This sermon delves into the importance of understanding God's judgments and the need for a proper response to them. It emphasizes the consequences of sin and the levels of judgment that God brings upon nations, governments, and His own people when they fail to glorify Him. The sermon highlights the necessity for the church to acknowledge their sins, seek forgiveness, and properly respond to God's warnings to avoid catastrophic judgment.

Well, good evening. We have come, seems like a long, long way. We have set ourselves to study what began with a look at judgments, not only in the scriptures that we have been seeing in our Bible studies and Bible readings, which were consistent for the Old Testament, specifically what we were looking at, but then it grew out of that that we began to see for ourselves headlines for the last two years, again in a rapid fashion, one right after another, and obscure things of unusual makings that we was asking the question, and I in my prayers was asking and searching and seeking, why does this happen? What's going on? And that's a proper question, but it always takes you back to the book. It always takes you back to God's word, God's Bible, because out of that we learn about God and what God did, who God is. We focus on that one truth that seems to be by some way a deception by Satan to get into the church today to change God. They don't want a God that is judged, judgeful. They don't want a God that's wrathful. They don't want a God that remains holy and does not tolerate or fall to sin. They want a God that is relaxed. They want a God that's on their making in their own mindset. In other words, they want to pull God down to their level, and we know that that to be opposite. God's creation, entire existence was made in this earth, our existence, was made for one reason, and that is to glorify him. And if his creation does not glorify him, then in contrast from all that we have seen that in contrast, if you're not good, then you're evil. If you're not heaven-bound, then you're hell-bound. If you're not a saint, then you're a sinner. If you're not saved, then you're lost. And we see that contrast of light and darkness all throughout Scripture and in our present humanity. Now, in that contrast, if we're not going to be holy, we're not going to glorify God, then God's contrast to that is that he's going to answer that. We're going to see the side of God that God is angry at the wicked every day. God pours out judgment on a nation, a church, a people that have forgotten him. And we've seen this contrast throughout all these studies. Now, we got into an improper response last time to summarize and to conclude because it's one thing in our studies. We looked at Leviticus 26 that gave us our background passage on all this that set it up is that if you will not keep my commandments, if you will not obey me, which we've seen over and over in our study, then God says, I'm going to add seven times more greater punishment and wrath and judgment to you. And so what developed out of that was the seven levels of judgment. And again, to restate those because we have those that have not been with us the entire study, our first level of judgment is sin. The moment that sin entered into the world in Adam and Eve in the garden, God judged. And we saw that beginning. The moment we sin, God meets our sin automatically. Without sin, there's no need for judgment. So the first level of judgment is sin. It is to identify sin. It is to identify that which is the beginning. So then the second level that we've seen is God's response in that. The moment that sin has become up into his creation and is now contaminated, that which God looked out upon creation and said, it is very good. And so that contamination has to be met. The cross is a work of judgment to address the issue of sin. The judgments that we looked at in the levels of sin, the seven levels, are all directly related to address the sin issue. So we have the first level being sin. We have the second level, God responding to sin. We looked at a host of how God responded, sometimes instantly, sometimes externally, sometimes very personal, very, very devastating. But in all this, it is God's response, and God knows best in all this. Now the third level is when we began to see part of that external, how God begins to judge the land. When the nation and the land has been contaminated, and so therefore God pours out judgment. And we looked at that through weather, through calamities of disasters, famines, droughts, those kind of natural nature events. Then we looked at the fourth level, is that when God brings judgment against the government. The nation, the ruling party, the leadership, in the Old Testament it was the king, or it was the priest, Roman Empire, empires, ruling factions, Babylon, all these things we examined as governments that God toppled because His judgment was poured out upon them because they would not give glory to Him. And again, we keep coming back to that. With a proper response for us to look at tonight, we've got to understand why things were removed, why things were destroyed, why things were judged so that we don't become a part of them. So God pours out judgment on governments and nations, our judicial system, legislation, president, all those factions that play into this because they will not lift up their eyes to Him and say, Lord, we need you. They will not bow their heads or their knees to Him in humility. They will not let go of their humanism to say, Lord, just you and your life. And