All right, turn back with me
now to the book of Jonah. I'm kind of up in the air as
to the title of this message. I first intended to title it,
And the People of Nineveh Believed, because that's what caught my
eye. But there's a reason why these people believed, and the
reason is because Jonah gained entry into the city. Apart from
Jonah coming into the city, there is no way that the city could
believe because they had no information about God. Now, we are told that
by the apostle over in Romans chapter 10. He said, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how
shall you call on him in whom you have not believed? And how
shall you believe in him on whom you have not heard? And how shall
you hear without a preacher?" We were talking before church
of the utter impossibility of sitting down apart from the Spirit
of God and apart from the minister of God in some form, either in
book form or tract form or witness of another believer, how utterly
impossible it is to sit down and read this book and come to
the conclusion of the gospel of God's sovereign grace. It's
just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Now,
I talked to you last week about the word of the Lord coming the
second time and how this resurrected prophet stood there before Nineveh,
just like Christ stands before this world, the last and final
word of God. to a condemned world, just as
he was. This city was condemned of God. Jonah was sent there to announce
the condemnation of God on this city. He first told Jonah before
his rebellion, he said, Go down to Nineveh, that great city,
and cry against it. When the word of the Lord come
to him the second time, he found Jonah down there doing exactly
what God told him to do the first time. He was down there crying
again. He said, ìGet forty days, and
the Lordís going to destroy Nineveh. Heís going to overturn your government.
Heís going to turn this place upside down. This place is going
back to ashes.î And this wasnít the first city God ever condemned.
You remember Lot? You remember Sodom and Gomorrah?
God overturned that city. He sent His messengers down there
to Lot. And Lot cried unto his own daughters
and unto his own kinfolk. And it seemed to them, it says,
as one that mocked. They didn't hear his message.
They didn't receive his message in power like they did here in
Nineveh. But God sent his messenger down
to Nineveh to cry against it and to cry about that condemnation.
They didn't believe Lot. They didn't believe anything
he said. They had good reason not to believe Lot. Lot sat right down there with
them. He was right down in that city with them. Jonah wasn't.
He raised Jonah out of the deep. He brought him up by the miracle
of God out of that sea, out of the belly of that fish, and fed
him up on the beach. This was a resurrected prophet.
Here was a prophet in rebellion to God, a rebel, that God reached
down and saved. demonstrated in him how God can
condemn a man. His condemnation was on Jonah.
Jonah was cast into the sea. He was carried down into the
belly of hell. Oh, yes, he was. God condemned
this prophet, but at the same time, he saved this prophet,
didn't he? I'm telling you, it's a miracle
of God's grace, and a lot of times these things, they sound
like they conflict one another. Because a believer, before his
conversion, it says, and the wrath of God abideth on him,
don't it? The condemnation of God is upon
him. He wouldn't repent if he didn't
know the condemnation of God was upon him. He never would
repent. He never would repent if he didn't
see that anger of God, that judgment of God against his sins. You see what I'm saying? But
on this prophet, the condemnation of God fell, but also the mercy
of God fell. And God raised him from that
sea. God caused him to cry unto him out of the belly of the fish.
And God heard his prayers. God purposed all those things.
And then by a miracle of God's grace, He brought him, preserved
him, and set him back in front of Nineveh. Now, He said, you
go into Nineveh and preach to them the preaching that I bid
thee. And so Jonah did, and he gained access into the city.
And I suppose if there are any points to this message at all,
the point that I want you to see first and foremost is this,
that the city was a city condemned of God. Now, I know we have a
little problem with that in our day because we don't know the
first thing about condemnation. We don't know the first thing
about the wrath of God. I could see it in some of your
faces a while ago when I said an unbeliever, a man who has
not heard and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, an unbeliever. The wrath of God abideth on him. What is that wrath? That's my
point exactly. We don't know. This city didn't
know. This great city, they had no idea. I mean, they knew they
could have been a little better than what they were, just like
we know we could be a little better than what we were. We
all knew that when we grew up. We knew we didn't obey as often
as we ought to. You know, we knew some of the
things we said we shouldn't have said. Some things we drank we
shouldn't have drank, and so on. You go on and on and on with
those things, and you knew by conscience. You knew those things
were wrong to do, but you went ahead and did it. But those things,
that's not condemnation in the wrath of God. We don't see those
things that way, do we? See, we don't have any understanding.
