I wanna talk to you a little bit, and I will see how this thing goes. Well, look at that. About the simplicity in Christ. This is, of course, right out of the Bible. Of in that verse here, we find in 2 Corinthians 11.3, by fearless by any means, as the serpent of Egile eat through his subtlety, and boy, he is. So your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Most of the time, cults, cults. What is a cult? A cult is a group of people that says you've got to go through us to be saved. So what's the Roman Catholic Church? Basically, technically the Roman Catholic Church says if you're not a Roman Catholic you don't get saved. You can't be saved without them. So that makes them a cult. Baptists are not that way. We say whosoever will may come. We say if you repent and trust Christ your personal Savior meets the standards of salvation, you get saved. Red, yellow, black, or white don't make any difference. You get saved. We're not a cult. We're not a cult. First Century Church was not a cult. But many cults have been raised up since then, have they not? The devil couldn't beat it, so he tried to confuse it. And he's been doing that ever since, as he corrupted Eve. Boy, he did. The simplicity that is in Christ. So the title of this simplicity in Christ is right out of the book. For if he that cometh preaches another Jesus, always got a kick out of this, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him. Now that's tongue in cheek, he was mocking them. The people at Corinth were believing false teachers ahead of him. That's what basically he was saying. If somebody comes in here with a spirit that's not the Holy Spirit, you'll believe them. If they come in here with another gospel, they'll believe it. If they come in here another way, you'll believe it. But I'm telling you the truth and you don't want to believe me. He was mocking them a little bit there. And he did that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So we want to not forget the simplicity in Christ. And I want to describe the Christian life in four simple words along the lines of simple. By the way, simple does not mean idiotic. Simple can be profound. In fact, I think really simplicity is profundity. Years ago, they used to have the DOS system. I remember the computer system that was an operating system called the DOS system. It was very complicated. You had to have memorized at least about 100 commands. Remember the desk check and all that other stuff? You had to remember about 100 commands you had to have memorized. And I remember going to a computer store, and the guy said, do you have the DOS commands memorized? I said, no, I don't. He said, you know what, son? If you don't do that, you're going to be on the outside looking in. I said, it's really complicated, man. I don't see how that system will ever go so complicated. Well, there was a nerd in a garage named Bill Gates that was working on a system which took the DOS and simplified the commands to where anybody could do it and called the Windows system. Simplicity. but it was from complexity. In other words, complexity worked to simplicity. Amen. Have you ever thought about how tonight you're visualizing me and I'm going through your eyes upside down, but your mind will flip me right side up. You're able to, there's so many complex things going on in you right at this moment. It's literally mind boggling. Your blood is pumping through your... I was given a bunch of tests not long ago, and they put some dye in me, and I could feel it. I felt it go up, up, up my head, down through my heart, down to the bottom of my foot, and up back up, and it was about like that. Your blood's moving. It is moving through your body, and that's just that little pump going like this. I don't know about most of you, but if I moved my hand like I did my heart, it'd eventually cramp up. How is it that my heart can beat like that, and so far has been beating about 70 years, has not cramped up? What's a heart attack? Heart cramp. But anyway, so I'm gonna go four things, four words, four single words. Four simple words sum up the Christian experience. First of all, admit. Admit. It says right there, Romans chapter 3, verse 10 through 14, and I'll read it. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. You say, that's, man, I've heard that since a child. Well, there are a whole bunch of people out there that think they're righteous. There's a whole, I would say the majority of the people you talk to, the majority, by far the majority, the people you talk to believe they're gonna make it to heaven some way or another. And it's going to be by their righteousness. It's going to be by somehow they weren't as bad as brother Knott. They're always looking to other people. The guy down the road, now he may go to hell, but I'm not going to hell, you know, because I'm better. Well, I helped an old lady cross the street one time. Did she want to go? There's none righteous, no, not one, not one. There's none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God. They're