so God judges the governments. The fifth level is when God turns His sights on His own people. The Old Testament was the children of Israel. We saw the two tribes, Israel, the ten tribes that was there with Israel, Jeroboam who led them astray. Then we saw the tribe of Judah, and Benjamin was involved with them in a great majority of the time. But then we see the church, God's own people, the church, how God judges the church because of their failure to glorify Him because they've been caught up in falsehoods, religious practice, traditions, and they lose sight, they lose priority. The seven churches was where we examined in that. Then we come to the sixth level. Those things may be external, those things may be able to be brought through to say, well, this isn't too bad, and a lot of people like that with that kind of attitude. But level six is the warning shot over the bow of what's coming. And these are judgments upon the people of the land, the nations, where there is cataclysmic, not so much cataclysmic, but there are disasters, there are pestilence, there is these things that occur, children, we looked at that in Leviticus, where the animals come and eat the children, and we see where dozens up to hundreds of people can die and lose their life because of this judgment, which is not so much external now, but very real in our backyard. And it is supposed to be that eye opener that says, we can't go any further than this because you don't want to get to level seven. And then that shoots us into level seven, that when men, nations, empires, God's people, refuse to humble themselves, refuse to repent and to confess, then God unloads level seven. And level seven is a cataclysmic catastrophe where scores of hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are removed from the earth in a heartbeat. And it is that which is points in history that everything changes. It is events that has occurred, that has set up and shaped a course of change, a course of correction. And again, if they did not listen, then they was removed. But if there is a humility that is found in that, if there is a proper response found in that, then God in his mercy exercises that. Children of Israel were taken from 600,000 when they come out of Egypt. They was elevated during the days of David, Solomon, up to Jehoshaphat, that there was over a million of the men in the army, a million men army that they had. But the time that they're carried away to Babylon, just a couple hundred years later, they are reduced to 42,000 people. It was a removal of them because they would not meet God. They would not properly respond to God. And this is the warning where we're at today. Why in the world we ever began this study is because we are seeing judgments of level number six all over the place. Matter of fact, you can't, for the last 18 months, if I was literally to document the headlines, to point out judgment after judgment after judgment of this, where God is saying, I'm trying to get your attention. But again, it does not do any good to go to Washington and give this information. It does not do any good to stand on the street corners of the local United States cities and proclaim this truth because they have ears to hear, but they won't hear. They have eyes to see, but they won't see. And so the evidence is mounting up that we are on the fringe of level seven. And it is horrifying because what is worse, to not know and to experience it or to know and experience it? And so to study in this, we saw that there needs to be not just a knowledge about who God is, what God has done, what God is doing in these seven levels of judgment, but what good does all of this do without some kind of application for our life today? And so the last time when we began with this understanding of culmination is to say, what's supposed to be our response? And I took you through scores of verses in the Minor Proverbs from Daniel through Malachi that laid to us the understanding of Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 7 that says, but my people do not know my judgments. And because they did not know, it led them to an improper response to God when the judgments were happening. That is my greatest fear, that there is an improper response by the church because we do not know that these are the judgments of God happening upon our nation, upon our communities, upon the church today, and we are blind to seeing these things and therefore we are improperly responding to God, which only escalates provoking Him that much more. So we have now shifted from fourth gear to fifth gear in this elevation of ratcheting up these judgments in scenario. And as I've said all along in almost all seven nights of study with these things, is that there is a cloud the size of a man's hand on the horizon for judgment level number seven upon the United States. And it is because of the church's failure to respond properly, right before God that brings us to this. Now, before I come to the scriptures, we are not alone in this. There has been other times that there has been much darkness out there. There has been much judgment on the land. There has been all these things in place. But the church properly responded. God in His mercy came down and helped. He poured out His loving kindness upon the church and then it overflowed into the community and the people and it was met with what we would call revival. Now, I say that for this one reason. Jonathan Edwards was a most knowledgeable man, very intelligent. He had experienced several occasions