Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and parable sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have Vince Chapner with his
message, The Country Preacher Who Came to Town.
O thou seer, go flee thee away into
the land of Judah, and there eat bread,
and prophesy there.
But prophesy not again any more at Bethel,
for it is the king's chapel, and it
is the king's court.
Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I
was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's
son, but I was an herdman, and a
gatherer of sycamore fruit.
And the Lord took me as I followed
the flock, and the Lord said unto me,
Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.
Our subject this morning is The Country Preacher
Who Came to Town.
Six miles south of Jerusalem is little Bethlehem.
Little Bethlehem has become famous.
It was the city of David.
It was the city where our Lord was
born, and before long now we'll be singing,
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we
see thee lie.
It is the little town that Micah, eight
hundred years before he was born, said, Thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet
out of thee shall he come forth.
The little town that's six miles south of
Jerusalem.
Six miles south of Jerusalem is Tekoa.
Somebody says, but I never heard of it.
And little wonder that you haven't heard of
it.
Actually it's a wide place in the road.
It's a whistle stop on a branch line.
It's a ghost town today.
Actually it's a country place.
It always was a country place.
It means a camping ground, and it wasn't
much more than that even in its heyday.
It's actually, using the common colloquialism of the
day, it's the jumping off place.
And it actually was just that.
I heard a man say years ago that
where he was born that you go as
far as you can in a buggy, then
you get off and walk two miles.
That's Tekoa.
Tekoa is the birthplace of Amos.
That's where he was born.
Amos the prophet was born in Tekoa.
And by the way, that's the only claim
that little town has to greatness.
It's true that one of the mighty men
of David was born there, but that never
gave it to any character or any notoriety
at all.
But Amos was born in Tekoa.
And the very interesting thing is that Tekoa
is on the edge of the most frightful
wilderness that there is in the world today
even.
It's that wilderness that extends down to the
Dead Sea, going down and down and down.
Tekoa is on a ridge overlooking that wilderness,
and you can stand there and see all
the way to the Dead Sea.
Fact of the matter is, you can turn
and look in the other direction on the
other side of the ridge toward Hebron, down
into the Negev, and you've got more wilderness.
Any way you turn, there's wilderness.
But that wilderness down toward the Dead Sea
is the most frightful one of all.
It's a desert wilderness where wild animals howl
at night.
And by day, the only thing that you
can see is the ground spotted where there
is the remains of a camp, of those
that were Bedouins that passed through that land.
They don't stay there.
They don't live there.
Just the blackened ground of a nomad, a
vagabond of the desert, passing through, not staying
in that place.
It's a desert jungle.
It's Dr. Adam Smith who says, the men
of Tekoa looked out upon a desolate and
haggard world.
That's the picture.
You couldn't live in a worse place than
Tekoa, my friend.
And this was the hometown of Amos the
prophet.
He tells us that he was a herdman.
And the word that's used here for herdman
or shepherd is an unusual word.
It actually has to do with the sheep
that he was herding.
Peculiar type of sheep, if you please.
They were sheep that were bred only in
the desert.
They're a scrub type, a hardy, rugged type
of sheep.
That's the only kind that could live down
in that desert.
But they were noted for their fine wool,
and I'm told that even today you can
see the Bedouins with that same kind of
sheep in that same wilderness today.
This man Amos was a—he was a herdman
down in that frightful desert.
He tells us something else that he did,
because this man didn't make very much.
He was a—well, he tells us he's a
gatherer of sycamore fruit.
Actually, the word is he was a pincher
of the sycamores.
And that means this.
These sycamores, they grew at a lower level
than Tekoa.
Actually they are a kind of a fig.
The tree grows tall, very thick foliage.
And this fruit is not the best fruit,
and it doesn't ripen very easy, so you
have to go and pinch it in order
to make it ripen.
That's what this man did.
If I may pay my respects to the
mission to the migrants, Amos was the first
migrant.
That's what he was.
A fruit picker, if you please, and a
herdman out there.
He was—he was from the country, my friend.
His sheep and his sycamores push him way
out into that desert.
In other words, he really wasn't from town.
He didn't come from the town of Tekoa.
That had been bad enough.
He would have been a country boy had
he come from Tekoa, but he came from
way out yonder in that wilderness.
That's the picture that we have before us
here.
Amos was really from the country.
He's really from the farm, if you please.
