The Sin God Never Forgives
George Burnside
A tape recorded evangelistic lecture.
Tonight I am reading to you from Matthew 12:31,32, a statement made by the Lord Jesus Christ, "Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him. But who so ever speaks against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."
It is a sin that is absolutely unparalleled and it is a sin that is absolutely unpardonable. It is the unpardonable sin. It will not be pardoned in this world, neither in the world to come.
Now there has been much speculation in regard to the unpardonable sin. Some have maintained that the unpardonable sin is murder, others have maintained that it is adultery, and others have maintained that it is those who practice abortion. But I want you to notice the text, and the statement of Jesus, "Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." It doesn't make very much difference which one of the Ten Commandments you have broken or whether you have broken the whole lot of them, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven if you do the confessing. The trouble is friends, people don't confess the unpardonable sin. Jesus said, "He that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." You do the coming to Christ, friend, and Christ will do the saving regardless of what the sin. That is a wonderful invitation isn't it? We are told over there in Isaiah, "Let the wicked man forsake his thoughts, and the unrighteous man his ways, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will abundantly pardon." He will not merely pardon but He will abundantly pardon.
I heard a story of a young man who had runaway from home. He had been quite a prodigal and he was coming home, and he wondered what kind of reception he would get. He wondered if his parents would forgive him, so he got off the train a couple of stations away and he was afraid to go home. He had done some things that were certainly wrong and he wondered if he would be forgiven so he wrote a letter home and he said, "Dear Mother and Father, If you will forgive me I want you to make a sign. Hang a white sheet out on the back clothes line and that will indicate that you will forgive me." You know when the parents got that letter the dear old mother ran in and she got a pile of sheets and she went out and she hung the clothes line right across with sheets. She not merely pardoned, but she abundantly pardoned.
And that is the kind of welcome God will make to sinners. You do the coming. I don't care what sin you have committed, and I have seen some men and women that have gone to the very bottom. You ought to get into my work for a while and sit down and talk with people when they open their hearts to you, and believe me friends, some human beings have gone along way down, right to the very bottom, and they have gotten themselves into some terrible predicaments. But I don't care how low you have gone, Jesus can lift you.
All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven you. You do the confessing and Christ will do the pardoning. But the trouble is friends, when people commit the unpardonable sin they don't do the coming to Christ for salvation. They don't do the confessing.
Now what led Jesus to make this statement. Come back and notice the circumstances. Come back to verse 22 and you will understand and you will see the setting of this tremendous and solemn statement that Jesus made: "Then was brought unto him one possessed with a deviI, blind and dumb: and He healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb spoke and saw.”
Jesus worked a miracle. "And all the people were amazed and said, is not this the son of David?" When Jesus worked that miracle the people said, "Yes, beyond all question He is the Messiah, He is the son of David. " But when the Pharisees heard it they said, "This fellow does not cast out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of devils."
You see, they were very jealous of Jesus, and they were very jealous of His popularity. And they said, "Oh yes, it is very easy to see how Jesus is working these wonderful miracles. He is doing it by the power of the devil. You see He is a devil Himself, He is a prince of devils and hence He can work these miracles."
The next verse says, "And Jesus knew their thoughts," and it led Him to make this statement in verse 31: "Wherefore I say unto you all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaks against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." Jesus knew their thoughts.
Those Pharisees, when they saw the evidence and the wonderful way of Jesus fulfilling the prophecies, they knew deep down in their hearts that He was the one. The evidence was overwhelming, but you see it cut right across their track and they didn't want to admit it. They believed one thing but they said the opposite, and then Jesus made that solemn statement that blasphemy and sin against the Holy Ghost would never be forgiven. You see friends, they were sinning against the only remedy that could save them, for the Spirit of God was there to save them and convict them, but they were fighting against it.
I get a lot of questions about the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is the greatest gift that Christ has ever given to His people.
