Now, just to fill you in on the details, before I start my little message here, pick up the fragments that remain here. My eye is okay. I told some of you yesterday about an eye problem that I have, and it made tremendous conversation because I hardly ever finished my stories when I tell one about myself. But it gives us something to talk about in between meetings. Well, what about your eye? Well, I still can't see clearly out of the left one, but it's getting better. Still have a lot of cobwebs floating around in there, but it's getting progressively better. So the eye is very healthy. There's no cataracts, no signs of glaucoma, no pressure from tumors. The eye is doing fine, and not even the detached retina, so the doctor thinks I'll be all right with my eye. The button is thrown back on my coat. Everything is okay here. I would tell you that there are many, many, many more people who like to be convinced about heaven than who care to be convinced about hell. Do you ever notice that, Ray? It's rather strange, isn't it, that it isn't difficult to get people to consent about heaven. But there are some people who don't like to be told that there is a literal living hell. Now I think all of us can understand that. We can understand why people think that way. Heaven is such a pleasant subject, such a beautiful place. Hell is such a terrible reality. I believe that hell is a terrible reality. First reason I believe it is because the Bible tells me so. The Lord give us a little peek into hell when he give us a story of Luke chapter sixteen about the rich man who died and in hell he lifted up his eyes. Sometimes people say, well, in hell I'll have lots of company. You won't want any company in hell. The rich man who died and went to hell did not want any company. He said, go tell my brothers that they don't come here. They want any company in hell. You know what I think hell is and what I believe it is according to the scripture? I believe it's one long eternal prayer meeting. You know, people feel very, very uncomfortable or at least very unexcited about prayer meetings these days. Even Christians don't seem to care for prayer meetings too much these days sometimes. Can you imagine an unsaved person being in an eternal prayer meeting in the caverns of the damned and no answers to the prayers, not even heard? You say, well, now what basis do you have for that? Well, what did the rich man do in hell? He didn't play cards. He didn't even shovel coal. Person told me one time in the street when I was preaching in the open air. I just go to hell. He says, shovel coal down there. I said, man, you won't need to shovel any coal. It'll be hot enough without that. And I didn't say that to make him, you know, I don't mind if you agree in a little bit. I didn't say that to make him laugh. I was dead serious. And I wanted him to be dead serious. Hell is a place where a man prayed for a drop of water. Never got it. Never has. Never will. And eternity hasn't begun. Isn't that dreadful? Well, tonight I'm just going to close out the conference and try to be brief about doing it. I'd just like to explain to you as simply, carefully, accurately as I can, really the process of salvation. I just want to kind of show you, tell you, how it works as far as you're concerned now we all know how this works as far as God is concerned if we don't we haven't been listening because we've been hearing it we've been hearing it tonight how this matter of salvation works from God's perspective it's really simple God loved you he loved the world he loved you he loves you he loves you very very much sent his son the Lord Jesus Christ to die on the cross of Calvary for you he took your sins made him his own bore them in his own body on the tree died an agonizing death went into the grave resurrected three days later as a living savior bodily resurrection which in heaven today sent a holy spirit into the world and the holy spirit through the word of god convicts people of their need of christ I said last night in this meeting of this kind that you need to be saved. Brother Glenn has said it again tonight. You need to be saved. But that's what the Holy Spirit is telling us. The Holy Spirit is telling us that we need to be saved. That's what the Bible says. But now what are the processes as far as you and I are concerned? How do we come to the good of this? How does this become an eternal reality with me? This is what God has done now. Where do I fit into this? What's the next move? God isn't going to make any more moves, except the Holy Spirit's still working, but as far as God is concerned, the work of redemption is complete, right? It's all done. All right. But that doesn't make people Christians, does it? The fact that Christ has died and finished the work and God says, look, it's here for you, that doesn't make you a Christian. Something has to happen in your domain, in order for you to become a child of God so that you escape hell and will have heaven in the end. Now, what is that process? Well, that process is sometimes just simply called salvation, but let me analyze that salvation process a little bit. Before we do that, I'd like to read three verses of Scripture very quickly here. First one is Second Timothy chapter three. and