Now tonight we're in the gospel according to Saint Luke again, just as we were last evening. Luke chapter 23, the account of the cross work of our Lord. And just a short reading tonight, Luke chapter 23. And we'll read from verse 27 of this chapter, Luke 23 and verse number 27. The Lord is on his way to a hill called Calvary. making his way through the streets of Jerusalem. And all sorts of people are lining the streets and saying all sorts of things about him and against him. And we read in verse number 27 of Luke 23. And I want you to follow along. And if you don't have a Bible, please listen carefully to the word of God. Luke 23 and verse 27. And there followed him a great company of people and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bear, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in a dry? And there were also two other malefactors led with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place which was called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors One in the right hand and the other on the left. And God will bless the reading of His precious word to our hearts again tonight. Verse number 33, When they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and it's those three words at the end of her text they crucified him that i want you to consider let's pray together and let's ask the lord to really speak and your hearts and we pray that this will be somebody's night for god's salvation let's pray together father we thank the lord for the quietness and the stillness within these walls We rejoice, Lord, in the words that we've been singing tonight. We thank thee, Lord, for our brother Daniel and his testimony, and for others who have testified and participated this week already, and we just thank thee, Lord, for tonight's testimony again. Write it upon our hearts, Lord, and may many come to know and love the Savior. We thank thee for the reading of thy word, and we pray tonight that truly thou will bring us to the Savior's feet. May we behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And we ask, O God, very humbly and yet very earnestly and sincerely, that the Spirit of the living God will do a work in hearts and that, Lord, you will draw sinners onto the cross. And grant, Lord, tonight that each and every one of us might understand our need of a Savior and the fullness and the freeness of the gospel. And as we think about what the Son of God has done for us, Lord, melt our hearts, O Saviour. Bend us and break us down until we own Thee, Conqueror, and Lord in sovereign crown. Lord, make us to understand it. Help us to take it in, what it meant for Thee, the Holy One, to bear away my sins. So, Lord, to that end, I cast myself at Thy feet. I pray for the cleansing of the blood, for the infilling of the Spirit of God. Hide me behind the cross and glorify and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ for he alone is worthy. We humbly pray in his name. Amen. Last night we began to look at the greatest and most inspiring event in the history of the world. the day that the Son of God was nailed to a cruel cross. We mentioned last night that while the cross unites us to God, oftentimes the cross divides man from man. The cross not only divides humanity, but the cross also divides history. And the cross, of course, divides eternity. And I trust tonight that you will come in some way to understand even something of the greatness of God's love. and the greatness of God's grace and the greatness of God's mercy and the wideness of God's salvation and you will come to understand that the Son of God loved you and gave himself for you. The Word of God says that our Lord Jesus Christ endured the cross The Bible says that the Apostle Paul gloried in the cross. The Word of God says that God's people, his disciples, are to take up the cross. And certainly the Word of God calls us to come to the cross. And here tonight in Luke's Gospel, chapter 23, we have the words that just bring us again to the foot of the cross. When they were come to the place which was called Calvary, There they crucified him. And it's those words tonight that I want you to really to consider. They crucified him. Three momentous words. And I believe all of Old Testament prophecy points forward to these words. And all of the letters and prophecies again in the New Testament point back to these words because the cross is the centerpiece of human history. And the cross is the centerpiece of the Word of God. And we're living in a day where the cross has been decentralized even in churches. But I want us tonight just to come for a few moments to the cross. I want to think tonight about the crucified, the crucifiers. and the crucifixion. They crucified Him. Last night we just thought about the last word in our little text, the word Him, and that brings us to the One who was crucified, the Lord Jesus Christ. Many people in Bible times were crucified. In fact, the day that they crucified the Lord, there were two other men crucified on either side of Him. But it was the central cross that was the most important. It's the cross of Christ and the Christ of the cross that we really need to understand and take to heart. And we thought last night that not only is the Lord Jesus the Creator, but He's also the Christ, He's the Messiah. And be noted that He's a sinless Christ, He's the sovereign Christ, the submissive Christ, Whenever He stood before Pilate, He was the silent Christ. And then whenever He went to the cross, He was the suffering Christ. He was also the substitutionary Christ. And praise God, He's also the sufficient Christ. Everything tonight that you need for time and eternity, you'll find in Jesus Christ. Then I want to look tonight at another word in her text, and it's the first word, the word they, the crucifiers. They crucified him. The