Gospel—R. Thonney
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
43 again left.
In this chapter we have the story.
Of the crucifixion and death.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not going to read a whole lot.
But I'd just like to say before we begin reading, I think everyone here is acquainted with the fact that Jesus.
Is the Son of God.
The creator of the whole universe.
When I think of the tremendous power that he wielded in speaking into existence.
The universe that we know around us today, I marvel at the fact that that same God came into this world in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when he came into this world, It's the story of it is recorded in Luke's gospel and it is one of the most wonderful things I can think of that the God of this universe.
Into this world he came into his own creation.
But you know, people were so asleep that nobody seemed to.
Realize what had happened. There were a lot of religious people in.
That time they had the word of God, as far as they had it at that time, in their hands.
They could answer the questions, but they had no idea.
That Jesus had come into this world, had no idea. Is it possible that there's somebody that has the Bible in their hands?
Here tonight.
That can give the answers from the Bible.
But doesn't know Jesus.
You know what scares me and scares me badly in a company like we are here tonight?
Is the fact that amongst those 12 apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ?
That he had following him for three years and a half down here in this world.
One of them was a fake.
And none of the others realized who it was when Jesus spoke about that fact.
They all looked at each other and they all said to the Lord, Is it I, No one?
Realized that Judas Iscariot was false.
No, He had pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. Everybody's eyes but Jesus. Jesus knew.
And I can't tell if there's anybody like that in this room here tonight.
But the Lord Jesus's eyes on you and knows exactly where you stand in relation to Him. You can fool me, not too much trouble. You can fool your parents. Maybe you can fool the brethren around you.
You can't fool the person before whom you stand tonight. He knows just exactly where you stand. Are you real with God? I just want to say, my friend, get real with God. If you haven't gotten real yet, get real with God.
It's not worth fooling around this vital issue we're living right at the end.
Of a time period known as the grace of God.
And at any moment, those of us who are believers expect the coming of the Lord Jesus.
And as soon as the Lord comes to take his own out of this world judgment.
The most severe judgment this world has ever known is going to begin shortly after.
And I really believe that there's a good possibility that there's somebody here who isn't ready yet. And if you are going to be left behind, it will be for judgment, Awful, awful judgment.
So we ask you to pay attention tonight, please. We're going to read a few verses here in Luke 23.
And let's read from verse 33.
When they were come to the place which is called Calvary.
There they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left.
00:05:00
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
And they parted his lorainment and cast lots, And the people stood beholding, and the rulers also with them derided him, saying he saved others.
Let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. One of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, Thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
The other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not 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.
A mess. 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.
And it was about the 6th hour. There was a darkness over all the earth until the 9th hour.
And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was red in the midst.
And when Jesus had cried, with a loud voice he said, Father.
Into thy hands I commend my spirit in having said thus. He gave up the ghost. Here we have the story of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Terrible to think of how men treated their Creator, but do you know that what we see here, the way they treated is a true reflection of your heart and mind? My heart is no different, naturally speaking.
Than these that took the glorious Son of God, that one that never sinned in all his life. And they took those hands, and they stretched him out, and they pounded those spikes through his hands and through his feet, and they hung him up on that hill outside the city of Jerusalem to die. His face was running from the spittle of those Roman soldiers.
It was disfigured from the blows of those soldiers. He was crowned with thorns. That's the treatment man gave to their creator.
Oh, what a story. And as they were pounding those nails through the hands and feet of Jesus.
What did he say? Was there threats as they pounded those nails through there? The terrible?
Excruciating pain it would have been to have nails pounded through there. Goes right through the area where the nerve passes to the hand.
Would be an excruciating Jesus said Father forgive them. They know not what they do. Oh what love and our Savior, he came to save. He came not to condemn. And if you are here without Jesus tonight, you are what scripture tells us condemned already because you have not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Condemned already.
And so they left him hanging there on Calvary. And, you know, some of the insults they heaped on him, some of the pain, physical pain perhaps people say, is not so bad as the emotional pain, the pain of abandonment that he felt. He says in Psalm 69. Reproaches broken my heart, and I'm full of heaviness.
