Gospel—Sam Ludvicek
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.
25.
Someone please start that.
Very free, like the falling out, like the fight you know to see. Great dream and time.
Dreaming such a child in the past after the night will still be at our house and the faithful life because.
Being in someone.
Being in time.
Romans chapter one and verse 16 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
To the Jew 1St, and also to the Greek or the Gentile.
I have the high honor and unique privilege of preaching the Gospel tonight, and I consider it both.
It is the power of God unto salvation. It is the only thing that works.
If you run into a good salesman, he may convince you to buy something you don't want. That's not what we're talking about tonight.
00:05:00
There is a blindness to the heart and mind.
Both Jew and Gentile, the Bible talks about there's a deafness that we can come under where we don't hear and there's a lack of sight where we don't see. So my prayer tonight will be that God will Pierce through that and help both speaker and hearer like Father, we just ask thee to help us tonight as we sit here together.
And we talk about the gospel. We preach the gospel, Father speaker, and hear alight alike need thy spirit. It doesn't work without it. So we rely and trust.
In Thy Holy Spirit to Pierce through any blindness, darkness, or deafness, Lord Jesus and I precious name, we commit this time to Thee. Amen.
He will turn with me to Isaiah, chapter one.
And verse 18.
So in our heads.
We're human beings, we have an inner conversation that goes on all the time, and tonight you will have one.
And the Lord will be speaking to your heart, and of course you will be considering those things. You'll have an inner conversation.
So Isaiah chapter one, verse 18 says come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be light red like Crimson, they shall be as wool. Well, the reasoning together tonight won't be just with me and you, it will be between you and the Lord.
And I hope you listen my prayers that you will listen. The prayer to many here is that you will listen.
So if you're a stranger tonight or a guest and you've come in, you're welcome.
If you are a child and a young person in a Christian family, have heard the gospel message many times.
I pray that tonight you will be arrested.
In the sense you'll be stopped in your tracks.
And it will come through clearly to you that, as we sang, be in time.
Who knows? We know we have, but this moment we don't know if tomorrow will come. And if we read the newspapers tomorrow, you will find out that there are those who did not make it past the day happens all the time. So you have now. The Bible says now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.
Now.
Turn with me.
To Ephesians.
Chapter 2.
There are two verses here I want to read because what we're talking about tonight is not some kind of religion that involves working your way to God in any way, shape or form. I want to be very clear at the outset. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8:00 and 9:00 says for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not yourselves. It is the gift of God.
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Turn with me back.
To Isaiah.
Chapter 64.
And verse 6.
But we are all as an unclean thing on this important little phrase here.
And all our righteousnesses are as filthy.
Rags.
Can you imagine coming to God?
With a basket filled with filthy rags and saying here, let me into heaven.
Based on these.
The truth there is, if that's how you think, you're getting to heaven by the works that you have done.
In your life, that's what you're doing.
We wouldn't even do that.
Down the street at the convenience store to try and buy something. They'd laugh you out. They'd throw you out. Yet we are fooled into thinking that somehow, some way, by the works of righteousness, we can do. Somehow we'll get into heaven. And then guess what? Can you see the unseemly scene? Somebody getting there on their own works, going about beating their chest, saying I got here on my own. The Restia had to go by grace.
00:10:28
It's not going to happen. No such unseemly scene will take place there.
Everyone there will be there by the grace of God, as I just read in Ephesians.
Unmerited favor.
Something you didn't deserve.
Now the Bible says the wages of sin is death. You earn that.
And by the way, everyone in this room has already earned that. If you're lost in your sins, you've earned death.
You've not only earned death to die physically, but a second death where you will stand before a righteous God who will look and see.
That you are not covered with the blood of Christ and you will go into a lost eternity.
Because all you will have is a basket full of filthy rags to offer God and it will not be acceptable.
I mentioned that you may be a young person or a child who's heard the gospel many times, and maybe right now you're fiddling or coloring in a coloring book.
And maybe not listening and you've heard it so many times, it's just comfortable.
You've heard these things, I have told people over and over again through the years.
