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[ Music ] ♪ And on the cross I'll never be ♪ ♪ And on the cross I'll never be ♪ ♪ The Lord was crucified ♪

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♪ The mob stood round about him ♪ ♪ And they mocked him until he died ♪ ♪ Two thieves were hanging beside him ♪ ♪ Chess was chess, the angle of knees ♪

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♪ One of them cried out to him ♪ ♪ Oh Lord, remember me ♪ ♪ Oh what a shame to kill him ♪ ♪ I'll bear on that old rugged cross ♪

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♪ Oh but such a death would need us ♪ ♪ Such a death was needed just to rescue ♪ ♪ All the loss, oh, his blood was made a ransom ♪ ♪ Just to set the captives free ♪

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♪ And I know, I know I'm included ♪ ♪ Will the Lord remember me ♪ ♪ Oh, will the Lord ♪ ♪ Will the Lord remember me ♪

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♪ When I am called to go ♪ ♪ When I have crossed that cheerless sea ♪ ♪ Will He, His love, assure ♪ ♪ Oh yes, he heard my feeble cry ♪

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♪ But it set me free ♪ ♪ And when I reach the holy gate ♪ ♪ He will remember me ♪ ♪ What a shame to kill him out there on the street ♪

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♪ Out there on that old rugged cross ♪ ♪ The Bible tells me such ♪ ♪ Such a death was needed ♪ ♪ Yes, sir ♪

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♪ Just to rescue all the lost ♪ ♪ Oh, his blood ♪ ♪ His blood ♪ ♪ Was made a ransom ♪

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♪ Yes, sir ♪ ♪ Just to set the captives free ♪ ♪ And I know ♪ ♪ I know, I know, I know I'm into that ♪

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♪ Yes, I am ♪ ♪ The Lord will, he will remember me ♪ ♪ Oh, will the Lord ♪ ♪ Will the Lord ♪

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♪ Remember me ♪ ♪ Remember me ♪ ♪ Oh, when I ♪ ♪ When I am called to go ♪

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♪ Oh, when I ♪ ♪ When I have crossed that sea ♪ ♪ Will he ♪ ♪ He, he, his Lord ♪

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♪ That sure ♪ ♪ Oh yes ♪ ♪ Oh yes ♪ ♪ Yes ♪

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♪ Yes he heard my people cry ♪ ♪ Cry from bondage ♪ ♪ That set me free ♪ ♪ Oh and when ♪

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♪ When I reach ♪ ♪ Oh purdy ♪ ♪ Purdy gates ♪ ♪ The Lord will ♪

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♪ Yes he will ♪ ♪ Remember me ♪ ♪ Oh will the Lord ♪ ♪ Will the Lord ♪

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♪ Remember me ♪ ♪ Oh when I am called to go ♪ ♪ Oh when I ♪ ♪ When I cross on over ♪

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♪ Will need his love that's sure ♪ ♪ Oh yes he heard my ♪ ♪ He heard my ♪ ♪ He would cry ♪

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♪ But it set me free ♪ ♪ Lord, and when I reach the hurly-gate ♪ ♪ We will be there ♪ ♪ Oh, when I, when I reach ♪

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♪ And when I reach the hurly-gate ♪ ♪ We will be there ♪ ♪ Oh, when I reach the hurly-gate ♪ ♪ And when I reach the hurly-gate ♪

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♪ He will remember me ♪ ♪ And when I reach the honeydew ♪ ♪ He will remember me ♪ (audience applauding)

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- Let's all say amen. - Amen. Amen. It's good to know that we will be remembered

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in that final hour. In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

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In that chapter there is a discussion of those who came to hear him. Then there is a passage that is recorded by Luke in the fifteenth chapter of his gospel that reads, "Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying,

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"This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." I want to talk about a seat on the mourner's bench.

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A seat on the mourner's bench. The last revival I attended at my home church, the Greater Bethlehem Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, was one in which my mother participated. There was a great deal of effort put forth to inform the neighborhood.

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Mother had walked around various houses, contacted persons that were considered good prospects for the revival.

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The night I attended the revival, There were several rows of persons who were present. And on the front row, that particular pew was reserved for what we call the mourner's bench.

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And persons who had been moved to the point of being sorry for their sins were encouraged to come and sit on the mourner's bench. After the minister preached,

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There were those who were sitting on the mourner's bench who came forth and gave the preacher their hand as an expression of the fact that they were accepting Jesus Christ

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as Lord of their lives. So the mourner's bench has to do with repentance. We spoke earlier in the eight o'clock service about what it means to change.

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Today we want to emphasize what repentance means. That is to feel sorry for one's sin. Feel sorry for one's wrongdoing is to repent. One person defined repentance as being sorry for your sins,

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but being sorry enough to quit your devilment. So during this particular season, as we come now to the second Sunday in Lent, we emphasize not only repentance,

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We emphasize change. We emphasize godly sorrow. Now the Jewish people had their practice regarding to feeling sorry or mourning.

