In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the importance of not loving the world and its desires. He emphasizes that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in them. The preacher also discusses the tests of fellowship with God, highlighting the need to walk in the light and not in darkness. He explains that walking in darkness means living in sin and not living by the truth. The sermon concludes with a plea for the listeners to be concerned for their souls and to embrace the grace and freedom found in Christ.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, come before you in the name of your Son. We recognize that apart from Him, we would have no part with you. And we rejoice in the knowledge of being reconciled to you through the great work that you've done for us on the cross. And Father, it's our great desire that your truth be made known to all nations, to all peoples, beginning with this group here. And Father, it's my deep desire that every person hearing this message today might be concerned for their soul, might be concerned for their salvation, might be concerned about eternity. Father, I pray that these words not fall on hearts of stone, but that by your power and in your mercy, you would even now be melting hearts, turning them from stone to flesh. God, help us. Give us wisdom to understand. Give us power to prevail. Give us grace to obey. Guide us, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Yesterday morning when I preached, I beat you thoroughly. As a matter of fact, it was made known to me after the service by quite a number of you that I had thoroughly condemned everyone in the building. As a matter of fact, one person asked me if love even had anything to do with the gospel that I preached. Well, that's why I warned you yesterday morning that in order to understand the message of the morning, you had to come to the message in the evening. Because in the evening we saw that yes, love does have a great part in the gospel. And the reason that I beat you into a corner in the morning and made you feel bad about yourself is it's necessary. It is very necessary for you to know who you are apart from Christ so you might understand the graciousness of God in giving Christ for your behalf. And it's also necessary that you know how low you were in order to understand your position now in Christ. Last night we talked about the gospel. Last night God spoke about the gospel. And last night God moved among us, not in condemnation, but in freedom and in love and in joy. The thing that broke my heart is simply that the very people who seemed so disturbed in the morning didn't show up at night for the good news that was waiting for them. But that's a common thing that happens in church today. One old preacher that I'm quite fond of used to say all the time, on Sunday morning you see how many people love the church. Sunday night you see how many people love the pastor. Wednesday night you see how many people love God. That might be true. Today we're going to talk about something that I consider almost a heresy in the church. And I think it affects so many of you here. And it's given you a false security. There is an idea in the church today that a man can be saved without ever changing, without ever having a concern for God or the things of God, without ever being led in obedience. Many of you have come to believe that you're saved simply because when you were seven or eight or nine, someone preached a sermon including how much your grandmother wants you to be saved, and emotionally you walked down an aisle and you prayed a prayer. And you were declared righteous, not by God, but by some minister who understands very little about Scripture. Some of you have been bothered by your salvation and about it, wondering whether or not you were saved. And you went to a minister and said, I really don't know if I'm saved or not. And he probably said this. Well, let me ask you a question. Was there ever a time in your life when you sincerely prayed to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? And if you responded yes, they again declared you saved. And why did they do that? Because they don't study Scripture. Praying a prayer, writing down your name and the date of your conversion in the back of your Bible is not a biblical means of knowing whether or not you have been born again. It makes no difference if you've prayed a prayer. It makes no difference if you've been baptized. It makes no difference if you have weeped. None of that matters a bit before God. And yet that's the very thing taught in the church. Many of you are sitting here this morning, believing yourselves to be saved, even though you have little concern for God. You don't seek Him. You have little concern for the knowledge of God. The Bible has no place in your life. You have little concern for godliness. You love the world. You love the things of the world. And yet, your pastors and your parents and other people have told you that you're saved. Because salvation is by grace and not of works. And when they told you all those things combined, they taught you false doctrine that will damn your soul. And you need to know that. Biblical security does not come from looking back at some time in your life when you prayed a prayer. Biblical security comes from an examination of your life today in light of Scripture. If you are not walking as a Christian should walk, if you are not changing and growing in the grace of God, you have no means of knowing that you have been born again. If you love the world more than you love God, and it's evident in your life because you have no concern for godliness, no concern for repentance and confession of sin, when you break God's law, you ought to tremble here this morning because you will hear nothing from me about security. Scripture teaches the security of the one believing