Gospel—Bruce Conrad
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Well, it's my privilege to welcome you to the gospel meeting tonight. Gospel means good news, and we have good news for you tonight. It's a great privilege and really an honor, uh, to, to be here and to speak about what we're gonna speak about tonight. I'd like to welcome everyone who, who came in on behalf of the Christians that meet here in Englewood. We'd like to start tonight by singing the hymn in this little hymn sheet #17.
If someone could start that for us, please hymn #17.
You.
Let's pray.
Our God and our Father we.
Thank Thee for the revelation given to us through Thy precious word of who Thou art and who Thy Son.
We thank thee that we have been brought to know him, so many of us in this room.
And yet we I suspect there will be some, whether old or young, that are still.
Strangers to thy love and thy grace, who do not have the assurance.
That they have been reconciled to the.
And so we ask tonight, as we would open thy word and read from it.
Bring before us.
Great glory and the great and wondrous work of my beloved Son.
We ask these things, our God and Father, praying for blessing on each soul, in the worthy and precious name of thy beloved Son, our God and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
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Well, I've been filled with instructions today.
Brother just came up and said don't be fancy right down the middle.
I told him I thought that was good advice and he said that's what you told me some years ago.
And then I got an instruction here. Please do not fiddle with a microphone. You must know I tend to do that. I'll try not to fiddle with the microphone.
You know, umm.
You're gonna think this is a funny way to start a meeting.
But I had this professor in college.
Umm, named Doctor Poguzelski.
He was from Europe. He was a calculus professor.
And uh.
We used to call him Doctor Pogo.
And, umm, he really appreciated the message the the pristine beauty of higher mathematics.
And one day when I came to class.
It was to him, a crowning lecture.
That that's what he said. It's a crowning lecture.
And I can't remember whether it was Stokes theorem or Greene's theorem.
Uh, it was like third calculus for those of you who have been through that stuff like the third calculus course, and it was a, that's the point where I begin begun to lose track of what any of it meant in the real world.
But he looked around at us and we were a bunch of engineering students and umm, kids were lounging around in jeans, probably in work boots and flip flops and T-shirts. And he looked around as he's about to present the crowning lecture and he was just so indignant.
That we were not really appreciating the message.
Because, he said in Europe for the crowning message, the students show up in a tuxedo.
And they come in in a tuxedo, and the professor is in a tuxedo, and they present the crowning lecture.
And I can remember that little classroom in Bo boardroom boredom hall. And he looked around us with, with almost contempt and he said, well, uh, what do I expect of a bunch of plumbers? Because to a scientist, that's what an engineer is, is a plumber, right? You make things flow and you make things stand up. And I knew I, so I, I acknowledge to Doctor Pogo that I indeed was learning to be a plumber and I was.
Good with it and and we developed a relationship. But I've thought of that comment that he made and his expectation that this lecture was so important that we should sit up straight, that we should have dressed better, that we should have arranged the chairs better than slouching around in our blue jeans and works work boots.
And as I considered the message.
That I have the responsibility to present tonight.
Tuxedo wouldn't do it any justice for you or for me.
May I ask the Lord when they ask me to speak here?
What should I talk about?
Kind of a dumb question really.
He said the person and work of Christ.
I've been sitting in the mountains for a couple of days just looking out every morning.
Reading. Staring.
When I consider the majesty.
Of the gospel message.
So this huge, I'm like an Ant. At the base of the Rocky Mountains. I'm like an Ant. That's not even a good enough analogy.
But Doctor Pogozelski was qualified to speak about Greene's theorem because he knew it and he loved it.
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And I can say, like others can in this room, that my qualification to speak about what we're gonna speak about tonight as I believed, I believed, and therefore have I spoken.
And so for about 1/2 an hour, maybe less.
With God's help, I'd like to turn to a few scriptures and speak about the wonder of the very Son of God who's coming to this world and about what he accomplished for God's glory on Calvary's cross.
You know the the teenagers like to say to each other and kind of Jess, they say, well.
It's not all about you.
