The word of the Lord came to me,
son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them, when I bring
the sword against the land, And the people of the land choose
one of their men and make him their watchman. And he sees the
sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn
the people. And if anyone hears the trumpet, but does not take
warning, and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood
will be on his own head." You hear the warning, the warning
of God. through one of his prophets,
through one of his preachers, and you don't take heed to what
he says, then you will die, and your blood
will be on your own hands and on your own people." That's what
he's saying. Since he heard the sound of the
trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own
hands. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself.
He would have taken those actions which God has ordained, it would
have delivered him from the sword. But if the watchman sees the
sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people,
and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that
man will be taken away because of his sin. If a preacher is
unfaithful, he doesn't warn the congregation, Therefore they
don't take warning, for they will die because of their sin.
But I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood." James
said, don't many of you be masters and his teachers? That because
of greater responsibility lies on them. And indeed it does. The work is not naturally difficult,
what I do and what other preachers do, and yet there is a grave
responsibility attached to it. Like Paul says, I've not shunned
to declare to you the whole counsel of God. All of it, not just those
parts which seem most acceptable to us. all of it, whether it
be words of grace or words of warning. "'Son of man, I have
made you a watchman for the house of Israel, so hear the word I
speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked,
O wicked man, you will surely die, and you do not speak out
to dissuade him from his ways. That wicked man will die for
his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But
if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his evil, or turn
from his ways, and he does not do so, he will die for his sin,
but you will have saved yourself. Son of man, say to the house
of Israel, this is what you are saying, our offenses and sins
weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then
can we live? As surely as I live, declares
the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the
wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live."
Turn! Turn from your evil ways. Why
will you die, O house of Israel? God reveals himself by his Word.
When he came into this world in human flesh, he came as the
Word. The Word was made flesh. We learn
of God by his Word, by the things he says. Whenever God speaks,
whether by a prophet or a preacher or by the written Word, he reveals
himself. And let him that has ears to
hear listen carefully to what God has to say. Why will you
die, O house of Israel?" Now, let's begin with this question.
I want to look at this entire verse here, verse 11, the things
that are revealed about God in this entire verse. But let's
begin with this, why will you die? Why will you die? That's the question here that
God lays before men. That's the question that God
lays before each of us. Why will you die? What could
possibly cause you to not take warning from the scriptures,
not hear the warnings that God sends through his words to his
preachers? What would make you not listen to that warning and
do what God says and live? Why will you die? Notice here
that he speaks to the ones to whom he is speaking. He says,
Turn from your evil ways, why will you die, O house of Israel?
Now, this word is not spoken to any Gentile nation. What I'm
trying to illustrate here is that God was speaking this to
a religious people. He was speaking this to the nation
that called Jehovah their God. That's who they said their God
was. He was speaking to a nation who was going through all the
forms that God had told them to go through, that is, the sacrifices. Many of them gave a lot of effort
to the outward conformity, to the Ten Commandments, and they
kept the feast days. And he speaks to them, and he
says, Why will you die? Why will you die? It's the assembly
of professing believers that hears this warning from God,
this question. And we may take it as a message
to the visible Church, to that group of people on earth who
profess to know God, who name his name. For you see, not everyone
who professes the name of Christ possesses faith in Christ. Not everyone who says, I follow
God, actually does. Not everybody who goes to church
knows God. In fact, and I say this not because
I think I'm better, or even because I think we're better. I say this
simply because I know it to be true. I would say that the greater
majority of those who are in churches this morning, all over
this country, the greater majority of them, haven't got a clue about
God. They use His name, they sing
hymns designed, well, some of them designed to glorify Him,
and they listen to sermons, and they listen to the moral homilies
that their preachers deliver, and they get all involved in
the social events of the day, the social activism of the day,
and the politics of the day, and they go out and try to be
good, and go out and try to establish the family, and go out and try
to do this, that, and the other. We just don't. And we have this
little congregation here, and I know which of you profess to
know God, and I know some of you don't make that profession.
I would say this, it's better to be an honest unbeliever than
a dishonest believer, but not much better, because both the
dishonest believer, that is, the false-professing man, and
the honest unbeliever are going to end up in the same place.
But I also know this. An honest unbeliever is one step
closer to faith, if we can look at it from a human viewpoint.
