A wounded Savior for wounded sinners

But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

I want to read that to you or with you again. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. I would like to speak to you tonight at the opening part of the gospel meeting about a wounded Savior for wounded sinners.

I wouldn't have to come this far or spend any time tonight convincing this intelligent audience that we live in a world that is so wounded, so wounded. In fact, this prophet actually speaks of that in the first chapter of his prophecy. He said, from the sole of the foot to the head there's no soundness in it, but wounds.

Remember? Wounds, bruises, putrefying sores that have not been bound up or mollified with ointment. It isn't that people don't try. It isn't that there haven't been things put into society to lessen the awful impact of sin coming into the world, but it has left our world tonight and you in this gospel meeting tonight wounded.

I would sit in a gospel meeting like this when I was not saved and say, yeah, I know who the wounded people are. Those are the ones that come to our Sunday school. My parents picked them up and their style of life and where they live.

There's all kinds of that, all kinds of bad things that happen. But I was from a Christian home, lived in a very sheltered environment, very protected, if you like. But you know what I had to discover? I was wounded too.

All of us tonight bear the marks of sin coming into the world. People that come to our home, if they're... I said to my wife the other day, maybe you should put it away. I said, it's kind of embarrassing.

But if you looked in the dresser and saw, you see a picture of a couple and you say, well, who are they? Are they friends of yours? It happens to be my wife and I when we were married. You'd never know it now. What hair isn't gone is gray.

And the wrinkles and all that goes with it reminds me of sin coming into this world. So you're here in the meeting tonight, you say, I haven't reached that yet. No, you haven't.

But you're still marked by sin. Beneath all the music and beneath the roar of the music in cars at a decibel level that you can hardly handle inside the car, and I can hear them sometimes in a truck beside the car, with the ear pods and ear buds. What are people trying to do? I say they're enjoying their music.

You can call it that. Sorry, I got too many birthdays. It's sick, all right, but it's not music that I prefer.

Let me say this, you know what they're trying to do? They're trying to cover up the reality of a wounded world. Those of us that preach gospel work and going to homes, we see the results of sin coming into this world. Hearts that are broken, marriage that are literally devastated, children that are crying out.

We pick them up and bring them to our children's meeting on Tuesday night, too, when they were having them there in the wintertime. And you would take them home and say, no, no, I'm not going there tonight. No, no, no.

Well, where do you want to go to here? I mean, we have responsibilities like you do here, too. Well, take me over to grandma's place. I said, is grandma expecting you? No, but she'll take us in.

Joe Potter and I went to a house. He says, you got to see this house. It's down in Nova Scotia.

A couple living in a, not a mobile home, a travel trailer, maybe 20 feet long, skirted with bales of straw. In that home, a man and a woman and two children, two little girls, cute little girls, as a result of them coming together. So spaced out with drugs, they don't even know they're their children.

It was just sad. It was heartbreaking. He came to the door there and met us at the door, as you could tell.

She was no better. The parents lived next door, and they're trying to care and look after these little children. Penniless.

Everything's gone. Their health is gone. Their life is gone.

Their living is gone. Nobody will hire them. Joe Potter happens to haul Christmas trees out of that area, a place called Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

And their father, the father of those children, know how he got his money? By the man right just beside him, used to have the trees piled up to be loaded on their semi to head to New York. He'd be down there stealing them, taking them down in Bridgewater and selling them wherever he could. My friend, that's just a simple story to remind us that you're in a world that has been wounded.

Dear, I've got to tell you tonight, you can put the best face on it you like. You can tell me, I don't agree with that. You can tell me, it isn't so.

Not with me. But the Bible says there's no difference, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And tonight, you might not be my age and look fit and whatever you are, you are still the product of a wounded world.

The Bible says, Romans 5 verse 12, wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world, death by sin. Death is passed upon all men, and that all have sinned, all of us tonight. That's why you need a Savior.

That's why you need this one of whom the prophet is speaking here. But you say, he doesn't tell us who it is. He doesn't have to.

Do you know why? These people knew who he was talking about. These people had rejected him. This is his own people.

The Bible says, the Lord Jesus came unto his own, and his own received him not. But to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name. They knew who he was.

There was only one person that this could ever be. It was the Son of God. It was the Lord Jesus Christ.

