In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of repentance and the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus. He urges the congregation to come forward and confess their sins, both believers and non-believers alike. The preacher encourages everyone to be open and honest with God, confessing any hidden sins and seeking Godly sorrow in their hearts. He reminds the audience that all of heaven rejoices when even one sinner repents. The sermon concludes with a call to ask God to reveal where each individual stands in their relationship with Him.

Gentlemen from France, do you have your speakers on, yes? How about from Holland, can you understand English? Some of you pastors, you might want to, if somebody next to you doesn't understand English, if you do, you might want to whisper to them what I'm saying. I'll be leaving two weeks from today for France, for a conference, and then to the Balkans, in this war-torn area, just north of the battles, and we're bringing pastors in from some of those countries, and then to Romania, and to Poland. And we're preaching 26 times in three weeks to pastors, so we appreciate your prayers. Just three weeks, but the Lord's put on my heart to go overseas now, on a few occasions, and minister to pastors in conferences, and the Lord has released us for that, so we covet your prayers. This morning, I want to talk to you about the message. My message is entitled, Whatever Happened to Repentance? Whatever Happened to Repentance? Heavenly Father, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I thank you for your pure and precious Word that changes lives. For we are set free by truth alone. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. God, come on me. Holy Spirit, come on me. Let this Word bring life. God, convict me. Convict every one of us. Convict us, O Lord, about this Word that you've laid on my heart. Sanctify our ears to hear it. My God, your anointing has to come. Without your anointing, these words fall in front of me to the floor. My God, anoint it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Whatever Happened to Repentance? You hardly ever hear the Word preached, even hear the Word mentioned in churches today, even in Baptist and Pentecostal and Evangelical churches. There's no call anymore for godly sorrow. There's no call for mourning for sin. Grief for wounding the heart of Jesus. Almost unknown in our churches today. And the message now is, just believe, and thou shalt be saved. Just believe. Now that text is taken from Acts 16.31, when the jailer, after the jail was shaken and he thought the prisoners were gone, fell down and cried out, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. But folks, I want you to know that that was said to a man who had a sword in his hand, about to commit suicide. He was trembling and broken and at the feet of the apostles. He was already in a point of repentance and brokenness. Mark 16.16, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. It sounds, all you do is believe, baptize, and you are saved. But keep in mind now that that follows these words that Jesus spoke. Preach the gospel to every creature. In other words, the gospel first has to be preached. And what is that gospel? It's the same gospel Jesus and all the apostles taught. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. That was the gospel of Jesus. This was the first message he preached when he came out of the wilderness. The very first words he spoke, Jesus said, and the scripture says, from that time he began to preach. And what was the message of the Lord Jesus Christ? What is the gospel that's preached before he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved? It is simply this, from that time Jesus began to preach and say, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Scripture said Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and he follows with this, the time is fulfilled, repent ye and believe the gospel. He preached repentance before believing. He said to the Galileans, I tell you, except you repent, you all likewise perish. Believe what you will, unless you repent, you will perish. John the Baptist came on the scene to prepare the Jews for the coming of their Christ, their Messiah. And here's his simple, straightforward message. In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. And he said, repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand. They came from everywhere to listen to John the Baptist. They came excited because they wanted to believe in the Messiah. But John said, you're not ready. He said, there's an axe that has to be laid to the roof. He said, you're not ready. You want to come and you want to hold on to your sins and cling. Outside you're white and you look holy, but inside you're full of dead men's bones. That has to be dealt with before you can believe. Repent, he said, bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance. Prove that you genuinely repentant, because Jesus is coming to save you from your sins. He said, you're not ready to believe. You have no concept that you're a sinner. You don't even know where you stand. And you want the Messiah to come, you want Jesus to come. You want the Christ to come on the scene and just believe him and stay as you are. Peter on the day of Pentecost preached repentance. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts. And said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? They weren't told, just believe and you're saved. They were not told to make a decision for Christ. It was not a vote for Jesus. He said, free from this wicked generation. And Peter said, repent and be baptized. Every one of you, in the name of Jesus, for the remission of your sins. Now when the word said by faith, yet until there was repentance. And the acknowledging of sin before a holy God. This is the gospel of Paul the apostle. Listen to his message to Athenians on Mars Hill. He said, God now commands men everywhere to repent. He saw these thousands of gods that they took by faith. All they did was believe. They believed this God. They believed another God came. They believed someone else came persuaded. They believed it was faith and they accepted it. In their sins. But Paul the apostle said, no, no, no, no. That's not Christ. That's not what I preach. You can't add him to your gods. He can't come to you just because you're going to believe another God. He said, my God commands that you repent. You look at your sins. You forsake your sins. And he'll come and give you the power to forsake them. But you've got to believe that this God, this Jesus, has come to save you from your sins. Before King Agrippa, Paul said, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. But showed first to them in Damascus. And then I showed it to Jerusalem and to all the coast of Judea. And then I showed it to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. He said, not only did I preach in Jerusalem, Judea and to the Gentiles. Everywhere I went, I preached repentance and not only repentance. I wanted a repentance that showed me they meant it, it was real and that it would stick. Paul says, everywhere I go, that's what I preach. Now, what does it mean to repent? Let's talk about repentance. Someone said it's just a change in mind. In fact, one man said almost literally, he said, I'm so glad I know the Greek. Because I just discovered that the Greek meaning of repentant means just to change your mind. He doesn't know his Greek. Because the real meaning of the word repent is to feel remorse, self-reproach for one's sins against God. It is to be contrite, sorry and want to change direction. The sorrow, contrition, repentance is more than just a change of your mind. Paul said, for godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, not to repent it of. Sorrow is not repentance, it leads to repentance. The apostolic church preached unabashedly the message of Jesus and John, repent for the remission of your sins. Paul even preached repentance to believers. And I believe in preaching repentance to believers. Years ago, I had around the country what we call repentance conferences. And I will never do that again. Now I would call it blessed preachers conference and they'd come. But they didn't want to come because nobody would acknowledge they wanted to repent. Paul preached to believers in the church of Corinth. Here's a church body that had a lot of sin in it. Yet Paul said, truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds. But listen to what Paul said to all these blessed Christians who sat under a rich, full gospel. He said, I fear that when I come, I shall not find you like I should. He said, I'm afraid that when I come, things are not going to be right with you. He said, lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you. And that I should bewail many which have sinned already and have not repented of their uncleanness and their fornication, their lasciviousness which they are committing. He said, I'm afraid that when I come to you. And he's talking about a church that had the gifts of the Holy Ghost. These were people who talked in tongues. These are people who knew better. They had mighty teachers of the word. He said, I'm afraid when I come among you, I'm going to find that many of you Christians are still cheating on your wives. You're fornicating. You're into sexual lust of all kinds. And he said, I'm going to have, I'm going to walk around you absolutely in grief. He said, you're going to see an apostle with his head down and you're going to see tears in my eyes and I'm going to be broken. Because the gospel has not done its work in your heart. You have not repented. Somewhere along the line they believed in Christ, but somewhere along the line they didn't repent. They were still living in sin. And Paul's words have made me examine my own ministry, my own preaching lately. Listen to this sheep-loving shepherd of the church. He loved those compromising Christians in Corinth. They were still living in gross sin. Paul said to them, when I come, if I see you indulging, he said, I'm going to cry and wail. And here's where I'm having to examine my own heart and my preaching. I'm wondering sometimes if I've taken the scissors to certain parts of the scripture and cut out that part of the gospel that puts