In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of not rushing through the preaching of the word of God. He encourages the audience to thoroughly analyze and understand the message, ensuring that nothing is missed. The speaker also emphasizes the need for personal reflection and examination, asking questions such as whether one has played with the demonic or is holding onto secret sins. The sermon also discusses the transformation of a man who was once lost but found salvation, and how he became a testimony of God's grace. The speaker concludes by discussing the characteristics of good ground for the seed of God's word to take root and bear fruit.

Father, we thank you again for this opportunity we've had to be together these last few days and we ask you one more time to help us to cap this series off that we've studied in these past five sessions to bring things to conclusion and more important perhaps to practically know the right way to preach and to present the message of our crucified Lord, risen and glorious. In Jesus' name help us, we ask. Amen. We have looked in these previous five sessions at three different kinds of ground, did not make it and I want to finish just briefly off this thing on the weedy ground and then we'll look finally at the last, the good kind of ground. I think the great value of looking at the soil that did not bring forth good fruit or the counterfeits is that it helps define much more clearly what the real looks like by negation. What we have said so far on this weedy ground thing is that there are a lot of people who seem to start well but they get choked out and lists a number of things, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts or strong desires for other things entering in. And it seems to be an intimation of a warning that it's even possible to go forth and have these things happen to you. I'm thinking of examples of young Christians for instance. I imagine, let's say a kid comes from a real street background. He's been spaced out of his skull. He's been a, you know, a murderer. He's run over. He's got a total loss of a life and nothing much left for him to do except die. And then he gets saved. He hears the gospel and he makes some kind of profession of following Jesus. Now wonderful things then start happening to him. People want to hear what he has to say because he's a testimony, a trophy of grace. And so people, now he has value. See, he has importance and value that he never felt before. And so he gets propelled into our Christian culture, given opportunities to testify and witness and stuff like this, put up in the best hotels and sent from place to place. And then he gets a taste for things that he never had before. He never had all this money coming his way. He never had the luxuries that he had before. He came from a poor background, see. He never had these sophisticated temptations. His were very simple ones, you know, beat somebody up or not, or get some acid today and score or not, you know. They were simple, but the sophisticated ones, the kind like chariots of fire portrayed so well, that kind of thing he'd never been exposed to before. But I know young people like that, that once had a testimony across the land, that are gone today. Where are they today? Some of them are in business. They're using the gifts that they learned in preaching to make more money. Some of them got involved in adulterous situations and dropped out of the Christian life. Some of them went back to the streets. And in almost every case, weeds grew up and choked out the word. And we need to lay a foundation here that says, weeding must be done. By the Holy Spirit there must be a digging up of all weeds. Very practically this, a couple of years ago our foundation in New Zealand, I have a little literature foundation, bought a field next door to our little base where all the research and stuff is done. With the possible thought of maybe building a warehouse later when we move out of the other place that we've been renting. And my friend, who's one of the guys who helps run the thing while I'm gone overseas, they had a great idea. It was about a quarter acre field and he decided he'd plant potatoes in there, which is, you know, great thing. So he got all of these seed potatoes and the feed was, the whole field was covered in weeds. So he got a guy in with a rotary hoe and the guy went right through the field and plowed all the weeds, cut them all up into shreds and plowed them into the ground. And then he put the seed potatoes. And what happened is that the weeds all grew and they all grew up. And in the middle of all these weeds there were potatoes. So if you could hunt through the weeds you'd find potatoes. And one guy told him you could get around two tons of potatoes out of that field. We got about ten bags instead of ten tons. So he said, you know what I should have done? I should have killed all those weeds first and then planted the potatoes. So this has great relevance to me at this point. You gotta kill those weeds before you stick the seed in or it'll choke it out. Simple as that. And those little dudes, boy, they are tenacious little dudes. You cut them up and chop them up. And if you don't get those roots and murder them properly, munch, munch, munch. Now we have a looked at some signs how close to a Christian can you be and not be one. I just want to add a couple more in case you think that's not enough. Is it possible to feel sorry about sin and not make it? Yes, Judas did. Went out and wept and hung himself. And probably at this stage