Gospel—De. Rule
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To read has to say.
Is very, very important because when you hear something that I say, it's just the words of another person. But when you hear what this book has to say and you know what the book is, it's the Bible, it's God's Word. It makes it totally different than something I might have to say.
There's many books printed in this world. I think if if they're still there in the shopping center across the street, there's a bookstore, a very large bookstore, and it's filled with many different kinds of books. If you go out the front door of this building and you go down to the corner to the stop light and you turn right, just on a little hill on the left side, there's a bookstore that has two stories. Fascinating places for me. I like to go see books, but there's one and read books and that sort of thing.
It's hard sort of to pass up a bookstore sometimes because of things that are there that are interesting to learn. But those books, most of them in those bookstores are written by people.
And the thoughts came, and a lot of them have very correct thoughts, many things and everything else, but they came out of the mind of some person. But this book right here didn't come out of the mind of some person on this earth. It came from God.
It makes a difference than any other book. It's one of the best sellers in the world today.
That's not true of any other book that was completed almost 2000 years ago. If you go into a place where they sell books, you're going to see something that says new arrivals or new titles. And people are always walking in and trying to find out, well, what's new? What can I find out? Something that's different, something that's new. Tonight, we don't have anything new to tell you.
Maybe it's some news to someone here if you haven't read this book and that's why a friend invited you. But we're not here to try to say anything new tonight. We're here to tell you about something that happened a long time ago.
Knowing the need that you have and knowing the need that I have.
And the main subject of this book.
Is.
Someone or a being who's both God and man at the same time, but just like to read a verse in Matthew chapter 8. And if you don't have a Bible or you're not comfortable with looking up the verses, that's okay. If there's someone near you who has one and they you can share with them.
That would be nice because it's good to read it for yourself, but in Matthew chapter 8.
Matthew, Chapter 8.
Verse 26.
The one who's talking here is the Lord Jesus. They were on a boat and on this boat they were being carried, I'm sure, up and down on the waves. It probably wasn't a big, I'm sure it wasn't a big ocean liner like people would ride on today, but it was a small boat and the waves were constantly coming over the boat. The people inside the boat were afraid. Got a question tonight for you.
Are you afraid about anything?
Let me list a few things that you might be afraid of. Are you afraid?
To that you might lose your job.
We all have bills to pay, and so it's important that there's money that comes in to pay those bills.
Are you afraid you might lose your job? There's people that if you were going to ask them what are you afraid of, they would say, well, I'm afraid of getting cancer.
I could look and I could say, well, I know that my father and some of my uncles have died of heart attacks. And I could say, well, you know, if I think about it and I look at it and I realize that those things can be passed from one person to the next, I could say, well, you know, naturally I might be afraid of a heart attack.
You might be afraid of dying.
I don't know what fear you might have.
But the Lord Jesus understood perfectly that you might be afraid of things. Is there something you're afraid of tonight?
Perhaps you're afraid where you live of walking on the street because some streets are dangerous. There's people that might jump out of a corner with a knife and threaten you or take your money or threaten your life.
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If you're afraid.
The Lord Jesus is the one that can help you.
He may not take away the circumstances. He may not take away whatever it is that would cause you to be afraid.
I'm not afraid that someday I might die of a heart attack, but I realize it might happen. Why? Because the Lord Jesus has taken that fear away. What does he say here? It says, Why are you fearful? Oh, ye of little faith. Then he arose and rebuked the winds in the sea, and there was a great calm, but the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds?
And the sea obey him.
Think about that statement for a minute.
Think about even the winds and the sea obey him.
Some people here work with computers and in their in their job, they've seen that people have been able to make smaller and smaller computer chips that can work faster and faster and faster and do things.
God has given man the capability to do that. There are other people that work in hospitals or in medical type of things and God has allowed us, God has allowed men to develop many different kinds of medicines and we benefit from those things.
But the two things that God named here that the Lord Jesus named here are the winds and the seas. Why do the winds blow?
