Gospel—Steve Bambauer
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Well, we'll start out with him #7.
God loved the world.
Of sinners.
For her heart.
Or we would have no message this evening, nothing to say. We're thankful for that. Let's ask the Lord's help. Our God, our Father, how thankful indeed we are that He came down. He came down right to where we are, came to us in our need, knowing what would meet Him when he came here, came nevertheless.
To do thy will, which led him all the way to Calvary's tree, went unwavering in love to thee, in love to the Sinner. We're thankful for this, our Father, that we have a message to preach. Salvation is of the Lord now we ask Thy help in it. Our Father, pray that just everybody would be able to hear their hear this evening. We know that one of the main problems appearing is the heart.
Is the imagination, Is the wanderings of the mind. Help us in this, our Father. For each one here to be attentive to this word. May be the last night, our God and Father, yet thou hast preserved in grace.
The opportunity to go forth again with the gospel this evening, and we ask Thy blessing on it in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
His truth endureth to all generations.
Thy law is the truth.
For truth is fallen in the street.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
The Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth.
What is truth?
We can do nothing against the truth.
I just read those verses out of the concordance without reference. They may be familiar to you. You have probably heard them. I don't know everybody that's in here.
00:05:15
How familiar you are with this word?
I will start with three facts of life.
It's important to know the facts of life.
Sometimes you get them from your parents.
Sometimes you don't, and you may have to get them on your own.
Through a lot of trials in life.
It's a wonderful thing to be raised in a Christian home where children hear the truth. Thy word is truth from the ground up.
They come out of the womb and they start hearing mom and dad praying a couple independents in that place of dependence for the child that is born.
And it comes out that way along the way all the way up.
We think of this world.
In its confusion.
You go to college and they say that truth is relative.
We're Speaking of truth, they say. That truth is relative.
The statement denies itself.
Is the statement truth? Is relative absolutely true? Is it absolute truth? It meets itself going the opposite direction. God is true. Christ is the truth.
We look for reality.
Young people look for reality.
Have you started with yourself?
It's not a small problem to look around and see hypocrisy.
In your neighbors and your brothers and sisters, maybe in the assembly, maybe in your parents, if you look hard enough and make up the rules as you go along.
Ultimate reality requires a revelation, otherwise it's unattainable.
We stagger along in a cloud.
In confusion.
A lack of ultimate rosality will will result in just pragma, pragmatism, humanism and secularism and all persuasion is just based.
On eloquence.
And sophistry.
I said that God is.
That's not enough.
Has God spoken?
If God hasn't spoken, we're off the hook. We make up the rules as we go along.
And that is the consequence of a godless society.
God has spoken.
What then is that for the philosophical mind to dabble with? God has spoken.
The first fact is God is.
The second fact is, God has spoken.
The third fact is now we are responsible.
Man is responsible. I thought I would just go over.
Since I mentioned that, God has spoken.
And we'll just read through the scriptures from beginning to end.
I will start with the first verse, the first statement, Genesis chapter one, verse one.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
Well.
We'll skip a few.
Psalm 118.
Verse 8.
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in Princess.
00:10:13
OK, well, we're coming to the end.
Let's see what we get there.
How does the book end? Sometimes you pick up a book and you go to the end.
To see how it ends.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Be with you all.
That's a good southern verse. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Hey, man, so be it, I said. God is, God has spoken. We're responsible. It's a good thing.
That the book ends with that statement.
If you go through it a ways, you'll find out that God brings in law and ceremony.
We could go back to the first verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
He put man on there.
He created him for a purpose, created him in his likeness and in his image.
Likeness to represent.
That is likeness for communion image to represent.
Likeness.
The ability to communicate with God.
Image to represent him.
How are we doing?
How are you doing?
Have you ever misrepresented God?
At all.
That's why I read the middle verse.
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
You one of them.
Do you have confidence in yourself? The worst sort of confidence is self-confidence.
Well, we might depend upon the president vote for one that we think can pull it out the Prime Minister. I see elections are about to happen up here.
They happen down there and every four years or so.
Somebody figures they've got the answers.
And they want you to put their confidence in that person.
And cast them their vote, student vote. Everybody has their pitch. I see one over there against that wall. Read it before you go out. Here's one over here. Some kind of an affiliation, some kind of an attachment, some kind of a belonging. Our school song. We are from PCI.
