#19 One of the most amazing and utterly fantastic descriptions of mass suicide comes down to us from ancient history in the story of Pompeii. Pompeii was a thriving resort city – the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire, situated approximately 6 miles south of Mt. Vesuvius near the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. During the early part of the first Century A.D., its population was nearly 20,000 people, a pretty good-sized city in ancient times. And it was wealthy! A pleasure-seeker's paradise: plenty of wine, women and song, and it reeked with gross immorality. By the time of Caesar Augustus, the Bay of Naples was ringed with villas of the rich and famous. They were really something. The latest artistic fashions, elaborate marble architecture in fantastic designs. Forums. Baths. An amphitheater seating 20,000 spectators who came to watch gladiators in combat; or theater plays; dramas; tragedies by famous poets like Seneca. Or comedians like Menander. These villas were so luxurious, we still copy them today. Like the Villa of the Papyri, which provided the inspiration and blueprint for an actual reconstruction. Perhaps you recognize this: The John Paul Getty Museum at Malibu, California. Jeannie and I were there. It’s a perfect replica, which billionaire John Paul Getty used for his villa in Malibu. Well, history tells us that in 62 A.D. there was a severe earthquake in that area, and for 16 years thereafter Mt. Vesuvius boiled and fizzed and hissed and poured out smoke and vapors like it would erupt any moment. But on August 23, 79 A.D., Pompeii looked like any other busy, prosperous city. People were moving about, visiting their shopping malls, reading the newspapers sipping coffee at Starbucks, and sharing friendly chit-chat. Then on August 24, 79 A.D., with the mighty roaring sound of a cosmic thunderclap, Mt. Vesuvius erupted and belched forth such an enormous potion of poison and death that the city of Pompeii was literally bombarded. The largest eruption ever in Europe. First, the wind-driven lapilli, those small pellets of volcanic pumice in minutes buried the entire city in hot mud and ash 12 feet deep. It literally made statues of people – they died right in their tracks, still standing. Those who managed to crawl into some shelter or shop in the city were entombed permanently, and they simply deteriorated after a few weeks and all that remains are their skeletons. Dogs chained up with a leash died trying to get away. You’re looking at the actual volcanic skeletal remains of this poor dog biting at his chain when it finally succumbed and perished. Following the barrage of the lapilli came the storm of wet ash and poison gas. Much deadlier and more dangerous. Hissing. Steam. Mud. A horrible black cloud belched out fire in snake-like flashes. Those individuals who’d escaped the first part of the tragedy but lingered, desperately attempted to flee. But they, too, were felled by the toxic vapors and they literally sat down in their graves of hot muddy lava. The volcanic ash solidified and, of course, today has supplied archaeologists with perfect molds of the bodies of the victims of Pompeii. The neighboring town of Hercula’neum was buried beneath 75' of ash and mud. I encourage you to go to your websites under Yahoo and look up Pompeii. Fascinating photos and stories! Including some taken by satellite. When the pall of death finally lifted three days later the entire city and 16,000 inhabitants (4/5 of the entire population) lay under 20 feet of volcanic debris. The Las Vegas of Rome had become one huge burial vault. Suicide. Mass suicide! They had all the warnings. They had all the signs to get out, but suddenly it was all over. The final curtain – a curtain of volcanic ash. Life was going on as per usual on that August day in Pompeii. The bread was in the oven, eggs were on the stove, the shops were open for business. As the late Chick Hearn, sportscaster for the LA Lakers basketball team would have said: “The game was in the refrigerator. The lights were out. Door shut. Eggs were cooling, J-ello jiggling and the butter getting hard.” The evidence of this has been found among the ashes. The golf courses were crowded, the race track was busy, and the ball players and truck drivers were not on strike! Business and pleasure as usual. But suddenly this busy city was converted into a time capsule. The Bible tells us a similar experience befell ancient Sodom and Gomorrah; and also in the days of Noah and the flood. (Luke 17:26-28). And Jesus says that a comparable experience will be duplicated when the Lord comes at the end of time. <Luke 17:30> Friends, the Voice of Prophecy Speaks once again to tell us that on God's great time clock we are standing on the verge of the final eruption that will terminate all society and usher in the entrance of the kingdom of God. The question is: Where do you and I stand? The wise Pompeiians were those few who escaped with the very first explosion from Vesuvius. A remnant. They saw the danger. They read the situation. And they acted upon it. But, the relics of the ruins clearly tell the tale that those who were lost were the majority – chiefly the wealthy, by the way – they refused to abandon their precious homes and possessions and education and jobs and their pets