Unbelief is the root of all sin and leads to judgment, as illustrated by the man who doubted Elisha's prophecy of famine relief and died trampled in the gate, seeing the abundance but not partaking. The sermon contrasts this with the faith of Noah, who obeyed God's command to build an ark despite never having seen rain, and Pharaoh, whose hardened heart refused to believe God's power even after witnessing miracles. Ultimately, the message emphasizes that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ, not works, and that rejecting this faith results in eternal judgment, a consequence that even the most moral person will face if they do not believe.
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I'd like to look this evening into the book of Kings, Second Kings, and chapter seven. Second Kings, chapter seven. Verse one. Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord, thus saith the Lord. Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, two measures of barley for a shekel, and the gate of Samaria. Then a Lord, on whose hand the king leaned, answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be. And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not eat thereof.
Now I'm going to take you to the end of the chapter, and verse sixteen. The people went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel. and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord. And the king appointed the Lord on whose hand he had leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spake when the king came down to him. And it came to pass that the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel shall be tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria.
And the Lord answered the man of God and said, Now behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be. And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not eat thereof. And so it fell out to him, for the people trod upon him in the gates, and he died. It's an interesting little scene in the city of Jerusalem. The Syrians had got around about the city, Ben Hadad was besieged in it, there was a multitude of armies there to take it. And for a long time the people had been besieged, they were within the city, they couldn't get out to get anything to eat, they couldn't get any water, couldn't get anything else.
And as they were there they were starving to death. And there was a man of God, Elisha by name, who spoke. and told them prophetically that on the morrow they would be delivered from it. They would be delivered from their persecution of the armies out there. And as he said this to the king, the king was leaning on one of his servants' arms, and the servant said, How can these things be? He said, If God opened the windows of heaven, how could he supply enough to take care of this whole city and all the multitude in? There was a doubt in his own heart as he refused to receive the word from the man of God.
And today in our world we see so many people who are refusing to take God at a simple word. You know, the message is here in the book, if you're willing to receive it. Perhaps you're standing tonight as an individual who stands in the place of unbelief. I've met many in my lifetime of every walk of life. Many people are saying, how could this be? How is it possible that God would take a man and redeem him after all his sin? and just forgive him because that man believes what the Bible says that Christ did. How could it be that God is willing to take a man who was vile his whole lifetime like the thief on the cross and just before that man is going to die because he turns and he said to him, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom, how can it be that God would deliver?
And there's a multitude of people in the world today that are saying, how can it be? And this man was there in that city that day, and he's saying, how can it be? How can God supply? How can God make a way out? And yet, you know, God made a way out for the Israelites in that day, and he scattered Ben-Had and all his army. And you know all he did? It was a rather simple thing. There were four lepers outside the city, and they weren't allowed in the city because of their uncleanness. And being outside of the city that night, they're starving too. I'm sure they're thinking, well, what's the difference? They won't let us in the city, even if we could get in, we'd starve, and we're going to die.
So we might as well go into the camp of the Assyrians and see if they'll give us anything to eat. Perhaps Assyrians might have mercy on us, and they'll give us something to eat. Let's go. Either way, we're going to die. We'll just take a chance that we might live, and they might have some generosity, some mercy toward it. And so they head for the camp of the Assyrians. And you know when they get there, they find out the first tent they're in, there's nobody in it. And so they take what they want out of the tent and run and hide it. And they go to the next tent and there's nobody in that one either. And they take what they want out of that tent and they run and hide it. And then they go and they see that the whole camp is empty. And all of a sudden conviction hits their heart and they said, wow, what's this? Here the people inside the city are starving and we're out here.
And we have plenty. Let's go in and tell them about it. And so they go back and they tell the people of the city. And you know, even then the king didn't believe it. He said, how could it be? And so what he did is say, take a couple chariots and go out and see if they're really gone. And he said, possibly they've withdrawn from the camp, that they might draw us out. And when they get us drawn out, then they'll fall on us and destroy us. And so he sent the chariots out after him, and you know the chariots fouled, the Assyrians all the way to the river, and all their spoil or their stuff was just scattered along the way. Because you know what God did? He caused a little noise to come, the noise of an army.
