In this sermon, the preacher begins with a prayer, asking for God's guidance and strength to deliver the message. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the gospel message and the need for Jesus Christ in our lives. The preacher shares a story about a man who had once accepted Jesus but fell away into sin, only to find redemption and salvation through Jesus Christ again. He then connects this story to the crucifixion of Jesus, stating that when Jesus cried, "It is finished," it signified the completion of God's plan of salvation. The preacher concludes by proclaiming the power of God to free us from sin and the importance of boasting in Jesus Christ rather than our own accomplishments.

Well, Amen. Good to be back here tonight and see all of you here with an interest in gospel meetings, preaching the Word of God, singing and fellowship, and reviving your own souls to the glory of God. You know that does take some effort today to keep our souls revived and stirred up. The Bible even teaches us to stir ourselves up for His sake. Well, tonight again, we are very grateful to open the Word of God and speak on this great subject of when God comes. I'm going to take a little bit of a different course here tonight and speak primarily on the subject of when God came. When God came. And we'd like to look at the subject of the finished work of God when He came on earth through Jesus Christ, our Lord. In the New Testament, God visited mankind at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. Maybe you want to adjust that a little bit. It seems a little high from up here. In Acts chapter 2 and then throughout the Pauline epistles, as the churches were spread out and the gospel was preached to the heathen, then God visited many places and many people. And the church of Jesus Christ became established at Ephesus and Corinth and Galatia and Colossae and Laodicea and many other places. According to the Word of God, we have the visitation of God and God coming time after time again. And we want to look again at some of the things that happened when God comes. Because that is so distorted today, it seems very important for us to capitalize or emphasize those truths. Shall we bow our heads for prayer before we begin? Father in Heaven, we just come before You with Your Word. We ask You to help us tonight, Lord. We are weak and needy men. And we need the Spirit of the Living God to quicken our mortal bodies, this flesh of ours, dear God, in order to give it the strength to deliver the great message that should be delivered this evening and many, many other evenings in these last days. I pray for that, Father, that we may have meat to eat that the rest of the world knows nothing of. In the strength and power of Jesus Christ. And I do pray, break the bread of life tonight. Make it plain and simple. And don't let a soul go out of this tent without understanding that Jesus Christ came for them. I pray, dear God, that the Gospel message could be clear and distinct once again tonight by the Spirit of God. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. I mentioned last night that when God comes, the Spirit of God comes to dwell in men's hearts. The Jews made a drastic mistake when they thought that they could cleanse first the outside of the cup and somehow work their way into the human heart that way. I don't know if they ever aimed for the heart even as far as that's concerned. But it seems like that's what they were trying to do with their outward rules and rituals and regulations. But the Bible says, cleanse first that which is within, that the outside may be clean. He doesn't say it doesn't matter what's on the outside. He doesn't say that it's only on the heart and nothing else matters. He simply says that you're to begin at the heart and work your way out in a person's life. When God comes, that's one of the things that will happen. Now, some people don't like revival meetings. They say they're all just some emotional hype. All you have is a little bit of emotion, they say, and about a week later, most of it dies out. Well, that may be true for some, but I want you to know that that's not what we're here for. To give you a shot of emotion, we actually believe that it does, though, revival does affect the emotions. And if you are emotionless or don't want to have your emotions stirred, you've probably come to the wrong place because I don't think we can go very far in revival until we recognize that there are some stirrings in the emotions. But would to God that a lot more gets changed and stirred and affected than your emotions. So like I think I mentioned a little bit about it last night, we don't want you just to have an emotional high this week, but we want you to be so thoroughly affected that your emotions are indeed affected and stirred and challenged also. But we want the very center of a man's decisive powers to be affected. That's what we want. That's what we're looking for and we believe with all our hearts that that's what God wants. The very core, the very center of a man's decisive powers where he can choose this day who he wants to serve and be affected for the rest of his life. Like I think I mentioned also last night is we do believe that there should be a major change take place in your lives if you come to Jesus Christ. Some people think, well, you know, this religion shouldn't change too many things and there's a heap, a lot of people that try to get religion in this day and even get born again in Christianity, but they're hoping that they don't move the status quo but that everything kind of continues as it was before. Please don't ask me to move off of my place and don't affect my relationships with people and don't stir too many things up. I don't want to make a lot of changes. But the Bible says that there will be a lot of... It gives many illustrations in the New Testament of a lot of changes that need to be made and that people make when they find God. When God comes to the lives of people, it should affect some major changes. If you want an example for that, you look at our beloved brother Paul and beloved brother Peter and a whole lot of other men in the Bible and the changes that they made. In fact, Jesus said that if you're not willing to leave father and mother, houses and lands, wife and children for my sake and the gospel, you're not worthy of me. Now I want you to get that. That's no little thing. We say, well, the gospel shouldn't break up homes. And we would, to God, know, we're going to probably preach a bit on that, that it should heal your home. And for the most part, it does. But every now and then, a spouse digs in her heels and says, I'm not going to