Verse 33 of Matthew 27, when
they were coming to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place
of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall, and
when he tasted thereof he would not drink, and they crucified
him. And my friends, I learned about
25 years ago that salvation is totally and
absolutely of the Lord. And not only that salvation from
beginning to end is of the Lord, but salvation is an eternal purpose. That salvation is actually, and
we believe in instantaneous salvation, we believe in justification by
faith. The Bible teaches that a man
is saved when he receives Christ, when he believes on Christ, that
he passes from death unto life, from darkness to light. But salvation,
and don't let me shock you, this is true, the salvation of everyone
who believes and who instantaneously is converted by faith in Christ
is an eternal process. I have been saved, I am being
saved, I'm not saved yet. Now is my salvation nearer than
when I believed. The salvation of my soul did
not begin that day that I was disturbed over my sins, and I
heard a minister preach that Christ died for my sins. My salvation
did not begin when I walked down a church aisle and took the pastor
by the hand and said to the congregation, I believe Christ died for my
sins. That's not when salvation began.
My salvation had its beginning in the counsels of God before
the world ever was created. My salvation had its beginning
in the counsels of God before man ever fell." Now listen to
these scriptures. Christ was the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. His blood is the blood of an
eternal agreement. His blood is the blood of an
eternal testament, an eternal covenant. Listen to it. Christ
Jesus is the surety or guarantor of an eternal covenant. Known
unto God Now, we are his workmanship, right? The Scripture says, For
by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God. It's not of works, lest any man
should boast. For we are his workmanship. We're his workmanship. God has
fashioned us and made us and created us out of nothing. We're
his workmanship. But the Scripture says, known
under God are all his works from the beginning. Known under God
are all his works from the beginning. So God began this work of redeeming
my soul, not when I was convicted of sin, not when I received Christ,
not when I believed, But he began this work back in the councils
of eternity, back before the foundation of the world. Now
that's true. That's true. You turn to Romans
8, verse 28. Now let's go to the Word of God.
Let's see what the Scripture says. Romans 8, verse 28. Listen to it. And we know that
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to his purpose. His purpose,
which he purposed in Christ Jesus. When? before the world began. His purpose was in Christ before
the world began. For whom he did foreknow, or
foreordain, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom
he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified he also
glorified." So this thing of the redemption of the soul of
a sinner goes from eternity to eternity in the purpose of God. The same ones whom he foreordained,
he glorified. The same ones whom he predestinated
to be like his son, he called. and all whom he foreordained,
and all whom he predestinated, and all whom he shall call, and
all whom he shall glorify, Christ died for them." That's the center
point. The justification is the center
point. The cleansing is the center point.
The atonement is the center point. But it all began back there,
and it shall be finished out here. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ
has been our Savior from before the foundation of the world.
He has been our representative before the world began. The scriptures
tell us that he stood for us before the world, for we were
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. God hath from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. And when we fell in Adam, God
immediately announced redemption through Christ. And then when
salvation existed on this earth in types and sacrifices, When
the Old Testament priest stopped there at the brazen altar and
slew the lamb, and gathered the blood in a basin, and when he
walked forward to wash his hands and his feet, at the washbasin,
and when he came inside and ate at the table of showbread, and
when he lighted the candles or the lamps in the lampstand, and
when he went under the veil into the Holy of Holies, all of these
types and sacrifices and shadows and pictures and symbols were
Christ. Christ was that priest, and Christ
was that sacrifice, and Christ was that atonement, and Christ
was that rock, and Christ was that manna that fell in the wilderness. And then one day in the fullness
of time, God sent his Son into this world. made of a woman,
made in the likeness of sinful flesh. And here on this earth,
as a man in the flesh, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,
he stood as our representative. And he was born under the law
to redeem them that were born under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons. And Jesus Christ stood as our
representative in the home under the law of the home. in the nation
under the laws of the nation, in the temple under the ceremonial
law, and under the law, the moral law of God Almighty. And then
he went to the cross, and there he became our substitute, and
there the penalty for our sins was laid upon him. There the
wrath of God in our place was poured out on Christ, and there
he drank the very bitter, deepest, most terrible dregs of God's
wrath for our salvation. And there the debt was paid,
and there the debt was put away, and there the justice of God
was satisfied. And then he was buried as our
scapegoat, and he rose again for our justification. And then
he ascended to the Father, and there he's at the right hand
of the Father, and he is our high priest. We have a priest.
