This message is one of the Times Square
Church pulpit series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
Other tapes are available by writing WORLDCHALLENGE P
.O. BOX 260 LINDALE, TEXAS 75771 or calling
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Thank you, Orchestra.
God bless you.
And welcome again to, personally, to all of
our friends and visitors.
We trust the Lord to give you a
wonderful time here at Times Square Church and
minister to your heart.
Those that call Times Square Church your home,
you'll notice we have put up our new
curtains, and we're starting to remodel.
We haven't gotten yet to changing the choir
robes, but that's in another week or two
in the carpets, and we're videotaping now to
go all over the world, and redoing the
stage.
The Lord's been good, and we thank all
those who've been so faithful in working on
this project.
Last week, I spoke on the subject, Governed
by the Word of God.
I want to preach part two of that
message, Governed by the Word of the Lord.
Subtitle is Penknife Christians.
Penknife.
P-E-N.
Knife.
You know what I mean.
I'll tell you, my text will give it
away immediately, please.
If you go to Jeremiah 36, chapter 36.
I want to read to you the first...
Let's start with verse 1, Jeremiah 36.
I'd love to hear the rustling of the
leaves.
Keep rustling until you find it.
Jeremiah 36, beginning at verse 1 from King
James.
And it came to pass in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king
of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah
from the Lord, saying, Take thee a roll
of a book, and write therein all the
words that I have spoken unto thee against
Israel, and against Judah, and against all the
nations.
From the day I speak unto thee, from
the day of Josiah, even to this day,
that it may be that the house of
Judah may hear all the evil which I
purpose to do unto them, that they may
return every man from his evil way, that
I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Jeriah,
and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah
all the words of the Lord which he
had spoken unto him upon a roll of
a book.
And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut
up.
I cannot go into the house of the
Lord.
Therefore, go thou, and read in the roll
which thou hast written from my mouth the
words of the Lord in the ears of
the people in the Lord's house upon the
fasting day.
And also thou shalt read them in the
ears of all Judah that came out of
the cities.
Verse 9, it came to pass in the
fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah,
king of Judah, in the ninth month that
they proclaimed to fast before the Lord to
all the people in Jerusalem and all the
people that came in the cities of Judah
and Jerusalem.
Then Baruch read in the book the words
of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.
And we'll stop right there, if you will,
please.
Heavenly Father, we have come to honor and
revere the word of God this morning.
This is the only foundation in these trying
times, and all the foundations are going to
crumble.
This is the only foundation, the word of
the living God revealing Jesus Christ as Lord.
And I pray, Father, that you give me
the anointing of your Holy Spirit to deliver
the message you put on my heart.
Lord Jesus, I know you're trying to get
your people established in the word.
You're not wanting your people, you will not
allow your people to be tossed by every
wind and wave of doctrine.
And all the foolishness that is sweeping across
the church land today.
Oh God, convict us by your word.
Dig deep into our hearts, establish us that
when we walk out of this place this
morning we will know that we have heard
from you.
Let every man, woman, and child listening hear
what the Spirit has to say.
In Jesus' name, amen.
I want to show you what happens to
a nation or a people or a church
who reject the word of God as the
divine authority of Almighty God.
When the word of God is rejected, it
results in nothing but chaos and judgment.
I know of no single nation on the
face of the earth, I know no national
leader, no nation that is under the total
authority of the word of God.
Who rule and reign their nations or their
nation by the word of God.
On the other hand, you look at Muslim
nations with Muslim leaders, you will find that
they rule their nation with a rod of
iron under the Koran.
It is their supreme authority and the government
is ruled and it is reigned as on
the total dominion of the Mohammedan book, the
book of Koran.
Certainly, the United States of America is no
longer governed by this book.
It is not governed by the living word
of God.
This nation and all of its leaders and
political leaders, its judges have done everything to
reject the Bible, to put it out of
our society, out of our schools, out of
our courts, out of our whole judicial system.
They've tried to make it politically correct to
despise and to reject the living word of
God.
And I tell you, it's a fatal thing.
It's fatal for any nation, any people, to
reject the living word of God.
It's fatal to reject the warnings and pleadings
of God sent prophets.
It's fatal to a nation.
It's fatal to the church.
If the Bible is true that all things
in the Old Testament are recorded for our
learning, for our admonition upon whom the ends
of the world have come, then we had
better go back to this chapter that I've
referred to now and take very seriously what
we read about what happens to a nation
and a people and its leaders when they
reject the supreme authority of God's word.
As I've said before, you may not believe
judgment is coming for any other sin, but
you had better believe that when a nation
rejects the word of God in the Scriptures,
that is the last call.
That is the last step before judgment.
Beyond bloodshed, beyond immorality, beyond everything else, when
this word is finally rejected as the standard,
when men become lawless, want nothing more to
do with this book, that is the last
step toward divine judgment.
And in the 36th chapter of Jeremiah, we
go back to the reign of Jehoiakim.
Now, the Lord came to the, this is
the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim.
He was the son of Josiah, a very
godly king.
And the word of the Lord comes to
Jeremiah and the Holy Spirit says, I want
you to record everything you've been saying.
Now, for 23 years now, Jeremiah, in fact,
at this point, 27 years, he has been
warning about the judgment that God has prophesied
or pronounced upon Israel for the sins of
the grandfather Manasseh.
I want you to follow me very closely.
He's been warning that a day of accounting
was coming.
Josiah's father was the notorious Manasseh.
Manasseh was the bloodletting king of all times.
The scripture says of this man that he
turned the house of God into an abominable
center of idolatry.
