Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 12th, 2015 | Route 66 - 2 Kings

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April 12th, 2015 | Route 66 - 2 Kings · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I heard somebody.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: First service, believe it or not, at O Dark 30.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: They yell along with that.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: They're so alive.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's amazing.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And then you come here and God's frozen, chosen.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: So great to see you.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: You start off with a bad joke that you've already heard.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: It's the one about the terrible storm that hits the town, and so that's that the civic leaders send out the warning and they say, get out of town.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: The flood waters are rising.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Christian man, small house, he goes, Hey, one of God's chosen people, God'll save me.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Car comes by, next door neighbor, I got room, jump in.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Guy says, No.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Got faith, God will save me.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Waters begin to rise.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: He has to leave his front porch.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Canoe comes by.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Man says, I got room in the back.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Jump in.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: It's dangerous.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Guy says, God will save me.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Waters keep rising.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Living room, second floor.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Finally he's on the roof.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Helicopter sees him.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Drops a rope ladder.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Rescue guy comes down, leans out.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: No.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: He says, God will save me.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: House falls apart.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: River takes him down.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: He drowns.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: This is a happy story.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: And um and he's mad.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: He wakes up in heaven and he's mad.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: He is really mad.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: And he pushes his way through to God and he says, I demand an explanation.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of your people.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: What am I doing here?
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't have died.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: God says, Come again.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Gave you a warning, right?
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Since you a car, sent you a canoe, even since you a helicopter, what more did you expect?
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Right?
1:44
SPEAKER_00: The reason that I only got one laugh there is because you've all heard this joke so many times.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Now listen.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: It's called a transition in preaching.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: This is the transition part.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: In the sixth century BC, God's people woke up, not in heaven, but in Babylon, far away from home, in exile, and they were mad.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: They were upset.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: They looked at each other and then they looked at God and they said, We demand an explanation.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Why are we here rather than in Jerusalem?
2:21
SPEAKER_00: And God said, I'm going to send you the book of 2 Kings.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's the book that we have this morning.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: If you're just visiting, we're on a road trip to the Bible.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: It's called Route 66.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, for all of us who are demanding an explanation, we are going to get the explanation that 2 Kings gives us, which is eventually even God runs out of slack.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: I will confess to you, not everybody agrees with this.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: There's some people that say God's too nice to judge.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: God would never run out of slack.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Long-suffering God.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: But that's going to be my title.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm sticking with it.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, even God runs out of slack.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And the metaphor I'm using here comes from the fact I love fishing, and slack is a big part of fishing.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Slack is that sort of, you know what that is.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: It's in your fishing line.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And you've got to have slack, or else when you cast, and your everything stops at about 10 feet, you know, that doesn't work.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: So your bale has to be free.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: You have to have slack.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So you cast it out 20, 30, 40 yards or whatever.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Especially in fly fishing, this is true.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: And then I tell my six-year-old grandson, okay, take out the slack.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: So you have just a little bit of slack so that the moment that a fish hits, then you can pull back on that.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: You take out the slack and you can bring the fish in.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: If you have slack, then the fish will spit the hook.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: But the worst thing that happens, and this has happened to me fishing up in Canada when the lake has great depth, is that you don't have enough line on you didn't bring enough line.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: And so fish, it's big fish and it goes out.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Lake trout, for example, big fish and it goes down, it's down 80, 100 feet, and then it starts swimming and it's big, and so it takes, and all of a sudden, you run out of slack.