I won't read all of it, but in
verse 1 it says, Now when Solomon had
made an end of praying, the fire came
down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering
and the sacrifices, and the glory of the
Lord filled the house.
Here we have a time with the children
of Israel, when Solomon's temple, perhaps still by
many believed today, still yet to be believed
to be the greatest structure ever made in
the history of man.
When they go through the list of materials,
and the financial implications of the building of
that and all that went into it, the
greatest and still most glorious building.
There is, Solomon as he finished praying there
and dedicating that temple to God, the Lord
came and fire came from heaven, consumed the
offerings and the sacrifices that were there.
There was some 122,000 sheep and 22
,000 oxen, quite an offering, quite a sacrifice
there that was offered to the Lord that
day, and it was a great and glorious
day.
The glory was so heavy the priests couldn't
even enter into it.
The people there found themselves in great worship,
praising God, surrendering to their lives in the
most wonderful of ways, and their hearts filled
with great joy.
And it goes on to tell us that
as this service kind of went on for
days, at the end of it, it says
in verse 11, Thus Solomon finished the house
of the Lord and the king's house and
all that came to Solomon's heart to make
a house for the Lord and his own
people, and he prosperously effected.
And the Lord appeared unto Solomon by night,
and he said unto him, I have heard
thy prayer and have chosen this place for
myself as a house of sacrifice.
Then he goes on to talk about a
future day where God must discipline and chastise
his own.
He says, if I shut up heaven, there
is no rain.
And if I command the locusts to devour
the land or if I send pestilence among
my people, even then, if my people, which
are called by my name, shall humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn
from their wicked ways, then will I hear
from heaven, will forgive their sin and will
heal their land.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your word this
morning.
And Lord, as great and glorious as the
beginning of the temple was, as awesome as
its beginning was, Lord, even then, at the
very time when they rejoiced in all that
they had, you came and said, however, if
it doesn't stay this glorious and I end
up having to discipline you, I shut up
heaven, let the land dry, devour it, and
I let difficulties come.
I want you to know that even then,
if my people who are called by my
name will humble themselves and pray and seek
my face, turn from their wicked ways, I'll
forgive their sin, heal their land.
Lord, we pray that today that you administer
your word to us, as there is so
much upon our hearts, wanting to know what
it is that is truly going on.
Where do we go?
What do we do?
We ask that you administer to all of
us.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
You may be seated.
During this last week, I have actually been
asked by a number of people how these
events of the last week fit into prophecy,
and we will be addressing that in the
future.
I think one of the things that is
so much a part of the ministries of
Calvary Chapel is the prophetic issues.
And of the things of the last days,
there's many, the scriptures are filled with them.
And we will look at that.
Let me just do, though, read a little
out of mark to you, only a couple
of verses, but in verse seven, Jesus saying,
And when ye shall hear of wars, rumors
of wars, yet be ye not troubled, for
such things must needs be, but the end
is not yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against
kingdom, and there shall be earthquakes in diverse
places, there shall be famines and troubles, but
these are the beginning of sorrows.
We'll be looking at these things more, but
it's something that many of the events that
we are watching today, I believe, are even
in a sense of the category of the
beginning of sorrows.
As nation rising against nation, the Bible telling
us there should be prize for peace, but
there shall be no peace.
And of looking at these difficulties, that is
something that we will be looking at more
and more, but today is already read out
of 1st Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles.
What I believe is so important for us
somewhat to look at is this great call,
I believe, that God, in the midst of
all of the human aspects and of the
terror and the sorrow and the heartache and
the grief and the suffering and the pain
that is going on in the world today,
how much there is also God wanting to
speak back to us.
And I believe that he is, in a
very real sense, saying somewhat of the same
issues that he had to say to Solomon,
that if my people, who are called by
my name, will humble themselves, and that they
will pray, seek my face, turn from their
wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven,
I will forgive their sins and heal their
land.
Something that has happened in this last week
is we have watched these four planes.
Many of us just riveted to our television
sets, watching in unbelief.
Something that initially almost was so surreal, it
was like this was a television movie.
This had to be something of almost special
effects.
