Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners

I would like to read with you or to you from 1st Timothy chapter 1. 1st Timothy in chapter 1. 1st Timothy chapter 1 to a very well-known verse. I'm sure to at least a good number that are in our meeting here tonight, and that would be verse number 15. 1st Timothy 1 verse 15.

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. I want to read that with you or to you again. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.

Sometimes because we have preached the gospel so many times and preached the gospel at conferences like this, likely Christians sometimes too think that this becomes a thing that's automatic to preachers. But I have to assure you, no one else has that it isn't. Likely the hardest meetings that I ever preach are conference gospel meetings for many reasons.

I don't know maybe who's going to be there. It's not like a series of meetings where I'm working, you're visiting with people, but a conference is just a little different. And so it causes exercise of heart and burden.

You long for something to give you an indication that what you've got on your mind is what God would have you to preach. When Mr. Thibodeau began praying tonight, his first words of thanksgiving to God were, if you can remember them, Christ Jesus came into the world. Sometimes when a man is praying, that's a little forerunner, an indicator what's on his heart.

I thought here goes my verse. But then we've been hearing tonight very clearly about His coming again, that He is coming again. It was discussed in our Bible already.

But I want to close the meeting tonight speaking about His first coming, His first coming. We live in a world that claims that it has wonders and it's called the seven wonders of the world, but they keep changing. If you were to go back a couple of years ago, there were some changes made and now these are the seven wonders of the world.

I can go over them for you, but that's not really profitable. I'm not concerned tonight, my friend, about wonders of the world. I'm going to preach to you the only wonder that ever came to this world.

Do you know who that was? It was the Son of God. His name is Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a wonder.

You don't believe me? You come here tomorrow morning and you will watch these believers as they gather here in a circle and remember the Lord Jesus. Do you know what is causing their hearts to rise in worship to God? It's the wonder of His coming into this world. We speak as Christians and rightly so.

The Word of God would allude to it. They're very anxious to come to receive His bride. To receive those that He has purchased with His blood that He shed at Calvary.

But I want to tell you something. He was just as anxious to come the first time. Do you know why? We say so people could be saved.

Yes? More than that, to do the will of His God that sent Him. He delighted in it. And when that moment came and He was sent from the Father's side into the world, I have read to you why Paul says that He has come.

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Those are delightful words.

They were not necessarily the verse that God used to awaken me to my need. Lots have been saved through that verse. But it is a delightful verse, my friend.

Because it is literally the theme of gospel preaching. That Christ Jesus came. Let me ask you tonight.

Did it really matter to you? Did anything happen at Calvary because Christ Jesus came into the world for you? I think some of the saddest words. I think it's John chapter 15. Not sure just the verse.

And the Lord Jesus said these words, and if I had not come. And if I had not come. I cannot imagine a world today to which Christ had never come.

I don't think even as believers we understand that what we have in the world tonight is the result of His coming into this world. What it would be like to live in a world that Christ had never come to. But we could talk about all the benefits of His coming.

Think of people being healed. Think of those that He spoke to. Think of the multitudes that He fed.

Think of the dead that He would raise. But I stand here, my friend, a testament, a testimony to you tonight. Thankful that Christ Jesus came into the world to save me.

You speak like that? Would you ever like to speak like that? Do you think the day will ever come when you'll bow your head and say, thank God that He came. This is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Did He have to come for you? My father-in-law, a very religious man, very upright, moral man.

I visited a neighbor of his years ago and he told me, listen, he said, I know your father-in-law longer than you have and better than you know him. And he's the last person in this neighborhood that ever needed to be saved. He didn't need this saving.

I said, you should talk to him about it. But you know what my father-in-law did tell me? He said, I can remember when the girls got saved. That would be my wife, one of them.

I remember, he says, coming home from the city with all my religion, with all my going to church. He says, and I went through that steel bridge that goes across the St. John River just before I get to his house. And I said to myself, he didn't need to come for me.

He says, those words never left me. He said, I said to myself, Howard, if he didn't come for you, you'd be in hell. So you, young man.

So would I. This is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation. It's worthy of your acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I have a, he would be our family doctor and a personal friend.

