Gospel_SermonsE\E\BOOKMOBI00/0?0O0_0o000 0 0 0 0 00000/0?0O0_0o0000000000 0!0"/0#?0$O0%_0&o0'0(0)0*0+0,0-0.0/000102/03?04O05_06o0708090:0;0<0=0>0?0@0A0B/0C?0DO0E_0Fo0G0H0I0J0K0L0M0N0O0P0Q0R/0S?0TO0U_0Vo0W0X0Y0Z0[0\0]0^0_0`0a0b/0c?0dO0e_0fo0g0h0i0j0k0l0m0n0o0p0q0r/0s?0tO0u_0vo0w0x0y0z0{0|0}0~0000/0?0O0_0o0000000000 0 0 /0 ?0 O0 _0 o0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 /0 ?0 O0 _0 o0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ۓ ۔ T  @ l cMOBIы50REXTH<,0 @@Gospel Sermons

Information. 2

A Bridge Too Far 3

Ye Must Be Born Again. 9

Conviction Of Sin. 15

Death. 21

Except Ye Repent, Ye Shall All Likewise Perish. 28

Excuses, Excuses. 34

God Is Calling You! 41

God's Day Of Reckoning. 47

Heaven And How To Get There. 54

Identifying The Sheep Of God. 60

Liar, Lunatic Or Lord?. 68

Pastor David Legge's Testimony. 74

The Great White Throne Judgement 80

The Harvest Is Past 86

The Place Called Calvary. 94

The Serpent 100

The Troubles - What's The Answer?. 107

The Unpardonable Sin. 113

This Could Be Your Problem.. 119

An Education From Hell 126

Appendix A: Pastor Willie Mullan's Testimony. 132

David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.

The audio for these sermons is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk

All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted. However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.

"A Bridge Too Far"

Copyright 1998

All rights reserved

I just want to read one verse with you this evening, that we'll be thinking about a little later, from the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 1, Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 1: "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy". I'll read it again: 'He', or she, 'that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy'.

Not very many words in this little proverb - like most proverbs - but there is profound truth within it. 'He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy'. Another translation puts it like this: 'He, who is often reproved yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken without healing'. Another translation, again, says: 'The man who is often reproved, but refuses to accept criticism, will suddenly be broken and never have another chance'.

The subject I wish to preach on this evening, from this verse, is: 'A Bridge Too Far'. Perhaps you've seen the film, you've seen how those troops in the second world war - they got so far, only to go a bridge too far, where they met their end. We can think of many illustrations, many instances, within our own lives where we could say that we have gone a bridge too far. Perhaps in education we've achieved something and we thought we'd go on a little further - and we got a little further, until we got greedy about it, and we went a little more further to only fail and realise we'd went a bridge too far. Perhaps in business we've found it, and we've got that scent - that scent of the bait, if you like - and we go a little bit further in business, and we try to gather a bit more money, and we go too far - only to fall and lose a bit of money. It's a bit like gambling as well, isn't it? You get a scent, and you get a feel, you get an emotion for the gambling and you go a little bit further - and the more you win, the more you want to go on, until you fall because you go a bridge too far.

'He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy'. The picture that the man who is writing this proverb has in his own mind, I believe, is perhaps the picture of the oxen. A picture of a bullock - and the farmer is walking along, and he's about to start his work early in the morning, and he's about to plough the field. And he goes into the field and he takes the yoke - that big long panel of wood for the shoulders of the oxen, [with] which they will plough that field and work hard for his labours. And he goes over to those beasts, and he goes to put the yoke upon their shoulders but they turn their heads - they turn away, they refuse his yoke, they're rebellious, they don't want anything to do with it - and he can't seem to put the yoke upon their shoulders, for the purposes and the labours which he has in mind.

It's the picture of little dog, isn't it? You go over to the cloakroom, and you open the door and he sees you getting the coat - and then he goes frantic, and he's jumping and shouting, jumping on your knees - and then you go to put the lead on him, and then there's a growl. He just won't let you put that lead on him, and he moves, and he turns his neck away - and he'll bite you, but he won't have the lead round his neck. The [writer] put it: the man - the women, the teenager, the boy or girl - who hardens his neck, who stiffens the muscles and the sinews and the flesh of his neck against God, who refuses the yoke of God, who refuses God's will, God's way upon his life, who refuses the lead of God whereby He may walk him in His paths of righteousness - he says that that man who hardens his neck, who has a brass neck, suddenly that man will be broken. And he will be broken in a way that is irrevocable - it will not be able to be brought back, it will not be able to be mended or, as the translation I read said, it won't be able to be healed. There will never, ever again be another chance to be the way that man was.

I don't want to go any further, but I really want to apply this now. People who come Sunday evening after Sunday evening, Sunday morning, perhaps go to Youth Fellowship, or the organisations within our fellowship - and week after week they hear the message of the Gospel, and week after week they harden their heart and their neck against God! Is that you tonight? Be honest with yourself here. You know who you are, you know if God is speaking or singling you out this evening in our gathering. I don't know who you are, but God does - and listen, He has a message for you tonight: that you who would harden your heart, and who week after week go out the back doors, and perhaps you have a sense of the presence of God when you're in here, but when the cold day air hits your face - all those spiritual realities seem to fade away. And you begin to think about what you're going to do tomorrow, the week of work that lies ahead - and those deep spiritual thoughts that have been brought before you here in the pew, they're gone, suddenly, in a flash, and again you harden your neck against God and you reject Him once more!

How many walk away...how many see the Saviour, almost visibly in their own minds eye, bleeding, dying, crying out for their soul - can you remember those times, friend? When you thought you could nearly see Him calling your name, when you heard the preacher, as it was, pointing out and singling out aspects - specific events in your life - that he was convicting you over. And you thought to yourself, 'How does that man know about my life? How could God know about that?'. Yet those times, you walked away from God. The Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish - and we praise God for that truth, that God does not want to see people going to hell. It says God is long-suffering, He's patient towards us and He doesn't want us to go to hell - He wants us to be saved, He wants us to live for Him, to give everything for Him. But! Although God is patient, and although God is long-suffering, even God's patience can run out!

We, in our country, are very fixed in our minds, aren't we? In our own little town, the people of our town picturing the whole of our nation, are fixed in their mind in certain ways: political ways. But listen, this evening, you could be a symptom of that in your religious or your spiritual ways. You could be fixed in your mind. Perhaps you've decided years ago, 30 years ago, perhaps a couple of years ago, that you would have nothing to do with this Gospel. Perhaps you decided that you were going to live for yourself, for your business, for your wealth, for your health! And you didn't want anything to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you've made your mind concrete - or as another man says: 'thoroughly fixed and mixed, and permanently set'. Have you a concrete mind tonight? Is your mind set? That you're not going to accept this Gospel - and no matter if God, in Christ, could come before you tonight bodily, visibly and show you the nail prints in His hands, the scar in His side: you still, like Thomas, will not believe! He saw it, and he believed - but if you saw it tonight you wouldn't believe, because you've made your mind up! You're set in your ways, and you're thoroughly fixed.

Now, I know nothing about farming, but I'm sure some boys here you could tell you a little bit about it. But I've been told that if you push a cow one way, it'll go the other way - and sometimes we can be like that. We can be like the oxen, we can harden our necks, we can harden every sinew and muscle in our body against God, spiritually speaking. We can refuse His grace, refuse His goodness, close our ears to His word, our hearts to His light, and we reject Him in every conceivable way - and we would not thank Him for anything that He gives us! Could that be you tonight? Could you be one who is hardening his neck against God? Well, I want to talk to you, just for a few moments tonight, about God's patience.

God's patience: even God's patience - and I say this reverently, and He's more patient than anyone upon the face of the earth - but even His patience runs out! Usually His patience runs out with those who have heard. That's right, those who He has spoken to before, those who He has come to, who He has pleaded with, who He has revealed certain truths to - it's usually with those whom His patience runs out. The children of believers, those who have parents who are born-again, who've grown up under the sound of the Gospel and have been sent to Sunday School, and the children's meeting, and the Campaigners* and so on - and they heard the Gospel since they were knee-high, yet they grow up and whatever happens - perhaps they've been offended or annoyed, or something they have seen makes them rebel against God and God's people - and they turn away and refuse the gospel of Jesus Christ. People in families, husbands, wives - wives who have been married to godly husbands, and vice versa - and they have seen a witness, and they've seen Christ through the loving kindness of their husband or wife, yet they go on rejecting Him! And no matter how much God tries through that witness, through the fleshly witness of His Spirit within those people, they refuse Christ as their Saviour. Through churches, perhaps it's this church, perhaps it's another church - I don't care what church it is - but a church who presents the Gospel from the Bible, and you've heard it over and over again - but no matter how many times you hear it, you reject it!

