Smith, Hubert: Wren's Bible Chapel Gospel Campaign-1987-05 ~ Hear-Believe-Trust

We have a good reason, because it's a good, it's a good book on the gospel. Book of Romans, chapter ten. Shall we start reading with verse one? I want you to read one verse with me, or two verses with me, maybe three, yes, in the ninth chapter, to tie in with the first verse in the tenth chapter and what Paul said about how he felt about lost souls. Paul says in the ninth chapter, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. And he was talking about the nation of Israel. He's still talking about Israel when we come to the tenth chapter. Now look at verse one. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved, for I bear them record. I testify to the fact, he says, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. I want you to note verse four particularly, and I want to emphasize it. For Christ is the end of the law. What? The end of the law. The law hasn't been done away with. It never was intended to save. It can't save anyway. There's not one of you can keep the Ten Commandments. No one has ever kept the Ten Commandments. You know why? It's going to take a perfect person to keep a perfect law. And there's none of us perfect. Oh, I meet people there, oh, Mr. Smith, I keep the Ten Commandments. Oh, no, you don't. I'm not going to argue with you, but you don't. You may keep a few of them, but you've got to keep them all if you're going to keep any you've got, if you fail in one point, says James, you're guilty of all. Other words, if I make fifty six miles an hour, I'm breaking speed law, isn't it? Just one mile over. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that worketh. Did I read something wrong? Yes, I did, didn't I? That's what I want to get your attention. To everyone that what? Believeth. Christ is the end of the law, the fulfilling of the law unto righteousness, and I like the statement, to everyone, everyone, everyone that believeth. That includes the whole world. I get a little tired and a little sick and a little uptight when I hear some of my brethren saying that some were predestined to go to hell and some to heaven. I don't believe that junk because it's from the pit. It's not Bible doctrine, and it's false doctrine, and you tell them I said so. All right, let's read on. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above, or who shall descend into the deep, that is to bring up Christ again from the dead. But what saith? I want you to get how s- how simple this is and know what it said. But what saith? What does it say? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thine heart, thy heart, that is the word of faith which we preach. You know what he means there? He said you've got the word of faith in your mouth, in your heart, all you've got to do is just exercise. When you've heard the word, you can exercise faith. You can believe. You can. Or you cannot trust or believe. You have a choice, and you make a choice. That if, he says, the word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess, this is the scripture verse that my wife got saved by, sitting in an old straight-eight Buick that I had jumped in the backyard in Richmond, Virginia, on Hopkins Road in nineteen fifty-six. Fifty-five, excuse me. She went out and sat down in that car, and she said, I don't know that I'm saved. She'd made a profession early before we was even married. And she said, she said, I don't know that I'm saved, and I'm going to stay here till I know I'm saved. And she read verse nine over and over again. I want to read it with you. Now listen to me. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, I believe that's publicly. I believe that is public. I don't believe that's secretly. I believe if you get saved, you can't help but tell somebody you are. Amen. I believe it's so real with you that you're going to have to tell it. I'll tell you, they thought I was going crazy over the Bible when I first got saved, but you can't go crazy in the Bible. You might go crazy over trying to twist it the way you want it to believe. I've never met a person yet that went crazy believing it. Amen. He might act like it sometime, but if I'm crazy, you leave me alone. I'm happy about it. Amen. I'll tell you, it's wonderful to be saved. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, I believe that is literal, and I believe that is publicly. And what are you to confess with your mouth? Not church membership, not some experience, not some man on this earth, not some feeling. Who does it say we're to confess with our mouth? The Lord Jesus. And shalt believe in thine heart that God's raised him from the dead, thou might be saved. Thou shalt be saved. Now this word shout or the word shall has two meanings in the scriptures. It may mean just one thing when it comes to the English, uh, interpretation of it, but in the scriptures it has two meanings. It means that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved, which means of a certainty you're saved. And it also means a future time or something happened in the future. But God is not talking about you're going to be saved in the future sometime down the road or when you get to heaven. It means you're going to be saved right now when you accept Christ. My wife said she read that verse over and over and over. And Cheryl, and she used that verse out at your mama's house today, the night that you got saved, and Donna and Jackie. And she used that passage of scripture, and she did a great help in