In this sermon, the preacher starts by quoting Romans 1:16, emphasizing that he is not ashamed of the gospel. He explains that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The preacher then discusses the righteousness of God and the wrath of God against ungodliness and unrighteousness. He highlights that the invisible things of God can be clearly seen through creation, and concludes by mentioning his conversation with someone about their grandkids and redirecting the conversation back to the gospel.

The Bible, please, the Romans, chapter number one tonight, if you would, please. The book of Romans, chapter number one in your New Testament Bible tonight. Good to see you. I hope that you've had a wonderful day. I'm sure it's been very profitable. And I praise the Lord for the good day that He's given us to continue to pray for the Robertsons. They'll be going to their home in Beach Grove, which is about probably, oh, maybe 15, 20 miles from where we based our ministry out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. They've got a home there. They'll be there tonight, and early in the morning they'll leave. The funeral is in Birmingham, Alabama at 2 o'clock tomorrow, and then Brother Doyle has to leave and even go to Mobile. And those of you who go to Pensacola, you know that Mobile's way on down there. And so he's got a long ways to go to be back here. So you pray for them. Pray for Brother WC6. Let me say this about the message that I'm about to preach. In just a moment we'll stand and we'll be through. I'll just make a few thoughts. But if I were going to choose a message to preach at the 2001 Staff Training Revival, this would not be the message that I would choose to preach. But since I'm not doing the choosing, and since I want to be a Holy Spirit-filled and a Holy Spirit-led preacher, I feel this is the direction He would have me go. I said the very same thing last year when I preached the message, some of you may remember, on What's Everybody Screaming About? When I preached on Matthew 13, preached on the doctrine of hell, and I said the same thing then. The Lord used it in a wonderful way, and He's used that message many, many times around the country. But I do not understand why the Lord has directed me to this area. I could preach some little old microwave sermon, just kind of pop it in, put it on 30 minutes, and just let the thing cook for a while, and just preach some message that I've preached all over the country. But I don't want to do that. I want to be a preacher that's led by God's Spirit. And so I don't know what your needs are tonight. I know what mine are. But the Spirit of God, no doubt, has indelibly laid this portion of Scripture upon my heart. And so I hope the Lord will use it in your heart tonight. Romans 1. Let's stand, please, and have respect for God's Word. Let your eyes please fall to verse 16. I hope you've got a pen handy. Somebody said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. So I'll give you just a few thoughts, and then we'll be through, and I'm going to my trailer and getting some ice cream. All right, Romans 1. And verse 16. Paul is writing, he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it, that's the gospel, is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. Verse 20. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man and the birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Verse 24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forevermore. Amen. For this cause God gave them up into vile affections, for even their women did change the natural youth into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural youth of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meek. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, back biters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, ghosters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Tonight I bring you the simple message, God's greatest enemy. Thank you very much. You may be seated. Let's bow our heads in heart and let's pray and ask the Lord to bless our time together tonight. Father, thank you for this privilege that you have afforded me for the next few moments as your servant, the preacher, to open my heart, to open my mouth and open the Word of God and preach the Bible. And Father, I do not take that lightly and I pray that you would empty me of myself. Dear God, help me to say all of thee and none of me. May I keep back everything that the Spirit of God would not have me say and may I not keep back that which the Spirit of God would like me to say. Father, speak to hearts tonight. I pray that you would work as only you can work. Convict, convince, comfort, console, have your will, have your way. And Lord, I claim the Word of God, that it is a sharp two-edged sword. Lord, my message is not. Use not necessarily me tonight, but Lord, in spite of myself, I pray that you would use the Word of God through me in a very, very powerful way. And we'll thank you, dear God, for everything that you'll say and do, for we know that you'll do great things, for we pray it in faith and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. If you're familiar with the book of Romans, and I'm sure you are, most of you being Bible college students, you will know that theologically we would say that the book of Romans is a greatly doctrinal book when it comes to the issue of salvation. We call that, as you know, the doctrine of soteriology. And the book of Romans, out of the 27 books of your New Testament Bible, is no doubt the most doctrinal book in all of those 27 books. Every single chapter has some part, parcel, and aspect of the doctrine of salvation. In Romans 1, that we just read in our hearing, I'll have you to know that the Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Rome. Now, unless you misunderstand your Bible and misinterpret it, he's not writing to the Roman Catholic Church, he's writing to the saints which were scattered throughout the province of the Roman Empire. In chapter 1, he condemns Gentile humanity. He condemns all of those people who are non-Jews, all of those depraved, disobedient, deplorable people about which we just read. So in chapter 1, he condemns Gentile humanity. In chapter 2, just to make sure the Jew didn't think that he was off the hook, he condemned the Jew in chapter 2. He stripped them of their self-righteousness using the Mosaic Law and showed them that they needed to be saved by the grace of God. But just to make sure that he didn't let anybody off the hook, in Romans 3, he said, "...for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." And then in Romans 4, we have the great doctrine of justification by faith using the faith of Abraham who we preached on shortly from Genesis 12 last night. Romans 5, he deals with the doctrine of reconciliation. Now please understand that God did not need to be reconciled to man, for God never failed, God never went anywhere. It was man who failed, it was man who went away from God, and reconciliation is the doctrine of God re-bringing back or drawing back man to himself. Romans 6, in verse number 1, Paul begins to speak about death to self. I preached last year, the very first service as a matter of fact, on Romans 6, verses 1 and 2, when the Bible says, "...what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" And last year I preached on the subject, why don't you just drop dead? And he deals with that in Romans 6. In Romans 7 and in Romans 8, we have two paramount yet parallel portions of Scripture. Paul says, when I want to do right, I end up doing wrong. He says, when I don't want to do wrong, I still do wrong. