Intro. (His relationship to nations)

Welcome and Introduction to the Sermon Series

0:00 I can sincerely say that I count it a great privilege as well as, esteem it, a wonderful joy to be part of this first Mid-America Reformed Baptist Family Conference. And it's quite evident that it is a family conference. It's a joy to look out and see so many of you little ones. And then you guys and gals and kids and everyone else who doesn't want to be considered old like us or kids like the little ones.

0:34 So whatever class you put yourself in between those two categories that are not desirable, the little kids and the old folks, it's a delight to see you as well. And I know that many of you have traveled a very long distance, not all of you with the luxury of air conditioning in your cars. You're tired. Many of you perhaps feel irritable.

0:59 Perhaps even today as you've traveled, there have been nasty words. I hope they've all been confessed to the Lord and to one another. So you sit next to one another as moms and dads and brothers and sisters in a spirit of Christian gentleness and peace. And conscious that the day has been a long day and already it's past or near bedtime.

1:25 For some of you, I've spoken to Pastor Lutz and he has given me permission to adjust what perhaps I had originally planned to do in the ministry of the word tonight. And we will seek to be sensitive in the drawing out of some of the biblical truths relative to the subject assigned to me for this evening, namely God's word to our nation. And I'm confident that it will take at least the 35 minutes. So that I plan to take tonight and I'll try to stick to that time reference, but I make no promises for tomorrow night and I already have permission to extend this ministry through tomorrow night.

2:08 And if God is saying something vital to us, then perhaps it will even spill over into that third evening. But now conscious that we do not listen to the word of God as disembodied spirits, but as those who have bodies and minds. That are susceptible to the weariness of the long day and the rather oppressive heat. Let's ask our father who knows our frame to come with special grace that in these next minutes together, we may hear the voice of God speaking to us from his own infallible word.

2:44 Let us together cry to God with one heart that the Lord himself would speak through his word.

2:53 Holy father. We bow in your presence. Believing you to be the living and the true God, the God whose ear is open to the cry of the righteous, the God who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust and the Lord, we thank you for your promise. You have said those who wait upon you shall renew their strength.

3:19 They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk. And not faint and surely, oh, Lord, if you have put within the hearts of these men and women and boys and girls, a desire to drive some of them many, many miles to come in order to hear the word of God, and if you have gathered us safely in this place, we do not believe that you will leave us bereft of what we need for these next moments that we might profit from your holy word.

3:55 We plead your promise that having spared not your own son, you will with him freely give to us all things. Give us then those things of spiritual illumination, physical quickening, mental alertness, and the energy of mind and heart to receive the word of God with intelligence and with faith. Hear us, Lord, and meet us, we pray. Your beloved son, amen.

Disclaimer: No Direct Revelation or Equation with Israel

4:28 Now the subject announced, God's word for our nation or to our nation. And as we address ourselves to this subject tonight, and God willing, at least tomorrow night, I believe it's essential by way of introduction to do at least two basic things. First of all, I want to make a very clear disclaimer. In taking up the subject, God's word to our nation, it is vital that you understand that I disclaim, first of all, any fanatical statements or intimations that I have received direct revelation from God or any special inspiration from God in the preparation of these messages. Amen. I do not come to you as Jeremiah and Isaiah could come to the nations of Israel and Judah and say, thus saith Jehovah.

5:42 And their redeemed personalities, their mental faculties, their organs of speech, and all of their faculties became the very instrument by which the living God spoke his infallible word to the nation. And I want to make a disclaimer at the outset. To any notion of a fanatical claim to direct revelation or to special inspiration, all of the raw materials of God's word to our nation as I attempt to bring it to you tonight and tomorrow night, those raw materials are contained within the pages of this book. I speak to you as one who believes that all special revelation. Is now contained within the pages of the Old and of the New Testaments. And that as a servant of God, all I need to be thoroughly equipped to bring the word of God to our nation is these divinely inspired scriptures of the Old and the New Testament. For surely this is the clear teaching of 2 Timothy 3 verses 16 and 17.

