This is the Voice of Truth, the voice of God's inerrant, absolute, eternal, unbroken, verbally inspired word. The Voice of Truth is coming to you from the Metropolitan Tabernacle, 501 Opelousas Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana. This is Pastor Albert Pindarra speaking, inviting you to stay tuned to hear God's message by our late Pastor L.R. Shelton, Sr. on the subject, The Sin of Rebellion, and this is number 195 in this series. That's the Sin of Rebellion, number 195 in this series. The whole world is in open rebellion against the God of heaven, Jehovah Jesus. The religious world is in rebellion against the Word of God. In Christ's day, that is during his earthly ministry, they made much of the Word, the Old Testament, and hated Christ. Today the religious world makes much of Christ, and they hate His Word, the Holy Bible. I've never witnessed such a widespread rebellion against the Word of God as we have today. Every effort in the world is being made by Satan's emissaries to tone down, to obliterate, to make non-effective the Word of God in the souls of men." Now that's true, my friend, everywhere you turn. You hear folks say, no, this is my opinion. This is what I think. Never what God's Word says. As a result, the church has lost the presence of Christ. He is standing on the outside of the door, knocking for entrance, according to Revelation 3.20. They sing about Him. but he's not there. They talk about him, but very little, and he's not present. The missing note in present-day testimony is the person and work of Christ. Men don't know him. Why? Because the church has lost the presence of Christ. Christ is no longer a living reality to the heart of the average individual, and as a result, there is a rebellion against the Word of God, and lives are no longer being molded by God's Word. Now, you know why they don't know Christ? They rebel against His Word, and the Holy Spirit only reveals Christ through His Word to the hearts of men. Now, you may not know that, but that's so. Having lost the presence of Christ, the church has substituted social life and ritual services instead. And the church has been so used to being, that is, they've been so used to him being absent until they do not miss his presence. Do you know that, Sue? Do you know the average church has been so used of Christ being absent until they don't miss his presence. Then again, another result of rebellion is that we have lost the authority of God's Word. No longer does the average preacher speak with the authority in his pulpit. He has lost his message and he has substituted the authority of a program. Paul in writing to Timothy said, get it now, listen, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. Preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit charged Preacher Timothy in the name of the Lord God of heaven and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ before whom he should stand to preach the word. Preach the word. It didn't say part of it. It didn't say that which suited the folks or that which the folks wanted to hear. It said preach the word. Paul counseling with the preachers at Ephesus said, I declare unto you, I've declared unto you the whole counsel of God's Word. Now he said he preached it all. He preached it all. Listen preacher, is your ministry a one-sided ministry? Do you hammer on just one thought? If you do, is that the central thought? Who am I and who are you to pick out this part of God's Word and preach it and then leave out some other part of God's Word because folks don't like it? By nature, man hates the Word of God. By nature, man is in rebellion against the Word of God. And the Holy Spirit must drive the gospel arrow home to the heart of a sinner until it is laid bare, exposed, revealed, and the sinner comes to see it, acknowledge it, and turns to the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness and salvation. We don't have that today, brother. And the church today has also lost the compassion for the souls of men. and our tears are all but dried up. There's no weeping over the souls of men in the average church. It's a dry-eyed proposition, just a decision for Christ. All through the New Testament, it is said that Christ was moved with compassion as he looked upon the multitudes. You know, my friends, you know what we've come to today? If a preacher weeps over souls, they say he's sissy. Yes, they do. They make fun of him. And when a preacher preaches until sinners mourn, they say he's crazy. There's scarcely any compassion for the souls of men in the average church today. Why? Because it is in rebellion against the Word of God. This is true because we have substituted church membership for salvation and decision for Christ for regeneration. The old-time prayer meetings are all but ancient history. We are all but too busy in our church work to stop and pray, and some folks are too busy in trying to win men to Christ to stop and pray. The average Wednesday night service has been turned into a picture show. No longer do you hear pastors mourning and weeping their way into their pulpits, weeping over their own sins and the sins of their congregation. Tiring with the Lord in prayer and meditation until hearts are broken and sins are confessed is all but a thing of the past. And when you find a group who are giving themselves to prayer, they are looked upon as all but crazy beside themselves. Yes, we have lost our compassion for the souls of men. That's almost true worldwide. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. We have also lost Holy Spirit conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. It's being taught in our seminaries, Bible schools, and pulpits today that there is no need of Holy Spirit conviction. Now you get this. Hold your seat. Good jumper creek right here. Now you get it. You listen. That when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, he convicted the world of sin once and for all. And that is sufficient, and that's the only thing needed today, and the only thing needed today is a decision for Christ. What a farce, what a travesty, what a monstrosity to even be called religion. I want to voice my veto on such rotten, hellish teaching. Holy Spirit conviction is the Holy Spirit revealing the sinner's heart to himself until that sinner sees he needs a savior. He needs a substitute. But Holy Spirit conviction is an ancient mystery. Why? Because there is rebellion worldwide against the Word of God. You mention Holy Spirit conviction to the average preacher and his eyes will flash fire. and he looks at you as if you had just broken out of a zoo somewhere, and he would make a motion immediately that you be banished to the Sahara Desert. Yes, sir, there's an utter absence of old-time Bible Holy Spirit conviction. There's the absence of the breaking up of the human heart. the plowing, the subsoiling, and making ready the seedbed of the human heart by the Holy Spirit for the planting of the seed of truth which brings forth eternal life. No seedbed, no planting, no harvest except thorns and thistles, no withering power of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of a sinner. Brother, many of you preachers listening to me will magnify old Charles Haddon Spurgeon who kneeled back yonder nearly a hundred years ago? You say, what a man! I wish you'd go and pull his book off of the shelf and read that message on the withering work of the Holy Spirit. I wish you would. I wish you would and do your heart good. Bro, that's a masterpiece. I've read it. I've memorized it. That sermon on the withering work of the Holy Spirit. I've made notes on it. Then you see how he preached and brother they cursed him in his day as much as you are cussing me in my day about Holy Spirit conviction. We have substituted the wisdom of man, the training and developing of the old human nature for Holy Spirit conviction. Our business today, they say, is to try to lead folks to quit their sins, reform their lives, and make the world a better place for infidels and atheists to live in. Praise God, it's not so with me. This world is not my home. If you infidels and modernists and atheists and evolutionists and unsaved religionists want a better world to live in, make it yourself. I'm going home someday and leave this mess behind. I'm going to protest it. as long as God gives me breath, calling upon you to turn to Christ. Unless you repent and turn to Christ for salvation, you are going to hell. Ah, you don't like the word hell, do you? No, sir. We are living in such a refined age, until a mother said one day, I don't let my children listen to you, preacher. I said, why? Because you use the word hell. I said, Sister, you're going to hell. Oh, don't talk to me about going to hell. I said, you're going to hell. Listen. You listen to me now. Don't you turn that dial. Because of rebellion of the religious world against the Word of God, we have lost Bible repentance. Yes, repentance is the missing note in present-day preaching. Repentance, like holy spirit conviction, is hated, abhorred, and despised. And man has substituted decision for Christ for salvation. Any individual who says that you don't have to repent to be saved knows nothing about salvation. Because Christ says, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Then again, the Word of God says, I command you to repent. And Paul said, I have preached repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, in Luke 24, 47, gives us a command to preach repentance and remission of sins to the whole world. That's your message. Now let me tell you something, God never gave a preacher any other message except repentance and remission of sins. I challenge you to search the Word of God and show me where Christ ever commanded you to preach anything else. I do. I know repentance is a gift. I know repentance is a means of grace. But God demands repentance to every sinner because there can be no saving faith apart from repentance. I know I'm looked upon by some as a disgrace to the present-day ministry. One fellow said to me one day, he said, Prince, you're a disgrace to the present-day ministry. I said, why? Because you preach repentance. I said, well, brother, let me be a disgrace. It was by repentance I found grace in the eyes of God. Listen. Listen. Brother, if there's no repentance, there's no hope, no Christ, no salvation, and you're standing on slippery quicksand. Rebellion! Yes, rebellion. What is rebellion? One day King Saul returned from battle. The Lord God had commanded that he destroy the Amalekites utterly. And when returning home, there was the luring of the sheep and the blading of the cattle. And he said, and he came leading the king of the Amalekites with him. Then the old prophet Samuel met him and asked