This had to be the ultimate prank, but
realizing, of course, it wasn't.
That this was in reality these four hijacked
airplanes, three of them devastating their targets.
One of them, perhaps because of the heroics
of a few that gave their life and
lost their lives on the plane there, but
having it fall short of another target, thus
saving many.
But only then to watch as the World
Trade Center and as the Pentagon got hit,
began to realize that this was, as we
have been told in this last week, the
most devastating single day of war in the
history of the world.
On D-Day in 1942, 1,500 were
killed.
Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, 2,400 were
killed.
The death toll is now over 5,000
and climbing from September 11, New York City
and Washington, D.C. And something, though, that
with a backdrop of such terror, such sorrow
and suffering, such grief, only God, I believe,
has the power to take something like this,
that it can be so terrible of human
tragedies, and turn it around.
And I believe we have been watching in
this last week some wonderful events happen, some
fulfillment even here of 2 Chronicles 7.14
where we have been, as Solomon is told
by the Lord, if my people who are
called by my name will humble themselves.
And there is a strange and wonderful humility
that seems to be coming across the leaders
of our country, the ones that always have
the answers, that always know what ought to
be done and how to do it seemingly,
but now in a humility there of looking
there and realizing they don't have all the
answers.
We are heading into a time for the
next few years of this country that are
going to require the wisdom of Solomon, the
guidance of God's hands and has produced, I
believe, a wonderful humility upon our leader and
upon many of our leaders.
Our President called the nation to prayer.
Millions found themselves called to prayer spontaneously around
the streets, in homes, in neighborhoods, at offices,
in schools.
Our Congress, how amazing it was to see
them literally stand on their own steps there
of Congress and to break out in spontaneous
singing of God Bless America.
Here a Congress that has continuously voted out
his existence, that has neglected the thought of
him.
Now to see some wonderful sense of humility
happening, hearing of a number of wonderful prayer
meetings happening throughout our whole political structure, through
the White House, through the halls of Congress,
in the states, in the cities.
There is people humbling themselves and finding themselves
not only in humility there, but beginning to
pray, turning to God, realizing there is something
there that all the king's horses and all
the king's men, in and of our own
strength and capacity, are at great loss to
know where to go and what to do,
but realizing for God it is nothing, nothing
impossible to him.
And to see these wonderful events not only
of humility, but humility bringing people to pray.
And then pray bringing people to seek God's
face.
For he says there, that of my people,
called by my name, humble themselves, pray and
seek my face.
But he didn't stop there.
God had one more qualification essentially there.
He says that when I forgive their sins
and heal their land, three of the four,
I believe, we have addressed marvelously.
Three of the first four things have been
laid out, but there is one more critical
issue.
I believe extremely critical, and that is there
that he says, and turn from their wicked
ways.
Throughout Israel's history, God many times, they would
humble themselves, they would pray, they would cry
out to God, but yet still they would
retain their wicked ways.
Still they would go on the same way
they had lived, and while they were in
terrible terror and suffering and grief and agony,
being attacked by their enemies and being devastated,
because they did three, but they did not
the fourth.
They did not turn on occasion from their
own wicked ways.
The result was they were left to their
own devices, and they suffered very greatly for
it.
But here I believe that one of the
great things that we ought to be concerned
and praying for and longing for, whether in
our own lives or in the lives of
our land, is that we would also know
what it is.
God, if ever there is a time, I
believe in my entire life on this planet,
that there is a potential of our nation
turning from wicked ways.
Ways that are profoundly and deeply and terribly
wicked.
For we are spent, and I almost feel
the need, things that I believe we obviously
should clearly understand, but I don't believe we
do.
That is a sad commentary in itself, that
I almost have to stop and talk of
some of the wicked ways, that I believe
heaven as it looks there, and that's the
definer of wickedness, not me.
Not some, you know, general consensus of our
populations.
We'll decide and determine what's right and wrong,
what's wicked and not.
But rather than that, that we would find
ourselves churning humbly, prayerfully, seeking God's face, say,
you tell us how to live.
You tell us what is right, what is
wrong.
