Now tonight, I would be happy if you could keep your Bibles
open to the second chapter of Acts. Acts chapter two. appreciation to you, dear people, for your faithfulness
in listening. Not like it was in Grandpa's
time when we laid by the crops and all went to the meat in the
last two weeks and over. I know how difficult it is for late at night, attend services,
go to work early in the morning. I know these are times when we have to fight for our very own
spiritual existence. And I want to say thank you to all
who are in this boat. God bless you. I don't see any charts for the
time being. Well, he wants me to preach on
his charts. He promised me to hang them up
on that map back there some night, so to help me. I do not preach publicly on what you call the second coming
of Christ, because the longer I study it, the more convinced
I am that I don't know enough about it to preach on it. I didn't say you didn't. When
I was your age, I was an authority on it. In the fortieth verse of the
second chapter of Acts, there's a text that says, I do
not wish to be facetious, nor I certainly do not wish to be
blasphemous, but I wish the Holy Spirit had seen fit to give us a picture, photograph,
of the man who did what this and give us a detailed recounting
of what he said. All we have in the Scripture
is this, with many other words. Did he testify and exhort And he testified and exhorted
with many other words in addition to that part of the sermon that
the Spirit of God recorded for us. And he just said one thing
in all of his testifying and all of his exhorting. He said
to the people, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Save yourselves. Everybody else comes under the soon-coming judgment
of God. save yourselves from this untoward
generation." The man was excited, and that is my deepest need. I wish I could get excited about the most important thing
between eternity. I wish I could get excited enough
to get a lot of folks excited about the fact that the very
generation which I preached to which I preach and in which I
live is assured to experience the judgment of a holy God in
this life as the generation Peter was preaching to. Now, my own conviction, this
won't square with some of yours, but you'll forgive me and I'll
give it to you anyhow. I believe the Apostle Peter,
as he stood there, screaming, terribly excited, testifying,
and rolling up his sleeves, lifting his voice, exhorting, pleading, admonishing,
begging, to save themselves from this
untoward generation, I think the apostle Peter had in mind
Daniel's warning, repeated by the Lord. When you see the abomination
of desolation surrounding the city, you know the ball game's
over for that generation. And it isn't but about 30 years,
or maybe 40, from the time Peter uttered these words that one
of the comings of Jesus Christ, one of the comings, parousias,
manifestations, presence of Jesus Christ occurred on this earth. And that's when Jesus Christ
came in the form of the armies of Titus and laid siege to this holy city,
as Jesus had warned. And I believe Peter just believed
Jesus knew what he was talking about. And I believe Peter knew
that no generation of people could do what that generation
of people had done and get by with it. And I believe that he
screamed at them. You talk about putting on the
rousements. I believe Peter knew for a certainty
that the judgment of a thrice holy God was just around the corner from
the people to whom he preached. And knowing that, he violated
our niceties and exhorted them, for God's sake, I can hear them
scream, for your sake, spit on your hands, get the lead out
of your unstop your deaf ears, wipe the scales off your blind
eyes, get up and start running for safety. All hell's going
to pop, ain't it dear? We're told that in the neighborhood
of three million people came to death in the most terrible
way there in the city of Jerusalem. That mothers and fathers ate
the flesh of their own children. Awful, awful suffering. That was a coming of Jesus Christ. coming in judgment, coming in judgment. The generation that Peter is
trying to get excited enough to where they'll Do everything
humanly possible to save themselves from the stroke of God's presence
in judgment? That generation was guilty of
laying hands on the eternal Son of God and doing Him to a shameful
death. And people can't get by with
that. People can't get by. No generation
can crucify the Son of God and escape the judgment of God. But God help us, we're warned
in the Scripture about crucifying Christ the And it is peculiarly symptomatic
of this day that the one terrible wickedness
of this hour is this joining hands and making
friends with the enemy who would kill Jesus again if they could
get their hands on it. There's no time for anything except emergency
measures. Save yourselves from this untoward
generation. I wish unto God that God Almighty
could wipe the leer and the sneer off of my face and fill me with
some of the awe and the dread and the awesomeness and the solemnity
of claiming to be a Christian in a generation that's tearing
itself to pieces and running right smack into the arms of
a living God in awful judgment. Because I believe that the next
few years, America will experience judgments that'll be as bad as
when Titus starved those millions of people to death when they
ran out of their own children's flesh to eat. I believe that this nation that
has made a joke out of the gospel, I believe that this that has
absolutely thumbed its nose at God Almighty. I believe that
this nation that has made a joke out of the grace of God and turned
it into an excuse for living lasciviously, that's a big word,
needs to be rotten as hell. I believe this generation that
God Almighty is going to open the windows of His wrath and
pour out such judgment as men cannot imagine. I believe it for two reasons.
