REVELATIONS FROM GOD. HE IS SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD -- PROBABLY HERE IN AMERICA.
We do not know his name. We do not know his secret. Mr. Menachem Bagin, Israel's former Prime Minister knows the secret. We do know that on June 6, 1982 the weapon was used for the first time with phenomenal success. It was documented in the Jewish press, June 18-24, 1982. In an interview with Prime Minister Menachem Bagin, it was revealed that Israel has developed the exclusive technology of a secret weapon that makes all of its planes immune to missile or cannot fire.
Bagin said, "We are the only one in the world who has this secret." He continued, "We downed 85 Syrian planes and have not lost one of ours. He also pointed out that the Israeli tank has a secret firepower which is able to penetrate any armour.
This information sent a shudder throughout the entire communist world. They were led to believe that Soviet weaponry was invincible. They once were impenetrable but no longer! The NATO countries and the Pentagon officials especially, have expressed extreme interest in these secrets.
All of this proves that god, not man, is in control, of the major movements in this world. And He alone is turning the pages of history and no man or nation can block his movements when He decides to make a move.
Now, as far as the individual Jew is concerned, his personal salvation is conditional. It is conditioned on his accepting Jesus Christ into his life and denying his old faith. However, the fact that God is going to continue using the Jews to control the developments of history is unconditional.
IN CONCLUSION: What does all of this mean to us personally, as far as our relationship to God is concerned? It means that if God's hand turning the pages of history is so highly
significant, how humbly, and unreservedly, and totally should we permit Him to turn page after page in the biography of our lives, without any interference on our part. We should do it eagerly, and not let anything stop us. What a thrill it is to know that the Great, Eternal God, who turns the pages of history for this entire world, cannot do the same for us unless we turn the reins over to Him and ask him to do so. We cannot stop God from interfering with the overall development of history in this world, but we can stop him from having full control of the development in our own personal lives. But it will be to our eternal sorrow in hell if we do. We can take over, and run our lives, and leave Him entirely out of it, but on the final day of reckoning He will enter the drama of our lives without our consent, and the outcome will be tragic.
It is also important to move quickly when He calls. Nations have missed God's timing, and so have individuals. We read in Luke 19:41-42 where Luke said, "AND WHEN HE WAS COME NEAR, HE BEHOLD THE CITY AND WEPT OVER IT, SAYING, IF THOU HADST KNOWN, EVEN THOU, AT LEAST IN THIS THY DAY, THE THINGS WHICH BELONG UNTO THY PEACE! BUT NOW THEY ARE HID FROM THINE EYES." This means that God may hide from us any sacred light which we have willfully rejected.
We read a tragic and pathetic account of those -- "WHO COULD NOT BELIEVE, BECAUSE . . . HE (GOD) HATH BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HARDENED THEIR HEARTS, THAT THEY SHOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES, NOR UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED, AND I SHOULD HEAL THEM" (Jn. 12:39-40).
We must not forget we are dealing with the Eternal God. Any page in our lives: which we turn without consulting and obeying Him is dangerous and could be disastrous.
In Rom. 9:18 we read: "THEREFORE HATH HE MERCY ON WHOM HE WILL MERCY, AND WHOM HE WILL HE HARDENETH." What does that mean? In order to be in harmony with the general bearing of the Scriptures it has to mean that He will have mercy on all who repent and forsake their sins and continue walking in the light as he revealed it, and that He will not have mercy on the rebellious and impenitent.
My friend, are you letting Christ turn the pages in the biography of your life? He hardens everyone that won't soften. In Exodus there are six verses which: say that Pharoah hardened his heart; 7:14; 7:22; 8:15; 8:19; 8:32; and 9:32. There is one verse that merely says his heart was hardened, 9:7. Also there are two verses that states plainly that God hardened Pharaoh's heart;
7:13, and 9:12.
God is not to blame when He hardens hearts. The same sun that softens the wax, hardens the clay. The sun is not to blame for the difference. Gospel light has a terrible hardening effect on the willful rejecter.
TWENTY-FOUR SERMONS By L. S. Boardman
SERMON 10
WHEN A TREE FALLETH
Turn please to Ecclesiastes Chapter 11 and verse 3. ". . . If the tree falls toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." It becomes permanently horizontal it will never raise itself and get back up where it was.
Let's bow our heads for a moment of prayer: -- Our father we pray you'll help us this morning.
