Address—N. Berry
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I'd like to speak about.
Four different occasions.
Long intervals of time between them when four people can.
Come face to face with this one, the Savior.
Four different occasions.
We were speaking about the first one this morning in the Sunday School. Let's turn to the Gospel of Luke for that first one.
There's going to be one thing in common with each one of these occasions.
And we'll see it as we go on.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 23.
And verse 39.
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, But this man hath done nothing amiss.
Now this is the verse. And he said unto Jesus.
Lord.
Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. And Jesus said unto him.
Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. So we'll pause there. Here is a man who is dying and looking into your faces. Everybody seems to be healthy here tonight.
Here's a man that is within hours of his death. You might not think that you are, but you may be.
We may be.
And I'm putting our we consider this man, he's hanging on a tree. He has four parts of his body that are functioning. One is his mouth, the other is his.
His heart, two that are not able to work. His hands.
And his feet.
He's dying, he's dying, and everyone of us here in this audience is dying. We are on our way.
To eternity.
And might be awakened tonight to the reality of it. We're living in a time when everyone is saying So what? But here is a man who is.
Without doubt, he knows that he's dying. There is no hope. If the Lord had said to him, do some good deeds and you'll be all right. He could have to. He would have to say I can't, my hands are tied. If the Lord had said to him, turn over new leaf and do a goal to church or whatever, it might be the sin of God.
That is useless to tell that man. He can't. He has no liberty to use his feet. He is tied hand and feet now. You're not.
They're not.
But he had the other two parts of his body, his heart and his mouth.
With those two remaining parts, he now is confronted with this reality of death.
And he says to the Lord, that one word, that one keyword, and I want to emphasize it. I trust that it'll burn into your heart and soul tonight and into your conscience, the word Lord.
It's one thing to know the Lord Jesus as Savior, but it's quite another thing to know Him.
As Lord of our life.
And this man recognizes that Jesus is Lord. Do you?
Do you? I can speak very personally. I heard the gospel since I was an infant, since I was a child, and I rejected that Lord. I didn't want the Lord in my life. I couldn't remember saying to myself, I couldn't live that Christian life and I don't want to. I had a will of my own. It may be that somebody in this audience tonight, young or old, may be.
Using that will of yours to say he's not going to tell me what to do, I'm going to do what I want. Oh forget me my dear friends, forget me. You're going to stand before this same Lord Jesus Christ someday.
00:05:12
That is a fact that the word of God tells us. We'll come to that later. But here is a man that is facing instant death now and he addresses Jesus as Lord. Wonderful that day, so clear in my memory when I face that reality and did confess that very blessed name of Jesus fresh in my memory, though it's so many years over a half a century ago.
Fresh in my memory because at that day I took Jesus Christ as Lord of my life, blessing and happiness that I've experienced. And everyone of us who knows that blessed want a Savior can testify. Oh yes, indeed. But here is the man who makes this decision just hours before he's dead. Might be a question of minutes because the blessed Lord Jesus is hanging beside him.
There the Savior you are in that situation, the Lord Jesus has gone into death. This man was seeing this man when he was alive, the Lord Jesus when he was alive, and he recognized that he was the Lord, and he said, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom, as we were saying this morning.
In the Sunday school, one of those soldiers, they didn't want to have these bodies hanging on the cross.
On the next holy day, the next day, and he goes to the governor to ask permission to to take the bodies down and put them into a grave.
He comes to the first one, and the poor thief is still living. He breaks his legs, He hurls them into eternity. And if that man was the one that had scoffed at the Lord Jesus Christ, he's gone into the blackness of the mists of darkness forever. What about you?
The man on the other side was the one who said these words. Lord, Lord, Remember Me.
The soldier came to that man, broke his legs, and he's hurled into eternity. Oh, I look into the face of everyone here in this audience, and I know that every one of us is either one or the other of those men. Now it is for you to recognize.
If you are one of those ones who might, through indifference, say, well, some other time, I'm young now.
I have a lot of time to think this over, my dear friend. You haven't got a minute. It's 7:15 tonight and you're never going to have 7:15 again in your life on a Sunday evening, November the 24th, whatever the day is.
