The other side

Now, as has been intimated, it's nice to see everybody who's come. We make you very welcome. We're just going to take a moment and we'll speak to the Lord in prayer.

Our Father, we bow before Thee in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We come again in our need to cry unto Thee and to ask Thee to draw near to us this evening. We thank Thee for a day when we have been able to gather with Thy people and spend time around the Holy Scriptures.

We thank Thee for enabling our brethren to feed us. And now, our God, we come to the close of the day and sinners have been invited to come and hear the Word of God. We pray, Lord, that Thou would remember them and that Thou would remember us.

O God, we just ask of Thee that Thou will take us up in the power of Thy Spirit and that Thou will take of Thy Word and apply it to the hearts of those who are not saved. And O God, we pray this evening that Thou will speak to them, that Thou will convict them, and above all, that Thou will save them. Father, we ask for this.

We pray for a canopy of the presence of Thy Spirit over this gathering. We pray, Lord, that Thou will help us. And above all, we pray that Christ will be glorified and sinners blessed.

We ask for this in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Now, let's take a reading, please, from John's Gospel, John's Gospel, and we'll read together in Chapter 6. Now, I should say that on behalf of Mr. McCandless and myself, it's a pleasure to be with you this evening.

We're glad to be here. It's a pleasure for me, first time in Wisconsin, and I just want to thank the Christians. John Chapter 6, verse number 16.

And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea, and entered into a ship and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, or already dark, and Jesus was not come to them. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.

So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh unto the ship. And they were afraid, but he said unto them, It is I, be not afraid. Then they willingly received him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at the land, whether they went.

And we look to the Lord for his blessing upon his word. I should admit to you that in life, there are three things that are really interests, that I guess personal interests. The first is cars.

Maybe I'm speaking on behalf of most of the guys here, but the first is cars. I love especially sports cars. My wife and I, we were in London, England, and we were coming out of one of the high end department stores, and she spotted a Lamborghini, Murcielago.

She saw the guy coming out of it, and she pulled out her camera phone and was taking his photograph. And I said to her, Honey, why are you doing that? Well, he might be a soccer star. I said, Listen, forget the guy, get a photograph of the car.

I like cars. The second thing I like is watches. I love watches, watches that I can't afford, Rolexes, Patek Philips, whatever.

I like watches. The third thing, I like boats. And that's what I want to come to from the word of God this evening.

I want to look at this picture of the disciples getting into a ship. The Lord Jesus has left them. They get into a ship to travel to the other side, and they come into a storm.

If I was choosing a title for this, my title would be, Sailing to the Other Side. And so, here are the disciples. These twelve men, Christ has left them.

He has gone up on high. He has ascended. They are in the boat, going to the other side.

The first thing I see is this. They were on a journey. If you've got speaking to the man, especially Peter, so often Peter seems to be the spokesperson.

And you get, and you speak to Peter, and you say, Peter, where are you going? He would say, Listen, we've got a destination. We are going to the other side. We are on a journey.

We are traveling. That's our destination. In this gospel meeting, we are all traveling.

And every one of us here are journeying, as the picture tells us. We are journeying to the other side. So very often we preach the gospel.

We use a chart. On that chart are two roads. A broad way and a narrow way.

Both intersect with the pillar of death. Once we reach the pillar of death, we have reached the other side. And when we reach death, and we intersect with that pillar, and hit the pillar, it comes to the other side, and on the other side are one or two destinies.

So in this gospel meeting, what we are preaching is this. That you and I are traveling. We are on the journey.

We are going to the other side. And we are going to one of two eternal destinies. And that forever.

Can I ask you, where are you going? You're traveling. I'm traveling on the journey. What's your destination? Is it going to be heaven? For the Bible is very clear.

Only two destinations. Heaven with Christ, which is far better. Or hell apart from Christ.

Unconscious, awful, eternal torment. And that forever. And so these men, they are on a journey.

Traveling to the other side. The second thing I see is this. They were traveling without Christ.

Fact is in the story we read, it says Jesus was not yet come unto them. So here they are on the journey. Here they are hoping to get to the other side.

Here they are hoping to reach the destination. But they don't have Christ. No Christ on the journey.

Let me ask you, have you got Christ? What I'm asking is this. Has there ever been a moment when you personally accepted the Lord Jesus? When you come into living, loving contact with Christ? And trusted Him and started on the journey. These men, no Christ on the journey.

And this journey, as a consequence, it didn't make sense. It was our friend, Mr. Peter Oroszak. He used to tell a story in his conversion.

I'm sure some here remember him telling his conversion. He was a drug addict. Had been a drug addict for eight years, I think it was.

He was in prison three times. And he used to relate how God saved him. As he told that, he used to tell the story of two boys at a pawn shop.

And they're looking into the window of the pawn shop. And there was a trombone case in the window. And they didn't know what it was.

So one of the little guys said to the other, what's that? Well, he said, I don't know, but let's go buy it. So they went into the store and they bought it for five dollars. They're walking down the road with the trombone case.

And one of them said, what are we going to do with this? The other said, well, let's put our fishing tackle into it. So they opened the trombone case. They get out their fishing rods.

They get their little fishing tackle box, put it into the case. They go to their fishing hole, open it up, and there are the hooks. And their fishing tackle is snarled up in the velvet lining of the case.

And one looked at the other, and he said, it's not for fishing tackle. The other little guy said, maybe it's a suitcase. So he takes it home, folds his clothes.

I don't think boys do that. But he took it home, folded up his clothes, put them into the case, and he takes it with him. Opens the case up.

His clothes are everywhere. He said to his friend, it's not a suitcase. And so they take it back to the store, and they got two dollars for it.

A few weeks later, they're in the same part of town, and they look in the window, and there's the trombone case. And filling every contour of the trombone case was a trombone. And one of them said, look, that's what it was made for.

Can I say this evening, that's like your life. Your life has no purpose if you don't have Christ. Your life has no value if you've never got to Christ.

You can't understand it. Traveling on a journey without Christ. Let me ask you again, have you got Christ on the journey? So here they are on the journey, traveling without Christ.

I learned this. The day was almost at a close. And you say, how do you get that in the story? We read, it was already dark.

That tells me the day was coming to the close. Can I just say, your day is coming to a close. God has given you an opportunity.

This meeting for you is an opportunity to be saved, to get to Christ, and the day is almost over. It was the Lord Jesus. In Luke's gospel, chapter 4, He opened the book, the scroll of the book, in the synagogue in Nazareth.

And He announced, this is the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book. He began to preach salvation, deliverance, emancipation through Christ, and His atoning death.

You know what we're preaching this evening? Listen to it. If I miss everything that I am trying to preach, what we are preaching is the Lord Jesus and His power to save. There is one in the universe of God, and the Bible says...