Salvation Through the Ages - Part 1 — John 3

0:01 Well, thank you everybody. It's nice to be here. I don't do this too often anymore. People are kind of surprised when they hear that I'm going to be at a Bible conference these days. I've tried to stay pretty close to home in Mississippi.

0:19 When my wife heard about this, she said, Well, you know, those folks up there, they've come down to help us quite a few times. We really ought to reciprocate. So, as the Bible says, that there be a mutuality that we so appreciate the ministry, the investment you folks have made to help us in Mississippi. So we're grateful to be here. These questions, how I came to know the Lord.

0:46 I was raised in a family that knew and loved the Lord. My great, my grandfather's grandmother led one of the early gospel pioneers in North America for the Lord. The man that came and pioneered gospel work in Cleveland was named John Smith. Eric Smith is his great grandson, some of you know Eric. And John Smith was from a little fishing village near Aberdeen, and my grandfather's grandmother would see him coming down the street and she would go to intercept him, and he'd see her coming and so he'd sneak into a pub because he knew she wouldn't go in the pub.

1:33 And she'd come to the door of the pub and call in, You can get a wah for me, John Smith, but there's a day coming you'll know get a wah for God. And John Smith got saved and he, with others came to North America with Donald Ross and Donald Monroe and others, and what was called the Northeast Coast Mission originally. These young men who came to North America and in a matter of thirty or forty years saw over 300 assemblies started across North America, including the work in Cleveland. And so, I knew the gospel from my earliest years. And I wasn't quite five years old. My

2:20 My father found me sitting down the back stair and I was crying and he asked me what was wrong and I just went, I was going to hell. And I knew it. And he shared with me John three thirty six, explained to me how the Lord Jesus is like someone with a gift in one hand and the gavel in the other, the judge's gavel, and I had a choice to make that I want him to be my savior or my judge. And I just simply put my trust in the Lord at that time. Really, my Christian life was fairly modest, shall we say, not very inspired, until when I was about 15 years of age.

3:13 We used to go out to a Bible camp in Manitoba. 1,500 miles, no air conditioning, in the hot summer, we'd make our way out there, Faith Bible Camp, which was up in Lake Winnipeg. And on this trip when I was 15, we came back through The United States, instead of going over the Lake Superior, we came down through Michigan and stopped in Grand Rapids and visited the Pell family. And Mr. Bill Pell, who at that time was the editor of the Uplook magazine and the Choice Communities calendar and producing the Sunday School papers and gospel tracks and preaching more than a lot of preachers, He took the whole day off just for me.

4:00 And my folks were busy at Rest Haven Homes and so on, but he just drove me around, talked to me about the Lord, and we had lunch together and he gave me a task to write a couple of Sunday School stories for their youth paper. And I struggled over that, I'm sure they had to heavily edit them, but they did publish them. And it turned my casual lope into an all out race for the prize. And I think so often with young people, you know, to give them token jobs, they give token commitment. But if you see in them a spark of interest to fan it into flame and to give them a real path that really makes a difference, and it certainly transformed my life, and I began traveling back and forth to Grand Rapids.

4:59 Every summer, every opportunity I had, I would head down there and work in the print shop. In those days, it was all letterpress. And learned to work real hours, none of these baby hours, like eight hours a day. Ruth Pell, during paper time, when they were putting out all the Sunday school papers, she would sleep every other night. So she would get up in the morning, she'd work all day, all night, all the next day, then she'd go to bed, then she'd sleep the night, get up, and then she'd do the same thing again.

5:36 So every other night, that's how she worked it. So it was an interesting environment, you know, as they said, the Pell home was like heaven, there was no night there. And I saw people that were just all in for the Lord. That's all they cared about, was what did the Lord want. And so it was a tremendous opportunity, and eventually the Pells got older and they asked if we would help take over the work there, and that's how we ended up in Grand Rapids. So

6:07 So that was my second question. How did I meet Louise? I don't remember. They have pictures of us when we were three years old at birthday parties. I think I met her before I was three, but I don't remember exactly.

6:22 It was kind of an arranged marriage, I suppose. My father and her father both came on the oversight together as young men. My mother and her mother were good friends. They worked right next door to each other and took trips together and so on. My grandmother used to babysit Louise and her siblings when their parents went away.

6:45 And so, we were kind of fated, I suppose, to get married. But that applause was well deserved for my dear wife. You can just imagine her trying to live with me for fifty two years. What a challenge that's been for. I spent a lot of time on the road and she helped by the Lord. She

7:08 She raised the seven children and we thank God they're all going on for the Lord today. So, where did I preach my first message? I will not tell you the town to protect the guilty, but I went with my father, I think I was about 14 years old, and I preached a little gospel message. And no one in the assembly said anything to me except one man who was picking up the hymn books and he said to me, You should have told your testimony. So that was my inauspicious start at preaching.

