The Apostle Paul's declaration of being a "debtor" to all people, both wise and unwise, forms the core message, emphasizing the urgent responsibility to share the gospel. This obligation stems from the immense gratitude for salvation through Christ's sacrifice, likened to finding an oasis in a desert and refusing to share it. The sermon illustrates this debt through the example of a desert caravan and contrasts the ease of God's guidance for the submissive with the harshness for the rebellious. Ultimately, it calls for a personal acceptance of Christ as Savior, highlighting that rejecting this offer is the gravest offense, and that the gospel's power transforms lives radically.
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Oh, may we come again in me, and have my God to die for me. Oh, may he come again in me, and have my God to die. Once more, we greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since we have found in him all that the human heart needs, we find it a pleasure to proclaim his worth to those who do not know him. What Christ has done for us, he can do, and he desires to do for you.
Whether you are saved or unsaved, I trust that you will be able to listen to the entire program, and that in so doing, you will receive a blessing. The musical selections are furnished by the Gospel Center Choir. This is Malcolm Detweiler speaking and inviting you to relax and listen. For the darkness of the night is turned away, it is falling in my heart. I am waving it the sun one of the day, it is falling in my heart.
It is falling, it is falling in my heart, in my heart, Jesus makes a moving shadow for me for my longing for. What a church is now I see, for this Jesus is my king. He is calling, he is calling in my heart. I can hear the pastor singing every prayer. He is calling in my heart, and I know the love for me begins again. This morning is my home.
This morning, this morning is my holy home. Even when the morning shadows come, it was my only home. For On the your night kindness that now I sleep, sing, God on this is day pleased, that God is my. king. Here this morning, here this morning in my heart. Your acceptance shall with me forevermore. Here this morning in my heart. It is morning, it is morning in the heart of our hearts.
We must make a gloomy shadow down the curvy of the road, from our planet to our sea, only Jesus is our peace. It is morning, it is morning in my heart. It is summer time in my heart. It is summer time in my heart. And he will save me, he once he gave me. He will never find a summer in my heart. It is summer time in my heart. Our gracious Father, we thank thee for the privilege we have of exalting our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank thee that since we've come to know him, he has put a song in our hearts. We think of our unsaved days when we were away from thee, when we had no joy, when we had no peace and no satisfaction. Well, we praise thee that in sending thy blessed son to Calvary's cross to put away our sins, thou hast given us the joy of accepting him and finding all that our hearts need in thy beloved son. We pray, our Father, as we seek to sing about Him, and as we seek to exalt Him, that He may be glorified. We ask thy blessing on this gospel program, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When I opened my heart's door to Jesus, he filled me with joy nevermore, a joy that abideth forever, kissed It's return and turned in Jesus alone. Deep down in my heart, the love of Jesus is singing. Deep down in my heart, his peace and joy are springing.
Deep down in my heart, sweet hope this comfort is bringing. Love, peace, joy, hope are singing deep down in my heart. He gave me a hope never dying of seeing his face on the day, and I on my way go rejoicing with joy, peace and hope as my stay.
Deep down in my heart, the love of Jesus is singing. Deep down in my heart. She's my own, yes, she's my own.
She's a stranger to me. The poem I have selected tonight is entitled Sheltered. Thou hast been a shelter for me and a refuge from the foe, coming always to my succor, countless mercies to bestow. First, thy precious blood wa- has sheltered from the guilt and doom of sin, then thy blessed presence with me speaks of perfect peace within.
Thou hast been my joy and comfort through life's early morning hours, when my sky above was cloudless and my path was strewn with flowers. Thou hast been a shelter for me in the noontide's glaring heat, changing maras into elims, turning bitter into sweet. Thou hast been a shelter for me when the evening shadows fell, as the sun set o'er the hilltops, thy voice whispered, all is well. Thine almighty arms shall shelter as the night wears on apace. Rumbling storms and clouds may gather, they can never hide thy face.
As the little birds at nightfall nestle neath the mother's wings, so thy love will keep me sheltered via- while I wait and trust and sing. Till within that land of sun- sunshine, just across life's stormy sea, I shall bow in wondrous rapture, safely sheltered, Lord, by thee. Me.
