Tape 3 - Crucified with Christ

Good evening again. Enthusiastic for Friday evening.

Might as well be Friday. One day is about as good as another. 24 hours each one of them, aren't they? We like Fridays for some reason.

I don't know why. I guess I might know. Are you still a

Christian today? Would it be a marvelous thing if in about the next 10 minutes, somewhere along there, just say,

I've got a few thoughts I want to share with you, so I don't want to have them right now. But in about 10 minutes, if the

Lord were just to call us on out. They talk about all these satellites out up there. You know what's really interesting? There are 1 ,000 satellites in space.

And only one of them is natural, the moon. 999 satellites are put up there by man.

That's right, 1 ,000 of them. And yet you and I go right on by them. We're just going to go right on by them all and be able to look at space, be able to look at the moon, stars.

Isn't it interesting? The Russian cosmonauts went all over space and they said, there's not a God, we didn't see him. Isn't that amazing?

There's not a God there because they didn't see him. If he had been there, they still couldn't have seen him. If he walked up where they were, they couldn't have seen him because they looked from a natural eye.

And the natural man does not understand things of the spirit. They are spiritually discerned. God is spirit.

And if they can't understand Jesus Christ, they'll never understand God the Father. There's no way that they can, couldn't they?

I doubt it very seriously. How many of you have your Bible with you tonight? I don't want to see them.

I didn't ask you to see them. All I ask you to do is, did you have it? See, creatures of habit. Creatures of habit.

But if it thrills you to show it, I don't mind. I mean, you know, if that'll make your day, that'll be good. Would you turn me please to the book of Romans, which is right after Mark.

Matthew, Mark, and then Romans. You asking me what kind of Bible I have?

One of those convenience Bibles. Romans, two passages we want to look at.

Romans 14 and Galatians 2. Again, this morning I was so pleased and blessed at the number of people who came for our morning session.

It is just marvelous, the men and the ladies who've come. We shared together this morning about the

Feast of the Tabernacles, how it's a picture of the Millennial reign of Christ. Tomorrow morning we're going to look at Jesus and the stars.

We're going to break the constellations down and name all these stars that make up the constellations and talk about how they speak very specifically about Jesus Christ.

And so, therefore, we can understand why Satan would pervert it and try to get people caught up in astrology so that they could not see what

God was doing in the creation. The Bible says that God named the stars and the

Bible says they reveal knowledge and they teach truth. And Abraham saw some things in the stars and the

Scripture is very clear about that. So you and I will look at those things together. The Bible says that God preached the Gospel to Abraham.

Now what it says in Galatians 3? It says God preached the Gospel to Abraham. Now what is the

Gospel? Name it. What is the Gospel? Go ahead and tell me. Good news?

Ah, well, that's good. What is the Gospel? God in Christ, born of a virgin, crucified, dead, buried, raised again on the third day according to the

Scriptures, ascending to the Father and coming again. That's the Gospel. If He's not coming again, what difference does it make if He was crucified or not?

There could be no resurrection without the crucifixion. And if there was no resurrection, what difference does it make if He died or not? See, it all fits together.

You can talk about any one of it, but that's the Gospel. That's the good news and that makes it the good news.

Have you been expecting Him today? I mean, you know, wouldn't it be tragic if He'd just come and catch us all dismal about like we are right now?

Like we've been to a funeral service and we ought to be rejoicing in the Lord. Well, let's find out why.

Sunday evening and then last night we gave you just two foundational thoughts. We talked about how the

Bible predicted that Christ would die on the cross, how God predicted 750 years before the birth of Christ through Isaiah the prophet that Jesus would die as the

Lamb of God on the cross. And then last evening we looked at the two -fold message of the cross. That there's a two -fold message.

One is our past sins are forgiven and the other one is that we have victory over present sins. We can have that victory.

Tonight, we want to become very practical from this point on. And I might say to you that tonight begins us, tomorrow night is extremely crucial.

Tomorrow night is very critical. You need to be here tomorrow evening. And then, of course, Thursday night is very critical.

Both of those are extremely crucial to what we're trying to do this week together. And then Friday. So Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, these are the important times that we're together.

I consider all of them important, but these are the helps that we've been looking for. And this is what we want to do.

And so it is needful that you make your plans to be here, if at all possible, tomorrow evening.

And we're going to talk about the cross and the powers of darkness. The powers of darkness.

And then Thursday evening, being crucified to the world. What does that mean? How can we do it?

I mean, it's not a big laborious thing. It doesn't have to be tedious. How can we be crucified to the world and stop its pull upon us?

And then Friday night, we'll get the call to the cross. But yet, you cannot answer the call to the cross without having these other things sort of under your spiritual belt.

So I hope that you'll plan on being with us because now we enter into the crucial phase of what I believe God wants to do in the life of your church.

Tonight we want to talk very basically about being crucified with Christ. What does that mean to you and me?

We know the words and we know the scriptures, but what does the truth mean? In Romans chapter 14 verse 9,

For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be

Lord both of the dead and the living. And the thing I want you to see out of that primarily is, for to this end

Christ both died and rose and revived, raised from the dead, that he might be Lord. That he might be

Lord. That's the reason he did it. He died and rose that he might be Lord. And then if you will turn to me to a very familiar passage in Galatians 2 that's usually misread.

Galatians chapter 2 verse 19, For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto

God. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.

Paul says I'm not a robot. I am crucified, but I'm not a mechanical man, I live.

Yet none I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life, now watch the words, which

I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith, and most people without realizing it say by the faith in the

Son of God. And that is wrong. We live by the faith of the

Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You don't have to have a lot of faith my friend, he will create in you his faith.

Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And one of the reasons we fail in our

Christian life is because we sit around trying to work up faith. And we don't have to work up faith, he lives in you and he will create in you his faith.

And he will build you upon who he is in your life, that he might be Lord. Now Paul the

Apostle, Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, who became the Flaming Apostle Paul, does not hesitate to refer here to his own experience.

He refers to his experience because he does not preach a gospel to the Romans or to the

Galatians, which he has not proven himself. They knew that what Paul was preaching to them, he had proven it to be real in his daily life.

