Gospel—Dean Rule
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It starts this evening by singing in the M sheet #10 just read the chorus while turning to it. We'll come now to Jesus, that dear loving Savior. Receive him this moment and peace shall be thine #10 If someone could start it for us, please.
I Savior, and I in my glory.
I'll say.
Word on God restraint.
I'll take you out with nothing to say now I suffer.
1, 8214.
Oh no, good day to God.
I did love it, and it's your great name and this moment and it can be hardly.
00:05:06
Some 10 days ago.
Got on my laptop and I deleted.
All of the information.
In my contacts and outlook for Roberto Nevada.
I went to my phone and I deleted his telephone number and his information.
Four weeks ago today, I stopped praying for him. I'll never call him again to have breakfast together, and we had breakfast together every three or four months.
Why? Because four weeks ago today, he died.
Four weeks ago today, he went into eternity.
And I've had some tears in the last four weeks because it's someone who I had quite a bit of time with.
July of 2013 I was being wheeled down in a wheelchair because it was in the hospital with a kidney stone. Going to have an X-ray before they would blast the kidney stone apart and get rid of it.
When in the hallway of the hospital.
Uh, Giselle Marisol de Nevado, his wife was out in the hallway and I had met her and I said, Giselle, what, what's happened? She said Roberto is here because he has colon cancer.
Said, well, can I see him for a few minutes? And so the person was Wheeling the wheelchair, wheeled me in and we talked for a little bit. An optimistic man, a man who was successful in many aspects of his life. He sometimes said the one he wasn't was Giselle was his fourth wife.
His business has been sold in the last four weeks for what I understand is principal business for $6 million. He didn't take any of it with him. I went back. I was out of the hospital a day or then after, but he was in the hospital every other week for 12 weeks. That was his first time in there for chemotherapy. Went back with the Bible, went back with a book. His wife was quite interested, but he was a man who seemed to be sufficient in himself.
And.
Sad. It's absolutely sad the last four weeks to realize that a man who considered a friend a man who had contact with.
Is someone that there's no reason to pray for anymore because his eternal destiny has been determined and there's nothing that can turn the clock back. I hope that I will have the pleasant surprise of seeing him in heaven when the Lord Jesus comes.
But in the context I had with him the last few weeks of his life, he's from Spain. He went off to Spain to have a very expensive treatment where they would pull one organ after another out of his body and wrap it and give it a special chemotherapy.
But it didn't work.
He said, pardon me, some other things that put the things on my mind and the word that I have on my mind tonight, and we're going to come back to it. It was in the hymn is now.
A week ago today with my father-in-law, we were driving in a mountainous Rd. going down the West side of the Andes to a Bible study to have on Saturday, Lord's Day evening in the front room of a store of some who are now believers. Some are not, but they're there. On the way down we came up to where the path was and on the opposite side of the road there was a truck flipped on its side, but the police were there and an ambulance was on the way.
On the way back after the Bible study, we came around the corner and there was a car flipped on its roof, pulled over the 3rd or 4th vehicle there and everyone had gotten out. They made it in time. They had another opportunity on the 16th of October.
Ten days ago or so to calculate it, 16th of October, heading out of town, there was a car, an SUV, a small one that was tipped up on its on the front end with its wheels on the on the top of the roof of a smaller car behind it. And there were two cars behind it that ended up in the accident.
On Wednesday of this last week was on a road winding again another Rd. heading out of the western slope of the Andes and there was a bus on the upside upside down hit a tree against a another wall.
And the question in every one of those cases in my mind was, did the person make it out alive? Because if they didn't, they were in an RN eternity.
00:10:01
And when it comes time, the worst news that you can ever get that I can think of down here, the worst news is to hear that someone has gone into eternity without knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. Everything's been done. We've heard that in these days about what the Lord Jesus has done for us. We've heard about the marvelous hope there is in heaven for everyone who believes in Him as their Savior.
