You who are yet without Christ are not in a position of indifference. You're not in an in-between state. Some folks talk as though somehow
sinners move from one place to another place to another place
to finally come to be saved. If you're without Christ, you're
right now. under the wrath of God Almighty. You hang over hell by a thread
thinner than you can ever imagine, the breadth of your nostrils,
and it's in God's hands. You're guilty. You've broken
God's law, not once, not twice, in every point. and not occasionally,
but with every breath you draw. You live in utter rebellion against
God Almighty because you hate him. The carnal mind, what does
scripture say? It's enmity. It doesn't say it's
at enmity, it says it's enmity. Enmity against God. And God, who is holy, just, righteous,
and true, because he is good, must and shall punish your sin. He must and shall punish you
for your sin. Pay no attention to the Hireling
false prophets you listen to or hear and maybe have heard
all your life on radio and television and other places. Pay absolutely
no attention to them. Tell you God loves the sinner
and hates his sin. No such thing taught in this
book. No such thing. This is what the book says. God
is angry with you every day. That's what it says. He has already bent his bow. He's already made it ready. He's
prepared for you. His arrows for you, the instruments
of your destruction are already set. Listen to this. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. But don't you imagine he doesn't
know what's going on. His eyes behold, his eyelids try the children
of men, the Lord trieth the righteous. But the wicked, and him that
loveth violence, his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain
snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest. This shall
be the portion of their cup. How come? This is what he says,
Merle, for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. A good God wouldn't send an earthquake
and send a thousand people to hell all at once. Oh, yes, he
will. You read your Bible, he's done it many times. He's done
it many times. Good God wouldn't send a tidal
wave and sweep off an island nation all at once. Oh, yes,
he will. Oh yes he will. And that's just a foretaste.
That's just a foretaste. And a good God will send you
to hell. He'll send you to hell. Because
the righteous Lord loves righteousness. Therefore he cannot and he will
not abide sin. He cannot and he will not tolerate
your ungodliness. He cannot and he will not abide
unrighteousness. So I'm warning you. God, help
you to hear me. If you die without Christ, your
immortal soul will suffer the infinite, endless, unmitigated,
relentless wrath of God Almighty in all the terror of His anger
and justice in hell. Somebody says, what hell's gonna
be like? You don't know what in hell hell's gonna be like.
You hadn't got any idea. You hadn't got any idea. Fire
doesn't begin to describe it. Worm dying not tormenting your
conscience doesn't begin to describe it. Nobody has any idea. It's called the second death. Darkness and blackness and torment
forever. I don't know. I shudder at this thought. but
you may be in hell before I get done preaching today. I pray God will let you hear
one more time and calls you to hear the word that's being preached. Let's begin in Zechariah or Zephaniah
rather chapter 1 and verse 14. Zephaniah chapter 1 verse 14. Here in Zephaniah 1, the Lord
God is speaking to a people just like us, a generation just like
our generation, a nation just like our nation. He's talking
about Biestas to you and me, to your children and mine, your
neighbors and mine. The great day of the Lord is
near. It is near and hasteth greatly. Even the voice of the day of
the Lord, the mighty men shall cry there bitterly. That day
is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness
and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess. A day of clouds and thick darkness. A day of trumpet and alarm against
the fenced cities and against the high towers. I know you think
everything's gonna be alright. You've made a covenant with death.
You've made lies your refuge. You've got yourself fixed up.
I'm okay now. I'm okay now. Well, God's gonna
tear down your fenced city. He's gonna tear down your tower. He says in verse 17, I will bring
distress upon men and they shall walk like blind men because they've
sinned against the Lord and their blood won't be worth anything. It'll be poured out like dust.
Your life will be meaningless. Their flesh like dung, manure. Oh, preacher, you shouldn't talk
that way to people. Somebody needs to be honest with you.
This is what God says to you. Neither their silver nor their
gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's
wrath. Get all you can is not going to do you one ounce of
good. But the whole land shall be devoured by fire, the fire
of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy riddance of
all them that dwell in the land. But you don't have to die. You don't have to go to hell.
You don't have to. How can you say that? Read the
next line. This is God speaking now. Gather
yourselves together. Gather together, O nation not
desired. This same nation he describes
in Isaiah 1 with nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head. That
nation that doesn't even know his master's creed. That nation
that's worse than the ox or the ass. That nation that rebels
against God. He says, gather yourselves together. All nation not desired. Before
the decree bring forth. Before judgment comes. Before
the day passes the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord
come upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger come upon
you, seek ye the Lord. Seek ye the Lord. And that's
your duty. And that's your responsibility.
