Gospel—Sam Ludvicek
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Sing #1 almost persuaded now to believe.
This song, as we sang it, sounded like a funeral dirge.
Should if you're almost persuaded and you were to die into your sins, part of what the suffering of hell is going to be is remembering how close all the opportunities you had.
And that great judgment day when God brings all men before him that have been lost in their sins and they go through their lives, they're going to see all the different opportunities that they had, and yet they said no and to be close and not come all the way.
It ought to be a funeral nurse to sing in connection with that.
I've said sometimes at the beginning of a gospel meeting that I'm uniquely qualified to preach the gospel because I'm a Sinner.
That was saved by grace and now not a Sinner.
God doesn't see me that way anymore. Yes, I do sin. So do you, if you know the Lord is your Savior. But God doesn't see me that way anymore. He sees me as a son. As a child, I've been brought into great blessing. If you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior tonight, you have no part in that. Your future is bleak and dark, and there's nothing in front of you but darkness.
You know one of the my exercises whenever I have the opportunity to preach the gospel, where most of the people in the room are Christians. I am concerned about the children and young people because it was true of me. As I grew up in a Christian home, I got so used to hearing the gospel, it was almost like I was immune to it. I could have told you how to be saved, but I was not yet saved.
Because the message of the gospel is a story.
About a person.
And a lot of people know the story or something about it. They know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem's Manger. And Christmas time, they hear about that. And maybe around Easter time they might go to church or hear about that, and they know something about the story. And if you've grown up in a Christian home, you know the story.
And you might even say, if somebody asked you, is the story true? Well, yes, you might even defend it and say that it's true.
But you know, there's an interesting part of the gospel that Word believes as in it the word that has in it the thought, and the word faith as in it trust.
If you believe that a story is true about the Lord Jesus, then you must believe that what He says is true.
Like that He will forgive your sins. Like that He will make you his child. Like He'll do all the promises that he said he would do.
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Because if you believe what he says, that's the crux of the gospel.
But the Lord Jesus in the Gospel message wants us to believe this story, and then he wants us to trust in him. He's a person.
When Paul talked about preaching Jesus Christ and him crucified, he was preaching a person. It wasn't a formula. It wasn't just pray this prayer and you got it or do this thing or get baptized and this and that or whatever else people come up with. It was trusting a person to do what he said he would do.
We were talking earlier about how the Lord Jesus, when he was on the cross, had a thief on each side and the story of the two thieves, both of them cast into his face. Mockery. It says in the scriptures, one on the left and one on the right. They agreed with the crowd. Apparently they weren't in a lot of pain yet, but somewhere in that, as time passed, one of the thieves was awakened.
One thief starts again to mock the Lord Jesus.
And the other one says, you know, stop.
We deserve what we're getting, but this man is innocent.
He turns to the Lord Jesus, and he says, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom.
We were talking as we chatted about this story and saying nobody told him to pray a certain prayer or to do a certain thing a certain way or think a certain thing. He just knew that that was the Lord and he asked him to remember him.
He came believing and trusting in that person who was right there. He went from mocking him to trusting in Him. He got everything that comes with it. Sometimes people are hesitating in trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior because they don't know enough or they think they need to know more.
N.
Michael Bruce.
Young man from Iowa. Scientists, weather, meteorologists thought he knew everything and he believed in evolution and all of that. But he kept hearing the gospel and he loved a young Christian girl.
Uh, the opportunity to talk to him and, and, uh, share the gospel with him at one part during his journey, but he did get saved and he told me, he said, you know, one of the things that was hanging me up was I knew science and I knew that this Bible was wrong about this stuff about evolution because I knew evolution was true, but the Bible said something different. But he said there came a day where I couldn't deny the message of the gospel.
I knew it was true.
And I knew if I didn't do something about it, I would die in my sins and I would enter a lost eternity, and whatever hell was, I would go there. I didn't know what it was. I'd heard a lot of things.
But he said, I just said, OK, I know this is true. I think this is wrong, but I can put that over here. I'll figure that out later. And he trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, and he got saved.
He later married that young lady.
Went on to follow the Lord.
But something was holding him back. What's holding you back?
In the room in the back when we prayed, Brother Lemoyne mentioned this verse, Genesis chapter 3 and verse 9.
After Adam and Eve have sinned.
You remember in this account in Genesis, the Lord walked with them in the garden.
The Lord Jesus took form and walked in the garden with these two people every day.
