This sermon emphasizes the importance of dealing with sin as Christ is coming. It delves into the struggle of recognizing our sinful nature and the need for repentance and surrender to God's power. The message highlights the contrast between the law that condemns and the liberty found in Christ's victory over sin, encouraging a shift from self-effort to faith in God's finished work through Jesus.

Deal with sin, Christ is coming. Deal with sin, Christ is coming. Now folks, the time for fancy titles and fancy messages is over. Deal with sin, Christ is coming. Romans chapter 7, please, if you'll turn there in your Bibles. Father, I thank you, Lord, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Lord, you only ever speak to us for good and never for evil. God, you want us to know peace. You want us to know freedom and security. You said to Jerusalem, how I long to gather you as a hen would gather her chickens under her wings. But God, the people in that season wouldn't come. Would you help us, Lord? Do you help us to hear? Do you help us to respond? Would you help us to know that this is love speaking to us? Would you help us, God? Would you help us to get beyond seeing your word as an infringement on our daily activities? Help us, God, to understand that you want to cover us. I pray, God, that you just give me your heart in this. You give me the power, Lord, to go into every prison place, to make a declaration that this is the hour, this is the day, this is the time of freedom. Thank you for this, God, with all my heart. Lord, break every chain of sin in this house. Break the power of evil. Break bondages. God, I'm asking today that you give freedom to some who have come into this house and are living in despair, saying in their heart, will I ever get free? Will I ever know the freedom that the Word of God speaks about? I pray that that cry be answered today, and I ask it in Jesus' name. Deal with sin. Christ is coming. Romans chapter 7, beginning at verse 7. Paul says, Now, here's what Paul is really saying. There was a time in your life and in mine. Let's bring it home to where we live now. There was a time when you could lie and not even bat an eye about it. I'm talking about, now there might still be some people here that feel that way, but I'm talking about for the sincere Christian, there was a time that you could have an overnight stand. You could lie. You could go out and get drunk. You did what you wanted to do. You went where you wanted to go. There were no pangs of conscience because you were outside of the Word of God. You were outside of the boundaries as it is that God has written down for acceptable human behavior in His sight. And then one day, you either, somebody quoted you the scriptures, or you came into the house of God. Maybe you found a Bible in a hotel room in a drawer somewhere, and you began to read, and you began to understand that there is a prescribed way of behavior for those who belong to God. And this is God's writing, and as Paul says, it was ordained to life. It was to show me the way. And many people, many sitting here today, when you first saw the Word of God, when you first began to read the Word of God, you were so gladdened in your heart. And you knew in your heart, and you said, this is what I've longed for all my life. I've longed for truth. I've wanted to know what the truth is. And now I've found the truth, and now I want to walk in the truth, and I want to live in the truth. I want to be a man or woman of truth. And so you set out to read your Bible, and this is exactly what Paul is speaking about. In Romans 7, he's talking about the entire human condition. It's not just his life. It's the condition of all people born unto this world. He says, when this law of acceptable conduct and behavior given by God himself came into my conscience, I became aware of my corrupt condition. And when he says it worked in me, all men of concupiscence, it means an awareness of inward and active desires which are the result of the diseased condition of my soul. In other words, I became aware that my thoughts are not God's thoughts. My heart is not God's heart. I became aware when I would say something I shouldn't say. Do you ever notice that after you became a Christian? You've not gone four feet from your conversation, and suddenly this voice in the back of your mind is saying, why did you say that? You know how uncharitable that was, or that was not completely true. It wasn't a lie. It was an embellishment, which is really just a lie in a tuxedo. That's all it is. It's a fancy lie. And so you're walking away, and if you are a sincere Christian, if you have sincerely come to Christ, you are now aware of there's an inner corruption. And Paul says it, I was alive without the law once. I felt I was alive. I felt like Peter. I got up in the morning, I dressed myself, I went where I wanted to go, and at the end of the day felt quite satisfied about myself before I knew the Word of God. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. In the commandment which I thought was ordained to life, I found to be unto death for sin, he says in verse 11, taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and slew me. In other words, sin found its strength in my personal efforts to make its crooked ways straight. And the sinful nature in me deceived me into thinking that on my own I could win this battle. A lot of Christians get depressed and discouraged. They go, they end up in this very place that Paul speaks about. I was deceived because of the sin in me into thinking I could change myself, into thinking I could just read the Bible, okay, and I can do this. Only to find out I can't do it. Only to find out that its boundaries, as Paul says later, even though I delight after the Word of God in the inner man, there's a death at work inside of me. There's a corruption