Also, I want to welcome our brethren
in Sarasota. They gather together on Wednesday
night and watch the services and are very much a part of what
we're doing here. So, I'm thankful for them. If you have your Bibles, would
you open them with me to Psalm 88. Psalm 88. For our scripture
reading tonight, I hope the Lord will show us how clearly this
psalm expresses what the Lord Jesus Christ experienced on Calvary's
cross. That's what this psalm is about.
Psalm 88, O Lord God of my salvation, I
have cried day and night before Thee, Let my prayer come before
thee, incline thine ear unto my cry. For my soul is full of
troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted
with them that go down into the pit. I am as a man that hath
no strength. free among the dead, like the
slain that lie in the grave, whom thou remember'st no more,
and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the
lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths. Thy wrath lieth hard
upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves." What
the Lord's pleading with the Father here for is to not leave
him in the grave like other men are left in the grave. Thou hast
put away my acquaintance far from me. Thou hast made me an
abomination unto them. I am shut up. I cannot come forth. Mine eye mourneth my reason of
affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon
Thee. I have stretched out my hands
unto Thee." Now the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that could
say that. cried out to the Father, depended upon the Father for
His every word, and His hands were pure and perfect before
God. Wilt thou show wonders to the
dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah. Shall thy lovingkindness be declared
in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders
be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land of
forgetfulness? But unto thee have I cried, O
Lord, and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee. Come
to thee effectually. Lord, why castest thou off my
soul? Why hidest thou thy face from
me? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? I am afflicted and ready to die
from my youth up." The cross was a culmination of
all the sufferings and afflictions that our Lord had in His whole
life. While I suffer thy terrors, the
terrors of God. Now that's something I don't
want to suffer. I don't want anything to do with the terrors
of God. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of an angry God. I want those terrors to be put
away. I want the Lord Jesus Christ
to have suffered those terrors for me. Thy fierce wrath goeth
over me, thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about
me daily like water, they compassed me about together. Lover and
friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into
darkness." And look at the first verse of Psalm 89, I will sing
of the mercies of the Lord forever. The Lord heard that prayer, didn't
he? That's the prayer the Lord prayed from the cross. And the
father heard it and answered it, raised him from the dead,
rewarded him for what he had accomplished, which was the spoils
of war, his church, his body. Let's pray together. Our merciful
heavenly father, we thank thee for sending thy dear son and
giving him as a sacrifice for sin. satisfying Thy divine wrath,
Thy terrors in the pouring out of the cup of wrath that He drank
from. We ask now that You would enable
us by Your Spirit to set our affections on Him, to come to
Him, to look to Him, to trust Him, to rejoice in Him, and to
delight in knowing that you're pleased with Him and all that
are in Him. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Would you turn in your Bibles
with me to Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4. It's good to have Mary with us.
She just flew in a little bit ago. We're happy she's here. I've titled this message, Are
You Coming to Christ? Now, in religion we may have
said, have you come to Christ? But the best evidence that you
have that you've come to Christ is that you are still coming
to Christ. So rather than looking back at
an experience and trying to figure out if I've come to Christ, I
ask you and I ask myself, are you, right now, coming to the
Lord Jesus Christ? And our text is a very familiar
verse. We've looked at these verses
many times before. We've quoted them often to confirm
the truth of the gospel. But I like what Robert Hawker
said. He said, a whole life of grace
can never bring us to the place to where we could say there's
nothing more to be said on these verses. A whole life of grace
would never bring us to the place to where we could say that enough
has been said on these verses. What a powerful, powerful passage
of scripture this is. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16, let
us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let us therefore, you know the
scriptures are written for God's people's salvation and for their
profit. They're written to believers.