I know Dr. Phillips personally, and really I feel sorry for people in his office sometimes when he's got me in there because he's talking about a lot of things and they're waiting to see him. But be that as it may, told me an interesting story last winter. He said, yeah, I want to tell you something, Marie.

He said, you know, maybe it's interesting, maybe it's not. But he said, you know, he said, Cheryl and I were sitting in, they have a lovely home in Hampton, New Brunswick, not far from where we live, but in a nice area. We're sitting this night and the fireplace was going and I was just reading and she was working away at something.

She said, and, you know, he said, she said, I smell something. He said, but you know, he said, women, I just, they're always smelling something. And he said, I said, okay.

So I went back to my paper and she says, Ed, it's getting stronger. He said, well, what do you think it is? She says, something's burning. She says, I think you should check it out.

So he says, I got out of my lazy boy chair and I went over and I put my hands on just above where our fireplace is and I could hardly hold my hands on that. I thought, yeah, it's getting a little warm. So he goes over and he calls Captain Barry, the fire chief of the fire department.

And he gets him on the phone and he says, Barry says, it's Ed over here. He said, listen, I think you should come, listen to his words. I think you should come and just kind of check this thing out.

But he said, could you do without all the whistles? And he said, I don't want any sirens going on my neighborhood. I don't want any flashing lights. He said, could you do without that? That quick thinking fire chief literally threw the phone down.

And in seconds, you could hear the fire department. In seconds, the sky was lit up with flashing lights. In a moment, they're going up Dr. Ed Phillips driveway, out with those picks into the side of that house, ripping it out as the flames were coming out the side of that house.

So I said, Ed, because I've spoken to him so many times. I said, so what'd you think then? Did you kind of tell him off for putting the lights on? He said, you know, at that point, you didn't care. He says, at that point, I forgot about all those things.

At that point, there's one thing that was on my mind. It was this, I'm going to lose this beautiful home that I so love. You see, I speak to people.

I visit with people. I preach not at them, but to them, I hope. This salvation, well, it would be all right, but Hey, it just meant now.

I don't want anybody to see that I'm bothered. Hey, it was the same way. I don't want anybody, no fanfare for me.

Nobody said the whisper among the Christians. Did you see him in the meeting? Did you see, he could hardly hold the tears back. You know, and I want to tell, I tell people, I want to tell you tonight, don't you ever forget it.

I've sat down with bigger men than you'll ever be that broke down in a chair and cried and they were apologizing to me for the tears. And I said, listen, my man, you shed them this side of the pillar death, not the other side. You shed the Mueller's time.

Don't worry about that. When a person is awakened to the fact that I need a savior, that I'm dying in my sins, I'm going down to hell. My friend, the truth Christ came and that's why he came become so precious.

It's not something you've got to make real. It's not something to be toned down. It is something to be excited about.

It is. It's a wonderful thing to be saved. I tell people very readily and very openly.

I wish I could convey to you young boy tonight, the joys of salvation, the wonderful truth of being saved, not just to get preachers off my back. Not just so people wouldn't nag me relatives and say, how come you're not saved yet? Yes, sir. I didn't like that either.

But the truth of knowing no matter what happens, no matter what comes it's heaven. You speak like that. Does this verse tonight, is it have any sweetness to you? Does it have anything that, that brings to your heart some satisfaction that there's someone that loved me so much that he actually came into this world to die on the cross so I wouldn't have to go to hell.

I have to tell people, I knew he came into the world. I knew that Christ died to make that provision for everyone. But the night that I trusted Christ as my savior, I thought I was the only one that really needed it.

I didn't care about anybody else at that moment. It was me. You see, there is thinking, this came up, I think a little in the reading or was alluded to today in the readings.

There is a thinking that because Jesus came into the world that ultimately and finally everybody will be saved because after all God is a God of love. He's not going to let anybody go down to hell and everybody's going to be saved. You know, that is the same as saying, because Crawford County has a fire department, no houses burned down, nobody burns in them.

And I'm not sure what county I'm in, I'm taking a guess. But my friend, I want to tell you that's not true and you know it. You know it.