Well, the gospel isn't all about you or me. It's God's good news. It's the gospel of God concerning his Son. But the wonderful thing is that.
That good news?
Includes your and my eternal blessing, if we will receive it.
So let's turn to.
John's Gospel chapter one.
John's Gospel chapter one, verse one in the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not. Anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
If you hold your finger there, then turn back to the book of Proverbs well known passage Proverbs chapter 8.
Proverbs Age. In verse 23. I was set up from everlasting from the beginning. Wherever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth. While as Yeti had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there. When he set a compass upon the face of the deep, when He established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he gave to the sea his decree that the water should not pass his commandment.
When He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him as one brought up with him.
And I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth. And my delights were with the sons of men.
One other scripture, Second Corinthians chapter 4.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4 and verse four. The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, or the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Peter tells us that.
The profits prophesied and they searched.
Their own prophecies.
To understand.
What they were about, as they prophesied of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow, unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they ministered the things that were being prophesied.
From the beginning of God's Word.
God laid the foundation.
In.
A general way.
That he was going to send his son into this world.
Gone.
Has a son.
We read in Proverbs 8 that the Father and the Son we're together for all eternity.
And we read, we read in the Gospel of John in the New Testament, that in the beginning was the Word.
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And the word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
He's the one by whom everything was made.
And not only did he make it.
He sustains it.
Moment by moment, right now.
If he should withdraw.
His spirit and breath for men this very moment, all flesh together.
Would dissipate into death.
Your heart is pounding away and mine is too, and He's sustaining your life and mine.
This is God's beloved Son.
He came into the world as man.
His manhood had a beginning.
Who he is?
Has no beginning. He's the eternal Son of God. I can't understand eternity, but I'm as Doctor Pogba used to tell me, just a plumber. Maybe you can understand it better.
You go out in your backyard and you look up at night.
And if you had the power to go out into the out into the darkness, into the sky, you could go and go and go and go and never, ever stop.
It's Infinity.
God made it that way. He made the stars also gave them all names.
Why did God make the mountains? Why didn't he make the earth?
6001 years ago.
Why did he make it so long ago? So that you can see the mountains and how they weather and the ice and the rocks and the erosion and all that happens in the fossils in the when they make a rock cut, you can see a slice through the earth and you see all the stuff that happened long ago through heat and pressure. I I think that God is making a point.
It's infinite.
In time we can't process it. In space we can't process it. And God made man with a capacity and innate capacity. He programmed us, so to speak, that we could sit like I did out and look at these mountains and realize that there is a divine power.
And someone or some person or something.
Did all this.
And man is responsible to acknowledge that.
And then we look at ourselves and our bodies and the way they work.
And the perfection of being fearfully and wonderfully made.
And we see that there's a divine power, a majesty.
But that's not enough. It was not enough for God.
You didn't choose how you were made. You didn't choose how you looked. You didn't choose your attributes.
You were dealt them.
If I could say it this way, God was free to be whatever he wanted to be, because he's God, and he chose to be all those things, all powerful wisdom, full of majesty beyond and bigger than eternity.
But he also chose to be light and to be loved.
I looked at the mountains for every As soon as I woke up, I grabbed my Bible in a blanket and went out there. It was cold.
I could have stayed there for 50 years and I wouldn't have just all of a sudden said I got it now God is love by looking at Whetstone Mountain.
As majestic as it is.
But having received this precious book, the word of God.
And having from its pages presented to me the person of God's Son.
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I now begin to learn what I couldn't learn from the mountains and from from power and majesty and wisdom and eternity, that God is love and God is light.
It says in John One that the life, his life was the light of men. He came into this world and he displayed in fullness what had never been seen before.
And he displayed it completely and perfectly.
Things in this life are rarely perfect or complete.
Brother was saying, you know, when I get up and I brother was saying, yeah, I, I wrote down my thoughts and then I presented them to the young people. But then I sit down and say, oh, I forgot this. I forgot that I wanted to mention this.
We we're not you could write a love letter to your.
Dream.