The Scriptures are never written in such a way as to try to prove
the veracity of them to an unbeliever. They are written in such a way
as to where believers just come to conclude that these things
are gloriously true. Look at verse 14, "'Seen, then,
all dispute is done away with, It's just been declared and it's
been believed. We're not trying to prove it
to the unbeliever. We're not trying to make goats
look like sheep. There's plenty of that going
on. Plenty of wolves dressed up in sheep's clothing. But that's
not our objective. Our objective is to declare the
truth of the gospel and we know that the Spirit of God will make
it effectual to the hearts of God's people. We don't have to
explain it. We don't have to defend it. We
don't have to prove it. We just preach it. And so verse 16 makes that natural
conclusion in light of everything that's been said in this wonderful
chapter of God's Word. Let us. Who is it that is coming
to Christ? It's us. It's us. Now the word us infers that there
is a them. Now I want to make sure that
I'm a part of the us. How do I know if I'm a part of
the us? Because I'm coming boldly to the throne of grace to seek
mercy and help in my time of need. I'm coming right now, right
now to the Lord Jesus Christ in my heart because I'm a needy
sinner. The Bible makes it clear that
there are two groups of people in this world. There are the
sons of Jacob and there are the offsprings of Esau. There are
believers and there are unbelievers. There is the saved and there
is the lost. There is the elect of God and
there are those that he leaves to themselves. This is written
to us. And if you say, well, how do
I know if I'm a part of the us? Is it written to you? Can you
believe it? Can you rejoice in it? You know,
everything that happens in time, everything that happens in time
confirms that which was already purposed by God in eternity. It just confirms it. How do I
know if I'm one of God's elect? Because I believe. Because I'm
coming. Right now, just like I am. There
are two categories of people. There are the us's and there
are the them's. The us's are made up of sinners.
sinners. People who have no righteousness
of their own. The thems are the self-righteous. The thems are they who are trying
to recommend themselves to God by something that they do. Some
prayer they pray, some work that they perform, some knowledge
they've come to. They're adding to the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the thems. What is the ground on which we
come? The ground on which we come.
The very foundational truth that we stand on in coming to Christ. Well, it's the whole chapter,
and that's what the word, therefore, is referencing. Everything that
the Lord has said to us in this chapter is summarized in this
verse. Let us therefore. In verse 3 it is the ground of
our coming is that the works were finished from the foundation
of the world. You see that in verse three?
Look at verse three. For we which have believed do
enter into his rest. We come, we rest in Christ. As he said, as I have sworn in
my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works
were finished from the foundation of the world. All works. The work of coming was finished
before the foundation of the world. The work of redemption
was finished before the foundation of the world. The work of providence
was finished before the foundation of the world. All that's happening
in time was finished in eternity by God. Anything else leaves
God mutable. Any other truth makes God to
change. He's having to come up with new
ideas and new plans and new purposes. And if God changes, we have no
hope of salvation. He said, I change not, therefore
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. We need a God who's the same
yesterday, today, and forever. Not a God like us. A God who
is self-existent. I mentioned to our group over
in Sarasota Sunday night this word exist. It comes from the same word that
the word exit comes from. And it means out of. And in the
strictest sense of the word existence we can't say that God exists. We can't say that He exists.
Now we can say that He's self-existent. But He's not out of anything.
He's the eternal God. He's not made. He's not created. He's not fashioned like we are.
He's not dependent like we are. He's not derived and contingent
like we are. He's God. That's what His name,
I Am, means. And here He says, were finished
from the foundation of the world. Why were they finished from the
foundation of the world? Because that's where God is.
And it was all done in Him and by Him and for Him. So it's finished. That's the ground of our coming.
The ground of our coming is the sovereign grace of God purposed
in God before time ever began. That's the ground of our coming.
Otherwise, it's dependent on something that's temporal. And
it just can't be. Look at verse 9 in this chapter.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Now, between
verse 4 and verse 9, the Lord is talking about bringing the
children of Israel into the Promised Land. and providing them that
earthly rest, but that wasn't the rest that God had designed
for His people. That was just a temple rest. You know that's exactly what
men do today. They make the rest of God nothing more than a temporal
experience. Peace and prosperity. That's
what it's all about. It's all about moralisms. It's
all about legalisms. It's all about intellectualism.
