Gospel—Jim Hyland
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I'd like to begin the Gospel Meeting this evening with Hymn #7 on the gospel hymn sheet. God loved the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. Salvation full at highest cost. He offers free to all, owe to us love.
Wondrous love. The love of God. To me, it brought my Savior from above to die on Calvary. I'm going to suggest we stand up to sing this hymn number 7 and if someone could please start it.
The world of sailors lost and grew, and by the fall.
Salvation.
For highest cost.
Your first name to all.
What was love was my dress love.
To me.
It brought my savior.
From.
Calvary.
Love brings us glorious warmness in and to the Lord makes no.
Soundation from the power of sin through faith and Christ alone.
Oh my God.
One to me.
And from my Savior, from my heart to die on Calvary.
He now.
Exemption by himself, by my hand, planting from the world.
It brought my Savior from.
Above till die on Calvary.
When the word of God to the third chapter of John's Gospel.
John's Gospel chapter 3 and verse 16.
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. I'm going to read that again. 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.
I realized at the beginning of a gospel meeting like this this evening, that this is a scripture. This is a verse from the Bible, God's Word that perhaps everyone, if not most, in this room learned from the very early days of their childhood. It's a verse that has been read and quoted over and over and over again on occasions like this. My father, in his lifetime kept copious notes and lists.
If you had been around after his passing to clean out the family home, you would certainly agree with me. But one of the lists that my father kept throughout his lifetime was a list of verses from God's Word that gospel preachers used on occasion like this to begin a gospel meeting.
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And close to the end of my father's life, he told me that he had calculated that more Gospel meetings that he had sat in in his lifetime began with this verse than any other verse from the word of God. And you know, it is a joy to our souls tonight to be able to open to a verse that the Spirit of God has used time and time and time again, and read it with joy once again.
To know that this verse is powerful. To know that the Word of God lives and abides forever. And I want to encourage you tonight, if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your savior, to open your ears, if not to what is said in exposition or explanation, at least open your ears to what God says, because we're born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever.
Faith cometh by hearing.
And hearing by the word of God here and your soul shall live, because tonight this message is a voice from God himself.
I suppose if myself or anyone else stood up here tonight and announced at the beginning of this meeting that they had a message from the President of the United States or the Queen of England or any other famous person or dignitary in this world, I dare say that everyone would be all ears tonight. That you would want to hear what that person had to convey to this audience.
But all tonight we have a message from the God of the universe. We have a message from heaven tonight. Not from the White House, not from Buckingham Palace, not from Beijing. Not from any. Not from Ottawa, Canada. But we have tonight a message from God himself. And God looks down into this audience tonight. And God loves you. God desires your blessing.
Far, far more.
Than anybody else. I realize that if you're hearing your sins tonight.
There are people praying for you, a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, someone who invited you to this meeting tonight, praying for you because they're concerned and they love you and they desire your eternal blessing. But I want to tell you above anybody that is praying for you tonight, either in this room or anywhere else God desires your blessing tonight.
And so we hope.
With the Lord's help to speak a little bit from this verse that has been spoken on so many times before.
And in the few minutes that are allotted to us this evening for this Gospel meeting, we can only hope to scrape out a very few things of what God has to say to us.
In this verse, this profound verse, and yet the simplicity of it is so real and so precious.
Edgerton Young was a missionary.
In the early days.
To the native Indians in Western Canada.
And he went to the Nelson River, District of British Columbia to bring the message there to those who were steeped in the traditions.
Of Indian religion? Native religion.
Steeped in darkness, the darkness of heathendom.
And when he got to that area.
And made his purpose known.
There was a day set by the chiefs of various tribes in that area.
A day set when the natives were gathered together in great numbers to hear the message that this man had to present.
And you can just imagine the thoughts that must have gone through the soul of Edgerton young as he stood up and faced those who had never heard of the love of God, those who had never heard of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son.
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And for three hours.
For three solid hours, he never turned the page of his Bible from this precious verse.
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.
And when he was finished, he sat down and every eye in that audience turned.
To the principal chief.
Sitting there.
Listening to who had listened to the message.
And as the story goes, with a great deal of pomp and ceremony, this principal chief stood up.
And he faced his fellow Indians.
An Eggerton, Young wondered what he was going to say. But as he looked into the faces of his fellow Indians, he said.
