Clarifying True Biblical Salvation (Radio Interview)

VCY America presents Crosstalk, a nationwide call-in program discussing issues that have an effect on our families, our communities, our churches, our nation, and our world. Crosstalk, an opportunity for you to voice your concerns for biblical principles. And now live by satellite and around the world on the internet at vcyamerica.org. Here is today's Crosstalk.

Hi there, and welcome to Crosstalk today. I'm Ingrid Schleter, and I'm glad you joined us for the program today. We're going to be talking about a very important topic.

It has to do with evangelizing our young people. And for part of this program, we're actually going to be listening to a sermon that was preached, a message preached to 5,000 young people who were frankly stunned at the message that they received from the preacher Paul Washer. A group of young people, Southern Baptist young people, were gathered for a conference.

And, you know, kids were having a great time and having a lot of fun. And they came to this, to hear the message, prepared for them. And I would suggest that a lot of them assumed it was going to be another one of those teen-centered type messages where the speaker gets up and tells a lot of funny stories, and, you know, humor is supposed to engage young people.

And so, you know, you hear a lot of youth speakers use constant jokes, and they're funny guys. And they get up there, and they feel like they're going to win the young people by being funny. Well, Mr. Washer was not funny.

He issued a sermon that was dead serious and that preached right from the word of God, and I believe from the heart of God based on what his word tells us. And these 5,000 teens literally sat there stunned. Mr. Washer, his message was not well received by the leadership at this event.

In fact, he was never asked back to this kind of an event again after this message was preached. And after you hear excerpts from this sermon, you will understand why that is. The message of the cross is to them the parish foolishness, and hard preaching, coming from a heart of love.

Preaching is hard, not the heart behind it. But hard preaching from the word of God is not well received today in our soft, touchy-feely evangelical world. And youth ministry is so fraught with foolishness done in the name of God.

We hear the term, we've got to reach the kids, we've got to reach the kids. What does it mean to reach young people? What are we reaching them for, and what are we reaching them with? That's the answer. That's the question of the hour, and our guest today, Paul Washer, who's going to be joining us after we listen to some of the excerpts of this powerful message.

If you have young people, make sure to get a copy of this. You will be able to listen to the full sermon on the Cross Talk America website if you want to listen after the program when the archive gets put up a little bit later this afternoon. You can listen to the entire sermon.

It's an hour long. Imagine preaching for an hour to 5,000 teenagers. Imagine that.

Well, he did it, and he preached from the Word of God, and he preached a message that so desperately needs to be heard by young people today. I'm going to let you listen to that right now, our first excerpt. This is Reverend Paul Washer.

Matthew 7, verse 13. Jesus said, Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the way is broad, that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter through it.

For the gate is small, and the way is narrow, that leads to life. And there are few who find it. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but every bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter.

Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles? Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon them may be compared to a wise man who builds his house on the rock.

And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house. And yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

The rain fell and the floods came and winds blew and slammed against the house and it fell and great was its fall. I stand here today. I'm not troubled in my heart about your self-esteem.

I'm not troubled in my heart about whether or not you feel good about yourself, whether or not life is turning out like you want it to turn out or whether or not your checkbook is balanced. There's only one thing that gave me a sleepless night. There's only one thing that troubled me all throughout the morning, and that is this.

Within a hundred years, a great majority of people in this building will possibly be in hell. And many who even profess Jesus Christ as Lord will spend an eternity in hell. You say, Pastor, how can you say such a thing? I can say such a thing because I don't do my Christian work in America.

I spend most of my time preaching in South America, in Africa and Eastern Europe. And I want you to know that when you take a look at American Christianity, it is based more upon a godless culture than it is upon the word of God. And so many people are deceived and so many youth are deceived and so many adults are deceived into believing that because they prayed a prayer one time in their life, they're going to heaven.

And then when they look around at others who profess to know Christ and see those people also just as worldly as the world, and they compare themselves by themselves, nothing troubles their heart. They think, well, I'm the same as most in my youth group. I watch things I shouldn't watch on television and laugh about the very things that God hates.

I wear clothing that is sensual. I talk like the world. I walk like the world.

I love the music of the world. I love so much that's in the world. But bless God, I am a Christian.

Why am I a Christian? I don't look any different than most of the other people in my church. Why am I a Christian? Because there was a time in my life when I prayed and asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart. I want you to know that the greatest heresy in the American evangelical and Protestant church is that if you pray and ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart, he will definitely come in.

