What is the hope for wicked men
Category: Repentance & Restoration
Key Passage: 2 Chronicles 33
Speaker: Paul Chisgar
Date: September 18, 2022
Turn your Bibles, if you would, please, to Second Chronicles.
While you are doing that, I failed to do one thing I think is very important during announcements. If anyone needs some tracks to give out, you can pass them out if you want. Can I get a man or two just right now? Anyone need a track? Just raise your hand. You need some of those tracks to pass out. Anyway, I don’t want to fail to do this because after service, you’ll forget, I’ll forget. Anyone needs some tracks to pass out. Anyone, anyone, anyone. I think we’ve got close to 3,000 tracks in your hands. Now we just got to get them in the hands of the people out there. Good. Thank you, Brother Richard. I think we’re good. Covered on that.
Second Chronicles chapter number 33. Second Chronicles chapter number 33 in God’s Word this morning. And I believe God would have us cover this subject for just a moment: What is the hope for wicked men? What is the hope for wicked men? And I want you to see it. We are going to show it to you biblically. Sometimes you are about to start preaching, you think, man, we’ve bitten off more than we can chew in the time we have. And so you pray—I said a minute earlier, you pray it will be a moment or a minute, amen, you know. But we want to get the truth established before we really preach on it. So, Second Chronicles chapter number 33 in God’s Word. And I want you just kind of stick with me at the beginning as we get this thing established, and we really start to develop it here in a minute. If you are already in Second Chronicles 33, would you say amen? Amen.
Good deal. Would you please stand, if you are able to, just to show the Word of God respect? Second Chronicles 33. And we are going to read verse number one. We will start there. And the Bible here is talking about a king of Israel. He says, Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign. And he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem. But did that which was evil in the side of the Lord. Manasseh was a wicked man, a sinful man. Look at what all he does. Did that which is evil in the side of the Lord, likened to the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
For he built again the high places which Hezekiah, his father, had broken down. Time out for just a second. He had a great father. I mean, he can’t say, well, I had a sinful dad. He had a good dad. Yet he was a wicked man, a sinful man. By the way, children got it once they grow up, always, they got a mind of their own. I had a good dad, but boy, this boy turned out horrible. Hezekiah had torn down these false idols, but he built them back up.
For he built again the high place which Heskei, his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for balaam, and made groves and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them. He is worshipping the stars. Also, he built altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem shall my name be forever.” And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. So on the house of the Lord, he was building false gods and altars. This guy was wicked. Awful guy.
Look what he does in verse number six. This is just, wow, amazing. And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. What does that mean? It means he offered his children up as a sacrifice. You talk about wicked, awful. Also, he observed times and used enchantment and used witchcrafts and dealt with familiar spirits and with wizards. He wrought much evil in the side of the Lord to provoke him to anger. He was into satanic stuff. Satanic out. Awful guy. Awful guy.
Look in verse number nine. Verse number nine. So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err. He led the kingdom astray, and to do worse than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. And the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not hearken. This guy is… He is a failure. He is just awful. He is horrible.
Let me read for what 2 Kings 21:16 says about it. Let me just read it. Listen to what he says. “Moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood very much.” It reminds me of abortion in America. Amen. “Moreover, Manasseh shed innocent blood very much till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another beside his sin, wherewith he had made Judah to sin in doing that which was evil in the side of the Lord.” Awful guy.
Now let’s look at the end of his life and see what happens. Look in verse number 20. You are in verse number 20. And I want you to see this. Verse number 20. “So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house.” And his son Amon reigned in his stead. Can I just give you a brief synopsis, if you will? He was buried with his fathers in his own house. It kind of seemed like he died all right. It was not too bad in his death. He did not get murdered or killed, or his son just killed, or his son actually became the heir to the throne. It was not too bad at the end for him.
Now how was it that such a wicked man ended up? It was not wonderful, but it was not too bad. We are going to kind of fill in the gap here just a minute.
