What do you say when you've spent three days
amongst the hoary heads? Nobody could ever say that about
me. It is a joy. It's like a little
oasis in the wilderness when the Lord lets us be together We don't have to put on any airs
or any religious phoniness, but we can just rejoice and be
glad that as sinners we've been saved by the grace of God. I love this congregation. I love
this pastor. I love Brother Tim and all his
family. Jim and Nancy, I'm thankful for my family. And
I'm going to spend eternity with my family. And I pray that God would get
all honor and glory. I want you to turn in your Bibles
this morning to Daniel chapter 4. The book of Daniel chapter 4. I'm just going to read a couple of
verses in the beginning. Beginning in verse 34, And at the end of the days, I,
Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding
returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised
and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting
dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth. And none can stay his hand or
say unto him, What doest thou? I remember reading years ago
a little story about something that took place in a little church
in Wales where the preacher had been preaching
this free will Arminian gospel. And he finally came down to preach
on judgment and hell, and he began to tell the people what
God would do with them if they did not believe, if they
did not accept Jesus. And there stood up a big Welsh
miner in the back of the church building. And he stopped the
preacher. And he said, preacher, he said,
God will never send me to hell. And everybody was just aghast.
What do you mean? And he said, If He can't save
me against my will, then He can't damn me against my will. That's right. And so we live in a day and in
a generation where men and women have been
appealed to, begged with, pleaded with, To such a degree, they
have a very high view of themselves and a very low view of God. But there's something we ought
to remember. And when I saw this verse years
ago, I thought, This is exactly the way it is. It's a little verse in the book
of Job. And in it he says of God, but
he is in one mind. And who can turn him and what his soul desires that
he does. Do you believe that? He doesn't desire one thing and do another. He doesn't desire
one thing and then find a situation, on the other hand, that keeps
him from doing what he wants. And in our text, he gives us
the most obvious example. He takes the mightiest, most
powerful man in the world. He takes a man that we really,
I'm sure, cannot really even enter in to what His earthly,
natural glory was. He is the King of Babylon. His name is Nebuchadnezzar. And what happens in this account,
God gives us this man, gives us this illustration. And by
the way, He gave us the illustrations first. He gives us this illustration,
and here what we find is that human will has now met divine sovereignty
and power. And this is what has to happen
if any are to be saved. This is irresistible, effectual
grace. Where sin has abounded, grace
has the much more abounded. And in order to show mercy to
this man Nebuchadnezzar, he has to be brought down in order to
be lifted up. He has to be emptied in order
to be filled. He has just stood on his balcony,
looked over all the works of his hands and talked about this
great Babylon which I have built for my glory. And all who are saved, they have
to be saved. I hear people talk about, I went
to the meeting the other night and I got saved. No, we have
to be saved. And it's like Brother Richardson
used to say, God saves His people against their will with their
full consent. That's what's happened here.
And that's what happens every time a sinner is saved, because
if you stop and think about it, there can only be one free will
in the universe. Only God has a free will. Only God can do what He will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
And did you notice that next line? None can stay His hand. And while men in our day, they
preach a kind of a Got you, God. Or God's going to get you. Talking
about how if you do this or that or the other and it doesn't please
Him, God's going to get you. Well, we have a God's going to
get you God, but it's not like that. You see, the truth of the matter
is, if God has set His affection on you from old eternity, If
he, in an act of his own will, before you even had a will, if
he chose you in grace, if he purposed to save you and have
you for his own self, if he chose you in Christ, God's going to
get you. He's going to get you. You can sit around and talk about
your will and what you won't do and what you're going to do.