winning those to, those to the Lord. And she said she read it over and over. She'd heard me preach it, she'd heard others preached it, and she said she read it again, and then she finally says, I do believe that Jesus died. I do confess him with my mouth. I do believe he was raised from the dead. And she said, then it just dawned on her, it's simple, and she said, I don't know why in the world I'd never seen it. It says I'm saved. Thou shalt be saved. You know what she said? She says, I'm saved. I'm saved. And I, I, when I asked her about it, she said, you know why I know I'm saved? It says I am. Huh? It says, the word says I'm saved. You know what my wife says now? She kind of puts it pretty rigid. She said, you know something, I don't know that anybody else is saved, but I know I am. She said, I believe a lot of other people are saved, but I just don't know, I can't see in their hearts. You know I can't see your faith? You can't see my faith? God does. All God wants to do, all God wants in your heart is to see faith in Jesus Christ as your savior. And you'll be saved. Well, she got saved that day. Or if she was, was saved all along and just didn't have the assurance of it, there's one thing about it. She knew she was saved then. And I say, if you don't know you're saved, and if you've made some kind of profession in the past life and you're not sure of it, not tonight, let's forget about all the past experiences and start from scratch, as the old lady used to say. I made this dough from scratch, and let's start from scratch right at the bottom, and let's be sure you're saved tonight. And don't wait. Oh my, I'm telling you. All right, let's read on. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. I believe that's public. I confess that I've accepted Christ. I confess that Jesus Christ died for me. I confess that he's my righteousness. I'm confessing with my mouth, and by doing that, I'm confessing salvation in Christ. He says, for the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Why would we be ashamed? He was exposed before the world in suffering and dying, abandoned by God in those hours of darkness when he cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he was not ashamed to bear our shame and our approach, our approach on that cross and our sins and iniquities. He was the ridicule of sinful men. They said he was mad. They said he had a devil. They said he saved others, himself he cannot save. Oh, how wrong they were. He could have saved himself, but he would have never been able to save anybody else. He saved others, and he can save you tonight, if you're not sure of it. Look at verse thir- twelve then. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, and that word Greek could mean the Gentiles or the nations. For the same Lord, I want you to get this, the same Lord over all, isn't that wonderful? Is rich unto all that call upon him. Rich! For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There's that word shall again, which means certainty right now. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. What does it mean to obey the gospel or not to obey it? It means not to believe it or to believe it. That's where you obey the gospel or not b- or not obey it. For Isaiah said, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Now I got on the board tonight, I hope all of you can see it. I was judging from my eyes because I was standing close to it. How many can see these three words? Everybody see on the back row back there? Can you see it? You turn on your bifocals if you can't see it. Put on your, on your contact lens. Put them in. We got the word hear, we got the word believe, and we got the word trust. I want to use these as three steps. one, two, three. Now, I don't mean that there's certain steps in order to get saved, that you get saved by taking steps. But you'll see what I mean after I finish my message, or within the course of the message, you'll see. We've read in verse fourteen, how then shall they he- call on him in whom they have not believed? And you're not going to call on somebody that you don't believe in. And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how in the world can you believe in somebody you never heard about him? And how shall they hear without somebody to tell it to him, or a preacher? All right. The first step is the word hear. That's why we have evangelistic meetings. That's why we send missionaries to the field. That's why we give out literature. That's why we advertise the meeting. That's why we encourage you to bring unsaved people to the meeting, eh, for the simple reason that they may hear that there's a savior that can save them. They have got to hear if they ever get saved. They've got to hear there's a savior. So this is step number one, and it's so necessary before you can believe or trust that you've got to hear about the person that you're going to believe or trust in. All right? That word hear, we get our knowledge, there's two things that the sinner must know of before he can be saved. Number one, he must know that there is someone that can save him, and he must know that that someone is the Lord Jesus Christ alone, nobody else. Secondly, he must know that he needs to be saved. He must realize that he is a sinner. Now, some people thinks they're not so bad, but God says where you- says that you're totally bad. Huh? You might not like that. God says you're a sinner. You may not have committed gross sins like some people, but I spoke on Nicodemus last night, and I