Now when the Lord said, “not of works, lest any man should boast” [Ephesians 2:9], yet in Acts 10:34, 35, He says through Peter, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him”—it’s not a contradiction. He’s really stressing the two sides: the meritorious phase of it, and then the gracious phase of it. He said, “God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth” God—that calls for obedience—“and worketh righteousness”—that calls for obedience. Yet in Titus 3:5, He said it’s “not by works of righteousness which we have done.” You see, the righteousness by which we’re saved is God’s “righteousness,” Romans 1:17. That’s what is in the Gospel! Now, man’s own righteousness is like “filthy rags,” according to one of the prophets [Isaiah 64:6]. But when we do what the Lord says, then we’re not working it on our own terms, you see. “It is not in man that walks to direct his own steps,” [Jeremiah 10:23]. There’s a way that seems right, but it leads to death.

Let me ask you tonight: Have you really obeyed in every sense to become a Christian? Have you really obeyed when the Lord asked you to have faith?—“faith comes by hearing…the Word,” Romans 10:17—but you can’t hear it and heed it or listen to it and live it without obeying. And “without that faith it is impossible to please Him,” Hebrews 11:6. When He told you to “repent” of your sins, Luke 13:3, that calls for obedience. You can’t repent without obeying. When He asked you to “confess Him before men,” Matthew 10:32-33, you can’t do that without obeying. When He asked you to be baptized—“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” Mark 16:16; and when the Holy Spirit moved Peter to say in 1 Peter 3:20, as “eight souls were saved by water,” in “like figure…baptism also now saves” you. You say, “I don’t think it does.” Well, Peter said it did and it really wasn’t Peter—it was the Holy Spirit Who said it! See, on Pentecost, Peter was the mouth piece in Acts 2:38: “Repent, and…be baptized…for the remission of sins.” Then over in 1 Peter 3:21, he’s the penman. The Holy Spirit used him on both occasions as a mouth piece and as a penman. So, really, if you argue against what Peter said, you’re not arguing against Peter, you’re arguing against the Lord! That [command] came from Heaven!

Now God never does anything that is contrary to, or without the consent of both the Holy Spirit and Christ. The Holy Spirit never does anything without the consent and the approval and working together with what God and Christ have said. None of the three in the God-head ever does or asks for anything that does not correspond with the other two! So you’ve got to say, “Well now, the Holy Spirit told me to do this…”—yes, but, here’s what Paul said the Holy Spirit moved him to say. All Truth runs in parallel lines.

Let me urge you to do what was done in Acts 17:11. When people heard [Paul preaching of the Gospel], “they searched the Scriptures daily” to see if Paul was speaking the Truth. You see, this octogenarian [speaking of George Bailey himself, being between the ages of 80 and 90] could easily make a mistake, and often does, but the Bible doesn’t make any mistakes! There can’t be any error in that Book! Titus 1:2, it “cannot lie.” Hebrews 6:18 and 19, “it is impossible for God to lie.” Now what I say may be wrong, but what He says cannot be wrong! And so we look and think. Romans 3:4, “let God be” found “true but every man a liar.” Don’t you think it was better when Peter and John said we must “obey God rather than man,” [Acts 5:29]?

Today we’re obeying somebody, and the “somebody” sometimes isn’t the Lord. People are going to be lost because they obeyed the wrong one. Obedience is going to come in, one way or the other! You can’t get away from it. We are the servants of whomsoever we subject ourselves to, you see—we choose our own master, if you please, Romans 6:16, 17.

“To obey is better”—it has always been better. Anything God says, it’s certainly better to listen to it, than to wish you had. It’s better never to have been born at all than never to have been born the second time [see John 3:3, 7]. Don’t listen to people—don’t listen to the crowds. Just listen to what the Lord says.

May God help each of us that we might put everything in its proper perspective. Now, people are going to say, “Well, that’s just being too dogmatic.” No—when it comes to life or death, and when it comes to Heaven or hell, I tell you, we better be pretty serious about this thing! It’s not just something like, oh, you can “take it or leave it,”—“it really doesn’t matter.” It does matter—it matters very seriously.

Tonight, should there be anybody in this audience who is not a Christian, you can’t become one accidentally. You can’t become one without obeying Him. You obey with the Spirit—you obey from the heart. It’s not just a perfunctory thing—no, you put everything into it. But you can’t do that without obedience.

If you have fallen away, you can’t come back to Him—according to James 5:16, 1 John 1:8 to 10—without obedience.

Tonight we hope and pray that you will obey God, rather than man. That’s the message. As Heaven looks this way tonight and souls are in the balance, we hope and pray that maybe some name tonight might be written in the Book of Life, that somebody tonight might change an eternal destiny. Don’t be lost. The only way to be sure that you are not going to be lost is to simply submit to what the Lord said. Will you do that tonight, one and all, while we stand and while we sing, will you come?