Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to this Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Knotts, and I'm delighted you have joined us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The message you will hear today is one I preached at Faith Tabernacle Church under a stirring and compelling anointing. It's entitled "Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up?"

R. G. Hardy: Because you get your eyes on someone, and I've done it before in the past. There were certain evangelists I loved. I couldn't wait for their show to come on. I hung on every word they preached, and they preached the truth. There is this one I have in mind; nobody preached better than him. I mean, he preached it hot, heavy, and down the line. I loved it. I got his magazine; I would devour it. I would take notes.

And this person had a huge moral fall. I was devastated. When it first came out, I said, "No, I refuse to believe it." I said it was the media, they had made it up, and it was some campaign. I refused to believe it until I saw him say, "I have sinned," with tears coming down his face. And I thought, "Oh my Lord and my God." It really upset me.

Now, did it make me want to quit the Lord? No, because my salvation wasn't in this guy. But I can see where babies in Christ and people that don't know yet, I can see where it threw them for a loop. This person did not commit the unpardonable sin; it was forgivable. God forgave them. They preached the gospel again. But here is the thing about it: it is the damage and the fallout that it does. Amen. It can happen to any of us.

So, we have got to not put our eyes on a preacher. Everybody has their favorite preachers. Come on, tell the truth. If you like the way somebody preaches better than somebody else, that is your personal prerogative. You still support and love the other preachers. You love them too, and you support them, but there are some that you just get, and you love to hear them preach.

But don't ever put people up on a pedestal. Amen. Don't ever put a preacher on a pedestal because I guarantee you preachers have a bigger target on their back. If the devil can get a preacher to mess up, just like I just talked about, he can cause many people to get shook up. The worst thing is it brings a reproach to the name of Jesus to those who don't know. Amen.

We have got to be pure even as he is pure. The way that we do that is by the washing of the water of the Word. Every now and then, you need a message like this to give you a good spiritual bath. I am going to tell you, I didn't decide on this message until yesterday. I have been trying to get a sweet family message—family, friends. I wanted to be friendly. I want to be family. I want to be nice. I want a message where everybody is in love.

I don't know how many I started. I got piles of notes halfway done, and the Lord kept bringing me back to this. Yesterday—now I don't always advise you to do this—but yesterday, I said, "Now, Lord, if I know I have the message you want, I am good because then I know when I get out there you will anoint it. If I try to do one I chose, we might get by, but it isn't going to be—" I tell you, there is an anointing here today.

I literally took about six messages, put them in a pile, closed my eyes, mixed them all up—God is my witness—I reached in and pulled out, and I looked at it, and it said, "Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up?" After that, all the stress, all the worry, all the nerves, all the anxiety was gone because I knew that once the Holy Ghost had what he wanted, he would do the job. Amen.

I am here to tell you that God is saying it's time to have your heart purified, that you have clean hands, that Paul said, "I would that men everywhere would lift up holy hands without doubt, without wrath, and without disputing." We could preach a whole day just on that, but we won't. We have got to get rid of all our disputations. We have got to get rid of all of our arguing and all that strife and all our envy and all our jealousy because we can't lift up clean hands if we have got that stuff going on. Amen.

What did we read here? "He shall receive the blessing from the Lord. He shall receive righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of real Christians. Amen. Who walk in these things." All right, the companion scripture for Psalm 24 is Psalm 15, so I always read these two together. When I was in school, we still had Bible reading every morning, and we always read from the Psalms.

We had like five or six Psalms that we read from every day and repeated them, and 15 and 24 were two of them. These have been in my spirit since I was a little child, and I think to myself: they don't have that in school anymore. Who's thinking about having clean hands and pure hearts? Nobody. But let's read Psalm 15. "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?"

Then he answers this question: "He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart." Now altogether, he is going to give 11 qualifications, and we are not going to park on all of them because we would be here too long. But now, that's the good things he does. These are the things he doesn't do. "He backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor."

In whose eyes a vile person is condemned, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. He swears to his own hurt and changes not. He that putteth not out his money to usury nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved." So he walks uprightly, he works righteousness, he speaks the truth in his heart. I think we have pretty well covered that.

He does not backbite with his tongue; he's not a backstabber. Before you backbite against your neighbor, you bite your own tongue. When you get ready to say something, bite your own tongue, and you only have to do that a few times, and then the thought of it will be all you have to do. You won't have to bite. Amen. He doesn't do evil to his neighbor. He doesn't take up a reproach. He doesn't join in others.