He dabbled in witchcraft.
He dealt with enchantments, familiar spirits, wizards.
The Bible said he made Israel to sin
more than any other nation.
In fact, to sin more than the heathen
around them.
He despised the word of God.
He trampled the laws.
He rejected his commandments and his statutes.
The Bible said, moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood
very much till he filled Jerusalem from one
end to another.
And I want you to listen to what
God promises to do to a nation and
its leaders when they fill a nation with
blood.
When innocent blood is shed and when the
law of God is rejected and no longer
under the authority of the scripture.
Now, folks, this nation was founded on this
book.
Our Puritan fathers came here to establish a
government and a system that is ruled under
the total authority of the scripture.
And now we have totally thrown aside that
yoke as we call it today and have
despised the living word of God.
The scripture says, because Manasseh has done these
abominations and he's done wickedly and he has
made Judah to sin, behold, I'm bringing such
evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears
it, his ears shall tingle.
He says, his ears will literally tremble.
They won't believe what they're hearing what God
did to his own people, his own city,
his own nation.
God says, I'll wipe Jerusalem as a man
wipes a dish.
I'll wipe it and I'll turn it upside
down.
He said, I'm going to turn everything upside
down in this society.
He despised the commandments of the Lord.
He rejected the authority of the word of
God.
And the result, of course, was national chaos.
And God promised, I will not turn aside.
I've set my heart and my mind and
my anger against this nation, wickedness, bloodshed.
And I will not turn away.
Now we know that Manasseh repented before he
died.
But God said, I will not call off
what I have promised.
I am going to judge this nation because
of your sins.
I will forgive you, but you have led
this nation into a botchery and shame and
bloodshed.
Now, I want to tell you something, folks.
Any politician, any preacher, I don't care if
he's Pentecostal, Baptist, whatever he may be.
Any politician or preacher who can stand before
a people and say, America is going to
be exempt from judgment, that this is a
missionary nation and God can't judge it because
we've got to evangelize the world.
Folks, that's exactly what God said of the
Jew.
That's what He said of Jerusalem.
The law would go out of Jerusalem and
bless all nations.
In spite of it, God sent judgment.
He sent powerful judgment, incredible judgment upon Jerusalem,
Judea and Israel.
America today has shed an ocean of blood,
our leaders.
And I'm going to tell you, our President,
President of the United States faces the same
indictment that Manasseh received from Almighty God.
Because the President of the United States, our
present President, against Congress, against the majority of
the feelings and the thoughts of the United
States people, the American people, refuses to stop
the bloodshed and the sucking out of the
life of our unborn innocent babies in the
third trimester.
And I want to tell you, any preacher
who tells me that God is not going
to judge this nation for its bloodshed, has
to totally ignore the example of Scripture.
The Scripture says that these things are given
to us, they're written for our sake, for
our admonition, upon whom the ends of the
world have come.
God says, go with the Old Testament, you
don't know what I'd do to people who
shed blood, innocent blood.
Here it is, here's your example.
Folks, we have an ocean of blood, 3
,000 miles long, 2,000 miles wide, and
35 to 40 million cries of babies, and
you tell me God's not going to judge
America?
An ocean of blood.
Manasseh shed a rivulet of blood compared to
the ocean of blood that we have shed
in this nation, in this country.
America kills its unborn because it has refused
to believe what this book says about bloodshed.
If we were a Bible-believing nation under
the authority of the Scriptures, this could never
happen.
Manasseh's son, Josiah, takes the throne.
The Bible says of this son, and this
is amazing that such a wicked man can
have such a godly son.
And he did, this is Josiah, he did
that which was right in the eyes of
the Lord, and he walked in the ways
of David, his father, well, his great-great
-great-great-grandfather.
Josiah, the Scriptures said, trembled at the Word
of God.
And one day the high priest found dusty
Scripture in some hidden corner of the temple,
and he brought it to the scribe, brought
it to Josiah, and he began to read
it.
And it says, And it came to pass,
when the king had heard the words of
the law, that he rent his clothes.
He trembled, he went into asscloth.
He rent his clothes.
And in his shattering, in his terror at
the living Word of God, he sends representatives
to the prophetess Huldah, and said, What shall
we do?
The wrath of God is against us because
of our sins.
He compared the nation and where it was,
compared to the book and what the Word
of God said.
And he said, We're under judgment.
He was reading from Leviticus 28 and Deuteronomy,
and all of the warnings of Moses concerning
how God judges nations who reach flashpoints of
sin.
And he said, We've reached those flashpoints.
What do we do?
And he trembled, and he wept, and he
cried before God, because the Word had convicted
him, and the Word of God became his
rule.
And in essence, the prophetess Huldah said, Tell
the king the judgment that was promised on
Jerusalem, and Judah will still stand.
But because you have humbled yourself before the
Lord when you heard His Word, and what
He spake, and you wept before the Lord,
you shall not see the evil which will
outbring upon this place.
God gave a short time, a time of
blessing and prosperity, and I've written that in
one of my books, America's Last Call.
The last call is a prosperity call, where
God has determined judgment, but there'll be a
stretch of time.
This was 31 years.
A little time, 31 years, that the goodness
of God would lead Israel to repentance.
For 31 years, Josiah submitted himself to the
authority of God's Word.
And every time he heard a new commandment,
and read of a new statute, he conformed.
When he read that homosexuality was wrong, he
went through the land, and he dealt with
the sodomites, the Scripture says.
He cleansed the land of the sodomite prophets
and teachers, and worshipped.