7:00 However. However, though I make no fanatical claims to direct revelation or special inspiration, if I properly expound and rightly apply this word, it comes to every man, every woman, every boy and every girl in this building, just as much as the word of the living God. As though God were to send. Jeremiah back from the dead and he were to speak to you and to me and say, thus saith the Lord, though we make no fanatical claims to direct revelation, we hold the highest view of the authority of the word of God when rightly expounded and applied to the consciences of men. And then my disclaimer also takes within itself.

8:03 In its perspective, any irresponsible equation between the nation of Israel and the United States of America, many a sincere preacher has preached an earnest sermon on such text as 2 Chronicles 7, 14, assuming a direct equation between the nation of Israel and the nation of America. How many sermons? How many sermons have been preached on that text? If my people and my people is made to refer either to the citizens of the U.S. or to the church, if my people will do this, this and this, I will hear from heaven, I will heal their land. That is the land of America.

8:52 And that's an irresponsible handling of the word of God. There is only one national entity into which God entered by way of special covenant. In all the history of the human race, through the prophet Amos, God could say to the nation of Israel, you only have I known among all the nations of the earth. In Romans 9 and verse 4, when the apostle Paul is delineating the peculiar privileges of the nation of Israel, he says, it is to that nation that God gave his oracles.

9:32 It is with that nation. It is with that nation that God made his covenants. It is with that nation alone that God entered into this peculiar covenantal relationship. And therefore, I want to avoid at all costs that irresponsible equation between America and the nation of Israel.

Biblical Justification for Preaching on 'God's Word to Our Nation'

9:56 So that's my disclaimer. But now, secondly, and more expansively, in our introduction to this subject, God's word to our nation, I want to give a biblical justification for preaching on such a subject. You see, the very title, God's word to our nation, assumes an awful lot. It assumes that God sustains an intimate and present relationship to the nations of the earth, including our nation.

10:32 Thank you. We have disclaimed that he has entered into any special covenant with our nation. To take up the subject, God's word to our nation, assumes that God does have a relationship to our nation. Furthermore, I'm not speaking to the nation.

10:51 I'm speaking to you. A conference gathered here in Bluffton, Ohio. And yet to speak on this subject, unless we would say that the organizers were plotting and planning, the essence of irrelevance, God's word to our nation must have something to say to this little handful of the nation. And that assumes, you see, a solidarity between us as individuals and our nation as an entire nation.

11:25 And what I propose to do in the time that remains tonight is to set before you, by way of introduction, a biblical, a biblical justification for addressing such a subject. And first of all, we need to understand the subjugation of the nations to the sovereign rule of God. We will never be prepared to receive God's word to our nation, unless we are utterly and intelligently convinced from the scriptures of the subjugation of the nations to the sovereign rule of God. Or, more simply stated, God's rule over the nations.

The Subjugation of Nations to God's Sovereign Rule

12:10 Now this truth is taught with such fullness in the Old and the New Testaments that one feels an embarrassment of riches in trying to pick out several key texts which state it unequivocally. But perhaps none is clearer than that very graphic incident recorded in the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel. You will remember, I trust, that the Book of Daniel finds its setting in the heathen kingdom of Babylon. If you have your Bibles, and I imagine, coming to a Bible conference you have brought them, turn, please, to the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel.

