In this sermon, the preacher addresses the question of what a sinner can do to be saved. He refers to the verse from Matthew 20:16, where Jesus says that many are called but few are chosen. The preacher uses a parable from the same chapter to illustrate his point. He explains that when Adam sinned, humanity lost its righteous standing before God and incurred the penalty of God's law. The only hope for salvation is for sinners to repent, turn from their sinful ways, and depend on the righteousness of Christ. Additionally, the preacher emphasizes the importance of facing the facts of spiritual existence and considering one's conscience and knowledge of right and wrong. However, he does not guarantee that doing so will result in salvation, as that is ultimately God's work.

What can a sinner do in order to be saved? I'm going to ask you all to just listen to me as if you were the people at risk. If you were a poor, ruined, lost, rebellious, ill-deserving sinner and if you wanted to find out, since you are a human being, since you are not a tin can, since you are not just a machine, you've got a mind to think with, a heart to feel with, you've got a will to will with, is there anything for you to do? And I see that it takes the last phrase from the 20th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew to the 16th verse to suggest our subject tonight. Our Lord Jesus says, many be called, but few chosen. Many be called, but few chosen. Now it's always interesting if you're going to try to tell people who are kind enough to listen and they're eternity-bound people and they've got an eternal soul and they're going to live somewhere as long as God lives and if they're down here on this earth for just a little while and if what happens or takes place on this earth determines where you'll live forever, the state of your conscious being forever, it's terribly important that the preacher, if he assumes to take any verses, scripture in the word of God, that he not make it mean what it don't mean, but he try his dead level best to tell people the truth. A dear lady came up to me one time, and she was not ugly, but she expressed a fact. She said, Preacher, I didn't believe what you preached tonight. And I said, I didn't ask you to. And I said, I have one verse for the other. We're not selling something. We're not selling something. Any man who engages to preach to other people remembers that he only hopes to see himself as a sinner saved by grace. He don't know enough to talk down to anybody. And he is, if he knows his heart, willing and anxious to be of help to any inquiring soul. But he doesn't want anybody to think that we got a bill of goods and we're trying to sell it and if the price is a little too high, we'll be willing to mark it down for your acceptance. That's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to be true to the souls of men. Now, I've seen so many preachers and so many deacons and so many good people. As we know good people and honest people and zealous people and earnest people, I've seen them torn up by the Holy Ghost and experienced the tragedy of their own sinful souls in their experience as well as in their theology. And I've seen them, all the crops brought out from under them, I've seen them in the valley of repentance, and I've seen them brought to the joy of the Lord until I want to ask God every time I speak, not to let me be guilty of assuming that the people I preach to know the Lord. One thing we must not miss, and that's to know the Lord in the experience of having him as Lord of our lives and Savior of our souls. And this text is an interesting text because of its context. By context I mean the scriptures out of which I picked it. I just read one phrase. The context is all together in one word. That is, God here is teaching that he is absolute God and that that's in his claim or his right to do with people as he sees best. He says, I've got a right to do with mine own as I see fit. And you've got a whole parable or story here in the first part of this chapter. A man's got a vineyard and he hires some men to work in it and he tells them how much he'll pay them. And along about an hour before quitting time, some other fellows come along and he gives them a job. And some of them work 12 hours and then a few of them just work one hour. And when the day is over, the 12 hours is up and it's time to lay off. The owner of this field paid the folks who worked just one hour exactly the same that he paid the folks who worked 12 hours. And some of the folks who worked all day long, 12 hours, they came and remonstrated with the owner and said they didn't think he was doing right but paid the people who'd come in at the last hour and he'd given them a job and he paid them exactly the same as he did the folks who worked all day long. And the owner of the field answered this wise. He said, Now you folks that worked 12 hours, how much did I agree to pay you? And they said, So much. He said, Did I pay you that much? They said, Yes. He said, Then have I done you any harm? Did I keep my