of revival in his church in Massachusetts. But when the darkness was setting in again and there was huge examples of drunkenness and alcoholism and profanity and wickedness and sinfulness happening in the community and in the homes and in the church, the founding of the nation was in this place of trying to get organized and established. And there was a man that was over, I believe, in Scotland and he, hearing about some of the experiences of revival that had happened under Edwards, he sent a, what they used to do was that they would have a treatise, an article of a call. And so he wrote this, a humble attempt, I wrote this down to get it right, a call for united, extraordinary prayer. And it was titled with that, with a humble attempt at this. And Jonathan Edwards' name would communicate my letter back then and so he got this call to united, extraordinary prayer. And he took that and he initiated that and did his own work on that and presented that to the churches and to his own people and out of that came a great response of prayer, humility, and proper response. Now, that was late 1700s where we're looking at this time period that Jonathan Edwards did that. Another proper response in our history that we look at was Jeremiah Lampere, a man up in New York City God spoke to, God led, and he set for a prayer meeting and when he put out the flyers across there, there was economic upheaval and turmoil that was setting in. Again, wickedness, drunkenness, all these kinds of problems that was happening in the nation. A New York study began in this that one man began a prayer meeting that grew to a couple, that grew to dozens, that grew to hundreds, that grew to literally thousands, participating within a matter of months of that. And out of the 30 million population in 1858-59 of that time period, one-tenth, I believe it was, 3 million came to Christ and began to follow the Lord. And all because the man called for a united, extraordinary prayer to be done inside the church. Now again, God's desire comes down to his people's desire to respond properly. But if there is not that fellowship, if there is not that relationship, then it's broken. And men take upon their own shoulders to say, we can fix this. And that's where we got an improper response. The children of Israel, an improper response because they did not do it God's way. They did it their way. Now, I went down through all those verses to give an improper response. Now I want to come tonight, and I want to finalize all this with what is needed. That while being on the edge of level number 6, heading steamrolling straight into level number 7, where we'll sing that song that I gave softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling, deathbeds are coming. In order to stop this, in order to prevent this, it is needful for the church, you and I, to properly respond as God has ordained. And it is that God is consistent. But you look in the scriptures and you see the consistency of God. If my people turn unto me, I will turn to them. If my people draw nigh to me, I will draw nigh to them. If my people abide in me, I will abide in them. If my people return unto me, then I will return unto them. It is a reciprocation that God is waiting for us. It's not God, it's us. So it is that we begin to see these in the scriptures, and that as we go down through this, I want to give a host of verses quickly that parallel what we looked at last time about the minor prophets and an improper response. And then we're going to go to an illustration of the children of Israel, children of Judah, under King Jehoshaphat, in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, as a summary, and then to leave it with us, of where God is calling us to be in this time. So in background passage that we began to read, I gave to you Leviticus 26 on the seven levels. I read that each night, that we looked at the seven levels. I am not going to read that again, but I'm going to pick up where we need to be of a proper response found from Daniel to Malachi, in the Old Testament, that there was two levels there of contrast, improper and proper. And I want to give to you a proper response by the church in times of judgment. Proper response by the church in times of judgment. And that's where we're at tonight. So, having said that now, I want to begin with taking our Bibles, and I want to open up to where we're going to start. Daniel chapter 9 was a verse that we looked at, that there was a confession that was made in this. Now, the prophets, minor and major as we label them, or as you may discern in them, one of the things that they found was that the more that they waited upon God, the more God revealed to them what was going on and why things were going on. Daniel, after fasting and in prayer, that it was revealed to him that there must be 70 years by Jeremiah, prophecy, and that it was because of the iniquity of the people that God did this. Now, when Daniel understood this, and that is a clarification there, when God's people understand. We have a lack of understanding today about who God is and what God does. But my people, Jeremiah 8, 7 again, but my people do not know my judgments. This isn't a judgment. That's not a judgment. Oh, God doesn't judge today. God's not angry. God's not... And they characterize that as that God is love, God is mercy, God is forgiving, God is long-suffering, and God is all those things. Nobody denies that. That's the Word of God. That's the names of God, the attributes of God. But don't give one without the other. It