Both Hands

Luke 2 and verse number 25. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. The same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him.

And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

Of course, some were a little inquisitive after the reading when I mentioned about this passage, and have said that I've referred to it in preaching the gospel as no salvation for the one-handed sinner, and there isn't. Now, that may seem just a little strange to you, but just bear with me for a few minutes. Just get the picture here.

First thing I want you to notice here, we have a man. Twice over says it was a man. Notice through the Scripture, not always, but quite often, people that came in contact with Christ and went away with salvation, they're called that certain individual, that woman or that man.

Know what distinguished them from anybody else? This is the most mature moment in the life of anybody when they come to realize their need. And this man, Simeon, realized, and realized it for a number of years. He had a need.

You know the need that he had? Christ. Your need is in the gospel meeting tonight, even though I may not know your first name or your last name. If not saved, you need Christ.

That's what this dear old man needed was a Savior, and he didn't want to die till he had the Savior. How about you in the meeting tonight? I speak to someone, and you've thought about this for a long time, I'm reminded of the last time, just coming into my mind now, I wasn't even going to tell it. Last time I left Ontario, Wisconsin, after eight weeks of gospel meetings with Brother Brandon Dole, they told me before I'd left that there's a man, he's a former poultry farmer we had much in common, George Sharp, who likely heard every gospel preacher that went through Sussex.

Out to his home, they visit him, they'd have a meal with him, him and his wife, an elder at a local church, and so on. George was taken into the hospital, and he's told he had cancer, and they took him down to St. John and one of the big cancer center in our province, brought him back to Sussex, and he was coming along good, doing well, wasn't expected to be there too long, but he was asking for me while I was away. So as soon as I got home, flew home on the Monday, Tuesday I went in to see George Sharp.

There he was in the bed, likely one of his better days, and he said to me, so glad to see you. I think he was waiting for me to do what I've done in his home so many times, kind of preach to him. Dairy farmer, poultry farmer, very successful.

One of those farms you could put a picture in your calendar. That's how George Sharp operated. I didn't go there to preach to George Sharp.

I went there to pray for him. So we just talked, and a lady came in, and he introduced me to the lady. She wasn't there too long.

She left. So he says, what have you got to say to me? I says, George, what would you like me to say to you? Well, he said, all I can tell you is that I'm getting better, and I said, I'm hoping to get out of here. I said, well, good for you.

I hope you do get out of here. I said, but George, if you don't, he said, you know, that's what's bothering me. Everything I had is all dark.

It's all dark. An elder in the church, a man that has started numerous gospel meetings, a man that went and rented a building, asked me to come and preach in the building right in his area, told his minister he wouldn't sign his check till he came to hear me preach. He didn't come to hear me preach.

I don't know if he got the check or not, but that's beside it. We had a little talk. I prayed.

Doug McLeod, not this man's father, another Douglas McLeod that worked on his farm, had so much respect. It was Doug that told my wife, as soon as Murray gets home, send him in to see George. And Doug had a track he wanted me to give to George.

I said, it's no problem. I said, I can't go in tomorrow. I'll take it in to him Thursday.

Douglas gave me the track. I was all set to go Thursday morning until I got a call. George Sharp died Wednesday night.

I'm sitting there with the track in my hand. He's gone. Douglas McLeod that worked on the Sharp's farm, he's gone.

What did it matter? What did it matter how much his farmers worth? What did it matter how much his dairy quarter is worth? His poultry quarter. Good about the county. He's gone.

And I was at the funeral. In fact, I took Doug McLeod's funeral. What a difference.

What a difference. At that funeral, Mr. Sharp's, with that little urn of his ashes up at the front, all was dark. All was dark.

Listen, maybe I'm speaking to someone tonight raised in a gospel hall. Knows the gospel as well as I do. Dying your sins, young man.

All is dark. Is that clear? All is dark. My, go to another funeral.

Now this is the hired man. What a difference. The songs they sang.

The Christians gathering around. Just the atmosphere. With absolute confidence.

All is light. All is light. Douglas McLeod's in the glory tonight.