So a preacher, I thought you believed in predestination and
divine sovereignty. You can fuss, you can argue about
theology until you go to hell if you want to. But I'm going
to tell you something, it's your business, your responsibility to seek the
Lord. I guarantee you if you're standing
in here out of a of a desert place you just saw this place
standing here and you just you came in here and you had any
water to drink in in two or three days and it's been 90 degrees
outside and been nothing around to give you your sweat has just
completely dried up and you're dying of thirst and you you saw
this glass of water sitting here I'll guarantee you you wouldn't
ask yourself I wonder if it's predestined for me to drink that
water I wonder if I was elected for that water I wonder if that
water was meant for me. Man, you just grab it and gulp
it down because you're thirsty. And your problem is not wrestling
with election and predestination and God's sovereignty. Your problem
is you don't have any desire after Him. You have no thirst
for Him. Seek you the Lord. That's your responsibility. And
that's your blessed privilege. Oh, seek His mercy, yes. Seek
His favor, yes. Seek His grace, yes. Seek His
pardon, but above all else, seek Him. Seek you the Lord. Seek the Lord Himself. Everybody
wants His blessing, not many folks want Him. Everybody wants
His salvation, not many folks want Him. Everybody wants His
grace, not many folks want Him. Seeking the Lord will not save
you. But seeking Him is your responsibility. And if you seek Him, you'll find
Him. And that is salvation. In seeking
the Lord, we are specifically told here to seek two things.
You see it there in verse 3? It says seek righteousness. That's
what you need. That's what you need. That's
what you stand in need of before God. You don't have any of your
own. You don't have any ability to
produce any. You can't even think righteous. Your imaginations are all corrupt. Your thoughts are all corrupt.
Your heart is totally corrupt. You're vile, vile at heart. That's the nature of all men.
Don't have any righteousness. I hear these imaginary theologians,
they get up and they try to make what's called Calvinism palatable
to unregenerate men so they'll accept it. When we talk about
total depravity, we don't mean man's as bad as he could be.
Oh, yes, you are. Oh, yes, you are. God just won't
let you behave like you want to. God's just got a lion caged up
in a cage. Turn the lion loose, see how
bad he is. God's providence, his goodness keeps you from behaving
and giving that to what's in your heart. Now man's as bad as he could
be seek righteousness. What do you mean pastor? Seek
to have the righteousness of God in Christ by faith imputed
to you. What is righteousness? It is
a right standing with God. It is to be without sin before
God. Not only without sin, so that
your debt has been fully paid by the blood of God's dear Son,
but to be righteous before God is to stand before Him as one
who not only has no debt, but who has perfectly obeyed God's
will in all His being. The only one who ever did is
Jesus Christ the Son of God. Seek righteousness. Seek to have
it imputed to you. And seek to have it imparted
to you. Seek that God may be pleased to grant to you the very
nature of his darling son. Look at the next line, he says,
seek meekness. Meekness. I wish folks could find out something
about what meekness is. Meekness is not something you can give
yourself. You can fake it. You can walk
around and look meek and you know folks try to act humble
and eat humble pie and dress humble and just shy and humble folks. That's
just pride putting on a meek show. That's all it is. That's all it is. I don't care
who it is. That's just pride putting on a meek show. What's
meekness, Gary? Meekness is the knowledge of
who and what you are before God Almighty. There was never a man who walked
in the Old Testament like Moses. Somehow, I've got a notion if
you was to see him walk in the door, you wouldn't think he was
a real meek man. I have a notion, if you were to see him standing
before a choir of Dathan and Abiram, you'd think man, that
proud man, that arrogant man. But scripture says he's the meekest
man who ever lived. How come? Because he knew, Skip,
what and who he was before God Almighty. And you will never
ever seek the righteousness of God in Christ until you're made
to know that you don't have any. And you're nothing but sin before
God. Just corruption at heart. Well preacher, what encouragement
do I have to seek the Lord? Look at this. Here's your encouragement. It may be. What a word. Judgment's coming.