And here's an important one. I want to see numbers seven and eight. "In whose eyes a vile person is condemned, but he honors them that fear the Lord." We live in a day and we never thought it could happen, but the prophet said men will call good evil and evil good. You can be a scoundrel, and if you're charismatic, people will just say, "Oh, he's a jolly good fellow." They don't care what kind of life you live.

They don't care if you've been caught lying, you've been caught telling this side one thing and the other side another thing. They don't care. If you're charismatic and you have a way with words and you can just speak great oratory things, people will just latch on to you. And someone else that can be speaking truth and righteousness and godly things, they will just talk about—that's the day that we live in.

People don't realize that one of the reasons why Jesus was anointed—and I'm quoting now from Psalm 45 and Hebrews the first chapter—one of the reasons why God anointed Jesus is because he loved righteousness and hated iniquity. People don't understand that there is such a thing as hating ungodliness. Real Christians hate sin.

Where some people get messed up is they hate sinners. We are not talking about hating sinners. God doesn't hate sinners. He loves sinners, but he hates their sin because their sin will drag them to hell. Their sin is going to cause them to be alienated from him forever. God doesn't hate sinners, but he hates the sin. No, God does not hate homosexuals, but he hates homosexuality.

He hates it so much he wiped two cities off the face of the earth because of that sin. Amen. God hates adultery because he sees it destroys families and he says that it cheats him out of a godly seed. That's what he said in Malachi the second chapter. "I hate divorce. Why have you done this? You're cheating me out of a godly seed. You have dealt treacherously with your wives." Amen.

God hates these things. He hates the shedding of innocent blood. God hates abortion. Amen. But God forgives those who have fallen into this. God loves them. He forgives them. It's not the unpardonable sin, folks. And homosexuality is not the unpardonable sin. In fact, Paul said in 2 Corinthians the sixth chapter, "And such were some of you, but now you're washed, but now you're sanctified, but now you're justified by the blood of Jesus."

Oh, what can wash away my sin? No matter what the sin is, the blood of Jesus. He's able to save to the uttermost. He's able to cleanse everyone that comes to him by Christ Jesus. Amen. You condemn the guilty. Today it is just the opposite. They condemn the innocent and they let the guilty off. We have seen it. We have watched on television court cases of famous people where the evidence was so overwhelming.

We have watched these people get off and people cheer. Later on, once they're past being able to be double jeopardy—you can't trial them the second time once they get off—they admit to their guilt because that is the day we live in. If you're a celebrity, people will forgive you things because people are celebrity crazy and celebrity conscious in this world. Okay, so we don't do those things. We do not exploit people just because they're poor or they're fatherless.

People that cannot defend themselves. Amen. We defend the weak, the fatherless, and the poor. In fact, the Bible teaches us that that's what real Christians do. James said in James 1:27, "True religion, true Christianity and undefiled is to help the poor, the motherless, the widows, the orphans." That is true Christianity. Amen.

He that doeth these things shall never be moved. Now, saints, most of you are excited, and you jumped up more than once to say, "I'm a real Christian." You got all enthusiastic and you're all happy. But I have got to warn you: real Christians are hated. Real Christians are persecuted. Amen. Turn in Proverbs the 29th chapter. 29:25: "The fear of man brings a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Oh, many will seek the ruler's favor, but every man's judgment cometh from the Lord."

Verse 27: "An unjust man, an unrighteous man, is an abomination to the just, and he that is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked." How many think that's pretty clear? Amen. First of all, the fear of man brings a snare. You have got to make up your mind that if you're going to stand up for Jesus and truth and righteousness, you're going to have a lot of people come against you. But you cannot be snared by the fear of man.

Why will you fear the face of clay that can do nothing to you? The worst they can do is put you in jail; the worst they can do maybe is kill you. But what about standing before the Judge of all heaven and earth, who can put you in hell or let you in his heaven? There is no man that has the keys to hell, death, and the grave but Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Don't fear the face of man. Don't let yourself be intimidated.

Get ready because your judgment comes from the Lord. There is no man—there is no congressman, senator, president, vice president, governor, mayor, councilman—no one—that is going to give you your final judgment. God himself alone will. Amen. We know that there's thousands of innocent people sitting in jail. We know that. That is a fact. They've gotten thousands out through DNA that have been sitting there for 20 years.

That is just a drop in the bucket, the ones they've gotten out. There's thousands sitting there, and some of them will never get out of jail and they're innocent while the real perpetrator is walking around probably doing it again and again and again. But one day we're all going to stand before the judgment seat of God, and we're all going to give an account for what we've done on this earth. Amen.