Have you ever been alone at night, maybe walking guards, or maybe just walking out in the countryside by yourself? And maybe you're a little fearful. And your mind begins to tell you all sorts of things. I remember walking garden in New Guinea. And I can recall out there one night being out there in the jungle and walking along and hearing noise. You know, the Japanese had some parachuters that parachuted out behind a line. And they were just hassling people by setting bombs and gasoline dumps and stuff like that, just doing a bit of sabotage. And we had known they had dumped these paratroopers out, and we were up in Northern Australia then that was in the beginning of the war.
And I was out there in the jungle that night walking guard duty. Wasn't too happy about it. I didn't like that sort of thing. I was in the Air Force to be a mechanic, not walking guard duty, but that was part of the Air Force. And so you know while I was walking guard duty out there that night, I'd hear, ha, ha, coming behind me. And I'd hear a noise, just like somebody was walking behind me. And so I stopped. And when I stopped, the noise stopped. And finally, you know, I got behind a tree and shone out a flashlight. Me looking out this side of the tree and shining the flashlight out here. And guess what I saw? A wallaby who was following me along. And when I would stop, he would stop.
But, you know, just the sound of that was enough to put a little fear in you as to what the noise was. I remember walking guard duty in Selfridge Field in Michigan. before the war. And it was a crisp November night. And I heard something every once in a while go plop in the marsh along the ditch between the fence and the highway. And people came out and they had parked along that fence. And inside the fence was what was then the modern day fighter that was known as a P-Forty. It was a brand new airplane. And it was highly secretive. And I was walking guard on these things. And I remember hearing that noise in him. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.
And I whipped out that forty-five and I turned around with that flashlight and decided to see what was going on. And I went over to where I heard the noise, where it sounded like it hit. And strangely enough, there was a frog at that time of the year that was going plop, plop. But you know, all those things can, in your mind, build a great thing. Can you imagine those Syrians that night had some of them around that camp walking guard? Oh, they're brave men because the odds are all in their favor. The Jews are cowering behind the wall, but even then on guard duty, you expect most anything. And so you know the Lord causes a little noise. It's a noise perhaps that came to their ears of a strange army or a noise that would resemble a rattling of armor.
Something like that, and they hear it. And they suddenly think that the Israelites have pulled a sneaky on them. They got the Egyptians and some of the others to come up to do battle against them. And so what did they do? They turned, they leave the whole camp and they run for their life. All it took on the Lord's part was to just make a little noise. And the whole scene changed. And you know how it changed? Oh, just as God said, that day, There was going to be in the gates of the city a measure of fine flour for a shekel, two measures of barley for a shekel. And the people of Israel, you know, when things got that cheap, you know, there's a plenty.
Well, it's supply and demand, and the demand is little. The price goes sky high. But here, the supply was plenty and the price was cheap. And it was in the gates of the city. And you know, that prophet had told that servant of the king, he said, You'll see it. but you shall not eat thereof. And that day the king assigned that man into the gates of the city to keep track of what was going in and out of the city. And when all that multitude of the people heard that there was plenty out there in the tents, they made a great run for those tents, that they might spoil the Assyrians. And when they spoiled them, they made a dash back to the city, and that man died in the gate.
He saw it, but he didn't eat thereof. Why didn't he eat thereof? Because of an unbelieving heart. Because of an unbelieving heart. And you know it's possible for you to sit here tonight. And for you to hear the gospel of the grace of God. For you to hear the work of Jesus Christ. And for you to see it in that sense. And yet not enter into it. You might have seen it in father, mother, brother, and sister. You might have seen it in what God has done in their life, but because of unbelief you refuse to believe it. You'll see it, but you'll not eat thereof. Because the day when judgment comes, you'll have to die for your own sin.
I'd like to suggest to you tonight, we spend a little time discussing unbelief. Unbelief. You know, unbelief is the parent of every sin. Did you know that? Unbelief is the parent of every sin. Have you ever thought in the garden of what sins were brought there when God said to Adam and Eve, There's a tree in the garden. There's a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don't want you to eat of it. The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. That was a plain, explicit command, wasn't it? I mean, you don't have to have four years at college to understand what that meant, even though I believe Adam was a well-educated man.