agreement with you? And they had to admit that he did. And he said, Now if I pay these other folks anything I please to, did I do you any harm? And they had to admit that he did them no harm. That he had a right to pay the folks who worked one hour the same as he paid the folks who worked 12 hours and that if he chose to do it, he had a perfect right to do it and in so doing it, he didn't do any disservice or any harm. He carried out his bargain to the people who worked 12 hours. And then from that story, the Lord Jesus said, The first shall be last and the last shall be first and many be called but few be chosen. And he bases it all on the proposition, simply this, that he has found himself, now watch this, he has found himself to fulfill his obligation, any obligation that God makes to anybody, saint or sinner, he says, I'll take care of it. I'm dead sure going to see it taken care of and he's going to do right by everybody who is a servant or a saint. And if he wants to do more for somebody else, he claims the right to do that. He claims the right to do that. Now if we will not let God do that way, we just have to say, well God, you just have to go your way and we will go ours. Because we have to say that, we have to bow to what we call the sovereignty of God or we'll just have to throw our bibles away. And so that's how it's grounded. Now, grounded as it is on God's plain teaching that he does as he pleases, that he claims the right to deal with men as he does, in that atmosphere he tells the people that many be called and few be chosen. Many be called. Now the bible is very, very plain. Now listen to me. You can't hymn God up and claim any rights yourself that God has revealed in his word telling us this about himself, that whatever he obligates himself to do, he's going to do. And he has told us in his word that he has obligated himself to call many. Many be called. And we can make that word many stretch out. I know, I don't know how far it stretches, but I know it stretches this far. It stretches to two different kinds of people. It stretches at least this far, that God calls everybody who ever hears his gospel at least one man. And he's bound himself to do that. He has revealed in his bible that he will do that. And every sinner can expect, if he hears the gospel, that in the gospel God's carrying out a covenant that God made with himself to do to every sinner that he'd call men by the gospel. Then the other class of people that this word many can mean, it means this. Everybody who ever had an opportunity to hear the gospel, it binds him. For a man is responsible to God for not only to hear but what he could hear if he'd advantage himself. You see? You see the point? Somebody says, well, I'll just not go where the gospel is preached and thus I won't be responsible. If they have an opportunity to do so, they're responsible for what they do with the truth that they would have heard if they hadn't failed to take advantage of it. That's right. That's a solemn thought. I do not know whether it's true that God calls everybody. I don't know whether that's so or not. It says many be called and few be chosen. The heathen who lives and dies and never gets anywhere near anything like the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, never hears it, never hears about it. No missionary is ever there. His father never heard a missionary. His grandfather never heard a missionary. Born in heathenism, he lives and dies all the days of his life and never so much as one time hears a note of the gospel. Somebody says, well, God can't save them. Well, I don't know what God can't do. I wouldn't say that. I just don't know about that. But I don't see how. I don't see how God calls anybody except through his word and his gospel. At least the scriptures do not tell us how he does it. At least the scriptures do not reveal it. A sinner needs to know more than to hear the gospel. A sinner needs to know more than a little truth. A sinner needs to be operated on and overcome so that he hears the will of the energizer and his disposition shall be changed so that he can do what God requires of him. You see, if it is just true that hearing the gospel gets you saved, why, everybody here in this country has been saved. I remember talking to a preacher down in North Carolina two or three months ago, and he was taking a little cleaning about my preaching. He said, you are wrong. He said, everybody wants to be saved. And he said, the only thing on earth you've got to do to get a man to the Lord Jesus Christ is just sit down and talk with him and help him solve his difficulties. He said, you just remove the difficulties. Why, he's just anxious to be saved. And I said, well, there are 60,000 Marines right out there and you can nearly spit on them, and it looks to me like what you were telling me the truth. They've done all been saved by now. You could just spend one day a week out there and sit down with those soldiers and they're all just dying to be saved. And the reason they're not saved is they've just got a few little