If you'd open your Bibles to
Luke chapter 23, almost 30 years ago, in April
of 1984, I preached for the first time in a Bible conference in
Franklin, Tennessee. On the ticket with me, if that's
the right way to put it, was Brother Scott Richardson. He
would have been about 59 or 60 years old. And Henry Mahan, who
at that time would have been 57 years old and eight months.
I know when his birthday is. So I think that's how old he
would have been. Maurice Montgomery was there.
He'd have been about 45. Don Fortner would have been 34,
something like that. And I was all of 29 years old. My wife was with me. She was
10. I remember thinking I was the
youngest guy on the ticket. There in the congregation was
an eight-year-old boy named Gabe Stollicker. And here we are 30
years later. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Thirty years later, here we are,
and now I'm the old guy. What a blessing it is to me. I remember talking to Tim James
some years ago, probably 15 or so, and I mean, I know how to
look at a calendar. I could see those old fellas
getting older and that there was going to be a limitation
to how long they could continue preaching. And I said to Tim,
they're going to be gone for too long. And he said, yeah,
they're going to knock the ball to our court. And that kind of
scared me. I always took a certain amount
of comfort in there being that generation over top of me, men
who I looked up to in years and experience. And now most of them,
well, none of them are preaching. Most of them are gone. And I'm
in the older generation and yet there have been men from my generation
who for all these years have remained steadfast and faithful
in the gospel. And I see now that men from the
generation after me are being raised up and given grace to
declare the unsearchable riches of Christ. God renews his work
every day and every generation. So long as this world is here,
there'll be somebody in it preaching Christ. And there'll be somebody preaching
Christ because there'll be sheep in this world who must be called.
For it is my belief that once the last sheep has been brought
into the fold, the Lord shall make an end of this history and
bring this story to a conclusion. But it does my heart good. That
message was good just as a message, a blessing, brother. Hear it
from a young man, the next generation. And there's others, there's others. And the Lord will not leave himself
without a witness. It teaches us and reminds us
none of this is of us, is it? No matter how influential we
may be in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, eventually we're
gone and our place hardly remembers us. And yet others come behind because
the Lord, while we grow old and wither and die, the Lord never
changes. and His grace and His mercy endure
from generation to generation. So this is a blessing to me to
be here, not just because I left 13 below zero to come here, though
that is good. That's good. I'm glad to be here
on that account. Such a blessing to be where the
gospel is loved, where it is preached, not just without apology,
but with joy and rejoicing and delight. I don't preach the gospel
because I like to fight with people over it. I love it. And I love most of all to preach
to people that love to hear it. And what a blessing to be here. Now if a man is ever to see anything,
two things are necessary. He must be able to see. He must
have sight. It doesn't matter how bright
the light is, if a man is blind, he can't see. And then, there must be light. He must have the capacity to
see, and then there must be some light to see. It doesn't matter
how good his eyes are. If there is no light, he's not
going to see anything. Probably most of you have been
in a cave in Kentucky. There's Carter Cave State Park,
and it was fairly near where I grew up. I went there several
times, and you get back in those caves, and undoubtedly the tour
guide or whatever, he'd make everybody turn their flashlights
off. Now, I know when we wake up in the middle of the night,
we think our bedroom's dark. It isn't dark. It's dim, but
it's not dark. You get back in a cave, turn
out all the lights, that's dark. And I don't care how good your
eyes are, you're not gonna see a thing. So you gotta have sight
and you gotta have light before you'll see anything. Now, giving
sight to the blind is the work of God alone. If you're here
and you are spiritually blind, I can't do anything for you.
