[0:00] In the 4, verse 1, Therefore, seeing we have this minister, as we have received mercy with him, not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking from craftiness, nor handling the word God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
[0:24] And Paul says, We are doing our best to give the truth of the gospel. We're not handling the word God deceitfully. We're telling you exactly what it says. We're manifesting the truth.
[0:38] But verse 3 says, But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. That's one of the places where unsaved people are called lost.
[0:52] In whom the God of this world, who is that? The Satan, of course. hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.
[1:05] Lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is living in God, should shine unto them.
[1:16] If our gospel be hid, if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. In whom the God of this world, Satan, hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.
[1:31] having unsaved love. My dad was the baby in the family. By the time he started having this kid, that's me.
[1:47] All the older cousins, you know, all my uncles, all my uncles, all my uncles. I don't know what it was like to get on my knees, and that's God, say, an uncle, or a dad, or mother, father, or older sisters.
[2:03] I don't know what that's like. Some of you came out of homes, and maybe some of you are the only ones in your home.
[2:18] I don't know what that's like. And yet I want to sympathize with you. I want to get your attention this morning. I'm just speculating.
[2:32] I think if my sweet mother were unsaved, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I know too much about what that book said.
[2:46] I couldn't rest until she was born again. I think if my three sisters were unsaved, I couldn't stand there.
[2:59] No one of married an unsaved boy named Jerry Nash, good guy, just wasn't born again. She said it was a mistake.
[3:10] My brother loved it. It was young. Back in school, that only boyfriend you ever had, wasn't it? No. When I came into the family, I had a lost loved one.
[3:23] He wasn't my blood relative, but he was my brother-in-law. It was just two girls. We married two girls, so we had a unique relationship. I started in on him when I first met him.
[3:39] We'd go hunting and fishing together. Spend a lot of time together. And every time, when I tried to witness to him, he'd say, now Larry, don't start that again.
[3:51] I've already told you. I don't have any confidence in Christians. You see, I have a business. He had a service station and he said, you can't do it.
[4:06] And he said, when you get all those bad things, those good bad things, to quit stealing from me and pay their bills, then you come back to me and talk about religion.
[4:20] Wasn't much I could say to that. But I tried again and again and again. For 13 years, I had a false blood.
[4:33] In a sense. And I worried over it, afraid over it. And I worried over it, afraid over it. All of it. But he was in the mood because he had this hang-up.
[4:47] Now what that was for him was the devil behind him. Using so-called Christians and their failures to cause them to hide that man.
[5:02] Now he used that or something like it on you when you were upset. There was some way that he blinded you to your situation.
[5:15] 13 years, I was in Atlanta, Georgia at the big Sword Lord Conference preachers dozen or so preached for a week.
[5:27] One of those preachers named Bob Moore. He was from Marietta, Georgia. Preached no soul winning and at the end of his sermon, he said, how many of you have a loved one that's not saved?
[5:40] Well, he was my loved one so I raised my hand. then he said, all of you that raised your hand, I want you to promise me that before a week passes, you will do everything you can to win that loved one to Christ.
[6:01] If you don't win it, it probably won't be won. You're in that family for that person's salvation. And you have promised me in the next week you'll do all you have.
[6:15] And there I stood. He lives a couple hundred miles away. I didn't see you very often. I had a church to pass to. But I wasn't going to be the only one standing that didn't make that promise.
[6:30] Hands went up everywhere in mine. and I realized what I'd done. I promised God I'd do everything I could within the next week to get him served.
[6:41] 13 years I tried. Maybe I hadn't done all I could do. So Noah remembers that Paul remembers that week. Told the church to be gone this next weekend.
[6:57] And got a preacher to preach and we traveled to Noah and Jerusalem and on Saturday I went down to his station and he loved it.
[7:13] I told him the story. I said, leave me a while back. I'll put you in my heart a special way I promise after I get you saved. And he said, Larry, leave me alone.