one who was crucified was the creator. And the one who were the crucifiers were the creatures. Isn't that amazing? Isaac Watts summed it up so well in his great hymn. Whenever he said, alas, and did my savior bleed and did my sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I? And then in still another verse he said, Friends, isn't that humility? Isn't that love and condescension? The great creator kneeled to a cross by his own creation and by his own creatures. Who was it that kneeled the Lord to a cross? Well, we believe tonight as we look at the Word of God that there was a great multitude that participated in his crucifixion. Verse number 1 of Luke's Gospel chapter 23 says, And a whole multitude of them arose and led him away to Pilate. And then in verse number 27 it says, And there followed him a great company of people. And so there was a great multitude involved in the crucifixion of our Lord. And as we look at this great multitude, we have to remind ourselves that just a few short days before they kneeled the Savior to the tree, that great multitude of people, a vast majority of them at least, as the Savior was making His way into Jerusalem, riding upon a humble colt, a humble foaler donkey, they cried out and said, to the son of David. But within a few days the tide of popular opinion turned against him and the people that were crying out Hosanna were now crying out crucify him, crucify him. You know the tide of popular opinion in our day and generation It's fast turning against the Lord and turning against His Christ. And there's a great landslide and many people are turning away and falling away from the faith that was once delivered to the saints. And as we think about this great multitude, we need to remind ourselves that within this multitude, there were many that were religious. Many of them were religious. Chapter 22 of Luke's Gospel and verse number 52, shows us the saviour in the garden of Gethsemane and it says that the chief priests and the captain of the temple and the elders which were come to him, he said to them, be ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves and the ones that led that rebel crowd were chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, doctors of the law, men that were devotedly and devoutly religious. You know, dear friends, tonight nominal religion has never really been a friend of Jesus Christ. And we live in a world tonight, we live in a nation tonight, and there's a lot of religion. And many people get put off the gospel because of religion. And maybe you were born into a home that was very religious. And it was all about rules and regulations and ticking boxes and dotting the i's and crossing the t's and doing the do's and dodging the don'ts. But you never really were introduced to the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You never really saw him in all his fullness. And you've been put off the things of God because of religion. And you never experienced reality. You never knew regeneration. You never experienced a relationship with Jesus Christ. And religion has put so many people off the gospel. Jesus Christ our Lord did not come to make people religious per se or get them involved in some religious movement, some legalistic organization to try to get them to heaven. He came into this world, friend, to go to a cross because there's no religion in all the world, whether it's legalistic or liberal, that's able to cleanse the human soul. and set the captive free. Many of the great multitude were religious. And many within the great multitude were Romans. They were irreligious. They were very secular, the Roman Empire, and they had taken over Israel and Jerusalem at that particular time. And many of them that were involved in taking the Lord to the cross, many of them were religious, many of them were Romans, many of them were secular. But every single one of them had a part to play. All of them, we might say, were rebels, rebellious. Now it's very easy to look back through the pages of Holy Scripture and down through the ages of history and say, well, I wasn't there. I've got nothing to do with what happened all of those years ago outside of the city wall. I'm not a Roman, and I'm not a Jew either, but the reality is, friends, tonight, the religious people and the Roman people were all rebels against God, and the Word of God says the same about us. Romans chapter 3, I can remember as a young Christian, just hadn't really got it all together with regards to doctrine and theology and a really clear understanding of how to have assurance of salvation. And reading through the book of Romans, it really built me up in my faith. And Romans chapter 3 shows us the human condition. It says there's none righteous, no not one. There's none that doeth good. There's none that seeketh after God. All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. And Paul makes it clear that the common denominator of the human race in every nation and in all ages is the problem of human sin and rebellion against God. And the reality tonight is we are all rebels against Almighty God. And the Christian is a person who has come to realize that it was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life. I know that it is finished. How deep the Father's love for us. How vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son to make a wretched treasure. How deep this pain of searing loss. I cannot give an answer. His dying breath has brought me life. I know that it is finished. You know, I always relate the story of the Reverend Duncan Campbell of the Faith Mission. He had a remarkable conversion experience. His mom and dad were Christians. They loved the Lord. And Duncan Campbell was an accomplished bagpipe player. And one night in his band hall outside of the town of Oban in Scotland, a