The Lordship of Christ, Part 4

The Necessity of Conscious Reliance on the Holy Spirit

0:04 He said that without me, ye can do nothing.

0:12 I'm sure that this is one of the texts of Scripture that is the most difficult to learn experimentally.

0:20 We're born with a hard, fibrous core of self-confidence, and even a deep, thorough work of grace doesn't completely dissolve that core of self-confidence.

0:35 Perhaps the most subtle area of its intrusion into our lives, even as Christians, is in the handling of God's truth.

0:44 It's so difficult for us to really believe that we need the present, vital ministry of the Holy Spirit every time we open this book, just as much as the writers needed it when they penned these words. And yet, if our Lord has taught us anything, He's taught us that.

1:05 And I trust in these days of our meetings together, that God may teach us this, as we pause for just a moment before each study, exposition of the Scriptures, that God will teach us what it is to cultivate a conscious reliance upon the Holy Spirit. One of God's servants has said in a choice little book, a statement which has gripped me in past days, at any point that we are not consciously relying upon the Holy Spirit, we will invariably be found relying upon ourselves. At any point that we are not consciously relying upon the Holy Spirit, we will be found invariably to be relying upon ourselves. Now, if that's true, how many times have we dared to open this book without a conscious cry of our heart, O God, teach me by your Spirit. Give me the mind of a little child. How many times have we failed to consciously, rely upon it?

2:17 Maybe this is why there are so many sermons preached and heard,

2:23 and so little fruit born.

2:27 May God deliver us from this. May He deliver me from it, and us together. To that end, let's just pause for a moment to ask Him to be our teacher, as we open His Word together. Lord, we hear Your Word again.

2:49 Without me, He can do nothing. And we, confess to You that so often we don't believe Your Word.

3:03 And we thank You for the privilege of once again pausing in this moment of conscious recognition of our utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Come, O breath of God, and capture every mind, instruct every heart, lay hold of every will. Meet us, O God, meet us tonight. And grant that Your Word may come with freshness, with authority, with power, and that our Lord Jesus may be magnified by the ministry of the Spirit here in our midst.

3:40 And for this we shall praise You. Amen. Will you turn tonight to the book of the Revelation, Revelation chapter 2, and then we will be making some reference to the passage read by the pastor earlier in the service. The phrase, that I trust is God's Word to our hearts tonight, is found in the first verse of chapter 2 of the book of the Revelation.

The Speaker: The Discerning Christ of Revelation

4:23 The Lord Jesus is speaking, giving instructions unto His servant John, concerning some letters that He wants sent to these seven churches in Asia Minor. And now the directive comes unto John in these words, unto the angel or the messenger of the church of God, I'm sorry, chapter 3, verse 1, unto the angel of the church in Sardis write, I said chapter 2, I meant chapter 3, These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars, I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead. Thou hast a name, but we are going to consider what the Lord Jesus said, to the church in Sardis, and its application to us tonight. But before we consider what He spoke, let's briefly focus our attention upon who does the speaking. For this is what our Lord does in each of these seven letters.

5:43 He prefaces them, or introduces them, by a throwback to the vision of chapter 1. He identifies each, or introduces each letter, by identifying Himself, as the Christ, the only Christ, the one revealed in that glorious vision which the pastor read to us, of Himself standing in the midst of the seven lampstands. Now I believe this is significant. The Lord does not in any of these letters move right in to the burden of His heart for each church, but He first of all says to each church, Reconsider who I have spoken to, by recognition of the magnitude of the person of Christ, will never speak to us with a powerful voice, but just a whisper from the Jesus whom John saw, should be enough to bring us to our patience.

