In this sermon, the speaker shares the story of a man who was once involved in criminal activities and lived a life of immorality. However, this man experiences a transformation after getting saved and his life is completely changed. He now loves the things he once hated and hates the things he once loved. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being passionate about God and prioritizing Him above worldly pursuits. The sermon also highlights the significance of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and the difficulty in finding words to adequately describe its magnitude.

This morning we were speaking about the wonder of Calvary and of what happens there. The wonder of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The wonder of his work there on the cross. And then we were considering the people for whom he did it. And I think most of us had the impression, it's just too much for us to take in, isn't it? We need a new vocabulary. The human vocabulary, Webster's dictionary, is really not adequate to tell it forth the way it should be told. And the greatest powers of excellence, of eloquence, are not sufficient to describe it. This afternoon, first of all, we'd like to come to that fourth question. Not only who he is, what he did for us, the blessings that flowed from that work of his on Calvary's cross. We've really been humbled when we consider our own insignificance, our own worthlessness, and our own sinfulness. And now we should really be awestruck when we contemplate the marvelous benefits. When we think of salvation, I remember Mr. Sheldrake saying years ago, any time I get to the same as the lake, and incidentally, the Lord's Savior, for there is no love, and really forgave us. He cannot find a single sin with which to punish me. The old Believer's Hymnbook had a verse that said, reach my blessed Savior first when you're in Christ. A Believer, at least we confess our sin. He knows that many Christians have interesting little experiences. When you trust the Lord Jesus as your sin experiences. And you know that dear fellow a little while later, he bowed his head. Minutes later, he said to me, Juana, but he's basing his assurance of having a near death experience. Grass really is greener. And he was telling me that grass really is greener. The forgiveness behind, but it means he can't find any sin, just saving us from hell. He didn't do that. He gave us an ending, but even unsaved people have really means is that when you're, and you know, that's what explains the model. He's in trouble with the police. They've caught him for breaking and entering. And he can't say he hated that. And it's easy for him to talk about Jesus. Now, really mission field two years ago, he wouldn't have gone to since we have no right to enter in God's all says in Romans five, we have access to cream root. We're in Chris near to God and as dear to God in ourselves with his own right. It made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made. Do you know what that means? It means you can look at your state. You can look up into the stand in that. And then we become members of God's family business to anybody changed under really the man. So he's, he must not read what they say. I don't agree with them. And he mustn't read Ezekiel chapter one. That Ezekiel chapter one is a tremendous vision of the glory of God. And you're saved. God doesn't put it means to be as one of the things that we go over the script. Paul says that right. He said, Corinthians, he says, all things are yours and you are Christ. Have you ever appropriated that first for yourself? All things are yours. You know, I think sometimes that are realizing how I really believe that, you know, and you're going to laugh at me. I think United airlines operate fields of industry. I see the farmers work out in the fields. I've had an AS once in life and it's great from rag. And not only that, but we're indwelt by the Holy spirit of God. This really staggers me when I think that this humble body, just one of the persons of the Godhead actually draws here. And it has a very practical meaning to it too. Paul brings that out in first Corinthians chapter six, um, where he reminds the Corinthians and you know what the Corinthians were like. He reminds them and it has a message message for us today. First Corinthians chapter six, verse 15. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Do you not know that he was joined to a harlot is one body with her for the two? He says shall become one flesh, but he was joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body that he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy spirit who's in you, whom you have from God that you're not your own, but you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God. Notice the context has to do with what, what did he bring into the argument? What is he saying? Brace yourself friends. He's saying, when you, as a Christian are committing sexual immorality, searching, isn't it? And you know, if we remembered that thing for our dear young people, please sexual truly marvelous. We're indwelt by the Holy spirit. He's there as a seal. He's with us as a seal. He is the seal. What does that mean? Well, the seal has two thoughts, at least in scripture. It's a mark of ownership. You go to certain countries and you see a certain dye on the sheep and that color identifies that sheep as belonging to a certain shepherd, certain owner. It's a mark of ownership. It's also a mark of security, isn't it? The seal on letters they did and on documents they still do today, the seal in wax. And not only that, he was the earnest for inheritance until that means that it's