The sermon transcript discusses the importance of believing in Jesus' promises and commands for Christians. It shares a story about a man whose obedient dog ended up on the roof of a biology laboratory and how the man's whistle immediately brought the dog back to him. The sermon emphasizes that God's desire is to have a family of believers who will dwell with Him in heaven for eternity. It also highlights the power of preaching the message of Christ's death and resurrection, which may seem foolish to the world but is the power of God for the redemption of believers.

This morning I would like to talk to you, if I might, from just a little portion over in Romans, if you would turn with me. And I thought especially, I spoke last week of the sovereign call of God in Romans and in other places in the scripture, and the responsibility of man. They cannot be separated. God is sovereign, man is responsible. Man is responsible to answer the call of God. That call comes through his word. No one is saved outside the word of God. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith doesn't come through the atmosphere. Faith doesn't come because you read some good book that tells you to be good. Faith doesn't come because you have many good works that you've done. Faith comes by the word of God. The scripture is clear. No interpreter has ever changed that verse. That verse remains intact no matter where you look. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It is to man's own peril if he does not respond to the call of God and to the sovereign will of God. So man is in this position where God is sovereign and he is responsible. Man has a responsibility, and until we get that very clear in our minds, we will never really know. God must be sovereign because there's no other plan of salvation in the universe like unto his through the blood of his son. The gospel is the good news that God came into the world to save sinners, and that message must be proclaimed. Romans 10 says they can't hear unless someone be sent to preach it, and that God hath chosen, that's his sovereign will, that by the foolishness of preaching he would save those that would believe. So the sovereign will of God and the call of God must be responded to by man. God has looked down upon mankind, if I could put it this way, and by the gospel he has in his sovereignty separated unto himself certain individuals and placed upon them the power of the Holy Spirit, and through faith the mark of destiny is upon them. They are set apart, they're called saints. I don't have to repeat it, but I will. You're not a saint when you die. You are either a saint because you became one right here on earth, or you're not a saint. No one makes you a saint after you die. All the epistles to the churches are to living people. Paul didn't write to dead people, and Paul wrote to the saints at Colossae, to the saints at Corinth, to the saints at Ephesus, to the churches he wrote, you are saints. And if we understood the word saint, we've sanctified it to a place where we make it look like sinless perfection, that a saint must be absolutely perfect and never have anything sinful ever happen in their lives. Now this has nothing to do with the word saint. The word really means that God has separated you from the world unto himself through Jesus Christ's blood, cleansing you from sin, and you belong to him. You are not your own, God says. You've been bought with a price with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and so we've purchased possessions. We belong to him. Saint means separated unto God. Now, he separated us that that day may come when we will be fit companions for the Lord Jesus Christ in the day of his glory. He has given us his Holy Spirit to dwell in these temples of flesh. Not a good temple to dwell in. The Holy Spirit, through God's wondrous grace, and it's grace and grace alone, is dwelling in a temple which is hardly a fit place for him to dwell. Yet in his love and in his grace, he comes and dwells in a temple that you yourself must often say, I don't know how you can ever stay with me after sin has been committed or something has been done wrong. But he says, once I come to dwell in you, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And this one who comes in to dwell in us is with us now forever. It is the seal of our inheritance in Jesus Christ. We are the joint heirs with Jesus of all that he possesses. Now, this takes a little reasoning on the part of human beings. It takes a little intellect. I don't expect the people who don't desire to use their minds in relationship to God, and I'm speaking of those who have minds now. I'm not speaking of those who may not be able to use their minds. I leave those in the tender hands of my Savior. I'm not concerned about this. I'm concerned about people who have brain power and have minds that can be transformed by God. He says, be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. And I believe that if we use these minds of ours, we can see that there's a total nothingness to this life, this world, and all that there is outside of Jesus Christ. The world has no destiny worth mentioning. Science dooms it. You know that. Science dooms it. It can't go on forever, they frankly admit. Some say it might go on for 50 million years more. They don't know. But they frankly say it's going to die. So science has no argument with the scriptures here, because God tells us it's going to die too, that he's going to wrap it up like a scroll one day. And as I've said time and again, the only reason for the world's existence is because of you and me, and God's desire to get a family for himself that will dwell with him in heaven for all eternity. And he has to get it out of sinful people, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one. And so God has to reach down in his mercy