verse fifteen. I'm going to use these three as my anchor text tonight. Chapter three of second Timothy verse fifteen, and we'll go back to verse fourteen. The apostle writing to Timothy says, But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures Now notice carefully that from the child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Revelation twenty two verse seventeen if you'd care just to flip over to the very last page of your Bible twenty two and seventeen and the spirit and the bride say come let him that heareth say come Let him that is a thirst come. Not interesting, that word come is three times in that short verse. And whosoever will let him take of the water of life. Now that's pretty simple. Come, come, come, and then take. We all know how to come, and we all know how to take. Pretty simple, right? Okay. Spirit and the bride, which is the church, say that. Now for the last one that we'll read, though I will probably refer to it as back in Psalm... And this time the thirty-fifth Psalm. Psalm thirty-five. Now you might want to just kind of keep your fingers in these passages and check out what I'm going to tell you to see if we're on target. Thirty-five and verse nine. And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord. It shall rejoice in his salvation. Now let me tell you why I read those three verses and then perhaps you can see the connecting link. I'm going to talk with us a little bit tonight about three things that are important in this matter of becoming a child of God, getting saved. I'm going to talk about your mind, I'm going to talk about your will, and I'm going to talk about your emotions. Now this is not going to be a class in psychology. Your mind, your will, and your emotions. Or I'm going to talk about something different. that's parallel to that. I'm going to talk about fact, faith, and feelings. Now I think we need to understand these things because we get pretty muddled up on this business of feelings, don't we? We get our feelings all out of kilter here. Some people get them in the wrong place and some people deny them all together and preach against them and all kinds of things. Now let me just hasten to tell you that you are never justified or safe in denying your feelings. Your feelings are your emotions. And since God made you a person with emotions, you've got to reckon with these feeling things. What we need to do is find out where they fit into this whole process. But we don't want to start with feelings. Too many people do. I was visiting with a young fellow in the college in Asgusa just a couple of weeks ago, in his room. And he had put on his visitation card that we gave him when he came to chapel once that he wanted to have a visit with somebody and was interested in becoming a part of our local church fellowship. Well, I didn't jump at that one. I just... Mark, what about the Lord? Where do you stand with the Lord? Well, he says, I feel I'm saved. The whole conversation for the next while was very, very strongly built around feelings. Now I didn't try to jump on his case and say, oh, Mark, you shouldn't feel like that. I just kind of let him float along with his feelings. But finally the moment came in the conversation when I said, look, Mark, you know, you've been using the word feeling an awfully lot tonight. Now you've got to have something more than that. Because your feelings are going to vacillate. You might feel like you're saved tonight. But what if your feelings change tomorrow? What if you get up tomorrow to a bad day and you don't feel like you're saved? Now we've got to find out whether you're really saved or not. In other words, we have to get the facts straightened out here. And back to that fact. Now notice what Paul said concerning salvation. He said, in Timothy's case, from a child you have known the scriptures which are able to make you what? Wise. That's exactly what I was going to preach my sermon for a while. He was saying to us in the earlier part of the meeting tonight that this is a conscious decision that is made in the head, in the mind. We deal with facts. Last night I was trying to portray to us the fact that we have to deal with truth, truth, facts. Now where do you reckon with the facts in your mind? Why do people who do not have capacity to think correctly go to heaven when they die? Why does a child before a certain age, we believe, go to heaven if he dies in infancy? Because the child does not have the mental capacity to deal with factual knowledge yet. Or perhaps a person has a brain deficiency and they can't deal with the facts. God in His mercy says, I've prepared a way that people like that can go to heaven without being saved. Did you know that there are people who go to heaven without being saved? Well, there are. They go to heaven not because they're saved, but because they're safe. Must remember that. And they are safe because the blood of Christ upon the cross of Calvary has made them safe. They have never made a conscious decision against Christ. They don't have the capacity to make a choice. They're too young or too unable. So I'm of full persuasion that people who do not make a choice against Christ and have no capacity to do so are just covered by the death of Christ upon the cross of