In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the need for discipline and authority in the lives of believers. He uses the analogy of a child being told to take a bath after playing in the mud to illustrate the importance of obedience. The preacher then discusses the power of God to save and transform individuals, highlighting the supernatural nature of salvation. He challenges the idea that salvation is simply a human decision, emphasizing that it is a work of God. The sermon concludes with the preacher explaining that every person is born with a heart of stone, but through salvation, God gives them a new heart.

The book of Ezekiel, chapter 36, Ezekiel 36. Before I read the text, I'd like to also return with you to the Lord in prayer. Father, you know, Lord, I pray, dear God, that you would send revival, that you would pour out your spirit upon your people, that you would send revival to this church and the churches around, that you would send revival to the school here, Lord, that you would send revival to my own heart, that you would show yourself strong, Lord, and make your name great among the nations. In Jesus' name, amen. In Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 22, Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a heart, a new heart, and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. And you will be careful to observe my ordinances. There are many great problems in the evangelical community in the United States today. One of them is not understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ, replacing the true and the powerful gospel of Christ with some romantic, impish, impotent version that has no power to convert. Forgetting that we were bought with a price, and that price was the Son of God hanging on a tree, yes, but bearing the sins of His people and crushed under the weight of His own Father's wrath. That He rose again on the third day, and that we are saved only through what God has done on behalf of His people. But another great problem that plagues the evangelical community in America is a very, very poor understanding of salvation and the power of it. And along with that misunderstanding of salvation and the power of salvation comes a misunderstanding of the church. Now, I'm going to address these issues tonight, and I want you to know that I'm doing so with every word begging that you hear, begging that you understand, and begging God that He'll open up your heart and your mind to see some truths that can literally transform your life, truths that can give you life. For many who profess Christ today are still dead in their sins. Many church members today of conservative Bible-believing churches are still dead in their sins, and if they die, they will die in their sins and spend an eternity in hell because of our awkward beliefs with regard to the gospel, because of our impotent view of salvation as a thing worked by man and not by God. What we're going to see this evening, that's not true. Now, I want to say something right now about the church. We hear today in America, there are preachers who do not care about holiness to any degree, and to them, the church is just fine as long as it's growing in number. But then there are others who do have a great concern for holiness, the impiety, the lack of devotion, and everything else that is seen within the context of the church, and they cry out that these are terrible times, that the church is filled with sin, that there's just as much abortion in the church as there is outside of the church, that there is just as much adultery in the church as outside of the church, that there is just as much lying and immorality in the church as outside of the church, and all the wicked things that you can find in the world, you can find to the same degree in the church, and they say that the church has turned its back on God, and they say that the church has fallen. Well, I want you to know they're wrong too. They are very, very wrong, because what they are saying is that the gates of hell have prevailed against the church. Both views are not in accordance with Scripture. Let me say something to you today, and it will sound shocking coming from someone like me. The church of Jesus Christ in America is doing wonderfully today. The church all throughout the world is doing wonderfully. Walking in holiness, walking in sanctity, and when it stumbles, when it falls, it quickly repents and comes back to the path with even greater devotion and joy towards God. You say, Brother Paul, what world are you living in? That is not the church in America. Yes, it is. The only problem is you're calling something the church that's not the church. That is one of the greatest false doctrines in America today. What you need to realize is that some church leaders of very large denominations have come to say of their own denomination that if they were to compare their membership by what the Scripture says a Christian is, they would have to declare that 75% of all the church members in their entire denomination are lost, dead in their sins, and on their way to hell. What you need to understand is we have reduced the gospel of Jesus Christ down to four little trifling laws, and if we can get someone to nod their head to those laws, we declare them born again, they hardly ever come back to church. Or if they do come back to church, they come back as a two-fold child to hell that lives just like the world, and because of their profession of faith in Jesus Christ, the name of God is blasphemed among the unbelievers. The majority of people who attend conservative Bible-believing churches are lost. Many of your people over in that university right over there are lost, but they believe themselves saved. Why? Because many decades ago we decided that we would turn away from biblical doctrine, that truth and theology was no longer important. I spent 11 years of my life in a country where the only thing you had to do to go to heaven was be baptized into the church. And many of you would scoff at that and say, how horrible, how ridiculous. Physician, heal thyself, because in America the only thing you have to do is repeat a magical little prayer. And that is wrong. I want you to know tonight that no one has ever been saved by praying a prayer and asking Jesus Christ into their heart. If you're saved, you're saved because you repented of your sins and you threw yourself on Christ by faith. We have reduced it down. Evangelists traveling around like circus boys. TV preachers that cause Christianity to be mocked because of their lack of devotion and their lack of doctrine and their lack of truth. And then men coming out of seminaries geared up to believe that the only way they can truly be successful is to have a 5,000 member church, no matter how they arrive at that point. We need to understand something. We need to understand salvation. Last night, I proclaimed to you that we need to understand the gospel. Tonight, we need to understand salvation. That it is not merely a tiny human decision, but it is a supernatural work of Almighty God. And the work He does, He carries out to perfection and fails not in one of them. That's what we have to see. I would say that it is not far-fetched to say, well, let me just give you an example before we even get started. Genesis chapter 1 begins within the beginning. Isn't it quite unusual that John chapter 1 verse 1 begins within the beginning? Why? Because scripture here is talking about two creations. Genesis, the creation of the earth. In the book of John, the creation of a new people. The creation of new creatures. Those born again, not by the power of men, but by the will and power of God. And I would submit to you that it takes as much divine power to save a wretched man as it takes to create an entire universe. I am so sick of our proclamation of the gospel that is nothing less than stupid. And I am so sick of our view of salvation that is damning more people to hell than every tavern and brothel and everything else of the world combined. So we need to look. We need to look. We need to look at salvation. Now, I've made a lot of bold claims here tonight. And I'm only 41 years old. In men of God terms, that means I'm still a boy of God. Teenager at best. So where do I come off saying these