in Jesus Christ. It does not teach security of the unbeliever. Now, I guess I've said quite a mouthful, haven't I? I guess I need to go to Scripture and back some of this up. Well, let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. Let me read something to you today that I wrote down so that I wouldn't make a mistake. Much is said today about salvation. God has saved me. But not much is said today about conversion. God has changed me and is changing me. The problem with that is this. You cannot have salvation apart from conversion. Salvation is conversion, whereby a man is changed, and I want to say it this way, by which a man is converted from a spiritually dead, depraved enemy of God into a new creation that knows God, loves God, obeys God, and has God as the very center of all his affections and purposes. What I'm trying to say is that the Bible knows nothing of an impotent, powerless salvation that cannot change man or that can only change some men. The Scripture only teaches a salvation that changes all who embrace it. In other words, the man who claims salvation and yet is ignorant of God, does not love God, does not obey God, he is wrong about himself. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Notice that it doesn't say, if some men be in Christ, they are a new creation. We have almost different levels of Christianity in the church today, and we're wrong. We have the level of the spiritual Christian, the one who reads his Bible, the one who seems to love God, the one who serves in his local church, the one who cares about godliness, and the one who repents when he sins. We call them the spiritual part of the Christian community. Then what we have is the carnal Christian, one who shows no evidence of salvation or very little evidence at all. And then we have what we call the lost. Three categories. The problem is there are not three categories in the Christian life. There are two. There are two. Saved individuals and lost individuals. But people always come to me after a service like this, and they say, well, what about 1 Corinthians chapter 3? Paul said, are ye not carnal? Wasn't he saying there that there are carnal Christians in the church? Yes and no. Carnality is a state in which a Christian can fall, but only temporarily, because if he has truly been born again and belongs to the Father, and he falls in to a carnal way of living, a worldly way of living, according to Hebrews chapter 12, he will be disciplined by God, and he will be brought out of that way. Those of you who have lived in a continuous state of carnality since your conversion were never converted. And you need to know that. You see, I watch people. Maybe I watch people too much. I especially watch people during the service, the worship service, because you can tell a lot about a person in the worship. And when I go to places to preach, I preach to meet men's hearts, so I look for men's needs. And I watched you. And it's evident that there's quite a number of you that could care a little about worshiping God. And I watched you yesterday when I preached. Even though I preached a very hard thing and a stern thing, you took it so lightly as though I was handing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Do you know what that means? There's very little evidence of God working in your heart, and you ought to be afraid. You ought to be very afraid. When the Word of God preached like a hammer has no effect upon your heart, and then when love is preached and in the same way has no effect, you ought to be afraid. Because if any man truly be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things pass away, and all things become new. Now, when I was a young preacher, I used to say that the evidence of being saved is that you are changed. I no longer believe that. I believe this. The evidence that you are saved is that you are in a process of being changed. I am not talking about perfection here. I am not saying that the moment a man is born again, he's immediately done with sin and he lives a perfect life. No. That contradicts Scripture and that contradicts the image I see every time I look in the mirror. But what I am saying is this, that when a man is truly converted, when a woman is truly converted, when a child is truly converted, they enter into a process of change that is noticeable and powerful. And when they walk out of the will of God, the power of God's discipline comes and shows even more evidence that they have been born again, because God will not let them alone to themselves. If you can sin and live in it and enjoy it, and if the world means more to you than Christ, you're lost. One time down in Peru, I was dealing with a young man and he'd gone to so many churches looking for security. He just had no assurance of salvation. And so I took him through the entire book of 1 John, which we're going to go through in a moment. And after we were done, he said, I'm still not sure, Pastor. And so I remembered something that Luther said about a million years ago. And I looked him squarely in the eye and I said, Boy, do you know any taverns? He said, Yes. I said, Well, do you know any really bad places? And I mean some places where you can do sin. I mean in a great way. He said, Well, yes, I do. I said, Go there tonight. He said, What? I said, Go there tonight. And do what, Pastor? And sin with all your might. He was so taken back, he couldn't hardly breathe. He said, Pastor, what are you telling me? I can't do that. You can't, huh? I wonder what the reason for it is. Why is it that you can't? Why is it that when you do, you're broken on the ground and you lay in pieces before God repenting? Why is it? Could it be that God has done a work in you? Now, if I told some of you that, you would say, No big deal, Pastor. I do it every night. I go to Hannibal and as soon as I can get away from that religious crowd, well, I tell you what, I go to the birds of the feather who flock together. And you're lost. And I don't care what your pastor says. And I don't care what your mom and dad says. And I don't even care what anybody, even the authority in this school tells you. If there's no evidence of salvation in your life, you ought to be very afraid. Very afraid. Look at what else it says here. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come. All this is from God. I stop there for the emphasis. And here is our main problem. We've turned salvation into some little human decision where you decide to jump on a bandwagon. My friends, salvation is a mighty awesome work of God that comes from God, starts with God, and ends with God. And when God saves a man in His power, that same God who has the power to save him has the power to change him, and the love of God is so great, He will not let him go. I'll give you an example. Look at Jacob and Esau. Jacob I loved. Esau I hated. If you study those two lives, you know what you'll find out? Esau was blessed. Oh, he was blessed. And so was Jacob. So how could it be that God hated Esau and loved Jacob? Let's take a look at the life of Jacob. He suffered and suffered and suffered under the discipline of God. God was almost his enemy. Everywhere Jacob turned to do the will of Jacob, God cut him off and beat him to pieces. Esau suffered none of that. No discipline. No working of God. Only blessing. Only an easy life. Only material things. That's what he got. He also went to hell. You see, the evidence of the love of God in your life is that He will not let you alone to yourself. And if as a Christian you enter into a life of sin, mark my words, the Father will be after you. I remember one time, I was nine years old and it was the first day of school. And my mother dressed me in white pants. Any mother in her right mind ought to know you should never dress a boy in white pants when he's nine years old on the first day of school. And she told me, she said, don't go fishing with your friends, Rance, John, and Bruce. Well, I went fishing with my friends, Rance, John, and Bruce. I fell into the pond and you can imagine what happened to my white pants. When I walked home with my friends around me for protection and comfort in my time of need, my mother saw me from the door and came running towards us. She grabbed me. She did nothing to the other boys and I immediately pointed out her inconsistencies. I said, Mother, they're as dirty as I am. And she said in a voice that seemed frightening, they're not my children. If you want to know if you're saved or not, run from God as fast as you can. And if you escape, you never belong to Him. And if you can come to a school where you do sit in chapels and you do hear the Word, and yet you can run from this place and go sin with joy in your heart, you are lost. You're on your way to hell. What should you do? Come forward at the invitation. No. You've done that a thousand times. Go home. And cry out to God as though hell itself was opening its mouth below you and sucking you down. Cry out for the mercy of God until your soul is converted. Then come back and tell somebody you got saved. People have told you too long that you're saved and you don't know it for yourself. Let God confirm your salvation. All this is from God. I want us to go to Ezekiel for a moment. Ezekiel 36, 24. Chapter 36, verse 24. I think we have here again in the Old Testament one of the most beautiful pictures of conversion that we could possibly ever see. And again, I don't know who the Old Testament professor is here, and I'll say the same thing I said last night. Problem with you Christians is that you're all New Testament Christians and you're not biblical Christians. You don't know anything about grace because you don't know the Old Testament. You don't know anything about holiness. You don't know anything about God because He's found there. Everything found and explained in the New Testament has its basis, its root, and its beginning in the Old. Take every Old Testament class you can. You might walk out of here knowing something about God. Ezekiel 36, 24. Now I want you to look at the emphasis here. It's not on what you're going to do for God in order to get saved. It's on what God is going to do for you. And you can see that by the pronoun I and the verb future tense will. Look what it says, verse 24. For I will take you out of the nations. You say, well, I'm saved. I just haven't taken myself out of the nations yet. I haven't taken myself out of a worldly life. It's God that takes you out of there. And if you're not out, it's because He didn't take you. And if He didn't take you, it's because you're not saved. For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the countries. And I will bring you back into your own land. Salvation is the work of God. And if you've experienced that work, you've been changed. I will sprinkle clean water on you. And you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart. And I will put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone. And I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you. And I will move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws. You see, salvation is the work of God. And when that work of God truly happens in your life, God will do these things in your life. If He has not brought you out of a worldly life, if He has not changed you and cleansed you and put His Spirit in you, and if He does not move you to keep His commands and to repent when you don't, you have no part with God. When I became a Christian, I decided it was my duty to go to my hometown and witness to every house there. It's not a big deal. Only about 1,200 people in my town. But I took the next three weeks and I knocked on every door in my city. And you know what I found out? Everyone in Brookport, Illinois is saved. They