That I did not trust the Lord Jesus as my Savior until I was 11 years old. How can that be?
Brother Daniel McCoy is here. He and I haven't seen each other since I was 19 and he was 18, and we've gotten.
Greeted one another here and talked and we talked a little bit about that, how in our own families and others that we've known, it took many years before they got saved in their 30s and 40s. I had a brother that didn't get saved till he was in his 40s.
And Daniel had brothers, too, that waited and waited. What if they had died?
I don't understand it about myself.
If you had asked me when I was 10 years old, what must I do to be saved, I could have told you. How strange is that to be so familiar with the gospel? You could have said something I would have told somebody. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Look, dear friend, you may know the Christmas story. You may believe that there's some truth to it. You may know the Passion story, You may know the Easter story and say yes.
I think those were things that happened in history.
Believing about something.
Has little correlation to believing in something, and especially in a person.
And on a person because the Lord Jesus when we preach the gospel.
We are speaking on His behalf and asking you to put your faith and trust in Him.
He's alive. He rose from the dead.
He is calling you right now to trust him.
To trust in Him and the finished work that He did on the cross, nothing to be added to it. You can say that salvation comes when you put your faith and trust in Christ. His finished work on the cross plus nothing. You cannot add anything to it and you cannot take anything away from it and be saved.
The Gospel today should not be any different than it was.
In the days of the apostles and the apostle Paul, turn with me.
To First Corinthians.
Chapter 15.
Verse One. Moreover, brethren, I declare unto the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received.
And wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved.
And he says, If you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
Why does he say that? Because he had preached to them before and someone had come along and was teaching them other things, adding something in there.
00:15:07
Putting something extra or taking something away. And if you believe that gospel.
Whatever that was, you would have believed in vain. The world is filled with false gospels that you can.
Believe in that cannot save you because they preach a Christ that does not exist.
Let me continue, for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He was seen of Cephas sent up 12 of the 12:00 And after that he was seen of above 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remained unto this present.
That's the gospel they preached in the beginning.
But if what if someone comes along like Mohammed?
Let's turn to glaciers.
I have had this conversation.
With the muscle.
So in Muhammad's story.
He met with an Angel in a cave.
And he dictated to him.
A new book, a new gospel, you might say so Galatians, chapter one.
What does Paul say?
Mercy. But though we are an Angel from heaven, preach to any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed.
As we said before, so I say now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you, then that ye have received, let him be a curse.
Someone comes, even an Angel and says here's another gospel.
You need a new one. You need extra, whatever the reasoning might be.
Well, the first thing you should do if someone, an Angel came to you or a man, anyone, and said here's a new gospel, here's another gospel.
Run. Why would you listen? You know, even Mohammed wondered at times as he met with this Angel.
If it was the devil or a demon, yeah, he was right. But he continued to listen.
And he got a false gospel that now plagues this world. But there are others who've done similar things, received another gospel.
From whatever source, it can be human. It can be a claim of divine origin.
It could be an Angel who appears as an Angel of light. The scripture tells us the devil himself can appear as an Angel of light.
But if it's a different gospel, this book says don't receive it. Let him be accursed.
Paul goes on in Galatians and says whoever is troubling the Galatian people.
With this twist on the gospel, which wasn't another totally it was the gospel slightly twisted out of place.
Why you just put in there In the midst of the grace of God that is preached, you put works in there. Well, it's no longer grace.
It's been pointed out many times it takes but a few drops of arsenic and a pure glass of water to make it something that will kill you instead of give you life. It doesn't take much, and if you add anything or take anything away from the gospel that Paul preached and the early church preached, you've got a false gospel. And often it comes down to a false savior.
You can tell.
There's two things that the enemy attacks with a false gospel.
The person of Christ who he is.
And the work of Christ, what he did.
One or both of those, Usually both.
So if I have two people that come to my door and they want to hand me a Watchtower magazine and they begin to speak with me, I don't want to talk about all the insurance and outs of what their religious beliefs are. I want to talk about who Jesus is.
So for example, if I'm talking with one of these, very devoted and sincere and zealous.
00:20:03
You have to admire their zeal, Jehovah's Witnesses that come to the door.
