The millennial reign of Christ, as described in Revelation 20, will be a period of peace and righteousness on earth, yet it will ultimately reveal the persistent sinfulness of the human heart. Despite Christ's presence and Satan's binding, the rebellion of unsaved individuals, born from generations living during this time, will lead to a final, massive revolt against God. This rebellion underscores that human sin is not due to external factors like Satan or difficult circumstances, but stems from an inherent will to disobey God, a truth demonstrated throughout biblical history and culminating in the final judgment where individuals are judged by their works and their names are checked against the Book of Life.
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Revelation chapter twenty, please. I've spoken to you in these conference meetings this last two days about the coming of Christ to catch up his church, the Great Tribulation, the return of Christ to the earth, and now in bringing a gospel message tonight, I'm going to center it around the twentieth chapter of Revelation. You talked about the millennial reign of Christ and what will happen at the end of it. I read from the first verse, and I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.
And after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them. And judgment was given unto them, and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their forehead, or in their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. On such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Now that little sketch of the millennium is all that the book of Revelation has about the thousand-year reign of Christ. It just mentions in brief that those that were martyred during the Great Tribulation period will reign with him. And so will we, of course, as the bride of Christ, today perhaps more as His ministers and rulers in His kingdom, and we as sharing this throne as His bride. And then it says in verse six that those, the unsaved dead will not be raised until after the thousand years. And now verse seven, and now we move on past the thousand year period to the end of it.
Listen closely. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breast of the earth and encompassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. Now here is an amazing thing. After one thousand years of peace on the earth, after the Lord Jesus Christ has been ruling in righteousness for one thousand years on this earth, and the devil has been bound all that period and not able to move about on this earth at all, he will be released, Satan will be released, out of his prison, out of the bottomless pit for a brief period of time.
And he will quickly go about the earth. And he will be able to gather together a tremendous rebellion against God. Hundreds of thousands of people perhaps. Maybe millions were not told the numbers. Great hosts gathering together in opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ. Unsaid people. People who were living during the earthly reign of Christ will join with Satan to rebel against him. Where do all these rebels come from, and is there a lesson in them for you and I tonight? Yes, there certainly is. You know, there's generally when we speak of Earth history, we can say that at any given period of time, any given instant of time, rather, on this Earth, there are two kinds of people on this globe.
There are the saved, and there are the lost. And it's always so. And even when you have a congregation as big as this crowd tonight, it's very likely that we have here both kinds of people saved and lost. But you just spread out across the city, across the state, across the nation, and all across this vast land, there are only two kinds of people, those that are saved and those that are lost. But there have been three short periods of time... in the history of this world, either past or future, when this has not been the case. One of them is past, two of them are future.
Right after Noah came out of the ark, there were only eight people living on the earth, and they were all saved people, four couples, three of them young couples, who did not have any children yet. Noah, his wife, and his three sons and their wives. saved at least yet. They must have been saved or they wouldn't have been brought through that flood. And then immediately after the rapture of the church, just as soon as this church is taken out, if Jesus Christ comes tonight for instance and takes away all the born again Christians right across the face of this globe, then right then, right after that, the only kind of people on the earth will be unsaved people.
All the saved will be God. In the days of Noah, After he came out of the ark, for a little while there were only saved people. Right after the rapture, there will be only unsaved people. And apparently, as best I can understand it, immediately after the second coming of Christ, as we read and saw in Matthew twenty-five this afternoon, when he takes out all the unbelievers, when he gathers all the Gentiles before him and judges them and separates the sheep from the goats, you'll say to the goats go into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels and he says to the sheep go into the kingdom prepared for you there will be at that time only saved people on the earth at the beginning of the millennium only saved people all the unsaved taken out now where do all the rebels come from then where do they come from well back in the days of noah when there were those three young married couples with no children It wouldn't be very long before they'd have some babies coming along.
And those children had to grow up. And they might have received the Lord and trusted the God of their parents, or they might not have. If they did, then perhaps their grandchildren didn't. But it wasn't very long before there were unsaved descendants of Noah on the earth again. When you come to the rapture of the church and all the Christians are gone, it won't be very long before there'll be new believers on the earth. There'll be lots of Bibles around. It's not too hard to get converted if a person got a hold of the Bible. God can save a man through the Word of God through the printed page without a human instrument if he wishes to do so. And it won't be very long before God will have witnesses on the earth again.
