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Till There Was no Remedy
Dan Biser
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0:00 54:01
Dan Biser

Till There Was no Remedy

Dan Biser · 54:01

Dan Biser emphasizes the critical need for persistent prayer and repentance, warning that the church faces judgment 'till there was no remedy' as illustrated by the downfall of Judah in 2 Chronicles.
This sermon emphasizes the importance of returning to God and prevailing in prayer, highlighting historical patterns of revival followed by national calamities due to forsaking God. It urges a deep understanding of God's character, the need for personal and corporate revival, and the urgency of prevailing prayer for spiritual awakening amidst societal challenges and impending conflicts.

Full Transcript

I had a, I had a beloved man, T.W. Hunt, that I often talk about, and he was in West Virginia back in early 2000s, and we had a Marathor Pastors Conference, and I knew of him. I, you know, had not read his materials, The Mind of Christ and those kind of things, but he was there for that, and there wasn't a lot of us there. It was at a resort kind of setting, and saw him as he was walking down the hallway on the first night that we was there after I heard him speak, and I immediately, you come across people, and you say, now I, just like the woman did about Elisha, I perceive that this is a holy man of God that passes by this way, and so I wanted to get a hold of him and talk and sit down, and I just happened to see him shuffling with him and his wife, shuffling down the hallway. They were on the same floor as us, and I told my wife, I said, oh, there he is. I said, I'm going to try to grab him to see if we can have a time to talk, time to fellowship, so he had already got in the room the time I got down there, and I knocked on the door, and he came to it, and introduced myself, and I said, is there any way that you and I would have time to sit down and talk, and he, in his humble, meek spirit, he said, he said, oh, brother, he said, they've got me jam-packed. He said, I just don't see how that could possibly happen. I said, okay, appreciate the time, and I made my effort, did what I was supposed to do, and so I walked away disappointed but trusting. Next morning at breakfast, he comes up behind me and grabs my elbow, and he says, I've got lunchtime. He says, you and your wife join me and my wife, and let's have our conversation. We had 20, 25 minutes, and I had an array of questions that I was firing at him just about as fast as I can. You're going to note how fast I speak here in a moment, because I get revved up, and just back and forth as quick as we could, because that's all we had, and at the close of that conversation, he said, he said, Dan, he said, I've got a prayer notebook back in Houston. He said, and I'm going to put you in it and pray for you, and I think at that time, we had four or five of the kids, and he said, I'm going to pray for your wife and your children. Well, two, three years went by. He was at one of the conventions with his daughter, and so I told my wife, I said, well, let's go up and reintroduce ourselves. Just, you know, he meets thousands of people. There's no way he would remember me, you know, a guy out of the hills of West Virginia, and so as I stuck my hand out to introduce myself, don't ever do this, by the way. You do this to speakers, and it just is an awful thing. Do you remember me? Doug, can I use you? I know. I know the face, but I can't call the name, and as I started, because I was manners, I started to tell him who I was. He called me by name, called my wife by name, and the kids by name, and I know my mouth hit the floor, and I said, how in the world did you do that? He said, didn't I tell you the last conversation we had that I would put you in my prayer notebook and pray for you every day? Almost as if I was questioning his integrity of saying you lied to me, but the reality, he did. He brought me before the Lord to his dying day, and you find a brother or sister that does that. Latch on, because there is nothing greater in a moment like this, or a moment at work, or services tomorrow, or whatever you face next week, is to know that there is someone praying for you right now, and there is no greater comfort than you can give to someone, especially we're talking about revival, and I learned a long time ago in my studies that the only reason revival comes is because somebody prevailed with God for what God wants to do, which is glorify Himself. Revival is sovereign. God picks and chooses, and He speaks it, and He says it, and it comes at His bidding, but He always, the pipes, He always uses the pipes to lift the incense up before Him to receive it so His will can be done. So when you understand that, and we come to a revival conference, and my heart on prayer, it's to answer that question. Where are we at? What's going on here? And so it becomes this hope, this opportunity is to say, Lord, are we going to prevail in prayer before, not before this, that Brother Doug brought about this manifest working that's going to happen to the nations, but we have people dying today. We have crisis today. We have emergencies happening all over the place, and so coming through Scripture and trying to put all this together about my place, your place, a conference like this, the church's place, even though I know God keeps all things in His hands in time, and He makes no mistakes, and His way is perfect, I know that it's not on His part, it's on our part that we fail, we falter. The church is so frail right now. How do we get there? How does this happen? Well, it's a repeat of history. One of the earlier speakers had made reference to that. I'm a history major, and I learned the adage there is that we are