These people in this city had no understanding of what this
wrath was all about. They didn't have any understanding
of what this condemnation was all about. Nobody has any understanding
of what these things are about until God sends them a preacher.
So you're not going to call on God until you see yourself under
the condemnation of God. You're not going to cry out.
Jonah wasn't crying out on that ship, running away in rebellion.
Jonah was asleep in his bunk, sailing the smooth seas until
God sent the storm. God has to send a storm. Now,
He sent one out in the sea to call Jonah back and to revive
Jonah and to save Jonah. Now he's going to send a storm
down into Nineveh, and that storm is in his prophet. And he goes
in and declares to the city what they were. Now, if you want to
know what they were, you go over to the book of Nahum when you
get home and you read that burden of Nineveh that Nahum the prophet
wrote. It's all about Nineveh. And you'll
come to know something about this city and what this prophet
went down and preached. He preached to them what the
condemnation of God was, and what the wrath of God was that
abided on them. Oh, that's why I want to talk
to you tonight. When God's man enters the city,
surrounded by its impressive walls and its high towers, and
this proud city had an air of self-confidence about it. You
sit down and talk with folks, Winston, and they've got an air
of self-confidence about them when you first sit down. Boy,
about 20 minutes into the conversation, though, they start hiccuping
and just rubbing their chin and trying to move off and talk about
bass fishing or anything except the Word of God because he takes
away that air of self-confidence. The truth of God destroys that. It destroys that false refuge.
Who could penetrate the defenses of this city or challenge its
fortifications? It was the foremost city in the
world. lies in their own conceits. They had taken all their experiences
and all their knowledge and all their history and they put them
into the design of this city. Closed in by the great wall,
protected by its high towers and its large army. Inside these
walls they feared no enemy. That's the way man is. That's
exactly the way man is. What they did not and could never
have considered is the Lord of Globes. It says in Romans chapter 3,
describing the sinner, there is none righteous, none good,
none that understandeth, and none that seeketh after God.
None. N-O-N-E, none. None. And he said they are together.
Put them all up in one pile, they are together, become unprofitable
before God. There is no profit in them, no
value in them. And here is what he says about
all mankind who is falling in at them. There is no fear of
God before their eyes because they don't know who He is. They
don't know who He is. That's why they don't fear Him.
They don't fear their own God because He's the God of their
imagination. You see, these folks had gods. But all their gods was inside
the walls. They were all in there where
they could keep them. And if they didn't like this one, they
could go get an artisan and he'd whittle out another one. They'd
overlay it in gold and put it on the wall. And when his standards
of behavior become too strict or he wasn't liberal enough to
suit them, they just get rid of him and go make another God.
Turn with me to Romans chapter 1. Now, in Romans chapter 1, Paul
is fixing to write a letter to the church at Rome. Now, any
of you who have ever studied history, world history, you know
something about the morality of the Romans. They were a very
base, moral people. They had no morality about them
whatsoever. The condition of the people of
Rome was no different than the condition of the people of Nineveh.
The condition of the people of Nineveh was no different than
the condition of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah. None. No difference. No difference.
Now, watch this. Verse 21. Now, you can read the
first part of this when you get some time after a while, but
in the first part, he tells us that man is without excuse because
God has witnessed to him by a creation that he created, and he has witnessed
to him in his conscience. He has revealed himself to them
in their conscience. Now, watch this. Verse 21, Because
when they knew God, how did they know Him? They knew Him in their
conscience. These were heathens. These were not Israelites. These
were not people who had prophets and Bibles and all this type
of thing. These were heathen idolaters.
Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither
were thankful, but become vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened. professing themselves to be wise,
they become fools and change the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds,
and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore, God
also gave them up to uncleanness." Now, see this as their standard of God begin to plunge, begin
to go downhill. He gave them up to these vain
imaginations, and if you'll look at this, there's a natural decline
here. They started out with man, and then birds, and then four-footed
beasts, and then finally creeping things. Man who worshiped snakes
down in Mexico. I went down there and preached
to those Mayan Indians. And their ancestors worshipped snakes,
Kukulkan, the feathered serpent. And you could go on and on and
on with these heathen gods. But what I want you to see is
as their idea and concepts of God begin to diminish, begin
to go downhill, so did their morality. Now watch this. Watch this. Verse 24, God also
gave them up to uncleanness. through the lust of their own
hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Now
listen, they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped
and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed
forever. Amen. For this cause, God gave
them up to vile affections. For even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against nature, and likewise
the men. And even, verse 28, and even
as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave
them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are
not convenient. It all began with a refusal to
glorify God as God. They didn't want to glorify God
as God, preferring their own ideas and their own imaginations
to the declaration of God. Well, what do we hear today?