The winds blow because the sun is shining on the Earth, and if you're at the poles, that sun gets that same amount of light, gets spread out over a broad area. But we know that if you're at the equator, that sunlight is concentrated and comes in directly to that area and doesn't get spread out. So the Earth doesn't get heated very evenly. That's why it's cold in some places and hot in others. The sun doesn't shine the same way in every place.
And so the winds blow and we feel the winds. The water gets heated differently. And so the water moves as time goes, and it moves in currents, and people can predict pretty well what it's going to do. Could you and I ever do anything to turn the sun off or to control the sun?
There's no way.
But who made the sun? Who made the moon? Who made the stars? Who made this earth where you and I live? The Lord Jesus Christ, he made it. And he's the one who keeps the sun shining. He's the one who makes the winds blow. He's the one who makes the current move in the ocean. Man can do many things, but he can't turn the sun off or turn the sun on to stop the winds or to start the winds.
We're in here in a room and some of us have been here for three days and we've benefited by the fact that in a small area they could turn on the air conditioner and take away some of the water out of the air and cool the temperature down.
But would it be possible for the people at the Marriott Hotel to do that for all of Oak Brook?
And you control the sky up above? No way. Impossible.
But my Savior can the one who loves me and the one who loves you can do that. It's in His hand. He made it and He controls it. But it's not someone who's far off and distant and doesn't care about me and doesn't care about you. He loves you and He loves me just. If you've got your Bible open, if you could turn over to the page before.
Depending upon which Bible it is.
Chapter 8 and verse earlier in the chapter.
It says in verse five of chapter 8. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy previously tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him.
I will come and heal him. The Lord Jesus didn't say, well, don't you understand? I'm the one who made the sky. I'm the one who made the sun, the earth, and everything else.
I don't have time for things like that. Is that what he said?
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No, I said. I'll come and heal him.
Friend, tonight, if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you've got a sickness inside. I understand that sickness because it's a sickness we've all shared.
The thickness and it's caused by one thing, not some amoeba or not some other kind of microorganism or some sort of virus. That sickness is caused by sin.
We've got that inside. But the Lord Jesus didn't just go from one place.
In the town of Capernaum to another to do to heal that sickness. He's gone perfect in everything, and he came all the way from heaven down to this earth.
He came all the way from heaven down to this earth. Why? Because you have a need and I have a need, and He wants to heal that need. He wants to give you and me a new life.
In all the history of this world, there's never been anyone else who's come from heaven to earth.
A lot of us became more aware during the Persian Gulf War of the Middle East. We became more aware of.
One who claimed to be a Prophet Muhammad became more aware of one who.
Many talk about Allah who is worshipped as God by many.
There's something that's very striking.
If Allah really existed, or really exists, why doesn't He come down to this earth? That's what my Savior did. My Savior came all the way from heaven down to this earth. Why? Because He loves me. Is there anything in me to love? Absolutely not.
I'm here, it's nothing more than a beggar, and I deserve. I deserve because of what I've done, to spend forever not in heaven, but in the lake of fire.
But the Lord Jesus loves me, and he came down.
I want you, if you would like to, to turn over or not to listen.
In First Samuel chapter 20.
A lot of these verses that we're going to read tonight are going to have a simple word. What simple word? What in front of them?
When you have little children, you realize that they come a lot of times and say Daddy, what is this, her daddy, what happened? And they like to ask a lot of questions.
Some here tonight are.
Past the stage of being a little child, you've reached the stage of being a young person or an adult, and perhaps you've come to the point of stop. You don't ask as many questions, But the Bible is a book that's full of questions, and I'm very happy to say it's also book that's full of the answers to those questions. There's a question in First Samuel chapter 20.
Verse one what Fred won't read the first part of the verse to not have to give the time to give the background, but it says what have I done? What is my iniquity in what is my sin?
And I want you, if you wouldn't mind, to turn over to verse 3.
Near the end of the verse verse that was quoted last night, it says truly as the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death. August 10th I was driving to the school where I worked for the last day of some special exams for students who needed to make up some exams and as I was driving along from the main highway I went to turn into the neighborhood where the school is located.