doomed to repeat history if we don't want to learn from it. So in the book of 2 Chronicles, it is time to learn the lesson of history because we're repeating it, and it comes with one of the most awful phrases in the Bible to me, and there are several of those that I want to bring to you this afternoon to close out this session. I want to begin reading in 2 Chronicles chapter 35 in verse 23, and I want to read right on down through chapter 36 verse 17. That's a larger passage of Scripture, and go with me as we do that. We was talking, one of the other speakers and I was talking about this. I love to hear the rattling of the pages when you say, take your Bibles and turn to. There's nothing wrong with licking your finger and making your iPad or your cell phone go to your Bible translation. That's fine, but I love the rustling of the pages. Verse 23, in the archers they shot at King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, have me away for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot. They put him in a second chariot that he had, and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and he was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem, they mourn for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah. And all the singing men and the singing women, they spake of Josiah and their lamentations to this very day. And they make this an ordinance in Israel, and behold, they are written in these lamentations. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his goodness, according to that which was written in the law of the Lord and his deeds first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. Then the people of the land, they took Jehoaz, the son of Josiah, made him king, and his father's stead in Jerusalem. Jehoaz was 23 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. King of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem, condemned the land to a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. And the king of Egypt made Eliakim, his brother, king over Judah in Jerusalem, turned his name to Jehoakim, and Necho took Jehoaz, his brother, and carried him into Egypt. Now Jehoakim was 25 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for 11 years in Jerusalem. He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also carried the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon, and they put them put them in his temple at Babylon. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoakim and his abomination which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. And Jehoachim, his son, reigned in his stead. Now Jehoachim was eight years old when he began to reign. He reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. When the year was expired, king Nebuchadnezzar sent, brought him to Babylon with the goodly vessels of the house of the Lord, and made Zedekiah, his brother, king over Judah in Jerusalem. Jehoakim was 21 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet, speaking from the mouth of the Lord, and he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar who made him swear by God. But he stiffened his neck, hardened his heart, returning unto the Lord God of Israel. Moreover of all the chief of the priests and the people, they transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and they polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up at times, sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God. They despised his words. They misused his prophets until the very wrath of the Lord arose against his people, and here's the phrase, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and they had no compassion. Mark that in verse 15, God had compassion, but in verse 17, God took away the compassion and had no compassion upon the young men or the maidens, old men or him that stooped for age. He gave them all into his hands. Come back to that little phrase there to preach this afternoon about where we're at, what's going on. I am one that is in full agreement with what has been said. I wouldn't be up here. I wouldn't be as viminent as I am, and I am stern, dogmatic as someone asked me the other day about that. I am very dogmatic in my approach to the things of God, but I'm not like most that want to besiege the temple. I hear a lot of that in the conversations in churches and gatherings and meetings, conventions that I go to. What'd you think of that ball game? How about this weather? What'd you think about that Supreme Court nomination vote they had this afternoon? I hear all that, and I stay up to date with most of that that's going on, but I'm always looking beyond. I have my eyes on something that is far more important than the here and the now, the temporal and the carnal. We have not taught that. As Christians and as the church, we're taught what? Eternity. Everything about this life is eternity. We're given life to get ready for eternity. We're given hope to share with others to get them ready for eternity, but as we have already heard throughout these sessions is that the one thing that has been literally drained from most people is hope. Even in the church, they're not looking to the place that the hope comes from. They're looking to the right arm of flesh. Never has there been a greater cry of humanism in the church than today. We can do this. We'll fix this. We'll make all this right, and I read that little phrase till there was no remedy, and I say you are steamrolling to your own destruction because you are no better than Jehoiakim or Zedekiah. Remember Jehoiakim? Jehoiakim was the one that got that long letter from Jeremiah while he was in prison, and he was so arrogant. He was so sinful, so vile. He even mentions there the abomination that he did is that when they were reading the parchment of Jeremiah the prophet of