The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, Hebrews 13:8. If there was a person that Jesus would not allow to be a part of the church when He was here, if I have those same spiritual characteristics, He would not allow me to be part of the church today. If you have your Bible, I would like to invite you to open itto the third chapterof the gospel of Luke. And in the third chapter we have the record of the baptism of Jesus inverses 21 and 22.Itsays in verse 22, "And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, 'You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased." Jesuswas filled with the Holy Spirit And we have the statement from His Father in heaven that with Him He was well pleased.

So if Jesus will not allow me to be a member of the church, I am stuck. The Holy Spirit and His Father in heaven, have both placed their seal upon what He said and what He did. And a very short time after His baptism we have the temptations of Jesus in Luke 4. And after His temptations we read, starling in verse 14, "And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read." This was the place where He had been going to church for over 25 years. It was a custom for anyone, any person who was an Israelite, could be given the book for the scripture reading. And Jesus was selected on this day to give the scripture reading in church. It says in verse 17, "And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. . .' "

Now what had happened at Jesus baptism just about six weeks before? What had happened? The Spirit of God descended upon Him. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism. That is where we get the word "messiah" from the Hebrew word "meshiak" which means "the anointed One". When did Jesus become the anointed One? When did He become the Messiah? The Greek word that is the equivalent of messiah is the word "christos" and that is where we get the English word "christ". The Christ is the Messiah or the anointed One; that is what the word Messiah means. And how was Jesus anointed? He was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism. And so now it is after His baptism. He has been anointed with the Holy Spirit and He finds this scripture in the book of Isaiah,-- a prophecy of the work of the Messiah. And by the way, those people understood that this prophecy that He read was a prophecy about the Messiah. And He says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor."

The gospel is to go to all classes of people. And in our world, very often, the poor get left out on the good things. Is that right? And so it is specified, particularly, that the Messiah was to preach the gospel to the poor.This scripture was fulfilled, although there were a few rich people like Zaccheus and later on, Joseph ofArimathea and Nicodemus who accepted the gospel. But the majority of those who accepted were poor. "He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted.. ." Now who are these broken hearted that the Messiah was to heal? Oh, it was true for people who were broken hearted for all sorts of reasons. When Mary and Martha were broken hearted because their brother Lazarus died, theirbroken hearts were healed when Jesus came, and their brother was raised. So Jesus ministered to people who were broken hearted because of the terrible tragedies that they had suffered in their lives. But this special people who were broken hearted were people who were broken hearted for a different reason--because they realized that they were great sinners.

Now there are many people today, even Adventists, who do not realize that they are great sinners. They think that other people are, but they are not. But do you know, the only way that you orl can be saved? We read in the Spirit of Prophecy that the only way that I can be saved is the same way that the chief of sinners can be saved. That is the only way, I can be saved. There are people whose hearts have never been broken.

Now just think this through, Jesus said this Himself "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Most people do not go to see a physician when they are well, or when they are feeling good. They go when they are hurt,or when they are sick. If my heart has never been broken because I do not realize my sinful condition, I will not seek healing. You do not seek healing for a disease you do not believe you have.

When Iwas in graduate school for a time I was working in an out-patient rehabilitation clinic for alcoholics. Ifound that one of our biggest problems with the person who had a problem with alcohol was that .most of them did not acknowledge that they had a problem with alcohol. Have you ever tried to help somebody get over a problem and they say, "I dont have a problem?" How are you going to help them? It is very frustrating. You cannot help someone get overa problem that they do not realize they have. You do not try to get over a problem you do not think you have. That is one of the big difficulties that even God has. I may see that someone else is a terrible sinner--and he is a sinner. And I may not realize that Im a sinner. I need a miracle in my life.

So Jesus told the Jews one time, that whosoever falls on this Rock--He was speaking of Himself, will be all broken up. Have you ever fallen on the Rock and seen yourself in comparison with Jesus Christ, at really close range? When you fall on a rock you see the rock at close range. And when we begin, by the Holy Spirit, to see the spiritual character of Jesus, we will realize that we are mined, spiritually. We are all mined, our heart is mined. That is why Ellen White says that the Christian life is not an improvement of the old. If your heart, my heart is mined it cannot be improved. We have to have a new heart. This heart has to be taken out and we have to have a new heart. But you do not realize your need of a new heart until the old heart is broken. As long as your old heart seems to be working all right, you will just go right on with a stony heart.

