I introduce to you Maboff.
Maboff was a citizen of the little town
of Jezreel.
He was a good man.
He abhorred that which is evil.
He craved that which is good.
This good man had a little vineyard which
was close by a palace of the king.
This vineyard had come to him as a
cherished inheritance from his forefathers.
Because of this, all of it was very
dear to his heart.
I introduce to you Ahab, the vile human
toad who squatted on the throne of a
nation.
He had command of a nation's wealth and
a nation's army, but no command of his
lusts and appetites.
He wore fine clothes, but had underneath these
clothes a wicked heart.
He ate good food, but he had a
starved soul.
He lived in palaces, yet he tormented himself
for one little bit of land more.
He was a king with a crown, a
throne, a great army and a fat treasury.
Yet he lived nearly all of his life
under the thumb of a wicked woman.
The Bible says this to us about him.
There was none like unto Ahab, the son
of Amorai, who sold himself to wake wickedness
from the sight of the Lord.
He did abominably in falling at the idolatrous
of the Amorites.
I introduce to you Jezebel, the daughter of
Abel, king of Tyre, the wife of Ahab,
king of Israel.
Infinitely more daring and reckless was she in
her wickedness than was her wicked husband.
She was a devout worshiper of Baal and
hated everybody who did not worship her pagan
god.
She had all the beauty and all the
brazen lewdness of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, all
the subtle scheming of Lady Macbeth, all the
cruelty of the Catherine of Russia.
She and her maidens engaged in lust worship
unto Astaroth in scenes of most forbidding vulgarity.
She was a beautiful adder called upon the
throne of the nation.
I introduce to you Elijah, God's preacher.
He wore rough clothes, but he had underneath
these clothes a righteous and courageous heart.
He ate bird's food and wood as fare,
but was a great physical and spiritual athlete.
He was God's strong wall that stood out
against the rising tides of the wickedness of
this day.
He was a seer who saw clearly, a
great heart who felt deeply, a hero who
dared valiantly Then God took him home to
heaven without the touch of a deaf dew
upon his brow.
And with the introduction of these four characters,
Naboth, the devout Jezreelite, Ahab, the vile human
toad who occupied the throne, Jezebel, the beautiful
adder coiled beside the toad, and Elijah, God's
preacher, I bring you as best I can
tonight, pleased with the help of your prayer,
the tragedy of payday some days we find
it in this book, 1 Kings 21 and
2 Kings 9.
The first scene in this tragedy is the
real estate request.
Ahab the king said unto Naboth, Let me
have our vineyard for a garden of herbs,
because it is close to my palace, and
I will give it its worth in money,
or if it please thee, I'll give thee
a better vineyard.
Thus far Ahab is perfectly within his rights.
He had no intention of cheating Naboth out
of his vineyard, of killing him to get
it.
Honestly did he offer him its worth in
money or better vineyard, and under ordinary circumstances
we might expect Naboth to put away any
sentimental attachment which he had for his vineyard,
it might please the king of his nation.
But Ahab forgot that he had ever known
it God's commandment, whereby every tribe receiveth its
inheritance, and every family is lot from God
with this commandment, The land shall not be
sold for ever, the land is mine, saith
the Lord.
And so, standing upon the commandment of God,
and with true-hearted loyalty to God, and
preferring the duty which he owed to God,
any danger which might come from man, Naboth
said, God forbid it me that I should
let thee have my vineyard.
He believed that he held that land in
peace, simple from God.
Besides this, many tender memories of his childhood
were tangled in those vines.
His father, sleeping now in some obscure grave,
had loved that vineyard and worked it.
His mother, sleeping in some dust-stained shroud,
had worked in that vineyard and had loved
it.
And whenever Naboth thought of his little vineyard
so sanctified by sweet and holy memories, so
rich in prayer and fellowship, coming to the
hands of Ahab and Jezebel, his soul rose
in quick and righteous revulsion under the courage
of a bird that dares astonish sea.
He said, God forbid it me that I
should let thee have my vineyard.
The second scene is the pouting king.
Naboth's refusal took all the spokes out of
the wheels of Ahab's desires.
His refusal was a strong barrier against which
the string of Ahab's desire dashed and was
turned into a sullen pool of socks.
There angry, he went to his house in
the daytime and went to bed and turned
his face to the wall and would not
eat.
Look at the king there, whining like a
whipped hound, pouting like a spoiled child that
has been denied one trinket in the midst
of a thousand toys.
And when his servants brought him his food,
he drove them from his presence as though
they had carried in garbage.
What an ancient person we have here of
great talents and abilities, prostituted to the service
of Satan and withheld in the service of
God.
Look at the king here, made captive by
corporal murkiness, made prisoner by private pouts.
Yes, look at this old whale, wallowing spout
about because he has denied men a food.
Listen to this old eagle sleep because he
has denied the crumbs that sparrows eat.
Listen to this old lion roar for a
little bit of cheese.
And get the ancient portrait of men and
women, boys and girls, as well as the
portrait of Ahab in the olden days and
the portrait of men and women today who
have diamond and ruby abilities who have no
more to guard through his churches than a
punch of Japanese nickel in a Chinese bazaar.
Yes, think of the men and women today
who have incandescent light powers making no more
light for Christ than a smoky lantern on
a stormy night.
Yes, listen to this old wooded bull, bellop
a little bit of grass outside his own
vast pasture lands.
