Gospel—Michel Payette
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Like to welcome everyone to the Gospel meeting.
And I would like to start this meeting this evening by singing hymn #1 on the hymn sheet that was on your seat.
Hymn #1 almost persuaded now to believe.
Almost persuaded Christ to receive.
Now some soul to say, Go spirit, go thy way. Some more convenient day on the out call.
Almost persuaded. Come, come today. Almost persuaded. Turn not away. Jesus invites you here. This to his voice so clear.
Now falling on thine ear, come wandering wanderer, come and #1.
Have a word of prayer together.
So we'll be reading verses from.
The Word of God this evening.
And we'll start with a verse in Psalm 49.
The 49th.
Verse 7.
Psalm 49, verse 7.
None of them can by any means redeem his brother.
Nor give to God.
A ransom for him?
For the redemption of their soul, His precious.
And it ceases forever or as another has translated.
You can never operate that ransom yourself.
You have to accept that you can't do that.
The subject I'd like to speak on tonight is redemption and ransom.
And this verse tells us that.
No other man that you know in this world, your brother, anyone in your family.
Can be a help to you.
To redeem your soul.
We can't redeem our brethren, we can't redeem our friends, and they can't redeem us either.
We have to accept that for precious.
Is the redemption of their soul.
So precious, none of us could pay the price. We're too poor for that.
But the same Psalm it tells us in the 15th verse.
But God.
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But God will redeem my soul.
No one else can, only God. I can't redeem your soul. None of us can. Even if we got all together, we couldn't redeem your soul.
But God.
Can redeem your soul. God can pay the ransom. We have another verse in Job chapter 33.
Verse 24.
Job 33 verse 24 Then he is gracious unto him, and say it deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom.
God needed a ransom.
You're a soul in mind. You could not give him that ransom. I could not give him that ransom. Nobody else could.
But he has found the ransom.
And I'd like to speak tonight.
On that ransom we find in First Timothy chapter 2.
We'll turn to the New Testament, the first epistle to Timothy.
We'll read a verse in chapter one to begin.
First Timothy, Chapter One.
Verse well known to many of us.
Probably most of the kids who go to Sunday school in this room, they know this verse, verse 15.
This is a fateful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
It is a fact.
That the Lord Jesus came into the world. It's an undisputable fact that there was a man named Jesus Christ who walked on the face of this earth in the land of Israel some 2000 years ago.
Jesus Christ came into the world.
To save sinners.
In order for you and I, dear ones, to be saved.
We need to be qualified.
And I wonder tonight if you're qualified to be saved.
The Lord is graciously allowed my wife and I to have access to some therapy houses where we live.
And the people that have been assigned to these houses either come from jail.
Or other facilities, similar facilities, drug addicts, people with ruined lives.
People overcome by sin characterized by deceit, theft, violence.
And I tell you.
They might be better qualified than you to be saved.
Because when we tell them that they are sinners.
They don't have a difficulty with that. They know they are sinners.
And they have this qualification that they are accessible with the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's who he came to save. He came into the world to save sinners.
So I ask you tonight, dear one, young person, young boy, young girl, are you qualified tonight to be saved?
In order to be saved, you have to be a Sinner.
Now God tells us that we're all sinners, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. In the sight of God, nobody here is disqualified to be saved.
But maybe you don't think you're bad enough.
Maybe you think you've had privileges because you've been brought up in a Christian home. Perhaps so. You go to meetings, you read your Bible, you go to Sunday school. These are all good things.
But in order to be saved, it's not going to Sunday school.
It's not coming to meetings. These are good things. You have to be a Sinner.
So tonight, the first thing I'd like to convey to you, dear ones, is to accept a fact from God's Word that you're a Sinner. You might not find too many things wrong in your life, but God, who sees in your heart says you're a Sinner. And if you accept the Word of God for what it says, you can go to the next step. You can get saved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Because if you're a Sinner, you can stand before God and repent of your sins, those things that you've done that you shouldn't have done, and ask the Lord to forgive you by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. Well, let's go on to our second chapter. I want to read from the end of verse three, First Timothy, chapter 2, the end #3 it says God.
Our Savior.
A Savior God. A God who is willing to save. This is why we have gospel meanings not of our own. We didn't devise this ourselves. God wants us to tell you that he wants to save you tonight.
Our Savior, God, God, our Savior, verse four, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, The man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.
To be testified in due time, whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ. And why not a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and Verity.
So we find out in this, in these verses, that God, our Savior, he wants.
All men to be saved.
