Good morning. I'd like to say that I appreciate the invitation to be with you this week to open the Word of God. It's one of the holy honors that is given to sons of men to take the Word of God in hand and to speak as the very oracles of God. As if God did just teach you, be you reconciled to God. I might say something about my name. J. Boyd Nicholson has to be my father. And let's keep it straight. I'm J.D. That's what I get. J.D. are Dave. And I'm not going to give you the etymology of my name. along our path whereby I ended up with that strange handle. But that's what I get. J.D. or J. I'd like to say something, too, about the meeting of this series that we'll be beginning Lord willing this evening and continuing through the week, which is Hept and Wednesday, when we'll have a gospel message. We'll be looking at the subject, God's blueprint for blessing. Looking at the New Testament church and what God has in mind for us. Certainly it's important for us to know what God has to do. It's not our church. It's his church. The church which is God. And we ought to be careful in doing those things that are well-treated in its sight. Now, you may hear a rumor going around that David Nicholson's having special meetings. That's not true. You're having the special meeting. I just happen to be the speaker. And what it says on the pot bottle is true, isn't it? No deposit, no return. You don't put anything into the meeting. That's exactly what they get out of them. So we'll have a special time as we study the Word of God together. We're going to be handing out some chariotees tonight, some handouts and hope that there'll be a help to the Lord's people here. I'd like to read two verses, very well-known verses, in the book of Proverbs chapter three. Proverbs chapter three. Verse five, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. I'd like to underline in your heart these introductory words, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. And I would like to speak In the most simple terms this morning, sometimes we hear someone speaking to a preacher and saying, you know, you make the gospel so simple. No, that's not true. The gospel is simple. It's our responsibility to keep it that way. We live in an age of pseudo-intellectualism. That's a fancy word for using fancy words, isn't it? There was a character, his name was Maori Maverick. He was a representative to the U.S. government from Texas. And he invented a word that we sometimes use. It's the word gobbledygook. And it actually is found in our dictionary now. It's been removed from the slang list, and I suppose he had heard the gobbling of turkeys, and they were just about as intelligible as some of the things he heard coming out of Washington. Here's an example I came across. It says, diffuse ability of knowledge throughout the environment. in which the families are to move is essential if the full expression of their potentiality is to become explicit in action. Facts pertaining to experience of every sort that the family is in the course of digesting give the context and full flavor of consciousness to their experience. Doesn't that warm the cockle of your heart? It seems to me that that didn't just happen by accident. You know, all the important words in our lives are little words, aren't they? life and death, time and space. You think about good and bad and love and hate and day and night. Those are all little words, aren't they? The only important big word that I know is watermelon. Man has purposefully confused the issue. I believe he's done it on purpose. Because he sees his desperate condition And he wants to camouflage it with all kinds of wording. If ever there was an age when we needed to speak plainly and pointedly, it's the age in which we live. We're on the brink of war in this Western Hemisphere. And people can talk all they want, but the facts of the matter are plain as far as the Word of God is concerned. I was looking at this Gospel text that's painted on the wall behind me. Did you notice that? He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. There's not anything but monosyllables in that statement. And there's not one word that has more than four letters, is there? And those words are common to every one of us. We know who he is. That means anyone. Sometimes with the children, we'll bring a mirror, a hand mirror in a bag. And I ask the children to come up, and I say, now, who do you see in there? The first one. Well, I see me. That's interesting. Okay, to the second one, the little boy. Who do you see in there? Do you see this girl? No. That's funny. Who do you see? Who do you see? He says, I see me. So the third one, now, who do you see? Do you see these two over here? No. Come on. Who do you see? Well, I see me. Well, that's the word whosoever. Whoever God is speaking to. He's speaking to every soul today in this poor old aching world. And he says, he or whoever has the present tense, the sun. The Lord Jesus. Whoever has the sun has light. And whoever doesn't have the sun doesn't have light. Now you may have education. You may have influence. You may have money. You may have prestige in your community, but if you don't have the sun, you don't have life. God's kind of life, everlasting life, a very simple statement. And yet that statement encompasses the whole world today, doesn't it? It encompasses all those who have the sun and all those who don't have the sun and there's nothing in between. And God makes it very