Thank you so much. That song has quite the message
to it. And every time I hear it, it
just touches me deep down in my soul that the Lord Jesus was
indeed wounded because of my transgressions. And that's just
an awesome thought. That one so wonderful would suffer,
bleed, and die for one who's so awful. It is amazing grace, isn't it?
What a wonderful Redeemer is ours and those of us who love
this Gospel. Who love the message of Christ
Jesus and Him crucified. We want those of you who don't
love Him and believe Him, we want you to love Him and believe
Him too. We want you to know Him. We want
you to be found in Him. As I read there in Romans, He's
appointed a day in which He's going to judge us. We're all going to
stand before Him. We'll all answer to Him. You
don't answer to me, and nobody here has to answer to me. I'm
not a fair, I wouldn't be a fair judge. I hoped I would be, but
I don't see things as they are, but He does. We're all like an
open book before our Lord Jesus. And He's going to judge us by
the standard of righteousness. God help you. And God help me
to deal honestly with the Lord Jesus Christ right now. Right now. Open your Bibles with me to 2
Timothy, if you would. 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy
chapter 2. I've got just a couple of verses
I want to read to you and then I want to speak to you on Christ
was raised from the dead. 2 Timothy chapter 2. You know this is the second letter
that was written to this young preacher whose name was Timothy. The man who wrote this by divine
inspiration is the apostle Paul. And he greatly loved Timothy. Timothy was a man who listened
to the gospel from the lips of the Apostle Paul. And Timothy
was a man that the Apostle, he considered him to be like his
spiritual son. And he considered himself to
be as his father. In fact, he even says, and I'll
go back and read the first verse of 2 Timothy chapter 2, he says,
Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ
Jesus. Actually, the word is be headstrong.
Be headstrong, be so convinced In the gospel of grace. In the
message of grace that nobody can move you. And he said, you're my son in
the faith. And then he goes down, look at
verse 7 and 8. He says this in verse 7, consider
what I say. And that's what I really would
like to say to each of you today. Consider what I've got to say. We don't have much time together,
another 35, 40 minutes or whatever. to be together and for you to
listen to me, I want you to consider what I say. Would you do that?
May the Spirit of God enable you to put everything else out
of your minds. I know you've got a lot on your
mind, got a lot going on in your life. I understand that. But
what we need to do, we need to consider the things of God right
now. Listen, you might not have another
day. you might not have another opportunity
to listen to the truth. One of the old preachers, he
was a Puritan, he said, I preach as though never to preach again. I preach as a dying man to dying
men. That's the way I want to preach.
That's the reason I... I always want to preach with
a sense of urgency to you and an urgency to me. I've got a
responsibility to fulfill and I have a mission to endure, to
work. to be faithful in, and the mission
is to set before you the things of God, Jesus Christ, and Him
crucified. So I preach as though never to
preach again. I preach as a dying man to dying
men. That's why any of my messages,
if somebody says, would you give me a message by your pastor concerning
the gospel of the Lord Jesus? I honestly believe that our brother
here could go to any of the messages that I preached. And really,
any of the message that any of God's servants preach, and just
pull one off the shelf and say, here, here's a message concerning
the truthfulness of God. So I do preach as though never
to preach again. I preach as a dying man to dying
men. But listen, you need to listen
as though never to hear another message again. That's how you
need to listen all the time. You need to listen as though
there'll never be another opportunity for you to consider what the
preacher has to say. Would you listen like that this
morning? Would you, as Paul wrote to Timothy, would you consider
what I say? And he says this in the next
part of verse 7, And the Lord give thee understanding in all
things. This is absolutely vital. I do
want you to consider to listen to that which I've got to say
about God in all of His attributes, about you and me and our depravity
and our sinfulness, and about the wonders and the glories of
the Lord Jesus and His work of redemption. I want you to consider
what I say, but I know this, the Lord has got to give understanding
of these things if we are to receive them. You see, we're
absolutely dependent on God the Spirit to teach us. He must be
our teacher. An old preacher said, he's got
to be our pedagogue, and we've got to be his pupils. and we
sit, as it were, before the Holy Spirit this morning, and we say
to Him, Lord, give us understanding, or we won't receive the message.