Saved preachers, evidently a hundred and forty-four thousand Jewish preachers going over the whole face of the globe, announcing this gospel message, and particularly the gospel of the kingdom. You might ask the question, well, how can this be, how can people be saved if the Holy Spirit is no longer present? Well, that's right. The Holy Spirit won't be here. It'll be just like it was then before he came. The rapture reverses Pentecost as far as the Holy Spirit is concerned. His residence was taken up on earth at Pentecost and at the rapture his residence moves back to glory. But he was able to work here on this earth before he came, and he'll be able to work here after he goes back to heaven.
He was able to convict men all through Old Testament days. He was able to convict men in the time of Jesus Christ. He was able to convict men of their sins even before the day of Pentecost after the resurrection. And he'll be able to convict men and say amen again after the rapture. Because he's on the present. and able to work. And so people will be converted. And there will be at the end of that time a great separation, the sheep and the goats. And then you start the millennium with all these converted people and no unsaved people on the earth. But they're not resurrected saints. They're not people who have been raptured. They haven't been changed in the twinkling of an eye.
They'll have children. And those children will have to make a decision. Will they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Will they walk with Him or will they not? Yet things are going to be rather different. Rather different than they are now in two very remarkable respects. Jesus Christ will be here and Satan will be bound. And those two characteristics of the millennial age make it so much different than our present time. Now God has been testing men in many ways. We speak of the different dispensation coming down from the time of Adam right through the present and on into the future.
We must always be careful that we never present the dispensations as different ways of salvation. They are not. God has only one way of saving people. He saved people through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only way in all was that way. And these are not different ways of saving people. But the dispensation certainly are different ways of testing the human race to prove that it's sinful. Different ways of showing that you and I are sinners who need to be saved. And as you look back over Bible history and look on into Bible prophecy, you should learn this lesson. You and I are sinners.
bankrupt sinners, hell-deserving sinners, and no matter what kind of conditions you put us under, we're still sinners. And man is left without excuse. That's part of the purpose of all this Bible history. That's the purpose of going back in the Old Testament. That's the purpose of prophecy. We've had a lot of it today. We've had stories from the Old Testament. Men of the Old Testament. We've had prophecy from the New Testament of what's coming. But it all comes right down to the same thing, that no matter what opportunities or what test God puts man to, man has proved to be a sinner, he needs to be forgiven, and he needs to be saved. Go way back into the Old Testament.
There was Cain and Abel, and their parents had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, we call that conscience today. The knowledge of good and evil, the knowing of what's right and what's wrong. And when Adam and Eve ate of that tree in that Garden of Eden, then the human race had conscience. They had the ability to know the difference between right and wrong. And this is what Cain and Abel had. And the first dispensation, we call it a dispensation of conscience. They knew right from wrong, and they did wrong. Men chose wrong, and the race became so absolutely sinful that God had to destroy it with the flood. Well, still man had an excuse.
The human race could have said, well, now, Lord, you can't really blame us because the first fellow that did wrong was Cain. He was a murderer. And you put a mark on him so that nobody could put him to death. You protected him. And if you're going to let murderers run free on the earth, how in the world are we going to keep the world from going rotten? And so when Noah came out of the ark, God said, all right, we're going to change some things from now on. The man who murders is to be put to death. This is Genesis nine. Very interesting to study it and compare it with the story of Abel, Cain and Abel. Cain was protected. God said to Noah, from now on, the murder is to be put to death.
And from that commission, we derive all this rights of government to punish wrongdoers. It's a shame when the government of a land does away with capital punishment because they're acting in direct disobedience to the word of God. Capital punishment was given to Noah, the father of the human race, not to Moses or to Abraham, the father of the Jews, but to Noah, the father of the whole human race. And it was a means of enforcing righteousness so that the really wicked people could be removed off the scene and then give men a chance. And so we call that the dispensation of human government. Here is man's able to organize. He's able to punish the wrongdoer.