We're all going to stand before him. He said, "He who knew the Master's will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes." Do you know what that means? That means that hell is as horrible and terrible as it is, and you can't even begin to understand how horrendous hell is. It's not temporary; it's forever and ever. As awful as it is, there are degrees of judgment and punishment in hell because those who knew the way, those who knew the truth, and they erred from it, they're going to have a greater judgment.

God is talking to some people here today. I wrote a little letter to the editor a couple of weeks ago about this whole same-sex marriage thing. And the Sun put it in the paper, and they put it on their website. On the website they put the whole article; the paper they cut out three or four things that I said. I don't know if they did it for space or they didn't like what I said. But on the website, they did put it on there.

Well, the website is open for instantaneous comments. Some of the comments—I mean, I expect people who are for same-sex marriage to argue their case. But the viciousness—they don't know me. They don't know who I am. The viciousness, the hatred in their words and the way they said it, where I was like, "My God, if they could actually face me, they would probably spit in my face."

Get ready. If you stand up for righteousness, you're going to be an abomination. You are an abomination to the unrighteous, and your righteousness rubs them the wrong way. So get ready for it. Amen. Jesus said in 1 John 3:13, "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you." Don't be surprised, but rather expect it. Get ready for it. He said, "If you were of this world, the world would love you because the world loves its own."

In fact, he said that in John chapter 15, verse 18: "If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you." You're in good company. He said, "If you were of the world, the world would love his own, but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Did the world hate Jesus? Yes. They tried to stone him three times, and they did finally crucify him.

The time that he raised Lazarus from the dead—a true bona fide, absolute over-the-top miracle, someone who had been dead for four days and was rotting because they didn't embalm him—and when word got everywhere that this man Lazarus was raised from the dead, do you know that the enemies of Jesus wanted to kill Lazarus? They wanted to kill Lazarus because he was walking proof and evidence that Jesus was a miracle worker.

We know that one of them actually got a revelation and said, "We know no man can do these miracles except God be with him." Amen. They hated Jesus; they're going to hate you. Why did they hate Jesus? John 3, verse 19: "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light."

Neither will come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved, lest his deeds should be exposed." But he that does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God. It boils down to this: people that do not want to do the truth are not going to come to the light, and if you're a light shining, you reprove them, you convict them, you remind them all the time that they're not right with God.

Because they're not ready to get right and get rid of their sin, they don't want anything to do with you. They are going to persecute you and turn on you when you let your light shine. Get ready. Jesus said you will be rejected, ridiculed, and reviled of all men. Especially when you start preaching Jesus Christ. You can even talk about God as long as it's a generic God. You might even get away with saying Buddha; you might get away with saying Allah.

But if you say Jesus Christ, if you stand up as a real Christian and say "Jesus Christ," you better get ready because you're going to be persecuted. Jesus said in Matthew fifth chapter, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake." He said, "When you are righteous, listen what he said, "when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake."

If you're a real Christian and they talk about you and say all these evil things about you, they're going to be false. And you're going to take it for Jesus' sake. There is no point in you trying to defend yourself. You're going to take it for Jesus' sake. Amen. You know they're going to revile you. I have a certain idea what it means, but I wanted to look it up in my Greek lexicon this morning.

I went to the Greek lexicon, and here's what revile means: it means to defame and to assail with opprobrious words. What in the world is opprobrious? I mean, I know a lot of words and I have a fairly good vocabulary, but I have to tell you, I never heard of that one before. And I thought, "Well, now I have to go to the English dictionary and see what opprobrious means."

It means to treat someone with contemptuous abuse. It means to scorn—now listen to this—to scorn with ignominy. Ignominy. I have seen that word, but if you really put me on the spot and asked me to define it, I might not be sure. I had to get the dictionary out again and see what that word means. And that means to publicly disgrace or dishonor.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: That is what Jesus said is going to happen to you if you stand up to be a real Christian. You're going to find that they're going to try to publicly disgrace you and dishonor you because that's the only way they can get out from under the conviction that your godly, righteous life is putting on them. So whatever you do, don't give them anything. Walk right, keep your heart pure, keep your heart clean, walk righteously. Don't lose your temper on the job. Don't do anything that would give them anything because they're going to lie on you anyway.