We have one through whom our sacrifices of faith and love
go and worship We have one who makes our prayers acceptable
to the Father. We have one whose sacrifice represents
us as an atonement. We have one who intercedes and
pleads and prays for us every moment, and that's the Lord Jesus
Christ. And one of these days, he's coming
back again. And the Scripture says, when
we see him, we shall know him, and we shall be just like him,
and we shall be caught up together with him in the clouds, and so
shall we ever be with the Lord, and then my salvation shall be
complete. So this thing of salvation is
not something that just occurs down here in 1972, when we walk
down an aisle and take a preacher's hand and say, It is not something
that takes place when the Holy Spirit of God stops us on our
Damascus road and arrests us and brings us to knowledge of
Christ. That work has been going on from
eternity past, and that work shall never finally be finished
until we stand perfectly conformed to the image and in the image
of Jesus Christ our Lord. It's an eternal purpose and it's
an eternal process. The center point, the climax,
the heart and life that makes effectual all else that Christ
did and is doing and will do is his
death on the cross. Everything before Calvary points
to the cross. Our being chosen in Christ, having
fallen in Adam, the announcement that God the Father made to the
serpent, the woman's seed. There will be enmity between
thee and thy seed, the woman and her seed, and thou shalt
bruise his heel, but he shall bruise thy head. He shall crush
thy head. He shall crush thy power. He
shall defeat thee. He shall do it." God had purposed
it and God had announced it, but it wasn't done till Calvary.
That's the high point, that's the center point, that's the
climax, that's the heart and life of it, the death on the
cross. God chose us to be redeemed, but at the Calvary we were redeemed.
God purposed that we shall be redeemed, at Calvary we were
redeemed. God determined that our sins
should rest upon Christ, at Calvary they rested upon Christ. God
determined that we should be cleansed of all our sins and
all our transgressions, at Calvary we were cleansed of those transgressions.
and everything after Calvary points back to the cross. At
the cross, Jesus Christ turned the throne of judgment to a throne
of grace. At the cross, Jesus Christ put
away the wrath and enmity that stood between us and God. At
the cross, Jesus Christ brought the mercy of God to the unworthy. At the cross, God's justice and
God's mercy met together. At the cross, God's righteousness
and God's love kissed each other. At the cross, the death of sin
was counseled. At the cross, the gates of glory
were opened for all who would enter. That's the reason the
Apostle Paul said, I am determined to know nothing among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. God sent me not to baptize, but
to preach the gospel, the gospel of a crucified Redeemer. And
Bishop J.C. Ryle once said, listen to it,
we are to venture the whole salvation of our souls on Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. We are to cast loose entirely
and completely from all other hope. We are not to rest partly
on Christ and partly on what we are doing in the matter of
salvation. Christ is all from beginning
to end. He said, I am Alpha and Omega. I am the author and finisher
of faith. Heaven is before us, and Christ
is the door. Hell is beneath us, and Christ
alone can deliver. The law is against us, and only
Christ can satisfy. Death is awaiting, and only Christ
can remove the sting. The grave is our destiny, and
only Christ can be the victory. This is it. This is it, God said. This is what I've been planning.
This is the high point of my purpose. This is the direction
that I've been moving. This is the basis for my choice,
for my election. This is the basis for my promise.
Christ crucified. This is the high point of creation.
This is the high point of redemption. This is the high point of purpose.
This is the climax. This is the glad day. This is
the day of atonement. This is the day of redemption.