Manasseh, he humbled himself. Look in verse number 19. We just read that he did some good things in verse number 19. “His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sins and his trespasses in the places wherein he built the high places and set up groves and graven images before he was humbled. Behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers.”
Now I want you just notice this: wicked man, when God dealt with him, he humbled. He was humbled by the Lord. Now let’s take a moment off of Manasseh, all right? Y’all see that? Is that kind of grounded, proven from the Bible? What happened? Manasseh, he humbled. He sought the Lord, he prayed to him, but he humbled himself, right?
All right, let’s change from Manasseh. Let’s talk about this is kind of the trademark of wicked kings and their wives in Israel. Help me out. Who is known as a wicked, wicked lady? It was the queen of Israel. Help me out. Yeah, good. Who is her husband? Ahab. All right. Let’s go to the icon of a wicked king. Let’s go to Ahab for just a minute here. Man, he was like, if you—say, how wicked was he? Kind of the measuring stick of wickedness was Ahab. Does that make sense? I know I am hillbilly; I explain things in hillbilly terms, you know. He was a wicked fella, Ahab. I mean, he whined over a garden he could not get, so his wife had the fellow whose garden it was killed, and then Ahab went and got it. And on and on and on. They killed prophets of God. You are talking about wicked people, Ahab and Jezebel.
Can I be honest with it? Ahab at the end of his life, after all he did, it did not end up like, at least in his lifetime, as bad as you think would be. Let’s find out about that. Look over in Kings, if you will. Look over in First Kings, chapter number 21. Keep your finger in Chronicles; we will go back there. That is what we are kind of staying at later on during the message. Put a marker there. Put your finger there. Don’t cut it off like mine, but put a finger there, all right? And go over to 1 Kings 21. 1 Kings 21. And I want you to see what happens with Ahab. I think I do not have to prove to you how wicked Ahab was. I am mixing Ahab and Jezebel together. I am good at that, man. Trying to hurry. He is wicked, all right? Can you believe me? Just Ahab was a dirty, rotten, sorry, low-down, good-for-nothing fella. You understand what I am saying? Lower than a snake’s belly in their wagon rod, all right? You got it? You know, just wicked. That is Ahab. And yeah, it did not end up quite so bad for Ahab. This is the reason.
Look in 1 Kings 21. Look in verse number 27, if you would, please. 1 Kings 21:27. “And it came to pass…” I am sorry, I am a little bit scattered here this morning. Let me back up. God sends his messenger over there, and it is Elijah. And he says, “Ahab, your whole house, your whole family is going to be wiped out. They are going to be slaughtered, you wicked, sorry, good-for-nothing fella.” I mean, he was about to get it. In fact, your wife, she is going to be eaten by the dogs. I really—that is pretty bad. How would you like if somebody comes to say, “Hey, your wife is about to be eaten by the dogs”? Look at her blood.
This is how Ahab responds to verse number 27. Okay, all right, here we go. Here we go. Verse number 27. “And it came to pass when Ahab heard those words that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.” And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, the Tishbite, saying, now Elijah just delivered the message; he is the prophet. But when it does—O Ahab, he goes softly. And then God says, now Elijah, let me give you—let me tell you what is going to happen now. Verse number 29: “Seest thou how Ahab…” What is the next two words? “…humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.”
Now, friend, what I am trying to get at, and I think we could prove it many, many places in the Bible, the key for these wicked men was when they humbled themselves. Friend, that is such a key element if I am going to have the blessings of God: that I humble myself.
Now, I think we have this principle established. Now, let me just try to make it real to us, just a minute or two here, just a little bit. Every person here in the room here, we all in some form or some fashion are sinners. We were wicked, if you will. And every person in here, we need to humble ourselves. Even when in my heart and maybe within your heart, look right up here, all of our young people, look right up here. Put your phones up there, would you please? Would you put that up there? Look right up here. Even when I say we are all in some form or some fashion have wickedness in us and we need to humble ourselves, that thing inside of you that says, “Well, I am not really that bad.” And that thing inside of you a little bit, “I do not know about that.” That thing inside of you a little bit just kind of rebels against wickedness. “I do not have to do that.” You know that is pride? Pride is the opposite of humbling ourselves. You know what I am honest? The honest truth is all of us, we are born with that sin nature. That came from Adam. We call it the damned nature. Some call it the depravative man. We all have that sinful nature. And we all have fulfilled that nature. We all have sin, every single one of us. And we are all—can I be honest—we all battle pride. If you do not battle it, I do not battle it, you are battling it right now.