I asked them a question.
I will say when Moses talked to the burning Bush on the mountain.
Who is he speaking to? And they will say Jehovah.
If I ask them when Moses said, Well, when I go tell the children of Israel about this conversation, what name shall I give them? What's your name?
He says and the Jehovah's Witness will answer correctly. I am.
And if I ask them, well, who is that? They'll say that's Jehovah.
You're right, so far so good.
Now turn with me to John's Gospel.
Chapter 8.
Starting with that question about.
The burning Bush.
I will then say to my friends at the door.
I have a question for you. You do not believe.
In the Jesus that I do.
And you have a similar problem.
To the problem the 1St century Jews had many of them, especially the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
They did not believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be either.
Now you tell me you've got the truth of it.
But here in John chapter 8 verse 24.
Jesus speaking to them, says, I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins.
For if you believe not that I am.
He shall die in your sins.
So my next question is, Jesus just called himself Jehovah. Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Or you just told me I am is Jehovah. Jesus just called himself the I am.
Very last verse of this chapter, then.
The second to the last verse.
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, and I say unto you before Abraham.
Was I am.
Then took the up stones to cast at him.
My conversation then goes to you see, they had the same problem you do. They knew what he was saying. That's why they wanted to kill him. He was claiming to be Jehovah. I'm telling you he's claiming to be Jehovah by your own words. You said the I am is Jehovah. Hear Jesus calls himself the I am. He just said he's Jehovah. But you won't receive it, will you?
They have some they're usually about swallow their tongue.
And they circle around and they don't want to admit to it. But that's not the point. You're probably never going to get somebody to admit to it on the spot. But my prayer always is that these two verses, as they go away and I go down the road, I lift up to the Lord, those zealous lost souls, and I cry out, Lord, make these two verses ring in their brain.
So they can't sleep at night until they settle the question because.
They just really, in a roundabout way, admitted that Jesus is Jehovah. Well, that's contrary to the gospel that they preach.
To them, the Jesus they believe in is Michael the Archangel, and they will tell you that eventually. They don't do that on the first visit. So Michael the Archangel can't save anybody.
If he shed his blood, became a man and shed his blood, he couldn't save anybody.
Anybody.
Only the Son of God.
Who became a man on Calvary's cross can shed his blood and it have mean something for the rest of humanity.
Only he.
So if you have a false Jesus preached to you and you believe in that Jesus.
Can he save you? No, because he doesn't exist.
The Jesus of the Muslims does not exist. They have made-up a Jesus.
00:25:00
That they call a prophet, a Goodman even.
Prophet, they will go. But you know what they say about the crucifixion, That it was a hoax, it was faked, and someone else died and Jesus really lived.
Because after all, God would never kill his son.
Well, that's contrary to the whole Old Testament and New Testament. And if he had known enough about the New Testament, he knew enough to be suspicious.
If he'd known enough about the New Testament, you know what he had in his hands? He had the Syriac fuschetta, which is almost identical to the King James Bible, by the way.
And some of the people around him, the Gnostics who were around him, did not believe the truth of it, but he had it nearby. And I would say he couldn't read, but he had people reading to him.
But if he'd have known this verse I read in Galatians, he would have said no, I'm not listening to this.
It's a different gospel.
But we know that that's not what happened.
So if anyone comes preaching another gospel, no, no.
Even when I was unsaved as a young child, I would have known and could know that that wasn't the gospel.
But I had not yet acted on the information I had. You know, when I was driving here, I was noticing advertisements along the way. You see them on the Interstate. And when you pull into convenience stores and that there's all kinds of offers that get put up and you see the ads. Well, if you're in your local town and there's a sign that goes up that says one day only next Friday.
By two tires. Get 2 Tires free and you show up on Saturday. Guess what?
You don't get 2 Tires free. You didn't act on the information you had.
So when we sang that song about being time, you may have the correct information, but if you don't, act on it.
What's up with that?
I can't explain it except there's a kind of blindness.
And stubbornness in our hearts that resist the truth. But there came a day where God did Pierce through.