How you like them, apples. There was no college, but Adam was pretty smart. He named every beast of the field. Wonder how many people in his audience tonight could do that. God called them all to pass before Adam, and Adam gave every one of them a name. That's pretty good, huh? Well, at any rate, Adam had something in his heart. He had it in, within her, the ability to disbelieve and to disobey. And you know what? A devil came along. God said he was more subtle than any beast of the field. And when that devil came along, he said, Have God said. Oh, boy. And that sticking of foot in the door, you know if there's anything that gets your mind going, is for somebody to just inject a little measure of doubt.
Is it really that way? And Eve was right there. Oh, she was there to do battle. She said, Yeah, God said the day that we touched it or ate of it, we surely die. Well, God didn't really say that. But he said, The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the devil said, Ah, the Lord knows you won't die. Oh. Eve's faced with something that your face was tonight. Wasn't she? The devil is saying to you, Ah, forget it. Don't believe it. It's a big story. And you know the devil said to her, Did God really say that? And the devil said to you tonight, Did God really say that?
Did he really say that? That man on whom the king leaned? He said, If God opened the windows of heaven, it couldn't be. Because doubt was that great in his own heart. And so you know he's hard heard, Did God really say that? And you know, it wasn't but a moment till Eve looked at the fruit of that tree and she saw it was good. Oh, you know, all God's creation was good. He didn't say the fruit of that tree was bad, did he? He didn't say that tree was poison. He didn't say anything like that. He didn't say the fruit was no good. He said, don't eat it. There are some things as children, our parents told us, don't do.
And that was one thing that God told them, don't do it. But you know the devil was right there to go ahead and say, do it. Did God really say? And the question came in their mind. And so Eve saw the fruit was good. She saw it was good for food. And it was pleasant. It did make her why. And so in a moment, look, let's weigh it. Who did she believe? I often ask little kids sometimes when I'm talking to them, what was the first sin? Was it disobedience? Or was it unbelief? How was it? They run right hand in hand there, don't they?
The unbelief came because she disbelieved the Lord and she believed the devil and then she disobeyed. She ate of the fruit of the tree. It's the parent to every sin. And you know if you reject the message of the Lord, then there's only one thing to follow, and that's judgment. Let me show you another example. It's only six chapters away from Genesis two and three there. And you get to Genesis six and you read about a man called Noah. And the Lord said, Noah, I want you to build an ark. He says, there's a day of judgment coming. I'm going to bring a flood on the whole earth. He said, I want you to build an ark.
And then he said, that ark will be for you and your wife and your children. And Noah was a faithful man to God. Noah was a righteous man. That's what God called him. And so Noah went out preaching. You know, Noah was a man who preached with his hammer. That's a good thing when we got businessmen and men who know how to use their tools that are preaching with them. And Noah preached for over a hundred years, did he? He had preached for over a hundred years, maybe a full hundred and twenty, I don't know, but he had preached over a hundred years, and all the time he was building that ark, and he was pounding those pegs, and he was chopping down those trees, and he was building, he says, A day of judgment is coming, and I can see those people, Hey, look at crazy old Noah, building that ark up there on a mountain, on a little hill, and there's never been any rain in this place.
What's he doing up there? You know, they had never seen rain. There was every reason to doubt a flood. But you know, God said, Huh? God said, Oh, beloved, if I could only drive that home to your heart tonight, God said. That you could just take the Lord at His word. And they wouldn't, see? No, they didn't. But you know, it was just like the Lord said. One day the ark was finished. And one day God's grace ran out. And now judgment was to come. And God's grace took Noah and put him in the ark.
And God shut the door. Noah didn't shut it. God shut it. And God shut him in. And he shut him in in all safety. And when he was shut in, the springs from below came up. And the water from above came down. And it came in a torrent. Many times people have seen the people knocking outside of that ark. No, I'll let us in. I don't see that. God's judgment is sure and it's quick when it comes. And when the springs opened up and the water came down from above, it was a deluge. And I believe the people were swept away because they believed not.