Never will be again. Tonight when you sit here, you're facing this reality. You're going to face that same one. And this man, he made that decision for Christ and he called him Lord. And when those men came, those soldiers came to Jesus. They found he was dead already. They didn't break his legs because the word of God says that a bone of him is not to be broken.
Those nails went through the nail. The bones of his feet. 27 bones in a person's foot.
And those nails went right between those bones. Not one bone was going to be broken of that blessed Lord Jesus.
And they found that he was dead already. You know the story, I'm sure. A soldier with a spear plunges that spear into the side of the blessed Saviour. Dead now. And from his side came that precious blood that can wash away your sins tonight. Nothing else, nothing else but that precious blood can do it. And as I often delight to say, the blood of Jesus Christ is able to.
Half billion people in this world tonight, and it's powerful enough to save the the man that shed that blood, that soldier, that blood is able to save your soul tonight if you will face this reality that you have to have that savior for your own or you will perish forever. You will die in your sins. You'll be raised in your sins, those books containing the life that you have lived.
Recorded in heaven already, and that day will come when the Lord will stand.
00:10:01
Who then you'll stand before the Lord and have your life reviewed? Oh my friend, awake, awake. Don't be indifferent to this all important thing. You wouldn't treat any matter of life as casually as this. How awful it is to be blinded to the reality of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That blessed Savior died on that cross, and He shed His blood.
In order that you tonight would be able to accept him as Savior and say before this meeting is out, Jesus is my Lord and Savior. That's the first one.
He's gone.
The history books, they'll get nothing about that poor fellow, see gone into eternity. He's with the Lord.
Now we go on in another story a little bit farther on in the book of the Acts 9th chapter.
Now here is a man that is not dying. He's in the full bloom of health, we presume. Act of man.
You might not be that thief. You might not even be this man. His name was Saul.
Saul hated that name of Jesus with indescribable hatred. His life was composed in time of doing nothing but eradicating from the face of the earth the name of Jesus, and he is on his way to Damascus.
Walking on that road to Damascus.
He has in his pocket authority from the chief priests, the elders of Israel, the religious leaders to go to Damascus and get certain ones that were preaching the name of Jesus. He has that power and that authority is on his way.
And all of a sudden on that journey, a light from heaven above this and light the sun at noon day, it tells us it shone right down on that man and knocked him down.
Would to God that you tonight, as you sit here, would realize that the eye of God is on you, on you. You can't. The escapists, the Lord Jesus is looking down in hell from the heaven into your heart tonight. I I don't know you.
But he knows everything of your life. He knows everything of my life.
You little dear boys and girls that are here, sometimes the boys and girls are more conscious of their sins than adults are. Sometimes when we get older, we get hardened in our heart and blase, as they say, dear children, you must realize that those sins that you have committed are recorded against you and they're either in that book, those books in heaven.
Or they've been washed away in the blood of Christ. Here is the man now, and we're going to read about him in Acts Chapter 9.
And here in verse three. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven, and he fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saw, saw why persecutors thou me? And he said.
Saul said or Paul said. Saul said, Who art thou?
Now, it would be impossible to describe the surprise noted of this man's soul to have had such an experience as this. He's on his way to to kill and to destroy that blessed name of the Lord Jesus and those who would proclaim it. And the Lord watching, looking down from heaven, sees that man on his journey.
And arrests him would to God, as I said, there would be somebody that would be arrested here tonight.
And that light shone and knocked him down. And what does he do? Oh, he looks up with blinded eyes.
And he has no sight now for any person or anything on this earth.
But he can see with those eyes into to heaven.
And he looks up there, and he says, Who art thou, Lord?
00:15:04
Oh what an experience that must have been. And what does the reply from heaven come saying I am Jesus.
Oh, how touching that is.
I am Jesus.
What does he say now? Next question, he says.
Verse six. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do so?
Twice he says this word. Lord.
1St as to who he was and secondly as to what the Lord would have him to do. I just ask you this in your life now you might be saying in your heart, I am a Christian.
They ever said if you are, I'm just going to speak for a minute on this if you are.
They ever said to the Lord, What wilt thou have me to do?
