In this sermon, the speaker shares a powerful story about Charles Finney, a preacher who had a profound impact on people's lives. Finney's presence alone caused a cotton factory full of workers to weep and repent without him saying a word. This led to the factory owner closing down the factory for a Christian meeting to address their hearts. The speaker emphasizes the importance of convicting preaching and the need for people to experience conviction of sin in order to truly understand the gospel. The sermon also highlights the urgency of returning to the kind of preaching that Wesley and Finney practiced, which brought about powerful revival and conversion experiences.

We think this way at least a bit. We think to ourselves, when we're thinking of a lot of mainline denominations in the earth, we think, I really wonder if many of those people are saved at all. Let's be honest people, okay? This is the way we think. We look at those churches and we say, man, that's a pretty dead church. It would be a miracle if even the preacher in that church is saved. We think this deep down, we don't say it. It's rude to say such things. But I want to take you further than that. I want to take you further than that because it's far more serious than that, because I want to speak this to you. True Christians, saved Christians are a rarity in the church. Saved Christians are a rarity in the church. We're going to go down this line, explore and think about it a bit, and what the ramifications of all of this is. Because, you know, the statistics in America are amazing. Forty percent of people go to church, or at least say they go to church on a fairly regular basis in America. The most staggeringly high statistic in the world by far. You have to go to Korea to get anywhere close to it. And they have had massive revivals to get to where they're at. America just has this church-going thing going on. You know, someone was saying fifty percent of Kansas City people go to church. I want to say this to you, the whole earth, the whole of America would be utterly different if those people were actually saved. I want to say this to you, that you can walk into any Pentecostal church, or charismatic church in this land, and find dramatic numbers whom if a true preacher of righteousness, a piercing preacher, walked in there and preached, he would find the majority of the church unsaved. Pentecostal, charismatic, so-called spirit-filled people. Now they may well speak in tongues. They might have been speaking in tongues for ten years, but that's not what's going to save them, is it? Walking in the Spirit saves. On Judgment Day, Jesus will not be saying, you had it right ten years ago and therefore you're okay. There is no one saved, always saved. I don't believe in it. I cannot find foundation for it in scripture. Although I will say this, when the depth of salvation is utterly true, I believe you cannot return to sin. And I believe scripture does back that. Now let me ask you this question, what if the thing that we think about as way-up-here type Christianity, where we think, wow, that's the deeper Christian life, that's the Romans 8 experience, where you're walking, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. And 1 John 3, where it says, those who have their hope in Him, purify themselves as He is pure. They do not sin. They do not walk in sin. They cannot continue to sin. 1 John 3. What if this high-level Christianity that we think of as, wow, that's up there, to God is basic ABC Christianity that every single person is supposed to have. In the 70s they used to have what were called deeper life conferences. You wanted to become a really spiritual Christian, you'd go to a deeper life conference and they would talk about death to self and how to get closer to God. Watchman Nee wrote a book about this called The Normal Christian Life. And he was right. I want to say this to you, most of the church today, especially in America and the western nations, but especially in America where it's just a habit to go to church, most are unsaved. And there would be an absolute revolution in everything we know if just those people got saved. Now I'm not talking about saved as we commonly understand it where we go forward and ask Jesus into our heart. None of that stuff. I'm talking about the saved that we see in the Bible. The everyday New Testament Christianity type saved. And I want to ask this, is there another kind of Christianity? Do we have this second tier thing going on and where did we get it from? Because I don't really see it in Jesus' words. All I see with him, you're a new creation, and I mean utterly new or you ain't. And I don't see this between the lines, Christian, where it's okay to be carnal and okay to be fleshly and sinful and God will accept you anyway. I see the parable where Jesus says, you come in by another door, pal, and you're out of there. You come in with a robe that is not the white robe washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. You're going to be kicked out of that wedding supper. Doesn't matter how you got in there. What if the level of salvation itself that we have grown used to is utterly distorted? You see, the reason I'm going down this line is this. God woke me up at four o'clock one morning and spoke to me about this. He was speaking to me about Charles Finney. Now, I'm very aware of Charles Finney's ministry. I've been reading about him for years. Love the guy. Charles Finney's ministry, get this, listen carefully. Charles Finney's ministry was all about this. Going to a place where they thought they were Christians, proving to them with logic, common sense, totally