As far as I know, George Sharp didn't make heaven. How about you tonight? How about you? What is it when it comes to this? Let me just one more, one more, tell you about this man. I spent so much time working with this man.

Now, Douglas McLeod, those that know him here, Mr. Meekin knew him. I have to confess, as good a friend as he was, if there was a car in a car lot you shouldn't buy, he bought it. If there's a house nobody should buy, nobody wanted, Doug would come to me and he'd say, I bought the house.

I'm sorry. He couldn't make good choices. I came into George Sharp's one day and sat down at his table.

He says, pull up a chair. Look, he says, McCandless, he says, can't you help your friend? I said, what kind of help do you want me to give him? He says, he's never made a right choice. I said, just say that one more time.

He says, come on, you know. He just recited what I've told you. He's bad at choices.

He's never made a right choice. I said, stop right there, George Sharp. Stop right there.

I says, I drive up this meandering laneway. I see those lovely red barns and the white paint and those poultry barns and the grounds that are manicured and the land and everything else, and I come to this conclusion that I'm sitting at a man's table that's made a few right choices in life, or you wouldn't be where you are. Is that right? Well, he says, I guess you could say that.

Here's a man, I says, he's not here today that sits at your table at your hired man, and you are right. Most choices he made has been a wrong one, but there's only one choice that mattered, and it was a good one, and Douglas MacLeod made that, and that's why you'll go in here and preach any time. Had such respect for him.

A moment when he made choice of Christ, and I said, Mr. George Sharp, if I had to step into either shoes, I would be going into my friend Douglas MacLeod's, not George Sharp's. Never said a word. Never said a word.

I was thinking the other day, just coming down the road, coming out of Ontario, because I remember when they contacted me that he was sick. He's gone. Here's a man.

He's not a young man. I don't know if I'm speaking to someone that means that. Maybe I'm speaking to an older individual, and you're not saved.

No Savior. Maybe a religion. Maybe a church.

Maybe a pastor that you prefer. Whatever it might be, but no Savior. Here's a man, and he's waiting for this moment.

It was revealed on him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. You say, well, I can't do that. I can't see the Lord's Christ.

My friend, listen. This is not black ink on India paper. This happens to be God's Word.

The moment that a person embraces this book, they have embraced the Christ, the Savior of the world. That's the message of the gospel. You know, I have, I can't say I envy them, really.

I don't know. I want to say maybe there's something wrong with them. I'm not sure, okay.

But when somebody hands me a baby, I'm kind of clumsy, really. I'm very glad when the mother just says, hey, you know, comes and gets us, I should take it back. But I've watched men, and they could, they could just handle them so well.

That's about me, okay. I remember the first grandchild. Our daughter, Joan, had arrived in Bedeck, Nova Scotia, where I used to have a gospel meetings.

I was going out to visit a dear old lady, Mrs. Robertson, 88 years of age, children and grandchildren. And Joan had her newborn one there. And my wife, Joan, and the little one, little Timothy Harvey, I don't want to tell you how old he is now, you think I'm an old man.

I said, if you don't mind, we're gonna go see Mrs. Robertson. Sure, as Joan says, she's always up for something. We'll go see Mrs. Robertson.

Walked into that senior's complex, into Mrs. Robertson's room, and she saw that little bundle of a baby, didn't know boy or girl, its name, its age, or anything. And instinctively, instinctively, two old stiff arms went out. She said, oh my dear, can I hold your baby? Joan said, sure, Mrs. Robertson.

I could see that dear old soul yet pick that little infant up, just pull like she had done so many times. She says, and began to rock, 88 years of age, so instinctively. I think of this old man doing something that may not have been natural, my friend.

This was the Christ. Think of the tenderness. Think of two hands going out to pick up that precious one.

The infant in arms, the Christ of God, the one prophesied, the one that the nation looked forward to, the one he looked for. My, what peace are brought to him. This is the one of whom the prophets have spoken.

This is the one that God has spoken to me that I wouldn't see death till I'd seen the Lord's Christ. That's what he wanted. What is it that you want in the meeting tonight? You say, where does the part come in about the no salvation for the one-handed sinner? I know all kinds of them.

