Young people, children, and even adults, are prone to see themselves wrongly. Many of us have grown up with the mentality of the world that we are inherently good, or blank slates at the very least. But what does God's word say? Rather than being good natured, the scripture condemns us as sinful and corrupt even from our mother's womb. The best part of us only condemns us more. We need Christ. You need Christ. Only he can cleanse our hearts and renew us so that we are made right with God and become conformed to his likeness and holiness.

Come with me Scott Brown. Applause. I'd like to ask that we enter into a solemn occasion of open-heartedness before God. The great reality of this gathering here tonight is that a man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven. The greatest communicator can stand here and no one will receive anything unless it's given from heaven.

And so we're here trusting in a supernatural work of grace, both to thrill and comfort those who have loved his appearing and threats and danger and appeals for those who have not. And as you prepare your hearts now for this time. First of all, recognize that when the word of God is preached, there's the authority of Jesus. All authority in heaven and on earth Accompanies the preaching of the Word of God and so I want us to calm our souls here in preparation for our messenger that we would have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church and to those who are not in the church. I'd like to make a request of all of you tonight.

When Paul is finished with his message, I want to ask that if there are any of you who want to come and talk to Paul, catch up, thank him for his ministry, for the help that he may have been in your life, for how amazing that sermon was, I would just request that you do not come down and talk to him. But talk to him later. He would love to talk to you later. If your soul is smitten, if you must talk to someone regarding the assurance of your salvation, if your heart is being lifted up to your father and it's crying out Abba Father and you desire to be saved then please please feel free to come down and that will allow time to deal with these urgent matters. And there'll be others down here as well.

I'll be down here if there are those that need to be spoken to and prayed for. Would you pray with me? Oh Father, we thank you for your word. It is it is honey. It is water It is bread from heaven.

Oh Lord we thank you for These things that come from heaven to save sinful mankind. And oh Lord, I pray that you would give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Amen. Please open up your Bibles to the book of Romans chapter 1. 1.

Verse 14. Romans Chapter 1. Verse 14. Romans, chapter one. Verse 14.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to the foolish. So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, I come before you again. Lord, I would have no courage to come before you, no hope to come before you at all. Even to survey, Lord, my greatest works. My most special deeds of righteousness, I would find in them no hope to come before you. Lord, I come before you in the name of your son.

You have made him my boast and my confidence. I ask you, Lord, for Him that all flesh would be abased, that He would be exalted. I ask that the spirit of God would give good speed to these words, clarity to my mouth, boldness. Lord, I am greatly afraid of myself. I ask you, Lord, to be sovereign over my attitudes, over my facial expressions, over my words, over my hands.

Lord, that a clear message might go forth to the persons to whom it is intended. Father, please, So many words. But we long to see your power. And we long, Father, to see people helped to see them helped. So help us, Lord Jesus name, amen.

It is always a great privilege for me to be here. I counted a privilege. I come here not primarily because I'm asked to preach, but when I do come here, I learn so many things that I never knew. Because of that, it is often hard for me to come up into this pulpit and preach. I realize that there are men here who know more about God than I'll ever know, others who have probably forgot more about God than I will ever know.

But Christ has not sent me to preach to scholars. Tonight, children, little children, teenagers, little children, teenagers. Christ has sent me here to preach to you. It's as though in my prayer time, I would hear, let the little children come unto me, forbid them not. Tonight, I'm preaching to you, Little children, you were born into this world and You were not born into this world with a right heart.

Children, listen to me. Every cause and reason for the wars and the death and the pain and the suffering of this world, all of that is found in your heart. You were born with an evil heart. And that heart will kill you one day. That heart will damn you.

For an eternity in hell. It's true, the fighting that you have with your brothers and your sisters, the selfishness that is manifest. Your father and mother having to give you lectures before they bring you to a conference like this so that you will not make fools of them. All these things are indication, children, that your heart, your heart is not right. Listen to me, I'm speaking to you.

I wish I could grab every one of you by the shoulder and make you look me in the eye. Tonight is your night. Tonight the Lord is speaking to you. Children, don't run around here tonight with cameras taking pictures as though it was some homeschool project. Don't be wandering around.

Don't be doodling. This may be the only word you ever hear from God, the only time that the spirit of the living God comes to you, maybe tonight. Listen to me with great hope, but listen to me with fear. Knowing that if this night you hear correctly what Jesus did for sinful men, You are more privileged than millions, billions of people who've never heard that message. And even though they never heard that message, their sin was so great, it was enough to send them to hell.

Then realize this, young Children, tonight you will hear a message that will make you responsible throughout all of eternity. If you neglect this word of salvation tonight, you have neglected a great thing. Listen, children, listen! You know those studies in Proverbs. It says listen.

Many of you think that those commands are so that you'll learn special rules on how to live. No! Proverbs is teaching you to listen so that you will come to be able to listen to the Word, to Jesus Christ when He speaks to your heart. Listen to me tonight as though you were my own children. I plead with you.

