The verse that came to my attention is verse 7. Amos chapter 4 and
verse 7. Now before this, to keep it in
context, the Lord is going to take away certain things
from the children of Israel, their disobedience. He's going
to get their attention. And this is one way God gets
people's attention. He's not trying to do anything.
He does as He pleases. And yet, in the whole thing,
He's always tender, not forgetting His people. So here in verse
7, God says, "...and also I have withholden the rain from you."
when there were yet three months to the harvest." Now here's the
phrase that I was fascinated by. And I, God, caused it to
rain upon one city and caused it not to rain upon another city. Rain No rain. Now, when I had moved
into the area in 1981, in the summer of 81, it wasn't long before I had noticed,
and confirmed this with the workmen's, that there is a line, it's almost
a weather line, just north of Fruitland. And then another one
just a little bit by, I mean parallel. You could be driving
on Interstate 55 and you could hit that line past the exit and
it could be snowing and not snowing. Raining and not raining. If you
live here, you know exactly what I'm talking about. God causes it to rain upon one
city and not on another." This passage,
it simply and firmly declares, God is God and we but men and
women who have absolutely no power to order or control anything. Matter of fact, we could turn,
we won't necessarily, we could turn to Job chapter 28 and when
Job was getting a little cocky, The Lord in chapter 38, Job 38,
He says, alright, you hold on, you answer me. Where were you
when I set the stars? Where were you when I set the
bounds of the land? When I said to the sea, stay,
and the mountains, and this and that, where were you? Answer
me, Job. Where were you? He is the Lord
God, He changes not, and He does whatsoever He pleases. And the
armies of heaven and among the heavens is severe. This passage
is something, just the language, the Lord caused it to rain upon
one city and not to rain on another. This is something that I know
a little bit about in my employment, because every time I see a customer
or meet with a person of this world, that's what they talk
about. They talk about the weather.
I have a lot of agriculture industries on my route. One man says, it
should rain today, and another man, another farmer, doesn't
want it to rain. One person is for snow. White
Christmas. Oh, I want a white Christmas.
And usually those are the people, there's two types. There's those
people who work at school, and they're not going to be going
to school if it snows. or they wanted the snow so they
don't have to go to work. But other people, they're like,
I don't want the snow. And usually these are a bunch
of older folks that can't get around walking in the snow, let
alone driving in the snow. They need to stay home anyway.
But you see, there's varying degrees of concern about the
weather. I want it to rain. I want it
to snow. I've never heard anybody say
they wanted it to sleet. Why we can't even dictate weather
patterns. We can't do it. How then do we
think that we can handle, control, or order salvation? If we cannot, says the Lord,
if we cannot master these little things, how can we handle the
greater? Salvation. These things, whether
it's rain, or snow or the seas or the weather patterns or the
patterns of salvation, every one of them are in God's hands
to dispose how He sees fit. I read the text. I caused it
to rain upon one city and caused it not to rain upon another city. Now, As I began to muse upon
this verse, many truths, this is not a stand-alone verse, many
truths began to open up to me. And we owe much, right here,
us here this morning, we owe much to our Lord God. If we have
the ability to understand and see our corruptions, It's because
God reigned His mercy upon the hearts of sinners to open up
to us what we are like. If we have been given the ability
to comprehend, in a small measure, God's absolute sovereignty, over,
let's say, your neighbor, or over, let's say, another teacher,
or over, let's say, another co-worker. Why? Because God caused it to
rain on one city and not on another. If we have been given the ability
to discern that God's ways are not our ways and that He does
whatsoever He pleases, we ought to be thankful for that
because it's not in ourselves. It's not education. Matter of
fact, in the New Testament, the thing is that when the Sanhedrin,
when they saw these people, these disciples, they looked at them
and they were ignorant and unlearned men, yet they had been with Christ. Christ makes the difference.
And if we can't control the Spirit, because the Scripture says it
lists however it wants to, you can't hear it. You can hear the
wind, but you can't control it. such as the grace of God. If
we have been given the ability to adore the Lord Jesus Christ,
who has positively rained upon us His free grace and mercy upon
Calvary's tree, we should be thankful. If we have been given
the ability to rejoice in His discriminating love and substitutionary
compliments for His church, and we understand that, and believe
it, and trust in Him, We ought to be thankful. If we have been
given the ability to just back off and see God ruling and reigning
over all the earth, even though at this present day, it seems
otherwise. You hear the news. And that's
why I listen to sports, because the news, it just wears on you. You listen to this and you see
this tragedy and that tragedy and this hate and wars and all
these abuses and all these different things, it breaks your heart. But if you can step back and
see, God is ruling and reigning still.
He doesn't ask men permission to do anything. He speaks and
it happens. If we've been given the grace
and the ability to lay down in peaceful repose, no matter what
the case, no matter what the hardship, no matter what the
trial, that's peace indeed. And that's only given because
He caused it to rain upon one city and caused it not to rain
upon another. Time would not, and I start thinking
of examples, time will not allow for us to note all the examples
in the Scriptures where this is so. We'll just take a few.
Jonah. Jonah and Nineveh. Jonah didn't even want to go
to Nineveh. He tried to fight it. Of course,
it's like Paul found out. It's hard for him to kick against
the pricks. You're not going to win. You're
not going to win. And Jonah, the Lord took him
back and stood him in front of those people And he preached
the Gospel, and it says they repented. But what about Sodom and Gomorrah?
No. The Lord took His people out,
as few as they were, and destroyed it. But Nineveh, they're so backwards,
they couldn't even discern their right hand from their left. Why?