him why he spared the life of the king and the sheep and the oxen. Oh, he said, Samuel, I brought the spoil of the battle as an offering unto the Lord. Huh? Then the old prophet looked him in the eyes and said, listen, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the pat of rams. How much rebellion is carried on today under religious covering in the name of Jesus, making much of Christ, but disobeying the Word of God, using great, high-sounding phrases about the Lord Jesus, and yet in open rebellion against his Word. Rebellion! What is it? Listen to God's Word. The old prophet Samuel goes on to say, For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry. Now don't you listen to this, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord. He hath also rejected thee from being king. The average individual today thinks it's a light thing to reject the Word of God not knowing that the Holy Spirit never reveals Christ to the heart of a sinner except by his Spirit through the Word. Now, let me tell you something, bud. You're not going to walk down the road or walk down the church aisle and trust Jesus and be saved. That is not salvation. Brother, when God sent you, he's got you down in the dust of repentance at his feet. You have hosted the white flag of surrender. There's no rebellion there. You've come to love the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to your heart through the Word. Christ is not coming out from under that seat. Christ is not coming out from under a bush somewhere. Christ isn't coming down from heaven. Christ isn't coming up from the grave. No. He reveals Christ to the human heart through his word. That's for you fellows who hate the word and count the word of little naught, not saved and never will be. Now you listen to me. Rebellion is the sin of witchcraft. Rebellion, rebellion is open renunciation of the authority to which one owes obedience. It's open resistance to or defiance of authority. No longer does the Word of God hold any authority over the average individual. There is another defiance and rebellion against the authority of God's Word. God calls that witchcraft. Witchcraft is demon worship. Rebellion shows then that you are demon possessed. Any individual who rebels against God's word would take God over the throne if he could. Rebellion is holding God in contempt. That individual stands in contempt of the authority of God. This is manifested by the individual not hearing the word of God. Christ said, do you hear me not? Because you are not of God. You can't rebel against an individual except you hold in contempt his word, whether spoken or written. Any individual who will not obey the word of God stands in contempt of the court of heaven. Now you listen to me. You listen to me. We find the first act of obedience, recorded in 28th chapter of Ezekiel, where Lucifer rebelled the anointed angel. rebelled against God and Him, and was cast out. We find a second act of rebellion recorded in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve substituted Satan's lie for the Word of God, rebelled against the Word of God, and God cast them out of the Garden of Eden and put a flaming cherubim there, a sword of justice, that they could not approach back to God Almighty. except through blood redemption, and God taught them blood redemption. All of this monkey business that's being printed in the last magazine now is tommyrot, and it'll find itself in hell. Then the fourth chapter of Genesis, we find another act of rebellion which took place at the first altar, where Cain and Abel came to worship. They'd been taught by Adam and Eve, the plan of redemption, by blood, and Abel brought the firstling of his flock. And God had respect unto his offering, but old Cain came up there with his own opinion, just like many of you devils do, with your own opinion. And he said, Sir, I'm not a sinner. I'm somebody come. I'll bring my own offering. He brought the offering, of his own hands. God had no respect to it. Let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts, his opinion. Let him turn unto Jehovah, and he'll have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. God help us. Won't you listen? Are you in rebellion against God's word? When we turn to number 1630, we find another act of rebellion against God's anointed when Korah led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. My friend, when Korah went to hell alive, if there's one sin that God hates above every other sin, it's the sin of rebellion. Rebellion is manifested in the average church today by members rising up against God's pastor. Now you listen, God never leads a church through a board of deacons. God never leads a church through the preacher's wife, nor the pastor's secretary, nor through a choir leader, or a group of any type in the church. God leads his church through his pastor, therefore any individual. who rise up against God's preacher, who is preaching the Word of God, is rebelling against God. The average church today is run by some clique inside that church. And if a pastor doesn't preach to shoot him, he's debarred. He has written across his ministry, and he soon finds himself hunting another job. I've been with First Baptist Church for nearly 30 years. I guess I've faced more rebellion than probably any other preacher living. But by the grace of God, I'm still here preaching the gospel to the