You say, "What is the Holy Spirit?" Well, it is very difficult to define the Holy Spirit, in fact theologians have fought and argued over this now for centuries, but perhaps I could put in this way. The Holy Spirit, of course, is the third person of the Godhead, always linked with the Father and the Son, but really it is the power or the influence of God. It can reach right out and reach everywhere. People can't understand often how it is that God can be everywhere.
Well, the very same sun that shone here in Auckland and rejoiced the bathers out there on the beach this afternoon, is the same sun that was warming people away up on the beaches of Japan this afternoon and reaching over to Sydney, the very same sun was baking people up there in New Guinea. So, through the Holy Spirit God is able to reach the whole world and speak to every heart.
Now, how is the Holy Spirit obtained? Turn over to the 14th chapter of John, and verse 15, where Jesus makes this statement: "If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever."
The Holy Spirit is a person. Jesus always refers to Him as a person. He, the Comforter, will abide with you forever, and He comes to you friends, on condition that you love Christ and keep His commandments.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit comes to those people who obey Him and live for Christ. Of course I meet a lot of people who believe they have the Holy Spirit. They say they have it, but I find they are very, very hostile against the Commandments. Well friends, whatever spirit they have it is not the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit is never at variance with the Commandments. Jesus said, "Keep the Commandments and I will pray the Father that He will give you the Holy Spirit." And so friends, if there is a spirit in you that is hostile to the Commandments of God, it is not the Holy Spirit because it comes in response to obedience.
Acts 5:32, "And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
People say to me, "Well, Mr. Burnside, the Holy Spirit hasn't guided me into the Commandments.” Then it is high time that you let Him, because the very first work that the Holy Spirit does when He comes is to reprove the world of sin, and to guide you into obedience.
John 16:8, "And when He is come, (you notice it is always a person) He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness, and of judgment." The very first work that the Holy Spirit does when He comes is to reprove the world of sin.
Now what is sin? Sin is the transgression of the law, and the very first work that the Holy Spirit will do when he comes into your life is to reprove you of sin.
Now a lot of people get discouraged. They decide that they will pray for the Holy Spirit to come into their lives. They are earnest about it and they pray very earnestly for the Holy Spirit, and all they get is a sense of their own unworthiness and their wickedness, and they begin to realize all the mistakes and sins they have made and committed, and they get very discouraged.
Don't be discouraged, for the very first work the Holy Spirit will do in your life is to reprove you of sin. Why? Because He wants to guide you right through into the land of glory, and, sin has got to be gotten rid of. That is the whole work of the Holy Spirit.
It will come in response to obedience and it will clear all sin out of your life. He will reprove the world of sin and lead you in the paths of obedience and away from sin.
And the second work that He will do is outlined in verse 13, "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth." Then the Holy Spirit will not only turn you away from sin, but He will guide you into all truth, and when you give your life to Christ, determining that you are going to obey Him, then the Holy Spirit comes right into your life, and He is going to turn you away from sin and guide you into truth. He will guide you in the way of God. He will never go contrary to the Word of God because this Book came to us from the Spirit of God.
You read over there in I Peter, that holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dictated these words and hence it will never go in variance to this Book, because the Holy Spirit gave this Book, and will guide you right into that path. He will guide you into all truth, As you give your life to Christ the Holy Spirit comes right into your life, will turn you away from sin and guide you in the paths of truth.
A lot of people don't want it. They begin to fight it, but the Holy Spirit won't leave you immediately. To illustrate: You give your life to Christ. You determine to obey Him. The Holy Spirit comes into your life and begins to reprove you of sin and to guide you in the paths of truth and to guide you right home to the land of glory. He guides you along and then He shows you more truth. And there is a step you must take.
But you say, " I don’t want to take it. I don ' t want to go that way. The Holy Spirit won't leave you. He will take you around some other way and He will bring you right back again to that step.
You say, "No, I don't want it." He won't leave you. He will guide you around some other way and He will bring you right back. And my dear friends, He will keep on bringing you right back to that thing until there is a time when you say no to God for the last time. When you have said it for the last time you have committed the unpardonable sin because your heart becomes so hardened by the resistance that He can do no more for you.
