American Christianity is based more on a godless culture than it is the word of God.

I have great assurance when I study my own conversion, when I discuss it with other men, when I look over the 25 years of my pilgrimmage with Christ; I have great assurance of having come to know Him. But even now, if I were to depart from the faith and walk away and keep going in that direction into heresy and worldiness, it could be the greatest of proofs that I never knew Him, that the whole thing was a work of the flesh.

A lot of people think that Christianity is you doing all the righteous things you hate and avoiding all the wicked things you love in order to go to Heaven. No, that's a lost man with religion. A Christian is a person whose heart has been changed; they have new affections.

The man who has truly believed in his heart ... his life will be marked by a biblical confession of Christ in word and deed.

So you walk up to this man sinner and you say, "God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life!" and he goes, "What? God loves me? That's fantastic. I LOVE ME, TOO! And He loves me more than I love me? Well, that's hard to imagine. I'll take a God like that. You got two of them?"

Right now if this preacher died he would go to heaven. Not because I spent years in the jungles and the Andes Mountains of Peru. Not because of piety, devotion or bible study. Not because of denominational affiliation, baptism, or participation in the Lord’s supper. If I died right now, I would go to heaven because two thousand years ago the Son of God shed His blood for this wretched man. And that is my hope.

I want to submit to you tonight that this country is not gospel-hardened; it is gospel-ignorant because most of its preachers are. And let me repeat this: the malady in this country is not liberal politicians, the root of socialism, Hollywood, or anything else; it is the so-called evangelical pastor, preacher, and evangelist of our day. That is where the malady is to be found.