This is the day God died. And this is the day a sinner
is set free. Now you listen to this, a man's
attitude toward the cross and all that the cross includes.
determines his destiny, whether to hell or to heaven. It's not
Christ the baby, it's not Christ the preacher, it's not Christ
the healer, it's Christ crucified. And a man's attitude toward Christ
crucified determines his destiny, whether to hell or to heaven. I read here in Matthew 27 that
they took him out to that cross and they nailed him to the cross.
And they lifted that cross up in the air and then dropped it
down into that hole with the ripping of the flesh and the
spurting of the blood. And then it said in verse 36,
and sitting down, the mob of soldiers, and the mob of the
rabble, and the religious people, and the leaders, and all these
people, they sat down. They sat down on the ground.
They sat down on rocks. They sat down on the grass. They
sat down wherever they could find a place. That huge multitude
there at this place called Golgotha, they sat down and they watched
him. And they watched him. They watched
him. I want you this morning to sit
down with me and watch him there. And I want you to tell me what
you see. I'm going to insist that you not avoid this confrontation
right now with Jesus Christ. Let's sit down. I'm not talking
about arguing over the virgin birth. I'm not talking about
arguing over when he's coming and what's going to happen when
he comes. I'm talking about what happened at Calvary. I'm talking
about the Christ of the cross. You sit down there and watch
him. I insist you take a little while. If you're not as Barnard
used to say, in too big a hurry to go to hell, I insist that
you take a little while and you sit down with me and you watch
him there and you tell me what you see. I'll tell you what I
see, first of all. As I look at Jesus Christ on
the cross, the first thing I see the horrible, horrible truth
dawns upon me, how rotten, how depraved, how wicked is mankind."
Well, Pilate said, I find no fault in this man. Judas said,
I have betrayed innocent blood. I've taken thirty pieces of silver
to betray a man who's pure and clean and without fault. Nicodemus
said, we know he's a teacher come from God. No man could do
these miracles except God be with him. The father said, this
is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And the demons
of hell said, we know who he is. He's the Holy One of Israel. He's the Holy One of God. That's
who he is. And these people took him who
is the Holy One of God, who is the beloved Son of God, who is
a teacher come from God, who is innocent blood, and the Scripture
said in verse 28, and they stripped him. They wanted to humiliate
him. They wanted to embarrass him,
so they stripped him. And they took an old dirty scarlet
piece of cloth and draped it over his bleeding shoulder. And
when they'd plaited a crown of thorns, they pressed that crown
of thorns down into his brow. And they put it on his head,
and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before
him, and they mocked him, and they said, "'Hail King! Hail
King!' My friends, I want you to think for a moment with me
in what character Was Jesus Christ rejected while he was here on
this earth? In what character was he rejected
as the king? They said, we'll not have this
man reign over us. We won't have him. In what character
was he mocked here in the soldiers' hall? Huh? The king. Why, they said, we don't care
how many good works you do, we don't care how many multitudes
you feed with your five loaves and little fishes, we don't care.
We don't care about those things, but we care about this king business. We don't have a one king, that's
easy. You can't be king, Jesus. If you insist on being king,
you'll have to go to the cross because we can't have you as
king. In what character was he crucified?
You know, they always took a sign and put it over the head of the
condemned criminal, the list of his the charges against him,
what they put over Jesus' head, he's the King of the Jews. A
preacher stood in a pulpit not too long ago, I got a letter
Friday morning, he stood in the pulpit and said, We of this denomination
have rejected the sovereignty of God. Brother, without sovereignty,
you ain't got no God. You got a little peanut, that's
what you got. If he's not sovereign, he's not
God. What they're saying is, we have
rejected Almighty God. We don't mind having a God who's
a valet. We don't mind having a God who's
manservant. We don't mind having a God who
waits outside the door till you get ready to let him in. We don't
mind having a God that runs around and feeds the hungry and clothes
the naked and heals the sick and takes me to heaven when I
die, but we will not! We will not have this man reign! We reject the sovereignty of
God!" What does the word sovereign mean? Well, it means what it's
spelled, R-E-I-G-N, God reigns. God reigns. That's what they
rejected. That's what they hated. And that's
what men hate right now. Anybody here this morning that
can't take my introduction when I said salvation began in the
purpose of God and it will be finished in the purpose of God.