Really. I mean, you know, I can shine
the light your way, but you're not going to see it. Only God can cure blindness. He has not given us in the scriptures
a program for getting over our blindness. There is not a one,
two, or twelve step program for going from blind to seeing. It isn't there. It is a miraculous
work of God carried out without any help or cooperation from
anyone else. So, I'm not going to try to make
you see. I'm not going to try to give
you sight. I guess according to our president's
famous line from some years ago, that's above my pay grade. And
it is way above my pay grade. However, the Lord told his disciples,
you are the light of the world. Now, the church of the Lord Jesus
is the light of the world the same way that the moon is the
light of the world at nighttime. The church is the light of the
world like the moon is the light because it shines in a dark place. We see some things by the moon
but for the most part the world is a dark place at night. And
so we who are of the church of the Lord Jesus are a light in
darkness. Secondly, we are like the light
of the moon, the church is, because if you look through history,
there are phases, there are times when there was full moonlight,
when the Lord God was pleased to shine brightly through his
church, and there are times when it was just a sliver. When scarcely any light was in
the world, never been any time when there wasn't any. There
have been times when there was very, very little. I'm not saying
this to boast about the church. The next point will make that
clear, but I want to say this. The only source of light in this
world is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. She's the only
one that knows the truth. And I'm not saying I get to brag
on the church, it's just a fact. And that's why it's so important
that the church of the Lord Jesus confine herself to the work of
shining that light. No one else can do it. So look,
there's poor that need to be fed. Yes, and there's lots of
people that can do that. Really. There's all kinds of troubles
in this world that worldlings can take care of. They cannot
preach the gospel. Only the church can do that.
If there was one doctor in town, would you want him to go door
to door passing out food? Or would you say, you stay at
your office and deal with the sick people, you're the only
one who can. Let the church Confined herself to the job that only
she can do and that is declaring the gospel the light But the
church is the light of the world like the moon is the light of
the world at night Night mostly by this her light is not her
own Moonlight is just sunlight reflected
Turn out the sun, the moon goes out. Simple, that's just the way it
is. And so actually, you know, you say, well I'm seen by moonlight.
No you're not. You're seen by sunlight reflected
by the moon. Now if I tell you truth tonight,
it's not my truth. Now it's truth I believe. In
that sense I could call it my truth. Paul spoke of my gospel. Now we know what he means by
that. But the truth doesn't come from me. The truth wasn't even
discovered by me. It's reflected off of me. Now there are several lights
in this world. There is the light of creation. People say, well, I don't believe
in a creator. Well, how can there be a creation if there's not
a creator? How can there be a universe that
never came into existence? Unless you want to posit the
idea, so you want to set forth the idea that the universe has
always been here, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to
me, or just everything popped out of nothing and here it is. Well that doesn't make a whole
lot of sense to me either. That tells me by the light of creation
there is a creator and I know that men will argue against that.
We've got an upsurge of atheism in our day and I understand why
they're that way. It's just one way to be spiritually
blind. There's lots of ways to be spiritually
blind, not just one of them. But they're trying to deny that
there's a creator. They say there's no proof or
evidence of it. And I'm saying, well, there's
light, but you can't see. Isn't that true? There's the
light of creation, there's the light of reason. I mean, common
sense. I realize there's not a lot of
that in the world, you know, but common sense, reason, tells
us some things. And then there's the light of
conscience and law. Bible says that God has written
his law on every man's heart. It's there, and we call it the
conscience. There's not a person in the world
thinks murder is okay. Do you know why all these fellows
like Hitler over the years, when they want to get rid of a bunch
of people, what's the first thing they feel compelled to do? Dehumanize
them. You know why? Because they know
killing humans is wrong. Why? God wrote it there. And all the other laws. Conscience
is a light. But these lights, And they're
good lights, but nobody's ever been saved
by them. Nobody has ever been brought
to the knowledge of the truth. By these lights they're ever
learning, but never able to come to acknowledge the truth. If you want to learn anything
of spiritual value, there's only one light. that can accomplish
that and that is the light of Christ and Him crucified. Everything worth seeing is seen
best at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come to
an understanding that the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is not
simply one part of God's redemptive plan nor even the central part
when we see that it's not even just the central point of Earth's
history, but that it is the point of history. And without it, history
has no point. When we realize that even in
the scriptures, while the story of the crucifixion doesn't occupy
that many pages of it, this entire book is about the sufferings
of Christ. And everything it says relates
to how or why that event happened. And until you understand a scripture
in relation to that event, you have not understood that scripture. Someone once said, when you open
the Bible, dig till you find Christ, then quit digging. You have found what that scripture
is about. How much trouble we get ourselves
into digging past Christ into the scriptures. Well, I want
to get deep. You're too deep if you passed
up Christ. Because Christ is what it's about and His sufferings
is the essential truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now what I
want to do is take the scene of our Lord's suffering, His
crucifixion, pouring out His soul unto death. We'll look at
that event and the things that happened there and see what the
light of the cross tells us. First of all, man is revealed
as he really is at the cross. If you want to find out what
man is, you look at the cross. We can talk about total depravity,
and that's fine, and we should. I mean, we try to put our understanding
of truth into concise statements and then defend them from scripture.
