Love Worth Finding

Guest (Male): What happens when you cross God's deadline? Listen to Adrian Rogers.

Adrian Rogers: He that being often reproved, and hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. He enters into a situation that I would call hopeless. And the Bible tells us that it is hopeless.

Guest (Male): To me, hopelessness is the saddest word in the English language. In front of every unsaved man, woman, boy, and girl, there is a deadline. If you cross that deadline, you will be broken beyond repair.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the powerful and convicting messages of acclaimed pastor and Bible teacher Adrian Rogers. If you are not a Christian today, consider the message you're about to hear, based on Proverbs chapter 29 verse 1. It says, "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy." There are four thoughts to draw from this passage, and God's desire is that you would never know the hopelessness of being broken beyond repair. If you have your Bible, turn to Proverbs 29:1 now, as we hear Adrian Rogers begin, "Broken Beyond Repair."

Adrian Rogers: Take your Bibles and turn to the book of Proverbs, chapter 29 and verse 1. If we ever had a solemn text, the text tonight is a solemn and a serious text. He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

I've read this through in a number of different translations. One translation gives it this way: that he will be suddenly destroyed and broken beyond repair. That's the title of my message tonight, "Broken Beyond Repair." In front of every unsaved man, woman, boy, and girl, there is a deadline.

If you cross that deadline, you will be broken beyond repair. There is a time, I know not when. There is a place, I know not where, which marks the destiny of men to heaven or despair. There is a line by us not seen that crosses every path. It is the hidden boundary between God's mercy and God's wrath.

Now, our verse tells about that line. He that being often reproved and hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed. He will be broken beyond repair. He enters into a situation that I would call hopeless. And the Bible tells us that it is hopeless. To me, hopelessness is the saddest word in the English language.

I want you to notice four definite thoughts that come out of this text tonight. The very first thing is I want you to notice God's merciful conviction, the spiritual conviction that God often gives. He that being often reproved. Just underscore the phrase "often." You see, God in loving patience deals with a sinner over and over and over and over and over and over again. We are often reproved. What patience God has. What love God has. What mercy God shows.

Now, if God had spoken only one time, it would have been more than justice demands. But God does strive with us. God's Holy Spirit does knock on our hearts. God does reprove our sins. God does call over and over and over again. How does God reprove us? How does God convict us? How does God speak to us?

May I mention several ways? God speaks through the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment." I don't know about you, but before I came to Jesus, before I was saved, I know that I know there are times that God's Holy Spirit just came into my heart and said, "Adrian, you're wrong. You're a sinner. You need to get saved." And I can remember even as a child, the hand of God in conviction being on my heart as the Holy Spirit of God in His own way in the inner precincts of my soul spoke to me.

But not only does God speak through His Spirit, God speaks through sickness. Have you ever been sick, been on a bed of affliction, and God spoke to you and you realized that this mortal frame is not going to last forever? You realize that your body is winding down to the grave. I found out that many times in a hospital, so many times you have a marvelous opportunity to bring people to Jesus Christ because at that time that sickness is the messenger of God to bring people under conviction.

Not only does God reprove through His Spirit, and not only does He reprove through sickness, but through sorrows, heartaches. When you went to the funeral of your mother, God spoke to your heart. When that little baby in your family died, God spoke to your heart. When there was an anguish, a sorrow, a heartbreak, and you said, "I need somebody to give me comfort. I need somebody to give me strength. I need something to make sense out of this," and your heart was broken, God was speaking to you. And God speaks to sorrow and through sorrow, I mean, to bring us sometimes to our senses.

Another way that God speaks, He often speaks through His servants. He speaks through His servants, the prophets, through preachers. God speaks to you through me. I have no illusions about being anything in my own right or having any strength of my own, but I'd be a fool if I thought that I preached without the anointing and the power of God. Of course, God speaks through me. I don't have to brag to say that. I'd have no business standing in the pulpit if I didn't think that God speaks through me. And I can say with Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me for the Lord hath anointed me to preach."

And I try not to preach a sermon until I've soaked it in prayer. So, many times, as a matter of fact, to my knowledge, every time, if not practically every time, I bow my head and say, "Oh my God, please in the name of Jesus, anoint me and give me a message for the people." But not only does God speak through His servants, the preachers, God speaks through His servants, the singers. God will put the finger of conviction upon your heart, upon your life. Sometimes it's through the separated life of a brother or sister, somebody that you'll see that you work with. There's that smile, that victory, that overcoming. And you see the way that person lives, and God speaks to you through that life. And that life compared to your life, you know there's something about them that you don't have.