The honest unbeliever is one step closer to believing than
the false professor, because the false professor thinks he
already believes, and he won't make a step anywhere. He thinks he's
already arrived. So our Lord looks out upon those
who call themselves his people, who name his name, And he says
to them in a searching, and later we'll find out in a pleading
way, if we can use that word with regard to God, in a very
gracious and compassionate way, but nonetheless in a searching
way, why will you die? Why will you die? So this word
is not a word that we can turn away from, as though it could
not have any application to us. There are some today here, I'm
sure, who These words were heard long ago, and a warning was taken,
and you will not die. You have turned from your evil
ways of self-righteousness. You have turned from all the
fleshly ways of approach to God, and you love God. You trust God.
He is your hope. You may have weak faith, but
you do have true faith. You may have a trembling faith,
but you have a real faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you
may read words like this, why will you die on the house of
Israel? And it may scare you at first, but then you think,
oh, I won't die. I'm not going to die in the presence of God.
I'll not perish eternally, because Jesus Christ honestly is my home.
He's all I've got, all I claim. Thank God there's some people
like that in this world. God's not left himself without a people.
There is always a remnant according to the election of grace, and
God be thanked for that. He's never let the light of his
truth go out. Never. There's always been somebody
believing. However, it always does us good. It's safe
for us when we read words like this to say, well, will I die? Am I among those to whom these
words were written long ago? Will I die?" You want me to answer
that question? Yes, you will, if you do not turn from yourself
to God. It is a certain thing. When the
Lord said, Why will you die? He did not cast any doubt on
whether or not they would die if they continued in their present
pattern. It's a word we must keep close
to our heart, just a gentle reminder that the matters that you and
I deal with are not slight matters, they're not trivialities. I remember
one of the men in our congregation once made the remark, he said,
you know, if we would list our priorities from what's most important
to us to what's least important, and then turn it completely upside
down, we'd probably have it right. These are the most important
things that you'll ever deal with in this life. The matters of your soul, the
matters of sin, the matters of God and his grace, the matters
of eternity, the matters of eternal life—these are the things which
should occupy our minds, and how easily we're distracted from
thinking about those things. I recognize there's a turn for
every purpose under heaven. I know there's a time to go to
work. I know there's a time to take some time off from work
and play a while. I know there's a time to gather
your family around you, and there's a time to let them go, and there's
a time, as it says, to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
I recognize all those things, and there's nothing wrong with
us giving up time to these things, but everything we do must be
done within the context of an understanding and an acknowledgment
of what the mighty and serious issues of our souls actually
are, and not let ourselves become engrossed in the trivial matters
of this life which are going to be over shortly. It's interesting. People will put a great deal
of effort in preparing for the future of this life. They will
invest, they'll buy their insurances.
I'm not saying these things are wrong, but what I'm saying is,
man will put a lot of effort into that. He'll put money away
in the bank, and he'll buy CDs, and he'll buy stocks and bonds
and mutual funds and all that kind of stuff. Looking forward
to that day when he'll reach sixty-five, start getting Social
Security, and living off the interest. He believes in his
natural mind, then I can really start to live. How long have they got? Now,
in our days, I don't know what the average lifespan is anymore,
it's longer than it used to be, but it doesn't matter how long
it gets, there's an end to it. But they'll put all that effort
and interest into those things, And they'll think that they've
done a wonderful deed, and given all the attention they need to
eternity, if once a week they'll show up at church for about an
hour and listen to a sermon and go on about their lives. It shows you that our priorities
are way out of proportion. Well, he says, why will you die? to those that profess his name,
it may be a shock to many, and it will be in that day. When
Christ comes, it will be a shock to many who profess the name
of Christ. They will say, Lord, Lord. They'll call him Lord.
They'll let that word roll off their lips so easily, off their
tongue, because they've said it so many times, and they'll
say, Lord, Lord. Didn't we do this good work and that miracle
and this and that? Why are we being condemned? And
he'll say, Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never
knew you." And he must stand there stunned.
