Sin is rebellion against God and a failure to meet His standard of glory, not merely a pardonable weakness. The sermon defines sin by its nature as "missing the mark" (Romans 3:23), transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), and anything not done in faith (Romans 14:23). It illustrates how sin, regardless of how well it is hidden, ultimately finds people out, affecting their character, relationships, and conscience. The message emphasizes the importance of confessing sin for instant restoration and maintaining a powerful Christian testimony, urging believers to keep short accounts with God.
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Beginning Tuesday morning, we're going to bring eight messages on the practical aspects of living the Christian life in nineteen seventy four. As I suggested this morning, the Bible is a very, very practical book. and God's principles that are laid down in the Bible for Christians are very practical. So I trust that we will be able to be here for the eight sessions beginning Tuesday morning.
One of the interesting things about being in the Lord's work is the way that He leads us and the various ones of his Lord's servants, of what they speak about from time to time. Fortunate is the man who has learned to discern the will of the Lord as these matters, and not go over just how he feels, and not give the message that he would like to give. Now, there are a lot of difficult things about serving the Lord and standing behind a pulpit. But one of the most difficult things is to know what it is in different places.
So we just have to trust the Lord to lead us in these matters. A few months ago, I was a speaker in one of the three or four assemblies in the Atlanta area. And I've been praying about what I would bring for about two months. That's one of the advantages of booking a man well in advance. He has longer to pray about what he's going to give. The Lord can be working in his heart, preparing his heart. for what is needed there because you see the servant of the Lord does not know what's needed in fact it's a real advantage to go to a place and not know any of the problems there because then the Lord and the Lord alone can tell him what to use well on this particular day I had prayed for two months about what we'd use and every time I prayed about it the Lord brought one message to my heart There's one little problem.
When I got over to Atlanta, and my good friend, Dr. and Mrs. Scott, took us out to hear the Messiah on Saturday night with Atlanta Symphony, which was one thrilling experience. If you ever get an opportunity to... Be in Atlanta and hear the Atlanta Symphony and the Atlanta Symphony Coral Society do the Messiah. You be sure and do it. You have to get a ticket three or four months in advance. It's well worth it. It was a thrill. You know, most of the times when you hear the Messiah, you hear parts of it. They didn't cut any of it out. It was two and a half hours long. It was wonderful. What a thrill. But anyway, we came back.
And I got to my notebook and began to sum through it, you know, with this message which the Lord had laid on my heart. And then I remembered that some dear brother had come up to me in Orlando, Florida and said, Brother, could I look over those notes? Or he's still looking over them. Because they were not in Atlanta. And I haven't seen him. I don't know his name. I wouldn't even know him for soaring. But anyway, I said, now, Lord, you must want me to give something else, and you're going to have to talk to me a little faster now than you might have, because in about another day I've got to bring this message. So the Lord burned my heart, gave me a message, and gave me liberty and joy in giving a message.
When the meeting was over, the Lord brought a seventeen-year-old young lady to himself. And then the wife of a dear friend of mine that I've known for fifteen and twenty years came up to me and she said, I want to tell you something, brother. She said, I know the Lord sent you here. I said, yes, I believe he did. She said, there were five problems that had been really plaguing me for the last three or four months. And the Lord dealt with every one of them this morning at that time. Thank you for coming. Well, that's the payoff. And the message tonight, I would never have chosen to give Sunday night at the park of the park.
But I couldn't get it off my heart. So, we're going to look at this subject of sin. Now, I want to remind you that God hates sin. And he hates sin, whether it is in the heart and the life of the sinner, or the saints. Now, the sinner comes to God. I'm talking about the unsaved sinner, the lost sinner, the man out of Christ, and he says, Oh, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, and save me for Jesus' sake. That's really the only prayer that a lost man can pray.