plain that you either have the sun or you don't have the sun. So let's not get all confused here and talk about, you know, motives and personality and good works and all the rest. God is not interested in all of the issues that men introduce. He wants us to have it very clear today. Do you have the sun or do you not have the sun? If you have the sun, then this light is in his sun. You have everlasting life, present tense. And if you don't have the sun, it doesn't matter what you have to say about yourself. It doesn't matter how highly you think of yourself or how many good things you have done in your life. If you haven't received Christ as your Savior, you don't have everlasting life. Is that plain enough? I think so. Now we read here a scripture that is also very plain. This is what we read. Trust in the Lord with all thy heart. I'd like to give you a little acrostic on trust. TRUST, a very simple method of fastening it in our mind. And beginning with the letter T, trusting requires thinking. Now, contrary to popular belief, you do not tick your brains goodbye when you become a Christian. In fact, if you want to think, If you want to stretch your little mind, you begin to think about some of the things that God talks about. You think about eternity. You think about God, God, three in one. You try and grapple with the notion of the Trinity. No, you don't say goodbye to thinking when you become a Christian. In fact, the Christian is the only one who can afford to think about the real issues of life. A friend of mine who's a very pointed personal worker, was at a funeral of a relative of his. He was standing up by the casket, and along came the eldest son of the person whose body was in that casket. My friend turned to this young man, and very graciously, but very pointedly said, Are you afraid to die? No, no, not me, no. He said, Do you think about this? Well... He said, death is an enemy, the Bible says. And I just wondered if maybe you were afraid to die, because death really is an enemy, you know. Well, said the fellow, I suppose it depends on how you think about it. Well, said my brother, you know, it really doesn't matter how you think about it. I've thought about it all kinds of different ways, but you'll always end up dead. And that's the fact, isn't it? I spoke to an old man one day as he was going out of a meeting. We had had a week of gospel meetings and he'd been there every night. He was way up in his nineties. And as he painfully made his way out the door with his chains, I talked to him and said, Sir, tell me, what do you think about when you think about eternity? And he looked very pityingly at me and he said, Sonny, I make it my business not to think about eternity. That's kind of a foolish thing, isn't it? For it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. And there's only one thing that will really matter five minutes after you die. What did you do with Christ? Is he your Savior or is he not your Savior? And you can fill your mind with the things of this life. And may I say, it is Satan's business to keep you from thinking about God. You know what the word amusement means? Yes, amusement parks now. and amusement centers and all kinds of activities, well, ah means not, amuse means think. Not to think. That's what it means. And it is the point of amusement to keep us from thinking about our real condition before God. We might say that the world is the place where people are trying to be happy without God. And it may be money that occupies our mind. It may be family. It may be the Dow Jones Industrial. It may be your favorite recipe. It may be cars. It may be fashions. It may be anything. But the question is, have you ever thought about trusting in the Lord? So you have to think about it. Proverbs, eleven, twenty eight says, He that trusts us in his riches shall fall. He that trusts us in his riches shall fall. I suppose you've heard of the Rothschild family. One of the richest families in the world. They don't know how much they're worth. Billions and billions of dollars. And there was Mr. Rothschild over in France, where he makes his headquarters in Paris. One day he woke up, he was an extremely wealthy man. And the next morning, nothing. You see, Mr. Mitterrand, the new Prime Minister in France, took it ten one day, and he nationalized everything that Mr. Rothschild lost. When we were down in Georgia many years ago, our oldest was a little baby at the time, and we ended up with a real crisis. We had run out of diapers. Well, I had brought along some Canadian money. I had run out of the American brand, the Sophie Luther, and so I had to go and exchange some of my Canadian for the American stuff, you see. But we were in this very small town. So I went down to one of these drive-in jobs and rolled up. put my money in the little mouth that comes out and grabs it, you know, sucked it back in and not a second time spat it back at me and said, sure, we can't do anything with that here. You'll have to go to the main branch. Okay. So I took it and went down to the main branch downtown and went in, this massive old building, beautiful, some of that gorgeous old architecture, stood in line, waited till I got to the counter and handed over my money. She said, what's that? I said, well, amazing money. Oh, well, I can't handle that here, sir. You'll have to go and see the assistant manager. And I thought I went and said, by his desk and eventually he came to me and I showed him and said, well, I