7:05 John was found on His face. And I believe in the light of this principle that we would not be doing justice to our Lord's pattern of revealing His mind to the churches, did we not first of all consider who speaks to the church and then we will move in to what He speaks to that same church. And so we find in the first few phrases of chapter 3 and verse 1, These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, a reference to chapter 1 and verse 16, he had in his right hand seven stars. He saith, whom John, if you are to rightly understand and respond to my voice, the seminate Jesus of the religious artists,

8:13 is not the Jesus seen John in the Isle of Pat, the testimony was when I saw him, all that is, there is one thing that I, and one only, for these six days of meeting, for me, there are many things that I believe I would like to ask, but I am convinced there is one thing that if God would grant it, it would include all other petitions. It would be this,

9:37 all Christian Christians and in worship, the sinner finds forgiveness broken at the feet of the sovereign Savior. That's where the praise is renewed and revived, at the feet of a sovereign glorified Christ. If God would give us that, I believe we'd have all that. How did John see him briefly, and only briefly, I've already spent five Sunday nights preaching on verses 12 and 13 in our own church fellowship back in Caldwell, and I'm not going to try to do that tonight. Threefold I will be buried ...which penetrates and when John

10:56 saw his eyes, heart and life was naked and open before his eye, but this is the meaning of that symbolism it's quite clear from chapter two and verse twenty-three. For the Lord Jesus of his fellowship, we are risen Lord, as the one whose eyes are a flame of fire. Not what others think me to be, but what I am. Before that penetrating gaze, the eyes are a flame of fire,

12:04 and in introducing the message that we want to consider today, tonight, our Lord says these messages are of my birth, and in every dark corner of the hearts of my people. Him as a discerning prophet, as a commanding king. People, not his kingdom.

12:54 Political ditties, not to have our ears our favorite doctrines, but to come with earnest desire. Then John saw the one close to the foot, symbol of that priestly robe and priestly ministry of our Lord. In the midst of his church, discerning would be God standing in the midst of his people as a suckering priest, promising that wherever men are willing to face up to what his eye discovers, and bow as the suckering priest, for he says, as many

14:05 as I love, I rebuke, and I chasten, I count thee to buy of me, as the same discerning suckering priest would speak to us. And I trust that what he said to the church at Sardis may come with fresh parts. What was his message? No, did he speak? That thou, that thou livest.

The Problem: Reputation Exceeding Experience (Sardis and Today)

15:00 What was the plan? The problem of the church at Sardis. Basically, it was this. The reputation of the people at Sardis exceeded their experience. Their experience of grace was here. Thou hast a name. This is what you are before the eye of outward appearance. This is where you as a flame of fire. The problem of the church at Sardis was a problem of reputation in spiritual attainment.

15:56 And if our Lord. I would say that to the church these relatively few years after that mighty afflatus of God on the day of Pentecost, and that marvelous penetration of the gospel into every major population center of the Roman Empire, if this condition prevailed then, in the midst of persecution, in the midst of difficulty, if it was possible then for a body of people to be characterized with reputation for experience with Sardis, I would say that to the church. How much more acute must this problem be in our society, in our generation, in a situation where there has been no major persecution for 300 years, where our very society has drawn from some of the benefits of biblical concepts and standards. If our Lord stood in the midst of the church at Sardis, with his eyes as a flame of fire, and his eyes as a flame of fire. of fire discerned this condition and spoke of it with such clarity, then I believe he

17:23 would say similar words to great segments of his people today. In the application of this principle, I would like tonight to apply it in a two-fold way. In its context, if you read the rest of this section here of the message to the church at Sardis, it is primarily and essentially a word to at least professing Christians, and there are many indications that this is a word to true believers, but I want first of all to apply the principle to those who are professors only and to those, then, who are true possessors of grace.

Application to Professors Only: Dead in Trespasses and Sins

18:06 Could it be that the Lord would say to some of you tonight, you have a name that you're alive. You bear the name Christian. You have the reputation before your own eyes and the eyes of your associates that you are a Christian, one who is alive in Christ, but in reality, you are yet dead in trespasses and sins. Now, according to the type of background that we've come out of and been associated with, different things must be done in order to attain the reputation of being alive and having spiritual life.

