(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now, the part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on is beginning there in verse number 1 where the Bible reads, I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and He said, Smite the lintel of the door that the posts may shake, and cut them in the head, all of them. And I will slay the last of them with the sword. He that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. Though they dig into hell, then shall my hand take them. Though they climb up to heaven, then shall I bring them down. And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence. And though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent and he shall bite them. And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them. And I will set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good. And what we see in these four verses at the beginning of Amos 9 is the idea that you cannot escape from God. In verse 1 it talks about these people seeking to flee from God and escape from God and get away from God. He said it doesn't matter where you go, you can't escape. If you climb up to heaven, you're not going to escape. If you dig all the way down so far that you reach hell, he said, you cannot escape. He said if you go down into the bottom of the sea and you think finally you've gotten away from the Lord, he said I'll just command the serpent down there to bite you while you're down there. Because you cannot escape from God. Now go to Psalm 139, Psalms is right in the middle of your Bible, if you just let the Bible fall open in the dead center, you'll find the book of Psalms and the Bible reads beginning in verse number 7 of Psalm 139, whither shall I go from thy spirit, and watch this next phrase, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? He's saying where can I go to escape your presence, Lord? Verse 8, if I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day, the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Now this is spoken by a man who wants to be in God's presence and he's talking about the joys of being in his presence, but he's also talking about the fact that even if he wanted to escape from God's presence, he couldn't. You say, Pastor, why would you preach on this? Go to the book of Jonah, if you would, verse 1. You say, why in the world would you preach on such an obvious truth? We know that God is everywhere, we know that God's presence is in all places, whether it be heaven or earth or hell, that God is omnipresent. Why would you preach a sermon on the fact that we should not try to flee from God's presence, or that it is impossible to flee from God's presence? Because even though we know these things, there are many people in the Bible who tried to flee from God's presence, and I think that there's a mentality today amongst people that thinks that they can flee God's presence, and I'll show you what I mean by that. Look at Jonah chapter 1, here's probably the most famous example of somebody trying to flee from the presence of the Lord. It says in verse 1, Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. So Jonah's being commanded to go and preach to the city of Nineveh, and to basically preach against their wickedness. Now he doesn't want to do it, so in verse 3 the Bible says, But Jonah rose up, what did he do? To flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish, look at the last phrase, from the presence of the Lord. So if you cut out everything in between, it says he's going to flee from the presence of the Lord. Exactly what David said in Psalm 139, it's impossible to do, Whither shall I flee from thy presence? He said, I can't. But Jonah, a man who knew the Bible, a man who was a preacher, a man who was a prophet, and a man who had access to the book of Psalms, which was written long before his time, a man who was a preacher and prophesied other prophecies according to the book of the kings, this man makes the illogical decision to try to flee from the presence of God, even though he knew it's impossible, even though he knew God's everywhere. You see, he figured that if he could get away from the house of God, and get away from the people of God, and get away from the promised land of God, that somehow he'd be fleeing the presence of God. Because if you think about it, where is he trying to go? He's trying to get as far away from what as possible, from what God told him to do. And he's trying to get as far away as he can from the word of God, from the house of God, from the land of God, from the land of Israel. And he's going to Tarshish. Now I've got this map right behind me, conveniently enough. This is where Tarshish is, okay? And this is where the children of Israel were right here. So if you notice, this is before people were in this part of the world. And so this is pretty much the furthest point if you're heading west. God's telling him to go east, to go to Nineveh, he basically heads west to the furthest point. He says, I just want to get as far away from that as I can. And he actually tells us in the Bible that his intention was to flee from the presence of the Lord. Of course, did it work? No. Of course, God's there with him. God comes after him and punishes him. Go to Isaiah chapter 30. You see, many people have this mentality today. It's a