I begin to sound too repulsive.
I may start squeaking and squealing. If I do and you have to leave,
that's fine. My throat is terribly bad. But I want you to turn back
to Acts chapter 16. I want to simply this morning
recommend Jesus Christ to you. If I had a worldwide access,
and if I had one thing to say to this world, it would be this.
I recommend to you Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior. To all classes of people, to
all ages, to all nationalities, to all cultures, to the sexes,
to all peoples of this world, I would recommend Jesus Christ
to you. And one of the reasons that He's
so commendable and that we should recommend Him is that He's no
respective person. When He sent His disciples out
to preach the gospel, He says, go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. Every creature. No respective
person is He. He doesn't look upon a group
of people a select group of people. He doesn't look upon the color
of the skin, the culture, or the education, or the position
in life. He looks upon individuals, all
individuals. I commend him this morning especially
to the women. To the women of this world, if
I had all the women to stand before me, I would say, I recommend
Jesus Christ to you this morning. To the women. You know, ladies,
bless their hearts, haven't they suffered in this life? Especially
in some of the Eastern religions, they have to keep themselves
covered up They're relegated to a second-class citizen, put
in those burkas and hot coverings. And who's did that to them? Is
it Christ that's did that? Not at all. It's the devil's
religion that has done that. We have had religions in our
country where the man was given the freedom, he thought, to take
to himself several wives, Can you imagine having a husband
that had five or six wives? Can you imagine how humiliating
that would be? How degrading that would be?
So often women are relegated and oppressed and they bear grief
in their life. And usually it's religion that
brings such a burden and relegates them to that position. But this
is why that I would recommend Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior
to women. I tell you what, when He came
here, He sent His apostles to Europe. The first record we have
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ being preached in all of Europe.
And who's the first one that heard it? When the Lord Jesus
was pleased to reveal Himself to open the heart of the first
person in all of Europe, who was it? Lydia, this woman. Now, if you had the devil's religion,
if you had man's religion, there is no telling who they would
have gone to. He would have been some important
person, and he would have been a man, no doubt. But when the
Lord Jesus was pleased to take His gospel, to this wide country,
He picked up this lowly woman, gathered on a river bank with
other women, and He chose her first to open her heart. So that's why I'm telling you
this morning that I recommend Jesus Christ to all the women
gathered here and the women of this world. And this is not the
first time that we see the Lord Jesus setting his heart first
upon the woman. I would remind you this morning
that it wasn't one of the chosen apostles that saw first the resurrected
Lord, but that first sighting of His glorious resurrected body
was reserved for Mary Magdalene. And Mark is very specific in
Very careful to tell you and I this, because he says in his
Gospel, when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week,
He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven
devils. Not Peter, not John or James
or Matthew, but first to Mary Magdalene, that woman. And I'll
tell you something else. We have another peculiar thing
about the Lord Jesus bestowing upon a woman, that He never bestowed
upon any man. You remember that before our
Lord was crucified, He was in the house of Simon the leper?
And they had sat down to eat, and this woman came to Him with
an expensive box of ointment, perfume, and she poured it upon
His head. And some of his apostles said,
what a waste this was. This should have been sold and
given to the poor. They had no regard for that dear
woman. And brothers and sisters, I'll
say this for these four, these apostles. There was other times
that they showed they had little regard for women too. They had
some lessons that they need to learn. There was that woman that
came to the Lord Jesus one time seeking for mercy for her daughter.
And those disciples said, send her away. Send a woman in need
away? Well, let me ask you this, Peter. Let me ask you this, John. Would
you send a man away? If it was him looking for mercy?
No, you probably wouldn't. But you'd do a woman that way,
wouldn't you? But the Lord Jesus never did. And when they began
to trouble this woman that she had made such a waste, the Lord
took her apart. The Lord took her part. And He
said, you let her alone. I tell you, if the women want
a good husband, the women want a faithful husband, one that
will love them and be faithful to them, you know who will make
a woman a good husband? Christ will. Jesus Christ will. And He stood up for this woman
and said, let her alone. Don't you trouble that woman.