When he found out God's hatred tore idolatry,
he tore down all the idols.
When he found out God hated the human
sacrifice in the valley of Hinnom, he did
away with it, he smashed it.
Everything the Word said, he complied.
Because of the fear of God.
He was governed by the Word of the
living God.
Bible says, God, rising up early, sent prophets.
Now, rising up early doesn't mean he got
up at 5 o'clock and preached on
the streets, when people were still sleeping.
Rising up early, it means he came early,
far before the event of judgment.
He came far before.
In fact, 23 years, 27 years, when this
Word, 27 years, rising up early.
God warned Jerusalem and Judah, I have sent
you all my servants, the prophets, rising up
early, sending them saying, return ye now every
man from his evil ways.
But you have not inclined your ear, you
have not hearkened to me.
Behold, I'm going to bring on Judah and
Jerusalem all the evil that I promised, that
I pronounced against them.
Now, why does God say, now I'm going
to bring forth all the evil?
He had pronounced it 27 years before.
He says, but now, God says, the time
has come.
And what is it that precipitated judgment suddenly
now?
After 27 years of warning.
Because I have spoken to them, but they
have not heard.
I've called unto them, but they've not answered.
You refuse to hearken to me, you will
not receive my instructions.
You've turned away from my Word, and there's
nothing else to say.
Now folks, God loved Israel.
He loves his church, he loves his people,
he loves this nation.
God has no hatred toward anything except the
sin in the nation.
He loves the people.
It's not anger against individuals, but against the
mindset, the demonic powers that possess them.
Now, keep in mind, Jeremiah's word is not
going to be sent to a heathen nation.
God said, write this down, it's to God's
own people that this warning comes.
And folks, it's a mercy call.
I get weary of hearing people say, that's
a doomsday message.
No, folks, when God puts men in the
pulpit, and you've heard it from this pulpit,
by pastors of this, who pastor this church,
our associates here, Pastor Carter, my associate, standing
here in this pulpit, sometimes with a hard
message, a judgment message, warning messages.
Why does God do that?
Why does God send us into the pulpit,
and warn, and warn, and warn, until people
get weary of it?
Because it's the greatest expression of God's mercy
there can be.
It is the love of God for his
people.
Here is the mercy call, he said to
his scribe Baruch, he said, here is why
I want you to go and preach these
warnings to the people.
It may be that the house of Judah
will hear all the evil which I purpose
to do to them, that they may return
every man from his evil way, that I
may forgive their iniquities and their sins.
God says, I want you to warn so
strong, I want you to wake them, I
want you to so shake and stir their
hearts, that maybe they'll see the evil of
the ways, and they'll repent so that they
can come to godly sorrow, and I can
forgive and cleanse them and restore them.
Did you hear the news this week?
The mainline Lutheran Church is in close dialogue
with the Roman Catholic Church to remove all
their differences.
And the Lutherans are moving closer and closer
to union with the Catholic Church.
And I want you to know it's all
in the name, they call it of love
and unity.
I call it the love trap.
This is how the devil is going to
bring about one world church.
They're going to talk about love and unity,
and now they'll take certain scriptures and misquote
them about love and unity, and do away
with all of the reformation gospel, all of
those who have died for justification by faith,
who have paid with their own blood.
Folks, it's going to come back to earning
your own salvation by your works.
That's going to be the doctrine of the
Antichrist.
Getting totally away from it.
And nobody in that movement, nobody in the
leadership, they're going now toward homosexual pastors, the
homosexual churches, and union of all churches no
matter what, and they're saying, let's forget all
of our differences and let's see where we
agree.
Folks, that is right straight out of the
pits of hell.
We're to love people no matter who they
are.
To love homosexuals, but to hate their sin.
And because of God's love to warn them,
not in your face kind of gospel, but
a loving, look in the eye and say,
here's what God says, because this brings loneliness,
it brings fear, it brings terror to the
soul.
It brings AIDS, it brings despair.
It's what it does to you to come
in that kind of love.
God gave Jeremiah a final word for his
people, and this was going to be the
final word before the Chaldeans invade.
Go now and read all that you have
written from my mouth, all the words of
the Lord in their ears, of the people
in the Lord's house upon the fasting day.
These weren't heathen, these were people in the
Lord's house.
This was to be a preached message that
he had written the word of the Lord.
Also read them in ears of all Judah
that come out of their cities.
Now it says, in the ninth month they
proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all
the people in Jerusalem and to all the
people that came from the cities of Judah
unto Jerusalem.
Now folks, there's only one record, there was
only one fast at this time by law
that was demanded of God, the children of
Israel, and that was on the seventh month
and that was Passover.
That was the only fast day that all
of Israel was to come in the time
of Josiah and Jehoiakim.
So this is the ninth month and it's
a special called fast day.
I don't know how it could have lasted
two days, it could have lasted a week.
And the reason they're coming now is because
intelligence had brought reports that the Chaldeans were
on the march already, and the word is
that they were coming to overrun Judah and
they're going to destroy Jerusalem and the temple.
This was the goal, they're going to deal
with the Israelites completely.
Now, the warnings are getting a little closer
to home now.
There are signs that the prophet Jeremiah may
be right after all.
And so they flock to Jerusalem now.
Now, this word was given in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim.
The feast is held the fifth year, so
this word was held in the heart of
Jeremiah for a whole year.
And he released it at the time of
the fast.
Now, this was going to be proved to
be a fatal fast.
Now, I know that there's always a holy
remnant, that God has always had a holy
remnant.