mentality that says, out of sight, out of mind. You know, if I flee from the house of God, and if I flee from the preaching of God's word, and if I flee from the people of God and my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I can just kind of forget that God is there and then I'm basically outside of his presence. Look if you would at Isaiah chapter 30 verse 8. The Bible reads, Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever, that this is a rebellious people. By the way, that's a great verse on the preservation of God's word. Did you catch that in Isaiah 30 verse 8? He said write God's word in a book and he said that it may be for the time to come forever and ever because God has promised to preserve his words unto all generations. He said heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. People today that think that we have an imperfect Bible or that the Bible has been changed or corrupted and it's a copy of a copy of a copy, God said that he will preserve our word to this generation and forever. But look at verse 9, that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children, watch this, that will not hear the law of the Lord. That means they don't want to hear, they're not willing to hear the law of the Lord. They don't want to hear it. Verse 10, consequently because they don't want to hear it, which say to the seers, see not and to the prophets, prophesy not. The prophets are the preachers. They're saying to the preachers, preach not unto us right things. Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things. Prophesy deceits. Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, watch this, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Now stop and think about that. Just because the prophet is not preaching the word to you, just because he's not preaching right things, but instead he smooths out his message, does that really make the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us? I mean does that make God go away? And that's what these people are saying. We want God to go away. Don't preach it to us and then the Holy One of Israel will cease from being before our face. Look at verse number 12, it says, wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, because you despise this word, they didn't want to hear it, and trust in oppression and perverseness and stay thereon, therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant, and he shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel that is broken in pieces, he shall not spare, so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it assured to take fire from the hearth or to take water withal out of the pit. Go to Amos chapter 2, back to the book of Amos where we started, and I think this is kind of a theme of the book of Amos. In chapter 9 he deals with it, but really I found a lot of other verses in the book of Amos that deal with this. You see, the mentality here is the idea of the ostrich that puts its head in the sand, thinking that if it can't see the danger, the danger isn't there. Now we look at that and say it's foolish, and the Bible says that God has deprived ostriches of wisdom in Job 38 and 39, somewhere around that neighborhood. He explains the stupidity of the ostrich for many different reasons, and one of them is that it thinks it can hide its head in the sand, and if it doesn't see the danger, the danger suddenly isn't there. What I don't know, can't hurt me. It's like the little child who covers their eyes and thinks that they're invisible. They're playing hide and go seek, they go stand in the corner and they put their hand over their eyes and they think that they've suddenly activated some kind of a cloaking device, but honestly, everybody can still see you. You can hide your eyes and pretend it's not there, but it's still there. And this is the same mentality that we see in these Scriptures where people, they want to get away from the preaching of God's word and the house of God, and they think somehow that gets God off their back. But guess what? God's still there. Now is the house of God everywhere? No. Are the people of God everywhere? No. Is the preaching of God's word everywhere? No. In fact, in Amos chapter 8, God said there'd come a day where people would have a hard time finding the preaching of God's word, and that there'd be a famine in the land of hearing God's word. And people would go to and fro and they would travel to distant places to try to find somewhere where they could even hear God's word being preached. And I believe that that's the day that we're living in today that was prophesied in Amos chapter 8, but even though the preaching isn't everywhere, even though God's house isn't everywhere, let me tell you something, God's spirit is everywhere. God is everywhere. You can't get away from Him. He's everywhere. Look if you would at Amos chapter 2. The Bible says in verse 11, and I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Now God raises up young men to preach, is what He's speaking of there, He still does it today. Is it not even thus, so ye children of Israel saith the Lord? But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not. Pretty much the same thing we saw over in Isaiah 30, trying to tell the preacher to tone it down, telling him not to preach, telling him to shut up. He says, Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart that is pressed that is full of sheaves. Therefore the flight, flight means what? Fleeing. That's the noun of fleeing. Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself, neither shall he stand that handleth the bow, and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself, neither shall he that rideeth the horse deliver himself. And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the Lord. You see, people think that if they tell the prophet to stop prophesying, somehow they're going to escape the judgment of God. Somehow they're going to escape the presence of God and His punishment that's going to come upon them. Go to Jeremiah chapter 11, Jeremiah chapter 11. You know, I've heard so many people talk about the fact that they used to go to a fundamental Baptist church, or they used to go to a church that preached hard on sin, or they used to go to a church that was a soul-winning church, and I've heard them say this sometimes, I'm a recovering fundamentalist. I was a victim of Baptist preaching. You were just telling me that somebody said that they were traumatized by a sermon that I preached. I guess they have PTSD now, you know, because of the trauma of hearing preaching. And people will often say, man, it's so good, now that they're going to a liberal, NIV preaching, swinging and swaying, jam for Jesus church, with a little soft soap, soft sell, 20 minute feel good sermon. This is what I've heard people say, you know, now that they're recovering from Bible Christianity, this is what they say, oh, I just feel such freedom, I just feel such liberty, it's just so good to be out from under all these oppressive rules. Now here's the funny thing, our church has no rules. Has anybody seen a rule sheet? Has anybody been handed a rule sheet since you've been going here? Has anybody seen any rules posted up on the wall? I think there's a rule that says when you change the baby in the changing table to use a new liner every time and to wash your hands when you're done. I think that's the only rule at our church, is that when you change a diaper, you know, you lay down a fresh changing mat which we provide like 20 boxes of. I mean, we don't have a bunch of rules. It's not that you're trying to get out from under the rules that are being enforced or something which is a figment of your imagination. Now I'm sure there could be some places where you go where people are oppressing you with rules. Here, I mean this is just preaching, but they say this, oh it's just so good now to just be able to just plop down in front of the TV, just watch all the TV, and just not have to feel guilty about it when we go see the new Batman movie. You know what I mean? We just want to go watch Batman. Can we just go watch Batman and not feel bad about it and not get a big guilt trip on Sunday morning or we shouldn't be watching Batman? People think, oh it's just so free now, it's just so great to just be able to just relax and to be free from all this legalistic preaching and telling us that we can't, you know, we shouldn't put on a bikini and go swimming with other men around and we shouldn't be putting on short shorts and everything. You know, just this judgmental stuff, you know? It's just so good to just break free from that, like a butterfly, you know, coming out of the cocoon. But let me tell you something, just because you flee Bible preaching, that did not change what this book says. Just because you didn't hear what the book said, that's still what the Bible said. And the Bible still said, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. The Bible still said, love not the world, neither the things of the world, if any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. I saw one of these former fundamentalists and he was really into these, some kind of a body building competition. And he was, there were all these images of people that were all, you know, muscular and they were in their bikinis and in their speedos, and let me tell you something, that is not of God. You know, I'm all for lifting weights, but I'm not interested in people who show off their body publicly. That is not right. And this former fundamentalist that used to believe in standards of right and wrong and he used to believe in dressing modestly, as the Bible says, that women should adorn themselves in modest apparel. And he's praising this event and he's praising this mentality. And let me tell you something, that is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life all rolled into one. The pride of showing off your body, the lust of the eyes of looking upon it. And the lust of the flesh is going to be what results from the former two. And I'm here to tell you something, just because you escape the preaching of God's Word, just because you are able to escape from the house of God and all of its oppression, it doesn't mean that you've escaped from God. God is still there and God still believes the same thing and says the same thing. And if I'm preaching something that's not biblical, well then shame on me. And you know what, just ignore everything I'm saying. But you know as well as I do that the Bible clearly states that nakedness is from your loins to your thighs in Exodus 28.42. Now you can go to plenty of churches that will tell you that