Sins of Religious Apostasy

Gratitude and Encouragement for the Conference Attendees

0:01 Now, before we turn to the ministry of the word of God, I do want to express several matters from my own heart, not in response to what Pastor Lutz has said, for I thoughtfully prepared these remarks before I had any inkling that he would say anything on this, our last evening session. I do wish to express in the most sincere manner I know how, how grateful to God I am for Pastor Lutz and his fellow overseers and workers in the church, for all of the hours of thoughtful and prayerful labor that have gone into the planning and administration of this conference, and in a more special way, for the special care they have shown to me during this week. They have housed me in a lovely little motel just about two miles from here. Not that I might luxuriate, but that I might have the opportunity to do what I've come here to do. And God is witness that I could wish that I had had the afternoons free to spend with you on the playground, on the ball field, at the various beaches.

1:24 Some of you who know me from the past know that though I'll pass the half-century mark in my next birthday, I don't feel a half a century old. I can still poke a ball pretty far, and I still enjoy getting out with the kids and mingling with them. And I want you children and young people to know that I wish that I could have spent more time with you, but as it seemed to be the direction of the Spirit of God to open up this subject that was a little bit too long for me, I wish I could have spent more time with you, but as it seemed to be the direction of the Spirit of God to open up this subject that was a little bit too long for me, I wish I could have spent more time with you, but as it seemed to be the direction of the Spirit of God to open up this subject that was a little bit too long for me, I wish I could have spent more time with you, but as it seemed to be the direction of the Spirit of God to open up this subject that was a little bit too long for me, I wish I could have spent more time with you, but as it seemed to be the direction of the Spirit of God to open up this subject that was a little bit too long for me, I wish I could have spent more time with you, but as it seemed to be the direction of the Spirit of God to open up this subject that was a little bit too long for me, I wish I could have spent more time with you, but as it seemed to be the direction room, not only resting, but seeking to have my own mind and spirit prepared to minister the word of God to you. And I'm deeply grateful to God for the thoughtfulness of Pastor Lutz and others responsible for making this provision for me. And then I do want to express a deep word of appreciation for you, the people of God who have attended so seriously and reverently to the preaching of the word. You must never underestimate how much you minister to a preacher when you bring to the preaching serious, earnest attentiveness.

2:49 Now, you may say, oh, I don't believe that, but it's true. And when you sit with an evident look of intense desire to hear the voice of God, from the word of God, through the servant of God, you minister encouragement to the servants of God. And I leave this conference in spite of the heavy and weighty matters we have considered in these evening sessions, tremendously encouraged to think that this many people would travel the many miles many of you have traveled, take your one remaining or perhaps for some only week of vacation. And spend it to come, not to be entertained, not to have your ears tickled, but to have your consciences and hearts blistered and confronted with the word of the living God. It gives me some hope that God may not yet be through with us. And it may encourage you to know that when I called my co-pastor early this morning to ask him how our prayer meeting went last night. He said, the Spirit of God came upon our people with tremendous power and drew them out in unusual dimensions of earnest prayer, that the word preached to them this past Lord's

4:16 day, which was the seed message out of which these four messages have grown, that that word would be blessed of God in your midst. And he said that some of them were even bold enough to wrestle with God last night. He said that God would give me the privilege of preaching these things on the floor of the Senate of the United States of America. And I said, well, I don't know if my faith is such to plead for that, but God may honor the simple faith of one of his earnest children in our own assembly.

4:50 And so I do say sincerely, and I trust out of genuine Christian affection for all of you, thank you for coming. Thank you for ministering to my heart. And if there is any remaining blessing of these days in God brings the servants of God to your remembrance who have been his instruments of blessing, lift up your hearts in prayer to God for us, that above all else, we may be kept fresh and tender in the secret place of communion with God. I've been a Christian for 31 years, and I learned in the first few months of my Christian experience.

5:32 That my greatest battle was the battle of the closet place. And 31 years later, the greatest battlefield has not changed. It is still in the secret place that the greatest battles are lost or won. So pray that by the grace of God, those of us upon whom some of you look as spiritual fathers and those mature and advanced in grace, take our word for it.

6:02 We fight essentially the same battles you fight, and we win or we lose them, precisely at the point that you win or you lose them. Now let us again seek the face of God in prayer, give him thanks for these blessed days together, as well as anticipate blessing upon the remaining two sessions in the morning, and ask his help in this final part that I will play in our conference. Thank you. God bless you all.

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Confession for the Nation

6:35 And thank you for giving us this opportunity to be part of this day as well as in our conference together. Let us pray. Our Father, we are taught in your word that you are the giver of every good and every perfect gift. And we therefore acknowledge that all of the good gifts we have enjoyed from your hand in these days together have indeed come from your hand.

7:04 We thank you that you are the God who works by means. the heart of your servant Pastor Lutz and his fellow officers and brothers and fellow believers from other churches who encourage them in this endeavor we thank you Lord for bringing to pass this family conference we thank you for putting it into the hearts of so many to come and we thank you for the sense of your presence thank you for those who have ministered to us thank you for their sanctified labors O Lord we bless you for what we have learned about the life and ministry and biblical insights of John Bunyan and his pilgrims progress we thank you for what we have learned and seen afresh of our righteousness we thank you for the labors of your servant Pastor Christman we thank you for the labors of your servant Pastor Latimer and the reminder and the fresh insights to what it means for us as husbands to love our wives as Christ loved the church how good you've been Lord not once have we come with open hungry hearts and open Bibles and gone away confused and frustrated and