No matter how dark a society has become
or how wicked, even the dark ages, God
had his holy remnant.
And I know there were holy remnant people
that came from all over Judah.
And they were hoping that what would happen
at this fast would be the same thing
that happened in the history of Israel when
Ezra and Nehemiah came to rebuild Jerusalem.
There was a hope and a cry that
they would repent at the hearing of the
word of God as they did.
As they trembled when Ezra read the word
of God, they stood for hours listening to
the word and began to tremble and shake
at the word, and they repented and they
changed.
They came under the authority and dominion and
government of the scripture.
And this is the hope, I'm sure, of
many that came to Jerusalem at the time.
And in the middle of this fast, with
no announcement, Baruch, and everyone knew he was
connected to the prophet Jeremiah, and he takes
a prominent place in the temple, and he
begins to thunder out the message of judgment,
a distillation of 27 years of warnings, word
for word, everything that Jeremiah had said, God
said, one last time, repeat it, give it
to them, let them know what is coming.
He stands before that host.
Now, folks, there are three kinds of hearers
represented in this episode, in the 36th chapter
of Jeremiah.
There are three kinds of hearers.
There's the passive hearer, the perturbed hearer, and
the penknife hearer, that we're going to see
and talk about here in the next few
moments.
This whole multitude listens, sitting there.
And the Bible makes it very clear that
they had become passive.
Passive.
Now, I want to tell you something.
Prosperity is a narcotic.
Prosperity can numb your soul and your mind.
Prosperity can make you think it will never
end.
Prosperity will shut your ears and your eyes
and harden your heart to the gospel and
the warnings of the prophets.
Folks, I'm not a prophet.
I know I'm not a prophet because a
lot of things I've said didn't happen.
I know I'm not a prophet.
Because there are times I've spoken out of
my own heart and my own fear.
But I know what I'm speaking as a
watchman.
I know what I'm speaking according to his
heart and his mind.
Here comes the final warning in the ninth
month.
Now, please, get this picture in your mind,
if you will.
These people that heard these warnings for 27
years, they can tell you everything that Jeremiah
had been preaching.
They can tell you the Chaldeans are coming.
They're going to take over the city.
We are going to be taken captives.
We'll be there 70 years.
We will return.
God will have a remnant that will return
and rebuild the walls.
And God will return to his people.
They could just spill it out and mouth
it out to you.
They knew it all.
Judgment had been set.
It couldn't be avoided.
Year after year, there was no judgment.
It was prosperity.
And the more they sinned, the more they
seemed to prosper.
And I wonder what kind of mockery Jeremiah
must have endured.
Where is it, Jeremiah?
You say that hard times are coming and
there are no hard times.
We've got prosperity on all sides.
And I wonder if Jeremiah ever questioned.
I know how I've questioned what I've heard.
I have been talking about a coming depression
to the United States and the whole world.
And instead, I see nothing but a stock
market going higher and higher.
I see a booming economy.
I see the lowest unemployment in history of
this nation.
We have a judge that has just ruled
against Microsoft.
And that should send the stock market crazy
tomorrow.
But one of the analysts yesterday in the
newspaper said, and it's very clear he said,
there's an apathy now that nothing seems to
shake anybody.
He said it probably won't even move the
market.
It may even go higher because there's a
total apathy and a complacency.
People don't believe there can be anything go
wrong.
Amazing.
But now in the midst of these good
times, these intelligence reports that an army is
already on the way, the Chaldeans are on
the march.
And here are the three classifications of people.
The passive here, the turbed here, and the
penknife here.
And all three kinds of these here's are
in the church here this morning.
Yeah, and even in the annex.
Sitting in the, that doesn't mean you're getting
away with anything over there.
All the annexes, wherever you're watching on the
jumbotrons.
Let's talk about these three kinds of here's.
Then read Baruch, the words of Jeremiah in
the house of the Lord, in the ears
of all the people, all the people.
This is the whole congregation.
Folks, we've got conferences being held all over
the United States and around the world.
Conferences, fast, solemn assemblies.
But folks, I want to tell you, it
can become an absolute stench in God's nostrils.
If people go to meetings and conferences and
big meetings, if they don't go there with
the heart set on hearing the Word of
God, submitting to the Word of God, and
changing by the Word of God.
If they're going for excitement, they're going to
just see something unusual.
If they've got itching ears to hear something
new, folks, it's damnable.
It can destroy the soul.
But if there's a desire, and folks, here's
a conference called, here's a fast, a national
fast called, I don't know who called it.
There's no evidence in the Word who called
it.
God somehow called it together.
Jeremiah knew it was coming and the Word
was prepared for this people.
We know that they rejected this Word.
They become so passive.
It just went in one ear and out
the other.
Because in chapter 37 we read, But neither
he, the king, nor his servants, nor the
people of the land, those who had come
to the fast, did hearken unto the words
of the Lord which he spake by the
prophet Jeremiah.
Passive.
Folks, let me tell you something.
I am absolutely dumbfounded by the passivity I
have seen even in this church in the
11, 12 years that we've been here since
this church was founded.
I am absolutely dumbfounded by the passivity of
some Christians.
You know what passivity means?
To receive a word or an action without
responding or initiating a response in return.
It is not responding to the Word of
God in your everyday life.
And it's amazing that we can stand in
a pulpit, and this dumbfounds me.
This is one thing I will never ever
understand as long as I live.
As long as I preach the gospel.
This is one thing that has bothered me
and troubled me.
I have no answer.
That when we stand in a pulpit, and
we warn lovingly and with broken hearts, Get
into the work.
