I want to read just two verses.
Luke chapter 9 and verses 10 and verse 11. Luke chapter 9 and verse 10 and
verse 11. If you have a Pew Bible, it is
on page 1120. And the apostles, when they were
returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them and
went aside privately unto a desert place belonging to the city called
Bethsaida. And all the people, when they
knew it, followed him. And he received them, and spake
unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need
of healing. He healed them that had need
of healing. And I want you to think on this
subject this morning. Jesus heals the needy. Jesus heals the needy. You and I could think of many
reasons this morning why a person should come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. You could think of several reasons why you should come,
and why I should come, and I could think of many, many reasons why
we should come, why every sinner should come to the Lord Jesus
Christ this morning. One of the first reasons I think
that men should come to Christ is for life eternal. There's
life in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has given to us eternal life. and this life is in His Son. I give my sheep eternal life
and they shall never perish. That's a good reason to come
to Christ. If a man is dead in sins and needs life, life is
in the Son of God. Incline your ear and come unto
me. Here and your soul shall live. Another reason we could give
for coming to the Lord Jesus Christ this morning would be
the forgiveness of sins. Come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
that's dyed red, that's deep red sins, they shall be as wool. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as snow. White as snow. He hath forgiven
us all trespasses. I love to say this. What would
it mean to leave you this morning knowing that all your sins have
been forgiven you? Forgiveness is in the Son of
God. That's why He said come to Him. There's everlasting salvation.
Whatever that entails. Everlasting salvation is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is able to save to the uttermost
them that come to God by Him. Uttermost forevermore. Israel
shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. World without end. This is in
the Son of God. That's a good reason to come
to Him. To be saved. Come to Him this morning if you
are in need of rest, for you are weary and heavy souled. Come unto Me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest for your
soul that has been worn out by trying to save itself. Rest from
a burdened soul for being under the guilt of sin and the condemnation
of the law of God. Come to Me, and I will give you
rest. Come to the Lord Jesus for the
water of life. If you had asked of Me, I would
have given you living water. A well of water springing up
in you to life everlasting. This He spake of the Spirit.
If any man thirst, let him come to Me. Come to Me and drink. That's some good reasons for
coming to Christ, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ, and I
can say this without fear of being contradicted or assuming
anything, I feel like this morning that He has sent me to you to
say come. Come. Come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He sent His servant out at supper
time to tell those which were bidden, come, for all things
are ready. And he said, go out into the
highways, go out into the hedges, and compel them to come in that
my house may be full. But not only does he send me,
the preacher, but he sends his church. He sends his bride, his
wife. Who knows the Son of God better
than his wife? And he sends his wife to say,
come, come. And listen to this. He sends
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit says, Come. Who knows the heart of God better
than the Holy Spirit? And who knows you better than
the Holy Spirit? He knows who you are. He knows
what you've done. And the very One whom we've sinned
against now turns around and here's what He says to us. Come. Come unto Me. We should come to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He was righted to the Jewish
nation that had so left Him and were in such a deplorable state. He confronts them with this.
He says to them, O sinful nation, laden with iniquities, a seed
of evildoers, children who are corruptors, who have forsaken
the right way of the Lord, you provoke the Holy One to anger? Why should you be stricken anymore?
And then he turns right around and says, Come now. Ain't that
amazing? He that knows us so well, knows
us, what we've done and who we are. And yet he turns right around
and says, in spite of all of that, come. and your sins shall
be as white as snow. And you know we should come,
we should come now, because we will be coming after a while.