And I pray that if you have not yet trusted the Lord Jesus tonight as your Savior, that tonight is that night, that the irresistible grace of God will draw you in and you will trust Him.
Because he can be trusted.
When I was a young boy, I was having a conversation with a young boy, another young boy at school, and we got sent to the principal's office because somebody overheard us talking about hell and accused us of cursing. Well, I was just witnessing to the boy and we were talking about these things.
We got sent to the principal's office and they asked us about it. Do you were cursing? That's not acceptable, I said. I wasn't cursing. I was telling young Tim here about the Lord Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and now that if we didn't trust in Christ as our Savior, we'd end up in hell and a lost eternity. Oh. Oh, OK.
Well, we didn't get punished, it got straightened out.
What if you don't believe in hell?
What did Jesus say about hell?
Turn with me to Luke's Gospel Chapter 16.
The Bible doesn't tell us how either one of these two men we're going to read about.
How Lazarus came to faith or anything? It just picks them up in their condition.
And the Lord Jesus is the one telling the story, so you can believe that he's telling the truth.
Verse 19. There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores, and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
The rich man also died and was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
00:30:10
Two destinations here.
1A Place of torment and discomfort.
1A Place of comfort.
And I'll read it again in hell. He lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.
But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou and thy lifetime receiveth thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted and now are tormented.
And beside all this, between US and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from thence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us which would come from thence.
Then he said, I pray thee therefore, Father, that thou would send him to my Father's house, for I have 5 brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they.
Also come into this place of torment. And Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.
And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto them, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though 1 rose from the dead. How true that is, after Jesus rose from the dead.
Did the majority of the people in that day around him, did they believe? No.
Though there were some who did.
They came and they believed.
In the resurrected Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And they had their sins forgiven.
And they had a new destination that was not this place of discomfort.
Whatever you think this is about, some will try to brush it off as a parable.
My question to anybody who says it's just a parable. A parable is a true story that illustrates a higher spiritual truth. What is it illustrating?
That there's a worse fire than they described here. There's worse torment that's described here.
Does it sound like a place that you would like to arrive at?
See, we would think, just with common sense, that men would want to run as far and fast away from such a horrible place as they could towards this wonderful place.
Either paradise or heaven.
Where there is no weeping, where there is comfort, where there are no more sores or dogs licking these wounds.
A place described as paradise.
But yet.
I think it was Dante that wrote it in his writings that said of the devil that he supposedly said.
He would rather.
Rule in hell than serve in heaven.
You know, that's our rebellious hearts too, rather than bow the knee.
To anyone our rebel hearts want to just go our own way.
Well, you can do that.
You can go your own way. It has a destination. The Bible is clear about that destination.
And you have no defense when we get towards the end of the Book of Revelation.
There is a final judgment day that most people have heard of.
That if you were to stand there with your basket of filthy rags.
You have no defense.
And if you were to stand there without having trusted in Christ and his finished work on the cross.
You have no defense and you will have revealed before your eyes.
Everything you ever did.
And every opportunity that you had where God was nudging you.
Speaking to you within your heart where there are moments in your life where you are listening for a moment.
And you knew that God was speaking to you. Maybe it was through a tragedy, through a difficult time. Maybe it was at a funeral who all kinds of circumstances have. Maybe it was after an accident. I hear of people going through difficult times and they'll cry out to the Lord if you'll just deliver me, I promise you this or I promise you that. And after they're delivered, they don't keep their promise.
00:35:05
One of the worst kinds of delusion and deception is self delusion and self deception.
To delude yourself.
How messed up is that?
To delude yourself into thinking everything is OK when it's not. If you're a boy or girl in this room and you've heard the gospel all your life and you have not yet trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As your personal savior.
Why? What are you waiting for? Come now. Come right now where you're sitting right now. Bow your head.
And call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've heard that verse. I'll bet some of you have memorized it.
Romans 10/14.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Lord Jesus, save me.
That cry and faith.
And the simplest soul in this room or anywhere.
The simplest soul in this room.
Will be saved and God will do what he does. He will apply the blood of Christ.
