Glad once again to be with you. Wasn't expecting to see Randy
playing for us this morning. Turn with me in your Bibles,
if you would, to the book of Amos. Just in case you weren't reading
in Amos this week, I'll give you a minute to find what some
call one of the minor prophets, but there's nothing minor about
this message. Amos chapter three. I want to read just one verse
to you in the beginning. It's found in the midst of Quite a lot that has been said
about judgment sin against Moab and
against Israel by God. Amos 3 and verse 6, shall a trumpet be blown in the
city and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city,
and the Lord hath not done it? Is it me, or are there a lot of sobering things? going on in this world at present. Just a lot of sobering things. In my lifetime, I've never seen
so many earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, Just like the past week and weeks,
tornadoes of the most destructive kind. And most of it is attributed
by man to somebody called Mother Nature or global warming. and a host of other things wherein
men try to attribute it to things rather than attribute it to God. I remember after the earthquake
and tsunami and following nuclear situation in Japan, one of the
Japanese governors said something about God punishing them. And everybody just rose up with
one accord and shouted him down. That you could not even imagine
such a thing to be true. And then when you add to that
all the many wars, conflicts, I believe our country is currently
in about three of them openly right now. You hear about people being slaughtered
by the hundreds. We've come to the point that
it doesn't even really faze us anymore. I can hear about 5,000,
I mean 500 killed in African unrest or 60 shot down in the
Syrian street. Whatever it is, it just doesn't
hardly faze us anymore. We're hardened to it. And then when you add to all
these things, all of the mind boggling crime, I mean, it's
just, crime doesn't even hardly bear a good name for it anymore.
It's just the most blatant, unheard of wickedness, gruesome, awful,
murders. We truly live in the last days. They begin actually at the coming
of Christ. God hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his son. But you can mark it down, there
is a last days of those last days. And after you hear about all
these things, you grieve with people in a measure over what
happens to them. And you know that there is really
no hope for them, not only in their situations currently, but
in their prospect, eternity-wise. And that these things are simply
the beginning of sorrows for most. Can you imagine that? Christ
said you'll hear of wars and rumors of wars. He said all these
things must come to pass. Nation will rise up against nation
and kingdom against kingdom and there'll be famines and pestilences
and earthquakes in diverse places, then he says this, all these
are the beginning of sorrows. Can you imagine having what happens
on this earth to be the best thing that will ever happen to
you? To have suffered in one of these
calamities to be the best thing that you'll ever know for all
eternity? And yet it is obvious in light
of scripture that God speaks continually to men in all these
judgments. Many trumpets are sounded in
many cities, just like is spoken in our text. In other words, he's saying something
like this, shall there be any evil or calamity, and he's not
talking about moral evil, but he says, shall there be any Calamity
inflicted on wicked cities which does not proceed from God, that
does not come as the effect of his wrath. And so he asked all
these very stirred up questions. And they're intended to convince
people that they have reason and cause for alarm because of
their monstrous iniquities which call down the vengeance of God. He will punish iniquity. And even the fact that men do
so many of these things, whether it is, whether they attribute
what takes place in all these calamities as being simply an
act of nature or something like this, or whether they actually
cannot deny that something happens at the hand of wicked men and
women, whether or not be the case. In doing these things, what they
in their wicked hearts want to do, they carry out the purpose
of God in all things. If a man on one hand slays another
man, as it goes on every day, Or whether, on the other hand,
he attributes what is obviously a judgment and calamity of God,
whether he attributes that to something else, no matter whatever
it is, God carries out his purpose. And as they carry out the purpose
of God, these things do not excuse their sin, nor does it diminish
the sure judgment that He'll execute on them personally for
it. Just mark it down. All things
are of God. That's what this verse is saying.
He says, shall a trumpet be sound or blown in the city and the
people not be afraid? What's a trumpet in this situation?
It's a warning. And he says, shall there be evil
in a city, calamity? And the Lord didn't do it. All
things are of May not fit your idea of God? Certainly doesn't fit the idea
of most of the world, but all things are of God. He works all things after the
counsel of His own will. Turn over, first of all, to Isaiah
chapter 14. Isaiah chapter 14, and look down
in verse 24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn,
saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and
as I have purpose, so shall it stand. In other words, nothing
that men do in time alters what God has purposed before time. That I will break the Assyrian
in my land. And upon my mountains tread him
underfoot. Then shall his yoke depart from
off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This
is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth. And this
is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations. If you like universal statements,
there's one. All the earth. All nations, this
is the purpose of God, what? To do whatever he will. For the
Lord of hosts hath purpose, and who shall disannul it? And his
hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? That's the God of the Bible.