I heard some fellas on the radio. He was just joking, and I do not like the guy. He is a good guy, Christian radio. And two guys were announcing on the radio, and the one was joking around, he said, “This guy, Brother Morier,” he said, “he is humble and he does not know it. He said, ‘I am humble and I know it.’” Friend, we all battle pride. Every last person here does. And it is a little bit humbling just to admit that, but it is the truth. And we all, we all need to kind of take—learn a lesson from this thing of these wicked men. Wicked men, but yet even these wicked men, when they humbled themselves, God adds some mercy on them.
Talk about pride, the opposite of humility. You know the original sin, what messed this whole thing up at the very beginning, was this high-ranking angel. And I say that on purpose because he was a created being, Satan Lucifer was. But it was one that looks like one of the three high angels of cherubim was there. And Lucifer, you know what happened? You know what messed this whole thing up? He got it in his heart. It all started there. He was full of wisdom and he was beautiful. He could sing; I believe he was a song leader of heaven. I mean, he had all these talents. Let me read for you. The Bible gives us a little glimpse into where it all began, even before Adam and Eve, way, way back. Satan here that tempted Adam and Eve. Isaiah 14:13 told him about Satan: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven.” That is where it all started. In his heart, by the way. You know where pride starts? In the heart. The first thing he said, he says, five “I wills.” The first one, “I will ascend into heaven.”
Can I just say it is so prideful? After God Almighty gave Jesus to shed his blood on the cross to pay for my sin—that is my only redemption—for me to think I have got something better than that is so prideful. There is not a thing this old boy did not do to get me to heaven. I am a sinner. And I think, well, I will be good enough, or I will keep these things to get me into heaven. That is prideful. I cannot do anything to get me into heaven. It was Jesus that was the sacrifice. And when he rose again, it proved the Father was satisfied with that sacrifice. First thing, “I will ascend into heaven.”
By the way, can I be honest with you? Satan had access to heaven. I already mentioned; I think he was a song leader of heaven. Does not mean every song leader is bad. Do not go there. But he had access. But he is like, “I do not want access under your leadership. I want to have access on my own. I can come in and do what I want to do. I am in charge.” That type of thing. “I will ascend to heaven.” That is where it all began. The last of the five “I wills” over in Isaiah 14: “I will be like the Most High.” If he had just accepted his position—hey, he is God. He created me. Everything would have been all right. Everything would have been hunky-dory. Amen. But pride—that is the original sin. That is where everything started going so bad for him. And it starts in our heart. And then it ends up with, “I am going to be the God of my life. I will be like the Most High, and I am going to determine what is right and what is wrong, what I am going to do, what is not going to do.” You become God of your life. That is where sin is; that is where it is going.
And so every one of us—man, me too for sure—man, we need to humble ourselves. The opposite is pride, and then it starts in the heart; it begins to reveal itself in so many different ways. I am going to try to mention a couple ways it reveals itself, but I cannot even come close to mentioning the millions of ways pride will reveal itself. Well, let us talk about a couple of them, okay?
There is this Bible verse. It is very convicting when I want to argue with my wife, and we want to have—anybody—just, you just want to, you want to—you know, they said something, they did something, and you want to start a little fuss or fight about it. Anybody want anybody there? Come on, now. I will be honest with me now, you know. Thank you for being awesome. This is a verse that, Brother Frank, this means that we are honest. Would you plug your ears? You do not need to hear this part here, because it is tough, man. I will tell you. This is what the Holy Spirit tells me. This is it. It is in Proverbs. It says, “Only by pride cometh contention.” Oh, man. I agree. So when there is contention somewhere, there is contention guaranteed, without a doubt, there is some pride involved. Only by pride, only by pride, cometh contention. I am not just fussed and fighting; somebody has got some pride somewhere. That is how it reveals itself: pride. Nobody can tell you anything. “I know, I know that, I know that, I know that.” Interrupt anybody trying to help you, tell you, “Dude, you just—just…” Boss cannot tell you anything, your spouse—and I am not told my other spouses over, domineering all—but just your spouse cannot tell you anything. Pride.
