A Famine to Be Feared

I invite your attention today
to a passage of scripture which is found in the book of Amos.
It's the 8th chapter of Amos, verse 11. The scripture says,
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send
a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the word of God. A famine of hearing the word
of God. We're in that day. We're in a
spiritual famine. Now, the reason that I believe
that we're in a spiritual famine today, we're not in a revival,
we're not in an awakening, we're in a famine. And one clear evidence
that we are in a spiritual famine, that men today do not know themselves
and they do not know the living God, is the abundance of religious
talk. Now, I want you to think with
I don't want you to get angry with me. I want you to think
a few moments. Everybody has something to say
on the subject of religion. There's no hesitancy on the part
of anyone to express an opinion on every subject in the Bible. Everybody today is a religious
teacher. Everybody is his own preacher.
There aren't many learners. There aren't many disciples.
Men talk religion on the streets. They argue about the Bible down
in the plants, in the mills, in the homes, in the factories,
in the stores. Every person is an expert on
God. Every person is an expert on
the Bible. Every person is an expert on
religion. Now, a man won't talk too much
about automobile mechanics unless he's studied it a little bit.
And a man won't talk too much about electricity unless he's
taken a little bit of time to study the subject. And a man
won't talk about medicine or science unless he's taken the
time to study it a little while. But everybody in this world is
an authority on the Bible. Every mouth has something to
say, some opinion to express about religion and about God
and about salvation and about heaven. And it wasn't that way
among God's true people. Now, I want to show you something.
I want you to take your Bible, if you don't follow with me,
write down these scriptures and go back and read them later.
Will you do that? First of all, I'm going to read from the book
of Ezra, chapter 9, verse 4 through 5. Now, listen to this. This
is a true man of God speaking. Ezra is a true servant of the
Lord. And this is what he says. And
at the evening sacrifice I rose from my affliction, and having
rent my mantle, I fell on my knees. And I spread out my hands
before the Lord, and I cried, O my God, I am ashamed. And I blushed to lift up my face
to Thee, my God, for my sins are many and have increased over
my head. You heard any language like that
lately? Have you heard anybody cry that way lately? Now, this
is the mark of revival, when a man begins to understand his
guilt, his sins, and God's holiness and God's greatness. And he says,
with this prophet of old, I fell on my knees and I spread out
my hands to God and I cried, Oh, my God, I'm ashamed, and
I blushed to lift up my face to thee. Oh, my God, for my sins
have increased over my head. Listen to Job. We know that Job
was a man of God because the Lord himself said, There is none
like my servant Job, a righteous man. But now listen to what Job
said. He said in chapter 40, verse 4, I heard of thee, Lord,
by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore,
I hate myself, I abhor myself. Behold, I am What shall I answer
thee? I'll lay my hand upon my mouth."
That's not our language, that's not the language of this day.
Ask a man any question about religion and he'll pop off, he'll
give you an answer. If he doesn't know one, he'll
make one up. But Job says, I abhor myself, I put my hand on my mouth,
I've got nothing to say. When he saw his sins, when he
saw his guilt, when he saw God's holiness and greatness and It
struck him down. Then in Psalm 39, listen to David,
and we know something about David's relationship with God. God said
himself, I found David, my servant, to be a man after my own heart.
David didn't run around at church throwing songbooks and hollering
whoopee. David said this, I was silent. I opened not my mouth,
because God did it. I was silent. I open not my mouth."
Listen to the wise man Solomon. You know, we come to church nowadays,
we call this revival, we call this religion today, we come
to church and everybody's got something to say. It's not hard
to find somebody to put on the program because everybody wants
to be on the program. Everybody wants to testify or
pray or sing or teach Sunday school or have something to say. Listen to Solomon in Ecclesiastes
5, verse 2. Be not rash with thy mouth. Let
not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God, for God
is in the heavens, and thou upon the earth. Therefore let thy
words be few." Now, this is revival? This is when men really know
God? Isaiah said, when I saw the Lord, I cried, I'm a man
of unclean lips. Now, if we felt that we were
men of unclean lips, we wouldn't want to take them into the pulpit
so readily, would we? We wouldn't want to get up on
the floor of the church and have something to say every time somebody
gave us an opportunity, if we realized we were people of unclean
lips. Then listen to Ezekiel 16. God says, I will establish
my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.
