Just Listen and Do It
Sermon Transcript
0:00:13.8
Well, good morning, everyone. Earlier this week I walked through the front door of my house, and my wife said to me, “I bought you something today.” I said, “Great! It’s like Christmas in June. What’d you get me?” She said, “I bought you a new pair of shoes,” ‘cause she knew that my tennis shoes were looking more like yard shoes today than shoes that she wants me to wear in public. So she went out and bought me a new pair of Nike tennis shoes. And she tells me that these are the hip, new ones. You can’t really see from, maybe, where you’re sitting, but they have a netting along the side here. These are pretty cool. Nike is one of the most recognizable brands on the planet. I mean, it stands shoulder to shoulder with other consumer giants like Coca-Cola and Gillette and Procter & Gamble. Nike is probably best known for its logo, the little checkmark swoosh that some of you are familiar with. They’re also known for an advertising slogan just three words. I bet you know. Can you say it with me? Just do it. Wow, advertising works, doesn’t it? Just do it. You know where that came from? You can do a little internet research as I did this week and find out that there was a meeting of some Nike employees and their advertising executives years ago. And, in kind of an offhanded, hallway conversation, one of the ad executives says, “You know, you Nike guys, you just do it.” And the rest, as they say, is advertising history. “Just do it” has sold millions of tennis shoes, but it’s also good theology. Yeah, “just do it” is good theology. In fact, in our study of the book of James, what we’re discovering, James is a very practical theologian. He’s a shoe-leather kind of guy. He wants to ask us, how are we putting our faith into action? And James’s central proposition could be said this way, with a light variation on the Nike slogan. “Just listen,” James would say, “Just listen and do it.” You see, James thinks doing the Word of God is far more important than knowing something about it, although you have to know something about the Word of God before you can do something about it. But James wants to know, what are you doing with the truth that you’ve been entrusted with? In fact, James will go so far as to say that knowing the truth without doing the truth, knowing without doing, is actually deceiving. It’s self-deceiving. If we know a lot of truth but we’re not putting it into practice, James would tell us that we’re really deceived. We’re deluded.
0:03:05.2
Well, turn in your Bibles to James 1. Beginning in verse 19 and through verse 27 is where we will go this morning. You may remember from last week and from the 18th verse of chapter 1, James mentions the Word of Truth. And he sort of puts on his shoes, no pun intended, and runs with that idea. And he says in verse 19, “This you know, my beloved brethren.” This you know about everything that I just said, including the word of truth. And James goes on in verses 19-27 to do two things. He wants us to hear the Word. He wants us to hear the Word of God. Then he wants us to do something with it. And then in verse 26 and 27 he’s gonna give us a little practical application, a little take-home today, something to put in practice this week.
0:03:57.3
But let’s talk about the importance of hearing the Word of God. Beginning in verse 19 he says, “This you know, my beloved brethren. But let everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.” Now, again, before we do the Word of God, we have to hear the Word of God. And Jesus talked about the importance of this. How many times do you read in the Gospels, especially when He’s telling one of his parables, his stories, and He says, “He who has ears to hear, let him listen.” Remember the old trucker slogan “You got your ears on?” You know? And he’s not talking about in an auditory way. But can you hear the Word of God? Are you quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger? James gives us that little triple play there. Quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Did you mother ever look at you and say, “You’ve got two ears and one mouth. It’s better that you listen twice as much as you talk.” Well, your mother didn’t come up with that. Actually, it was a guy named Zeno, a stoic philosopher from the fifth century. But your mother just picked up on that. Two ears, one mouth. Be quick to hear and slow to speak, James says. If we were to apply just that, if we were to just listen to what James says right there – quick to hear, slow to speak- and put that into practice, my, oh my, how it would transform some marriages here at Immanuel Bible Church. In fact, next time I have the privilege of marrying a couple, I’m thinking of inserting this line somewhere into their vows. “For richer, for poorer, for better or for worse, and I will be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger with you all the days of my life.” You can apply that as a married couple at any time in your marriage relationship, and it will transform it. What about in our relationship with our kids? How would parents take this? Quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to angers. I mean, imagine this week just being quick to hear your kids, slow to speak and to give that lecture to your kids, and slow to anger with your kids. I mean, it would transform some homes.