in me that I want to do it, but I can't find the strength. Where do I get the strength to do the Word of God? How do I ever get the victory? And many, many people who sit in the house of God never get beyond this point, never get beyond this place where sin is actually dealt with. Sin, they make peace with sin. Remember Jesus said in one of his parables, he said, you have to sit down and count the cost of going to war with 10,000 soldiers against somebody that comes against you with 20,000. And if you don't fully understand the battle, you'll end up sending ambassadors out and you'll make peace with your enemy. And there are many, many people sitting in the house of God who have sent this ambassadorship out as it is with sin and have made peace with it. Well, that's just the way I am. The devil comes and says it's just the way you are. That's the way he still lies just as he did in Eden. That's the way it's going to be. You're never going to change. You're always going to be in this struggle. So why don't you just relax? Why don't you just accept it and just go to church and just raise your hands and thank God anyway, even though you're not living in victory. Stay in the prison house and pretend that everything is okay. Shout hallelujah, sing songs, but don't live in victory. And many, many people have made peace with sin. Paul says, eventually I lost heart and all hope within me that I would ever change died. That's what he's saying in verse 11, sin taking occasion by the commandment, which is the word of God, deceived me and then slew me. Sin, my own sin nature made me think I could win the victory. And so I set out to do it and couldn't do it. Make all the promises you want to God. You can't keep them anymore than all the new year's resolutions you kept before you came to church. You can't keep your promises to God. Neither can I, but the sin nature will come in and try to say, you, what, what is the essence of the sin nature that you can be as God? Remember, Satan came into the garden of Eden and he said to Adam and Eve, if you partake of what I'm presenting before you, you'll become just like God. And that's the essence of the sin nature. No, I have the power to get out of this. I have the power to chart my own course. I can, thank you very much. I can set my own destiny and I'll get through it. And I'm so thankful for the word of God that tells me how I'm supposed to live this thing, but I'm going to do it in my own strength. And that's sin. And it's a, there's a deceptiveness of sin. It's sewn in the fabric of every person ever born into this world. And it's that inner nature, that fallen nature that says, I can be as God. I can be powerful. I can get out of this. I can do this. If I just try harder, if I just read a little more, if I just pray a little longer, I can get out of this. Only to find out, you find in a lot of, I used to travel as a revivalist and you find traveling in churches where some of the oldest saints have been in bondage the longest. They know the scriptures, they they've studied, they've gone to conference after conference, listened to tapes. They know the Hebrew, they know the Greek, but they know everything but how to get out of the prisons of a gossiping tongue, of a bitter heart, the experiences that have come and that have taken up residence within them and they can't get out and eventually just simply make peace with it. And the only way they can look holy from that point onward is they have to destroy everything around them that looks like it has life. Genesis chapter three tells us that sin finds its power in this unsurrendered desire to be as God, leading us to believe that we're free to determine our own course and actions and falsely believing that there'll be no adverse consequences from it. Remember Satan came to Adam and Eve and he said, you shall not surely die. God knows that in the day you eat this thereof, your eyes will be open and you shall be as God's knowing good and evil. Oh, you'll be just as God. If you partake of this fruit, you'll be able to chart your own course, determine your own destiny. You'll be able to get out of your own prisons. Everything that you're supposed to be, you're going to be. Now we're going to see the ugliness of sin in Genesis chapter four verses six and seven. This ugliness is almost immediately manifested. First of all, it produces a false covering. That's what sin will always do. What did Adam and Eve do? They made coverings of fig leaves and attempted to meet with God, covering their sin as it is. And the human effort will always cover its sin and attempt to meet with God. How many have come in today with some besetting sin in your life, something you've got not gotten the victory over, but you're covering it, covering it with a sense of holiness. You're covering it with a sense of I'm worshiping God. You're covering it just by church attendance, thinking somehow that is sufficient for God. But it's really the ugliness of sin. Lies and blame come into, nobody's willing to take responsibility. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent. Everybody now is blaming somebody. And that's the sin nature. You ever notice in society, almost all of the corridors now and in our present world, everybody is blaming somebody for the mess that we're in. It's your fault. It's his fault. It's her fault. It's their fault. Everybody's blaming somebody, but that's the sin nature, folks. That's what sin does. That's how sin manifests itself. Lies and blame. And then the first child produced by Adam and Eve is a murderer. Don't have to go very far to see the fruit of sin. A murderer. John 8, 44, Jesus said, he, that being Satan, was a murderer from the beginning. And he says, you seek to kill me, a man which has told you the truth and you do the deeds of your father. Other people were so offended because they were constant attenders at the synagogue. How dare you say to us that with all of our tradition and all of our covering and all of our heritage, that we're not born of God. That we have an inward problem. And this problem is going to lead us to try to actually kill the Son of God Himself. The Messiah who's come into our midst. Cain, when he had his first encounter with God, had a fallen countenance. He was dealing with a feeling of rejection. He had an inner hatred of his brother, which was born of envy, which would eventually lead to murder. In verse 9 of Genesis 4, he had an arrogance even against God. God came to him and said, where is your brother? And he said, well, how do I know? Am I my brother's keeper? You can just see the arrogance in the heart of men. If God were to even come into this sanctuary today and say to us, where's your brother? What are you doing to help your brother? What are you doing to alleviate human suffering in the world? What are you doing for the widow and the orphan, the oppressed and the addicted? How is your life making a difference? And you'll find that sin will produce an arrogance even against God. Hey, listen, you're God, I'm not. If you don't know where He is, then don't ask me. I have no idea where He is. Have I been planted on this earth to look after my brother? That's a question that you and I need to ask ourselves, because the answer, obviously, is yes. That's why as a church we've been left in the world. Then he says, if you don't do well, sin is lying at the door. If it's not going well. For people who've come into this sanctuary today, if it's not going well for you right now, if you're troubled on the inside, if you're dealing with envy on the job, if you're having a hard time to be honest in your finances, if you're dealing with issues in the heart, God comes to Cain in His mercy and He says, if you're not doing well, sin is lying at the door. In other words, sin is waiting to accompany you through your day, lying at the door, waiting at your doorstep, sleeping there. Good morning. You get up and let's go to the office. Let's hate everybody together. Let's get out the books and let's falsify the financial records. Let's do it together so sin goes with you. Waiting at the door. If you're not doing well, sin is at the door, folks. Going in and the conscience all day is bothered because you're in conversations, you're doing things, you're in relationships, you're in places that you know are not right. And then you come home and there's sin lying at the door when you get home saying, come on in, come on in. Let's sit down. I've got some comfort for you. Some of it's in the refrigerator. Put it in the glass and then let's go to the internet and have a look there. There's some things on the internet that are going to comfort you. Sin lies at the door, goes out with you in the morning and is waiting for you to come home again at night. But then the Lord says something very strange to Cain. He says, but and it shall desire to be your master, but you shall have the mastery over it. Now He's not talking to Cain because Cain from after that verse murders his brother, but He's talking about to humanity itself. Sin will desire to master you, but you shall have the master over it. You're not under the dominion of sin any longer when you come to Jesus Christ. Now again in Romans chapter 7, Paul continues on to speak of this power of sin in verse 14. He says, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not. For that which I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would not, I consent to the law that it is good. Now then it's no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. Now if I were to ask for a show of hands today, I think this is a verse that many here are familiar with. If you're willing to be honest with God, you say, I know what to do, but I don't know how to find the power to do it. I know I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing, and I know I should be doing, Paul says, but where do I find the power to do this? For the good, verse 19, that I would, I do not. But the evil, that I would not, that I do. Now if I do that which I would not, it's no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. Now Paul is not abdicating himself of the blame. He's just saying basically, there's a power at work in me that is stronger than my own will. No matter how hard I try, I can't get out of this struggle. I find in a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. Verse 22 says, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. Thank God for verse 25, because we've just gone through almost a whole chapter of how do I do this. And he finally says, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's all we really have to say even from that verse. I thank God. Now go to Job please, chapter 41. I know you're wondering how in the world does Job have anything to do with what we're talking about. You'll see that in a moment. Now God in Job 41 is speaking directly to a man going through a terrible personal battle. And He gives him a description, which I believe is a veiled description of the battle, the ferocity of the battle that all men face. And then He leads them to the only remedy. Now I personally believe, and this is my belief, you're free to acknowledge or reject it, but I believe you're going to see, you're going to see sin, Satan, and the Savior in these verses of scripture. There's a veiled reference to what is really the center core, because remember, remember Job doesn't understand why the battle is going on all around him. He doesn't understand why distress has come into his life. He has tried in himself to be righteous. He has believed that he's walked the holy walk, and he doesn't understand why all of this is going on around him. Now the Lord unveils to him, as much as his mind is able to comprehend, another battle much greater than his own. And folks, no matter what we're going through, there is another battle fought in a whole different arena, much greater than our own, and there has been an incredible victory. This is where we're going today. Now verse 40, chapter 41, He's talking about a sea monster really, Leviathan. Some say it's an elephant, some say it's a huge prehistoric crocodile. Let's just say it's a sea monster for lack of a better understanding. Now here's what he says to him. Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, or his tongue with a cord which you let down? In other words, can you tame this beast? Can you tame this thing that is unconquerable? There's no man alive that has the power. In other words, he's saying very clearly, do you have the power to subdue this? Now we're talking still in the context of Romans 7, so try to draw the two together if you can. Can you put a hook into his nose, or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak soft words to you? Now think about the contrast between sin, Satan, and the Savior, and Christ himself. Now Satan will not speak softly to you, except to deceive you, and will condemn you. Once you've come to Christ, his voice will rise against you almost every day, and condemn you. He is the condemner. He will not come to you with soft words. He'll not come to you saying, this is the way out. This is the path. Walk in it. He'll come and say, give up. Hopeless. You've failed God. God's angry with you. Why would God put up with you? Why will God deal with you? Why would God even endure you one more day? Look at your failings. Look at your sin. Look at your struggle that's in your life. Why would God want any part of you? And that's why he says, will he make supplications to you? Verse three. Will he speak soft words to you? Will he make a covenant with you? Verse four. Or will you take him for a servant forever? Think of Christ. He made a covenant with the Father, and we are in that covenant because of faith in his atoning work on Calvary. Will he make a covenant with you? He's talking about this sea monster as it is. Will you take him for a servant? Remember the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. The greatest among you. He said, we'll be your servant. Will you play with him as with a bird? Think about when Jesus Christ was brought into the court of judgment, and when people were slapping his face, and they were mocking him, and they were put a robe on him and ripped the robe off, and they would walk around him and say, prophesy to us without Christ. Who is it that smote thee? He says, will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your maidens? Remember as he was heading to Calvary, the women in Jerusalem weeping and crying, and he says, will you bind him for your maidens? Shall the companions make a banquet of him? Shall they part him among the merchants? Think about Jesus on the cross, and what did they do with his last remaining earthly possessions? Did they not make merchandise of it? Did the soldiers not gamble for it? He's talking now about the contrast. Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears? Think of the pointed thorns that were pressed into the head of Christ, and the barbed irons that were put through his hands and through his feet. I don't have any doubt about what this is speaking about. He's talking about the power of evil itself, and where evil originated from in the garden of Eden. You have to keep in mind, folks, that God has never changed his mind all the way through the scriptures. He lost that which was created in his image in Eden, and it's been in his heart all the way through the scriptures to get mankind back again. He's not just randomly speaking for the fun of it. He's never lost sight of the goal. He's never lost sight of what this was about, that he was going to come as a man into the earth, walk among us for 33 years. He was going to go to a cross. God was going to go to a cross. All-powerful God was going to be crucified, mocked among men. He was going to be made a banquet of. Maidens were going to laugh and dance as the God who created the universe was taken to a cross, failing to understand he was dying to break the power of sin and the penalty of sin off of those who had trusted him. Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, verse 7, or his head with fish spears? Lay your hand upon him. Remember the battle and do no more. That's verse 8 says, remember the battle. In other words, the power or the possibility of conquering evil in your own strength cannot be done. Look at the strength of your adversary. Lay your hand upon him, he says, and do no more. Behold, the hope of him or the hope of conquering him is in vain. Shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? None is so fierce that dare stir him up. You know, we make a grievous error when we misunderstand the power of our enemy. You remember Jude, I believe it is, he said there's a perverse people in the last days even. They will rail against darkness, but they don't know what they're talking about. They don't understand the power of what they're railing against. Then he gives the key right at the end of verse 10. Who then is able to stand before me? He said if this is the power that you've been set out to defeat, if this is where the victory needs to be won, the only hope is me. The only power greater than this is me. He's saying it very very clearly. I am the only one that no one else can stand up against. I'm the God who formed the universe and put the stars into the heavens. I spoke everything into existence by the word of my mouth. I looked down at some dust in the ground and formed it together with my hands and breathed into it and it became a living soul. I tell the sun to stand still and it stands still. I can I can stop the laws of gravity