We can take a subset of that and say God our Savior wants all the people in this room tonight to be saved. That's what he wants.
If you read.
To verse six, the end of verse five, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom.
For all.
God wants all men to be saved. He wants us all to be saved. And in order for you and I to be saved, God had to have a ransom.
It said in job I have found a ransom.
There's a ransom that has been paid.
And by this ransom God is satisfied forever as to the sin question for those that are called sinners.
But he gave himself a ransom for all.
So I have a question for you tonight.
If God wants all men to be saved and the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom for all.
Then will all men be saved?
The answer is no.
Some will be lost.
Of all that God wants to be saved. Of all for which the Lord Jesus gave himself a ransom.
Some will not be saved.
And tonight, my question to you, dear ones, are you going to be one of the ones who's not going to be saved?
That's quite a question, you know.
You know, some people in this world, many people in this world have never heard about the Lord Jesus.
And when you leave this room tonight, you will not be able to say, I never heard about the Lord Jesus.
Perhaps I'm not doing a good job. That's that's all right. But you're going to hear and you can hear from other ones here in this room and in the book that you have in your hand. If you're reading these scriptures with me, you're hearing about the Lord Jesus.
It's written right here in God's Word. He wants all men to be saved and that the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom.
For all.
How can it be then?
That someone who's a Sinner, who's qualified to be saved and God wants them to be saved, and the Lord Jesus has paid the price to save him, but he's not going to be saved. Where is the difficulty? Where is the obstacle? What's keeping him from being saved?
It's not God, it's not the work of the Lord Jesus, it's not the fact that he's not a Sinner.
Where does that difficulty lie?
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It lies right here.
In your heart.
Because unless you believe in your heart, in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not going to be saved.
God wants you to put your trust in Him. That's why he gave him a ransom. We're all.
Now if you turn with me to Mark's Gospel chapter 10.
Mark's Gospel, chapter 10.
And the 45th verse.
Mark 10 and 45.
For even the Son of Man, that's the Lord Jesus. That's another one of his titles.
You don't believe us? You stay after meeting and we'll show you from the scriptures. The Son of Man is none other than the Lord Jesus. For the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
And to give his life a ransom.
For many.
Somebody says that's a contradiction. It just said he gave himself for all, and there he said he gave himself for many. Which is it?
It's actually both, you know.
He gave himself for all.
But the many, they are the ones that believe and they're going to get the benefit.
What he did?
That the Lord Jesus came into the world, sent by the Father to be the Savior of the world.
And every human being in the world is not going to be saved, not because it's not God's will.
But because of the wickedness of our hearts, the hardness of our hearts, the rebellion of our hearts, because of the refusal to obey the gospel and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So everyone in this room tonight who doesn't know the Lord Jesus their Savior, you are in great peril.
There are a lot of perils in this world tonight, you know, as the climate changes, as they say, and all these turmoils on the face of the earth and people crossing into eternity and difficult circumstances, accidents, storms, floods, whatever war, it's happening every day all around this world. And we're getting close to that time of the judgment of this world.
By God himself, through the Lord Jesus. And tonight, my friend, dear ones, because you are dear to the heart of God, if you don't know the Lord Jesus your Savior.
You're in great peril.
Tonight you're one of the ones that God wants to be saved. You're part of that all that he wants to be saved, and you're part of that all that he gave himself a ransom for. But are you part of the many?
From John 1045, those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior.
If we go back to First Timothy chapter 2.
In verse five it says there is one God.
And one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Man in his.
Wisdom.
Intelligence, whatever he has devised in his mind between you and God.
Are all sorts of mediation.
Could call it religion.
Ways and Means by which?
We humans who are imperfect, we could reach.
This perfect God.
But the Bible says that there is only one mediator.
Between you and God, there's only one that could be in that position and ask the Lord Jesus.
And you know, he's a perfect mediator between God and man.
In one way, you know himself if you know more about the person of the Lord Jesus. He wasn't just a man.
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He was God manifest in flesh.
And man and God can meet in the person of the Lord Jesus. And you and I, we can meet God through the person of the Lord Jesus. We can meet him tonight.
Under the question of mediators, a question of ways of being brought together. You know, sometimes they have difficulties in industry and between labor and the owners of a company and they call in mediators, they call in people to try and, and our brother was speaking about that earlier today, I believe as to trying to find common ground where we could agree on.
But you know, ask yourself the question, what does God have to change?