You see, because you say, ha, ha, I've never seen anything like that before. If somebody come back from the dead and tell us about that, then maybe you'd believe I had a fellow at Lake Geneva. They were at the nursery right in the midst of the grounds, and they run a greenhouse like that, and they lived right next to us, and I used to talk to them about the Lord. And they'd say to me, oh, if the Lord had just come back today, if he'd just show himself, then I'd believe. And I'd say, would you really, would you really? Is your heart any different than the heart of those who took and crucified Him? Is your heart really any different from those that said, Crucify Him and let His blood be upon us and upon our children's children?
Is your heart really any different from those who saw Him, raised the dead, healed the blind and the lame, and still say, Crucify Him? I don't think so. Our hearts are the same. It's the heart of the natural man. It's the way of the natural man to refuse. You know when you look at unbelief as the parent of all sins, take a look at Pharaoh. Here you know in the word of God, Pharaoh was a man, the ruler of all Egypt, and he had the Lord's people there in Egypt. And the Lord wanted to let the people go. He wanted to take him out, three days journey into the wilderness, that they might worship me. And that's the reason God told Pharaoh that he wanted the people to go.
And, you know, Pharaoh, because of his unbelief, even when he saw the miracle, he'd call his own magicians, and he had them duplicate the first three. A magician's trick. But then, you know, when it came to take the dust of the ground and throw it into the air and give it life and have it to become dust, suddenly the magicians couldn't go along the path any farther. They had reached the limit of their bag of tricks with their snakes and all the rest. They had reached their limit because they couldn't give life to the dust which the Lord did. But you see Pharaoh in the own hardness of his heart. Every time God took away the judgment, his heart was turned harder.
And you know, that's what unbelief does as well. Unbelief is an unbroken steed with no lines on it at all. Do you ever see an unbroken steed run? Have you ever seen a pair of horses or a team of horses that just wanted to take off and run while? I remember one time when we were filling silos, that's a little bit different than what you do today. Then it was like this. We had a binder that went along and cut it out in the field and tied it into a bundle and then you went along with a fork and you jabbed it in and up on top of a wagon load and you took it up to a silo and below that silo they had a cutter and a blower and they blew it up in the silo.
And that was really W-O-R-K. I think my back still hurts from it, but at any rate, it was a long job. And I remember one day we were filling silo, and I had a load up to the wagon load of it next to the filler and a tractor on it. And behind us was a team of Western Bronx that the man I worked for had, and they were an orn repair. And they were real skittery. And the fire's wife came out, and she threw some pickles in a pig pen. And it was just caught, the edge, we had blinders on this one, but it just caught his eye, enough so he saw the shadow of it. And boy, he took off. And the other one with him, and he went across the yard, and he dumped that load, just slick as a whistle, just slid it right off, you know, and then out the gate and down the highway.
Well, I had a couple bundles in my hand, and I threw it in the filler and made a dash to cut them off. I went out between the silos and down the road to catch them. when I grabbed his bridle and threw my weight on him and pulled his head down, he stopped. But I ran back and to fill the, I heard the filler chugging and was all plugged up because it was a dry year and we were running some water with the corn to give it a little moisture. Well, to make a long story short, that was my downfall. I got smart like a young fella, you know, and I was going to clean it out in a hurry and stuck my fingers in the wrong place. But at any rate, that team of horses were pretty wild and they would take off running and it really takes something to stop them.
And that's the way unbelief is. It's just like that team that's running at their own head and going in their own way. And you know it's only a severe judgment that's going to stop. And that's what comes in the end because of unbelief, judgment. You know, when you look at Pharaoh, he ran the full gamut. He ran all the way. He ran all the way until God brought judgment to his own household. And then that wasn't sufficient for him. He drowned a Pharaoh in his armies in the sea. That man, because of his unbelief, would not give up until death was his measure. And I find so many people in the world today who walk in a path of unbelief because they will not believe God.
They'll go to any extreme to prove God wrong. Oh, beloved, as you sit here tonight, I trust you won't be like they were in their days of unbelief in Daniel's days. Remember the story of Belshazzar. And you remember how he was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. And one night he decides to throw himself a great feed. And when he throws himself that great feed, he gets all a holy vessel. I'm an unbeliever. He got all the holy vessels and he made a mockery of it. He threw a drunken orgy taken from the vessels that were holy.
