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

Now, this evening, I am continuing, essentially, I'm continuing the same thought from this morning. So, this morning's sermon, I was preaching on the judgment of God, and specifically looking at the judgment that God brings in the form of death, and pestilence, and captivity, and when you read through the Bible, you're going to see that God's judgment on nations happens over and over and over and over and over again. In fact, it happens way more often than I think people like to realize that God is dealing with the world, I think, on a regular basis, and especially with nations as a whole. That God's judgment comes on people, and often, way too often times, people blow it off and don't attribute disasters to the Lord, to God, and the problem with doing that, and we went over this on just a brief synopsis of this morning's sermon, is that God's going to keep bringing the chastisement, He's going to keep bringing the judgment until people get it through their heads, and just turn back to God, and turn to the Lord, because that's what He's trying to do, is one, if there's a punishment that needs to happen, often times, for people just getting into wickedness, or following other gods, whatever the case specifically may be, He's trying to get their attention, and He's always punishing them for sinning, but then at the same time, He's trying to just say, hey, return unto me, come back to me, and come to me with your whole heart, so that way, He can show mercy, and extend forgiveness and mercy, and allow the nation to continue without all of those terrible judgments, because He wants the heart of the people turned to Him, that is what God wants. Now, we started off here in the book of Jonah, because this whole book is about this story of a prophet of God, a prophet named Jonah, who, if you see in chapter one, verse number one, it starts off saying, now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amitei, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. And then, of course, you know the rest of the story, probably, even from as a child, this is one of the stories that a lot of people have heard of, because Jonah, instead of heeding the Lord's command to go and preach, he decides, I don't want to do that. So, he gets on a boat, and he's going, I'm going to go the opposite direction, what you told me to do, Lord, and he gets on the boat, and he's thinking he could just run away from his responsibilities, and run away from his problems, and God's not having that. So, of course, there's this great storm, and this great tempest, and it's this, you know, people on the boat, even these experienced shipment, are just kind of, you know, getting really nervous about the storm, and they're saying, man, who upset God? And they're all kind of looking to their own gods, and they figure out that Jonah's the one of why they're having this great problem, and they end up throwing Jonah overboard to appease God, to satisfy God's wrath, and, of course, once they do that, the storm dies down, everything calms, and then this whale comes and swallows up Jonah. So, Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of a whale, excuse me, and he has an attitude change after he goes through some tribulation, and, remember, it is tribulation. It's not fun thing. You know, it's a fun story for kids, and you can play with little toys, and be like, oh, yeah, Jonah's inside of the whale as if it's, like, not a big deal, but if you really realize what it must be like to be inside of a belly of an animal, right? Because the stomachs are designed to have acids and things, and break down whatever's inside of them, and just the darkness, and the stink, and, you know, everything that would go along. I mean, if you're really just kind of, a lot of time you read these stories, and you don't really put yourself in that situation. It really is a bad place to be, and he's there for three days and three nights. I doubt he slept. You know, I don't think I would. I don't know how you would, right, in that situation, and then he gets vomited back up out onto land, and going through that changed Jonah's attitude about doing what God told him to do, and in a way, that's a real small microcosm of the greater truth of God wanting to judge this nation. He deals with individuals also. Now, I'm not gonna spend time tonight really going into God's judgment with individuals. That is a great example of one, because God deals with individuals, as well as whole groups of people, and the way that he deals with them is a little bit different, and I'm gonna get into that slightly tonight, but I'm really just mainly focused on God dealing with countries, okay? So, in this story, in the book of Jonah in chapter one, you know, he's fleeing from the Lord. In chapter two, it's him inside the whale's belly, and you've got this great prophecy of Jesus Christ, and, you know, him suffering for us, and then in chapter three, excuse me, where we read, we see Jonah now receives the word of the Lord again the second time, it says in verse number one, the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. He said, tell them, whatever I'm telling you, you need to repeat that to them, and he's preaching against it. Nineveh is a great city. It's a wealthy city, it's a city that's got, you know, a lot of trading going on, but it also has a lot of wickedness. So, Jonah's commanded to go in there and just preach. You think he's preaching a good message or a bad message? I mean, it's a wicked city. He's preaching against the city. It's not gonna be, you know, at least before you preach it, you might be thinking, this is not gonna go over very well. People are gonna wanna hear this because it's negative preaching. And this is, you know, a criticism that people often will give about even independent fundamental Baptist preaching, say, oh, it's so negative, and you're preaching on sin and stuff, and no one's gonna wanna hear that. You know what? People do wanna hear that. We see what happens here, and you know what? Thank God that Jonah went to Nineveh because as we see in this story, they do get right with God. They receive the negative preaching. They