if you'd like to return in your
Bibles to Micah chapter 2 verse 3. Micah chapter 2 verse 3. Therefore the Lord says, I am
planning disaster against this people, from which you cannot
save yourselves. Strictly speaking, it says that such disaster you
cannot remove from your neck. But the fellows that did the
translation that we commonly use certainly gives us the sense
of the Lord's words The Lord is planning, devising, decreeing
disaster against this people. And it will be a disaster from
which they will be utterly unable to save themselves. I don't want
to spend too much time by way of introduction We know how we are to handle
the Old Testament, that while it tells us of historical events,
much of it's occupied with the history of the nation of Israel. We know that we are to apply
these things in a broader sense, that Israel served as kind of
a microcosm of the entire world, particularly the religious world,
made up of people who professed to follow God and believe Him,
and yet among that people were only very few who actually did
worship Him and believe Him. Therefore, the things that God
says to Israel we take to have a much broader application. He says here, and listen to these
words, and see if you can't grasp some of the solemnity of them,
I, I the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, I am planning disaster
against this people. from which you cannot save yourselves. Let us first notice the seriousness
of what our God says here. It's a declaration of disaster. I don't know how much you pay
attention to religion, and you know how I use the word religion.
I'm talking about what men think is the way to worship God. we distinguish between religion
and what God says. But when you look at religion
in the United States, even that religion which takes
to itself the name of Christianity, you will find that most of it,
most of it, is occupied with a God who doesn't declare, decree,
determine disaster on anyone. They declare a God whose intention
is to save everyone, who's doing all he can to save everyone,
who does not so much as even control everything that happens
in this world, that he is the God of tornadoes as the well
as the God of a sunny day, that he is the God of sickness as
well as health, the God of death as well as life. They cannot imagine that God
would say, I'm planning disaster for these people. I say they cannot imagine it,
maybe it's crossed their mind, they're just not willing to preach
it because that does not attract a crowd. Rather, they will set before
people things which if they do it, God will pour out on them
an abundance of earthly blessings. And yet God says, I'm planning
disaster. This is what I've decreed. This
is what my purpose is, disaster. This is no small thing that our
God is talking about. It's a devastation, an utter
ruination. In the context in which Micah
spoke and prophesied these words, it would involve the destruction
of the capital city, Samaria, in the northern tribes, and later
on, the destruction of Jerusalem. And when our Lord brought in
armies to destroy those places, it wasn't just that they came
in and took over. It wasn't that they just came
and burned a few villages down. They came in and they utterly
sacked the place. They tore down the walls. They
tore down the temples. They tore down everything and
left nothing but a heap. And that pictures the spiritual
devastation that God has decreed upon all men. He has said universally, I have
devised disaster. What awaits those who remain
in rebellion against God will not be a small slap on the wrist. It will not be some temporary time of suffering,
which once enough suffering has been done, they'll be released.
You see, sin is no small matter. Brother Mahan used to say, there
is no such thing as a small sin because there's no small God
to sin against. And our sin is against him, and
this is his response to our sin. I have determined, I have decreed,
I have devised destruction, devastation. The devastation of the souls
of rebels is likened to the devastation
of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's like the devastation of
the world in the days of Noah. God has not devised any response
to sin. short of total destruction, and
by that I don't mean annihilation. There are some who believe that
when the day of judgment comes that those who are in rebellion,
God will just cause them to cease to exist. We don't find that
in the scriptures. Yet, everything, everything that
might be called good or pleasant will be removed from them. And
while, as we noted in a message a couple of months ago, we don't
have literal descriptions of either hell or heaven, because
they involve things too far or too advanced for us to really
grasp what they must be like, yet the symbols, the metaphors,
the descriptions of hell are such that we cannot imagine anything
worse, like a fire that never goes out. even a lake of fire, everlasting, unending, unyielding,
merciless wrath from a rightly and justly offended God. Now
that's what God's decreed. This is a devastation planned
by the Lord. Hear me carefully. Hell is not
some accidental condition brought about by man's refusal to accept,
as they use the word, to accept Jesus or accept his grace. It is not something that God
does not want to do, but he is nonetheless compelled to do it
because men wouldn't permit him to save them. That's not what
hell is. When the Lord says, depart from
me, you that work iniquity, there will be no quiver in his voice.