What's wrong with God? What did God do that he shouldn't have done or should have done differently? The answer is nothing. He is not going to change, He is ever the same. You and I are the ones that need to be reconciled to God, and there's only one that can stand between God and you and me, so we could be reconciled to Him, and that's the man Christ Jesus.
Not only because of who he is.
But because of what he has done.
The Apostle Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians, he said I would know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and to save sinners. He went to that cross to bear the punishment for our sins to die in our stead. There's that verse in Isaiah chapter 53. Just like to turn to that for a moment.
The 53rd chapter of Isaiah and the 12Th verse.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strongest is prophetic of the Lord Jesus, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of men.
Doesn't say he bear the sin of all, He bear the sin of men.
I can tell you tonight from the Word of God, first Peter chapter 2, it says he bore our sins in His own body on the tree. It's in the plural because he's referring the apostle Peter. There is referring to others with him who had put their trust in the Lord Jesus, and he could say with them who bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And tonight I can tell you from the Word of God that the Lord Jesus bore my sins in his own body on the tree.
Can you say tonight the Lord Jesus for your sins in his own body on the tree? Are you part of those many?
That he bear the sin of on the cross.
You're part of the oil.
But you got to be part of that many. But he gave himself a ransom for it's not a hard thing. It's so simple. You know the apostle Peter when he asked the Lord to walk on water?
Lord allowed him to get out of that boat and to walk on water, which nobody can do. Saved by the power of God.
But then when he got his eye off the Lord and started sinking, he cried out. Lord save me, Lord save me.
He had a sense in his soul that he was perishing. He was afraid, he was concerned. He didn't say, Lord, teach me to swim. He didn't have time to do that. He told me something to help me float. He said, Lord, save me.
And the Lord put forth his hand right away, pulled him out.
Tonight, dear ones, if you'll call upon the name of the Lord.
Call upon him realizing that you're a Sinner and that you're lost, and that if nothing happens, you're going to perish.
You can understand Peter, he was in the immediate circumstances that he was going to perish.
But our peril is even greater.
And it's absolutely sure, because if you don't know the Lord Jesus your Savior, you're going to perish without Him.
And be estranged from God forever and ever. And this is the last thing God would want for you.
So in order for you not to be lost and not to be in that distress forever, the Lord Jesus came into the world.
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Became a man. The Son of God became a man, and he walked this earth, and he proved in his life who he was. A perfect walk from the time he was born to the time he died on that cross. A perfect man in everything God manifests in flesh. He could command the wind and the waves. He could heal the sick, the blind, the lame, the death. He could even raise the dead.
But when it was time to choose by those men there that were just like you and me, that had hearts the same as us.
Had a choice set before them one day by Pilate. He set before them the Lord Jesus, the perfect man, the one who could feed crowds with five loaves and two fishes. We call them The Tempest and heal everyone.
We wouldn't need hospitals, supermarkets or whatever if the Lord was reigning. They had a choice between him and another man, Barabbas.
Who was a murderer?
And they said, you know what they said, not this man.
Not this man.
Anybody else? Not him. What about him? He's a murderer. We'll have him instead, but not this man.
Tonight, my friend, you have a choice.
What are you going to say about this man Christ Jesus? Are you going to say not this man?
Who's going to pay your ransom?
Who is going to take care of those sins for you if it's not this man?
Well, this word, this world had its choice 2000 years ago. They made a wrong choice. So if you look around this world today, is it full of happiness and joy and peace? Is that what characterizes this world?
It's sorrow, grief, sin, corruption, violence.
And it's getting worse all the time.
If God can open your eyes tonight, you can see this is what's happening. This world has rejected the Son of God. They will not have this man to rule over them.
So who's ruling over them tonight? It's not God in heaven.
Prince of the power of the air, Satan himself, the God of this world, is he your God?
It's either one you want to follow. Not this man, but listen to the other one. To the enemy of your soul.
One who lies is deceitful, a murderer from the beginning. Here was one who was a murderer. We picked a murderer, one of the descendants of the devil. I don't know about this man, Barnabas, but later on in his life, maybe he realized that he was set free because another was delivered in his stead. And I hope he got saved.
But tonight my friend, young person, young boy, young girl.
What do you want to do with the Lord Jesus? What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called a Christ?
Did they have second thoughts about it?
Away with Him, crucify Him, and they delighted in their souls at his rejection and suffering, and they gaped upon Him with their mouths.
God has recorded that, you know, hasn't forgotten anything.
But he's just so patient. He's patient with this world and he's patient with you tonight.
There's a day he's appointed, he's going to judge the world, and the one who's going to be sitting on the throne of judgment is none other.