He was not preaching them some doctrine or theological points. He was preaching them the truth of God, and he knew it worked because he proved it worked in his own personal life.

And he sums it up in his epistle to the Galatians concerning the death of Christ, and he sums it all up with these words,

I have been crucified with Christ. That just sums up what

Paul is saying, and in those simple words, you and I have tonight embodied before us the deepest meaning of the deliverance of Calvary.

And the more simply you take that message, I have been crucified with Christ, the more simply you take that message, the more quickly you're going to prove that the word of the cross is the power of God to deliver you from the things that bother you in your life.

Don't try to complicate it. It means just what it says, and take it as simply as you can and work that out in your life.

You see, he says, I have been crucified with Christ. This I is the central spring of every action in every life that has ever existed on the planet earth from the time of Adam and Eve to this present day.

I is the central spring of every human life. This I, Christ Paul, has been crucified with Christ and the law, he says, was the means of bringing me to the place of death.

The law did it. Now he says that about this place. What is this? This place where I acknowledge my helpless condition.

As long as you and I believe that we can do the things that God says we can do, we're not ever going to get them done.

As long as I can do it, as long as I can figure it out and all of those things, Paul said the law brought me to a place of being helpless in my condition.

And it was a place where I found out in me, that is in my flesh, dwelt no good thing.

Everything in me wanted to serve self. Everything in me wanted to live for self. And he said

I discovered that in me, myself, there was nothing of any real value whatsoever.

Nothing good whatsoever in my life. And he said I died to the law by my sheer inability to keep the law.

I died to it simply because I couldn't keep it. There was no way that I could. And so he said

I fled from the law and I hid myself in Jesus Christ and now I have died with him.

I've died to the law and I've died to myself. And he says Jesus Christ is supreme, that he might be

Lord. And as you and I understand that and as we are led on with him, we will find the cross opening wider and wider and ever opening wide in its meaning.

Always finding deeper meanings. Why? Because you always find deeper needs as you walk through the

Christian life. And the more we walk the Christian life, the deeper the needs we see. And so the cross has to keep opening up.

The tragedy, as I said last evening, so many people believe they've learned all about the cross that they're ever going to learn.

They read John 3 .16, they don't think there's anything else in John 3 .16 to be discovered. They've discovered it all.

They've got all the truths about it. And so the blood of Christ and the cross of Christ and all these things don't really relate to so many

Christians because they feel like they've attained everything that there is to attain in those particular passages of Scripture.

But you and I don't look at it that way, do we? Would you look at Romans chapter 6 again with me please? We read it last evening, but with our spiritual eyes tonight fixed on the

Lord dying for us. We lock our eyes on the crucified Lord. Listen to the declaration of Paul again in Romans 6 .6.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, we should not be the slaves to sin, we wouldn't be in bondage to sin.

He says our old man was crucified with Christ and if we will reckon ourselves dead with Christ and dead unto sin and cast away the manifest works of the flesh, then we will prove with joy that the cross of Jesus Christ is the power of God to deliver to the uttermost any person who would come to Him and trust

Him in believing faith, that He can save them and keep them to the uttermost because He says

He can. Hebrews 7 .25 and other passages of scripture. But you know, as you grow in the

Christian life, isn't it true that sooner or later we find some of these needs cropping up in our life?

No matter how old we are in Christian faith, no matter how much we know about the Bible, no matter how much we love the

Lord, we find there are things in our lives that need deeper deliverance. Do we not? Why is that?

Because you see, your life and mine, most of the time, is still coupled with being self -centered.

Self -centered. Let me give you a couple of examples if I might. We serve the Lord with so much self -energy and self -complacency in service.

Most Christians, most Christians serve the Lord out of their own self -energy.

They put very little prayer and concern in it. Let me ask you a question. Don't answer it out loud. Answer it in your heart.

If you're a Sunday school teacher tonight, do you pray for every member of your Sunday school class every week? By name?

Have you been in your Sunday school teacher, if you're a teacher or a superintendent, have you been in every member of your class' home so you know what their hearts are?

Do you know what heartaches they have? Do you know what kind of needs they have in their home? Do you know what kind of family situation they have?

Do you know how to minister to them? How can you minister to someone you don't know? It's impossible. My dear people, you can't stand on Sunday morning and read to them out of a little quarterly and underline it and all that and expect that to solve their problems.

It won't do it. You've got to get in there with them and share your life with them. They look for you for that. They look to you for that.

And we need to do so. But you see, we serve in self -energy. And let's face it. I mean, nobody can do the job we're doing better than we can.

You know, it's alright to be a little complacent. Aren't we contented? We are so self -satisfied with what we do for God that we don't believe there could ever be any improvement.

Training? What? What do I need to train for? I know all that stuff. All you got to do is talk about Noah. All you got to do is talk about Solomon.

Tell them about David. Throw Jeremiah in there once in a while to make them think I'm thinking deep. And maybe if I want to use the word

Haggai with them or something, that'll impress them. You know, and then go to Matthew, Mark. Most people never get out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Acts, and 1

Corinthians. They never get it. You don't find them over in Timothy and Hebrews. They don't know anything about Titus and Philemon.

They don't know anything about that. Revelation? God forbid. They can't understand that. And yet it's the only book in the

Bible that says you get a special blessing from just reading. Just reading, you know. I'd read it if I couldn't understand anything just to get a blessing out of it, wouldn't you?

Well, sure. But let me mention another thing about self -centeredness. Self -pity when we're suffering.

Oh, you know, I told the people the other morning. The theme song of Baptists. Nobody knows the troubles

I see. Nobody. You just don't know, Brother Al. Oh, Pastor Young, you just don't know the problems

I got. Well, what makes you think I don't know? I mean, I live life and I've experienced. Oh, nobody's got the problems

I got. Nobody's ever gone through what I'm going through as if we are so unique on the planet Earth.

You know what I've discovered in life? That human nature is the same whether you go to India, whether you go to China, whether you go to Japan, Africa, or America.

