Gospel—Paul House
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I'd like to welcome everyone here tonight, and if you've never been at the gospel meeting like this before, normally what we do is we sing a hymn from the hymn sheet that most of you have, hopefully everyone. Then we'll have a little prayer for help for me and for you, and then we'll open God's Word and read a few verses together. So let's turn to him #32 on our sheets tonight.
What can wash away my sins?
Perhaps somebody could start it for us.
What can wash away? I said. Nothing but the morality.
Oh my God.
I sleep.
No, nothing.
Can force him.
Nothing but the world.
Nothing.
But the world, she's out of the house.
Let's ask God's help.
We're getting toward the end of December.
And I don't know how it is for you, but I'll tell you how it is for me.
I kind of do a little bit of an inventory of my life every year at the end of the year.
You know, this has been an interesting year for me.
Some sorrows and some choice.
One of my sons and his wife had twins this last month.
But my dad went to be with the Lord this year.
One of my best friends went to be with the Lord this year.
I nearly was killed this year. I fell off a roof and landed on my face.
The Lord spared my life.
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How is it for you? How was this year for you?
And may I ask you this?
Did God speak to you this year?
In his love and in his mercy and in his goodness, Did he speak to you? You know, there's a verse that my wife and I read a while ago in the book of Job when we were reading through it together, and it says this. It says God speaketh once. Yeah, twice.
Yet man perceiveth it not. And then it goes on to talk about dreams, visions of the night, things that come into our lives as human beings.
We all can relate to a dream.
Last night I dreamt that my job was to put new hardwood floor down in this gym.
I'm a contractor so I guess that.
Is understandable, but tonight I want to talk to you about your soul and whether God has spoken to you.
This year, perhaps this is your opportunity this year for God to speak to you in the gospel. You've come into this room, you say, well, I was invited here by a friend. I came here with my dad and my mom. Whatever the reason is, you're here and you're hearing the gospel of the grace of God to you, never mind anyone else. This message is for you and it's from.
In his kindness and his love to you.
I spoke about my dad going home to be with the Lord. What do I mean by that? Well, my dad was not born into a Christian family. When my dad accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, his mother was angry. She said Oh no.
When I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior, my dad said great, my dad was so happy, my mom was so happy. And there's many people here tonight and your parents would be thrilled if you came to the Lord Jesus tonight. But not everybody here had the privilege of growing up in a Christian home.
And perhaps you're one of those people here tonight, and God and his love is presenting the Lord Jesus here tonight to you.
I told you about my dad.
My dad had Parkinson's for nearly 20 years. He was very handicapped and then he had a stroke on top of that. So for the last 10 years he couldn't talk and he barely could eat. My mom would feed him lunch and supper and then he would have the rest of his food from a bag through intravenous.
Well, in the same retirement home.
There was a lady by the name of Isabel.
And we went for years to see my dad, and I remember hearing, well, there's a lady that's over 100 at the retirement home. And finally I met this lady, Isabel. Well, you know what, Isabel?
Died this year 107.
Year after year, my mom would tell Isabel about the Lord Jesus.
Year after year, Isabel would don't need that.
She was a respected nurse, head nurse of a hospital in a big city near us.
She had her act together. She was as sharp as attack at over 100. No problem. I talked to her. I enjoyed talking to her. Very intelligent, very articulate, very capable lady. She didn't need Jesus. She didn't need her sins washed away. She didn't need salvation. But guess what? At 107 she started to weaken.
And you know, my mom would tell her Bible verses. There was other ladies that would say, you know, Isabel, God loves you.
You need to know your sins are forgiven. You need to know you're going to go to heaven, Isabelle, because you're going to hell.
Isabel. She would say no, no, no. Well, then she started to soften.
And you know, there was a time when Isabel couldn't get up out of bed anymore.
You know. And Isabel started to think.
She'd heard many times that Jesus loved her. She'd heard many times that she was a Sinner, that she was on her way to hell. She wasn't good enough on her own.
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You know Isabel laid there.
People like my mom would go and read the word of God to her. One day she got saved.
She accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior at 107.
Raise your hand if you're 106 in the room tonight. There's nobody here that old.
Why not?