Jesus said, "I didnt come to call the righteous." That is why very few, comparatively, of the Jews could be saved because they thought they were righteous already. Do you rememberthe Pharisee and the publican who went to the temple. The Pharisee said, "I thank you that lam not like other men are." Did he confess his sins? He did not think he had any.

Oh friend, has your heart ever been broken? "Oh," you say, "yes, my heart was broken when my wife or my husband died orl got a divorce or a child died or some other terrible thing happened. My heart was broken." And if yourheart was broken over some awful experience like that, then you can begin to understand what a broken heart is all about. But has your heart ever been broken because of your sinful condition? Has it? You do not seek healing for a problem you do not know you have. Until your heart is broken, you will not seek for a new heart. But the Bible promise is in Ezekial 36:26, "I will give you a new heart and puta new spiritwithin you; Iwill take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Why does the Lord say we have a heart of stone? Because stone is hard. A person who has a stony heart is a person who is hard hearted. That hard heart has to come out. You need to have a heart of flesh.

I have whole sermons on the subject of the hardhearted. Back at a campmeeting recently, I preached two sermons just on that subject2. ". . .because of the hardness of your hearts.", I must not linger longer on that. However, that is not all Jesus came to do. He not only came to take away my stony heart and give me a heart of flesh, but He said He came here, "To preach deliverance to the captives." Luke 4:18 What kind of captives was He talking about? The people who were in slavery to sin. Jesus said later, "Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." John 8:34-36 Jesus said, "I came to preach deliverance to the captives." By the way, when He was talking about this, He was going to heal the broken hearted. Everybody was going to hear the gospel. He was going to proclaim liberty to the captives. Everybody in the synagogue was eager with anticipation. They loved what they were hearing. Their hearts were moved.

Ellen White says that the Holy Spirit had broken every barrier down and they were voicing hearty "amens" to what Jesus was saying, "Liberty to the captives". The person who had been a slave to sin, was going to be set free. That is the good news of the gospel. The devil tries to get people to thinkthey are free when they are still in slavery. The Bible talks about that in second Peter 2,--about people who promise other people liberty and they themselves are in bondage, they are slaves.

It is like Mark Twain said one time, he said, "Its easy to quite smoking. Ive quit a thousand times." Was he free orwas he not free? He was not free. He could talk about freedom all he wanted to, but he was not free. ButJesus said, "Ive come to set the captives free. To preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind." Now Jesus did literally give physical sight to the blind, but He was not talking here so much about physical sight. He was talking about spiritual sight.

That is Laodiceas problem. Look atwhatJesus said after He healed the blind man, who was born blind. "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."John 9:39 After Jesus came, there were some people who did not see, but they learned to see. There were other people who did see, but they became blind as a result of Jesus coming. But what Jesus wanted to do was to bring "recovery of sight to the blind"--To give spiritual vision.

By the way, are you praying daily for Spiritual eyesite? The Laodicean church is supposed to pray about this. Jesus says, "Come to Me and Ill give you some eye salve so that you can see." Are you praying, "Lord, help me to see spiritually what is really happening? What is the meaning of what is going on in the world? What should lunderstand about whats going on all around me? Do I have spiritual vision?"

Jesus came to give people spiritual vision so they could see. And they were loving everything that they heard. And then Jesus said, "To set at liberty those who are oppressed." What does it mean to be oppressed? It simply means that for one reason or another, you have been put into very difficult situations. The root meaning of the word oppressed comes from a word that means to narrow things down. You are going along the way and it just sort of gets narrower and narrower and so you are squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter until you cannot move. Oppressed means that you are pressed; pressed by difficult circumstances. And of course, the greatest oppression is the oppression of sin at work. Sinful habits and guilt can oppress a person until it actually makes a person go insane.

Most people who are Christian have no comprehension what it is like to live with constant guilt. There are many suicides, by the way, that are perpetrated because of guilt. And Jesus came to take your guilt away. Whatever you have done that is wrong, even if you are the most guilty one, Jesus wants to take that guilt away. All those oppressive things that are a result of sin, He wants to take away.

And also, last of all, number six, "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." The acceptable year of the Lord is now. Why? Because we are living right now in the days of grace. That is the acceptableyear of the Lord. When the acceptable year of the Lord is over, when the day of grace is over, then will begin the day of wrath. Paul says, "Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation." 11 Corinthians 6:2 "Now is the time." If there is anybody in this room and you have not followed the Lord, you have turned your back on Him, you have been an enemy of His, and you have made all kinds of mistakes in your life, committed all kinds of sin, right now because of the plan of salvation, you can choose to turn around. Right now is the acceptable year of the Lord. You can choose to turn around and follow Jesus and your sins can be forgiven and your guilt can be taken away. And all the stupid things thatyou may have done, all of that can be forgiven and taken away and you can be given a chance to start again.

