Joy from Christ, not your performance – Paul Washer

Father, I will preach a message today that I myself had trouble living. Lord do not allow me to be in the hypocrisy of making people believe I am something I am not. For I know Lord that there are no such thing, there is no such thing as a great man of God only weak, pitiful, faithless man of a great and merciful God. Oh Lord that you would provide the power through your Holy Spirit to change my life through this message and to make me more conform to the image of Christ through this message. Lord I will greatly appreciate it. Help us all Lord in Jesus name. Amen.

May God help is all get our greatest joy from Christ, and not from our performance.

I am so tired of just doing. So tired of having my Christian life reduced down to how I perform and what I do. Jesus Christ comes to me. His yoke is easy and His burden is light, and He tells me this, “It is not what you do, for I can raise up rocks to do what you do and to do better than you do. But it is, Paul, the seal that I’ve set up upon you, the decree and the hope is that you would be conformed to My image.” That you would be conform… that is what He desires. And I submit to you today that all the problems, if not all, most of the problems in your life come from who you are not, from your character. Who you are as a person. Our squabbles in our marriages come from fleshly outbursts. They come from not reflecting Jesus Christ. The problem between brothers, the problem in life, the problem.. the disruption of our own conscience, everything comes down from: we are not putting enough emphasize where emphasize belongs and it is on “becoming like Jesus“. Everybody want to do something, when we ought to be wanting to be something.

Now listen to me, this might set some of you free. Do you ever get up in the morning and you had your quiet time and feel the presence of God and you were studying the Word and you seem to, God seems to speak to you and then you go out and you witness to everybody and you are obedient, and, boy, you just did it right that day. I mean you just were on top of the world, you loved your wife, you didn’t kick the cat, you are just walking with God and you are so full of joy at the end of the day. Then the next day you get up, well you overslept, you should’ve watched that program that night before, you should have been in the Word, you didn’t witness when you had an opportunity and there’s a real sense that you are filled with sorrow. You know what it is? Idolatry. You have become the source of your own joy. Your joy comes from you and your continous work. My joy comes from the finish work of Jesus Christ.

Now I want to be obedient, I want to witness, I want to love my wife and there is a great sense that the Holy Spirit convicts me when I do not do those things. But the point is, poverty of spirit is a wonderful thing because when you realize. It is like I use to tell to young preachers, I’d say, in order to preach you have to have the power of God on your life. Now I them in order to tie your shoes, you have to have the power of God on your life. You cannot breath.

Sometimes I get invited to church growth conferences, not really often but they will talk of all these great things that they are going to do, then I will get up and say, “Let me ask you a  question: From where does every breath come? From God. From where does every beat of your heart, from where does they come? From God. Oh so you caracterize all here you pastors and preachers and evangelists and missionaries with all these great plans, now let me tell you something. YOU CAN’T EVEN BREATH. Your heart will not even beat except for the power of God on your life.”

Apart from any measure of grace in my life, I would be here to you today nothing more than deceiving demonstration of atheistical flesh. That’s all I would ever be!

I was reading through Galatians this morning and I was so convicted. I was reading through Galatians and it talked about desertion and disputes, things like that. And I realize that sometimes I do that with my wife and it just showed me that it wasn’t that well you know I have .. we just have a problem where we dont agree. The fact of the matter is, I am in the flesh. I am in the flesh and I am not relying upon the power of God and the reason why I am not is because I am not poor in spirit. Someones says, “Well I am poor in spirit”. How much do you pray? How much do you tremble? How much do you rely on the wisdom of God revealed in His Word? Poverty of spirit.

But isn’t that wonderful, church, listen to me. Isn’t wonderful that you don’t have to be something big. Actually what you have to be is something low, something broken and humble, take the back seat, wash the feet, be timid and afraid of any task put before you so that it drives you to your knees. Realize in the morning that I shall not move to my left or to my right, one quarter of a inch because without the power of God upon my life, surely I will fall. Thats what the passage means in prayer, “lead us not into temptation”.

It is a recognition of weakness. and a recognition of a tremendous need of grace.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

Oh what a place, what a place!

Joy from Christ, not your performance by Paul Washer

It will cost you everything – Steven Lawson

You need to way in on the cost factor and count the costs of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

It will cost you popularity, it will cost you promotion perhaps at times, it will cost you an easy life, you will have to discipline yourself, you will have to buffed your body, you will have to say “No” to temptation, you will have to say “No” to this world, you will have to break with a crowd, you will have to be willing to stand alone for Christ, you will have to be willing walk to the beat of a different drummer and to step out of the crowd even if no one follows after Jesus Christ, you would be willing to stand if you were the only person in the world for Jesus Christ. That’s the cost factor.

You will have to be willing to suffer persecution for Christ and let me tell you, it will come. It might even cost you your life.

He is not coming to play games. He not is coming to be dazzle.

He is coming to dominate. He is coming to slaughter.