0:06:35.7
But James is less concerned about our conversations with one another as he is our relationship with God. He wants us to be quick to hear the Word of Truth, to be quick to hear what God has to say to us through His Word. How do we do that? How do we put our spiritual ears on? How do we tune our ears to listen to what God has to say to us? Because God is speaking to us. He’s speaking to us through His Word. He’s speaking to us through the inner promptings of the Spirit. He’s speaking to us through the wise counsel that He gives to us. God has not gone deaf, dumb, and mute. He is still speaking to us today. How do we tune our ears in a culture like ours, where it’s very difficult to tune our ears? How do we tune our ears to the Lord? By the way, it’s our natural tendency not to be quick to hear and slow to speak, but to be quick to speak and slow to hear. Isn’t it? I’m kind of and news and politics junkie. And I love to tune in to CNN and FOX News and those places. But I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t like to listen to folks who are constantly trying to talk over one another. You know what I’m talking about? You tune in to these news magazine shows at night, and you meet people who are quick to speak and slow to hear. And, oftentimes, the host has to call timeout and say to one of them, “Now, you speak now while he’s listening. And then you can speak over here.” You know, it’s just our natural tendency. We have so much to say, don’t we? And James says be quick to hear, not only in our conversation with one another, but also be quick to hear the Word of God as God speaks to us.
0:08:16.4
How do we do that? Number one. Write these down. Avoid speaking and listening at the same time. That’s the counsel from the host on the television program, isn’t it? You know, you speak while he listens, and you now listen while he speaks. But we can’t do it at the same time. You can’t speak and listen at the same time. And you can’t do that in your relationship with God either. Think about your prayer life. Prayer is a conversation. It’s a conversation with God. And for a lot of us prayer is more of a monologue than it is a dialogue. But it’s meant to be a dialogue. But if your prayer life is like my prayer life, I often have more to say, more to request of God. And I don’t spend as much time just quietly being still before Him and listening to that still, small voice that He still speaks in our spirits today. You can’t speak and listen to God at the same time.
0:09:17.5
The prophet Samuel learned this at a very young age. Do you remember this in the Old Testament? Samuel was a young, tender child serving at the temple alongside Eli the priest. And he was in bed one night, and Samuel heard a voice calling out to him, “Samuel! Samuel!” And he got up and he thought it was Eli. And so he gets out of bed, and he runs down the hallway and into Eli’s bedchamber. And Eli says, “Go to bed, son. It wasn’t me.” And it happens again. “Samuel! Samuel!” And he gets out of bed, and he runs down the hall into Eli’s bedchamber. And, again, “Son, it’s not me.” Happened a third time. Finally, Eli figures out what’s going on. And he says, “Son, the Lord is speaking to you.” And he says, “Next time He calls out your name, you say to Him, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” God is speaking to us to today. The question is, do we have our ears on? Are we listening to Him? You cannot speak and listen at the same time. By the way, the book of Proverbs has a lot to say about this matter of our tongue and speaking. Proverbs 10:19 says, “When words are many, sin is not absent. But he who holds his tongue is wise.” Proverbs 17:28, “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.” Proverbs 13:3, “He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.” Avoid speaking and listening at the same time.