Lord, teach us. Lord, open up our minds, open
up our hearts, open up our ears, that we may perceive these good
things that You have to be said to us today. And so here is your
responsibility. Consider what I say. And here is your dependency. The Lord give thee understanding.
The Lord give thee understanding. And then he says this in the
next verse. He says, remember. Remember. Isn't it interesting
how often in the Scriptures we're told to remember? We often partake
of the Lord's Supper. It's a time of remembrance. In
fact, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, He said on the
night before He was betrayed and before He died, He said,
He said, this do in remembrance of Me. Well, if He continually
says, remember, and do this in remembrance, it must be because
we tend to Forget. We tend to forget. It's amazing
how the things of the world, the things of a temporal nature,
we can remember those things. We read a book, we read a magazine,
we read the newspaper, and we can remember what we read. We
can bring to recall. That which we've heard, we've
seen on television or whatever. But when it comes to the things
of God, we have difficulties. And you say, preacher, what is
the reason for that? I want to remember, but lots
of times I can't remember these things. Here's the reason we're
naturally, naturally enabled to listen to the things of the
world, the things that don't have to do with eternity. But
when it comes to the things of God, when it comes to salvation,
when it comes to the glory of God and the glory of Christ Jesus,
and that redemption by Him, the necessity of His salvation, when
it comes to these subjects, Those are not natural to us. And so, we're often called upon
to remember. Remember. And then, this is specifically
what he's calling upon Timothy to remember. Remember that Jesus
Christ, Jesus, What does that name mean? It
means Savior. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. He's Jesus. He's Joshua. He's the Old Testament
name for Joshua. He's Jehovah who saves. Remember
that Jehovah who saves. Remember Jesus, that one born
of a virgin. who lived a perfect life, that
One who came down here from heaven. Remember that Jesus, here's His
next name, Christ. What does that mean? Messiah. He is the One who was sent of
God. He's the One who promised throughout the Old Testament.
Remember that Jesus Christ. Well, who is Jesus Christ? He's
of the seed of David. There's his absolute humanity. He descended from David. David
was his father. He's a descendant of David. You
go back to the very beginning of the New Testament and we're
introduced to Jesus Christ. He's the son of Abraham. He's
the son of David. He's of the lineage of David.
He's of the house of David. That is, He's a real man. This
one who was born to Mary in a manger, this one who came from God, who
is God, who took upon Himself our nature, He's a real man. He's Jesus Christ. He's of the seed of David. He
was a little infant. He really lived. He really lived. He really grew in statue and
in wisdom. Remember that Jesus Christ of
the seed of David. That is one who is as real as
you or me. One who is as much a man as any
man here this morning. Except, he had no sin. Because he was of the seed of
Mary. and not of the seed of Adam or
even of Joseph. He was not affected by any sin. He was never contaminated by
sin because he's the Son of God. He's the Son of God who came.
So here's what Paul calls upon Timothy. He says, remember that
Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised, raised from the dead. Remember that this one I speak
to you about, this one I'm always preaching about, he's not dead. You can visit the graves of many
dead religious leaders throughout the world. And people do, they
make pilgrimages to visit those graves of the shrines. There are big tombs and so forth. But the Lord Jesus, He was raised
from the dead. And He was raised from the dead. And here's what Paul says, according
to my gospel. In other words, my gospel is
about the Lord Jesus being raised from the dead. He who died arose
and He went to glory. He really lives. He ever lives. He was a real baby. He was a
real infant. He grew up as a real young man. He lived his life of adulthood
as a real man. And then he died a real death
under the wrath of God at the hands of men. He was really buried,
and He was really raised again, and He really went back to heaven,
and He's really at the right hand of God right now. He really
is. Now I know this, I cannot convince
you of this gospel. I can preach it and I do with
all of my heart. I believe this. Preacher, do
you really believe what you're preaching? I'm hanging my soul's
everlasting welfare on it. This is the one I'm trusting.
