Gospel—Bob Thonney
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Good evening everybody.
I'd like to start this meeting by reading 3 verses.
First of all, in Acts chapter 2.
And verse 36.
Therefore.
Let all the House of Israel know.
Know assuredly.
That God has made.
That same Jesus.
Whom ye have crucified, both the Lord and Christ.
Acts 10.
And verse 36.
The word.
Which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ.
He is Lord of all.
One more verse in Romans chapter 14.
And verse 9.
Or to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father.
What a privilege to open Thy precious Word and to read it, and to talk about that glorious person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask that Thy Spirit may have liberty to bring home these scriptures.
To each heart present this evening.
We pray, Father, because we are concerned that there are perhaps.
Some that have not truly accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior and their Lord. We pray that thy word might penetrate. We give thanks, Father, for these moments together in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
When I was in the 7th or 8th grade.
We had a popular singer come to our school and we had an all school assembly in the gymnasium.
It was a popular singer and he sang a lot of the popular songs of that day. But at the end of his program, he got up to the microphone and said.
I've asked your principal permission to sing my favorite song.
And he got up to the microphone. It was one of these guys with a great big belly, and they can really pump it out. But I had never forgotten it. He sang How Great Thou Art. The first two stanzas of that song speak of creation.
The last two speak of redemption.
So I'd like to sing that tonight. I think perhaps we know it well enough that we can sing it together.
Oh Lord my God.
When?
I am.
In.
I can see the last time.
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And I have to change my.
Soul, my mistake.
I want to pray.
The Lord.
Of the grave.
Power.
Oh, I see the gods with me.
And Sainsbury's my soul, I say goodbye to me.
I'm praying about the heart.
Great, now the hands Sainsburys, my soul, my savior God should be.
A heartbreak of honor of our grace.
Cloud.
You know what Steve made when we were talking about worship? It came to me that you have to know Him to be able to worship him. And so I want to speak about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he?
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And how does Scripture present them to us? There's three specific places in the New Testament.
That speak of the glories of his person. John, Chapter one.
Hebrews chapter one and Colossians chapter one. We're going to go to John chapter one this evening to read.
There about this glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's read a few verses here.
John 11 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 darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
Verse 6 Just want to comment that this is not talking here about the word. This is talking about a man sent from God, John the Baptist.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light, that all men might through him might believe he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him.
And the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood.
Nor of the will of men of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. So here we have the person of our Lord Jesus Christ presented and it starts in the beginning. You can understand something properly. You got to start from the beginning.
And in the beginning was the Word. He was there. Whatever beginning you want to talk about, He was there because He is the eternal Son of God.
And the word was with God.
In other words, he was a distinct person in the Godhead. God is Father, Son.
And Holy Spirit, the Word was not the Father, the Word was not the Spirit, the Word was the Son. And so it says He was with God, but at the end it makes it clear that He was fully divine. He was God himself, manifest in the flesh. The same was in the beginning with God. You know, there's bad doctrine that teaches that there was a point.
In which the Jesus became the Son of God. No, in the beginning he was the Son of God. He always was that. And then it says all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. So He is the creator of all things that are made. I think that is fascinating.
I find that so fascinating to study the universe.
Incredibly.
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Amazing.
To see the vastness of it, even the Milky Way Galaxy in which we are situated.
You know, and I, I have a book at home that my children gave to me because they know I enjoy studying the stars. And in that book it says it's been published several years ago now that in the Milky Way Galaxy, there's approximately 100.
Billion stars. I don't, we don't grasp the number. It's there's about 8 billion people on planet Earth right now, but it's not 8 billion stars. It's 100 billion stars, it says.
And I think I've told this before. You'll excuse me if I tell it again.
And the young people sing in California. I was speaking and I mentioned that figure and young brother came up to me afterwards and says, you know what, it's closer to 200 billion now that they're talking about.
And then it was a few years ago, I was in California and a friend of mine let me see a video of some astronomers.
And he said the number is now close to 300 billion. The numbers just keep going up and up. That's our God. Do you have any idea of the vastness of the universe? I I don't think we do. I think it is helpful sometimes.
