Address—Dn. Spence
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Like to welcome you all through the Gospel Meeting tonight.
It's good to see so many of you who stayed. And any of you who are here for the first time, we'd like to welcome you as we open God's word with a tremendous message, a message that we've been singing about Christ is the Savior of sinners.
I was traveling in a bus some time ago.
And I was We were going through the state of Utah, and in the state of Utah we stopped at a little town named St. George, UT.
And there was a man on the bus, about 23 years of age and he was a semi professional boxer.
He was sitting behind me and I was listening to his conversation some of the time.
He was an extremely interesting young man and he liked people.
He liked to talk and so when he got out of the bus at Saint George.
We were standing there in the burning heat of the desert.
He came up as we were both drinking a can of pop and he said, and what do you do for a living? And I said, well, I used to be an engineer, but I said I owed a great debt to a friend of mine. And I went to work for him. And he said, oh, who's that? And I said that person is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He didn't say anything more, and I didn't either.
We got back in the bus and went on down the road toward Las Vegas.
And all of a sudden I felt this tap on my shoulder and I looked around and he said.
He was behind me, he said I like your approach and I said, well, I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean, he said.
Well, I like your approach. He said most people in your profession are pushing, and he said you aren't.
He said, I've been watching you for a long time on this bus. And he said I just appreciate that you're not pushy with the Bible.
And so I said to him, I said, Well, tell me what you believe. Do you believe in the existence of a heaven and a hell?
Do you believe that you are a Sinner? Do you believe that God sent his son into this world? And he said.
Oh, yes, he said. I believe all that.
He said I think it's all true, but he said I just haven't.
Got to the point where I've really gotten serious about it yet.
And I said to him, is it a matter of priority in your life? And he said you're right, you're right, you're right. It's priority.
He said right now I've got a lot of things that I'm doing. I'm trying to climb into the professional ranks of boxing. And he said right now this is a greater priority in my life.
And so I said, let's suppose that instead of on this Greyhound bus.
But you and I are out over the Pacific Ocean on our way to Hawaii, and halfway there the pilot comes on to the speaker system and he says, I'm sorry folks, but we just lost power and all four engines will be going into a dive in just a few seconds and you have 15 minutes to eternity.
I said What priority would you put on these issues now?
He says #1.
And I said to him.
Then how long do you have to live?
He said, well, who knows? He said it could be a long time. It might not be so long. I said, does it not make sense then right now to get right with God? He said. I never thought of it that way. He said, you're right. You talk like a friend that I'm going to see down in Barstow, CA. And he said, you know.
He said. I think when I get down to Barstow, I'm going to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior.
And I said, why wait till Barstow?
He didn't say anything. You see, his priorities were still wrong. They were still wrong.
And as we pulled into Barstow about two in the morning and he went by on the bus, he tapped me on the shoulder.
And he held up his finger like that number one.
I hope that he went through with that.
If he did, he's a part of that heavenly company that's going to escape the judgment. If he didn't, he's still lost.
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Tonight.
I want you, at the beginning of this meeting, to examine your priorities.
I know that you've got some plans after the meeting.
Maybe you're going to ask someone to the sing.
Maybe you are going to go home.
Maybe you've got plans at home. Maybe you've just bought a new car.
But I want you right now to examine your priorities in the light of eternity.
My friends, there is nothing.
Absolutely nothing that is more important at this very moment.
Then that you make the priority of eternity and where you are going to spend it.
Number one.
Number one.
We're going to open this book. This book is the Bible. It was written by men.
Who were inspired by God. It is God's word and God's message to you, and it contains in it one of the most wonderful messages. It contains the most wonderful message that man has ever received.
We're going to turn to a portion tonight that was referred to last night and we're going to spend all of the evening on it. I'd like you to turn to the book of Matthew.
Matthew Chapter 13.
I'm sorry, Matthew, Chapter 12.
And verse 38.
Matthew 12 and verse 38.
Then Britain of the Scribes and the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generations speaketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was 3 days and three nights in the whales belly, so shall the Son of Man be 3 days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas.
And behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
The queen of the spouse shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it.
For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
If I were to entitle this little talk tonight, I would call it this.
Greater than Jonas.
Greater than Solomon is here.
He's not here in person. He's here in the Spirit. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.
I've been listening to these gospel meetings the last two nights.
And this portion seems to me to come up what we have had before us the last two nights.