When you find this out, you'll know that I am the Lord and that
you may remember and be confounded, confused, and never open your
mouth again because of your shame. That's the scripture. I will
establish my covenant with you, and you'll find out when I establish
my covenant with you who I am. I'm the Lord God, and you'll
find out who you are. You'll find out your shame and
your guilt and your sin, and you'll find out my holiness and
my power and you'll be confounded, and you'll never open your mouth
again because of your shame. When men of old saw their sins,
like Isaiah, he said, when I saw the Lord. Daniel, I saw the Lord,
my beauty melted in the corrupt. John on the Isle of Patmos, I
saw the Lord, I heard his voice as the sound of many waters,
and I fell at his feet as a dead man. We talk about the Lord breaks
in on our meetings and we jump up on our feet like dancers,
not dead men, but dancers, and carry on a pack of foolishness
and say, the Spirit led us to do it. But these men were awed
in God's presence, filled with fear and reverence. When these
people saw their sins and when they saw the grace of God and
the glory of God, it sealed their mouths. Philosophers, somebody
said philosophers have measured mountains. They have fathomed
the depths of seas and states and kings. They've walked with
a staff to heaven and traced fountains, but they're two vast,
spacious things that which to measure we ought to embrace,
yet few understand them. My sin and God's grace. Two vast,
spacious things that which to measure we should embrace, and
yet there are few who understand them, my sin and God's grace. There was one who measured them,
man's sin and God's grace, man's sin and God's wrath against man's
sin. He measured them in the Garden
of Gethsemane. And when he faced the awful load
of man's guilt and sin and depravity, when he faced the wrath of God
against that sin, He cried out, My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death, and the blood came out of the pores in his
skin. Yes, Christ measured the depths of my guilt in the garden
of Gethsemane, and it nearly killed him before he got to the
cross. The Lord Jesus measured God's wrath against our flesh
in the garden of Gethsemane and cried, O God, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. In the book of Romans, chapter
3, verse 19, listen to this. Paul said, We know that what
thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the
law, that's me and that's you, we're under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before
God. Somebody asked me the other day
if I thought that we were really moving into what one great evangelist
recently said was the fourth great world awakening. I said
no. Not at all. Not until every mouth is stopped.
Not until the world becomes guilty before God. Not until we judge
ourselves. Not until we realize our sins.
Not until we realize who God is and who Christ is. and how
we can be reconciled to him through the righteousness of his Son.
And I know this has got to happen. Every mouth has got to be stopped.
Every mouth has got to be stopped. Now, when God opens a sinner's
ears to hear his law, God closes that sinner's mouth. Paul said,
when the law came, I died. I died. Paul had a lot to before
God sent his law in the hands of the Holy Spirit and revealed
to him his sin. But he said, when the law came
in the hands of the Holy Ghost, I died. My mouth was stopped. When God opens a sinner's eyes
to see his guilt, his own personal guilt, and to see God's glory,
when he opens his eyes, he shuts his mouth. The people with their
mouths open always having something to say are those who have got
their eyes shut and their ears plugged up. Let me give you four
or five things here. Now, you listen to me carefully
today. When God Almighty reveals to a man that man's sins and
depravity and reveals God's glory and God's grace, that man stops
talking about his own morality and his own good works. God stops
his mouth about his works and his morality. As long as a natural
man breathes, he brags. But you know who was doing the
bragging? It was the Pharisees in the days of Christ. You know
who was doing the bragging about their deeds and about their morality
and about their works? The old Pharisees, whom Christ
called hypocrites. One of them said, Lord, I thank
thee that I'm not like other men. I'm not an extortioner,
I'm not an adulterer, I'm not an unjust man. I thank thee,
Lord, that I'm not like this publican, for I fast twice in
the week and I tithe and I give alms of all that I possess."
Christ said he went home lost. The man who brags and boasts
of his works and good deeds and morality are men like the rich
young ruler. When the Lord said, Thou shalt
not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill,
he said, All of these have I kept from my youth up. The people
who brag and boast of their morality are those who stand at the judgment
in that great day and look the Master in the face and say, well,
we preached in your name and we cast out devils in your name
and we did many wonderful works. The people who boast of their
morality are those who are going to hear Christ say, you workers
of iniquity, I never knew you. But when God's law comes, God's
holy, eternal, immutable, immaculate, perfect law, which demands perfection
not only outwardly but inwardly, not only in action but in attitude,
not only in deeds but in motive. When that law comes and shines
its searchlight upon these old rotten, filthy hearts of ours,
you know what happens? Our mouths are stopped. And like
the Apostle Paul, we say, I was alive once without the law, but
when the law came when the law was truly revealed, I died. Paul in Philippians 3 talks about,
I was born a Benjaminite, Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, concerning
the law blameless, exceeding many my equals, but all of these
I count but dumb, that I may win Christ and be found in him.