difficulties they don't know how to work out. Now, sir, there's got to be something else besides hearing the gospel. It's got to be heard within it with the power of God, the Holy Spirit. Many be called and few be chosen. And so I do not know whether God calls everybody or not, but we do know that he calls through his gospel everybody who has a chance to hear and everybody who does hear his gospel. That'll include you. So we'll let the heathen for the time being alone tonight and try to look into the text what does God mean here? Many be called and few be chosen. Old-time preachers said that many be called men, that as the gospel is preached or witnessed publicly or privately, as sinners are slain by the law and the gospel is offered to them, that in that preaching and in that ministry, God does strive with and call all who hear. And if God sees fit to keep on calling and to keep on striving until he overcomes the resistance of the sinner, that that sinner will find out by that very word that he is one of God's chosen ones. You see, there is no way on earth to find out whether he is one of God's elect people. He can't go to any book and find his name written there. He can't go to any doctrine and no one or anybody can find out that he is one of God's children now been brought into the fold and that God did it on purpose. God always meant to do it. It is that God has effectually, has really called him in such a way as to overcome his disposition to sin and to give him a disposition to holiness and an ability to lay hold on Christ. What I want to talk to you about tonight is this, that the sinner is responsible for what he does about every advance that God makes toward him. If God ever gives you the opportunity to hear the gospel one time, you are responsible for that one time you heard it. And if the spirit of God ever uses providence or trouble or good times or the word of God or the law or the gospel or the influence of some godly person or anything on earth, that you are responsible. And there are some things that you can do as God works toward your salvation. I believe the scriptures are very plain that ordinarily as the sinner rightly uses that which God gives him to do, that ordinarily it will work out to what we call the effectual call and a man finding out that he is a child of God. This is important, dear ones, when you remember this, that there are so many ways of seeing truth. Somebody says that I believe that God did his part and now the sinner does his part. Now, that's not a good term. But if you understand us to mean that God does part of saving and then the sinner does the rest of saving, that's wrong. But if you understand us to mean there is nothing for the sinner to do in order to save, you're still wrong. When we say that God does all of the saving, we're telling the truth. But when we say the sinner does all of the receiving, we're also telling the truth. When we say that God has to do all of the saving, we're telling the truth. But when we say, when somebody comes along and says that you receive that apart from doing anything yourself, you're dead wrong on that. And so sometimes in trying to state truth we say too much and sometimes we don't say enough. So I come tonight to ask you, since if you've ever heard the gospel, now watch it, since if you've ever heard the gospel one time, or since if you've ever had an opportunity here at one time, God did call you in that gospel. He did. And since you're responsible for that, but since you cannot be saved unless God calls you sufficiently loud enough and with such power is to overcome your inward disposition against him, you can't be saved. I come and say to you that the sinner is responsible for how he uses whatever call he gets from God. That's right. Now let's go another way. I answer this question. What must the sinner do in order to save? Now follow me. The sinner must attain to a state of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now watch it. And those acts must be his own act. You yourself must repent. And you yourself must savingly act and lay hold on Jesus Christ and his work and his person as your Lord and your Savior. And yet, now wait just a minute, God Almighty, wait just a minute, don't get in too big a hurry now. Wait just a minute. Wait just a minute. Salvation certainly is not born to leave us an estate below that which we were before we fell in Adam. Salvation is to restore us to the place we were before we fell. And Adam loved God supremely. And you haven't been brought to repentance unless you love him supremely. Adam loved God and sought God as the chief in and the only good in. His disposition was in the direction of the will and good pleasure of God. And when you were in Adam as I was and that's where this whole thing started and that's when you're going to heal the cause of your original sin. You don't have to do anything else. That'll fix you up. Now watch it. You lost. You lost. What did you lose? Why do you need to be saved? Not given a purse. But why do you need to be saved? Restored. Made healthy