There will be no tear in his eye. Our God will not spend eternity
upset that he was compelled to send to destruction those who
did not submit to him. God does not send people to hell
because he has no choice. Hell is his choice. It is his
determination. It is what he has devised for
those who are yet in their sins. It's planned by the Lord, so
it is a just plan. This is hard for us to swallow. It's impossible for the natural
man to swallow. But God is just and everything
he does is just and righteous. It's the right thing to do. Hell
is not just a response of an upset God. It is not a divine
temper tantrum. It is the just response. of a
God rightly offended by our rebellion against him. Now, no one in hell
is going to admit that, but it'd be true. Someone once commented that in
both heaven and hell, there will be the cry, why am I here? Those in hell, blinded to the
greatness of their sin because they had no concept of the greatness
of the God against whom they have sinned, they will be suffering
in hell. Why am I here? I wasn't all that
bad. Those in heaven will look around at the glorious blessings
handed to them at the expense of Christ and say, what am I
doing here? Why am I so blessed? John Newton said that when he
died and went into the presence of the Lord, there are three
things that will surely come to his mind. He said, one thing,
he said, I'm going to be surprised to see some people there that
I didn't expect to be there. He said, I'm going to be surprised
not to see some people I expected to see there. But I will be most
surprised to find that I am there. But hell is such, it does not
change the minds of men, but yet forever and ever they suffer a wrath justly passed
upon them. It's planned, devised by the
Lord, so it's irrevocable. Now if I plan something, the
plans might fall apart. If I devise something, it may
not come to pass. There are those who are stronger
than me. So my will may not be done. But this is the Lord. This is not just a prophet declaring
it. This is God saying this. And who can withstand the word
of the Lord? Who can turn back what he has
determined? After Nebuchadnezzar spent seven
years eating grass like an ox, and then God restored his sanity
to him, He said, I extol the Most High,
who does as he wills in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth, and no one can stop him or say unto him, what
do you think you're doing? We have no right to challenge
him and no power to stop him. If he has devised destruction,
then destruction it shall be. And there's nothing that you
and I can do about it. Men do not want to hear this
message from the Lord that He has planned, devised, determined,
and decreed disaster upon all. But even if they're willing to
accept that, the next part they're not so willing to accept, and
that is that it is a disaster from which they cannot save themselves. Oh, I realize that virtually
everyone who goes by the religious title of Christian will say that
we can't save ourselves, but then they turn right around and
give people things to do by which to obtain salvation. But God is saying that the disaster
He plans, there is nothing that men can do to stop it. There is nothing that you and
I have within any of our natural powers to turn it aside, to convince
the Lord that it shouldn't happen, nothing. You know, our modern day Prophets, and
I don't mean that in a real, I'm using it metaphorically,
the scientists of our day who keep telling us what's going
to happen. You know, we've got global warming, we've got pandemic,
we've got all of these. They're talking about destruction.
It's going to happen, it's going to happen. But everyone ends up, unless we do
this, there's always an out. Dark as they make it, there's
a way out. There's no way out of this one. You and I have never yet faced
a destruction from which there was no possibility that we could
get ourselves out of it. How do I know? Well, we're still
alive. So far, everything that's happened hasn't killed us yet.
We're not in hell. We've overcome sicknesses, we've
overcome all manner of things that happen to the sons of men.
But here's something that the sons of men can't do anything
about. Noah told his generation that
such a day was coming, and they wouldn't believe him. And he started building out an
ark, a huge boat. And I'm sure they laughed at
him. What do you mean it's going to rain? What's rain? Because
at that point it never rained. And why are we God judges? We're
not that bad. And they watched Noah build that
ark and they watched him and his family and the animals all
get up in that ark and the door is shut. And then the rain started to
fall. He says, the heavens were opened and the fountains of the
great deep were broken up. And there came a disaster from
which no one living could save themselves. He said, well, Noah
saved himself, but we preached on that a few weeks ago. That's
a different matter. There was no way. outside of
that ark to survive that flood. This is a universal message.