And the big marvel to me friends, is not the fact that the Spirit of God leaves people, but what makes me marvel is how long-suffering God is with us. God is longsuffering. The longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, and just as long friends, as there is at least a glimmer of hope of saving you, the Spirit of God will be right there to do it. Don't despair of the Spirit of God, for if there is the least glimmer the Spirit of God will be right there to save you.
If people persist and keep on saying no to God, there is a time friends, when you say no for the last time. The Spirit of God will always guide you away from sin.
Turn over to 1 John 5:3, "For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous." When you love God, the commandments of God are not grievous. I don't know of anything harder in this world to keep the commandments of God if you don't love God. If you don't love God, there is nothing more difficult and more awkward and more of a nuisance than the commandments of God. But when you love Him, the commandments of God are not grievous. Love inspires a delight to obey Him.
Perhaps I could give a very crude illustration. It may make it clear to you. All illustrations, when it comes to the things of God, are crude. But we will say, for instance, that there is a young man working here in Auckland, and just about ten minutes to five the boss comes hurrying in and says, "Look Jim, I want you to take this parcel away out to a certain suburb. It is very urgent and it must be there. "Well, Jim is tired, but if it must go, alright. So he hurries out to get his bike, but it is punctured so he will take the bus. It is not very suitable, but he will take the bus. He goes out in the street and lo and behold, the bus drivers have gone on strike. (I suppose they do that here in Auckland), However, they are all out on strike and the buses are not moving, but this parcel must be delivered, so there is nothing else for it but to pick up the parcel and carry it out. As he trudges along, hot and sticky, he is tired, and by the time he gets there he can hardly drag one foot after another. Oh, the boss is such a tyrant for asking anyone to do this. Why Hitler and Stalin and all those fellows seem like saints alongside his boss. He never realized there was such a monster alive in human flesh. Any rate he gets there and he drops the parcel down and he is exhausted. Then he staggers-home. What an ordeal! But it seems an eternity. He gets home, and he crawls into the lounge and slumps on the easy chair. He can hardly move. Then to cap it all the old phone rings. Who would have a phone. He wished he could get his hands on Bell who invented it. It keeps on ringing so he staggers over and lifts it up. He is hardly able to lift it. But bless your heart, it is a familiar voice. It is his young lady wanting to know if he can come over for tea. Sure he can come! Oh, you are tired. No, not the slightest bit. Sure, he will be right over. Down goes the phone friends, and he runs the whole way. What is the difference? LOVE isn't it?
Listen to what God says, "For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and His commandments are not grievous.” If the commandments of God are grievous to you the get the love of God in your heart. That is what you need. If you have not got the love of God in your heart then it is very hard going. That is what Paul said when he said, "Love is the fulfilling of the law" and the only service that our God ever wants is a service of love, and when the love of God is in your heart it is a pleasure and it is a joy to be able to serve Him.
The whole purpose of the Spirit of God is to guide you in the way of the commandments because He loves you and He wants to turn you away from sin and to guide you right home because sin is such a fearful thing friends. It will cut you off from heaven.
Now there are some things friends, that we can do with the Spirit of God. Over in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 we read, "Quench not the Spirit. The Spirit of God can be quenched. You can quench a flame. You can have a candle burning. You can quench the flame and put it out. You and I can quench the Spirit of God in our lives we are free moral agents. We have the choice.
You either choose to love Him, or you choose the other way, the Spirit of God will never be forced into our lives. We can have the Spirit of God in our lives or we can quench it out of our lives and put it out.
But God says, "Quench not the spirit." Over there in Genesis 6:2 God says, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." The Spirit of God strives and worries people, that is why some of you good people have had sleepless nights, not super preach friends, it is just the Spirit of God speaking to your hearts. A the Spirit of God puts up a great battle for a person, I have se people going through agony with the Spirit of God striving in their lives. But the Spirit of God won't always strive with man, If you keep on saying "no" it will eventually leave you.