Calvary. At least that's what I preach. Hope I'm right. Now then, in order for us to be saved, as people with a measure of mental maturity, we have to get the facts straight. Now what are the facts? And where do they come from? Paul said about Timothy, he said, from a child. By the way, I'll digress just a little bit. Parents, do you know what your big job is in the salvation of your children? Well, I think you do. But let me just tell you, it's not to save them. It's to teach them the scriptures which will make them wise unto salvation. It's not your job to save your kids. It's not wise on your part to push them into a profession. You're trying to do something that only the Spirit of God can do. You've got a full-time calling just to do what the Scripture tells you to do. Make them wise unto salvation, and I mean do it. Spend time with them. Teach them the Word of God. At your table. In the bedroom. When they get up. When they go to bed. Don't know how, when, why, or where, but do it. You've got to do it. Teach them how to be wise unto salvation. What are you doing? You're computing biblical information into their mind. That's what you're doing. You're feeding them truth. They'll never find it anywhere else. And you've got to be sure that they get this truth well-rooted within their system so that they will not believe the lies. that the devil is going to shoot at them constantly all through life. They need to know the truth. And the Lord said, if you know the truth, the truth will make you free. So it's our business, and I want to impress this upon you. It's your business to be sure you have conveyed the truth, the facts, to these young minds so that they can make their own decisions. Now where do we get the facts? Well, notice again the verse, that from a child thou hast known the Scriptures. That's where they get the facts. The Bible is truth. Jesus said, Thy word is truth. Isn't it wonderful, folks, that we've got a book that never needs to be upgraded? Those of you who teach school, you know how rapidly your textbooks are outdated. The printing presses are spinning full speed to try to keep the textbooks current. Geography changes, scientific data changes, and all kinds of things just keep changing, and they just keep spinning out more knowledge and more information because they found out that the knowledge and information they gave you yesterday wasn't up to snuff, so they've got a big brainstorm. They've got some more stuff to hand to you, so they have to print out some more books. God never has to bother with that kind of stuff. He never has to worry about updating his book. He wrote it all these hundreds of years ago and is still current today. And that's why the scripture dares to use phraseology like this, this present world. He's talking about the world of nineteen eighty seven. Nothing takes God by surprise, does it? Nothing. He knows what it is like here. He knows what it will be like tomorrow. So here we have a book that is current. Here's a book that is true. Here's a book that is understandable. And let me hasten to tell you another thing. This book is reasonable. Did you know that? Did you know that the most reasonable message that has ever been given to humanity is found within this book? Did you know that the God that we deal with is a reasonable God? Scripture says in Isaiah chapter one, Come now and let us do what? Reason together. I can remember when I was a young preacher, I might have preached something contrary to that. Did it in my ignorance, I suppose. I would have said, now, folks, you accept this by faith. You don't try to figure this out. You just take it by blind chance. Now, I didn't say that, but that's kind of the message that I think I might have projected. You just take a step in the dark. Folks, getting saved is not taking a step in the dark. Getting saved is taking a step in the light. It's the light of God's Word that you take a step in. He doesn't want us groping around in the darkness. He wants us to walk in the light. And the knowledge, the scriptural, biblical truth of God's Word is the knowledge. And God says now, Come, let's talk about this. Let's think this out. Do you know why many people today are rejecting God's salvation? Because they don't want to think about it. They don't want to sit down and reason with God. God says, I want you to reason with me. Let's reason together. And then he says, though your sins be as scarlet, that might be a reason why so many people run and hide. God says, I'm going to talk with you. We're going to think this thing through. We're going to use a little logic here. And we're going to talk about your sins. Oh, I better leave now. Talk about my sins. Yeah, you're going to talk about your sins in the presence of a three-time holy God. That can be embarrassing, I confess. But you will never get any place with God if you don't reason with God about this great problem that every individual has. And it's the problem of sin. It's a worldwide problem. It's an individual problem. It's your problem. You may have a lot of problems, but if you're not a Christian tonight, your greatest problem, the root problem of all problems, is your sin. And God says you've got to talk to him about this. He wants to talk with you about it, and