Gospel—R. Thonney
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3 1/2 years of life.
The Jewish people found excuse to.
Falsely accuse him and take him to pilot the Roman governor of those days. And even though Pilate pronounced again and again that he found no fault in him, he ended up condemning him to the most awful death possible.
You know, when I think of John 316, I don't think so much of A Manger where he laid when he was born. I think of a Christ that man awarded him at the end of his life. They took him outside the city of Jerusalem.
And in our mind's eye, we can picture the scene he.
Bearing his cross went forth, His head was crowned with thorns, His face was so marred more than any man's.
His back was plowed upon by the Romans scourge, and they stretched out his hands on that cross and nailed them to that cross. You know, the gruesomeness of crucifixion. I think we in this Western world where we try to minimize suffering, don't have much idea of the awfulness that it was.
But I understand when they crucified people in those days.
They drove a spike through what we would call the wrist, where the nerves go through to the hands. You can imagine the excruciating pain as they drove those spikes through the hands of the Son of God.
And they hung him up for everybody to mock into Jiren. They came to him, they spit on him, and there he hung, according to our calculations, from approximately 9:00 in the morning.
He died approximately what we would calculate 3:00 in the afternoon, from 9:00 till 12.
Men were passing in front of him.
Mocking.
And trying to make him suffer in every way possible.
Not only were there the physical sufferings of crucifixion, those awful sufferings, but there were the sufferings of His soul, the reproach that broke his heart. He says, Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of pity, and I look for some to take pity. And there were none, and for comforters that I found none.
They said if he be the Son of God, let him come down from the cross.
And we will believe him.
Did God deliver him? You know, I've often said.
Since I have two boys if one day sitting at home.
I lookout through the window and I see somebody beating up on one of my boys outside. You think I could sit there and just watch it happen?
No way I'd go out there. I'd say, hey, you beat up on me, but you don't beat up on my boy.
Why did God allow them to do that to His beloved Son? Didn't He love him? Yes, He loved him more than we can ever understand.
Why did he leave him to suffer there?
Here's the answer, friend for God, soul, love of the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, there he hangs.
An abject misery, those physical sufferings of suffering, of a broken heart.
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But something else happened on that cross. At 12 noon, everything got dark, according to the record of Scripture.
And for three hours.
We cannot see what was happening from 12 noon to 3:00 PM.
But the prophet Isaiah tells us exactly what was happening in those three hours.
He says in Isaiah 53 five he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with I had stripes, we are healed.
God cannot Passover sin lightly. He could not allow one small little sin into heaven. It would call in question his holy character. Absolutely impossible that that should happen.
Sometimes God is presented as a being who lifts up the rug and sweeps our stuff underneath.
Our sins underneath and says we'll just forget about it.
Can't happen.
Every sin that has ever been committed on planet Earth.
Must receive from the hand of God himself. It's just judgment and will. It will take place. Every sin that is ever been committed on this planet will receive from the hand of God. It's just judgment.
But in those three hours when Jesus was hanging there on that cross.
God remembered every sin I had ever committed.
Or was going to commit.
Because it happened nearly 2000 years ago and God laid those sins on Jesus.
One by one they were laid on him, and God took the rod of his judgment.
And in those three hours, the full storm.
Of divine judgment broken.
Of that holy sin bearer on that cross.
All the waves and billows of divine judgment rolled over him. He exhausted those that judgment that was rightly against me. And before he died he said it is finished all the judgment that was against me as a guilty Sinner.
It's gone. It's finished.
In the Old Testament.
The fire consumed the sacrifices.
But in the case of Jesus.
The sacrifice consumed the fire. There is no more judgment to them that are in Christ Jesus.
Jesus died, and Scripture says so clearly here.
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
Can you put yourself in that statement? That's what faith does. And then you can have full and free forgiveness of sins from the hand of God.
God's justice has been satisfied and as a result, now God offers full and free salvation to whosoever will believe.