Turn over in Isaiah chapter 45. Listen to what he says in Isaiah
45 and that seventh verse. Here is God who does not want
to be prettied up or altered for your taste buds or mine. He says, I form the light and
create darkness. I make peace and create evil,
I, the Lord, do all these things." Whatever it is, whatever calamity,
whatever comes to pass, he said, I am the Lord. And then he says,
by the psalmist, he says, even or surely the wrath of man will
praise the Lord and the remainder he will restrain. You'll restrain. You see, the
only reason there is a world going on right now is because
of God's restraint. If he lifted all his restraint
off of all men and women, it would last only as long as it
took us to kill one another down to the fittest in the end. That'd
be one man standing. But it's his purpose. And the
greatest example of that is in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus
Christ. on what would be the, outwardly,
the greatest demonstration of man's wickedness and vileness
and corruption. It says, when he was crucified,
the Apostle Peter, immediately after our Lord's death and resurrection,
he stood there on the day of Pentecost, and there was something
in the midst of all, he said, that had to be made known. He said Him. Being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge or foreordination
of God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and
slain. You did it doing just what you
wanted to do. You did it with malice, you did
it with angry hearts, you did it with hatred against God, but
in doing so you carried out the determinate counsel and foreordained
purpose of God. And then just as if we might
not have got that, he goes on a little bit later in Acts 4
and says it in this way. The kings of the earth stood
up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against His Christ. For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done. That's no accident. But while all these actions of
evil men and women, not only in what they actually do, but
also in how they respond to what are literally acts of God. While they show how depraved
and how vile and how sinful we are by nature, the response to
these things by those who live now, not just by those who die
at somebody else's hand, not just those who die in a tornado
or an earthquake or a tsunami, but those who live. Our response to them, those of
us who live and remain, may show more of our hearts and our evil
and our unbelief than theirs. Turn over to the book of Revelation
in Revelation chapter 9. In Revelation, we have so much
symbolic representation of God's purpose and God's judgment against
His enemies in the world. And we find statements in Revelation
9 and other places like this in verse 20. It says, and the
rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues, now
God sent plagues in judgment. But he says, but the rest of
the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented
not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship
devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone,
and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk, neither
repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of
their fornication, nor of their theft." In other words, God sent awful
plagues, just like he sent to Pharaoh and the people of Egypt,
just like he did on so many occasions in the Old Testament. They repented not. Turn over to Revelation chapter
16. Revelation 16 and verse 8. And the fourth angel poured out
his vial upon the sun, and the power was given unto him to scorch
men with fire. And men were scorched with great
heat. And they blasphemed the name
of God, which hath power over these plagues. Did you see that? God who had power over these
plagues. And they repented not to give
him the glory. And the fifth angel poured out
his vial upon the seat of the beast, and his kingdom was full
of darkness. And they gnawed their tongues
for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven
because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their
deeds. Now the Bible says plainly that God commands all men everywhere
to repent. Repentance can be described or
defined, I suppose briefly as some have, as a change of heart
and mind concerning God. In Acts 17, the apostle says,
for as much then as we are the offspring of God, We ought not
to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or
stone, graven by art and man's device. At the times of this
ignorance God winked at, but now commands all men everywhere
to repent. Because he hath appointed a day. in which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he raised him, he raised
the judge from the dead. Now when lesser judgments come,
and they come every day, when nations and when individuals
come under these certain judgments, they are simply shadows and warnings
of the judgment to come. As a matter of fact, their messages of mercy. Can you imagine that? Every time
that God lifts his restraining hand on men and on the elements,
and these things break forth, they not only remind man of his
frailty, of his dangers that are all around him every day,
but they are particular messages of mercy wherein he reminds us
of the sure and certain judgment to come. That everyone who dies outside
of Christ These things will simply be the
beginning of sorrows to them. And how men and women respond
to these lesser judgments, this reveals the true hearts and the
real natures of men and women and reveals the God that they
really trust in. Because people begin to say, why'd God let this happen to