repent, get right with God, and God will have mercy on you, it was the cold winter, and they had a hearth burning there, and he took his pocket knife, and he would cut the segments off as they finished and throw it in the fire. Throw the Bible away, and we've heard that statement about that. If you've watched the news and heard about what Sister Sarah was talking, they're going in and taking their Bibles out of their homes, out of their churches, and out of their arms in China, in Myanmar, and I left with that thought, and I was glad Doug did that because I'm right there. What would I do if someone took my Bible? I've invested so much. I'm 50 years old, and I have invested so much time in the Word of God and about the things of God, and to have that stripped out of me would be like losing a limb, and yet for most people that you come across in this day and time in the church, God's people, this isn't about the heathen. This isn't about the lost world. This isn't about those that are following their master and their Lord the devil in the world. This is about God's people in God's place. The Word of God is absent from the mind. It's absent from the homes. It's absent from the heart, and it's absent from the house of God, and so here we come with this is that the Word of God being presented to people, and they have no appetite for it, and they are as just as daring and as arrogant as Jehoiakim was, is cutting it and throwing it into the fire and saying, that's the last thing that I want. 2006, 2008, I never have got the memo on what years we did this, but when Greg was down there in Atlanta, and I, and I believe Edgar, and some of the others, we was called and asked to be a part of the prayer meeting that was going on. I believe it was Tuesday nights at that point, and so I started writing devotions and prayer points for people to pray for the conference that was coming up, much like I did back in April for this one, what to bring before the Lord when one was fasting and those kind of things, and I had people that was writing me and saying, hey, I'm praying with you. We're going to pray right through this thing, and one of those ladies who kept contact, because after the conference had stopped, I continued on with sending out prayer emails. I've advanced in the social structure of the internet by saying, now I'm doing blogs, so I'm not just doing emails. It's now prayer blogs, so, but the idea of this is, is that I was sending it out, and this lady, she was here in the United States, but she also had ties in Jerusalem, and in the midst of that, I was trying to encourage them that they would maintain their walk with the Lord. This is one of the struggles in the church today, maintain your walk with the Lord. You know the old hymn, when we walk with the Lord, no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey. Well, where does it all fall apart? Where do they start hitting and missing? You got a four-cylinder car, six-cylinder car, now all of a sudden, you're only half of the cylinders are hitting. What's going on? You're losing power. Something's wrong. Spiritually, it's the same thing, and I encourage them, study to show yourself approved. Read the Bible. Stay in the Word. Digest. Feed yourself all the time. Get devotions in that, and this lady, she took it to heart. She said, I've been in the church for almost 30 years, and she said, and I never read my Bible through, and she read her Bible through, and then they did it in like six, seven months, and then she turned to her husband, and her and her husband were reading the Bible together and reading it through, but they had business or somehow contacts that was in Jerusalem. She went to the pastors that were in Jerusalem, Protestant pastors, Christian church, and she started asking them, and I think that had come from something that I had shared about most pastors when I talked to them, have you read the Bible through, and most pastors have never read the Bible through. They get a Sunday, a message for Saturday night for Sunday, but they don't study it on a daily basis, which is another part of where we're going, but the idea of this was was that she went to the assembly of God, the Baptists, the Methodists, and whoever else was out there in Jerusalem, and she asked about 18 pastors that were in Jerusalem, where they was at in their walk with the Lord, and she said zero of them have read their Bibles through. That didn't shock me. It doesn't surprise me. It's just where we're at. Now, that was 10 years ago. Now, you're here to be a part of this because God birthed something within you, not of yourself, not of sermon index, but of eternity, of God. Do you remember that day, that book, that sermon, that psalm, that scripture, and it captivated your heart. It captivated your thought, and you said there's something more than just church. There is a divine power of his manifest presence that comes down, and nothing else satisfies than that. Hearing these accounts, and I've shared with you just kind of whet your appetite, you know, just because I like to talk about them and share them and all that good stuff, but I asked Ralph Saterra. I've asked Henry Blackaby. I asked Dennis Kinlaw. I said, man, you was up on cloud nine. You saw the hand of God. You saw the work of God. It just didn't happen one night. It was over the next. It went on for weeks. It went on for months. You heard the testimonies. God was glorified. Souls were saved. Churches were inflamed. Word of God went out. Missionaries were sent, and God's kingdom was advanced. Makes you a little happy, doesn't it? Oh, you're not happy? I get happy. I get a little excited about that. I love hearing about it. I love John Avon sharing about that. Oh, I love hearing about it. Tell me more, but I asked them. I said, you sat through some