After Jesus had died, a soldier came up to the cross.
And he was commissioned to make sure that the three who had been crucified that day.
Were dead and he comes up to the first thief and breaks his legs and that thief dies. He goes around to the other thief on the other side and breaks his legs.
That thief dies. He comes to Jesus.
Jesus was already dead.
But he takes his fear, and he plunges it into the side of that dead savior, and out of his side flows blood and water.
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Yesterday we heard that verse that was quoted from the book of Leviticus.
It is the blood that makes atonement for the soul, Another verse in the New Testament said. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission, no forgiveness of sins.
God demands blood, I know.
That that's not a pleasant thing to think about, but it must be the blood of a sacrifice that God will accept. The only thing that can remove sin from the eye of God is the blood. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses us from all sins.
Oh, the power of that blood.
Think I've told the story before, but I'd like to tell it again of a.
Brother I met in southern Mexico a number of years ago. His name was Synovial Ruiz.
He had been in his unsaved.
And he had killed 21 People.
In his unsaved days as a bandager, he wandered the hills of southern Mexico, the state of Oaxaca, killing, burning houses, stealing.
The government gave orders.
Get Synovial Ruiz dead or alive.
He recognized his life was in danger. Down in Oaxaca, they build their little gospel halls with sticks.
Pause sometimes, you might say stuck in the dirt for the walls.
And in this particular place.
He stood on the outside because he could look in. At night when the Lantern, kerosene Lantern was lit, he could look in and he could listen from the outside and he heard that verse. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.
Is it possible? I've done so much evil, is it possible?
He asked a brother when he had a chance, and he showed him in the Bible, Yes Sir, he says right there, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. Sin.
Accepted Christ as his Savior. Then he went and presented himself to the authorities.
The army authorities that were looking for him and they took him into custody.
And I'm not sure why, but after a time in custody, they let him loose and he passed the rest of his days in southern Mexico without any trouble. Any further trouble. I was privileged to know that. Dear man, you would never guess the blood of Jesus has power to cleanse the vilest Sinner.
A few years ago.
Synovial when I went down there, I heard.
That he had gone home to be with the Lord Jesus.
Think of it, a man going right into the presence of God, a man that had committed so much sin. How in the world can God be just and let a man like that into heaven?
Because Jesus died to pay the price for his.
That price was paid in full. How do I know? How can we know you know why? Because God raised Jesus from the dead.
He was here in this world for 40 days after his resurrection.
They ate. They drank with him.
They handled him.
It was not a spirit that they saw, it was a man of flesh and bones and after 40 days God continued to raise him and raised him to the highest pinnacle of glory. Jesus as a man sits at the right hand of God tonight.
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Mighty to save, Are you saved?
You know, it concerns me greatly.
That there are, perhaps, are those here tonight.
Who say they're Christians?
But really never have come to grips with the question of their sins before God. We're living in a day of a lot of permissiveness. Anything goes.
And evil is getting more and more rampant.
Sexual immorality. Homosexuality. What God calls an abomination.
People wink at it and defend it.
The time is coming, and we believe coming shortly, when God is going to cut it off.
You can fool around today, maybe you get away with it, but let me assure you, the time is soon coming when Jesus is going to come back again to judge this world in righteousness.
The day is appointed, the judge is appointed. You must meet Jesus. There is no way that you can avoid meeting Jesus. Maybe you say, I don't believe it.
That changes nothing. Scripture tells us clearly.
That you will meet with Jesus.
Either as a savior, you can accept Him to be saved from your sins tonight, or you will meet Him as your judge.
And I'd like to go tonight.
The Book of Revelation, because you know when the Lord Jesus is presented so often in this world, he's presented in the way he was known.
When he came the first time in meekness, in lowliness.
He did not defend himself.
When his creature man reached out and hit him in the face, when they came up and spit square in his face, he did not react.
And people think.
That that's the way they can deal with Jesus.