hear the message from the Lord, and they change. They get right with God. They needed to hear the truth. And see, here's the thing. When people love you, when people are going to, you know, this isn't hateful preaching when we preach God's word, when we preach the law, when we preach judgment. It's love because the whole point is to get people to change and to get right with God. Because at the end of the day, whether you like it or not, whether people like the Bible, whether they like God's laws, God still exists. It's a reality, and God judges people, and God judges nations. So you can either get on board with God's program or just be on the receiving end of a lot of judgment. And I don't wanna be on the receiving end of a lot of judgment, and I don't wanna see our country go through that if it doesn't have to, if people can get right. And God loved Nineveh, even though they were doing this wickedness, He loved them enough to send them a warning, to give them a little bit of time and a little bit of a space to repent and get right. And you know what? Nineveh heard. Nineveh received that message. Let's keep reading chapter number three. The Bible says in verse three, so Jonah arose and went on to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. So the way I understand this, I don't know if there's another way of understanding this, is that it takes three days approximately to go from one end of the city to the other. That's how big it is. It takes like a three day trip. It was a real big city. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So he's saying within 40 days, God is gonna destroy Nineveh. That's his message. It's doom and gloom. So the people of Nineveh believed God. He's coming and preaching in the name of the Lord. And notice, it doesn't say they believed Jonah. They believed God because they were God's words that he put in Jonah's mouth. Jonah was sent to preach God's word, and the people believed God's word. And this is what we're called to do also, is to preach God's word in the hopes that people will believe God's word. I remember when I was still seeking and trying to figure out before I was saved what's true and what's not, I just wanted to know what was true. I don't want people censoring and holding back and going, oh, I'm only gonna give you as much as you can handle. No, how about you just tell me the whole truth? I just wanna hear it all. Tell me what's right. Tell me what's wrong. And let me just figure it out. I'm a big boy. You know, I can handle it. And we need to take off a little kid gloves when it comes to preaching the word of God and preachers across United States, across the world, believers in the Bible needed to stop censoring God's word and say, thus saith the Lord, because they're not your words, they're God's words. So don't hold back what God has to say, because it's needful for the people to hear it. If God thought it was important enough to preserve His word for thousands of years, who are you to say, well, I'm not really gonna preach on that? Well, I'm not gonna go into that. Shame on you if you do those things. We need to hear the word of the Lord, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, especially if it's unpleasant, because that means that if it's unpleasant to you, then maybe you've got an area you need to get right with God. So He's preaching. Nineveh's gonna be overthrown. The people hear that and they believe it. They believe God. And then on top of that, not just do they believe, they proclaim a fast. They put on sackcloth. It says, from the greatest of them, even the least of them. This is a great repentance of Nineveh, because this isn't just some small group. It's speaking like it's by and large the city, whether the people are real powerful or not, just all walks of life are hearing this message and going, you know what? Yeah, we are wicked. Yes, what's happening here isn't right. No, we need to get right. No, we need to change. We need to repent, because the fear of the Lord came upon them when they heard Jonah's message, which is ultimately God's message. So they all repent. They proclaim a fast, so they're not gonna eat. They're gonna afflict their souls. They're not gonna eat. They're not gonna drink. And it says here that even the king, it says, for the word came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes. So even the king wasn't above humbling himself and putting off his royal apparel and humbling himself just like everybody else and putting on the sackcloth and the ashes and just showing humility to get right with God. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water. So he's saying like the animals, like we're all right now getting right with God. We're gonna fast. I want everyone observing this right now, the animals, everybody. You all stop what you're doing, get on your knees, get in sackcloth and ashes and beg God that he won't destroy us. These are the actions of people who really do believe that message. Honestly, it's not just this head consent of like, oh yeah, I think that's true. If you believe destruction's coming, hey man, what do we do, right? What do we do about that? So he makes this proclamation, and then it says in verse eight, but let man and beast be cupboard sackcloths and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. So the call is we need to stop doing wickedly. We need to stop doing violence. Now, this is an extremely important distinction that I need to draw here because the way that God deals with a nation, with a group of people is different when it comes to salvation than it's dealing with a person. So, oh, I should say this. It's the same as your physical salvation. So essentially, there's a physical salvation that you can receive, and the Bible talks about two different types of salvation. There's a physical salvation of like your body, of just you existing and continuing to exist on this earth, and your soul, your soul's salvation, right? Your eternal destination of where you're gonna end up. Now, one of the reasons why there's so much false doctrine on what it takes for your soul to be saved is because people who are unsaved aren't able to rightly divide the word of truth. They're not able to look at the Scripture and understand the difference between the two, when there is very clearly a difference between the two, and we're gonna see this evidence when we get into verses nine and 10 in just a minute. I'm gonna go more in depth, but before we even get there, I just wanna explain that what the Bible teaches us that we must do to be saved as far as our soul is concerned is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Like it says in Acts chapter 16, verses 30 and 31, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And we can go on and on and on with the verses. You all probably know so well on salvation, just being by faith. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, and not of works, lest any man should boast. Very clearly, our soul, when we receive a gift of eternal life, when our soul is saved, it is only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, has nothing to do with our good works, has nothing to do with us turning from evil ways and wickedness and violence and everything else. It has to do with receiving Christ as your savior in your heart. That is how your soul is saved, but you know what? That's not how your flesh is saved. That's not how the flesh of a nation is saved either. Physical destruction. The Bible teaches while, yes, your soul is saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you want to make sure that you continue in this life and in the good graces of God without being chastised and disciplined as a child of God, that's where the works come in, is where, okay, now you need to obey God, follow his commandments, and do all these things. And if you don't do those things, you're likely to even lose your physical life on this earth. Now, it doesn't mean your soul's going to hell. Once you've already been saved, you're saved forever. But the level of obedience or disobedience will impact your physical existence on this earth and the length of days that you have. And it goes the same for a nation as well. So a nation that continues to bring forth wickedness and violence, God destroys those nations and judges those nations because of those works. You look at all the examples throughout scripture, and this is a perfect example. Nineveh was full of violence and wickedness. Jonah was saying, hey, you guys need to change your ways. So they repent. They believe, but then they repent and they start changing and saying, okay, look, God, we're really sorry about this. We don't want to be destroyed. And then in verse number nine, they say, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from His fierce anger that we perish not? So they're saying, who knows? Maybe God will change His mind, because that's what the word repent means, by the way, is to change your mind. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from His fierce anger that we perish not? Rethinking, changing your mind, you know, that's what the repentance is. And, you know, people who preach about false doctrine are going to tell you that, oh no, repenting is just turning from sin. It has to be in the context of turning from sin for it to mean anything to do with sin, because God's not a sinner, and we see here God repenting. And we're going to see in verse 10 even more clear that God does repent. He does change His mind. He does choose not to bring destruction on Nineveh based on what He sees of their actions. Verse 10 says, and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way. And this is really important on many levels. The first level is that when you turn from your evil way, when you turn from your sin, when you turn from things that are bad, that's a work. Plain and simple. Because what are you doing? If you're turning from doing wickedness, what would be the opposite of that? Keeping the law, keeping God's law, right? Because sin is the transgression of the law. So if you've got a lot of sins, you're in a lot of wickedness, you're breaking God's law, well, how do you stop breaking the law? Well, by keeping the law, right? I mean, it's one or the other. You're either breaking the law or you're keeping the law. So if you're going to turn from breaking the law and stop breaking the law, then that means you're going to turn to keep the law. Makes sense, I mean, this makes sense. Keeping the law by every definition is going to be works in Scripture. This is clearly defined here as being works. God saw their works. They turned from their transgression. They turned from their evil way. That is works, which is why I vehemently preach that our soul being saved has nothing to do with you turning from all of your sins. You don't have to turn from doing bad things to do good things because your good works won't save you. Because the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith. Not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works. It's not of works. Salvation is not of works. The eternal life is not of works. Your soul being saved. But God sparing judgment physically on this earth, that is based on works. Because here God saw their works that they turned from their evil and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not. So God changed his mind and said, okay, well now I'm not going to destroy you because I saw your works, because I see your actions. I see that you are getting right with me, which is what I want you to do. If you do right by God, you know, as a nation, he's not going to bring judgment and destroy that nation. He's not. Even if you have people who, you know, theoretically would be unbelievers, but they're not just involved in all kinds of wickedness and are still, you know, retaining some level of adherence to God's commands, you know, God's not just going to bring judgment upon them. Now, obviously, you know, I don't want to go down this whole rabbit trail of, well, how can they possibly keep any of God's commandments? But at the end of the day, when you have people that turn from their evil way, it's a work, and that that is how God is going to spare judgment upon a nation or even a person that's deserving of that judgment. Turn, if you would, to Jeremiah chapter 18. And I know there's people, and I don't want to spend tons of time on this, but it