Monkey and a Nut

I was reading something this morning and I want to share it with you this afternoon before we seek the Lord in prayer for revival in our nation. And what I read was a news article that the Barna Group published concerning pastors in America. They interviewed evangelical conservative pastors for the last two years and the research they performed was under the direction of George Barner and his research group, and they disclosed that 90% of the pastors they interviewed did not preach on controversial subjects because they did not want to upset their parishioners.

And when poll pastors were asked how did they describe themselves as far as if you could know that their church was successful or not, and they said that to find if their church was successful, they listed the following five factors which determined a successful church. Number one, attendance. Number two, giving.

Number three, number of programs. Number four, the number of staff. And number five, square footage.

In other words, the biggest churches with the largest buildings and the largest group of people was considered successful. So why would a pastor with that mindset preach on an offensive message that would drive off his comparable membership, which makes up his successful church? Well, certainly he would not. So what this means, friends, that out of the churches in America, 90% of them will not preach the real gospel with its scandalous cross because the real gospel speaks of a bloody cross because of sin.

And the real gospel speaks of man's duty of repentance and the necessity of regeneration for a person to be truly born again. And the real gospel warns sinners of their great danger of dying in their sins and being cast into a burning place of misery called hell. And the church of today determines that success is not found in the spiritual life of a person, but rather in the number of persons you can get to join your church and in the amount of brick and mortar you have on campus.

That's the shape we're in today in this country, friend. And we wonder why people aren't getting saved today. And we wonder why the nation's growing more and more wicked every day.

The answer is found in the great apostasy of the American church. So this afternoon, before we prepare our hearts to pray for revival, I must bring you a heart burden. And that heart burden is just a description of what the true gospel is.

I will bring you a brief exhortation on what true religion is, because chances are you won't find it in the majority of our churches today. And I'll sum it all up with a little story about a monkey and a nut. Do you know how they catch monkeys down in the jungles of South America? A monkey catcher will go into the jungle with a glass jug like the kind you keep apple cider in.

And that monkey catcher will take a nut like an acorn or some favorite nut that monkeys like, and he will drop that nut into the mouth of that jug. And then he'll set that jug down and he will back up and hide himself in the bushes. And he will wait until a monkey climbs down out of a tree and smells that nut.

The monkey will go over to that jug and take his paw like this. He'll stretch out his fingers until they are elongated and then slowly shove his hand into that jug to where his arm goes down deep into it to get that nut lying there on the bottom. Then the monkey grabs that nut in his paw and makes a fist and goes to bring his arm out of that jug.

But he can't do it, friends. His fist won't fit through that opening of that jug. And that monkey refuses to let loose of that nut.

So he'll scream and holler and jump and kick, but he won't do what's necessary. And the necessary thing is to let loose of that nut. So here comes the monkey catcher out of the bushes, and he grabs the monkey and gets him in a chokehold and takes that monkey's arm and forces the tendrils of that little monkey's paw to let loose of that nut.

And the monkey catcher has him another monkey. And that monkey is like the sinner who won't let loose of his sins. He will gladly accept Jesus as his Savior and join the church and scream and holler and jump up and down during the music, but he won't let go of his sins.

And standing back in the shadow is the devil, and he's on his way to catch another sinner in his sins and drag him down to hell, all because that sinner, like the monkey, won't let go of his sin. He clutches it tightly. He holds it to his bosom and cradles it.

He hugs his sin and won't let loose of it. And there comes a day when the old jug of death rolls down that hill and lands at his feet, and he dies in his sins. And there is the devil, the monkey catcher, so to speak, and he has caught yet another fool in his sins.

This is very somber, friends, and you better pay attention to God's word, because if you sleep through it and if you ignore it and if you disregard its warnings, then you will have no excuse if you die in your sins and drop into hell. My text is Ezekiel 18, 4, which states the soul that sinneth, it shall die. We live in a day, friends, where chances are you won't hear the true gospel preached in your ears.