of the most divine moments where God literally saturated the atmosphere. Doug, you said it. You said, what'd you say, a chill up and down your legs as you was preaching there? You was getting so excited. I call it a surge of the Holy Spirit. Everybody's got their own terminology. I understand that, but you know what the surge is? If you don't, Shane, you got an electrical outlet we can have just for a moment? And a surge. I'm an electrician. I've done that stuff. I know what it is to hit the wrong wire. Man, I don't stand there and hold on and say, well, that feels different. But the Holy Spirit, you just know the surge when it's there. Thursday night I had it. If you watch, I didn't want to close. I didn't want to stop. I just wanted to weep. I didn't agree with the Holy Spirit. I wasn't disobedient to the Holy Spirit, but I just was feeling the surge, appreciating it, thanking Him. He's here. Hallelujah. People have lost that. They're missing that. They go through church. As old Vance Habner said, we started 11 o'clock sharp and we end at 12 o'clock dull. Missed it. Miss God or dictate to God. And now we are steamrolling to a time and a place in our nation with all that's going on. We are now coming to Second Chronicles 36 for the masses of people that are in the nation. So there was no. So how can you say that in a revival conference when we say that revival is the answer? I believe that's already been specified. We've heard about two kinds of revivals, personal revival that you have in your secret chamber with God on a daily basis. And corporate revival where God takes over the churches, every church. And if they don't abide by it, He simply removes them. We've heard that all almost in every session of someone mentioning the church of Ephesus over in Revelation chapter two, where he says, and if you don't repent, this church, this is the church of America. Listen, if you don't repent, I'm going to remove your candlestick. And Robert Mary McShane that I referenced the other night in the 1800s went on a missionary trip when he left the pulpit and was going to Israel. He passed through Turkey and that region there. And he looked for the church of Ephesus that Paul wrote about and Paul wrote to and Timothy was the bishop and all those things that we know about its history. And he says the foundation of the church, he writes this in the seven churches of Asia, Robert Mary McShane's book, seven churches of Asia. And he says, and I looked for the church and there was a cornfield growing on its foundation. And he makes the statement, God removed their candlestick, a witness, a church. Look across America, in my region, West Virginia, I could take you to boarded up churches left and right. Plywoods over, they got chains on the doors. They're shut down. We hear about pastors leaving the ministry left and right. What's happening? He's removing candlesticks left and right. And the more that you remove the candlesticks, which are therefore light, what proceeds into the room? Darkness. And the darker it gets, the crazier it gets, the greater the cup of iniquities. So there was no remedy. How'd we get here? How did this happen in this? I want you to go, and I'm going to go quickly through this. And again, this is something as you read through scriptures, and I believe that I'm going to hope that, you know, but I'm never under the assumption that, you know, I know that you tell me. So let me walk, walk with me through this, go back over the book of first Kings chapter 13. And we have the introduction here, kind of out of sequence. You have David, who's King of Judah and Israel. And he did that, which was right in the sight of the Lord. And God says, I found me a man after my own heart and the blessings of that. And he had a 40 year kingdom that was reigned there, and they worshiped the Lord God. And there was great advancement for God and for the kingdom and for the covenant and for the children of Israel. And right after that comes in Solomon, his son, and oh, where brother Al preached up to us there in second Chronicles six and seven. And he offers that great prayer in chapter six, and they offer the sacrifices. And you note that in these phrases that I read of second Chronicles 36 about God's place, the temple. Remember what happened after he made the prayer and they offered the sacrifices, the fire came down and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. So much so is that no one could stand in it until God finally pulled himself back up. Every revival that you read about when God fills the house, they don't get up, they go down. He filled the place and because he dwelled there, it was holy. He made it holy. And then Dan goes into second Chronicles chapter seven there after the Lord had filled the place and made it right. But you go back over to first Kings 13, where I just referenced, and you have this young prophet because right after Solomon, there's Solomon drifts away from God. He's subverted by his wives and he falls to the idols and 20 years of great kingdom work and great advancement for the Lord. And then the last half of that is that what most of us understand in the Christian pilgrimage is that it's not really the beginning, is it? It's the end. Finish? Well, now again, we're watching people struggle left and right, watching them fall in church and then fall back out. Well, they come forward and they get saved. And as someone may have said it the other day, the exit is as big as the front door in the churches. To be honest, I had a pastor brag to me in my own hometown, bragged to me, hey, we had 21 baptized down at the river Sunday. And I'm telling you, when people tell me those kinds of things anymore, and again, you may rebuke me at the end of this, and I understand that, but I understand what I've already been through