And as I looked across, there was a bus parked. That's all I could see at the beginning. There was a bus parked there. And it was a bus I had on a bus line, at least I don't know if that particular bus that I've ridden on many times. I walked, I didn't walk. I drove by and I started to look. And it wasn't just that the bus was there, but behind it there was a police car parked.
And ringing around the bus was a large crowd of people.
More curious?
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I stopped at the corner before I turned in. The bus was coming out the other way. I stopped at the corner before I turned in and I looked over.
And I saw a sight.
That really affected me.
There's a big crowd of people.
But under that bus was a man who had taken one.
Step too many toward the bus.
That man was lying there, and I'm sorry that this is gruesome, but I want you to think about it because what if it had been you? Or what if it had been me? That man was lying on the street.
His feet were still on the curb, looked like he had tripped and fallen, and on the right side of the bus, the side along the curb between the front wheels of the bus and the back wheels of the bus.
The man was there, one part of his body, his head, which was reduced to a height.
Like that, a man who had started out, perhaps he was jumping to try to get to the bus. Perhaps he was crossing the street thinking about what he was going to do that day.
But he fell down and So what was it? It was just the the body that was left there of a man who started out. I went into the to classes and I went into the office and they could tell it was very upset. He was a man. He didn't start out that day planning to have that happen to him, David said. There's but a step between me and death.
If you're just one step away from death, I have a question are.
You ready to die? Someone said a long time ago. When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die because there's no time to do anything else. That man started out and he tripped and he was reduced.
His head was just flattened by the weight of a bus with 40 or 50 passengers.
Was there any use taking him to a hospital? Was there any use anyone trying to give him artificial respiration? No, Immediately he was into eternity. There is but a step between me and death.
Just stop for a minute please, and say that to yourself. There is but a step between me and death.
If you say that to yourself, then I want you to ask a question to yourself.
Am I ready to die? Am I ready to die?
I wanted to get out of the pickup truck we have. I wanted to run over. I couldn't talk to the man. It's a frustrating thing because it was too late, but it's not too late for you tonight.
Are you ready to die?
Why do I say ready? Let's go back to that first verse.
This man David asked a question. He said what have I done? What have I done? Said what is my iniquity? Iniquity just means wicked things that you can do.
I've done horrible things and I've thought horrible things, says what is my sin? Sin, as we've heard before today, is when we decide in our own inside to do something. Why? Because we want to do it.
Just leave God at one side.
We're all guilty. There's not a single person in this room that can say they're not guilty. A lot of us have probably heard about a man who.
People from this very area, Chicago and people in Wisconsin and perhaps Germany, was just discovered to have killed a number of people, 17 people, in a very brutal way, done brutal things and we won't repeat them here.
But I want to tell you something. My heart, apart from the Lord Jesus, is not one bit better than that man. I'm not a bit better. I deserve exactly the same punishment that he deserves. He deserves death, and so do I.
And if you've done even one sin, and everyone here has done a lot more than that.
But I want you to stop, and I'm going to give you just a few seconds to think. Can you think of something in your life that you've done that you wouldn't want to come up and have everyone hear about? Stop a minute and think about that.
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If you or someone here had the record.
Of my life.
And they could start on this board behind and start writing what I've done.
And what I thought I would want to be out that door as quick as possible.
Because my heart apart from the Lord Jesus.
Is very sinful.
I'm guilty.
You're guilty. Everyone of us deserves to spend forever.
In the Lake of Fire, it wasn't a place that was prepared for us. The Lake of Fire was prepared.
For Satan and his angels. But there's going to be a lot of people there because they weren't ready. Well, the Gospel meeting stopped here.
If we had to stop and justice, talk about what we, what our need is, what our problem is.
If someone said do you want to get up and talk, give the gospel, I'd say no.
But it doesn't stop here. It doesn't stop here.