is that you can't cut God in half and just take the side that you like and forget about the other side. The reason that we begin with a proper response is that we begin with a proper knowledge about who God is. And when we understand that, as Daniel did, in Daniel chapter 9, he makes this glorious prayer. We have sinned against you, O Lord. Recognition. Where we are, we have sinned. Now, it would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath for the President of the United States to come on television tonight and to say it has just been confirmed to me that the Word of God is true and that every man is a liar and that we are sinners in the sight of the Holy God Almighty. I'm not holding my breath for that. But I do expect it in the pulpits of the churches today. And if it's not happening in the pulpits, then why would we ever expect for it to be acknowledged out there? God is love. God is love. And never preach on hell. Never preach on sin. Never preach on the wrath of God on Christ on Calvary. Just preach the one side of it, lopsidedness. And it is a lie. A half-truth is a whole lie. Satan works into the churches to deceive and to mangle our proper understanding of the Word of God. But if we don't know the Word of God, then we don't know the God of the Word. And if we don't know and spend time with God and are intimate with God, we'll never know Him. He'll never reveal Himself to us and His attributes in these things. Now, Daniel chapter 9 is that prayer that I want to begin in reading and then we'll take off and run. Daniel chapter 9 verse 3. I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. Now note all those things there. Proper response. I don't know that it's needful for sackcloth and ashes in the midst of this, but it is. Is that a humble spirit? A groveling spirit? Fasting? Prayer? Supplications? Proper response. If God met these men on these circumstances and these conditions, then what does it afford us not to do it? We ought to be doing it. Verse 4. And I prayed unto the Lord my God. Proper response. And made confession. We looked at that. And I said, O Lord, the great and the dreadful God, keep in covenant and mercy to them that love Him and to them that keep His commandments. We have sinned. Acknowledgement. And have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by the authority from Thy precepts and from Thy judgments. And neither have we hearkened unto Thy servants, the prophets, which speak in Thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs unto You, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day to the men of Judah and in the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel that are near and that are far off, through all the countries, whither Thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against You. O Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him, neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in His laws which He set before us by His servants, the prophets. Yea, all Israel has transgressed Thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey Thy voice. Therefore the curse is poured upon us and the earth that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, because we have sinned against it. And He hath confirmed His words which He spake against us and against our judges, that judged us by bringing upon us a great evil, for unto the whole heaven has not been done, as has been done upon Jerusalem. And as it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, yet make we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Thy truth. Turn from your iniquities and understand the truth, the word of God. Therefore has the Lord watched upon thee? He has brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all His works which He doeth, for we observe not His laws. And now, O Lord our God, Thou hast brought Thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand. And now has God be renowned as at this day, for we have sinned and we have done wickedness. Now he goes on with the prayer, but let us stop at that point and let us have a word of prayer now. Blessed Father, we begin. We begin with that which we have rehearsed already. We begin, Father, with reading of Your Word and in understanding, Lord, that it is not by men but by You. May You cast forth Your Holy Spirit now upon this place, breathing it into us, Lord, that we might have minds to understand, hearts to perceive, ears to hear, eyes to see, and a soul, Father, that responds properly to You. O God, we are so ashamed that tonight Your people have improperly responded to You for years. We have sinned against You. We have failed You. We have walked in contrariness to You. We have disobeyed. Lord, we are here tonight at a point. It is, O Father, a crucial point. It is a taxing hour. Lord, it is not for the faint of the week, but it is for us, O Lord, to be girded by You. Help us. Help us, O God, tonight, we pray, that Your glory might be manifested and Your people might humble themselves and fall before You, Lord, and that You might meet us, O Lord, with Your very own lovingkindness and Your mercy and restoration. O God, we know that our sin has provoked You. We know that we have offended You. But it is, we rise up to You, O Lord, that You remember Your promises, Your covenant, the cross of Christ, for all the wrath of sin was poured upon the Son of Man and the Son of God, who is our Savior, Jesus Christ. And by His stripes we are made whole. Heal us tonight, Lord, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.