You gnash your teeth. You say man has his part, man
has his right, man has his church. You hate God. That's who you
hate. You love man and hate God. And you take your place with
this crowd right here. Hell king, we don't mind you
being a little servant, we don't mind you being a doormat, we
don't mind you being a fire escape, but you're not going to be king!
Well, he's king here. He's king here. And we need not so much to kiss
his stripes as to kiss his feet. That's what we need to do. And
they stripped him, and they mocked him, and they scourged him, and
they put a crown of thorns on him. Look at verse 30, and they
spit upon him. They spit upon him. They wanted
to show their utter, utter contempt for his kingship. They spit upon
him. They spit upon him, and then
they gave him vinegar instead of water, and then they crucified
him between two criminals. This is the attitude of mankind
against holiness. This is the attitude of mankind
against purity. This is the attitude of mankind
against God's authority. We will not have it. We will not have it. Turn to
John 3, 19. Here's the description of every son of Adam. Here's
the description of every descendant of Adam. John 3, 19. This is
the condemnation. Light is coming to this world.
Their light was at Calvary. Their light was at Palace Hall. Their light was in the Soldier's
Hall. But men love darkness rather
than light. Why? Because their deeds are
evil. He was in the world, and the
world was made by him, but the world didn't know him. The wind
and the waves knew him. He stood out there over the waves
and said, Be still! And they lay down at his feet
just like a little old poodle dog. The lightning and the thunder
knew him. He said, Peace, be still! Boy,
it stopped like that. It stopped like that. And that old man Simeon, up yonder
in the temple, knew him. He took that baby in his arms,
and he said, Mine eyes have seen God's salvation. And the demons
knew him that possessed that naked man in the tombs, and they
said, Don't come around to us. Have you come to torment us before
our time? We know who you are. We know
who you are. The man doesn't know him, the
world knew him not. Sinners are blind, sinners are
deaf, sinners are ignorant. You take a blind man out yonder
on the side of the hill. I was driving through the hills
of North Carolina and Virginia yesterday, and it's so beautiful.
And as the sun sets there behind those Virginia pine trees, you
know, it's just a gorgeous sight. You take a blind man out there
and tell him, look, look, isn't it beautiful? I don't see anything
so pretty. He can't see. He's in darkness. You take a deaf man to a concert,
here's the finest symphony orchestra in all the land, and all of those
instruments blending together to bring out the beautiful tones,
and you say, listen, as the hair stands up on the back of your
neck and chill bumps cover your body as that music floats through
there, listen, isn't that pretty? He said, let's go home, let's
get some popcorn. He can't hear. And Christ said
over here in 1 Corinthians, turn over there with me, chapter 2,
in 1 Corinthians, he says here, it is written, verse 9, it is
written, it's the truth, it's the truth, I have not seen nor
ear heard, and it hasn't entered the heart of man to think God's
prepared for them that love him they can't see. They can't hear. They can't understand. They don't
know who He is. They don't know who He is. Christ
said, "'Whom do you say that I am?' Peter said, "'You're the
Christ, the Son of the living God, blessed.'" Blessed are you,
Simon, but you didn't learn that in school. Flesh and blood didn't
reveal that to you. My Father revealed that to you.
Blessed are your eyes, they see, and your ears, they hear. The
multitude has eyes they can't see. They have ears, but they
can't hear. They have hearts, but they can't
understand. They're dumb and deaf and blind
and dead. They're creatures of material
things. They're creatures of the earth.
They're creatures of the flesh. Their God is their belly. And
here we see the total corrupt depravity, the wretchedness,
the defilement of human nature as they sit on the ground. look
at perfect holiness which they have rejected and which they've
nailed to a cross. We don't want him, and man hasn't
changed. But I see the second thing here,
man, I see as I sit there and watch him on that cross, man
sure is rotten. Man sure is rotten. And the second
thing I see as I look at that cross, I see man made the wrong
choice. He made the wrong choice. We
think we're pretty smart. It says here in Matthew 27, verse
19, when he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent
unto him And said, Don't you have anything to do with that
just man? I've suffered many things this day in a dream because
of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude
that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. And the governor
said, Whither of the twain would you that I release unto you?
