In this sermon, the speaker shares his personal experience of being challenged by professors in college who tried to brainwash him against the Bible. Despite their efforts, he decided to re-read the Bible and was struck by the significance of the first four words, "In the beginning, God." This realization reaffirmed his belief in the Bible's authority. The speaker also mentions his recent involvement with computers and how he initially resisted their existence. He concludes by emphasizing the importance of preaching about the holiness, justice, and law of God to bring conviction of sin and the need for salvation.

...of Romans, Romans chapter 3, verse 19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law works, neither by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that no man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Let's bow our hearts in prayer. Our Father, we would thank thee and praise thee for thy word, given to us and preserved for us throughout these centuries. We have it as thou didst intend us to have it, but more than having the word in its many translations and paraphrases, all to help us understand is how it was given from thy heart to ours. We rejoice that the very one who moved upon men of old to record that which thou didst want us to hear is with us, and that thou wilt touch our eyes to see and our minds to perceive and our hearts to receive and our wills to submit. And we thank thee for the ministry of the Holy Spirit by and through the word. Speak to us today, in all of the sessions, and grant that because thou art here and we are here, that insights will be given, decisions will be made, and that our lives will become more effective for the glory and the honor and the praise of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name and for whose sake we ask him. Amen. As you've surmised or known, my wife and I had the privilege of going to Africa in 1945 and going among tribes of people, some ten, that up until that time had had no contact, or if any, most sporadic and occasional, with the gospel. And there were occasions when great insight... I spent seven years after high school getting ready to be a missionary, and I thought I was rather well prepared. But I must say my training really began when I arrived, not before. I remember going into one community and wanting to get a sample of the language. I did, as we usually did, picked up whatever was handy, a stick, a stone, a leaf, something nature had produced, hold it up and say, Who made it? Who made this? Always the answer would come back, a name. And always the name of the one who had made the world. How interesting it was that in these primitive, sin-darkened lands, God had succeeded in keeping the testimony of creation His. There was no challenge to that. Now these people worshipped Satan by name. They sacrificed to Satan. But God had shut the mouth of Satan and refused to allow him to claim creation. The only place that he's been deprived of that testimony is in the so-called Christian lands, and we're the ones that have devised very cunning and crafty ways by which we can rob Him of the testimony of creation. But there was no question about it. He made the sun, He made the moon, He made the stars, He made the stream, He made the fish in the stream and the birds in the air and the grass in the field. Always the same one in this particular tribe, Wanamish. Where is Wanamish? Where was he? And he said he was way off there up in the Ethiopian mountains. Way above them where the sun came up in the morning. That's where Wanamish lived. And I said, do you pray to Wanamish? No. Well, we don't know what kind of prayers he wants. Do you sacrifice to Wanamish? No, we don't know what he wants. Who do you pray to? And then they gave me another name. It wasn't the name of God. It was the name of Satan, Prince of Darkness. Is Wanamish bad or good? Oh, he's good. And then this other, he's very bad. What does he do? He kills our cattle, he kills our children, he makes fire come down and burn up our crops and sends the locusts in to eat them up. He's very bad. Well, who do you sacrifice to? And then they would use the name of the evil spirit, Satan. Why? Because if we give him chickens, or we give him this, or we give him that, then he doesn't burn our fields, or he doesn't kill our children, or we have rain. Now we get moved on, and I said, well, if what happens to you, if Wanamish doesn't bother you while you're alive, what's going to happen? Oh, when we die. Then it's Wanamish. Then he's angry with us because of what we did that was wrong. What do you mean wrong? What's wrong? Now I'm coming to a people who've had no contact with the Bible, never heard the name of Jesus, and they're going to start telling me what's wrong. Well, don't you know what's wrong? Well, I think I do, but why don't you tell me what's wrong? Someone says it's wrong to lie, it's wrong to steal, it's wrong to commit adultery, it's wrong to kill, and so on, till they get almost all of the Ten Commandments enumerated. Well, how do you know these things are wrong? Where did you see them? Where did you see them? In the sky? Do you see them in the stream? Where do you find out these things are wrong? Don't you know? You're a white man. Don't you know where you find out these things are wrong? You find them out here. Your stomach tells you. That's where you find out it's wrong. Because, you see, we say heart, but then the seed of the personality wasn't heart. They didn't know much about that. It was the stomach. Everything was there, because that was what gave them the most trouble. Hearts didn't bother them very much. They didn't live long enough to have heart trouble. Stomach trouble