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: And you know what happens then?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Snap.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: The line breaks, and everything is over.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's the metaphor I'm using.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: We could have said eventually God runs out of patience, but I wanted to say God runs out of slack.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sticking with it.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Back when I was in college, uh, I went through spell a couple years where I didn't go to church.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: I was too good for church.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: They're all hypocrites there anyway.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Music's bad.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: They're faky.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: But I uh at least I didn't want to, I didn't my my buddies were all with me, and you know, we weren't going to church, but I felt guilty.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't allow myself to just use that as a cop out and sleep in.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: So I'd get up early on Sunday morning, early for college, which was eight o'clock, and um, and go to front campus, and there were about uh ten of us that pile into a white van and we'd drive 25 miles west to downtown Chicago.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Chicago's like any other big city or any other town on Sunday mornings, absolutely uh deserted, sort of like Topeka.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: So it was always a shock when you'd come down to State, Van Buren, Michigan Avenue, is the sort of confluence of those three streets, State, Van Buren, and West Michigan Avenue, to find that all of a sudden, for about 10 square blocks, streets were full.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: They were full of guys who were sitting on the curb, they're full of guys who were sitting back against brick walls.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: They were full of all kinds, and they were almost all guys because uh state law said that the bars had to be closed at that time in Chicago from 8 to 12 on Sunday morning.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Bar owners probably liked that.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: They could probably swab the floors and clean up the place.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the guys would then leave and go and sleep for four hours at the flop houses, but a number of them uh didn't want to get far away from the bar, and they would sit there uh just to be close, so when the bar opened at noon, they could be right back in the door.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: This is in the days before political correctness, and so we would call those guys.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: The van would stop, we'd pour out, we'd each take a couple of blocks, and we were just down there to talk to them if they wanted to talk about Jesus.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh in the days before political correctness, we just called them what they called themselves drunks, winos, bums.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Those are the words they use, those are the words we use.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Probably couldn't use those words today.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: So um, for three hours from nine to twelve, we'd go, and these guys were always really.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, here's some bright-eyed college kids, some guys, a few girls, and and they were always glad to tell us our stories or to talk with us, and so you'd have really interesting talks.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: We'd get back in the van at noon and we'd swap stories.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And it was always amazing how many of our stories had to do with the fact that such and such that we talked to had been a successful doctor, a successful businessman, successful attorney, had a big house, described things to us, had a wife, he'd had several kids, but then greased oftentimes by alcohol or by drugs or by other things that he now was on what was called Skid Row.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh the one the the blocks that I had were right down the street from the well-known Pacific Garden Mission.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: So uh we'd talk with those guys, but you know, those stories, uh, those stories of success, loss were not the most heart-rending stories.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: All the stories are tragic, but the most heart-rending stories were always the stories that went like this.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: I'd sit down next to a guy, I'd say, You want to talk?
7:55
SPEAKER_00: He'd say, sure, I'd say, uh, listen, I just want to let you know I know, I know life's a mess, but I don't want to let you know that God loves you.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that uh he really does care for you.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that God so loved the world that he gave, and all of a sudden I'd I'd hear an interruption, and he was saying, his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: I know that.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: I say, really?
8:24
SPEAKER_00: He said, Yeah, I grew up in Sunday school.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm in Sunday school every Sunday.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: I became a Christian, I trusted Jesus as my Savior when I was six years old in Sunday school.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Or I became a Christian at high school when I was at summer camp in the youth group.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Or he might say, I was a deacon in my Baptist church.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes he'd even say, I was a pastor for 20 years.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Those are the most heart-rending stories because they're a reminder that no matter who you are, you're never too big to fall.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: But here's an interesting thing is down there, one of the refreshing things down on Skid Row, I never found anyone who was demanding an explanation.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: They all understood why.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And they would always say something like this that'd say, I I I know it's my fault.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: I cheated on her.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: She's a great wife.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: I cheated on her so many times, finally she just kicked me out.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Or they'd say, you know what?
9:25
SPEAKER_00: I know the partners had to kick me out because I was doing drugs on the slide, and I started making mistakes.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: And and always they, I never found one guy who said, Well, life has sure treated me rough, because now they'd all hit bottom, and now they understood, you know, that by their cheating and by their drug thing, by their alcohol, whatever it was that they, that was why they were there.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: That's a little bit different, isn't it?
