Romans 3 Gospel

Why are you lost in the flood, in the so empty flood? Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all men have sinned, and come short of the blood of the Lord. In the undertaking part, he said he's there just the same. And we fear that that, my friends, tonight we pray that God will speak to you.

We hear, we pray you'll hear more than that. And we know tonight that there's many who say it's not true. I was reading the other day that every 22nd in this so-called modern age of education, man is a sinner, my friend.

He takes us back to the garden. And if you were to turn to the third chapter of Genesis, you'd see that the devil is found in the third chapter of Genesis. And he's attacking the word of God.

He challenges the word of God. And my friend, the devil, then he says, you surely won't go to disobedience in the third chapter. And see, my friends, tonight, that this book in which we have here in our hands, whether we come to the United States or Canada, some of us in this hall have discovered, some of us, my friend, and he said, you know, buddy, she said, I want to leave a book with you, and I want you to read the book.

He said she handed me a book. And he said, you're in this town, read it by the hour. And he said, I've made two.

He said, first, I discovered that I'm a sinner. And second, my dear Christian parents, have you ever thought of that time when you must stand there before God and you'd be left behind? And you know, on the seventh, to these young ladies, he said, do you believe this is your Jesus? Never. Oh, my friend, understand these words.

For all have sinned. We're heading towards eternity. It's a point unto man once to do.

And it tells us here that by one. It's lovely to see that the first man's name was Adam was here. He saved a man named Zacchaeus.

And so it tells us here that as by one man, Adam, they had to confess the skins. And we believe that the end of this age draws. My friends, they're bad without trying.

Man's a creature. He's a lost creature. And that's why the Lord Jesus said, ye must be born.

We may have told this story before, but I think it bears repeating at this time. Of a Christian man and his wife who were sitting on the train. Opposite them on the other seat was a young baby boy, sound asleep.

And down through the corridor of the car came a man who had been drinking. And as he came to this chair, he stopped and said, looking at the little child asleep, he said, The wood took God. I was as innocent as that little child.

The father who was a Christian heard him say those words. He got up and he followed the man down through the train. He sat down beside him and said, I heard what you said about that boy of mine who was asleep.

And I want to tell you, my friends, as he spoke to this dear man, I want to tell you glorious news where you can become in Christ Jesus a new creature before God. Oh, how wonderful the gospel. My friends, is there anybody tonight in this room? Maybe a stranger.

Maybe a lady or a man who's come here tonight. You've been brought here by some neighbor, some friend. You've been invited to come here.

You've never yet found out that you're a sinner. I met a man the other day, a few weeks ago, who I thought was a Christian. And I wrote him a letter.

And in the letter we told him of the glorious Savior, the wonderful grace of God, the power of the blood of Christ, and how wonderful it was to be a Christian. We thought this man was a Christian because he's a preacher. And he wrote me back a letter of three paragraphs.

He never said one word about the Savior, not one word. And I believe, my friends, tonight there's people who come to these meetings, the children of Christian parents who pose as Christians, and they've never been born again. They've never accepted Christ, and they're on the way to hell.

Maybe there's somebody in this room tonight just like that. You've come into this room. You have no idea where you're going.

You've never discovered you're a sinner. And you believe down and deep in your heart that by doing the very best you can, you can make peace with God. You say, how do you know these things? Because I was in the same boat, my friends.

We were all brought up under these things. Except those who have been brought into Christian homes, we've all been brought up under the same theory. How can he do the best he can? What more can God expect a man to do than the best he can? Oh, my friends, God demands that sin be punished.

God demands that he punish sin. And oh, the glorious gospel is this, that God has punished sin at the cross, which we'll find out in a moment. But my friends, let me ask you before we turn to this next point.

Have you discovered yet that you're a sinner? You say, sir, I'm not a very bad sinner. I've never been to jail in my life. But my friends, you're a sinner just the same.

I was reading the other day where a certain man figured out that in a man's life, everybody, they sin millions and millions and millions of times in their life. A man who lives to be 70. Just imagine.

In thought and word and deed. What a solemn, solemn thing. You're going to meet God, my friends.