He's able to put him in jail. He's able to get him off the scene. And what happened? Man turned government around and organized it and built the Tower of Babel and rebelled against God in a big organized governmental rebellion. And then God gave the Ten Commandments. And the law, it started with the Jewish people. Here's the law. Here's Ten Commandments. This is what I want you to do. If you're uncertain before of what I want, this is this. Thou shalt not do this. Thou shalt not do that. Thou shalt not do that. That's the law. And what happened? Did the Jews keep the law? No. And the law was given. The book of Romans says, as we heard the quotation before, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. All right, so man can't keep God's law.
Well, then how about moving into a new dispensation, a dispensation of grace where you put the whole emphasis on believing? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and now shall be saved. Well, that's really the way it always was, of course. It was the only way to believe, and these things pointed in that direction. But now it's made oh so much more clear. Jesus Christ actually died on the cross, and there's the record of it, and he rose again, and you don't have to look forward and try to understand what's coming. You look back to an accomplished fact. Christ died for your sins. And what you have to do to be saved is accept it. Believe it. Receive it. Trust Christ. And what happens? Does the world come flocking to be saved?
No. Man has offered a free gift and he turns his back on it. But you see, there are still two excuses that the human being can use. And one of those excuses is this. If Jesus Christ, if I could, you know, if he was really here, how do I know he really rose from the dead? You know, if I could really see him, now you tell me to believe that he rose from the dead, but how do I know that really happened? And you're asking me to believe something that, well, I can't prove it or anything, and if I could see him, I'd believe it. That's an excuse that man gives. And so in the millennial age, Jesus Christ will be here, and still people will turn in rebellion and refuse to believe.
Refuse him. Because, you know, basically man doesn't reject the gospel because he's not sure about it. I learned this long ago. It was a time when I thought that when I was an engineer in a factory in New Jersey, you know, and a... university graduate and all that, I figured, well, now people have real intellectual blocks and problems, and if I could only make this clear to them and demonstrate it and prove it, then they'd believe. But the reason they hold back is because they have real intellectual problems about knowing whether Jesus rose from the dead and whether you really had to be saved and whether there really was a heaven or a hell. That's what I thought. And then God called me to go out to live in a little fishing village in in newfoundland about almost three thousand miles east of here way out on the on the edge of the atlantic ocean um fifteen hundred miles or so on beyond the new york and boston and those places and for four years we lived in a little fishing village living with men who had no education most of them a lot of them couldn't some of them couldn't even write a lot of them had two three four grades of education fishermen who had known that the Bible says there's a hell and fishermen who believed
that they were lost and headed for hell and they had no intellectual problems whatsoever. They had no doubts in their mind that hell was real and that they were going to go there if they didn't get saved. Did they get saved? No, they were just like the people, the university graduates I'd work with back in New Jersey. Refusing, rejecting, putting it off, having to come under conviction of sin before they'd be saved. Man does not want Jesus Christ and he doesn't want to obey God and submit to him. This is the rebellion of the human heart. And your problem and my problem before I got converted was not an intellectual problem. It's a problem of the will.
It's a problem of rebellion. It's a problem of refusing to bow the knee to Jesus Christ and submit to him. I had a brother-in-law at one time. He's not my brother-in-law now. He was then. He said to me, If I was face to face with Jesus Christ, I would not accept him. Now, one thing I have to say for that, fellow, he was honest. He wasn't making intellectual excuses. He said, if you took away all the intellectual excuses and I stood face to face with Jesus Christ, I would not accept him. This is why at the end of this thousand years when Jesus Christ rules on the earth, the devil will be able to round up a great rebellion of people against the Lord.
Then the other excuse that man gives, the other excuse is that, well, you know, it's the devil. He makes it so hard for us. It's all these temptations and everything is blamed on the devil. If the devil wasn't around, then I could be saved and I could follow the Lord. That's not really the case either. If you're not saved, don't blame the devil. Get right down to the crux of the matter. The rebellion in your own heart that needs to be repented of. The refusal to bow the knee to Jesus Christ and turn to him. In the millennium, Satan will be bound. And man will not be able to use the devil as an excuse. And yet probably the great majority of people will still go on the road to hell.
Refusing to repent. Now mind that they'll be bottled up. in the sense that they will not be able to sin publicly. Righteousness will be rigorously enforced. No open sin will be permitted in the millennium. Unbelief will have to be kept away in the heart, and it will not be allowed to express itself in outward action. I heard a story years ago. I suppose it's a made-up story, but it illustrates something... pretty well about this matter of the sinfulness of the human heart. In New York City, there's a pier on Forty-second Street where these Hudson River cruise ships start out, sailing up the river.