You will not find that in any place in Scripture. You will not find that anywhere in Baptist history until about 50 years ago. What you need to know is that salvation is by faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ.

And faith alone in Jesus Christ is preceded and followed by repentance. A turning away from sin. A hatred for the things that God hates and a love for the things that God loves.

A growing in holiness and a desire not to be like Britney Spears. Not to be like the world. And not to be like the great majority of American Christians.

But to be like Jesus Christ. I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you.

I didn't come here to get amens. I didn't come here to be applauded. I'm talking about you.

People so many times come up to me and they say, Oh, I'd love to follow you into Romania. I'd love to follow you into the Ukraine. I'd love to preach where you preached and planted churches in Peru in the jungle.

And I tell them, no you wouldn't. They say, yes I would. I say, no you wouldn't.

Why? Because you'd be excommunicated from the church down there. What we need to see. I'm not trying to be hard for the sake of being hard.

Do you realize how much love it takes to stand before 5,000 people and tell them that American Christianity is almost totally wrong? Do you know what it's going to cost me to never be asked back again to something like this? To be unpopular? Do you know why you do it? You don't do it because you get paid well. You don't do it because men love you. You do it because you love men.

And because more than that, you want to honor God. I want to tell you something. We're going to go into scripture and I want you to look at it as it really is.

Stop comparing yourself with others who call themselves Christians, who compare themselves with others who call themselves Christians. Compare yourself to the scripture. When someone, a young person, comes to a pastor or a youth minister and says, I'm not sure whether or not I'm saved, the youth minister will usually throw out a cliche.

Well, was there ever a time in your life when you prayed and asked Jesus to come into your heart? Well, yes. Were you sincere? Well, I don't know, but I think so. Well, you need to tell Satan to stop bothering you.

Did you write it in the back of your book, the back of the Bible, like the evangelist told you when you got saved to write down the date so that any time you doubted, you could point him to the Bible? What superstition has overcome our denomination? Do you know what the Bible tells Christians to do? Examine yourself. Test yourself in light of scripture to see if you are in the faith. Test yourself to see if you're Christian.

Do you realize if I dismissed us right now and told everyone to go knock on every door in this city, do you know what we would find out? 99% of the people, at least in this city, believe themselves to be believers. If you go back to your hometown and knock on every door, because I went back to my hometown after I got saved and knocked on every door. And you know what I found out? Everyone in my town is a Christian.

85% of them do not go to church. And those who do go to church are not concerned about holiness. They're not concerned about serving.

They're not concerned about being separate from the world. They're not concerned about the gospel being preached among the nations. But bless God, they're saved.

Why are they saved? Because some evangelist who should have spent less time preaching and more time studying his Bible told them they were saved. And he did it so that he could brag about how many people came forward in his next revival. I love you.

And there are men here who love you. And I want to go into Scripture now. Now that I've shocked you into life, I want you to listen to me.

Listen to the word of God and begin to ask yourself some questions. First of all, enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction.

And there are many who enter through it. There is a narrow gate. And you know, historically, one of the reasons I'm a Southern Baptist is because the Southern Baptists have always been quick.

When other denominations have failed to realize this, the Southern Baptists have always been quick to realize that there is one gate. There is one God. There is one mediator between God and man, and his name is Jesus Christ.

It's not multiple choice. Not every road leads to Rome. As a denomination, we have always told people what Jesus told people.

I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. So I praise God for that. That the only way any human being on this earth will ever be saved is through Jesus Christ.

That is all. Because you need to realize the Bible says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And you have no idea what that means.

That we were born radically depraved and God-hating. That we would have never sought God, never come to God. We have repelled against God, broken every law.

It's not just an issue that you have sinned. The issue is you've never done anything but sin. The Bible says in the prophets that even our greatest works are like filthy rags before God.

And because of that, you know what we deserve? The wrath of God. The holy hatred of God. You say, now wait a minute.

God doesn't hate anybody. God is love. No, my friend.

You need to understand something. Jesus Christ taught, the prophets taught, the apostles taught this. That apart from the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord, the only thing left for you is the wrath, the fierce anger of God.

You're listening to Paul Washer. And I hate to interrupt like crazy, but we have to take a break. I hope you will stay tuned.

This is a message he preached over an hour long to 5,000 young people at a Southern Baptist gathering. Managed to offend quite a few people. But I praise God for those pastors who are not afraid to offend but to preach the truth of God's word.

And we're going to continue on listening to this. We have another excerpt, and then we're going to be joined by Pastor Paul Washer as well as the pastor of his church. He's a missionary.