12:56 The great world power in existence at the time of Daniel was the Kingdom of Babylon. And at the head of Babylon was a man named Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar. And in the course of the outworking of his kingdom, God gave to Nebuchadnezzar an unusual dream. And he called all of the wise men of his kingdom and told them his dream and said, please interpret for me this dream. And they were unable to do so. And so he calls in Daniel, having heard of his reputation in such matters. And Daniel is then called in to interpret this dream that Nebuchadnezzar recounts to him. But now the point that is so relevant for our study these nights is first of all found in Nebuchadnezzar's account of the dream, Daniel's interpretation of the dream, and then in the fulfillment of the dream. And you will see that there is one fundamental focal point of this entire incident. In the dream itself, we read,

14:05 read verse 17 of chapter 4 in Daniel, the sentence is by the decree of the watchers and the demand by the word of the holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomsoever he will and sets up over it the lowest of men. This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, have seen. And there is, as it were, one self-interpreting element of the dream. Nebuchadnezzar is informed in his dream that the purpose of whatever will come to pass as symbolized in the dream is that the living may know one simple fact. And remember, this is the living. Not only in Israel, but the living in this heathen world power of Babylon. That the living may know that it is Jehovah God who rules over the nations of men and gives the kingdom not to the wisest, not to the most mighty, not to the most clever, but he gives it to whomsoever he will and he even sets up the lowest of men over it. And then Daniel says

15:31 this. Daniel begins to give the interpretation, beginning in verse 19, and he tells him what will happen. That the vision or the dream of a tree that is cut down and a stump alone is left and then it later blossoms forth is a prophecy of this strange dealings of God with this man, Nebuchadnezzar. He will become like a beast of the field. He will become like an animal and will eat grass and his body will be wet with the dew of heaven. And then he says that the living will learn a very simple lesson. Notice now, further in chapter 4 and verse 25. Thou shall be driven from men. Thy dwelling shall be with the beast

16:16 of the field, and thou shall be made to eat grass as oxen and shall be wet with the dew of heaven. And seven times will pass over you till you know that the most high ruler

16:31 in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomsoever he will and so the interpretation underscores the one element that was as it were self-interpreting in the dream itself and then it does come to pass that king nebuchadnezzar is made as a beast eats the grass as oxen his dew his body is wet with the dew of heaven and now we read in verse 34 and at the end of the days i nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven and my understanding returned unto me and i blessed the most high and praised and honored him that lives forever for his dominion is an everlasting dominion his kingdom from generation to generation and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as a kingdom of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as a kingdom of heaven nothing and he does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him what are you doing and so god taught this lesson in such an unusual way to this man who was the highest leader on earth at that time he taught

17:55 him this great lesson that all of the nations whether they acknowledge the presence of jehovah or not all of the nations are in subjugation to the sovereign rule of almighty god job understood this and gave vivid expression to it in the 12th chapter of the book of job turn there for a moment if you will please for the description job gives of the government of god personification and destruction of sixteenth century as a contrary to bas심But whenakov finally gets to the end of his day and tells that he is in a state of exorbitance that he has to set him free from his guilt and his Bever Pol maybe technically he has a personal woes the father of all fools maja in the death thatuitive tren top��isin death false pattern outrageous a wilderness where there is no way like a man lost in the woods who walks around and round in circles and cannot find the path by which to exit from the woods when you see national leaders filled

19:13 confusion it is almighty god who causes them to wander as in a wilderness where there is no way that's the statement of job then listen to what he says they grope in the dark without light and he makes them to stagger like a drunken man and when the leaders of the earth have no more power to sort out the problems of their nations than a drunk man to sort out the complex problems of an intricate mechanized system in a family factory but merely stumbles and staggers left and right job says god has been at work to cause them to stagger like drunk man his sovereign rule over the nations and when we turn to the new testament we find the wonderful truth that that sovereign rule is now deposited in the pierced hands of the exalted enthroned son of god who said before he commissioned his own all authority all right and power to rule and govern has been deposited

20:35 with me in heaven and upon the earth where principalities and powers operate where kings sit and rule where presidents meet in the oval room where the great ones the earth gather in their council chambers all authority in earth has been delivered unto me and in ephesians 1 verses 20 through 23 the apostle as it were expounds the statement of our lord when speaking of the measure of the power of god he says it is the power which was wrought in christ when god raised him from the dead and seated him in his own right hand far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but in that which is to come and he hath put all things under his feet and has given him to be head over all things to his church which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. If the scriptures teach anything,

