I'd like you to go with me this evening to the book of Second Kings and chapter seven. Second Kings chapter seven. I'd like to take an example out of the Old Testament of a picture of a man that knew something that was given of God. We'll take it as truth. And that man refused the truth and he suffered the judgment. Certainly when we view the gospel, God makes very plain in the word of God what the gospel is. According to First Corinthians chapter fifteen and verse three and four, the gospel is defined as Christ dying for our sin according to the scriptures and that he was buried and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. That's the definition of the gospel. And Paul said the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. And so when we view the gospel there is the need to take it in. To refuse it is sin, to refuse it is the sin of unbelief. And that's what I'd like to look at this evening. Second Kings, chapter seven, verse one. Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. Then the Lord, on whose hand the king leaned, answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not ye of it. Verse seventeen, And the king appointed the Lord, on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trod upon him in the gate that he died, as the man of God who said, who spoke when the king came down to him. And it came to pass, as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be to-morrow about this time in the gate of Samaria. And that Lord answered the man of God, and said, Now behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shall not eat of it. And so it fell out to him, for the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died. You remember that Israel had a couple kings that were appointed to them. First one was Saul, and the second one was David, and then David's son, Solomon. At the end of Solomon's reign, the kingdom was divided. And it was divided into two rulers, Jeroboam and Rehoboam. Israel went to the north and made Samaria their capital, and Judah lived in Jerusalem and was to the south. Israel, in all the nineteen kings that they had, not one of them amongst the whole crowd, was a good one. Now, one of them had a heart for God at all, and so God sent some things along their way to try to bring them to the place where they might acknowledge Him as the one who had the right for their worship, and one that they should truly serve. So along comes the famine. In Samaria, it's a severe famine. And you know, the Syrians around about the city, they got it all fenced in. Food's all gone, things are real desperate. And the prophet of God is there, though. Elisha, he speaks for God. That's what a prophet is. It's a man who says, Thus saith the Lord. And as he says that, that word comes true. Well, Elisha spoke to the king. The king was pretty angry about the... famine and all the rest. And so Elijah said, look, tomorrow God's going to work. Tomorrow there's going to be such a thing here that a measure of fine flour is going to be sold for a shekel. Now, a measure, I suppose, about two and a half gallons, roughly speaking, and it was worth sixty-four cents. Now, that'd be a pretty good price, wouldn't it? Especially when they didn't have any on the fee of that cheap. And so he said, Tomorrow about this time, that's what it's going to be sold for, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the Gate of Samaria. But you know, in every land there is the unbeliever. Some of you here this evening, I don't doubt, but what in an audience this large, there are some of you that say, Has God really said? You've got a voice within you that comes, Has God really said that? Is it really true? Is there such a thing as salvation? Can it be true that he could take away my sin? And then you get to thinking, that's too easy. Must be some harder way. If God had opened the windows of heaven, could this thing be? See, that was the thinking of that man. He had known what the famine was. He had known what the difficulty was. And he says, if God opens the windows of heaven, could this thing be? That tomorrow, barley could be sold that cheap. And there would be that much abundant when the whole city starving. Where is it going to come from? God going to rain it from heaven? And you know, so many people, when it comes to the gospel of the grace of God, begin to take all the things of the devil, those seeds of unbelief, and then push them in their own heart to the point where they say, Can it be true? Well, that's what this guy said. But you remember, I didn't read you what was in between, but I'll fill it in in a little story, okay? There were four lepers outside the city. And these four lepers are saying to themselves, look, we're hungry. But we go in the city, we're unclean, they won't give us anything, they don't have anything to give us. So here's the Syrians, maybe, might be some chance, we hit one with a little sympathy and he gives us something to eat. What do we got to lose? We're going to die either way. You didn't have too much to lose, did he? So the four of them take off and they go into the camp. And when they get there, what do you know? The horses are tied together. The donkeys are there, the camels are there, and all of them are there, but they look in the tent. Hey, this one's empty. I wonder if they were tempted to swipe what they found there and just go and eat it, but they didn't. They went to another tent. And that was empty. How did they get all empty? Well, you know what God did? The mighty God that we were talking about this afternoon. All He did was make a