What makes the difference? You know what makes the difference? A call in time. That's not what my doctor was doing. If it hadn't been for the urging of his wife, he likely lost his house.

Maybe him too. You got someone tonight and you don't like their urging. You don't like them speaking to you.

You don't like to think that while mother's in that bedroom she's on her knees praying that I won't be in hell. I didn't like to think that was happening either, but it was. I'm so thankful for it tonight.

Wonderful thing to have Christian parents. Wonderful thing. My mother's in heaven.

My father's 94 years of age and he's losing ground. I sat and I looked at him in Toronto here when I went up there to take a funeral not that long ago and I said to myself, thank God. Thank God.

My brothers and myself took him on a bit of a tour. He was in the Air Force. He's a vet from the Second World War.

Took him on a tour. Got pictures of him underneath aircraft right in the hangar he used to work at in Brantford, Ontario. Took him all down through southwestern Ontario.

Took him to the house where he got saved where the gospel went up the lane. We took a picture. I take pictures of that place and thank God I know the men that went up there and took the gospel to a grandfather that I had that was nothing but a kind man.

There's a lot of pictures. One of my brothers put a book together of all those pictures, but I've got a picture that didn't go into that book. My father doesn't know I took it.

It's back at the motel. I watched that man spend five minutes to get on his knees and pray. I stood in that motel room.

I said, thank God. Thank God. I remember the first time he told me he did that when he got saved as a young man.

I remember times when he used to do that in our home. Round the table and pray for us, seven children by name. Oh God, he said, save them.

My father didn't want big success in this life for us. My mother didn't either. You know what he wanted for us? Christ.

Do you know what we want for you tonight, my friend? Christ, a savior. I took a picture of him there at the side of his bed. I value that tonight.

Do you know what would really bother me tonight if I was in my right thinking? To be a child born into that home with a father like that and die and go to hell. Are you going to do that? This is the faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that if it's worthy of all acceptation, it's worthy of your acceptation tonight. The wondrous truth is this, that you can leave this high school tonight here, North Crawford High School is it, without something you came in with.

You came in with your sin, came in with all your guilt, came in with all that you are. You can leave it tonight, my friend, your feet hardly touching the floor, knowing Christ had died for you. Over at Manchester, a couple of Christians, older Christians were getting after me the other night.

They said, hey, listen, when people get saved around here, we sing happy day. I said, so do I, only a year later, I'll come back. The Lord be not come one year and I'll start it and we'll sing happy day.

Now I said, you want to sing happy day, you go ahead and sing it. I want to tell you, the night I got saved, it was a happy night. It was a happy night.

For the first time, I went up, up to that upper third story floor of that house, to your old Peter Orszag that I preached with so many times, go to St. Thomas Conference Unit, take me out, show it to me, McCandless, take me out, show it to me. I said, no, I don't want to go to the farm. Go on.

He wasn't interested in where 20,000 poultry or hens were housed. He wasn't interested in fields, farms. He used to stand back.

He said, there it was, wasn't it? Up in that room. I said, up in that room, Peter. He said, thank God.

Do you have a place like that? Do you have a place like that? A place where you appreciated that Christ Jesus came into the world to save you? This is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. You see, my friend, listen, please understand it. God's greatest creation is not flung stars or gorge canyons.

God's greatest creation is a sinner in his sins that has trusted his Son as Savior, and he has become a new creature, a new creation in Christ Jesus. Wonderful thing. I had a neighbor who used to say to me, maybe somebody used to think this is a double take.

He used to say, you know, McCandless, you'd be a great guy if it wasn't for that religion of yours. I said, Junior, you wouldn't know how to live next door to me if it wasn't for Christ that I have. I don't have a religion.

Well, he said, you know that church business. I said, it's not church business. Now, you know better than that.

My neighbor, a service manager down one of the big garages, he didn't know that. My friend, listen, I'm so glad I have no idea what I would be like in my sins. I can't even stand here tonight and tell you what kind of a wild nature I have.

It would scare the life out of me. I deserve to be in hell, and I believe it more tonight than the night I trusted Christ as my Savior. I'll never be there because Christ Jesus came into the world to save me.

I bless Him for it. I love to sing hymns. I love to hear hymns being sung.

