Divine judgment is painful and
sobering to observe, especially when the one openly
and obviously judged of God is one you dearly love. I've not
often seen the Lord God openly, obviously, suddenly manifest
his judgment upon men who once appeared to walk in the light
of his grace, casting them off suddenly, shutting them up in
darkness suddenly, leaving them obviously and suddenly in willful
rebellion, as he did the children of Israel Openly when he sent
the armies of Titus in and leveled the city of Jerusalem to the
ground and again openly when the Apostle Paul Spoke to the
Jews and said I go to the Gentiles I've left you. I've washed my
hands of you. I've done with you because God
has left you God has washed his hands of you. God has done with
you When I have seen these things I've been astonished by them
and sobered by them. And God has graciously used them
to awaken in my heart gratitude and praise to him for his unceasing
great mercy, love, and grace to me. God, I thank you for choosing
me. I thank you for redeeming me.
I thank you for sending someone to preach the gospel to me, for
revealing Christ in me, for giving me faith in your son, for keeping
me from the evil influences which have persistently sought to take
me away from your darling son and away from faith in him. Oh, how I give God thanks for
all his great goodness to me. I urge you to do the same. As
you know, I was raised not in the country, but on the streets
of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And when I was a boy, we didn't
have any big lakes or rivers around us to go fishing in, and
city boys don't get to do a lot of fishing anyway. And the only
lakes around us of any significance were man-made lakes, and you
had to pay to go fishing, and I didn't want to pay to go fishing,
so when I went fishing, we just cut a, usually didn't get a bamboo
pole, just had a stick and tied some string on it. And we'd get
afloat, had to fish shallow, didn't get more than three three
feet deep or so, you'd be caught on the bottom. So we just fished
pretty shallow and you'd get some worms, didn't have lures
or anything. Put a little float up there,
put that bait down about three feet below the float and watch. Just watch, and you watch the
fish, and they'd come around that bait, and they'd swim around
it, and then they'd look like they're smelling it. They'd just
get real close to it, and then they'd nibble on that worm a
little bit, and then they'd swim around, and look like they're
going away. And then all of a sudden, wham!
They came and took it, hook, line, and sinker. They just gobbled
it all up. They just couldn't resist because
they kept sniffing the bait. They kept sniffing the bait.
Don't be so foolish when men set bait before you by which
they would turn you away from the simplicity that is in Christ. Anything men set before you,
any man sets before you. by which he would turn your attention
away from Jesus Christ and him crucified. Don't sniff it. Don't look at it. Don't go around
it. Stay away from it or you'll soon
take the bait and you'll be gone, hook, line, and sinker. That's
what I've witnessed in recent days. Some who have been dearer
to me than my own flesh I've seen them start to sniff a little
bait. And I had been reasoning with them, pleading with them,
writing to them. begging them, weeping for them,
praying for them for months, reproving them forcefully, tenderly,
roughly, but lovingly, seeking to keep them from taking the
bait. And beginning to learn something
of the meaning of Jeremiah's words, he said, let mine eyes
run down with tears night and day. Let them not cease. For my own sons, my cherished
friends, are broken with a great breach and a grievous blow. I fear that some for whom I would
have laid down my life, God is my witness. dearer to me than my own flesh,
have by their willful, obstinate rebellion been cast off of God,
just as God cast off the Jews. Suddenly shut up in darkness
and left to grope about in their folly, simply because they refused
to hear what God would say. You may ask, Pastor, what do
you think about such things? How do you respond to these things?