He will save you. He will indwell you with His Holy Spirit.
He will give you a new life. He will give you eternal life.
And you will begin fresh and clean.
As I read though your sins be as scarlet not anymore by simple faith and trust in Christ.
Sometimes people struggle with what it means to really believe or have faith.
And I did.
Somehow I couldn't get my head around.
What it really meant to have faith.
There's a story that helped me as a young person.
Have you ever heard of Blondin, the famous tightrope Walker in days gone by?
He was a famous tightrope Walker and he had arranged to walk across the Niagara Falls on a tightrope. The day came where they'd strung the cable and blonde and went across. He performed stunts, went across, did tricks that made the crowd gasp, and he would return to the one side.
And the crowd is cheering and carrying on.
One of the tricks he did was to take a wheelbarrow with bags of sand in it across.
Then he came back and he looked at the crowd below and he said, do you believe I can take a man across?
Would you like to see me take our man across? Yes, yes, we'd love to see that. Any volunteers? The crowd went silent.
Apparently Blonda did that many times as he did these stunts.
He could never get anybody to volunteer.
Well, later in his career he got it, talked his manager into going across piggyback on his back, the only time anybody ever went, and he must have been terrified, but he did go.
That's a pretty good definition of faith getting in the wheelbarrow.
Be pretty scary to do something like that.
Because as I said before, you may believe about the Christmas story, the Passion story, and the Easter story, but it means nothing unless it's personal. I've been asked before, why do you speak of trusting in Christ as your personal Savior?
Why do you guys talk like that? What does that mean? Well, first of all.
God is a person, and you're a person.
It's personal. I can't save you. Your mom and dad can't save you. Your brother and sister can't save you.
Your husband and wife can't save you.
It must be a transaction that takes place between.
You and him.
Jeremiah.
I believe it's chapter 29.
Verse 13.
And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me.
00:40:03
With all your heart.
Friend, I want to tell you that verse was true before it was written.
It was true when Adam and Eve were walking on the face of the earth all down through history.
Anyone who will seek God with all their heart will find Him.
So I've had conversations and I know others have as well because we've shared those kinds of conversations where I've been talking to somebody. I said, why don't you just cry out and ask God to show himself you really want to know?
And if you're honest?
And you cry out that way he will show himself to you.
That's what this verse says.
And he will make himself real to you.
I think there are people who have come to realize that God is real and they still have rejected Him.
And turned aside.
Years ago, I think it was Mordecai Ham was preaching. He was a very devout kind of fire and brimstone preacher of a day gone by. I think he died in the 50s, maybe 60s.
The three young men decided to go to the gospel meeting where he was preaching one night and mock him from the balcony.
And they did. And they bragged about going there for entertainment at the local bar in the pub where they went.
And when they got back, they were all laughing and carrying on how they disrupted the meetings with their hooting and hollering up in the balcony. Got a big kick out of that. And the leader of the three walked into this local bar where everybody was familiar with them and he banged his first on the bar and says, give me a cup of the wrath of God.
Well, that statement was a little too much for everybody in there because the whole place went silent.
That seemed a bit far stepping across the line.
Everybody went silent. Even his companions went silent, this young man.
Was served what his regular was. He tipped it back and slammed it down and fell down dead right there.
I had a heart attack.
Mordecai Ham had been preaching on that, that there is a cup of the wrath of God.
That you will have to drink if you don't trust in Christ as your Savior.
Well, that's certainly solemnized the place.
And as I understand the rest of the story, many in the neighborhood and from that bar went down to those meetings and many got saved.
Now, does that mean everyone who's ever challenged God or made it such a blasphemous comment falls down dead? No.
Not right then, but sometimes you mock God and there can be an immediate response.
Now God used it to reach the souls of those that were around, but imagine even saying something like that.
I remember it harnischfeger where I used to work.
The gospel went through that factory like a fire.
Many got saved there.
But I remember one man mocking in a particular.
Callous way and blasphemous way. And I watched unsaved men around him.
Look at him and back away looking up.
Even they were little afraid what might happen if you're speaking like that.