The pastor of his church, First Baptist Church of Muscle Shores, Alabama. We'll be continuing this in just a moment. You're listening to Crosstalk.

Back to Genesis with Dr. John Morris, scientist and president of the Institute for Creation Research. Dr. Morris, in an evolutionary sense, what do the terms advanced and primitive mean? Chris, primitive animals are thought to be those that evolved long ago, which gave rise to more and more advanced types. Single cell organisms are the most primitive, and then marine invertebrates and up to fish, amphibians, mammals, and eventually man, the most advanced of all.

Within each mammal type, evolutionists say that the more advanced ones are the ones that are modern. But extinct varieties were hardly primitive. Chris, the whole concept of primitive advances an evolutionary idea which is wrong on the face of it.

Evolution did not happen. God created each basic category, much as we see it today. None is more advanced than the other.

Each is complex. And that's the way I see it from a Back to Genesis perspective. Visit our website at icr.org. I'm Chris O'Brien.

Thanks for tuning in. When I speak in universities, they're always quick to point out, no, God cannot hate because God is love. And I tell you, God must hate because God is love.

You see, I love children, therefore I hate abortion. If I love that which is holy, I must hate that which is unholy. God is a holy God.

That's something that the Americans have forgotten. Many of the things that you love to do, God hates. Did you know that? Pray for a revival.

You're going to have a youth meeting. You want God to move. But before you go there, you watch programs on television that God absolutely despises.

And then you wonder why the Holy Spirit hasn't fallen on a place and why you have to create false fire and false excitement. Because God's not in it. God is a holy God.

And the only way you and I could ever be reconciled to a holy God is through the death of God's own son. When he hung on that tree. Now, listen to me.

If you're saved here tonight, you're not saved because the Romans and Jews rejected Jesus. You're not saved because they put a crown of thorns on his head. You're not saved because they ran a spear through his side.

And you're not saved even because they nailed him to a cross. Do you know why you're saved if you are saved? Because when Jesus Christ was hanging on that cross, he bore your sin, the sin of God's people. And all the fierce wrath of God that should fall upon you fell upon his only begotten son.

Someone had to pay that price. Someone had to die. It was God the Father who crushed his only begotten son, according to Isaiah 53.

It says it pleased Yahweh to crush him. People say the cross is a sign of how much man is worth. That's not true.

The cross is a sign of how depraved we really are. That it took the death of God's own son. The only thing that could save a people like us was the death of God's own son under the wrath of his own father paying the price.

Rising again from the dead. Powerful to save. This is the gospel of Jesus.

Now, what are you called upon to do? You say you go through the narrow gate. How do you do that? Jesus said the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand.

What must you do? And Mark, he tells us, repent and believe the gospel. You say, Brother Paul, I got saved by praying and asking Jesus Christ into my heart. And I'm sure you did.

But you weren't saved by a magic formula or some words you repeated after someone else. You were saved because you repented of your sins and you believed. And not only did you do that in the past, you continue to do it even until now.

Because when Jesus, a proper translation of that verse he gave is this. The kingdom of God has come. The time is fulfilled.

Now, spend the rest of your life repenting of your sins and believing in me. Conversion is not like a flu shot. Oh, I did that.

I repented. I believed. The question is, my friend, are you continuing to repent of sin? Are you continuing to believe? Because he who began a good work in you will finish it.

He will finish it. Now, we as Southern Baptists preach that you're supposed to go through that own one and only gate, which is Jesus Christ. But we as Southern Baptists have forgot something.

And I want youth ministers and pastors and everyone to listen to me. Parents, we have forgot a very important teaching in the gospel. It says that not only the gate is narrow, it says the path is narrow.

What we basically do is lead someone to Christ, lead someone in a prayer, and then they spend the rest of their life living just like the world. And if you deny me on this, I can bring the statistics to prove you wrong. Gallup poll, Barnum polls, every kind of poll you can possibly look at.

When it questions the morality of the church in America against the morality of those who claim to be lost in America, the polls find no difference. Now, that is statistics, has nothing to do with religious interpretation. Those are statistics.

Book after book is being churned out by theologian and philosopher and sociologist alike. What has happened to the church? We find out that abortion in the church is just as prevalent as outside the way in the world. We find that divorce is just as prevalent.

We find that immorality, you know, as well as I do. There are youth here right now who are practicing immorality and yet worshiping God in the same breath. You know, there are youth here that are doing drugs and yet coming to youth group, you know, watching and doing things that are not appropriate for a Christian.