and their friends, hoping the horrible nightmare would pass. But this decision cost them their lives – a mass suicide. They were victims of procrastination. And that is the most tragic spiritual disease that anyone can ever contract. To hesitate – to wait – to put off responding to the challenge of our eternal destiny. “Not now.” “Wait!” Those two words, friends, “Not now” – are the fatal words that will fill Hell. Millions of people will be in hell who said, “Not now, I want to wait.” They commit suicide – spiritual suicide! During the past three weeks together in this series of prophetic lectures we’ve learned many new things from God's Word. Truth that demands response. Action on our parts! Some truths haven’t always been easy to accept. But the question is: Friends, if it IS truth, we've come face to face with God. Not Lonnie Melashenko. I’d like to challenge you this evening – What are you planning to do with what you’ve learned? Like the citizens of Pompeii are we spiritually immobilized by the paralysis of analysis? Procrastination? Friend, that's spiritual suicide! When we see the warning, when we see the truth and discover the will of the Lord, then God expects us to follow that truth. James 4:17 says, “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” The light of truth that God shines along our pathway keeps moving, friend! And if we fail to move and follow it, we'll be left behind in darkness. Jesus says in John 12, Verses 35-36, “…Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. While you have the light, believe in the light...” There came a time in the experience of the citizens of Pompeii when it was too late. Friends, I'm not trying to be emotional or dramatic, but the time is soon going to come when it is too late to make our decision for eternity. A time when there will be no more changing our minds or attitudes. Revelation 22:11 says the Lord will pronounce, “He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.” I can remember the spring thaw on the great South Saskatchewan River when I lived on the prairies of Canada. Fishing huts began to sink in the melting ice. The ice would begin to break up and sometimes jam up in huge chunks that had to be blasted apart by dynamite or it would destroy bridges and harbors and docks and dams. I remember reading about one particularly large ice floe that was grounded at the narrow entrance of a Canadian harbor. Two boys went out on this ice floe, swept off the snow, put on their ice skates. And for days they had a wonderful time skating around that ice floe. Each day they became more daring...and less observant. After a week had gone by they failed to notice that the spring tide had raised that ice floe just enough to where it began to float. So while they were skating one day, slowly the ice began to float away from the shore and out into the tide. One of the boys saw it and without a moment's hesitation shouted, “Jump for your life!” And he jumped, and scrambled desperately to make his way up on shore. The other boy waited a moment. He saw the distance getting wider and wider...maybe there’d be a better opportunity, he thought. But it was too late. He should have jumped at the first warning. Because that moment of indecision cost him his life. Friends, God loves us. Always. And we may think we can choose God always – at some future date – when it's more convenient. But we don't realize the deceptiveness of procrastination. The first time God calls is always the loudest – the next time gets fainter and fainter, until it's too late. Today is the day of salvation. Amos 8:11-12 says, “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, And from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, But shall not find it.” Can you see the picture? Men and women looking at the headlines. Finally feeling it's time to escape, but it is too late. God says there will be a famine for the hearing of the Word of God. They have waited too long. Friends, this is SPIRITUAL SUICIDE. The Bible has another name for it, “the unpardonable sin.” The saddest spectacle in all the world is the man or woman who has committed the unpardonable sin. Many people are confused about this doctrine and how we commit the unpardonable sin. What is this sin? Notice the most fateful words that have ever been uttered by Jesus Christ, in Matthew 12:22-32, as we take a look at the Bible account of this teaching. “Then
one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute;
and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and
saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, ‘Could this
be the Son of David?’ Now when the Pharisees heard it they
said, ‘This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub,