That's the way they dealt with him once.
But let me assure you, friend, that that's not going to be always the case. Let's go to the Book of Revelation, chapter one, and I'd like to read to you what is the Revelation of Jesus Christ? Jesus is coming again.
First of all, he's coming to.
Rapture to catch out of this world.
All those who have truly believed in Him as their savior.
Have you come to grips with the question of your sins? Are you ready for that day? The Lord Jesus is coming, and He's coming at any moment.
Let me quote you those verses that are so wonderful. It says the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God, And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord that is going to take place.
At any moment, there is no sign that needs to be.
Fulfilled. For that to take place, that can happen at any moment now. It's going to be one of the most awful things.
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For people who do not know Jesus as savior if they're sitting.
In a room like this and that takes place one moment to the next.
You're going to be left sitting in your chair there. You're going to wonder what happened. All of a sudden, so many disappeared. All you're going to see is their clothes left. They're going to be gone. You'll realize.
That the opportunity, the Day of grace, has closed. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.
Are you ready?
That's going to happen.
Be warned, it's going to happen.
But after that happens, there's going to follow a time of unparalleled trouble in this world. People think that this world is seeing awful times in the Second World War, but they call the Holocaust.
They have seen nothing in comparison with what is going to happen. And you know what scares me? That this world in general is completely asleep as to the fact that we are treading the very edge of the day of Grace.
Something else that concerns me too.
Most Christians are completely asleep As to it too. Can I say that I am awake as I should be?
I cannot pronounce that judgment. Only the Lord can.
Church of Laodicea thought they were rich, increased with goods.
And had need of nothing. And the Lord had to tell them that totally the opposite was true.
We stand before God. We don't have to do with brethren, we have to do with God.
Do you realize that?
You cannot escape that fact.
Jesus is going to come again, and when he comes.
He's not going to come as he came the first time. Let's read.
How he is presented here in Revelation chapter one.
He is standing in the midst.
12.
Of seven golden candlesticks, it says here. Let me just read from the beginning of verse 12.
I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and being turned, I saw 7 golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man.
And it's a question of judgment, the Lord Jesus, who is appointed to be the judge of that future day.
Does not take the title of the Son of God. He is that, but he takes the title of Son of Man.
When men and women are called to that judgment seat.
They're going to see a man sitting on that throne.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
So he takes the title of Son of Man.
Clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the paths with a golden girdle. This is the way a judge dresses.
Is taking the character of a judge here.
No, my friend, no for sure that if you refuse to have to do with Jesus.
As Savior you must do with Him as your judge.
What else?
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow.
Great age experience, He knows you through and through.
His eyes were as a flame of fire, extremely penetrating.
I look at you out across the audience tonight and you're all well dressed and you're all listening pretty well.
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But God looks at you, the Lord Jesus looks at you in a different way. He sees right straight through you. He understands your thoughts, those secrets of your heart that you say I don't want anybody knowing that he knows it. All things are naked and open to the eyes of him. We have with whom we have to do you cannot avoid.
His penetrating gaze.
He sees you through and through. This is the one you must deal with in a future day if you refuse to accept Jesus as your Savior.
His feet like unto fine brass.
As they burn as if they burned in a furnace. Brass in the scripture.
Is figurative of divine righteousness in judgment.
And his feet speak of his ways.
His voice as the sound of many waters. He has a way of making himself heard. You know God doesn't want to speak drastically to you, but if you refuse to listen when he speaks gently.
He will speak louder and louder.
Remember hearing the story of a man on the East Coast who worked in the ship building docks and one day he fell from off the scaffold 3 stories up.
And he landed on his head on a pile of bricks.
Broke his neck.
He woke up in the hospital.
Paralyzed from the neck down.
But it was the means that he got straight with God.
And he said after that, thank God he made me listen, He had to break my neck to make me less. Thank God he made me listen.
Friends, God is speaking to you tonight in His precious word that we're reading here. Are you listening?