And I look for some to take pity and there was none and for comforters but I found none.
A pain of a broken heart is pretty hard.
But there was another suffering that Jesus suffered as he was hanging on that cross.
It tells there about the fact that the 6th hour and verse 44 there was darkness over all the earth.
Till the 9th hour, for three hours it was dark and nobody could see what was happening on Mount Calvary.
We know from the prophet Isaiah what took place in those awful hours of darkness.
00:10:02
It says in Isaiah 53 and verse five he was wounded.
For our transgressions he was bruised. For our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with His stripes we are healed. I am the guilty Sinner. But Jesus and his love for me when he was hanging on that cross took my sin on him. He took the righteous judgment of God that necessarily had to fall on those sins that I've committed. He bore it all in those awful hours, for three hours, no sound.
Comes from that place of Calvary.
And at the 9th hour he cries. It tells us in another gospel.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why did God forsake him? He was doing the will of God in dying for us. God wanted to save you, and there was no other way that you and I could be saved except somebody paid the price for our salvation.
Why did God forsake him? Because he was dealing with Jesus.
About your sins, my friend, About my sins. He was dealing with Jesus about those sins of ours.
Says in Isaiah 53, All we, like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And justice before he died, he cries out. It is finished.
And he bows his head and gives up the ghost, and the soldier comes up that hill.
And before I talk about this soldier, I want to talk about.
Two others that were crucified with Jesus on one side and another on the other side.
Matthew's Gospel, I believe it is, tells us that the both of them were keeping insults on Jesus.
They were dying too, but they were dying for their own guilt.
They were dying because they were sinners, just like you and I, my friend. The wages of sin is death, and because we have sinned, we deserve to die. People talk about human rights. You know what a Sinner has a right to for his sins. He has a right to death and judgment. That is your right, my friend. That is my right. We want to claim human rights.
We have a right to death and judgment because of our sins.
But Jesus hung on their cross so that you and I wouldn't have to go that route.
He hung there so you and I could be saved. God cannot pass.
Over sin lightly impossible. This world makes fun of sin today.
But God doesn't make fun of sin. God punishes sin, and every sin that has ever been committed by any member of Adam's race will receive its just punishment from the hand of God. Either you accept what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary, or you pay your own price in the Lake of Fire forever and ever.
That's the choice you have to make.
There were these two malefactors on either sides of Jesus there.
They did that to heat more ridicule on Jesus, to make it look like he was a malefactor too, but he wasn't.
And those two were heaping insults on Jesus when all of a sudden there's a change in one of those malefactors.
And he turns, and he rebukes his companion, and he says.
Dost not thou fear God? Know that, knowing that we are in the same condemnation.
We reached indeed justly, for we received the due reward of our deeds. There's a change. This is what is called repentance, and without repentance there is no salvation. I want to be clear. Repentance in itself does not save, but without repentance you cannot be saved. What's saved is what saves is faith in Christ. It says by grace.
Are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves? It is the gift of God.
00:15:04
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
That's the way we're saved, by faith in Jesus. But if you haven't repented.
There is no real faith in a person that hasn't truly repented.
And that's why God commands all men in every place.
To repent. He knows what's ahead for the unrepentant Sinner.
And I want to probe the hearts of those present here tonight. Like I say, I don't know your hearts.
You know them, and we're sitting here in the presence of God. Don't.
Fool around with the eternal destiny of your soul. Before we go into that, I want to speak a little bit more about these two thieves that were nailed on either side of Jesus after he recognized that he was getting what he deserved.
Why? He said this man has done nothing. He missed. He recognized that there was a person that was totally different.
And he turns to Jesus in verse 42 and says unto him, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. Now there was real true faith, because he saw on that center cross a man hanging, dying.
And he recognized that he was going to come later on in his Kingdom. There was faith in that he was going to rise again. God gave him that faith, I'm sure, at that time.
But has Jesus come in his Kingdom yet? No, not yet.
It's been close to 2000 years that Jesus hung on that Christ.
