Will you say, This will I do with Jesus? What will you do with Jesus? You call you cannot. Someday your heart will be at him. What will he do with me? I think the last time I was here, I saw Dick Andrew down there toward the end of the meeting, and at the thought he stepped into a hill of fire ants, looking at his watch and everything. And I didn't know until afterwards what it was all about. He told me, he said, well, mostly he said, there's a clock up here. Well, I said, Dick, I didn't see him. I put my Bible over there, and so I'll cover it up again. Let us turn in our Bibles over to the book of First John. First John. And chapter three and verse eight. First John three and verse eight. the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the work of the devil. Let us read this morning on the works of the devil, and God will fatally and utterly destroy all the works of the devil. He made that claim back in Genesis, when he said concerning in speaking to the devil, he says that the woman's seed shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now the bruising of Satan's head was fatal. The bruising of Christ's heel as seed of the woman was not fatal, although it implied suffering. And so I want to speak this morning, first of all, on the works of the devil, and they are plenty. Satan is the prince and power of the air. He roams the airways, and thus you see his mighty power. He has the power to depress. He is the author of depression, as well as the author of opression. You find that over in Acts ten and twenty-eight. Christ went about healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him. Satan is the author of oppression and the author of depression. You should find that in connection with the man in the truth. And today there are many people and they are depressed and they are oppressed. You could not say God is the author of this, he is not. Satan is the author of oppression and depression. Then Satan also is the author of sickness. You find there in connection with the woman. who for eighteen years she was a cripple. There she was bound by Satan, and the Bible tells us that how she was bound. Of not this woman whose Satan had bound these eighteen years be loosed on the Sabbath day. And so here is Satan. He's the author of suffering. And what suffering there is in the world today, this groaning creation. You cannot attribute to Almighty God to be blamed for suffering that's in the world. Satan is the author of suffering. Then again he is the author of death. You find that over in Hebrews. It tells us there, Christ through death. destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and delivered us through fear of death, where all our lifetimes subject to bondage. So here you have Satan as the author of death. Also he is the author of temptation to sin. God never tempted any man or woman to sin. He tried men, He tried Abraham, he tried Job, but God nowhere at any time ever tempted any man to sin. Satan is the tempter to sin. You find that in Matthew chapter four when he tempted the Lord Jesus Christ. Three times over he tried to get Christ to disobey God. And Christ came back, it is written. And so Satan is the one that tempts men and women to sin and don't forget it. He is the author of temptation. Then again, he is the author of absolute and complete possession of sinful man. That's true in connection with Judas and how the devil possessed Judas. The Bible says, And the devil entered into him. From that time on, Judas was completely in the hands of the devil. He almost was Satan incarnate. Thus you have God making it plain that Satan has great power, and he can possess a human being. Then Satan is the author of blindness. The God of this age, Satan, have blinded the minds of them that believe not, left the light of the glorious gospel of Christ shall shine unto them, and they shall be saved. He who roams the atmosphere, he who roams the space, is the God of this age. he's out to do one thing and there is the blind men and women of the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. He's the author of that kind of blindness. Also he's the author of getting men and women to resist the mind of God. You have that Also in your Bible, II Thessalonians, II, Paul said, We would have come unto you, but Satan hindered. And if ever there's a time when the devil is hindering men and women from doing the will of God, it is today. He is the one who is trying to hinder even Christians from carrying out God's blessed and holy will. And of course, he is assisting the sinner every day to resist the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. I well remember in my early days how I resisted the Spirit's convicting power, brought up as I was in a Christian home. I was constantly under conviction, but I thought conviction. There was a real fight. I'm glad I didn't win. But under the leadership of Satan, constantly I fought going to the meeting. I fought getting saved. He didn't want me to get saved. And for a long time I carried on that battle. But thank God on May the third, nineteen twenty-five, I lost that battle, and I praise God for it. And if you are experiencing a battle today, the Spirit of God convicting you of your sin, convicting you of your need of a savior, you would be a wise man or woman to throw in the towel. For if you win this battle, you'll spend eternity in hell. The devil is trying his best to keep men and women from carrying out what God wants for them, that is, their submission to his will and their reception of Jesus Christ. Also, Satan is the author of catching away the good seed. You find that in Matthew how the good seed has been sold, there are four kinds of soil, and even the good soil. And Satan is found catching away that seed. He doesn't want it to