0:10:57.0
Number two, overcome your anger. Again, back to James’s triple play- quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Why does he add that? Well, because anger becomes like spiritual wax in our ears. When we are angry toward one another or angry towards God, we shut off all listening, don’t we? In fact, James goes on to say in verse 20 there, “For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.” Or, as the NIV says it,” For man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” In other words, human anger does not produce behavior that pleases God. And it also shuts off our hearing. I mean, think about it. When you’re angry, so rip-snorting angry you could spit in somebody’s face, you can’t listen to what they’re saying, can you? Now, the word anger here…it’s interesting. In the Greek New Testament there are two words that are translated anger. One is thumos. And this is an explosive kind of outward anger. We would say that person has a temper. He is a very angry person. You can see it all over him or her. The other word is orge. And this is the kind of anger you never see. It’s a deep-seated anger that just simmers on the inside of you. You may be in a marriage relationship where you are orge with your spouse. You are just…you’ve got some issues. You never reveal it. It doesn’t come out in an explosive kind of way, but there is something simmering on the inside. You may be orge toward God, angry toward Him. Something that didn’t go your way, and you’re blaming Him. Orge is the word “anger” that James uses here. You got to overcome that. That’s whole other subject, whole other sermon, whole other sermon series, perhaps. But that kind of anger is like spiritual wax in our ears. And we’ll never hear the other person, let alone hear God when there’s anger here. Quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, James says.
0:13:13.3
Thirdly, we’re to strip off the old moral clothing. We’re talking about hearing the Word of God. How do you put your ears on? How do you tune into what God is saying? Don’t speak and listen at the same time. You can’t do that. Overcome the anger. And then James moves us into verse 21 here, and he talks about stripping off that old moral clothing. He says it this way. “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness.” Now, James is wonderful about dropping word pictures into the text, and here’s another one. That phrase “putting aside” is the picture of stripping off a piece of soiled clothing and laying it aside. And oftentimes in the New Testament, even in the writings of Paul and in the writings of the apostle Peter, they use this analogy to describe how we live the Christian life. It’s the process of undressing the old life and putting on our new life in Christ. And what James is saying here is, in the process of being quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, strip off that old moral clothing. And certainly don’t reach into the old, dirty laundry bag and pull out a piece of clothing and put it on.
0:14:26.7
I had a friend, actually a roommate, shortly after I graduated from college. And let’s just say that Todd lacked in personal cleanliness. Not an exact comparison, but Felix and Oscar, I mean, he was certainly the Oscar side of, you know, the roommate relationship that we had. And one day he came home all excited because he had gotten a date with the boss’s daughter, and apparently she was quite a catch. He was just beside himself. “I got a date with the boss’s daughter.” So couple days later date night came. And Todd took a shower. That was step one that was pretty good. But after he got out of the shower, he had this pile of dirty clothing in the corner of his room. And he reached into that pile of dirty clothing, and he pulled out his favorite shirt, kind of shook the wrinkles out of it a little bit, held it up, gave it the sniff test- I kid you not- and put on the shirt and walked out the door, whistling some tune as he went on his date with the boss’s daughter. Some of you are saying, “I think I dated Todd at one time. Didn’t marry him, but I think I dated him.” I don’t think Todd ever had a second date with the boss’s daughter, all right. What James is saying is, if you’re gonna hear what God has to say, one of the things you gotta do is strip off that old, soiled, moral clothing. And he says “what remains of wickedness”. The idea is anything, any kind of wicked residue that’s in your life from your “before Jesus” life, any of that residue, strip it off. Get rid of it. Throw it aside. Don’t reach back into the dirty, soiled laundry of your old life, because you’ll never hear God if you live like that. And, not only that, but the scripture also says God won’t hear you or me. Our prayer life will shut down. The Bible says in the book of Psalms, “If I regard iniquity in my heart…” To use James’s analogy, if I put on the old, soiled, moral clothing and live that way. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,” let alone me hearing Him.