And I just want to say, my friends, that I have a strong feeling that some people went home from these meetings last.
I have that feeling.
And I feel that there are some out in the audience tonight who have never have never.
Gotten right with God.
I want to introduce you tonight to a person who is greater than Jonah.
Who is greater than Solomon?
I don't know how many great people you have ever met.
I have come into contact with two great people.
The first one was back in 1960 when Nikita Khrushchev.
The ruler of the large, powerful nation of Russia visited this country. He came to the campus at Iowa State University and he drove through the campus. He passed by within 3 feet of where I was standing. I listened to what he had to say translated.
And I'll tell you what my opinion of this man was.
My opinion was that he was a little man in a big position.
You know there are some reports that that that after he was deposed from power.
That the reason for it was that he had turned to Christ. I don't know whether that's right or not.
There's a story around some Christian circles that he accepted the Lord. I don't know whether that's true.
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But I saw him within a few feet.
I was not too impressed.
But if you, if I were to ask you, who is the greatest person in the world tonight? The.
Who would you say?
I don't know who the greatest person tonight is.
But in the 1970s, at a little company where I worked in California.
Governor Reagan then came to visit our company.
And I have never seen a man with such elegance.
And we're stuck with such simplicity.
And with such authority.
That man is now our president.
And while he was the governor of California, made a profession of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.
If he were here tonight, he would tell you that his favorite verse is this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 316 That's his favorite verse.
You know.
A greater.
Then Nikita Khrushchev is here tonight.
A greater than President Reagan is here. Are greater than President Kennedy, President Lincoln, President Washington, for all of those people, are just mere men.
Who have risen to the top of the political world. They've got problems like you and I.
They're spinners like you.
And I.
They need a savior.
But there is one person that is infinitely different.
It was brought out so well in that first gospel meeting that we had that the Lord Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. That is as it was explained. He was not trying to attain the Godhead. He was not climbing up the ladder of success trying to be God. He was God. He was God, come down in the form of a man to go to a place called Calvary to lay down his life.
To become the savior of sinners so that you tonight might simply.
Be able to look up and see Him by faith as your Savior and receive Him into your heart.
A greater than Jonas and a greater than Solomon is here.
We'll be talking about those two men a little bit and comparing them with the Lord Jesus Christ. But before we do, notice what it says in verse 38. Some of these tribes and Pharisees came to Jesus, and they said, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation speaketh after a Stein, and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
It's interesting that these scribes and Pharisees.
Would use this term master, for they had no respect for Jesus.
They hated him.
They despised him. They cast him out. I asked you, my friend, tonight, what is your attitude toward Jesus?
When you hear the name of Jesus, what does it do to your heart? Is it a word that you have used in vain?
Is it a word that you use when you get angry?
Or is it in that category of nothingness where it just means nothing to you?
These men use this term, this term of respect.
But it was a degraded term. It had come down a long ways, otherwise they wouldn't have used it. And they said, master, we want to Stein, give us a sign we'll believe.
And the Lord says, I won't give you a sign except for one, and we'll be talking about that. But I want you to note that he was a man.
Jesus who had walked about that land of Israel, and it was well known.
That he had touched the leper and he had become clean.
It was well known that he had raised people from the dead.
It was well known that he had given sight to the blind. All of these things were not done in a corner, they were done out in the open.
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It was well known. Isn't it rather ironic, my friend, that that these people would now come to Jesus and say give us a sign?
We want something to absolutely convince us when they had every sign possible.
That Jesus was God. He had power over disease. He had power over death.
Itself he had power over sight.
This was an evil and adulterous generation that was Speaking of spine, and I wonder if you have ever said that I'd like to see a sign. You know what kind of sign they wanted? They wanted a sign of fire and power that would come in and would destroy.
Their the nation that ruled over them. They wanted that person of power that was a world leader.
That would demand prominence and position.
They were so far out of tune with God's mind they could careless if somebody got raised from the dead.
Jesus was willing to take that place of power, but in his own way, and they wanted a sign.
Well, I met a man.
Used to work with him and a little company that built plotters.
And this man was a Jew.
He had been in the Israeli.
Air Force. He was a paratrooper.
He had flown on missions. He'd been he had been parachuted into the front lines.
And this man was one of the most avid atheists that I have ever met in my life.
He said there's no gun.
I remember one day that I happened to be in his office talking about some pins that he was developing, some high speed pins and.
He brought it up.
He said. You know, I don't believe in God.