And something in our government that hopefully now,
and how I pray that this would be
the day in the opening, that ways in
which we have shoved God out of our
land, governmentally, for 40 years, could be turned.
It was in the 1960s that our Supreme
Court literally outlawed school prayer.
Outlawed it.
Removed the Bible out of our school, essentially.
Laid the groundwork for the stopping of the
teaching and the using of the Bible, and
the trading and the equipping of an entire
generation.
Outlawed its possibility of being used.
And in that, opened the door for evolution
to be taught as fact for an entire
generation of kids.
We've stopped Bible clubs in many schools, as
much as we've been able to do it,
with having to go back and forth before
our Supreme Court, fighting to get Bible clubs,
prayer meetings being able to happen legally on
school campuses.
Though at the same time, the enemies of
this, the separation of church and state, a
phrase that appears nowhere in the fundamental documents
of this country, nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere
in the Declaration of Independence, and didn't appear
in anything for many years.
It was just last Sunday morning, one of
the men in our church, one of the
coaches, came up to me, having received a
letter and threats from people because some of
the students had been praying before football games.
Wanting to know how to handle this.
And here we are literally in a nation
where our students still yet today, wanting to
pray, wanting to open a Bible, wanting to
have a prayer on a field before a
ball game, being outlawed, having these pressures.
We have so publicly, so powerfully pushed God
out of our educational system that we have
virtually raised an entire generation of youth today
that know virtually nothing about right and wrong.
That know little about morality.
We have instructed them in our schools that
morality is a personal issue.
You determine your own morality.
There is virtually nothing immoral.
It is your own personal persuasion.
Whatever you want to do as far as
any sexual desires or appetites that are being
conjured up in you, you just determine them
because you're just simply being you.
We will aid you if you need any
form of birth control.
And we will even see to it that
if required and necessary, you get an abortion
without parental consent or knowledge.
If that's determined, that that would help.
And this is all legally based.
This is things that have happened in our
government, to a government that once so deeply
stood for God.
Early on in the history of our country,
you could not even apply for federal funds
to start or to maintain an educational system,
to have a school district, if you did
not agree with the receiving of those funds
to teach the Bible.
Now, if you teach the Bible, forget the
funds.
These are things that don't, believe me, I'm
not against America.
I'm more for it today, I believe, than
I ever have been.
But I also believe that these are the
issues that we need truly to address when
we want to teach our children that they
have evolved from apes and that they have
no God before whom they are at all
accountable.
They merely live and let live.
It is something there that now we have
driven an entire generation to look for another,
for their source of identity and power and
direction and meaning and purpose and existence.
They now look to another place for hope.
They now look for another place for love,
not God.
And it is something now that we're upset
and scratching our heads so often as a
nation because we have a generation that has
no regard for authority, no sense of right
and wrong, virtually no value system, no morality,
no ethics about it.
Many just living for the pleasure of the
moment, living in a dimension of virtual meaninglessness,
falling into drugs and immorality.
We look today so often now that we're
watching a generation that when it gets frustrated
and depressed, that we find ourselves committing the
most violent of acts, of crimes, of pathetic
murders in the most terrible of ways.
There's a complete disregard for human life, but
we have taught it.
For over 40 years, we as a nation
have asked God to take his hand off
us, to leave us alone, to let us
rule ourselves.
And this has gone on, our government.
As far as another issue, abortion.
In 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion.
Not only legalized it with its infamous Roe
v.
Wade judgment case, but since then our government
has also paid.
The government today we're praying for, that God
will lead and guide, but it is paid
and supported for millions upon millions of legalized
abortions.
Let me give you a few statistics.
I don't like to bore people with them,
but let me let you do this to
get an idea of the enormity of this.
Annually, 1973, this is from the Bureau of
Statistics of our government, 744,600 abortions, 74
,898,600.
75, 1,034,000.
76, 1,197,000.
77, 1.3 million.
78, 1.4 million.
79, 1.5 million.
81, 1.55 million.
81, 1.577 million.
82, 1.53 million abortions.
83, 1.57. These are all legally our
government.
It's gone on.
You can read the statistics all the way
up until 1978, the last one I could
find on the website for it.