I hope you realize your knee, I can't make you realize that I can't make you make any decision. I wouldn't even try tonight. We're not going to have a time at the end where we say, well, would you please raise your hand or will you come up here? The decisions that you're going to make tonight are decisions between you and God, between you and the Lord Jesus Christ, not between you and the person next to you, not between you and me, but between you and God.
And so I hope first you realize that you have a need, you have a problem, and that problem is sin. Every one of us understands that because we have the same problem.
But many of us, thankfully, because God loves us as He loves you, have found the answer to that problem.
If we could turn over in our Bibles to Matthew.
Matthew, Chapter 27.
Matthew, Chapter 27.
And.
Verse 22.
I'm going to read about a man who most know. Perhaps you've read the Bible. I don't know where you've heard many, I do, but some I don't, where you've heard about the Lord Jesus. I wish we had a lot of hours together sitting down at a table or with some chairs together to just open this book up and find out about the life of that man, the Lord Jesus.
If you haven't done it, when you leave here tonight. If you don't have a New Testament, one was offered. It's a very important part of the Bible because it's the part that tells us more directly about the life of the Lord Jesus if you don't know about him.
I really ask you to find out more about him, to take that book and to read it.
But we know his life. We're not living in a country where it's a strange thing. We know that he was born not in a fancy hotel or in a fancy hospital or even a poor one who was born in a place that was basically usually reserved for animals. He was.
With a mother, Mary. But his father was God. The Spirit wasn't the one who functioned as the father in the home where he was Joseph, but perhaps as a boy, if he did the things his father did. He spent time as a Carpenter and that sort of thing.
But the Lord Jesus went through his life and sometimes there were great crowds of people around him. They were listening. They wanted to find out what he had to say. And sometimes he was alone, sometimes he was alone talking with God. And I hope tonight that you can forget those who are around you, forget me, and be able at any time to just simply talk to God.
You have to know something special. Do you have to I have to read a prayer that you have to memorize, No.
Remember when one of our daughters one one day said.
I want to ask the Lord Jesus to be my savior, to wash my sins away. She said, I don't want to pray. I just want to talk to God. And so she, she took her eyes and she, she looked up toward the ceiling because she knew that God was in heaven and, and she said, well, she was sure he would hear and he did. And she asked him.
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You don't have to close your eyes to ask to talk to God. You don't have to close your eyes to tell Him you understand that you have a need from right where you are. No one else has to know.
Have you told him that you have a need, that you have a problem inside, but you know he can do something about it? He's listening. He's listening. How many of us have had children or young people that work in a school? And sometimes there's a crowd of five or six students around and they're all trying to talk at once. And I say, I'm sorry, but I'm capable of only talking to one person at a time or listening to one question at a time.
But everyone in this room could be talking to God at the same time, and he could hear and understand and have a much deeper a complete perfect understanding.
Of what's coming from inside and what you're feeling. And it isn't even something that has to be very eloquent. It isn't something that requires that, that you even be able to very well explain the need a child sometimes can't. A little baby can can sometimes do no more than cry.
Can God listen to a cry from your heart?
Or my heart, he can.
He's got an ear that can hear a cry from inside the heart that's absolutely inaudible to anyone else.
What happened here, Pilot? We come to the end of his life here.
There's a man on this earth at that time. Verse 22 of chapter 27.
Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?
They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why? What evil hath he done? If that question had been asked about me, there's plenty of people that could have given a list.
They didn't answer the question because they couldn't. They couldn't answer the question if it had been you or if it was me. When someone said why? What evil has he done? What has he done? They could have come up with a list, but it wouldn't. When it was the Lord Jesus, all they could say is let him be crucified. We don't want him. We don't want him, Friend tonight. Is that what you're saying to the Lord Jesus? I don't want you. Maybe you're saying I don't want you now.
Or maybe you're saying I don't ever want you children young people.
Many of you, most of you tonight I recognize.
And the Lord Jesus loves you, and he loves you just the same as he loves every bigger person in this room.
And His heart is just the same for you and He.
Wants to be your Savior right now. He wants to take care of that need of sin that's inside.
Because there's no guarantee that little people become young people and that young people become big people. No guarantee.