again. It's because Adam and you in Adam loved God supremely. And when we sinned we came to love ourselves instead of God. Now any kind of salvation that doesn't at least do enough for Ralph Barnes to get him back to where he was before he fell isn't in salvation at all. And repentance is a change of mind. Every sinner loves himself supremely. And you haven't been brought to repentance. Now you may put you in the back and go in the picture but you haven't been brought to repentance until your whole attitude has been changed from a love of self to a supreme love of God. And that's what repentance is. That's what repentance is. And faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Every sinner's got to repent. Every sinner's got to save and lay hold on Jesus Christ. Why? Because, watch it now. Watch it. When we fell in Adam we suffered two things. We lost our holy disposition our righteous standing before God and we incurred the righteous penalty of God's holy law so that we have no righteousness and we deserve eternal death. And the only thing God's ever done about that was to send his Son to righteously keep the law and thus give his righteousness to us and for his Son to righteously die under the penalty of God's law in our state. And so the only hope of salvation for a sinner is to be so radically changed that he quits loving himself supremely and moves to loving God supremely until he quits depending on any righteousness of himself and depends utterly on the perfect righteousness of Christ and until he pleads guilty at being a guilty sinner and pleads the only hope of his salvation as being the righteous death of the Lord Jesus in his stead. So I repeat that the sinner must be brought to repentance. The sinner must as an act of himself turn from loving himself to loving God. The sinner must be brought as an act of his own will from depending on himself or any righteousness of his own and depend altogether on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now having said that I want to get to my subject. I've been talking about what a sinner must do. You must repent. And you must repent. Now I come to say what can a sinner do? And I turn right around and tell you that you can't repent. And I turn right around and tell you that you can't believe. You must or you're going to hell. But you can't. You can't until you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God. Now let's get it. You just can't do it. Now if a sinner could love God with all of his heart without the work of the Spirit he wouldn't need to receive. He's already received. Don't you see? That's when you're in the mess you're in. That's when you're lost. Ruined. Hell bound. Hell deserving sin. It's because you're so deep down in the pit that you can't pull yourself up. Somebody wrote Dr. Barnhouse some question about theology and salvation. I forget exactly what it was. And he wrote in the letter and said the answer to your question can be found in the answer to this question. When man failed how far did he fall? When man failed how far did he fall? Did he fall so far that he lost all his holy disposition? Did he fall so far that he's inclined always for the wrong and never to the right? Did he fall so far that he cannot change himself? You know a holy person can sin but a sinful person can't do right. A holy person can fall but a fallen person can't rise. A man can kill himself but he can't give himself back. You can throw a rock away but you can't bring it back. Is that right? Water can flow downhill but it can't flow uphill unless it's pushed. A holy man like Adam and like you were in Adam can sin and lose all of his holiness but a sinful man can't make himself holy. Now we're in a mess. Watch it now. A man's got to as an act of his will turn from loving himself to loving God. A man's got as an act of his will to turn from trusting himself because everybody's either trusting himself or he's looking for another. That's right. I said God's true and yet he can't. He can't except and ask he is born from above. Let me prove it to you. My Lord Jesus said two things to Nicodemus. First he said except to be born again you cannot what? You cannot see. You cannot see. You don't know what on God's earth I'm talking about. The Apostle Paul says the natural man receiveth not the things of God. Neither can he their foolishness to him for their spiritual desire. Is that right? Now, let's see. Let's see. A man is dead in his sins. Ephesians 2.1 You have to what? Quicker. The word dead in your trespasses and sin. Now what does that mean? What does that mean? It simply means this. That every unsaved man and woman boy and girl is totally lacking in all holiness towards God. It doesn't mean that he's as bad as he could be. It doesn't mean that he's terribly bad. It just means he doesn't have any holiness in the sight of God. That's what it means. That because he has no holiness he's got no power in himself to do any good thing that would please God. It simply means that until a leopard can change his spots a man cannot change himself. Now, bless