You take your Christian upbringing and your family altars and devotions,
and your Sunday school classes you've taught, and your tithes
you've given, and the souls you won to Jesus, and you take all
of your good works and write them down and write Dung on them.
If you can do that, your eyes have been opened and your mouth
has been stopped. And you can say, all of these
things I count but Dung, that I may win Christ and be found
in him." My friends, the word of God says all our righteousnesses
are filthy rags. We all are as an unclean thing. We do fade as the leaf. We are
sin. We not only do sin, we are sin. Have you ever seen this? You
can't breathe without sin. You can't talk without sin. You
can't even walk awake without sin. You can't pray without sin. When you confess your sins, it's
filled with sin. Even your repentance needs to
be repented of. Even your tears need to be bathed
in the blood of Jesus Christ. Your very mind is enmity against
God. In the flesh, the Bible says,
dwelleth no good thing. Lord God looked down from heaven
to see if there was any that did understand and any that did
desire God. And he found there altogether,
turned aside, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. You say, that's a terrible indictment,
Preacher, to bring against this human race. I didn't bring it.
God did. God did. God says there's none
good, no, not one. And what the law saith, it saith
to them that are under the law. that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world become guilty before God. And we're not going
to see revival in our churches or in our cities or in our states
or in our nation or in this world until some mouths are stopped
and people quit talking about what they're doing for God and
go to seeking something to be done for us by the hand of our
God. And I say the second thing. When
God reveals our sins and his glory, it shuts our mouths about
free agency. Everywhere I go I hear people
talk about man's free will and man's free agency. Man's a free
moral agent. Well, man's not free and he's
not moral and he's not an agent. He's like great nuts flakes.
He's not grapes and he's not nuts. Free moral agency. You know, the man who doesn't
see the prison bars, he can talk about his freedom. The man whom
the doctor has not yet told that his legs are paralyzed for life
can talk about how far he's going to run when he gets out of the
hospital. And the man who has not seen his sin and his guilt
and his bondage and the fetters that bind him hand and foot in
bondage to sin and bondage to the broken law can talk about
his free moral agency. Just like Nebuchadnezzar may
boast of his power to build mighty Babylon, until he found out that
God built it. He said, when I regained my senses,
I found out that God rules in the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of this earth. The Pharisees may boast of their
descent from Abraham. Abraham is our father, they said.
Christ said, the devil is your father. Pilate may boast of his
power to crucify or release Jesus Christ unto the Lord, set the
record straight. Pilate said, well, I have the
power to crucify you and let you go. Christ said, you don't
have any power at all over me, except it was given you from
above. Don't boast about your power. All power is of God. Your power to breathe right now,
God gave you. My power to raise this hand.
Let me see you raise your hand without God. My power to take
a step is from God. In him we live and move and have
our being. Boast about your ability. Can the Ethiopian change his
skin? Can the leper change his spot,
Jeremiah said? Neither can you do good that
are accustomed to doing evil. It's not in your power. Christ
said in John 6.44, No man can come to me except my Father which
sent me, draw him. My Father must draw him like
the leper in Matthew 8, who said, Lord, if you will, you can make
me whole, if you will. Peter, sinking beneath the waves,
cried, Lord, save me, or I perish. When God opens a sinner's eyes
to see his slavery, we are slaves to sin. We are servants of sin. Paul said, the things that I
would do, I do them not. The things I would not do, I
do. with slaves, with servants of sin, and Christ is going to
have to set us free. The great emancipator has got
to set the servant free. And then when God reveals a sinner
to a sinner his sins, he shuts his mouth about God's divine
sovereignty. You know, Paul wrote in Romans
9, verse 20, that replaced against God. Can
the thing formed say to him that formed it, why did you make me
thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay to make of the
same lump one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? Who
is the king? Who is the sovereign? It's not
man, it's God. Rebellion against God's sovereignty
was the first sin of man in the Garden of Eden. Satan said, Eve,
if you eat of that tree, you'll be like God. You can throw off
God's scepter and rule. You can throw off God's scepter
and rule. You can throw off God's scepter
and rule. You can throw off God's scepter and rule. You can throw
off God's scepter and rule. You can throw off God's scepter and rule. You can
throw off God's scepter and rule. You can throw off God's scepter
and rule. You can throw off God's scepter and rule. You can throw off God's scepter
and rule. You can throw off God's scepter and rule. You can throw off God's
scepter and rule. You can throw off God's scepter and rule. You can make God our
servant, our valet, instead of us being his servants in his
hands, it was as a king that Herod sought to kill Jesus Christ. Not as a preacher, there were
preachers running around all over that place. It wasn't as
a divine healer that Herod hated him, it was king. He said, find
me the one who is born king of the Jews, the one to kill him.