He said I don't believe. And I said to him, I said, what would it take you to believe in a God? What would it take?
And he said this? He said. Well, I'll tell you what.
If all of a sudden fire comes out of the sky and burns up this trash in the waste paper basket, I will believe.
I said. Would you?
And he said, no, I don't think I would. I wouldn't believe that.
He said. I said. What would you believe?
He said, well, if that telephone rings and all of a sudden they pick it up and he says on the other end it says hello, this is God, he said. I would believe.
I said, would you believe that he thought for a while And he said.
I don't think I would believe.
And I said, what would it take for you to believe?
Would you believe if somebody arose from the dead?
No, no, he would not believe. Oh, my friends, how serious and how solemn to think of an educated mechanical engineer who it becomes so stupid when it comes to eternal things he would not believe, even though he saw a man arise from the dead.
That's what Jesus is talking about here, he's saying. I won't give you a sign.
I won't give a sign except the spine of Jonas the Prophet.
I want you to well, let's let's read on together and we'll read what that Stein is. Verse 40.
But as Jonas was 3 days and three nights in the whale's bellies, foes shall the Son of Man be 3 days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
Now before we launch into this little discussion of Jonas.
I want to ask you, is your heart really yielded on this matter?
Are you willing to know God's thoughts?
Are you willing to make this a matter of prayer? My friends? The destiny of your soul is at stake.
I ask you at this moment to pray if you're yet in your sins.
And ask God for the faith to believe, for by grace are you saved through faith.
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And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. What God is saying in that verse is, if you don't have the faith to believe, I have it for you right now as a gift. And if you will just simply look up and ask God to send you down the faith, he will send it to you free of charge.
I want you to turn back to the book of Jonah.
The Old Testament just not too far back.
Amos Obadiah, Jonah, Micah.
And we'll note here some of the things that happened to Jonah chapter one and verse one.
The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of the Mittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa.
And he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them under Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Notice Chapter 3.
And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city.
And preach into it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah rose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh wasn't exceeding great city of three days journey and Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey and he cried and said yet 40 days and none of us shall be overthrown.
Last chapter and the last verse.
And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than six 4000 persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and also much cattle?
Now I want to talk a little bit about the city of Nineveh. It is a gentile city.
Jonah was a Jew.
He didn't want to go down there because it was a gentile city.
This B was the capital of Assyria. It was founded by a man named Nimrod.
1300 years prior to the visit of Jonah.
And this city was a city of three days journey, or approximately 90 miles in circumference. Took you three days to travel around the circumference of the city.
The population of this city was 120 thousand children.
They couldn't tell which hand was the right and which was they left.
And perhaps an estimate of maybe 600,000 total people in this city.
600,000 people that were spread out across this city.
And Jonah was to go to this city. This city was perhaps the greatest wicked city of its day. It had reached the lowest point.
And this city was full of idolatry. Idolatry reigns supreme in this city.
And not only did idolatry reign supreme, but the things that went along with it.
Witchcraft, demonism, violence. Men were taken out in public and they were impaled.
And hung there to die and to suffer before the crowd.
Men were taken according to history, and they were spliced in pieces before people as they watched.
There was a city that was filled with violence and corruption reigned supreme. All sorts of immorality were on every hand.
And God said I cannot stand it. I will not allow this city to go on. I'm going to judge it.
When the sun went down, the evil came up.
The Lord told Jonah to go down to that city of Nineveh.
I have experienced a while ago of coming.
Into contact with the city that parallels the city of Nineveh. I was on my way to Eureka, CA.
For a funeral.
And Eureka often gets fogged in and on the way to Eureka, we landed in Oakland.
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And the flight or in San Francisco and the flight was terminated. And so they said, I'm sorry but the flight ends here. We cannot get into the city of Eureka, so you'll have to take a bus.
I called the bus people and there was a bus that left at midnight would get me in at 8:00 in the morning into Eureka. So I went down to the and caught a bus downtown San Francisco and I walked four blocks across the worst town I've ever seen in my life. I cannot describe, I will not describe the things that I saw. But the thing that was absolutely amazing to me was that the judgment of God.
Had not fallen on that city. I'm just going to tell you one thing that I saw.
I saw a man standing on the street corner and this man.
Was preaching.