can't look after that. You'll have to see the manager. And so I ended up in this big plush office, you see? I mean, this, I'm serious. This is what happened. So the person said, what would you like? I said, I'd like you to change some Canadian money into America. Well, said the manager, it'll take quite a bit of time and you better have a lot of money. See, we send it to Augusta and then they send it to Atlanta and they send it to New York and they exchange it there. And of course New York takes the money and Atlanta takes the money and Augusta takes the money and we take the money. So unless you have a lot of money, it's not really worth it. He said, could I see it for a minute? I've never seen any Canadian money. And so I showed it to him and he said, no, we can't handle that here. I'm sorry. It's quite a number of weeks. Well, I was quite unimpressed, as they say. I wasn't overwhelmed. I wasn't even well. Here are people. who supposedly were in the banking business and they didn't know what to do with it. I said, now we come from a backward country up north there, but they have this little box with a kind of a handle on it called a telephone and they pick it up and they call and find out what the present rate of exchange is and then they exchange it for them. See? Oh no, we couldn't do that here. And so I went to their competition across the street. Same story, you know, except this time they all gathered around. They wanted to see and one fellow said, who's that lady on there? A friend of mine. between Elizabeth, of course. And this particular assistant manager, a lady, she had a very helpful suggestion. She said, now if you take this money and go to Savannah, I don't know what it was, about ninety miles away, you can go if they have a rare coin store there. And you may be able to exchange it there. Oh, I didn't want pennies or, you know, Swiss francs. I just wanted some American money. And here I was with money in my pocket, but it wasn't any good there. You know, there are a lot of people, and they have all kinds of money, but they're not rich towards God. And they've done all kinds of works and all kinds of things that they think will impress God, but they'll step onto your heaven and they'll say, I'm sorry, you don't take that currency here. Are you rich towards God? You have to think about that, don't you? We have a company in Canada. It's called the Canada Permanent Trust. You know, they can't look after one dollar for one day. If I put that dollar in there today, they can't guarantee that they can give me the same amount tomorrow. So we have to think about who we can trust. And says the Proverbs eleven twenty eight, he that trusts us in his riches shall fall. In Proverbs twenty eight, twenty six we read this. He that trusts us in his own heart is a fool. Hey, those are harsh words, I say. He that trusts us in his own heart is a fool. You know why? Because the heart is deceitful. The heart tricks us. Our hearts say, you know, I think I'm quite good, actually. And we can speak quite well of ourselves, can't we? If someone asks us, how do you expect to get to heaven? Well, we pull out all the honor roll and we tell about all the wonderful things we've done. Our heart fools us sometimes. But when the light of the Word of God shines into our heart and the Spirit of God begins to work, he doesn't leave us much to be proud of, does he? Oh, not only is the heart just equal above all things, but it's desperately wicked. Your heart is wicked. You say, how do you know me, Mr. Preacher? Well, the Bible says that as faith answers to faith, the image of a faith in water, so is the heart of man to man. And we're all wicked. The Bible is so plain and so clear. There's no escape clause, no fine print. The Bible says all have sin. It's not J.D. Nicholson saying that. I'm just another poor sinner. But God says that. God doesn't look at the outside. He looks at your heart. And he knows your heart. And he says that your heart is wicked. And if you trust in your own heart, you're a fool. Imagine you're out drowning in the water and I come by with a little boat. Or perhaps I'm standing on shore. And you cry out, help, help. And I say, well, I do have a rope here. Do you think that will help? Of course it will. Throw me the rope. So I take the whole thing and throw it out too. I'll be laughing at that, but you know, as many a man is holding both ends of the rope. Trusting in their own resources. Thinking that by their good works or their prayers or what they can do, what they can give, their religion, their beliefs about God. Well, you know, I don't think God will send me to hell. Quite frankly, I don't care a hill of beans what you think. And you shouldn't care what I think. What does God say? God says, if you don't have the sun, you don't have light. And he writes in John chapter three in verse thirty six that there are only these two kinds of people. If you have received the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you will not be wrath. But if you will not have the Lord Jesus, the wrath, the condemnation of God already hangs over your head. And so God tells us very clearly that we ought not to trust in ourselves. In Jeremiah chapter seventeen we read, Cursed is the man that trusts us in man. I've heard people think that they're going to get to heaven because their father was a Methodist preacher. I've heard people say that they think they'll get to heaven because they come from a good family. Or