Reasons for Rejection │ Msg 5/14

1:20 God lit a single match in our dark world back when he sent his son, Jesus. In our passage today, Jesus declares, I am the light of the world. He is still shining today, still leading people out of the darkness of sin into the light of his freedom and hope. Let's read Jesus' words in John chapter 8. I invite you to open your Bibles to John 8 as I read sections of this chapter from the New Living Translation. I'll give you a few moments to find your place as I begin at John chapter 8 verse 12. Verse 12 begins, Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, I am the light of the world.

2:14 If you follow me, you won't have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life. The Pharisees replied, You are making those claims about yourself. Such testimony is not valid. Jesus told them, These claims are valid, even though I make them about myself. For I know where I came from and where I am going. But you don't know this about me. Now drop down to verse 31. Jesus said to the people who believed in him, You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. But we are descendants of Abraham, they said. We have never been slaves to anyone.

3:09 What do you mean, you will be set free? Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. As that dialogue continued, the people began to insult Jesus. We see that in verse 48. The people retorted, You Samaritan devil! Didn't we say all along that you were possessed by a demon? No, Jesus said. I have no demon in me, for I honor my father, and you dishonor me. And though I have no wish to glorify myself, God is going to glorify me.

4:10 He is the true judge. I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die. The people said, Now we know you are possessed by a demon. Even Abraham and the prophets died. But you say, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?

4:44 Jesus answered, If I want glory for myself, it doesn't count. but it is my Father who will glorify me. You say, He is our God, but you don't even know Him. I know Him. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you. But I do know Him and obey Him. Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad. The people said, You aren't even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham? Jesus answered, I'll tell you the truth. Before Abraham was even born, I am. At that point, they picked up stones to throw at him.

5:42 But Jesus was hidden from them and left the temple. I came across a rather different kind of description of a Christian this past week. Someone said, a Christian is one who is completely fearless, continually joyful, and constantly in trouble. Now, maybe the theology can be refined or it could even be amplified, but practically speaking that isn't bad. We Christians spend our days in a role of being fearless, joyful, and in trouble. Now, not troubled, but in trouble.

6:39 And I ask myself, why is that true? Why do we nod with agreement that that is the way our lives are? The answer, I find, is because that's the way Jesus was. He is the founder, he is the finisher of our faith, And he spent his days continually in a bold realm of proclamation, fearlessly declaring the truth, constantly joyful and yet in trouble.

7:21 You know, he is a revolutionary individual. Jesus is the most imposing personality that ever came to this earth. Who else could say with any measure of authority, I and my Father are one? Who else has the right to say, without me, you can do nothing? who with any sort of validity can declare, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me will never die. Not one person here, not one person who has ever existed, no matter how great a personality, could say that without becoming the laughingstock of his generation. But Jesus could say it.

8:20 I think the most revolutionary thing he said to his disciples was, Men, I have not come to bring peace on the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I do not find the Lord Jesus making people who are not right with God comfortable. I find him bringing swords into marriages, bringing swords into business relationships, bringing swords into certain church groups, swords into society gatherings. When his name is brought, there is a sword that is brought. And a sword penetrates. It demands a response. Either I surrender or I fight. Now, that's the way we find Jesus in this crowd that surrounded him in John chapter 8, verses 12 to 59.

9:28 He is not around a crowd that had never heard of God. I want to make that clear. He is in a context of religion. As a matter of fact, one of the three great festivals of the year is where he was at the time he spoke the words of John 8, the Feast of Tabernacles. Remember the other time that he brought a sword? He said, Are any of you thirsty? Come to me and drink. They were pouring out the water from that sacred vessel on that sacred altar, and he said, Wait a minute! Let me tell you where real water is. It's in me, and you come to me, you'll never thirst again. Oh, that was a sword. And it started an argument that still hasn't ceased.

10:21 Now, he comes to this place called the treasury, according to verse 20 of chapter 8. And there is in that treasury several unique items that we normally wouldn't know about. To begin with, there were 13 trumpet-shaped vessels that were used for holding the coins of the people. It was the treasury. And these bell-shaped receptacles were small at the top and broad at the bottom. And each of the 13 receptacles was used for a particular kind of offering. If you gave to one particular phase of the temple, you dropped it in the second one. If you gave to another work of Judaism, you dropped it in the 11th one. 13 receptacles. And along with this, there were four massive candelabras in the treasury area of the temple. There's some debate as to how tall they actually were, but there seems to be reason to believe they were at least as tall as our building is tall.