failed to bring it in because the time ran out on me. In the fourth chapter of John, you have a woman who was an adulterous woman, and she would be considered at the very bottom of society, but Nicodemus was on the totem pole of society. But in God's sight, those two people were just as lost as in- as the other one. That woman was not bit more lost than Nicodemus was. You say, wait a minute, Mr. Smith. Don't you think she needed to be saved more than Nicodemus did? No. She was a sinful woman, yes. Nicodemus was a sinful hypocrite, Pharisee. He needed to be saved just as bad as that woman that had been married five times, and the man she living with was not her husband. They're both sinners. You s- let me, listen to me carefully now. It's not the amount of sins that you commit that makes you lost. Let me listen to me again now. The amount of sins that you commit doesn't make you any more lost than you already are. You're just going to be punished for more sins if you go and go go to hell. The good, moral, upright, self-righteous, clean, decent, honest man or woman in Rens, Georgia tonight is just as lost as the biggest drunk or the adulteress or a drug addict or what have you. Just as lost, and you know something? They're both going to the same hell if they don't get saved. And you know why they're both going to the same hell? For one reason, and that is the sin of not believing on Jesus Christ, God's son, who can save them, and only one that can. If you go to hell, you're going to hell because you rejected God's salvation in Christ. And that's the sin that God will not forgive you of. God cannot forgive you of rejecting his son and take you to heaven anyway. No, he can't. If you fail to believe on Jesus Christ as your savior, you're going to hell. I don't care how moral you are or how religious. Now you think about that. Oh, I wish I could get it across to people. Now, the Bible says that Jesus is the savior. The word, the name Jesus means savior. He shall save his people from their sins. It's his human name. It was given to him from heaven. And he came and he died for all men. John three sixteen, listen to this verse. For God so loved, and there's no way to measure that little word, S-O, just two la- letters. That's the largest little word in the Bible. Do you understand what I said? The largest little word. It's small in its size, but it's large in quality. So love. Who can measure the love of God? Who can understand it? Who can take it in? I can't. I can't comprehend it. I'm glad God didn't ask us to believe that, to understand it, to be s- to be saved. I'm glad he asked me to believe it, accept it. He so loved you, so loved you that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever, whosoever, oh, I want to ring it out through the ages and through the whole world if I could do it. Whosoever, whosoever may come, whosoever believeth should not perish but have what? Everlasting life. What a verse. Oh, all of you have known that from childhood, haven't you? You should have. You probably quoted it many times to get a prize in Sunday school. But I wonder if you really believe it. I wonder if you really accepted the message of John three sixteen. So the sinner's got to hear that there is a Savior. He's got to realize that he needs to be saved. Now, I want you to note something. All this information doesn't come from the history books. It doesn't come from the psychiatrist. It doesn't come from the philosopher. It doesn't come necessarily from the theologian, because there's some theologians that don't believe the book. They call themselves theologians. Your information about a savior, the savior, and your information about your need of a savior is found entirely in this book, God's word. I get my information about Jesus in this book and what he did for my soul. I get my information in this book that God says I'm a sinner, and I'm going to have to admit it. I pointed out the other night, some of you might not have been here, because I believe there are some new faces tonight. The only two people that ever became sinners by sinning was Adam and Eve. God created them innocent and perfect. He did not create them sinful beings. And when they disobeyed God, did you know the sin that Adam and Eve committed was the sin of disobedience? Well, it's twofold. The sin is really twofold. They didn't believe God, and they disobeyed God. They believed that, other words, Eve believed the devil, and Adam chose to go with his wife because that he knew better. Adam was not deceived in the transgression. He went into that thing with his eyes wide open. He knew what he was doing. He knew that it was either he's going to have to go with God alone or go with that woman in the fall. So he made a choice, and he ate of the fruit of the tree, and it was some kind of fruit. Don't tell me it was an apple. The Bible doesn't says it was an apple. It might have been. I don't know what kind of fruit it was, but I know it was fruit. All right? Every human being from that time, the first man that was born to a woman was a sinner, and that man became a murderer, Cain. Um, you talk about sorrow and grief and sin, the first man that was born to Eve was Cain, and oh, she rejoiced on the fact she got a man child from the Lord. But that man turned out to be a murderer because he was born with Adam and Eve's nature of sin. Unsaved friend, you and I are born with the nature of Adam, a depraved, fallen, sinful nature. And you know something, dear child of God, let me say this. I have still got