In this sermon, the preacher discusses three attributes of God that are interconnected and have the power to radically transform lives. The sermon begins with a personal anecdote about a child who is afraid of someone being under their bed, highlighting the unexpected dangers that can lurk in the darkness. The preacher then leads into a prayer, acknowledging God's holiness, love, and unchanging nature. The sermon emphasizes that these attributes of God have profound implications for our lives and can bring about life-changing transformation when embraced.

So, let's start the sermon this morning, and this morning I'm going to look at something that's really exciting to me. It's a topic that has led through the ages to many people being radically saved, to Christians coming on fire for God, and in general to lives being saved, because it's God-centered, it's of the attributes of God. I'm going to look at three different attributes of God that are very biblically, intrinsically connected to each other, and how this applies to some of our life. This topic that I'm going to speak on this morning, you could preach ten sermons on it and you wouldn't have touched the tip of the iceberg of what God is trying to say, and it's life-changing application. And so I'd like to look at these three attributes that are so connected to each other, but before I do, and before I pray, I'd like to mention a little story about one of my many cousins, and this cousin had a father who was in special forces in South Africa in the old days, and one of those army guys, and he was very strict. Now, I don't know about you, perhaps some of you remember the days I did this when I was a child. I used to get a little scared in my room in the dark and wonder if there's somebody under my bed. Not always, but it happened, and I generally was too scared to get out of the bed to go to my dad in case the guy under my bed would grab him by the legs. But there are many people who have admitted to this, if they're honest, that there was a stage as a little child that they wondered, is there somebody under my bed? Now, in South Africa, that can be a reality. We have a high crime rate, highest rape rate per thousand people of any country in the world. I have many times had people in the house I was staying, sometimes with hatchets, guns. I've been involved in shootouts, I just didn't have a gun. The people were shooting each other in a house where they came to kill us, and it's something that you experience in South Africa from time to time. But my cousin was sitting on his bed, and he was suspicious that there was somebody under his bed in the dark. So he got off his bed, and he walked to his dad's room. He knocked on the door, went in, and he's sleeping. Daddy had to wake up, and he said, Daddy, I think there's somebody under my bed. And his dad was strict. He said, Son, you get back to bed right now. So his son went back to bed, but a little later, his son came to the door again, knocked on the door, came in, and said, Daddy, I think there's somebody under my bed. His dad said, get back to bed. And then a third time or so, he came there, and he knocked on the door. He came in his father's room. He went to his father. He was a very strong, strapping, soldier-type guy who could beat people up pretty easily. And he said to his father, Father, I really think there's somebody under my bed. And his father said, Listen, I'm coming with you, but if there's nobody under your bed, you will get the spanking of your lifetime. And so he came there, and he came to the bed, and he looked underneath, and lo and behold, there was somebody under his bed, a very scared thief. He dragged him out and basically took him outside. So when your son comes to you and says, I think there might be someone under your bed, his bed, sometimes you should go and check it out. But you know what's very sad? In the darkness of Christians and people's lives, unsaved, unsaved people's lives, you will find often so many things you'd never expect. And with that, let's go over to prayer. Dear Father, I thank you so much for thy word and what thou art, the attributes of God, that thou art holy, that thou art love, that thou art kind, that thou never changes, that you are just and equal. Now, in preparation for this sermon, I, it was a few months back, I was sitting down, and a guy came up to me, and he said, Roy, I'm sick. I need you to preach. And so I started preparing a sermon, and this is the sermon that I prepared. Basically, I've changed a little bit. And he suddenly came out of his sickness, and he preached. So you guys are going to hear what I basically would have preached at that church. And it's on my heart for this meeting. But the three attributes I mentioned is simply this, that God is everywhere, that God sees everything, and that God knows everything. God is everywhere, God sees everything, and God knows everything. You'll find this, of course, in the Bible, the Word of God, Psalm 139, verse 8, and we read concerning God being everywhere, these words. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, thou are there. Now, before we go on, I'd just like to, because this is a wonderful topic, but I'd just like to perhaps clear up or mention something concerning error in the church and in Eastern religions, such as Hinduism. And when we say that God is everywhere, we don't mean that everything is God. Hinduism basically comes out of the idea in Eastern religions that there was one supreme God who basically split into two, and they had a relationship like a husband and wife would have with each other, and all different, everything came out of that. And so every single one of us, and everything out there, everything that's living, is God. It's a part of God, the original blob that was God. And therefore, that's why we can find God through a tree, and we can experience God through a tree. And that's why Hinduism believes that the answer to karma, which is reincarnation, where you get punished for the wrong things you've done and come back as a Baptist preacher if you were Methodist, and basically the answer to that is that you live a very good life, and you do rituals, and you come to the point where you realize, I am God. Now, you can't just say, I'm God. You have to realize it spiritually, and that's why they do rituals and everything, because they're hoping one day to either come back as something better, but ultimately to be enlightened, to be set free from reincarnation, and to come to the point where they know that they know that I am God. And so one of the first things you have to explain to a Hindu, if you want to bring the gospel to them, and explain to them the difference between Christianity and Hinduism, is simply that God sustains all things, and we find this in Colossians 1, verse 16 and 17, everything spiritually. God is not everywhere spiritually. He sustains everything physically, but is not in the heart of man spiritually. They think we are God. God is so there that we are God. We understand from Isaiah 59, verse 1 and 2, that God is sustaining my life. He's everywhere. He can see my heart. He can see all things, that there's a separation between us spiritually and God. It says, the Lord's hand is not shortened that you cannot save. Now, God's not short. He can get everywhere. He is everywhere, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God. So, the first point we have is that God is everywhere, but not spiritually in the heart of man, although you can see that. Okay, Isaiah, then the second thing is God sees everything. That's beautiful. Hebrews 4, verse 13, a famous verse in the Bible, says these words, neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Do you know what's very interesting? I said these attributes of God are connected, and we find this in the Bible. It's not just something that I say. Jeremiah 23, verse 24 says, can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? And then God gives a reason why. He said, do not I fill the heaven and earth, sayeth the Lord. And so, what God's saying is, because I'm everywhere, you can't hide from me. I see everything because I'm everywhere. Three attributes of God that are very much connected. God is everywhere. God sees everything, and then God knows everything. 