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Whoa! Oh, you need Me now, do you?

I mean, you give a letter, by faith, to God because you are in a jam—and He comes back reminding you of some stuff. You ever have that happen to you?

“Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses” (2 Kings 19:32-35).

“. . . the angel of the LORD went out . . .” How many angels? One angel. ONE ANGEL! How many dead? . . .

“an hundred fourscore and five thousand . . .” 185,000 dead . . . ONE ANGEL . . . just emphasizing that.

“behold, they were all dead corpses . . .” Dead corpses. Don’t you like that? I mean, I like my King James Bible. Okay, they were corpses. No, they . . . were . . . DEAD . . . corpses! DEAD CORPSES! Just to let you know. They’s dead. How many? 185,000. There were bodies lying everywhere.

God took care of Hezekiah, but God also read the riot act to him. He told him how his country was acting. In other words, God didn’t have to do it. And Hezekiah came before God and cried out to Him for mercy. Basically, that’s what he did.

And usually, you and I, when we come to God and cry out to Him like that—we already know our condition—but our backs are up against the wall. Where else can we go? Face the music. Go before God the Father—He already knows everything. That’s why I like old-fashioned church altars, the old praying bench. And I know the Spirit’s gotta move in your heart—so if the Spirit doesn’t move on us for a long time—I wonder about that too, don’t you? Why aren’t you moved to do anything anymore? Why am I not? What has to happen? What has to happen, before we can say, ‘When all else fails?’

Now, it’s pretty bad. Yea, most of you got God like you got a spare tire. You only get up and get it when you have a flat. And I think about that and say, ‘Oh man, that’s me, Lord, yea, that’s me.’ Then you got to think, what’s going to happen next to drive me to Him? It would sure be a lot easier if I would just stay in contact with Him—every day— ‘Oh God, I messed up again, please help me.’ You don’t grow

Don’t let this stuff add up! That’s the way to do it.

If the truth was known, if we all really sat down and made a list each of us would have at least a whole day. If we could remember everything and put it on a sheet of paper, ever since we knew the Lord, and what He’s done in our lives, and how He got us out of jams. I mean, really, if itemized them and elaborated a little bit on these—I’m telling you—we’d have a whole lot. But to get us daily to understand how important it is to stay close to Him, that’s a whole other ballgame.

And I guess the message is to get us to focus on staying close to God on a daily basis and not let junk pile up in our trunk, where we keep our spare time.

A lot of times with this eternal security, guess what we do? We take it for granted. We’re saved any way, we’re going to heaven. Hey, what a deal! One preacher suggested that folks that believe in eternal security ought to live like they could lose it just so they will not drift to the left or to the right.

Story after story in the Scriptures have men and women in situation of, ‘when all else fails.’ And Christian, you know, you know that. Why? Well, because you’ve been in situations where, ‘when all else fails.’ If you’re a Christian, come on! You’ve been there! You’ve been up and down in your journey. You’ve been pushed up against the wall. When there ain’t anybody around, you crawled away somewhere and begged God for some answers. I like reading about these characters. I like seeing God acknowledging that He hears your prayers, but also, p. s., you’ve been living like hell! And your heart goes, ‘Oh man, I know Lord, and I know You know. I’m sorry, be merciful.’ Man, anything he gets is better than nothing.

I mean, when you start reading this Bible, character after character starts displaying these same characteristics. Why? Because flesh is flesh, whether under law or under grace. That body has tendencies to do things against an almighty God. And if you belong to God, there is accountability. Now, in the flesh, and then later at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It’s scary stuff, really.

So, we look up different Bible characters going through similar situations, and then we find some Bible promises—maybe with the character—how they did this, and what we should do, by example. And next thing you know, lo and behold, God does something for us. And the worst thing we can do is become skeptical because He doesn’t answer us immediately. Don’t you turn your back on God thinking that He is not hearing. Don’t you do that! It’s so stupid!

Some of us messed up our lives for 20-30 years. You are going to come to God and snap your fingers? He’s not no bellhop, man. He considers our prayer. He considers our life. He knows our journey. He knows the end from the beginning. We wait on Him! He doesn’t wait on us, in the sense of a waiter. We wait on God, and we just trust that He hears us. And by bringing up characters in the Bible sometimes before Him, ‘I wish You would bless me like You blessed Hezekiah.’ It that type of people and their attitudes and their backslidden condition, doing all those wrong things, but You heard them. And then You answered them, favorable! Lord, I need that!’

I mean, you think about . . . we won’t go to all of it . . . but you think about the backslidden Nazarite. You know who he is, right? That judge? Samson, right? He cried out at the end. What happened? Well, God used him to kill more in his death than he did in his life. Well, see? As a Calvinist, that was His plan anyways. Yea right. His eyes were blinded. All these things that took place to him in his humiliation was because of his backslidden condition. Because He disobeyed God. He disobeyed his parents. That was at the outset. He took for granted his strength and played with it. Full of pride! So, God humbled him.

