Gospel—D. Nicolet
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Our blessed God and Father.
We would indeed tonight, those of us in this room.
Who know the Lord Jesus as savior.
Would with joy echo these words. Hallelujah, What a savior and Father to night we would simply pray, and that by thy spirit thou wouldst work.
And bring a blessing which we are incapable of bringing.
Thou Father, who dost know thee needs of each heart in this room.
We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that thou wouldst meet by thy Spirit.
Those needs.
We thank you for such a message. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Help us. We pray tonight. In thy name. Lord Jesus, we ask this. Amen.
I'd like you to open, please, to the Gospel of Mark.
The 12Th chapter.
And beginning at verse one.
Mark chapter 12 verse one.
And he Jesus began to speak unto them.
By parables.
We trust tonight that.
What will be said?
That we believe.
That it's from the heart of the Lord Jesus speaking to each one in this room.
Do we trust that the Spirit of God might make it good? But, you know, it's a very solemn thing, dear friends, that yet tonight in this world such a thing can be said, He began to speak unto them.
The gospel is an intensely personal thing, each individual sitting in this room tonight.
Will someday stand at the very presence of the one recorded here.
Who began to speak to these?
Who were gathered around him, and each soul in this room will give an account of what?
You did with what that blessed man?
Spoke to your heart tonight.
Not the vessel delivering the message. That's very unimportant.
But to realize that there's a message tonight from the heart of the Savior.
To you.
It's being spoken by parables.
And I just want to apply it as we are going to do tonight in the various passages that we look at with the Lord's help.
We're going to apply what we see, what we read in the sense of the gospel. But he spoke in parables so that tonight it's going to require faith for you to understand what he's saying and we just pray and trust that there might be.
Submissive hearts and spirits here tonight to listen by faith, not again, I say to the speaker, but to the one who is speaking to your heart, desiring your blessing tonight, you know, those that he was speaking to rejected him. And that's very solemn. And we're going to look at that Now go down to verse.
12.
And they that's those that he was that the Lord Jesus was speaking to.
Sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people, for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them.
And they left him and went their way. They sent out to him certain of the Pharisees and of the Rodians, to catch him.
In his words.
Is that what you're doing tonight, dear friend?
Knowing in your heart and in your conscience that the Lord Jesus is seeking to reach your heart, that He's speaking to you and has been speaking to you faithfully for many years perhaps.
And are you reacting the way that these reacted?
That rather than allowing their hearts to be bowed in submission to that message that was being spoken to them.
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Their hearts were hardened, They were angered and they left him and went their way. Is that what's going to happen to you tonight? Are you going to leave this room?
Where by the grace of God, the gospel, however feebly it may be presented, but the gospel is being presented. Are you going to leave this room tonight and go your way?
Or will you listen by faith, as it were, to that parable being spoken for your blessing?
Not for your destruction.
And will you go from this room tonight following the Lord Jesus going his way?
You know they sent two groups to catch the Lord Jesus, and they were.
Two very awesome groups of people, the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees with a vast religious knowledge.
The Herodians with a vast political savvy.
At odds with each other, but united against the truth presented by the Lord Jesus, and they were sent to catch him in His words. You may be here tonight and have a great understanding intellectually of the word of God.
You might be a very savvy person understanding how to get through this world quite well.
It may be a goal to learn more to be able to find your way through it.
Don't try to catch Jesus in his words.
You'll be a loser tonight and for all eternity.
What a sad thing to use the mind that God has given you.
That you might submit it to his love. That you might repent and turn around and come back.
To use that mind to seek to debate.
With your creator, Men are doing that tonight. So proud, so foolish, they think that they have somehow the ability.
The expertise to debate with God.
It doesn't matter your level of education or your level of ability, your level of talent.
Think of it to catch him in his words.
He who speaks the words of life to you tonight.
The words that will bring blessing and joy, salvation, happiness.
For now and for eternity.
They're not to be debated. They're not to be argued. They're not to be reasoned with.