And he didn't do anything but mock God in his unbelief. But suddenly on the wall there's a writing that comes. Mene, meene, tekel, euphorism. Thou art weighed in the balances and come up short. Hmm. And you know that's what God says about sin. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Unbelief brought that man to his end, and that night it was a bitter end as his kingdom was taken from it. God weighed him in the balances, and he was found wanting. Let me ask you tonight, supposing God puts you in his balance, How would you come up before God?
How would you come up? He says, the wage of sin is death, and you'd say, Oh, yeah, Ray, but wait a minute. I've done a lot of good things in this life, and I heard so many people say to me, Well, I think it's kind of this way, that in the end, God's going to take all the good things that I've done, and he's going to weigh them against the bad things. He's going to put them in a scale, and I think my good has overcome my bad, and so God is going to say, Okay, enter into the kingdom. But not so, because God says all have sinned and come short. You see, there's God's scale already, come short. You know what it means to come short? Have you ever looked at a measure?
And supposing I put a measure up here on the wall, and I said I was going to make a little regiment. And in order to join my regiment, it has to be six foot three, and I put a mark up there. And then I call to the men here and I say, come on up. And one comes up five foot six. Wow. He missed that standard quite a bit. He came up short, didn't he? So I call another one up. He looks quite a bit taller. He comes up, he measures five, ten and a half. Oh, boy. He can say high shorty to the other guy, but he's still too short. Then another fellow comes and he's six ones. Oh, boy, he goes all the way up there. But sorry, you missed the standard. Then another one comes up and, oh, he measured six foot two and a half.
But sorry, he's too short. You see, six foot two and a half can look at the shortest one and all the rest and say, ha, I'm taller than a whole bunch of you. Because he's measuring them by himself. But now if he turns and he measures himself by the standard, he has to say, I'm too short. Now, let's take a look at God's way. God says many times we measure ourselves by ourselves. Ever do that? You look at your neighbor and you say, Oh boy, he's kind of character. I'm better than he is. I look so bad and I'm doing pretty good. I take care of my family and all the rest. And you measure yourself up against your neighbor. But God says, I'm sorry.
Too short. Now, supposing... You looked at your neighbor and you felt you were better than him and you measured yourself up against Ray Rowley. I remembered a lady I sat down with one night in her living room and I said to her, Ma'am, are you a sinner? She laughed at me. She said, Of course, everybody's a sinner. I said, Ma'am, are you a hell-deserving sinner? You know what she did? She threw her back her shoulders and she said, I'm not that kind of a sinner. I said, Ma'am, there's only one kind of a sinner in the eyes of God. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that deserves hell. I said, you can measure yourself by me and be morally better than I have, but you will still never make heaven without God's Son, Jesus Christ.
He is the one who takes us in our shortcoming and makes us sufficient. He's the one who can satisfy God's just demand. You know, unbelief not only begets sin, but it hardens the heart. Have you ever heard that little rhyme? Law and tears do but harden all the while they work alone. But a sense of blood-bought pardon will dissolve the heart of stone. Oh, you see, unbelief can bring us to that place of being very hard. With a hardened heart, But the moment we get a sense of a blood-bought pardon, the moment we get the sense of the work that Jesus Christ has accomplished at Calvary's cross in our behalf, then our hearts can be melted.
You know, unbelief disables a man from any good work. You know why? Because my Bible says whatsoever is not a faith is sin. Huh? You see, in trying to make heaven, if you're trying to make it in a path of unbelief, no matter what works you do, if you took your body to be burned, if you gave everything you had as a sacrifice, you would still wind up in hell without Jesus Christ. Because God says in his word, whatsoever is not a faith is sin. Oh, you're probably saying, now, Ray, wait a minute, I think you're taking that out of context.