change. And the power of God changes the other one and we have war at home. And many men have had to walk away or their wives have left them or their husbands have left them because they have accepted Jesus Christ as to be Lord of their life. I only say, when you come to God or when God comes to your life, you need to be willing to have happen whatever happens for Christ's sake. You need to be willing to put Jesus Christ absolute first and foremost in your life and let come what may. Because heaven and eternity in heaven and even victory in your Christian life is worth more than still holding on to earthly possessions, properties, lands or relationships with anybody. With anybody. God is worth more than that when God comes. Well, one of the things that happens when God comes, the Gospel is preached. The Gospel is preached. And we want to do that tonight by God's grace. We're here to announce to you that we do not have a 12-step program to give you. Neither do we have a 21-step. That's the new one, you know. It used to be an 8-step somewhere years ago and then somewhere along the way these psychologists and psychiatrists influenced a mixture of religion with psychiatry and psychology and come up with a 12-step program. And now we have a 21-step. And I don't know where they're going next, but I'm still back at the couple steps that are in the Word of God that a person should repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart, mind, soul and strength and they can be saved and go to heaven when they die. So it's not so many steps that psychology is trying to bring us. It's actually so simple that a lot of people miss it. A lot of people miss it. Well, we want to talk about the finished work of Christ when God came. About 2,000 years now, there was a baby born in Bethlehem of Judea and it is said of Him that they shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins. That is why He came and that's what He's about. My Lord Jesus Christ came on this earth leaving the ivory palaces of glory and come down to a sin-cursed earth in order to save people from their sins. And in John chapter 19, we'll go to that Scripture for beginning in verse 28-30. We read these verses. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, hanging on the cross, it says, saith, I thirst. Now there was said a vessel full of vinegar and they filled a sponge with vinegar and put it upon a hyssop and put it to His mouth. When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished! And He bowed His head and gave up the ghost and died. Now I think in one of the other Gospels, it says He cried, It is finished! And I believe that's what happened. He cried that great message of the Gospel. And I want you to know tonight that this is a very clear and a very profound message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ tonight, is that the work of salvation, the plan of salvation, the great work of God, why God came, is finished tonight. The work of God is finished. Not like Sun Myung Moon who believes that he's here to help finish the work of God and marry a bunch of wives or what have you and raise up a perfect generation because Jesus got cut off some time before He finished the work. He was supposed to start a perfect generation. That false prophet, he's a false prophet and has deceived millions in America. Sun Myung Moon, he's a liar and the truth is not in him, the Bible would say, because the Bible says that the work of God was finished. Even though he was cut off at 33 years of age and he was at the prime of life and many men thought that he never accomplished that much, but I tell you, he accomplished all that he was sent to accomplish. And tonight, the great plan of salvation, once and for all, is finished. And if it ever needed to be shouted again, it needs to be shouted in every generation, in every age. He shouted it in weakness of body. I believe he got the power from God at the last moments of his life to gather up all the strength that he had left in him to shout those final words. It is finished! And then he gave up the ghost and died. But all those of us who have a voice and have strength in our bodies and are called to be preachers of righteousness or to witness to other people of the truth of the Gospel need to echo those great words of the finished work of the Lord Jesus, of His reason for being here. Excuse me. It's the last statement of the seven statements that were made while hanging on the cross. And it is one of the greatest ever made. The Greek word is tetelesteiae, I think is the word. Tetelesteiae. The word means accomplished, fulfilled, completed, made an end. And he cried it with all he had. Now when he cried it, heaven and earth and a lot of things bore witness of that and what is meant and what all is contained behind it. But I believe that it was the greatest event ever to happen in all of time in history. I don't believe when God spoke the world in existence that it was a greater event than when Jesus cried the words, It is finished and gave up the ghost and died and shed His blood for the redemption of mankind and make an atonement for men's sins. That's what happened. The Bible says the earth quaked. Can you imagine? The very Creator of the earth died. Jesus Christ, the living Son of God, who always was. He wasn't born somewhere along the way. He always was. And when man was created, the Bible says, we created him in His image. Or man was created in His image. And the word we is used meaning that it was more than the Father in existence at that time, but the Trinity was in full effect. And so we had the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Jesus Christ was alive in creation. And He existed there. But can you imagine, even though He called and helped call the world into existence, yet now that cruel world and mankind whom He had so beautifully created and put in the garden had despised Him and rejected Him and put Him on a cruel cross outside of Jerusalem, there on Golgotha's Hill, nailed Him to a rugged cross after beating Him and slapping Him and putting the cat-of-nine-tails across His back, blood running down until He was so weak He couldn't even carry the cross up the hill, which normally He was made to do. And He had to get a man to help Him do it. But finally, He gave up the ghost and died. And when He did, the earth shook and quaked and darkness came on the face of the earth for at least about three hours. The Bible says that the graves opened up. The graves opened up. And the dead that were in them shook out of the graves and laid there for another three days. And after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, three days later, those dead