And then there was a second start, when
after the sin of of Noah and the
others, that God cleansed the earth by a
flood.
And then we have the third start, when
he called this wonderful man Abraham.
The outstanding figure, I believe, in the Old
Testament, if not one of the most towering
figures in all history.
Again, I remind you that he's revered by
Jews and Mohammedans and Gentiles.
That's more than you can say for Moses
even.
The Jews, I noticed just the other day,
when some men and women, I think 60
of them, were rescued in a sinking ship
somewhere in the Philippines.
And they were taking on board an Israel
ship of some kind, merchant ship.
Other ships had passed them, a Japanese ship,
I think a Norwegian ship, and others.
And the Israeli boat picked them up and
signaled to Israel and asked what they should
do.
And the new president there said, bring them
here.
We open our doors as our father Abraham
told us.
I thought that was rather interesting in the
midst of all the news, our father Abraham.
And they still revere him and rightly they
should.
You know, we get so used to reading
things, I think very often we're in danger
of reading the word of God like we
read a newspaper or a magazine.
Just read it, that's it, now let's go
milk the cow or a goat, and let's
go do something else, you know.
The word needs to infiltrate our minds and
our spirits.
Again, as the psalmist says, thy word have
I hid in my heart.
It's not enough even in my mind.
As I say, it has to get into
my bloodstream if it's going to build me
up in my most holy faith.
And faith isn't something very mysterious.
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the
word of God.
And the more you know the word of
God, the stronger your faith is.
If you don't put gasoline in your car,
you'll run out.
If you don't put food in your body,
your body will weaken.
If you don't strengthen your spirit with the
word of God, you'll become spiritually sick.
I believe there are spiritual accidents just like
there are physical accidents.
And people who have spiritual accidents don't recover
very quickly, they recover very slowly.
And so the great antidote against the things
that would assail us, the chief to me,
is again reading, believing and obeying the word
of God.
Now we reminded ourselves about this 12th chapter
in Genesis last week.
After these things, the word of the Lord
came unto Abraham in a vision.
This is again the second time.
Remember God came to him in Ur of
the Chaldees.
Again, how dramatic was it?
Well I'll tell you what to do.
Try it out on your wife or your
husband.
Just walk in the house this week and
say, sweetie, sell every stick of furniture, pots,
dishes, wedding gifts, we're going.
Going?
Where are we going?
Well never mind, we're going.
Obey your husband, we're going.
Is it very far?
I don't know.
Is it a good climate?
I don't know.
Who lives there?
I don't know.
What kind of vegetation?
I don't know.
Is it a good country?
I don't know.
What do you know?
I don't know.
You see, we read it as though he
had a highway map, as though he reserved
holiday inns every 500 miles on the trip,
as though he had a blacktop road or
plenty of food.
Now it says that, and this again is
staggering to me, that he went out, and
it says in Hebrews, not knowing whether he
went.
But immediately following that, it says this, he
could have returned if he wanted.
Now he not only went out, he stayed
out.
And God doesn't paint a very rosy picture
for him and his ultimate inheritance.
You see, God says he's going to run
into some difficult situations.
Blackness, opposition of the enemy.
Now what did the man have to hang
on to?
In this twelfth chapters, I've just read it,
after these things, after what things?
Well here, there had been a battle with
this famous king.
I don't know why he has such a
clumsy name, it's longer and worse than mine,
Cheodle Homer.
Glad that's not my name.
But he battled along with the other kings
in the north.
And you remember that Abraham took his servants.
Now it says there in that 14th verse
of the 14th chapter, the servants of his
own house, they were 318.
Now let's get this clear.
It says in the 51st chapter of Isaiah,
and somewhere about verse 2, I called Abraham
alone.
Well then that's all it means.
Now it can mean to me, at least
one of things, I called Abraham alone.
Well it could mean I called him alone
and nobody else with him.
It would mean his wife, because the two
were one flesh.
But I called him alone, nobody else.
Or, I called Abraham alone, I didn't call
the bunch that are coming with him.
Now it says here that he had what?
He had in his own house 318 servants.
And he got them all together to go
after his son, or his son-in-law,
or his brother-in-law, whoever in the
world he was.
There's so many versions of this.
But it was his brother's son that he
went after.
Now notice with you that this man came
out of Ur of the Chaldees, he came
with his father, they came to a place
called Haran.
And the father refused to budge there.
Because you see the next obstacle in their
way was the river Euphrates.
And once they crossed the Euphrates, there wasn't
even a toll bridge.
There was no bridge.
They had to ferry it.
There were hazards in crossing that tremendous river.
One of them, you remember, that came out
of the Garden of Eden.
And they were leaving behind them.
This is, this is a, this is a
disaster to everybody else but Abraham.
Again I can't tell you how he heard
that voice.
I reminded you in the 7th chapter of
the Acts of the Apostles, where Stephen is
giving a defense just before they stone him.
And he gives a marvelous recitation, the history
of Israel.
And he's talking to those men who said,
we have Abraham to our fathers.
They said to Jesus, why, why?
You're not as old as Abraham?
And Jesus, you remember, said, well, do you
know God is able to make children out
of those very rocks on which you're standing,
as children unto Abraham?
That's no difficulty.
But you see, as I say, he gave
them a real thrust, he hit them where
it hurt.
He said, the God of glory appeared unto
our father Abraham.
I'm convinced, disagree if you like, that I'm
convinced the reason the God of glory doesn't
reveal himself to you and to me, we're
too much in a hurry.