That is one of the wonderful things about the gospel. The gospel gives people who have mined their lives, a chance to start again. We talked a little about this last night. I mentioned this in passing. If you want God to give you a chance to start again, what do you need to do to others? As you measure to them what is going to happen? It will be measured to you. If you want a second chance, be sure that you always allow other people a second chance.

When Jesus stood up in the temple to read,They were loving everything He said. They were excited. They knew that He claimed to be the Messiah. They had heard about what had happened since He had left Nazareth several weeks before. "Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him." Luke 4:20. And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." And when He said that, all of a sudden itbroughtthemup short. You know why? Because they began to thinkaboutthemselves. Jesus said, "Today this is fulfilled in your hearing.

Prior to this He had said. "He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; sent Me to heal the broken hearted"--that is those who are broken by sin, those who are captives in sin, those who are blind and those who are oppressed." [Luke 4:181 And they realized that what He Had said was all about them. They thought about the claims of the One who was addressing them. He had represented them as being in bondage. They had been addressed as prisoners, needing to be set free from the power of evil. They had been represented as being blind, in darkness, and needing to have recovery of sight. And theirpride was offended and their fears were aroused.

They saw that Jesus words indicated that His work as the Messiah was going to be completely different than what they had in mind. Their deeds might be investigated closely and they started to ask questions. They said in their minds, "Who is this Jesus?" Now they knew who He was. He had attended church there for over 25 years. He had been gone for about six or seven weeks. They knew that He claimed for Himself the glory of the Messiah, but, He was still the son ofacarpenterand hadworked at his trade there with His father, Joseph. They had seen Him toiling up and down the hills. They were familiar with Him. They were acquainted with His brothers and sisters and they knew about His life and labors. They had seen Him develop from a child into a young man and from a youth to an adult man. And although His life had been spotless, they were now not willing to believe that He was the "promised One." And as they opened the door of theirheartsto doubt, their hearts became harder for having been momentarily softened. Ellen White says in the bookDesire ofAges, 238, "Satan was determined that blind eyes should not that day be opened, nor souls bound in slavery be set at liberty. With intense energy he worked to fasten them in unbelieL" The devil was working on their hearts.

Can the devil work in the church? Evidently. This story, by the way, shows how dangerous doubt is. As soon as you open your mind to doubt, you have opened your mind to be worked on by the devil himself And the devil started working intensely, earnestly, on their minds "to fasten them in unbelieL" So they would not believe that this person was the Messiah. But right then nothingwas said, but Jesus gave them another evidence of who He was by reading their thoughts and telling them what they were thinking.

By the way, as you read through the gospel you will find that Jesus used this method many times. It is a technique that you and I cannot use because we cannot read each others hearts. But Jesus can read the heart and He gave men evidence many times that He knew exactly what they were thinking. In fact, in the Greek New Testament it says He "saw their thoughts". They do not translate that in English because people cannot figure out what it means to see somebodys thoughts. That is what it says in the Greek language. Jesus read their thoughts and He told them what they were thinking. And here is what He said, verse 23, "You will surely say this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country."

Then He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region ofSidon, to a woman who was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." Luke 4:24-27 NKJ. Now notice what happened when Jesus said that to them. "Then all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff. (verses 28,29) They were going to kill Him, a member of their own church, they were going to kill Him. "Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way."

Jesus had told them two stories. When He got done telling those two stories they were so angry they were ready to kill Him. And what were the two stories? Well, Jesus said, "In the days of Elijah the prophet there were many widows in Israel, but God did not send Elijah to any of them. 'A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and his own house. He sent Elijah clear outside to a heathen woman who was a widow and Elijah stayed there."

Jesus indicated to them that the servants whom God had chosen for a special work were not allowed to labor for a hardhearted and unbelieving people. But those who had hearts to feel and faith to believe were especially favored with evidences of His power through the prophets. Do you remember, the widow in Sidon, as a result of having Elijah at her house, when her son died what happened? The Lord raised that son back to life. She was greatly blessed for her hospitality to the prophet. A similar thing happened to Elisha. "In Elishas time," Jesus said, "there were many lepers in Israel, but none of them were cleansed, none of them were healed; except a heathen man.