backed by scripture, he was a lawyer. He would just stand there and basically prove to them, you're not saved at all. You're not saved at all. You are completely deceived. And therein was the power of his message. He would get people so shocked and devastated because they'd belonged to the church for 20 years and they were a deaconess or something. He would get them so utterly shattered after one sermon. Some of them could not even walk. They would have to be carried out. This is not some bless me, bless me experience these people have had. They were utterly destroyed by one sermon. Instead of preaching assurance of salvation, he would preach, you're not saved. I'm going to show you why. I'm going to show you how. This is what scripture says and if you are not this, you're not there. And people had never heard anything like that. You go to John Wesley, you find him doing exactly the same thing. In fact, one of the most scary and most, it's so strong, it's almost horrific sermons you can ever read is called Marks of the New Birth by John Wesley. If you ever see it on the internet, you go read it. It raises the heckles on the back of your neck. It's all based around 1 John chapter 3. And he just goes through scripture after scripture destroying people's assurance of salvation. And little wonder to me that there were times when John Wesley would finish preaching and 3,000 or 2,000 people would be left on the ground on their face in agony before God. In agony. We don't think this way. We are taught easy believism, as it's termed, from the cradle to the grave in today's churches. We do not any longer seem to believe that straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it. We somehow believe that we can create a broad road in the church and many there be that go down it and they're all okay. Listen to me carefully. The first harvest that must occur in America, the first harvest is our own people getting saved. Our own people getting saved. How do I know they're not saved? Because they demonstrate none of the marks of the new birth. They may have gone down the front. They may have been prayed for by the preacher who laid hands on them. They may have even got themselves baptized. All essential fundamentals of the faith. Are they walking in Jesus? Is the depth of God transforming them from the inside out? Do they experience that true Christianity that's talked about in Romans? What is true Christianity? I want to define it to you and clearly scriptural terms. It's the answer of a good conscience towards God. The answer of a good conscience towards God. Do you know what that means? It means that as I'm walking before God at this moment, there is absolutely no thing between me and Him. Nothing. And if I cannot say that, I do not believe I'm walking in scriptural salvation at all. Is it possible to walk in the Spirit and to walk in a state which Finney called walking in justification by faith? Yes. Finney from the day of his conversion walked in it. He wrote about it in his autobiography. He said, I could not seem to even sin had I wanted to. By no effort I could make, could I make myself feel condemned? Nothing entered into that relationship that was suddenly established before God. And do you know what it is? It's a relationship based on total heart purity and walking in it before God. Does your body stumble around? You're still attached to the flesh, of course, still attached to that sinful nature which is sadly part of our life until the day we die. But yes, there's stumbling around going on, but the state of our heart every moment of every day is walking in purity before God. I want to tell you that this is Christianity and nothing less than that. Do you know one of the most horrific experiences I've had as a preacher was this. I was preaching to a group of very strongly praying and revival type Christians, the real deal, down in a place in New Zealand. I started talking about this very topic. I said, in my experience intercessors are the ones who understand this well because they know they have to have clean hands and a pure heart to truly get into the throne room of God when they're praying. And I said to them, intercessors I have found have experienced this, do experience it, and they don't maybe know how to define it, but they know what it is when I talk about it. And I was just talking along these lines. I was talking about walking before God with a state of total heart purity before Him as your state of being. This is what Finney's talking about. This is what Wesley's talking about. And the blank stares that were on their faces, these were some spiritual people. These were not, this was not just a congregation. These people had come to hear me preach about revival. I knew the kind of people they were. I went away from that meeting because the stares on their faces were so blank it showed me this thing. I've been talking about just A-B-C Christianity straight out of the New Testament today and these people had no idea what I was talking about. No idea. What is justification by faith? What is justification by faith? It is possessing a faith before God that you are walking in it and therefore God sees you as righteous. You are clothed with the robe that Jesus has put upon you and He keeps it clean by His Spirit. And you walk in that and that is Christianity. And I want to say to you people, if that is not your experience in God, what makes you think you're going to be part of the next revival? Is it not you who needs reviving? I'm not hearing many amens tonight brothers and sisters. Listen, we have gathered here from all over America today, or this weekend, because we