That's all well and good. But we have at the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ not a doctrine of total depravity, but a mass
of totally depraved people trying to kill God. We find out what
man thinks about God at the cross. We find out what his capacities
for understanding are. We find out what his capacities
for faith are. We find out what free will does
at the cross. And it's told to us in such clear
and uncertain terms that it cannot be denied. Men by the light of
the law will hear that they are sinners, but they will not learn
so clearly from the law that they are sinners that they'll
give up on trying to improve themselves. Conscience will work
in them and prod them into reforming their lives, but conscience will
never convince them. that they are God-hating rebels. Most religion, in fact all religion
other than the gospel of the Lord Jesus, is nothing other
than an attempt to hide what man really is. They hide men
under a covering of ceremony. They give him a little wine,
a little bread, sprinkle a little water on his forehead or dunk
him clear underneath. And all they're trying to do
is distract from the truth of what man is. When we observe the two ceremonies
that God left for us, when we observe them correctly, they
aren't hiding anything. about us. For both of them are
declarations of the cross. But so darkened is the minds
of men, they can take those declarations of the cross, rob them of all
their power by making them works of righteousness under which
sinful men hide their sin. Works of ceremony are used to
cover them. Legal righteousness. It's interesting that I come
from an area occupied primarily by Dutch Reformed people. And
I mean it's been Dutch Reformed for 150 years. And they are strong,
or were, they're kind of modernizing now, but they were at times strong. You drive down Main Street on
Sunday, tumbleweeds didn't dare move. Really. One of the folks in my church,
he told me that he got on his bicycle on Sunday and coasted
downhill. And he got a spanking for it,
and he argued with his dad about it. He said, well, I was coasting,
I wasn't pedaling, so I wasn't working. But still, Sunday to
them was a Sabbath, and they kept it severe. Of course, as
with all legal righteousness, they are only good at those which
can be easily seen from the outside. The whole time that they were
busy keeping their Sabbaths, they were coveting their neighbor's
possessions, they were chasing around just like they do everywhere
else. You had people hating one another,
stealing from one another, but all that couldn't be seen. When
men try to cover themselves in legal righteousness, they cover
themselves with rules which can be seen by others. Religion covers
men with morality. You say, well, isn't that the
same thing as legal righteousness? No, these are the made-up rules.
Or even good social standards of decency. Well, I pay my bills. And I treat my family right.
I've got a job. I buy the groceries and pay the
bills, take care of my wife and kids and all that. And religion
will bring those things out and encourage people to them. They'll
have family seminars. They got one guy that'll go around,
come to your church and tell you how to have financial peace.