that's fine. And you can even find a church where the pastor will go with you to the Batman movie and he'll go with you to the beach and strip down in front of everybody. He'll go with you to the rock concert and rock out with you with all the pot smoke wafting over and he'll go with you to the party and he'll go with you to live a sinful lifestyle. Let me tell you something, God will go with you also and he's not pleased. And he'll never be pleased with it. And people today think that if they get away from the preaching of God's word, it's like out of sight, out of mind, it doesn't exist. It still does exist. It's still there. And we need to understand that our problem is not with the preacher. Our problem is not with the house of God. Our problem is not with the word of God. Our problem is, well it is with the word of God because it's with God himself. And you can't flee from it, just because you don't hear it. It's like the old adage that says, you know, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody's there to hear it, does it make any sound? You know, everybody's probably heard that par... you know, and I've studied the science behind it, you know. And in many ways it doesn't make a sound because of the fact that sound is nothing more than vibrations that are being perceived by someone or something's eardrums. Now of course probably there doesn't exist a forest in the world that doesn't have any animals in it or people to hear the sound, but I guess technically speaking it doesn't make any sound. But let me tell you something. When God's word is being spoken and preached, it's making a sound whether you're there to hear it or not. Okay? You know what I mean? And you know, hiding from it doesn't mean that it isn't there. That people somehow think if I ignore it, it might go away. Or some people think that ignorance of God's word is actually a bonus because they have plausible deniability. They can say, well, you know, I didn't know that it was wrong. And then you start going to a Bible-preaching church, you start finding out a bunch of stuff is wrong, and now you're accountable for it, so they just say, well I'd rather just not hear it. Well let me explain something to you. You were accountable for it even before you heard it. This book was sitting at the 99-cent store all along just waiting for you to pull out that dollar and buy it and read it and get all the same things that I'm preaching to you. You know, everything I'm saying is just out of the Bible. And so you can escape from the preaching of God's word, but you can't escape from God. Where did I have you turn? Jeremiah? Is that where you are? Go to Jeremiah chapter 11. Look at verse 9. It says, "'And the Lord said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They are turned back to the iniquity of their forefathers, which refused to hear My words.'" You see that? "'They refused to hear it, and they went after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant, which I made with their fathers. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape. And though they shall cry unto Me, I will not hearken unto them.'" He said, you can escape the preaching. You can say, I don't want to hear your word, God. But he says, you won't escape the judgment. You won't escape me. Go if you would to 2 Timothy chapter number 4, famous passage, 2 Timothy chapter number 4, 2 Timothy 4. You see, a lot of people have a mistaken viewpoint of what liberty is. The Bible says that God has called us unto liberty. And because of our liberty, the Bible says that we should seek to not be the servants of men, because that's not liberty when we're enslaved by our fellow man. That's not liberty. But that we should seek to be the servants of God. You see, true liberty is not a life of no rules. But this is what people think that liberty means today. They think that liberty is the absence of rules. So basically, when they say liberty, what they mean is we go to a church where God's laws are not preached. And the Lord Jesus Christ's commandments are not preached. So therefore we have freedom to just do whatever the Spirit leads. And here's what they say, well if the Holy Spirit bothers me about it, well then I won't do it. And as long as I, let's say I walk up to the door of the bar, and I put my hand on the door like, Holy Spirit, now's your chance to tell me if I'm doing something wrong. Okay, didn't hear anything, alright let's go. I mean that's the mentality of the neo-evangelical movement. It basically says that, you know, freedom means we just go freestyle. We just go through life and we just do what we want to do, and we have no rules, and they think that's liberty. Well, that is not biblical liberty. Being whatever you want and having zero rules is not liberty. Because of the fact that that kind of so-called liberty always leads to enslavement and bondage of another kind. You see, the most, the most enslaving thing in this world is sin. Not Bible preaching. You thought it was Bible preaching. You know, you might have thought that it was a fundamental Baptist church that puts you in the Bible. No, it's sin. That's what Jesus said. He said you will be free. He said because, he said, whosoever committed sin is the servant of sin. You know, those who, and let me explain it to you this way. Let me explain liberty to