Let my command, my call from God, lead me to Calvary. Let my command, let me. Let my command, my faculty. Let my command, I long for me, lead me to Calvary.
The night the dark fills out the sky, the challenge tests my youth through, the A long thousand and thin men and good. goodly life, let grace unfold, the Lord unfold. He arose and glory, of the time of joy and songing, sweetly praise and to you, hallelujah. To the stiller throne Oh, the wondrous glory, risen Jesus reigneth now in Christ, glory.
lay life in praise, the death So let our of cold old and cloudy last. do, and now the beauty of the day shines forth in rain and light and hope. Be our old hands blowing out that bright and joyous morning, singing praise and union by the yarmulke.
Two verses in Psalm thirty two. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. Be not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bitten bridle, lest they come near unto thee. In this passage, we have two methods suggested by which God guides his people. These two methods describe God's guidance for those who submit to him and his will, and his guidance for the stubborn and rebellious who want their own way. To be guided by his eye is a wonderful privilege.
It suggests utter dependence and submission to his will. It means that we look to him for the slightest move of his eye, that he might, that we might know which way to go. It is the easy way to get along with him and save ourselves many a heartache and fall. But for those who will not submit to his will, God has this other way to guide, the bitten bridle method. It is the more severe and harsh method, but it is all for our good in the end. The bitten bridle are not so pleasant. It involves pain and discomfort at times.
It means chastisement. It costs a big price oft times, but God will have us going his way by one method or the other. No doubt we all know something of the bitten bridle, but let us remember that they are only for the stubborn, rebellious children who are not wise enough to see the value of submission to the will of God, who knows best. While great Jehovah tails and through this peril serve.
I am weak, but thou art mighty. Hold me where thy power will serve. Where the tempest, Need meet me till where I must most go. no more. Grace of heaven, need me till I must no more. When I get the first of morning, On wish my heaven.
the praises I will never give you. And now to bring to you a brief message from God's precious word, I am reading from Romans chapter one, verses fourteen and fifteen.
I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. The writer of these words is the Apostle Paul, who was wholehearted and enthusiastic in everything that he did. Even before he was saved, while he was an ardent persecutor of those who believed the gospel, not even stopping until men, women, and children were hailed into prison because of their faith in Christ. The same zeal is found in Paul after his miraculous conversion, and he has taken seriously the commission to preach the gospel which once he despised.
So great was his gratitude in being delivered that he felt as though he owed to the world a great debt. I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. One of the first signs of true conversion is the hearty concern that others may hear the same message and may, by believing that message, be brought into the same blessed state of peace and happiness. In the case of a real conversion, that interest and concern becomes greater as the years go by. How selfish would be the one who delivered, who was delivered from sin's bondage by matchless grace, and that he should never proclaim the emancipating message of the gospel to others who are in like bondage.
Some years ago, a party of American emigrants traveled from New York to California and were lost in the great American desert without water. The stock began to die, the children began to die. The captain of the caravan was concerned about conditions, and early one morning before sunrise, he sent scouts in every direction to search for water. One of them, uh, set out to the northwest. For hours he rode his horse without sighting water. Toward noon, as he topped a small sand dune, he saw what looked like trees in the distance. He rode in that direction and found an oasis around a spring that gushed out of a small rocky formation, forming a pool about the size of a house.
The man jumped off his horse, undressed, and plunged into the pool. He swam to the spring and drank his fill. Coming out of the water, he dried himself, dressed, filled his water bags and canteens, took another long, thankful gaze, gave his horse a drink, got up into the saddle, and turned the animal back toward the party, uh, who were perishing with th- thirst. The sandy expanse stretched out before him. The sun was blazing, and he said to himself, it's a long way back. There's no one in that party that belongs to me. I know my way from here. I'm going on, and let the rest look out for themselves.
You could hardly conceive of anyone being so selfish, so ungrateful, without feeling that debtorship to the others in the party. Such a man would almost be classed as a criminal. And still, in comparison, what would you think of a man who had found the water of life and refused to pass it on to other sin-sick, weary, thirsty souls? We who are saved have found the oasis, the rock that was smitten for our salvation. Shall we, can we, dare we stand idly by and drink of that fountain without being conscious of our great debt to others who are still searching for the waters of satisfaction?