He is the King of king and He is the Lord of lord. and at the end of this age, He will bolt out of heaven on a white steed and His garments are dripped in blood. The blood of His own enemies and He is coming back to conquer and to damn.

You need to make terms of peace with this coming King or you will be subjected in damnation forever and Jesus Christ has made terms of peace.

You need to settle out of court with Him. You do not want to go into that final day of conflict with Christ.

For He will be ruthless in the execution of His Justice but He offers you mercy today. He will agree to terms of surrender. He will agree to terms of peace but they are His terms of peace, not ours and His terms of peace are very simply this: You must hate your own father and mother and brother and sister and even your own life more than Me or you cannot be My disciple And you must take up a cross and follow Me or you cannot be My disciple. And if you do not, you will meet Me in the final judgment and it will glorify God in your destruction.

He is pressing you for a decision. He will not be put off. You cannot hit the mute button any longer in your heart, you must answer Him.

Verse 33, “so then,” conclusion, “none of you can be My disciple”

“So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” –Luke 14:33

He is saying none of you can be a true Christian, None of you can be in My Kingdom, None of you can be in right relationship with Me or the Father, None of you can be My disciple Who does not give up all His own possessions.

What is our Lord saying? He is not backing off.

He is increasing the commitment that He is calling for with every line of this section. Well He is not saying that you have to buy your way into the Kingdom of Heaven for none of us have enough gold and none of us have enough silver to ever remove the stain of sin that has defiled our inner soul.

What is He saying? Who does not give up ALL of his own possessions.

Well this must be taken in context with other texts of Scripture and let me just cut to the bottom line of the bottom line. You must transfer the ownership of all that you are and all that you have to all that He is. That’s what He is saying.

You life is no longer your life, it is now His life. You time is no longer your time, it is now His time. Your possessions are no longer your possessions, they are now His possessions. Your future is no longer your future, it is now His future. Your treasure is no longer your treasure, it is His treasure. And you have transferred all that you are and all that you have to all that He is.

That’s what is is… to meet His terms of peace. Yet, the exchange is not bartered or bought with real money but it is purchased with the total complete surrender of your life to Christ. That’s what saving faith is. It is coming to the end of yourself and completely and entirely and trusting all that you are and all that you have to all that He is.

This is your eternal soul. This is the only life you will ever live. This deals with the only eternity you will ever have.

And so He says, “salt is good but If even salt has become tasteless, meaning it gives evidence that was never true salt to begin with. With what will it be season, and the answer is nothing. Verse 34, it is useless either for the soil or the manure pile. It’s just no good to anyone, not to God, not to Christ, not to the Kingdom, not to the movement. You’re just taking up a seat for someone else. There were other people who were trying to get into this.

It is useless either for the soil. Your not even worth the toilet, spiritually speaking. Because you have not come to the place of total surrender of your life and supreme legiance and supreme loyalty to Christ. You have not yet come under the Lordship of Christ and taken up a cross to follow after Him. And then He says, “he who has hears to hear, let him hear.”

You need to give strictest attention to what God has said in His Son. For God has spoken in His Son to us in this conference and God has brought everyone of us to this place. Not one of us is here by accident or by happenstance and it is the goodness of God and the mercy of God that has brought you to this place where you have heard of Isaiah 53. You have heard of the suffering Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who upon that cross became sin for us. Upon that cross He died to self that He might live for us and that He might bear our sins and iniquities upon that tree and purchase our salvation. And there is salvation in no other name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” And He is calling out to you today “Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will take you in and receive you unto Myself take My yoke upon you. And learn of Me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls. For My burden is easy and My yoke is Light.” It is.

You will have the weight of sin lifted off of you and you will now have the yoke of Christ upon you and He gets into that yoke with you and He pulls with you but it will require the total commitment of your life to Him.

Oh, how we ought to search our hearts here today. Have I come to this place of total commitment in my life? Have I yielded my life to the sovereign lordship of Him who dies upon the cross for me. I want you to know that the gates of paradise have been swung open to you. The narrow gate is open and if you will take a step of faith and come through this narrow gate, and commit your life to Him. Despite the strength of His words. He also says, “him who comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out.”

He is calling you today to come, to come to Him, to take a step of faith and to come to Him but if you come to Him. Don’t play games. You must surrender to Christ.
Preacher: Steve Lawson
Excerpt taken from: It will cost you everything.
resolved.org

It will cost you everything by Steven Lawson

Satan’s congregation

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. In his opening address he said,

“We can’t keep Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth…. We can’t even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their SAVIOR. Once they gain that connection with JESUS, our power over them is broken. So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish dinners, BUT steal their time, so they don’t have time to develop a relationship with JESUS CHRIST.”

“This is what I want you to do,” said the devil: “Distract them from gaining hold of their SAVIOR and maintaining that Vital connection throughout their day!”

“How shall we do this?” his demons shouted.

“Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable Schemes to occupy their minds,” he answered…..