Are you ready for this? Are you ready to be a real Christian? Are you ready for opprobrious words to be said against you? You're not as excited as you were before. Amen. Timothy said in 2 Timothy 3:12, "Yea, and all—somebody said all—all they that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall—shall suffer persecution." Jesus said not only shall you suffer this persecution, but he said, "Rejoice, rejoice and be glad because you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world." Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Many people are going to hate you, many people are going to lie on you, many people are going to disgrace you, but there is going to be somebody whose heart is open to the Lord. There is going to be somebody that wants to know the truth. There is going to be somebody that wants to see a real, genuine Christian. Amen. And you can be that somebody.

R. G. Hardy: I want to tell you this morning, Sister Sharon, I am not perfect, but I am authentic. I am real. Amen. Sometimes I make mistakes; sometimes I don't always do it right. I don't want you to ever think that for one moment. But I want to tell you, I'm real. I'm going all the way with Jesus. I'm going to stand up for righteousness. Are you going to stand up? Are you a real Christian? I dare you today. Will the real Christians please stand up? Hallelujah. And say, "I'm going to live right, I'm going to walk right, I'm going to let my light shine for Jesus."

It all boils down to this, saints. Jesus said, "For this purpose came I into the world, that I might bear witness of the truth, and everyone that is of the truth hears my voice." I want you to bow your heads here this morning. You have heard the truth. I have not given you Sister Sharon's opinion. I have given you scores of scriptures, and there are many more I had that I didn't even get to because of time.

I'm giving you the word of God. It is the Word. This is what Jesus said. Amen. He said in the last days mockers and scorners would come, and he said many will be offended in me. He said, "Blessed are they who are not offended in me." Some people are offended because, like Jesus said, the light is reproving them and they don't want to give up their sin.

It may be something as ordinary as promiscuous sex or drugs or alcohol. Yes, that's the first thing we think of when we think of sin. But your sin could be a proud heart. Your sin could be that you have rejected the truth of the word of God. Your sin could be that you think more highly of yourself than you ought, and you think you stand pretty good.

He says, "Take heed lest you fall." Because he said, "A proud heart and a proud look I will not suffer." He said proud feet will stumble. God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. I said he gives grace to the humble. And if you're here today and you're not a real Christian—maybe you've never even ever been a Christian. Maybe you think Christian means somebody who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

That is not what a Christian is. The Bible says even the devils believe and tremble. The demons believe that Jesus is the Son of God. In fact, they yelled out loud when he would walk into the synagogue, "Oh, are you the Holy One of God? You come to torment us before our time." The devil knows that Jesus is the Son of God. That doesn't make you a Christian.

I don't care if your mother baptized you. I don't care if they wrote your name in the church records. I don't care if your mother brought you—she was pregnant with you going to church and then when you were born she raised you in church. You have got to know Jesus Christ for yourself. God has no grandchildren. You're going to stand before the Lord, and woe unto those who knew the way of truth and erred from it.

If you have never been a Christian—and maybe you didn't ever get it before—but I'm telling you today the Lord is calling you. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door of your heart and I'm knocking. And if you open, I will come in. My Father will come in, and we will have fellowship with you." I don't care what you've done. I don't care what your past is.

I don't care what sins you've gotten yourselves involved in. I want you to know the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse you from all sin and all unrighteousness. If you want to be saved today—and no one's looking around, but God is looking—if you want to be saved today, let me see your hand. Are you willing to say, "I want to be saved"? I see those hands, and more importantly, God sees those hands.

Now there's others of you. You've been in church, but you don't live right. You keep falling into a double life. It's time to make up your mind to get in and go all the way. As long as you have got half of your heart in the world, you will never, ever be able to live the godly life. Jesus said no man can serve two masters. He will love one and hate the other; he will cling to one and despise the other.

You are going to have to make up your mind. If you want Jesus, you're going to let go of the world. You're going to let go of those things. You're going to let go of your illicit love affair. You're going to let go of that secret sin of pornography. You're going to let go of that secret sin of drugs and alcohol. You're going to let go. You're going to get rid of that bad temper that keeps making you curse and then that shoots your testimony to bits.

You are going to get rid of all that. You're going to say, "I want to be delivered" because whom the Son sets free is free indeed. I'm not going to ask you to lift your hand and say, "I've been a hypocrite." I'm not going to do that. I'm not here to shame or humiliate anybody. But you know if you haven't been living and walking right, and today is a turning point. Today is the day when God wants to turn it around.

God is saying in this wicked and perverse and crooked generation—listen to the words of Jesus—he said, "If you are ashamed of me in front of this wicked and perverse and crooked generation, I will be ashamed of you in front of my Father and the holy angels." He said, "If you deny me in front of this wicked and perverse crooked generation, I will deny you. I will say I never knew you. Depart from me, ye worker of iniquity."