little area called Benderlock, he was up at the front and the people were dancing in the hall. And he was sitting in a stool and he was playing the bagpipes. And the tune that he was playing was an old Highland tune, The Green Hill of Tyrol. And all of a sudden, he said, suddenly he began to think about another hill. A green hill far away, outside the city wall, another hill outside the city wall in Jerusalem. And he says, it was as if I was sitting there, all of a sudden my mind was taken to another place. And he said, I could hear the dull blow of hammer fastening somebody to a cross. A man was being kneeled to a cross. And amongst that great company of people among the rocks, some were wailing and some were weeping. Some were mocking and some were scoffing. A man was being kneeled to a cross and raised up between two others. And he says, every eye, however, was on the central figure, but the one in the middle cross had done nothing wrong. And Duncan Campbell said suddenly he felt somehow responsible for his death. I suddenly knew that he was dying on that cross for my sins. And to cut a long story short, he made his way home when he got right with God. And it was all just to do with the cross. Brought this sense of conviction into his heart. that I've sinned against God, and here's a Savior that's dying on a cross for my sins. I wonder if you've ever been there. Have you ever got to that place where you realize that God loved you and sent his Son to die on a cross for your sins? I see here a great multitude, the crucifiers. We're also introduced to their motivation way back there in Matthew chapter 27 and verse 18. It says that for envy they delivered him. Those religious leaders and those Romans were envious of the person of Jesus Christ. I knew the reality is tonight that the heart of man hasn't really changed at all. Over the last 100 years, I don't think the world has ever gone through a time of as much change. There's been so much discovery and so much development and so much learning and so much progress mechanically and electronically and digitally and medically and socially and morally. So much change over the years. And there's things that are happening in our world tonight that even 30 or 40 years ago would have been deemed to have been absolutely impossible. And yet man with all of his learning, discovery, progress and advancement, we still have the same problems in our society, in our towns and cities, in our homes and families, in our hearts and minds that people had 2,000 years ago whenever Jesus Christ was on the face of the earth. Matthew's Gospel chapter 15 and verse number 19, the Lord says, for out of the heart proceed thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy, things that were prevalent in the Lord's day are still prevalent in our world tonight. And yet we have got so much more by way of wealth and education and social housing and healthcare and different things, but still the same problems. because the human heart hasn't changed in 2,000 years. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? They did not want Jesus Christ to reign over them. And that's the problem of the human heart tonight. They said all of those years ago, we will not have this man to reign over us. And isn't that the great problem in our society today? We have rejected God and rejected God's word and rejected God's law, rejected God's name, rejected God's day, rejected God's son. And we are like the people in Jeremiah's day. We have forsaken the fountain of living waters. And we have hewn out broken cisterns that hold no water. And we're discontent and dissatisfied and disquieted and discouraged and distressed and depressed. And I believe it's directly proportional to our departure from Jesus Christ and His wonderful, wonderful gospel. And maybe tonight on a personal level, you've never received the Lord Jesus as your savior. And he said, he that is not for me is against me. There's no middle ground. It's either in the kingdom of Christ or in this world. You're either in Christ or in your sins. You're either saved or lost. You're either on the broad road or the narrow way. And sadly, so often the majority is wrong. They were wrong in Christ's day. The multitudes nailed Him to the cross. We are living in a world where the multitudes have turned against the Lord. The multitude, the motive. What about the misdeed? Or we might even go as far as saying the murder. When they were come to the place which was called Calvary. The word Calvary just means the place of the skull. Outside the old city walls of Jerusalem, it was a cosmopolitan, metropolitan place where many, many people would have passed by and by. And malefactors and thieves and criminals and murderers were often put to death at that place called Calvary. Some people think it was called Calvary because it almost looks like a skull in certain light. And others believe it was called Calvary because it was a place synonymous with death. But that's where they took the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. They took him to Calvary, and they had erected a cross, and they put the Son of God upon that cross, and they lifted him up just outside that old city wall. Him writer once said, on a hill lone and gray, on a land far away, in a country beyond the blue sea, where beneath that fair sky went a man forth to die for the world and for you and for me. Hark, I hear the dull blow. of a hammer swung low, they are nailing my Lord to a tree. With the cross they upraised while the multitudes gazed on the blessed lamb of dark Calvary. Dear friends, did this ever melt your heart? I hear the dull blow of a hammer swung low. They are nailing my Lord, nailing my Lord to the tree. Think of it, crucifying the Christ of God, crucifying the Lord of glory, crucifying the creator. This is what our