things? First of all, I believe I can defend them in Scripture. But secondly, I believe that you must always do your theology in the context of the church. You must do your study of Scripture in the context of Christian history. And I want you to know something. That the last century in America saw a major departure of American Christianity from historical Christianity. And from the many movements and works of God down through creation. Let me tell you something that one seminary actually teaches. Now listen to me. That when you witness to someone and you ask them, Do you want to go to heaven when you die? Would you like to receive Jesus? They are told that you should also start nodding your head up and down while you're asking that question so that the person listening to you will be drawn into it and it will be easier for them to accept Christ. Whoever teaches that in seminary is lost. Mark it down. You've got a lost professor. Who knows not God, nor the way of God, nor the Scriptures, nor the power of God. Now here in Ezekiel chapter 36, we have a beautiful Old Testament illustration of regeneration. You know, I don't have trouble with the word born again. I really don't. But I do have trouble with words that are spoken by those who do not understand their meaning. I think that we need to bring back the other word that was used in ancient times for this. Yes, it is born again. Yes, Jesus teaches that. But it might be more appropriate to use the word regeneration. To be regenerated. To be made alive. Because that's what has to happen when a man dead in his sins is saved. He is made alive by the supernatural power of God. It is nothing less than when Lazarus was in that tomb and Jesus cried out, Lazarus, come forth. You and I could cry out to Lazarus all day in that tomb. We could cut ourselves like the prophet of Baal. We could dance. We could mourn. We could do all kinds of things shouting, Lazarus, come forth. But Lazarus is not coming forth. But when Jesus stepped up, He said, Lazarus, come forth. And He came forth. Why? We have to understand something. Something very, very important. Dead men can't hear. Did you know that? And dead men can't stand up. And dead men can't obey commands. Dead men can't even hear God. So not only did Jesus command Lazarus, come forth, He gave him life to come forth. He gave him ears to hear. He gave him will to obey. He did absolutely everything. That's what you have to do when someone is more than sick. When they are dead, the preposterous thing, if someone dropped over right now in this church, and I ran over to them quickly, and I said, quick, follow me. There's a hospital right over here. And when we get there, they'll put those things on you and shock you. It'll hurt, but it'll make you come back to life. You see, I'm putting the cart before the horse, aren't I? If He could do all that, He wouldn't need to do all that. He'd be alive! The fact of the matter is, He's not alive. He's dead. So not only must I give Him a command, I must give Him life. And the God who gives life and begins a work of life will finish that work of life. The problem is, there's so many people that claim to have a work of life and yet show no evidence of spiritual life. Now, therefore say to the house of Israel, This says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations. Now look at this! We are so human-centered, so self-centered, that this verse actually makes us quite uncomfortable, doesn't it? Oh, I thought God did everything for me! No. He says, Israel, I'm going to save you, and it's not for your sake that I'm going to do it. You see, here's what you need to understand. God's motivation for saving you came forth from Himself. God is love, but also God does all that He does for His own glory and to make His name great among the nations. You see, God found His motivation for saving you in Him, not in you. Because if God had to look for motivation to save you in you, He would not save you because there is nothing in you that would ever make Him save you. Never. Find one thing, one place where God could grab, something that would motivate God to save you. If you find something, then you do not understand the doctrine of depravity. You do not understand the doctrine, the Christian doctrine of the sinfulness of man. The only thing, the only motivation that comes forth from you would motivate God, of course, to condemn you, to rid the earth of you, to throw you in the deepest part of hell. That is the only thing that comes forth out of you. That is the only right that you could claim. The only thing you truly earned is condemnation. So what could move a holy, just God to do something other than condemn you? It must come from Him. It must come from Him. Everything must come from Him. If you could just grasp that truth as a lost person, if you could grasp that truth as a Christian, everything must come from Him. Everything must come from Him. What is my part in this? Fall down on your face and acknowledge your need. That is your part in this. Stop striving. Cry out to God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God esteems the one who is humble and contrite, broken, trembles at His Word. He says, I am doing it for my own name. Now here is something you need to understand. Why did God create the world? To demonstrate His greatness? Why did the world fall? Do you think that was an accident? Oh, there was plenty of individual responsibility there. What the devil did, he did by his own fault and his own will. What man did, he did by his own will and his own fault. That is true. But I want you to know there was a higher plan behind it all. And what was that higher plan? That God might get glory for Himself. That God might get glory for Himself. And He's right to do that. And why does God do the impossible in saving men that cannot be saved apart from Him for His own glory? To demonstrate His power? That not only men and nations, but the principalities and powers and mights and dominions and everything that has been and will be and still is, would bow down at His throne and acknowledge that He is God. But we've got a problem here, don't we? He's going to save a people to prove His greatness, to defend His reputation. And then we look. And what do we see in America today? A multitude of people who claim to be saved. And if they are saved, then they demonstrate that God has no power. And the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. We have this idea, God wants to save you, but He can't. And after He saves you, He wants to make you holy, but He can't. Then who's got the reins on God now? In America, it's clearly man. But that's not Bible, and that's not God. It's nothing more than foolish, foolish, foolish men preaching about things they do not know. God saves you, why? To demonstrate how great He is. Will He then fail? Will He then fail? No, He will not fail. If He saves you, He will transform you, and He will bring you to glory. Why? Because you're worth it? No, for His reputation. I don't start anything that I don't finish. Do you remember the great argument between Moses and God? Moses, stand out of the way. Stand back. I'm going to kill them all. I'm going to wipe the earth clean of them. I'll make a nation out of you. What does Moses say? No. No, you can't do that. And why can I not do that, Moses? Well, because the Egyptians will then say that you were not able to bring them into the land. I want you to know that's what most preachers in America are saying today. God is not able to bring them into the land. God is not able to clean them. God is not able to make a people for Himself. God does not have power to sanctify or transform. And therefore, the secular media treats us like a circus. And we are pretty much a circus. The only problem is one day the trumpet's going to blow and God's true church is going to leap out of this circus. And so many are going to be left behind. Even many of you. And many on your campus. Many in your churches left behind. He says, I'm going to do it for my own glory. Verse 23, I will vindicate the holiness of My name, My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. Why is God saving Israel? That the nations might know that He is God. When God pulled Israel out of Egypt, what was the purpose of all the plagues? He