*uniformed Christian youth organisation

I want to tell you what God thinks, this evening, what God's patience is this evening with regard to your rebellion and your rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We find it in Proverbs 1 and verse 24, and God says in Proverbs 1 and 24: 'Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded...' - I've called to you and you refused My voice, and no man has seen it, but I have put My hand out against you - '...But you have set at nothing all my counsel, and would none of my reproof...'. God is saying, 'You wouldn't listen to one thing I said to you!'. '...I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh...' - when you want Me, when you need Me, when there's a time in your life when you cry out to Me, I will look upon you and think 'It's too late!'. 'When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord'.

Aren't those sobering words, tonight? We all know the verses: 'Them that seek the Lord will find Him, if they search with all their heart', we know that, and we love quoting it - and some people are sitting, sitting in some kind of security, remembering those verses. And they say, 'Some day I'll trust Him. Some day when I'm older, when I'm on my deathbed, when I really need Him - I don't really need Him now - but then I'll trust Him!'. But oh, that we would believe our whole Bible and oh, that we would hear God saying to you, perhaps tonight, and sit in fear of these words this evening: 'Then shall they call upon me...'. That day that you're thinking of, when you're on your deathbed, you could call upon Him - but He will not answer! And no matter how early you seek Him, you will not find Him! We find it again in Zechariah chapter 7, verse 11, where God says to the people of Israel - and He could be saying to you tonight: 'You refused to hearken', you didn't want to listen, 'you pulled away the shoulder'. You know when you put your [hand on the] shoulder of someone whom you love, and they have a grudge against you and they turn away - have you done that with God? Is that what you're doing to God this evening? You refuse, you turn away the shoulder and stop the ears, that you should not hear what He is saying? 'Yea, you have made your hearts as adamant stone, lest you should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets', you've hardened your heart against God!

Listen, friend tonight: has God been speaking to you? Have you heard God on a Sunday evening or a Sunday morning? Have you heard the still small voice of God through your circumstances in your life? Have you heard God's voice through an illness that has been recent? Have you heard God's voice through problems that have come across your daily path? Have you heard God's voice through the death of a loved one, or a friend in your family, or a husband, or a wife? And you've heard God speaking, but you don't want to hear Him because you blame Him for those things that have come into your life! Has God been speaking to you through an accident? Perhaps a car accident? And you got out of it, and you don't know how you got out of it, and the police and the ambulance don't know how you got out of it - but you got out of it! And God is speaking to you, He is wanting you to know that He has a purpose for your life, He wants to save you, He wants to use you, but you turn your neck away from Him, you turn away the shoulder.

There was once a revival in a Presbyterian church, in Pennsylvania in America. There were thousands of people being saved, it was glorious - it was like heaven came down to earth - in every Gospel meeting there were people being saved, it was glorious! But there was one girl and she felt God speaking to her soul - and she came along to the meetings, but she would come to them on alternate evenings: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and the other evenings, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday she would go to the dances. Her week, her routine over the two weeks of the mission was: the meeting, the dance, the meeting, the dance, the meeting, the dance. And the documents of the church have it as such, that the second week, I believe, of that mission, her calendar was: the meeting, the dance, the meeting, the dance, the meeting, the dance, the coffin! And what a sobering reality it was for the elders of that church to look upon that, and to hear, perhaps, the word of God, by the Spirit of God speaking to them: 'She that hardeneth her neck against God shall be swiftly reproved, and that without remedy'. Do you hear God speaking to you tonight?

You know, God spoke to so many people in His word. He spoke to Sodom and Gomorrah over and over again, He warned them of their sin - that came up to Him as a stench to His holy nostrils. For what they had done, He warned over and over again and again - but His patience ran out! And He destroyed them. He spoke to Pharaoh, He said over and over again, 'Let my people go'. He sent ten plagues, and every time Pharaoh said ,'I'll let them go now', but then he hardened his heart against God - and eventually God ran out of patience and slew his firstborn child! Eli's sons, bringing offerings to God in the temple - and what did they do? They came in and they offered strange fire, a wrong sacrifice - we believe, perhaps, they were even drunk as they came to God to worship Him - and God said, 'I've warned you enough, sons - that's it! My patience has run out!' - and He struck them down! What greater example is there than Judas Iscariot? Three years with the Lord Jesus Christ, seeing the honey words dropping from His lips, from the mouth of incarnate God. Hearing the teaching, first-hand, from the Lord Jesus Christ, witnessing His miracles, Judas beside Him every day of His life - yet he betrayed Him!

Perhaps you could be like the surgeon tonight: the surgeon, who when he operates on his first patient, and the patient dies - perhaps that night is a sleepless night, perhaps the rest of the week he thinks, 'I wonder is there something I could have done? If I had done this procedure, rather than the other one that I did do, or if I'd listened to another doctor, or one of the nurses beside me. If I wasn't quick enough...', and all these thoughts course across his mind - and he thinks of these things. But in 30 years time when he is over a patient and that patient passes away, he will feel sorry, he will feel, 'Maybe she would have lived - or he would have lived - if we did something else', but he will quickly forget and he will go on to the next patient, because there's work to be done. And he, over time, has become de-sensitised to death.

Perhaps you, tonight, are de-sensitised to the gospel of Jesus Christ. You remember, when you were a child and you heard about the person in your family, the first person closest to you who died - and it was tragic, and you cried, and every time you thought, or saw a photograph of them, it brought those pains to you. But as you grow older, and more people die, you become a little more accustomed to it - and eventually you can become hardened to it. Listen to the word of God tonight, to your soul: 'He that hardeneth himself against God'! You're like the frost - you know the frost - one layer comes down, another layer comes down, and the more layers that come down the harder the ground gets, the more dangerous it gets. And you're just like that, the more you harden your heart - listen! - the more dangerous it becomes for you! And God says in 1 Thessalonians, that like a pregnant woman who's walking down the street one day, and the pains, and the pangs of childbirth come upon her - listen! - if you refuse God, if you harden your heart and your neck against Him, judgement will come upon your life because you refused His instruction!

Why does God's patience run out? Well, God's patience ran out with the children in Genesis, just before the flood had happened - what happened? It says that, listen: 'The imaginations of every man's heart was only evil continually' - now, I know things are bad today, but I wonder are they as bad as that? The only thoughts that men had were 'only evil continually' - and God said: 'That is enough! My patience has run out!'. And He said to them, 'I'll give you 70 years to live - but listen, My Spirit shall not always strive with man', and His Spirit ceased to strive with those men when He sent the flood and destroyed them. That's why God's patience runs out - for as He says in Hosea, and I want these words to burn into your heart, not because I want to frighten you, not because I want to be morbid or solemn tonight, but because this is the truth of God and you need to know it! God said, in Hosea 4 and verse 17, about one of the tribes of Israel, Ephraim - He said these sobering words, listen: 'Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone'. Did you hear those words? Ephraim - this tribe of Israel - they're joined to idols, they're following after their own gods, they're following after materialism, their car, their business, their wife, their lover, they're following after their education, they have made idols to themselves - listen to the voice of God, how horrifying it must have been to them: 'Let him alone!'. Can you imagine this evening, if you, sitting in your pew tonight, heard the voice of God, or lying in your bed with a cold sweat upon your brow, you heard the words of God: 'Let him alone! Leave him! He's refused Me enough'.

In Pilgrim's Progress there is a story about a man that was found in a cage - and Pilgrim's Progress is a story, a picture, an allegory of the Christian walk and the Christian life, and the chief character is the man who is called Christian. He flees from the City of Wrath, which is about to be destroyed, and he's walking, and journeying, and [is on a] pilgrimage to a city, a Celestial City which is heaven. But along his path, he meets this man and I want to read it out to you tonight, I want you to listen, picture it:

And [the writer] says, "So he took him by the hand again and led him into a very dark room, where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now the man to look on seemed very sad and he sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, his hands folded together, and he sighed as if he would break his heart.

Then said Christian, 'What means this?', at which the Interpreter - or the Holy Spirit - bid him talk with the man. Then said Christian to the man, 'What are you?'.

The man answered, 'I am what I was not once'.

'What were you?'.

The man said, 'I was once fair, a flourishing person who said they were a Christian, both in my own eyes and also in the eyes of others. I once was - as I thought - fair for heaven, the Celestial City, and even then I had joy at the thoughts that I should get there'.

Christian said, 'Well, but what are you now?'.

'I am now a man of despair. I am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out! Oh! Now I cannot get out!'.

Christian said to him, 'But how came you to this condition?'.