9:53
SPEAKER_00: From the nation of Israel.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: 2 Kings comes to you and to me and to the nation of Israel to say, uh, let me explain to you the reason why God sometimes runs out of slack.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So I want to go through that.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go through it quickly.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: You have a study sheet in front of you on the front of the study sheet, 2 Kings study sheet, the key verse of 2 Kings, I think is chapter 17, verse 7.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: All this took place because the sons of Israel sinned against the Lord their God and worshipped other gods.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: I think the key word is exile.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: I think the two key chapters are the two chapters that, chapter 17 about how the northern kingdom went into exile to Assyria, and 25, the last chapter of the book, where the southern kingdom of Judah goes into Babylonian captivity.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: This is the summary, in my view, that I wrote.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: The drama continues in the second half of Kings, two nations on a collision course with captivity.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Back and forth the author goes from Israel to Judah and back again, describing the men who sat on the thrones.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Nineteen evil kings in a row for Israel, and it's a grief but a relief when Assyria finally drags them off.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: The picture's a bit brighter down in Judah, where godly kings occasionally interrupt the downward spiral.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: There's a disagreement.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Some say there were five good kings out of twenty, some say six, some say eight.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: In the end, though, the abuse to his kingdom is too much for God to stomach, and Judah is marched off to Babylon.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: The United Kingdom of Saul, David Solomon endured for 112 years, northern kingdom of Israel for another 209, southern kingdom of Judah for 136 more, and the purpose of 2 Kings to explain to God's people in exile why they were there, why God had allowed this to happen to them, to tell them and to tell us that God is as good as his word, he is long-suffering, but if we persist in going our own way rather than his way, eventually he runs out of slack or patience, and we get the discipline we so richly deserve.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: On the back, you'll see the five lessons or themes from the book of Kings, from 1 and 2 Kings.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: We took the first two themes two weeks ago, the week before Easter.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: There is no God but the Lord, the God theme, the worship theme.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: God insists that we worship him only and truly.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: You may remember the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, 1 Kings 18.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: We told that story two weeks ago.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Now in 2 Kings, we find a great emphasis on the other three themes: obedience, forgiveness, and promise.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to run through those.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to cite for you some verses, some of which are going to be on the PowerPoint up front here, some not.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Just to show you.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: These are the five things, the five factors where, which, if you add them together, they sum up to this sentence.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, God runs out of slack.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
12:51
SPEAKER_00: So the third theme is obedience.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: God rewards obedience and punishes disobedience.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: 2 Kings chapter 13.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, flip it open actually to 2 Kings chapter 17, key chapter in the book.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Just before we get to 17, an illustration of the theme that God rewards obedience and punishes disobedience.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Jehoahaz became king of Israel.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord's anger burned against Israel, and he surrendered them to the power of Hazael, king of Aram.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: So this would be Syria, Aram, Syria came and took them off.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: His punishment for disobedience.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 17, this chapter I ask you to turn to, starting, let's start reading in verse 5, if you have your Bible open.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: This is a key chapter in the Old Testament.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: The king of Assyria invaded the entire land of Israel.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: This is 700 BC, marched against Samaria, the capital of Israel, laid siege to it for three years.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: In the ninth year of Hosheah, king of Assyria, captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: All this happened, this disaster happened, because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who'd brought them out of the land of Egypt from the power of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and because they had worshiped other gods.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Stop there.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: So let's review.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Here's a little bit of history and geography.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: The United Kingdom of Israel followed the 300-year period of the Judges, or 400 year.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: It lasted from 1150 to 930 BC with three kings of the United Kingdom, Saul, David, and Solomon.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Then the kingdoms split in 931 BC.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: The north, the ten tribes of the north, called themselves Israel.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: The southern two tribes called themselves Judah.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: That's 930 BC.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: About 200 years later, God's had a belly full of the north.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: So he first judged the wicked northern kingdom of Israel by sending the Assyrians, the mightiest kingdom of that day, anywhere in the Middle Eastern area.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: In 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered Israel and carried away the people as captives.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: So you have this gigantic kingdom called Assyria, which controls a great part of the Levant, the whole area, and capital Nineveh, remember Jonah.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And they come down and they pluck off the little apple of Israel, the northern kingdom, in 722 BC.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: So now all they have left is two tribes.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: And chapter 17 is given to us to explain why this happened.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Back to verses 7, 8, and following.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8 in your Bible, they followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, they secretly did things against the Lord their God, the Israelites did that were not right.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, they set up sacred stones and ashere poles on every high hill.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, every high place they burned incense, like the nations whom the Lord had driven out before them had done.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, the Lord had warned them, verse 14, but they wouldn't listen, and were as stiff-necked as their fathers.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, they rejected the Lord's decrees and the covenant he made with their fathers in the days of Moses, and the warnings he gave them.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, wow.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, they forsook all the commands of the Lord their God.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17, uh uh listen to this.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Or literally, as the Holman uh says, they made their sons and daughters pass through the fire.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine taking your two-year-old boys or girls and putting them on the white hot fire built inside this great bronze idol?
