The Scoffer and the
Oncoming Storm
ONCOMING STORM 60-0229
46 And these prophets of the weather in
49 And the man
stood and looked him in the face, and laughed at him, and said, "Nonsense.
I've heard them predict such things before, and it never did happen." And
the Christian neighbor was so excited; he said, "But what if it does
happen?" We hear remarks like that along the line; "I've heard of
this is going to happen, and that's going to happen." But it is going to
happen one of these days. And it behooves us to listen to every warning.
52 But this man said, "I have no time for
such foolishness. I raise chickens, and I have no time for such." And he
cried out. The neighbor said, "In the Name of God," he said,
"leave those chickens alone then, John, and come quickly, you and your
family. If you don't want to believe it, let your family come." And he
said, "I will not have my children to be excited over a few radio
warnings. My children and I have decided we'll live as I live. And my wife will
listen to me because I am the breadwinner of this home, and she must listen to
me. I'm boss here, and I will not have my children all excited or tore up about
some nonsense." And the neighbor was turned. And he went to his home into
his shelter.
56 And all of a sudden, the cloud was upon him
before they knew it. That's the way judgment strikes. It comes so sudden; you
wonder how it can get there so quick. How I have seen cruel men, who once
cursed God, fall and scream, and say, "How could You treat me this
way?" The whole, every foundation was swept out from under him in a
moment. It pays to take warning. Oh, you might laugh at the messenger; you
might be able even to kill him; but you cannot kill the message. It'll go on
just the same. God's message is eternal. His Words will never fail. Paul was
successfully in having Stephen stoned. But all through his life until he
surrendered to Christ, was he never able to get away from that message, "I
see heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." Something
got ahold of him. It wasn't the messenger; it was the message he had.
59 While the storm swept through the country,
it caught the chicken house and the farmer, and they never found his body. And
his wife, frantically fighting... And they lived close to the great
61 And then the wildlife, the Cottonmouth
moccasin, I believe, a more deadly snake than your Diamondback rattler, they
was crawling for safety, and they come on the roof with her. And by listening
to her husband, not taking heed to the warning, she had to... She stomped and
she beat, but she had to stand and watch those vicious snakes bite her children
until they died on the roof. And the mother herself was bitten so much until
finally she died; that's the only way we got the story. After the storm had
quietened, and the search parties hunting for bodies, and so forth, they found
her laying on top of the roof, with her children laying by her side.
62 Oh, it pays to take warning. The first
thing to do, before there can be a warning, there has to be a preparation made
for safety, or there's no need of sending a warning. And the warning is only a
voice of one having you to prepare for the danger. There has to be a
preparation made first. And then if the preparation is made, then the warning
can go forward to cause you to make your decision whether you want to listen to
it or not. If you don't want to listen to it, well, that's up to you. If you do
listen to it, there's safety.
63 God has the same method. We work on God's
method in that way. God, in the early days, when the antediluvian world, when
people had gotten so wicked and so sinful, that God could not look upon it and
be just... God is just, and He has laws. When those laws are broken... Any law
that's broken, has no penalty to it, isn't law. You cannot break the laws of
God without having to pay for it somewhere. You must do it. The Bible said,
"Be sure your sins will find you out." And what is sin? I'd like to
stop here just a moment. Many people think smoking cigarettes is a sin. It
isn't. Many people think that lying is a sin. It isn't. Committing adultery,
that isn't sin. That's the attributes of unbelief. You... The reason you do
those things is because you are an unbeliever.
66 There's only two things; that's you are
either a believer or an unbeliever. If you are a believer, you do not those
things. If you do do them, I don't know what kind of a profession you have; but
if you do that the love of God isn't in you. The Bible said so. We've got too
much profession without a possession of it, too many saying and not living it.
I think, even we have too much practice on sermons and not living enough
sermons. It'd be a lot better if we lived our sermon; each one of us would be a
minister. It's better to live me a sermon than preach me one. The Bible said
that "You are written epistles of God, read of all men." So it's best
to live the sermon.
68 Sin is because you believe not. Did not
Jesus say in the days of His flesh on earth, did He not call the people that
would not lie, that would not steal, that would not commit adultery, righteous
men, preachers, priests; He said, "You are of your father, the
Devil," because they believed not on the Son of God. "He that
believeth not is condemned already."