And get a duplicate of that portrait of
men and women today who withhold our trust,
our love, our service, and our sacrifice and
our bodies from Christ Jesus who bore our
sins in his own body on the cross.
The third sin in this tragedy is the
wicked wife, Jezebel.
We do not know all that the servants
said to her when they went back to
the dining room and told her that the
king was lying there in bed with his
face turned to the wall and would not
eat.
We do not know anything which she said
to the servants.
But we do know something which she said
to Ahab when, trickingly, like a dead dancer,
she went running into the king's room, found
him lying there in bed with his face
turned to the wall, his lips swollen with
mucus, smoking his eyes, burning with devilish anger,
fire in his wicked heart, stubborn in disobedience
to the commandment of God.
And as is the custom of the women
until this day, I suppose she put her
hand on his forehead to see if he
had temperature.
If he had temperature, he was set on
fire of hell.
And first, in a voice of sweet solicitation,
she saw the reason of his anger.
And in my inelegant translation of her words,
she said, What's the matter with you, big
boy?
Why is thy face so sad, and why
dost thou not eat?
And Ahab, with his face turned to the
wall, with his mouth filled with grudges, said,
Because, I said unto Naboth, let me have
thy vineyard for a garden of oil, because
it is good for my palace, and I'll
give thee its worth in money.
If it please thee, I'll give thee a
better vineyard for it.
And he said to me, I will not
let thee have my vineyard.
Every word he said stung like a whip
upon a naked back.
This wicked woman who never had any regard
for the welfare of anybody who loved God.
You can hear her devilish laugh ring throughout
the palace halls like the cackle of a
wild fowl that has returned and found a
serpent in its nest.
And then, with her sharp, wicked tongue, she
began to appraise her husband.
This gay, gaudy guinea of the devil strutted
up and down beside the king's couch and
derided him as a buffoon and as a
coward.
And his horned-like sting and wolf-mouthed
fierceness and serpent-mouse hiss in the teasing
taunts she heard of him for his scrupulous
timidity.
And then, with more noise and worsening in
her words, she said, Aren't you the king?
Can you not command and have it done?
Can you not seize and take, arise, eat,
be happy?
I'll get thee, nay, boss of a vineyard.
He had knew her well enough to know
she'd do her wicked worst to keep her
evil promise.
For like an old turtle that's been asleep
in the cold winter's mud and the warm
sunshine warms the mud, he began slowly to
crawl out of the slime of his throats.
Jezebel, no doubt, tickled him on the chin
with her bejeweled fingers and said, That's right,
I'll be happy.
I'll get thee, the vineyard of neighbor.
Which brings us to ask this question.
Who can so degrade a man as a
woman of unworldly tendencies?
And who can so elevate a man as
a woman of noble purposes?
But back to the statement, There was none
like unto Ahab, the son of Ammai, who
sold himself to wickedness in the sight of
the Lord.
And back to the statement that he did
abominably in falling act, the idolaters of his
days.
This statement, Whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up.
She was a polluted reservoir at which the
streams of his own iniquity found mighty increase.
She was the devil's grindstone on which he
sharpened his wicked reference.
Yes, who can so degrade a man as
a woman of unworthy purposes?
You can read this blessed word of God,
all you who are reading 60 pages of
history, all you pleased, and you'll find that
the spiritual life of no nation, no country,
no community, no town, no village, no home,
no school, no church ever rises any higher
than the spiritual life of women.
And when women sag morally and spiritually, men
sag morally and spiritually.
And when women slump morally and spiritually, men
slip and slide morally and spiritually.
That's the testimony of this marvelous book.
That's the testimony of thousands of pages of
history.
Who was it that dominated the papacy in
its most shameful days?
Lucretia Bozzio, a woman.
Who was it that tried to ruin Joseph,
whom God put in Egypt to take famine
and fear from the heart of the nation?
It was a woman, Potiphar's wife.
Who was it that told Job, in the
midst of his physical afflictions and financial calamities,
to curse God and kill himself?
It was a woman, his own wife.
Who was it that suggested to Haman that
he build a high gallows on which to
hang Mordecai the Jew?
It was Zeres, a woman, his own wife.
Who was it that danced King Herod completely
into hell?
Herodas, a woman.
Who was it that was like a heavy
chain around the neck of God from the
Felix for life or death to time through
eternity?
Drusilla, a woman.
And on and on I might go, showing
you from God's book this truth that some
of the foulest plots that have ever been
hatched out of the devil's incubators have been
hatched out of them by eggs placed in
them by women's hands.
But while that is true, it is also
gloriously true that some of the most beautiful
and spiritually fragrant flowers that blossom in God's
kingdom gardens, some of the most blessed spiritual
fruit that ripens in God's kingdom orchards, and
some of the most potent streams that flow
out to make gardens out of desert spots
of the world are realities because of women's
chastity, faith, service, sacrifice, and devotion.
But as for Ahab, this book tells us
it was Jezebel who stirred him up so
greater wickedness than his own wicked mind could
conceive or his own wicked hand could execute.
The next scene in this tragedy is a
message meaning murder.
Jezebel got the piece of paper and a
pen and wrote this letter.
Listen to it carefully.
To the elders and nobles of Jezreel, proclaim
a fast.
Set Naboth on high among the people.
Have two men, sons of Deliah, placed before
him.
Have them rise and say Naboth birthed him,
God and the King.
