The Passion (Full Version) — Compilations

Christ Came to Make Dead Men Live

I want to tell you something. We're going to go into Scripture and I want you to look at it as it really is.

He says that they may know Thee, the only true God. He didn't come to rescue you from hell. He didn't come to change your rotten habits. He didn't come to make bad men good. He came to make dead men live.

And if you live in Him, you'll reach for Him, you'll love Him more. There's nothing He can ask of you. Love is extravagant. Love is unreasonable. Love is beyond comprehension. God, soul of the world.

Christ's Finished Work and the Kingdom of Priests

Someone had to pay that price. Someone had to die.

Lord, I think at the moment when He said it is finished, I think every demon in hell must have been afraid. I believe every angel in heaven went into ecstasy because He put an end to the old sacrificial system and He abolished the priestcraft and made us a kingdom of priests unto God.

Measuring Success by Holiness and New Birth

And so all men forsook Him and fled. And by every standard of our generation or any generation, our Lord was a signal failure. The question comes then to this. What is the standard of success? And by what are we going to judge our lives and our ministries?

Is God working in my life? Am I growing in holiness? Have I truly been born again? Listen to me. If everyone in this town believes themselves saved, and we know that's not true by Scripture because the Bible says that you will enter in, how do you know that you're saved?

How do you truly know that you are saved?

Superficial Conversion and the Cost of Discipleship

If the only reason you repented, dear friend, was to keep out of hell, all you are is just a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt. That's all.

There are more decisions for Christ these days than ever in history, but never of fewer disciples. It's an instant thing. It's a quick rush to the altar and out.

Conversion is not like a flu shot.

His feet are bleeding. His ankles are all, day after day, scarred. His garments torn. He's no sign of being a royal person. But he's enduring. Maybe every day he had a vision, seeing him who is invisible.

The Church Invaded by Technicians

Dear God, do you do that? Our religion began meeting in caves and upper rooms. What are we making of the Christian church? And this is an awesome day that we live in because the church of Jesus Christ has been invaded by technicians.

Not men of God, not men of prayer, not men of the Scriptures, but clever people. People who are better with computers than the Word of God and on their knees. And they have brought in a revisionist theology that has now revised what the church is.

And I want to remind all of you today, nobody has a right to change the church of Jesus Christ. And this is selfishness. And this is sin. So what has happened, ladies and gentlemen, is we have this pathetic situation where pastors tell me they can't let the meeting run past an hour because everyone's looking at the clock.

They'll walk out even while you're serving communion. So go home and watch an NFL game that's going to go on for three hours. Or an NBA game that's going to go on for three hours. And doesn't somebody think this is not what God intended when he started the church?

Stewarding Time and Rejecting Divided Worship

You see, you have to account for your time. So here you've got three. You live 24 hours a day. You work 8 hours a day. You sleep 8 hours a day. What do you do with the other 8? Put that into years. You live 60 years.

You sleep 20 years. You work 20 years. What do you do with the other 20?

You know as well as I do there are youth here right now who are practicing immorality and yet worshiping God in the same breath.

And you have to decide very early in your Christian life whether you're viewing God as an end or a mean.

Encountering Christ and Permanent Transformation

Let me take it a little further. Let's imagine that I show up late and I run up here on the platform. And all the leaders are angry with me. They said, Brother Paul, don't you appreciate the fact you're giving the opportunity to speak here and you come late?

And I said, Brothers, you have to forgive me. Well, why? Well, I was out here on the highway and I was driving and I had a flat tire and I got out to change the tire and when I was changing the tire the lug nut fell off and I wasn't paying attention that I was on the highway and I ran out and I grabbed the lug nut and as soon as I picked it up in the middle of the highway I stood up and there was a 30 ton logging truck going 120 miles an hour about 10 yards in front of me and it ran me over and that's why I'm late.

Now, there would only be two logic... I know no one studies logic anymore. But there would only be two logical conclusions. One, I'm a liar. Or two, I'm a mad man. You would say, Brother Paul, it's absolutely absurd.

It is impossible, Brother Paul, to have an encounter with something as large as a logging truck and not be changed. And then my question would be to you. What is larger, a logging truck or God? How is it that so many people today profess to have had an encounter with Jesus Christ and yet they are not permanently changed?

Do you see the difference? Do you see the difference? The difference is here is somebody trembling because he's going to be hurt in hell and he has no sense of the enormity of his guilt and no sense of the enormity of his crime and no sense of his insult against deity.

He's only trembling because his skin is about to be singed.

You know, watching and doing things that are not appropriate for Christians and yet they're coming to the youth group, believe themselves satisfied, believe themselves saved and no one is saying anything except this.

They're carnal Christians.

The Holy Spirit, Holiness, and the True Gospel

You talk about being full of the Holy Ghost? You talk about miracles? Give us Emmanuel Righteous. Give us Emmanuel Holy. That's what the world is wanting.

Run from Gospels that focus only on success and prosperity. Run from those who use the name of Christ only for personal gain. Run from those that are picking your pocket in the name of Jesus. Run! Run from Gospels that only focus on self-improvement.

How can I? Three steps to a better personality. Three steps to this and four. Run! Run from churches where men and not Christ are glorified. Run! Run! Body of Christ, run! Get out! Don't touch the unclean things.

Run from churches in America and Canada where there is no Bible. There's no cross in the theology. There's no soul-searching word. There's no repentance from sin. There's no mention of the blood of Jesus.

Run! It's unclean. Run! Run from churches where the worship leaves you cold. There is no sense of God because they don't know God. Run! Run from churches where you're comfortable in your sins. That's a table of devils.

If you come into the house of God and you've got sin in your life and you're not convicted of it, you're at a table of devils. Run from pulpits that are filled with political men who are using the pulpit of God for a personal political agenda.

Run from those who preach division between races and cultures. Run! Get away from it! There's nothing of God. Run from ungodly spasmodic movements and endless empty prophesying. Beloved church, run for your life.

Run from preachers that stand and tell stories and jokes. Run like you've never run before.

Passion for Christ Born from Anguish

Put your so-called faith and love into action. Lay in dust your pride. Forget it. Who cares whether you wear designer clothes or not? Who cares whether you have the best ring or anything, the best car?

I want to be among those that are not running away from the conflict but running into the conflict. And say, run for your life! All true passion is born out of anguish. All true passion for Christ comes out of a baptism of anguish.

You search the scripture and you'll find that when God determined to recover a ruined situation, He would seek out a praying man and He'd take him down into the waters of anguish. He would share His own anguish for what God saw happening to His church and to His people.

And He would find a praying man and He would take that man and literally baptize him in anguish. See, you have to make a decision. He's going to come and He says, Now, if you're going to bear my burden, if you're going to be an instrument of restoration, if you are expecting somebody else to be an instrument to win your family or to do this work, you're mistaken.

I've burned your heart. I've given you my heart and I've opened up my anguish to you and I'm letting you feel it and share it so that it will bring you to your knees because it is there that I'll speak to you the word of direction.

Nehemiah and the Burden of Intercessory Prayer

And that's what happened in Nehemiah. He came eventually out of the waters of anguish with a clear word that nobody could reject. We ask you a question. Has there been a stirring in your heart lately?

Has there been a fire burning in your heart? You can't explain it. But there's a churning. There's a burning. There's a crying. You're saying, God, I want my family saved. God promised Israel, I'm going to take you out, your husband, your wife, your children, all your animals, your cattle.

You'll leave nothing behind. You're all going out. Everything that belongs to you.