21:57 they teach the subjugation of the nations to the sovereign rule of Almighty God. Without that conviction, I would have no rationale to address you on the subject, God's word to our nation. If the fate of the nations is left to the wisdom and the scheming and the power of men, good or evil, if it is simply left to the forces of blind faith, then there is no word to bring to the nations. But if Almighty God rules over the nations, if Almighty

The Accountability of Nations to God's Just Judgment

22:45 God is good and evil, then indeed there is hope that there is a word from this God to the nations whom he governs. But then in the second place, a biblical justification for this subject involves our thinking at least briefly on this fact, the accountability of the nations to the just judgment of God. Not only the subjugations of the nations to the rule of God, but the accountability. The ability of the nations to the just judgment of God, or more simply stated, God's judgment of the nations. He not only rules the nations, he sits as judge over the nations. And here again, the scriptures are full of teaching in the Old and the New Testaments. Suffice it to say that a passage such as Romans chapter 118 through the end of chapter or the middle of chapter 3 clearly teaches.

23:46 That all of the nations, whether they have ever received special revelation in terms of the scriptures of the Old or and New Testament, or whether they have merely the revelation of God without in the heavens that declare his glory, the revelation of himself within in their own moral consciousness, Romans 2, 14 and 15, that passage clearly establishes that all of the nations, not just the covenant nation, all of the nations are accountable to the just judgment of Almighty God. This is why the Psalmist could say in Psalm 9 and verse 17, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all that forget God. Whether they forget him as we have in Romans 1, 18 and following through the book of Romans, or whether they do that in Romans 3 by saying, I'm not going to make the ecclesiastics forget this angel of God, or whether they do that in the end of chapter 2 or to say, I don't want the messiah and the prophet's in general revelation, but rather the idol, he's telling the evangelical people here not to forget God. Or whether it is the forgetfulness that comes after exposure to special revelation. All

25:06 of the nations are accountable to the just judgment of Almighty God. And perhaps the most graphic illustration of this in the Old Testament pertains to God's word to Abraham. with respect to the prophecy that the nation that would be formed through Abraham would go down into Egypt and there for 400 years would suffer oppression and opposition. One of the great reasons for which the nation was to wait that long time before being called out in the deliverance through Moses is this.

25:44 I read now from Genesis 18.

25:48 I'm sorry, Genesis chapter 15.

25:54 And verse 16. And in the fourth generation they shall come hither again full. The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.

26:08 It's as though God anticipates the question of Abraham. Oh my God, why should my people have to wait 400 years before coming out of a state of oppression? And God says one of the reasons is this. The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

26:31 The Amorites were not a covenant nation. They were a pagan nation. And yet God was taking account of all of their sins. And as it were, God says the scales are not yet full.

26:44 But when the scales are full and are kicked in the direction of my judicial judgment, then I will bring forth the nation that comes from your loins, Abraham. And then I will bring forth the nation that comes from your loins, Abraham. And then I will bring forth the nation that comes from your loins, Abraham. And then I will bring forth the nation that comes from your loins, Abraham.

26:56 And then I will bring forth the nation that comes from your loins, Abraham. And then I will bring forth the nation that comes from your loins, Abraham. And then I will bring forth the nation that comes from your loins, Abraham. I will bring the men to dispossess the heathen lands.

27:00 As we shall see in the subsequent message, God uses what we would call very coarse language. Why were the Canaanites driven out by the Israelites? Well, you say to fulfill the promise of God, and that's true. But it was also to be the executors of the judgment of God.

