same knowledge that God has already secured their salvation that men begin now to, can enjoy their salvation by abandoning their shaky little foundations that are driving them crazy and basing firm footholds on Christ alone, meaning Christ did it all, I'm already saved, see I'll never be any cleaner than I am anyway because I'm not a human from the point of the view, then he quotes Brunner, a new existential theologian from the point of view of the Christian, non-Christians are people who think they are perishing on the stormy sea, but in reality they are not in the sea where one can drown but in shallow water where it is impossible to drown, only they do not know it, and then he goes on trying, and then he says this the existence of an actual hell is incomprehensible inadmissible and revolting, it is impossible to be reconciled to the thought that God could have created the world and men if he foresaw hell, that he could have predetermined it for the sake of justice or that he tolerates it as a special diabolical realm of being side by side with his own kingdom, a God who deliberately allows the existence of eternal torment is not God at all but more like the devil, hell is a fairy tale, there is not a shadow of reality about it, it is borrowed from their everyday existence with its rewards and punishments, the idea of an eternal hell is one of the most hideous and contemptible products of the triumphant herd mind, from the point of view of God, there cannot be any hell to admit hell would be to deny God, the Bible tells us something then about the truth there is somebody who is against the Christian, you'll read it right here in Corinthians, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost and whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them Satan has no fear of light he can block a man's sight you stand before a man lay out the truth and unless you pray and bind the forces of hell Satan can snatch that seed away, so you must win a war before you go out, it is one of the few wars that must be won on your knees before you actually go out, when you stand in front of a door, you ask that God will bind the powers of the enemy, so when you say something it will penetrate right through the spiritual darkness in the mind and light up on the inside of his mind and you see, Christianity first and foremost, gets hold of the mind in order that the heart may surrender Paul talked about throwing out nets to capture people, capturing every thought and bring it into captivity to Christ, so that's the other thing the guy can do, can say nobody's perfect, or he can say to you well, you're selfish too, and that's the only three things I've ever heard anybody say the interesting thing is not very many of them say, well I love being selfish, if you find somebody like that you say, do you believe that happiness can come to the world by everybody being selfish and if he says, of course it can, say alright fine, you sit down here, and I'll sit down here, now we both believe that by being as selfish as possible and pleasing ourselves wherever we can then we'll bring happiness to the world if he says that, that's true, if he says that I doubt there's much he would, alright now if you have a girlfriend, and I don't have one I take your girlfriend, now you're unhappy, well we have to have a law that says you can't take I mean you can be selfish, but you can't take the other one's girlfriend, alright, fine, put it down God has one too, he says don't commit adultery and then you have a car, and I don't have a car so I take your car, now you're unhappy we have to have a law that says don't take people's cars, God has one too, don't covet and don't steal and eventually you come up with a ten commandments which just happen to be given my friend Tony Salona done you a beautiful illustration last night I'm going to steal it off him and use it he talked about he said how many of you if, say you were given say somebody really loved you and cared about you, wanted to enjoy yourself and they gave you a big car that could go 500 miles an hour big, he created this beautiful car he taught you how to drive it, and then he put this gigantic freeway there big, broad, seven lane freeway, you know, wide, stretching in all directions, how fast would you drive the car? top speed, 500 and it's really exciting, you really enjoy this, 500 miles an hour who could you hurt? there's nobody on the freeway, kid yourself now there's a lot of people that are made based down on the sidelines too, and they're watching you driving up and down 500 miles an hour and they think, wow that looks cool so he gives him cars too they're all on the freeway now what are you going to do? make sure that everybody can still be happy and still get fun how fast can you drive now? well you may not always be able to drive 500 miles an hour, because there's more people now now which is more fun, to drive 500 miles an hour for 5 seconds, or 60 miles an hour for 70 years well probably, 500 miles an hour for 7 seconds, but it doesn't last very long one side of the road well isn't it frightening to drive so much down the road gotta say one side of the road what else would you have to do? you'd have to make sure that you just didn't stop right in the middle of the thing some guy's driving along 60 miles, bang right on the back of your seat, you have to have some guidelines right, so does God, what do you think he did? maybe some guidelines now what say you met some nut who insisted on driving down the wrong side of the road at 500 miles an hour or just went and parked his car right in the middle of the freeway, standing sideways what would you have to do with that guy? you gotta get him off that freeway what do you think God does? people insist on breaking his heart and breaking his guidelines now it's very simple if you were God, what would you