Or something to that effect. But the Christian comes to God when he has sinned and prays, My Father, I have sinned. Forgive me. And I learned early in my Christian experience instant confession, instant restoration. Unfortunate is the Christian who has not taught early in his Christian experience this very, very important truth. I remember back when I was directing Youth for Christ in Columbia in the fifties and early sixties, one night a serviceman who was in the famous Dictionary Division that was in training during the Korean conflict at Fort Jackson came forward at the close of an invitation and was restored to fellowship to the Lord or with the Lord.
And I came quite well acquainted with this young man. And he told me about how seven years before in Jackson, Mississippi, he found the Lord. And something had happened a few weeks later and he'd gotten away from the Lord and he'd been away from the Lord for seven years because of lack of teaching and lack of care and lack of nurture. He lived seven years and twenty, save yet, but out of fellowship with God. Sin. In Romans chapter six, verse fourteen, we read these very, very familiar words.
Sin shall not have dominion over you. Sin shall not have dominion over you. In Romans three, for there is no difference. Verse twenty-two, for all has sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, sin has a way of dominating those who are under its power. And one of the unfortunate things about sin is the fact that many times, in fact, there's a rule. People who are under the control and domination of sin are not even aware of it.
Now, first of all, we're going to look at the nature of sin. And you'll pardon me if I stay a little closer to my notes than usual because I have a lot of time to cover in thirty-five minutes because I took up a lot of my time in the introduction. So you'll forgive me, but they'll keep me from wandering by sticking a little closer here to my notes. What is the nature of sin? The popular idea by the world, of course, of sin is that sin is a pardonable weakness. an infirmity of the flesh that is common to all and expected of all." Of course, you see, there's a partial truth in that, because we're all sinners. And we all do that which is wrong.
We're all sinners by nature. And so it's true that you can expect sins from everyone. But the Bible idea of sin is entirely different. because the Bible idea of sin is that sin is missing the mark and coming short of the glory of God as we read here in the third chapter of Romans. It's rebellion against God. It's being guilty before God. So let's see in that very briefly what the scriptures have to say about sin. By the way, I want to recommend if you don't have a Thompson Bible, Brother I don't see how you can live without a Thompson Bible. A Schofield and a Thompson.
I'll tell you. All right. A Thompson Bible. And preparing a message on this. Well, it's right there. The thought of foolishness is sin. Why don't we read that? We read that in Proverbs chapter twenty-four and verse nine. And then, of course, a verse that I don't even have down here that's very familiar is the fact that the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked. And if your heart is deceitful, what does that mean? It means that the heart is sinful. Remember, my friend, that the Lord looks on the heart. The Lord doesn't, I mean, he doesn't look on the heart the way people do, see.
The Lord looks on the heart. All right, in Romans, chapter twenty-three, we read these words. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Now, this really cuts deeply into the thinking that and to the thought patterns of the man who is trying to make his own way, see, and not depending by faith in what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for him upon the cross. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. That means that all the work that a person tries to do to gain and to merit favor in the sight of God, unless it is done with an eye as to what God has already done for him in faith, in his sin.
If a man is trying to merit salvation by his works, by his good deeds, by what he refrains from doing, it is a sin. All right? There's another very familiar verse in I John three and verse four. Sin is the transgression of the law. Now, what law? The law of God, of course. I had a very interesting conversation with our brother Dykman this morning, rather at noon. It lasted about three sentences. Because there was a question there, what the Jews had said when they were crucifying the Lord Jesus, as reported in the nineteenth of John, it says, We have a law.
And by this law a man should die. He makes himself God. And Brother Dykman said, Yeah, that's an act of so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so. I said, Thank you. My question was answered. It was in the law. If a man makes himself equal with God, he must die. All right. Now, the law that we are judged by is the law of God. One of the purposes of the law, of course, was to show us our the impossibility of our keeping the law because Galatians says that the law was given for us for a purpose and what was the purpose as a schoolmaster to teach us to show us the utter human impossibility of our keeping the law so that we have no way to go except to say God have mercy upon me a sinner I cannot save myself so the law was given to us for a purpose and oh I was busy with someone I think perhaps at the table, perhaps last night, talking about someone, I think, up in the Pennsylvania Dutch region or somewhere up in there, about how some of these dear people
are so under the law, trying to keep the law, trying not to do this, not to do this, not to do this, not to do this, and to do this and to do this, and to do this, to merit salvation. And yet the Scriptures are so very, very clear that in teaching that salvation is by grace through faith plus nothing. The gift of God. First John five seventeen. All unrighteousness is sin. No matter how righteous the act may seem to be to us, if God discerns impurity in the motive, it is sin.