Then take him out and scorn him that
he may die.
And she signed Ahab's name to that.
And so that since writing has been known
to men, no file or prop was ever
written by a woman's hand.
Every drop of ink she used was fatal
poison to be injected into Naboth's veins.
Every line she wrote was a little rope
which united with other little ropes made a
noose for Naboth's neck.
And she had put that death warrant in
what we call the envelope.
She melted some wax at the mouth of
a hot candle and when that wax had
fallen warm and soft upon the envelope, she
asked Ahab for his ring on which was
a seal of the nation.
He gave her his ring and she sealed
it with a king's seal.
And back of that seal was all the
authority of the throne.
She gave that death warrant to the royal
curers and told them to take it down
to Jezreel.
And her purpose was to put Naboth out
of the way by judicial murder rather than
by private assassination.
I do not know where Naboth was when
that death warrant arrived in his little town.
Maybe he and his wife had gone for
a stroll.
Maybe he was playing a game with his
little sons.
Maybe he was working in his vineyard.
I do not know, but I do know
this, that that night when he ate supper
with his family, that night when he slept
with the wife of this bosom, he did
not know that the hounds of death let
loose from the kennels of hell by the
bejeweled hands of a king's daughter and a
king's wife were close upon his heels, ready
to take his life.
I can hear Naboth make his righteous and
perhaps indignant protests when these men came down
to his little house and made known to
him the contents, only half the contents, of
that message which meant murder.
But his protests, whatever they were, while they
had nothing, they made known to him very
firmly that on a certain day he would
sit in the seat on high among the
people, in the seat of accused, wherever I
could watch him, under suspicion and accusation that
he had committed a crime which was about
to bring punishment from God upon the people.
The next thing you know, this tragedy is
a fatal fiasco.
The proclamation has gone out.
People have gathered, there were thousands, little children,
there were hundreds running here and there with
their gay clothes laughing and playing.
Here are these young men and young women
not knowing the evil potent of the day,
dread for the day, because it gave them
the chance to speak the love of their
hearts to each other.
But the older people had the fears of
their hearts written in the seriousness of their
faces and sounding forth in the solemnness of
the tones of their conversations because they trusted
not a heaven, Jezebel, that when it came
to anything like a religious fast observance in
the name of Jehovah God, that the people
had gathered and there's Naboth sitting on high
among the people, wherever I could watch him,
under suspicion and accusation that he's the guilty
one who has done something which is about
to bring punishment from God upon the community.
As he sat there, in came these base
sons of Belial and sat down close to
where he was.
There they are, the devil's hoax!
Ready to put their beaks into God's power.
The devil's eagles ready to thrust their talons
into God's dove.
The devil's hobo wolves ready to tear to
shreds God's noble stag.
They sat there a little while and then
they sprang to their feet and they cried
aloud, Naboth, birth from God!
Naboth, birth from the King!
In strong hands, dragged him out of the
seat of the accused, dragged him out to
the throngs of people while little children sweeped
and women screamed and strong men stood horrified
at what they knew was going to be
done, which awful thing they were helpless to
prevent.
These bloody butchers of the Queen dragged Naboth
out from among the people out along the
street, out through the gate to the town
and hauled his body down upon the ground
and picked up the stones they had gathered
for his killing and threw them at his
head and threw them at his body and
threw them and threw them and threw them
until his head was crushed like an egg
beneath a giant's heel.
His feet and legs were broken all to
pieces, his arms were shattered into fragments, his
chest was all beaten in and bones stuck
out from his body like ivory fingers from
pots of red paint, blood splattered, brains scattered
and with convulsive jolts of his body and
groans coming from between his broken jaws and
just a little bit, Naboth was dead.
God's mother did die by the hailstones of
hell.
And these butchers of the bloody Queen said,
Now, that his sons may not inherit the
vineyard, let's kill them.
So they brought his little sons out and
stoned them to death.
Oh, quite brutally have they obeyed the bloody
orders of that bloody Queen.
So they sent word back to somebody.
To whom?
They sent word back to Jezebel and Naboth
is toned and is dead.
I do not know where she was when
she got that news.
Maybe she's out on the lawn, the palace
lawn, watching the fountains splash.
Maybe she's out in the garden watching the
royal gardener cut bouquets for the palace rooms.
Maybe she's down there in the music hall
listening to King's Orchestra play.
I do not know, but I do know
this, that when she received the news of
Naboth's death she received it with jubilant joy.
She received it with devilish delight and went
running to tell Ahab the good news.
What did it matter to her that down
yonder, sixty-odd miles away, sat a little
woman freshly rooted?
What did it matter to her that down
there, sixty-odd miles away, sat a little
mother washing the faces of her dead sons
with the tears and beating the dogs back
from their buttocks?
What did it matter to her that murder
had been done, that God had been defied,
just so she and her husband had a
little vineyard for a garden of herbs?
And with an air of elation and victory
she went running into where the King was,
found him lying there, sitting there, and she
said, Arise, arise, get thee down to Jezreel
and take possession.
I told you I would get you Naboth's
vineyard, and I got for nothing what you
were going to give good money for.
I got for nothing what you were going
to give a better vineyard for.
Arise, get thee down, take possession.
Naboth is not alive, Naboth is dead.
That last statement was true because the wicked
prop conceived in her wicked mind and written
out with her little white bejeweled queen's hand.
The next scene in this chapter is a
visit to the vineyard.