But how easy it is to have it go in one ear and out the other, How easy it is to have it be something that's known in the head and never reaches the stage of repentance and belief. And so the word now has been on my mind a lot in these last 10 days. But as I started to think about the word, if you take letters off and you add letters to it, that's a progression. That's something that if we could look at tonight, and I'd like to start in Psalm chapter 34.
Psalm chapter 34 and verse 8 and I'll write the 1St letter here.
The letters O.
As far as I know, in the English language there's only three words that only consist of one letter, OA and I I and A are easier to define than O, but it's something at the beginning of verse 8 calls our attention.
Wonderful simple verse in the Old Testament it says, O taste and see that the Lord is good.
We live in a world that doesn't have much news that's very good. I haven't seen the news on a newspaper on the Internet for the last few days. But I think if we were to pick up and see the news tomorrow online or in in on the Chicago Tribune or whatever the newspapers are, we would find that probably on the front page there would be an article about Ebola.
Perhaps about the doctor in New York who contracted it when he had gone to one of the countries in West Africa to help. The world has disease problems. We could probably look on the front page of the paper and find some news about ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and how many more people have been killed in the difficulty of defending Baghdad and some other cities. We could probably look on the paper and find out whether the the jittery stock market has gone down or it's gone up.
The news of this world isn't very good. 20 years ago you heard people say, well, things are getting better. You know, it's a little more education, a little more this and a little more that. The world will get better. I haven't heard that for a long time. But there is good news tonight. And it says that right here. It says, O taste and see that the Lord is good. There's not a person here tonight who hasn't heard the gospel multiple times. Who's had it reason with him? Who's had it presented to them? Who's had it shown to them? Who's had it pleaded with them?
But have you ever tasted? Have you ever received the Lord Jesus and found that it's good?
If I were to describe to you.
Try if I were to say to you, or do you know what, umm, raspberries or strawberries or oranges or apples?
Tasted like everyone in this room would be familiar with the taste. But if I tonight were to try to describe to you the taste of uh, not in here, maybe I'll ask my nephew Steven. Why does it not in here taste like?
Makes a good juice. And how would you describe the taste?
I can't do it. And if I were to ask someone, what does a peppino dulce, a sweet cucumber taste like? If I were to ask someone here, what does a TuneIn, I don't mean the fish, I mean the fruit off a cactus tastes like or a Chitty Moyer or a guanaban or something. And you were to say, I would say to you, those are all good tropical fruits, but most of them you don't get here. If I were to try to describe the taste to you, I couldn't. But if I could say one thing, if you want to know what it tastes like.
If I had one that I could put on a plate here on the table, I'd say taste it and you find out it's good. And that's what it is with the Lord Jesus. Those of us who know Him as our Savior cannot describe what a marvelous thing it is to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. We cannot describe what a wonderful thing it is to know with absolute certainty where we're going to spend eternity. We cannot describe what it is to know with certainty that our sins have been washed away in the precious blood of Christ.
We cannot describe what it is fully to say we have a new life because he gave his life. But he didn't stay in the grave. He rose. Again. We cannot fully describe what it is to say what we have is because he did it all.
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The most impacting prayer meeting that I've ever observed in my life.
Was not a prayer meeting of people praying to the true God. It was not a prayer meeting where people were praying to the Lord Jesus, God the Son, the eternal Son of God. It was not a prayer meeting where people finished their prayers at the end of the prayer meeting with in Jesus name, Amen. It was a prayer meeting that when I saw it was at 2:00 in the morning, it was.
A prayer meeting that I couldn't see, but I was arriving in a city in the Middle East.
At close to 1:00 in the morning, picked up a rental car, was given the direction to the hotel where I was going to spend the night. Drove out of the hotel and the instructions marked were wrong on the map and I ended up on a side street at the head of the prayer meeting because I couldn't see. Inside was a mosque.
And then the people, the men were there, all of them on mass bent over, and they completely filled the applause in front of the mosque. And then they went and they completely filled the street to where I could see to the right. And so I had to back out of the thing. But I took a camera up and snapped a picture, which I've got, which isn't very clear, But those men were there at 2:00 in the morning. And they were doing it, I believe, every day during Ramadan.