8:26 disappointed we thank you that it has not been said of us that hungry sheep look up and are not fed but that we have been led into the rich pastures of your word and for every one of these mercies we give you thanks we give you thanks for those who have given up the privilege of sitting in these sessions that they might care for the little ones that they might instruct the younger ones O Lord bless them as they have in principle lost their lives for your sake in the gospel may they find a new dimension of life in Christ as some of those spent their lives in worship due to their love for Jesus plan and and the our true state as a nation and then move us to cry to you that in wrath you would remember mercy

Introduction to National Sins: Moral Degeneracy and Religious Apostasy

9:46 hear then our cry receive the praises we offer as we draw near with our prayers and our praises in the name of your beloved son amen the vast and weighty theme which has occupied our minds in these evening sessions this week has been entitled god's word to our nation and after giving a biblical setting and a scriptural justification for this subject i proceeded to assert that perhaps no text is more relevant as setting the framework for god's word to our nation than is proverbs 14 and verse 34 in which we read righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people and in the light of this text then surely the word of god to our nation in this hour

11:07 must primarily be a word on the one hand of denunciation for our national sins and on the other hand a call to national repentance and reformation from our sins using the analogy of a mountain range i've suggested that the sins of any nation are likened unto foothill sins sins that constitute the main bulk and spine of the mountain range but then there are those sins that rise up in their height above all others, like some of the mighty mountain peaks in the great ranges of mountains on the face of the earth. And I have suggested that two of these mountain peak sins of our nation are the sins of our putrid moral degeneracy and of our horrible religious apostasy. And under that former head of our putrid sins of moral degeneracy, none are greater than the sins of the unrequited blood of the murdered multitudes

12:30 and the sins of unrestrained and unashamed sensuality and sexual perversion. Now, tonight, we move to consider the second mountain. Not only is our nation marked by the mountain of the sins of putrid moral degeneracy, but also by our sins of horrible religious apostasy. Now, for you children and young people for whom the word apostasy may be a new word or one concerning the unity of this world, Paul answered the question, in a very, very simple way. But rather, let's close our eyes for a moment and witness ourarch reading, and we will return to the moment where we will discover the wonder within Which school if there be none or house? which is the cultivation of the world? These�� the understanding of others, and the spiritual civilization of all Gebirtu, and that expression that episode, Genesis 16 and now we will get back as much to spirit, not anything else, but with a gospel that is So apostasy assumes that one may be determined by change. Ah1 And since Jesus Christ corned

13:41 down on earth a m Everybody would think he had been in his native land for years, but of belief and practice from which one has now departed. And I say that the second great mountain of our national sins is to be found in our sins of horrible religious apostasy, our sins of falling away from the principles of revealed religion. Now if there is anything which God detests and abhors with holy detestation and righteous indignation, it is the turning away from light and from privilege, whether that is the light of general revelation or the light of the gospel. It is the light of the gospel. Or the more special light of special revelation. We saw last night from Romans chapter 1 how much God hates and detests apostasy from general revelation.

14:52 For it's in Romans 1 that we read, As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up. Those who turn from the worship of God according to the light of general revelation and turn to the worship of idols, God so detests and abhors that apostasy even from general revelation that he gives men over to the lust of their hearts until they destroy themselves in their sins of lawlessness. And of sensuality.

God's Judgment on Israel for Apostasy from Special Revelation

15:38 But if God detests apostasy from general revelation, then how much more intense is his detestation of apostasy from special revelation. That is, a turning aside, a falling away, not merely from the light of himself given, in creation and stamped upon the consciousness of man made in his image, but from the light of his own word brought to men through prophets when they lived and through the word of God now that special revelation is found within the pages of the scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. And just as surely as the history, the history of the pagan nations is a constant revelation of the wrath of God upon apostasy from general revelation, so the history of the nation of Israel is the sickening saga of the divine hatred and detestation of those who turn from the light and privilege of special revelation.

17:03 Listen to the statement of the Prophet Jeremiah with respect to this very point. In Jeremiah Chapter 25, we read the following words. Jeremiah Chapter 25, beginning with verse 3. From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Ammon king of Judah, even unto these three and twenty years, The word of the Lord has come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you have not hearkened.

17:46 And the Lord has sent unto you all his servants, the prophets, rising up early and sending them, but you have not hearkened nor inclined your ear to hear, saying, Return you now, every one, from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given unto you and to your fathers from of old and even forevermore. And go not after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no hurt. Yet you have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord, that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and I will send unto Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring him against this land and against the inhabitants. Thereof, and against all these nations round about it, and I will utterly destroy them and make them an astonishment and a hissing and perpetual desolation.

19:12 And then God goes on to say how he will accomplish his judgments upon this land. And for what reason? Fundamentally this, they apostatized from the light, the privileges, the demands of spirit. And for what reason? Fundamentally this, they apostatized from the light, the privileges, the demands of spirit.

19:30 And for what reason? Fundamentally this, they apostatized from the light, the privileges, the demands of spirit. And that detestation and anger of God culminated in the Old Testament in the captivity of the people of God in Babylon. And according to the New Testament, it found its climactic expression in the utter destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

19:54 According to the word of our Lord in Luke 19, verses 41 to 44. According to the word of our Lord in Luke 19, verses 41 to 44. And according to the word of the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2, verses 13 to 16. Wrath has come upon that nation to the uttermost.

20:13 Their house has been left desolate. Why? Because they knew not the time of their visitation. God sent to them, calling them back from their apostasy, back to national reformation, national repentance, back to the recognition of His laws and His ways.

20:34 But they would not until they were ultimately brought to the place of desolation and destruction. I say these incidents in the word of God reveal something of the horrible nature of religious apostasy. The turning away, the turning of one's back upon the light of God's revealed truth. Now someone asked, Pastor Martin, you have told us we dare not make an equation between Israel and the United States.