this. When people tell me how many people get saved in these crusades and all this stuff going on, well, he saw all these people get saved, made decisions. In the back of my mind, I want to rejoice. I want to praise God. Great. You know, the angels rejoice over one soul that's saved. We know all those things, but he said, we baptized 21. I said, and what'd you do? Start a new Sunday school class, new study to get these new believers in orientation? He said, no, I didn't have that problem. I said, what do you mean you don't have that problem? He said, well, half of them never even come back for the baptismal certificate next week. Why'd you baptize them? They weren't ready. They're just like what Jesus rebuked in the Pharisees. You make them that much more child of hell by making them religious. Careful with that. Stillborn children, Nicole. Not born of God, born of man, and Satan claims them. It's the scariest thing in this world, and that's the reason that I said that the other night. One of the greatest things that we can ask and hear from each other, how did God save you? Tell me your testimony. And again, most of us sitting here, as I would feel safe of saying, tears would automatically form in your eyes. Let me tell you about the day. Let me tell you about the moment when Jesus saved us. Minister serving. How God get a hold of you. Just reached in there. You're saved. You're serving. You're growing, and all of a sudden, God just breaks and says, no, now you're going to follow me in ministry. I love to hear those calls. I think first time, you know, most of these speakers, I don't know. You know, Doug is under the radar, so there's no way to get a hold of him at all, because he's not, he's the hardest one to get a hold of. But most of these other speakers, they got social media or something, and so I tried to hook up with them, and for the last five months, I tried to call them every month, just wanted to pray with them, and before we all got here together, that we had some kind of get together. And I remember Brian, that was one of the first things I asked him. I said, how did God call you? How'd you get that heart desire for revival? And we had a wonderful conversation that day, and I just sit there with a smile on my face, just taking it all in. You just, God wants to do this. He's inviting us to be a part of it, but when men lose sight of who God is, and they lose sight of what God has instilled for His purposes, they get to this point of destruction and death, which is all upon our nation right now. So here you got Solomon, falls away. Sin is allowed to enter in. God tells him, because of your sins, I'm going to strip the kingdom from you, and I'm going to give it to someone else. I'm going to give Rehoboam one tribe, but the rest of them, I'm giving to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And what's he do? He makes two false idols, sets them up in Dan and Beersheba, and says, here's your gods that brought you out of Egypt, Israel. You don't need to go to Jerusalem where the glory came down. You don't need to be in Jerusalem where God abides. Just worship these idols. And they did. So in first Kings 13, God sends a young prophet, no name. Don't you love those prophets with no names? And he comes into the town. He immediately comes to the altar of Jeroboam, and he speaks against it and says, thus saith the Lord. How do you know the prophet? He always says, thus saith the Lord. And he spoke against the altar, and he says, and there shall come a king out of Judah named Josiah. This is 950 BC. I read 2 Chronicles 35 and 36 to you, 600 BC. 350 years went by before that prophecy was fulfilled, but it was fulfilled. God keeps his word, doesn't he? You want a good word study? The I wills of God in the Bible. When God says I will, there's 2,000 of them in there. You can go to my blog and find them. And for 995, I'll sell them to you. One of the greatest promises in the Bible when God says I will, that's an absolute. You know what an absolute is? It's a sure thing. And God has said it from Genesis to Revelation 2,000 times. I will do this. And in revival, we learn the I wills. You remember Duncan Campbell's revival in the Hebrides, listening to that account. He got, he arrived on the island. He said, the church is full. The people are waiting for you. He got up. He preached two hours. It was 11 o'clock PM. Nothing happened. Benediction. Let's go home. Try this again tomorrow. He's walking down the aisle. And the deacon who had been in the prayer meeting on Friday night where the barn was closed and the spirit blew through this. Some of you are looking at me funny. You don't know this account. All right, I'll share that one tonight. And the deacon, Duncan Campbell's walking down. The deacon grabs him and stops him and says, Lord, did you not say I will pour water on him that is thirsty? I will pour water. And what did God do? You're right. I did say that. And I am the God who keeps his word. I cannot lie. I'll do it. And Duncan Campbell says right there, God came down. Revival. When God comes down. Because God said, I will. God's people come to him. He will. When God's people go away from him, he also will. There are 30 of these in the Bible. Reciprocal responses between God and man. We always focus on the positive. I don't care who it is, where I go. It's always the positive. I guess Norman Vincent Peale must be happy. Positive thinking. It's in the church. Lord, if I abide in you, you abide in me. Lord, if I draw near to you, you'll draw near to me. It's always the positive things. Out of 30 of them, two thirds of those are negative. Horrible. You forget me. I'll forget you. You turn away from me. I'll turn away from you. You neglect me. I call to you and you won't answer. When you call to me, I won't answer. We only know the lopsidedness of the scriptures and knowing who God is. But when you put it all together, this is the same God of yesterday, today and forever, isn't it? He ain't changed. And unfortunately, neither are we. So that young prophet cursed the altar of Jeroboam. And you know what happened with the kings of Israel. And every one of them have that epitaph follows them. And they did evil in the sight of the Lord. Every one of them. But now the children of Judah, they bounced around. He did good, then did bad. Well, then we had a good one. Josiah, the clothes here that I read about in his death there. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to David, his father. He did it right. But how did that happen? If you go back a couple chapters there, leading up to this before Josiah, we had a great falling away. In chapter 26, Uzzah is king. And again, you read the beginning of this and Uzzah did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to his father, his father. Now again, the standards of Christianity and standards of holiness. You have that supreme desire, what I'm talking about when revival comes. Holiness is mandate. It is restored. It is returned. Not this carnal hit and miss kind of stuff that we see going on today. It's a right relationship with that. That's the way David was. He was a man after God's own heart. He was perfect in the sight of the Lord in that we read the attributes that are described there. But we come to Uzzah. He wasn't like David. He was like the one who had taught him. Well, what do you do when you get someone who's your teacher, your mentor, and they're not right? Everybody's making comments about my dialect. I'm sorry. That's the way my father taught me. I talk with a slang, a drawl, whatever it is that you all hear. But that's what I was taught. That's what I learned. My dad had a crippling disease when he was young. And so they ended up is that they had to take part of his knee on his left leg off. And so he's got about an inch, an inch and a half difference in his leg length. So when he walks, he wears out one shoe faster than the other. Well, growing up and again, manners, I never walked with my dad. I walked behind my dad. But what did I do? There's nothing wrong with my legs that I know of. But I would walk behind him and I started wearing shoes out because I was walking as he was walking. Now, again, I'm looking at a son to a father, man to man, and we have a lot of that. And we've heard that today. And I respect Leonard Ravenhill. And I know Doug would agree with this, but Leonard Ravenhill would never point us to himself, as he said. Leonard Ravenhill would point us to eternity, to Christ. Every revivalist does. And so again, Uzo wasn't meeting the standard. He was compromising with it. And we read over there in verse 16, he got arrogant, went into the temple. The Lord was going to offer sacrifice. Got mad when the priest tried to stop him and God smote him right there in the middle of the temple with leprosy from the top of his head to the sole of his feet. And you read the verse where it begins the downward spiral there in verse 21. And he was cut off from the house of the Lord. He couldn't go. He had to go out to the city, up into his vineyards, gardening that he was doing. And he wasn't allowed to come back ever, cut off. And then he has his son, Jotham. And we read that about him in verse two. He did right in the sight of the Lord as his father. Well, we know what Uzo did. And at the end of verse two there, you read that, that the people did yet more corruptly because he wouldn't go to church. Scared of what happened to his dad. Psychoanalysis all as you want. Doesn't change anything. Uzo got cut off from the house of the Lord. Jotham wouldn't come to the house of the Lord. And then when you get to the next chapter, you got old Ahaz who did evil in the sight of the Lord and he shut the doors of the church. And then God raised up Hezekiah in a brief revival, brief change. Three kings that fell. And then now Hezekiah. But what about Hezekiah? He gets to the end of his life. He's got to boil. Not to scare any of you that got to boil right now. But he says, get your house in order. You're going to die. What does Hezekiah do? Say, okay, let me go to the Lord, get all my paperwork done and I'll be ready. Let me go to the funeral home and get my casket picked out to make sure everything's lined up. He did not. He turned his face to the wall and did what? Wept. God saw his tears. God heard his cry. And he speaks to Isaiah the prophet. He says, go back to Hezekiah and say, I'm going to give you some extra years. And he gives them over another decade. But during that decade, he has Manasseh. And he gets arrogant and he gets proud again. Babylonian princes come up. He shows them all of his wealth. And the prophet says, and all the Babylonians will come and take all that you see and all that you cherish. And Hezekiah has the worst attitude. He says, well, so long as it's not my day, I don't care. There are revivalists and I'm calling you revivalists that think like this. I don't care what happens to them. I'm saved and I'm a personal revival and I'm enjoying that. And that's enough for me. I don't care. I'm not that way. That's almost a spirit to me of apathy. I don't care. Spirit of empathy is, is that you put yourself in those shoes and walk it. That's my son. That's my daughter. That's my brother, my sister. And they're perishing. They're going to go to hell. I'm not worried about my eternity. Blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. Oh, for a foretaste of glory divine. Hallelujah. Where's my cue cards? I ain't worried about me. You worried about anybody? I'm waiting for that call. You ever get that call? There have been moments in my life driving down the road and the phone