they had in the time they were little children. So my stomach tells me it's wrong. What do we find out? We find out that God made the world, that God is holy, that God doesn't trouble them in their day-to-day life, but He's going to deal with them when they die because of the things they've done that are wrong. And they've enumerated the Ten Commandments until they've gotten down to the place that they have almost all of them. Well, this is quite a bit of insight that I'm getting in a little while among a tribe of people that we're seeing for the first time. God is holy, and God is going to judge them when they die for the things they've done that are wrong. Now, I made a mistake at that point. You see, I made a very, very crucial mistake. What have I found out? I found out that they know about sin. And then I turned to them and I said, Have you done things that are wrong? Yes. Have you lied? Yes. Why did you lie? We wanted to. Have you stolen? Yes. Why did you steal? Because he had what I wanted. And I remember I said, Have you killed? And I looked right at one man. Have you killed? And I'm doing all this through an interpreter, you know, an interrupter. I didn't speak their language. No white man in the world has spoken their language. And I said, Did you kill? And he came back just like that. Who are you? Are you with the government? And I said, No, I'm not with the government. I'm here for one of me. Oh. Well, he won't bother. Yeah, he knows I've killed. I've killed. But if I was with the government, Oh, hey. I'm going to do it. I'm going to admit it. Take the fifth if you please. But you see, I've now induced them to admit that they have done what is wrong. In other words, they have acknowledged their sin. What's going to happen to you when you die because of these things you've done? Wanamish is going to deal with us. He's going to punish us. Well, we don't know, but he's going to, we don't know just what it is, but he's going to punish us. Well, now, isn't that a marvelous opportunity for me to give the gospel? It sounds like it, doesn't it? He's acknowledged his sin, and he's going to be punished and judged. Isn't that wonderful? And I said, Now, how many of you would like to have peace with Wanamish? You'd have to have peace with God so you wouldn't be afraid when you die. Oh, several hands. I would. So I took them into the inquiry room. That was the next tree. And I said, Those of you who'd like to go, let's move over there, and I'll talk with you. So four came. I didn't want to press too much. After all, I've been with missionaries that have been there for years, and they haven't had any decisions, and this is the first forenoon, and I got four. Pretty good, huh? So I took them over, and then I taught them how to pray. You know, God be merciful to me, a sinner, and taught them the name of Jesus, and they all nodded, and all smiled, and it was great. Well, I was only there another day. They came the next day. We talked some more, and I told them some more. And then I went in that night, and I wrote my letter back to the church in Grand Rapids, Michigan that supported me. I wanted them to know what a good investment they were making in this hotshot missionary who got four converts the first day. I figured that they'd really got to feel a... they'd pick the right one to put their money on. And so I wrote my letter and got it all ready to mail, took it back, sent it out in the post post. About two and a half months later, I came back to the same place. I asked for the Jesus boys, and they came. You know what I found out? They still went to the pig feast, which were dedicated to Satan. They still went to the demon dances. They still sacrificed the evil spirits. They still got dunked. And everything they'd done before, I write, they were still doing. Now, it was kind of shocking, because this was my first real occasion of getting there, and I believed if anyone was in Christ, he was a new creation. But I'm finding out that people I'd dealt with before slept between sheets, ate with silverware, put on clothes. Before we ever talked about Jesus, that was part of their culture. Now I'm with people that have their culture, which is going to the... sacrificing the evil spirits and going to the beer feast and the pig roasts were dedicated to Satan, going to the witch doctor. The only difference was I'd give them a hell insurance policy, see? They didn't need to be afraid to want a mission anymore. And I began to realize what missions had done, what I had done, what the church at home was doing. We were making a very fundamental error. We were failing to distinguish between a function of the mind and a supernatural operation of the Holy Ghost. It's the function of the mind to remember sin, and it's the function of the mind to know the law. But it is the supernatural work of the Holy Ghost to convict of sin. And there's a difference between recollection and conviction. And our churches have been filled with the unconverted because we've not distinguished between recollection and conviction. But I was just beginning, and therefore I had the freedom and the option to undo what I had done. And I didn't know how to rebuild, but I did have sense enough to disband that little group and give them no encouragement to think of themselves as Jesus boys any longer. They'd fallen into the hands of an unskilled amateur workman who didn't understand the work of God in the human heart, but who'd been brought face to face with it. Now, I was in much better state than C.T. Studd was. He had been nearly 18 years with some 115 churches established in what was then the Belgian Congo when he came to the realization that it was a new cultural phenomenon that he had planted and not a church of Jesus Christ. So after 18 years, he disbanded all the churches and disbanded the organization and began again. Mine was after less than 90 days. When I made the discovery that there's a very real difference and distinction between the natural phenomena of recollection of sin. Now, let's turn to the 2nd chapter and find out how it was that these people should know that they had sinned. I begin reading in verse 12 of chapter 2 of Romans. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Now, when the heathen, that's the word for Gentiles, which have not the law written in a book, do by nature the things contained in the law written in the book, these having not the law are a law unto themselves which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also, here a bearing witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. Now, why is it that these people knew that it was wrong to steal and wrong to lie and wrong to kill? The answer? Because everyone who comes into the world comes in with the law written on their hearts. I have in the last four months been dragged kicking and screaming in opposition into the twentieth century. Associates of mine have agreed and I had to consent that we would do some work with small micro home computers. I had studiously closed my mind to the fact that computers existed. I used to get cards, the cards you know in letters do not fold or mutilate and after being harassed by a computer that kept sending me a bill for that you owe zero zero point zero zero and unless you pay zero zero point zero zero we are going to turn it over for collection. I figured the only way to do it was to mutilate. So I put on my golf shoes and put the card down on the floor and stomped on the card with my golf shoes and sent it in and then the computer had a nervous breakdown and they stopped sending me this zero zero point zero zero bill that was going to be turned over for collection. And I just figured computers had no place. I used to say whenever computers would go bad well what can you expect of the Iron Maiden? Absolutely no way you can deal with it. But all of a sudden I'm being told we are going to buy computers. So I find out the little Commodore computer that we got had ROM memory. R-O-M. I still don't know what it means. I mean I don't know what R-O-M stands for. It's an acronym but I know it means the part of the memory built into the computer that won't erase when you shut it off. That I know. I think. And then there's a RAM memory and I know RAM means random access memory and that means that when you shut it off everything you put in is flushed away. It's gone. It's erased. So I'm not really interested in computers but I tell you I'm interested in people. And you know what I discovered? That part of the ROM memory of the human spirit is the law of God. It won't erase. You can't close it out. It's there. It's built in. And everyone who came into the world came in programmed with the law of God. Now Charles Binney had a marvelous illustration on this point. He was saying why can you go to the heathen that have never heard the name of Jesus and preach the law and expect conviction to resolve these edits because God has built into the human spirit the millstone, the lower millstone with ten grooves on it. That's the law. And you bring down the outer revelation of the law from the book upon the human spirit and when the outer revelation meshes with the inner revelation the human spirit is ground as is the bread of wheat exceeding small. Because God has built, if you wish a lower millstone of the law or if you want to use a 20th century illustration he put in a ROM memory of the law. It's there. It stays. And you can go to people wherever they are whatever their skin color red or yellow, black or white or sharp-toothed with pink polka dots wherever they are as they breathe the breath of human life you can preach the law of God and expect the spirit of God to work conviction in the heart because it's the outer revelation from the book coming down upon the inner revelation in the heart and the human spirit is ground between the same. Now, about a hundred years ago plus or minus a great crime was committed two crimes were committed I can only speak of one. In England there was a great move of God under a man whose name comes to the present as the embodiment of believing trust in Christ George Muller from Bristol, England. But George Muller knew the Lord and he knew how to pray and he prayed and God answered prayer but he also had all the gifts and manifestations of the spirit as well up at that Bristol assembly. But he had something else he didn't like the formal organization and so they were in a very closely organized religious community of Britain Bristol brethren were free and there was no pastor and there was great freedom in worship. Well, down in another part of England at Plymouth there was another group that liked particularly the idea of freedom from the hierarchy of the Anglican church but they did not wish to be associated with the wildfire and the fanaticism going along with the name of George Muller and the Bristol brethren and so they called themselves by a place name Plymouth Brethren and one of the among the group was a dear good man by the name of John Ian Darby an earnest and sincere follower of Christ undoubtedly who was very concerned about how he could show that the supernatural had no place in the 19th century as then it was and they came into his hands a monograph that had been prepared by a Jesuit monk in Spain translated into English and in that monograph he had established that the reason why the supernatural had disappeared was because God dealt with man in different