surely as you and I have the Holy Spirit. Some have likened the earnest of the spirit to the engagement ring. What is the engagement ring? Something's going to follow. Marriage is going to follow. And the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance. That means it is sure that the Holy inheritance is going to be. You see, we don't receive all the benefits of our salvation the moment we're saved, do we? We don't receive our glorified body. We still get the flu, but it's all going to be ours and the Holy Spirit is just the guarantee that that will actually take place. Wonderful. God has devised all of the frail when they come to the Lord Jesus. He has all this treasure. And then the Holy Spirit baptizes us as believers into the body. It's the greatest society. The greatest society means such endearing terms. Church means more to God than the greatest empire. You've emptied the bucket and spilled a drop there. And the elders of a local fellowship mean more to God. It's a greater honor to be an elder in an assembly in a church than to be in the Bible and the New Testament. I see all the space that's devoted to being an elder. So instead of saying to your little boy, eat your Cheerios and someday you may be president. Why don't you say eat your Cheerios and someday you may be. I mean, you'd have your heavenly calling and heavenly. And then we talked last night about prayer, how we have constant access to God in prayer, in the normal ways of life and in crisis times of life and know that we're that he moves into action with the kings of the earth. But we can do it. We're destined to eternal change. We're longing for that, aren't you? The time when you're going to take this body of my humiliation and disease or death, your body that has powers that our present bodies don't have. How the Lord Jesus could come into a room completely. We could move by thought from one belief. We will be capable of exploring the universe. Up at the stars at 99,000, why did he make it so big? What will we learn? We'll learn the great. We'll have greater reason to really marvelous, a glorified body. And isn't it wonderful that the Lord Jesus will not be fully satisfied until he has us with him in our glorified condition. Grace, friends, grace from beginning to end. And of course, it's this incredible grace that Darby to pin those memorable words. And is it so grace that he, for me, has won father of glory, thought beyond all thought in glory. And Paul certainly had a, had an infinite inkling of this when he, he spoke of our present trials as being pinpricks compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. We look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen, the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are not seen. He spoke of an eternal weight of eternal weight of glory. And, you know, having said this, we haven't even scratched the surface. We haven't even scratched the surface of the blessings that flow to us from Calvary. Paul sums it all up when he says we've been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. In Christ. But if we don't stop, this chapter would become a volume, it would become a library flow of thoughts, total commitment to the Lord, dear friends. He put us here for, this is quite a thing. I recently, a couple of years ago, I was in Singapore, dear, dear people, dear, dear Christians. But if you go to Singapore, there's one thing that really captures you, living. If that were the main thing that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, for the love of Christ constrains us because we thus judge that if one died for all, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves. I didn't die for Bill McDonald so that Bill McDonald could live. He died for me so that henceforth I live. Of all the things we've been considering leads us down a one-way street to that point where I turn over complete control. That's the beginning of a life that makes history. In other words, when we're saved, it doesn't mean just that from then on we'll attend church regularly, put money in the collection, and pass out a few tracts from day to day. It means more than that. Commitment is a definite, well-considered act where a person turns his life over to the Lord Jesus. You have in the Bible conversion and consecration, two different things. Conversion is when you trust the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Consecration is when you turn your life over to him for service. They both should come at the same time, but they don't. Ideally, they should come at the same time, but things aren't ideal always in life. In the life of the Apostle Paul, they came at the same time. He said first, who art thou, Lord? He got his doctrine straight. Then he said, what will you have me to do? That's the way it should be. It is. It's turning your life over to the Lord so he can do whatever he wants you to do. It's giving up your rag rights and yielding to his throne rights. When I was in the Navy, we were losing a lot of planes in operational accidents. In Seattle, up in Alaska, planes would take off from a Navy base there, and they'd get up and the fog would come in. When the fog came, it came to stay. Oftentimes our pilots were up there overhead, and it was completely fogged in below. You couldn't see the airport, couldn't see anything. Too many of our pilots had to fly around until their fuel was gone. They would just radio in so long. So the Navy started to work on a system known as Ground Control Approach, GCA. The idea was that they would be controlled from the control tower on the aircraft carrier. They would be controlled from the carrier. They developed this so that they would