for a man like Joshua in the midst of a battle to prove that I am God. God could have folded the universe as he will one day. The scripture tells us clearly one day he's going to fold the whole universe and he's going to remake the heavens and remake the earth. And so I've asked myself the question over the years especially as a young Christian, God if you're going to do that one day why didn't you do it back then when Adam and Eve sinned and you knew that the course of humankind was going to walk in rebellion against you. When you knew that men were going to create devices and inventions and eventually just destroy themselves should you not intervene. When you knew that all creation was going to suffer as Romans says because of sin that would bear down and bring the weight of evil as it is even creation itself. That's why nature's out of balance. That's that's why animals are suffering. That's why things in the sea are dying. The whole of creation suffers because of the weight of sin that's in the hearts of men. My question to the Lord has been then God why didn't you just fold it all and just recreate it in the beginning. Why allow all of this suffering and misery. The Lord says because I saw you through the corridors of time. I saw you. That's what the Lord's saying to you today. I saw you and to fold it then would have meant I would have lost you for all of eternity. I saw you. You were in the loins of Adam. I saw you. I knew you. You're not a happenstance in this world my brother, my sister. I don't care if your parents were married or not married. You're not in this world apart from the permission of God. God says I saw you. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Not just the generic planet with its seas and birds and fish. That's not the world. It was you he loved. God so loved the world. You and me that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Every thorn that satan pushed down into the brow of Christ. I can see him saying is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it worth the suffering? And Jesus in his heart saying oh yes it's worth it. Oh yes. Looking down the corridors of time. Thank God. Thank God he saw me. He saw you. Thank God we'd be without hope. Oh yes it's worth it. Oh yes it's worth it. Isaiah 53 tells us the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was wounded and bruised, despised and rejected. You see him tied to a whipping post with a cat of nine tails with a Roman guard probably getting a lot of perverse pleasure out of what he was doing to the son of God and when those stones attached or pieces of glass attached to the end of those whips would hit his flesh it would tear it out literally when he pulled it back 39 times and satan would be standing there saying is it worth it? Is it worth it? Oh yes it's worth it. Oh yes it's worth it for my bride my church for you it's worth it and every time that cord every time somebody slapped his face every thorn that was pushed into his brow every nail that went into his feet and into his hands everything was done for your name for your punishment to pay for your healing and for your future and when he came to his final breath he finally said it is finished it's finished father I've done the work I've broken the curse of sin it's finished it's not something I have to do it's something he did for me Jesus died for my sin Jesus broke the power of my sin and paid the penalty of my sin won the total victory when he was raised on the third day from the dead I was raised with him you were raised with him we now sit at the right hand of God in Jesus Christ and that full victory that he won is now mine the good news of this is I'm not called in my own strength to win any victory anymore I'm called to believe that the victory is mine through Christ and then in that faith just put one foot in front of the other and keep on walking hallelujah to the lamb of God as I was preparing this message I was thinking about the the first coming of Christ John the Baptist was raised up now John was a voice and I do believe that that same voice is going to be heard in the world and probably is being heard throughout the world today John the Baptist was a type of a ministry type of a cry from the heart of God in multiplicities of places although it was only in one at that time would be all over the world today and John was sent to prepare a way and he called to the people what was his message turn from your sin make your crooked ways straight let every lofty place all the pride of the human heart let it be brought down but let every man woman acknowledge that my ways are not God's and I can't get through this in my own strength and he said let every valley be lifted up in other words every person who's come in and you've you're so under the weight of what you're fighting that you've lost heart God says let me lift you up I am your glory and I'm the lifter of your head let me lift you up let me give you the victory that you need and then he went to the religious and he said who warned you to flee from the wrath to come he said every tree that does not bring forth fruit is going to be hewn down and cast into the fire he said I baptize with water but there's coming one after me whose fan is in his hand he's going to thoroughly purge his threshing floor he's going to gather the wheat to himself but the the empty chaff that means those that are empty there's nothing of God inside of them are going to be pushed aside and put into unquenchable fire he said but he's going to come with his fan in his hand he's going to baptize with the holy ghost and with fire now fire to burn out and it's God's fire it's not mine that fire of transformation and that power to be a witness of the living reality that Jesus Christ is alive in my generation many people were being baptized in other words they were putting off the