Trying to appease.
And earn favor with a God who does not exist.
Reading.
What was written by Muhammad, a messenger supposedly of that God who does not exist, who stayed and has stayed ever since his death in a grave.
I thought those men, those sad men are there, they're praying every night during the middle of the night when most of us are in bed and when I would normally be in bed. But somehow, thankfully, I ended up on the wrong streets that night.
Because it impressed me to say those men are trying to work to get something that they'll never get. The work has already been done. The Lord Jesus Christ has finished the work on Calvary's cross, and all their prayers are to no avail.
And some of their fellow people who believe what they believe, instead of praying or out saying, I'm going to strap a bomb on my back and I'm going to walk into a group of people and I'm going to somehow get to heaven because I'm going to blow myself and all of them up tonight. We're talking about someone whose love says, I'm not going to take anyone's life. I'm going to die so that you can go to heaven. And what? Let's go on now and just add one letter to this word. And the letter is N and go to Romans chapter 3.
A very well known verse that most of the children have memorized, Romans chapter 3 and we often start with verse 23. We're going to start with verse 22 tonight. Romans chapter 3 and verse 22.
Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe. And now we come to the clause that has the words that we've written on the board, the letter we've added to the word O, for there's no difference.
No difference if there were to be a survey done online or some newspaper, you were to come into Indian Trail, uh, middle school tomorrow and do a survey, a survey with the students and you were to name several people. You were to name the man who's head of ISIS and who's the one who's directing this, the killings in, in the Middle East. Or if you were to name the most notorious prisoner in the Illinois prison system, as it was John Wayne Gacy or something as his famous names that are known. But you were to name someone who was known to be a pious person.
Someone who's known to be a doer of good deed, someone who's known to perhaps read the Bible and everything else you were say to say to the the people there. You were to give four choices. You were to say, well, is the head of ISIS or Mr. Gacy or that pious person, or none of the above deserve to go to heaven? What would be the most common answer?
Most people would say the third person, they'd say, well, that person's good, you know, that they they should deserve to go to heaven.
It's not what the Bible says.
The Word of God says there's no difference. Our tendency, our problem is we tend to compare ourselves among ourselves, and that's wrong.
00:20:09
Because the standard is not some other human being. We can all probably find someone and say well I, I'm better than they are. And we find others. We say they're better than us. But what does it say in verse 23? It says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. God's standard is not some other human being like ourselves. God's standard is the only perfect man that's ever been on this earth, the Lord Jesus Christ. He says between us there's no difference.
We've all come totally short sometimes. I stood on the on the shoreline looking out over the Pacific on the western coast of Ecuador, and I've thought about how far it would be if someone set out across the ocean and tried to arrive in Asia swimming.
And if we were to put a whole bunch of people from any group of people, including the best swimmers in the world and people that didn't know how to swim at all, the people who didn't know how to swim at all would make it until they were in an extended period of time of water above the top of their nose and they would drown.
The very most capable swimmers might make it a distance out. A woman and a NYAD or something swam from Cuba to Florida last year. So there might be some who would be very capable of swimmers and they might make it 100 miles off of shore.
But with no help with having to stay in the water, every single person who would start out on the journey to try to swim across the Pacific Ocean would drown. Everyone who thinks that they can get to heaven on their own is absolutely sure of coming short, because God's standard is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if we had to stop there, I wouldn't want to be standing up here.
But we don't have to stop, because what does it say in verse 24? It says being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.
Price.
Can only be met of our redemption by the blood that the Lord Jesus Christ shed on Calvary's cross. It's not a single one of us that's capable in ourselves to do anything to take away one single sin. But it says justified freely by his grace. And let's look at chapter 5 just very briefly at two things it says.
In verse.
9.
Much chapter 5, verse nine of Romans much more than now being justified.
By His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
Chapter 5 and verse one. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace.