This is the one I'm leaning upon. This one who died for me. This
one who was wounded for my transgressions. Who was bruised for my iniquities. Who was numbered with the transgressors
for me. This one who went into the darkness
of the wrath of God and the judgment of God and the very hell that
I should have suffered. He went into that. He endured
all that for me and He really died and He really arose and
He really went back to glory. Now I'm convinced of this truth. I'm convinced He's the Savior.
I'm convinced He's the Lord of glory. I'm convinced that I know
Him based upon the assurance of the Word of God. I am convinced,
but I can't convince you. Maybe in your minds I can, but
I can't convince your heart. I can't convince you of His deity. It is a recorded fact, a historical
fact. A man named Jesus of Nazareth
lived in Galilee about 2,000 years ago. It is a historical
fact that he went about doing good and performing great miracles. That's a historical fact. Even
historians who don't believe God, who don't acknowledge the
deity of the Lord Jesus, they will acknowledge an unusual man
lived and died in Jerusalem or outside the walls of Jerusalem
about 2,000 years ago. But I'm convinced of much more
of the fact that He's just a man. I'm convinced He's God. But I can't convince you of that. You see, I believe the Word of
God. He came down from above. He existed before He was here. He is spoken of as being the
everlasting Father. He is God from everlasting to
everlasting. And He who inhabited eternity,
He created all things by the Word of His own power. Roughly
6,000 years ago, He spoke creation into existence. This great God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made." That's Christ,
the Son of God. I'm convinced of that. I'm convinced
of that because I have the Word of God as evidence right in front
of me. And I've been given the faith
to believe the record that God has given of His Son. I'm convinced
of it, but I can't convince you of it. The only one who can give you
understanding, the only one who can give you faith is the Lord.
And I'm convinced that He who came from heaven's glory, He
lived a life of perfection under God's law. God demanded perfection. God demanded exact obedience
to all of His commandments. And not one of us in here can
keep the law. In fact, the scripture says if
you break one, you've broken them all. We're all transgressors
of the law of God. Face it. I'm convinced of the fact I'm
a transgressor of God's law. I don't love God above all, and
I don't love you as myself. I ought to, but I don't. You love God with all your heart,
mind, soul and strength? Let me answer for you. No. Do
you love your neighbors yourself? I'll answer that for me and for
you. No, you don't love your neighbors yourself. But that's
what the law of God demands. Now listen, thank God a man came
down here. A man lived here, the Lord of
glory who came down. He faced the law of God and he
lived up to it absolutely perfectly. I mean, it examined His life
and He knew the law because He wrote it. And He obeyed that
law. And in His life of obedience,
I see my life of obedience. Because you see, in the Lord
Jesus, all of His people, all of those that He came to save,
all of those who will be with Him forever, in His life, in
Him, we existed. He's called the head, we call
the body. And when He lived this life of
perfection, we did. We did. Our Lord, He's our righteousness. He's our obedience. He's everything
God demanded. He's the perfect man. And I'm convinced of it. But
I can't convince you of it. The Lord will have to do that.
And then I'm convinced that when he died, he died the death of
a substitute. He died the death as being the
sacrifice that actually put away the sins of all of God's people.
