If not, I do ask an interest in your prayers. As always, I am in need of them. But we pray that God would speak to us through his word. If you've got your Bibles with you and you want to follow along, we're going to read from Galatians chapter one. I know we were there last week. We're going to pick up again there and reread a couple of verses and move forward a little further. We might be here for a while. I will let the Lord decide that. But I've often felt for the past number of years that we have grown very accustomed to looking at a handful of verses, and that's good, and it's needful, and it's certainly not wrong by any means to take hold of a few verses. In fact, in a setting like this, it's very difficult to do any more than a few verses much of the time. At least it is for me. I find there is much ground to be covered even in a few verses of Scripture. I think sometimes it helps us to have had a context of the scripture prior to hearing the message and to remember where we are, where we've come from and where the people are going and what Paul has been talking about. And we remember last week that Paul was dealing with the Galatians, the churches there, multiple ones. He addressed it to multiple churches, the churches of Galatia, that region. We find him dealing with a very serious topic, as Scripture tends to do. A very important topic must be addressed, and Paul is addressing it. The attempts of those among the Galatian churches that were trying to make mere religion out of the following of the Lord and of salvation, they begun to say that you had to follow the law of Moses in order to be saved. We're teaching and preaching that you must be circumcised in order to be saved. We won't cover that ground again, but you'll remember that that's the setting of this chapter. It has been said that a fish doesn't know it's wet. I remember the first time I heard that, but it's probably true. A fish doesn't know it's wet. For the moment it's born, it's in the water. Unless some fortunate fisherman were to come by and yank that fish out of the water, it would have never imagined that there was anything besides the water that it was living in. We're very much like fish with regard to the culture that we live in in this time that we live in. Until that moment that the fish, if a fisherman were to come by and pull that fish out of the water and all of a sudden it was looking around that fish was confronted with the reality that only moments before would have seemed absurd. Without trying to make too much light of the situation in the beginning here today, you can imagine if a man, a fisherman, were to come by and pull a fish up out of the water and that fish looks out and he sees all of the things that are outside the water and the fisherman lets him go and that fish swims along and meets up with his friends and says, you should have seen what I just saw. Most of his fish friends would probably call him crazy. Call him a lunatic. Granted, this is a very silly analogy. In fact, many of the times we used to keep fish at home, a very short period of time, but there'd be a castle in there and we'd always make fun, or we've made fun since then. We've heard that fish have a memory of about three seconds. And so they'll swim by and they'll say, look, there's a castle. And they'll swim around the fish bowl for a little while and come back around and go, look, there's a castle. And they are continually entertained by that. So our analogy is silly. But it's where I want to begin today, because you and I are very much like the fish. We live from the moment we're born in this temporary life, this temporary world. And we tend to think that it's the only one that there is. Men often, and this is the struggle spiritually that we are faced with, men believe that this life is everything, that this life is what it is, until one day, by the mercy and the grace of God, the Spirit comes and opens up our eyes to the reality of eternity. You see, one of the biggest problems that you have, that I have, that all men and women, of course, speaking generically have, is that we don't have often a proper eternal perspective on life. We look at life as a period, if we're lucky, of 80 years, maybe longer. Some people are fortunate, they live to be 100, We are even longer, but this life is like the water that the fish swims in. Men think that it's all there is until there's a moment given, a moment when the Spirit of God reveals to them what eternity is. And I remember when that happened to me. I've already spoken about that this morning. We've sung about it. I remember the day. I'll never forget the day that the Lord saves me. I'll remember it. I believe not only for as long as I live here. I believe I'll remember it for the unending age of eternity. That day, on that hillside in southwest Missouri, in the summer, as I went to that camp, as I'd gone to many years, and the Lord in that place convicted me. He was. He did at that moment, much like our fisherman in the example. Picked the fish up, and all of a sudden he saw there was so much more. That day, when God convicted me, I realized that there was so much more than I had previously, just moments before, understood. I had been given a moment of clarity. That's