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And he talks about the struggles that he had with the flesh. Now certainly, if Paul had struggles with the flesh, we're going to have struggles with the flesh. Then in Romans 9, he dealt with Israel's past. In Romans 10, he deals with Israel's present. That is why in Romans 10, verse 13, he said, "...for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Because in this dispensation of grace, if you will, in this church age in which we live, they have the same, the Jew has the same responsibility as the rest of the world to call, to repent, and to turn to Jesus Christ. Then in Romans 11, we have Israel's future. Romans 11 has nothing to do with the church whatsoever. It has everything to do with the Jew being brought back to Christ during the tribulation period, the times of Jacob's trouble. Then in Romans 12, we have a parenthetical portion of Scripture. Because in chapter 12, in verse 1, Paul says, "...I beseech you therefore..." You've been in your Bibles long enough to know that when you see a therefore, a wherefore, you look and see what it's there for. He's not referring to chapter 11. He's not referring to chapter 10. And he's not referring to chapter 9. Those are parenthetical portions of Scripture. He's referring back to the first eight chapters. "...because you've been saved, because you've been justified, because by faith you've been reconciled to Christ," he says, "...therefore, my beloved brethren, surrender your lives completely, wholeheartedly, lock, stock and barrel, and be not conformed to this world." Then in Romans 13, he deals with civil law and civil government. Romans 14, he deals again with the subject of faith, and the Bible says he that doubteth is damned. In Romans 15, he deals with the subject of God's people who are in the Word being a stumbling block to other people. And we know what Jesus said about that. Put a millstone around your neck if you'll cause one of these little brothers and sisters in Christ to fall away. Then in Romans 16, he commends the people, and he has the great benediction. But in Romans 1, we have no doubt the most doctrinal portion of Scripture when it comes to the issue of salvation. Now, what I'm going to preach on tonight is a very controversial subject, and please understand me, that is not why I preach on it. I'm not a confrontational person. If there needs to be a confrontation, I'm better at confrontation in the pulpit than out of the pulpit. You know, you can kind of be a bulldog, junkyard man in the pulpit, and I had a man come up to me not long ago, I had my suit coat on, obviously. I had a suit on, and I just got through preaching. I was at my back at my tape table, and he came to me, and he started patting me on the back. And I didn't know what in the wild world this guy was doing, you know, and I'm kind of thinking, what in the world is going on with this fella? And so he takes his hand, lifts up my suit coat, puts it up the back of my suit coat, and I'm thinking to myself, now hold on just a minute, pal. And so I turned around, I said, excuse me. He said, I was looking to see where your wind-up mechanism was. I said, my wind-up mechanism? He said, yeah, I was wondering if your wife wound you up before you got in the pulpit. I said, no, sir. I said, she sprinkled gunpowder all over my Cheerios. I eat that stuff. I chew on a matchstick, drink gasoline, beat my head on the wall, jump on the pulpit, and preach the devil out of everybody. Amen? So I believe in being confrontational if you have to be confrontational. But I do not preach this message tonight just to stir up a controversy. I guarantee you, simply because I never did when I was in Bible college. I never did when I was in camp, and I very rarely did when I was in church. I never heard a full-fledged message on the subject that we are going to deal on tonight. But before I tell you who God's greatest enemy is, let's please go back to Romans 1. Lay the groundwork. Verse 16. He says, for I, that's Paul, am not ashamed. He said, no matter who I'm with, it makes no difference. I'll not be ashamed of the gospel. Now, we hear a lot about social gospel. We hear a lot about medical gospel. We hear a lot about all these gospels around the world. But I've got news for you, ladies and gentlemen. There's only one saving gospel. That is the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we add anything to that, we do not have the gospel. If we take anything away from that, we do not have the gospel. 1 Corinthians 15, the first four verses, tells us that Christ died according to the Scriptures. He was buried, and thank God, rose again according to the Scriptures. That is the gospel. And that is the gospel that Paul said, I'll not be ashamed of. So he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it, the gospel obviously, is the power of God, the dunamis, the dynamicness of salvation. It is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believes it, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Now, the thought continues into verse 17. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. God's righteousness is revealed through the gospel. For the just shall live by faith. Now look at verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth. Literally means to suppress down or to hold down the truth. We hear a lot about the love of God. Now, I believe in the love of God. I believe in the grace of God. I believe in the mercy of God. But I want to just challenge you sometimes. Study the Bible. Did you know that you will not find out that God loves humanity in so many words as far as Him saying it? You will not find out that God loves humanity until the book of Deuteronomy. That's the fifth book of your Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Five books into your Bible before you ever find out God loves you. But the third chapter of the first book, you find out God's holy and God hates sin. And something has to be done about it. So yes, we should preach on love. Yes, we should preach on grace and on mercy. But my Bible says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven upon disobedience, upon ungodliness, and upon wickedness and wretchedness. And I believe the wrath of God is something that needs to be preached. And we've gotten far away from that in America. Hence, that's why we're in the mess that we are. But keep reading, if you would, please, in verse number 20. The Bible says, excuse me, verse 19. It says, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. Now, here's a perplexing verse. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. So it's obvious. You can look around. You see the trees. You see the sky. You see the stars. You see all of this. And I've got enough sense to know that I could have had some kinfolk that swung by their necks, but I never had any that swung by their tails. Alright, I'm not from a monkey. I'm not from an amoeba. I didn't come from the mud. Genesis 2.7 And the Lord God formed a man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. There's no real such thing as an infidel. There's no naturally born atheist. Every man is born with the light of Christ and every man has enough sense to know that there is a God. So how do you know that? Keep reading your Bible. Verse 20. It says, for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. Being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened professing themselves to be wise. So they thought they were a big shot. God said, you become a fool. Verse 23. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and to forfeited beasts and to creeping things. Notice what verse 24 says. Wherefore, or because of this, wherefore God also gave them up. Would you look in your Bibles please, verse 26 now. Skip down just one verse to verse 26. For this cause, God gave them up. Please look in verse number 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. Who is God's greatest enemy? You say the devil? Oh, the devil's a great enemy. Verse Peter 5, 8. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. 2 Corinthians 4, 4. In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. John 8, 44. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and a bold man of the truth. Why? Because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. And everybody here tonight has an obstinacy to know that God's one great enemy is the devil. We also know that a great enemy of God is the world. 1 John 2, verses 15-17. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the plight of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. James 4, 4. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore is a friend of the world is the enemy of God. So we got enough sense to know the world's God's enemy and the devil's God's enemy. Did you know according to Romans chapter 1, God's got one great enemy? God has one great enemy in the book of Romans and this enemy is mentioned seven times in your Bible. One time in Jeremiah 6.30 and the other six times are in your New Testament. One of them being right here in the book of Romans. And tonight I preach the subject God's greatest enemy is the Reprobate. I want you just to help me just for a moment for sake of illustration. How many of you have ever heard a full-fledged I hope some of you have, but honestly, how many of you that you can remember you have heard a full-fledged message on what is a reprobate, who they are, and why God has turned them up? How many of you in this room have ever heard a message on a reprobate before? Put your hand in the air, alright? Four of you. You may put your hands down. Now, some people have the idea that the word reprobate means incapable of rational thinking. It does. But I got news for you. It goes further than meaning incapable of rational thinking. For example, God gives us an example in Jeremiah 6, verse 30. He's talking about these people who had been rejected. He refers to them as silver. He refers to them as silver that has been rejected. And the Bible says, call them reprobate silver, for they had been refused of the Lord. The word reprobate not only means incapable of rational thinking, and we can obviously by way of context see that these people could not rationally think. I mean, they couldn't put two and two together. I mean, they didn't know sign language much less than eight of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. I mean, these people were spiritually morons, if you will. They couldn't even think rationally because they had been turned over to a wicked, depraved, and disobedient mind. And so, yes, that is a connotation. But I want you to understand the word reprobate literally means that you are incapable of ever being saved because God has already given you up. Now, you hear me and you hear me well. If Evangelist Greg Watt gives you up, whoopee-dee, there's still hope for you. If your church gives you up, that might be hard to swallow. You might have to get a new church, but there's still hope for you. Hey, if your Bible college gives you up tonight, there's still hope for you. For you folks who go to Pensacola, if Pensacola gives up on you, there's still hope for you. For you folks who go to Bob Jones University, if Bob Jones University gives up on you, there's still hope for you. For the one that goes to Ambassador, and that's my alma mater, and it says Ambassador of the Romanoffian, God bless you, amen. That's my flag. Nevertheless, if Ambassador of Baptist College gives up on you, big deal. And I'm going to tell you something right now. If your parents give up on you, there's still hope. If the political system gives up on you, there's still hope. But friend, I got news for you. When God gives up on you, there's no hope whatsoever. And my Bible tells me that although God is a God of long-suffering love and mercy and patience, that one day His patience will wear out. One day His patience will wear thin, if you will, and there will come a time when people will step the line, they will go so far, and God will give them up, and whenever God gives a person up, they can kick, preach, praise, fall, scream, they can jump on the Baptist street, they can shake a hand, they can pray a prayer, but when God gives you up, you'll go to hell as sure as a marten to his gourd, and there's not one thing some preacher can do for you. Now friend, you hear me tonight. Here is a portion of Scripture that proves that God will turn people over to a mind whereby they are completely incapable of ever being saved again. I give you two thoughts tonight before we go home, alright? Number one, I give you the reasons why God turns them over. What are two reasons that God would give people up? By way of context, number one, they abuse Him. Use or abuse, whatever you want to put. They use Him. Look in your Bibles if you would please at verse number 23. Verse 23, the Bible says, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man and the birds and forfeited beasts and creeped things. Wherefore, now remember, He's talking about rank sin. Wherefore, God also gave them up to the uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts. These people persisted in their sin. They stayed in their sin. They loved their sin. They wanted their sin. And God said, alright, you will only use my mercy. You will only use my grace. You will only use my love and my long suffering for so long. And God said, if you use me, if you abuse my grace, my Bible tells me that because they used Him and because they abused Him, the Bible says, wherefore, because of this, that God gave them up to uncleanness, that they would defile their bodies and that's why these people lived so depraved. That's why these people lived so ungodly. That's why these people had a nonchalant, no care, doesn't matter if there's a heaven, doesn't matter if there's a hell attitude in Romans chapter 1, because they used Him and God gave them over. But let me give you the second reason that God will give a person over. Not only because you used Him, but number two, because you refused Him. These people would not heed to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Because our second point will be the duration of our message. But these people persisted in their sin. These people loved their sin. Look in your Bibles, if you would please, at verse number 26. For this cause, what cause? Because they turned the truth of God into a lie. And for this cause, God gave them up. Unto vile affections. Now if God said it's vile, I'll tell you what, friend, it's vile. For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. Now we're going to have the USA Today and World Report, if you will, right out of America. You're fixing to find it in verse 27. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another. We're talking about perversion, satanites. Men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was me. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. Now look at me in the face just for a moment, alright? These people use Him, He turns them over. These people refuse Him, He turns them over to a reprobate mind. When they were turned over, when they had crossed the point of no return, look at the description that the Apostle Paul, through the inspiration of God's Spirit, gives to these people who the Bible says were just turned over to a reprobate mind. Look in your Bibles please at verse 29. Being filled, I mean completely, thoroughly, through and through. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, even through the Gospels in for good measure, verse 30, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, does it not sound like a world report to you? Does it not sound like reading the Time Magazine, the U.S. Senate of Days, something like that? Despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things. That's interesting. Disobedient to parents. Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Now get verse 32. Through knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. My Bible tells me because of their abuse of Him and because of their refusal of Him, those were the two reasons evident right here in the context that God gave them over. But here's my message tonight. I do not necessarily want to spend the duration of my message on the reason God turned them over. I want to give you secondly the result of being turned over. There are two results of being turned over to a reprobate mind. There are two things that you will not have whenever God gives you up. By the way, you believe anything you want to. I believe there are people whose brainwaves are working, their heart is beating, and their blood is pulsating through their veins 90 miles to nothing, but they have already crossed the line. God has given them up and we can preach, scream, shout, kick, and swallow, but they will never be saved by the grace of God for God has already turned them over. I'll prove that to you. First, result number one. Result number one, when a person has been given up, is first and foremost, no conviction. You hear me? No conviction. And many of you are writing that down, so if you write it down, then look this way. Now, how many of you in this room tonight, just by a show of hands, help me by way of this illustration. How many of you believe, not because your church says it, not because your Bible college says it, but because you believe in the Bible. How many believe that we have, honestly as a child of God, as a man, as a lady, how many think we have a responsibility to be faithful in the ministry of evangelism? We should knock on doors, pass out gospel tracts, pray for people, preach to people. We should do what we can to see people saved. I'm not commanded to win the world. I'm commanded to tell the world. How many would agree with the fact that we are supposed to all be evangelists? Would you put your hand high in the air? Alright, now put your hands down. Did you know that we are living in a day, please, do not misquote me. I don't mind if you quote me, just don't misquote me. We got too much of that going on in the tabloids already. But you know what? I believe that we have a responsibility to personally evangelize people. I believe that. But we have so over-emphasized man responsibility and so de-emphasized the Holy Spirit's responsibility, we don't even know what real biblical evangelism is anymore. Let me tell you what I mean. Did you know that you can go to a center, hey, Big Joe, come to the door. So Big Joe comes to the door. And you can pull out your King James Bible and you can beat Big Joe's head with it. And you can loosen your tie, fellas. And you can get red in the face. And you can sing the star-spangled banner. And you can quote Psalm 19, John 3, 16, the Romans road, John's highway. And you can get red in the face, spit all over the place. You can stuff around, throw cold water on this man's face. You can preach on heaven. You can preach on hell. You can preach on everything in between. You can preach on it all. And you can beg that man to get saved by the grace of God. But you know what the Bible truth is? If the Spirit of God does not first put him under old-fashioned conviction, he's not going to get saved no matter what you do. We can beat the doors down. We can beg him to get saved, walk an aisle, shake a hand, pay a prayer, get in the baptismal booth. But if the Spirit of God does not put them under old-fashioned conviction, they will not get saved. So how do you know that? Because Jesus said, no man comes to the Father save the Spirit of God draw him. And Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. I live in what is referred to as, around Tennessee, around in the South, they refer to it as the Bible belt. Now if that be true, it needs a big buckle, that's for sure. Because we're in a mass in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, you know that. And there's no such thing as a Bible belt, alright? I mean, Tennessee's going to hell just as quick as Wisconsin's going to hell. California's going to hell just as quick as Florida's going to hell. And there's no such thing as a Bible belt. But I say that to say this, I get so frustrated sometimes. You know knocking on doors these preachers, somebody comes to the door and you get to talking to them. And you ask them about being saved. You ask them about being born again. They say, I did that in 7, 11, 14, 28, 32, 65. And they go through the whole spiel about how many times they've been born again. And I suppose they think the song says he must be born again, and again, and again, and again, and again. But it's a one time deal. But I speak to so many kids going, yeah, I've been saved. And they're crooked as a dog's hind legs or a fornicator, or a whore monger, or a dope smoker, or an ungodly, they're wicked, they're crooked as all get out. I mean, they're going down to the snake's navel on a wagon track. And I've got news for you, if they're saved, they didn't get what I got, that's for sure. And I think there's a whole lot And I'm not talking about snuff, neither. They need to be born again is what they need to be. And I believe with all of my heart, there's a lot of people that knows the terminology, but I don't think they've ever really been put under old-fashioned conviction. You know what, Brother Lewis? I'm going to quit asking people when they got saved. I'm going to quit saying, tell me when you got born again. Amen. Because they'll come up with something a little fancy saying. They'll talk about hearing their dead grandmother speak to them back from the grave. They'll start talking about seeing Henny Benny and David Chicken and the rest of that crowd in the middle of the night, you know. And they'll start talking about seeing 900-foot Jesus in their bedroom. You see a 900-foot Jesus, you better lay off the pepperoni pizza before you go to sleep. I'll do that right now, amen. And they'll give you every side show and everything in the world. I mean, they'll give it all to you. I'm going to quit asking them when you got saved. I'm going to quit asking when you got born again. I'm telling you, I'm going to start asking, hey, why don't you tell me when you got under conviction? Why don't you tell me about the time the Spirit of God showed you you were a hell-bound, hell-bent, hell-deserving sinner? You had offended the law of God, broken the law of God, offended a thrice-holy God. Hey, why don't you tell me when you got under old-fashioned conviction and the Spirit of God, not some preacher begs you down the aisle, but why don't you tell me when the Spirit of God put you down beside that lazy boy? Why don't you tell me when the Spirit of God convicted you and put you on your knees beside that bed? Why don't you tell me when the Spirit of God put you on your knees at an altar, at a college, at a school, or at a church, or at a camp? And I'm telling you, there's a whole lot of people that say, well, I'm saved and I'm born again, and they have never been under the conviction influence of the Spirit of God. But you know what the interesting thing about that is? A person who is a reprobate, a person who has been given up by God, will never experience conviction again. Now, how many of you believe that when a preacher makes a statement, he ought to back it up with a Bible? You put your hand in the air. I hope you believe that. If you don't, you need to go to another college, all right? Now, take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter number 13, would you? Matthew chapter number 13. While you're turning to Matthew 13, please let me give you the context. It kind of bothers me when these preachers will take one verse and they pull it out of context and they hobnob and hop along on it and have three points in the poem, and you get through it and everybody says, man, great message. What in the world do they have to say? And the reason they do that is they pull this out of context, but I want to give you the Scripture tonight with what Jesus is saying in context. Now, although we're going to be dealing with Matthew chapter 13, what you must understand about your Bible tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is that Matthew chapter 13 and Matthew chapter 12 are identical portions of Scripture for several reasons. Number one, they deal with the same subject. Number two, they're dealing with the same people. And number three, Jesus has the same spirit in the same way He is preaching this message and it's not a little light rosy little message. I mean, He preached it done real straight. I want to remind you, when He is preaching this message, He is not talking to drunkards. Did you know if you study your Bible, you will find out in the ministry of Jesus