And your sins are mounting up higher and higher. What are you going to do about it, my friends? Do you believe it? You know, the Lord Jesus said when he was here, They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. And you'll never come to Christ till you find your need.

Till you find your lust. Oh, my friends, L-O-S-T, that you're lost. And I want to ask you before I turn to the Gospel of Matthew.

I want to ask you solemnly. And my dear man and lady and boy and girl, I want you to answer this question to God. Tell me, where would you be if you had died this morning? If your heart had stopped beating this morning, where would you be? Can you say, I'd be with Christ in the glory? Or must you have to bow your head and say, Sir, I don't know where I'd be.

I have no idea. All I do is I just hope for God's mercy. Oh, my friends, how solemn.

How solemn to attend a funeral service and to know that in the casket a body of a man or a woman who's rejected Christ. And you know they have. And the preacher stands up and signals them into heaven.

What a solemn thing as we walk out of those undertaker parlors with our heads bowed, my friends, to think of the solemn, solemn thing that man has rejected the Word of God and doesn't believe that man's a sinner. If you believe you're a sinner, God says you're a sinner. That settles it, my friends.

God says it. It's true. There is no difference, no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Oh, what a solemn thing. Let us turn to Matthew 27. If man is a fallen creature, and God says he is, and I believe he is, and many in this room believe he is, God has provided a remedy.

God has provided a way of escape. Isn't that wonderful? He asks the question in Hebrews 2, verse 3. It's a solemn question, and I say this reverently, a question that God can't answer Himself. He says, How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, a salvation worked out by a great Savior, a great Savior sent into this world by a great God, who with a great price finished the work of redemption, and then as a great person rose from among the dead and ascended as a glorified man and sat down at the right hand of God? Oh, my friends, he has the holes in his hands, the holes in his feet, and the spear mark in his side, and marks them out in the glory of God as the Son of God who died upon the cross of Calvary.

Matthew 27. We'll just read a few verses. It tells us in verse 30, And they spit, think of that, they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head, the most wonderful man who ever lived, the only man who never sinned.

His hands were reached forth in blessing. He loved the sinner. He was the sinner's friend.

Oh, dear sinner, you never had a friend like this friend, never, my friend. There's nobody like Jesus. He's the sinner's friend.

Are you a sinner tonight? Jesus is the sinner's friend. And yet they spit upon him. Think of they spit upon him.

Then it says, Verse 31, After that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him. Isn't it wonderful how the Spirit of God uses that personal pronoun so many times, him. Christ is before the heart of God.

And God expects you to know who he means when he says, And they led him away to crucify him. There's only one him here, and that's the Son of God himself. And so it tells us, in Verse 34, They gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall, and when he had tasted of, he would not drink.

And they crucified him. Notice that they crucified him. He was hated.

He was despised. He was rejected. He was crowned with thorns.

He was spit upon. Because man hated Christ in this world. And my young man, I want to tell you solemnly, and young lady, this world hates the Lord Jesus tonight.

Just as the world hated Christ in Matthew Chapter 27, the world hates Christ tonight. There is no change. There's never been a paper published, except by Christians, that would say that this world did wrong.

The world has never said, We're sorry we made a mistake. In fact, a lawyer in Chicago said, Within the last two or three years of Jesus Christ came to Chicago, we crucify him all over again. People think that's an awful thing for that man to say, and so it was, but it was true.

It was true. At least he told the truth. The world doesn't want Christ.

They crucified him. Then down, notice now, in verse 45, Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land, and of the ninth hour, that is from twelve o'clock noon until three o'clock in the afternoon. Three solemn hours we sang about in our hymn.

The Lord Jesus was on the cross from nine a.m. till twelve noon, and from twelve noon till three o'clock, and from twelve o'clock noon till three o'clock, God wrapped the world in darkness. Man couldn't see this solemn act as the Son of God was burying my sins in his own body on the tree. When God made him who knew no sin, sin for me.

And oh, dear young Christian, how we can praise God that the three apostles, Peter and Paul and John, and the threefold cord is not easily broken. The three apostles of the Lord Jesus said he knew no sin. The Lord Jesus never sinned, and the Lord Jesus couldn't sin.

We praise his name. He was without sin. He knew no sin.