a higher cost on following Jesus than I preached. I wonder if I've lowered the standards sometimes, telling people, just believe and be saved. And now we evangelicals are leading masses of unrepentant people into a false peace. We're telling them that all that's required of them is come forward and say a little prayer and repeat, I'm sorry, I believe, and trust the Holy Ghost to give me power. And we've not insisted on godly sorrow and total repentance. We have aborted conviction for sin. We've jumped in and offered salvation to those who really did not repent. They were not sorry for their sins. They did not see the exceeding sinfulness of the sin. The law has not completed its work in their heart. And they only wanted faith so they could cover their sins. What awful exaggerators we've become when we count those who get saved. You hear it from all over the world. People come from the mission field. Our people go out. I've heard people go into a jail and say, everybody got saved. I've heard that and heard it. I spoke. Everybody came forward. Everybody got saved. But they didn't. It's an exaggeration. And it's wrong. What happened is that everybody came forward at your invitation. Everybody said the prayer you told them to pray. They didn't understand most of it. The work of the Holy Ghost was not complete. They were not told to repent. And they're going to go back to their sins. They were offered something that Christ himself didn't offer. Salvation without repentance. We seem to have even removed feeling from conviction. You hardly ever see a tear in anybody's eye anymore when they come to Christ. I know that tears can't save anybody. But I would think that some hell-bound sinner who's been convicted by the Word and know they've grieved Christ, there ought to be some kind of feeling of sorrow. God has made us human. We feel. Peter remembered when he betrayed Christ the words of Jesus who said, Behold, before the clock crows twice, you will deny me three times. And when he thought on these things, he wept. You talk about conviction. He went over the hills weeping and crying. I have betrayed Christ. There was a brokenness. There was a godly sorrow in him. You can't produce that in the flesh. You can't sit in this church and say, Well, if that's what it takes, I'm going to get it, and you try to work it. You can't work it. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. But God says, If you ask for the Holy Spirit, He'll give it to you, and He will come and produce that conviction and godly sorrow in you. The Puritans were the most godly preachers on earth. I love reading the Puritans. I don't agree with much of their doctrine, but I love their emphasis on holiness. They called their preaching deep plowing. And they believed that you couldn't sow seed into the ground until it was deeply plowed. And their preaching plowed so deep that it produced a cry in the hearts of the people, and out of it came the strongest Christians in the history of earth. Today it seems like we're doing nothing but sowing and no plowing. There's no digging deep with the convicting preaching. Deep plowing is actually preaching about the cause of your disease. Most of our preaching today is just about remedies. And we ignore the disease. We're offering prescriptions without surgery. We make people think they're healed of sin when they didn't even admit they were sick. We're offering loves of righteousness on people who never knew they were naked. We're telling people to believe when they don't even know they have anything or any cause to believe. Because they've not been convicted. Oh, I'm alright, I'll just add Jesus to the scene. C. H. Spurgeon, a great powerful English preacher, preached a famous sermon in London on July 31st, 1881. And this is what he said. He said, I trust that sorrowful penitence does still exist, though I don't hear much about it anymore. People seem to jump into faith very quickly nowadays. I hope my old friend repentance is not dead. I'm desperately in love with repentance. It seems to be the twin sister of faith. I do not myself understand much about dry-eyed faith. When I came to Christ, I came by way of weeping cross. When I came to Calvary by faith, it was with great weeping and supplication, confessing my transgressions and believing in full salvation in Jesus Christ alone. When this church was founded 12 years ago, for the first two or three years we preached nothing but repentance. We preached the law. And we had to come to that because we had people coming to this altar, this church, and saying, I believe, but they weren't changed. Their lives were not changing. Some were actors here on Broadway, and they were here raising their hands, praising the Lord, and then the next week they were back into their shows, and many of them that were wicked vile shows. There were people who were still cheating. There were people living in sin. Homosexuals thought they could come to this church and still indulge in homosexuality. And Lord laid hold. I remember how God spoke to my heart. God said, this has to be cleansed. This has to be cured. They're not being convicted of their sins. And from this pulpit