A Choice To Make

[00:00:00] Good morning. I'd like to greet each one of you in Jesus' name this morning. We've been preaching through the book of Jonah. I would like to begin by giving a bit of review. We've covered the first chapter. The title of my lesson this morning will be A Choice to Make, Now or Later. [00:00:34] And then that will be in chapter 2. I'd like to read chapter 2, but I think first of all we'll go over chapter 1. We'll just do a little bit of a brief review, what has happened so far in the book of Jonah. In chapter 1, God called Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah refused to go, chose his own place to go from the presence of the Lord He went to Tarshish, he went to Joppa and got on a boat going to Tarshish We talked about what is your Joppa, what is your Tarshish [00:01:07] Where do you go to escape God's call on your life, on your time Your free time or your things you would rather be doing Where do you go to escape from what God has asked you to do Where do you hide from the presence of the Lord? God sent a storm, His storm, to persuade Jonah to repent. This storm was not a fluke of nature, it wasn't just something that happened to come up. The storm that you are in is not an accident. [00:01:38] God has given this storm. Is it a time of testing? Is it a time of growing? Is it a time to search our life and see what God is showing us through this storm? The sailors turned to their own gods, gods with a little g, for help, but found none. They found no help at all. Woke up Jonah and found out he was running from Jehovah God, the maker of heaven and earth, the one they had heard about that had brought the Israelites out of Egypt by a strong hand [00:02:11] and parted the Red Sea and cast down the walls of Jericho. That God, almighty God, all-knowing, everywhere present God Now they were really scared They had been afraid of the storm before Now they were really scared They realized Jonah's God, almighty Jehovah God, had sent the storm Now they knew they needed to be afraid of the storm They asked Jonah what to do Jonah said to throw him overboard You need to throw me overboard to get the storm to stop But they didn't want to do it, so they rode harder [00:02:43] All the time working against God and getting nowhere. They asked, what should we do? The Lord gave them. All this time, Jonah was still a prophet of God. He was a disobedient prophet and he was a rebellious prophet. But he still was a prophet. And he said, throw me overboard. This is what it's going to take. This was their word from the Lord. And yet they fought that. They rode harder. They didn't get anywhere. And we related that to maybe God has asked me to do something, asked you to do something. Instead of doing that, you're rowing hard. You're going to bail yourself out of this situation. Instead of doing what God has asked you to do. [00:03:25] Finally, they gave in to what God wanted them to do and threw Jonah overboard. They thought to his death. They thought they threw him over into the sea to die. The storm stopped, the sea was calmed, and they found peace in doing God's will. We will never find peace in our lives until we have given in to God's will, to following God's will, to doing what God has asked us to do. The men made sacrifices and vowed vows, because of Jonah having introduced them to Jehovah God. [00:03:59] They had maybe heard about this Jehovah God. They almost certainly had. But they were not in the habit of worshiping Jehovah God. When Jonah went astray, God still was glorified. God will be glorified. Will it be because of you or in spite of you? God will be glorified. And then in the last verse in chapter 1 it says God had prepared a fish to swallow Jonah Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah [00:04:31] And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights It's easy for us to read that and just We think and chapter 2 isn't very long and that's his entire It's eight verses, no I'm sorry nine Nine verses I think it is, ten Okay but the prayer is nine verses He was in there. If you think about what you were doing Friday afternoon, I don't know exactly how long these three days, if it was parts of three days or exactly how long it was, but it was a long time. [00:05:08] It was a long time. I was just thinking of this last night. It wasn't something where he could just relax and sleep for a while until time passed. He probably didn't sleep at all the whole time he was in there. So it was a, it seemed like a long time to him, I'm sure, whether it seemed like that to us or not, as we read it. Okay, why don't we go ahead and read Jonah chapter 2. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. [00:05:42] Out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods can pass me about. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters came past me about, even to the soul. The depths closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. [00:06:16] When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Now, one problem with this is that just last Sunday night, Troy had a very good sermon on Jonah. So I'm not trying to copy him or avoid him, I guess, in what he had to say. [00:06:56] And a lot of that I was actually not in here for that. I had to go out with a certain young man and we were out for a while. Anyways, chapter 2 verse 1, Then Jonah prayed out of the fish's belly. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. Imagine the change in Jonah's thinking. He had went from thinking, I can get on a ship and go to Tarshish and God won't know where I'm at or God won't bother me. [00:07:29] Now he's in the belly of a whale. We don't know how deep or how dark or what. But you would think if you're going to hide from someone, if you'd hide in the belly of a fish, you're not going to get a much better hiding spot than that. But now he's praying to God from this spot saying, Okay God, here I am. I need help. He prayed in verse 2, By reason of my affliction. [00:08:02] What does it take for us to call? What does it take for us to... How afflicted do we need to be before we need God's help? Do we feel that God is busy and we don't want to interrupt Him? We might bother Him if we call and it's a small problem. We don't want to interrupt Him in the middle of something important. Is it hard to admit that I need help? A lot of times we think, I'm in this situation and I can do it. [00:08:36] I can do it. I don't need help. There's a man working on a roof. You can believe this if you want. Working on a metal roof and he fell. He slipped and started to fall. And as he was sliding down this slippery roof, he said, oh God, help me. And right at that instance, his pants snagged on a nail. And he said, never mind God, I got it. We need help until we think we have it under control. And then his pants tore, so he was still in bad shape. [00:09:09] But why do we have to be in a bad situation before we're willing to ask God for help? God can make things, there's so often we can have answers to little prayers, little, maybe we call them inconveniences But to just have that open conversation with God through the day Prayer doesn't have to be something that happens only in the morning, that's a good thing to have It's a good thing to have a regular prayer time, but prayer is something we can do throughout the day. [00:09:39] Just to have a conversation with God, just like you'd have a conversation with your best friend. And then at the end of verse 2 he says, And he heard me. What a blessing to know that when we pray, God does hear us. What blessed assurance. We know that God will hear us when we call. We never have to wonder, can God hear me? Where I'm at, what I'm doing, can God hear me? The only thing that would prevent Him from hearing us is if, in Psalm 66, 18, God says, [00:10:17] If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So, in that regard, God would hear us, but He would not answer us, would not have that back and forth conversation. If we are regarding iniquity, if we are harboring sin, keeping sin in our lives, we cannot expect God to hear us. But if we come to the Lord in the right attitude, in the right, you know, wanting to communicate with God, God will hear us every time. [00:10:48] We do not have to worry, does God hear me, can God hear me, is God there? Here, another thing about God is when someone offends us, we have to choose to forgive that person. We have to, our nature doesn't want to forgive. We want to hold that grudge, we want to hold that person accountable for what they've done. That is completely opposite of God's nature. God is sitting there wanting to forgive. [00:11:18] If there's something in your life this morning that you haven't asked forgiveness from God for, God wants to forgive you. God does not want to hold that over your head. We think of when someone asks us for forgiveness or when we're going to ask another person for forgiveness, we wonder what they're going to say. We wonder, will he forgive me? With God, if we come to God asking for forgiveness, we will receive forgiveness. God does not hold grudges. He completely forgives. It's something that we struggle with. It is not a struggle to God. [00:11:58] When we ask for forgiveness, God is ready and willing and able to forgive. And not only does he forgive us, he does not bring that up again. Even if we think about it, maybe Satan brings that to us. If we've been forgiven, we've been forgiven. We do not have to worry about that as long as we don't return to it. God does not hold that against us. Okay, verse 3. Thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods can pass me about. [00:12:32] All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. So he says, you had cast me, thou had cast me into the sea, and it was your waves and your billows. Jonah didn't blame, he didn't say, we had a bad captain that couldn't handle the storm, so the crew grabbed me and threw me over. It was none of that, it was you sent the storm, you threw me in, and your waves came over me. [00:13:02] He didn't blame the others. He accepted this as God's punishment. I was wrong. I was not following what God asked me to do and because of that I am being punished. He accepted the blame. He was not blaming anyone else. and then verse 4 he says and then I said I am cast out of thy sight yet I will look again toward thy holy temple I am cast out of thy sight [00:13:34] now he's where he thought he wanted to be but doesn't like it he finally got to where he was going he was trying to get away from God he was trying to escape God God put him in a deep dark hole and now he is where he thought he wanted to