Gospel—John Kemp
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Welcome everyone tonight to the Gospel Meeting. We're glad you're here and we have a wonderful message to tell.
To the world tonight and.
We hope that if you are a stranger.
To the love and grace of the Lord Jesus, that.
There'll be a change in your life.
You may have come into this room in your sins without hope and without God.
But you can leave rejoicing in a present full salvation.
We'll open our meeting by singing.
Number looking for the.
Yet there is room where is that?
1515, Thank you.
Yes, all blessed gospel sound, yet there is room.
Some brotherhood started, please.
In Ottawa, where I live, we have a Tulip festival.
It just came to a close a few days ago.
You have the Tulip Festival here.
To my wife, Eleanor and I were out at the Tulip festival four or five times to see the tulips. Well, that was that was beautiful to observe and one of the largest festivals, I guess, in the Western world. But that wasn't the reason we went. We went to give out gospel tracts.
To the thousands of people that were milling around there from nearly every country that you could imagine. We met many from India and from other lands. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the tract that we gave out, among others, but the title of it you probably remember.
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Can we be sure?
There's a history behind that in connection with Ottawa because.
That is the story of the conversion of Queen Victoria. You boys and girls who go to school you'll read about the the marvelous British Empire, which straddled most of the world half of the world was under the control of Britain, Africa, India and so on Queen Victoria was the.
Empress of India, she was the ruler for about 50 years.
So we give out the track. Can we be sure? And I said to the people, now look, this is the message from Queen Victoria for you, not only from her, but from the word of God. And it so happened that Queen Victoria chose Ottawa to be the capital.
In about 1854 and Ottawa has been the capital ever since.
But Queen Victoria, she had a concern for her soul and she went to her chaplain at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. She asked the question, Sir, can anyone be sure in this life of having eternal safety?
The chaplain looked at her rather strangely and said, Lady Her Majesty, I know of no way that that would be possible. Well, that was the answer she got from the religious head of the church.
But it happened that.
John Townsend, a humble evangelist, heard about this episode.
Of Queen Victoria and he took out his pen and humbly he wrote a letter to the Queen of the British Empire.
And he said, I can't quote the words exactly, but it was along this line. Her Majesty, we have heard that you have asked the question of whether a person could be sure of where they were going for eternity.
I want to draw your attention.
Queen Victoria to a few scriptures that I want you to read.
John 316 was one of them, and I think Romans 10 verse nine was another.
So he signed his name, he put the letter into an envelope and it was sent to the palace, Buckingham Palace, I suppose.
After a short time, oh, I should add that many prayers went up for the letter that John Townsend had sent the Queen. By the way, if you have the opportunity, read the biography of Sister Abigail, who worked for many years in the city of Buffalo.
She was an avid track distributor and many souls were brought through the labours of Sister Abigail.
Who was the daughter of John Townsend? But let me finish the story. The queen received the letter. She opened it up and she read it. Not only the letter, but she turned to the word of God, and she opened it and read the verses that John Townsend had given to her. And she sent a reply.
Thanking him for the letter that he had written.
At such and such a time and adding these words, I have considered the scriptures that you have given to me, and I can say truthfully that I am trusting in the finished work of Christ.
And I know I have salvation, and I will meet you in the glory. Wasn't that a lovely reply from such a a prominent person in the world? Well, we want you, dear friends, to have the assurance that your sins are forgiven. This is the purpose of this gospel meeting tonight.
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That if you are here without Christ, without God.
Was nothing but a lost eternity before you. That the Spirit of God will awaken you to your need, to your peril, to the end of a life without Christ in a lost eternity. Dear friend, tonight God is beseeching you to be saved.
He is saying be reconciled to God.
You know, as we have mentioned in our meetings, God didn't need to be reconciled to us because He was never against us. We were the ones that were the enemies by wicked works, enemies in our minds and burdened with many sins and the judgment before us.
But God reaches out tonight with His love, with his grace. He beseeches you to turn from your evil ways. He commands all men everywhere to repent, to take sides with God against yourself, to acknowledge.
Your sin, your guilt, your ruin.
And what you've done with the gospel of God's grace.
So the heart of God is reaching out to you tonight.
You know, if you look in the book of Exodus, God looked down and he saw there.
The ruin of the nation there they were burdened with the laborers in Egypt, and God's heart of compassion went out to them. He did more than that. He came down to deliver them.
From such a terrible death, from such a ******* they were slaves of Pharaoh. And if you're unsaved, my friend, you're a slave of the enemy of your soul, Satan. He's a strong man, and he's armed with all the entertainments of this world to keep you in peace.
A false peace. That's Luke Chapter 11. When the strongman armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.
Who are the goods, The souls of men and women? Without Christ, they belong. They don't belong to the Lord. They're slaves of Satan. We all were in that position at one time.
But.
Remember his policies the world.