He was a country rube.
He was a rustic.
He was a yokel.
He's a hayseed, if you please.
But don't let that fool you.
This man Amos, the prophet, had the greatest
world view than any of the prophets had.
He's not a fool.
And just because you don't like the way
he dresses and you don't like where he
came from, remember, this man has a message.
And he has the ecumenical message, a worldwide
viewpoint.
My beloved, will you listen to him?
In verse 15 of the seventh chapter he
says, And the Lord took me as I
followed the flock, and the Lord said unto
me, Go prophesy unto my people Israel.
God's seminary has always been in the solitude
of the desert.
That's where God has always trained his man,
from the very beginning.
If you go back to Abraham, when God
at the very beginning called this man out,
he was a city slicker from Ur of
the Chaldees.
But God called him, and we find him
right near this wilderness, in another wilderness near
Hebron.
That's where that man was alone with God,
and that's where he reared his altar to
God out yonder in a wilderness.
For that's where God trains his man.
It seems to be his method.
And then Moses, raised, if you please, in
a palace, educated in the greatest university of
the day, and it would compare favorably to
USC.
They didn't haze anybody at the University of
the Sun.
Their students were on a very high level,
and they knew a great deal.
This man Moses was a graduate of the
Temple of the Sun, but God couldn't use
him.
So God sent him out to the backside
of the desert of Midian, and for forty
years God trained him.
That's God's method.
David was a shepherd boy, brought as a
musician into the palace of Saul, but God
can't let him be educated there.
God could never use him.
He'd become soft, and he'd wear soft raiment,
for that's what our Lord said they do
in king's houses.
But not this man.
God sends him back out yonder to the
caves and the deserts in order that he
might train a king, in order that he
might be used.
Elijah walks into the court of Ahab and
Jezebel and says, "'Except by my word there
won't be rain now.'" But God says, "'I
want you to get out of here.
This is no place for my man.
I need to train you.' And God sent
him down to the brook Kirith, and that
was in the desert, if you please, my
beloved.
God's method has been to train His men
like that.
And John the Baptist was out in the
desert until his appearing to the nation.
And John the apostle was put on the
Isle of Patmos so God could give him
the book of Revelation.
It's God's method.
God called Amos to preach, and God gave
him a message out on the desert, and
then God sent him to Bethel to preach.
And when he arrived, everybody smiled, because actually,
friends, Amos is from the country.
I think he had on his first pair
of high-button yellow shoes, and every opportunity
he got he'd take them off because they
hurt.
And he was wearing his first necktie, and
he was always loosening it, because he'd never
worn a necktie before.
But when you go up to Bethel, you
have to have a necktie, you know.
And so this man, he arrived, and everybody
is embarrassed.
The pulpit committee especially was embarrassed.
They had heard he was a great preacher.
But they didn't know he was the country.
Everybody was embarrassed except Amos, and he wasn't
embarrassed.
He came up to give God's message, and
he's going to give God's message.
You see, Bethel was the capital of the
northern kingdom.
That's where Jeroboam had put one of the
golden calves.
That's where false religion was.
And it was the center of culture, it's
true.
It was the center of the cults, that's
true.
Bethel was sophisticated.
They were blasé.
They were uptown.
They were really citified in Bethel.
And so this man, Amos, arrives in town,
and Bethel is the intellectual center.
What Bethel did was the thing to do.
What styles that they wore in Bethel were
imitated.
This is the center as influence.
And the suit of Amos was not cut.
According to the pattern of Bethel.
And by the way, his sermons weren't cut
according to the pattern of Bethel either.
Because we're going to see that this man
had a slight difficulty when he arrived.
I think he was quite a sight when
he arrived in town.
This man now has, he's left the backwoods
and he's come to the boulevards.
He's left the desert of Pekoa, and he's
come now to the drawing rooms of Bethel.
He's out of place.
He knew all about raising long-haired sheep,
but he didn't know much about these well
-groomed, sleek sheep that he had to speak
to in Bethel.
He had come into the city of culture,
Bethel.
He had left the country of agriculture.
The country preacher has come to town.
Now most everyone came to hear him at
first, because word got around, they said, if
you really want to be entertained, you go
hear him.
You ought to see the suit he's wearing.
Where did he get that necktie?
Did you ever see anybody's country as Amos?