He couldn't take God and let this generation get by with what
we're getting by with now. And I believe it for another The heart of the premillennial
interpretation of the return of Christ is the word crisis,
and I believe that. I don't believe God can save
a church without judging it. I don't believe God can save
a nation without judging it. I don't believe God can save
a sinner without judging And so I'm praying, O God, rain down
fire and brimstone on this generation as an act of mercy. God's always been a divider and
a separator, and I believe the whole outfit of us is going to
go to hell unless God does something to get our attention. Save yourselves from this untoward
generation." I thought much of a man like Noah. By faith, Noah, being warned of God, of
things not yet seen, Move with fear. Move with fear. For old Noah actually believed
judgment was coming. I wish you and I could It's a little easy going stuff
of trusting a little too big experience that you have to go
back and warm over about twice a day to have any assurance you're
a child of God. Know nothing about reverence
of God, this familiarity with things that are high and holy,
this touching of the heart and seemingly getting by with it. This stuff we call faith today
that's a sin, a tadpole that's starved to death if he's in a
barrel full of it. All of this little bellyaching
and running to mom and papa and keeping the pastor's phone ringing
with your little toenail aches. All of these excuses about how
we're saved but we're still little babies. Oh, my soul, it'll disappear! If we could take God's Word just
like Noah did, and just believe what God said, it'd scare the
living daylights out of us. It'd move us with fear. And we
tread softly, and our churches might once again have some Christians
in them, men and women with a holy fear of God. What made the difference with
Noah? Why did he move with fear? Why did he give his life to just
one thing? After all, the only thing that's
really worthwhile between the eternities, why did he give his
life to just one thing? Pointing men and women to the
only place to hide from the coming judgment of God. Is anything
else worthwhile? because he actually believed
that judgment was coming. Peter was excited. He actually
believed that Jerusalem was going to be laid bare, encompassed
by the enemy, wiped off the face of the earth, and it was. soul tonight, join you, preacher,
in a holy crusade to recover some of the excitement and reverence
and fear and awesomeness of the hour in which we live, or let's quit claiming to believe
the Bible. Let's be done with this little
vainness we've called Christianity, and quit ourselves like men.
And with no uncertain blowing of the trumpet, let's quit apologizing
for giving our lives in just one thing, not civil rights,
that may be all right. Not electing a president, not
strengthening our civilization, but give our lives to the proposition
that Jesus isn't a convenience, he's an utter necessity, and
that men have no option. It's Christ or the judgment of
God. think this world is going to
get excited, Brother Rogers, unless you and I can. Oh, my soul, how willing we are to let this generation go on until judgment How little we
believe. There's only one place to hide. Oh, God, for a deepening of faith. Faith in believing something.
Faith acting on what you believe. How you know Noah believed what
God said? He got him a hammer and some
nails. And with his nails he built an
ark, and he preached righteousness for a hundred and twenty years.
That's all he did. With many other words, he testified
and exhorted, saying, Save yourself from this untoward Some people got excited, not
many, but the record is at least 3,000. I want us to look tonight briefly,
and I want to call on this with myself. Here is the biggest fight
of my life today. I want you to enter into it with
me. I asked somebody Will we ever get another crack at this
generation? What could we preach that anybody
would be interested in now? Well, I'll tell you what we've
got to do. We've got to lash ourselves to the altar of devotion
to just one practice. There's just one fact that really
amounts to a hill of beans, and despite the fact that nobody's
excited about it now, we've got to stick to this one message. It just has two points in it. And it's a point that got three
thousand people deeply excited, so excited that they screamed
out, men and brethren, what must we do? I know they're old now,
and I know that you could get you some signs and go down through
the streets of Pasadena and Houston now. And the only excitement
if you were advertising Jesus or hell, Jesus or judgment. Judgment coming! Hurry up, folks,
and get in the yard. About all the excitement you
cause, somebody might throw their automobile up long enough to
say, Who let that fool out? And I know that if this ever
gets deep down inside of you, that this world is excited about
everything except the one thing that God Almighty says counts. I believe we'd be driven to real
prayer. I believe some of us might yet
be shut up to the fact that we can't go on any longer until,
O God Almighty, comes one time and confirms his gospel. What is it? How come these folks
got excited listening to this preacher screaming and exhorting
and testifying? Well, just two facts. They found
out that they killed Jesus. The Book of Acts puts the emphasis
on man. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, here
are some people who have heard the preacher look them in the
face and say, You killed the Prince
of Peace. That's what you did. You killed
the Prince of Peace. Look at it there. Look at it. Verse 23, him being delivered. by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. Ye takers, ye takers. My old Theodosius said, You want
me to reconcile this for you? I didn't write the verse, How can you reconcile the fact
that this verse says Jesus Christ died on the cross because God
put him there, and the further fact that Jesus Christ died on
that old ugly tree because men with wicked hands took him and
threw him? I ain't going to try to reconcile
it. I ain't got sense enough. There
it is! But the emphasis in the book
of Acts is that men and women, when they got their hands on
the gift of heaven, they said, We're going to have to change
our ways to get rid of him from the top of the nation down. And they took a secret ballot
and decided not to repent, and so they had to kill the Now we write down the beans and
cornbread and salivary. We just will face it now. We've been chasing every tadpole
that crossed the road, and we wind up now where ain't nobody
under no kind of conviction that they need any kind of forgiveness. because we've majored on everything
except the one great soul-damning sin of the human race, and that
is the murder of the Son of God. No wonder we're cracking up on
every side and lustful immorality is about to put even our churches
out of fierceness. We have yet to know the depth
of our deep need for a work of grace. You know what you need
to be forgiven for? Your part in doing Jesus Christ
a You tell me you don't think it's
so bad that you, the backer, go to the picture show. I wouldn't
argue with you for five minutes. I'll tell you, that ain't the
reason you fixed the spithead wide open. You fixed the spithead
wide open because of the fact that you're a member of the human
race. And as that human race, then remember what one man does,
you do, and you can't get out of that. And Charlotte Jackson,
your blessed pastor, had as much to do with putting those nails
in the hands and feet of Jesus Christ as those fellows did around
the cross. Here is the sin men and women
are guilty of, and to live a lie worth In reverse!