[7:23] And I knew I've already told you. I said, I can't help you, Jerry. All day Saturday I loved him. Sunday we went to church.
[7:34] Jerry didn't go out for me. Sunday night we went to church. After church we gathered in Paul's mother's house. We ate and after supper I started on the game.
[7:49] He was getting nervous. Getting a little angry. Soon I said, Jerry, I'm supposed to go home and park. If you don't get saved tonight I'm going to promise you something.
[8:07] I'm going to stay over tomorrow. I'm going to come down to your visit. I'm going to get on my knees. I'm going to follow you every step you make on my knees.
[8:19] I don't care how many customers you have. I'm going to not embarrass you dead. I cannot see you go there. I can't do it.
[8:31] I will have a lot of time with you. I had to make a place trip up and see you. And he said, there you wouldn't do that. I said, you're just trying.
[8:46] And he was convinced I would. And I would have. He got real nervous and he left his face and he ducked his head. I said, please Jerry, please don't go to hell.
[8:58] Please let me pray with you and let's get saved tonight. You know you got to be saved. He just pulled up and he went on an hour last night and the little old kids, my kids were in the bedroom and Jerry, he came by here and he was a teenager again.
[9:21] Maybe not a teenager yet, but he had come to the door and he had report to the kids. They go back to pray tomorrow. He's not praying yet.
[9:33] He looks mad. He would go back in. Pretty soon, Jerry stood up and he said, no, no, let's go.
[9:47] And Jerry said, he's going to go. We got to pray hard. So the kids prayed hard. And I reached up and got his palm and he stood up.
[10:04] And I said, Jerry, don't do this. You know why I told you I was going to do tomorrow? You know what I said? God wants you to save you know he does tonight.
[10:18] I'm going to hear something. He just stood there. He didn't leave me. He just stood there with my hands on the arm. He and I love each other buddies. He don't hurt me.
[10:29] And finally, I said, Jerry, get on your knees now and let me pray for you.
[10:41] At least let me pray for you. He just stood there. And I began to put pressure on him. Go down here. You can let me pray for you.
[10:52] You know it be wrong when you walk out here and you brother are asking me to pray. I kept pulling Gerald standing door to watch me. In a minute I thought Jerry his knees buckled.
[11:12] I kept pulling him. And he got down on the knees. And I heard Gerald say, he is on his knee.
[11:24] And the chair was up and he was all over. That was the last resistance he had. He began to blubber.
[11:38] I said, Jerry, you don't have to get saved what I do. Just tell the Lord your son and ask him to save him. And he did. We ended up under the kitchen table rejoicing and raising the water.
[11:54] He was wiping his eyes. He was glad he did it. We were all shouting hallelujah. Finally, after an hour or so, he pulled me aside and said, Jerry, thank you for not giving him.
[12:17] God just told me this was not his chance. If I didn't take it tonight, he wasn't going to give him the chance.
[12:30] Thank you for not giving help. We worked together a long time. Jerry moved our town. He became a bus mechanic, children's church worker.
[12:41] had several years together. 1954 he had it. 1994 he was 54. He had surgery.
[12:52] Something went wrong from the surgical spot. Go call the one to his heart and he died. Jerry's been in heaven now since 1994.
[13:10] I'm so crazy. I did all I could do. I don't think he would have saved me if I didn't want that do.
[13:22] Now I saw him not very long. Somebody is depending on me. Jerry that would be in hell.
[13:39] If his brother had heard that he would not say no and would not take no for him. But you see the devil has these people in his control and it's a battle with fighting the forces of evil over the soul of people.
[14:02] He not only has big blinds he's got big blinds to get down. I don't know what called this sermon dangers the unsaved that I see or truths that I wish every unsaved person could grasp or what Satan blinds us to.
[14:25] This Bible says if our gospel be hid it's hid of them that are lost in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not.