has to be brought up because any time you deal with repentance, because the title of my sermon is Repent America. America needs to repent. And this ties in with the sermon from this morning because I believe that the pestilence that's being brought forth is from the Lord. It's from God. And that the only way for any type of salvation is going to be for people to turn to God. And yeah, you know what? That's going to require works. And it's not just this acknowledgement and lip service that, oh yeah, I believe in God, or, oh yeah, I believe in Jesus. What it's going to require for God to spare and with the hold some judgment is a level like Nineveh had. Like people getting real serious about this and going, I'm repenting in sackcloth and ashes, and from the least of the greatest, we're all turning back to God. Now, do I foresee this happening in our country? No, but you know what? Jonah didn't foresee this happening either. When God rebuked him, and later in chapter four, it displeased Jonah, and he was angry, and he's just like, oh yeah, he said, I knew in verse number two of Jonah four, he says, and he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled from before Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repent of the evil. And he says, therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And he's basically saying like, I don't, you know, I didn't need to go in there anyways. And he, you know, that it wasn't needful for him to go and do that when it was. And I'm sorry, I totally lost my train of thought. There for a second. You're in Jeremiah 18. Oh, one last thing that I wanna point out here, because people will say that when it comes to repentance, they say, oh, well, Jesus preached repentance and John the Baptist preached repentance. And look, I believe in repentance too. Repentance in turning from unbelief to believe on Jesus Christ. Turning from idols to the true and living God. That is a repentance that's necessary for salvation and even the apostle Paul confirms this in the book of Acts in chapter 19, verse number four. The Bible says, then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him, which should come after him, that is on Christ Jesus. So when John baptized with the baptism of repentance, when John was in the wilderness and saying, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, what he was doing, what he was saying when he was preaching repentance was that they should believe on him, which had come after him. That was the baptism of repentance that people believe on Christ. That is a repentance that's necessary for your soul to be saved and have eternal life. The salvation though, that's physical, the salvation of a nation, the salvation of your fleshly body on this earth has to do with works. If I had to turn to Jeremiah chapter 18, look at verse number one, we're gonna see the same concept. So it's not just in Jonah with, you know, this concept of repenting from their sins in order to be spared. Verse number one, Jeremiah 18, the Bible reads, The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels, and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter. So he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter, saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, and so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it. So now, before I even go any further here, he's telling Jeremiah, go down to this potter's house and watch, he's making this pottery, right, he's spinning it, and it gets screwed up. So basically, he kind of starts over, right? It gets marred in the potter. He just goes to make another one. He's like, well, okay, I'm done with that. I'm gonna scrap that one and start new and start fresh. And God's using that example and saying, well, can't I do the same thing with you, O house of Israel? Right, can't I just start fresh and throw away the scrap, basically? And what he's dealing with here, which is very important, because people who believe in a workspace of salvation will apply this to your soul being saved. But in the context, in verse seven, he says, at what instance I shall speak concerning a nation, right, a group of people, and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. It's the same exact teaching that he's giving Nineveh and Jonah, right, same concept. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it. If it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. Now, therefore, go to speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord, behold, I frame evil against you and devise a device against you. Return ye now everyone from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good. And they said, There is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. So here we see essentially the same message, one going to Nineveh and one going to Jerusalem, right? And who do you think would respond the right way between Nineveh and Jerusalem? You'd think that Jerusalem would, right? I mean, they've had all this history of receiving the word of God and having all these prophets and having so much more invested in them. But what we see happening here in Jeremiah's time is that they're just saying, Nope. It's the same warning saying, Look, go tell them they need to repent or else. And they say, No, there's no hope. We're just gonna do whatever we wanna do in imagination of our own evil heart. Whereas Nineveh got right with God and changed and repented. We have the same message that needs to be thundered to America. People need to repent. You need to get right with God. Don't think that, you know, that, Oh, God's blessed this nation. If you think about this too, God has blessed this nation. And I don't care how much the atheists hate it and the God-hanging people hate it. This nation was started as a Christian nation. It was. People who fled from persecution from Europe at the foundations of this country came here. They fled religious persecution, but they weren't just from all walks of different religions. They were Christians. Bible believers that were being persecuted, real Bible believers. So when you go back and you could look through the founding of the colonies in the United States of America before you even became a