Human nature is the same and people are looking for identically the same thing. They're looking for life, love, and enjoyment, and contentment, and peace in their heart and minds.

And it'll always be empty and it'll never be changed until it's changed by God through Jesus Christ.

It is always and ever that way. And Pascal, I said, the French physicist, he said that every man has a vacuum in his life.

He's the man who invented the adding machine. And he said every person has a vacuum in their life and it just stays a vacuum until it's filled with the peace of God through Jesus Christ.

And it's so true. It's so true. But you see, self -pity. The moment we suffer, we get into all this introspection and we get so wrapped up into self -pity that God can't do anything with us.

And it ravages the church. And yet there's no need for it. We should not be that way. Another part is self -seeking and desiring the praise of men.

Let me ask you, why do you teach Sunday school? Why are you a deacon? Why do

I speak to you? Is it for the desire, the praise of men? Lord, here I am.

I will preach them another in God. They'll like this one. This is my good one.

Preachers go to view of a call of a church. What do they do? They get out what they call their little candy stick.

They don't pray. They say, God, what are the needs of these people? I don't know them. I don't know anything about them, God. What could

I? No, brother. He wants to impress them. He gets that one full of love and grace and juice and gravy. Something that won't stir up anything that'll make them think he's sweet, kind, and lovely.

And he proclaims it and he calls it that he's ministered to them the word of God. Why? He wants that job. He's security minded.

We're that way. That's just the way we are. Self -seeking and the desire, the praise of men. Most Christians do what they do because they're afraid of what people will think about them if they don't do it.

And it's so difficult for us to get out of that. But there's another one. Self -introspection and self -judgment in the hours of trial.

We've let the TV preachers and we've let the little books in the bookstores so convince us that we believe that any time a problem comes in our life, it must be because sin's in our life.

My dear people, you can be a perfect person on the planet earth and still have problems because you live in a world of problems.

And God never said that you wouldn't have difficulties. And because you get a difficulty in your life doesn't mean you've got sin in your life.

Don't believe that. It's not so at all. You can have a difficulty in your life. If you go out into five feet of snow and lay there nude for three hours, you'll get a cold.

I don't care what the trouble. You know, it just does. You raise your hand in the floor and if your door's open, you hit your head on the door, you get a headache.

It's just that way. You hit your thumb with a hammer and it'll hurt you. Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that thing's not gonna hurt. And I'll guarantee you most of the time you can pray,

God take it away and he won't. It'll hurt. He might. If he wants to, he can.

But it'll hurt. Haven't you prayed about it and it didn't go anywhere? Yeah. Well, you didn't have the faith.

If you had the faith, God would raise the dead. I believe God can do anything he sets his mind to do.

I believe God can raise the dead. I believe he can move his building, pick us all up and move us downtown today and never budge a one of us if he wants to do it.

But God most normally doesn't do things like that. And isn't it interesting? One of the leading faith healers of the world became a multimillionaire simply because he preached to people and many

Baptists and Methodists believed him and they spun their money to him. And he preached it that if you had the faith,

God would raise the dead and he became a multimillionaire and his daughter was killed in a plane crash and he never raised her. That interests me.

I hurt for him but it interests me. You'd be better off not watching all that junk and reading your book.

You'd be a lot better off reading your book. God won't do anything for them that he won't do for you. God will do for you just what he'll do for anybody else.

God loves you just as much as he loves anybody else. He loves you if you're a young person or an older person.

He doesn't love anybody anymore, he loves you. You're his child and he has the ability to love us equally.

He has the ability to do those things in our life. So don't sit around and start looking. Listen, if you have a sin in your life, let me tell you something.

The Holy Spirit will let you know it immediately. He will let you know it immediately and you not sit around hunting for him all the time and you not sit around trying to figure it out all the time and not to spend all this time looking for it.

He will let you know immediately it's there and he'll also let you know what you need to do about it. And once you confess it, you can forget it.

He does. I'll remove your sins as far as the east is from the west. I'll bear your sins as if they're in the depths of the sea and remember them no more.

I shall blot out thine iniquities as the cloud blots out the sun, God says. God has the ability to forgive you and to forget about it.

I can forgive you but I won't ever forget it. I want to and I'll try not to let it affect me but I just can't forget it.

Every time I see you, I'm going to know what you did. But I just can't get it out of my mind.

Now time heals a lot of things and it doesn't bother me as time moves along. But brother, listen, we Jews remember you

Gentiles, you know. But self -centeredness, the cross, we need to die to self.

What about being so self -sensitive? Self -sensitiveness in contact with other people.

We are so easily offended. I'm going to say something to you that I really believe with all of my heart, sweet people.

I believe that on many occasions, I didn't say all, on many occasions, I find

Christian people are the most unforgiving people I have ever met on the planet earth. The people that have hurt my heart the most have been

Christian people. The people that have criticized me, I had a pastor tell me in Florida, he said,

Rocky, he said, the people that hurt me the most are my brethren in the ministry. And I've had, my attacks do not come from lost people.

My attacks do not come from the heathen. I call them heathens and fools and liars. It doesn't bother them, they know it.

It's Christian people that are like a pack of wolves many times. And you let a Christian make a mistake and they instead of reaching down and nourishing and helping them up where they're a teenager and older person, what they do is like a pack of ravening wolves and they just leap on them and they delight in the fact that somebody's made a mistake.

Why? It gets your eye off of them. It gets your eye off of them. And we ought to be so tender with each other.

And we ought to be very careful that when someone says something that hurts our feelings, that it doesn't offend us. Doesn't mean they don't love you.

It may not have all the facts. Maybe, you know, there's room for misunderstanding between we humans.

We don't get all the facts all the time. And we don't understand everything all the time. But thank God we can work it out and we can get it back together and it can make it that way.

Pride bringeth forth contention. And when two Christians aren't getting along, it's because of pride in one of their lives.

Always endeavor. But when you get two Christians to get the pride out of their lives and they just die to themselves and not worry about it, they'll get along, brother.

