 We're there in 2 Kings chapter number 7, we're here in 2 Kings chapter 7, we're kind of jumping into the middle of a story, if you just start reading the chapter it doesn't have much context, you probably really don't know what's going on. So let's just skip back to 2 Kings chapter 6, we're going to read the last few verses of 2 Kings 6 just to kind of see what's going on here, where are we at, what is happening at this time. Let's look at verse 24 of 2 Kings chapter 6. 2 Kings 6 verse 24, the Bible says this, it says, and it came to pass after this, that Ben Haydad king of Syria gathered all his host and went up and besieged Samaria, and there was a great famine in Samaria, and behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for four score pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of doves dung for five pieces of silver. So what's going on here, if you're familiar with the Old Testament, probably the most recurring pattern you see is you have the nation of Israel, and all throughout their history they turn from God, and as a result of them turning from God, God punishes them, whether it's with a foreign nation invading them or slavery or imprisonment, they turn from God, God forgives, they turn from Him again, He punishes them, they get right, He forgives, and this just repeats over and over, and just as a side note, I always think it's interesting when people maybe out soul winning or hear people talk about, I've even heard so-called Christians talk about this idea of, oh, there's the God of the New Testament that's nice and loves everybody, and then there's the God of the Old Testament that hated people and was just off the hook and just enjoyed killing people and was full of wrath, and I always kind of laugh at that because anyone who's actually read the Old Testament will realize that it's not a story of God's wrath, but it's really a story of God's mercy, because if you're familiar with the Old Testament you know that it's not a story of a God who just hates these people, wants to kill them and destroy them, it's a story of God loving these people so much that though they turn from Him countless times, He always forgives. He always forgives and He always at the expense of the lives of greater men than they sends profits to them to warn them, forgives them when they turn from their way, and what we're, this is kind of the pattern of the Old Testament, but in this particular story we're in the punishment phase. Israel right now, right now the king is Jehoram who is actually the son of Ahab who is a very wicked king. Jehoram is no better. He's a very evil king. The nation is in a state of rebellion against God, and as a result of this, right now they're being, God is allowing them to be invaded by the king of Syria, and Samaria is actually the capital of Israel, and right now it's being besieged. What is happening is the Syrian army is this great multitude and has surrounded the city, meaning that no food or no supply is able to get into the city, and for a second time we're not going to read the whole rest of chapter 6, but it's a terrible time. People are starving in this city. It's so terrible. People are eating themselves. They're eating their children. It's one of the most horrific stories of God, and this is because, keep in mind this is because of their sin. This is because of their choices to rebel against God and turn from God, and God is allowing this to happen to these people for their sin. Skip down to verse 31. You say, well, I mean hopefully at least they get right. Hopefully at least they realize their fault. Verse 31, this is what King Jehoram said. He's the one in charge right now. Let's look at what he says. Verse 31, then he said, God do so and more also to me if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day. So here you have this wicked king that says, you know what, this is the prophet's fault. This is Elisha's fault. And it's interesting how Jehoram hasn't really connected that it's God's judgment that's upon him, but he knows it has something to do with Elisha, who is of course the one, the prophet of the true God, of the actual God. And so he says, I'm going to go, I'm going to be head Elisha. Now he's probably not granted. He's probably not thinking straight. He's probably, I mean, he's probably starving with the rest of these people. It's a very terrible time. So verse 32, but Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him. And the king said, a man from before him, but ere the messenger came to him, he Elisha said to the elders, see how this son of a murder has sent to take away my head. Look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door and hold him fast at the door is not the sound of his master's feet behind him. So you have what we end up with now is you have Elisha who's in his house. I think it's interesting that the elders of Israel, they're not with king Jehoram, they're sitting with Elisha. So you have the elders, you have Elisha, you have the king of Israel, and you have this messenger, this, this servant who works for the king. And this is what brings us in to chapter seven. This is where our story begins. So let's go ahead and look, go back to second king seven and we'll really begin our story here. Now what I want to do this evening is I want to take this story now we know we're at now we know the context. But I want to this evening I want to present to you an analogy that we can take from this story. This story can really, if you read it, it matches perfectly with an analogy of the state of the world right now, the state of people who are not saved. If you think about our world, what is our world right now? Well, most people in our world right now are unfortunately not saved. Most people are on their way to hell. They are much like these people in the city, these people in the city they had no hope. They're starving. They were just waiting to die in the city. They were in a terrible condition because of their sin. And that's how our world is today. Our world is a bunch of people who are unfortunately doomed because of their sin. They are without hope. The Bible says that they are unsaved. They have no chance. They are stuck here in the city as a result of their own fault. And they are without hope. However, just like with salvation, since the Garden of Eden, God had been prophesying of hope for mankind. God, since the Garden of Eden had been prophesying that one day someone would come to atone for man's sin. Someone would one day come to give mankind a chance that he might be saved. And very similarly in this story, you have the man of God also giving