Gospel—R. Thonney
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Tonight with #25.
On our hymn sheets.
Life at best is very brief.
Like the falling of a leaf, like the binding of a sheath. Be in time, fleeting days.
Are telling fast that the dye will soon be cast and the fatal line be passed. Be in time, could we stand and sing #25?
Along your way you can find no longer again.
I survived just to let it begin time.
Blind and blind, swiftly by death and just with Rolls Royce.
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I.
Let's pray, gracious.
This.
Just read 2 verses before I start the subject to have before me tonight. Don't have to turn to it, I'll read it.
The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.
And of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest before in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Tonight we're opening this book, The Word of God.
You may have difficulty with some of the things I have to say. I don't mind that. But what I'm asking you tonight to do in all seriousness, for your own good and blessing, is to at least listen to what God has to say in His own precious word. It's too important to be playing around with.
It's something you need to get serious about.
Two weeks ago.
Today.
Lemoyne and I were in Palpala.
Kuhui, Argentina for a conference.
It was about.
20 minutes till 12.
Towards the end of the reading meeting there.
And a brother stands up in the meeting and says, we're going to stop the reading here.
And we're going to turn this into a gospel meeting.
Because there's some children of the brethren.
Here that are not saved and they need to hear the gospel.
And so we stopped the reading and we had a gospel meeting and a brother got up to preach the gospel.
I didn't know who he was referring to. Afterwards I talked to two young people.
Children of one of the brothers in that local assembly of palpable.
Who told me that they had wandered away from the Lord going their own way. And thankfully there seemed to be a seriousness in listening to this scriptures.
I'm really concerned.
Because we're getting right down.
To the very end of this day of grace.
We say and we believe that the Lord Jesus is coming at any moment.
And I'm afraid that there are many who say they believe.
But there has never been a repentance in the heart.
And I want to say to you that there has never been any repentance on your part.
You are not saved for as much as you say you believe.
Repentance in itself does not save. What saves is faith in Christ.
But there is no salvation without repentance, and I'd like to turn first of all to a verse in Isaiah 55, actually 2 verses.
Isaiah chapter 55.
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Well known verses.
Verses 6:00 and 7:00.
Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found.
Call ye upon him while he is near, let the wicket forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him.
And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Oh, I love that.
Our God is a God who is rich in many ways. He's rich in his mercy. He's abundant in his pardon. Oh, what a God he is. But I want to draw your attention to something that it says before.
Is abundant before Speaking of his abundant pardon says let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Repentance is a change of mind. It's abandoning the thoughts we've had. And I say for myself when I was growing up in conferences like these.
And listening to the gospel, I never thought.
That I was that bad. I had never done anything that messy.
Out in the world, I was all right. And you know what? I had to change my thinking.
I was as guilty as the worst criminal.
In the Saint Louis prison I was.
Because God has said in his word there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Thank God he spared me from committing the crimes that perhaps.
Those in the prison have committed. That didn't mean that my heart was any different. No, there is no difference. All have sinned and I had to have my thoughts changed. And I think this is a real danger of those who sit in meetings like this and never come to the realization of their lost condition before God.
Really shakes me.
To think of the Sunday school where I grew up and of the children that I sat with on the front rows of the Sunday school, and to think that about half of them went off and I have no idea whether they're saved or not. Today, their lives show nothing of any fruit of a real believer.
And I want to speak very directly and very specially to those of you who have been brought up in Christian homes but have never had a change in your thinking. You've never repented.
Tonight there's a God who wants to pardon you, abundantly pardon you, but there must be a change in your thinking.
There must be. Without that, there can be no salvation.
And I'd like to go over to Luke's Gospel chapter 15.
To speak of this God who is abundantly ready to pardon. Let me quote that verse again, because I think it's so precious. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
That's our God. That's our God. But there must be.
A change in your thinking. There must be repentance on your part.
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Let's read this chapter 15. It's one variable, 3 parts.
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners, for to hear him.
And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you having an 100 sheep, if you lose one of them, doth not leave the 90 and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it. And when he had found it, he layeth it upon his shoulders, rejoicing.
And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them.
Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.
I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one Sinner that repenteth more than over 90 and nine just persons which need no repentance. I'm going to pause there. That's the first section.
Of this parable and what we have here is a man.
That has 100 sheep.
He loses 1.