And they go every night. Some of these great big ships, they have a dance orchestra on board and an open bar, and you can go on and you can have a great time. But once in a while, a Christian group will charter one of these ships for... Young people's crews up the Hudson or some big get-together for Christians, and they'll put the dance orchestra off, and they'll bring in the gospel music, and they'll have a great gospel rally in the main dance hall on the ship, and the PA system will broadcast the thing all over the ship, and a couple, two, three thousand people go on board that ship. Christians having a glorious time. Well, the story that's made up is that... probably made up, it might have happened too, it's quite plausible, is that a Sunday school organization was having a huge Sunday school outing on board one of these ships.
They chartered a ship. And just as it was about to pull off from the... from the pier, the gangplank was just being raised and some man came charging down the pier. Wait, wait, wait, hold it, hold it, hold it, and then they held it just long enough and he dashes up the gangplank and they pull the gangplank in and off goes the ship. And this fellow was having some sort of, well, he was looking for a real opportunity to let her go. He wanted to go on the ship and get a good drunk going and have a tremendous time letting all the standards down he thought he and he didn't know he'd get on the Sunday school picnic boat. And there he was.
He just thought that's the regular cruise ship. They didn't know that was the charter ship. He hadn't seen all the little kids all over. And here he is on the boat. And you can't curse and swear with all those little kids all over the place, can you? You can't tell dirty stories and enter in with a filthy crowd when there's no filthy crowd around. Well, we go down the bar anyway. We go down and get drunk. We go down the bar. Shut up tight. Close for the crew. Not even the bartender's not even on board. I go in the dance hall, and you go in there and serve a big dance going on. There's a gospel meeting going on. And this fellow can't even buy a pack of cigarettes that day on the boat. And the poor guy, he's just having a miserable time.
There's no way to get off. He's got to go all the way up that river and suffer intensely, and come on back down again and just wait for that... cruise to be over. And boy, you can imagine what happens when he gets off the boat, when he gets back to Forty Second Street. He heads for the nearest gin mill, and he's really going to let it go. Well, this is like an unconverted person in the millennium, you see, not able to do publicly what he wants to do, not able to express his rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ, not able to demonstrate... his rejection, but when Satan comes back on the scene, there he goes. Join ranks with him right away. Now, this is a little lesson in this thing, that man, no matter whatever state you put in, the Bible says, man, in his best state is altogether vanity.
You and I are sinners. And even if Jesus Christ was here, if he was here standing on this platform talking to you, and there was no question about his resurrection, and you could see the prince in his hands, and you knew that he died and you knew that he rose, you'd have the same struggle in your heart about accepting him. You'd have the same temptation to refuse him if the devil was completely bound and couldn't touch you at all. Because the root problem is in the human heart. It's not Satan. It's in your heart. It's the problem of rebellion. It's the problem of doing what you want to do. It's the problem of the will. And this is the sin of mankind. This is the root of sin.
Now, maybe you're a religious person. And you say, well, I've never gone out and got drunk, and I've never committed adultery, and I've never done all these bad things that the bad people do. I'm a church member. I'm good. I'm moral. I'm upright. Why do you tell me that I'm lost? Because maybe you haven't done some of those sins, but that sin of independence of Jesus Christ, of doing what you want to do, of refusing to bow before Him, and say, Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm lost. I'm headed for hell. I need to be saved. That's your sin. it's rebellion it's refusal a little farther on in this portion revelation chapter twenty one verse eight but the fearful non-believing And abominable in murders and harmongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death.
You might be that religious person here tonight and you're not abominable. You're not a murderer and you're not a harmonger. You're not a sorcerer and you're not an idolater and maybe you're not even a liar. But you may be unbelieving and you'll be with the others. You may be fearful. fearful to come out and take a stand for Jesus Christ, and you'll end up in the same place as the other unless you come to the Lord and receive him. Back in chapter twenty, verse ten, the end of this rebellion that we spoke of, verse ten, the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.
where the beast and the false prophet are. We saw that yesterday, that at the beginning of the millennium, the beast and the false prophet get cast into the lake of fire. At the end of the millennium, the devil is going to be cast into it. And then the last line of this verse says, he shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Tormented day and night forever and ever. There are many people today that say, oh, there's no hell. God wouldn't send anybody into hell. Listen, it doesn't matter what I think about it anymore than it matters what you think about it. You may think there's no hell. I may think there is. And in my opinion, in your opinion, neither one matters. What matters is what the Word of God says.