You know everybody's coming to Him. Every day that this world
exists, every time we see a rolling sun, come through our atmosphere,
we're one day closer to everybody coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some are coming right now and they're obtaining these things
that we've been talking about, life and forgiveness of sins,
this living water that they're drinking. But you know everybody's
coming. Even those that are ashamed of
Him now, those that are incensed against Him now, they're coming
too. Everybody is coming. Why not come now? Why not come
now? Now you that's come to Him this
morning, I can tell you why you came. My text tells you why you
came. If you're here this morning and
you have a saving interest in the Son of God, you've come to
Him and this text tells you why you came. You had need. You had
need. Everybody that comes to the Lord
Jesus, Shannon has need of Him. And if you're here this morning
and you haven't come to Him, I can tell you why you haven't
come. This text tells you why you haven't come. You don't need
Him. You don't need Him. Everybody that needs saving in
their own eyes, everybody that needs forgiveness in their own
eyes, they come to Him. He healed those who had need
of being healed. Let me ask you this question.
Why won't you come to Christ? Anybody here this morning that
hasn't come to Christ, let me ask you this question and I hope
you think seriously on this. If you've not come to Christ,
why haven't you come to Christ? Could it be possible that somebody
is here this morning And somebody is saying, Bruce, I just feel
like in myself I'm too vile. We don't meet many people like
that, I'll be honest. But there are some people down
in their hearts of hearts that says, you don't know how I feel
about myself. You don't know what I am. You
don't know what I've done. I'm a vile, wretched, hell-deserving
sinner. I feel like I'm too vile to come.
Now there may be a certain amount of false humility in that, but
I have known people like that. And I have known people that
thought they were so vile. I'm speaking to a lady right
now that lives up north of here, and that's what she feels about
herself. We ran into a lady like this at the nursing home that
she thought she was too vile to come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you feel that way about yourself this morning, and that's why
you're not coming to Him, then let me tell you a little story
about a man who got up one morning, and he looked at his arm, and
there on his arm was a little white spot. And he wasn't much
concerned that morning. But he got up the next morning,
and he let spray it. And he became alarmed. And he
didn't show it to anybody. He was afraid to. And he went
down to the priest. And he said, I need to speak
to you in private. And the priest tucked him in
the back room and he says, I've got some spots here that's come
up on my arm. I want you to look at it. Because
the priests were trained in this sort of thing. And the priest
looked at his arm and said, I need to keep you here for a few days. And they had rooms for such people.
And he put him in his room and said, we'll feed you and take
good care of you. And every day he checked him. And the spots
only spread. And after seven days, he said,
we've got to keep you a while longer. Then after seven more
days, it had not only spread on his arm, it was all over his
body. And the priest said, man, you've
got leprosy. I can't let you out of this place. I can't even go back home and
get your clothes. I'm going to send one of the men back and
tell your wife and your children they probably won't never see
you again. You'll never lay hold upon them
again. To hug them, you'll never be
allowed in the temple again. And they sent that man out on
an old dusty road to live with other lepers. And in Mark chapter 1, the Bible
tells us that this man became full of leprosy. His nose had
rotted off. All that was there was two holes
in his face. His ears were gone. Sores had
come up on his body only to bust and run out pus and begin to
stink. His fever skyrocketed. This man
was miserable. His body was scaly. To look at
Him would make you sick. If looking at Him didn't make
you sick, smelling Him would make you sick. He was nothing
but one huge, putrefying sword. Can you imagine seeing a man
like that? The Lord Jesus Christ was preaching
close to where this man was. And the Bible says this miserable,
wretched, filthy, stinking leper came to Him. Now can you imagine that? He wasn't allowed to be there.
The law forbid him to be there. He could have been stoned for
coming up to a man that was healthy like our Lord Jesus was. But
he fell down at His feet and looked up at Him and said, If
You will, You can make me whole. And then one of them, something
happened that nobody had ever seen before. And I don't know
that anybody would dare do what the Son of God did. You know
what He did? He wretched His holy hand out on that miserable man, that stinking,
vile man whose sores were running. And He laid that holy hand right
on those blisters and said, I will be thou clean. Are you here this
morning and in your mind, in your conscience, you perhaps
feel that vow? Well, if this man felt free to
come to the Lord Jesus Christ, let that encourage you to come. You may be the vilest sinner
in your own eyes that ever lived, but you don't have to despair. Jesus Christ receives sinful,
vile, ill-deserving men. Here's the question you ask yourself. It's not how vile you see yourself
or don't see yourself. But here's the question. Do I
have need of Him? That's the question. Because
there's never been anybody came to Him needing Him that left
without Him. Not even the vilest leper that
you and I can imagine. Let me tell you of another case,
and this happens. Maybe someone is here this morning
and you may say this, I don't know how to come to Christ. I just don't know how. I had
a man to tell me one time when I asked him why he didn't come.