He said, 'I left off to watch and to be sober, I laid the reigns upon the necks of my own lusts. I sinned against the light of the world and the goodness of God, I have grieved the Spirit and He is gone. I tempted the devil and he has come to me. I have provoked God to anger and He has left me! I have so hardened my heart that I cannot repent!'.

Then said Christian, 'But is there no hopes for such a man as this?'.

'Ask him', said the Interpreter.

Then said Christian, 'Is there no hope, but you must be kept in the iron cage of despair?'.

The man replied, 'No, none at all'.

'Why? The Son of the Blessed is very pitiful and merciful and long-suffering'.

Listen to the man's words: 'I have crucified Him to myself afresh. I have despised His person, I have despised His righteousness. I have counted His blood as an unholy thing. I have done despite to the spirit of grace. Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, and now there remains nothing for me but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings of certain judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour me as an adversary'.

Christian asked him, 'For what did you bring yourself into this condition?'.

He replied, 'For the lusts, the pleasures, the profits of this world, in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight. But now every one of those things also bite me and gnaw me like a burning worm'.

Christian says, 'But canst thou not now repent and turn?'.

Listen: 'No! God hath denied me repentance! His word gives me no encouragement to believe. Yea Himself has shut me up in this iron cage - nor can all the men in the world let me out! Oh! Eternity, eternity, how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity?'.

Then said Intepreter to the Christian, 'Let this man's misery be remembered by thee, and be an everlasting caution to thee'.

Listen, friend, our time has gone this evening, but listen! Could that be you tonight? 'Oh! Eternity! Eternity!' - perhaps you're so close, a foot off rejecting Christ for the last time, and He will say: 'It is enough!'. You could be a backslider tonight, and if you're truly a backslider you will never lift up your eyes in hell if you were saved in the first place - but listen, believer who is outside the path, and the will, and the walking of God's precepts - listen! 1 John chapter 4 says that there is a sin unto death, and if you walk in disobedience to Christ and go too far on this earth, He will take you from this scene of time to protect His testimony - He'll take you to glory! But for this cause, many are sickly among you and do sleep.

I want you to see, as we close, not just God patience, but God's provision. Now listen, if God is speaking to you tonight - and I believe He could be speaking to someone here this evening for the very last time: Christ for sin atonement makes. Christ can cover your sin. Christ, by His blood that He shed at the cross, He can provide a covering, a veil for your guilt - to plunge it away, to separate your sins as far as the east is from the west, to dig them deep into the depths of the ocean. He can take them away, tonight! Will you listen to His voice? Or will you harden your heart and be swiftly destroyed?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - September 2000

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


"Ye Must Be Born Again"

Copyright 2000

All rights reserved

Well good evening everyone, let me thank you for the warm words of welcome from your Pastor on behalf of the whole church here in Kilkeel. It's a great privilege to be here with you this evening, and to be labouring with you in this mission in the Gospel. I trust, and hope, that as we go night by night preaching the word of God, that the Lord will be pleased to save people by the grace of God.

I want you to turn with me to a very well known passage of Scripture, it's a passage that I have preached on many times - and I haven't preached that many times, really - but John chapter 3 is probably known to most of you in this gathering this evening. It is a story of another individual who the singers were singing about, who the Lord met. It's a great thing to meet the Lord - I wonder have you ever met the Lord? This man met the Lord, and I believe that the Lord is going to meet with someone this evening. Now, it's up to you what you're going to do with the Lord - whether you're going to trust Him, whether you're going to accept Him or reject Him. This man accepted the Lord.

In verse 1 we read this: "There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life".

Let's take a moment of prayer: Our Father in heaven, we come to Thee in the name of the Lord Jesus, and we need Thee. No-one else will do - David Legge means nothing, Kilkeel Baptist means nothing, we need God, we need God the Holy Spirit. I need Him to fill me, the sinner in the pew here this evening needs Him to save them. So God, we pray that Thou wilt come and do a work of salvation in this place. In Jesus' name, Amen.

In John chapter 3 the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to this man named Nicodemus. Now, I want you to notice this: three times the Lord Jesus Christ says something to this man. Now you might say that if the Lord Jesus Christ came to you one evening in the middle of the night, and you were awakened out of your sleep all of a sudden - and at the bottom of the bed there stood Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and He said something to you once, I think you would be sure to listen to Him, wouldn't you? But Jesus Christ came to Nicodemus, and in his middle of the night He said something to him three times! Now if Jesus says something to you once, my friend, listen. If Jesus says something to you twice, you'd better listen! And if He says three times - and He's going to say it to you this evening - you've got to listen to what He is saying!

Here is what He says, listen: 'Truly, truly, I say unto thee, Ye must be born again'. Have you ever heard those words? I remember the last time I preached on these words, there was a man waiting at the door for me. He shook hands with me and pulled me over to him, and I knew he was going to say something that I wasn't going to like. He said to me: 'Do you think you used your time well there this evening?'. I said: 'What do you mean?'. He says: 'Well, you repeated over and over and over again 'Ye must be born again, Ye must be born again'', he said, 'There's a whole lot of other things that you could have said in that half an hour' - maybe it was a wee bit over half an hour! I said to that man, and I say to you: 'Do you know why I did that? Because ye must be born again'.

Do you know that? That's the essence of the Gospel. I'm not asking you do you understand what it means, I'm asking you have you ever heard it? Have you ever shut your ears and your eyes and your heart to this fact: that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, over and over again and again said to this man, 'Listen, listen to me in whatever I say, Ye must be born again'. Well, are you? Are you? You say: 'Well, I don't understand what it means to be born-again'. Well, I'm going to explain to you, with the help of God, what it means.

'In the beginning', we read this, the word of God says, 'God created the heavens and the earth'. I know half the world doesn't believe that any more. They'll tell you that you can go and shake hands with your grandfather, or your great-grandfather, or your ancestor way down the line - some chimpanzee, or some wee cell in the middle of this pool of mud. They tell us that we come from the monkeys, and we come from all sorts of things, but we definitely don't come from God! My friend, the word of God says: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. So what is man? If God created us, what is he? The Bible says that man is created in the image and the likeness of his Creator God. That simply means this: the first man could know God, could know the things of God, he had a will that delighted to do the things that God wanted him to do, he had a heart that loved the things that God loved. But we read in Genesis chapter 3 that the devil came in!

Has that ever happened to you? The devil has come in, hasn't he? He came in here in the garden, and God told them: 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, don't eat of that one: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die'. What did Satan say? 'Go on, you'll not die at all'. They took, and they ate, and they disobeyed God - and it says that from that moment that sin meant that death came upon all of creation. From that moment on men were no longer in the exact image of their Creator God, but the word of God says: '...and Adam begat a son in his own image'.

That's what big theologians call 'the fall'. Men and women have fallen from the glory where God had created them. He had created them to be like Him, to walk like Him, and talk like Him, and do all things like their Creator God - but they fell and were marred, and God's beautiful design and picture was defaced. That's what the Bible means - have you ever heard these words: 'We are born in sin and shapen in iniquity'? That's what the Bible means when Paul says: 'There is no difference, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God'. That's what the Bible means when Isaiah, seeing himself and the children of God in Israel, said: 'From the tip of the head to the tip of the toe they were covered in putrifying, oozing sores of sin'.

I wonder do you see yourself that way? Do you know what the gospel of Jesus Christ is? It's how the image is, that stamp of God upon His creature, can be restored. The Bible teaches that the only way that can happen is that the Holy Spirit of God comes back into man and back into woman, and restores the life of God into those that are spiritually dead. The Bible calls it the 'new birth' - new life! To be regenerated, to have the life revived within your soul, to have the Spirit of God come into your heart and breathe new life into everything that is dead. The Lord Jesus Christ says to you, my friend, as He said to Nicodemus: 'Except a man be born-again, he cannot see the kingdom of God'.

If I was to ask you all to put your hand up - whoever wants to see the kingdom of God - I'm sure that everybody's hand would be up, wouldn't they? Who wants to go to heaven? Everybody puts their hand up, don't they? Oh, they all argue about the way they get there of course - I'm not talking about that - but there is a desire within their soul, within their heart, that when they die they will go to be with God, whoever their god may be. Jesus Christ - do you think He's a liar, do you? Stand up if you think He's a liar. Do you think He was a lunatic? Well, be a man about it, or a woman about it, and stand up and say to everybody here that He was mad, He was off His head! Well, if He was neither, He says to you: 'If you're to see heaven one day, my friend, if you're to get to Glory, and if you're to get with all loved ones that have gone before you that were saved - ye must be born-again'!

