Everlasting Burnings — G.W. North

The Everlasting Burnings and the Consuming Fire

The church that doesn't want to grow and get out is dying on its feet. And what a marvelous thing it is for us to have the great vision. I think I want to start tonight by reading to you a verse or two from Isaiah, and then I'm coming into the New Testament.

You may have heard that over in Liverpool, quite a downtown area to this place I guess, we had a wonderful time on the theme of fire. Amen. I want to come back to one or two of the verses we used during those meetings.

I'm in Isaiah 33, verse 13. Hear ye that are far off what I have done, and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Now you'd hardly think there would be sinners in Zion, would you?

The sinners in Zion are afraid. When you talk about Zion, you sort of talk about the church or something like that. They're afraid, he said. Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Oh, no hypocrite should be afraid.

You'd be surprised that he's afraid. Hypocrites are really strong because they're hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? He that walketh up righteously and speaketh uprightly, he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, that shutteth his eyes from seeing evil, he shall dwell on high.

His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks. Bread shall be given him, his water shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty. You'll never see the king in his beauty till you see him in fire.

They shall behold the land of far distances, is a better translation. Amen. I want to say this, beloved. You and I have got to live with everlasting burnings of one sort or another. And there is no escaping that.

You and I, whatever we think and whatever we may have been told, we have eventually to live with everlasting burnings. That is, with God in heaven or with the devil in hell. Whichever place its everlasting burnings.

The gospel is preached so that we may hear the way, know the way and take the way that leadeth to the everlasting burning love and holiness of God. To leave the other road, as sure as you were born into this world, you were already predestined by your birth to go to everlasting burnings.

That's what sinners done in the world. But there's another predestiny. And that is by grace of God, the intervention of Jesus Christ in everybody's life, by the Holy Spirit, to save us poor blind fools, groping along the wrong way, and put us on the right way.

As you will know, Jesus Christ boasted, if he boasted of anything, in the fact that he is the way. He said so. He said, I am the way. Just follow me. You'll arrive at the right burnings. You'll arrive at the eventual glory and wonder of the love of God.

We were singing a little bit about it in that hymn that we sung. A man enraptured, overpowered. A man who'd found a road and spoke of it in such words that we love to take them up and sing them today.

At least I do. And how glorious it is. Now then, beloved, tonight, I would like you to turn with me into the Hebrews letter. And we're going to see some things in this twelfth chapter. And God, I trust, will direct our eyes and hearts pointedly first on the last verse of it.

Our God is a consuming fire. Now you get that right deep in your heart. He is a consuming fire. Amen. I love that. I don't know about you, but I want to be eaten up. Really eaten up. Like people get eaten up with AIDS, for instance.

Or syphilis. Or cancer. I don't mean by those same things. I want to get eaten up like people get eaten up if they fall into a volcano. That's what I want. I don't know about you, but if you've got red blood in your veins and a heart that really beats truly, you want to enjoy life to the full.

Don't you? Amen. And how glorious it is, beloved, to know that God has given a great predestiny to certain people. Not only, he hasn't selected some and said it's for you and not for the others, because the book says he loved the world then.

And he gives us all equal opportunity. And this is why he said when he'd risen from the dead, Now, just wait in Jerusalem until you're clothed with power from on high, and then I want you to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Every creature. I was delighted the other day to hear the leader of a fellowship, not this one, though I don't know whether he'd like to take up the suggestion. He said, I am determined that I'm going to visit every home in my district.

He'd already been doing some. He'd had some rough times. He'd had some good times, too. He said, I am determined that I'm going to visit every house. And he lives in a very thickly populated area. And it wasn't a leader of the Liverpool Fellowship or anything like that.

In a town a long way away from here. He'd got the vision. He'd seen that this gospel's got to be preached to every creature. Now, beloved, we're in this room tonight, and I want us to consider this great truth together.

Running the Christian Race by Looking to Jesus

As the chapter begins in verse 1, we are pointed to this, seeing we also are compassed about, with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Isn't that wonderful? The Lord both began it and ended it. So don't go looking anyway. You don't need to look at any of the saints. You don't need to look at gurus. You don't need to listen to the philosophers on the radio, or anything like that.

No bishops of Durham or anything like that. You don't need to listen to them. You needn't even listen to me. Thank you for the courtesy. But here is the great thing. The Lord Jesus Christ began and ended it all.