18:45 Some of you may come out of that terribly bland background of religious liberalism, where all you have is morality garnished with a little bit of Jesus, the Bible ethic, and all you need do to gain the name of Christian is to be reasonably moral and kind and polite and nice, at least when people see you, and go to church occasionally and profess the name of Christ, and perhaps at a public gathering. You make some answers to some questions and be involved in the membership of the church, and you will gain the name Christian.

19:26 I'm confident a group this size, or some of you who fit that category, but of the knowledge of Jesus Christ as a crucified Lord, of a Christianity that is rooted in the biblical concepts of the necessity of forgiveness of sin by the blood of the cross, you know absolutely nothing. You have a name that you're alive. And you've attained that name because you have met the standards of morality and, quote, Christian ethics that is common to your background.

20:01 But of having a testimony like Paul, you know nothing, for he could say, God forbid, that I should glory, say, to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

20:12 You cannot say with Paul the things that were going to me, my good breeding, my background, my religious deal, my external morality. All these things. I count them as joy that I may win Christ and be found in him.

20:30 My dear friend, it doesn't take much to have the name Christian in many Christian societies today, but mark my word tonight, if your attainment of the name Christian has been joined by bypassing a talking revelation of the corruption of your heart, the crushing in the face of the guilt of your soul. The humbling recognition that your sins took the Lord of glory to death.

21:10 If your attainment of the name Christian has bypassed the revelation of the corruption of your heart, the guilt of your sins, the necessity of forgiveness through the blood of the cross, you merely have a name that you're alive. But you are dead in your trespasses and in your sins. For the scripture declares that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. The scripture says the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin.

21:54 And only that blood can cleanse. But a greater majority of you have come out of the background where, to gain the name Christian, there is a little more Bible content. You've been told that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. You've been told that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

22:09 You've been told that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. You've been told that to be a Christian, you've got to admit you're a sinner. You've got to believe that Christ died for sinners. You must trust only in the forgiveness that he provided by his blood, and in the light of those facts, you must decide that you will take to yourself the benefits of that cross.

22:31 And then to prove that you really meant it, you must begin to read the Bible. You must pray and witness, and what's the other one that you see under? there. You've got to pray, witness, read the Bible, and go to church. That is a living church. And if you do those things, admit you're a sinner, say you believe Christ died for sinners, and that you'd like to consider the benefits of that death yours, and live a reasonably moral life, and come to church at least once, and if you really want to prove to people you've got the real thing, come twice on Sunday. And give to the work of God and subscribe to the doctrines, and dogmas, and decrees, and the taboos, and regulations of that church. In 99 churches out of 100 that profess to be Bible-believing churches, if you pass as a Christian, you'd have a name that you're alive, and you'd probably

23:28 have a place on the board of deacons, and a place teaching a class. You'd even be asked to give your testimony somewhere if you had a real spectacularly gory past. But if I've mentioned nothing, I'm just transforming power. I've said nothing of the power of the Holy Ghost making a man a new creature. I've said nothing of heart repentance. I've said nothing of submission to Christ as Lord. And listen to me tonight, dear friends. You may admit you're a sinner. Confess that there's no hope for mercy but through the blood of the cross. You may say that you've appropriated to yourself the benefits of that cross. Be living a reasonably moral life according to the standards of the evangelical church you go to. If your experience has bypassed deep heart repentance, on its submission to Christ as Lord, and the supernatural renewing of your heart and life by the Holy Ghost, you merely have a name that you're alive, but you're dead.

The Marks of True Conversion: Repentance, Lordship, and Renewal

24:54 My Bible says, accept, ye repent, and you shall be saved. My Bible says, accept, ye repent, and you shall be saved. My Bible says, accept, ye repent, and you shall be saved. My Bible says, accept, ye repent, and ye shall be saved.

25:00 He shall all likewise perish. My Bible says that the Apostle Paul preached not just faith in Christ, but in Acts 20.21 he said, I testified to Jews and Greeks, repent in the name of God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. My Bible says that God commands all men everywhere to repent.