Than the one they did not want to rule over them. They're going to stand before him, this one who has marks in his hand and his feet in his side. Because he was on that cross, hanging there for you and I at ransom for all. A ransom for these very ones who hated him without a cause, but he gave himself for them.
Imagine when they stand before him as a judge.
They wouldn't have them.
To rule over them. These men that mocked him there and laughed at him, laughed him to scorn. When they stand before him, every Moat stopped. You can just imagine a terror in their souls.
You say I've never done that.
But you've been there. If I'd have been there, I would have been one of the ones that rejected him or sold him or whatever. I wouldn't have done any better. Neither would have you, would you have?
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God is speaking to us tonight about the Lord Jesus because He wants you to be saved.
He wants you to say tonight, Lord Jesus, save me from my sins. I want you as my savior. I know they didn't want you to rule over them. I want you to be my savior. I want you to be the ruler of my life. I want to open my heart to you and receive you as my savior. Would you do that tonight? Then you won't stand before him in terror and fear which your mouth stops.
I was in Walla Walla 2008. I heard the gospel.
Maybe 50 times you've heard the gospel.
You'll remember then.
You'll be sorry forever. Sorry. It'll be too late.
And maybe you think.
Well, maybe next year. I'm only so. So I've got a few things I want to do and.
I don't know about next year, dear ones.
I don't know about tomorrow.
You don't know about tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn't belong to you, doesn't belong to me. I don't know where you're going to be tomorrow.
What's going to happen to you? I don't know.
But I know the Lord Jesus coming soon. He's coming any moment now, and the last one is brought in.
A lot of people are going to disappear.
Anybody going to be left in this room? If he came right now and called his own unto himself, would you still be in your seat?
But if you are, you'll be lost forever.
Because you're not one of his. He's not going to leave one of his own behind.
Are you one of His tonight? Are you part of the many that he paid the price for? That He bore the sin of on the cross?
Well, it says in verse six, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.
This time is now. This is now that God is giving the testimonies been for 2000 years, bringing the testimony before our souls of the one who he sent into the world, the Lord Jesus to be our Savior. And the apostle Paul was a minister. He was chosen for that. We're reading the very words he wrote to Timothy so many years ago for us today.
He was ordained a preacher and an apostle.
There was authority from God himself for what the apostle brought before others. He says I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, you know.
The devil said in the beginning in Genesis, there God said to Adam today that thou shalt eat, thereof thou shalt surely die.
The devil says you're not going to die. God said you're going to die. The devil said you're not going to die.
Do men die?
Death is a terrible thing. It's a sad thing.
Being so much sorrow in this world.
Is death in this world?
Yes, death is in this world.
The last enemy the Lord is going to take care of is death. But what a source of sorrow, even for those of us who are believers. And we know that when people crossover into eternity, they go to be with the Lord, absent from the body, but present with the Lord. But that's only for believers.
The enemy said you're not going to die.
He's a liar from the beginning.
There's no truth in him. Here's a minister of the gospel, the Apostle Paul.
You say, well, that he was a special man, the apostle Paul. Yes, he was. He was a persecutor of the church. He was an enemy of Christ. He deserved the wrath of God, perhaps like no one else.
And the Lord, in his grace he saved him, revealed himself, the Lord Jesus revealed himself.
To the apostle Paul, Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. He was an enemy of the Lord Jesus.
Direct enemy of the Lord Jesus, and he got saved. The Lord forgave him his sins. He's willing to forgive you your sins tonight.
When you pay a ransom.
Can be pretty expensive.
This is something that's being done more and more in the world because a lot of people are poor.
The coast of Somalia, they do that. They have pirate ships and they take people as hostages and they ask for a ransom and when people pay the ransom, they let them go.
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First Peter chapter one.
Verse 18.
How much to redeem your soul?
How much to redeem you? How much to redeem me? What's the cost?
God has found the ransom.
The Lord Jesus gave himself a ransom for all first Peter one verse 18 whereas much for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Father's **** with the precious blood.
Of Christ.
That's the price that has been paid by God Himself.
To redeem you, to pay the ransom for you. Those many.
How precious.
That precious blood of Christ, God alone knows how precious.
That bloody?
It is precious, and it should tell you, dear one, tonight how precious you are in the sight of God.
That the Lord Jesus shed his precious blood.
That God could have you.
As his child.
That God can save you from your sins and keep you from the horror of hell, judgment, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth forever.
And people say, oh hell, it's so cruel.
