I have a message that would take hours. But we have the Lord's table this morning, and I don't want to keep you over long, you ladies who put your roasts in on the electric timer. Sometimes I think those things are a curse. I think it's rough on a woman who's at church and has to keep thinking, I hope the roast doesn't get burned. You know, I sometimes think it would be better just to have hamburger on Sunday, don't you? You know? Forget about it. I know a lot of you do. Or pancakes. But if you turn to Jude 12 with me, wherever we've been ministering, I just want to read a verse. It's struck me, I think, more forcefully through the summertime. One verse, speak on it just a little bit, not completely, and then come to the Lord's table. But in Jude, Jude speaks, of course, of the last days. In that 17th to 19th verse, he says, Beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lust, and these be those who separate themselves, sensual having not the Spirit. Now, I'm not going to take you to all the parts in Peter and Timothy where it speaks much of false teaching, but notice the 12th verse. We're down in this area of our teaching in this portion concerning the second coming and the conditions of the last days. He speaks of those who are wicked, many in the church, It's a terrible thing to think that within the confines of the church body there can be those who are vile and wicked and have deserted Christ and yet continue to call themselves churches. Our churches are filled with men and while I have sorrow in my heart for Mrs. Pike, the second Mrs. Pike, I must say that the discovering that he was dead, after listening to him just one week ago on television, spew out damnable heresies concerning Jesus Christ, I could not help but feel that he deserved the judgment of God. The things that he said on his program were of such a vile character. that it could hardly be believed that this man had been, before he was defrocked, a bishop in the Episcopal Church. The trouble was that he was leading a great gamut of people down the wrong road. In Spiritism and in communing with the dead, And I was amazed when he asked the television audience how many of them believe this. The hands that went up. And you could tell that had the man lived, there would have been a great following of he and his wife in this area. It says here in Jude, these are spots in your feasts of love when they feast with you. Feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water. Carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Beloved, as I said in my prayer, I rejoice that you attend Franklin Avenue Baptist Church. I was thrilled this summer when I went down to Pennsylvania to a small Bible conference. I rejoiced when I went over to visit a pastor who had become a pastor because of my ministry. A man now about 40. And I rejoiced as I went over to his church. and saw the witness he had for Jesus Christ, and souls were being saved. To see 300 in his morning congregation, and what thrilled me most was nearly 300 at night. Oh, it's a country area. It's down in the Lancaster area. But what thrilled me was something he said to me. He said, you know, Pastor Gein, I never forgot something. that you continually preached and that I listened to in my heart. He said, I never forgot that you said so often, just because you're a Baptist, don't think you're saved. And all we have to make so sure, don't we, that it isn't just the fact that we go to Franklin Avenue Baptist. that your faith in Christ is real this morning. And I couldn't help but think in this portion in Jude, two words which impressed me very deeply. And those two words are, they are without fear. Without fear. As Christians, I think in this day we live in, we often act and live as though there's no coming judgment of God. That there's no time that we're going to have to face Christ face to face. Those words are in that twelfth verse of Jude. They were without fear. You'd think that word fear was left out of the scripture if you listen to a lot of people today. But I want to tell you something, when the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, it means it. In another portion it says, they had no fear of God before their eyes. And I want to tell you, it is a fearsome thing to come into the presence of our God, especially if there's sin upon our soul and we have not one bit of intention of ever changing. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If there's one thing in this people's heart that God has entrusted to my care, it is that your whole walk in your Christian life may be one exactly as Paul has laid it down in his word. He tells us without any other interpretation that we can put upon it. He says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. He says, it belongs to you now. It's your own. You've accepted Christ as your personal Savior. You've believed in the blood that has cleansed you from all sin. You're part of the family of God, and God is your Father, and you are His child. Now, work out your own salvation. He's given it to you as a gift. It's yours. He'll never take it back. Work it out. with fear and trembling. Young people, may I ask you please to remember this. I ask your parents, I've been asking them for years to remember this. To work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. I plead with you. If there is, as the world claims outside, some generation gap, Between parents and their children, I would remind you that there's no difference in the word as it comes to parents' hearts and as it comes to children's hearts. The application is exactly the same. And Paul says, if we're saved, if we're really born again, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. These were without fear. Without fear? There is no fear of God before their eyes. They