It is a great privilege for me to be here with you this
evening, a tremendous privilege before I get started. The pastor has asked me to to introduce
myself. My name is Paul Washer and and I need some help
with the microphone. My name is Paul Washer and I serve with the
HeartCry Missionary Society, which we support indigenous missionaries around the world, in South
America, in Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East. God has helped us greatly in
doing this work of preaching the gospel among the nations. I'm also married. I'm married to a citizen of Spain who lived most
of her life in South America. Her name is Charo. And I have two boys, Ian, who
is nine years old, and Evan, who is seven. And then I have a daughter who is three years old
and also the most beautiful girl in the world, And she takes after her mother. And again, it is a
tremendous privilege for me to be here and to address you and to address you with the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Now, before we get started, let me say a few things, a few
things that are very important. There are people in this room right now who, if they die, will be translated into heaven and they
will bear upon themselves a glory unspeakable. And there are other people in this room right now who, if they die, will be sent by the judgment of God straight into hell. Where the grace of God is totally removed and they
will be revealed as the monsters that they truly are, you see those of us who preach the gospel, we
are not here to entertain you. We are not here to talk to you about temporal
things, about how you can get the best that you can get out of this present life. No, I am not
concerned tonight about your self-esteem. I am not concerned about whether or not your
billfold and your checkbook balance themselves out. I'm concerned about one thing. One day, each and every one of you will stand
naked before a holy God and you will be judged. That is my great concern. This is not a game. This is not something that has to do with culture,
western or Eastern. This has to do with the word of the
living God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, life and death, heaven and hell, and it is
an amazing burden for a preacher to stand before a group of people knowing that some
of you will hear my voice and go to heaven when you die and others of you will hear warning after
warning after warning, and you will not listen, and you will die under the wrath of God and spend
eternity in hell. That is why it is such a difficult
thing to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, before I take my text, I want to say one
other thing. I am particularly burdened. For the young people who are here. Many of you who are older. You know what it's like
to follow Christ, you know what it's like to pay dearly for your faith. You know what it's like to suffer. You would rather die. Then deny Jesus Christ. Or live in a way that contradicts his word, but young people listen to me. Many of you were raised here. Many of you were born in the West, and you need to be very,
very careful, this Christianity is not a cultural thing. This Christianity is is not something that just
should be a small part of your life. It is not something that you do on Sunday. Christianity is not about you living in the world
six days a week and coming to church, Christianity is not about you being just like the world all the
time and then coming to church on Sunday. If that is your Christianity, you have no Christianity.
You are not Christian. It is a dangerous thing to be raised in a
Christian family. It is a dangerous thing to be raised in a Christian community, because you may
think that somehow, because your parents are Christian, you are Christian. Or because you come from a group of people who
have suffered that you to participate in that glory, that is not true. Young people, let me Ask you a question, how do you know that you're
Christian? How do you know that you have truly come to know
Christ? How do you know that if you died right now, you would go to
heaven and be accepted by God Almighty before his throne? How do you know? You say, well, it's all of grace. Yes, it is all
of grace. We are not saved by works. We are saved by grace. We are saved by believing the promises
of the gospel. That is true. But what you need to understand. Is Grace is a powerful thing that he who has given
you grace to repent and believe, gives you grace to continue repenting and to continue believing he
who gives you grace to believe and a justification also will give you grace for your sanctification. That you might grow in holiness is a matter of
fact, listen to me, one of the greatest evidences that you have truly believed in Christ and
salvation is that God has begun a good work of sanctification in you. He works and works and works to make you holy. Now, let me ask you, is that a reality in your
life? Young choir behind me, let me ask you a question. You sing beautifully. But can you honestly tell me that your great desire is to be holy? Can you honestly tell me that your great desire is
not to be like the world, to not be like what you see here in the West, in many other places, but to
be like, Jesus Christ, can you tell me that? Because if you cannot. You should be afraid. You should be very afraid. Those who love the world, do not have the love of the Father. Now we're going to take a passage tonight in the
Old Testament and we're going to look at that passage. It's a new covenant promise. It's found in the book of Ezekiel, let's go there. Ezekiel 36. Let's read the passage, Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 22. Therefore, say to the House of Israel, thus says,
