If you have your Bibles open
to 1 Kings chapter 14, I read to you the story this morning
and I want to read verse 13 again. And all Israel shall mourn for
him that is the son of Jeroboam who had fallen sick of Ijah.
All Israel shall mourn for him and bury him For he only of Jeroboam
shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some good
thing toward the Lord God of Israel of all places in the house
of Jeroboam. Now Jeroboam had proved himself
to be false to the Lord, who had placed him upon the throne
of Israel. And the time was come that God
was going to overthrow him. But before God will send the
axe to cut off King Jeroboam, He will send the rod into his
house. And the rod has come into his
house, and his son Abijah is sick unto death. Now, the Lord
sent sickness into this house. Abijah was very sick. The Lord sent the sickness. Now, I know that there are some
religionists that would tell you that God has nothing whatever
to do with sickness. But we know that that is wrong. We know that God sent this sickness
and the Lord rules and overrules over all sickness that men have
in this world. We know that sin is the mother
of death, and we know that sickness comes from sin, but we're all
sinners, but we're preserved, many of us have been preserved,
thank God, from any dreadful disease. As Spurgeon said, diseases
linger around to hurry mortals home, and we've been delivered
up to this point. Thank God. Thank God for His
mercy. Have you ever, when you were
able to breathe in a deep breath, were you ever thankful in your
heart? that you were just able to breathe,
especially when you would look at somebody who had emphysema,
somebody who was unable hardly to get a breath, had asthma real
bad. Have you ever thought to yourself,
how merciful God has been to me, that he spared me all these
years And I'm yet able to breathe the breath of life, able to get
about to do those things that I feel the Lord would have me
to do, able to have measure of strength, able to do, up and
about and able. Well, God sent this sickness
into this house. You say, well, why would He do
that? This boy apparently was a good boy. Why in the world
would the Lord do that? Well, I'm not an authority on
why God does things. God is God. He's an absolute
sovereign. He can do what He will with His
own. And the Lord sent this sickness into this home. Now the Lord
put this boy in this house, and I believe he was put there as
a witness against his mother and his father. He was put there
as a witness. His father was a wicked man,
and his mother was an Egyptian queen. And he was put there,
they were idolaters. They worshipped calves, golden
calves. and they were idolatrous people
and this boy was put there, God put a good thing in his heart
and he was put there in order to be a witness to this family
and to, I believe, make hell hotter for them in eternity. Now, I remember hearing a story
one time about a girl, a little girl, and her daddy was a swearing
man And he had no vocabulary, hardly, except it was filled
with swear words, cursing. And so one day the father was
on one of his torrents and the little girl ran into the closet
and hid. And she would not come out. And
so her father went to the closet and said, why don't you come
out? Come out of there. Why don't you come out? And she
finally came out. He said, why did you hide in
there? And she said, because my Sunday school teacher taught
me that those who curse and swear go to hell. And I'm afraid you're
going to hell, daddy. And so that was a means in the
hands of the Spirit of God to arrest that man. And he went
to seek out, to find out where she got this information, and
it led him finally unto the Lord. And so we understand, beloved,
that oftentimes God plants people, and he sends the afflictions
that he sent into the house of Jeroboam. God sent it on purpose.
It had a purpose, it had a reason. Now then, his parents thought
at this time when this boy was sick of that old prophet who
had told Jeroboam before he had become king, that he was going
to become king. And they thought about this prophet
and thought, well, now we need a word from this old prophet
again. We need to know what's going
to happen to this boy. He's dreadfully ill. And so,
fearful lest the prophet would denounce and would send plagues,
additional plagues upon them, And upon this child, if he knew that the inquirer,
that one that was coming, was really the wife of Jeroboam,
the king had her disguise herself as a farmer's wife so as to get
from the man of God a more favorable answer. What a ridiculous thought! poor fool that he was, to imagine
that a prophet to whom and through whom God was speaking could not
see through her disguise. So she goes to Shiloh to hear
the sentence of the prophet. Vain was her disguise indeed. This prophet was a blind man.
He was an old man. The Bible says his eyes were
fixed because of his age. But you see, God was talking
to him. God was talking to this prophet.