With God for our Lord Jesus Christ periodically for certain paperwork in the country where we live, we have to get a police report and used to be that you had to go to an office. Now you can put your identity number in and and online and pay a small fee and outcomes a report that says whether you have any, any police record.
Tell this story before, but I'll tell it again.
One time in a jail with **** Gorgas in New Jersey, and we were with a group of prisoners for a Bible study in that jail. And I asked them, I said, what would be the thing that you would most like to have? And they said would like to be free. We'd like to go out of here tomorrow, be free. And I said, and what if you went out of here tomorrow and you went to apply for a job as a bank teller?
Umm, they kind of.
Looked a little bit chagrined and said well I think we might have some problem. And I said why? Well, they said if I was going to work for a try to go work at a bank and count money and some of them had been in the in jail because they were robbers, they said they would ask for some sort of record, some sort of police record that would show up on there.
If my record had to be put on the wall behind me, as many have said many times, I wouldn't want to be standing here in front of you if my record before had been justified by the Lord Jesus was put on the wall. But there's three things. Grace. Why grace? Because He gives us something we don't deserve. He's a merciful, gracious God. He wants to give you eternal life, but the way He can do it is because he shed his blood. So we've been justified by His blood.
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Those of us who believe.
But that's only 2/3 of the way. That's all the work. But faith. You have to accept it or receive it. As many as received Him to them gave you the power to become the sons of God. Is there someone here tonight who knows about it? Who can explain justification by grace? Who can explain justification by the blood, and yet is never opened the tap of faith?
If you do.
He does something for all eternity. He takes that record and he leaves it completely clean. If those prisoners could have gone out of there and been justified by the state of New Jersey and had a completely clean record and went in and presented that at a bank, perhaps they could have gotten a job. But I don't think they could. But God does that because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. It says in verse 22, going back to Romans chapter 3.
Even the righteousness of God, it's not a righteousness. It's not something you could do or work. Oregon try to get those men who are out on the street in the United Arab Emirates that night. We're trying to do something themselves to be righteous before Allah, who they refer to, who they think is a living God.
But they're never going to get there because.
He can't justify, He doesn't exist. There may be demonic manifestations and everything else, but it's by the faith unto all and upon all that believe. And so if we could go to the next in Second Corinthians chapter 6. Again, these are very well known verses.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 6.
1St 2:00.
We're just going to read the first half of the verse to start.
Frisaeth, I've heard thee in a time accepted.
And then the day of salvation, I suckered her healthy.
What's happened?
To make us be able to be absolutely.
Positively sure of what we believe, those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. We're going to come back to this verse, but I wanna go for just a minute to the first chapter of Acts.
Go to the first chapter of Acts.
Chapter One.
And verse 3.
Read from the first first one the former treatise. If I made a Theophilus of all the Jesus began to do and teach until the day in which He was taken up. After that He had, through the Holy Ghost had given commandments under the Apostles whom He had chosen, to whom also He showed himself alive after His Passion by many infallible proofs.
Being seen of them 40 days and Speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
Many infallible proofs.
Taking a math class that involved proofs, you know that they're asking for something that's not.
Perhaps, but it has to be the the logic there has to be proper. It has to be on a proper basis to come to the conclusion.
Not open to debate.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is just as sure it's not open.
To debate.
In Ramadan.
Many try to make it.
To Mecca at least once in their lifetime.
And they have to handle crowds, which can, in time over the days of Ramadan, number in the millions.
To walk around the grave of a man who is still in the grave.
It would be interesting to go to Jerusalem, but not to see.
For the Lord Jesus is buried because he's not there.
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A couple of years ago, news came out that they found some bones or something in a cave and they said, oh, maybe this is the the remains of the Lord Jesus. No, it's not. It's not there. He rose.
From the dead.
40 days later after being manifest to many. Read in First Corinthians 15 scene of many.
He went back to heaven and he's coming again very soon.
There's a lot of people that will put up with a lot of things, a lot of suffering, thinking that it's going to gain them something as far as going to heaven or whatever.
