Four Dilemmas and Four Solutions: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Today we’re going to look at chapters 36 to 39. We’re going to see four dilemmas, four serious problems, four serious issues that are going to be encountered, and there are four solutions. Remember in John 16:33, Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” And so God has solutions for your pollutions. Amen. Okay, we’re going to pick up the story with Hezekiah is 39 years of age, he has reigned for 14 years, starting at age 25, and we see dilemma number one is war. In Isaiah 36:1, Assyria had come in and attacked all of Judah and captured every other city but Jerusalem, and now we find the Assyrian army coming against

▶ 1:02 Jerusalem, and with a great army. And you got to remember, just a few years back, 15 or so years before, in his father [unclear]’s day, Israel alone killed 120,000 Judeans in one day, and so their military isn’t too strong now. Besides that, Edom and the Philistines come and attack Judah and killed their military, and so their military is weak here. He inherited a weak military, and now the Assyrians have come and they’ve got every city of Judah but Jerusalem, the capital, and when they negotiate, when their ambassador talks to the king of Judah,

▶ 1:56 Hezekiah, the Assyrian ambassadors, the Assyrian, uh, delegate that came to talk to Hezekiah said this: “Have I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me,” Jesus said to me, “go up against this land and destroy it. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father’s house, days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.” And so Judah’s attackers are saying the Lord God sent them, the God that Judah worshiped sent them to destroy them. Okay, and right quick, if you don’t know your Bible, you will say, “Well, he’s just lying, you know, he don’t, he’s worshiping another God.” He is not

▶ 2:54 lying. Okay, he is stating a fact. Isaiah chapter 7:17, Isaiah prophesied it 30 years before. In chapter 7:17, same wording: “The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father’s house, days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah.” And see, the king of Assyria, the delegation of Assyria knew that prophecy, and they’re saying, “Hey, your God sent us to straighten you guys out, to conquer you.” See, they weren’t lying. Now, we know that in Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not make it good?” You see, and in Daniel it says that the law of the Medes and the Persians cannot be altered. So here, here you got a prophetic

▶ 4:00 appointment from God that Israel, Judah, is to be destroyed, the whole nation. All right, and our enemy knows that, and listen, folks, our enemy knows, gets enough out of the Bible to try to get you on the defensive. You really need to know your Bible, and some of these things they tell us is true. All right, so here Isaiah, I mean Hezekiah, is faced with a dilemma. The Assyrian army is there, it’s more powerful than they are, they can’t beat him, and God said 30 years before that they were coming. So what does Hezekiah do? Hezekiah’s approach to this dilemma should be all of our approach to these dilemmas. Isaiah 37:1, “King Hezekiah tore his clothes.” That would be a novelty if we really humbled our, and tore our designer clothes that cost 200

▶ 5:04 bucks. That would be something. “He covered himself with sackcloth,” burlap, “and he went to the house of God.” My goodness, he went to the house of God. How many know at 9/11 the churches for two or three months was flooded with people coming to the house of God because of the aggression that we experienced back there. And he prayed. He prayed. Prayed means to talk to God. Okay, talk to God. Now, all right, and then in verse 15, the delegation had said, you know, we, we got to leave because we, we got another enemy coming in, but we’re going to be back and we’re going to destroy you. So

▶ 6:01 Hezekiah went back into the house of God again and prayed to the Lord, and this was his simple prayer: “Save us from Assyria, that all kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord, you alone.” Okay, now, God prophesied that this was supposed to happen, but Hezekiah prayed and said, “Lord, I’m not worthy of this, the nation’s not worthy of this, but you do it, so that the whole world will know that you are God, God alone.” Isn’t that a good, humble attitude? Yeah. So God-given oaths, God-given laws, God-given prophecies can be changed by God’s higher