your dear heart. When we fell in our own sin two terrible things took place. We lost our holy disposition and gained an unholy disposition. And thus we lost our ability. God created Adam and gave him the ability to continue sinless or gave him the opportunity didn't keep him from it, didn't force him, but didn't keep him from it and allowed him the opportunity of sinning. And you and I were in that. That's where we got in all the trouble we were in. That's the reason we're born in sin like we are. That's the reason we're born with sinful natures. Now, a poor, lost, hell-bound sinner has a will and it's free, but it's free to do what it can do. And since the man's will is first of all his disposition. Now, somebody says, well, preacher, you mean to tell me a sinner can't do anything? Sure, he can do lots of things. I'm going to tell you about them in a minute. But he can't love something unless he loves it. And he can't force himself to love something. You just can't do it. And he can't force himself to love God. Did you know that? Anybody who loves God with all his heart is a child of God. And you can't force yourself to do that. You can't. And so the sinner is up against... Now, listen to me, boy and girl. Listen to me, man and woman. You're just as helpless as you can be. In the first place, you can't force God to change you. In the second place, you can't force God to give you life. And a dead sinner can't love God with all of his heart. He can't love God with all of his heart because he loves himself with all of his heart. The reason he can't love God is because he loves himself. The reason I say he can't repent and repentance is turning to God as a supreme good and love of Him. The reason he can't is because he don't want to. And the reason he don't want to is because he wants to do something else. And he can't change himself. He can't do it to save his life. And so the sinner... The Scriptures say he cannot come to the Lord except he's drawn to the Spirit. The Scriptures say that. No. He just can't come. He can't come to the Lord. And so we say to you that you've got to repent. God's got a right to demand that. You wouldn't be in salvation apart from that. But you can't do it yourself. And until you find out that you can't repent, you'll never be given repentance. And until you find out you can't believe, you'll never be given faith. And until you are brought so low that you lose all confidence that you can strike a bargain with God, you'll never be saved. An operation from God Almighty through the Holy Spirit has got to happen to you. Now, the second thing the Lord said to Nicodemus, he said, first, you can't see, you can't understand. Something's got to happen to illumine your mind, do something to your will and your heart, so you can understand what I'm talking about. And the second thing he said, he said, except you're born with the Word and Spirit, you cannot what? You cannot enter. That is activity, isn't it? Man stands still and look, and there's nothing to keep him from looking. Man stands still and understands, he can understand anything. Something's got to happen before he can understand. Something's got to happen before he knows what he's talking about. He's got to be born with the Spirit, and then something's got to happen before he can go in somewhere and go into the kingdom of God through the door of repentance and faith. And so what the Lord is saying, you've got to be born from above so that you can do what God requires. What God requires. What God requires. Now, let's get this other thought right quickly. Listen to me. There's nothing on earth, there's nothing on earth you can do to force God to work this miracle in you. There's nothing on earth you can do that makes you deserve an honor. And here as we come onto the ground of our subject, God exercises his right to do as he will. And while God pledges to do right with everybody, he says that he'll show mercy to whom he will. To whom he will. Now, listen carefully. I want to give you six things that the sinner can do, none of which I guarantee will turn out to your salvation. Six things the sinner can do that he ought to do and that he can do. You see it? And I tell you that the probabilities are it usually happens this way, that if the sinner will wisely do what he can, he'll not deserve God's work in the miracle in him, but the probabilities are that God Almighty in grace will effectually work a work of grace in him. And here are these six things. And we ought never to be afraid to press these on every sinner we have an opportunity. There's just one thing I caution you. For God's sake, dear one, as your witness, don't proposition the sinner and say, sinner, I guarantee if you do so and so, God will do so and so. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't invade the fact that mercy must be optional. You see, if you don't, you're not telling that sinner the truth, because he liable to get the impression that he makes a bargain, swaps something for salvation. But he liable to get the impression that he's got a right to demand salvation from God. And we all know that salvation's an act of mercy. God's showing mercy to a sinner. But here are six things that if you're without God, I don't guarantee if you do them you'll be saved, but I guarantee that you can do them, and that the probabilities are that God, as you faithfully use the means of common grace that he gives to sinners, the probabilities are that you'll be overcome and God will show you by calling you that you're one of his own. And I mention them very quickly first. Every sinner can and ought to read God's word. Every sinner can and ought to read and hear God's word taught and preached. Boy, we need to talk like that a whole lot today. I tell you, a sinner needs to buy him a Bible and start searching the scriptures. That's right. We've got a generation of church members now that don't search the scriptures. I'm telling you right now, everybody's better to get him a Bible and start reading. Now, a sinner can do that, can't he? Somebody says, you preach to the sinner, he can't do anything. Well, he can dead sure do this, can't he? He can't save himself. He can't change himself, but he can read the Bible, can't he? And you know the Bible says, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. You see it? I don't guarantee if you buy your Bible and start reading it prayerfully, seeking God to open up the truth to you, I don't guarantee you will be saved. You can't guarantee this business. Mercy is optional. He must do right. He may show mercy. Do you believe that? That's the way of doing it. You will never be saved, sinner. You may never know how to spell the word sovereignty. You'll never be saved until you experience it in your heart. You've got to come down off your high horse and say, Lord, if you do anything for me, you dead sure can if you will, but it will just be up to you. I can't force you to do it, and I've got no claim on you. That's reading like putting a knife in my heart when I listen to the public preaching, and they say, sinner, if you'll do so-and-so, so-and-so, I guarantee that God will do that. I can't. Because mercy is optional. He said, I'll show mercy to whom I will. I don't know whether he'll show mercy to you or not. And I won't tell you he will. I will say, this is the day of mercy. I will tell you about so-and-so, show mercy to them. I will testify, show mercy to me. And I'll say, that's encouraging, isn't it? Isn't it? If I hear of a judge that's showing mercy to guilty criminals, I'd kind of like if I got caught to be in his court. I'd say, well, maybe show mercy to me. I think that's honest. I think that's a good place for a sinner that could demand so much of God and our Lord, if you will. If you will, that could make me clean. Huh? A son read his Bible. The Lord Jesus said to the Jews of his day, search the Scriptures, that you've been reading them wrong. He said, you have an outward belief, a carnal belief in the Scriptures, that you call yourself Christian. And he said, they said, and then you think you have eternal life just because you read the Bible and trust it and believe it in your head. But he said, you've read your Bible wrong. The Scriptures testify of me. And said, because all of your Bible study has been wrong and you missed the one it was talking about, here's the one your Scriptures talked about and it's left you with a disposition that you will not come to me, that you might have life. In the second place, every unsaved sinner can and must, must and must hold his feet to the fire he could seriously think about the facts of spiritual existence. Now God's done something for every human being. He's given you a conscience. He's given you a consciousness of God. He's given you a knowledge of right and wrong. He's given you a knowledge that you're not here forever. He's given you a fear of dying in your sins. And a man could think about that. This jolly generation is on the run because it can't stand still a minute and face facts. And face facts. And it's running right into hell. Now every sinner could face facts, couldn't he? Every sinner could think about what he knows. Bible or no Bible. That's right. He could do that. Now I don't guarantee that if you do that, God will save you. You just can't fix it. So you've got so-so. I've got it all fixed up. Now you do your part. Mercy is optional, Lord God. But you can do this. You can do this. And I tell you right now, if I give you five dollars and you tear it up and throw it away, the chances are I'm not going to come around tomorrow and give you ten dollars. And the chances are God Almighty is not going to give you the effectual call and bring you to salvation when he observes every day that every time he does anything in your direction, you'll die a sin against him. You see what I mean? That's right. That's right. In the third place, every sinner can read this Bible and face facts, and he's got this much ability. He's got a head and he's got a brain. He's got enough that he could accept the testimony of God in the book about himself. There ain't a better