We don't have time to wait, we don't
have time to ponder.
This man is called of God.
He's in one of the greatest cities in
the world, in Ur of the Chaldees, on
the Persian Gulf.
The great merchant ships came round from India,
they bought their treasures, they came with their
goodly pearls, they came with their marvelous garments.
How do you think God spoke to Abraham?
Do you think it was some dazzling revelation
like John had on the Isle of Patmos?
Do you think it was like that revelation
that I noticed there in Ezekiel 31, where
there was a rainbow thrown, or like the
revelation given in the 24th chapter of Genesis,
where God is sitting in his majesty, where
there's a sea of emerald round about him,
where the man is lost for language to
describe the majesty and the glory of God.
Did God appear to him like that, or
do you think God just made him sick
one day?
Now the word of the Lord came unto
this man.
How?
As I've read Jewish scripture here, he's just
come back from a battle.
Previous to that, there had been the collapse
of the Tower of Babel.
God had promised that he would bless the
world through Noah, but they built a tower.
They were going to do it their own
way, they were going to have their own
United Nations.
They built this tremendous, the first skyscraper ever
made.
And they thought they were secure and safe,
and the thing collapses.
Now the immediate history of Abraham is disaster.
The Tower of Babel, they've all been put
to confusion.
The flood has covered the earth.
Remember, this man has no fellowship of the
saints, such a thing doesn't exist.
He can't take the Bible, there wasn't one.
He can't read the Ten Commandments, there weren't
any.
He can't talk to the patriarchs, they weren't
yet born.
He can't say, my, I'd just like to
have a word with Moses.
Moses didn't even exist.
The law was not given until 340 years
after Abraham, this day of Abraham.
But I, I, I meditated on this, and
I may be wrong, but I, as a
deacon once said to me, and they're, they're
terrible people.
A deacon once said to me, I may
be wrong, but I'm sure I'm right.
And, uh, I, I feel I got a
clue here.
God is going to say to this man
a little later, in the 17th chapter and
verse 1, when Abraham was 90 years old,
99, the Lord appeared unto Abraham, this is
a second appearance, and he said unto him,
I am the Almighty God, walk before me
and be thou perfect.
Now what in the world did Abraham have
to hang on to?
Again, he's no Bible.
He can't tread in the footsteps of the
saints.
There's the Tower of Babel gone down, there's
the battle with the kings.
He's had quite a heartbreak.
You see, it's a very interesting study, isn't
it, that Abraham brought with him his old
father.
Well you need older men, they've so much
wisdom.
And then he brought a young man with
him by the name of Lot.
Now I know what kind of a lot
he was, a good lot or a bad
lot, I think he wasn't much of a
lot anyhow.
And if he didn't say in the book
of Jude, which is an epitome of the
whole Bible, if he didn't say in the
book of Jude that the conditions in Sodom
and Gomorrah vexed his righteous soul every day,
I would have thought his light went out.
You see, actually the study of Abraham and
Lot is a study, a tale of two
cities, if you want to quote Charles Dickens,
a tale of two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah,
a study in two latitudes, Lot and Abraham.
Again, the argument that Abraham became rich because
he obeyed God doesn't hold water in my
judgment.
For the simple reason he had over 350
students, uh 350 students, 350 servants that were
raised in his own house.
But one man, he lost control.
The world got on top of him, instead
of him sitting on top of the world.
You see, he pitched his tent towards Sodom.
Ah, it's the old story, isn't it?
The woman saw the fruit, and then she
took the fruit, and then she ate the
fruit.
It's the old story, the lust of the
eye, and the lust of the flesh, and
the pride of life.
And this young man moves toward Sodom.
And not only moves toward Sodom, he became
the most successful man there.
The word of God says he sat in
the gate, and sitting in the gate meant
two things.
One, he was a judge, and second, he
was the mayor of the city.
And he got lost in the materialism.
Now it didn't cost him very much, don't
get me wrong.
Didn't cost him very much to become a
superman, a multi-millionaire, and a, and a
socialite.
It didn't cost him much, only his family.
But in God's name, if you lose your
family, what have you left?
He lost his family.
His daughters married Sodomites.
And he's going up, and up, and up.
You see, he began away there in Earl
of the Chaldees.
He was nameless, homeless, wifeless, childless, moneyless, positionless,
possessionless.
An old bald-headed man came in a
prayer meeting we were holding one morning in
a town called Eccles.
We'd locked the gate outside of our, our
big old tent, but I don't know to
this day how that man got in, unless
the Lord transported him.
But he came in the tent, and he
knelt in the sawdust, and he prayed with
us.
And at the end, he began to talk,
gave us some words of counsel.
It was 1937, the year I met my
dear wife.
And he said this, remember this, gentlemen, I'm
82, or 84 years of age, I forget
which is over 80.
And he said, remember this, if Satan can't
keep you on the bottom rung of the
ladder, he'll help you get to the top,
and he'll push you over.
Now he was talking to preachers.
It's a very good word of advice really.
You see, I say this man began in
Ur of the Chaldees.
Homeless, wifeless, childless, moneyless, positionless, possessionless.
He got on the giddy ladder, and he
went up, and up, and up, until everybody
coveted him.
They saw his nameplate on the door, his
name in the newspapers, if you like.
Everybody spoke of him as the most successful
man around.
And then he starts going down.
Blessed is the man what?
Well, who trusteth in the Lord.