No guarantee. And so the question comes back to this, Are you ready?
If I was in this group many years ago, almost 2000 years ago when they were talking what should I do with the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm afraid that I would have been among the loudest to yell, Let him be crucified.
Because that's what my heart is like.
But the Lord Jesus was looking out at that group of people there.
And he cared about each one. How much did he care about each one? Every one of them would not have arrived to the next breath if he didn't care about them, because he held their breath in his hand. You're sitting here tonight, standing here. I'm breathing. I'm in this body, still alive. And so are you. And what is it that's making you stay alive so that you can hear the gospel? It's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He passed.
Three hours on the cross when men and women.
Taunted him.
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Men and women.
Said what they had to say.
To turn the lights, as it were, off, turn the lights and this world off for three hours, and in those three hours, God, a righteous, holy God.
Punished.
The Lord Jesus, perfect holy man.
For something he had done.
No, not for something he had done. Because he's perfect. He cannot sin. He never did. He never will forever.
Why did he punish him? Because I am a Sinner and because you are a Sinner. Because you've done things. Because there are things I'm sure in your life that you wouldn't want written up here and everyone to identify those is what you've done. It's the same thing for me.
So the Lord Jesus could go there instead of Maine, and he could suffer in three hours what I would have to suffer forever.
You and I.
Can think about that. You and I will be thinking about that. Those of us who know the Lord Jesus forever in heaven. But we'll never understand. We'll never understand. We'll understand perhaps better, but we'll never understand what it was like. But I want you to think for a few minutes of what it would be like.
To say, Lord Jesus, no, I don't want you as my Savior. If you say that to the Lord Jesus and your heart tonight, or you say I've got things to do tomorrow's Monday, I'll think about it again some other time if you say that.
You're not guaranteed of another time, but I want you to stop and think about it. Where the Lord Jesus is in heaven and where he's coming back to this earth and take many of us to be with him in heaven is a wonderful place. The Bible, compared with some other subjects, doesn't talk a lot about it. It doesn't talk a lot about it because perhaps our minds are too puny to be able to understand. But the most important thing is that the Lord Jesus is there and that it's God the Father's house and that He wants to share it with you.
He wants to share it with you.
When that beggar came to the door and rang the bell, my wife opened the door and gave him food. When he came back and rang the bell again, my wife opened the door and gave him something to drink, but we didn't invite him to the house to live.
God's different.
He's knocking.
Tonight, every time the gospel is preached, he is. But it's at a heart.
When the door is open, he doesn't just give food and water, He gives an invitation. And he can because his son died on the cross. He gives an invitation to go to his house and live there forever. A house where there's no sorrow, no crying, wherever he need is taken care of, where everyone has joy that lasts forever, where everyone has something that's going to satisfy their heart completely, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a place where we're going to be able to see.
Prince.
Wounds in the hands.
And in the side of the Lord Jesus from when he suffered on the cross.
Have you ever seen a person that was missing a leg? Have you ever seen a person that was missing an arm? You have. It's wonderful to be able to say to that person, if the Lord Jesus is your savior, you're going to have a new one.
You're going to have a body that's complete. Perhaps you've suffered from some sickness or something like that. In heaven, there won't be any of that. There won't be any need for doctors or medicine or hospitals or anything like that. There won't be any need for any of those things because God is going to take every one of those things away. There's no place for Him in heaven because they're here on earth because of sin, they won't be in heaven. So understand that. That's what heaven a little bit is like. But let's go to the other side. What is it like?
To be in the Lake of Fire, if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, you still have friends, you still have people that love you, you still have people that you talk with. You still enjoy food, you still enjoy water when you're thirsty. You can still enjoy the comfort of air conditioning compared with being out when the weather is very hot and muggy. But in the Lake of Fire, it's not going to be like that. It's a place from which no one will ever escape. That's an important thing to understand. Had a friend when I was in the university. His name was Barry, and Barry said to me.
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Dean I've been able to take care of everything each day in my life when I come up to it. And so when I die, I'm not worried I'm going to be able to take care of that, too. When I die, I don't have to worry about it.