us? As if to say, we really deserve better than this. That's what
we're really saying. Or if I was God, I'd do things
different from this. And they attribute these things
to all other sources imagined, and they turn in these hours
to the gods of their false religions, they turn to false preaches,
they turn to their religious trinkets, they turn to a false
hope, they turn to other sinners just like themselves, but they
do not turn to the living God. Now fire, all throughout this
book, has been given a symbolic of divine wrath and judgment. And here are these men and women
that we find in the Revelation and other places. All this is
picturing a panoramic view of everything that takes place on
this earth, shows us in the end that God in Christ is victorious,
not only to save all his people, but over all his enemies. There are people who are really
funny about how they want to die. I don't want somebody to
shoot me, let's ban all the guns. Well, kill me quick with a gun
before you cut me up with a knife. Or we don't want to die in an
earthquake, or we don't want to die particularly in a tornado,
or we don't want to die this way. What does it matter? All
these things, as we find them pictured in scripture and in
history, they are but just lesser judgments of God. And it says
in those two instances here in the Revelation, sometimes when
they were with plague, sometimes when they were burned with fire,
didn't matter what it is, it all boils down to this. They
repented not to give God the glory. They repented not to give God
the glory. And the greatest evidence of
our fallen state, our blindness, our spiritual deadness, if left
to ourselves, is that having faced, or in our cases, having
heard of, known to be true, all these judgments that are taking
place all around us, he said we repent not to give God the
glory. Because none will ever of themselves
repent. I don't care if the most awful
tornado rips through Albany tomorrow morning and destroys half the
town and three-fourths of the people in it. You won't find
one person who, as the scripture teaches it, will repent to give
God the glory. You won't. That's how blind we are. That's
how dead we are. That's how much enmity is in
our heart and mind against the living God. You see, repentance is the gift
of God. And it is what I would call the
Siamese twin of faith. And it is only in and because
of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is the gift that God sovereignly
gives to his people, to his elect people. There are only one people
on this earth that will ever repent, and those people are
the people of God which He chose in Christ before the world began,
which Christ came into this world to die for, and to whom the Spirit
of God reveals the truth and gives them this life which is
demonstrated in repentance and faith concerning God. The Apostle says in Acts 5 concerning
Christ, he said, him hath God exalted with his right hand to
be a prince and a savior for to give repentance to Israel
and forgiveness of sins. It's obvious there that the Israel
there is not the nation of Israel, isn't it? But he's talking about spiritual
Israel. He's talking about that people
that's in Christ and he says that God exalted Christ as the
prince and savior of this people for to give them repentance,
a gift of repentance. Read such things as Acts 11,
when the gospel was preached it says, And when they heard
these things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying,
Then God also hath to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. How did these Gentiles believe
when most of these Jews did not believe and repent? How was it
that all of a sudden they heard the gospel and they repented? God granted it. He gave it. You see, it's a part of that
salvation. That's all of grace. Everything is a gift. Even the faith by which we believe
is the gift. Righteousness is described by
the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans as the gift of righteousness. Christ himself is described as
that unspeakable gift. Everything is of grace. So the only way that any sinner,
any fallen son or daughter of Adam, the only way they are ever
found repenting is by God's gift of grace. Listen to what Paul
writes to Timothy. He says, And the servant of the
Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all, apt to teach,
patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves,
if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth. Did you get that last part? Repentance
has got something to do with bringing sinners in their salvation
to acknowledge the truth. It's not about a man quitting
his drinking. It's not about a woman quitting
her running around. It's not about somebody walking
down an aisle or being dipped into somebody's pool or experiencing
a reformation, a transformation in their life or their morals
or character or anything like that. It's got something to do
with God bringing us to acknowledge, to affirm the truth. You see, most folks think that
repentance is merely being sorry for sin. They say, you need to repent
of your sins. I don't even know what all my
sins are. You? If you can remember and know
all your sins, you surely must not be much of a sinner. Not
like me, anyway. I don't even know what all my
sins are. I may know a few things that
I have committed in sin. I certainly am sure there's a
multitude that I have omitted in sin, but I don't even know
what they are. And most have this idea that
repentance is being like Esau, who was sorry for the consequences
of sin. These preachers on television.