For years I haven't believed in the beat of the TomTom Drum. I haven't been satisfied with the Great Spirit and our gods and that which we worship from day-to-day. There's been an empty aching in my heart.
And then he pointed to Edgerton Young and he said, But you have brought me a message today that has finally brought peace to my heart. Stay as long as you like and preach your message here amongst us.
All the power there is in one gospel verse. Before we embark on this verse, just another little incident to show how God has used this verse time and time again.
I have had opportunity over the years to visit some of the famous battlefields in Europe, Vimy Ridge. I've been to Passchendaele. I've stood at the Mening gate. I've had opportunity to drive and walk through Flanders fields. It's awesome to realize how many have fallen in battle, fallen in the service of and freedom of humanity as far as this life and world is concerned.
But I remember well a story.
During the First World War, when it was man to man combat in the trenches, and as I have been taken through some of those trenches, I have wondered how the human body could stand.
The abuses and the lack of comforts and the cold, as well as the trauma of being at war with the enemy. But I remember well a story of a line of soldiers who were facing the enemy and falling 1 by 1.
And one man in a certain line was struck by a bullet.
And he fell back into the trench, and his comrade next to him jumped down beside him.
To see if he was still alive and if so, if he could be made a little more comfortable there on the cold, damp floor of that trench in that European battlefield.
He found that his friend, though he was bleeding profusely, and though he was weak, he was still alive.
And as he rolled up his coat to put it under his head, his friend opened his eyes and he said, Can you tell me the way to heaven?
Just put yourself in the position of that comrade at that moment. If a dying friend looked into your face tonight and said what is the way to heaven?
Would you be able to tell them?
Well, you know, I suppose, if it had been peacetime and they had been home in their own country.
This comrade might have had many suggestions as to how to get to heaven, but those things just didn't seem to count.
In the reality of their situation.
And so he looked into the face of his friend and he said, I don't know, but I'll try to find out.
And he went back to his post and he passed that question on to the man who was next to him. Can you tell me the way to heaven?
The man beside him shook his head. But he said I'll ask and he asked the next man. Now these were men that came from so-called Christian countries.
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And that question went down the line.
15 men and nobody knew the answer.
Finally, it came to the 16th Man.
And as he was asked the question, he reached into his pocket with a glad smile, and he pulled out a New Testament, and he opened the New Testament to this very verse. 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.
And he read it to his comrade.
And he put his finger on it, and down the line it went 15 men with their finger on John 316.
With the enemy firing.
And finally it came back to the first man and he jumped down beside his dying friend and he found he was very weak.
But he leaned over to his friend and he read this verse.
And he read it again, and his friend opened his eyes and he said read it again.
And his friend drank in those life, giving words in his dying moments.
And with his final breaths he confessed Christ, and he went from the horror of a battlefield in Europe to the presence of the Lord Jesus in the language of the Word of God, absent from the body and present with the Lord.
We're not under fire from the enemy here tonight as we sit in this Dome in Walla Walla.
Let's suppose you were to take your final breath as you sat in these seats.
Would you go from the Dome in Walla Walla to the presence and light of the Lord Jesus Christ?
We're going to talk about something else in a few moments. Very serious.
But all tonight, at the beginning of this meeting, you can know with certainty that when you take that last breath, you will be with the Lord Jesus, I've often told.
About Michael Faraday.
Reputed to be the father of modern electronics, and as he lay on his deathbed, a friend came to him and said, Michael, what are your speculations for eternity?
He looked up into his friend's face. He said Speculations. I'm not resting on speculations, I'm resting on certainties.
Oh, tonight as we preach the gospel, we preach it with certainty. We rest on certainties tonight because we have the living and sure word of God.
God hasn't left us to speculate.
About the future, you know, there's a lot of speculation in this world tonight, isn't there? You know, if we were to pull a newspaper tomorrow and read the financial section, in the business section of that newspaper, we find a lot of speculation and people speculating on oil and speculating on real estate and speculating as to what the American dollar is going to do against the Japanese yen and the euro is going to do against the Canadian dollar and all that kind of thing. But we're not talking about speculation.
Uncertainties tonight. No. We're talking from the precious word of God that we can rest on with certainty.
For God. This is the source, isn't it God?
I want to impress upon our souls at this juncture.
That God is the creator and sustainer of life.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
And not only that.
But he breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And as such you and I are responsible to God. You know, when Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, he was there, given everything to enjoy.