Phil from the corner, he went on and on and I was carrying my bags down through those four blocks, obviously a visitor to that town, and it was not an easy thing to do. Here was a city that was worse than the city of San Francisco in some ways. And God says, Jonah, I want you to go down there. And we all know the story. We covered it a little bit last night. Jonah went down.
To flee, he was not going to go there. He didn't want to deliver this message, so he went down and he bought a ticket.
On a boat that may have taken him on a long journey, maybe of three years, before he returned.
He didn't want to go and he went down in the bottom of the boat and then in chapter one we would find him cast out into the sea and God had prepared a great fish and the fish swallowed him up.
And in chapter two we find some of the description. Maybe we could just read a little bit of it, some of that description, chapter 2 and verse one. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishes belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord and he heard me, and out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice, For thou hast cast me into the deep in the in the midst of the spees, and in in the floods compassed me about.
All thy billows and thy waves.
Passed over me. I'm going to stop there. We find that Jonah continues to pray and continues to repent, but here we find him in the midst of a terrible situation.
As a little boy, I often picture Jonah in the whale's belly, sitting on a chair at the end of a big room.
But since I have grown up and studied biology, I find out that it is not so. Jonah had the folds of the stomach of that fish around his head.
And his body? There was perhaps a little air gap there for him to breathe.
And as that fish swallowed in gallons of water, Jonah had that water come up to his chin, up to his very nose, and he felt as if he were going to go under. He were going to drown. What a miserable, miserable experience. And Jonah comes out of this, he prays in the Lord speaks to that fish, and he vomits him out under the land. And this time Jonah goes.
Now I want to picture Jonah a little bit going down to that city speaker last night pictured his skin made his skin change and so on. I want to picture Jonah as he walks into that city and there's all of these people milling about and Jonah walks up onto this corner and he says yet 40 days and Nineveh is going to be overthrown. And the people stop for a few moments and they look at around to see where that voice is coming from. They don't like it.
They wish people would stop trying to disturb their peace.
And Jonah goes on to the next corner. 30 days and Nineveh is going to be overthrown.
And Jonah goes on and he sees. Perhaps if you'll let my imagination run, there are some people going into the.
The Coliseum. And so Jonah goes in there and it's half time and Jonah goes out into the middle and he makes this announcement 40 days in. Nineveh is going to be overthrown and he walks out.
He goes down the street and he sees a farmer out in the field, so he goes over and he taps him on the shoulder and he says 40 days and this city is going to be destroyed.
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And he goes on his way.
All through that city, three days journey round and around, he went into the schools, if they had them.
Into the marketplace, into the places of business. Until that whole city was a stir at this message, everybody knew it.
40 days is all that we've got left. And you know my friend, the amazing thing is this, that the people of that city.
Accepted that message, they accepted it. Notice chapter 3 and verse five. So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them, even to the least of them. For the word came under the King of Nineveh. He rose from his throne and laid his.
Robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and satin ashes.
Here was a city that believed God. They didn't have a Bible. They didn't have any the testimony in the mouth of two or three witnesses, one man, one message, a message of judgment. They believed it. They repented, and they were spared from judgment.
Now I want you to consider this.
Greater than Jonah is here, Greater than Jonah.
In what ways was Jesus greater? He was greater in life. He was greater in death. He was greater in resurrection. He was greater in power. He was greater in person.
He was greater in an infinite number of ways.
You know, you think of Jonah down there in the fish's belly. I want you to consider.
The Lord Jesus Christ, if you could turn to the Book of Luke.
Luke, Chapter 22.
And we're going to, I'm sorry, Luke, Chapter 23.
We're going to look at several miracles of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke, chapter 23 and verse 34.
I'm sorry, verse 33. And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him in the malefactors one on the right hand.
And the other on the left then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
And they parted his raiment and cast lots.
My friends, here is the first miracle of the cross that the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Beloved Son, and the perfect, spotless, Holy Lamb of God, God Himself and the Person of his Son laid his arms down upon a cross.
Allowed nails to be driven through his hands.
Allowed nails to be driven through his feet, and as the hatred and vengeance of men came out in that, cross went up in the air.
And the weight of his body came down upon that cross.
In all of that pain and suffering of that moment, the Lord Jesus Christ looked up and he interceded for those who were crucifying him. And he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He pleaded the sin of ignorance for those who crucified him. And I say here is the first miracle. It's the miracle of love. The Lord Jesus Christ so loved the very people that crucified him that he interceded for them.