17:04
SPEAKER_00: When the arms get white hot, you know, then they're glowing red, and you put your little babies there.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: So that's so evil.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: And they devoted themselves to doing what was evil in the Lord's sight, we read, provoked them.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the Lord is very angry, and he removed them from his presence, and only the tribe of Judah remained.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: That's the explanation.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Whole issue of obedience.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: So we then move on.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Now we've just got the southern two tribes, and they've got some good kings.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: The next chapter tells us Hezekiah did what was right.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: He remained faithful to the Lord, and the Lord is with them, and he prospered.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: There it is, God rewards obedience.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't very many years before you had the awfulest king ever named Manasseh, rule for 55 years.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: He himself, it was evil, he made his own son pass through the fire.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: He himself practiced witchcraft.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: He did so much evil in the Lord's sight, get this, that the Lord said, I'm gonna bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that everyone who hears about it will shudder.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: I will hand them over to their enemies.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: What a sad situation, right?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: But that's the issue of obedience.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, the fourth point is forgiveness, because you know what?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: If you read through the Bible, most of us go, why would God be so mean as to judge people?
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Why would God do that to people?
18:20
SPEAKER_00: I thought God was really nice, loving God.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: If you interviewed biblical saints, they would say the opposite.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: They'd go, how come God is way too patient?
18:26
SPEAKER_00: How come God, how come the wheels of justice turn so slowly?
18:30
SPEAKER_00: How long, O Lord, cried out David.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: How long will you allow evil to flourish?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Would you hurry up and bring your will on earth?
18:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, isn't that amazing?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you read the book of Revelation.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: In the great tribulation, there's gonna be a great tribulation on earth, it's gonna be awful.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: People are gonna get martyred.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we see a picture of it now in Egypt and so forth, Christians getting beheaded by the Islamic State.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is Revelation says it's gonna be happening big time in Revelation.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: So you have the martyrs, they go up to heaven and it pictures them around the throne of God, and guess what their cry is?
19:06
SPEAKER_00: How long, O Lord, how long will you let this kind of violence and injustice go on?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: So in the Bible, it's God, how come you're being so patient and long-suffering?
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Would you bring justice on the earth?
19:18
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we're the opposite.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, you know, why would you ever cause any unhappiness to ever fall on anybody?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So, uh but but you have this picture of God being super patient, God being forgiven, 1 Kings chapter 8.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Remember Solomon's prayer?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: When your people sin against you, for there's no one who doesn't sin, and you're angry with them and you hand them over to the enemy, and when they come to their senses and repent and return to you, please hear in heaven, may you forgive your people who sinned against you.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: You find it here in 2 Kings.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: This guy Jehoah has, God brought Assyria down on him.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, and you know what?
19:56
SPEAKER_00: He repented.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord heard him, even though he's an awful guy.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord felt sorry because of the oppression of the king of Aram inflicted, so the Lord gave them a deliverer.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And you find this, I'm so glad the Lord is this way.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm just torn back and forth.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you bring justice on the earth, please?
20:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why do we have to have beheadings of people over sinners?
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what is going on here?
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you God in heaven?