Amen. Once you see that, all you see then is, all I need is to receive Him. I've got the beginning and the ending of it. That's all you need to do. But there's a lot more we need to see. He's the author and finisher of our faith, and for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross.

He despised the shame, and He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Verse 29. Our God is a consuming fire. Now in order to get to that God is Father, that consuming fire, He endured the cross.

He despised the shame. He let everything go. And we are told in that first verse, we are to lay aside every sin, every weight, the things that easily beset you. And when He hung on the cross, He laid aside everything.

He hadn't got a stitch of clothing on Him even. You keep that very clear in your mind. Everything had to go. What a tremendous thing for us to see. Hallelujah. And so, beloved, just to remind us, we are told that there's a great cloud of witnesses.

You can read about them in chapter 11. You must have read about them. All these great people that did things, and kept on doing things. You ever thought about Noah, for instance? He built an ark to the saving of his house.

He never did anything spectacular. He never performed a miracle. He never made the sun stop in the heavens, or the moon stand on the valley of Adullam. As far as we know, He never laid His hands on a sick person.

They were healed. So far as we know, He wasn't a great preacher. Well, what's He famous for then? Stickability. He got hold of some old tree trunks, and He kept on, and it took Him a hundred years. They used to live a little longer in those days.

But He built an ark. That was faith. He didn't do anything spectacular. All He did was keep on. That's all He did. He would never be called a great man. But God called that a life of faith. He just got on and did it.

Mind you, He did it because God told Him to. He didn't suddenly get an idea that He'd like to do this or like to do that. He just did what God told Him. That's all He did. And God did the rest. Amen. In the end, God shut Him up in His own works.

He built the ark, and then God said, Go inside, and He shut the door on Him. Hallelujah. Shut Him up. How about if you were shut up to what you've done in your life? How about if you were shut up inside it?

Do you think? You say, Oh, well, I... Yeah, that's because we don't read our Bibles properly. Or not with our eyes open. And our understanding's enlightened. I just mentioned Him. Of course there were others.

I haven't got time to stop on them. But here's the big thing, beloved. That man, he did what we read of. He ran his race. Isn't it funny? I was thinking about it today. Why didn't they call us the human walk instead of calling us the human race?

What does it mean? Well, why didn't they? Why didn't they call us the human lounge? There must be something in it, mustn't there? When you were born, you were launched on a race, friend. Did you know that?

And God is expecting great things. Now, He's put the end in view. Our God is a consuming fire. Now, you've got to make up your mind right here and now whether you're going for that fire or whether you aren't.

Haven't you? You make the decision. Nobody will force you into it. He's a friend or she is a friend who faces you up to it and in that sense makes you take some kind of a decision. Let's not make a mistake.

Tonight, you will all make a decision in this room, every one of you. You will decide whether you will go for God or whether you won't. If you say, well, I'm not going to make a decision, see, you've already made it.

You've got to make a decision. Hallelujah. So God wants us to understand. Now, beloved, before we start, let's have a look at Jesus, shall we? Amen. I'll ask you a question. Do you think there's anybody better than He to look to?

Have you? Can you think of any great names in history or any present people? You'd rather look to them than look to Jesus? Do you know of anybody? If so, I'd like you to tell me afterwards because I do a lot of preaching and I must point people to the best.

The Cross as the Only Way to Glory

You have got to look at Jesus. Amen. Glory be to the name of our Lord. We look at Him. Listen. He endured the cross. He despised the shame. He didn't care what other people thought about Him when He was going full out for the goal.

He didn't care. Even though He knew that the only way to reach it was via the cross. And I want to tell you this much. You and I will never get there if we sidestep that cross. If you think there's any other way, whatever it be, modern concepts and ideas that are being introduced into churches, if you think there's any other way, you made a great mistake.

You don't get to cross to heaven because you might bow at a crib in a few days' time. Glory be to the name of the Lord. If that's all He wanted, He would have had His Son born and then taken Him back to heaven again.

Jesus came down on the earth not just to be a helpless, useless babe in that sense. You say, oh, not useless in view of what He was going to do, but I'm just talking about it if you didn't know that. He didn't just have Him born for the sort of pleasure of it, then to take Him back home again.