Weeping and crying. Oh, they say he's sorry for his
sins. He's sorry he's repenting of
his sin. No, he's sorrow because he got
caught in his sin. You see, repentance is first,
and we ought to always remember this, toward God. It has something to do with being
brought by grace to acknowledge the truth concerning God. It has to do with being brought
to acknowledging in the light of who God is, the truth about
who we are, and the truth about Christ as the only way, the only
Savior, the only righteousness, the only way to approach God,
the only way to be accepted by God. There is no other. Turn over to Luke chapter 13. Luke chapter 13. Now listen to
this. Our Lord was always preaching. Always preaching. Oh, He did
a miracle here, and He did a miracle there. But everywhere you see
that, it was simply to confirm who He was, and to confirm the
message that He preached, and He's always teaching. It says
in verse 1, there were some present at that season, there were present
at that season, some that told him of the Galileans. They had,
they were repeating a recent news story. Did you hear this? All this is awful. Listen. It
says the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices. He'd just slaughtered, he'd had
them slaughtered. And Jesus answering said unto
them, suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans
because they suffered such things. You know, if bad things happen to people,
they must have been bad people. That's kind of what we think. Our Lord knew that's what they
thought. Well, all these people getting shot in this country
or decapitated in this country, all these people blown away in
a tornado over here in this state or whatever it is, all these
people were murdered by this crazed man who walked in a restaurant
or something like that. You think they were worse people
than you are, than I? do by nature. Now listen to this. I tell you, nay, but except you
repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Listen to the next verse. Or
those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, and slew
them. That's a big gossip I'm sure
in that day. There's some people over here
by this tower, and the tower, as they say, accidentally fell
and came crumbling down on all of them, killed them all, 18
people. Thinking that they were sinners
above all men that dwelt at Jerusalem? I tell you nay, no, but except
you repent, ye shall all likewise perish. May not be by a tower falling
on you. May not be by this thing or that
one. May not be at the hands of a
dictator or a madman. But he said, except you repent,
you'll all likewise perish. What happens is, in the light
of all these things, all these trumpets that are sounding, that's
what they are. That's what he likens them to. They said over in Alabama and
these places, you know, that are kind of tornado prone, we
think anyway, that those sirens just blared and blared and blared. What were they? They were like
trumpets. Why were they blaring for? They
were warnings. And yet here we have all these
warnings around us in various kinds. We have all these trumpets
that are sounded in all the cities. He said, are these things happening,
these calamities come, and it's the Lord that hasn't done them? Are you so blind, so stupid,
so willfully ignorant? You know, they say there's no
man so blind as the man who will not see. Are you so blind? Are you so spiritually deaf?
You can't tell that here are all these warnings all around
you. The trumpet is sounding. You
think it's not the Lord doing all this? And if you're left
spared and living, it's a message and a warning of mercy. Judgment
is coming. And it's not simply some madman
standing on a corner waving a sign, talking about the end of the
world. It's a message that declares a sure and certain judgment at
the hand of a holy and a just God you're going to face. And what do they do? Oh, they'll
flock to the places of religion. They'll profess religion. They'll
have that repentance that is born in a storm that always dies
in the calm. And they'll come and they'll
make their bargains with God, but not to God as he's revealed
in the gospel. They'll make their agreements,
they'll make their bargains with God, with somebody named Jesus,
but not to Him who's the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. And they're not coming before
God as He is, as the sinners that we are. And for sure they don't hear
the real trumpet. There's another trumpet that
sounded. Did you know on the Day of Atonement, in the year of the Jubilee, when that sacrifice was offered,
when that high priest went in with that sacrifice, and that
blood was sprinkled on the altar, Trumpets were to be sounded all
through the land that the day of Jubilee was there. You know
what that was? That was a marvelous time. It was the day that all debts
were forgiven. It was the day that all slaves
were released. It was the day that all land
that was taken in business agreements and that was sold because of
need and such as that, all the lands were returned to the family
that owned them. You see, the day of Jubilee,
the year of Jubilee was simply a picture of grace. And it wasn't
some brass trumpet that was sounding. What they did was they took the
ram's horn, the shofar, and they sounded this sound of jubilee
all throughout the land through this ram's horn, this shofar,
and that was the trumpet that sounded the message. What was
that? It was a message of salvation. In other words, that ram had
to die for there to be that sound. Just like it was with Abraham
and Isaac on Mount Moriah. When that ram was caught by his
horns in the thicket and God pointed him out and said to Abraham,
don't slay this son, slay this sacrifice, slay this substitute
in his place and let that boy go free. That's what this is
all about. This is what Christ crucified
is all about. And in the midst of all these
trumpets and warnings, God, in even greater mercy, sounds out
to this day, although it seems very quiet and although it's
not in many places, but yet to his people he sounds out this
gospel trumpet, which is good news. Glad tidings. And you know what? If you deserve
judgment, if you're brought to find out that you really are
deserving of wrath and hell and judgment from God, that this
is what you really deserve, that you're headed for it, sure and
certain, and all of a sudden you hear a sound of a trumpet,
that's not a warning, but it's good news. You see, repentance, the apostle
says, is unto life. What does that mean? I know it means a lot of different
things, but it's actually to be brought from the way that
leads to death to the way that leads to life. That's why in scripture you find
the broad way that leads to destruction, the narrow way that leads to
life. The ways that seem right to us, actually it's the way that seemeth
right to a man, but the ways thereof are the way of death. There are a whole lot of ways,
but they all amount to one way that leads to death. Your righteousness,
your works, your will, your worthiness, all these things, they're ways
to death. To be brought from that way to
Christ, who is the way. Is to be brought and to turn,
turn by God's grace from our way to God's way. which is in
Christ, from self-justification to the only way that God can
be just and justify a sinner, which is the way of the cross,
from trusting in ourselves that we're righteous to resting in
His righteousness imputed to us. It is, as is said in Scripture,
repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know where the greatest
example of repentance is to be found in Scripture, in my humble
opinion? Philippians 3. Paul, having not just done it once,
but in a constant repentance, is speaking of all the things
that he once trusted in, the fact that he was a Pharisee,
the fact that he was a Hebrew, the fact that he was a keeper
of the law, the fact that he was moral, the fact that he had
the esteem of his peers, all these things. What men and women
are taught by preachers in our day, they ought to strive for.