And in this day and age in which we live, he has every sort of entertainment. With all the modern technology, we have to keep people asleep.
Unaware of their danger.
They're in a dreadful pit and they don't realize that they're sinking down, down to a lost eternity. And yet God is reaching out with His love. He is pointing souls to His beloved Son. The marriage feast is going to take place. In fact, the Gospel supper is right.
Tonight God is beseeching. Our last man is refusing to be made forever. Glad you know, some people think, well, if we can get some of the Saints to intercede for us, maybe the Lord will have mercy upon us. And that's not the truth.
No one needs to intercede with God for the salvation of your soul.
The work has been finished at the cross, Nothing can be added to it. It is a perfect work and it will meet your deep need. The Lord came down Himself, the Son of God, born of a woman, cradled in a Manger, living a perfect spotless life for 33 1/2 years.
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Raising the dead, cleansing the leper, healing the sick, no one went away disappointed. When the Lord was here on earth, He was the full revelation of the heart of God.
As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country that good news tonight is from heaven.
I'm not telling you.
Some religion about joining some religious society. The good news of salvation. The water, the living water is coming down. If you repent, that living water will fill your soul just like the woman in John chapter 4.
The streams of this world are polluted with pride and lust and evil, and yet people are drinking at those streams, trying to satisfy their spiritual thirst. Not only is there a physical thirst, there's a spiritual thirst. And if you're without Christ, nothing in this world.
Will ever fill the void of your heart.
You need Christ, you need salvation, you need forgiveness of sins. All is found in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I tell the story of something that took place in London.
I lived in London for three years, teaching school in that vast city.
And I had many experiences in London. It's a huge city and there are many opportunities for the gospel there. But in 1854 something happened in London that had never happened before.
There was an outbreak of cholera. That's a dreadful disease, very common in India.
We know the source of cholera now, but at that time.
They did not know. The doctors joined together and they said this is an awful plague. It's it's.
Hundreds are dying with this disease. Where did it come from? Will it just run its course and be over? Or is it from the vapors from the water or something? They didn't know. They were wise men, but they didn't know the cause of cholera.
But there was one doctor, Doctor John Snow, and he says I'm going to investigate this. And he took a big map of London on the wall and he went around to all the houses where they there had been victims of cholera.
Deaths in the family, he said to, he said to the people in that house, where did you get your water? They said at such and such a well on the corner of these streets. It went to the next house, where did you get your water? Because you've had a death in the family And they said at such and such a well. And so he went all through the city.
Where the cholera outbreak had had caused so much death and he put put it on the map and he came to the conclusion the cause of that outbreak of cholera was that well at that certain St. in London. It had a long handle and all those people had got their water from that well.
Doctor John Snow said.
Cap that well immediately. Don't let anyone use it anymore.
That's the problem, I believe. Sure enough, when they cap that well, the cholera epidemic subsided.
And there weren't any more deaths.
You know the water was coming from the Thames River. It was like an open sewer, slaughter houses and cow sheds all around and raw sewage being poured into the water. No wonder the same thing happens in India when they can't get enough.
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Wood to boil their water. Cholera will sweep through those slums of Calcutta, taking hundreds into eternity. But anyway.
I tell you that illustration, that story.
To speak of the living water that the Lord Jesus is offering to you tonight. And if we look in John 4, we'll see a woman here who.
Tasted of that living water.
She wasn't a very commendable person. She wasn't a very moral woman. Quite the contrary. We know the story.
And the Lord Jesus.
They're wearied with his journey. Will read John 4 here.
Verse Well, verse one, When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John? Verse three, He left Judea and departed again into Galilee, and he must needs go through Samaria.
Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Psychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there, Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey.
Said thus on the well, and it was about the 6th hour. There come with a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. Here was the Lord of glory.
In Samaria, a place that an Orthodox Jew would not have passed through.
But the Lord of glory, the creator of that well, I've sat by that well myself. And if I remember correctly, they dropped a, a coin into that well. And they we, we timed the, the number of seconds before it hit the surface of the water. The well was deep. And this woman, she had tried.
All the resources of this world, She was a moral outcast. I don't think people would want to be walking down the street with her. She was a Sinner and she knew it. But here was the Lord of glory wearied in his journey. He was a real man.
Wearied in his quest for souls, his whole life was spent.
In reaching out to the lost and the needy, the Lord never thought of Himself. There was no selfishness in the Lord like there is in me. The Lord lived to bring blessing to the lost in the perishing. He was God there at that wells. He didn't know who He was, a stranger, in fact. She wondered why a Jew knowing by the blue ribbon on the Lord's apparel.
She knew he was a Jew and there weren't dealings, there weren't good relations between Jews and Samaritans with the Lord from apost eternity. He had that woman in his heart.