He was born to die, beloved. He knew that the cross was the way home for Him. And not only the way home for Him, and this is why He went there, but the way home for you and for me. Glory be to God. If you want to know the doorway into heaven, if you want to know the doorway into the glory and the power and the brightness and the joy and the bliss and the peace of heaven, it's the cross.

Oh, not the carved things that men make, but the reality of the cross, and you can't see any wood in this book. That's in this book. Praise the name of the Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you came and died for me.

Thank you you came to give me the opportunity. Thank you that you opened the door, and you opened your door when you opened your veins for me. You died for me. You bled for me. You took my place. You bore my sin.

You gave me the opportunity that I needed and the opportunity which fairly early on in my life, I sought. I didn't find it when I was a boy. I'd heard about it. I didn't find it when I was a youth, though I knew about it.

I didn't find it when I'd passed out of my teens, not immediately, but I did. Bless God, somewhere about 50 years ago, I found the door. Hallelujah. I found that Jesus had died to take away the blockage that was like a great, big, thick, dark, impenetrable, mountainous wall in front of me called sin that I couldn't work through and couldn't get rid of that in the end I came to hate myself because of it.

Hallelujah. Then I found that the Lord Jesus had taken it from me. He had died to be my Savior. He died, and the power of Him now, because He lives, took away sin from me in the 20th century. If He'd been a mere man, He couldn't have done it, but because He was God-made man, He only needed to achieve it once on the earth, and now He's been achieving it as the centuries have passed by.

There's nobody in this room tonight born sinner, though you may have been. There's nobody in this room a practicing sinner, though you are. There's nobody in this room that has sneered at God and rejected Him, or whatever has happened during life.

There's nobody in this room that I can tell you tonight that with your consent, as we shall see a little later, He will remove the blockage in your life, and if you're not through, it's because you don't want to be.

Not, I guess, because you haven't heard about it before, but you love your sin, and you're proud, and you're stubborn, and you're not going to bow your neck to anybody. Soon as you come to this place where you see that your forehead's as brass and that your neck will not bend, as soon as you acknowledge that, you'll be more than halfway there.

So God wants us to understand. Alleluia. Let's read, shall we? The book tells us all these great things. I want to ask you a question. How's your mind tonight? How's your mind? I'm not asking you whether you're a psychiatric case or something like that.

Most people in the world are. Oh, they're not in hospitals. I mean that. Everybody in this world is a schizophrenic until they're saved by Jesus, but they're the acceptably schizoid because everybody else is.

If everybody else is, if everybody in the world was black, that is, born black-skinned, they wouldn't be able to compare themselves with white-skinned people. Not that I'm suggesting they're any better than the black.

I'm just giving you an illustration. They don't know they're black because the only black by contrast was white. So they don't know. Here is the great and glorious thing, beloved. Let me ask you a question.

Let's look at verse 3. Let's consider Him, Jesus, shall we? He endured such contradiction of sinners. Every time He said, it's so and so, they said it's not. Every time He said, it's this, they said, no, it's not.

When He said, I'm the Son of God, they said, no, you're not. If He said, My name, Jesus, which is Savior, they said, no, you're not. When He said, I will save you, they said, no, you won't. When He said, I'm your King, they said, no, you're not.

Have I been voicing your statements though you've never said them? But God sees into your heart, lassie, lad. He's not dealing with superficialities. He sees inside. He loves you. Listen. He endured the contradiction against Himself, lest ye be weary and faint in your mind.

Now, I want to speak to you. Are you weary and faint in your mind? You thought and you thought and you thought and you thought until you can't think any longer about these things. You think about yourself.

You think about your condition. You think about what's happening in your family. You think about what's happening in the world. And you thought and you thought and you thought till you're weary of thinking.

Come on. Come with me to Jesus on the cross. He's the answer. You're to consider Him and you're to consider His claims on your lives. That's what you're to do. You're not to consider what other people think about you or what other people may have wound up for you and got ready for you, ready-made ideas received from other people.

You and I are to come and you're to consider the Lord Jesus Christ. For He loves you and He wants to see you in this glorious place where you are consumed with really heavenly, pure, sweet love. Amen.

You should sit there and say to yourself, It's wonderful that God wants me. It's wonderful that God wants to consume me. It's wonderful. You know this. It's hard to find human beings that love you. How many people do you know love you?

Really love you? How many do you know? Come on, you be honest. And if you're honest, you're probably not going to wonder why even my mother or my father loved me if they really knew me inside or my husband or my wife.