Then in James, very familiar verse, James four seventeen we read these words, "'To him that knows to do good and doeth it not, to him is his sin.'" And this is the umbrella that catches all of us. Every person here tonight to him that knows to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin now which one of us man or woman been a christian two years or ten years or twenty years or thirty years or forty years or fifty years cannot look back at numerous times when we've known to do good and it was perhaps even within our power to do good but we neglected to do good The Word of God says, that is sin.
All right. Now, those are some of the character. This is the nature of sin. Now, let's look at some of the characteristics of sin. I'd like to remind you that sin is not always ugly and unattractive thanks to the devil. Because, you see, he paints it up. He changes the name. He makes it look rather appealing and rather attractive. But it still sins. All right, number one. Sin has its pleasures. In Hebrews, verse eleven, twenty-five, we read that Moses chose affliction with the people of God rather than than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Now, there is a fleeting pleasure in sin. David had quite a bit to say about sin. He should know something about it. He did a lot of things that were bad and wrong and terrible, and he paid for them. But David, in thinking of those who were having a big time, you know, thought they were really living it up, David said that these will soon be cut down and withered as the green grass in the oven. When I was a teenage boy, I went with some other young people one day to Stone Mountain and we drove the car part of the way and then walked quite a ways on up on the mountain and there was a big roped off place there and there were a number of people standing there and people were pointing to a spot on the mountain where a young teenage boy had fled to his death just two weeks previously.
And they said that his parents and his friends and loved ones had warned him again and again, don't go so close, you're going too close. Oh, no, I can make it. I'm all right. I have on these good tennis shoes, and they have good traction, and they won't slip. But the first thing you know, and you know the rest of the story, he's gone. He played around with what he thought was a thrill. Another characteristic of sin, and we spoke about this this morning, so we'll just mention it and go on, is the fact that sin brings wages. The wages of sin is death. The value of an article is judged by the price attached to it.
The awfulness of sin is seen by the consequences. Now listen. God has connected with sin, death, corruption, undying worm, weeping and wailing, the bottomless pit and the lake of fire. So it has pledges, it brings wages, the wages of death. Number three, another characteristic of sin is the fact that it is deceitful. In Hebrews, we read about the deceitfulness of sin. It is constantly promising, but never fulfilling.
It makes men believe that the darkness is better than the light and that there is more liberty in serving self than in serving God and it betrays the dead. Now I have some notes here with some help from my wonderful Thompson Bible. If you have a Thompson Bible, you've seen this yourself. But I found here listed a number of very, very familiar illustrations. of where sin was exposed and found then out in the Bible. And we start with the book of Genesis, and we find in Genesis chapter four that our sin may be like the sin of kings.
It may be done in secret, but nevertheless, it'll find us out. Also in Genesis chapter twenty-five, our sin may be like the sin of Esau. It may be done under the impulse of the moment. But nevertheless, it'll find us out. Or in Genesis chapter forty-two, our sin might be like the sin of Joseph's brotherhood. It may be many years before it's discovered, but it'll find us out. Oh, wouldn't you like to have been standing behind a curtain in that room that day when Joseph's brotherhood relies on whose presence they were?
And all they'd done had been upon their minds and hearts all those years. Many of them perhaps thought, oh, we got away with it. No, found them out. Your sin may be like the sin of aching. It may be well covered up. I went back this afternoon and read that story. How stupid he was. Judges chapter seven. Oh, he just kept this and this and this and this and hid it so neatly in his pants, you know, and I know he must have put a beautiful rug over it, you know. Just walk in, you wouldn't know a thing, and half a nose if everything's fine, except the whole army of the Jews because of his sin.