And finally, at the end when his back was against the wall . . . when all else failed. He called out to God, and we know the story—his hair grew back—and sometimes when we look at that how he killed more at his death than in his life, therefore it was God’s plan. You better see what he went through and why he went through it. And where is Samson today? Well, I can read about him in Hebrews 11. What’s that mean? Well, that’s the hall of fame of faith. Isn’t that amazing? Who did that? God did that. Why? Samson cried out. No more pride. No more arrogance. He cried out to God. He knew he was wrong and wanted to honor God in his death. A lot of us are old, we can do the same thing—cry out to God and honor God in our old age. Right?

We know that when you go through this Bible if you can, and I think you can, go through it once a year—force yourself. ‘I already did that.’ Well, keep doing it and I hope God convicts you every time you sit down to your relaxation time, that goes into 1, 2, 3 hours—and you know if you gave to God an hour a day—one hour? –and if even if you are a slow reader you can get a whole lot accomplished. Just think about that. Why? You go through all these characters. You get mad with them—when they get mad, you get mad—and when they get glad you get glad—then all of a sudden you see God’s side, you get mad at them because these dummies are doing this again. And then, BOOM! God shows you that you are like the dummy! And then God does something over here, and helps us out and we say, ‘Bless God! What a merciful God!’ He’s still a just God, but He is a merciful God.

Then we come over to the church age, my goodness! You can’t lose that Holy Ghost! You are sealed with the Holy Ghost! Christ is in You! The Hope of glory! Even though you lose the flame of revival, bless God, the pilot light still remains lit! You still got hope! What a blessing.

When all else fails. Trust God! Why? He loves you more than anybody else does, He loves you more than you even love yourself. Trust God! He’s your father! Believe His Word. Have faith. Yea, faith! There’re hundreds of verses in your Bible that cover topics that you’re going through. People in here usually get one of these lists. We pass them out usually. It’s got all these circumstances and all these different verses that go with them. Yea!

How about, “He makes a way of escape.” Remember that one? I Corinthians 10:13. With the temptation? ‘Oh, I can’t escape.” God says you can. You just called God a liar. ‘Well . . .’ NO! What it is, is you missed the way of escape because you kept going—you didn’t want to listen—so you go down that hill, from yielding (BOOM!) to sin. So, you’re in a position now where you cry out to God for forgiveness and cleansing—get back up—but He does provide a way to escape.

And then you “can do all things through Christ Jesus,” which what? “strengtheneth you.” Not you strengthening yourself, He does that. So that implies your surrender, your humility, your humbling to His strength. ‘Oh God, please help my will. Strengthen my will.”

And you think about where it says, “He giveth power to the faint.” When you are ready to check out, when you are ready to quit, God gives you power.

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (II Peter 2:9).

Us saints—YES—He can deliver His saints.

“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

That’s just a few. There are hundreds of verses in the Bible just like these. Many of them we have heard preached. We have read them in our Bible reading. They live somewhere in the back of your brain, if you have been brought up in church you have had Sunday school lessons that covered all of these subjects. You got Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. You got the fiery furnace. You got Daniel in the lion’s den. You got all the stories. Yes, you got all the stories. Impossibilities, but God comes through.

So, we are saved. We are going to heaven. And when all else fails, we go into this tizzy. We start reacting like a lost person. Some Christians that don’t have enough power will backslide. They won’t consider their heavenly Father at all.

Someone will say, ‘Well, they’re lost now!’ You better watch out with all that stuff. You haven’t read your Bible. People get depressed. Beyond. The Devil can slip them bunches of stuff. ‘Well, then God allowed it!’ He allows your will—that’s the key—your will. I’m not a Calvinist. What do you ‘will?’ And sometimes you can be so weak that you can’t even cry out—if you just wait on Him in the dark—He’ll come to you. Why? He loves us. He’ll do something for us, He really will. But you have to give the problem to Him, when all else fails.

I think about this individual named Helen Keller. She was blind and deaf. She started life off with failure. It wasn’t until she was taught by a loving teacher, to communicate and experience some mature difficulties, that she began writing and lecturing with great passion and power from God. You see, her teacher was a Christian, and her passion was Jesus—if you ever read about that. She had many moments when all else failed. Who? The teacher. I can’t even comprehend that! Did you ever watch that movie, Helen Keller, or read the book? I’m telling you what, man. The child was like a living animal. She had no structure, no discipline, of any kind!

Now the teacher never wanted recognition. She believed her calling was from God to teach this girl. And that is all the accolades that she ever took, or ever wanted, or ever needed. It was a ministry, and Helen Keller was her life’s goal. Now, naturally, through sacrifice Helen learned, Helen was saved, Helen helped others because she was taught that by an example to herself—when all else fails.

I think about the poem that Helen Keller wrote, fitting for her . . .

“They took away what should have been my eyes
(but I remembered Milton’s Paradise).
They took away what should have been my ears,
(Beethoven came and wiped away my tears)
They took away what should have been my tongue,
(but I had talked with god when I was young)
He would not let them take away my soul,
possessing that I still possess the whole.”