You deserve it. Judgment shall fall at God's
appointed time. And when God sends a man to hell,
it's altogether right for him to do so, no matter who the man
is. It's right. It's right. It may
be, however, that you shall be hid in the day of the Lord's
anger. Maybe. Maybe. You say, well that's
not much encouragement, it's a heapsight more than you deserve.
It may be. You shall be hid in the day of
the Lord's anger. That's not enough for good, proud,
self-righteous folks who don't need mercy. But it's all the
encouragement a poor, naked, helpless, starving beggar needs. It may be. You shall be hid Head
in the rock, head in the refuge, Christ Jesus head in the Son
of God it may be, you shall be head in the city of refuge in
the day of the Lord's anger. That's enough for me. The very
possibility of grace, the very possibility of salvation is enough
to cause needy sinners to seek the Lord. Now the key operative
word is needy. If you're a needy sinner, the
Lord God has made you to know something about your depravity,
your guilt, your sin, your helplessness before his august holy law and
justice. And if you ever come to know
the terror of the Lord, the terror of his justice, if you ever come
to know your own condemnation, you'll need nothing more than
a maybe to cause you to see Christ. That was Brazen. cocky, arrogant
fellows who drugged that black man to death in California a
few months back. Oh, big man, big man, big man. You watch him try to wiggle out
of death. You watch him try to wiggle out of it. Watch him.
Anything. If there's just the slightest
possibility of a tinge of being spared, knowing the day of execution
approaches, they will not give up until death is taken, a life
is taken from them in their utter death. They won't dare give up
because they know they're condemned. They're condemned. And I'm telling
you, If ever God makes you to know your certain and just condemnation,
you'll say in your heart, I must go to Christ. I must seek mercy
at the throne of grace. I love the way the hymn writer
put it. He said, perhaps he will admit my plea. Perhaps we'll
hear my prayer. But if I perish, I will pray
and perish only there. I can but perish if I go. I am
resolved to try, for if I stay away, I know I must forever die.
Ah, but if I die, with mercy sought when I, the king, have
tried, this were to die. Delightful thought, a sinner
never dies. Nobody ever perished at the throne
of grace. It was only a baby that inspired
Esther to approach King Ahasuerus contrary to the law. You remember
the story, we won't turn there and read it, but in the book
of Esther, Esther and her people had been sentenced to death. And she had no right, but under
law, she had no right to come to the king. Anybody who came
to the king without a direct invitation from the king was
to be put to death on the spot. She had no right to go in. But
Mordecai said to her that, honey, if you don't go in and approach
the king on our behalf, we're all gonna die. And Esther said,
I'll tell you what, you tell all our people fast and pray
for three days. Don't eat any food and don't
wash your faces for three days, neither by night nor by day.
And I'll go in to the king. And if I perish, I perish. Why would she do that? Because
she's going to perish for sure if she doesn't. If I perish,
I perish. And she went in, and the king
stretched out his golden scepter, and she touched the top of the
scepter. And he said, Esther, what did
you come for? He said, I'll give you anything
you want. and she obtained life for herself and for her people
because she said maybe, maybe, maybe he'll let me come in. Jonathan
was caught between a rock and a hard place when just a maybe,
just a maybe encouraged him to single-handedly attack the garrison
of the Philistines. Over in 1 Samuel 14 he said to
his armor bearer He's looking around and he says, well boy
we're in a pickle now. We're in a jam now. We're sure
enough in a mess. If we stay here and the Philistines
find us here, they're going to kill us. And we can't get out
of here without them spotting us. I tell you what, if we're
going to die, let's at least die trying to live. What an attitude. What do you want to do? He said,
let's you and me. attack the whole garrison. You? You and me? What have we got
to lose? We're going to die anyhow. This
is what he said, it may be. It may be. The Lord will work
for us. For there's no restraint with
the Lord whether it is saved by many or by few. And they walked
away victors. Just on a maybe. Just on a maybe.
You remember when Shemai came out to cuss David? 2 Samuel 16. His son driven him from his throne.
He's turned the hearts of his people against him. He's taken
David's wives to be his own mistresses before the eyes of all Israel.
He's seeking David's life and now this son of Saul, Shemai
comes out and calls David everything under the shining sun. Everything
imaginable except David. And Abishah, David's servant,
I believe was his name, he said, he said, why don't you let me
go over and lift his head off his shoulders? And this was David's
response. It may be. The Lord will look
on my affliction and requite me good for his cursing this
day. I met two people this week, an
older lady and a younger, I didn't meet them, they're friends of
mine, I've known them for years. Both of them just found out they have
cancer. I said to both of them, in your
darkest trial, hope in the Lord. Look to Him. Lean on Him, trust
Him, reside yourself to Him like David did to God's goodness.