Of the 12 apostles, we know that one was a fake. It was Judas.
Never see them. Ten of them evidently died a martyr's death. Not because they said by dying a martyr's death they were going to go to heaven, but because they said the one we followed was put in the grave. And we saw him come out and we saw him walk around and we talked to him and we saw him go back to heaven. So he said, if you take our life, So what? We know what's going to happen after.
It wasn't to get something that they went through what they went through. It was because they already had something. They had life. They had absolutely certain assurance that they were going to spend eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. My question is now do you have that same certainty? Do you know where you're headed? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Because it's now or maybe never when we ran when I jumped out of the car a week ago today at about this time and ran back. My question is.
Did everyone get out?
Or someone still in the car, perhaps dead, perhaps wounded. And the good news was that everyone had gotten out of the car that was flipped over on its roof. They had another opportunity. And tonight you've been given one more opportunity, but there's no guarantee that you'll have one beyond tonight.
So going back to our verse and 2nd Corinthians chapter 6, read the rest of the verse.
Says behold.
The last half of verse 6. Behold now.
Is the accepted time Behold now as the day of salvation. Doesn't say anything about tomorrow. Doesn't say anything about later tonight, because later tonight or tomorrow, maybe too late.
I know we don't work in hearts, but a couple of times over the in the few weeks before Roberto Nevada went into eternity on Skype, his name popped up on my computer and I said I'm gonna call him tomorrow. I'm busy now. I'll never call him again. It's too late for him.
It's gonna be too late for someone here tonight. Now, now let's add the West to it.
Now maybe the only opportunity you have.
Well, let's add one more letter. Go to Second Timothy.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
We're gonna read.
Starting partway through verse 10.
Our Savior.
Jesus Christ.
Who hath abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light?
Through the Gospel.
Someone could walk through any hospital in Chicagoland tonight and.
Umm, a doctor or a group of doctors and nurses walk through and be able to come up with an absolute cure for every sickness, every disease, every wound that any patient in the Chicago hospitals would have tonight.
The phones of travel agents all over the world.
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The connections to Orbits and Expedia and the different airline web pages would be very busy.
There would be masses of people wanting to come to Chicago and receive treatment for a problem for their body.
But tonight there's something that's far better. The Lord Jesus has not promised that you won't get sick.
He's not promised that I won't have some injury.
But he said he's abolished death.
The body that I have, the body that you have, may die, but you have a soul, and I have a soul that allows us interaction between ourselves and with God. We have a spirit that lets us know that there's a God. A dog or a cat or a horse or something doesn't have a spirit and their soul dies. Our soul in a never spirit, our spirit never do. You will never cease to exist.
But you may.
Have eternal death.
Death and ceasing to exist are not necessarily the same thing.
When we were driving on a road with a dog that we'd had for eight years, eight or nine years.
And dog's name was Woody, and someone had given it to us when the dog was five years old.
And that dog was evidently panting and having its last breath and it dropped. It died in the back end of the vehicle.
He felt bad.
Yeah, say it was just an animal, but God provided those animals and they can be of joy and comfort to someone. And yeah, there were four of us in the car and there were four of us that were crying.
And when we dug a hole in the ground and put the body of a golden retriever in the ground.
Painful.
And we knew that that was it, that it was done. When that dog died, its soul in its spirit also died.
Talking day or two about when my mom went home to be with the Lord on.
February 2nd of last year, it had about a day and a half, most of it coming after I heard the news that she was bad sitting at the foot of her bed. And yes, when there's death, we feel it.
But for her?
And I've said this and I think it the first words that came to my mind if she's home, I thought what a marvelous thing is that she is enjoying now being in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, she left a weakened body behind. It'll be transformed and they'll be brought together again. One of the marvelous thing it is yes, miss her but wish her back. She's just had just an incredible incredible over a year and a half because she's been.
With the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then when I think about Roberto Nevado, unless there was some change at the end that I do not know about, and I hope there was, he has had the most miserable 4 weeks.