If you and I know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we are absolutely spoiled for happiness on this earth. If we're trying to find it from circumstances, we never can. It's only going to be from doing the will of the Lord in your life and mind. Here is the road of happiness. Years ago when I was in business, my brother worked for me and he came. He added the office next to mine and he came.
To my office and he said, you know, there's only one thing I ask in life and I said, what's that? And he said that I could do what I wanted for one year, one year. He said you just let me do you can say let me, but I would just could do what I wanted for one year. And then he said you could have my life. And I got an answer. I believe right from the Lord that it just affected me, I think more than affected him. I said to him.
Serious threat. And he said yes. I said to him it's just a very opposite.
Happiness is not doing what we want, it's doing what the Lord wants.
You walked out of the office and he came back an hour later and he said to me, I have not found, not chosen the road to happiness. I ask you this tonight, have you chosen the road to happiness? I see a lot of young people here tonight. Oh, we're living in a dark day in the history of this world. And this world is so in utter confusion and the values of life are so completely distorted.
That there is so much utter confusion. Oh what we are presenting here is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ that can give your life a purpose and fulfillment and for the Lords glory and for blessing and happiness in it is all through the blessed Lord Jesus Christ and no one else.
And here is this man Saul saying.
Up into the open, heaven's Lord.
Who art thou? And the answer comes back, Jesus, one of the other. When he's reciting it later on, he says he hears the voice which says I am Jesus of Nazareth. That's a humiliating title, isn't it? Not a humiliating title, but it was a little village up in the north of Israel. None of the educated people came from there. A despised little village.
And from the glory.
From the glory. Think of it from the glory.
The Lord Jesus gone back to heaven, a glorified man, forever looking down onto this earth and saying I am Jesus of Nazareth.
Christianity doesn't.
Cover. It doesn't pretend. It's reality, it's reality. Do you want reality in your life? Oh, turn to the Lord.
There's the second one.
He turned to the Lord. We know the story of his life. Blessed.
We go on a little bit farther now in time.
And we're looking on into a future day.
The first one is past, second one is past Paul Saul, third one is future.
00:20:00
Let's go to Matthew's Gospel. I think it's Chapter 7.
This is, as it were, God pulling back the curtain and letting us look into a feature day.
As I look into your faces.
I just, I don't know what to say if this is going to be your situation.
I just trembled a stand here.
But I must, I must warn you that this is a possibility that there's somebody in this audience here tonight who's going to have this experience. But.
On the 4th one we're going to see.
The difference? But let's read this now. Here is when.
People will stand before the Lord Jesus. Everyone, everyone.
Verse 21. Matthew Chapter 7.
Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord.
Shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my Father.
Which is in heaven. Let's just stop there.
Now it is possible that you may be posing as a Christian. You may be saying yes, I'm a Christian, but there is no vestige of evidence in your life that you belong to the Lord.
You young ones here, it might be that you tell your mother, yes, I'm saved when she asks you. But what about our life? What about our life?
Calling him Lord, Lord, even it's double their Lord Lord, that's not going to save your soul.
It must be to acknowledge that you and I are sinners and that the blessed Lord Jesus is the only one who can wash those sins away. And here the Lord Jesus is saying this himself. I didn't write this. He says this not all that say unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into heaven in the Kingdom of heaven. Now look at the next verse.
Many will say to me in that day.
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then will I profess unto you then.
I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity.
What a solemn statement, and serious statement that is. Is the day going to come or would to God that you would realize this now?
That if you pass on to this scene.
That we're reading about and you stand before the Lord. Now I realize that this is the living people.
I'd like to just explain this after the Lord Jesus Christ comes and he might be coming.
Tonight.
All the believers are going to disappear and look into the faces of many of you that I know and I know that you're going to go, but some who may not know the Lord Jesus as Savior, you're going to be left behind.
Living, living.
And it may be that this would be a description of you living ones, because when the Lord Jesus comes back seven years or a little longer after this, he's going to, in his appearing, when he comes, he's going to call all the living people. And the 24th chapter of 25th chapter of Matthew tells us that every living person is going to stand before the Lord Jesus.
On this earth.
People talk about the year 2000 or 1985. We may never, This world may never see that.