you. Liberty is making your own rules or choosing yourself which rules you're going to follow. It's not living with no rules. It's choosing to follow the rules that you choose to follow, okay? Liberty is when I decide that as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Because I made that choice. That's liberty. It's not me saying I'm not going to follow any rules. I'm just going to do whatever I feel like doing. Now let me explain to you the difference. I have an alarm clock and in fact I've had an alarm clock for far more than a decade, okay? Now the reason why I have an alarm clock is because I don't go through life freestyle. Now if I went through life just completely freestyle, I'd basically just go to bed and just whenever I wake up and roll out of bed, that's when I'm going to roll out of bed, right? Freedom! But here's the thing. Are you going to be free when you lose your job and you don't have any money? Because there's a certain freedom that comes with being able to pay your own way. See the Bible says the borrower is servant to the lender. That's not freedom when you're relying on someone else to pay your bills for you. So freedom is when I set the alarm clock to the time that I want to get up and that's when I get up. That's freedom, okay? Not having zero alarm clock and just whenever I wake up, that's when I'm going to go. And if I feel, whatever I feel like eating, I'm going to eat it. Okay, well then you're probably going to end up eating ice cream for breakfast. I mean when I wake up in the morning, if somebody put a bowl of ice cream in front of me, I would be glad to eat it for breakfast. I love ice cream. I love candy. I love cake and chocolate and you know, if, I mean if I just go with just total freedom! And you know when you're a kid, you think these kind of foolish thoughts. But some of you need to grow up and be an adult here because when you're a kid you think, when I grow up, and this is what I thought when I was a kid, when I grow up I'm just going to eat as much candy as I want, I'm just going to have a fridge full of sodas and I'm just going to pour soda into my cereal instead of milk and it's going to be great. But here's the thing, are you free when you have type 2 diabetes? Are you free when you weigh 500 pounds and you can't even do the things that you want to do because that's holding you back? Are you free when you have health problems and sickness and you don't have any energy to do the things you want to do? That's not freedom at all. But see, these are good physical examples, you know, an alarm clock, waking up for breakfast. You know when my wife makes this breakfast where it's, what is that, kale? What is that stuff, that green stuff that you fry up? You know, kale, that's not the coolest thing in the world in my opinion. You know, and I love my wife's cooking but that's not my favorite when she makes eggs and kale for breakfast. You know, I thought it was eggs and... thank you, alright. But here's the thing, kale brings freedom. Here's the thing, eating a nutritious diet, self-governing is what I'm saying, will bring you more freedom in the long run when you have the energy and the vitality to go out and work and make the money that you need to be self-sufficient and self-reliant and independent and you have the energy and the health and the long life to do it. See how kale brings more freedom than just an unbridled ice cream fest all the time? And these are just physical examples showing you that liberty is not the absence of government, it's not the absence of rules, it's self-government. That is liberty, that is freedom. That's when I govern myself as opposed to being ruled over by someone else. Now, do young children have freedom? No. The Bible says that the child, when he's a child, differeth nothing from the servant. Did you hear me? He is under obedience, he has to be obeying commandments. When he grows up, he inherits all things. He has freedom, he governs himself. No longer does my mom tell me, you know, brush your teeth, get up in the morning, you know, and I'm like, five more minutes, mom, and she says, no, get up. She's not there anymore. I have to govern myself. I have to do that myself now. I have to govern myself. Some people never learn to do that and they fail in life because they can't get up on time. They cannot control the food that goes into their mouth. They cannot control what goes into their eyes. They cannot control what they do. These are physical examples showing that you have to govern yourself and live by your own rules. Well, when it comes to freedom, it's not, you don't have to just go out and just commit every sin that your flesh tells you to do because then you're a slave to the flesh. You're a slave to addiction. You're a slave to alcohol addiction or cigarettes. Smokers don't wake up every morning and just say, you know what, I'm so glad I have the freedom to choose to smoke 20 cigarettes today because that's exactly what I want to do today. I remember my sister one time, she walked out to the smoking break at a job and basically this was when she was a lot younger and basically everybody smoked at this job and they got extra breaks. You know how people are when they smoke. They don't work a full day a lot of times because they're constantly taking extra smoke breaks. So these people