bodies arose and went into town. But they didn't raise up when Jesus died. They only laid there, I believe, because He was the first of them that slept. He was the first one to raise from the dead. And those men did not rise, I don't believe, until Jesus rose. Because He is the resurrection and the life. And therefore, we have this great event marked by earthquake and by darkness and by the rocks renting and graves opening up and shaking out their dead. And we have here a picture of the great Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world that John the Baptist talked about when he seen Him coming and said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. I want you to know that this great act cultivated in all of the Old Testament history's offerings came to a halt here. There were offerings and sacrifice by the tens of thousands of oxen and bullock and sheep had to die. Turtle doves and young pigeons. For men sinned. They were ever going for more animals because with every passing day there were more sins committed by humanity and they needed to be atoned for and covered by blood. But the blood that was shed of animals only stacked up the sins for Jesus Christ to come and take them away at His crucifixion and therefore it would not take away sin even though there were offerings and sacrifices and it was the plan of God to do so. But all the offerings from Adam until now that were offered for the sacrifices of men sinned. All of them were finished. They came to an end. The priests could go get jobs. The Levitical priesthood, their work was over. The altar didn't have to have another lamb ever upon it. Don't you offer no sacrificial lamb today in your communion service thinking that you're keeping the Passover. The Passover lamb has been slain and His name is Jesus Christ and He was slain for your sins and for mine. Once for all, the Hebrew writer says, He was slain. The veil in the temple. Oh, I love that history. That story of how that heavy veil hung there between the holy place and the Holy of Holies. Well, when Jesus died, the veil rent from the top to bottom. Now you ladies know how hanging cloths usually rent. They rent from the bottom up. But this one was supernaturally rent by the finger of God and inside was a place that only the high priest could go once a year and then only with blood and sprinkled the mercy seat with blood for the sins of himself and for all the people. But that day, the temple rent from the top to the bottom and men can now enter into the Holy of Holies and have direct contact with God without going through a high priest. Because Jesus Christ is once and for all become your and my high priest. He is the intercessor. He sprinkled His own blood to atone for your sin and for mine. And therein is the hope of eternal life. Therein is salvation by grace through faith. And not of yourself. It is the gift of God. Not of works that any man should boast. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. But that is the gospel message in a nutshell. Christ died for the sins of humanity. Christ shed His blood for you. And if you ever want to get your sins atoned for and want an intercessor, His name is Jesus Christ. And if He died for your sin once, that's enough. And they can be taken away and dropped into the depths of the sea somewhere where no man can find them. And are removed forever. I tell you tonight, if you are a sinner and you have had a lot of sin in your past life or a few sins, it doesn't matter because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But Christ Jesus was slain on Calvary's cross to atone for your sin. And you don't have to die. You don't have to go to hell. You don't have to continue living in your sin. Christ Jesus took your place on Calvary's cross to atone for your sin. All you need to do though is come to Him to receive the gift of salvation and the atonement for your sin. Now it's very interesting. You can check my theology if you want to, but I think it is straight when I tell you that though Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, it is not in effect for the whole world. It is only in effect if you believe it by faith. That makes the connection. And that does the work. So Jesus can die. It's just like somebody could have died and left a million dollars in the bank in your name. As long as you don't go down to the bank and claim it. It has your name on it. But it lays there and you can't spend a dollar on it until you go down there and get it and claim it. And that's the way it is with salvation and the blood atonement. God has atoned for everyone. The million plus hundred million dollars is in the bank, but it will only affect you as you go and get it and believe it by God's grace. That you reach out in faith and say, yep, I accept that. That money is there for me. Jesus' blood was atoned for my sin. And you have to recognize, first of all, that you are a sinner. If you're a good boy tonight and you're some religious kid who never thinks he's done anything bad, it's not for you. Jesus Christ came only for sinners. He came for the sick, not for the righteous, not for those that are so good and well that they don't need a Savior. But if you need a Savior tonight and you have had sin in your life, then you need an atonement for sin and that is available through Jesus Christ our Lord. But you have to reach out by faith to receive it. It's so simple. My dear people, it's so simple. Well, the veil was rent. I didn't finish my story. I got carried away with the Gospel. But they say in the temple, when that veil was rent, history would say, you know, the Jews, oh, we can't see in there. We can't see the Holy of Holies. If we do, we die. In fact, history gives it that they used to put a rope around the leg of the priest when he went in there, because if he would be smitten dead like some of them were who had not cleansed themselves properly before going in, then the next man going in to get the dead body out would have been killed too because you can't touch the dead, you know, under the old law. And so the bodies would have just piled up in there. So they used to put a rope around their foot so if they were smitten dead that the people could haul the body out without anybody going in. But anyway, this temple, this veil, was rent from the top to bottom and they quickly sewed it up. And history says, I think Josephus gives this, and perhaps some others, that the next morning when they got into the temple, it was rent again. The threads failed to hold it. And so they sewed it up again and the next morning they came back in and then it was rent again. And then they finally gave up. But I love it, because God said, you