sense than the world. And folks running around here swearing on a stack of Bibles they're not lost and undone and guilty of hell with an open Bible. It says all have sinned and the whole world is guilty, and so forth. You know, that generation of my Lord, they rejected the counsel of God against themselves. Luke 7.30. The Pharisees rejected the counsel of God against themselves. See? They are not baptized with John. And men and women today, are you doing it? Flying in the face of what this word says about yourself. Rejecting the counsel of God. You know, a fellow's almost in the way of salvation when he comes down off his high horse and pleads guilty as God charges him in the Word. That's right. And so to do that, there isn't a sinner in this town that doesn't have enough capacity and ability to read this book and say, that's all about me. While the missionaries go to the tribes in the darkest jungles of Africa and begin to preach the Word and the people say, how do you know about us? It's written, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the Holy Law of God is written in the hearts of every human being. You don't have to have a Bible to know there's sinners. To know what God thinks about them. Don't you see? And then, the fourth thing, whatever sinner can do and whatever sinner ought to do, you ought to try to repent. Now, follow me carefully. If you think I'm wrong in that you can repent of your sins toward God, you just try. You just try. Now, yes, the Bible commands all men everywhere to repent. If you don't, you go into hell. But you just try. You just try. I'll tell you what you can do. If you've got a bad habit, you can quit it. The doctor will scare you. Can't you? Huh? I know drunkards that have quit, the doctor finally scared them, said, you know, you'll be dead in six months, and they quit. You can do that, can't you? Huh? Huh? You've changed a lot of your ways, can't you? Huh? Sure can. You can't change yourself. You just try. You're just trying to be somebody different. You can't do that. It'll just get out on you. You just can't do that. That's what repentance is. Sin, in its essence, is selfishness, self-love. To repent of sin, that's to be changed from loving self to loving God. Now, you can do some things that God tells you to do because you're scared of it. And you can refuse to do some things God tells you not to do out of fear. But you can't fix it so you love to do what God tells you and hate to do what God tells you not to do. Yes. And you are liable to learn something about yourself. Next time you go hear the preachers today that give the truth out here in these little school buildings about you can't repent and all that. Now, you're not in as bad shape as they say you are. You just try. You get a 5 o'clock in the morning. You work all day. And see if your heart has been changed one bit by sundown. See if you can change whom you love and what you love. God will say, Lord, help my unbelief. Help my unbelief. You just try. On the Lord Jesus Christ as your very own. And as soon as that takes place you'll quit fighting the fact that God shows mercy as He pleases. And you'll say, well, oh, I, I understand. I've heard that God shows mercy so and so. Maybe He will be. Maybe He will be. And the last thing a sinner can do he can ask and seek. I know God won't keep you from it. And I know nobody else can keep a sinner. And to begin, seeking Him and fearing Him. You see, I'm just saying this is the day of mercy. Might be. You're able to turn from self-love and self-service to God as a supreme object of your love and service. And the moment you're able to say, Christ loved me and gave Himself to me and that assurance, He's mine. You may be sure that God has worked a miracle in your life and enabled you to do what you must do in order to be saved. There's no good talk if I've spoken to somebody tonight that has no sense of your sinfulness and of your need of God. Literally changing you. Literally changing you. You think you'd make it alright? You're not in state of mercy, are you? You know, I'm the biggest fool God ever let live in this even religious world of being led to hell by blind leaders. Put me in instead of told him. Seems to me like nearly all their preaching is directed telling sinners what they ought to do for themselves instead of trying to shut them up to their need of God during the fall. I wish I knew how to get a hold of God soon. Wake them, keep them, call people, show them doors. Now I'd love to see them. Wouldn't you love to see Kingsport? Just on the paved streets and in the beer joints and everywhere on it's knees crying out to God for mercy. I long to turn men away from all hope in themselves. All saying Lord, Thy will that can make me clean. You don't have to. You don't have to. For me, I'm trying to go from place to place. Many of the small groups now trying to get a hold of this truth. Not to prove some doctrine. Not to argue with men. But to shut men up to their need of God. Doing a supernatural work in their lives. That's what we want. You pray for me.