What are we to do? I've got the answer for you,
and God, I believe, will give me the grace to deliver it. Are
you listening? Behold, therefore, the goodness
and severity of God. Behold the goodness and severity
of God. Turn with me to Romans chapter
11. The goodness and severity of
God are things to be observed by us and recorded upon the pages
of memory. The goodness and severity, not
goodness alone, But the goodness and severity of God are things
to be remembered by us, recorded upon the pages of our memory,
causing us to bow to Him and worship Him with utter awe and
trembling thanksgiving and devotion. Romans chapter 11, verse 17. Here is a cause for great wonder. If some of the branches be broken
off and thou being a wild olive tree were grafted among them
and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive
tree. Now, let me tell you what that
means. I'm gonna put it in shoe leather
so you can't miss it. This past Thursday morning, I
was getting ready to leave to go to Piteville and Shelby got
a call from this beautiful young lady here. And my morning was
suddenly greatly interrupted. She had to come over and pick
up some books from my library. Elder Grace just started her
second year here at Center and she's got a paper to do. And
the paper is to do an exegesis that's a $10 word for a $2 fellow
to say. But exegesis, it's an important
word of Genesis chapter 4. She said, we're not allowed to
even make comparisons with the New Testament. It's got to be
an exegesis, not an eisegesis. And I had an opportunity to teach
her about preaching. Not that she should ever do it.
I wouldn't go listen to her if she were to attempt to. But I
said, this is something I try my best to get preachers to do
all the time, to exegete the scriptures, not eisegete the
scriptures. The word exegesis comes from
the very word that is used in John chapter one, verse 18. No
man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. That word
declared, if it were literally written out from the Greek letters
and transliterated into English is, he hath exegeted him. What's that mean? The Lord Jesus,
God in the flesh, took on himself our nature. God became one of
us. And he who knows all that God
is comes and by his word, by his person, and by his work says,
this is God. Here he is. He showed us all
that God is, taking God out and displaying him to us. That's
what faithful men do with the word of God. They exegete the
scriptures. They find what God says in the
text and bring it out and show it to you. Unfaithful men go
about it another way. All cultists, Pentecostals, dispensationalists,
they just have to go about it. They get ideas. Somebody says,
I think this, I believe this, this is what I think. And they
come to the scriptures and get a concordance and start doing
a word study. And flat and even and level and
cut up and do a word study and go to scripture. Oh, look what
I found, the Bible really does teach this idiocy. And then try
to convince you this is what the book says. That's a horrible,
dishonest use of Holy Scripture. If I am faithful to your soul
as a preacher, it is my responsibility to find what God says in his
word and declare to you what God says in his word. He said,
you're my friends. I've shown you. I've shown you
what I'm doing. I didn't hide it from you. You
didn't have to look it up. I've shown it to you. Now, let
me show you what Paul, by divine inspiration, is teaching us in
Romans 11, 17 through 22. God has cast some of the Jews,
indeed the great bulk of Abraham's natural descendants, off. And
he has graft in a remnant according to the election of grace. some
of the Jews and some of the Gentiles, but from both a remnant according
to the election of grace. God cast off some who appeared
to be his people and has saved sinners like you and me, whom
nobody ever dreamed might be his people. what I was talking about, John
15. A lot of folks, man, they sure look, they look impressive. They look impressive. The Apostle
Paul, spoke of that man who walked with him, Gaius, seems so. Oh, he traveled with Paul. They preached together. He said
he's, I'm sorry, Demas, he's forsaken me. He's forsaken me. Diotrephes, one of John's companions,
he said the man is swelled up with pride. He loves position
and power. He's gone. He's gone. Looked
good. Looked good. But God cuts off
the branches, and they're left to wither. And men come, gather
them up for firewood, and they're gone. Behold what multitudes,
my brother, my sister, have been cast off, but God chose you. Christ redeemed you. God sent
his gospel to you. The Spirit of God called you.
He graft you into Christ. And in the midst of all the stuff
that Satan has dangled in front of you, Amidst all the confusion
that men bring, amidst all the ways men abuse this book, amidst
all the darkness of this world, God still preserves you, believing
on His Son. Why does God do things this way?
How do we respond to it? Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Verse 19. For there must be also heresies
among you. Not heresies at yonder. I expect
them from across the street. I expect them from down the road.
I expect them from over there. But there must be heresies among
you. Satan's going to entice you.