have access into the Holy of Holies. That Ark of the Covenant is no more. In King David's time, you remember Uzzah, how he steadied that Ark, wanted to steady it when the wheel went into a hole and they were hauling it back from the Philistines, you know. And Uzzah steadied the Ark and it smote him and he died. Because they weren't supposed to haul it, they were supposed to carry it, and he had disobeyed God and he touched the Ark. I want to tell you that after Jesus died, Uzzah could have put his hands all over that box and nothing would have happened. Because that was not the holiness and dwelling place of God was not there anymore. It was now in Jesus Christ and His atonement for sin. And the Law and the Prophets were finished. So when He said, it is finished, He meant the Holy of Holies is finished, the Temple is finished, the Priesthood is finished, the Curtain is finished, the Blood is finished. All of those things were finished. And now Christ had died and atoned for the sins of the whole world to whosoever believes in Him should not perish and have everlasting life. And that is the Gospel. That is the Gospel. I think of the manna. You remember the pot of manna that was in the Ark of the Covenant. Well, that was holy too. That didn't spoil in there, you know. That was preserved by God. If they kept manna on the Sabbath day or overnight on any other day in the wilderness, the manna would spoil and stink and get wormy. But here was a pot of manna in the Ark of the Covenant that never spoiled. But I imagine it would have stank a day later when Jesus died because it was all over. It was all over. In the same way with the rod, Aaron's rod that budded. The Philistines could have done anything they wanted to with it. They could have held it down there and it wouldn't have affected them. Like, you remember how they broke out with emeralds when they had the Ark of the Covenant down in their camp? Well, I don't think they would have broke out with any diseases this time because Jesus had died and when He said it's finished, it was finished. Now, when God came, that's what happened. When God came in the presence of Jesus Christ, that is what took place. And every human being, in order to have the effect of that coming, it must come to God in repentance of sin, acknowledging that I am a sinner and that I need that for me. I need redemption. I need an atonement for my sin because I have sinned. I have sinned. And all of us have. So all of us need that. You don't have to belong to a church. You don't have to be baptized. You don't have to do a bunch of things that you are told to do in order to get the atonement for your sin. Even though that church life is right and for a church to have godly order is right, but for you to get right with God, you don't join a church, you don't get baptized, and you don't dress a certain way. When you want to get right with God, you come as a sinner as you are and you must be saved from your sin through the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for you. And you have to accept it by faith. You must believe the record that God gave of His Son concerning it. Now, another thing that happened when God came. When God came nearly 2,000 years ago, you might remember in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned and were driven out of the garden and they had the little dialogue there with God and God chased them out. God says to Adam that He is going to send a Redeemer at some future generation. And it says there, concerning the serpent, it says in Genesis very clearly there, that the head of the serpent would be crushed. The serpent would bruise the heel of mankind. And he did so when he crucified Jesus and opposed the prophets and men of God down through the ages. The bruising of the heel of the men of God was happening all through those 4,000 years. But when Jesus Christ died on Calvary nearly 2,000 years ago, that act crushed the head of the serpent. That crushed the head of the serpent. Before that time, the serpent of sin was always biting man, always nibbling at his heels, always after him. And man did not have the power of God to overcome sin. Sin always had a dominion over mankind through those years. Though they could atone for it over and over again, the concept of victory over sin was not known in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament. In Romans chapter 6, we are given that beautiful layout. I won't go into the whole details, but Romans 6 says, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin or the sin nature should be destroyed. That henceforth, from now on, we should not serve sin. And in verse 11 he says, sin shall not have dominion over you. And that is the great cancer of our society, is that sin has dominion over men's lives. And they cannot quit! They can't stop their sinning. They can't stop lusting. They can't stop stealing. They can't stop being angry. They can't stop losing their temper and using sharp words and a host of other things. They can't stop smoking. They can't stop drinking for the most part. A few of them with great willpower are able to change a few of those things. But for the most part, you can simply say they cannot quit. But once and for all, I have to tell you, they cannot root out the sin nature out of their hearts. That's for sure. They can modify their behavior maybe a little here or there. But it's like a balloon. Did you ever try squeezing a balloon somewhere and it's always popping out somewhere else? You know, you squeeze it and it always comes out up through here and down through here. And that's the way the sinful nature is. It's simply we have been bit by sin by sinful nature. And we try to squeeze the balloon and it only pops out somewhere else. I heard a story the other day by phone that a brother from Canada gave me that I was just thrilled. You know, it happened there that a young boy from Albert, Ontario who had lived a life of... He had actually given his heart to the Lord and his parents didn't want him to do anything and go where he could get spiritual strength. And he got discouraged and he threw in the towel and gave it up. And he went west and he went out to Alberta and he lived the life of a sinner there among the Hutterite colonies and drank and caroused with the young people there and lived high that way in a life of sin. But after some time he came home. He came back into Ontario and his brother and his sister persuaded him to come along to Bible school in Pennsylvania last November. And there on Tuesday night with a ring in his ear and his hair dyed blonde, he gave his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was born again by the Spirit of God and a