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All the fruit of the trees and so on. But there was one thing he was not to do. He was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Because the the fact that he was not to eat of that tree was to be Adams recognition that he was enjoying.
All that was there.
At God's disposal and that as such he was responsible to his Maker. You know, Adam failed to recognize his responsibility to God, and he reached out and ate of the forbidden fruit. And it says by one man's disobedience sin entered.
And death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Do you realize tonight, first of all, that you're a Sinner, and secondly that you must answer for your sins? The wages of sin is death. There's consequence, there's payment for sin. God told Adam that the devil said thou shalt not surely die, but death came in as a result of sin.
You are responsible to God. It is appointed unto man once to die.
And after this, the judgment. And I suppose that man would like to propagate the theory of evolution in The Big Bang and all that kind of thing. Because if man can convince himself that it all just happened, and if man can convince himself that when it's over he dies and passes out of this out of existence.
Then he has no responsibility to his maker. But we're going to see from this very scripture.
That that is not the case.
All the wonderful thing is that this verse is not only a warning, but it unlocks the heart of God.
Because it tells us here that God so loved.
We read in Ephesians 2 during these meetings.
Of that great love of God.
God has a great love for you tonight.
As we said at the beginning of this meeting, he desires your blessing more than anyone else.
But you know, the marvelous thing is that God has manifested His love. God has shown His love in the giving of His Son. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. If you were to go to a dictionary tonight, you would find that the word manifest means to clearly show.
You know, sometimes people say they love us, but they don't act like it. We like somebody to prove what they say. You say, well, that person says they're my friend. That person says they like me. That person even says they love me.
But they sure don't act like it. They surely don't manifest it.
In their actions toward me, but all when we look to the cross tonight, can we doubt God's love? He has clearly shown his love in the giving of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
David Livingstone, that renowned Mish pioneer missionary to Africa, has the distinction of having his tomb in Westminster Abbey in London, England.
They're buried with the elite and nobility of Britain.
But you know David Livingstone, When he went to Africa, he really went for two reasons.
He was, it's true, an explorer for the British government. And he mapped out a good deal of that continent before anything was known of the continent of Africa.
But David Livingstone went to Africa with a far, far greater motive.
Than just being an explorer for the British government, David Livingstone went to Africa to take the light of the glorious Gospel to those who had never been exposed to it before.
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And they tell the story how he and his wife and their baby were staying in a certain area.
And preaching the gospel.
And helping, in one way or another, the natives who lived along that part of that particular river.
But you know, David Livingstone had a burning desire to take the Gospel further down that river to a tribe that he knew had never been reached before.
But he was warned by those he was living amongst not to go any further up that river, that if he continued up that river he would not come out alive.
David Livingstone was a man of prayer and a man of faith, and he and his wife prayed much about it.
And a certain day came when they got in their boat to travel up that river. David, his wife and their baby. There are some babies in this room tonight. I've been thrilled to see so many babies and little ones here at these meetings.
And I think those who have had or have.
Babies and children will perhaps enter in.
To this story a little bit, and the emotion of it.
But they got in their boat and they traveled up that river, and as they got close to where these people lived, they were startled.
By screams and cries and natives running through the jungle brandishing all kinds of weapons.
And as they approached the banks of that river.
David tried to make those natives see that he had not come to harm them, but that he had come in peace, but nothing he did.
Seemed to calm those natives down or make them understand.
And after a time he turned to his wife and he said to his wife, give me the baby.
You can just imagine the emotions that must have passed between a mother and a father, that scene on the shore, the natives ready to do them in. And David says to his wife, give me the baby.
After some hesitation, she handed him their child.
And David stepped out of that boat into the shallow water, and with the outstretched, with the child in his outstretched arms.
He approached those natives on the shore. They say the effect was amazing.
That child held out in David's arms was a symbol to those natives that David had come in peace and love, And they immediately settled down and they received them. And as the story goes, there was much blessing in that area. But oh, tonight God has held out his son. God sent his son, the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world.
And when it says the Father, isn't that more than if it just said God sent Jesus? It's true that God did send Jesus, but first John 4 tells us that it was the Father who sent the Son.
You know, there are many beautiful types and pictures in the Old Testament of the Father and the Son.
I suppose two of the most complete types.
Are Israel sending Joseph to his brethren, and Jesse sending David to his brethren? But I have pondered in reading those accounts, if Israel had had any idea when he sent Joseph to his brethren, if he had had any inkling of how his brother brothers were going to treat him, and that he wouldn't see his son for many, many, many years.