And he came to where she was, in all her ruin and her guilt, and he won her confidence, and he poured the living water into that woman's soul. Dear friend, do you want to have that living water tonight?
Will you take your place like this woman or you say I wouldn't put myself in the same class as this woman. Maybe not, but you are a Sinner, as I was, and you're guilty before God. You're not on probation tonight.
That was all finished at the cross. Man displayed what was in his heart at the cross of Calvary. There they crucified the Lord of glory. There they put him to an open shame, the most cruel death possible, the Lord Jesus.
In profound humiliation came from the glory in manhood, Weary here with his toils among lost souls.
He sat by the well, and he waited for that woman to come.
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Because He had blessing for her. Dear friends, let me say this tonight God has blessing in store for you, if only you are willing to take your place before God.
And acknowledge your sinfulness, your ruin. You're in a horrible pit. But the marvelous grace of God, the Lord Jesus came down into that pit himself.
In order to lift you up.
And to give you forgiveness of sins, eternal life.
And he's not asking for anything from you. No, he's not asking for any money. If, if the Lord put any value, if any value could be put upon salvation, you are desperately poor. You could never meet the need.
But God is too rich to sell, and you're too poor to buy.
And I've worked a year and year after year in the poor areas of the world, like our brother Brad Erlinson has been to India many times. I've preached the gospel among the poor in India. And it's been a wonderful privilege to share the message of God's grace with those poor souls, some of them, many of them illiterate.
The poem that I often use. Forgive me if I probably have used it before, but.
Having lived in London, it means something to me, and here it is midst the dwelling of the poor. I think this was in London, England.
These bright golden words were uttered. I have Christ, what want I more? He who heard them ran to fetch her something from the world's great store. It was needless.
Died she saying I have Christ, what want I more as she had the true eternal riches. Dear friends, if you accept Christ.
I've never met anyone in my travels worldwide that has ever said I was sorry I accepted the Lord as my Savior.
And tonight is your opportunity. Tonight, today is the day of salvation when the Lord was in Nazareth, You remember, maybe you should turn to the scripture so we get it correctly. Luke, chapter four, He was in his own hometown of Nazareth, and he went into the synagogue. This was the Lord's habit, to be in the synagogue.
And he stood up to read.
And the scroll was given to him, and he opened it up, and he found those wonderful words from the prophet Isaiah. Here it is in verse 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted. You know you'll always have an audience if you speak to broken hearted people, because the world is full of them everywhere, broken hearted people. And the only one that can heal a broken heart is the Lord Jesus Christ. No one else can do it. No psychiatrist or anything of that sort.
Christ is the answer. Well to finish to heal the broken hearted.
To breach deliverance to the captives. Yes, men and women are captive to their lusts, their vile dispositions, their sins, their habits, their addictions, their captives of Satan and sin. And I was one myself. Dear friend, the Lord is preaching deliverance to the captives tonight.
He wants to lift you out of the pit. He wants to put you on your shoulder.
Not on one shoulder, you might fall off. The Lord holds the whole universe on the on the one shoulder. But when he picks up a poor lost sheep, he puts he puts that sheep on both shoulders. He's an all the way home Savior. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Yes, he wants to bring recovery of sight to the blind.
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Well, you say my eyes are pretty good. I don't have a problem.
But you are spiritually blind if you're without Christ.
Lately when I was in Brazil this year.
I read a book that struck me very deeply. It was called.
The Leopards of Robben Island Just a little background, Robben Island is a piece of the land that is away from the mainland of South Africa.
It has a long illustrious history, but not very flattering. Any leper that was found any place in South Africa, if they had any taint of leprosy, they were pulled from their family regardless of what their social status was. They could be the son of the president if they had any taint of leprosy.
To Robben Island.
Forced to leave their homes and their families and go to Robben Island, as many as 600 were there.
And I enjoyed reading the history of Mr. Fisher, who worked for 30 years on Robben Island. He didn't live there. He lived on the mainland. He would go over week after week and he got to know many of those dear people that were afflicted with leprosy. Indescribable that conditions.
The decaying of the body, the stench, the hopelessness.
Nearly all lepers eventually are blind, and Mr. Fisher patiently presented the gospel to those lepers week after week. And I am sure that in that coming day of glory, we're going to meet many of those lepers who receive Christ. They knew their their they knew their physical need. They were.
Completely outcasts of society.
And very few of them ever recovered from that disease, and they had nothing but an eternity before them. But I believe that many did receive the Lord Jesus as their Savior, and we will meet them in the glory. So with this woman, the Lord.
Touched her conscience because she was living in open sin.
And she knew what her life was like The Lord.
Exposed what she really was, and her conscience was stricken by the Word of God. And I hope your conscience will be awakened tonight by the Word of God, that you will realize your need and your peril.
And like the woman here, received the living water that is coming down from the throne of God.
Through the Lord Jesus, through his death, through his sacrifice, through his precious blood that was shed.