them hope and telling them that that prophesying that there will be a way out. Let's look at verse one. Then Elisha said, again, he's in this room with these people, hear ye the word of the Lord. Thou sayeth 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. So you have this people, and you noticed when the story started, it mentioned that because of the fact that they were starving, things that normally wouldn't even be considered edible, like the head of a donkey are being sold for an insane amount of money because people are starving. They have no food. And here Elisha is saying within 24 hours tomorrow about this time, normal food is going to be in abundance. It's going to be sold for cheap because there's going to be so much of it. So here God through the prophet Elisha is, again, just like the world with salvation, giving them hope and telling them there will be a way out. But just like people in this world, there's a minority of people in this world who mock God and mock his salvation and mock Jesus Christ. So in this story, verse two, then a Lord on whose hand the King Leen answered the man of God and said, he's mocking here. He says, behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? He's saying if God would open the windows of heaven, this wouldn't happen. And he, Elisha said, behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. So here Elisha essentially curses him and says, you know, for mocking, you're going to see it. You're going to know it's true, but you're not going to be able to eat of it. You will not be able to partake in it. Even so, if people who mock God and refuse to be saved, there will come a day, unfortunately, where they will be in hell and they will see salvation that they mocked. They will see the Lord who they mocked, but they will not be able to partake of it. So this is where this story leads us. So let's keep reading and see if this analogy fulfills itself, verse three. And there were four leprous men at the entering into the gate, and they said one to another, why sit we here until we die? If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we shall die also. Now therefore come and let us fall into the host of the Syrians. If they save us alive, we shall live. And if they kill us, we shall but die. So you have this city, these people that are dying and starving. And you have these four men that are kind of sitting right outside the gates of this city. And they're just like everyone else, they're dying, they're starving too. And they kind of have this realization kind of dawn upon them. And they're like, okay, hold on a minute. If we keep sitting here, we're going to die. If we go into the city with everyone else, we're also going to die. And they kind of come up with this idea. They're like, why don't we try to go out to the Syrians? What's the worst that can happen? They kill us. They're saying at least there's a chance here, if we sit here, there's certain death, and the city is certain death. But if we go into the Syrians, there's a chance that they might let us live. That's better than staying here and for sure dying. That's what they kind of realize here. So this is their plan. They're like, we're going to go out to the Syrians and see what happens. Verse five, and they rose up in the twilight to go into the camp of the Syrians. And when they were coming to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. So they go to this camp of this enormous amount of people, and there's no one there. Everyone's gone. You say, what happened? It explains, for the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host. And they, the Syrians, said one to another, lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. Wherefore, they arose and fled in the twilight and left their tents and their horses in their asses, even as the camp as it was, and fled for their lives. God causes this miracle to happen where the Syrians hear this noise of this enormous army approaching and they basically panic and they drop everything and they flee, but they leave the camp just as a one. They didn't even take anything with them. They just fled for their life, it says. So you can imagine these men. Here you have this camp that was just a few hours ago sustaining probably hundreds of thousands of people, and here these men show up who are starving and there's no one there. Versait, and when these lepers came into the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent and did eat and drink and carried then silver and gold and raiment and went and hit it and came again and entered into another tent and carried then salsa and went and hit it. So just imagine how happy these men are right now. Here these men have physically been saved. Here they were about to die, they're about to starve, and they have stumbled across this physical salvation that the rest of these people don't even know about. They found food, I'm sure they're just elated, I'm sure they're full of joy and they're going and they're just going from tent to tent and they're getting treasure and gold and they're eating, I'm sure their hearts desire, but then something kind of hits them. They kind of realize something, something from their conscience sort of comes up and kind of stops them in their tracks. And verse nine is the verse of the sermon here we're going to look at this evening. Verse nine, then they said one to another, don't miss this, we do not well. Say what are you talking about? You've been saved. You have all the food you could ever want. Why would you say we do not well? They're saying we do not well. They're saying what we are doing is not right. Why? This day is a day of good tidings. Don't miss this. And we hold our peace. The phrase we hold our peace appears a lot in the Bible. What it means is to have something to say and to not say it. If you have something great to say or you have something important to say and you don't say it, you are holding your peace. And what these men are saying is just something from their conscience, the conscience that God has given every man. Something from their conscience has popped up inside of them and they say, you know what? We're sitting here just maybe a mile or two away, you have people that are starving, they're eating their own children, they're dying, they have no hope. And we have found the answer for all these people and we're eating all this food and we're enjoying all this, but we're not telling them about it. And they're saying this is good news. This is good tidings. The word gospel actually means good news. They're saying this is good tidings and we're sitting here and we're