I don't care, they'll get along. But we are so afraid. As I said last evening, you might as well let me say it because I'm going to.

We are so afraid just to be ourselves with each other. We are so afraid just to turn loose and say,

Look, you know, I'm free. This is me. And I've got problems in my life. But if you'll encourage me and pray for me,

I'm going to get better at it because I'm going to work on it. But be patient with me. And God forbid, help me to be patient with you.

And I know I'm not patient with you, but I want to be patient with you. And I'm going to try to understand you like you understand me.

And God blesses that kind of a relationship. Why should we be so quick to be offended? There are people in churches.

I went to a church some years ago in Denton, Texas to preach a revival. And the church was split in three different ways.

And they sat on three different sections. One group sat here. One group sat here. And their auditorium was arranged.

And one group sat in the back. And they went out different doors when they left the congregation. And they called me.

Now, my reputation used to be different than it is now, I hope. I used to be called God's storm trooper.

And when pastors wanted a revival in a church, they said, Get the Jew from Fort Worth. And here I'd come. And I ran and raved and done everything.

I'd be embarrassed to tell you some things I've done in services. And God blessed in spite of it. But you know what they were split over?

Air conditioners. One -third of them voted to have air conditioners, new air conditioning.

The third voted not to have them. And the other third were disturbed because where they said they were going to put them, if they did get them.

And that church was split in three different ways. I had a pastor call me from Texas. He said, Rocky, is there any way?

And I couldn't go. He said, Is there any way that you can come to our church on Wednesday night and speak to our people?

I said, What's the matter, my brother? He said, My church is splitting right down the middle. And it's going to happen Sunday. A whole group of them are going to walk out the door.

I said, What's it over? He said, I'm embarrassed to tell you. I said, Brother, tell me. He said, An oak tree. And I said,

Are you putting me on? He said, An oak tree. A dear little lady of the church years ago gave them some property right next to the church.

And it had a family tree, a big old monstrous oak tree. But the church had grown wonderfully. They needed that area for parking space.

And the only way they could use it was they had to cut that tree down. And that little lady got her forces together and got her little cantankerous tongue going.

You know how they do? Waggly, waggly, waggly. And she got her little group together and got her little men together. And women always manipulate the men.

So here come the little men in the church. People come in to vote that hadn't been in church in 30 years. You know how they are.

They don't come, but they came in to vote. And, Brother, they had that pastor and that church almost on the ropes.

Because they were going to cut down her family oak tree that doesn't matter to a hill of beans and didn't drop acorns half the time.

It is unbelievable. We are so sensitive to each other. And have you ever heard this in a

Baptist business meeting? We're prone to these things. Well, I recognize the church wants to do this, but God has laid on my heart.

Here's what we need to do. Now, dear people, that sounds noble, but you better be dead sure

God did lay it on your heart. Because any time a man or woman, pastor or preacher, anybody else stands up and says,

God has led me to say this to you, you better be dead sure God did do it, because it's dangerous to speak for God.

And we go to a deacons meeting. Yes, Brother, I love deacons at Deak. I praise God for them. Most deacons don't know how to deak, wouldn't deak if they knew how to deak.

Although there are a few godly deacons around, there ought to be more. They say, well, we have this to present to the church and we prayed about it.

What you mean is you opened in prayer and closed in prayer and that's what you prayed about it. Most of the things in deacons meetings that they prayed about they'd never get to the church floor.

They'd never get there. Because most of it's flesh. Yes. Go into their homes and you find their homes, they don't have prayer, they don't have

Bible reading. Their wives sit around spiritually starving to death. Brother, you confront them with it and you're in trouble.

A board of deacons. There ain't no such thing in the scripture. Board of deacons.

What's that? Deacons don't have any authority. Have no authority for anything, my brother. Excuse me. You only have delegated authority to be a servant of the church.

You don't run anything. You're a servant of the church. And as quick as it's given to you, it'll be taken back. Well, you let them try to take mine,

Brother. I'll get my will. We rule and reign. We got it all backwards.

There's one authority in the church, and that is Jesus Christ. And there's only one overseer, and that's the pastor.

And there's only one pastor in every church. Only one. And it's amazing to me why God hasn't called more women to preach because they know so much about the sermons.

They can tell a pastor what he preached wrong, what he preached right, how he ought to organize, and they never preached a sermon in their life.

It's amazing to me. Oh, but Brother Rock, you don't understand. Yeah, we're so sensitive.

Let me give you another in case you like that one. Self -defense when we're injured.

When something happens, we immediately start trying to defend ourselves. I have been so guilty of that in my life.

But then I ran across a statement that completely changed my thinking. If you try to defend yourself,

God will let you. And it's better to let the Lord defend you. You don't have to prove you're right about anything.

God will vindicate your life. God will prove whether your life is right or not. And you just go on and do what

God lays on your heart to do. You don't have to prove yourself to people. People come up and say, I believe you ought to do this.

I think you ought to do this. And you say, God won't give me peace about that. I'm sorry, I've prayed about it. God won't let me. Well, I believe you ought to teach in Sunday school.

We've honored you. We've nominated you. God hasn't given me peace about that. But if God does give you peace about it, then you need to do it.

You need to do it. But you need to search those things out. And you don't do it because a nominating committee tells you to do it. And you don't do it because anybody else tells you to do it.

It's not that you can't do it. And it's not that someone won't do it. But it'll be blessed of God if God tells you to do it.

It just will be. And you'll be happy and contented in it. May I share with you that I meet thousands upon thousands of Sunday school teachers who are the most miserable people in the world because they're teaching that class.

And they write me letters by the droves. They call me on the telephone from across this country. And many times they just say,

How do I get out of this class? I don't believe God wants me in it. And I'm miserable doing it. But if I don't do it, it doesn't seem like anybody else is going to do it.

And I said, Nobody else will do it as long as you do. But you go talk to somebody.

What do they say? They will either deny they did it or they'll defend themselves for doing it.

Have you ever done that? You know, we're just like that, aren't we, in a home? My dad used to come, and he'd see me do something.