I love the children's hymns that so relate to a Savior that has come. Wonderful thing to be saved tonight. This is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world.

I want to tell you very quickly some things about it. First of all, it's something that is absolutely dependable. Absolutely dependable.

It is the most believable and receivable message that this world has ever heard or will ever hear, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Absolutely dependable. Something, my friends, you could step out on.

Something that you could walk out on. Put your faith on it. That God sent His Son to die on Calvary's cross so you could be saved, to take your sins away, to pay the penalty of your sin so you wouldn't have to die in them and go down to hell.

And you'd be able to put those knees where they belong, by the side of your bed, and for the first time thank God for His Son. You haven't been home lately, but some of those young Christians that have been received in the fellowship lately, they say it moves the morning meeting to hear them rise to their feet in less than a minute. Thank God for saving them.

That's sweet, brethren. Wouldn't you like to be able to do that? Oh, you say, I'm not that public kind. I'm more like your doctor.

I don't want the sirens. I don't want the lights. I don't want this.

I don't want that. You want to go to hell? You have no plans on being there, do you? Well, then you're going to have to face the fact there's a Savior that loves you so much that that's what He has done for you tonight. Not only is it absolutely dependable, but it's something that has been authoritatively declared.

The prophets told of His coming. The Bible, that's why the Lord Jesus would say to people in His day, search the scriptures. For then you think you have eternal life.

They are they which testify of Me. What's the book say? Go to the Bible. What's it telling us? It's telling us of a Savior that's going to come.

There's a man that lived the whole of his life, if you like, for a moment. When he stood in the banks of the Jordan, he said, behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. That was the Christ.

That's the Savior that came to this dark world. I have no idea why He came, my friend. Natural thinking.

He never left heaven. The reason He came was because He loved us. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Not only is it authoritatively declared and adequately demonstrated, but more than that, the sad thing is it's actually disbelieved. People actually disbelieve it. We say, oh no, I really believe that He came.

I somehow believe that. Oh, are you saved? Are you going to heaven? What does it mean to you tonight, friend? That's what we're talking about. More than once, I've had people come to me.

It's not because the amount of people in 38 years of gospel preaching that have been saved while I've been sitting there or even near them I can put on one hand. I don't sit down with people and tell them, put your name in this verse. I'm not authorized to do that.

God hasn't given me that authority. Now listen, don't get upset. If you did that, that's fine.

I don't do that. I will put verses down. I'll say, here, you get this settled.

It's between you and God. But my, when they stand up for my gospel, when they come to the back doors, more than once, and the Bible's open, they got their hand, they said, it was for me. I just realized, Mr. McCann said, I just realized He came for me.

I said, how do you know? The verse says it as if I hadn't read it before. A man that was, Lloyd Parley is his name, got home to heaven. His wife, I've often told people that his wife was my wife's best friend and likely was.

Shirley is very friendly with all the Christians, but I have to say her husband was not Shirley's husband's best friend. That's me. Somehow I get the idea.

I used to preach at him. He was a big boy. He could put me down with one hand and bury me with the other.

And there's times I'm sure he walked through that tent. In He told me, I love that, punched her lights out. So mad.

Told him up in London, Ontario, giving his testimony. He said, I vowed I'd never get saved in any, any gospel meetings. Murray McCann said, nothing to do with.

Oh, I watched that man rise up out of his chair one night, trembling. Come to the door. Romans 10 and nine.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart, that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. He said, I'm saved. I've saved.

I want to tell you the last winter before he died, I said, I'm meeting a little back area, not far where he used to live. He asked me to go visiting with me. Here's a fellow that wouldn't even sat with me.

It got near me hardly. I used to go to his place for a meal, but it was pretty tense. He got over it.

And he got saved. Hope you do too. Remember one day, tall, nice looking man, wavy hair, snow was falling.

I hear him on the steps of people, people's houses. Nobody can argue with him. He was too big, really.

He'd say, well, he said, I want to tell you, all I can tell you is that I was once just like you, but I'm saved. I'm saved. You talk like that tonight? Saved.

This, let me just leave it with you, Fred. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Shall we pray?