But you see, he began to trust in
other things, and his ears got very heavy
to the voice of God.
And I remind you again, when God was
going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he didn't
send a message, he didn't send the angel
to the, to the president of the city,
or the mayor of the city.
He gave the message to the man in
the prayer meeting up there on the hill.
The man who I figure never put his
feet in Sodom and Gomorrah.
And he says, I'm going to utterly destroy
this people.
And the man who prayed for Sodom and
Gomorrah, this man's prayer life was nil, I
guess.
There's no communication to him.
And so love gets lost in the materialism.
I don't think for a minute that Abraham
was a poor man.
I don't read that he fired all his
380 servants afterwards.
But he had everything under control.
They did not control him.
Situations did not control him.
You see, the greatest possession in the world
isn't a million acres or a billion dollars.
The greatest possession in the world is self
-possession under God.
My personality is under control.
I'm not given to my appetites.
They may pull in some people strong enough,
but when God is in control, then you've
got the answer.
Because you see, he constrains us when we're
too slow, and he restrains us when we're
too fast.
Now, I say I believe that I know
a couple of reasons.
I think that since there'd been so much
damage done to what we might call the
Kingdom of God since the days of Adam,
there were some outstanding lights, you know.
One of the things instilled into my mind
as a little boy in a little church
I attended was a pastor who repeated himself
so often.
I wished he wouldn't, but I'm glad he
did.
You see, you've got to keep hitting a
nail on the same place to fasten it
and make it secure.
And one thing he used to say amongst
others was this, God will always have a
remnant.
He'll always have a remnant.
He's always had a remnant.
Yeah, there's that ugly blotch in the Garden
of Eden, there's that mess at the flood,
there's this disaster in Ur of the Chaldees,
after Ur of the Chaldees, and then this
disaster with the Battle of the Kings and
the mess of Sodom and Gomorrah.
But wait a minute, there were some characters
in the Old Testament further back in those
unrecorded days.
They were unrecorded then, but not now.
And one of them was that marvellous man
by the name of Enoch.
Now read his story, it's in the fifth,
I didn't check it, sixth chapter of Genesis.
But when you read it, you'll discover that
nearly everybody in the chapter lived longer than
he did.
But he's the man who's on record.
And he's on record for what?
He walked with God.
Now God puts this tremendous challenge to Abraham,
he says, walk before me and be thou
perfect.
And listen, in case you argue against it,
there's a man and he walked with God
in the midst of all the crookedness just
immediately before the flood.
Secondly, I like to think that maybe somebody
reminded him, somebody who was, who said Enoch
was my great-grandfather or something like that.
Or again, he may have seen something that
reminded him of the disaster, or maybe it
was the very attitude of the people that
got lost in materialism.
We were down in Baton Rouge, where these
dear friends come from, just a couple of
weeks ago, and two or three weeks ago,
anyhow.
And I said, as we, I went to
a church to preach just one night, that's
all they'd have me.
But anyhow, I went one night, and as
we went, I said, my the buildings, the
buildings, the buildings, everywhere they're building.
Now if you talk about the return of
Christ, and signs in the heavens, and earthquakes,
and diverse situations.
But you know, one of the conditions before
the flood was, they bought, they sold, they
planted, they built it, until the very day
that Noah entered into the ark.
Do you think they're going to legislate in
Washington, that we can't build anymore, or do
this, that, and the other, and sit and
wait for the return?
No, no, no, no.
Men are going to be going for all
their worth, till the very last second before
the judgment of God comes.
They bought, they sold, they planted, they built
it.
And they were going back to the same
old thing in Ur of the Chaldees, and
suddenly something inside of this man revolted.
And as I've said, God is eternally the
same.
And it was as true in those days,
as in the days of Jesus, or today,
that blessed are they who hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
And this man has an inward longing.
Isn't it really folly, what you want to
say about modern man?
A genius, or an idiot?
I get angry, three times at least this
week, they've mentioned this neutron bomb.
They could drop one tomorrow, when there's a
festival, or a carnival here, or in, those
guys with Baton Rouge again, but San Antonio.
Somebody could devilishly drop that bomb, and it
wouldn't do any harm to the houses, would
just liquidate the population.
Isn't that kindness?
Can you think of anything more loving and
gentle than that?
Huh?
Man's technical knowledge is fantastic.
We can liquidate a city of human beings,
and not blast a tile off the roof.
If that isn't devilry in God's name, what
is?
Men have gone mad.
Oh, there's an upsturch, oh sure, sure, sure.
Everybody's mad now.
Mr, Mr Carter's given the bomber away.
They say that's the best gift he's given
yet on a silver platter to Russia.
They're going to breathe much more easily, and
here we are, we're crowded with this technology
of evil.
But I don't find people crowding prayer meetings,
or getting too anxious about these things anyhow.
I say that maybe this man was disturbed
when he looked on the wickedness of the
city, and said, listen, this is, God's going
to have to do something before long over
this wickedness.
It could be that he saw some wreckage.
It could be that, uh, he thought about
this man who had walked with God.
But there's another thing.
Can you think of something God made after
he finished the earth, and finished with creation?
Something he made, that he, he didn't forget
it, but it wasn't needed.
Well, uh, it was a very wonderful thing.
God says to Noah in the, in the
ninth chapter of Genesis and verse 9, behold,
I establish, listen, my covenant with you.
Now God has made a covenant with Abraham.
His covenant with Abraham there in that twelfth
chapter.