rings and I answered it. So-and-so just died. Suicide. So-and-so just died. Drug overdose. Well, not my family. I don't care. Church don't care. I went to hell. Ain't no, no exits in hell. No escape. And I know people that are going there. And I can't pray for them like I pray over a cheeseburger. Lord, thank you for this food. God bless us as we eat. In Jesus' name, amen. Pap has me. Eternity's at stake. Till there was no remedy. Cut off. No hope. You come down through this and God says, this is why you're here. You forgot me. Now I'm going to forget you. America, you forgot God. Now he's going to forget us. I started marking disasters, judgments a long time ago when I came through these things. Know the urgency in my spirit, the fervency, the zeal that I talk about of not being satisfied. I am satisfied with Jesus, but the question still remains, what? Is my master satisfied with me? Can I answer it? No, you're not. I ain't done enough. Tozer and Ravenhill got together and put this one, five seconds inside eternity. You know what? We all wish we would have prayed more, served more, done more. That's a regret. I don't know about you. I don't like living with regrets. I try to take regrets away. I don't want to get to the judgment seat. Hear the words from the Lord. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter now into the joys of the Lord and automatically know I could have done more. I'm very much aware of that right now, but then why am I not doing more? Why does revival tarry? Because we won't do it. We won't pay the price. Personal revival, many people, a lot of people. Corporate revival, we won't pay the price. You can't hardly find an all night prayer meeting anymore. Fasting, bless the chain, preaches, teaches, and does it. Glory. Those of you that fast to coming into here, glory. Appreciate it. Wonderful. Glad to hear that the disciplines are intact, but most of the church, as you know, are ignorant of the doctrine of fasting. They don't know the stories, the character, the accounts of scripture. They don't, they're not going to fast. Oh no, they go to a doctor and the doctor says, now don't eat or drink anything after 10 PM because you got to have tests the next day. What will they do? Oh, they'll fast then. But when the man of God or the prophet of God says our nation is sinking and the drugs are swallowing us up and the cancers are out of control and the LGBT storm rolling over everything and the abominations are excelling fast. Well, I don't, I ain't got time for that. I can't do that. Apathy. That's how we get here. That's why we're here. God grabs down and he grabs people like you and me and he bursts within us and he says return. Get on the path. The old path. Get back on that which I have blessed time and time again. Learn it. Know it. Do it. Know God. Know who he is. His name, his attributes, the accounts of scripture in that. The problem with that, he's infinite. I'm finite. Finite cannot comprehend nor understand infinite. They will never coincide. But what I do know, what I have experienced is sufficient. He's good. He's great. He's holy. He's powerful. He hears. He answers. He sees. I've got word studies go through the Bible of all the activity of God. I'm in the book of Joshua right now, marking all the verses in the Bible, the activity of God, and I'm loving it. I take those things and I go right back into my prayer closet and I said, Lord, because you're the same yesterday and forever, right? He changes not. Right? Man. I'm going to take off this suit jacket and put on a dentist jacket and pull some teeth. Man. I would have thought about revivalists is that you'd be a little excited. Isn't all things possible? Well, let me walk through it again. I don't believe you. I start my first page with my prayer notebook at the very top of it. I just added one here not too long ago. R.C. Sproul passed away back in December. I don't believe everything that he, my doctrine is not an issue here. I'm talking about, he made this statement, right now matters forever. Man, did that grab me. Right now matters forever. Right under that, I have Samuel Chadwick. A prayer life is a life that prays. Now, Chadwick, Ravenhill, Saturn, Chadwick. But then I start into these verses that goes through the scriptures there. And I, I quoted that there this afternoon, Jeremiah 32, 17 and 27. You go back over there into Genesis, where God comes to Abraham and Sarah, and he says, you're going to have a child. And they laughed. Ha ha. That's not possible. And God makes the statement by asking the question, is anything too hard for the Lord that a 90 year old woman and a hundred year old man can have a child? Now, by knowing the scripture, you would say, well, they had a child. Nothing's, God can do that. And he did do that. No, Lord, nothing's too hard for you. You go over to Numbers chapter 11 and God comes down and the people are belly aching and whining and cry, baby. And, and they're saying, we want me, we want me. And God says, okay, I'll give you me, but I'm not going to give it to you for just today. I'm going to feed you for over 30 days until it comes out your nostrils and you're sick and you're loathing of it. Moses, man of God, Lord, am I supposed to kill all the livestock to feed for that many days? This 603,550 men come up out of Egypt, not counting women and children. God says, is anything too hard for me? And he sent the quail. Right on down the scriptures, you walk it. God always asking the question, is anything too hard for me? And brother, sister, you better answer it. No, Lord, nothing's too hard for you. Nothing. If you could save me, Lord, you can save anybody. Lord, if you can light a fire in me, you can light a fire in anybody, but Lord do it because you said you would do. Your people have forsaken you. They've