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Would you stop this?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, you know, of course, when it's my loved ones, my friends, people I know, or this, or a nation of America, come on, please be gracious, please be patient, please give us a few more years.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, the fifth theme, and remember all five themes add up, add up to our big idea that eventually even God runs out of slack, is that God is really as good as his word.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: And his word, back in Deuteronomy 28, the covenant he made was if you obey the Lord your God, that he'll set you high above all the nations, but if you don't obey the Lord your God, he's going to bring a nation against you from far away, and he will uproot you from the land of Israel.
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SPEAKER_00: And God is as good as his word.
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SPEAKER_00: Chapter 17, we read the verses already.
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SPEAKER_00: The Lord warned Israel and Judah through every prophet and every seer, saying, Turn from your evil ways, keep my commands and statutes, according to all the law I commanded your ancestors, referring to Deuteronomy 28.
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SPEAKER_00: And finally the Lord removed Israel from his presence just as he had declared.
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SPEAKER_00: Through all his servants, the prophets.
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SPEAKER_00: He says, Good as his word.
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SPEAKER_00: Chapter 18, the king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria because they didn't listen to the voice of the Lord their God, but violated his covenant.
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SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 28.
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SPEAKER_00: They didn't listen.
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SPEAKER_00: Chapter 24.
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SPEAKER_00: So the Lord sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Judah to destroy the southern two tribes.
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SPEAKER_00: It was because of the sins of Manasseh.
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SPEAKER_00: He filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord wouldn't forgive.
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SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
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SPEAKER_00: The Lord won't forgive sometimes?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Lord apparently runs out of slack sometimes, and so in the Last verses of the book, Judah goes into captivity away from her land.
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SPEAKER_00: This happens three deportations in about 600 BC, 605, 598, and 587 BC, to be exact.
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SPEAKER_00: And now the nation of Babylon, even farther away from Assyria, takes the southern two tribes.
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SPEAKER_00: Wow.
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SPEAKER_00: What are you trying to tell us, Lord?
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SPEAKER_00: How come we're over here in Babylon?
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SPEAKER_00: God says, you know what?
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SPEAKER_00: You know what?
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SPEAKER_00: Eventually, even I ran uh ran out of slack.
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SPEAKER_00: I think I think you find this elsewhere in the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, you certainly find it with the fall of Israel, fall of the fall of Judah.
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SPEAKER_00: The end of the last chapter of 2 Chronicles, we're going to take this up in a couple of weeks.
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SPEAKER_00: This also tells about the fall of Judah going to Babylon.
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SPEAKER_00: Puts it this way: they kept ridiculing God's messengers, speaking of God's people, despising his word, scoffing at his prophets, until the Lord's wrath was so stirred up against his people that there was no remedy.
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SPEAKER_00: Listen to how the prophets cry out before this exile.
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SPEAKER_00: You've left me, the Lord cries.
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SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord's declaration.
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SPEAKER_00: You've turned your back, so I've stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm tired of showing compassion.
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SPEAKER_00: Do you realize you have a God that can get tired of showing compassion?
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SPEAKER_00: I love the New Living translation here.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm tired of always giving you another chance.
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SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah the weeping prophet says elsewhere, The Lord couldn't bear it any longer.
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SPEAKER_00: Isaiah says, You've worn me out.
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SPEAKER_00: You ought to know this verse by heart.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a scary verse, but it's a theme verse.
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SPEAKER_00: Seek the Lord while he may be found.
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SPEAKER_00: Get it?
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SPEAKER_00: He may not always be findable.
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SPEAKER_00: Call to him while he is near.
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SPEAKER_00: He may not always be near.
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SPEAKER_00: See, the theology of the Bible starts off with this invitation: come to me so that you may live.
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SPEAKER_00: God holds out his arms to us, come to me.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll give you life, I'll give you rest.
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SPEAKER_00: But when people repeatedly say, No, I won't come to you, no, I won't do what you say, and the Lord says, Listen, you need to seek the Lord while he may be found.
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SPEAKER_00: You need to call to him while he is near.
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SPEAKER_00: Because, and listen to this principle from Proverbs 29:1.
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SPEAKER_00: Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
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SPEAKER_00: I know this isn't a pleasant message, but it sure does explain a lot, doesn't it?