Satan's going to allure you. There must be heresies among
you. Why is that? That they which are approved,
approved of God, may be made manifest among you. John said,
they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had
been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they
went out that they might be made manifest. They were not all of
us. And he's not there talking just
about folks who quit coming to church. These are folks who've
turned away from the gospel of Christ to something else. And
why haven't you? You have an unction from the
Holy One and you just know better. Truly the fact that God has spared
us, preserved us in Christ is a cause of great wonder to our
souls. I feel like Ezekiel when he saw
the destruction of his people, God's judgment upon his people.
He said, and I was left. I was spared. Look at verses
18 and 19, Romans 11. Here is a reason for great humiliation. Boast not against the branches,
those who've been cut off. But if thou boast, thou bearest
not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, the branches
were broken off, that I might be grafted. Now again, let me
tell you exactly what John said, or what Paul said. If you stand,
it's not because you're strong, but because Christ is your strength.
If you see, it's not because you're brilliant, but because
Christ is your light. If you persevere, it's not because
you have such a strong grip of faith on the Son of God, but
because he has a strong grip of grace upon you. If you stand,
it's not because you're better than the fallen, but because
you're kept by the power of his grace. Hear me, hear me. Are you listening? Who maketh
thee to differ from another? What hast thou that thou hast
not received? Now if thou hast received it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? Don't
miss this. Thou bearest not the root, but
the root thee. You don't carry Christ, Christ
carries you. Christ doesn't depend on you,
you depend on Christ. You don't sustain Christ, Christ
sustains you. The church of God doesn't depend
on you. You depend on God's church. God's
church doesn't need you. You need God's church. Now understand
this, you're just not so important that the cause of God's gonna
fall apart if you're gone. Neither am I. We depend on God's
people and we depend on God, our Savior. Understand this too. The branches were broken off.
that I might be grafted in. God's judgment upon others, God
casting away the reprobate and the heresy that spawned by them
is ordained of God for your soul's good. God uses the wrath of reprobate
men against him for the salvation of his elect and for our soul's
everlasting good. Hear me? It's worth remembering. God uses the wrath of reprobate
men against him for the salvation of his elect and our soul's everlasting
good. Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee. Can you give me some examples,
pastor? I think I can. There were some Jews 2,000 years
ago. who were enraged, just enraged
at Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Enraged that he dared declare
himself the Christ, the Son of God. They said, because you make
yourself equal with God, we're gonna kill you. And in their
rage, They arranged for him to be crucified so that they, with
wicked hands, nailed him to the cursed tree with wicked hearts,
spit in his face and laughed and danced and threw a hellish
party while he died. And they did it all by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. Then as if they hadn't nailed
him to the tree, we wouldn't be redeemed. You understand me? The casting off of Israel because
of their unbelief was the sending of the gospel of God's salvation
to the Gentiles and the saving of his elect among them. The
heresies by which the reprobate seek to divide God's church,
by which they themselves are deceived, only unite God's church
and reveal who are his. The messengers of Satan, who
seek to turn you from the simplicity that is in Christ, calls God's
elect to cling the more tenaciously to Christ as their all. When judgment falls upon others
and they fall away under it, let us be humble before God.
Number three, verses 20 and 21. Here is a great motive for great
devotion, something to inspire great consecration to our God. Well, because of unbelief, they
were broken off. And thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded. Don't let
your head get in the air. For if that God spared not the
natural branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee. When any turn from Zion's way,
alas, what numbers do? I think I hear my Savior say,
wilt thou forsake me too? O Lord, with such a heart as
mine, unless thou hold me fast, I know I must, I shall decline
and prove like them at last. Thou standest by faith. Faith that God gives you. Faith that God gives you with
unceasing supply. Faith that sustains you. Faith in Christ. Faith believing
God's Son. Faith set on God's Son. So set
on Him. So set on Him. So set on Him
that nothing else is appealing. Just Him. Just Him. It's just
Him. I remember the first time I saw
this beautiful blonde I'm married to. I was 16 years old. I walked in the store where she
was working with my mother. I can tell you what she was wearing.