But here on the cross, during these three hours of darkness, he was made sin. Second Corinthians 5 verse 21 tells us so. He had made him to be sin for us.

He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And the apostle Peter, in 1 Peter chapter 2, I think it's verse 24, he says, who himself bear our sins, notice that, sin the fruit, sin the root rather, and sin the fruit, Christ bore it upon the cross. In these solemn hours of darkness, my friend, if God forsook the Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary, during those three hours of darkness, what will he do with you when you meet him in your sins? What will God do with you? And I speak reverently.

Will he do, as a careless, modernistic world, modernistic preacher says, why, God will wink at your sins. What awfulness. No, my friend.

God cannot pass the sinner by his sin demands that he must die. But in the cross of Christ I see how God can say, yet righteous be. Isn't that wonderful? On the cross, during these three hours, I don't speak for anybody but myself, my friends.

You must speak by faith. I believe that during these three hours of darkness, my sins, known to God, were laid on my blessed Savior. And I believe that God punished him for me.

I believe that God punished him for my sins. I believe he bore the judgment of God for me. I believe he cried out on that cross, my God, my God.

Notice the 46th verse. The ninth hour, about the ninth hour, which was three o'clock in the afternoon, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is being interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why, my friends? There's no answer.

There's no answer here. The heavens were steeled. We love to say, when Abraham laid his son on the altar and took the knife in his hand to slay his son, God spoke from heaven.

He said, Abraham, do the lad no harm, for now I know that thou fearest God. See, and thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. But at Calvary, there was no interruption.

There was no such a voice. Jesus must, he must bear the judgment. He must, my friends, or I, a poor hell-deserving sinner, would be damned for eternity.

The Lord Jesus said when he was here, in John chapter 8, If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins, and where I am there ye cannot come. You can't go there, my friends. Those are the words not of the modernist preacher of 1964.

Those are the words of God's Christ. If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins, and where I am, that's heaven, glory, there ye cannot come. And there's no modernistic preacher that can preach you into that place.

Jesus said no, no, no entrance. My friends, not one sin will ever enter into that place. We've often asked boys and girls this question.

Have you ever told a lie in your life? Most of them say yes. The word of God says not even a lie, not even one lie, not even one, not two, not even a lie will ever enter into that place. Not even a lie.

These boys here know if I was to ask them how many lies are a lie, they would say rightly one. God says not even one lie. And I'm sure, my friends, that every one of us in this room have told many lies in our lives, and there's nothing can take those lies away but the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which was shed upon the cross of Calvary.

Oh, how wonderful, my friends, to have a Savior who died for you. How wonderful to be able to look up into the heavens and say the man at God's right hand is my Savior, my hope on nothing less is built than Jesus and the blood he spilled. Oh, friends, tonight are you saved? Are you under the shelter of the blood of Christ? Have you been born again, dear Christian, the children of Christian parents, boys and girls, young men and young ladies, have you been born again? A little while ago a man came to see me and he sat down in the chair and I knew he was solemn.

I knew he was under a burden. He said to me, mentioned a certain person, he said, do you really believe they're a Christian? Do you really believe it? He said, there's no evidence in that person's life, I can't find any evidence in that person's life that they're a Christian. Is that said about you? Isn't it a solemn thing to sit and live in a home where the Bible is, where prayer is made, to come to these meetings and sit in the blazing sunshine of the love of God and the grace of God and the gospel of God and leave the room night after night unsaved? My friend, what will God say to you on that judgment day when you've heard these truths and you've rejected them, you've turned away from them, you've said no to Christ, you've pushed the grace of God aside? Oh, dear boys and girls, if you're not yet saved, why not tonight come to your mother's God? Why not tonight bow before your Father's Savior and be saved tonight? Jesus, alone in the darkness, asked this solemn question.

Many of us who are Christians have answered it. Many of us who are Christians have knelt down beside our bedside, looked up into the very heavens and answered the question before God himself and said, Blessed God, our Father, the answer to this question asked for our beloved Savior. On Calvary's cross is this.

He was forsaken for me. Forsaken because he had my sins laid upon him. Forsaken, that I might never be forsaken.