are people passionately concerned about the state of the church and getting her right before God. Wesley was accused in his day of preaching what was termed perfectionism because he preached the kind of stuff I'm talking to you now. If you go and study the background of all this, Finney was accused of the same thing. But you know what they were preaching? Their own experience. You say, how can the standard of Christianity you're talking about be a low standard Andrew? It sounds to me like you're creating this enormously high standard for Christians and expecting them to jump the tallest building in a single bound. Are we going to be superhuman Andrew? Ah well, yes we are. Actually yes we are. The simplest Christian is a new creation and is clothed with Jesus and is seated with him in heavenly places. And if that is not you, what makes you think you are one? Now we're in a room right now with a spiritual bunch of people. I've preached this kind of stuff in congregations where it's just a Sunday morning and whoever shows up, shows up. There is no more convicting preaching than simply preaching this. Is your name written in the book of life? And then talking about scriptures that qualify you as being someone. Yes, my name is written in that book of life. I've gone down this road where he starts questioning their salvation and found it the most convicting preaching I've ever preached. Always. In fact my favorite place to preach is a Sunday morning in any old church anywhere. Because all I do is open the scripture and I start saying, here we're describing a New Testament Christian. Is that you? And so many of them, their heart cries out to them within. No it is not. There is no more convicting preaching than this. That's why God woke me up at 4 o'clock in the morning. My preaching changed from that day forward. Whenever I preached that message from then on. Conviction of sin. People crying and weeping wanting to get right with God. Wanting to know. If you look at Romans 8, it talks about the spirit crying out to God. Abba Father. We know we are saved because the spirit cries out to God. Abba Father. All these kinds of things. You just go down this whole line and people start questioning within themselves and they find that no, that's not them. Then I start talking about Judgment Day. And I start talking about what it would be like to find yourself in front of Jesus that day who is very angry. We know he will be angry. We know he is the judge of all the earth. From whose face the earth and the heavens fled away. It says in Revelation. The earth and the heavens fled away from his face. That's how angry he is on the Day of Judgment. All of his wrath is saved until then. And you're expecting people to appear before him with their filthy rags of their own righteousness and try and make it into the kingdom. We do this every day of the week in the church. We give them nothing to protect them in that day. I tell you there is only one thing. You must have a pure white robe washed continuously in the blood of Jesus. If you appear before him on that day in that robe you will be safe. Nothing else will save you. No rags of your righteousness. Nothing you have done that will defend you against the wrath of God. Only that robe. I tell you why we don't hear much singing and much talk of the blood of the lamb in our churches today people. Because we don't preach the rest of the gospel. And so people don't really think they need it. Do you know the only time I've seen a look of recognition about the words the blood of the lamb come across an audience is when I first preach judgment to them. Because suddenly they see why they need to be clean. Suddenly they see what it's like to appear before Jesus without that robe. And they suddenly click. Oh my goodness. The blood of the lamb of course that's what makes me clean. If I don't have that I have nothing. Do you know songs are no longer written about the blood of Jesus in our church today. You got to scratch around to find good worship songs. Really heartfelt worship. Most of it is just junk. It comes from people who are semi-saved. We have most of Christianity in our day being made up for us by what Wesley would call an almost Christian. What is an almost Christian? It's someone who goes to church. Probably in our day raises their hands. Sings all the songs. Tithes. Does all the right things. Has been baptized. I would say in our day and age probably speaks in tongues. And has no concept of living in Romans 8 at all. They are an almost Christian and they write all our songs. They are an almost Christian and they preach all our sermons. They tell people how to get saved. Do you know Charles Finney's pastor, a man by the name of Reverend Gale, came to Finney, I believe it was about 10 years after Finney used to preach for him. He said, Brother Finney, God has shown me that all this time I've never been saved at all. Never. Never been saved at all. This was his pastor. See Charles Finney's ministry was so controversial. Do you know what they did in his day? They encircled him in. Charles Finney, when he arose preaching this, it was so incredibly powerful. He was seeing whole audiences. He said, I could not have cut them off their seats as fast as they fell. The solemnity of God would fall upon an audience. They would fall on their faces and they would begin crying at the top of their voices for God to save them and he would have to stop preaching. He had situations where people were riding into town and as they crossed the bridge into that town where Charles Finney was preaching revival. They were instantly smitten with conviction of sin and could not survive