All these things. But if you're His, He's going
to get you. And He's not going to get you
to punish you. He's going to get you to save
you. He's going to get you to rescue
you and to deliver you. God is said to be mighty. to save. That's what I'm interested
in. I'm interested in a God who is
mighty to save. I'm interested in a God who can
act out of His own will and sovereignty and power and save whom He will,
and none can stay His hand. He does according, it says here,
to His will. And none can stay His hand. You can't stop God. The old theologians
used to refer to the leisure of the eternal. That is, you
can't stop God, and you can't slow down God, and you can't
speed up God. He moves at His own pace to do
what He has purpose and will to do, and nobody can stop Him. As a matter of fact, salvation
is a demonstration not only of God's grace, but of God's power. It has to do with His authority
and it has to do with His ability as it is demonstrated particularly
in the Lord Jesus Christ. His grace is omnipotent grace. His grace is that irresistible
grace. You say, well, the Scriptures
say that they resisted Him. They always resisted the prophets. Men by nature always resist God,
but His people, they never resist Him successfully. He overcomes them. The Lord Jesus
said concerning that people that were not immediately with Him
or were not of that Jewish fold, He said, of the sheep I have
that are not of this fold, them also I must bring. And nobody can stop it. He bowed his head to the Father. And he said, Father, You have
given me power over all flesh that I might give eternal life
to as many as You have given me. What happens when the hand of
God that none can stay. What happens when God rises up
in power and in the demonstration of His grace and mercy? What happens when He comes to
a sinner in this saving power? We'll turn back over to the book
of Isaiah. Because in Isaiah 6, we have
another example. We have the example of this man
by the name of Isaiah. And when God came to him in this
saving power and mercy, it was at a particular time. The very first line says, in
the year that King Uzziah died. Not a year before that. Not a
year after that. But at that particular time that
was ordained of God, it says that in the year that King Uzziah
died, Isaiah says, I saw the Lord. I thought I had seen Him before.
But the truth is, no man, no woman ever sees the Lord in this
sense until the Lord is pleased to reveal Himself to them. No man can by search and find
out God. Let me read you a verse out of
a psalm. He says in Psalm 102 and verse
13, Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time
to favor her, yea, the set time is come. There is a set time. for all
of God's people. The Scripture describes it as
the day of His power. And they are brought by this
great and omnipotent grace, they are brought by His grace at this
set time. Here is Isaiah, a well-educated
man. A man who wrote down all these
things that the king, that he evidently thought was so great,
all the things that he did. And maybe it was the case that
this man was in a sense his idol because it was in that year that
King Uzziah died that Isaiah saw the Lord. And I'm going to
tell you this. Whatever your idol is, if you're one of God's people,
if He has to destroy every one of them, He's going to have you. You can't run from Him. You can't
hide from Him. Adam and Eve, when they sinned,
they showed immediately the effect of sin, the effect of a fallen
nature, and they went in the very things that God had given
them to be a blessing to them. They went and hid themselves
in the trees. You know what had to happen for
them to perish? All that had to happen. is for
God to be silent. All that has to happen for you
to die in your sins, for you to perish, is for God to leave
you to your own self. But the Lord spoke, and He said,
Adam, where are you? You see, God knew where Adam
was. He knows everything. But like
us, Adam didn't know where he was. He didn't know the state
to which he had fallen. He didn't even realize that his
now current actions were a revelation that he'd sinned against God. Where are you? Where are you? Where am I? There was a time. And when God
comes and lifts His hand in saving mighty power, there will be,
first of all, I believe, a mighty revelation of Himself. I'll tell you, I can remember
when the Lord began to open my eyes to the truth and He gave
me that new Bible. That new Bible, you know, that
overnight altered and changed and had things put in it that
I'd never seen before? I can remember it coming to my
mind. God isn't who I thought He was. We're going to find out who God
is if we are either in mercy or judgment. I was telling Tim
before the, at the end of the morning first service, we used
to sing a little song in Bible school or something like that.
The little song said, everybody ought to know who Jesus is. Let me tell you something, everybody's
going to know. Some are going to find out in
judgment. Every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going
to confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father. Thank goodness some are going
to know in grace. Mighty grace. That's why I don't have any hope
in what you do. That's why we don't give long
invitations and beg and plead and try to get somebody to do
something. We don't want you to do something
for God. We want God to do something for
you. I look at my own son. He has
absolutely no interest, zero interest in anything that has
to do with God. He's heard the gospel. thousands
of times. And I know if left to himself,
he'll perish justly in his sin. My hope's in God. My hope is that God in almighty
grace will interrupt him like he did Saul of Tartuth, that
he'll intercept him, that he'll unhorse him, that he'll do whatever
he deems right in his own sight in order to reveal himself to
him. When the Lord lifted up his hand
in mercy to Isaiah, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord. Well, where was
He? He was on the throne. In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw the Lord also sitting upon a throne high and lifted
up. Have you ever seen Him? See Him with the eye of God-given
faith. See Him in this book. He'll be
high and lifted up. High and lifted up. Sitting on
a throne. Sovereign over all things. Ruling and reigning. Lifted up. The one who does all things. Who works all things after the
counsel of His own will. You say, well, what does that
leave? Kind of like Jethro. Naught plus
naught is naught. Nothing. He works all things
after the counsel of His own will. Boy, that's a wonderful thing
when you learn that. When Nebuchadnezzar begins to
confess how that God has come in power to him and he's enabled
to see the Lord. He says, I blessed the Most High. The Most High. And he said, when I beheld Him,
I saw Him sitting on a throne and His train filled the temple. There's not room for anything
else but Him. This is all about Him. All His
attributes, all His glory, His robe, His train fill the temple,
and everything is such in Him that it leaves no room for boasting. Did you ever think about what
Paul said when he said, Christ is all? If He's all, there's
nothing else. If He's all, then I'm nothing.