Most people never get to 107, but God in his grace saved Isabel's soul at 107. Are you saved? How old are you? Do you have 10 more years? Do you have another week? Who knows what may happen? I didn't want to fall off the roof. I've been a contractor for 25 years.
And I fell off the roof. And you know what? When I was rocketing down the valley.
And head first onto the ground.
I didn't have much time.
There's a lady by the name of Doreen that sits behind me in the meeting where I go to at home, she said. Paul, on your way down the roof, would you have had time to get saved?
You know what the answer is? No. And if there's somebody here tonight and you're saying, well, I'm going to put it off, I'm going to wait for a while. I, I got lots of time.
You might not have any more time. I thought I had lots of time. I I'd done this for years.
The roof looked, we hadn't put the shingles on yet. We had a tarp over most of the roof, but where I stepped looked fine but it was glare ice.
And my hand went behind me, and I went head first down the valley.
And I was on the ground before I knew it.
God in this grace spared my life.
Has he spoken to you?
And what have you done about it? You know, the word of God says God speaketh once. Yeah, twice. And I believe that God speaks to everybody because God's fair and God loves you.
And what have you said to him?
No.
Always. Never mind. Not interested.
What? What is it with you? Maybe you're here tonight and you're saying, hey, you know what?
I am a Sinner. I do have a need. I want to get saved. What do I want to do? I'll tell you another story. We're a little bit off track of what I wanted to say tonight.
There was a lady.
At the retirement home where we go.
And I'm guessing she was in her late 80s.
I would speak week after week and this lady's eyes would fill with tears and I thought she was enjoying the the message.
One day this other sister that goes who was 90 and pushes people back to their room, Great Aunt Grace says to this lady Millie was not a nice meeting today.
And Millie didn't say anything. She's like, well, Millie, are you're saved, aren't you? She didn't save any say anything. She said, Millie, do you want to get saved? Millie said, yeah, I want to get saved.
You know, those two old ladies got beside her bed and she accepted the Lord Jesus as her Savior. She wanted to get saved. And perhaps there's somebody and you say I want to get saved tonight. You can get saved. You can accept the Lord Jesus as your own personal Savior and know that your sins are gone. What a wonderful thing. I want to spend just a little bit looking at some Bible verses. The first one is in Psalm chapter.
3 Psalm 53.
I want to read this verse in Psalm 53 verse 2.
And if you check in your Bible later, you'll find that Psalm 14 has the same verse almost. It's kind of like if you missed it in chapter 14, then in chapter 53 you'd read it again. So God wants us to pay attention to this verse.
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God looked down from heaven. This is Psalm 53 second verse. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them has gone back. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, No, not one.
No, not one, you say. Well.
I'm pretty good.
I'm better than them.
Compared to God, are you good?
Me ask you this, have you ever told a lie?
One why?
You say, well, everybody's done that. That's what the verse says. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. That's God's estimation. And it's true of you too. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one, but I want to just focus on that little expression. God, look down from heaven.
And guess what? God is looking down in this motel tonight. And God is looking down into your heart tonight.
You say I don't like that, but you know what? It doesn't matter whether you like it or not, it's true. God looks through us through and through. There's nothing that we can hide from Him. He made us. He made the universe. Don't let people tell you that. He didn't. He did.
By the word of his power, and God made you and your responsible.
To him.
Now we'll turn to the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 59.
We'll read another verse.
You know its verses like this that make the Bible not very popular.
People don't like to read it, they don't like to hear it in many countries of the world.
It's outlawed. It's burnt.
For hundreds of years, people who translated the Bible were burned at the stake. Why? Because people didn't want to read it, and people didn't want others to know what it said says. But guess what? We have this book and it's in English, and we went to school, most of us, so we can read. Thank God.
Isaiah 59 two, But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hit his face from you that he will not hear.
Your sins.
You know, this is a topic that most people get a little bit antsy about.
It's OK if it's somebody else, but what about your sins?
You know that you've sinned. God says so and you know it.
Nobody asked to tell me that I'm a Sinner.
I know it.
I remember a guy I worked with.
I told him that he was a Sinner.
He said I don't like that. I resent that. Why would you say that about me? That's horrible. I said, well, Gordon last week.
When you said all those words to the secretary, because the order that you were supposed to get put in was late, what about all the swear words? What are those called? Are they sins? He said, oh, but that's different. She, she was late and like she was supposed to have it done. I said, but Gord, you said those things. You sinned.