the ruler of the demons.’ The Pharisees were ascribing Jesus' miraculous healing to Satan: Beelzebub, Lord of Dung, or Prince of Flies and filth! They knew intellectually Jesus was Messiah, the Bible says. But so envious were they of Jesus, so jealous, so full of hatred – that they absolutely refused the impressions of the Holy Spirit on their hearts to accept Him. All along the way they had refused many small daily opportunities to accept Christ. “Sure,” some of them said, “He might be Messiah, but I'll just wait. I’ll remain neutral about this whole thing until all the facts are in. Come weal or woe, my status is quo.” They held back because it would cost them something: Change! And surrender of their will. Or, they'd lose their position. Or, family: “You get baptized and join that cult – our marriage is through.” So now they had no other alternative but to condemn His healings as from Satan! And retain their prestige. What did Jesus mean when He said that this type of sin would “never be forgiven”? What is an unpardonable sin? A doctor in Georgia staggered into his home late one night under the influence of alcohol. In his drunken stupor he went over to the fireplace, took a poker and placed it in the fire until it was red hot. Then he went into the room where his little six-month-old baby was sleeping and…well…when I heard about that terrible crime I said to myself, “God can't forgive a sin like that. That's unpardonable.” But God says, “Pardonable.” We read of horrific crimes in the papers – tortures and slave bondage. We say, “that's unpardonable.” But God says, “Pardonable.” The Bible describes terrible murders, rapes, incest – crimes committed in the most bizarre manner – and we think, “Can God forgive sins like that?” God says, “Pardonable.” So, how do we commit this “unpardonable sin”? This sin of blasphemy. Let's look at the meaning of the word blasphemy. The word “blasphemy” comes from two Greek words meaning to “speak hurtfully” (of the Holy Spirit). The text says, <Matthew
12:32> He commits the unpardonable sin. I’d like to suggest, first of all, that even cursing God openly and outwardly is not necessarily committing the unpardonable sin. The sin against the Holy Spirit is an inner resistance against God. When a person inwardly rebels against spiritual impressions, he's cutting off light God’s revealing to him! He's calling light darkness. And by refusing to follow that light, he's calling Christ's works of mercy on his heart the magic of Beelzebub. That’s spiritual suicide. John 16:8 says of the Holy Spirit, “He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” That’s the Holy Spirit’s work – to convict us we need to repent. We need Jesus. Judgment is coming. But there's no hope for the person who calls day midnight. Who deliberately cuts off the only channel by which God can communicate with him. 1 John 5:15-17 calls this… “...a sin unto death.” Or, other parts of the Bible, like Psalm 19:13, calls it, “...the great transgression.” The Bible indicates King Belshazzar in ancient Babylon committed this unpardonable sin. He was the profligate, blasphemous grandson of Nebuchadnezzar who insulted God. His life was “weighed in the balances and found wanting” when he crossed God's deadline and insulted heaven when he brought in sacred vessels of the temple and used them for a great feast and drunken orgy. In the New Testament we read that King Herod spoke against the Holy Spirit and the Bible says he was immediately eaten by worms. It's a serious thing to inwardly resist God's Holy Spirit. But there's a second way to sin against the Holy Spirit. And that is to reject pardon. Friends, there’s no sin God isn't willing to forgive. Psalm 86:5 tells us, “...You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive...” Any sin! John 6:37 says, “...the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” <1 John 1:9> So, the unpardonable isn't a sin that’s unforgivable, but one in which forgiveness is refused. God can't forgive it because the sinner doesn't want it forgiven. <Hebrews
6:4-6> If he refuses to repent, it’s impossible to forgive this type of person. But people are responsible for this, not God. We can place ourselves in a position where God can't reach us. So the unpardonable sin is the sin of rejected pardon. Third, the sin against the Holy Spirit involves man leaving God, not God leaving man. God never gives up. No soul is ever deserted by God. People turn from God, not God from them. We used to live in an old house in Springfield, Massachusetts right next to a railroad track – fifty steps away! It cut right through our back yard. The first time a locomotive went by we thought the house would collapse. But after a while you become accustomed to it. Sort of like an alarm clock – people don't even hear it go off after awhile! Ever had that happen? Same with the Holy Spirit. We can repeatedly reject His pardon to the extent that pretty soon we don't even feel we need to be pardoned or baptized or join the church. When you choose to reject the Holy Spirit’s still small voice, there's no more that God can do. You cut yourself off from God, so there finally has to come a time when God’s Spirit must honor a person’s wishes and say, “Let him alone.” You see, the unpardonable sin is committed deliberately, not unconsciously. Unfortunately, it’s committed many times by good moral people. They don't speak against the Church or swear or insult God. They plan to give their heart to God some day – but not yet. The invitation and the call is given, but they deliberately don't go forward. “Not now,” they say. “Later.” You are turning away from God when you do that. You're stifling His voice. James 4:17 says, “...To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” You don't necessarily have to reject Christ to commit this sin. You don't have to do anything – absolutely nothing. But that's the point! Through