"Our standing before God depends, not upon the amount of light we have received, but upon the use we make of what we have. Thus even the heathen who choose the right as far as they can distinguish it are in a more favorable condition than are those who have had great light, and profess to serve God, but who disregard the light, and by their daily life contradict their profession." Desire of Ages 239.

You see, friends, God draws a line and Jesus drew the same line. Let me read to you where the line is. This is in Signs of the Times, June 30, 1881, "God is honored, not so much by the great number, as by the character of those who serve Him. He appreciates moral worth. He draws the dividing line. . ." Here is where the dividing line is drawn. Everyone of us is on one side or the other of this line if we profess to be Christians. "He draws the dividing line between those who bear His name by profession only and those whose character shows them to be His children." Here is where the line is. On one side are those who make a profession, but their character is not in harmony with their profession. There is where God draws the dividing line. There is where the dividing line is that shows whether you are really part of the church or not. Are you just making a profession, are you a professed Seventh-day Adventist? Or does your character show that what you profess is really true? Which side of that dividing line are you on?

And so Jesus spoke to these people very plainly. He pressed "upon them the bitter truth that they had departed from God and had forfeited their claim to be His people." You can read that in Desire of Ages, 239. They had departed from God. Jesus pressed upon them the truth that they had departed from God and therefore they had forfeited their claim to be His people. They were not even part of the church. That is why they got so mad that they were going to kill Him.

By the way, if you teach people this today, they will get mad, too. Just try it and see. They do not want to hear it. And when Jesus told it to them, they became so angry that they wanted to kill Him because He had showed them where the dividing line was. He had showed them that they were on the wrong side of the line and they were not part of the people of God, they were not part of His church. You see, there is a difference between the professed church and the real church, or the true church. Is your profession, backed up by your character? Or is it just a profession only? That is where the dividing line is. I did not put it there. I did not say that. That is what the Spirit of Prophecy says. That is where God says, "I have drawn the line. That is where the dividing line is.

After He pressed home upon them "the root of their self-righteousness. . .that they had departed from God and forfeited their claim to be His people." they thought that through. He had told them they were in bondage and needed to be set free. They were blind and needed to receive sight. He said, "This day is this scripture fulfilled." Luke 4:21 [There was a gap here when the tape was turned over.] They were oppressed by sin and needed to be set free from sin. They could not take it. Ellen White says, "Every word cut like a knife as their real condition was set before them.

They now scorned the faith with which Jesus had at first inspired them. They would not admit that He who had sprung from poverty and lowliness was other than a common man." Desire of Ages 239. They committed the sin of unbelief. They had the evidence, but they chose not to believe. And when they chose not to believe, their unbelief developed very rapidly, in a period of minutes, into malice and they tried to kill Him. It says, "passing through the midst of them, He went His way Luke 4:30 In essence, He had told them that they were not part of the church. They did not like it. And Jesus did not avoid giving them one more opportunity to accept Him as Messiah. But They did not take it. And you can find this in Matthew 13. Now this occasion when He visited Nazareth was later on in His ministry. This was after Jesus had even sent out the twelve apostles preaching on a missionary journey so it was a long time after the first appearance in Nazareth that was recorded in Luke 4.

It says in Matthew 13:53-58, "Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there. When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, 'Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?' So they were offended at Him. But Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.' And He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief."

They were moved again by the Divine Spirit. It says here they were astonished at what they were taught. "But even now they would not admit that this Man who had been brought up among them was other than or greater than themselves". Desire of Ages 241 Why? Because in their hearts they still rankled that bitter memory that He claimed for Himself to be the Promised One. I am going to read this in a quotation now from Desire of Ages, 241 "He had really denied them a place with Israel." What had He done? He had denied them a place with Israel. He denied that they were part of Gods chosen people. He denied that they were part of the church. He had drawn a line and said, "My flock, my church is over here and you are on the other side of the line. Youre not a part."

There are several times recorded in the gospels where Jesus told the Jews that they were not part of His sheep, they were not part of His flock, they were not part of His church and it made them mad, but it was still true. "He had really denied them a place with Israel." He would not allow them to be a part of His church because of their unbelief. Their character was not in harmony with their profession. Their unbelief was the beginning of the end.

Friend, how is it with you and me? When you hear the gospel preached, if the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart and reveals to you some deficiency in your character that requires repentance, what do you do? Sometimes I hear people say something like this, "Well, you Historic Adventist preachers, all you can do is criticize." You know why people feel that way? When I first started being accused of that I thought, "What are they talking about?" But now I have figured it out. When you preach the word of God, if it cuts directly across what people are living and want to live and believe, you know what happens? They realize that either they have to change or else they have to figure out that the preacher was wrong, one or the other. See when Jesus was here, they figured out that if they accepted His teachings, their practices must be changed; they cherished hopes must be relinquished. They must go contrary to the teachings of their great leaders and thinkers. And that was not popular.