They are to be bowed to humbly before God.
And so they asked him a question.
In the end of verse 14, seeking to catch him, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?
It's quite a question.
If he answered yes, it's lawful to give tribute to Caesar. He would anger the Pharisees.
If he answered no, it's not lawful to give tribute to Caesar. He'd anger the erodians if he was a mere man. This was an impossible thing to answer.
He was not a mere man. He is God the Son.
A perfect man.
And the best that minds could bring to trip him up is utterly futile. And so I say again, dear friend, don't do it.
Don't seek in your mind to catch the Lord in his words to find some way to wiggle out of a conviction that the Spirit may be laying upon your heart tonight for your blessing.
And so the Lord Jesus does something very, very strange, naturally speaking.
Something very important. He's going to give an object lesson, and so he asks to see a penny. I think that's, as I understand it, a little silver coin, a little smaller, perhaps a little thicker than a dime, Called the denarius.
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And that penny, that coin is going to teach.
A very valuable lesson.
Because that coin is going to bear testimony to something.
Now you know a coin is something of value.
And if we were to turn over to Luke 15, we'd read about a coin and I think there it's a drachma. But.
As I understand it, be happy to be helped on this later, but as I understand it, it's about the same value as a denarius, a small little silver coin that was a Greek coin. This is a Roman coin.
But there there was a woman.
Who had 10 coins and one was lost and she lit a candle and she swept the house until she could find that coin. That coin had value.
And dear friend, tonight you have value to God.
Far more value than that little silver coin, but it's a little picture.
Of the value that you have to God. Now the Lord Jesus asks to see a coin, because on that coin there's a testimony to something that's going to give a very solemn.
Response to these who are seeking to catch him in his word, and so as he is given this coin.
In verse 16.
He saith unto them, Whose is this image?
And superscription. And they say Caesars.
There was a testimony plain to all that something.
Was very, very tragically wrong.
Think of it.
They're in their very presence. I say reverently, stood the image of God with a superscription. There he was the person God manifest in the flesh, the Word made flesh dwelling amongst them. There he was.
And he says, whose image is on this coin?
And they say Caesar's whose image should have been on that coin.
Had that nation of Israel bowed in belief and submission when John Baptist came calling them out to repentance? Had that nation, their leaders, gone out as a nation?
Would they have been looking at a little silver coin with Caesars inscription on it?
There was a testimony being rendered. Something was very, very wrong, and they should have known it, and they should have realized that in their very presence was the very image, very God himself, and they were blinded to it.
Now what? I want to spend a little bit as the Lord leads tonight.
Is to liken this coin to each one in this room.
Each soul in this room is far more valuable individually to God, of far greater value than this little silver coin. And each soul in this room tonight bears an image showing to whom you belong.
Either the image.
You might say of Christ.
Your savior or you sit here tonight?
A soul with priceless eternal value.
And you sit here bearing the image of the Prince of this world.
Which isn't.
And I've often heard this said, and I'll say it again, I look around this room and from the looks I would say every single person here.
Belongs to the Lord Jesus. That would be my judgment in looking on the outward appearance.
What is stamped on that coin as God looks down into this room tonight?
What image does he see? Does he see the image of his beloved son, who went to the cross and hung there, shed his precious blood on that cross, that he might have you with him forever?
Or does he see, as it were, the image of Caesar?
That you belong to another under the power and domination of another. There is no such thing as belonging to yourself. That's one of the most foolish things that I hear.
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That somehow you're your own man. You're your own woman.
That you can make your own decisions. You and you alone have the right to make those decisions. It's not so.
You're bearing an image tonight, either the image of Christ by faith.
Or the image of Caesar.
And what we want to do now is to look at three who bore images, as it were.
Images that I think as we look at them, you'll agree you'd not like to bear.
Images that you would agree, I believe you would hope, would not characterize you tonight.
I trust it so and to see how.
In our application, the image of Christ, the image of liberty, joy, eternal blessing.