America's Unique Privilege of Gospel Light and Heritage

21:10 What does all of this say to us? Well, I trust the Romans 1 passage says much to us and that its message is obvious. But there is also a principle from God's dealings with the nation of Israel. Since God is the sovereign, the sovereign director of where His word goes among the nations, it is God that decreed and then secured to this nation the tremendous measure of gospel light and privilege which we have known from our very inception.

21:52 According to Acts chapter 16, verses 6 through 10, it is the Holy Spirit who suffers the apostasy, it is the Holy Spirit who suffers the apostasy, it is the Holy Spirit who suffers the apostasy, almost as that which is not excepted with the sins of slavery, which is that which is not excepted with the souls of those who were martyred. It is the Holy Spirit that brings down from above and directs Him from theeker, from theus Kunden, from theus -...

22:14 as the best of all nations of the world. When the light of the gospel comes, when it unexpected in intensity when God's message to us in scriptures Someone spoke for us in the scripture, own language, blessed with the visible church greatly multiplied, blessed with the proclamation of the Word, blessed with institutions that are framed by the Word of God, that nation I say has been the recipient of a sovereign act of God in bringing this tremendous privilege of gospel light, this tremendous privilege of the light of special revelation casting as it were both its illuminating and warming influence over the entirety of that nation's life and experience. And surely this has been true of our nation perhaps as of no other nation in the history of mankind. Think of our founding fathers, don't ever forget particularly young people for you won't

23:32 be taught this with any detail in the history books written by those who hate this heritage. We had a hundred and fifty years of national life before the Declaration of Independence. In 1620 our forefathers arrived on these shores and whatever we may say about the weakness of our Puritan forefathers, the fact that they did not see as clearly as we see the principles of the separation of church and state. And we perhaps believe, many of us, that their ultimate eschatological vision, that is their vision of a situation in which righteousness would prevail as the dominant characteristic among the nations. Their post-millenary vision. Their post-millenary and eschatological vision. We may feel that it was exegetically and theologically defective but whatever we may say about the defects and the blemishes and the perspectives of our Puritan forefathers which we would not emulate, surely my brothers and sisters it is accurate to say that in spite of some of these minor irregularities.

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25:26 shows his ignorance. That's the climate in which this nation was born. Our Puritan forefathers longing to carve out an identity and a social and a political and a national experience that would reflect that all must be lived under the eye of the God spoken in Holy Scripture. And surely this was true of many of our founding fathers. I am not so naive nor ignorant historically to say that even the majority of our founding fathers were self-consciously evangelical Christians or reformed Christians. But this much can be said, some of the most strategic men as to the framing of our Constitution were men whose thinking about government, and particularly about the framing of our government, was tremendously influenced by rot-ribbed Calvinistic theology. And many who were not Christians, many who

26:49 wouldn't claim no adherence to the evangelical faith, had been nurtured in the context in which there was a general perspective of regard to God as the Lord of the nations, and to God as the one who alone could establish our nation and make it that which they longed it should be. And therefore, woven into the very fabric of our system of jurisprudence, woven into the very fabric of statutory law, you find biblical principles, again and again and again as the very molding and shaping influence of our national life.

27:36 Then surely as we look at the founding of our original institutions, do you know why Yale College was formed? Do you know why Dartmouth was formed as an institution? Do you know

27:52 why? Dartmouth was formed to train men to be missionaries. Do you know why? Because to the American Indians.

28:02 Yale was formed to train preachers to preach to the colonies.

28:10 Princeton was formed out of the womb of the large college of the elder tenant who gathered godly young men around him whose hearts beat with a passionate concern to see the outpouring of the spirit upon the colonies. Princeton came out of the womb of this passionate commitment to revivals and to the mighty manifestation of the power and grace of God. And in our early national life, the appointment of chaplains to the armies and chaplains to our courts and to our halls of legislation, what was all of this but a reflection of the truth, a nation under God. And it is nothing short of willful blindness that takes the First Amendment and tries to use it as a justification to make us an aggressively godless nation. That was never the intent of the framers of those words, for those very men were the men who sought to recognize the sovereign rule of God over the nation. In the founding of this nation

29:33 and in the vast majority of its institutions. Then we think of the influence of Whitefield. It's a tragic thing to think that the nation that now welcomes that Pied Piper from Rome is the nation that welcomed Whitefield throughout all the colonies. And wherever Whitefield went, he went not to deceive people, not to try to lead them back to the mother of harlots, but to lead them to the feet of a pierced Christ, where they might find in the direct embrace of the needy sinner, in that embrace of the offered Savior, life and salvation. So I say the great sin of our nation is the sin of our horrible religious apostasy, a drifting away, a turning away, a casting aside of this tremendous heritage of the light, not of general revelation. Though God knows our nation has so much of it in its native beauty and in the continuous blessing of God upon the earth and its produce. But this nation has been blessed

31:01 with megawatts of the special light, of special revelation that burned and etched, as it were, its very presence into the consciousness of this nation as it came from the womb of Almighty God in his providence when he moved our Puritan forefathers to come in the 1600s. That work was continued as God raised up mighty preachers and God raised up whole denominations that acted as light and salt upon every facet of our national life so that wherever one turned, one did not find a Christian nation. We have never been a Christian nation in the sense that the majority were in vital union with Christ. But we were a nation marked by national righteousness and in that was our exaltation. Righteousness exalts a nation.