Look at verse 5. And the Lord said unto Ahijah,
Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee
for her son, for he is sick. Thus and thus shalt thou say
unto her, for it shall be when she cometh in that she shall
feign herself to be another woman. And so God speaks. to this prophet
to tell him what the circumstance are. You don't even have to have
eyes to see it because God reveals it. But he not only knew who
she was, but he also saw the future of her family. He knew,
God told him, what was going to happen to this boy. Now in
the terrible tidings which the prophet Hajah delivered to the
wife of Jeroboam, there was only one bright spot. Only one word
of solace or comfort was given. Her child was mercifully appointed
to die. Mercifully appointed to die and
come to the grave. For in him there was found some
good thing toward the Lord. Now this, no doubt, was no comfort
to this woman. No doubt. It was no comfort to
her. Her being an idolatrous queen,
an Egyptian worshipper of idols, It was no comfort to her to hear
that her son was going to die because God, and he was going
to the grave, the rest of Jeroboam's family was going to die out in
the woods someplace, or where the vultures would pick their
bones, or where the dogs, the wild dogs would eat them up.
But this son's going to the grave because there's some good thing
found in him toward the Lord. Now in what an unhappy condition
is that person who cannot derive comfort from the salvation of
their own children. Yet there are many men and women
in such a state, and it would bring no joy to them if they
saw all their children walking in the truth, nor does it cause
them any concern to see them do otherwise. They're not concerned
one way or another. Well, I've known some who would
hate their children for turning to the Lord, because they so
despise the truth of Christ themselves. I remember a lady back east,
and she was married to a good friend of mine. Ann Phelps was
her name. And she'd come from New York
State. And she was raised a Catholic.
And God saved her shortly after she met her husband Don. And
her folks disowned her. They wouldn't have a thing to
do with her after that. Nothing whatever. They despised
her, looked down on her, because she had come to faith in Christ.
And she knew that God had saved her, and they hated her for it.
And then I knew another fellow in Indiana who had come to be,
well, associated with the church that I was pastoring. And there
came a time when the church was about to split. And he was trying
to figure out what was best economically for him to do in this church
split. And his mother and daddy hated
the grace of God. They spit on it every morning
when they got up before breakfast. They had no use. They were religionists
and work mongers, but they hated the grace of God. And so they
told him, they told him, he said, now if you stay with that preacher,
We're going to disown you, and we will not give you a dime. There were big farmers in that
area, had several big farms. We're not going to give you a
dime in our will. We'll not leave you anything.
You'll have nothing. Well, you know, that fellow went,
he left the church, and he went with the other group. But you
know what? Before he, listen, got old enough
to have an inheritance, You know what happened? He fell dead one
morning in the barn milking cows and he was gone. He didn't have
an opportunity to ever inherit anything that his parents had.
It all went to his brothers, every bit of it. So you see,
my friend, there are some people in this world that hate God and
hate the grace of God and the truth of God and would hate their
own children for believing the grace of God. But I believe that
to most of us here, And I believe I can say this truthfully, that
if we did but know of a surety that there was in our child some
good thing toward Jehovah God, the God of Israel, that we would
be perfectly content to leave all of the rest of their case
at the absolute disposal of our Lord. Amen? If we could just
know that there's something good in the hearts of our children
toward the Lord, we would be content to leave everything else
about those kids unto the Lord. Just leave it to Him. Whatever
He wills to do, let Him do. Whatever the Lord wills to do,
let Him do it. If such a child should die, it
would be well, for it is much better to have a child in heaven
than to have one on earth breaking our hearts by their wicked ways
as they live out their days here in this world. On earth a while,
in heaven forever. that make a fitting epitaph on
such a child's grave, on earth a while, in heaven forever. Hear me, if there is in the heart
of the young some good things toward the Lord, then the grand
matter, as you call it, is settled, and all else is just a matter
of detail. We'll bless the Lord, let him
send what he will to our children so long as he has chosen them
to be his own and put his salvation in their hearts. As long as he's
put the hope of the gospel in their souls, then may God use
them for whatever He will. It'll be honorable whatever they
do, dig ditches, or whatever they do, it'll be an honorable
occupation if they are serving the Lord Christ. Well, this morning
we want to look a little bit. I want to, but I'm really, in
my heart, I wanted so much to get to this service. Tried to