take root. And I know very well every time I preach the Holy Spirit is trying to get the good word of God to take root in your heart. But I also know that the devil is trying to prevent that. He doesn't want you to listen to the gospel. He doesn't want the gospel to take root in the human heart. Also, he is the author of rooting out the tears from the wreath. Whenever God, the Holy Spirit, is working, men and women are getting saved, The enemy is busy sowing pears, hypocrites, men and women who make a profession but do not possess Christ. This is Satan's business to plant tares. And so close are the tares to the wheat that the Lord Jesus wouldn't even grant his disciples to root up the tares. He says, you don't have that kind of discernment. You're liable to root up some of the wheat. So close can tares come to looking like wheat. But Satan is busy trying, while the Spirit is working, he's busy trying to root up the wheat. And he's trying his best to keep, or trying to keep that to so tan. while the Spirit of God will so we. And then you have also, he is the accuser of the brethren. You find that in Revelation chapter twelve. The accuser of the brethren is cast out. Who is it that's accusing God's people day and night? The devil. He's the author of accusation. And let us as Christians be careful we are not the truth. in the hands of the devil to accuse others falsely. Also, he is the author of false ministry. And there's a lot of false ministry today, and Satan is the author of it. Is there any wonder? He himself is likened unto the angel of life. It tells you that. It says here that Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers, Satan's ministers also, be transformed as the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works. Satan has ministers and their ministers of righteousness. How subtle. They're telling people to do things, but in one sense they're good. Live a good life. Do the best you can. Join the church. Don't drink. Don't commit adultery. Ministers are righteousness. Things are righteous. But he doesn't minister to them, neither he nor his minister. Do they minister the gospel? and tell people you're lost, and you're on the way to hell. Satan has his ministers constantly active. Yes, he's the author of false ministry. These are the works of the devil that Christ came to destroy. Then the second manifestation, you find that over in first John three five. And we know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. If Satan was, as we've already mentioned, if he's the one who's going about and Christ is here by his spirit, to try and reveal to Mel Berman the fact that Satan is the one who is depressing them, oppressing them, deceiving them. He came, he was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil. So you're without excuse. You've got all the help you need in the world. But here you have him. and Christ was manifested to put away our sins. Our sins. That's one thing I'm dreadfully afraid of. Sin. And yet it can walk into many front rooms of many homes as big as an elephant, and they can detect it or recognize it. Sin. Sin in the human heart is like a nest of rattlesnakes. And don't forget your heart is full of sin. I hate it, and I'm afraid of it. But how wonderful to think the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleansed us from all sin. I think that's wonderful. the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son. Christ was manifested to put away our sins. I love that. And if you're the sinner, which you are, if you're not born again, think of your sins. But think of this. There is a hope. All your sins can be put away. Every one can be washed away in the blood of Christ. Here is your hope. Many people today have an aptitude of hopelessness because of sin. But friend, here is your hope. The sweetest story ever told. The sweetest song that was ever sung. The sweetest message that was ever preached. The gospel. Christ is here to put away your sin. Everyone of your sin. But you say, I have sinned. You certainly have. But how wonderful when God says he'll take away your sin. If you will accept his son, God will remove your sin as far away as the east. is from the West. Oh, but you say, I've cursed, I've blasphemed, I've taken God's name in vain, you have, and God knows it. But God says, receive my Son, and I will put all your sins behind my back to be remembered again no more forever. Oh, but you say, You just don't understand. I've lived a double life. I've been unfaithful to my wife. I've been unfaithful to my husband. You have. God says, accept my son and I will cast all your sins. The sins of adultery. I will cast all your sins into the depth of the sea. Oh, but you say I'm a crook. I'm a thief. I'm a liar. You are. God says, except my son and I will blot out your sins as a thick cloud. Oh, but you say you don't understand. I've taken a man's life. My hands are stained with human blood. I'm a murderer. What about me? God says you've done something worse than that. What's that? Your sins nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. They did. And yet, although so serious your sin and crime, God will save you. How wonderful to think that God and sovereign grace, you mention sin, name it, and I can tell you there's a way to get rid of that sin. The blood of Jesus Christ comes and cleanses us from all sin. Yes, you committed the greatest, the most horrible crime in the universe. You have rejected God's Son. I preached a funeral not too long ago, a person who committed suicide. She was a lovely Christian, but under the circumstances she couldn't face it. At the funeral, it was a large funeral. I said there's only one sin that will keep a soul out of heaven. but a lot of people thought every suicide went to head. I said there's