be and he's starting to realize this is not where I wanted to be. To be cast out of God's sight is the very worst thing that can happen to a person. There's nothing worse than being separated from God. [00:14:06] Let's think about that for a while. Not only did he escape God's presence, he was cast out. Up until this time he had been running from God. Now he said, you have cast me out of your sight Where did he end up? What was it like? There was utter darkness I'm sure you've probably heard the expression, darker than the inside of a cow's stomach I'm sure a whale's stomach isn't any brighter Utter darkness, complete darkness [00:14:36] Total aloneness You can't get much more separated from humanity Thank you for watching! [00:15:11] Sometimes it's a miracle that the storm stopped when Jonah was thrown over. It's just as possible that God created a fish for this occasion, made a fish with ventilation, made a fish that a man could live in, or kept a man alive. Either way, the story is a miracle from beginning to end. So just don't try to take it and wonder, well I don't see how that could have worked because if God is doing it work, it will work. God prepared the fish. There was no love. That's another thing when we get away from God, when we get away from people, no love, complete lovelessness I guess. [00:15:54] No hope. What hope did Jonah have of ever getting out of that whale? He was going to be digested, however long it takes. We've caught fish, bass, that have animals in them, a mouse or another fish. I don't know how long it would take for a man to be digested, but he had no hope, no chance of escaping. Terrible regrets. [00:16:28] Can you imagine being in that whale and thinking, if only I had gone, if only I had gone, this would all be different. I don't know if Jonah had a family, if he had children. I don't know if he, you know, think about what I've done to my family. What I've done, I've abandoned them, just the regrets that would be there. The thoughts of wasted chances to make peace with God. There's a whole list of things, but that would be one of the regrets. I could have, when I was getting onto that boat in Joppa, I could have said, [00:17:01] No Lord, this isn't what I want to do after all. I'm going to go to Nineveh. All the different times when he could have repented and didn't. Now, of course, a lot of these are parallels to hell. What is hell like? Hell is without doubt the worst possible place there is. In hell, we can add to the list. We've already talked about utter darkness, total aloneness, no love, no hope, terrible regrets, the thoughts of wasted chances to make peace with God, being cast out of God's presence. [00:17:38] We can add the pain of eternal fire, not a figurative fire, but a real, actual fire that burns and gives off heat and feels and hurts just as any huge fire on earth does. This isn't some place where you see in the comics where there's a few flames here and there and we're floating above them and there's nothing going on. This is real, this is a fire that you are in the midst of. I remember being at home. The wood stove we have now is just a small one. It's more efficient. You don't really build it up to a lot of heat usually. But at home we had just a big iron box. And I remember opening that door and the coals and the fire, you know, it just hit your face when you opened that door how hot it was in there. And thinking of hell and what hell must be like. Except that it's completely dark at the same time. It's outer darkness. [00:18:33] The bottomless pit, the sensation of always falling, never any rest or any break of any kind, there's no reprieve, this doesn't go on for a day or a week or a month or a year or a million years, this is forever, without end, separation from God, always, always hopeless An illustration I heard one time is, take a big rock, and there's a bird that comes to this rock. Every year, he comes and wipes his beak on that rock. Well, you know that rock is going to last a long time. [00:19:06] But when that rock is finally worn off by that bird, wiping his beak on that rock once a year, hell, eternity is no closer to being over. It is final. It is forever. Whatever. Where their worm dieth not is how Jesus put it. Gives the idea of writhing and squirming in pain. I don't know, you've seen where maybe spraying a garden. I remember when spray the tomatoes and the tomato worms would fall off and they'd lay there on the ground. [00:19:40] And I remember my mom pointing that out, where they're wormed, I have not, how they writhe and squirm. Outer darkness. Imagine being in space and left there all alone. I've thought of that already with the astronauts. They go to the space station and they go out and they're on a tether. But let's say they go out there and they're working and that tether breaks or something happens and that man floats off into space. Can you imagine the hopelessness, the utter, I guess I don't know how to describe, the feeling you would have of being alone, just completely and totally alone. [00:20:20] But even that would be for a temporary time. He would die quite soon. This will be outer darkness and completely alone. Weeping, just weeping in despair. Gnashing of teeth. Gnashing means grating. Grating your teeth. The pain and the agony. You're just grating your teeth. Just no