hurry it up every way I could this morning. Because I want
to talk a little bit about Abijah, the young prince. I want to talk
about him a little bit. To begin with, he had a good
name, Abijah. His name signifies God, God my
father. Ab, you know, is the word for
father, and Jah is Jehovah. Jehovah was his father. That
means that God was his spiritual father. Now there wouldn't be
anything in his name had it not been made true in his life. And
there are some people that have a religious name and they don't
live up to it even. But if you do have a religious
name, Why, may God help you to live up to it, but this man,
or this boy, he made it true. It was true in his life. First
of all, let us admire what we cannot precisely describe. Now I'm not saying that we don't
know what it was in his heart. But I do believe this, that whatever
it was in his heart, if we study the Word of God, we will find,
I believe, an answer as to exactly what it was that God had put
there into this boy's heart. But we cannot precisely describe
it. And I mean first by that, that
there was in this child some good thing toward the Lord, but
what was it? Well, we're not told precisely
what the good thing was. may be because any good thing
toward the Lord is a sufficient sign of the grace of God. And the grace of God is one,
the grace of God is a whole, and one good thing toward the
Lord is a sufficient sign that that grace of God is present.
Where there is some good thing toward the Lord God, every good
thing is present in seed and essence. Now through faith, though
faith is not mentioned, we're sure that he had faith in the
living God, since without it, nothing in him would have been
good towards God. For without faith, we're told
in Hebrews 11, 6, it is impossible to please God. So I believe that
there was faith in Jehovah God in this boy's heart, that God
had given him the gift of faith. Now the boy believed in the invisible
God who made the heavens and the earth, and he worshipped
God in his heart, even in that palace where the rest of those
present were given over to idolatrous worship. The young Abijah possessed
something within him sufficiently real and substantial to be called
a good thing. The Spirit of God had wrought
a sure work upon him and left within him a priceless jewel
of grace. Let us admire this good thing,
though we cannot, as we said, describe it as we would like
to. Second, notice, if you will, that God's electing love sometimes
has the objects of His choice in a very strange place. Of all
the houses of Israel, The palace here in Terzah was surely the
last place that one would think in which to look for a worshipper
of the true God. His father was a great sinner,
and he'd set up gods of gold and said, these be thy gods,
O Israel. And God, providential goodness,
God had been good to him providentially. And he forgot the God whose sun
shined. in whose sunshine he had flourished,
and made the men of Israel bow down before an ox that eateth
the grass, and worship that ox. He would not tolerate the true
religion, and yet God's sovereign electing love was bestowed upon
a child of this wicked and rebellious Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who
made Israel to sin. God's everlasting mercy had designed
that there should be one break in the line of sin and that there
should be at least one who would be found among the choristers
of glory who had been nursed and nurtured among the degraded
worshippers of calves. Well, what was the case in Jeroboam's
family is often the case in many others. Grace sometimes finds
its choicest jewels in the worst of homes and families. Sometimes
it is impossible to account for it as it is in this case. How
are you going to explain that God had one of his elect in this
palace? How are you going to explain
that out of the loins of Jeroboam came one of God's Members the
member of God's living family. How could this child know anything
about God? How could he living in the atmosphere
that he lived in? How could he know anything about
God? well look if you will in chapter
13 and I don't know that I have all the answers to this and I
don't know that we really need to have all the answers but I
want to show you a little situation that occurred here in the 13th
chapter of Kings and and see if maybe this might have made
an impression upon this boy if he had heard about it. And behold,
there came a man of God in verse 1 out of Judah by the word of
the Lord unto Bethel, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar
in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar! Thus saith
the Lord, Behold, a child shall be born of the house of David,
Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priest of
the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall
be burned upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day,
saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken, Behold,
the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall
be poured out. Now it came to pass, when King
Jeroboam, and he was standing by the altar, heard the saying
of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel,
that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on
him. meaning lay hold on that man
of God that just made such a statement as he's made about this altar.