there was holy thunder. Our priests held so hot people ran out of here, remember. We preached heaven, real. We preached the law. We began to expose sin. And people would run out or run to the altar. Those who ran out, backslide. Many of them are dead now. Others that responded to the gospel of law and came to the grace of God, like David Davis who left his theater and now he's pastoring in Israel. And he'll tell you that it was that revelation of true repentance, total, whole repentance that changed his life. But after repentance was accomplished, God says, now it's time to build up the saints. Now you preach covenant. Now you preach my mercy. And you talk to my people now about how they can build up their faith and walk in truth. I want you to listen very closely. There comes a time when you have to preach the law. But then you don't stay on that because if you do, you produce nothing but despair. Hopelessness in the hearts of the people who say, I can't measure up. And then they focus on their sins and they begin to look inward rather than outward. But let me tell you something, church. And listen closely. This is his church. Wherever there are godly servants in the pulpit, there are going to be godly people in the pew. And God knows his church and he knows when the law needs to come. And he knows when grace must be preached. He knows when covenant needs to be preached. He knows it all. And if God begins to see in this church a little bit of sliding and slipping back, if he begins to see people come in and just have a light, easy believism, he will again bring the last of the law on our backs, and he'll do it with grace. He knows how and when. He'll start waking up the pastors and say, it's time to preach some law. He knows how to do it. That's one of the things about walking in the spirit. You go to some church and all they preach is the law, and you don't find any victory. You find no rejoicing in the Lord. Everybody's focused on their sins. Thank God for the balance through the walk of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Repentance is not a one-time thing. It's not a tornado that comes and leaves, and then you talk about it the rest of your life. Like the man who said, oh, yeah, 1955, in a little church in Nebraska, in a little town, I went in and I got saved, preached the Hellfire Brimstone Sermon, and I ran down the aisle and fell on my face. I'm not mocking this, folks. He said, 1955, I can know the time and the place. I covered the altar with tears. I truly repented. And for 50 years he's been talking about that time in Nebraska. And he's not repented once since that time. I'm telling you, repentance is a way of life. Repentance is a walk with God. I am repenting more now than I did when I got saved, because he's showing me things now in me that I never knew were a sin until the Holy Ghost showed me. That great preacher Spurgeon again said, I freely confess that I have very much greater sorrow for sin today than when I first came to Christ 30 years ago. I hate sin more intensely now than I did when I was under conviction. There are some things that I didn't even know were sin then, but I know are sin now. I have a much keener sense of the vileness of my own heart now than when I first came to Christ. Sorrow for sin is a perpetual rain, a sweet, soft shower, which to a truly saved man will last all his life. All his life. He would say, I will grieve for sin, anything that I do. I know that I can be covered in the blood, but I grieve that I have even wounded the heart of the Lord. It's not so matter of repentance. I know I have a high priest. I know, he'll forgive me. But all I have wounded him, and I grieve over it. I'm sorry, Lord. Let God be sorrow. I carry that with me every waking hour. Let God be sorrow for the times I've wounded him. So when God forgives, he forgets. You talk about the Old Testament prophets, how they said they loathed themselves. When God came down with grace upon them, they loathed themselves, they said, because of their past failure before a holy God. Now, Jesus said something to the church in Ephesus that makes me tremble. And I suppose it's because I think of Times Square Church as the Ephesus church. Remember, there were seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation. I don't believe these are dispensations. I believe they were actual churches, though they may represent dispensational problems. This church in Ephesus, God admired so much. He said, you're full of patience and good works. He said, there's so many things that I can enumerate about you. You hate sin. There was discernment. They were rightly discerning good gospel against false gospel. And there were exposings. And they stood up against all that was false. I picture that as Times Square. I thank God for this church, and I thank God for the way so many of you are growing in the Lord. You have grown by leaps and bounds. There's a spiritual maturity in you. It's come from applying the word of God to your life. I've seen sacrificial people of all colors and races here. In the midst of, we're in one of America's most, or America's most popular city, and one of the most wicked