Girl that you want to marry, pour out your heart, but it wouldn't have everything in it. You could try to explain yourself to somebody the best way you could wouldn't have anything in it. But when God decided that the fullness of the fullness of time came that He would display himself, He did so in His Son and He was able and did communicate everything He wanted to communicate of himself.
In the person of his son.
And so the apostle Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, could say in him to welleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And men came up to the Lord Jesus when he was here, and he could say, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
God manifests in flesh.
He was in his life the light of men, and the light shineth in the darkness.
And the darkness comprehended it not.
How do you not see a light?
In Second Corinthians we read that the God of this world, which is Satan, hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ should shine unto them. I don't know how I managed.
As a little boy like that little boy back there.
Or a teenager. I sat in pews week after week. I've mentioned this before. I had my attendance. Little attendance things year to year. Just rolling down my little blazer.
In the light of the Lord Jesus, life in this world lit up, the world and me included, and I had no clue.
No clue.
Because my mind was blind.
And maybe that's your condition.
Maybe you were like me and and you thought I can vaguely remember hearing John 316 that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
And so now everything's fine. Live a good life.
Young people, boys, girls, older ones here, if you're not saved, everything is not fine. It's not fine at all. We have a a serious and profound problem. The Son of God could have come and displayed himself for God's glory and gone back into the glory from whence he came and left you and me here in our sins.
Sins, her brother referred to Daniel chapter 5.
Where the king?
Was spoken to by God.
And God said to him.
The God in.
Whose life?
The God in whose hand thy life is.
Hast thou not glorified?
Glorified.
Is it my responsibility to glorify God?
I grew up in a fairly responsible home.
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And I don't remember ever being told.
Bruce.
As you grow up, you need to glorify God. Never. I doubt it was ever said inside our little home.
But this book says that all have sinned and come short of what? Of the glory of God.
God is light and God is holy.
And when you tell people that, they get a little uncomfortable at first, as if they don't want God to be holy and pure.
But I say to them, would you stop and think about it? What kind of a God? If it was up to you, what kind of a God would you want?
And we were noticing, I think here a week ago.
The verse in the Psalms, when men do that. And the Lord spoke and said to men, Thou fought us, that I was altogether such a one as thou art, but I will reprove thee.
No, that's not the kind of God that you would want.
God is perfectly holy. God is light.
And delights in and exudes perfect purity.
But you and me were born in sin.
And as soon as we began to get up on our twos and crawl around, and even before, we showed that we are sinners.
And so we have a problem.
I marvelled after I came to know the Lord Jesus that there were verses in the Word of God that would have set me straight. So straight and so right, it seemed to me in retrospect.
I I'm I was old enough when I read the Bible for the first time to have remembered most of the most of the experience of it. And when I came to Ecclesiastes and I read God requireth that which is past.
I mean I was already knew the Lord as my savior, but I just.
I I almost took my breath away. That just throws a hand grenade into about every religion man has ever created or thought up.
What are you gonna do? You could turn over a new leaf. You could meditate or yoga eyes or eat the right food or do all this stuff. Great. Even if you could, great.
But God requires that which is past and you have a problem. And what are you going to do about that?
God chose to be light, but He chose to be love.
And so God we read in John 316 now that we understand a little bit that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish for his or her sins, but have everlasting life.
Another verse I read in John chapter 32 verses later after that.
Which stopped me in my tracks as well. Verse 18 of John 3.
He that believeth on him is not condemned.
But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God condemned already.
So many people feel like they are in neutral.
They feel like they're in neutral. I just haven't made my decision yet. Like on voting day, you know, people bug you about that.
For myself, I voted.
Quite a number of years ago, in 1976, I voted.
But they buggy about that.
And people say, well, I haven't made my decision yet. If you are not saved right now, right this moment, if you haven't put your trust in Christ, you are condemned.
You are a condemned man.
You're a condemned little boy or little girl or an old person.
You're condemned already. You have an issue. You have a problem.
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But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
And we read in John's epistle that he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world.
The Lamb of God has come.
To take away the sin of the world.