Get into the book.
Study it.
Daily dig into it.
Because everything is going to be shaken.
A flood is coming.
And you're going to need this so that
you're not tossed and turned by every wind
and wave of doctrine and finally be deceived
by the Antichrist.
The spirit of the Antichrist is already here,
the Bible says.
The deception starts now.
Not after rapture or whatever you believe about
the coming of the Lord.
Now!
The spirit of the Antichrist is at work.
And many Christians are being deceived and many
Christians, I'm telling you now, are now dabbling
into the Antichrist spirit.
Because they are not into this book.
They are running around and hearing and seeing
things that are unscriptural and calling it the
Holy Ghost.
There is such foolishness in the house of
God today.
Such entertainment that comes from the dredges of
hell itself.
And people sit there saying, it's marvelous, it's
wonderful.
You ought to come and see and hear.
And when you come and see and hear,
you want to vomit.
You say, how can anybody be blind?
And we stand in the pulpit, we get
into the book, a flood is coming.
You're going to be under overwhelming.
You're going to be in the midst of
a nation that's going to be judged.
And you're going to have to know where
to go.
You're going to have to know how to
pray.
You're going to have to know the Word.
And in spite of that, pleading, begging, and
in my part, even screaming.
Well, Carter too.
Seriously.
In spite of all that, some of you
didn't even open the book last week.
Some of you haven't opened it in a
month.
And all you live on is the preaching
of the gospel.
And that's not going to keep you.
That's not going to do it.
People send me videotapes.
I told you they send me videotapes from
evangelists and prosperity preachers.
And I look at those masses of people
under seduction.
And I said, God, how does that happen?
Because I listen to what the man says.
One tape recently, one of the well-known
evangelists says, I curse any man who stands
against me in my ministry.
The Bible knows, the Bible says, if you
curse a man, curse anyone, the curse comes
back on you.
And I'm saying, don't those people know their
Bibles?
And then I see this unbelievable stuff that's
going on.
And people are clapping and yelling.
And I have to come to the conclusion
that if they were just cursory readings, if
they just were reading a little bit of
this book, they would know.
They would have discernment.
They would understand.
Folks, get into this book, lest you be
deceived by the winds and waves of false
doctrines and false prophets and false preachers that
are abounding in the land today.
Get into the book.
Daily read it and say, oh God, discipline
me in the reading of the Word.
Let me be governed by the Scripture.
If you think that when the day of
judgment comes, when hard times really come, then
you'll be driven to the book, don't believe
it.
These people, these people were on the brink.
They knew the Chaldeans were at the door
and they were passive.
No, no, no, the Bible says that when
the final judgment is coming and even when
God is sending fire from heaven, the Bible
says they'll stand on the mountains and curse
God.
They'll curse Him.
They won't turn to the Scriptures.
If you're not reading your Bible now, if
you're not into the Word of God, I
don't care what judgment comes on this nation,
you'll just harden your heart.
You will not turn to this book.
You'll never do it.
Oh my.
I know that there's a sensory overload in
America today.
Yesterday, our minds satiated with terrible, awful reports
of planes falling from the sky and mass
murders in our schools and atrocities and wars
all over the world pictured on television.
And now all the daily news about everything
we eat now is going to kill us.
I mean, every day there's some new thing.
Just when I start learning to eat some
vegetable, they tell me it's going to cause
cancer.
It's a sensory overload.
But I want to tell you something.
You can't blame a sensory overload for passivity.
Because if you're not into this book, you're
going to turn to false doctrine.
You're going to get itching ears and you'll
run after the spectacular and the sensational.
The perturbed here, number two.
To be perturbed means to be greatly disturbed
and upset, made uneasy.
At that meeting, there was a scribe by
the name of Micaiah, and he was from
the king's court.
And he belonged to an inner council, the
secretary of state and other scribes and officials
at the king's court.
And he's standing at the perimeter, evidently, and
he sees these people listening.
And here's Baruch standing there crying out this
message.
And this scribe, Micaiah, begins to tremble.
His knees begin, and the Bible says, the
word in Hebrew is shudder.
They shuddered.
And this man began to shudder.
Because, you see, he knows the intelligence of
what's coming.
He's been part of these intelligence reports that
people don't even know.
Most of the material they're probably hiding from
the general populace.
And so he knows.
And he knows that this man has heard
from God because he's saying things that nobody
else could know.
Not even many of the intelligence corps.
And so he begins to tremble.
So he goes to the secretary of state.
And he goes to a group of leaders,
could have been the king's cabinet.
And the names are all there.
And they invite, this scribe, Micaiah, goes back.
And he said, gentlemen, I've heard some disturbing
news.
I have heard from this prophet Jeremiah what
God's about to do.
That we are not going to be able
to stand up against the Chaldeans.
That they're literally going to come in here.
Now, he's warned us all these years that
they were coming, and now they're coming.
This man has been telling the truth.
And he said, we have got to listen.
We've got to get a hold of this
word.
We can't ignore this.
And so they invite him to a private
secret meeting.
The scripture says, so Baruch took the roll
in his hand of the book and came
to them.
They said to him, sit down now and
read in our hearing all that Jeremiah said.
So Baruch read it in their ears.
And it came to pass when they heard
all the words that they were afraid, both
one and another.
And the word here in Hebrew is, they
shuddered.
They trembled at the word of God.
They were perturbed.
Here's a whole multitude sitting there passive.
And here in leadership are a handful that
are shaking and trembling at the word of
the living God.
Folks, I want to tell you something.