economies different periods or the word dispensations was coined and God would have one way of dealing in this period and another way of dealing here one way of being saved at one time another way of being saved at another time and under the law people were supposedly I can show this from the scripture absolutely erroneous but they were supposed to be saved by keeping the law but in grace they were saved through faith in Christ and there was very little carry over from one dispensation or one economy or one period to another so much so at one of the schools in this state one of the teachers who was utterly committed to dispensationalism and may I say as one having come through that training that dispensationalism is like pregnancy there is no such thing as a little bit of it if you accept the seed concept it will grow until it fills you but at any rate this particular professor was saying that in this day of the church we do not have the privilege of accepting the promises in the Psalms for a basis of our prayer expectations and one of the young students said yes but professor George Mueller used the Psalms as the basis of his prayer and God answered and the professor so it was reported to me made the statement yes but God didn't have any right to he did it but he didn't have a right to that's the concept of economies of periods of dealing of dispensation now you can see what's going to happen next can't you since people were saved by keeping the law now we're in the age of grace so what do you do you no longer preach the law and in one fell swoop the spirit of God had been disarmed from the only tool he'd ever taken to prepare them for grace do you hear me the only instrument that God ordained to use to prepare men for grace was the law and by one fell swoop one plop of the side the spirit of God was disarmed from the only instrument that he'd ever taken to prepare men for grace namely the wise and rightness of the law and so for fifty nearly seventy years in America the total bible school domination of the preachers of this land has been to say the law had no place in the period of grace we were to preach the gospel the gospel in its element is this Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures bearing grace again the third day according to the scriptures that's the gospel and anything other than that is the word and we were to preach the gospel that Christ died for our sins so how do you know about that everybody knows why because it's there but there was the difference that everyone knows they've sinned that's recollection so what have we done we have brought into profession and faith in Christ through our evangelism for the last sixty or seventy years people like those I dealt with in Africa that have a recollection of sin and have little or no conviction of sin now conviction is a supernatural operation of the Holy Ghost on the human spirit and it is the result of the right use of the law and for by the law is the knowledge of sin not the knowledge that one has sinned but the awareness of the nature of sin not the knowledge of the events the incidences of the kinds of sin that's not what it says when it talks about the knowledge of sin it's talking about the nature of it what is it in its essence sin is a committal of the will to the principle and the policy of pleasing oneself and governing one's life by their own whim and their own fancy and it is the supernatural operation of the spirit of God to convince the sinner that he is a criminal much of our preaching today I remember speaking on the university campus in the University of Minnesota when I was a student there I was sitting on the bench reading my testament between some classes I'd been studying and I picked it up and started to read and the young man on the other end of the bench said what are you reading that's a funny little book I never saw that here oh that's the New Testament we got to talking and came around the subject of sin and he said I'm a sinner and he began to enumerate some of the things he did I said well why do I do that well I remember I was in Bible school just out of it and I said well it's because you have a fallen sinful nature he said you mean to say that the God you serve and worship sends me to hell for doing what I can't help doing what I was born with mandatory that I do you couldn't help doing he said the reason that I thought I sinned was because I wanted to and I tried to talk him out of that to get him theologically straightened out until I began to discover that that ignorant university student was right and that Bible school graduate was wrong that the reason that he sinned because he wanted to sin he chose to sin he made a committal of his will to the principle and the policy of pleasing himself as the end of his being strange isn't it how that the deviations in theology create the heresies isn't it interesting you hear certain groups of other days say as in Adam all underlined three times capitalized die so in Christ shall all be made alive but somebody else comes along and he says as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all underlined three times and capitalized be made alive and the one is capitalism and the other is universalism and they both come out of the same verse because they both missed the point missed the point why was it that Adam died because he chose to govern and rule and control his life why do sinners die because they choose to be rebels against the Holy God anarchists so if one is born with a congenital disease a venereal disease and the doctor says you have congenital syphilis or whatever that person can feel terribly sorry for themselves but they can't feel convicted because they're guilty of no crime