he wants to reason with you. Come now, when, now, right tonight. Reason about this matter of sin. It's all done in the mind. no blind chance no step in the dark second thing god says now after we have talked about this and after we have reasoned this thing through and you've got the facts by the way what are the facts that we need i i don't want to take a lot of time on that but but the facts are really in two categories when you sit and talk with god and he reasons with you by his spirit through the word He's going to reason with you about Himself. He wants you to know about His Son, Jesus Christ. First John says, this is the record that God has given us concerning His Son. Once again, you will never get into God's reckoning system. You will never be able to reason with God if you don't reckon with Him about your sins and about His Son. You've got to deal with His Son. In fact, it goes like this. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son, took care of the sin questions. It really is a big son question as to whether you will receive the Son. That brings me to my next point. God says, now I've given you the information. Here they are. Facts and truths about the person of God, the person of Christ, the work of Christ, Everything that we need, which are fundamental to salvation, God says, here they are in the truth. My word is truth. Now, God says, there's something I can't do for you. Because of the way I made you. I made you human beings down here on planet Earth with the ability to make a choice. Isn't that great? That God actually gave us a choice. In the book of Deuteronomy, he set choices before the people of Israel. He says, now here are the things that you can choose. You can choose life. You can choose death. You can choose right. You can choose wrong. A whole bunch of things there. You tonight are an intelligent human being who I hope have the facts straight, but that doesn't make you a Christian. Now what you have to reckon with is your will. And your will is that which says, I will. or I won't. Whosoever will may come. It's amazing to me that God doesn't force us in our wills. He's made us what we oftentimes refer to as free moral agents. You have a choice to make. In fact, folks tonight, you can choose right while you're sitting in your seat, whether you want to be in heaven or hell. You can choose whether you want to serve Christ, whether you want to choose the devil. You can choose whether you want to live for eternity in heaven or whether you want to live for yourself and the present evil world. You have all kinds of choices. Light is made up of choices. No more important choice will be made than the choice that you make concerning your salvation. What was those sorrowful words that came from the lips of the Lord Jesus as recorded in John chapter five? It was speaking to some people. And I think those words are so sad. You will not come to me. that you might be saved. What was wrong? What was wrong with those people who didn't come for salvation? That they didn't know? No, that isn't the problem. The problem was with their will. He didn't say you don't know. He says you won't come. That's the problem. There are all kinds of people, maybe some in this audience tonight, who know the facts. You know what you ought to do. You know you're a sinner. You know you need to be saved. You know that Christ died for you, rose again. But you're not saved. Why aren't you saved? Not because you don't know, but because you won't come. You will not come. Now you may have your excuses for not coming, but none of them will stand in the judgment day. You must come. You must listen. You must receive. That's faith. Facts? Faith. Not feelings yet. Faith. Now what is faith? Faith is believing the facts. Faith is appropriating the facts. See, if a doctor tells me, you've got a bad eye, but I have some medicine for your bad eye. And if you put these drops into your eye, the cloudiness will disappear, and you'll be healed. Now, I believe my doctor. The doctor that I go to with my eye problem is a friend of mine. He's an ophthalmologist. He's a Christian. And I believe him. I have full confidence in this person. So he gives me the medicine to put into my eye. I go home and set it up on the counter. And I say, my wife, you know, that doctor is sure a good one. And I think he really knows what he's doing. She said, well, did you put the medicine in? Oh, no, it's hard for me to take drops in my eye. I didn't put any medicine in my eye. All of the confidence and all of the talk that I can do about my doctor. doesn't do any good unless I appropriate the information that he's given me. Here's some medicine for your eye. I have to personally, volitionally, willfully reach my hand out, take that medicine, apply it, and it won't do me any good until I do. And you can sit and listen to the gospel until the preacher is blue in his face, and you will never become a Christian because you know the facts. You'll not become a Christian until you act in faith and receive the remedy. That's appropriation. That's faith. But now let me stop just for a moment. The Bible says, and the preaching of Paul went like this, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now what is repentance really? Well, repentance