the Lord God, it is not for your sake or house of Israel that I am about to act, but for my holy name,
which you have profaned among the nations where you went, I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the
Lord God when I prove myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations, gather you
from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and
you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from
your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. Now we're going to look at this text. As I said, it's a new covenant promise. What does that mean? In the Old Testament,
particularly in the prophets, we can see glimpses of the future where God promises
that through the coming of the Messiah, he is going to do a great work in which he is going to create a new people. And this new people would be different than the nation of Israel. Because the law of God would not be on external
tablets, but would be written on their heart. That they would not just be a nation under the blood of Abraham,
but they would be a nation of the faith of Abraham. They would truly believe God, and they would truly be
transformed by his power, by the work of the spirit. Now we can look at this passage and see many
characteristics of what it means to truly be a believer in Jesus Christ. And I want you to look at the things that are here. And I want you to ask yourself this question. Are these realities in my life? In this passage, God is going to tell us what he
is going to do in the life of every true believer. You need to ask yourself, are these realities
in me or am I a false believer? Can I honestly see God doing these things in me? Well, let's begin in verse 22 and verse 23. We see something very, very important here. God tells Israel, Israel, I'm going to save you. But this is what's very interesting. He says, I'm not going to do it because of you. Now, this is very, very important. God's motive
for saving people is not found in that people. The Bible says that all of us have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. When a holy God looks at sinful men, The only thing their sin motivates God to do is judge them, To condemn them. So if God is going to save men, it is not because of men. It is in spite of men. God does not save us because we deserve to be saved. God saves us because he is a savior. God does not love us because we deserve to be loved. We do not deserve the love of God. We deserve his
wrath. God saves us because he himself is love. Now, another thing that we notice in these in
these two verses, verses 22 and 23, is that God says two things. I'm going to save you for my own name. I'm going to save you for my own glory. Why has God done this great work of salvation? Is it because man deserves it? No. Then why has he done it? First of all, God saves
men in order to get glory out of that work. He says, I'm going to go down and I am going to save men. And I am not only going to justify them, but I am
going to change them and transform them and show my power in them to such a degree that the world
is going to look on and praise me for the power That is demonstrated in my people. And he goes on
and he says this, he says, I'm going to do it in verse twenty three to demonstrate my power so that
the nations will know that I am the Lord. Now, this is very important, very important in
America in typical American contemporary evangelicalism. What do we have? I'll tell you what we have. We
have a great majority of the people in America claiming to be Christian, and they live like devils. But because they claim to be Christian and they
identify themselves with Christ and yet live like devils, God's name is not praised because of them. God's name is blasphemed because of them. But the question comes down, does everybody in
America who says they're Christian, are they Christian? Absolutely not. Jesus said you will know them by their fruits. And herein is the problem. When a church lowers the standard of the gospel in
order to get more people to come in. When a church does not preach on holiness and what it means to
be truly converted, then Christianity and the church fills up with a lot of ungodly people. And because of their actions, the unbelieving
world blasphemes the name of God. But what we need to understand is that the people who claim
to know Christ and yet live in a way that contradict The word of Christ in the character of Christ. They are not Christian. We are saved by faith alone. We are not saved by works. But what you need to understand is that a person
who has been truly saved has been born again. They have become a new creature. God has done a
tremendous work in them to demonstrate his power. He has made them into new creatures with new
affections, new desires to serve Christ and to be holy. Has he done that to you? Let me ask you a question. Do you look at the world and longed to be like the world,
act like the world, talk like the world, dress like the world, have the world's respect in the world's esteem? If you're that way, you ought to be terrified because that
just could be evidence that God has not done a work in you. If God's power cannot be seen in your life leading
you to greater and greater holiness, then maybe there is no power of God in your life
that he has not regenerated your heart. You are not born again. You are not a Christian. Because he says, I am going to save people, why,
to demonstrate to the world how powerful I am not only in saving their souls, but in transforming
their lives, is God transforming your life? Christians are not sinless, Christians are not