[14:35] Lest the light of the glorious God will shine to them. Let me say it. Now listen to me. Think right now. Who is that on your heart? Who is that?
[14:46] When I stood that day when that preacher said his picture just lit up in my mind.
[14:57] I knew who it was. You probably know who it is now. I'm telling you. Many people are in hell because God's people did not take it seriously and did not fight the fight of minding power of the devil over the souls of their loved one.
[15:20] My mother's family was all saved. The last two boys came along when mom and dad were old tired. Everybody took him for granted and didn't get saved and didn't.
[15:33] There were teenagers who were still not saved by mothers. But their older sister could not sleep, could not eat, prayed in the night, begged God that they were brothers.
[15:46] And those two boys, one of them still alive, the last one in the family of the robbers in 91, Robert Neal, Neal died hard actually a few years ago.
[15:57] those two boys got saved one night to the Bible. Neal jumped in his car and drove 50 miles to the mother of the river.
[16:11] Flew into her arms and said, Mom, I obsess you with crap now, but Robert and I got saved by the man. You could have heard my mama shout all the times. Those boys would not have been saved, though they were surrounded by saved people.
[16:28] If somebody had got a burden for them and fought hell and Satan over their souls, that's what we need, ladies and gentlemen.
[16:39] We need a burden. We need care. Those of you that are about to go to sleep, somebody in your family is lost, you're going to let them go to hell.
[16:51] How dare you sleep with a sermon like this? How dare you? Wake up! Somebody else can preach and you can preach as much as he does.
[17:05] We can't even hear him from you. And I get up here preaching something like this and you're sitting back there and I fall out of your view. God have mercy on you. You know what I'm talking about.
[17:18] You can't stay awake, get up, get out. somebody in your family is going to go to hell. You're going to stand there on judgment today and watch them go to hell. Remember, you couldn't get a burden for it.
[17:35] Danger to the unsaved do not see. They don't see, number one, how much control that Satan really has. Your lost loved ones do not see how much control the devil has over them.
[17:49] How in God's name can people drive around and live in this fire, in danger of hell fire, not even worried about it. They're blinded. Blinded.
[18:03] To keep some of you awake, turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2. The sleepy ones certainly turn there. 2 Timothy chapter 2.
[18:19] Verse 24. The servant of the Lord must not strive, be argumentative, but be gentle unto all, apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves.
[18:34] You know that verse says they're their biggest enemies, they're their own biggest enemies. These dear souls that get after us and we're trying to give them a track, trying to witness them, they run us off, they're their own biggest enemies.
[18:47] But they're blinded, folks. And it says here, if God peradventure, that means maybe, will give them repentance to be acknowledged in the truth.
[19:00] Now verse 26, the last verse in 2 Timothy 2 says this, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
[19:17] They don't have any idea how much control the devil. They have no idea. The snare of the devil, they are in a bag trap. And they've been captained by the devil.
[19:30] Your loved ones are captured prisoners of the devil. They don't know that. They don't know that. They don't know how much control Satan has over them.
[19:45] Revelation 12, 21 says, Woe unto them having to hurt. For the devil has come down having great wrath because he knows that he has a short time.
[19:57] Brother, don't you think he knows today he had a short time? If he ever knew he had a short time, he's getting going to now. And he's not going to give up. He's not going to turn loose.
[20:09] He's not going to open the trap. You have to fight him. You're going to have to do something. You're going to have to get a burden. You're going to have to care.
[20:20] You, you, you're the one sitting in here listening to this term. You're the one that God had me prepared for. I don't think it was for the lost people because they didn't come.
[20:33] I think it's for us who have lost brothers. They're in his trap. He number two, danger is the unsaved do not see how near hell they are.
[20:52] How near hell they are. Thirteen years, I was worried every time. Jerry had a car falling.
[21:07] One time later on, he was working for a car dealer. In my town, they had these pits and they were going in these pits.
