I was sitting there thinking, boy, you can lay in bed in the middle of the night. You can be riding in your car. You can just whisper that name. And what a powerful, powerful name it is. What great things it does. I'm honored to have my friend. I love this man of God. I was saved under his preaching in 1990. I was just a 12-year-old boy. He was preaching revival for my dad. Brother Lonnie, go ahead and make your way this way. Brother Lonnie is the retiring pastor. of the Oakland Free Will Baptist Church there in Harrison, Arkansas. Has been there for several, several years now. He has been a traveling evangelist, preached all over Arkansas, all over Missouri, all over America pretty well. He is well known and well respected. And if I ever had a need, I wanted to go before the Lord, I want this man praying. One of the greatest prayer warriors I have ever met in the world. And I am thankful for him. Good morning. What's good to be in God's house, isn't it? Got them bumps running all over me. Anybody else experiencing that? I just like to be where Jesus is and praise the Lord for that. Thank you, Pastor, for the privilege. Brother Mike, I'm getting a real strong feedback there for a moment. Thank you, Pastor, for the privilege to be back at Grace and to preach with these other men of God and to be with you, dear folks, again. I look back across the crowd and see a lot of faces I've known for a long time, and I'm just blessed to get to be with you again. Now, you've seen I had to have a little assistance to get to the pulpit. I had a complete knee replacement. And that's my problem. What's yours? And my wife's waiting for that new facelift. That's next. And suck up a little bit of this, Brother John Craigmore, and all of that. She can't wait for that. But I'm so grateful to get to be here. I mean that from the deep of my heart. What an honor. What a privilege to get to preach for you folks today and to be in the house of God. And I tell you, my heart's tender and to get to preach for Brother Mike Hutzel. Don't you wish America was full of poor people with Mike Hutzels in them? Cut out a lot of the nonsense that's going on in America today if they'd listen to men of God like this. And I love you, Jason. Man, I appreciate your dedication to God and submit to Him and surrendering. Brother Matt, what a team. What a blessed team you guys have got. Pray for these fellas. Lift them up. Bless them. And wear them out for the glory of God. I appreciate them so much. Brother Jason gave me this privilege of doing this. Now, please understand I don't have anything in this, just a friendship and trying to help Brother Reg Kelly. He came to me the other day in my office, and to my amazement, he said, Brother Lonnie, I've written a book. And that nearly took my breath. The man can do about everything, but I didn't know he was such an author. But God has put a book in that man's heart. And it'll be a motion picture someday. Every one of you need to get it and read it. And it's a strong, strong voice in the case against abortion and such as that. But it's a historical fiction novel written along the Buffalo River lines and such as that. That's where we're from. Reg comes down in there a lot. But the Mikes read it as well. I couldn't put the thing down. I had to stay up nights and whatnot reading that book. And you ought to get one if you can back there. Again, I don't have a thing in it. I wish I could give you one, but they're not mine to give away. They're $25. Every bit of it goes to Reds to pay for the printing of that book, and it's the start of a series. Someday it will be a movie. Brother Mike agrees with me. They pick that up and it will be a strong voice for the Lord in that regard. Okay, you heard about that. Would you stand again for the reading of the Word of God, please? I've got a message on my heart that's a very, very old message. In fact, it's the oldest message in the Bible. Turn with me to the Gospel of Mark chapter 1 and verse 15. I'll read verse 14 for the support of my subject and for the introduction of the message. When you get there, say amen. If you're not going to get there, say go on. Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came unto Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye, and believe the gospel. I'm going to preach today on the first word of the gospel. where Jesus Himself said, the Kingdom of Heaven has come. Repent and believe the Gospel. As I give thought to this message, I almost wanted to call it the missing message of the church. You do not hear a great deal of repentance preached on today. I declare to you as I stand over the old book, it's time that we brought forth fruit that was worthy of repentance. And I'm convinced that if Jesus Christ himself was standing here in the pulpit at grace, he would say, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Because if you go to the last message in the Bible, to the church at Laodicea, you'll find that word again, repent. The most needed message of the hour, Father, thank you for this time to stand over the old book again. I beg you that you'll do something in this first hour of cat meeting. Oh God, that conviction once again will seize hearts. Men and women, boys and girls will repent. Believe the gospel. May we experience, dear Father, real revival as never before. Honor these men and women that have worked so faithfully these 18 years to bring Camp Meeting to this area. And God, may it be a meeting that'll go down in their hearts as what you did and marvelous things that were happening. Have your way in the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. All right, you can be seated. I preached this morning with a great compulsion upon my heart. I'm deeply concerned for America, our country. I am even more so concerned about our churches. I'm probably the oldest man on, will be on the platform this week. I have over 50 years in the ministry. God's blessed me and been good to me. But I want to tell you right now, there has never been a greater need for a revival of repentance than in this hour that we're living in right now. It's impossible to have a right relationship with Jesus Christ apart from repentance. You say, preacher, that's a negative message. I want to tell you, if your battery doesn't have a negative side to it, you'll walk home, friend. It has a negative and a positive side. J. Bernard McGee said a long time ago, the positive side of negative preaching is people get their hearts right with God. The chains are forged. Take America down. Would you say amen? Pirates are working their plan to bring us into bondage, Brother Matt. You can see it so easily. The ultimate battle is not against Lonnie Burks or Jason Hutzel, but it's against Almighty God. And I believe today that the only hope for the survival of America lies within Christian doom. We must have a revival of a repentance in our country. Why is your message so pertinent? Why is it so heavy on your heart? I'm believing that World War III is already beginning. I have a friend that is assigned to a bomber. He was in England. He made this statement to his father, a friend of mine, that it's already started. It's already started. You hear Asser Essel. Have you heard those words? And the Levant stretching from Turkey to Egypt today claims Israel as Muslim territory, excluding Israel as a sovereign nation. They're being used to break us and to cause chaos in America, killing innocent labeled heretics by their Bible. And if you ever wondered, Tom Ballard, what the scripture meant, there would be a time that they would kill you and think they did God's service. It's those folks that would do so today in a moment's time. I have seen, and you have, there's a spirit of lawlessness that has broken out upon us. One of the things that bothers this old preacher is the incredible sin you hear coming out from churches today. Don't stare at me like a mule looking at a new gate. You know I'm telling you the truth. It seems that a week can't go by in my life, but I am not told something that shocks me or scares me, from churches even. One thing that bothers me tremendously in this hour is the lack of the Holy Spirit in our services. I beg God, Lord, today, can we just experience old-fashioned, Holy Ghost conviction? Once again, I'm longing to see knuckles wide again. I'm longing to see people with that look on their face. We're in the presence of God. That ought to be enough to call us on our face to repent. Yet in my 50 years of ministry, I've never seen such a time of total unconcern as this hour. I'm not a political man. I'm for righteousness, if you want to know where I line up. I'd really believe God's given us a little reprieve, a little window of opportunity in America. And I had so hope that we're going to see this thing turned spiritually around. But if you talk to men who are on the road even more than I and other preachers, we're not seeing it. America is unconcerned in this hour. My message on repentance is a forgotten message. Say what you want, you think what you will. Much of the church world simply doesn't know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about repentance. In fact, it seems that the church world hardly knows as much about repentance or more about repentance than a sin-loving world out there does. Why is it such a rejected message? Because we started to preach to console and not to convict anymore. Repentance Preaching, pastor, requires an omission of sin. The confession of sin, a forsaking of sin, a distancing and denouncing of sin, a turning away from the things God hates. The biblical doctrine of repentance hinges