All Sermons

Given at the Grinsell Street, Baptist Church NSW Australia

Three Important Questions By John Blanchard

don't know what to do, so you go around the front, open up the front of the car, and start scratching around inside there to see what's wrong.
It's pouring with rain, and you're filthy dirty with oil and rain, and cars are swishing by and drowning you at regular intervals, and finally one kind gentleman stops his car, presses the button, an electric window purrs down, and he leans out and says, is anything wrong?
Something of unsurpassed stupidity, and you say, no, nothing wrong, I've left my sandwiches in here, and I'm just picking them up.
Or someone who calls regularly at a house on business, perhaps collecting insurance premiums or something like that, some service industry that they're in, and they notice
that the lady of the house is expecting a child, and that becomes more and more obvious as the months go by, but the next time the gentleman calls, lo and behold, here is this
lady, but now she's a slimline version, and in the corner there is a lovely little pink bundle.
And the person at the door says, oh, is that the new baby?
And the housewife says, no, it's a nuclear submarine that we've parked there for the time being.
It might surprise us how many questions we ask in life are absolutely ridiculous.
They are stupid, they make no sense at all, but we ask them because it's the kind of thing to do, it's the way we've got into speaking, and so forth.
There are other questions that are more serious questions that have to do perhaps with our health or with members of our family, they may have to do with finance, they may have
to do with our future.
But the most important questions are questions about God and man and their relationship with each other.
But as soon as you begin to talk to some people about God, about spiritual issues, if you want to use that phrase, as soon as you begin to share what the Bible is saying with them,
there are many people who would say, but it's no good quoting the Bible at me, I don't believe the Bible, it's a load of rubbish.
I've actually had that said to me by a number of people, and of course my approach to that is to say, well clearly you've read it all and you understand it, please just show me
ten bits of rubbish that are in the Bible, clearly it's absolutely full of it, maybe you could show me just ten for starters.
They of course don't know one end of the Bible from the other and have great difficulty in holding it the right way up.
They've not read it or they wouldn't come out with such a stupid remark.
There are other people however who would say, and say quite genuinely, well I hear what you're saying, but you see I have questions to ask the Bible, I'm not sure about this and that and the Bible and how that fits in, and I've heard somebody say that the Bible says so and so, and I'm not sure about that, I've got questions to ask the Bible.
Now it may be tonight that you are one of those people, you have questions about the
Bible, about what the Bible says.
Now if you do, I'm afraid I can't help you, at least not intentionally, because in the
absence of knowing what your question is, there is no way in which I can directly and
knowingly answer your question.
If this was a question and answer session and you were to ask me a question about something
you've discovered in the Bible or something that's been quoted from the Bible, I would
do my best to try to take that question on board and deal with it.
But clearly I don't know what your questions are, because this happens to be an occasion
in which I've been asked to do the speaking and you've been asked to do the listening.
I'd be equally happy the other way around, but I have to do what I'm told and that's
why I'm up here and you're down there, so I don't know what your questions are.
I could probably group them into about five or six groups and say your question will come
within that group, but at least directly I'll confess I don't know what your question is.
But what I want to tell you tonight is that this business of questions is not one-way
traffic.
It's not just that here is the Bible and you have questions to ask the Bible.
That's all very fine.
But what I also know is this, that the Bible has questions to ask you, and whilst I don't
know what your questions are, I do know what the Bible's questions are.
I became a Christian back in 1954 and it's been my tremendous privilege to study the
Bible ever since then.
Many parts of it still that I don't understand, many parts of it that I've never studied in
depth, but at least I've read it right the way through again and again and I do know
the questions the Bible asked.
I can't remember all of them.
I couldn't rattle them all off now, and you'll be very relieved to know that as there are
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions, we're not going to look at all of them tonight.
But I want us to look at three of them.
They are three very simple questions in a way, but they're impossible to answer.
They are unanswerable questions, although I'll say it again, they are very simple and
there is certainly no one here other than very, very tiny youngsters that I can't really
see in the audience tonight.
There's no one here who won't, in general terms at least, understand exactly what the
questions are saying.
But there is no one here who can give a positive answer to even one of these questions.
Let me get straight into the first one and then give you something of its background
and explain what it means.
Jesus said, and we quoted in the reading a few moments ago, what good is it for a man
to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?
Jesus asked that question at a place called Caesarea Philippi.
