Welcome to the Hackberry House of Chosun. My name is Bob, reading today from the sermons of George Whitfield. We're finishing up a message entitled, Christ, the Only Preservative Against a Reprobate Spirit. It's quite a title, but you'll see it's quite understandable if you know the Bible at all. We're in part two where he's telling us, secondly, who Christ is whose spirit you are to receive. We want to receive the spirit of Christ. Well, who is this Christ? My brethren, Jesus Christ is co-equal, co-essential, co-eternal, and consubstantial with the Father. Very God of very God. And as there was not a moment of time in which God the Father was not, so there was not a moment of time in which God the Son was not. Arians and Sassanians deny this Godhead of Christ and esteem Him only as a created being. The Arians look on Him as a titular deity, as a created and subordinate God. But if they would humbly search the scriptures, they would find divine homage paid to Christ. He is called God in scripture, particularly when the great evangelical prophet says, He shall be called the mighty God, the everlasting Father. and the government shall be upon his shoulders. And Jesus Christ himself says that he is the Alpha and Omega, and that the world was made by him. But though this be ever so plain, our carefree, airy sparks of this age will not believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be equal with his Father, and that for no other reason but because it is a fashionable and polite doctrine to deny his divinity. and esteem him only as a created God. Our Sassanians do not go so far. They look upon Christ only to be a good man sent from God, to show the people the way they should go on their forsaking of Judaism, that he was to be also an example to the world, and that his death was only to prove the truth of his doctrines. Many of those who call themselves members, yes, teachers of the Church of England have got into this polite scheme. Good God, my very soul shudders at the thoughts of the consequence that will attend such a belief. Oh, my brothers, do not think so dishonorably of the Lord who bought you, of the Jesus who died for you. He must be all in all unto your souls if ever you are saved by him. Christ must be your active as well as passive obedience. His righteousness must be imputed to you. The doctrine of Christ's righteousness being imputed is a comfortable, a desirable doctrine to all real Christians. And to you sinners who are inquiring what you must do to be saved, how uncomfortable would it be to tell you by your own good works when perhaps you have never done one good work in all your lives? This would be driving you to despair indeed. No. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Come to the Lord Jesus by faith and he shall receive you. He is able and willing to save you. This second person in the Trinity who is God-man, the mediator of the new covenant, he, my brothers, has virtue enough in his blood to atone for the sins of millions of worlds. As man, he died. He was crucified, nailed to, and pierced on the accursed tree. This was the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for you. Will you then have low and dishonorable thoughts of Jesus Christ after his having done so much for you? Oh, my dear brethren, don't be so polite as to deny the deity of Christ. Though you may be counted fools in the eye of the world, yet in God's account you shall be esteemed wise, wise for salvation. You may now be looked upon as fools and madmen, as a parcel of rabble, and in a short time fit for bedlam. They may say you're going to undermine the established church, but God knows the secrets of all hearts, knows our innocence. And I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not. I should rejoice to see all the world adhere to her articles. I should rejoice to see the teachers, the ministers of the Church of England preach up those very articles they have subscribed to. But those ministers who do preach them up, they esteem as madmen and look on them as the outscouring of the church, unfit for company and conversation. The evil things they say of me, blessed be God, are without foundation. I am a friend to the church homilies. I am a friend to her liturgy. And if they did not thrust me out of their churches, I would read it every day. My brethren, I am not for limiting the spirit of God, but I am for uniting all in the bonds of love. I love all that love the Lord Jesus Christ. This will make more Christians than will the spirit of persecution. The Pharisees may think it madness to mention persecution. in a Christian country, but the spirit of persecution resides in many. Their will is as great, but blessed be God, they want the power, they need the power. If they had that, my brethren, fire and faggot is what we must expect, for the devil's temple is shaken. Many are coming unto Jesus. I hope many of you are already come, and many more coming. This must make Satan rage to see his kingdom weakened. He will stir up all his malice against the people of God. We must expect that a suffering time will certainly come. It is now hastening on. It is ripening apace. Then it will be proved to a demonstration whether you are hypocrites or not. For suffering times are always trying times. Oh, my brethren, do not be afraid of a little reproach, but look on it as a forerunner of what will be the attendant upon it. Therefore, let me, by way of application, exhort all of you, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, to come unto the Lord Jesus Christ, that he may give you strength to undergo whatsoever he, in his wisdom, calls you to. Come, come, my brethren, to Jesus Christ. He will give you grace, which will make you willing and ready to suffer all things for Jesus Christ. It is not being pointed at, it is not being despised and looked on as mad and a deluded people. Alas, what does this signify to a soul who has Jesus Christ? Do not be afraid to confess the blessed Jesus. Dare to be singularly good. Don't be afraid of singing of hymns or of meeting together to build each other up in the ways of the Lord. Shine as lights in the world amid a crooked and perverse generation. It is necessary that offenses should come to try what is in our hearts and whether we will be faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ or not. Be not content with following Christ afar off. For then we shall, as Peter did, soon deny him. Let us be altogether Christians. Let our speech and all our actions declare to the whole world whose disciples we are and that we have determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Oh, then, then will it be well with us. Happy, unspeakably happy shall we be, even here, in what is infinitely better. And when others that despised us shall be calling for the mountains to fall on them and the hills to cover them, we shall be exalted to sit down on the right hand of God and shine as the sun in the firmament and live forever with our Redeemer. And will not this be a sufficient recompense for all the sufferings you have undergone here? Therefore, do not strive to have the greatness, the riches, the honor, and pleasures of this world, but strive to have Jesus Christ. You friends and carnal acquaintance, and above all, your grand adversary, the devil, will be persuading you not to have Christ until you are grown old. He would have you lay up goods for many years, to see plays, play at cards, go to balls and masquerades, and to make you the more willing to draw you in. He calls sinful pleasures innocent diversions. A late learned rabbi of our church told the people in a sermon, which I myself heard, that if people went to church of a Sunday and said the prayers while there, that it was no harm, neither would God count it a sin, to take their recreation after the service of the church was over. But I say, my brethren, and the command of God says so too, that the whole Sabbath must be kept holy, and that as God has allowed you six days for yourselves to do the duties in those several stations wherein providence has placed you, he expects you should give him one day to himself. Will you waste that Sabbath, which should be spent in gathering provisions for your souls? God forbid. You had 10,000 times better be ignorant of all the polite diversions of the age than to be ignorant of the Spirit of Christ being within you, and that it must be before you are new creatures and are in Christ. And if you have not an interest in Christ, you are lost. Your damnation is hastening on. He that believeth shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned. If you stand out against Christ, you're fighting against yourselves. Oh, come unto him. Do not stay to bring good works with you, for they will be of no service. All your works will never carry you to heaven. They will never pardon one sin, nor give you the least comfort in a dying hour. If you have nothing more than your own works to recommend you to God, they will not prevent your sinking in that eternal abyss where there is no bottom. But come unto Christ, and he will give you that righteousness which will stand you in good account at the great day of the Lord, when He shall come to take notice of them that love Him, and of those who have the wedding garments on. Let all your actions spring from the love of Christ. Let Him be the Alpha and Omega of all your actions. Then, my brethren, our indifferent ones are acceptable sacrifices. But if this principle be lacking, our most pompous services avail nothing. spiritual idolaters. We sacrifice to our own net and make an idol of ourselves by making ourselves and not Christ the spring of our actions. Therefore, my brethren, such actions are so far from being accepted by God that according to the language of one of the articles of our church, we doubt not but that they have the nature of sin because they spring not from an experimental faith in and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Were we not fallen creatures, we might then act upon other principles. But since we are fallen in Adam and are restored again only by the death of Jesus Christ, the face of things is entirely changed, and all we think, speak, or do is only accepted in and through him. Therefore, my brethren, I beseech you, in the mercies of love and compassion that you would come unto Jesus, Do not go away scoffing, offended, or blaspheming. Indeed, all I say is in love to your souls. If I could be but an instrument of bringing you to Jesus Christ, if you were to be never so much exalted, I should not envy but rejoice in your happiness. If I was to make up the last of the train of the companions of the blessed Jesus, it would rejoice me to see you above me in glory. I do not speak out of a false humility. a pretended sanctity. No, God is my judge. I speak the truth in Christ. I lie not. I would willingly go to prison or to death for you so I could but bring one soul from the devil's strongholds into the salvation