Then God speaks not only through His servants. God speaks not only through sorrows, and God speaks not only through sickness, and God speaks not only through the Spirit, but God speaks through the scriptures, through the Bible. Maybe you've heard a word from the scripture. Maybe a gospel tract. Maybe you've been reading the Bible yourself. Years ago, I read about a man who was a deep-sea diver. He'd been fighting the Lord, and he went down to the bottom of the ocean, and there he found an old encrusted bottle with a cork in it. He brought it to the surface, took the cork out, and somebody had put a verse of scripture in a bottle and put a cork on it. It said, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." That deep-sea diver said, "If God loved me enough to follow me to the bottom of the ocean, I'm going to give my heart to Him." But God does speak through His scriptures.

I don't know how God has spoken to you, but there's not a mother's child in this building that God has not spoken to. And God speaks. We are often reproved. But I want you to see not only spiritual conviction, but I want you to see stubborn rebellion. Notice what happens, "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck." That means a person who stiffens his neck. He refuses to get right after God has spoken. And I've seen people harden their neck. I've seen people stiffen their necks. I've seen people stubbornly rebel against God. Let me mention some ways that people rebel against God.

Sometimes people harden their neck by procrastination, which is a form of disobedience. They say, "Well, I'll get saved, but not now." You're in Proverbs 29:1. Turn to Proverbs 27:1. God's Word says, "Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." If you are saying, "Well, God is speaking to me. God has spoken to me through the songs. God has spoken to me through the scriptures. God has spoken to me through the sermon. God has spoken to me through His servants. God has spoken, and one of these days I'm going to get right." May I tell you all you're doing, my dear friend, is hardening your neck. "Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."

Dr. Robert G. Lee, former pastor of this church, said that tomorrow is a period of time found nowhere except perhaps in the fool's calendar. What he means by that is that tomorrow never comes. Another former pastor of our church, Dr. Ramsey Pollard, my dear personal friend, Dr. Pollard used to preach a sermon called, "One More Night with the Frogs." And in that message, Dr. Pollard told about Pharaoh, and Pharaoh had rebelled against God, and God had spoken to Pharaoh, who was keeping the children of Israel in bondage there in the land of Egypt. And God sent a plague upon Pharaoh, and the plague was the plague of the frogs. Frogs covered the land of Egypt. I mean, there were frogs everywhere. You get in bed, there'd be frogs between the sheets. A woman would open the oven, there would be frogs in the oven. A man put his hands in his pocket, there would be frogs in his pockets. Little boys going to school would squish frogs between their toes. There would be piles of dead frogs, smelly, rotten, awful frogs, croaking frogs. The den must have been terrible. Frogs everywhere. Finally, Pharaoh had had it up to here with the frogs. And listen to what the Bible says in Exodus chapter 8, verses 9 and 10. And Moses said to Pharaoh, "Except the honor of saying, 'When shall I intercede for you, for your servants, and for your people to destroy the frogs from you and your houses, that they may remain in the river only?'" In plain English, "Pharaoh, do you want me to pray and ask God to take away the frogs?" "And when do you want me to do it?" And then in verse 10, Pharaoh said, "Tomorrow." Tomorrow.

Now, here are the frogs everywhere. And here Pharaoh has a chance to have the frogs taken away. Pharaoh, when do you want the frogs taken away? He said, "Tomorrow." And that's where the title of the sermon comes from, "One More Night with the Frogs." I mean, why didn't he just simply say, "Take away the frogs today"? It's amazing. Frogs in his food, frogs in his bed, frogs in his clothes, and yet he says, "One more night with the frogs." What is there about a sinner that makes him want to hold on to his sin? What is there about it? The sinner is plagued because of his sin. He has troubles, he has doubts, he has burdens, he has suffering, he has sickness, he has sorrows, he has fears, he has disappointments, he has heartaches. And yet when you ask him if you want to be saved, he says, "No, not tonight. Tomorrow. Give me one more night with the frogs." He hardens his neck.

By the way, let me give you three reasons why you ought not to postpone giving your heart to Jesus Christ. Number one, dear friend, if you wait till tomorrow, you'll lose tonight. We often hear people say, "Get right with God, you may die." Well, that is true. But get right with God, you may live. You see, dear friend, every day that you live without the Lord Jesus Christ is a lost day. Even if you knew that you could live for 50 more years and then get saved, do you realize that would be 50 wasted years, 50 years gone down the tube? You know what deathbed repentance? Billy Sunday said that deathbed repentance is burning the candle of life for the devil and then blowing the smoke in God's face. And so get right with God, you may live. And if you don't get right with God today, you'll lose today.