and in his grace, and in his great sovereign power, and has determined that not by the wisdom of men, but by the foolishness of preaching, he would save those that would believe. That which seems foolishness to the world, that the blood of Christ should cleanse us from sin, that Christ's death is for my sin, that which is foolishness to the world, is the power of God unto the redeemed of the world. For we have come to know him, whom to know aright is life etern. And he has come to dwell in our breasts, and he becomes the seal of our inheritance, so that we have not one iota of doubt as to our salvation. Oh, may I get that down deep in your hearts. You either know you're saved or you're lost. I'll say that again. Oh, you either know you're saved or you're lost. There's no middle road you can't be half saved, because there isn't any half heaven. You're either going to heaven or you're not. One or the other. I don't know what people get these ideas, you know, that, well, maybe somehow aunt so-and-so will make it. She makes the finest soup, and every time I'm sick, she brings me over a bowl. Well, that sounds good, but that is pure sentimentality and hogwash. I'm glad that there are fine people in the world that are nice and tender and do fine things, but that is not eternal life. Eternal life has to do with Jesus Christ and the sovereignty of God in determining how you can be saved, and that's the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's no other way, no other possibility. There's no possible way that you can get into the kingdom of heaven, except you come God's way. And there can't be ten gods. I dread this idea of a supreme being, because so many people's ideas of supreme beings are all different. Or this idea that it's all the same, you hear people talk that way. It doesn't matter much what you believe, as long as you're sincere. It doesn't matter much whether you're Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, follow after Confucius, follow after philosophers. It doesn't matter at all, as long as you're sincere, it's okay. Well, I don't know what Jesus was talking about then, when he said, No man comes to the Father except by me. And if you believe not that I am him, he shall die in your sins. He makes it very clear. He doesn't leave any doubt for us. So that we fully understand that the gospel is the good news of God. And God is gathering out a people who will finally be fit companions, the very part of his own family, sons and daughters, to live with their eldest son, the one who is the son of the Father, the only begotten Jesus Christ. And when we come into the family of God, we become the children of God. We're sons, because we've been born into the family of God through the Holy Spirit. We've been born again. We have a new life dwelling in us. We're new creatures in Jesus Christ, so that we know that we belong to him. We're to live like new creatures in Jesus Christ. If there had been someone down through the ages, some man outside of Jesus Christ, who could have fulfilled the law completely, kept the whole law, it would yet only entitle that man to walk the earth. He never could enter heaven. Adam's sphere was the earth. And the only reason we're headed for heaven is because there was a cosmic warfare between Jesus Christ, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and Satan. And if there'd been some man who could have lived a life following the law and fulfilling it, it would yet not entitle him to heaven, because, beloved, there was a warfare in heaven, and it was necessary in God's counsel from eternity past, in his warfare with the other great spiritual power that he created, it was necessary that things in the heavenlies be cleansed, as Hebrew says, by the blood of Christ, so that both man could be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and Satan would be thrown and cast into the lake of fire. And then the heavens and the earth, for Satan is the god of this world and the prince of the powers of the air, so that then all atmosphere will be God's. The heavens will be cleansed of Satan and his demonic legions, and man will be cleansed also, so that we can enter into that heavenly home that God has prepared for us. So Jesus' death was necessary, not just for man, but Jesus' death was necessary that he would show that he was victor over Satan in rising from the grave, and he was the victor over death and the victor over sin, for the scripture says that death came in by Satan. Sin and death is great mystery of sin, and yet through that mystery, God has afforded redemption for mankind and has entitled us not to an earthly walk forever, but to a heavenly walk one day with Jesus Christ. Now in Romans 1, in that fifth verse, it says something that I would like to mention at this point. I was talking to you about the call of God last week in the fifth and sixth verses, and it says here, speaking of Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead, by whom we have received grace on merit of favor of God and apostleship, sent ones, apostle means one who is sent, for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. Now I think here I want to make something very clear, because I feel that we have to be very careful in our reading of the word of God. May I say this? I believe you should read the word of God every single day, and I don't think anyone should spend less than 15 minutes at least, half hour preferably, in the word of God. And I believe that this is part of God's plan, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God. But I have to say this, if all you're doing is reading the scripture because there's a certain little portion in the devotional book that says read so and so and read so and so and read the devotional portion, and you do it as fast as you can, you get it done, you hardly ever open your bible just to