Listen! Paul says here in verse 14, I am under obligation both to Greeks and the barbarians, both to wise and the foolish. Like Paul, I am under obligation tonight to everyone who is here, to the adult, to the wise, to all. But tonight there's been a special burden laid on my heart for you Young people. And Paul talks about an obligation, but I don't want you to think that Paul was unwilling or that Jesus was forcing his hand.

No, because when a man is converted, one of the greatest evidences of conversion is love. And then when a man is called to preach, one of the greatest evidences of being called to preach is a love for souls. You have a soul. And with that soul, you will spend an eternity in heaven or you will spend an eternity in hell. And so I'm under obligation.

But not just by calling, by love. I want you to be saved. God desires that men be saved. He does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. And so tonight, listen, a man has been sent to you from God.

The God before whom I stand. This could have burdened my heart for adults. It could have burdened my heart for married couples. Young person, no! I come here tonight, I don't see an adult.

The only thing I see is you. Listen. Listen. He says in verse 15, So for my part I am eager to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome. I have already pointed out that you are a sinner.

But I also know that you were made by God and there is a real sense in which you were made in His image. I also know, I also know that Christ has died for sinners. And all these things make me eager to want to preach to you. Young person, listen to me. If the Lord troubles your soul tonight, I promise you I will stay here all night with you if necessary.

We will make a camp here and we will talk all night about the state of your soul. We'll read through verses, we'll do whatever's necessary, Your parents will stay here. Only I plead with you this one thing. Do not turn away from what you're about to hear and do not walk out of here and forget. Know this, that according to the words of our Lord, standing outside every one of these doors is something of a devil.

And I will show you how some of you will know that he's there. Because you'll hear this message and you'll be disturbed, but you won't be wise enough to sit there, to ask for counsel, to search the scriptures. You want to run out and play with your friends and things such as that. And the moment you walk through that door, know that there's a devil there who will steal the word from your heart. And by the time you make it out to the playground area, you will have forgotten about the troubles in your heart and you will be happy.

Please don't do that. Paul says in verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. Now, I want you to know that the Jews in the time of Paul. They mocked, they scorned, they laughed at the gospel to them, The Gospel was absurd. Paul was considered a great man among the Jews until he believed in Jesus Christ.

And when he believed in Jesus Christ, his whole life was basically ruined in the eyes of men. Most people do not love the Gospel. So I want to warn you from the very beginning, child, young person, if you take the Gospel seriously, if you embrace the Gospel, if you believe it, you have set yourself on a course of warfare against the world. You will be going against most of the people on this planet. The Gospel that I'm giving to you is not pray a prayer and believe in Jesus and He'll make your life wonderful.

But it is the invitation for you to turn from your sin, follow Jesus Christ at all costs. Know this, little children. There are 12 year olds who have died as martyrs for the sake of Christ. Do you know that? They have stood against armies and powerful men who terrified them, and by the power of Christ and the power of the Gospel, they stood and they died.

So that's what I'm calling you to. I'm calling you to come to Christ with your entire life, to lay it down, to believe in this magnificent Lord, to follow Him with every day of your life. The Greeks, they made fun of the Gospel. They thought it was absurd, absolutely ludicrous that anyone would believe such a thing. But Paul would go to the Greeks.

He would go to the philosophers. He would preach to them. And they would laugh, but he still would not be ashamed. Why would he not be ashamed? For the same reason I'm not.

You see, most People might think that Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel because he was so smart. That he was so smart that whenever someone doubted what he was saying, he could argue with them and win the argument. I'm not like that. I'm not the smartest man in this room. I can't often win arguments, but I'm still not ashamed of the Gospel.

So why am I not ashamed of the Gospel? Because I know it's power. Sometimes against brilliant minds, I can't win arguments. Sometimes I have to just keep my mouth shut because I don't even know what they're talking about. But I'm not ashamed of the Gospel.

Why? Why am I not ashamed? I know its power. You see, young people, some of you, you come up to me and you want me to sign a book or write something down or take a picture. There was a time when I was nothing but a drunk, a miserable, self-centered, vile, filthy drunk.

You wouldn't even have wanted to get near me. Your parents would have grabbed you and carried you away if you got close to me. I was nothing but a self-centered sinner, justly on my way to hell. Even the wicked believed I was wicked. Why am I not ashamed of the Gospel?

I know its power. A few years ago, I was in a conversation with a man and he came up to me, young people, and this is what he said. He goes, brother Paul, I just want to tell you that I really respect you. And he said I want to tell you why. It seems to me you're not afraid of anyone, and you always tell the truth.

I thanked him. I said goodbye. I got in the car and I drove back to the church. And when I got to the church parking lot, I got out of my car, and right there when I opened the door, I just burst into tears. You say, why?