that old nature, and so have you. It's just as ugly, just as sinful, just as ungodly in God's sight as it was the day before I was saved. God didn't do a thing to my old nature. He didn't overhaul it. He didn't patch it up. He didn't kind of, uh, stir it up a little bit. He just condemned it. It's no good. It can't please. But what he did when he saved you and me, he gave us a new nature. He made us become a new creation in Christ Jesus. Now the sinner has got to hear that there's a savior, step number one, and that he needs to be saved. So we were born in sin, we're sinner by birth, we're sinner by choice, and we're sinner by practice. The sinner loves his sin. Did you know that's all he can do? Oh, he can get religious, but he's still just a religious sinner going to hell. There's a lot of religious sinners going to hell in Rins tonight. They think they're going to heaven because they belong to the church. I'm not down on people. I'm not going to try to condemn people. I'm trying to tear down their false hope they're believing in and give them the true hope. And the true hope is Christ. All right, we come to the second word. The second word is the word believe. You hear the gospel. You know that Jesus is the Savior. You know that you're a sinner, and you know that you need him. You got all that information from the Word. And God tells you so. Now you say, well, I believe what I've heard. I believe God's Son is the Savior of sinners. I believe he can save me. I believe he will save me. I believe he died and rose again for me. You can say that and believe that all night and all your life, but that will not save you. You say, wait a minute, Miss Smith, don't you get saved by believing? Yes, you do. But the belief that I'm talking about, that thousands of people are believing in tonight, they believe in the facts of the gospel. If I could write on this board all the doctrines, the cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, the great basic doctrines of the Bible that we believe, and ask you to believe all those doctrines, one, two, three, all the way down. I ask you a question, would that make you a Christian? Would that save you? No, it wouldn't. You see what I'm trying to say? For you to believe in a creed will not get you to heaven. To believe in a systematic doctrine or, or doctrines have been compiled together as a creed or a faith. Someone will say, well, you got your faith and I got mine, and we all gonna believe this, believe in our own faith, and we're all gonna go to heaven. Oh, no, you're not. No, you're not. My faith and your faith ain't worth that for heaven. My faith in a person, the Lord Jesus, and what he did is going to get me to heaven. Nothing else. Amen, isn't that wonderful? Amen, isn't that wonderful? You know, I'm resting in a person. My savior is the Lord Jesus. He's holding me. He's keeping me. He's going to take me to heaven. You know why? I trusted him one day as mine. Thousands of people have heard the message. They know it's the truth. They say, I believe the Bible. I believe in the love of God. I believe that Christ died on the cross. I believe he rose again from the dead. Then you turn around and ask them are they saved? They say, well, I joined such and such a church. Well, I belong to this. I, well, I had an experience several years ago. That is what I asked. Are you saved? Do you know him? As Curtis pointed out a while ago. Do you know him? Oh, you know, I knew about George Washington, but I didn't know him. Thousands and thousands of people would stand up and tell you right tonight, yes, I believe the Bible. I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the love of God. I believe in Christmas. I believe in the resurrection. I believe he died and rose again from the dead. I believe he can save me. I believe he will save me. But are you saved? You see what's happening? You are giving a mental assent to the knowledge of the facts of the gospel, substituting the facts for salvation instead of trusting Christ himself. What have you believed tonight? Have you believed in a creed? Have you believed in some man-made system of doctrine they put up in their church and call it their church, what they believe, their, their faith, their statements of faith that they compile together in different denominations and say, this is what we believe, and if you believe this, you'll go to heaven. That's not true. That's not true. You say, well, Mr. Smith, don't you believe those things as solid in the Word of God? Yes, after you get saved, after you receive Jesus Christ, after you're born again, after you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. Thousands of people have heard the message. They believe it, but they stopped dead still right there and stopped short of being saved. That brings me to the next word, the word trust. And you say, well, what's the difference in the word believe and the word trust? Well, in the scriptures, there aren't any difference. But what has happened with thousands of people, they have used the word believe as a mental, a head nod, intellectual knowledge of the facts, and they've never accepted Christ as their personal savior. There's no change in their life. Oh, they put on a religious front. They do all kinds of activ- activity work in the churches. They do a lot of religious work. They do it to thinking maybe they might be saved by it, hoping that they'll do enough. You know, if salvation was by works, when would you ever know you had enough works done to get saved? Where is