He had the royals, gave orders to his
royal woe-billed people to get out his
King's clothes, a little goodness trip to make
him while he was dressed up for the
occasion.
While they had himself, it had no direct
part in the killing of Naboth, he was
perfectly willing to receive the benefit of his
dying, and he had not one word of
sensual condemnation for that tragic plot that had
culminated in such a murderous horror.
So he gave orders out to the liberal
stables to Jehu and Bidka, the King's charioteers,
lift the King's horses to the King's chariot,
tell the King's outriders to put on their
gorgeous garments and saddle their horses and give
him a cavalcade to come to him down
to Jezreel.
Jehu is a speed-breaking driver to this
day.
When people heard chariot wheels whirling faster along
the highways than other chariot wheels, or heard
horses galloping faster than other horses, they said,
As old Jehu, he drives furiously!
You must have some kinfolks in America.
We remember that last year 50,000 people
were killed on our highways.
But anyway, Jehu and Bidka put their bridles
and harnesses on the fine horses such as
King's had in those days and such as
they have had to hitch them up to
the King's chariot.
The outriders put on their gorgeous garments, saddled
their horses out from the liberal stables came
this cavalcade up to that great, gorgeous, ivory
palace in Samaria, the ruins of which I
have walked over and the ruins of which
I have taken pictures of.
Look at these wonderful horses hitched to the
King's chariot there, ears are moving, their eyes
are bright and alert, they have a prance
and aspect and their lungs and muscles and
hearts are ready for any piece that Master
Jehu here shall demand by whatever whip that
they take.
This cavalcade drove up to this gorgeous ivory
palace with its solid ivory doors and solid
ivory steps.
Out from those solid ivory doors down the
solid ivory steps came the King, perhaps accompanied
part of the way by the Queen.
Maybe she stopped him, drew him a kiss
or waved a hand at him.
But did God open the chariot door?
The King stepped in, the outriders are ready,
Jehu and his horses are ready, they're all
ready!
Maybe hissing his whip above the ears of
his horses and certainly commanding them with his
voice, Jehu sent the cavalcade away.
There they go, away from this gorgeous ivory
palace, out through the gates to the King's
estate, on down the highway to Jezreel.
Where is God?
Is he blind that he cannot see?
Is he deaf that he cannot hear?
Is he dumb that he cannot speak?
Is he paralyzed that he cannot move?
Where is God?
Wait a minute, we shall find out.
Over in the palace, Jezebel said to him,
have a rest, get thee down to Jezreel.
Over there in the wilderness where he had
no human voices at all, only hooting owls
and howling wolves in the nighttime, and the
cattle that killed these and the reckless call
of the crows in the daytime, out there
in the wilderness.
Where?
From the moon-blossomed yonder in the ancient
garden of the stars like a huge yellow
jungle where the tall cedars in some breeze
waved against that full moon like green plumes
against the golden shield.
Out there in the wilderness, God said to
his preacher, Ahab, Elijah, go down and see
Ahab at Jezreel.
He used to be there, and tell him
this from me.
I'm so glad that in this world when
the devil has his Ahab to whom he
can say arise, God Almighty has his Elijah
to whom he can say arise, and so
I'll give another king's character.
Ahab rode to Jezreel down the dusty highways,
barefoot, and walked Elijah to Jezreel.
That brings us to this theme, the alarming
appearance.
Jehu drove these horses up to the gate
to the little vineyard right there in the
shadow of the gorgeous palace of the king,
his summer palace.
These horses pranced around a little bit.
Well did they stand the fewest pace that
their master Jehu demanded that they take for
those 50 miles.
Saul did call open the chariot door.
Ahab stepped out of the chariot into the
little vineyard, his vineyard now, the gift of
his queen, right here in the shadow of
his palace.
There they saw Saul and Naboth's footprints, perhaps
the smaller footprints of his wife and the
still smaller footprints of their little sons.
There the rose of vines rustling in the
sunlight, maybe rustling in a quiet breeze.
He had walked in among these vines planning
how he was going to have them all
pulled up and plant herbs there and eat
those herbs up there in his big dining
room in the palace.
He walks among these vines planning that all
out.
What is it appears?
Did some green-eyed tiger fix to pounce
upon him and take his eyes?
No, no tiger.
Some fierce eagle swooping from the sky threatening
to pull his eyes from their sockets?
No, no fierce eagle.
Well, what is it then?
As he walks among these vines, suddenly there's
a shadow falls across in front of him.
He holds on his heels and he finds
himself face to face with Elijah, the preacher
of the living God.
He cowers in Elijah's presence and his face
turns pale and his voice is hoarse like
that of a hunted animal.
Looking up at the preacher, he said, Hath
thou fooled me, O mine enemy?
Hath thou fooled me?
Holy Lord!
Just then that old sheep-skin man looked
across his sun-kissed shoulders, that old leather
girdle around his loins, and his eyes burning
like coals of fire in their sockets, and
his voice as calm as an inland lake,
looked down upon the cowering, cowardly king and
said, Ahab, hast thou killed and taken possession?
Ahab, as the Lord liveth before whom I
stand, God sent me here to say to
you that someday where the dogs lick Naboth's
blood, will the dogs lick thy blood, even
thine.
May have God sent me here to tell
you that someday the dogs will eat Jezebel
here by the ramparts of Jezreel.