Would he have sent him on that occasion? I dare say he would have kept him home within the veil of Hebron.
If Jesse had had any idea?
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That the rest of his sons were going to even judge the motive of his heart for coming down to bring those supplies.
To the camp of Israel, where they were fighting the battle with the Philistines.
And that David, with just five stones and a sling, was going to go down into the valley and meet the champion of the Philistines, Goliath. Would he have sent David on that occasion? He may have kept him home feeding those few sheep in the wilderness. Israel didn't know, Jesse didn't know. But all the marvel is that when God sent his son into this world, he knew exactly what would happen.
He knew the heart of man. He knew how they would treat his son. He knew that for his son there would be no room in the inn. He knew that he would grow up in a carpenter's shop in Nazareth. He knew that from the beginning of his public ministry he would be rejected. He knew at the end of it all.
He would be taken from Gethsemane to pilots judgment hall, and that he would be shuffled back and forth that night and abused.
That he would have deep furrows plowed upon his back by the scourge.
That they would pluck the very hairs of his cheek. You know, any of us who have a beard know that the cheek is the most tender part you can pull on the chin, almost pull the hair out without really hurting. But it says they pluck the hairs of my cheek.
They took a crown of thorns, that which was the result of the curse.
They put it on his blessed head and they weren't content with that. They beat it into his blessed head. They mocked him, saying, Hail King of the Jews, did they believe that he was the king of the Jews? Indeed they did not. They said we have no king but Caesar.
They slapped his blessed face.
To add insult to injury, they spit on him.
And then they took him out.
And I love these glorious words, because on the one hand they led him away to crucify him.
But immediately it says there in John 19.
And he bearing his cross, went forth.
He went forth? Yes, he did. Did God know that such a moment was coming when he sent his Son?
Indeed he did.
They nailed him to a cross.
Some sat down and watched him in his agony.
Others heaped other abuse on him. They gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with Gall.
Others passed by at that crossroad where he hung a spectacle for men and angels.
And they reviled him.
But you know all those sufferings as awful as they were.
They never atoned for one sin.
But a moment came. Yes, it did. A moment came.
When the sun was shrouded in darkness.
A darkness I suggest, that no eye could penetrate.
And the Lord Jesus, I am so very thankful to say, bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
Did God know when He sent his son?
What the end would be, indeed he did. After those three hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus cried. It is finished. He bowed his head, and he gave up the ghost, He could say of his life. No man taketh it from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
Loving hands. After his side was pierced and that blood and water came forth, Loving hands took him down from the cross, put him in a new tomb.
But the Lord Jesus died, he was buried and thank God he rose again the 3rd day according to the scriptures.
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Because if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain, you are still in your sins, but he was raised again for our justification.
God so loved the world. I like that.
You know, if it just said God loved the world, we'd rejoice, wouldn't we? But the word so gives intensity. He so loved the world.
That he gave.
You know, that's the heart of God tonight. God is a giving God.
If you're not saved tonight, you need to realize that Satan is not your friend. Satan is not a giver.
Satan is a taker. He's a destroyer, but God is a giver.
We were reminded this afternoon of the children of Israel when they were in Egypt and you know, really Pharaoh and the Egyptians and Pharaoh is a very graphic picture to us of the enemy Satan in the Old Testament.
And say a pharaoh really wanted them only for what he could get out of them. As long as they could build his cities, he was glad to have them and use them.
And you know, the time even came when the straw wasn't provided.
For the bricks, but they had to keep up their tally. You know, the way of the transgressor is hard.
Sin is *******. We're holding, it says in Proverbs with the cords of our sin. Man thinks he has liberty. Man thinks he's a free agent. Tonight. He's not. He's under the ******* of sin and Satan.
But God is a giver, God is a Liberator, and God has given his Son the Lord Jesus.
Oh, gift of love, unspeakable, oh, gift of mercy, all divine. We once were slaves of death and hell, but in Christ's image we shall shine for every gift a song we raise. But this demands eternal praise.
Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift, every good gift and every perfect gift.
Cometh down from a from above, and cometh down from the father of lights.
With whom There is no variableness nor shadow of turning. You know we enjoy God's gifts and mercies every day. Even the unbeliever. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Solomon said twice in Ecclesiastes, For a man to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of all his labor, it is the gift of God. And yet you know, how many people do you see bow their head before a meal and thank God for that, the gift of their food.