With no opportunity to change His eternal destiny. You still have an opportunity. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, it says He has brought life and immortality. He wants to make you immortal so that you cannot die. He wants to give you an incorruptible body that's never subject to any sickness, any difficulty.
He's done everything. And So what does it say in verse 12 for the which 'cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed for I know. And let's add that letter to this word. I know it's not I think, I hope, I wonder, but it's, I know when Paul wrote that, he wrote it with absolute certainty. And you can have that same certainty tonight. I know who might have believed.
And am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
There's no greater commitment that you can make than to commit where your eternal destiny is, and there's no other place that you should commit it to, but to the Lord Jesus Christ. You can know.
As most of us know here with absolute certainty that we have committed it into the hands of the only place our eternal destiny is safe and sure, into the hands of someone who loved us so much that He came to this earth. He came and suffered.
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The taunts and things of many. And then from 9:00 in the morning till about noon on a Friday, he suffered the insults, if I could put it this way, using a common term. Today suffered the worst bullying that anyone has ever suffered, because in those hours they put a crown of thorns on his head, they mocked him, they spit in his face.
And who are they doing it to? They were doing it to exactly the one who was sustaining their life. If he withdrew his breath, all flesh would perish in an instant. We read in the book of Job. If he were to have forgotten about one single human being on earth during those six hours he was on Calvary's cross, that would have been the end of their existence. And while he was suffering the the suffering that you and I deserve to suffer for all eternity in those last three hours.
When God turned out the lights, He made it absolutely black so no one could look into the face of His beloved Son.
Who suffered condensed in those three hours what you and I deserve to suffer for all eternity of the Lake of Fire.
He had to sustain every atom in the universe. He had to sustain every life.
He, the eternal, infinite Son of God, became a man.
Pay the price. Why? Because he.
His love.
He does not want one single person to spend one minute in hell and then in the lake of fire.
People are hurtling toward that end every day, I read.
Something in the last few days and it talked about 10 famous people.
And it was a secular thing on Internet and news 10 famous people who are atheists or agnostic.
They don't need to name their names, but these are people that most of us would recognize 80 or 90 or 100% of these people. These are people that names are famous. These are people that their bank accounts are in numbers that we could not understand. They're famous, known all over the world. Sometimes they're people that are known for doing tremendous good works and re eliminating minds and and then providing money for vaccines against.
Different sicknesses and everything else.
But if they don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, it doesn't matter what they've done, it doesn't matter who they are, it doesn't matter what they have. They're going to spend eternity in the lake of fire because evidently they don't know who they need to believe in. Do you?
Do you know who?
You need to believe in if you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
In First Corinthians chapter 13.
Will come to the next to last verse that perhaps we'll read this evening, First Corinthians chapter 13.
Verse 12.
For now, we see through a glass darkly.
But then face to face.
Now I know in part.
But then shall I know?
Even as also I am known.
I don't think there's gonna be a name tags on people in heaven.
Sometimes people that I've not met before, I haven't seen for a long time. This weekend I've had to say, pardon me, but what's your name?
When those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior with these physical eyes we have.
See him the first time.
There will be no need for any introduction.
When we get to heaven, there's going to be those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
Just five wounds.
Some of us have scars from different things, from operations. They might be scars inside, they might be scars on knees, they might be scars on elbows. Uh, they're not going to be gone.
The bodies of those who know the Lord Jesus Christ are transformed at the time of the rapture.
00:45:06
But our hand has five fingers.
Each hand in the hands of human beings like you and I.
Took the living, loving Savior.
On Calvary's hill and nailed him through his hands and his feet. 4 wounds. Those are physical wounds. And for all eternity we're going to be able to see those wounds as a reminder. His body will not be transformed. His body will show for all eternity the marks of a sinful race of beings, ourselves and what we did.