It is when His all joins Himself to my nothing that I become something
in His Son. In Exodus, He is that one that
is worshipped in His central, in His chief attribute. Who is likened to Thee, O Lord,
among the gods? Who is likened to Thee? Glorious
in holiness. Fearful in praises. Doing wonders. Isaiah saw the Lord. Where was
he? On a throne? And in that revelation,
he is enabled to see the chief and central attribute of God. You send out a flyer questionnaire
tomorrow, 500 people. Give us in one sentence what
God is. Probably 499 of them will come
back, God is love. It says that in the Bible, you
know, two times. God is love. But many more times
than that, it says he's holy. In other words,
here is the praise of the Godhead, God in three persons, Father,
Son, Holy Spirit, holy, holy, holy. He loves us. It's got to be a
holy love. He never loves any sinner at
the sacrifice of his holiness. He's always immutably, infinitely
holy. And it reveals in a revelation
that all God does must be consistent with His Holy Self. That's why
in the center of that worship, in the tabernacle and the temple,
that tabernacle that they gathered around everywhere they went in
the wilderness, In the middle of it, in that central place,
in that tabernacle, it's called the Holy of Holies. Why? Because God said, that's where
I'll dwell between those cherubims over the mercy seat. He's holy. Before you get all wrapped up
in the fact that He's love and get to thinking, That because
He's love, He's going to save you. Because He's love, doesn't
mean He loves you. You ever think about that? God can be love, and He is love,
but that doesn't mean He loves you. You say He loves everybody.
No, He said He hated Esau. You see, we need to find out
who God is. And you can listen to these These
hucksters who not only don't know the truth, but what they
do find out that is true in the Scripture, they have no grit
and gut to stand up and tell anybody else about it. But you
won't find out how He is. I'll tell you how He is. He's
how He says He is. The reason you don't know how
He is is because you've never heard, read, studied how He says
He is. God is who He says He is. And over and over again, He said,
I'm holy. Everything that characterizes
Him is holiness. Holiness. Absolute, perfect holiness. Whenever we find that revelation
in the book of Revelation, John says, "...and the four beasts
had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes
within, and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy,
Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come." God said, there is none like
me. To whom will you compare me? I'm a just God and a Savior."
And men say, well, God's a just God, but He's a Savior. No. He
says, I'm a just God and a Savior. That can never be separated. And Isaiah says, I saw the Lord.