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And it was considered the reaction to news of one's death The news of one's death are a public calamity. There were seasons of penance. The mourners took off their shoes

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and they wore a particular headdress and a man covered his beard and veiled his face and veiled his face. Mourners would roll their head, even their whole body,

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into dust and lie or sit among a heap of ashes. Now I'm not suggesting that you have to do all of that this morning, but that was the ancient practice. mourners would share, would shave their head and beard in expressing their sorrow.

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John the Baptist prepares the way for the coming of Christ. He comes preaching a gospel of repentance. It's time for change, a radical change. It's time to change the direction in which you're going.

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So repentance has to do with turning, making a significant change in your life, life in the direction that you're going. Now this gospel of repentance is

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declared by one who is described as a wilderness Baptist preacher. He comes to the wilderness where people are lost and cannot find their way,

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where pilgrims are exposed to the ferocious wild animals. Into the wilderness comes the prophet John. To deal with people in the jungle of their existence,

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he comes announcing the need for change. A man who was a celebrated lion tamer, on a particular occasion not too long ago, was in the cage with the lion

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and the lion attacked the lion tamer. And it became necessary for this lion tamer to go through the training again with this lion. He did not dismiss the lion,

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but he continued with him, going over what he'd been over before so that he could be tamed, I guess we might say, anew. Well, maybe something like that needs to happen

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in the lives of many of us. We confess, we claim, we said we were tamed at some point in our lives, but we have, in the course of our history,

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attacked the lion tamer. And we need to go through this process again. So, there is the mourner's bench arranged for those who feel godly sorrow,

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who admit their wrongdoing and come to the mourner's bench. When we think about Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve committed to sin in the garden, but when you read that story, they never confess.

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So sin unconfessed his unforgiveness. his unforgiven. So they are driven out of the garden. So John had a message for people in the wilderness. It was a message that they needed to hear. And so there were those who left the city and came into the wilderness to hear what John had to say.

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They confessed their sins, they were baptized, and they began to live new lives. Some who came to hear John were Pharisees. They were clean on the outside, but dirty on the inside. Oh, they were like whited tombs, glistening in the sun on the outside, but they were dirty

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within. So John said to them, when they asked him what they must do in order to get ready, he said that you must show that your hearts have been changed, not just your speech. We say many things we do not mean.

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your dress, but your hearts, your thoughts; for the heart is the fountain of our emotions." And their response to John was this, "You know, John, Reverend, we are children of Abraham. And And we--we have a great and glorious heritage. And why

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should we change? What must we do? Abraham is our father. We--we so to speak, and we'll put it today, we grew up in the church. My mother and my father were in this church. So what we do to repent. We have good family connections. So John says to them, "God does not need your

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family connections. God is able to use desert stones to fill up the pouses of worship that He doesn't just have to have you. So John brings a message which is direct and he tells them that the axe is laid at the root of the tree and there must be a new root in order to produce new fruit for the kingdom.

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So there must be change of heart. For there is one who comes after me, he says, who is more powerful than I am, whose shoes I am unworthy to unlace.

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I'm not worthy to remove his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and he will separate the wheat and the chaff and the wheat he will place in his barn.

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The Pharisees listened and many of them acted on John's declarations. Then there were the Sadducees and they had attached their allegiance

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to the house of Herod. They were political and they were concerned about favors from Herod. After all, Herod is the king.

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They had their worldly concerns, and John had a message for them. He says, "I baptize in the name of the one who said, "My kingdom is not of this world."

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- Amen. - So you too, take your seats, just as the children of Abraham need to take their seat at the mourner's bench,

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so do you as Sadducees need to take a seat at the mourner's bench. There were the Republicans and sinners, they were at the bottom of the social ladder,

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they too came to listen to what John had to say. These were persons who were guilty of treason, guilty of collecting more taxes than they should have collected. They were, sort of speaks, to speak, they were stooges of the Roman government.

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And John spoke to them the gospel of repentance. You too need to take a seat on the mourner's bench. publicans and sinners. Roman soldiers came in that crowd that assembled to hear John and they wanted to know what must they do.

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Soldiers are connected with violence, war, and the word to them was that they should abstain from violence, do not live by force

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but by free spirit. So take your seat on the mourner's bench. The common people, large crowds assembled at the riverbanks to hear this word that John delivered.

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Many took their seats on the mourner's bench. Pharisees, Sadducees, children of Abraham, soldiers, common people, all take seats on the martyrs' bench. And I think that if we would search ourselves,

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if we would take an introspective view of ourselves, that maybe we too would need to take seats. seats on the morning's bench. My daughters were here some weeks ago, and in my presence, I didn't solicit it. They said,

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"You know, Daddy, we have never heard you use a dirty word." And I said, "Ah." I took it for a moment as a compliment, and then the Holy Spirit spoke to me. While you did not say

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a dirty word, how many times did you think a dirty word? So I was,

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(buzzer) Is that I too? - Yes. - Along with every one of you,

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we all need to take our seats at the morning's bench. Now, there are those who criticize the mourner's bench. They say it's a symbol of embarrassment, humiliation.