So it's on the Alta Plano at a conference some years ago and.
Go out at night before the moon comes up.
And, you know, out there on the High Plains of that Bolivia, there is not a lot of pollution. And to see the vastness of the Milky Way Galaxy, it's so clear that you can actually see other galaxies with the naked eye, little clouds of light here and there outside of the Milky Way Galaxy.
And I stood there and just looked at it.
How is significant is this poor guy standing here? I don't really count.
But God said he was interested.
Oh, what a God? Do we grasp the vastness? This is why we worship. You know, worship is not merely expressed in words. Sometimes we use words to worship.
But you find those wise men that came.
To look for the Lord Jesus after his birth. It was sometime later because they found him not in the stable.
They found them in the house.
The wise men people always paint them with three wise men. Nowhere does it say there were three wise men.
Talking to a friend of mine, he said I think it probably was closer to 20 or 30 wise men that came from that distance because it was only three. They would get robbed on the way. There's a lot of thieves in those times, so it had to be a good better number and so here they come.
That day, probably close to two years, a little less than two years after the birth of the Lord Jesus.
And here's Mary with her first born son the Lord Jesus Christ in that house. And here comes in those wise men. I don't know how they must have been dressed, but it says they got down on their faces to the ground.
Before that little child.
Oh, they recognized who he was. Do we understand who he is? We're living in a day that people make everything of man.
Your world, your life, your decision.
Come on, let's get beyond it.
Let's see our God as He is revealed in the person of the Lord Jesus. You know on that first verse it uses the word, the title, the word, and sometimes I say, what does that mean?
I stood here without saying a word.
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For 5 minutes.
You look at me and say, what in the world is he thinking?
You wouldn't know until I open my mouth and use words to express what I'm thinking. And the Lord Jesus is the word of God. He's the complete revelation of all that God is. You want to know God?
Look at the Lord Jesus. He is the word of God.
And he is the creator of all things. But notice in verse four it says in him was life.
And the life was the light of men, light. Interesting.
Look at the light bulbs we have up here.
Are they making any noise? I can't hear anything.
Are they saying anything? No, but because of these lights, I can see you all over there and over on this side too. Everything is made manifest by the light and you can hide things sometimes from your mom and dad.
From your brethren.
But you can hide nothing from this person who is the light of the world. And it says verse five, the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
You know why the darkness didn't comprehend it?
Says in Second Corinthians chapter 4 that the God of this world, that Satan has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them.
You can shine a spotlight into the face of a blind man. How much is he going to see? Nothing. Because he's blind. The light is on him, but he doesn't see a thing. Oh, how sad it is that there are people that are blind. You know, I, I'm really concerned this evening.
Because I see that there are those.
Who say they're Christians who have not really surrendered to the Lordship of Christ? We read those 3 verses at the beginning that He is Lord of all. What does that mean? It means He has supreme authority. Have you surrendered to the authority of the Lord Jesus?
Have you repented of your sins? That is so important. Without repentance there is no salvation.
Repentance is important for salvation, but repentance in itself does not save. What saves is faith in Christ. But it's important to repent, and repent simply means to change your mind. We all have a sin nature. We like to do our own thing. We like to have our own way.
No, there's a boy. I was naughty sometimes.
And I got spankings.
And I'll never forget one spanking my dad gave me.
They called me Robert, then said, Robert, I want you to come back and admit you were wrong. You know what? When I came back to admit to my dad that I was wrong, I bawled more than I did when I got the spanking. It hurts so much to to to admit.
I was wrong.
And that's what we have to do. And then to recognize the Lord Jesus is Lord of all. It's not a matter of what I want. We live in a world that tries to get us to think that we have the right to do what we want.
We don't have rights to anything except judgment.
But the Lord Jesus came to save us from that, and now he has all the rights. You know what? I just want to say this to the young people, as I said to myself.
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I find that those people who live to please themselves.
Are empty. They are not happy people. They are not satisfied.