Because all of a sudden the Lord reminded me of something. Before I met Him, even though I was a lot bigger and strong, and I was the biggest coward I knew on the inside. And I was the greatest liar you could have ever known. A friend of mine told me one time, he said, you know, you're scary. I know you're lying and I believe you.

But you see, that sends men to hell. That's the kind of person. And look what Jesus did. I went from being famous for being a coward and being a liar to men telling me, I respect you because you're not afraid of men and you tell the truth. Who did that?

Jesus did that. The gospel did that. You see, that's why God, He saves men that are weakest in certain areas and wrong, very wrong in certain areas so that He can make them strongest and most right in those areas. And therefore, He proves His power. Young person, listen to me.

The Gospel is not words Only. There is a message. It is communicated by words. But it is power. It is power.

Now what are those words? What is the gospel? The gospel is this, that God is worthy of all glory, honor, praise and obedience. And that young person, listen to me, Listen to me. You have given Him nothing of that.

Young person, you have given Him the opposite. You have not given Him glory. You have not given Him honor. You have not rendered unto Him obedience, the obedience that is due Him. If you do not know Christ, you are here.

And you may have a fine long dress on. You may be a proper speaking, proper walking young man with your hair cut correctly. You might be all sort of things. You might be learning Greek and Hebrew and Latin and logic and rhetoric and all sorts of things. But know this, if you are outside of Christ, you have not obeyed Him one moment of your life.

And that everything you do in your homeschooling, in your virtue, in your merit, You're doing all of it for you. And it is as vile as I was vile as a sick drunk. Please understand me. I don't want to hurt you, but I do want to hurt you. If there is some value out of being a wretch as I was, even in society's eyes, is that you begin to understand you are a wretch.

But one of the great dangers of being home-schooled and properly brought up in all these sorts of things, of manners and customs and clothing, is that you Don't see that on the inside you are a wretch, vile. Nothing of you is pleasing to God. You are leprosy wrapped in silk and nothing more. I pray that God would speak light into your heart. That you would see what you are apart from Him.

The Gospel is this, God is worthy of all obedience. You are a sinner. You have given Him no obedience. Creation obeys Him in absolutely everything. And on the day of judgment, when God judges you, creation will stand to its feet and applaud God for His justice.

And the great question in the Bible is how can God save you? How can your sin be put away? You see, God is holy and righteous and just. Children, listen to me. God cannot simply cover sin.

God cannot turn His face away from sin. God's justice demands payment. You can pay for that sin if you choose by an eternity in hell. People say, I would believe in hell if only it wasn't eternal. Those people who say that, they prove that they know nothing about the supremacy of God.

You see, hell is eternal. Why? Because you have committed infinitely horrible crimes. Well, why are they so infinitely horrible? Because you've committed them against an infinitely good God.

But another reason I believe that hell is eternal that is not often mentioned is that as I see the book of Romans 1, we have something of a preview in culture and society of hell that when God judges a culture, He turns that culture over to itself so that everyone becomes monstrous. I believe that is multiplied exponentially in hell. You see, in hell, you will be turned over to what you are. Even now, I told you that within your heart there was evil and that we are born with depraved and wicked hearts. But you need to know something, young people.

Even now, the grace of God is restraining you so that you do not become the evil monster you would be if He was not restraining you. He's using natural means to do it. Your parents, the influence of the godly, but He's also using supernatural means. He is restraining you even now. If He was not restraining you, you would go home and murder your family with an axe.

But there comes a time when God turns a sinner over to Himself, and I believe that in hell, hell is infinite because men go on infinitely in rebellion, turned over to their monstrous selves, both being hated and hating one another, and railing under the wrath of God. That's how you can pay for your sin if you choose. Is that really what you want? When God, the magnificent Savior, the gracious Lord, He comes with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and says, wait, young person, sinner, vile as you are, know this, my son died for sinners. On that cross.

This is so wonderful! On that cross, All the wrath of God, young person. All the justice of God that should crush you in hell throughout all of eternity. Christ suffered on that tree. For you.

For you He suffered. And right before He died, He said, it is finished. He paid it in full. All the judgment you deserve is paid in full. There's an old song that my uncle used to sing.

He loved this song. And I love this song. I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free. And you see, I know the power of the Gospel, because even though I have committed sin so great that I would not share them with my closest friend or spouse.

I know that they were all paid for on Calvary. I will never meet them again at Judgment Day. I'm free! I am free! I'm free!

Child, you commit so many things in secret. You do so many evil things behind the back of your parents. And I know your conscience troubles you. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a cleansed conscience? To be free from sin, to know that you'll never meet it again in judgment.

It is only through faith in Jesus Christ. Only through faith in Him. There is a sense in which I wish right now that the spiritual reality of your heart would break forth into a physical reality dressing you. That if you do not know Christ, that heart of yours, that rebellious heart would break forth, overcome you entirely, and clothe you outwardly as you are inwardly. You would stink.