few weeks ago he decided, well, I lived such a life of sin with those boys out there in Alberta I ought to go make it right. And so he called out there and he said, I'm coming out. And they didn't know anything. They didn't know anything that happened to him. And so he took his brother along and they headed for Alberta. And when they got there the whole place was waiting on them. All the young people were out there so anxious to see their buddy again, you know, that they had sinned with all that time. And they said, well, how have you been? How's it going? And he didn't say too much. He just kept kind of quiet. And then he had his brother along who was never there and he said, why don't we give them a tour of the place? And so the whole group rose up and they took him and showed him all their big farm and their big operations. You know, they live in Chamula and they have pretty big farms out there and big operations and animals and all that and feed mills and stuff and big combines and tractors and what have you. And they took him on a tour of the place and as they were walking from place to place they kept saying, well, what have you been doing the last year? What's going on? He said, wait until we get back to the house and I'll tell you the whole story. And so they got back to the house and he sat down and he told them, well, this is what happened to me. I had once accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, but I got discouraged and fell away and went out into sin. And last November I went to a Bible school and I gave my heart and life to Jesus Christ and I got born again and God changed my life and everything. They were aghast. They couldn't believe it. I mean, this man, and by the way, by then one of the men had come out of the house and offered him three beers, you know, and he said, I don't drink anymore. Oh, it shocked him. And the man knew how much he had drank with him. And he offered him to his brother and his brother said, well, I don't drink either. And so he finally went back to the house and got some pop out and gave him some pop, you know. But anyway, he got to share the story from the beginning and how he got born again. And before the evening was over, others were shaken and crying perhaps over their own sins as Christ by the Holy Spirit brought them into the forefront. If you are living in sin and have a whole load of sin on your shoulders, when you hear a testimony of another man and how he got free, it affects you majorly and shakes you to the core because the Spirit of God is shouting in your ear saying, you can get free too. I died for you too. I shed my blood for you and I'm interested in your soul and if you only give me your heart and life, I'll take it. And that's what happened. That place was filled with religion and had the history of 500 years behind them. But lost in the depths of sin and ungodliness and laden with sin, never to understand that Jesus came to save His people from their sin and that sin shall not have dominion over you. Well, after they heard him out and then they asked his brother his story and he gave his own testimony and they heard another one. And I tell you, they left that night and the last I heard is even though they came back to Ontario, they want to have contact with him again because they asked so many questions and were very curious and we believe that God has opened the door to touch their hearts there. Well, when God came, when God comes and gives us the finished work of Calvary, that's what happened. That's the change that takes place. That's the beautiful thing. And the head of the serpent, the devil, is crushed. His power and his dominion in our life is stopped and arrested. You don't have to get angry anymore and fly off the handle. Your cursing tongue can be cleansed by the blood of Jesus, as I heard a testimony today tell me. Your fornicating and adulterous lifestyle, your lusting after the opposite sex can stop by the power of God and you can be changed and turned away from all that. And you know the battle. If you've tried to do it in the flesh, you know the battle. It's an endless one that we cannot quit. That's usually the one none of us can quit. Well, the devil. Now, the devil didn't bargain for what happened there on Calvary. I want to tell you that. The Bible says, for had the princes of this world known, what would have happened? It gives that idea. I can't say it word for word. Had the prince of this world known, he would not have crucified our Lord. That whole thing was the greatest, greatest, greatest act against the devil that ever happened. He thought he had him. He thought he killed him. He thought he overcome him. He thought he had the reign. He thought he actually killed God. Imagine. He knew who he was. He knew well who he was because he had created him. Jesus had created the devil. And the devil had rebelled. And all that happened in heaven. He got cast out of heaven. Now he was after the Son of God to thwart his plan of salvation. And he was after to kill him. And when he killed him, I can imagine all of the fallen angels rejoiced and they thought they had him. Only to find out, three days later, that it was the greatest undoing of Satan that there ever was and ever will be in the fact that it took and robbed the power right away from him. He had power over humanity. He had power over mankind. He drove men to sin. But after that, anyone could go to Jesus and be free from the devil's power. And free from the drive of sin. And free from the nature of sin. And it's the greatest act in all of history. The devil's head was crushed. Just like God said to Adam that it would happen down there somewhere down the way. This thing would happen. And it took 4,000 years for it to come to pass. But when it came to pass, it came to pass and it was the greatest act there ever was. I tell you, I rejoice tonight that when God came, the devil's head is crushed. And if God comes to you tonight, if God comes to your heart and mind, and you have a load of sin on your back, I tell you, the devil's grip on your life can be taken away. Can be stripped off of you. I think that's good news. I think that's the best news I could ever give in Harlem, Indiana. There's no greater news. You think these religious guys, what are they talking about? I want to tell you there's a whole bunch of us in the tent here who I know that this is a living reality. This is a living God through Jesus Christ has changed our lives. We're here to make our boast in Him. We're not here to boast of how good we are and how good anything we have accomplished by our own might and our own wisdom. But I tell you, when we were done with ourselves and we were finished trying and we came to Jesus, why, we found the finished work of the cross to have that power and that effect to change us when nothing else could change us before. And we're here. As the Bible says, my soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. So Satan's head got bruised. That's one of the things that happened in the great finished work. When Jesus cried on the cross that last statement and said, It is finished! Let us turn to Hebrews 10. Verse 10-14. Hebrews 10. Verse 10. By the witch will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standing daily, ministering and offering off times the same sacrifice which can never take away sin. Mark that. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice which is himself the sinless Son of God, for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. I don't understand the rules of God, but I know it makes sense. But one of the rules of God was that John gives this in Revelation that he wept much and he looked all across humanity for someone that would be worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof and he couldn't find anybody so he started crying. God's rules are that it takes sinless blood to atone for a sinner. If I am a sinner and Brother Laverne is a sinner and Brother Paul is a sinner, we cannot atone for another man's sin. It took sinless blood. And he typified that through the Old Testament by requiring a lamb without spot or blemish that had to be slain. But that poor lamb didn't have sinless blood. It couldn't atone for man's sin other than shelve it for a time. But not take away sin. But when Jesus Christ came, He did not have Mary's blood. The chemistry of the blood, they say, is that the blood comes from the Father, not from the mother. The body and other parts of the body come from the mother, but the blood comes from the Father. And Jesus Christ was conceived of the Holy Ghost and so He had sinless blood and when He died and shed His blood, it fit and it satisfied the requirements of God. Because in Isaiah chapter 53, He said, He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. He shall see the travail of His soul. When God saw His Son sinless, not worthy of dying whatsoever, and He did it all voluntarily for your and my sin, God said, that's it, that's it, that's satisfied. And for that reason, you and I can go free today because Jesus had sinless blood. Jesus had sinless blood. Well, it is finished. It is finished. Those words were not words of defeat. They were words of victory. He did not say, I'm finished, but He said, it's finished. Even though it looked like He was finished physically and His work on earth was basically finished, and it was, but He said, it is finished. The plan of salvation is finished. The plan of God for me to be here is finished. My taking the sins of the whole world is finished. Oh, it's a good thing. It's a wonderful news tonight. He died willingly of His own accord. Jesus said this is the way He would die. John 10, 17, Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again, referring to His resurrection three days later. No man taketh it from me, in verse 18, but I lay it down on myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. Did you know why Jesus died willingly? Because you and I are sinners who deserve only the everlasting fires of hell. Jesus died willingly out of love for you and love for me. That's why He died. And He just was so burdened for humankind. Imagine Him looking at the millions of people on the face of the earth without an atonement for sin, without a way to ever meet a holy God or go to heaven when they die. Until Jesus said, I will go down there being sent to the Father. It was an agreement made in heaven. Then He came down to die and then the universal call went out from that, Whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish and go to hell, but have everlasting life. The great, great news. Well, because you and I are sinners, we deserve the fires of hell. We are not worthy of this salvation. None of us can puff out our chest and say, God owed it to me. He owed me nothing. I deserve to be lost. I deserve to go to hell. When I was a young man, I lived in sin to a degree that I know that I should have been killed for it according to the Old Testament law. And I tell you, the guilt on me was so heavy that I sometimes didn't know if I could breathe again. It was a miserable, terrible situation when that guilt would come upon me. And at a young age of 15 years of age, I came to the knowledge of a Savior. And I'll tell you, I felt like I could have flown without wings when that sin lifted off of my neck and off of my back because I was so terribly heavy and guilty and miserable. I walked around that it would have reminded me looking back now depressed and heavy like probably an old man would have, you know, kind of stooped. I drug my feet, I believe, from time to time even though there were times of energy and youth and everything was fine when I didn't think about it. But when I would have a dream that Jesus would come or think in fear about Christ coming, then I would tremble. I would tremble. And then I would be so miserable and so guilty that my heart would pump. And it was just a sad, sad situation until Jesus came. Well, that's something. Caiaphas, the high priest, I love his words. Even though he was not a believer and probably had helped to kill Jesus or to crucify Him, yet he said, it is expedient for one man to die that the whole nation perish not. Nothing could have been a greater mouthful of truth than what he said there. It is expedient for a man to die that the whole nation perish not. What he's referring to is at some point in history he was a scribe, a reader of the Bible, very knowledgeable of the truth because he was a priest. And he knew that at some time in history they need a man sent from God to come, a Messiah of Israel to atone for the sins of humanity. But he didn't know that he had Him right in his midst and he missed it. He missed it. I believe he probably found it later on, but at that time he missed it. Why did Jesus die when He said those words? How do we understand, do we know what He meant when He said, it is finished? Oh, it's precious to know that when God came, He finished the work. And you know, through my young years I was kind of taught that moshpeshtu is kansh, you know? You just do the best you can and Jesus will add the rest. Well, that's not a finished work. You know, because then you have to do the best you can all your life and you never knew when you had done enough to proclaim salvation. Now I have it. And therefore grandparents would die on their deathbed by the hundreds and