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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Final Choice

A chained prisoner stood before an illustrious ruler to plead for his life.

The monarch trembled with terror as he listened to the words of a man who would soon be condemned to death.

I'll return in a moment with the amazing facts about the Prince and the Pauper.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

There's a wonderful picture that I wish to paint for you today.

3 people, 1 God's prophet, God's messenger, the other 2 a man and a woman who are living a very sinful life.

Paul is in prison awaiting his trial, and these 2 want some new excitement, something to amuse, something to entertain.

Time, though they live in sin, hangs heavily.

They're spending their money for that which is not bread, and their labor for that which satisfieth not.

These 2 want something else to excite, something to pass away the time, and so they send for God's prophet that he might entertain them.

The verse just before this says, He sent for Paul and heard him concerning faith in Christ.

Now listen, it takes courage to preach to 1 man or to 2 people.

There are those who can preach to the crowd, but it takes a man with a vision of the cross to preach to 2 people.

To see the little child may be a nation, and when we have the right spirit we shall see in 1 person something worth preaching to.

If 1 is sent to preach the truth, he must be unsparing and faithful.

He must declare the whole counsel of God.

It takes courage to preach to the man who sits in a high position when he's close to you, when he's at his own house and sitting at his table." That was the picture.

There sat Drusilla, there sat Felix, a prince, and here stood Paul, a pauper in terms of money, and he may have had the chains on him, the chains that told of suffering for Christ's sake.

Paul never had a better chance than then of making a friend of 1 who could help him when the trial came on.

His enemies were outside, his accusers were away.

Those who were thirsting for his blood were not in this little quiet meeting place amongst the 3.

If he'll only flatter, if he'll only congratulate instead of expostulate, if he'll fawn upon Felix, if he'll compromise, he may capture this man at any rate, and he'll have a friend at court when the day of trial comes.

But listen, Paul was not made of that material.

He could suffer, he could die, but he could not sin, he could not trim.

His message was burning in his very soul.

His message had come down to him as a, thus saith the Lord, and he seemed to take in the whole situation and to realize that this was his only chance of dealing personally, pointedly, piercingly with the sinner in front of him and the other sinner beside him.

And so he reasoned of the cross, not to begin with, of the shed blood, not to begin with.

Did he preach from this text, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, Not to begin with.

Did he preach from this text, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son?

Did he say, he that believeth on the Son shall be saved?

He talked about God's love for righteousness and holiness and God's hatred for sin.

He meant Felix to see and feel the awfulness of his own sin.

So he reasoned of rightness, wholeness, god-likeness, purity.

He brought him up to face the blazing light and the scorching presence of God's purity.

I don't think that that side of the truth in these days is presented as it ought to be, friends.

What you need to be told is that God hates sin as much today as when Christ hung on those nails of the cross, and that He does not look on sin with the least degree of allowance or tolerance.

Yes, he reasoned of righteousness to a man who was unrighteous.

He talked about self-control, temperance to the man who was intemperate and whose passion was running wild.

His whole being was in a state of anarchy, a rebel.

And so Paul talked of righteousness and judgment.

Friends, religion that honors God is right doing, walking straight, holding a constant witness to the cleansing power of the precious blood.

It's not hunting up meetings and preachers and going to conventions, taking your pencils and writing down the little notebooks, pretty little sayings, beautiful little extracts, pretty thoughts.

It's letting them blaze in your life when the convention is over, when the meetings pass, when the revival meetings are over.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 365 days in the year, all aglow, warm with holiness unto the Lord.

The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but rightness, rightness.

It's turning from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God.

It's the wicked man forsaking his wickedness and conformity to the will of God.

Righteousness is not just going to church, friends, or being baptized, or taking communion.

All that will fall into the proper place.

But first of all, righteousness, rightness, right relationship with heaven, readjustment with God, putting me in my right place with God, and God in His right place in me and in all my concerns.

What we want, friends, is sin dethroned, self-dethroned, Christ honored, Christ glorified, not only among the angels, but down here in the city, in your home, in your workshop, in your business.

Rightness, righteousness in your yard-major, righteousness in your weights and scales, righteousness in your ledger, to handle your ledger with as much religious feeling and fervor as you take your seat in the pew on the Sabbath and handle the communion cup.

I tell you this is a mighty sweeping gospel.

It's an unsparing gospel where sin is concerned.

He reasoned of righteousness, of temperance, and of judgment.

Don't forget that God hath appointed a day in which he'll judge the world.

Do not forget that there's a great white throne and that we'll have to stand before it.

Don't forget that we shall stand as we are and not as we seem to be, and that we'll have to give an account of the deeds done in the body.

And don't forget that it will not be a mock judgment, it'll be a righteous judgment, that God will be the judge and that he'll render to every man according as his work shall be.

Oh, to have listened to this preacher, to have heard Paul as he waxed fiery, flaming as he talked of righteousness and judgment!

Oh, I wish I could have seen the flash in his eyes, and the pointed finger, and the erect figure as he shook and the chains rattled while he lifted his eyes he could that hand pointing to the great white throne.

Oh, to have seen him as he peeled out the truth upon that man like a mighty thunderclap into his conscience and into his brain until he shook, until the seat shook on which he sat, until he clutched it and said, Hold, that will do, Paul.

My soul, my conscience, my better self, my illuminated judgment, everything.

God the Spirit, your Word in your presence, and these clanking chains tells me that I ought to be and what I ought to be before God, but it's not convenient.

When it is convenient, I'll send for thee." Can't you hear him marching down that corridor?

Can't you hear the rattle of those chains?

Don't you hear the slamming of the door that shuts the old saint up?

Glorious old Paul in that dungeon, for Christ's sake!

Listen, the slamming of that door is but the echo of another door which closed itself forever against those 2 when Paul was ordered off.

When he went, their chance went with him.

Oh, how different the story might have read!

But the man hugged his sin and would not yield.

Now why did not Felix become a Christian?

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