She did this for my burial." And then he said something that's
amazing, and we've got a record of it today. He said, no matter
wherever this gospel is preached in all the world at any time
in history, what this woman's done will be left for a memorial
to her. He never did treat a man like
that, did he? But he did a woman. I tell you, I know, I know when
it comes to pastoring, I know when it comes to preaching, I
know when it comes to teaching in the congregation, the Lord
will not suffer a woman to occupy that office. He doesn't call
women to preach and pastors to teach or to usher authority over
the man. He won't suffer a woman to occupy
that position. But I tell you when it comes
to salvation, when it comes to occupying a place in His affection,
Sometimes I tell you He lets us know that women are there. Women are there. And who did
the Lord Jesus say first in all of Europe? Well, it was this
woman. This woman. And the ladies, I
have no idea what it would feel like to have the man as my head. But you ladies, when you marry,
your husband is your head. The head of man is Christ. That's
the way it is in this world. And you ladies that are here
this morning that I know, you have lovingly submitted to that
rule. But you know that's not going
to be always the way it is. That's the way it is now. But
the Lord will not suffer always to be that way. Let me give you
an example of what I'm saying. The Sadducees came to the Lord
Jesus one time, and they had imagined this scenario. They
said there was this family, seven brothers in the family, and the
older one married a woman, and he died. And they had no children. And then the next brother took
her as his wife. And they had no children and
she died. And it went all the way down to the youngest brother.
And he died. And they seemingly never did
consult the woman. Is this the man that you would
like to marry? It doesn't matter. That's the
one you're going to marry. Little regard for women. But
they said, all of these brothers, seven brothers, married this
woman, therefore in heaven, which one is going to be her husband?
Who is she going to have to submit to there in heaven? And you know
what the Lord Jesus told them? She is not going to have to submit
to anybody there in heaven. She is not going to have a husband
in heaven. And those men in heaven are not going to have a wife. Because He said in heaven, they
are equal to the angels. They don't marry up there. They're
not given in marriage. But all of them, men and women,
husbands and wives that were here, up there in that world,
they're all equal to the angels. There's no husbands and there's
no wives. Dear ladies, there's coming a
day, there's coming a day when your husband won't be your head
anymore. and you won't submit to your husband anymore. You'll
have one head, and that'll be Christ. You know in Christ this
morning, in Christ this morning, there's no difference in men
and women. Did you know that? There's no such thing as males
and females. We're one in Christ. I recommend Jesus Christ to you
ladies this morning. I know a lot of husbands don't
have sense enough to love their wives. And the poor wives bless
their hearts. What are you shaking your head
at me for, huh? You see that? It's natural. She must be talking
about some of you fellas. Who came to your mind? Would
you elaborate on that? But the wives submits anyway,
bless their heart. Secondly, I recommend Jesus Christ
to this group of people, the feeble-minded people. I think
sometime I fit in this class. I identify with the weak-hearted,
with the faint-hearted. There are some of us, bless our
poor hearts, as soon as trouble comes, we get so anxious. We get so anxious that we are
ready to almost despair. And we pull back in our dark
shells and we're almost ready to go to bed and just give it
up. I know poor people that way. Bless their hearts, they can't
hardly get through the day mentally and emotionally. When trouble
comes, down they go. I see that in this man here.
Look in verse 27 and verse 28. The keeper of the prison. I walk
out of his sleep and see him the prison doors open. He drew
out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that
the prisoners had all fled. And Paul cried unto him with
a loud voice, Here is the message of the gospel. Do yourself no
harm. Here is what the Lord says to
the feeble minded. Do yourself no harm. You know Jesus Christ has never
done harm to the first person. Do you know that? You go in the
Gospels and read every minute that we have recorded in his
life. Do you ever find him doing harm to one person? Christianity
don't do harm to anybody. Some perversions of Christianity
do. But Christianity and its truth
never does harm to anybody. One of the big atheists of our
day and some of his clan says that Christianity is the most
dangerous thing in our society. Well, my brothers and sisters,
it's the best thing in our society. It's Christianity that looks
at the feeble, the weakest, the mamas. Those who are ready to
despair and says, do yourself no harm. Don't hurt yourself. That's the message of the gospel.
Jesus Christ said, I came not to destroy men's lives. That's
the devil's business, ain't it? That's the devil's business.
He's the one that hates men's souls. He's the one that took
that little kid and threw him into the fire and into the water
to burn him and drown him. That's the devil's business.
He's the destroyer. He's the oppressor. The man that was driven out of
his home and his family, out into the cemetery to live naked,
lay his hand upon the rock, the tombstones, and cut his hand
with rocks. and cry out in despair, who was
it that drove him there? Who was it that drove him into
the dark side and said, you might as well just give it up? Who
was that? That was Satan himself. He goes
about seeking whom he may devour. But Jesus Christ comes to us
in His Gospel, and here's what He says. Do yourself no harm. Oh, feeble-minded person. You
that are so anxious, ready to go out and do harm to yourself.