I mean, just, it can be, it can show up in so many different ways. Sometimes even our kids, you know, kids, sometimes a kid just will not—you know, they have got something helpful. We do not listen to anybody, anything, nobody can tell us anything, you know. Pride. We become so self-centered—pride. P-R-I-D-E, the middle letters, I—it becomes all about I, me, me, me, me, me, me, and we become so self-centered. No matter what anybody says about anything, we turn the conversation around about us. It bothers me. I find out myself, so that bothers me. Yes, me, me, me, me, my, my, my, I, I, I, I, I—it can come out of a million different ways. Pride.
And here is what happens with pride. When we get pride, we get blinded to our very own pride. Very interesting. I was told by someone this week, and the Lord brought up, it is 1 John 1:8: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” And the truth is not in us. We get deceived. Some people can lie so much or they can deny the truth so much, they actually believe it. And they believe a lie they told. And they are deceived. If we say that we have—if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, right? It can be so blinding. Sometimes it is to the point so many people around us know about—man, I am going to get full of pride—but nobody can tell you anything. So you have no peace in the home, and everything is falling apart, and God is going to have to deal with you, but nobody can say to him because you are blinded by your own justification of everything. Right.
Here is the sad thing. The end result, even if we are saved, maybe we are born-again Christian, we still live distant from our Heavenly Father because God is not going to be close to that. It is an amazing verse. Psalm 138, verse number six: “Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly; but the proud he knoweth afar off.” Twice the Bible said, God resisteth the proud.
Y’all have heard me use this illustration a hundred times, but my brother is here, and it is about him. But it is a good one. It is from my older brother, Steve. Steve probably does not want to hear it; everybody else does not hurt it. It is illustration number 78. Y’all remember that one there? When we were little, we would go to Budsfield. You know about Budsfield over there in the neighborhood there? And we would have the best football game. We had the best Super Bowls in the world there. Man, whatever happened in the neighborhood ball, you know, you do not see that nowadays. There is a bunch of kids having a good time playing. Anyway, we had football games, and Steve, he is a year and a half older than me, and so he is a little bit thicker than me, a little bit stronger than me, dirty rat, you know. But I was a little bit smaller, and I could run fast. And Steve would get that ball. Now, sometimes we are on the same team. That was a good thing. But sometimes we are on opposite teams. Steve would get that ball and he would be running for a touchdown. Man, I could catch the guy. Man, I run all the way across the field. I am going to catch the guy. And I would dive. I am going to tackle him. I can see my name in neon lights: Tackle! You know. I won the football game, you know. And I am flying through the air to tackle that guy right back there. And I am flying through there. And all of a sudden I feel this hand right on my forehead. Right there. Boom. And the next thing that happens, my neck disappears. Now my feet are still going forward. Lower part of my body is still going 90 miles an hour. The top part of my body is stopped in mid-air, and then a bad thing happens. The top part of my body starts going in reverse. The front part of my body is still moving forward. Man, I wake up and he scored a touchdown over there, you know. God resisteth the proud. Man, I want God’s blessing. I want God. I want God. God resists the proud. We all, we all must work at this thing of humbling ourselves. Even wicked men, when God said, hey, they humbled themselves, God had mercy on the wicked men.
Our coach, Steve will know who I am talking about. David, too. Coach Crosby, good. He said two things to me personally that really stuck out over the years to me. One, I am not going to tell you. He said, “I am going to give him in.” No, he did not say that. But what one he said, he said, “Paul,” he said, “you say I know a lot.” And that was good for me to hear. As a teenage boy, I heard that, and that was good for me to hear. All these years later, I still remember that, and I am glad he told me that. And we all have to work at this thing of humbling ourselves. These wicked men, Manasseh and Ahab, it did not end up super horrible because they humbled themselves.