cities on the face of the earth. And yet, you stood strong. You've been patient. You love God with all your heart. You won't chase off after prosperity gospel. You won't chase off after some laughter movie. You're not chasing, running off, looking for some revival. You're here right now, settled in the word of God, and I thank God for that. But God looked on this wonderful church, and He said, I've got something against you. And when God says that, when Jesus says, I love you, but I have something against you, there's a problem. I'm going to listen. He's trying to say something to every one of us, not to just the corporate body, but individually to everyone in this church. He speaks to me on this. You see, God loved this church, and He's not about to let it die. But He's saying, your fire is going out. The love you once had, the faithfulness that was once in you is wavering and waning. You're getting more and more engrossed in your own problems than in my house. And you're slowly turning away. You're satisfied now to sit in my house, no longer burdened for the lost and consumed by your own personal problems. You've fallen from what you once were. If you've been here, say, three, four, five years. Some of you have been here since we started, twelve years ago. When you sit in this house this morning, listening to me, remember, look back. Jesus said that. Remember from whence you've fallen. I'm going to ask you, are you as on fire for Jesus, are you as passionately in love for Him as you were when you first came here? I don't care if you came here a year ago. When you first came, some of you, you couldn't wait to get to God's house. And Sunday night, you would not even dare think of sitting in front of TV, watching some filth, when God's house was here, burning on fire. Have you become a Sunday morning Christian now? Like the rest of the nation and the whole world? You get your two hours Sunday morning now. And you've now become so engrossed in your own problems, your own family problems, that you're no longer involved in this church. You're not a part of it anymore. You're an observer. The fire is going out. So I've got something against you, because you've left your first love. And one of the signs of that, he said, is the forsaking of the assembling of yourself together with the saints. Look, I have never, ever stood in this pulpit trying to build a crowd. Never. In the first place, on Sundays, every service is packed and overflow. This is the end of side one. You know I'm not trying to build up a congregation. I'm saying it as a pastor who has to answer for your soul and for what I preach. And Jesus is saying, look, you're in need of repentance. In fact, he said, if you won't repent if you're slowly drifting and waning from your zeal for God's house, God's people, God's work, God's presence... Folks, I have to take this so deep into my own guts. Because I dare not sit here and just go through a routine. I dare not sit there and just go home and say, well, another service. I don't ever want it to get where it's a burden. If coming to God's house is a burden, if getting into your car or getting in the subway and coming to the church is becoming a burden to you, repent! There ought to be a zeal. There ought to be an excitement. Oh God, keep that excitement. Don't ever let me lose that zeal for you and your house. I've got something against you. You are not what you once were. And he said, if you don't repent, I'm going to remove your candlestick. This church is one of God's candlestick churches to the nation and the world. It's a light that shines. He has them all over the world. We're only one of many. But God says to the church first, have you begun to take me for granted and my presence and my blessings for granted? And you say to me and every pastor, if you don't keep the people stirred to pray, if you don't keep them stirred about being in God's house and a burden for the lost, and you let this drift then under your watch, under your watch, and it's happening all over the world. There are churches now that are shutting. The lights are going out because that's what God said. I'll turn your lights out. Turn your lights out. And there are many churches, those were great churches, and now there's nothing left. I preached in them 30 years ago when you couldn't get in the house, and now there's not a dozen people. It's Ichabod written over the doors. Let me tell you how it is personally. How it is personally is the Lord says, I'm going to take away your lampstand. He says, I'm going to remove the light. I'm going to take discernment from you. He says, you're going to lose all your spiritual authority. You will not have any authority with anybody you talk to is unsafe. You have no authority with anybody in your family, not your husband, your wife, or your children. There's no more authority. It's gone. He said, I'm going to remove your lampstand. Your light's going out. Folks, when Jesus says that, it convicts me. So, God, it has driven me in the past months to my knees as never before. I look at what Jesus says, and I take it to my heart and say, Lord, I repent. Every day I get down before God, He shows me