But the most important mark that will remain on his body is the mark on his side where a soldier lifted a spear and pierced him in his side, and from that side flowed out his blood. The only thing that's capable of Washington away, and he will be there for all eternity is a freshly slain land. We're going to be able to look into him, his face. We're going to look into his hands, his feet. And then we're going to look at his side for all eternity and remember that that was what it cost.
For us to go and spend eternity with him. But if you refuse him tonight, you will not see.
More than one time, but you will see one time those hands.
You will see one time those sides you will hear one time.
Some of the saddest words it says we'll know even as we're known.
But you're gonna hear another message and and Matthew Chapter 7 in Matthew Chapter 7.
And I'm going to read it from verse 21 to get the context. It says now not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, if we not prophesied in thy name, if we not in thy name, if we cast out devils in the name of we done many wondrous works. The wondrous works don't matter. It's his work that matters after we know him. Yes, he wants us to do work that please him.
The last phase that will be seen by those who refuse the Lord Jesus.
Is the face of the Lord Jesus.
The last pair of hands that will be seen as the hands that were nailed to Calvary's cross.
The last feat that will be seen are the feet of the Lord Jesus.
The last side will be seen as a side where he was pierced.
By that sphere where he shed his blood. And the last words that will be heard are these. And then I will profess unto them. I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. If I could say it in a crude way, it's time to go. Get out of here. You're done. And those are coming from the mouth of the loving Savior. But if you refuse him, if you refuse such love, if you refuse such mercy, such grace, He has no other alternative.
We heard something this afternoon and I'd like to repeat it.
Heaven is a horrible place for those who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. It's like if we took a fish and said now this fish, you gotta live here on this table. The fish is not going to be very happy and it's not going to be very successful for it to do that. There is absolutely nothing in heaven for those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. There's not one single verse in the Bible that says God made a place for those who refuse the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.
But there's only two destinies. The only destiny that remains is a place that was never, ever prepared for human beings. It was a place that was prepared for the devil and his angels. But God has no other alternative. With such love, with an offer of mercy, with a finished work, there was no reason to prepare a place for those who refused the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. But there are only two destinies for eternity. One is with the Lord Jesus.
Which we know from His word is far better than the other, is a place prepared for the devil and his angels.
I know I said this before and some have been in a gospel meeting where I said it, but I'm going to repeat it because I heard my father-in-law on Skype a few days ago telling someone about it and made an impression on him. And it made an impression on me when he was in Pennsylvania for four years until he moved back with us in Ecuador, he's frequently spent time in different nursing homes around Williamsport, PA. And he would go in and and have Bible studies and he'd go visit people from room to room.
00:50:15
And one man over 100 years old, and pardon me for those who've heard me say this before, one man over 100 years old said to him. John.
I want to go to hell and shovel coal with my friends.
That man is an eternity. There's no shovel in eternity. There's no friends in eternity. Every good gift and every perfect gift.
Cometh down from above, from the Father of Light. Every friendship, every positive thing that every person here on earth enjoys does not come.
From anyone but God.
That man.
Is in eternity and unless there's been some change, he's not shoveling coal with his friends, trading stories or anything like that.
He's gone into, he's left the body behind, but when he gets his eyes back, he's going to be in a lake of fire in the blackness of darkness forever. For those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ are going to be in a place where the total illumination is going to be from the Lord Jesus Christ. When he was here, his moral glory show now it was visible to all. But when in heaven there will be no light fixtures, there will be no need of it because from his very body he'll radiate.
To illuminate all of heaven for one eternal day.
So now what does he say?
Instead of known.
It's never new.
No escape, no getting out.
Heaven is going to be so marvelous.
That there's not much written about it comparatively in the Bible because it's beyond words. But I urge you to taste and see that the Lord is good. Receive Him tonight while you can. The alternative?
An eternity of judgment in the Lake of fire is so horrible.
That no words can describe it.
Think while we pray about what eternity is.
We think about time. We can understand years as they go on, days, months, years. We can understand a little bit about of it, about it.
But the decision you make about the Lord Jesus Christ?
Is not for time, it's for eternity. Make sure you repent and believe before it's too late. Just thank Him.