Today the name of the town is Banias, and a singularly unimpressive little place it
is.
I've been there on a number of occasions, it's in the northern part of Israel, just
south of the border with Lebanon.
The only notable thing about Banias these days is that the tour bus stops there, you
know, one of those Holy Land tours where you dash around and at the end of each day are
able to say, I ran today where Jesus walked.
And you go on one of these Holy Land tours and the bus stops at Banias and you get out
of the bus and the guide points you to a cliff face, the side of a hill, and there's
a miserable little trickle of water coming out of that hill.
You get more coming out of your tap in the bathroom, but anyway there it is coming out
of the side of the hill and the tour guide says, that is one of the sources of the River
Jordan.
So you get out your camera and take pictures of it and you video it from all kinds of angles
and go home and bore your friends for years.
But you've seen one of the sources of the River Jordan from the little town of Banias.
But when Jesus was on earth, the name of the town was Caesarea Philippi and it was a very
important town.
It was a trade center, it was a place where the trade routes crossed, it was busy, bustling,
hustling place, all kinds of buying and selling and wheeling and dealing and wheedling and
lying and stealing and cheating and bartering going on there at Caesarea Philippi.
It was a place, in other words, where people were conscious of the concepts of profit and
loss.
Nobody went to Caesarea Philippi to make a loss.
You couldn't imagine anybody saying, I'll tell you what, let's set up business at Caesarea
Philippi, everybody goes bankrupt there.
People went to Caesarea Philippi to set up business in order that at the end of the week,
the end of the month, the end of the year, the end of their chosen working life, they
would be able to look at the books and say, we've made a profit, we're in the black.
That was the whole idea of doing business at Caesarea Philippi.
And it was at a place where people were conscious of the idea of profit and loss that Jesus
asked a question about profit and loss.
What good is it, he said, what profit is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet
forfeit or lose his soul?
Here's a question about profit and loss.
Everybody you see wants to succeed, however you conceive of that, everybody wants to succeed.
And the person who commits suicide wants to succeed in getting out of what he's in
into something that he hopes will be better.
But everybody in life wants to succeed, everybody wants to achieve, to show a profit, nobody
wants to be a failure, a no-good, a has-been or a never-was.
And the Bible doesn't teach that there's anything wrong with healthy ambition, hard work, disciplined
effort and the pursuit of excellence, private enterprise, material possessions.
The Bible doesn't say a single word against any of that.
There are some people who would say, well now, wait a minute, but the Bible says that
money is the root of all evil.
No, it doesn't.
Bible doesn't say that at all.
What the Bible says is the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, that's very different.
The love of money, here's a person who just loves money and he'll do anything to get it
and to get more of it and to get more than anyone else.
Now when that happens, when a man is eaten up with the love of money, then yes, potentially
that can lead to all kinds of evil.
It can lead to dishonesty and sharp practice.
It can lead to the oppression and the underpaying of employees.
It can lead to dishonest dealings with business partners.
It can lead to all kinds of other evils, the love of money, the insatiable urge to
get more money.
But some of the godliest people in the Bible were also some of the wealthiest.
Abraham, for example, who in the Old Testament is called a friend of God, was also very wealthy
in livestock and in silver and gold.
King David was called a man after God's own heart, but when David died, it is said of
him that he was full of days, riches and honor.
A man called Job in the Old Testament was blameless and upright, but it also says he
was the greatest man among all the people of the east.
Joseph of Arimathea was one of Jesus' first disciples, but the Bible specifically says
that he was a rich man.
So the question is not whether material possessions are good or bad, but whether they are the
most important things in life, whether they are eternally important.
Is that really what life is all about?
Is life all about the making of more money, the gaining of more possessions, the achieving
of material success?
What Jesus said shall it profit a person if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?
Notice that Jesus is so confident about the point he's making that he carries it to
absurd lengths.
If we wanted to give an illustration like that, we might say, well, what good would
it be if a man had a hundred million dollars and then left God out of his life?
What good is a hundred million dollars at the end of life?
We might say that.
But Jesus was so sure of what he was saying that he actually went further and said, but
what if a man were to gain the entire world, the whole world, enough to make Mr. Bond look
like a pauper by comparison?
What if he gains the whole world, but at the end of it all he loses, he forfeits his soul
so that materially he has everything and spiritually he has nothing?
What, said Jesus, is the balance sheet looking like then?