because they've never done anything that's really bad. God would disagree with you. You know what the worst sin is? Murder, no. Adultery, no. Lying, no, cheating, no, stealing, no. No, the worst sin in all the world is the sin of ignoring the Lord Jesus Christ. The sin of unbelief, the Bible calls us. There will be murderers in heaven saved by God's grace. There will be adulterers there saved by God's grace. The Bible tells us about them. But there will be no unbelievers in heaven. Not one. That is the only sin that God cannot forgive. The unpardonable sin is the sin that refuses the only way of salvation. Say, Mr. Baker, are you trying to scare me? I don't like the sound of that. Well, I want to tell you, only a fool would turn off the fire alarm because he doesn't like the sound. If you don't play the fire alarm, he'll use you, do you? If you don't play the fire alarm for some soft dinner music, by the alarm is there to warn you of coming danger. And so it is with the gospel message, I am not here to amuse you. I am not here to entertain you. I am here to warn you to flee from the wrath to come. And so we ought to think about these things. By contrast, Psalm thirty-six and seven says, How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God. Therefore do the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. You cannot trust the institutions of earth. They're crumbling all around us. There is only one who is absolutely trustworthy. How excellent is this loving-kindness? Don't you think you could trust someone who is willing to give his life for you? who is willing to die for you, who is willing to allow God to pour out his wrath against your sin in your place. Don't you think he could trust him? Oh, he is trustworthy. My grandfather was saved seventy years ago, Easter time. Seventy years. And if he were here today, he could tell you, I've proved the Lord and I've found him trustworthy. More than that, I could bring to this podium hundreds, thousands, of Christians from all over the face of this earth. They've proved God in the jungles of South America. They've proved God in the teeming cities, in the prisons of Russia and Red China. They have found him always to be trustworthy. And they testify today for those down through the ages, the martyrs who have given their lives, the confessors who have given their words, and all the faithful through the ages, they would all declare the same. He is absolutely trustworthy. He is worthy of your trust. And so thinking is required of those who will trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. But then, pardon me, R, P-R-U-S-T, R, it requires relying on the one who is trustworthy. Imagine jumping out of a plane. And you've got a parachute on your back. And as you count off until you're clear of the plane, you pull the ripcourt. And the parachute opens up and you're drifting down. But there's someone else in the plane and they jump out. And you see them and they're whipping by you on their way down to earth. And you shout, pull the ripcourt, man. Pull the ripcourt. And he says, I'm thinking about it. I need a lot of people like that. in danger not of crashing to the ground, but in danger of going to hell. Whatever happened to hell, still in the Bible, isn't it? Still in the book. And it is the place of all those who say no to the Lord Jesus or those who say not yet. I believe there are far, far more people in hell today, and I say this soberly, far more people in hell today who want it to be in heaven than those who want it to be away from God. They just didn't get around to it, you know. Just too busy. Doing this and doing that when I get a little older, when I get my life straightened out, when the family's raised, after I do this business deal. And God says, behold, now is the day of salvation. It's not enough to think about it. There is something that must be done. You must receive the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Now, if you're going to receive him as your Savior, there are two great things that must come about in your life. And they're put very simply in the Word of God. Repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Are you listening? Repentance towards God. It means that you agree with God about your sin. I don't know if I told some of the folks at Greenwood, but I got a phone call one day. They had been sending out some gospel tracks and happened to have my phone number on the back of it. And this elderly man was on the phone and he was really irate. He was shouting into the phone and he said, Who do you think you are telling me that I'm a sinner? Well, you know, when you pick up the phone and somebody shout at you like that, I was a little disoriented. I didn't make any connection, you know, and I wondered, Well, who is this fellow? He went on for quite a bit of time. He said, I'm seventy-three years of age. I've lived my life. in such a way that I'm proud of it. I've got nothing to be ashamed of. Who do you think you are? The CIA to tell me I'm a sinner? Finally, I made the connection and I said, excuse me, sir, I didn't call you a sinner. Oh, yes, he said, I have this little piece of paper right here. And he began to read the gospel track. He says, you say I'm a sinner here. And I said, no, sir, I didn't say you were a sinner. Well, he was really getting quite upset. Finally I said, excuse me, sir. I didn't say you were a sinner. God says you're a sinner. Now, if you want to disagree with him, you have