People, what are they doing? They're hiding what they really
are. And I don't blame them. I don't blame them. Here's one for you. Religion
will hide what a man is under a cloak of doctrine. We're here for a Sovereign Grace
Bible Conference. Well, excuse me, but whoop-dee-doo. Are you hiding under that? Are
you trying to hide your depravity under the doctrine of total depravity? You say, well, the person couldn't
do that. You'd be amazed what a person is capable of doing
in rebellion against God. I believe all the doctrines of
grace. Well, I believe that two and
two equals four. It's just so. There's no virtue
in believing the truth. Isn't that true? To say, I believe the doctrines
of grace, and think that by that you have elevated yourself above
the guy that didn't. That's like saying, well, I've
never killed anybody, as though we're supposed to pat you on
the back for that. Well, I may be glad you didn't kill anybody,
but that is not something for which you should get an award.
And neither is believing the truth of God. It's just so. Some here this evening may be
hiding from the truth about themselves under a cloak of sovereign grace
theology. And I hope that this evening
God will pull that cloak off of you. I do. Because you see, God could never
cover Adam and Eve with a proper covering. until he stripped them
of the covering they'd made for themselves. They never would
have taken off those leaves themselves. After all it was they that made
them. They certainly weren't going to despise them. At the
cross we see the truth about irreligious man. We're hearing
from the irreligious world that all this world's evils are caused
By religion. Well, there's no question that
a lot of evil has been carried out under the name of religion
But I will say this the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ has
never promoted evil period now some people who Believe the gospel
have done evil things. I'll no question there and sadly
Even some who believe the gospel have used some scriptures to
justify evil practices. But the gospel itself never has
promoted violence, never has promoted theft, never. It's pure. And it is promoted
only for those things which are pure. But the irreligious want
to blame it all on religion. Well, look what irreligious people
did on the day of crucifixion. Those Roman soldiers, what brutal
and vicious men they were to make sport of the pain and torture
of others. If bad enough, they had no idea
who Jesus is. But think of this, they had not
so much pity upon a man as to feel sorry for him that he's
going to be crucified. But they delighted themselves
in it. They rejoiced at the thought of shredding his back with a
whip. They mocked him. They spit on
him. They took that stick that they
made a fake scepter out of and hit him on the head with it.
And laughed at him. The Roman centurions who were
in charge of carrying out the crucifixions, they got paid extra. I read about this. It's not in
the Bible, but I assume it's the truth. They thought it was
good on execution day. They were going to make some
extra money. Now imagine how that must be.
making your way to the place where they're going to nail you
to a cross and let you hang there in unimaginable pain until your
body finally wears out and dies and all they're thinking about
is, it's an extra 50 in the pocket for me. That's what man is. Vicious. Hateful. Their feet were swift
to shed blood. The poison of asps. was under
their tongues. Deceit. It said that they suborned perjury.
They paid some false witnesses. I bet it didn't cost much either.
A little bit of money. They'll lie on a man and send
him to his death. Irreligious man is shown for what he is.
No mercy. At the cross, religious man is
revealed as he really is. Who was it started the ball rolling?
Pilate didn't care about the Lord Jesus. He probably heard
about it, but the Lord Jesus was no threat to Pilate. Pilate
wasn't there. What am I going to do about Jesus?