only one sin that will keep us so out of heaven and that's rejection of Jesus Christ. Several people came home or came over after the meeting at the cemetery. Brother Wilson, I'm glad you said that. For all my life I believe that there was no hope for a suicide. Only God knows why that person committed suicide. A man goes flying down the road, ninety miles an hour, hundred miles an hour. He's committing suicide, his own life, unlikely that of others. People are taking goat today, committing suicide. Is there forgiveness for a suicide? Yes, there is. of whom says God ye have now been the betrayers and the murderers. Who's he talking to? Christ rejected. Yes, friend, God puts a labor upon everybody that has rejected and is rejecting Jesus Christ and that is guilty. Guilty of the most horrible, heinous sin in the world. rejection of Jesus Christ. Think of them in that day when they said, Crucify him, Crucify him, will not have this man to reign over us. Yes, they said his blood be on us and upon our children. Did they not personally accept responsibility for his death? They did. They were Christ's rejectors. They rejected Christ, and so have some of you. The most heinous, hateful crime you can commit is to reject Jesus Christ. And there's only one way you can get away from the penalty, and that is by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. And God this morning with the precious atoning blood of Christ, that vermilion fluid, yes, the purgation of all those who are sins. He can wipe them out in a moment to the precious atoning blood of Christ. We constantly see on the TV about detergents, detergent, detergents. There's only one detergent of sins. And that's the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. And if you're not saved this morning, you are guilty of a horrible crime. Your sins nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. Your sins want to crime you're guilty of. And I want to say this. so you have sinned either his blood will wash away all your sins or you'll face all your sins in a coming day it's one way or the other it's heaven or hell you make the choice rejecting christ is the greatest crime of the universe But you say, I'm not guilty of that. If you sit here unconverted, you are guilty of that. Rejecting Christ, it's either life or death, as heaven or hell, it all hinges on your acceptance or rejection of the precious blood of Christ. There's no getting around it. The third manifestation, first John four nine, in this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his own begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. He sent his son into the world to defeat and destroy the work of Satan. He sent His Son into this world to put away sin. Now God is sending His Son into this world that we might live through Him, and here you have the message of reconciliation. Reconciled of God to the death of His Son. Not God be reconciled of man. No, God has not sinned, nor has God hurt man. It's all one-sided. God has done no wrong. No wrong whatsoever. God is pursuing man in order to save him, not to destroy him. Two boys settling their differences out on the street. don't attract much attention. Two men with their guns settling their differences is bad. Two small nations settling their differences with conventional weapons are serious. But two major nations settling their differences with atomic power is awful. and force them. But the human heart that's rebelling against God, the human heart that is at enmity with God, that constant conflict that's going on in the human heart against God, such a fight is going to have eternal consequence. Two nations using atomic weapons can do terrible, terrible, terrible disaster. But as far as you as an individual are concerned, the biggest disaster can fall on you if you continue to rebel against God. Fight against God. Yes, you are in this position. You have a heart of enmity against God. And God wants to reconcile you to himself. The point is you must change. God doesn't have to change. God has revealed himself in the death of his Son as a God of love and power. But you've got to change. And you've got to choose. Just before I left the Albany to come up for the Canada to see my folks, one morning worship meeting, a lady of a name, or Mrs. Dallas Ball, came to me before we started the worship meeting with tears running down her cheeks. She says, Brother Wilson, I think Dallas is losing his mind. I've never heard him say such things. He's gone to make an appointment with the doctor. I said, Marge, I visited him a lot of times, and I prayed for him a lot. I said, there's not much we can do, but still wait on God. I said, I'll be by tomorrow morning, Monday morning. I went by the next morning. I knocked on the door, Marge opened the door. She had been saved twenty-three years. Some of the first of our crew down in Albany. She opened the door, I went in, and Dallas was sitting beside a table. He spied, he got up, he shook hands. And his wife very wisely withdrew and went somewhere else in the house. Dallas sat down, I said, Dallas. You're having trouble with your body. But I'm more concerned about the trouble you're having with your spirit. Your spirit, your concern, is of more interest to me. You're lost. You're going to hairless. And what a deliverance he had one time back when they had the old steam locomotive he was running between Waycross and Albany. And there was a washup. He was at the controls. He didn't see it, and the old engine plunged into it. He was knocked down from the firebox, and one of the rails went up right through the cabin and right through the back seat of where he sat. And he told me that himself. I said, Dallas, do you mean to say God came so close to taking your life, and you're not interested