Why Nineveh? Why not Sodom and Gomorrah? God reigned on what? and didn't
on the other. We'll look at this one. I almost
preached this this morning, but I thought, well, this would work
into it well. Turn to Acts chapter 16. Acts
chapter 16. This is amazing. The story of
Lydia itself is what we're going to look at, but leading up to
it, the wording, the phraseology of the Scriptures is amazing. Paul and Silas, they came to
Derbe and to Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there
named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess and
believed, but his father was a Greek, which was well reported
by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would
Paul have to go forth with him and took and circumcised him
because of the Jews which were in those quarters, for they knew
all that his father was a Greek. And as they went through the
cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep that were
ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem.
And so were the churches established in the faith and increased in
number daily. Now when they had gone throughout
Pergia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy
Ghost to preach the Word in Asia." Now you know what's in Asia right
now to this day. They won't kill a cow because
cows are sacred. Buddha, it could have very well
said, don't go west. Stop. Why? He reigns upon one city and not
another. And when they were come to Mysia,
they assayed to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them
not. And passing through Mysia, they came to Troas. And in a
vision appeared to Paul at night. There stood a man of Macedonia
and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help
us." They're about ready to hear the gospel. And that's what the
Lord's going to do for people if they're going to believe on
someone they've... They're not going to believe on someone they
haven't heard. I'm going to believe it was someone that they have
heard. So we skip down. Verse 13, on the Sabbath day,
we went out into the city by the riverside where prayer was
wont to be made and we sat down and spake unto the women which
resorted thither. There's just a bunch of ladies
there. They go there and they start preaching the gospel. And
a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city
of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us whose heart the
Lord opened." Whose heart the Lord opened. That's the only
way salvation comes, is if the Lord opens the heart. "...whose heart the Lord opened,
that she attended unto the things which were spoken, preached of
Paul. And when she was baptized in
her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me
to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there,
And she constrained us. Now, the interesting thing about
this Lydia is she's from Thyatira, and where they're at now in Macedonia,
the distance doesn't make sense. Why is she there? She's there
selling. But she wasn't Philippi. Well,
Paul wasn't Philippi. Why didn't she hear the Gospel
then? It wasn't according to his providence. It wasn't according to his purpose
to hear there. She was going to hear somewhere else. So they
get together. Oh, that's luck. Please don't say that word in
front of me. If you're a believer, don't use that word. It's not
scriptural. Believers don't use... Luck has
to deal with chance and fate and all these different things.
No. It wasn't luck. It was providence. It was God's
purpose. how all this came about for her
to hear the preaching, believe the account of God's Son, and
live a newness of life. Why, these preachers turned away
from a whole continent and preached elsewhere, leaving Asia in idolatry. So the Lord would open the heart. And there's no other way of grace,
there's no other name of grace, and there's no other method of
grace. The Lord whose heart the Lord opened. Not man. Not a cheap
decision. Not twisting someone's arm. If
you want to be good for mom and dad, believe. No, no, no. Jonah learned it after all he
went through. Salvation is of the Lord. We could also go to
Calvary Street. You got two thieves. You got
two thieves. One on this side, one on this
side. Only one. Only one was rained
upon. And no rain on the other. You remember, I love the story
of Philemon Onesimus. You remember all the... all the
intricate details of the providence of God, everything working together
for good, that God's going to be glorified, Christ is going
to be honored, and a sinner named Onesimus is going to be saved. Well, he could have heard the
gospel under his Philemon. His Philemon was the believer,
the church was in the house. But he didn't. He ran, ran, ran,
ran, ran right into Paul. As the old Puritans used to say,
God's going to cross your path. And that's what he did. But when
you step back and you say, why? That's something that, and I
kind of thought, well, you know, move on. Personally, John Sebaugh
used to say, why me? And I thought, you know, move
on. And I thought, no, no, no, no, no. He had it right. And I was jumping the gun. Don't
move on. Don't move on. Don't ever be,
may it never be, may we never become complacent to realize
if God has done something for us, it's only by grace. He didn't have to. He didn't
have to do it. On and on we could go. Jacob
have I loved. Abraham, the father of many nations.
Paul, our Saul of Tarsus, once hating and killing the saints.
And then one pluck from the fire. all to the praise of the glory
of God's grace, whose heart the Lord opened." This is the banner,
this is the truth over every called sinner of God's long-suffering
and free favor, whose heart the Lord opened. None will be in glory that do
not have this mark, whose heart the Lord opened. One city with
rain, one city without. In closing, let's look at Hosea
6. Hosea 6, verses 1, 2, and 3. And then I've got a little statistic
for you. Hosea 6, Verses 1, 2, and 3. Come, let us return unto the
Lord, for He hath torn, and yet He will heal us. He hath smitten,
He will bind us up. After two days will He revive
us, in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live
in His sight. Then shall we know, if we follow
on to know the Lord, His going forth is prepared as the morning,
and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former
rain unto the earth." I, the Lord God, reign on one
city and not on another. Now, we were talking this morning
in Bible class about how thankful we are for this place in Jackson.
I love Google. This is Google. I just asked
the questions. According to Google, there are
2,469,501 cities in the world. There's over 600,000 towns. over 2,469,000 cities in the
world and over 600,000 towns. One in over 80,000. One in over 80, at least 80,000. So how'd I come up with that
number? Well, I looked at Free Grace Radio, there's 47 preachers.
Now I know there's more than that because I know more than
there's 47. So I said, let's just say 200. 200. And I'm sure
there's more than that. But this number does not include
the 600,000 talents. So at least, I mean... And I don't know about tomorrow.
All I know is today, may He give me grace to be faithful, may
He give you grace to be faithful to Him. And may we ask Him to
water upon us, to rain upon us as the former and latter rain. Because He can or He cannot. What He does for us, He'll do
for us. through Christ. What an amazing,
blessed truth. To God be the glory.