Isn't that wonderful? My friend, have you found this joke yet? Has the love of Christ touched your heart? Oh, melting love, the love of Christ. Is it any wonder that the Apostle Paul could say, The Son of God who loved me. Notice Galatians 2 and 20.

He doesn't say the Son of God who loved us. He says the Son of God who loved me. Why? Because Paul had a personal Savior.

And Jesus was Paul's personal Savior. Oh, is he your personal Savior. Can you say he loved me? Not the world, the careless Christ-rejecting world says why God loves everybody.

A careless Christ-rejecting world. And it's true that God does love man. But my friend, the Christian, the one who has been born again, the one who knows the Savior, says he loved me.

Gave himself for me, a poor sinner. And so we find here there's a remedy for sin. Only one remedy, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

You must have Christ, my friends. You must receive him by faith into your heart. Did he die for sinners? Yes.

Did he die for the ungodly? Yes. Thank God he did. Because that means me.

Christ died for the ungodly. That means me. Have you received that Christ? Now you know, my friends, we haven't got to go any further on this second point here.

You know perfectly well, and I know there's men here tonight and women too, and you probably answered this question in your heart. If you were dead now, if you had left this world, if you were in eternity, you know where you'd be. Oh, my friends, how solemn to leave this world without Christ.

No second chance. We know the devil has invented a second chance, but it's not found in the Bible. It's not found in the word of God.

It's not listed among us, saith the Lord. No, my friends, if you die without Christ, the solemn words of Jesus are, where I am, there ye cannot come. Solemn words of the Lord Jesus and blessedly faithful words of the Son of God.

Oh, tonight, my friends, are you right or are you wrong with God? Are you on the side of the Lord Jesus Christ or are you on the side of the devil? People say, we don't like that, sir. That's pretty strong language. But I'm telling you, my friends, that the Lord Jesus said when he was here, a man cannot serve two masters.

He didn't say anything about a third master. He said two masters. There's only two, my friends.

Only two. What master are you serving? What master are you riding under his colors? On whose side are you, on the side of Christ or on the side of the devil, on the side of hell or on the side of glory? There's no mix of matters, my friends. Tonight, either you're saved or lost.

Either you're heaven-bound or you're hell-bound. Either you're saved or you're lost. And the apostles said, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them who are lost, lost tonight.

And the Lord Jesus said, he that believeth not is condemned already. Isn't that solemn? Condemned already. Not when you die, my friends.

Not ten years from now when you leave this world, so you think. But condemned tonight. Condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Oh, it's a solemn thing. A man said to me when we pointed out to him the way of salvation, pointed out to the fact the man was a sinner. He tried to tell me that he kept the Ten Commandments.

And we started with the first commandment, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength and with all thy mind. We said to this man, have you kept the first commandment? He said, I don't think so. Don't think I have.

Then we said, why quote the second? And why quote the third when you have broken the first? This is what he said. Then he said, what will I do? And we said, come to Christ. Come to Christ.

He's the Savior of sinners. Lost sinners, those that were sinking down can cry out, Lord, save me. And that mighty hand of the Son of God will be reached down and lift you up and set your feet on a rock which is Christ.

And so we have considered the ruin of man, that man's a sinner, and that God has provided a way of escape, the way of the cross leads home. Isn't that wonderful? The way of the cross leads home. And the third is the judgment of God.

Now we only have time for the judgment of the great white throne in Revelation chapter 20, which is a very, very solemn question. And this is what God says. Thank God there won't be one Christian here in this 20th Revelation, not one believer, because, oh dear unsaved friend, mark our words carefully.

For the Christian there is no judgment. Christ bore our judgment on the cross. But here in the 20th chapter, Revelation verse 10, And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet A-R-E-R, notice they were there for a thousand years, they were there for a thousand years, these two men, and they were still there at the end of the thousand years.

How solemn. And shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Who says so? God says so.

Do you believe what God says? I warn you not to be deceived by the modernistic preachers of the 20th century. Don't be deceived, my dear friends, by these men who tell you that we don't need to be saved. I was speaking to a man and I asked him, I told him to try to get him into a conversation.

