Well, it's good to be here tonight friends.
I've been too weak physically to conduct a
meeting like this for a while now, but
God in his mercy has strengthened me to
take on the devil once again.
I have a very important message tonight friends,
and please give me your undivided attention as
I bring it before you as I preach
a precious Christ who came down here so
we can go up there.
Hear me now.
In 2nd Peter we see two sides of
God.
In this epistle we see that we serve
a double-fisted God, a God who in
his one hand extends mercy to undeserving rebels.
This is seen in chapter 3 and verse
9, which reads, The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise as some men count slackness,
but his long-suffering to usward, not willing
that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance.
What that demonstrates is God's mercy, and it's
our duty friends that we must repent or
end up in hell.
The other side of God, besides his mercy,
is his unswerving justice, which is clearly seen
in the same epistle in chapter 1 beginning
in verse 4, which displays a two-fisted
God who, in his other hand, meets out
justice to those who will not repent and
come to him.
For if God spared not the angels that
sinned, but cast them down to hell, and
delivered them into chains of darkness to be
reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old
world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a
preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon
the world of the ungodly, and turning the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes.
Look behind us, friend.
Look over there at that gay bar.
Look how crowded that parking lot is.
Look at the cars there while those Sodomites
are inside that tavern right now.
Hear me now.
God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making
them an example unto those that after should
live ungodly.
Listen to me, friends.
Today, in our churches, we've taken out a
pair of scissors to our Bibles, and we
have cut out all the references to God
as a judge, to God as a judge
who must punish sin.
We did away with that kind of God.
We didn't want that kind of God.
We only want to love God today.
We only speak of the mercy of God
today, and that's why no one fears God
anymore.
There's no fear of God in this country
anymore.
We can sin right in his face.
It doesn't bother us so long as our
lusts are satisfied.
The title of my message this evening, friends,
is God Leave Me Alone.
I want to share a story with you,
friends.
Listen to me as I tell it to
you.
Years ago, I played golf with a giant
of a man.
He stood six foot five and weighed over
300 pounds.
He was a big man, but every time
this man hit his golf ball, he cursed
God.
I never heard such a filthy mouth before.
He kept taking God's name in vain.
Every hole we played, we were standing on
a tee box, and I finally turned to
him.
I looked up, and I said, friend, can
I ask you a question?
Sure, he said.
I asked, how was your relationship with God?
He smiled a big grin and said, fine.
I have a fine relationship with God.
I leave him alone, and he leaves me
alone.
That's what that big man said.
Listen, friend, all you have to do to
wind up in the devil's hell is for
God to leave you alone.
I believe there comes a day in a
man's life where God leaves him alone.
He quits striving with man.
In the book of Proverbs, in chapter 29,
in verse 1, we read, he that being
often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be
destroyed, and that without remedy.
I want to talk about that this evening,
friends.
You listen to me while I bring the
solemn subject before you, how God strives with
a person, and how a person can harden
themselves against God to their hurt and ultimate
destruction.
That man told God to leave him alone,
and there came a day in that man's
life where God did just that.
He left him alone.
I can still see that man's big grin
as he told God to take a break.
I can't leave him alone.
He that being often reproved, our text says,
God will strive with a person only for
so long before God says, so long.
Often reproved.
Well, we ask, what does that mean?
A reproof is every time you hear the
gospel or someone witnesses to you.
A reproof is when you're handed a gospel
tract or someone gives you a Bible or
some Christian literature.
Every time you hear a gospel hymn, that's
reproof.
Often reproved.
A man in his natural condition hates God
and all things holy, so he hardens himself,
hardens himself against God.
I saw this happen to people time and
time again.
Years ago, I was in a church where
I saw God at work on a person's
heart who, in the service, came under such
conviction of sin that this person began to
sob uncontrollably so loud that this person's sobs
disturbed the rest of the church.
Later, this person came forward for prayer, but
before leaving the church was cold as a
stone again as this person hardened themselves against
God.
As the next couple of months rolled by,
this person hardened themselves more and more against
God to such degree, before the year ended,
this person had fallen into apostasy and was
suddenly removed by sudden death.
He, that being often reproved, hardened at his
neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, so says our
text.
When God reproves a person and that person
hardens themselves and does not turn to God,
then what that person is telling God is
this, God, leave me alone.
God, leave me alone.
Now that's what some of you have been
saying.
Some of you here have been telling God
to leave you alone.
All you have to do, friend, to wind
up in hell is for God to leave
you alone.
Hear me now.
You're heading there anyway in your natural condition,
which deep down in your heart you hate
God and all things holy.