1% isn't that much of a loss.
People that are so worried about their interest in the stock market, if it loses 1%, they don't worry about that.
Is this man interested in that 1%?
Oh, this is our God. I don't know who you are out there. You know who you are.
And the God who is looking straight into your heart knows exactly who you are.
But he's interested in you, he wants you, he loves you, he's interested in making you eternally happy. One she lost and it says he goes after that which is lost. How far does he go to get that sheep that's lost? Notice at the end of verse four it says until.
He find it.
It doesn't say how long it took to find it, but he went until he found it.
It doesn't matter how far or how much it was costing, but he went all the way. And you know what that involved, my friend? It involved the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom this man is a figure.
To come from heaven, from the throne of God to this world. And he went all the way. It was an awful way. He had to go. He had made this world.
And when he came into it, they didn't understand who he was.
Of all the creation, man was the most insensible of his creation.
When he mounted the full of a donkey.
That donkey knew who he was when he gave the command to the fish in the ocean to go get a piece of money and come and take Peter's hook. That fish obeyed, but men were totally insensible. They did not know who he was.
And he lived here in this world. Even his own disciples really didn't seem to understand who he was.
And when he was telling them instituting his Last Supper or his the the Lord's Supper when he was instituting it, you know what they were doing, they were having a royal squabble as to who would be the greatest of them.
They didn't understand they it didn't dawn on them, and I really don't think it is dawned on my own soul, the glory of the person we're talking about.
But he went all the way there. He was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Contemplating how much it would cost to go through to go the whole way. It was either going the whole way to save our souls, or it was leaving us to perish forever in Hellfire without any ray of hope.
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And as he knelt and prayed, his holy soul shrunk from the very thought of being made sin.
And he prayed, and he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
And he said.
Not my will, but thine be done.
God's will was your salvation and mine.
And the Lord Jesus rose up to go all the way, and he went all the way to Calvary. Look at him as he goes out of that city of Jerusalem.
His head with a crown of thorns beaten into it, his back bloody, with the Roman scourge having plowed.
Stripes upon him.
His face more marred more than any man's. Who was that?
That was my Creator, that was my God and the person of the Lord Jesus.
That was going outside that city.
And they took him into that hill of Golgotha, and they stretched out his hands and pounded spikes through his hands and feet and lifted him up to hang between heaven and earth on those spikes.
It wasn't that the worst of his sufferings, but.
At 12 noon because Jesus was crucified approximately according to our calculation.
At 9:00 AM.
And he suffered.
The jeering, the mockery of those that were there.
For three hours.
His words were Father forgive them, they know not what they do.
But after three hours the sun went dark and for three hours there was no cry from Golgotha.
During those three hours, it was that God laid on Jesus.
The iniquity of us all.
Me, the guilty Sinner.
He the Holy.
Spotless, innocent Son of God, my sins were laid on him, and God poured out upon him His holy righteous judgment that I deserved to bear in the lake of fire forever. He bore it all the end of those awful hours.
God.
Forsook him, and he cries. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Then he cries. It is finished. The awful wrath of God that was against me, and rightly so.
As a guilty Sinner was gone.
It's all taken care of and Jesus bowed his head and died.
Soldier comes and pierces his side, and out flows blood and water. The price of redemption was paid not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.
He was buried, He rose again the third day, and now Jesus is a living, resurrected, ascended, glorified Savior, a real man of flesh and bones at God's right hand is there, ready, willing, powerful to save all who will simply believe in Him tonight.
He went all the way. He found that one sheep. What does he do? What does he say to that one sheep? You naughty thing, get goin.
No, he says it, takes it up on his shoulders and carries it all the way home. That's the kind of Savior we have in the Lord Jesus.
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It's not a matter of you and I being able.
To walk like we should. It's a matter of his power that's going to bring us all the way home. I've met so many people, South America sometimes up here too, that say to me, you know why I'm not a Christian. I don't think I could ever live the Christian life. You know what I tell them sometimes?
So you don't want to know something? I can't either. It's not a matter of my being able to. But you know, when he found me, he put me on his shoulders. It's no longer a matter of me being able, it's a matter of he.
Being able to carry me all the way home but notice when he gets home.
There's rejoicing, he calls his friends and neighbors and says, Rejoice with me, for I found my sheep which was lost. And then he says, I tell you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one Sinner that repenteth more than over 90, and nine just persons which need no repentance.