This is God's book and this is God's truth. And if the devil is going to be tormented day and night forever and ever, then there is a hell, an eternal lake of fire, an eternal place of suffering. That's for the devil. Verse ten. but then in chapter twenty one verse eight the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and so forth they also are going to be cast into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone and this is the second death and go back to matthew chapter twenty five for just a moment keep your place in revelation matthew twenty five verse forty one this is not the same time of course this is the beginning of the millennium here in this judgment of the sheep and the goats but i'd like you to notice the words matthew twenty five forty one then shall he say unto them on the left hand depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels this is at the beginning of the millennium Matthew
twenty five forty one this is when he separates the sheep from the goats the unbelievers that will be alive on earth at that time are going to be sent into that everlasting fire prepared for the devil that's the lake of fire verse thirty four is what he says to the sheep then shall the king say unto them on his right hand come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Now this is the kingdom. That's because the sheep are the people that go into the millennium. This is not heaven, like it will be for you and I. It's the kingdom that he's speaking of here. But just compare these two verses, thirty-four and forty-one.
The words of the Lord. Compare them item by item. To one group he says, come, and to the other group he says, depart. And many a gospel preacher has said that come is perhaps the most beautiful word in the Bible. Come unto me, all ye that labor, the Lord Jesus said. And I will give you rest. Come. But if come is the most beautiful word in the Bible, then depart as the most horrible word in the Bible. So here the Lord Jesus said, depart from me. Depart from me. To the ones on his right hand he says, come ye blessed. To those on his left hand he says, depart, ye cursed.
One is blessed. The slaves are blessed, the other curse. To those on his right hand, he says, inherit the kingdom. To those on his left hand, he says, depart into everlasting fire. And so far, these two verses run parallel, item by item. But now the parallelism breaks. To those on his right hand, he says, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom, prepared for you. To those on his left hand, he doesn't say, Depart, ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for you. Notice that, please. Verse forty-one. Jesus Christ does not say, Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for you.
He says it was prepared for the devil and his angels. And it wasn't prepared for you. And my friend learned this lesson. God did not make hell for you. He did not make the lake of fire for you. He made heaven for you. And that's where he wants you to be. If you go into the lake of fire, it's because you rejected him and refused him. He didn't make some sort of second grade heaven. Some place that's like heaven, it's comfortable. There's no pain and no suffering. But Jesus Christ, it won't be there to bother you. He didn't make a place like that. He made heaven for you, and Jesus Christ is going to be there. And if you don't want Jesus Christ, this is why you'd refuse it.
This is why people turn it down. Sure, everybody would like to go to heaven, but not if Jesus Christ was going to be there. The whole test of a man's decision is not whether he wants to go to heaven or hell, but what he thinks about Jesus Christ. Do you want Jesus Christ or do you not? And men who would love to go to heaven but don't want Christ will refuse the gospel. Sure they'd like to be in heaven. Who wants to go to hell? Nobody wants to go to hell. Anybody likes to go to heaven. But the catch is that Jesus Christ is going to be there. He's going to be Lord. He's going to be in charge. And immediately you're faced with the question, what will you do with Jesus Christ? But oh, it's beautiful to see it here in Matthew twenty five.
Hell, the lake of fire was not made for you. God made heaven for you. And that's the love of God. He wants you to be there. He made it for you. He made a place for you. And he wants you to be in it. And you'll be there if you'll receive the Lord Jesus. And then finally going back to Revelation, we'll close with this. Revelation chapter twenty. Verse eleven. Verse ten we have the devil cast into the lake of fire. Verse eleven, when the Lord does this, when he finishes up this rebellion at the end of the millennium, he's going to set up a great white throne. He's going to sit on it. Heaven and earth are going to flee away. He's going to be a new heaven, a new earth in that day.