our title today, a moment of eternal clarity. A moment of eternal clarity. Paul is dealing with this problem of the churches of Galatia, of this making the gospel of Christ, adding to it the law, when the ground that we covered last week and he has covered in the previous verses is that Christ is the end of the law. He is the answer to the law. He has fulfilled the law. I'm going to heaven because of what Jesus did, not at all because of what I did. Not even bowing and crying out unto God merited my salvation. It was necessary for me to repent and to believe. And if you want to be saved, you're going to have to repent and believe the gospel. But you're not going to merit it ever. You're never going to earn it. You're never going to deserve it. But what was happening in Galatia is the Jews of the day were trying to infiltrate the gospel of Christ and pervert it and alter it and claim that there was something that man was accountable to do to earn salvation. There isn't. Paul gives a moment of eternal clarity. Brethren, there's a need for every one of us to once again gain an eternal moment of clarity. A lot of things melt away quickly when we have a moment of eternal clarity. Have you ever had a problem at work or a problem at home or some kind of personal problem and you didn't know how to fix it and then all of a sudden a moment of clarity came and you understood what you needed to do. I know I've had that. Many times and in my work, there's been times sometimes the best thing to do is to walk away from it if you can come back to it in a moment of clarity will come. I want today and it's a very tall order. It's not going to come because I say anything as we'll say in a minute. But I hope today in the next little while as we're here today that we gain a moment of eternal clarity as we walk out of here in a little bit. And time continues to go and the watch, the minute hand and the hour hand continues to revolve until Jesus comes back. I wanted to have left here today with a moment of eternal clarity. And to look at the scripture to gain it, to understand what life really is about, because like the fish doesn't know it's wet. Most men today don't understand eternity, they don't understand this until God comes. I think all, and I'll say one more thing before we read our scripture lesson, I think there is something in the heart of man that he knows there's something more to life than what he sees with these eyes. I believe that. The atheist will call me silly, simple-minded, backwards, and all of these things, but deep, deep down, God has created man, and I believe there's some witness within him that he knows it. Man's very good at denying it, placing these eyes on this world, putting this world in front of him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from the television and the 24-7 news channels, to Twitter, to Facebook, to all of the social media, to all of these things, he is going from one instance to the next, to the next, to the next, and we are bombarded, not with an eternal perspective, but with a temporary one. So today, let's Let's try to ask the Lord, God, give us an eternal moment of perspective, an eternal moment of understanding, an eternal moment of clarity or a moment, I should say, of eternal clarity. Let's look together and we're going to read verse six through 12 of Galatians chapter one. Paul says, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be I want to pause for just a moment. I want you to understand the great passion with which Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, just said that. He repeated it twice in a row, and that in the Scripture is a big deal. In the Hebrew way of the Old Testament, there weren't punctuation. You know, when we want to emphasize something, we would put an exclamation at the end of the sentence. Or maybe today in our text, we would capitalize everything and we're yelling at the person essentially when we do that. In the Hebrew, they would just simply say it the same way, but they'd say it twice. You recall how Jesus would say, verily, verily. In other words, you better take notice. I want us at the beginning here, I pray that God would open up our eyes and our understanding to the depth of what we just read. It's so easy to overlook it. Because we think the Scriptures, we have this mindset of thinking that the Scriptures are just about poetry and pretty language and saying this or saying something that makes us feel good. And it's all about communicating the will and the word of God. And Paul just said it twice. Somebody preaches the gospel unto you other than what you've heard from me before, let him be accursed. And that means abandoned, set for destruction. It's important. I know we know this, but I wanted to pause again just a minute and understand the great pains that Paul was taking to shake the Galatian churches up. Remind them where they came from, what the gospel is, and what it always has been, and what it always will be. Anything else? Let them be accursed. For do I now persuade men or God? He says in verse 10. Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ. You're going to have to choose one day whether you're going to serve Christ or men. It will be a continual thing for you But I certify you, brethren, Paul says, moving on in 11, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. I want to finish our reading there. A moment of eternal clarity. What is the gospel? We talked about that last week. But Paul, as he began, and he said to them, I marvel, he said in verse six, that you are so soon removed from the gospel that you have received. He was just in awe or he was in amazement that the Galatians had been, as it says, removed from Christ. Said another way, Paul was greatly concerned that the Galatian churches had allowed the gospel of Christ to be replaced by the empty religion of man. And it would have been one thing for this to have taken place over decades. Haven't we seen that in our nation, the gospel of Christ being replaced with religion of man? And it has taken a long time. seemingly to us, in our perspective it has. I can read books, I've read histories of different denominations, and of denominations that at one time were of the same mind and opinion about salvation, that it was a work of the Spirit of God. As early as the 1920s, it began to be replaced with this idea of acceptance, of signing the card, of shaking the hand, of agreeing that Jesus is the Son of God, and you're good, and making your decision for Christ. This has never been the words of Scripture. It's not the words of Scripture today. It's never been the practice of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to give anybody any understanding of their salvation outside of this. Has the Spirit of God done a work in your heart to where He changed you and made you new? We're not asking you for an exercise of religion. We're not asking you to agree with me. I'm asking you this. Has God saved you? Has he saved and regenerated you? Paul, though, in this situation was amazed because according to what I've understood and many have said, this was as short as two to five years after he himself had been in Galatia preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he says, I marvel that you are so soon removed from the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is something that Paul, hearing about, quickly writes a letter under the inspiration of the Spirit of God to try and remind them what the gospel is, to warn them against those who would corrupt it and turn it around. We're going to talk more about what I mean when I say that, of turning the gospel around. But Paul is warning them, and brethren, today in a moment of eternal clarity, we need to look at the culture in which we live and realize this gospel that we preach according to the eyes of most in the world, seemingly. I think sometimes as I prepare my heart and my thoughts, I think sometimes I'm guilty of making a lot of broad statements that I don't have really first-hand knowledge of. But it does seem clear by our culture that there There are people who have turned the gospel around. God seemingly is our servant, instead of the other way around. We choose to be saved, rather than God convicting and saving us. We accept Him, rather than what the Word says of Him accepting us. It's been turned around. And it's been being turned around for a long time. In fact, from the very beginning, and even from the very early stages of church history, we find there were people who would corrupt the gospel and turn it around and pervert it and change it. And what's interesting to me is that most of the time, do you know who's changing the gospel? It's not the unbeliever, necessarily. It's not, at least it's not the one who doesn't profess to be a believer. It's not the people that are running out and being ungodly and pagan in the world. It's not them that corrupts the gospel most of the time. Do you know who it is and where it comes from? Most of the time it comes from those who profess to know Christ. That's where the corruption comes from. Isn't that what was happening in Galatia? There were Jews who had been saved. According to what we understand, they'd been changed. And yet the culture that they'd grown up in and the idea that you had to add something, it was their comfort zone. It was what they were used to. They then said, well, then really, to truly be saved, you've got to be circumcised. You've got to obey the law of Moses. And Paul writes to them and he says it twice, as I said a minute ago, let that be a curse. I don't care who preaches it. You are saved by the mercy and the grace of God in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And that is it. Nothing added to that. Nothing. And yet here the Galatian church was a mere few years after Paul had been preaching this gospel, a mere few years since he had been there himself, and they had began to add to it and corrupt the very simple and pure message of the gospel of Christ. Paul writes to them to try to deal with this issue, and he says very clearly, as we said a moment ago, the great Jealousy that he has in verses eight and nine of the the strictness of the gospel message Must be maintained Paul and all except John who would be asked to write the book of Revelation all of the Apostles Would go to their death Because they would not change the gospel of Jesus Christ countless Countless Christians have been martyred because they