Strengthen us physically and make us alert mentally, and help our minds at least not to be tired while we try to bring the Word of God one more time. We pray that the Spirit of God will melt every one of our hearts. We pray that you will probe into our minds and into our conscience and into the depth of our being. We want the Holy Spirit of God to deal with us. We pray that God will work a miracle in every heart here this morning. Every one of us has some kind of need --we always do. We pray this morning that the need shall be supplied. And --we'll praise Thee forever in Jesus wonderful Name, Amen.
Long before the scientists discovered the law of gravity the Bible made it clear -- there is evidence all through the Bible -- not only of material and physical gravity, but also moral gravity and spiritual gravity. That moral gravity and spiritual gravitation. That something that causes people to go down, down, down -- constantly pulling on them. All people who fail to get sanctified holy will gravitate downward spiritually and morally. They will become of lesser quality as time goes by. They will find themselves slipping, and losing ground in various areas of life. In home life and in church life when they are carnal, there is something within them pulling downward. It is amazing how the law of spiritual gravity works. Natural gravity effects
everything in the universe. You can take the tiniest piece off a feather, so small you can barely see it, and if you turn it loose, that power of gravity will immediately pull it down. There is no speck of dust so small but what the power of gravity will pull on it all of the time to keep it from flying away.
In the physical realm we eat and we sleep to gain enough strength to make it possible for us to stand up and walk and do things. We do these things regularly so that we can successfully resist and overcome the power of gravity that never ceases to pull us downward. We must maintain enough strength in reserve within our physical body to resist that power.
The same principle operates in the moral and spiritual areas of life. We have got to have enough internal fortunate -- we've got to have enough of the Grace of God -- we've got to have enough of the application of the blood of Jesus Christ to our minds, and to our souls, to keep us spiritually alive, and standing on our feet spiritually. Otherwise we will begin to weaken. We will begin to deteriorate. We'll begin to lose spiritual strength and moral strength and mental strength.
We will begin to lose these qualities if we don't feed out souls and keep our souls strong like we feed our bodies to keep it strong.
This matter of falling is a mighty important matter. We are created out of the dust of the earth.
God took some dirt and some water and created us. That's all there is to us. He made bones out of it. He marrow in the bones. He made brain cells out of that dirt. And He made muscles out of it.
And He made ligaments and sinuses, and finger nails and hair. He made it all out of that dirt.
And when we come to die our bodies go right back into a little bit of dirt. That's all there is.
When they cremate us that's all there is, dirt. All they have to do is to cook the water out of it. It is amazing what God did. But when He created us out of dust, and we travel through life for a few short years -- it is amazing, in the light of eternity, what a short period of time we are really going to be here.
When I was a child I was extremely active. I was always up in the top of some of our apple trees, or down by the river a half mile away, or in the barn jumping from the high beam into the hay mow below. And in moving from one place to another I seldom walked -- I almost always ran. But the time came in life when I was not up in the top of the apple trees any more and I was given to walking from one place to another instead of running. Something is slowing me down.
My mind is slowing down, and I can't remember things as I could. There is a deterioration setting in. I am not what I was physically. I am not what I was mentally. I don't have the strength I used to have. I can't lift as heavy a something off the ground. The only area of life where I can keep my strength if I will, is to keep in touch with God and keep my soul alive, and keep my spiritual life like it ought to be. But we constantly fight off that downward pull and finally we come to the place in life when we lay down and rest more than we ever did before. And in we live beyond a given number of years we find ourselves in the bed most of the time -- and finally, all of the time.
And then comes that day when the Dr. shakes his head and everybody else does the same thing. So they call the undertaker and says, "You better come and get him." He'll never stand up again, and he will never walk around among us again. The down pull has won the battle. The power of gravity has been pulling on him for years, gradually winning, until finally it wins out.
He is down for good this time.
But this matter of falling -- to the final fall, is one of the inescapable things of life. We are going to lay down one of these days like a tree, when it falls, it will never be back up there again.
When it is down it is down for good and it's the same way with us. So, this matter of falling is one of the inescapables of life. Every one of is going to face it some day and there is no way out unless Jesus comes in the Rapture before our time comes.
And this getting ready to fall and fall in the right direction is one of the most important things we will face as long as we are in this world. Millions of people have thought they could lean one way and fall another when their end time comes. They thought they could lean the wrong way morally, and when they come to die, they could just switch clear over and lean the other way. It doesn't work that way. They think they can lean in sin all of their lives, but when they come to die they can suddenly become Christians, with all that is implied in the holy life and walk with God. But it doesn't work that way.