“Temp them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work! Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or Ipod whenever they drive.” To keep the TV, DVDs, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. Have them kill babies before they are born. This will jam their minds and break that union with CHRIST. Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Have them go to perverted life styles. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering products, services and false hopes.”

“Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what is important, and they’ll become dissatisfied with their wives. Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night. Give them headaches too! If they do not give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere.” That will fragment their families quickly! Give them Santa Clause to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of Christmas. Give them Easter bunny so they won’t talk about Jesus Christ’s resurrection and power over sin and death….”

“Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted. Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect GOD’s creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead. Keep them busy, busy, busy!”

“Make plan to have them stop prayer in schools and public places. And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled conscience. Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek the Power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause. It will work! It will work!”

It was quite a plan!

The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busier and more rushed, going here and there.

Having little time for their GOD or their families.

Having no time to tell others about the Power of JESUS to change lives. I guess the question is, has the devil been successful in his schemes?

You be the judge!!!!

 

Does “BUSY” mean: B-eing U-nder S-atan’s Y-oke?

The FIRE – Nate Pheil

Have you ever thought that there would be people that have gone to hell today that never thought that they would get there? I mean, they might have thought that they would go there but they never really believed that they will go to hell. They never actually knew what hell is going to be like. They never actually believed that someday they would go there and that probably they were good – you know? But after all, they’re Christians. Of course they never thought that they would go there, but they are there. Right now. Many of them cursing God because some preacher told them that God was love and that love was tolerance and that God would never let them feel condemned.

Ever heard the phrase, a sugar makes the medicine go down. More like a little truth makes deception acceptable.

I want to be very clear on something: I have a heart for every soul – lost and saved. But this video from the very first idea of it until the very last edit that I’ve made was made for church people. I have spoken out in the past and I think it’s funny because a lot of church people have come up to me and they say, “You’re gonna turn off the lost people off.” or “you would make sinners want nothing to do with you.” They missed the whole point. I am talking to you. I am talking to church people. The people that already think they believe in Christ. The people that serve in churches. The people that evangelize the lost. The people of the Church.

I want to tell you something: it is a absolute, no second question, no explanation, no hearing of your life’s story, impossibility for you to be saved and yet live in a continuous state of worldliness. And you say things like, “God will forgive me. God was with me since I was a kid. After all, I got saved a long time ago. Surely He will just forgate about this.”
And you say things like that but you keep on doing all of the evil you can. You intentionally indulge in your favorite sin. And when there is still time to stop. While there is still time for you to just think about and say “No I do not want to do it”. In the same breath you say, “Boy I am sure God is merciful”.

But Christ seated at the right hand of the Father looks down from Heaven and He says, “Do you have any idea what your forgiveness cost me? I’ve had my flesh tore out my neck, and back and legs. I had thorns jammed into my head. I was stabbed in the side. gore gushed from my hands and from my feet and from my back just to cover the thing you so lightly indulge in. But in truth, this thing that I went in the physical. They were nothing compared to what I was going through the spiritual. If you multiply all of these physical things that I’ve gone through times a thousand. It still cannot cover your one sin. Don’t you know that God, the Father, beated me to pieces? He obliterated me beyond recognition. He took the cup of Wrath that had your name on it and He splashed it on my perfect, sinless and bleedy face. And what is worst, God did this to me with a smile. It pleased Him to crush me for you.
That’s what your forgiveness cost me.”

Most professing Christians have never realized their actually need for Christ. They have been invited to Him in such a way that seems like, “oh I am doing God a favor just to believe in Christ.” They have never been told that the very first level of Christianity is a complete denial to all of your desires and to everything that you ever being. They have never been clearly shown that whosoever doesn’t wake up in the morning in die to every one of his desires is not even worthy of walking in Jesus’ footsteps.
They do not understand that being a Christian means that they are crucified to the world and that the world is crucified to them. That means the world thinks of you as a fool that has nothing to contribute to society and that there is nothing that the world offers that you desire. Thet you have now nothing to do with sin and everything to do with God.
It has been told by many professing Christians that Jesus said and meant, no one can serve two masters. You will hate one and love the other every time. If you do not mind very much when people use His glorious Name in vain. If you do not mind of seeing places that are build on sin. If you do not feel deeply offended at the fornication in your favorite movies. At the scoffing of the glorious Name of Jesus and the jokes that defile his very throne and slap His face in rebellion, then you hate Him. It is not very hard to figure out because Jesus said, you will hate the one and love the other always.

If you love the world, you hate Him or else Jesus was wrong. But you say, “No that isn’t truth. I love Jesus. Jesus is Lord.” But who are you trying to convince? Isn’t interesting when anyone brings a word of correction about your sin. You immediately pass them off as unChrist-like and judgmental. It is digusting that it is more of a scandal to this church culture to reprove sin than is to laugh at it. The one who says, sin is wrong is judgmental and the one who commits it and encourages others to do it is Christ-like – how disgusting!
You do not want to be like God. You just want people to back off when they are starting to reprove the very thing you were in love most with.
Truth love for God means truth hatred for sin.