would not change the gospel of Jesus Christ. They would not. They would not allow those around them to tempt them, to pressure them under unspeakable threat of persecution. They would not allow them to change the gospel. You know, many times we think that those who have suffered martyrdom in the ages gone by, We think that they didn't have any choice, that they were brought and they were martyred. Many times we think they were just victims of circumstance. I want to remind you that many of them, most of them probably, most of them had an opportunity. All they had to do was say, yeah, you're right. Jesus isn't the only way. He isn't the Christ. He wasn't the way. Yes, your gospel, your teaching is just as good as ours. And they would have been spared all the trouble. I was in Liberia a few months ago. Those people that are there, they would be spared a lot of trouble if they would just simply say, yeah, you're right. You're right. We're wrong. And they no longer would have to fear for the persecution that they face almost on a frequent basis at any moment in time. All they'd have to do is say, yes, your gospel is just as good as ours. And is that not what Satan has done in our culture? Just almost unspeakably successfully so. You are to judge. That's what we're told. My way to God is just as good as yours. I want to tell you today there is one way to heaven. It is through Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice on the cross for your sins. There is no other way. This must be jealously guarded, not in pride, but in merciful, but in compassion and mercy and brokenness. But it must be guarded against. And he says to them, by the way, it doesn't matter who is preaching it. If it's not the gospel that you've received, let him be accursed. You know, it's not the gospel because we proclaim it. It's not. It's not the gospel because we preach it. It's the gospel already. It stands on its own. I've always been a little confused, and I don't want to split hairs, but I've always been a little confused with the statement that we are called to defend the truth. Now, we are called to stand on the truth and be in the truth, but the truth defends itself. The truth is the truth. It's not possible to attack the truth and win. At some point, it's going to reveal itself to be the truth. And that happens in life. And you've all heard that, children. No doubt your parents have said if you've been unjustly accused of something or you've been unjustly graded or whatever it is, it's this statement. It'll all come out in the wash. At some point, the truth is going to be known. Many times, I think our zealousness, and sometimes it comes from a place of sincerity even, our zealousness to defend the truth places us responsible for it. But the Gospel is not the Gospel because we proclaim it. It already is. And I want to tell you this as well. It's also not necessarily the opposite is true, I believe. It's also not necessarily not the Gospel because we quote our people on proclaiming it. People that we don't know. How many times have we heard, you've heard the stories, many here no doubt, of the people from Missouri many, many years ago now found out there were people in Tennessee that believed like they did. And they were shocked, amazed, seemingly. That's the story. And I believe today that there's probably a lot of people all over this country and all over the world. We don't know who they are, but it's not the gospel because we don't know them. I want you to read with me. Don't have to turn there. I'll read it. Luke nine, verse forty nine and fifty. This is important for us in the context of this message, because the gospel is the gospel simply because it is. And he says this. The apostles came to Jesus in forty nine. John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name and we forbade him because he follows not with us. What did Jesus say? Jesus said unto him, forbid him not. For he that is not against us is for us. John and the other apostles saw this man casting out demons in the name of Jesus, evidently successfully so. And they come to Jesus and they say, by the way, we saw somebody, he's not with us. So we, we provided from doing that anymore. Jesus is like, what are you doing? He's not, if he's not against us, then he's for us. I think we have closed our mind to the idea that there could be people who know the Lord just like we do, but they're not called like we do. We don't know them. And so we immediately assume that they're not preaching the gospel. And you know what else? On the other side, as I said a moment ago, we assume because it comes from our pulpit, it is the gospel. Careful. Paul says it this way, it is the gospel because it's the gospel. And if any man, I don't care who it is, and if he didn't care that it was an angel preaching it, and it wasn't the gospel, he should be accursed, then no doubt he doesn't care if it's me. It doesn't matter. It's me or anybody else. The gospel is the gospel. Quite simply, that is just the basic truth of this. This moment of eternal clarity is The gospel is not ours. It is God's. And if we want to be found in the truth, we're going to have to be found in the gospel because we're not found there automatically just because of who