You would be such a wretch. You'd be so vile. You'd run out of this building in shame. Oh, but one day, you will be exposed. You will be exposed for what's in your heart in all the manners and all the morality and all the historic virtue and classical living will not help you when you stand before God.

Only the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse you. You must run to Him. You must run to Him. You must run to Him. I often preach in places in inner cities and in places where people are in gangs and sold into prostitution and drug dealers and drug addicts.

It's amazing at times when you see them coming and you see that the vileness on the inside has broken forth like a cancer. You can see it all over them. The evil, the sin, the rebellion, the sickness of the soul is on the outside. And to see them cleansed by Christ, You need the same type of cleansing through the death of Jesus Christ on that cross and His resurrection from the dead. His resurrection proves it's God's proof to you that the sacrifice He made on that tree satisfied God's judgment against you.

And if you will run to Jesus by faith, If you will cling to Christ, if you'll make Him your only, only hope, you will be saved. You will be saved. He goes on, He says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for It is the power of God for salvation. Now, salvation is so wrongly understood today. It is seen as one moment in time.

This is one of the great errors of our age. People say, I've been saved. And that's biblical to say I've been saved, but it's not enough. Salvation in the New Testament is seen in three tenses. And it's seen in this, when you come to Jesus Christ, He saves you from the condemnation of sin.

You have broken the law of God. Justice is demanding your death. But Christ died for sinners. And the moment you stop trusting in yourself and your own virtue and your own cleanness, and you look to Christ by faith, the moment you do that, You're justified. You're declared right with God, and forever God will treat you as right with Him.

So the moment you believe in Jesus, you are saved past tense from God's condemnation against you. But if you have been saved, if you have truly... Now listen to me young person, teenager, listen. If you have truly been saved from God's condemnation through looking at Jesus Christ, you have once and for all been justified. Then He who began a good work in you will continue it.

He will continue saving you. Not just from the condemnation from sin, but He will begin to save you from the power of it. He will change your heart. He will make you a new creature. And He will enter into your life as King, as Lord, as Governor, but most especially and most dearly as Father.

And His love will never depart from you, but because His love for you is so great, His eye will never depart from you. And His willingness to use the rod will never depart from you. If you truly have been saved, the evidence of it will be that you now belong to the Father, and the Father will know your path. He will be intimately concerned for your path. He has in eternity made plans for your path, and He will watch you and teach you and discipline you so that you walk in that path.

He who began a good work will finish it. Now Let me stop here. Are any of these things a reality in your life? Are they? Young person, listen to me.

Was there a time? Has there been a time in your life where as you were either reading the Scriptures or sitting under teaching, or maybe walking down a path or sitting alone in your bedroom where it was a light came on and you saw your sin? Has there ever been that time where you saw your sin and you saw your need for Christ? And you saw Christ as precious and as able to save you, and you trusted in Him. Can you say that's a reality in your life?

You know, one of the most amazing things about salvation, and one of the things that most rips my heart apart is this, salvation is a supernatural work of God. It is as supernatural as the very day when God spoke into nothing and said, let there be light. It's not a coincidence, young person, listen to me, that the Bible begins in Genesis with what? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But why does the Gospel of John begin within the beginning?

I believe that in the backdrop of all that, John is grabbing from Genesis and talking about the new creation. The new creation in Jesus Christ. So when The Gospel is being preached like I'm preaching it to you right now. God, as He did in the creation of the universe, and when He said, let there be light, and there was light, when the Gospel is being preached, God speaks to the heart. And He says let there be light.

And in that moment, through the preaching of the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit and the command and decree of God, light breaks forth in the heart. And you see your sin. And you see Christ. And you want Him. You desire Him.

He is precious to you. Is that a reality in your life? Has that happened? Can you look at a time when you went from darkness and chaos and nothing of God to all of a sudden light and order and sense and understanding of God? Is it a reality?

And then this, let me ask you young person, you say you believe, you say you have been converted, but let me ask you, can you see, can you talk about, Can you tell me about God's ongoing work in your life? I don't mean your parents' instruction. I don't mean just sermons at your biblical church. Can you talk to me about God intimately and personally, working in your heart to change you, to make you different. Is He teaching you?

Is He increasing your affections for Him? Is Christ becoming more desirous to you? Do you love Him more? Do you want to be more holy? Now I need to stop here and I need to explain some things that are very, very important.

There are always extremes whenever we talk about any doctrine in the Christian life. On one extreme, people will talk about salvation in such a superficial manner. Oh, my children are okay, they prayed that prayer, and they asked Jesus into their heart and they're okay and they're saved. That is a superficial way of looking at salvation. And I think most of us here know that.

But there is another danger on the other side. Making salvation almost impossible. Putting requirements upon a young soul that are wrong. Now, listen to me carefully also, parents. If I were to go and do a biblical study of repentance and put every quality of repentance, every characteristic of repentance, and every characteristic of faith defined perfectly according to the Scriptures.