people will say, look, you know this this might be true, but the important thing is that you believe in Christ and you follow Him. That's what makes you Christian. If you've got faith in Jesus, if you believe in Him, you're on your way to heaven. That's the key thing. Is it possible to believe in Christ and not be a Christian? Well, here we have an interesting verse in John 2 24. It's obviously some kind of faith. I can't be saving faith, but it's some kind of faith. When he was in Jerusalem, speaking about Jesus, many believed in his name. When they saw the miracles that he did. Now that's an interesting little addition. But Jesus did not commit himself to them. Now that's weird. His people want to commit themselves to Jesus, and he doesn't commit himself to them. What a radical thing to say. Have you accepted Jesus? And he said, well maybe so, but has he accepted you? I mean you want to fit him in. Has he fitted you in? And I think that little line is the giveaway. They believed in his name. Many people would like to have Jesus as their boss, as long as he can take care of their housing needs, and food, and basic economics. It's called Santa Claus. As long as they do not have to seriously have their lifestyle threatened, or their death style threatened by the cross. Is it possible to be the disciple and not make it? Many of his disciples said in John 6 66. This is a hard saying. Who can hear it? From that time many of his disciples, John 6 66, went back and walked no more with him. These were people who followed Jesus, who were disciples of some sort. Maybe not the 12. So we say this. We talk about believing in Jesus. Does he believe in us? Now I'm not talking about a humanistic belief. Has he searched our hearts? Are we honest when we come to him? We talk about trusting Christ. Can he trust us? There's a sad verse in Hebrews. It says, wherefore he is not ashamed to be called their God. Now what a sad little commentary that is. The implication that there are some people that God is ashamed to be called their God. We say I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Is the gospel ashamed of us? Hebrews 11 16. It's that little verse. God is not ashamed to be called. It is not enough to say that I accept Jesus. Has he accepted us? Are we accepted in the beloved? Has he laid his sovereign hand on our lives? That's the question. And that, remember the story of the little French guard and the Louvre. And a man comes up and he's looking at this painting. And he says, what's that? Obviously an art critic. And the little Frenchman says, monsieur, I don't know what that is. That's the most famous painting in the world. That is the Mona Lisa. And this guy looks at it. That's the Mona Lisa. And the French guard says, oui, that is the Mona Lisa. And he goes, hmm, that's a famous Mona Lisa. Oui, that's a famous one. I don't think much of it. Little French guard pulls himself up to his full height and says, monsieur, the Mona Lisa is not on trial. You are. I would love to get those bumper stickers that say, try Christ, he'll scare hell out of you. And stick one right over the top. There's me being mild and tactful now. Jesus had his trial 2,000 years ago and now it's your turn, Jack. He's not on trial. The God of the universe is not on trial. Mankind is on trial. We're in a serious jam, and one we will not get out of without some supernatural intervention. And while we're at it, I have a ministry of ripping off bumper stickers. Can you imagine standing before God, he who said, be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect? And you saying to him, oh God, nobody's perfect. Christians aren't perfect, only forgiven. You're going to believe your bumper sticker or the Bible. It'd be fun for you to argue with God, well that's my bumper sticker, says I paid $4 for that bumper sticker. Listen, is partial obedience to faith? Can you partially obey God? Partially not. Probably have to rewrite the scriptures. Isaiah 1, 16 to 17 would say, if you want your worship accepted, wash you in part, make yourself in some degree clean, put away the greater extent of your evil doings from before mine eyes. Cease partly to do evil and learn in some degree to do well. Isaiah 55, 7 should perhaps read, let the wicked in great measure forsake his way, the unrighteous man partially forsake his thoughts, and let him return with a greater part of his heart to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him. And we want to be consistent, we say God will have some mercy on him. Micah 6a, what does the Lord thy God require of thee, but partially to do justice, to love mercy with sinful defections every day, and as imperfectly as you can get away with, walk humbly with thy God if you can, and nobody can, of course. We sing it like this, I surrender part, I surrender part, part to Jesus I surrender. Now you can have a look at this little sheet I gave you out. It has to do with the carnal Christian question. Can Christians be carnal? Carnal is simply the word flesh or fleshly. It's a good way to understand that, and a moral sense has cut that last bit in and reversed that word. It's the concentration on emotional gratification through the five senses that's the essence of the word flesh. It is to satisfy the self through the use of the five senses in a self-centered way. And that word carnal, fleshly, Christian is little Christ, Christ-like. So you put those two together, you've got a radical combination. Fleshly Christ-like, that's like demonic angel or holy evil. See and we use that, we just go, it's a carnal