In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of making a decision to follow Jesus Christ based on both understanding and emotions. He uses a story about a man riding a tightrope to illustrate the concept of believing in Jesus. The preacher explains that many people make decisions based solely on their intellect or emotions, without their spirit being truly touched. He then presents a diagram representing a person's body, soul, and spirit, highlighting the need for a complete surrender to Jesus for salvation.

I felt led to do something tonight. I've done it before. And I feel that the Lord definitely wants me to do this tonight. And I want you to pray earnestly that the Lord might have His way. There's one passage of Scripture that I want to leave with you, 1 John 5, 12. 1 John 5, 12. Go ahead and turn that on, brother. 1 John 5, 12. That's normal, isn't it? Gotta get that over with. I'm not doing a thing. That's you fellas back there. Go ahead and change. You mean get over here? Okay. Okay, I'm going to spend most of my time right here, so is that alright? Amen. Let me give you this verse. He that hath a son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Now we're going to talk about what it means to be saved tonight. And you can say all you want to about salvation. You can say all you want to. But when you get to the bottom line about salvation, salvation is being inhabited by the Son of the Living God. Salvation is being inhabited by the Son of the Living God. He that hath a son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. And so you can talk about salvation, write books on it, but when it comes to the rapture, when it comes to death, the thing that's going to be the issue is the fact that you are inhabited by the Son of the Living God. Amen? Now you may not be used to that ranking, but are we having a tornado or is that just the air conditioner? Boy, that builder did a good job on that. I thought we were about to have a tornado here. Lord, help us. Amen. Amen. Now I've got this laid out before you tonight. This represents a person. And I don't know if you can see it or not, and it will help you if you can see it. And if you can't see it, I think if you listen well, I think that you can pick up everything that I'm going to say anyway. But this represents a person. The outer line, this line out here and down here, this outer line, represents the body of a person. The next line, this line here, represents the soul of a person. And then this inner line here represents the spirit of a person. Now there is no way that a diagram like this can fully illustrate a total person. I want to get that clear. But I think we can pick up some truth here that will really help us, and I know, satisfy the spirit of the Lord tonight. Because he's impressed me to go this direction. Now I don't think I have to explain the fact that if you're alive, you've got a body. We might have to explain the fact that you have a soul. But I'm not interested in explaining that fact tonight. So I'm not going to try to establish that theological fact, that you have a soul and that you have a spirit. I'm just going to make some statements about the fact that you have a soul and you have a spirit. Now here is a person. This represents a person. Now this person is lost. This person is lost. This person has never been saved. This person has never met Jesus. This person does not have Jesus Christ living in the spirit. Jesus is not there. This person is lost. Now Ephesians 2.1 says that you were dead in trespasses and sin. This verse, these couple of verses, verses Ephesians 2.1 and 2, tells us, in fact the next eight or ten verses tells us, that a person that is without Jesus Christ is dead in trespasses and sin. Now that doesn't mean that the person is dead in their body and dead in their soul, but it means that their spirit is separated from God and dead to God. And God cannot fellowship with that spirit and the spirit of man cannot fellowship with God's spirit. A person that is lost is dead in trespasses and sin. Now this person is dead in trespasses and sin. Never has been saved by the grace of God. And what I want to do tonight, in these next few minutes, is simply lead this person to Jesus Christ. A very simple message. I want to lead this person to Jesus Christ. Now the thing I want to do is I want to approach it like this. I want to, I want to do, I want to take some of the procedures that's being used today across this nation and are very, very popular and I'm going to lead this person to decisions. But not to Jesus. But I want to show you what happens. Here's a person that's dead in trespasses and sin. Now this person is body, soul, and spirit. And this spirit is dead in trespasses and sin, cannot fellowship with God, because God can't reach that, God cannot fellowship with that spirit that is separated from Him. Now I'm going to take some, a spiritual formula. Now what I mean by a spiritual formula, I do not mean a scriptural formula, but a formula that's made up of scriptural, scripture. Did you catch my wordings? I'm talking about here people go into the Bible and get a formula out of the Bible and they give people a formula. So they come here and they deal with this person and they start dealing with this person and naturally they, you can't hear that, can you? Machine. Okay. Boy. Maybe it'll work that way. I don't mean to be funny, but this is, this is almost obnoxious, isn't it? No one but the devil would be upset. Amen. Ah, here's this person and here is Mr. Soul Winner. Here is Mr. Soul Winner comes to this person. And of course he presents the gospel message. And he shows this person that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God in the intellect. They're calling this the intellect. And he shows that the wages of sin is death to the intellect. But the gift of God is eternal life. And here Mr. Soul Winner leads Mr. Lost Man through the step. I'm a sinner. All have sinned. The wages of sin is death. Jesus Christ is the gift of God. Now call on me and all those that call upon the Lord shall be saved. Now you can take that formula and give people understanding. And they can understand in their intellect that they are sinners. That Christ died for sinners. The wages of sin is death. And call upon the name of the Lord they shall be saved. And so, here is Mr. Lost Man. Mr. Lost Man, do you believe you're a sinner? Yes. Do you believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for you? Yes. Do you know if you died you would go to hell? Yes. Do you know the Bible says all those that call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved? Will you call upon the name of the Lord Mr. Sinner? Now this man has been dealt with through his body into his intellect. But this area has not been dealt with at all. So here is his will. So on the basis of understanding he makes a choice. He makes a decision. Tell me something. Is this man