The Lord says the angel shall bind them hand and feet, cast
them into the lake of fire, where there is weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Let me warn you, let me warn you earnestly
and honestly. God is not one who simply wants
to make you afraid and thus control your lives. I'm not interested
in controlling your lives at all. My interest is that you
might have life, and He'll warn you. When God says, why will
you die? It's because He knows and has
decreed that if you do not turn, you will die. You will. If a man doesn't turn from his
rebellion against God, he will die. Why is that? I believe that the greatest hindrance
to man's realization that he is in opposition to God and in
danger from God is the fact that there is so little preaching
about the character of God. These are heavy thoughts, but
I don't want to race through them. I would that the Spirit
of God is impressed on the hearts of everyone here. Now, look what
God says. Why will we die if we don't turn
from ourselves to God? Why are we going to die if we
stay in our rebellion? Well, we'll die because God is
who he is. And I think if we'll take a minute,
we'll believe what's written about God in these We will find a need to bow to
him. We will find in ourselves a desire
to seek his face and to seek his favor and to seek his grace.
This is what the Lord says. Oh, I like it when I read those
words. This is not what the Baptists say. This isn't what the Reformers
say. This isn't what the Catholic
Church says or the Methodist Church. This isn't what the denomination
says. It's not what philosophers say.
This is what the Lord says. Oh, God give us ears to hear
what God says, and to take them as truth. He says, Heaven is
my throne, and earth, that's just my footstool. That's why
I stick my feet. Oh, man thinks he's so big. Man thinks he's so important.
You know why it was so difficult? for men like Galileo and Copernicus
to convince the world that the earth was not the center of the
solar system, but the sun was. You know why? Because man was
the center of all things. And they didn't want to admit
that they were just little ants walking around on a ball of dust,
whirling around a medium-sized star which is but one of millions
and millions All that makes us look so insignificant. That's
what David said, when I behold the heavens, what is man that
thou art mindful of him? And that's what the Lord is saying
here. Heaven is my throne. Earth is just my footstool. Where
is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place
be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came
into being, declares the Lord? On our country, we see such things
going on that would have been unspeakable but a generation
ago. Things which are now not only accepted, but are even set
forth as a preferable way to live, would hardly have been
discussed in private but a generation ago, and we see that our society
is sinking down way faster. You know why? It's because men
have no concept of what God's like. They have no fear of the
Lord. Nobody trembles at him. I heard
a story the other day, I read it, and it was from a fellow
on 13th Street that writes to me on e-mail once in a while,
and he said he went to a lecture on the Civil War. He's a real
Civil War buff. I was at his home here a couple
of months ago, and I mean, he's got a library full of Civil War
books, videos and all that. That's just his thing. So he
went to hear this lecture. And this man who was given the
lecture, someone asked him about the religion that was practiced
during the Civil War days, and he said, He said, I suppose if
I were a religious man, I'd have to be an Episcopalian, but really
I kind of gave up on that. I just figured I won't bother
God if he won't bother me. Oh, I wish I'd have been there
and had the guts to say, if he's going to bother you, he will. No fear of the Lord. They'll say anything about him.
They'll take his name and drag it through the gutter and think
nothing of it. They'll be cautious not to use vulgar words on TV,
but they'll take the name of God and running through the fire,
they have no fear of God. And that is the heart and root
of all sin and rebellion. They don't fear God. They have
no knowledge of His majesty and His glory, and therefore they
don't bow before Him, and they think nothing of breaking His
laws. They think nothing of going contrary to His way. They think nothing of ignoring His
gospel and ignoring His Son and saying, well, if you'll leave
me alone, I'll leave you alone. The reason man has no fear of
God is because 150 years ago a man stood up and said, God
didn't make us. God didn't make us. Oh, he may
have started that first ball of dust, but he just kind
of stood back and let chance take its course. We are but the
product of millions and millions of lucky
forks in the road. We are but the top of the food
chain most of the time. The highest of evolution's grand
works. We weren't created. We evolved. And many churches have fallen
for that. I would not expect the world at large to believe
in creation. I could see full well why they're
glad to be rid of the idea that they have been created by God,
because everybody knows if God made you, you're responsible
to him. That's why our Lord said, My hand has made all these things.
Everything you see, God made it. I know carpenters, craftsmen,
fashioned these pews in the form they were, but God grew the tree
they're made out of. You and I stand here and we say,
well, I'm the product of my mother and father and a bunch of chemical
reactions that took place, but friend, God made all the chemicals.
And I don't know, I can't explain it, but there's something more
to a human being than merely a complex system of chemicals. There's a thing called spirit,
there's a thing called soul, and God makes it. Hands put on that idea away.