What I'm reading to you, if I'd have read the chapter tonight to you, you know what I'm reading? I'm reading the testimony of a people that are going to be saved that hasn't taken place yet. You say, well, what good is that going to do me? The same good it did to a man in Acts chapter 8. A man going along in his chariot. He's gone way down there to Jerusalem, because that's where he heard from his country that people went to worship God.

I don't know what he saw that day when he got down there. I can guess and surmise what he saw, what the Lord Jesus said he would see. A den of thieves.

Not just a house of merchandise. A den of thieves. They're trading, bartering, animals, whatever.

That was their nature. That was those people. Whatever happened, I don't know, but I'll tell you what he got.

He got all that he needed. It's what you need tonight. He got something from the Word of God that he could cling to.

And this man, Philip, comes up, an evangelist that God had sent to send him up into his chariot. He said, do you understand what you're reading? He said, how can I, except some men should guide me. You know, Philip could have said, listen, that has nothing to do with you.

Get out of your way. That's for God's earthly people. But we read this, I love the words.

You know, he didn't sit down kind of in a circular style and legs fold and say, I'm gonna have a little chat about Jesus. Not at all. What's it say? He preached.

He preached unto him Jesus. That man got saved. Imagine, hearing somebody's testimony that isn't saved yet, the nation, and gets saved himself.

That's a wonderful thing tonight, Fred. Wonderful. So I want to just point out to you tonight a little bit about this wounded Savior.

What caused the wounds? What caused the wounds? The same thing that caused the wounds to the Savior caused the wounds to the sinner. Sin. Sin.

That's why the Savior had to go to Calvary's cross. Because of your sin. Because of my sin.

Had sin not come into this world and plundered it as it prodded its way through the whole of the globe. Every spot of it affected by sin. Break your heart.

I was down in one of our large children's hospitals, Halifax, Nova Scotia. I'll tell you, you come out of there a different person. I was down there, and some of you would know some of the children that are down there, I was down there to see a little baby that was born premature.

Only weighed two pounds, two pounds, ten ounces. Went to see him, went to see his parents. The lady, my wife and I were taken down there.

She was going to another part of the hospital. We were over to the children's hospital. She was at one of the larger hospitals.

Room after room, floor after floor. Nobody likes to see, listen, you can't be human if you don't somehow have a bit of a passion for suffering, especially in one's children. They don't understand it.

Watch their parents say, no dear, I gotta go, I gotta leave. Mommy, don't go. Hear the sobs and wails of those children.

But they had to go. Watch that mother as she would pass that darling little girl back to the nurse. The nurse would take it so gently.

The mother would walk out of the room with tears. Some of you have been there. I haven't.

Some of you in the meetings know what I'm talking about. I'm reminded while I'm there, I'm maybe putting two things together. I used to have meetings in northern New Brunswick 32 years ago.

There was a little girl, her name was Emily. Emily had cancer. She needed to get down to this hospital in Halifax.

I used to fly her down with her grandpa, fly her down about once a month for her treatment. Grandpa had made a bed in the back of the car, and Emily would go down. She was just like a bouncing seven, eight-year-old.

I remember bringing her back home, and her grandfather wasn't that strong and that well a man. I used to carry her upstairs and lay her on the bed. The grandparents were so kind to little Emily.

I used to go to that room. I think, she's not gonna make it. I used to think, why are they going through, put this girl to it.

She's not gonna make it. The last gospel meeting I had in a new area we're working, Emily sat in that meeting, 42 years of age, with two fine-looking children in their 20s, her children. Isn't that amazing? I'm telling you for this reason, that that's when I used to go through the IWK, the Isaac Walton Hospital for Children, and come out of there, and I didn't even want to talk for the next few minutes.

It used to break my heart. But I look at you tonight in this gospel meeting, healthy, strong, vigorous, everything going for you, no Savior. But let me introduce you to one who is wounded for the same reason you were wounded, your sins.

Now you can't blame it on somebody else. You cannot say it was somebody else. It was your sins that caused him to suffer on that tree.

You wonder Peter says, who his own self, bear our sins in his own body on the tree. Christ had also once suffered, once suffered the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, be it put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. Understand tonight, dear man, if you're never to be saved, you will be in hell.

But there still is a Savior that was wounded for you. You say, well, how can I bring those two together tonight? Well, my friend, you can't bring it together by graphically describing what happened at Calvary's Cross. I'm not into that.

I just, I stay with what the Bible says. The love the pronouns, but he was wounded for our, he was bruised for our, the chastisement of our peace upon him with his stripes, we are healed. You see in this verse, there's, if you allow, there's two persons that are coming together.

