I went to a big Bible Conference, Southern Baptist Fellowship last week; and one more time I had to go and begin to cry to God. I am in one of my periods of agony, I am either up or down. I want to speak on the God that nobody is mad at. My impressions during the solemn time of the funeral of our departed President, was that the God of this day is a mighty likeable sort of fellow, that even an atheist wouldn't be mad at Him. And my impression this last week in the Bible Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, was that the Christ who is preached today; nobody would be offended by Him. So I am down in the dumps; I want God to work. I never can preach except I'm in agony. I don't believe you can witness any other way. My soul! I beg you to pray for the men of God who are preaching a Christ Who is holy and is very offensive; instead of the nice Jesus that everybody loves today. God's children need to pray for the men of God to have broken hearts and open doors.
The whole book of Acts is the record of some preachers or witnesses standing up to interpret something God has done. On the day of Pentecost things took place and the Apostle Peter an opportunity to get up and interpret what was taking place at the hands of a living God. He said, "We are not drunk, but this is God doing things." In Acts 1:1, Luke said he was going to keep on talking about what he had talked about in his Gospel of all the things that Jesus began both to do and teach. The thing that I have to pray about and stay in an agony about most of the time is that today the doing is mostly absent. We have the responsibility of preaching and trying to explain dry teaching that we all accept in our heads; instead of interpreting the great and mighty acts of God. If you were a public preacher, you would know what I am talking about; and more than you ever have before, you would pray for anybody who is trying to struggle through the religious atmosphere of this day and preach Christ as He really is.
Here again in the book of Acts something has taken place. God has killed Ananias and Sapphira. God did it through His preacher, and it caused no small commotion. The first effect of it was that great fear came on the people. Acts 5:11 says: "And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things."
They were afraid of that congregation where two people lied to the Holy Ghost and God acted about it. He came on the scene and He reached down His mighty arm and struck them dead. Verse 13: "And of the rest durst no man join himself to them.' but the people magnified them." That scared people and they didn't want to go around that place. But in that atmosphere the people magnified these disciples. Verse 14: "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women."
Another thing that resulted from the action of Almighty God in killing these two people was in verse 16: "There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean .spirits.' and they were healed every one."
The disciples in the authority and in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ were healing the sick and taking care of their needs. The religious priority, the people who preached a God that nobody would possibly be mad at, that we want to talk about. See verses 17 and 18: "Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and were filled with indignation, And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison."
The Lord came on the scene again in verses 19-27: "But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, and taught. But the high priest came, and they that were with him, and called the council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and told, Saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without before the doors.' but when we had opened, we found no man within. Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them where-unto this would grow. Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council.' and the high priest asked them ...."
Then the high priest asked them did we not straitly command you that ye should not teach in this Name? There is the rock of offence. And behold ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man's blood upon us.
Peter had witnessed something that made a different person out of him. The Apostles had witnessed the action of Almighty God in raising Jesus Christ from a grave and enthroning Him at His right hand, and giving Him the job of giving repentance and forgiveness of sins to eternity bound sinners. And Peter was a witness of that, in the sense that he had experienced the power of Him, Who has been exalted, to break the shackles that bound him and set him free. And in that atmosphere, when they told him not to teach in the Name of Christ. Verses 29-31: "Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, Whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost and he knew that Jesus had warned them to fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28). Again in Acts 5, verse 32 says: "And we are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, Whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
So is also the Holy Ghost, he is talking about one person, he is witnessing to one person; and the two things about that one person that this world is mad at is: His death on a cross and His enthronement at the right hand of God. Peter said we are witnesses and so is also the Holy Ghost, Whom God hath given to them that obey Him. And strange to say, verse 33 says: "When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them."
Somewhere I read these words: "It is painful to hear a man who does not believe Peter's Gospel, seek to preach it as if in some sense, he believed it. But it is thrice more painful to hear a man who believes Peter's Gospel, preach it as though he did not believe it. Preaching, praying, living, witnessing without passion, without urgency. Reciting facts, quoting creeds, repeating religious formulas, preaching without heart passion, and without divine urgency."