Verse twelve, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. Here's resurrection. The resurrection. This would be the resurrection of all the un... converted dead down through the ages people that die in nineteen seventy one unsaved will not be raised until this scene if you go out of here without christ and the rapture doesn't take place you go on through your normal lifespan and die this is where you're going to be standing here on that resurrection day standing before god and the books are going to be open and notice in verse twelve the books and another book. The books, plural, and another book.
And I explained right there what's going to happen. Just that the other book is the book of life. And the dead are going to be judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. So evidently, the books are the record of your works, of your life. And when God judges you by your works, you'll be found guilty, inevitably, This becomes clear in the verses that follow. The same is true of me. Let God stand us in judgment according to our works and our thoughts and our deeds. We will be found to be guilty sinners deserving of hell. And so the sentence is passed on everyone.
Judgment. And then it says in verse thirteen, the sea speaks of the resurrection again. The sea gives up the dead. Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. Our brother was talking last night about hell. Death here, meaning that the body is coming out of the grave and hell, Hades, the souls coming out of the waiting place of departed souls. In other words, man's going to come forth, the soul's going to go back into his body, and he's going to stand there before the Lord. In verse fourteen, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is a past tense here. We're cast because John is talking about his vision. This is what he saw. But it's a prophecy of what's coming.
And so we can say death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Death and hell. That means you, the man, the individual, the unsaved man, in his body, after he's been raised from the dead, back in his physical body again, cast into the lake of fire. And then verse fifteen, very significant. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. In other words, there is an exception. Everybody judged according to their works will be found to be sinners. All have sinned and come short, if not one of us has got a passing grade when it comes to the question of judgment and sin.
Every one of us will fail the test if we have to stand on that judgment day. We have all come short, but God's going to check the other book. After he's done judging in the book, he's going to check the other book. just to see if the name is written in the book of life. That just means it. You're not saved by what's in the books. You're not saved by the life you live. You're saved by the Lord Jesus Christ when you come in repentance and faith to him. You turn your life over to him and you say, Lord, I'm a guilty sinner, but I want to be written down in the book of life. I want my name written there. Jesus died for me.
and I want to be saved and I want to be forgiven. And when you trust the Lord Jesus, God writes your name down in the book of life. And when your name's in the book of life, it doesn't matter what the other books say as far as judgment goes, because Jesus Christ has died for those sins. Sure, you're a sinner. I'm a sinner. I'm a guilty sinner. I deserve to go to hell, but I'm forgiven. Jesus died to save me and forgive me. I'm washed in the blood of Christ. Are you? Is your name written in the book of life? When you stand and say, I'm a guilty sinner, but Jesus has saved me, forgiven me, died for me, I know him, and I've trusted him.
It's the only way, only in Christ, that you have eternal life. Shall we bow in prayer? That's all. Just bow our heads and pray silently. This conference comes to a close, maybe right there in your own heart. You'd like to talk to God about your own condition. You'd like to tell the Lord in your own heart that you are a sinner. Maybe you've never told him that before. Maybe you've never said to him, Lord, I'm guilty. Maybe you've always said, I try to do the best I can and not as bad as my neighbors and all that. Why don't you just tell him right there in the silence of your own heart to say, Lord, I'm a guilty sinner and I deserve to go to hell.
It might be the hardest thing you've ever said. Just say it to the Lord. And it's the hardest thing to tell the Lord that you're a guilty sinner, but it's true. And when you've told him that, then you're ready to be saved. Then you just tell the Lord about Calvary. You just tell God about Jesus dying on the cross. Tell him Jesus died for you and you believe it. And you'll receive Christ and you'll accept him. Oh God, I'm a guilty sinner, tell him. But Jesus died for me. And right now I trust him. I believe that he died for me. Maybe you're not ready to do that now, but maybe you'll be ready when you go home tonight. Get down on your knees and tell God about these two things.
First tell him about your own sinful condition. And then after that, tell him about the blood of Christ. Tell him about Calvary. Tell him that you believe that Jesus took your place and thanked God for paying all the price of your sins. And God will put your name down in the book of life. May this solemn moment be a real moment of decision for some souls tonight, for some who have long lingered in the darkness of unbelief, in the rebellion of the will that refuses to bow the knee to Jesus Christ. May this be a moment of conversion, of salvation, of names being written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and we'll thank and praise thee for it in the blessed name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen. So we stand in thing number two hundred sixteen, verses one, three, verses one.