What is it to be born-again? Well you'll know, better than I do coming from the city, that every creature that is born into this world has a nature after its own kind. In other words, you can't train a bird to crawl, and for the same reason you can't train a snake to fly, because they are true to their nature. A caterpillar crawls, and a bird flies. But one day when we watch, perhaps for weeks and months, a caterpillar crawling along the ground - and suddenly one-day it sprouts wings and it flies, what do we say? 'Boy, that's a clever caterpillar. Look what that caterpillar has accomplished, that caterpillar must have read a book on flying! Look what has happened!' - you don't say that, why? Because it's its new nature: caterpillars change from caterpillars to butterflies. You could say it's been born-again, couldn't you? It's been born again! It's a new life!

Let me say this: do you see if you're a sinner - and you're all sinners, the Bible says - but if you're not born-again, if you're not saved, you might as well try and breathe life into an old dead Mummy in a tomb or a pyramid in Egypt, you might as well try and talk with your foot, and hear with your nose, as try and be born-again of yourself! Have you got that? It's impossible! Water never rises above its own level, sure it doesn't? Jesus says: 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh', and there are hundreds of people across our land and they think because they were born a Protestant, or because they were born a Roman Catholic, people all over the world who believe because they were born Muslim or whatever that that is their ticket to heaven. Listen to Jesus: 'That which is born of the flesh is flesh' - no good - you need to be born of the Spirit.

You can cultivate it, you can look after it, you can dress it up, you can refine yourself - your soul - whatever it may be. You can send it to church, you can make it religious, but the word of God says that you can never breathe life into your soul. You might as well try and lift yourself up by your shoelaces, as to generate new life, to bring salvation into your soul, and to one day go and be in the kingdom of God - you can't do it. I know there's people rushing around everywhere, and people will do anything, give anything, just to try something to become spiritual, to become accepted by God. I know people in the south of Ireland, and they cut themselves, and they walk up rocks on bare knees, bleeding. They pray and they fast, and they do all sorts of things to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus said - oh, that men and women here would listen to Jesus! - 'Except a man be born-again, he cannot see the kingdom of God'.

Do you know what you need? You need to be born-again. Some of you farmers will know what a pig is - that's just about as far as it goes for me, I could tell you one whether it's on the plate or on the farm, but I know a pig. You can take a pig, can't you, and you can put it in the bath and give it a good scrub. You can take it and put deodorant on it, and perfume, and talcum powder, and you can give it a lovely name. You can perfume it and then dress it up in a beautiful tuxedo and fancy bow tie, and you can bring it to the dinner table and set it down. You can talk to it and say all manner of things about it, but when it starts to eat - what is it? It's a pig. That's the nature of the thing. No matter what you do to it, it doesn't make any difference. It's still a pig!

My friend, maybe you go to church, maybe you say your prayers, maybe you read the Bible, maybe you're faithful and give to the poor, maybe you're good to your neighbour and you do all manner of things - and you're hoping that one day, when you get to Glory, and God will be there or Peter at the pearly gates, and he weighs up your good and your bad, that you'll just slip in! Not a bit of it! For 'Except a man be born-again, he'll never be in the kingdom of God'.

Peter says that we must be partakers of the divine nature. Do you understand that? What that means? You need to be born of God! God needs, in a meeting like this, or at home when you open the word of God, and when you look to God and pray to God, and when you seek God - God has to come and breathe new life into your soul! God needs to come, and God needs to save your soul. God needs to change you to be a new person, because you know as well as I do - and your wife or your husband knows - that, no matter how much you try, you can never change yourself!

Have you ever seen an apple tree that yields two types of fruit? Have you? One side is apples and the other side is pears? You can get that - what it simply is is a branch has been cut off the apple tree, and a few shoots have been cut off a pear tree, and what the gardener does is: he cuts a slit in the little stump of where the branch on the apple tree was cut off, and he shoves those little pear shoots down that stump. He puts beeswax on it and a bit of cloth, and in a year or two's time one half of the tree is covered in apples, and the other half is covered in pears. Do you know what he has done? He has put in a new nature. My friend, you need Jesus Christ! Do you hear me? You don't need a church, you don't need a preacher, you don't need any denomination, you need Jesus Christ! You need Him to come to you, you need Him to save you, because Jesus Christ was the one who was born into this world so that you might be born-again.

Did you know that? You know the Nativity story at Christmas of how He was born into that manger. You sing about it and you read about it, but do you realise why He was born there? He was born that you might be born-again! He was born so that He might grow, so that He might mature, and one day so that He might be taken by wicked and cruel hands of His own creatures and stripped naked. They spat upon Him, they mocked Him, they bruised Him, they pulled the hairs from His beard, and they whipped His back - the word of God says - until it was like a ploughed field. They beat His face so that He was marred more than the face of any man - He was almost unrecognisable as a human being!

Why did God do that? Why did God send a wee baby into the manger for something like that to happen? Did He make a mistake? Did He turn away His eyes for a couple of moments, and then man and the devil came in and did something that He didn't know about, behind His back? Not a bit of it! Oh yes, man tried all that he could to kill the Lord Jesus. The devil did all that he could throw at Him there at the cross to make sure that this Messiah, the Son of God, would die and never live again or trouble the devil. But, my friend, listen to what the prophet Isaiah says - listen now: 'It pleased the Lord to bruise him...for he hath put him to scorn...he hath laid on him the iniquity of us all'.

Did you hear that? All our sins were laid on Him - your sin my friend! Your drunken nights, your abuse to the wife, your running around, your fiddling the books, all those things that God calls sin, and that God one day will condemn in hell - all of that was taken off you and put on Christ there at the cross! He suffered my hell, He suffered my punishment, He stood in my place, He took the rap for me, He became my substitute! The amazing thing is this: He did it for you, do you know that? Has anybody ever told you that? You see, Jesus said to the same man that He said: 'You must be born-again', He said, 'Moses, the same way as he lifted an old serpent up in the wilderness, and everybody looked' - what happened there was the story that a plague had gone through the whole nation of Israel, and they were bitten all over. They were dying, and they were wriggling around in the dust with the poison going through their bloodstream - and they didn't know where to look, or who would help them. They were dying! Moses was told by God to go and get this brazen serpent, stick it on a pole, stick it in the middle of the desert. He said: 'Look, if you look to that pole, you'll live!'.

There's people here - and I know it - and they're squirming around in their sin in the dust and the dirt. Oh, they love their sin - but it's a love-hate relationship, they wish they could get rid of it, but they can't live with it and they can't live without it. They're lying there squirming in agony, and Jesus Christ is on the cross, and He's crying out to them: 'Look and live! Look and live!'. There with His puffed, bleeding eyes that men had beaten, He looks down upon you this evening. All that He is looking for is that you, as you squirm there in your own sin and degradation, in your own dead nature, is that you turn your head where you are and look at Him! Look at Him dying for you! Look at Him, in love, shedding His blood for you, taking God's wrath and exhausting it for you!

He wants you to turn from your sin, my friend. He wants you to come by faith and look and live! Oh, you can't do it any other way. If I was to go home this evening and walk through the back door, and there's the kitchen clock and it has stopped. If I was to take it and say to my wife, Barbara: 'Do you think if we put in the living-room it would start?', and I go and put it above the mantelpiece, but it's still not working. You take it down and then you go into the hall and try it there, and you swap at all around the place - that's what people are doing with their souls! They take it to this church, the other church, they take it to this belief, or the other thing - and they don't realise that it doesn't make a rap of difference for: 'We must be born-again'!

My friend tonight, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Are you going to trust Him? I believe this message is for someone! Are you going to say: 'Yes Lord Jesus, I realise that I need to be born-again of the Spirit of God. I can't change myself, I can't take myself on some kind of supernatural ladder to heaven through doing good works. Lord Jesus, You're going to have to make me born-again, You're going to have to save me!'. Have you realised that? Have you realised that you need to look to Calvary, where Jesus died for you because He loved you? If you've realised it, do you know what you need to do? You need to turn away from your sin, you need to repent - that means turn away, and turn to God and be done with your sin. You need to come by faith and say: 'Lord, I'm trusting in the cross alone, and what you did at the cross alone - nothing to do with me - I'm going to trust the blood that saves me!'. You need to ask Him to take your life and make it His own.

Let's bow our heads. God has been speaking, because His word never returns unto Him void. There are those that are not saved, and maybe it's dawning on them that they've no hope of heaven. My friend, let me tell you this solemnly: if you've no hope of heaven, the only place is hell. What are you going to do? Are you going to walk out of this place again, like you've done in a Gospel meeting before, and say: 'Ach, a lot of nonsense'. Or you know in the depths of your soul that there's a bit of truth in it, but you love your sin too much, you love the booze too much. What are you going to do? My friend, if you want to have peace, if you want to have rest, you need to have the forgiveness of your sins, you need to get right with God. All you need to do is look to Him now in faith, ask Him, and say: 'Lord, Lord, I'm sorry. Lord, I turn from my sin. Lord, will You save me?'. Why not pray it now?