comes in believing or agreeing with God. When I repent, I am Sorry, but I'm more than sorry. I'm willing to turn. Repentance involves me turning from my present lifestyle, turning in my attitudes, turning from my course of life, turning to God, turning away from those evil things, turning to God. And I repent and turn to the Lord. I'm in agreement with the Lord. I make my confession. I say, Oh God, I have sinned. I deserve to go to hell. That's what real confession is. Confession is equivalent to saying, I am wrong. It's hard to do, but it has to be done. You have to agree with God about your sin problem and repent and then turn to God in faith, saying, Oh Lord, my sins deserve hell and punishment. You've given the remedy. And the remedy is Jesus Christ. Now let me say something again that many of you have heard me say before. But I want it to be repeated. Because I think it's misunderstood a lot today. You are not saved by faith. No. You're not saved by faith. If you stop with faith. Let me rephrase that. Faith. does not save. What saves? Faith? No. Christ saves. Faith doesn't save. Christ saves. But Christ saves through faith. Now, you need an illustration because I see some of you are looking kind of angry at me right now. Here is a Here I am, I can't swim well and I just fallen off of the cliff and I'm in a deep pool of water and I'm struggling and that would be very true if that happened. I can swim if I can get my feet on the bottom. So I'm out here and I'm just about going down for the third time. You're up here on this fine ledge up here, safe as can be. It isn't safe for you to jump into the water because maybe you can't swim. I don't know. That kind of spoils my illustration. But anyway, we're going to lead you up here. But you happen to have a life rope close by. So you say, Milo, I'm throwing you the life rope. And you throw me the life rope neatly bound both ends and everything in between. And here I am sputtering and taking in the ocean and I'm grabbing for the life rope. What do I do? I pull a life rope down with me for the third time and die. That life rope won't save me. Right? Not if you throw the both ends out. But now let's suppose you do it a better way. Let's suppose that you hold one end of the life rope and you throw the other end to me. Say, Milo, if you gather a hold, get a hold of the life rope, I'll pull you in. And that's pretty good news. So I get a hold of the life rope and you pull me in. And I'm as safe as can be. Now, let me ask you, what saved me? Did the life rope save me or did you save me? Obviously, the life rope didn't save me. You saved me. But the life rope was what you used. The life rope made the connection between the Savior up here and the drowning man down here. That's what faith is. Faith won't save you. It's Christ that saves you. But faith is what connects you to Christ. And when you of your own volition take a hold of the life rope, that's faith. You're appropriating what God is giving to you. You're saying, by faith I believe in my Savior, the Lord Jesus, and he brings me safely in. Very important to see this. I'm convinced. Hope you aren't doing it. That's faith. That's an act of the will. Now then, lastly and closingly, What about the emotions? Well, you're not supposed to have any emotions. You're not supposed to feel anything. Now, I know that feelings can really get in the way. I know as Mark was wrestling with his feelings, the boy in college, wrestled with that. I just want to tell you the good news. I said, Mark, let's look into the word. When I just went over and sat on the bed beside him, and I said, let's look at the scriptures. And as we read the scriptures, it wasn't very long until Mark began to hold on to those. He began to see what the Bible was saying. And he entered into the joy of his salvation that night. And I haven't been able to get back to him soon. I hope to get to him this week. But I hope that Mark is still resting on the firm foundation of true facts. What is the fact in that case? What was one of the scriptures I used with Mark? I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. And that's better than feelings, isn't it? That's fact. And Mark needed that. Now he knows that he will never perish. And many other scriptures like that. God's word, Mark. God's word. Boy, it's wonderful to be able to sit down with the word of God besides people and tell them what God says. That beats it. So many times tell them what I think it says. Here's what God says. Now here it is, Mark. Take a look at this. That's your pleasure to sit down by a hungry, thirsting soul and be able to show them what the Bible says. And then Mark believes that. He took the life role. Now what about those feelings of Mark? Mark, now you understand those feelings are bad. And you should never talk about feelings again. I hope I didn't tell him that. I hope Mark feels glad tonight. You know what we read in Psalm thirty five? It talks about the joy that we have. I believe that there are no people on earth that have a right to have feelings of joy like God's people. The one fellow said after he got saved that he was happier after he got saved. He thought I'm happier now when I'm not happy than I used to be when I was happy. Now that's one of John Elliot's