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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.
They Crucified Him (Part 2)
Series Christ is the Answer
| Sermon ID | 51423812125721 |
| Duration | 41:27 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Bible Text | Luke 23:33 |
| Language | English |
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