all going out of the way. They all together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher, and their tongues they have used as seat, and poison of ass is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. And it goes on, third chapter of Romans, phenomenal description of mankind before Christ. But that's you and me, because if you're not lost, you can't be saved. If you don't admit you're a sinner, you can never trust the Savior, never would trust the Savior. So what is the first step of the gospel? The gospel means the good news. You have to convince people they're sinners. If you don't spend some time convincing somebody they're lost and they're not acceptable with God, then why would they get saved? Sometimes there's a group of people out there trying to win the world by just telling them about grace. And they mock it. And they laugh at it. Because they don't even think they need grace. The old Hellfire and Damnation preachers of the turn of the century, last century, Billy Sunday, D.L. Moody before him, Gypsy Smith and some of them old boys, Bob Jones Sr. They preached Hellfire and Damnation just about carte blanche. When I was a young man, every time you went to church, you felt like you needed to get saved again. They told us how bad we were and how wicked we were and how vile we were. To a point, what that did was kept us in perspective that without God, we aren't going to make it. We need Jesus. The altar would be full of people crying and asking God to help them and save them. I'd be right with them. Because the preacher convinced me that I was a scoundrel, which I wonder how he found that out. There's no getting around it. Either God's telling the truth or he's lying. Any form of Christianity that tries to downplay the first step of admission is guilty of lying to you. They're preaching another gospel or another spirit or another Jesus. Health and wealth gospel is a false gospel. It's not another gospel. Well, it's another gospel, but another of a false kind. A. W. Troger said, try to find a common ground between the message of the cross and man's fallen reason. is to try the impossible, and if persisted in, must result in the impaired reason, meaningless cross, and powerless Christianity. Just in case you think good works can offset this evil, then you need to listen to Isaiah 64, six, where it says, we are all as an unclean thing. and all our righteousnesses as filthy rags, and we do fade as a leaf in our iniquities and are like the wind of taking us away. Going our way is going to hell. Doing it our way is going to hell. The only way we're going to be able to make it to heaven is to do it God's way. We must admit that we are sinners unable to save ourselves. Isaiah 53, 6. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid upon him. That's Jesus, the iniquity of us all. Proverbs 14, 12. There is a way that seemeth right unto Are we right in our own eyes? Are you kidding me? We're still right in our own eyes. I'm talking about born-again Christianity. We're right in our own eyes, man. If it wouldn't be for the blessed Holy Spirit and the Word of God, we'd be hopelessly, helplessly, and haplessly lost. Convinced that we're okay. But God lets that happen. Proverbs 12, 15, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes. Proverbs 21, 2 says every way of a man is right in his own eyes. but the Lord pondereth the hearts. So we must admit, without belaboring us, we must admit we're a sinner. In this room tonight, don't raise your hand. Do you believe you're a sinner, unable to save yourself by any amount of good works? No way in the world are you able, do you believe that you're able to present yourself before God and be declared just in the sight of Almighty God. I always tell people when you stand before Jesus, whether it be, I'm thinking also the great white throne judgment, there'll be nobody there with you to advocate for you. We have an advocate, and his name is Jesus Christ. But if you reject Jesus, you have no advocate. The devil's not gonna argue for you. He's not gonna be there for you. Your mom and dad aren't gonna be there for you. Your relatives aren't going to be there for you. You have no advocate. So the Bible says the works will be judged, that every man's deeds that he does in his body will be made manifest and judged. In Romans 2 it says it's going to be so strong an evidence that a man's mouth, every mouth will be stopped. Nobody will be arguing with the tribunal. that I'm somehow able to be saved. And that's when Philippians chapter 2 will take place, when their knees will hit the pavement and say, Jesus, you are Lord. So in essence, everything that ever had breath is going to eventually agree that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. But they will not be saved. James 2, I believe it's verse 15. I did a podcast on it. I think it'll be coming out next week. Harold Vaughan did a sermon years ago called Demon Faith. The Bible says in James that the demons believe and tremble. Why