Not saved in the meeting tonight? There's a reason, young man, why you're not saved. In that hand is a firm grasp on somebody, or something else, every time. Every time.

A sin that you don't want to forsake. A pleasure you don't think you can live without. A person you can't imagine going through life without being.

She has no interest in the gospel, or he has no interest in the gospel. And you sit and can show a measure of interest and respect, which we appreciate. But firmly in that other hand is what the Bible calls another God.

And you kind of nonchalantly put out the other hand. Well, yeah, you know, I'd like to be saved. Yeah, that would be all right.

Well, I believe it, as you've been hearing tonight, Bible says it. My friend, God doesn't trust his son to anybody that can't embrace him. I'll prove that to you.

The Apostle speaks of 1 Timothy chapter 6 about laying hold on eternal life. And that's the implication of the words used, embrace it. Take it up as a precious treasure.

My friend, I want to tell you, God doesn't trust what is precious to a one-handed sinner, because Peter says he's precious. I want to tell you he's precious. And the older you get, the more precious he becomes.

Nice to be saved. Nice to know the Savior. So glad I told him right in Ontario the other night, he gave out that hymn, I have a soul to be saved.

May this truth be engraved on my mind and my heart while I'm young. And I said, you can sing that. If I wasn't saved, I couldn't sing it.

I couldn't. I can remember, or yesterday, sitting in conference gospel meetings. I wasn't saved and didn't know my sins forgiven.

Long to know Christ as my Savior. Long to know that if I died, I wouldn't be in hell because of my sin. I was at a Sarnia conference.

It was the Monday night after. Wanted to get saved on the Sunday night. Fell asleep like a young girl told me the other night.

She said, Mr. McAnus, I didn't get through God's way of salvation. I fell asleep halfway through. She said, I'm finishing it tonight.

She's still not saved. Came home from school that night, Monday night. Went up to my room, did the chores.

That little home there in southwestern Ontario on the shores of Lake Erie. Fly over it almost every time I'm coming out to Wisconsin. The flight path was almost right over the farm.

And I want to tell you a little verse, Luke 19 and 10. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. That's me.

I'm the lost one. And it was like I just embraced that verse. In fact, I actually went to the Bible.

I knew it from memory. Memorization. I went to the Bible to make sure it was there.

I was so glad. Because I was on my way down to tell my dad. And I know he's gonna ask me some questions.

He didn't ask me too many questions. Tell you what he told me. I waited a while.

Because I thought he would. Because I heard him questioning other people. I opened that door and I told him.

I said, I'm saved. I said, sit down. Tell us how it happened.

Through my tears, I told him how I trusted Christ. You know what he said? He said, your mother and I are glad to hear that. If you're saved, your life will prove it.

He said, we're gonna get down and pray and thank God for what you have told us. That's exactly what he did. Visited him.

He's not doing too good. Up there in the Toronto home, Unionville, 96 years of age. Last time I looked at him.

Talk about two arms. I wanted to pick my father up. My two arms.

Take him outside that home there in Unionville. Say, Lord, take him. Just take him.

Don't let him go on like this. He knows who we are. That's about it.

But I'll tell you what he doesn't know. Knows Christ. Do you know him tonight, my friend? This was the longing.

This man lived the whole of his life for this experience. As far as he was concerned, life wasn't worth living. If he didn't have this moment when he took hold of Christ.

There's a lot of things people take hold of in the world today. There's a lot of things that I... I want to be careful what I'm saying because I'm close to home to where I'm preaching. But I said to some girls I've come to know and come to appreciate, I can say I come to love.

I said, when Mr. McLeod and I visited them last fall when I was there for a week, I says, right or wrong, we had stiff competition in those meetings last winter and the athletic world won out. It's pretty hard to come out of a sweating gymnasium, change your clothes, and we appreciate that, and then sit in a gospel meeting and try and understand what it means to be saved. Both those girls individually nod their head.

My friend, what is it tonight? I speak to someone in that other hand is someone else, something else. There's a rich young ruler. He comes running to the Lord Jesus.