In Matthew 7 and in Luke 13, Jesus says that many will be telling Him on that Day that He is the actual Lord of their life. But He will say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”
Your profess faith in Jesus means absolutely nothing.

You say, well you know that you really can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Well I heard a great preacher recently say that that whole idea is invented of Satan. Because Jesus said, you can judge a book by it’s cover because in John 15, He said, you will know false prophets by their fruit.

Tell me how long will it actually take you if you walk to a apple tree and there were fruits of apples all over for you to say, “It’s a apple tree”? A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. That’s what Jesus said. Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire…” (John 15:5-6)

No one has to hear what you have been through. No one has to know that from what you have been saved. All they have to do is look at your fruit. You have been serving in church your whole life but look at your fruit for a second. What about the things that come out your mouth when you talked to people in conversations? What are your affections set toward – are they God things? You can tell Him that you have sit in church, you can tell Him that He is Lord. But if you die without bearing Christ’s fruits, you will go to hell for all of eternity. And ten millions years will pass and you will be under the weight of this thing that no human on earth can bare for even a second. And, it will be like no time has past in eternity – no time. A hundred years pass and is the same – you are there. There you are suffering the Wrath of God because you believed some lying preacher that was a wolf in sheep clothing that just tried to encourage you and so you are maybe saying as many already have, “Hey, you are judgmental.” “You are unChrist-like.” “You are condescending.” “You are heavy.” “You are turning people off by they way that you talk.” Can’t you see that I want you to live?

As the main purpose of your existence to live. That is God number one desire. The biggest problem in the Bible if you would read it that God is faced with is that if He just, He cannot forgive you.

Go talk to the lost people on the streets and see if they don’t tell you that God is forgiving. They have heard of the trenmendous love of God and yet, they are still with the very sin that crushed and murdered Him. And so are many of you.

“Hey let’s watch a movie tonight! What there is nudity and there is 12 ‘GD’s’? A hundred and forty ‘F’ words? That’s alright, I’ve freedom in Christ.” Freedom from what? Freedom to let the worst words that can be spilled out of a human mouth serve you. Entertainment and yet, you still claim that you love Him with your whole heart? You make lau- you make jesters at the very things that murdered Him? Not only that, but you spit in the bloody face of the Lamb of God as He hangs on a jack of wood taking your wrath and you say, “Don’t worry! He forgives.” Do you know the character of the god you serve? In the book of Jeremiah, God’s people have been wicked by serving other gods and having their affection set on other things and willfully sinning and not saying that they have sinned. And not acknowledging their need for God. We find in Jeremiah chapter 14 repenting genuine biblical repentance for the people of God and he said, “Lord, we confess our wickedness and that of our ancestors, too. We all have sinned against You. For the sake of Your reputation, Lord, do not abandon us. Do not disgrace Your Own glorious throne. Please remember us, and do not break Your covenant with us.” (Jeremiah 14:20-22).

It’s really good repentance it’s really genuine. It’s better than most of you had prayed. But what may shock you is God’s response, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before Me pleading for these people, I wouldn’t help them. Away with then! Get then out of my sight!” (Jeremiah 15:1). Then He told Jeremiah, “Do not go to funerals to mourn and show sympathy for these people, for I have removed My peace and protection from them. I have taken away My unfailing love and My mercy.” (Jeremiah 16:5).

These weren’t the lost people of the world. These were His people.

So you are maybe questioning, “Hey, why are you saying this to me? To me you still sound judgmental.” Well I heard a story of a young man that was dying on his deathbed. His brother was there next to him. And, he said, “Brother, why have you been so indifferent to me about my soul as you have been?” Brother said, “Indifferent? I haven’t been indifferent to you! I’ve spoken to you often about it.” Brother said, “Yeah, you’ve spoken but I think if you would remember that I was going down to hell you would have been more earnest with me.”

Every time you hear a sermon and you see a video, or you hear a song that is convicting or anything. You have chance to either to repent or to harden your heart. Some of you have watched a video that I’ve made in the past and you’ve thought, “Man, that’s very good or maybe you’ve told me hey, I will start changing. Thank you for this, and this but you really haven’t decided to change and tap in in the grace of God. You’re hardening your heart against Him. You are making it harder for yourself. Don’t make your judgment twice as bad for hearing the Word of Lord and then ignoring it.

I am telling you about hell and I am you that some of you are going there unless you repent. But, if you harden your heart in your whole life and die without repenting. You will look back in the day that you have watched this video and from the flames of hell, you will curse. You will curse the day you were born. You will curse this day and you will say, I wish I’ve even never watched because now I know that he was right. Now I know that hell is real, that he wasn’t just to scare me and that I was going. I was going to burn there for all of eternity. Now I see the truth. Now I see.