souls of men, and a lot of them are dead in hell. Are you rejoicing? No, sir. My heart has whipped itself out open. But, brother, my sympathy is with God, and not with rebellious, unsaved religionists who hate the gospel and the Word of God. I know I'm either loved or hated, so is any man who's true to the souls of men and never compromised the Word of God. There is no neutral ground. You can only love that man by the grace of God. You can't separate God's message, God's messenger, and the Lord Jesus Christ. God's messenger never compromises God's message and never betrays the Lord Jesus Christ. You put that thing down. God never calls a man to misrepresent him. Now, you hold that. Therefore, when God calls a man and places him over his flock, that man is the apple of his eye, the under-shepherd of his sheep, and he speaks with a voice of authority through that elder and guards his sheep through that bishop. What a responsibility! And I'll tell you, no man takes such responsibility unto himself. I sit here preaching God's Word out there to the multitudes, and you sit there before your radio. Brother, it's a responsibility. And if you rebel against God's Word, that's your red wagon, not mine. That's your soul at stake, not mine. I didn't write God's Word. He didn't ask me one thing about it when he wrote it. He called me to preach it and to proclaim it. And I'm not to preach what I think or leave out what I dislike or don't think. He never asked me to preach my opinion. He asked me to preach God's word, and I'm to preach the whole counsel of God. I know the gospel preached on the power of God's Holy Spirit either kills or makes alive. It either means your salvation or your funeral. It either means your eternal life in heaven or the damnation of your soul in hell. It is a life and death proposition. The pastor's not a servant of the church. He's the servant of Christ. God cannot lead his preacher by his Holy Spirit if that preacher seeks to please man. Paul said, For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Yes, sir, no saved person will fight his pastor. No saved person will lead a rebellion against his pastor. Any unsaved person who has or is now leading a rebellion against his pastor, whether openly or undercover, when awakened to his lost condition, will have to right the wrong before he can get saved. No individual will ever get saved as long as he fights God's Word. Now you get that. Now, brother, you cannot fight God's Word because, listen, that's the only medium through which God reveals Christ to your heart. God cannot reveal Christ to your heart any other way except by His Spirit through the Word. The Holy Bible. And the Bible is God's Word whether you believe it or whether any man believes it. It's God's Word. It's verbally inspired. It's inerrant. It's absolute. It's eternal. It's unbroken. Now that's true whether you believe it, whether I believe it, whether anybody believes it. And my friends, let me tell you something. In the average home today, There is open rebellion. Let me give you God's order in the home. Man, Christ, the God, the head of Christ, Christ, the head of man, and man, the head of woman, parent, parents, head of the children. Now, not only is there rebellion in the church, but it's going to the womb. Now, that's God's Word. Now, you read 1 Corinthians 11 3, and you read Ephesians 6 1. and you read 1 Peter 3, 2 and so on, and you'll find there that the order of God's government in the home and God's voice of authority in the home is God the head of Christ, Christ the head of man, man the head of woman, and parents the head of the children. Man, let me ask you one question, is Christ your head? Woman, is your husband your head? Children, Are the parents your head? The voice of authority in the home is the husband. Well, you said, well, my husband's dead. Well, then, Mother, the voice of authority in your home is you. And you stand there and exercise that voice of authority. As I walked away, you said, Pastor, did you exercise the voice of authority in your home? Bet your life. I raised my children on the stars and stripes. I punished the stripes and they saw the stars. This brings to the close another broadcast. We want to thank you for your letters, your gifts, and your prayers that keep these messages going out over the Voice of Truth program each week. Again, the title of the message was, The Sin of Rebellion, and this is number 195 in this series, and you may have a free printed copy simply by request. I want to mention our book of the month Hurly. It's My Plea for the Old Sword. It's by Ian Paisley, speaking about how the King James Version of the Bible has been thrown aside, and much, much information there. We'll give it to you in our next broadcast when we have more time. It sells for $6.80 postpaid. That's My Plea for the Old Sword. I recommend it very highly to you. Also, I'd like to remind you that our broadcast goes out now over the Internet. www.wlno.com. You can hear the broadcast there and if you write us we'll send you a listing. And I appreciate this opportunity to bring you another old-time, old-fashioned gospel message. And I'm asking you to pray for us and write us. Remember my mailing address is Radio Missions Post Office Box 6250 New Orleans, Louisiana 70174. This is Pastor Alvin Pendarvis speaking. May the Lord's blessings rest upon you. This is the Voice of Truth.