Truth was not popular in Jesus day. Commenting on that Ellen White says this in Desire of Ages, 242, "Truth was unpopular in Christs day. It is unpopular in our day. It has been unpopular ever since Satan first gave man a disrelish for it by presenting fables that lead to self-exaltation. Do we not today meet theories and doctrines that have no foundation in the word of God? Man cling as tenaciously to them as did the Jews to their traditions." Do you see that today? Ever seen someone who clings to what they believe? Now they cannot prove it to you from the word of God. It is just not there. It is very interesting to see the efforts used to prove these different theories.

"But it was not simply the absence of outward glory in His life, that led the Jews to reject Jesus. He was the embodiment of purity, and they were impure." Desire of Ages, 243. Oh friend, when 1 see His purity do you know what becomes evident to me? The same thing that became evident to them. If I see His purity, it becomes evident to me of my impurity. She says, "He dwelt among men an example of spotless integrity. His blameless life flashed light upon their hearts. His sincerity revealed their insincerity. It made manifest the hollowness of their pretentious piety, and discovered iniquity to them in its odious character. Such a light was unwelcome." Desire of Ages 243.

"Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." 1 John 3:3. That which is impure must become perfectly pure. By the way, our understanding of the word purity is very narrow and constrictive. People think that purity has to do mainly with the seventh commandment. Let me tell you something, purity has a much broader application than that. That is just one little narrow area of the whole concept of purity". . . .they could have borne the disappointment of their ambitious hopes better than they could bear Christs reproof of their sins, and the reproach they felt even from the presence of His purity."Desire of Ages 243. So they rejected Him. He told them plainly that they were not part of the church. He would not allow them to be part of the church. Oh, they went to church every week, but Jesus told them that they had forfeited their place as Gods people and He denied that they had any part in Israel.

From Sketches From the Life of Paul, 230 and onward, Ellen White goes over this experience that Jesus had in Nazareth. And she gives it an application as going down through the generations. The same thing that happened in Nazareth in that day, has continued to happen over and over and over again down through the generations of time. She says, "Christ presented before the assembly at Nazareth a fearful truth when He declared that with backsliding Israel there was no safety for the faithful messenger of God. They would not know His worth, or appreciate His labors. While they professed to have great zeal for the honor of God and the good of Israel, they were the worst enemies of both." They professed to be part of Israel and to want to build up Israel, yet what does she say they were? "They were the worst enemies of true Israel. "They were by precept and example leading the people further and further from obedience to God and purity and simplicity of faith, leading them where He could not reveal Himself as their defense in the day of trouble. . .

The Saviour's words of reproof to the men of Nazareth applied also in the case of Paul, the apostle, not only to the unbelieving Jews, but to his own brethren in the faith. The brethren of the apostle Paul are the other apostles, who are Christian leaders in the church--that is the Christian church. If you have not studied this out, maybe I should just mention that Ellen White is very clear over and over again that the apostle Paul had to stand alone. He had to stand alone not only against the apostle Peter, but against James and against all the other apostles. You can read about it in Acts of the Apostles, 199-200 and also in the Sketches From the Life of Paul. "Had the leaders in the church fully surrendered their feelings of bitterness toward the apostle, and accepted him as one specially called of God to bear the gospel to the Gentiles.. ." (By the way, you recall that the apostle Paul wrote over 50% of the books of the New Testament) "the Lord would have spared him to them to still labor for the salvation of souls.

He who sees the end from the beginning, and who understands the hearts of all, saw what would be the result of the envy and jealousy cherished toward Paul. God had not in His providence ordained that Paul's labors should so soon end; but He did not work a miracle to counteract the train of circumstances to which their own course [that is the course of the early Christian church leaders, including the apostles] gave rise."Sketches From The Life of Paul pg. 231.

She has applied it to the time of the apostle Paul, but now she is going to bring the same story of Nazareth that we just read right up to the present.1bid233, "There is the same dislike of reproof and correction among the professed people of God today as in the days of our Saviour. There is the same disposition to lean toward the world and to follow its mocking shadows. The presence of ambitious, selfish, time-serving members is imperiling the church, whose greatest danger is from worldly conformity. Such members are constantly exerting an influence to unite the church more closely with the world. They are doing the work of Satan. When God sends His servants with words of warning or counsel, these traitors to their holy trust reject the Heaven-sent message, and thus not only slight the grace of Christ themselves, but lead others also to smother their convictions and lose the proffered blessing. By resistance to the truth, the hearts of such are settling down into the fatal hardness of confirmed impenitence."