I'll tell you another reason that you ought to get saved today is that something worse may come tomorrow. You see, after the plague of the frogs came the plague of the lice. And after the plague of the lice came the plague of the flies. And after the plague of the flies came the plague of the locusts. And after the plague of the locusts came the plague of the boils. And after that came fire and then darkness and then death. And it got worse and worse and worse. Those of you who are under conviction, why do you put off giving your heart to Jesus Christ? Why? Tomorrow something worse will come. Tomorrow it will not be better. Tomorrow you will only have more sin to repent of and less time to repent in.

A third reason you ought to be saved is this: that tomorrow may not come. Tomorrow may not come. Our text speaks of sudden destruction. He shall suddenly be destroyed. And that without remedy. Joyce and I were in our house and a thunderbolt sounded right near us. It was so loud and so near that everybody in the house just jumped. I didn't think anything about it until I went out in our front yard, and if you pass our house, you'll see the elm tree in our front yard has the bark stripped from way up in the tree all the way down to the ground where that bolt of lightning hit that elm tree. And just peeled the bark off and blew the bark way across the yard. A mighty bolt of lightning. It's something awesome to see.

Now, the elm tree already had that blight in it. You know, and I thought maybe the tree's going to die anyway, so it's not all that bad. But I want to tell you the bark is worse than the blight. Dear friend, that bolt of lightning hit that tree. I got to thinking, suppose, suppose we're standing in the front yard and that bolt of lightning had hit me. It's very possible. Very possible right in my own front yard. Did you know that 4 to 500 people a year in the United States die being hit by lightning? We talk about like a bolt out of the blue. Many times, a person is hurled into eternity by a bolt of lightning. You never know.

My dear friend, on your way home from church, you may meet something like that. You say, "Pastor, are you trying to frighten me?" You got it. That's right. Dear friend, I would to God I could. I'd rather frighten you into heaven than lull you into hell. Listen, the Bible says, "He that being often reproved and hardeneth his neck shall" what? "Suddenly be destroyed." Now, she wasn't destroyed because she'd hardened her neck. I just bring that up as an illustration of how frail that life is. Tomorrow may never come. Some harden their neck by procrastination.

I'll tell you another way that people harden their neck. Not only by procrastination, but by pride. Did you know the reason that many people will not come down an aisle and make a public decision for the Lord Jesus Christ? They're afraid about what other people will think. If they come down and confess the Lord Jesus as their personal savior, they're going to say, "Well, these folks around here think, will think that I'm an old sinner if I go down there." That's right, bud, that's what you are, an old sinner. But so is everybody else. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." An unsaved man sits in an auditorium like this and a preacher preaches a message like I preach, and he looks around, he says, "I'm just as good as the rest of these folks." What he needs to do is to be honest enough to say, "I'm just as bad as the rest of these folks, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." And a church is nothing but a society of sinners who finally realized and banded themselves together to do something about it. It's the only organization I know of, you have to profess to be bad before you can join, unless it's the Hell's Angels. Dear friend, listen, you come saying, "I am a sinner. I am lost."

Some of you are unsaved church members. And if you were to die tonight, you'd go straight to hell. But you've been in this church so long, you've taught a Sunday school class, you've been a deacon, you've done this or that. And when the invitation is given, the devil says, "Don't you go down there and make a fool of yourself, make a spectacle of yourself." So you stiffen your knees, and you harden your heart, and you lift up your head, and you walk right on out to your doom because pride has kept you from coming to Jesus Christ.

Tell you another way that people harden their heart. Not only through procrastination and pride, but through pleasures. Pleasures. The Bible speaks of these people. Second Timothy chapter 3, verse 4. They are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. There are certain things, they say, "Well, if I give my heart to Jesus, then I'm going to have to give this up or give that up, so I'm not going to give it up." That's so stupid, that's so foolish, because the only thing God asks you to give up are things that will hurt you. If it'll make you good, healthy, holy, wholesome, God says, "Help yourself." And my dear friend, what you give up is nothing compared to what He gave up for you. And thirdly, what you give up is nothing compared to what you get. Who wouldn't give up dirt for diamonds? My dear friend, listen, I'm not inviting you to a funeral, I'm inviting you to a feast. I'm not inviting you to death, I'm inviting you to life.