on the fact that all sin is a grievous affront to God. No one of us has the right to offend God. He's still a holy God. He is a person. He has a personality. He still can be moved by sin. I believe it's time for alarm. I believe we need repentance back in the church preaching. I really believe today, Pastor, and I want to challenge. I know you're a Bible preacher. I've known you since you was a kid. But I really believe that the church needs great doctrinal preaching again in their pulpits. Because it does divide the sheep from the goats. And without soul-searching doctrinal preaching, the church becomes a mixture of the flesh and the spirit. You have the sheep and the goats together, and they're impossible to pastor. Now, a lot of folks in the church say, yes, sir, I believe in repentance, preacher. I believe in it. But I've noticed something. They don't practice repentance. I dare say, Derek, Terry, I have great respect for you and your father. And my church, your church, we've got folks that need to walk the aisle this morning, get on their face, and beg God to forgive them for the way that they've been living. And I just imagine it applies at Grace Free Will Baptist Church as well. Now, I don't know anybody I don't love, so don't say, man, that guy's got a bad spirit. We're living in an hour that many have sought to turn to Christ without turning from their sins. And it doesn't work, beloved. Therefore, you have the world and the church then. Paul's teaching say repentance is a work salvation. No, it isn't. We don't believe, by the way, as free will Baptists, in work salvation. We believe this. For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourself. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus under good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. But I want to tell you it's impossible to have forgiveness and salvation without first repentance. There's an irrevocable link between faith and repentance. If you have true faith, You'll trust Jesus for your forgiveness of your sins. And if you really believe Jesus is the Savior of the world, you will repent before Him of your sins and affront to Him. Since there is virtually no conviction in this hour, it can hardly be surprising when there is no repentance and consequently no conversions either in this world. Now, the shortest distance between two objects is a straight line, wouldn't you agree? The shortest distance from you to Almighty God is repentance. Now, when I got saved, I repented of my sins. Since I've been saved, I've repented a lot. Repentance brought me into fellowship with the Savior. And daily dying to my sin has kept me in fellowship with Him. First message John preached when he hit the shore was repentance. The first message of Jesus Christ, Brother John Creekmore, is repentance. The Twelve Apostles said, Repent and believe the Gospel. to the churches of Revelation, five of the seven were told they needed to repent. Only Philadelphia and Smyrna were excluded from that, the church of brotherly love and the suffering church. And Christ Himself said, repent. Now then, I'm going to let the old book talk to you a lot. I'm going to quote scripture. And I want to share with you and get it simple. I want Brother Mike to have a lot of time to preach. I've come a long ways to hear him to preach. Brother Ken wanted to know how I was going to preach. He said, Ken, you can't run around. I said, Ken, I'll leave that up to God. If God wants me to run, He can just take care of me. What does repentance really mean, preacher? Well, let me show you. Now, I can march stiff-legged, goose style. Repentance is like this, good friends. Repentance is I was going this way on the wrong road to hell, marching and beat with the world's song. but the power of God intervened and turned me about. No longer am I marching toward hell, but today I'm on my way to heaven. The cause and repentance and the work of the Holy Spirit, I heard something that said, bow, face, and I turned around and faced the Savior, and He started me on the other way. Preacher, is this a doctrine of free will Baptist? A doctrine of the Pentecostal? A doctrine of the Southern Baptist? It is the Bible doctrine for all denomination, generation, and Christians of all ages. Demand it. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. That's what Peter said, what Paul said. is in Athens. And while he's there, his spirit is stirred with him when he sees a sign that said, To the unknown God. Boy, I tell you what, that's all it took to bring the preacher out of him. And when he seen that sign that said, To the unknown God, Paul immediately began to say, I know that God. His name is Jesus. That's who you need to worship. And then catch this, what Paul said. And the times of this ignorance, God winked at. But now He's commended all men of aware to what? Repent, because He hath appointed a day into which you'll judge the world by righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained. Let me give you some simple lessons here. Now, in true repentance, it affects, pastor, the entire man. It'll change a man's mind. Many years ago, Illinois State Penitentiary Late at night, the guards were walking. Thank you, Brother Matt. The guards were walking the beat outside, looking, watching. And they see at night something move in the shrubbery by the prison facility. Trained, they quickly converged on the movement. And to their amazement, there was a little girl in the cold of dead wintertime, only with a scant little dress, not even a coat. And these stout guards grabbed her, picked her up, and said, what are you doing here? And a little, humble, broken heart said, I've come to see my daddy. And they said, honey, who is your daddy? And she named off a criminal in solitary confinement that these guards knew and hated him. Everybody in the prison hated him. But they picked that little girl up with a little cold, poorly clad body and carried her in, and the officials come in. And these big, stout, stern-faced men looked at her and said, Honey, what are you doing in a prison at night?" And a little broken heart said, I just come to see my daddy. I want to see my daddy. And one of them said, who is your daddy, honey? And she told him the name. And they said, they looked at each other and they said, honey, we can't do that. He's a risk. We can't bring him out. And that little girl began to weep and cry, and said, I just want to see my daddy. I just come to see my daddy. And those guys looked at each other, and a little broken-hearted girl broke their heart. And the official said, go get him. And they brought a man in there that was more animal than man. And he's springing in there, angry at the world, hating everybody. And the little girl said, And he said, Nellie, what in the world are you doing here? And she said, I just want to see my daddy. He said, Nellie, get out of this godforsaken place. Go on home to your mama. And he said, daddy, mommy's dead. I ain't got nobody, daddy, but you. And that man screamed again and said, get her out of here. Get on out, Nellie. And a little old hand reached out to an old callous, hard-hearted man and said, I just want to see you, Daddy. And all at once, something happened in that man's heart. His heart broke. And he fell on his knees and said, oh, Nellie, Nellie, Nellie. What happened? He had repented. There was a change in his mind had come over him. And he turned to those authorities and said, she ain't got anybody. If you'll give me a chance, I'll be the best prisoner you ever had. If you'll just some way let me see that she's took care of. One of those guards took her home with him. and gave her a home. And that man proved to be the best that they ever had there from that time on. What happened, Brother Ballard, there was a change in his mind. A lot of you sitting before me said, I don't like that preacher. He preaches at me. I don't like them hypocrites down at church. I know they don't pay their gas bill. I know how some of them are. But God got a hold of your heart. And you fell on your knees at an old-fashioned altar. And the first person you wanted to hug was that preacher. And them folks all at once that you wouldn't give a nickel for, they was the best friends you ever had. What happened? Repentance took place. There is a change of mind in real biblical repentance. Secondly, it changes the will of man. I've got a new will. Hallelujah, Sunday we get to go to church. You may not always said that. Sunday, got a day off. I'm sleeping at 1030. I'm not. I'm going to get there early. I had a will change. George Washington marching through this country in the Revolutionary War, fighting to give us the freedom that we could worship God. He and those poorly clad soldier boys came across the bridge, and the last man across shouted and said, General, would you help me leave the bridge in case we need to retreat? Washington said, no, burn it. We're not going back. And when you come to Jesus Christ in real repentance, you burn the bridges. You're not going back. You're not going back. You may not have got that illustration. I've got a beautiful wife back home in church. I love my wife. Boy, God made her in heaven and sent her to me. I had to have a lot of help to make it. Some of you men ought to say amen right there. Brother Mattis, old cabin in the hill, there is a rose bush on the end of the porch. Connie's granny Napier, godly, godly woman, gave her a cutting. You ladies know what I'm talking about off of that old rose bush. I hate that thing. I'd walk by it weed eating and he'd grab me and the blood would fly and all of that. And Connie would