11:25 Think of that. Four massive candelabras that burned with oil continually replenished for these eight days. And historians tell us that there was a flickering light over the city of Zion during that festival era. The candelabra spoke of the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. It was a reminder to the Jews of what their forefathers had experienced. And Jesus stood in the midst of the treasury and he said, wait a minute. I am the light of the world. That's a sweeping statement. As a matter of fact, the rabbis had been teaching for years that when Messiah came, he would be clothed with the light of the sun. And just as there was planetary light from that single source, that ball of light, the Son, so Messiah, when he came, he would bring light to the world.

12:27 Jesus is claiming, I am Messiah. This light that flickers over the city means nothing. Let me tell you, you that gather for another religious exercise, I am the light of the world. Look at the claim, verse 12. It is an exclusive claim. the light, the world.

12:54 It's like an attorney who suddenly stands among his peers in the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles and says, I am the attorney of Los Angeles. It's like a physician among his men with whom he studied standing and saying, I am the surgeon of Orange County. But it's more than that. Jesus is saying to these temporary light givers I am the light of the world that's exclusive there's no other light but mine implying you are in darkness and you will never get out of darkness unless you follow me look at the offer he who follows me man, woman, young person, child if you choose to follow me if you give me your heart if you let me invade your life you will no longer walk in darkness but you will have the promise of light.

14:04 Remember when you gave your heart to Jesus Christ? You remember when the candelabra suddenly lost its glory and the light of the Son of God took its place? Can you recall a time in your past when you surrendered, as it were?

14:26 Some of you have heard it all of your lives. Others of you can look back to just a few months or a few years ago when you were finished with religion, thank God, and suddenly wanted to develop a relationship and thank God again, someone was there to explain to you how you go about being rightly related to God through his son. Now that's the offer that Jesus made. If you follow me, the light, you will no longer be living in darkness. Now you would expect a response that was positive. but not this group. Verse 13 is the response. The Pharisees said to him, you are bearing witness of yourself. Your witness is not true. You're boasting and lying, says the living Bible.

15:30 Jesus said, I am the light of the world, and they responded, you are a liar. I was in a church service years ago. Dr. Lewis Johnson was preaching on the superiority of Jesus Christ, made several sweeping remarks regarding the Lord Jesus, the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God, and how there could be only one bridge between man and God, and that was the cross of Jesus Christ. And suddenly in the midst of that little church, a man stood to his feet, pointed his finger at Dr. Johnson and said, that is ridiculous!

16:12 You could have heard a pin drop in that place that day. People sitting around the fellow tucked their feet under the pews as he slipped out to the center aisle and made his way out of the church. Dr. Johnson never missed a stroke, just kept right on preaching as if nothing had ever been said. That's the way it was with the Lord Jesus. I am the light of the world. You're a liar. He who walks in darkness will no longer live like that, but he'll have the light of life. That's the thought here. It is as though he goes right on with his message, continually joyful, constantly in trouble,

16:51 amazingly fearless. I want you to see the tone of this chapter, which we cannot possibly convey in a few moments. So we put on a little chart behind the outline sheet that you got, the progressive attitudes of hostility. It may help you get the feel or the sweep, the tone of the passage. Take a look at it. It's sort of captured in six steps, the movement. It begins with a contradiction where they say, your witness is not true. It ends with violence where they take up stones to throw at him. And in between are sandwiched four specific steps from contradiction to violence. For example, they told him his witness wasn't true and he said, I testify from the Father.

17:49 God the Father has given me my message and they answer where is your father? We were not born of fornication implying what? Well sure all the way through his life they continued to throw back at him that he was an illegitimate born in the military village or raised up there in Nazareth you know the off scouring of the world or is your father insinuating illegitimacy? Then he came back and spoke of their problem, their problem of being enslaved to sin, and they denied it. Verse 33, they said, We've never been enslaved to anyone. And he calmly and yet persistently responded, Yes, you are. And they came back, You're a Samaritan.

18:42 You've got a demon. Now we in this United States have our own terms for various races and you know them as I know them and they are all terms that are terms of prejudice. In those days you could not call a Jew anything worse than Samaritan. You half-breed. Not only are you a half-breed, you have a demon insulting our Savior, following it with sarcasm. Whom do you make yourself out to be? And the Lord Jesus, standing firm once again with absolute fearlessness, declared the message of light and they rejected it to the point of taking up stones to stone him. I continually am amazed at the hostility of a religious audience, continually. I would much, much rather speak to those who have never heard anything than those that have heard it all their lives and rejected it.