My friends, for over thirty years I've wrestled with my greatest hindrance and my most terrible weakness, and my most horrible sin. I wish unto God I could stand there with the Apostle Peter facing that Sanhedrin and stay there in that atmosphere of the raising of Jesus Christ from a grave, and the exalting of Him on a throne. I wish I could stay there until I believed it, with my whole heart, mind, soul and body. You know if I could believe that, I am telling you the God's truth, I could preach in the power of the Holy Ghost; and I could have power with God and with man. In my head I've accepted this glorious truth all these years; in my heart I wish I could get to the place I didn't have to pray, "Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief."
No man could take a pen and do justice to this truth. No man with words from his lips could do anything else except stand and take off his shoes and cry out in his heart, as you stand face to face with the greatest single truth and experience and action of God this world has ever known anything about. Actually the Man with the print of the nails in His hands, the Man Who was God. Manifest in the flesh, the Man Who was born to die, the Man, God's darling Who was given to the dogs, the Man Who wound up in disgrace on a criminal's tree. There is One mediator between God and man; it is this Man. How I need Him; how I need Him. A Man, all Man, whole Man, yet God. I need Him to stand between me and the stroke of God's judgment against sin. Don't you need Him?
Judgment is coming and God must punish sin. We are all eternity-bound men and women, and unless God Almighty is pleased to perform a miracle in you and reveal Christ in you, you are doomed for hell.
Actually the Old Book tells us if we could just believe it, that the One Who must mediate between me and a Holy God is now alive forevermore, for the purpose of working repentance in my heart and granting me the consciousness and the experience that my sins are forgiven by a Holy God. Oh! I wish I could believe that. The more I look into that, the more I wish that before I die, I could enter into the preaching of what it means to believe, with a heart and everything there is within me, that God has raised that Man from the dead.
I am sure that lip service and repeating of the sinner's prayer and going through the motions won't get the job done. There must be a heart belief, which is God-given faith. Something that you can't get out of books, something that only a power greater than I am can bring to pass in my life. That's the reason I thank God for the struggle these poor preachers have had going against the grain of present-day preaching of what is called the Gospel. I know that acceptance of a creed won't get the job done. Somehow or another, I have to stand with Peter and say now that I have witnessed this, I know about this. I have witnessed this and experienced it. A witness is somebody who can interpret what happened. The Apostle Peter by his own experience said: "We ought to obey God rather than men, and we are His witnesses of these things."
I am vitally interested in that Mediator and what became of Him. I surely am, and I find out that He is sitting there on that throne, working at the job of God's purposes of salvation. God hath exalted Him and made Him a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
Peter said: you needn't talk to me, this is God working. The Lord Jesus Christ is yonder on a throne now. Does anybody need repentance? Go to Him. Anybody need forgiveness of sins? He's the One that gives it. That's what He's there for, to give repentance and the forgiveness of sins. At one time the Apostles were brokenhearted about Jesus and His death, they didn't understand the death of Christ. But now Peter stands and by experience he understood what the Lord said, "I must need suffer many things then enter into glory."
A man that does not believe in the exalted Christ cannot preach the Gospel. The man or woman who has experienced the power of that exalted Christ to break your old heart and turn you against yourself, to lay hold on Christ; cannot help but preach it. Peter, I think, could quote from Psalm 118:16; 22-24: "The right hand of the Lord is exalted.' the right hand of the Lord doeth valianlly ....The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing,"it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."
Alleluia! God hath exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour. Let's be glad about it.
I have to cry to God so much before what I'm talking about now gets sweet to me. Let's rejoice and be glad about it. This is a day of great joy. You and I are living in the time when Jesus Christ from a throne works repentance in men's hearts, and breaks the chains that binds them and sets them free. Alleluia! Alleluia! The power of cancelled sin sets the sinner free.
Every once in a while I go back to one of the earliest trophies of my poor little ministry. It did me so much good then and very seldom does a week go by that I do not recall this experience. It helps me. In my first pastorate in an oil town, Mrs. Carnes became a member of our little church. Her husband was a big shot; he was making a lot of money, but not in the right way. He was highly educated and traveled lots. He finally got to coming to hear me preach and would sit and listen. His wife got greatly concerned about him. One day she said, "Sunday we want you to have dinner with us. After the meal I have an errand I've got to run, and I want you to really talk to my husband." She said, "For the first time in our life together, I actually believe he might listen."