don't go to church. They don't read their Bible. They don't love God. And they hate Christians, but they're saved. Let me ask you a question. Let's say you're walking down, I believe it's Highway 61 here. Let's say you're walking right down, smack dab down the middle of the road. And all of a sudden, a semi-truck weighing 30 tons and going 120 miles an hour runs you over. Oh, let's make you feel better about this. Runs me over. Are you going to have to walk out on the highway and tap me on the shoulder and say, excuse me, Brother Paul, I don't know if you're aware of this, but you've just been run over by a 30-ton logging truck. You're not going to have to tell me, are you? Because at least for a fraction of a second, I am going to know that I'm about to have an encounter with something much larger than myself that's going to change my life forever. And you're not going to have to stand out there with road signs saying, for all who are concerned and can't understand what's going on here, Brother Paul has been run over by a truck. Everyone is going to know because my physical appearance is going to change. Every way about me, the way of walking, it's all going to change. Why? Because I've had an encounter with something much larger than myself. Let me ask you a question. What is larger, a 30-ton logging truck or God? Isn't it preposterous to think that the Almighty Creator of the universe has entered into the heart of a man and left him unchanged? Poor old God. He's only got the power to change some. Well, you've got to let Him do it. My friend, if you've got to let Him do it, He's not God. And if it ever depended on you, you'd be in hell forever and never have a chance. I want to tell you something. I don't understand the full ramifications of how a man gets saved and no one does, but I'll tell you this. It is the work of God. And if you are saved, it will be noticeable. It will be noticeable in your obedience. And it will be noticeable in your disobedience because you will find no pleasure in it. And the discipline of God will come. Now, let's go to 1 John. Look at chapter 5, verse 13. This is the most overlooked text, I think, in Christianity today, if we could say such a thing. This is the most necessary book for biblical Christianity and biblical assurance. And yet we totally have misplaced God's Word with the traditions of men and left people without biblical security. Look what it says. Verse 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. People come to us today and say, I don't know if I'm saved, Pastor. And we say, well, let me ask you, was there ever a time in your life when you prayed a prayer to receive Jesus? And were you sincere about it? That's about as weak and as useless as the gospel we normally preach today. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. Has no biblical foundation whatsoever. But look at the book of 1 John in the Scripture, the Scripture. Not psychobabble. Scripture. Look what Scripture says. These things I have written unto you, to you who profess to believe so that you might know without a shadow of a doubt that you have security, that you have eternal life. You want security? Read the book of 1 John over and over and over and over and over and allow the Holy Spirit to use the sword of the Spirit to either confirm your salvation or show you the need for it. There are tests in the book of 1 John that we are asked to take. And by taking those tests, the Holy Spirit will assure us that we are born again or tell us that we're not. And don't think I'm preaching something strange here. Just go back about 150 years ago and you'll find this preached in every pulpit. The church in Corinth basically came to Paul one day and said, What is this about our salvation? Paul said, Examine yourself. Test yourself to see whether or not you are in the faith. Do you see how it goes with 1 John? Do you want to know if you're safe? Test yourself. Don't look back at some date written in the back of your Bible. Don't look back at some stake driven in the ground. That's talk of evangelists who should have studied their Bible before they ever began a ministry. What you need to do is examine your life in light of Scripture and if there is no fruit, there is no seed. Jesus said you will know them by their fruit and you can know whether or not you're safe by how you are living and how God is working in your life. Every time I preach, someone stands up in the crowd after the service and says, Don't you judge me! And you know what I tell them? I tell them, Don't you twist Scripture! Because that's not what Jesus is talking about. When He said, Thou shalt not judge, He said it in the same chapter that He said, By their fruit you will know them. When He says, Thou shalt not judge, what He is saying is this. He was talking about the critical, unloving spirit of the Pharisees who simply wanted to tear one another down. He wasn't talking about the sincere man of God or sincere woman of God or sincere pastor that comes to you and says, My dear friend! My dear professor of faith! It looks to me like you might ought to be concerned for your soul. You know what's wrong with the American church today? It's thin-skinned. In Peru, if a pastor sees a man walking out of line, he goes to him and says, My dear brother, I'm concerned for your soul because you're showing evidence that you've not been born again. You do that today, you'd probably get sued by people who even profess to be Christians. You can't live without rebuke and you can't live without scrutiny and you can't live without the words of others when they're sent to you in love. Now, what are these tests? We're going to take a look at them quickly. I just had my eyes operated on and I'm really glad about that because I'm seeing very fuzzy. I can't tell what time it is on that clock. 