He said, Didn't I tell you not to do that? I didn't do it. He did it. And he said, Then watch me do it. I said,

I didn't do it. Go to school. Teachers do the same thing, don't they? Yeah, they see you do something. They say, Come here.

Oh, I didn't do that. They said, They'll lock eyes with you. Look at you. One time I was in school, and my friend next to me was smarter than me.

And he had his paper convicting me over towards the edge. And I was just going along like that.

And all of a sudden, I sensed somebody was standing there. Many of us, don't we do this?

Many of us, in the energy of our flesh, we desire to be gods. We desire to be wholly

His. We will come and consecrate ourselves to the Lord. We'll re -consecrate ourselves to the

Lord. We will do what we call re -dedicate our same old sins to the Lord. We come and we do these things.

And we start working for the Lord with a zeal that's newfound. And all of a sudden, we get so spent out.

And we get so tired. And either that, or we have very little fruit for our labor. And we don't realize the source of our activities.

We don't realize that it's basically coming out of self -energy. It's basically coming out of something we want to do.

And there's little spiritual fruit. And then all of a sudden, our eyes will become strangely open to the uselessness of creaturely activity.

Creaturally activity is worthless with God. So many people, I said today, are trying to work for God.

They don't understand what the work of God is all about. And some of the busiest Christians I know are the most defeated and discouraged

Christians that I've ever met. But around the church, they are busy, busy, busy, busy. And they've got every activity under the sun.

But yet in their hearts, they are miserable. In their lives, they are defeated. Their homes are being devastated.

Their families are being destroyed. And all of these things are happening. And yet they are busy, busy, busy as a bee in the church.

But that isn't what we're talking about. You see, because it's at that very point of which I now speak.

That the Lord comes to your heart and mine. And the Spirit of God comes. And He brings the core of every trouble in every life.

And He brings the word of the cross with a flesh and blessed message of deliverance. On Friday evening,

I'm going to mention this phrase again. But in the Lord Jesus Christ gave His call to the cross. He simply said this.

He touched the core of every trouble in every life. When He said, if any man come after Me, let him deny himself.

He didn't say, let a man deny sins. He didn't say, let a man deny exterior things. He didn't say, stop going here and stop going there.

Stop doing this. He went further than that. He went deeper than your outward actions. He went to the very core of the problem itself.

And He said, let a man deny himself. Deny himself if he's going to come after Me.

If he's going to follow Me. Let a man renounce himself as crucified with Christ.

And very quickly, another himself will come to sit on the throne of that life.

But as long as himself is there, the other himself, the Lord Jesus, cannot rule on that same throne.

You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve yourself and you cannot serve the Lord at the same identical time.

He takes the central place of the heart. And He very quietly begins to bring everything under His control.

And everything under His sway. The great I. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 please. 1

Corinthians chapter 1. It's amazing to me that people go to the 1

Corinthians letters. And so many people want to base their Christianity on that letter. Now may

I share a thought with you about 1 Corinthians? 1 Corinthians deals with a church that was the least spiritual church in the entire

New Testament period. The Corinthian church was the worst church in the

New Testament period. It had more problems. It had more dissension. One man was living in adultery, condoned by the church.

Another young man was living in incest with his mother, condoned by the fellowship. They were suing one another as brothers and sisters.

And the civil courts did decide problems between the brethren. They were abusing the Lord's Supper.

They were massively abusing whatever spiritual gifts they had. And it was the least spiritual church in the

New Testament. And yet that's the very church that people today are trying to build their Christianity on.

12 through 14. Why in the name of heaven don't you go to the church at Ephesus? Why in the name of heaven don't we go to the church in Rome when we find these people walking with God, studying the

Scriptures? No, because we are prone to do identically the same thing they did in Corinth. And if you don't think you've got it in your church, let me point it out to you please.

In 1 Corinthians 1 verse 11. For it has been declared unto me of you.

Now watch Paul and think of yourself and me. For it has been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them who are the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

Well now, Brother Young, somebody told me about you. Well, who was it,

Rocky? Well, I can't spread, I can't say who it was. It was just something I heard.

Well, where did you hear it? Well, somebody told a friend of mine who related it to a cousin of mine. My cousin called my brother.

My brother told his wife, and my wife heard about it from her, and then I heard about it, and I believe I need to talk to you about this.

It's not what Paul did. Paul said, the people in the house of Chloe told me about you. He named it.

He named it. Because you see, if it's an official charge, it has to be named. And if you don't have an official charge, then zip it.

If you don't have an official charge to bring before the Lord and the church, then don't say anything at all. Just keep it in your heart and pray.

Keep it in your heart and pray. Because it becomes divisive, and Satan uses it. Look what he said.

That there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you say if I am of Paul, or I of Apollos, or I of Cephas, Peter, or I of Christ.

He said, you are clicked off. You are clicked off. Some of you say, boy, I like Paul. I was baptized by Paul.

I was saved under Paul. Apollos who was eloquent in the Scriptures. A mighty man schooled in the Word. And they said, boy,

I like Paul. I of Apollos, he could preach. I really like Apollos. Someone said, I like Peter.

Someone said, well, I like Christ. Can you believe that he's fourth? But we don't do that, do we?

Brother, I like brother Al Young. He walks with God. Brother, I like Jimmy Swagger. He can sing.

He can get one leg behind him and bounce across the stage. And call that being filled with the Holy Spirit.

I'm not talking about where a man is saved or not. I'm talking about where a man is doctrinally, biblically sound. Well, I'll do this.

Most Christians in the churches base what they believe on somebody they respect and not the

Word of God. They take and let them interpret the Bible and they get pre -digested gospel food instead of going to the

Word of God and letting the Holy Spirit help you to digest it. And I will challenge you that 98 % of you people sitting right here tonight, bless your hearts, that's exactly where you've gotten what you believe.

And yet you believe you got it from studying yourself. You go to the Bible with a preconceived notion and a preconceived idea and presuppositions and biases and prejudices because you've already heard and you've already thought out through someone else what you believe that passage means.