repeated refusals to make a decision we choose to be lost. Not to decide is to decide! Fifth, the sin against the Holy Spirit isn't just the result of one decision, one refusal, but the result of many decisions. It's a gradual process of rejecting God, and rejecting new light. In Hebrews 6:6 Paul says it’s impossible “to renew them again unto repentance.” They commit spiritual suicide. The unpardonable sin isn't stealing or drinking or smoking or profanity or adultery. Not even murder. But if you set your mind against God, against His light, so that your will becomes fixed against Him, then you have crossed the deadline and committed the unpardonable sin. It’s persistently rejecting the Spirit's call to repentance, failure to permit Jesus in, so He can put away sin in our lives. Finally, the sin against the Holy Ghost leaves deep inside a person a void of spiritual concern. A spiritual vacuum. Oh, on the surface they might even go to church occasionally. But deep inside they couldn't care less about religion, let alone worry about committing the unpardonable sin. So friend, if you've ever worried about whether you’ve committed it, you haven't committed it. Since God will never leave you if you want Him, He's yours! But when the Holy Spirit leaves a person, we don't hear Him any more. He can even shout at us; we hear nothing. So Romans 1:24 says He has to give us up. “Therefore God...gave them up to uncleanness...” Hebrews 10:26 says there remains no more sacrifice for us. <Hebrews
10:26-29> A news photographer near Sacramento was doing a story on bald eagles and wanted some photos close up. He went up into the Sierra Nevada hills where he spotted an eagle’s nest perched on a perpendicular cliff. Too far for his telephoto lenses. He hiked across the canyon, tied one end of a rope around a tree far above the nest, the other end wrapped in a knot in his hands. Very carefully he edged over that sheer vertical cliff, then rappelled down to the eagle's nest. There it was! A baby eaglet – parents gone! He decided to get closer. Making his body a pendulum be began swinging closer and closer. Finally at the last second, he jumped for the ledge and landed safely! But as he did, he let go of the rope! Instantly, his mind like a computer made some swift calculations. “Uh-oh! No one knows I’m here. I’ll die. The first time that rope swings back is the closest.” He crouched. And sprang into space, caught the rope, and scrambled back to safety. In a very real way it’s the same with the Holy Spirit the first time He speaks to our hearts about truth. “Lon, now is the time. Today is the day. Do this! Take the leap of faith.” But each time we pass up on that still small voice, our chances get slimmer and slimmer. I can't help thinking there may be some in this audience or watching these video presentations who are listening to their last sermons. You've been holding back. You won't accept heaven's pardon. Some people at an evangelistic meeting altar call literally hold on to their seat to keep from going forward; from making a decision. The Spirit of God is working on their hearts, but they won't turn loose. They refuse to surrender. But, <Matthew
16:26> I’ve been told that only one in 10,000 accept Christ after 45 years of age. Oh friend, if you feel even a flicker in your heart, who do you think is calling? Wooing? Who do you think is inviting? Pleading. Don't leave this place without doing something about it. Don't put off your decision even one day to follow the convictions of the Holy Spirit. Don't commit spiritual suicide. Pardon is being held out today – right now. During a series of evangelistic meetings in Chicago back in 1871 Dwight L. Moody once told his audience, “I'm going to give you a whole week to decide what to do with Jesus.” But that very night the great Chicago fire destroyed the entire city. Hundreds and thousands of people died. Moody didn't get to hold another meeting in that city until 23 years later. As he looked over his audience that night, he said, “23 years ago I made the greatest mistake I ever committed. I gave an audience a week to decide what to do with Jesus. I do not see a single soul to whom I preached that night. I shall never meet those people again till they rise up against me in the judgment. I'd rather have my right hand cut off than ever again give an audience a week in which to decide what to do with Jesus.” I want to make an appeal to your heart right now. Decide for Jesus. Don’t wait even one more day. Decide now to yield your all to Christ. Come by the blood-stained path of the cross. You may not have all the answers, but accept Christ as your Savior, by faith! Come just as you are. Give your life to Christ. This is a choice you must make. Jesus is a gentleman. He'll never force salvation on any person who doesn't want Him. He won't take you by your lapel and drag you to Him. You have to choose Him. He knocks at your door, but you must open the door. Friend, Jesus has spoken to our hearts again – He's made His move. He made it at Calvary. He’s made it at these meetings. The church has made its move – it's opening its doors for you through these meetings. The evangelist has made his move by inviting you. The next move
is your move. What will you do? I know you'll come.
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