What is the bottom line?
You see, the Bible tells us, though not in so many words, that God is an accountant.
Now, you can sometimes come across an accountant who gives the impression that he's God, but
God is an accountant.
The Bible says each one of us shall give an account of himself to God.
The Bible says that there's going to be a day when God is going to examine, if you were,
the balance sheet, the profit and loss account.
That's what's meant by the day of judgment.
I've been examining this subject, thinking about it, talking about it to people over
these past few days.
And you know, I've come to the conclusion that deep in our hearts we know there is going
to be a day of judgment, a day of reckoning, a day when rights, when wrongs are going to
be righted.
We sense that our conscience, I think we would go crazy if we felt there was never going
to be any day of reckoning, any day of judgment, and yet we have such a false idea of it.
But here is a man who reaches the end of life, as we all will one day.
None of us will be here a hundred years from now.
We reach the end of life and the Bible says man is destined to die and after this to face
judgment.
Here is a person who reaches the end of life and has no room for God.
They have all the time in the world for business, all the time in the world for making money,
all the time in the world for their bank balance, for their home, for their leisure pursuits,
for looking after the health of their body, but no time for God, no time for their own
soul.
Oh, occasionally they'll get dragged along to some kind of Christian meeting, but basically
God has been shunted out there onto the periphery of the world.
Now what good is it at that point after they've died?
One moment after they've died, what good is that?
What now for all of that wealth and all of that influence and all of those possessions
and all of those material goods, what worth are they now?
On a Tuesday last December, early last December, Dr. Alfred Herrhausen flew from West Germany
to London to finalize a $2,000 million takeover of a merchant bank in London.
He was described in the newspapers as, at the age of 59, the single most powerful banker
in Europe.
That was on the Tuesday.
On Thursday he was back in Germany, left home early to drive to work.
He was ambushed by terrorists, and his BMW was riddled with bullets, and so was he, and
he was dead.
On Tuesday he was the single most powerful banker in Europe.
I'm assuming that he could have bought out every single one of us in this room several
times over.
On Thursday there is not one of us in this room who is not now wealthier than he was
by noon on Thursday.
Do you see the difference?
What is the profit?
I make no comment on Mr. Herrhausen's spiritual condition.
That is not the point, and nor is it in my power to do so.
But I'm saying this, the difference between that man on Tuesday when he could have bought
the whole of us out several times over, and on Thursday is staggering, stunning, electrifying,
and it should get our attention.
Jesus said, what good is it to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
On Tuesday morning many of us would have said, I'd give anything to be in his position and
to have what he has got.
On Thursday all of us would have said, I'd give anything not to be in his position now.
What had happened?
Nothing.
He'd just died, that's all, and that's going to happen to all of us.
His body was still there.
You could have opened the door of that car and said, there's Alfred Herrhausen, and he's
lying there.
But you see, on Tuesday he had everything materially, and on Thursday he had nothing.
The Bible says we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it.
I was in the United States preaching last autumn, just before the incident I'd mentioned,
with the German banker, and my hosts had the evening television news on, and I was quite
startled to hear the announcer say, well, we've all known for years, or all thought
that we can't take anything with us when we go, but apparently there's a new twist to
the story.
It got my attention, and I wanted to know what it was.
And apparently some woman in Arkansas had left very unusual and definite instructions
in her will.
She had died a few days before the will was opened, and now her husband had to carry out
her wishes.
Which were these?
She had recently bought a beautiful, large, startling red Cadillac, and her instructions
were that she was to be buried with her Cadillac.
And so they went ahead, they dug a grave 20 feet long, they hauled a crane in, they lifted
the Cadillac up, they winched it slowly into the grave in front of all the mourners, and
then they dropped the casket in, I mean that gently of course, on top of the Cadillac,
and then they poured the earth in on top, and she was buried.
And the commentator ended the news story by saying, and so this good lady went to heaven
Cadillac style.
Well, not knowing the lady concerned, I wasn't prepared to concede that he'd got the destination
right, let alone his comment on the Cadillac, but you see there was someone who made this
bizarre almost obscene request that she be buried with this glittering mechanical monster.
But the fact of the matter is that we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing
from it.
The story is told of a young man who went to law school and joined his father's company
of lawyers, and early on in one of the first days a senior clerk said to the young man,
could you tell me how you see your life working out?