Christ, in the short three and a half relative years somewhere up to that time, from the time He was baptized to the end of Matthew chapter 3, Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted to the devil. From that time on, you will find out that the drunkards never gave Jesus a hard time. Do you know the harlots and the fornicators never gave Jesus a hard time? Do you know the crooked people and the immoral people and the drug addicts and the crippled people? None of those people ever gave Jesus a hard time. He specialized in that crowd. He ate with the publicans and sinners and thank God He did or we'd all be in hell tonight. But yet, do you know who it was that always gave Jesus a rough time? It's that same crowd that crucified Jesus. It was the theological people. It was the people that carried around their Bibles. It was the seminary or cemetery students, however you want to call them. It was the Bible thumpers of the day. It was the theologians, but apparently they didn't know enough theology to blow the fuzz off a small peanut because they didn't know anything the Bible said. They were so interested and so steeped in the traditions of men that their eyes were not enlightened to the doctrines of God. So in chapter number 12, we're not going to go back there and read for time's sake, but beginning around verse number 32, Jesus begins to preach to them about what? What we call the unpardonable or the unforgivable sin. Somebody says, oh, preach a lot. You don't have to preach on the unpardonable sin because I heard a preacher on the other side of the radio say the unpardonable sin was suicide. You need to change the radio station because the unpardonable sin is not suicide. I do believe as wild as it may sound, I do believe that a blood-bought, born-again, Bible-believing Christian can get to the place where he or she is so emotionally overwhelmed, where they are so spiritually inept and dried up like last year's bird nests. I mean, they can get to the place where they are so discouraged, where they are so defeated by the outside influence. I believe a child of God, as rank as it may sound, I believe a child of God can actually get to the place where he or she is so discouraged that they take their own life. And I've got news for you. If they do that, if they were a blood-bought, born-again child of God, they will lift up their eyes in the kingdom of God and be better for all of eternity because suicide is not the unpardonable sin. I don't care what somebody taught you. That's not what the Bible says. Jesus is telling them that they need to be careful lest they commit the sin of the continual rejection of God's Holy Spirit. Did you know there is a principle in the Bible that you will only say no to conviction for so long before God says no? You see, you're not going to burn the candle of life at both their ends and blow the smoke in God's face. No, no. Galatians 6-7, God is not going to be moved. And there will come a time when you say no for the last time. There will come a time when you think to yourself, well, you know, I say what? Man, if I've got to say what my friends say, what my family say, what this person say, what this person say. And there will come a time when the Spirit of God puts you under old-fashioned conviction and you tell Him no for the last time and He will not convict you again. That is the unpardonable sin. Jesus told them be careful that you don't say no. Let me prove that to you from the Old Testament. Remember last night I preached on Moses for a little while when we preached on Mr. Stephen preaching through the book of Exodus and going out, the exotype? Well, the Bible says there was a man there by the name of Pharaoh. Pharaoh was crooked. Pharaoh was depraved. Pharaoh was ungodly and he kept saying, Who is the Lord? Who is the Lord? Did you know that Moses came to him and he lifted up the rod of God and he turned the water into blood and he had that snake come out of the rod there and he did all of these miracles, all these signs, ten plagues and study your Bible, study history, every plague was a mock of one of the Egyptians' gods because they had thousands of them. But did you know that 18 times in your Old Testament Bible from Exodus 12 through Exodus 14, did you know that it says 18 times Pharaoh's heart was hardened toward God? That's a lot of times, don't you think? 18 times Pharaoh's heart was hardened toward God. But did you know if you study your Bible, you will find out that nine of those times Pharaoh hardened it himself. The other nine times, God hardened it for him. You see, Moses said, Let my people go, Pharaoh. Let my people go, And Pharaoh said, No. No! No! No! No! And God said, Pharaoh, I'm sick and tired of you saying no. Now you let me say no for a little while. And God hardened Pharaoh's heart and he perished in a watery grave. And Jesus tells these people, You be dead level careful. He says, You look me square down in the eyeball, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you vipers. He said, You be careful lest you push away the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God and you cross me and you cross that line. Matthew 13, they crossed the line. Did you know in Matthew chapter number 13, we have one of the great paramount portions of Scripture in the Bible? Do you know what happened in Matthew chapter number 13 that had not previously happened in the ministry of Jesus? He began to speak in parables. Matthew chapter 13, the first part of this chapter, this is the first time that Jesus ever opened his mouth and uttered a parable one time. So somebody says, Well, we know why he did that. So the common person would understand. No, sir. Jesus spoke in parables so that they would not understand. Look in your Bibles, please. Matthew chapter number 13. And I want your eyes to please fall to verse 13. Just a moment. We're coming back to verse 12. Matthew chapter 13 and verse 13. Jesus said, Therefore speak I to them in parables. Why, Jesus? Because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not. Neither do they understand, and in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which said, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand. And seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them. Jesus just said, The reason I speak in these dark sayings, the reason I tell these heavenly stories with great deep scriptural meaning is not so that these people will understand me. He said, But they rejected me so long they turned me off and they quit listening to what I had to say. They would not listen to the truth. They plugged up their ears like we preached on last night and Jesus said, Because of that I began to speak in dark language that they would not even understand. And in Matthew chapter 13, just after He warned them not to step over the line, they continued to step over the line. They spit in the face of the grace of God and they committed what Jesus called the unpardonable sin. Please look at verse 12. In verse number 12, I hope this will answer many questions that are perhaps going through your mind tonight. Matthew 13, 12, Jesus is talking, here's what He said, For whosoever hath to him shall be given and he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that he hath. For the most learned scholar, which I are not one, this is a very hard verse to swallow. Is that saying that Jesus, that Almighty God, if somebody has a lot of money, a lot of houses, a lot of land, that Jesus is going to heap upon them more riches and give them more that they'll have more in abundance and then somebody doesn't have a whole lot, Jesus is going to say, Well, I think I'll be unfair about this and I'll take away that which they have. No, no, you know God better than that. I know God better than that. You know the Bible better than that. That's not what He's talking about. Can I remind you what He's talking about in context? For two chapters now, He's been talking about the Spirit of God. For two chapters now, He has been talking about the blasphemy, the pushing away of the continual conviction