25:27 The word of God says that it's the word in heaven over one's hair not that makes the disciples to repent but that it is the word of God. The word of God says that it's the word in heaven over one's hair not that makes the disciples to repent but that it is the word of God. Not that makes a decision, but that represents it. Do you know anything of standing as the prodigal stood?

25:44 When in his return to his father, the scripture is very implicit to state that the father saw him. And the father ran to him, threw his arms about his neck.

25:58 And what did the son say?

26:00 I'll tell you what he didn't say. He didn't say, Dad, you know, I got to thinking. I was out there in those hog pens, and I thought of the family name, and I got kind of ashamed of myself. And I looked down at my raggy clothes, and I realized I'm in no shape to ever get a wife this way.

26:16 And, Dad, I thought of all the psychological troubles I had, the furies and the anxieties. And, Dad, I was just a general fuck, and I thought I'd come home, and I thought I'd have the whole massister pick me up again. No, no. What did he say?

26:30 He said, Father, I have sinned against heaven.

26:39 And he didn't say a thing about what he sinned against him. He didn't come home. He didn't come to his dad just as sort of a general flop, hoping that his dad would be sort of a general psychologist to get him well-oriented and well-adjusted to life again. No, he came as a son who realized his spirit was basically cruel offense against the court of heaven.

27:02 He said, I've sinned against heaven.

27:07 He didn't come and say, Dad, I hear you love me, and I just thought I'd come home and sort of cash in on the benefits of your love. He said, I'm not worthy to be even your son.

27:20 That's repentance.

27:23 Illustrated. Not theologically defined, but tactically illustrated. The recognition that my sin is criminal offense against the court of heaven. That my sin deserves the wrath and the displeasure of God.

27:41 And pardon for that sin. And a willingness to turn from it. He didn't send a telegram to his dad while he was still in the hog pens and ask his dad to come and meet him there. He knew there was mercy at the father's door.

27:57 But there wasn't an ounce of mercy in the hog pens.

28:05 No mercy in the brothels.

28:08 No mercy out in the honky-tonks.

28:12 Mercy was back home where the father was.

28:16 Oh, what mercy was there. What grace it would have taken that one who by his own stubbornness and rebellion passed off the restraints that his father's household and went out and drank iniquity like water. Oh, dear. What grace.

28:32 It met that young man and embraced. But the mercy embraced him in the path of returning to the father's government. He said, I'll be with one of your hired servants. And what does the 30 do?

28:46 He comes in the morning and looks up to the master and says, what are my orders for the day? And the son who didn't want the rule of that father and left the house to get from underneath that rule now comes back with a change of mind to the father's rule and says, I'll make you a rule. The rule of my life. I'll be your hired servant.

29:05 That's repentance. That's repentance. Do you know anything about that? You've got the name you're a Christian, but do you know anything about that?

29:16 If you've attained the name Christian and have bypassed a genuine work of repentance unto life, you merely have a name that you're alive, but you're dead. If you bypassed honest submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you've not merely, not just the benefits of the cross, but you've committed to the implications of His crown as a Christian. For the same Holy Spirit that opens our eyes to see that mercy alone is found in the blood of the cross also opens our eyes to see that that mercy is dispensed from a throne and upon that throne sits the Lord of glory. And it's when men believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that they are saved. You have the name you're a Christian, young person, friend, visitor. You got that name by admitting you were a sinner and saying you believed Christ died.

30:25 But I ask you tonight, have you ever honestly, squarely faced the implications of the crown of Jesus Christ? He faced men and said, my crown is a crown of absolute authority. Any man come to me, let him say no to himself, take the crown off his own brow, take it as a cross, and follow me. Do you know anything of submission to that crown?

30:59 If your name, Christian, has been attained, bypassing the supernatural, renewing work of God the Holy Spirit, you merely have a name to rely. For just as much as we sinners need the cleansing of the blood of the cross in order to remove the legal barriers for our entrance to heaven and fellowship with God, we need the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives to remove the law that acts as a barrier to heaven and to fellowship with God. For by nature our hearts are full of the love of darkness, and there is no principle which loves light.