And then I would to bring Puritan writing, and I would also add that writing to those characteristics to explain a perfect doctrine of repentance and a perfect doctrine of faith. If I were to do that, and then press that upon the soul of a child and say in order to have assurance of salvation, these things must be manifested in your life, I am going to drive that child into condemnation. What you need to understand parents and you need to understand children is I have walked, I'll use myself as an example, I have walked with Christ for 30 years. And I am saved because of repentance and faith, but I am not saved because of the perfection of my repentance and faith. You see, repentance and faith, We recognize our sin and we believe in Jesus and we are saved.

I remember when I did that. I remember when that happened to me. Thirty years ago, I repented and I believed. But now I look back on that moment and I realize I didn't understand anything about repentance. It wasn't really very profound.

It wasn't very increased. It wasn't specific. It wasn't perfect. I didn't understand that much about faith. My faith was kind of iffy.

But what you need to understand is this. My repentance and my faith was so small, but what was there was real. And as I began to walk with Christ, you know what happened? My repentance started deepening. My faith started deepening.

It started perfecting. What you need to realize, parents, is that repentance and faith are also subject to sanctification. They do not come into a believer's life as a full-blown virtue the moment they're converted. So what I want you to understand, child, when I say that the evidence that you have been saved is that God begins to work in your life and you begin to grow and you begin to become more holy and you begin to love Him more. I do not want you to think that you are unconverted because you struggle in your love for Him.

Because you realize there's apathy in your heart. Because you see sins that you've committed over and over and you hate them and you think to yourself you must be lost. No! Because if that was the case, every man in this building would be lost. Even the most mature.

What I'm talking about is this, that when God saves a child, He truly saves that child. And He saves that child just like He saves an adult with a meager repentance and a meager faith, but it is genuine. And as you begin to grow, child, here's what will happen. You will find yourself making progress taking three steps forward, and then you may find yourself making two steps back. You will find yourself excitedly in love with Christ in one moment.

And you will find yourself in another moment painfully apathetic toward His beauty and His glory. You will find moments of delight in which you rejoice in Jesus, and you'll find other moments of sorrow in which you look into your heart and say what a dark abyss it is. Children, here's the thing, The evidence of salvation is that God has created in you the reality that you cannot save yourself. And that reality causes you to desperately cling to Christ. And when you see yourself as growing, you cling to Christ with joy.

And when you see yourself as failing, you cling harder to Christ in fear. But you constantly cling to Christ because you realize there's no hope apart from Him. Is this a reality in your life, teenager? Can we see God working? And when we see failure in your life, do you run to Him?

Do you cling to Him? And then this Salvation is future tense. It is the hope of glory. Do you have a hope of glory? Now I know you're young, and so many of you are here.

And listen, when you guys hit about 12, 13, 14, you come here because you want to hear the word, but you also, because you're thinking, will I get married one day? Is there anybody here? I'm isolated in Kansas on a wheat field, and I never see anybody. I get to come to this place. You know that's true.

I don't even know what I was going to say after that. I guess the Lord just wanted you to hear that. You come and I know that you're young and you think about all these things, about who you'll marry and what you'll become and all your plans and dreams. And because of that, I understand that you probably don't think about heaven in the way I do. I've already gone up the hill and I'm rolling down the other side and I'm gathering speed.

I think about heaven more and more and more. I've also seen that dreams really don't come true here. That you never really are free from pain here. That even if you pray and you fast, You never see Him. You see glimpses.

And those glimpses, they satisfy, but then they don't satisfy. It's terrible. He comes and He shows you glimpses only so that then that glimpse doesn't satisfy and you have to chase Him more. It's like hunting deer. And you see that I'm probably not going to be the many of the things I thought I would be.

I'm not going to attain the spirituality maybe I thought I would attain. This world is hard. And you get tired. And all that is designed in God's providence to make you look more and more toward heaven. But even though you're young and you have expectations, let me ask you a question.

Listen to me. Is there ever a far away look in your eye? Do you ever look past courtship and marriage and hopes of profession or ministry to glory? Is there any desire, young person, for you to be with Him? I'm not demanding that you have the same passion that I may have as an older man, but my question is, do you have any longing for heaven?

Is there any other worldliness to you where you just don't want to be with friends today? The noise, the confusion, you've got to get away. There's someone drawing you, like in the Song of Solomon, knocking on the door. A lover comes by. It's Christ.

Children, listen to me. Do you long for Him? I'm not going to give you assurance of salvation when there's no passion whatsoever in your heart to be with Him? Do you want to be with Jesus? Do you?

If not, it could be because at this moment your heart has grown cold and repentance and counsel and prayer is needed. Or it could be that you don't know Him. Has there ever been a longing in your heart? You see, I'm not mesmerized by ethics and I'm not mesmerized by doing the right thing, acting the right way. I don't even know which forks to use when I come here.

I don't care. But I am mesmerized by Him. I just want Him. Sometimes I just want to shut up, everybody! I just want to see Him.