I got to tell you something very solemn, there is nothing in this life that you can do that will take away the glory of God. And, in the end He will be glorified in your life.
There’s a verse in Scripture that talks about that for all of eternity, the lake of fire will be open for people to come and see the fierce wrath of God. And that they will be able to observe how majestic He is and they will see in awe of their hearts and they will come back and worship Him. The line of heart stops their enemies as their blood sprinkles all over their robes and they will come bow before Him and say Holy holy holy is the Lamb which taketh the sin of the world. But, do you know what mercy is? Mercy is that you can choose. And, so, you choose will God be glorified by your damnation and eternal punishment or will He be glorified by your salvation and your worship.

I’ve realized that a lot of you think that I am crazy. I was told that. But ask yourself , What is going to matter when you are on your deathbed- if you get one, and when you are just a few breath away from death. What is going to matter? Is it going to matter whether or not you have been in college? No. It will not matter if I have written a song. Or, whether or not, I’ve painted a picture and done anything. Nothing is going to matter when you are breaths away from eternity.

Don’t you think that you have wished that you, when that time comes, that you would love God the way you said you did? Would you actually flip the tv off, a little more, to study His Godly scriptures? I know I will. No matter how much I have done then I wish I would have done more.

But the good news is: Christ is calling. He is calling loud within the streets. He is calling for you to come. He is holding the door of mercy as wide as it can be open and He is saying, “Come and dine with Me!”

To dine with Him you have to die to you. The One whose Name you have abused and whose cross you have mocked by the way that you lived is alive and He is coming. But you may die before He does.

All you have is now!

“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:1-2)

The FIRE by Nate Pheil

PS::  if you see any mistakes or missing words. Let me know!

Hell is Necessary – Tim Conway

“How many of you think that you’ll go to hell?”

The world has themselves convinced that this is a place that they are not going to.

No man wants to believe he’s going there. You know some of you, you’ve read this text, I know that there are those of you, I know, I know based on what God’s word tells me, some of you in this place that hear my voice will go to the place I describe today. Some of you are headed there, you don’t think you are but even now you provoke God by your very attendance of His worship today because you have not Christ. You have no hope. You’re without God. But you don’t think you’ll go there. You think that somehow you’re going to reason, you’re going to figure out because of something that you have done or are doing or hope to do in the future, somehow you plan to miss that place.

3 people every second are passing into eternity. (Snapping) That fast souls are going out of this world into an eternal hell or an eternal joy. And Gods word says that most of those are on the broad way to destruction, Christ is the only way to the Father. Those who are Buddhist in this world are passing into damnation. Those who die practicing Muslims are going. Practicing Catholics if they are worshipping Mary they are not worshippers of Christ. One of those clicks has your name on it. Think about it, another and another and another and another and another you have passing off into eternity right now and another and another when you take your next breath in the time it took more souls are passing off into eternity. Men walk around they say peace and safety, peace and safety and the word of God says that sudden destruction takes hold on them, then they have these plans, if we could bring up the damned from hell right now what would they say to us? “I never thought to go here, I never thought, I never thought that hell would take me. I thought I had it figured out. It took me in a moment. It took me in a moment I didn’t expect it.” Another, another they’re passing off into eternity, they did not expect hell to take them when it did.

if we could bring up the damned from hell right now what would they say to us? “I never thought to go here, I never thought, I never thought that hell would take me. I thought I had it figured out. It took me in a moment. It took me in a moment I didn’t expect it.” Another, another they’re passing off into eternity, they did not expect hell to take them when it did.

If you are without Christ your sins are mounting up and the moment is coming when God will no longer endure you to stay here.

It is glorious and its dreadfulness and its fearfulness because it reveals to us a part of God that often times we don’t like to admit is real and exists. But it is necessary. We love to talk about God’s love, God’s goodness, God’s mercy, God’s compassion, God’s forbearance, God’s tender mercies. Oh it is good; it is good, good to give thanks to the Lord for those things. But when you think about the severity of hell you begin to realize it is not slap on the wrist. Hell is fearsome. It is dreadful. We read our bibles and we can pass over those texts so freely, so easily, weeping and gnashing of teeth. In the ESV Matthew 18, it speaks about the hell of fire. Hell is a place of fire.

And you open that door and there is a raging infernal fire inside that furnace, and Christ described hell as a fiery furnace. I can’t imagine being pushed through that little hole and then the door being shut! And it will never open! It will never open.

It should strike within our minds that hell is a place of pain unimaginable. The man in Luke 16, he cried out in his torments if only he could have a drop of water for his tongue. But not even that would be given to him. The thing that is so fearful about hell is not just that it is a fiery furnace. Not just that Isaiah would say God who can dwell with those fires but who can dwell with the everlasting burnings. Everlastings, that is the horror of horrors about hell is that it never ends. It is pain, it is excruciating, it is anguish, our generation knows very little about pain. We have so many medications; so much to dull the pain but here there will be nothing to dull it. God will not relieve your pain no matter how you cry, no matter how you weep,

You will weep; think of this, to weep forever, you will weep forever. You will weep, when you land in hell, you will weep more than all the weeping that has ever been done in all the ages of all the earth. You will fill up the measure of the weeping of every individual who has passed through life because you will weep and you will weep and you will weep.