And yet they're coming to the youth group, believe themselves satisfied, believe themselves safe. And no one is saying anything except this. They're carnal Christians.

They're really Christians. They're just carnal. That was a doctrine that started in a Baptist seminary that is not a Southern Baptist seminary several decades ago.

It is not biblical and it is not historical. My dear friend, there is no such thing as a carnal Christian. You say, no, wait a minute, Brother Paul.

First Corinthians chapter three. Are you not carnal? Paul said that. No, that's what Paul said.

You need to read the whole book to find out what he meant. You see, one of our problems, youth, listen to me. Most of our Christianity is based on cliches that we read on the back of Christian T-shirts.

Most of our Christianity comes from songwriters. And not the Bible. Most of what we believe to be true is dictated to us by our culture and not by the Bible.

The Bible never teaches that a person can be a genuine Christian and live in continuous carnality and wickedness and sin all the days of their life. But the Bible teaches that the genuine Christian has been given a new nature. The genuine Christian has a father who loves them and disciplines them and watches over them and cares for them.

My heart is breaking because you know as well as I do, young people, let's not be hypocrites about it. Let's not hide it. There are so many.

You know them. You might be one of them or you at least know that they're in your youth group. They come to youth group.

They do all this stuff, but in their heart, they're as wicked as wicked can be. There's no difference. There's no light.

Everything that the world does, they do. And it's appropriate. It's OK.

My friend, that's not Christianity. They're not in danger of losing their reward. They're in danger of hell.

They know not God. What do we teach? When was the last time you heard someone say there's not only a narrow gate into heaven, but a narrow way? Jesus indicates that one of the principal signs of being a genuine Christian is that you walk in the narrow way. Do you know what the sign for being a genuine Christian in America is? You prayed a prayer one time.

Isn't that amazing? What are you asked if you doubt your salvation? Did you pray a prayer one time? What does Scripture teach? Examine yourselves. Test yourselves in the light of Scripture to see if you're in the faith, because a Christian will be different. Now, am I saying that a Christian is without sin? No, because in First John, we learned that Christians do sin.

And if any man does not acknowledge his sin, he knows not God. He's not walking in the light. So what is the difference? What am I really getting at? What am I getting at is this.

If you are genuinely a born again Christian, a child of God, you will walk in the way of righteousness as a style of life. And if you step off that path of righteousness, the Father will come for you. He will discipline you.

He will put you back on that path. But if you profess to have gone through the narrow gate and yet you live in the broad way, just like all the other people in your high school, just like all the other people who are carnal and wicked. The Bible wants you to know that you should be terribly, terribly afraid.

But you know not God. I fear men who have spent most of their life telling other men that they are saved. I fear you if you've done that.

You don't tell men they are saved. You tell men how to be saved. God tells them they are saved.

What we have forgotten to believe is that salvation is a supernatural work of God. And those who have genuinely been converted, regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit is going to be a new creature. The Bible says if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

Amen. Paul Washer, our guest today. He's online with us right now.

And I want to say welcome to the program today. Hi, Paul. Are you there? I believe we're having some problem with our guest line today.

OK. Hello. Are you there? OK.

I think we're having some problems. We're going to get to him. I'm going to open our phone lines today.

And I'm going to let other listeners call in if you would like to 800-733-9829. Are you as concerned as I am about the youth in this country who are hearing and sitting under ministries that are telling them exactly what our guest today has said? Is our guest with us on the line? OK. We're having some problems.

We had a conference call this one. We have two guests at once. And so we're going to just sit tight here and see what we can do to get them both back on.

But in the meantime, I'm going to open our lines today. 800-733-9829. I wanted to share that sermon with you today because it really weighs on my heart.

We see so much of this in the American church. And not a day goes by that I don't get emails about some new crazy youth ministry underway that is designed to introduce the kids to Christianity based on fun. Based on fun.

Not the word of God, which was preached by our preacher today, Paul Washer. But based on the fact that you can improve your life and that God will really make your life A-OK. God is just really cool.

And what a tragedy it is as we see the results of that in the carnality of the American church. There is absolutely, indisputably a connection between the message these kids are getting, the message their parents are getting, and the truth of God's word. And what a tragedy it is because there's a deception going on.

And a lot of this deception is not even this new spirituality, new age stuff. It's just simply falsely assuring people that you can live like the devil and still hang on to heaven. How many of our Christian high schools are hotbeds of rebellion where we have young people who can do praise and worship in the chapel and then leave the chapel? I remember in high school two girls who used to argue over fine points of doctrine and one of them would go in the restroom and take her birth control pills for the weekend.