Christian. We use them, you know what that word is? That's a slap in the face. If you are called carnal by God, that should be a slap in the face. That is equivalent to a self-centered, flesh-centered person. Paul uses it right through the New Testament, cons simultaneously with a concept of the unsaved man. Berkeley translates that little phrase in Corinthians, are you not carnal and walk as man? Are you not worldly minded and behave like the unconverted? In Romans 6 and in sections of Romans 7, the Bible says, they that are carnal, the carnal mind is an enmity, an enemy of God. And if you're carnal, you cannot please God. You're out of Christ, you're none of his. They that are in the flesh, it's the same word, they that are in the flesh, cannot please God. You're out of Christ, none of his. So I would not label yourself carnal Christian. That's a dangerous sort of label to wear around your neck. In the very least, in the best possible construction we can put on that, we can say there are Christians who really love God, who do not know that some of the things they're doing are alien to the gospel and are hated by God. That's the best you can say. You could say, well they're babies, they don't understand that. But if you know and you practice, and you know how to get out of what you're practicing, and you continually do so, then you have grave suspicion to wonder whether or not you really do know what that word Christian means. And I fear we have a lot of people who practice without compunction, a self-centered lifestyle, death style let's call it, and call themselves Christians. Well, one day when we stand before God, he will not evaluate us on our culture. He will evaluate us on what we really knew, and what we really obey. That'll be it. And it is quite possible, how many of you have done something wrong and not known it was wrong? You found out later. My little boy, if he's helping me with gardening. I don't garden, so this is a ridiculous illustration. I could be pulling weeds up, and I go in for a lemonade, and he can come out and pull all the flowers. Healthy. Now, I don't dropkick him over the house. Come out, what do you do to mummy's flower? See, because he doesn't know. That's different. God is a father. He really loves people. He is not a baseball bat carrier, looking for the slightest, I wouldn't put it, boom, home run. You know, he is not like that. What? We're talking about people that aren't, that aren't really children. So we're not dealing with ignorance. We're dealing with a non-violation. I'll just say this, it seems to me highly unlikely that you can partially obey God. You can partially be saved. You can partially do this, and partially do that. It seems to me that in Scripture, we either obey what we're given. It's one thing to know you're wrong, and not know how to get out of it. That's another ignorant thing. Some people know they're wrong, they don't know how to get out of what they're doing. Some idiots give them bad counsel. Fast, pray for 15 years. Instead of, lay down your self-centeredness, and trust Jesus. That will really get you out of that thing, mess you're in. Some people say, wrestle with it, fight it. So they do, and it gets bigger. Self-centeredness always gets bigger when you concentrate on it. None of these legal ways, none of those threat bribe ways will work. Only the gospel will deliver. Only Christ himself can do that. All right, I'll just give you a little, I'll give you one little thing, I want to add to this, and we'll go to the good ground, which only take about 20 minutes to do. In the old days, there were three kinds of people. Today, there are three kinds of people. In the old days, they had the careless sinner. They might, their names might have been different. The careless sinner was somebody who didn't care about God. He could care too much about God. He wasn't worried about his soul, or his life after death, or anything like that. He just went on and did his thing. He wasn't interested in God. He wasn't worried about his sin, nothing. Then they had, on this side, they had the Christian. And then the one in the middle was called the convicted sinner. Here's somebody who knew he was wrong, and wrestled with his wrong, and tried to get out of his wrong, but was not yet saved. Today, we have three kinds of people. We have the natural man. He behaves exactly like this man here. See? Over here, we have the Christian. But we've added a word to him now. He is the spiritual Christian. And the man in the middle still exists, only he's changed names, and he's changed kingdoms. He is called the carnal Christian. And as far as I can see from Church history and the Scripture, he is identical with this man here. Only we've relabeled him and put him in the kingdom when they didn't. They said, this guy knows he's wrong. He knows the law. He knows Christ can save him. He is fighting. He is struggling against sin. He's dropping and getting up again and fighting. But he is not free, because he has not learned the simple secret of dying, and being resurrected with Christ, and laying down his old life, and being reborn. We just changed his name. He still exists. He has the same characteristics, but now we call him a Christian. And that's where that radical thing Lynn Ravenhill spoke about last year, that Campus Crusade survey, it was taken last year, among evangelical Christians, where over 90% said, over 90% said, they considered themselves carnal or baby Christians, of evangelical Christians in this nation. Over 90% considered themselves carnal or baby