II. The Landmark of the Christian Sabbath

Let me quickly just give you some landmarks I am concerned about. I am concerned about the landmark of the Christian sabbath. Now understand me, the Christian has no sabbath, so-called. The Christian is to worship the Lord on the first day of the week, that is Sunday. But sometimes it is called the Christian sabbath and that has been ruined in America. You know, there was a day, in my day - that was the day, the Lord’s day, it was Sunday, that is the day that Jesus arose from the dead. That is the day they broke bread and prayed and met together with preaching and singing and happiness and salvation and wonderful things on the Lord’s day. The Christian should worship the Lord every day, but the Lord’s day has been set aside. It is a day for sports, it is a day for shopping, it is a day for leisure, it is a day for recreation, it is a holiday, not a holy day. but a holiday with millions of people in America and with people all over the world. God set a landmark. It is a day of fellowship, a day of worship, a day of giving and seeing people saved, but that landmark has been moved. Oh remember, it is God’s day. God pity the Christian that does not have a landmark in his life, a day that God set aside for them to come to the house of the Lord and serve Him.

We have so many wonderful workers in this church all over 65 years of age. I am thinking this morning of a group of women who taught Sunday School in this church, and you could always see them with a Bible. And one day when it was getting along into the beautiful fall of the year, a lady said, "Let’s take our classes, and we will all go for a walk - we will get some Christian fellowship - go for a walk out in the woods and see the leaves on this beautiful fall day." And down a dirt road they heard a noise and then they saw dust rise in the air. There was a long driveway from the road back to where they saw and heard this noise and saw the dust rising in the air. So they said, "Let’s go and see. Maybe someone needs help." So they turned and went back, and there stood a man with his hands on his little blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, and weeping and holding her, and there was a building that had fallen flat on the ground, and dust was still going everywhere from the fall of that building. These ladies said, "We are Christian ladies - these are our Sunday School classes. If we can be of any help, we would like to be." The man said, "Well I am a Christian too." This was on a Sunday afternoon when they were taking their little children for a walk in the fall of the year. And he said, "I am a Christian, too." But he said, "You know the devil has been working on me and I decided, Well I do not need to go to church. I do not need to be with God’s people to encourage them, and let them know I am one of them. I do not need all that. I work five days a week. I work hard. I have got to build a big double garage and barn to take care of my trucks and cars and my machinery and all, and I cannot be going to church every Sunday," I said to myself. So he said, "I took off from God. I ran from Him, and said, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ I took off and I have been building this big garage and barn for my cars and my trucks and machinery and everything on the Lord’s day. I had come out here and worked all day on the Lord’s day, forget God, forget the Bible, forget the church, forget the winning of souls, giving to God, forget missions, I wanted to build a building. A few minutes before you ladies came," he said, "through a doorway —- the door had not yet been hung, but an opening for a small door — came my sweet little daughter and she came running across inside that unfinished building to where I was, and just as she got to me and I lifted her outside, the building fell." And he said, "Ladies, God has caught up to me." And he said, "God could have killed my little girl and I would have had a broken heart the rest of my life. I want to get back with God and get back to where I ought to be."

Listen, I tell you, no one can outrun God. God is omnicient, He knows where you are, God is omnipotent, He is able to do anything, and God is everywhere. Let me tell you, there are many people like that man. "Why, I do not care about the sabbath or Sundays, the day that Jesus arose from the grave, the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came into the world, what is that to me?" Oh I tell you, it has a lot to do with you. Do not run from God. Do not move the landmark that God has set His mark on — a day — a special day. The Lord’s day is a holy day to Christians. Every bush is a burning bush, and to a child of God every day is a holy day, but God set aside a day, and the Bible says to forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is. Do not leave God out of your life. Give God your time, and you will be a happier person, and a lot safer in the hands of God than you are building something on the Lord’s day that ought not to be done. Ah, there is a landmark. God has a day, and it is a holy day, a wonderful day.