She was having a weekend with her boyfriend and she'd never forget to take that. Christian high school. But I think most out there who have attended Christian schools or have children in Christian schools can attest to this fact that there's something terribly wrong.

Something has gone wrong in our preaching. And I believe our preacher today, speaking before 5,000 teenagers, I believe he hit the nail right on the head. I am going to take some of our phone calls here while we attempt to figure out what happened to our guest today.

We're going to go to line 2 and see who's online with us today. Hi there. Hello.

Hi there. You're on the air. Yes.

I so am grateful for the word that's going out on your program this afternoon. I have so felt and sensed this whole thing going on in American churches. They want kids to be a part of a group and be a part of something and the way they get them to do that is to change the word of God by not giving them the pure, unadulterated word.

That's right. Amen to that. They're getting maybe a bit of the truth or a piece of the truth, but they're not getting the whole truth.

Yes, God is love, but there's the corollary, which is God's wrath, which renders love meaningless. Without that corollary of God's wrath against sin and against wickedness, why does love have any meaning whatsoever without that? Exactly. If you have a child of your own and you're the parent, you're not going to put him in front of a semi-truck and let the truck come without disciplining and teaching and training.

That's absolutely right. Listen, I appreciate you calling in today. We're hopefully going to get our guests on shortly, but thanks so much for those points today on Crosstalk.

Thank you. We're going to the break right now. We'll be back in just a moment.

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This book will help you reach your scientist friend for God. Call 1-800-729-9829. Welcome back to Crosstalk.

Today we're going to go to our guest line, and hopefully Reverend Paul Washer is with us. Hi there. Welcome to Crosstalk.

Hello. Hi. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you. It's a privilege to be here. Well, we've been listening to your message to the young people, the 5,000 young people, and we so appreciate the message that you brought not only to them but to us as well, listening here.

Can you just share with us a little bit about your heart when it comes to youth ministry? There's a lot of pastors who are simply not willing to speak the truth of God's word. Hello? Okay. You know, I had a feeling this was going to happen today.

Every time we have a program of peculiar significance when it comes to the gospel, this tends to happen. I'm not a charismatic, but I will say it this way. I have had this happen to me again and again.

Never mind. We're going to carry on here today. I'm going to see if we have a caller on line four.

Hello. Are you there? Yes, I am. Hi.

Welcome to Crosstalk. My name is Eleanor from Pensacola, Florida, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the messages and things that you put on that are such an asset to my life. I am totally blind, but I get spiritual food that fills me to capacity.

And, oh, I pray that many, many, many will listen and observe what this dear pastor is preaching because it's the word of truth, and it's God speaking to us, and we need to heed the call. And I have 13 brothers and sisters, and my mother passed away May 24th, and they're not even speaking to each other, and they say that they're godly people, and they don't know what God is all about. They don't even know Him personally.

And they say, well, we go to church. Well, that's not knowing God. That's right, Eleanor.

I'm glad you said that. That's very true. Knowing God is such an important part of our life, and I wake up every morning talking to Jesus, and Jesus helps me, and He cleanses me, and sets me on my right feet, and lets me know what He wants me to do and how He wants me to do it, and I couldn't live without Him.

I need Him so much each and every day, every moment of the day, and I thank you for all that you've added to my life. Oh, thank you so much, Eleanor, for calling today, and thank you for that testimony for the Lord. God bless you.

Appreciate that. We're going to go to Don from Lillian, Alabama. Don, welcome to Crosstalk.

Good afternoon, Ingrid. I disagree with--can you hear me? Yes. I disagree with this brother in Christ, the Southern Baptist.

I'm an independent Baptist, and I believe that he's mixing salvation, which is a free gift that happens one time, 2 Corinthians 6, verse 2b says, Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Okay, I don't believe that Paul Washer was saying that salvation has to be done over and over again.

He simply was saying the fact that if you are not in a state of contrition and repentance on a daily basis, there's something wrong with your heart. You heard him use the verse that he that is faithful, that he that has begun a good work in you is faithful to complete it. He followed up by saying that to clarify, lest anyone be mistaken.

And I am not going to get into controversy today. The gospel went forward in that message, and I am not going to engage in controversy. Sometimes it really frustrates me when we have a brother in Christ sharing the word of truth, and someone calls in and starts to debate.