perfect, Christians will struggle with sin, and Christians can even fall. But in the midst of that weakness, it will be evident that
God is working, God is teaching, God is disciplining, and God is bringing them to greater and greater
heights of Christian maturity and holiness. Is that you, since you professed faith in Christ,
are your desires for Christ growing? Are your desires for holiness growing? Is God's power in transforming your life evidence? Or are you becoming less and less like the world
and more and more like Christ? Or are you becoming more and more like the world? Now, he says something very important here in
versus in verse 24, He says, and I will take you from the nations, Gather you from all the lands and bring you into
your own land. Now, this is very important. God, when he saves a people, he says,
I am going to take them out of their land. I am going to take them out of the nations and I
am going to bring them into a land that I have prepared for them. Now, that is a
wonderful illustration of true holiness. When God truly saves a person, what does he do? He begins to work in them with what purpose? To pull them out of the world, To pull them out of worldliness, to pull them
out of sin and to bring them to himself. Now, let me ask a question, is that obvious in
your life? Do you see God working in your life to get more and more of the world out of you? And is God drawing you more and more to himself
and conformity to his image? Now, let's talk for a moment about holiness. This is very important. The Bible says in the Book of Hebrews without sanctification,
without holiness, no one will see the Lord. And what that means is this. If you have truly believed in Christ and the salvation,
then God will be working in you to make you holy. If there is no evidence that God is
working in you to make you holy, there is a good chance that you have not truly been converted. Holiness, what is it? The word comes from a Hebrew word,
which at its root means to cut, to cut. Now, my wife, she loves to cook and she has this
large cooking table and she'll put carrots on that table and celery and other things, and she'll take
a sharp knife and she'll be kind of cut very quickly. And as she cuts the carrots or cuts the celery and a
big pile of pieces of carrots and celery grow up here. She takes the knife and she not only cuts the celery or the carrot, but she also pushes it away and
separates it from the rest of the bunch. And she keeps cutting and separating, cutting and separating. That's what God means when he's talking about holiness. When God saves a person, he is cutting them off. From what? From the world. What is the world? Everything in on this planet. Every idea, every thought, every word, every action that contradicts God's will and God's nature. Everything on this Earth that opposes God. When God truly saves a person, he cuts them off
from that and he begins to separate them little by little, changing their life, getting the worldliness
out of their life and drawing them unto himself. Now, there's two aspects of holiness that's very, very important. One of them, holiness, means to be separated from the world. Christian, one of the purposes of the
scriptures is to teach us what God hates. So that we will run away from it. Make no mistake, there can be no friendship with
God in the world, and between the believer, there can be no friendship between the believer and the world. If God is truly working in you, he is going to use his
word and the power of his spirit to do what? To reveal to you what is wrong in this world and to draw you away from it. But holiness is not only ceasing to do what is evil,
but holiness is primarily running to God to be devoted to God, to grow each day, year after year in a
greater and greater devotion to God. Now, you can't have both things. You cannot. When I teach my little children, each
of them, when I taught them how to walk, I can remember all of them. They would pull themselves up on their two feet, holding
on to a chair, and then they would reach out for their dad. And as they reached out for me, I would take a step back and
they would strain holding on to the chair and trying to grab me at the same time. But I wouldn't let them do it. I wanted them to see that if they're going to have me,
they're going to have to let go of the chair. That's a good illustration of holiness. If you want God, you're going to have to
let go of the world and if you do not want to let go of the world because
you love the world, then know this. The love of the father is not in you young people. I know how deadly my culture is. I know what it's done to my own people. I've seen the West go into Eastern Europe and destroy churches. You are in a very deadly place. You live in a land full of all kinds of things that glitter, but they're not gold. You live in a land full of all kinds of promises that are lies. You live in a land that will do everything in its
power to turn you away from Christ. But you live in a land that tells you,
you can have God and the world too. You live in a land that tells you you
can love the world and love Christ. And I want you to know it is a lie. It is a lie. Do not think I'm trying to be angry, do not think
I'm trying to have a mean spirit, I am saying this to save you from the monster that has killed more people than
any political tyrant that has ever ruled this land on this planet. If you love the world to be afraid, because that
could just be an evidence God has never worked in you. You have never believed under salvation. You have never truly been converted, because if he truly