Having pronounced God's judgment sentence upon the gift
of two, God's preacher walked out to the
dimes, out to the gate, out by Jehud,
did come out right, as whose eyes were
wide with amazement, whose ears were tingling with
God's judgment sentence, as they had heard it
passed upon their king and their queen.
God said it!
Did he mean it?
Or was he joking?
Or playing a prank on royalty?
We shall see if we consider this last
theme, payday itself.
Did payday come as God said it would?
Listen to me tonight, please.
Listen to me.
Payday someday is written in the Constitution of
God's universe by God himself.
For every nation and every individual, it says,
No to Jesus, who said yes to the
cross for humanity.
I say payday someday is written in the
Constitution of God's universe for every nation and
every individual that is disobedient to God's commandments.
No legislative man can enact it out.
No educational system can pull it out or
teach it out.
No scientific power can eliminate it.
No infidelity can revile it out.
No atheism can laugh it out.
Payday someday is written in the Constitution of
God's universe.
Oh, you can take God's name in vain
if you will.
But what does this book say about the
payday for those who take God's name in
vain?
It says, Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain, for
God will not hold him guiltless who taketh
his name in vain.
You can tell lies, if you will, like
many people do, forgetting that lying licks an
abomination unto God.
But this book says that the payday for
liars is this.
Listen.
All liars shall have their part in the
lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.
You can drink your rotten booze, if you
will, and go home and not know the
key holds the door from the mouth of
Mammoth Cave or your wife from a baboon
on the railroad track from the coastline.
But this book says something about payday for
the boozer.
What does it say?
It says, Wine is a mocker, strong drink
is raising, and whosoever deceives thereby is a
fool.
At last it bites like a serpent and
stings like an adder.
That's a payday.
You can live to affliction and stakes, if
you will, like many do.
But I have a book that talks about
the works of affliction, the works of stakes,
and God's payday for it.
What does this book say?
The works of affliction are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, mass cynicness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance,
emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness,
reverence, and such like.
What's a payday for that?
God says, He that soweth to his flesh
shall of his flesh reap rotten flesh, corruption,
charring, which birtheth love.
Whatsoever man soweth, says this book, that shall
he also reap.
Payday someday is what God Almighty says.
I was pastor of the First Baptist Church
in New Orleans for some very blessed years.
I had a little radio station on my
own, had a federal license to operate it.
I used to get letters from a young
man who signed himself the chief of the
kangaroo court.
Oh, what caustic, cruel, critical letters he did
write me!
Once in a while I'd find a nice
line in his letters, and if I did
so, it was like finding a fragrant gardenia
in a garbage can.
One day a little nurse phoned me from
the Charity Hospital and said, Dr. Lee, I
know you're busy.
I said, Yes, ma'am, I'm always busy.
I even wake my toes when I sleep.
But I noticed that there wasn't any letters
in her poems and her words at all.
She said, Dr. Lee, this young man down
here won't tell us his name.
All he'll tell us is that he's the
chief of the kangaroo court.
He's going to die.
Ask me to phone you and ask you
if you'd come to see him, because you're
the only preacher in New Orleans he ever
heard and he has something he wants to
tell you.
Will you come?
I said, I will, and I did.
That blessed little nurse took me in that
great big charity ward, men on every cot
in it, put me up to one narrow
bed on which was stretched this young fellow
about 18 or 20 years of age, maybe
a little more, maybe a little less, six
footer.
She said, This sir is the chief of
the kangaroo court.
I found myself looking down in two of
the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen in
all my life.
As kind as I knew how to talk,
I said, How do you do?
How do you do?
He snarled at me.
And as kind as I could talk again,
I said, Is there anything I can do
for you?
No, nothing, nothing, nothing, unless you throw my
body out to the bosoms when I'm dead.
It's a burden to have it.
And his voice lost much of its snarl.
He said, I ask them of you, sir,
because I want you to tell these men
in here something for me.
I'm the chief of the kangaroo court.
I've sent for you because I know you
grew up down in this country and talked
to a lot of young people.
I want you to tell them from me
that the devil always pays in counterfeit money.
I wish I could get these boys and
girls and you young folks and all the
rest of you tonight to believe me when
I say that after I have dealt with
people as a preacher for years and years
and years, I have found out that the
devil's purse is a paste purse.
His diamonds are lustrous plastic.
His nectar turns out to be hog slop.
And if you eat his corn, you choke
to what it's called.
Yes, you will.
But who has the power to get any
average American congregation to believe that today?
Wish I had that power.
I stayed with that young man like I
stayed with many people when they died.
I stayed over two hours.
I can see him now with his big
hand reaching out, trying to grab mine like
a drowning man grabbing at a life belt.
His eyes began to look like glass marbles.
He gazed up at the ceiling, just kept
gazing as though he were hoping some rescue
hand would reach down and take him out
of the pit he had digged for himself.
His body was jerking, jumping, quivering like it
had a convulsive chill.
After about two hours, a pile of old
black stuff sprouted out of his mouth, forming
a rumble in his potent chest.
Some of it got on my clothes and
some on my hand.
Foul stuff.
But the young man was dead.
The tornado had died.
The whisper in the whisper had died.
The little nurse came running in excitement and
said, Oh, come here quickly, come here quickly.
I said, What do you want, my child?
She said, I want to wash your hands.
Meaning she wanted to wash them with a
disinfectant.
She took me back in her room, and
she seemed to be talking to herself as
much as she was to me.