I've often thought of that. You'd looked at him and said, for sure, for sure, this man will get it. He doesn't.

What's he do? Goes back home. Why did he do that? Well, he thought he had some riches to go back to. And I'll tell you the very thing he went back to.

He curses now. So will you. I think of a man like Agrippa.

I think of a man like Felix. Someone draped over his arm saying, almost hearsay in it, without saying a word, almost feel the breathings, the sighing of her heart. This won't work in our life, not this.

Maybe there's a bit of an insidious pulling away from it. He said, go this, go thy way. When I have a convenient season, I'll call for thee.

He just had it. If not saved, you're having it. You say all preachers say that.

No, they don't. Whatever you think all preachers are saying, you'll hear for the last time, dear boy, in this gospel meeting tonight and die in your sins. You'll remember every word they said.

I have no idea what keeps you from Christ. I can tell you what keeps people from Christ in the Bible. I tell you what kept me, what kept me from Christ, my pride, just myself, really.

I don't know what I had to be proud about. But I think of others. I think of a farmer and he had everything going for him.

And he's told, this night thy soul shall be required of thee that who shall these things be. You know the people that came to Christ were? People that had nothing to go back to. Nothing to go back to.

I mean, come to your Bible. Here's a blind man. What did he have to go back to? His begging to a desperate life of darkness.

And he cries out, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. What did he go home with? Christ and his sight. This man here, he went home with sight he didn't have before too.

He'd seen Christ. That's all that matters. Went home with the Savior.

What about what you'll go home with tonight? Read, I wonder. There's others. There's a man by the name of Peter and he realizes he's going down.

And he says, Lord, save me. Why not go back to the boat? No going back to the boat. No going back to the boat.

There's one direction he was going was down. And that's why you're not saved. You can argue with me as long as you want to try and convince me you believe you're going to hell.

I don't believe a word of it. You've never believed it. The second that a soul believes I am going to a hell that I deserve to be in, God graciously reveals to that soul the truth of the provision that was made by the one that this man's holding in his arms.

What a Savior. What a Savior. Something in me that wants me to ask Simeon when I see him, what was it like? What was it like to take one like that? Did you really know, Simeon, who you were holding? You know what the Lord Jesus said about the one-handed sinner? Better he didn't have it.

Better he didn't have it. He says, if your hand offends you, cut it off. Now he was not teaching something of amputation or unnecessarily the cutting off of things that God has blessed you with.

But if it's keeping you out of salvation, it's keeping you out of the kingdom. Better you didn't have it. He says, if your foot would offend you, take you anyplace but to a gospel meeting.

Better you didn't have it. All that you're born with tonight. Better you didn't have it.

Better you're like the blind man. Better you're like the woman at the well. She leaves her water pot.

She goes home with a Savior. She's tired of that well. She's tired of dredging up from that well.

What does she go home with? A Savior. A Savior. The most unlikely.

Somebody that the disciples wouldn't even talk to. That's who she goes home. Who are you gonna go home with tonight? You know who my father's going home with? The same one that his son is going home with that you're listening to tonight.

A Savior. Christ the Lord. Bless God tonight.

Wonderful to be saved. Wonderful to know sin's forgiven. Again, repeatedly, apart from Calvary, apart from the work of Christ on Calvary's cross, I would never have known Wisconsin or a person in it.

Only by his grace do I come to know these wonderful people and the fellowship that we so happily enjoy together. All because of Calvary. All because of this one.

Born in such poverty conditions. The infant in arms, yet the Ancient of Days. The Christ of God.

Now let me come to his side. Listen young girl, he's reached out to you with both hands. How do you know that? Let me take you to a little upper room scene.

And there were men there, his disciples. And I want to tell you now, he did not go around that circle washing their feet with one hand on his hip and the other washing their hands. There's something in that passage tells me that with both those hands he would take their feet of all things.

Their feet, what humility. And he washed them. On Calvary's cross, those arms are extended wide.

Almost symbolizing him reaching out to a world that he so loved. That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What a Savior tonight. Hallelujah! What a Savior. Oh brethren, God's name.