Well, I better find a way to get him crucified. No, it was
the religious folks did this. The law of the land prohibited
them from carrying it out with their own hands. But they with malice against
God in human flesh counseled together to kill him. And I feel confident that their
only regret that day is that they could not with their own
hands nail him to that tree. That they had to let someone
else have that pleasure. Brethren, the cross reveals man
for what he is. They were unrepentant. God had
been good to these. These were Jewish leaders. God
had been good to them through the old covenant. And that goodness
to them should have led them to repentance. But what did it
do instead? Puff them up with pride. So much
pride that they crucified the God who'd been good to them. We find out at the cross In the
light of the cross we see there revealed fleshly believers. What do I mean by that? Those
whose faith was in the flesh and in the flesh only and it
typified in the person of Judas who for 30 pieces of silver sold
out the Lord Jesus Christ. And why? Well we don't know for
sure except that he was a covetous man. We know that because he
was stealing out of the treasury. But, you know what Judas reminds
me of? These people, these believers,
they say they believe the gospel of God's grace like we do. But
you know, that church down the road's got better music. I really
like that worship service. You know, when you go there,
you just feel something. And so, for a feeling, for a
good accompaniment and a stirring song service they sell out the
Lord Jesus Christ well you know I realize that
they're they're not right down the line on grace but they got
a program for the youth let me ask you this if where you go to the doctor
doesn't have a specialized pediatrician? Are you going to take your children
to a pediatrician that injects poison in them just because it's
a pediatrician? I'll tell you, let me just say
it this way for your own encouragement and strengthening. The gospel
is the right message for everyone at every age. My children, I
made them come to church with us. Now they never gave a big
problem about it. I'm thankful that the Lord was
real good to us in that thing. But as they got into teenage
years, one day, Dad, I don't listen to what you say. One of
my sons told me that one time. He said, I don't listen. Then
he turned right around and told me everything I said. I didn't
point that out to him because I didn't want him to feel like
he had to prove to me he wasn't listening. We, in the church that I've been
pastoring now for, it'll be 27 years this June, we never had
a specialized youth program. I'm not saying there's something
wrong with that. We just never did. There never was anybody
to do it. And yet, many who grew up in
that church are now adults who have believed the gospel and
now have children the age they were when I came there. And you
know what we're doing for those children? We're preaching the
gospel to them. Don't be a Judas and sell out
the Lord Jesus Christ for a youth program or a guitar solo. We see at the cross man revealed
Believing people Revealed for what they really are because
there were believers there that day The disciples were believers
After all the Lord had asked them who do you say that? I am
and Peter said you're the Christ the son of the Living God and
The Lord said blessed art thou Simon Barjona. Well, you don't
say that to an unbeliever For flesh and blood didn't reveal
that to you, but my father I So the truth had been revealed to
them. They were believers. Where do you find them on that
day? Well, I don't know where you find Peter. I could tell
you where you find him the night before. Trembling in the face
of a 12-year-old girl's accusation that he was among Christ's people. Peter. I don't know what he looked
like, but I envision him as a burly fisherman. I mean a guy that
He was no effeminate fella. You wouldn't want to arm wrestle
him, you'd lose. And a little girl's accusation that he was
among Christ's people terrified him to the point he
denied the Lord three times. And you say, yeah, Peter, he
denied. Well, wait a minute. And what does it say when he
was arrested And all his disciples forsook him and fled. We live in a day of successful
Christianity and by that I mean that Christianity is described
in terms of success. You may look at this description,
you may say, well I'm not like those irreligious people. There's
not such hate and malice in me. I fear you've never been to the
cross. I'm not like those religious,
those self-righteous religious, I'm not like that. I fear you've
never been to the cross. And the very fact that you with
contempt would speak of self-righteous religious people proves that
you are as self-righteous as they are. For there is a self-righteousness
in boasting that you're not self-righteous. Anytime You look with contempt
on someone else. And do not have equal contempt
for yourself. You have done nothing but declare
your self-righteousness. You're better than the other
guy. You say, I wouldn't, you know,
if I'd have been there that night, I'd have stuck with the Lord.
I don't think you've ever been. I wonder if you've ever been
to the cross and seen what you are. You see, the cross has some
wonderful things to say to us, but not one good thing to say
about us. Do you believe that? Or is that
just so many words? Sometimes I'm scared to death
my preaching just so many words. To me, I mean, I'm thinking,
oh, you just know what to say, Joe. You just know what sounds
like sovereign grace and we'll get an amen. I get afraid that
that's what I'm doing. Because I know how to do that.
It's not difficult. Oh my, the cross is a glaring
light. We see all these things the cross
reveals and it would be easy to say, yeah it sure did reveal
them. Brethren, it reveals us. I was
not talking about them, I was talking about us. That's us. Our brother described David.