People often ask me, "Why is it that the wicked people in this world seem to prosper, and the righteous have a hard time. You often notice it. Why do the disobedient prosper? I wish I had time to give a whole lecture on why God lets wicked men pros in fact it is the subject of one of the greatest prophecies in the Bible. Here is a verse over in Ecclesiastes 8:11. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Because God doesn't step in and strike men down immediately they sin, it says, "the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil.”
Over there in the Boston Commons not long ago a man stood up on a soap box and picked up his watch. The Boston Commons is something like Hyde Park over there in Sydney and London. Men get up on a soap box and they talk on anything at all, and this man stood up and he was trying to prove to the audience that there was no God. He said, "if there is a God in heaven, I will give You sixty seconds to strike me dead. I defy You, God!” And he stood there and he had his watch and everybody expected to see him drop, but he stood there and watched, and the second hand ticked off sixty seconds, and he smiled and said, "There you are." And he thought he had settled the question. One old Christian down the front looked up and said, "The fool thinks he can exhaust the patience of God in sixty seconds."
It is not a bad answer is it? Our God, friends, is not going around striking people down. The longsuffering of God waits. God is very merciful and He is very, very longsuffering. As Solomon said back here, because sentence is not executed speedily against an evil work, "therefore the heart of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil." They take the love of God, and the longsuffering of God, and use it as an excuse for sin. But it is dangerous.
Some time ago a man wrote a letter to a newspaper. He said, "Dear Editor, get some Christian to explain this: I ploughed my field on the Sabbath, I harrowed it on the Sabbath. I planted my potatoes on the Sabbath. I hoed my potatoes on the Sabbath, and I dug my potatoes on the Sabbath, and last May I had the best crop of potatoes I have ever had. Get some Christian to explain that." A couple of days later there was a very short reply in the newspaper. "Dear Mr. Editor, Please tell your potato man that God does not settle all His accounts in May." And that is very true. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, God is longsuffering, therefore the heart of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil. But friends, there is a day of reckoning coming. God says it, and it will come true, and it is a terrible thing to face it without God.
When I was in America I read there of a woman who plotted with another man and they murdered her husband, and she and the other man were sentenced to the electric chair. Over there in America they can have reporters in there to witness the execution and they said when they led that woman into the room and she saw the electric chair, she screamed and tore her hair and screamed, "My mother, my mother, Oh! my God, this is terrible." That is the horror friends, of dying without God. Having quenched the Spirit of God.
There is something else we can do against the Spirit of God. We can rebel against Him. You turn over here to Isaiah 63:8, " Surely they are My people, children that will not lie: so He was their Savior." That is wonderful. Here are a people friends, who had found Christ as their Savior.
"In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them." They were a saved people. "In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them."
Here was a people friends, who started on the way of life, but they came to the place in the Commandments of God, where they were not willing to follow and they began to fight against it until God had to turn against them.
And how do people rebel? I took a concordance once and I went through the question of rebellion in the Bible, and I think in every case you find they were rebelling against the commandments of God. And there's a lot of professed Christians talking about being saved, but when the commandments of God come along they begin to fight them. Have you ever met any? You meet them everywhere you go, for the commandments of God, friends, are very, very unpopular today, and so we wouldn't be taken by surprise God gave it to us right here in His Word. He told us of the conditions that would exist down here in the last days.
I read from Isaiah 30:9, "That this is a rebellious people, lying children (you see they professed to be children of God, but God says they are lying children) children that will not hear the law of the Lord." They profess to be children of God, but they are lying children. God says, they won’t hear the law of God.
You know I have had people come along to my meetings and they have said, "As long as Mr. Burnside preaches on the prophecies, and preaches about heaven and those things, I am coming along. Let him once mention the Law and I will come no more, and they don't.
And I have noticed it. People will come along and they will toss all kinds of bouquets at you. I have had them take my hand and say, "Oh Brother Burnside, this is wonderful , we have never heard anything like it, just keep right along." I am a right good fellow until one night I preach on the Ten Commandments, and if I put a machine gun in the audience it wouldn't shoot them out quicker. They are gone.