The Lord said unto Abraham, get thee out
of thy country, from thy kindred, from thy
father's house, unto a land that I will
show thee.
That's all negative, that's all taking away.
It's a wreckage again, socially, economically, he had
to leave all his land.
Domestically, he had to leave all his relatives.
And it seems God is stripping, stripping, stripping.
And then God turns around and says in
verse 2, and I will make thee a
great nation, I will bless thee, I'll make
thy name great, thou shalt be a blessing,
I will bless them that bless thee, and
curse him that curseth thee.
Somebody should write that in capital letters to
Mr. Sadat, because he's going to lose the
next round anyhow.
And in thee shall all the families of
the earth, you notice that?
He doesn't say the ten tribes of Israel,
and the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah
shall be blessed, he says all the nations
of the earth shall be blessed of thee.
Now that's God's covenant with this man.
Well does God keep his word?
After all, it's all right making covenants, but
very often people make covenants and can't keep
them.
They back down, they back off, they've all
kinds of excuses.
Now, now, now what example does he have?
Can he reach again into history and say,
ah but listen, God once made a covenant.
Say, do you get a thrill every time
you see a rainbow?
There's not much in it, good heavens, you
can fly over it, you can fly underneath
it, you can fly through it.
You can see one every day the sun
shines at Niagara Falls.
I've seen them many times.
Nothing wonderful about it, but I'll tell you
what, there was never a rainbow till God
put it there.
There was no rain, because God had watered
the earth with a dew that went into
the ground.
And now God says, I'll make a covenant
with thee.
God made a covenant.
In verse 11 of chapter 9 he says,
I will establish my covenant.
In verse 12 he says, this is the
token of my covenant.
Do you know he mentions covenant seven times
in this chapter?
And there are seven colors in the rainbow.
It seems as though God is just making
it as strong as he can.
He says, listen, I'm putting my bow in
the heavens.
Now you can blow the earth up, but
you can't blow rainbows up.
You can destroy many things, you cannot destroy
the rainbow.
Dewitt Talmadge was a very, very picturesque preacher.
He preached in that great tabernacle down there
in, uh, down where in, um, hmm, I
forgot the name of it.
We used to live there in, in, in
New York anyhow.
Where did we live Martha?
What, what state?
Part of New York City anyway.
Brooklyn, Brooklyn.
The great Brooklyn tabernacle.
Strangely enough he built the tabernacle and, uh,
got married and the tabernacle burned down.
And he rebuilt it and got married again
because his first wife had died and the
tabernacle burned down.
And he rebuilt it a third time.
His third wife died and the tabernacle fell
down.
I think he gave up on tabernacles and
wives.
But he was a great preacher.
And he said, you know, one day God,
as a sign of his faithfulness, he took
some ribbon and wrapped it around his finger
and said, hey that's the best bow you'll
ever see in your life.
There it is in the heaven.
It's God's permanent record of his faithfulness.
He said, I set my bow in the
clouds, verse 13, and it shall be for
a token for a covenant between me and
the earth.
And it shall come to pass that when
I bring a cloud over the earth, the
bow shall be seen in the cloud.
And listen, I will remember my covenant, never
mind you.
He says, I will remember my covenant, verse
15 of chapter 9 of Genesis.
I will remember my covenant which is between
me and you and every living creature of
all flesh.
And the water shall no more become a
flood to destroy all flesh.
And the bow shall be in the cloud
and I will look upon it that I
may remember the everlasting covenant between God and
every living creature.
And verse 17, and God said unto Noah,
this is the token of the covenant which
I have established.
Now there God says, I have made an
everlasting covenant.
And you know every time you and I
should see, you should thrill and praise God
and say, there it is, there is God's
sign in the heavens.
Now he not only says that there, but
also he says in, um, I've forgotten the
scripture again now, I get mixed up in
them.
But anyhow, it doesn't matter if the prophet
Ezekiel, I guess, in which Ezekiel says that
he saw a throne and he saw above
the throne, he saw one who had a
rainbow upon him.
Now here in the book of the Revelation,
in chapter, uh, chapter 4, pardon me, Revelation
4, let's read from verse 1.
After this I looked and behold a door
was opened in heaven and the first voice
which I heard was as it were of
a trumpet talking with me which said, come
up hither and I will show thee things
which must be hereafter.
And immediately I was in the spirit and
behold, a throne was set in heaven and
one sat on the throne and he that
sat was to look upon like a jasper,
a sardine stone, and there was a rainbow
round about the throne in sight like unto
an emerald.
Now the throne is not only, pardon me,
the rainbow is not only set in the
sky as a permanent memorial, but here it
is, it's around about the throne of God.
Now in the 10th chapter, he says, I
saw another mighty, chapter 10 verse 1, I
saw another mighty angel come down from heaven.
Listen, this is the clothing of an angel,
an angel.
Think how awesome it is.
I saw a mighty angel come down from
heaven clothed with a cloud and a rainbow
upon his head and his face was as
like the sun and his feet as pillars
of fire and verse 3, he cried with
a loud voice as when a lion roared.
Now that's just one of the created beings,
this is not the majesty of God, this
is just an angel.
His face is like the sun in its
strength, his feet are like pillars of fire,
he's clothed with a cloud and he has
a rainbow upon his head.
This is the finale after the battle of
Armageddon.
You know, this, this, this hit me very
forcibly this week.
It may not have the same impact on
you, but it did on me.
You know, men are very neatly divided history
into two sections, what they call secular history
and biblical history.