31:42 And God is a God of light, and he'll only fellowship with those in the realm of light. So not only do I need that my sins be blotted out by the blood of his cross, but that my heart be renewed by the power of his Spirit. And so the scripture that declares, When a man flees unto God by Christ, he gets a new record in heaven, and his sins are blotted out, also declares, If any man be in Christ, he himself is a new creature. Not only the changed record, but the changed heart and life.

32:15 No man is ever saved, apart from the direct, supernatural, internal operations of the Holy Ghost, any more than men are saved apart from the direct application of the blood of the cross. We have erred in our day, and pointing sinners simply to an aspirant to the blood of the cross, and not pointing them to cry to the living God for the reason of the Holy Ghost to change the heart and life. Have you been made a new creature? New desires?

32:55 Not just refined and redirected desires. Adam patched up, educated, redirected. Do you know what it is to have new desires? A life centered in desire after God, and holiness, and truth, and purity.

Application to True Believers: Losing Spiritual Vitality

33:17 If you've attained the name Christian, and have bypassed a deep work of repentance, honest submission to the authority of Christ, and experience of the renewal of the Spirit of Christ, you merely have a name that you're alive, and your Christian experience may pass down here. But, beloved, God will strip it from you in the day of judgment. Thou hast a name, but thou art. May we look for a few minutes now at this text and its application to us? Who can testify? Yes, by the grace of God. The Spirit has brought me by way of a discovery of my sin, a discovery of the cross, experience of the cleansing of its blood, and the renewal of His Spirit.

34:21 Would God say something to us tonight through this text? I know thy works. Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. You have attained the reputation of being a Christian, of being a very zealous, You have attained the reputation of being a Christian, of being a very zealous, You have attained the reputation of being a Christian, of being a very zealous, devoted servant of God, child of God, and in many cases that reputation was rightly owned.

34:51 You weren't seeking reputation. You were seeking God. No matter what pressures were on you, there was time to pray. You had a wholesome distrust of the propensities of your own heart, and so that drove you to the closet to pray.

35:07 Lead me not into temptation. Lord, my heart is a veritable tinderbox of iniquity. You set the sparks all upon it, and so dearly you were watchful. You prayed, Lord, lead me not into temptation.

35:22 You made time to pray because you had a wholesome distrust of the potential of your own wicked heart. You made time to pour over the Scriptures because in the newness of your espousal to Christ, faith in hearing His voice made your heart leap like the voice of a young maiden, or like the heart of a maiden at the voice of her lover.

35:51 And with no thought whatsoever of impressing people that you were spiritual, all you wanted to do was walk humbly with your God. Seek His face, be sensitive to sin, and you were. Oh, how sensitive you were.

36:06 Just that lustful glance that your heart was twisted, and you cried out, Oh God, cleanse me. Just that hasty word to the wife or to the children, and your heart was twisted. I've acted in a way that's unbecoming to my Savior. And you confessed it to the Lord.

36:23 Because there was that sensitivity, there was a natural, spontaneous outflow of witness. You got with a group of Christians, and being completely unaware of it, like Moses who whistled after his face was gone, as you spoke, there was a freshness, there was a room of authority. And it wasn't long before people who wanted to know God somehow felt that if they got around you, they'd know Him a little better.

36:51 And you've got a name that you rely. And you've got that name in a legitimate way.

37:02 Something's happened since then.

37:05 You've kept your name.

37:10 But to discerning people, the ring of authority is gone when you open your mouth.

37:18 All the great majority of people who are undiscerning, and there are always only a few in any given group who have some oil upon their foreheads that makes them discerning.

37:32 There's a crack in the bell. There's a crack. It doesn't ring clearly. Or you say the same words.

37:41 And you can say it with a lot greater facility now. You've even typed your testimony in theological jargon. And you're playing with theological jargon. It's fake.

37:59 The Holy Ghost of the Heart. What's happened? What's happened? You've kept your reputation.

38:11 But you've lost the vitality of your experience of grace. Thou hast the name. But thou art. Where did you lose it?