the point, where's the line you're gonna draw to say, well, now I've got enough of works over here to get me to heaven? When would you ever know that you'd had done enough of works if salvation was by works? You'd never know, you know that? There's no way to know. If you think you're saved by works. But when you're saved by grace, saved by the gift of God, when you accept his gift, you know you're saved, because it's God's work that saves. And what is God's work? The death of his son on the cross, the punishment of your sins on that son hanging on a rugged cross, almost two thousand years ago, and he raised him from the dead to say to you, this is proof that I put your sins away when I punish my son in your stead. As our brother sang tonight, condemned in my place he stood. That's substitution. He stood in my place, condemned with all of my sins and guilt on him. And when I accept that person, listen to me carefully, when I accept that person who was condemned for me on that cross, who was raised from the dead for my justification, when I accept him and his word, I know I'm saved. Oh my, I wish I could put Christ in your heart and make you know it, but I can't do that. You've got to do it. You've got to accept it. All right? Thousands of people have stopped right here. Now let me give you an illustration. I sat down in one chair one time when I was illustrating this thing, and it fell with me. So I'm gonna, I will sure tonight that this and the whole, so my illustration won't fall through on me. Now, that is a good chair. It is a good chair, okay. Supposing you knew the factory that made this chair, or say you were the one that made it, and you could come up, come up here on the platform, and you begin to explain how you made this chair. Now, I've heard about the chair. That's knowledge. That's the facts about the chair. Then you say, well, Brother Smith, do you believe that chair will hold your body? Yeah, I believe it'll hold. You believe it's substantial enough to hold them two hundred and twenty pounds that you have? Yeah. I believe it'll hold. I can stand here all night and say I believe it'll hold me. I stopped right there. I believe in the chair. I believe it's substantial. I believe it's strong enough to hold me. I can stand here, say, all night long. But unless I trust that chair with my body, I will never know that it'll hold me. Thousands of people have heard the gospel. They know it's the truth. They believe it's the truth. They believe Jesus can save them and will save them, but they have failed to take that last step. You can take these two steps and go to hell, but you can't take that step until you first take these two. You're not going to believe in somebody you've never heard of, and you won't trust in somebody that you don't believe in. Huh? What have I got to do for the chair to hold me? I've got to take my body, sit down in this chair. See? Can I get my legs up here? On the, on the mats. All right. I'm depending on this chair to hold my entire body. Did you know that's trusting? Now let's apply it to Christ. You've heard, you believe. Now will you trust him? You know he can. And if you say in your heart, Lord, I will trust you who died for me. Oh, it's got to be personal. It's got to be personal. Now, wouldn't it be ridiculous for me to try to make this chair hold? Come on, chair, hold me. All I've got to do is just let the job. All you've got to do is say, Lord, I can't save myself. I'm going to let you do it. It'll happen. It'll happen. You do it tonight. Have you ever heard anybody say, I'm trying to be a Christian? Did you know there's no such thing as that? There's no such thing as a person trying to be saved or trying to be a Christian. You become a Christian the moment you trusted Christ as your Savior. I was just as saved and just as sure for heaven forty seven years ago as I am tonight, because I trusted the one who saved me, and the one who saved me is the Lord Jesus, and it hasn't changed. It was perfect then, and it's perfect now. It's complete then, it's complete now. And I'm just as saved that day, that su- that Friday morning in July, when I trusted Christ as my savior, standing in my shoes by halfway of that gospel tent. I was just as sure for heaven and just as saved as I'd ever be. I'm no more saved tonight. I've just learned a little bit more about what happened that day. Enjoyed it a little more. Yeah, yeah, enjoyed it a little more, brother is right. Wouldn't you like to know that you're saved? You know, when you were born in your mother and father's family, you became a bona fide boy or a daughter, son or a daughter. You didn't have to wait till you got ten years old, say, hey, you know, I'm done, my mom, daddy, my daddy's son. Well, son, you was that all the time from the time you were born. You just grew up and learned about who you were, what you became when you were born of your mother. When you got saved, you didn't know much about Jesus. You just knew that he was the Savior, and you knew you needed him, and you trusted him. You heard about him, you believed in him, and then you trusted him. Don't stop. You could go down the street tonight and ask the average person, you believe the Bible? Yeah. You believe in Jesus Christ? Yeah. You believe he died and rose again on the, from the dead? Yes. Do you believe he's the savior of sinners? Yeah. You believe he could save you? Yeah. You believe he will save you? Yes. Or you say, well, I don't, I don't think so. Well, why? You say you believe. The whole point is