I'll be shaking hands at the door on the way out, if you want to speak to me about your soul, I know God is speaking to you - so speak to me. If you want to sit where you are, you don't want to draw attention to yourself, sit here a while and let everybody go out. I'll come in and I'll have a word with you. But no matter how young you are, how old you are, who you're here with - listen: don't leave this building tonight without being born-again.

Let us pray: Our Father, we thank Thee for the Gospel that is so simple. From the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, three times He says: 'Ye must be born-again. For except a man be born-again, he cannot see the kingdom of God'. Lord, there are people dead in their sin, and they know it. Lord, they need to be born not of the flesh - they've been born of the flesh and it's done them no good - but they need to be born of the Spirit. Lord, only Thou canst do that this evening. We pray that Thou wilt come, dear God the Holy Spirit, and save men and women in this place this evening. So we ask Thy blessing now as we go our separate ways, and pray that none will leave this building without knowing Christ as their Saviour - for it's in His name we pray. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


"Conviction Of Sin"

Copyright 2000

All rights reserved

If you have a copy of the word of God with you this evening, we're turning in our Bibles to the book of Job. The book of Job in the Old Testament - don't worry if you don't have a Bible with you, or you can't find the book of Job, you can listen as we read the word of God together. Job chapter 23, Job chapter 23, and we'll take time to read the whole chapter to get the context.

"Then Job answered and said, Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me. Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me. There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him. Therefore am I troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him". This is the verse that I want us to concentrate on this evening: "For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me: Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither hath he covered the darkness from my face".

Let's come before the Lord in a word of prayer, and ask His help as we come to His precious word. Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee for the word of God. We thank Thee that there is power in the word of God. Lord, we don't handle it lightly this evening but, Lord, we need help - we're weak. Lord, we really do ask that Thy Holy Spirit may presence Himself with us, that He may come and do the job that He does so well of saving souls for eternity. Fill me with Thy Spirit I pray, and may there be a divine consciousness that God is in this place, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's look at verse 16, again, of the chapter: 'For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me'. If you know the story of Job you'll know that the devil came to God, and the devil said: 'There is this man Job, and he serves You, but he only serves You because he's well-off for following You'. So God says: 'I will test my servant Job to prove to you, Satan, that he follows Me because he loves Me. And when he is tried', as our passage says, 'he will come forth as gold'. God permitted Satan to do such with him. He lost his family, he lost his cattle, he lost his business, he lost his home, he lost absolutely everything. He's sitting on a pile of ashes with boils all over his body, and he is asking God: 'God, what are You doing?'.

Now Job was a saved man, as we say today. He was a Christian, he followed God. But even Job, because of the way God was dealing with him, he could turn to God and say: 'God, You're melting my heart, You're softening my heart - and, Lord, You're troubling me to the depths of my soul!'. I wonder have you been at these meetings in the week gone by, and God has started a process in your life of softening your heart and troubling your soul. The Bible calls that by this name: 'Conviction of Sin'.

What is it? It's simply this - and God describes it a little bit in the work of a saint, but it's also in the work of the unsaved sinner - it says: 'He is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his', God's, 'soul desireth, even that he doeth'. You've heard the Gospel, perhaps, or someone gave you a tract - maybe not from this church - or you heard the Gospel somewhere else, in the open air, or through a book, or through a video, or through a friend - and for some reason you, after hearing the word of God, have been troubled about it. Your heart has been softened, something has been pricked into your soul, something is different now. You begin to think about these things and the thought of God, and your sin, and eternal things, and salvation, is really troubling your soul! That's the conviction of sin.

Let me say this: it is God that is doing it. You might say: 'How can God do such a nasty thing? I'm troubled to the very depths of my soul, I feel it in my bones! There's something wrong, I can hardly sleep at times, I can hardly rest because this thing is going on my head'. Friend, listen! It is God! God has one mind concerning you, God has His eye on you, God has His finger, His hand, upon you - and He is determined not to let you be lost. God is not willing that any should perish, and He doesn't want you to perish, my friend. If I can say it reverently: God is hunting you down! God wants to make you uncomfortable, He wants to make you tremble, He wants to make you frightened and uneasy because of the Gospel - because He knows that if you're too comfortable you'll never ever want to come to Him!

It's the word of God that does this. It's not new-fangled ideas, it's the old-fashioned word of God. You see God Himself describes the word of God as a hammer. Your heart may have been hard, and maybe it's hard this evening, and you're like the frost outside - each time you hear the Gospel it's like another layer on top of the previous layer, and it gets harder and harder and harder and harder, until you can sit in a meeting or a mission like this and it doesn't affect you at all! My friend, God's word is like a hammer, and it can smash and break the hardest of all hardened hearts. God's word is called the sword of the Spirit. It is double-edged - it's so sharp, the word of God says, it can divide the very bone from the marrow, the soul from the spirit. Perhaps you've been sitting under the word of God, and you've almost felt a dagger go into your heart and into your life because God is speaking to you!

The Psalmist says: 'Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path'. Maybe in these nights, or in some other experience that you've had in your life, you have found the word of God shining into your heart like a laser beam, uncovering things that no-one else knows about, the secret things of your heart and in your life. God, like a light, has shone in! You know what it was like this morning, a beautiful morning. Maybe you were in the kitchen or the bathroom, and the sun was shining through the window - and what happens? You could have dusted, ladies, the house the night before - but it doesn't matter, when the sun shines in through the window you see the dust float everywhere.

Has God's word made your heart soft? Oh, there are many things that can make our heart soft. The birth of a child can soften a hardened drinker or gambler, so much so that they want to leave their old ways for the sake of their child. Maybe they'll send their child to Sunday School, bring it up as a so-called Christian, because their heart has been softened by nature's cries. There are so many things - a bereavement - that can soften the heart, but can I say that that is not conviction of sin! Conviction of sin is when God comes in with His word, and He begins to do something supernatural. He makes your heart soft - you almost think it could break, you've no rest, you've no peace - and like Job says: 'the Almighty troubleth me'.

Do you know what God has been doing? He's been sitting at His divine drawing board, working out how He's going to trouble you. He wants you to be moved, He wants you to be shaken out of your lethargy and your apathy and your carelessness, because of your soul. He'll do anything, by anyway, by any means, to bring you out of that quicksand of indecision - he wants to trouble your soul, my friend!

There was a great revivalist preacher in America by the name of Charles Finney, you can buy his biography on the table at the back. He was a man so full of the Holy Spirit, a man so anointed of God to preach the Gospel, that hundreds of thousands of unbelievers came into the kingdom of God because of him. Do you know what the records say? The state in America where he was having his revival meetings was at the coast, a bit like Kilkeel. Boats that passed the shoreline a hundred miles out - wait till you hear this - they were playing cards and poker, gambling, smoking their fags, drinking their booze, doing all those sorts of things - but as soon as they came within the radius of where Finney was, and where God was moving, a silence came upon them. It all stopped, and they stood still, they feared that if they took another drag, or another sip, or another bet, that God would come down upon them!

Do you feel any of a measure of that my friend? There could be reasons why God has softened your heart, there could be reasons why God is troubling you, and I think the first reason could be this: God has been uncovering your sin. That's what troubles us the most. You don't like being caught, do you? It's like the criminal that murders someone, and what does he do with the dead body? He either digs up his garden and buries it and then builds a patio over it, or he takes the body and he ties something heavy to it and puts it in a bin bag and throws it into the river. What's he trying to do? He's trying to bury the evidence of his crime, he's wanting to get rid of it. Maybe, my friend, in your life God has been bringing the skeletons out of the cupboard - He's been reminding you of the things that you thought that you'd forgotten long ago, you'd wiped off your memory and time had erased, but all of a sudden God is softening your heart to these things. God is troubling you, and you wish you could forget them all again!

Is it the sins of youth? Job talked about the sins of youth. He said that his bones 'were full of sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust'. He was saying that he would take his sins of his youth with him, they troubled him so much - he couldn't forget about them. David cried to God: 'Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions, according to Thy mercy. Remember Thou me in Thou goodness, O Lord'. Is it forgotten sins? You may have forgotten, my friend, but God has not. Jesus Christ, one day, will stand upon the earth and He will look eyeball to eyeball into your face, and He says: 'Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement'. Secret sins, He says: 'There is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad', in that day when God shall judge the secrets of men's hearts by Jesus Christ according to the Gospel.