It's all about ceremonialism. It's about my experience. It's
about helping me to be a better person. And, you know, that's
what it's all about. And the Lord says here, I didn't
bring you into that promised land. That's not the rest that
I designed for you. That's just your life here in
this world. No, there remaineth a rest for
the people of God. For the true children of God,
there remaineth a rest. Where is that rest? Look at verse
10. For he that is entered into his
rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did from
his. Let us therefore labor to enter
into his rest. It's the hardest thing in the
world to do. You know what the hardest thing in the world for
you and me to do? I'm going to tell you. Nothing. That's right. That's right. It's the hardest thing. It's
impossible. The flesh won't let you do nothing. It's going to pride itself in
glory in something. But to rest in Christ, to rely
upon Him for all the work of your salvation? Men won't have
it. They just won't have it. They're
going to glory in something, and the Lord said, I'll not share
my glory with another. And so the labor in the flesh
is to stop laboring. It's to rest in Christ. And that's a work of grace that
only the Spirit of God... This is the ground on which we
come. Cease from your works as God
did from His. Look at verse 12. For the Word
of God... You know I saw something in these
verses I hadn't seen before in preparing for tonight. I've always
quoted Romans 12 verse 4 as a description of the Bible. But I've come to see that it's
much more than that. We don't separate the written
Word from the eternal, living, uncreated Word of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the Word, who dwelt among us. But this
is clearly talking about Christ. Look what he says, For the word
of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing of thunder, the soul and the
spirit and the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in His sight. You see that? In His sight. This word that's
described in verse 12 is Christ. He's the ground on which we come.
He is the eternal Word of God. And He's given us His Word. So
the written Word is not an end in itself. The written Word is
a means to an end. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
end of all things. And this written Word is given
to us to reveal to us Him. He's the ground on which we come
and we have the Word of God for our hope. All things are open and naked
before Him. He sees everything. Now that's
of great comfort when we get to the last verse here. You'll
see that in just a moment. He sees everything. And I don't
say that as a threat or as a form of intimidation. This is our hope. This is our comfort. You see,
the only way you're going to come boldly to the throne of
grace is for you to believe that He knows every thought that you
think before you think it. He knows every word you speak
before you speak it. He knows everything you've ever
done and everything you're ever going to do. He knows you infinitely
better than you know yourself. And He says, come! In spite of everything I know
about you. What makes it... Well, we'll
get to that in a moment. Let's deal with this verse. Look at verse 14. Seeing them,
Seeing then, in light of the fact, this is just a foregone
conclusion. This is a fact to God's people. This is not something we're trying
to convince people of or trying to prove something. Seeing then
that we have a great high priest. We have an intercessor. We have
one that's passed into the heavens. One who has taken with him the
names of those for whom he lived and died and presented himself
before God as their advocate, as their substitute, as their
savior, as their sin-bearer. We have a high priest. We don't
approach the throne of grace apart from our priest. Seeing then that we have a great
high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of
God. What did that Ethiopian say?
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe He's
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I believe that my only hope of
standing in the presence of God is to be found in Him. I believe
that. How do I know I'm coming? We're
going to see in a moment from John chapter 6, the coming and
believing is the same thing. Same thing. Look at verse 15. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. You say, but I feel so guilty. Do you remember what we just
read in Psalm 88? Was that not a cry of shame?
Was that not a cry of guilt? Was that not a cry of fear? When
our sin was placed on Him, that's how He had to go before the Lord. He knows the feelings of our
infirmities. That's why He became a man. That's why He was made in the
likeness of sinful flesh. so that he could experience those
things for us. All the contradiction of sinners,
all the assaults of hell came upon him, all the guilt of sin
he bore on his back, the forsaking of God, he experienced it all. He knows the feelings of our
infirmities. You might be able to say to me,
well you don't understand how I feel. And I don't. And you don't understand how
I feel. But I know somebody that does. And he understands a whole
lot better than we do. He's been touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. Tried in every way that we are. Now that doesn't mean that he
had to grit his teeth and resist the devil. It means that his
body, the body of the God-man was assaulted by everything that
you've ever been assaulted by and so much more. Take everyone for whom he died,
for whom he lived and combine them all together and that's
the assault that he felt. Let us. Can you find yourself
in the us? Can you stand on that ground
of having a priest intercede for you who's finished the work,
work that was finished by God before the foundation of the
world and work that was accomplished by his substitutionary work of
redemption and atonement for you? Can you stand on the ground
of knowing that we have a priest who has gone into the heavens?