It should be told to everyone. Why? Well, the God who spoke
it is God over everybody. He's not just God of the Jews,
He's God of the Gentiles too. The old-timers, you know, I mean,
the ancient peoples, you know, they thought they had these gods
and some of them were gods of the sky, others were gods of
the sea, and there were gods that made up, you know, they
were the planets, and gods controlled storms, and each god had his
own place. God is God over everything, and
He's everyone's God, whether they like it or not. To illustrate
that, Anybody that pays any attention
to the news knows that our nation is rather politically polarized. And it doesn't matter who wins
the presidency. About half the country is going
to say, well, that's not my president. Yes, it is. He's president of
the whole nation, whether or not you voted for him. And God is God over everything.
whether or not you like it, whether or not you even know who he is.
He's the only God there is, and he's God over you, God over me. It's a needful word for the old
who draw near to this day of destruction. It's a needful word to the middle-aged
who are busy with the matters of this life, planning for old
age, building up a retirement fund, getting things in order
for a retirement they can't be sure they'll ever reach. And
it seems they forget what old age always leads to. And that
rather shortly. This is a word for the youth. for those just embarking on their
adult lives, full of hope and promise. They've been told by
their teachers they can do anything. They're going to find out sooner
or later they can't do anything. That their lives and most importantly
their eternal souls are in the hand of God. You who are my age, do you remember
what it was like when you were in your late teens and early
20s? Remember how much you thought you were going to do? Do you
maybe even remember the early days of your faith in Christ
when you thought, okay, I'm going to grow and I'm going to overcome
this sin and I'm going to put away that? What's come of that? I won't talk about you, I'll
talk about me. You know what's come of it? Nothing. My high school teacher,
one of my favorite ones, wrote in my yearbook, and it was like
he was a prophet, he said, I'm sure that in whatever you endeavor,
you will achieve mediocre success. And that's me. Just pretty much
mediocre. I made a profession of faith at seven years old.
I've made professions of faith since then. I've been in religion
all my life. And I remember so much in my youth, I'm going to
accomplish this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to climb this.
I'm going to be, I'd ask God, make me a better Christian. And now here I am nearly 60 years
later, and I'm not any better than I was then. The Lord God has said I'm planning
disaster. This is a word for children. you yet in your parents' home,
taken care of by your parents, and that's the way it's supposed
to be. And I hesitate to bring upon
you a terror, but I must be honest against all people, including
you. The Lord has devised, determined,
purposed disaster. I recall shortly, now I can't remember
exactly when it is now, I got two pictures in my mind and they
were at different times, but it was while I was quite young.
And I was in that, sitting there in a pew, the church, The preacher
was preaching and I wasn't listening, you know, that's pretty much
how young people are, a lot of adults. And I started to doze off and
just as I hit that gray area between being asleep
and being awake, and I was, I know I was less than 10 when this
happened, just, you're gonna die. You're gonna die. Believe me, I woke up. I woke
up. It terrified me. We all know
it. Very few of us put that truth
within the equation of our thinking. I'm gonna die. And so to you children, I want
you to understand this. The day is coming. when you will
die. I don't know when. Statistics
say 78. But some die in infancy. Some die in childhood. Some never
make it out of their teenage years. There's never a time in which
you can say, I'm certain that I'm not going to die anytime
soon. You don't know. Understand this, your life will
someday be over. And it's really not all that
important about when it happens. The fact of it is what's important.
And when you pass from this world, you go into the presence of a
holy God who said, I am planning disaster for this people. And you know what? If babies could understand words,
newborns, if they could understand words, the best thing we could
tell them right as they come forth from their mother's womb
is this, the Lord has devised disaster from which you cannot
save yourself. You say, well, that would hardly
be a good introduction to the world. Wouldn't be a pleasant
one. But it's something they need to know. It is not a kindness to hide
truth, no matter how unpleasant that truth may be. If you go to the doctor and you have a disease that you
would never be able to cure, but he could, but he thought,
I don't want to scare this person. And so he tells you everything's
okay. What would you think of that, doctor, when later on you
found out it's too late? There is one certain law of human
experience. Everyone who exits the womb will
someday enter the tomb. and a very important piece of
information they must learn somewhere along the way. The Lord has planned
disaster. It's a message for the rich and
the poor. Some people think that God has
a special affection for the poor. Well, it's true that the Lord
has not chosen many wise, wealthy, significant as the world counts
significance, people. But he did not choose them because
they were poor. The poor are as worthy of eternal
condemnation as the wealthiest man alive. It is a needful message to the
astonishingly wicked and the magnificently righteous, as men
would count those descriptions. It is a needful message for us. You and me, you and I who have for close
to 34 years now walked together according to this gospel of God's
grace, we still need to hear this. The Lord has planned destruction. It's needful for us so that we
do not go through our lives thinking all is well only to find in the
end that it was not. Now you know that it is naughty.