we are. It's because the gospel is the gospel. Deep down, by the way, you know, this is true. Those even that might be lost. Those who would hear these words, you know, there's nothing different about this man that is preaching these words really than you. You know, I'm a sinner. And if you get to know me better, you're going to know that really well. You're going to know I have faults. You're going to know I have failures. And there are many and we can list them. I'd ask us not to. I don't think I could take it too well today. But there are many in this piece of paper you could list. You know, this is true. There's nothing different about that preacher. And so you walk out of here and you think, well, there's nothing different about him. He doesn't really know anything. I will tell you today, I don't claim anything other than what the gospel has said. You know, this is true. There's nothing special about me. There's nothing special about any preacher. There's not. You want to know what makes the preacher special? And it's not him. It's when the Spirit of God rests upon him and the Spirit of God takes the word and preaches it to people who need to hear it. That's what makes it special. Not the man, but the gospel. What matters is the truth. What matters is the gospel. moment of eternal clarity. It doesn't matter. And someday in the future, if we have a building, it doesn't matter what it looks like in the eyes of the world. It doesn't matter what what programs we might have, though there may be important things that we do through them. What matters at all times is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters. Everything we do needs to be focused with a laser focus upon the gospel of Jesus Christ and pointing people to the cross and the atoning death of the Son of God. Nothing else matters. Paul says it as strongly as he possibly could. It doesn't matter. As I've said before, I'll say again, says Paul, if anyone preaches any other gospel, let him be accursed. There's no strength or beauty in us. I want to just read this. It's a thought God gave as I was preparing. There's no strength or beauty in us that would attract people to our church. But we do pray that the truth is found among us. The gospel is found within us and the spirit is found around us. That's what we pray. There's no beauty here. There's no strength except the gospel. And the gospel is the power of God, the word of God. It's quick and powerful, it's piercing even in dividing us under the soul and spirit. It pierces your heart. It's not important what this looks like on the outside, except that it reflects Christ. Everything that we do, the clothes that we wear, the jobs that we hold, the work that we do in school, that it reflects Christ. That all that we do, we do the very best of our ability because it's a reflection upon Christ and his gospel, not upon us. But upon him, any message that does not make Christ alone, the atonement for sin and the path to God must be quickly and completely rejected. Anything that takes Christ out of the equation as all of it. If you have Christ plus anything equals salvation, your formula is wrong. repentance towards God and faith in Christ. If you have anything on that side of the equation that merits salvation other than the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, your equation is wrong. Your answer is going to be wrong and your eternity is going to be separated from God. Moment of eternal clarity. That's the gospel. And by the brethren, this this gospel is to be strictly maintained. Isn't this interesting? What Paul said as he moved on from that, in order that we would persuade God, not men. So what did he say in verse 10 after he had said those two statements in 8 and 9, that the gospel must not be changed? He says, for do I now persuade men or God? Now, in our English understanding of the word persuade, that can be a little bit confusing. It is to me. When I think I'm going to persuade God of anything, I'm thinking, that doesn't sound right. It just doesn't seem right. God already knows everything. There's nothing I'm going to persuade him of in the way that we typically think of the term. The word persuade, it means to be, to make friends of, to win one's favor, to gain one's goodwill, or to seek to win them. You look up that Greek word, that's what persuade means. Paul has said this gospel must be jealously maintained. And do you want to know why men pervert the gospel most of the time? It's not to persuade or to win God. It's to persuade and win other men. Let's just change this gospel. Because you know what? If we took out that whole repentance thing, You know, if we took out that whole, you got to really cry out to God and really repent. And that's kind of embarrassing for people. That's kind of debasing. Let's just take that out and we'll have a lot more people come to our church. You know, many times we tried it, men have tried to change the gospel, and every time they change the gospel, their motive, though they may say it is, is not about winning God's approval. It's about winning man's approval. If we ever change this gospel of Jesus Christ, it will be to win men's approval, not God's. Because as Paul says, who am I seeking to gain