could have pulled them out without a plague. He could have put all the Egyptians to sleep for 24 hours. He could have done anything He wanted to do. He could have stopped it at once. Oh, the foolishness of a little Pharaoh. So why does God say He sends plague after plague that even the Egyptians might know that I am God by the way I save My people, by the power that is demonstrated when I come forth and save My people? Does the world look at what's called the church today and marvel and fear at the power of God because of the way He has transformed the lives of the professors, of those who profess Christ? No. It mocks. It mocks. Why? Because there's no house cleaning among us. Because we preach to keep them instead of preaching to save them. Oh, many pastors should be extremely, extremely afraid. Extremely afraid. These seeker-friendly church growth, what are they doing? They're turning the church of Jesus Christ into a six flags over Jesus just to get a bunch of people. They care not for the glory of God nor the power of God. They've made man an idol. But God says when He saves people, He will prove Himself holy among them all. Now in verse 24, now look, He begins to describe what happens when a man is saved. Regeneration. If you look in the book of... So many people think born again came from John chapter 3. My friend, born again comes from Ezekiel. All over this book, a dead people, a dead army, dry bones. What will happen? Crawl on the wind. Hear a rumbling sound. Oh my, my Lord, the only thing that's going to happen here tonight is if God sends the wind. God sends the wind. Do you think words can save men? The words of men are dead. The Spirit that gives life. I wish that everyone in this church tonight would just fall down and cry out that the Holy Spirit would come. Not for one of those silly circus things on television, but for genuine repentance and life and power and godliness. But this is what happens when a man is saved. He says, For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Has God not the power to do this now? What happened to God? Has His power diminished? And if so, He is no longer perfect. And if so, He is no longer God. Where did His power to deliver go? It's there. It's just that it's rarely seen because of false doctrine. The carnal Christian. Oh, that's something of a contrivance. You know who that's preached by? Pastors who are too busy to study. Preachers and evangelists who are too busy promoting themselves and not studying. Because I want you to know it's not a biblical doctrine. And it wasn't taught in early Baptist history. It wasn't taught in early evangelical history. It wasn't taught in the Reformation. It wasn't taught by the Puritans. It wasn't taught by anybody until we came along and decided the greatest and most important thing was to have big churches. And the only way we can have big churches is if most of them are filled up with carnal people. And the only way to have carnal people saved is if we invent a doctrine called the carnal Christian. You know the little throne illustrations in the tracts, you know? Here's a spiritual Christian. He's on the throne. He's not on the throne. Jesus is on the throne. But the carnal Christian, my, he has some kind of power to him. He pulls Jesus off the throne of His life and He sits on the throne. Because He's the carnal Christian. And when the carnal Christian says, Jesus, get off the throne, He has to get off. And then, of course, if He lets Jesus back on, everything works just wonderfully. Who taught us to blaspheme that way? From where did that come? Straight out of the pit of hell is from where it came. The Bible knows no such thing as a continuously carnal Christian. The Bible knows no such thing as a continuously immature Christian. The Bible knows no such thing. The Bible only knows that when a man is saved, the one who began the good work in him will finish it. He says, I will take you from the nations. Let me ask you a question here tonight. Every one of you. Has God taken you out of the world? This ungodly world system that opposes God in every direction, has God removed you from there? Are you now beginning, and you young Christians to certain degrees, are you beginning more and more to hate the things that God hates and love the things that God loves? Or do you still love the things of the world? And if you fall into the things of the world, does your heart, is it still filled with joy? There's no problem. There's no conviction. There's no working of the Holy Spirit. If so, you're lost. And you're going to hell. Because God has the power to pull His people from the nations. He has the power to take them out of the kingdom of darkness and introduce them into the kingdom of His dear Son. Has God done that in your life? Now I want you to know, I've walked with the Lord for 20 years and that's not a great deal of time. And I don't want to pretend or be a hypocrite and say, I don't struggle with the world, that the Lord has pulled me out of the world completely and now I'm free. No, that's not what I would say. That would be a lie. But I can say this, since the day I was born again, my relationship with the world changed. And when I've turned my face towards the world, I have ended up with vomit in my heart, throat, and mouth. I could not stay there. And I beat my heart and would have ripped it from my chest if possible. Why? We're going to see later because that's what new creatures do. You see, you take a fish and put him in water, he swims well because that's what fish do. You change that fish into a man and the first thing he's going to do is stick his head out of that water and run for the beach because that's what men do. Men can't live in water. Christians can't live in sin, drinking it down like it was water, as most in America do. He says, I'll take you from the nations and bring you into your own land. Do you know what? I know that to some of you I sound angry and arrogant and I suppose maybe I am and I'm sorry for that. But look at this text. He will bring you into his own land. I sometimes go to very, very large churches and very important pastors and sometimes I meet some very godly men. But there are a lot of men I'll meet and if you begin to talk to them about growing a big church, you've got their attention. Their eyes are fixed on you. But if you begin to talk about the beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ, they're looking over your shoulder for something more necessary to speak about. I fear for them that they have never tasted of the food in Jehovah's land. Have you ever tasted and seen that the Lord is good? If you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, then if you do return to the morsels of the world, it will make you vomit. Have you never tasted? You see, true Christians aren't people who are struggling and writhing and fighting to like this kind of stuff. Yes, we once hated it. Now we love it and we don't know why except that God intervened. Now let's go to verse 25. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. Look at that. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Now let's step back for a moment. I want you just to look at something. Look at the first person, singular, pronoun, I. And look at not clauses of hope, but clauses of certainty that are written in this passage. Look where he says, verse 24, I will take you from the nations. Do we see God up there on the throne going, oh, I just hope someone will cooperate with me? Do we see that? No, we do not see that, but that is what's being preached. Not from Ezekiel, it's not. I will take you from the nations. I will gather you from all the lands and I will bring you into your own land. Who will do it? God will do it. Will He do it? He says He will. There's no conditional clause. There's no ifs or maybes or hopeful suggestions. 25. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. The preacher one time was preaching. A dear old missionary down in Peru told me this. He said, I was a preacher out preaching and he was going, God wants to take you to heaven so bad, but He can't do it. God wants to make you holy, but He can't do it. He wants you to go to heaven, but He just can't do it. And a man, a well-known reprobate, stood up in the middle of the congregation and turned around and said, well, if God can't make me go to heaven, He can't make me go to hell, so I guess I'm pretty much okay. There's a lot of truth in what he said. I want you to know that the Bible teaches a God who does everything He determines Himself to do. And we're talking about people. When people are saved by God, this is what He says to them, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. Just a small illustration of this. I have to speak to older people because younger parents don't seem to understand the need to discipline anymore or authority. I would come in from fishing, seven years old. You know what it's like, playing in the mud all day, doing all the things. Here in your arm, you could grow potatoes. Here in your wrist, around the neck, the ears. If you never saw those things, you were not a boy. Come in filthy. Mom, I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Go take a bath. Mom, I don't feel like it. You will take a bath. You knew at that moment your party's over. You're going to take a bath. There was no ifs, ands, maybes, buts. There was no one to run to, no one to help you. You're going to take a bath. God says, I will sprinkle clean water on you. You will be clean. You will be clean. I will do it. Why? Yes, because he loves you. That's a correct theological statement. But there's a greater thing even behind it. I will do it because my reputation is at stake. I will do it for the greatness of my own name. I will do it so that the nations know I do not fail. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I have spent over 20 years and up until this moment having idols ripped out of my life. And I would imagine that if I live 20 or 40 years more, the ripping will continue. As a matter of fact, to me, one of the greatest evidences that God has done a work in my life is all the smashing of idols. Now notice, I said all the smashing of idols. I want you to realize something. It wasn't really my smashing. It was His. I seem to grip those things with a fist of iron. The Lord cleansed me and is cleansing me from them. And the same can be said of every child. I was preaching just recently and a young man came into the auditorium where I was preaching, a very striking, handsome young man in college and with muscle shirts on and shorts and everything. You could tell he was a body builder. He was a tremendous physical specimen. And the whole time I preached, my heart was... I mean, he was taking notes for my message. He was taking notes. He was looking at me intently. And he knew what I was doing. I was looking right at him and I was pleading with him. Oh, dear boy, even though you have a Bible opened up, even though you're taking notes, do you know Him? There's a tremendous idol you're carrying on your back. Is He smashing it? Is He breaking through even now telling you that you disgust Him in your sensuality and that children of His do not act that way? You see, what you need to understand, God does not permit an idol. My grandfather was a missionary in Brazil back in the 30s. Later on in life, when my father had a boy, my older brother, my father was not a believer as we know it. There's no evidence. But he literally... He would say, I worship the ground that that boy walks on. I worship the ground he walks on. Last year when my son was born to me, I happened to be looking through some old letters from my grandfather and there was a letter in there that said this to my father. Son, I have heard you make that statement one too many times. I want you to know that even though you may not know the Lord, He will not tolerate such idols in the life of anyone. Now stop it. A few months later, my brother was struck down at six years old with a car and died. Now you say, my God wouldn't do that. Your God probably wouldn't because your God looks more like Santa Claus than He does the God of the Bible. But I want you to know this God that we serve, if you would just read your Bible with your eyes open, you would see that He is as terrible as He is wonderful. And that if you belong to Him, He will spend all of your life taking from you those things that you use to replace Him and that rob you of joy and rob you of pleasure and rob you of His presence and His peace. Just ask Abraham if that's not true. There's a whole story about that, isn't there? That little gift he received that became more important than the giver. Is He cleansing you? My dear friend, I'm not preaching a theological message tonight just simply to hear myself preach. I'm not talking like a scholar. I'm not doing all these things, but for one reason except to reach to your heart, let me ask you something. Can you sit down with a diary and show me where God has been ripping idols out of your life and cleansing you from filthiness? Is He taking you step by step, little by little, two steps forward, one step back, but is He taking you and ripping filth out of your life? Is He ripping moral filth out of your life? Is He taking away from you what your heart can take in? Is He taking away from you what the eyes might take in? The filthiness that is all around you, that filthiness that's in your college, the filthiness that are in the churches, the filthiness on television, the filthiness everywhere, the filthiness in the dress code, the filthiness everywhere. Is He taking it out of your life or do you look just like the world? And don't come to me with that Christian freedom stuff. It's just an excuse for license. He talks about Christian freedom. He's not talking about the freedom to live in total contradiction to the laws He has given. He's talking about things like food, not whether you can watch pornography or not, or dress like a tramp, or dress like a young man who's in love with himself, or converse with people whose conversations are not at all pure. Is God tearing the filthiness out of your life? Is He? You would take a bath when my mother told you to take a bath because you didn't want my mother to give you a bath. My mother's hands were so calloused from hauling hay and working on our ranch that literally if she ever wanted to touch you in the water, she'd put a washcloth between her hands and your body. When she would scrub you, you knew you had been scrubbed. Your friends knew you. My ears would glow. Are your ears glowing? Is God scrubbing you? I find that so much... Now, don't misunderstand me on this because many times I'm misquoted on this, so don't misunderstand me. It's on tape. I'm not against personal one-on-one discipleship. I personally disciple people one-on-one. But let me tell you something. You know why discipleship is such a rage? Because we're trying to keep a bunch of lost people on the path. Because you know what I found out in my life? I've not necessarily been scrubbed by little 20-minute quiet times and reading this and reading that and saying my prayer. All these little devotions that are so systematized and everything, they've never really helped me. I find that I haven't scrubbed myself much. God has scrubbed me. Because see, when you're saved, isn't it amazing? We would travel all around the world to get someone converted. Get them to pray the prayer. But every Sunday morning we've got to go by the house and pick them up or they're not coming to church. And we work and work and we try to disciple and everything. And then we say this. Well, the reason why they're all leaving is because we're not discipling them. That's not what Jesus said. Jesus said the reason they went out from us is because they are not of us. They are not My sheep. They do not hear My voice and they do not follow Me. And so we're trying to disciple a bunch of lost people. And then to refute all our theories, here's what happens. One day, a mighty sinner walks into our church, is converted, and we've got to chase him out of the church because he would stay here all week. Now, am I saying we shouldn't evangelize? No, we should evangelize 24 hours, 7 days a week. I'm a missionary. Shouldn't we not disciple? Of course we should. But discipleship will never take the place of genuine conversion. They're not leaving because they're not discipled. They're leaving because they're not disciples. Oh, and this silly thing about you can be a Christian and not a disciple? Oh, who invented that? I'd like to meet him