0:16:56.2
So how do you put your ears on? How do you hear and listen for God? Don’t speak and listen at the same time. Be quick to hear, slow to speak. Overcome your anger. Strip off the old moral clothing. And then James tells us that we need to maintain, what I would call, a teachable spirit. Read on in the latter part of verse 21. He says, “In humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” Now he moves from hearing the word. And before he tells us to do the Word, we have to not only hear it, but we have to receive it. And he says do this in humility. Have a humble, teachable spirit when it comes to hearing the truth of God’s Word. If you have a proud, know-it-all, “I’m gonna be the exception not the rule to the moral principles of life” kind of attitude, you’ll never hear what God has to say to you. You receive the Word and you hear the Word with a humble, teachable spirit. And James says when you receive that word, that word that is implanted in you. It reminds me of the picture that comes from the story Jesus told in the Gospels, the parable of the sower. Do you remember that? He says a sower had a big bag of seed. And he went out sowing his seed. And some of it fell along the roadside, and some of it fell in the rocky place. And some of it fell in the thorny place, and some of it fell over here on the good soil. And the disciples really didn’t understand this story. And so later he interprets it for them. He says the seed is like the Word of God. And He says the sowers sow the seeds of the Word of God. And these different soils are sort of like the heart that receives this seed. Some of it is along the roadside there. Some of it is in a hard, (0:19:00.1) rocky place. For some of you, the Word of God reaches your heart, the soil of your heart, and it’s hard. It’s rocky. It’s thorny. It’s not cultivated with humility and a teachable spirit that says, “You know, Lord, I don’t know everything about life, and maybe You have some truth for me to hear this morning.” But that hard, rocky, thorny soil rejects the Word of God or the cares of life or the materialism of this life, or all the things that would compete with the cultivation of a heart that can not only hear, but also receive the Word of God. James would just tell us maintain a teachable spirit. Because that truth that is implanted into your life, it can save your soul. And James isn’t talking in a salvific kind of way. He’s just saying, listen, you’re gonna life a healthy spiritual life. Your soul will be healthy if you receive the Word of God this way.
0:20:00.0
Now, James shifts gears in verse 22. And we land upon really what is the central theme of the book of James and probably the key verse. Verse 22, “But prove yourselves,” he says, “doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” The NIV says it this way, “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Sounds like a Nike corporate meeting, doesn’t it? Just listen, James says. Just listen to what God has to say, and then go do it. Put it into practice. Engage in shoe-leather Christianity. A couple of weeks ago, actually around Mother’s Day, Cathryn and I bought a new digital camera. This was kind of a joint Mother’s Day gift to her and Father’s Day gift to me. Okay. Now, I’m not much of a photographer. I’m not a fancy one. That’s why I buy one of these little point-and-shoot kind. But I love digital photography, don’t you? First of all, because it gives you immediate feedback. You’ve got this little viewer on the back. You take a picture and, boom, you can see exactly what it is. I don’t have to take it to the developer and wait for a week or two to find out that I only got half the side of somebody’s face. I can see it right there. I can choose to keep it or delete it. The other thing that’s nice about digital photography is you can literally store up hundreds and, depending on how much memory you have in these things, thousands of pictures. And so, you know, I can take a picture, store it up. And when I run out of memory here, I can actually hook this up to my computer and download those pictures into my computer. And so the Joneses, I mean we have files and folders, digital files and folders upon digital files and folders on our computer. And my only question is, when are we ever going to print these out and put them in a frame so we can enjoy them? There are a lot of digital camera Christians sitting in churches today who come to church. And they hear a sermon. [Digital camera clicks]. There we go. Hey. Then they go onto a Bible study class, a Sunday school class and…hey, there we go. And then they go onto maybe a small group Bible study during the week. And they hear another Bible lesson. Hey, I’m getting pretty good at this. Some even go to seminary. Boy, get lots of information downloaded. Come on now. Okay. There we go. See why I don’t buy an expensive camera? I don’t know how to work these very well. But we store up all this information, all this Bible knowledge. And the question is, when are you going to print it out? When are you going to put it into practice? James says, don’t be a digital camera Christian who just stores up information about God. Doing the Word of God is far more important than knowing something about it, he says.
0:23:18.8
In fact, he goes on in a different way to say a similar thing. James didn’t have digital camera technology in the first century, but they did have the technology of something called a mirror. I’m just guessing here that a mirror was kind of radical, new technology in the first century. A mirror is a commonplace thing today. You’ve probably got tons of them in your house. Ladies, you might have a small compact mirror in your purse. But James goes on to say in verse 23, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.” Verse 25, “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” James says the person who hears the truth- in a sermon, in a Bible class, in a Bible institute, in a small group study, a sermon on the radio, seminary class, whatever it might be- you hear the truth, but you don’t put it into practice, you’re like the guy who gets up in the morning, looks into the mirror, sees his hair going this way when it should go that way, sees the sleep in his eyes, and then just walks away. And doesn’t just walk away and not do anything about it, but as the day goes on, he forgets what he looks like. Okay?