of God's Holy Spirit. For lack of a better terminology, we refer to that not only as conviction, we refer to that as light, like Romans 1, verse 20, the light of Christ. So Jesus is telling these people, When you get convicted, when the Holy Spirit shows up and shows you face to face that you are lost, that you are undone, and that you need to be saved. He said, If a man responds to that conviction, if she responds to that light, God will give them more light and eventually bring them to a place of being saved by the grace of God. But, if that person has light, if that person in context has the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit, but they push it away, then eventually the conviction gets less and less and less, and God takes that light, God takes that conviction that they do have away, and they'll live forever in obscure darkness in a place called the lake of fire where the worm dies not, there shall be weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, Matthew chapter 13, verses 41 and 42, verses 49 and 50. And Jesus looks at these religious people who thought they knew their Bible, who thought they walked the straight and narrow line, who thought that they were not crooked and not perverse, and He said, you have touched it in your righteousness and in your family genealogy, He said, but you have rejected the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and He said, you people are about to commit the unpardonable sin. Matthew 13, they committed it, and Jesus began to speak in language that they could not understand, for God had turned those people over to a reprobate mind. I was at the Temple Baptist Church of Martinsville, Virginia. I've been there many, many times. The Robertson family and I have been there together this past January, and we'll be back next January. It's a routine meeting every single year the good Lord willingly goes. Three years ago, I was there. When I was preaching in that church, I suppose on Sunday morning, the church maybe runs about 95, maybe on a good Sunday, average about 100 people. And Friday night, we had 225 some odd people jammed into a little building that would only really comfortably seat about 150. I mean, they were everywhere. In the choir loft, all over the place. My wife had probably 25 or 30 kids in her children's revival hour. I mean, it was so thick in that place, you could have cut it with a butter knife. I mean, the Spirit of God was working. And I preached that night a message that I preached on this pulpit on Luke chapter 15, the prodigal son. Some considerations before you pack your bags. I preached that message that night, and I'm telling you God's Spirit was working, God's Spirit was moving. While my wife was in the back, we had some hot-headed rebellious teenagers out in the parking lot with some .22 pistols shooting them off in the air trying to break up the meeting. But I'll be honest with you, I don't think the devil could have resurrected himself and broke up that meeting. I mean, God was pouring out His blessings upon His people. I mean, it was packed in there. We had some special singing in that night, and I was doing the preaching. And I mean, people had been praying 15 and 20 and sometimes 30 minutes before the service trying to get ahold of God. And I preached that night on the prodigal son. There was a young lady there whose name was not Sandra, but will be for my message. And so, sorry Sandra, but we'll have Sandra here. And so, this lady, I always call her Sandra in this sermon, alright? So here's Sandra, and she knew, she knew she was lost. How do you know that? Because every day we had been driving back and forth for the past three or four days to brother Steve Robertson's school, Gospel Light Christian School, and I'd been preaching their opening revival for several days. And the pastor told me on the way down there on Friday morning, he said, Miss So-and-So, Sandra's mother, called this morning early, about 2.33 o'clock, and said, listen, you've got to pray for Sandra. She's lost. She's weeping. She won't sleep at night. She was dating some lost boyfriend who she was not willing to get up. And she was being not right at that time. She was being immoral about things, and she just would not get right with God. She knew she needed to be saved. And so, she called early in the morning, weeping, pray for Sandra, pray for Sandra. So, we did. So, that night, I preached the Bible. I'm telling you, unusual liberty came over me, and I mean, I preached and preached and preached. I gave the invitation, and I had never in my life, brother Tom, I had never seen anybody up until that time, nor since then, under so much Holy Spirit conviction out preaching. She was to my left. She was sitting in the second pew. The auditorium kind of smoked around like this. I'll never forget it. All these people packed in this place, kids in the back just screaming, We began to draw near to the end of the invitation and I told brother Don Riddles, the pastor, I said, brother Don, I said, I don't believe the Lord is going to speak through tonight. I said, I'm going to go talk to her. I said, just keep on singing. Everybody's heads were still battered. Everybody's eyes were still closed. And I remember I walked over there in front of all of those people I had my Bible. And I walked over and I turned around sideways so that all the people behind me could not hear. I didn't want to embarrass her and put her on the spot. And I put my hand on her shoulder and I said, Sandra, I said, honey, everybody in this room knows you're lost. I said, we've been praying for you all week long. I said, it is evident you are under conviction right now. I said, why don't you let one of these ladies take you in a side room, get you down and open the Bible and answer some questions. I said, why don't you let somebody help you? I said, you know you need to be saved. I said, you know you're lost. I said, everybody in this room's been praying and weeping. I said, look at you, you're weeping, you're under conviction. I said, won't you let somebody... And honestly, I thought you'd bail out. And I don't mean just begin to bust. And I don't mean just run to the altar and get saved. Everybody have themselves a glory shouting fit. All of a sudden, she bowed her back like a Banny Rooster and her face all of a sudden got the color back in it. Her eyes bugged out like they're fixing to pop out of her head. She had a vein that shot across the top of her head. And I'm telling you, she looked at me with the most cold, dead, devilish stare you've ever seen in your life. And she stuck her finger right in front of my face and she said, why don't you and God and everybody in this church just leave me alone. I walked out of that service that night and I thought to myself, that's probably the most defiant person I've ever seen in my life, 17 years old. Two years later or the next year, I suppose, I went back and in the mornings I was going to Brother Steve Robertson's gospel life. On the way down there, my heart was surged for Sandra. I turned to Pastor Reynolds as he was driving me and I said, Brother Reynolds, whatever happened to Sandra? He said, you remember that night in Revival Meeting last year or so when she told the Spirit of God to leave her alone? I said, yes, sir. He said, He's just left. I'm going to tell you something, friend. You better be real careful what you tell God. You better be careful about bargaining with God because He may just take you up on your bargain a whole lot quicker than you want Him to. And number one, a result of being a reprobate is no conviction. But number two, a result of being a reprobate is no concern. Can I please set some of your minds at ease tonight? I have had good, well-meaning people come to me in a service like this. I just started preaching this sermon last week, but I had another sermon on preaching the unpardonable sin. I've had good, well-meaning people come to me and say, Brother Greg, how do I know if I've committed the unpardonable sin? Whenever a person asks me that, here's my answer. You haven't. I know