27:21 For in Leviticus we read chapter 18, verses 24 to 28, It is for the abominations of the lands of Canaan that the land vomited them out. It became God's feather to tickle the throat of the nations there in Canaan. Because God said, For which they are accountable to me, who have such an aggravated nature that the land vomited out entire nations. Those nations that had never heard the ten words of Moses, those nations that did not know a word of Mosaic legislation, they were answerable to the law of all. When they defiled themselves in every form of idolatry, every form of sexual perversion, when they indulged themselves in every form of the account in astrology, in Deuteronomy 18 and 19, God said, For this reason I cast out those nations that were before you. We must understand the accountability of the nations to the judgment of Almighty God.

28:41 If that's true, then God does have a word for our nation. For you see, God does not await for a decision of the Supreme Court to hold the United States of America accountable to himself. God does not sit with hands folded and speak from heaven and say, God does not sit with hands folded and speak from heaven and say, God does not sit with hands folded and speak from heaven and say, As you are so committed to the principle of separation of church and state, which you have now interpreted to mean the utter godlessness of the state, I will await a decision from the Supreme Court as to whether or not the nation is accountable to me. No one is accountable to the contrary.

29:37 Let the... Because the scripture tells us, Almighty God is judge of the nations.

The Responsibility of Nations to Hear God's Word

30:05 And then thirdly, a biblical justification for such a subject, God's word to our nation, involves not only an acknowledgement of the subjugation of the nations to the sovereign rule of God, the accountability of the nations to the just judgment of God, but oh, hear me, it also involves the responsibility of the nations to hear the word of God. God has a right to address his subjects in all the earth. And again, how many times this is illustrated in the scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. I said earlier in my disclaimer, we do not equate America with Israel, but it was to an Israelite prophet that God spoke, Jeremiah. And he said in Jeremiah 1.5, I have appointed you, I have appointed you, a prophet, not just to Judah,

31:14 but to the nations. And Jeremiah had the temerity to stand in the covenant nation and hurl the word of God into the conscience of non-covenant nations. He speaks to Babylon and pronounces the forthcoming judgment of God upon that very nation, that heathen, pagan, non-covenanted nation, and God says, I reserve the right to address the nations. When the synod Nineveh cried out to God, God said to a prophet, go, go to Nineveh and cry unto that city forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. God didn't send a telegram from heaven and say, now you Ninevites, I realize that I've made no special covenant engagements with you, and therefore I would not intrude upon your civility. and mix up things that differ. Would you give me the permission to send you a prophet?

32:16 God had to whip his prophet to do what he told him. God had to whip his prophet until he stood upon those shores, and he'd made no apologies. He said, forty days, Nineveh shall be overthrown. And if anyone had the temerity to say, who in the world are you coming to our shores?

32:34 You're not one of our national prophets. You're not one of our priests. That prophet had one answer. I'm a man back from the dead.

32:48 A thick-headed, stubborn prophet, and God had to get me to your shores by way of the belly of a whale. And I'm here because Jehovah, God of the nations, has sent me here. And the teaching of the prophets is beautifully summarized by Isaiah. And I say it's only a summary, for it's found in Amos, it's found in Hosea, it's found in Ezekiel again and again.

33:15 God addresses his word. These people matter most to the nations. But oh, there is this sweeping, eloquent, impassioned cry from the lips of Isaiah in chapter 34. Come near, ye nations.

33:31 Come near ye nations to hear. Harken, ye peoples. Let the earth hear, and the fullness thereof the world, and all things that come forth from it, and find their return. for the Lord has indignation against all the nations and wrath against all their hosts.

33:57 Do you feel something of the urgency of the prophet? Something of the burning, yearning of his heart that the nations would hear whether they acknowledge it or not? They are under the rule of the principle to the judgment of God and it is their wisdom to hear what God the Lord will say to them. You and I must understand that though we are not Israel, God has a right to address us as a nation for that has always been his right to address any of the nations of the earth with his own holy and infallible word.