Yeah.
Well, we've all sinned and come short, and it says your iniquities are separated between you and your God. God is holy and our sins separate us from God. That's our condition.
When we're not saved.
And that is that yours?
Are you separate from God because of your sins? That's a dreadful place to be, but it doesn't have to be like that.
We're going to talk about.
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Salvation tonight. Romans chapter 3.
Romans chapter 3 and verse 23.
For all have sinned.
And come short of the glory of God.
I love to watch swing swimming races. Let's say we take the 8 best swimmers in the world.
So the guy that wins the gold, the guy that wins the silver, the guy that wins the bronze and the next 5 and we take him to the coast over here and we say now.
I want you to. You're all great swimmers. You're good at it. You've proved how good you are. Now swim. You got to go to Japan. Get going.
They go, you're crazy. We can't swim all the way to Japan. And guess what? We can't get to heaven either if we're sinners.
We can't get there on our own. God is holy.
And it says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The verses before in this chapter, you'll find that many of them were quoted from the verse that we started with in Psalm 53 and in Psalm 14.
I've kind of painted a bad, bleak picture, haven't I?
We're all sinners.
Yes, you are a Sinner and so am I.
But that's not the end of the story. And it's true that God is holy and God is light, but we haven't talked about God is love yet. And now we're going to talk about God as love.
And I love to speak about this.
Because as a Sinner, I came to the God of love.
He accepted me just the way that I was and he loves me.
Incredibly, and he's proven his love not only in sending the Lord Jesus to die on the cross for me.
But as his child, he has shown me love my whole life.
He's a great God.
Now I want to turn back to the book of Matthew.
We've touched on this a little bit this afternoon.
And I want to read about.
The Lord Jesus being born into this world.
And I want to make a point to anyone in this room that.
Keeps Christmas.
But doesn't love Christ?
There's a lot of people in the world who are very happy to think of the little baby Jesus and the Manger, right?
But when they think about Jesus on a cross, then they pull the curtain down and they don't go there.
We're going to talk about the Lord Jesus on the cross too, but first let's read about when he was born.
We know the story of the Virgin Mary.
The Lord appeared. God appeared to the Angel, it says verse 20. The Angel of the Lord appeared.
On to Joseph, unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for thou which is conceived and heard is of the Holy Ghost, and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.
For he shall save his people from their sins.
He shall save his people from their sins. Jesus means savior.
So God sent the Lord Jesus to save his people from their sins.
Now let's turn over to Chapter 2.
And you know, like in the at this time of year, people talk about the wise man and they talk about the shepherds and all those things, but.
I guess one of the things that was referred to this afternoon was kind of made me think a little bit and that was that it was said that.
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When?
Mary and Joseph.
Brought came down to be taxed or the census was made in in Bethlehem.
That there was number room.
For them in the hotel or in.
And so the Lord Jesus was born in a barn.
You know the song Away in a Manger? Well, a Manger is in a barn, right?
So let's think for a minute. God sent his son.
She was conceived in the Virgin Mary.
Joseph and Mary came down to be to be taxed in their hometown, Bethlehem. There was no room in the inn, so Jesus got born in the barn.
The Son of God was born in a barn. Can you imagine?
If Prince William.
Had his next baby in a barn.
What the people of England would say, what the world would say, and yet God sends his son and the people that are in the end, they see this lady and she's nine months pregnant, about to have a baby. And they're like, that's fine. You, you can go have it in the bar.
And then we make a song about it and we say, oh, that's really nice that he was born in a Manger. What an insult to God.
His son got born in a barn.
Chapter 3.
The Lord Jesus was a perfect boy.
He became a young man and then he started to preach in Israel.
And in verse 16.
Of chapter 3 it says in Jesus when he was baptized went up straightway out of the water.
And lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
This was God's estimation of his beloved Son. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. A voice from heaven.
Now let's turn over to John Chapter 3.
I don't want to read a verse with little comment.
Verse 16.
It says 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.
This is a beautiful verse.
God sent his Son.
That he might save his people from their sins. We read that the Lord Jesus came as a baby. He was born in a Manger.
He lived a perfect life.
And the estimation of God when he was baptized by John the Baptist was This is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased.
But what did the people of the day think?