They came for amusement, but they all left
angry, at least most of them did.
He was a sensational preacher.
Now I know today that the great many
preachers say, I do not like sensational subjects
and I do not like sensational preaching.
The reason they don't, they can't do it.
Amos could, and he's sensational.
Amos came and he preached the word of
God.
People were moved.
A few turned to God, and the city
was stirred.
Bethel was stirred.
You know what happened, don't you?
Always happens.
It happened then, it happens today.
Organized religion tried to silence him.
They tried to run him out of town.
They said, we don't want to hear him.
And the denominational leaders, they called a meeting,
and they said, we've got to remove him.
We'll withdraw our support from him.
Have you talked to him about that he's
going to lose his pension if he doesn't
stop this type of preaching?
We don't preach this way in Bethel.
You can't preach like that.
Even some of the fundamental leaders, evangelicals as
they happily call themselves, they were jealous and
they began to criticize.
They tried to undermine his ministry.
They circulated false reports about him.
But in spite of it all, God blessed
him.
And this man wouldn't compromise.
He wouldn't shut his eyes to evil.
I want us to see briefly his message
in a moment, and I don't have time
today to deal with his message.
Mr. O will do that on Thursday night,
but his message is sensational.
They finally called a mass meeting of all
the false religions.
And their motto was, Away with Amos!
That was their motto.
And placards were carried, Go home, Amos!
We don't want you here anymore.
And so they decided they'd appoint someone to
go and talk to him.
They appointed Amaziah, the false priest, the hired
hand of idolatry.
They appointed him to go and wait upon
Amos.
I think he's one of the biggest rascals
you'll find on the page of Scripture or
off of Scripture, is Amaziah.
He's clever.
You see, he's an ecclesiastical politician.
And so he moved very cleverly.
These boys always move cleverly.
I know them, my beloved.
I've been moving among them for one quarter
of a century.
And this is what they did.
Very clever they are.
This man Amos is a strong preacher.
He doesn't mince words.
He doesn't pull his punches.
He speaks what God has him to say,
and he says it.
And he had said some strong things.
Now this is what he said, And the
high places of Isaac shall be desolate, And
the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste.
And I will rise against the house of
Jeroboam with the sword.
Now watch this rascal, this religious leader, Amaziah.
Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to
Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired
against thee in the midst of the house
of Israel, the lands not able to bear
all his words.
Now listen to what he said.
For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die with
the sword.
I ask you, is that what Amos had
said?
No, he hadn't said that.
What he said was, God said, I will
rise against the house of Jeroboam with the
sword.
And if you follow the record, this man
happened to be accurate.
It's too bad Jeroboam II here didn't believe
him, because his grandson is slain with the
sword, and that ends the line.
But he did not say that Jeroboam would
perish with the sword.
You see, these ecclesiastical politicians, they twist the
truth.
He had said something about the sword, and
he had said something about Jeroboam, but he
had not said that Jeroboam would perish with
the sword.
And this kind of lying, my friend, is
the worst kind of lying.
You see what Amaziah is doing, he's getting
the authorities on his side before he moves
in on the prophet.
And candidly, I'm of the opinion—I may be
wrong here, now this I can't prove.
Up to this point I'm on scriptural grounds,
but from here, from the next few moments,
this is merely my surmising.
I do not think he went alone.
These men do not move alone.
They move by committees.
And I think that he took a committee
with him.
And I can tell you who was on
the committee.
I've got inside information.
There was a committee of three, with Brother
Amaziah being the chairman, and Dr. Sounding Brass
was on the committee.
He was president of the School of the
Prophets, false prophets.
He was pompous and proud, and he was
an ecclesiastical politician to his fingertips.
He couldn't preach, but he was teaching other
young men how to preach.
Then there was Reverend Tinkling Semble.
He was pastor of the wealthiest, most influential
church in Bethel.
He was the yes-man of the rich.
He couldn't preach either, but he was a
great little mixer.
Oh, he was great at shaking hands and
patting on the back and going to the
knife and fork clubs.
He belonged to all of them.
And if the company was just right, he
didn't mind taking a cocktail.
You see, he's pleasing everybody.
Here's the committee—Amaziah, the priest of a calf,
Dr. Sounding Brass, and Reverend Tinkling Semble.
This is the committee that waited on Amos.
Oh, my friend, what a scene.