That really, really irritates me, and Don, I'm trying to be gracious here, but I believe people understood exactly what he was saying, is that if you say that you're saved and you have absolutely no sorrow over sin, from the point that you quote a prayer to ask Jesus into your heart, and from that point on are not concerned about your sin, have no conscience about your sin, there's something wrong. Daily contrition and sorrow over our sins is the fruit of a true conversion. That is, yes, an act.

That justification is a one-time act, absolutely, but that comes when we truly believe and not when we've gone through some formula, which the church often tells our children, that we need to simply sign this card or pray a specific prayer as led by someone else. And I think that's important to clarify. Are we having any success at all with our guests today? Really, this is incredible.

We were unable to even get through to the phones. We had two phone lines going with the pastor and Paul Washer both on them. However, we're going to carry on.

We'll simply go to the phones and talk with God's people. Carolyn's calling from Jackson, Mississippi. And Carolyn, welcome to Crosstalk.

Thank you so much. I just want you to know that I've been a Christian school teacher for 17 years, and this issue has just really been prevalent for me. I mean, I just have dealt with young people over the years and have really had a burden for them just maybe having what I consider to be an easy believism, where once you just pray a prayer, that's the end of it.

And just really discipling young people, I think, is what's really needed. And right now I've just finished my first year of law school, and I'm wanting to be a Christian attorney, and I want to do maybe Christian liberty defense litigation, that kind of thing. But, Ingrid, I just want to thank you so much for your program, because sometimes I feel like I'm all alone out here.

I know I'm not, but sometimes it just feels like people look at me like I'm some kind of Jesus freak or something. And I don't mind being accused of that, but sometimes it's just nice to know there are like-minded Christians out there who are thinking about the same things and at least attempting to do what we can before the Lord comes back or before we go home. Oh, well said.

And you know something? I agree with you. There's such an encouragement and fellowship with like-minded believers in the times in which we live when there's such confusion and just divisiveness and stuff going on in the church. And we sometimes, even within the body of Christ, there's such... What is the term? People rip each other's hair off to the greater glory of God when we all truly are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so it's frustrating within the church and outside the church. So I'm so glad we can be an encouragement to you in times like this. I know exactly what you mean.

I just say be radical for Jesus. That's right. That's right.

It is all on the altar, and that's the way that we as believers are. We are here for God's glory alone, not for our own advancement, and we need to keep that in mind. That's right.

And the speaker also talked about knowing the Word, knowing the Word so that we will have the truth to disperse to people instead of just our own opinions or whatever is popular. Exactly right. The Word is a mirror that we hold up to ourselves.

And believe me, the Holy Spirit working through His Word is one of the most alarming things when you begin to see the sin in your own heart when you look at God's Word, and that's just one of the many reasons I should say that we need to be in the Word. Thank you, Carolyn. God bless you.

Thank you so much. God bless you. Appreciate the call from Jackson, Mississippi.

We are moving on again. Marcella from Newport, Oregon. Hi there.

Welcome to Crosstalk. Hello, and how are you? God bless you for this program today. I've got a 15-year-old that is here setting a thing to it, and he always says, Boosh is Polish for grandmother, and he always says, you're always praying this and praying that, and that's nice as well.

He says, I hope that I give a good reflection on others and to him also, but it's hard to find a good church today. Yes, it is. It is.

I mean, you go and they preach everything, and even the youth groups you have to watch. I agree completely with this man, and I don't know why no one would have him back. Can you understand that? I pray for him.

What is his name? Paul Washer, and I'm going to tell you that we seem unable to reach him at all. We've been cut off literally from him. I know.

Well, that's the devil's work, so we always pray for that too. That's right. Thank you.

Well, his ministry is called HeartCry Missionary Society. He travels all over the world. They plant churches and work with indigenous people to start up works within the cultures themselves.

Rather than spending a lot of money sending Westerners to have to spend years learning languages and the huge cost of that, they send missionaries over to train the indigenous people to begin their own churches and ministries there. They work in Africa, all over Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia. They work in China and India and Israel and Peru and South America.

They also have Eastern European countries where they work, Moldova and Romania. They're working all over. It's a missionary society.

You can visit their website. I'll just give that out right now. It's heartcrymissionary.com. heartcrymissionary.com if you'd like to see the work of Paul Washer.

He works with the church, one of his sponsoring churches, First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Muscle Shoals? Muscle Shoals, S-H-O-A-L-S, Alabama. Alabama.

Okay. Well, I thank you very much, and I sure hope that the devil will just cool off and let him come through. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you today. We're going to line three. Thank you so much for waiting, Mike.