not saying anything about it. They're saying we do not well. They're saying this is messed up what we are doing right now. So what do they do? They go on to say if we tarry till the morning light some mischief will come upon us. Now therefore come that we may go and tell the king's household. They're saying we need to tell everybody about this. And this isn't anything special. This isn't, you wouldn't look at this and say that these are very, very, you wouldn't say this is an act of enormous character. I mean this is a common sense reaction. This is, I mean surely any normal person in their situation would have this, have something from their conscience tug at them and say this isn't right that we're not telling anybody about this. Think of, think of you had the cure to cancer. You had the cure to some disease that was killing the vast majority of people on earth and you knew about it and you didn't tell anybody else. You would be considered a psychopath. Why wouldn't you tell everybody else? So this evening, the title of the sermon this evening is if we hold our peace. If we hold our peace because here is kind of the final bow on this analogy we're looking at. You as a Christian have found something way, way, way more valuable than what these guys found. What, what do these guys found? Okay, their lives were saved physically on this earth. Okay. You as a Christian, if you are saved, you have found something of priceless more value than this. You, you have been saved, you have eternal life. This is something that the majority of the world is over here. They are starving, they're without hope, they're doomed. They don't even know it. Everyone in this world is a heartbeat away, a breath away from eternal torture and screaming in hell and you know, you know how they can get out of it. Is your reaction to hold your peace? This evening I know we have food and so I'll try to hurry this evening but I want to look at just two consequences this evening of choosing to hold our peace. If we are Christians and we choose not to tell a lost and dying world about Christ, what does that mean? What's the, what's the consequence of that? What is the result of that? Go ahead and turn to Acts chapter one. Acts chapter one, the first this evening is this. If we hold our peace, if we choose not to tell people about what we have about Jesus Christ, how to be saved, if we hold our peace, we ignore the directive. You see, soul inning, it's not just an obligation. It's not just a common sense reaction by anybody with a conscience. It's more than that. It's a directive. It's a command by God. It's an expectation. You don't have to turn there while you're turning to Acts one. I'll read to you Mark 16, 15. Many of you know it. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples before he ascends into heaven and he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It's the last thing Christ told his disciples before he left. You hear in Acts one and this is kind of what we're talking about. The book of Acts, of course, it's the acts of the apostles. It's the things that the followers of Jesus Christ did once he ascended into heaven. But the book of Acts kind of starts off with a little bit of a review and it starts off with the conversation that Christ had with his disciples right before he ascended into heaven. So verse eight is the last thing he told them before he went into heaven. Verse eight Jesus says, but ye shall receive power. After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the utter most parts of the earth. What he is telling them is he's telling them, you will do this. I am commanding you to do this. If you open any electrical code or a building code of a city, if you see the words shall, that is telling you that this is mandatory. It's not up to you. It's not shall be permitted. It's not you're allowed to do this if you want. If you feel like it, if a building code tells you this shall be done in this manner with this material in this way, that means you must do this. You must do this or you are not listening to the code. You are not complying to the code. Here Christ is telling his disciples, I'm going into heaven. I just died. I just bought enough salvation for billions of people, for everyone who has ever lived, anyone who is alive, and anyone who ever will live. And it's your job. You will go and you will tell everyone about this. It's his last command before he went into heaven. And as if that wasn't urgent enough, notice this, and when he had spoken these things while they be held, he was taken up into cloud, received him out of their sight. So obviously, this is probably a pretty shocking sight. They're just talking to Jesus like they always have been, and he just ascends into heaven and he's gone. And as anybody probably would, they're just kind of staring at the clouds in shock. I'm sure not for a couple of moments, maybe a minute at the most. They're just kind of, maybe speechless. They're just kind of staring at the clouds. It was so urgent that God didn't even have a minute for them to spare. Immediately he sends men to get them moving. Notice this, verse 10, and while they look steadfastly into heaven, as he went up, they're still looking. They're still in this few moments of speechlessness. Behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Immediately, God sends two angels to go up to them and say, go on, get to work. There's work to do. This is how urgent it was. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 2. And this is nothing new. It is always, regardless of the message, it has always been the job of God's people to reach the lost. Old Testament, New Testament, it's not. God doesn't come down to this earth and walk around preaching the gospel to people. He did the hard work. He died. He paid for the salvation that we could not do. All we have to do. It's our job to give it to other people. While you're turning to 1 Thessalonians 2, I'm going to read you 2 Corinthians 5. Here Paul is talking about how this works. He says, And all things are of God who have reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and have given to us the ministry of reconciliation. So Paul here is talking about how we've been saved. We've been reconciled to God. And in the same sentence, in the same breath, he says, we've been reconciled to God and he has given to us this ministry to reconcile other people to him in the same breath. Here in 1 Thessalonians 2, notice again, this is Paul. Notice how Paul speaks of the gospel. He doesn't speak about it like, yeah, I'm such a great Christian because I woke up this morning and I preached