sin has done to the Son of God. Our sin despises him, our sin rejects him. But yet he went to that cross. The crucified him. The crucifiers they. The crucifixion crucified. They crucified him. Let me just close by speaking for a few moments about the crucifixion of our Lord. They crucified Him. You know, there's something tonight about that word crucifixion. Crucified or crucify. It's an ugly kind of a word, isn't it? It really means to be pierced or nailed or lanced through. And they crucified the Lord of glory. They carefully constructed a crown of thorns. And they carefully constructed a cross. And they stretched the Son of God out upon that cross. And they drove nails or spikes through his hands and through his feet. And they lifted that cross up at that hill called Calvary. And they dropped it into a hole in the ground so that the Bible says all of his bones were out of joint. And whenever I think about that, I think tonight about the misery of the crucifixion. And friends, this wasn't some sinful man that was getting what he deserved. This was the Lamb of God, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And crucifixion was a form of execution reserved for the very worst and the very vilest offenders. And after scourging him and making, as the Bible says, furrows on his back, his back like a ploughed field. crowning him with thorns, they nailed him to a cross and the word of God says his visage, his countenance, his appearance was so marred more than that of any man. The word of God says that they plucked his beard out of his cheeks and they spat upon him and they smote him with their fists. Now his mother Mary, whenever she was just a young woman and she presented the Lord at the temple, a great prophet of God said concerning the child, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Jerusalem and is a sign that shall be spoken against and a sword, Mary, shall pierce thine own soul also. And I often wonder whenever Mary stood that day in the temple with her babe in arms and Simeon said, a sword, Mary, is going to pierce your soul. Whenever at last she got to the cross, and I don't know how she got there, but she did, along with Mary Magdalene and a couple of other women. News filtered through, Mary, they've got your son. And he's standing now before Pilate, Mary. And it looks like they're going to crucify him. That's what the crowd are asking for. And Mary, if you want to see your son again, you better be quick. And Mary with a broken heart went outside that city wall. And I just wonder what Mary must have thought whenever she looked at those three men that were being crucified. She looked at the one on the left and the one on the right. And those aren't my boys, neither of those are my son. And then the one that was in the middle cross. I believe that the prophet Isaiah indicates that he was unrecognizable. And as Mary looked at that middle cross, she saw the frame of a man that she understood to be her son, the model son, never gave her a sleepless night, never turned a word in his mother, never brought shame or disgrace to the family. He was the perfect son. And on that cross, she couldn't recognize him because his visage was so marred more than that of any man. And then whenever she heard His voice, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. It dawned in her heart, Simeon's prophecy is fulfilled this day. And her sword was plunged into her heart as the Son of God was on that cross, suffering immense pain physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as the sinless Lamb of God became sin even for us. I wonder tonight as we think about the cross, does it melt your heart at all? Does it ever cause you to kneel down and say, my Jesus, I love thee. I knew thou art mine for thee all the pleasures of sin, I resign. My precious Redeemer, I love you. Have you ever trusted him as your Savior on that cross? He bore the sins of many. He bore my sins in His own body upon the tree, the misery of the cross. The greatest misery and the greatest suffering was not so much even the physical sufferings, although we can't even comprehend what that must have been like, not even the mental sufferings or the emotional sufferings, but the spiritual sufferings whenever He was separated from His Father. For the first time in eternity, the Father turned his face away and the Son of God cried out in the midst of the darkness, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He was forsaken because he became sin for us. And as God punished his son in your guilty room instead, the father had to turn his face away, the misery of the crucifixion, the misery of the cross. But there's also the majesty of the cross. On the southeast coast of China, on the harbor outside the city of Macau, many years ago, Portuguese settlers erected a little settlement. In the middle of their settlement, they built a stone church. And right at the very top of the church building, they erected an iron cross. The years and the decades came and went and that part of the world was ravaged with war. And at last that little part of the city, that part of the old city was reduced to rubble apart from the gable wall of that church building with that cross high and lifted up. John Barring was an explorer and also a hymn writer and a Christian. As he came to the ruins of that city and looked at that gable wall and the cross at the top, he was motivated to write the words, in the cross of Christ thy glory. Towering over the wrecks of time, all the light of sacred story gathers round its head sublime. Friends, tonight the ages come and go, and trends rise and fall, and nations rise and fall, and parties rise and fall, but the cross of Jesus Christ remains the same. The cross of Jesus Christ is still the place where men and women find peace with God. The cross was not a