0:24:53.3
Now, James would tell us three things about the Word of God here. First, he tell us that the Word of God, like a mirror, tells us the truth. A mirror never lies, does it? Unless you’re the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz and you say, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all,” and your mirror lies to you, which was the case until the Snow White showed up, and then the mirror had to tell the truth. But when you and I look into the mirror and we say, “Mirror, mirror,” the mirror never lies to us, does it? When we look into the mirror of the Word of God, the Word of God never lies to us. It is sharp. It is active, sharper than a two-edged sword. It divides. It pierces. All of that. It tells us exactly the condition of our heart and our soul and our relationship to God. It says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Man is not basically good and getting better, as the positive movement people want us to believe. No, the condition of our relationship with God is that we have broken His laws. That’s what the mirror tells us. And you can go page after page and book after book and chapter after chapter and look into this mirror and hear the truth about yourself. And I can hear the truth about myself as well. The question is, what are we going to do with that?
0:26:28.4
Secondly, God’s Word is trustworthy. James describes the Word of God here as the perfect law. Now, not everybody thinks that about the Bible. I had breakfast with an old college friend of mine just a month or so ago. And we were talking about how I became a pastor after all those years. And he looked at me, and he said, “You know, I respect the Bible, but I see it as just the writings of man and man’s attempts to, kind of, explain his relationship with God. But it’s not a trustworthy book.” You’ve got to decide what you think about this book. James calls it the perfect law. Okay? Inspired by God. God-breathed. The very thoughts of God flowing through the personalities, the unique personalities of men who pen this book. God’s love letter to you. His love letter to me. It’s His perfect law. It’s trustworthy, okay? When you look into the mirror, you can trust it to tell you the truth, and it will never lie to you.
0:27:33.7
And then, thirdly, he tells us that it’s not only trustworthy, that God’s Word sets us free. He describes the Word of God here, not only as they perfect law, but as the law of liberty, the perfect law that sets us free. Some people have a difficult time with Christianity because they think, you know, if I become a Christian, that’s like putting a straightjacket on me. You know, and I just need to be more free. Just the opposite is true. Jesus says the truth will set you free. Freedom without the presence of moral boundaries enslaves us. God even created Adam and Eve, put them in a perfect environment, in a paradise for which they were created, and said, “You can enjoy everything. You have the freedom to enjoy everything except that little fruit you see on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” He established moral boundaries for them from day one, even before they fell. Because freedom with the absence of those moral boundaries does not lead to more freedom, it leads to more slavery. And when Adam and Eve tried to erase those moral boundaries or go around them or up or under or over them, they found themselves not more free, but more enslaved, kicked out of the paradise for which they were created. And we are their spiritual descendants today living in a fallen world. This is the perfect law that sets us free. The truth will set us free. We’ll experience more freedom, not less freedom, when we do what God tells us to do.
0:29:11.1
Jesus summarized it this way in Luke 11:28. Listen to this. “Blessed,” He says- that means happy, fulfilled, enjoying the things that God intended for you to enjoy in this life- “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God…” Who don’t speak and listen at the same time, who overcome their anger, who strip off the old moral clothing, who maintain a teachable humble spirit to receive- not only hear the Word of God but also to receive it. “Blessed are those rather who hear the Word of God and obey it.” Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. Just listen, James would say, and do it. Put it into practice. Don’t be a digital camera Christian who just stores up information but never prints out the picture.