to people. I went soul-winning and I did God a favor and I'm extra special because I went and I went soul-winning. Look how he speaks of the gospel. He says, But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God which tried their hearts. Here Paul is speaking of the gospel and he says, you know what the gospel is? It is this priceless gift that was paid for with the blood of the Savior and God is merciful enough to allow us to be trusted with it. That's how special it was to Paul and maybe you would think that's why he was so effective. Paul treated the gospel as something of unexplainable value. It is something that was very special and he viewed as an honor that God had given to him the ministry of reconciliation and he lived his life that way. This is salvation. Salvation is the greatest gift the world has ever known, something of priceless. It was paid by the blood of Jesus Christ and as a say-believer, God is giving this and he's giving it to you. He says, I want you to take care of this. I want you to give this to other people. Don't let it go to waste. Don't let it fall to the ground. Here's look, Jesus Christ, it's not like he says, hey, tell me if you want to be saved and ask me to save you and then I'll go and I'll pay for your salvation. No, God already paid for everybody's salvation. There's a whole parable about this. Imagine if you went and you paid, say you gave everyone in the church a hundred dollars and you went and you took this out of your own account and you worked for this and you gave everyone in the church a hundred dollars and most of the people crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. That's how it is with God. God went and he bled for the sins of, he died for every individual sin of every person who has ever lived and who has ever walked this earth. And the vast majority of people are throwing it in the trash and are going to go to hell anyway, unfortunately. How do you think that makes God feel? And what we're doing is if we just refuse to tell other people about Christ, we are taking this priceless gift that God has trusted us with. In the parable, Jesus tells a parable about a man who had a great supper and he invited certain people to the supper, but they canceled, they made excuse. And the Bible says that this Lord who had prepared this supper was angry because it was all going to waste and he told his servants, he said, go out into the streets and lanes of the city and compel them to come in, the minehouse may be filled. It is your job as a believer to make sure that this salvation that Christ paid for doesn't go to waste, to make sure that as many people as possible receive it, as it was intended for, that the point of it being bought is realized with as many people as possible. First Timothy 1 verse 11 says this, it says, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. Again, notice the way that Paul views salvation. Turn to Acts 26. And here's another major theme that is in the Bible. God, there's a theme in the Bible that, you know, part of the reason God gives people a chance to be saved. Obviously, God doesn't force anybody to be saved. Everyone has a chance, everyone has free will. But there's a theme in the Bible that part of the reason that God gives certain people a chance to be saved is because he has skills that that individual can use. He has people that individual can reach that maybe other people couldn't. I don't care who you are in this room. You have gifts from God. You have things that you are better at than other people. You have things that are skills that that God is maybe you're better at. You have gifts that were given to you of God. And when you got saved, part of the reason God gave you a chance is he knew that you as an individual could use those skills to get more people saved. While you're turning to Acts 26, I'll read you the story in Mark 519. This is when Jesus heals the man that had legion in him. The man that had thousands of demons inside of him. This is when Jesus cast the demons out and they went into the swine and they jumped off the cliff. And after he gets this man saved and cast these demons out of him, this man wants to follow Jesus. He asks him if he can follow him and go with him in the ship. In verse 19, Jesus tells this man, he says, how be it, Jesus suffered him not. I mean, he didn't allow him to, but say it unto him, go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord have done for thee and have had compassion on thee. And he departed and he began to publish into Coppolis how great things Jesus had done for him. And all men did marvel. You see in this story, if you're familiar with the story, they wouldn't let Jesus into the city. They were so shocked by what he had done, they refused to allow him to come preach in their city. But do you know who was able to preach in the city? This man. I believe this was on purpose. God literally went to this man. He said, I don't want you following me. I have a plan for you. I can't go into the city. They won't let me go there. But I want you to go to your friends and everyone you know. And I want you to tell them about how I had compassion on you and tell them what I did for you. And he did because of this man's obedience. He goes and people marvel. I'm sure many people were saved by what he told them. Because of this man's obedience to fulfill what Christ appeared to him for. Because look, I hate to burst your bubble, but look, obviously God loves each and every one of us and he died for each and every one of us. But it's not all about you. God didn't just get you saved and say, oh, so and so saved. Let's end the world now. Let's wrap this up. It's a mission accomplished. It's all done. If it was just about you, you would have been saved and God would have taken you to heaven immediately. Why leave you here to continue through this world of sin? And the reason God loved you here is because he has billions of seats left to the table. He has people that still need to hear. He has people that he paid for their salvation. They don't even know it. That's why he left you here. That is your job. That is your purpose as a Christian. Let's look at another example. You're in Acts 26. This is Paul talking. Paul is telling his testimony of how he got saved to somebody else and we're reading the words of Christ. This is what Christ said to Paul when he appeared to him at the Lord of Damascus. Jesus says this, but rise and stand upon thy feet for I have appeared unto thee. Notice this for this purpose. He says, I appeared unto you for a reason, Paul. There's a reason I appeared unto you, look, Jesus