watch those roses bloom and bud and then she would reach her hand in there and at the right time clip one there. Now, you imagine my little wife, she's waited all that time for that rose particularly to bloom. It's going to go in the vase, it's going to go on the table. But she reaches her little hand through there with those snippers, and about the time she starts to snip it, there's a big old black snake piled up in there. And it wraps around her arm and sticks his tongue out in her face. I want to tell you, She'll never cut the rose. She'll say, Lonnie, did you go get that rose for me? And what she'll do, Matt, she'll never go back to the rose bush again. Come on, women, amen? Because I seen a huge black snake there. Honey, you've got to cut the rose for me. And let me tell you, when you come to Jesus Christ, it's saying, goodbye, world. I know you've got snakes around your roses, and I don't want any more of them. and I've changed my will. I'm serving God from here on. Now then, on the other part of it, it affects your emotions. Walls? Hey, walls, they didn't get it. Would you say amen? That real repentance affects your emotions. I love to see grown men get broke like an egg on the sidewalk. Come down the aisle wiping tears and snot, I mean mucus, and looking for a hanky and a crud and doing that. Fall on their face on the altar and go to repenting and weeping. I love to see that, don't you? That's bringing fruit, met for repentance, a broken heart and a contrived spirit he'll not despise, he said. I had an Aunt Daisy I want to introduce you to. My grandpa was an old mountain preacher and for some reason Aunt Daisy had never believed the gospel. And Aunt Daisy was as hard as nails, had a smarty like attitude. I know you don't have any folks like that. No. She loved to cut people who say things to hurt them. You don't know anybody like that. I know out here in Oklahoma you don't have that kind of folks here. Yours just carry nothing. My Aunt Daisy was lost, lost, lost. She was in the hospital. And I was pastoring in her town. I was a young preacher then. I had a dear old man of God that was a wheelhorse for God. You probably don't understand my terminologies, but he was a powerful man of God. And I told old Brother Jay, I said, Brother Jay, my aunt's in the hospital. Hardest woman I've ever known. Mom prays for her. Some of the other family prays for her. She's lost as can be. I want you to meet me at nine o'clock in the morning in front of the hospital. I want you to go with me to talk to Aunt Daisy. So we went in the hospital, we met at that particular time, and he was a big old man. I like big old men when you're a little bitty whippersnapper, especially when you're dealing with Aunt Daisies. He was a big old boy with a booming voice, and we walked in, walked back down the south quarter in that old hospital, walked into that room, and there lay my Aunt Daisy, stretched out on the hospital bed. I said, Aunt Daisy, I've come to talk to you about Jesus." And she said, do no good to talk to me about Him. I can be smart too. I said, I guarantee it won't hurt you. And I told her how to be saved. And she was mad at her daddy, the old preacher. And I do believe in talking straight when necessary. Amen? That's the only way a lot of times the world hears. She said, my daddy made me go to church. I don't think he would have done that. I said, he ever take you fishing? Well, yeah. How come you're not mad about him taking you fishing? Told her how to be saved. And she said, Brother Kenny, won't save me. She's got that old smart-ass voice. Won't save me. I said, he can. I said, we're going to pray with you. She said, I can't pray. And I said, you just say the same thing Brother Jay says. And we started out praying. And Aunt Daisy starts out. Brother Jay just starts out a little sinner's prayer and says, Dear Lord. And Aunt Daisy said, Dear Lord. Just slurring. She'd say the same thing he'd say in that old smart aleck voice. Until he got down to a part, Matt, that said, I realize I've sinned and I've hurt you, God. And Aunt Daisy started out this nonsense. I realize I've sinned and I've hurt you, Jesus. And something happened in Aunt Daisy's life. Aunt Daisy passed Jay prayer. She got the bawling and the squalling, and I promise you, that this little preacher began to look around him to see if one of those ladies was going to say, you guys get out of here, you're causing too big a stir in the hospital. And ain't Daisy got to prayin' and a cryin' and a beggin' God to forgive her and save her? When did the change come? When she really repented, her emotions broke! And I declare to you that in real repentance, it affects your emotions. Don't you realize Romans said it's the goodness of God that leads you to repentance? I see a lot, Brother Tom Ballard, of false