To God's to the throne of God so that the crucifixion could go on. Why, my friends? Because he loved you. He loved you. And you because you are, like those men of Nineveh, a Sinner, a lost headed for judgment. You can never be saved apart from the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice down in verse 44 we'll talk about the second miracle.
And it was about the 6th hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the 9th hour, and the sun was darkened in the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.
From six from 12:00 noon to 3:00 in the afternoon, there was total darkness over the whole earth. God blotted out the sun because they're in those hours of darkness. He wanted no one to see what was going on in those hours of darkness. God God poured out his wrath upon his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ in that hour had upon him.
00:35:18
Had taken upon himself the spins of many people. He'd taken the blame for them. And God was pouring out his full vengeance and full wrath upon the blessed head of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God said, I will not let anybody see him in the darkness. At the end of that darkness he cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And so Jesus died there upon the cross.
He died for us, noticed in verse 46, and when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. This is the third miracle of the cross that a man could voluntarily give up his life. Miracle #3 and the last miracle from the book of John. Let's turn to it. John, Chapter 19.
John, Chapter 19.
And verse 34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water, And he that sought their record, and his record is true. And he knoweth knoweth that he stayeth true, that ye might believe, My friends, Jesus shed his blood voluntarily, for it is impossible for a dead person to shed that blood.
And yet God in His Holiness required a shedding of blood, for he said.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. No person could ever be brought into blessing without the shedding of the blood of an innocent victim and without the shedding of the blood of God's beloved Son. And when you look in this book, you will find that there is a trail of blood that goes all the way through because of man's sins. It goes all the way through to the cross, and it stops at the cross, and there is no more shedding of blood.
My friends, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanseth you.
From all sin, that is God's only remedy. And tonight, if you will plead the studying of His precious blood for your soul and your sins, you will walk out of this room tonight, clean every wet. The record will be wiped clean.
I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking, well, I'm not as bad as a lot of people. When we read that verse in the Bible, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Right away we begin to compare and we say, well, if you only knew how bad my friend at school was, or I'm not as bad as that person in the prison and things like that. But you know, everybody in Nineveh was under the sentence of judgment. Everybody.
Everybody needed to repent. Some were better, some were worse. No doubt like a sinking ship, like two people on this ship talking about it, saying, oh, the ship's going to go down, the lifeboats are full and I can swim better than you when they are thousands of miles from shore. It doesn't do any good. It doesn't do any good. And one sin is enough to keep us out of heaven, but the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, will cleanse us from.
All sin.
There was a little boy in a gospel meeting in Buena Park, CA. And this little boy, this little boy sat in the front row or second row back. He was invited in for the first or second time. He did not know how to behave, and all meeting long he was talking to his friends, jumping up and down, carrying on. And so finally, about halfway through the gospel meeting, I said to him, would you like to come up front?
And he said I would. So he came up and I said I'd like you to read this verse.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. He looked down at it and he tried to read. He was about 10 years old. He could not read. So we read it together.
00:40:02
Word by word, And I said, do you know what it means to sin? And he said no.
And I said, sin is when you disobey your mother. It's when she tells you to do something and you don't do it. It's when you tell her a lie. It's when you when you steal things that she doesn't know about.
I said, have you ever sinned? You ever done anything like that? And he thought for a while and he said.
Well, I think I did once.
And I said to him, oh, did you know that that one sin will keep you out of heaven? He said, I didn't know that. And I said, but look at this verse. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanseth us from all sin. And if that's all the sin that you've got, you'll never get into heaven. But Jesus blood can wash it away. And I said, if you accept him as your savior tonight, then you can go home and you can say Mom, remember.
That one time that I committed that one sin.
Well, tonight I got it washed away in Jesus blood.
And I said, I know what your mom will say, she'll say, but you didn't just do it once. You've done it thousands of times. And then I said, you just get this verse out and say, mom, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Every single sin washed away.
And my friends, that's what Jesus is saying here. Let's turn back to Matthew chapter 12.
A greater than Jonah is here.
A greater than Jonah is here because all that Jonah could do was preach the message. All that he could do was preach the message. He couldn't save us all. And the the the astounding thing is this, that he went all over that city and he preached this message that Nineveh was going to be overthrown in 40 days and it was accepted. But here are greater than Jonah was here.
He was standing there before their very eyes. He was going to go into death.