Not very many, do you? In fact, when you're in a restaurant or a public place that's outstanding, to see somebody bow their head a moment and thank God for those temporal mercies, those gifts.
There's another gift that God is offering tonight. It tells us in the book of Romans. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I want to pause a moment here to ask you a question.
You've accepted God's temporal gifts today. I doubt there's anybody here who hasn't eaten something today at some point.
Or enjoyed some temporal mercy as the gift of God.
From a loving hand of God.
But have you ever reached out and in faith, taken God's gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ?
It's free. What makes a gift a gift is the fact that it's free to the recipient. But as we have already heard in these meetings, while the gospel is free, it's not cheap. It cost God his Son. It costs the Lord Jesus the laying down of his life and the shedding of his precious blood of which blood we weave. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanseth us.
From all sin have you received that gift? God so loved the world that he gave his only.
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Begotten son.
I don't have any sons.
But I do have two daughters whom I love very much.
And if on some particular morning, I knew my daughters were going to go out the door and face some real danger or even death.
Would I let those girls go that morning? Not a chance.
Not a chance, but God sent his son into this world.
To die and the Lord Jesus when he came.
When he came in obedience.
To God the Father, He knew what the end of the course would be. Did Joseph know how his brethren were going to treat him? When he said to his father that he would go, He had no idea. Did David really know what was going to happen when he was sent by his Father to his brother? No, he really didn't. Would those men have been so willing to go on that occasion? I don't know, but I wonder. But the Lord Jesus?
We read of him prophetically. Lo, I come to do thy will. Oh God, He could say I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
That Will was a path uncheered by earthly smiles that led only to the cross.
Oh, tonight I want to plead with you in the presence of God and the Lord Jesus.
Don't turn away from so great salvation.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? You know this world is going on in a mad rush to eternity.
Faster and faster. The treadmill of society in the Western world. It's being cranked up faster and faster every hour a man is going on in rebellion against God and in his own will over the precipice.
Sin is lawlessness. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way.
I had the opportunity to visit and Regina, Canada this winter and while I was there I was driven by.
A tattoo and body piercing shop in the city of Regina.
And in big letters, the name was over the door.
House of Custom Rebellion.
Shocking, isn't it?
House of Custom Rebellion.
But isn't doesn't that sum up the world today? Rebellion, You know, sin is not just practice today. It's always been practiced from the Garden of Eden down. It was disobedience, rebellion against authority that ushered in man's history of sin. But sin is not just practice today. It's preached and glorified. It's ingrained in us to do our own thing that nobody's to put restraints on us.
Rebellion.
Was there ever a day when rebellion against authority on every level is preached and propagated and practiced like the day in which we live?
But God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever.
You know that's a universal word, isn't it? There is no one can go out of this gospel meeting tonight and say that the message wasn't for them. Because the message is to whosoever. I like the way a little girl put this at the end of a Sunday school. As she was going out the door, someone asked her what does the word whosoever mean? Why? She said that means you and me and everybody else. It's a universal word. And the message tonight is to whosoever.
Whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely, does that exclude you? Not for one moment, not for one moment. If you're excluded, you've excluded yourself by turning away.
Whosoever believeth on him.
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Have you believed you know the gospel is repentance toward God?
And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's to realize that we are sinners and that there's nothing we can do to get rid of one sin. And to realize we have set our will against God in rebellion, but to turn completely around and to put our faith.
In the Lord Jesus Christ, you know there was a man in a prison in Philippi, and he was concerned about his soul. And he came in to two evangelists who were locked in that prison for preaching the gospel. And he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And what was the answer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
You know you can believe in many things tonight, and you can be sincere, but you can be sincerely wrong.
I won't try to pronounce his Siamese name, but King Rama, the 7th, was the last absolute monarch of Siam, which is now Thailand.
He was a retiring sort of person, shy, reticent and not a very likely candidate to sit on a throne and rule a people.
And he ruled just a couple of months, less than 10 years, when he was forced to abdicate and flee the country.
But, you know, as the story goes.
He no doubt had some indications earlier on in his reign that this wasn't going to last.
And history records that he is the only known king or ruler of a country.
Whoever took out unemployment insurance. But he had insurance policies, unemployment insurance policies, with a British underwriter and a French underwriter in Britain and France.
And when he was forced to abdicate and to flee.