I'm convinced there is no other Savior. I'm convinced there's
no other way for God to be a just God and a righteous God and a
holy God and accept us except through the Lord Jesus and His
death upon the cross of Calvary. I'm convinced of it. God can't
have anything to do with us unless something is done about our sins. Do you see that? Do you understand
that something's got to be done about our rebellion? About our
ungodliness? About our defilement? About our
pollution? About our sins? The Bible says
the wages of sin is death. That's what sins are going to
bring, death. Somebody's got to die. God said
so. hanging on a cross outside the
walls of Jerusalem was the man, Christ Jesus. And He was dying
not for His own sins, except in the sense that it had been
made His by God's appointment, by God's design. God ordained
that all the sins of all of His people of all of the ages be
laid upon the Son of God. And when that happened, the Father
turned away from Him. That's why the Savior cried out,
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? That's why God poured
out His wrath on His only begotten Son. That's why God pulled out
His sword and then He stuck it. He plunged it into the very heart
and soul of the Son of God. His own darling Son died for
the sins of His people to satisfy divine justice. I'm convinced
of the reality of that. And I'm convinced there's no
other way for God to be just and justify folks like us except
in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm convinced of it,
but I can't convince you of it. The Lord's got to do that. And I'm convinced that when he
died, he went to paradise. They buried his body, Joseph
of Arimathea. He took that body, he put it
in his own tomb where never a man lay. And he put fragrances about
that body and so forth and so on. And he did it delicately. He handled that dead body. Just
as dead as any man's corpse has ever been. But his soul went
back to God. He told that thief, he said,
today you will be with me in paradise. Listen to me. When
a child of God dies, immediately he's with the Lord. There is
no such thing as purgatory. All the purging of the sins of
the Lord's people, that happened on the cross of Calvary. That's
where the purging took place. You can't pay for your sins.
It isn't that you die and your soul goes to purgatory and then
if some of your relatives give so much money or they pray so
hard for you, then they'll bring you out of purgatory and you'll
go to heaven. That was a means whereby the Church of Rome came
up to put more money in their coffers. That didn't come out
of the Word of God. The Lord Jesus said to this thief,
and he never had an opportunity to even be baptized. He never
had an opportunity to do any good work. But he said to him,
today you'll be with me in paradise. To be with Christ Jesus forever,
that is paradise, isn't it? That's paradise. And I'm convinced
he's in paradise, this one whose soul went to God, who came back.
He reunited with that body. I'm convinced He ever lives.
He's the living Savior. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
earlier from those verses that Ron read to us, it says He was
seen of many witnesses. In fact, one time He's seen over
500 people at once. And they all attested to the
fact, this is the one who died. This is Jesus of Nazareth and
He lives! We've seen the wounds in His
hands! As Thomas. He wasn't there when
the Lord met with the other disciples after our Lord's resurrection.
And he said, well, I won't believe it until I put my hands in the
wounds. And next Sunday, he was in the worship service and he
saw the Savior and the Savior said, will you touch me and see?
He fell down before him, Thomas did, and said, my Lord and my
God. I'm convinced he's the Lord and he's my Lord and he's my
God. I'm convinced he's Lord over
all. I'm convinced he really arose from the dead. And I'm
convinced he went to heaven's everlasting glory. And I'm convinced
that there he rules and he reigns over all things. I'm convinced
and it went back to heaven. The Father said to him, sit here
on my right hand till I make all of you enemies your footstool.
And I'm absolutely convinced. He's the sovereign king. I am
convinced of all of these things. But I can't convince you. Oh,
I can tell you the truth. I can say consider what I say. But the Lord's got to give you
understanding. And He's got to convince you
that these things are factual. This is the truth. We're not
involved in religious entertainment here. I'm talking to eternity-bound
souls. This is a matter of your everlasting
safety. And I wish I could get more people
to pay attention. I wish I could get more people
to consider what I say, but I still know the Lord's got to give understanding
and the Lord's got to convince you. He's got to convince you
of who He is. He's got to convince you of what
you are. And He's got to convince you
of Jesus Christ and His work of redemption. He's got to convince
you. And I know this. If He doesn't convince you in
this life, He will convince you at the judgment. You will be
convinced then. And now I want you to go over
to the book of Jude. Look in the book of Jude. It's
only one chapter. Jude is the next to last book
of the Bible. Go over to the book of Jude. And we'll read here Jude, just
one chapter, verse 14. Jude, verse 14. Enoch also, the seventh from
Adam, he prophesied of these. He prophesied of the things of
Christ Jesus. And Enoch lived thousands of
years ago. but he predicted things that
have not even yet come to pass, like the final judgment. So Enoch,
also the seventh from Adam, he prophesied of these, saying,
Behold, the Lord cometh. This is the Lord Jesus Christ,
the one I've been preaching about. He come with ten thousands of
his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince. Don't miss that. and to convince
all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which
they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which
ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. He is going to convince
men in that day that this gospel is the true gospel. That He is
the Lord over all. and that we are ungodly, that
we are wretched, sinful people. And He's going to convince them
in the very end that the judgment they will have to endure forever,
He's going to convince them this is a just judgment. So here's what I'm saying. You're
going to be convinced in this life or at the judgment. Oh, what does it mean to be convinced
in this life of the reality of these things, of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, of His death, burial, and resurrection? What does it
mean to be convinced of it in this life? It means salvation. It means everlasting life. Because
the Spirit of God, when He convinces us, He convinces us of sin, and
righteousness, and judgment. John chapter 16 says that. Of sin, because Christ said,
they don't believe Me. Here's your problem. Here's my
problem. We don't believe Christ Jesus.