Here is our prophet.
He's God's man.
He was striking.
He didn't have the latest haircut.
He didn't have the latest suit.
He's country.
There he is.
He is accustomed to the desert, but he's
not accustomed, if you please, to the drawing
room and committee meetings.
And he's just a little crude, I must
confess.
Here come the committee.
They waited on Amos.
Amaziah is polished, cultured, educated, scholarly, with biting
sarcasm and with a rapier of redditude.
And he assumes a condescending attitude, and he
has a superior manner about him as he
comes to this prophet.
Now, will you listen to what he said?
Oh, thou seer!
Oh, that's just filled with sarcasm.
The word for seer means really—you don't really
call yourself a preacher, do you?
Oh, thou seer!
Who told you that you're a preacher?
Where is your degree?
Where did you go to school?
Who ordained you?
Where were you pastor last, and why did
you leave?
Oh, thou seer!
He says now, go, leave thee away.
You know, these ecclesiastical politicians, they are very
polite on the surface.
Oh, but they can be ugly underneath.
Go, leave thee away.
Get out of town.
Get lost.
We don't want you here any more.
And then he makes the nastiest insinuation that
any man can make.
Will you listen to him here, and there
eat bread?
After all, you're doing this for the money.
And if you'll go back to your own
hometown, you probably will be able to get
good offerings there.
Why don't you leave here?
Isn't that an awful thing to say to
this man?
And then here is his crowning insult.
But prophesy not again any more at Bethel,
for it's the king's chapel and it's the
king's court.
Oh, how satirical he is at this juncture.
He said, do you realize, Amos, you're no
preacher, do you realize that you are preaching
here at the First Bacterian Church, and that
this is the most important and prominent church
in the denomination, or in this area?
Did you know that the king attends Cherubim's
pews right out there?
And your messages have been disturbing him.
He likes to come and nap, and he
hasn't been able to sleep with you preaching.
And some of the people don't like you.
You don't flatter them enough.
You don't mix well, Amos.
And then, Amos, you're not as dignified as
you should be.
We've noticed that you pound the pulpit.
That's very crude in Bethel.
We never get excited about religion here.
We do not like these emotional outbursts that
you have.
By the way, Amos, did you ever take
homiletics?
Your messages do not seem to be organized,
and you need a course in public speaking
where you can speak with a deep voice
in a very dignified manner.
You can say nothing as if it's something.
Amos, you're not welcome here anymore.
Now Amos answered him, will you listen to
this prophet?
Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, listen
to this.
I was no prophet, neither was I a
prophet's son.
But I was a herdman and a gatherer
of sycamore fruit.
And the Lord took me as I followed
the flock, and the Lord said to me,
go prophesy unto my people Israel.
Friends, that's not the answer of a fanatic,
is it?
It's a soft answer.
It's not harsh.
You may think he's crude because the way
he dresses, but he's not crude.
Look, read his answer.
I tell you, after all of these years,
over 2,500 years, he stands in better
light than Amaziah.
It's a lovely answer he gives, and it's
such a wonderful answer.
I have only one criticism to make of
Amos, and I trust you'll forgive me for
even making this one.
You know what his trouble is?
He's too naive.
He's too simple.
He's artless.
He's frank.
He's just a babe in the woods in
Bethel, down yonder in the desert jungle of
Tekoa.
He knew his way around.
He could go through that desert at night
watching the stars.
Read his prophecy, and you'll find out he
knew all about those stars.
He knew how to guide himself through the
darkness.
He knew when he heard the roar of
a lion, for he tells us about it.
And he could hear the awful scream of
some helpless animal, and then the lion would
roar.
He knew that some little helpless animal had
fallen into the clutches of the lion.
And this man knew how to avoid that,
and he went around.
He knew when he heard a certain movement
in the brush and a hiss that it
was a serpent.
May I say to you that he was
at home in the jungle filled with wild
animals, but in the asphalt jungle of Bethel,
he was helpless.
In the fundamental jungle, he didn't know what
to do, because he thought everybody was like
he was—honest and sincere and said exactly what
they thought.
He didn't know that people put up a
front.
He didn't know that they talked to your
back.
He didn't say, isn't he naïve.
He wouldn't last in Los Angeles six months.
You've got to be smarter than that to
live in Los Angeles.
You have to lead him about.