his number. It's God that says we're sinners. It's the God of heaven who has spoken. And he is dead. There is none righteous. No, not one. You're trying to get to heaven in your own righteousness? God says, don't bother. For there is none righteous. No, not one. In fact, he says, all your righteousnesses, all your good works, are like sinking filthy rags. Imagine some invitation to a gala affair here in the city. And if you're anything like me, you'd have to rent a tuxedo or get some gown that you have and start to get ready. Probably spend all day getting your hair just right, you know, having a bath and getting dressed and everything's got to be just right. Soon the limousine rolls up and you go out and if you're anything like me again, you aren't used to riding in those big fancy cars and sit rather awkwardly in the back and so finally you arrive at the location. And as you go in, you have your invitation in your hand. And may I say that everyone in this audience has an invitation to go to heaven. Signed in precious blood from the Lord Jesus himself. He says, Come to me. And you hand the invitation over to the one who stands at the door. and he's reading the names of the guests. And the group that's already there, moving about, having a happy time, suddenly, with some disdain, he sees you. It's evident in his face, and he takes the card from you, and rather distastefully reads your name. Everyone turns politely to see who's entering, and there's absolute horror on every face. And you look down at yourself, and you see that your dread in filthy rags. Wouldn't that be a shock? There's many a man and many a woman, many a boy and girls, and they're counting on their good work to get them into heaven. And God says, when I look at them, I don't see them as all the things that you think are so wonderful. I see them as filthy rags. They can't get to heaven that way. It's only the righteousness of Christ, said his petition, to save us from our sins. And so we have to rely on the Lord Jesus Christ. We must recognize too that God has made it very simple to trust in Him. He hasn't made it awkward for us. And sometimes because it's so simple, we stumble at it, don't we? He says, Come, believe, trust. The choice. You either open the door or you don't open the door. So God says, I call you to a choice. Do you want my son as your savior or not? As you say, I'm thinking about it. How long would your friend stand outside the door? Let me in. I want to come in. I'm thinking about it. Give me some time now. You set the Lord Jesus outside for a long time, some of you young people. You know you need to get saved. How long are you going to wait? You have to open the door. God has made it so simple. The Apostle Paul said, he's not far from every one of us. Satan gives us the idea that God is a long, long way away. But he's as close as a friend. He just wants you to agree with him that you really are what he says you are, really a sinner. And that Christ really is who he says he is. The Savior is sinners. And you can trust him by faith. A friend of mine told me a story about a preacher out in the Midwest. who decided that he'd like to have a public testimony on his car. And so he had a gospel text printed on the back. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. I mean, if people can advertise, you know, beer and whatever else they advertise, stuck in their car, all kinds of immorality. I see it on the back of van, a declaration of their immoral spirit. Well, surely... The Christian, the redeemed of the Lord could say so, and so he had this gospel text on the back. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. It seems simple, doesn't it? Oh, it is simple. It's not easy. But there's a big difference between simple and easy, isn't it? God says, for example, if you offend the brothers, go tell them you're sorry. That's simple. Sure isn't easy. Because our will is involved. Our pride is involved. And we don't want to give in to God. You see, it's not that people can't understand. It's that they won't understand. We don't want to believe what God said. When this preacher went to pick up his car, however, he noticed that the sign writer, not too familiar, either with the English language or with the Bible, had felt it instead of B-E-L-I-E-D-E had felt it D-E-L-E-I-D-E. What was he going to do about that? Well, he decided... You know, the Lord overruled, I'll just take it the way it is. He hadn't driven but a mile or two when he heard this siren behind him, and here was a policeman pulling him over. Well, he made sure that he wasn't speeding. You know, when you have a gospel text on your car, you better not speed, right? Like the bumper sticker I saw one time that said, Can you tell I'm a Christian by the way I drive? That'd be a good one for us to have, wouldn't it? The policeman came up to the window and said, Excuse me, sir, could you step out of the car for a minute? You got to come back here, please. Pointing to the sign, he said, there's something wrong with your, uh, with your, uh, thing here. Nothing wrong with it? She said, yeah. So what's wrong with it? She said, well, what is wrong with it? Well, he said, it's not supposed to be E-E-L-E-I-V-E. It's I before E. Remember that? It's I before E, except that's a C. No, it's not. She said, you know, that is amazing. What's amazing? He said, you know, I need all kinds of people in my business, and I rarely find someone who knows how to sell that word. Oh, come