Somebody had passed me a little paper on the street corner. And I said, I read this paper, sir, and it told me that I had to be saved, had to get my sins cleansed. What does this man mean by giving me this paper? This man was one of the biggest preachers in Montreal, by the way.

He stares and laughs and says, oh, you've met one of these funny fellows, one of these fundamentalist fellows. If you believe what he tells you, you'll be no good for this world or the next either. Just imagine, a preacher told me that.

And then I asked him, but sir, do you believe in the virgin birth? And he said, that's the second question. And he said, it'll take some time to think it over. What rubbish.

What rubbish. Oh, my friends, what a solemn thing it is when the devil takes the Bible in his hands and starts to preach. What a solemn thing it is.

Oh, we live in a solemn day, my friends. When you can't tell, if you see a man with a Bible, now you can't be sure whether he's a Christian or not. He may be a rank infidel.

And so in Revelation 20, verse 11, notice, And I saw a great white throne, pure, absolutely pure, absolute purity, great and white throne, in him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for them. John 5, I think it is verse 22, tells us who this person is on the throne. Who is it? The Son of Man.

The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. It's the Son of God who sits on this throne. The man who died for you.

The man who has the whole prince in his hands to prove his love for you. He's going to sit on this throne. Notice, And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.

Oh, how wonderful. What a wonderful statement. They stand before him who is the Son, yet he's called God here.

Isn't it wonderful how plain the Bible is? And the books were opened. Yes, God has books in your records there. My friends, every word you've ever said, every thought you've ever had, every deed you've ever done, God has carefully recorded it.

I was reading in the Montreal paper where a young man told the judge, I'm treated unjustly in this court, but there's no injustice in this court. The books are kept clean and plain. Nothing made no mistake.

My friends, God has this record, a record about you if you're unsaved. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. Who are these dead? Oh, my friends, how solemn.

Some of our neighbors have died. Died without Christ, they'll be here. Oh, what a solemn thing, my friends, if you are here.

What a solemn thing if you are here. I pray God you won't. And it tells us, on the sea gave up the dead which were in it.

Death and Hades are held to give up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every man, according to their works. And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.

This is the second death. Don't be deceived by the false preachers who tell you that this means that man dies a second time. When man dies physically, his spirit leaves his body.

But the second death is separation from God for eternity. That is the second death, separation from God, my friends. This is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

In the 21st chapter, in the 8th verse, it gives us a lineup and starts off with the fearful and the unbelieving, those who were afraid to confess Christ and those who don't believe. And it ends up in the 8th verse of chapter 21, They'll have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. God repeats it twice.

It's a fact, my friends. What a solemn thing. Is that the gospel to hear that? No, my friends.

That's not the gospel, but that's a solemn warning. For anybody in this room tonight that's unsaved, and you know, my friends, just as I did back in the city of Montreal in 1930, as I sat in those chairs and heard men preach the gospel and say, Where are you going when you leave this world? I used to bow my head and say, To hell to hell. I knew I was going to hell because I knew I was a sinner.

My friends, you know that you're a sinner, then God loves you. What a note to close our gospel meeting on. God loves you.

And God has proved His love. Sometimes mothers say to their children, If you love me, prove it. My friends, I speak reverently.

God has proved His love. There's no question about it. God gave His Son, for God so loved the world.

And Jesus said those words. Wouldn't you have loved to have heard Him say them? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever, there's the word again that's found in Revelation 20, whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. God loves you.

God commended His love towards you. The salesman goes to your front door and he commands his goods to you. I speak reverently.

God commended His love towards you. And while you were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Isn't that lovely? My friends, our time is up.

We present to you tonight, we present by the grace of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. See Him in all His loveliness. See Him, my friends, in all His glory and all His majesty.

See Him in the glory at the right hand of God, the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the lost. Will you have that Savior tonight? Will you receive Him into your heart? I challenge you, the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart as your Savior. Will you say, Yes, Lord.

You can't open those doors. You can't, my beloved son. And you'll leave this room a child of God.

Which will it be? Will you receive Christ now, the Son of Jesus Christ, to cleanse us from all sin? May you have no rest tonight. May God forbid. May you receive Christ tonight.