In fundamental circles, a minister said to me
the other day, he says, McGee, there are
certain groups of Christians that you're not safe
to be in that group.
That's true, and it's awful.
If somebody will just lead Amos around, and
Amos says, the roar of a lion.
Roar of a lion?
I don't hear the roar of a lion.
I know lions, yes, but that's a lion
up here in Bethel.
Now, that's Mr. Gutrocks, and he didn't like
that message you gave, because you really got
after him.
The shoe fitted him, and he didn't like
it.
And he's a lion.
He has influence.
He'll eat you up.
Amos says, you don't mean to tell me
that a Christian brother—why, I'm giving God's message.
He wouldn't eat me up, would he?
Oh, Amos, don't be so naive.
He'll crush you if he gets the chance.
Be careful, Amos.
Don't step there.
You almost stepped on a serpent.
A serpent?
He says, I don't see a serpent.
All I see is Mrs. Joe Doakes.
You don't mean to tell me.
Yes, she's a serpent.
In this asphalt jungle, the poison of ass
are under her lips.
And with her tongue, she's used deceit.
And she has bitten many people and poisoned
many people.
Be careful, Amos.
You don't mean to tell me.
I didn't know Christians act like that.
Isn't he simple?
He doesn't know his way around, this fellow
Amos.
Doesn't at all.
But will you listen to his credentials?
The Lord took me as I followed the
flock.
And the Lord said unto me, go prophesy
unto my people.
Listen to him, will you?
Amos said, I never claimed to be a
preacher.
I'd really never went to any of the
schools of the prophets.
And homiletics—by the way, what is homiletics?
I never heard of it.
All I know was, I was down yonder
in that wilderness of Tekoa.
I'd been walking with God.
And one day he called me and he
gave me a message.
And his message was like a burning fire
in my bones.
And he said, go to Bethlehem delivery.
That's what I've done.
You're not angry, are you?
You really wanted to hear God's Word, didn't
you?
You preachers that have come, you're not against
God's Word, are you?
Oh, Amos, how can you be so naive?
They don't want the Word of God in
Bethel.
And they don't want the message you're giving.
Briefly, I can't deal with this.
But let me just say this in closing.
The message he gave, he preached against sins.
I asked Brother Rodeheaver, when I was with
him at Wynona Lake on one occasion, because
we like to know, we preachers, how other
men are used to God.
I said, you were with Billy Sunday a
long time.
What was the secret of that man's ministry?
I'd like to know.
And I never shall forget, we were sitting
at the table.
Rodeheaver put down his knife and his fork,
for he was carving the roast.
So he put down his knife and fork,
and he reached over in his very lovely,
winsome manner.
He tapped me on the arm.
He says, Billy Sunday preached against sins.
And he says, the trouble today is preachers
don't preach against sins.
I haven't forgotten that.
And Amos knew this before Billy Sunday did.
He preached against sins.
He was no mealy-mouthed preacher.
He did not give out messages of saccharine
sweetness, artificial light, and synthetic bread.
He gave the real article.
God to him was a God of love,
but he was not soft and sentimental and
shallow.
He was a God that punished sin.
He never dealt with any vague generalities.
I heard this said of a preacher not
long ago.
It says that he preaches like this, very
indefinite, you must repent as it were, believe
in a measure, or be lost to some
extent.
Oh, how indefinite preaching can be, my beloved.
This man Amos went right to the point.
And there are three areas in which he
spoke.
I mention them and pass on.
Out of these three situations in his land,
he brought a message.
It was a day of prosperity.
It was a day in which he could
say, woe unto you that are at ease
in Zion.
And then he could move in from there,
because in the days of Jeroboam II, great
prosperity had come to that land, and the
people were living in luxury.
You find as you turn here to verse
4 of chapter 6, that lie upon beds
of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches
and eat the lambs out of the flock
and the calves out of the midst of
the stall.
They had filet mignon one night, and the
next night they had lamb chops, and everything
was foam rubber.
It was a great day.
And it was a day of prosperity.
And he says that chant to the sound
of the vial—that's an interesting word in the
Hebrew that he uses.
It actually means it was the rock and
roll of the day.
And you invent to themselves instruments of music.
You come up with the saxophone and the
guitar, and you've got all kinds of things
that will take you away from God.
And then the third thing, that drink wine
in bowls.
You're not satisfied with a little glass, you
drink it in bowls.