I see 4 words, fight, fight, fight.
I just gave you a description of the human condition.
It isn't ready, but they want allegiance. The politician wants allegiance. Somebody wants your allegiance, they probably want your bank account.
Or whatever. And that's the way the system functions.
Now the last verse again.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Now we read in the Gospels.
The second man, the last Adam. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Adam won't do. The politician won't do.
Nobody will do.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our only hope.
Now I want to make this personal.
Started out with the human race.
Let's funnel this down to each individual sitting right here in this room.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Let him down in both image and likeness, in communion and representation.
We misrepresent him every time we sin.
He comes in with law.
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Man sets it up.
Then there is sacrifice.
In case there's broken law.
But things get out of hand.
So the Son of man himself, the Son of God, I should say.
Comes down here.
Takes upon himself the form of a man, and he becomes here a man. God manifest in flesh.
I used to think, well, you know, if God would just come and and tell me what I'm supposed to do and talk to me and help me along, why, I'll be all right. All I need is some instruction. He's already done that.
I didn't respond.
All of the Lord Jesus would have just stayed here. I could have gone over there. I could have joined his little band. I could have listened to his Sermon on the Mount. I could ask him, shall I do this? Shall I go there? Should I do that? And I could get my instruction. I always used to wonder, why did the Lord Jesus go out by way of the cross?
I didn't know.
20 years old, 21 years old, I didn't know.
I was raised in a system that said if you abide in Christ to the end, you'll be saved.
And I wanted to be saved.
I was just honest enough to know I wasn't abiding very well.
And that God would demand perfection, and I didn't have it.
But I didn't know what to do about it.
I didn't know what it meant. Christ loved you and he died for you. I didn't know what it meant. Christ died on the cross. Why? I asked a man once. He asked if I were saved. No, I don't think so. He was kind of startled. I was driving him to a Father son Christian banquet that my father wanted me to go to with him. And I had the day off and I had to go down to the next town and pick him up. And on the way back I knew I was in for it. This man was an evangelist.
He asked are you saved? I said no, why not?
Well, why did the Lord Jesus have to die?
Why didn't you just live here so we could ask him how to behave ourselves?
And he told me something. Surely I heard this before.
But it didn't get down here. It didn't register, didn't assimilate.
He said Jesus had to die because we have sinned and somebody had to bear the penalty for that. Somebody had to pay the price for that.
That was startling to me. I don't think that's startling.
To anybody in here.
But I didn't hear that when I was young. What I heard is if you abide in Christ to the end, you'll be saved.
And I was just honest enough to know that I wasn't.
The book ends as I said, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
That's so comforting. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Turn to the Gospel of Luke.
And the 10th chapter.
Just giving an overview.
From the beginning, went through the middle, got to the end.
We see that under the hand of man and his responsibility and likeness and image the ruin of thanks.
There is no peace. We enjoy affluence in Western civilization, and we have more than we know what to do with it. And it tickles us and we pursue it like a dog after a bone, but it can never give us the satisfaction of the reality and purpose of life.
How that the whole world lies in sin?
And the question that the philosopher always asks why the evil? If God is good, why does he allow the evil?
00:20:02
They might be able to reckon that man's evil to man is man's responsibility.
And take some responsibility for that.
But why the gratuitous evil?
Why the earthquakes in Japan? Why the tsunami?
All of those things.
Fires.
Romans chapter 8 says The whole creation groaneth and travaileth under this weight of our sins.
Pile them all up from Adam to this very day, and who could measure that?
How many?
Have each of us in this room contributed?
To the railing.
That causes even nature to groan.
Sin has its consequences.
What is the hope?
All of man's organizations.
All of this optimism.
Optimism in education and politics. Forms of government.
Hasn't gotten us anywhere.
That is the broad perspective of this world and its condition today.
And I see.
That I've taken almost 1/2 an hour to get there.
In Luke chapter 10.
And I'll start at verse 30.
The Lord giving a parable here.
I have also spoken unto thee in similitudes, Hosea says. God speaks to us that way.
And now he's going to speak to us in that way in this little parable in Luke chapter 10, beginning at verse 30.
Encapsulate the whole thing that I've been talking about for the last half an hour.
In this little story.
And you can look at this.
As a worldwide problem maybe.
And hide yourself under the umbrella of that.
As if it's a world problem.