I think they called them A-line dresses. Is that what she wore
back in those days? They were wearing a yellow and white A-line
dress and that long blonde hair. And she was so pretty. I was
so taken up with her. I don't know what else was there. I'm sure there were other people
there, but I wouldn't look at them. She didn't notice me. She walked
around that way. Wow. I just take it up with her. Listen to me. If Christ Jesus
is ever revealed in you, he will so ravish your heart. that you have eyes for none but
Him. Anything that comes up and seems
to rival Him, seeks to turn your eyes away from Him, they just
have to go off. That's not even in the room.
That's nothing there to look at. Take heed, Paul says, lest
he also spare not thee. Remember when our Lord Jesus
in John six, he had performed a miracle, feeding thousands
of people, loaves and fishes, and man, they wanted some more
fish and some more bread. And thousands of them following
him. Thousands of them following him. Not just a few, thousands
of them. And he began to preach to them
about God's sovereignty. God's election, God's redemption,
faith in Christ, the uselessness of carnal religion. And where's
the bread? We came to get some fried fish. And little by little, they turned
and walked no more with them. And the Lord standing there with
his 12, just 12, The thousands were gone. And
the Lord Jesus looked at him and he said, will you also go
away? If you got to go, go ahead and
go now, the sooner the better. Will you also go away? And he
didn't say that because he wanted them to go away. He said that
to prove them. And Peter responded with these
words, Lord, to whom shall we go? You're the only one we got. Thou hast the words of eternal
life. When I was a boy, we used to
go to dances, and we'd take girls to dances. And every now and
then, some fellow would come up and try to steal your date
and sometimes succeed. But a girl who wanted to stay
with her The fellow who brought her, she'd say, I think I'll
stay with the one who brought me to the dance. Lord, I can't
go anywhere else. I've got nobody else. You have
the words of eternal life. I believe and I'm sure thou art
the Christ, the son of the living God. My response to every allurement,
God forbid that I should glory saving the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. I want you to hold your hands
here in Romans 11 and turn back to the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy
chapter 12. I'm going to give you some advice.
I hope you'll hear me. I hope you will. I've given it
a lot. Most folks don't pay any attention
to it. I hope you'll hear me. And it's not my advice, it's
God's. That's the reason I hope you'll
hear me. Have you found Deuteronomy 12? Every time we see someone taken
by Satan's craftiness, snared by the wicked one, we ought more
resolutely to cling to Christ and his gospel. Don't even investigate
the nonsense. I talked to a young man this
morning, called me, So very concerned, I said to him, don't even investigate
the nonsense. Don't look at it. Oh, I saw this
video. You need to go see that. I'd
recommend something better. Get the book of God out and go
see that. Get the book of God out and go see that. You need
to investigate this. You won't believe this. Well,
I probably ought not to then. Get the book of God out, go look
at it. Don't even investigate the nonsense by which Satan would
bait you. Deuteronomy 12 verse 29, listen
to God. When the Lord thy God shall cut
off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess
them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land, take
heed. Take heed, once you go into the
land of Canaan, and you take possession of that land, there's
still gonna be some Canaanites in there. There's gonna be some
Jebusites, and Hivites, and Hittites, and Perizzites, and they're gonna
do their dead level best to get you to join them. He said, take
heed, take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following
them, by curiously pursuing them. by curiously trying to find out
what makes them think what they think, what makes them believe
what they believe. Why do they believe that? Where'd
that come from? Where'd they get that? Let's go see. Don't
do it, don't do it. After that they be destroyed
from before thee, and that thou inquire not after their gods. He's not saying now don't go
pray to Baal, so certainly that's included. He said don't even
go ask about Baal's ways. Don't study the kingdom of the
cults. Don't go, well, we've got all this Islam around us.
I want to study Islam and see if there's anything to that.
Go ahead if you want to go to hell. Go ahead if you want to
go to hell. I don't need to understand Islam.
I've got God's book. I don't need to understand what
makes the Hindu fellow tick. I've got God's book. I don't
need to go investigate Roman Catholicism and see what makes
Catholics act so foolish. I've got God's book. Why should
I go live in a monastery for a while? I've got God's book.