saves you, he who began a good work and you will finish it. And why do we know that this is a very important truth? Because his reputation is on the line. Remember, God saves people to demonstrate how powerful he is. And so if he begins a work in you, he will finish
it to demonstrate his power. Let me give you an illustration. When Israel was coming out of Egypt, they committed
many sins against God and God tested Moses. He said this, Moses, get out of the way. I'm going to destroy this people and I will make a
people out of you. And this is Moses intersession. He said this, No, Lord, if you destroy this people, then your enemies will
say that although you were strong enough, powerful enough to bring them out of the land of Egypt, you
were not powerful enough to bring them into the land you promised them. You see what Moses is doing,
he's concerned about God's reputation. I'm concerned about God's reputation here today. I want you to know that if God has
brought you, brought you from the condemnation of sin, if he has truly saved you, if
he has truly justified you, then the evidence of that is he will continue working in you to transform you. Why? Because every Christian is a demonstration of God's power. He is going to finish the work he has begun
because his reputation depends upon it. That's why Paul warned in the Book of Romans, he said that
the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles because of the Jews who identified themselves with God and
yet did not live according to God's commands in the same way. Many nations of this world mock this nation that we are in at
this moment, the United States of America, and one of the reasons why they mock it is because they say
America claims to be a Christian nation. And yet almost every abomination that contaminates
the world comes out of the United States. Every moral filth almost has its beginning here. So you see, the name of God is blasphemed among the nations
because so many people in America believe themselves Christians when they live like devils. But that in itself is evidence that they have not
come to know God, but you see, we're not talking, though, about a multitude of people. We're talking about you. Can you say can you prove? That since the moment of your conversion, there is
evidence that God is working in your life to make you holy, can you see that? Can you tell me that you are truly a Christian?
Because when you look at the world and it may be deceives you and draws you to it, that God comes
and disciplines you, that when you participate in sin, you can't stand it because the Holy Spirit is so convicting you, Or can you simply call yourself Christian and yet
look like the world, act like the world. Talk like the world, dress like the world, do everything the
world does. I want you to look at something here that's very important about your salvation, our salvation is the
work of God, although there is a human element in it. And there is a great mystery mystery regarding the will of man and the will of God. We do know this salvation is primarily a work of God. And he who begins the good work will finish it.
Now look at our text in verse twenty four. I want to accentuate I want to emphasize the
personal pronoun I that refers to God. Listen to what it says for I God speaking,
I will take them from the nations. I will gather you into your own lands. I will bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and You will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness. I will cleanse you from all your your idols. I will put a new heart within you. I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh. I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and I will
cause you to walk in my statutes. Do you see what God is saying? He's saying I'm going to do a work of salvation. I am going to create a new people called the church
and I am going to do it and it is going to succeed. And through it succeeding, it is going to prove to
the nations how powerful I am. So if God saves a person, he's going to do
these things in the life of that person. Is he doing these things in your life? And what are these things, first of all,
he's going to work to make you holy. He's going to little by little remove from you
your desire and your fellowship with the world. And he's going to replace that with a
desire and a fellowship with Christ. Is he doing that since your supposed conversion? Are you growing in your devotion to God and your love for Christ? Are you growing in holiness or are you the
same person that you were when you began? Do you still love the world? Do you still want to be like the world? Now let's go to verse 25, he says. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean.
I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. One of the things that the Lord will do when he is truly saved
a person is again, he will begin to do a work of cleansing. Then the moment we believe in Jesus Christ, we are
justified and we are right with God through faith. But if we have truly believed God is going to
begin to do a lifetime work of sanctification in us, of changing us, of cleansing us from all
our filthiness and from all our idols, and I want you to know something. He can do it. He can do it. He is sovereign over the believer and he
can work in that believers life to make that believer clean, to cause that believer to grow in holiness. Let me give you an example. When I was a little boy, I was raised on a farm. And I don't know if any of you living here in
California has ever been raised on a farm, but the one thing about boys who are raised on a
farm is that they are always dirty, always. And I was the dirtiest of all of them.