1 John 3, verse 20, God who is greater than a heart knoweth all things. God knows all things. Some people actually tried to prove that Jesus Christ is not God, because they say that Jesus did not know all things. Jesus said in Mark 13, verse 32, that only the Father knew the time of his second coming, and so they used that as an argument against God. Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses will use the argument that Jesus Christ said that his Father is greater than him to say that, look, he's not equal with God. And the answer to that, and to the fact that Jesus said he didn't know the time of his second coming, is very simple. It's found in Hebrews 2, verse 7 to 9. We see that he became lower than the angels so that he could suffer death for a little time. And we see in Philippians that he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but became obedient even unto death. In other words, he was equal to God, but he came for a short time in submission to his Father, and in a sense, he was less than his Father, but totally and utterly God at that time, and that he was in submission to his Father. So, with that in mind, the fact that God is everywhere, sees everything, and knows everything, let's just ponder the fact that God ponders our hearts. Proverbs 5, verse 21, and 21, verse 2, says, for the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. Everything that you ever do in your heart and deeds, God is thinking about. And we read in verse 2, every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord pondereth the heart. God thinks about your heart. And there's a stupid question that evil people ask. We find this in the Bible, in Psalm 73, verse 11, and they say, how does God know? And is their knowledge in the most high? They talk this of their evil deeds, which they do in the dark. They say, does God know? I mean, we know the answer to that question, but people actually ask that question, a very stupid, stupid question, in light of who God is, the fact that he's everywhere, that he sees all things, and that he knows all things, not only spatially across the world and in our hearts, but from the beginning of time and into the future, God knows everything. You know, my granny was very clever. I was a little boy, and my wife tells me I still have this problem, that when I do something wrong, I look guilty. And supposedly, when I was a little kid, I looked very guilty. Now, I didn't know this. And I remember doing something wrong. I cannot remember what that wrong thing was. But as a little boy, I was at my granny's and grandpa's farm, and I was running down that long passage, and suddenly my granny stopped me, and she looked at me. Now, I knew I'd done something wrong, and I hoped she wouldn't find out, but I had nothing on me to show that to her. And she looked down at me, and she said, Roy, what have you done? And I looked up at her, and I remember, I'll never forget this. I thought, how did you know? And obviously, I was looking something like this, but I was very impressed with my granny at that stage. I could not believe it. I blurted out and confessed and said, Granny, I did this or that. It was like, wow, how did you know? But she just had those eyes in the back of her head, according to my little heart. You all know the story, or the stories, or the illustration of the little boy who is told by his mother and father, you cannot eat the cookie. And then the little child looks and puts his hand over his eyes, and he takes a cookie, and he eats it. And the whole point is, he thinks if people can't see me, then I can't. If I can't see people, then they can't see me. Pretty stupid. But you'll be amazed at how many people do that, what a little child thought would work. In Africa, this is a pandemic, epidemic, whatever you want to call it. Millions of people are taught this principle by their parents, that if nobody saw you, then you didn't do it. It's the African culture, to a great degree, in many different countries. You can be a missionary for many years and not know this, because they'll never tell you, until you dig very deep and find out what they do. They'll often, not always, put a little child at a table, and they'll starve that child for three days. And then after starving that child for three days, they'll put food in front of that little hungry child. And they'll look away from the child. And if the child, at that stage, eats, it's fine. But if they start turning their head and look, and they see the child eating, they smack the child in the face. And then they look away again. And so that child has to learn that when I'm not looking, you can do it, but when I am looking, you can't do it. And they teach so many children this. It's a very big problem. In stores in South Africa, you'll see some Africans, poor Africans, not all of them, but they'll basically, I suppose you see this in America too, but you'll have the owner of the store looking, and this man will be standing next to something he wants to steal. And so he looks, and he sees the people looking, and he'll stand still. But as the people look away, his hand starts to go out. And as the people look back, his hand starts to go towards himself. And you can literally look like a robot going back and forth because they've been taught this. And you'll only take it when he thinks that you're not looking. At school, some guys got expelled when I was in public school in South Africa, some Africans, and they had rich parents. And they'd stolen a whole lot of stuff. They didn't need to steal it because they were rich. But it turned out, when they caught the kids, and they took them before the teachers, and they were talking to them about it, the same cultural thing among many Africans in South Africa was the problem. They honestly thought they'd never done anything because nobody saw them. They don't remember anybody seeing them. And so, even as rich kids, they had this cultural thing. One missionary had read Ray Comfort's Hell's Best Kept Secret. And the fact that you have to use the Ten Commandments, which, of course, is very effective because it's in the Bible. But at the end of the day, he was so excited. He had been a druggie before he got saved. And he was walking down the street, going from door to door, asking people if they were saved. And I suddenly got a phone call. And it was from my friend. And he said, Roy, come. He was in a state. He said, I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do. This woman is terrifying that I'm trying to witness to. So he told me where he was. I walked down the street. I eventually came to the house that he was in. I came into the house. And there was this African lady sitting. And my friend looked at me. And he said, Roy, I've been through all of the Ten Commandments. And I've been through all the hearts application of it. And this lady hasn't broken one of them. And she was dead on it. And so what we had to explain to her is that just because nobody saw you doing it, especially us, doesn't mean you didn't do it. And that was a revelation to her. Of course, an irritating revelation. Otto Koenig, how many of you know the Pineapple story? I'm sure most of you do. Remember something that he said that was so interesting in Papua New Guinea? He said that one of the biggest or most probably the most important thing that could be revealed by God through truth to those natives was the fact that God sees in the dark. He said when they realized that, when they said your God is big, he sees. And that when we're in the dark, and Otto Koenig says most of the most evil sin out there gets done in the dark. He said this was a huge revelation to them. And it's very helpful in people coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and recognizing God as God is the fact that God sees, God knows, and that God is everywhere. And we find this in scripture. We find people getting saved because God knows. We find it in many portions of scripture. And I'd like to give a few to you this morning. One would be Nathanael. In John 1 verse 45 to 50, we see that Philip went to Nathanael and talked to him about the one that Moses spoke about in the prophets, Jesus of Nazareth. And he was a bit skeptical as he sat there and he said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And Philip said, come and see. And so he'd never obviously heard of this Jesus. And he came or met this Jesus. And he came and he met Jesus. And Jesus said something absolutely amazing. Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile. And Nathanael was surprised. You know why? Because Jesus was acting as if he knew him and he'd never met Jesus before in his entire life. And so he asked the question, whence knowest thou me? And Jesus answered and said, before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw you. And when Nathanael realized this man knows me, even from afar, he said, Rabbi, thou art the son of God. What led to this? What went from skepticism saying as a person who had never met Jesus, well, you know, what good thing can come out of Nazareth to the next moment saying you are the son of God. I'll tell you it was one thing that Jesus showed him. I know you. That was it. There was a woman at a well in John chapter four and she thought that Jesus was a Jew. A little later she thought he was a prophet. And a little later after that she realized that he was the Messiah. What changed? How did she go from believing Jesus was a Jew to a prophet to the Messiah? Well, because he asked her a question as if he didn't know. Go call thy husband and come hither. She said, I don't have a husband. He said, thou said, well, my own words. You've had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. And suddenly she realized this guy knows me. And you know what she said when she went back to her village? She said, come and see a man which told me all things that ever I did. You know what led to her salvation? Jesus showed her. I know you. Zacchaeus, Luke 19 verse five. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down for today. I must abide at thy house. There was a little man climbing up a tree, looking over the people, trying to see Jesus. Just a number hoping to see this man as he walked past. And as Jesus walked past, one word changed his life forever. The word Zacchaeus. Because suddenly he realized that he was not just a number to God, but that this man walking past him knew him by name. And very soon after that he utterly repented, followed God, and made right concerning his sins. You know, our kids love the story of Jonah, mostly because that's the story my wife tells them over and over again when we don't do other Bible stories. And we remind the children so often, and one day they'll get it. You can't run away from God. He's everywhere. You want to go to Tarsus? He's out there on the sea. He's pretty powerful too. You can do stuff that you can't believe while you're trying to run away from him. He's underneath the sea. He's above the sea. He's in the heaven of heavens. He's in the depths of hell. He is everywhere. He knows, he sees, and he's everywhere. I'm not going to go this morning, because I don't have time, into how you can use this in evangelism. That would be more for a Christian sermon on this topic. It is a wonderful thing to use in evangelism. You can. You can't walk up to people and say, by the way, I happen to know that you've had five husbands and the person you're with right now is not your husband. But you can actually show Muslims that God knows them. You can show religious people and atheists that God knows them. And there are ways to do that. And I've seen in applying this to people's lives and just the general person out there, how you can show them and prove to them that God knows them. I've seen people getting radically saved, which is a blessing, but I don't have time for that this morning. So let's carry on with this sermon. Man can fool man, but God is no man's fool. Little Glenn, my little son, we went to an Indian family this year and Glenn was playing with some of the toys. Glenn, little boy, obviously, came out of the house, got into our car, and I noticed something very strange about Glenn. His chest was like a muscle builder. It was sticking out. And what he'd done is he liked the toys he was playing with and he knew that he wasn't allowed to take it for some reason. And he basically had stuffed it into his shirt, hoping that nobody would notice as he smiled in the car that he was stealing. You know, he thought that he could fool people, but unfortunately his chest was a lot different to what it was before. So we had to take it out and deal with that situation. Glenn was once, and I love little Glenn, but I gave him an apple and I said, we're at this place where there's lots of animals and stuff and a nice little holiday home. And there's this big house and lots of grass around it, and I said, Glenn, go give this to Ruth. I don't know where she is. She might be at the back of the house. And so he took it and he was very excited to get it to Ruth and he ran around the house, but something happened on the way around. He didn't find Ruth, but he got hungry. And he ran in that very short time, about 30-40 seconds as he was running around that house. He came around the other side and he said, Ruth's not there, but I looked down at the apple and there's this big bite like, you know, Apple iPhones. And he thought because I couldn't see him that I wouldn't know, but there was some evidence. It was a bit obvious. You know, I was once sitting in my car in South Africa, my old car, and I remember sitting, we'd just been shopping, it was late at night, it was dark, and there was a car next to us and they were laughing, they had bad music, and they opened up their windows and they called me and I opened up my windows and said, hi. And they laughed at me and they said, you've got the most wonderful car. And it was a 30-something year old car, but they said, it's absolutely amazing. We love your hubcaps. Now, I didn't know they'd stolen my hubcaps. Now, this is brazenness. After stealing the hubcaps, you speak to the person about it in a joke. So I had no idea, being Roy Daniel, they were saying, you know, your hubcaps are amazing. And I said, yeah, they are. And they said, we'd like to buy them. Can we buy them? I said, well, unfortunately, they're not for sale. And they laughed and they drove off and I looked out and all my hubcaps were gone. Let me just note, you can fool me, but you can't fool God. Deal Moody was once asked, what is character? Moody replied, character is what a man is in the dark. There was a preacher that talked of a boy, and this is a pretty famous illustration, you know, I've spoken to a few people here and they can't remember it, but I remember one preacher preaching this once and he talked about how he came to a house and there was this boy, and as I remember the story, I couldn't find the sermon to fact check, but as best as I can remember, the boy, the mother started talking about this child and saying how wonderful he is. He dresses conservatively. He only listens to hymns. He reads his Bible for hours. And when he's got his earphones on, it's just these hymns, all these CDs stacked up that are so wonderful, listening to those old hymns and sermons. And the preacher was saying, yes, yes, and it's interesting. And after the woman walked out, he went into the boy's room and he came to where the earphones were and he saw that there was a wire, and it went behind the bed to where the rock music was. And he found magazines with evil stuff in it, and he realized this child is lying to its parents and lying to its church and being a wonderful conservative Christian, but in the dark it's a sinner. I remember coming to a church in South Africa, I won't mention the town, and I remember going in front of this father, and this father was a minister and he was so proud of his son. Not