repentance today. And it's not sorry toward God. It's sorry they got caught. Sorry they got in trouble. I just about guarantee there's more people cried over an old you getting beat yesterday than there will be in church. But when prodigals truly repent, they get up, and they get out of the hog pen, and they go home. I close. Brother Mike's going to come. I want to give you one last illustration about the blessing of repentance. Call it the dividends, if you will. I've dealt with the demands of the gospel, the Savior, John, Paul, the Twelve, five churches in Revelation. Now I want to tell you about the blessings. It's the goodness of God that leads you to repentance. I'm telling you, the way many are living their life, the way the many are doing our Savior, and the goodness of God would just keep reaching down for them and leaving a door open that they can repent and be saved. It was Saturday night. I pastored in Huntsville, Arkansas. Probably 10 o'clock, and the phone rang. A little weak, frail voice of a lady that would soon be in eternity said, Brother Burks, do you do house calls? I thought every preacher did house calls. Come to find out, Brother Jason, some don't. They do golf calls and such as that, but not a whole lot of house calls for lost people. She said, you came and prayed for me in the hospital, Brother Burke. She said, I've got cancer. She said, Brother Burke, my husband's a lost man. Brother Lonnie, he lost his mind in that condition. But she said, Brother Burks, tonight, right now, his mind's clear as a bell. Would you just come and tell him how to be saved and pray with him, preacher? I said, I'll be there. Deacon went with me. We went to this little bungalow type house, you know what I mean, little tenant type house. Went in there. There was an old, old man double over in a wheelchair. He was almost deaf. I knelt on the floor, cupped my head, and talked loudly into his ear. That old man, Brother Kenny, whose mind had been gone, who had lived probably 90 years and said, that Jesus, I'm a sinner? Would you forgive me? Would you save me? Would you forgive me? You know what I left there saying? Behold the goodness of God. Let a man live 90 something years and sin. Loses mind in sin. He's almost stone deaf. And give Him back His mind on a Saturday night long enough that He could cry out in repentance, God save me. I'm an old hard sinner. Now before you think about Mr. Grubbs, if you hear loss, you think how many times God's been merciful to you. How many times God spared you. How many times God has given you another opportunity. And here you are today getting told if you repent you can be born again. You can have life from above. You can be a child of God. Your name can be written in heaven. Boy, that's the goodness of God. Do we need repentance preaching? Yes, we need the first message of the gospel again. Repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Believe the gospel. Will it work, preacher? Look around you at who He has saved. Who it worked for. I want to ask two men to stand up. He's a dear man that drove me down here, my Sunday school serpentine. Would you stand up, Arliss, brother Arliss Jones, and stay standing? Johnny Creekmore, would you stand up and stay standing? Did I tell you to sit down? I went to school with Johnny Creekmore. Year after year, B's and C's alphabetically were seated together, John boy. And the last I knew you, John, you were living on the other side of the fence. long ways from the Savior. God called me to preach. I went the other way. But the goodness of God dealt with you and convicted your heart, and you threw that old bottle away, got on your knees at an old-fashioned altar, repented of your sin, went home a brand new daddy, two boys, and Betty got a brand new husband. He served 25 years with me on the board. He moved away, 24, three, whatever. Is there blessings in repentance? That's Johnny Crane. First time I ever saw Arliss Jones in my life. I saw him in the deer rooms. Arliss, can I tell it on you? He had a can of beer between his legs and a deer rifle. Didn't know him from Adam. Talked to him a moment, was friendly to him. Through prayer, God brought his wife, Katie, to our church. And Katie found what she's looking for. And said, pray for Artemis. Pray for my husband. A few Sundays, he showed up with her. A few Sundays, he was on his face in an old altar, repenting. They have been giants for God in our church. That's what repentance will do. Matt's gonna say one verse. If you're here today and you're lost, you know you need to repent because the Holy Ghost has found you and laid his hand on your shoulder and said, you got something you need to go talk to me about. I want you to get up and come right down as a man and a kid and work together. Sing it, please. ♪ Just as I am ♪ Without one