He was going to come out of death and resurrection, and that's that's what he's talking about here. The sign of Jonas, the prophet. We talked about it last night. We talked about how the Lord Jesus Christ came out of that tomb. He came out, He arose from the dead. And that sign stands tonight to the world as a monument, that Jesus was God and that the work of salvation is forever, forever complete.
And that you, by simple faith, can just reach out and accept it. Tonight. If you try to do something, you will spoil it. You will spoil it. If you reach out and accept it by faith, you can have it. God wants to give it to you. I remember the last night we went to a boys home in Elsinore, California. It was being closed down. We had gone there for about 10 years and on this particular evening.
There were only about 10 boys that showed up for the meeting and the speaker spoke with such emphasis. He said, Boys, we are not coming back. We will never see you again. This may be your last chance to receive Christ. How many of you in this audience would like to receive him? Raise your hand. We've never done this before.
Five hands went up out of those ten kids.
Five hands and five young men, ages 13 to 17.
Went out to pray to receive Christ.
All my friends, I wonder in this audience tonight, how many are there tonight that are ready at this very moment as the Gospel meeting is coming to a close? How many are willing to receive Christ?
Let's let's look at this. It says.
The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation.
And shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonas and behold, a greater than Jonas is here. What he's saying is this. I I don't know how to explain this. I hope that some of my older, well taught brethren will excuse me if I try to explain something that is hard for me to understand. But it it means to me something like this. There's coming a day when there's going to be a great white throne set up.
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And people who are yet in their stands, who've never been saved, who are not under the shelter of his blood, will stand one by one in front of him. The Book of Revelation talks about it. We talked about it Friday night. Every knee will bow. And as those people come before the great White throne, the Lord Jesus Christ will have the books open and the book of life. The search will be made. No name will be found.
And then the book of their works will be opened, and they will be judged according to their works. Now here are these very men that rejected Christ. They said, we want to sign before we will believe. And there, if I could picture it like a Coliseum, and they're in the background, are all of the Saints. As they look upon this terrible scene of judgment, they look upon it. And here are these men that stand condemned before the great white throne.
And in their mind is a big question mark. They're thinking, oh, if I would have only had a sign, then I would have believed. And just to dispel that doubt, the Lord Jesus Christ will point off in that direction. To those people of Nineveh, 600,000 people will arise.
600,000 people will arise, who were saved, who believed a message, who saw no miracles, who had a mere man preached the message. 600,000 people will stand up at the judgment, and that person who stands before the Lord Jesus Christ will be condemned because he believed not the preaching of one who was greater than Jonas.
If we had time, we would go over a little bit of the Queen of the South. I'll just mention this, but here was Solomon the most what the wisest king. Whoever lived a person who reached the apex of the political world of his day, a person who was wise in every way, he'd received this wisdom from God. He had written 1005 Proverbs. He wrote the Book of Proverbs and the Song of Solomon and others.
His works stand as a monument of wisdom and so on, but here he was as a king, and one woman way down in the land of Sheba heard about him. One Gentile woman, probably a black woman. She heard a report, and she came all that way just to stand in his presence, to test him with hard questions, she believed, just to report that she'd heard.
She believed it all in a greater than Solomon was here.
Greater in wisdom, the one in whom were hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
The Creator of the universe stood before them and they rejected him. My friends, I asked you tonight, are you rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ as he stands at your hearts door and has presented himself?
As the eternal Son of God, the one who has died on your behalf, the one who has suffered so that you might be spared from judgment, are you going to reject him at the end of this meeting?
And go last out of this room, into the night, perhaps forever, into a lost eternity.
Please at this moment.
Pray that God will help you to make this right decision.
You know, it says that this, this very Queen of the South is going to rise up in judgment to. And I picture these people that after the 600,000 people sit down, there is one lone figure that stands up. It is the Queen of Sheba. She stands there, a Gentile woman saved. She stands there as a testimony against those who sought a sign.
And those people will be condemned, forever condemned.
I'd like to tell you a little story about a young lady.
Out in Anaheim or Fullerton, CA.
Dan Brimelow is here.
Can attest to this story. I may not get the details exactly right. It's been a long time since this happened. Maybe nine months.
But some time ago, last fall, I think Dan came to me one day and he said there's a little, there's a a mother of one of our afternoon Sunday school kids that needs help. She needs counsel. Would you be willing to go with me and we'll go visit her? And I said sure, I'd be glad to go. So we went over and we went into this little like one room apartment. Maybe it was 2 room, I don't know.