And there’s the idea of the gnashing of teeth, whether its in the unbearable excruciating pain, there are places in scripture that attach the gnashing of teeth to anger as well. The anger at others, the anger at yourself, the anger at God still. Hell is not what some make it out to be, like purgatory. Hell does not make better. The doctrine of hell is about destruction. It doesn’t make better, it destroys everything that has any semblance of good. The image of God that is upon you man will be eternally defaced and defiled, you become even more and more and more contemptible as the eternal ages pass by.

God says in Ezekiel 8, “Therefore I will act in wrath, My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in My ears with a loud voice I will not hear them.” He will hate you will a perfect hatred. He will hate you and He will have you. That is the fearsomeness of hell, the text we read says that those in hell they are going to be tormented where in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. One of the most fearful things about hell is not the total absence of God, the absence of all of His blessings yes; can you imagine forevermore not any joy, no more comfort? But God is going to be there. One of the fearful things about God is that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He is a consuming fire.

you come to a text like John 3:36, “the wrath of God abides upon you already if you are not a believer in Jesus Christ.” Already, that doesn’t mean that God goes around with a perpetual smile upon you, it means what it says, His wrath is upon you. If you can get this idea into your minds, into your souls, into your thought process, that there are those of us in this place right now who sit here at relative ease. God hates you. God’s wrath, God’s indignation, God’s anger is directed towards you.

This is no game. If you’re not certain, if something rings true to this in your conscience that I’m in great danger of this, Christ stands ready to pardon. This is a day of mercy. This is a day of grace. Today the voice of Christ beckons you, “Come. Come unto me you that labor and are heavy laden. I’ll give you rest for your souls. Come.” Today it’s “Come. Come.” Then it will be “Depart. Depart. Depart… Depart. And the door will shut. Then it’s all over. No hope. No hope.

Whatever sin you have to leave behind, He says, “It is better to go blind than to go with two eyes into that eternal fire.” You may have some friends. You may have somebody that put pressure on you – children. You hang around with friends that would laugh at you if you did this. Don’t let anybody be responsible for damning your soul. There’s too much at stake, and don’t believe, as some say, that there’s some great party in hell. It’s not that way. You will look and you will gnash your teeth at them if you should both wind up in hell. You’ll say, “Damn you. Damn you. I’m here because of you. You lead me in that sin.” It is not a game. Your soul is at stake. Your soul is at stake. Oh God help you.

Hell is Necessary by Tim Conway

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Let go of your Sin or Perish – Tim Conway

Here’s the question that I want to ask right now: Why is repentance and faith so hard? Why is there so much violence evolved? Why are there a lot of people seeking to enter in who won’t be able to? Why?!

Now listen very carefully, I am going to tell you another verse. This verse comes from the very end of the Bible and listen very closely as the Bible is finished up and the last book of the New Testament is coming to completion. And the last thing that the Lord Jesus Christ wants to leave with this world is this: Let the one who is thirsty come! Let the one who desires to take the water of life without price.

Let me tell you something, “Is the door into heaven, the Kingdom of God, is it narrow?” Yeah it is narrow. It’s very narrow. But I tell you this: It is wide enough and broad enough and open enough for every single person who desires to go through it, to go through it!

Guarantee folks! Everyone, if you are thirsty go through and drink. God hasn’t shut the door from you for been saved. Just the opposite, He throws it wide open for all who are thirsty. He says, If you have a desire to come in, Come in!

Here’s the thing, Does He say that? He does say Come in. If it’s so easy .. Don’t you wonder about this? If it’s so easy why does it sound so hard? Right? If it sounds so easy? Here’s the door, we are beckoning to go through – Kingdom of God in our midst. All who desire can go all through. So easy and yet, [phew!] and it sounds so hard!

Here’s the thing, the door of the Kingdom of God is like a monkey trap. Now I know that some of you have heard about this. Listen to me, this monkey trap deal that I am going to tell you about is no urban legend. This thing is real. This thing is real and monkeys are really like this.

Now listen, trappers, you know obviously if you want to kill and monkey because you want to eat the monkey. You don’t have to be concerned about preserving the monkey. Just stick a arrow through it and put it on your plate but for those who want to capture monkeys for zoos and that type of thing where they want monkey unharmed. They have a way of trapping them. Well how? Well basically they take a gourd or a coconut or a bottle.