Here's the wounded sinner with all his sin. Here's a Savior that was wounded, that bears those wounds tonight. A lot of things will be erased from the memory of time, but not this.

Listen, I'm not into American politics, even though they interest me much more than the Canadian politics do. We're a little slow over there, a little dead, but yours are fast and moving. I'm reminded back in 2008, now I know he's become maybe a cranky old man like some of us get.

I'm not speaking against him, but he is that a little bit today. His name was John McCain. Senator John McCain ran for the presidential office for the Republicans.

He was really being outnumbered and being outdone by Barack Obama all the way. Hardly a chance of him making it. There's one speech he made when the protesters were quiet.

There's nobody there wailing against him or shouting at him, saying slurs. He stood this one day, if I remember it was, I think it was, it might have been in Phoenix or Flagstaff, one of those, he gave a speech. He said, you know, I am hearing from my friends and fellow Americans that are running for the same office that I am.

I'm hearing from them how much they love this country. He says, I'm not questioning their love for this country. I'm not here to do that.

But he said, there's a big difference between them and me. Now you got to remember that John McCain during the Vietnam War, even though he was a four-star admiral decorated pilot, had flown many successful missions and yet was captured by the Vietnamese, spent five years in a Hanoi jail. He declined early release simply because his uncle, I think, was in the services too.

He said, no. He said, I went into services as a serviceman. I will pay my dues to my country.

And of course, he suffered at the hands of the Vietnamese. Marks on his face and all that. And he said this to the hush of that audience.

He said, I bear evidence. I bear evidence to my love for this country. He said this, I was never so in love with my country until I was a prisoner in a country that wasn't mine.

Do you understand that you're a prisoner in a country that's not yours? You know who has it tonight? Not Adam. Adam forfeited. He gave it out.

He let it go. He said, this country, I'm not speaking of America, I'm speaking of the world tonight, is in the hands of a terrible usurper. And not saved, you're a prisoner in a country that's not yours.

I've been freed from that country. I've been delivered from that country. Do you know why? Not because John McCain was wounded in the Vietnamese war, but because there was a savior that was wounded in a far greater war, far greater battle, he's wounded at Calvary.

No, unfortunately. So your people are saying, I'm not speaking against your former president either. They made a choice.

That's what Mr. Obama said tonight. He says, the people have spoken, they made a choice. Their choice was for a man that didn't bear those wounds.

And there's a lot of people out there saying that this country lived to regret it. Whatever, that's not the point. But there was a man, there is a man that bears evidence of his love for the United States of America by what he suffered.

But my friend, whatever he suffered, and I don't want to underestimate what a Vietnamese jail must have been like. I don't want to underestimate what it was to take enemy fire as he took as a pilot. I'm not underestimating that.

But I want to tell you there was a tremendous battle that took place at Golgotha, at Calvary, where the judgment and the wrath of God against sin fell on God's son, an innocent one. And do you know what he does tonight? Just listen to me. He bears evidence.

He bears wounds that took place, not in a country that wasn't his. But he does speak, the prophet speaks of wounds that he received in the house of his friends. So somebody had caused those wounds.

Isaiah 53, when the light is done, when the veil is lifted, here's a nation of people who realized, he was wounded. It was for me. It was for me.

I remember the night that I got saved. I'll never forget it. Nobody forgets when they get saved.

I thought, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Me? I'm the lost one? Yeah, you are. Oh, I said, again, I thought it was the boys down the road.

I knew the language they used at school. I know the things they did. I didn't do them.

Simply because my father wouldn't let me. The places they went. But when I realized, it was for me.

I like the words of the hymn writer, it was for me, yes, all for me. Oh, love of God, so great, so free. Oh, wondrous love, I'll shout and sing.

He died for me, my Lord, the King. There's one question I want you to rivet your soul with tonight. May God, by the power of His Spirit, drive it home like I can't.

To ask yourself, who is He wounded for? Just the nation of Israel? Do you know one person in this world that He's wounded for? Well, I can tell you tonight, that provision was made for every person in the world because He loved them. That provision was made for you so you could be saved tonight. Because I, friend, the alternate to that is this, that you will bear the punishment, the judgment of God throughout all eternity when you don't need to.

It's not necessary, friend, for you to die and your sins go to hell. Please understand, as I often tell people, hell was not created for you. The Bible tells us that.