Christ wasn't just enjoying a Saturday afternoon, scaring the living daylights at a random people on the road. There's a reason he appeared to Paul. There's a reason he appears unto certain people and gives them this chance. Let's look at Paul's purpose. Why Paul? To make the administer and a witness, both of those things which thou hast seen and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee, delivering me from the people. Don't miss this. And from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee. Look, Paul's life when he got saved was devoted. His ministry was the Gentiles. This is why God appeared unto him because he knew Paul's skills. He knew we're learning about Paul on Wednesday nights in the book of Acts. Paul had very special skills. Paul thinks that he was good at that God could use. He had a background that was valuable in his ministry. And because of this, God said, you know what, Paul? I appeared unto you to give you a chance to be saved because I can use you for to get other people saved. For Satan to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. This is why God appeared to Paul. And obviously Paul, we know Paul didn't get saved at this moment. God doesn't perform supernatural events where people get saved. We know that later when Paul was with Ananias. Ananias is the one who told him, Paul, Brother Paul, now you need to wash away your sins and call upon the name of the Lord. That's when he got saved. But God gave him a chance here for a purpose. And if you are saved, God appeared unto you for a purpose because you have skills and you have abilities. You have people you know. You have people that you can reach that other people will not be able to reach. You have more people will be able to be reached by you. There's a reason God appeared. God gave you that chance. Turn to Isaiah chapter 50. Isaiah chapter 50. And look, just one more note on this subject. God will support you if you just like anything else in the Bible. If you decide to follow his will and go on faith and do what he says, God will support you in that. God doesn't just tell us to do certain things and just leave us out to dry. When we follow his will, God will support us in that. You say, I'm not, I'm not good at speaking or I'm an introvert or I'm not good with people or I'm not, this is not my thing or I'm not good at that. Isaiah chapter 50. This is Isaiah who is a prophet who spent his whole life preaching the word of God and notice how he talks about, he's speaking about how God has given him this job to preach and he listened. Notice how bold Isaiah here is. Verse four, look out, notice how confident he is. Verse four of Isaiah 50. The Lord God had given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeeth morning by morning. He wakeeth my near to hear as the learned. The Lord God has opened my near and I was not rebellious. Neither turned a way back. I gave my back to the Smiders, my cheeks to them that plucked the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. He says, you know what? I went on faith. I obeyed God. I wasn't rebellious. I did what he told me to do. I preached to the people he told me to preach to and as a result of that he said, God gave me the tongue of the learned. You know what that means? That means he didn't have the tongue of the learned. He said, I went and I preached and God was with me. He gave me the tongue of the learned and he did support me. Verse 7, For the Lord God will help me. Therefore I shall shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifies me. Who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help me. Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they all shall wax old as a garment. The moth shall eat them up. Here Isaiah is. He says, you know what? I went, I preached the word of God like he told me to and as a result of that he said, God is with me and he will help me. That's that's bullness and that's the bullness that you can have and the bullness that God will give you if you just go and you obey his word to preach to other people. Turn back to 2 Kings 7. 2 Kings 7. We'll continue our story. So we looked at the first thing that we see if we hold our peace, if we don't tell people about Christ what we're doing is we're taking this command that God gave us that he appeared to us for and we're throwing it in the trash saying, no, I don't think so God, not doing it. The second thing, not only are we ignoring the directive that God gave us, but if we hold our peace, you know what? This is something that honestly is more weightier than just a command by God. If we hold our peace, we ignore the demand. We ignore the demand. Let's continue our story. And this story, it almost gets kind of sad and I'll explain why. So these men, they go and they tell, they tell the city. Verse 10, 2 Kings 7. 10. So they came and called into the porter of the city and told them saying, we came to the camp of the city, ins and behold, there was no man there. Now their voice of man, but horses tied and asses tied and the tents as they were. And he called the porters and they told it to the king's house within. So they go, we're not going to read this whole story, but basically what happens is they go and they tell, it's too good to be true, which is if you're a soul owner, you know this is how it is. Sometimes you give people the gospel or you give people the chance to be saved and they think it's too good to be true. You say, you know you're going to heaven and they say, no, do you want to know? The Bible says it's easy. It's not about living good life and you don't have to live your life in doubt. You can know you're going to heaven. No, I'm busy. They think it's too good to be true perhaps. So these men, he tells them and they go and they send a few people out to make sure this is true and these men come back and essentially the news breaks. They tell everybody to say it's true. There's food. We're fine. We're going to be okay. And the news breaks and this is where it gets sad because I want you to notice in verse 16, I want you to notice the desperation. Verse 16, and the people went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a fine flower was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel according to the word of the Lord. And the king appointed the Lord on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate. So this man who had mocked Elisha the day before, the king gives him the job of standing in the gate or maybe counting how many people leave or doing some sort of work in the gate. And notice in the people trod on him in the gate and he died as the man of