saved or not? My dear friends, if this man is saved, the Bible is not the word of God. Thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of people are being led to decisions on an intellectual level and their spirit has not been dealt with. I used to brag about it when I was a pastor. I was a super salesman. Man, I could take any sensible man and in less than 10 minutes have that man making a decision. I would use the Roman road. All I would do would be deal with his intellect. And this person would make a decision out of his will on the basis of his understanding. And when he would make that, when he would call upon the name of the Lord, I'd say something like this. I'd say, sir, does the Bible lie? He said, no, sir. I'd say, sir, were you sincere when you prayed that prayer? Yes, sir. Well, if you were sincere and the Bible doesn't lie, then you've got to be what? I'd say you've got to be saved. And all I've done is dealt with his intellect and asked him to make a decision from his will on the basis of his understanding. This man is dead in trespasses and sin. His spirit is separated from God. He's only been dealt with on the basis of his soul, not his spirit. But let's say now, you come to this man. You feed his intellect with this, my Roman road. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. The gift of God's eternal life. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You feed his intellect. And you said, sir, you want to be saved? You don't want to go to hell? You want to go to heaven? You believe Jesus Christ was raised from the dead? Yes, sir. Well, if you just call upon the name of the Lord, thou shall be saved. Sir, would you do that? He'd say, no, sir. Well, I'll tell you what let's do. Since you won't make a basis, a decision on the basis of your understanding, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll tell you a good, juicy, grandma in heaven, grandpa in hell story. And I'll stir your emotions over here until you can't stand it. Until you're squalling and bawling. Come on. And I mean stir their emotions. Until their emotions are just shaking. Now, sir, you understand and you feel something in your emotions. What about making a decision now on the basis of not only what you understand but what you feel? What about it? My dear friends, this man's spirit still hasn't been touched. This man's not saved. And there are thousands of people making decisions on the basis of their intellect. And the basis of their emotions. Making decisions on this basis. And their spirit is not touched. Now, did you know a little girl, 5 or 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. A little boy, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. Did you know that their spirit is separated from God, dead? They're dead and trespassing sin just like an adult. Now, watch this. Here comes along Mr. Sowinter. Again. This Mr. Sowinter knows something. He knows that this man is dead and trespasses in sin. And he knows that if the spirit of God does not quicken Mr. Lost Man's spirit, it will be in vain for him to ask for a decision. You notice I didn't say in vain for him to present the gospel to him. I think it's always in order to tell people about Jesus. But my dear friends, here this Sowinter comes along. He knows that when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because you believe not on me. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more. Of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged. In other words, when the Holy Spirit comes, Beloved, He does a work on the spirit of man. So this Sowinter, He goes out, and I want to be fair and honest and right. He goes out with a Roman road, just like the other fellow. Amen, that's all he knows. He just knows a few verses from Romans. But he goes depending on the spirit of the living God to quicken the spirit of Mr. Lost Man. And he presents the truth to this man through his ears. Amen. He hears the word through his ears. It naturally goes into his understanding. But the spirit of God does something else. The spirit of God takes the word of God to the spirit of man and quickens the spirit of man. And man does not only understand he's lost, he knows he's lost. Do you know the difference between understanding and knowing? Understanding is soulish, but knowing is spiritual. And even a little child, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, they may not understand that they're lost, but they know they're lost. When the spirit of God convicts them. This man here has been quickened in his spirit. He knows he's a sinner. Not only is his intellect fed to where he understands that he's a sinner, but beloved, his emotions are affected to where he feels that he's a sinner. And there comes a place in his life where he has a change of mind about God and about himself. And there's a change of mind and there is a choice in his will to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. On the basis of his conviction in his spirit. The word conviction, when he has come, he will reprove the world of sin. I love that word reprove, it means convince, convict. It looks like this. It means that God takes a knife and stabs it through a person into the floor to where that person is helpless. Nailed to the floor. When the Holy Spirit is come to the spirit. Beloved, he just stabs that lost sinner and they know they are sinners. Young, old, that sinner knows he or she is a sinner. They understand also that they are sinners. But they still have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. And that word believe means that there's a choice in their heart to take Christ as their Savior. I like the word believe illustrated by an illustration that is a classic. It's a real classic illustration. There was a man riding across a rope, a tightrope like across the Niagara Falls. Like a tightrope across those falls. He was riding back and forth across those falls on a tightrope with a bicycle. He said, how many of you folk believe that I can pick someone up in my arms and take them across this tightrope? They all said, we believe. He said, all right, if you believe, climb up this ladder and get in my arms and let me take you across. Do you know what believing on the Lord Jesus Christ means? Climbing up the ladder, getting in his arms and letting him have your life. It's a total abandonment, a total complete surrender to Jesus Christ. That's right. A lot of folk have never got beyond a decision on the basis of the intellect. A lot of folk have never got beyond a basis of a decision on the intellect and the emotions. They have never been convicted. Therefore, they've never been converted. They've never met Jesus Christ. As their Lord and Savior. Now, I'm through. He said, preach as a short message. That's what the Lord told me to do. I could have worked on a sermon and preached to you an hour and a half and it wouldn't have done you any more good than one this short.