Christians. And what does that say to you? Lynn Ravenhill said, that's like finding the entire Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are manned by Cub Scouts. Now do you see why the preaching of a holy life could genuinely bring a revival? There are a lot of people who call themselves Christian, and really think they are. But their lives have not changed, and somehow they've got to be rooted out of there. They may make some mistakes, and in holding this thing up, and saying holy life, some people who really are Christians, might get some condemnation. That's a risk. But I'm worried about this 90% that are, and nobody's saying anything to shock them out of that thing. And God is not going to export that to the rest of the world. No way, Jose. One of my favorite things, and if you wanted to put a title on this thing, you could call it this. One of my favorite stories, is Alexander the Great, who was out checking on his perimeter defenses in one of his camps, in the middle of a campaign. Young general, most brilliant general who ever lived in the Greek civilization. He's out there checking his outside perimeters, and he's sneaking up on all of his guards, you know, hoping to get challenged and stuff. And there's one young guy, he's so tired, he's leaning against his tree, and he's falling asleep on his feet. And Alexander gets all the way up to him. Boy, the guy's still asleep, and then Alexander grabs him, lifts him right up. The kid freaks out. First he thinks it's an enemy, you know. And then he sees it's his general, which is worse than being good. Enemy just kills you. General takes you apart, skin by skin, fingernail by fingernail, before the people. Because you, that's like betrayal. You go to sleep on your post, you could cost the whole army. So Alexander's got this kid off his feet, up against the trees, holding him in the air, and he's so mad. And Alexander says to him, what is your name? Soldier. And the kid is so terrified, his teeth are chattering, his knees are knocking in the air. And he goes, Alexander, sir. And Alexander the Great says, what? He goes, Alexander, sir. And Alexander the Great says, can you change your conduct, or you change your name? It's a good title for this. Change your conduct, or change your name. Now let's go to the last ground. This one will not take long. It is simply a listing from Scripture of what good ground looks like. And we're not going to get into arguments about whether we can make that ground like that, or what. I'll just simply show you what it looks like. And I believe that God has given us practical instructions in each of these areas. All right, can you now list for me? The simple thing is that this seed falls in the ground, the soil is responsive, and there's three different kinds of yield. That has to do with something sovereign, you know, God's doing something. Who knows what kind of seed is going to bring 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold, who knows, you know. You lead a kid to the Lord, you don't know what kind of fruitfulness will be in the ministry. That's up to God. Gifts and callings of God are without repentance. He does whatever He wants to do. We're talking about the soil now. Tell me from Jesus' words what the characteristics of that soil is. I want you to look at all three Gospels now, because we're coming down to the home stretch. First Matthew 13, 23. First characteristic, he hears the word. Next, he understands it. Now where did we get that one from? That's the positive of something we saw before. What was that? The wayside ground. Remember, understands it not. This is a positive then. And then later on, we put the little gap here, which bears fruit and brings forth some 100 fold, some 60, some 30. All right, now Mark. Does Mark add anything? Yes, he does. Here's the word, and? Receives it. So receiving is important. Talk about receiving Christ. It's there. There is a receiving of something. The word, engrafted word, which is able to save your soul. Remember that thing? And then the same end. Brings forth fruit, some 30, some 60, some 100. Exactly the same. Now go to Luke. Remember Luke, the teacher always gives us that extra little amplification every now and then. He brings it out. Now give me the rest, because there's some three significant things that Luke adds to our understanding and the amplification of this. Luke 8, 15. Firstly. Ah, here's two key things. It receives it with a good and an honest heart. Oh, it's the other way, isn't it? Let's put it in the right order. Put this down here. An honest and a good heart, receives the word. So it would go actually honest, good, and then receive. That'd be one, two, three, like that. Having heard the word, and then what else? Keeps it. Having heard the word, keeps it. So there's a going on thing. Keeps it and brings forth fruit with perseverance or patience, with hanging in there. Now there is Jesus' description from the synoptics of the kind of ground that makes it. So let's look at each one of these elements. In the sheet I'm going to give you now, this is the one I use most often in counseling. I've given out over two and a half million of these things in the last 15 years. You'll recognize this when you read it through now. You'll see that the inside cover of this, it's just a little track called these are the facts. It's no big heavy thing. All it is, is I've taken these areas, each one of these, and just made a little acrostic sort of thing out of them. And what I want you to do is to see this. This is an, this is a sort of the high points