I stand up and I tell folks exactly what this book says, that there
is no salvation in any other. Salvation is in the Lord Jesus
Christ, period, end of story. None other name given unto heaven
whereby we must be saved except Jesus Christ. That's it. Christ
alone. Christ alone. As you have received
Christ Jesus, so walk ye in him. every part of your salvation
from the new birth to the final exaltation into glory. It's all
depended on him. You have no righteousness. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Christ
is our justification. God raised him from the dead
and justified us. I've got no justification. I've
got no confidence. in the little things that I do,
that one day, which good thing have you ever done would you
like to lay down at the feet of the Lord of glory, whom John
couldn't even look at? John saw him and fell at his
feet like a dead man. And folks were running around,
bragging about being in a hospital or giving to the sick or giving
in an offering plate or something. And they're going to lay that
down at the feet of God. And they will do it. Our Lord
said they'd do it. He said, in that day you're going
to say unto me, had not we done many wonderful works in thy name? Had not we cast out demons in
thy name? Then we do all these wonderful
works in your name? He said, depart from me, ye workers
of iniquity. What do you call it? Iniquity.
Anything you bring and lay down at the feet of God for acceptance
with God is iniquity. Read the Bible. Quit listening
to me and read the Bible. See what God says. See what God
says about these things. I don't care who you are or what
you do. I love my dear old grandmother,
but I tell you what, anything she laid down for her acceptance
with God was iniquity. I'll tell you what Isaiah said.
He said, We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. These folks were condemned of
God. This wasn't a city on the upswing,
Russell. This wasn't a city seeking God. This was a city condemned of
God. Condemned. This world is condemned
by one man sinning at the end of the world, and death by sin.
And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
This world is condemned of God. Condemned of God. And it is going
to stay condemned unless God sends you the message of His
grace. It is going to stay condemned. Oh, you can have some religion
just like they did down in Nineveh. You can hang them up on the wall
and bow down before them. You have them in your minds where
we have them. We don't have them so much anymore
hanging on the wall, although we do hang a few things. But
it's not so much the things that we hang on the walls as the things
that we hang in our hearts. Like that fellow told Barnard,
my God wouldn't do like that. He said, I suspect He wouldn't,
but the God of the Bible would. See, we're not interested in
the God of the Bible. We already had one. That's why
there wasn't any preachers in Nineveh. They didn't have any
use for them. What did they need a preacher
for? Everybody in there had a God. Everybody in there worshipped
his God. And his God pretty much allowed
him to do what he wanted to. He overlooked his morality. And
when he didn't, he'd make him another one. If his man God wouldn't
let him, then he'd have a bird God. That bird God would let
him. If it didn't work, he'd make him a four-footed beast.
Huh? That's exactly right. Moses went
up on the mountain to receive the law. When he came back down,
what did they have? Golden calves, four-footed beasts,
bound down to it, dancing naked around the fire, worshiping the
calves. Now, they just saw the God of
glory split a sea, ground an army, preserve them in the wilderness. Overshadow them with a cloud
in the day and fire of the night. Feed them rain down manna from
heaven. Smite that rock, the water came
out. Fed that whole 2 million, 3 million
people, however many was out there. Huh? They bound down to
a cow. I'm telling you, this world's
condemned. It's condemned of God. Men are sinful. They're
not on the upswing. They're not seeking after God.