Now he stands so he thinks, absolutely free. He is his own creator. He is his own God. And therefore
there's no fear of God before their eyes. The Lord goes on to say, this
is the one I esteem. You say, God esteems somebody?
Now, he who is humble, and contrite in spirit, tremble at my word. Let me ask you this morning,
does the word of God mean anything to you? Does the warnings of
God touch your soul? Do the appeals of God's grace
draw you? Do the thunderings of his justice
terrify you? Does God's word mean anything,
or have you covered yourself? in a religious shroud, in an
armament, in armor, hardened steel of religious self-righteousness,
and neither God's warnings nor God's grace have any effect on
you. I don't know. You answer it before
God in your own heart. God is above all, he says. He's
completely self-sufficient. He has need of nothing. He needs
nothing from us. Earth is just his footstool.
Therefore, we see how arrogant we are when we parade our religion
before God, thinking that it does God some good favor by worshiping
him or by throwing God the scraps of our time and our heart, and
somehow we'll fill some need he has. Oh, my. We think way too highly
of ourselves. If you suffer psychologically,
somebody will come along and say, Well, you do that because
of low self-esteem. Nope. We suffer because of high self-esteem. Our high estimation of ourselves
comes in conflict with reality. And it brings us down. And it'll not only bring us down
in health, not only bring us down in this life, it'll bring us down in eternity.
God doesn't correct us. God neither can nor will use
anything that a man has by nature. Nothing that you have by nature,
God doesn't want it, God won't have it, and there's no use you
offering it to him. It is written, the flesh profits
nothing. If it profits nothing to us,
it certainly profits nothing to God. It is not He that needs
us, but we that need Him. Every breath you take, every
beat of your heart, every bite of food you've ever eaten, every
protection from harm, and every deliverance from trouble
has come from the gracious hand of God. You stand alive today
for no other reason than this. God is patient. All the more patient that we
can begin to understand. Let's go on and see what else
the Bible says about God. We'll see something of his patience. Isaiah 6. We'll turn back. You've got a Bible, read these
things, so you'll know that it's not just me talking off the top
of my head. Isaiah 6. I believe the first
message I ever preached to this congregation way back in December
Seventh, I think it was, so we're talking twelve years ago, tomorrow. I know that December 7th happened
over that weekend sometime, when I flew up here the first time
and preached to you. This is the first text of Scripture I've
ever preached to you from, is this one right here. In the year
that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne.
Here's God described as the Sovereign One. What does it mean when it says
that he is sovereign? Well, it means he does what he
wants. He is the king of all. He is
the king of you. You may think to yourself, and
some of us sometimes do, We think we're sitting here in
church and we're thinking to ourselves, well, we're doing
the right thing. Where I ought to be. Wonder where so-and-so
is. They ought to come more often.
They ought to come as often as I do. You know? We get those
feelings. You want to know why you're here.
I don't know what reason you think you're here, but I know
the reason you're here. God brought you here. He brought
you here for one of two reasons. Now listen to me carefully. He
brought you here so that you might hear his gospel, and your
heart might be softened towards him. Maybe not the whole way
today, maybe it's going to take some more trips, maybe it's going
to take some more time, but he brought you here to soften you
towards salvation or to harden you towards condemnation, one
or the other. It's happening to you right now,
one way or the other. You're either being softened towards salvation
or you're being hardened towards condemnation. No one ever sits
still. The gospel always has the effect
that God sends it to us. I ask you, what shall it be?