Or are you just putting on the front of listening respectfully and then go out and quench the voice of the Spirit of God as He speaks to you?
God has his ways of making.
Himself heard.
He had in his right hand seven stars and out of his mouth with a sharp 2 edged sword. That's his word, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
Supreme power and authority.
This is the one you must meet if you refuse to do with Jesus as your savior. No way of avoiding it. Sooner or later you must come face to face with that man on the throne.
I'd like to go over to the 19th chapter because here we have.
The moment when Jesus is going to come riding out of heaven.
To establish his Kingdom.
You know before we start reading these verses to make this statement that we are preaching tonight the gospel of the grace of God.
God is a God of all grace.
He wants to save you, but there is no way you can avoid.
Dealing with the question of your sins.
And before he comes again, before Jesus comes again in these verses that we're going to read.
It's at the end of a time of trouble in this world that's called great tribulation. He's going to come back again. He's going to take over the governments of this world. Governments of this world do their best to try to keep order.
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They can't do it. They can't do it. Jesus is coming back to set things straight according to God's principles of righteousness.
But before he comes back, there's going to be another gospel preached during those seven years of tribulation. It's called the Gospel of the Kingdom.
We preach the gospel of the grace of God, we tell people.
If you accept Christ, you have the forgiveness of all your sins you have.
Justification by faith. Before God, you have eternal life. You have a home in heaven. That's the gospel of the grace of God. But after Jesus comes and takes all his people home to heaven during that time of tribulation, there's going to be another message preached. It's the message that John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus himself preached at the beginning of his earthly ministry.
It's called the Gospel of the Kingdom. It will be perhaps a simple message. It will be simply straighten out your ways, repent of your sins because the king is coming and he's not going to tolerate sin.
He is going to gather the weed into his garner and he is going to burn the chaff.
With unquenchable fire.
It's the gospel.
Of the Kingdom.
And that gospel is going to be preached. But I want to sound a word of warning to anybody here who thinks that they're going to wait until that time and accept that gospel. You have heard the gospel of the grace of God and have said no to Jesus.
After that, after the rapture takes place, after the Lord Jesus takes all his own home to heaven.
There is going to be a man that arises by the power of Satan in this world. He's called Antichrist and God is going to send through him.
Strong delusion.
That all those that did not receive the love of the truth.
Would be condemned.
God means business when He makes an offer to you.
Don't slight his offer, it's extremely important.
Now let's read.
What happens here when Jesus comes again? Revelation chapter 19 and verse 11.
And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a White Horse.
And he that sat upon him was called faithful.
And true and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns.
And he had a name written, which no man knew but he himself.
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped.
In blood and his name is called the word.
Of.
And the armies which were in heaven.
Followed him upon white forces, clothed in fine linen.
White and clean, and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written.
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And I saw an Angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls.
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That fly in the midst of heaven.
Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God.
That ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains.
In the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond.
Both small and great. And I saw the beast. The beast is a political.
Figure of the coming day. He's called a beast because he doesn't want to have anything to do with heaven. He just looks at earth.
And the kings of the earth, those that are under his power and their armies.
Gathered together to make war against.
That sat on the horse and against his army. Think of it when Jesus comes writing out of heaven.
Finally, at long last, Jesus comes.
They're going to get together probably the most powerful armies.
That this world has ever seen on display, and they're going to go to fight with Jesus.
Man's heart, naturally has not changed. They don't want.
Jesus.
And that's the picture that Scripture paints faithfully.
That will happen shortly.
What happens?
Verse 20 The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet.
Or the Antichrist that wrought miracles before him, with which he had deceived them, that received the mark of the beast.
And then that worshipped his image. These both were cast.
Alive into a lake of fire, burning.
With Brimstone.
The remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat on the horse.
Which sword proceedeth out of his mouth, and all the fowls that were fulfilled.
With their flesh.
This is the beginning of the great day of the Battle of God Almighty.