They don't match in any way at all,
because the whole of secular history is fallible.
There are patches, there are guesses.
Divine history is written by the one who
is the faithful and the true.
Do you know why men reject biblical revelation?
Do you know why they try and work
on the theory of Darwin or something else?
Because if they have to be intellectually honest
and they say they are, you see, what,
what, what prophecy is, prophecy is history written
beforehand.
Isn't it?
Because every prophecy that God has made, that
at least a hundred prophecies have been fulfilled
out of the Old Testament, prophecy is history
written beforehand.
Therefore, if a man is intellectually honest and
he says, I'll accept the book, well, I'll
accept right up to the Old Testament, but
I won't accept the New Testament.
Do you know why he doesn't want to
accept it?
Because if he accepts the Old Testament, to
be intellectually honest, he'd have to accept the
New Testament.
And you know that wonderful rosy day of
optimism they're always talking about just doesn't exist.
You see, that God who put that bow
in the heaven is exactly the same today
as he was before there was ever a
star in the heavens.
Before ever there was a earth to plant
the daisies on, before ever there was a
sun and a moon, God was there in
his majesty.
And when this old earth has been removed
and be dissolved, God will still be there
in his majesty and in his glory.
Now remember again he says, I saw another
mighty angel come down from heaven.
Well if, if you go to the 11th
chapter verse 15, it says the seventh angel
sounded and there were voices from heaven.
But you see, that is the end of
all things.
There's no rainbow there.
There's no rainbow at the 20th chapter of
the book of the Revelation when Jesus sits
with his hair as white as snow and
his feet like burnished brass, and his face
like the sun in its strength.
There is no rainbow there because the rainbow
is a sign of mercy and there is
no mercy left at the 20th chapter of
the Revelation.
He's going to judge the nations with righteousness
and in his holiness.
Now I say this is, this is why
men don't want to accept the biblical revelation.
In the 8th chapter of Revelation, here it
is.
The first angel sounded.
This is, this is coming right down to
the end of the age.
Nobody knows what's going to happen.
Oh yes we do, read the book of
the Revelation.
Every prophecy made has been fulfilled.
The first trumpet sounds, listen what happens after
the first trumpet.
They followed hail, fire mingled with blood.
They were cast upon the earth and a
third part of the trees was burned up
and all grass was burned up.
Verse 8, the second angel sounded.
As it were a great mountain burning with
fire was cast into the sea and the
third part of the sea became blood and
the third part of the creatures which were
in the sea and had life died and
the third part of the ships were destroyed.
Verse 10, and the third angel sounded and
there fell a great star from heaven burning
as it were a lamp, burning as it
were a lamp and it fell upon the
third part of the rivers and the fountains
and the waters and the name of the
star is called Wormwood and the third part
of the waters became Wormwood and many men
died of the waters because they were made
bitter.
Verse 12, the fourth angel sounded, listen and
the third part of the sun was smitten
and a third part of the moon and
a third part of the stars.
So as the third part of them was
darkened and the day shone not for a
third part of it and the night likewise.
Chapter 9 verse 5, verse 1, the fifth
angel sounded.
I saw a star from heaven fall to
the earth and to him was given the
key of the bottomless pit and he opened
the bottomless pit.
Verse 13 of the ninth chapter, the sixth
angel sounded and I heard a voice from
the four horns of the golden altar which
is before God saying to the sixth angel
who had the trumpet, loose the four angels
which abound in the great river Euphrates and
the four angels were loosed which were prepared
for an hour and a day and a
month and a year for to slay the
third part of men and the number of
the army of the horsemen was two hundred
thousand thousand and I heard the number of
them and I saw the horses in the
vision.
Well what does it mean?
Well there you have the finale.
Two hundred million men fighting the final battle
of Armageddon.
It says the great river, the river Euphrates
has dried up.
This is symbolic of the of the kings
of the east coming forth to fight in
a battle of Armageddon.
But you see all the time there, there
has been that.
Now we come to the tenth chapter verse
one, I saw another mighty angel come down
from heaven clothed with a cloud and a
rainbow was upon his head and his face
was as it were the sun.
That's the point I'm trying to make however
clumsy I've been.
The rainbow was there upon his head even
though the stars had fallen, even though the
earth had been pillaged and and raped and
every conceivable evil which is beyond all the
imagination of the Hollywood bunch to conceive, that
even there that sign is there in the
heaven of God's faithfulness.
He put a bow in the heaven and
he said there is no chance of that
bow ever being eliminated.
It's a sign of my mercy.
Isaiah 54 says this.
In the sixth verse of Isaiah 54 it
says the Lord hath called thee as a
woman forsaken.
This is God speaking to the rebellious house
of Judah by the way.
For the Lord hath called thee as a
woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a
wife of thy youth when thou hast refused
saith the Lord.
For a small moment have I forsaken thee
but with great mercies will I gather thee.
Now going back again to the promise that
God made to Abraham, he said in thee
shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed.
You may not like the Jews, I'm not
particularly fond of them myself, but there's a
mysterious covering over them.
You see all the nations of the earth
are going to be blessed through them, not
merely the ten tribes and then the other
two tribes of Judah and of Benjamin, not
just those, but all the nations of the
earth are going to be blessed through the
Jews.
After all, all the great prophets of the
Old Testament were Jews, weren't the apostles Jews?
Wasn't the day of Pentecost launched by Jews?