That's because 90 percent of the churches refuse to preach it. We live in a day of a great famine in the land, a famine for hearing the word of God. We live in a day where God is absent from our churches and the Holy Spirit has been grieved away by our sins, and we feed poor sinners, a diluted gospel that has no power to save.

The watered-down gospel of your day and mine couldn't save a flea, much less an in-for-help church member who refuses to let go of their sin. Rather, we preach a sin in religion today. We speak of half a God, a God of only love.

We hand out a shrunken Jesus to people who feel no need of him in the first place. So they take him like what a piece of chewing gum and chew on him for a while. And then when the flavor goes away and their excitement and their religion cools, they just spit him out because they never really needed him anyhow to begin with.

They were just fine without him because he came with no conditions attached to him that you can leave him or take him when you were good and ready. And when you finally do accept this modern version of Jesus, you can have him and go to heaven and still hug your sins, still clutch your sin like that monkey in his nut and still stay out of hell. That's what we're told today.

That's what the churches tell us today. There's no need to repent. Just believe.

Why didn't you hear that the gospel's been modernized to keep up with modern man? You don't need to repent to be saved. Only believe, friends, only believe. The problem with that philosophy is that it's from the pit of hell because the devils believe and tremble and they are eternally doomed and damned.

But Jesus said, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Listen, friends, the bottom line of true religion is not how long you've been a member of a church or whether you serve on a deacon board or sing in the choir and attend your local church faithfully and give your money to support it. But rather, the dividing line of true religion is whether a person is a false professor or a true convert, or are they truly born again? And this is where the fruit of the tree must be examined in the life of a person.

But when a person loves the mercy of God so they can gain heaven, but they love their sin more and they hate holiness, they demonstrate through their life's actions that they only wanted Christ as a benefactor, but not a sovereign ruler over them. A true convert will embrace all the demands of Christ and his gospel. And through that vital union with the living Lord, he will hate what God hates and love what God loves.

He will want to obey God and his commands, and he will deny himself, take up his cross and follow a crucified Savior by living a crucified life. All that means is this. Who is sitting on the throne of your heart, friend? Is it you or is it the Lord Jesus? You see, friend, when a person comes safely to Christ, something happens.

A self is dethroned and another is enthroned there of the Lord Jesus Christ. No longer will you clutch that nut of sin and hang on to it for dear life to your own destruction, but rather you will loosen your grip on sin and turn in repentance from it to God. The bottom line of a person's faith is the foundation they rest upon.

Is it a false foundation through a false profession or is it a sound foundation of a sound convert? Well, how will you know? I can't read a person's heart and neither can you. There are weeding tears in every church. At least that's what my Bible tells me.

But I can say this, friend, you personally will know if you are like that monkey or not. If you are clutching your sin with a firm grasp and you refuse to part with it, then you must be aware that a sin will always take you farther than you want to go and leave you there longer than you want to stay. And if you stay in your sins, friends, you risk dying in your sins and dropping into hell.

Now, that's pretty plain, isn't it? Here is the monkey clutching that nut and refusing to open his paw to let that nut go to the risk of his own life, because the monkey catcher is in the shadows watching his every move and ready to pounce upon him and catch his prey. And here is the sinner who is clutching his sin and refusing to let it loose to his own great peril, because in the shadows lurks the devil just waiting for that sinner to hang on to that sin long enough to die in it. And then he and his demons will pounce on you and have their prey and drag you down to hell for the soul that sinneth it shall die.

At least that's what my Bible says. My Bible says that when a person exercise repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, that person will be pardoned and saved. Their sins will be washed in the blood.

And when that happens, God gives a person a new disposition for holiness, for without no one will see the Lord. Listen to what God says about it through his through his word in Romans. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die.

But if you through the spirit to mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live for as many as are led by the spirit of God. They are the sons of God, a monkey and a nut. Now you've just heard the gospel in a nutshell, friend.

What will you do about it? Let us pray.