Oh, thank you. I want to praise the Lord for brothers like this and sisters like you that are willing to speak the truth and sound doctrine. And I'm wondering, how can we get this particular sermon that you're playing so we can share it with the youth, more and more of the ones that aren't going to have access to this kind of sermon? I'd like to share it with youth in my neighborhood.

Absolutely. In fact, you can get the full sermon, and I encourage everyone to do that. They can.

It's available on our website. An MP3 of that whole sermon is available at crosstalkamerica.com. That's crosstalkamerica.com. And in just a few, usually it's a couple hours after the program, and they finally get the, they put up the actual audio of the program along with the information from the guests. So you can just visit our website to get that.

That is fantastic. God bless all of you. Thank you, Mike, for the encouragement.

Just keep it up. Thanks so much. Okay, bye-bye now.

Bye-bye. We're going to try one more time here to see if Brother Washer is with us. Paul, are you there? Yes, ma'am.

I apologize for this. Are you there? Yes, ma'am. Okay, I'm just getting paranoid here every time I hear a little click on the line.

I'm so thankful that you could be with us today. God bless you. Well, thank you very much.

It's a great privilege to be here. The question I was asking before when we lost you was just about your heart for youth ministry. This kind of sermon is so desperately needed for all of us, not just the young people.

But I especially have a heart for young people, having three older teenagers now and having seen what they went through in Christian schools and very much like what you talked about in the sermon today. Share with us just a little bit of your heart. Well, one of the great problems in America today is that we have forgotten the theology of the New Testament with regard to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the power of God unto salvation. And salvation is a supernatural work of God that occurs when the gospel is being preached correctly. Instead of relying simply upon God's power and God's truth, we've got to the point where we think we can somehow manipulate men into some form of salvation by using carnal means.

And it goes against the full trend of the New Testament. You see this again and again and again with the church growth, the whole church growth movement, is that we must appeal to the unregenerate to get them in the church and then somehow we'll sort of educate them towards the kingdom. What a difference from what we saw at Pentecost, for example, when the Word went forth and how the Holy Spirit fell and people were converted.

One of the things that is really a sign of the times, if you look back 100 years ago at most literature, Christian literature dealt with the nature of the gospel, the nature of salvation, and how to discern genuine conversion. If you go into a bookstore today, you'll not find a book like that on the shelf. But what you will find is a number of books, the entire bookstore filled with books on trying to make Christians, supposed Christians, live like sheep.

And the problem is because we've passed over true conversion, we're trying to make goats look like sheep, and it just won't happen. And when you hear the ministers, the media pastors of America today, such as Joel Osteen, talk about your best life now, which is rank heresy, because we know that the Christian motto should be our best life later in heaven, not now as we serve the Lord. In our mission society that we have, HeartCry Missionary Society, we work with indigenous pastors all over the world.

Some of them have suffered greatly. Some of them live on $50 a month. They live in dirt floor homes, beds infested with fleas, shoes made out of truck tires, and all because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And these are the men that I have lived with, I preach to, I teach. And then to come back to the United States and see such reductionism, it borders lines on just the ridiculous. We're going to continue with Paul Washer.

And please hold on. We're going to take another one-minute break, and we'll be right back. You're listening to Crosstalk.

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If you've never done so, invest one hour today learning your computer's time management program so you'll be fully effective in what God calls you to do as you learn to redeem the time. Redeeming the Time from LifeChangingSeminars.com We are back on Crosstalk today, and Paul Washer is our guest. And I just want you to continue.

I really feel compelled to just give you the time to address our audience today and not interfere with questions. What is on your heart for the American church today? Well, first of all, the main topic is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the means that God has given us for the conversion of men.

And that gospel begins with the very nature of God. God is not only, as some say, loving, but He is a holy and a just God. And the Bible also speaks about the nature of man.

Man is indeed a fallen creature. Terms often used are radically depraved. A biblical phrase would be dead in their sins.

That they do not want God, do not know God. Their will is bent against the reign of God. And the greatest problem in scripture is this.

If God, and Paul addresses this in Romans chapter 3, if God is truly just, then how can a just God forgive wicked men and still be just? As we know in a court of law in America, the things that we're always complaining about are judges who do not do justice. If a judge lets a criminal go, he's considered himself an abomination or a criminal. In Proverbs 17, 15, God says just that.

That to justify the wicked, anyone who does that, is an abomination before God. And yet the Bible clearly says that God justifies the wicked. So the great question is, how can a just and holy God justify wicked men and still be just? The answer is found in the cross of Jesus Christ.