I was on the street one day and an old derelict came up to me, and he said, "Mister, I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten at all." Said, "Would you would you give me some money? Would you give me some money? I need some money to eat with." I looked at him and smelled his breath, and I thought he wanted to get a little liquid nourishment, so I said, "I know I won't give you any money." But he said, "I'm so hungry." I said, "Fine." I said, "Come on in, let's have a meal together." We were by a restaurant. I said, "Come on, let's just sit down and eat. And I'll buy you something to eat, and I'll sit here and talk with you while you eat." So he kind of reluctantly came in. He was dirty and and filthy and disheveled and and obviously penniless and in rags. So, I sat down there with him, and I bought him a meal, and we sat down there and talked for a while. And in the course of the meal, I of course pushed the claims of the Lord Jesus on him and told him about Christ. Told him how Jesus loved him and how Jesus wanted to save him. And I asked him, I said, "Now, sir, would you like to give your heart to Jesus Christ? Would you like to be saved?" You know what he said to me? He said, "No." I said, "No? Why not?" You know what he said? He said, "There's so much to give up." That's what he said. He said, "There's just so much to give up." Can you imagine that? Isn't the devil a deceiver? My dear friend, the Lord thy God is a sun and a shield. No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.

But you see, people harden their heart by these silly excuses, and indeed they are silly excuses. Now, I've talked to you about spiritual conviction. I have talked to you about stubborn rebellion. Let me talk to you about sudden destruction. Notice what our text says, "He that being often reproved," that's spiritual conviction, "hardeneth his neck," that is his stubborn rebellion, "shall suddenly be destroyed." That is sudden destruction. You see, there's an end to God's patience. God does speak. God does speak. But finally, God's patience wears out. Let me show you how a man may be destroyed. There are three ways that he may be destroyed. He may be his mind may suddenly be destroyed by strong delusion. There may be the destruction of his mind through strong delusion. That's the reason that many people are in false cults today, uh, Jehovah's Witnesses and other cults like this today, because when they heard the truth, they refused the truth, and now they believe a lie. Second Thessalonians, the second chapter, verses 11 and 12 says this, "For this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who received not the love of the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Now, what does that verse tell us? It means that when a person hears the truth, and he doesn't act upon the truth, God's judgment is that this man will be deceived. No man can believe until God opens his eyes. But this judgment is worse than that. Not only does God not open his eyes, but God sends him delusion and judgment that he might be damned. And so, so many times the mind, the mind is destroyed through strong delusion, and a person gets a lie firmly entrenched in his mind.

Guest (Male): And we'll continue with part two of this message coming up on Monday. I hope you can join us then. In the meantime, you may have questions about who Jesus is or what He means to you or how to begin a relationship with God. It's so important to have those answers, and we invite you to go to our Discover Jesus page at lwf.org/radio. You'll find resources and materials that can answer questions you might have right now. Again, go to lwf.org/radio and click Discover Jesus.

Kerry Vaughan: Hi, this is Kerry Vaughan, and this program has been brought to you by Love Worth Finding, a non-profit ministry showcasing the powerful preaching and teaching of Pastor Adrian Rogers. We operate solely through the generous gifts of individual supporters, just like you. To give a gift today, call 1-877-LOVEGOD. That's 1-877-LOVEGOD. Or write to us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38-600, Memphis, Tennessee, 38183. You can also connect with us online by going to lwf.org/radio. There, we offer helpful resources inspired by the timeless teachings of Pastor Adrian Rogers. Additionally, you can sign up for daily emails, donate to the ministry, and learn more about how to become an Ambassador of the Word. Thank you so much for listening today. Be sure to join us next time for more profound truth, simply stated, right here on Love Worth Finding.

Guest (Male): We loved hearing from a young family who shared how they've incorporated Love Worth Finding into their daily routine. We look forward to listening to Dr. Rogers every evening as we tidy up after dinner. He has touched our lives, encouraged us, and helped us grow in our walk with Christ. Our three-year-old son looks forward to the broadcast too. You know, at Love Worth Finding, it is our joy to inspire and equip you with the messages you need and the resources that will help you grow in your daily Christian walk. And to thank you for your gift this month, we'd love to send you a copy of the book, "The Real Battle for the Soul of America." Request it when you call with a gift at 1-877-LOVEGOD. Or give online at lwf.org/radio. And thank you for your generous support of Love Worth Finding.