Do you have any longing for Him? Any longing for home? Any longing for heaven? Or does this world totally and completely satisfy you? He says It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

Oh, you may sit here and wonder because you've heard wrong things at wrong times or things that have not been explained or you've caught one bit of truth, but not the second half to clarify the first half you received, you may think, I don't know if I can be saved. Oh, my dear friend, do you desire to be saved? Do you want to be saved? Then I have good news for you. You can be saved.

You can be saved. You say, well, I've called out to Him and I have no assurance. Maybe you don't understand the Scriptures properly. Come here tonight. We'll spend all night if necessary.

Or maybe I need to tell you that tonight don't come for counsel. Go out there and feel somewhere and cry out to God until He births light in your heart. Until He has done it. Search the Scriptures! If you say you're hungry to know God, if you say you want to be saved, but you don't know, you've cried out, nothing happened, is it not worth a lifetime of crying out?

Of searching the Scriptures? Until He speaks forth the Word and light is birthed in your heart and you understand all. You understand all. You see, unto you, unto you, it has been commanded to seek Him now and to seek Him forever. But He has reserved for Himself when He makes Himself known to you.

And if the King Terry, for many days, you have no excuse to stop seeking, because He has promised you, He will come. Seek Him. Lay aside folly, entertainment, companionship. Seek Him until the Spirit of God, child, touches your heart and tells you, you were born in Zion, you belong to me, you are mine and I am yours. Now I want to go for just a moment to the book of Thessalonians.

I promise I won't keep you very long, but that was actually the introductory verse to the passage that I wanted to teach tonight. Second Thessalonians. I want to show you... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. First Thessalonians.

I want to show you... Oh, I'm sorry. First Thessalonians. I want to show you something absolutely amazing. When you look in the Old Testament, and you look at the promises that God gave, and they're called, children, New Covenant promises.

And what it means is that when the Messiah comes, and He has come, He would just fulfill these spectacular promises in the people of God. And they were things like, I will take out your heart of stone. And I will replace your heart of stone. You know, a heart of stone can't feel anything. You can kick it, punch it, prod it, and it doesn't move, it doesn't respond.

But he says I'll take that heart of stone that is dead and cannot respond. And I'll replace it with a heart of flesh that the moment God touches it, it will quiver. It will respond to Him. When He saves a person... You know, I've already said that what He says is He speaks light and light is birthed in their mind and their heart and they see the glory of God in the face of Christ, but also He supernaturally changes a heart, a heart of yours that will not respond, that can sit under sermon after sermon and not be moved, and then all of a sudden He changes your heart and It's turned into living flesh and he breathes on it and it quivers.

Isn't that amazing? And then there's New Covenant Promises that says they will all be taught of God. That the smallest child who has truly been converted understands more than the 60 year old theologian who has never known the grace of God. He knows. He knows God.

Not just in his mind, not just with a few right doctrines, but he knows Him, converses with Him, has intimacy with God. God also says, I'll make an everlasting covenant with you to never turn away from you. That is so beautiful. The only problem is the people don't read the second part. And I will put the fear of Me in you so that you will not turn away from Me.

Isn't that wonderful? Listen to what he's saying. How do you know that you've entered into the new covenant? How do you know that God's made an everlasting covenant with you, that He'll never leave you or forsake you because He puts His fear in your heart so that you cannot turn away from Him. You know what the greatest terror to the Christian is?

It is not the possibility of hell. It's the possibility of separation from Jesus Christ. And that's why God puts His fear in our heart that we will not turn away from Him. Let me ask you this, would you turn away from Him? Do you want to turn away from Him?

Or is there such a fear that God has planted in your heart that you know you must have Christ, you must hold on to Christ, Salvation is only in Christ. Have you entered into these new covenant promises with God through the Messiah? But when we come to 1 Thessalonians, we have a spectacular... I'm going to do it really quick. I'm going to go from verse to verse, back and forth.

But I want to show you something. Paul makes a remarkable statement in verse 4. He says, "...knowing, brethren, beloved by God, His choice of you." Now what is he saying? He's looking at them and saying this. And this is magnificent.

It's almost like a father to a child. He's saying, I know God has chosen you. I know that you are God's child. Paul's looking at them and saying, I know you are beloved of God. I know you're a Christian.

I know you are a part of the people of God. That's an amazing statement. Now how did Paul know that? Did he know it because of some supernatural revelation? After all, he wasn't like us.

He was an apostle. Did God give him a vision? Did God show him something spectacular? No, Paul's confidence and assurance that these people were children of God came from the same means that we have. He says in verse 4, knowing, brethren, beloved by God, His choice of you.

How did he know that? Verse 5, For our gospel did not come to you in word only. Well, then how did it come? But in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. So did Paul know that they were Christians?

That they had become Christians? Because when he preached to them, there was some supernatural demonstration of the Holy Spirit like maybe tongues or visions or something majestic happening around them that Paul could see? Is that the power he's talking about? Or is he just talking about they seemed really sincere and full of conviction? No, that's not what he's talking about.