His country, He lived in very considerable comfort in Britain until the day of his death.
You know, as far as this life goes, he was a very wise king. I don't know about his soul, but tonight we're not talking about having an insurance policy. We're not talking about having confidence in something in this life, but we're talking about confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ resting on him. John Patton was a pioneer missionary to the South Sea Islands.
And when he went to take the gospel to those natives, one of his first and arduous tasks was to translate part of the New Testament into the language of the South Sea Islanders. So they had at least part of the word of God in their native tongue. And as he was going through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he found it difficult to come up.
Some word for trust or belief, something that was to the natives way of looking at things.
And finally, he came to that verse we quoted a few moments ago. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved. And he translated it like this. Lean your full weight on him. Are you leaning your full weight, your soul's weight, on him for eternity tonight? If you are, you can have full confidence that you're going to leave this world to be in the Father's house when the Lord Jesus comes, because the Lord Jesus is coming, and whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
You know the Lord Jesus is coming, and I want to impress this upon our souls.
Because the coming of the Lord draweth nigh and when the Lord Jesus comes.
Every believer, everyone who is washed in the blood of Jesus.
Is going to leave this world. It's going to be changed in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and snatched away to be with the Lord Jesus in the Father's house.
And everyone that is not ready who had opportunity, is going to be left behind for the judgment of God. Everyone who had opportunity is going to be left behind for the judgment of God.
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They're going to perish.
I remember looking up this word perish in a Random House dictionary one time and it said this perish to pass out of existence. You know, I wasn't very satisfied with that explanation or that definition. At home we have a large Webster's dictionary and it's an older edition.
And I looked up the word perish in that old edition Webster's dictionary, and this is what it said, to die spiritually.
You know what? So awful is it to pass out of this world without Christ into a lost eternity. So awful will it be to stand at the great White Throne judgment, and to be bound hand and foot, and cast into the lake of fire.
That the Word of God calls it the second death.
You know death and Scripture always denotes the separation of two things.
We're dead in trespasses and sins because your iniquities have separated between you and your God.
Physical death is the separation of the body and the spirit. The body without the spirit is dead.
But the second death, oh, how solemn, how serious to be eternally separated from God.
In the lake of fire.
No hope, Indiana. Hell, I think that's going to be one of the most awful things about a lost eternity.
No hope.
No hope.
You know, there's always hope you're sick. There's always hope that tomorrow things will get better.
You're going through a difficult circumstance. There's always hope that things are going to turn around tomorrow and you can get through today because we live for hope. We're saved by hope. We get through today because there's hope things will be better tomorrow.
But in a lost eternity no hope, when once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door, they begin to knock. And they say, Lord, Lord, open unto us, but from the other side of that closed door.
Those words come to ring in their ears for eternity depart from me. I never knew you. The message tonight is come unto me. The message in that day will be depart from me. Solemn contrast, isn't it? God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting.
Life. Are you going to reach out and take that gift tonight, as we've been saying?
Everlasting life.
Eternal life.
Offered to you by God. You know, the gospel tonight is so very simple.
I think sometimes at the end of a gospel meeting.
People are not sure how to get saved. They've heard that they're sinners. They've heard that God loves them. They've heard that the Lord Jesus died on Calvary's cross and shed his precious blood. They've heard that there's an invitation.
But it is this simple.
In a few moments, I'm going to pray and close the meeting. And if you do not know the Lord Jesus as your savior, quietly where you are, you can speak to him in your heart because he'll hear you even though you don't utter one word aloud. And you can speak to him in your heart, confessing that you're a Sinner.
And accepting, receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Does that sound easy?
It is easy. The way of righteousness is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein. You know there was one of the major.
Cake mix companies here in the United States. Betty Crocker, one of those that some time ago put out.
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A cake mix.
And all the instructions said was to add water.
Pretty easy, wasn't it? You know, they couldn't sell it.
People thought that's too easy.
You know what the company did? They recalled it and they changed the formula a little bit, so you had to add an egg as well.
Sold tremendously. People thought it was too easy. But all tonight, we're not going to change the formula because the Lord Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. We're not going to change the formula, but we're going to tell you it's as easy as just receiving the Lord Jesus as your savior. Oh, don't go out of this room unsaved tonight. Don't go out of this room lost tonight.
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him.
Should not perish but have everlasting life. Let's pray our God and Father. If there's someone still lost in this room tonight, we pray that.