are out there smoking and so, and I've talked to a lot of people who told me, I started smoking to get those breaks. I'm not kidding because they saw everybody else at work was getting all these extra breaks and they said, you know, I want that break and so they took up smoking and she walked out onto the smoking patio and started to pull out a cigarette and they said, what are you doing? The smokers said, what are you doing? I said, I'm going to smoke a cigarette. You idiot! It's too late for us! Save yourself! I mean, that's literally what they said. They said, okay, you know, forget it then, you know. Because of the fact that they aren't smoking out there because they want to, they're doing it because they have to, they know it's costing them an arm and a leg, they know that it's bad for their health, they know that it doesn't have any benefit, they're addicted to it. They're not free, they're in bondage to it. And you can name the sin, you can name all the sin you want and even if it's not a physical addiction you can look at TV or movies that people just have to just constantly watch that stuff all day long, every day and it's like, you know, you'll turn off the TV somewhere and then they'll just turn it on in a couple of minutes, but I've been thinking it's like a knee-jerk reaction, it just has to be going. I've known people who have to sleep with the TV on all night, it just has to be playing in the background. But if you ask that person, would you like to have the willpower to never watch TV again and to do something valuable with your time like read a book or do something to serve God or spend time with your family, I bet almost everybody would push that button if they could. But they're addicted to it, they're enslaved to it. And so self-government is what I'm talking about. Do I live by rules? Yes I do. I try my best to live by a big, fat, black book full of rules. Well you're not free, you're enslaved, you're not, no, I'm free because you know what, these are the rules that I choose because God said, choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I'm not forcing these rules on anybody else except my family because me and my house will serve the Lord, but that's because my family is under obedience to me, but I'm going to tell you something. I'm not forcing you to follow these rules. You can come to this church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night and go out and ignore what I'm preaching. That's your problem, that's your affair, that's your issue, but I'm here to tell you something. God will bring all these things into judgment, whether they be good or whether they be evil. And I'm telling you that you ought to have real freedom in your life, not by escaping from the preaching of God's Word, but by embracing it and saying, I choose to obey the Lord. Because Jesus, you know what, He doesn't force you to obey His rules in order to be saved. He said, if you love me, keep my commandments. He said, if you want to be saved, just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. But when it comes to being pleasing to Him, He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Many don't love Him. They don't want to keep His commandments, so they don't want to even hear the commandments because every time they hear the commandments, it's a reminder to them, hey, I'm not keeping that commandment. A lot of people, they quit coming to church because they get backslidden and they don't like the conviction because if they don't come to church, they can just kind of forget about the fact that they were supposed to be soul winning and serving God and obeying Him. But you know, you can't escape. I preached a couple weeks ago about Peter. Remember how Peter got backslidden and he stopped soul winning. He stopped preaching the Gospel and instead he went back to fishing, which God had told him, you're done fishing. From henceforth thou shalt catch men. Remember how he went back to fishing, though? But you know what? He couldn't escape, could he? Even after Jesus had died and was buried and risen again and he thinks, okay, I'm just going to go back to fishing, I'm going to go back to the old life, guess who comes to find Him? Jesus shows up on the shore and catches Him in the act doing what He's not supposed to be doing. But you know what? He'll always be there to catch you. You can try to escape, you can try to flee. He'll always come find you and He'll be there just like He was in John 21 and He'll be there to rebuke what you're doing. But He's also there with a handout saying, you know what, son? Come back home. Come back. Follow me, Peter. Let me give you another chance. Remember how I told you to follow me and I'll make you fishers of men? He reaches out to him again and first he rebukes him for denying Him. He rebukes him for being fishing and he says, you know what, follow me. And he's ready to restore him to fellowship. And it's the same thing today. We try to escape from God, it's not going to work. It doesn't make any sense. It's just as illogical as it was for Jonah for you to think that by not reading your Bible every day and by not coming to church that preaches the Bible to you, somehow you can go out and live like the rest of the world. And somehow God's not there to rebuke it or to punish it or to judge it. He's still there. You