That's us. That's not him, it's us. You
say, well I don't think I'm that bad. Then why did Christ die?
You measure the seriousness of a disease by the power of the
medicine necessary to heal it. If I were as mildly sinful as
this world wants to Describe it. Why did it take the death
of the Son of God to save my soul? If you got a headache, an aspirin's
enough. If you have cancer, it's going
to take something bigger, more powerful. Brethren, if all you
are is somebody that has gotten drunk, well, twelve steps might
save you. If that's all that there is to
your sin. But if you are a God-hating rebel,
it's going to take something more than anything you can do. The cross reveals us. It reveals God as He is. Religion tries to hide man, also
tries to hide God. People don't like God as He is.
He's not nice. Did you hear that? God's not
nice. He isn't one of these fellas that just doesn't matter what
you do, He's going to try to smooth the waters. Of all the things that God is,
it seems the scripture set this forth as what He will be regardless
of what else. He is holy. He is righteous. And he is so fully disgusted
by what we are and what we have done that there is in his mind, if
we can put it this way, absolutely no reason not to send every last
one of us to an eternal hell. Do you honestly believe that?
Do you really think that you deserve that God condemn you
to everlasting torment? Well, whether or not you believe
it, God does. People get upset when bad things
happen on the earth. Somebody wrote a book, When Bad
Things Happen to Good People. And I told someone, I said, well,
I'll buy that book when I find a good person. Someone else responded to it
this way, I was pretty good and said that only happened once
and he consented. Only once did something bad happen
to someone good and that's what we're talking about. And he consented. The rest of us, we have this
tendency when trouble comes our way to say why not or why? When we should be asking ourselves
why did he hold off so long? God is just. People say, well,
no, God is love. Because it says, God so loved
the world, He gave His only begotten Son. You see, it was love that
took Christ to the cross. No, it wasn't. Yes, love may
have motivated it, but love is not what made it necessary. God's love did not make the cross
necessary. God's justice did. God's righteousness
did. I mean, if someone, if you love
someone, would you say, you know, I love them, I love them so much,
I'm going to kill my son. Someone would say, are you an
idiot? That's not how you show love. God did not kill his son, and
understand that's what happened here. God killed his son. His
only begotten son. When it says He gave Him, it
means He gave Him over. Gave Him as a sacrifice. He didn't kill His Son because
He loved us. He killed His Son because He's
just. And that's the only way He could
justify His love to us. Brother Henry used to say, before
God could do something for you, He had to do something for Himself.
Before he could ever be good to you, he had to satisfy his
own righteous nature by the sacrificing of a substitute in our behalf. We look at the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ and we see there God exacting his vengeance on his own son. If God was ever of a mind to
go light on sin, It would have been when his own beloved, only
begotten son was suffering for sins that he himself never even
did. And if he would not hold his
hand back from his son, what makes you think he'll hold his
hand back from you? If you come to him apart from
his son. And this, now we're going to
get to the scriptures I had you turn to. Just give me a couple
of minutes here. The cross reveals man as He is. The cross reveals God as He is.
And thanks be to our God, it reveals Christ as He really is. It says in Luke chapter 23 verse
34, Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do. Forgive them of what? Nailing
him to a tree. Forgive them of what? He came into his own and they
didn't receive him. Of what? Shredding his back with a cat
of nine tails. Now brethren, that wasn't God's
judgment, that was man's judgment going on. Understanding the crucifixion
of our Lord, God designed that our Lord's physical death be
carried out in such a horrible way so that we get a window into
seeing what God was doing to him in the spiritual realm. No
Roman soldier could ever exact the penalty for your sin, not
even from the Lord Jesus Christ. Only God could do that. God made
his soul an offering for sin, not Pilate, not Caiaphas. And so when our Lord there is
hanging on the tree in unimaginable agony because of what these people
had done to Him, what does He say? What would you have said? Father rain down hell on them!