three weeks without being converted. Whether they left quickly or not, Charles Finney's ministry is returning to the church. Charles Finney is coming back. This is what the new prophets are and we will be accused of exactly the same thing Finney was and Wesley was because they preached what they themselves knew as an experience in God. How do I know it? I have lived in it. I walk in it. It takes no effort whatsoever. Does being a Christian and walking before God with a state of heart purity before him take effort? No, therefore it is not salvation. It would be my works. If I can make myself righteous by things that I do, is that salvation from God? No. That is Judaism. That is the religion of the Pharisees. They thought they could make themselves pure by doing things. If we do this, this, this and this, if I keep myself decent and pure from that and that, maybe I will make it in. This is no Christianity at all. This is the twilight zone that is killing us. Christianity is this, walking in a state where your conscience is clean before God. You know it and he knows it. Do I need to repent every quarter of an hour to maintain it? No. Do I need to repent if I stumble to such a degree where I start feeling, hey, there is a little black spot has got on to that rope. There is an obstruction that has just entered in because I said that thing or I did such and such. Do I need to repent at that moment? Yes. You can feel it. If you are walking before God in a relationship where it is just completely normal, you just walk in it. There is nothing extraordinary in it. Not remotely extraordinary. No effort involved. You walk before God in a state of heart purity before him. It happened to Charles Finney on the day he was converted. He never lost it. It happened to me, I believe, on the day I got filled with the Holy Spirit when I was 17 years old. No effort whatsoever. You just walk in it. I didn't even understand it until I started reading books like Watchman Nee's Normal Christian Life. I suddenly started, hey, this is just Romans, man. It's just Romans. It's just that we don't understand Romans anymore. It's just that us Pentecostals who think we are so great have a spirituality and an understanding that is less than people 150 years ago who didn't even have Pentecost. It's less than what they had. There are whole movements that rose up in the 1800s, far more spiritual than Pentecostalism today. Even the best of us. Far more. These are the movements that led to the Welsh Revival, led to Azusa Street. You go look at who got involved in Azusa Street. It was guys out of the Holiness Movement. Go and look at where Smith Wigglesworth came from. He was out of the Holiness Movement. This is not surface legalism these guys were into. Deep heart searching holiness until you are right with God and you walk in it. Where did Smith Wigglesworth's faith come from? Years of getting closer to God. Years of being anointed with one anointing and then getting closer to God and getting a new anointing even more than that. Until he was walking in such a place. Some of the things you hear about Smith Wigglesworth are astounding. Here again was a man who walked under that anointing. He was in a train one time in Cardiff, Smith Wigglesworth. He was sitting quietly just praying between him and God. Just meditating on God, communing with God as he often did. The man in front of him in the train fell down on his knees and turned to Smith Wigglesworth and said, Sir who are you? This man was in tears. Sir who are you? You convict me of my sin. The whole train stopped being so noisy and raucous and loud and just fell on their knees and said, Sir who are you? You convict us of our sins. Charles Finney once walked into a cotton factory. Some of you may have heard this story. He walked into the cotton factory, Evans Mills I believe it was in upstate New York. All he did was look around. He did nothing. He looked around. The girls were at their needle work at the machines. They all started to weep. It spread like wildfire right through the factory without him having to say a word. Everybody started weeping. The factory owner said, Right we are closing the factory down. We are going to have a Christian meeting. You are going to get your hearts right with God and we are going to get back to work. Praise God. That is the kind of employers we need in America. This happened. How do you walk under that anointing? How do you preach this kind of message? You must possess it before you can preach it. Why does it get called perfectionism and all these other weird names when in fact all it is is Christianity? Because most of the church does not possess it. And if you start talking about it, they cannot understand you. What if most of the church is completely unsaved? What if the difference between revival and no revival is simply this one thing. A bunch of people in the church actually getting saved and just starting to live it out. And that is revival. It is just that we think it is so extraordinary. We think it is way up there in the planets. Do you know, there is no second design for God's church where we live down here. There is none. The scriptures only tell about a church that lives up here as its normal state. The apostles go out preaching in the power of God. Preaching the kind of message we are talking about tonight. Do you know what we are talking about tonight? We are talking about the gospel. It is just we have never heard it before. That is all. We are talking about the gospel as Wesley preached it and Finney preached it with the most power probably of any man in history since the apostles. And that is why we have to get back to it. And it is nothing more than that. It ain't extraordinary. I mean I am trying to convince you of it. Half of you are looking puzzled and I am not hearing many amens tonight people. But I am telling you, I am not preaching to you anything weird. All you have to do is go read Romans 8 and you will see what I am talking about sitting right there. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk every day in the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. I want to ask you this. Are you found in Him? The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? The difference between people who will appear before Jesus on judgment day and make it into the kingdom is simply that they have that robe and they walk in it. Jesus puts it on them. They don't work for it. How do we become clothed in Jesus? You know this is another bugbear I have with the church. See to me even repentance is not enough to get into this state. As I was saying to you, it happened to me when I got filled with the Holy Spirit. I was brought up a Baptist. I had been asking Jesus into my heart probably at least a hundred times. In the early days when I was a kid my dad says to me, yes you really meant it. When I was five years old he says to me, yes you asked Jesus into your heart and we did believe that you wanted to make Him Lord of your life Andrew. I want to say to you I never experienced true Christianity until I was 17. I know it for a fact. Now they baptized me when I was seven. I knew what it was about. They baptized me in the ocean. This is the days of the Jesus movement. My dad was kind of part of that movement. I come from a heritage of revival. My dad was a revival historian. Wrote articles on revival. Some of his articles I wish I could republish them. They are really, really good. So that's the heritage I come from. So when I was 17 and I got filled with the Holy Spirit suddenly my Christian life began. Suddenly I was living it and walking it and not just talking about it or hoping for it. This is why I'm so down on ask Jesus into your heart because it did nothing for me. It did nothing. I've been in situations, I used to belong to navigators and all these kind of things. We used to go around getting people to ask Jesus into their hearts. I used to completely witness the fact that nothing happened. Has this person been utterly transformed in the innermost man? No. He has not. Repeat this prayer after me. Nowhere in scripture is it found. In fact not even a remote resemblance to it. What happened in scripture? Let's go there. Turn with me to Acts chapter 2. We might as well go to the book of Acts because we're talking about that type of New Testament Christianity. Not what we've invented. Now bear in mind people, I'm not saying that what we're about to read here is the whole answer either. It's one thing to receive the Holy Spirit. It's another thing to walk in the Spirit. Acts 2 verse 37. It's very significant scripture because it's the first time we are seeing people getting saved in the book of Acts. First time. Listen to this. Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart. They said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. I could open a massive controversy with that one sentence. Listen to this. Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. I thought we asked Jesus into our heart for the forgiveness of our sins. Why is this guy saying we're getting baptized for the forgiveness of our sins? I digress. We shall carry on. Repent, be baptized and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And then it says a little bit further down, verse 41. So those who received his word were baptized. There were added that day about 3,000 souls. Why would you baptize people straight away? Baptism is very inconvenient. I had a phone call one day from a guy. He said, I've got 23 people that I want you to come and baptize. Why he rang me, I have no idea. When you are baptizing 23 people and praying over them and hopefully praying prophetic prayers over them, all this kind of stuff, it takes an age to baptize 23 people. Might as well spend your afternoon. 3,000? Crusade evangelism does not include baptism, but book of Acts does. I wonder why that is. Why is it that in the Iron Curtain countries they would put barbed wire around the baptismal tanks? They didn't mind them asking Jesus into their heart, but when they went to get baptized, that was seen as them truly coming into something, and that is when the persecution came. Why is that? I've had people coming back from India saying the same thing to me. In India, it's okay to go forward at a crusade. It costs very little. In fact, people do it as a matter of course all the time. You hear these incredible statistics. Benny Hinn went to India and saved half the country, etc. Well, those guys are quite used to going forward at altar calls. Half of those people probably went forward at the last guy who held a crusade. Seriously, no joke, because that is not a conversion from an entire way of life to an entire way of life. Many of those people, as soon as they get baptized, that's when they're likely to lose their inheritance, get killed. No joke. Why is baptism important to the devil? What does he know is going on there, Jesus? It says simply in the Bible, it's death. It's death and burial. Is it merely symbolic? Maybe to us. I wonder if it's totally symbolic to God. I have an inkling of this, that the devil knows it's death, that God knows it's death, and the only stupid people in the world who don't is us. What did Derek Prince say when he wrote a book about expelling demons? He said one certain way to get rid of a