We do not count it a virtuous thing for a person to live in
a state of agonizing doubt. But neither do we want to go
through our lives not giving careful attention, as Paul said,
examine yourselves to see if you be of the faith. that we
don't say, well, there was a time back yonder when I heard that
and I liked it and I believed it and I confessed it, and then
we just go on never making certain again. Is this really what I
believe? Am I really trusting my soul to Christ? Because it doesn't matter what
you say. Words are cheap. It's needful for us to hear this
word, I'm planning disaster against this people. It's needful for
us in order that our appreciation for the grace that's been given
to us might increase. Oh brethren, think for a minute
what you were and where you were headed before God and sovereign
grace got in your way. You were on a path of destruction.
You were on the broad way that leads to destruction from which
there is no remedy. You walk down a path either ignoring
the truth of the destruction that lay ahead or thinking that
that destruction wasn't meant for you. And then God stopped you. And God showed you where you
were headed. And showed you his son. Who went to destruction for your
sake. So that you wouldn't end up there. It's easy to get complacent about
this, isn't it? We've heard about grace so long.
We forget what the absence of grace is like. We have so long believed our
Lord Jesus Christ that we have forgotten what a glorious privilege
it is. What a glorious act of the grace
of God it has been for him to show us this truth, he planned
destruction. We go on about our lives not
regarding, not thinking much. about how they would have ended
had not God intervened. I do believe that if for a moment,
just a moment because it's all we could stand, if just for a
moment we could enter into what hell is like, we would never again fail to appreciate what great
things the Lord has done for us. It is needful for us to hear
this message so that we will not fritter away our lives serving
ourselves. As I prepared this message I
was so convicted. The Lord has decreed destruction
upon the sons of men. We know where that salvation
from that is. What are we doing to tell other
people about it? I know that believers are not
to be guided by guilt, that is, their lives are not to be ruled
by a sense of guilt and condemnation before God because there is therefore
now no condemnation to them that are Christ Jesus. There's more
than one kind of guilt, and Paul referred to it once in a while
in stirring up the hearts of the churches, a guilt we might
more associate with shame. And it's a shame that those of
us who have been given so much by the grace of God do not spend
ourselves trying to reach others. You say,
well, but God's grace is sovereign. He'd go save his people. Yeah,
that's true. Not one of the Lord's people is going to end up lost.
I know that. But isn't it rather heartless? If on the one hand we claim to
rejoice so much in what God has given us, and yet do not do what
we can to tell others about it. We sing, brethren we have met
to worship. And that one stands, I think
it's the second one, says brethren, see poor sinners round you slumbering
on the brink of woe. Death. Death is coming. Hell is moving. Can you dare
to let them go? See our mothers and our fathers
and our children sinking down Brethren, pray. Pray. Pray in holy manner. We'll be scattered all around.
And God forgive our selfishness with grace. Maybe not you, maybe it's just
me. You say, well, preacher, you've
given your life to preaching the gospel. I'm well taken care
of. I can't think of anything I've really sacrificed. I've
had all the food I need and more. I've got a nice house. I've got
a good wife, got good kids. What have I given up? Nothing.