old way of living and trusting in the mercy of God for their future they were coming there was a there would be a stream of people coming being baptized and of course I don't have time to get into it was it was John's baptism but it was a baptism of repentance it was a baptism of saying my ways are not right and folks this came to the most religious people in the world of that day this message and many people and ironically they weren't the most religious quite often they were the ones that were the biggest strugglers in all of that time and they came to John and there's a stream of them being baptized there's there's this this cry in the heart God I want to live for you I want to live for God I want my life to represent God I want the freedom of God that's available to all men and women be known to be known through me and it was in the midst of these baptisms and there's just a flood now that the religious were highly offended at this because they had another sense of righteousness through their own works and they were offended at the simplicity of John's message and the volumes of people that were responding to it but in the midst of it all Jesus appears what a day that must have been when John said behold the Lamb of God and I believe with all my heart I see it in the scriptures that there will be a similar message in the last days Malachi speaks of it in his last chapter he said Elijah will come that's that's that voice as it is Elias which Christ said was John and will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children the children to their fathers that there will be this turning back to God this turning back to truth in our last days but I believe it culminates with behold the bridegroom I believe with all my heart something that God is speaking to me it's time folks to deal with sin Christ is coming it's time now that was what John had to say deal with sin folks the Messiah is coming and Malachi said that voice should be raised again now it's going to be it was just one person in John but it'd be a multiplicity of persons in our generation but it would be birth of the spirit deal with sin Christ is coming you don't need to play games when the power of God is here for you to live a new life but you have to make this step we all do of saying I'm not living this way anymore I'm not doing this anymore you've got to get some gravel in your gut for lack of a better way of saying it and say my part is to form the intent to not want to live this way God's part is to give me the power to make that a reality but I have to form the intent Christ is coming Christ is coming do you realize it folks Christ is coming do you fully understand the hour we're living in right now do you know why five nations are on the verge of failing in Europe and the whole of the European currency is in jeopardy right now anybody who's been following the the health debate recently you saw the leaders of this country they could only agree on one thing we're broke for real we're broke as a nation that seemed to be the only and the bible speaks of perplexities men can analyze the problem women can analyze the problem but they don't know what to do about it they cannot agree on a course forward it's a perplexity of nations that we're living in right now Iran has a dictator about to take over the country they're on the verge of a military coup it's not even it's not even new it's been known for some time it's just that our media is picking up on it since the secretary of state has made it public Iran with a president who considers it his messianic duty to create chaos in the world and is pushing fiercely ahead to get nuclear weaponry that's the hour we're living in right now earthquakes tidal waves as the scripture says in Matthew chapter 24 if you're not aware of where we're living now it's time now to deal with sin remember the foolish virgins they just didn't they had no oil they had no life of god they had no power that did nothing of god in them they had a religiousness but their lamps were out oh beloved oh beloved would you please hear me this morning christ is coming christ is coming christ is coming in in john's day in john's day it took courage because to get up and do what john was asking them to do meant to invoke the ire of the entire religious system but the people didn't care they they were they just didn't care anymore they'd had enough of the struggle and they just said we're going with god i want to give you a promise today if you have the courage to turn from sin the very first thing that will happen you walk in obedience that's what baptism speaks about it's not my life it's the life of god in me the next thing that will happen is you will begin to see christ there'll be something that opens to you you'll see him you'll no longer be distant you'll hear that voice and it will be god speaking to you behold the lamb of god you begin to see him in every book of the bible his promises begin to be real and just like the people on the road to emmaus your heart will begin to burn oh god no longer be just boring in the house of the lord no longer reading the bible and condemned but reading it reading the bible with oh lord i can hardly wait for tomorrow what you're going to do in my life again i can hardly wait for the the changes that are going to come into my life the victories that are going to be given to me the giftings of god that lord i just invite you i've seen what you can do lord i i just invite you to be god in me take me farther than i could ever go lord let your name be glorified through this this frail human vessel that's that's all that we are any of us we're just frail human vessels i don't really care if you have an education or no education you're all on everyone's on the same ground in christ the ground is totally level in christ but it starts with it turning to god it starts