A day of drunkenness.
May I say that the message of Amos
is a modern message.
These are the things that are destroying America
today.
Prosperity that's brought luxury and plenty.
And our music today gives us away.
And we are becoming a nation of drunkards.
No one is crying out.
Then it was a day of false peace.
This man Amos came in.
It was a day in which they said
yonder in the north was hanging Assyria like
the sword of Damocles, ready to pounce, and
in the next half century was to destroy
this little kingdom.
They tried to ignore it, and they kept
talking about peace, and they started a United
Nations, and they invited Mr. Khrushchev down from
Assyria.
And he came down, and they went and
begged him.
A great many have attempted to interpret the
visit of Mr. Khrushchev.
I guess it's all right if I try
to for a moment.
I tell you, I think that it was
America saying to him, please, Mr. Khrushchev, let
us alone.
We are nice people.
We won't hurt you.
We shut our eyes when you murdered them
by the hundreds in Hungary.
We have shut our eyes to all of
your sins.
Just let us alone.
We want to have peace and plenty and
go on in our sin.
Amos said, you can't do that.
And the reason that you can't do that,
he says, how can two walk together except
they be agreed?
You've got to agree.
And he says, how are you going to
walk with God?
And he says, behold, the eyes of the
Lord, God are upon the sinful kingdom, and
I will destroy it from off the face
of the earth.
His message is not a popular message.
It's a message that God intends to punish
sin.
And just because they happened to be living
in plenty and talking peace and were being
religious on the surface didn't mean that God
was not going to judge sin he intended
to—he intended to move in upon.
But this man had a worldview, and I
conclude with this verse.
Chapter 9, verse 11.
In that day will I raise up the
tabernacle of David that's fallen down, close up
the breaches thereof, and I'll raise up his
ruins.
I'll build it as the days of old.
May I say to you that this man
looked down into the future, and he saw
that God, by mercy and by grace and
by redemption, was going to yet redeem his
people.
He saw something that James, at that great
council of Jerusalem, when James wanted to quote
a scripture, he did not go to Isaiah.
He didn't go to David, and he didn't
go to Moses.
He went to this man Amos and said,
God has said that he will return and
build the tabernacle of David.
But that which Amos did not see, James
says, now we see that out of the
Gentiles he's going to call a people to
his name.
And just as he's dealt with us a
nation in mercy, he's going to deal with
all peoples in mercy if they'll have it.
And he can be merciful because our Lord,
when he came to Zion, was not at
ease.
He said, there my father worketh, hitherto and
I work.
It was there that he wept over Jerusalem.
It's there where they beat him.
It's there where they led him out of
the city.
It's there where they crucified him.
He was not at ease in Zion, and
he wasn't at ease so that this morning
God might be merciful and bring rest to
you.
He died there.
He was not at ease because God is
not willing that any should perish.
But they will perish if they'll not have
his mercy.
That's the simple message of Amos.
God will punish sin.
He hasn't changed.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
But he says, come now and let us
reason together, saith the Lord.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson, they shall
be as wool.
My friend, don't laugh at the country preacher.
He's got a message from God.
And a lot of the sophisticates in that
day were wrong.
The intellectuals were wrong.
They can be wrong today.
God still says, come now, let us reason
together.
Come unto me, all ye that labor in
a heavy laden.
I'll rest you, rest of redemption.
But be not deceived, God is not soft.
God is not sentimental.
God will still punish sin, but he'll forgive
the sinner.
Shall we pray?
With our eyes closed, heads bowed in prayer
in this closing moment today, are you here
today to hear the message of this country
preacher from Toccoa long, long ago?
But it's a modern message.
A message for the streets of Los Angeles,
for the campuses of our universities, for our
places of business, our aircraft plants, for the
missile range.
This is a message for today.
Today, God will destroy the nation and the
individual that goes on in sin.
But God will save, by his mercy, those
that will turn unto him.
Are you here today, friend, and you've never
yet availed yourself of this mercy?
You've never turned to this wonderful God.
Doesn't it make sense today to you to
turn to him while you can?
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
and Classic Sermon series.
This week, you heard Vance Hafner with his
message, The Country Preacher Who Came to Town.
Tune in next week to hear William McDonald
speak about seven corrective lenses for spiritual eyesight
on From the Pulpit and Classic Sermon.