There's no cruelty in hell, there's righteousness.
And it cost the Lord Jesus His very life, His blood on the cross, for no one to go there. God wants all men to be saved. He gave Himself a ransom for all.
Makes you and I responsible now.
We spoke a little bit about that in the meeting. As to the responsibility of men, I trust the Lord with his help, I'm acting responsibly here before you and setting these things before you. Now you're a hearer and I trust you're going to act responsibly too. And you're going to say tonight in your heart, you don't have to tell me. You just tell God I accept that I'm a Sinner.
Perhaps I didn't do like this guy or this other guy, these people, but I've done things and I thought things in my mind that I shouldn't have been thinking of. I'm a Sinner and I accept what your word says about me and about the Lord Jesus. And I want the Lord Jesus to save me, to be my Savior if you call upon him tonight in your heart.
God is going to save you. There's a book in Revelation chapter 20 I believe.
Call the Lamb's Book of Life.
We're just going to read that revelation, chapter 20.
Verse 11.
That's Revelation 2011. That's in a day to come.
When there's no more heaven and no more earth, no place to hide, no mountains to fall upon you, no cave you can crawl into, no, none of that, It's all gone. All that's left is you before God.
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened.
Another book was open, 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 this sea gave up the dead which were in it, and the death and hell delivered up to 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 verse 15.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of Life was cast into.
The Lake of Fire.
God is writing names down tonight.
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Some 30 years ago, he wrote my name down.
In the book of life, when I trusted the Lord Jesus, my own personal Savior.
Is your name.
In the book of life tonight.
When you leave this room tonight, perhaps, as we sang this hymn in the beginning, almost persuaded. Are you going to leave this room tonight? Almost persuaded but lost. Are you going to leave this room tonight without your name being written in the Lamb's Book of Life?
He's going to be looking for it here, but if it was not found written in the book of life.
Was cast into the lake of fire. They were judged according to their works.
If I simply ask you a question, why were they cast into the Lake of Fire?
Because of their sins. It doesn't say that.
They were cast into the Lake of Fire because their name was not in the Lamb's Book of Life.
God is writing names out tonight.
In a coming day, perhaps tonight, perhaps later this evening, he's going to close that book. The time of grace is over.
We're going on the next step now and those that have heard.
And believe the gospel which are saved going to be with the Lord Jesus and those that have heard and have not believed.
Their name is not going to be found in the book of Life. Well, tonight, my friend, is a wonderful good news. God is taking names down tonight.
You know, it says that the books were opened, many, many books. You know, men, we're so intelligent. We can get millions of names we could say on little chips, little pieces, little, you know, I have a digital camera. There's so many millions of characters that can get in there, so.
God has books too.
And he's got every detail in there.
We have books, we have computers, we have gigabytes, all sorts of information. God has all the information, not missing anything. You think you can get away with something, It's in the book.
It's written in his book. Every thought, every word, every action, Nothing missing.
And his books are not in computers. They never crash.
When men stand before this great white throne, when these books are opened, it's all going to be there, nothing missing.
And that one on the throne, that great white throne.
Is that man the Lord Jesus, with holes in his hands and his feet in his side, the one we spit upon?
Wouldn't have him to rule over us. He's going to rule over all things.
I trust you're going to be part of the blessing when the Lord Jesus comes, that no one in this room will ever stand before this great white throne to be judged for our works. That's why Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners so that wouldn't happen to sinners, That these books be open and their lives reviewed and their names not found in the book of life and be cast.
Into the lake of fire, to be tormented forever and ever.
And ever.
Two Corinthians, chapter 5.
Verse 11.
2nd Corinthians 511.
Knowing therefore.
The terror of the Lord.
We persuade men.
I know some of you, maybe many of us. We were drawn to the Lord Jesus by His love as we considered the beauty of His character, and God used His word, His Spirit, to touch us that way.
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Tonight, my friend, even if it's the fear of God, the terror of the Lord that makes you uncomfortable, we pray that as we understand ourselves, the terror of the Lord, we want to persuade you.
We want you to persuade you tonight that you would in simplicity call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. You'll be one of the ones that he gave himself a ransom for power to that many.
That He gave Himself for. So He gave himself for all that's available for you. But you want to be part of the many. You have to call upon His name tonight. You have to trust Him as your Savior. You have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart tonight and accept Him as your own personal Savior.
Knowing therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
Later on it says, We beseech you, in the name of Christ, be ye reconciled to God.
The Lord Jesus Himself.
Beseeching is like supplication. God would have us to supplicate you. Be reconciled to God. Don't put it off.