nation, you can see based on the laws, just the laws alone are mirroring scripture just over and over again. So many areas just mirroring scripture, mirroring scripture. And when they set up the government here even, you know, the separation of church and state, they didn't want a state-run religion because they had left that where the state is dictating everything and have this corrupt religion because they just wanted to be able to worship the Lord the right way and be able to do things that way. And the foundation and everything that goes into the starting of this country. I'm not saying that all of the founding fathers were all Christians. I'm not saying that, but the principles laid forth in the Constitution and just through those, especially through those early years, had a foundation in biblical principles and definitely used wisdom from the Bible in the beginning. And there's no doubt the amount of people who have been doing the work of the Lord has the highest concentration in America from its early days on. And you know what? God blessed this nation because of that. Does that mean that the nation was perfect? No, of course, this nation has had lots of sin of its own, but there's been so much good generating out of here as well with all the missions work, with all the churches, with all the gospel preaching, with the work of the Lord that's been done here, God has blessed as a result. But you know where we're at right now? We're kind of where Rehoboam was, right? We've already seen the heyday and the blessing from what David did in the Kingdom of Israel and Solomon's kind of golden era of all this peace and prosperity, but then Solomon's heart turned and then that brought even more judgment to come and until we got to the point where we had Rehoboam who was not willing to show any kindness to the people and saying, no, I'm gonna make your affliction even worse. You're coming to me. And he had this bad attitude and kind of a spoiled attitude of just having everything given to him and not making the good judgment for the nation. And I think that's kind of where we are, where we've gotten to a point where we've gotten real spoiled and real relaxed in Christianity in general and real tolerant of everything to where it's like, does it even resemble Christianity in the Bible anymore? And I would say no. I mean, obviously there's exceptions. There's churches out there who are still trying to hold fast and keep the faithful word and keep moving forward and remaining steadfast, but by and large, you're seeing a lot of compromising being done. And as you broaden that out, it's turning into just, are you even preaching the Bible? Are people even preaching God's word? And as a result, wickedness is abounding because you're not having the truth and the message being thundered out and reminding people, hey, fear God, keep his commandments. And I have a feeling that the people here are gonna be similar to the people of Jerusalem and say, no, we just wanna keep doing and just following our own wickedness. Now, regardless of my thought on how people are gonna respond, that shouldn't change the fact that the message still needs to go out. Because if I choose to choose to self-censor, then I'm gonna wind up more like Jonah, going through some affliction when God said, no, you have to deliver a message. You have to deliver my message. People need to have that chance. I'm thankful that I had that chance because that chance got my soul saved just hearing the message of the gospel and of the worst type of destruction, which is in hell. Here, I mean, physical destruction, yeah, that stinks, but eternal destruction is way worse. Turn, if you would, if you're in Jeremiah 18, flip over to chapter 26. We're gonna see another call to repentance in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 26, look at verse number one. The Bible reads, in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word from the Lord, saying, thus saith the Lord, stand in the court of the Lord's house and speak unto all the cities of Judah which come to worship in the Lord's house. All the words that I command thee to speak unto them diminish not a word. If so be, they will hearken and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. And thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord, if ye will not hearken to me to walk in my law, which I have set before you, to hearken to the words of my servants, the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened, then will I make this house like Shiloh and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. Now, if you're not familiar with all the history here, this is real late in the kingdom of Israel as far as the reign of their kings. Josiah was a great king who followed, essentially Manasseh was his grandfather, but Manasseh was an extremely wicked king and let his children pass through the fire and worship and serve other gods and did a lot of damage. But Josiah rose up and he decided to serve the Lord with all his heart and he held a Passover and did all kinds of great things to get the people kind of back on track with the Lord. And he humbled himself and really set his heart to serve God. So God stayed off the judgment on the nation because of Josiah's zeal and his heart to serve God and his sincerity in serving the Lord. God saw that and he withheld the judgment and said, okay, well, I'm not gonna bring the evil in your days. And now he's still even giving them because Jehoiakim rose up after Josiah and God's sending Jeremiah here and he sent other prophets as well to prophesy and say, okay, look, now that Josiah's gone, they revert all the way back to just doing their wickedness again. It's like they have this great guy inspiring them and trying to get the people crowd together but at the end of the day, the people still just were turning back to their wickedness. So he's giving them this warning and saying, I'm sending you these prophets and if you're not gonna hearken to me to walk in my law and to listen to the prophets, then I'm gonna make this house like Shiloh. And this was at the temple and previously Shiloh was where the tabernacle was of the Lord and God wiped out Shiloh because of