Why should I go live among some Hindus for a while? I've got
the book of God. Well, I wanna be enlightened.
Then read the lights. You don't get enlightened by
reading darkness. Read on. Don't follow after their gods,
saying, how did these nations serve their gods? This is the
result. If you do, even so will I do
likewise. Well, they've shown me some new
stuff. I don't know why Brother Don
never showed me this. He'd been hiding it from me all
this time. I believe I'll go follow that. Verse 31. Thou shalt
not do so unto the Lord thy God. For every abomination to the
Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods. For even
their sons and their daughters, they've sacrificed on this altar,
they burn in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command
you, You got it in your hand here. What things whoever I command
you, observe to do it. Thou shalt
not add thereto, nor diminish from it. Oh, but this man's a
great prophet. This man's a, he's a great preacher.
Read on. If there arise among you a prophet
or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and
the sign or wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying,
let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let
us serve them. Thou shalt not hearken to the
words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord
your God proveth you. to know whether you love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Don't
pay attention to the fellow who's got to go outside this book to
find his doctrine. Did you hear that, Mark? Don't
pay any attention to anybody who comes with doctrine they've
got to prove outside this book. Don't do it. Oh, but that brings
to light what God says in his book. Oh no, no, no, no, no. I wisely left my cell phone at
home. I was gonna reach for it and show you the flashlight.
You don't get light by covering the light up with darkness. You
get light by shining the light on the darkness. You don't get
understanding in this book by investigating things outside
this book. You get understanding about things outside this book
by investigating this book. There's all the difference in
the world. All right, go back to our text. Romans chapter 11,
verse 22. Here's a revelation of our great
God. Behold therefore the goodness
and severity of God. On them which fail, severity,
but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness.
Otherwise, thou also shalt be cut off. Here is the goodness of God.
You believe. You're still clinging to Christ.
You've not been moved away from the hope of the gospel. Here
is the great severity of God in the exercise of his great
justice and judgment. Some are fallen, fallen and cut
off because they despised the goodness of God. Now, there are
many ways to understand despising Christ and his gospel. Some is
open, outward contempt. Some is just trampling under
the foot the blood of Christ. Some is just ignoring him. To
despise him is to find something that occupies his place. Behold, therefore, the goodness
and severity of God. The word goodness means kindness,
gentleness, goodness. Oh, God is kind, he's gentle,
and he's good. But there's more. God is also
severe. The word severity means rigorous,
sharp, harsh. God is good, gentle, and kind,
and God is rigorous, sharp, and harsh. Behold, therefore, the
goodness and severity of God. Now let me wrap this up by giving
you some examples. Examples given by God himself
in the book of his goodness and his severity. First, there are numerous examples
of God's goodness. I call your attention to just
a few. There was a fellow by the name of Jacob, you remember
him? The Lord Jesus conquered Jacob. But Jacob was a tricky
man. He wasn't worth spitting. I mean,
he was just a scoundrel. He cheated his brother out of
his birthright. And then after stealing his brother's birthright,
the blessing that rightly belonged to his brother by birth, Jacob,
scared to death, ran off to another land and he wound up living with
his uncle Laban. and he fell in love with one
of Laban's daughters, Rachel. She must have been a looker.
She was something else. And Laban agreed to give Rachel
to Jacob, but come the wedding night, and I have no idea how
this happened, and if you want to investigate it, don't. Just
don't. But somehow they had customs
in that day, and I don't have any idea how it happened, but
they got married, and Laban wound up giving Jacob his ugly sister-in-law,
Rachel's ugly sister. Jacob woke up in the morning
and he said, I didn't want what I thought I went to bed with
last night. And there she lay, he stuck with her. And then Jacob
served Laban another seven years for Rachel, he married Rachel.
And they stayed together and God favored Jacob and blessed
him. And one day Jacob said, I'm going home. I'm done with
this man Laban. And he said to Leah and to Rachel
and to their sons, God has prospered me. God has prospered me. In spite of all the trickery
of your father Laban, he's the only man I ever met more deceitful
than me. He said, God's prospered me.