▶ 6:54 laws. Okay, the wages of sin is death, can be changed by the gift of God, Jesus Christ, given us life, confessing our sin. Okay, a higher law. Uh, when Jesus told the person, “You go and sin no more, lest worse things come upon you,” and that person, if he went back and sinned some more, there’s a higher law in Romans that the long patience of God before he judges, before he brings bad things, will lead you to repentance. So he’s trying to be patient with you to lead you, there’s a higher law. All right, plus prayer, as we saw here, at Hezekiah, his prayer is a higher law. Praise is a higher law. Confessing, admitting your wrong is a higher law. Humbling yourself, kneeling before God, raising your hand, lifting your voice, those, those acts of humility that God asked us to do is a higher law that will counteract the other law that God spoke. That’s right. I’m going to give you proof of that. All right, Jeremiah 18:7. The instant. How long will it take? Instant. It’s not even popcorn, it’s faster than popcorn. Popcorn takes two

▶ 8:23 minutes. This is instant. All right, “The instant I speak concerning a nation,” and remember, remember, the nation is Gentiles, heathen, humanist, religionist, so forth, “and concerning a kingdom,” a kingdom is an area ruled over by a king, a kingdom is like America, we were ruled over by a republic of laws, supposed to be anyway, and, uh, “if a kingdom,” or an individual, a heathen, a religionist, “when I pronounce judgment to pluck up, to pull down, and destroy it, if that nation against whom I have pronounced the judgment, if he turns from their evil,” see, turns from its evil, confess our sin, repent, if it turns, what will happen? “I will relent.” And when will he

▶ 9:18 relent? The instant we turn. Folks, that’s a powerful God. And this, this idea that I got to wait three months to get delivered, or three months or whatever, a year or whatever, a rehab program of seven weeks, and no. The instant, “he will relent of the disaster that he thought to bring upon them.” And see, this is why Jonah ran from God. He knew that if he went to Nineveh and preach, “In 40 days God’s going to destroy this city, in 40 days you guys are going to pay the price, you’re going to be destroyed,” Jonah knew that God was merciful, God would change his mind if they repented, and then Jonah would look like a false

▶ 10:12 prophet. See, that’s why he got mad at the end. After they repented, he wasn’t glad, he was mad, and he sat out there waiting for the destruction, the destruction didn’t come. Then God comes along, he said, “I told you, I told you you’d do this.” See, that’s why he ran from God. See, sometimes preachers can look bad because God has a higher law. We can, we can give you the law of God and the word of God, but if you humble yourself and repent, we look bad, because God has a higher law. Amen. And all we got to do is humble ourselves and pray and repent. Okay, the next dilemma, there, these two dilemmas, the office of a real prophet. A real prophet is the position, okay, of authority. Prophets that edify, encourage, and exhort the body of Christ is not the office of a prophet. You got to understand that, all right. And these people that say they are prophets and they are wrong, they are not a prophet. A prophet is never wrong.

▶ 11:30 Never. All right, but Isaiah has the office of a prophet, okay, he has the authority to speak by the Spirit of God, and this, we’re going to find dilemmas number one and two resolved. Okay, then in, uh, Isaiah 37:21, “Then Isaiah sent to Hezekiah, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, because you have,’” what? Prayed. “Because you have prayed,” you’re still a rascal. You haven’t even had time to show me you really meant it, you know. “Because you have prayed.” Folks, his house should be called a house of prayer, it’s very important. We’ve got to have time to pray in God’s house, talk to God. All right.

▶ 12:29 “You prayed to me,” not to Buddha, not to Allah, you prayed to Jesus, “against [unclear] the king of Israel. This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him.” All right, see, the instant that Jeremiah said, and Jeremiah wasn’t even born yet, Jeremiah brought out this truth, that when God assigns a disaster upon us, we humble our self and pray and turn, God will turn from his judgment. Isaiah 37:33, “Assyria will not come into this city or shoot an arrow there,” won’t even shoot an arrow, “nor come with shield, nor build a siege against Jerusalem. By the way that he came, the same way he will return.” Verse 35, “For I, the Lord God, will defend this city to save it.”