Was given in the place of that image that was born, you might say, by these 3 coins we're going to look at, you know, those coins very, very well and we could almost talk from memory, all of us.
But let's turn back to Exodus to look at the first coin.
Exodus Chapter one.
I want to be careful in my comments, but I'd like to say especially for the beloved young people here tonight.
That I believe, in a moral sense at least. There are three images. If you do not, as you sit here tonight, bear the image of Christ, There are three other images, in a sense, at least as to their character, you may be bearing or are bearing.
It might be most prominently the world.
It might be most prominently the flesh.
It might be most prominently the Devil.
Morally. But if you don't bear the image of Christ tonight, having put your faith and trust in him as God's answer to man's sin, I say if you don't bear that image by faith, one of those others morally characterizes you tonight, and it's a sad image.
So sad when you can have that image traded changed now and forever in a moment by simple faith and trust.
In the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, Exodus Chapter one.
We're going to.
See Israel as a coin. The children of Israel and they're in Egypt.
In verse 11, therefore they that is, the Egyptians did set over them the Israelites taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for feral treasure cities, Python And Ramses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel and the children of Israel.
I'm going to read this in another translation, the J&D translation, verse 13.
And the Egyptians made the children and visuals serve with harshness, and they embittered their life with hard labor in clay and bricks, and in all manner of Labor in the field, all their labor which they made them serve with harshness.
It's quite an image to bear, isn't it? The image of the world. It's quite a demanding image. Is that what's important to you tonight, what this world has to offer?
I know very well.
As a teacher.
That the world makes wonderful sounding claims for your times and your talent, for your time and for your talents. And it tells you a very cleverly conceived lie. It tells you that if you give everything to it, it's going to give a lot back.
Take a clue. Beloved young people, dear friend, take a clue.
You tell me if serving with harshness is a fair trade for a life of giving, of your talents to bear the image of this world.
Is it worth it?
You think the children of Israel felt it was worth it when each day they got up feeling the whip of the taskmaster, knowing that their talents and time were going to be spent.
Building treasure cities for the one who ordered the lash for their back.
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Was it a good use of their architectural abilities? Of their physical strength?
Of their mathematical intelligence. Is that a good way to use it, bearing the image of that world?
To serve in that way.
Sure, the world wants you.
And it will tell you anything it needs to get out of you what it wants.
Because it sees that there are coins sitting in this room tonight. You have value to this world. There's a system that requires manpower and intelligence and gift and ability and energy to make it all work.
I'm certainly not suggesting that we don't need to work.
I think you know exactly what I'm saying, however.
There's a system.
That needs you to make bricks to continue building that system, and it wants to stamp you with that image.
And the result is.
Reading now from the King James and they made their lives bitter.
I am just amazed.
It may sound almost contradictory.
But in the college where I teach, I see so many men and women, not just young men and women. But I'm going to speak about some that I see frequently in the classes I teach who are in their late 30s and early 40s and even older.
And they have been serving in this world. They have been burying the image that coin they represented a value to this world. And they have been serving in this world, building bricks. Only the problem of it is all of a sudden the world that they've been serving, the image that they've been bearing doesn't need bricks anymore. It needs something else to build with and they're cast over, thrown out.
Nothing more to do.
Because they can't give to the world what it needs any longer.
I see some very, very bitter, frustrated people sitting in my classroom trying to figure out how to use a computer.
It's really not a funny thing. It's a very sad thing.
They spent their time working with their hands, laboring on assembly lines, driving trucks, working in stores, doing all sorts of things, building bricks for this world. And they were very happy to bear the image of the world. It needed them. It paid them.
And then it didn't need bricks anymore.
And it didn't need them anymore.
And they learned what bitterness and harshness is. And you will too, dear friend, if this world is your object and your goal, their beloved young people.
You walk through this world as I do, as each one does, and we need to provide things honest in the sight of all men. That's true, but we're walking through the world.