And his hand, when he put it forth against him, dried up so
that he could not pull it in again to him. So Jeroboam's hand
dried up and he couldn't pull it back. It withered. And the
altar also was rent, the ashes poured out from the altar according
to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of
the Lord. And the king answered and said to the man of God, Entreat
now the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my
hand may be restored again. And the man of God besought the
Lord, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became
as it was before. So you see, I believe that that
if this story got back, and it surely did to the palace, that
this young Abijah, that he heard the story, and I believe that
it kindled faith in the living God. He could see the mighty
hand of God in working, even though his father Jeroboam was
a wicked man and an idolatrous man. Now, so we say, well, then
how did he come to faith? Well, he heard the story about
God's mighty axe. and maybe it moved his heart
to believe God. And then somebody said, well,
maybe he had a nurse when he was little that taught him the
things of Jehovah God. Well, maybe he did. Like Naaman
the Syrian, you know, they'd went over into Israel and they
took this little maid back and she talked to Naaman about going
over into Israel and to be healed there by the God of Israel of
his leprosy. And so maybe there was a nurse
that sang the hymns of Zion to Abijah when he was young. Maybe
there was a lone worshiper, somebody suggested, that came by one day
and was worshiping God outside the window of the palace. And
this boy heard that individual worshiping the Lord God of Jehovah. But one thing we're certain that
it was not through his parents. And maybe there was no human
involvement at all. Maybe there wasn't. You know,
we cannot explain how God works when He works in the saving of
the soul. We know the wind bloweth where it listeth. You hear the
sound thereof, but you cannot tell whence it cometh, nor whether
it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit. I do not know how the Lord saved
John the Baptist in the womb of his mother, but He did. God
saved John the Baptist in the womb of his mother. I don't know
how He did that. But nevertheless he did it and God is able and
there doesn't have to be human involvement in it. But this much
is certain that electing love had one object in this strange
household and it knew how to find that one out. It knew how
to get to it. It knew how to reach this one
in that household. And I often ask myself, how did
the electing love of God ever get to me? How did it ever get
to me? How did the grace of God ever
get to me? One out of eleven children, the
seventh of eleven children, and the grace of God found me. Yes
it did. Found me one time and brought
me out and put some good thing in my heart toward the Lord.
There's not as much good in my heart toward the Lord as I would
like. But there is some good thing
in my heart because of the electing grace of God that found me in
the midst of a situation that was not conducive to worship
of God and to the finding and searching out of the ways of
God Almighty. Now some of you surely ask the
same question. How did the grace of God ever
find me? Oh, how we should praise sovereign
grace and electing love and lift up our voice and say, it was
not that I chose thee, for Lord, it could not be. This heart would
still refuse thee, but thou hast chosen me. The Lord has done
it. The Lord has done the work. He
found us where we were and came to us where we were and called
us out. Yes, we give all the glory to
the sovereign, distinguishing, discriminating grace of our God. Grace is a plant and wherever
you find it, it blooms of a celestial birth, born from above. A man
can receive nothing except it be given to him from heaven. So grace, wherever you find the
flower of grace, It comes from heaven. That's where it came
from. It came from God. Now, brother and sister, there
is much comfort in this little incident in Jeroboam's house.
We think sometimes that the church is getting to a very low ebb
and that it's fallen on very bad times. But the mighty arm
of God can get into the worst and to the best of households
and touch the wicked and the most rebellious and the most
profane and the most perverted men and lay them low at the foot
of the cross and save them and put them in the pulpit to preach
the everlasting gospel of the grace of God. Do you believe
that? He can do that. God's able to do that. He's not
shut up and hemmed in. You say, well, it looks like
to me we're kind of tied up in our day. We may be, but God's
not tied. In Paul's day, he was bound up,
but the Word of God, he said, is not what? He said, it's not
bound. The Word of God's not tied. The
Word of God is loose. And so whatever you think of
the state of the church, listen, never despair for the church. You pray for it. But don't despair,
because God is the author of the church, and He's the head
of the church, His Son is. He's given everything over to
the head, Christ, and Christ will preserve His church, and
He will deliver it unto everlasting glory. his people, and he will
raise up preachers to preach the word. So out of the house
of Jeroboam, God will bring his abidjus. And out of the worst
and most unpromising of places, where God is most forgotten and
his truth least known and despised, the Lord will bring testifiers
to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have hope then, and have
hope in God, and look up and expect a blessing from the hand
of the Lord. Well, in the third place, that
a truly good thing in the divine sense is always toward the Lord. Think of that a little bit. That
a truly good thing in a divine sense is always toward the Lord. If it's good in the divine sense,
it's always toward the Lord. Now this is important. Now this
is the direction it means that it's going. Notice it says there
is found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. Now this
is the tendency of this good thing. It's toward the Lord.