We are debtors to God. We are debtors to Christ who died for us. We are debtors to the martyrs who have sealed their testimony with their own blood. We are debtors to every servant of Christ in the past, and we are debtors to every lost soul that is out of Christ today. To the Greeks, those who present the wisdom, who represent the wisdom of this world, even they need Christ more than anyone or anything else, and the gospel of Christ is the only one thing that will fill the gap and satisfy that which is lacking in the worldly wise man.
The intelligent Greeks heard the gospel. Some of them believed it and discovered that philosophy without Christ is an empty nothing. I may be addressing an intelligent man or woman who is well advanced in the wisdom and knowledge of the philosophies of this world, and to you I must say that if you have failed to receive Christ, you are the possessor of an aching void. A something is lacking, or perhaps I should more correctly say, a someone is lacking. I am debtor to you. You must hear of my Savior, who died for us on Calvary's cross, who through his death, burial, and resurrection has made it possible for both of us to be forgiven and to become the possessors of eternal life.
I am also debtor to the barbarians or the less cultured, the depraved, those who are scarcely classed as respectable. This class is daily increasing in numbers. I may be addressing such today, and you too must hear of my Savior, who has stooped so low that he is able to pick up from the gutter of sin and offer to those who are sinners of a greater degree the same forgiveness and the same everlasting. If God has made me a debtor to the Greeks, who are at the top of the ladder of wisdom, and to the barbarians who are at the bottom of that same ladder, then he has equally made me a debtor to all who are in between.
Therefore, I am a debtor to every soul who is unsaved. You dare never perish without a, with a reasonable excuse. Your d- you dare never say, no one brought me the message of salvation. And God forbid that you should ever be compelled to say, I heard the message but refused to believe it. In the story of the desert caravan, if the man who found the water had gone back to the rest of the party and told them of the finding of water, and they had refused to go with him, who would have been to blame if they perished with thirst?
If you should someday perish in a lost eternity, who will you blame? I ask you this searching question. Who would you blame? I am a debtor to bring Christ to you as an all-sufficient and able savior. I present him to you as the one and only savior you need, and this puts you on the spot or in the place of responsibility. You must either receive him or reject him. To reject him is the most serious crime that you can ever commit. Has anyone ever loved you to the extent that Christ has loved you?
Did anyone else die in your stead and make propitiation for your sins? Does not the manifestation of his love demand your recognition? Did you ever stop to thank him for dying for you? Have you taken him as your hiding place, as your shelter for time and eternity. In presenting Christ to you, I have paid my debt, and if you choose to reject him, and not another Christian ever presents Christ to you again, I will be guiltless, and you will be guilty. Guilty of rejecting God's free offer of mercy and pardon, and that, my friend, is a very serious offense against the holy God.
The gospel that Paul preached to the Greeks and to the barbarians was far more than a code of ethics. It was not an appeal to reformation. It was a message of life, and it produced a permanent change in the lives of the Greeks who believed the gospel. It also produced a change, a radical change in the lives of the barbarians who believed the message of salvation. There is no other message quite so powerful as is the gospel of His grace. No other message will produce such far-reaching effects as does the message of Christ's atoning sacrifice. The barbarians lose their idols and their wicked superstition when they come to Christ for salvation.
Their old habits, their old ways are replaced by new and wholesome habits which are becoming to a new born-again Christian. Old things pass away, and behold, all things are become new. Second Corinthians five seventeen. Today, while God is speaking to you, receive the Savior who has long been standing at your heart's door, hoping that you would see the wisdom of letting him in. He waits to have the opportunity to change your life completely. He will do it the moment you will trust him as your Lord and Savior. I trust that I have faithfully discharged my responsibility or paid my debt to you by bringing to you the message of salvation.
Let the Savior in, let the Savior in, even in parables before. Let the Savior in, let the Savior in. Open now to him your heart.
Let the Savior in, let the Savior in. Let his name be in your praise. Be yourself where truly man, he will meet you to the end. Let the Savior in, let the Savior in. He now is falling far.
Let the Savior in, let the Savior in. Now, now make him your God. Let the Savior in, let the Savior in. He is standing at your door, for to you it will be told that the same you will adore. Let the rain go in. Let the rain go in.