0:30:10.2
Now, James goes on in verse 26 and 27 to give us something to do. He gives us an application. He gives us a take-home as we walk out the door. And he says it this way. Verse 26, “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and Father: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” We could spend an entire week on these two verses. It could be a sermon in and of itself. James wants to know, have you got religion. And not the kind of religion you’re talking about, but in James’s mind religion is the outward expression of your faith. What would characterize the person who says, yeah, I got religion? I got Jesus. James says three things. These are just three things we can work on, he says. One is self-control. He’s back to the tongue again. He says if anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he’s deceived himself. You say you got religion, you got Jesus, you’re doing this Christianity thing. First thing James would say is, show me your tongue. Actually, I want to hear what comes out of your tongue during the week. Now, that’ll convict you, won’ it? I mean, if somebody were walking around you or me this week and just recording every word that we say…oh, by the way, the Bible does say that God does take note of every idle word that we say. But imagine if those words were repeated back you. Would it reflect a person of self-control who is quick to hear but slow to speak, a bridled tongue? James says, hey, when you walk out the door today, you’ve heard the truth. Why don’t you work on that this week? That’s a good place to start.
0:32:11.3
And then another area is in the area of compassion. He says, “This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and the Father: to visit orphans and widows in distress.” In the first century, if you were an orphan or a widow, you were in distress. Financial distress, emotional distress, physical distress, I mean, just stress in every way you can imagine. And part of what characterized a person of faith, a person who followed the Way, a person who followed Jesus, was a person who had compassion for those who were in need. You might be a widow today, and, actually, you know, we hear of the wealthy widows, you know. You might be on the receiving end of a life insurance policy. I mean, a widow in the first century didn’t have a lot of rights beyond her husband, so they weren’t taken care of. I tell you what. The application for me in terms of orphans and widows today, those that are really in distress financially, emotionally and otherwise, it’s single moms and their kids. And every church should be characterized by a compassion, at least a compassion to the orphans and widows of our time. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t orphans and widows that need help, but there are some single moms and their kids that need help. And I want to say way to go, Immanuel, on this. Because in the short time that I’ve been here, a little over a year now, I have seen Immanuel step up to the plate financially and in many, many other ways to come alongside single moms and their kids with compassion. Let’s keep doing that.
0:33:52.0
And then thirdly is purity. To keep oneself unstained by the world. James would say, again, don’t reach into that old, soiled, dirty laundry from your previous moral life and put that stuff back on again. You’re gonna have to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil to live a pure life in the power of the Holy Spirit. Hey, these are just three things. Three things that could work on this week. And maybe before you go to another Bible study, maybe before you hear another sermon, maybe before you tune into another radio preacher, you ought to just camp out, camp out here or camp out on some truth that you learned a week ago or two weeks ago or six months ago. And ask yourself, am I trafficking in unapplied truth. I’ve heard the Word. I’ve even received it into my heart, but it’s not made its way down to my feet where I put it into practice.
0:34:48.7
The Nike ad executives said to the Nike employees, “You Nike guys, you just do it.” Wouldn’t it be great if the world watching in on Immanuel Bible Church just said, “You Immanuel people, you’re incredible”? “You just listen, and then you go do it. You put it into practice.” Let’s pray together.
0:35:13.6
Father, thank You so much for Your Word, for Your perfect Word. There’s not a job or a tittle, there’s not a comma or a semicolon that is untrustworthy. Thank You for giving it to us. And forgive us for treating it so casually; for hearing the Word, for storing up knowledge, for looking into the mirror and walking away and forgetting what You’ve said to us. Lord, we don’t have to be digital camera Christians or people who look into the mirror and walk away and forget. Help us to put into practice what You’ve told us. Father, there is perhaps someone here today who needs to do the first thing as it relates to the gospel, and that’s believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They’ve heard the truth. They’ve heard the gospel, but they’ve never received it into their heart and made their way to the foot of the cross and said, “Lord, I believe what Your mirror says about me, that all have sinned, that I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that the wages of my sin is death. I deserve death. I deserve Hell. But God so loved the world that He gave is only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. And I believe that, too, Father, and want to receive Him today as my Savior.” Father, would You help someone here today to do that? Oh, I know it’s You that do it. You give the faith. But, Father, in the mystery of the new birth, would You make that happen today, a day of salvation? And then help every one of us in this room to be men and women who just listen, who tune our ears to You, and that are quick to hear and quick to put into practice what You’ve told us. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.
0:38:01.8