But there, that number totaled, within the first
25 years of legalized abortion within this country,
38 million, 10,000 abortions.
Since then, it's estimated there's at least another
five, bringing it up to approximately 45 million
abortions.
In the last 28 years within this country.
Now, to put that number in perspective just
a little bit, just to know how many
have died in wars since the inception of
this country, bringing it about.
Something, again, Bureau of Statistics.
Revolutionary War, 10,643.
War of 1812, 6,765.
Mexican War, 17,435.
The Civil War, 930,000.
Spanish-American War, 4,100.
World War I, 320,000.
World War II, 1,078,000.
Korean War, 136,000.
Vietnam War, 211,000.
This is on both sides of these things,
by the way.
The Gulf War, 760.
The total of all the wars that the
United States has been involved in in the
last 225 years.
Killed.
Establishing, protecting, defending this country, 2.5 million.
In the last 28 years, we have aborted
over 15 times that many.
If any of you have ever been to
Washington, D.C., and you've seen the Vietnam
War Memorial, it's 500 feet long.
It's a beautiful structure.
I've been there.
Friends of mine that I grew up with
etched in paper their name.
They're remembering them.
The sorrow and the grief of what that
war took over 50,000 American lives alone
on that.
And that war memorial is some 500 feet
long.
But as James Dobson points out, that if
you were to make a memorial of the
exact same size and dimensions of names writing
there for the amount of people that have
been aborted in the last 28 years within
this country, it would not be 500 feet
long.
It would be 50 miles long.
The same equivalent memorial for the lives that
we have taken.
Our government behind it fully and completely.
Supporting it, sustaining it, legalizing it, paying for
it.
Now, this is a country I love.
This is a country that I have lost
relatives and friends defending it.
I love it more than ever.
And long that something about it of a
greatness and a glory that it once had,
it can return to it.
But to ask God to be praying and
turning and seeking our face to him, implementing
three of these aspects there, but if we
have no correlation between these events, if our
congressmen and women are going to come out
and stand on the steps of Congress and
sing, God bless America, longing for his blessing,
that he would once again put his hand
upon us when we have spent 40 years
saying, take it all, leave us alone, we'll
govern ourselves, we will decide what is precious
and what is wonderful.
Tragically, even now, here in our country today,
we are concerned, and many of you, of
Social Security.
How long will it last?
How is it going to be afforded?
How do we pay for it?
And here, over 40 million lives not in
existence today because they were inconvenient at the
time.
How interesting it is that an entire generation,
40 million, that would be pouring billions into
Social Security to be taking care of that
which are not here to do it.
That is a minor issue, obviously, to the
truth and the morality and the godliness of
what is going on, but many of our
sorrows we are bringing upon ourselves, particularly there
when many that support abortion want to look
there and say, it's all right.
You see, it's a mother's choice, and it's
only a fetus.
It is not a human being.
It's not alive.
Well, the Bible is quite contrary to that.
In Psalm 139, David says, For thou hast
possessed my reins, thou hast known me in
my mother's womb.
And as he found himself there pondering his
life, he says, I will praise thee, for
I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul
knows right well.
My substance was not hid from thee when
I was made in secret and curiously wrought
at the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being
imperfect.
And in thy book all of my members
are written, which in continuance were fashioned, when
as yet there was none of them.
David looked there, and he realized there that
even when his mother and his father made
him in secret and didn't even know that
that child had been conceived, God knew it.
He saw that very conception.
And there in his book, all of his
members were written, which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them.
Before there was even an eye or an
ear or a nose, before anybody could even
guess, was it a boy or a girl?
Was his hair red or blonde or black
or brown?
It was all there in his book.
All of his members were written, when in
continuance they were fashioned, when as yet there
was none of them.
And to sit there and to want to
say it is not a living being, we
are not murdering anyone, is foolishness compared to
the truth of the Word of God.
I don't say these things to in any
way come against the great tidal wave of
humility and prayer and seeking of God's face.
It is only my great longing that we
would come into a comprehension that for forty
years we have been telling God, we don't
need you.
Judiciously, governmentally, legally, crying out, setting up these
things from the highest places in the land.