Why I'm so thankful that God didn't leave
me alone.
Time and time again in my life he
intervened to place a gospel witness.
But then one day he brought me by
way of Calvary.
He showed me my ruined condition, my need
of a blood-stained Savior.
Well, I got lost that day and I
saw clearly I was heading for hell.
And not only that, but I deserved to
go there.
I became a seeker that day and I
became a beggar for mercy.
And God in his grace showed me mercy.
Bless God he saved me.
But he could have left me alone.
He could have let me go to hell.
I believe the worst thing that can happen
to a person while they're still in this
world is for God to leave them alone.
There's people in hell right now crying out
in agony because God left them alone.
They said, God leave me alone.
Suddenly be destroyed, our text says.
We live in a day of sudden death.
We live in a land of sudden death.
Statistics tell us today that one out of
every two people who dies, dies suddenly.
You can be about your daily business friend
and be gunned down by a madman.
You can get in your car this evening
to drive home and go down the street
and from an unexpected accident your car can
become your coffin.
You can get on a plane and end
up on the ground in smoke and rubble.
Sudden death is all around us today.
Just look at the news.
People are dying suddenly all the time because
this nation has turned her back on God.
I believe we're living in a day where
God has turned his back on us and
has left America alone.
I believe we're living in a day friends
where God has left the American church alone.
After all, we've been getting along fine without
him for years.
As we run our institutions on money and
manpower, we make our own converts so we
can get as many as we need to
float our boat of a so-called church.
I believe we're living in a day where
God has placed our nation in a state
of reprobation.
I hope I'm wrong.
Heaven help us if I'm right.
God may be speaking to you friend at
this very moment.
He may be reproving you to repent of
your sins, to turn to him, to cast
yourself on his dear son the Lord Jesus
Christ.
What's holding you back?
Why have you not come to Christ for
salvation?
What's keeping you away from God?
Have you gotten out a shovel and maybe
dug a trench around you to protect that
sore spot in your life which is the
sin that you refuse to give him?
You've told God to leave you alone.
You put your hand up in his face,
told him to keep off that particular area
of your life which you love more than
him.
You've told God, God leave me alone.
But if you want to stay out of
hell friend, you must throw up your white
flag of surrender to King Jesus.
Repent of your sins and own Christ as
Savior and Lord.
Listen friend, there's only two things you can
say to a thrice holy God.
You can say, God have mercy upon me.
Or you can say, God leave me alone.
God have mercy on me a sinner.
Or God leave me alone.
Which will it be friend?
Eternity waits.
Oh what is the last part of our
text?
Do you remember?
After it says that person will be suddenly
destroyed, what does it say?
It says, and that without remedy.
Do you know what that means?
That means to die outside of Christ's blood
without the remedy for sin.
Well I've been preaching this evening.
There have been people dying, going into a
crisis eternity.
It's been estimated that 80 people die every
minute outside of Christ.
People whom God has reproved.
People who said, God leave me alone.
Well I'm gonna sing a hymn friends.
And if God has been moving in your
heart, through conviction in your heart, then I
want you to throw down your shotgun of
rebellion and come to Christ for pardon for
sin.
Jesus says, I am the way, the truth,
and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by
me.
Listen friend, Jesus is the only remedy and
refuge for sin.
He hung naked on a bloody cross for
sin.
He bore the curse, becoming sin for us.
Jesus was nailed up on that ignoble cross
and was crucified as a common criminal.
He suffered, died, and was buried.
And he rose again where he sanded back
into the very heaven he came out of
to die for sinful man.
He now sits at the right hand of
the Father.
And he earned that right by way of
a bloody cross.
The cross was the place where wicked men
tried to get rid of him.
But by his death it becomes the place
where his saving power, hear me now, his
saving power flows out to all who come
in repentance, confessing they are sinners and own
them as their Savior and Lord.
I'm gonna sing that hymn now friend.
You come to Christ and lay your sin
burden down.
Cast yourself entirely upon him.
Jesus is the pearl of great price.
He's worth selling all for so he may
be gained.
Jesus declares, him that cometh to me I
will in no wise cast out.
You can trust him friend, to save you
friend, if you come to him.
You come as I sing.
Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just
to take him at his word, just to
rest upon his promise, just to know the
saith the Lord.
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I've
proved him o'er and o'er.
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, oh for grace to
trust him more.
Oh how sweet to trust in Jesus, just
to trust his cleansing blood, just in simple
faith to plunge me neath the healing cleansing
flood.
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I've
proved him o'er and o'er.
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, oh for grace
to trust him more.
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I've
proved him o'er and o'er.
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, oh for grace to
trust him more.