Remember, Judas Iscariot went out and hanged himself. Why did
he do that? Well, you can bet the devil had
something to do with it. And every time we see this statistic
increase of suicides in our nation, you know who's behind that. Our
Lord's not behind that. That's the devil's business.
When a man gets in despair in his mind and thinks like this
man did, I might as well just end it all. That's not the Lord's
will. That's not the Lord's way. There's
help. There's grace. There's mercy. There's strength. Do yourself
no harm. It's been a custom for years,
centuries. in some of those Asian countries,
that if a man failed, his business failed, or he failed
as a politician, he failed as a leader, or he was brought to
shame, they went out and killed themselves. It was almost expected
of them. Brothers and sisters, the gospel
brings hope. The gospel doesn't teach us to
hurt ourselves. Do yourself no harm. Did Christ ever do anybody any
harm? Has He ever taught you to do anybody any harm? No, here's
the message. Do yourself no harm. Elijah and those prophets of
Baal, the prophets of Baal got so tormented that their God didn't
answer their prayer, they started crying out and cutting themselves.
The place stood in blood where they had cut themselves and cried
out. This is the time of year. Almost every year at this time,
you open up your paper and there you'll see somebody that has
crucified themselves. Have you ever seen that before?
There they hang on the cross. You see it on your newscast. Some of them even put spikes
through their hands and there they hang upon their cross in
all of this pain and suffering. Do yourself no harm. We're not saved by our sufferings.
We're not saved by our crucifying ourselves. We're saved by another
suffering. By the crucifixion of another.
By Christ our Lord. Do yourself no harm. Don't hurt
yourself. Luther said he used to fast hisself
half to death. He used to lay on cold floors
in the winter, naked, and almost froze himself to death. He used
to sharpen sticks and set on them, and punched his buttocks
with holes. Can you imagine that? He said
it was a bloody mess. And he said, well, the greatest
burden that was ever lifted from his heart was when he heard the
Lord say in effect, Luther, stop doing harm to yourself. It's
not your sufferings, it's mine. It's not what you're told in
dear, it's what I am dear that saves you. Brothers and sisters,
Jesus Christ loves our bodies. We forget that sometimes. He
not only died to save our souls, He died to save our bodies. They're
His. Don't do harm to your body. I
know we have to keep it under subjection. I know we're to use
these members to serve Him with. But don't punish your body. Love
it and cherish it. He's redeemed it. And someday
he's going to change it and fashion it like into his glorious body.
Do yourself no harm. All those poor weak-minded people that almost lives in despair,
I know some of them. They're emotional wrecks. They're
weak. Isn't it a very telling thing
that when the Lord set His heart upon the second group of people
that He was going to save, one of them was this poor, weak-minded,
suicidal man. He'd come to save the women.
He'd come to save the feeble-minded. Do no harm to your soul. Seek it. Seek its salvation. The worst harm a person could
do to their souls was not to give it to Christ. Did you know
that? Do yourself no harm. Give your
soul to Christ. Seek the salvation of your soul
here. And the way your soul is saved
here is by giving it away. Just giving yourself away. Spurgeon told about a man that
they had some names that are probably not very appealing to
us in our day. They called him lunatics and
put him in asylums. This poor man was mentally ill. And Spurgeon said they'd been
trying to deal with him and talk to him about the Lord, but nobody
could seemingly get through to him. He just wouldn't talk. And
one day, one of the men went into him and said, John, I'm
so concerned about you. Don't you realize you have a
soul? And John said, no, sir, I don't
have a soul. Oh, he said, oh, John, oh, poor
thing. You don't even believe you have
a soul now? Oh, he said, I used to have a
soul, but I gave it away. I gave all my soul to Jesus Christ
the Lord and Savior. I don't have a soul anymore.
I gave it to Him. And now it's His. He's responsible
for it. Don't do your soul any harm.