a congenital disease does not bring guilt to the victim only to the parents that passed on the disease you cannot view sin as a congenital disease and see conviction so if you're going to treat it as a congenital disease it's a good idea to get rid of the ministry of the Holy Ghost producing conviction because it won't work only when you see sin to be a crime a crime certified at the age of accountability when all did as first parents had done and turned to their own way all have sinned said the scripture Augustine was asked asked the question why why did they do it and he answered it he brought the world into darkness with the answer that the scripture didn't give if you tell me why one hundred percent of all the people alive before the fall sin then I'll tell you why one hundred percent of the people after the fall have sinned and the scripture doesn't tell us why it tells us that and how much time is wasted on trying to produce whys that the scripture don't give answers to if the scripture doesn't tell us why let's not discuss it let's stick with what it says it doesn't say why it says that the moment you move into why you get into philosophy you get into metaphysics you get into all the morass and quagmire that Augustine went into and he turned to heresy the heresy of manichaeism and dualism gnosticism to find the answer to the why and made heresy synonymous with orthodoxy stick to that what the scripture says it doesn't tell us why it tells us that it tells us sin is a crime and it tells us that when he the Holy Spirit the spirit of truth has come he will convict the world of sin and he does it by the law he does it by the law applied to the consciences of men now what's the right use of the law what's the right use of the scripture anybody who begins by trying to prove the existence of God begins communicating on that basis is foolish if God isn't going to begin his Bible by trying to prove his existence then why should we begin communicating about him by doing what he doesn't do he doesn't begin by trying to prove he exists you know as the Bible began with the first chapter on proving the existence of God I wouldn't believe it that chapter or any that followed but it just begins the way it has to begin in the beginning God and you know something the only problem I've had with the Bible were those first four words when I went to the University of Minnesota I expected to be jolted but I didn't realize what a jolt I was going to get because so many of my professors looked at this recent graduate from a Bible school and decided that he was fit for a good brainwashing and after they'd been working on me long enough I got a little bit shaky and so I said well I've got to read the Bible again in this atmosphere and see if it holds water the way I thought it did so I began the process and of course I started at the beginning and in that particular process I got to the end of the first four words and my mind started to work you know you only read until you take off in flight and thought and I got the first four words in the beginning God and I began to weigh that and think about that and meditate on that that here was a being that existed with dependence upon no one he had to rely on no one for his being he was able to support and sustain himself no one had brought him into being he'd always been and I guess I was two weeks and my main intellectual preoccupation was in the beginning God and finally I came to the point where I could accept the first four words and when I came to the point that I could accept the first four words I had accepted all the rest of them because if God could exist with dependence upon no one then it was absolutely possible for me to have the entire words why? if it had told me not to the whale swallow Jonah but Jonah swallowed the whale I'd have said well it was a big dope but I guess he did it I wouldn't have had any problem because I'd accepted the first four words in the beginning God because once you have a being that can exist apart from all others with dependence upon none a being who thinks and feels and wills you can see and understand comprehend and accept that you aren't going to have any problem with anything that follows that solved it at least it did for me now when you're preaching when you're witnessing when you're trying to communicate you do not need to prove the rightness of the law any more than you need to prove the existence of God you don't have to do it all you have to do is preach it proclaim it assert it affirm it why? because God wrote the law on the heart it's standard equipment there's never been a generation or a model of the human family that came into being that did not come in with the raw memory of the law that didn't come in with that lower millstone of the law it's there so don't try to prove it affirm it proclaim it someone came to Charles Spurgeon said this terrible thing of liberalism and modernism and attacking the inspiration of the scripture Mr. Spurgeon you've got to you've got to speak in defense of the Bible he said nonsense you don't have to defend the Bible the Bible is a lion turn it loose it'll take care of itself and I would just ordain in order that they preach the holiness of God and the justice of God and the law of God as the revelation of His holiness and His justice until some people got under conviction of sin now last night we talked about the work of fear that good and godly operation of God the Holy Ghost upon the human heart that teaches us to fear the justice and holiness of God it's one thing to know you're in trouble it's another thing to know the kind of trouble you're in you don't just want to get out of trouble the reason that God awakens the heart