relief. Knowing that your judgment was final. This isn't going on for a while and then I'm going to get another chance. This isn't going to happen and then it'll be over after a while. This is final. [00:21:04] Thinking of all the times you said, later, at a more convenient season, then I'll accept Christ as my Savior. Now is the time. Today is the day. Forsake not the salvation that has been given to you. I don't know how I can make it any more clear, any more urgent. Today may be the day that the Lord comes back. [00:21:37] If it is and you're not ready, you don't get a second chance. Today is the day of salvation. Don't put it off. One of the worst things for those in hell will probably be the torment of all those wasted chances to repent. If only, if only, if only. Really, the only difference between the saved and the lost will be when they chose to repent. We all will repent. [00:22:08] That's whether we repent before we die or if we repent after we die. We all will repent. We all will wish we hadn't sinned. We all will turn from our sin. Something that really struck me this week, I was telling my children the story of the two thieves on the crosses. and the thing that really stuck out to me was just how similar these two men were. We assume they were probably about the same age. We assume, we don't know, but we can assume, I think, that maybe they were friends, [00:22:45] they might not even have been friends, I don't know. But let's just assume these two boys went to school together. They grew up together, they were good friends, they were in the youth group together. Whatever went on, they were together. They committed the same crime. We'll assume that they were both together when they got caught. Whatever they were stealing, they got caught together. They both received the same sentence. They were both sentenced to be crucified. They both were crucified at the same time. [00:23:17] They were both crucified in the same manner. Everything they did, we can assume, was done pretty well the same. These two men had equal opportunity. Matthew 27, 44 says, The thieves also, it's plural, both of them, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. I believe both those thieves said things to God. Why don't you get down? Save us and save yourself. They both riled on him and heckled him maybe. [00:23:53] Mark 15.32 says let Christ the King of Israel, this is the thieves talking, let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross that we may see, oh no, okay, this is the people that were walking by wag their heads and hiss saying let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross that we may see and believe and they that were crucified with him reviled him. There again it says they, both of them. Then in Luke 23, let's turn to that. [00:24:25] Luke 23, 39 through 43. Luke chapter 23, 39 to 43. Here we see now the only difference that we're given in the Bible. [00:24:56] What is the difference between these two? And one of the malefactors, which were hanged, railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? I believe right here this guy was thinking, you know, Jesus, it took six hours on the cross to die. So there was a lot of time to simply hang there and think about what was going on. [00:25:29] And somewhere in that time, the other one says, in verse 40, But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? and we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds but this man hath done nothing amiss and he said unto Jesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom and Jesus said unto him verily I say unto thee today shalt thou be with me in paradise [00:26:02] there is the one big difference between those two thieves One repented hours or minutes before he died. One repented immediately after. And you know, those two thieves are still, one is still in paradise, one is in hell. One is still glad he made the decision he made. One still regrets that decision every second of every minute. [00:26:36] Now is the day of salvation. Jonah waited until he was in the belly of the whale or probably sometime before that when he realized he was going to be thrown overboard remember, he again thought he was going to his death just like the guys that threw him overboard but anyways, it was too late when Jonah decided to repent usually, I mean, we do know that God bailed him out God saved him but not in the conventional manner [00:27:07] Jonah waited and got a second chance. We will not get a second chance. If we die or the Lord comes back before we repent, it is a final decision. so that just really struck me this week that those thieves right up to the very end lived the same life one went to paradise, one went to hell because of accepting or denying Christ in the last seconds, or the last hours [00:27:38] okay, go back to Jonah if I can find it, it's a little book Verse 4 The last part of verse 4 Says, yet will I look again toward thy holy temple I think we'll turn to that 1 Kings 8 Turn to 1 Kings 8, 22 I wasn't sure how far to read down through there [00:28:09] And I guess I probably won't read very much of it But we can, Solomon is praying, dedicating the temple, and he says it in several places about when so and so happens and these people look toward the temple or pray towards this temple, then hear them. He's asking