He's talking about something much more spectacular. Now look at what he's saying. For our Gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power. Now, what was that manifestation of power? Look at verse 9.

The middle of the way through there. How you turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God. My dear friend, that takes power. How did He know these people were converted? I'll tell you, they turned away from idols.

They started smashing idols. As a matter of fact, if you want to know a description of the Christian life, it's found in Ezekiel chapter 36. You know what it says? God makes a covenant promise. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols.

What has God done in the last 30 years of my life? It's like being in a car wash. Or in one of those trash compactor things. He has diligently worked in His providence to cleanse Paul Washer from his filthiness and his idols. And is he done?

No. But one of the great evidences of conversion is that the Spirit of God jealously watches over you, and when idols start springing up, He goes after them. He does not tolerate them, for the God who has saved you is jealous over you with a godly jealousy. He said, you turned from idols. He said, I can see it!

I can see it! You turned from idols to do what? Not just to sit there and claim to be holy. You turned from idols for a higher purpose to serve a living and true God. Young people, let me ask you a question.

Can you say that you have turned from idols and that you have replaced those idols with service to the living God? And can you say that you are continuing, That God is continuing to work in your life to smash idols and to dedicate you more and more to His service. Can you say that? If you can say that, there's a demonstration that the power of God is working in your life. That the Gospel came to you with power.

And then look at 10. It's not just about turning from idols because that can be just doing the right thing. It's not just about service to God because that can just be morality and doing the right thing, but they turn from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven. Now we're talking about affection. Do not think for a moment that because these people are persecuted, Paul is just talking about they want to go to heaven because life's tough on earth.

The idea of waiting. If you look in the Old Testament, one of the greatest demonstrations of true faith is waiting. Waiting. And one of the greatest demonstrations of affection is waiting. Waiting.

You long for Him. You want Him. You want to know Him. You want to walk with Him. Young people, young teenagers, let me ask you a question.

Must all your Christian endeavors be done in a group? Must all of your talking about God and Bibles and everything be done corporately with other teenagers or adults. Young person, let me ask you a question. Do you ever draw away? Do you ever hear Him call your voice, call your name with His voice and draw you away?

Do you ever have a longing to get out of the noise and the confusion and all the words and just be with Him? To wait for Him? And as you get older, do you know anything about a night watch? Night watches are so precious. The darkness is such a friend.

He says go into the inner chamber, because in the inner chamber of a Jewish home, there was no windows. It was pitch darkness. Nothing to stimulate devotion, but the Spirit of the living God. In the silence of the night, to listen, to bask, to bathe. It's sometimes so wonderful in the middle of the night, especially in a full moon, to open it.

And as the light falls upon you, to think about the glories of Christ. These are things, if you'll press on, that are headed for you. These are passions that will be kindled and grow so that He can turn a prison cell into a garden, and a hell into heaven. One touch, one sound of His voice. It is worth a long wait.

He's precious. To wait from heaven. But how else did Paul know? Look in v. 4.

You also became imitators of us and of the Lord." How did Paul know that these people were truly converted? Because they turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, because they were longing and waiting for the Son, and because they became imitators. Now, this doesn't just mean... How can I say this? There's an idea here, and I don't want to press it too far, but I can't get away from it.

There's an idea of, I think, apostolic authority and a teachable spirit. They didn't run on ahead of the apostles or run on ahead of the teaching of Christ. They wanted to be imitators of Christ and the Christ that they saw in men like Paul. They weren't someone who was just converted and then had no need of anyone. We've been endowed with the Spirit of God unlike anyone else, and therefore we just walk on our own.

We don't need these dead pastors and adults and things to teach us. No, something special's been done with us. That was not their idea here. It was the idea of seeing Christ in other godly men and wanting to imitate them. I have done that throughout my life.

I have searched. I look at men. I find what is useful about them and I seek to imitate the Christ that I see in them. That's one of the great evidences of conversion is a teachable spirit and to desire to be like more mature Christians in the Christ that you see in them. So that was another evidence of conversion.

Is that in you? Do you desire to imitate Christ? Do you desire to imitate Christ? And you desire to be around men and women who reflect Christ. And then he goes on.

Look what else. Another evidence of conversion. He says in v. 3, "...constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. There's the idea here, first of all, of practicality.

That their relationship with Christ broke forth in practical deeds. Not just obedience, but a desire to labor for Christ. To serve Christ. To do things in the church. To help.

And look how it's described. A work of faith. They wanted to work because they believed in God. They believed it was the right thing. They also believed that God is and was the rewarder of those who seek Him.

They worked because they knew there would be a reward for their labor. They also had a labor of love. It wasn't just by faith. But they labored for people not because of some hope of a heavenly reward. They labored for people because they loved people.

They loved people. One of the greatest evidences of conversion is that you will love the people of God and that you will want to do for them. That you love God and therefore you'll want to do for His people. And then a steadfastness of hope. The idea here can also be translated perseverance.