And I'm talking out of the stuff of life. You know it's true. How many people love you? You can count them on the foot of your hand. Really? Until you come to know the Lord Jesus. And that's why you fight and that's why you snarl and that's why you kick and that's why you're evil tempered.

You're fighting for your life. Who does love you? You don't know many, do you? Oh, I must have told you in this room. I suppose it was all brought to mind as I was traveling through to Macau for some meetings over the weekend.

For it's there where so much came to light, so much that I learned. One of the poor inmates in Macau smashed down and yelled out in about the most anguished voice I've ever heard in my life, No one loves me, she said.

Wept. Nobody loves me. Poor, isolated, condemned soul. Oh, yes, she deserved it. She deserved it in the eyes of the law. But not in the eyes of God, she didn't. And when she was loved, she yielded unto God.

What a tremendous thing it is, beloved. You better do some consideration tonight. Don't be a fool. The Lord wants us to understand the truth. And you know I'm speaking truth every word of it. I also am a man who needed Christ.

Strength for the Weary: Lifting Hands and Feeble Knees

So we look into this great book of God. Oh, beloved, listen. You better know this. If you're really going to get on to this goal, I want to point you to verse 12 next. Listen. In here it says, Lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen. Listen. You may think, Oh, I can't. I'm weary. I'm worn. I just can't make it. Now listen. Here comes a word of encouragement to you. Yes, you can. You can. Yes, you can.

And you've got to stop listening to the devil's voice. And you've got to stop listening to the voice of how you feel that keeps telling you you can't go on. Your feelings are liars in this race. Lift up the hands that hang down, he says.

Confirm the feeble knees. Blessed be the name of the Lord, beloved. You can get into this race. And you can run this race. Amen. But I want to tell you this. It requires patience. It's in verse 1. I'm making up nothing.

It's all in this book. You've got to go with patience. Amen. Come on. Let me encourage you tonight. You can do it. Yes, you can. All God needs is that you put your heart into it and stop the double-tongue business.

He wants you. There's nobody in this room but that the Lord Jesus Christ has provided all fullness of salvation for you. Amen. Get up off your knees, except when you get down there to pray. Get up off your knees.

And say, I can, Lord, by your grace, I can. And because you can, you've got to get to the place where you say, I will. I will. And that'll find out whether you're a coward or whether you've got courage.

For nobody says it's the easiest thing in the world to be a real Christian. Nobody has ever said that. Jesus Christ himself was denied, sworn at, cursed, rejected. He made it. And he had to do far more than you will ever have to do.

So, bless his holy name. It's all inscribed in the book of truth. Come on. Lift up your hands and hang down. I was in a meeting on Sunday night. I don't know whether I dare do it within these sacred walls.

And many people had responded at the end of the meeting. And one young woman, she came out and her story's nothing to do with anybody else in this room. And she stood there. And I said at the end, come on, let's lift our hands and praise the Lord.

And she couldn't do it for her life. She'd never done it in her life. So, I did an unusual thing. I don't often do this. So, if I did, she was, I went back, Freddie in my way, and I took her hands. And she was ever so startled.

I said, come on. She lifted up her hands. She didn't know what to do with herself. But when I left the building, her face was aglow. He says lift them up, so I'll help you if you want it. Yeah. I've never done it in here.

Wonder if I dare. I'm not threatening to. But if you don't mind me holding my hands up. Did I ever tell you about the time when I went to preach in the Pentecostal convention? I hadn't been to tell you too many stories.

I shan't get to the end. But it's getting near Christmas. It's the season of late hours. I went there. I was a Baptist pastor then, and they invited me to go and preach in this place. They discovered that you didn't have to be a Pentecostal man before you got baptized in the Spirit.

So, I went down there, you know, and I stood up to preach this big congregation. And I said, I shall never cease to thank God for the first time He enabled me to lift up my hands in the meeting and praise Him.

They said, Amen. I'm just saying this about a Baptist pastor. And then I said, I want to thank God too for the first time in the meeting when I could clap my hands. They said, Hallelujah, they said. So, I said, I want to thank God for the first time that I could say Hallelujah in a meeting.

They said, Praise the Lord. We were having a great time. And then I said, I want to thank God most of all when He freed me from sin. Dead silence. I preached on being made free from sin. If you haven't had a baptism in the Spirit that's made you free from sin, you've got something phony.