Everywhere I had a crack or a crease or a crevice there was dirt because I was always playing in the fields,
working in the fields with my father just a farm boy, always dirty. One time when I was about nine or 10 years old,
I came into the house late at night. Having been in the fields all day. I was very tired and my mother
said, Paul, you need to take a bath. And of course, I was nine or ten years old. I was
becoming a man and I told my mom, Mom, I don't think I'm going to take a bath tonight. All of a sudden, the entire face of my
mother changed and my mother looked at me, And I still can see the picture of her face and it still terrifies me. She looked at me and she said, You will take a bath. So I said, OK, I'll take a bath. So I go in there, I open up the water a little bit, just a few drops, because boys who live on farms, they love to swim in the river
and everything, but they're afraid of water that's in the bathtub. I don't know why. So I turned on the water and a few
drops came out and I did like this. And then I grabbed my mother's white towel and I dried myself off. And now the towel was black and everything was going
along just fine until my mom walked in the door and my mother looked at me and she turned that water
on and she grabbed me by the back of the neck. They were allowed to do that back then. She grabbed me by the back of the neck and she stuck me down In that water, thought I was going to drown. And my mother was a woman who worked most of her
life on the farm. Her hands were like metal files. And she grabbed me and started scrubbing and scrubbing. And when I came out of that bathtub,
I was glowing with the Shekinah glory of God. I had lost at least three layers of skin. But I was clean. Now I want you to think about something. Is my mother more powerful than God? Some preachers, I think would say yes, but the Bible says no. God says I will sprinkle clean water on you and
notice what he says. You will be clean. You will be clean. One of the problems in the West is we have no
concept anymore of a father's authority. I see fathers begging their children we have no concept
of parental authority and therefore we cannot understand the work of God in the heart of a man. God looks at his children and he says, You will be clean. Furthermore, he says this, Now we can do this the easy way or we can do this the
easy way, because for me, both ways are easy. He says God will clean his people. And one of the greatest evidences that you have
become a part of his people is that you can not escape him. He will work in you to cleanse you. I want us to look, he says, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. If I were to describe my Christian life, I would have
to say this is one of the best verses to describe my life. I have been walking with the Lord for around twenty eight years. And in those 28 years, I have seen God's
loving hand of discipline teaching me, putting me through trials, chastising
me when I had gone the wrong way, I could see from almost the moment of my
conversion that I had entered into a relationship with God that I could not escape. He had become my father, and he is a very diligent father. He makes sure that his children do not run wild. Let me give you an example. Let's say that I was your pastor and I came home one
night with my wife at, let's say, 12:00 at night. I was preaching somewhere very late. And I as I was driving home, I went by a street
corner and I saw your daughter that was 14 years old, standing on that street corner with a
whole bunch of very bad young people. As the pastor. And since my wife is in the car, I would pull
up to the street corner and I'd say, Girl, get in the car, I'm taking you home. But here's what you need to understand. I wouldn't be angry as
a pastor with the little girl, but I would be angry with her father. If he was a member of the church,
I would go to him and I would say, What kind of derelict father are you? How could you so neglect your children
that you would allow them to be out on the streets running wild without
your care and your discipline? Do you honestly think that God is a derelict father? That God has all these children in America? He allows them to live in heresy. He allows them to follow every sort of lie. He allows them to live in sin and in every manner,
every sort of way that contradicts his nature. Do you think God is that neglectful of his children? Absolutely not. One of the evidences young people that you truly belong to God, That he truly is your father, is that he is
involved in your life to make you clean. I'll use another illustration from my life as a boy. My mother told me it was the first day of school and she told me this. She she had bought new clothes for me to wear to school. And she told me, she said after school,
don't get in a fight and tear your clothes up. And don't go down to that that river
where you always play and get muddy. Well those were my two favorite things to do at school. Well, I did exactly what she told me not to do,
and I knew that I was going to be in trouble. A lot of trouble. So I always had kind of the mind of a lawyer. So I told two of my friends, John and
Rance, I said, Will you guys go home with me? And they said, sure, because they were just as
dirty and their clothes were just as tore up as mine. So we're getting near my home and my mother
looks out the window, fire coming out of her eyes. And my mother, I knew I knew that my life was over
at that point and quickly I thought, Now, Mom, before you get mad, let me just tell you this, Rance and John, they also got dirty and tore their clothes up and
then she said something that really taught me some good theology. This is what she said. Rance and John are not my children. You are my child. I have nothing to do with them
but I have everything to do with you. Now go upstairs, say your prayers and prepare to die. Now, do you see what's going on here? My mother had a claim on me, my father had a claim on me. I belong to them. I was their child in the same way. If you have truly been converted,
God has a claim on you, you belong to him. He is going to change you for his own glory. And he is going to change you because he loves you. He is not going to let you stay the way that you were. And he has the power to change you. He has a sovereign father. I want us to hold our place in Ezekial and just go
to Hebrews for a moment. Chapter 12. Look at verse five of Chapter 12 of the Book of Hebrews. He says, and you have forgotten the exhortation
which is addressed to you, his sons, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor
faint when you are approved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines
and he scourges every son whom he receives. And then he says it is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline. Now listen to verse eight. Here's the warning. But if you are without discipline, of which all have become
partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. If you can live in sin, live in the world with all your worldly
friends, doing all your worldly things and you can get away with it. And there's no conviction of the spirit. There's no discipline from God. It is
evidence that you are an illegitimate child. You are not truly a child of God. If you love the sensuality of the world and you love all its boasting, its pride of the eyes and its its boasting in the
flesh and all the things that glitters in this world, And you can participate in it without the discipline of the father. It is because the Father is not your father. Now back to Ezekiel, I want you to think about this,
there is a passage in the Scriptures that says this, Jacob I loved Esau I hated. Now we have to ask ourselves a question. How did God manifest his love toward Jacob and how
did he manifest his hatred or wrath toward Esau? This is very, very helpful to understand this will
help you understand something about God being your father. If you look at Esau's life, God fulfilled every promise he
made regarding Esau, he blessed Esaw with wealth, with power. He became a great leader, a great nation. God blessed Esau. So how is it that God's hatred was manifested toward Esau? God never disciplined Esau. He let Esaw BSR. He never intervened in Esau's life. He never worked to make Esau holy. He just cut the rope and let Esau go and
live exactly like Esau wanted to live. Now, how did God manifest his love toward Jacob? He beat Jacob every day of his life. Look at Jacob. He would not allow Jacob to continue on as Jacob. Jacob was the deceiver. But when Jacob become a son,
God said Jacob, it's going to take a while. But I'm going to change you from a deceiver into a prince.
And you look at the life of Jacob, the trials he suffered, the things that he went through so that when he entered into
the Promised Land, once again, he entered in limping. He entered and limping. Why? Because here's what you need to
understand, especially in America. The goal of God and your life is not prosperity. It's not health. It's not wealth. And it's most certainly not your best life. Now, God's goal, if you belong to him as a child, is to
make you wholly to conform you to the image of Christ. He will cleanse you from your filthiness, he will cleanse you
from your idols, and he will be very zealous in doing that. He will do anything that is necessary to
make you conform to the image of his son. Is he doing that in your life? Is he? Let's go on, how is God going to change us? It is not merely by external discipline. How else does he change his look in verse 26? This is one of the most, if not the greatest illustrations,
an example of what it means to be born again. This is a phenomenal illustration. Now, before we go to it, let's step back and look at something. In America being born again or the doctrine of
regeneration has been totally and completely lost. Regeneration is the super natural work of God,
whereby by the spirit of God, he recreates a man. If anyone being Christ, he is a new creature. Do you see that the Bible says that God created
the world ex nihilo are out of nothing. I believe that there is more power of God
manifested in the conversion of a man than in the very creation of the universe, because, as I said,
he created the universe sneakily out of nothing. But when he recreates a man and makes him a
Christian, he takes a mass of radically depraved Corruption and turns it into a new creature who will love him. So many people today, I've been born again, they
say, and you ask them, what do you mean by that? Well, I made my decision. I prayed that prayer is Jesus to come into my heart. Yes, but has your heart changed? Has your life changed? Is it changing? Are you a new creature or someone
who just repeated a creed and pass through a ritual the evidence
that you are truly converted? It's not that one time in your life you prayed a prayer and asked Jesus to come in the evidence that you are converted. Is that one time in your life you repented of your
sins and you continue repenting today. The evidence that you're saved is one time you
believed in the salvation and you continue believing today, the evidence that you're
converted is that one time God began a good work in you and he continues working in you today,
changing your life, transforming you by his power. Look what he says here. He says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your
flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. Now, let's say that I take the biggest
man in this building right now and I bring him up here and I make a stone statue
out of him and here he is, just a statue of stone. I can punch him. I can pinch him. I can kick him, I can insult him. I can do all kinds of things to him. And what is he going to do? Absolutely nothing. He's stone. He's dead, he's in animate, he is unable to
respond to stimuli, but what if I can snap my fingers and change that stone statue
back into a man, a man of flesh? If I pinch him, he's probably going to react and
then punch me. If I kick him, he's going to kick me back. Do you see, I don't care how big you are Or how strong you here are here tonight. If I reach up behind you and get you under the arm like this
and pinch you with all my might, you are going to react. You are going to respond to that stimuli. And that is what God is saying in the supernatural work of salvation. This is what God does when a man is born again. He takes out his heart of stone, a heart that is dead, a heart that cannot hear God, cannot respond
to God and what it knows about God it hates. And by the power of the Holy Spirit hovering over
that man, just like on the day of creation, God changes that man's heart from a heart
of stone that is dead and cannot respond to a heart of flesh that is living
and alive and can respond to divine stimuli. Now, let me ask you a question. Has God done that
to your heart? Has God done that to your heart? Can you remember a time in your life where you
were just dead to God, you didn't care about God, you didn't care about his word, you didn't care
about sin, you didn't care about his voice, hearing him, obeying him, following him, nothing.