And she washed my hands.
She said, It's dangerous to touch him.
Just a touch is dangerous.
A touch is dangerous.
And if he wasn't out of the teenage
area, if I'm able to judge of age.
But the devil had paid him off in
counterfeit money.
Paid him off with paste cards that had
no value in life and death or time
and eternity.
Payday someday.
No wonder Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote what he
did.
Listen.
This is the price I pay.
Just for one riotous day.
Years of regret and grief and sorrow without
relief.
Suffered I will, my friend.
Suffered until the end.
Until the grave shall give me release.
Small is the thing I bought.
Small is the thing it best.
Small is the debt I fought.
But oh God, the interest.
This is the price I pay.
Just for one riotous day.
Years of regret and grief.
Young woman came to my office about eight
years ago from Memphis State University.
She sat in a chair across from my
desk.
And she said, Dr. Lee, somebody's got to
help me.
Somebody's got to help me.
She said, Oh, Dr. Lee.
If I had a million dollars in my
lap, I'd give it away as quick as
I could drop it to the floor.
If I could call back just two hours
of my life.
Well, I can't do it, can I?
I said, No, dear.
No river ever runs around and goes to
its source.
Young man wouldn't sit down in my office.
Right here in Memphis.
He inherited everything his father left him, which
was quite a bit.
He was successful as a businessman.
He said to me, Preacher, you don't have
to preach to me to get me to
believe that there's a hell hereafter.
But I know there's a hell on earth
because I've been walking up and down avenues
of hell for 11 months.
I said, Oh, Preacher, I'd give all I
have, all my father left and all I
have, all I'd expect is if I could
call back two days and two nights of
my life.
Well, I can't do it.
I said, No, son.
Nobody can put an egg back when you
step on it.
Payday is Sunday.
This is the price I pay just for
one riotous day, years of regret and grief.
Oh, young people, listen to me tonight.
Don't ever so live, don't ever so yield
your bodies to anybody or anything.
But you'd have to say, this is the
price I pay just for one riotous day,
years of regret and grief.
I love Louisiana.
I've preached all over that state.
Jimmy Davis, who served eight years as governor
of that state, started a Christian life under
my preaching.
I love that lovely Louisiana.
Down there we had a very beautiful young
woman by the name of Pony Jo Henry.
She had her lover, supposedly, but not a
lover.
She had her sweetheart, supposedly, but not a
sweetheart.
These supposed lovers would stretch out her long
and spread out her long, beautiful hair and
say, oh, Pony Jo, your hair's so gorgeous.
No girl has hair like you, Pony.
And some dance floor, some fellow would pull
her up to him and look down her
eyes and say, Pony, your eyes sparkle like
the stars tonight and you dance so divinely,
Pony.
Oh, she had her lover, supposedly, but not
a lover.
And one day she killed a man who
begged her not to kill him.
He was arrested, tried, found guilty of murder
in the first degree, sentenced to die in
an electric chair.
When people tried to get our governor to
pardon him, he said he had no ground
for such.
One morning, Pony Jo Henry, sitting on the
edge of a cart in her cell, her
beautiful hair is all shaven off, and I
have a picture in my office of her
sitting like that, her little cross slippers on
her bare feet.
She's bare-legged and has on a denim
skirting waist, and she has her face and
her hands looking down at the cement floor.
Not a bit harder was than her heart
was when she killed a man who begged
her not to kill him.
There's a creak in the lock.
The door opened.
Two guards in uniforms stood there, and one
of them said, It's time to go, Pony
Jo.
It's time to go.
She rose from the edge of her cart
and walked down the hall with those two
guards.
There she goes, her last walk on earth.
Nobody now to tell her she dances divinely.
Nobody now to tell her her eyes sparkle
like the stars.
Nobody now to talk about her luxuriant, beautiful
hair.
Nobody now to tell her she dances divinely
or that's where she got that new perfume.
Where are all her lovers?
She stopped.
There's a chair there, grinning at her like
a skeleton from the closet.
The Times-Picayune wrote this about it, and
what he wrote I have on file in
my office.
Pony Jo Henry stopped, looked at the chair
and said, Somehow, I knew all along God
ran the whole show, but I tried to
steal just one little act.
The guards nudged her along.
She sat down in the chair with a
strange tone the devil had gotten ready for
her.
She pulled her cloth slippers off her bare
feet and put the soles of her little
feet on the electrodes.
They put stools to the throne the devil
provided.
They fastened little hands into the palms on
the electrodes, the carnation bracelets Satan had provided.
They slipped the electrode over her head, her
shaven head, the crown the devil had gotten
ready for.
They buckled her beautiful young body in with
a heavy leather belt.
A man pushed a lever and that sudden
surge of electricity hit her young body.
It jerked and it quivered and convulsively twisted.
Her eyes almost popped out of her head.
The smell of burnt flesh.
The whisper of smoke came out from between
her toes and between her fingers and from
under the edges of the electrode on her
head and circled toward the ceiling like little
imps of hell laughing at the girl who
laughed at the Bible and cursed preachers and
laughed at churches and heard a sermon that
you listen to tonight.
Payday someday hath come for Tony Joe.
And it'll come to you if you say
no to Jesus who said yes to the
cross.
Then somebody says, whatever happened to Ahab, did
payday come to him after three years went
by?
Three years!
And still he's a king.