aren't they saved? I believe demons believe more than people believe. I believe demons have stronger faith than people have. Go through the gospels and notice that when the demons saw Jesus, they said, you're the son of God. You're the Holy one of God. Have you come to torment us before the time? They knew theology. They knew even some sort of a timeframe of that theology. The Gadaran Maniac, did you know demons pray? They prayed Jesus not to cast them into the abyss and he answered their prayer, right? Luke chapter 15, he answered a prayer. Or is it Luke chapter 16? I don't know where it's at. Close, I'm close. But he said, you can go off into the swine that are there. And they all ran off. Of course, the cliff, there was only one cliff in that whole area, and they ran off that cliff, and the whole thing's drowned. I don't know what happened to them after that. Somehow I feel they went to the abyss, whether they wanted to or not. but they sure didn't want to do that. In other words, they have faith. They don't doubt. But it's demon faith. It's faith without repentance. Faith without repentance. They believe with no repentance. That's this point right here. Submit. So we admit we're a sinner. We submit to the plan of salvation. Actually, after 3 verse 19, repent ye therefore. By the way, this is imitation. with Peter's sermon, invitation, repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Luke 5.32 says, I came not to call righteous, but sinners to repentance, Jesus' word. Acts chapter 20, verse 21, in case you just want to relegate that to Jesus and the Gospels, it goes all the way off into the book of Acts also. by Paul, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what demons do not have. They don't have repentance. Repentance comes through the conviction of the word of God by the Holy Spirit on the sinner. And the demons already made their choice. and they're not gonna get convicted and they're not gonna be saved. It's already too late for them, but they believe. And when I just told you about the great white throne judgment, everybody in the end is going to agree that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. Everybody's gonna theologically line up perfectly with the truth and then be cast into the lake of fire. That's called the second death. So repentance is important for salvation. Romans chapter 9, 10, verse 9. And if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, believe in thine heart that God hath raised thee from the dead, thou shalt be saved. With that my heart, man, believeth unto righteousness. With the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. Ephesians 2, 8, 9. For by grace you shall be saved through faith that not of yourselves, but as a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And I could go on so many other places about Repentance and faith I believe in some places in the Bible. The word believe is all that's required but believe is synonymous with repentance and repentance is synonymous with faith If you'd make a study through the New Testament, you see repentance faith and believes all one thing Well, I think you only had to believe well where belief is repentance repentance is believed If you don't repent, Jesus said in Luke chapter 11, three and five, he said, if you repent, you shall all likewise perish. We put that, Gospel Bible Church put that on a billboard that 2.2 million people go by a year. And when I went to the advertising company to put that verse on there, he said, that's not in the Bible. That challenged me on that, I loved it. I said, really, you don't think that's in the Bible? And nine of his staff gathered around me. I said, do you folks have a Bible here? He said, we do. And they got their Bible out, and I turned to that, and I said, read it to me. He read it, and he says to them, that's in the Bible. And I says, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Repentance has to do with godly sorrow, work as repentance unto salvation, and not to be repentant Sorrow of the world, work of death. God generates repentance through conviction of the Holy Spirit of your sin. So you admit you're a sinner. That brings conviction. That brings guilt. That brings a heaviness of heart. That brings remorse. Oftentimes brings tears. You don't have to have tears to be saved. But that brings us a sense of I'm sorry that I've sinned against God. It's not a work. Any more than faith is a work or any more than belief is a work. These are not works. And so it's been said, I have your quote here, if Christianity has never disturbed us, we've not yet learned what it is. I like this quote. Christianity is not contemplation, it is participation. Contemplation is looking at God as if he were an object. But if you participate in God in the sense that you let yourself be penetrated by Him, you will go to the cross like Him. You will go to work like Him. You will clean shoes. You will do washing up and cooking all like Him. You cannot do otherwise because you will have become part of Him. You