in a bad sense, he loved the fact that his son loved God and that he read his Bible and he witnessed, and I'd just seen his son smoking behind his back with the rebels of the church. I remember you get people who have drunken parties. You know where people love to have drunken parties is where there's an old man who's deaf on their property. You can fool all men, you can't fool God. I remember one Chinese person years back, I'd saved up a few years and when I called my life savings every few years, he stole it. He fooled me. You know what I told him on the phone? I said, you can't fool God. He got angry. He swore at me. He said, don't bring God into it. Tyndall, this led to somebody dying. Henry Phillips, I think it was, pretended to be a Christian. You know, the Bible says we're in peril among false brethren, not because they're going to infiltrate the church and they're going to bring worldliness into the church, not only that, but because they will even lead to your death. Tyndall believed, a godly man believed that a person who called himself a Christian, who acted as a Christian, was saved and it led to him being betrayed and dying. You can fool an old man, you can fool me, you can fool your parents, you can fool preachers, but you cannot, you cannot, you will not fool God. B.H. Shadook wrote in the Judgment Morning hymn, and oh, what a weeping and wailing when the lost were told of their fate. They cried for the rocks and the mountains, they cried, but their prayers were too late. Hebrews 4 verse 13, mentioned already, neither is there any creature that does not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. You can't fool God. On the Judgment Day, trust me, on the Judgment Day, you will stand before God and you will try to lie and it won't work, because he, you can lie to me. I've had people that I found out later, they were lying to me. They had such a nice little face, twinkly eyes, saying, Roy, this is what happened. And I believe them, being Roy Daniel, but you can't do that to God. It's not going to work. And I'd like to be honest this morning, I'd like to talk about my secret life before I was saved. There's nothing terrible, I was never on drugs, I never slept around, I never did anything extremely evil enough to go to hell, but I would like to tell you a little bit about myself, because it does help occasionally to be honest. Does that make sense? One preacher I was with recently said, Roy, it's so easy to talk about stuff 12 years back, but what about a few days back? That's much harder. Well, I'm going to speak about things many years back, and other sermons I speak about things a few months back. That wasn't as bad, obviously, as when I was unsaved. I was saved around about the age of 19 years old, and I'd like you to notice something in the Bible. It says, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. My dad and my mom read us Bible every evening. They spanked us, they disciplined us, they trained us, they taught us the Bible, and to the best of their ability, the grace of God, they lived Christ. They won our heart. My mother was my toothmast. My dad used to give me ice cream and sing me to sleep, but I'd like you to notice something. Before you say, even if you're trained up by godly parents, you have a sinful heart. Ezekiel 36 verse 26 says these words, a new heart also will I give you. I'll take out the heart of stone, and I'll give you a heart of flesh. Now, no matter how much your parents train you, if you have a sinful heart, and I know this cries against what many churches preach, it will show itself sometimes, until you say it. Your parents, through no matter what training they give to you, cannot change that heart, though they can keep it in tow. It will show at times. God knew this, but man did not always know this of me before I got saved. I try to remember back, what is the first thing? I'm sure there was things before this, but as far as my little memory goes, what is the first thing I could remember that I did, that I didn't want my loved ones to know about, that would embarrass me because it was behind people's backs? The first thing I can remember is about age seven when I stole my first tractor. I didn't really steal it. I just got in a tractor with some African workers, and we drived out, and of course, we were going to bring it back up into the hills, and I was the driver. I think I crashed my first tractor at age six or seven, too. That was pretty cool, but I remember driving up into the hills, and I loved my grandfather, and it was his tractor, and we turned around, and we started going down this long hill in the wild. There was no farms nearby. It was where all the wild stuff was, and we're driving, driving, driving with my Africans behind me, and yeah, I am, and this, what do you call in America, a pickup truck type thing comes towards us, and it's my grandfather, and I've got a big problem. There's nowhere to go. I'm driving on a tractor slowly towards him. He's driving slowly towards me, and there's no place to turn. It's a single lane, and I felt my heart go cold. I remember till this day as a seven-year-old. I didn't know what to do. I knew I'd been caught, and there was just no getting out of it, and it was this slow process. It wasn't like we were speeding towards each other. God, I've got a spanking. It's over. It was slowly looking at him coming towards me. His eyes, his face, oh, it was very bad. One thing I remember about my grandfather, apart from his godly life, was his amazing spankings. I, as a young person, I tried to get saved at age seven, didn't get saved. There was a ticket to heaven, basically, that I wanted, and not to go to hell, but I read my Bible. I gave out tracts. I tried to stand up as a Christian, but I remember going to school, public school, and one of the things you had to do is you had to sign, and these all sound like simple things. We're going to get to worse stuff later. Sorry, but you had to have your homework signed. In other words, that your parents had to sign that you did your homework, and I forgot that so often. I'd go home, have fun, try to do my homework, come back to school, and I just forgot to ask my parents to sign it, and you get into big trouble at those public schools. They used to spank you with canes and cricket bats and whatever. You didn't want to at that, but not like American schools nowadays, where the cool, the children rule the roost, and I remember often not knowing what to do, and so I used to lie and say, teacher, I need the bathroom, and then I'd go, and I'd go to the bathroom with my homework under my chest, and I'd take a pen with it, and I'd fake my parents' signature, and I'd come back, and I'd take it out, and I'd say, yes, my parents signed my homework. Now, my teacher was not stupid. I was about eight, nine years old, and she noticed that I went awfully a lot to the bathroom about that time of day, and so she followed me once, and I remember sitting there, and I locked the door, and I stood on the toilet, and she was going there trying the doors, and my door didn't open. Now, how stupid. I mean, why would a door not open, and the kid's just been there, and he's nowhere to be found, but eventually, she obviously seen the humorous side of it, and she called me up, and she said, Roy, did you sign this? And I said, no, and I felt very, very embarrassed, and I was in trouble. I remember before I left that particular school, I once, there was a suitcase that I had somehow taken somebody else's suitcase. I got very embarrassed about it because they're extremely strict. You don't do stuff like that. I thought they'd think I'm a thief, and so I put the suitcase, and I hid it under a tree, and I went home, and I came back to school the next day, and they called me, and they said, somebody's found your suitcase, and they actually took your suitcase, and do you know where that guy's suitcase is? And I felt so embarrassed. This is the last day that I had at that school, and I lied, and I said, well, you know, I took it to lost property, and they said, okay, come