the wickedness of the people and he's saying, I'm gonna make this house like Shiloh and we'll make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. Now, Jeremiah is preaching this message from God and this isn't the popular message because look what it says in verse number eight because it says the priests and the prophets, they all heard Jeremiah and it says, now it came to pass when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him saying, thou shall surely die. So this infuriates them. And again, here's the thing, the job of the messenger is still the same. As a servant of the Lord, Jeremiah's job was the same as Jonah's job. You know, it's the same job as you give the warning. You don't know whether or not the people are gonna receive it. You may think they're not gonna receive it, but it doesn't matter, you still deliver the message. Or you do what God tells you to do because that gives the people the option, it gives them the choice. You don't wanna withhold that from them. Now, and again, I think we kinda live in a time that mirrors more closely to the days of Zedekiah where people wanna kill the person who's just trying to tell them, hey, look, get right with God, follow the Lord, look to his commandments, look to his ways, and people wanna have nothing to do with it. My call this evening is for the United States to repent. And obviously, the United States made up a bunch of individuals, I want individuals to repent, but as a collective, I want the people to turn back to God and take it seriously. And I'm hoping and praying that this pandemic, this coronavirus, will help to get that message across. Even if the fears are unfounded, I hope people get scared enough to humble themselves and to look to the Lord for their salvation and look to the Lord and look in their own lives and see, hey, what are we doing? And maybe have the light illuminated in their minds to say, maybe we brought this on ourselves. Maybe people have pushed things too far. I mentioned this morning about the sodomites and the abortions, I didn't have the stats, so I decided to look up the stats so I would just have them here to bring this up again as to why I believe God's judgment, part of the reason why God's judgment is coming upon this nation, because the stats are staggering. According to the World Health Organization, every year in the world, there are an estimated 40 to 50 million abortions. In this world, what kind of number, 40 to 50 million? What did I say was the population in Georgia, 50 million? What? 10 million? 10.5 million, that's what it was where the five came from. The whole state, 10.5 million, 40 to 50, it's like four to five entire, every living person drops dead five times over in this whole state that we live in. All of Atlanta, all the population here, everyone in this whole state just drops dead five times over in one year. One year. Now that's across the whole world. The world needs to be judged. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day. You think there's not a judgment deserving from the Lord? I believe in the United States, a couple years ago it was like 850,000 abortions in one year just shy of a million. And it's going down a little bit, but still, I mean, that is unacceptable. We can't look at the numbers and say, oh, well, at least it's going down a little bit, so maybe God's gonna show us some mercy. Not, no, no, he's not, because there's still 850,000 innocent lives dying every year. You know what might make God have a little bit of respect under repentance? Is if we said, we're gonna murder the murderers. Not murder, we're gonna put to death, we're gonna execute, we're gonna execute justice. So excuse me, when I said that wrong, we're not gonna murder, because murder is the unlawful taking of life. But if we as a people decided this is gonna be against the law and we're gonna have the death penalty against the crime of taking innocent lives and shedding innocent blood, that this is going to apply as a capital crime, that might help, because you know what you'd be doing at that point? You'd be going right back to God's law. Anything less than that is worthless. We need to go back to having God's laws as our light and our guide. That's a type of repentance to say, you know what, this is wickedness, let's just call it what it is, and if people wake up and say, we're gonna stop this murdering of innocent children, and anyone responsible for the murder of innocent children is gonna be put to death and executed, just like someone ought to be, if they're murdering people that are outside of the womb. Same punishment. And here's from the New York Times, that was on abortion. Here's the quote, if I was finding the quote from President Trump that's supportive of the perversion Sodomite agenda, the God haters of this world, the proud that are an abomination in the sight of the Lord, which is another sin that the Bible says is worthy of the death penalty. Leviticus 20, 13. The Bible said, or not the Bible, excuse me, far from the Bible, as far as possible from the Bible. The New York Times says this, the administration also stood in solidarity. Here's the quote, I'm gonna use my fingers for quotes. The administration also stood in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, that's the end quote, Mr. Trump said on Friday on Twitter, nodding to Pride Month for the first time since he took office, this was last year, that he sent out this tweet that is partially quoted here, it says the administration also stood in solidarity with the LGBT people where they're being tried for their crime of being a Sodomite, which, by the way, is a crime in the Bible. And then it goes on to say, this article goes on to say, in remarks that were circulated a day later as an official statement from the White House, he added, so this is now, this isn't just on Twitter, this is an official statement from the White House, from your famous president that everyone loves so much and is your hero, my administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invites all nations to join us in this effort. Let's see what God thinks about this. Look at, turn to 1 Kings, chapter 14. We already have people turning away from the