We haven't even talked about your sins or mine yet.
Except in a general way, for all the sins of everybody.
And the Lord Jesus came into this world.
In agreement and concert with his father, the father sent the son, but the son also, in the dignity and majesty of his person, came.
It was his choice to come. Lo here am I send me.
And he came into this world and he went to Calvary's cross as an offering for sin, and he put away sin from the the stench of sin from the presence of God.
And it will be effective forever.
Not yet.
The fruit of that work is not yet effective, if I could say it that way. Effective because they're still sinning the world.
But the accomplish accomplishment of that work laid the foundation.
That sin will be taken away from before God forever.
Propitiation is the side of the cross.
That is for God.
God has made man in a natural sense that there are certain things he is repelled by.
Certain odors.
And probably the most repugnant smell that a person in any culture could smell is the smell of death.
It's just an awful smell.
And if you've been around, I'm sure everyone has been around carcasses of animals or.
And you smell that horrible smell of death.
And of human waste. And God has put it into just naturally, He's a fitted man to be repelled by that for a very good reason.
That doesn't begin, I suspect, to describe how repugnant sin is to a holy God.
And it magnifies his delight in the fact that his son was willing to come and take manhood to himself, to take the servants form, and among other things, to proceed through his life to Calvary's cross.
And the Scripture says God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
And so that his work on Calvary's cross has glorified God, he could say prophetically. Then I restored that which I took, not away.
The only sinless one. Whoever put feet upon this earth was willing to be made sin on Calvary's cross. He was qualified to be a sin bearer. He was qualified to take sin on himself because of who he was.
As the perfect, pure Lamb of God.
And when he died on Calvary's cross with the victors cry at his finish.
He laid the foundation in that work on Calvary's cross.
That now God can justify the vilest Sinner and still be just in doing it.
Mycins have been taken away judicially before God. I have been justified. And if you've put your trust in Christ, so have you.
But even the person who rejects the savior his whole life.
His sins are not gonna be a stench before God forever either. They're gonna be put away.
And Scripture is careful to distinguish between propitiation, which Christ accomplished for God's glory.
He bought the whole field.
And he offered himself. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, John says, but for the whole world.
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And it's on this basis and on this foundation that God can now come forth.
In perfect consistency with his own holiness and purity. And come up to a center like me or like you and say come.
All things are ready.
Come unto me.
Mm-hmm.
On Calvary's cross.
The Lord Jesus.
Gave us an example of the man right next to him.
When those two thieves were put up on crosses, as if Satan was trying to camouflage the whole thing.
With as if there were three manufacturers there.
And they were both cursing the Lord, and while they were.
Dying.
And then one of the thieves that we know of, we don't know for sure what happened with the other one. Someone pointed out to me recently, but one of the themes that we know of came to himself.
And he displayed what the word of God calls repentance towards God.
And he rebuked his the other guy and he said.
We received the due reward for our sins. We deserve this.
That's just when God hears that from a Sinner. You could almost say that.
The light is starting to come through.
I deserve this and I know I came to a point in my life where I said I deserve. I am worthy of death.
And you are worthy of death, because the wages of sin is death, and the soul that sinneth it shall die.
And if you say you haven't sinned, you're a liar and therefore a Sinner.
With the thief turned to the Lord, as you've read the story, I'm sure, or had it read to you. And he said, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom.
Repentance towards God seen in that man.
And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Nobody puts their trust in somebody that's gonna die.
Unless they have an indication that something is else is going to happen.
Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom.
I don't know who told them about a Kingdom.
But the Lord abounded to him.
If the Lord had given him his wish, he'd still be waiting.
But the Lord said to him.
Push back the veil to that individual.
And said, Verily I say unto thee.
This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.
A lot in that one one expression.
Today.
With me.
In Paradise. I'm sure the thief probably didn't know where Paradise was, but it sure sounded like a wonderful place to be, especially if that is where the Lord of Glory was going.
And he went there, and he's been there ever since. And so someone could say, well, how do we know that wasn't just for that thief? It was a special blessing he got because he was on a similar cross or something like that, or he happened to be right there.