Year 2000 in its present stage. Because if the Lord Jesus comes tonight, as I said, seven years later, he's going to come back in his appearing, and he's going to come back in fury, fury and rage and fire coming out of his mouth. No longer is the Lord who loves and is of willing and patient Savior waiting. I heard a man curse God because it rained on the Sunday and he couldn't play golf.
00:25:04
Blaspheming God, I heard a man in England one time.
On the beach there in Blackpool, he was trying to draw an audience around him. And as he did that he got more and more of a crowd. And I stopped to listen and he said no. When he had his crowd in front of him, he said, I'm going to prove that there's no God. And as he spoke, the people became very attentive. He rolled up his sleeve and he shook his feet, face into the sky. And he shouted with a satanic voice.
And he said, if there's a God, strike me dead. And he shook his first into the heavens that evening. There and then he said, see no God now, you might not be doing that.
You might not be challenging God. God in His mercy didn't strike that man dead in mercy to your soul. God is keeping you alive here tonight. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. It's the mercy of God that you have your breath from minute to minute. But don't count on it because this day is going to come if you go to that door tonight.
Without Christ as your Savior.
And you're going to maybe go out into an eternal night. You might die, you might pass out of this world in this, which case you wouldn't be in this circumstance because you would lie in that grave for 1000 years.
And at the end of those thousand years, you would be raised from the dead. And the books, as I said before, would be opened with your name and everything that you have ever said, thought or done recorded in that book in heaven tonight so far. And that book will be opened, and the blessed Lord Jesus will be sitting there on that great white throne, and the earth is gone. And you're standing there alone, naked before a blessed.
Holy Lord Jesus on that throne and he's going to look into that book and find your name and your deeds there is that you. Is that going to be you If you are unsaved here tonight. If you don't know as the Lord is your Savior. It is in all it is a possibility that this is so either this judgment or the next one that later on, but you're certainly not going to miss it.
What an awful occasion this is. And what does this man say? He says Lord, Lord.
You're going to crawl that way. It's too late when that cry goes out. Too late, too late.
Now we come to the last one, the 4th, 1:00.
Two of them passed, one of them future and the 4th one. Now right now in this room, 25 minutes to 8.
The fourth one, let's go to Romans chapter 10.
The fourth one, let's go to Romans chapter 10.
Romans 10/9.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, or Jesus as Lord, and shall confess in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. There's the 4th occasion.
Not past, not featured now present as we sit here in this.
Audience tonight, this is your one opportunity. I can't say that you're going to have another one tomorrow. It's now. It's now.
Romans 10 And I that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the thief on the cross, confess that.
Jesus says Lord, he confessed that.
And believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. That thief on the cross did more than that. He believed that that man dying beside him would be raised again. We believe a fact accomplished. He believed something that hadn't yet happened. But God says to you tonight, do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead?
That won't save your soul, but if you say.
Well, he was only a man. The word of God says, if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins.
00:30:06
Well, this is the reality. This is for you tonight as you sit here. I've sat in these gospel meetings unsaved for many years. And oh, the agony of it as I look back now in my life, dreadful agony. So I one time looked around an audience of people and I saw and I knew every one of them. And the man was talking about the Lord's coming. And I saw that there wasn't one soul there that wasn't ready. And the man was saying of the Lord.
Jesus comes tonight. Are you going to be left sitting in this chair alone? I said to myself. Yes, it's me.
That's me. What about you?
This is the occasion.
This is your one moment passing now when you can do just what this says.
To believe in your heart that God has raised the Lord Jesus from the dead.
That He was the savior that you need. You need.
And to believe.
That He is going to, that He is in the glory, and he is that coming again. And what does it say then with the mouth to confess with the mouth? I'm going to ask you, have you ever done that?
I know that I knew I wasn't saved until that moment that I those words came out of my mouth and I can freshly remember just a very spot in Montreal in a little Sunday school.
Poor section there and there was an old stove there and a tin around the side of it and the boys class was in a circle there and I could take you right to the very spot where.
Just the man was standing speaking there about Romans 10 and nine, and oh, just like an arrow from heaven itself striking into my heart and my conscience. And I told that man, I take the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior. Oh, blessed Lord Jesus, He wants to save somebody in this audience tonight, and he's waiting. He's waiting for this moment.