And the young man said, well, my father is very wise, and although I've got a good law
degree, I'm going to work here in the general office for six months just to get the feel
of everything that's going on in the company.
And the clerk said, I think that's excellent advice and a good thing to do.
You'll learn so much down here with us ordinary folks.
What then?
And he said, well, of course, I am qualified, and after six months I'm going into that office
and take over that department of the work.
That's what I've specialized in.
The clerk said, oh, you'll handle that.
All right.
There'll be no problem about that.
What then?
And the clerk said, well, I'll do about a couple of years there, and then I move over
into this office, which is a more responsibility, different department, and I'll take over that
department.
And the clerk said, well, that'll be no problem to you.
You'll be able to cope with that.
What then?
And he said, well, my father is the junior partner in the company, and in about ten years'
time the senior partner will retire, my father will become the senior partner, and I'll become
the junior partner of the company about ten years from now.
And the clerk said, well, I think that's great to be moving up the ladder like that.
What then?
He said, well, my father is going to retire about 15 years from now, and then I will become
the senior partner.
That's the plan, and we'll be able to carry on the family name.
And the clerk said, well, that's terrific.
This is a good, longstanding family company with a good name, and I'm delighted that that's
going to happen.
I'll have retired by then, but I certainly wish you well in that.
What then?
The young man said, well, I want to retire earlier than my father does.
This is a very successful company, and I've set a goal to retire when I'm 50 years of
age, and I think I should be able to achieve that.
The clerk said, well, that's great.
That's younger than I have been able to retire.
And what then?
He said, well, then I want to indulge myself and travel the world.
We live in a wonderful world, so many countries and cultures I want to get to grips with,
and I just wanted to spend all my time traveling around.
The clerk said, that's terrific.
What then?
The young man said, well, after a while, of course, I'll have lost my zest and my energy
no doubt for doing all of that travel, and I'll concentrate on this country and so many
things I want to see here, and I would love to do that.
Just travel around and get my fill of all that this country has to offer.
The clerk said, well, I think that's terrific.
There's so many places I've not yet seen, and I'm a much older man than you.
What then?
And the young man shuffled around rather uncomfortably, and he said, well, you know, like everybody
else, I'll die.
And the clerk said, yes, you will.
And by the way, I have one more question.
What then?
My friend, that's it.
If I were to come to you tonight and say, tell me, how many young people we have here,
great proportion of young people, people in the first half of life, if I were to ask you
now, tell me what you aim to do with your life.
You might have all kinds of ambitions and hopes and plans that you want to fulfill,
but suppose I were to sit alongside you and keep saying, and what then?
And what then?
And what then?
And what then?
Now, eventually, you have to say, well, I guess somewhere down the road, and of course,
it may be much sooner than you imagine, but somewhere down the road, you would have to
say, and then I will die.
And my friend, the question is, what then?
What will it profit you if you gain the whole world, whatever you perceive as the world,
whatever it is you want to do, whatever ambitions you have in life, whatever position you want
to hold, whatever wealth you want to achieve, whatever goals you're targeting for your life,
if you achieve all of those, what then, when the bottom line is drawn across and you add
up all that you've achieved, all of your income, as it were, in terms of achievement and position
and authority and power and money, you take all of that in, but on the debit side, on
the negative side, on the outgoing side, you have to write, I lost my soul.
What's the good of it?
Let me give you a second question.
It was a question the disciples asked Jesus, and I want to give you a little background
to it.
It has been said that the human heart longs for two things, redemption from sin and eternal
life.
That is somebody's way of saying this, that if we are aware that these things are possible,
there are two things that men want more than anything else in life.
One, the wiping out of anything in the past that might interfere with their eternal welfare.
If you want to call that the forgiveness of sins, that would be a biblical way of referring
to it.
To be able to look back and say everything that I've said and done and thought and been
that has displeased God is like that screen in front of you.
There's just a clean sheet.
The other thing that all of us long for deep in our hearts, even though we may not want
to express it to others for fear of being misunderstood, is that when we come to the
end of life, we go to a future that is secure and happy and eternal in the presence of God.
In other words, there's two things we want to get buttoned down absolutely clearly.
Number one, we want the past wiped out in terms of anything that might affect us badly.
Secondly, we want the future absolutely assured.
And you know, when Jesus was here on earth, that is exactly what he offered to men and
women.
He said to people he'd never met before, your sins are forgiven.