Causes of Lost Vitality: Neglecting the Secret Place

38:27 Sometimes it's lost. And sometimes it's lost. I am simply filling the demands that came when we got that name. For when an American to please God and walk with his God, not seeking to be spiritual, not seeking to be a blessing but just seeking to walk humbly with his God and glorify his Christ and show spontaneously what is made real to start by the Spirit.

38:52 People begin to gravitate that man, that woman. Demands are made upon that person. And it's at this point that we see the subtlety of the enemy of our souls. who sees to it that we get so involved in answering the demands of a legitimate reputation for life that we begin to throw to us today first of that life the secret place with God.

39:16 And so the times alone have been getting shorter and shorter and shorter. And when time alone with God gets shorter and shorter, the sensitivity to the potential of our own wickedness gets less and less, less and less. So that things that made you blush and weep a year ago, you can carry around in your heart and life without a blink of the eye.

40:06 You were praised when you had a name.

40:14 To have a day or two when God didn't stir his face in the word was agony.

40:21 Men putting aside food.

40:26 You were like the one in the song Solomon. Who? Went out into the night and she said, Oh, tell me, tell me, have you seen my beloved? I must find him.

40:36 I must find him.

40:39 That's no longer true now. This past week there were two, three, four days you didn't meet with God in the secret place. And the tragedy is you came to the Lord's day to be without even feeling the pain of that estrangement from your Lord.

41:06 I'll have to name, but where are you in experience?

41:12 I'm not deifying the divine. Most of the life, some people make a sacred cow of this.

41:17 But I think I know enough of the principles of the Bible to know that the man or woman who doesn't frequent the throne of grace is by his absentee himself from the throne of grace loudly declaring, I can't do something without him. The greatest proof of pride and self-confidence is prayerlessness.

41:41 You got that?

41:45 Because we read the Puritans and read the Holy Mass, men like Brainerd and Henry Martin who confessed their weakness and sinfulness, we can now get a phraseology that the real truth is to believe you're weak is that you go to the throne of grace where a mighty God praisons weak sinners. Isn't that what the book says? Let us come to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in times of need. He gives the Holy Spirit.

42:19 He only goes to those who ask as well as to those who obey. He has not because he has not.

Causes of Lost Vitality: Sparing Secret Sin

42:33 How is it with you deacons, church leaders, Sunday school teachers?

42:38 You've got a name.

42:43 What about your experience? Remember, you're not looking into my eyes.

42:48 You're meeting the eyes of him who searches the hearts and the reins. His eyes is a flame of fire. Go where wifey cannot go. Go where husband cannot go.

43:02 Dad, what does he know about the vitality and warmth and reality of your closet life?

43:11 Oh, may God grant that those of us, and I'm not using the us for rhetorical effect, may God grant that those of us who've got some reputation may in these days say, Oh God, I don't care about my reputation. I want a fresh reality. That when I get on my knees, I know, I know that I'm touching the living God. So when we've neglected the secret place that contributes to that terrible condition, another factor that contributes to it is the sparing, the sparing of some secret lust or sin.

43:52 Thou has the name that thou livest, and that reputation for spiritual vitality that you've attained, was attained. Legitimately, you weren't looking for it, you weren't seeking it. But because you walked with a conscience void of offense to God and man, Acts 24, 16, or 26, 14, because you walked with a conscience void of offense to God and man, you could look up at any moment of the day, unblushing into his face, could look out into the face of your fellow man, unembarrassed. The Holy Spirit works and operates and moves in the realm of judged sin.

44:37 Let me repeat that. The Holy Spirit is free to operate and move in the realm of judged sin. And as you were walking in that sensitive relationship where sin was scorched, the thought, the mode of the act, and the reaction, the sensitivity, the conscience was kept void of offense toward God, void of offense toward man. When you popped off to husband or wife, you not only brought it to the Lord in the closet, but you brought it to your beloved.