In spite of the fact that Washington, D
.C. has become a cesspool of iniquity, I
can assure you that as sure as God
had his men in the royal palace, God
has his secret men in high places right
now in Washington, D.C. in our government,
who tremble at the word of God.
There are prayer meetings going on.
I just got word last week of some
prayer meetings, a number of senators.
Some who've been just a little backward about.
Now there are prayer meetings, fervently crying out
to God.
Men who believe that America is on the
brink of judgment.
God has his men.
And he always will.
Glory be to God.
I got a letter last week from a
pastor who just came back from the Ukraine.
I don't know if you know it or
not, but after, you know, just seven years
ago, in fact, even five years ago, if
you passed out a track or gave out
a Bible in Ukraine, you'd get five to
seven years in jail.
But the leader of Ukraine right now is
a man who fears the word of God.
And he's opened up the whole nation to
the gospel now.
He's giving land to build churches.
And we need to pray for Ukraine because
there's an election coming and the communists are
trying to move back in again.
We need to pray.
But thank God there's a man there and
the word of God.
God is blessing Ukraine in a way that
Russia can never experience because this man has
begun to subject himself to the Scripture, to
the living word of God.
Right now, God's word is being preached in
the Ukraine under great anointing.
Hallelujah.
Let me tell you how this word affects
me.
I tremble at this book.
The last month or so, I've been reading
what the prophets say about prophets, about watchmen,
about shepherds.
And it makes me tremble because of God's
wrath against men who speak their own mind
and borrow messages from one another and say,
Thus saith the Lord when God hasn't said
a word.
And I tremble at that lest I ever
say anything, anything contrary to His word or
out of my own heart.
It's caused me to tremble and examine everything
that I say now.
That's called coming under the government of the
gospel, under the government of the living word
of God.
The perturbed hearer, thank God for those that
hear the word and tremble.
I have seen that in this house.
I've seen it when every pastor in this
church has been to this pope and preached
and suddenly the word comes forth like a
hammer, a two-edged sword and I can
see people, their mouth drops and they can't
wait for the invitation.
I mean, the pale, pale mouth, right down
the altar and cry out to God, Oh
God, change me.
The word of God has convicted them.
Does it still convict you?
Are you still perturbed by the word of
God?
My grandpa told me when I was a
young preacher, he said, David, make them mad
or glad, but nothing in between.
And the word will make you glad, but
it'll make you mad too.
It'll make it sound like the preacher's been
sitting down talking to somebody who knows you
real well.
Finally, I want to talk about the penknife
here.
The perturbed men said, we must tell the
king all the words.
King Jehoiakim is at his winter palace and
he's sitting before a fire with his staff.
And these men come to the king and
said, we are really disturbed.
We are bothered and we tremble because we
have heard what Jeremiah is saying and King,
in essence, he was saying, you know that
the Chaldeans have warned us, our intelligence reports,
and you know what's about to happen to
this land.
And we beg you to listen to what
this book says.
It's all written there and it's in the
scribe's quarters.
He sends Jehudai into the scribe's quarter and
he brings the book and Jehudai begins to
read to the king.
And it came to pass that when Jehudai
had read three or four leaves of the
book, he, Jehoiakim meaning, Jehoiakim, he cut it
with a penknife and cast it into the
fire until it was consumed.
Yet they were not afraid, nor did they
rent their garments, neither the king nor his
servants who had heard all the words, all
the words, they had heard it all.
He took his penknife and as soon as
he read three or four leaves, he would
hand it to the king.
He'd reach out and take it and he'd
just take his penknife and start cutting it
up and throwing the pieces in the fire.
Beloved, listen.
Bible says, those who shuddered, those who were
perturbed by this word made intercession to the
king that he would not burn the roll
but he would not listen to them, he
would not hear them.
Listen to me.
You know what's happening in this nation.
We've got judges now, we've got atheists, we've
got politicians that are ungodly, are trying to
ban this book.
They're trying to get it out of our
society.
They've got their penknives out and they're trying
to cut and destroy and consume and burn
and get rid of this book and get
it out of the American system completely.
They tried it in China.
You know what's happening in China now.
Millions of Bibles are being printed right in
China now.
There is an ocean, there's a flood of
Bibles going all over China now.
You can't ban this book.
Jeremiah, Baruch goes and tells Jeremiah, Jeremiah said,
get your pen.
And the Bible says, I get so blessed,
the scripture says, Thus saith the Lord of,
here it is, let me read it to
you.
Then took Jeremiah another roll and gave it
to Baruch the scribe and wrote therein from
the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of
the book which Jehoiachin had burned in the
fire and there were added besides unto them
many more like words.
Word came back more powerful than it ever
was.
Albania, just a few years ago, they said
that they had outlawed and they had rid
the country of Christianity and that they had
rid the nation of Bibles.
Today, churches are springing up everywhere.
The Word's coming back more powerful than ever
and thousands upon thousands of Bibles are being
distributed now in Albania.
And you watch what happens.
God's gonna throw the whole government out and
bring somebody in that's a believer.
Glory be to God.
You can't ban the book, you can't kill
it.
But in closing, let me come down now,
zero in to these penknife hearers that are
in the house of God.
Because God's concern is not what's happening out
here among the wicked trying to ban His
book.
God laughs at that.
What a puny effort that proves to be.
But God is brokenhearted about the penknife hearers
in His Word.
Now, who are these penknife hearers that cut
the Word?
To understand that, you have to go back
and study the life of Jehoiachin, the first
knife cutter of the Word of God.
You see, he's the son of a godly
man.