The Broken Cistern of Decadent Humanism

32:08 And so powerful was the direct influence of the gospel through revivals, so widespread was the indirect influence of the gospel in the leavening influence of that gospel upon our national life that it was true of us as a nation, righteousness exalted this nation. But now our sin, our sin is a reproach to us. Not only our sin of putrid moral degeneracy, but our sin of horrible religious apostasy. Now how has that apostasy manifested itself? I turn you now to Jeremiah chapter 2 for a text that will consternate you. I turn you now to Jeremiah chapter 2 for a text that will consternate you. I turn you now to Jeremiah chapter 2 for a text that will consternate you.

33:01 I try to constitute the framework of the remainder of my message as I try to descend now from the theology that justifies my declaration to the specific applications of that exposition. Jeremiah, the second chapter. And hear the prophet crying out in the name of Jehovah, God of his people says, Jeremiah 2 and verse 12. Jeremiah 2 and verse 12.

33:33 Jeremiah 2 and verse 12. Jeremiah 2 and verse 12. Jeremiah 2 and verse 12. perhaps we can back up to verse 10 half a nation changed its gods which yet are no gods he asked the question do you see fickleness among the pagan nations they worship what they call gods but are not gods and yet you can count on them to be consistent in their worship of their false gods and you could in jeremiah's day say that the nation of babylon the other nations the heathen nations of the earth were identified with the worship of this false god or that false god or another false god and you didn't have to worry that if you made the statement on monday you would be proven wrong on wednesday he asked the question have you ever heard of a nation changing its so-called gods but my people have changed their glory that is the true god for that which does not profit

34:45 be astonished oh you heavens at this and be horribly afraid be he desolate saith the lord for my people they've done something that the pagan nations have not done my people have committed a sin and they have committed a sin and they have committed a sin for the two evils evil number one they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters a living bubbling spring of pure clear refreshing water and have hewn them out cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water now what's the picture try to envision what the Prophet is saying here is a man who has in his backyard a bubbling spring and when it comes up out of the earth because of the natural system of filtration that is there in terms of the subterranean rock structure and all of the rest that water is clinically and chemically analyzed as being the nearest thing to pure water

36:05 upon the face of the earth it has no impurities it has an excellent balance in terms of the minerals it has the proper content of of the saline and all of the rest it is a fountain of living water and any thirsty person who wants his thirst assuaged and never need fear that he will be poisoned or in any way harmed all he needs to do is go and plunge his thirsty mouth in the water of the earth and he will be in the water of the earth and he will be in that fountain of its living waters. now here is the picture a man goes out one day to this fountain of living waters that springs up very naturally from his backyard and he takes two or three yards of concrete and a yard is three by three by three you can carry about a third of a yard in a big wheelbarrow i know that from my construction days and he goes to that fountain of living waters digs around it seeks to place a cap upon it and then he has three yards of concrete put over the top of it and utterly stops it up and then having done that

37:28 he goes further in his yard and there he finds a big boulder and he takes a little mason's hammer and he begins to chip away at the boulder and he's chipping and chipping and chipping and after a while he's got a little indentation and it gets a little larger and a little larger and just about that time we come by and we say to him man what in the world are you doing he said well i'm chipping out a cistern i want to collect the rain water when it falls upon the earth and you say but don't you know that that rain water coming down through the atmosphere picks up all kinds of impurities from the pollution in the air don't you know that anyone could come by and put something into that water and defile it what in the world are you doing you have that lovely living fountain of living waters and now you're chipping away to make a little cistern the man says i know what i'm doing leave me alone and he chips and chips and chips but alas in the process in chipping too hard at one spot there's a crack and a fissure goes right down through his big boulder and then as he chips further on another side another crack goes through and then the moment of truth comes when the first rains descend and though it holds the water for a few moments it

38:50 isn't long before it all leaks out why because it is a broken cistern that can hold no water now you kids tell me if you had a neighbor like that what would you say was his problem you'd say he had a few bricks less than a full load of water and he would have a big load upstairs now you might not do it to his face but you'd say that guy's crazy why would you forsake a fountain of living was a natural bubbly pure refreshing spring to chip away at a cistern that ultimately can hold it's falling god says that's exactly what religious apostasy is god came to israel and gave himself to her of living water. All she could ever need to assuage the thirst of the soul, the thirst of the soul for the knowledge of God and the knowledge of forgiveness of sins. All that was needed to

40:10 assuage the thirst of the mind for reality. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?

40:17 How did the world get here? Whose world is it? Who governs it? All that was needed to assuage the thirst of the soul and of the mind was there in the living fountain of Jehovah.

40:34 She poured three yards of concrete upon it, stopped it up and chipped out a boulder that couldn't hold any water. And I say that's a picture in principle of how apostasy works. Whenever God has brought the light of special revelation to a nation and that nation rejects that fountain of living waters and chips away and hues out its own cisterns, but they are cisterns that can never hold water. Let me point out some of these broken cisterns that constitute the undeniable evidence of our national sin of apostasy in the realm of religious truth. There is first of all the broken cistern of decadent humanism. Now we use the word humanism frequently, but do we know what it means? Let me give you the relatively simple definition found

41:48 in Webster's new collegiate dictionary. Humanism is, quote, a modern non-theistic, that means it rules out God, a modern non-theistic rationalistic, that means you go no further than your own noggin, a modern non-God rationalistic movement that holds that man is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, and a modern non-theistic rationalistic movement that holds that man is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, et cetera, without recourse to supernaturalism. In other words, humanism is that approach to life which says everything I need to know about all of the basic questions of life, who I am, how I should conduct myself, how I can find meaning in life, humanism is that system of thought that says,

42:51 all I need to know, I can know, without going out of myself to God. It is a closed system in which man is both the center and the circumference of all reality. Now you see in the early days of our national life, from our Puritan forefathers, even to our founding fathers, many of whom were not evangelical Christians, to the original institutions, to the very fabric and perspective of our national life, we were a theistic nation that believed over and above what man purposes, over and above what man plans, over and above what man can accomplish, stands all... And when man asks, the question who am I? He must look outside of himself to the God who made him, to give him the answer and he's given it in his word.