old stories, so forgive me, but it's a good one. I'm happier now and I'm not happy than I used to be when I'm happy, when I was happy. Well, there isn't anybody that has a right to be happier than we people who know the joy of our sins forgiven. It's all right to have emotions. It's all right to smile. It's all right even to say amen. It's even all right to say praise the Lord. In fact, I don't want to close out too negatively here, but I wonder sometimes where some of our joy is gone. It seems like we're afraid to be happy. And if we're happy, we're sure afraid to let anybody else know it. If you're saved and you know it, then your smile will surely show us. It's great to have the joy of the Lord flooding our soul. As Peter says, joy unspeakable and full of glory. I tell you, it's a pleasure to stand up here on the platform and look into a bunch of happy faces. People who say, with their eyes, are just telling me, you know, that's right. I'm saved and I know it and I'm glad. Even if you don't say anything, you're telling me with your eyes and with your expressions that you're glad you're saved. Not all of you. Just most of you. I think some of us are still a little bit afraid to even express that much. It's great, great to be saved. Don't want to depend on our emotions. Don't want to depend upon our feelings. But we don't want to deny them. We want to have the joy of the Lord in our life because it's the greatest testimony to the people out there to see a happy Christian. They're not too impressed when they see grumpy, growly, old Christians who frown all the time. If you're a grumpy, growly old person who never can smile and never can show any exuberance, don't tell anybody you're saved. Because they're not going to believe it anyway. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Know what the Bible says? The joy of the Lord is your strength. So that's a good note to close on tonight, folks. All right, one more time through. You're saved, and you know it. In fact, I'm going to do something that If you're saved and you know it, say amen. Oh, you can do it, I knew you could. Praise God. If you're saved and you know it, say amen. Oh, it didn't get any better that time, got a little worse. How do you know you're saved? Facts. Bible facts. God says it. Milo didn't say it. God says it. You know you are saved, and now you can feel the joy and the exuberance of having trusted Christ. And you go out there tomorrow morning and let the world see you're happy. You don't know how many troubles I got. You don't know the problems in my life. Hey, better take a look at First Peter, chapter one in verse eight. He's talking to people who had troubles too. In fact, they had some real severe troubles. But he still told them about the joy of believing. He says, you believe with a joy and speak of all. and full of glory. Now folks, if you're not saved tonight, let me close this with saying that. If you're not saved tonight, you don't have any reason to be happy about anything. You really don't. You have every reason to be worried and fearful. Let me tell you again that I believe that there's a living hell. We had a neighbor just a couple of doors up from us who died a couple of years ago. He was a selfish old man. He didn't have any children, didn't have any friends. His widow wife asked me to take the funeral, or at least a part of it, and I think there was twelve people at the funeral, and that included the pallbearers. You talk about a lonely old couple. Lonely old man. Selfish, selfish old man. He didn't want anything to do with anybody. Miserable old man. And that man lay in the hospital, and he died. The other neighbor across the street, who at least professes to be a Christian, was there in the hospital room, and he died. And she said, when that man breathed his last, just as he died, She says he rose up and he was very weak, extremely weak. But he rose up in his bed, body became rigid. And she says his eyes literally popped out, almost popped out of his head. And he had the awfulest expression on his face. Now she didn't tell me what she thought it was. You know what I think it was. I think that man slipped out of time into eternity and he got his first glimpse. of hell on the other side. Now I saw somebody shiver, that makes me shiver too. Just think of that. A glimpse of hell still in life. Folks, we don't want you to have that. We want you to know tonight that your sins are forgiven. We want you to know that you're on the way to heaven and we want you to be happy if you know it and if you don't know it. You could come to know it tonight. I'd be glad to talk with you. Glenn Ray, any one of us would be glad to talk with you so that you can know it, so that you can go out those doors. smiling big and saying oh praise God I know I'm on my way to heaven let's pray father we ask you to bless your word tonight for the sake of your son and for the sake of anyone here who may not yet know the Lord Jesus then for us Lord who do know you as our Savior may we just re-experience the joy of the Lord surging through our soul tonight just to know that our sins are forgiven our title is clear to heaven and we're going on our way Because Christ is our Savior. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.