do? you want people to enjoy themselves but you've got that guideline within you which they would now, the man who says that I hope that when they bump into some people from this crusade, they don't bump into some people they can say number 3 and be right they better not because in the bible a Christian has given up his selfishness the guy says, you're selfish too I say, oh really, who am I you're just doing this because you like it I said, I'd do it even if I didn't like it why are you just doing it because you need this crutch to get you to heaven I said, I'd be happy in hell God sent me there well, why are you doing it then? because I love God and I love you and that's why I'm here do you see that? the kid comes to you and says, yes I'm selfish but you're just doing the things that you enjoy too I say, well I sure enjoy it but if I didn't enjoy it, I'd still do it I must do that which is this I know who God is I know the great cost of being cut off from him and that's why I'm here, I care about you I really do the kid says, I don't care about God I say, yeah, but he cares about you that's why I'm here do you see this? of course the sinner doesn't care about God but God cares about him because the whole story of the Bible is not man looking for God but God looking for man in the very opening chapter when man breaks God's law God comes broken hearted and says, Adam, Adam, where are you? and Adam says, I heard your voice in the garden and was afraid and I hid myself and that's the whole point of the Bible God is out looking for man and you see, you have elected to join him in a search and redeem mission here come together, we're standing with God and God is out seeking sinners and we're going out as his ambassadors you say, hello, I'm the representative from the big three and Ernie, this is probably not what Bob will tell you but I represent them and we're out looking for you now of course the sinner will be scared because he's always scared of people that remind him of what he's supposed to be like think about yourself think how many excuses you made to stay away from God I don't know how many I made I laugh at some of the excuses of skeptics I've met because I thought up a hundred more cunning ones as a Christian and really yes, I'm looking up haven't got time for God really I say, how much more time will it take you to I can't serve God I've got to do my homework how much more time will it take you to do your homework for yourself than it will take you to do your homework for God oh, I can't serve God I have this big family how much more time will it take you to raise a family for Jesus Christ than it will take you to raise a family for yourself he's not interested in having parts of your time, he wants you and the reason why you live and it won't cost you a cent more time it will simply cost you everything you've got that's all a young man who had been working in a in an office life was totally transformed by Jesus boss came to him and said son, I'm deeply impressed by the change in your life should I give everything I had to have what you have kid looked at him and said, sure, that's what it cost me everything I had ah, but the price the price is nothing compared to the pearl find that pearl tell everything you've got the joy joy of loving God, the God the great God who put us together now, you ought to be able to deal with those very simply, but if a person says, right, I'm selfish, you've got to see and tell him how much selfishness has hurt God, and hurt himself now sometimes people most sinners I know never even think about God, they never even think it could be hurt the Bible is filled with the fact that God is hurt, but a lot of sinners do think about themselves being hurt and that's why sometimes God awakens them about their own lives first, He shows them what about yourself, you've hurt yourself you've hurt others, and then if you feel you've been hurt, do you think how much you've hurt God and I want you to notice it's about hurt, grief is proportional to how much we know a person and how much we have trusted them and looked up to them and invested faith in them in other words, if somebody comes up to you and says, hi Bob, you know, you don't know them, you just go, oh well he's got a chip on his shoulder or something but what if somebody you looked up to you love, you trusted, and that person says, hi pink, and means it, see that hurts it, now you girls you always hurt more than guys I know that, I can ask a guy you know, I can by the way, this guy he was odd come up to you and said something about it he's forgotten, but a girl something rotten to a girl, see five years later, that's the girl you girls know how easy it is to be hurt and I want you to think of how much God can be hurt because there's nobody in the universe who knows you better than He knows you He knows you, and He trusts you more than anybody else in the universe He's put all His trust in you there's a beautiful story in the Bible, God says, I made a little vineyard, I cleaned all the rocks out of it I fenced it off so no animals would get in, and then I took the best vine I could find, and I planted that beautiful vine, and then I watered it and I watched it, and I kept it, and I dressed it and I looked at it and it brought forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes and God says, what more could I have done to the vineyard to the vine, you judge I pray, between me and my vineyard what have I done that my people would turn their backs on me God looks with a broken heart and He says testify against me He says bring a case against me if I have hurt you if I've done something wrong and then put me on trial, get all the facts in, no, God hasn't done anything, but man has done an awful lot to hurt him can you imagine how God can be hurt I get hurt if somebody I look up to and trust says