19:54 Years ago, up in the New England area, I was on a panel, kind of an open forum discussion group at Brandeis University, surrounded by unbelieving Jewish students for the most part. And I was there to represent what the scripture teaches about the Lord Jesus as the Messiah. How would you like to have been in my shoes that day? Sort of a general mutiny is what it became, as I recall. brazen hostility. Every statement seemed to just prompt an increased hostility, and every answer brought increased feeling of insult and accusation and sarcasm in response. A few years later, I was down in the Perkins School of Theology, and I was speaking on a panel with three other fellows, And that seminary is a liberal place of study.

20:57 And two of us on the panel represented what Scripture said about Jesus Christ and his superiority and his person. And once again, in a religious context, it was gross hostility. Men studying for the ministry, but embracing a theology that left no room for Jesus Christ as the Lord of the life.

21:26 I'll never forget those experiences. It reminded me again that the religious audience is without question the most difficult kind of audience to reach. Not Christian. Don't confuse the two. not those rightly related to Jesus Christ but those rightly related to religion and that is the substitute for a relationship with Jesus we'll say more about that this morning but go back now if you will to the stoning or that which almost led to a stoning and that is the group of people who openly rejected Jesus Christ I just want to say, by the way, that I don't know of anyone more narrow than a liberal.

22:16 It doesn't sound right, but it's true. One genuinely liberal is the most narrow, rigid individual concerning the specifics of Scripture you'll ever want to meet. He calls himself liberal, but I'll tell you his vision is tunneled. He has no room to tolerate the real teaching of what God has said in His Word. In fact, He rejects His Word. Now the Lord Jesus is surrounded by those who were masters of the manuscript. They were the policemen, the guardians of Scripture.

22:53 They oversaw the passing of text from one manuscript to the next and they denied the very Messiah when He came. and declared his message. And that's this context. Why did they do it? Why did they reject him? I want to point out now five reasons that are woven into the text. To begin with, there was a lack of knowledge. Verse 14, a lack of knowledge. Jesus answered and said to them, even if I bear witness of myself. My witness is true. For I know where I came from and where I am going. But, now mark the next four words, you do not know. Lack of knowledge. You do not know where I come from, my origin, you do not know where I am going, my destiny. You have no concept of the sweep of God's plan. Drop down to verse 19 it is. They were saying to him, where is your father? Jesus answered, you know neither me notice lack of knowledge nor my father if you knew me you would know my father also no knowledge

24:21 incredible ignorance Now, this was nothing new among the Israelites, I might say. It was an indictment they had been living with for centuries. Go back for a moment to the book following Daniel, the book of Hosea, will you please? Hosea chapter 4, the first several verses carry this thought of indictment. Now look at verse 1 of Hosea chapter 4. God is speaking to this people. Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel. For the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land.

25:18 What is the case? Well, there is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land. This was written centuries before Jesus in chapter 8 of John. And he says there is no knowledge of God in this land. And what resulted? Well, there was swearing, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. There was violence. Bloodshed followed bloodshed. The lamb mourns. Everyone who lives in it languishes along with the beast and the birds and the fish. It's a pathetic scene of ignorance. Verse 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. because you have rejected knowledge, he says to the priest. I will reject you from being my priest.

26:17 My wife and I recently were having dinner with friends from the church. They were raised in another country. And they spoke of how for all of their earlier lives they lived in a context of scriptural ignorance. It was something you paid the clergy. to know about. The Bible was chained to a pulpit, as it were, in another language, known by another group of people, but it wasn't my responsibility. And therefore, we live, they said, in stone ignorance of what Scripture really taught. And they said it's remarkable as we get into the Word to discover the real truth of what God has said. Are you getting into the scriptures aside from Sunday or your Bible class night or your Sunday school class? You're either part of the answer or part of the problem in this world of ignorance.

27:23 Did you have trouble finding Hosea? It's a little difficult, isn't it? Well, it's not every day we read Hosea, and that's true. But how about just the basic theme of John from chapters 1 through 7 or 8, where we've been? Could you pretty well declare that? It's remarkable, isn't it?

27:45 John Hunter was the speaker at a camp that my family and I attended, spoke in the mornings, and from the minor prophets, by the way, and one of his points during the morning was the gross ignorance that he senses in the land about us. He travels extensively as a Bible teacher, and he said one of his itineraries took him from one preaching point to another by plane. He sat down by a woman on the plane, and she began to strike up a conversation, and he said, I tried to hide my identity as long as I could, lest she find out I'm a preacher. You have to be a preacher to appreciate that problem, because once the truth is known, people do all sorts of dumb things.