with us. Show us where you put it in lost property, and this particular teacher had huge respect for me. I loved this teacher. It was the worst person, according to my conscience, to lie to because I felt so bad, but what do you do? You start a lie. What does that lead to? More lies, and so I went there, and I didn't have, I'd never taken it to lost property, but I went through, and I couldn't see, and I said, I put it there. They said, that's strange. It's okay. It'll pop up sometimes, and I felt so, so down. Now, in high school, it gets a bit worse. We don't have, we didn't have cell phones like nowadays where you can just look at pornography and stuff, but I started to look at stuff I shouldn't look at. I found magazines that I shouldn't look at that had clothing adverts, and it wasn't the worst pornography. Once or twice, I got to see that at school, but mostly, I used to try, at times, I started to look at magazines that I shouldn't look at of women, and of course, you do this in the dark, and I hated myself for doing this, but the first time you do it, it's all fun, and then the next time, you don't want to do it, but you just have to do it because it's affected your heart. It's like sin corrupts you. It actually changes you so that it has a hold on you, and you want to be set free, but you can't set yourself free, and you feel you're having freedom to do fun, but you're actually bringing yourself into bondage because that's what sin does, and I was not saved. I was at school, remember, I'm an unsaved person trying to be a Christian. That's pretty hard, and I remember about 150 boys were put into an auditorium at junior school, and there was a movie, which wasn't extremely evil, but they showed it to the public school, and in the middle of that movie, they said one word. It wasn't even a swear word that was wrong, according to what I knew my mother and father would expect, and I said I want to leave that movie, and they didn't understand it, it was to do with immodesty, and I had to go and sit outside in the passage on the floor. Normally, only the very naughty boys do that. They get sent out, and teachers would come past and ask, why are you sitting outside? What have you done wrong? And I felt embarrassed being the only one who stood up against sin as an unsaved person. Years later, I remember, I don't know where I got this movie. It wasn't a movie of evil stuff, but in the middle of the movie, my parents don't have a television, by the way, good for them. I don't either, but there was this movie, and I found a little movie player, and I put it in, and in the middle of the movie, there was an evil scene between a man and woman, and I remember as a young teenager putting the paws on and enjoying what I saw, and at that moment, somebody walked into the room of that house that I was at. I can't remember exactly where it was, and the person walked up to the television and saw what I was looking at. There was no hiding it. I paused. I could even say, you know, I didn't know that was coming. The person looked at me and said, you shouldn't do that. Don't ever do that again. I was very embarrassed, but years later, years later, I remember that person coming up to my dad, and for some reason, I don't know why he did that, he went to my dad, and I heard a conversation with my dad where he told my dad, this is before I saved, you think your child is wonderful because he reads his Bible up to 20 chapters a day. He prays. He hands out tracts and whatever, but he's not totally what you think, and he told my dad of that particular thing where he walked into the room. You know what hurt me? I heard my loving daddy who never did me wrong. I heard him groan. I'd hurt him. Of course, when my dad sees wrong in my life, he tells me by the way, but that was very sad. I was in a public school, and they didn't really have homeschooling for many years, and in some districts of South Africa, you're not even allowed homeschooling unless you have a degree at school, and in Brazil, you'll know that you're not allowed homeschooling unless you're at a tribal, a very primitive place where you can't have anything else. You have to go to private or public school. There are countries like that, by the way. I went to public school. It's pretty hard at times. Out of the 700, 800 kids in high school, I think I was one of two or three that didn't get drunk every weekend and didn't sleep around every weekend. They would come back on Monday. Geography class was the class where they told of who threw up where, how he threw up, and who he slept with. At times, I wanted to be a Christian. I wanted to read my Bible. I wanted to witness to other people. I even stood up at school and tried to witness as an unsaved person, but there were other times, because of the sinful heart and because I saw the fun that my friends were having, that I longed to have what they had. I longed to do what they did just once or twice so I could know what it was like, and I remember thinking very strongly once, in between trying to be good and trying to stop the sin that was in my life and trying to be a good Christian, read my Bible, I remember thinking to myself, if only my daddy didn't know and my mommy didn't know. If I could just know that, and if I knew that God somehow wouldn't see or wouldn't mind, then I would gladly, right now, do the worst of sin. If I knew I'd get away with it, I wouldn't hurt my dear daddy and mommy, and that was what kept me back. But I remember it wasn't just a temptation. I was a sinner. I sat there and in my heart, I went through the sin that I would have loved to do, and I enjoyed it in my heart. You know, at the age of 12, at public school, I was 12 years old when the first girl came up to me. I didn't do it. I've never slept around. The worst I've done at school, which I think is still evil, is I kissed a girl, and that was like one second. That's on the outside, but God looks at sin on the inside as bad. You know, and a girl came up to me, I said, 12 years old, and she offered herself to me. She said, let's go and do the worst. And you know what? The only reason I didn't do it, only reason, because I didn't know how, that's the truth. I look back and shudder at that moment of weakness. You know what makes me very scared about the time we're living in? We've never lived in a time like now, where at those moments of greatest weakness, because sometimes I was way stronger as an unsaved person, and sometimes I was very weak, but when I'm very weak, often there's no opportunity, but we're living in a time of endless opportunity to get to know people and do bad stuff. Girls throw themselves at boys, and boys don't care. And I was not playing games. I wanted to get out of this situation, but I could not change my heart. You know what really hurts me is when young people play games. They enjoy doing things in the dark, and how clever they are to lie to their parents and to their church. They enjoy it, some of them. To me, it was this horrible situation to be in, though I tried to be a good Christian in between as an unsaved person. You know, some people aren't as blessed as me to not actually go and do evil like my friends didn't. When they come to the point that they have a moment of weakness, or moments of weakness, and they long to do these things if only their dad and mom didn't know, they actually go over and do it when they have the opportunity. And in the Bible in Proverbs 7, verse 14 and 19, we see that there were two excuses which were used, and I find this with people so often. Number one is a religious excuse. We find a woman that wanted to sleep with a man and that was not her husband, and she said, I have peace offerings with me. This day have I paid my vows. In other words, she said, listen, I've done my bit with God. And that's the first excuse that comes, is God doesn't mind. Now, what I found with people is this. Satan starts to attack and says, listen, if you do it, if you do the sin in the dark, guess what? All you have to do afterwards is you have to confess. You'll still go to