Let’s use the bottle in the illustration, it’s a good one. They basically get a bottle where has an opening to it where the monkey can get his hand in and they put nuts inside – delicious nuts. Just the kind the monkeys love to eat. Well what happens? The monkey puts his hand through the neck of the bottle where he can fit then, he reaches in there and grabs hold of one of the nuts. Well there’s a problem now. Now the nuts in the hand, his close fist; it’s too big to come out of the neck of the bottle.

Now you would think, “Okay, monkey drop the nut, monkey goes free!” That’s exactly right but guess what they found, the monkey will never drop the nut. And so, even when the trapper comes, the monkey sees him and is just going crazy trying to get away. He still won’t drop the nut!

Trappers got him, in the bag he goes. And you know, I’ll tell you again, this is no urban legend. This is how they trap – I read about it on the internet, well I never seen it done but I take it on good account that this actually happens.

The door way to the kingdom of God is just the same, it’s big enough for you to get through if you tarre out these eyes and drop those nuts of repentance – that Christ calls you to drop. That’s the whole point. If you don’t tarre out the eye – you don’t fit through. If you don’t drop the nut, you won’t go through.

Listen if one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:33). Its big enough for you to get through if you do let go the stuff. But if there’s even one thing in your life that you are not willing to get rid of, a idol in your life that you won’t give up. You can’t go through. Idols and sin are too big to go through that door. You are willing or you are called to go, you are ask to go, you are bid to go, you are pleaded to go, you are commanded to go. You are commanded to repent and believe. You are commanded to go through that door.

In some places, God pleads with the sinner to go though that door. In some places, God pleads through His servants to you to go though that door. He bids you. He does it in commandment, He does it in some most affectionate terminology imaginable. He says. He actually comes down to the level of the sinner and says, “Come let us reason together!” I mean He is, He will even reason with sinners. He bids us “Come”. He provided a way in.

The problem is, look folks, God hasn’t shut the door on anybody. The thing is, there’s a nut that most people have and you know what the thing is? The thing is, most people will give up many things to have heaven but they won’t give up everything. They have that one or two special nuts and the won’t given up. They will not let go! And even if they hear that there is danger. Even if they hear that there is such a thing as hell. Just like the monkey when he sees the trappers coming. I mean that there is the danger just before their face and this guy will take me away, he is going to throw me in a place that I don’t want to be! And even when the sinner sees God is going to come for me and He is going to throw me in a place that I don’t want to be. Even when they see the danger, they won’t let go! Why won’t they let go? That’s the thing, why won’t the sinner not let go? Because as we find in Hebrews, what is it? Hebrew 3:3, the deceitfulness of sin.

You know what folks when you really boil it down on why people won’t repent? Because they don’t believe. That’s the issue, they don’t really believe. You see to believe a lie is to be a unbeliever. Sin is deceitful. Basically every sinner that will not enter. Why do have all these crowded people that think they will enter in when they will not enter in? I will tell you why because they have an nut in their hand.

They will come around and say, “I am trying to be saved. I calling upon God to be saved.” Let me see your hand. Yup that’s what I thought, can’t get their hand out because they have a nut in their hand and they will come around and they will be in tears and you know I am called upon the Lord and you know, He won’t save me. And I am doing this, and doing that and I coming to church and He won’t save me. You know why because of the nut in the hand. The monkey let go of the nut he is out right now!

You know what, 19 years ago, I had certain sins in my life I didn’t wanted to get rid of and I knew, I knew God showed me “You are going to hell for these sins”. And I knew that I deserved it and I sobbed and danger stared me at the face but there were certain sins that I didn’t wanted to get rid of. Now I will tell you this, the very 9th of July 1990, when I opened my hand – BANG like that I was saved. That fast!

Let go of your Sin or Perish by Tim Conway

Radical Christian – Paul Washer

I have spent my life in jungles. I have spent my life freezing in the Andes Mountains. I have seen people die. A little boy, Andrew Myman [phonetic], the Muslims shot him five times through the stomach and left him on a sidewalk simply because he cried out, “I am so afraid but I cannot deny Jesus Christ. Please don’t kill me, but I will not deny Him.” And he died in a pool of blood. And you talk about being a radical Christian because you wear a tee shirt, because you go to a conference. I’m talking about holiness. I’m talking about Godliness.

I wish – you know what a move of God would be in this place? If all of you came under conviction, if I myself came under conviction of the Holy Spirit, we fell down on our faces and wept because we watch the things that God hates, because we wear the things that God hates, because we act like the world, look like the world, smell like the world, because we do the very things, and we know not that we do these things, because we do not know the Word of God. Because, even though we claim as a denomination that the Scripture is the infallible Word of God, basically all we get is illustrations, stories, and quaint little novels.

Oh, that God will glow on this place, that we would turn away from our sin, that we would renounce the things that are displeasing to God, and, then, that we would run to Him and we would relish Him and we would love Him.