[21:18] Jerry was working on car over his head. He heard something that was not the right kind of sound. His trained ears knew there was something going on with that hydraulic system.
[21:31] He ran to the saddle pit and got out of that pit and that car said wham! It would have crushed him to death right there. There are a thousand deaths out there just waiting to snuff out one person you're thinking about them.
[21:52] A thousand deaths. They don't have any idea how close to hell they're all they're on. Even David, when he was saved, he said, there is a better step between me and death.
[22:08] David said, I can take one more step. An arrow appears to die. There is but a step. There's a heartbeat away from hell.
[22:20] One accident, one accident. Our pastor in North Dakota, my soul anybody had a guy that he grew up with on his heart.
[22:36] He didn't take long to tell you about his burden for the things. He said, Pastor Sean, it's not saved. He's one of the finest guys you ever saw. All he's interested in making money.
[22:47] He's a businessman. He goes all the time. I can't get him to sit down and talk to me. I want you to get a burden for him. I want us to go see him. Sorry to say.
[23:00] Shameful to say. I never got the burden he got. We went to see him two or three times. Met him at the door. He would say, hi Barry.
[23:12] Man, I wish I had time to talk, but I don't have time to talk. Barry, can you come back? I want to leave a preacher, Sean. I shook hands with him.
[23:24] Hey, it's nice. I've heard thoughts about you. I'm so bad you're going to come hear you preach one day. I said, well, let's just take care of the main business right now.
[23:37] Let's get you saved. He said, I'm going to do that, but I don't want to. One day, not long after that, my doorbell ran. Big old tall Barry Fisher, who sits at the Dover in.
[23:54] He's a cowboy with his cowboy hat in. He's right here across his stomach. His red eye and tears flowing. He looked at me and couldn't hardly see me.
[24:09] I said, Barry, what's wrong? He said, Sean was killed last night in a car wreck. He's in hell, preacher.
[24:21] He's in hell today. And I didn't get him. I didn't get him. But he didn't know how close to hell he always was.
[24:40] One little problem, one little accident. I told you before, when I was in the room, I was ready to get free money.
[24:51] I was under that and went down this month. a couple coming under that bridge and they weren't happy on the old past.
[25:03] And a truck of concrete came through the exact moment that car came under the bridge. They were just talking back in one moment and the next moment they were going to hell.
[25:26] And a lot of lost people say, well, I'll do something about it. I'll do something one of these days. Once it happens like that, you don't get a chance. Folks, your loved ones don't know how close to hell they always are.
[25:41] One heartbeat. My dad had a church when I was a boy and a young woman faithful in the church Sunday morning stepped off her front porch and was dead before she hit the ground.
[25:58] 24 years ago. They did an autopsy and said she had an aneurysm in the brain that burst and killed her instantly. What if your loved one has an aneurysm that's about the birth?
[26:12] We don't know there's a thousand ways that can kill you. Instantly they don't know how near hell they are.
[26:26] Number three they don't know how few opportunities have to be saved. We think we can do it any time we want to.