hundreds over the years, never having the knowledge that they have done enough to reach it. Never knowing whether they would enter Heaven or not when they die. And they died trembling and fearful and screaming at times because they did not have the peace in their hearts knowing that they had been with Jesus Christ. And all that would have happened is to change their thinking and change the message of the Gospel and clearly preach it to them that they understand that it's faith in the finished work. I have to give you a story here. I think I have it written down somewhere. But a young fellow... Yeah, here it is. A young fellow came forward in a Gospel meeting earnestly asking, what can I do to be saved? Knowing the man thought he had to do something to be saved, the Christian worker responded by saying, you're too late. Oh, don't say that! exclaimed the distressed seeker. I really want salvation. I'll do anything and go anywhere to obtain it. I'm sorry, replied the other. You're too late for that. Your salvation was completed many hundreds of years ago at Calvary. It is the finished work, said our Lord, when He said it is finished. He did what needed to be done to save us from our sins. There is nothing we need do. There is nothing we can do to complete this work of redemption. Luke 19.10 says, For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Mark 10.45, For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. You know, when some of the Mennonite people started going to Guatemala as missionaries back about 30 years ago, when they started taking mission trips and going down there to try to start missions. I remember when they visited the town of Chichicastenango. If you know the Catholic religion tonight, you will know that the Catholics always intermingle their religion with the heathen religion. And so if you go to Haiti tonight, you'll find the Catholic religion mixed in with the voodoo devil's religion. And they have both. If you go to Chichicastenango, you can go into the Catholic church and confess your sins and burn your candle and do your thing and have Mass, and then you can go back up on the hill and sacrifice a chicken for your sins like they did in their heathen days. But the sad picture in Chichicastenango, as I remember, was when people needed to do penance to atone for their sins. And they would crawl on crushed stones lying on a path in front of the temple. I think it was a heathen temple there or maybe even the Catholic church or wherever. And these old people would get down on their knees and crawl across these crushed stones until their knees would bleed. And it got so bad that they would have their grandchildren with them. And putting a rug in front of them, they would crawl the distance of the rug. And then the child would take the rug out from under them and put it in front of them again. And they would crawl another distance of the rug. And then the child would take the rug and put it in front of them again. Because you see, they were supposed to crawl on their knees for a half a mile perhaps in order to make atonement for their sins. But what a delusion that is tonight! And we look at that and say, Oh, how sad that people can be so deluded that they think they have to crawl on crushed stones for a half a mile in order to find forgiveness for sins. But I tell you, that would be a small thing if we could do it, if we could only do it. But you can't do it if you go a half a mile on crushed stones or on broken glass or nails or anything. Neither can you do it if you crawl ten miles. And I tell you, tonight, if you believe in salvation by your good works, you are just as bad as that lady. If you go to church every two weeks or every week, and you go through your rituals and do your thing in order to think that that's going to give you to heaven by your good works, you're as bad as anyone else. I tell you, Ephesians 2 says, For by grace are you saved, through faith. It is not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast. If I could go back to where I was 15 years old and tell you what great thing I did and how many people I helped and how much money I gave and how I suffered and the pain I endured and what have you, and therefore I go to heaven, I could boast a lot about all the good things I did, but there's nothing there. I couldn't do anything to get saved. All I could do is come to Jesus and say, I'm a sinner. I'm lost. And I want to be saved. Will You save me, Lord? And I just asked God. I just crumbled beside my bed and recognized I was a lost sinner. And I felt lost and I knew I was lost. The whole thing was just conviction of God. And that night, God lifted the burden off of my soul and I didn't have anybody to help me and I didn't know how to do it. I did the best I knew how and God heard me and saved my soul. And I tell you, that is a joy. That's a blessing and that's what you need tonight, every one of you. If you have not been born again by the Spirit of God, you need that simple time when you come on your knees before God and confess, I am lost! God, You're right. You're just if You send me to hell. I do not deserve heaven. I'm not the good boy, the good girl that I tried to make myself believe I am. I'm rotten to the core and I have a sinful nature. And Jesus went to the cross for me. And when you understand that and see that for what it is, and then you are willing to repent and turn from your sin, then you come to the Lord Jesus and say, come into my heart and change me. Come and save me. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whosoever. I don't care if you're red, yellow, black or white. I don't care what your background is. Whosoever means you. You can come to Jesus Christ and He'll save you tonight from a life of sin and ungodliness. Oh, bless God for His great, great salvation. I thought I had a poem here that I wanted to read too, yes. Well, that's the message that Peter preached at Pentecost. And Stephen preached to the Jews. You know, he laid the blame on them for how they were wrong and preached the finished work on Calvary's cross. This is the Messiah of Israel. And this message tonight never will need to be upgraded. It will never need to be repaired. And it will never wear out. It was the torment of the payment of the accomplished sin of all men. It was the suffering of the full punishment of all the guilt of all time. It was the experience of the combined health of all who have offended God. The id of Isaiah 53.6 was declared finished. When it is written, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. It's the id of Isaiah 53.12. He poured out His soul unto death. The id of 2 Corinthians 5.21 was finished. God was made Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We can exchange places tonight. He became the sinner and died for it and we became the righteous person with the righteousness of Christ being shed on us. I tell you, that is the greatest news. That is absolutely so electrifying and so exciting that you with all your miserable trying to follow Jesus can come to the end of yourself tonight and Jesus will say, I took your place. You can take Mine and be a son and daughter of God. And that's reality. You can be a child of the King. You can be saved. You can be an heir of Christ and a joint heir with Christ. You can be a son and a daughter of God. That is a living, living reality for all that want it tonight. Salvation through Jesus Christ. Born again by the Spirit of God. It's the it of 1 Timothy 2. 