approval of? Men or God? We must continually ask ourselves that introspective, important question. Is my life based upon winning the pleasure and approval of men? Or is it based upon winning the pleasure and approval of God? walking with Christ in the world. Brethren, the gospel is right here. And you know what the gospel is? It's finding repentance and atonement in Christ and walking with Him from there throughout the rest of your life. Enjoying His presence and His correction and His love and His approval. It's right here for us. Yet we walk away from it. And so many have tried to pervert the gospel because they're not seeking to win God's approval. They're seeking to win men's approval. Churches throughout time, throughout all ages, have set aside the gospel of Christ, turned it around and made it more friendly for men and less friendly for God. You know, it used to be a buzzword. I haven't heard it too much in the last few years, but there used to be a very big buzzword among evangelical Christian churches, and it was called seeker-friendly. Seeker-friendly. We need to have a seeker-friendly church. In other words, what they were trying to do, what they were trying to say was, we need to make it really easy for lots of people to come to our church and feel right at home and comfortable. I want to tell you, we need to welcome people. I want people to come. We need to love people. We need them to come. We pray that God would bring many into the sound of the gospel. But I want to just tell you the truth. I want to love you enough to tell you the truth. If you're lost, you're not going to be comfortable. You're not going to be put at ease in the face of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not going to make you at ease. And by the way, there's some sense to this. Who's the seeker anyway? The Bible tells us that men don't seek God. God seeks men. So if we're going to be seeker-friendly, let's be friendly to God. Let's honor Him. And when we bring this to the attention of lost people, this gospel is going to make you uncomfortable. And those of you that have been saved, how many times have you been in church and your feet were on fire and your insides were turned inside out because you knew you weren't where you needed to be and all you wanted to do was hit the door as fast as you could? Why? Because the gospel was being preached. It was being proclaimed. The truth was going forth and you didn't like it. But let me ask you another question. Which would have been better? You to sit there and listen to the chastisement of God? To come back into His fellowship and His mercy and His grace? Or to walk out the door unchanged and in the same sad state that you were when you came into the church? And I believe too much of the time our our idea of church. It's too easy to slip in, listen to the crazy man speak for 30 to 45 minutes, slip back out, go catch the game and forget everything you heard. It is time, brethren, to have a moment of eternal clarity, both for saved and lost. This is eternity. Call me crazy if you will. Call me a raving lunatic and a madman. But there is an eternal fire that you're heading to, that you need to be rescued from, and only Jesus Christ can do it. Those of us that have been saved, this life is not our home. As we said last week, we were saved not to live a wonderful life here. We were delivered from this world, according to what Paul said in the earlier verses of this chapter. Delivered from it. But we jealously guard this truth, to win the approval of God, not to win the approval of men. Even religious men, by the way, because remember, who was perverting the gospel? It was religious people. It was, in fact, in many of this respect, in Galatia, it was kinsmen in the flesh. Brothers, sisters and mothers and fathers, because Christ had come and turned the world upside down and all of the Old Testament law was judged with Christ as being satisfied. And all of a sudden you have a whole race, a whole group of people. that had lived their whole life trying to satisfy a law that the Old Testament even said you can't satisfy, and then they began to add to it. We don't jealously guard this gospel in order to please men, but we jealously guard it to please God, and even against religious men. Many times, this is a temptation. I know I'm going long. This is a temptation. especially for preachers. There's not that many of them here, but those of you that aren't a preacher, you know one. This is a temptation. We want to be stalwarts of the faith. We want to be looked at as defenders of the truth. deep in the Scriptures, and just marvelous men of God. I want to tell you that there's a danger there. The Gospel stands on its own. If we're to preach it and proclaim it, it's because God did it, not us. And many times, that sincere desire to be a, quote, stalwart of the faith, is really religious pride in disguise. Got to be careful. Because Satan loves to exalt and lift up. men, so that he can then pull them down. You know the problem with lifting up a man? He's going to let you down, and he's going to devastate a lot of other people in the time being. That's why the preacher needs prayer. That's why the pastor needs prayer. Because you know, everybody