You want to be happy, I want to ask you to surrender to the lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's go on here in this chapter, verse 6-7 and eight talks about John. He came to bear witness of the light. Isn't that interesting sometimes I.
Said it this way.
What if I go downtown Grand Rapids?
On a sunny day.
And everybody I meet in the street, hey, the sun is shining.
In the world are you talking about, you crazy guy? Everybody can see that the sun is shining.
But you know what? When Jesus came the light of the world, this world is so blinded that God had to send a man ahead of the Lord Jesus to say this is the true light.
That came into the world and there were a few that believed. Says he came into his own and his own received is not the Jewish people.
Was in the world and the world knew him not and that tragic to think about. There was that little baby boy born in Bethlehem. His mother wrapped him in swaddling clothes in a stable, laid him in a Manger.
Nobody knew that the creator of the universe had come into his own creation.
Oh, how tragic.
So the angels, when they came down, remember the angels had never seen their Creator before. For the first time they see that little baby, they knew that it was their Creator. And they say what happened to these people? Don't they know what's happened? So they went out into the countryside to tell some shepherds that were out there.
And the shepherds were the first to come.
And to see that newborn baby. So he says, he came unto his own. His own received him not, but as many as received him. I want to ask you, have you received him?
Still remember?
Young man came who was a student in university, law student, and he was under conviction to tell and he was in tears, he says.
I want to know what to do to be saved. What do I have to do?
The brethren tell me I have to repent. I don't understand what to do. I said, well you're a law student, you should be able to figure this out in verse 12. Please read it to me.
As many as received him, to them gave he the power, the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
What do you have to do?
What does it say?
Did you catch it your children? What do you have to do?
Exact though that's that's right.
Came out in Spanish. Sorry, but that's all you have to do is believe I'm listening. That's the way you receive him. Doesn't say you have to pray. You want to pray. OK and so I got that guy to read it for me I said.
That's what it says just to believe on his name. I says if you want to pray it's OK, but it doesn't say you have to pray. Says that you have to believe on his name. And it's belief not merely with.
The mouth, it's belief with the heart, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe.
In thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. As always believing in the heart. There's so many that don't believe in the heart. Yeah, they make a scent to the fact. Yeah, I believe.
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And this is what concerns me, knowing the challenge you young people as well as the older ones.
As to how real?
Your believing is.
When we first moved to Bolivia, we built a house right next door to the meeting room in Montero, Bolivia, and one of the young men who was subcontracted to help in the construction of the house.
Seem to be a real believer and he.
Went with us and some of the trips and the weekends we did to visit some of the other meetings out in the jungle areas and seemed like he was a real believer. When we got down building the house he went off to some other area and I lost contact with him. One day I met him in the marketplace in Santa Cruz. Where have you been?
Oh, I'll come back to meeting. I'm going to come back to meeting.
I said no. Are you reading the word of God? Oh, come back to me. It's not about the meeting, it's about the word of God.
Anyhow, we lost contact again.
If you ever in Montero, Bolivia, you know that they use motorcycles for taxis there. Instead of hiring a taxi, you just signal a motorcycle taxi and you get on the back and they take you where you want to go.
Well, in Montero, while we were living there, these motorcycle taxis, the guys kept appearing out in the country dead.
And I couldn't figure out who's doing this.
Until it came to light.
One guy they found out in the country with a bullet through his head, but he hadn't killed him and they took him into the hospital.
And he got better and he told who it was. It was this guy.
And he confessed it was a military regime in Bolivia at the time and they are fairly hard and so they probably tortured him, but he confessed have killed 12 People.
And other things that he did were just shocking.
Well, since it was a military regime, what they did to take care of this criminal was under the guise of doing an investigation out into the countryside, because he would sell the motorcycles at a cheap rate to somebody and take the money. It took him out into the countryside to investigate and all of a sudden here he takes off from the jungle.
And they cry out to him, stop and he didn't stop. And so they take out their pistol and boom boom.
He went into a lost eternity.
It totally shocked me. I broke bread with somebody who is in hell fire right now. How can that happen? Is that happening now? I fear it is because you know, there are a number of young people that used to break bread that are now atheists.