Too late, too late. It's not ready. If that situation, that question isn't taken care of ahead of time, it's too late. When the Lord Jesus comes, you can't turn back the clock, You can't regain the day, that last day of life, and it might be this one for you. The Lord Jesus is coming. And so even if you continue to live, if you don't know the Lord Jesus, you will.
It's too late. You're left behind, though I'm sure a lot of people are here and I'm sure that there were parents that got in the car today.
Or Van or whatever. And they looked around and they went through each of their children. They said I don't want to leave a single one behind.
Don't leave a single one behind. That's what God's heart is like. He doesn't want to leave a single one who's in this room behind.
Our hearts are so puny, those of us who know the Lord Jesus is our Savior. It doesn't affect us very much sometimes to think about people being left behind when the Lord Jesus comes. But he doesn't want anyone to perish. He wants you to be with him in heaven. God understands far better than you or I do what it's going to be like for someone to have to spend an eternity in the lake of fire, in a fire that never goes out, in burning and weeping. People are going to be crying, but there's nothing forever that's going to be able to satisfy a single one.
Of their desires.
Separate forever from the Lord Jesus, separate forever from friends, separate forever from comfort and just in a continual never ending judgment of their sins.
So Lord Jesus doesn't want that for you tonight. That's why He came all the way from heaven to this earth. He who is Creator of all of it walked on this earth. And as we've been reminded, but I'm going to say it again, he didn't have a bed to go home to at night. He didn't have one He could call His own. We all have that. Lord Jesus didn't have that. The Creator gave up all of those things because He loves you. He loves me so much.
That he can't think of us spending an eternity in the lake of fire. He wants us forever with him in heaven. And so we're just going to read two more watts before we finish.
The next one in the book of Acts.
Acts Chapter 17.
Next chapter 17 and verse 18.
Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him. This is a man named Paul. And some said, What will this babbler say? Other some he seemed to be a setter forth of strange gods, because he preached, preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.
OK.
An Epicurean.
In your life.
Are you acting, are you thinking that you're just like an animal that has more capability than the other animals that are around? People judge animals on the basis of their intelligence. And people say, well, a dog is an intelligent animal, but some other animal is much less intelligent than than a dog. And they look at the the ones in the sea and they say, well, if the animals in the sea, a dolphin is more intelligent than the others. And that of all the animals, man is just the most intelligent, the most developed in his mind, and he can do the greatest number of things. That's what an Epicurean said.
If that's true, you don't have to worry about anything we said tonight because when it's all over, when it comes time for you to die, you're just like a dog. If that's really true, then you could forget everything we said tonight because an Epicurean said we're just like an animal. And if we're just like an animal, we might as well just go do what we want to do. They might as well go out and go where we want to go. And if we see something that we want to do, doesn't matter what other people think about it, but if it's going to give us some pleasure because sin does for a time.
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Doesn't last.
But that's not what the Bible says. And the Bible is the only book that has the authority to, to state what's the truth on this? The Bible says, we're not just like a dog. And a stoic says, well, somehow with my mind, you know, we're going to, I'm going to come up to be like a God that I, my mind is going to keep growing and I'm going to develop it. And, and I, I'm, I'm proud of what I can do and look at what man has done. And, and somehow that's what's important.
Neither one is the truth. Neither one is the truth. The Lord Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life. An Epicurean, I'm afraid, was completely wrong. I'm not afraid. I'm thankful he was wrong and a stoic was completely wrong. But perhaps you're in one of those two groups tonight. What Paul came along and he had a different message for the city of Athens. His message was Jesus.
And the resurrection.
His message was Jesus in the resurrection.
One of the concerns, if we go back to it in the Persian Gulf War, was that certain things finish in time so that people could go visit a cemetery.
To be honest, I don't have any particular desire to try to go. It would be interesting to see the country, but I don't have any particular desire to go see where people say the Lord Jesus was buried. Why? Because it's empty. He's not there.