will do what He loves to do. You will be a servant like He was. He didn't come as a king the first time. He came as a servant. He said, be like me. He washes his disciples' feet, and he says, now you do each other this way. There's no big shots this side of heaven. No big shots. He that would be greatest among you be the servant of all. The word servants do last. Humble, humble, humble turn. Servant of y'all. So we admit, we submit, and then We come at Psalm 37.5. This involves our service. Psalm 37.5 says, Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. A lot of you wonder what God's going to do with you in the future. I just got some news that most of you know about. Three different kinds of bone cancer I got going on. And I kind of wonder what God's plan is for all of that. You know, I'm kind of curious on what He's doing on all that. You know, I don't have to worry about it. I just need to commit my way to Him. He'll bring it to pass. He'll show me as I go down the road. Psalm 16.3 says, Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. You want to know, that's a good verse there in Proverbs 16.3 for mental health. Some of you may be on the edge of having mental issues. Commit your works unto the Lord. You're busy for God. You're thinking too much. You're thinking too much. Oh, what about this? Oh, what about that? Well, what am I going to do about that? Well, if you're thinking about getting your Sunday school lesson ready and getting on the bus and picking boys and girls up and doing this and doing that, you're so busy, you got too much time to think you're in trouble. I don't know about you, but my mind cannot be allowed to wander. Christianity is devotion to a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, not to a work, not to a cause, or not necessarily to a doctrine, though it is to those. It really is about a person. Like I say, I fell in love with Jesus. I got committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. I found a group that wanted to obey him as close as I ever had found in a group that had to be independent fundamental Baptists. That group seemed like they loved the Lord and wanted to obey the Bible closely and cared about the specificity of the word, so I joined them. A Southern Baptist wanted me to join them, but they didn't follow the Bible close enough. I couldn't do it. I had other groups wanting me to join them, and I looked them over and I said, well, I can't follow you because you don't follow the Bible close enough. You know, now I'm not saying independent fundamental baptism is a perfect manner. By far we're not perfect, but we want to do the will of God. Generally speaking, we want to do the right thing. Perfect? No. And you know, if you ever went into a perfect church, you'd ruin it. Be fully committed. Commit yourself. We live in a generation of uncommitted people. What is living together? What is this thing called living together? It's a fear of commitment. I'll tell you what. I never had any daughters, but if I'd had some daughters, I'd have wised them up. I'd have wised them up. If he won't make a commitment, don't you go any further with him. But if he won't lay everything on the line, don't you lay everything on the line. And make him lay it first. That's that right there. Are you willing to take this woman as your beloved wife? In spite of all the other women out there, you're going to choose this woman, forsaking all others. Make them do those vows. Make them say, well, they may not obey it. Well, yeah, but they said it, and God's going to hold them to it. Commitment. My wife and I, we might not be the most romantic couple in the world, but we are committed to each other. She's committed to make me suffer unto death, and so am I to her. As a woman, I said, I'd never divorce you. I won't make you die a slow, miserable death. I'm kidding. Without commitment, nothing good can be attained because you'll tire of the process. Without commitment, nothing of quality can be produced because you'll fail to see the reason for all the suffering. I think of people like, man, just to name a few, William Carey. Woo, doggies. You've got to read the biography. That old boy suffered. He suffered beyond any belief. Adoniram Judson, first American missionary. Oh, my, my, he suffered. Seven years, no convert. I believe Carey went seven years, no convert. But Adoniram Judson, man, I mean, I never read anything even close to anybody suffering like Adoniram Judson, except for Paul, the apostle, being hung upside down at night. kept in squalor for two years in prison and his wife, kid died. Wife died. He buried his whole family. Now I want you to think about that, Brother Barrows. Now you've got three little sweet things. But before this, you couldn't have put your mind around this. But now you can. Think of you being in prison and all you have to do is deny Christ and He'll let you out to take care of your kids. I think of John Bunyan. John Bunyan had a blind daughter. They would send her to the prison and tell