heaven. One saved or saved. Now, I'm not against that doctrine. I believe in the keeping power of God, but Satan can misuse the truth even to bring in sin, misuse religion to bring in sin. You cannot misuse God, trust me. He will not allow that. Proverbs 7 verse 19 says, for the good man is not at home. He has gone on a long journey. What's the second thing? Well, first of all, God doesn't mind. In our generation, it's not so bad. You won't lose your salvation. Just, you know, confess afterwards. So it's not going to be so bad spiritually. Secondly, man won't know. If you do it in the dark, nobody's going to find out because my husband is far away. Oh, that doesn't feel too bad. One girl in South Africa, I remember very much, she got so cross with her parents because she really liked certain unsaved boys and her excuse was spiritual. I want to bring them to Christ. She would shout to their parents and say, I will. I'm praying for them. I'm spending time with the Bible. I will speak to them much and reach out to them because I want them to be saved. Spiritual reason for her time with those boys and she landed up pregnant. Though she read the Bible much and was conservatively dressed. There's a big danger when you're caught, by the way. Pride will cry when your friends are lost, when your name is lost. We find this many places in the Bible. 1 Samuel 15 verse 23. Saul said, I have obeyed God. And then Samuel showed him, you haven't obeyed God, you're going to lose the kingdom. And when he realized that he'd lost something, he was suddenly repentant so-called. And he said, okay, I have sinned. And there's a big problem with this because this isn't true repentance. It's not repentance towards God for what you've done against God. It's kind of making right because you don't want to lose stuff in life that used to give you joy. And many people, when they're caught and they used to have a good name and now suddenly people look down at them and they suddenly don't have that good name they used to have. They cry, they weep. And many times it's only because they even say I've sinned because of what they've lost. And they know this will make people look at me a little bit better. Psalm 51 verse 4. David, after much sin, came to the point where we have to come to if we've sinned in the dark. Against thee, the only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. What does sin do to you? It corrupts you. 1 Peter 1 verse 4, we've escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. I mentioned that when you start to look at bad things as an unsafe person before and it didn't matter to you. But the first time you do it, it's enjoyable. But then you start to realize I have to do it again. It's got some hold of me, inside me. And you have to understand that there are degrees of sin. 1 Kings 16 verse 30, Ahab was worse than all the kings that were before him. One sin is enough to send you to hell. But trust me, after Adam fell, all of his children got worse and worse and worse until God had to destroy the world. It starts with sin and it corrupts you. But you can get deeper into sin and deeper into sin and deeper into sin until it has destroyed you. And you didn't have to get there to go to hell. What's the answer? The answer is come to the light. Not come to a light, by the way, but come to the light. So many people think, well, I've confessed. I've come to the light. I've come out. And now they feel like everything's settled because I've been honest. And one of the biggest problems we have is there's a lot of people out there, like I mentioned at Don Cavill's church a few weeks, months back. There's prostitutes who hold in what's inside of them. Gay people as well. They hold inside them the fact that they feel that they're gays and they feel guilty about it. But the moment they come out and tell everybody about it, they feel free. And this can happen to you as a Christian or unsaved person too. You can come to the point where you've been holding the sin in your heart, the things you've done in the dark in your heart, and you haven't told people. And then when you tell people, you feel like it's a release, like you're free. But that feeling doesn't mean that you've been set right. You mustn't come to a light, but come to the light. Jesus Christ, who not only exposes sin, but sets you free from sin. You know what's so beautiful about God's knowledge of the whole world? It's just these words, and I love to sing it. He knows me, yet he loves me. He knows me, yet he loves me. God commendeth his love towards us, and that while we were yet sinners, God, Christ, died for us. If someone loves you while he doesn't know you, that's blindness. If someone loves you and he knows you, that's kindness. My dad, I remember after I got saved, I was in a garden censer. I'll never forget it. And I loved to go for coffee with my dad, and read the newspaper with my dad, and walk down the road with my dad, and talk to my dad. He's the most wonderful dad in the whole history of the entire humankind, and you better believe it. But he was walking there in that place, and often my dad, if he saw something wrong in my life, he would tell me. So it's not like he wasn't trying for me to be transparent, but there were certain things my dad didn't know. And I walked, I thought, and I was walking next to him as a saved person now for a few years, and I said, Dad, I just want to tell you, and it was hard, but I said, I want to tell you a few things. And I told him a few things from my past I thought he didn't know, and I thought he'd look at me and just be totally disgusted that I wasn't the person he thought I was. And you know, he looked at me with love in his eyes, and he said, Roy, I know. And I'll never forget that moment. He loved me. He knew me, yet he loved me. Absolutely amazing. When I was at school, when I was at school, I remember I heard a voice. Now, I'm not a charismat. This is when I was unsaved, by the way. And I don't preach about these things too often, because then people think that I'm saying a voice saves you, but it doesn't. The fact that God loves you doesn't mean he has saved you. Samuel heard a voice a few times before God spoke to him. And I remember when I was at school, my dad went through very bad financial times. And we got together as a family, and we prayed. And I realized the burden that was on my dad's back because of this, what we were going through. And I felt, as an unsaved little kid, I felt very scared for my dad because I wanted to have an answer to this problem. And I remember walking. I can show you the spot in my school. I walked out of an arch that was at the public school. And suddenly, it was so real, I can't explain it. Something told me everything has been paid. As an unsaved little boy who was involved in pornography. And I walked out there, and I walked across the street, and I came to the other side of the car to where I could see my dad's face. And he looked up at me, and he said, Roy, everything's been paid. And I knew suddenly that I wasn't just a number to God, but somebody out there. I didn't quite understand it. This did not save me. It did not change my heart. But somebody was actually, while I was in rebellion, in the dark, there was someone who cared about me. 1 Samuel 3 verse 8. Samuel, I heard a voice before I got saved. When I was at Bible college, everybody thought I was the most wonderful Bible college student. I got high marks. I used to go out. I used to arrange prayer meetings through the night. I used to make a puppet show. I used to go every spare moment and hand out tracts. And they talked about me as this wonderful influence at Bible college that wasn't saved. And I remember hearing a voice that said to me, and I don't want to emphasize this, it's just history, Roy. And I looked around me, and it was so real, but I didn't know where it was from. I never heard that since I got saved, but three times before I got saved, I heard the verse, Roy. I used to get these dreams. It got so bad where everybody was telling me I'm such a wonderful Christian. I