And I say what happened.
Because people make a profession with their lips without being real in their hearts. Where are you? Over there or over here? Are you real with God? You can fool me, you can fool the brethren. You can never fool God. Be real with God.
Oh, I plead with you. It's way too important.
To mess up on this issue.
And so the Lord Jesus.
Is the Word of God just one more verse here about His person? In verse 14 the Word was made flesh. This is the only reference in John's gospel to His birth. And dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.
The glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. Oh, that's wonderful.
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It was a glorious person will never comprehend the fullness of His glory, but it is our privilege to think about it, to read about it. And the more we understand His glory, the more we will be worshippers.
But then it says, full of grace and truth. You know, some of us might be gracious.
But we're not full of truth at the same time. And there are those who are truthful, but they're not gracious. But this person was full of grace and truth. I think it is so amazingly wonderful how he handled every situation he came up on.
You remember one day in the temple they brought a woman.
Taking in a serious sexual sin, adultery and said Moses said we should storm this woman. What do you say?
The Lord Jesus didn't answer anything, He just stooped down and wrote on the ground.
They kept on asking him.
The hypocrisy of those Pharisees was pretty evident. For adultery you need a man as well as a woman. Why didn't they bring the man to?
The Lord Jesus was full of grace and truth, and so he's finally says, he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.
And they were all convicted.
Those Pharisees, and they got up and they went out from the oldest to the youngest, because the oldest had more sins.
And finally, the Lord Jesus stands up again and sees only the woman standing there.
Woman, where are your accusers? Has no man condemned you? She said. No man, Lord.
Wait a minute. There's one man there that has never sinned. He's without sin. He can condemn her.
So, Lord Jesus.
But he did not come to condemn, He came to save. He's full of grace and truth. Oh, how wonderful to know that glorious man, but to be able to say to that woman.
Neither do I condemn thee. Something was necessary. There was a sacrifice that needed to be made. And so let's go over to John chapter 19 where we have the Lord Jesus.
His work of redemption talked about.
Pilot, the Roman governor stated Three times, I find.
No fault in this man, and yet at the same time he said that he commanded him to be scourged.
And then he commanded him to be taken and crucified.
Verse 16, Chapter 19 Then delivered He him therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus, and led him away.
And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.
Where they crucified him and two other, with him on either side, one and Jesus in the midst.
Pilot wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
Verse 23. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts to every soldier apart, also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top, without throughout. They said, Therefore among themselves, let us not rend it, but cast lots for it whose it shall be.
That the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith they parted my raiment among them.
And for my vesture they did cast lots these things there for the soldiers did. So the Lord Jesus was crucified outside the city of Jerusalem. You know, when we think of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.
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What he had to go through to redeem our souls. There were physical sufferings, there were emotional sufferings, there were sufferings for sin.
Those physical sufferings, I can't imagine what it must have been to hang with nails through your hands and feet.
Hour after hour, to be mocked, to be spit upon. You know, one of the things they said to him was he said he was the Son of God. If he's the Son of God, let God come and deliver him.
Did God come and deliver him?
No.
Why not? Didn't God love his son? Yes He did. But you know what? He loved you and me as well, and there was no other way that you and me could be saved.
Then God would leave him hanging on that cross. But those were suffering.
Which he says in the book of the Psalms. Reproach has broken my heart, and I'm full of heaviness, and I look for some to take pity. And there were none and comforters, but I found none.
But the most awful of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, where it's not recorded in John's Gospel, but it's recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke, that at the.
6th hour which is 12 noon the way we calculate time until.
The ninth hour, which is 3:00 in the afternoon. For three hours there was darkness over the whole earth. It was so awful that now human eye could contemplate the awfulness when God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all.
And God took the the rod of His judgment and punished His own beloved Son for the sins of this guilty Sinner that stands here. Do you see why I cannot insist on my own rights or my own desires anymore? There's only One who has all rights in my life, it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. God is way too holy and righteous to be able to pass over one of our sins.
However light it might be.
And so the Lord Jesus paid the price in full. In those hours of darkness, we'll never understand the awfulness of what it meant to Him.