They have all gone astray, come forth from the wounds speaking
lies. They began with a refusal to
glorify God as God, preferring their own ideas and imaginations
to the declaration of God that says they changed the truth of
God into a lie. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar. How quick we are to go, well,
that just does not sound right, you know. Paul said, Who art thou that
replies against God? Huh? You're going to sit and
scratch your head and take the Word of God and say, Well, that
don't seem right. He's God. You're sitting on death row,
waiting on the judgment of God and have no salvation whatsoever,
condemned of God, and you're going to scratch your head and
call God into question? Huh? This prophet went in and told
them they were sinners and that God was going to burn their place
up along with their gods. He was going to burn the whole
outfit up. Playtime is over. The God of
glory is coming in. And God gave him entrance into
the city. And that's what I want to talk
to you about. Unless God gives me entrance, I can't tell you
anything. All I can do is preach to your ears and preach to your
head. And you sit and you count ceiling
tile and wonder what you're going to do tomorrow. It don't come
into the heart. Only God can gain entrance into
the heart. And that's where God does business
in the heart. It said Jonah entered a day's
journey into the city. He was right into the heart of
it. Right into the heart of it. And he didn't come in there and
say, well, won't you accept Jesus as your personal Savior and tell
a sad story about a dog and try to get a bunch of folks down
the aisle? He went in there and he said, God's going to overturn
this place from the king down to the poorest man here in the
beast. He's going to burn this place up. Why, Jonah? Why would God want
to tear this place up? Because of your sin. Your sins. You've filled up the measure
of God's patience, and in 40 days, He's going to turn this
place upside down. How many days have you got? Huh? How many days have I got? I've
already watched two climb into that box. Huh? We've got two more up in Danville
about ready to climb into it. We've got one in the hospital
over here in El Dorado right now. How many days have we got? How many days? Peter said these
days that we have, this leniency of God, this long-suffering of
God, he said you need to be counting that as salvation. Salvation. Now, let me tell you something. You stand before a sinner, a
vile rebel against God, you stand before him and I can stand here
and just pile up evidence. I can just stand here and begin
to pile up the evidence. I can begin to show you how God
determined before the foundation of the world to save a people,
and that He chose His Son, and He put that people in His Son.
And in the fullness of time, He sent forth His Son, made of
a woman, made under the law as the representative of those people,
and kept that law and never jotted till. And that then He went to
the cross, and He bore their sins in His own body on the tree. that he died as a substitute
for sinners. I can show you the power of God
that raised him from the dead and justified those people and
publicly assisted, justified those folk and assisted all the
work that he accomplished. I can pile up some more evidence.
Over there in Jerusalem, he sent forth the Holy Spirit of God
upon his church. and filled them with the Holy
Spirit of God and caused them to understand all those things
that they read in this book. Filled them with the Holy Spirit
of God that they might preach in power and gain entry into
the hearts of men. I can just pile up evidence.
He said, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God by miracles and
wonders and signs, which he did right in your midst, right before
your eyes. God approved him as the Son of
God, as the Messiah, as the Lamb declared from the foundation
of the world. Pile up the evidence, and that bold sinner will stand
there and can't find anything to hope in. But you let God come
in. Enter into the heart. right into
the heart of the city and begin to show that condemnation, begin
to cause that darkness like it was in Egypt, a darkness that
could even be felt, and you begin to see yourself separated from
God. No longer, no connection there.
The priest didn't connect you. The preacher didn't connect you.
And that little experience you had 25 years ago didn't connect
you. There's no connection between
you and God. Your sins have separated between
you and God. Let that condemnation fall, and
I can stand up here and give you a thread of evidence. Boy,
you'll grab it like it's a full part. That's the difference between
a man convicted of sin and one that's not. Now, that's what
happened in Nineveh. God went in before Jonah ever
went in. God went in, began to stir the
hearts of those people. And then Jonah come in preaching
this gospel, and God gave him entry into the heart. Not just
the heart of the city, but into the heart of the king, and into
the heart of the people. And it said, and the people believed
God. Ain't that what it says? Now, I'm going to tell you something.
You folks that believe God know exactly what I'm talking about.
That's an utter impossibility to believe God. Huh? Even those of us who believe,
we still cry, there's no greater evidence of your sin than that. Turn with me over to John chapter
16. I'm just going to give up on my notes. Go with me over
here to John chapter 16. The Gospel of John chapter 16. Our Lord said, when I go, He
said, I'm going to send again the Comforter. I'm going to send
again the Comforter. Look here in verse 8. And when
He's come, He will reprove. That word is convince. The world
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And He's the only
one who can do it. Now, I can reprove. Reprove means to cry
out against it. Testify against it as a witness.