But then one day, everything changed. God took out that heart of stone and he put in its place a
heart that would respond to him. My dear friend, when the apostle Paul says,
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, he's not just reciting beautiful poetry,
he's teaching us something that is actually true. Have you become a new creature? Have you? Do you now respond to the voice of God, you may be sitting here right now, young person? All mesmerized by the world, looking like the world, loving the world, acting like the world, and you're sitting
there going, I don't have a clue what he's talking about. Well, then you ought to be afraid. And you ought to seek God and you ought to cry out
to him, oh, God, search my heart. Oh, God, if I- If I do not know you, if all I have is religion but no salvation, Lord, I cry out to you. Save me, change my heart. Grant me grace. Help me, Lord. Dear brothers. From Slavic lands. Listen to me. It'll only take one generation. To lose everything. That's how difficult, how worldly the place is, where you live. Pray. Pray for your children, children. Do not believe the lies. Do not they are deadly. If you are saved, he says, I will take out your
heart of stone and I will put in its place a heart of flesh. Moreover, look at verse 27.
I will put my spirit within you. My dear friend, think about this
conversion is not just a human decision. What happens when you're converted? Not only does God transform your heart, what else does he do? He even dwells you. He puts his spirit within you. And look what it says. I will put my spirit within you. And cause you to walk in my statutes and you
will be careful to observe my ordinances, he says, when I change your heart. And I put my spirit in you. You will live a different way. It will happen. It will. And then he says. Verse 28, and you will live in
the land that I gave to your forefathers, so you will be my people and I will be your God. Young person. Teenager, college student. Even those of you are older, but my burden here is
for the young. Listen to me, can you honestly look at me and say he is my God? He is, my God. I long to know his will, I long to obey his
commands, I long to follow him and be what he wants me to be. I am learning and he is teaching me to love
what he loves and to hate what he hates. Can someone look at your life, young person,
not while you're here at church, no. While you're there in the streets and no one sees you,
can they look at your life and say, that person? Belongs to God. That person is different, that person is not like
the world, that person is changing young person. Do you desire to meet with God in the morning?