III. The Landmark of Christian Separation

I think of the landmark of Christian separation, of Christian living. You know, standards. What I mean by standards is — every Christian has certain characteristics, and certain things they do not do. Their standards are different, their music is different, their dress is different, their programs are different. They are not in the world, but they are in the Lord. And there is a lot taught in the Bible about separation - it is not a popular subject. I said to a person one time, "You know, I wish I could have all the seats in this building filled every time I preach." And he said, "Well, you do not exactly preach what people love to hear. You preach what you believe the Bible teaches they ought to hear." You know, Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You love the praise of men more than you do the praise of God." Listen, I am not much and I know that, and I know my age and what I am. I do not think I am much, but I will tell you one thing, I am not concerned about pleasing people. I love people and I believe hundreds and thousands show love and respect for me, but I am not going to give my time to preaching something that is not in the Bible just to please people. Oh no, the Bible teaches, "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and I will be a father unto you, and you shall be children unto me." Oh listen, do not move the landmark of the distinction between the person who is saved and one who is not. Do not ever try to remove the landmark and make believe that God loves everybody and everybody is going to heaven. Everybody is not going to heaven. Or that everyone is just alike, everyone is going to heaven. No, everyone is not going to heaven. I have had people say to me, "Well, you go your way and I will go mine and I will meet you in heaven." No you won’t. No, you are not going your way and you are not going my way, you’re going to go God’s way. As a lady said to old Dr. Lakin one time, I think it was here in this church when he was preaching. She said, "I will meet you in heaven" And he said, "It is up to you. I am going, I am going to be there. It is just a question of whether you are going to get there. And if you get there, it is going to be by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ." I like that. I tell you, those old preachers of a generation ago, they knew where to let the hammer down. They knew how to do it. God bless their sainted memory.

I think about the difference between Christians and unsaved people as a landmark. A lot of people do not even know what a landmark is. I knew a young boy — I knew his mother and my wife did too — still do — a grown man now, a professional man — a wonderful man. But one day he was out playing marbles with the little boys in the neighborhbood — this neighborhood right here. They were shooting marbles and they were playing "keeps." Did you ever play "keeps"? I never could call it that. I always called it "losers" because I lost all of mine when I was a boy. Never won any, but he played "keeps." His mother came out and said, "You are gambling — you are gambling. You pick up your marbles and get back in this house. You know it is not right to play "keeps" and gamble for something that belongs to someone else." So he picked up his marbles, being an obedient child, and went in the house. About a week later, this lady — she was not of our church here, but could have been, I suppose, but she was not. She was having a bridge party and bought a beautiful vase — or vaaase — and she had it sitting there and they had their bridge party. And guess what, the one that won in that bridge game got that vase. And the little boy saw it, and he said, "Momma, you are doing the same thing I was. You jumped all over me. You made me come in the house and leave my playmates. You said I was gambling — what do you call this?" The mother dropped her head and said, "Gambling? Son, I will not be guilty any more. You taught me something." Listen, you ought to live as a Christian ought to live. We are not the same as the world. We are different.

IV. The Landmark of the Bible

You know, a lot of churches have taken on a lot of "versions", as they call them, of the Bible. I do not read them. The only Bible other than this King James Bible that I have ever spent any time in is when I read the Douay Version of the Catholic Bible, because I wanted to take their own Bible and lead some of them to Christ and God helped me do it. I do not believe in all these versions. One version leaves out twenty percent of what is in this Bible. Twenty percent is not even there. Listen, God said the Word of God is reserved in heaven and God said, "You are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, even the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever." And I believe I have it. Oh what a shame to divert the truth of the Bible by all these versions. They say they have to get down to the language of man. No, that is what makes it the Bible - the language of God. There is a landmark — stand by the Bible — stand by the landmark of separation — that a Christian is not like people in the world. We are not down in the world. I lived in it until I was nearly twenty years old and God in His grace saved me, and no one was more surprised than I when the Lord saved me. It made a new person out of me.

V. The Landmark of Soul Winning

There is a landmark of soul winning. I believe Christians ought to be involved — involved.