in trusting Christ? I said, Dallas, you're off. you're going to hell, you need to be saved. He said three words. He said, I want to be. My what precious words I want to be. I said, Dallas, God has been waiting for those three words for a long, long time. So have I. You want to be. I never, before. He was saying, I don't want to be. But now he says, I want to be. I said, Dallas, when do you want to be saved? He said, now. Well, I said, Dallas, you know the story. You've heard us preach the story. You've got your wife, a lovely Christian. Christ died for you, he suffered and buried that dead and died upon the cross for you, and shed his blood for you. Tell us, you say you want to be saved? Do you want to be saved now? Yes, he said, I do. Will you accept Christ this very moment as your Savior? He said, yes. I said, what does that mean? He said, I'm saved. Can you tell Marge that? He said, Yes. And I said, Marge. He said, Marge, too. Both our voices blended. Marge hastened. He stood in the doorway. I said, Marge, I think Dallas has something to tell you. And he looked at her with a big smile. He said, Marge, I accept that the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior, and I'm saved. They fell into each other's arms, and they wept. and they wept and they hugged each other. Finally I got in on the hugging tube. Then I went to the door. They shook hands about three times from where he got saved to me. I got the door. And when I got the door I went out and turned about a half a block to go to the hospital. I turned back. Looked back, both of them still out on the porch, way with a hand. Dallas told his wife after I left. He said, oh, he said, I've got to go on bed, buy a pair of white trousers. I want to get baptized. She says, you don't have to get white trousers. Up till that time he stood beside his wife all those years, holding the hymn book but never sung a word. One Sunday I said, if you out there are saying, Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come, and you're not coming, you're singing a lie in the presence of God. Over the years he never sang one word. The Sunday after he got saved, he out sang everybody around him. Oh yes, what a change. What a change. God didn't put those three words in Dallas Ball's mouth, I want to be, no. If God did that for one person to be just, he'd have to do with every person. That came from Dallas Ball's heart, I want to be. And I suppose if I've heard those three words once in my life, I've heard them hundreds of times. When a person comes to a point where he says, I want to be, he's already got one foot in the door to glory. He's one of the happiest Christians we've possibly had the joy of baptizing him with six others just before I left. I said, Dallas is not much. I can tell you, you can tell us something. Are you happy? I am. Shall everybody hear? And one other morning while I was preaching, I said, someone in this audience could tell you it's a wonderful thing to be saved. He said, I can. Everybody heard him. What a change. And that's the change that God wants to bring about in you this morning. I want to be. Do you want to be saved? Or you say, someday, you're dodging the question. Do you want to be saved now? God's not interested in tomorrow's. Now is the acceptance time. Now is the day of salvation. Christ came to the fireworks of the devil. He came to put away sin. He came to reconcile you unto himself. He's nothing to do. evolved again, unless you bring up your old sins and your old companions, you'll lose them. But you'll gain better ones. When I got saved, when I went to work the next morning, we got around the big railroad shop so quick, man came over to me and said, I hear you teaching Sunday school all over the hall. And I just got saved last night. I was thinking, well, I'm not going to get along with these fellows I worked with. I didn't have to worry about that. I didn't leave one of them. They all left me. When I started telling them I was saved and going to heaven, that's all. They thought I'd go off the rocker. Well, I did go off the rocker. If being insane means you're saved and going to heaven, I'm going to an asylum. How wonderful to be saved! God has provided salvation for you in the person of his Son and all your sins, everyone, small and large. Can we blot it out this morning? And Satan's power can be broken through the precious, atoning, efficacious blood. of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that can happen right now. Will you say, I want to be? Shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who come into thy presence and ask thy blessing upon my word, may someone this moment in the heart of thy presence open his or her heart and come to Christ, and be saved not for the day, but for eternity. We ask it in the Lord Jesus' precious name. Amen. Shall we sing a verse or two or two-forty-two? Out of my bondage sorrow and night, Jesus, I come. Jesus, I come into thy freedom, gladness, and light, Jesus, I come to thee. out of my sickness into thy health, out of my want, and into thy wealth, out of my sin, and into thyself, Jesus. I come to thee. Will you come to Christ, or have you come to Christ here in this meeting? We'll be delighted to see you run up the front. If I can say anything and do anything to get you to make that step, I'll do it. But that's the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Come and tell us that we've trusted Christ all you want, so as we stand and sing, Q. Out of my founding soul am I, Jesus I come, Jesus I come, Jesus I come. I am. Out of the fear and dread of the tomb, and you better face that, Jesus I come, Jesus I come. We'll sing the last verse, and I'll be standing right down the front. God will be In my hope will be I'm not going to be able to do it.