Oh, it's that repentance that's so important.
One Sinner that repenteth causes joy in heaven. Now the second part, verse 8 either What woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she have found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me.
For I have found the peace which I had lost. Likewise I say unto you.
There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one Sinner that repented.
Here we have a different picture, a woman.
And a house.
And 10 pieces of silver in the house.
And of 10/1 gets lost, you know 10 in scripture is the number of responsibility. God gave 10 commandments and man was under responsibility to fulfill.
Those 10 commandments, but no one ever was able to fulfill his responsibility under the requirements, the just requirements of those 10 commandments.
But this piece of money is lost in the house. Is it possible to be lost in the house?
Yes, that's what it says. There was one piece that was lost in the house. And you may form part of the religious profession of Christianity. You may have been baptized. You may even participate in the Lord's Supper.
And still be lost. How solemn lost in the house.
If so, there's somebody that's seeking for you. It's the Holy Spirit of God that dwells in the house. He's present here tonight, and he's here for that purpose, to bring souls to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. She lights a candle.
She gets the light to shine on the subject, and that's what we're doing by opening this book tonight.
This word is a light. It says in Scripture.
And so we open this book, and we trust that this light will shine in upon your soul.
To make you realize if you are one of those that is lost in the house.
But now we come to the last part of this parable.
The part of the prodigal son. To me, it's one of the most wonderful stories. I don't get tired of it.
Every time I read it, it's fresh. Let's read it verse 11. And he said a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father.
Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
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And not many days after, the younger son gathered altogether and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in one.
And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would fain have felt his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bred enough, and despair, and I perish with hunger.
I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee in him no more worthy to be called thy Son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his Father, But when he was yet a great way off his Father's, sock him and had compassion.
And ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The sun said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and in no more worthy to be called thy son. But the Father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
And bring hit her the fatted calf, and kill it. And let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, and they began to be married. Here we have the part that speaks of God the Father.
Oh, the God we're talking about once.
Do abundantly pardon you, but as long as that sun was in the far country.
In that pig pen with the pigs, there was number pardon there. There was number pardon there.
And I think there is a mistake made in today's world. A lot is talked about forgiveness.
God is a forgiving God.
But he doesn't forgive until there is repentance, until there is that change. And that's what's so important to understand.
Dear children, dear young people.
If you don't realize how far you are by nature from God, yes, you who have been brought up in Christian homes, you that have been protected from a lot of the bad stuff of this world, you, I'm talking to you.
There's need of repentance.
And so this son notice at the beginning he says, Father give me.
A little later on when he was formulating the prayer he would say to his father, he said Father, make me. There was a change when he come to that point that showed that change.
And so the way of this world has given me people got the gimmies.
And it's not interested in anybody else but me, myself and I and what I can get out of life.
That's what's naturally in everyone of our hearts, I have to confess.
That's what's naturally in my heart.
And that's why it's necessary to repent, to change your way of thinking.
And so he gathers all together. His father was a generous man.
Gathers it all together and he gets as far away as possible from his father so that he won't have any qualms of conscience to have the good time he really wants to have. And he gathers all together. He goes to the far country and there he had a riot.
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Says as right as living, he really had what he called a great time.
You know, as long as you got money in your pocket, you'll have some friends around, I'm sure.
But let me tell you, that kind of friend will disappear pretty rapidly when you get to the end of your money. And that's what happened to this poor guy.
Often that far country is money was exhausted, and then what happened? A mighty famine arose in that land.
And he began to be in what? Oh, it's awful when you get to that place.
And it to me, it's so tragic in this country where there's so much advancement in so many ways of technology and learning.
To see so many young people.
Have to be brought so low with drugs and alcohol.
It's tragic, it's awful.
Some of us go to young people's detention center and.
Vincennes IN to talk to some of the young people that are detained there.
That a population of 150, it's tremendous to be able to talk to some of these kids. What impresses me?
Some of those kids in there are a lot more serious about getting straight than kids that sit in meetings like we sitting in today. That impresses me pretty seriously.
One kid, remember, not too long ago was really worried as we sat there and talked to him. He says if I don't get straight when I get out this time, I'm afraid I'm going to be in here for a lot of time. And he was really sincerely worried. He came out of his cell in a time of personal visiting and he wanted some of us to pray for him.