No, after the Lord Jesus was raised by God his Father from among all the rest of the dead, and after he ascended up into glory as man.
He sent forth the Holy Ghost. He sent forth his word.
And to this present hour.
Men and women and boys and girls who have put their trust in Him are telling others the wonderful news that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, that He was raised on the third day.
And I think it's this first right behind me. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
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The thief had no chance to do anything. His hands were were done. They were nailed there. He was never gonna get a chance to do a thing with those hands. He couldn't go anywhere. He couldn't walk this way. We were talking about walking in a spiritual sense today. He couldn't walk anywhere.
But his heart was still there.
With his mouth he confessed Jesus as Lord. Have you done that?
Or are you worried about being a Christian?
God is not asking you tonight and nor am I on His behalf in treating you to be a Christian.
Neither am I asking you or imploring you to love the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not asking you to worry about anything like that.
What I am asking you on God's behalf?
Is that you confess that Jesus is Lord?
And that you believe on him.
I don't think anything else.
Should be before your mind if you are not saved tonight.
God has pronounced him the man of his counsels, the Son that was with him and for all eternity, and his delight.
And God is going to bring him back into this world soon, and he will be acknowledged in this world amongst all nations, from the river to the ends of the world.
As Lord.
But tonight?
God would entreat you and beg you in advance of all that to confess him as Lord.
And if thou shalt confess with thy mouth like that priesthood, like that thief did, Jesus is Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Not asking you to believe that you're saved.
Asking you to believe on Him. He knows what He did, He knows the value of it, and He will apply it all for your present and eternal blessing.
As we mentioned before, I think in this room.
Of all the times in the Word of God where we're told to believe, almost every time we're directed to believe on the person of the Son of God Christ Jesus, the Man Christ Jesus. Very few times are we told to believe on His work. When we believe on Him, all the value of His work is made good to us, and it's a lifelong source of enjoyment and wonder. To read and to learn more and more.
Of what he has accomplished on Calvary's cross and everything that flows from that.
Elisha in the end of job. He said to job.
Speak I desire to justify the.
God wants to justify you tonight.
He wants you to come to him in such a way.
That you can have all your sins put away so that you are no longer guilty like you were when you came in this room tonight, but you are now justified that you are no longer unclean.
And your existence of sin is a stench before a holy God, but you can be clean.
No longer estranged, but reconciled.
No longer a stranger, but fellow citizens were the Saints and of the household of God.
All the work is done.
And he holds out his hands tonight.
And entreats you to come.
Come on to me, all ye that labor are heavy laden. I will keep you rest.
Let's sing in closing.
#23 someone could start.
Hymn #23.
00:45:00
Behold, behold, I must.
Come.
All the time.
Crawl.
Oh my God, it's sad to get my head just gone.
All the crown.
On the ground.
Just the last person.
And.
Let alone.
All the problems on the ground and brown.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's raining all right. You know about 735.
Oh my God, crawl.
Uh.
I arrived to branches. I'm now demonstrating.
Why don't you come down? I'll come back to my bed for one hour to meet some stop stop furniture's for ourselves.
Call Thomas. Dunno.
Oh, no problems.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for reaching out to us when we were in our sins.
And bringing before us.
The work of thy beloved Son that has satisfied thee with respect to sin.
And for that wonderful good news, our God and Father, that thou hast found a way to return we that were banished ones to thyself and righteousness. We give thee thanks, Lord Jesus, for being willing to come into this world and take our place on Calvary's cross.
To bear the judgment we deserved and set us free. We thank Thee that Thou hast redeemed us through Thy precious blood, and we ask Thy blessing upon Thy word. And if there is any person here tonight that is still unsure, we pray that the Holy Spirit would work in their hearts to bring them from darkness to light. From the power of Satan. Their eyes might be opened that they may see our God and Father, Thy glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
We give you thanks again, precious Savior, for the privilege to speak well of Thee, and on Thy behalf we trust tonight, and we ask Thy blessing and Thy worthy and precious name. Amen.