This is the direction of the current. It's toward the Lord. Now this is a test, I think,
that you can try your own heart by. Both the old and the young
can try your heart by this. There are men who have some good
thing in their heart morally, and we can admire that. They
have a good thing in their heart, and that's the tendency of it
toward morals, good morals. And there are those who have
some good thing in them toward politics, and they want to change
what's wrong in society. We can admire that too, I guess,
a little bit. And there are those who have
some good thing in them towards their family, towards their community,
towards their church, toward the environment. You ever met
anybody who had a lot in their heart toward the environment?
I mean, they were wild about, they called them environmentalists.
And they're very, very much given over to that. They have a great
deal, and we can admire that. Truly, we can admire that to
some degree. But all of this can exist without
any good thing towards God being present. Well, this is the great
point. It's a good thing towards God. A good thing toward God is necessary
if you're going to heaven. You're gonna have to have something
good in your heart towards the Lord. How is it now that we can
live as God's creatures and think of everybody else but not of
the God that made us? There's some of you can have
all of these things we mentioned, but you have nothing in your
heart towards God at all. And you live in this world and
you're God's creatures, but you think of everybody else but not
of God. You have no thoughts of God.
The God who preserves you and keeps you, you forgot him. Like
old Jeroboam said, you cast him behind your back. That's what
Jeroboam did to God. God raised him up and put him
in the position he was in, but he cast him behind his back.
You're breathing God's air, eating God's food, living in God's world,
but you have forgot God. You would be dishonest to no
one except to God. And you would be ungenerous to
none except to God. And he has the greatest claim
upon your life. the inconsistency of our evil
natures, that the best being in the world is the least thought
of, nothing in our hearts towards the Lord. We would not keep a
dog or a horse, would we, if he give us or rendered to us
no service? If he didn't in some way or another
make our lives better, some way or another have something that
he provided, well, we would not keep him. There must be some
good thing in our hearts toward the Lord, or we're lost. and
we're going to hell. Faith in Christ, repentance toward
God, love to Christ. I want you to turn with me to
Acts chapter 20 and I want you to look at verse 21. There's
a verse here I want you to see. Acts chapter 20 and verse 21. The Apostle Paul had called for
the elders of the church and he'd been talking with them,
the elders of the church at Ephesus. And in verse 19, he said, he
had been serving the Lord with all humility of mind, with many
tears and temptations, which befell, he said, befell me by
the lying in wait of the Jews. Verse 20, how I kept back nothing
that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and taught
you publicly for house to house, testifying both to the Jews and
also to the Greeks, repentance toward God. See, Paul preached
repentance toward God and faith, listen to it, toward our Lord
Jesus Christ. There must be something in you
towards God. And I believe this had been put
there. Repentance toward God in the
heart of Abijah and faith toward a substitute. Toward the Lamb
of God that was to come and to die for the sins of God's people. And so this faith must be in
our hearts. Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance toward God. There
must be a change of heart. as to how we feel about ourselves,
how we feel about God, and must be faith. toward the Lord Jesus
Christ. Before you can get to heaven
you must have something in your heart which says, Lord I come,
Lord I come, I trust thy son, I believe in thy mercy and rely
upon the blood of Jesus and I trust myself only in those dear pierced
hands of the anointed Christ. I trust myself in his hand. If
