<TITLE>04. Par 15-19</TITLE>L-15 Now, this king, there was a way provided for him to find out from the Lord, but he refused to do it. And then God took His provided way, which was His prophet. And maybe the king didn't even consider this whiskered, bald-headed fellow that was not very well-thought-of amongst the people. His message was always condemning, and biting, and shoving, and--the people around, because he couldn't do nothing else. He was a prophet.
The Word of the Lord comes to the prophet, and the prophet has to stand on the Word. And when the Word is not obeyed, there's nothing to do but rebuke. That's all. So this fellow didn't mean to be bad. He just had to do it, because he was not governed by his own thoughts, he was governed by the Spirit of God. And that's the way we all should be, governed by the Spirit of God. And if we are, then we see sin, it makes us sick. There's something about it. It even grieved God's heart one time He ever made a man, because sin was so awful in the earth.

L-16 Now. So he asked... God had a way for him to know it, but he didn't take that way. He took the most popular way that there was among the people. And I--I hate to say this, but we're always seeing slogans "America Back to God," "Back to God Hour," and things like that. But the thing of it is, they want to come back the way that man has achieved for them to come back. They want to come back in their own way of thinking, their own way of doing. And usually it's contrary from God's way of returning. And then, when they turn down God's provided way for them to return, then they... God asks them "Why? Why did you do it that way?"

L-17 Now, like we call a--a time now... Used to be the presidents would say, "We'll call a--a fifteen minutes of prayer." All the machinery stopped. That'll never do it. It's got to take a breaking up. It's got to take a dying out. It's got to take a regeneration. It don't take a hour of prayer; it takes until you come back. It--it's a bringing back, coming back to the facts of faith, and coming back to not even... That it's not something that you imagine, or a declaration of creeds, or--or some through--through some instrumentality of man, but it's through knowing Christ Himself. Know Him, not even the Word. He... If you know Him, you know the Word, because He is the Word. Then you've got to come back to that reality.

L-18 God wants to manifest Himself through His people, and the church wants to manifest itself to the people: more numbers, bigger crowds, richer people, so forth like that, better dressed. That's what's got us in the chaos we're in.
It'd be better off if we all wore sackcloth. It'd be better off if we didn't have a job, be going to one another's house, and--and seeing if we could get something to eat. I'd rather be--see the church in that condition, and yet Spirit-filled, than to see it well polished and dressed, and big things, and then dying in the Spirit.

L-19 God makes a way, and we refuse it. We don't return the way that He provides for us to return. And Ahaziah did the same thing. He was like many of us today. He was just too stubborn. He just didn't want to, yet he knew Elijah was out there in the wilderness. He knew that there was a God in heaven, but he wanted to take the most popular way, go over to where all the people... (Through the prophetess they'd had there, the, Ahab's wife, Jezebel, and she was a heathen.) And they wanted to go over to Ekron, and consult one of the idols if he would return. Because being a king, if he would low his--hisself down, get hisself unpopular with the people...


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