Jehoiachin probably went with his father on his
tours when he tore down idol temples.
He was there when he smashed all of
the idolatry.
He sat through over 30 years of revival.
He heard the Word of God as no
other young man had ever heard.
He heard it from Jeremiah.
He heard it from other prophets that God
had raised up.
He had every opportunity, but somewhere along the
line, he had his own ideas of who
God was.
He had something in his heart.
He would not let go of the spirit
of this world.
And folks, this speaks of the new generation
that's rising up right now.
Sons and daughters of godly Josiahs.
Sons and daughters of pastors.
Sons and daughters of another age where God
moved in such power.
Another age that respected and loved and were
under the government of the Word of God.
And we have a generation now.
I thank God for the godly young pastors
that come.
But folks, there is a whole army of
young ministers that are being raised up now
that never did let go, somewhere along the
line, even though they came from godly homes,
even preacher's homes.
Godly homes, men like Josiah.
Godly.
Yet, they became addicted to the music of
the age.
They became addicted to the permissive lifestyle of
the age.
They started drinking when they were younger.
And now they're coming and they're bringing into
the house of God this compromised, knife-cutting
gospel.
I got a call this past week from
a friend of mine, a pastor.
And he's heartbroken because his son, his young
son, is drinking.
And he's getting in deep trouble.
And he said, you know what bothers me?
A youth pastor of another church took my
son aside and said, the youth pastor drank,
and he said, drinking is, there's no indictment
in the Bible against drinking.
This is a new age of freedom without
guilt.
No problem, drink.
The youth pastor introduced him to drink.
And there's a whole generation now of those
who just take their knives, and this is
contrary to my music style.
This is contrary to what I believe.
It doesn't matter what the book says, but
this is what I see.
This is how God is.
Away with guilt, away with all fear.
Let's just believe that God is love.
Everything is fine, do as you please.
Jehoiakim is the king of God's people.
This represents the church of the time.
I know young pastors who stood in my
face and mocked and laughed at the hymns
of the church.
My son, one of my preacher's sons got
a call this past week.
He called me Friday.
He said, Dad, I just got a call
from a young evangelist, and he named him.
He said to my son, Is your dad
just kind of drifted away and gotten out
of touch with humanity and what's happening to
the young people?
He said, I got a feeling your dad
is out there somewhere.
And my son said, yeah, he's out there
somewhere.
And my dad just doesn't like all the
garbage that you guys are bringing into the
church.
And the sad thing is, this is a
young man that I thought, because he sat
down and told me once, I want to
know everything God has to say to me.
So I told him.
But now he thinks I'm out of another
planet.
Young people, let me tell you something.
The Bible makes it very, very clear.
You're not to remove the ancient landmark which
your fathers have set.
You do that, and you have nothing to
hold on to.
These landmarks set by our fathers were foundations
deeply embedded in this word of God.
And I fear that we have a whole
generation now that can sit through.
They can't endure doctrine.
They can't endure these things.
So I'm talking about young married couples, the
whole X generation, as they call it.
Now, they invented their own gospel of permissiveness.
And everything has to be contemporary.
It can have nothing to do...
The musicians here, thank God that they...
You'll hear a mixture of hymns, and even
the contemporaries that were asking God to bring
it in line with Scripture.
Everything of it is contemporary.
I don't care what you call it.
It has to line up to this book.
And it can't be flesh, it has to
be spirit.
Young people, I have to say, because this
tape goes out in video and audio all
over the world, my heart just breaks when
I see young ministers and young people just
take their knife, their own feelings, their own
concept, totally isolated from this book.
And preaching out of their own heart and
doing what they please because they can pick
and choose what they want.
They won't take the whole book, but just
pick and choose.
That means you've got a knife in your
hand and you're a pen knife here of
the Word of God.
When I stand before the judgment, with this
I close, I want to know that I
have preached the whole counsel of God.
Will you stand?
No clapping, please.
Please, just stand.
Hallelujah.
He is Lord.
He is risen from the dead.
And He is Lord.
Musicians are coming.
Will you sing that with me?
He is Lord.
Start at acapella if you will.
He is Lord.
The Bible says how should we escape if
we neglect, neglect so great a salvation.
This is our salvation.
And how will you escape?
Now I'll tell you what the Holy Ghost
told me.
And this is going to be one of
the boldest invitations I've ever made in this
church.
But I'm going to do it.
I don't care if one or a thousand
come.
Well, I do care, but it's not, it's
not meant to increase the numbers that come.
But the Lord has made it clear that
if you have neglected the study of this
book, if you have not been into this
book in the last 10 days, you have
neglected it.
If you have not been in this book
for two weeks or a month, God help
you.
And I'm telling you, if you haven't been
into it for the last 10 days, you
need to repent.
I believe everyone hearing me, up in the
balcony, the main floor, behind me, in all
of the overflow rooms, wherever you may be,
if you have neglected this book, you're on
a downward spiral and you're not going to
make it.
It's that strong.
And as I said, I get dumbfounded when
people can hear me say that, and just
passively.
I don't know.
And it doesn't register.
If I were standing where you're at and
I had to admit I have neglected this
book, I would begin to tremble.
I would begin to tremble.
I'm going to open these altars.
And this is a repentance meeting now.
For those who are willing to take, take
it out before the Lord in all honesty
and say, Lord, that's me.
I have neglected your word.
I confess it before heaven.
I confess it before this people.
I know.
And you've got to put yourself on the
spot.
You've got to put yourself out on a
limb now and say, God, I'm not going
to go like this.
I've been warned before.