Give it to Christ to save it. Do yourself no harm. Poor, feeble-minded man. I recommend
Christ to the feeble-minded, to the weak-minded. I do. I do. Thirdly, I recommend Jesus Christ
to this person and to these people. to the lost. I recommend him
to the lost. I do so because I have it here
in this text. This poor man calls for a lot
and comes bold and in here and says, first, what must I do to
be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can we recommend Jesus Christ to lost men? Why, every one of
them, every one of them. You may not be as bold as this
jailer this morning, and you may not be as emotional as he
was. I don't see anybody here this
morning raising a trembling hand. Preacher, what do I have to do
to be saved? But it may be in the stillness
of your soul that you're crying that. It may be in the dark hours
that you're crying that. It may be out of an afflicted
conscience. No, you're not trembling this
morning. You're not raising your hand,
crying out like he did. But maybe in your heart, you've
been seriously thinking about it. Oh, I need to be saved. I'm lost myself. And you haven't
told anybody about it. You just kept it within your
own selves. But it's there. It's there, isn't
it? And you've been thinking about
it. And you think to yourself, oh
my soul, I'm not ready to die. And I'm not ready to stand before
God. I can't do it. And because I
can't do it, I'm not willing to do it. And maybe in your heart,
you're crying out just like this jailer did. What must I do? And maybe you're like him. Maybe
you earnestly don't know what to do. If you come to me this morning
and you say, preacher, I don't know what to do to be saved.
I don't know how to be saved. I have a precious soul. I don't
want to lose it. I could die at any time and go
out into eternity. Oh, eternity. And I've thought
about that. But I don't know how to be saved.
I would take you at your word. But here's what I would tell
you. And it's so simple. But it's Scripture. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. You shall be
saved. That's what I would tell you.
And some people stand up and they say, well, that's just too
simple. It's got to be simple. It's got to be simple, because
look at us. Look at us. When you're in trouble,
you want something that's simple. When you realize you don't understand,
you can't comprehend spiritual things, you want something that's
simple, don't you? You want it to be plain. Well,
here it is. It's so plain. He don't tell
you to go join the church. He don't tell you to go to the
baptistry. He don't tell you to go study the catechisms. He don't say go read the commentaries.
He don't say go join the monastery. Don't shut yourself away. Don't
fast yourself after death. Don't go lay on some cold floor.
Don't punish your body. What am I to do to be saved?
Here it is, it's so simple. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you shall be saved. That's planning. You know, they
had cities of refuge back in the Old Testament. If you kill
somebody, and they were after you to kill you, if you kill
somebody's brother, his other brother says, we're going to
kill you, buddy. They did that a lot back in those days. The
eastern countries, they still do today, don't they? You kill
one of theirs, they'll kill you. And God set up these cities of
refuge. There were six of them. And if
you had killed somebody unawares, by accident, you would flee to
that city of refuge and you'd be safe when you got there. And
either once or two times a year, Jewish history tells us, that
they would send out groups of men to clear the highways to
those cities of refuge. If they had floods and logs had
washed across the road, or the roads had washed out, they'd
repair the roads and move all the obstacles out of the way.
If the sign pointing the way to the city of refuge had fallen,
they'd put up a new sign. They wanted that person to make
it to the city of refuge. So they cleared the highways.
This makes the highway clear, doesn't it? Oh, I've got to be saved. The
avenger is on my trail. Can you point me to the city
of refuge? Can you make it plain for me?
Somebody like me. Yes, I can. And here it is. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. We're told here in verse 32,
after they had told this man this, that they went into his
house and they spoke unto him the Word of the Lord. I wonder
why they did that. Sometimes I think it may have
been like that blind man that the Lord healed in John 9. The
Lord told him a similar question that was presented to this man.
The Lord healed this blind man, and then later on found him and
went up to him and said, Do you believe in the Son of God? And
he said, Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him? If I know
who He is, I believe on Him. And the Lord said, I that speak
to you, am He. I am He. You've seen me and you've
heard me speak. I am He. And He said, Lord, I
believe you. I believe you. So here Paul and Silas, they
take this man in his house and they open up the Scriptures.
And they say, here's the Lord Jesus Christ. Here He is. And
this man finds out who He is. And who is He, brothers and sisters?
Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, He's the Lord of glory.
He's the Son of God who was in heaven and came down to this
world through the womb of a virgin, and was made flesh and bones
like us, sin accepted, and went about doing good, and God was
with Him. And in the end of His life, they
put Him on a cross, and God put on Him the sins of everybody
who would ever believe in Him. And Jesus, the Son of God, by
His own merit, put those sins away. They're on the cross. He purged them away. He washed
them away. They're gone. In God's sight,
they're gone. And now God turns to you and
He turns to me. And He says, are you lost? Yes, and I'm anxious about it.