here knows me well enough to know now, I'm not strong enough. But God is. Be careful with this religious pride. Satan's very good at prettying it up, making it acceptable. And it isn't. I live along here today. The gospel is not after man, as as Paul says, and this is what I'll finish with. I've got a lot of things I wanted to say. But I'll give you the cliff's notes of the remainder, because it's important that you that we understand what Paul said about the gospel. I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. It's not the way we think. It's not the way we reason. Men see themselves as good. The gospel sees them as sinners. Men see God as accountable to man. The gospel sees man accountable to God. Men see all but the worst of mankind allowed entrance into heaven. The gospel sees many who firmly believe themselves good and even Christian being shut out, according to Matthew chapter 7. You see, this gospel is not after man. Men indeed have perverted it. And the word to change that we looked up earlier, that we referenced earlier, perverting and changing another gospel, or being turned to another gospel, means to have it turned around. And men have turned around the gospel. But Paul says in verse 12, I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. That describes perfectly the moment that God convicted me of my sin. It was a revelation of Jesus Christ. It was a revelation of the work of the Spirit. It's not man that convinced me. That preacher, I don't even know his name. I don't know his name. I remember what he was preaching on. But more importantly, I remember what God revealed to me. This gospel is a gospel that is revealed, not by man, but by God. That's critical. People want to know what's different about what we believe and what so many other Baptists believe. It's wrapped up in that. It's this, the gospel is revealed by God. It's not revealed by man. Look how eloquent the preacher is, how beautiful the building is, how much money they collect in the offering plate. The gospel is revealed by the Spirit of God. Is this not proven, by the way, in the fact that men can preach thousands of sermons? You can listen to hundreds of sermons. Week in and week out, over and over, you can listen to sermon after sermon after sermon and be unmoved. But then the Spirit of God comes and He reveals the truth. This gospel that we believe is one that is revealed by God Himself. So many people have such a small view of salvation. Let me ask you, does, yeah, I accept Christ as my personal Savior, raised to the level of, yes, God revealed the gospel to me. And I knew I was a sinner. And in deep conviction of sin, I called upon His name and He saved me. And I know that I've been redeemed. And I know that it is well I can't do that for you. God, this gospel is revealed by Him. It reveals not only, it doesn't reflect just that moment of conviction. We're just moments prior. Just like that fish that the fisherman brings out of the water so he can see the rest of the world. Moments before, he thought that was impossible. I was sitting in that church camp, listening to a sermon. I'd listened to I don't know how many sermons by that time. And yet, all of a sudden, it was as if God came down and gave me a moment of eternal clarity. You're lost. Lost. Lost. And what does it matter if the world doesn't see, or that you please them, it just doesn't matter. We spend, brethren, far too long, we spend far too long, I'm just going to say it, trying to move men towards God by our own preaching, our praying, our seeing, our testifying, and not nearly enough time in earnest prayer asking that God himself would move upon lost and saved alike. You're not going to reveal anything to anybody. Do you know who is God? God is. You're going to tell them the truth and we're called to do that. We are called to live and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. But how many times those of you that have had those had maybe friends or family that for years they went lost and you would speak with them and you would talk with them and you would reason with them out of the scriptures and all these things are good. But it was just as if they just didn't see it. They just didn't get it. And then one day they came to you and said, I know, I know what you're talking about. That's the rock that Jesus talked about building his church on, their knowledge of Christ both ways. I know him and he knows me. And there is countless conversations that can go on before that years and years and sermons and preaching and singing. And none of it has an effect. But then God comes. and the Spirit of God convicts and deals with them and their eyes are opened to an eternal reality. Too much of the time, it is as if we do not trust the Spirit of God to handle this work that the Father Himself has delegated alone to the Spirit. We must walk very carefully when it comes there. We must not touch the Ark of God, as it is said in the Old Testament. That place where God works, we must let Him work. We must cry out unto God, call upon Him to work and to reveal and to pull across, pull apart the curtains. Show those that are in attendance and listening what eternity is about. That what we do is about eternity. We raise our