you can say this, you have a good thing towards the Lord God of
Israel, and God sees any exception. Well, we'll move right along
here. Fourthly, note this, that where there is this good thing
toward the Lord God of Israel, God always sees it. And you know
why he always sees it? Because he puts it there. That's
why he sees it, is because he puts it there. The text says,
there is found some good thing. The original word used here means
something, a thing found without looking for it. But sometimes
the same word means a thing found after long searching. And again,
it also signifies a thing found after thorough inquiry to be
sufficient and adequate, a thing which has been tested and found
to endure. Now wherever there is anything
like a good thing toward the Lord, God sees it, finds it out,
tests it, finds it sufficient, and accepts it because of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And this good thing was discernible
in this boy Abijah. I'm found of them that sought
me not, the scripture says. And it was discovered in him
by those eyes which cannot be deceived. God can see if there's
any good thing in you, friend. God can see it. If there's any
good thing in you toward the Lord, if there's any repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus toward Christ, God can
see it. He knows whether it's there or
not. And I could ask you, All of you that have a good thing
in your heart toward the Lord You've repented toward God and
you have faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. I could ask you
to stand up. I Won't ask you to do it. It
would embarrass some of you with judgment day honesty Do you have
anything in your heart any good thing in your heart toward the
Lord now if you do Then you ought to get up this morning after
this meeting and say, yes I do have preacher, I have some good
thing in my heart toward the Lord, the Lord put it there,
it's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and I love Him and I want
to follow Him in believers baptism, that's what I want to do. I know
Christ, I know He's put something in here and I'll follow Him in
believers baptism, I'll do it by the grace of God. Now, so
this was discovered in this boy, and God said it was discovered
by that eye which cannot be deceived, God's eye, and God said this
boy has something in him which is good toward me. Now, it's
not all gold that glitters, but that which was in this child
was genuine metal. It was the real thing. Say what
you will about it. All that may be true of us in
that day when we're tried, as by fire, that it'll be real.
That our experience will be a real experience before God. Now in
him there is found some good thing, as when a man findeth
a treasure in a field. Here's a man out here plowing. You ever see a man plow with
a team of horses and pull a plow behind it and turn the sod over
and after a while this man be plowing along and he hits something
with the plow and he stops. And he looks to see what he hit
with the plow. And it's a metal box. And he
opens the metal box. He pries it open. He beats it
open. And it's a box full of gold.
A hidden treasure was found where it was. How it came to be there,
God only knows. But that's exactly what this
word here means. There was a treasure found in
this boy's heart. God put it there. So in this
child, so disadvantagedly placed, to your surprise and mine, there
was found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the
house of Jeroboam. And lastly, let us prize what
we're too apt to overlook ourselves. Do you not think that there's
a tendency with many Christian people, when they're talking
to professors or inquirers, to look for every good thing in
them instead of looking for some good thing in them. Looking for
every good thing. Somebody said, we won't allow
children in our church. I heard a man say that one time.
We won't allow children to be a member of our church. Well,
there's something the matter with you, fella. God allows them
in heaven, don't he? Well, if he does, well, then
you should allow them in your church. What are we looking for?