one thing rotten to me and maybe it only lasts, maybe I only said it for a few seconds, but what if a person does that for a day or a week, or a month or a year, or a century people have been hurting God for thousands of years, and not just one person, not just a hundred or a thousand, or even a million, but four nearly four billion people hurting in centuries after a century can you imagine how God feels in His heart do you know how He feels Genesis 6 tells you how He feels the Bible says God looked down at the world that He'd made, the earth and when He saw the earth and the world, what man had done He said it repented Him that He'd made man, and it grieved Him unto His heart and He said I will wipe man off whom I've created, and do you know what the Bible word is for repentance God looked at the world that He saw and He went oh that's the word God has been deeply hurt by man now what what do you do to bring a person to show him how much he's been hurt, often I may use this I'll say imagine a big screen, a movie screen some people say listen I don't know anything about God I don't, why should He judge me I've never read the Bible, I don't know anything about Jesus Christ, I'm a heathen see, I'm one of these heathens in Africa you keep talking about and I've never heard about Jesus, how can He judge me, I don't know what's right and what's wrong really, imagine this little thing around here was connected to each one of your lives, every time you speak and you say that is a dirty rotten hypocritical thing to do that tape recorder switches on and records way up in the back of your mind and videotapes and when you say that's an unjust and dirty war, click and it switches on he is a hypocrite, click he is a filthy so and so, click every time you make a moral decision it records right there and one day you stand before this God, this great God whom you say you know nothing about, this great God whom you're going to tell Him why you didn't really know anything about right and wrong and God says oh really and do you see up there on the movie screen God says light, camera, action from a little helmet on your head channeled into a big video projector, God says February the 14th 1970, Saturday night 1230, Roland and you see projected on the screen something you did that you thought nobody in the world saw but God saw and you listen to the soundtrack and it says that man is a hypocrite and it's your voice and you find yourself doing the very same thing you accuse somebody else of and that's why the Bible says by your words you'll be justified or by your words you'll be condemned no man can stand before God and say I didn't know I didn't know what was right, I didn't know what was wrong and I say to the kids if God pulled that screen down how many of you would like to stay around for the screening with the whole universe watching all they'd like to watch is everybody else's would you like to stand there and see your life put on display, I don't think it would take very many things before God would say now what about this job now if God was was powerful as the Bible says he is, if he knew all things knowable as the Bible says he does and he had all this power and all this infinite credible strength and he hated you, you could stand there before God and you could say at least I fought you until I died you are stronger than me, you're smarter than me and bigger than me but I was a man, I stood up against you God, if he hated you you could do that and you'd at least feel a little glow of pride before you're annihilated but when you stand before this great God who holds the galaxies in his hands, you stand before the innocent lamb who has never hurt anybody and my friend the universe will call you a selfish fool you had nothing to say to that guy on that day, nothing to say at all and so that is the basis first of all man must, must, must be brought to a knowledge of their guilt, you have 60 minutes with a man and he's a really lost, careless, unconvicted man then for goodness sake spend 45 minutes telling him what it means to be lost and spend the last 15 telling him what it means to be saved and it'll mean something don't you dare push somebody through to being saved with some psychological little trap, you talk to that man, show him from, from God's book how he's broken his heart, broken his laws, hurt God and God still loves him and you still care about him God loves all men, reach down down again despite the hurt he's felt in his heart, God so unselfishly chose the highest good of his world that he gave his only begotten son now we're going to sum up simply the condition, on the sheet you have in front of you we've talked about that selfishness, talked about God's care and love for mankind God's love is not feeling good, he doesn't feel good about what's happened and I'm going to take you to a jury trial now so you can understand what salvation is a very simple thing imagine that all of you in this room were convicted of first degree murder all of you have been convicted of the crime of the century 15 mass murders deliberately planned and executed the jury comes back with a verdict guilty, called it Charlie Manson or somebody now, you could be let off if you could prove two things if you could prove these two things to the jury then the law could justify you this is the way the law justifies a man or lets a man off the law can justify a man one if he's not guilty of course it will justify him you ask for justice justice is what you deserve and what you have a right to demand that's justice now if you haven't done anything wrong you can say I demand justice and they'll let you off if you're not guilty see that and you not only deserve it, you can demand it but if you are guilty you are really guilty and you ask for justice they'll give you what you deserve which is the death sentence you've broken