Wipe them from the face of the earth! And send your angels to
deliver me from this pain. You say, I wouldn't have said
that. Yes, you would. Somebody cuts
us off in traffic, what do we say in our minds? We tell them where they can go. Now if we do that for cutting
us off in traffic, what would we do for them crucifying us
and hating us? What did the Lord Jesus do? Father,
forgive them. But there's more. He said this. He bore the pain of their rejection
and asked his father to forgive them, knowing full well that
he would bear the cost of their forgiveness. You think of that. It's one thing to forgive someone
when it ain't gonna cost you anything to do it. Somebody pops
you one in the nose, you say, And they go, I'm sorry, or whatever,
you know, and you say, okay, we'll forget it. Or she gets
a sore nose out of it. What if the only way you could
forgive them is if you got the spanking they deserved for punching
you in the nose? That's what our Lord did. He
said, Father, forgive them and punish me for what they're doing. We don't know what grace is.
You and I have never once practiced the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I imagine you and I really
don't understand it, even how gracious He's been to us. It is my belief, and I realize
it's not something that's probably even an important point of the
Scriptures, But no one is held guilty before God for crucifying
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the Lord Jesus said,
Father, forgive them. And the Lord Jesus always gets
what he asks for. But brethren, he paid for it. Whatever it is that God would
have done to those people for crucifying his son, he did to
his son. Oh, what a Savior. And you think that just because
you lost your temper and hauled off with a naughty word, He's
going to set you aside. You think that because you stole
something. I'm not trying to make light
of our sins here, understand that. But you think for these
things that that you believe he wouldn't forgive you. Look
what he did. He forgave these people that
hated him and paid the penalty for their hatred. Do you honestly think that he's
going to cast you out? No. Not if your hope is in him. Oh, grace beyond our understanding. But it's grace beyond our understanding
that we need because our sin is beyond our understanding and
we need grace sufficient for our sin. And then the last thing,
John 19 verse 30, that we learn about our Savior. First of all,
He's gracious beyond all telling. And secondly, He is absolutely,
undeniably, completely successful. The cross is not the gasping
out of the last breath of a failed champion. Our Lord said, when
he had received the vinegar, verse 30, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave
up the ghost. Not saying, that's all I can
do. Not saying, I tried, the rest
is up to you. Not, will you now let me? He said with the voice of a champion,
it is finished. I'm done. I have finished the
work my father gave me to do. He put a people in my hands and
I hid them in my bosom and I have gone through hell with them.
And not one of them is lost. People argue over limited atonement.
like it's a doctrine to argue over. It is the glory of our
Savior. It is the victory of our champion. It is the salvation of our souls. It's not that I delight in the
fact that there were some for whom he did not die. I'm not
rejoicing in that fact. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm rejoicing in this, that everyone for whom he died is free, is
justified. He said to Peter, on this rock
I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. Actually the gates of death,
Hades. And I've heard people say, yes
the church needs to charge the gates of hell. You want to get
in? I'm not interested in getting
in. I want out. Our Lord went into hell, went
into death. He broke the gates. He Himself
came out, and now death cannot prevail against the church. She's
coming out. And all we're seeing in history
now, all that's happening, is all of God's people coming out
of hell. And the gates of hell, our Samson
has carried the gates away. He makes them alive and they
walk out. You say, well what about all the sinners in hell?
He doesn't make them alive. You don't need gates to keep
dead people in. You need gates to keep living
people in. And the gates of hell will not
prevail against the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord give you
sight. Thank you, Joe. God spoken. I hope you've heard. I hope I've heard. I'm not going
to add a word to that. We're going to stand and sing
a hymn, and we'll gather again, Lord willing, tomorrow morning
at 10 o'clock. So, Tom? Number 92 and the softback
tenor. Let's stand together.