Is your sin troubling you, my friend, is it? Because it ought to! If God is working with your heart, and if God is striving in your life, you can be sure that if there's unrest, if there's uneasiness, it is God who is the originator of it because God wants to save you! The apostle John says that: 'If we say that we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves, and make God a liar' - and anybody in this place that doesn't feel God upon them because of their sin, they're deceiving themselves. Maybe God is softening your heart, or troubling you, because He is uncovering your sin.

Secondly, perhaps it's because you're starting to feel the guilt and the danger of your sin. It's like legal conviction. When you're caught in a crime - or, as the saying goes, you're caught red-handed - do you know what that feels like? The embarrassing feeling of knowing that you've been caught doing wrong, red-faced embarrassment and guilt. Some of you, perhaps, know what it's like. It's the feeling of standing in the courtroom, and there is the judge and the jury, and you've gone through the trial and dug up all the dirty washing. You're waiting for the pronouncement, the judgement upon you - and then, when you hear it and it's the worst that you can hear, there is that sinking, burning feeling rising up in your soul. The feeling of guilt and terror at what has happened!

I wonder has God's customs officer stepped onto the boat of your life and found something? Has He? It's so tragic that it is softening and squeezing your heart, and troubling you to the depths of your being. In these last nights or, my friend, in your life, has the Holy Spirit put His chains and handcuffs upon you? Has the divine jailer imprisoned you, and aroused your conscience to what is going on in your life? Let me say this: if that is what is happening in your life, the likelihood is this - that you're trying to close your ears to God! You're trying to shut Him up! You're trying to harden your heart and numb yourself! What often a lost man or woman, or a backslider, does is: they go and they run head-long and saturate themselves in their sin to numb themselves to the conviction of God!

They'll go and get full to try and numb the dagger blows of the word of God into their heart, and the slashes of the two-edged sword of God's word. You've heard about men and women drowning their sorrows, well some of you have been drowning your conviction - or at least trying to. But just as you wake up with a sore head the next morning, you wake up with a sore heart - because He is softening your heart, He is troubling your spirit, and God is moving among you. God is speaking to you through your family, through a church, through a tract, through something - and it seems that, no matter how far you run away from the sound of the Gospel, everywhere you turn, everything you go to do is troubling you because the Gospel darts of God are flying full at you!

I heard about a man a few weeks ago, and he was declaring how he used to walk with God, and he used to - as he said - be a believer, but he could 'never go to church any more'. He could 'never even send his children to church, because they are so out of touch with reality, and Christianity isn't as it ought to be'. Then, in the next breath, he says this: 'I don't know why I'm going on about this, for I'm not interested at all'. As William Shakespeare says: 'He protests too much'. Are you one of these people that bad-mouth Christians, Christian churches, Christian ministers, any form of Christian doctrine or anything? You know why you do it, your friends don't - they think you're big and tall - but your friends don't know that, inside your heart, what you doing is: you're trying to drown out God's conviction! You're trying to convince yourself that you want nothing to do with all this! You just wish God would stop speaking!

You're like Cain, remember he killed his brother? God punished him, and Cain turned round and said to the Lord: 'My punishment is greater than I can bear'. Is that the way you feel? God is weighing you down. Like the nation of Israel, He said that they'll find no ease for their foot, 'neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give them a trembling heart, failing eyes, sorrow of mind: And their life shall hang in doubt before their eyes; they shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of their life'. Do you fear for your life day by day? In morning, do you say: 'Would to God that it was the evening', and in the evening you say: 'Would to God it was the morning'? Are you like David? David says in the Psalms that his life was spent in grief, he sighed year after year, his strength failed him, God's arrows stuck into him fast, God's hand pressed sore upon his brow, there was no rest in his bones because of the heavy burden of his sin crushing him down! He said that his wounds stank, even that his family and his friends wouldn't come near to him! Is that the way you feel?

If you feel like that, God is after you! Are you trying to hide from God? Are you trying to bury your head in the sand? Are you trying to turn your back, plug your ears to God? What are you trying to do, my friend? Because the Holy Spirit of God is coming after you, and perhaps it's not just because He's uncovered your sin, or He's making you feel the guilt and the danger of your sin - but perhaps, as you've heard about the cross, and as you've heard about Christ bleeding and dying and in agony, of Christ bearing the world's hell so that they wouldn't have to, as you've heard about Jesus being stripped naked, being shamed, being spat upon, being buffeted, being mocked - you have heard God say: 'Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for your iniquities: the chastisement of your peace was upon him'. He was punished so that you might have peace! As you hear that God poured out His soul as an offering for your sin, perhaps you've sat and you've thought: 'That was because of me! And I know it! I've been told it since I was a child, and there's many a time it has bothered me, and I just wish it would stop!'.

My friend, there's two ways it will stop. Listen, the first is: if you turn round to God one time too many and say: 'Leave me alone' in the time that He listens, the next time you hear His voice will be in hell. The second way to get rid of it is to do what the Jews did. Do you know what a scapegoat is? You talk about a scapegoat, and it's someone blaming another person to get themselves off the hook. What they did in Judaism was: they got a lamb, a goat, and the high priest - who represented the people before God - put his hands on the head of the goat and confessed his sins, and then they took the goat and loosed it out into the wilderness. It was symbolising that all their sins were going away.

Christ is your scapegoat. God has put on Him, God has blamed His Son, to get you off the hook. God's Spirit is striving with you to make you realise that it was your guilt, your sin, that was put upon Christ and killed Christ! He died that we might be forgiven. You've heard about heart transplants and kidney transplants, where another person's organ has been taken and donated to one in need. Well, this was the sin transplant - where God took your sin and my sin and put it upon His own Son! Do you know something? Listen: if you're to be free of this troubling of your soul, and this softening of your heart, my friend, listen: 'Burdens are lifted at Calvary'. You need to get your eyes to Calvary, you need to see that bleeding Lamb taking your place, dying in your room. You need to see that it was because of your sin, it was because of your wrong and your rottenness - you need to see that! You need to fall at the feet of God and say: 'Lord, I'm sorry. Lord, I take what You did for me there. I ask You to save me, and forgive me, and take me to Glory with You' - and when you do that, just like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, the burden on your back will roll away!

Maybe God is troubling you because of the cost to leave your sin. You know the fear of the sinner coming off his sin is like the drug addict going through cold turkey. It's like the alcoholic with the shakes - they need it! They want it! They can't live without it! It's like your sin, my friend, have you ever seen a doctor who is pleading with a person with lung cancer to give up the cigarettes because it's killing them - and the doctor can't cure them because they won't help themselves! The alcoholic lying in an intensive care bed with a liver like a sardine shrivelled up, lying there with a body poisoned with alcohol, and he's pleading with him: 'Will you not stop drinking? It's going to kill you!' - but he can't! He won't! He needs it!

My friend, you will never be free from your sin, you'll never be free from the pain and the guilt and the judgement of your sin - listen to me! - until you come to Christ. He'll take the burden, and He'll heal the heart. He'll give you a new heart, He'll give you a new nature, He'll give you a new life, He'll give you peace with Himself, He'll give you a hope of home in heaven. He'll give you everything that He has promised within His word - my friend, what could stop you?

What are you going to do? Is your heart soft? Is God troubling you? Listen: God wants you so much that He was prepared to buy you with the blood of His own Son. Would you not give Him your life, this evening, and finish this whole thing with God? The peace of God that passes all understanding will rule in your heart and your mind through Christ Jesus.

Now, if God has been speaking to your heart this evening it is of utmost importance, and there will never be a bigger, more important, or greater decision that you will have to make in your life than to listen to Him. Why not trust Him now? Hear His voice with a softened heart and a troubled soul, turn to Him, away from your sin. Trust the death of the Lord Jesus, and His blood that was shed, and ask Him to save your soul. You can do it now, where you are, by lifting up your heart to God in prayer, and saying: 'Lord, I'm sorry. I have sinned, I turn from my sin, I trust the Saviour's death. Lord, save me'. He will do it.

I have some booklets, and there are some sitting on the table on your way out. They're free, you can take one of them. You can talk with me this evening, for as long as is necessary - but listen: please don't go without trusting Christ.