God never made hell with you and mine or anybody else of mine, but for the devil and his angels. Unfortunately, God has no alternative, no alternative but to allow you to go there because of your sin, because sin can enter into heaven. But in heaven tonight, there's one that bears evidence in His hands and His feet.

It bears evidence in His side of wounds that He bare in another country. He came right down here to planet earth. You often think of places in the world that supposedly are big tonight and supposedly are world-renowned and visiting sites and so on, and there's one spot that's very precious to God, very precious to God, and that's where His Son was crucified, where His precious blood was shed.

I'm reminded of a young fellow one time was on a tour in England, and my son and his wife were over to the Bistra Conference last weekend, and they were over there at the same time near Greenwich, England, and this tour was out to the group were out in a field, kind of, and there's a tree there, and the tour guide would say, now listen, ladies and gentlemen, something very important here. Please understand that this happens to be where the meridian line is, where world time is determined, okay? It depends on what side of the tree you're on, which time you're on. That's what's going on like this.

So he says it's a great divide. When he was done, tall, nice-looking young man, he says, excuse me, sir, I do have something I want to tell these people. He says, for sure.

He didn't know what was coming. He said, I want to tell you about another tree that doesn't divide time, it divides eternity, and it was the tree on which the Son of God hung, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all that trust Him will be in heaven, and those that don't will be in hell. Well, I'll tell you, that was just about all I could take on that tour, but my friend, that's the absolute truth of it tonight, absolute truth of it.

Is it possible that you actually carry a Bible with your name in it, most likely, with a verse like this among many others in your Bible, but he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him with the stripes we are healed, and you're going to die and leave that behind, having it once in your possession. One of the hardest things I ever did in my life is just coming to my mind now. I, my sister had a little baby die, little niece.

I took her funeral in New Jersey, and not only that, but I had the unpleasant task with my brother-in-law of going up, taking her little crib apart, packing her clothes, just little clothes. The only girl was to be in the family. They still, they've never had a girl in the family, and it was, it was heart-wrenching doing that.

No, I don't know how to pack clothes, but there wasn't a girl around that wanted to do it. Certainly, her mother couldn't, her aunts, nobody else. Somebody said, Murray, would you do it with Andrew? I said, sure, we'll try.

That was likely the hardest thing I ever did. I think about it. Somebody, they loved, they waited for that little girl to come.

When I took the funeral, I'll never forget the undertaker there in Midland Park, he said there was, the little casket just wasn't fitting right, and he come over just before the people came, he said, excuse me, sir, he said, I need to adjust this. This isn't fitting. I said, excuse me, sir, nothing in this is fitting, that a darling little girl like this would die of juvenile diabetes and be taken so suddenly, one year old.

But you know, as we put things away, there's one thing I never had to put away. I never had to pick up a Bible and look in that Bible and see her name in it, her address, and realize, but her name's not in heaven. She was covered by the blood of Christ, that provision was made.

Little Olivia's in heaven tonight, Olivia Zutema. What about you tonight? They pack your things away. I've talked to some that have had to do it, wasn't easy.

I walked over a cousin's grave in a cemetery in Sarnia two weeks ago. There it was. I'm going to mention the name.

I can remember my uncles, all of them but one are in heaven now. Big, strong men that we looked up to, standing there wiping the tears, wishing they had some kind of a hope that that 15-year-old nephew, my cousin, was in heaven. We haven't that hope.

What about you tonight? You're going to die in spite of this? That there's a Savior that bear your sins in his own body on the tree. My verse one more time, make it yours tonight, friend. No, I'm not one of these that puts people's names in the verses, people's names in the Bible.

I don't believe in that. God puts their name in there. Luke 19 and 10, he put my name in there.

See, my name's kind of a long one, McCandless, or the first name is Murray. He just shortened it up to what it should be. You know how he spelled my name that night? L-O-S-T.

That's me. That's me. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

If you ever come to our house, just going out onto the deck at the back, there's space like this. And I got the idea one time, I said, that'd be a nice place for that verse to go along. And there it is, a nice old English letters like the high.

And I just love it when people come in that are maybe saved and they sit down and they look around and they go, look at that, as if he's going to jump out and bite them. Hope it does. Listen, friend, why not embrace this beautiful truth tonight? But he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And with his stripes, we are healed.

You say, do I have to put myself in the verse? No, you don't. Do you know why? God has already put you there.