shows us our bondage brings us to fear is to make us alert to hear what He's saying to us and if you do not follow that up with the application of the law to the heart and you lead a person from awakening to a profession of faith you're going to short-circuit the new birth it's like an obstetrician that's having all of his patients deliver the baby at the end of the first two months because it's so much more comfortable that way you don't have to worry about those seven uncomfortable months yes, it helps the mother but we call it abortion it abhors years ago I was preaching like this at the great missionary convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania one of my schoolmates in Bible school Dr. Mervyn Rosell who was then the first to reopen Big Evangelism in America in Philadelphia I believe it was in 1942 or 3 city-wide campaign he'd gone to Des Moines Christian New Periodical said there were 4500 decisions in three weeks in the fairground campaign in Des Moines or wherever it was Mervyn heard me preaching somewhat the way I've been speaking to you and so he said tonight after the meeting I want to come to your room and I want to talk how long will you talk with me till I finish? yeah and so he told me how God had been dealing with him how after that Des Moines campaign when the paper said there were 4550 decisions he got on the train to go back to California not the plane because he had to be alone for a few days he took a bedroom on the Pullman and he said he didn't really, hardly went to bed he was sitting up, he was on his knees he was crying out to God asking God that in the 4500 and more decisions that had been made in Des Moines that there would be at least one person that had been truly born of God he said I became desperate I was seeing these great thongs come he said I went back and I went to the, he named a half a dozen nationally known preachers and I said look, there's something wrong with this these people come, they don't understand what it's about they make a profession and nothing happens nothing takes place what are we going to do? oh Merv, you just got too Merv, God, you're doing great, the Lord's blessing Merv, look at the result and he said all of these men that I should have found counsel he said they all just patted me on the back and said I was under too much pressure and get a little rest he said Precious, you're the first person that's spoken to the fear of my heart he told me, he said I made up my mind, I took six months cancelled all meetings just to stay and search the scripture and I promised God that during that time that I would from that point on preach and preach the holiness of God and the justice of God and the law of God until people were slain and convicted of their sins and really came to know Christ and he said I went to a city-wide meeting in Chicago determined to do this I spoke Sunday night the house was full one person came forward I spoke Monday night it was full, two people responded I found that both had been having God deal with them before that meeting began but after I'd finished with those two the committee waited on me and they said Merv, we spent a lot of money on this meeting we don't know what's happened to you but you're not the Merv Rizal we asked to come and conduct this meeting this is going to be a successful meeting Merv either with you or without you now we did not put all this money into this to have this a failure and therefore you've got tomorrow night you either fill the front of the church with people that come whatever way you want to do it so that it's successful in the eyes of the public and the newspaper reporters or we're going to have a standby reservation for you to go back to California tomorrow night, you choose and we've got somebody else in the wing to step in on Wednesday night and preach, we'll do what we want done and so he said I went back and I wept before God and I said God it's not my fault it's the people, man that wants the success in their evangelism they want to equal their success in their business and they're buying me and I feel like I'm a prostitute but what can I do it's the only way I'm ever making a living he said as I went in the next night sick at heart and I did what I'd been doing I flashed a smile all over my face and I gave an invitation and they filled the aisles and filled the front and they all came and said oh that's great he said something died in me and I heard you speak and it made me realize what it cost well I said well Murr we all know that it's only two or three percent of the people who make first time professions of faith in Christ in America they give evidence of the new birth a year later he said Paris what do you mean two or three percent then he told me about going to someone a mutual friend and he said he and I agree that today one half of one percent who make first time professions of faith in America give evidence of the new birth a year later that is make first time professions of faith in our big evangelistic enterprise and effort he said Paris it takes two hundred professions to get one person that goes on with Christ as a consistent follower after a year think of it why? have they polluted the gospel? no has it been perverted? no has it been distorted? no are they preaching the gospel? yes what is the gospel? Christ died for our sins according to the scripture what are they failing to do? they are not preaching the law for by the law is the knowledge of sin and by the law does the Holy Spirit bring conviction to the hearts of men and it's only the right use of the law that can prepare the rebel and the traitor and the anarchist for grace and therefore we must have a revival of the right and proper preaching