Our Father, we thank Thee for this time. We find it hard to even say this, but we think Thee for troubling us about our eternal destiny. We thank Thee for softening our heart to Thy word, and to what the Lord Jesus did for us - because He loved us - at Calvary. For Lord, if You hadn't troubled us, we would never have been saved. Lord, I believe that this message was for some soul here, because You are troubling them, and You want them for Your own this evening. Lord, I pray that You will take them, take them from the devil, take them from the world and their own sin, and put Your peace into their heart and save their soul. We thank Thee for this time, and we pray now that Thy blessing will go with us, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


"Death"

Copyright 2000

All rights reserved

Revelation chapter 6 and we'll take time to read from verse 1 - we're concentrating this evening on verse 8 of this chapter. This is the message, and I want to stress this before we begin, this is the message that I believe God wants me to give this evening - OK? That's important, that means that I believe God has this message for someone - maybe one, maybe two or maybe more people - in our gathering this evening. So it's important that as we look at the word of God, that you realise that this message could be for you.

Verse 1, and John - seeing a vision from God of things that are to come - he said: "I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth".

We know that God will bless the reading of His own truth. Let's come before Him, and if you're a believer let's pray and ask God to bless His word. Let us pray together: Our Father in heaven, we bow before Thee and we thank Thee for the word of God. We thank Thee for the power of the written page, but we know that this book is much more, for this book is inspired by Thy Holy Spirit. Therefore we pray that the One who has said He will reveal all truth unto us may come into this place and reveal the truth of the word of God by power to the heart of the unbeliever. Come and fill me, I pray, oh Holy Ghost. Come and descend upon us in convicting and in converting power, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Let us read this verse again, verse 8 of chapter 6, John says: 'I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth'.

You may be here this evening, and you don't believe in God. I may be speaking to someone who doesn't believe that God is Almighty, that God is the Creator of the universe, you don't believe He even exists! You don't believe in a six-day creation, that God created all that we have in the world around us - you don't believe it! You refuse to believe in heaven, you don't believe in hell, you don't believe in any afterlife - once you're dead you're done for, you die as a dog, you're life's blown out like the light of a candle. You don't believe in Jesus Christ - maybe you're like some and you don't even believe that He lived, and if you believe that He lived you don't believe He's the Son of God, or God the Son. You don't believe that there was anything particularly special about this man, you certainly don't believe that He was born to be the Saviour of the world! You don't believe that He died at the cross to save you from your sin, or anybody from their sin.

Maybe you're like that. You certainly don't believe that after He died, whether He died for sin or not, that He raised from the dead. You don't believe that He's ascended to heaven, you don't believe He's alive now. You don't believe in the power of His blood to cleanse you from all sin. You don't believe in the preaching of the Gospel. You don't believe in any gift of eternal life. Maybe you believe it's all a Christian self-delusion. Maybe if I were to sever your arteries this evening, pouring from them would be blood - blood of an unbeliever, blood of an atheist, blood of an agnostic, running through your veins. You do not believe!

Can I say to you this evening: the subject I wish to preach on, there will not be one unbeliever in this building. Every one of you will be a convert to the message that I have to preach this evening. Now listen: I'm going to preach it from the Bible, and you mightn't believe in the Bible, you mightn't believe it's the word of God. I'm not going to preach it from the newspaper, or from politics, or from a periodical - I guarantee you that what I preach to you this evening, you're going to believe!

What is it? It's 'Death'. Do you believe in it, my friend? Do you? Do you believe that people die? Sure it's a thing that you, perhaps, live with day by day - but you live as if it didn't exist. It's a thing that we all prepare for with wills, insurance policies, all sorts of things - but we hate to talk about it. No matter how much we prepare for it, we never want to mention it - and we certainly don't want to hear about it from a gospel preacher, some Bible-basher.

For some of us it's a two-week wonder, isn't it? When someone in our family dies, or a friend is bereaved, all of a sudden it comes home to us that life at best is very brief, and you can't be sure of tomorrow - that we can be gone in an instant, we cannot boast about what we're going to do tomorrow - but usually it only lasts for a couple of weeks. Then the reality, the mundane drone of the materialistic life that we all live drowns out the loud scream of death.

This, imagine, it's one of the most real things in the whole of the world and in life, but rarely do we ever take it seriously enough to just, for one moment, think about the implications of it. Psychologists tell us that most of us laugh about it, it's one of the most popular subjects of humour - talking about undertakers, and funerals, and coffins - but behind that laugh, that great 'Ha, ha' that we all have around the subject of death, the psychologist tells us that it's because of our own insecurity with it. Because we can't talk about it seriously, or soberly, we have to joke about it to get it out of our conscience.

I suspect there are some of you sitting here and saying: 'I didn't come to listen to all this. I'm not here to listen about death'. Or maybe you're thinking about all the reasons that you're going to tell the person you're with that you'll not be coming back to this mission, or this church, to hear this - that man's just a scaremonger, they're all the same, all 'hell and damnation'. Listen: do you know what I hear from the public at large today and from the world? Do you know what they try and tell me? 'For goodness sake, why don't you preach about something that's real? Real issues, real things that matter and affect people's lives - social, racial, politics, current affairs and the like' - well, here it is! Here is the greatest current affair in the world today: death.

It's all around us. It's in every nation. It's in every town, and there are people this evening mourning those that they have lost in this very town. The book of the Revelation that we read from this evening, what it does is: it basically outlines the things that are still to come in our world, and the climax of world history that is still to come is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth. But everything after that will all be heading towards the destruction of a sinful world that has rejected God and His Christ and His Gospel. The next thing that the Bible, and the book of the Revelation, prophesies about is what we were talking about with the young people last night. It's called the 'Rapture of the church'. It simply is Jesus coming to the sky and taking home to be with Him all those who love the Lord Jesus, all who are washed in His blood, all who are trusting in His death at Calvary to save them from their sin.

Have you ever asked yourself why He takes all the Christians away? Do you know why? It's to curse the earth, and He is going to curse the earth with a torrent of judgements. The Bible says that it is a time that the world has never seen before, the world will never see it repeated again, it is called the 'Great Tribulation' period. Jesus tells us through the revelation of Himself in this book, that there will be many disasters upon the earth, there will be bloody wars, holocausts, famine, global hunger, worldwide pestilence, earthquakes, an exhausting of all earthly wealth, destruction of earthly life, and a breaking up of earthly power and peace.

Look at Revelation 6, you can see it described in more detail in verses 12 to 17. Look at them, verse 12: 'And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?'

There is a day coming, my friend, and we have read about it from this passage of Scripture - and, specifically, verse 8 tells us about the fourth horseman of the apocalypse. Look at it, he is described in verse 8 as being a 'pale horse'. The Greek word in the New Testament that we get this description 'pale' from is the Greek word that we get the English word 'chlorophyll' from. Chlorophyll is the substance that runs through the veins of a plant to make it green, that pale green colour. Do you see what the Bible is saying? This horse is pale, it is a greeny pale, ashen pallor characteristic of white.

You know what it's like. You go to a wake, and you're taken up the stairs, and you look into a coffin and you see that colour. Pale, ashen, sickly, the colour of death itself. This fourth horse is that colour, and it says in the verse that God grants this horseman the authority to bring death to 25% of the world's population - that's a quarter of all the world! Under the three previous horsemen the Bible says that there was false peace brought, and then there was war, then there was famine, then there was disease - and, like the cavalry, number four horse gallops along and he comes to shovel the corpses that have died and to bury them in the hordes of hell!

On that pale horse, it says, was Death followed by Hell. You know, hell is a good partner for death because hell, my friend - your minister mightn't tell you, your church, or a Sunday School teacher, or an R.E. teacher mightn't tell you, but I'll tell you because your blood would be on my hands - hell is where you'll be if you don't trust Christ! All the dead are there because they're lost. My friend, as you've looked and you've listened, I know you probably haven't understood it all - but as you're thinking right now about what God has prophesied will happen, because God's going to bring it to happen, does it not put the fear of God into you? Does it not make you fear for your life? Does it not make you fear for the future, about what is to come?

Maybe you don't believe any of this: 'It's all a lot of nonsense. Fortune telling such stuff, and trying to make us fear about all the end of the world, how the world's going to go up in smoke one day' - well, let me ask you this: do you believe in death? Because God says that, whether it will be a day for you when this fourth horseman comes, whether it be then or it will be now - at some point in your life you will die! Have no doubts about it, that livid greenish pallor of death, whether it comes in the Great Tribulation or not, you can be sure that that great grey stallion will roam across the highway of your life one day. Death will come, and it will be just as devastating and just as paralysing for you as it will be for a quarter of the earth on that day when they will cry for the rocks and the mountains - whether they be kings or paupers - to fall on them, to shield them from the wrath and the anger of Jesus the crucified Christ of God. Prince or pauper, young or old, intelligent or foolish and ignorant, religious or blasphemous, nationalist or unionist, and even saved and lost - all of us, if Jesus Christ does not return, must die!