He said, I don't know how to come to Christ. There's people who open their
Bibles and they can't understand the thing in their Bible. That's
why they don't read it. They might as well keep it closed. The words mean nothing to them.
And when you talk to them about coming to Christ, they say, how
do I come to Christ? My little granddaughter, the
other night, I was talking to her about the service, and she
said, Poppy, every time we go to service, I pray, Lord, open
my understanding. Well, you know something, I think
if she's serious, He will. He will. This is our problem,
isn't it? And people think it's unique
to them. They don't know how to come to Christ. I didn't either. We're born in this darkness.
We have this double blindness about us. We're spiritually blind
by nature anyway. And then we're born and we live
in this kingdom of darkness. We can't see. We sat in darkness. And the devil, he seeks to blind
our minds. He seeks to keep us from Christ.
Or you hear this morning and you say, I don't even know how
to come to Him. I feel my need of Him, but I
don't know how to come to Him. Can you tell me how to come to
Him? Well, I can tell you a story from the Bible about a man who
came to Him. And he couldn't see how to get
to Him either, but he came. There was a poor, blind, miserable
beggar. His name was Bartimaeus. Mark
chapter 5. And he sat by the dusty roadside
begging. I imagine he smelled awful. He
had these old rags on him. All we know that he had with
him that he covered himself up with was that old rag they used
to hide what people gave them. And the Lord Jesus was passing
through Jericho and He was going outside of Jericho and this huge
crowd was following Him. And they were making all kinds
of racket. And blind Bartimaeus said, What's going on? I hear
all this racket. And somebody said, It's that
Jesus of Nazareth that's passing by. And you know he had heard
of Him? He had actually heard of Him.
He knew that He was the Son of David. Don't you wonder why He
sat there for maybe two years or a year having heard of Him
and didn't come to Him? He would probably say something
like this, I'm a blind man. I'm a beggar. How would I have
got to Him? Who would have tucked me there?
No man cares for my soul. But now, He's passing by. Jesus is passing by. But he can't
see Him. He's never seen a sunrise. He's
never seen His mom and dad's face. He's never seen color. He lives in darkness. All He
knows is that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of David. And He had
been healing other blind people and even raising the dead. But
how can He get to it? He's blind. So you know what
he begins to do? He begins to cry out. He just
starts crying out. Jesus, Thou Son of David, have
mercy on me. But he had this problem. People
did not care about him. So they said, shut up. Shut your
mouth. This is the Son of David. He
may be the King of Israel. You're a blind, wretched beggar.
Shut your mouth and leave us alone." I bet you Peter or John
would have said that. They said that about the woman
that came, didn't they? Leave us alone. She's bothering us.
But you know he never quit crying. You know why he never quit crying
when they told him to shut up? He was blind. He had a need. He had a need. Here's the difference between
that leper that came and this blind man. That leper came thinking
he was so miserable and wretched that he didn't know if the Lord
Jesus willed to even save him or not. The difference between
him and this blind man, the blind man knew He was willing, but
he didn't know how to get to Him. I think He'll save me if
I can get to Him, but I don't know how to get to Him. Well,
try this. Jesus, Thou Son of David, Have mercy on me. There's nothing wrong with crying.