And he hasn't come in his Kingdom yet. Is that thief still waiting? Because that's what he asked for.
To be remembered when Jesus came in his Kingdom, what did Jesus say to him?
Oh, our God is so great, so good, he said today. Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
That very day, he wasn't going to have to wait nearly 2000 years until Jesus came into his Kingdom. No, he was going to be that very day with Jesus in paradise. Oh, tremendous blessing to believe in the person of the only begotten Son of God.
But what about those sins? How can that thief that has done such rotten stuff in life? How can he go directly into the presence of God? Impossible, we say.
Isn't God just? Doesn't he require what a person does?
Yes, he certainly does, and that's why Jesus paid the price in full for that poor thief.
And the time came, after Jesus had given up his life, that a soldier came up that hill. He had orders to make sure the three that were crucified that day were dead. And that soldier took his spear, which was an iron rod, and he broke the legs of the first thief.
And that thief that had trusted Jesus.
Died and went into paradise with Jesus.
What a triumph, what a triumph. That's the salvation that God offers to whosoever will believe. The soldier came to the other side and broke the legs of that thief. That thief had never repented. At least we have no record that he had ever repented. And when he died, he went directly into hell. Torment. He's been there ever since, in torment.
Unrelenting torment. God punishes sin. There is no way around it. God punishes sin.
And then that soldier came to Jesus on that center cross and saw that Jesus was dead already and took his spear and plunged it into Jesus side and out flowed blood and water. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. That's the testimony of the Apostle John. Oh, the tremendous glory of knowing.
00:20:00
That the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from every sin.
And I was working in Chicago.
Downtown at a hospital. My boss on the job was a man who had been a veteran of the Second World War.
And he had fought the four years of the conflict in Europe.
And at last he got his legs shot off and he.
Hobbled around on a wooden leg and before.
I left employment there. He took me out to lunch one day and I said Mr. Tucker.
Have you ever thought about when you have to leave this world?
And about your sins, he says. Bob, I've done some awful things in war.
But Mr. Tucker, the Bible says the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
I don't know if he accepted it, but a few months after I went back again to see some of the books I used to work with there. Where's Mr. Tucker? He died just a few weeks ago.
Life is uncertain, but here is a remedy that's sure it's a remedy that God accepts the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. Told the story before, but.
It was a real privilege to me.
In visits in southern Mexico and the state of Oaxaca.
To meet up with a brother a number of years ago whose name is Synovio Ruiz and Synovio and his unsaved life had been abandoned and he had killed 21 People in his band retreat.
Just roaming the hills of southern Mexico, killing people, robbing, burning houses.
That was what he was doing and he was so bad that they had orders in that area to take him dead or alive.
Down there, they make their little gospel halls out of sticks stuck into the earth.
And because it's hot and they put a roof on it. And when they have a gospel meeting at night, they have a kerosene Lantern inside. And so people outside can sometimes stand around without being seen and and listen, since it just sticks and they can see what's going on inside. And Synovial evidently was standing outside one night and he heard that verse. The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanses us from all sin.
He realized he was accountable for an awful lot.
But he couldn't believe his ears to hear that verse. When he had a chance, he asked one of the brothers of that area, a place called Okatlan.
If that was really in the Bible and the brother opened it up and read it to him, yes, here it is.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Synovial believed the gospel and.
Wasn't too long after that that he turned himself into the authorities. They were pretty shocked when he walked in and they took him into custody. They examined him but after holding him for a little while, they said this man is not abandoned.
And they let him loose. Sanovia lived out his days and the hills of southern Mexico rest of his life, and I got to know him. You wouldn't guess that he had been such a awful criminal.
A couple times ago when I was down there, I asked where he was and said Synovial went home to be with allergies.
What is right? What a triangle. A man with a blood stained of his fellow man on his hands, washed in the blood of Jesus, going directly into the presence of a holy God. How is it possible? It's because of what Jesus did. It's because of the price he paid. It's sufficient. God has accepted it. And now all that's necessary is for you, my friend, to accept what God has done for you and the work.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'd like to read a verse in Acts chapter.