signal that fellow and they would get him in a position where he was lined up with the landing deck of the carrier. It was all computerized. The ship would be lurching this way in the heavy sea, lurching back and forth, but the plane would be brought into sync with every lurch of the ship so that when the plane landed, it was landing in exactly the same position. Then they would tell him to come down. They would tell him the rate at which to come down, the altitude, and all the rest. And then the man in the control tower would say, take your hands off the controls. The pilot would take his hands off the controls, and they would bring him in by computer. Dear young friends today, all Christians, but especially my dear young friends, God is saying to you, I'll bring you in with a full cargo. I'll bring you in with a saved life as well as a saved soul. Give up your own ambitions. Give up your own plans. Let me plan your life for you. I can do a better job than you can do. It's an insult to the intelligence of God, for me to direct my life the way I want to. It's an insult to the intelligence of God. Commitment is abandoning all for the one who abandons all for us. In every life there's a throne, and either Christ is on that throne or self is on the throne. Commitment is when self is taken off the throne, and Christ is crowned king and Lord of all. The poet said, take me as I am, Lord, and make me all your own. Make my heart your palace and your royal throne. Make my heart your palace. It's possible, I say again, to commit my life to the Lord Jesus for salvation and not commit it to him for service. It's possible for a Christian to be having his hands on the control and steering his plane the way he wants to do so. Commitment is denying self, taking up the cross daily and following him. It's losing one's life for Christ's sake and the gospel. It's flinging one's soul and body down for God to plow them. When you desire Christ's will supremely and are willing to pay the price, whatever it might be, you are a committed Christian. This type of commitment to the Lord Jesus is unconditional. There are certain words that are not found in the vocabulary of commitment. One is, for instance, not so, Lord. You can't say that. You can't say not so, Lord. You can say not so. You can say, Lord. You can't say not so, Lord, because you're contradicting yourself. You can say, I will follow you, but first let me. You have that in the last chapter of Luke 9, don't you? Those three eager beavers came. Lord, I heard that the earth, are you willing to be homeless? Are you willing to forsake home for me? There was a defect in his language. He said, and the second one was the same too. I will follow you, but let. Submission means his will in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, whether at home or overseas, whether single or married, whether known or unknown. Does this seem like a heavy load to low on people? The heavy load is when you're trying to do it in your own strength. What's really hard is trying. A 75 year old woman said, I'm 75 and if we only realize that if we turn our lives over to the Lord, he will plan the best. If I turn my life over to the Lord, let him choose the pathway. He would lead you to heights that would make reason dizzy and work. And a wonderful thing about it too, he knows options that we don't know anything about. You know, we think that we have infinite wisdom and we know just exactly what is best. The Lord has options that we don't know anything about and we're far exceed anything that we would ever plan. I want to tell you something friends. If the Bible is right, those who are fully committed to Christ, it's just as simple as that. And they're the ones who say thou sweet beloved will of God, my anchor ground, my fortress hill, my spirit's silent fair abode, in thee I hide me and am still. Thy beautiful sweet will, my God, hold fast in its sublime embrace my captive will, a gladsome realm of grace. My captive will, a gladsome bird, prisoned in such a realm of grace. Upon God's will, I lay me down as child upon his mother's breast. No silken couch, nor softest bed could ever give me such deep rest. Words by Gerhard Terstigen. And so that's what God is calling to us. He's calling us to total commitment to him. You know, the Bible is a wonderful book and you get this. There are threads that go all through the Bible. A lot of threads that go all through the Bible. For instance, Brother Art was speaking about the blood, the precious blood of Christ by which we are redeemed. You get that bloodline all through the Bible. Somebody said wherever you cut the Bible. Worship is a theme that goes all through the Bible, isn't it? Go way back to the time of Abraham. You find there that a man who is committed to the Lord must be prepared to give up the dearest. If you could talk to Abraham today and say, how about it, Abraham? Are you sorry for what you did? What would he say? Then you come to other characters. You come to types of the Old Testament. You come to the type of the Hebrew slave who hadn't been able to pay his bills. He sold himself into slavery in order to pay his bills. But the law said he could get out at the end of seven years. God's kindly law that he didn't have to. He could go over there to the door and have his lobe of his ear placed at the doorpost and have it pierced through with the awl. And he could say, I love my mess. Why do you think that's in the Bible for me? I love my mess. And then you have that wonderful story of the burnt offering, which is very moving to me. Here's a Hebrew, and he's coming to the tabernacle, and he's got an animal there roped around his neck, and he's