I always tell people, they'll say, I repented. I believed under salvation. And I say the evidence that you repented, the evidence that you believed is that you go on repenting all the days of your life. And you go on believing. When we started this conference yesterday, I mentioned to the men that I was at a point of great danger in my life because I was something of midway through my life.

I had experienced something of victories, and at that time, it's always easy to drop your guard as so many men of God have done and shipwreck entirely in the faith. So what am I saying? It's not how you begin. It's how you end. It's perseverance.

The ones who persevere until the end will be saved because that perseverance demonstrates that the God who began a good work is continuing it and finishing it. Do you persevere? You know the parable of the sower, that so many sprang up so quickly, but they never truly came to maturity and bore fruit, and then proved that they were never truly converted. Then he goes on in 6, and this is where we'll end. You became an example to all the believers in Macedonia.

They became an example. They were talked about. There are places in New Testament, Paul said, I had no need to tell anybody about you. Everybody knew. They could see it.

You know this idea of don't judge me, you can't see what's in my heart. Don't have to look what's in your heart. Just have to listen to what's in your mouth and what you do with your hands and your feet. It's all that is required. Dear young person, or if you're older and this message has struck your heart, Whatever condition you find yourself, come to Christ.

Come to Christ. I want to end with a passage that means a great deal to me. In which there is this idea which I have told you, young person, of clinging to Christ, of violently holding on to Jesus. Now, whenever I say that in an American context, It sounds like I'm talking about strength of will, doesn't it? Man, you just need to grab a hold of Christ, be strong, hold on to Him, strength of will, play the Man, hold on to Christ until the end.

That's not what this means at all. You're not holding on to Christ because of your strength. You're not holding on to Christ violently because of your strength or because of your courage or your self-will. You're holding on to Christ violently because of your weakness, because of your fear. Now, There's probably a lot of men in here who could fight me and take me in a wrestling match.

They'd probably beat me. They'd be carrying both of us out of here in an ambulance, but they might beat me. But there's another way in which I could kill the strongest three men in this room without any problem at all. You say, well how? We've seen this happen, We've read about it in the newspaper.

Let me just put the scenario for you. You put me in the ocean. The sea is brave. No one can swim in it. It's horrible.

The waves are 15 feet. I'm going down for the third time. You take the three strongest men, the three strongest swimmers, you throw them in at me and they latch onto me. And I latch onto them with such a force that I kill us all. I drowned us all.

It's not my strength. They're stronger than I am. It's not my self will. I'm terrified. What is it?

It's need drives me. Fear drives me. We hear stories of metalworkers in New York. They're building skyscrapers in the 20's who would be high above, walking just on 3 and 4 inch beams of steel, hundreds of feet in the air, laughing and talking, and all of a sudden slip. And then one of them, when he slips, he grabs a hold of a beam.

And I've been told that there were instances where men would have to come with a monkey wrench and break their hands. Because fear so grabbed a hold of them that they could not loosen the man from the beam to bring him down. That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about violently grabbing a hold of Christ and holding on. It's not because you're strong and you're self-willed and you've decided to follow Jesus. No!

God has illuminated your heart. He has shown you You cannot be saved except through Jesus. And that reality causes you to hold on to Him like a drowning man. And wild horses could not pull you away not because of your self-will, but because of your knowledge of your need of Him. That's why it's the weakest men in the Christian faith that are the strongest.

Because they are desperate. Nothing. They know nothing they have apart from God. And nothing they can do apart from God. Please, tonight, As Brother Scott said, we would all love to talk to you so much about all sorts of things.

But tonight, at least until I leave, I do not want to hear from you, unless your heart is troubled with salvation, with a need. And come over here, be over here. I ask other people, don't gather over here so much. Go back there. If you have any need at all, not just I, but there are so many men, ladies even, that would be willing to minister to you, please don't leave here without the knowledge of hope in Christ.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word, thank you for the spirit of the living God. Help your people gather them in, Father. Gather them in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you, Paul. I'm so grateful to hear the gospel again. In fear of breaking the solemnity of the moment, I've got to tell you about a schedule edition that will affect us at eight o'clock in the morning. If you could take out your programs and just make a note of this. At eight o'clock in the morning, you see Conrad and Bayway love for the lost.

That will happen, but we're going to have a split session where Conrad will be in here at 8 and we're going to put Paul Washer in the arc and he's going to give part one of how boys raising up boys and girls to be missionaries. He's gonna give part one tomorrow morning and then at 1.30, He's going to give part two. So that's a change you want to mark. Let's pray. Oh Father, I thank you for all that you've been pouring into our souls.

I thank you for the faithful labors that have been expended for our benefit. I thank you for these acts of love, for men who would cry out to you for us, and Lord, oh, that you would bear fruit in us, that you would take all these deposits and multiply them. Amen. We are dismissed. You