that. Because if you're worried about it, you've never committed it. Let me tell you something about a reprobate. Let me tell you something about a Romans chapter number one, depraved, disobedient lunatic. They could care less if they go to heaven. They could care less if they do go to hell. It doesn't make six in one, half dozen in the other. They could give a good glory flip of a wooden nickel. There will be no concern in the heart of a reprobate. When God turns a person over, He completely allows them to 180 degree turn, and they have no concern. They don't care if they committed the unpardonable sin. It doesn't bother them. And I'm just going to be honest with you. Get mad, fold your arms, pluck like a magic dragon, fall like a camel, I'm going to tell you something. In our churches, in our schools, and around this country, all over this place, I guarantee you there are some people that have walked an aisle that have made some false, phony, baloney profession that do not have a possession. They still live ungodly. They still live immorally. And I want to remind you, my Bible says, that liars and sorcerers and whoremongers and idolaters and effeminate and the rest of that crowd shall not enter into the kingdom of God. And I guarantee you there are people on Baptist church rolls who one day will stand at the great white throne judgment and they will go to the lake of fire for all of time and for all of eternity because they really never had any concern for the things of God whatsoever. And here is a group of people in Romans chapter number 1 that proves that to us. They could care less what happens. They could care less what the Bible says. Now, I normally do not do this in this sermon, but I've got just a quick burden that I'm going to share with you. I give you my closing thoughts and we're done. There are Bible colleges that you and I know of. There are none that I know of that are represented here tonight. Thank God for that. I respect and endorse all the colleges that are here. I was enrolled in Bob Jones University before I went to Ambassador. I never actually took a class there, but I was enrolled and paid some money. Good hefty cellar money. It made Bob Jones leave, but none the less. And I ended up going to Ambassador. The reason was because God changed my heart. Told me to go there. It was started by an evangelist. I wanted to be an evangelist. I appreciate all the schools. I'm going to tell you something about schools. There are schools around this country who unscripturally train their preachers and train their soul winners with some wicked methods. With some methods that are not of God. Let me tell you what I mean. Great big, beer belly, robust, wicked, wicked man comes to the door. He drinks his Budweiser, smokes his dope on the weekends. He's a compulsive gambler, compulsive liar. Beats his wife. Beats the devil out of his kids. He's a fornicator. I mean, he's an adulterer. Everybody knows this guy is crooked. Everybody knows this guy is wicked. Everybody knows him to be the biggest reprobate, as most people would like to term it, in town. They know him to be this way. So these preacher boys were zeal in their heart because they've been taught wrong. And they knock on that door. That's what I'm talking about. They've got the zeal of God within them. Thank God for their sincerity. And then that guy comes to the door and says, What do you want? And they say, Oh, we're from such and such a church. Slam! Slams the door in their face. Here's what they've been trained. Believe it or not, you study, you find out. They're trained to do whatever you can to keep that line of conversation open. Hey, man, stick your cotton pick and foot in the door. If you have to, break your toe. I don't care. Just get that man to pray some prayer. Here's the first thing they say to that man. Sir, would you like to go to heaven when you die? I've got a better question for you. Show me that where Paul, Jesus, or anybody else has ever asked somebody that in the Bible. We have so cheapened the gospel in the day. How many people have you talked to, said, Would you like to go to heaven when you die? No! I want to go to hell. Leave me alone, you skinny little runt. Get off my front porch. How many people have you met like that? You might have met a couple because they might be a rebel, but they were no concern. But we have taken the sting out of salvation. Let me tell you what we've done. We have preached for the years. I mean, for over 1900. I'll tell you why our country is so sorry and why we don't have America and why fundamentalism is going down the drain. I'll tell you why. Because we have began to quit preaching the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the wrath of God, the holy word of God, and we started preaching a feel-good gospel. Here's what I've preached a million times. I've preached it myself. I had to get right with God about it. I mean, I hear preachers all the time, especially in camps. They say, Well, you know what, young people? You know what, ladies and gentlemen? You've got a God-shaped vacuum inside of you. You've heard it. You've got a God-shaped vacuum inside of you. And then you're sucking drugs and you're sucking immorality and you're sucking the movies and you're sucking Hollywood. Nothing ever fits. And you'll never get real peace and love and joy and long-suffering and gentleness and meekness and goodness and faith and temperance against such words and law. You'll never get that until you get Jesus. And you hear me and you hear me well. At the expense of being misunderstood tonight, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, temperance, meekness, all of those things. Those are legitimate fruits of salvation. If you are saved, you will exemplify those fruits. But it is not legitimate to use those fruits as a draw card for salvation. And I tell you what we've done. We've said, You come to Jesus and He'll give you fulfillment and everlasting joy. So they come to Jesus and put Him on like they would a parachute. They come to Jesus and they use Him like they'd use dope. They come to Jesus and use Him like they'd use a Budweiser. No Bud, you better be wise and leave that mess alone. But nonetheless, they come down and they use all of these things. And when Jesus don't work, when the high wears off, all of a sudden they're out of church, you can't find them with a pack of hound dogs, and we call them an inoculated backslider. Now, they never got saved by the grace of God. I'll tell you what we're supposed to preach. I'll tell you what we're supposed to warn this world of to flee from the wrath of God. That there is a hell to shun. There is a heaven to gain. And we've sold sheep in the Gospel. We'll use anything in the world. We'll preach on Mary had a little lamb and Yankee Doodle Dandle if it'll build our church and get the baptismal water stirred. And I say God pity our movement for it. And so they knock on the door and he says, Yeah, I'd like to go to heaven. He says, okay, repeat after me. Dear God, dear God, Lord, my sinner, Lord, my sinner. Please come to my heart and save me. Please come to my heart and save me. Save me from heaven or die. Save me from heaven or die. In Jesus' name, amen, amen. And so they shut the door and they walk away and they pull out their pen or paper and they say, what's that fellow's name again? Joe Blow. So they write down Joe Blow. They get up in chapel. They get up to that microphone and they say, I don't want to brag or anything. You heard that? I don't want to brag or anything, but the Lord's had me win the most wicked man in town just down the road. And everybody stands up and says, Wow, glory to God. He must be the greatest soul winner since D.L. Moody. Six days go by. I believe people give time for the process of sanctification. Six weeks go by. Six months go by. Six years go by. That man still beats his wife. He's still an old, dirty, rotten, filthy God cusser. He's still a fornicator. He's still a drunkard. He still never goes to church. He still doesn't have any regard for the Bible. And if you think that man got