Deferred Obedience 2 - Part 3

Now, we see a lot of cheating going on in many circles. When there is a war on and people are dying, is that the time to make money? Is that the time to fudge the books with false accounts and rob? Money which goes into rebuilding or something? But that's the way we feel we ought to go. A nation cannot go very far that way.

In other words, you take lawfully received taxes and you distribute it amongst your cronies or friends or contractors. Where does a nation go that way? The harlots and the publicans, the tax collectors who were outcasts in society. Jesus said, they go into the kingdom of God before you.

And when you see them doing so and repenting, you don't repent. So Jesus said, hey, you bunch of hearers, you crowd of religious folk who gather around me. You say, yes, yes, yes, we're all right, we'll do it.

We are calm out in our Sunday best. You know, that's what they used to call Sunday clothes, you know, Sunday best. Well, what did Jesus say? When you saw them repenting, when you saw them obeying, you didn't have the heart to obey.

What kind of people are you? Yes, I see a lot of heathen men, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists turning to Jesus. And I see them following the Lord with an earnestness, which I don't see in these church mice. I don't see it.

The harlots, the publicans go in before you. What an indictment. What an indictment.

You know the truth, but you reject righteousness. Alas, alas. Is the Lord Jesus Christ going to indict us that way this morning? Alas.

The publicans and the harlots go in. They see that this is right, this is the right way to go. Righteousness is going to prevail and we will repent and amend our ways.

Oh my. May the Lord help us to obey his word implicitly and immediately. Otherwise the job is lost.

The lion will have its prey and crunch the bones. And retrieval is impossible except a few fragments of the bones. No, that's not what we should go around.

You know, when I was preaching in Ireland, they said to me, there is a woman here in the congregation tonight and her garage was booby trapped by the IRA. The, you know, the revolutionary, Irish Revolutionary Army, which was bent upon bombing markets and the innocent and killing, saying we want Britain out of Northern Ireland. The people of Northern Ireland just want to remain in the British Union, United Kingdom.

That's the fact of the matter. But here were these insurgents crossing the border from the south of Ireland. And they said to me, her husband went to get the car and was blown to smithereens, blown to pieces.

And she had to go and collect. They collected the husband in a plastic bag. Oh, my dear people.