It's Not Over 'til It's Over

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Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording, including sermon titles, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these sermons. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copied and/or quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Pastor James May

IT’S NOT OVER TIL IT’S OVER

Isaiah 42:22-25, "But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart."

The Jewish people, who shut their eyes against the clear light of the Gospel, and turned a deaf ear to Christ, and to his ministers, rejected him, and persecuted them were robbed and plundered by the Roman soldiers of all their riches and treasures, when the city of Jerusalem was taken.

After they were captured by their enemies and dragged out of their holes with animal snare, many were put in prisons, and there lay confined, languishing in a terrible condition, out of which they could not deliver themselves.

Isaiah wrote these words about 1730 A. D. and the Jews in 1948 once again became a nation. Thus they were enslaved and dispersed for 1700 years. They were in this condition, and yet none of the kings and princes of the earth had issued a proclamation for their return to their own land.

“Who among you will give ear to this?”.... Who will hear and listen to this prophecy of your destruction, and to what follows concerning it?

Who will pay attention and hear this warning for time to come: and learn from this, and repent and reform? None at all! Men, blinded by sin, are so blind, and deaf, and stupid, that we don’t learn from the past and we are destined to repeat the same mistakes time and again. We don’t notice the hand of God upon us, nor pay any attention to his rod of correction, any more than to the Word of God. The only hope for Israel is that one day Jesus will lift the veil that blinds their eyes and they shall see him as he is and then shall know the truth of the gospel.

We pity the Jews in their spiritual blindness and in their deceitful doctrines, but we must realize that this is the condition where so many of God’s people are living right now.

God’s own people (flock) have become prey for every hireling shepherd that attempts to spoil (rob, plunder). How many people who name the name of Jesus as their Lord and Savior have been snared by the traps of false doctrine? How many are held as captives from the truth of the gospel and are now trapped in the lies of their prisons of deceit?

Illustration:

Nine out of ten adults own at least one Bible and eight out of ten consider themselves to be Christian, but you’d never know it from the smorgasbord of religious beliefs professed by most people. A new nationwide survey conducted by the Barna Research Group indicates that a large share of the people who attend Protestant or Catholic churches have adopted beliefs that conflict with the teachings of the Bible and their church.

Six out of ten Americans (59%) reject the existence of Satan, indicating that the devil, or Satan, is merely a symbol of evil.

A slight majority of adults (51%) believes that "praying to deceased saints can have a positive effect in a person’s life."

More than one-third (35%) also believes that it is "possible to communicate with others after they die."