saved by the grace of God, you ought to soothe your brain for non-support tonight. And we have so cheapened the Gospels in churches and in Bible colleges around America. And I'm telling you, a person that has been turned over to a reprobate mind, number one, will have no conviction. And number two, they will have no concern for the things of God. I prove it to you in this illustration we close. Two weeks ago, just two, I was at the Lighthouse Baptist Church of Columbus, Georgia. The Robertson family was there on Wednesday morning. I took my wife Melissa to the ear specialist, to the doctor. She'd been having some swelling there in the side of her face. Her ears were bothering. This turned out to be her wisdom teeth and she also had an ear infection. You pray for her. She's still having that trouble looking for a good dentist to help her out. If you've got some wire flyers selling, we'll hold her down at the service, amen. We'll rip them suckers out of her mouth. But that'd be a little cheaper on me. But nonetheless, you pray for my wife. She's not in here. I can say that tonight, amen. But she is here with me outside. But nonetheless, the cell phone rang. Hello? Hello. This is your father-in-law. He goes to a church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Grace Baptist Church, Pastor David Bueller. Well, there was a lady who got up on Sunday night and said pray for my father. He's lost. He's got 60% or 67% I believe it was of blockage in his heart. He's had a terrible heart attack. He's on an oxygen tank, blah, blah, blah. And he lives in Columbus, Georgia. Immediately a light bulb went off because my father-in-law knew that that morning the Robertson family, myself and my dear wife Melissa had started a revival meeting just across town. So he says his number is 3148 so-and-so street. Can you go and visit him? I said tomorrow we'll go do it with the preacher. Something came up. I had to go and preach another chapel across town. We were having double services all week long, Monday through Friday. We had morning church services and evening church services. So it worked out I couldn't go until Friday. So I went on Friday. I never forget. I don't remember the name of the road but I'll never forget. 3148. Because every time the preacher would drive by I'd say there goes 3148. He'd drive by this one. There goes 3148. Finally we got to 3148 where we're supposed to be. I put my coffee in the holder. We get out. We got our Bibles. We got our suits and ties on. It's about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We got dinner at 5 and so we're not really rushed for time. We go and knock on the door and a lady enters the door and says she'll happen to be one of his daughters. She was there and she went to a large charismatic church in the area and the reason we knew that is because he was working at that time on his oxygen tank. There was a man who said listen we'll be about 15-20 minutes if you'll let me talk with him. He's one of the home healthcare nurse type of fellas. I suppose this guy was in his late 80s something like that. On his last leg he'd been preached to by all kind of preachers but he wouldn't listen. And so he says come on in fellas. I mean cordial. Nicest guy you'd ever met in your life. Come on in. Y'all want some coffee? No, no. Y'all want some tea? No, no. Want some pie? No, no. We'll just sit here and wait on you. So he goes in the back and we're talking to this lady and she says listen. She says we appreciate y'all coming. She said this guy's been talked to by a lot of people. He's been prayed for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and he'll be cordial about it. She said now sometimes he'll be mean to my cushion. He said but he seems like I'm sitting on the couch and I don't believe when somebody just gets in I don't believe just pulling out the Bible and just chop and just chopping them up. I mean you got to start slow. I mean you got to just kind of you got to give them some time to respond. I mean you can tell he was a little bit tensed up. Got two Baptist preachers sitting in his living room who look like IRS agents or something. No FBI. I'm not going to do it. I'm from the FBI. Fundamental Baptist Independence. Amen. So he's not going to do it. Here's this guy. He's sitting in there and so I said Mr. So and So I said let me talk to you about this. I'm going to talk to him about his family. Well after he talked about this he began to talk about his heartbreak and he said yeah I'm on this crazy oxygen tank blah blah blah blankety blank this bleepety bleep this and all this kind of stuff and so I said well you know then I began to talk about life began to talk about death quoted in Hebrews 9 27 so I started giving this man the gospel and just jumped right into it you know and you know I was like wow man the Lord just kind of opened up this door and I just slid right inside the door you know just cracked it right open and I just started preaching this guy and he's listening all of a sudden honest truth right in the middle of this stuff but here I was brother Mick I'm telling this guy about the gospel and I'm telling him about the Bible staff and he says have you met my grandkids right in the middle of my discussion have you met my grandkids I said well I turned to the preacher I knew I'd never met his grandkids I turned to the preacher I said have you met his grandkids I said has this grandkids ever been to the meeting oh no no no I'm trying to keep the conversation all of a sudden oh no no have you met his grandkids and I said man ain't it wonderful to have kids I said man what a responsibility to have kids and grandkids boom just put it right back in the gospel great responsibility we have in the list of God blah blah blah and so I just jumped right in there I got talking about three or four minutes boom turned me right off would you like to see some photographs would you like to see this I mean just turn me up he said you know I had a heart attack man he said I thought when you had a heart attack it would hurt you he said it didn't even hurt me he said I just had shortness of breath I mean just change the subject about three or four times and I said mister so and so I said I appreciate all that I said but I said I don't want to waste your time I said I said let me talk to you just for a minute about the gospel and I began to go down to Romans Road I began to tell him about God's love started giving my testimony been there you know we'd already been there 35-40 minutes and so I'd been talking to him about 8 or 9 minutes he kept interrupting I'd been done and so he kept on talking kept on talking so I'm preaching to this guy and I'm talking to this guy and you know I'm excited I'm letting the preacher talk a little bit you know Brother Winn he's saying yeah God bless you brother lots of people and he's talking to him he said yeah yeah yeah he's giving his testimony and I start talking to this guy he got oxygen tubes in his nose he got a big oxygen tank right there fizzing like that I mean this guy's getting ready to be dead friend if anybody ought to be listening to the Bible it should be this guy he puts his hands on the side of his lazy boy recliner kicks his legs back while I'm talking to him two Baptist preachers sitting there I got my Bible open talking to this man passionately kicks his legs back folds his arms closes his eyes puts his head on the pillow sit behind him and went to sleep while I was talking to him about the Bible he said hey why don't you go over and wake him up and say hey mister you're going to hell you need to get saved by the grace of God I'm going to tell you why because if the Holy Spirit wasn't there I wasn't going to bother nobody's sin I certainly wasn't going to mess with nobody's sin and whenever God turns you over to a reprobate mind whenever God gives you up you can forget about ever being convicted and you can forget about ever being concerned and you can put on every fake false phony baloney mask you want to but the truth of the matter is you're lost and you're going to hell wherefore God gave them