20.
00:25:01
Because I want to probe.
I feel really a serious responsibility to speak.
As directly as possible.
To each one present.
Children, young people, older ones, too. I don't know your heart. It scares me to think there's going to be someone that's set in these seats during these conferences. And we didn't speak plainly enough. And you slept spiritually through a conference and never realized you weren't straight with God.
Acts chapter 20 and verse 21. Paul is speaking and he says testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
That thief that died on one side of the Lord Jesus repented. There was a definite change in his thinking. Repentance really is from a root word that means to think.
Pen in Spanish. It's Pennsylvania. It's very close. Repent means rethink. It's to change your way of thinking. A person loves the pleasures of this world. When he repents, he says no, no more of that for me.
There's other people that love drinking and carousing. When they repent, they say that's not for me any longer.
The prodigal son wanted to get as far away as possible from his father's house.
When he repented, he said, how many hired servants in my father's house have bread, and up in despair I'll go back there.
I will rise and go to my father. That's repentance, a change of mind.
Have you repented? You know, I think it's a very serious thing for those of us who have been brought up in Christian homes. I was brought up in a Christian home.
And I really didn't think I was that bad.
I've never gotten the messy stuff of this world.
I'm not that bad, surely not as bad as that criminal down there in the prison.
I had to repent. I had to learn that it was ever much as bad as that criminal down in the prison.
God says there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Simple illustration has been given sometimes.
You know how bad a rotten egg is when it opens? When it cracks?
I've got two rotten eggs in my hands. Just one fell on that floor. Wowie. Wow, that's awful smell from that. This one in my hand isn't that bad, but I can say there is no difference. The awful things that come out on that person in the prison, they haven't come out of my heart, but God tells me there is no difference. Have you accepted God's testimony?
As to your natural condition.
There's a danger that you and I are being brought up in Christian homes and being sheltered.
Thank God, sheltered from this world of perdition that we think were just a notch above everybody else.
If that's the case, I want to tell you to repent. That's what God tells you to do.
Repent, That's important. And so he spoke repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. That man on that cross repented, and then he turned in faith to say, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest in thy Kingdom.
He was saved on that cross by simply repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now I'm going to talk briefly about 3 persons that we have the testimony in scripture about them.
One who it says repented himself.
But did not believe in the Lord Jesus and as far as we know.
And we know very certainly that he is in a lost eternity burning in hell tonight. The next one I want to draw attention to is one who the Bible says believed. And he was baptized, but he had never repented.
And as far as we know, he too is in a lost eternity now And then the third one, a person who repented and believed the gospel just like that. See, let's go to Matthews Gospel chapter 27 to speak first of all of Judas Iscariot.
00:30:21
When we've already spoken briefly about.
Verse three of Matthew 27 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, and that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went.
And hanged himself.
Awful, awful end to Judas Iscariot, somebody that had accompanied.
The Lord Jesus for 3 1/2 years had heard those wonderful words of life that came out of his mouth.
Had seen the miracles that he had done. But you know what Judas Iscariot had in his heart? He loved money.
And it says in the Bible the love of money is the root of all evil. He loved it. And one day from the Lord, Jesus was in Bethany, the House of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and they fixed them a supper.
And Mary came out with an alabaster box of ointments and sweet perfume and poured it on Jesus. Beautiful act of devotion.
And Judas is there. Hmm, that's a lot of waste.
And the Bible tells us that it wasn't he was interested in.
Selling like he suggested. He suggested that we could have sold that and given it to the poor, but the Bible tells us he wasn't interested in selling it. He was the treasurer for the disciples and he had that bag of money and when it suited his purposes, he put his hand in there and took out for himself. He loved money. And Jesus rebuked Judas Iscariot for saying that. He said let her alone. She's wrought a good work on me.
And Judas couldn't stand it. He decided on an alternative plan. He was going to go off and sell Jesus, betray Jesus to those he knew wanted to get ahold of him. And they made a contract for 30 pieces of silver. And Judas probably fact, Jesus has walked out a lot of their traps.