I didn't always know the Lord. Like somebody, I believe they
asked Barnard, Barnard asked him one time, are you a Christian? And the lady said, I've been
a Christian all my life. He said, that's a little too
long. There in his religion, in his
strict morality, Saul of Tarsus, teacher of men, standing in the
name of God. He is brought, when he sees the
Lord, he is brought to say, I was before a blasphemer. Well, you know, I've really always
loved the Lord. Not this one. When God lifts His hand in power,
there will be a powerful revelation of Himself, that He is this Holy
One that inhabits eternity, and as such, He cannot accept anything
except it be perfect. He is of purer eyes even than
to behold evil, and he cannot look on iniquity, anything that
is not equal to himself. That is what we need. God to
reveal Himself. when he lifts up this hand of
power, not only will there be a revelation, a powerful revelation
of God Himself to the sinner, but there will be a powerful
revelation of the sinner to himself. If I never see it again, I'll
be happy. That owl walking, bubblegum chewing,
crowd that walks down the aisle with no knowledge of God and
proudly presents himself to the church to be a member. It's been 35 years since I saw
such, and I hope I never see it again. No conviction of sin. No conviction over their own
wretchedness. But yet when you hear what Isaiah
is led by the Spirit to say in the account he gives, it says
in verse 3, that these seraphims cried unto another and said,
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is
full of his glory. And the post of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. Then said I, woe is me. We in our blindness run away
from, deny, try to alter, change the one ground upon which God
will meet us in grace. And that's as a sinner. A sinner. Who was it Spurgeon
said, a sinner is a sacred thing. The Lord hath made him such. Not a sinner, but, oh, I know
I'm not perfect, or I know I'm just doing the best I can. No, helpless, hopeless, vile, wretched. Like old Job, he said, I've heard
of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee
Wherefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." You see, in His light, we see
light. When He sends the light of gospel
truth in the power of His Spirit into our darkened souls, opening
the door on an old woodshed that's been shut up for 20 years. And
when the light begins to pervade that darkness, all those old
dirty cobwebs and filth and vermin and everything else, it's only when the light comes. Only God can show you what you
are. Only God can convince you of
your weakness and your vileness and your sinnerhood. There were two men who went down
to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, one was a
publican. And our Lord gives us all these
illustrations accordingly to such who trust in themselves
that they are righteous. But did you know that he says,
whatsoever is highly esteemed of men. Now you ought to just
put this in your mind and hang on to it. Whatever is highly
esteemed of men is an abomination to God. I was telling one of these fellows
earlier in the weekend, that when we stand before God, there's
a whole lot about what's good and what's evil that we're really
going to learn about. But they went down to the temple
to pray. And that Pharisee, he said, God? He thought he was talking to
God, but actually it says he prayed thus within himself. That's
what sinners do. They talk to themselves. They
brag on themselves to themselves. He said, God, I thank you that
I'm not like other men. I'm glad I'm not like that guy
in Colorado that went in that movie and shot up all them people.
I'm glad I'm not like Jeffrey Dahmer takes a Milwaukee reciprocating
saw and cuts up a bunch of people and puts them in the freezer
and stuff. I'm glad I'm not like that. I fast, I tithe, I do all these
things. And I'm especially glad I'm not
like this publican. But the Bible says that publican, with a God-given knowledge of
who God is, and who he was, he smote himself on the breast.
He wouldn't even lift up his eyes toward heaven. He said,
God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Do you know anything about that? I talked with an individual not
long ago And that individual had been
severely wronged. And you know all they could talk
about is what a sinner they were. What a sinner they were. You
ever find out what a sinner you are? Number one, it will have to be
God that shows you. He'll have to come to you in
power and convince you of what you are as a sinner. But if you
ever find out what you are, you'll quit looking down your
nose at everybody else. You'll be humbled before this
throne just like old Isaiah was. You'll come off your high horse
like Nebuchadnezzar did. You'll be unhorsed like Saul
of Tarsus was on the road to Damascus. You ever find out what
you are? You look at Isaiah in that first
chapter, God begins giving a description of what we are as sinners, and
He describes us as a leprous being. with being nothing but wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores that have never been mollified
with ointment or bound up. He said that's what we are from
a head to our toe. I thought total depravity was
a pretty bad doctrine until I found out about total reality. There's not one fiber. of our
being that is not permeated with sin. And all the will is, if
left to ourselves, is the expression of that. Christ said, you will
not will to come to me that you might have life. All our righteousnesses
or as filthy rags, all our works Paul describes as dead works
that rather than justify us before God, they are to be repented
of, all our religious works, nothing but iniquity. If you want to read something
scary, just go over to Matthew 7. and see those individuals
that our Lord talked about in Matthew 7. He said, they're going
to go right to the hour, the throne of judgment. And He said,
many will say unto me, Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful
works? We've preached in your name.
We've cast out devils in Your name. We've done all these good
works. We've collected for the poor.