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And here was a lady 22 years of age. Her name was Beverly.
And we took her and we went down to a little restaurant nearby, walked there and we said, what's troubling you Beverly? And she said, well, you know, I.
I was as a child, she said. My folks had a lot of problems. My dad left. I don't even remember who he is or never saw him. I don't remember him. And she said. I grew up in this home where there was a lot of trouble.
A lot of violence, a lot of sin.
And she said when I grew up to be a teenager, I followed in the same direction and she said.
As I became 16 or 17 years of age, she said the sins, the problems, the difficulties in all of it came down upon my mind. And she said this burden that I was carrying around was too big. I could not bear the burden. And so she said I had a nervous breakdown, my mind gave up and she said the recovery from that was extremely slow.
During that time, somewhere along 16 or 17, she'd had a little boy. She was not married. And this little boy came along only in a sense, to add to the burdens and the problems. And now she was presently living in sin. And she said, you know, I I feel like I was feeling before, she said. Like all of the problems are too big for me to carry.
She said I think I'm going to have another nervous breakdown, she said. I need help.
But she said, you know my little boy goes through your afternoon Sunday school and he comes home and he sings Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. And she said I know he's got the answer. She said I know that that's what I want. I want Jesus.
So we talked to Beverly. We explained her the simple to her the simple way of salvation. We told her how she was a spinner and that God had the record up there in heaven of her sins. We told her, as we've talked about tonight, how Jesus came down from heaven to die upon the cross.
And how he shed his blood to wash those sins away so that the record could be gone.
We made it. We said, Beverly, all that you have to do is accept it. But we don't want to press you, You know, you can you just tell us, call us sometime whenever you get ready to be saved, she said, oh, I want to be saved this afternoon. Maybe I didn't get my message across to you. She said. I want. That's why I called you. I, I, I don't want to go on one more day in my sins.
So we went a little bit further and we read Romans 10/9 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is Lord.
And believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. We said, Beverly, do you believe that Jesus is Lord? And she said, I do.
We said Beverly, Beverly, do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? She said. I don't know what that means. I have never heard of it before. And we explained as was explained last night, how Jesus died, went into the grave 3 days.
Three nights. And how that he arose from the dead and went back to heaven. We said, Beverly, do you believe that? And she said.
I believe.
We said, well, would you care to pray with us? And she said I'd like to pray. I don't know how to pray but she said I will pray. We said do you want to pray out loud or quietly? And she said I I choose out loud.
So we all bowed our heads in there in the quietness of that hour as Dan and I were lifting up our hearts for Beverly.
She said nothing.
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We looked up and we said Beverly, what's the matter?
She said, I don't know how to pray. I don't even know how to begin. We said, well, would it be OK if we start first? So I prayed and Dan prayed, and right away Beverly prayed. And I will tell you as close as I can, how Beverly prayed.
She said.
Oh God, she said. You know what a terrible Sinner I have been? She said. You know how?
I have sinned so many times. I've done so many wrong things. I've made so many mistakes, and you have all of these on record in heaven, she said. Oh God, I I know I'm headed for judgment. I don't know what to do. But she said I want to be saved this afternoon. I want to be saved right now.
She said, oh God, please help me and Lord Jesus, she said. Please come into my heart, come into my life, take your blood and wash my sins away so that I'll be clean and so that I'll be saved.
There was a long silence and finally we looked up and Beverly was looking at us and we she said I That's it. That's all.
I I don't know anything else to say.
She said. Do you think that'll get me in?
And we said.
Oh, Beverly.
That that will get you in. That will get you in. I was just talking to Dan before the meeting and I said, Dan, where is Beverly?
Hadn't seen him for a while and he said she moved to Michigan. Doesn't know where she is, but she's staved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I wonder as I look out on the crowd tonight, that there are boys and girls who have heard this message all the way through. From the time they have been little boys, little girls, they know this message and you have never.
Received Christ.
There are those of you who live in this Christian land, who have this Bible access to this Bible, who have never read it.
And I just wonder. I don't know. I just wonder someday if you ever go into a lost eternity.
If as you stand before that throne, that great white throne, if the Lord Jesus Christ will not say Beverly.
Would you stand up?
Here is a woman who was not raised in a Christian home, never heard the message before, did not know about the resurrection, who was saved.
My friends, the Lord Jesus Christ at the close of these meetings.
Is inviting you for maybe the last time to come to him. Will you come? Let's just sing a couple of verses.