What does God say? That in the last days this is a rebellious people, lying children. Oh yes, they are talking about being children of God.
They are talking about being saved, but God says they are lying children, children who will not hear the law of the Lord.
Is it true? Tragically true. And in these days when God is sending His last mighty message to the world to call people back to the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, a lot of people hear it, they get convicted, and then they begin to fight against the Commandments and the Law of God, in fact some people come along to me and they say, "Well Mr. Burnside, I am going to pray about it." I say, "That is very, very dangerous. You are going to get down on your knees and ask God if He means what He says, is that it? If you want to commit the unpardonable sin that is just about the way to do it, for it is very nearly blasphemy to get down and ask God if He means what He says! For friends, God means exactly what He says, and God doesn't exaggerate. He says exactly what He means and He says it in very, very plain language. What you and I ought to pray for friends, is strength to do what God asks not to ask whether He means it or not.
If you want a prayer here is a very good one. Turn over to Psalm 19:12, "Who can understand his errors?" Paul said didn't understand errors or what sin was until he looked at law and it revealed sin to him. "Who can understand his errors, cleanse me from secret faults." That is a good prayer to pray. “Keep back your servant from presumptuous sins.” Presumptuous sin is sinning willfully. When you know you are sinning deliberately and do it in defiance of God, it will make the as hard as stone.
You know over there in Colorado there are springs and you take little fish that are living and drop them in and in a little while they are solid stone. It will turn to stone anything that goes there. That is what sin does to the heart, it makes it hard. And so David prayed, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be upright, and I shall he innocent from the great transgression." That is the unpardonable sin, for presumptuous willful sin is what hardens the heart and finally leads people to the place where the Spirit of God can do no more for the and they have committed the unpardonable sin.
And God is sending His message that is very, very plain and clear. But some people come along and they say, "Well Mr. Burnside, I am going to take a chance." I say, "What are you going to take a chance at?" "Well, I am going to go right along breaking the commandments and I am going to take chance at getting to heaven." I say, "Friend, you are not taking any chance at all. If you go down the street and you get hold of a 10,000 volt wire when the power is going through, are you taking a chance? Not a bit.
God has told us just as plainly as human language can read "Sin is the transgression of the law," and "the wages of is death." There is no chance about it.
Keep on deliberately breaking any of the Ten Commandments and you are taking chance at all, it is death as sure as you are alive.
And as this mighty message is sweeping around the world some people begin to fight it. It is the last message too. And they keep on fighting it and fighting it until they come to the place where they believe they are right and they are quite convinced they are right, and then they are very, very thankful they had nothing to do with the commandments of God. You know the Bible repeatedly says, "There is a way that seems right unto a man but the end thereof is the way of death." For transgression of the law will end a man just there.
People say to me, "Do you think that a person will be lost over just one thing like the Sabbath? Would God shut a man out of heaven for just one thing?"
While you are thinking about that, first let me read you a text in Mark, and here we have a young man who was very earnest. He came to Jesus and he asked a very important question. Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
I want you to notice. Jesus told him about the commandments (Mark 10:19) and the young man said, “I have kept alI those things."
Verse 21. "Then Jesus beholding him loved him and said unto him, one thing thou lacks." How many? One. You know a man is along way along the road when he only lacks one thing, but he wasn’t willing to take that step. He turned back and he was lost. One thing shut him out of the land of glory.
I believe friends, if that young man had only responded to the call of God, that probably Christ had great things in store for him. He might have taken the place of the apostle Paul and been a great missionary to the Gentiles - l don't know, but I believe He had great things in store for that young man. I believe tonight, friends, that God has great things in store for you.
You know when I heard this truth first, it seemed as though a man was asked to give up everything, in fact, honestly, if they had asked me to put my back to the wall and get shot it would have seemed easier. It seemed as though I was giving up everything, but when I look back friends, I find that I gave up nothing and I got everything. And honestly, friends, I can testify tonight, that our God has done exceedingly abundantly more for me than my wildest dreams could have thought possible, and God is no respector of persons. God has great things ahead for you if you will be willing to go all the way with Him. Perhaps tonight friends, Jesus is pointing to one thing in your life. I don't know what it is and I don't need to know, but you know, and the Lord knows.