Well, grace grows, brother, sister. Remember that. Thank God it's
true. If it had to been true, we'd
still be where we were back when we were 16, 17 years old, green
as a gourd, not knowing which is the first book in the Bible
or the last, knowing nothing when God saved us, but grace
grows in the heart. And some good thing will, by
and by, if it is of God, breed every good thing. you will grow
in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we
ought to be much more hopeful than we are and more tender and
more gentle and more considerate. A child is at no disadvantage
in the things of God. It takes the same omnipotent
grace of God to save a child as it does an adult. And God
is just as able to save a child as he is an adult. For of such
are the kingdom of heaven. Men have to grow back into children
before they enter the kingdom of heaven at all. And if there
be some good thing, it ought not to be doubted and thought
to be questionable because it is in a child. You ought to believe
it. God's grace is the same wherever
you find it. And I've seen little children
that outstrip adults in their faith and especially in their
love toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith might not have been as
obvious as their love for the Lord Jesus. Young people, little
children sometimes. In Holy Scripture, it's a very
common thing to find good things in children. Joseph. Some good
thing in him, wasn't there? Samuel, wasn't there a good thing
in him? David, oh David. Obadiah, Josiah, and Timothy,
and Abijah. Some good thing in all of these
characters of scripture. Do not therefore be surprised
to find grace in children, but look for it. Why should we not
have Abijah's and Timothy's and Samuel's among us? Why should
we not? Well, I want to tell you this
story and I'm finished. Down south, way down south, back
in the hills, there was a church and they were having morning
services. Preacher preached morning after morning, morning after
morning. And one Sunday morning, there was a little boy that came
in and stood at the back of the building. He would just step
inside the back door. He'd come no further. Wore ragged
clothes. And he came in and stood there,
and the preacher would preach. And as soon as the last word
was spoken, that boy was out of there and gone. And nobody
ever had an opportunity to speak to him. And so he came for several
Sundays in a row. One Sunday, the preacher chose
for his text, his own right hand and holy arm hath gotten him
the victory. The Lord's own right hand and
his holy arm hath gotten him the victory. And the boy was
standing there, heard the sermon that the preacher preached. And
immediately, the last word was said, the boy was gone, just
like that, vanished. And the boy didn't come back
for six weeks. Nobody, he didn't show up. Nobody
heard anything. Nobody knew anything. The boy
just didn't return. So there was a man that came
out of the woods and came to the preacher's door after the
six weeks was over. Knocked on the preacher's door
and begged the preacher to come to his house. He lived six miles
back up in the mountains. Wanted the preacher to come to
his house. His little boy was dying. He didn't tell the preacher
that the boy had been in his services or anything. And so
the preacher went with him. They crossed several creeks,
climbed the hillsides, and got to the little hut where this
little boy lived with his daddy. And the preacher opened the door
and he walked in. And when he walked in, the little
boy was lying in the bed. And the little boy rose up in
the bed and waved his arm at the preacher. and said, His holy
arm has gotten Him the victory. His own right hand and His holy
arm have gotten Him the victory. Those were His last words, and
He died. I thought that was a tremendous
story, because it shows you how that God is able to get the victory. even in children, and it shows
you that God is able, He has His own right arm, His holy hand
and arm that is able to give Him the victory. And so if you're
here this morning, make no difference what age you are, if you have
repentance in your heart towards God, towards God, if that's the
direction If that's the way the current is flowing, if that's
what you feel, there's something towards God in you. And you know
there's something there, that God has put there, it's towards
the Lord. And you have faith towards Jesus
Christ. Then I believe that you should
make confession with your mouth unto salvation, as you've already
believed in your heart unto righteousness. Satan has fought this message
this morning. He's fought this message. It was amazing. Last week, did not have to want
for a word. Power in the meeting. This morning,
just absolute drudgery to try to preach. But I trust that God
will own what has been said. Satan would not fight a message
like this if there was not some good being done by it being preached. And so we preached it, and not
as we'd like, but we preached it. And may the Lord be pleased
to use it and bring somebody unto himself. Maybe the Lord
has planted some good thing. Maybe somebody's been able to
identify it. Said, I knew there was something going on in me,
but I didn't know what it was. Well, we can't always describe
it. And it may be just a little thing at the beginning. Like
that mustard seed, that little mustard seed falls into the ground
and grows and grows and grows. But there may be something there
that you can say, I know preacher, something different in me and
there's something towards God going on in my soul. Well, if
there is, then you follow the Lord. You submit yourself for
a believer's baptism and walk in the ways of the Lord. Go on
and honor Christ. Father, in the name of our Lord
Jesus, bless, Lord, this word that's went out. Went out in
a very poor way. But Lord, bless the Word, and
it's Thy Word, we're Thy servants, we're here on account of You,
and we wouldn't be here otherwise. And Lord, this is Your people,
and we just commit this to Your hand, and we pray that You'll
bring forth fruit. We're insufficient, we're inadequate,
but we just commit ourselves to You and Your Word, Your living
Word, Your all-powerful Word unto You. Bring to pass your
purpose, in Jesus' name, amen.