And there's one more point I want to get to because I'm almost out of time here.
Verse 15, "And the children of Israel said to the Lord, 'We've sinned.
Do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee, deliver us only we pray thee this day.'
And they put away the strange gods from among them and served the Lord."
And look at this statement at the end of verse 16, "And his soul," this is God's soul, "was
grieved for the misery of Israel."
Now I'm going to give you one final profound truth here and I don't want you to miss this.
Just because I'm only throwing it at the very end of the sermon doesn't mean it's not
important because this is actually possibly the most important thing that I tell you tonight.
It's very important.
I want you to get this.
Is that there are many times in the Bible where God tells people, "You're doomed.
You're done."
Here He even said, "I'm not going to deliver you anymore."
But yet when those people repent and get right with God, He still backs off and He still
takes them back anyway.
Are there examples like that in the Bible?
First of all, this is one of them.
He's like, "I'm not going to deliver you anymore."
And then they're like, "Okay, but you know what?
We're just going to get right with God anyway.
Do whatever seems good.
Do whatever seems good with us, God.
Even if you're not going to deliver us, we're sorry anyway."
And they get right with God anyway.
And then, you know what?
He delivers them.
What about Jonah?
I mean, Jonah preached and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
He didn't say, "Unless you guys do X, Y, and Z."
Did He even tell them anything to do?
It's not recorded in scripture.
It just says, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
In fact, Jonah thought there was no hope.
I mean, did Jonah see any hope there?
No, he's just like, "You guys are doomed.
See ya suckas."
He preached and then he just set up a little booth so that he could watch the carnage.
He had his popcorn and he was ready to watch Nineveh be Sodom and Gomorrah Part 2.
And he got mad when it didn't get destroyed.
So you think that he was giving a bunch of hope to people?
You think it was like, isn't that Joel Osteen things like the Night of Hope?
Who knows what I'm talking about?
What's it called?
Yeah, Joel Osteen, you know it's like 49.95 with Ticketmaster or something?
But you know, Night of Hope with Joel and Victoria Osteen.
Okay, this was not Jonah's Night of Hope.
When Jonah showed up, he didn't offer any hope.
He just preached, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
But when the men of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed to fast, you know what?
God spared Nineveh.
What about when he tells Hezekiah, "Get your house in order.
You're going to die."
Hezekiah cries and he prays and God gives him 15 more years of life.
God is merciful.
And I love it when the Bible asks this question because it asks this question a few times.
Who knoweth if the Lord will repent of the evil that he said he would do?
Who knoweth if the Lord will be merciful?
That's why when God told David, "Your child will die, David."
You know what, David didn't just go, "Well, that's it, my child's going to die."
He still prayed for seven days because he said, "Who knows?
God's merciful.
Sometimes he backs off on these things."
And until the child was actually dead, he kept on making supplication to God.
Because even when God says, "Your child's going to die," you know, you can still sometimes
change God's mind by making supplication and praying.
So we see it with Jonah.
We see David's mentality.
We see it with Hezekiah.
We see it right here.
I mean, it's all throughout scripture.
And this is why it's very foolish of you ever to get to a point where you feel like, "Well,
you know, it's too late to get right with God.
I'm sunk.
It's over."
Folks, if someone tells you it's too late for you to get right with God, you're done,
you're doomed.
Get right with God anyway just in case, you know what I'm saying?
Because you don't know.
And sometimes you might just feel like, "Man, I've messed up my life so bad that my life
is going to go down the tubes.
There's no way God's going to forgive me for all this.
There's no way I can get it back on track, there's no way I can get off these drugs,
there's no way that I can fix my marriage, there's no way I can fix my life.
You know what?
It's never too late to at least try and get right with God.
Even if God himself, I don't care, if God himself walked up to me and said, "I'm done
with you, I'm not going to help you, you're on your own Pastor Anderson."
You know what?
I would still keep trusting in God, I would still keep asking, I would still keep praying,
I would still keep trying, I'd figure out what made him so mad and I'd fix it.
Even if he just said, "Don't even bother trying to fix it, don't even bother, you're doomed."
I'd just be like, "Well I'm going to try anyway."
Because look, that's what people do all throughout the Bible.
But yeah, you see children giving up on pleasing their parents, "Oh my parents aren't going
to be happy no matter what I do," baloney.
Get right with God, get right with your parents and fix things.
You see Christians giving up on God, giving up on church, children giving up on their
parents, being pleased with them.
Look, you need to realize that even when things look hopeless, you should always repent.
Should always try to make things right and get right with God no matter what.
Even if an angel from heaven told you, "Just your host," I would pray, I would get on
my knees and say, "God, please let me be not toast."
And you know what?
There's a pretty good chance God would answer my prayer if my heart was right.
He searches the reigns in the heart and he would know if I'm sincere about my repentance
or not.
And you know what?
God is very merciful.
His mercies are new every morning.
And when you truly repent, even when he talks this big talk of, "I'm not going to deliver
you anymore," he still delivered them again because they actually got right.
They actually cried out to him.
He just wanted a deeper level of repentance because it was getting old.
The superficial repentance was getting old, so he wanted it to be a deeper turnaround
this time.
And so I hope that encourages you.
I mean, it's very important because so many people, I'm telling you, they go out and they
commit a sin and then they just think, "Oh, I give up."
Folks, you always can come back.
It's always worth a shot to get things right and because look, God is not going to be angry
forever.
He is one who forgives all the time.
And so you don't want to ever fall into that trap.
Always realize that even when it seems like there's no hope, getting right with God always
makes sense to do and you'll always be better off getting right with God.
And getting the sin out of your life and it's never too late to get back in church, get
out, you know, maybe you haven't been soul-winning in years, get back out there and do some soul-winning.
Why not?
You know, why not crack open that Bible you haven't been reading and start reading it?
You know, why don't you get on your knees and pray for the first time in months or years
or whatever.
You know, just, "Well, it's too late for me.
I'm old."
Until you're dead, it's not too late for you.
And so don't give up.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.