And here's the reason why. presence was with Jacob. The
Lord's presence was with Jacob, not because of Jacob, in spite
of Jacob. There's a fellow by the name
of Joseph, Joseph. Oh, Joseph was the youngest son
at the time of his father. He was, oh, he was, he was just
the object of his father's delight. His father made him a coat of
many colors. His brothers, his older brothers were out taking
care of things, and Joseph was sent out one day to carry him
a basket full of groceries, and they saw him coming, and they
said, this is Joseph. He's come here to make fun of
us again. Let's kill him. And one of them
said, no, don't do that, don't do that. We don't want to shed
his blood with our hands. Let's stick him in a pit and
leave him to die. That'd be better. So they threw him in a pit and
were gonna leave him to die. And then they saw some nomads
coming. And this fellow, he said, let's
sell him to the nomads. We'll be rid of him and we'll
pretend he's dead. And so they sold him. And Joseph
was taken to Egypt, sold as a slave. And he went from one trouble
to another, from one heartache to another, wound up in prison
in Egypt. And then the Lord God manifest
something that nobody knew but Joseph. The Lord's presence was
with Joseph. And Joseph wound up sitting on
the throne of Egypt, right beside Pharaoh, prime minister of the
richest, most powerful land in the world. to save much people
alive according to the goodness of God. David, God's servant. David, oh, how good God was to
David. David, you remember Samuel was
sent of God to anoint a king in Israel, and he said, where
do I go find this king? He said, go down to the house
of Jesse, take a lamb with you so Saul won't know anything about
it, and go down there and find the king. And so Samuel went
down to Jesse's house and he said, Jesse, God sent me here
to find a king for Israel. He's one of your sons, bring
him here. And Jesse went and got all his sons, all but one. And he brought them. and they
sent him down in front of David. I can imagine how he dressed
him up. Man, those fellas must have, I bet he went down to the
finest men's store in town and bought him the best three-piece
heart-shaped and marked suit there was going. Got him a vest
and pocket watch and, I mean, dressed him up. And Samuel said,
nothing about him. And we got the next one, and
the next one, and the next one. And Samuel said, not any of these.
Don't you have another boy? Yeah, but he ain't much. Samuel
said, go get him. And David walked in. This is
he! This is the king God's chosen.
And God manifested as David was anointed. He went out and slew
Goliath. Slew Goliath in the name of the
Lord. And Saul tried his best to kill him. God demonstrated
again and again and again, Saul's in David's hands. David could
have killed him on many occasions. He said, no, I'll wait for God
to work. I'll leave him alone. I'll leave
him alone. And finally God killed Saul.
And David was anointed king in Israel because the Lord was with
him. Back in the very beginning, in
Genesis chapter three, we have a display of both God's goodness
and his severity. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden,
transgressed God's law, and before God drove them out of the garden,
oh, how he showed his goodness and his severity. He promised
them, I'll give you a redeemer. the woman's seed, who shall be
God incarnate, and he will crush the serpent's head. He will undo
everything you've messed up. He gonna fix it all up. And let me show you how it's
gonna happen. He took an innocent lamb and slaughtered it. Christ our Redeemer. And then
slaughtering that lamb, he took the skin of that lamb and made
coats for Adam and Eve. And then he stripped Adam and
Eve of their big leaves. Can't you imagine how they felt? You've been caught naked. It's
embarrassing. You blush, you want to run, hide. Just run, hide. If you ever get
caught naked before God, you're going to blush and you want to
run, hide. You're terrified. And God's the
only one can do it. Nobody will ever strip your fig
leaves of righteousness off of you but God. But if he does,
I've got good news for you. He killed a lamb for you, his
son, and made a coat for you out of the righteousness of his
son. In fact, when the scripture says in Genesis 3, the Lord made
coats of skins for them, quite literally, skins is singular,
not plural. He made coats of one skin for
them. He made coats of one skin for
them. You see, the righteousness God
requires, the righteousness God performs, the righteousness God
gives by which He covers our naked souls is one sacrifice,
Jesus Christ His Son. so that we stand before him,
all the saints of God, arrayed in white garments, clean and
white, just like that man Christ Jesus, clothed in linen garments
with the writer's ink corn by his side. And then we see pictures in scripture
of God's severity. Oh, the severity of God. Yes, God is kind, gentle, good. And God is rigorous, sharp, severe,
and harsh in his judgment. I asked Sodom and Gomorrah. Somebody
asked me this week, seeing all the stuff going on, and said,
do you reckon that's something like what happened with Sodom
and Gomorrah? I've only been watching something on the Discovery
Channel. Please listen to me. You probably won't, but please
do, please listen. When you get a chance to see something produced
in Hollywood about this book, Go visit a moonshiner and get
you some moonshine or something worthwhile. Don't look at it. Don't look at it. If you've got
to go to Hollywood to understand this book, you're in bad shape.