They said, Give us Barabbas! What shall I do with Jesus which
is called Christ? You can crucify him. man started making the wrong
choice in the Garden of Eden. And the wise man Solomon said,
To man he is so twisted and so defiled that stolen waters are
sweet. There's a way that seemeth right
unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." God says,
Your thoughts are not my thoughts. We chose Satan instead of God. We chose a lie instead of truth. We chose evil instead of good.
We chose darkness instead of light. And now you out there
and this preacher right here in this pulpit, we're so dominated
by an evil nature, and so dominated by an evil mind, and so dominated
by an evil will, that without the aid and direction of the
Holy Spirit we always make the wrong choice. Now you can put
that down. I don't care what the decision
is, we'll make the wrong decision unless God takes hold of us and
God supervises us and God turns us, warned of them that call
evil good and good evil, warned of them that put darkness for
light and light for darkness, warned of them that put bitter
for sweet and sweet for bitter. Who do you want? You say, I wouldn't have done
that. Yes, you do it every day. You do it every day. When you're
faced any time with a choice of good and evil and you choose
the evil, you've chosen Barabbas. Any time you're faced with either
light or darkness and you choose the darkness, you've chosen Barabbas. It started back there in the
garden. It started back there in the
garden. Oh, happy day that fixed my choice on thee, my Savior
and my God. But I didn't have much to do
with that. Herein is love, not that I love him, but that he
loved me. I love him because he first loved me. He called
and I answered. You will not come to me that
you might have life," Christ said it. How oft would I have
gathered you as a hen doth gather her brood, but you would not. Christ said, You have not the
love of God in you. You've never heard the voice
of God. You seek not the honor that comes from God. You've made
the wrong choice ever since the Garden of Eden, and I guarantee
you, you can swear on a stack of Bibles you're going to do
that which is right, and before tomorrow's sun comes up, you've
already done that which is wrong. Don't tell me, I know. Man made
the wrong choice, and he continues to make the wrong choice, and
he'll make the wrong choice right now. He's got to be dominated
by God's Spirit! He's got to be controlled by
God's Spirit! He's got to be watched over by
God's angels, or he'll plunge into hell. If one sheep of Christ
could fall away, Don Fitzhugh would fall in the next five seconds. You believe that? I know that's
so. If one sheep of Christ could fall away, I'd fall a thousand times a day,
and you would too. Don't tell me. I know what I'm
talking about. We're kept by the power of God. We're sustained
by the power of God. It's the grace of God that makes
us what we are. Paul said, I am what I am by
the grace of God, not by any works which men do, not by any
merit contained in the flesh. There's no merit in your flesh.
The scripture says, in the flesh dwelleth no good thing. Oh, man made the wrong choice
back yonder, but that's not anything. He's still making the wrong choice.
And then as I sit there and look at the cross, I see something
else. I see God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son. That's love. Can a man love an
enemy? Can he really love an enemy?
Can he? Can he love somebody who hates
him? God did. Scripture says, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Can a man love a fallen wife? Can a wife love a fallen husband? God did. God did. Can a man love a rebellious child? God did. It says here, when we
were without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly,
God commended his love for us in that while we were yet sinners,
we weren't seeking the Lord. We weren't coming to the Lord.
We weren't panting after the Lord. We weren't hungering and
thirsting after the Lord. We were enemies. We were going
the other way. We were making an assault on
His fortress. We were trying to pull down His
standard. We were trying to destroy His
throne. And He loved us with an everlasting
love, with an unquenchable love, with an infinite love, with an
unchangeable love, with a love strong enough to give His Son. As I sit there and look at the
cross, I see real love. I don't see much in this world.