Doesn't Jesus say to some of them, you're
going to sit one day in the eternal
kingdom and you're going to judge the twelve
tribes of Israel?
Now I'm not trying to establish who are
the Israelites and who are the Jews, that's
not the point.
You know we sing a hymn sometimes, Peron's
great hymn, all hail the power of Jesus'
name, I like that hymn.
But have you noticed in that hymn there's
a subtle thing in there?
Ye chosen seed of Israel's race, ye ransomed
from the fall, hail him who saves you
by his grace and crown him Lord of
all.
Now let's read this 54th chapter here, verse
7 says, For a small moment have I
forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I
gather thee.
In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment, but with everlasting
kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith
the Lord thy Redeemer.
For this is as the waters of Noah
unto me, for as I have sworn that
the waters of Noah should no more go
over the earth, so I have sworn that
I would not be wroth with thee, nor
rebuke thee.
For the mountains shall depart, the hills shall
be removed, but my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my
peace be removed, saith the Lord who hath
mercy on thee.
The covenant of his peace was the rainbow
in the sky.
The Jews ought to take comfort in that
as much as in the fact that of
their father Abraham.
Now God not only made the statement there
in that 15th chapter of Genesis, which I'm
going to read to you again, at least
in part.
When Abraham was 99 years of age, the
Lord appeared unto him and said unto him,
I am the Almighty God, walk before me
and be thou perfect.
And I will make my covenant between me
and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly.
And Abraham fell on his face.
Now you remember after this, that Abraham lifted
up his son Isaac, offered his son, and
God again confirms, verse 14 of the 22nd
chapter of Genesis says, And Abraham called the
name of that place Jehovah-Jireh, as it
is said to this day, in the mount
of the Lord it shall be seen.
And the angel of the Lord called unto
Abraham out of heaven the second time and
said, By myself have I sworn, saith the
Lord, because thou hast done this thing.
Now if you go down to the epistle
to the Hebrews, you'll find there in that,
what the sixth chapter, where God says, He
swore by two immutable things.
He swore by himself, because he's unchangeable, and
he swore by his oath.
There's a lovely old hymn in our hymn
book we may learn sometimes, The God of
Abram prays, who reigns enthroned above.
And one stands when it says, He by
himself hath sworn, I on his oath depend.
What I'm trying to do, whether it gets
through or not, is this, I'm trying to
build your faith, I'm trying to assure you
that God made his promise to Noah, and
he has never, never violated that promise.
That bow is going to be the heavens
if the earth splits into, if California falls
into the ocean, so what?
That bow will still be in the sky,
because God has said so.
There is no way of destroying it, there
is no way of evading it.
It's going to be there till the final
trumpet blast, when God says, I finish with
the system of earth as you know it
now.
And we've gone through the hellishness of the
most terrible war that it's possible to conceive,
the great and final battle of Armageddon.
But also God here establishes his covenant with
this man Abraham.
He says, walk before me.
Well it doesn't matter who else we walk
with, if we don't walk with God.
Walk before me and be thou perfect.
He had to walk before him, number one,
I believe as his God.
Number two, he had to walk with him
as his companion.
Number three, he had to walk like a
child on total dependence.
Remember this, that as you and I say,
the props are going to be pulled from
under him.
He's not going to have it in easy
street.
He has to have what we sang, blessed
assurance.
He has to have an assurance.
He can't grab his Bible, he can't read
streams in the desert, he can't even find
any streams in the desert.
He has to say that God that gave
me his word, God cannot lie, God cannot
die.
He's made me a promise.
When I thought of that, I thought of
my old granny used to sing in the
chimney comb in England, forever and ever, oh
not for a day, he keepeth this promise
forever, for all who believe, for all who
obey.
Do you know what?
I say that this man had no Bible.
This man had no patriarchs before him.
This man had no pillar of fire to
lead him.
I very, very often think of Pontius Pilate
and I'm always sorry for him.
Do you know why?
Because he was a vassal king in a
strange country.
The Mediterranean is what?
2,300 miles long, 1,200 miles wide,
in its widest part, 14,200 feet deep.
And somewhere between the coast of Israel, as
we call it now, and the Gibraltar, there's
a place called Rome, a proud Roman empire.
There was a Caesar in the days of
Jesus, and there was a Caesar in the
days of the Apostles.
And here is a man by the name
of Pilate, he's a thousand miles at least
away from home.
I guess, I guess, I make a guess
again, I guess he couldn't even speak their
language.
He didn't like their customs.
And one day, just like a rock in
the sea is blasted on every side with
water in a stock, the poor man is
tossed about with many a conflict and many
a doubt.
People are howling for the blood of Jesus.
I don't think Pilate ever heard Jesus preach.
I don't think he ever saw Jesus do
a miracle.
Somebody might have gossiped about it one day,
making a meal.
He may have eavesdropped it and heard.
There's a strange man around, and there were
some people saying, get rid of him, because
he says there's no king.
You say there's no king, but Caesar, he
says, I'm going to make myself a king.
The Jews were howling for his blood, because
he threatened their system.
The money changes, because he kicked them out
of the temple one day.
The other people, everybody was against the Son
of God.
And Pilate stands there, he's tried to get
rid of him, and he's been to Herod,
and he's come back again.
And he asked the great question, what shall
I do then with Jesus, who is called
the Christ?
You remember somebody slipped him a note and
said, your sweet wife sent this, and she
says, I've nothing to do with him, I
had a terrible dream about him.