I am turning over now to James 2:10, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all." Tell me friends, how many leaks in a ship does it take to sink it? Only one. You only need one break in a chain and it will let you down. Only one cancer is sufficient to kill a person, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all."
The next verse and margin says," . . . for that law which says, Do not commit adultery, said al so, do not kill." What law is that? That is the Ten Commandments.
"Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." And here is the advice, "So speak you, and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." You and I friends, are going to be judged by the Ten Commandments, the only words in the Bible that God Himself wrote.
They are the foundation of the whole thing and you and I are going to face them on the day of judgment. And He said, "if you keep them all but you break one you are done."
D. L. Moody said, "it is just as if you were hanging over hell on a chain of ten links. How many links need to break to let you down? Only one. Break one and that is sufficient.
I only need to shoot one man and they will arrest me. I could say, "But I don't drive my motorcar any more than thirty miles 15 per hour, I always drive with headlights, and I keep the marriage laws and the health laws and all the other laws," but they put me in just the same don't they?
And God says here, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty."
People say, “Well I know I ought to keep the Sabbath but I can't make a living, it would cut right across me." Perhaps the young man who came running to Jesus thought that he was going to lose out financially. But I tell you friends, God had great things in store for that young man if he had only followed. And God has great things in store for you. He loves you and the Holy Spirit loves you and wants to guide you along a wonderful path that will lead right through those pearly gates into the land of eternal rest. Oh, won't you let Him? Don't fight against the Spirit of God for it is a fearful thing, friends, to commit the unpardonable sin.
People who have committed the unpardonable sin usually think they are all right and they think they are quite safe and what is more, they expect to go to heaven, and many of them are quite confident about going to heaven, and even boast that they are going to heaven. But they are lost. In fact some of them even become preachers and they talk about going to heaven, but they are not.
Let me read to you the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone that said unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of My Father which is in heaven." And that is Jesus speaking, the One who is going to judge you. And friends, whether you believe it or whether you don't, it will come true. "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?" They have been preachers, and Jesus doesn't deny it.
I saw a young man in agony in regard to the Sabbath truth. He said it was right, but he turned it down, and he has been preaching against it ever since. He is a bitter opponent of it today, but he once was under terrible conviction about it and said it was truth, but it was a bit too difficult. "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?" And Jesus will say, "I say unto you, I never knew you: depart from me you workers of iniquity." Lawlessness, breaking the law, you see friends, every time you say "no" to God, it makes it easier.
I was over there in America some time ago and I read about a young man who was away up there on Lone Peak, probably the highest mountain in North America, and he was up there when a blizzard swept down. I have been back in the Alps when a blizzard came down and believe me, you are in a bad way if you can't get out, you will freeze because it is freezing cold. And if you stop you will just freeze. Well, this young man was up there on Lone Peak, He was surrounded by fog and he didn't know where he was and the snow and sleet were sweeping down. He managed to find a bit of a cave and he crawled in there. There was a bit of brushwood in the cave which he gathered up. He had one or two matches and he struck them but the wind blew them out. Then he got down to the place where he had one match left, and believe me he prayed. He had one match between him and death. He struck it and the scrub burned and his life was saved.
It would be an awful thing friends, if you came to the place where you have got one "no" left between you and your destiny. Don't say "no" to God for every time you say "no" to God it is easier.
A young lady attended our meetings some years ago and was under deep conviction. She was a very worldly young woman and she didn't want to obey God. You see it got right in her road. It cut right across her path. It was the main day of sport and she lived for sport. One day she came into a meeting and the Spirit of God spoke to her heart and she jumped up and hurried out. One of the workers at the door went out with her and hurried after her. And she stopped outside, and she looked up, and she prayed: "Lord, don't speak to me any more about this old Sabbath, stop it." In two weeks' time friends, they conducted her funeral. It is a serious thing to say" no to God.