You might be a step on the road. I preached on being free from sin. And half the congregation were out at the front. They could all speak in tongues. Here is the tremendous thing for you and me to grasp.

Hallelujah. The Holy Spirit will make you talk. He'll give you utterance. But He hasn't come to be a tongue wagger. He's come to rid you of sin. Baptize you in fire. Burn up every trace of sin. And bring the light and glory.

The old salvationist used to sing. It's number 252 in your red book. I think we must have sung it a record number of times during these days I've been in Liverpool. Hallelujah. It seemed to catch everybody alight.

Praise the name of the Lord, beloved. Yes. Lift up the hands that hang down. And the feeble knees. And I want to tell you, if you're going to go this way, your path's got to be straight. It's in the next verse.

And I know this. Wobbling here and dashing off there. And what they call backsliding there. Or going out there. Or getting on some hobby horse there. Or following some other new idea that's been brought in.

Leading out into the wilderness. It's a straight path, friend. Glory be to the name of the Lord. Wouldn't you expect it to be? He says, I'm the way. I'm the path. Straight as a die. No mistaking. You can't go wrong.

If you want to be right. What a tremendous truth it is. What a tremendous thing to see these precious things. Look at this. It's a wonderful thing, beloved. It's got to be a straight path for your feet.

Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. Hallelujah. This is why I want to walk straight with God. I don't want any lame person to be turned aside. I don't want them to see one footprint that's a little bit out of the straight.

Lest they think that's the way to go. Instead of here. Amen. What a tremendous thing it is. Let it rather be healed. And I want to tell you there's healing in this room tonight. He'll heal you. Blessed be his name.

Peace, Rest, and the Straight Path

This is our God we're talking about. We're talking about a consuming fire. Somebody really loves you. Amen. What a tremendous thing. I want to keep reading this. And listen to this. If you're going to be on this road.

Listen, I'll tell you where it'll take you. It'll take you right into peace. You've got to follow peace. You say, oh, if only I had peace. If only I had real peace in my heart. If only my mind was settled.

If only. Well, beloved, listen. Let one talk to you who's been on the road for a long time. Perhaps longer than anybody else in the room. It's peace. I'll tell you why it's peace. Because I stopped fighting God.

I stopped fighting God. And I stopped fighting my circumstances. I stopped fighting. Amen. Amen. You know, this book talks in an earlier chapter about entering into rest. Blessed Lord. Wouldn't you give everything in the world if only your mind was at rest?

Eh? This cruel mind. Of course, when we're young, we think it's marvelous. We go into all kinds of fantasies. Sexual or worldly. I don't know what. Don't we? Eh? You think you're a queen. You think you're a king.

Or you think this and you think that. And you think the other. And you hear all kinds of fairy stories. And you switch from fairy stories to even greater things. Space travels and all this business. It's a big, bigger fairy story than ever.

All this lot. Hallelujah. Hmm. When you come to peace. And your mind's at rest. And your heart is settled. And you can let the rest of the world go by, if they want. Hmm. Are you at peace? Eh? There's a deep, deep peace.

Dwelling in my heart. Telling of the Savior's love to me. Do you ever sing that chorus? There's a deep, deep peace. Dwelling in my heart. Telling of my Savior's love to me. His promises. They shall never fail.

They shall never fail. They shall never fail. There's a deep, deep peace. Dwelling in my heart. Telling of my Savior's love to me. You'll have to come to it in the end. You'll never find peace anywhere else.

Only in the Savior's love to you. Never. When you have accepted it. And when you've stopped all the struggling and the fighting. The answering back and the contradicting. When you stop that, you don't think God's gonna have all that stuff, do you?

He gave his Son to get rid of it. And if you won't let that be purged out of your mind and heart, you'll never see these things. Never. You're a rebel. You were born a rebel. You're proud. You're independent.

You're going to do this. You're going to do that. Or you'll fall down the pit the other horrible foot. I can't do anything. This is the way men go. Up here or down there. That's what they do. Oh, I'm helpless.

I can't do a thing. That's another lie. The rebel doesn't mind what lie you believe. He doesn't mind to what extreme you go. As long as you don't believe the truth. And here is the truth, beloved. It's a great and full salvation.

When you lose ambition for self-promotion, when you're prepared to be God's man and God's woman, He'll do the work. I can comfort you if you want comfort. He won't do it against your will if you want to find comfort in that.