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You don't do that. We are sophisticated. We are educated. We are learned people, and we don't want to in any way infringe upon persons who come within the scope of our influence by

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by asking them to publicly sit on the mourner's bench and confess their sins. We don't want to do that. There are those who say that. But what about Christ, the one who died for us? We looked the other day at the passion of our Lord. And when I

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and I read some reviews of it in connection with it, how he suffered the violence that was there, how he was humiliated, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, how he was beaten.

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But if he did that, and he did for us, going and sitting in the mourner's bench is something very small in comparison. So while there are those who criticize the mourner's bench,

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they fail to recognize that the Lord of lords took upon himself the form of a servant and was beaten. He was crucified.

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He died. And he got up again on East Des Moines. So what's more to be said about Des Moines' bench? And that is, not only should we take a seat on Des Moines'

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bench, but we ought to get off the mourner's bench." Oh, in that revival long ago, there were those who were there who rejoiced as each person got off the mourner's bench and came forth making a commitment to Jesus Christ. So, in some way,

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in some way, every one of us needs to go to the mourner's morning, this afternoon. And in some way, we must get off the mourner's bench and make a conscious decision to live life in a new way, to make a radical change in our lives. I'm so

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glad, I'm so glad that we have the mourner's bench where you Well, you can declare the fact that, "Yes, I made mistakes. I did wrong, but I've come to repent. I've come to change. I've come to walk in the new way. I've come. I've come to the

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mourner's bench, and I'm getting up from the mourner's bench to in a new way. So the word as we come to the close is the word is that we must take a new course of action. Come to the mourner's bench. I went to a conference some years ago and in the midst of the conference one of the speakers got up

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and said, "We don't need to be at this conference. All of us should go home and weep." And I didn't understand. >> Yes.

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>> I wondered why would this man, he was an outstanding attorney and we were talking about the new directions that we should take as a people in this country and he was saying,

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"All of us ought to go home and weep." But as I grew older and studied more about what He meant, we ought to all feel sorry enough, sorry enough for our failures, sorry enough for our defeats.

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All of us should go home and weep. And when we feel sorry enough, then we will begin to take some meaningful action about what we do.

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So come, come, come to the mourner's bench, come, make that journey from your soul to the soul of the eternal. Come to the mourner's bench.

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I'm so glad that I heard the word and that I heeded the call to come to the mourner's bench. And I say to you today, If you're not rightly related to Christ and the church,

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if you're not rightly related to the eternal, that you need to heed the call to come to the mourner's bench. Come, come ye that love the Lord

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and let your joys be known. Come, come to the mourner's bench. Because it is in coming to the mourner's bench we become rightly related to our God, coming to Him. That's

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the action we are called upon to take. For the old hymn puts it this way, "None but the righteous." We're not going to be judged by how much we know. We're not going to be judged by how much we have. We're not going to be judged by how we

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according to the fashions of this world, we're going to be judged by our relationship to the eternal. None but the righteous, none but the righteous, none but the righteous shall see God. So come, while you have time, come

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to the mourner's bench. (soft music) So the door of the church is open. We invite you to come by letter,

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by Christian experience or on profession of faith. Come. Come. ♪ Come, Lord, the righteous ♪

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♪ None but the righteous ♪ ♪ None but the righteous ♪ ♪ Shall see God ♪ ♪ None but the righteous ♪

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♪ None but the righteous ♪ ♪ None but the righteous ♪ ♪ Shall see God ♪ ♪ Take me to the water ♪

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♪ Take me to the water ♪ ♪ Take me to the water ♪ ♪ To be baptized ♪ ♪ To the water ♪

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♪ Take me to the water ♪ ♪ Take me to the water ♪ ♪ To be baptized ♪ ♪ I know I've been converted ♪

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♪ I know I've been converted ♪ ♪ I know I've been converted ♪ ♪ I've been baptized ♪ ♪ None but the righteous ♪

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♪ None but the righteous ♪ ♪ None but the righteous ♪ ♪ Shall see fire ♪ - We listen to the report from the church clerk,

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Brother Terry Steele. we have coming to unite with us this morning, a couple. They're no strangers to our church, and they're actually related to Brother Wren. These are his parents. Sister Maddie B. Wren

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and her husband Walter, Walter Wren, coming to unite with us based on their Christian experience. (Applause) KENNETH: All right. Let's all say, "Amen." (Applause) (audience applauding)

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- If you wanna say anything, we were gonna give you the privilege, all right, to use it. We have here,

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Rens, the parents that we've been told of, Deacon Rens. He was a deacon here in our church, They've been worshipping with us from time to time,

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and they come to unite with our church on the basis of their Christian experience, all who are in favor of accepting me as they have so applied.

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Would you say, "Aye"? - Aye. - It is carried, and I'm delighted to give you the right hand of fellowship, Sister Wren,

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giving you all the privileges as a full member of this church and to you, Brother Wren, the right hand of fellowship. giving you all the privileges of this church.

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May by the grace of God we be found working out our soul's salvation with fear and trembling, as the scripture says. Let's all say amen.

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Amen. Amen. Thank you. Now we will commune at the Lord's table.

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It was on the night that Jesus was betrayed that he observed this meal with his disciples and the scripture says, "And as often as you do it, you do show forth my death and my suffering

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until I come again." [BLANK_AUDIO]