And there's a difference between walking through it and settling down and reaching out and embracing it and accepting its image and its superscription to be identified in.
Your ways.
And in your words.
With a world that is such a taskmaster.
They made their lives bitter.
Hard *******? We're going to skip over the story. Well known.
They want to notice in the end of chapter 2.
Verse 23 the end of the verse.
Verse 23 Let's read the whole verse. And it came to pass in the process of time that the king of Egypt died and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the ******* and they cried.
And their cry came up to God by reason of the *******.
They got a new leader. Did it make any difference? Did they quit crying? If the Lord leaves us here in a few days, we're going to get a perhaps new leader. At least some changes will be made in government.
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The world will change some things. It prides itself on doing that every two years and every four years.
The old leader goes, The new leader comes in all the promises, all the expectations.
And in a very few days, the ******* is felt just as keenly.
They didn't stop crying.
They sighed by reason of their ******* and their cry. But here's a wonderful thing. Their cry came up to God. Do you realize tonight that there is one who is interested in you personally, the God who created this world?
Has a personal interest in you and a personal love for you. Is it possible you sit there?
And I certainly don't belittle anyone who works on an assembly line.
But whatever your job, whatever my job is.
Not very important. Daily, working faithfully, trying to do our job. Nothing important, nothing valuable, Nothing that's going to make the headlines of the newspaper. Is it possible that God is interested in you and in me? Yes, we're a coin, as it were, that has value and he wants.
You to be bearing a different image than the image that's making you or is going to make you sigh and cry by reason of your *******.
He heard. Is there a heart tonight that's aching in here for some reason that you may not even be able to describe to your best friend? But there's a heart that hurts. There's a heart that has burdens and sorrows, and you don't even know how to express them.
There is a God who loves you, and he knows what's in that heart.
And he's hearing that sigh that's coming up, and he wants to reach out to you and do something about that. Will you let him?
For the sake of time we will not go on but with this, but I do want to turn over.
To chapter 12.
I.
Verses that perhaps most of us could quote from memory.
Chapter 12 And verse three speaking unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, in the 10th day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb according to the House of their fathers.
A lamb foreign house. Verse five. Your lamb shall be without blemish.
A male of the first year, he shall take it out from the sheep or the goats.
And you shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month, and in the whole assembly the congregation of Israel shall kill it.
In the evening, and they shall take the blood and strike it on the two sideposts and on the upper doorpost of the houses.
Wherein they shall eat it.
You know very well tonight who that Lamb pictures.
Can you listen to these verses from the Word of God Read Picturing to us the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God's providing, coming into this world, laying down his life, shedding His blood that you might be delivered from the very thing that's causing your heart tonight to sigh and cry.
And to still think God doesn't love you, doesn't care about you, that you don't have value to God, that he doesn't desire as it were, that his image.
Be upon you tonight.
Is there something more that you?
Feel God should do.
To prove his love for your soul than what he's already done.
I say reverently, Is there anything God could do?
Is there anything God can do? You know the answer to that He's given the very.
Very best that he could possibly give, and as we've often heard.
And we love to say it. Those of us who know the Lord Jesus as savior, the very best.
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For the very worst.
That you might bear that image.
To night blood had to flow. The Blessed Lord Jesus Christ had to lay down his life. His blood had to be shed. Without the shedding of blood is no remission.
Tonight. Why, how you would sit here?
Knowing this is true, it's God's word and still say no, I'd rather bear the image of the place that makes me sigh and groan.
I would rather be spending my life building something up in this scene that, as we heard today, is going to be burned up with fervent heat.
We make a lot of choices in our life.
I tell my students.
That there are two ways they can use a computer.
For the particular thing that I'm responsible for teaching them, at least they can.
Work with a computer in two ways. They can work smart or they can work stupid.
What else? I want to be careful. What a stupid thing.
To sit here tonight reading such verses.
And still be debating with God whether or not He loves you or wants to bless you when He's given His own beloved Son who dwelt ever in past eternity and perfect divine complacency in his bosom, the Eternal Son.