God becomes a man. The Son of God walks on this earth as God and man. According to the predetermined plan of God, He goes to the cross.

On the cross, He bears the sins of men. He bears their sin. And then He cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In that moment, the Father turns away from His only begotten Son because His only begotten Son has become sin on our behalf.

Or as many old theologians used to say, He stood in our law place. And then something that most people do not understand is this, that when Jesus Christ was on that cross, He suffered the wrath of Almighty God. Many people think somehow that because the Romans nailed Jesus to a cross and they beat Him, that somehow the suffering inflicted upon Jesus by the hands of men somehow paid for our sin.

And that is not true. Although that was part of it, our sins were paid for because when the Son was on that tree, He bore our sin. And all the wrath of a just and holy God fell upon His Son, as it says in Scripture, and it pleased the Lord to crush Him.

Someone had to die, separated, separated from God. Someone had to die under the wrath of God to satisfy His justice. And on that tree, that's what Jesus did.

And so before He died, He cried out, It is finished. And it's finished indeed, in the fact that He paid for all our crimes against God. He satisfied justice.

Now, a just God can forgive and justify unrighteous men because He has atoned for their sin Himself. And Jesus Christ did that when He died. And then He was raised for or because of our justification.

And that means that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is God's seal, that that was indeed His Son and that death indeed satisfied justice. Having resurrected from the dead, Jesus Christ is ascended to the right hand of the Father. And all men, God commands all men everywhere to repent of their sins, to turn from their fighting against Him, to acknowledge their crimes before Him, to give up all hope in their own good works for salvation and to throw themselves upon Christ.

Salvation is a free gift and it is by faith. But here is where we've gone wrong and where many of the church had gone wrong prior to the preaching of Whitfield and Daniel Rowlands and the great awakenings. And it's this.

We've turned the gospel into five things God wants you to know. Let me give you an example. Someone will say, ask a person when they're evangelizing, do you know you're a sinner? The person says yes.

They'll go, would you like to go to heaven? If the person says yes, then they go, would you like to pray this prayer? It won't take much time. Now, the question is not do you recognize you're a sinner? The question is has God done such a work in your heart on hearing the gospel that you now hate the sin you once loved and desire to depart from it? And the question is not do you want to go to heaven? The devil wants to go to heaven. I mean, everybody in America wants to go to heaven.

They just don't want God to be there when they get there. The question is not do you want to go to heaven? The question is since you've heard the gospel, has God done such a work in your life that the God you once hated and ignored you now esteem as worthy of all things and you desire and you seek for him? And then the question is not do you want to pray a prayer? That is a gross distortion of Romans chapter 10. It was not practiced in early Christian history.

It wasn't practiced anywhere up until just half a century ago in America. The thing is, if this is true and God has done this work, repent. Give up striving against him.

Give up trying to earn your own salvation and throw yourself upon Christ. Now another thing that's very important in old preaching, biblical preaching, is that although I must counsel men how to be saved and even counsel them using Scripture with regard to the assurance of salvation, I have no power to tell someone just because they repeated a prayer and were halfway sincere that now Christ has entered their heart. That is a work of the Holy Spirit, Him applying Scripture.

When someone is saved, truly converted, you do not have to tell them they are saved. They will tell you. Well, you know, Paul, I am so sorry that we are almost out of time, but the Lord enabled you to get that in, the most important part that we all needed to hear.

And I pray at some point in the future that we will be able to have you back on again and we will pray that the phone lines will work properly to get you on so that you can share even more from God's Word, because what you're saying is so critical in this hour. I did tell people during the break earlier, I should say earlier, when you were not with us, about your ministry, heartcrymissionary.com is your website. And I pray that people listening today will see the work that you are doing and pray for what you're doing around the world.

And all we can say is the Lord bless you and thank you for taking the time to share the true gospel with us today. Well, thank you. Thanks for joining us, everyone, on Crosstalk.

You can hear the whole sermon that we aired some excerpts from on our website, crosstalkamerica.com. The whole sermon that we heard earlier will be on there, an MP3 of it, and we pray that it will be a blessing to you. Share it with someone else. Thanks for joining us today.

I'm Ingrid Schleter. You've been listening to Crosstalk via satellite and the Internet from VCY America. News expressed may or may not be available to those of this station.

For a cassette or CD of today's program, send a donation of $5 or more to VCY Tape Ministry, 3434 West Kilbourne Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53208. Or download by RSS or podcast when you visit crosstalkamerica.com. And join us again for Crosstalk.