It may not come by murder, it may not come by disease, or war, or famine, or earthquakes - but, my friend, it will come! The Bible teaches that because of what Adam did in the garden of Eden, disobeying God, we are all in Adam - we're all related to him - and because we're all related to him, sin has been passed down to us all and we have received death by our sin. The future is bleak, the Bible says: 'There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death'. There is not one of you, not one of you my friend, that can hold onto your next breath - it's in the hands of God. Your soul is there, and when God wants to take it back to Himself, He will do it - not one of us have the power over our spirits or over the day of our death.

The Bible says that death, for many of us, will put an end to all our earthly projects - so much so that the prophet said: 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest'. It strips you of your earthly possessions, for we brought nothing into this world, the word of God says, and it is certain that we will take nothing out with us! It levels all ranks, God said that the small and the great are there in death. Will you be there? My friend, you can be sure - and I believe you believe you'll be there.

The Bible describes our life as a messenger on a horse that runs through the desert, you've seen them going through the town maybe on a motorbike taking the post. They're whizzing by, and that's what our life is like - Job says that it's like the span of a man's hand, it's like the weaver's shuttle as it goes round and round. The apostle James says it's like boiling the kettle, you watch the steam and it appears for a little time and then it vanishes away.

What will you do when God requires your soul? What are you going to do? Surely you believe in death? What are you going to do when God takes your soul away from you? When the divine rent man of the soul comes to collect your life again, when He comes to retrieve your debt of a life, what do you have to show Him for it? Jesus says: 'What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? He could gain the whole world, but lose his own soul'.

My friend, when you go where there is no return, when you go into the dust, when you descend into the silence, when you are cut down and your life flees as a shadow, what then? Will you be like a man in the Old Testament called Korah? He suffered the death of a false religion. Do you know what he tried to do? It says in the Bible that he offered strange fire to God, that means he tried to get to God his own way - that's maybe you! You're going to your church, and you're giving in, and you take Communion, and you're baptised, and you've done everything right as far as you can see - but you're trying to get to God not by the way of the cross and the blood of the cross. It says of this man Korah, who tried to get to God his own way and create another religion, the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all his goods. Why? Because he didn't go God's way.

Will it be the death of a rebellious son, like Absalom the son of David? He wanted to be king, he wanted to dethrone his father - and maybe you're here, and you're walking over the heart of your father, you're ignoring his prayers and his pleas for you to be saved. You go out and you have a wild night, and you come in and you don't care what happens, or what he feels, or what he thinks. It says of Absalom that he was taken up between the heaven and the earth, and the mule that was under him went away - his hair was caught in a tree and he was hung!

There are many who will die the death of a false religionist, who will die the death of a rebellious son, or who will die the death of a loose woman - like Jezebel. She was an immoral woman, worshipped false gods with her body. It says in the word of God that in her end, that they threw her down and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and they trod her underfoot - because she rejected God!

Will your death, my friend, be the death of a drunkard - like King Belshazzar? As he was there, mocking God, blaspheming the name of God, getting drunk in the face of God, and God wrote on the wall the writing: 'Thou art weighed and found wanting'. It says that his countenance changed, his knees knocked - and the word of God says that night Belshazzar was slain

Will it be the death of two Christian pretenders? We read about them in the book of Acts, Ananias and Sapphira - I don't know whether they were saved, or whether they weren't saved, but I know this: that they were imitating. They had sold a field, and they pretended that they were giving all the money into the church, but they kept a wee bit back for themselves. Maybe you wouldn't be as deceptive as that about your giving, but you would give the impression that you're a Christian - but you're not. God struck them down one after another, because they pretended to be something that they weren't!

Listen to me my friend: your pint of lager, and your packet of king size cigarettes, won't help you then! Your career, your family won't be able to pull you out of that black hole. Your denominational preference won't make hair's breadth of difference! To hear some people talk, you know, you'd think that God was going to look at their birth certificate - whether they were a Protestant or a Roman Catholic. That God, when they get to the pearly gates, is going to look at the Communion card, or the baptismal certificate, before He takes your soul! My friend, in God's name, will you waken up! For unless you have Christ, unless you're trusting in the death of Christ and the blood of Christ - His substitution for you - you'll die and you'll go to hell.

At the end it says Hell followed after Death - it didn't end there. The world views death in many ways, and they talk about what follows after death. Some say you'll come back as a tomcat, or a goldfish! Some say that you'll go to a place called purgatory, and you'll suffer for your sins. Some say that there's this limbo between heaven and earth, and it's neither one nor the other. My friend, listen: philosophy says he hopes to live again, science says he may live again, ethics says he ought to live again, atheism says he will never live again - Jesus Christ the Son of God says he will live again! As sure as night follows day, as sure as winter follows summer, death has in its wake: hell.

Can you see the scene? It's your house, it's the number on your door, it's your beloved car that's in the driveway, it's your son or daughter in the front living room, it's your husband or your wife making the tea - and they're all there, they're all gathered together with their hankies, and it's your wake! My friend, if you are not marked by the blood of Christ you will be in hell! That will be your wake! It's nothing to laugh about, for some of you are mighty near it. You're nearer to it this evening, and I believe if some of you knew how near you were to it, you'd be saved where you sit, where you are. Some of you have had close shaves in the past, and you're gambling with hell and with God - and anybody who gambles with God loses!

What are you going to do? Are you going to take a chance? Can I tell you: there is only one way out of hell. Listen, for if you miss this you miss everything: the remedy for death and the remedy for hell is found in 2 Timothy 1 and verse 10: 'Our Saviour Jesus Christ hath abolished death and hell, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel'. Do you see my blessed Lord Jesus? Out of love for your soul - your soul - out of love for you, my friend, out of a desire to keep you out of hell and to take you to heaven, out of a desire to free you from your sin and your booze, and all the habits and all the thoughts and all the filthy words that come out of your mouth, and all the self-religiosity and self-righteousness that you have within your heart of pride - He wanted to save you from it all! He loved you so much that He went to that cross, and He bled and He died and He suffered.

Oh, how He suffered physically - but oh how He suffered spiritually! The word of God says that God poured out His soul as an offering for sin. Like an atomic bomb going off in a matchbox, Jesus Christ was punished for your sin. Have you ever known love like that? I know your wife loves you, or your husband, or your children love you - but do they love you like that? My friend, you will never know a love like that, for there is no love like that - it's an eternal love, it's an everlasting love, it's a love that the world or the universe will never see, because it's a love that was willing to go through, almost literally, the fires of hell so that you wouldn't have to!

Now, if you want, on your way out you can name to me somebody who would go and suffer an eternity of hell for you in three hours - but I'll not believe you. There is only one who would be willing to do that, and that's Jesus Christ. As His glorious spirit left His body on the cross, it was as if He jumped down off the cross and grabbed hold of the very devil himself and put handcuffs on him. It was as if He went down to the very fires of hell and He extinguished them for you, if you trust Him, and for me because I believe, by His own blood. Martin Luther said: 'If one drop of blood was to fall into the caverns of the damned it would extinguish hell for all eternity'.

Praise God, there is power in the blood of Christ! There is power in the death of Christ to set you free from death and hell, and from your sin and all that the world, the flesh, and the devil would pour over you! We can say, who know Christ, who have trusted in his death: 'Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?'. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

What about you? Now listen: there was once I preached on a message similar in the gospel to this, and there was a woman that went out the door - it was a mission - and she walked home, and she walked down the side of the river, and she fell! She broke her leg, she was lying there and she thought she was going to die - but by the grace and the mercy of God she didn't die, and she was found. She was brought to the hospital, and one of the elders of the meeting went up to visit her and to talk to her about her soul - but she had no interest!

I believe that there's someone here, and you could have stared death in the face, and you still haven't believed. I have heard of men who have taken three heart attacks in a row, sitting in front of their son who's a saved boy, yet it wasn't enough to bring them to Christ. Do you know what you need my friend? You need saved, you need born-again, you need to trust the Saviour's death at Calvary. You need to turn from your sin, repent of it, forsake it and leave it for good. Turn to Him, you need to ask Him and plead with Him to save you and to show mercy to you, so that you'll never go to hell!

Let us bow our heads. I said at the beginning of this meeting that this was a message, and I believe it's for someone, or some people, in this building. I don't know why God gave you this message, but it doesn't take Einstein to think about it - for we're all going to die, but how will you die my friend? Will you die without Christ and without hope? Or will you die safe in the arms of Jesus, and safe in His gentle care? Why not ask Him to save you now? Say: 'Lord', from your heart, pray, 'Lord, I repent of my sin, I turn from it, I forsake it. I turn to You, and I trust what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me at the cross of Calvary. I ask You to cleanse me with His blood. Lord, save me, take my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen'.

If you've done that this evening, from your heart by faith, please tell us at the door because we want to p