read that little devotional portion, that this is not at all what God is saying. God wants you to read the word. But I tell you this, if you read the word only in the sense that I have to read it, and there's not obedience to that word, it's folly. What sense is it to read the word of God if you're not going to obey it? Tell me, what value does it have to the human heart to go to the word of God and hear God say certain things that are sinful, that you should avoid, that you should flee from, or to have God make unto you certain promises? Why do you read it unless you obey him and you believe what he has to say, and in that obedience your life begins to shine for Jesus Christ? Anybody who reads this word and doesn't obey it, it's just like the scriptures tell us, you are hearers of the word, but you're not doers of the word. And Paul says, be ye not hearers of the word, but doers of the word. There must be obedience to the word. That's why it says here, unto, notice that, as soon as the gospel, the good news is heard, it's not a matter of, well, praise the Lord, I'm saved and I'm found for heaven. Well, I'm happy for you that you're found for heaven. But if that's all the word of God means to you, you haven't stepped out at all yet on faith. God wants that word to be read and studied and made part and parcel of your beating. And if it says don't do something, don't do it. And if it says do something, do it. If it says when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will be my witnesses, be a witness. If it says to you, crucify therefore the lusts of the flesh, what do you do with them? Well, crucify them. God wants obedience. Obedience, he says, is better than sacrifice. Must be obedient. God says, now this gospel is going to do something for you. It's going to save your soul. You know that you have a risen savior. He says, you know now that you have the Holy Spirit implanted in your breast. You're conscious of his indwelling presence. You know that you're redeemed. Now it's unto obedience in all nations. Two things. It's unto obedience personally. You individually. Personal obedience to Jesus Christ. And then obedience in that nation in which you dwell. That would change a lot of things in this nation today, let me tell you. If there was obedience unto Christ in every nation, imagine what would happen to the nation's obedience unto Christ. What a world we'd have. Well, that's the gospel. That's what follows. Notice it right away. He says, according to the Spirit, he says, declared to be the Son of God with power. He tells you that. According to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, by whom you've received grace and apostleship, what does it say? For obedience. Man, let me say this. When we go to that scripture and we read, we better be looking for the things God wants us to be obedient to. What a change we'd have. Jesus says, sanctify them with thy truth. Separate them with thy truth. Thy word is truth. Ye do worship me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. Ye are my friends, if ye do what I command you. Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? Could anything be clearer? Why do you think we have the word of God? We have the word of God, number one. It brought faith, and that was the gift of God in his divine sovereignty. It brought faith to our hearts, and we have the word of God to know how to walk as a Christian. If ye walk in the Spirit, ye shall not fulfill the lust of flesh. What is God saying? God says that even though you're a Christian, you're still going to have a desirable life and lust, but you won't fulfill them if you walk in the Spirit. He doesn't say that the moment you get saved, every evil desire is cast out, and there'll never be another evil desire in all your life, and every Christian here born again knows what I'm talking about. Jesus puts it well. He says, if it would need be necessary that I take them out of the world, if they're not going to be contaminated at all. But Father, I would that they walk circumspectly in this world. There has to be that yearning, burning desire in your heart, young people, to love Jesus and do what he wants you to do. Stop praying church. What sense is it for us to sit in and sit here and hear the Word of God and go out and be the same people? It has no value. The Word of God has a specific purpose, and when you read it, read it with the intention of obeying it, or don't read it at all. You're doing a foolish thing, and it has no value to you. I sometimes think we have an idea that we got some charm in our hands, but all you got to do is read it, and somehow all the blessings of God will flow down upon us. That isn't even common sense. I wouldn't dignify it as common sense. God's Word is there that we may obey it. Even of the Holy Ghost himself, in Acts 5.32, it says he is given to them that what? Obey him. If there's going to be any power in the life, the Holy Ghost is not given. In that consuming power, you get the measure of the Holy Ghost that you want, and disobedience gives you the minimal Holy Ghost for you. Or you have him, you possess him, he dwells in your breast, but you restrict him within that temple which belongs to God, and you hold him down, and you don't walk in the Spirit. You walk according to the course of this world, according to the flesh, even though the Holy Spirit is in you, and you grieve him so deeply that he can't do a thing in your life. Jesus couldn't do anything in a city, because it said Jesus could do nothing there, because they didn't believe. And I want to tell you, Jesus can't do anything in your life if you don't believe his promises and his commands for you as a Christian. I read a little piece in the paper talking of obedience out in California in Stanford. Alan Selverston whistled for his German shepherd dog to come. Thor always responded