It was as the king that these people rejected him of his day,
they said, we'll not have this man reign over us. It was as
the king that they cried for his death, they said to Pilate,
we have no king but Caesar. It was as the king that those
soldiers mocked him down in the soldiers' hall, they put that
crown of thorns on his head, and that filthy robe on his back
and the scepter in his hand and bowed down and worshipped him,
Hail, King of the Jews. It was as a king that he was
crucified and Pilate wrote over his head, Jesus of Nazareth,
King of the Jews. He wrote it in Hebrew, Latin
and Greek. Men hate his sovereignty. They hate his kingship. But I'm
telling you this, when God opens a sinner's eyes to see his inability
his total corruption, his total inability to do anything for
himself, without hope, the scripture says, without help, without God,
without Christ at his wit's end. And he cried unto the Lord, Psalm
107, in his trouble. He cried to whom? The Lord, the
King, the Sovereign, the one who could do something about
it. Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded he's
able to do something for me. He's able. Salvation is of the
Lord. It's of the Lord in his planning
back before the world began. He planned salvation. It's of
the Lord in its execution. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. God sent his Son into this world in the likeness of sinful
flesh, born of a woman, made under the law to redeem them,
born under the law. God sent God sent him to the
cross, God raised him from the dead, God exalted him to his
right hand. That's all God's doings. Salvations
of the Lord in its application. God called you, God awakened
you, God revealed his Son in you. You weren't out seeking
the shepherd, you were the lost sheep, he was seeking you. He
said, you didn't choose me, I chose you. We didn't love him, he loved
us. We loved him because he first
loved us. Salvation is of the Lord in his application. He's
the sovereign in creation and providence and salvation. Salvation
is of the Lord in his sustaining power. We're kept with the power
of God. You don't keep yourself safe.
I'm holding out. No, you're not. He's holding
you in his hands. They're in my hands. Christ said,
No man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hands. That's
where they are. Salvation is of the Lord in his
ultimate perfection. Salvation is of the Lord, is
written across the throne of God in indelible, brilliant,
eternal lights. Salvation is of the Lord. Now
last of all, when God opens a sinner's eyes to see his sin, his guilt,
to see his God's power and sovereignty, who God is and what I am, When
God opens us in his ears to hear the gospel, not in word only,
but in power in the Holy Spirit, he shuts his mouth. He quits
bragging on himself and starts crying for mercy. He shuts his
mouth about free agency, he quits talking about his freedom, goes
talking about his bondage, God do something for me, I'm dying,
I'm going to hell, break my shackles, set me free. He quits complaining
about God's sovereignty and he goes to worship in the Lord.
That's the only place a man will really worship, is at the throne
of a sovereign God. They'll bargain with an equal,
they'll argue with an equal, they'll set terms with an equal,
but when they come before a sovereign, they just shut their mouths and
they say, do with me what you will, but remember me, Lord,
when you come into your kingdom. And then it shuts his mouth to
all murmuring and complaining. They came to Job and they said,
Job, all of your sheep, your oxen, horses, camels, everything's
Job, we hate to inform you, but all your children are dead too,
and your friends have all left you." And his wife standing over
there said, "'Well, old man, why don't you curse God and die?'
And Job said, "'Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and
naked I leave this earth. God gave, and God hath taken
away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'"
When a man sees the God of the Bible, the God of the universe,
the living God, It shuts his mouth and he quits complaining
and murmuring. He says, it's the Lord, let him
do what he will. It's the Lord, let him do what he will. I hope you'll join us next Lord's
Day for the broadcast at this same time over this station.
And let me add just a word before we leave you. These messages
that are preached on this broadcast are available on cassette tapes.
We'd be happy to hear from you. Until next Sunday, Henry Mahan,
meeting you very pleasant. Good day.

A Famine to Be Feared

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A Famine to Be Feared

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