Oh, that God would raise up missionaries. I don’t wish the same things your parents want for you. They want for you security and insurance and nice homes. They want for you cars and respect. I want for you the same thing I want for my son, that one day he takes a banner, the banner of Jesus Christ, and he places it on a hill where no one has ever placed a banner before, and he cries out, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” even if it costs my son his life. Oh, when he’s 18 year old, if he says to me the same thing I said when I was a young man, “I’m going into the mountains. I’m going into the jungle.” And they said, “You can’t go there. You’re insane. It’s a war. You’re gonna die.” I’m going. When that little boy puts on that backpack, I’m going to pray over him and say, “Go! God be with you, and if you die, my son, I’ll see you over there and I’ll honor your death.”
Oh, God, let’s pray, let’s pray.

Oh, God, I don’t care about reputation. I don’t care what men think. I want You to be honored. I want these young people to be saved. I want those that are saved to stop looking around at a cultural Christianity that You hate and will spew out of Your mouth, and that they will look at the Word of God and say, “I will follow Jesus.”

Oh, God, I pray for youth ministers and pastors and I pray that You’d fill them with the spirit of wisdom and love and boldness and discernment. And dear God, whatever the cost, I pray that you will raise up missionaries. I can’t help but look at these kids and think of my own little boy. Oh, God, that You would save Ian and that You would raise him up and send him into the worst part of the battle. Oh, dear God, raise up missionaries here. Raise up missionaries. Raise up preachers and pastors and reachers and evangelists that know the Word of God. Oh, God, work in this place, please work in this place, dear God. Please. Please. Please. Please.

Radical Christian by Paul Washer

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Do you desire God – Paul Washer

I don’t believe Love is just doing the right thing. I don’t believe love is just keeping commandments and I don’t believe love is just being patient and kind and … that’s what love looks like when it walks and talks but that’s not love.
Love is Passion.

Let me ask you a question, “Do You Have A Passion For God?”, “Do You Desire Him?”, “Do You Long For Him?” Yes, we all go through times in which our hearts are dull. Yes, we go through times when we need to be encourage. Yes, we all go through times when our eyes are mesmerize by things they should not be. Yes, we all struggle in that but if someone would look at your life would they say, “This person has a passion, not for ministry, not for missions, not for evangelism, but for God.”

The sign of a genuine work of God in the heart is that you began to hate the sin you once loved and to love the righteousness you once ignored. The question is not, “Do you agree with that?”, or “Are you challenged?” The question is, “Is that a reality in your life?” Is it young lady, young man, elderly woman, elderly man, middle age man in the prime of life? Is it a reality in your life? Are you continuing to grow in your hatred of sin and your love for righteousness? That’s the question.

So it’s not a question, “Do you want to do the right thing?” or “Do you want to be moral?” or “Do you want to have a good life?” It is this, “Do you desire Him?”
I hate preaching that goes something like this, “You know you got a wonderful life there, yuppie. You got a really nice house, a really nice job and you got a really beautiful wife and you got 1.2-5 children. And you got three cars, and Subaru’s and Suburbans and you just have a great job. You got a great life. Everything fits perfectly in place. You just lack one thing: you lack Jesus.”
That is the most disgusting thing that you could ever say. What would be more appropriate to say is “Sir, your life is nothing. It has no value at all apart from Jesus Christ.” He is not some little accessory that a yuppie puts on top of his life as though it were cherry on top of ice cream. You have Jesus and Jesus has you or you are barren and wasted and lost.

So it’s not a question of “Do you want a better life?”, “Do you want to go to heaven?”, “Do you want to fix your marriage?”, “Do you want all these things? No.
Do you want God? Do you desire Him?

Everyone knows they are a sinner, they just don’t realize how heinous and terrible that is, nor do they want to let go of the very thing that they choose to drink down as though it was water. You see the question is not, “Do you recognize you are a sinner?” The question is, “Sir, as I was speaking to you, or maybe it’s long term discipleship over a period of time, Sir as I was sharing with you and discipling you, “What has God done to your heart?””

People come to me all the time, “I have a new relationship with God” But I say, “Do you have a new relationship with sin because if you do not have a new relationship with sin, you don’t have a relationship with God.”

Has God done such a supernatural work in your heart through the Holy Spirit that although prior to that you lived a life of ignoring God; of hating God. You now see Him as esteemed above all things and you desire Him above all things.

God is infinite. Heaven will be an infinite chase, an infinite tracking down of the glories of God. But most don’t want that even most who attend evangelical churches don’t really want that and I can prove it: they don’t want it now. If you don’t want it now, you won’t want it then because eternal life doesn’t begin with dying and going to heaven. He says, this is eternal life that they may know You, know You and that begins the moment He regenerates your heart and reveals to you… this place ought to be a contradiction. First Baptist Church a muscle shows ought to be a contradiction in every sense of the term. Our theology should be high and even it should be called academic into some degree. People should think that the only thing we think about is theology and truth and yet, when the worship leader gets up here This Place Ought To Go Wild!

Do you desire Him?

Do You Desire God? by Paul Washer