with a willingness to repent which means turn from sin the no repentance folks there is no salvation i'm afraid for this generation of what we've offered the church when i when i say we i'm i'm not talking about myself or this church i'm talking about just this general church age we've offered forgiveness without repentance folks that's why the divorce rate is as high or maybe higher in the church and then among those that are not saved that's why there's such problems gospel is the same as it always has been turn from sin walk with god christ will be revealed to you and you'll have the power that god has longed to give you my altar call is that today for every person in the annex and here in the main sanctuary you've got to get to the point where you don't care what the people think around you the left or the right of you if you came with people it's just you just got to get to the point where it doesn't matter i don't care i'm going with god it's that simple i don't care who points their finger at me i i plead with you in christ's name this is an important time for you i'm not trying to pack an altar it's not about that i care that you move forward in god everyone who's dealing with an area where you've you've not had the victory and you just don't know how you're going to get out it's it's just when you take that step of faith and this altar call is basically saying god i can't get free by myself but i'm going to trust you i've heard a word today that the victory was won for me and i'm going to just start walking into that victory i'm going to start believing you god and i'm going to ask you to help me not to be condemned by the word of god but to be encouraged by the word of god if that's you today we're going to stand and worship for a moment i'm going to ask you to come and meet me at this altar balcony would either exit main sanctuary just slip out where you are let's stand together please come and just meet me and we're going to pray and we're going to believe god for freedom today you'd be surprised where this will take you to just come no need to be shy everyone here is a sinner saved by grace so don't you worry about anybody else here just come young and old rich and poor it makes no difference praise god you're a sinner who needs christ as savior you come in your heart you just give your heart to god he'll receive you let's take a moment to worship now now for those that have come to the altar let me take three minutes and explain something to you to some the word of god is law as paul says and to others it's liberty and where did we find the transition how does it happen remember that the inherent plan of sinful man is that we can be as god and so god says okay if you think you can be holy in your own strength here's a bunch of rules to obey give it your best try in the jewish culture that i think there was 606 of them paul said it was a yoke we couldn't bear it it couldn't be done it was and if you broke one you broke them all so you're just constantly condemned you the whole experience of the temple was sin confess sin confess sin confess and it would be get so discouraging after a while that people just gave up covered themselves with false garments and developed an extremely hypocritical system of religion that ultimately hated god because it saw him as unjust and it set out then to produce its own sense of being right with god that's why the religion of that day killed christ because his message was you can't do it you know you can't do it you need something greater than yourselves and for those who had thought they'd achieved some measure of holiness were highly offended at this that was the old testament it was a law where you god says you do i do you do this i do this and and we couldn't do our end of the bargain we just couldn't do it so god made a new covenant this time not with you and me with his son he sent his son into the world he said son you're going to walk among the people for 33 years you're going to give your life and you're going to pay the price for all the sin you're going to break its penalty you're going to break its power sin is going to be broken by you you're going to die in the place of all people on the earth who will ever trust in you on the third day i'm going to raise you from the dead i'm going to sit you at the right hand of all authority and power now it was the father said that the son said back to his father you can read it in john 15 16 17 father i'll go and i'll trust you you know i'll commit my my my spirit into your hands but your part of the bargain is that everybody who believes in me the total victory i win becomes theirs it's that simple and you win it not by doing something you win it by believing in what was done you begin to walk in faith so now the word of god will no longer condemn you the word of god will empower you you begin to see this as your inheritance this is the last will and testament as it is of god through his son and every day you're going to the spiritual bank say hey i'd like to make a withdrawal here i'm a little short on love you mind i need a little more love than that the hand of god comes says okay it's yours in christ it's yours and it's it's that simple folks paul said don't be turned from the simplicity that's in christ beware of those who try to put you back again under physical labor trying to earn something with god when it's all been done for you so now you're waiting for me to lead you in a prayer but you see that works in itself isn't it i think the best thing we can do is just shout and give god glory today oh you can do better than that hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah glory to god glory to god glory to god i've got the victory i've got the victory i've got the victory i've got the victory in christ in christ i've got the victory one more time give god a shout of glory