little noise. You know, God doesn't have to do a lot to make people run. You know, when a heart is fearful, it doesn't take much to make it run. And I think those people knew that there was a God of Israel, and that God did work before, and he might do it again. I think in their own hearts there was that little measure of what might God do? What might the God of Israel do? And all he did was make a little noise, and it sounded like chariots, and it sounded like horsemen, and the Syrians took off. And what did they do? They threw their stuff along the way, and they left the camp empty. You know, God can work with such a little bit. I was struck one day, taken off in our airplane back when I used to fly, and that thing had two engines on it, a couple thousand horsepower. We got on the runway and we made our normal checkout, and then we pushed the throttles to the stop, opened them up, pick up the tail, rolling down the runway, and all of a sudden, one engine goes all the way up to its power, the other one won't develop the power. So we pull back on the throttle. Let's go back and find out what's wrong with that thing. So we taxi back to the line, and when we get up there, I remember seeing a bird on top of the engine the cell. So I get a ladder, and I go over and stick my arm down in that carburetor intake, and what do you know? There was a nice little bird's nest right on top of the carburetor. And I couldn't help but think, all God's got to take to stop two thousand horses is just a little bird. And so don't think you're so smart that you can ignore God and think you're going to get away with it. He is a God of power. He's an omniscient God that knows your thoughts right tonight. And you know, as you feed him through that little brain of yours and you begin to make excuses for all of this and turn away from the truth that he has given to us, then you're going to stand in unbelief. But you're going to take the consequences like this fellow did. The four lepers said, hey, this is too good to keep there ourselves. Israel's in there starving. Let's go talk to them. So they go to the gate and they holler to the porter, hey, we found something over here. What did you find? Camp's empty. Syrians are gone. So the porter goes and gets the king. The king said, I got the answer. They just want to draw us out. They know we're hungry and when they get us pulled out there, then they're going to come and nail us. We said, I'll tell you what we'll do instead of all of us running out there. We'll just send out a couple and see what went on. So he sends out a couple of men and they come back. Sure enough, camps empty. Everything's strewn down the way. They beat it. They ran in fear. And so the king says, okay, to his lieutenant who had leaned on his arm. He said, I want you to stand by the gate. I'd like you to keep track of what's coming in and out. He had a good chance to keep in track. He had a good chance to see that a measure was sold for sixty-four cents. And in the rush of the crowd, that man died, and he died because of unbelief. If God would open the windows of heaven, could these things be? I'd like to suggest to you tonight that unbelief is the Father and the Mother of every sin. Every sin that's ever been begotten came from the sin of unbelief. You know when it was manifested? It was manifested in the Garden of Eden. We talk about the sin of transgression or disobedience as the first sin, but I want you to think for a minute. Okay? God says to Adam and Eve, don't eat of the fruit of that tree. Didn't say the fruit was bad. Didn't say to give him a tummy ache. Didn't say how it was green apples or anything like that. He said, just don't eat of it. That was a simple requirement because he said, the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. So the devil comes along. You know, the Lord Jesus said he was a liar from the beginning. I said he's going to do to some of your hearts tonight. He's going to lie. Will you listen to him? That's what he did to Eve. Have God said? Well, Eve entered into the conversation. See, he put a little measure of doubt. Did God really say that? And he said, Well, God said the day that we ate it or touched it, we'd surely die. And then he puts in his little barb, that fiery dart, and he said, Oh, God knows you won't die. What did Eve do? She took a look. There was a lust of the eye. It was good for food. There was lust of the flesh. And it would make her wise. There was the pride of life. And Eve believed the devil. And she took the fruit. And she ate of it. And from then on, unbelief was the father and the mother of every sin. Every sin that comes out of the sinner's life comes of unbelief. Now, You know, that is a process that works in our life, and it begins from the moment we're born. You know, when we were born, the psalmist of old could say, the wicked go astray from the womb as soon as they be born, speak in lies. Imagine that. A baby just born, going from its mother's womb, and before long speaking lies. When it can't even speak, all it can do is cry, and he says a baby speaks a lie. Now, I know you mothers know the truth of that, don't you? You don't have to question that one bit. You say, God's true. That's the way it is. Baby yells bloody murder. It's screaming like it's getting killed. And mama runs over there. Maybe papa beats her to it and touches that crib and baby shuts up just like that. Why? That baby was deceiving with a cry. And that is the sinful nature within you and within this being here. We cannot escape it. When we began on this journey here, on this earth, we