But I want you to look at it now.
In a microcosmic way rather than a macrocosmic way, not just a worldview.
But this would Burrow down to each one of us individually.
Jesus answered.
Because he's talking to a man who was willing. Willing. Not just volunteering, but willing. His will is at work here.
That's our problem, to justify himself.
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
Luke, 1030.
Well, Jerusalem was the city of God, and Jericho is the city of destruction.
Adam left the garden when he sinned, A place of bliss, the presence of God.
Everything in order.
And brings in destruction.
And he fell among thieves.
Immediately the first statement leaving Jericho, Jerusalem going to Jericho, he fell among thieves. They stripped him of his raiment, wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.
By chance there came down a certain priest that way, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side, and likewise a Levite when he was at the place.
Came and looked on him and passed by on the other side.
The law.
By the law comes the knowledge of sin.
No man has kept yet.
Could not save us.
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We got the rules. We didn't keep them. The favored people did not.
There came down a priest that way, and a Levite. The law and the ceremonies couldn't save.
When he was at the place.
Came and looked on him.
Passed by on the other side, couldn't come to where he was, but a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was. Now the Lord Jesus has not only come down.
To remedy the problem of sin here.
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
He'll order it. Judgment will be the mains in the end.
That's the macrocosm. What about each of us?
He bore my sins in his own body on the tree. He bore them. He took the punishment for those sins. Everyone that I've ever committed, everyone that ever will.
You knew them all.
This Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. That's right where we are. What did it cost him to do that? When he saw him, he had compassion on him.
Went to him.
In 1969 I was sitting in the back of an F4 on the USS Constellation.
The engine was winding up both of them.
To general electrics.
56,000 lbs of thrust.
£88,000 US steel armament.
Strapped and.
Hook down there to the underside. Steam catapult gonna shoot us from 100 from zero to 160 knots and two and 2.1 seconds.
Zero to 160 knots. After that, we're on our own.
Everything better work.
Usually does.
Got to the end of the.
Catapult shot. It's about.
60 yards.
Does that in a hurry.
Speed looked good.
Looked at the side of the ship going off the angle deck.
And it seemed to be rising. Never saw it on that wise made me nervous.
This aircraft is supposed to be rising. Wasn't happening.
Not much time, you know, at 160 knots and you're heading for the Pacific Ocean.
Navy was kind enough to offer us an alternative to give us this ejection seat.
I go off the landing, there's a handle between the legs. Have one hand on that just in case.
Be prepared.
You're gonna have to decide in a hurry.
How much time do you have to decide?
Three score and 10 are by reason of strength 4 score.
To take the provision that God has given for you in your distress, in your sins, judgment looming.
Pull the handle.
The parachute connected to the mark, the seat that I'm on connected to the Martin Baker ejection seat, shoots us up 250 feet into the sky.
You do 2 back flips. I see the stars. Well, it's 8:00 or 8:00 or 9:00 in the evening. It's in the summertime.
Just turning dark, then I see the ship, then I see the sky, and then the parachute pops. Automatic. Good thing.
Flies out, opens up.
Brings me to a sudden stop. By that time I'm going 180 knots plus the ejection speed.
Nobody could survive that impossible situation. One option. Planes going down can't survive it. One option. Good old Martin Baker, good old U.S. Navy thought of it all.
00:30:18
Parachute deploys. I hear this fearless jerk.
And the water is coming. The Navy provides little, uh, flotation device that's, uh, CO2.
Operated otherwise, it's flat. Pull these two little handles. CO2 cartridges blow up. This little flotation device goes around my waist.
Water is coming on. I pulled those just before I hit the water. Hit the water at A at a pretty good horizontal level and speed. Rolled a few times. Got hopelessly tangled up in my shroud lines. Now my friend is my enemy.
Ship is going by from me to that wall right there. Look up at the flight deck, it's 80 feet up there.
Guys running around.
Throwing flashlights down near where I am so that the helicopter that's right close there can find me in a hurry because it's starting to get dark.
That's what they would do in that case.
Little dark spot is hard to find in a big dark spot. Some of the flashlights are thrown down there and they float.
Ship goes by Mammoth. Impressive.
About 1000 feet long. 5000 people live on there seagoing city.
Hit the prop wash tangled in the back with these parachute lines.
What are we reading about here?
He went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves.