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can find this, I think, everywhere in the Bible.
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SPEAKER_00: The greatest destruction that's ever happened on the earth has been the great flood of Noah.
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SPEAKER_00: It's told about in Genesis chapter 6.
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SPEAKER_00: And here we find that eventually God's patience ran out.
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SPEAKER_00: God announces, I'm going to send a flood.
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SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
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SPEAKER_00: He says, but it won't happen for 120 years.
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SPEAKER_00: And you have the greatest object lesson ever.
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SPEAKER_00: So Noah's building this great boat.
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SPEAKER_00: Nobody's ever seen a boat before.
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SPEAKER_00: They keep coming up to him going, What is that?
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SPEAKER_00: Noah's answer was always the same.
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SPEAKER_00: You need to repent.
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SPEAKER_00: God's sending a flood.
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SPEAKER_00: You need to trust him.
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SPEAKER_00: You need to turn away from what you're doing and move to him.
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SPEAKER_00: But you know what happened?
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SPEAKER_00: Though God waited patiently.
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SPEAKER_00: 120 years in the days of Noah, while the ark's being built, at the end, only a few people, eight and all, were saved through water.
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SPEAKER_00: Peter tells us that.
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SPEAKER_00: Book of Acts tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness.
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SPEAKER_00: He preached the message for a hundred years.
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SPEAKER_00: You go through the Old Testament.
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SPEAKER_00: God warned the Canaanites, just three, you know, several chapters, you know, later in Genesis 15, Abraham's amidst the Canaanites.
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SPEAKER_00: God says, the Canaanites, I'm going to wipe them out.
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SPEAKER_00: They are the worst nation on earth, and they were at that time.
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SPEAKER_00: They were just amazingly violent, majorly, you know, just just just awful.
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SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
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SPEAKER_00: That was 2100 BC.
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SPEAKER_00: God gave them no less than 700 years.
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SPEAKER_00: God was patient for 700 years because he didn't wipe them out until the Israelites invaded the land in 1400 BC.
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SPEAKER_00: Then chapter 19, you got Sodom and Gomorrah.
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SPEAKER_00: They're so, so bad.
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SPEAKER_00: But God says, well, send Lot in there.
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SPEAKER_00: So Lot goes in there and preaches righteousness, we know from the New Testament.
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SPEAKER_00: He gave, cut them slack, but eventually God says, My patience has run out.
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SPEAKER_00: And he dumps fire and brimstone on them.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, you find this lesson throughout the Old Testament.
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SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy 1400 BC, God says, if you obey, I'll prosper you.
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SPEAKER_00: If you disobey, I'll kick you out of the land.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens?
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SPEAKER_00: Israelites immediately start disobeying.
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SPEAKER_00: God doesn't kick them out.
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SPEAKER_00: It's 1300 BC, 1200 BC, 1100 BC, 1000 BC.
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SPEAKER_00: Now King David.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, good thing God waited.
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SPEAKER_00: 900, 800, things are getting darker.
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SPEAKER_00: 700 BC.
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SPEAKER_00: Finally, God says, I've had enough.
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SPEAKER_00: Wow, God, you are super patient.
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SPEAKER_00: It's been 700 years.
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SPEAKER_00: Kick the northern tribes out.
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SPEAKER_00: Gives the southern tribes another 100 years.
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SPEAKER_00: Isn't it astounding how long-suffering God is?
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SPEAKER_00: Then in the New Testament, Jesus comes.
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SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is there for three years in person, calling upon them to believe in Him.
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SPEAKER_00: He's the light.
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SPEAKER_00: And the very last week of His ministry, He stands up and He says, The light's going to be with you only a little while longer.
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SPEAKER_00: While you have the light, you need to believe in the light so you may become sons of light.
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SPEAKER_00: And he predicts that Israel's going to fall.
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SPEAKER_00: Not one stone is going to be left on top of another.
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SPEAKER_00: A few hours later, they totally reject him.
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SPEAKER_00: Crucify him.
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SPEAKER_00: He goes on the cross.