dragging this reluctant creature. And he comes to the enclosure. He comes to the gate of the enclosure there, and the first thing he comes to is the altar. And he brings that animal in, as I say, reluctantly, and he places his hand upon the animal's head. He unties it, ties its feet, rolls it over on its side, and then with a deft mark, stroke of the knife, he cuts the animal's throat. The blood flows out into a ground that's already drenched with blood. The animal is skinned, cut up into parts, and placed upon the burnt, placed as a burnt offering on the altar. Totally consumed, all but the skin. Why is that in the Bible? Filling the court. And that Jew was coming there, and he was saying, you know, I owe so much to the Lord. I'm so thankful to the Lord that I want to... Of course, that picture changes when you come to Romans 12 and 1 and 2. If our brethren, by the mercy of the living sacrifice, well, then you come to her commitment to Naomi, and when she was committed to Naomi, she was committed to God. And you come to a woman like Esther and the old custom, how she laid her life on the line for her people. And you come to a man like Caleb. And you come to many of David's men, such loyalty and such commitment that David's men had to him. You come to Daniel and his friends. It's a thread throughout the whole... I just don't want your money. I want you. Way back in the book of Deuteronomy, it says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul. Way back there is the Pentateuch. Love God with all your heart, with all your soul. In the New Testament, that's quoted three times. And the word mind is added too. The word mind is added in the New Testament. See, I might have said, oh, well, that in Deuteronomy, that's the old, that's law. Christians were living, people were living under law in the Old Testament. We're under grace. God says, yes. It's not law with penalty attached now, but it's instruction in righteousness for those who are saved by grace. Jesus said this is the first and great commandment. The first and great commandment. You shall love the Lord your God, the Lord your God. It's interesting to me that the word Savior, I think if I'm memory serves me, the word Savior is found about 25 times in the New Testament. The word Lord is found over 300. There must be a significance in that. We say Savior and Lord. The New Testament never says Savior and Lord. It's just Lord and Savior. Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all, with all. That's a big word, isn't it? Three letters, but it's a big word. With all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So love him with all your heart. That means with all your affectionate powers, marvel how we can love things of this world and people of this world. We shall love God with all our affectionate powers. And what it really means is that any other love in life must be secondary to our love. He must come first. Your love for Christ must be so great that any other love is hatred in comparison. With all your heart, with all your soul, that means with all your emotional power. Good question. What do we become more excited about? What do we become most excited about? Do you get excited at football games? Ten years from now you'll forget the score. Do you get excited about golf? Can you talk more enthusiastically about golf than you can about Jesus? Do you get more excited about the stock market and the fall that it just sustained the other day? Really what you get most excited about is your God. Whatever it is, it's your God. With all your soul, all your emotional, with all your mind, that means with all your intellectual powers. It really aggrieves me to see children of God giving their best to the unworthy world when they could be giving it to the Christ of God. Living for time instead of eternity. I think of what A.T. Pearson said about Spurgeon. He said, of all the mind he had and all the chance that God gave him, he made the most of all the mind he had. I think he died when he was 59 and his mark is left on the world. With all your strength, that means with all your physical powers. Love God with all your physical powers. We're reminded in the book of Psalms that God doesn't delight in the strength of the horse. He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man who fear him to those who hope. That was vividly presented to us at the Olympics in Atlanta. You think of the motivation that Christian young that they can be so motivated for a piece of gold. We can't be motivated for God incarnate. With all your heart, soul, mind, prowess in spiritual things and popularity. I think of one athlete who said he got to all the prizes and he went home and thought about it. What does it all amount? He said the dream of the reality was greater than the reality. That's why I love that hymn. And with this, I close, Lord, in the fullness of my while runneth o'er each dear delight to thee should rise. I would not give the world my heart and then I and then profess thy love. I would not feel my strength depart and then my service proved. I would not with swift winged zeal on the world's errands go, then labor up the heavens. Oh, not for thee my weak desires, my poorer baser part. Oh, not for thee my fading fires, the ashes of my dear joys have part. For thee, the difference I'm fishing today. Fishing for young lives who see the folly of living for the world. Father, once again, we are just overwhelmed when we think of the tremendous issues. We know, Lord, we know deep in our heart of hearts that there's really only one logical thing we can do. We pray that this conference will not have passed before someone, some young fellow, some young girl perhaps,