Oh, he found him out. You'll send me like the sin of Samson. It may be done with reluctance. You might know in the back of your mind, your battle judgment tells you you really shouldn't do it, but because somebody has fraud you on, go ahead. The next one is very similar to this one. It may be like the sin of Ahab. It may be prompted by other people, but it'll still find you out. Well, your sin might be like the sin of Belshazzar. It may be done while under the influence of strong drink. But nevertheless, this time goes on.
When I was just a young preacher, I was in the Methodist Church, and I was pastor in the church in Memphis, Tennessee, and for the first nine months, I suppose, that I was in Memphis. I was still single and lived in the YMCA, and I had a lot more time than I did after we were married and so forth. But anyway, I got acquainted with some of the... juvenile courts, judges, and police, and so forth, and so on, and spent a little time doing a little counseling. And one day, one of the, I suppose you'd call a juvenile judge, called me and asked me if I wouldn't like to come down to the county jail and talk to a young sailor that was being held from Antwerp.
When I got down to the room where he was waiting at a table for me to talk with him, he was uncontrollably fathered. They introduced me to him as best they could, told me his name, where he was from, and he was stationed in militant and so forth. He was a boy from a good background and a good home, but he'd come off into the Navy and somebody called him a city because he wouldn't drink beer. He had about two cans of beer. And I suppose some of you that have had some experience in the medical profession know that if your system is not accustomed to its seat and you take on just two cans of beer, it really upsets you, apparently. And this fellow had two cans of beer and borrowed a car from a friend and had run over a little girl and killed her.
He said, if I only had listened, if I had not listened, if I had only not listened, That's all he could say if I just had to listen. All under the influence of strong judgment. Your sin may be like the sin of Herod. It may be the result of a very stupid, foolish promise. But that doesn't change it. You'll have to pay for it. Your sin may be like the sin of Judas. It may have the approval of the authorities. Nevertheless, you'll have to pay for it. It'll find you out. Your sin may be like the sin of Pilate.
It may be done to gratify the public. Nevertheless, it'll find you out. Last but not least, your sin may be like the sin of the Jews. It may be done in complete ignorance. But in the end, you'll find you out. There are several other things I'd like to mention about this thing we call sin. And this is true now of believers as well as unbelievers. Sin, did you know, and I'm sure that you know this, sin will find you out in your faith.
One of the most interesting things is to travel around and to meet people, and before you ever meet them, you can almost tell something about it. It just flabbergasts me sometime when people come up and say, because really I don't try to look like a preacher, you know, I never have. Especially when I was working with teenagers and so forth. I didn't want them to know I was a preacher because some of them had closed up just as they knew. But you can see someone sometimes and tell by the look on their face what kind of words they're indulging. Have been indulging. What they've been doing.
You see a man of God, sometimes you can read it a half a mile away. You see a woman of the world, you can see it written all over her face. And people who deal with people a lot in social work and delinquency work and prison work and crime, they can look at someone and tell you, especially if he's addicted to drugs, these people who work with these people, they can tell him just like that. Just the way they look in their face, in their eyes, the way they conduct themselves, the way they walk. They can spot them. Oh, yes. Sin shows up in your face. Them shows up and it tells and you carried him.
There's a man across the street from our chapel in Columbia. It's a long story and I can't go into it, but he has been what the world calls an alcoholic. I'd call him a drunkard for many years. And he's been over to the chapel, he's been to the men's class, the men have worked with him and worked with him and worked with him and worked with him. But you know the tragedy of the thing is that this man has been under the influence of alcohol so many years that he has real emotional difficulty in comprehending what is involved in being saved and delivered from his sin.