I think sometimes up there in the dining
room in the palace, Jezebel poked a little
fun at him when they had some of
the herbs on the table.
Here, here, Ahab, have a sip of these
herbs.
All of them came out of the vineyard
I got for you.
Got for nothing.
Oh, have a sip, Ahab.
I thought all Elijah said, the dogs are
going to lick your blood.
I thought he said, the dogs are going
to eat me.
Have yourself, Ahab.
But I think in all those three years
only he had never heard a dog bark.
He didn't jump.
One day out of this, the King Jehoshaphat
of Judah gave Jehoshaphat a banquet.
At the close of the banquet he said,
Jehoshaphat, you're the King of Judah, I'm the
King of Israel, and we've taken that out
of the hands of the Syrians.
Will you go out with me and have
me take it out of their hands?
Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, said, yeah, yeah, my
horses should be as thy horses, my soldiers
as thy soldiers.
We will help thee.
And so it was planned and decided.
The King of Syria found it out and
he called 30 of his best men to
him and said, now listen here, fellas.
And this battle comes on.
Don't you fight with the little, don't you
fight with the great.
You just get ahead.
That's all we want.
Just ahead.
So the battle day came on.
The King of Syria knew the battle plans
just as Ahab and Jehoshaphat knew them.
And on the day when the battle was
to be, Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, King of
Judah, Jehoshaphat, when you go into battle, wear
your king's clothes.
But not I, I'm going to disguise myself.
I'm going to put armor over my naked
body.
And over that armor I'm going to put
ordinary citizens' clothes.
I'm going to put some bridesmaids' suit.
But you go in in your king's clothes,
I'm going in in disguise.
And so it was.
The battle came on, shields crashing, shields crashing,
arrows flying, spears thrown, war chariots rolling, men
fighting.
And over yonder are these men of the
King of Syria and they see Jehoshaphat in
his king's clothes and they grab him.
When Jehoshaphat cried out, they said, ah, this
is not Ahab.
We want Ahab.
Where is Ahab?
And where was Ahab?
Over yonder in the chariot driven by Jehu.
Oh, here's a man whose name we do
not know.
He did not even take aim.
I call him the aimless, nameless woman.
The Bible says he drew aboard a venture.
That hour of death went out over the
heads of those fighting forces.
He found the crevice in Ahab's armor, punched
a jagged hole near his heart through his
body.
And he fell over on the chariot rim
and cried out and said, Jehu, Jehu, turn
your hand, Jehu.
I won't.
Turn your hand and hold me up.
And his heart was pumping out his blood
until the bottom of his chariot was filled
with his wicked blood.
And they stayed him up on the chariot
rim till he died.
And then before they could wash his chariot
out, get the blood out of it, the
dogs came and licked up his blood according
to the word of God spoken by Elijah
the teachback, saying, Someday the dogs will lick
thy blood.
God said it, and it was done.
What about Jezebel?
Twenty years went by.
There she is, the queen.
Twenty years is a long time for anybody
to teach school and never get any pay.
A long time for a nurse to nurse
sick people and never get any pay.
Twenty years is a long time for a
man to run a store and never sell
any good.
Twenty years is a long time for a
man to work a field and never gather
a crop.
Twenty years!
And still she is the queen.
Holy Elijah had gone home to heaven without
even dying.
And succeeded by Elisha, marvelous servant of God.
One day Elisha called a young preacher to
him and he said, Look here, my son.
There's a little horn of oil.
You take it and you go down to
Ramoth, Gilead, to a certain street and to
a certain house.
You walk in that house and you find
Jehu sitting amongst some soldiers.
And you call him into a room aside
and shut the door and anoint him the
king of Israel and tell him what I
tell you to tell him.
And then you run.
The young man did what he liked and
said he found the street and guided the
Lord as he was.
He found the house and walked in it.
And there's Jehu sitting amongst some soldiers.
He said, I'd like to speak with thee,
sir.
Jehu ruffled and answered, To which one of
us do you want to speak to thee,
O captain?
Jehu arose and followed the young man into
a room aside.
He shut the door and opened the little
horn of oil and poured it upon Jehu's
head and maybe patted it gently with his
fingertips and said with terrific significance and solemnity,
I do hereby by the word of the
Lord anoint thee king of Israel.
The Lord hath said that thy business is
to blot out the house that they had
because the Lord hath sworn that the dogs
shall eat Jezebel.
And the young man opened the door and
did what he liked and told him to
do.
He ran and Jehu went back to his
soldiers and they said, Is everything all right?
What did that mad young fellow want?
Jehu said, You know what he wanted.
We do not know.
What did he want?
Jehu the male of Elisha said, I am
the king of Israel.
And these soldiers arose and cried aloud, Jehu
is king!
And did other things that went along with
such a royal announcement.
Jehu said, Come, we ride.
Horses were hitched to chariots for some of
them, and others startled the horses.
This cavalcade started on that long drive down
the valley of Israel and to Jezreel, up
and down which valley I've gone a half
dozen times.
And at Jezreel was Jezebel Joram her son
and his uncle.
The watchman on the tower saw this cavalcade
coming when it got him six or seven
miles of Jezreel, no doubt.
He called out to Joram, Jezebel's son, and
said, There's a company coming!
Joram said, Send out a horseman and ask
him if his mission's peace.
The horseman rode out, not knowing Jehu, not
knowing it was Jehu, and let Jehu and
his cavalcade in the highway, and said, Is
our mission peace?