the law you've broken the basic guidelines in which the country must run happily and you must get what you deserve now there's only one other way you can get out and be justified by the law if they do prove you've really done it then you must prove you had a good reason for doing it and that reason has to be true and it has to be sufficient in other words if you killed 15 people maybe you could say well it was because they were all going to kill me I just had to shoot and they were all attacking me and I grabbed the gun I shot as fast as I could and they all died see and then they would they may be able to pardon you they'll say well it was a case of kill or be killed it was self defense, you'll have to acquit them see but it has to be true, it's no good telling that story if that isn't what actually happened and it has to be sufficient it has to be not any good, a good enough reason, it's got to be big enough to cover the crime you've done now listen, any one of us in this building could be justified by the works of the law standing before God if you could prove those two things to God if you could prove to him, number one, you've never been selfish number two, that you had a good, true and sufficient reason for being selfish, he would acquit you by the works of the law the process of the law let me ask you a question which one of you in this room thinks that you could be justified by the works of the law by proving to God you have not really been selfish ever in your life and then if you have, you had a good, true and sufficient reason for doing it because if you could prove that to God he would acquit you and the law would justify it but I don't know anybody in this building that could give God a good reason or could say, no I'm not guilty, never been a sinner I never sinned so if you're not going to be pardoned by the works of the law then how else can you get out, and the answer is you can't you can't there's no way the law can acquit you you have had it, you are going to be served a sentence of death because you see, you have taken life you have been selfish you have hurt God and the death sentence must be passed there is no way you can earn a pardon now when Christians say that salvation cannot be earned we mean this there's nothing you can do to make the judge to make the judge want to or have to pardon you say I say to the judge judge, this is all true, I did kill those 15 people I really did, but I tell you what what I'm going to do with all the money that I got from them is I'm going to build a children's hospital and all these kids who have leukemia could come in and be fixed up and see what a cool thing I'm going to do now I know you'll let me off when you see how good my motives have been will that undo the damage of those 15 people's lives no, the sentence must be passed do you see this alright, now then the only way you can possibly escape sentence is if the judge or the court decides to show mercy and there is no way you can earn it now watch the reason why so many kids have messed up witnessing today is they've made a difference between the ground and the condition of pardon there's only one reason why God wants to show mercy and that's because he really has a great deal of love in his heart he wants to show mercy and it comes right out of his free grace it has nothing whatsoever to do with what you intend to do or what you want to do for God to have to pardon you he has decided to if you are willing to meet some conditions so the grounds of salvation are the free grace of Christ see that God loves you he is a merciful God who longs to pardon but that does not mean that that pardon is unconditional now I want you to get this if you've got it, you've got the whole basis of the gospel of Christ if I stand before God then and this great God wants to pardon me then two things must happen one, he's got to show me just how bad my crime was that's what the penalty was to do now most people don't believe that they are really going to be punished, especially in this society nobody has died in electric chair for what the last three years so it's easy to convince yourself well I can kill somebody, I'll get away if I get enough money see, there's no money in the universe that will buy you away out of this and understand once the sentence is passed, it is really set that execution day will really arrive all there is, is a little time in between to seek the mercy and every man and woman in the world that has sinned against God are under that sentence awaiting execution and it will be served unless pardon can be sought now God has to find something that he can show you just how rotten selfishness is and just how important it is that we live holy lives God has to find something then that he could put in the place of the penalty and if he could find something that would shock you into showing you how much you've hurt him how much you've hurt others and how much he hates sin then he'd be willing to pardon you if you meet three conditions and here they are write these down and these are the only three basic conditions of salvation condition one honesty, the bible calls this confessing Jesus Christ you don't even have to be an honest person in order to meet Jesus, you just have to be honest towards him you can be a liar, a cheat, all kinds of garbage and you can come to Jesus and say God I really am a cheat, I'm a liar I'm all kinds of garbage and then that's the beginning of the gospel you don't need a whole bunch of plans to witness once you understand this man has hurt God, there are conditions for coming back and the first one is honesty and I'm telling you this, if you forget everything I've ever said remember this, if a man or woman will but from the bone heart of their lives be honest with God he will change them and transform them and make them different you have to admit