Have you ever stopped to think what a remarkable thing that was?
You might say, well, Jesus forgave people's sins.
That was a good thing to do, but then God says we're to forgive other people and Jesus
was just doing what we're all supposed to do.
So we forgive sins, he forgave sins, big deal.
That's all it was.
Well, no, it wasn't.
You haven't really thought about it if that's all you think it was.
I want you to imagine, and this would be a remarkable piece of imagination on your part,
that Don McMurray steals a $20 note from my room.
I happen to be staying in his home and he steals a $20 note.
Now for him to do that would actually require not only a phenomenal act of dishonesty on
his part, but also a miracle.
But imagine that he found one, and I can tell you now, Don, there isn't one, so don't even
bother to look.
But he steals a $20 note from my room, and tomorrow, because it's now beginning to get
at his conscience, he tells his wife about it.
And she's so sorry for him that she says, well, don't you worry about it, I forgive you.
There we are, pats him on the head and says, give me the $20, I know where to spend it.
That's what wives usually do.
But don't you worry about it.
I will forgive you.
Well, I'm sure that's what wives do.
You know what marriage is, it's a matter of money.
So the wife says, well, I forgive you.
The next day I find out what has happened.
First of all I find out that he's stolen my $20, and secondly I find out that she has forgiven
him for what he did against me.
Now let me tell you what I would do.
I would take her quietly on one side and say, now look here, I don't know what you're playing
at, forgiving him for what he did against me, I am the only person who can forgive him.
He has sinned against me, he has offended me, he's robbed me, if I want to forgive him,
and the chances are remote, then I'll forgive him.
But it's none of your business.
I wouldn't say that until I'd had all the meals I'm going to have in their home and was
ready to go.
But I would say something which being interpreted is, you just keep your mouth shut, it's nothing
to do with you.
If I want to forgive him, I will, but it's none of your business, because he didn't steal
the money from you.
Now what do you make of Jesus coming to people whom humanly speaking he'd never seen before,
and he said to them, your sins are forgiven.
You've committed adultery, you've broken your marriage vows, you've violated the sacred
union between you and your husband, your sins are forgiven.
Forget it, it's just like that screen, it's just absolutely clean and wiped out, and God's
not going to call you into account for it anymore.
Do you know that's one of the most powerful arguments for the fact that Jesus is exactly
who he claimed to be, that Jesus is God?
Because the Jews of Jesus's day knew perfectly well, in fact they tore their hair out and
said, what's this man saying?
Nobody can forgive sins but God.
They were dead right, but they'd failed to realize that that's exactly who Jesus was.
Nobody can forgive sins ultimately except God, and Jesus went around and said, well
I forgive your sins, they're wiped out, they're done away with, forget about it, God will
never even bother you about those sins, they're God.
And secondly, Jesus said to people, I give them eternal life.
I give them eternal life, not one of these days when you die you will enter into something
called eternal life, but I give you eternal life right here and now.
You've got it.
And when you die, that's just kind of moving to worship with a different congregation.
You've got eternal life here and now.
Well when he started saying that, and added to that all the miracles that he was performing,
then people began to flock after him in their hundreds and thousands.
They apparently left their jobs and wandered around the country, didn't want to lose sight
of him, wanted to be in touch with this marvelous miracle working man who above all else could
give people the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
And at the height of his popularity, people clamoring around him apparently day and night,
Jesus turned around and said, now wait a minute, not going to be quite the way you think.
Many of them thought that he was going to set up an earthly kingdom there at Jerusalem
and so forth, and Jesus said, no, I'm going to be arrested, put on trial, and put to death.
And when he said that, the thousands became hundreds, the hundreds became handfuls, and
soon there were just a few left, and Jesus tested them by saying this, now do you want
to go too, do you want to leave as well, everybody else has gone, only a few of you left.
And they said, and here's our second question, Lord, to whom shall we go, you have the words
of eternal life, Lord, to whom shall we go, go, where else can we go?
We know all about these other rabbis and teachers around the country, they're trying to tell
us what the Bible is saying and so forth, but you are the only person with the words
of eternal life, you're the only one who can say to people you have eternal life.
These other rabbis go around and they say, well now, let's turn to the Old Testament
scriptures.