on. Come on. I mean, lots of people know how to sell that. No, no, said the preacher. I need people, and they sell it. W-O-R-K, or E-R-A-Y, or E-A-Y, or E-R-Y. Got something there, said the preacher. The preacher went on to say that he had had opportunities to take the thousands of people. because of the misspelling of that little word. No matter how you spell it, the Bible is very clear. There is one thing that is required of you if you want to be in the first group instead of the second group. We're all born without Christ. And if you want to have Christ, you may have him. It's not a religion. It's not a code of ethics, not new rules. It is a person that we're talking about and the personal relationship with him. You may have him. He will come into your life if you will invite him, confessing your sin, and receiving him as a Savior. So then we read that trusting requires urgency. He, are you. Urgency. Not just a matter of saying, well, I'd like that very much. When would you like him? I really would like to get saved. When are you going to get saved? This is your golden opportunity. Let me tell you about the first funeral I ever had. I was eighteen years of age. I was visiting in Chicago. Not too many days before, there was a young fellow who had attended the Sunday school there. He had had perfect attendance for eight years in a row. But you know, that won't save you, really. He got called off to Vietnam, spent two years in Vietnam and came home without a threat. He said to his mother, You know, Mum, I think it's time I got straightened around with God. I think I'll go out to Sunday school on Sunday again like I used to do when I was a kid, and I think I'll get right with God. He went out that afternoon, and he bought himself a new suit to wear out to the Sunday school. He went out that evening and coming home, it was very slippery. It was icy. His car slid and hit a telephone pole. And the wire came down and set the car on fire. He was burned to death. One day short of getting right to start. Oh, what a terrible thing to miss it. When you could be saved. You should be saved today. This is the best opportunity you will have. There are three great warnings in the Bible against those who say, well, I'll just save, but not today. The first one is the warning of the stolen seed. You hear the word of God today, and you say, well, I intend on thinking about it, maybe tomorrow. But there is an enemy here, just as surely as I am here, and he's interested in stealing the seed of the word of God out of your heart. And you may think that you can get saved tomorrow. But when you come around to thinking about it, you just won't be able to remember some of those things. And that's because the word of God was stolen away. Because you didn't let the seed into the ground, the hard ground of your heart. There's another warning. Not only the warning of the stolen seed, but the warning of the hardened heart. Whoever hardens their heart will be suddenly cut off. And there will be no remedy then. Every time you say no to the Lord Jesus, your heart gets a little harder. And you may smile, and you may think little of this message, but I want to tell you what God says is true. And I've met people, and they really wanted to get saved, but they couldn't because their heart was too high. And the older you get, the harder it gets. And there's another warning, and perhaps the most curious of all, it's the warning of the closed door. Lord Jesus said, Try to enter in as a straight kid. He didn't mean you can work your way to heaven. He meant mean business with God. If God the Spirit is speaking to your heart today, mean business with him. He is not to be lightly put off like some friend on the street. You're dealing with the God of him. And God is speaking to your heart today. And he said, Don't put me off again. for he is wanting to save you. But if you will not, the Scripture says, when once the door is shut, you will not then be able to enter in. It requires urgency. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Behold, now is the accepted time on the clock and the day on the calendar. God does not promise to save you tomorrow. He may in His grace, but you may not have a tomorrow. One of us in this room will be the next one of us to go. Are you ready to go? Are you ready to meet God? It requires urgency. And then S, it requires seeking, if you're going to trust in the Lord Jesus. It means that you're going to have to open up this holy book called the Bible, and you're going to have to seek for the Lord Jesus. You're going to have to show that you mean business. Now, he's guaranteed something. There is no need for agnosticism. That's a fancy button of people where I'm an agnostic and proud of it. Well, agnostic means I don't know. I don't know, and I'm proud of it. Sounds a little bad, doesn't it? So they call it agnostic, and that sounds quite terrific. The fact of the matter is... that there are people who don't know, but they should know, because God has said, you will find me if you will speak for me with your whole heart. Anybody that wants to know Christ in no end. He's available to everyone. He may not be educated, but the Lord Jesus didn't come to educated people. He may not be wealthy, but Jesus didn't come to wealthy people. You know who he came to? King's sinner. I came not to those who think themselves to be righteous. I came to bring sinners to repentance. And if you know you're a sinner, you can have the