walked away from you. Lord, again, they've set up idols. They have departed from your word. They've departed from the prayer chamber. They don't know. They don't know you. Quote a Raven quote. We don't know God and we don't know the God of the word. You go into any church and I do this, I'll take a blank piece of paper and I'll sit and I'll fill it out with everything you know front and back about God. Most people hand it right back to me and say, I can't do that. Where Robert Marion McShane said there's 105 names of Jesus Christ in the Bible and he would pray that. Most people can't name 10 of the names of Jesus. Do we know? We talk about the revival accounts. We talk about the power of God and that's what we're calling for. That's what we want, but I also know that if we don't prevail in America, the American church I'm talking about, if we don't prevail, because I believe it's happening everywhere else. If we don't prevail, our epitaph will be, till there was none. You forsook me? You forgot me? When did that happen? I walked through history with this. Again, history major. You look at all the accounts that we've walked through in this. Now walk with me on this. Talking about the great news of God and you come through. Someone mentioned it the other night. Great prayer movement in New York City with Lampere. Great outbreak. 1857-1858 goes nation one. 1861, Civil War. 500,000 people died. God in compassion sends his people and gives them time, gives them opportunities, and gives them allowances to come unto him before the destruction comes. Go into 1904-1905, the Welsh revival breaks out, goes global, worldwide. 1914, how many die? We go through the roaring 20s in the United States, living it up. Lost, Billy Sunday prohibition, 1933, what do they do? Overturn it and legalize alcohol. Brother Shane, testimony. You wish the 1933 never would have happened. Realize how much damage, death, and destruction that has caused since 1933. 1931, what happens? We enter into a war. West, New York, Western Pacific, Eastern Pacific, I'm sorry. Thousands were dead, killed. Going into the 1960s and 1970s, Vietnam at the same time as we've heard the Jesus Revolution raising itself up and all that. Almost like before every war, an encounter of military occupation. God allowed for a breeze to blow through of his mercy and compassion saying, I would that none would perish. My son signed up for the U.S. Army back in January 1st of this year and he went to Missouri. I sent both of my churches to pray. I said, I just, I know. It's not if, it's just when. War's coming to the United States. It's coming. Some military conflict, China or some, you know, you watch in the Middle East at any moment Iran and all those things and my son's in there. Now again, apathy. I don't care. I don't have a soldier. Empathy. That's my son. It matters to me. Pray. Pray for what? Spiritual awakening. Not revival. Awakening. Soul saved. And on the very army base in Missouri that he was, from March to June, they had over 700 decisions for Christ. You know how happy my people was when I went back to them and told them what was going on? Now he's down in Georgia, but we're praying for all the military because you know what? Somebody's son, somebody's daughter is going to go to conflict and they're going to die. And they're going to go to where? Eternity. And you and I, the

Sermon Outline

  1. I. The Power of Prayer and Intercession
    • The story of T.W. Hunt's faithful prayer notebook
    • The importance of having someone praying for you
    • Prayer as the key to revival
  2. II. Lessons from History: The Fall of Judah
    • Reading 2 Chronicles 35-36 about Josiah and his successors
    • The people's rebellion and rejection of God's word
    • The phrase 'till there was no remedy' as a warning
  3. III. The Present Condition of the Church
    • The absence of the Word of God in hearts and homes
    • The draining of hope within the church
    • The arrogance and rejection of Scripture today
  4. IV. Call to Repentance and Renewed Devotion
    • Encouragement to read and study the Bible daily
    • Maintaining a consistent walk with the Lord
    • The hope and power found in God's manifest presence

Key Quotes

“Latch on, because there is nothing greater in a moment like this... to know that there is someone praying for you right now.” — Dan Biser
“Till there was no remedy... you are steamrolling to your own destruction because you are no better than Jehoiakim or Zedekiah.” — Dan Biser
“The Word of God is absent from the mind. It's absent from the homes. It's absent from the heart, and it's absent from the house of God.” — Dan Biser

Application Points

  • Commit to regular and persistent prayer for yourself and others as a foundation for revival.
  • Engage daily with Scripture to strengthen your faith and avoid spiritual decline.
  • Recognize the seriousness of rejecting God's word and respond with repentance and renewed devotion.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 'till there was no remedy' mean?
It signifies a point where God's patience ends and judgment is inevitable due to persistent rebellion.
Why is prayer emphasized so much in this sermon?
Prayer is presented as the vital means through which revival is sought and God's will is accomplished.
How does history relate to the church today?
The sermon warns that the church is repeating the mistakes of Judah by rejecting God's word and failing to repent.
What practical steps can believers take from this message?
Believers are urged to read the Bible regularly, maintain their walk with God, and engage in persistent prayer.
What is the significance of the story about T.W. Hunt?
It illustrates the power and comfort of having someone faithfully praying for you.

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