That is what happened, by the way, in Nazareth. When you get to heaven you will find very few people there from that church. People that went to church with Jesus Christ Himself for over 25 years, will almost all be lost. Jesus would not even allow them to be part of the church. He denied that they were part of the church. "They are deceiving themselves and deceiving others. They are Christians by profession. . ." Notice, which side of the line are they? God draws the dividing line between who? Between those who are His children by profession and those whose character shows that their profession is real. ". . . .they pay outward homage to Christ; they unite in the services of the sanctuary; and yet the heart, whose loyalty alone Jesus prizes, is estranged from Him. They have a name to live, but are dead." Sketches From the Life of Paul 233. They are part of the professed church. They have the name, but they are dead. They are not really part of the living church. You cannot be part of a living church and spiritually dead. Think that through.

"They have a name to live, but are dead. They are left to the darkness they have chosen, - the blackness of eternal night" Oh friend, God draws the line. It is a dividing line and everyone of us who professes the name of Christ is on one side of that line or the other. Are you a Christian by profession only or does your character back up what you profess?

The good news, friends, is that we are still in the accepted time; we are still in the acceptable year of the Lord. You can still cross the line. If you are willing to change, you can become part of the true church, the living church, even if you have been spiritually dead, just making a profession but not living it. Oh friend, we need to think seriously. Jesus told the Jews when He was here, He said, "Dont judge just according to appearance." What is the appearance? The appearance is those who make the profession. They have the appearance, but Jesus said, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." John 7:24.

Oh friend, you and I, we may be able to fool our families. We may be able to fool the whole church, but I want to tell you, we cannot fool God. God knows what is in my heart. He knows whether I am really sincere, whether I really want to do what is right or whether lam just going through the motions. When lam spiritually dead I usually am bound down with some kind of secret sin in my life. Oh friend, Jesus wants to set you free. He wants to set me free. He wants to set us free from the bondage of sin. He wants to give us eyes that will see spiritually what is going on. He wants to deliver us from the oppression of sin. And if we are willing, to fall on the Rock and be broken, He will give us a new heart. So often we are so hardhearted we do not even realize we need a new heart. We have to pray and say, "Lord, help me to get some idea about my condition so that I can know what I need to do." We need a new heart.

Oh friend, do you realize that up in heaven people do not talk to each other the way we talk to each other down here? They do not act toward each other the way we act to each other down here. They do not relate to each other up there the way we relate to each other down here. We need a new heart. Friend, the Lord is serious about this, too. I have been praying about it. And I am not in a frame of mind to make any denials whatsoever. I do not come to the Lord in prayer and act like I have a new heart already. I say, "Lord, I know, I read in Your word that Im hard hearted and I need a new heart and thats what I want. And Im acknowledging Your diagnosis of my problem."

Some people think that you just come to the Lord and when you are baptized it is all over, you are a Christian from then on and that is the way it is, that is it. Friends, that is not all there is to the plan of salvation. Ellen White says that This experience of receiving a new heart, or the conversion experience, that we need to have this experience every day until we are ready to be translated. Are you ready to be translated today? I am not and I am ready to confess it? I know that is the case. Well, if I am not ready to be translated today, what do I need? I need to be praying every day for a new heart, a heart of flesh. As I study this story in Luke 4, I see that one of the biggest problems was they were not willing to acknowledge their problem, therefore they were not willing to change. And this is a great danger for people who have been Christians for awhile. They are so sure that they have the right theology and they know the right doctrines and they think they are on the road. They just feel like they are saved. They do not realize they may be on the road, but they are not saved yet.

But friend, if you are willing to fall on the Rock and be broken, Jesus is willing to work this miracle out in your life and in my life. It is a process. It is not something that happens like the snap of your finger. It is a process just like birth is a process, that takes time. It is a process that has to take place in my heart and my mind. Oh friend, I do not want to be like those people in Nazareth and lose out. You are going to see most of them some day on the outside of the Holy City. I do not want to be like that. I want to be part of that group of people who not only profess, but their character backs up what they profess because God is working out in them a new heart, a new experience.

Do you want to have that experience, too? Well, if you want to have the experience, too, lets kneel down and pray and ask the Lord to give it to us.