45:08 wherever he was or she was. When you discipline your children in anger, you not only told the Lord about it, but you sat them down with tears and told them about it. And when you became irritable with that work associate, you not only said, Oh God forgive, but you went to him, even though you may be his employer and he the employee. That's how you got your reputation for being alive, is that the Holy Spirit operated through that kind of a life.

45:42 That was a life in which there was judged sin. Now what's happened? That keen sensitivity was lost because of the cutting corners on the secret place with God, so that the level of tolerance has increased. And whereas just a little prickle of concrete would drive you to your knees or to cry out to God, now it's almost got to be a favor to penetrate the calloused areas of the heart.

46:20 Beloved, I didn't read this in a book. I've read it in the book of my own heart. For what is a callous? The gracious defense against an irritation.

46:38 Keep doing that, callous will build up. A calloused heart is a heart that builds up a defense mechanism against the prickles of the spirit. I'll have to name, Christian, that thou art a lie, that your reputation is not that. There are areas of unjudged sin that even as I've been speaking, the Holy Spirit has brought them into focus.

47:13 And you try to throw it out of your mind, you try to dismiss it, you try to just cast it off, as, well, it's just a hypersensitive conscience, as just a... No, that's God speaking by His own Spirit through His Word.

The Double Standard and the Call to Honesty

47:29 The alonesty revival, the breaking forth of the Spirit of God and the conviction of sinners. And I'd remind you that the first step to such a visitation of God from the human side, not discounting the elements of divine sovereignty and the prerogatives of God, to visit world-wide schools is not the principles that emerge from the Scripture and the history of the Church. From the human side, when can a people expect revival? When can we expect that Grace Baptist at these roles will be witness to the broken-hearted sobs of penitent sinners?

48:10 I'll tell you when. When the walls of your closet are first witness to the broken-hearted sobs of children of God who said, Oh, God, you found me out! And I'm desperate to leave no stone unturned until once again the channels of the Spirit's ministry and operation in my life are opened and I'll have something more than reputation. What brings about this condition? Cutting the nerve of real life and the devotional life, which leads to the sparing of secret sin, which then leads to that terrible, terrible condition of having a double standard. The terrible condition, then, is beginning to have to play the part. For we'd rather lose an arm than lose faith and have people discover us to be what we know and God knows us to be.

49:32 And the minute you begin to play the part, then you cease to have fellowship. I can't fellowship with that projected, fake person that you are. I can only fellowship with the real you. And if the Bible teaches anything about real fellowship, it's an appointment of honesty.

49:51 Confess your faults one to another. Pray one for another. They were all of one accord. You can't have accord amongst sham people, but in the climate of spiritual honesty and openness.

50:14 Thou hast a name. Do you have anything more than that tonight? I ask myself the question. I told my dear people in Caldwell the other day that I pled with them to pray for their pastor.

50:30 For you see, every time we stand in this pulpit, we're supposed to stand here with something fresh from God. And if we don't have anything fresh, then if our hearts are blocked, then the secret place is moving, moving in the air of spiritual sensitivity. We've either got to stand up and tell our people we aren't what we ought to be and ask them to pray. Maybe hand back our check for the week and sit down.

50:58 Or we've got to fake and play the part. I said it's the most dangerous place and the easiest place to go to hell. And behind the pulpit. For the pressure of having to stand before people regardless of the condition of your heart can very easily ease a man into the role of a play actor.

51:27 And so can your Sunday school class. And so can your place as a teacher. And so can your place as a Christian father and a Christian mother. The only alternative to that that I know is to day by day meet the gaze of him whose eyes are the flame of fire and say, Oh, refining fire, purge me and dry me.

51:54 Know my heart. See if there be any wicked way in me to be in that place where we're never so important that we can be excused from seeking God. If you're so busy and important that there's no time to seek him, you're too busy. Thou hast a name.