something else to repent of and make a change. Change my mind. Change my accent. And get back to what I was. Not only back to what I was, but further, deeper in Him than I've ever been before. I will come quickly. It's going to happen suddenly. And I'm going to remove your candlestick. But there's another blessed thing here. Oh, by the way, the Ephesian church, he did that for a season. God was patient. He waited a thousand years for those Asian churches. But if you read Gibbon's history, I copied this little piece of Gibbon's history. Gibbon said the first candlestick of Ephesus was extinguished after a thousand years. The barbarian lords of Ionia and Lydia trampled on all the remains of Christianity in Ephesus. And today, the Mohammedan mosque invoked the God of Mohammed. Only the church of Philadelphia still stands erect. It's gone. But the Lord closed off the admonition with these words. He said, if you repent, He said, you're going to eat the tree of life. He said, I'm going to give you constant life. As long as you live, there's going to be inflow of life. You're not going to die. There's going to be a life in your love. There's going to be a life in your spiritual discernment. There's going to be life. And that's the thing that distinguishes a true Christian that's in love with Jesus. He's full of life. She's full of life. You know it. You'll be around them. There's no spiritual death. If you have any discernment at all, you know it's there. You know they've been with Jesus. And there is life flowing out. Hallelujah. They can pray for the sick. They pray for their kids. And their kids know that they're walking with God. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Let's stand. I'm not going to preach long this morning. Hallelujah. Folks, I have to tell you in all honesty, I am convicted. I'm really convicted. And here's what I'm convicted about. That I should invite people down to this altar, down to the front of this church, and just say, believe. You'll be saved. And I'll pray the Holy Ghost give you power. That's what I've been saying for so long. Folks, there's no salvation other than by faith. We're saved by faith alone. But there has to be the plowing of the Holy Spirit. There has to be conviction for sin. There has to be a godly sorrow. And some of you, if you came up here, and you prayed a sinner's prayer, and you said, I pray the Holy Ghost come down, I'm not putting that down, but I'm telling you, if you're still living in sin, if you're still sitting and watching pornographic movies, if you're gossiping and lying and cheating, if you're still living in sin in your life, if while you stand here now before your pastor, and you're not an open book, and there's sin in your life and you know it, then chances are you did not truly repent. And now is the time, it's never too late. Repent! I beg of you as Jesus preached, and as Paul and John and Peter and all the apostles, and the whole apostolic church upon which we are founded, repent! Repent of your sins and say, God, I'm sorry, I am living in sin, and I can't hide it anymore. I'm not going to be a hypocrite, and I'm telling you now, if you're living in sin, you're damned! He's merciful, He'll forgive you. But if you repent, and you say, Lord, I'm sorry for wounding you. I'm sorry for the way I've been living. I've been living a double life! Oh, He's great mercy. When you say, that's me, oh, pastor, that's me. I tell you that my blessed Savior was sent, the Holy Ghost was such sweet offers of forgiveness and empowerment and adornment to everything that you need. But first, there has to be an acknowledgement. I'm not where I should be, and I'm not what I should be. I am living a lie. And if you're willing to admit that this morning, I tell you, He will plant the tree of life right in the middle of your soul, and you will eat life and drink of the Holy Spirit, and you'll be transformed as you should have been when you first came. Now, I know there are people here this morning who need to repent. Nobody's going to know what your sins are. Nobody needs to know that. And then when you've repented, say, Lord Jesus, You said, if I believe, and by the way, it said, if you believe and be baptized, the apostle said to the jailer, believe and be baptized, and thou shalt be saved in the house. We have water baptism class. You need to get in that. You need to be baptized in water. If you're here, you shall believe John Jesus, and you shall repent, then why are you not baptized? You need to be baptized in water. Hallelujah. Folks, I speak with love in my heart. I don't want anybody to go to hell on my watch. Surely not those who've heard the gospel time and time again. You may be visiting here, and God sent you here, and there's a reason for it. He wants you to repent. Heavenly Father, send the Holy Ghost now. Oh God! I can't produce conviction. I can't produce godly sorrow, and we can't produce it in ourselves. But Holy Ghost, we can ask You to do it. And I ask You, Holy Spirit, to come down on this house, and all the annexes and overflow rooms, and I ask You to smite us with conviction. Smite me with conviction in any area, Lord, that I have