Now you see, this is what the scripture says here, and there's a school of thought that
says it means such and such, there's another school of thought that says it means so and
so, and so we must try to think about this, and come to think of it, there's Rabbi Ben
so and so, and he says that, and Jesus spoke with authority and not as the teachers of
the law, and instead of pointing to the Bible and saying, well, it may mean this or that
or the other thing, and here are some interesting interpretations, Jesus said, I forgive your
sin, I give you eternal life, and the disciples said, well, where else do you think we can
go?
You are the only one with the words of eternal life.
Some of you will be familiar with the writings of C.S. Lewis, a remarkable, brilliant man,
a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge universities.
I read one of his books today, a book called The Great Divorce, a remarkable insight into
the world to come, and as I had a couple of plane flights today I was able to read one
of Lewis's books from beginning to end.
But Lewis was once asked in a kind of forum, a sort of brains trust.
He was honoured, I think, with two or three other people, and somebody at the back of
the room said, I want to ask Professor Lewis a question to which I want one answer, one
word as an answer rather, and the question is this, what is it that Jesus Christ can
give me that I cannot get from anyone or anything else?
And C.S. Lewis stood up and said, forgiveness.
Forgiveness has been called the greatest word in the English language.
The leader of, the director of one of our leading mental institutions in Britain said
that 50% of the mental patients in Britain could be released if they had an assurance
of their forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness doesn't just mean, well, I'll forget about it and you forget about it and
let's hope everything will work out.
Forgiveness means that that sin is taken away and dealt with and done away with and
that not even God can remember it.
That's what forgiveness means.
And these disciples come and they mention the other half, if you will, of this great
gift, this great blessing that Jesus gives to people and says, Lord, to whom shall we
go?
You are the only one with the words of eternal life.
If you were to go to a good library and ask for the encyclopedia of religion and ethics,
they would give you 13 enormous volumes.
And if you were to go through there looking for eternal life and the forgiveness of sins,
you would not find a religion, an ethic, a way of life, a philosophy, a leader, a teacher,
anything or anyone who could grip you by the hand, look you in the eye and say, I give
you eternal life and I give you the forgiveness of sins, you would not find anyone or anything
except Jesus of Nazareth, not one.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
The Bible says salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven
given to men by which we must be saved.
My friend, if you are not a Christian tonight and I have no idea who is and who isn't and
who might be and might not be, I was not given a dossier on everybody who came into this
room and I always enjoy the great privilege of preaching openly, clearly I hope, but straightforwardly
without any let or hindrance because I absolutely don't know the people to whom I'm speaking
but if you are not a Christian tonight, if you did not come into this room as a Christian,
I cannot make you a Christian.
I'm not here to force the message down your throat to use the usual crude expression by
those who are running a bit scared of what's being said.
I can't, I can't make you a Christian.
I can't persuade you to become a Christian but I can ask you a question.
I'm allowed to ask you a question and the question is this, if when you have heard the
entire message and you've thought the issue through and you've come to your own conclusions,
if you will not come to Christ, if you will not come to Christ and trust him as your Saviour
and acknowledge him as your Lord, the question I want to ask you is this, to whom will you
go?
Who else do you have in mind?
The whole issue is whether at the end of life you are going to be seen to be right with
God, your sins are going to be forgiven, God is going to welcome you into heaven forever
to live with him.
That's the issue as to whether you are right with God.
Now if you will not come to Christ, if you will not come through Christ, if you will
not trust Christ to save you, then what I want to ask is, then who will you trust to
save you?
You're not going to trust yourself I hope.
I can't imagine, it's very difficult for me to understand how anybody can be so absurd
as to say, well I'm a decent living person, I never do any harm to anyone, that always
amazes me, I wonder who's doing all this harm that's going on because I meet so many people
who say, I never did any harm to anyone.
The world seems to be wholly populated by people who never do any harm to anyone but
there's an awful lot of harm being done to an awful lot of people.
And if someone says, well I never did any harm to anyone and I think that if God, if
God is a God of love, of course they get that idea from the Bible but don't accept anything
else the Bible says, which seems to me to be rather selective and stupid, but if God
is a God of love, it seems to me and he's a God of honesty and fairness and justice
in view of the fact that I've lived a reasonable decent kind of life, I think God will accept
me into heaven.
Do you indeed?
Do you indeed?
Well God says nothing impure, nothing unclean, nothing dishonest, nothing proud, nothing
arrogant, nothing selfish, nothing that isn't perfect will ever enter into the kingdom of
heaven.