▶ 13:30 Man, you see, that’s why it pays for a nation to be righteous. For a nation to have a righteousness, “righteousness exalts a nation.” You see, a kingdom, and if we will stand up for righteousness, even in an ungodly nation, God will defend us. That’s his word. And if we in America, who have the freedom to make righteous laws, will stand up and not let these people push us around, we can turn this nation back around to righteous laws, and God will defend America from all of its enemies. And I’m telling you, when he defends it, it’s defended. Okay, and he’s going to do it for his own sake. Are we worthy? No. You look, look at, look around you, you’re looking at a bunch of, come on, we really coming short, but he’s going to do it for his sake, all right, so that the world knows that it is God that is building the house of God. God is building a kingdom, it’s not human beings.

▶ 14:44 Okay, “and for my servant David’s sake.” That’s important, because God gave David a covenant that his seed would reign forever. All right, and God keeps his covenants. Isaiah 37:7, a sign was given. You see, a real prophet gives a sign, so that we know that this is from God. We don’t have to wait ten years for the prophecy to come to pass, or 40 years, or whatever, like all these end-time prophets do. You know, they thought that when they prophesied that Jesus would come in 1982 and 1992 and so forth, that was 10, 12, 13, 15 years before. They gave no sign. They were just lying to us, and we bought their books and believed their, their foolishness. Are you there? Yeah, we all got disappointed. If these guys cannot give you a sign, forget it, get to the Bible and just be practical with the Bible, believe it all.

▶ 15:51 Right, chapter 37:36, “An angel came and killed in the camp of the Assyrian army 185,000.” Bang! How many know that’s better than an atomic bomb? Yeah, they just woke up dead. Because one man prayed. Hallelujah. And Christians don’t have time for prayer, just blows me away that they feel awkward in church praying and lifting the voice. Well, I pray in my closet. Pray in your closet at home, in the church, if you’re not praying specific sins and so forth, lift your voice, call down God.

▶ 16:49 Hallelujah, we’re supposed to. When you pray, say, all right, now, if you’re going to be confessing your sins, yeah, you don’t want it, people, people don’t need to hear them, the specific, cuz, you know, the gossip train will go, you, the next thing you know everybody in the country knows your sins, so don’t do that. Hallelujah. Dilemma number three is the health issues coupled with the scriptural oath and law issues. Okay, “in those days,” Isaiah 38:1, Hezekiah was sick near death, and Isaiah the prophet came and said to him, “Thus saith the Lord, put your house in order, you’re going to die, you’re not going to live.” Get your will made out, get everything in order, because you are kicking the bucket, you better get your bucket list quick and get it done.

▶ 17:51 Hallelujah. Now, we got a law of God, a word from God, he going to die. So what does Hezekiah do? Hezekiah, verse 2, “turned his face toward the wall.” Now, I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything, but anyway, you know, he’s in a kneeling position or he’s in a prostrate position of prayer, and he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord. Isn’t that who he should be praying to? The Lord. And he said, “Remember now, oh Lord, I pray, how I have walked before you in truth.” Now he’s bragging about himself. Yeah, and he did, he was a good king, the Bible really gives Hezekiah honor. “I have walked before you with a loyal heart, I’ve been faithful.

▶ 18:44 Man, number three, I have done good in your sight.” Hallelujah, I’m walking on the road of righteousness. Yeah, and “Hezekiah wept bitterly.” Remember, Lord. Remember. All right, here comes the office of a prophet for dilemma number three. Solved, Isaiah 38:4, “The Lord said to Isaiah, tell Hezekiah, I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.” I have heard what your prayer, you see in the other one, “because you prayed.” Does God hear our prayer? Does he acknowledge when we kneel down and we humble ourself and we pray? Does he hear? Absolutely. Whether you feel like it or not, you don’t have to have goosebumps and a Holy Ghost fit, you just do it, and God honors his word to hear your prayer. All right, “and I’ve seen your tears. I will add to your days 15 years.” Now he knows when he’s going to