The Bible says the fear of God is demanding of wisdom. It seems like there are those who reach a point where they harden their own hearts where they no longer have any respect or any fear about God. Because you can see a little bit of it sometimes when you're speaking to people that there's some kind of respect or awe, maybe because of the way they were raised.
So if you were brought to a Sunday school someplace in your life, you probably memorized John 316, right?
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.
Now some people, and this gets back to the problem I was talking about, what it means to have faith or believe. Some people look at that and go, yes, I believe that Jesus died for the world and they see it in a general way. Back to my question about why do you talk about personal Savior? Because it's personal again.
00:45:16
You must come and believe.
No one else can do it for you, and because your brothers and sisters and your friends around you have done so.
Does that mean you're safe? You may feel comfortable. I'm telling you stop. It is not comfortable. You are lost and in your sins until you little boy, little girl, older one too, have come to the Lord Jesus and trusted in Him and He's finished work on the cross.
It must be personal come.
Don't wait, don't wait.
In the prayer meeting before the gospel and in talking with some some of the local brethren.
There is almost every time the gospel is preached at a conference like this, there are those who are deeply exercised about children and grandchildren that they are not sure have yet trusted in the Lord Jesus.
Well, dear young person, dear young young person, an older one too, there are grandmas and grandpas that are praying for you, that you might come and trust in the Lord Jesus and not delay.
You know how horrible it would feel for your mother or father or mom and dad?
To be standing at your graveside someday and not know.
If you have ever trusted in the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
I have a nephew.
Who, when he turned 18, wrote a letter.
To his mother and father and he said.
I have been an atheist since I was 14.
He had professed Christ. He had been baptized. He had been at the Lord's Table.
And he said I've been an atheist since I was 14.
I heard about a young man named John in the state of Washington. Went off to college.
Same thing, profess Christ as a young person, was baptized at the Lord's table, comes back from college and says I'm an agnostic.
I'm not sure whether God even exists or not.
You know, the Scripture tells us to examine ourselves, whether it be in the faith.
It's easy, I think, to come clear and know that it's real or not.
But if you went along to get along, you did the things that you saw going on around you because your friends were doing it.
You'd better take a second look.
So first, John.
Chapter 5 and verse 13.
I.
I mentioned talking with this little boy about hell. Part of our conversation was about whether you can know you're saved or not. He was telling me you can't and I said you can. No you can't. Yes you can. No you can't. Well after this experience I went home and I talked to my mother and I said what verse could I share with this young boy?
To show him that you can know.
So this is the verse my mother shared with me. These things have I written unto you, that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know.
Did she have eternal life and that she may believe on the name of the Son of God?
And she told me.
She said.
Son, you can know now. This young boy may not know.
But God's Word says you can know. So that means that even if you don't know, you can come to the place that you do know.
And by what? By what's written? By the word of God? What it says about this matter?
00:50:00
You can come to the place where you know it.
So you can start with that.
If you're in this room tonight.
And you're not sure?
This verse says you can be sure and know that you have eternal life.
Because here's the thing.
Let me ask you this.
Is Jesus trustworthy? Is there anyone here that would tell me that Jesus is not trustworthy?
Would you say that out loud? There might be someone. I don't trust him.
Well, that's honest if you would, but is there anyone here?
That professes the name of Christ. That would say Jesus Christ is not trustworthy.
No.
So do you trust him? If the answer is yes, what's the problem?
Because that's just it. If your trust is in him and he's finished work on the cross, there is no problem.
We sometimes talk about how one of the thieves on the cross got saved. You know the story. Jesus was crucified with two malefactors, one on each side. And early in the evening, the crowd around begins to mock the Lord Jesus and say, we'll come down if you're really who you claim to be. And one of the Gospel says that the thieves likewise cast the same into his teeth, I think it says.
How in the world crucified men could be?
So jovial. To join in making fun of the Lord Jesus is astonishing to me.
Or maybe they weren't Scourge in as bad a condition, but nonetheless, the scripture tells us they both did.
But in listening to all the things that happened on the cross and happened there.
One of them.
Had a change of heart.
And it says that the other thief began to mock again. And this one.