Is there anybody here that would like to be prayed for?
I wonder if there is?
That kid was in serious. Another kid. Forget just how old he was, I think he was maybe 14 years old.
He had already done most of everything that they do out in the world.
But he told me I'm an alcoholic.
And.
I know if I get out this weekend where I'll go, I'll go straight to party and I'll get it drunk again.
Tragic to me.
God is going to have to allow if you won't turn, if you won't repent, he may have to allow you to go right down to the very bottom. It's tragic that it has to happen to that way, but what it takes to get people to turn, to change their minds. Remember down in Skid Row of Chicago where we used to go to preach, meeting with men who were derelicts, and yet they were.
Lawyers well educated some doctors.
Filthy clothes as they dragged themselves down the street. Tragic. Lost everything. Their families, their wealth, everything.
Oh, does God have to allow you to go?
So awfully far that you land.
In the pigsty, like the prodigal son, what does this world have to offer?
That is so attractive. What was it that this poor?
Young fella had in this pigsty husks.
Let me tell you, if we go out into the city of Saint Louis tonight, there's a lot of places they've got those husks dressed up quite nicely to attract people. But let me tell you, they're nothing more than husks. They don't satisfy the soul.
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Try them if you will.
There's awful consequences for trying them, but you're going to find that they don't satisfy. Don't but notice. And this is the point we want to come to in verse 17.
When he came to himself, there he is sitting.
In that pig pen with the pigs tending them.
Nobody gave him even the pig husks to eat. There he is.
And there is a change.
There is a change in his thinking.
He's still sitting there.
But this is what repentance is.
All before this time, he had never thought of going back to his father.
Is bother.
Now anything but that.
But now there's a change. He comes to himself.
And he says.
There's plenty of higher servants in my father's house that have plenty of bread.
Despair. And here I am perishing with hunger, and he formulates this little prayer that he's going to say to his Father. I will. He says, I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, I have sinned. Oh, it's important to come to that point to recognize what we are before God. Sinners by nature, sinners by practice. Sin is an awful thing.
Before God, we live in a world where it's made so light of them.
That sometimes we don't realize how awful sin is with God.
I have sinned, he says. Great thing to be able to say that before heaven.
Against heaven and before thee. Sin is not merely against humanity. Sin is primarily, first of all, against God. And until you realize that when you sin, you not only sin against your fellow man, or in the case of certain sins, specifically of fornication, you sin against your own body, but you sin against God, who has your good in mind, and you're doing damage to other people.
You're doing damage to yourself and God tells you to stop.
And to repent and to turn around how important it is to realize what sin really is.
And then he says, I am no more worthy to be called thy son.
And here he says, make me. Well, there's a real change here. There's no more give me it's make me there's a real change with him as one of thy hired servants. He wasn't thinking entirely straight yet.
His father didn't have, I don't suppose, any hired servants tending the pigs.
But he gets up and he goes and notice verse 20, he arose. There's conversion. First comes repentance, and then comes conversion. He doesn't continue to sit in a pigsty. He doesn't drag the pigsty along with him. No, he leaves it all behind. There is a definite break with those things that were passed in his life.
And he comes to his father. And I love what it says here.
When his father, when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. I don't want to stop here a minute.
And speak very specially about this matter of repentance and conversion.
He had a change of mind and then he got up and he went to his father.
And I want to speak very specially because I fear that there are those who are trying to taste some of the world at the same time. They want to be Christians. They want a piece of this world still.
You can't do it. That prodigal son had to leave the pigsty and the pigs behind.
He had to come, just as he was, in all his shame.
To his father.
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You know, it concerns me.
Going back and forth between Latin America, North America.
What we mentioned today in the reading meeting, I truly believe.
And eternal security, that a person that is really saved, is always saved, can never be lost. But what concerns me is that there are those who make a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus.
But their life shows nothing of the fruits of their faith. And if they're approached about their lifestyle, they say, well, I'm saved. You got to understand, I've trusted the Lord, I'm saved. But I want to say to you, Scripture gives no comfort to a person who walks carelessly. No comfort. And I want to read some scriptures because.
I've faced sometimes people who are living in a careless way remember 1 fellow I faced a relative of mine.
Lives a very.
A life of worldliness.
Drinking and women and the whole bit.