act as though there'll never be a judgment. There'll never be a day when they will have to face Jesus Christ. They are not fearful of his very presence within their breasts. If they've been redeemed, they forget that their bodies are not their own. They've been bought with a price, with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and they do not own their own bodies. They have been crucified with Christ. The life that they now live, they live by the faith and the power of the Son of God who lives in them. This is the new life. This is the Christian life. This is that which is real, beloved. Oh, how I ask God that during this fall season mothers and fathers and young people will find a burden in their hearts that Christ will lay there by the Holy Spirit and will lead them into a close walk with himself in these last days. Let me tell you, these are fearsome days. These are as the days of Jesus spoke when he said, as it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the day of the Son of Man. And I would remind you in the days of Lot that it was Sodom and Gomorrah. And that in the Old Testament it says the sin of thy sister Sodom was this, idleness and fullness of bread. And this nation is so affluent so filled with bread and yet filled with idleness. The church of Jesus Christ today is finding it harder and harder to get laborers to work in the vineyard of God. What has happened that Satan has so duped the hearts of Christians, and this is the great warfare, has duped the hearts of Christians that they do not see that the great need today is for laborers to labor in the vineyard of God with their own children and with the children of others? Oh, that the message of Christ that the fear of the Lord will be in our hearts, that we might please Him, that we might remember that we are to be fearful since He indwells these very breast of ours. Wherever we walk, He walks. Wherever we go, He goes. Whatever we do, He's with us. Where shall I go from the presence of God? If I go to the highest mountain, if he is there, and if I go into the deeper most parts of the sea, the psalmist says, he is there. Where shall I hide from the face of God? There's no hiding place from God. Our lives are to be hidden with Christ in God. Beloved, in this day, we're living in these two words without fear. are the terrible thing that has come into the Christian church. May I remind you that the scripture is clear, that we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to answer for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. Every single one of us, you, I, shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ I think we treat it almost as a fairy tale. I even believe that when Christians hear me utter these words, it does not, through the devil's deception, sink deep into their souls so that they look at themselves as a purchased possession of God, their substance, their bodies, all that they are, belonging to God. And I believe the devil has so deceived, remember, it warns us that in the last days Satan should come with such mighty wonders and working powers that if it were possible he would even deceive the elect of God. And I have to say that many believers who are weak in their faith, who are not walking in a close walk with Jesus Christ, are being dragged down by the deception of Satan, and they don't even know it, and are deceived. And they have made their lives a rat race to possessions and things and the world and everything around them. And their children laugh at them when they talk of Christ. and his sacrifice, and the blood, and the cleansing from sin, and they see mothers and fathers. All they think about is possessions and things, and the dollar is the mighty thing, and all the time are children who we give so little credit for intellect. at young ages, far younger than myself, look right through us and see. And you can talk and talk, mothers and fathers, about your faith in Jesus Christ and about what Jesus means as Savior. But I want to tell you something. If there's no devotion at your table, if there's no thanksgiving at your table, if there's no personal devotional life, if there's no deep and intensive prayer life, if there's no reading of the Word of God, and there's no evidence in your life that Christ is real. Forget that. And don't charge God with your children's failure. Put the charge where the charge belongs. Never can God be charged with the failure of children. On the other hand, young people, may I say this now from the parent's side, if God has so blessed you with a spiritual mother and father, a Christian mother and father who are a burden for you, who sometimes have to say no to things you'd like to do, and do it in the strength of God and believing they're right before the Lord Jesus, who've prayed with you, who've longed for you, who've loved you, young people, who've cared for you, who've tenderly nursed you, may I ask one thing? Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. You're fortunate. You may not think so now. You may laugh me to scorn, I don't know. But I want to tell you Mothers and fathers who have stood fast for the Lord Jesus Christ with their children week by week and day by day are the mothers and fathers who finally are those of whom God speaks in Proverbs 31 when he says, and her children call her their mother blessed. It so thrills my heart when I have a young person or one who's older come to me and say, I only remember one thing about my mother and father. My father read the Bible at the table and my mother never ceased to pray for us. And I know several of you have mothers here this morning that before you walk out the door to school, that mother has prayed with you. She sat at that little table where you've had your breakfast and burdened her heart. Maybe sometimes