can't get away from Him. You can't escape from Him. You know, there's so much more. Did I read for you 2 Timothy 4 verse 1? It says, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead that is appearing in His kingdom. Preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. Now the Bible says very clearly, go ye therefore, go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. The Bible clearly says in it, and daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. The Bible clearly states, but if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, whom the God of this world hath blinded the eyes of them which believe not, lest that, and I'm paraphrasing, but lest the light of the glorious Gospel should shine in. You know the Bible tells us over and over again, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me. That's like thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, ye shall be witnesses unto me. That's a commandment. He says you shall be, not if you feel like it, you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and under the othermost part of the earth. God commands us over and over again to preach the Gospel, to get people saved, to win the loss to Christ. He tells us to do it over and over again, but the Bible tells us, he said, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call upon him in whom they've not believed, and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent. Now if you go to a church that isn't sending you out to go preach to the lost, they're not motivating you and leading the charge and getting you out there to go out and win souls to Jesus Christ and to preach the Word to the lost. If you don't go to that kind of church, it's going to be an out of sight, out of mind thing. And many people, because they don't want to go soul winning, they don't want to go to a soul winning church, because here's what they say, well if I'm not soul winning but I go to a soul winning church, then I'm kind of the odd man out. You know, I want to go to a church that tells me that I'm doing everything perfect and that I'm right on all the time. But you know what? I want this to be a church where if you don't go soul winning you're kind of the odd man out. You say, what in the world? Well you know Jesus said if you follow me I'll make you fishers of men. I didn't think he said maybe. It's what he wants for everybody. He wants us to win souls, he wants us to win the lost. And you know what? I want this to be a church where 90% of the people go soul winning. But then the 10% they're going to feel like, well something is wrong. Something is wrong if you're not out of soul winning. And a lot of people, they'll go to a church that will tell them what they want to hear on that subject. Oh just let your light shine and people will come, your neighbor will come, fall on his knees and beg you to be saved. Just when he sees how well you're taking care of your lawn. You know that ain't going to work for me if you've seen my lawn lately. Nobody's coming to my house and crawling on their knees wanting to know what I have that they can get a hold of. I'm telling you something. You can find a lot of churches that will tell you, or you can find some Calvinist church that will tell you, oh everybody who's going to get saved is automatically going to get saved anyway so just relax. God's going to get it done. He doesn't need your help. You know you can find churches that will tell you that all day long, that will tell you what you want to hear about it. But the bottom line is it doesn't change the fact that people are still lost, they're still going to hell, and God still commands us to win souls. Now if you say, well I go to this church and I don't go soul winning. Well you know what, if you're smart you'll just keep coming. And eventually maybe this preaching will wear you down. But other people will make a foolish decision and say, I'm just going to leave that church because I'm sick of the pastor harping on soul winning. You know, I don't think that there's probably anybody who does the soul winning who gets sick of hearing harping on soul winning. They're the ones that are shouting amen because they're doing it. But the people, and it's funny because there are certain subjects that I don't even bring up that often, but to the person that's guilty of that, it just feels like to them that I'm just constantly bringing that up. You know, I'm just constantly bringing, you know, even though it's probably just sprinkled and peppered into the preaching just like every other doctrine, you know, that I try to provide a balanced diet the best that I can. But to the person who's guilty, to the person who doesn't do any soul winning, you know, to them it just seems like you're just constantly harping on it. And they want to just get away, they just want to flee from it. But you know what, you're not going to flee from these scriptures. You're not going to flee from God who demands you to preach the Word and to win souls. It's part of our job why we're on this earth. And you can go to a church that won't preach separation and standards and clean, righteous living, separation from the world, being different than the unsaved and not just flocking to all their entertainments and flocking to all their mentality, but you know what, that is still there. It