28:28 swallow their cigarettes and they They try to eat the glass they're drinking a scotch out of and all sorts of amazing things So you don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. You just you know you lie or do something to keep them from knowing it so Dr. Hunter said finally could keep it from her no longer and she said the father. What do you do? What's your work? He says well, I'm a teacher. So what do you teach? teach the Bible. I don't believe the Bible. Oh, really? What's the trouble? He asked, and she said, well, I have doubts. Well, for example, she says, I just cannot believe that Noah swallowed that whale. Now, you know, as you laugh, we laugh too in the audience. And he said, I wanted to laugh thinking she had made a mistake.

29:31 So I tried to correct her. She said, oh, no. I could never believe that Noah swallowed that whale. She did not make a mistake, you know, a twisting of her tongue. She really meant that. She really believed it said Noah swallowed a whale. I couldn't believe that either, as a matter of fact. But you know, the doubts are often connected with a source of ignorance. It's remarkable, the ignorance in our land. Like that high school in Massachusetts, a prep course to get them into college, a brief little the Bible is literature course for a semester. The teacher just gave a basic exam. What was Jezebel? I think it was one of the questions. Jezebel was Ahab's donkey, someone answered. Named the four gospels.

30:26 You know, several of them said Matthew, Mark, Luther, and John. They didn't mean to be funny. They really believed those were the four gospels. What was Golgotha? The name of the giant that slew the apostle David was the answer that came back. Incredible ignorance. These were the top 10% in that high school in Massachusetts preparing for college. Basic Bible facts. Ignorance. That's one of the reasons men reject Jesus Christ. They don't know the facts. And they're programmed wrong. whether it's religious background or culture or just poor training from false teachers.

31:20 Now friends, we're either part of the answer or part of the problem. I find myself continually when working with people correcting their concept of scripture, of Jesus Christ, of his life and death. And it's remarkable when they get it straight, they're ready to believe. Remarkable. The Lord Jesus told those men, you traffic in the truth, but you've never really known what it said. Now look at verse 15. The second reason is a lack of perception. Verse 15, you people judge according to the flesh. I am not judging anyone. You judge according to the flesh. Now that's the fact of their lack of perception.

32:16 The syntax of this verse in the original text suggests norm or standard, the particular usage of the terms. Your norm, your standard for judging is flesh. You see on one plane and that surface, you have no other dimension but the empirical. Only what you can prove, see, touch, feel, taste, that's what you accept.

32:47 You have no in-depth perception of the truth, says the Lord Jesus. Look across at verse 23. He says the same thing, and here he tells you why. He was saying to them, you are from below. I am from above. You are, and you might want to add Just for the thought of clarity You are strictly of this world Or only of this world I, he says Am not of this world Only In other words, the Lord Jesus was saying You are earthbound You are earthlings Have you had the experience of talking with individuals about Jesus Christ, just describing or explaining the gospel, and have them miss it entirely because all they see is a surface issue?

33:48 I don't know how to describe it any more clearer than that. Their whole frame of reference is world, flesh. You speak of another life, they can't comprehend it. You speak of the deeper life, the soul of man, not just the body and the needs and materialism. You speak of those inner needs, and there is this blank look. What in the world are you talking about? Preoccupied with the world. That is because people are only from below. They lack that perception. There was released a book a number of years ago entitled The Ugly American. Some of you read it. It's a shameful and even embarrassing account of the American when he travels. And those of us who have done a little bit of traveling have found the book is not all that wrong.

34:48 Nothing is more ugly than a prejudiced, narrow American. who travels to a place like Rome or Venice or whatever, and because they don't have a cowboy stadium, you know, they just don't see any use in that Rome or Venice. Because they don't have the Rams, they don't see any reason people get excited about Caracas. and there is this ugly scene created because of a lack of perception.

35:27 Why, they have, do you know they have bells in Europe older than our country? Think of that. And you stand in their presence, there is a perception that you get when you're there that just beggars description unless you are an ugly American.

35:50 You know there's something worse than that, and that's the ugly worldling. You present him with the beauty of the Lord Jesus, and you lay it out in front of him as carefully and meticulously as you can, and he blows his nose on it, if you please. He has no place in his perception for the Lord Jesus Christ. That's those men Jesus spoke about. You men who work over the manuscript of truth have never really perceived what you've got in your hands. That's another reason people reject lack of perception. There's a third, and I want to camp on this for a moment. it has such practical overtones for today, and that is a lack of appropriation. Verse 37. I want to dwell on it for just a minute. I know that you are Abraham's offspring, yet you seek to kill me. Why? Because my word has no place in you. If you're using the New American Standard, you'll notice in the margin a good rendering of the last phrase in verse 37.