The Bible says that the way a tree falls, that is the way it is going to lie. And He was applying it to human life. He was illustrating human life. Very few people can change their lean late lean late in life. No person in the world that is leaning in the wrong direction can change their lean and make it stick without divine help. God has to work a miracle to cause one who is leaning this way spiritually and morally to suddenly lean the opposite way.
If he is an alcoholic, it takes the power of God to turn him around and cleanse that chemical out of his blood and that craving out of his body and mind. We've got a man right in our service this morning that has experienced that mighty miracle of God, and with prayer and anointing for only two or three minutes the craving of fifteen years was miraculously taken away, and it has never returned.
In contrast to that there is a nurse down in Des Moines, Iowa. She has been dry now for twelve years by the alcohol anonymous, but she never got that divine cure. She says right now, she doesn't even dare to smell of it. And when stress comes on in life, she still has to run back to them for help! Help! help! I'm going to sink. She never got that divine cure.
If you are leaning the wrong way this morning, there is no way in the world short of a miracle from God that you can change your lean and make it stick. God must work a mighty miracle in your heart and in your physical body, until old things pass away and all things become new. So, getting to fall in the right direction is very important. The hand of death is so ruthless sometimes.
When I lived in Niagara falls the big paper mill in N. Tonawanda was shut down for repairs and the maintenance men were in there working And one of those big paper machines, a hundred feet long, and at one end was a huge tub of what we called "soup" that the machine turned into paper. And that soup goes into this machine, and that paper goes through that machine from one end to the other between huge steel rollers that are just as hot as steam can make them, and just as close together as the thickness of a sheet of paper. hat is getting awfully close together and that is getting pretty hot. And they had that machine down and three men opened up something in the end of that machine and crawled inside of it to repair something. And someone else in the
building accidentally turned the power on in that monstrous machine. Those men came piling and rolling and crawling out of that machine as fast as they could, but one of those men didn't make it. He went the whole length of that machine between those steel rollers that were steam hot.
Little did he dream when he crawled into that machine that, in a few minutes, he would be clear to end of that machine where the roll of paper is supposed to come out. It doesn't take long sometimes to walk in and be carried out. I say, death is so unexpected sometimes.
I remember, back in 1951, on the 16th April, driving my car with my wife sitting in the seat beside me. Little did we dream when we passed a certain telephone pole -- I could not have said to her, "Ethel, this is the last telephone pole you will pass in this life." We could have been within 4 or 5 seconds of the fatal crash that took her life instantly and still not dream that that was the last mile of the way for her. It was a beautiful, warm sunshiny, April mid-day. The grass was green and it was a beautiful day as one would ever hope to see. As pretty a day as you ever laid your eyes on. How could we ever dreamed that in 4 or 5 more seconds she will leave this world for eternity without a breath of warning. Little did we dream that in two or three seconds it
is all over with. Six years of courtship and sixteen years of marriage and two children in school, and it is all over with. We never dreamed that such a wreck was within a thousand miles. Death is so ruthless. That is why it is so important to establish your direction of lean.
I want to get it into your heart and mind this morning that we had better go to it that we are leaning in the right direction all of the time -- every day -- every minute -- clear over on God's side -- physically, morally, spiritually, clear over on God's side. Then when we come to fall we will fall in the right direction. Yes, leaning in the right direction is tremendously important.
Millions have been fooled by the devil into thinking they could lean one way and fall another.
But that's not the way it works. Leaning one way and falling in the opposite direction is not that simple.
TWENTY-FOUR SERMONS By L. S. Boardman
SERMON 11
Subject: "I will remove thy Candlestick."
Text: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:
and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:19).
(This is a message I wish every BIBLE MISSIONARY PERSON in the world would get into their system till it would completely obsess them).
The story is told of an old farmer who went to a blacksmith shop to get his horse shod. He asked the blacksmith what he would charge to shoe his horse. The blacksmith said he would charge a penny for the first nail and double the amount thereafter. The second nail would cost 2 cents; the third 4 cents; the 4th 8 cents, etc. The old farmer thought that might be a real fair deal so he told the blacksmith to go ahead and shoe the horse. Here is how it came out:
Nail
Number cents
1 . . . 1 2 . . . 2 3 . . . 4 4 . . . 8 5 . . . 16 6 . . . 32 7 . . . 64 8 . . . 128 9 . . . 256 10 . . . 512 11 . . . 1,024 12 . . . 2,048 ONE SHOE ON