And if you are anything near this, you can be a member of
our church. That's what he repented of. He's not repenting of being a
drunk, or a whoremonger, or a thief, or a liar, or a murderer, or
any of these things. He's repenting of those things
that he once trusted in, that God would accept him and reward
him on the basis of. And here are all these trumpets. And it's kind of like us being in a little cracker box. You ever notice how these tornadoes,
it's like they've got radar on a mobile home. It's just the
way it is, it seems like. We've got, in my county now,
we got hurricanes, you know, that's what we have where I live.
We got all kinds of strict codes now. If you put one in, it'll
have more ground strap tie downs than you can even imagine. Here you and I are, like one
of those first ones that were made, looked like a little shoe
box, you remember? Here we are sitting there in
it, that's our refuge. We don't have any tie-downs and
a tornado of judgments headed toward us. And the alarm sounds. The man on the window says, he's
coming your way. You know, now they can say, it'll
be here at this time, here at that time, here at the next time,
coming your way. Well, you'll just get you a little
piece of hemp rope somewhere and tie it to the tongue of it
and a wood stake and drive it down the ground a little bit.
Would you do that? Get you a pillow and wrap it
around your head. That's the way we are as sinners before
God. No, the Bible says there's a
refuge. There's a man who's a hiding place in the storm. There's a
righteousness that he can be clothed in and stand before the
thrice holy God and be accepted in his sight. There's a sacrifice
that will put away all the sins that he'll bring on this judgment. As a matter of fact, if you look
on that cross, you'll find he's already borne them. See, if we've been brought to
repentance and are therefore constantly
repenting of being in all false gods and renouncing our own works
and will, if we're trusting in Christ, it's because God's free
and sovereign mercy has been extended to us. The goodness of God has led us
to repentance. Godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world worketh
death. Men and women, they're always
asking why these tragedies happen. But if we know anything about
God and his holiness and justice, and have any sense of our sin,
we might wonder why he hadn't already destroyed the whole world
by fire. Already. You hear about these
awful calamities. They hear the trumpet sounds. We have so high value of ourselves. We say, well, a good God wouldn't
do this. A holy God would. Why doesn't God, being who he
is, And you and I certainly being what we are and everybody else
just like us, why doesn't he just go ahead and send a wind that sweeps the planet
clean, sends a fire that consumes every living soul like he did
the flood? Why doesn't he just cause the
earth to erupt with earthquakes? There's a reason. Peter says it's coming. He said they doubted it. In the
day of the flood, they'll doubt it at the end. But he said, this
world will be consumed with fire. He says, the heavens and the
earth, which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved
under fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly
men. But beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day. And the Lord is not
slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness,
but is longsuffering to usward." Who's usward? He began this epistle
distinguishing the fact that this letter is written to God's
elect, not willing that any should perish. He's not willing that any of
his family, any of his children, any of his elect ones, any he
loves, any Christ died for, He's not willing that any of them
should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He's going to bring every one
of them to repentance. They won't repent at the sound
of thunder or storms or roaring winds or anything like that.
But when the Spirit of God takes the gospel, that gives God all
the glory, when He comes in power to their minds and to their hearts,
when He gives them repentance and faith. They'll believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it won't matter then to them
if they die in a tornado or an earthquake or a hurricane or
a heart attack or a bullet or whatever it is, just the sooner
they go out to meet the living God. Do we hear the trumpets? God help us to hear the trumpets.
you