Jehu said, Fall in, you and ride with
my company!
And he did it.
The watchman on the tower called out to
Joram, Jezebel's son, and said, The horseman cometh
not back.
He rides with the company.
Joram said, Send out another horseman and ask
him if his mission's peace.
The second horseman rode out, not knowing Jehu,
not knowing that it was Jehu, met him
in the highway and cried aloud, Is our
mission peace?
Jehu said, Fall in, you and ride with
me!
The horseman did it, and the cavalcade kept
coming toward Jezreel, and the watchman on the
tower called out to Joram, Jezebel's son, and
said, The second horseman cometh not back.
He rides with the approaching company, and the
one who leads that company drives as furiously
like Jehu, the son of Nehushah.
And Joram said, There is our, his uncle.
Ah, we shall go meet Jehu.
And the horses were hitched up to a
chariot for each one of these men, and
they drove out through the gate to the
little town, and met Jehu right outside the
gate, right near the ramparts of Jezreel.
And Joram said, Jehu, is our mission peace?
Jehu, the new king, answered, How can there
be peace as long as our mother lives,
and our heart, and our witchcraft exists?
And Joram cried out to his uncle, Treason,
treason!
And he pulled his horses around, and whipped
them up, and whipped them up, and tried
to get back inside the protective walls of
Jezreel.
And when he got right opposite Naboth's vineyard,
Jehu had been a skillful bowman for years,
picked up a bow and arrow, and shot
an arrow through his body, and Joram fell
out of the chariot while the horses went
on with it.
When they drove up, Jehu stopped and said
to Bidkar, Pick up his body and put
it in the vineyard.
And Bidkar picked up the warm, bloody, but
dead body of Joram, the son of Ahab
and Jezebel, and put it in the vineyard
they had gotten by killing Naboth.
And the vineyard they got by shedding Naboth's
blood is now stained with our own blood,
as it fell in the veins of our
son Joram.
Listen!
God's payday train is coming into the station,
and all the powers of hell can't take
out the steam or put on the brakes.
And when Jezebel knew that it was Jehu,
she tied her head, painted her face, put
in her earrings, put on her necklaces, and
her bracelets, and her shirts, and Jehu drove
in the gate.
She looked out from way up there in
the upstairs window of the palace, and in
horrid disdain she said to Jehu, Hadst thou
not peace through so his master?
Jehu, looking up at this painted Bible of
the nation, said, Who is on my side?
Who?
And he saw some eunuchs with another woman.
He said, Take her and tore her down.
These men ran and put their strong men's
fingers in a soft woman in the face
and picked her up, tied her head and
all painted face and all jewels and all
silks and all, and picked out the woman
down to the street, and down she came,
and her body broke and burst, and some
of her blood dashed on the legs of
Jehu's horses, and some of them, some of
it on the walls of the town, and
he tore her underfoot.
That is, he drove his horses and charred
over her, and stopped to look at her.
It seemed like a serpent in the fire
in her death agonies.
And he went in to eat.
While he was eating, he suddenly stopped and
said to some of his soldiers, Go out
there and get that cursed woman and bury
her, for she is a king's daughter.
And these soldiers, in obedience to the command
of their new king, went out to pick
up the body of Jezebel, the daughter of
Ethbael, king of Tyre, to bury it.
When they got out on the streets, they
were greeted by these yellow-eyed, mangy, lousy,
dirty, hungry dogs with back alleys in the
countryside, and they had eaten her, all except
her head, her hands, and her feet.
God Almighty saw to it that lousy, dirty,
hungry dogs despised the feet that had walked
in Baal's courts and then in Naboth's vineyard.
God Almighty saw to it that lousy, dirty,
hungry dogs despised the brains that conceived the
prophets that took Naboth's life.
God Almighty saw to it that lousy, mangy,
dirty, hungry dogs despised the hands that wrote
the prophets that took Naboth's life.
And these soldiers looked at these dogs, starting
to have their stomachs swollen with their queen's
flesh, their tongues licking some of her blood
from their hair and mouths.
And they looked at Jezebel's head and feet
and hands, despised her, the dogs.
They went back to their new king, and
they said, We went to bury her, sir.
But the dogs had eaten her, all except
her head, her hands, and her feet.
And Jehu, the new king, said with terrific
significance and solemnity, This is the word of
the Lord, spoken by Elijah the Christ-Baptist,
saying, Someday the dogs will eat Jezebel to
the ramparts of Jezreel.
God said it, and it was done.
When I see Ahab dead on the chariot
rim, see Jezebel eating the dogs in the
street, twenty years after God said they'd eat
her, three years after God said the dogs
would lick Ahab's blood.
I say that the judgments of God sometimes
have leaden heels and trouble their soul, but
they always have iron hands and they're crushed
completely.
I see them again, Ahab dead on the
chariot rim, Jezebel eating the dogs, her head
and feet and hands, despised the dogs.
I say, O Ahab, O Jezebel, O hath
thou hearkened to the commandments of God?
Then hath thy peace been like a river,
and thy righteousness as the waves of the
sea, and thine eternity a blessed one through
the host of heaven.
The only way I know for anybody in
this world, any nation in this world, to
escape the sinner's payday and the sinner's hell
beyond it, is through Jesus Christ, who took
the sinner's place on the cross, and on
that cross became for sinners all that God
must judge, that we through faith in him
might become all that God cannot judge.