Now, let us get the second point. The first point, you say, well, what was the first point? First point: We all need to humble ourselves because we all battle pride. We all have sin. And the second thing, very briefly here: When God deals with you, let it humble you. See, God—God, he deals with you, but you still have a choice in the matter.
Look back, if you will, over there. You are in Second Chronicles 33. And would you look in verse number 12? Second Chronicles 33, would you look at verse number 12? It is interesting. Sometimes it kind of talks about God humbled him, but I want you to see how the angle he says here. Second Chronicles 33, verse number 12: “And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord God, his God.” And what does it say? What is the next two words? “Humbled himself greatly.”
I mean, God was dealing with him, but he still had to humble himself greatly before the God of his fathers. Let me read for you about Ahab, 1 Kings, let me just read it for you, 21:29. It says, “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days.” God, you know the verse, you know the verse. “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” D.L. Moody used to say it this way: Stay humble or stumble.
God is very capable of putting you down and humbling you. But you know what? And I am not saying this for every street person. I have dealt a little bit with street people, especially our first three church buildings were on the main drive, so we had more street people type things coming through asking for money and things. And I dealt with some of them. And, you know, something I have learned, I have watched, and I have asked other people that deal with them a lot. And they say, yes, so true. Not always, not always, but so often street people that are living on the street are so proud. And you are like, “Wow, you are living on the streets, you just got a couple bags of possessions. Why won’t you humble down?”
I have watched ball teams. I do not talk about maybe high school specifically or things like that. I have watched ball teams and they lose like every game. And sometimes they lose by a lot. And yet they come out like a peacock so proud. I am like that! I am saying God can really be putting you down, but you still must let that humble you. It is sad to see some people; their homes are wrecked, their marriages are wrecked, their kids are wrecked, and yet they are proud as a peacock. And you say, “Why won’t you humble down?” You still have a choice in the matter. It is so important that I do get humble when God deals with me.
This is something I see, it seems like to me, as an association here: Humility and honesty go hand in hand. And pride and dishonesty or manipulation go hand in hand. Just get dead honest about the situation. That verse over there we mentioned earlier, pride—no, not that one, excuse me—about us fighting with our wives, what was it? “Only by pride cometh contention.” The last part of the verse says, “But with the well-advised…” Who is it? I think the well-advised has to do with, “Hey, we realize we have our flaws too.” I have lived long enough instead of getting mad and pride and contention, I have problems myself. But that has to do with honesty, and I can manipulate and deceive and twist that thing where everybody else in the world is wrong, and I do not humble down. And I never grow. And I am stuck sometimes for the rest of my life at a very low level of life. I was just not honest about it. I need to humble down. I have got some issues. I have got some problems. I have got some flaws. Praise the Lord of these men, though they were very wicked, at least when God dealt with them, they humbled down.
I was talking to a preacher the other day. Good guy, he is a pretty well-known preacher. And I think the vast majority of people in the room here would not know his name if I said it. And just haven’t talked to many years. I was talking about the day, and he said this statement. He said, “Well,” he said, “our church”—he is a pastor—he said, “our church is down a little bit right now.” And I thought, wow, I am impressed with that. It did not make me think, you know, whatever, what is wrong with you? I was impressed that he was honest and he humbled. I would not even ask him about that. He was humbling himself. I thought he will probably be back up pretty soon because he was not trying to flatter me and act like he was all—he was just being honest and humble.
It is such a wonderful thing. I heard an older preacher talking one time. We got a hell-worn, but I heard an old preacher. He said, “I had a…” And it was a guy that God has used a lot in a great way. And he said, “I had a younger preacher come to me, and he needed some advice, and he wanted to take me out for lunch.” And he thought, well, I am busy, but, you know, if this young preacher wants some advice, and maybe I can help him a little bit, whatnot. So he said, “Oh, I do not want lunch,” you know. They went to lunch, and he said, “I learned real quick in the lunch appointment that young guy is not going to listen to a word I say. He just wanted to talk, talk, talk, talk.” So the older preacher said, “Well, they used to get a free meal out of it.”