He was received back into glory by the Father, wasn't he? He
cried in Psalm 88, Father, there's no praise or worship to you in
the grave. You can't leave me there. And the Father didn't. He raised
him from the grave and received him back into glory as a reward
for his accomplished work. I can find hope there. I've got an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. How do we come? How do we come? Let us, therefore, come. Well, we have to come as sinners,
don't we? We have to come as sinners. That's the only way
we can come. We don't try to fix up our lives and get things
in order and then present ourselves in an acceptable manner. We don't
dress ourselves up. We come like blind Bartimaeus.
We drop our filthy robe and we walk before the Lord completely
naked with all of our shame and that's how we come. We come as
sinners. We sang that hymn Sunday, Just
As I Am. Charlotte Elliott wrote that
hymn. And she was at dinner with some friends, and they invited
the pastor over in hopes that he would be able to witness to
her. And he asked her about Christ, and she made it clear to him
that she didn't want to talk about it. And a week later, she
ran into the pastor, and she said, preacher, she said, I've
been thinking about your question that you asked me last week,
and I can't get it off my mind. And she said, I don't know how
to come. And he said, come just like you are. Just like you are. And that's when she pinned, just
as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidst me come to thee. O Lamb of God, I come, just as
I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark spot, to
thee whose blood can cleanse each spot. O Lamb of God, I just
come, just like I am." That's how you come. Come with all your sin, come
just like you are. You say, well how do I come? Peter, when he was in the boat,
you remember what he said? Lord, bid me to come unto thee,
And he does, right now, is he bidding you? That's why I said,
are you coming to Christ right now? Right this very minute,
are you coming in your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ? The Spirit and the bride say,
come. The Lord said, if you're thirsty, come. You're hungry,
come. And if you come, If you're coming
right now, it is a confirmation that God has, how do I know he's
called me? How do I know he's called me?
What happens in time confirms what God has ordained in eternity. So if you're coming If you're
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what I mentioned earlier,
that this coming means to believe. Listen to what the Lord said
in John 6.35, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me
shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Coming and believing is the same
thing. Does that mean that I'll never
be hungry again? No, that's not what that means. You've got to eat. Does that
mean that my flesh is going to lust for something in this world?
No, it doesn't mean that either. The Lord said in John chapter
4 verse 10, to that woman at the well, if thou knewest who
it was that spake unto thee, thou wouldest ask him, and he
would give you living water." And you remember what she said?
She said, she said, Lord, the well's deep and you've got nothing
to draw with. How you gonna give me living water? And he said, oh no, we're not
talking about that water. The water that I give to you
will spring forth everlasting life. And you know what she said? Lord, give me that water that
I thirst not again, neither that I have to come back to this well.
She still didn't see it. She still thought he was talking
about physical water. What does it mean when the Lord
said, if you come unto me, you'll not hunger again. If you believe
on me, you'll not thirst again. It means that you'll hunger and
thirst after righteousness, but you'll know that all that righteousness
is found in Christ. In other words, you'll hunger
and thirst for more of Him. You won't have to go anywhere
else. You won't do like we did in religion, running to and fro,
looking for a different gospel, and a different answer, and a
different angle on things. You'll know that Christ is all,
and that He's in all, and you don't have to go anywhere else. No place else. Someone asked me lately, they
were trying to know how to respond to a friend that was encouraging
them to attend a Bible study. Religious people just get together
and pool their ignorance and compare their knowledge and try
to get some advantage over one another to figure out who knows
more. And then try to discover some trinket from the Word of
God that will help them get through another day and be a little bit
better of a person. We just don't need that, do we?
We don't need that. Why would you eat the husk that
swine do eat when you've got the bread of life? Why would
you do it? You're sitting at the father's
table. You know, you were a prodigal one time. You've left all that.
You've come and you've sat down at the father's table. Why would
you drink from broken cisterns, polluted water, when you've got
the fountain of living water? If you come to me, you'll hunger
no more. You'll thirst no more. You won't
have to go anywhere else. You want to speculate on the
opinions of men? You've heard the voice of God.