your crime then, see you've got to admit your guilt, you have to say I really have done it I do not deserve, we're back to the cookies now I really did steal the cookies, I'm really sorry I really done that, see you admit your guilt secondly you have to quit what you're doing and the bible calls that repentance repentance is not penitence, penitence is just feeling sorry and doing it again repentance is feeling sorry enough to quit, never doing it again there's a guy and he says oh judge I'm so sorry I murdered all those people it really breaks my heart to murder them, I'm really sorry about the one that I killed yesterday, the one I'm about to kill and the one I'm going to kill tomorrow what kind of repentance what do you think a judge would do if a guy said that what would you do if I'd actually go well I'd just go and kill off the others that I missed the first time you'd say put them up, bring the gas chamber right here in the court, if you let this guy out he will kill us all you've got to quit your sin, now notice quitting your sin is not the grounds of your pardon you can't say alright I'm going to quit my sin now you must give me a pardon ah ha ha see that you can't earn it, it's got to be freely by the grace and mercy of the court see but without those conditions you're not going to get the pardon no matter how much the court wants to do it because the court is wise as well as good, last condition you must promise to be a loyal you like obedient citizen of the land in future you must promise to do that which the other citizens have done for happiness you must promise to do what the king or the president has said in order to bring the max amount of happiness and the most the least thing a president can do to a man who refuses to obey those things is to simply ship him out of the country forever and what do you think God will do a man who wants to ruin heaven with his selfishness he'll simply cut him off put him in a little place where he can be all on his own because he said to God stay out of my life I don't want anything to do with you I want to live for me and serve me and please me and I want to be blessed and God says with great tears in his eyes then I'll put you in a little place where you can be blessed and nobody else except yourself where you won't have to ever worry about ever hurting anybody else or have anybody hurting you I'll just put you all on your own and he does just that honesty repentance and the Bible calls this last one faith a surrender a loyalty of love to Jesus Christ where you come and you'll say Jesus I have hurt you I am sorry I give you my life as king and boss I will do what you ask me to do in future I am really sorry that friend the conditions of salvation I've laid them out on your little tract these are the facts here I have a 25 cent piece sum it up head tail tail turn your tail on your part your attendant head give you life turn you boss salvation very simple full honesty turn your back on the past see hate and forsake your selfishness head give you life holy right talent future home career job sport give them all to Jesus Christ to take away or to keep whatever he wants make him boss of your life and turn you back on your selfishness and that is Christianity and what is the thing that will show him the love of God remember God had to find something he put in the place of the penalty he had to put something there and you know what the judge does now remember you are on the death sentence here and the judge is your father a father who loves you not just an ordinary father but a father who really loves you and this is what happens the father comes to the court he stands before you and the people are waiting for the decision what will he say if he just pardons you they'll say he plays favorites because he loves his own kids and so he wants to let them off but on the other hand if he says I'm going to sentence my son to death in the courts mind they'll think well he doesn't really love his kids what is God going to do I'll tell you what he does now he says to you who are under the sentence of death he stands up and he says I sentence you to death by execution right here in this court in the next five minutes and suddenly you get a shock he's my father he loves me you wouldn't do this but you know that he must be just and as the full thing of it since then you realize just how rotten you have been and that your sentence will really be carried out but in the courts heart they think maybe the dad doesn't really love him at all maybe this thing has hardened the dads heart so he says I'm going to get rid of this kid that's causing me so much trouble and then the judge says to the court excuse me he takes off his robe and he comes down to the dock as they wheel in the electric chair and he says son would you step out of the dock I'm going to the chair in your place and he offers his own life as a substitute for the penalty of sin something that shocks you to see that the judge of the universe will not excuse this something that shows you at the same time how much he loves you he cares you enough to die to die for you and when you preach about Jesus nailed in blood and agony between two thieves on a hill you see his hands are nailed open nailed in agony so you see just how much God hates sin but nailed with open arms so you see how much he loves you and if that doesn't break the sinners heart not a bean in hell will ever do that we have a gospel of a great God great love but make sure you lay out the conditions with honesty with compassion with tears but do what God says and you'll see real conversions people that stick and go on for Jesus Christ you say I won't get as many conversions this way that's true but neither did Jesus have many conversions the ones he had stuck and if it's good enough for Jesus it's good enough for me look to God and pray