When you look at morality and what has
occurred, and many here are old enough to
look back and realize our world today is
absolutely corrupt and immoral compared to the world
in which many of us grew up in.
The government censors.
The ones in our authority there out of
protecting supposedly this perversion of First Amendment rights
have opened up the floodgates of free speech.
Publishers are now free in virtually any form
of literature to simply put out all forms
of immorality.
Anything that is perverse and wicked that their
hearts can virtually imagine under the First Amendment,
free speech and free communication rights, people are
doing the most vile of things.
Some thirty years ago, the American Psychiatric Association
that had forever in its entire history classified
homosexuality as a mental illness and a perversion
from natural human behavior that needed correction.
It turned that around.
You see, you throw God out of the
schools.
You throw Him out of the educational system.
You train up a generation of attorneys.
They're fighting and making defense.
They said, no, not God or the things
or the truths of God.
And life all of a sudden is irrelevant.
There's no absolute truth.
There's nothing moral or immoral.
There's nothing right or wrong or good or
bad.
Any longer, you take those things away.
And the next thing you know, now all
of life is just simply personal choice.
And now legally we go and say, who
are we to tell somebody they can't pursue
whatever their own moral desires or direction is?
Survival of the fittest anyway.
Leave them all alone.
And now we have virtually an entire generation
of people living carnally, foolishly, hopelessly through life.
You see, you start throwing God and removing
Him away from a country.
How it's interesting, you know, when you watch
and you look at these things.
It only gets worse every year when you
think it can't.
The status quo of immorality is never good
enough, it seems.
It's got to get worse every year.
We find a way to take greater steps
towards more wickedness, more immorality.
We've got to get more of it in
our entertainment, more of it in our newspapers,
in our magazines, more of it in everywhere.
We continuously do it.
In 1939, for the first time on any
major film, a profane word was used.
And there was great debate over it, but
they decided, oh, let it happen.
It's a great movie.
And in Gone with the Wind, Clark Gable
turned and he turns to us as he's
walking out, frankly, my dear, I don't give
a damn.
And then that now is nothing, obviously.
And every year since then, we take something
that initially had a shock upon this country,
that was turned away from many people because
the word damn was used within the theaters.
They found themselves saying we'll have none of
it.
But little by little, we condition ourselves more
and more to where it gets worse.
Aaron Sorkin, the creator of NBC's West Wing,
most recently kind of in the news this
last April 15th, arrested on charges of having
hallucinogenic mushrooms, marijuana, and cocaine.
But as the director and the producer of
this number one television show, we're told, the
West Wing, they are now going to be
inserting more sexually explicit material, foul language than
ever before in this fall season.
Sorkin is once the principal character there, namely
the President of the United States in the
hit series in the West Wing, to curse
God in a way, to curse in a
way that uses the Lord's name in vain,
quote, unquote.
And here we are looking there, the Times
says that the producers have submitted network censor
scripts that include practically every crude word imaginable,
including the F word, and more nudity is
on tap.
In the very first opening series, it goes
on to say, the West Wing conservatives probably
won't be pleased with the first episode of
the West Wing coming up soon, in which
the President tells religious leaders to haul their
fat, another word for donkeys, out of my
office.
Martin Sheen nails it as Josiah Bartlett, the
liberal president who suffers no fools.
And here's something now, it's as if there
is a force, if we can take this
nation into a level of corruption and immorality
and filth, if we can do it, there
is an entire, that sometimes we, right now,
we believe the greatest enemies here of this
country are external and Osama Bin Laden, and
make no mistake, we ought to hunt them
down and fight them, I believe that with
all my heart.
But to also neglect enemies that have destroyed
far more, far more lives, morally, spiritually, physically,
and what has happened is merely a drop
in the bucket to it.
Today, 25% of American households have adult
channels coming into their homes.
We are a nation that is simply obsessed
with sex.
We're buying it, selling it, prostituting it.
It's in our homes, theaters, newspapers, magazines, cable,
satellite dishes.
It is something there to where we've led
a nation into premarital sex.
Nothing is immoral any longer.
Extramarital sex and the lust of the heart
controls many.