used to wake up in the middle of the night, and there was these spiders that were crawling over my body, literally, that I felt. And I didn't want to go back to sleep. It was so demonic and so real. I used to have these dreams of hell. We used to drive in a car. We're driving. It's so wonderful. It's lovely. And then the road would open up in front of me, and I'd fall into hell. And I'd wake up, and everybody would say, you're a wonderful Christian because you know your Bible, and you wear nice clothes, and you sing hymns, and you preach. The moment I got saved, that never happened ever again. Not one more dream. I told you guys about I almost drowned, and how it was easy in church, easy in church to know the Bible answers, and people told you you're a wonderful Christian. But there where I was in the water, and I knew I was about to die, and it would be eternity, and forever, and ever, and ever. I'd ever be in hell, in the flames of God's wrath for eternity, or I'd be with Jesus, and I didn't know where I was going, but I suspected very much it was hell. And then God showed me my heart, because I was too proud to call out for help, because they would think Thin Roy can't swim. There was a lady at Glenville Bible College, an old godly lady, and where I was, people were just telling others of how wonderful I was at this Bible college, and what a wonderful preacher, and what a wonderful influence I was. This lady came up to me, and she gave me a verse, and it was a verse about your sins being forgiven, and needing to be forgiven, and I thought to myself, well everybody is saying these things. Why? How did she know? How does she know what's going on in my heart? My mom. I gave my testimony before I went to Bible College at a church. I wasn't saved, but I gave my testimony. It's a very good thing to do. You can practice before you get saved how to do it. I stood up in a church. I gave my testimony. My mother gave me a spanking a little later, and she said, you are not saved. I wept, because I loved her, and it hurt. At least somebody was willing to tell the truth, and then I found him. I came naked without any of my good works. You know, when Adam fled from the light, when he sinned, he tried to cover his darkness with good works. When I got saved, I had no good works, but the first time in light of who he was, I came into that holy presence, and I knew that the only hope was Jesus Christ, and he saved me. He took my past, and my present, and he gave me a new past, a new present, and a new future in the person of Jesus Christ. I gave him my old tattered garments. He gave me a robe of pure white. One moment Jesus saved me when I came to the light, the light to save me. I didn't use perfect words, but guess what? In the Bible, in Luke chapter 7, there was a woman who came to Jesus, who was a great sinner, and she didn't say any words, and Jesus said, just her sins, which are many, are forgiven. All she knew was that she was a sinner, and she was coming to the one who a sinner's need could meet, and she did. But you know why God can do that, even if you don't perfectly understand the entire gospel? You need to know the name of Jesus. You need to know that you come into the person of Jesus, and that he is the Son of God. But the woman at the well, Jesus didn't say to her, by the way, if you want to get saved, now that you've had your five husbands and one man, if you want to get reconciled, you know what you need to do? I need to explain to you the whole gospel. I'm going to die one day, and I'm going to rise again, and I'm going up to heaven. He said, if you know two things, the gift of God, and who it is that speaketh unto you, you would have asked, and I would have given. You know, some people just know the name of Jesus, that he's God, and that he's somehow brought an answer, and God knows what happened on the cross, and then they learn the rest afterwards. And we know this from Isaiah 53. By the way, you can't get saved without the name of Jesus, trust me. But Isaiah 53 verse 11 says, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. By his knowledge. He knows. It affects our very salvation. You don't have to know the Greek backwards before the man who is God, Jesus Christ, can save you if you come to him. I'd like to ask a question. What are you in the dark? What are you in the dark? Every single person sitting here, what are you in the dark? What do you do in the dark? Do you have fruit in your life? Or no relationship with God. And yet, in spite of the fact that you know in your heart you're dead on the outside, you are doing so many things for God. You're handing out tracts. You're going to camps. You're singing. You're playing music. You've got conservative clothes dressed. You read your Bible. You can quote verses. But what are you in the dark? You can fool me, but you cannot fool God. The Bible says in John 8 verse 17, of religious people who considered themselves, and society considered themselves to be wonderful. The scribes and the Pharisees at that time, they were doing all these things so the people could look at them. And they came and there was a woman who was caught in the act of adultery. She'd been exposed. And they said that Moses and the Lord basically says that she should be stoned. And they continued to talk to Jesus about this, trying to catch him, trying to see what he would do. And he was writing something in the sand. And then he said, here that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. You see, Jesus Christ was speaking to religious people who on the outside look good, but he knew that they had sin in their past and sin in the darkness of their heart. And every single one of them knowing this, when they realized this man knows me, he knows I have sin, they left him. On the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus showed religious people, I know you. Those people who condemned Adelterous physical adultery said, I know when you lusted, I know when you hated that you condemned murderers. We are the children of light. In Matthew 7, verse 22 to 23, we see on the judgment day that many people do stuff on the outside, and yet they have sin on the inside. They prophesy in Jesus' name. They cast out demons in Jesus' names and do many wonderful works. But Jesus said, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. They try to be religious on the outside, but they're godless on the inside, living for themselves without God. Isn't it wonderful that when we get saved, we're children of light? That's what the Bible calls us. In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 5, he calls us children of light. In Colossians 1, verse 13, it says, Jesus who has delivered us from the power of darkness hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. In John 8, verse 12, it says, he that followeth me, Jesus said, shall not walk in darkness. But what's the proof? As we come to the end of the sermon, what is the proof that we are children of light? And of course, you'll have heard some sermons that I've brought, and I go to 1 John, as John MacArthur does, as good commentaries do, as many different preachers do through time, and they say 1 John basically is the proof. It shows you what a Christian is and what a Christian isn't. There's 11 different areas of test, and then John says, these things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life. I don't want you to be in darkness. I don't want you to be wondering if these things are in your life, then you're a Christian, and if they're not, you're on your way to hell. Pretty clear. And some of them is the fact that if you say, I know him and keep not his commandments, you're a liar, and the truth is not in you. In other words, if you had not a heart that's changed when you got saved and forgiven, and now you love him, and therefore what he says is important because of the new love you have for him, because you've been in your heart, then you're not saved. If you don't love the brethren, you're not saved. But listen to these specific words, because it's to do with light and darkness. 