immediately. This was in the newspaper. The obedient animal somehow got onto the tire roof of a four-story biology laboratory at Stanford University last Sunday while Selverston was visiting inside. As he came out, he spotted Thor on the roof and automatically whistled for the dog to come. The animal leaped four floors. That's the obedience of an animal to a master. Let us suppose this morning, just for a few minutes, and I wish we had hours right now, but let us suppose this morning that husbands obeyed the word of the Lord. And if I get around to it, wives, mothers, fathers, children. You know, and incidentally, God doesn't leave any of us out. Isn't that great? You know, the kids can't get the idea that God's got a lot to say to mothers and fathers, but nothing to say to me. He's got a lot to say to you. He holds it down a lot with children. In the New Testament, he probably only has two references to children in a specific way, and in both, it's the same verse, practically, with a little change. It is told to children that they are to respect their mothers and fathers and to obey them as the children of God. In other words, a saved boy or girl who really knows Jesus Christ. But let's start off, let's, this morning, let's start off with husbands, all right? Because you have to always start with husbands. There wouldn't be any wives without husbands, and there wouldn't be any mothers without fathers. And so you have to start with men, you see? And suppose that all the men in this church began to obey Jesus Christ. Suppose, all right? Suppose they began to love their wives like Jesus loved this church and gave himself for it. Well, I did, isn't it? That's how he got married. I suppose, I don't know if God had married you, or whether he quoted these verses, but I'm sure that the preacher who married you probably used Ephesians 5. Husbands! What a high and holy calling. Listen to this. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved his church and gave himself for it. A sacrificial, holy, tender, compassionate love. You know, it interests me in that Roman there, it says, unto obedience in all the nations. And you know, national obedience is conditioned upon family obedience. You can't be an obedient man in the nation you live in if you're a disobedient man in your home. You can't be a disobedient husband and a very great man for the nation you live in. You can't be a disobedient father and also be a credit to the nation you're living in. God doesn't make it that way. He wants obedience in all the nations, but obedience must begin in the home. And so, husbands, suppose it was that way. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Ephesians 5.25. Husband, let me ask you something. See, notice what I said. Suppose husbands obeyed the word of God. What a transforming power it would have upon this congregation. Every wife loved like Jesus loved the church. You couldn't want any deeper, richer, holier love. And the more he loved Jesus, the more he loved you. The reflection of a man's love for you is a reflection of the man's love for Jesus. The more love he has for Christ, the more Christ gives his love to him. Paul puts it well, the love of Christ is shed abroad in your heart. It goes out first to a wife because they too have been made one flesh and they're a picture of the church which is the bride of Christ and Christ that is the bridegroom. And so suppose every husband in Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, people in choir alike, even though they're behind me, same thing, every husband loved his wife like Christ loved his church and gave himself for her. Can you picture the transforming power in your life? What would happen? All those little teeny things that bother you now, you know? Little things here, little things there, you get so annoyed you're ready to blow your top. And suddenly all the love of Jesus wells up in your heart and you can't love your wife enough because of what Christ has done for you personally. And even if your wife or your husband is unsaved, the only way you'll ever win them for Jesus is if Jesus puts love in your heart so deep, so rich, and so real that finally that mate of yours will see it and come to Jesus as personal savior. Even though, as Peter says, you may reach the point, he says, and if your husband is unsaved, he says to a wife, don't dare leave him, stay with him, because how do you know whether he'll be saved or not? That's what the scripture says. How do you know whether he'll be saved or not? And if you can't win him by the word of God, he says, then you use the word of God for yourself and win him by your Christian life. Let him see Christ in you. Obedience. Husbands, Colossians 3.19, love your wives. Another reference. Love your wives and be not bitter against them. Be not bitter against them. Don't look for perfection in anybody. Stop that silliness. You're not perfect. How can anybody else be? Men sometimes get bitter against wives because they think they've lost their freedom. Well, what did you get married for? Who ever told anybody in this age we're living in, with all this talk of liberation, women's liberation, and all the rest, that God has changed? God hasn't changed one iota. God intends, beloved, that there should be this holy love between a husband and wife, and you don't get bitter at every little thing, because you can't do this, and you can't do that, and the kids have strapped you down, and business isn't so good, and all the rest, and you get bitter. God says, don't you dare do that. Husbands, love your wives and don't get bitter. Some husbands charge the fact that they, if I didn't have my family, it happens to be fine. Well, I assume when you got married, you knew the responsibilities of marriage. Anybody, you know, when young couples come to me, and they want to get married, I'll sometimes