Sometimes we say use the expression Don't play with fire.
Scripture speaks of everlasting fire, never to be quenched, not to be played with.
The terror of the Lord, we persuade men don't go there, don't end up there. God doesn't want anybody to go there, but some will.
You be part of those many that the Lord Jesus gave himself a ransom for.
I have another little mini I want to look at in Matthew Chapter 7.
Matthew Chapter 7, verse 21.
Matthew 721 It says There not everyone that said unto me, Lord, Lord.
Shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
Many. There's that many I want to speak of now, another kind of many, not the many that he gave himself a ransom for. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works, and then will I profess unto them.
I never knew you depart from me.
Ye that work iniquity.
Here's a company called Many.
That you don't want to be part of.
You want to be part of that many that you gave himself a ransom for.
What characterizes the many here?
Is when they talk to the Lord.
Notice what happens.
Lord, Lord.
Have we not?
Done this and done that and done this.
They're talking about what they have done.
God will tell you what you have done.
You have sinned and you need a Savior.
They're talking to the Lord about what they have done for Him. They know nothing but what He.
Had done for them.
Do you know tonight, my friend, what the Lord Jesus done for you, or do you want to stand before the Lord and tell him what you've done for him? You've been a good boy. You've been going to Sunday school, you know verses by heart. It's wonderful, it's not bad.
But you can't stand before the Lord unless you know what he's done for you. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You're a Sinner tonight He came into the world. He gave himself a ransom for all. The work is finished. He'd grown on the cross. He said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Not because of anything he had done, but because of what I have done and what you have done and what many, many, many have done. That's why he grown upon the tree and God is satisfied with Jesus. He rose him from the dead on the third day.
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He's at God's right hand right now. He's coming back momentarily to get all those that have put their trust in Him. Are you one of those that have put their trust in Him? Are you one of those many? Not the menies in John and Matthew 7 who talked to the Lord about all these wonderful things they've done for him? He calls them workers of iniquity.
But as to those who know the things that He has done for us and for us individually, well, one last verse before we close. It's in Job again, Chapter 36. My brother read that verse yesterday, and it struck me as he did because I had some of these thoughts on my heart.
Joel Chapter 36.
In verse 18.
Because there is wrath.
Beware lest ye take thee away with his stroke.
Then.
A great ransom.
Cannot deliver.
No one's going to say when they stand before that great white drone, OK, I'll have the Lord. I want him as my savior. I'll have him as my savior. I want him to wash my sins away. I want to be safe.
A great ransom.
Cannot deliver them, they can deliver you tonight.
The ransom has been paid. The Lord Jesus died and rose again. He shed his precious blood. He's paid the price of redemption. He's knocking at your heart's door tonight and saying, let me in. Let me be your Savior. Let me save you. Let me forgive you. All those things that I have to judge you for, I paid for them on the cross with my precious blood. I died for you.
But tonight, my friend, if the Lord Jesus comes and you're without Christ.
Or you cross into eternity without Christ. You're going to stand before God.
And a great ransom, that great ransom will not be able to deliver you then, but it can tonight, my friend. So boys and girls, older ones, I know many of you have already trusted the Lord Jesus your Savior. But if you haven't and I don't put it off, don't wait 5 minutes more. You just ask the Lord in your heart. Lord, I want to be saved once. You're my Savior. I want that ransom to be available.
And efficacious, if that's the right word for me. I want to be part of those many, not the all. I was already part of the all. I want to be part of those many.
That you died for, that you bore their sins on the cross in your own body. I want to be one of those tonight. I want you to my Savior. I want to thank you, my God and Father, for giving your Son for me. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for you. That you should believe in Him. That you wouldn't perish but have everlasting life. Well, dear ones, I trust you're not going to perish. That tonight you have everlasting life. That even as you rise up from your chair tonight, when this meeting is over, you'll be one of those.
That Jesus saved by his great work.
On the cross, you'll be one of those that he's washed in his most precious blood.
Let's sing a hymn in closing.
Verse #32.
And what?
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Why can't you get one of me not to come out for love for me?
I shall see a clock and all my dreams in my life. That's not long, no.
Imagine someone who was a captor and there was a ransom requested and the ransom was paid.
And then the person who was a captor refused the freedom that was offered them.
They would remain captive forever. Those of us who are captives of sin and Satan, the ransom has been paid. You can be free tonight by running and finding refuge in the Lord Jesus. Do not stay captive to sin and Satan. Let's bow our heads.