And I faced him one time and he was quite incensed at me that I would question that he was saved. He said to me, I thought you were smarter than that. You ought to know that somebody that's saved is always saved.
I said I come to read some scriptures with you and I'd like to read some of those scriptures. Please turn with me to.
First Corinthians chapter 6. Please just consider these verses because to me they are very convicting for a person that professes to be a Christian and yet is trying to mix up with this world that we're passing through.
First Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 9. Listen carefully.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards.
Nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God.
Quite clear.
Let's read some more Galatians chapter 5.
Verse 19.
Now the works of the flesh.
Are manifest? Which are these adultery?
Fornication and cleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, sedition, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like of the witch. I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Notice it shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. Ephesians chapter 5.
And verse 3.
But fornication?
And all uncleanness and covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh Saints, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know that no *********** or nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom.
Of Christ and of God. Quite clear, I would say.
Colossians, chapter 3.
Verse 5 Mortify therefore, your members, which are upon the earth.
Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil, concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience.
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Quite clear.
If you're involved in anyone of these things that we've read.
There is great reason to believe that you are not saved at all.
The Lord should come to night. You would be left sitting in your seat.
This is God's word, and I say you may have a quarrel with me. That's fine. I understand that I've got inconsistencies in my life too, and you probably could pick a few of them. But please consider what God has to say. I plead with you young people.
Don't be careless about these things. The prodigal son left the pigsty. He left it all behind, and he came to his father.
And oh, the welcome there was there waiting for him, a father that was willing to abundantly pardon you say. I've done a lot of messy stuff.
Leave it behind.
Come home to him who's waiting for you.
And when he saw his son, he ran and fell on his neck.
And kissed him, oh, the welcome that's waiting for you, if you'll only come back. And he says his little homemade prayer. Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and him no more worthy to be called thy Son.
He forgot the last part really. When he got into his father's presence, there was number place to say the last part.
His father had plenty of servants, and God has millions upon millions of angels. There's no need for God to have more servants. So yes, it's a privilege to serve God.
But God isn't looking for more servants. You know what he's looking for, for sons that he can bring into his house to sit down at his table, to have fellowship with. That's what he's looking for. And he's looking for you tonight. He's waiting for you to come back.
While you're going to sit in the pigsty, there's no forgiveness there. I say with all my heart. Repent.
Be converted. Come back to this God.
That is waiting to abundantly pardon you, and there's four things that were waiting for him at home. First of all, the father said bring forth the best robe and put it on him. He couldn't go into the father's house with those filthy clothes that he had on from the pigpen couldn't go.
No, he had to have a change of clothes. What is that best robe?
Speaks in Isaiah of it.
A rogue of righteousness.
It's what the believer gets, the believer in the Lord Jesus.
When he simply accepts God's testimony.
A robe of righteousness. It's the righteousness of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
I stand now not on in the grounds of any merit of my own, but I stand before God in Christ, in that robe of righteousness that God provided for me. That's the first thing. The second thing, a ring on his hand. Oh, the love.
He'll only come back, the love that's waiting, eternal love, a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. The ability, because of the power of the Holy Spirit that God gives the believer in the Lord Jesus the ability to walk properly as a child of God in this world. He gives you that ability. You might say, I don't know that I'm going to be able to do it. It's not a matter of you being able to do it.
He will give you the ability to do it.
And bring forth the fatted calf and kill it.
And they began, and let us eat and be merry.
Death never should forget that death is the basis of all our blessing, the death of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And it says for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost.
And is found and they began to be merry.
Never says they ever finished. This is a festival that starts here. The moment you come back to your God and we'll go on through all eternity.
This is what's waiting for you.
Feel only repent.
And come home, remember, it's necessary to repent to be saved without it. And this is what I fear, that there are those sitting here who have made a profession of faith in Jesus.
Without any inward reality, there has been no change, no repentance worked in your heart yet.
And for as much as you say you're a Christian, there has not been that change if you're still trying to pull the pig pen behind you.
The same time saying you're a Christian, it's not going to work. You've got to leave it all behind, just like that prodigal son did. With all our hearts, we want to warn and plead with anybody here who still hasn't really dealt with God seriously about the question of sin.
To repent.
And to come in saving faith.
To the Lord Jesus.
And be saved. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Let's pray.
Father.