You know the truth, and the truth has set you free. And the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself is that truth. So you've come to Him. Why would you go back to Egypt
and labor under the taskmasters of the law when you are a citizen
of Jerusalem, the city of peace? When here you are under Christ,
you don't need to go back to all that. Don't want to go back
to it. You're not hungry and thirsty
after those things anymore. I love that story in Nehemiah
chapter 6 when Sanballat and Tobiah were trying to get Nehemiah
to come to the valley of Ono. You know, and that word means
common. Let's just find some common ground.
You know, we can agree to disagree on some things. You know, we'll
just, we'll find some common ground. And Nehemiah said, I've
got a good work coming, going on here. And I'm not coming down
off this wall. I'm doing God's work here. You
know, this is the bread of life. We're building the gospel. We're
building the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would we want
to go down to the valley of Ono? And if you read that, I forgot
if it was four or six times, Sanballat sent him the same letter. And Nehemiah kept sending the
same answer. Isn't that the way people are? Religious folks, they're just
so persuasive, aren't they? They just need for you to get
in their camp. Yeah, I don't need to be there.
I don't want to go there. Finally, when Samballot became
clear that Nehemiah wasn't coming down, then he trumped up some
lies about Nehemiah and told the king some lies about him. And that's just so typical of
what people do. There's an offense to the cross. How do we come? How do we come? Boldly. Boldly. I love that word. If you do some
cross-referencing in that word of the places in the scripture,
unreservedly, with liberty, confidently. The literal translation of the
word means with freedom of speech. With freedom of speech. Have
you ever been in the presence of a person that you were trying
to impress and you knew they were kind of standing in judgment
of you? This happens particularly with
young people, boys and girls, who are trying to impress one
another. And it's awkward, isn't it? I mean, you just don't know what
to say. And then when you say something, it comes out dumb.
You've been in that situation before. Well, that's just the
opposite. Why are you in that situation? Why do you feel that way? I'll
tell you why. Because you know that that other
person is standing in judgment of you. And you want to impress them. Isn't that the bottom line? Let us come boldly. He's not
standing in judgment of you. In spite of the fact that He
knows everything there is to know about you. Everything. And you don't have to impress Him. Believers aren't trying
to impress God. They just come in as mercy beggars
to find help in their time of need. And that gives you such
freedom of speech. There's nothing you can say.
You just pour out your soul. He's not going to stand in judgment. He's not going to... Look at
Hebrews chapter 10. Look at Hebrews chapter 10, verse
17. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Well, I'm glad for that. He separated
them from us as far as the East is from the West. Now where remission
of these is, there's no more offering for sin. So you're not
coming before the throne of law making an offering for your sin. Your sin's already been put away.
There's nothing for you to offer. You're coming with an empty hand.
You're coming with a mercy beggar. You're coming completely dependent
upon Him. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. We've got
freedom. We've got confidence. Where is
our confidence? It's in the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ who put away our sin. My sin's covered. God says, I remember them no
more. I can't see them. I see you in Christ. by a new living way which he
has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his
flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us
draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith." Full
assurance. I say he knows everything there
is to know, and yet the things that keep us from him are our
sins, aren't they? And we just read that He remembers
those no more. We come before the throne of
grace in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and we are as accepted
by God as He is. That's confidence. Are you coming
to Christ? Are you coming right now? Are
you part of the us? Let us therefore, in light of
the fact that we have a high priest, in light of the fact
that our sin's been put away, we've
got a place of rest. Let us come boldly. And where, or better yet, who
do we come to? And what's it called? This isn't
an empty throne. This is symbolic language. This is an occupied throne. We're
not coming to a throne as if we're coming to a chair. This
word throne is used to represent the royalty and the sovereignty
of the Lord Jesus Christ as He reigns over His creation. And we're coming before Him.
And it's a throne of grace. Grace. It's not a throne of law. He's already satisfied that.
We find grace and mercy. That's what we're in need of.