children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, at least we try to. Not so the world can look at our children and say how wonderfully behaved they are. If that's the rule, I'm in trouble. We raised him to nurture and admonish the Lord, at least we tried to. Because eternity is at stake. Not only theirs, but their families, their friends, their teachers. It's about the gospel. And it must be revealed by God to the individual. But it will be. We have little power, seemingly, today. And one must wonder why that is. We all lament it. We all do. We wish, I mean, we hear the older generation say, boy, back in my day, the strength in the church was palpable. You could sense it. Had older preachers tell me you'd walk into church and you'd just feel something's going to happen. And I think what we have mistakenly done is become to believe that the power and the ability for that to happen happened inside the walls of the church. I want to tell you that the work that enabled that to happen had been done in the week prior, in the months prior, in the years prior, waiting and calling upon God to reveal Himself. And we begin to think that it is the church service that enables the power of God to be seen. And it isn't! It is our lives! lived in the shadow of the cross. This is why living a godly life is directly connected to the desire to see people saved. We can't separate those two things. Any true desire, and I'm going to be done in just a moment, any true desire to see God's name honored among the heathen, to see lost men broken for their sin, must be ever accompanied by an equal desire for godliness in the life. anything less, and we are hypocrites at best and deceivers at worst. We must again renew our commitment to godliness in the life, not out of some self-righteous, pharisaical concepts of, I'm a good person, but because we know that if God doesn't reveal the gospel, it will remain hidden. God, you must come. How many times have I stood behind a pulpit and tried to preach the Word of God in complete inability because I can't do it? And how many times has that been because of my own sin that I have allowed in my life, those besetting sins? And we all have them. We must have victory over them, not so that we can become some great Christian, but so that God will empower us to call upon Him to reveal the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what's going to make the difference. When Christ revealed himself to Paul, everything instantly changed. It wasn't like Paul was walking down the road to Damascus and somebody said something and they went, huh? And he thought, well, that's kind of interesting. I have to think about that. You know, when I was 11 years old, God convicted me of sin and I knew I was lost. I didn't need any further explanation. I knew and it was a life eternal. eternity changing moment. And it was an instant. And when he saved me, it was likewise an eternal changing of everything. It wasn't slowly a dawning of truth slowly upon me. It was a radical life, an eternity changing moment. It was a moment of eternal clarity because God had revealed the gospel to me. Nothing I could do. You see, This is where the analogy of the fish comes to an end. As I joked earlier, after about three to four seconds, that fish is going to forget what it saw. It's not going to tell anybody about what it saw because it doesn't even know what it saw. You know the problem? When God reveals something to you, you can pretend that he didn't, but you know that he did. You cannot undo what God has done. No matter how hard you might try, no matter how far you may run, No matter how much sin you may add to your life to try to quiet that voice of God in your heart, you can't forget the Word of God once it's spoken in your heart. And I thank God for that. But let me ask you this as I close. Is that voice of God in your heart going to lead to rejoicing in heaven for all of eternity, or regret in hell because you shunned it? Either way, you'll never forget it. I never shall forget the day while the burdens of my soul roll away. Makes me happy, glad, and free. I wonder what the song sounds like on the other side. Never shall forget the day that I rejected the Word of God. That I rejected the working and the moving of the Spirit. And you'll sing it for all of eternity. God, reveal your gospel to us. Give us a moment of clarity about our life. To realize that when we leave this world, it's not an end, it's just a transition to eternity. And how much more clearly we will see at that moment. But don't you see, brethren, that we must see this clearly now. Because the moment that we leave this life, our opportunities have gone to make an impact here. I won't regret it one little bit because I'm going to be with Jesus. Not going to regret leaving this world. I have no fear of it. Perhaps the fear of the pain of death. But I don't have a fear of death because God has already taken care of that. But God, give us a moment of clarity to see this life for what it is, which is preparation for eternity. And reveal your gospel, and make us jealous over it. Not in self-righteous haughtiness or in religious pride, but in compassion and love that you give us for a lost world. Let's have a song.