I have a desire to go to be where the Lord Jesus is now, not where they put His body. My Savior is in heaven.
He wants to have me there with Him. I can't understand that, but that's love in the greatest way that love could ever be shown in the Lord. Jesus is not in a graze that you can go visit him, that you could go outside that and bow down and pray and do something. No, He's in heaven and He wants you to be there with Him. He wants you to be there with Him. Let's go over on the other side of the page in some Bibles or another page perhaps, but to verse 29.
For as much as we are the offspring of God, we're different. An animal can't, couldn't say that we ought not to think that the Godhead is like under gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art in man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness. By that man hath ordained, wherefore he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead.
Some people thought.
When the Lord Jesus was crucified, that they could take his body, they could put him in, put the body in a cave and roll a big stone and put soldiers in front of that door and that they could keep him there. Impossible. Impossible because God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and God the Son all participated together. That he's raised from the dead. That tomb is empty. That tomb is empty, and I'm looking forward to seeing him.
Not here, but in the clouds. I'm looking forward because He's coming soon to take those who know Him as their Savior to heaven. He's coming. Are you ready or Can you imagine what this room would be like?
With the doors shut.
The door is locked.
No one going out that way, but to have the person next to you suddenly disappear.
To have the person next to you suddenly be where you you might reach out and say what happened is they're not there. And then to look around the room and to find that the room was almost empty, but you were still there.
When I was a child, that was something that was a real fear for me.
I didn't want to be in a room where other people were. If I wanted to make sure, I wanted to be absolutely sure. And children or young people, if you're afraid.
God wants you to be sure.
If you've asked the Lord Jesus to wash your sins away, He wants you to be sure. But Can you imagine what it would be like?
What would you do? Perhaps you live in some other part of the city of Chicago and and the person you came with has disappeared because the Lord Jesus has come.
What are you going to do? I can't imagine what a person would do in that circumstance.
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What would it be like to be left behind? Some of you have heard the gospel from the time you were a child, a young baby.
The parent often doesn't wait until the child can understand to start telling them about the Lord Jesus. They start telling them when they're very small because you don't know when they're first going to be able to understand. Start telling them about the Lord Jesus. Well, maybe you've heard that and maybe your ears are just like an ear that has a lot of wax in it. You can't hear very well.
I want you to go back and think tonight, where are you headed? These people, their time, were ignorant, but God commanded them to repent. They had to change their mind. They had to think about everything in a new way. They had to realize that sin wasn't just something that perhaps hurt their parents or or their brother or their sister, but it was something that affected their relationship with God. They had to realize that God loves them. And that's what you have to realize tonight, that He hates your sins.
He hates them so much that he, his son, came to this earth to take those sins on him and die. So just one last verse in the chapter before to finish the last what we'll talk about in Acts.
Chapter 16.
The end of verse 30.
A man who was afraid he realized his need. The end of verse 30. It says, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
We've talked a little bit about hell, about the lake of fire. God wants you to save you.
Out of ever going there and save you to take you home to heaven. He wants to do that tonight.
How can he do it? His son died. Three things I want you to think about. You have a need. You're a Sinner.
You need to repent of those sins. You need to think about them in a different way. Realize that they're so serious that the only way for you to go to heaven was that God is so good that his beloved Son came to this earth to die. You need to repent of those sins. You need to change your mind and think about him in a new way and just simply turn to the Lord Jesus and say, Lord Jesus, will you save me? Is he going to say no, He never has and He never will until the doors shut and then it's too late. The door is going to be shut, but there's still time right now.
So while we close our eyes and we pray together, you can close your eyes or whatever and just simply talk to God if you haven't already.
Blessed God, our Father.
We've read a lot of what's.
But we're thankful that the answer is my beloved Son, the Lord Jesus.
We don't have to walk out of here with questions or doubts.
But if there is someone who's not ready.
Perhaps a step from death that they would be before it's too late. We just ask that thy spirit might work in the hearts to convict of sin.
And to convince of what the Lord Jesus has done, and His worthy and precious name, we pray. Amen.