75% to 80% of the money
spent on the Internet is spent on pornography.
Billions of dollars.
It's a plague that is destroying our land.
The sanctity of marriage is being destroyed.
We have sat here and we've watched now
for 40 years.
Our nation has churned and says, God, leave
us alone.
We'll run ourselves.
We have done it morally.
We have done it legally.
We have done it educationally.
We have done it politically.
It's nobody's business any longer a politician's life.
What multiple affairs he may be having.
How he cheats on his wife.
How he may have lied in his vows.
Lied to God.
Lied to his wife.
Deceived his family.
As long as he can keep interest rates
down, vote him in.
And we're in a country in a time
there to where we have a wickedness that
has overtaken us.
That is all around us.
And for us to think, God bless us.
God be on our side.
God, guide our army.
Guide our nation.
And at the same time, we want it
to have no implication whatsoever.
On our school system.
On our moral system.
On our evaluation of life and people's pursuit
of pleasure.
Without having something there, God, he simply looks.
He says, if you will humble yourself.
Pray.
Seek my face and turn from your wicked
ways.
I tell you, we spent 40 years telling
God, leave us alone.
Telling God, take your hand off of us.
Last Tuesday morning, September 11th, for a few
minutes, he did.
He lifted it.
You want my hand off you?
The hand that is protected.
Loved.
Cared.
Been patient.
Been long-suffering.
Been merciful.
For 40 years.
You truly want it off?
You truly want me out?
And how I believe there, that it has
something there.
That in that moment, the most famous icon
of all of capitalism.
The World Trade Center.
Of all places, to have struck and brought
to dust.
And there to see an event there happening.
There of seeing this most invisible of capitalistic
icons on the planet.
As the whole world watched them fall.
We cry.
That is good.
We humble ourselves.
That is good.
We pray.
That is good.
We seek his face.
That is good.
Now.
Will we turn?
Will there be something that correlates?
The hand of God back upon this country.
That longs to have him lead and guide.
Protect our lives.
Protect our children.
Right now, it is something there to where
are the leaders of our government.
And not that I have any great sources,
but I have heard a few internal things
offered to me.
But now that they are looking for a
potential level of sabotage and of warfare within
this country.
That may try to affect everything again from
the airports.
Every form of transportation.
Public gatherings.
Dealing with our power plants.
Water supplies.
Water systems.
Transportation systems.
And something there to where we have a
potential battle ahead of us.
The likes of which we have never known.
And for the first time in our history,
it is on our own soil.
It is our own lives.
Our own families.
Our own children.
Our own grandchildren.
And to find ourselves simply thinking that we
are going to throw a few missiles in
the air.
And to have God's hand upon us.
How I believe with all my heart.
We need to find ourselves.
They are not simply declaring war of which
I am.
Sometimes I feel I am too worldly.
I am too much of a hawk.
You know, I am like the guy almost,
you know, that you see.
The guy with the t-shirt with the
American flag on it, you know, or something
there.
And in the back it says, blow them
all up.
Let God sort them out.
And I need forgiveness for that.
But there is also something that that is
not the primary war.
I believe that is the secondary war.
The primary war is God is vying for
the hearts and the lives of His own
people.
He is looking there and He says, If
my people, mine, that belong to me.
In our country, you look at Gallup polls
where we supposedly have 70, 80 percent different
polls say they are Christian.
And yet at the same time we go
on with lies.
Untouched.
And to ask God to preserve our way
of life.
Is a rather presumptive prayer when we also
say God protect our schools.
God protect our abortion clinics.
God protect our Congress.
God protect.
You know, even though we don't pray in
school, there's no morality taught any place.
But when we find ourselves saying, God, help
us turn.
Help us turn.
From our wicked ways.
I believe to me again, I have no
way I want to take any advantage of
this country when it is under attack.
I just long to see us equipped to
truly win.
To have something that at the end of
this war we are a greater people.
We are a greater nation.
There are people that have found a godliness
that is pure.
That is, has a sense of holiness.
Peter tells us in second Peter chapter three.
He tells us, knowing that in the last
days coffers will come.
They're walking after their own last and they
will say, where is the promise of his
coming?