Now one day comes and there they hide.
And the Lord Jesus, who I believe this was.
The Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
You think the Lord didn't know where they were? Oh, I can't find you. You're hiding someplace. Of course he knew it was for them. Where are you? You're not where you were yesterday. Walking with me in the garden. Where are you?
So if you're a young person in a Christian home and you're used to hearing the gospel, I hope something breaks through and I want to ask you, where are you?
Just think, you could be in a Christian home. I grew up with eight brothers and sisters.
Just imagine being in a family like that, at whatever size your family is, and everybody in the family is saved but you're not. Where are you?
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Your mom and dad, your brothers and sisters are on the inside.
And you're on the outside.
And if you were to die in that condition, you would remain on the outside.
You're probably saying that the song Are you in the inside or in the outside in Sunday school or which side are you? Where are they?
The Bible talks about people who are lost in their sins as being lost. So what what? What is? What is being lost? It means you don't know where you're at.
If you get lost, you don't know where you are. God says where aren't they?
My question to you is where aren't they?
Are you lost?
This is the GPS unit.
Punch in the coordinates and it'll take you to the right place.
Punch in the coordinates to John 316. That'll take you to the right place.
You know, people have been.
Throughout their lives, at different times, convicted have their conscience stirred up maybe, and they've heard lots of gospel verses, and then something come along one day and some obscure verse will breakthrough and they'll come to know the Lord as their Savior.
But like I said earlier, if you're a child in a Christian home and you've gotten used to the gospel, that scares me. If the Lord came tonight, you'd be left behind.
I saw a YouTube video where there's a guy preaching the gospel and I know they created it, but all of a sudden everybody disappears like that and there's just a couple people sitting in the audience. All the Bible fall to the floor. That could happen.
Guerarta.
You would think.
That having heard about the Lord Jesus, all his attributes, how lovely he is.
How kind he is, everything about him that you would want to run there.
But we have something in us that we inherited from Adam and Eve. The moment in this chapter when they ate of the fruit and they disobeyed God, that thing inside of them broke and they fell.
And you inherited that from your mom and dad. And they did from their mom and dad all the way back to Adam and Eve. You're broken inside. We were born broken.
But what Jesus did on the cross offers the fix for all of that, not only the brokenness of our hearts and our inner person, the brokenness for our bodies. Couple of us were talking about some of the six Saints that are maybe on the last days.
You know every single person is going to be healed either now or later because you've been promised a brand new body someday.
One without sickness and illness.
Can you imagine dying in your sins?
You get a new body too.
Now you can't die.
Not in a physical way.
Now you exist in a place called the Lake of Fire for eternity, and guess who your companions will be? Demons and the devil.
And every vicious, vile creature that's ever walked the face of the earth that has not repented and trusted in Christ to be in that place. You want to go there?
Why would you?
Come to Jesus, answer that question. Where art thou? Lord? I'm over here. I'm lost. Come get me.
I know, as our brother was saying, there's so many things that come at us. You know, from the time we were in school, there were things were bad, but they're worse. There are things that come at us from all directions. We're surrounded by confusion. We're surrounded by darkness. It's coming in, it's creeping in. The light is growing dim.
We should rage, Rage Against the dying of the light, not as the opponent intended, but against the dying of the light of the gospel. We should stand and declare it.
You know, darkness is not a thing of itself.
Darkness is the absence of light. The darker the room, the little teeny candle can brighten up. If you close all the windows and shut everything and shuttered it and put blankets over the windows and lit a tiny little candle in here, it would be spectacular.
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So the light of the gospel is being given in your life every day, if you're in a Christian home by the witness of your parents, perhaps your brothers and sisters, every time you come to Sunday school, every time you go to meeting, perhaps on the radio, perhaps on tapes or CDs, the gospel, the light of the gospel.
Almost persuaded? Well, let's come on in all the way.
Three young men didn't have much to do, 2 of them.
Have been raised under the gospel. Third one, not so much, but companions nonetheless like to drink Corrales. They decided that they would have some fun and there was an evangelist in town and they would go sit in the back and Heckle the evangelist who was preaching the gospel. So they did that.
Got a big kick out of it and they went down to the local bar bragging about it. They had so much fun they decided to do it again. They went back.
This night the preacher was preaching on the wrath of God.
And how the Lord Jesus, for those who trusted in him, had drank that cup of the wrath of God to the last drop. So you don't have to have.