And when you go there, it agrees with that because that's what you want in the first place. We do not go to the

Bible to be challenged. We don't go to the Bible to be re -evaluated. We go there to prove what we already think is correct.

It's just the way we are. And you notice I'm using the word we. That's the way we are.

We just do it that way. I like this preacher. I like that preacher. I like this one. And it just turns that the

Body of Christ, you and I are not to follow people, we are to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone.

He is Lord. He is Lord. And if He be

Lord, then let Him be Lord. One of the most frightful things in my life is that I have people that if I told them something, they'd believe it.

God has given me or somehow brought it about, I don't know how to express it to you, a tremendous influence in the lives of literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people.

Already out of our office, this is just in May, we've already sent out over a couple million pieces of mail out of our office.

We have people literally in other countries and Canada and all around that we influence their lives.

They write with Bible questions. God forbid that I should ever tell them something wrong in the Scriptures, but I am only human.

I do not have all the answers, but I search it and I pray about it and I study it and I try to find an answer for what they are asking me and the questions.

But it is an awesome, an awesome, awesome responsibility to have any influence, whether you have it or I have it, on another child of God.

We must be extremely careful. You'll be far safer if you'll just let the Holy Spirit reveal to you in God's Word what

He says so that when you hear somebody preaching, you immediately can either confirm it as being true or confirming it as being possibly error and go back and check it out yourself to see if it is rather than taking what they say to be the gospel truth and then go to the

Bible and study it. That's just reversing what God set it out to do. And Paul said, that's what you've done in Corinth.

He said, that's wrong. That's wrong. You're not to do that. Well, it's happened all through history.

What he said, each one of you saith... Look at verse 11. Each one of you saith, I... There it is.

Each one of you saith, well, I... Let me tell you some thoughts that just fleeted through your mind. Well, I don't think you ought to criticize this preacher.

I'm not criticizing the preacher. I criticize what they believe and what they teach. I don't criticize people. I deal with theological systems of belief.

Well, I believe they're just as holy in you. See? That's judgmental attitude and judgmental spirit you've got right there in your mind. You don't know what

I think about them. You don't know where I've ever talked to them. And I'll promise you, I've talked to more of these men than most of you. You don't even know them.

You just hear them. I get to meet them. I get sometimes on the same program with them until I find out what

I believe. But it's very interesting.

And I thank God for this. And I'm not saying I... I just thank God I've never had to change my theology in 25 years of being a

Christian. My theology has stayed the same. Why? I just believe what the book says. It doesn't bother me. I don't change it by what little

I read in books. I refine it. I sharpen it. And I hone it. But what

I believe about the Bible has always all stayed the same. I never had to change what I believe about the Bible because I just believe everything in it from word to word.

I just believe it's covered. But I do this. I do believe you have to chronologically put it in chronological order. See, most people don't know that Corinthians was written six years before the book of Acts.

They think it was written after the book of Acts. They don't know it was one of the first letters Paul wrote. They don't know that he wrote 1

Thessalonians. That's the first letter he wrote was 1 Thessalonians. They don't understand. They think it's in the order here.

That's the way it was written. 1 Corinthians occurs the same time as Acts 19 did. The Gospel was with the Jews. Hadn't even left the

Jews yet. So it makes all the difference in the world. All the difference in the world. Now what am I saying to you?

I'm just saying, look in Daniel chapter 4 verse 30, it's your leisure. What happens? It's not this the great Babylon which

I have built, cried Nebuchadnezzar. Luke 12, 19. I will say to my soul, take thine ease.

This is a person who had their delight in earthly treasures. And Luke 18, 11. One said, I am glad I am not as the rest of men.

And Isaiah 65, 5. I am holier than thou. The inner thought of self -righteousness.

Oh, we'd never think we're holier than everybody else, but don't we really? Don't we really? Well, you may be talking about everybody else, but you're not talking about me.

I mean, I'm doing all right. Look in the mirror. The most intelligent person you've ever met. Just sit in the mirror every morning.

It's instant, isn't it? Every husband. Every man believes he is the most intelligent man in the world.

He believes he's the best looking guy in the world. He's the greatest lover that ever hit the earth. I mean, he's got it all. Now, he won't tell you that and he'll deny it, but he really believes it.

All men have two dominant characteristics, pride and arrogance. That is a market in the male species, brother.

Now, they can be great channels of energy if we can get them into their proper perspective with God. Well, here

I am. I'm Lord. They love that Scripture in Ephesians 5, don't they? Wives, submit yourselves to your own husband as unto the

Lord. Every man knows that one, doesn't he, ladies? Amen? Brother, that's the first name memorized after John 3, 16.

Well, gentlemen, do you know that in the Greek language that word submit is not in the text? It does not say wives, submit yourselves to your husband.

It doesn't say that at all. But ladies, you'll wish it did. It said, wives, unto your husband as unto the

Lord. But let me share something with you. The Scripture also says that man was first made and then

Eve. And it says that God is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of the man.

And the man is head of the woman because Adam was first formed and then Eve. But a woman will never do

Ephesians 5, 22 until a man does... until a man will do

Ephesians 5, 25 when it says husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and he gave himself for it.

You'll forget your bowling. You'll forget your secret clubs where you tap your rings. You'll forget all that junk.

You'll forget everything under the sun. You'll do everything in your power to see that your wife and your children are contented spiritually, physically, emotionally, psychologically, economically.

You will give up every dream you've got. You'll give up everything you have. You'll do anything to see that your family is where God wants them to be.

If you follow that. And if you'll do that, she won't ever have any trouble submitting herself to you in a godly fashion as your helpmate.

She just won't. She has problems because a wife is a responder. Now let me give you an awesome statement.

We're right where we ought to be. We're talking about I. We're talking about I. Self -righteousness. I'll give you another one just to add to it.

Revelation 3, 17 I am rich and have need of nothing. That's the attitude of the self -satisfied. A wife and a man in 1

Peter 3 You know 1 through 7? Verse 7 says that a man who's not right with his wife, his prayers are hindered.