44:12 How should I live? Man must not look within, because he recognized that within was a nature that led him in the direction of sin and propensity. He looked outside of himself, to the changeless character of the human being, to the recognized nature of the partners of God, to the of God who has etched, as it were, the lineaments of his character in his own changeless, eternal, moral law. And so the Ten Commandments, whether with saved or unsaved people, became, as it were, the framework of the consciousness of national morality. Now what has happened? We have forsaken the living fountain, that bubbling fountain of knowledge of ourselves and of right and of wrong and of personal identity. That has been forsaken. And in its place we have hewn out the broken cistern of a decadent humanism. Man's mind is made the measure of all reality. Who am I,

45:26 humanism says. Connect electrodes to your head and we'll find out who you are. Dissect you on the table and we'll find out who you are. We'll watch the patterns of other animals in the laboratory and we'll find out who man is, why he does what he does, why he reacts the way he reacts. Why have our experiments, as it were, the dictates, estimates. Connect electrodes to the nature of man and the patterns of behavior expected of man because of the curse of this wicked, decadent humanism that says man's mind is the measure of all reality. He can find out who he is, why he's here, what's right, what's wrong, what's acceptable, unacceptable by having no recourse to the supernatural. It is all reality.

46:31 It is all within himself. And furthermore, man's ability is made the measure of possibility for what we can expect from man, what a sorry thing to live with. If all we can expect in terms of our individual experience, in terms of our family experience, in terms of community experience, in terms of national If man is not only the measure of reality, but the measure of expectancy, then, dear people, what from such creatures the likes of you and of me? What a tragic apostasy has occurred in our national life, an apostasy in which we have forsaken the fountain of living water, in which the consciousness in our nation was that man was indeed a creature of God.

47:41 Man indeed was distinctly and qualitatively different from the beast of the earth, and man was answerable to God. There was a judgment to come, and men may have used the words damn and hell as curse words, but when they stopped and thought about the word hell, they believed there was such a place, because they knew eternity was stamped upon their very being. Oh, what a tragic thing, this apostasy from the living fountain of the knowledge of God. To the broken.

The Broken Cistern of Deceptive Liberalism

48:25 To the broken cistern of decadent humanism that can hold no water. But then I hasten on to point to a second specific indication of this religious apostasy. It's what I'm calling the broken cistern of deceptive liberalism. The broken cistern of deceptive liberalism.

48:55 Now, I'm not speaking of political liberalism. But I'm speaking of religious liberalism. That is the situation in which so-called Christian churches and denominations hold the name and the forms and the rituals of Christianity, and even in many places still the hymnody of Christianity, but they have rejected everything that is distinctively Christian according to the Bible. There has been a rejection of the infallibility and inerrancy of this blessed book.

49:39 It is no longer looked upon as the deposit of the revealed mind of God, who in gracious self-revelation has spoken and embodied his words in the book. It is looked upon as the fallible, empathetic account of man's divine destiny. Oh. Oh.

50:01 Developing and changing religious consciousness, no longer is there a view of man that he is essentially and fundamentally evil, having fallen in Adam, each man and woman, boy or girl conceived in sin, born with a positive bent to evil, and that from within out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adultery, murder, fornication, theft, pride, and all others of wickedness. No longer is there the confession of and belief in a supernatural Savior, who is as much man as though he were not God, as much God as though he were not man. No longer any conviction with respect to the virgin conceived, theanthropic person, the great mystery of godliness that in the Lord Jesus.

51:04 Jesus is true, essential, undiminished humanity, joined to pure, essential, undiluted, and in him alone is the hope of wretched sinners. Liberalism has jettisoned an infallible Bible, jettisoned a depraved man, jettisoned a supernatural Savior, jettisoned the heart of the gospel, which is penal substitution. . . .

51:38 . . . . . .

51:39 . . . .

51:39 The wrath of God upon his son. So holy and so righteous is the God of the Bible, that he will not forgive in a way that stains his holiness, his righteousness, or his justice. And the only path he could cut in fulfillment of eternal redeeming love, consistent with the rectitude of his nature, was the path that cut through the heart of his own. beloved son and made that heart the very repository of the fires of divine wrath until under the pills of that wrath of christ my god my god why have you forsaken me liberalism has no answer to that question liberalism won't even approach listen to that question there was a time when in our land the great denominations the great presbyterian denomination that is now again reunited after all these years of separation since the civil war most of the great baptist

53:04 denominations the wesleyan the methodist denominations even the episcopalian denominations by and large back even as recent recent as the early to mid-1800s men could exchange pulpits from these denominations in the confidence that whoever stood to preach would hold to the essentials of mainstream historic evangelicalism an infallible bible a supernatural savior a depraved sinner a supernatural salvation based upon the bloodletting of the one who became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of god in him but alas in our day evangelical and reformed denominations that have come to birth in recent days the tragedy's dear people and oh may you never forget it sitting in the warmth and basking

The Broken Cistern of Demonic Occultism and Astrology

54:16 in the light of that reformed congregation of which you are a part no sleep and reality pel каз sure in the lap of deception until they will land in hell by the broken cistern of a deceptive liberalism. And I say this sin of religious apostasy is our national shame. Then I want to touch very briefly on the third and then more fulsomely on the fourth and final cistern. We have turned to the broken cistern of demonic occultism and astrology. You say, where in the world does that fit as a national sin? Well, I remind you of what we read in Deuteronomy chapter 18. We looked at Deuteronomy 19 last night.