Well, I got news for you. That's an underlying principle that lies in the Word of God whatsoever is not a faith in sin. That underlies for the unbeliever as well as the believer. And when I take in a, I look at John's Gospel, chapter six. You remember up there on the mountaintop, the Lord fed a whole mountain. are a whole group of people. He didn't feed the mountain, he fed the people. Five thousand men plus the women and children. And you know, they wanted to make him a king, didn't they? They follow him around the lake in the next day. They said to him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God? You know why they said that? He said to him, Labor not for the meat that perishes, but labor for that which endures to everlasting life.
And they said to him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God? You know his answer? This is the work of God. Listen to it, beloved. This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he has sent. You want to work to get to heaven? There's a way you can work to get to heaven. A work of faith. Now, God tells me without it I cannot please him. Because he says in Hebrews chapter eleven and verse six, without faith it's impossible to please. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
You can't please him without faith. You see, unbelief disables a man from any good word. Whatsoever is not a faith is sin. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. Impossible. Think of it. No matter what you could do, without faith in the person of Jesus Christ, you could not Please God. No way. Think of all the good things you could do as a man, but you couldn't please God. You couldn't please Him. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. That's what He said. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him.
Now, you see, when we come to God, we have to come in His terms. His term is faith. That's what is used as God's way to enter into His kingdom. And he tells me that in the book of Ephesians, chapter two, verse eight and nine. He says, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast. For by grace are you saved through faith. So now that's God's way of salvation. In other words, if I put it in a monetary view, that here on this earth, we can do things to promote us, to make us better via our works.
We can get money as a use for an exchange. Well, for instance, over in India, there are places where certain strips of cloth are used for money. How far do you think you'd get in the United States? If you took some of those strips of cloth and you went down to your supermarket and you filled your basket up with groceries and then you got to the checkout counter and that lady had them all added up and then you took your strips of cloth and you begin to try to pay her with that. What do you think she'd do? She'd call it a paddy wagon. And you know what? That's the way so many are trying to get into heaven. are trying to take the filthy rags of the works of men and say, Here God, here's my pay to get to heaven.
Oh, you say, Well, Ray, I really am not that nutty. Oh, but you are. If you're trying to work to get to heaven, you are that nutty. Because the only entrance into heaven is through faith. Anything other than faith in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is unbelief. Don't you see? You would be taken the position of that man in that day as he said, if God opened the windows of heaven, can it be? And Elijah said, yes, it can be. And he said, you're going to see it, but you're not going to eat of it. And you know, you would be taken that place of unbelief of that man if you reject God's Son and reject the Lord Jesus Christ.
You would be taken that place. And one day you would see the glory of God. You will, you know. You'll see His glory. Because my Bible says that every knee is going to bow. And every tongue is going to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. You know you'll either confess Him as Lord here and now. Or you'll confess Him one day. As you bow before that great white throne. And you know, beloved, in that day. It'll be bowing. to a sovereign that you must give an account to, but you will be bowing with the fear of the soon judgment that is your portion in the lake of fire forever and forever and forever.
You will see, but you will not eat thereof. All your good works of honesty, morality, and all the things that you ought to do as a man will not avail of your entrance into heaven. It will have no value with God unless you have faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, so many times we question as to what faith really is, and we often wonder, ah, What is trusting?
What is faith? Men got various ideas. I mentioned some trying to work or to buy their way to heaven. I went into a hospital to visit a man one day that I had worked for for three days. When I got home from the service, first discharged, I didn't know what to do. I had been in Uncle Sam's service for six years. I got home and began to look around wondering what in the world I could do. I didn't have a civilian license to work as an aircraft mechanic, and so I couldn't do that without the license, and I began to fish around for other things, and I saw a job advertised as a truck driver and a salesman.
And I thought, well, that might work all right for a while, and it was a barrel company who you would take a load of barrels that had been... rebuilt and fixed up and painted like new, take them out and sell them or take them where the orders had been made and then buy old barrels and bring them back to the company and go out with a load of new ones. Well, I had taken the load out and had been gone for about three days and I got back and felt very, very sick. And the next morning when I woke up, I was feeling so bad. I told my wife, well, I guess maybe it's just too heavy for me and I can't hack it. I better let it go. Well, what I didn't know, and I should have, that I was coming down with malaria because I had it so much, I should have known what was happening, but I didn't.