You don't want that to be your eternal consequence. Then you need to get right with God. Some of you the Lord's talking to you. You know that you've had one foot in the church and one foot in the world, and you're just trying to walk the tightrope, and you're just trying to make it all work. But sometimes guilt gets on you so bad you can hardly stand it. But you always conveniently stifle it and push it away.

But the Lord is saying today is the day. It's time to get right. Make a decision. You have to make a decision. If God is God, let him be God. If the god of this world is God, if Baal is God, if Satan the god of this world—and make no mistake, if you're in the world then Satan's your god because he's the god of this world. If that's the god you want, then you're going to be enslaved to him.

The Lord is saying today is the day for you to get right and get free. And if you want to come up here today, whether it's to be saved for the first time or whether it's to get back to the Lord or whether it's to get delivered from something that seems to keep pulling you down, I want you not to hesitate. I want you to say, "I want to be a real Christian. I'm ready to stand up. I'm ready to come forward and make a public confession."

Will you come right now? Come on, if you raised your hand, you need to come up here. If you didn't raise your hand but God is talking to you, you need to come up here. If you need to be set free from some habit of the flesh, if you've been bound by something and you want to get set free, come on. It's time to get up here. If you're ready to serve the Lord, it's time to get up here.

If you're ready to be a real Christian—hallelujah—come on up here. I love the way these ladies did. I didn't tell them to stand like this. Normally people put their back to the audience and look up there, but they're ready. They say, "I'm not ashamed. I'm ready to stand up. Hallelujah. Now you can turn around this way and look this way."

Anybody else? Come on, there's more of you out there. God is talking to you today. Don't harden your heart. Don't say "Not today." This is the day of salvation; this is the acceptable time. The Holy Ghost is hovering. The Holy Ghost is moving. Have your way, Holy Ghost. Come on, let the Holy Ghost have his way. He wants to speak to your heart today. He's speaking; he's knocking. Hallelujah. Come on. It's time to get right with God.

Now, I'm going to pray with these. We're going to pray the prayer of salvation. And if you're sitting out there in the pew and you didn't come up here but you know God is talking to you, you need to pray this prayer. And then I'm going to ask the young people—because I heard last night they had a powerful youth service. Everybody was highly anointed, and God moved greatly, and that just thrills my heart.

I want the young people to come up next and stand across the front because young people, the devil is so mad he is ready to have a fit. He is going to try to come after you, but you say, "Sister Sharon, when I go back to school, when I go back to college, when I go back to work, when I go back home—wherever I go—I'm going to stand up and be a real Christian." Come on up here, young people.

Come on up here. We're going to pray a hedge of protection around you. Amen. We're going to pray a prayer of protection around these young people because the devil don't like it; he doesn't like what God's doing in you. He's going to try to come after you, but I believe he's too late. Amen. How many say, "Sister Sharon, my mind is made up. Hallelujah. My mind is made up, I'm going all the way." Yes. Isn't this beautiful?

All right, let's pray. Everyone pray this sinner prayer together with these that are up here. "Lord Jesus, I come to you today to say I am a sinner, a great sinner, but you are a great Savior. I ask you to save me today, to cleanse me today from all my sin, from all my filthiness, and deliver me today from all my habits and all the power of the devil. Set me free and fill me with your spirit and fill me with your power. Give me a hunger for your word, and I will serve you, and I will live for you, and I will stand up, and I will be a real Christian, and I will not be ashamed. I confess you as my Savior, I confess you as my Lord, and I'm your child today. Thank you for saving me."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen! What a sin-busting, devil-chasing message: "Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up!" It's time for everyone who names the name of the Lord to depart from iniquity. If you're not living right, don't call yourself a Christian, and get out of the church until you're ready to walk the talk. It's time for Christian celebrities to lay down their titles and take up their towels of humility and wash the feet of the saints—that is, serve the body of Christ.

It's time for the righteous of this generation who stand in God's holy hill behind the pulpits and lecterns of Christianity to purify their hearts and cleanse their hands. And it's time for all of us to prepare ourselves for the onslaught of religious—especially anti-Christian—persecution that is being unleashed in our nation with increase, as perilous times are here.

If you were stirred by this clarion call of the Holy Spirit and you want to hear this message again or share it with others, please order the CD, offer SK162, for a love gift of $10.00 or more for the radio ministry. And help us keep the messages like "Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up!" on the air. Send $10.00 or more to Sound of Faith. The address is P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Request offer SK162. Or if you prefer, order online at soundoffaith.org. Once again, the mailing address: P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying Maranatha.