And as they array their armies and shoot their missiles against Jesus.
One after another, those armies is going to fall flat on their faces.
And the leaders are going to be taken, red handed and cast into the lake of fire. Jesus is coming back to establish His Kingdom here in this world. And it thrills my heart to know that God is going to.
Fulfill this, he's going to make his own son that was so dishonored #1 authority in this world.
These things are shortly to come to pass, Scripture tells us.
I don't know if you believe him. I don't see any other option but to believe them. There is no other way to understand this book, but it's going to happen.
And it's going to happen shortly. I plead with you to not fool around with God.
Maybe, you say, well, maybe I'll have died by that time. I won't have to meet him when he comes back.
You still cannot avoid Jesus.
You must meet him.
Let's go over one more chapter to chapter 20.
We're going to read a few verses.
Of what takes place, we don't have time to read in detail the 20th chapter.
That if you would read it, you would read that. The rain.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world is going to last one.
1000 years.
And then at the end of those years.
Let's read from verse 11 of this chapter.
It says here I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it. Jesus, necessarily Jesus.
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From whose face? The earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. This is the end of this present world as we know it, The end of the heavens and the earth as we know it. They're going to be folded up. They're going to be changed. There's a end for them all.
And here in space, suspended, is a great white throne, God in all his purity.
And it says here.
Verse 12 I saw the dead.
Small and great stand before God and the books were opened.
Which is and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life?
And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books.
According to their works, and the sea gave up the dead which were in it.
And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.
And they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire.
This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire.
Picture it in your minds eye friend, the awful finality of this that is going to take place. God has told us about it beforehand that you and I may be warned not to come to this end. Jesus died. Salvation full and free is offered to all. There is no need for you to come to this end.
But if you refuse to do with Jesus.
As a savior.
You still must meet him as the judge.
And in that day you will stand there before God and the books.
Will be open. God keeps books. God is a God of detail.
Everything you have ever said, everything you have ever done, every thought you have ever entertained in your mind, written faithfully in those books. You know, there's lots of things that people tell me that I did years ago. Frankly, I totally forgot about it.
But God doesn't forget.
And there are written, every single one. And the dead were judged out of those things written in the books. There they stand, spirit, soul and body before God, before the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're judged. But there's one other book, the Book of Life.
And according to other scriptures in that book are written the names.
Of all those who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Picture it. There stands somebody before that throne.
Perhaps somebody who sat in a gospel meeting?
Here the 27th of December, 2003.
And said I'll think about it. I don't want to accept him now.
And before they had another opportunity, they were taken away in death.
They are going to be raised to stand before Jesus.
In that day and the books are going to be read, you know, there's no time there, no need to hurry through all the records.
Take him all in minute detail.
And it's going to be evident.
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Your guilt before God, you will have not one word to say back to God. It will be evident that God wanted with all His heart to save your soul. 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 you determined.
To disobey God and go your own way to hell. It isn't God's fault. It will be evident it's your fault.
And it says whosoever was not found written in the Book of Light was.
Cast into the Lake of Fire.
The lake is an enclosure. There is no exit to the lake of fire. And as the soul is hurled cast into the lake of fire, into the blackness of darkness forever, as he fades, as the light fades, the last phase he sees is the face of Jesus, the one who died to save him.
God is love. He's done everything he possibly could to save your soul. He's roadblocked the road to hell with the cross of Christ, he said. Don't go that route. There is another way.
But if you stubbornly resist his pleas that you repent of your sins and come to Jesus in simple faith, that will be your end.
You know, there's a number of other believers here in this room tonight.
And I want to unite with every true believer in this room tonight.
To invite you to come home to Jesus.
Don't wait. Any luck? We're living in serious times.
You don't know it's going to happen tomorrow. I plead with you with all my heart.
And unite with all those who are believers in this room to come to Jesus.
Before it's forever too late.
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. Let's pray.
Gracious.