Made flesh dwelled among us. Lay down his life and you sit here tonight and still want to debate with God.
About whose image you're going to bear.
It's working stupid.
Let's look at the next one.
I.
For Samuel.
And so I said, there's an image of the world that you might bear tonight if you don't bear the image of Christ.
Or you may be bearing an image of the flesh that is.
It may be your object in this world. Not so much to do something for the world, not so much to be something in this world and please the world and work for the world, but to please yourself.
To satisfy yourself, there's a lot of people like that. We have that tendency. That's within us.
That we want to do what's pleasing to us. Let's read about one who did.
You know the story well. First Samuel, chapter 30.
And it came to pass when David and his men were coming to Ziklag on the third day.
That the Amalekites had invaded the South, and Ziklag and smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire, and had taken the women captives that were there, and they slew not any.
Either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way. So David and his men came to the city, and behold, it was burned with fire.
And their wives and their sons and their daughters were taken captive. And David and the people that were with him.
Lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep Her say. David inquired at the Lord St. Schlie pursue after this troupe.
And he answered him pursue.
We'll stop there for just a minute.
I'm going to draw an application.
That I have learned from others.
Amalek is a picture.
Of the flesh, or perhaps we might say of Satan acting on the flesh.
He was an enemy that was going to have constant battle with the people of God from generation to generation.
An unending battle.
There would be victory if the people of God simply walked in obedience to Jehovah.
But they would have that battle.
And so here's David and David and his followers have something that's very precious to their heart, existing in a city that belonged to David.
But the flesh wants to come, not to kill, but to take for itself.
To take what belongs rightfully to David and to use it for itself.
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Do you know, dear friend?
That not only is God interested in you, not only does God love you.
Not only does he desire your blessing tonight.
But even if you're rejecting him.
You really are responsible.
Before him.
Think of it. Every soul that can understand what's being said tonight is responsible before God.
But there is an enemy. There is, you might say, an image that you may be stamped with.
You who ought to be, you might say, that possession that brings joy to the heart of David.
Joy to the heart of the Lord Jesus.
But you may be like the one we're going to read about who was serving the Amalekite.
Stamped with a very, very different image.
Down in verse 11 and they found an Egyptian in the field and brought him to David.
You know, if we just stop there.
We didn't have any more from this scripture than that, and we.
In our minds, wanted to finish the story. Think of it.
Here's this Egyptian and we learned later.
His confession of serving the Amalekite? What could he expect from David, rightfully?
Perhaps we should read that.
We show the kind we see the kindness of David.
But let's skip down to verse.
13 And David said unto him, To whom belongest thou, And whence art thou?
Would that be a fearful question to be asked by one that you knew was responsible in his life for slaying a giant that perhaps stood 10 or 11 feet tall?
And to answer that question, knowing that you were part of that which had stolen away what was precious to his heart, that you were part of his helping his enemies.
To take what belonged to him. How would you like to answer that question?
What do you think belongs to the heart of the Lord Jesus tonight?
What do you think belongs to the heart of God, your Creator, tonight in reference to you?
Have you been serving?
The Amalekite.
As that which God values that coin, if you will that you are that has value to God got the image.
Of the servant of the Amalekite stamped on it because instead of serving and pleasing God, you've been pleasing yourself.
And as it were morally stealing away that which belongs to him, which would bring his heart joy.
What an awesome question to be asked Whose image and superscription?
Who are you? Where are you from?
And he says.
I'm a young man of Egypt.
Servant to an Amalekite.
Was it worth being stamped?
As a servant to an Amalekite, 3 days ago my master left me because three days ago I fell sick. We made an invasion upon the South of the Cherub Lights and upon the coast which belonged to Judah and upon the South of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag with fire.
You'd expect the sword would fall now.
That would be justice.
But it's not the love of Christ.
It's not the heart of the love of God who tonight wants to bless you.
There had been bread.