of what we've looked at, but it is not always necessary to go through all of these things for somebody to get saved. You understand what I'm saying? We're not saying this. There are 15 things here you have to do to become a Christian. For instance, what if somebody has not heard? Obviously they're going to have to hear something, right? The gospel must be preached. How do they hear without a preacher? How can they preach without being sent? So there's a whole bunch of stuff connected to that. But what if they have heard? Do they understand? They understand what it means to become a Christian. Do I understand who Jesus is? And what sinners? Do they understand? If they do, you don't have to go into that. See? What if next, let me just add something here. This is really the next one, the next word, if we're putting these things together in a chronological order. The next one would be an honest and good heart receives it. It seems to me that the one key element, as far as the human side responding to God's grace and his conviction, is honesty. See for years, and I've been a missionary evangelist now for 20 years, in college campuses, in high schools, in everywhere except the jungles that Leland's going to. It, when I've asked kids, how did you get saved? How did you really get saved? Not how you're supposed to get saved. How did you really get saved? Now some of them were taken through a standard soul winning plan. You know, four things God wants you to know. Four spiritual laws. Eight, eight godly laws. You know, different things. Soul winning made easy plan. Or some of them went through that. And I can pretty much tell you, because they use that today. But others, they didn't bear any correspondence or resemblance to any soul winning plan you ever heard of. Now that would embarrass you until you read the New Testament. Have you ever tried to work out Jesus' soul winning plan from the New Testament? You want to try it from the Gospel of John? First you say, you must be born again. Then you say, come down out of your tree, because I'm going to have a house. You know, then you say, go and get your water pot. And you saw, you saw all these weird things. And you come up with nothing at the end, you see. I tried to get Jesus' soul winning plan. I had about 82 pages of soul winning plan. And it's really difficult to give all that to people. Come out of your tree, and you must be born again. And I think sometimes when we witness, we, we, we think it's like magic. There's certain magic words you say. It's like a rabbit's foot. We don't really understand what God is trying to do with people's lives. And we don't understand the way the Gospel works. And so we say magic words, see. Please turn your tape over for the remainder. Here's the first magic word. And we lay this, maybe it's a verse, see, we say. Firstly, you must know this. All sin that comes out of the glory of God. You understand that? I think so. Fine, okay, that's point one. Point two. Where's your sin at that? Understand that? Mmm, I guess so. It's all up here, see. So then the person quotes the soul winning plan. They're not saved yet, but they, they can tell you. And then we do what, what is a logical consequence. You know, Jesus said, whosoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. You believe that? Yes? Well, if he doesn't take you out, what does he do? I guess he must take you in. That's right, you're a Christian, glory to God, amen. The person goes, oh I am. And then tells his words, forces a waxy smile and testifies that he's been converted. He is a victim of spiritless logic, a rationalistic deduction from a set of premises, which give you a philosophical conversion, but not what Wesley said, the spirit answers to the blood and tells me I'm born of God. And you get a philosophical conversion, you come across somebody with a heavier philosophical premise, and they'll blow you away in 15 seconds. I don't care about philosophical premises. I do battle with philosophical premises every day of my ministry in colleges. I have a living Christ. I met him. I wonder if it's true. Look, honesty seems to be the key ingredient in this whole thing. It seems like every person that really gets on it, they don't even have to be an honest person, as long as they're honest towards God. I've had guys say, God I'm a liar, I'm a liar, I'm not even sure that I mean what I'm saying to you right now. And boom, things happen, see. You and I don't know how many times the word lies or hypocrisy is mentioned in the scripture. You know what the word hypocrite is? It's an actor, same word. Somebody who puts up a front, who plays a role. The whole world is playing roles. Roles of what they think they are. Roles of what they think God is. Putting this little front up. When that front goes down, it goes down by honesty. When God the Holy Spirit deals with a person's life, if you bring them to honesty, it is the first major step to genuine conviction. And sometimes you can help people with that. We do this, here's a kid they go, well I don't know, I found it really hard for me to, you know, feel. So get a sheet of paper, ask God the Holy Spirit to show you the things you've done to hurt him first, and others, and yourself. And as he shows you, make a list of those things. And what they're doing is they're getting honest with their life. Saying, boy it's incredible. We've had kids get that, and they take out a sheet of paper, and they go away, and you know, they're hard and cold as nails. And like 30 minutes later, boy they can't write anymore. They're busted into bits. I had a young man come to me after one of Dave Wilkerson's crusades. Dave preached a heavy message on who's to blame. This was years ago. Kid came up, and he, there's two of them, both high school students. Both came up. One kid couldn't look me in the face. I said, what do you want son? He said, I need to become a Christian. I said, great. And I said to his friend who was sitting there on the cigarette, I said what'd you come for? I thought I'd become a Christian too. I said, I don't think God can save you. Shocked the cheese out of him. He said, what? I said, I don't think God can save you. He said, the Bible says God gives grace to the humble. You don't look like that to me. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. You want to get saved? I thought about it. He said, then you get over there on your knees, and you ask God to show you the filthy mess you've made your life, and how much you've hurt others, and yourself, and most of all him. It's easy for you to find out how much you've been hurt, but what about him? You ask him to show you that, and when you get finished, come back and I'll show you how to get saved. And he went away. Boy, he was gone for 30 minutes. Now what about his friend? His friend didn't need that stuff. His friend was honest. He was broken. How do you get a good heart when you got a rotten heart? Change it. It's called repentance. Respond to the Holy Spirit. When he calls, say goodbye. You say goodbye. You turn around. Dan Day Wilkerson said, it's like a train. You get in a train. You find you go in the wrong direction. You stop the train. You get off the train. You catch a train going in the right direction. It's a 180 degree turn. You thought bad things about God, and great things about yourself. Now you start to see what you really like, and you start to understand who God is really like. 180 turn. Metaneo. To change the mind. Literally beyond the mind. To go beyond the old limits of your dumb little ideas about yourself and your universe, and let God invade your mind, and give you a whole new future. And a kid is honest, and he's broken before God. He really wants to dump his sin. He wants to get out of what he's in. Then you don't need to go through this stuff with him. You just simply, you may, you may want to mention as part of this repentance thing, the good things that we talked about. So he doesn't just feel bad about his bad things. See. Then he would not lead a person to Christ, until a guy couldn't look him in the eyes anymore. Now we had us, you know, we fit it in between commercials. Got 30 seconds. You got enough time to get saved, just before the next incredible hole. And when the person's there, and he, all you do is have him surrender his whole life over to Jesus, as his substitute, and his savior, and his master. So with this first kid, after the other kid went away for 30 minutes, this other kid came up. I just said, you ready to really trust the Lord? You ready to leave everything, do anything? Yes. He said, I'm ready. I said, right there? No. I prayed with him, and said, now you pray. I said, Lord Jesus, here's a young man. He wants to give everything he's got to you. I know you don't have to accept him, but here he is. And you've made promises, that if you, if somebody came to you with an honest heart, and really wanted to dump their sin, that you accept them. And here he is. His name is Jack, and he wants to talk to you now. Boom. Okay Jack, there you go. And he broke, started weeping, gave his life to God. He got gloriously converted. I didn't have to say, I wonder if it was real. See. And when his friend came back, 30 minutes later, like this, think I'm ready now. I said, I think you are too. See, and then. What I'm saying is this, if you don't understand what the gospel is, then you're going to be like magic, you see. Here, let's say this verse. And say this verse. And we've finished all four verses, and we're not sure what. Do you see what I'm talking about? This is intelligent cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Jesus did it. He sees a man, the guy's religious. He shocks him a little bit. He sees somebody, a sinner, that's hungry by a well. He talks about himself. Do you see that? This is intelligent cooperation here. You know what the Holy Spirit is doing with people in different parts of their life. I see a kid, he's dishonest, he doesn't care. Well let the Holy Ghost deal with him, until he's repentant and got honest. If he's honest, but he's not repentant, then show him what it means to really repent. So let's give you the list. You've got it there on your little sheet. All I've done is just, I've broken it up to hours. Can you see that? And you want to read them out for me? And yeah, this is assuming that a message is being preached, which is the gospel. Okay, now a person wants to get saved. First, that takes care of that bit, and maybe even this bit. Honest. See that? Get honest. Whatever that, whatever that's needed. Let me give you another example. There's a girl, Tony and I, Tony Slano and I counseled some years ago. All the signs in this girl's life showed two things. Unyielded rights, he was really angry, really, really worried. A very selfish girl, and really mad at the, you know, he'd touch her, boom, and she'd blow up, see? And hurt, very hurt. Now we don't know why, but the two major signs in her life was this hurt and this unyielded right. So we knew this. In this girl's life, the thing that's stopping her really getting saved is an unyielded right that has to do with, or there's