Listen — not to say, "Yes, I believe you are right. I believe to get people saved we ought to go where they are, we ought to reach them, to keep people out of hell and get them to heaven." But that is not enough. I believe every Christian should be involved in reaching people for Christ. Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Peter, fear not." Oh, Peter had failed in his fishing, and had failed the Lord, and he fell down on his knees and said, "Depart from me, Lord. I am such a sinful man." And Jesus said, "Fear not, Peter. From henceforth you are going to catch men." That is what a Christian ought to be is a man-catcher, and a woman-catcher, and a child-catcher You ought to be after them for the Lord. I believe the Bible teaches soul winning. Jesus said to two sets of brothers, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Luke 19:10 says, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." I want to tell you, I admire the Christian who is looking out for somebody who needs to be saved. You say, "Preacher, that is not for me." No, I know it is not. You will not let God open your heart. You will not get rid of that pride. You are too good to walk down a street that might be dangerous. Jesus was not. And good Christians, I believe, are soul winners who lead people to Christ.

I went to a home where one of the ladies of this church asked me to go. She put some names on a card and I went there this week. It was a home filled with the sweetest group of Oriental people I have ever seen in my life. I could not immediately get someone to the door, and then I saw a little child run across a vacant area in the house. Then a little child came to the door and said, "Oh, it is preacher Malone." And kids started coming from everywhere from that house. And there was a whole little group around me, little Oriental children just as clean as a pin, bright and sharp. And I said, "I know your Sunday School teacher," and I called the Sunday School teacher’s name, and then I said, "She led you to Christ, didn’t she?" And they said, "Yes." And I said to the other children, all around me, "How many of you know you have been saved?" And boy! either five or six of them put their little hands up. And I asked them. "Do you have a Sunday School teacher, I mean here in this church?" And they all said, "Yes, yes, yes." "And she showed you in the Bible how to be saved?" And they all said, "Yes, yes, yes," and just stood there looking at me. I could not keep the tears back. I thought "Who cares about these people living in this house down here on this street? Not many people. But God cares." And you know, God died for people of other ethnic backgrounds other than just you and me. Some people evidently do not know it because they do not cross the line. Listen, everybody was on the mind of God when Jesus hung on the cross and shed His precious blood for sinners like you and me. Oh today, we need to begin soul winning, reaching people for Christ.

VI. The Landmark of Salvation by Faith

I am going to close with this. Another landmark I do not want to ever move. I do not care how subtly people come and move it just a little bit. I am not going to join in that, because I would be contrary to the Bible and that is the landmark of salvation by faith. You are listening to someone who lived all of his boyhood to manhood in the midst of people who believed in something other than what I am preaching right now, and that is that only, only, only Jesus can save, and only, only, only by faith in Him. Not by works, not by goodness, but only by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. "For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast." For by grace are ye saved, by faith in Him. Only one Way. Oh I tell you when I left that house the other day, those little children raised their hands and said they would see me on Sunday, and they are here in this building somewhere in other services. I got in my car, and I could not help but weep. I thought, "Oh, my God, here is a city going to hell, and people talking about religion without Jesus, and so many thousands of people have religion but not Christ." And I got in my car — and I do not often do this, not as often as I should — but I wept my heart out. I thought, "Oh how God loves people and how the world is filled with people teaching them that there is some other way you can get there, but there is not." You say, "How do you know, preacher? You do not know everything." No, I do not know much, but I know one thing: whatever the Bible says. Jesus said to a woman, "Thy faith hath saved thee." Thy faith. Oh, there is no other way except to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not ever move that landmark. The Bible says, "Let your moderation be made known unto all men." Moderation means kindness — let all men everywhere — let them know you love them. Unsaved, street-walker, gambler, everybody, let them know you love them. Do not ever compromise. There is only one way to be saved — not by joining the church, not by getting baptized. You ought to be baptized after you get saved, right on the spot — that is what they did in the Bible. There is only one way to be saved, and that is to humble yourself and say, "Jesus, I do not have anything to offer. I have no good works. You would not accept them if I had them. All I have is that I believe you are the Son of God, that you died for me, and I believe God put my sins on you and when I trust you my sins are forgiven forever." That is a landmark. Remove not the ancient landmark. Oh, today, let us believe what God has to say.