Savior sentenced by simple faith in him. And so it requires seeking. He says, You shall find me if you seek for me with your whole heart. Keep the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. We come to the last key. Take him. After you have discovered your need of the Lord Jesus, And after you have discovered that he is for you, that you're the sinner that Jesus died to save, then he says, just repeat, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. There it is. And you have one of the other. The gift of God or the gavel. He will give you salvation full and free, pardon, forgiveness, and peace with God, for you will hear the gavel come down in the day to come. Guilty. go away. I've opened a few choices. And I have sought to be as plain as possible today. If you do not understand how the Lord Jesus may be your Savior, oh, teach it, someone. They'd love to tell you about it. Love to point you to the Lord Jesus. But I somehow think that you already know enough. Because the Lord is your Savior. And if you just do that in your heart, in the quietness of each moment, just be honest with him. He already knows every sin you've ever committed. The sins that you've forgotten. And the sins you wish he could forget. He knows them all. And the amazing thing is he loves you just the same. And he wants to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. He wants to make you his child, make a hit for heaven. It's not a dream. This is the reality of the Word of God. and you may have him if you will take the gift of God, very simply the best way you know how, turning your back on your sinful life and receiving the Lord Jesus of our faith. We were over in Israel in March and I was visiting in a little boutique on one of the bazaars there. There was an old man, an Arab man, sitting there. He was going through his deeds. It's not just the Roman Catholics that have deeds, you know. There are many pagan religions that have deeds. And he was going through his deeds. And there are thirty-three deeds in the short chain. And there are ninety-nine in the long one. Every one of them is a name of Allah, of God, supposedly. I heard the old man speaking in English to the young fellow who was working at the counter. And so I went over to him and I said, Sir, what are you doing? Then I'm going through my deeds. He said, what are you doing that for? Well, he said, if I say the names of Allah enough times, God will let me into heaven. I said, may I ask you one more question? What if you miss it by one deed? There was no answer. There are only two beliefs in all of the world, my friend. There are those who believe they can save themselves. And there are those who believe they need a Savior. Now if you're in that group that believes they need a Savior, there's only one Savior. And that's the Lord He is. And He says, I want to save you now. I don't promise to save you tomorrow. I want to save you now. And if you'll come in simple faith and receive me as your Savior, I will save you. And we have the authority of God's Word. And we say that whoever comes to Him, He will in no way pass you up. Shall we pray? Oh, Father. help us to be serious about these things. For those who are Christians that we might be earnest in prayer. We think of some of these young people, they've heard the gospel lots of times. They could almost preach it. They know the verses. They know the hymns. They know the Christians, but they don't know Christ. Oh, we yearn for them. Growing up in a crazy world. Maybe already with their eyes set on making it in this life. Oh, Father, what a shame to be wise for a moment. but a fool forever. We pray that they might not say no again today, but in simple faith receive the Lord his favor and discover what a wonderful life it is to live for the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for some who are older and their hearts are hardened. They may think much of themselves. We pray that they might see themselves not as others, even, but as thou to see them in their desperate need, from the crown of the head, to the soul of their foot, nothing but wounds and bruises, and putrefying stores that haven't been bound up or mollified with ointment, just a mess, spiritually, morally. And what they need is not to turn over a new leaf, but to get a new life through him who is the life. We ask thee, Father, to take hold of thy word now and use it as thou will. Convict where conviction is necessary. And we pray that those who do not know Christ will not know rest until they find their rest in him. We ask that we get thanks. In the name of thy lovely Son, the Savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, I'd like us to sing, please, in closing, two stanzas of number two hundred seventeen. Come every soul by sin oppressed. There's mercy with the Lord, and he will surely give you rest by trusting in his word. Only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you, N-O-W, now. So we sing together stanzas two and three of number two hundred seventeen. For she has shed his precious blood, refreshing to be so. Slung now into the crimson flower that washes white as snow. Only trust him, only trust him. Oh, and we trust him now. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now. Yes, Jesus is the truth, the way that leads you into rest. Believe in him without delay, and you are fully blessed. Only trust him, only trust him. Only trust him now. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now.