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SPEAKER_00: He's gone.
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SPEAKER_00: Darkness falls.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet God still gives them 40 years from 30 to 70 AD.
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SPEAKER_00: He's so patient.
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SPEAKER_00: So many opportunities.
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SPEAKER_00: I think you would agree with me, wouldn't you, that sometimes it's a good thing to run out of patience.
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SPEAKER_00: I think I put in your study sheet that I sympathize with the mother who says, My patience wearing thin, she says to her teenager, and by wearing thin I mean your one smart comment away from being slapped so hard even Google won't find you.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, in 1776, the United States said, we've run out of patience.
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SPEAKER_00: We cut you a lot of slack, Great Britain, King George, but enough is enough.
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SPEAKER_00: Our patience is done.
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SPEAKER_00: When, in the course of human events, they started.
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SPEAKER_00: It becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have tied them, connected them with another.
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SPEAKER_00: And then they give 18 reasons why it is finally time to cut bait, to cut the line, to say it's over.
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SPEAKER_00: Eighteen reasons, including King George has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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SPEAKER_00: And then the short declaration of independence ends, we are now free and independent.
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SPEAKER_00: All political connection between us and Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.
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SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you just need to run out of patience.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'll bet most of you in here have run out of slack with me about certain things that fill our world like sex trafficking, child molestation, rape, genocide, political correctness when it comes to refusing to call Islamic terrorism Islamic, political ranting on Facebook where people call each other just absolutely awful names, death threats, beheadings, killing cops, slavery.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, isn't it time for us to run out of patience with certain things?
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SPEAKER_00: Don't you agree with me on that?
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SPEAKER_00: And God says there's a time.
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SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think we ought to add a line to Ecclesiastes 3.
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SPEAKER_00: Isn't it a famous thing?
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SPEAKER_00: There's a time and a season for everything.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a time to be born and a time to die.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a time to love and a time to hate.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a time all plant and a time to uproot.
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SPEAKER_00: We could add a line.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a time to be patience and there's a time, there's a time to run out of patience.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen?
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SPEAKER_00: And God says there's a time that I run out of patience.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a time that I even I ran out of patience.
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SPEAKER_00: That's when you keep on disobeying and defying me.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not hard, folks.
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SPEAKER_00: This last week, a couple of times, we depended on GPS's once when I was with Mike and Terry Down and Augusta on Monday at the master's, and you didn't quite know where we were going, and we were desperately depending on the garment.
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SPEAKER_00: And then, and then uh what, a couple days ago and I was out of town again, and I would have been lost except for you know the GPS.
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SPEAKER_00: Anybody else ever use the GPS or cell phone, didn't you?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, has anybody else, by the way, ever been as arrogant as me to think you know better than that woman who's talking?
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SPEAKER_00: You know, turn left.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, she's a woman, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: So you turn right, and then you hear her sort of in disgust say, I'm recalibrating, you know.
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SPEAKER_00: And I mean, because the fact of the matter is, though I've often thought she was wrong, she's always right.
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SPEAKER_00: She's always right.
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SPEAKER_00: And I suppose if you kept turning the wrong way, she would eventually just give up and shut down.
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SPEAKER_00: And God's word is the same way.
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SPEAKER_00: God's word says this is the way you ought to go.
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SPEAKER_00: Walk in it.
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SPEAKER_00: And if you just keep turning the wrong way, keep going your own way, eventually God runs out of slack.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I confess that I'm a fan of the Dallas Cowboys.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
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SPEAKER_00: I like Kansas City Chiefs, too.
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SPEAKER_00: But but you know, my favorite quarterback ever, Roger Staubach, who back in 1971 led them to the Super Bowl.
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SPEAKER_00: They won the national, the NFL championship.
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SPEAKER_00: And uh he but he confessed uh he confessed that uh his pride really struggled with the fact that he was not allowed to call any plays.
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SPEAKER_00: The coach Tom Landry called all the plays.
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SPEAKER_00: Coach Landry said in a run, they had to run.
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SPEAKER_00: Coach Landry said in a pass, they had to pass, no matter what he thought they ought to do.