still exists whether you leave or not. If you're smart, you'll come to a place where you can hear it. At least then you have a chance to hear it and grow and to be transformed by the renewing of your mind from hearing the Word preached. Or you can just go out into the freedom, the freedom that comes with not hearing God's Word and from fleeing from the presence of the Lord. Hop on that ship with all your worldly sailing buddies, head out to Tarshish, but you know what, the storm is coming, like he sent for Jonah, and your unsaved buddies are going to throw you overboard. Remember the prodigal son? He was buying everybody a drink, he was partying, woo! And then as soon as his money ran out, everybody forsook him, no man gave unto him. And then remember Jonah, he goes with his worldly buddies out on the ship and pretty soon they're throwing him overboard. And that's what's going to happen to you, the same thing. And it might not happen instantly, but it does happen, it does come. And so don't try to flee from the presence of the Lord. Let me close with this, Amos chapter 9, back where we started. I had a whole, that was actually point one of the sermon. Point two and three will just have to become another sermon. But anyway, Amos chapter 9 verse 1, the Bible reads, I saw the Lord, this is back where we started, we just want to kind of bring it full circle, I saw the Lord standing upon the altar and he said, smite the lintel of the door that the posts may shake and cut them in the head, all of them. And what's he talking about? Well if you read chapter 8, we don't have to read it for the sake of time, but at the end of chapter 8 he's talking about people worshipping false gods, he's talking about the calves of Dan and Samaria and so forth. He says, he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them. Though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down. And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence. And though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them. And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them. And I will set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good. Obviously these are really bad people, they're unsaved people, they're worshipping false gods. But you know what the Bible also says? Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. He said, if ye therefore be without chastisement, chastening, chastisement, those are both words that mean punishment. He says, if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. He said, what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? He's saying if you're not being chastened, you're not in the family. Now there are some parents who don't chasten their children, but they're bad parents. The Bible says he that spareth his rod, hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. And so a good parent will discipline their child. Well guess what? God is a good parent. In fact, he's the ultimate parent. And that's why he says, the only way you're going to go through life sinning and not being chastised is if you're not saved. Because he said, if you're a son, you will be punished, not maybe. And here's the thing, does that sound like you can escape from it? By just getting away from the people of God, getting away from the house of God, getting away from the preaching of the Word of God, getting away from even reading the Word of God? But the chastening is still coming. If my kids did something in violation of our rules and they did some horrible thing, you know, hiding on the other end of the house isn't going to help. You think I'm just going to give up? Can't find them. Because you know, I'm going to find them. And you know what? God's going to find you even better than I can find them. Because you can't escape from them. You can't get away from them. So here's the bottom line of the sermon. Don't face it. Don't hide from it. Don't try to hide your eyes from the Word. Don't stop your ears, as the Bible says, from hearing God's Word. Don't try to get away from His presence. And look, His presence is very much here, where two or three are gathered together in His name. He's here in the midst. And I think that God's presence is stronger here. But it'll be there when you leave and get in the car and go home too. He'll be with you. If you're saved, He's with you. He'll never leave you or forsake you. You can't escape. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Please just help us to embrace your Word and embrace the preaching of your Word and embrace your laws. Oh how love I thy law, it is my meditation night and day. Help us to delight in the law of the Lord. Not to try to hide from it and call it legalism and call it oppression and bondage. God, help us to run toward your law and embrace it as our own personal law and govern ourselves and experience true freedom and liberty that comes with following your Word and following your laws because we want to. God help us to not be so foolish as to think that we can just somehow ignore your Word and that somehow the consequences for our actions will go away. Please help us not to ignore your command to preach the Gospel to every creature. And please help us not to ignore all of your other many hundreds of commandments in your Word. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.