God, hear them when they do that. 1 Kings 8, 22 And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel and spread forth his hands toward heaven. [00:28:46] And he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven above or on earth beneath, who keepeth covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart, who hast kept with thy servant David my father that thou promised him. Thou spakest also with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand, as it is this day Therefore now, O Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father, that thou promised him, saying There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, so that thy children take heed to their way That they walk before me as thou hast walked before me [00:29:18] And now, O God of Israel, let thy word, I pray thee, be verified, which thou hast spakest unto thy servant David my father But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have built. Yet have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to the supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry, and to the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee today. That thine eyes may be opened toward this house, night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there. [00:29:50] That thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place So there he talks about making it toward this place And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant and of thy people Israel When they shall pray toward this place And hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place And when thou hearest, forgive And then he goes down and gives several different instances If a man has sinned and prays toward this temple, forgive him if there's been a drought and the people repent and pray towards this temple [00:30:22] then send rain if the enemies are around us and we pray toward the temple hear us and deliver us and I think that's, I'm sure that's where Jonah got this yet I will look again toward thy holy temple Jonah is remembering that and then in verse 7 it says and my prayer came in unto thee into thine holy temple So, that was where Jonah got the relation of praying towards the temple And I believe, I've heard, I didn't do all the background and whatever [00:30:59] But I've heard that when Daniel came to his window and prayed three times a day He was praying towards the temple, that's why he went to a window to pray Verse 8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies. Lying vanities. I can think of different instances where I've heard someone say [00:31:30] I'm going to have fun for a while, I'm going to do this for a while then I'll stop. Those are lying vanities. Sin will take you further than you want to go. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay and sin will cost you far more than you want to pay. Please do not fall for the lies of the devil that the pleasure of sin for a season are worth what it will cost you in the long run. You will regret every sin that you make. [00:32:05] That is a sure promise. You will either, you cannot have genuine repentance until you regret the sins that you've had, or when you die and haven't repented, you will regret the sins. You will regret your sins one way or the other. Here again, it's just when. That is the decision. When will I regret what I've done? There is nothing that you can do or accomplish on earth, or any grudge you can hold on to, that will seem to have been worth missing heaven for. [00:32:42] Even if hell was not real, even if there was no hell, if it was either go off into oblivion or go to heaven, heaven will be worth it all. Heaven is worth every sacrifice, every thing that we give up on earth. Heaven will surely be worth it all, let alone missing heaven and ending up in hell. There is nothing on earth, if we can just grasp that, and that's something else I've been thinking about lately, [00:33:14] how much of my life revolves around God, around church. It's easy for me, especially this time of the year, I've been hunting and whatever It's easy for me to have my work and my hunting and my time at home or whatever All those things, those have their spot in my life And then when I have time around those, that's when I'll study, that's when I'll read, that's when I'll pray If I have time for those [00:33:46] Instead of making my life, am I a fencer first? Am I a farmer first? Am I a trucker first? Am I a factory guy first? Or am I a Christian first? And I'm going to do that, and then whatever else gets done, gets done. But my first and foremost priority in life is to be a Christian. and what that means to you I guess we all have different ideas I believe God and Christ has to be [00:34:21] the hub of our wheel I don't think it's fair to say that you have to spend more time at church than or or reading the bible than you spend at work I don't think that that's not what I'm saying but everything we do should focus around what we are and what we are is Christians first and foremost How much of my life is dedicated to that thought that my first priority is God, is the things of God? They forsake their own mercies. [00:34:53] Earlier we talked about when God forgives, He forgives. God wants to forgive us. But we also can forsake our own mercy The story of the king and the debtor The man that owned the