Final Exhortation to the Dead and the Dying

52:24 Reputation in poor grace, exceeding experience of grace. For those here tonight who have the name Christian, you've come out of a background, out of a climate of religious training where to get the name Christian all you had to do was subscribe to the general tenor of biblical teaching, live a reasonably moral life, but you bypass the discovery of your own heart which God's good is deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. If you cannot tonight from the depths of your heart gladly acknowledge that your heart, your nature, is a veritable cesspool of iniquity, more than that fool, and that it was only the common grace of God that kept that corrupting from springing out and making you the foulest person who ever lived. If you don't sail from the depths of your heart, preacher, that's only one-third the truth about me. If you've got a name, you're alive. If you bypass that shocking revelation of your heart, you know nothing of the salvation of Christ, for he said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

53:42 Sinners. Sinners who feel themselves to be just what they are. For the man who soon said, I thank thee I'm not as other men, he didn't go to his house justified as the man who stood up way off and beat his breast and said, Oh God, be merciful, be propitiated to me. A sinner.

54:07 He didn't qualify it. He owned up that he was what God said he was. And if you're here tonight and you've bypassed that shocking revelation of your corruption, the awful realization of your guilt that you've broken the holy law of God a million ways, and the revelation that forgiveness is to be found only by the blood of the cross, if you've come to the name Christian and you've bypassed those three things, you may have a name that you're alive. If you're here tonight and you subscribe to those things, oh yes, I see my heart's corrupt and my record is bad and only Christ can save me.

54:44 But you've bypassed a deep work of repentance, hearty submission to the Lordship of Christ, and the supernatural renewal of the Holy Spirit. Listen, my friend, you've only got a name. You're alive, but you're dead. If you're here tonight as a Christian, reputation for being spiritual, and it was gained rightfully so, you didn't set out to deceive people, and that simple, fresh flush of your love for Christ is sensitivity to sin, which is very spontaneously soaring.

55:20 In the right sense, you earn the reputation for life, but the closet life has been choked out, and the sensitivity to sin has been smothered to a great degree. And there's the double standard, the facade, the mirror, the crown, the pretense. May the eye of Christ find you tonight, for wherever he exposed in any of those seven letters of the book of the Revelation, he never exposed in order to condemn. He exposed in order to warn, to exhort, and then to those who would heed, to succor. After the most scathing exposure in chapter 3, where he said to that church, I'm about to banish you out. What did he say? Do as well as therefore, and repent.

56:17 As many as I love, I refute in chastisement. And oh, if the eye of our Christ has found us tonight, let us not cower away from that eye. Let us expose ourselves and embrace all of its searching burning caves, and let it press us to that Christ for his grace, for his mercy, for his forgiveness, for his cleansing, for his renewal, for the fresh outpouring of the Spirit of God upon our hearts. If you're here as one of those first two classes, you've got the name, and you've bypassed the exposure of your sin, or you've bypassed repentance and submission to Christ as Lord, God has exposed you not to drive you away. He's exposed you that you might seek mercy. Bless his name that he brought you to here, this place, to expose you tonight, instead of letting you go until the day of judgment, and then expose you to your everlasting shame. Speak ye the Lord while he may be found, for the one whose eyes are as a flame of fire is the one who stands clothed with a garment, the high priestly robes, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him.

Prayer for Exposure, Repudiation of Pride, and Renewal

57:37 May you flee to Christ, seek mercy in the wombs of a crucified Lord, child of God, seek renewal from that same Lord. Let us pray. O thou Christ of God, Christ of the burning eyes as flames of fire, O, search us out tonight. Lord, we confess tonight we love our names more than we love even you at times.

58:19 We cling to the rags of our reputation when you long to clothe us with the garments of pure and vital experience. We hug the garbage of our own, stand in your presence, stand before men when you would give us the true riches of standing before yourself. We hear you counseling us to buy of you gold tried in the fire. Lord, we would buy tonight at the price of exposure of our hearts and repudiation of our pride.

58:58 We would apply ourselves for mercy and grace. O blessed Lord, meet us tonight. Send your Spirit. O thou glorified Christ, come, we pray by the Spirit, that this word that we looked at tonight will bear fruit unto life eternal.

59:21 Hear us, we pray, and we offer our petitions only through the merits of your blood. Amen.