55:21 But in the previous chapter we have, to my knowledge, the only other explicit reference to the key reason for God casting out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan before the children of Israel. You remember in Leviticus 19, God said that the land vomited out the inhabitants because of the sins of sensuality and sexual perversion. In Deuteronomy 18, God says in verse 9, When you come into the land which the Lord gives you, you shall not learn to do after the abomination of those nations. There shall not be found with you anyone that makes his son or daughter to pass through the fire, one that uses divination, one that practices augury or an enchanter or a sorcerer or a charmer or a consulter with familiar spirit, or a wizard or a necromancer. For whosoever does these things is an abomination unto the Lord. And because of these abominations,

56:47 the Lord God has drawn before you non-anointed nations. Because of the law of general revelation, are to know from the heavens everlasting power, and divinity. There is but one true and living God. There is to be no seeking to consort with familiar spirits and the demonic elements of the occult.

57:20 And further on, though time does not permit us to turn to it, in 2 Kings 17, 14-18, there is a condemnation of the worshipping of the stars of heaven. And again in the prophet Jeremiah, God addresses himself to what we've wished for. We would now call the science of astrology. Whoever would have thought that the daily papers of some of the smallest towns in our nation as well as the great metropolises would have a daily column for Gene Dixon.

57:58 And we've gotten so accustomed to it, we're no longer shocked, are we? We can flip through the paper and in the corner of our eyes...

58:21 For God... Judgment upon this nation!

58:25 The ability to feel a shudder of horror! That our fruit should propagate an abomination of this broken cistern of the demonic occult and of astrology. Millions of Americans before they have their first cup of coffee turn to the astrology charts for the day. They dial the local astrology numbers.

59:01 We have become a nation that is given over to the occult and to astrology. Ouija boards are sold by the millions. Satan cults are being established by the scores. Satan worship is becoming a matter of public discussion and books are being written to initiate men and women and boys and girls.

59:33 Into the marvellous world of Satan worship! My people have committed two evils. Imagine a nation with the light of a translated Bible and the privilege of public preaching of that Bible turning to the Gene Dixons and to the astrology charts! That's your nation!

60:02 Nation! My children! And if the Lord spares us the nation of my people, then we will be able to live in peace. My unborn grandchildren!

The Broken Cistern of Weak, Man-Centered Evangelicalism

60:13 But I come finally. And here I speak most painfully and most reluctantly. And for some of you who do not know me personally, I do not often make any personal references in preaching. I think the best compliment was ever paid to me by a man who met me once and said, I've listened to hundreds of your tapes, but I don't know anything about you.

60:45 And I said, wonderful. For we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord. But I want to tell you something, and I want someone to say, well, this is just Pastor Martin giving vent to his own peculiar personality trait. Listen to me.

61:00 When God put me together in my mother's womb, He put together one of the most sensitive, fearful little creatures the world has ever seen. I am so constitutionally averse to confrontation that when I was big enough to go down to the sandlot and play football with the guys who were a little older than I, my mother loves to remind me of this story. That the first time I went down and said, hey guys, can I play? And they said, nah, you can't play.

61:31 You know what I did? I didn't fight. I came home bawling with my shoulder pads hung over my shoulder. A short time after, I was 12 or 13, and I made a shoeshine box.

61:43 And I went downtown in Stanford, Connecticut, and set up my corner. And it wasn't long before another kid came by and said, what are you doing here? This is my corner. And I went home and cried all the way home.

61:57 When a teacher would rebuke me for something in grammar school, I'd be sick to my stomach for two days. And to this day, God is witness. I have the most intense aversion to anything that borders on confrontation. And it is only the word of God impregnating my spirit that gives me any grace to speak boldly and plainly the truth of God.

62:32 And it's that pressure that brings me to this fourth and final cistern that is the evidence of our tragic national sin of religious apostasy. And it is this. We have turned from the living water, the living fountain of a vibrant, and I say it in the truest biblical sense, Pentecostal, spirit-infused, living evangelicalism, in doctrine and in practice. We have turned from that which was our national heritage under the ministry of Whitfield and the tenants and Blair and a host of lesser lights.

63:14 We have turned from the living fountain of days of mighty visitations of the Holy Ghost of the 1800s in the earlier period. And you know what we've turned to? We've turned to the broken cistern of a weak, man-centered, flesh-pleasing, fad-conforming, self-flattering evangelicalism. And I don't say those words to appear clever.

63:47 I've chosen them carefully and with a broken heart. We've turned to the broken cistern of a weak, man-centered, flesh-pleasing, fad-conforming, self-evangelicalism. An evangelicalism marked by a professed adherence to an infallible Bible, a supernatural Savior, man as a sinner in need of supernatural grace. But the message that is preached and the climate in which it is preached negates the profession that is adhered to. Think of the message that is popular throughout evangelicalism in our day. A message that lacks the cutting edge of a clear denunciation of the prevailing sins of the evangelical community. Who are the popular preachers in our day?

64:55 The preachers of health, wealth and prosperity gospel. The president of Fuller Seminary writes a commendable blur on the heretic which he sent to me and to every preacher whose name he could get. Dr. Schuller's reformation is simply this.

65:20 We need to reinterpret the entire Christian message. The cross is no longer the revelation of the righteous character of God and of his holy anger against sin. No longer is it his declaration that he so abhors the sinner in his state of pollution and impenitent and yet so loves him with a redemptive love that he will rescue him by means of the vicarious bloodletting of the Son of God. Oh no!