There's nothing wrong with calling on the Lord. If you need Him,
you'll never regret doing it. I tell you, nobody that ever
came to Him regretted it. When I got desperate enough,
I didn't care who heard me calling, because I needed Him. And I'll
be honest with you, I thought a time or two, He's going to
pass me by. And if he had to pass this leper by, he is in
trouble. Or this blind man, he is in trouble because nobody
else could do him any good. So he starts to cry. And he does
not quit. And here is something, and you
have heard this before, I am sure. Something that happened
was absolutely astonishing. Because the Scripture says Jesus
stopped and stood Now what's so amazing about that? You never
see him standing still. You never see him stopped. Nobody
could stop him. Devils tried to stop him and
they couldn't. The raging sea tried to stop
him. People opposed him. Nobody stopped
him but this blind beggar crying for mercy. You think you're welcome
to come? I tell you, there is more of
a will in Jesus Christ to save sinners than there is a will
in them to be saved. I tell you that. And there is
not a one that calls upon Him for mercy that will stop Him
where He is and He will bend down an ear to listen. He stopped
and said, Call that man. Call him. Somebody wrenched and
got him by the arm. And they led Him over there to
Him. And He threw away that old blanket that was on Him. And
the Lord Jesus said, ìWhat is it that I should do? What do
you want Me to do for you?î And He said, ìLord, that I might
receive My sight.î And the Lord said, ìThy faith has made you
whole.î And immediately He received His sight. And you know what
He did? He followed Jesus in the way. Hereís a man, he didnít
know how to get to the Lord Jesus. But He called. He called. If you feel like your understanding
is so darkened that you can't know how to get to Him, then
call and ask Him. Draw me to You, Lord. Draw me
to You. Show me how to come to You. Hear
my cry. If you need Him. If you need
Him. Maybe you're here this morning
and you say this, Bruce, I've grown weary with religions. I've grown weary with religions. I've looked around and I see
all the utter confusion of religions. I see so much deception. I see
so much hypocrisy. I see so much greed. I see so
much self-serving in religion. I'm sick of it. Well, I am too. I am too. One of you was telling me the
other night about the pastor put out a notice to his congregation. He wanted a jet plane. Was it
$39 million or something? $69 million. He's a humble fellow,
ain't he? Can you imagine that? Can you
imagine, I don't care if you've got ten or fifteen thousand in
your congregation, can you imagine a request like that? Folks, I'll be honest with you,
I'm sick of religion too. I'm sick of the show, I'm sick
of the flesh, I'm sick of the self-promotion, I'm sick of it
too. But before you despair, and say,
I'm going to wash my hands of it all. Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story. There
was a woman who was getting dressed for bed one night and she noticed
that she was bleeding. She didn't think very much about
it until the next day and she was still bleeding. She went
for a week or so until she began to get weak And she thought,
I've got a problem. Something's wrong. And she went
to a physician, and she said, I'm bleeding. I've been bleeding
for a week. And it won't stop. You think
you can help me? Oh, sure, I can help you. I can
help you. You just pay me, and I'll help
you. And she paid him. He gave her some treatments that
made her sick, but it didn't stop her bleeding. And after a few days, he said,
well, I can't help you. I'm sorry. But I know this other
doctor. I think he can. And she goes
to that doctor. He puts her through all kinds
of treatments. And he charges her. But he don't
help her either. And finally, he says, I know
this specialist. I'll send you to him. And she
goes to him. And she goes from doctor to doctor
to specialist to specialist until she has spent every dime She
has. She has pawned her house, her
clothes, everything she owned she's lost. And instead of getting
better, she got worse. And finally she thought within
herself, those are physicians of no value. Those are miserable
doctors. I've spent all I've had. and
I've only gotten worse. Twelve years. Can you imagine
that? Some of you went for tests and
you went for tests and finally you just throw up your hands.
I'm tired of tests. I'm tired of paying the money.
I'm tired of going through the fasting to have a test. I'm tired of
it. I'll die. That's what I'll do. Can you
imagine twelve years? fooling with doctors and specialists,
and you've gotten worse, and you're so weak because all this
time you've been bleeding, would you be ready to wash your hands? This woman heard of the Lord
Jesus Christ. She heard of Him. And she said, if I can just touch
the hem of His garment, I shall be made whole. Now why did she
have such confidence in Him when she was so disgusted and despairing
of her own physicians? I'll tell you why. Because Christ
has a track record. He's never failed. She kept hearing
these stories. Every time He laid hands on somebody,
they recovered. Every time he spoke to somebody
and said, I will, they were cleansed. He forgave all manner of sins.