For ever since the fathers fell asleep, things
continue as they were.
For this, they willingly are ignorant.
That by the word of God, the heavens
were of old and standing up and out
of the water.
Whereby the world that was then being overwhelmed
with water perished.
But the heavens and the earth, which are
now by the same word are kept in
store.
Reserved unto fire against the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men.
But beloved, be not ignorant of this.
One day is with the Lord is a
thousand years.
A thousand years is a day.
God is not slack concerning his promises.
As some men count slackness, but is long
suffering.
To us, not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come
as a thief in the night, in the
which the heavens will melt with a fervent
heat.
And the elements thereof shall be burned up.
Seeing then, seeing then that all these things
shall come to pass.
What manner of persons ought ye to be
in all holiness, godliness, looking for and hastening
into the coming day of God.
Peter says, if you realize the days in
which you live, let it affect the way.
Holy, godly and ready.
And how I believe that the hope of
this country is right here today.
And it's in churches all over America today.
And when people would realize the potential of
your life and would realize, God use me.
Use my life wherever I go to be
used.
We all have to be in amazement to
think of these terrorists, men of wickedness, evil,
perverse people.
Guys there on one hand out drinking, partying,
you know, attending strip joints all the way
up until they died.
But here they plan two years, learn how
to fly a plane that they'll only fly
one time to die in.
To give their lives for something that is
so perverse and evil and wicked and hateful.
How much more ought to the children of
the living God, who know His love and
His power, ought to have such a surrender
within our lives, such a focus.
How we ought to be ones that we
look at who we are.
I long that you kids that are here
in junior high and high school and the
reason I wanted you to stay is I
believe it's up to you to go on
to your campuses.
Call together prayer meetings, get your Bible.
If ever there's a time that I would
love to see a principal in a school
today, say get those Bibles out of here.
I'd love to see it now.
I believe the children would rise up when
they begin to pray and something happening and
I believe this can be done.
In your schools, in your offices, when you
go to work to realize there and take
your Bible and put it down and say,
this is the hope of the world.
When we've been a carnal, wicked country, just
concerned with our own pleasures and been able
to fight these sorts of things in Congress.
But isn't it amazing on how a whole
Congress that has never seemed to believe he
is, has outlawed his existence in our schools,
now stands on his own steps.
God bless America.
How much of it was just politically motivated
for the moment.
But then it's their own wicked hypocrisy that
caused them to sing it and they'll stand
for that truth.
But how much more to look there and
to go to your work, go to school.
This last week, one of the couples in
the church just hadn't done anything in their
home particularly before, but they just felt.
To send out and see if any of
the neighbors, anybody wanted to come together to
pray, they made a little flyer, passed it
around the neighborhood.
That there on last Tuesday night at 7
o'clock or Wednesday night.
If anybody wants to just pray for our
country, they put some chairs out in their
driveway and just come and join.
50 people came and want a Bible study
to come out of it.
Is this astounding?
Friday night, Matt Valencia was over here at
Chili's having dinner.
At 7 o'clock, the Chili's where Nicole
Miller, one of the girls that was killed
in the plane crash, happened to work.
And there at 7 o'clock, they quieted
everything down, asked everybody for a minute of
silence in honor of Nicole who died.
Matt seized upon the moment, he said, may
I say something?
They said, well, there is her family.
See, whatever they say, talk to the family.
They said, of course, he said, I'm a
Christian, can I share something for a minute?
And they said, please.
There he stood up in Chili's restaurant for
five minutes in absolute silence of a packed
restaurant, over 100 people.
As there he shared the love of God
and the hope in Christ.
As they speechlessly, respectfully listened.
This is you, this is your neighborhood, this
is your school.
This is a time, I believe, we've been
praying for revival, longing that God would once
again put his hand upon this country.
I believe that there is a space of
time right now and an opportunity for us
to seize upon the name and the glory
of Jesus Christ in a way that is
awesome.
And that we would be praying for our
leaders, not only there that for a few
moments something would happen, but what a day
that may be of Congress.
And something that our president, who has great
convictions, who has gotten into office amazingly being
opposed to abortion.