Hey friend, if God is dealing with any—deals with us all. If you are a child, he does, Hebrews tells us that, then humble down. When God deals with you, let it humble you.
Now, number three, we have got to hurry along. Number three, number three: Humble yourself before he has to humble you.
That, Second Chronicles 33:19, you are there, I think, already. Second Chronicle, let me just read it for you if you are not there. “His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sins and his trespasses in the places wherein he built the high places and set up groves and graven images before he was humbled. Behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers.” Ahab, God had to send a messenger, Elijah, said, “Man, you are about to lose everything. Your whole family is going.” What if these fellows had humbled down way before this? Wouldn’t that have been so much better?
We often quote this saying; this is the verse for the nation. I love it. My wife and I years ago went to the Ronald Reagan Library, and they had the Bible that he got sworn in on in this last case. It was open to this verse, and they say it was his mom’s Bible, and you can see handwritten on the edges of the pages. I loved it. I think his mom had it years ago. It is such a good verse for a nation. I love it. You will know it: 2 Chronicles 7:14. How about, let us just say the first part together. I will kind of let you know when I am going to stop. Here we go: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves.” Did you notice it did not say God humbling them? It said humble themselves. What do James and Peter both say? “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.” God can humble you, but so much better before God has to humble you if we just humble ourselves.
Here is the sad part of both these men’s lives. Yes, God had mercy on them. Yes, he did. It did not end up so bad for them at the end of their lives. But the next generation, man, it was horrible. Ahab’s family did get wiped out a little later on. Manasseh’s son, Amon—sinful, awful, horrible ending. Yes, God said, “All right, Manasseh, you are humbling yourself. Ahab, you are humbling yourself. I am going to have mercy on you.” But there was so much damage done already. Now, that damage was, for the most part, fulfilled just a little bit later on. How much better if we would humble ourselves way before this point?
We mentioned already: God resists the proud, but He gives grace. We sang this morning, Brother Anthony led us in new grace. He gives grace unto the humble. That is awesome. It would have been so much better if these men would have just humbled themselves way before.
Can I just beg and plead with you, listen: Before the next generation is messed up, before your marriage is messed up, before all these major problems—just right now, just work at humbling down and get so honest with the Lord right now. Young people, while you are young, look right here, young people, just a second. While you are young, admit you have got problems. Do not act like you have got all the answers, you know everything, because you do not know everything. I do not know everything. And be humble and listen and grow. And when you mess up and somebody gets on to you, say, “You know what? You are right. I am sorry.” It is so vital. Because if I build that pattern, God has to humble me in a big way. Yes, you can humble down, and yes, you can get mercy, but so much damage is done. And it is such a sad thing. Such a sad thing.
The hope—now listen to me—I am being honest with you: The hope for America is America humbling down. We do not have it all together, friends. We need God. The height of pride, we mentioned already, is when I just think, “Well, if I do this, this, this, I will get myself into heaven.”
There was an evangelist—this story is told. I do not know all the details. I am doing the best I can, but I have tried to find it again. I cannot find it. So I want to be honest with it. But the story is told about an evangelist that years ago, years ago would travel. And as when he traveled, he was an evangelist, he would stay at this hotel often. And one time he stopped at this hotel, and there was a very just mean, messed up, hateful lady. I am talking about the other employees. Employees came to this evangelist and said, “Man, you’ve got to do something with this lady. She is so mean, so hateful. I mean, we can’t tell you all the stories. Nobody can stand to be around. Nobody can work with her. Could you maybe talk to her?”