And that evening I broke out in a chill with malaria, and so I quit. Well, this man, I ran across his path again some years later. He was a vile sort of man. He had a tongue that would curse the air of blue, and his wife was a Christian, though. And she had a, or I had a Bible class, a cottage Bible class some years later, and she came to it. And she told me one night, Ray, my husband has left me, and he's with another woman, but she said, he's in a hospital now, and he's had a heart attack. Will you go see him? He does not know the Lord. And I said, yes, I'll go see him. And so I went to the hospital, and when I got up there to see the man and went into his room, And he asked me why I came.
And I said, well, Mr. Varden, I worked for you for just about three days one time. And it was just too much for me, I guess. And so I quit. And I said, I heard you were sick and I have an interest in your soul, Mr. Varden. And that's where I came, why I came. Where are I going to spend eternity? And he said, open that drawer. And so I pulled the drawer open. He said, give me that little book. And I gave it to him. He said, there's a pen there. Give me that pen. And so I handed him the pen without realizing what I was doing. And all of a sudden when he opened it, I saw it was a checkbook. And he said, how much do you want? And I said, Mr. Verdon, I don't want one red scent. He said, why did you come? I said, I came because your soul is eternal and you are on the brink of eternity.
Where will you go, Mr. Verdon? He said, I just gave the priest fifteen hundred dollars. How much do you want? I said, Mr. Verdon, you still don't understand. You cannot buy your way to heaven. There is no way, beloved, you can buy your way to heaven. No way whatsoever. The only way is through the finished work of the Lord Jesus. The only way you can enter in is through the grace of God. The only way you can come is the way of faith. There was a man that, as I flew later on, became a pilot and spent about ten years making my living flying. This man died. He was president of the Miller Brewing Company.
I didn't fly for him, but he had a man who was a friend of mine who wanted me to fly with him. And their airplane crashed one night, and the pilot and co-pilot were killed, and Mr. Miller was in the back of the airplane with his son. And Mr. Miller was thrown clear. And he went inside again to get his son, even though he'd been injured and the airplane was burning. And he brought his son out, but his son was dead. And Mr. Miller died some hours later. But as they were taking him to the hospital, a nurse that attended him said she heard him say these words, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall a man give?
in exchange for his soul. What have you got tonight that could satisfy God? What have you got that you could present to God that would satisfy his holy, just demand that's against your sinful soul? What have you got? You know, there was one Jesus Christ. who went to Calvary's Cross and there at Calvary took the judgment of that holy throne for my sin and yours. Yes, yours as well as mine.
He took all God's wrath. He took all God's anger against sin. He bore it every way. He died. The wage of sin is death. They put him in a tomb. But on the third day he rose again. That's the gospel. He was delivered for my offenses, but he was raised again for my justification. And, beloved, if you're willing to put your faith in the person of Jesus Christ tonight, then you will be able to enter into his kingdom, a son of God.
Because that's what you become the moment you trust in. As many as received him. To them gave he power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. But in these closing moments, I want to give you the other side of the coin. If you refuse the grace of God, then your unbelief is going to be punished. It must be because it's sin. It's the one sin he could not atone for. The one sin. Unbelief. that lies with you. Have you ever thought that if you reject Christ and you wake up in hell, you'll never be able to shake your fist in the face of God and say, you put me here.
You won't be able to do. You have the ability tonight to make a choice. You have the ability. You have heard the gospel. He says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You've heard it. You've heard the message of the gospel of the grace of God. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Believe it and be saved or reject it and be dead. One of the two. Which will it be? Which will it be? If you refuse God's grace, then, beloved, you're going to face God's judgment.
You're going to face an eternity in a lake of fire that there's no escape from. And even though in your own mind's eye and in your unbelief, you say, how can it be? You will still see it. The glory of God. But you will not enter into that. You will enter into judgment for all eternity. Oh, I sometimes think if we had a greater grasp of what hell really was like. We might the quicker turn to him and we might the more warn men to flee from the wrath they come.
Unbelief. It will be punished. It was punished in the flood. It was punished because of Israel's unbelief. Remember when they went to enter it in to his land, he told it in the book of Hebrews, they entered not in because of their unbelief.