The Biblical Doctrine of Solidarity and National Sin

34:36 But not only does a justification of this theme demand at least that threefold understanding of what God the Lord will say to them, but what is really, I've given you in a nutshell, a theology of God's relationship to the nations that you must understand, and this is the final point I'll make in this introductory meditation, you must understand something of the biblical doctrine of our solidarity as part of the nation. Now what do I mean by that big word? Simply this. We Americans love our individual liberty.

35:11 Some of us have traveled in other parts of the world, never seen the world, and I used to be amazed how the nation that can send men into orbit and send men to the moon and accomplish so many marvelous things in the realm of technology can't create a decent mass transportation system. One goes to England, one goes to Europe, and can go almost anywhere on clean, safe, reliable, functional, on-time public means of transportation, but not in our country. country. You know what one of the fundamental reasons is? We're such a stubborn, stinking, individualistic people. We want to catch not the 822, but if we want to go out the door at 823, free on the train, I'll hop in my set of wheels. Though the Arabs can get me by the tail and squeeze, it doesn't matter. We're a crassly individualistic people. We're

36:11 free from nothing unless we can vote about it. And there's an element in that that's good. But ah, listen, listen. God does not deal just with individuals, though he does deal with individuals. You were born as an individual, you'll die as an individual, you'll go to judgment as an individual. But God deals in solidarity. That is, he deals with men in ordained groups of men. One man's actions affect men. One man's actions affect men. One man's actions affect men. One man's actions affect men. One man's actions affect many. And he did this from the very beginning. Romans 5, 12. Wherefore, as through one man, sin entered into the world, and death passed upon all men, for that all, when did the all sin, all sin in Adam? Wait a minute. I never saw that on a referendum. I went into the voting booth, closed it, and voted that I'd like Adam to represent me. No, you didn't,

37:12 my friend. All righty, go. God made the choice, and there's nothing you can do about it. But you say, I don't like it. It doesn't seem fair. Why should Adam's partaking of the fruit be a count in my sin? My friend, put your hand upon your mouth. Don't you dare cavil with Almighty God. Facts are stubborn things, and it's a fact that in the one man, the whole human race fell. As in Adam, all. 1 Corinthians 15, 22.

37:46 God deals, you see, in solidarity. The human race was being dealt with in Adam, and throughout the scriptures, God deals with families, and often the sin of the head of the family passes on by way of judgment to the entire household. And we see God dealing with nations in which righteous men suffer with the wicked. We see also wicked men being blessed because of one righteous man. In our family, we see God dealing with the wicked. We see God dealing with the wicked. God deals with something that the wicked who disobeyed was being blessed by the wicked. You see, in America we do not have the establisher Circle. I bring the pandemic, I did not allowside the donkey, and he 편ted out the designing of my archive, and I try lined, and I tried,"Wow, You make the journey was be a question about Him, God comes to minded, all sorts of things, and you know something about you because I'm very generated.

38:50 Number four. 12. Joseph's sin. Now, why do I say that? Oh, follow, though I know the hour is late, but we must grasp this or all the rest that is said will fall, if not upon deaf ears, ears not sensitized to receive the full impression. Follow me now. We're going to consider God's word to our nation, and much of it will be a word of rebuke and denunciation for the aggravated sins of our nation. But you say, Pastor Martin, you don't mean to infer that the majority of us, or even a few of us, are presently willfully indulging in the sins of our nation, do you? Well, I certainly hope not. But may I remind

39:37 you of the three great national penitential prayers in the Old Testament. Ezra 9, 9, Nehemiah 9, and Daniel 9. Three holy men, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel, when they go before God to pray, and they confess the sins of the nation, they don't pray, oh, have mercy upon them, for they have done wickedly, and they have sinned, and they have forsaken thy commandments. Read those prayers. Ezra says, Oh, Lord, I am ashamed.