▶ 19:57 die. Can you imagine, after 14 years you’re going, I mean, January the 1st of that 15th year could be your day. “Oh, and I will deliver you and the city from Assyria.” So both things are happening, the Assyrian army come upon him, surrounding him, and he’s dying from a disease at the same time. He’s got four dilemmas on his hand, the military, the health, or three dilemmas, and the law of God. Okay, he’s going to die, God said he’s going to die. “This is the sign that the Lord will do this thing.” All right, here comes the sign, a sign for both: “The shadow of the sundial will go down ten degrees

▶ 21:00 backwards.” All right, I’m going to turn the clock backwards. “So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial.” Now, I don’t know if you know what that means, but I’m going to give you a little science lesson here, okay. Ten degrees is about 40 minutes. 666.6666 miles, for those of you who are interested in 666. The earth stopped and went backwards 666.66 miles. Well, so what? Well, what you don’t understand is, if the earth stops, the ocean waters go to the north and south

▶ 21:57 pole. See, the centrifugal force isn’t there to keep the ocean waters at its highest at the equator, that’s why we are a, uh, ellipse. Okay, see, the earth is not a perfect circle right now because of the centrifugal force on the water of the oceans. See, it makes the earth larger at the middle. Are you there? Now, it stops, these waters got to go somewhere. Now, I, I, I’m just going to love when God starts moving in these last days with this stuff, you know, stars rolled up, stars falling down, sun going dark, moon going dark, turning to blood, you know, he’s going to do all these things. The lion and the lamb, you know, they say is an allegory, and I say, an allegory of

▶ 22:51 what? You know, was the virgin birth predicted by Isaiah an allegory, or was it a real truth that happened? An allegory is an illustration of a real truth, but it happened. Okay. So the water recedes, and now Seattle, Detroit, and New York is under the ocean. You’re looking at me like you don’t know this stuff. This is just basic eighth-grade science. You, what, eighth grade, you go to. And we don’t even know if they’re right, cuz, you know, they can’t stop the earth to find out, you know, these scientists, they say a lot of things, and they can’t prove. All right, so anyway, once the earth recedes, I mean, the waters recede, then you got one great big continent going around the

▶ 23:56 equator. Now, let science try to figure that one out. And remember, in Joshua the sun stood for almost 12 hours, 11-plus hours, the sun stopped. Did the sun stop? What stopped? The earth. Yeah, duh. We got the same dilemma again. Are you there? So this shows the supernatural power of God. All right, science can never figure out God because he’s supernatural. He doesn’t even have to let those waters go to the north and south pole, that’s what they don’t understand. He don’t have to follow their little scientific knowledge at all. If he says earth, stand still, water, stand still, everything stands

▶ 24:53 still. Are you there? Hallelujah. Isn’t it great to know we have a supernatural God? And, and I just get appalled at these people who take away the supernatural aspect of God and just try to, you know, uh, talk, debate supernatural things away. Folks, he will return, he will do what he said he will do in these last days. If the ax swam, if the Red Sea parted, if three guys went into a fiery furnace and came out, if Daniel went into that lions’ den and came out, then God can bring peace on earth like he said he would do. There’s going to be a, a, a time where there’s no war on earth, he can do that. God can let the stars fall from heaven, he can dissolve the skies, he can do these things before he returns and saying, “I am the Lord.” Amen. Yes, give the Lord a clap offering, he deserves it, he’s supernatural.

▶ 26:03 Hallelujah. That’s why I tell these people that try to attack me with the Bible having problems and all that, and said, “I don’t have to defend the Bible to you, you’ve got to worry about going to hell because of your sin, you’ve got to worry about a man called Jesus, born of a virgin, died on the cross for you, rose the third day, and said if you don’t repent, you’re going to burn forever in the lake of fire. You better deal with that. Don’t tell me to explain how God created the earth in six days, and, you know, where did Cain’s wife come from, and all this. You better get on the important issue.” Amen. I’m calling it, take him back to the cross, and then I trap him. I said, “If I answer your questions, will you listen to the gospel?” And about one of three will say yes. They really do have these questions, because we’re bombarded with