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SPEAKER_00: And he could, he could, uh, you know, he was allowed, if there was an absolute emergency, he could change the play, but he'd better be right, okay?
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SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, my life changed and my success changed when I faced up to the issue of obedience.
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SPEAKER_00: And when I faced up to the issue of obedience, he said, all of a sudden we had harmony, resulting in victory.
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SPEAKER_00: And God says it's time for you to face up to the issue of obedience, and and honestly, time for your loved ones and friends.
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SPEAKER_00: And with some of them, the danger is that they're getting really close to the place where I'll no longer be found by them.
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SPEAKER_00: A.W.
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SPEAKER_00: Tozer put it this way: the vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.
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SPEAKER_00: It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws every day nearer and the command to repent goes unheeded.
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SPEAKER_00: If you're not sure where you stand with God, but you remember Greg Nelson last week, Dr.
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SPEAKER_00: Nelson sharing with us that he was like 40 years old, he's going, uh, you want me to be on pastoral search committee?
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SPEAKER_00: I'm not a Christian.
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SPEAKER_00: But it was shortly after that that it finally hit him.
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SPEAKER_00: Now is the day of salvation.
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SPEAKER_00: He gave up golf on a Wednesday and dropped to his knees in his office and he trusted Christ as his savior.
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SPEAKER_00: You may be there, you may be in midlife, you may have held off making that decision.
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SPEAKER_00: Don't hold off making that decision.
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SPEAKER_00: There's only a certain amount of time that the light is shining, and when the light's turned off, it's too late.
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SPEAKER_00: You need to make the decision for Jesus Christ today if you haven't made that decision.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a great old story about a ship out in the open sea and it's dark, black, totally dark at night, and all of a sudden he sees this light shining across the sea.
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SPEAKER_00: Grabs his radio man and says, Send out, send out, this is some years ago, send out a radio message.
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SPEAKER_00: Have it say this.
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SPEAKER_00: On a collision course, turn 10 degrees west.
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SPEAKER_00: Message came back.
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SPEAKER_00: You turned 10 degrees east.
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SPEAKER_00: He's mad now.
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SPEAKER_00: Sends a message back, he says, I am a Navy captain.
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SPEAKER_00: You turned 10 degrees west, sir.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: The message comes back, I'm a seaman second class.
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SPEAKER_00: You turn 10 degrees east, sir.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Now he's really mad.
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SPEAKER_00: He sends a message, he says, I am a United States battleship.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: I am not moving.
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SPEAKER_00: The message comes back, I am a lighthouse.
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SPEAKER_00: It's your call.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: Dear friends, God is a rock.
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SPEAKER_00: God is a lighthouse.
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SPEAKER_00: It's clear what he wants.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's time that we pray for people that we know and that we love.
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SPEAKER_00: That God would give them at least one more chance to respond to the light.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you a chance to do that right now.
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SPEAKER_00: That's a little bit different way to end, but that's now how I want us to end.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: I want us to bow our heads and I want us to pray for a loved one.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: I'll bet every single person here, like me, has a loved one, has a relative, has a friend, and you're concerned about them.
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SPEAKER_00: They're not on Skid Rill.
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SPEAKER_00: They haven't dropped that far, okay?
36:15
SPEAKER_00: But they're away from God.
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SPEAKER_00: And you're concerned about them.
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SPEAKER_00: And you hear a message like God eventually runs out of slack and your first thought is God, please don't run out of slack with her or with him.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Please give them more chances.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to give you a chance to pray right now.
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SPEAKER_00: Think of a person like that.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray for that person.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: God brings some person somebody into their lives that God would give them a heart to respond finally to him.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: As everyone here is praying for theirs, I pray for my buddy, who for some crazy reason has just taken a left turn and gone the other direction.
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SPEAKER_00: And is on a slippery slope toward real trouble.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm just begging you.
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SPEAKER_00: Begging you that he would seek you while you may be found, and he would call upon you while you are near, that you would bring someone into his life to draw him back to you.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Amen.