began as those that came from their mother's womb speaking lies. Now, sometimes you say to a person, I remember a dear lady, I said to her one time, Tell me, ma'am, are you a sinner? And she looked at me and she said, Of course, everybody's a sinner. I said, Tell me, ma'am, are you a hell-deserving sinner? And she threw back her shoulders and she said, I'm not that kind of a sinner. I said, I'm sorry for that. Why that, she said. Because the only way you could get saved is to be a hell-deserving sinner. He didn't come to call the righteous. He came to call sinners to repentance. And you know, there's where we have to begin tonight, beloved. Are you a sinner? Have you been a sinner from your birth? sinner by birth, but sinner by practice, and that you know in this past life just as well as I do, even the little kids at camp, when you say, let me see the hands of those that haven't sinned. Very seldom do you get a hand. I did this summer down at Turkey Hill. I was a little boy there from England, and boy, his hand shot up just like that. He wasn't a sinner. I said, you ever told a lie, son? He said, no. I said, I think you did just then. But you know why he didn't think he was a sinner? He didn't have the least understanding of what sin was. He had never been inside of a church. He had never opened this Bible. He never knew. He never knew. You know, I'm glad to say before that week was done, that little guy put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He saw himself as a sinner. Could you be as a little child tonight? Could you be as a little child and see that sin is working in your life? And as long as you go on with this one sin, the sin of unbelief, then you're going to stand in the place of condemnation, the place that that man stood. You know, Judas was a man who knew something of unbelief. It's an amazing thing to see that Judas walked with the Lord Jesus, that saw the power of the Lord Jesus, that saw him walk on the water, raise the dead, heal the lame, the blind, and the halt. He saw all the power of the Lord Jesus. And yet Judas stood as an unbeliever. Fine. Maybe Judas' interest was in the bag. I don't know. Maybe that Judas sold the Lord for thirty pieces of silver suggests to us that that's what he was interested in. But Judas basically was an unbeliever. The Lord Jesus said, Have I not chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil? He was not deceived by what Judas was. He knew Judas to the car and he knows you to the car. He knows me to the car. He knows the nature of this individual. He does. He knows all about me. There's no way I can escape his knowledge. Look at Belchazar. There was an unbeliever thrown a great big feast. Yet what did Belchazar know? You know, what he knew? He knew what God did to his grandpa. He knew that Nebuchadnezzar where he was ruling in the land. And he knew that God brought Nebuchadnezzar as an unbeliever down to his knees. Nebuchadnezzar could look at the glory of Babylon that I have built. Oh, boy, what unbelief in the heart of that ruler. He glorified himself in all the glory of Babylon, but God said, I'm going to take you down. I'm going to bring you to your knees. You're going to crawl on your knees in the wilderness. And your nails are going to grow. And your hair is going to grow. And a dew is going to fall on you seven years. And you know Nebuchadnezzar lost his reason and they put him out of his kingdom. And that's what happened to him just as God said. But when the seven years were up and God let him have his reason back, what was the first thing that he knew? Ah, he knew that he that sat in the heavens ruled. He does. He ruled. He raises up kingdoms and he takes them down. And if he wants, he does, as Nebuchadnezzar had done to him, that he raised them up again. Listen, Belshazzar knew what Nebuchadnezzar, his grandfather, had known of God. But what did he do about it? He was only interested in the things that were round about him in his idolatry. You know, that old saying, bird in the hands, worth two in the bush, let's have a blast. So he throws a big party. And I got news for you sometime when you're throwing that big party. And you think you're so important and you're having such a blast in that party. There's liable to be that quiet little voice and that writing finger that comes in and says to your soul, you are weighed in the balances and found wanting. That's what he saw, that hand writing on the wall that night. He didn't know what he meant, but he got Daniel, and Daniel could remind him of his grandfather, and then Daniel told him, It's too late. You've been weighed in the balances and come up short. You ever hear a verse in the New Testament like that? I thank God for that verse. All has sinned and come short of the glory of God. You know what the glory of God is? You're going to say, all right, that's your imagination. No, it's not. The glory of God is Jesus Christ, and every single one of us are short of that glory. You might think he was only a man. He was God manifest in the flesh. The angel should say his name would be called Emmanuel, God with us. And a prophet hundreds of years before had made the same prophecy. But the angel could say, He's going to be the Son of the highest. What did John say in John one fourteen? The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, as of the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ, the glory of God, and you and I short of that glory. An unbelief made us short of that glory. Unbelief brought us to that lack of holiness. You know, unbelief is like a steed without