65:51 You know what the message of the cross is? It's the message of unconditional love. God so loves you my friend no matter what you are and where you are. If you'll only believe he loves you as much as he does you'll begin to love yourself and loving yourself you will become a new creature.

66:09 That's regeneration. And the way you learn that great truth is look at the cross. In spite of all you think about yourself God has such a high estimation of you. Jesus died.

66:22 Look at the cross. Not as the place where God reveals his righteousness his holiness his justice his burning hatred to sin that would sooner bear the agony of the cry of dereliction from his own sin than let one sinner get pardoned that cry of dereliction. I say that filthy rotting of bone eaters is our national sin. The charismatic movement by and large and this is not a blanket condemnation of all charismatics but by and large it is nothing but thumb sucking religious self gratification preached baptism of the Holy Ghost get your tingles get your thrills get your baptism know the joy of in your closet and banging in public what in God's name does that have to do with poverty of spirit mourning for sin hugging for righteousness sake. Our national sin is the sin of the broken cistern

67:51 of this decadent evangelicalism that lacks the cutting edge of a clear denunciation of our national sins of our evangelical sins that is a stranger to holy mourning to holy poverty of spirit and I'm not in any way contradicting what my dear brother said this morning if we had a nickel for all the times we've laughed until our bellies hurt both of us would be wealthy but the scripture says there is a time to laugh and there is a time to weep but this evangelicalism has no place for weeping in fact it lives in morbid dread lest it should give the slightest impression to the world that Christianity is anything other than happy happy happy all the time time time you live you sleep you wake with a thirty two tooth grin on from morning till night and this foolish evangelicalism lives in MORBID DREAD that anybody should find us sober it's message lacks a clarion call to deep and thorough repentance everything is slick you admit this admit that admit that do this buster you're in no waiting for any evidence that God has plowed a man's heart given him

69:20 a sight of his own sin that sickens him enough to vomit it out for that's what repentance is it is the vomit of the sin in which the sin that I took in and I tasted every morsel with relish and I held it in my mouth as it passed over the taste buds of the soul repentance is that work of God in which I now REPS and I spew out with disgust that which I took in with delight but current evangelicalism knows nothing of a message that calls to that deep and thorough repentance thirdly in its message it lacks a call to radical to radical discipleship it doesn't call to cross-bearing and self-denial and buffeting the body and plucking out right eyes and cutting off right hands it calls to a life of simply trust Jesus in all his will read the ads in the Christian magazines see the fat portly man bringing on an early cardiac arrest standing by his cutlass with his golf clubs and he says I never thought I could be a successful Christian

70:45 businessman magazine imperialism no critical discipleship with self-denial with agonizing to enter cutting off right hands plucking out right eyes and that's why this is the evangelicalism that takes the half-converted football player and the moment in the direction of Jesus rushes him up to the platform and thinks that the glory of Christ needs his broad shoulders and his bulging neck and so he's held before people as the great model of what the grace of God can do and goes out the next day and encourages 40 million people to profane the sanctity of the Lord's day and then he's quoted Monday morning to go to service looted mouths and lives that refuse to conform to the holy law of God you feel uncomfortable with that show me from the word

72:13 of God where it's wrong and those came to John the Baptist and said what must we do to bring forth fruits for repentance what did he tell them a bunch of general innocuous things no sir he said you soldiers you know what your key sins are grumbling about your wages the advantage of your uniform now stop it be content with your wages the publicans don't take any more than belongs to you he went after their sins some broad shouldered all America comes into this building tonight and says to me preacher I've begun to study my Bible and I see I'm a sinner and I'm lost and I'm on my way to hell what do I do I point him to Christ point him to the way of a savior guide for sinners and then point him to the path of repentance and when he says but man what will that mean for me I'll tell him what it means it means it stops you stop your whoring around and all the silly women that go after you like animals in heat you're done with them and the first one that makes an approach to you you say to her look girl I'm done with that my body's a temple of the Holy Ghost and then I tell him look man the time you were in the Pop Warner League you were made a little God because of the size of your thighs and your neck and your shoulders and your ability

73:43 to butt a body across a line and you've made that your God man your God's gonna die and die here and if you're asking me if you can go out and worship that God on the day set apart by the living God for his public worship no repent of your profaning of the Lord brought back did you dig ditches till you can do something more noble I dug ditches to pay my tuition to get some tools to go to the ministry you can dig them we have a young man in our church a graduate of Juilliard School of Music the most prestigious music school on the east coast many would say one of the most prestigious in the world master's degree in sacred organ music when he was all done the only churches that would hire him were the churches that would hire him and he was one of the most prestigious were Roman Catholic or liberal churches they're the only ones who can afford to pay the salary that a man deserves who has a master's degree in sacred organ music you know what he did for over a year to put bread on the table he drove a taxi in New York City he drove a taxi in New York City

The Climate of Decadent Evangelicalism and Call to Repentance

75:08 he didn't rationalize God's giving me this marvelous talent and I'm sick and tired of athletes saying well I've got this ability to bury the offensive tackle I've got this ability to bury the halfback so somebody else may have ability to blow people's brains out at three miles a beautiful marksman how does he sanctify that for Jesus this woolly headed thinking there's very little place for cynicism and sarcasm but there is a place and I believe it's right here oh the apostasy of an evangelicalism that is afraid to call people to a life of radical discipleship and not only is it seen in the message but I close and this is my final word in the climate of the church life itself according to the scriptures in wood that I had time to develop this through the early chapters of Acts that which characterized the church in the flush of that outpouring of the spirit was the presence of God fear came upon all they were filled with the Holy Ghost they were all of one accord no man dared join himself to them but the Lord added such as should