A couple. If they're not together, their prayers are hindered. Now you know, I believe that's true. Do you believe that's true?

It's there. Do you know what that means to you and me? Do you know whose prayer God's answering in your church? The single young people and the widdle ladies and the widdle men.

Because most couples are not right with each other. Huh? I didn't say all weren't.

I said most weren't. And the Bible teaches very clearly that a woman is basically a responder.

She responds to the attitude of the husband. If there's tension in the home, go check the husband. If there's criticism in the home, go check the husband.

If there's bickering, if there's anything out of order, you first go to that husband. And if he's walking with God and if he's right with God, you'll find a sweet wife and you'll find sweet children.

You just do it. God says it'll be so. Now, I want you to notice something else. 1 Corinthians 3.

I like this. I don't have problems in these areas. But if you need any help,

I'll be glad to help you all I can. My wife's here. You can ask her and tell her. She'll tell you quickly.

I make at least one mistake a year. 1 Corinthians 3. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, now watch this, but as unto carnal.

Now, Paul is writing to the Corinthian church and telling them they're carnal. Even as unto babes in Christ.

They were not only carnals, they were still babes in Christ. Again, why would you want to follow a church like that? They are carnal and in the flesh.

Why use them as an example? I have fed you with milk and not with meat, solid food. For to this time you were not able to bear it, neither can you now.

He said, I can't feed you any deep things of God. Yet that's exactly the opposite of what I hear. I hear these people have all these deep things of God going on.

And yet Paul plainly says that they couldn't even eat milk. They were so babyish in the

Lord. Look, for you are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as a man?

For while one saith, I am a paul and another, I am a paulus, are you not carnal for choosing to follow people?

Carnal! But what's he say? How does he answer? He had one answer.

But I, crucified with Christ, is Paul's charter of freedom.

I have been crucified with Christ. With a message of the cross, the sweet precious apostle

Paul, fiery as he was, aggressive and bold on many occasions, he met every difficulty in every

Christian life he met with the message of the cross, of Jesus Christ. He said, we who died, all have died, ye have died in Jesus Christ.

That's his message to them. And this was the statement that he used to practically deal with the children of God wherever he met them about their attitude towards sin and about their attitude towards the elements of the world that had crept into the church of God.

And those to whom he wrote knew he lived out what he preached to them. They knew that he lived it in his life.

He did not say, I have been crucified with Christ and seek the highest place. He said, I am nothing when he wrote these

Corinthians. He said, I am the least of all the saints when he wrote the Ephesians. He wasn't looking to be number one.

He just said, I have been crucified with Christ. And he lived that kind of a life. It was no longer

I. And that was the whole spirit of Paul's life. And he counted everything lost for Christ.

It didn't make him any difference whether he ate or slept. Whether the Jews were trying to kill him. Whether the government didn't like him.

Whether he was in bondage. He was in prison. It didn't bother Paul. Paul counted all joy just to be persecuted for the cause of Christ.

He just loved the Lord with all of his heart. Would to God we had the same commitment in our lives today.

Crucified with Christ is his invariable declaration. From whichever point of view Paul speaks in any book that he writes, you will find the results of the death of Christ included in them.

And he keeps Calvary as the basic point from which he goes. And anything Paul says in any letter, he never gets beyond the radius of the cross.

He never gets out of view of the cross in everything that he preaches in the Word of God. Would to God our churches and our pulpits and Sunday schools would come back to preaching the cross of Jesus Christ and the blood of Jesus Christ because it is the thing that God would use.

You don't have to explain it. All you have to do is proclaim it. And God has empowered it and energized it.

But what we're saying to the world today is you've got to have all the programs and you've got to have all the activities.

And I'm not saying they're all the other bad, but ladies and gentlemen, you don't need the Holy Spirit to have a banquet.

You don't need the Holy Spirit to have a ball game. You don't even need the Holy Spirit to sing in a choir. You don't need the

Holy Spirit to do most things in the average church today any more than you do to run a circus. You just don't.

You can do most of the things in any church you want to go to in the energy of the flesh and it will grow. And you can build a big church.

All you've got to do is get you a swimming pool and a bowling alley and a family life center and you'll build a big one. But if you preach the gospel and you stand on the

Word of God, you won't just fly off in numbers, but God will send in the people

He wants you to have. And your growth will be sure and it will be strong and it will be faithful and the people will reach out and touch lives and God will grow that in nurture and admonition of the

Lord Himself. Numbers represent people. I understand that. But what good does it do to have 6 ,000 people who remain babes in the

Lord all their Christian life? Of what value is that other than the fact they're just saved? Yes, saved wonderfully.

That's marvelous. Looking unto Jesus is the way of deliverance at every stage of the spiritual life.

We look at Christ upon the cross as the Israelites were bared by God when the fire serpents bit them.

He told Moses, take that brazen serpent and hang it upon that tree. Nail it to that tree.

And it was a picture of Jesus Christ being nailed to the tree as sin was judged the serpent. And He says, you

Israelites, if you'll just look up, you'll live. And I say to you, no matter what problems you have in your life and no matter what the bondage of sin is in your life, if you will just look up to Jesus, you'll live.

Keep your eyes upon Him and you'll find life. You just do. And it's just that way.

We look and see ourselves crucified with Christ. And in faith which unites us to Him, we reckon ourselves dead unto sin.

And we cast away every known sin from our life. And we refuse to let it reign over us. And when it creeps in, we confess it and get our lives right back with the

Lord. And as far as you honestly desire, and in as far as you honestly expect victory, the

Spirit of God seals that faith with a real deliverance in your life.

Once more, we can look to Calvary and say we have died to the law. God no longer says to a child of God, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt.

Because He doesn't have to say that to one who walks with Him. He knows they're going to try to walk in obedience.

And as you and I yield obedience to the law of Christ, we learn He's able to supply every need.

We look to Calvary and we get a new vision. I have been crucified with Christ.

Say that with me. I have been crucified with Christ. Again, I have been crucified with Christ.

You have. You have. Yes, you have. And the Holy Spirit will illuminate that message.