I worship with people I cherish. I live in the United States of
America. Despite all its problems, where else do you want to live? Oh God help us that we not live
our lives for ourselves forgetting what Paul said regarding Christ. He says you remember the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ how that though he were rich yet
for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might
be made rich. Now brethren we can't save anybody Our Lord will accomplish His
purpose. But I would sure like to be involved
with that, wouldn't you? Of all the things you would want
to give your life to, what better than to seek the
lost? What better than to come to these
poor sinners all around us and tell them about Him who is the
Savior of sinners. And if we do not tell them ourselves,
then give or whatever to send others gifted to preach, to tell
others. That industrialist. Carnegie. He came from a Scottish Presbyterian
background. And his mother told him, he who
dies rich dies shamed. Well, the man was fabulously
rich. But because of that conviction that his mother put into his
heart, he went around and started building libraries. That's why
all through the 1900s, you know, just about every town had a Carnegie
library in it. Because he thought According
to his mother's instruction, he should spend his money to
help. Well, brethren, let us not die rich. I'm not talking, you know, I
can't get detailed about it. I'm not talking about being foolish
with money and things like that. What I'm saying is this. Let
us not use the things that God has given us in a fleshly way,
the world does, and die with a bunch of resources that could
have been used to preach the gospel. Let us do everything we can with
everything God has given us to preach his gospel. Now having said all of that,
if that's all the Lord had to say, I am planning disaster against
this people." If that's all that God had to say, there wouldn't
be any value in telling anybody about it. They might as well
live their lives in ignorance until the day comes. Oh, but
thanks be to God, that's not all he said. Verse 12, I will surely gather all of you,
O Jacob. I will surely bring together
the remnant of Israel." Now again, this was originally spoken to
that natural nation, but this is now, we expand it knowing
this, that in all times and in all places there has always been
a remnant according to the election of grace. Paul says it. And this
remnant makes up the Israel of God, not that natural nation,
but that spiritual nation, which Peter called a holy nation, a
kingdom of priests. He has decreed destruction upon
all and then he has said, but surely I'll gather all of you,
O Jacob. Jacob, the deceiver. You see,
God doesn't gather everybody because not everybody is willing
to take the name Jacob. They aren't willing to own up
to being the kind of person that Jacob was. But that's why God
often called Israel Jacob, because they were just like their forebearer.
And God will gather all the Jacobs. Do you know that God's going
to save all the lost? I remember Henry preaching on
this, Henry William preaching on this one time, and he said, God's
gonna save all the lost. And he said, well, preacher,
everybody's lost. He says, no, they're not, just ask them. There's
not many lost people. One old time hymn writer said,
a sinner is a holy thing. The Lord has made him so. What
did he mean by that? Well, men aren't sinners if you
ask them. And if you ever find somebody who will admit to being
a sinner the way the Bible describes sinners, you've found someone
the Lord has worked on. Because they don't do that unless
the Lord convinces them. They'll always have an excuse,
oh yeah, I'm a sinner, but I do the best I can. Well, then you're
not one of the lost, you know. Our Lord said, I've come to seek
and to save that which is lost. But too many people think they're
found, so He didn't come for them. The remnant of Israel,
Israel is the name of grace. Jacob's the name of our nature,
Israel's the name given to us by grace. He said, I'll bring
them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture.
A place will throng with people. Oh, he's decreed destruction
upon all, and yet glory be to his name. There's a throng who will never experience that
destruction. Verse 13, why? One who breaks open the way will
go up before them. Who's that? You see the Lord decreed destruction
upon all men and you know what? It's going to fall on all men. Destruction fell on Noah. the
day of the flood. But he didn't die because he
was in that ark. And there was a time when our
Lord Jesus Christ, that spiritual ark, he broke open the way. The decree destruction fell on
him. He broke open the gates of death
and hell and went out. And what's the
result? They. All those in him will break
through the gate and go out. The king will pass through before
them, even the Lord at their head. Our Lord Jesus said on
this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not
prevail against it. That doesn't mean, as the devil
and all his cohorts war against the church, that they won't prevail.
That's a truth, but that's not what our Lord was saying. He
was saying this, that by the decree of God, all of us were,
so to speak, in Hades, in death, in hell. And our Lord went there,
and there were those gates locked up. We couldn't get out. He did. By His death, by assuming our
sins, taking our sins upon Himself and burying them in the presence
of God, He did what no one else could do. He satisfied the wrath
of God. He approached the gates of hell.
He broke them open, and we broke through with Him. And then he approached those
other gates. When he ascended on high, I think it's Psalm 24,
lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, you everlasting
doors, that the King of glory may come in. And the gates were lifted up,
and Christ went in, and we followed him right in. The Lord has decreed destruction. Believe it. You can't save yourself from
it, but there's somebody who can. The Lord Jesus Christ. He saves us from that decreed
destruction by burying it in our place. And the word goes out, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Not save yourselves,
you will be saved. May God add his blessing to his
world.