We had a lovely dinner, then she made some excuse and left me, just a young twenty-three-year-old preacher boy, to tackle that man. I did the best I could and he cut me to pieces. He had a head knowledge of the Bible from cover to cover; he used it to argue about. He was smart. I never will forget how he butchered this poor little preacher boy. He butchered me so that I burst out in a sob, got up out of a chair, and ran out of his house. I was in an awful shape. Instead of trying to witness to him, I had to listen to him answer with his criticisms and his mind. My testimony has to come from heart to heart, not mind to mind.
I remember I had worked hard all week to prepare a high-powered sermon for that night. That afternoon, out in West Texas, it started raining real hard and when it was time for the evening service, it was just pouring down. The people decided to stay at home, so there were just a few who came. I felt like I couldn't afford to waste that big sermon on that few people, so I was desperate. I was also suffering because that intellectual giant had cut me to pieces, so I was wounded, discouraged and blue.
I got up that night and preached a little half-hearted sermon. I don't know whether I believed any of it or not. I decided when it was over it wouldn't do any harm, so I said, "Stand and sing. Somebody may want to publicly confess Jesus Christ." Before the songleader got started good, here came that man running down the aisle sobbing like his heart would break. He put his big arms around me and liked to have crushed me to death. I'll never forget what he said. He said, "I can rebel against Him no longer. I surrender, I surrender."
Oh! Praise the Lord, there is somebody sitting on a throne with the authority and a delegated task of giving repentance to men and giving them the forgiveness of sins. I can understand how an old rebellious sinner could be brought in a way that I certainly could get no glory; to a place where he will say publicly, "I can rebel against Him no longer; I surrender." And I remember the next Lord's day I baptized him. The next Lord's day I called on him to lead in public prayer. This was his prayer. He said, "Oh, Lord, this is the first time I ever did anything like this. If You will help us today, I'll be much obliged. Amen." That was his prayer, but it came from the heart. Later we set him apart for the work of a deacon.
Two weeks after I baptized him, he called me by phone and said, "Brother Pastor, could you come down to the office? I must see you." I went down and he had gotten out of his within-the-law crooked business and was cleaning up everything; paying things off and straightening things out. He set me down and faced me with a desk between us and he paid me the greatest compliment I ever got. I needed it then. It don't hurt to compliment a young fellow once in a while who is in the battle. He said, "Pastor, I have heard all the big preachers of my day. I used to travel one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles just to listen to a big preacher to criticize him." He said, "I had to come way out here to this Texas oil town and listen to a boy who was hardly old enough to shave before the claims of Christ were pressed upon me to where I had to surrender."
Then he got up and came around. I stood up and he put his arms around me and kissed me full on the lips. Then he said, "I'11 always love you, Brother Pastor; you wouldn't rest until Christ was my Lord."
I went away to school and Mr. Carnes died. They sent a telegram to me. It went astray and I didn't get it until after the funeral. After the funeral, his wife sent me a stick pin, a black pearl or ruby, I forget which it is. I never wear it. She sent a message. She said he waited; he wanted me to be by his bedside, but I didn't know about it. When his strength was gone and he saw he wasn't going to see me, he instructed his wife to get that pin and after he was gone to send it to me and write this note: "Dear Pastor, when you get the blues, well, I've had plenty of that. When you want to quit, if it was left up to me, I would have quit a thousand times. When it looks like you are not getting anywhere, I've been there too." He said, "I want you to take this pin out and look at it and remember a God Who can conquer a man like me can save anybody He pleases."
Brother, many a time when I've been in a meeting and everything I said went wrong, came back and bounced and hit me between the eyes; especially in these last days, where the spirit of Antichrist seems to be breathing hot upon our very necks. When I wanted to quit and it looked like I couldn't go on, I'm weak. I've remembered how God conquered the rebellious will and broke the chains that bound C.J. Carnes; and I resisted the devil so he would flee from me. I know Somebody that's in the saving business. There is Somebody that can break the rebellion in a man's heart. There is Somebody that can set him free. That Somebody is the One Who hung on a tree and dealt with God's holy law in my stead. Now He sits on a throne to save sinners. Glory to His Name.
"Our Father, in His blessed Name, we beg You to have mercy upon the preacher and the people this morning. Speak to our hearts one more time and fill us with boldness and with a holy joy, that we live in a day when salvation is in the hands of an enthroned Lord, and when He cannot be defeated. Please speak lo hearts right now, draw people to Thyself. Do something for all of God's people, and all who are here without Christ. I beg in His blessed Name. Amen!"