What did the religious authorities in Israel think?
John chapter one will turn back a page.
Verse 11 he came onto his own.
And his own received him not.
We have just a few minutes.
I'd like to spend a little bit of time.
Talking about.
The death of the Lord Jesus.
He came onto his own and his own receipt and not.
You know the Lord Jesus was born in a Manger.
But He was crucified and hung on a cross to die. That's what people like me did to the Son of God when He came to this earth to reveal His Father's heart of love to man. He came onto His own, and His own received Him not. Let's turn to the 17th chapter of John. I just want to read a verse there. We talked at the beginning about God looking down from heaven.
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Now we have a different scene in the first verse.
Jesus lifts up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. What hour is this? This is the hour of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was why he came to this earth, to save his people from their sins. But how would he do it? He would do it by dying on the cross.
To glorify God his Father, but to bring blessing to me, to bring blessing to you tonight if you'll have it. You know, there's a lot of people that say.
This seems impossible that God would send his son to be born in a barn and then to die on a cross, and then if I believe that when he died on the cross, he died for me, that his precious blood that came from his side.
Would wash away my sins that.
That seems too easy.
But think about it, the cost to God and you know it requires us.
To admit that we're sinners.
And that we need to have forgiveness by God, and it takes us.
To humble ourselves.
Remember I spoke of my friend Gord.
I've never sinned.
God did say that he had sinned, but it took a lot.
Have you ever said that before? God? Yes, I've sinned.
Christ is the Savior of sinners. The Lord Jesus came to save his people from their sins, and let's read about what happened to him.
So let's turn back to Matthew's Gospel.
26th chapter.
Interestingly enough, there's four gospels in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each one records the death, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the third day that he rose again from the dead. And that's important. We'll come back to that. We have time.
But in the book of Matthew, we have some details presented there that I would like to cover. So let's turn to chapter 26. And I'm going to paraphrase a little bit, but you can read this at your convenience.
If you're interested, and I hope you will be, Matthew 26 talks about the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, which was a garden that he went to with his disciples on a regular basis. And some thieves, some thugs came and took him captive in that garden. One of them, they were led by one of his own disciples, and his name was Judas the traitor.
Iscariot.
Then they took Jesus to the chief priests and to the.
The religious authority of the day, but they were under Roman authority, so the Jewish people weren't allowed to put anyone to death without permission from the Roman government. And so the Jewish people, they took Jesus into custody and verse.
They asked him in verse 63 whether he was the Son of God or not.
Isn't that an interesting question? You're going to hear this question Well, is Jesus really the Son of God?
Right, well Jesus was the Son of God and he told them that indirectly and it says in verse 67 then did they spit in his face and buffeted him, and others smote him with the palms of their hands.
This is another thing.
The spirit of men running down the face of the Son of God.
You know, it's one thing to talk about Jesus and the Manger. It's another thing.
To talk about him with a spit of men running down his face. What did God think?
Why did God not destroy men in an instant when this indignity was done to His Son? Because God loves us, that's why. And God wants us in His home.
And God has made a way for us to have our sins forgiven, and we're going to read about that in a minute.
Now let's turn, let's go on a little farther into chapter 27. It says when the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.
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And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor, the governor, Roman governor. He's the one that can hand down the death penalty. And that's what the religious authorities wanted. They wanted Christ Jesus to be killed. They hated him even though he was perfect.
Sad. We dropped down to verse 11. Jesus stood before the governor.
And you can read this chapter of How the governor could find no fault in the Lord Jesus.
But the Jewish people wanted Jesus crucified so badly.
That finally in verse 24, when Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing but that rather a tumult was made. He took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it. Now that's justice, isn't it? A just person? Yeah, we'll get rid of him.
The Jewish people said his blood be on us and on our children.
Ouch.
Ouch. Think about what's happened to those people for the last 2000 years. 26 then released T Barabbas on to them. And when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
What?
He just said he was a just man and then he scourges him.
Do you have any idea what that is?
A whip with metal and bone thrashed on the back of Jesus, the Son of God.
Why, when he had done nothing wrong? My heart is the same.
Why do people say the name of Jesus all the time? Curse words. Why don't they swear by something else? But all over the world we I might when I was in school, these people would come to the university from Malaysia.