And they said the evangelist talked to this lady, and he was just there a day or two, and he left. And yet this lady, in some ways, after he talked to her, got worse. Some ways, maybe she wasn’t quite as mad at everybody else, but she was just always an emotional mess, crying and just avoiding it and sometimes snapping at it. She was just messed up. And the evangelist came back later on, and they said, “We don’t know what you told that lady, but it didn’t help. She’s crying all the time now, you know. You don’t want to say hi to her; she’ll bite your head off, you know.”
So the evangelist said, “Okay, let me talk to her again.” And he talked to her again, and a little while later, after that second time, that lady became—just something changed in her. And she became sweet, kind, and loving. And the employees of the hotel were like, “Wow, what in the world happened to her?” And it’s just, she became—she started talking about the Lord, and she was like a bright light. And the man just came through again, and they said, “What did you tell her?” A little while later after you left, “Man, she must have gotten saved because she’s just like night and day.”
And he said, “Well, the first time I talked to her, I asked, ‘Would you do one thing for me? Would you ask God to reveal to you what you are?’ Just ask. Would you ask God to make it real, to reveal to you what you are?” That’s when she cried and just a messed-up ball of emotions. “What did you say to her the second time he came through?” He said, “The second time, I asked her to ask God just one thing: ‘Show me who you are now.’” And she learned he is a merciful God. And she knew she needed a Savior. She accepted Jesus as her sacrifice to go to heaven.
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes, please? Our heads bowed, eyes are closed. If you are there and you say, “Preacher, I want to humble myself before he has to humble me. I want to work at this thing. I want to work at being humble, humbling myself before he has to humble me.” God spoke to my heart about that right there. I want to work at it. All of us have got to work. I want to work at that, being humble before he has to humble me. That’s you this morning, you slip your hand up, preacher. I want to work at being—humbling myself before God has to humble me. Me too, my hands up, friend. Oh, yes. Young people, young people, would you work at it? Would you work at it, young people? I want to humble myself before God has to humble me. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Put your hands down. Thank you so very much.
Maybe you hear this morning, our heads bowed, eyes are closed. You say, “You know, I think God’s been dealing with me, and I need to let it humble me.” Some form, some fashion, I don’t know what it might be, but you say, “I just feel like God’s been working on me, and I want it to humble me. I’m going to let it humble me.” God spoke to my heart about that right there. If that’s you this morning, you slip your hand up, preacher, that’s me. I feel like the Lord’s been working on me. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you for letting the Lord. Oh, man, I’m there. It seems like every minute. I’m there all the time. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you so very much. You can put your hands down.
One last question. You say, “Preacher, I realize it’s not what I do to get me to heaven. Because the best I can do is messed up. It’s prideful. And then half the time when I do good, I think I’m all that. And so I realize, I need Jesus. I need a Savior. I need someone that has paid the debt for me, and he’s satisfied. It was paid. I need a sacrifice. I need a Savior. Preacher, I need to get saved.”
Our heads are bowed, eyes are closed, nobody looking. “Preacher, I need to get saved. I need to go to Jesus and get my salvation.” That’s me right there. I need to get saved. If that’s you, slip your hand up. Anybody? Anybody? We’re not going to come to you and not going to call your name. I want to pray for you. I love you. I want you to get saved. Anybody like this? Slip it up. Hey, child of God, let’s—we all, we all got to let’s just work on being humble. God gives grace to the humble.
Would you please stand? We’re going to have a word of prayer. As soon as I finish praying, saying amen, we’ll play. And as soon as we say amen, the instruments play, would you come and spend some time? The Lord—the Lord has spoken to your heart. Would you come? Just spend some time with him. Draw an eye to him. Be obedient to the tugging in your heart. Would you do that? Let’s pray. Would you be obedient?
Father, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, that you’re so merciful. Lord, help me. I’m so foolish sometimes. I don’t humble down. Help us to, Lord. Lord, help us to learn from Manasseh and Ahab. Let us humble down when you deal with us. And Lord, help us to humble down even before. Lord, there’s one here not saved. Let them know we love them. We love to be a help to them. And you work in hearts, Lord, please. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Original File: What is the hope for wicked men - Pastor Paul Chisgar - Sunday PM 09182022