This one who's had a change of heart.
He tells the first thief to stop.
And he says we deserve what we're getting. This man doesn't. He's innocent.
And he turns to the Lord. Did he know a rote sinner's prayer? Did he have a chance to fill out a Decide for Christ card? Did he have an altar call to go forward at?
Could he even be baptized following his profession of faith? Could he do any good works?
No.
He didn't even hardly know what he was saying.
But here's the thing, He did come to know. Notice in what he says, Lord.
You know he's hung on the cross there with his feet and hands nailed. He can't bow his knee to anyone.
If he wanted to physically, but in his heart he did. Look what he says, Lord.
He bows the need to the one in the middle.
He bows the knee.
He says, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom.
In other words, if you've got something for me when you set up your Kingdom.
I'm open.
What is the Lord Jesus say to him? Simple faith like that.
That's what I'm asking of you. Come and trust him as simply as this thief did.
And Jesus says, today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
I saw an interesting comment on this.
A dear brother from across the pond, as they say, was taught. Can you imagine the thief when he arrives?
At Paradise Gates and the angels said to him, Why should we let you in?
What was his answer?
Because the guy in the middle said I could.
Yeah.
Jesus said Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
And there on the cross, when Jesus gave up the ghost and he died.
He finished the work there that purchased that thief.
And paid for his sins. And like the two I read about with Lazarus and the rich man, these two thieves.
00:55:06
One went to be with the rich man in the place of torment.
And the other went to be in paradise.
Right after Jesus got there.
Now I've thought in my mind, what?
A celebration must have been happening when Jesus showed up in paradise for those three days. We're not told about it, but he was there.
And the thief was right behind.
He didn't OfferUp a basket of filthy rags. He didn't. He couldn't offer anything up he trusted.
In the one in the middle.
He didn't understand all the doctrines of justification and.
Sanctification or any of those things he trusted in the person and.
The Lord took care of it. So if you come in simple faith and trust in the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus that Paul preached, the Jesus that is.
Preached in the Gospels, He is the person that can save you from your sins.
From a lost life and he can give you a new life. Now I'm going to tell you this.
Becoming a Christian is a tough Rd.
It's not easy. There was an old country and western song that says Allah has a line in it. I never promised you a Rose Garden. Well, he didn't.
But Jesus said that he would go with you.
What does he promise if you come to him? He says, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
So whatever you face, he will go with you. Many face life's difficulties by themselves. And let me tell you, I get it. I understand why people self medicate with drugs and alcohol because if you are in a lot of pain in this life and you don't know that there's any other way, I understand why you might do that to ease your pain.
But what happens in this life when we try to do things like that for ourselves, it just makes things worse.
So come to the Lord Jesus Christ, put your faith and trust in Him.
He's a person. He's calling it to you now.
So we have in Matthew's Gospel.
Jesus inviting, saying, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden.
And I will give you rest. That's an invitation.
Well, hear it. Listen, come.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice.
I will come into him and Sup with him, and he with me.
I asked at camp, at Morningstar camp, I asked a young person, a young boy there and girl, I said if somebody's knocking at your door and it's locked, how do they get in? You go and open the door. It's pretty simple, isn't it? Open the door, say yes.
Someone preaching the gospel once said.
I was a lost Sinner just like you.
I needed Christ just like you.
God Himself brought me to trust in Jesus Christ.
Any finished work on the cross?
Because in the moment that took place, I knew in that moment, as clear as could be, that I was headed for a lost eternity without Christ. So are you.
If you have not yet trusted.
You end the gospel meeting and you say to yourself.
What more could you say? What more could you preach? What more?
01:00:02
While the work is between you and him, so I will shut you up with that.
I'm not going to ask you to think about it overnight. I'm going to ask you to trust Him now while we pray. Just call on His name. Father, we ask Thee tonight that if there is anyone in this room that has not yet trusted in the Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord, that they will come tonight, that they will simply call on Thy name, Lord Jesus, to save them.
By thy spirit.
Thou canst reach through any blindness or deafness.
Any veil that may be over the heart and mind.
Father, we ask it in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.