you haven't trusted him. You know the word trust means to commit. Let me use the marriage vows. I think they illustrate the simple way to be saved. When you stood before that preacher to marry that young lady or that older lady that you've been married for for years, sitting beside you. After dating maybe different girls or different boys, you finally found the one, Mr. Wright or Miss Wright, huh? And you said, she is the one or he is the one. That's the one I got to have. That's the only one. All the others are gone. And I want her, and I need her. Three things. You say she is the one, and I want her and I need her, but if you stop there, you stop short of her being your wife or your husband. What you got to do? You got to stand before witnesses and in the presence of God, and two things, before a holy God, which marriage is a holy matrimony of God and divine. And don't you forget that, and the devil has took it and twisted it and warped it and sent it right down to the pit. And we live in an age that's perverted and permissive of the filth and the ungodliness of this world. Marriage is a holy and a divine ordinance of God. Don't you forget that. And when you stood in the presence of that preacher before, in the presence of God and the presence of witnesses, when that preacher turned to you and said, John or Jim or Curtis, do you take this woman to be your wife? I want you to note something. There's not a single person at that wedding can say I will for you and make it legal. No, sir. Not even God. God won't say I will for you, for your salvation. You got to say it. The preacher can't say it, the best man can't say it, the bridesmaids can't say it. Mom and dad can't say it. The opposite s- the op- opposite family, the one you married, their dad and mom can't say it. All the witnesses can't say it. God can't say it. Only you have got to say when the question is asked, will you take, will you take this woman to be your wife? You've got to say I will or I don't. You've got to say it. It's got to be out loud so the witnesses can hear. And when you say I will take her to be my wife, and she says the same thing to you, that's when you become man and wife and belong to one another and become one. Huh? That's right. Now you apply that to salvation. God says, I gave my son. I punished him for your sins. You can't, you can't atone for them yourself. I raised him from the dead to prove to you that I accepted his death as full payment for your sins. Will you take my son? He's the only savior. Do you want him? Do you need him? Don't stop there. Take him. Take him. Take him in your heart right now. If you'll say in your heart, right there as you sit in your seat, if you say, Lord, I don't know that I'm saved, but I want to know. I'm going to take your son as my savior. I will take Jesus as my savior. Let me give you a verse. John one twelve, Listen to it. As many, I'm glad he put many in there, and in John ten nine, he's got any and many, so all of them, many and any both can be saved. As many as received him, not religion, not church membership, but as many as received him. To them, he gives the power or the right or the authority to become what? A son of God, even to them that believe on his name. The wages of sin is death, and payday's coming to every sinner that rejects Christ. You can't escape death and judgment. It's as certain as you're alive that you're going to be there if you die without Christ. But the gift of God, the gift of God, listen to it, the gift of God is eternal life, which is Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Let me ask you, have you trusted him? Have you just heard about him? Have you just believed in him? Believe all the facts, and you stop there, and you've never made a personal trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. It means commitment. It means I commit my entire being, soul, spirit, and body to that man called Jesus, my Savior, who died for me. He saved me, and he's going to keep me and take me to heaven all the way. Listen to me, unsaved friend, if you're here tonight, maybe you made a profession in past life, and you're not sure about it. Would you like to know? Would you like to be sure? My, I'd be glad to sit down with you and show you. We're going to have our brother to come and the sister to play, and we're going to sing a couple verses of a song. We're going to give you an opportunity, if you want to, to come up here and sit down. Coming forward isn't going to save you. Shaking my hand ain't worth two cents. But accepting Jesus will save your soul. Would you like to come and sit down? Let us quietly lead you to the Lord, maybe go into some school and sit down with your Bible and show you how to sing. Number two hundred twenty two. We'd like for everybody to stand, if you will. Let's sing all 3 of these. Okay, let's sing all three of these verses. They're very good ones. Shall we sing? Jesus, I will trust thee, trust thee with my soul. Guilty, lost, and helpless, thou can make me home. There is none in heaven or on earth like thee. Thou hast died for sinners, therefore, Lord, for me. In thy love confiding, I will sing thy praise, worship and adore thee for thy wondrous grace. Jesus, I trust thee, trust thee with my soul. Guilty, lost, and helpless, thou canst make me whole. Jesus, I can trust thee, trust thy written word, since thy voice of mercy I have often heard. When thy spirit teacheth to my saints us sweet, only may our heart can jet thy feet. In thy love and fighting, I will seek thy face.