Many boys and girls are here. A lot of prayers went up at the prayer meeting for you.
I'm gonna tell a little story, but time is going here.
Robert Woodward was about nine years of age. He lived in Canada, where I live. He got on a boat with his sister and another gentleman and they were rowing the boat.
In the in the river that leads down to Niagara Falls, 162 feet.
The Canadian falls, so the Horseshoe falls, but something happened, they sheared a pin or something and they lost power.
And there's a strong current in that river, and it's only going in One Direction.
The man that was.
Handling the bolt he the bolt capsized and they were all thrown into the water.
A miracle that his sister was just picked up by the hand at the border of the river and was saved. The man went over the falls and that was the end. But little Robert Woodward actually was just a life belt. Went over the falls down 162 feet.
And there he was, bobbing up and down and the.
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Pilate of the Maid of the Mist Bolt. He looked and he couldn't believe his eyes. Who is that? What is that bobbing up and down in the water? It's a little boy. And he threw a life belt to a lifeguard, a rope to him, and he pulled him in and put him on the boat. He's the only one that went over the falls and lived, no one else ever.
Had that experience. It was blazed all over the world and the headlines. A boy went over the falls and lived.
But that's not the end of the story a year later.
Robert Woodward was in that area where he had that awful experience, and he heard the gospel of God's grace.
And he believed the message. He said the Lord saved me once.
So that he could save me twice and.
Robert Woodward believed the message that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He bowed his young heart and he was saved. It was God's mercy that preserved his life and that remarkable way, and he lived to witness and tell others of the wondrous gospel that had saved him. So, dear friends, tonight our meeting is coming to a close.
But again, we appeal to you earnestly that if you are still without the Lord Jesus here tonight.
Don't go to bed and lay your head upon your pillow in your sins.
There's a danger that you will wake up in a lost eternity.
The day of grace is now the verses that we read there in Luke chapter four. To set at liberty them that are bruised what bruising sin has caused.
Maimed people. It has ruined man, body, soul and spirit. Bruised. Preached the acceptable year of the Lord. This is the acceptable year of the Lord.
My dear friend tonight.
The Lord stopped the verse at this point. The rest of it is the day of vengeance of our God. But the Lord did not read that. Isn't that remarkable? We're still in the acceptable year of the Lord. It's still the day of grace, as our brother mentioned elaborated on that wonderful subject this afternoon. We're still in the day of grace and opportunity.
But tomorrow may be too late.
Tomorrow you could be in eternity. You've carried your burden. You've carried it long. Oh, bring it to Jesus. He's loving and strong. He'll take it away and your sorrows shall cease. He'll send you rejoicing with his heavenly peace. May you, each one, if there's anyone here.
Without the Lord Jesus. I'm going to tell you as I close the meeting. Yet there is room.
That hymn was written by George West Fraser. He was one of the gathered Saints last century.
I think he was born about 1840 in that area.
George West Face Fraser was invited to a gospel meeting about 1859 when the Spirit of God was working in Ireland in a marvelous way, his brother said. George, come. Oh, I don't want to go come. Mr. Guinness is preaching. The crowds are are filling the arenas.
The stadiums come. Well, if you insist, I'll go. But there is no room. The place was filled, standing room only. So George Frazier said, or his brother said, listen, we'll that stand pipe there, that gutter there, You will climb up there. There's an open window there. And so they climbed up and they sat on the window sill with their feet dangling over the crowd.
Looking down at the preacher and those words.
Yet there is room where, like an arrow that reached the conscience of George Fraser, he went home, but he was under sole trouble for two or three weeks until he finally.
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That verse Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Came to his soul and gave him peace and he wrote that hymn yet there is room and we say that this to you, my friend tonight that God's house is filling fast is not going to be an empty banquet hall. They're coming in from far and near. But if you refuse the invitation you'll be like the man in Matthew 22 The marriage feast was.
Deaned and these invitations were going out. How this man got in without a wedding garment, we don't know, but I suppose, he said. I am all right the way I am. I don't need that wedding garment. My clothes are all right. I'll just slip in here. He got in. But when the bridegroom came.
Immediately he was detected and and questioned. How came you in here my friend?
Without a wedding garment, it was provided at the door and you didn't accept it.
And he was speechless, He had nothing to say. And if you refuse the Lord Jesus Christ, someday you'll stand speechless in the presence of that Holy One at the great white throne, and you will be judged according to your works. How terrible. But tonight is the day of salvation.
God has no pleasure in punishing an unsaved person. There's no pleasure in that. His longing desire is.
That you might be part of that heavenly company, the heavenly bride of the Lamb of God. May God bless His word to us tonight. Could we close with just a stanza of #14?
Yeah #14 first first verse. Some brother would start it.
Have you been through Jesus?
Are you watching the blood of the land?
What do you want in the blood?