God has said which spake when the king came down to him. So these people are so desperate. They're literally stampeding each other, running each other over, killing each other, just trying to get out this food. Now, here's the thing. Most people in this world, unfortunately, they will never realize how bad they needed salvation. But just pretend for a moment in your mind, say that everybody in the world was able to know what hell was like. Say everybody in the world somehow they knew that they were going to go to hell in their current state. Say that they just knew that somehow. That was revealed to them, where they knew that they were going to be tortured and screaming in hell for eternity. And say that they knew that they could find out how to be saved at this church. Say that they just knew this. What we know, say that they knew this. People, the world would be stampeding itself to get through the doors of this church. That's how desperate people would be. And it's not that people, it's just that people don't know. Earned a drawn fork. It's just that people, they have no clue what is awaiting them. They would do anything to get salvation if they knew how bad they needed it, but they do not know that they needed it. They do not know what they deserve. They don't know what they're facing and they don't know how to escape it. Even Christians, so-called Christians who believe in a hell, they think they're fine. Now I'll just live the best life I can and hopefully I get to heaven. Here they're in John 4. We're just going to read verse 10. This is Jesus talking to the woman at the well and preaching her to the gospel. And of course she does end up getting saved, but I want you to notice what Jesus says to her. Because at this point in the conversation, Jesus is sitting at a well. He's talking to this woman about salvation and she's clueless. She has no idea that the God of the universe is sitting right in front of her. She has no idea that she's unsaved. She has no idea yet that she needs to be saved. In notice what Jesus says to her, he kind of makes this remark that she doesn't understand, but he makes this remark to her. He says, Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou newest the gift of God and who it was that saved to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of them. And he would have given thee living water. Here's what he's saying. He says, you know, if you knew who I was, and more importantly, he says, if thou newest the gift of God, if you knew what salvation was, if you knew that there was this gift that saved you from a hell that you were facing, a hell that you were going to go one day, if you knew, here's what he's saying. He's saying, you know, if you only knew. You know, a lot of times we go soul ending and you run into that maybe really nice guy. He's like, I just don't have time right now. Or you know what, even the jerk, even the jerk, I'm not interested. Look, even that jerk, if they only knew of salvation, they would be begging you for it. If they only knew what they're facing, if they only knew they're facing the hell that you were at one point facing, and the hell that they deserve, just like you deserve, if they only knew about that, they would do anything to get it. They would do anything to escape it. And we know that. We just shot up about it. Imagine if you, it would probably make news. It will probably be in national news. If there was a man, say someone was sitting on the, say that someone was at the Grand Canyon and sitting in a chair and people are walking by and they say they don't see it. And they just want someone to stumbles and falls off the cliff and he sees that. And then someone else comes by and falls off the cliff, say just hundreds of people. Hundreds of people just walking by just, oh, someone else died. Oh, someone else died. Say he didn't say a word. This would be national news. This person's a psychopath. This person's a psycho. And this is what Christians, most Christians do. It's sad. It's heartbreaking. Most Christians know the hell that most people are facing and they will live their whole life watching people walk off that cliff to a hell that they will never escape. Someone, by the way, who only saved themselves because someone told them it's pitiful. God forbid. And, you know, this idea of if I'm newest, this is what we see in second king seven. At the point, let's kind of go back in the story at the point when the man are eating in the, you know, the, these tents and before they kind of realize they need to tell people at that point, if you froze time, you had people that were saved physically and you had a whole city of people who were starving who if they only knew that they had a chance to be saved, they would, they would be doing anything to get it. You don't have to turn there, but Ephesians 2 12 is kind of describing the state of how we were before we were saved. Verse 12 says at that time you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Jesus Christ, he who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who had made both one and broken down the middle wall of partition between us. You see, everyone all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All every, every tongue will be found guilty before God, the Bible says. Everyone in this world who is unsaved is separated from God by a, by a veil, by a curtain of their sin. They will never be able to attain God's righteousness. They will never be able to attain God's level. They're separated by a veil of their sin. And here this is what Paul is saying. He's saying, when you got saved before you were without hope, before you had no chance, but when you got saved, Jesus Christ came in and he broke down that wall between you. He broke down the middle wall of partition between us. This is why in fact when Jesus died at the moment that he died in the cross for the sins of the world that he said, it is finished. This is why in the temple, in the temple you had the Ark of the Covenant that represented the presence of God and this Ark of the Covenant was in the, this special room at the back of the temple. It was called the most holy place and no one was allowed to approach God in this room except for one time a year, the high priest, one man was allowed to go in through this veil. This room was closed off by a thick veil and once a year this high priest was allowed to, after following all these procedures and he was able to go in once a year and present an offering for the people to approach unto God. But the rest of the year for everybody else, this, this present, this room, this Ark that represented