Do you desire to meet with him in the evening? Do you desire his word? Do you want to be changed by a young person when
you fall into sin, does it break your heart and afflict you? Ah, do you love it? Do you relish it? Let me share with you this. To close. It's an illustration from Charles Spurgeon. It's very powerful. I want you to imagine that I have right here. Absolutely the best food you could possibly. Could possibly prepare just a
gorgeous plate of the most wonderful food imaginable, and then over
here I have a bucket of garbage slop. Now, I know many of you are from California and
are not from the farm, but let's say that there was a pig in the back of the church. And I told someone, let the pig go. Where's the pig going to go? Is it going to go to this wonderful plate of food? Absolutely not. Where's it going to go? It's going to go to the
garbage. Why is it going to go to the garbage? Because it's a pig. Pigs love garbage, it's going
to go to the garbage, it's going to stick its head down in that garbage, it's going to be unashamed And it is going to eat and eat and eat
and it is going to love what it's eating. Now, let's say that I have the power with the snap of my fingers to
in one second change that pig into a man, what's going to happen? He's going to pull his head out of that bucket,
he's going to throw up what he was eating, why? Because a man cannot eat what a pig eats. It's going to make him sick to himself. He's going to turn around. He's going to see you, and he's going to be ashamed. Now, don't be offended, but if you're a Christian,
I just described your conversion. All of our conversions. We were born and by nature, we were sinners. We did not want the good food of God, we would
rather have the sin and the disgrace and the debauchery of this world, we ran to it. We fed on it. We ate it. We loved it. We desired it. But when a person is converted, what does God do? He changes them into a new creation, a new heart recreated in the image of God and true
righteousness and true holiness. And with that new heart, they have new desires and they can no longer stomach. The sin of this world, and they're ashamed that they ever
participated in it and they begin to walk no longer as a sinner. But begin to learn to walk as a saint. Now, can a Christian be deceived and put his head
back in the bucket? Yes, he can, but the moment he takes a bite, he knows it's wrong. The moment he
takes a bite, it makes him sick and it will not take long for him to repent of his foolishness and
to be ashamed for returning. To what he had left. Is this you? Has God changed your heart? Does he continue changing your heart? Do you long to be free from the filth of this world? Do you long to be like Christ? If you can say yes, that is a great evidence that
you have been born again. To close... Young person, listen to me. The things that are presented to you in this culture. Are more deadly than venom. The sensuality. The lack of discretion. The lack of decency, the rebellion, the love for money and vice
and sex and all the things that this culture throws at you. It will kill you. The way this culture acts, the way this culture talks,
the way this culture dresses. Everything about it is wrong. Don't do this. But also understand this, if you recognize the
culture is wrong and you turn away from it and you think that just by turning away from it,
you're going to be saved, you're wrong. Turning away from this culture won't save you.
But turning to Christ. Turn to Christ and how will you know that you have
come to Christ because he will change your heart, He will change your heart. Imagine that I came into town and I
was the new pastor and you told me. That there's a man who hasn't
been in church for five years. And that he was over there living in the
neighborhood and I needed to go visit him because he was a member of the church and full of sin. So I go over and knock on his door and he invites me in and I say, Brother, ah, sir, you haven't been in church for five years. And this is what he says. He says, you're right,
Pastor. I just love to play soccer, play football, do other things on Sunday, but but you're
right, I need to go back to church. You're right. I need to do that. And then I say to him, and I hear you've
been getting drunk. And running around in different taverns and he says, you know, Pastor,
you're right, I love to get drunk and I love taverns, but you're right, I need to stop doing
that and I need to come to church. And then I say to him, and I understand that you have not been
faithful to your wife. He goes, you know what, Pastor, I mean, I just can't help myself, I love
other women, but you're right, I need to stop it. I need to do the right thing and I need to come back to church. And so on Sunday, he comes back to church and all of you say, Oh, praise the Lord, a sheep has come home. No, he hasn't. A goat just entered the building because you know what he's saying? This is what he's saying. He's saying and young person, listen to me. This may be you. What he is saying is this. I need to stop doing all the sinful things that I
love with all my heart and start doing all the righteous godly things that I hate and that bore
me in order to save my soul. That's not Christianity. He is not a new creature. All we've done is put a wolf in the cage
so we can't continue to act like a wolf. But he's still a wolf. Let me ask you honestly, young person, do you really love this? Just admit it. Do you love this world more than Christ? You say, well, don't judge me. You don't know what's in my heart. I don't have to
know what's in your heart. I can just look at your life. Is your life given to the things of this world, to its so-called beauty and sensuality and entertainment and all
these things so that the scriptures mean nothing to you, fellowship with Christ and prayer means nothing to you. Seeking out other believers in the local church to grow and godliness means nothing to you. You just come to Church on Sunday. If that is, you be afraid, repent of your sins, turn to Christ, call out to him until you know he has saved you and you know he has changed you and that he continues changing you. Now, I know that I have said a lot of
things and I know that I have been very hard. But I know my culture, I know what it does and I
know human nature and I know what the Bible teaches about salvation and everything that
I've said, I've said because I love you. Remember how I began this message, there are people in this
room who will be glorified saints in heaven and there are people in this room who will be monsters in hell. What will you do? Will you repent, will you believe in Christ? Let's pray.
This is a great sermon, thanks for sharing. I am only half way through listening but great so far!