I can stand up here all night and testify against it and reprove
you of sin. I can talk about the nature of
sin. I can talk about our practicing
sin. I can talk about those spiritual
sins of our nature within us and our lusts and all that type
of thing. But only the Holy Spirit of God
can convince of sin. Now, watch this. of sin, he said,
because they believe not on me. See it there in verse 9? Here is the
evidence of sin, and it is in unbelief. It is in your utter
inability to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. If he does not
give you faith, John, you cannot muster it up. It is not in your
nature. It ain't in your nature. You
can make a decision to come down now. You can make a decision
to join the church, but you can't believe God. Try it. Don't take my word for it. You
go home and try it. You go home and try it. And then
you judge yourself according to this book. I tell you, what
believers cry out is, Lord, we believe. Help thou our unbelief.
I see a whole lot more unbelief than I see faith. or sin, because they believed
not on me. Look at this. Of righteousness,
verse 10, because I go to the Father and you see me no more.
The only sign of righteousness we've ever had was this man who
was born without sin. And from the day of his birth
to the day of his death, he did no sin. The kings of the earth
saw him and judged him and looked at him and said, we can't find
any fault in this just man. They couldn't find any fault
in him because there wasn't any fault in him. He did no sin.
Satan, the god of this world, he who has deceived the nations,
took him out into the wilderness and for forty days tempted him,
trying to find a weakness, trying to find a fault, trying to find
a lust, trying to find something in him. And he said, I can't
find anything in him. He couldn't find any sin in Him
because there wasn't any sin in Him. A righteousness, because I go
to the Father and you see me no more. They took Him down. They killed Him as a sinner.
He died as a sinner. God has made Him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. He died bearing my sins in His
own body on the cross. Righteousness. How do I know
God is righteous? How do I know God is going to
punish sin? How do I know God is going to condemn this world?
Because He condemned sin in His Son. If you will condemn sin
in His Son, He is dead sure going to condemn it in you and me.
Write it down. This is in Acts 17. He said,
God has appointed a day in which He will judge this world in righteousness
by that man. You want to know what that righteousness
is, you go study him. You study him. And listen to this, of judgment,
verse 11, John chapter 16, of judgment, because the prince
of this world is judged, he come down and exposed those religious
lies. I tell you who the God of this
world is, he's the God of religion. organized, worldly accepted religion,
the religion that sits on every corner in every town, in every
city, in every state in the United States and all over this world.
Masses of them, masses of them. They go a little bit this way
and a little bit that way, but they all say the same thing.
God will accept our works. Salvation is of man, not of God. God contributed it a little bit,
but what He contributed is of no value apart from my faith.
Huh? That's the God of this world.
And Christ came down and judged the God of this world. He exposed
His lies. He exposed His lies. He exposed
His deceit. He exposed who He was. He whooped
Him on even ground. Took Him on one-on-one and whooped
Him. He exposed him for what he was.
And then he ascended back into glory. That judgment he's talking
about there is judgment satisfied. He came down and satisfied the
justice of God. See, we're talking about just
doing a few things and God will be satisfied with it. You better
read this book. Now, I'm telling you, I'm telling
you for your own good, and I'm telling you with as much grace
as I can muster to stand before you tonight, begging God that
He'll give me a spirit and penetrate that heart, gain entry into the
heart. One day you're going to stand
before God. You're not going to stand before
me. You're not going to stand before somebody that you think
is just a smart aleck, just somebody picking on this and picking on
that. You're going to stand before God. Ain't you even slightly
interested in what God is and what He has to say? Huh? You ought to be shaking in your
boots, and me too. I'll tell you this, Paul said,
it ain't like I've already arrived. And we're talking about a man
that was caught up into the third heaven and taught of Christ Himself. And he said, it's not like I've
already arrived. He said, but I follow after. He said, I'm looking out there,
and I see the prize, and that's where I'm running. I'm going
that direction. That direction. I hadn't arrived
yet. I'm not that cocksure just yet. When a man thinks he's something,
he's nothing. When the Holy Spirit of God comes,
He convinces of sin, He convinces of righteousness, He convinces
you you don't have one. And the only one there is, is
in Christ. And the only one that can get
you to Christ is Him. You can't get there on your own.
You don't know how. That's what a lost man is. He
doesn't know where he's at. He doesn't know what he needs.
He's just at the mercy of God, crying out for mercy. Jonah was
in the belly of a fish. He didn't know where he was at.