habitual sin or a demonic stronghold in your life. Many, many occasions, he said in his experience, get that person baptized in water. Something is cut off. In fact, if you look up every reference in the entire New Testament to baptism, you'll see this concept of circumcision of the heart. You will see that it is a cutting off. You will see that it is a burial. You'll see that it is a death. Never is it spoken of as merely a symbol or ritual. Jesus did not believe in such things, not for his church. He doesn't just bring rituals for the sake of it into the church. Why do that? Is communion a ritual? I believe not. I believe if you take communion in faith, it is life. Otherwise, why did the Book of Acts church take communion every day? Why did they baptize people straight away? Because it was death. Romans 6 in fact says, let's go there quickly. Let's go to Romans chapter 6. If you want to hear the kind of Christianity I'm talking about today, you read Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8 and it's all there. There's nothing missing, nothing weird. It's just we don't read it right. That's all. We don't read it with New Testament eyes. We read it with 20th century or 21st century stupid blinded 2,000 years past the event eyes trying to understand something that we've lost. God wants to restore it to the church. These things that I'm talking about tonight are keys to the next revival. They are not little bylines. We're talking about fundamentals. These things are so basic that when it lists the six most basic fundamentals of the Christian faith in Hebrews chapter 6, these are what the things it's talking about. We don't even have the basics right, people. We don't even get someone saved the Bible way ever. There's only one person I've really come across, especially in recent days, that got saved the Bible way. That's my wife. You know, when I met her, she had been a Christian for several months. This is the way she became a Christian. The night before she went to the church, she repented before God. She got before God and just really, truly repented. She went to that church and they happened to believe in baptizing people straight away. So after the meeting, she went and got baptized in somebody's bathtub. She came out of the water speaking in tongues full of the glory of God. I met her three months later and I fell in love with her spiritually and for who she is. I fell in love with her. I fell in love with someone who was on fire for God and had become a Christian the way we're all supposed to. Most of us have had to become this long drawn out, oh, we'll repent or we'll ask Jesus into your heart one year and ten years later, if we're lucky, we kind of repent totally for the first time and then maybe we got baptized, but we think, wow, should I get re-baptized? Man, and then we accidentally one day happen into a meeting where we get filled with the Holy Spirit and we think this is okay and all we're doing is catching up with day one of Book of Acts Christianity and we wonder why we're so backward. Day one. Every Christian in the New Testament had this from day one. Romans 6 verse 3. The whole of Romans 6 is about baptism and dying. Romans 7 is about dying to the law or the need to die to the law. Romans 8 is about victory and living in victory by the Spirit of God. Okay? It's all there. Everything I've been talking about is there. Romans chapter 6 verse 3. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. I want to ask you the question, what if we haven't been baptized into his death? Are we dead? If we die with him, we shall also live with him. If we endure, we shall also reign with him. What if I never died? What if I go to a stupid church in the 21st century that sprinkles me and tells me I'm okay and never buries me at all? We don't think this way. Do you know why? Because we're 2,000 years past the event and we simply don't think in New Testament terms anymore. We've lost it all. Occasionally, some guys come along who recover some of it and there's a massive revival around recovered truth. That's what Wesley and Finney were doing. It goes for a while, usually while they're alive, and it dies out again and there has to come another wave to just get us up to understanding the most basic fundamental things. It dies off and the church loses it again and we have to recover and recover all the time. We don't even know Romans, the most basic book in the Bible and yet the most deep book in the Bible. If I have not been baptized into Jesus Christ's death, am I dead? I believe not. Should I be going therefore into all the world like Jesus told us to, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? You better believe yes, because that's part of the gospel. How do I know it's part of the gospel? We're told that Philip was preaching the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch and the next thing he asks him is, oh well so why can't I get baptized? Here's some water. Let me get baptized then. Philip was preaching the gospel to him. The response was, what hinders me being baptized? Oh no, it's too inconvenient. Imagine having the crusades and we'd have to have a tank out the back. Oh dear, oh my goodness. So much easier to get them to come to the front, say a two line prayer, write their little name on a little piece of card and send them home and say, a church will get in touch with you sir, not a problem. Welcome to the kingdom of God. Convenience and eternal death for anybody so deceived as to believe that rubbish. Back into Acts. Second group of people that we come across that are being saved on a massive level. The entire city of Samaria responds to Philip