▶ 27:01 them. And then I can answer their questions from the Bible, and they’ll go, “Man, you really know the Bible.” Yeah, I’ve been reading it for a long time. “Now let’s get to the gospel. What are you going to do with this man Jesus?” Hallelujah. That’s the whole key. And remember, folks, the Bible is not a book of faith. I was telling one of the young ladies that this morning, it is a book of truth, a book of [unclear] facts. Nowhere does the Bible say it’s a book of faith, nowhere does the Bible say that Christianity is a religion. It’s a lifestyle, it’s a reality, it’s a meeting with a deity. Hallelujah. And we don’t have a right making man-made principles, we got to go to the Bible to get our rules. That’s right. See, God gave him, man should not get, when man gets involved, then it’s a religion.

▶ 27:58 Hallelujah, that was good preaching, right there. All right, so God does a supernatural thing, gives the sign, and sure enough, Isaiah put a lump of figs, this just, this just kills the faith camp, the Pentecostals, you know, us Pentecostals, we can’t have, you know, some of us can’t have medicine or, or, you know, anything that shows a lack of faith, you know, and boy, there’s figs, this dressing of figs on the boil. The boil, there is an inflammation, it’s a word for, it’s like a leprosy inflammation, that’s why I have the leprosy up there. This guy here is 24 years of age, he looks like he’s 60-some or 70, and this guy here has neglected the leprosy, and that’s black leprosy, these sores turn black and, and the skin falls off and the fingers fall off and then they die, back in the old days, now it’s curable, but then they die. And so Hezekiah had some kind of information like that, that he was going to die.

▶ 29:04 But for you Pentecostals and charismatics out there, and you faith camp people that think taking medicine or doing anything to cause your problem to be healed will neglect your faith, this is just a scripture that negates that. If he hadn’t put, now, what do figs have to do with this information? As far as my research goes, nothing. There was nothing in the fig, no medical powers, but God said put the figs on there for a dressing and you’ll get healed, and sure enough, bang, you got hit, you know. If God tells you to take an Excedrin for your headache, and he’ll tell you because you’ve gone 12 hours with a headache praying, so you might as well take the [unclear].

▶ 30:01 Are you out there? You know, I give God so long, and then I got to move. I give him a little, I give him enough time to get, deal with this problem, then I got to do something. Verse 9, “This is the writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness.” This is his writing. All right, Lord, verse 17, “You have lovingly,” not out of obligation, not because Hezekiah was good, not because he was loyal, not because of what he said back there bragging about himself. How many of us brag about ourselves when we pray? Yeah, you, yeah. Yeah, “Well, Lord, I did this for you, come on, [unclear].” Oh, really? You’re doing what you’re supposed to do, is that right? That what God, Jesus told him in the parable, you’re doing what you’re supposed to

▶ 31:06 do. “Now, you delivered my soul from the pit of corruption because of your love.” You love me in spite of me, you love me, and this is it: “For you have cast all my sins behind your back.” Hezekiah admitted he wasn’t so good, he wasn’t so faithful. After God healed him, he admitted he wasn’t so good, he didn’t deserve it, because of his lifestyle, because of his walk, God did it to show himself God. Hallelujah. So, folks, if you think you’re not good enough, and, and this is, this is really rampant in P— I can talk about us Pentecostals because, and I’m a tongue talker, and charismatics because I’m a tongue talker, and I’ve been in it since I got saved, and I’ve seen our

▶ 32:07 extremes. Okay, we think that if we got enough faith, nothing will be prevented from God answering our prayer, and we think if we’re good enough, I got to be good enough, so there, there these, these, these Pentecostal, charismatic ministers, especially these big ones, always put the responsibility back on the people, if you got faith, if you’re living for Jesus. Well, Hezekiah had some problems, he admitted it, Hezekiah’s faith was lacking, but God did it because he, what? Prayed, and God changed the laws by a higher law and healed him and saved the city. Do you get it? Hallelujah. Don’t ever get down on yourself because you’re not good enough, just get down and pray, humble yourself, admit your problems, don’t hide them, just admit them and pray, and then let God do his thing. Could that be an amen? Yes. And it’s not only for charismatics and Pentecostals, for Baptists and all the rest of the people who don’t even believe in a lot of miracles and stuff for today, the Catholics and so forth, it’s for anybody.