God sent His only begotten Son into this world. He's the only
Savior and God said, believe Him, worship Him, adore Him. You trust your soul's welfare
into His hands and we won't believe Him. The Spirit of God, He convinces
men of sin. And He convinces men of righteousness. Because the Savior has gone to
the Father, having established righteousness by His obedience
unto death, even the death of the cross. And we're convinced,
I'm convinced that by His obedience unto death, that's how sinners
are saved. Right there. Right there. I'm convinced we add nothing
to what He did. Do children of God perform good
works? Absolutely, we're ordained to.
But they don't add anything to what He did. Why, your faith
doesn't add anything to what He did. Nothing that any person
can do can add one iota to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm convinced. I'm convinced. And I'm convinced
that when He died, now listen, I'm convinced that when He died,
He died for me. I'm convinced of that. How do you know, preacher? Well,
it says He died for the ungodly. Yeah, that's me. It says that He died for those
who have no strength. Yes. That's me. It says He died
for those who are sinners. Yes, that's me. Do these things
describe you? Do you have any awareness of
the things that I'm talking about? Are these descriptions of you?
Can you say honestly in your own heart? Yeah, that's me preacher,
I'm just like you. Well, thank God Christ Jesus
came in the world to save sinners, of whom I'm the chief. And this
is a faithful saying that He did. Our Lord Jesus, He had called
Matthew, who was a publican. He was a tax collector. And Matthew
was so ecstatic about it, he said, I'm going to have a great
celebration and I'm going to invite all my publican friends,
all my fellow tax collectors, I'll invite them all out to honor
Jesus who saved me by His grace. And some Pharisees, they came
by and they said, well, he's a friend of sinners. And our
Lord Jesus said to them, I came not to call the righteous but
sinners to repentance. Are you convinced of your sinfulness? Are you convinced of God's holiness
and your sinfulness that you're not fit to come to Him and that
Christ Jesus is the only Savior? I'm convinced. And I hope and pray God will
convince you. Because as I just read, If He
doesn't convince you in this life, you'll be convinced at the judgment.
And you may not take these things very seriously now. Of course,
we're all quiet and reverent now, but it may be that some
people will go out of here and kind of dismiss everything I've
said. Well, if left to yourself, you
will. That's right, isn't it? If left to yourself, you will.
But maybe, maybe God will be gracious to you and give you
understanding. And He'll do for you what He
did for a woman who sat by a river bank with some other women many,
many years ago. Her name was Lydia. They was
having a little prayer meeting, a little Bible study. Along came
two preachers. Their names were Paul and Silas. And Paul started preaching. And
he said, as I preached the word of God, something happened to
Lydia. God opened up her heart. You know what he did? He convinced
her of sin and righteousness, and the other thing the Spirit
of God convinces us of is judgment. I tell you, I'm convinced my
sins were judged at the cross. Another has answered for me.
I'm never going to have to answer to God for anything I've ever
done. I've already had one answer for
me. And He who lived a life of perfection,
in that life of perfection I see my perfection, He died for my
imperfections. He died and paid the penalty
for sin. And in Him, I'm accepted. I'm convinced. I hope you are. I pray that you
are. May God the Spirit convince you
and convince all who are under the sound of my voice, these
things are true. They're glorifying to God. They're
humbling to us. but this is the message of God's
salvation. Let's turn in our psalm books
to 214.