Nothing.
And do you claim to be perfect?
If you think that your life is good enough to satisfy God, why don't we turn the lights
out and have a little video here in which we can encapsulate by some miracle of technology
all of your life, every word you've spoken, everything you've done, every thought that's
passed through your mind, every attitude of heart and let's show it on that screen for
thirty minutes and I'll tell you this, the rest of us are going to love it.
And you're going to be, there'll be scorch marks on that floor as you make for the door.
Why?
Because you would be ashamed for the person next door to know what you are really like.
Now what of this nonsense about, well I guess my life has been good and decent enough and
when I go to meet with God I'll take my chances on the fact that God is a God of justice and
I'm better than him and her and those people and so forth.
It's absurd of course.
If you will not come to Christ, if you will not acknowledge that you are a sinner, lost,
guilty, helpless and hopeless and that only Jesus Christ can make you right with God,
then my question is then to whom will you go?
And here's the third question and it sounds a very serious question and it is.
How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?
You see the Bible says that the day is coming when we will stand before God on the day of
judgment.
The Bible uses an expression that has a very modern, clear ring to it.
It says the books will be opened.
It's as if God will say this is your life.
You've all seen that program I'm sure.
And you know what happens, some celebrity or non-entity is surprised and then brought
into the studio and the compare comes on with a great big book and he says now this is your
life and one after another they drag in friends of the person from all corners of the earth
to tell wonderful lies about them and everybody cheers and wipes their eyes with their handkerchief
and has a big time and then they play the music and that's the end of that.
Will say now this is your life and just like the man on the program will surely begin by
saying now you were born on so and so and oh God knows the date and the place and the
time and all of that.
And then the books will be opened.
Oh I don't mean all the good things, all the sugary things, all the nice things, all the
flattering things that are brought out on those programs.
I mean everything.
The books will be opened and one sin, one impure thought, one arrogant attitude of heart
is enough to condemn you forever.
Now the question is how will you escape?
How will you escape?
How can you possibly escape God's knowledge of everything that you've been and said and
done?
How can you escape God's perfect justice?
People say oh if there was justice in this world this or that would not have happened.
Oh if only there was justice so and so would not have happened.
Well to that kind of person I would say your wishes are about to be met.
There is a God of justice and you will stand before him one day.
Now on the basis of God's perfect knowledge, utter holiness, total awesome justice, how
will you escape?
How will you escape that moment when God will banish from his presence into an eternal and
never-ending hell all of those who have anything of sin in their lives?
The answer is you will not.
But of course I haven't come all the way from Britain to tell you that or just to tell you
that.
That would be an exercise in despair that would be indescribable.
But you see the statement in the Bible goes on to say this, how shall we escape if we
neglect such a great salvation?
And all of the Bible points to that great salvation.
That's what the message of the Bible is all about.
That's why it's called a gospel or good news.
Let me just tell you as we close three things why it's such a great salvation.
It's great because its need, its need is so great.
There is nothing you need more than God's salvation.
If I were to ask you what your greatest need was at this time, you might say, well, I need
a bit more money.
I never met anyone who doesn't say that, most of them lying through their teeth.
But I need more money, I need a better job, I need a more secure family situation, I need
my health to be restored, I need this, I need that.
I say without any fear of contradiction that even if you were within five minutes of dying
of ill health, indeed especially if you were within five minutes of dying of ill health,
your greatest need is to be saved, to be right with God.
That's your greatest need.
It's a great salvation because the need of it is so great.
It's a great salvation because its nature is so great.
But what we're offering is not something the church has dreamt up or drummed up.
It's not something a committee has got together.
It's not something that holy men over the years have thought out and philosophized about
and now people have got all of their thoughts and brought them together into a compendium.
These are not just the sayings of the best men who've ever lived.
No, no, the salvation the Bible offers is great because of its nature, because God himself
has provided it, that God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
The good news is that God loved sinners like you and me so much that he himself came to
this world in the person of Jesus Christ in the greatest rescue mission the world could
ever imagine.
And that Jesus lived a perfect life and then died on the cross in the place of a multitude
whom no man can number and he bore in his own body and spirit the penalty that God,
a just and righteous God, decreed against human sin.
The slang phrase might be something like this, he took the rat for people like you and me.
He died in the place of sinners and not only did he die but he rose again from the dead
three days later so that this meeting here tonight would not be held if Jesus had not
risen from the dead.