For life there have been water for refreshing. There had been figs so that there could be fruit. There had been raisins, joy, all of that, instead of a sword of judgment, all of that given.
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To one who had been serving and was stamped with the image and the superscription.
Of the Amalekite.
And then David?
After eliciting this honest.
Confession.
Says something very interesting.
Canst thou bring me down to this company?
Oh, beloved friends, I feel tonight. And it's good. So inadequate my blessed Savior, who died on a cross for me and shed His precious blood for me.
As it were in saying I've got a company of prisoners down there that I love and I want them to be delivered. Can you bring me down?
And we trust by the Spirit of God.
That Christ can be brought down.
To deliver you tonight.
I can't deliver you.
Beloved brothers and sisters sitting here love the Lord children sitting next to them that they would die for.
They can't deliver them.
May God grant that somehow David is brought down tonight.
That there might be the image of Christ.
Replace that image, you might say, of the flesh.
This young man, an Egyptian, a servant to the Amalekite.
Was shown such incredible grace and kindness.
Do you suppose he could have possibly said no? He was still fearful of David. I get fearful of the Lord. That's not a good thing. That's a terrible thing.
He doesn't say no, he says.
Verse 15 Swear unto me by God that thou wilt neither kill me nor deliver me unto the hands of my master.
He had never known the kindness that he knew at the hands of David. He didn't want to go back to that master.
There's a new image he's bearing and he's not interested in getting that old image back. And so when David says, can you bring me down, he says that and then he says, and I will bring you down to this company. Another has pointed this out years ago and I love to think of it. David didn't say, I'll swear to you. David didn't say anything.
It says I will bring thee down to this company. And when he had brought him down, what happened?
Well, I like to think that this Egyptian young man, even as he said those things, was saying, what is the matter with me? This one who had every right to destroy me, to slay me, has shown me such infinite kindness. Is he now going to slay me?
No, he was enjoying little by little in his soul the growth of such wonderful divine love that David didn't have to even answer that rather foolish question.
He knew, as he asked, that all he could ever expect from David.
Would be kindness and mercy and grace, and so can you tonight.
Which image do you want to bear?
The image of a servant of Amalek.
Is that what that coin is going to bear tonight?
Or the image of Christ, who only and ever will do you good and show you kindness and mercy.
Let's look at the last one.
The Gospel of Math.
Let's see.
This may be Mark.
Yeah, The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 5.
And they verse one, that's the Lord Jesus and his disciples came over unto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, when Jesus was come out of the ship immediately and met him there, met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. Here's one stamped, you might say, with the image of the Prince of this world.
The Lord Jesus comes there and this one comes out to meet him.
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Under the power of an unclean spirit, I want to say something.
You know, we live in a world today which is marked to such an extent that we're hardened to it by the ravages of.
Immorality, drugs.
You name it. Every kind of deviant behavior marks the world in which we live.
To such an extent that it really we have to say with sorrow doesn't.
'Cause our hearts to ache as it ought, we're so surrounded by it, and you may be sitting here thinking.
That's going a little too far. I'm not under the power of Satan. I don't get involved, but I'm not a drug addict. I don't get involved with the kind of filth that goes on.
I'm not talking about someone who's in the gutter.
I'm talking about very upright, decent looking.
Clean living, well educated people who have been captured by those very things.
I'm going to tell a story. I've told it before. I trust those who have heard this will forgive me.
Several years ago.
A 747 airliner took off with a full complement of passengers from the Tokyo airport.
And it continued on through the night. On its journey, it had veteran pilots and navigators.
A veteran crew.
And after it had gone 12 or 1300 miles on its journey.
It was destroyed by missiles fired from Russian military aircraft.
All lives were lost. I don't know 200 and 5300 people on that 747.
All lives were lost.
The Russians claimed that that aircraft had strayed over sensitive Russian military land and they had a right to protect their sovereignty to shoot it down.
Inquiries were made and this is, as I understand it, the sad and tragic reason why that awful thing took place beyond the.