▶ 33:32 Amen. All right. Dilemma four, family issues. Chapter 39, Babylon sends a delegate, delegation over to Judah, and Hezekiah showed him everything. He’s bragging, Hezekiah shows him everything in his house. You ever went to visit somebody and they show you the tour of the whole house and their cars and things, you know, and you know, if you haven’t been there for a year and you come back here, they got to go through the tour again. Well, Hezekiah was bragging, you see, and he showed the delegation from Babylon all of his, uh, accumulated stuff. And so Isaiah comes and says to Hezekiah, “Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated,” been handed down, and you’ve accumulated, that’s

▶ 34:36 finances, “will be carried to Babylon, nothing shall be left, says the Lord. They will take away your sons.” Now, family issue here. Babylon’s going to take away your children, sons, “and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Wow. Wow. Now he’s got another scriptural law dilemma. God says this is going to happen. Now, he already encountered two of these, the army God said was going to come and destroy them, the sickness God said he was going to die, he already encountered two of these and prayed and God changed. Amen. So what is Hezekiah going to do this

▶ 35:35 time? Now, you know that his son’s not even born yet, and you got to watch these commentaries and everything, they say that, uh, Manasseh ruled with his father for 12 years, but that isn’t what the Bible says. It says he was 12 years of age when he began to rule. Okay, so we’re going to say he’s 12 years old, there’s other kings, young. Hezekiah’s response, 39:8, “So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, the word of the Lord you have spoken is good.” Hallelujah, I’ll take it, I’ll accept it, “for at least there will be peace and truth in my day.” Nuts on my son. Are you there? He didn’t go to prayer, he didn’t go to the house of God like he did before. He had another dilemma, and he did not take it to God and humble himself. Now we know that 700 years before, it was prophesied in the Pentateuch, in, uh, Deuteronomy, that they would be carried away captive. Okay, okay, but how, you know, a law of God can be countered by a higher

▶ 37:04 law. Isn’t that what we just learned? Yeah, see, they didn’t have to go into captivity, they could have, what? Repented, humbled themselves, and prayed. And Hezekiah didn’t believe the prophetic word on the other two was the final word, now he accepts it. Why? Because the problem is going to come in his son’s day, in my day everything’s going to be fine, I got 15 more years of blessed life. Hallelujah. I let my son worry about it. Is that a good attitude? No, isn’t a good attitude at all. And I trust that none of you give up on your children, that you pray for them. Folks, we got to pray for those that can’t pray for themselves, we got to beg God for deliverance for those that, in the New Testament says that can’t deliver themselves. Okay, we got to stand in there for the weak. Amen. And so that’s why going to church and praying and interceding and all that is very

▶ 38:20 important. So 2 Kings 21:9, “Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son, seduced Judah to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before them.” Verse 12, “The Lord, the Lord is bringing such calamity,” I don’t know where I came from, “upon Jerusalem and Judea that whosoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle.” Verse 21:16, “Manasseh shed much innocent blood.” Much innocent blood. And this is a danger for America, we’re killing all these kids in the womb, and you can’t get more innocent than

▶ 39:06 that. Okay, over a million a year we are killing because we don’t have self-control and restraints and require people to have self-control and restraints, and you can’t get any more innocent. That we got a problem in America of our children being brainwashed that bad is good and good is bad, and our much of our younger generation’s mind is distorted and messed up, and they are innocent, they should not even be being hit with these things. Amen. They shouldn’t be taught in school about homosexuality and, and, and, you know, adultery and all that. They shouldn’t be taught that, they’re innocent. You wait, you, you wait till they grow. All right, now, listen, this is important, because it says in 2 Kings 24:4, “The Lord will not forgive the shedding of innocent