His character has been so changed and so influenced by alcohol that the man may never have the mental capacity to really grasp what is involved in coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a real heartbreaking situation. Sin will find you out in your character. Sin will not only find you out in your character, but it will find you out in your children. A lot of fine Christian people have been too easy and too soft, and they've spent too little time with their children, and they've had to pay for it. A lot of preachers have spent too much time away from their children, and they've had to pay for it, and they've lived to regret it, and they've lived to admit it.
In Exodus chapter twenty, verse five, I, the Lord, Thy God am a jealous God, this and the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and the fourth generation. Now I know that by and large what I'm talking about right now would involve those that know not the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is some measure of truth in this for those of us who know and love Christ right now. When I was a boy in Georgia a little while after I got saved, I heard this story and it impressed me because I knew both people involved. There was a man in town that was kind of the city drunkard, if you know what I mean. See, when I was growing up, they called him drunkards.
They didn't call him alcoholics. He was a drunkard. He still held his job, but on weekends, he went on one. And one night, his teenage boy came in, dead drunk, and fell across his dad's bed. And his dad got up in a rage. How dare you come in here drunk? And he really let the boy have it. And his own father told it later. His son said, Pop, Don't you remember? You gave me my first drink.
And he said, Well, what would that have to do with us? Well, it's a principle. It's a fact that we need to know and be reminded of. Last but not least, sin will find us out in our conscience. I don't know why, but for the last few days I've heard a lot on the radio and read a lot in the papers about what a lot of people who work with those who have emotional and mental problems have had to say about this thing of conscience. several doctors, especially those who work with those who are mentally disturbed, have said that if you could find some way to ease the conscience of the people in many of the hospitals, that you could take half the people out of the hospitals and let them go home.
This is true not only in mental hospitals, but it's true in many just regular general hospitals. A few years ago I read in a magazine somewhere of a rancher, a very prominent rancher in Texas, who walked into the sheriff's office. He had a family and a home and a wealthy business and wonderful big ranch and everything, and walked into the sheriff's office and confessed that thirty years before he had committed a crime that they thought they'd never find out who committed it. And he's been hiding this and holding his heart all of these years. And he walked in to me and he says, I can't go on any longer. I've got to get it off my chest. I feel better already. Because I've confessed.
He said, well, I should have confessed a long time ago. Now, someone says, all right, how does this fit in to the life of the Christians? Well, let's be very, very practical. Most of the things that Christians have to get straight to the Lord is, are not necessarily the things that they have done that they shouldn't have done. But let's go back to that verse in James where it says, To him that knows to do right, and doeth it not, to him it is a thing. And we're going to be talking about these things Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday.
But, beloved, Let's remember that in God's word, He has given us a very clear, simple pattern. And most of us, ninety-nine percent of us here tonight, we know what the pattern is. We know what the instructions are. But sometimes we allow very, very little, sometimes unimportant things to keep us from doing that which we know to be right. There are other things that mar our Christian testimony many times with our brothers and our sisters. And I think we need to confess these things because once again, remember what we said in the beginning of the message, instant confession, instant restoration.
There are many assemblies of God's people where they go three months, six months, nine months, a year. I hate to say this, but it's the truth, and not be able to tell you of one person that's really genuinely been converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to tell you that one of the reasons for this is unconfessed sin in the camp. Because the natural logical result of preaching the Word and living the life is people getting under conviction and being saved. Now, some of the things that could be holding back God's blessing, and we'll be going into depth in some of these things this week, are disobedience to God's word, neglect of the study of God's word, the failure to hide God's word in our hearts and to memorize it.
Many of us have a want of love for our brethren. We haven't learned what it means to spend time with somebody we don't really love in order that we might learn to love him. And you know, that's one of the reasons we don't love some people, is we have crazy, stupid ideas about that person. You know why? We don't really know them. If my Bible teaches me anything, it teaches me that if it's some brother that I don't love, that's a sin. And I have learned, and I meant to say this this morning, but I'm going to say it now, the Lord being my helpful, I'll not preach anything this week that I have not experienced in my soul.