Stripped him of his raiment, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
Well, the priest came, the Levite came. Can't be any help.
Certain Samaritan.
The prop was ships me, I go under the water, thought I was going to drown. Looking up through the water, it's just far above me at the top of my head against the flotation devices and everything. Desperate predicament, what will I do?
Well, let's see, where's a good book? What's on television? What I learned in college.
What's going on this evening in town?
And we put it all off.
The predicament is urgent.
The situation is desperate.
Lost in our sins with judgment hanging over our heads. Thought I was going to drown.
Thought my last thoughts were going to be because the week before I carried my previous paycheck home in my flight suit was in there, zipped in the pocket.
And it got thrown in the laundry. Looked all over for that paycheck, couldn't find it.
What did I do with that thing?
Suddenly dawned on me a few days later. Looked in my flight suit pocket, zipped it open, found a bunch of fuzz in there. Kind of green go color of a government check that went through the laundry. Hard to cash. What'll I do? Called up payroll. Oh I'm sorry, we're going to have to wait a month before we replace that check.
You know, it might show up. You lost it. We'll pay you again in a month, but we're gonna have to stop that check.
Get by the best you can all right.
Ships going by, I'm underwater. I see just the light above the surface of the water. By the way, we have this little mask and it's attached to an oxygen container that gives us about 5 minutes of air.
Good Old Navy.
It'll do for a while.
What's on TV?
Situations urgent. Wasn't thinking of that. One of the things that flashed through my mind when I thought I wasn't coming back up. And this can't go on forever. I wonder if Patty will ever get that check.
00:35:08
I don't know what you think about. That's what I thought about.
Well.
I was saved at that time.
I didn't fear death, but it wasn't my first option.
I enjoyed life at home with my wife. I had objectives down the road, aways, you know, we all do. We're all built that way.
Anyway, the ship went by, popped up above the water, still tangled in the shroud lines.
Ships going off in the distance.
Navy provides a helicopter there.
Sitting up there on all flight OPS, off to the side out of the way, you know?
They're taking this all in. That's their job. They do it well.
As soon as the ship clears, he gets right over me. Now I've surfaced. I don't know if I'm going down again or not, but I've surfaced. I'm trying to untangle the shroud lines that had tangled up in the back of my harness and I couldn't get them loose. I start to try to take the harness off. Click it here. 2 straps here. It's wet. I wasn't getting anywhere. I didn't know if I was going to get free from there or not. Helicopter comes over.
They're polite enough to drop this line down here.
With a harness on it, it's the only way to get up into the helicopter. You have to slide into this thing in a certain way, wrap it around underneath like this so you don't slip out on the way up.
Be careful you don't fall out.
Turn aside along the way is the warning in scripture.
The guy up in the helicopter has got his megaphone. Pilot, get away from your chute.
Was trying.
Can't jump up to that helicopter. It's about as high as the roof is right here above me, flying around, blades throwing up, splash, getting me all wet.
I pushed the harness away.
We're wasting time.
You can't pull me up. I'm tangled in the chute. I would pull that whole helicopter down. God can't take us to heaven in our sins.
Well, the helicopter, the parachute had gotten me that far.
I've done a lot of things I thought had gotten me that far.
I went to college. I had a degree. I did all right in school. I got into the world's second largest Navy.
I was flying the airplanes. I was about to go to war. Second cruise over there. Done one cruise already.
Married things were looking pretty good.
I wouldn't have minded a few more days.
I pushed the harness away, my only option. He pulls it back up, goes up there out of sight.
Swimmer gets in it from up there. He comes back down, he swims around in back of me. He releases the harness. He can see what's going on. You know what he did?
He came right to where I was. That's what he did.
He came right to where I was, the only chance I had.
So did the Lord Jesus.
Came right to where we are.
But unlike the swimmer that came down and freed me from these entanglements.
He risked himself, of course. That was his job description, the swimmer.
Put me in the harness, got me secure free from the chute.
They hoist me up.
All the way up.
All the way home, savior into the helicopter.
Kind of weak by then.
Grab and hold him there trying to crawl in.
The helicopter is moving back to the ship. They'd get a hold of me and they would grab me and make sure I didn't fall out as they run, hooking the harness that they had dropped down to pick me up and take me back up.
00:40:13
Grabbed a hold of me. She unhooked that harness. He's an all the way home savior. He holds on to us.