someday, but he probably won't be in heaven. I'll sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, from all your idols. Christian, you and I are so prone to idolatry. It's unbelievable. I sometimes am amazed. I have a great joy for archery. But sometimes I'll be outside shooting and I'll look at a finely crafted wooden bow. Look at it. And it's almost like, have I traded the glory of God for a wooden stick? Now, there's nothing wrong with archery and there's nothing wrong with hobbies, but you don't need to be a Christian very long to know that all these things can get so quickly away from you. It's unbelievable. I saw, someone told me the other night, I was preaching somewhere and they said, I'd like to introduce you to this boy. And he was a young boy, a young Christian, fine boy. And they said, they call this boy the deer magnet. And I thought, well, why do they call you that? And he's been in newspapers and magazines. He's 12 years old, killed a huge deer. And I said, young man, that's a wonderful thing. The fear came into my heart for him. And I said, young man, sit down for a moment. I said, I'm a hunter. I said, do you know that hunting has sent more men to hell than taverns? He said, what do you mean? I said, young man, you're apparently very good. If it takes your heart away, it's better right now to stop. Take your eye out and cast it from you. Cut off your hand and throw it away from you. Anything, anything, anything. We are so quick to idolatry. And the Lord's been teaching me a lesson because I was totally the opposite. I was a monk. I decided that the best way to live for the Lord was to deny myself of everything. Then the Lord showed me too that that was cowardice. And that wasn't His purpose either. But to walk with Him in such a way as to enjoy His gifts without them becoming idolatry and realize that the battle will never be won until the day I step into glory. Now we come to the text. Verse 26. Moreover... Now this word's important. Everything hinges... ...give you a heart of flesh, if this text were only understood in America today. What do you think salvation is? A little decision to jump out of the line going to hell and jump into the line going to heaven? Is that what salvation is? Is that of what it consists? A simple little decision on your part? A nodding of the head? A simple prayer? A repetition of someone else's words? A magic formula? A spiritual elixir? No, the Bible teaches that salvation is the supernatural work of an almighty God in which He does something quite supernatural to those who are saved. It is something on par with the supernatural power of God manifested in the creation of the universe. It is something on par with the resurrection of Lazarus. It is something on par with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It is a resurrection. What happens? First of all, there's a heart of stone born in every man. Born in the heart of every man from His birth is a heart of stone. Now, yesterday morning we explained that there was a depraved, reprobate, wicked, evil heart in men prior to their conversion. I don't use sinful much anymore because sinful has lost its power. Since we do not realize how sinfully sinful sin really is, I prefer to call you evil rather than sinful. It makes you matter. And it cuts more to the core of what you and I really are apart from the grace of God. Evil as Hitler was evil. Evil as Mussolini was evil. Evil as Saddam Hussein is evil. Yes, that's you. Open your eyes and see your twin brother. And even he is being restrained by the grace of God. A heart of stone. Now, I spoke yesterday morning about that heart being evil. Today, I want to respond to something else. That that heart is not only evil, but because it is also evil, it is dead. It is dead to divine stimuli. It is dead to it. Let me give you an example. The good brother here that sang for us. If I had a statue of him up here, of stone, right now, and I grabbed that statue under the arm and I twisted with all my might, would the statue respond to the stimuli? Not at all. It would feel nothing. It is a dead stone. But now if the brother in living color were up here in the flesh and I were to grab ahold of the underside of his arm and twist with all my might, you would see him respond to stimuli. Usually the word flesh is used in a negative way in Scripture many times, particularly in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, in Romans and Galatians. But here, it is referring to the difference between something that is inanimate, something that can not respond to stimuli and something that can respond to stimuli. Now, here is something quite important. People say, well, you mean that prior to a man's conversion he can not respond to God? His heart's dead? Yes, that's true. Well then, he's not at fault. How can God fault him if he can not obey? I'll tell you how. He can not obey because he will not obey and he will not obey because he hates God. Joseph's brothers could not speak a good word to him because they hated him. They could not speak a good word to him because they hated him. We could not respond to God because we hated God. I have come to believe through the teaching of others and also through my own study this thing about, oh, if you look at creation and the inward witness of the heart and the conscience and everything, you can know there is a God. I don't believe that. I believe that through the creation and the conscience, you can know the God. How much of Him can you know? You can know enough of Him to know that you hate Him. You say, well, I never hated God. Yes, you did. You say, no, I always loved God. Remember what I said yesterday? Sunday morning is the greatest hour of idolatry in America. Why? Because the people that are worshiping God, the most of them are not worshiping God at all. They're not worshiping the God of the Scripture. They are worshiping a God of their own imagination. And if someone were to stand up and teach on the attributes of God for a few days in a church and split the church wide open, you'd have people who supposedly love God. The moment they heard about the true God of the Bible and what He does and what He is, they would stand up and say, that's not my God or I could never love a God because our ideas of God are based on wives' tales and children's stories and not on the Scriptures, the holy writ of God. This God in the Bible, as C.S. Lewis used to say, is not a tame lion. He won't fit in your box. Let me just give you an example that I gave yesterday morning, but it's necessary to give it again. An old preacher was preaching and he made a mention that AIDS was the judgment of God. And a woman stood up furious in the congregation. She said, AIDS are not the judgment of God. He said, dear lady, why? Because little babies die of AIDS and God would never kill little babies. The preacher looked at her and said, madam, how many little babies did God kill when He flooded the earth? She said she could never love a God like that. It's because she doesn't know God. And the God she loves isn't the God of the Bible. I'm not trying to portray a terrible monster to you, but I am trying to portray something quite important. The part of God you have chosen to forget because it's not politically correct and it doesn't enter into your psychobabble Christianity. You see, here's the thing. I would much rather on a debate forum, on a platform, come face to face with a seething atheist who understands correctly what Scripture says about God and hates Him, than a bunch of people who have turned God into something of a marshmallow so that they can worship Him properly. And that's what we have in the so-called church today. He says, I will take out your heart of stone. This is not just some human decision. This is major open heart surgery. This is an entire transplant. Heart referring to nature. I will take out your old, fallen, Adamic, wicked nature. And I will replace it with a heart after God. I will give you a new heart and nothing less. Is there evidence of that new heart in you? Have you begun to hate the things God hates? Have you begun to love the things God loves? Do you have a heart after the things of God? Or do you have continuously and without change and without improvement, a heart after the things of the world? Do