I suppose this time when I betray him, why, he'll just walk right on out of there.
And I'll have the money in my pocket, no problem. Nobody will ever know anything about it. It didn't turn out that way.
Judas realized after he saw that Jesus was condemned.
That things were looking bad and it looked bad what he had done.
And Judas felt bad because of the way it looked. And maybe you've done something that looks bad and people look down at you.
You know, it wasn't her true repentance with Judas. It wasn't a true repentance.
God gives true repentance if there's faith in Him. It says it is the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance.
Says in Two Timothy 2 if perhaps God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
But Judas wasn't of that mind. He didn't want to go back to Jesus.
And what he did?
Instead, to escape the shame of what he had done, which went out and hung himself.
That was the end of that disciple of the Lord Jesus. Not only did he hang himself, but we don't know how he fell down when he hung himself and he burst in the middle awful end of one of the disciples of the Lord Jesus. Nobody realized that Judas wasn't real.
Are you real with God tonight?
It's so easy to slip along without being real.
Don't let it happen. Be real with God. I think I may have told the story but.
Something that happened in Bolivia that really shook me to the core when I lived down there.
In the city of Montero, where we used to live in the eastern Amazon basin.
00:35:05
It's a city of about 40,000 people.
They had motorcycle taxis. Instead of taking a taxi, just get on the back of a motorcycle. It would take you to the market or wherever you wanted to go.
While we were living there, we started hearing that these guys turned up dead from time to time. You couldn't figure out what was happening.
When finally they picked up a guy that had been shot in the back of the head on the road, but it hadn't killed him, the bullet had gone around the edge of his brain.
It brought him into the hospital and he got better and he told who it was that had done this thing. It was a man that I knew personally that it helped in the construction of the house that we built when we moved down there, Barb and I.
And he had made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus.
He had been baptized. He had been Breaking Bad at the Lord's Table.
I couldn't believe it when I heard it was Hiney Martinez that was in prison downtown Montero. The people just about mobbed the prison because he confessed to having killed 12 People.
That way.
And they had to bring in the army.
To take him off to another area of the country.
And later on.
They took him out to do investigations in the jungle.
As to where he left those motorcycles?
And when they were out there, the police evidently not being real careful.
All of a sudden he was running for the jungle.
And the police shouted at him stop. And he didn't stop it.
Got their pistols poo poo.
IMI Martinez went into what I believe fully believed because I saw no evidence of any repentance at all into Hellfire.
Shook me to the core.
Somebody that I broke bread with.
Hell now.
If you say I've accepted the Lord and you say I've been baptized, maybe you say I break bread. Those things mean nothing.
If you're not right with God.
Please, I ask you to be serious on this score tonight. Don't goof around with the welfare of your soul.
That was a man.
Who had made a profession but wasn't real. And I'd like to talk briefly about another man in the book of Acts chapter 8 that was like that. His name was Simon the Sorcerer.
Acts chapter 8 and verse 5. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them.
And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
Verse 9 But there was a certain man called Simon, which before time in that same city used sorcery.
And bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one.
To whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest thing. This man is the great power of God, and to him they had regard, because that of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. When they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also, and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God.
They sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them.
That they might receive the Holy Ghost, for as yet He was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw that through the lane onto the apostle's hands, the Holy Ghost was given, He offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
00:40:16
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.
Then answered Simon and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me that none of these things.
Which ye have spoken, come upon me.
Here's the sad story of this Simon Magus, Simon the sorcerer. He had been a great one in the city of Samaria, but a greater power came to the city of Samaria, the power of God and the Gospel.
And Peter and Simon said, well, this power is greater than the power I've wielded. I better join up with this new movement.
And it actually says that Simon himself believed.
Verse 13 and was baptized.
They probably said, have you heard the news? The sorcerer of the town got saved. He was baptized.
Probably everybody thought it was real.
And it wasn't until a little later Peter and John came down that Simon came up to them.
I said I like to have some of that power too. Will you please here's some money if you give me some of that power?