And Pilate stands there, and he gave those
tremendous words, he says, this man is innocent,
I find no fault in him.
But to save his neck, and to save
his job with the people in Rome, he
washed his hands in trying to get rid
of the responsibility.
Well, are you going to throw a rock
at him?
He's a heathen king.
He was raised in heathenism.
He was, you know, you talk about parties
they have these days, they used to have
parties lasting six days.
You can find the record, women went topless
there, as they do today.
That's nothing new under the sun.
They ate until they could eat no more.
They went to a vomitarium, and they tickled
their throats, and threw it all up, and
ate again.
And slept only when they were exhausted.
They were as drunk as dogs laying everywhere.
They had feasts, they had revelry.
And here is a man talking about purity,
and talking about righteousness, and talking about holiness.
A crackpot talking about a kingdom that he's
going to establish.
He hasn't a soldier.
He's no money.
He's no government.
He's a bunch of fishermen too lazy to
work anyhow.
When he said fall, they dropped their nets
and ran after him.
The only following he ever had were a
bunch of screaming women, when he was riding
a donkey.
He is a threat to the Roman Empire
that was covering the earth, forget it.
No, I'd better get rid of this man.
He may be very nice, he's meek, and
I admire him.
I like his features and everything, but I
just can't risk everything.
Do you know what?
And I want to say this lovingly, but
say it to you, and to myself as
well.
Your unbelief and mine is defenseless.
That man didn't have an Old Testament, he
couldn't read it, he couldn't read Hebrew.
You and I have 2,000 years of
Christian history, 2,000 years of missionary enterprise,
2,000 biographies and more that tell us
of the faithfulness of God, that men have
stepped out in naked faith like Abraham did.
God pities we fall over matchstalks sometimes, don't
we?
Somebody hurts our feelings.
You tried to buy something and somebody bought
it yesterday.
Oh, you were going to save it.
Some tribute can upset us till hell lasts
with us.
I've said this, said it almost facetiously, but
I say it again, that one day somebody's
going to read the Bible and believe it,
and when they do, we'll all be embarrassed.
That's all that God is asking for.
He isn't asking us to put 10 million
dollar radio stations up and blast the same
stuff over week after week to people that
don't want to hear.
He's asking you, maybe asking me, step out,
here it is, I am the Lord, I
change not, therefore ye sons of Abraham cannot
be consumed.
You see, this inheritance of possessing the whole
earth is not just to Abraham, I'm not
going to weary with you, read it yourself.
Read the 4th chapter of Romans and see
what God says there repeatedly and repeatedly, that
this man Abraham, he was not blessed because
he obeyed the law of God.
The law wasn't given till 430 years after.
In the book of Judges, 500 years after,
in the book of Judges, 500 years after
Abraham had passed on, God said, listen I'll
never break the covenant that I made.
And isn't it the apostle Paul that says
unto us that God has given to you
exceeding great and precious promises.
You're never going to destroy the Jew, you
may as well try and blow the sun
out.
They're going to last.
They're the biggest headache in the world today.
We don't like them but we, we give
them money.
It's a strange situation we're in now, we've
got a marvellous, marvellous, loud voice about human
rights.
And yet we're trying to get married to
a nation that knows nothing about human rights,
Cuba.
We're trying to establish a new bridgehead with
a country that's running with the biggest, horrible,
most horrible genocide in history, Cambodia.
And we're trying to make friends with a
bloody wretched crowd like that.
We're trying to establish relationships with China but
I'll tell you what, God is still righteous
and we'll suffer for it.
You see that the whole calamity is not
political, the whole calamity in America or England
today is spiritual.
It's the bankruptcy of the church which is
the tragedy.
God has given me this book and the
more I read it the more amazed I
am at how little I know about it
and how little I obey it.
I believe God is going to call young
men, we've got one young fella going to
step out, thank God, and pray for Jake
as he goes.
He's got a tough road to hoe, no
question about it.
You see it so happened that this man
Abraham was just as emotional as any of
us.
He hadn't gone far up the road before
he had problems with Lot, he had problems
with his father, his father he had to
bury him and then he had to move
her and he had dealings with Lot and
he had to park company with Lot.
And God says to him, look you're going
to run into trouble the whole way, your
nation is going to go into captivity for
hundreds of years.
But I want to tell you something, these
promises I've given you they're exceeding great and
precious promises.
Jeremiah 33, let me quote this and close,
that this should be a covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel after
those days saith the Lord.
I will put my law in their in
most inward parts and right in their hearts
and I will be their God and they
shall be my people.
And they shall teach no more every man
his neighbor for every man and every man
his brother saying no the Lord for they
shall know me from the least of them
unto the greatest of them saith the Lord.
I will forgive their iniquity and I will
remember their sin no more.
Now listen, thus saith the Lord God which
giveth the sun for a light by day,
the ordinances of the moon and of the
stars for the light by night, which divideth
the sea when the waves thereof roar and
the Lord of hosts is his name.
If those ordinances depart from me saith the
Lord then the seed of Israel shall cease
from being a nation for me forever.
You see what he says?
There's only one way that Israel can cease
to be a nation and that is when
there's no day and when there's no night
and when there's no moon and when there's
no sun and when there's no light and
when there's no darkness.
And if you can get rid of those
he says you can get rid of Israel.
That since you can't get rid of those
eight things they're established forever.
Do you remember?
There was a prophecy I won't worry you
with but it was just at the time
that these people, well maybe I'll read it,
Jeremiah 31.