You may never have another moment. I was speaking in one of the largest cities a few years ago.
We had been out to dinner with the with some of the folks. A girl was there, unsaved girl, the boy that was going with her to his shame when I tried to bring the subject of the seriousness of life and so on. The saved boy was going with his girlfriend and he just tried to prevent my talking seriously at the table. I left that table very sad at night.
In the gospel, and the girl was sitting down there, and as I talked about Romans 10:00 and 9:00.
There was number interest no response, but as the time went on I began to see her face getting red. I just trust that the Spirit of God is working here in someone tonight because that girl gradually got became more concerned and listened. The word of God says here and your soul shall live. Are you hearing tonight? Not me, but are you hearing the word of God that is speaking to you?
Jesus Christ, He's speaking to you. Are you hearing Him?
And I noticed that that was still when the gospel was over, quite a crowd. I went down to the back and there was the girl with the boyfriend's mother. And I saw them in a little circle and I saw her beautifully made-up face with all her. And I saw a track of tears running down her cheeks. And she said to the woman.
Taking the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior.
Two weeks later to the day.
For the 13 days later, she and that boyfriend were out.
He had a private plane, he said to his mother, come on, we're going to take a little trip. And she said, no, you're fooling too much. And he turned to Susan and he said, come on. And she got into the plane and they were watching, They're watching there. And that plane was circling and doing some stunts. And that stalled in the in the air. And it plunged there right in front of them. And the boy was picked up dead or the girl was the boy lived for a few hours and she was gone.
Both of them into eternity.
They went to the house to tell her mother.
00:35:04
And the mother said that's strange, that's strange.
I want to look and see what was in that Bible that she was reading for the last two weeks went up to her bedroom and they looked in the Bible and the Bible, I don't know whether it was open, but they looked at Romans 10 and nine and there Susan had put a mark beside that verse. So listen is with the Lord in glory tonight.
Two weeks warning Two weeks. How long do you have? How long do you have?
You don't know.
It comes. I trust it won't go without someone here tonight doing what that verse says, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead, God, God says that you will be saved tonight.
Don't let this opportunity go.
I know I don't often do this, but I'm just going to say this. But if you want to be sure before you go out of that door tonight, come up afterwards, come up here. Don't put it off. Don't put it off. I'm not I'm trying to buttonhole you, but I am just saying this that the Spirit of God working here tonight to the salvation of.
Take this upper generator, the 4th 1:00.
Take it now, accept the Lord Jesus as you sit in your chair here to just look with the eye of faith to Christ and just confess to Him in your heart, from your heart that you are a Sinner, that you have sinned against the Holy God and you believe that the blood of Jesus Christ can save your soul tonight.
And tell somebody, I'm not asking you to come and tell me, but tell somebody before you go out of that door tonight.
That you know the Lord Jesus is your Savior.
That's what God tells us to do, and this is what is necessary for your assurance. You might believe in your heart that you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're not going to be sure if you don't confess that name. Have you ever confessed that name?
You might be older here tonight. You might be posing as a Christian and never have said to anyone your wife or your husband or your mother or your father.
I know that the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior. It's as simple as that. Some of one of the students in Montreal, I was talking to him after the Gospel meeting one night and I quoted that verse to him, and I said that's what it means to make a confession of the mouth. And he said that's easy.
I read the verse over again and he said that's easy.
I read the verse over again and he said it's not so easy, is it? No, it calls for reality.
Reality now Are you real? Are you real with God tonight?
Going to face Him later on tonight. You have this one golden opportunity to make that decision for Christ. November the 24th, 1985 will live in your memory throughout eternity to thank God that the Spirit of God ever touched your heart or or.
You're going to remember this night for eternity.
With weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Forever you'll never forget this night, it says in the gospel where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. It is awful to contemplate a dear friend, that if you died, or at least if you pass out of this little gospel meeting tonight, without Christ as your Savior the door.
The Spirit of God would be knocking to not to ask you to ask the Lord into your heart, but to convict you of your lost condition without Christ.
And to turn to him, and then to confess to somebody.
00:40:01
I know that the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior and God says.
Thou shall be saved. Let's bow on her.