But if you do not trust him as your Savior, you will drink that cup. Three young men come back from that. The two that have been raised under the gospel, a little bit sobered by it, but still going to the bar, having some drinks. They go in. The one young man walks up to the bartender. He says, bartender, give me a cup of the wrath of God.
The whole place went silent, even hardened sinners in the place that was a little much.
Those two young men, it was a little much. The bartender hesitated and then finally poured him his usual drink. He slammed it back and fell down dead right in his tracks.
Those two young men were back at that gospel meeting the next day. They got saved.
You mess around with the opportunity you have with the grace of God extended to you in this country. We talked earlier about the difficulties in some of the countries around the world, like Egypt and other Arab countries where Christians are really suffering. And if you get saved in some of these lands, it might be a death sentence.
Certainly, if ISIS were to find out about you and you're anywhere near where they're at, they'll come for you.
But those people, when they die, they get promoted.
They graduate.
They leave this suffering world and they go to a place to be with their savior.
I was listening to a radio program where they were talking about what happened to be like.
They were talking about this and that aspect. They thought it would be like and one person spoke up, lady, she said, you know, heaven is being with the Lord Jesus. That's what I'm looking forward to more than any of these other things that we think that the Scriptures tell us about what heaven will be like being with him.
We sing that song in the little flock.
There is a name that sounds like music to our ear.
Let me ask you, does the name of Jesus sound like music to your ear, or does it just make you feel guilty?
When you hear that name, does it make you smile?
Where art thou?
Go to solemn thing. Every parent in here that has children that's not sure if one of their children knows the Lord is anguished by that thought. And I guarantee you that their prayers at night are that their little ones will come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior and that they will know about it.
If you trusted in the Lord Jesus as your Savior and you've never told anybody, go and tell your mom and dad first.
They would love to know that you have.
I see some nodding heads.
You know, I had trouble with understanding some things about the gospel, even though I could have said it, I could have told you how to be saved. I had problems with the idea of what belief meant, what faith meant, what trust meant, all of those things that are tied up in that. It just, I had problems with that. One of my favorite stories I've told many times, I've told it one-on-one and in gospel meetings, is about Mr. Wallenda, the Wallenda that started it all going way back, I think, to the 1800s.
Used to do a tightrope walk.
And he would challenge the crowd.
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There are two challenges he made. One was he'd take a wheelbarrow with sandbags in it onto the tightrope and he would invite people to get in the wheelbarrow.
But he would pump them up by saying that, you know, would you like me to take a man in this? Yeah, Yeah, we'd like to see that.
But when he said he'd invite people to come, nobody came.
Over the years, he made the invitation. Nobody ever came. Finally, one year he talked one of his assistants into going on his back and piggyback ride and he took him across.
I remember that story and others similar to that getting in my heart that believing on the Lord Jesus Christ was about trust in Him.
I'm trusting that what he's telling me is the truth. I'm trusting that the story is true. I'm trusting that he'll save me and wash away my sins. I'm trusting him to do what he said and he promised he'd do. Will he do it?
I asked the young man once who was doubting his salvation. He'd been saved for a while. I was 99.9%. He was the Lords. I knew him well, the opportunity to lead him to the Lord in the gospel. But he'd had some dreams where in his dream he was challenged by a demon.
He said he rebuked the demon and he wouldn't go away. The demon said to him in the dream, I don't have to because you're not saved. Imagine having a dream like that scare living daylights out of you.
So he came to me and he told me about the dream and he said now I'm not sure if I'm saved. I said to him, well right now can't hear now. Remember Kenny? I said, Kenny.
Is the Lord Jesus trustworthy? So all you young people, if you don't know the Lord yet, is the Lord Jesus trustworthy? Is he? Can he be trusted? Then trust him. Just do it.
Lord Jesus, I trust you.
Like the thief on the cross, Lord, Remember Me.
You get salvation and everything that comes with it.
Not only does Christianity, true Christianity, promise you heaven and eternal life, but it promises you that you can have joy and peace here, now, even if you're in the darkest place. When Paul and Silas were in prison, how? How could they sing?
Because they knew something and they had someone in their heart that gave them a song. Scripture tells us that the Lord can give us a song in the night that's supernatural. Don't you want to live like that?
The peace of God which passes all understanding, that's supernatural.
My plant manager on the night shift where I used to work years ago was a guy by the name of Les Bentley.
He was an atheist and he hated us Christians and he used to harass us all the time, but he got cancer.