Might our hearts be endeared to this lovely person as a result of our coming together this weekend we failed. What a wonderful person. None could equal him.

He knows no rivals tonight. Yet he's rejected and despised by you in this gospel meeting tonight. A number of years ago they were doing some archaeologists work in Mount Versace.

And of course history tells us that there had been a tremendous entombment of people because of lava that had flowed down from a mountain scene had buried a small town. These archaeologists were digging their way through the lava, finding what was remains of human bodies. They came upon something that was, it was so obvious.

It was just a young boy, just a little boy. And his hands were like this. Two hands.

They were just out like that in the lava. That's how he died. And one of the archaeologists said to the senior one, he said, who's she reaching for? He says, dig a little further you'll likely find out.

So very painstakingly they dug away and they dug away. They came on two more hands before they saw who they were. You know who it was? It was his mother.

Those hands never met. Though they were inches apart, they never met. Both of them died in that horrific scene as that lava came down that mountainside.

I want to tell you as I preach the gospel tonight my friend, in a very spiritual sense in an invisible way, there's two hands that reach out for you. When the Lord Jesus came on little children, little children, he took them up in his arms. He loved them.

His oldest sister, older sister, his only sister, got saved. Told us she got saved last night after he left the house. She got saved.

Madeline, somebody that Brendan and I carried on for last year hoping she'd get saved. She didn't. I got saved this week.

Little fella, seven years old, six years old, almost the age where you don't even want to talk to them. I know some others are maybe, but I just don't, I don't find it easy to talk to somebody. I'm afraid they'll latch on to something I might say and think they're saved and they're not.

So Mr. McLeod asked him, he said, you ever think about this Owen? Yep, he says. When last did you really think about it? He says, three o'clock. Are you at school at three o'clock? No, three o'clock this morning.

Excuse me? He said, I wake up. And in all honesty, he says, I woke up at three o'clock. I was thinking about being saved while you were sleeping in your sins.

Little guy, my, your heart went out to him. Almost wanted to pick him up. Tell the Lord, Lord, just take him away and save him, okay? I don't want to put anything in his mouth.

I don't want him to latch on to what we're saying. But there was something about that little boy that just drew you out to him. Just the little smiles were as bright as could be.

How about you in this Gospel meeting tonight? I speak to someone here. You're not the age of a Simeon. You're not an old man.

You come in a different class. Well, I'm saved while I'm young. You could be saved tonight.

You could know your sins forgiven. There's a Savior stands just waiting to be received, just waiting for you to take him. No, he will not force himself.

No, he will not push. No, he will not push it on that door. May I use and apply the words of John 3, verse 20.

Stands at the door, patiently knocks. Won't be forever. That knock will grow silent.

Maybe when it comes for you to open the door, he'll be gone. You'll be standing at another door, sealed shut in your very face. Remember Luke chapter 13, the people that come knocking on the door were people that knew the door was the way to heaven.

There's lots in this area, Crawford County, that don't know what you know in the Gospel meeting tonight. That door was to shut. Am I not looking into the faces of some tonight? And those very eyes that are looking back at me just now will pierce forward into a door that will refuse to open because the master has authoritatively shut it.

Notice it doesn't say when the Lord Jesus shuts it. Notice it doesn't say when the Savior shuts it. That was yesterday.

That was the Savior yesterday. He could have been the Lord yesterday. Now it's the master of the house.

Authority closes that door firmly. The door's open tonight. That's the wonderful news about the Gospel, that that door is open tonight.

You can go in. There's no need for you to leave this meeting tonight. You're sins on the way down to hell, deserving of God's judgment, His wrath, but it's taken the Savior.

This is what the Bible says. 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 say, open your heart, open your arms to your boy, open that hand.

Isn't that the words of August Toplady? Nothing in my hand I bring. No more clinging on to what's holding you away from the Savior that's what's turned you into a one-handed sinner that will die in his sins and go down to hell. But Jesus, I will trust Thee, trust Thee with my soul.

Guilty, lost, and helpless, Thou canst make me whole, shall we pray.