They swear by the name of Christ. I remember being on the elevator once saying, well, you guys don't even know who this is and why do you swear by this name? Why don't you swear by what you think by somebody that's important in your religion? Why pick on Jesus?
Pilate scourged him.
Verse 28 Seven. The soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers, and they stripped him.
And put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had planted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head, and a Reed in his right hand. And they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail King of the Jews. And they spit upon him, and took the Reed, and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, put his own raiment on him, and let him away to crucify him. Verse 34. They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with.
And when he had tasted the Ruff, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting once that it might be fulfilled, which the was spoken by the Prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots, And sitting down they watched him there.
Verse 41 likewise also the chief priests and mocking him with the scribes and elders, said He saved others himself. He cannot save if he be now the king of Israel. Let him come down now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
You know these verses are in the Bible you can buy on the shelf at Walmart.
You're responsible for this story and what you do about it. Jesus died on the cross for you. You care.
Is the Lord Jesus precious to you? You know the Lord Jesus.
Endured all this indignity, these terrible things happened to him.
But I want to read in verse 45 now from the 6th hour there was darkness.
Over all the land, until the 9th hour and about the 9th hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying Eli, Eli Lamisa back the light. That is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What was happening? For three hours it was dark.
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And in those hours of darkness, God punished Jesus for the sins that I committed. Every one of them was placed upon His holy Head.
Can you say that?
Every person that has ever come to the Lord Jesus and accepted Him as their personal Savior.
The sins that they committed were paid for in those hours of darkness when the Lord Jesus gave his life there. Can you say that the Lord Jesus paid for my sins on the cross? Can you say that that's why you're here tonight? God is giving you a chance, a chance. He's speaking to you tonight and he's saying I love you. I want you in my home, but you can't come in your sins.
And if your sins are forgiven tonight?
Then you get to go to my home. He's given you a chance now, and you might not have another one. You might fall off the roof too.
I was going to read some more verses in the book of John.
The book of John tells us the story of what happened after those hours of darkness. The Lord Jesus hung his head in death. And then what happened? A soldier came.
And instead of breaking his legs like he did to a thief on each side of Jesus.
He took his spear, and he pierced it right into the side of the Lord Jesus.
And what came out?
Of the side of the Lord Jesus.
Blood. Blood.
At the beginning we sang, What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood.
Of Jesus. That's the only thing that will work.
The only way that your sins can be forgiven by a righteous and a holy God.
If you believe that when that blood came out of the side of Jesus Christ, that that blood was shed for you, and you ask God to forgive you on the basis of the shed blood of his Son as the sacrifice for sin.
He will forgive you righteously.
We've had some wonderful Bible meetings here.
First John chapter one we've studied in detail and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I recommend it for anybody that hasn't had the opportunity to listen to what these verses mean. In first John chapter one, there's a little phrase at the end of verse seven I want to close with tonight.
And this is the authority of God's word. This is God speaking here tonight. And he says the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanse of us from all sin. It's true from all sin. I stand here tonight as a man who is happy and not afraid of tomorrow.
I know that if I'd have fallen off that roof and died.
Without a shirt, with without any question in my mind, I would have gone straight into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, my Savior. Why? Because He died for me in those hours of darkness. He paid for my sins and God forgave me because Jesus paid. Can you say that?
Did Jesus pay for your sins?
May it be so that you will accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Tonight too, let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee that there is a way for our sins to be paid for, and it's thy precious blood, Lord Jesus, that thou had shed on the cross for sinners like me. And we pray if there's anyone here tonight who knows that they have sinned before the our God that knows that they can't get to heaven on their own because of their sin.
That they may come and accept the Lord Jesus as their Savior, the one who paid the price.
So that they could be forgiven too. And we just thank thee, our God, for thy beloved Son.
The one that thou could say this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. We marvel that Thou was willing to give thy Son to be treated in such a horrible way. But we know that Thy love was so great that Thou does desire him to come and to suffer and to pay the price so that we could be with Thee in heaven forever. We look forward to this, Lord, and we just pray for anyone in the room tonight who is lost.
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Who is not sure where they're going to be when they leave this world? And again, we thank thee for the story of Isabel, for saving this lady at 107. We marvel at thy grace, our God, but we give thanks in thy worthy and precious name. Amen.