37:06 You seek to kill me because my word makes no progress in you. It isn't that they hadn't been exposed, it's that they had never appropriated. They had never made personal the print on a page. This is a tragic indictment, and I say it especially for second-generation Christians. For those of you who have forged out your faith from scratch, you lived your teenage years or your later years without a knowledge of God, and then suddenly you discovered the most marvelous relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you were genuinely converted.

38:00 No problem there. Those of you in that experience have very little difficulty maintaining a zeal for Christ, the balance of your life. There are exceptions, but you're rare. But you give birth to the little ones. Okay? You know there's never been a time in our home those Swindoll children have not heard of Jesus Christ. Those four kids have heard of Christ all through their life. There'll never be a time when they won't hear of Christ. I hope it'll be balanced and honest and clear, but they hear of Christ all the way through. They never know what it is not to know of Christ. You know there's a danger connected with that. It's the danger of overexposure. It's the danger of being saved and sanctified and galvanized, just crusted over.

38:55 I have a seminary professor who is a master of a speaker, and he will not attend a certain Bible college and speak there because of the cynicism on that campus. And the Bible college is filled with kids that have heard of Christ all through their lives, but it is making no progress in there.

39:19 You hear what I'm saying? There are some kids in this church. You've been through the whole roll, you know, You've never known a time when your parents weren't born again. You've gone through the eighth grade class. You're up in later years now, later teen years or early to 20 years, perhaps even getting married, beginning your own family. And you've got to admit there is a quiet sense of cynicism that you're fighting, and not always fighting. Listen to this. In Kalonovka, Russia, attendants at a Sunday school picked up after the priest started handing out candy to the peasant children. One of the most faithful was a pug-nosed little boy who recited scripture with proper piety. He pocketed the rewards and then fled into the fields to munch on it.

40:20 The priest took a liking to the little fat boy and persuaded him to attend church school. By offering other inducements, the priest managed to teach the boy the four gospels. He won a special prize for learning all four gospels by heart. and reciting them non-stop in church one day. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Over 60 years later, this man died, and on his tombstone appears the name Nikita Khrushchev. He could quote Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John by heart. but he had trouble with the scriptures making progress in his life. Let me say to you that exposure does not place you close to heaven because my child's name is Swindoll means nothing concerning his eternity.

41:32 Because you are related to a man who founded a fine church in some great section of the country means nothing concerning your eternity unless you personally appropriate by faith the death, the resurrection of Christ. These men lived in the dust of biblical studies and knew nothing in their heart of a changed life so that when the revolutionary claims of Christ were declared, they took up stones to stone him.

42:12 Exposure, but not absorb. There's a fourth reason, a lack of desire. And here I believe Jesus becomes more specific than at any other time with this audience. I believe it was the turning point. It's hard for me as I read the verses to picture the animosity that must have been created. Look at verse 44. Let me just read it. And you put the scene in your mind. A lack of desire. You are of your father, the devil.

42:49 You want the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature. For he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. You have picked up the desire of your father. What is the desire of the father, of their father the devil? Two of them are named. He was a murderer and he was a liar. Isn't it remarkable how like begets like? I think the most discouraging points of any parent's life is when he sees in his children or her children the weak character traits that the parent has not yet conquered.

43:54 Now that's true spiritually. Jesus looked at these men and with eyes that must have been imposing and penetrating saw right into their soul and said to those men, the devil is your father. You want his desire. You know what the desire of the devil is? The desire of the devil basically is selfishness. I want my way. Some of you absolutely must admit today, I reject Jesus Christ because I know if he comes in, he's going to change my way. He's going to bring a new lifestyle that is not mine, and I've got news for you, you are absolutely right.

44:46 When Christ comes in, he doesn't come to join hands with the enemy. He comes in to expose and to remove the murder, the lie, the selfishness in your heart. That's why he says, I come to bring a sword. I don't come to make peace. I come to bring a sword. And of course, this cuts at pride, and that's their fifth lack, the lack of humility. Lack of knowledge, lack of perception, only on that surface level. Lack of appropriation, exposed, but they hadn't absorbed. Lack of desire, and finally a lack of humility. verse 52. The Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Now that's quite a conclusion, isn't it? We've heard you long enough, Jesus, to know the reason. We know now that you have a demon.