tragedy. The cross was a triumph. The cross was not a place of failure, but the cross was a place of victory. And the Christian can say tonight, when I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain, I count but loss and poor contempt and all my pride. As I turn to the pages of God's precious word, I see the misery of the cross. I see the majesty of the cross, the central theme of God's word, the person and work of Jesus Christ. But I praise God tonight, and I trust you'll see it as well, the miracle of the cross. The cross was miraculous. You say, why was the cross miraculous? Because the love that was displayed in that cross was miraculous. I find it amazing that anybody could ever love me. But I understand something of the love of a father or a mother. But one thing that I can't understand tonight is the greatness of God's love for a sinner like me. The wonder of it all. There's the wonder of springtime and harvest. The wonder of sunrise I see. But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul is the wonder that God loves me. the miracle of his love, the miracle as well of his death. His death on the cross was a miracle because the wages of sin is death. But he had no sin of his own. But he took responsibility for our sins and the Bible says that no man took his life from him. He says, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. And the gospel records it. Whenever he had cried with a loud voice, it is finished, and the price was paid, and the blood had been shed, and the veil of the temple was rent in twain. The Bible says he bowed his head and yielded up the ghost. It was a miraculous death, a miraculous love, and it purchased a miraculous salvation. You know, I have known, and I'm sure every Christian tonight does as well, if you're burdened for the lost, you cannot cause an anxious thought. You can maybe reach people's intellect and you can reach people's ears, but you can't reach a person's heart. And there's no man in this world that can save a sinner's soul. And I know tonight there are many in this meeting and you're a burden for your family and burden for your loved ones. And you're maybe here tonight and you're not a Christian. And maybe somebody has brought you tonight or somebody's prayed for you and you know that they love you. But salvation is a miracle of grace, a miracle of divine mercy, whereby the Spirit of God enters into a person's heart and convicts them of their sin and their lost condition, but also opens their eyes to see the greatness of God's love and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. And maybe that's been happening in your life in recent days. You've been convicted and troubled about your sin and your life without God. And you're maybe afraid in the days that we're living in. And there's an emptiness and a void in your heart and a sense of guilt and shame and a sense of fear and foreboding as you think about your future and as you think about death and you think about the life hereafter. And you're troubled and you're concerned and you're coming out to meetings and you're maybe quietly in the secret place reading your Bible and reading gospel tracts or maybe going online and trying to find truth and how can I know that it's true and how can I know that God is real. And there's an interest that started in your heart. Salvation begins with consideration. I believe that if that's happening in your life, that's the work of the Spirit of God. Salvation's a miracle. You know, maybe tonight you say, well, I couldn't keep God's salvation. I remember years ago, my mom speaking in love to my grandfather. He was probably close to 80 years of age at the time. And she says, Dad, would you not think about getting right with God? And he says, I couldn't keep it. I couldn't keep it. And I tell you, he was an upright and a moral man. No vices in his life that I'm aware of. He was living in the clean side, as Daniel said, of the broad road. But this fear that if I trusted Jesus Christ, I couldn't keep it. Praise God, before he passed away, he did trust in the Lord. But every Christian discovers that that's exactly right. We couldn't keep it, but the Lord keeps us. It's a miracle, the miracle of the cross. The majesty of the cross. The misery of the cross. One last thought, and we're finished tonight. The mercy, the mercy of the cross. From the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord, down through the ages there has flowed a river of mercy, and there has flowed a river of divine grace. And many have come and discovered, as the hymn writer said, that whenever they come to Calvary, mercy there is great. And grace is free, pardon there was multiplied to me, there my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. Did you notice what the Lord prayed in verse number 34? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. They don't understand the magnitude of their deeds this day. Father, have mercy on them. They don't know what they're doing. And that prayer tonight holds good for every Christ rejecter. Forgive them, for they do not know the magnitude of what they're doing, rejecting Jesus Christ, going on in their way heedless and careless. Father, forgive them. Jesus Christ could have cried out for vengeance, but rather He cried out that those who had nailed Him to that cross would at last be forgiven. Listen to His words. Look at His love. Later on, It says in verse 39, he had the idea that salvation was just a better life. Get us back to what we were doing before. Get us off this cross and save yourself as well. Let us run for our lives. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the sea in condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss. And then he turned to the Lord and said, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. There was a man that recognized his need. Friend, there was no church, there was no evangelist, there was no baptismal font, there was no communion table, there was none of those things, just a condemned man and the Savior at his side. And he turned around and asked the Lord to remember him and asked the Lord to have mercy. And he discovered right there and then, without works, by faith alone, through grace alone and Christ alone, He could have mercy and forgiveness and salvation and assurance of heaven. It's yours for the taking tonight just now. Friend the cross is the cost of my forgiveness. Charles Haddon Spurgeon the great preacher said the world's one and only remedy is the cross and your hope your only hope and my only hope tonight is in the cross. Wonder tonight what's your response. Mel Trotter was a famous evangelist in the United States. He was born, one, in a family of seven, six brothers. And he was one in seven. His father was a publican. And whenever Mel Trotter was just a teenager, he learned to gamble and he learned to drink hard. And he became a drunkard and a violent man. He met a young woman. Somehow he was able to pull the wool over her eyes. But what a shock she got whenever she realized a few days after their wedding ceremony that she'd married an alcoholic. He couldn't hold down a job. He drunk all their savings. He couldn't provide for her or for the little boy that God had given them. And as his drinking escapades got worse, he would oftentimes leave the home for several weeks at a time and go on a binge. And one night he came home late and his wife was standing at the front door with the two-year-old boy in her arms, a lifeless corpse. And all of a sudden Mel Trotter's life was plunged into despair and he was on the brink of taking his own life. He felt so, so guilty and so ashamed of himself. He felt responsible for the little boy's death. He pleaded with his wife to forgive him one last time and he'd never touch a drop of alcohol again. And yet two hours after the little boy was buried, he was in a tavern. He had sold his very shoes to buy himself some drink. went off to Chicago. Barefooted in the snow, he found himself walking past the Pacific Garden Mission. He heard the voice of a preacher. He went in. He sat down. He heard a man relate his own testimony of how the Lord had lifted him from the gutter and saved him and cleansed him. And Mel Chodder heard about the cross. And his heart was opened. And his life was transformed. And he spent the rest of his days reaching out to down and outs in Chicago and other great cities in America. Friends, it's no secret tonight what God can do. What he's done for others, he'll do for you with arms wide open, he'll pardon you. But what's your response tonight? Some people hear about the cross and they say it's foolishness. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness. And then there are others and they hear about the cross and it's offensive. The Word of God in the book of Galatians speaks about the offense of the cross. But then for others, it's the power of God unto salvation. They realize this is what I need. I need Jesus Christ as my Savior. I need to be cleansed and forgiven and saved. And here's one, and he must love me because he died for me. God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Let me ask you tonight, what's your response? Will you survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, and your riches gain count but loss and poor content in all your pride? Will you submit to the claims of Jesus Christ, and turn from your sin and believe in him, and surrender your life to him tonight? and say, Lord, I'm coming just as I am. Lord, will you save me? Will you take me tonight? Will you cleanse me and forgive me? save my soul, make me a new creature, make me right for heaven and make me right for home. The Word of God says simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. A little booklet tonight, we've mentioned the Mother of Nights as well, A New Beginning, Dr. Alan Kearns, great man of God, A New Beginning. You can have A New Beginning tonight, not just a little booklet but the experience of it. If we can help you and talk with you, Pray with you, open the Word of God, and you're concerned and you want to get right with God. Maybe you're backslidden, maybe you're lacking assurance, maybe you're just knowing in your heart you've never been converted. Why not come, even tonight? Make this your night. Don't waste this opportunity. Don't make it a fruitless endeavor, sitting through a meeting and going home untouched and unchanged. It'll be the best thing you ever do if you come to the Savior, even tonight. Let's pray together. We'll not sing any more hymns. We'll just quietly and solemnly close the meeting in prayer. I'll be at the door if you want to speak to me, but let's leave the meeting prayerfully and sensitively to the needs of others. Let's pray. Loving Father and everlasting God, We feel so small and so humble and so unworthy whenever we consider the great majesty and holiness of our God and Thy grace and Thy mercy and Thy love. Lord God, as we read about the cross, we acknowledge, Lord, that we can only but scratch the surface. None of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night that our Lord passed through, ere he found the sheep that was lost. Lord, draw some precious soul to thyself, somebody that's wandered, somebody that's lost. Lord, we pray that they will come to the Savior, give deciding grace, And may, O God, there be fruit that will remain and honor and praise and glory brought to our Savior. May he see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And may some soul tonight be greatly blessed in the knowledge of sins forgiven. Father, hear and answer prayer and take us our separate ways in safety. We humbly ask in Jesus' name.