you've looked at her and wondered and thought, I wonder why mom cries a little bit sometimes when she prays. I want to tell you why she cries. She's so burdened for you as her son or her daughter, that her heart is so full, she can't help it. Listen, young folks, I love you with all my heart. I yearn for you as my own children. You can go your own way. You can go into sin. You can cast your body into hell if you want. But I want to tell you there'll be no joy of the Lord in your heart and you will die in abject despair. How do I know? I'd only have to have you sit in my study, that's all. Have girl after girl come in here over this last year, not from this church, sent to me by the county, pregnant, at 13, 14, 15, and 16 years of age, and all of them saying, I want to commit suicide. Now you can play. Now I want to tell you something. Many a Christian church has had the problem. I just want to make it so clear that no one doubts. Do you know, in New York, in Hartze's, the home that this church supports for girls who find themselves in trouble? Out of 52 girls, 26 were from born-again families and find churches along Hartze. The fear of the Lord is a blessed thing. I'm so thankful and in the book of Acts it continually says, the disciples came together and prayed and fellowshiped around the word and broke bread and the fear of the Lord came upon them. They wanted to please him and serve him. And oh, beloved young people and parents, parents set that place of example. Oh, don't be ashamed. Sometimes parents say to me, how am I going to begin? I've never done it. Well, begin it. Have some devotional life. Read the Bible. Let the children know that Christ is important to you, that He's your Savior, He's your Redeemer, He's your Lord. And then young folks, oh, that God will keep you clean and pure. You wonder why I say in my prayer, keep our girls chaste and pure. Do you want to know? Because every girl holds the fate of every man's morality in her heart. Men are made of such character that you can drag them down into the very pit and the morass of sin. And every girl holds the purity of the nation in her hands. Every nation of history that has fallen, first its women fall morally, and then its men decay. So why do I pray for your chasteness and your purity? Because you are in the controlling place and God made you as a help mate, not to hinder men, but to help them to be pure and to be decent and to be morally fine before God. I want every fellow to know any girl who in any way subscribes to immorality isn't worth a penny. You degenerate your life in association with such. For every girl I say purity is the mark of God upon your heart. And I can assure you that when men look to the girl they're to marry, No matter what the book says, don't you believe it, they still want purity, purity without fear. Oh, beloved, may the fear of the Lord be wisdom to you. May you remember we face the judgment of God. The judgment seat is believers. He'll judge us for everything we've done in the body, not for sin. He will not condemn us with his children, but there will be a judgment. How have you acted as a Christian and what have you been? Are you different than the world? For he says, all that is in the world is enmity with God. Therefore, are you out of the world? Have you been taken out by Christ? And do you belong to him? Mothers and fathers, your top responsibility is the beginning. If you do not have children who are what they should be, you first should judge yourself. If in that judgment you find that you have obeyed God, and you've been faithful in prayer, in your constant attendance to God's house and worship, in your faithfulness to the Word of God, in your faithfulness in your fellowship with Christians and not the world, and you have not let the world enamor you and draw you away from Christ, then you can stand sure and say, I have stayed with my God and sought Him, and I look to Him with my children. Children, if you have this kind of parents, oh, how I pray for you. If your parents have not been what they should be, then you yourselves get straight with God and live that dynamic, vibrant life of the Holy Ghost that is mighty beyond all the powers of the earth and that all men will shudder under the impact of it because Christ is God and hath made it all. and unto him shall it all finally be given. The kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's, and we who are the Lord's, let us submit ourselves unto him. Another hour, but sufficient, let us pray. Now Father, we thank thee for thy precious word, and now we come to the Lord's table. Lord, we're mindful that the table has something to say to us about the very things we've been speaking about. Thou hast said in thy word that if anyone comes to the table with sin on their heart, unworthily, that then the chastening hand of God will have to fall upon them. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. It warns us that we are not to come to this table if we do not discern that Christ is Savior and that He's dwelt in us by faith. Thou hast said then that we are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, that we are on the side of the crucifiers. So, Father, put discernment now in the heart of all. May every sin be confessed before we come to the table. No need to leave. Just come to Christ. if they're not saved. Say, Lord Jesus, I believe with all my heart that Thou art my Savior, and come and partake. And if there's any sin in the life to right now, say, Lord Jesus, I truly confess it. This sin has crushed me. Forgive me for it, and as I come to the table, may I come worthily as thy child and partake of this very emblem of thy body and blood which was shed for me. Now, Father, touch every heart this morning as we come to this, thy table, in Christ's name, amen.