rains. You ever see a horse, a western Bronx, that's kind of wild. We had a couple back on the farm. And a farmer I worked for when I was, oh, fifteen to eighteen somewhere in those years. And we had a pair of western Bronx. We had blinders on them because they were so ornery and so skittery if they saw a shadow, they'd take off running. And so one day the farmer's wife was throwing some pickles into the pig pen. And that bronch saw the shadow of that. And boy, they just took off running. There was no one holding the line. And they took off wild. They dumped that load of corn off, slick as a whistle. You know, that wasn't today when we had these nice machines I see out there that chops it up in the field, blows it into a wagon, you back it up to a tractor, and in it goes and up it goes. It only went on top of the wagon like this then, and in the silo filler like that then. But you know, those horses ran wild. But I remember that there was one way to control. They still had a bridle on. And I cut off that team before they got to the highway. And I grabbed that bridle and threw my weight on it. I realized I could have got stomp, but I stopped the horses. You know, sin is like that. It is just running rampant in unbelief. When we stand in that position, it just takes us down the road, running wild. Paul could say, though, God has concluded all in unbelief, that He might show mercy to some. Isn't that good? God counted you and I as unbelievers. And He did that to all, that He might show His mercy to all. But while His mercy is to all, Oh, you know, His grace is upon them that believe. See, that is the opposite of unbelief. That's turning from the place of unbelief. And that's believing the Savior. That's putting your trust in Him. I'd like to suggest to you too that unbelief not only begets sin, but it fosters it. You see, we sin because of that sin of unbelief. And that sin is fostered within our own heart in our lives. And sin begets sin. And you know, we go on carrying that burden of sin. And that guilt increases. And the burden increases. And it's going to increase until the day we meet the Lord Jesus at Calvary. You remember the story of Pilgrim? He came from the city of destruction. but he wanted to go for a celestial city because he found in a book and through evangelist that the city he lived in was a city that's going to be destroyed. And there was a way to the celestial city just to head for that narrow gate. And once through that narrow gate, it would take him to a place where his burden would fall off and go away. He had some struggles getting through that gate. And you know, sometimes we do too. Some people struggle with so many things. Some people struggle with their own righteousness. Maybe you're like that one. Maybe you sense how good you are. You're a good moral person. Ran into a man last week. A good moral person. He told me he was going to heaven. And like I do to most people that say that, I said, what will you base that on? How do you know you're going to heaven? And he started telling me about all the good things he'd done. And that because of these good things, God had blessed him. Look at his home, his health, and all his things. And I could say to him, you know, God says in his word, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, or which I have done, but according to his mercy, have he saved us. By the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Now, bless your heart. You can do some good works. But let me give you a clue. If you take those good works and you measure them up against Ray Rowley or Bill Morgan or Henry Holloman, you might come up better than every one of us. What do you think about that? You wouldn't have to be too good to come up better than me. Because I'm a sinner at very best. Saved by grace. But you know, you could take your moral works and it might be better than anything I have done. But it wouldn't get you to heaven. You couldn't get into heaven's gate with them. Because you don't have the right coinage. You don't have the right thing to deal with. Let me show you what I'm talking about. When I was over in New Guinea in a place called Mount Hagen, when I went up there, I saw the natives. with some belts. Now, they usually don't wear too many clothes, especially in that place. They got very little out. Men and all. But they had a belt around their waist, and some of them around their head. Pretty as seashells you ever saw on that belt. So I asked the man, What are those things? I see some of them with a few. Some of them with a whole lot. But all of them seem to have at least one or two out there. He said, that's their money. I said, that's their what? He said, that's their money. He said, they're way up. They carry it on them. Let everybody see how much money they got. That was their coinage. Now, look, that was pretty good over there. They could use that. That was their coinage. How many of you would have been nutty enough to let me come? But what if I had to come to your hatchery over there and said, But I want to buy a few dozen eggs or some chickens, and I plunked some seashells on a table. Would you like that? Now, he just thought I was a little bit off my rocker. But you know what, in a spiritual sense, we try that with God. The purchase price of a soul is the blood of Jesus Christ. You weren't redeemed with corruptible things such as silver or gold. But how were you redeemed? Oh, was the blood of Jesus Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot? Perfect lamb, see. Blemish is something on the outside, spot something on the inside. And when the Lord Jesus went to Calvary's cross, there was the manifestation of his purity. Outwardly men saw him. They had to say, never man spake like this man. They had to say of him, he went about doing good. And when he was on Calvary and the Lord opened him up, when he took all my judgment and he poured it on him, and I see grace being poured out of his lips. And he looked down at that motley crowd, and he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. What grace? What grace? Abundant grace. You've got to have the right coinage, the right price, the right value. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. That's what the Christians can say. That's what he should say. I'm not my own. I've been bought with a price. And that price, the blood of Jesus Christ. Now sin hardens the heart. And if you stay in unbelief, that's what it's going to do. It's only going to harden your heart more. We read a poet of old said, Sin and tears only harden. Law and tears only harden. All the while they work alone. But a sense of blood-bought pardon will dissolve the heart of stone. Do you have that sense of blood-bought pardon that the Lord Jesus has accomplished for you? Unbelief will disable you from any good work. This man was disabled. because he wouldn't believe. He wasn't one who could go out and enjoy it. The prophet said, you're going to see it, but you're not going to enjoy it. And he stood there by that gate, and he saw it come and go until they trampled him to death. He saw it, but he could never enjoy it. There are some of you who in your sin see the blessing of God in a child of God. You see it here in some joyful lives lived out. And you think, ah, yeah, but I want to have a blast here. And you hear the Word of God. You know, I think there's a day when you're going to see the glory of God, but you'll not enjoy it. There's going to be a great white throne judgment. And the glory of God is going to be manifest in the Son, who is the judge. And at that day, every knee is going to bow. and every tongue is going to confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of the Father. You're going to see the glory of the Son, but you won't be able to be entered into it because he's going to say, take him, bind him, hand and foot and cast him into utter darkness. He's going to do that because you never believed and your name was never written down in the book of life. Unbelief brings forth a hard judgment. Unbelief is severely punished. I would like you to go with me, if you will, to the book of Revelation. Book of Revelation into chapter twenty. Pardon me, I'm going to, for the sake of time here, go to chapter twenty-one, and I'd like you just to take this verse. Verse eight. He says in verse seven, He that overcome us shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful and the unbelieving and the abominable and the murderers and the fornicators and the sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. You can be ever so morally good, but if the sin of unbelief is charged to you, and it is, that's one sin for which Christ could not atone. That is a sin that's charged to you, and you must turn from it. you must believe. If you do not, then He says you're going to be outside that blessed, glorious city. Who will you be with? The fearful? Maybe some of you do not trust the Savior because you're afraid. You're fearful. And so you do not do it for that reason. You'll be outside the city. You'll be there with the unbeliever. He's going to be there. Now, you might be so morally good here, but if you're an unbeliever, look what your company is. Look what your company is. You're going to be with every filthy sin that ever crossed the face of this earth. You're going to be with corruption for all eternity. Beloved, I can say to you tonight, as a God who loved you, with an immeasurable love, a God who was willing to give of Himself in the person of His Son, to take all the sins of your mind, the sins of omission, and the sins of commission. He took them all and He put them on His Son and He punished His Son with death so that you might have life and have it abundantly. Jesus Christ not only died there at Calvary, But He's risen again. You see, that's the good news. It wouldn't be good news if I just said Christ died. He'd be a dead man. It is good news that He's resurrected. It shows that He was Lord. It is good news in it He's resurrected. He shows that sin was accounted for. He bore our sin. He took our penalty and went to the grave. But now in resurrection He's taken back at the right hand of the Majesty on high. I know, therefore, sin has been accounted for, or Jesus Christ could have never ascended back into heaven. And I know that because He did it, if we would believe it, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life. I don't wait till I die to get eternal life. Try it now. You got it now, Bill? Yeah. The day I trusted the Lord Jesus as a twelve-year-old boy, he gave me everlasting life. Because of the perfections of himself and his own work he could give it. Will you trust him tonight? Will you reverse the course of Adam and Eve? And will you tonight believe and obey? And put your trust in the Son. He that hath a Son hath life. If you do not believe God's record, then you're saying, God, you're a liar. And there aren't any liars in heaven. We read there outside that city too. Will you tonight, as our brother Holloman comes as well and further gives us the gospel, to turn from that place of unbelief and rest in the place of faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please it.