Lord on many fronts. Christianity is getting mocked and ridiculed. We just came back from a trip to a camp, one of the state parks here in Georgia. And this really got me burned up. You know how normally when you go to a hotel, you're gonna see a Bible in one of the nightstands, right? You go to a hotel, there's a Bible there. And it's usually the Gideons have placed Bibles all over the place, right? Well, when I went to our cabin, I opened up the drawer and I saw what looked like a Bible. And what it was, it was a Bible, it was a King James Bible, but it was the, what's it called? The Skeptic's Bible, which, and I forget the exact name of it, doesn't matter. What it is is a mockery of God's word. So it's a Skeptic's Annotated Bible, is I think what it's called. So what it is, is you still have the Bible, but half of it has all of these, it's like a commentary. And it's by an atheist, a God-hating atheist that wants to put this mockery of God's word just in all of the state parks and stuff. And this is what happened. There has been an attack on God's word in this country to try to de-Christianize in general. And people haven't made a strong enough stand to say, no, you know what, we are a Christian nation, and we're not gonna stand for just this degradation of the Lord our God. People have given lip service, presidents of the United States have given lip service to God, whether or not they believe in him or not, I don't know, but in their speeches, it was at least politically expedient to say that. But what's happening is that the politics is reflecting the culture at large, the society at large. People have grown so far away from the Lord that now you're actually having these books put in there that's just an open mockery and ridiculing of God's word. And just literally, it's just every comment is just making fun of the Bible. It's making fun of all these verses and just trying to bring shame on the word of God. And it's disgusting and it burned me up. It made me angry that that book was allowed to even be placed in one of the state parks cabins. But it's just indicative of where we are. You've got a president endorsing sodomy. We've got abortions, murders just happening every day. You've got people that don't care about any of it. And in fact, you've got people that call themselves Christians that are gonna denigrate and shame me for preaching the word of God and saying, no, this is what the Bible actually says. And they're gonna try to shame me into silence and shut me down. And it's completely backwards from what God, and you expect there not to be judgment? Look, people need to wake up and get a backbone and get in the word of God and listen to the word of God whether you like it or not. If you believe this is the word of God, then you need to stand up and preach and believe it and get right with God. 1 Kings 14, verse 22, the Bible reads, and Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord. This is God's people and this is supposed to be the hub. When the kingdom of Israel split in the two kingdoms, you had the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah, Judah is where all the priests and Levites and everyone flocked to, they were still serving the Lord. And when you look at the history of all the kings, that's where you have more people living and doing righteously is because that was still the hub of service to the Lord. Whereas Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, led Israel off into idolatry and all manner of sin, and they get conquered earlier and taken captive and stuff, but Judah was supposed to be kind of that main lighthouse still of the word of God. But when Judah does evil in the sight of the Lord, it says, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins, which they had committed above all that their fathers had done. So they're saying, you know, they're making God jealous and when they're making God jealous, it's because they're going after idolatry and things like that. Verse 23, it goes on to explain, for they also built them high places and images and groves on every high hill and under every green tree. But you know what? That wasn't it, that wasn't all they had done. Verse 24 says, and there were also Sodomites in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. And you know what, that's what Sodomites do. That's why when God brought in the children of Israel in the promised land, if you ever have wondered, well, why did God command that everything had to be wiped out, all the people, the women, the children, the men, everybody? God brought his judgment on those nations because of how extremely wicked they were, the same way that God brought judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Because you don't think that there were women and children in Sodom and Gomorrah? You better believe there were. But you know what, God annihilated all of them. He wiped it out, just like he wiped out the world with a flood when the wickedness grew. He wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah. He wiped out the inhabitants of the land, or at least that was what they were supposed to do when the children of Israel came in. Why? Because they did all of the things. When you read the book of Leviticus, and you read all of the laws that are laid out, specifically in chapter number 20, and you see all the death penalty, the capital crimes, it said that the people of the land did all of these things. They did all of those things. The bestiality, the perversion, the child molestation, all of that stuff, they did all of it. And that's why God said, that's enough, you're getting wiped out. Because that's what the Sodomites do. And when Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, they build these high places, they bring their false gods, and then they also allow the Sodomites in the land that are doing these abominations, and they're fine with it. See, when the righteous king comes along, you could read this in the book of Kings, you know what they do? They drive out the Sodomites out of the land. When Jehoshaphat came, the Bible says he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and he drove out the Sodomites out of the land. Because that's the