Christ said, you love those that love you. The devil does that. Sinners do the same. You give
to those from whom you hope to receive something in return,
that's not anything. Anybody do that, that's good
business. That's not salvation, that's
good business. Love is nowhere manifested like
it was at Calvary. As you sit there at Calvary and
watch him as his enemies spit in his face and he says, Father,
forgive them, they don't know what to do. As his enemies press
that crown of thorns into his brow till it pierces into his
very skull and the blood runs down into his eyes, and over
that face that had been ripped apart by the plucking out of
the beard, and he looks down at them and weeps for them and
prays for them and loves them in his hands. If you can go to Calvary, and
you can sit there and look at the Son of God, and take in the
full effect of his love, and come away the same old unforgiving,
unmerciful creature. For you went there as a blind
man, you came away as a blind man. You went there as a dead
man, you came away as a dead man. But if you go there awakened
by God's Spirit and given some spiritual conception at all of
what took place there, and you can come away the same, you can't
do it. You just can't do it. Brother
Barnard told me one time, years ago, he said that he was out
living out in Oklahoma, and Joanne was about five, six years old. And he was in evangelistic work
and somehow he got hold of a film of the crucifixion of Christ.
He thought it was one of the best that he had ever seen. And
so he wanted to show it at home first before he took it out into
his meetings. And he and Hazel and Joanne,
his little girl, were sitting down watching that film. And
as it unfolded, they crucified Christ and they took him down
from the tomb. from the cross and put him in
the tomb, and the film ended. He looked down, and that little
girl was crying. And she crawled up in his lap,
and there in the darkness she said, Daddy, why'd they do that
to Jesus? Why'd they treat him that way?
And he said, well, they did it because they hated him, honey.
But said, God permitted them to do it in order that we might
have a Savior. You see, we're sinners, and we've
broken the law of God, and we've sinned against the God of glory.
We'd do the same thing to Christ if we'd been there. But God sent
him into this world to take our sins and die on the cross for
us, take our hell and take our wrath and take our disease and
die for us. that we might be children of
God. He's our Savior. And he said she reached up and
put her arms around his neck and he told it with tears in
his eyes. I don't know what God did in
that hour, he said, but anyhow, he said she looked at him and
she said, Daddy, you reckon he'd be my Savior? You know, I wish
we didn't have any more sense than little children. I wish
this grown-up, smart people, you know, that they know what's
behind everything, and they put a question mark on everything,
and they're full of their skepticism and agnosticism and their doubts
and their fears and their own merit. I wish they didn't have
more sense than that little girl, and they'd just look up at the
cross and say, Lord, would you be my Savior? Would you take
an old wretch like me into your heart and be my Savior? Would
you put your everlasting arms of love about me and take me
unto yourself? Would you make something out
of me? Would you change this old heart of stone into a heart
of flesh? Would you turn these old feet
that love to walk in paths of iniquity and make them walk in
paths of holiness? Would you, Lord? Would you take
this old skeptical, rotten mind of mine that's so twisted and
perverted by sin and let it think a little while on something holy
and something good and something pure? Would you, Lord? Would
you be my Savior? Would you? As I sit there, one
other thing I see, I see God's going to punish sin. It says
here in Matthew 27, verse 45, Now from the sixth hour, there
was darkness over that land, and to the ninth hour, the sun
got behind the black clouds, and the dark cloud rolled in,
and the earth began to tremble and shake, and God manifested,
like He did at Sinai, His glory and His power. And darkness was
over the land, and Christ cried with a loud voice, My God, My
God, why hast thou forsaken me? I sit there and watch him and
listen. It dawns on me what hell is going to be like. There's
the essence of hell right there. You know, people talk about fire
in hell. It may be so. I don't know. But
I do know this. This is the essence of hell right
here. To be without God for eternity. To be without hope for eternity. to be without light, darkness
for all eternity, to be without holiness, to be alone, alone
as you can't even imagine. You've never been alone like
that. You've never been in a place
where you were so totally, absolutely alone that for eternity no one
would ever hear your voice. And no one will ever speak to
your ear, and no one will ever comfort you. So totally alone
in such thick black darkness you can cut it with a knife.