What shall it be? He's sovereign. He brought you
here, and he will do with you as seems good in his sight. He said he's seated on a throne,
high and exalted. Oh, what low thoughts we have
of God. We're in the Christmas season, and to most people, the
bathe in the manger is the highest view of God they know. God's
high and exalted. Do you ever think of Him that
way? Do you ever just think about God and it just boggles your
mind? You try to understand Him and you think about Him in the
Lord Jesus Christ, which is a good way, that's the way we're supposed
to look to God, but then our mind tries to pierce even beyond
that. What's God like? What's it like
to be God? And you start to think, well, you think of God in heaven
and God seated on a throne and these things, and you go back
where he's been God throughout all ages, and then suddenly you're
brought to that point beyond which we cannot see, cannot even
think of that, whatever you call it, that time before there was
time, that time before God said, let there be a heavens and the
earth. Back there when there was nothing but God and there wasn't
even such a thing as time, God existed. He was just there. perfectly content within himself. It doesn't matter how high and
lofty we think of God, we haven't begun to scratch the surface
of who he is. He's beyond human thought. He's beyond human comprehension. Don't tell me about a God I can
understand. If I can understand him, he probably can't understand
me. And I know this, if I can understand him, he can't do anything
for me. God is high and exalted, and
until you've seen Him as high and exalted, you haven't seen
Him. Until you've seen Him in such a way that you don't think
to yourself whether or not you should bow, but your knees begin
to buckle in His presence, and you fall, at least in your hearts,
fall face down in His presence and cry like Isaiah, woe is me! A man of unclean lips among an
unclean people. sight of God ever make you think,
woe is me? The way it did on that day when
Peter preached the gospel on the day of Pentecost. He declared
to them the true God, Jesus Christ, who is high and lofty and seated
on a throne. And they began to tremble at
his word. And they said, Paul, what are we going to do? Paul, tell us. Tell us, what
can we do? We rebel against it. It's too
high for us to reach. There come a day, says the scriptures,
when men will call on the mountains and the hills and the rocks to
follow them, to crush them. They might hide themselves from
the face of him who sits on the throne. Ever seen that one? Ever seen that guy? Without Christ,
you'd want the mountains to fall on you and hide you. Oh, my. God is not one to be
trifled with. Not at all. He is glorious. The train of His road, that means
the fringe of His road, filled the temple. The temple was filled
with the glory of God. Back there in the most holy place,
there was a token of God's glory and presence among the Jews.
And the Bible tells us right here, in Isaiah chapter 6, that
that was just the fringe of his robe. That glory was sufficient
to kill a man if he looked upon it. Any other than the high priest
went back there in the most holy place, and even the high priest,
if he didn't take blood with him and the incense to fill the
room with smoke, if he went in there with unaided eye and looked
upon the glory of God, that mere fringe of his robe there in the
temple, it would kill him, he'd drop dead and they'd drag him
out by a rope that they'd put around his ankle before he'd
go in. Friends, that's just a little old tiny token of the glory of
God. We talk about the glory of God. I often do. I have an
idea what I talk about. We haven't scratched the surface
of what the glory of God is, but he's glorious. The whole
earth is filled with his glory. Our darkened eyes may not be
able to see it, but it's there. He is a holy God, far above us. Well, he's also a just God. Let
me move this along. that his throne is established
by righteousness and justice, the foundation of his throne.
Moses tells us, or God told us through Moses, he is by no means
clearly guilty. There is not a soul that can
stand before God in his sins and live. That's why they said,
in verse 10 back in our text, Ezekiel 33, "'Son of man, say
to the house of Israel, this is what you are saying, our offenses
and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them.
How then can we live?' Oh, is that question in your
heart? How can I live? Is that confession in your heart,
my sins, my offenses, my rebellious ways that weigh us down and I'm
wasting away? I'm wasting away with the knowledge
of who God is and the knowledge of who I am in his presence.
How can I live? Oh, I hope there's somebody who's
got that question on their heart, because I've got good news for
you. There is a way. There is a way
for a sinner like you to live in the presence of this God.