1 John 1. I just want you to look really quickly. Verse 5. This is the message we have heard from Him and declared to you. God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him, yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not walk in the truth. Now, look what it says. If we claim to have fellowship with Him, if we claim to be Christians, yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. What is walking in darkness? Well, first you have to understand what darkness is. It has two meanings here. Usually when John is talking, he's always doing double meanings on words. It's really strange what he's doing, but it helps a lot when you start studying him. Darkness can refer to moral impurity or that which opposes or contradicts the nature of God. God is light. God is holy. And anything that contradicts His nature is a contradiction to Him. It's darkness. But it can also refer to revelation. And what John is saying is that God has revealed to us who He is and how He is and what He requires of us. The man who walks in the knowledge of who God is and an understanding of God's will shows himself to truly have communion with God. But a man who says, I know God, but continuously lives in darkness, loves the darkness, walks outside of God's will, outside of God's character, he's a liar if he says he's a Christian. Now, we have to temper this a bit because there are some of you who are dear Christians and you're struggling with sin and you're thinking to yourself, well, could it be that I'm lost? Well, it could be if you weren't struggling with sin. I'm not talking about struggling with sin. I'm talking about living it and loving it. And I want you to look at the proof. Look what it says in verse 8. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. What John is saying here is this, is that one of the evidences of being a Christian is not only that you walk in light, but that you are well aware of your own weaknesses and sin. You see, the lost man, as some of you are lost, is not concerned at all about sin. As a matter of fact, he seeks it out. And when he does sin, it's not a big deal in his life. But the Christian who can and does, as we all do, fall into sin and sin, the moment he does that, he's broken about that sin. Or if he's not broken about it, the Holy Spirit comes and tugs at his heart. And if that's not enough, the discipline of God comes. You see, a Christian can sin, but we're miserable about it and we can't stay there. You know all those carnal Christians in 1 Corinthians? Well, read 2 Corinthians. You know what happened to them? They either repented or God killed them. Yes, as some brother told me last night, and I thought it was really interesting, he said, the God of the Bible kills people. The God of American Christianity today is about par with Santa Claus. But the God of the Bible, the real one, He's not a tame lion, as C.S. Lewis said. He's God. It says you're a liar. But if you're struggling with sin and that sin breaks you and causes you to fall before God, asking for mercy and wanting to begin again, you're born again. Now look at chapter 2. Verse 3, We know that we have come to know Him if we obey His commands. The man who says, I know Him, but does not do what He commands is a liar and the truth is not in him. The man who says, I know Him, I know Him, but does not do what He commands is a liar. I was doing some street preaching. I used to live with the street people down in Fort Worth. And I was preaching on the street one evening and this big old Texan walks up to me, drunker than you could possibly ever imagine, having a wonderful time about it. And I was preaching and I handed him a track and I said, How is it with your soul? He says, Oh, I've been born again. I remember the first Baptist church here in town. I said, You're a liar. It took three men to pull him off of me, but he was. He said, How can you judge him? I said, Oh, please. He said, Well, a Christian can get drunk. Yes. He can. He can't have a good time about it and he won't be boasting about church membership while he's drunk. Some of you, and I want to say this and I'm saying it exact. This is not me just being overzealous. You've got the most limp-wristed, weak Christianity I've ever seen in my life. It's pitiful. Where man has all the rights and God doesn't have a right to say or do anything. I tell you how much you love God. I'll start preaching about who He really is and the ones of you who really get mad ought to be afraid. Because you like God the way you got Him, but you don't have the right one. The man who says, I know Him, but does not do what He commands is a liar and the truth is not in Him. Now, I want us to go very quickly to chapter 2, verse 9. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. He does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded him. My friend, this is not talking about your neighbor. This is not talking about a poor man on the street. This is talking about a Christian. And one of the true and most exciting evidences that you have been born again is that you love Christians. You love the people of God. Now, when I look at the church and I find myself in the middle of her, do you want to know what I find out about us? We are hypocrites. We are a mess. We profess things many times that we do not live. We struggle. Sometimes we stink really, really bad. But you know what? There is no place on earth that I would rather be than with a bunch of messed up, stinky Christians who seem to never get anything right. Do you want to talk about rebellion? I was a weight lifter. I know it is hard to believe now. In the university, I was a weight lifter and there was a church right across from my gym. And every Wednesday when they would all go to church and our gym would be open, I would throw open all the doors and put in the tape Highway to Hell from ACDC and turn it up as loud as I could so that all those people going to church