you? Do you? I'll give you an illustration that I use quite frequently from Charles Spurgeon because I cannot find a better one. Let's say I have a bucket of slop right here. Just garbage, slop. And then I have the finest meal that you could prepare here on this side. And then we let a swine, a pig, go loose in the back. To which would he run? Would he run to the fine meal or would he run to the bucket of slop? He would run to the bucket of slop. And why would he do that? Because he's a pig. That's what pigs do. It is his nature to run to a bucket of slop. He loves it. He feeds on it. He drinks it down like water. It's his thing. Why? It's his nature. He's a pig. But what if in a second, in a fraction of a second, I could change that pig into a man? What would be his response? He would throw his head out of that bucket. He would vomit up the filth he had been drinking down. He would grab anything near him to wipe off his face, to clean himself, to do whatever he could do. And then when he turned around and saw you, he would be ashamed and his heart would be filled with self-hatred. I just described your conversion if you were converted. I just described your conversion. Prior to conversion, we ran to sin. Why? We're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners by nature. It's a manifestation of what we are. It's not something we just do. It's not a mistake. It's a manifestation of the deepest part of our heart. And we turn away from all the good gifts of God. What a perverted lot we must be for God to throw down from heaven all the most worthy gifts that this world is filled with and we run away from them to filth. And we stick our head in there and we eat and we are not ashamed. We eat and it tastes good to us because that's what we are. And then God, in His decree, takes forth that heart that reprobate, Adamic, wicked, evil, sin-loving heart and He reaches down and takes it out from you and replaces it with a heart after God, a heart for righteousness, a heart for holiness, a heart for all the things that God loves. And in a moment's time, in the moment of that conversion, you rip forth your head out of that bucket of sin. You are nauseated. And it brings you to confession, to confess out, to pour out, to cry out to God all that you have done. It brings you to self-loathing, self-hatred. Yes, that's taught in the Bible. That's part of repentance. Self-hatred, self-loathing. Oh, wretched man that I am! I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have now seen the Lord of glory. And you are filled with shame. Not only shame before God, not only shame in light of the inner witness of your own heart and of the Holy Spirit, but when you look around, you are ashamed of the very things you once boasted. Of the very things you once boasted. You say, well, you know, I didn't stick my head in moral filth. I didn't do this. I didn't do that. Oh, my dear friend, don't compare yourself to us. Because in light of us, you must look at least somewhat decent. Don't compare yourself to one worse than yourself. A Hitler or something of the such. Because then you'll look too clean in your own eyes. But compare yourself to God and your most righteous deeds will burn away like tiny drops of wax before a blast furnace. If the biting of a fruit could lead a man and a woman to hide themselves from the very presence of God, then where will you go? Where will you go? And you say, well, Brother Paul, is that it? Does the man pull his head out of there and is free from that for the rest of his life, dining at the Lord's table? Well, it's something you need to see. In true conversion, the man will pull his head out. In true conversion, the man will be sickened. In true conversion, the man will turn away. And in true conversion, the man will go to the Lord's table and taste and see that the Lord is good. But although we have a new nature, not two natures, that's a silly little doctrine. I don't know who made that. Not two natures. And if you have questions about it, come to me after. Not two natures, but one new nature. One new heart. Now, he didn't say, I'll put in a heart of flesh alongside your heart of stone. He doesn't say that. I'll take out your heart of stone. I'll give you a heart of flesh. Well, then why do I still struggle with sin? Because this new nature is within unredeemed flesh. Trained in sin. Ingrained in sin. But here's the thing, you see, when you sit down at the Lord's table with your struggle with the flesh, you may come up off of that table as I have. Every time we sin, we come up off of that table. And we go over and stick our face close to that bucket. We might even stick our mouth in. We might even take a bite. But here's the thing, you now have a new nature, so this can't suit you anymore. So many people have this idea, okay, I'm going to be a Christian and now I've got to concentrate on doing the right thing. What you have to understand is do apple trees this spring, will they stand out in the yard and twist and writhe and think to themselves, enchantamanta, apples, apples, apples, apples, apples. No, they will not. They will just bear apples. Why? They're an apple tree. In the same way, some of you would have the testimony of this many years of debauchery and filth and immorality and drunkenness. And how many resolutions did you make to stop and stop, but to no avail. And then one day Christ came into your life and He was gone. You say you can put a wolf in a cage, but He's still a wolf. You can bind a man with laws and legalisms and religion, but He's still a wolf. That's why religion cannot save you. Only the supernatural working grace, the supernatural grace of God through the cross of Jesus Christ, through the resurrection of Christ, through the ascension of Christ, through the reigning of Christ. That is the only thing that can save you. And it is supernatural and it has supernatural manifestations. I'm so sick of people apologizing for God not being supernatural anymore. Well, among His people He is. And to this very thing they can testify. You see no supernatural working of God in your life? No supernatural changes? No supernatural discipline when you stray from the path? No supernatural correction? No supernatural intervention? No supernatural crushing your idols and cleansing you from filth? Then be terribly afraid. Tremble. Because not only do you know not God, God knows not you. It is amazing to me. My dear friend, what would you think of a man who allowed his 14-year-old daughter to run through the streets all night with the worst sort of people and to come home every morning at dawn tattered and filthy and dirty? Heaven committed the most horrendous sins. What would you think of a man who would allow his daughter to do such a thing? Well, then why do you accuse God of doing the very same thing? You say God has all these children that are running around and they're just as filthy, just as dirty, just as awkward, just as wild as those in the world and God does nothing. My friend, the Bible says in Hebrews 12 that if you do not undergo the discipline of the Father, it's because He is not your Father. Do you understand that? How many times, some of you who are genuine Christians, how many times have you even wanted with all your might to run away from God and when you ran as far as you could, He was standing there? I can remember one time getting in my old 66 Mustang turbocharged, positive traction. If I had that car today, I'd be a millionaire. And I got in that car and I said, I'm getting in this car and I'm driving as far away from God as I possibly can. He's almost like, go ahead. Go for it. And just to clump over in the seat like this and say, I'm trapped. If I go this way, He's there. If I go that way, He's there. If I try to go under Him, He's there. If I try to go over Him, I can't. If I go into the bottom of the ocean, there He is. If I climb up to the highest part of heaven... My friend, that's just not for someone seeking the presence of God. That's for someone trying to run away from Him. Because you're now His. When Paul said that he was a prisoner of Christ, yes, there's a literal meaning there. Of course there is. He was in chains. He was a prisoner of Christ. But I think that it meant something much deeper in the heart of Paul. He was no longer