If there's anything I detest from a preacher, it's a preacher that preaches one thing and lives another. I believe that in order to have power and liberty in preaching the gospel and preaching the word, you have to preach something you've experienced in your soul. If there's somebody that you don't really love in your heart, you just don't like their wage, you know, that fur kind of rubs you the wrong way, and their personality clashes with yours, you know, the first thing you're going to do is invite that person to your home for a pot of tea. That's right. Now, if you know how to get invited to somebody's house tonight, don't think it's because they don't like it, please. Because they're probably planning to do it before the message, see?
Has nothing to do with it. I'll tell you, this is one of the most thrilling things that can happen in a Christian's life, is if somebody you just slain don't like, you know, and don't you kid yourself and don't try to make me believe there's not somebody you just don't like, you just assume they visit somebody else, you know, spend time with them, talk to them, get a queen with them, get on your knees and pray with them. I'll tell you, that's one of the times we sow. That's practical Christianity. By the way, if you don't have the habit of praying regularly, will another brother or sister, you're missing out on a blessing?
Man, that's a truth. Oh, I know it's wonderful to gather with a group of men, a group of sisters, and play with a group, pray with a group, but try sometimes just, hey, brother, sister, can we pray a little bit together? Can we spend ten minutes in prayer next Wednesday morning? Next Thursday afternoon, meet me so and so. Let's just pray. And don't always be praying for the faults of the other people. Pray for yourself a little bit. And let me tell you another little secret. We're going to be talking about practical aspects of prayer one day. When you get through praying, will you stop and let the Lord talk to you?
That's one of the blessings a lot of people miss because they're, you know, have you ever heard one of these one-way phone conversations, you know? My wife has a friend. She calls her up and she doesn't have much to do. As a maid, do all the work and everything. She usually talks about an hour. So when I'm calling the house and she can't get her, when I get home, I say, what time did Mildred call? But God, he said, uh-huh, yeah. You know, the friend does it, talking, you know. Prayer is not supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be two ways. And when the Lord brings something to your attention and impresses upon your attention, you confess it. Then you ask him, Lord, is there anything else you want to tell me?
I tell you what you might want to do. You might want to get you a piece of paper and write it down. And as the Lord reveals it to you, confess it to him. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from A.W.L. All unrighteousness. Now, I've mentioned this to you before. In fact, I'll mention it again. If I come back in two or three more years, I'll mention it again. But, beloved, listen. God does not forgive sin unless it is confessed. I don't believe that we say, Lord, forgive me of all my sins. I do not believe the scriptures teaches that.
I believe that if I have malice in my heart towards someone, I'm to say, Lord, you know I have a malicious heart and it's wrong. And I don't love that brother like I should. Forgive me. And you forgive me. Now Lord, you know that I am really envious of so-and-so that does so-and-so. And that's not wrong. I want you to forgive me. Now Lord, You know that I really covet that new car that so-and-so got. Forgive me. Now, Lord, you know that I am discontented and I am disgruntled and I'm dissatisfied.
And I know that's not right. I'm not trusting in you. I'm all worried and concerned and uptight. I'm not really trusting in you. And I've complained about it, Lord. Complaining isn't right. By the way, did you ever read about the Lord complaining? And what is that when you're complaining and signing off and you're discontented and you're anxious and concerned and uptight? What is that? That's sin. Because you see, we're trying to do it ourselves instead of letting the Lord do it. And the Lord wants to do it for us.
We're going to be talking about that one day, too. Now I'm sure that there wouldn't be any people that got you down here. But up in Columbia, we have people that got you. And that's a sin. Tailback. You look at the list of things that Paul talks about over there in his epistles that are wrong and evil and that need correcting in these assemblies. And he puts it right in there. Tail-barrying, gossiping. Another thing that most Christians have to ask the Lord to enable them to put under the blood is our unconcern about lost people.