would hear that music. Rebellion? You have got nothing on me. I zealously served the Lord. I zealously served Satan. But I want you to know the moment I was converted at the University of Texas, standing by a coffee machine in the library all by myself, the first thing I wanted to do was be with the people of God. Follow them around. Like one man said, if the preacher washed the windows on Thursday, I filled my pew. I sat there and watched him. I just wanted to be with the people of God. If you do not want to be with the people of God, it's because you're not one of them. If you make fun of the people of God and their attempts at serving God, if you make fun of them because they can't do it right, if they don't look like the in crowd, you're lost. Congratulations, you just assigned yourself to Hell. You identified yourself with the people who are excellent, but they hate God. Because if you don't love the people of God, as messy as we are, you don't love God. One last test and then we're going to go. And I apologize for not being able to see the clock. Chapter 2, verse 15. Now get ready. Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world, the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father, but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. This is a description of many Baptist churches in America, especially many First Baptist churches. You can tell why I preach in a lot of Baptist churches once. We are a fleshly people. But you need to realize something and you need to be very afraid. If you love what the world loves, you're loving what God considers an abomination. If you love your physical beauty for your physical beauty's sake, it's an abomination to God. If you love the heroes of the world, you are of the world. If you love riches and wealth and Rolex watches, if you love their television shows, if you love their beautiful women and their excellent men, you're lost. You say, but Brother Paul, don't you ever struggle? Oh, my goodness. Sit down with me after this service. I'll tell you how I struggle. But you know what? I hate the world. Because of my own wickedness, yes, there are times I take a glance. There are times I walk down a wrong path. But I want you to know it leads to a destitution of my soul. I want you to know that it causes me to hate myself after I've betrayed Christ in such a way. But if you can walk with that world, love that world, hold up that world, want to look like that world, mold your life after that world, you are of that world. What are you now? Is it well with your soul? If you're sitting there right now and you're a Christian who's struggled with sin, but you have struggled and struggled, and you're saying, oh, my goodness, this man's telling me I'm lost. No, dear friend. Take another look. I'm not preaching perfection here and I'm not preaching salvation by works. What I'm preaching is this. If God has come into your life, He begins to work and direct your life. And He changes your desires. And even when you fall and struggle, He's there and He loves you. If you're sitting here and you're wondering whether you're not saved or whether you are, just envision for a moment. Stand beside a student you know to be an unbeliever. Are you like them? Do you have the same desires and concerns that they have? Do you dress the same way? Talk the same way? Is your morality the same? Is there no concern for God in your life just like there's no concern for God in theirs? Does the Word of God not have a place in your life at all? You ought to be very afraid. But if you're a struggling Christian and you put yourself beside that unbeliever and yes, you do see a difference, then rejoice. Rejoice. Now, I've given you a lot to think about. Now, go. Just go. I want you to carry this. I don't want you to come down here and make some little decision. I want you to go. Now, I want you to know something. Satan can steal this Word right out of your heart. But you go. And you go to God. And you say, Oh God, confirm or deny. Help me. And if you begin to see your lack of concern for the things of God and everything else, then you get on your knees and you cry out, Oh God, convert me. Oh God, save me. Do you know what we do in Peru when someone comes forward with a profession of faith? We don't say in front of our church, A man was born again today in our church. No, we don't say that. We don't have any way of knowing that. You can't show me where we have any way of knowing that. What we say is, a man has come forward to profess Christ publicly and we rejoice in that. And then we tell him, by himself, we say, Sir, if you leave this building and your concerns and your desires and your way of living does not change, you've got nothing here today. But if you walk out and your concerns and your desires and your way of walking reflects the work of God, then rejoice that you have been born again. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank You for the patience of Your people. Father, I don't take it lightly that I took this time. I just felt it was so necessary, Lord. And I pray for these young people that they might consider the evidence of salvation in their life and rejoice at the confirmation of God's Word and mourn if there's no evidence of salvation in their life. And I pray, God, I turn them over to You. Work in their hearts. Call them forth. Change their hearts. Put Your Spirit inside them. And move them to keep Your commands. Paul, can these dead bones live? Thou knowest, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen. I want to finish by simply saying this. I felt such an urgency to keep going, but I do apologize to the faculty and staff knowing that your classes are extremely important. Extremely important. But please bear with me and have patience. I hope that God will somehow use this to save people and to straighten out a few others. God bless you.