[26:39] I'm going to tell you something whether you believe in this side of God or not but God will not try for this I heard a great theologian and a great Bible scholar say I am convinced that the most that anybody ever had real opportunities to get saved is violence violence and most people have violence they don't know that they don't know that do you know that they don't know what they're blind to and devil wants to keep them blind to he wants them to think well you got clean your time I walked up on the porch of a man 96 years old 96 years old sitting on a chair on the front porch and I said sir you saved he said no why not he said
[27:40] I got clean that's the excuse that made you talking about blind you're looking blind too don't have any opportunities they really have John 6 37 said all that the father gives me shall come to you to Jesus though he would say the father is in control John 6 44 said no man can come to thee except the father draw him if you haven't been here this morning and you think you can say whatever you want to no you can't God is in control of that and until he draws you you don't have a chance and this scholar said he won't draw people more than you usually three so you sit through a sermon never be bothered at all not be convicted go right out the door never worry some of you sleep through it even but if
[28:52] God gets over your heart and it's his time you'll have to grip it up you and your knuckles why you're trying to keep him going forward and save because he enjoyed you brother and it's his time and he's saying you better get it now I mean I'm ready are you ready you won't have more three times right the lost people don't know that they're blinded to that how many few real opportunities did they really have God's in control of that Ephesians 2 89 says vibration save your faith it's the gift of God he doesn't give you the faith you don't you say the companion verses that's Titus 3 5 works of righteousness according to his mercy you say yeah Jeremy you know you got saved you didn't decide to it was one of those times when God said
[29:57] Jeremy I'm going to call you I'm going to give you a good shot and you took it you took it you took it you ever got saved it was when God was drawing you it was his time for you you said yes every one of you said yes and said no your heart turned to you you wouldn't care he's in control they don't know that number four finally the lost we might realize there is a deadline across their path oh that's scary great rich here j harrell smith raised over 50 years on the radio to evangelist and a pastor had one of the two or three four famous sons in history called
[31:05] God three dead mountains and in that he tells story after story people that he knew he waited too long across that dead mountain and he proved from the bible there's a line there's a poem that says there is a line though wide unseen that crosses every path it marks the boundary between God's mercy and his wrath there's a line your loved one has a line across his path it may be tomorrow maybe a week from now who knows what it's invisible you dab it around you don't worry about it he walks across that line he's done that's one of the scariest things I can preach turn to proverbs 71 last scripture proverbs 71 verse 24 proverbs proverbs 1 24 because
[32:29] I have called and you refused I stretched out my hand you said it no all my counsel you wouldn't have my proof you didn't take the preaching I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear comes when your fear cometh as desolation and destruction comes as a world when distress and anguish come on me then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me earlier but they shall not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord I don't call it today you know what's wrong with society don't fear God you know what's wrong with you you don't fear God you know the difference between me and me I fear God
[33:29] I'm not sure all you do you down in that part of the healthiest thing you can have for a fear God well that deadline is across there and he is going to give up on you from the cross verse 30 says they would have none of every council therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own way and be filled on the basis for the turning way the turning away the preacher says we're going to have an invitation would you get saved today please come to Jesus and the turning way walking out of the turning way shall slay him they'll turn away one they they didn't know it they didn't know it they turn away they would never get another chance you see you don't get saved when you want to you get saved when God wants you he's in control they don't know they're blind to that dead mind
[34:48] God will harden your hearts I read a statistic that if you get past 30 years only one in 200,000 every second God hardens your heart God steps in and hardens your heart you don't have to turn to it I'm going to read you a couple of verses I just want to prove nailed down this point that I'm finished John 12 39 and 40 therefore they could not believe not that they could not they could not believe you because Isaiah said best he had blinded their eyes now this is not the devil now this is
[35:49] God blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted and I should hear them that is a scripture in Isaiah chapter 6 that's quoted over and over and over and over in the Bible there's a time where God hardens the heart and blinds their eyes and they cannot believe what a fearsome doctrine what a fearsome doctrine Hebrews chapter 3 13 says you better get saved lest you be hardened by the deceiving I don't know of a rich anyone here this morning or not if so you have no idea what's control the devil have you have been blinded to the fact that you're just a step out of hell all the time you've been blinded you don't see you don't see that line across the path from you the devil does
[37:01] God does God is urging you to do something before that the devil trying to hold you back he can get you across that line he can get you from nowhere you don't know that you all get saved this morning it may be your last you jerry that is what he needs to bear in my heart if I hadn't got to say it tonight I'd never get a little house at the north east market at the front door of mama lady house listen to me now there was a line nobody could see jerry dash stood up and said let's go he was going to go out there I reached up and got in office hello he got saved he stepped over that line his heart would turn to eyes he never wanted to get saved he never knew that that's how close he came where is the line back where is speaking here can you get further before that you know you think about it about after this time