40:15 I blush, and I cannot look up. We have forsaken thy commandments. We have not kept thy laws. He understood the principle of solidarity. He stood as a member of the nation that had departed from God, and is surely, as every individual receives the blessing when it comes in solidarity, when God has made the nation of Israel through the reign of a righteous king. Many unrighteous people were participants of that blessing because of the principle of solidarity. And when you remember the instance of Achan, when one man sinned, one man sinned, 3,000 Israelites lost their lives at Ai. The whole nation was brought to an impasse through the sin of one man. Why? Because of the principle

41:17 of solidarity. Dear people, you and I are part of this nation. Through no choice of our own, and in many cases, through very little effort of our own, we have reaped the great mountain of blessing that has come to us because we are members of this nation. And we cannot be recipients of its blessings in solidarity because of the vision, the prayer, and the blood that was shed to maintain our liberties by men in the past. But when it comes to accepting responsibility for the sins, opt out of solidarity into class individualism, and say, well, they're not my sins, they're not my declensions, they're not my apostasies. We cannot do it. It is unscriptural. It is irresponsible. It is nothing short of wicked.

42:19 For I remind you, in closing tonight, that when God was about to bring judgment upon his ancient people, you have that very unusual incident in Ezekiel 9, in which the man with the inkhorn was commanded to go through the city, and he was to put a mark upon the godly remnant, those who were true Israelites within the nation of Israel. And do you know how they're described? He said, put a mark upon all those who have sinned. Say, and who cry for the abominations that are done in the land. Not only were they different from the rest of their fellow countrymen, by non-participation, non-conformity, not only were they different by turning away from the patterns of ungodliness and placing their faces and feet and heart in the way of true fidelity to Jehovah, But they were conscious, even walking in a path of righteousness, they were part of a nation in solidarity, a nation that had grievously sinned. And they sighed and they cried for the abominations done in the land.

43:41 We will never feel the weight of God's word to our country in this conference unless we're prepared for the spiritual pain of making the sins of this nation our sins. And feeling our identification with a nation whose sins cry up to the God of heaven. And may I say it reverently, tax his long suffering and patience. As perhaps they have never been taxed in the history of non-covenant nations.

44:20 And if there is any hope, it will be when people like yourselves, who long to please God, are prepared for the spiritual pain and agony of identifying yourself with this sinful, this iniquitous, this apostate nation. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Concluding Text and Prayer for Identification

44:46 And sighing and crying to the God of heaven, not that you will be preserved or a fluid lifestyle, not that there will be an inventment and expansion, but if it must be at the price of being stripped of all of it, we shall be brought into a way of righteousness that will avert the total judgment of Almighty God. What is God's word to our nation? I believe it is epitomized in that text familiar to many of you. I leave it with you to meditate upon and pray over in preparation for tomorrow night. Proverbs 13, 14, 34. Righteousness exalts the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

45:50 God's word to our nation. You'll never be convinced there is such a word unless you're convinced of his rule over the nation. His judgment of the nations, his right to address the nations, and unless you're convinced, you are in solidarity with the nation. May we reflect upon these things and come prayerful and expectant, believing God to speak to our hearts.

46:19 Let us pray. Our Father, we would bow before you, the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. We would with every fiber of our being. We would with every fiber of our being.

46:36 We would with every fiber of our being. Cry out, speak, Lord, for your servants here. Take from us all stiff-neckedness, all hardness of heart. Circumcise our ears.

46:53 Circumcise our hearts. And, O God, speak to us a word that will have a profound influence upon us and through us, upon our nation. Thank you and welcome us to it. Hear us and meet with us in these days to come..

47:12 May a peculiar unction of the spirit rest upon all of your dear servants who have ministered to us. Bless every person here tonight, give everyone a good night of rest. Help the little ones as they go to strange beds and in strange surroundings. May they sleep well, their parents may rest well,chte and come refreshed and receive maximum profit together tomorrow if you spare us and bring us together hear our cry and receive the Thanksgiving of our hearts for your mercy and bringing us together through Jesus Christ our Lord amen