say to them, how you gonna, how you gonna be able to live, you know, and say, well, I'm not sure, but I think my mother-in-law will take care of me. I say, son, you're not old enough to get married. You're not old enough to get married. No one who can't, is not able to take care of a wife, is old enough to get married. Responsibility is here. This is not love. Love longs for the one that is loved, this object of the love, that they'll love them, if you're a Christian. Now, I'm not talking to the world outside. I don't want you to tell me about all the divorces that are going on, and all the rest. All I know is that in this church, in 21 years, I have had two divorces of those I married. And I believe that where Christ is in it, and a husband really loves his wife like Christ loved the church. Do you think, and listen, suppose Christ got bitter against us. I want to tell you something. It's amazing grace that God in his love is in the pavilions of heaven, looking down upon this sin-cursed world, and seeing not only how the world acts, but how Christians act, and why bitterness of heart doesn't come into him. But there's no bitterness with Jesus. While we were yet sinners, he died for us, alienated and afar off from God. Knowing him not, he died for us. He loved us, here in his love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave himself a propitiation for our sins. Let me say something, husbands, because this is for mothers this morning. I hope you love your wife that way. And I mean that with all my heart. If not, will you stir up the fires of love in your breasts, and stop this senile, unromantic approach to your married life, and get back to some of the sweet romances God put in your heart, and enjoy with all your hearts, as God says, rejoice in the wife of thy youth. I'm speaking mostly to older men. Yes, if we just obey. Incidentally, it doesn't say, God doesn't say, now I hope you husbands will try your best to see what you can do about loving your wife. No, it's a commandment. Husbands, what's the next word? Love your wife as Christ loved his church, and gave himself for it. If Franklin Avenue, if just the people here this morning began to love like that, Christ would turn this whole community upside down with a gospel of his dear son, Jesus Christ. God would do it. God would do it. God would push us out with that great love he's placed in our hearts. Well, I have about eight more points, but I won't go down them all. Maybe just in closing, I'll mention one more, all right? Because this involves mothers, of course, and fathers, or I have more to say about children. There's lots to say there, too. 1 Peter 3, 7, likewise ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge. You know what women are like, God is saying. Now you dwell with them according to knowledge. Don't you say I didn't understand the feminine mystique. Silly to say that after you get married. He says you dwell with them according to knowledge. God is saying I've given to you as a man knowledge of these things, otherwise you're not mature enough to get married. And he says giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel. May I stop here for a minute and say this? I am not a male chauvinist. God is saying the woman is the weaker vessel. Let's not play with it. God made us, and formed us, and breathed into us the breath of life. God made man one way, God made woman another way. Aren't you glad? He says here that we are to be sure that we recognize, give honor unto her as the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life. Praise the Lord. Then he finishes by saying that your prayers, husbands, be not hindered. In other words, unless you're loving like Christ loved his church, and unless you are doing that which God desires in your family life with your wife in that tender, holy, compassionate love, God warns you your prayers are going to be useless. What are you coming to me in prayer for? He says praying about a multitude of things when you can't even get the basic thing, which is your relationship to your mate, to your wife, or the wife to the husband, straightened out. Nothing will ever be right until that is straightened out, and Jesus is saying I'll straighten it out for you, if you want to do it. Because if you come to me and ask anything my name, if you believe that I will do it, I will do it. You know I often say there are conditions to pray. Here's one of them. Here's one of them. If you're not loving right, don't look for answers. That's what God is saying. Your prayers are going to be hindered. You're not loving right. You're not loving your wife like I want you to. Wife, you're not loving your husband like Jesus wants you to. So stop your praying about everything else and get that straight first. Isn't it funny we can go to everything else? Get on your knees, and you'll never mention there's a problem between the two of you if you get on your knees together. Instead of saying, Lord, get us straight. Help us to love each other with a deep and holy and compassionate love. Fill it with our breath so that we look at each other with eyes of tenderness and love, and we're seeing each other the loving Christ who's given us this love. And then, Lord, let us pray believing you'll do things for our children. I believe that many a child here, even this morning, is outside of Jesus, because in that home, love between a mother and a father is at a minimal level. And God says, you're hindered your prayers. Stop your praying. Get straight. There's a husband and a wife. And then come to me, and whatsoever you ask in my name, I will do it. There are some unsaved kids here this morning. You'd be saved when your mother and father get right with God. God will do it. Well, I could go on and on. It's a wonderful word. Wonderful word. So let's go to the Lord in prayer at this time. Now, Father.