45:51 Abraham died and the prophets also. And you say, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never taste of death. Meaning Abraham died, the prophets died. Weren't they good enough? Here again, this lack of perception. Surely you're not greater than our father Abraham who died. That's pride. What were they counting on to be found favorable before the father? Their ancestry.

46:24 You ever done any witnessing to someone who is proud of his pedigree? I've never done much talking to individuals whose parents were great people, and rightly so. They were indeed great. Why? They have to be the most difficult people in the world. Religion is their family. Why, they can give you, you know, book, chapter, and verse, historical record of what granddad did, what grandma did. Or what dad did. He founded this church. Meaning what? Well, meaning dad was all right. But what about child? But, you know, I'm related to him. I know.

47:17 But he has no opening for you into heaven. Why, Jesus even said to those men, you say Abraham is your father, why don't you do the works of Abraham? Meaning you've got to write it on your own. You won't get to heaven writing on his shirt tail.

47:39 It will be a very sad, sad day when many say, Lord, Lord, haven't we done this in your name? And the Lord says, I never knew you. That is why it says in verse 59, they picked up stones to throw at him. Bad enough to call them the offspring of the devil, but to say that their father Abraham wasn't good enough to get them in, that was the last straw. And they literally got rocks in their hands to throw them at him. ... Bill Counts puts it so well in his book, Once a Carpenter. At that, the fuming mob scrambled for stones to bombard Jesus, but he slipped away and was gone.

48:43 He had exposed their superficial affinity, their unshakable self-righteousness. They assumed their birth assured them possession of Abraham's faith and reward. And their lifelong resistance to self-examination flared at Jesus' probing of their hearts. The truth was too excruciating to face. They were the devil's slaves. I told the Lord last night that if he would enable me to get through this message, which frankly is not an easy one to preach, to go from verse to verse and to tie it together so that you get the meaning of the passage, I promised him I'd give him the last two minutes to make something very clear.

49:41 And I have felt his help this morning, and here are his two minutes. I fear very much that some of you who are exposed regularly to the preaching, teaching of His Word have never been born again. Do you know the gospel? And do not feel that because you come Sunday after Sunday you are any closer to heaven. You are in fact running greater risks. The more light you withstand, the more the blindness can be created. Jesus Christ died not because he was a sinner, but because you and I are sinners. He died to open the way for you and me to come to know God and to spend eternity with Him when we die.

50:40 He rose again from the dead, victorious over sin and death. And all he asks is that you, who hear of his death and resurrection, admit you're a sinner And say in your own words, Lord Jesus, I claim you personally. I give you my life. I accept your gift of eternal life. If you cannot look back and find at least a time, not necessarily a date, a time where you made that decision, friend, chances are you never have.

51:27 Don't look back and think of how often you've come to church. Look back for that moment, can you? can you come to that place where you drove a stake and said, that's the day I was born again? If you cannot, I don't want to give you a week to think it over.

51:47 Dwight L. Moody made that mistake on the 8th of October, 1871. He preached to his largest audience in the city of Chicago. He was fatigued at the end of the message. The text had been, what will you do then with Jesus who is called the Christ? He said something he had never said before and frankly never said again. Due to his fatigue, he said to the audience after he presented the gospel, now I give you a week to think that over. And when we come together again, you will have opportunity to respond. And Ira sank, he came, began to sing. And before long, even before he finished the song, you could hear the blare of the siren in the streets of Chicago as that great fire broke out and left 100,000 homeless. Hundreds of people died in that fire.

52:41 And Dwight L. Moody rose to the occasion a few months later and he said, I would give that right arm before I would ever give an audience another week to think over the message of the gospel. Some who heard that night died in the fire. I don't know what God's plan is, but he has every right in the world to plague this area with an earthquake. He has done it before. There's every reason to believe he will do that again. There could come a sweeping fire that could finish you and your family off, some auto accident, some incredible unexplainable event that snaps you into eternity. And friend, you'd long to have just a second to make a decision that you put off for another week. I dare not give you that luxury today. Let's bow together, shall we, this morning.

53:41 I sense the Spirit of God moving in some lives that are here. You've listened with rapt attention. You've thought about your life this morning. Some of you have even gone back to find that date, and you cannot find it, and you're troubled. I say on the authority of the Word of God that if you come to the Lord Jesus Christ accepting him as your personal Savior he will not turn you away. Perhaps you would like just to confirm that decision today regarding your relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe you're just uncertain