Simon had never repented. He had been a great one in the city of Samaria as a sorcerer.
Now he wanted to be a great one amongst the Christians. Is there anybody that wants to be a great person amongst Christians?
Like that?
Simon had never repented. He believed, it said, but it wasn't a true faith because there was no repentance there.
Is there anybody like that? Say you believe that you've never repented?
You think you're all right? You think you're good enough?
You'd better think again. You had better repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As far as we know, there is no true faith in Simon. When Peter rebuked him, when Peter said repent, you know what Simon said? Pray to the Lord for me. He couldn't even pray for himself.
There was number real faith in Simon, even though in an outward way he had believed.
How solemn to think that there are people that fit in this category. Never repented. They say they believe they're not saved.
Let's go over to the 16th chapter to see a hardened man.
That was in charge in the city of Philippi of the jail, the prison.
And into that prison that day that it tiles us about.
Came two men who were apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They were preaching the gospel.
And they had beaten their backs.
And that jailer wasn't any too nice to them. He thrust them in to the inner president, and he put their feet into the stocks in the lock there in that enterprise.
Paul and silence. They must have felt pretty bad for quite a while.
It tells us that there wasn't any response from them until midnight.
Sometimes we think they started singing right away. It doesn't say that they didn't start singing until midnight.
But when?
Let's read a little bit here. I think it's good to read it. Verse 25. At midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, everyone's bands were loose. The keeper of the prison awakening out of sleep, seeing the prison doors open, he drew out of his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
But Paul cried out with a loud voice saying, do thyself no harm, for we are all here.
Then he called for a light, and sprang in, came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas.
Brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
00:45:04
And they speak unto him, and the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.
And he took them the same hour of the night, voiced their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.
So here we have this rough jailer man.
And I suppose under those Roman regimes they were rough men.
He didn't treat those apostles that night.
But that night?
When Paul and Silas sang and prayed, God shook the prison and everyone's bands came off and that that jailer woke up and he realized he was in serious trouble. The Romans had the custom that if any prisoner escaped from somebody's charge that was in charge of them, that that person's life was for the prisoner. And so he thought instead of.
Meeting up with the shame of the occasion, he would just end it all himself and he pulled out his sword. He commits suicide.
And Paul cried and he sprang in trembling before Paul inside us. What a change in that matter, no doubt of the truth that he had repented. And let me tell you, if a person really repents, it's not easy, not hard to see. It's not hard to see. When a person truly repents, you don't have to say I repent.
They'll be evident in your life if there's repentance.
And he came in and they said they saw he was repentant, and so they don't say anything about repentance.
They merely talk about faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. If you're repentant of your condition, your sinful condition before God, and you need to listen to this verse, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. And that man took him out of there, took him to his house.
Washed their backs, set a meal in front of them, and that same hour of the night was baptized. He didn't even wait for the next day to get baptized.
Right then and there.
If this jailer was baptized with all his bones, that's a beautiful story. That's repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what saves, my friend. You want to be saved. That's the way God has shown to us in His precious word, how we plead for each person present here to be serious with God. God commands all men.
Everywhere to repent, because He is appointed today in the which He will judge this world in righteousness.
By that man whom he hath ordained, giving assurance to all men, and having raised him from the dead.
Jesus not only died, he was raised from the dead, and because he was raised from the dead means that God is going to send him back to this world to judge this world in righteousness.
The judgment today is appointed. The judge is appointed.
God is simply waiting in the meanwhile for souls to come to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Where do you stand tonight? Dear young people, dear children, dear older folks too, I look at you.
Far as I know, you're believers. I don't know. I've been fooled.
By Jaime Hermanes It shocked me. It totally shook me to the core.
I can be fooled again.
You can fool me again, I say, but don't think you can fool God. Impossible. Get right with God tonight, Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
Thou shalt be saved.
Let's pray, Gracious Father, bless Thy word only. Thou dost know the hearts of those listening tonight. We ask Father, that there would be true repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus. We ask thy blessing, gracious Father, and for the for help the rest of the evening in that most worthy name of the Lord Jesus.