1 John 2 verse 9 says, He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness until now. No matter how religious you are, if you've got hatred in your heart, you're not saved. If you don't have love for the brethren, not because they go to church, and their social club, but because they love God, and their heart has been changed like yours, you are in darkness. I'd like to ask a question, why do men serve God? 2 Chronicles 24 verse 22, And Jehoash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest. You know what's so sad about this verse? I've seen so many so-called Christians who are this man. They go to church, they serve God in a sense with all their hearts. You can see it. They stick to the highest standards, they spend hours with the Bible, but it's only as long as their parents are there. It's only as long as someone they love, they don't want to fail, is there. A sister, a brother, a pastor. But when that pastor fails, they go off into the world. Or if that pastor isn't there anymore, or at the end of the day, even if it's till your death, the only reason you're a Christian is because of someone in your life that you don't want to let down. Like I was before I got saved. I wanted to be a Christian because I didn't want to let my parents down, and I didn't want to go to hell. Those two reasons. I didn't want to go to hell, and I didn't want to let my parents down. And I'd like to just ask you, take away, be honest for once, take away from your life the pastor, the church, and the people that you love that lead you to be a Christian. Would you still be a Christian just for Christ's sake? Right now, take away the people that you would hurt if you rebelled against God, and you weren't serving God outwardly with all your heart. Take them away. Right now, would you still serve God just because of Jesus Christ? Take away Maranatha Baptist Church, and you used to be at another church years back. Take away your family, and just be on your own. They're not there anymore. They can't see even from heaven the things that you're doing that are wrong. Would you still serve Christ? And if not, you're not a Christian. We need other people, true, but if the main reason that you're a Christian isn't Jesus Christ, you're not a Christian. The Bible says, come into the light. This is the last verses I read in this sermon. And by the way, this is a wonderful portion of scripture, John 3, verse 19 to 21. And this is the condemnation, that light is coming to the world, and men love darkness rather than light. Why? Because their deeds were evil, and light is uncomfortable. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved, lest you should feel like I have done wrong, which doesn't feel good. But he that doeth truth, this is true Christians, cometh to the light, that his deeds might be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. You know, one of the greatest, this is my end of point, by the way, one of the greatest tests, an important test of salvation, and whether you're right with God, is simply this. How do you treat the light? How do you treat the light? Not, do I go to church and do I sing hymns? And do I help the church in every way that I possibly can? No, but how do you treat the light of God's Word, and who Jesus is? You know, when I go to a church, and that church doesn't have ties, and they ask me as a leadership, do you mind not wearing a tie? I take off my tie, because it's more important to me the fact that there's people in pornography in that church sleeping around and unsaved as religious hypocrites, and I want them to be saved, and then I get to wear a tie all the time. Paul, by the way, didn't wear a tie. And I looked it up in the Greek. I don't always wear my ring, and churches, it's offensive to wear rings. They ask me sometimes to take it off, and I have no problem with that. And some people have come up to me and said, hypocrite, look what you do behind people's backs. Well, why don't you give them the sermon? I don't mind. I can tell you a lot of things I do not to offend people, and I'll be honest about it. I just generally don't do it, because I don't want to offend people. Unnecessary, and let them not focus on me and my offense, instead of focusing on the Bible and the message of God. But there are people, and I've met so many people, that say these words, I have my light and you've got your light. And I understand this a little, because there are people out there who will walk up to other people and say, listen, you've got to wear a blue dress to go to heaven, and they're ridiculous. And they try to impose their light upon you. By the way, don't wear a blue dress. But there are so many, hundreds of thousands, even in conservative churches now, that I've sat down with and I say, look, thou shalt not kill. This is what a false prophet is. It says it there. It's not saying, thou shalt not kill. And I say, that means you must go to China. My light. Or you must wear a blue dress, because it says, thou shalt not kill. It says, this is a false prophet. This is sin. The most obvious things in the Bible. And they say, I've got my light, you've got your light. And you know what I say? Let's go to John. Let's go to these verses. He that is of the truth cometh to the light. If you are one of those people who are satisfied with your light, and you don't want more light, because then you'd actually have to change things, you're not saved. A true Christian, he treats the light like this. It's precious. It shows me where I can grow. It shows me where I can change. And it's the words of the one who saved me. And if he wants me to change, I must change. And if you don't have that, according to my book, the Bible, your book, the Bible that God gave us, and you'll judge us one day by, you are not of the light. Simple as that. So here's my question. Do you go to church? Do you pray? Do you read your Bible? Do you do all those things, but you don't treat the light like that? You don't want to know what's wrong, so you have something more to change. Brother, you need to be saved. Let us pray. Brother, I just want to thank you so much that you didn't leave us in darkness, and in the sense that we didn't know who you are. You didn't just send us to hell the moment mankind sinned, as we deserved, but you came first, and you made a way for man to be forgiven. Ultimately, all those sacrifices pointing forward clearly. You didn't want us to miss it in the Old Testament to the fact that your son would die and rise again. And so a way is open for man to be reconciled unto God, for man that is in rebellion on his way to hell, deserving it to come back, and through Jesus Christ to meet with God and be in a relationship with Him again. Atonement at one with God. And Father, this way is open, but you don't play games with us. You don't lie to us and kiss us and say, you're on your way to heaven when we are nowhere to hell. You show clearly in Scripture what true Christianity is, and you show us what darkness is, and the danger of thinking that we can live a hypocritical life where we do things in the dark that people can't see, and we don't realize that God is no man's fool. Father, help us to realize this, and if there's someone here living in hypocrisy, or perhaps even come to the light because he's been caught, or she's been caught, and cried like Saul did, but never come to that point where they said, against thee the only have I sinned and done made right with thee. Nothing to do with people at all. Or if there's a person or people like so many in conservative circles now who have their light and they don't want more, and they're just basically enjoying church as a social club that helps them through the hard times in life, which is important, but it doesn't get you to heaven. God, help us to seek the Jesus of Scripture, to come to the true light for our sins not only to be exposed in our sinful heart, but for the light to cast out the darkness for us to be translated for the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son to be born again.