not seen or have not wanted to see. I want to see everything in my heart that is unlike You. I want it out. I want nothing between me and my Savior. Nothing! Nothing! Oh God, how merciful You are, and how quick You are to cleanse us, and to forgive us, and to make us white and clean and pure in Your eyes through the blood. Lord, we're not coming as repentance as a good work. We're coming at it as the heart of Your Gospel, because that's the message You have preached to us. If you're here this morning, no mood music or anything else, just the call of the Holy Ghost, in the annex, we have Pastor Neil Rhodes be in the front. In the annex, if you're in any of the rooms, you come into the main annex room, the main auditorium, and just go to the screens. You that are in the annex, just move forward to where the screens are, and you'll be led into a room for counseling. And here in the main floor, up in the balcony, here in the main floor, if the Holy Ghost has convicted you and said, Pastor David, the Word of God was an arrow to my heart. I have got to repent. If you've never repented before, and you're not right with God, the message is simple. Come. Repent. For the remission of your sins. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Others, Christians, as Paul the Apostle said, the sin in your life, whatever it may be, you're among friends. Nobody's going to think a thing about you walking down. No matter what testimony you've had, or how long you've walked with Jesus, if there's an area in your life, come now, and get it out with God. Up in the balcony, go to the stairs on either side, and come down any aisle. As we just sing before the Lord, step out and say, Pastor David, I want everything right between me and my Lord. I want nothing hidden. I don't want to live a lie. I don't want a secret in my life. I want no secret sin, no hidden thing. I want to be an open book. Come. Confess it to Him. And as you stand there, say, God, put a godly sorrow in my heart. Put a godly sorrow in my heart. Let's just show the people where to come in, and move them in here closer, if you will, please. All heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents. He rejoices. All heaven rejoices. Now, here's all I know that I can say to you. Now, I want you to listen close. All of you who come forward, you can still come while I'm talking. I want you to ask God right now where you stand, Lord. Let me know that I've sinned against You. Not against myself alone, not against people, not against anyone, but You, Lord. That's how the prodigal son repented. He said, I've sinned against God. And Father, I've sinned against You. I've sinned against You, God. I have wounded my Savior. Lord, I have sinned. Can you say that? Can you really say it? Say it right now. Lord, I've sinned. I've transgressed Your law. I've failed in my obedience even though I have no power. I have failed You miserably, Lord. And I repent. Put Godly sorrow in my heart. Let me know that I have sinned. God, I've sinned. I come to You now, Lord, for cleansing. Cleanse me, Jesus, from all my iniquity, my stubbornness, my rebellion, my lust, my habits, everything. I yield to You, Jesus. I know that You love me. I come to Your grace. I come to Your mercy now, Lord Jesus, I believe in Your grace and Your love for me. I believe what You said, that if I confess my sins and repent and believe in my heart that You're the Lord of all, that I'll be saved. And I believe that. And by faith, I receive a full salvation in Jesus' name. And now, Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that convicts me, the same Spirit that gives me Godly sorrow, now give me Your power to believe, to trust, and to rest in the faithfulness of my God. By faith I say, I am saved, I am clean, I am made righteous through the sacrifice of Jesus. Now just thank Him in your own words. Just give Him thanks. Lord, I give You thanks. Now listen to me before we close this service. I'm not saying to anyone here that you have to come crying and bawling to Jesus before you know you're saved. Not at all. There's some people whose nature is not that. They feel very deeply, but they never shed a tear. Others like me can get so deeply moved and wail before the Lord. But you've got to know in your heart, I came up here because I don't want to live like I've been living. I don't want to carry any secrets in my life. I don't want anything that stands between me and Jesus. I want to know when I come into His presence that nothing is hindering that presence. Nothing is hindering that communion with the Lord. Look at me please. Did you come that way this morning? Did you really come that way? Just nod your head yes if you came that way. Why don't you wave your hand at me so I'll know. Yes, that's how I came. But Pastor, I came up here because I've determined I'm not going to live like this. Not because of what my habit or my lust or my sin might do to me, but what it has done in grieving my blessed Lord, and that it has ruined my testimony. It doesn't take God all night. He does it in a moment of time when your heart is ready. Hallelujah. Will you thank Him now again? He wants you to thank Him now.