right thing to do. It's not to have this leader that says, oh, we're gonna make it all okay for you to exist everywhere in the whole world. Verse 25, and it came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasure of the king's house. He even took away all, and he took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made. So this is the beginning of the judgment for them, because of their turning away from the Lord. And what I believe we're seeing right now with the economy is the treasures being removed. It's part of the judgment of God. And this might just be a precursor. This might just be the warning shot. I don't know, who knows? Who knows how bad it's gonna get? But this just might be that little bit of a warning going, you get yourselves right, and you get yourselves right now. Here's a little bit of a taste of what's to come. Because if the United States continues to just thumb its nose at God, and just have nothing to do with God's law, and just mock the Bible, and mock Christianity, and mock the law of God, judgment's coming. And you can be sure of that. Think I'm gonna skip this passage. Just turn, if you would, to Psalm 33. I have in my notes here in Revelation chapter nine. You could look at this later if you want. But basically, in Revelation nine, you've got the sixth angel. This is when God's pouring out His wrath. Just turn to Psalm 33, because I'm not gonna read Revelation nine, but just give you an overview. When God's pouring out His wrath, and you have all of these plagues coming, and people are being killed by fire, and smoke, and brimstone, and all this stuff, the Bible says that the people that weren't killed by the plagues, yet they still did not repent of their evil works, and their fornications, and adulteries, and all the wicked things, that they still just didn't get it. And even when God is pouring out just some of the worst wrath, some people are just so obstinate, like Pharaoh. And these are the people, especially people who are just giving over to this reprobate mind. Their heart is hardened, and nothing will make them turn back to the Lord. Whereas I think a reasonable person would see this, and go, you know what? Maybe we ought to analyze, and see where we're at, and try to get right with God, because God is almighty. God is to be feared, and we need to set our hearts right with Him, and we need to get the warning out there, too. We need to get people saved, and we need to get people in church, and reading their Bibles, so that we can try to spread what is right and good, and that people can hear the message, and get right, and try to stay off all the judgments of God that are bound to come our way. Psalm 33 is basically where we ought to be as a nation. Look at verse number 12. The Bible reads, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance. The Lord looketh from heaven. He beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation, He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike. He considerth all their works. There is no king saved by the multitude of an host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength. America needs to realize this. It doesn't matter how great our military is. It doesn't matter how much military spending there is. It doesn't matter how many people there are. It doesn't matter how advanced weapon systems we have. None of that matters, because if you're not right with God, God can turn His country on its head, destroy its military in a heartbeat to where we are just weaker than any other nation in the world. Do not rely on your physical strength, because God is stronger than any human being or any group of people. He's the creator of people. Look at verse 16. There is no kale, verse 17. And horse is a vain thing for safety. Neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the Lord. He is our help and our shield, for our heart shall rejoice in Him because we have trusted in His holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in Thee. And this is my prayer to the Lord, and say, hey, at least for the remnant, at least for the few that care about the Bible, Lord, please let your mercy be upon us. We hope in you. We're not trusting in the government to keep us safe. We're not trusting in any vaccine to keep us free from disease. We're not trusting in any military might to keep us free and safe from enemies that might come in and judge us, Lord. We're trusting in you. And we need you to be with us, Lord. And we pray that you will help us to reach the people, to deliver the message that God would have, have delivered to this people as much as to any people. And which when you break everything down, it's very simple. There is a God, the Lord in heaven. There is right and wrong. God has commandments. When you break the commandments of the Lord, you're in trouble. We need a deliverer. Your soul needs to be saved, which because of God's mercy and love, He's already made the way for you to be saved and get to heaven. All you have to do is receive the free gift and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's first and foremost. That's the most important thing, because that affects your eternity. But the rest is important as well, because it impacts our lives here on this earth. And that's keeping the commandments, looking to the Lord for all of our ways, for everything that we should be doing and turning from wickedness and evil ways to do that which is right, so we can stay off judgment and chastisement from the Lord. America needs to repent. And if not, we can expect more of the doom and gloom and the chastisement to continue. Spot rides have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for all the great wisdom that you give us in your word. I pray that you would please help us to do the work that you have laid out before us. Pray that you please help us individually to work on getting the sins out of our life, that we wouldn't be worthy of all the chastisements. Lord, we thank you for giving us your gift of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. And God, I pray that you would please just keep us all safe and healthy during the judgments to come. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.