What an opportunity to stand before our country
and before our leaders and want to make
decisions.
What an opportunity for our Supreme Court to
turn around and to say this country was
founded upon the Bible.
It was founded upon the likes and the
love of God.
It was founded upon the identity of a
Christian country.
One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
And what a glorious opportunity.
How we ought to be ones that we
find ourselves praying and longing that God would
put his hand upon us and upon us
individually.
As well as corporately.
The Bible says one shall chase a thousand
and two a great nation.
The way in which I believe God can
use you in your work, in your office,
when you take that Bible, set it down
and say if anybody wants hope and direction.
See me at break time, I'll have lunch
with you.
Unless the boss wants to call off an
afternoon study.
You know or call us all into an
afternoon study to say tell us what the
Bible says about these days.
I wouldn't be surprised.
But that you and I would find ourselves
being able to say God I am yours.
And to realize to me what a wonderful
day in which to live.
This is not a day for the children
of God to cower in fear.
To run into our homes.
To try to go build bomb shelters.
To find ourselves there wanting to seal off
our walls and to protect things.
This is a day I believe where God
looks at us to unleash us upon the
world around us.
That's what he's always done.
When all he needs is Moses.
Somebody there will just go before Pharaoh and
say you let my people go.
And the next thing you know an entire
nation is delivered.
When Joshua would go just single handedly.
You look through the book of Judges.
Seven times, seven individuals came and spoke and
the nation turned back.
Men and women alike.
When you would look there and realize the
potential.
When a little stripling, a little teenager like
David came along.
And when the whole nation stood and cowered
in fear before a giant.
He said I'm not afraid of this uncircumcised
Philistine.
God delivered the lion and the bear into
my hand.
Surely he'll deliver this uncircumcised Philistine into my
hand.
And there as he ran down, picked up
a stone, sunk it into the forehead of
the enemy.
And he dropped dead.
An entire nation was turned.
This is the world in which we're alive
now.
David then rose to great power and leadership.
And when you and I can pick up
and realize today.
When we can say God is our refuge
and strength.
Verse 26, God is our refuge and strength
of very present help and trouble.
Therefore, will we not fear?
Though the earth be removed.
Though the mountains be carried into the midst
of the sea.
Though the waters thereof roar and are troubled.
Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
There is a river.
The streams thereof make glad the city of
God.
The holy place of the tabernacle of the
most high.
God is in the midst of her.
She shall not be moved.
The wonderful thing there of where God looks.
Come to me.
And there is God begin to move.
This is the heathen rage.
The nations were moved.
He uttered his voice.
And the earth melted.
The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come behold the works of the Lord.
What desolations he bringeth upon the earth.
He maketh wars to cease under the ends
of the earth.
He breaketh the bow asunder.
He breaketh the bow.
He casteth the spear asunder.
He burneth the chariot with fire.
Be still.
And know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the heathen.
I will be exalted among the nations.
The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge.
And this morning.
Perhaps you're looking and maybe always felt your
life was of little consequence.
But the consequence of it is immaterial.
It's not my business what my life is
to do.
My business is to do.
My business is to offer it and to
yield it.
Surrender it up to God's business and his
using.
And this morning.
As we go.
Perhaps the Lord's speaking to you.
Perhaps there's things that you look in your
life.
Perhaps some of these things that you realize
man I'm part of the wickedness of this
nation.
Well if you'll humble yourself.
If you'll find yourself seeking his face and
praying turning from your wicked ways.
As quickly as you will do that.
God will hear from heaven.
Forgive your sins.
Heal your life.
Perhaps you look into your own life and
say I've been terribly wicked.
I've been.
I'm one of the people that everybody ought
to be praying for.
I'm not part of the solution of this
country.
I'm part of the problem.
But to be able to come therefore and
open your heart to Jesus Christ.
So you forgive me.
Before you get the words out of your
mouth.
You're God who created you.
You're redeemer who loved you and gave himself
for you.
Will embrace you and say of course I
will.
I love you.
I want to transform your life.
Use you.
These last days.
I'll forgive it all.
I'll forgive everything.
Forgive you.
I want you.