There's a way. I want to tell you there's only
one way. Only one. God didn't leave it up to you
to invent it. He didn't leave it up to you to be creative with
it. He just told you what it was, tells you what it is, calls
on you to take it. Let's notice a couple of things
about God's character revealed in this scripture and see what
his way of reconciliation is. First of all, he says, why will
you die, O house of Israel? That's a searching question,
but don't you hear the love and compassion in those words? Why
will you die? And I ask you, why will you die? What is it that can hold you
back? What thing in this world would keep you from laying hold
of Christ and living? What blinds your eyes to the
wonders of His grace so much that you don't lay hold of them
with all your heart? Oh, I know about the deceitfulness
of riches. Not that I've had a significant amount of them,
but you don't have to have much of them to feel their deceitfulness. Oh, young people, listen to me
carefully. Don't let your youth turn you from crying. Oh, I know when you're young,
you got energy, you got vitality. You look to the future and things
look optimistic. All of the thought, I can do that. I once thought
the same way. Don't let your youth and all
that life, natural life that's within you, makes you say, I
don't have time for this issue right now. You will turn your head and your
youth will be gone. No sooner than your youth begins
and you begin to live it, no sooner than you enter your twenties
and you begin to work and establish yourself in this world, and begin
to grow your family, you'll take two steps and turn around and
it'll be gone. You'll be middle-aged like me. You'll wonder, where did my youthful
years go? And I realize this, I'm going to take a couple more
steps and turn around. I'm going to be old. I'm going to say,
where did my middle-age go? I'll take two more steps and
turn around and I'll say, where did my life go? What is there
in this life? I'm serious, what is there in
this life that would make you willing to lose your soul for
it? A job? A person? A pleasure? Don't be a fool. Why will you die? Oh, what compassion
is in those words that the Lord God would stoop to plead with
rebels like you and me and ask us why we are so determined to
die. He says, I take no pleasure in
the death of the wicked. Oh, what dishonored little preachers
heap on God when they act like God is going to look him to hell
with joy. Why, he's going to look at those squirming and writhing
and gnashing of teeth people down there suffering, and he's
going to say, oh boy, I like that, wish I could have sent
some more to hell. which wouldn't have been so many
believed, only. That's not what God likes. He takes no pleasure
in the death of the wicked, not in legal pleasure, because their
death never will satisfy his justice against them, and he
takes no personal pleasure in the pains and agonies of those
who suffer at his hand because of their rebellion. Does that not give you some hope
in God? Doesn't that make you, doesn't
that soften your heart towards him? He's not going to get any jollies
out of you dying and going to hell. Why should you be so intent
on pursuing such a coarse thing? And then look what he says. But
rather that they turn from their ways and live their ways, their
ways of salvation, their ways of religiosity, their ways of
trying to approach him. Turn, he says, turn from your
evil ways, and live. I ask you something now. God's
sovereign. He's going to save every one
of his people. I know that. That's the only reason I stand up here
and preach. I don't have any hope of changing your heart or
changing your mind. I'm going to lay it out before
you like this. There's life and death before you. Which will you have? If you persist in your way, whether
it be a way of simply pursuing worldly pleasures, or if you
have some religious way that's contrary to God's way, if you
persist in that, you choose death. What is God's way? Several hundred
years later, God came to this world in human flesh, and he
said, The way is not a list of things
for you to do. The way, all things be to God. The way is a record
of what he has already done in Jesus Christ. The way is this,
that Jesus Christ, who is God in human flesh, came into this
world and took upon our responsibilities and took upon him our sins, and
he let them be laid upon his shoulders. He let the weight
of our own condemnation be laid upon him. It says, He that hath
the Son hath life, but he that hath not the Son shall not see
life. But the wrath of God abides upon him. Though he were the
Son, he took the place of one who didn't have the Son, and
the wrath of God came down upon him. The full weight and fury
of the wrath of a God that we have described here. as he deals
with sin, and Jesus Christ bore that wrath. Oh, I don't know
how to describe it to you, and you wouldn't know how to understand
it if I could. I'd barely understand it, but
he took it. I know that. I can at least enter into the
fact of it. He bore that wrath. Now, friends,
if he bore that wrath, then those for whom he bore it shall never
themselves bear that wrath. Isn't that good news? You say,
well, how can I know if he bore that wrath for me? Oh, it's so
simple. So very, very simple. Thou shalt confess with thy mouth,
Jesus to be Lord, your Lord, your King, your Sovereign. You'll
bow to Him, stop your rebellion, confess Jesus to be Lord, and
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. All that that means, that means
that his sacrifice was sufficient in the eyes of God, that when
he died he put away the sins he died for. If you believe that,
his resurrection from the dead also points towards him being
seated at the right hand of God and glorified. If you believe
these things have happened, know him as Lord. Listen to these
four words. These are words from God. That's God's way. You take your
own way if you want, but I can tell you where it's going. It's
going straight to hell. God's way goes straight into
His presence with joy everlasting. I warned you. I've given you the warning that God
gave, lest I know how. Don't turn a deaf ear to it.
No matter who you are, no matter what you've done, or what you
plan to do, don't ignore this warning, and then don't ignore
that blessed word of his grace. It shows you a way out of your
trouble. Now, God's name be blessed forevermore. John, if you'll
come and lead our last hymn. Our last hymn, I don't remember
the number, John will tell you.