So totally alone that God is nowhere near and never will be."
That's the only time Jesus Christ ever cried out in thirty-three
and a half years on this earth, was when he was deserted by the
Father. He could take the whippings,
the scourgings. He could take the crown of thorns.
He could take the spittle. He could take the embarrassment.
He could take the humiliation. He could take the nails. He could
take all those things, but he couldn't take desertion by God. And if God can't stand it, you
just think of the torment you're going to go through. If him who
has infinite glory and infinite power an infinite deity if he
can't stand the desertion of the Father, even as a substitute,
knowing that it would be restored. Even as a representative, bearing
somebody else's sins, knowing that it would soon be over, if
he crawls out under the desertion of God, think what hell is going
to be like for every son of Adam. He said, I don't believe God
sent him into hell, but you stop and look at the cross. If he
spared not his own son, I guarantee he won't spare you. if he spared
not his own son. I guarantee you, turn to Romans
3, you say, Why did Jesus Christ, why did God the Father, why did
he go to such extreme measures? Why did he permit his son To
bear such an awful experience, I tell you why Romans 3 verse
26, to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness. That's what he was declaring
at Calvary, his righteousness. God hates sin. God hates sin. God hates sin. That's what Calvary
says. And God will punish sin. And
God is declaring at Calvary, He is righteousness. Our righteousness
in Christ. That God cannot take us to heaven
without a perfect righteousness. And in order to give us a perfect
righteousness, somebody has to take our unrighteousness. And
the sinless became sinful that the sinful might become sinless. And Christ became what we are,
that we might become what He is. And God declared His righteousness,
that He might be just, and the justifier of them that believe
in Jesus. As I sit at the cross and watch
him there, I see how rotten is the flesh, and I put no confidence
in the flesh, in mine or yours or anybody else's. Don't do it.
Don't do it. It's not fair. It's not wise. And I see man made the wrong
choice, and I cry unto God. I know that I'll make the wrong
choice if it's left up to me. If salvation's an act of the
will, I know where I'm going. I'm going to hell. I know what
my will will do. If salvation's an act of the
flesh, I know where you're going, every one of you going to hell,
because I know what your flesh loves and what your flesh hates.
And in the flesh no man can please God. That choice, thank God,
is not left up to me. I was chosen in him. He said,
You didn't choose me. I chose you. I chose you. There is a way that seemeth right
to man. And then as I sit at the cross,
I see how God loves sinners. I see the love and mercy of God. And I come away from there and
I say, Lord, teach me to love like that. Teach me love like
that. And then as I sit there at the
cross, I see what a preview of God's judgment. I see a preview
of that last day. I see a preview as God casts
men into hell, and they cry as they're slipping into the darkness
of hell. My God, my God, as their voices fade away in the darkness,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Oh, God, I don't want to
go to hell. No wonder people cling to this
life so long. No wonder they hold to it till
their knuckles turn white. I'd rather live here in all the
sickness, shame, and sin as to go to hell, hadn't you? Our Father in heaven, pierce
these old, dark, stony, hard hearts of ours with the light
of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. Make every one
of us today turn on that eternal pursuit, the pursuit of God. Make every one of our hearts
and our minds and our beings and everything that we have and
our turn in the direction of seeking the Lord. I'll not be
satisfied till I wake with His likeness. I'm not going to sit
still and be damned with the world. I'm going to seek the
Lord. I'm going to the cross. I'm going
to Calvary. I'm going to lay myself at the
feet of Christ, and I'm going to say, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. I'm going to lay myself at the
feet of Christ, and I'm going to say, Lord, remember me when
you come into your kingdom. Don't condemn me with the world. Take me unto thyself. Bathe me
in the blood of Christ. Give me to eat of that living
bread. Let me sit at the fountain of
the water of life till the very image of Christ is stamped on
my face and on my heart and on my soul. Let me be like him. Move in the hearts of the people
according to thy will. Make it a living experience.
Let us be done with religion, and let us have an experience
of grace, Christ formed in us. In his name we pray, amen.