And then you know what happens? We just marvel that we didn't understand it sooner. We say, Oh, I should have known that.

I'm the world's greatest for that. You know, I'm the best person in the world for figuring out three days later what

I should have said three days earlier. You know, I said, Well, I should have said this or I should have done that. But we do the same thing with the

Bible. All we have to do is to make way for the living Christ by taking His cross as our cross and let

Him manifest Himself through us. But you ask me a pertinent question within your heart, supposedly. You say,

Is that all I've got to do? And I have to answer you honestly, No. No. As He who died and rose again occupies the throne within our heart in light, in His light, we begin to see light.

We walk in His light, we begin to see light. And then we begin to see new departments of our complex being that are brought under the searchlight of His marvelous presence.

And we discover ever deeper depths of need in our life. And even though you find those deeper depths of needs in your life as you walk along the

Christian way, you will find again and again and again that the cross of Calvary is the answer to every one of those needs.

Crucified with Christ, we can say. His cross is mine. I died with Him.

I consent to share His cross and I shall meet every issue that comes to my life with no longer

I but Christ who lives in me. I have no longer a separate existence anymore.

I am merged oneness with Christ so that He is the Living One and He will move forth through me and He will move forth through you and He will bring about in your life and mine what is well -pleasing in His sight.

And if that pleases the Lord, that would please you. If that pleases the Father, it would please you to know that He's working in your life and that He's going to carry out and He'll accomplish what

He set out to do in your life. He's not left you alone, you know. He's come to live within your heart. Have you ever heard this said, where two or more gathered in my name, there

I am in the midst of Him. That's so wrong. He is wherever there's one

Christian. You can put a Christian out in the middle of the woods. He doesn't have to have two or more. I'm going to talk about that Thursday morning.

We'll correct that little Scripture for you and a few others. No, no. That's not what it says at all. You see,

Jesus was talking to the Jews. And He said, where there are two or more gathered in my name. You know why? Because the Jews had a law and still have a law that it takes ten men to form a congregation.

God doesn't work until you get ten people together. That's what they believe. And they don't ever start a congregation.

They don't ever start a fellowship. They don't ever start a tent. They don't ever start until they get ten men. And Jesus says that's wrong. He didn't say where there are two or more and takes two or more.

He's just correcting the view of ten. He said, why it's not ten? Where are two or more gathered? There are in the midst of him.

Why? You take a missionary and put him in the jungle and God is with him. Christ is with you on the job.

Christ is with you in your home. You don't have to have two or more to get Him gathered together with you. No. We've got to keep that in its context, do we not?

Isn't it marvelous to think that wherever you go, Jesus goes? Whatever you do, He's involved in?

Whatever you participate in, He participates in it. Because He's just there. You can't ever get rid of Him. You can't ever escape

Him if you're a Christian. No more. No more. When you became a Christian, didn't you lose all choice in your life?

You gave up all choice and so did I. We no longer have a choice. We just bear the consequences of what choices we do make.

But our choice is, Lord, I'm crucified with Thee. I choose to be Yours. I want to be

Yours. With all of my heart, I want to walk holy in Your sight. God grant that it be so.

That ought to be the desires of our heart. I pray to God that it is the desire of your heart.

I know it is for so many of you. I hope it is for everyone. And I pray that when you leave this place tonight, two or three things,

I pray that your heart will be clear with God. That you've confessed every known sin. If you don't know one, don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it. The Holy Spirit will let you know when it comes. He'll bring it to your mind. Confess every known sin.

Secondly, I hope that every one of you are right with each other. That you've confessed any misunderstandings or wrongs.

You've gotten right with each other. Because you can't be right with God if you're not right with your fellow man. You just can't. Husbands, you can't be right with God if you're not right with your wife.

Wives, you can't be right with God unless you're right with your husband. Same thing with young people. And then,

I have five desires. I've just been praying, Lord, at the end of this week,

I pray these people will love You more at the end of the week than they do now. Even though You love them now.

Lord, I pray that they'll love the Word of God more at the end of this week than they've ever loved it in their life. And I pray,

Lord, that they'll just love this community more than they've ever loved it before for what it could be for Jesus Christ.

And then, Lord, I pray that You'll bring a unity. You'll bring a oneness in their fellowship. That they'll love this church, this local family of believers, that You'll love it more than You've ever loved it in Your life.

And fifthly, but not lastly, I pray that You'll love Your pastor more than You've ever loved him in Your life.

God has given You a godly pastor. He's not asking me to say it, but He loves the Lord. He loves the

Word, and He loves you. And He's open to you. I'm in so many churches that are not blessed that way.

I'm in so many churches that have godly pastors, but I'm in a lot of them that they don't. They walk in the flesh, and they're so programmed they don't understand the movement of the

Holy Spirit if it moves. I'm not talking about going out into wild town. I'm just talking about letting God be God and Jesus be

Lord. You have so much to be thankful for here at Lauralee Baptist Church.

You have so much to be thankful for in your great state. We have so much to be thankful for in the family of God.

And we brothers and sisters together. And we're in this ballgame together. And isn't it tragic that some people have to do two and three and four jobs in the church?

And if each one of us would just do one, then we'd get the work done. There's a job for every person to do in the cause of Christ.

There is something unique God wants you to do. Won't you let Him be Lord? I know you love

Him. Just let Him have your life. And let Him be Lord of everything that you are. You say, well

I don't know. There's so many things going on. Alright, listen to me carefully. Just do the next thing that He lays on your heart to do that will make you right with Him.

Whatever is in the next thing that He tells you to do in your heart, just do it. Whatever it is. Don't worry about all the things.

Just do the next thing. You know you can win every tennis match in the world. You can beat Martino Navratilova, Chris Everett Lord, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lindell, Bjorn Borg.

All you have to do is to hit the next ball over the net. Just keep hitting the next ball over the net and you can never be defeated.

All you have to do is just do the next thing God wants us to do. Just keep doing the next thing God wants us to do.

You don't have to worry about them all. Just do the next one and do the next one. And you'll live an effective, victorious,