Then he says, trust my son. Trust him. I put your sins on
him, and he's borrowed them, and he's paid the price in your
stead. Trust my son, and you're saved. Now, brothers and sisters, you
won't find a more glorious message than that. And some people, because God
don't command them to crawl three or four miles on their hands
and knees, say, well, it's not worth it. Some people, because
God don't command them to go out and read after the theologians,
they say, well, it's too simple. But it's God's way. And when
you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you honor God more than
anything else you could possibly do. God in His wisdom sent His
Son. God said, this is the way I'm
going to save. I have figured it out. And He sent His Son to do it.
And when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you honor God's
wisdom. And I'll tell you something else,
you honor the Son. He can't get more honor from
us than us distrusting Him. Us distrusting Him. When we share
that He did what He said He did, that He is who He says He is,
and we just trust Him. I tell you, when you tell somebody
something and they believe you, that's the greatest honor they
can bestow upon you, just to believe you. And when He says
He went to the cross and purged our sin away, and we say, Lord,
I believe You. I just believe You. We honor
Him. We honor Him. Sometimes we try to explain what
faith is, and it seems like every time I do that, I confuse people
to death. But what is it to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ? It has to do with trust. I thank
all of us. I bet Shannon's did this, him
having a swimming pool and all, but how many of us have put our
little child or grandbaby on the edge of a pool. And there
we were in the pool, looking up at them, saying, Jump! Jump! And boy, they're anxious about
it. Because they're looking down in this deep water. Six foot
of water or three foot of water, that's deep to them. And there they stand. And you
tell them, Jump! Daddy catch it. Jump. Poppy catch
it. Jump. And boy, they just... Oh,
and all of a sudden, boy, the leaf right into your arms. Into
your strong arms. And you've caught them. And what
do they do? Oh, they just laugh and they rejoice. Why? Because
they trusted Daddy's strong arms. And Daddy has saved them. What
is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Here you and I
are standing on the brink of eternity. Boy, we look around us. We look
behind us as the avenger of blood on our trail. Death is after
us. We look down and what do we see?
Oh, we almost despair of the depths that's before us. We're
ready to step off into eternity. What an awakening thought that
is. You and I are here this morning and we're well. We're healthy
for the most part. But little do we know that perhaps
the next step may be off into eternity. Eternity! Think of that word! Eternity! And here stands the Son of God,
the only Savior of poor sinners. And He's saying, John, let go
of yourself. and fall into my everlasting
arms, and I'll save you." It means something like that,
doesn't it? But sometimes an anxious sinner that's concerned about his soul
and concerned about the judgment of God upon him, he has a difficult
time letting go. We say it's simple faith. But
boy, it ain't always simple when you don't have any. One of the most difficult things
I did in my life was to give myself away to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Because it meant I turned loose and fell into His arms. But when He called me, all you
talk about rejoicing. I rejoiced and he rejoiced, the
angels rejoiced. Spurgeon told, I'll close with
this, Spurgeon told about a captain way back in the 1700s, 1800s.
The captain of one of those old sail ships had the big sails.
The captain's son was way up there on one of those masts in
the little seat where they look out. And for some unknown reason,
he had climbed out on one of the masts, one of the sails. And a storm had come up, and
the ship was rocking, and he was hanging on for life. And
they couldn't get to him. And they called for his dad,
the captain. They said, your son is ready to fall to his death. And his dad came out, and he
hollered up at him. Son, when this ship rocks to
the side, turn loose. Fall into the sea and we'll save
you." The ship went over to the side. The son hung on for a while. I can't turn loose. Would you
turn loose? Looking down into that sea? And he said, Son, when the ship
leans, turn loose. and we'll get you out of the
sea, we'll save you." The ship wouldn't turn loose. The dad said, hand me my musket. And he said, son, when this ship
leans, turn loose or I'll shoot you loose. Isn't that where the sinner is? It's turn loose or perish. It's turn loose and fall into
the arms of the Savior or be shot loose to perish. And the next time the ship bowed,
he turned loose and he fell. But they were there to rescue
him. It means something like that
to trust Christ. But it's hard to turn loose.
And you have to ask yourself, what am I holding on to? What is it that is keeping me
from turning loose? Is it doubts? Do you doubt Him? Surely you would never doubt
Him. It's not some sin that you're
holding on to. That'll damn you. That'll damn
you. The justice of God will shoot
you loose. What's keeping you from turning
loose? Here's the command, and it's simple, it's plain, it's
scriptural. Turn loose and fall into the
loving, saving arms of Jesus Christ and be saved. God help you to do it. Let's
pray.