Did you realize that?
That you would not be in that seat that you're occupying tonight if Jesus hadn't risen from
the dead two thousand years ago because if he hadn't risen from the dead two thousand
years ago there would be no Christians in Newcastle and if there were no Christians
this meeting wouldn't have been held and even if it had been held I wouldn't have come
to it because I've come as a Christian at the invitation of Christians to preach the
Christian message and the heart of the Christian message is that Christ died for sinners and
rose again from the dead on the third day.
So it is literally, actually true that you would not be sitting in that chair tonight
if Jesus had not risen from the dead two thousand years ago.
So its nature is so great, it's great God himself has come to rescue men and women like
you and me and it's a great salvation because its nearness is so great.
Now the Bible says is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.
I believe that God has brought you to this place, this time, this moment, this message.
And I want to end by reading to you this wonderful invitation and yet instruction from
God's Word.
Listen to these words carefully, seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him
while he is, listen, while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man
his thoughts, let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy upon him. And to our God,
for he will freely pardon. Isn't that a marvelous invitation? Marvelous invitation.
I'm doing a great deal of reading these days on a subject that maybe you've never read
on a subject that maybe you've never read about in your life deliberately and consciously
and for any length of time. I'm reading at every spare moment I can on the subject of
hell. I brought fifteen to twenty tapes with me and five or six books and every spare moment
I've got I'm listening and reading on the subject of hell. I think it's a tremendously
important subject that we ought to know more about. I don't find it a morbid subject, I
find it a very solemnizing subject. And I read something earlier today that struck me
a great deal and it was this, that there is a sense in which God sends nobody to hell.
Because God has done everything, everything that God possibly can consistent with his
justice and his holiness to prevent people going to hell. There is nothing that God can
do more than God has done. God has sent his son to die in the place of sinners to bear
the judgment and the punishment. We may say that Jesus went to hell there on the cross
on behalf of sinners like you and me. Not only that but God has raised him from the
dead to be a living saviour of all who trust him. God has sent the Holy Spirit into the
world to enable people to preach the word of God. God has enabled this book, his word
to be translated in our language so that we can read it. God has given messengers in order
to preach it. It's hardly possible to get outside of the site of a church building.
We could if we wished have access to the gospel message 24 hours a day. I say again there
is nothing more that God could do to prevent people being lost than God has already done.
And if you are to walk out of this building and out of this life lost and away from God
and therefore to spend eternity in hell, you yourself will have deliberately chosen to
be there. God has invited you, God has commanded you,
God has pleaded with you to do otherwise, to turn and to seek him. He's promised that
if you will forsake your ways, he will have mercy on you, he will freely pardon you, he
will come into your life, he will take it over, he will clean it up, he will forgive
your sins, your name will be written in heaven, your place there will be guaranteed, and now
he pleads with you, urges you through his word and by his spirit to accept his invitation
freely, totally, immediately, personally and now.
What else can God do? When Jesus looked over the city of Jerusalem, he cried. He cried
over the people of Jerusalem and said, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have
gathered you like a hen gathers its chickens under its wings? And you were not willing.
God is willing to save. Are you willing to be saved? Or will you walk out of this room,
out of this building, out of this life, saying no to God and no to Christ and no to the forgiveness
of sins and no to heaven? How will you escape if you neglect such a great salvation?
I'm going to ask that we bow our heads in prayer together. May we do that? And in a
few moments we'll be free to go. Maybe that you've come into this meeting tonight as the
guest of someone who is a Christian. Maybe you've been made to think very seriously,
more seriously than ever you have before about these issues. Then let me urge you again to
turn to Christ, to ask him to have mercy upon you and to save you. What good is it for a
man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? If you won't come to Christ, to whom
will you go? Who else do you have in mind? And how will you escape if you neglect such
a great salvation? Our great and gracious God and Father, we
thank you for giving us this opportunity of hearing your Word and of hearing the Gospel.
We thank you for the love that sent the Lord Jesus into the world to die in the place of
sinners. There are many of us here who can thank you from the bottom of our hearts for
believing that these truths have become real to us, that Christ is our Saviour. And we
pray for friends here tonight who may never have come to that position, who are not right
with God. Lord, have mercy upon them. Speak to them through your Word and by your Spirit
and bring them, we pray, to the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. And we ask it in
Jesus' name. Amen.