the presence of God was closed off by a veil. When you got saved, when Jesus Christ died on the cross, the veil of the physical temple that I was actually in Jerusalem, the Bible says that veil was rent in two because what Jesus did when he died is he provided a chance for every single person to have that wall of their sin, that veil of their sin broken down into be with God. But the majority of people are still out there on the other side of this veil. If you're saved, praise God, you've had this, this wall's been broken down. You, a sinner, you're clothed in the righteousness of God and you will spend eternity with Jesus Christ. Anytime you want, you can go pray to God and be in the throne room of God. You have access to God and whatever you want. But most people are doomed. They're without hope. So you say, man, that's pretty sad. What's the hope for the unsaved man? How is he supposed to get saved? I mean, Christ died for everybody, but that doesn't mean that everybody's going to heaven. How are they, what's the, how is someone who's unsafe supposed to get saved? Turn to Luke 16. We'll end here Luke 16. Here's the plan for the unsaved man. It's us. We're the bottleneck. We don't even have the hardest job. Jesus paid it all. Jesus died for everybody. He shed his blood for everybody. He suffered for everybody. That's already done. The bottleneck is us. The bottleneck is us. Ezekiel 2230, I'll just read it for you. It's a chapter again, talking about the nation of Israel and it's talking about how wicked the nation was and how backslidden the nation was. And it says in Ezekiel 2230, God says of this nation at the end of the chapter, he says, and I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it. But I found none. God saying, you know, I didn't want to destroy the land. Just like God doesn't want anybody to go to hell. He's a perfect judge. He has to send people to hell for their sin if it goes unforgiven. But God doesn't want anyone to go to hell just because this nation, God says, I didn't want to destroy it. They deserved it. But I didn't want to do that. He says, I looked for a man. I looked for someone who would stand for what's right. I looked for someone I could use, but I couldn't find a single person. Verse 31, he says, therefore for that reason have I poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them in the fire of my wrath. Their own way have I recompensed on their heads, sayeth the Lord God. You see, billions of people are in hell right now. People are going to hell. I looked, I looked up the numbers at one point of how many people died, you know, every year. And if you divide it, you know, by the hour and minute, you know, and if you divide it by how many people are saved and unsaved, I think it was somewhere within 10 minutes, 100 people will go to hell. By the time the sermon's over, 100 people will learn what hell is like. And all those people in hell that God is pouring his wrath upon, he hath not the wrath of God abideth on him. They're in hell and they're getting judged for what they deserve, but God did not want them to go there. God would have saved them if he could, but the problem is not that he didn't want, he wanted them to go there, it's that he couldn't find enough people to warn them. You're there in Luke 16. We'll end here. We kind of heard a little bit about this this morning. Luke 19, this is a story, this is not a parable. Jesus says this, there was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, whereover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, who was carried by the angels in Abraham's bosom. This man Lazarus was saved. The rich man also died and was buried and in hell immediately. And in hell, he lifted up his eyes being in torments. And seeeth Abraham afar off in Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried. The word cried in the King James Bible doesn't mean to weep, it means to scream, it means to yell. He screamed and he said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me. If you were to go to hell right now, you would hear billions of screams, just like this one. Have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that in thy lifetime, thou receivest thy good things, and likewise Lazarus' evil things. But now he is comforted, and thou are tormented. And beside all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot. Neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. He's saying, I can't do anything for you. He says, there's a wall between us, there's a gulf between us. He says, people can't go from here to there and people can't come from hell to heaven. So this man, he realizes that there is no hope for him, but look what he says next. Look what he says next. Verse 27, then he said, I pray thee there forefather, that thou wouldst send him to my father's house. For I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. He says, send Lazarus then, resurrect him from the dead, that he can tell my family. He says, I don't want my family to come here. He goes soul-ending, and people joke around, I want to go to hell, that's where all my friends are. Your friends don't want you in hell. Your family doesn't want you in hell. This man is crying out and he's saying, at least, at least have him go to my family and warn them. I don't want them to come here with me. I don't want them to be here in this torment. Notice what Abraham says to him. Abraham says unto him, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. Here we say, what's Moses and the prophets? Moses is the law. The Bible says the law is given by Moses. If you're familiar with how Romans speaks of the law, the law is the commandments of God. This is the law. And what the law does is the law is what shows us that we're sinners, because if there was no law or there was no standard of right and wrong, we wouldn't know that we were sinners, because there's no law that we broke. But when a holy God comes and gives us his law, and we look at this law and we see that we don't match up to that, then we know that we're guilty. That's what the law does. They have Moses and the prophets, he says, in his man, verse 30, and he said, Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. He's saying, if they saw someone resurrect from the dead, they'll listen. And he says again, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. You may read this and say, I don't know, I think the rich man's kind of right. I mean, if someone resurrected from the dead, they would believe. You know, there's people who give their whole lives to, oh, we're going to find the Ark of the Covenant, we're going