preaching the word. Acts chapter eight. Acts eight verse twelve. But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed and after being baptized, he continued with Philip. It says he was watching the signs and miracles. Now listen to this. Verse fourteen. When the apostles of Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Is there any mention in the book of Acts of anyone repeating a prayer, giving their heart to the Lord, asking Jesus into their heart or into their life or any such thing? I tell you, not one. Can I search the New Testament from beginning to end to find a reference to such a thing? No, there are none. We preach falsehood and lies and we have a church that is utterly lukewarm and probably unsaved because we do not even preach the basics. Now you know Romans eight Christianity is a step beyond this. We're going back here to the things you do the first day you want to come to the Lord. If you were in front of an apostle in the book of Acts, they would have clearly told you this, repent, be baptized and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We tell them something that's utterly different from that. And then not only that, we compound it by never teaching anybody how to actually walk in the spirit, how to walk in the spirit. What is the faith that justifies us before God that keeps us from his wrath on that day? It is that we are justified. It means that means made right in his sight. We walk in it. It is Christianity. It's what sets us apart. We're not a religion where we're trying to be decent. Even repentance alone cannot deliver this. Otherwise John the Baptist would have had all his followers walking in this and they didn't. Repentance alone cannot get you into this. It must come by death and resurrection. I must die and be remade a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold. Isn't that true? Now I've missed out one in the middle there which is a bit complicated but shows exactly the same pattern and if you want to read it later it's in Acts chapter 10 and it's Cornelius and his household becoming Christians. How did they become Christians? Actually while Peter was speaking to them the Holy Spirit fell on them. They all started to speak in tongues and glorify God and then he commanded that they be baptized immediately in water. I think we've established the pattern. I want to say this to you before we just leave the subject. I want to say this to you. I hold great question whether someone who has been sprinkled and even if they get baptized in the Holy Spirit whether they are okay. Great question. I'll tell you why. Have they died? An essential part of Christianity is that you have died. That your old life was laid down. That you were buried with him and yet we have many Presbyterian spirit filled people, Methodist spirit filled people, Catholic spirit filled people and we act as though they are okay and we never challenge them about this stuff because it just seems rude, obnoxious to say look I really believe you know you need to be buried with him in baptism. It's not okay that you've just been sprinkled sir. We never say that kind of thing because it's just too outrageous. I want to say to you how many of the people in the earth have been actually saved the Bible way let alone walking in the Spirit? So few, so few. You know I only have to remember back to when I was 17 the day before I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and the day after were like night and day. Night and day. I was completely transformed. I was a timid man pleasing trying to, man following little guy that just had no backbone to stand for anything. The day after I got baptized in the Holy Spirit I was a spiritual zealot on fire and in love with God and I never changed. There is no comparison between Andrew before and after and many of us have that testament. We can look back at our lives and say man yes that was an incredible change. Give it to others they need it. Share it with others they need it. Just because we live in a Pentecostal day does not mean people have really heard about it. They have heard a load of nonsense most of them. They have seen Benny Hinn on TV and said we don't want no part of this charismatic stuff. Look at that guy parading around earning big bucks etc etc. You know what they talk like. Time for us to make up for that. In closing I want to get back to this. This is far more appropriate for all of us and for the people we are speaking to. I want to ask you this. Do you walk in a place before God today where you can say I walk before him with a clear conscience? God looks right through you and it is your choice or not especially if you have gone through these basic steps. In other words basically you are there. You are meant to walk in the spirit. You go through these basic steps and you simply walk. Walk before him with total transparency and he sees nothing in you. There is nothing inside of you that he sees as sin. Is that your state before God? When God looks at your heart or are you one of these people really you are living in John the Baptist land. If you are one of these guys. What I mean by that is if you live in this place where you have to repent every day. If you live in this place where every time you pray you want to come into the throne room of God. You have to go through this little repentance procedure. The marks of a true Christian is this. The way into the holiest is already open to you. You walk into it the instant you begin to pray because the throne room of God is open to his children. We are seated with him in heavenly places and if that is not your experience what makes you think you are okay?