his own. Look what Jesus told Peter. Peter is walking down the beach with Jesus. And Jesus says, Look, Peter, I've got this plan that you're going to die crucified. And I am really hoping that you're going to go along with this. Because if you don't, it's going to mess a lot of things up. And then He tells... Now look, Gospel writers, don't put this in any of the Gospels until we're sure Peter did it. Because I don't want to be wrong. He looked at him and said, Peter, when you were young, you did what you wanted to do. Well, I'm calling you to do something you won't want to do. You're going to do it. Boy, the difference in the real Jesus and the fake one. And it is my prayer, would the real Jesus please stand up? And would the rest of them just fall down and blow away like dust? I'll put my Spirit within you, He says. What blasphemy we rail against Him. I use this illustration quite frequently, especially among college students. They seem they can understand this quite well. Let's say I arrived here late. Terribly late, which I am accustomed to doing. And then the pastor's like, Matt, everyone, what are you doing? Don't you appreciate having the opportunity to preach here? What's your problem? I said, well, I was out there on the highway. I'm sorry, my car had a flat tire. And when I was changing the tire, the lug nut came out of my hand and it went in the middle of the street. And while I wasn't thinking, I just ran out there and grabbed the lug nut. And when I stood up, well, there was a logging truck weighing 30 tons going 120 miles an hour like five feet in front of me, and it ran me over, and that's why I'm late. There would only be two logical conclusions. One, I am a liar. Or two, I'm insane. Because it's absolutely absurd. It's impossible to have an encounter with a logging truck weighing 30 tons going 120 miles an hour and remain the same. It's absolutely preposterous. Well, let me ask you a question. Who's bigger? A logging truck or God? How is it that so many people in America can say they've had an encounter with God and they're not changed? It's blasphemy to say the Holy Spirit dwells within them. To say the Holy Spirit dwells within you and ye not be changed. To say you're angry. You're right, I'm angry. It's about time someone had some zeal for the things of God. Do I care about you? Yes. But do I care more for the glory of God? Yes! That God might be esteemed. That God might be honored. That there be a division. And a division is coming, mark my words. One is certain. Another is possible. The certain division that is coming will be the day the trumpet blows and you will see a great division. But there could well be another division that happens even before that. When God, if He so chooses, or if He has so chosen before the foundation of the world to send persecution on this land so that you go and meet together only at the risk of your own life and you profess His name with a dagger in your jugular, then we will see this great wall that all these tiny little pastors of Israel have built. When it comes crumbling down because it's nothing more than whitewashed clay, people will then ask them, what happened to your wall? Where did your 5,000 member congregation go? Where did your Bible college go? I'll put my spirit within you. And look at this. Look at this, you free willers. Look at this. 27, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes. The word is very hard here. The word is strong. It's a good word. He says, I will make you. I will make you walk in My commandments. He says, God can't make me. He can. He's not. Because you're not His child. Because if you are His child, He will make you walk in His commands. You say, well, let me ask you then, is this God forcing us to live in righteousness? His children, He's not. Because the commands of God are not burdensome to His children. Because their nature has been changed. We have this thing today about free will. Do you know, my friend, whether you're Calvinist or Arminian, you have to acknowledge in the end, there is only one free being. That's one of the attributes of God. He is the only being that is free. Did you know that? You're not free. You never were free. And if you say, no, I do, then you've given yourself an attribute of God and you have fallen out of classical, historical Christianity. My friend, there's only one being who is free, unencumbered, does whatever He wants, is not the unmoved mover. You're not Him. When God saves a man, He intervenes in his life. Takes his heart of stone out. Gives him a heart of flesh. Puts His Spirit within him and causes him, makes him walk in His commands. Are you walking in His commands? Is the Lord your shepherd? Is He? With His rod and staff comforting, guarding, leading, correcting you? Have you been able to get beyond His arm? Well, then there's only two conclusions. One, your shepherd is weak or you're not His sheep. But then again, He said, My sheep, they hear My voice. They hear My voice. They follow Me. Will cause you to walk in My statutes. And look at this. You will be careful to observe My ordinances. Now, the word careful. Possibly Paul was drawing on this when he talked about walking circumspectly. Walking with care. You will be careful to keep My commands. You will be careful to live by My principles. You will be careful to study My wisdom and direct your life in accordance with it. You will be careful when the Spirit convicts you of having walked in a wayward path to come back. My! Did I just describe American Christianity? Not at all. Jesus said one time, Depart from Me. Depart from Me. I never knew you. He also said, Depart from Me. You who practice lawlessness. Practicing lawlessness is the very opposite of what Ezekiel wrote here. Look what Ezekiel said. He said, You will walk in My statutes. You will be careful to observe My ordinances. In Matthew 7, Jesus talks about a people that call Him Lord and He says, Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness. Now let me give you a free translation. I don't have time. And you don't either. Oh, that someone 20 years down the road from now, if my little Ian, my little boy, is made a profession of faith and begins to walk as some of you walked, oh, that there would be a man of God rise up and smack him with truth and say, oh boy, you made a profession of faith, but you know not the Lord. You know, if I told most of you that and your parents heard about it, they'd become so angry with me they couldn't even see, because they're more worried about their reputation than you going to hell. This is salvation, my friend. Verse 28, and you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers. You know what that means? You will live in the land I promised you. You know, my wife and I got married. We didn't have an engagement ring or anything like that. We were missionaries. She didn't want one, and I was glad because I couldn't have bought one anyways. And then about three and a half years after we got married, you know that illustration I use about seeing the grace of God? You know, through the blackness of the night you can see the brightness of the stars. And when that salesman of that diamond brings that diamond out, as small as it is, he's always going to lay that on a black piece of velvet so that it looks so much larger. God gave me that illustration when I bought my wife's engagement ring three and a half years after we were married. Because the only way you could see that diamond was on the blackness of that thing. And he had to tape it down so the ceiling fan in the mall wouldn't blow it off the desk. But you know, when I gave her that, she did exactly what I knew she would do. She was overjoyed. She was overjoyed. And how it would have killed me and broke my heart if she would have said, what is this? You couldn't even give me one before we got married. Now you're giving me something that most teenagers would laugh at. How would that have killed me? God looks at you and says, you can live in the land I promised you. You demonstrate that you truly are regenerated when you would rather live in the other land. You're ungrateful, you're arrogant, you're blind, you're pitiful, and you're naked. And poor. That other land is very, very poor. George Mueller talks about the harshness of his life when he served Satan as his master. What a harsh task. But to hate God so much you would rather serve a devil. That's amazing, isn't it? To hate God so much that you would rather eat garbage than sit at a table with Him. He gives you the promise. He says, look. He says, look what He says. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers. Everything I ever promised you, I will give you. And they yawned. They said, no, we want to be like other nations. He said, but I will give you. If you live in the world, that's the exact thing you're doing. And showing yourself not to be one of His. And He says this, and you will be My people and I will be your God. This in itself, this is a source of great offense. This is the source of the deepest, deepest, deepest sin against God. Now how is that? He looks and He says, what can you give a person? Again, I go back to my marriage. When we were married as missionaries, I looked at my wife and I said, whatever I have to give you is right here. This is all I have to give you is me. What would I have done if she looked at me and she said, well, buddy, that's just not enough. God says, you will be My people and I will be your God. What about streets of gold? Didn't you mention though something about gates of pearl? I want to get that straight before I make a decision here. I remember Brother Charles one time teaching in the States to students at a university and I was there. And then one time in Romania, a similar thing happened. I'm trying to put both of them together even though they were different circumstances. Brother Charles preached his guts out about the beauty of Jesus Christ. I mean, it was the Lord. And it was almost like someone raised their hand and said, yeah, but what else do we get? What else do you get? With your words, you have condemned yourself. You are not a child of Zion. You are not a child of Zion. I will finish by saying something I said yesterday morning. Sometimes I've told men, sir, it doesn't seem to be well with your soul. It doesn't seem as though you're going to heaven. It doesn't seem that you've ever been born again. And to see them get furious. To get furious. What do you mean I'm not going to heaven? Sir, why are you mad? Well, you said I wasn't going to heaven. Well, sir, I am terribly sorry. I'm so confused. I thought that would make you happy. What do you mean you thought that wouldn't? Well, sir, why would you want to go to heaven? Jesus is there. Why would you want to go there? You don't want to go to Him now. Why would you want to go to Him then? The pleasures of righteousness and purity and holiness are there. You care not for any of these things. You scorn them. You mock them. You laugh at them. And you've chosen the world over them. And the communion of the saints is there. Glorified believers who revel in the beauty of their Lord. You speak against them. You accuse them here. You've joined yourself to pirates. You don't walk among such people here. You've chosen the people of the world. Sir, you don't want to go to heaven. But then again, sir, I guess you do. I'll take your word for it and I'll have to change my opinion about you. You want to go to heaven. You just don't want God to be there when you get there. How is it with you tonight, dear soul? I know I've been hard. I know I've been offensive. I know I've been crude. But read the Old Testament and see the way the prophets of old, of which I am not, the offensive things they said to draw people to God, the way they would wound with their words in order that healing might come. Oh, dear soul and dear children, dear college students, dear boys and girls, dear elders, is it well with your soul when you compare your life, the way you live, to your profession? Does your profession hold true? Is there reason for this assurance you carry around in your heart? Is there reason for this hope you have that you're born again? I know for many of you young university people it's a time for rebellion and being radical and all sorts of things. Oh, you're not radical and you're not rebellious. As a matter of fact, you're the biggest follower I've ever seen in my life. You're following the course of this world, of the prince and the power of the air. That's all you're doing. Like a bunch of little circus clowns beating on tin cans and blowing on tin horns and wearing papier-mâché crowns, you march one by one off the cliff straight into hell. While people who only want to buy you and sell you put up billboards all around encouraging you to march on. It's a devil's world to some degree. But I like what Abraham Kuyper said one time, an old Dutch form theologian, speaking amongst a group of men who had lost their way with regard to truth. He said, do you want to know what Jesus is going to say when He comes back? Well, this is what He's going to say. Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. He's going to stretch His hand over this and say it's mine. And over that and say it's mine. And this is mine and you're mine and everything is mine. He's coming back one day and He will claim it all. And it will all be rightfully His. And He'll not apologize for moving things around. And all of creation will be redeemed. Everything lost to sin, everything lost to death will explode from its tomb. And the only ones that will be left, of them it will be said, there was no place found for them. It will be the devil, his angels, and some of you. It's a hard thing to preach when you know that some of the people you're looking at are going to go to hell. Say, you're trying to scare me. You've discerned rightly. I made up my mind a long time ago by the grace of God I would preach as a dying man to dying men and preach as though I should never preach again. What will you do? God calls you now at the end of this service to do this one thing. Repent. And believe. What is this thing? Repent? Well, let me ask you. Instead of telling you, let me ask you. And you figure it out for yourself. You came here tonight, possibly for no good reason at all, except that someone invited you or to meet someone. You came nonchalantly, not really caring, because that's the way you really are about Christianity, even though you attend church every Sunday. And as I preached on and on, you became more bored. You made more faces. You smirked more, just a little stronger each time so that the preacher could see that you're much more above his words. And your heart is much wiser than he could see because you've been to college for two years. Can you be saved? No, you can't. At least not right now. Because your heart is not broken. You're not weeping over your sin. There's no shame for your trespasses against God. You cannot be saved. If you die right now, you'll go to hell. But if you came here tonight with the same bad motive, but maybe while the worship was going on, or maybe through the preaching, something, someone, began to stir in your heart, and it's as though someone took a scalpel and opened up your heart and you were exposed, your religion was seen as quite weak and unable to save, that that little prayer you prayed a long time ago in Sunday school and the Sunday school teacher pronounced you saved as though they had the right, became quite anemic and worthless. And you sat there and you began to say, How shall I be saved, O wretched man that I am? And if right now in your heart you're saying, How can I be saved? I hate myself, my sin. I'm afraid of eternal judgment. Can I be saved? For you, the answer is yes. You can be saved. You lack one thing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. What does it mean to believe? Throw yourself upon Him. The only, the exclusive hope. Nothing in my hands I bring simply to the cross I cling. I expect to swing out into eternity on that one scarlet thread that Jesus Christ shed His own blood for my soul. And if that is not enough to save me, then I'm going to hell because I'm not trusting in any other thing. Faith. Father, I come before You in the name of Your Son. O dear God, the burden's not lifted. O dear God, but I can't keep preaching. O dear God, do a work. Do a work! O God, do a work. Get glory for Yourself. Redeem men, women, young, babes, old. Save them all. And those who are Your people, Lord, who've been walking on a bit of an edge, O Lord, turn there.