We've given. We've done all these things. And Christ said, I'll say to
them in that hour, depart from Me. Ye that work iniquity. All their good was bad in His
sight because they did it with the goal of gaining or increasing
His favor. He said, I never knew you. I
never knew you. I never loved you. All your righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. And unless God comes and strips
us and brings us down and bows us and causes us to know that
there's nothing that we can do to save ourselves, there's nothing
that we can give to God that He will accept, that we cannot
of ourselves come to Him. If He doesn't do that for us, we'll
perish. And then if God raises His hand
in power, I'm sure of this, there will
be a mighty revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You won't just come to the doctrines
of grace. You have to be saved by the grace
of the doctrines. You won't just come to the sovereignty
of God. you'll be brought to the God
who is sovereign. And you'll find out that it is
the gospel of Christ crucified. It's the gospel of his sacrifice
for sin. Look on what it says here. He
says in verse 5, Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord
of hosts. You say, well, preacher, I'm
as good as you are. That's a low standard. I do as good as you do, as these
preachers do. I know them, they're not so great." He said, I don't see anything
right. I don't say anything right. I don't do anything right. How
do you know that? He said, I've seen the kings. The best person you know is not
God's standard. They're a sinner just like you
are. Oh, you don't know my grandmama. I'll guarantee you nobody in
here had a grandmother like my mother's mother. The sweetest,
kindest lady. Give you the shirt off her back.
Just so pleasant. Never had an unkind word to say
about anybody. And as much as I loved her, knowing
the truth of God, I don't have any hope that she knew Christ. Because as high standard as she
was above me, she is not God's standard. God's standard is the
man Christ Jesus. So how good do you have to be
to get to heaven? Good is God. Perfection can only
accept perfection. You say, well, that leaves us
without hope. No, it leaves us without hope
in ourselves. Hopes in Christ and who He is. But look, he says, Then flew
one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand,
which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid
it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and
thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged. I'll guarantee you in this book,
wherever you talk, wherever you read, where it's talking about
forgiveness, salvation, part, whatever it is, it will always
be associated with a sacrifice. Worship of God. When you see,
it says, That Abraham, he went to this place, he was kind of
a nomadic fella in some sense. He'd pick up his tent, pack it
up, go to the next place, camp out. What's the first thing he
did? He looked out there and said,
now wait a minute now. Look at that idiot out there.
It's a hot day. We're out here in the middle
of the desert, and that fool's going around picking up rocks.
He just picks up a rock here and puts it on this pile, and
he picks up a rock over here and puts it on that same pile.
He keeps putting up a pile of rocks. What's he doing? Well,
look at there. He's got a lamb out there. And
he's cut that lamb's throat and there's blood all over everything
like that. And the Scripture recounts it
again and again. It says this, it says, And there
Abraham called on the name of the Lord. What does that mean, to call
on the name of the Lord? Well, what did he do? He approached
God and he worshipped God on the only basis that God can be
worshipped and will be worshipped, and that is through and by blood
sacrifice. Paul comes to Romans 10, he says,
and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Somebody said, well, if you sincerely, if you earnestly
pray, if you call out to God and say, Lord, save me, He'll
save you. That's not what he's talking
about. I don't care what anybody says. He's talking about the
same thing that Abraham was representing again and again. And that is
to look to Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's what the Gospel
is about. It's about how Christ died. How
He died according to the Scriptures. How that in an evidence that
God had accepted his sacrifice for his people and he had put
away their sins by the shedding of his blood, God raised him
up from the dead. You remember when the priest
would go into the Holy of Holies? He'd go in there, you know, with
that blood and he'd sprinkle it and sprinkle it on that mercy
seat. How did they know whether or
not that blood had made an atonement? How did they know whether or
not God was pleased with that sacrifice, that God had accepted
that priesthood in sacrifice? How did they know that? If the priest came out. He came out alive. When they would run to the city
of refuge, The manslayer would run to the city of refuge. Those
seven cities scattered about, showing the mercy and grace of
God, types of Christ, they'd run to the refuge. How long were
they safe there? As long as the high priest lived. This is salvation by substitution. It's salvation that satisfies
the justice of God. They'll find out how it is that
sin is put away, how it is that God is worshipped. And Paul said,
when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and
blood. He said, I didn't have to get
a second opinion. I didn't have to run to a commentary. I didn't have to go ask my favorite
preacher if this is right. If God used a preacher to teach
you the gospel, be thankful for it and be thankful for him. But
he ain't God. You better look for yourself.