to find all these biblical things, because then everybody will believe. If everyone can see proof of God, then everyone will believe. We'll look at two things. One, God will never allow it to happen. There will never be proof, because the faith, if there's proof, then there's no faith. God wants us to choose to believe and by faith. But here's the thing, even if that was true, even if there was proof, even if this man was sent from the dead to these guys' family, people still wouldn't listen. There are people that would still refuse to believe. And look, even with that, look, someone did rise from the dead. His name is Jesus Christ. Someone did rise from the dead anyway, just in summary this evening. So he had this man, and they're having a conversation, Abraham and this man hell, or having a conversation about a family of unsaved people. And this man is asking Abraham, what's the hope for my family? How can they know? How can they be saved? How can they not come here like me? What is it they have? What's their chance? And Abraham tells them twice, he says, they have two things. They have Moses and they have the prophets. Again, Moses is the law. Look, most people in the world, they have the law. They have the Bible. Look, that's not enough. That's not the only thing he said. He didn't say they have the law, they have the law, they're fine. People don't want to say people don't wander into Barnes and Noble and pick up a Bible and, oh, I'm saved now. That makes sense. That's not enough. I mean, they need it. It's necessary to have the word of God, of course. But there's something else they need. They need the prophets. Who's the prophets? The prophets is you. A prophet is someone who preaches. A prophet is someone who has been used. Prophets are just people. It's not a fancy term. All a prophet is, is it's a man that God has used, or a man or woman, throughout the whole Bible to convey his word to a lost world. That's all it is. You're the prophet. Now, I mean, that doesn't mean you're going to listen. You're going to be like Joe Nunn. You can have a hard heart and you can, you know, you can, you know, let the quality of your life or of your Saturday is better than serving God or preaching to other people. But you are their only chance. Because look, what do they need? They need two things. They need Moses and the prophets. Check. They have the law. You are the bottleneck. We are the bottleneck as believers. And you say, yeah, but I think this is what most people say. Well, how important am I as one person? I'm just one person. How important am I? Well, look, let's wander through an exercise here. Let's say hypothetically, we're talking about a lot of hypotheticals this evening, but let's say hypothetically that we had a thousand people show up for soul winning, every soul winning time, you know, for the, for the next 30 years, just consistently. Would more people get saved? Of course, obviously, right? Way more people get saved. Okay, what if we had 100 more people? Would more people get saved? More, 100 more people showed up every single service. It's just one. Yes, of course. What if 50 people showed up when more people get saved? Yes. What if 10 people showed up? Extra people. Yes. Now, what if one extra person, what if one extra person showed up soul winning every single Saturday? Would more people get saved? Yes, for sure. Well, you say, oh yeah, but if someone's seeking for the truth, God, I'll show it to them. Yeah, but I think there's a lot of people who are going to go to hell, not because they weren't really seeking the truth enough, but I think a lot of people are seeking the truth. I think everyone, to some extent, wants to know what's true. I think there's a lot of people who are going to go to hell, not because God did not love them, not because there was not salvation that was already bought and paid for or waiting for them with their name on it, but because there just wasn't enough people. Remember what Jesus said? He said, the harvest is plenious, but the laborers are few. He said there's tons of wheat on the ground, but there's no one to pick it up. That's the problem. So you say, how important am I as one person? How important is a single soul? One soul. One soul. I mean, just one by itself. If you're a soul under your whole life, you'll get way more people saved than one, but even just one soul. One soul that goes from an attorney screaming and pain and torture, crying out in hell, in hell, forever and ever and ever while you're up with Jesus Christ, one soul with that destination change, from darkness to life, from life unto death, that one soul is worth it. But we're not talking about one soul. I mean, how many people? I mean, here in Fresno, if you show up to most of the so many times, you'll get what? 10 people saved a year, 15, 20, 30, it depends. So he said, how important am I as one person? How important was your soul? Well, to you, it's of infinite value, of course. To us, it's of infinite value. What about all the souls that you can change? Because look, it's a false idea just to say, well, if I don't go, someone will go and people get saved anyway. Not as many. For sure, not as many. The one job, the main fundamental thing, this is why churches, by the way, you have churches that, you know, maybe they have some sort of soul winning program, but, you know, they're not big on separation. This is why it's such a big deal, because if you have a church that's not separated, you have a church of people that probably don't go soul winning. That's why it's so important, because it's the most important thing. So in closing this evening, if we hold our peace, if we take the salvation that we know of that is of infinite value, and we shut up about it, we don't tell anybody about it. First, we're ignoring the directive. We're ignoring the command that Christ gave us. But even bigger than that, we're ignoring the demand. We're ignoring the demand for more people. There are so many people in this world that we will never be able to reach them all. There will be millions and millions and millions of people that will go to hell, only because there was not enough people to reach them in time. So the question for you this evening is, we've looked at, you were the only chance that that person has. That 30 people, I don't know who they are. I don't know what their names are, but those 15, 20, 25 people in Fresno right now as we speak, that are, their salvation is dependent on whether you go or not. You are the only chance those people have. So will you hold your peace? Will you hold your peace? Let's buy our heads and have a word of