something also having to do with hurt. That's all we knew. All right, that's just basic signs. Look at a person's life. You see, you don't have to be a genius or deeply godly to see on a person's hurt, you know, like this. You don't have to go, hmm, I wonder what their problem is. It's no heavy, deep spiritual insight. I've got 82 words of knowledge. It's just plain looking at people who have been hurt for a long time. After a while you start saying, hmm, that's what hurt people look like. And when you see people doing this, you know what angry people look like. You see, it's not a brilliant deduction. This girl had some major thing in her life. She, she was religious, she was in church, but there's some fundamental thing was unbroken in life. She didn't come through, you see. So we said to her, listen, you've got a problem. There's some good thing, something, one right, way down in your life you're, you're refusing to give to God, and something to do with it. She said, I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt. Not at all. Nothing. I don't think of anybody. Given everything I know to God, there's nothing else. See, nor was she had a boyfriend that she really loved, and the guy dropped her. Boom. It's a religious guy, maybe even a Christian guy, he dropped it. And she would not admit to God that she'd been hurt by that. She wouldn't admit it. She covered it over and built a whole fabric on top of that. That didn't hurt me. I don't even care that, see. And that was a whole dishonesty. A life built on the lie that she did not get hurt. You know how she got saved? She had to admit to God that she really was hurt when her boyfriend left her. That was a right, see. A right not to be hurt. And when she brought it out, it was the most beautiful thing. See, what kind of counseling is this for a guy to, for a person to get saved? You must admit to God that your boyfriend really hurt you. How does that get to do with salvation? Everything, if you understand, in every life there is a God that takes the place of the real one. When that God goes, the real one comes in. Her God was, I am not, I am not hurt. There's nothing wrong. And when she said, Oh God, he, he hurt me. It came out, boy. Holy Spirit came down on my life. Boom, boom, boom. Transformation. You don't have to mess around and illegally say, you must do these 4,000 things. They died. And what you, it's a core of a boil. You get that and everything goes. You miss it, I don't care what you're doing. It's not going to happen. Now, I would rather you have an understanding of the gospel than you have a plan. I would rather you understand than have a plan. Nice to have a plan, nothing wrong with plans. I had 42 plans and used them all at one stage or another. And like a sermon, it's nice. It helps you when you don't know what else to say. But I'd much rather you rely on God to show you where a person is. And we need some intelligent counseling now. Not people who give rabbit's feet to people. Here, have these 8 verses and I hope something happens to you. Next one. What is this next one? Repent. And that takes care of the bad things. Okay, we add another one. Just to take care of the good things that we don't repent from. What is it? Renounce. See, that's rights. And that's actually just the facet of repentance. But we've broken it down into two things so that most people think bad things here. When you say renounce, then they understand. It means I've got no future. I have whatever. If we don't do this, here's a kid. He's planned to be a lawyer. He wants to be Perry Mason or, you know, cats or something, you know, cats when he grows up. And he is led to the Lord and then somebody says to him, give up your bad things. So he stops smoking, stops fornicating and now he's going to be a Christian lawyer. See, if we tell him this, listen, what if God don't want you to be a lawyer anymore? What if instead he wants you to go to Africa? That might sound silly, but there was somebody who did that. He and his brother were the best two lawyers in their class and they graduated. And one lawyer said, what are you going to do brother? Said, I think you should come into partnership with me and we'll make the best law firm England's ever seen. And the other guy said, no, I think God's calling me to go to the mission field. I'm giving up my law practice. I'm going to Africa. We remember the brother who was the lawyer today because he was the brother of David Livingston. That's a real example. The giving up of rights is an essential part. That's the rocks. Dealt with the rocks. We plowed the ground a little bit. See, dealt with some rocks. Now what's the next thing? Re-plan. It's a new life. See, this is resurrection from the dead. It's a very simple thing. Here you come with all your plans, all your ideas. You're executed. Put to death. There's a nice little grave there. Here's life's Joe Blow. Rest in peace forever. Hallelujah. Finish. Your plans, finished. Your boyfriend, girlfriend, finished. Your career, finished. Your ideas, finished. Your concepts, finished. Finished. Crossed right through the lot. Now a resurrection. What are we going to do with this brand new baby? That's up to God. He can do anything He wants. That's called being healed after you've been wounded. See that? Re-plan. No, let God do anything He wants. And you get people like that, boy, when they make it through this. And I mean, you may miss on this. You really might. You might, you might miss something. You might have rushed over something and the person doesn't really come