Do we really believe that people are lost? I'll not be able to stay here a week without bringing one message on the importance of letting the people at Parkland Ponds and Keystone Heights and all around this countryside where we live know that Jesus Christ loves us. And as I was praying this afternoon and thinking about this subject, I thought of this. You know, the best way to catch someone is not with vinegar, but with honey. Love them. Up in the Christian bookstore that the Lord has given us, it's been such a blessing.
Had anyone told me in nineteen sixty-two when we started it that he was going to bless it the way he has, I said, you're crazy and ought to go jump off of the river or something. I just didn't have any idea that he would do what he's done. But I'm not going to tell about that. But one of the blessings of the bookstore is just visiting with God's people to come in. Now, I don't get to visit with a lot of them for two reasons. I'm not there a lot. The Lord's blessings with wonderful help, and I just kind of go in and check and leave, you know. And then when I'm there, I'm upstairs. I do all my letter writing there, and most of my phone and so forth, and I have all my files there, and do a lot of studying there. But anyway, I'm upstairs, and I usually am in the office, and the door is closed.
But... From time to time, we get to visit with people. And about a month ago, a young pastor of an independent church came in. And he just got to talking about what the Lord was doing, you know, and I could tell that he was really a man of God, and he loved the Lord. And he said, you know, Brother Shockley, he said, you knew so-and-so that was there ahead of me, didn't you? I said, yeah, I did. He said, well, you know, before he left... the tenants had really gone down. I said, yes, I heard that. I was sorry to hear that. He says, in fact, it was down almost to nothing. And yet this man who was his predecessor, I preached the word. But he was always crusading against something. You know what I mean?
You've heard it that time. Always preaching against something. Oh, he preached the word. He preached it like a tyrant. And everybody's wrong but me, and sometimes I'm not too sure about myself. You know that type. But this young fellow comes along, and he's got a smile from here to hear you. And he loves the Lord, and he's practical. And he believes in believing God, and believes in making friends with people, and believes in inviting them out to come here and preach. And even if they don't talk like he talks, and dot their eyes like he does, and cross the teeth like he does, he still loves them. And if they don't come, he still loves them.
And he's still nice to them. And when they come to hear him preach, he preaches about the Lord Jesus Christ, about what he can do in our life. And you know what? He said, Brother Few, I go around and I visit with these people and I visit them one week and I come back again and go in and buy something and get acquainted. He said, Say, you're not like that other fellow, are you? He said, you aren't even mad at me because I don't come to your church. And in two months' time, the church attendance has tripled.
You can win them a lot easier with honey than with vinegar. You know the Lord Jesus attracted people. You know why he attracted people? Because he loved people. Oh yes, he hated sin. Because he knew that sin, the sins of the world, the sins of the very people that he loved were going to send him to the cross. So let's learn to keep short accounts with God. And if the Lord has brought some little inconsistency into your heart and life tonight, envy, jealousy, spite, lack of faith in God, a complaining spirit of attitude, covetousness, neglect of God's word, neglect of love for my neighbors, my brothers and sisters, ask the Lord for peace.
First John, one-nine, give you all you need. If we confess our sin, be faithful and just, and forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all, I thank you. Our Father and our God, we thank you tonight that you have paid the price for our sins. We thank you for the effective way that you not only have forgiven us, but have cleansed us.
We thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Father, God forbid that any man or woman in this house tonight would think that you take a light idea of sin. That sin is terrible in the sense and it's worse in the life of the saints. It reminds us constantly that sin must be paid for. For those of us who know thee, it has already been paid for. But if we play around with sin in this life, it will cost us power. cost us joy, cost us peace, and keep us from being a vessel that you can use.
We thank you that the Bible is very practical. We thank you that there is a good, practical aspect of the Christian life that we can follow. We pray now that in these coming days that ere we bring the conference to a close on Friday night, that we can all look back and remember things that you've taught us and instructed us in, and that we have found to be practical and effective in the outworking of the Christian life in our life. We thank you for giving your Son for us. Now give us a good night's rest, good fellowship with your people, and meet with us throughout the day tomorrow.
And may someone hear of thy Son tomorrow. because we went that way. In Jesus' name. you