king an insurmountable amount There was no way he was going to pay for that And instead of being held in bondage for the rest of his life The king forgave him, just completely and simply forgave him [00:35:26] And we know that that is God and that is us That's the picture of God forgiving us There is no way we can pay And yet God simply forgives us. It is done. It is forgiven. However, that man had been forgiven. He walked out the door and found another guy and says, pay me that thou owest. He didn't forgive his brother. That king reinstituted, reattached that debt to that man. [00:35:59] And I believe God cannot forgive us as long as we are holding grudges, as long as we are not forgiving our brother. Even if we've asked for forgiveness and been forgiven, I think it's clear that God can impute his righteousness to us. And I think he also imputes the debt to us because we have refused to forgive those around us. And then in verse 9 he says, I will pay that I have vowed. I'm not sure what the vow was, if his vow was the vow of the prophet. [00:36:34] I tried to find that. I couldn't really find anything where everyone that was made a prophet had a certain vow or anything like that. But vows are a serious thing. It's pretty easy to be in church and somebody says, how many will commit to doing so-and-so for the next year, next whatever? Everybody raise your hand because it's a good idea. And don't really take it serious. How many, if you're going to make a vow, make sure it's a vow you can keep. [00:37:07] Do not make them lightly. Ecclesiastes 5, 4 through 6. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it. For he hath no pleasure in fools. If you make vows and don't keep them, you're a fool. Pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin. If you say something with your mouth, I vow to do this, and your flesh doesn't follow through on it, you've caused your flesh to sin. [00:37:43] Neither say thou before the angel that it was an error. I didn't mean to say that. Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands? Vows are a serious thing. If we make a vow, we need to keep that vow. And if we can't keep it, then we need to be careful not to make it. And then he says, salvation is of the Lord. Jonah came to a place where he realized, my only hope is God. Salvation is of the Lord. I'll do what I can. I'm repenting, I'm sorry. But there is no way I can get myself out of this mess. [00:38:16] I can repent, but God must deliver. and praise the Lord he does. When we have sinned, there is nothing we can do other than repent. We cannot pay back. We cannot go back and undo it. When we have sinned, we must repent and salvation is of the Lord. And that also takes off the burden of us from, well, it's such a big sin, I'm not sure God can forgive me. Or I've messed up so bad, I'm not sure God can forgive us. Salvation is of the Lord. [00:38:49] Lord, that is what God does, is forgive. God will forgive us if we come to him in repentance. Sooner or later, you will call him Lord. Why not do it now? Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And it only makes sense to do it now. There's just no reason to put it off. You know, Jonah, we know the end of the story Jonah, the whale vomited Jonah out onto the dry land again [00:39:23] We also know that we've been told that will not happen with us Hell will not give up its dead Hell, if we choose to ignore the salvation we've been given And we don't accept Christ as our savior There is simply no returning When the judgment falls, it is final. It is forever. I'd like to ask us to stand for prayer. [00:39:58] I think I'm going to give a chance. If there's anyone here that hasn't given their life to the Lord, if you don't know the Lord as your Savior, I think it would really be good if you could come forward. If you'd rather not, you can raise your hand, whatever, but if you make that commitment today, talk to someone. Don't just make it to yourself, to the Lord, and not let anyone know. Talk to a parent, to a friend, talk to one of us ministers, we'd be glad to talk to you. If you don't feel like you know what it takes to be born again, but you want to be born again, please come and talk to one of us. [00:40:36] I'm just going to ask, as we pray, if there's anyone that wants to accept the Lord, to turn to the Lord, I would just ask that you would come forward or raise your hand. Let's pray. Lord I thank you that you have been here with us today. I pray Lord that you would speak to each one of us. Help us Lord to search our lives to see where we can serve you better, to see where we can be more focused on you, to have you as the center of our lives. [00:41:14] I pray Lord that you would speak to each one here this morning Lord if there's someone here that hasn't given their life to you I just pray Lord that you would work in their hearts You would just speak to them Lord Help them not to be afraid, not to be ashamed of what man thinks But they could just make things right with you and not leave here until that happens I just pray for strength for each person, each individual Thank you Lord for being here. We ask that you would just be honored and glorified. [00:41:49] We thank you for your love. Thank you for your provision for salvation. Thank you Lord. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.