her, Daddy, we're starving. If you would just take a license to preach, you can help Mommy and I. He said, I'll die. I don't quite remember all the exact quote, but he decided he wouldn't do that. And he wrote, Pilgrim's Progress. It shook the world. Pilgrim's Progress has shaken the world. If you only could take a few books with you, take the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and Strong's Concordance. It has to be the King James Bible, because Strong didn't do any other but King James. I'd like to shake hands with old Strong, especially when he did all the thus in the Bible. I mean, when he said it's an exhaustive concordance, it exhausts me just thinking about it. All the ands in the Bible. He didn't miss a word. He did them all. And that was before computers and before all this new fancy stuff. He put that stuff together. That old boy was a detail-oriented... I'd love to talk to his wife if he was married. I mean, man, oh man, did you ever do anything right? I'll live for Him who died for me. How happy then my life will be. I'll live for Him who died for me, my Savior and my Lord. Have you admitted you're a sinner, unable to save yourself by any amount of good works? Have you submitted to the plan of salvation with repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you made Him Christ, the Son of the living God in your life? Have you committed whatever is left of your life, whatever you have, whatever amounts to? Really, honestly, you're all in. I mean, you're all in for God. There's no job too small, no job too humble, no job without praise that you won't do if He wants you to do it. The last thing, I'll end with this. Transmit. Transmit. Matthew 28. 1920, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the deity of the Trinity, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. I like that. It's been said by... I talk about her a little bit. Johnny, you remember Johnny? who paralyzed herself. I think she's about my age. She paralyzed her neck. She has the paints with her mouth and her teeth. She said there is simply no room for passivity in the Christian faith. Life in Christ is one long string of action verbs. Grow, praise, love, learn, stretch, reach, put on, put off, press on, follow, hold, cleave, run, weep, produce, stand, fight. Shoulder no. Shoulder no. E. W. Cross said, it is human to demand justice. It is Christian to give it. It is human to keep what one has. It is Christian to share it. I hope you're willing to admit that you're a sinner, unable to save yourself by any amount of good works. You agree with God on what He described to you in Romans 3 and other places. You're willing to submit to the plan of salvation. Not make your own up, but do it His way. You're willing to commit your life, whatever it is, mouse soup, for His cause. and you're willing then, in doing that, to transmit the gospel to everybody you know all around you. Now let me say this as I finish. This one guy said, Christianity spread rapidly during the first century because all Christians saw themselves as responsible for disseminating the gospel. They didn't look and say it's the preacher's job to give the gospel. It's the preacher's job to be an evangelist. It's the preacher's job to be a witness. Not any more than yours. The first century saw themselves, every one of them, as responsible to give the gospel. And obviously, that's what we should be, amen? Our church is right with God. Every one of them, every person in that church sees themselves as an evangelistic tool, as a light shining in darkness, as a salt of the world. And you just kind of go out where you go out. And it's amazing. It's amazing how God uses you. I went to the hospital four days a while back, and it's amazing how God used me in the hospital. It's just amazing. Here I am, not at my best. Amazing. One of the nurses said, you're my favorite patient. In case you think I'd get cocky about that, the only reason I was her favorite patient is because I was on the stroke ward. And I was the only one that could walk and talk. And use the restroom without assistance. So no wonder I was her favorite patient. I was the least amount of work. She said, I hate to see you go. I told her about Jesus. We got to talk about Jesus. Well, I want to sing a little bit, but I'm not going to. Father, help us tonight. May we. And it's amazing you use us at all. I think of the Bible where it says you've chosen these earthen vessels. But you put the precious, precious gospel in the earthen vessels. So that we can tell other people around us that Jesus saves. Help us not to be discouraged by rejection. That was not to be discouraged by anything. That was just to be obedient. Admit, submit, comment, and transmit. In Jesus' name. If you would like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at the church website, gospelbaptistchurch.com, or you can go to Facebook and type in Gospel Baptist Church Bonita Springs, Florida. Also, you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you and God bless.