Not one time did he ever fail. And she said, if I can just touch
the hem of his garment. But you know, she had some problems
too. Because there's a whole crowd of people between her and
the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not saying, brothers and
sisters, it's easy to come to Christ. I'm not saying that. For some
people, it seemingly is. I was reading a story about this
man, and I think he was an honest man, and I think his experience
was real. He was on his job that required him to travel, and he
said he was sitting on his bed and opened the drawer, and there
was a Bible in the drawer, and he picked it up and started reading
it. And he said suddenly, without
any warning, there was Jesus Christ. on the pages of that
Bible. And he said he was so clear,
died for sinners. And he said right then and there,
He saved me. Now that would be the exception.
That's not usually the rule. But I believe that. His life
that he lived would tell us, boy, that's the truth. The Lord
has saved that man. But how unique it was. How quickly,
how seemingly easily he came to Christ. But it's not with
everybody that way. A lot of people have a difficult
struggle to get into Christ. They have to press their way
to Him. And here was this woman. She
said, I know if I can just touch Him, I'll be made whole. But
she had this big fellow in front of her. In front of him was two
or three women lined up. And she began to press her way
through that crowd until finally she touched the hem of his garment
and she was made whole. Brothers and sisters, denominations
can't save us. Man's religion can't save us.
Systems of theology can't save us. There are people who trade
one system for another system. No wonder they get delusioned.
No wonder they get disgusted and say, I give up on it all.
I was reading a little article that Greg put back about preachers
and soul winners getting people on a profession of faith. And
it said after a year or so, people were saying to him, you know,
just repeat this prayer after me and you'll be saved. And the
people realized that even though they had done that, nothing happened
to them. They were still as lost as they
ever were. So they got delusioned with that. They got confused
and angry about it. And I don't blame them. But listen,
there is a real Savior. He's beyond these denominations.
He's beyond these systems. He's beyond the gimmicks of man. Put all that behind you and come
to Him and see if He's not a great Savior. And when you've come
to Him and you've touched Him and you've made whole, then you
can look at all these other things and say, you guys are superstitions
of no value. No wonder you could do me no
good. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Him yourself. Press your way to Him. Look to
Him. Get to Him. One more example. One more example. Lastly, I wrote this down in
big letters, lastly. One of the reasons I did that,
I was just finished reading an article by Jack Howes. A little
statement Jack Howes made. If you don't know who Jack Howes
is, he probably had the first megachurch up north of here.
And he told his preachers, his young preachers, he said, don't
ever say lastly. Don't ever say in conclusion.
Because He said, if you do that, there's going to be lost people
in the congregation. They're going to prepare to dig
in their heels, and then you can't win them. He said, just stop abruptly and
win them without giving them any warning. And He said, you
can sneak up on them. That's what He said. I know it's
hard to believe, sneaking up on sinners. But that's what He
said. Never say lastly. Well, I say
lastly. I say in conclusion. This is
my last point. You may be here this morning,
even a young person, and you may say, I've waited too late.
I've waited too late to come to Christ. You know there's people
who really believe that. And there's some people who have.
There's some people who have. I believe in a day of grace and
I believe it's passed for some people. There's no doubt in my
mind about that. And the Lord's already said to
them, basically, I called and you refused. I stretched out
my hand and no man regarded. But the devil wants to convince
even young people that you've already sent your day of grace
away. There's no hope for you to be saved. It's too late. And
if he can convince a young person of that, he'll live in a sinful
despair the rest of his life. There were some people over in
Jeremiah's day that said there's no hope. This is what they said. Can you imagine? There is no
hope. No hope? Why would you say that? Because we have loved strangers. We have sinned so against God
that there's no hope. So we're just going to despair.