As a matter of fact, true gospel preachers, that's what they want
you to do. That's what I want you to do. I want you to be like
those Bereans and search the Scripture to see if the things
that I'm saying to you are true. If they're not, don't you hear
me? You see, His cleansing, His purging
came from that. What were those coals? That was
an accepted sacrifice. What's left after you slay an
animal, put it on that altar, light the fire, the fire is consumed,
that was the burnt offering that was to perpetually be going on,
showing the efficacy and the perpetual efficacy of that sacrifice,
showing Christ and Him crucified. I'll tell you one statement in
Scripture that's meant so much to me. It's over in Romans 8 when Paul
talks about anything being laid to the charge of God's elect.
He said, it's God that justifies. How? He said, it is Christ that
died. I'm camping right there. You see, God can do a whole lot
of things to help me from heaven. But the one thing that I needed
above all things, the one thing that stands out as the chief
need of all His people, He could not do from heaven. He could
not do essentially as God the Spirit. He had to become a man. And He had to come to this earth.
And He had to be a perfect man. A sinless man. Holy man. A man like no other that's ever
lived on this earth. He's going to die in my place.
He's going to bear my sin. But that's what he's got to do.
He could have come to this earth and he could have lived the life,
perfect life that he lived. He could have taught great things. He could have accomplished many
things in the name of God, ascended back up into heaven. And I still
perish. Because he had to die for my
sins. And bless His name, if He died
for my sins, I don't have to die for them. He passed by me
like that aborted infant. He said, live. I was preaching a funeral the other
day, and I told them, I said, there ain't but one remedy for
death, and that's life. And life is only in Christ, and
life in Christ is only through His death. You see, we are saved only through
a God-appointed, God-provided, God-accepted sacrifice. When they came to get him in
the garden, he said, You are after me? They said, Yes. He said, You have got to let
these go then. There is a picture everywhere
of how God saves His people. Then there will have to be a
powerful bringing of the rebel sinner's heart into submission
to the Lord Jesus Christ and to a confession of Christ. Verse 8, he says, And I heard
the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will
go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send
me. Well now, aren't you kind of
busy writing down stuff for history? Don't you have a family? Aren't
you a busy person? That's all I see these days is
busy people. They're too busy for God. They're
too busy racing toward eternity. They're too busy living and dying
in their unbelief. They're in a hurry. to get to
hell. Whoa. Now you're going to come and
confess what you've had no interest in? Now all of a sudden you want
to tell somebody else about what God's done for you? You see, the Father has already said to
the Son, Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power. I am telling you what, like the
old poet wrote in his poem, he called it the hound of heaven. And if you're one of his children, and you've been fleeing from
him, he's going to run you down. The Holy Spirit is going to find
you. And you may run from this message.
You may run from those who love you, concern for your souls,
and you may be running, but the Holy Spirit of God is going to
run faster. You can hide in the trees, but
you can't hide from God. Because He loves His people so
much. He loves them with that everlasting
love. And He loves them, and He purposed
to save them. As a matter of fact, He's already
saved them. They're going to be like that
Japanese soldier After the war, he's out there on the island
many years. And he doesn't know that the
war is over. He doesn't know that the conflict is over. He's
still in combat mode. The war is over for God's people. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins." If he doesn't
do that, he's not the real Jesus. This is the need of our day. God to rise up in power. Come in the power of His Spirit and give a sinner life. Reveal
Himself. Give them new birth. Give them
the gift of faith. Give them the gift of repentance.
Take the things of Christ and show them to us. That old hymn writer had it right.
He said, all is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One come down. I've got a little three-and-a-half-year-old
granddaughter, and I can't hardly preach without mentioning her.
Sorry. Changed my life. I love her. And if I see her racing toward
the busy highway like she's prone to do, you think I'm going to sit there
like this mom's clothes and say, well, I'd love to help her, but
I wouldn't want to violate her will. I wouldn't want to interfere,
you know. I'm just going to let her go
if that's what she wants to do. I'm just going to let her go
out there and just run in front of that big back truck and get
destroyed. No. To the maximum of my strength
and will and ability, she'll not be able to stay my hand. Because I'm going to run after
her, and I'm going to reach down to her, and I'm going to snatch
her like the bran from the fire, and save her. Because I love her. Do I love her more than God loves
His people? No way. No way. None can stay His hand. We know
that in judgment. It's the same with grace. Why
don't you just quit running? Raise up the flag of surrender. Thank God that He loves you enough
to find you call you, bring you unto Himself. If you can, you will. Thank the Lord for the message,
for the messenger, Thank God for His free grace through the
Lord Jesus Christ to sinners like us.