If we're sinners, if we're coming to Christ, we know that what
we need more than anything else is God's favor based on the work
of another. We need to find grace in the
eyes of the Lord. We're not coming... Now I want
to make this clear because I see this happen. I see it happen
right now with some folks. I'm very concerned. People come
to a new doctrine and they think they've come to Christ. They change Arminianism for Calvinism
and they think they've come to Christ. That's not coming to
Christ. You come to a new doctrine, Calvinism
is logical. I mean, if you don't believe
the doctrines as they are revealed in Scripture, then you're just
an illogical person. You believe in free will, you're
just an illogical person. But coming to the doctrines of
grace, coming to Calvinism is not coming to Christ. Christ
is a person. Oh, we have to come to Him, don't
we? If we come to Him, we'll know it's all of grace. We won't
have any problem with those doctrines. You come to the doctrines, not
come to Christ. You can't come to Christ without coming to the
doctrines. Don't miss Christ and don't mistake
the doctrines for Christ. Come unto me, learn of me. He that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. We're coming to the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ, aren't we? Where is he? He's occupying the
throne of grace. And what do we come for? To obtain
mercy. To obtain mercy. To lay hold
of. That's what that word obtain
means. To receive. To experience. Mercy. Oh, the mercy of God. It's a... He said in Matthew chapter 7
verse 8, For everyone that asketh, obtaineth or receiveth. How do
I know if I've asked for it? Ask Him. It's amazing how people
sit there and they think about it and they talk about it. They
never get on their face before God and cry out and ask Him. Find. That word find means to discover. If you find something, it's not
that you put it there, it's that you found it there. And that's
the truth here. What we obtain was already ours,
we just got hold of it. What we find was already ours,
we just discovered it. And I could tell you more about
the language here, but no need to get into all of that, just
to know that that's what this means. I will give you this. I've given
you this before, but it's very important. I don't want to confuse
anybody. There's three verb tenses in
the old Greek language. Three verb tenses that are important.
One is the perfect tense. And the perfect tense is an action
completed never to be repeated. So when the Lord Jesus Christ
said, it is finished, that word is in the perfect tense, and
it means that that's an action completed, never to be repeated.
And then there's the present tense. And the present tense
is an ongoing believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved. That's the present tense. So we just continue to
believe, we continue to come. And then there's a tense in the
Greek language that's not in any other language. It's called
the aorist tense. And all the emphasis in the Aorist
tense is on the action of the verb without any reference whatsoever
to time. It's the eternal tense. It's
the tense that looks beyond time into eternity. And the glorious
thing here is that the word obtain and the word find sounds like
present tense, doesn't it? It's in the Aorist tense. In
other words, you're obtaining something. You're getting hold
of something that was before the foundation of the world.
You're finding something that was before the foundation of
the world. And it's not something you're doing. You're just proving
what was already purposed by God. And when you come, that's
what you're doing. You come to Christ and your coming
is proving that it was already determined by God. Define help. That word help in
this verse is the only place in the whole Bible where that
word is used in the original language. And really the translation
help is it's not like, you know, I'll assist you. You know, that's
what we talk about. You need help, you know, I'll
hold one end of the stick, you know. No. It means to cry out
and to have someone hear your cry. That's what the word means. I've cried and he's heard my
cry and the reason I've cried is because I'm in need. I'm in need. What are you in
need of? You're in need of a righteousness
that you don't have. You're in need of sin to be put
away. You're in need of being justified before God. You need
to be saved. That's what I need. I want to know how to be saved. We're not here to give each other
warm fuzzies about our life here in this world. We're here to
tell men about Christ so they can be saved. Are you coming to Christ? If
you're coming right now, it's because you've come. And
you're going to keep coming. Let us, therefore, Come with
freedom of speech, confidently. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
has put away our sin. There's no more guilt. There's
no more shame. There's no more reason for us
to fear God. Let us come boldly to the throne
of grace and the one who's seated upon that throne that we might
find mercy and help cried out in our time of need. When are you in need? You know,
it's just really too bad. It's just a testimony of our
of our unbelief that we're not more needy than we are. You know,
and the Lord has to afflict us from time to time with problems
in order to remind us of how needy we really are. Truth is,
we're that needy all the time. And we're going to find out how
needy we are. The time you're going to find
yourself the most needy is when you're on your deathbed. Truth is, you're just as needy
now as you will be then. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank Thee for the good news of the gospel
of Your free grace. And we ask now that You would
enable us by Your Spirit to draw nigh unto Christ. For it's in
His name we pray, Amen. I don't know if we're still on.
Eric, if you would lead the group in Sarasota in prayer and be
dismissed. Thank you.