And how are you going to live? We're just going after our lovers.
There's no hope for us anyway. And they live in hopelessness.
If you're here this morning and you've had a voice whispering
in your conscience, your heart, saying, it's too late for you.
You've waited too late. Let me tell you one more story. There was a young boy, and his
parents loved him. I imagine they loved him dearly.
Probably taught him, tried his best for him to be an upstanding
young man in the community. Taught him morals that he should
never steal. But you know what he began to
do? As a young man, he began to sneak and steal things from
people. They'd catch him. They'd correct
him. But no correction availed with that young man. And finally,
it got worse. He began to steal from the neighbors.
And then he'd break into businesses. And then the word got out, this
young man is a thief. So they brought charges against
him. The police watched him and they arrested him. And they tried
him. And they found him guilty. And
the law in those days was so strict If you were found guilty
of stealing, they not only killed you, but they killed you in a
very, very dreadful way. They put you on a cross. They
crucified you. They sentenced this man to death
with one of his thieving friends. And there he was on the cross.
There he was. And he was so angry. And he probably
was so angry because he was so hopeless. There's no hope for
me now. Some people believe that around
the cross of our Lord, all the devils in the universe had congregated. I don't much doubt that. Charming
in our Savior. He talked like the bulls of Bashan
that came upon Him. And I imagine the devils were
speaking to that thief on that cross and saying, it's too late
for you. You poor wretch, just be a man and go ahead and die. It's too late for you anyway.
I think that's one of the most amazing stories in the Bible. Because here you have a man in
his dying hours. And you know, all he could think
about was the pain and the guilt and the torment that awaited
him in hell. And finally he confessed, I'm
guilty I've ever been of it too. But he turned to the Lord Jesus. I don't even know if he could
see Him. He heard Him talking, Father forgive them for they
know not what they do. And finally his mind was open,
his understanding was open. And he said, Lord, remember me
when You come into Your kingdom. Now ain't that amazing? Ain't
that amazing out of all this pain, this dying, that He would
say that? I tell you, I've been so sick
myself as a believer, I couldn't pray. I had no desire to pray. I was too sick to pray. Can you
imagine a man being crucified with his hands and feet nailed
to the cross and he's praying? He's asking the Lord to remember
him? That's amazing to me. That shows
you right there, when the Spirit calls a man effectually, He's
coming. He's coming. All the Lord's elect
people are going to be saved. And He can find them in some
strange places, on a cross with two hours to live. And He found
them. And He said, Lord, remember me
when you come into your kingdom. And He said, man, listen. Listen
to me. I'm going to tell you something
that will cause you to rejoice in the low bottom of your heart.
Listen to what I tell you. Such more beautiful words, assuring
words, gracious words have never been spoken to a poor sinner
in this world. This day, shall you, wretched,
miserable thief that you are, shall be with Me, the Lord of
glory, God in human flesh, in paradise. Isn't that amazing? Is salvation by grace or not? Here's a man that had nothing
to give. No sense of making promises.
Lord, if you'll let me down from here, I promise you. Oh, if you'll
give me life, I promise you, I'll straighten up. Too late
for that, ain't it? I'll be baptized and join the
church. Man, in two hours, you're going to be dead and out in eternity.
You've got nothing to offer. If you're going to be saved,
it's going to be by grace. It's going to be by that man
hanging next to you, burying your sins away. Okay, then, Lord
Jesus, remember me. Remember me. And this day, you'll
be with me in paradise. Is there any reason why every
last soldier this morning would not come to such a Savior? Is
there any excuse for not coming? Is there any just excuse for
not coming? No. Everybody should come. And He's never turned one away
that has. And the old song says, if I've
come to Him and He's refused me, then I'll die. But here's
a joyful thought. I'll die where no sinner ever
died. Because nobody's ever come to
Him and died. Never happen. Come to Christ. Come to Him. Don't let anything
stand in your way from coming to Him. If you need Him, then
He heals those who have need of being healed. Let us pray.