He was at the bottom of the sea. He cried out for mercy. He didn't
know where salvation was. He wasn't ready to go to sleep
anymore. He was wide awake. in the belly
of that fish and cried unto God. He said, I'll pay that which
I have found, salvations of the Lord. And that's what you're
going to cry to if God ever gains entry into your heart. Only God
can do it. Only God can do it. What I wanted
you to see in this miracle of Jonah coming into Nineveh is
just this. Only God can gain entrance into
the heart. And when He does, God goes before
the preacher. And he stirs that heart. He prepares
that heart. And he gives that prophet those
words that stirs your heart. And he gives you that hope. Oh,
Jonah, the only hope he gave Nineveh, he said, yet forty days. Boy, that doesn't sound like
much hope, does it? Huh? But think about it. It wasn't
so much what Jonah said as it was his presence. Here was a
rebel. just like they were. Here was
a sinner, just like they were. Here was a man who faced the
judgment of God, just like they had to face. But here he stood,
delivered of God. It wasn't so much what Jonah
said as it was his presence. And Jonah stands as a type of
Christ. You see, when we look, it's not
so much the words as it is his presence. There is a man in glory, Winston,
a man seated at the right hand of God, accepted of God. His
angels come down, rolled that stone back, walked out of that
tomb, and his angels carried him right back into the bosom
of God and seated him at his own right hand. You need something
more sure than that? Can't you find some hope in that?
My soul, why would you want to trust in your works when here's
a man as your representative and as your substitute already
did the work? Already manifested the glory
of God. Already did that righteous obedience. Already accepted of God. Raised
up, Paul said, we're raised up together with Him and seated
at the right hand of God. Why would you want to go anywhere
else? You know, folks think I try to
convince them of Calvinism. I care less what you believe
about Calvinism. You believe what you want to
believe. What I want you to do is come to Christ. You come to
Christ and your doctrine will fall right in line. Now, I'm
telling you the truth. You arrive at doctrine through
Christ. You don't arrive at Christ through doctrine. You come to
Christ and bow down at His feet. He's Sovereign Lord. He controls
all things. He controls your mind. I just
read it to you in Romans chapter 1. Those people, they were given
over to all these wicked things. Who did say gave them over? Huh? Didn't say God gave them over
to a reprobate mind? You know what a reprobate mind
is? A reprobate mind is a mind that's satisfied in its old religion. That's a reprobate mind. A reprobate
mind is a mind that you can't talk to. It's a mind that's at
enmity against God. You can't talk to it. You can't
reason with it. A reprobate mind is a mind that
considers only itself. It totally ignores the Word of
God. Just what Grandpa said, and Uncle
Jim said, or whoever else it is that was highly esteemed in
your family. You know old Isaiah, the prophet
of God. He liked old King Uzziah down
in Israel. King Uzziah must have been a
man's man. Now, he must have been a fair
man. He must have been a brilliant
man. He was a good king. He was a fair king. Isaiah just
almost worshipped Uzziah. It says in the Bible that Isaiah
wrote everything he did down in a book. Uzziah. In Isaiah
chapter 6, it said, In the year King Uzziah died, he said, I
saw the Lord. Uzziah died, he was going to
go under that veil and take that offering in before God that was
forbidden for anybody to go in there except the high priest.
Uzziah grabbed it and was going to go under the veil. God smote
him with leprosy. They carried him outside the
city, that wonderful king. They took him outside the city
and he covered his mouth with a rag and spent the rest of his
days crying, unclean, unclean, unclean. And Isaiah said, when
he died, I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord. I tell you, when
old Uncle Jim and Aunt Betsy and Grandma Joyce or whoever
it was, every family's got their old patriarchs. Our family's
got them. I thought the world of them when
I grew up. And I believed everything they told me until I read the
book of God. Huh? I tell you, I tell you,
When your Zion dies, that's when you're going to see the Lord.
That's when you're going to see Him. When God comes into that
city and tears your idols down and chops that place apart, sends
that messenger with that message of condemnation, you're a sinner. When you find out you're a sinner,
ain't nobody going to have to tell you how to call on God.
You know exactly who to call on. My prayer is that He gets
you lost. If He gets you lost, He'll allow
you to see Him. Oh, how sweet that gospel sound
will be to you if you ever get lost.