▶ 40:10 blood.” The Lord will not forgive the shedding of innocent blood, and Manasseh shed much innocent blood, innocent people. Now, let’s see how this was solved. Are you interested in how this was solved? Being Hezekiah didn’t do anything, God did something. It was solved in captivity, a captivity calamity dilemma. Chapter 39:1, Assyria took Manasseh to Babylon. “Now when he was in affliction,” he implored, or prayed, “to the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to him, and he received his prayer,” God received his prayer, “heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem unto his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord, he was

▶ 41:10 God.” So even when us parents, you young people, when us parents let down, God will come and use your crisis to wake you up and restore you back. Hallelujah. It’s sad that that has to happen. Parents are supposed to raise those kids up in the way they should go and keep them away from these things, but when parents let the children down, God will come, and God said he would not forgive the shedding of innocent blood. Did God forgive? Did he? Yes. See, what’s the higher law? Pray. He prayed, he humbled himself, yes, that’s a higher law. Folks, it’s a higher law than the unforgivable sin in the New Testament, which is blaspheming against the Holy Ghost. Paul blasphemed against the Holy Ghost and he was forgiven. Are you there? The blood is that powerful. The blood of Christ is a higher law that will cleanse how many sins? All sins, including the unforgivable sin. Hallelujah. Yeah, give God a clap offering, he’s

▶ 42:31 powerful. Yeah. Amen. That’s why the preaching of the gospel is what’s important, not trying to defend whether the earth was made in 24 hours or, or two million years, [unclear], or whatever, or where did Cain’s wife, the power for salvation is in the preaching of the gospel, and that’s what they got to be held accountable to. Can I hear an amen? And this blood, folks, this death of Jesus Christ, that’s why Allah is worthless, that’s why the gods of Hindu and the Buddha and all that, oh, Buddha don’t even serve a God, but they’re worthless. Why? Because everything has been focused on this man Jesus Christ and his death, his innocent death and resurrection to deliver the world, and it’s a powerful message. Yeah, yeah, and all we got to do is pray, humble ourselves, and God will rise for us. So don’t, you know, us Christians, we get down because we mess up. Well, get down on your knees and pray and get back

▶ 43:45 up. Amen. Don’t get cast down, get down on your knees, ask God. If he answered Hezekiah, he’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. Will he hear you? Yes. Are you worthy of him doing powerful things in your life? No. You’re only worthy because of your faith in Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection, and you apply the principle of prayer, praise, worship, and these things God is showing us. If we have a dilemma, we don’t need a war, just bullies in the neighborhood. I used to have my lunch money taken from me, and you, there’re just bullies all over Detroit, my parents had no idea what I went through to go to school, to be in school, and, and, and the mess that was there. Okay, people will try to break into your house and steal stuff and so forth, and you know, you can have these kind of dilemmas. More importantly, the war for your mind. Remember the Bible says, “Beware lest any man spoil you,” capture you “with philosophies,” of philosophy is a [unclear].

▶ 44:58 Okay, these, these humanist ideas, these fleshly ideas, they try to take your mind by force, the force of words, the force of, of, of propaganda, but you can humble yourself and pray and God will come and deliver you from those things. A nation can humble themselves and God will deliver them from an attacker. And so can we, from Satan and his children, be delivered from their philosophies and, of life, that destroy. We can be sick and the sickness may be incurable, the doctors can’t do anything, you have a

▶ 45:51 hope by humbling yourself and praying, you yourself, not a healing ministry, just you yourself, coming to your God and asking him to touch your life and being honest with him. Being honest with him. You may have a family problem, your marriage, your children, don’t be like Hezekiah and say, “Well, hallelujah, that’s their problem, everything’s going good for me.” No, stand in the gap for them, stand in the gap for your neighbor kids. You know, when you spend time in prayer, remember these things, cuz God moves on the principles that he laid out for us.