I've been told about it.
I've tried to preach it in love.
I've done everything.
I know how.
And I'm telling you, folks, we're going to
have to repent.
And you're going to have to make a
commitment.
I want those up in the balcony.
And here in the main floor, you come
to the front right now.
And just write out, Lord, I have neglected
this book.
Now, folks, if you just open it up
and you read a verse, that's not what
I'm talking about.
I'm talking about getting into this book.
Until you say, Jesus, I want to know
everything that you ask of me.
I want to bring my life into conformity
to this book.
I want to know how to stand.
I want to know how I get faith.
I want to know Jesus in more intimate
ways.
God, forgive me for neglecting your word.
And in the annex, just go to the
front.
Don't block the screen.
Go between the screens.
And I'm asking you to do that because
you need to put yourself on the spot.
I know that's a bold call, and I
know that some of you may feel embarrassed
about that, but I wouldn't feel embarrassed.
I'd rather be embarrassed here than before the
throne.
We'll sing it again.
Now, wait for it, because I'm going to
pray that God, for everyone that's coming, God
will do something special.
I know there are just many of you
a little hesitant about stepping out, but I'm
going to pray for you also.
In just a moment, we're going to ask
God to change things here in our lives.
Sing it once more.
Now, let me say this to you before
I pray.
If you're standing here, listening to me, and
you know in your heart, in all honesty,
you have neglected this book.
You know that.
And if you can stand here just passively,
and not, while I'm talking, making up your
mind in your heart before God, Lord Jesus,
forgive me.
Maybe you didn't step out, but there has
to be something in your heart.
Otherwise, you're just passive, and you'll be that
way until Jesus comes, and you'll stand before
Him passive.
Not reciprocating, not initiating any kind of action
to try to change things, to conform to
the Word of God.
And if you can't respond to a loving
call, you that are visiting, what do I
get out of this by pressing this issue?
I'm not asking you for any money.
I'm not asking anything of you.
But I know that if we can get
you into the Word, if we can get
you established in this, you'll never be seduced
by the false foolishness that's going on in
this world today and in the church.
We know that you'll stand strong until Jesus
comes, and you'll grow in grace and the
power and the anointing of the Holy Ghost.
Now, for you that have come forward in
the annex and here, I want to pray
for you right now.
But first, I'm going to ask you to
pray.
I want you to pray this prayer with
me right out loud.
Jesus, I've come forward to acknowledge to you
and before the whole world, I speak the
truth, I need to repent, and I do
repent for neglecting the Word of God.
O Lord Jesus, implant the Spirit of God
in me and woo me to the Word
and remind me every morning I wake up
to go to the Word to get my
life and strength.
For this is my lamp and this is
my light.
Lord, I want to hide your Word in
my heart that I'll not sin against you.
This is my protection and I come to
the Word of the living God.
From this day on, help me, Father, because
I truly repent, but I'll neglect it again
if you don't remind me.
Now, I'm going to pray for you that
the Holy Ghost reminds you.
Now, if you're here and you don't know
Jesus, if you're backslidden or you're not right
with God, you can be right in your
seat where you're at.
You can return to Jesus right now without
making a move, accepting Him by faith.
Right now, as I pray for this congregation,
all you have to do is whisper a
prayer to Him.
Say, Jesus, forgive me.
I'm sorry.
I know you love me and I know
that you will judge sin, but I come
to your love now because the Lord says
that I may forgive you and restore you.
You pray that while I'm praying for the
others and all of you that are listening
to me now who have neglected the Word
of God, where you stand, ask the Holy
Spirit to forgive you.
Ask the Lord to forgive you right now.
Let there be true repentance and come to
the Word of the living God.
Now, when I say come to the Word,
I'm not talking about just coming to Bible
school or a Friday night meeting when the
pastor is teaching and you just open the
book and get...
I'm talking about in your home, alone.
That's what I'm talking about.
That's where the neglect is because most of
you bring your Bibles to church.
You've got it under your arm.
You have it in your heart.
That's the important thing.
Father, in Jesus' name, I ask you to
touch every heart in this place that's backslidden,
every one, Lord, that's drifted away from you,
every one, O Lord, that has an aching
heart because of the emptiness caused by neglecting
your Word.
It leaves us empty.
It leaves us dry.
It leaves us saying, is this all there
is to it?
O Lord, the joy that you have stored
up for those who will now come to
the Word of God.
O Lord Jesus, bring my life, bring the
life of everyone in this church and all
of our visitors who love you.
Bring us all under the dominion and authority
of the Scripture that our lives may be
ruled by the living Word of God.
Put it in our hearts, Lord.
We freely come here.
We raise our hands.
We praise you.
We say we love the Word, but then
we neglect you.
And you said we can't escape if we
do that.
Now, God, forgive us, cleanse us, save those
who need to be saved, restore those who
are backslidden, and let this be a day
of victory.
Hallelujah, because God has heard our cry.
We've heard your heart.
In Jesus' name, I pray.
Amen.
Glory be to God.
Do you have a chorus here for us?
Hallelujah.
Tell you what I'd like you to do.
In the aisles of the Word of God,
don't make your way out.
Just stay right where you're at for a
few moments.
And I want you to bless somebody.
When you say, you take somebody's hand and
say, God bless you.
Do you mean it?
I'm not mean when somebody sneezes and says,
God bless you.
I mean a God bless you from the
heart.
A loving God bless you to at least
10 people around you, male or female.
God bless you.
Amen.
Right now, wherever you're at, God bless and
keep you by His grace and His mercy.