Unutterable wickedness of man's heart.
They said that evidently the various instruments that were necessary for the pilot to navigate a course laid out by the navigator and laid out by whatever requirements were given for that airplane to fly its course.
Was off about 110th, I'm going to say, of a degree.
It was off so little.
That they said the pilot, though a veteran, would not have been able probably to pick it up.
There was a very, very slight malfunction, but in fact it was off.
And the result was down the road 2 1/2 hours later. It wasn't off a little bit, it was way off.
The elephant Young people. You want to mess around with drugs. You want to mess around with the things the world messes around with tonight.
And think you're just going to touch it a little bit.
You're off just a 10th of a degree.
Where is it going to end in a couple of years if the Lord leaves us here?
Destroyed.
You don't have the wisdom.
To make a calculation, there's a Prince of the Power of the Air who is far stronger, far more capable of destroying you than you have any concept of. And here's a perfect example. Here's one who was marked with that image. You may think tonight you're not marked like this.
But I want to tell you, you're in a world that is encouraging you.
All the time that it's setting these big banners up saying don't do this and don't do that at the very same time.
In all of its advertising and marketing schemes, it's really encouraging you to do the very thing it's telling you not to do.
Because it's making those things seem like a really neat, fun, exciting.
Thing.
00:50:01
Well, let's look at what this one, this coin enjoyed being stamped with this image in Superscription.
He had his dwelling among the tombs. A nice place to live in a place of death.
You know, we came to the school today and we drove up here and my wife commented, boy, there's some beautiful homes in this neighborhood.
But you know, if the people who live in those homes are strangers to the Lord Jesus.
Those homes, in a sense, are tombs because that's where they're dwelling.
So here's one who was dwelling in tombs and no man could bind him. No, not with chains because he'd often been bound with fetters and chains and the chains had been plucked asunder by him. You know, I'm reminded we got a a few years ago in the little town where we used to live. After a big fuss, they finally got the horse track to become a casino and they put all the equipment in so people can gamble they didn't have the equipment in there. A month before the billboards were going up saying you got a gambling problem. Call 1800, bets off.
They're trying to bind the thing they started.
With chains and it's not working. You just heard recently of a man, a very, very wealthy man. He was a millionaire two or three times over.
And except for the quick, as I understand the reaction of the emergency Rescue Squad.
He would have made good on his attempt to kill himself because through gambling he lost every cent of his fortune within a very, very short time.
Did 1800 bets off keep him chained and bound? You think the and I don't discount them because there are some horrible things and and the people in general have a conscience. We can be thankful for any conscience they have. So what I'm about to say is not a discounting of this but But listen, beloved young people, dare DARE isn't going to bind you if you're stamped with the image of the Prince of this world.
That's not going to keep you from the ravages of drugs.
And so this man was bound. And what did he get to do? How much fun was he having? What did this one who ruled his life give him to do?
And always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones.
Our time is up.
I want to tell you of another superscription.
This is Jesus of Nazareth the King.
Of the Jews, you know very well where that was.
Placed on the cross above the head of the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who hung there and died and shed his precious blood, that tonight you need not bear the image and the superscription that these three we've talked about had to bear.
That that coin, as it were, can be held up in joy. The question asked. Whose image?
And superscription is this, and say by the grace of God my blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He suffered. He was cut far more deeply, I say reverently, than the stones of that man under the power of Satan was cutting himself with. But he wasn't cut because of himself. He was cut for me.
And he was cut for you.
What you have in tonight?
It's not really much of A choice.
But it's a choice that's going to have its effect in your life.
For all eternity.
May God help you tonight, beloved friend.
To accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.
That's great, Father. We thank thee for the Lord Jesus.
We thank you for thy precious word.
As we pray tonight, that by thy spirit.
Thou wouldst do a work in souls that we cannot do?
That there might be blessing, eternal blessing. Tonight we ask this Lord Jesus and thy precious and worthy name.