There was a young man in Australia who attended out meetings. He was a champion surf skier of Australia. He could ride the waves. He was under deep conviction and came to the meetings night by night. He said, "Yes, the Sabbath is right and I am going to keep it, but I have got to ride in November. They have put a lot of money into me and I have got to do it. I know it is right and as soon as that is over I am going to obey God." Well, we told him it was a dangerous thing to keep saying no to God. He said, "No, I am going through with it." He went out to practice on Bar Beach. Later his friends heard a scream and looked out and saw a trail of blood, and when they got him they found he had been bitten in half by a shark. It is a dangerous thing to say no, to God.
I know of another man who heard of this truth and who came to the place where he was under deep conviction and he said, "Alright, I will only work one more Sabbath." He was a miner. He said, I will work one more and I will never work another." And it was true. He went down there and they had to dig him out under a slip, but he was dead. His brother is a preacher in the Advent truth today. Friends, don't say no, to God.
I made an appeal like this in the last meeting I conducted in a city not very long ago, and there was a man who had attended right through. He was sitting down there white faced, and the cold sweat was running down him, but he loved the race track and he said, "I can't keep the Sabbath because that is when the races are on." And he turned it down. The next morning friends, he was biking along to his work and a car went past towing a horse, a race horse on a float. It uncoupled and swung over and he never had time to draw a breath. He was killed instantly. Don't say no, to God.
I am not trying to frighten you tonight, but, friends, I always hesitate and I am afraid that some people will make the same tragic mistake. God loves you, but don't say no, to Him, and tonight I think I ought to make an earnest appeal for those who want to say yes, to God, to come right down here in consecration. Don't you think so? I don't know who you are, and I don't care who you are. But those tonight, who want to say yes, to God, come down and gather right around the altar. We won't have any singing, but come on right down.
There is a young man leading the way. You know nearly every call I make is responded to by young people, and yet people turn around and blame the young people today.
You know friends, if I heard an appeal like that to say yes, to God, I couldn't get down here quick enough. Don't hesitate, what are you waiting on? God will register it.
If God is calling you to consecration tonight, come right down and say, "Yes, Lord, I am going to say yes, to you." You may have been Christians but you realize there is sin in your life, well come right down in consecration.
You may have been backsliders, but if God is speaking to your heart come on right down and say yes, to God. You may be convicted in regard to the Sabbath, and you feel tonight you want to make a public stand. If you can’t get down, well, stand up where you are.
Perhaps friends, you are under conviction in regard to baptism. If God is speaking to your heart, well come right down. You may have been baptized but you want to link up with the great truth of God, and march to the glory I and. Wouldn't you like to come? You may have been Christians, you may have known the Lord for a long time, but tonight you want to draw nearer to Him. Wouldn't you like to come? Don't say no, to God, because I am going to close right now, but if God is speaking to your heart, come on friends. Is there one more before I close for this is the last call.
Prayer: "Our God and Heavenly Father, we thank Thee tonight, for Thy presence here. We know Thou art here Lord, Thou has spoken to our hearts. We thank Thee for Thy love. O Lord, come very, very near and lead us all to Thee, and in this final call in this meeting, come near to us. Thou has wonderfully blessed us in this tent. Night by night Thou has wrought miracles in the lives of people and many have responded. O Lord, grant that none will go away saying no, to Thee. We thank Thee, Lord, for the fast message that is quickly going to the earth. We thank Thee for the thousands all around the world who are stepping out to walk with Thee, in the march to the land of glory. And dear Lord, whilst Thou art calling on others, please don't pass us by, but speak to hearts, Lord. O make their hearts tender. Dear Lord, grant that none will say no, to Thee tonight. Lead them, Lord, to consecrate their hearts to the One who so loves them that He gave Himself for them. Bless them one and all dear Lord. Come preciously near and grant Lord, that souls will be born again into Thy kingdom. Grant it and abundantly bless for Jesus' sake, Amen.