He will require you good, I promise you. Find your comfort in Him. Well, I got a good doctor, but
not much comfort there. I'm going to the best hospital
there's not much comfort there. Where is it? The will of my God. He will do me good. It was just a maybe, just a maybe,
that caused those four desperate lepers to enter the camp of the
Syrians. Turn over there if you will,
2 Kings chapter 7. Let me show you. 2 Kings chapter 7, verse 3. There were four leprous men at
the entering end of the gate. And they said one to another.
Man, there's famine all around. Death all around. These leprous
men. I mean, wait a minute. They can't
go in there. They're unclean. Yeah, but they're
dying. So the law didn't much matter
to them. But the law says you can't walk
in that gate. But the law gonna kill us anyhow. We don't. They said one to another,
why sit we here till we die? There's bread right over there.
There's life inside those gates. There's plenty to eat in there. If we say we will enter into
the city, then famine is in the city. And we'll die there. But we know there's famine out
here. And if we sit still here, we die also. But now therefore
come, let us fall unto the host of the Syrians. If they save
us alive, we shall live. And if they kill us, all they
can do is kill us. We're dead men anyhow. Let's
go to the city. Now this is what I'm telling
you. The wrath of God is on you. You're
a dead sinner. Dead before God. hell is your
portion. So I'm afraid to come to the
Lord. I wouldn't be near as afraid of coming as I would staying
away, no matter what I thought of it. Look at these lepers and lay to heart their action
and venture your souls on Christ. Venture on him, venture holy,
let no other trust intrude. None but Jesus, none but Jesus
can do helpless sinners good. It was just a maybe, just a maybe
that caused the king of Nineveh to call on his people to turn
to God in repentance. Jonah came with a message of
judgment. God's gonna kill you 40 days and God's gonna kill
you 40 days and judgment comes 40 days and God will send this
nation to hell. And this is how the king of none
ever reasoned. Who can tell? Who can tell? If God will turn
and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish
not. And he did. And he did. But I'm gonna tell you this,
with regard to this business of salvation and seeking the
Lord, there's more than it may be here. You turn to him and
he says, seek and you shall find. The Lord God himself declares,
seek me with all your heart and you shall find me. That's what
he's saying, what he's saying. O Samuel Rutherford, that Scottish
Presbyterian who lived a long time ago, he said, our hope is
not hung on such untwisted thread as I imagine so, or it is likely,
but the cable, the strong rope of our fastened anchor is the
oath and promise of him who is eternal veracity. Our salvation
is fastened with God's own hand and Christ's own strength to
the strong stake of God's unchanging nature. If we confess our sin, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. Let me offer a suggestion to
you. You follow the example of that
pagan, pagan king, Ben-Hadad. Ben-Hadad and the armies of the
Assyrians, armies of Samaria, they thought Israel's God, he's
the God of the hills, let's fight in Nevada. And God told old Ahab,
now Ahab, he was not exactly what you call an example of godly
gentleness. He was a reprobate, ungodly wretch
of a man, one of the worst kings Israel ever had. But God told
Ahab, since they said I'm the God of the hills and not the
God of the valleys, you're gonna kill them all. You're gonna whip
the daylights out of them. And Ben-Hadad's gonna come bow
before you. And when they got done with the
day, Ben-Hadad was in hiding, and his servant said, listen,
listen, we have heard, now we just got it on hearsay, but we've
heard, we've heard that the kings of Israel are merciful. We've heard that, we've heard
that. And if he gets you, he's gonna kill you. Maybe, maybe,
just maybe, if we act right, and go to him and surrender to
him in totality surrender to him he may give us life what
should we do? they said man put on sackcloth
and ashes make yourself a noose and tie it around your neck and
go to the king of Israel and say let me live you know what he did Rex? Ahab said
I'll send you a day with a covenant of life. I send you away this
day You fall down at the feet of Christ Jesus the Lord on the
throne of grace and you will obtain mercy and grace to help
right now in your time of need in God's everlasting salvation.
This king, I tell you, not only hearsay, but experience will
take you into his arms and send you on your way to glory with
a covenant of life made before the world began. Amen.