If you've got to go to the Discovery Channel or the History Channel
to understand this book, you're in horrible shape. Don't do it.
Saw something on the Discovery Channel about Sodom and Gomorrah.
Read this book and I'll tell you what happened to Sodom and
Gomorrah. The severity of God. Ask Ndebebe Ndebayu. Ndebebe
Ndebayu offered strange fire to God. Do you know what? Every time I've ever heard anybody
in conversation mention Ndebebe Ndebayu. Do you know what they've
always asked me, Earl? I'll tell you the one thing they've
always asked me. Every time I've ever heard the
name mentioned, what do you reckon the strange fire was? Who gives
a flip? I don't want any of it, whatever
it was. The problem was they refused to offer God what God
required. That's the issue. They refused
to bring God's fire into God's holy place, and for that reason,
God killed them in the holy place. This is God severe? Ask Uzzah. He reached out to steady the
ark of God. He put his hand to God's salvation. God killed it. Is God harsh? Ask a man who went on a Sabbath
day one day to pick up sticks so his wife could fix some biscuits
to have gravy for lunch. He went out and gathered sticks.
God commanded the whole nation to pick up rocks and beat him
to death with them. Yes, God's severe. Is God severe? Severe in judgment when men refuse
the light that God gives them? those men who were gathered at
Sinai. And God said to Moses, if so
much as the hand of the beast touched this mountain, shoot
him dead. You put your hand to God's work,
you'll go to hell for it. It's just that simple, just that
plain. We read in the scriptures of
our Lord speaking about the marriage feast. I call you to faith in
Christ. I bid you come to Christ. Feast
on the gospel of Jesus Christ. No, I ain't hungry. No, I don't
want none of that. No, I want to go fishing. And
then those who are bidden, the Lord gets up and shuts the door. And many who are bidden come,
let us in. God shut the door, go on back
fishing. Go play with your toys. And then we see our Lord Jesus
in Gethsemane anticipating what would become of him when God
made him sin. And he broke out into a sweat
of blood and cried, oh my God. If it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine, be done." And he rose up and said to Peter, James,
and John, come on, boys. I'm going to accomplish what
I was sent here to accomplish. Father, glorify your name. And he was arrested, tried, mocked,
beaten, dragged through the streets in humiliation, nailed to the
cursed tree. And when he was made sin for
us, God Almighty skipped Gladfell
to pour out on him his harsh, furious, sharp severity like
all hell will never experience. The Lord God Almighty, finding
sin on his son, punished him with the utmost severity of justice,
crying, Awake, O sword! Against the man that is my fellow
smites and slay the shepherds. And God in his fury and severity,
in his anger, in his wrath, slaughtered his son. because his son was
made sin, that he by his son might be just and the justifier
of every sinner who comes to God by faith in his son." Oh, the goodness of God. Oh, the goodness of God. Oh, may God give you his goodness
in Christ. Spirit of God, give us grace,
constant, relentless, unceasing grace that we may abide in your
goodness, that we may ever cling to Christ, our God, our Savior,
our all. Amen.