of the law the holiness of God the justice of God the righteousness of his edicts and his demands until sinners begin again to cry out what must I do to be saved? then the gospel then the gospel the gospel ought to be whispered not broadcast but whispered into the ears of the Philippians and jailers of the world that have nowhere to turn and in their desperation because they discovered their lostness then to them we can tell Christ died for our sins according to the scripture then it has meaning then it makes sense then it's important so what is the right and the proper use of the law? it's to prepare men for grace never, never, never did God intend the law to be the means of salvation it never was it never will be never has been in the old testament they weren't saved by keeping the law they were saved by grace through faith in the one who was to come who was pictured by the offerings for when an Israelite came and he brought a little lamb under his arm and he stood at the gate of the... he was looking at Christ here was the blue, the heavenly dweller here was the white, the sinless one here was the scarlet, the one who would die and the purple, the one who would be enthroned he was looking at Christ in the four or five panels at the gate of the tabernacle and he brought the lamb and the priest would say why are you here? and he would say I've broken the law it was by the law that he discovered his sin and the law prescribed what he'd do he'd bring a lamb and he'd hold his hands in the head of the lamb and he'd confess his sins and the knife slashed and the hand caught the blood and the embers, the smoke came from above the other side of the curtain and he knew that sometime, somewhere there would be not a lamb but a man pictured who would be known as the lamb that taketh away the sin of the world now, now, now don't ever tell me they were saved by keeping the law in the Old Testament they were saved by grace through faith as they were ever never been any other way no other door, no other way there are as many world of sinners as there are sinners in this world there's only one door by which men may enter in it's the lamb that was slain the Lord Jesus Christ and by the law is the knowledge of sin the eternal revelation of the character and the nature of God what's the right and proper use of the law? to prepare men for grace prepare people for grace oh, what a better day it was the day when even with all the other things that came with it they taught the shorter catechism and they taught the Ten Commandments and the law was built into the minds and memories of men but as was said last night they've taken the Ten Commandments out of the schools they've pretty well taken them out of the churches and out of the homes and the consequence we have a generation when Finney preached his task was not so great there had been a proclamation of the nature and holiness of God but today we're dealing with those that are totally and utterly ignorant therefore we have to begin but we begin with this that written upon the human heart is the law of God and we proclaim it we preach it you don't have to build it in it's the raw memory of the sinner nothing can wipe it away or flush it away or move it, it's there all we need to do is to bring the outer revelation to bear upon the inner revelation and when he, the spirit of truth is given the tools that we took from him to with which to work the world will indeed again be convicted and we can't wait for the world to do it en masse it will be happening and is happening one by one how glad I am today that the God of the Bible is the God of justice and righteousness and holiness of law and that the purpose and function of the law is to prepare men for grace for by law is the knowledge of sin God gave the law that it might give to sin the character of transgression that sinners might cry out God be merciful to me, a sinner I ask again have you ever been lost? have you only, he died to save only lost people if you're lost and you do not know him oh, the best news in all the world is you're on the threshold of forgiveness that he came to save lost people father in heaven we lift our hearts to thee this morning thank thee and praise thee that thou didst work oh father how wish we that thou didst have ideal conditions with which to work sometimes when we preach we preach as though we must wait for the ideal because we're so seeking to establish the principles and the truth but father thou didst work with so little with which to work thou didst move with such little tools few tools and little help from us oh that we might become more effective more fruitful more effective in every way as we deal with men and father that which we plead for we plead for again with thee give us lord a return to the preaching of the law which is a reflection of thy nature and thy character thy holiness thy justice thy righteousness until we shall find again lord that the holy spirit as the spirit who brings conviction who convicts the world is working and we hear that cry that must rejoice thy heart heart of thy son god be merciful to me a sinner oh that it might be heard again lord we might hear it from some of our loved ones and some of our friends oh that we be willing to give up sleep lord be willing to give up rest willing to forego anything in order that we might deal with those who come to us bitten by the revelation of thy holiness broken because they've learned or lost them we cry out to thee for this to occur again in our day in our time as it has in other days in other times thank you now for this day we spend together in thy word bless the service that is to follow and all who will join us in your heal we ask in Jesus name amen