You look closely in Scripture, you won't find him saying anything in those three hours of darkness.
Until the very end.
When he cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
You know, he always addressed God his Father in his life. This is maybe the only place that he addresses God as God. Why?
Because God was dealing with him as to the character, the holy character has been and it had to be satisfied that you and I are going to be forgiven our sins.
Thank God he paid the price in full, because here in John's Gospel notice in verse 30, Jesus therefore had received the vinegar. He said it is finished and he bowed his head, gave up the ghost. The price of redemption was paid.
In full.
God's holy character was.
Fully vindicated in that sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what a wonderful redemption He accomplished there for us.
So notice.
Verse 2032 This then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first, that's the first malefactor, and of the other which was crucified with him.
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But when they came to, Jesus saw that he was dead already. They break not his legs, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side out.
And there forthwith came there out blood and water, And he that sight bear record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
The Lord Jesus paid the price of redemption with His own precious blood. Oh, what a cost was paid to make us the His and.
So the Lord Jesus died and the rest of the chapter we hear how he was buried.
And then the first day of the week was buried on a Friday afternoon, and the first day of the week they went to the tomb to anoint him because they weren't allowed to go there on the Sabbath day. It was a day of rest, and they see the stone rolled away.
From the door of the tomb, and Jesus was not there.
He had risen from the dead. Oh, the triumph of the resurrection. Jesus died, He was buried, and he rose again. This is the story of the Gospel. On that basis, God can offer free and full salvation to all who simply believe.
We say this evening, repent.
And believe repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is the recipe for full salvation.
Oh, how important that is.
To understand and to take seriously again, I say, I look over this crowd. I cannot see your hearts.
But I am concerned that there is one who has made a profession without being real. After this meeting is over, I want you to feel free to approach me or some other brother that's responsible to talk about it if you have doubts. It's way too important.
To not be sure about, but before we close I want to go over to.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 to read a couple verses there that are such a challenge to my own heart.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge.
That if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all. That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
What are you living for?
You profess to know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. I want you to seriously consider this. I see so much in today's world where human rights are stressed and people can do what they want. They can think what they want, and nobody should judge another. It's not a matter of us judging, it's a matter that we have.
Absolute truth here in the Word of God, and that's what we have to go by. But people think that they can make their own judgment calls.
Listen to this what it's saying here. Love of Christ constraineth us, if he being the eternal Son of God, the creator of the vast ends of the universe, if he gave his life for me.
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And now he has saved me. What is life about? Is it living for ourselves? Scripture says that they which live should henceforth not live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.
And This is why I read those verses at the beginning about the Lord's Lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is Lord.
Even though he may not be recognized as Lord, he is Lord of all. He is Lord of dead and living.
Of things in earth and things in heaven and things under the earth. That means infernal beings. Even the demons of hell are going to have to bow their knee and recognize that the Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
I just want to encourage you.
Dear young brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, to make him the Lord in your life, It's not what you want, it's what He wants that is worthwhile living for.
You know, in my life I've seen quite a few people, some that have been very wealthy.
But I've found that in general, wealthy people are not that happy people. I've seen those that are very poor in this world, and let me tell you, I must say, to witness their happiness in the enjoyment of the Scriptures has been an impression that I can't shake off.
It's not about having stuff, it's about having the Lord Jesus before you. What did he have in this world?
The only thing I can come up with is the clothes on his back that they took off of him and they crucified him. Why wasn't he interested in having a house or at least a donkey to ride on? Why wasn't he interested?
You know what, I have come to the conclusion that the Lord Jesus came from the Father's house in heaven. And in this world He could find nothing that could compare with that, and he wasn't really interested. It wasn't that there was something prohibited, it was that he wasn't interested. And so it's not a matter of having things prohibited.
It's a matter that your heart has been captured.
By this one who hung on that cross to die for us and to rise again. Oh, he's worth living for. And I just want to say the measure that I've been able to recognize, that it has led to fulfillment that I sense will last for all eternity. And that's my desire for you, dear young people, too.