which is by Christ Jesus. Come then unto Christ, everyone that hears me this night. I offer Jesus Christ pardon and salvation to all you who will accept thereof. Come, you drunkards, Lay aside your cups. Drink no more to excess. Come and drink of the water which Christ will give you, and then you will thirst no more. Come, all you thieves. Let him that has stolen steal no more, but fly unto Christ and he will receive you. Come unto him, you harlots. Lay aside your lusts and turn unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you. He will cleanse you of all your sins and wash you in his blood. Come, you liars. Come all you Pharisees, come all you fornicators, adulterers, swearers, blasphemers, come to Christ. He will take away all your filth. He will cleanse you from your pollution and your sins shall be done away. Come, come my guilty brethren. I beseech you for Christ's sake and for your immortal soul's sake to come unto Christ. Do not let me knock at the door of your hearts in vain. but open and let the King of glory in, and he will dwell with you. He will come and sup with you this night, this hour, this moment, he's ready to receive you. Therefore, come unto him. Do not consult with flesh and blood. Let not the world hinder you from coming to the Lord of life. What are a few transitory pleasures of this life worth? They're not worth your having, but Jesus Christ is a pearl of great price. He is worth the laying out all you have to buy. If you are under afflictions, fly not to company to divert you, neither read what the world calls harmless books. They only tend to harden the heart and to keep you from closing with the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I was a child, even when I came to riper years, God knows, it is with grief I speak it. When ignorant of the excellency of the word of God, I read as many of these harmless books as anyone. But now I have tasted the good word of life, and I've come to a more perfect knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, and I put away these childish, trifling things, and am determined to read no other books but what lead me to a knowledge of myself and Jesus Christ. I think I could speak till midnight unto you, my brethren. I am full of love toward you. Let me beseech you to fly to Christ for help. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation, therefore delay not, but strive to enter in at the straight gate. Do not go the broad way of the polite world, but choose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. You'll have a reward afterward that will make amends for all the taunts, jeers, and calamities you may undergo here. And will not the presence of Christ be a sufficient reward for all you have suffered for his name's sake? Why will you not accept of the Lord of glory? Do not say you have not heard of Christ, for he is now offered to you, and you will not accept of him. Do not blame my master. He's willing to save you if you will but lay hold on him by faith. And if you do not, your blood will be required of your own heads. but I hope that you will not let the blood of Jesus be shed in vain, that you will not let my preaching be of no significance. Would you have me go and tell my master you will not come, that I have spent my strength in vain? I cannot bear to carry so unpleasing a message unto him. I would not indeed, I would not be a swift witness against any of you at the great day of accounts, but if you will refuse these gracious invitations, and not accept of them, I must do it. Will it not move your tender hearts to see your friends taken up into heaven and you yourselves thrust down into hell? But I hope better things of most of you, even that you will turn unto the love of the Lord and the Lord of love, that Jesus, who died for you, that in the day when he shall come to take his people to the mansions of everlasting rest, you may hear his voice, ye blessed of my Father, enter into the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world, that we may all enter into that glory. Do you, O Jesus, prepare us by your grace, give us your spirit, and may our hearts be united to you. May the word that has now been spoken take deep root in your people's hearts, that it may spring up and bring forth fruit in some 30, in some 40, some 100-fold, Do preserve them while in this life from all evil, keep them from falling, and at last present them faultless before your Father when you come to judge the world, that where you are, they may be also. Grant this, O Lord Jesus Christ, with whatever else you see needful for us, both at this time and forevermore. And now unto God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honor, power, glory, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and forevermore. Amen. Amen. Praise God. Praise God for George Whitefield. Part two of Christ, the only preservative against a reprobate spirit. There are other men of God that I have recorded on this website. I hope that you'll go looking for them. Their stories are here, many cases, their words. I have hundreds of audios about North Korea that you need to be praying about. It's not a done deal in North Korea until God decides what's going to happen over there. The Koran, Mohammed, Bible prophecy, the Jehovah Witnesses, through the Bible, commentary, it's all here on sermonaudio.com forward slash A Servant 70. and a whole lot more. This is the Hackberry House of Chosun. Lord willing, we'll talk again very soon. Bye-bye.