5 and 6 was finished. God was made Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin. I did quote that. 1 Timothy 2. 5 and 6. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all. We are bought with His precious blood. We are not our own, Christ said. He has bought us with a price. You know, when Jesus went to Calvary, He paid the price to buy all men back to Himself. He had created you to start with and you strayed from Him in your childhood and your youth and you went and served your own self in the devil, and now you realize that the price was paid 2,000 years ago to buy you back. All you have to do is accept the price through Jesus. The it Jesus completely satisfied was the personal penalty due to you and me because of our individual sins. And here is the poem. Nothing either great or small. Nothing sinner or no. Jesus did it all long, long ago. It is finished, yes indeed. Finished every jot. Sinner, this is all you need. Tell me, is it not? Cast your deadly doing down, down at Jesus' feet. Stand in Him and Him alone, gloriously complete. Come to Jesus Christ tonight. It is our only hope. If you don't know where you stand with Him, don't let another hour go by for you to decide, I am going to settle this matter once and for all. You have probably been searching. I know some of you. You have probably been searching for years and wondered, what's wrong with me? Why am I not a better person? Why am I not the person I'd like to be? I'm not the husband that I want to be. I'm not the wife I want to be. I'm not the employee even I want to be. I had goals in my young years of being a goodly person, and I missed the goal. There are longings within you to get right with God. And you have read and searched and read some books and tried to hear some messages, and you're here tonight. But I beg you in Jesus' name to settle the issue tonight. I must know where I stand with my God. And I must get this whole thing settled. And you have that opportunity tonight to come to Jesus Christ and trust in the finished work of Calvary for your sins. And when you do that, the assurance of your salvation comes clear. And you can know that you've been born again. Because God will bear witness in your heart that you are accepted by Him. Oh, you say, how will I know? Well, we often say, we don't know, but we just know that we know that we know. Somehow God bears witness in our heart that we know we're a child of God. And He does that by giving us the Holy Spirit. I've explained it this way already. There's a light bulb inside of my chest that feels like it's burning in the outside skin sometimes. There's a fire, a light inside. Somehow I can tell Christ touched me. And I know that God gave me light and hope and peace like I have not had when I was lost in sin. Well, may God bless you tonight. We're going to give you an invitation hymn tonight. We're going to sing. And I encourage you to be bold for the Lord and to come up here and kneel on this carpet and just fall at the feet of Jesus. In your mind, you say, I'm finished with myself. I'm finished with my search. I am going to come to Jesus and I'm going to confess my sins and repent of my sinful nature and believe in Christ and His finished work to atone for my sins. We're going to give you an opportunity to do that tonight as we softly sing a hymn. And you just come forward. Don't be afraid. Give the devil a blow in his life tonight, in your life, by boldly making a public statement for Jesus Christ. We just have a little carpet up here. It's just a little altar. We have some counseling rooms outside in the trailer or back in the corner over here behind the tent where somebody will pray with you and help you and counsel you if you need that. But what we want to happen is if you're not born again, that you get born again by the Spirit of God tonight. That you get your answer and you make free. Sure. Give your baby to someone else if you're a mother and to a friend or to your husband or whatever. Or if you're a father and you have a child on your lap, give it to your wife or take turns and maybe both of you need to be born again, then just come that way. But I tell you, get that thing settled in your heart tonight. Come forward and give your heart and life to Jesus Christ. We want to give you that opportunity. What's our song tonight? Amen. And you come if God has touched you tonight. Just come. Don't be afraid. Just come and kneel before the Lord. Shall we stand? Stand together. Just get out of your seat and come forward if you want to get born again tonight. If you want to answer that nagging question, where do I stand with God? Sing another verse. Is there anyone tonight who wants to come? Sing another verse. If no one responds, we'll close the meeting. If you want to come, you come. We don't want to beg you. We just want to give you that blessed opportunity to be free in Christ. God bless you for your attendance tonight. Come back again tomorrow night. Bring friends, unsaved friends with you. Invite them to the meetings to come and hear the Gospel. We preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ the Lord. I don't think there's any announcements that need to be given here tonight. All right. I think we'll just bow our heads for prayer and we'll dismiss you. Father in heaven, I want to thank you for every soul that is here. Maybe this is a new message. Maybe this is something that some have not understood. I pray as they deeply ponder this tonight as they go home from here, go with them in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and speak to their hearts through the night. May they see clearly and know clearly and do what they know they need to do. Thank you, Father, for this meeting tonight. Thank you for the message of truth in the Gospel. We pray, dear God, you speak to many hearts this week. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.