I said I wouldn't read another but I'm
sure you'd like me to.
Jeremiah 31.
Can't even find it at the moment.
Well that's a script I just read.
Jeremiah 31, okay.
This should be the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel.
Now again he's making this covenant when the
ten tribes of Israel had been in captivity
for about a hundred years.
He's making it just before the tribe of
Judah go into captivity with the Assyrians.
But he says that despite captivity, I don't
think for a moment God didn't get angry
with this nation because he loved them.
He sure did, he'd beat them up.
Man they went into captivity at least twice
for 400 years.
They had all kinds of suffering, they'd hardship,
they'd famine.
But again whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth
and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Look at this word in Genesis 49 verse
10.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor
a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh
come.
And unto him shall be the gathering of
the people.
Binding his fall unto the vine and the
Gnathist colt unto the choice vine, he washed
his garments in wine and his clothes in
the blood of the great.
Typical of the Lord Jesus riding in triumph
into the city, typical of Jesus being the
true vine.
But he says the scepter shall not depart
from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his
feet until Shiloh come.
Then right at the end of the book,
do you remember what it says?
It calls Jesus what?
The meek and lowly lamb, no no no.
It calls him the lion of the tribe
of Judah.
Particularly while God loves Israel.
I don't know where we come in in
this, do you?
I don't know where the Gentiles come in
and go out, but this I do know
that God has established a covenant with the
ten tribes and with the two tribes of
the left.
And he promised that out of the seed
of Abraham, and remember it was when he
said to him that his seed shall inherit
the earth that God told him that he
was a righteous man.
And you see that seed, if you read
it, read it for yourself.
Read that in the epistles of the Galatians
and you'll discover the seed is not merely
the seed according to the flesh, but we
are Abraham's seed because the just live by
faith and we have entered by faith as
he entered by faith.
And because of that God is going to
preserve his church.
He's going to go through trouble, I'm convinced
of that, greater troubles we've ever dreamed of.
But the promises are there, the only thing
you can stand on.
You can't stand on feelings, you can't stand
on friendship, we can't stand on material security.
The battle that we're in today is not
a battle of communism and capitalism.
The battle of the day is a battle
of materialism and spiritism, true spiritual life, let
me put it that way.
This world is gearing itself up to a
final thrust against God.
Could you believe five years ago, that was
it last Sunday, the Sunday before, that a
quarter of a million homosexuals marched through the
leading cities in the nation?
Did you notice one of them got killed
and they threw the flag at half staff,
wasn't it in Frisco, in honor of a
homosexual?
They didn't do that for thousands of boys
killed in battle.
I tell you what, we're not going to,
we're not going to deteriorate at this speed
much longer.
Either God Almighty comes in mercy and gives
us revival or he comes in judgment.
But thank God we're on the Lord's side
and better still the Lord is on our
side.
We put our trust in him and those
who put their trust in him shall never
be confounded.
Yeah that's a great hymn, Peronet wrote that
hymn.
All hail the power of Jesus name, let
angels prosperate for, bring forth a royal diadem.
We're going to see him, the lion of
the tribe of Judah one day.
We're going to see those thrones on which
some are going to judge the nation, the
twelve tribes, they're still there, they've made it
right into the book of the revelation.
So it's an insane thing to try and
destroy them.
Again I don't know why God loves them
but you know what, let me close my
eyes and say this, I don't know why
he loves you either.
I mean I don't know why he loves
me.
It's a strange way of loving but he
loves.
And though they rebel he's going to bring
them back.
Read the 11th chapter, away there in that
lovely epistle to the Romans.
Paul mentions Abraham right through the fourth chapter,
it's all Abraham.
Come to the 11th chapter, he's going to
bring them, they'll go a long way.
I read to you he says, for a
little while I forsaken thee, a little while
and it's two thousand years since he forsook
them.
That's a little while with God, it's not
long, it isn't a tick of the clock
on eternity.
And one day we're going to see these
people, do you know they're going to fall
at his feet, the word of God says.
They who looked upon him and pierced him,
they're going to bow at his feet.
Oh that with yonder sacred throng we at
his feet may fall and join in the
everlasting song and crown him Lord of all.
The line of the tribe of Judah shall
prevail and give us the victory again and
again.
So however dark it is, remember when you
see the bow in the sky, God put
it there, nobody can destroy it.
The government can't shift it, bombs can't shift
it, it's going to stay, it's going to
stay.
If the whole nation falls in the ocean
it'll still be somewhere to be seen.
It's God's eternal signature, he signed it with
his name.
He made his promise that I'm going to
bless you to a thousand generations, he said
to this people.
That's an awful long while.
He not only loves Israel but he loves
his new Israel, he loves the church of
the living God.
I like the hymn where the church's one
foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord.
I love that phrase in it, with his
own blood he bought her and for her
life he died.
And then that lovely hymn, we used to
have it as our national anthem we said
when we were in Baton Rouge there, that
we sang this afternoon.
Just so beautiful, fairest Lord Jesus.
There's nobody fairer, nobody more beautiful.
Heaven will be lovely.
I'll stare at those thrones won't you?
I'd like to see who the four and
twenty elders are, maybe not from the first
baptist church but anyhow, four and twenty elders
that sit on the throne judging the nation.
And this angel whose face is so bright
and his feet like pillars of fire.
He's only a created being.
What must the majesty and glory of God
be like?
All earth's proud empires pass away.
His kingdom stands and grows forever till all
his creatures all my sway.