Took a hold of what was provided.
And I thought I was pretty good for that.
And you must God has made provision at great cost to Himself.
God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. Whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. We have to lay hold of them. We have to take what's been provided. It's our only hope and there is no other way. We're drowning in our sins. We're entangled in the cords of iniquity. We need a Savior like that who has done it all.
They get me in to the helicopter.
They fly me back to the ship.
They land on the ship. The sea of our squadron meets me at the helicopter and escorts me down to the CEO of the ship to his quarters, captain of the ship.
Four stripes up here.
And they bring me into his room. I'm soaking wet.
I'm nervous, I'm cold, I'm shivering.
They have something just for that case. Seal of the ship reaches into his cabinet and he takes a bottle of bourbon and he fills this little shot glass and he puts it before me and I drink it and it's just warm going down. Strong drink belonging to them that are ready to perish is how I thought about that since then.
It calmed me. He wanted a word with me.
What happened?
What went wrong?
And I rehearsed it all with him.
You know the joy of being in glory with the captain of our salvation.
Is to rehearse with him the pilgrim's path here, isn't it? And see all his ways, many of which we never see. We never see them, but they're there. He's an all the way home savior.
He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.
And set him on his own beast, and brought him to an end.
And took care of him.
I've heard people say that they have enjoyed the thought of the end as the assembly.
There were others there.
Brought there many here, brought in like manner and the happy fellowship that's enjoyed.
You might ask, is it anything to you? Is it precious? Think of the hymns we've sung, the ministry we've had.
The home life that offers stability.
Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
Things are not pretty in many homes, in many households, young people, school age. Talk to your classmates. You don't have to nose around. You'll see these things. They'll be exposed to these things, inevitably sorrows.
Difficulties, broken marriages, fighting in the family, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
All of these blessings, the end, the fellowship of the believers, the stability of the household.
The perspective and vision that's before us. Otherwise, no, you take a step at a time. Otherwise, what's happening in the next step? Where is the next pleasure? Where is the next fantasy? Where is the next delicacy?
That's all it would be to life in your case.
Brings them to the end and took care of him all the way home. Savior.
00:45:00
And on the Morrow we departed and took out 2 Pence and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee. We are our brother's keeper and the Lord will repay for that. He takes note of that tender kindnesses, gentleness, attention to others, to be other person minded.
Most of the people in this world aren't that way.
And then says I will reward you for these kindnesses when I return. What a savior we have.
Now which of these three thinkest thou? Was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? Which of these?
Options that this world has to offer as opposed to what God has provided is to you.
The remedy for one who has fell among thieves.
Fell among thieves. How did we get there?
We had our part.
This is our own doing. This is we got there ourselves. Bad choices, bad decisions.
Walk with the Lord.
He that showed mercy upon him, Christ is our Good Samaritan and has shown such mercy.
To each one of us.
And now the lot is cast into the lap.
The whole disposing of the matters of the Lord. But the lot is cast into the Lamb, and you must decide what you're going to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come right to where we are.
In our extremists and would take us all the way up to the courts of bliss forever and ever.
Hymn #3.
When is the meeting supposed to end? I gone over.
OK, I was gonna say we'll sing verse three, but we'll sing all of verses of, uh, hymn #3.
Nsnoise.
00:50:36
By 10:00 that night.
Casually assistance calls off the surface of the Navy, whose job is usually a side one, had the privilege of calling my wife at home in the apartment and Patty answered the phone and the voice said, Missus Bambauer, this is the casualty assistance officer. Just wanted to let you know that your husband is all right.
She didn't know anything was wrong, but she was glad to hear it. I hope that we can say of each one here, we can say to loved ones, it's all right. He is safe. O our God and Father, we're thankful for such a provision that thou hast made to us in such a predicament that we got ourselves into.
We pray our Father that everyone in this room has laid hold with both arms and wrapped them around the life vest that's come down to where they are laid hold of Christ eternal life. We pray our Father ask thee now in this last hour and day, day and hour of the feast that thou was watch over each one of us in the travelings and in our the going to our different places in the family life, in the responsibilities we have in relationship.
As brothers and sisters and children and fathers and mothers and husbands and wives and brethren, we thank thee for these relationships, indeed the essence of life sustained by the by the one who has brought us into a relationship with thyself. We thank Thee, our God and Father, in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.