But you'll go to an everlasting fire, whichever one you go to. Here is the tremendous thing for us to understand. Wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody cried out, Oh, Lord, heal me. Heal me. And you're not just thinking about your body, though I believe there's healing for bodies in the room, too.

But you're thinking about that heart of yours. And you're thinking about that mind. Some of you have lived long enough to try and wrap your mind around the most horrible and contradictory things that there are in the universe, haven't you?

Surprising how young you can start. How old will you be when it's finished? God wants us to see the truth and understand it perfectly. I want to say if you're a warmonger, if you're always wanting to be fighting, there's no room here for you.

Go back there. You try to dodge in. You go back to the cross. That's where you come in and understand that and understand it well. One thing you can't do is double-cross God. What you do is you come humbly and meekly, as you should, to the God of the universe.

Praise his wonderful name. Look at this one. You've got to look out for this. Verse 15. You're to look diligently, lest any man or woman fail of the grace of God. What a terrible thing. Beloved, there's grace in the world, the grace of God.

However, he let this world continue after they'd crucified his son. When he came in the flesh and they lied about him, cursed him, crucified him, cast him out. One of the wonders of my heart, Lord, why didn't you say, all right, time?

And grace has allowed you to come into this meeting tonight. I don't know for what purpose you came, but God does. And you mustn't fail of this grace of God. If you do, it's your fault. And those that perhaps were your friends, your buddies, that helped you to fail of the grace, be no comfort to you in hell.

What a tremendous thing. There's grace for all mankind. Glory to God. There's grace for everybody. There's grace to meet your need. There's grace to meet yours. There's grace. Glory. How did a hymn become one of the top ten?

Amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Do you mean it when you sing it? A wretch like me. Let me sing it. A wretch like me. Now, there's grace for you. It doesn't matter whether you're schizophrenic.

It doesn't matter whether you're lame. It doesn't matter whether you're weary. It doesn't matter whether your mind doesn't know what to do or where to turn. There's grace. Grace is the answer. And oh, how we need it.

Hallelujah. I'm so glad there's a verse in this Bible, not that I needed it, but I love to quote it. I don't need it because I found it out for myself. There's a verse in this Bible that says, He won't deal with me after my sins.

He won't deal with me after my iniquities. What love is this? I'll deal with you after my son, he says. Why do you think I had him crucified? Because I love you. Grace. You say, you had your son crucified for me?

I can't believe it. You'll have to. Yes, he did have his son crucified for you. Go on, look at that cross. Look at the horror of it. He was like a man torn from limb. That's you. That's you. That's what you were in the sight of God.

A bleeding, dying, torn about creature. And you didn't know it because everybody else was like it. Like the blacks don't recognize blacks because they don't know whites. That's just my illustration. You didn't know.

Grace. Marvellous thing to come under the grace of God and you can fail of it. And I'll tell you what your heart's like. Right now, where you're sitting, if you fail of this grace of God, you're a bitter person.

You're bitter. Bitter over this failing. Bitter over that. Bitter over something else. Bitter what your mother said. Bitter because of what your father did. Bitter because your wife said something. Bitter because your husband said something.

Bitter. Bitter through and through. It comes out of your eyes. It comes out of your mouth. It comes out of your face. Bitter. No bitterness on this way. You've got to get rid of all your bitterness. That's an excuse for you to keep bitter.

Somebody's done something to you. You love it. It enables you to wreak your vengeance on them and serve them back like they've served you. But God won't have that. Amen. What a marvelous thing it is to know what salvation really is.

Grace, Repentance, and the New Covenant

Ah! Beloved, do you know what's happened? Sin's ruined you already. You're a ruined person. And there's no way back. You've got to keep going now. You've got to keep going. And God grant that you may fall into the arms of Jesus.

And you can. And you will. So, God, I want you. I need you. He hears that kind of cry. He says this, My ear isn't deaf that I can't hear. My eye isn't blind that I can't see. My arm isn't shortened that I can't say.

I can reach to you. Will you let me? God, you're talking as though you're my servant. I am. That's one of the claims Jesus made. He said, I am among you as him that serveth. God, you've become my servant?

Well, if I didn't, nobody else could serve you. Not the state you're in. Amazing grace, isn't it? Now listen to this. This is a shocking verse. Lest there be any fornicator, profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.