through. You get them to the end and they don't do it. Don't be afraid to do it again. Then you'd watch them when he's finished. And then he'd say, what has happened? And he'd say, what are you leaving out? And we'll be scared. But we're at plan four. We can't go back to plan three. Well, what are you at step five? Bow your head with me. He didn't care. He wanted them saved. Not making words, not saying the right things. Run them through again. Sometimes they're questions. Bill Gothard has a set of questions. Have you ever played with the demonic? Have you seen? Is this something that you're not willing to, is there some secret sin that you're not willing to expose? Is it something you're unwilling to give up? Just go through the rights and the wrongs. Deal with them if necessary. Don't be afraid to do that. Now that is a little bit more costly than giving people a plan. But we, we're, I'm sick of planned people. I, it's like mechanical wind-up, another Christian, another Christian. We want some godly people that really meet God. That become their unique, special creations that God has designed them to be. Last part. Receive. That's the simple end of it. The Lord Jesus by faith to rule and reign in the heart forever. That's the faith that justifies. A faith in the context of, of the understanding the gospel and a genuine repentance, and a genuine honesty, and a genuine surrendering and bowing of the knee to God. That is the faith that saves. That's a just, you live by faith. And do we have anything else to add to this? Keeps it with patience. See, that's why in that second little part, it's called living in the family of God. It says the first sign of a new Christian is perseverance. They go on and make it. And it's called sticks to the task. Do you see it at the top there? If you really are going to serve God, you'll stick to him. It's like this. You promise God your life. He, he commits himself to you. It's a mutual covenant. His eye never sleeps. His arm is not shortened. He commits himself with all of his omnipotent power and love and wisdom to you. But on your part, you purpose to love and trust him as long as you both shall live. And that's going to be a long time. The rest of those are signs of a new Christian from scripture. Those are the evidences of Christianity. There are some outward. There are some inward. We won't go through those. But I'd, hey, tell you what not to do. Do not tell a person, now you're a Christian. How dare you do that? Are you playing God now? We do it all the time, don't we? Now you're a Christian. Bless God. How do you know? You let God assure them. I'm not going to assure anybody of their salvation. I have to stand before God. And God says, did you assure this guy of salvation? Well, yes, I did. Well, I didn't. See, let him do it. You see, what if they're not sure? Then there's work to be done. Can you imagine Jesus speaks? There's Lazarus. He's in the tomb, right? Jesus says, Lazarus, come out. And he walks out, see? And then Jesus says, now hold it. Tomorrow you're going to doubt this really happened. People are going to tempt you and say, I don't know whether this is real. What do you think Lazarus felt? You rise from the dead, Jack, you know it. And I'll tell you a beautiful thing. If you take a bit more time before, you'll have to take a lot less time after. This is, hey, I'm giving you this, not because I'm the great expert on this thing. I'm giving it to you because for five years, I battered my brains out trying to keep people when I didn't pre-evangelize. I didn't prepare the ground. I shot them in as quickly as possible. We have a little saying in New Zealand among the Maoris, easy come, easy go. And I learned early, if they're going to stick, you do it right. Listen, before those principles, before I learned what God was trying to do with people, you win a hundred people a year, and the end of the year, you can count on the fingers of one hand that is still going on. And since using that, I can say this, to the glory of God, I can count on the fingers of both hands, those who have turned away from the Lord after going through that. You do it properly, you do it in the wisdom of God, then you watch, they'll stick, because they'll be God's converts, not yours. They'll be kept by the power of God, not a good follow-up program. And I'll tell you a neat thing. Babies are hungry, right? Newborn babies are hungry. Before that, my babies were not hungry. I had to knock them down, stick injections in them, and pump in blood plasma and glucose to keep them alive. The idea was a beautiful illustration. Then it came to me after five years, that if my babies were not hungry, it's because they either were sick or dead. You get a baby, he is hungry. You don't have to make him want to eat. That comes naturally from the fact that he's alive. So it's so neat to have these new Christians. And you know what that's so neat? They turn out better than you did. That's why you know it's God. They grow so fast. You see what I mean? They turn out better than you. Your job is to get them weaned away from you and into the real Savior of their souls. It is so neat, boy, to have a young Christian. I want a Bible study now! I want the kind of converts you can leave them in a desert island for 20 years, and when they come back, they're having a Bible study with the coconuts. Do you know what? Time is gone. We'll quit at this point. Is this complicated? You know, we've covered an awful lot of ground here. We've got a lot of... We really hope that this teaching has ministered to you.