<TITLE>07. Par 8-11</TITLE>L-8 You remember when that first little corn silk cigarette you smoked, standing around behind the--the chimney behind the house, and went and eat some coffee to keep mama from smelling your breath? Mama said, "Have you been smoking?"
"No, mama."
What was the first thing? That conscience says, "Don't do that, little boy, you're lying." But you fought right on past the conscience. "No, mama. I didn't smoke it." There's God's first provided way for you to stop right there; that's a halt light. "Stop. Don't say that. Tell her the truth. If you get a whipping, go ahead and tell the truth about it."

L-9 Then the next thing, you go--you go to church and you hear the hymns sang, the Gospel preached. Something... And the Holy Spirit begins to speak to you. "Come, repent." And you say, "Oh, that... I--I--I--I'm young. I got plenty of time yet. I got this. I've got to do this." See? You're rejecting God's provided way and judging yourself.
Then how can you blame God? You can't. You--you got to blame yourself. There's not a bit of need of anyone going to hell when God has made a provided way of escape. You can't help being a sinner. You can't help that. You was borned a sinner. But you can help staying a sinner. For if you accept Jesus as your--in your place as... He was made sin for you, God's way of escape. Then you don't have to be a sinner. You'll be a Christian and you'll be holy: not your own holiness, but His holiness; not what--what you are but what God has done for you in Christ Jesus. See?
Your own ways... You can quit lying. You can quit stealing. You can quit smoking. That's... don't mean you're saved. No, sir. You're saved because God ordained that you should be saved and called your heart. That's why you're saved. "No man can come to the Father except by... to Me except My Father draws him." And God has made a way of escape now.

L-10 In the days of... and had a provided way for it... Look in the days of Noah. Jesus referred back to it. Back there in the antediluvian world. Let's go back just for a few moments and run ourselves back.
Now, it'd never rained on the earth. The earth set up straight. The reason it leans back this a way today, it's hot and cold air which brings up the vapor and--and that's what makes the clouds and so forth. But to that time it had never rained on the earth. God watered it through springs and so forth in the gardens, the springs beneath it. It'd never rained. There'd never been a cloud in the sky over this earth to that time.
And then God seen the wickedness of men, how that they sinned. And God is holy. He can't stand sin. And He said that He would destroy men. And He told Noah to go preach a message of mercy before Divine judgment came.

L-11 Now, what did they do in that day? They laughed and made fun of Noah. God had a provided way for every mankind to escape if he would take it. But man rejected it. He didn't want that way. And he thought Noah was crazy. I can hear him talking down in the city maybe, down in the--in some of the cities of the--of the day, saying, "Hey, what do you think about that rain story that guy's talking about? It's going to rain water down out of the heavens. Do you ever hear such? I don't see any up there."
But if God said there was going to be some up there, He can put some up there. That's right. God was giving a way of escape. He was making a mercy for the people. And they rejected it. And--and it... Noah preached a hundred and twenty years, trying to get the people to reform, to--not to reform, but to repent, and to come and--and come into the ark.
And all the time he was building the way with an ark. He made it out of a certain class of wood. And he... for the saving of his own household and to those who would come... There was a door in the ark. And how that I can look back there and think now that about the time that Noah had got through preaching and all the people had rejected, they had made fun of him and laughed at him... Do you believe that?


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