76:36 be saved and they were walking in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost and the disciples were multiplied those are some of the descriptive phrases of the church in its period of great blessing and what is our decadent evangelicalism is that evangelicalism marked by now they have the mentality that when sinners come in we ought to make them feel at ease and comfortable so the Minister stands up and says it's lovely to have all you lovely people here your lovely we're lovely everybody turn around shake hands have a little chit-chat we don't want you to be uptight and think religion is something serious and sober we're a lovely bunch of people entertainment. Have a few solos, few duets, and few quartets. And I'm not saying that all special music is entertainment. Don't anyone go out and say that I said it. I didn't. I didn't. Don't say

77:38 that I did or you're breaking the ninth commandment. I'm serious because usually the only ones who would go out and say it are those for whom it is entertainment and I've touched a raw nerve and you don't like it. But the great majority of the so-called special music in evangelical churches is nothing but entertainment. You know the proof of it? Look at the Christian recording business. It's a multi-million, even billion dollar business. When the unbeliever comes amongst you, what should strike him? First Corinthians 14, 25. The thoughts of his heart

78:35 are laid bare and he falling down upon his face will cry out, God is of a truth. What should be the truth? What should be the truth? What should be the truth? What should be the truth? What should be the dominant characteristic of our public gatherings? Whether the expression is the exuberance of holy joy, whether it is the more sober spirit of holy mourning, whether it is the intense spirit of rapt attention to the word of God in the full range of holy emotions and the Bible recognizes the full range. Above all, what should grip us? It's not just a bunch of people in the same place

79:23 singing the same songs, hearing the same preacher. There is a presence that enters the average evangelical church. So long as the bills are paid and the people are happy and the program is up to snuff, all is well. My dear people, how long will God bear with this? That's what happened in Israel, didn't it? Read the first chapter of Isaiah. Read the 58th chapter of Isaiah. They were keeping all their meetings and even had more of the dudes of sacrifice until God says, what unto me is the mouth of all evangelicals?

80:33 I'm tired of you. Clean, put away the evil of your doings from before your eyes. Learn to do good, cease to do evil. And I believe if there is a word of God to the apostate evangelical world in our day, it is that.

80:56 Away with all of our ceremonies and meetings and all of our committee meetings and all of the slick promotionalism and back to the place where we're on our faces saying, oh God, come to your temple. You know the first thing he'll do if he comes? He'll come and he'll purge the sons of Levi that they may offer a sacrifice in righteousness. He'll come like he came to that temple. He'll come like he came to that temple in Jerusalem when with eyes like fire, he brought those strands together into a scourge. And the son of God, I say it reverently, into a...

81:42 And you read those verbs in the original and they are vigorous and almost frightening. He was like a madman. It says he threw over the changers' tables. He drove them...

81:55 Imagine a huge ox turning around and seeing this man coming. He was like a madman. He was like a madman. He was like a madman. He was like a madman. He was like a madman. He was like a madman. He was like a madman.

82:01 Come in with burning eye and a scourge and the poor ox's eyes get big as saucers out the temple doors. My father's house shall be what? A house of prayer, intimate, vital, soul, communion with God. You've made it everything else. And sad to say, one can get almost anything he wants in the average evangelical church but the sense of the presence of God. It's not a pleasant picture, is it, dear people? But I say this is our great second national sin. What do we do? We cry to God. What do we do? We start in our own hearts.

Final Exhortation and Prayer for Revival

82:56 You leaders here, you start with your own fellow overseers. We start with searching and trying our ways. We cry to God. We pray that God may yet send Jonas to the Ninevehs of our land.

83:17 And I use that incident purposely. Non-covenanted nation. And someone came out of the covenant nation. The parallel in our day would be out of the church who addressed the pagan city and from the king down to the animals.

83:37 They put on sackcloth and ashes and they had a national repentance and a national restoration to righteousness. It doesn't mean every individual was saved, but many were because Jesus said they're going to rise up on the day of judgment and condemn the people of his own generation. Many were saved. And many others had their sins checked. And for three generations the judgment pronounced upon Nineveh was withheld as a fruit of that revival.

84:09 I commend the book of Jonah for your prayerful study as part of the answer of what we ought to pray that God will do in this dark and needy hour. Thank you for your attentiveness. I've preached far longer than I had hoped to. But I'm sure you'll plan to.

84:27 But in a sense, it's your fault that you drew it out of me. May God grant that your heart will unfold the word. And that fruit will be borne to God's glory. Let us pray.

84:40 Our Father, we are all the eye which runs to and fro throughout the whole earth, not looking for the clever, not looking for the gifted, not looking for the influential and for the great ones. but you have said that your eye runs to and fro throughout the whole earth to show yourself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect towards you. Father, O Holy Father, if you are the God who delights to take the weak things to confound the mighty, the things which are not to take and to put to naught the things that are, if you are the God who delights to take the despised, O Lord, we give ourselves to you tonight. Look upon this company of nobodies. Look upon us with all of our weakness and our non-entitiness. Look upon us, O Lord, and find in us by your grace hearts that are perfect towards you, hearts that burn with jealousy,

86:08 hearts that cannot be content to see the putrid moral degeneracy and the horrible religious apostasy and simply pass on as though it didn't exist. O God, break our hearts. Give us believing hearts. Give us travailing hearts.

86:32 And may it please you yet in wrath to remember mercy. O Lord, we are before you. Look upon us in grace and pity for the sake of your well-beloved Son. Remember his groans.

86:52 Remember his cry. Remember your promise that he would see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. Lord, remember all of your covenant engagements to him. And for his dear name's sake, arise, O God, and visit us.

87:10 Give us in mercy.

87:13 Amen.