7:47 I almost gave up right there, but, you know, the sisters do a good job of encouraging. The brethren wanted to make sure they kept everything straight, and so they'd take me aside and work me over pretty regularly. But the sisters would say, Now you listen to these fellows, you know, they want to help. But I just want you to know you really encourage me. And that's what kept me going, actually. The

8:12 The brethren thought they did a good job, but it was actually the sisters that kept me going. So, since then I've preached a few times here, there, and everywhere, and yet it never gets old to me. Every time I open this book, it's just like a fresh opportunity to discover wonderful things out of God's law. When you ask the question, how did the Lord lead me into ministry? That's an interesting question.

8:44 Didn't want to be a preacher. My dad was a preacher, and everywhere I went it was like, keep at it, son. If you keep going someday, you'll be half as good as your father is. Or I would preach my heart out and the old ladies would say, when's your father coming back? He's our favorite preacher.

9:06 But God was so gracious to me, I ended up being invited down into the Carolinas in Georgia in my early days. And my father was unknown down there. He traveled a lot of places, but didn't really travel down there at all. And so that allowed me just to kind of develop on my own without being under that pressure. And eventually my dad and I did preach together. We

9:33 We had very different styles, but we very much enjoyed spending time together. But in those formative years, had the freedom to sort of develop on my own. And so I was very grateful for that. But, you know, I'm convinced that if you make the little decisions in the light of the will of God, the big decisions look after themselves. And the decisions I made, nobody really noticed. You

10:01 You know, the guys are going out to play football Saturday morning, I'd say, Hey, I'd love to come, I love doing it, but I'm behind. I've got to spend some time in the book. And those little decisions that really no one else would notice, those really were the things that in the long run made the big decisions. Look after themselves. So I was telling Andy that early on in our ministry, I was invited to speak in Cleveland, and this was before our first child was born.

10:36 And then they called me back and said, you know, there's a big event here with the Moody radio program and so we'd appreciate if you would come a week earlier. And when that happened, it meant that I had an extra ten days in there. And so I was invited to go down to North Carolina. So we left Cleveland and we drove down to North Carolina. When we got there, we still had several days free, and so we ended up going down to Georgia, where we had some friends in Waynesboro, and I ended up preaching on the radio, and got invited back to spend two weeks, children's meetings and ministry on the church.

11:17 And then some brethren from Augusta came down and listened to me and recorded my message and took it back to the elders at Bethany and then invited me to the youth conference there. And then Roy Waters was over from Atlanta with a group of young people and he invited me to go to North Atlanta. And that's how it happened, just little by little. I never really decided to go out preaching, I just did what the Lord gave me opportunities to do. And so there it is.

11:50 We just thank the Lord for his grace and for his people. They've been so faithful and encouraging and supportive and prayerful. Nothing like it, nothing like it in all the world. And I'm just so grateful for the opportunity this evening. So, I'd like to read a couple of passages with you by way of introduction. First

13:16 The things that Jesus began to do and to teach and the book of the Acts is going to be the continuing work of the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit through his people. And I have become increasingly convinced that the cacophony, the confusion in the evangelical church, the kind of things you see on the internet where every cockamamie idea is being introduced by people who profess to be teachers and really know what they're talking about, it's the result of losing sight of the Lord Jesus. The truth is in Jesus. I think of the story, we'll look at it a little later, of Philip sitting with the Ethiopian eunuch. And the Bible says he preached unto him Jesus.

14:20 And all theology is Christology. Right? Jesus, the truth is in Jesus. He is the truth. When we look at Bible prophecy, why is it so confusing to people?

14:38 It's because they lose sight of the man and the glory. The book of the Revelation is not the revelation of Saint John the Divine, it's the revelation of Jesus Christ. And if you look for Christ in the Revelation, you'll see him. He's the lamb of God and he's the lion of the tribe of Judah and he's the lord of the churches and he's the heavenly bridegroom and he's the judge of all the earth. These beautiful portraits of Christ on almost every page.

15:08 And so as we read through the scripture and look for Christ, we find the key. The two on the Emmaus Road were so confused. They couldn't figure it out. What's going on? They had it all wrong.

15:26 And what did Jesus do? He opened to them the scriptures and he showed them the things concerning himself. And so wherever else we go this weekend in our studies, let's not lose sight of the fact that the gospel is wrapped up in a person. Salvation is in a person. We preach Christ and him crucified.

16:02 And you'll notice that Luke tells us that he left them many infallible proofs. In other words, good, hard evidence. Faith is not a leap in the dark. It's not belief without proof. It's the reasonable response of the heart to the evidence that God has given.

16:35 Peter says something very similar, doesn't he, in two Peter chapter one, when he says in verse 16, We did not follow cunningly devised fables. We didn't follow myths. When we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. And so in the introduction, I pray, I hope that we will follow the example of Mary in her Magnificat when she writes, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my savior. That's what I hope will be the end project as we come to the conclusion of these studies that we'll all stand back with a happy sigh and say, Isn't Jesus wonderful?

17:35 Well, in our first study this evening, I thought maybe I would pick a topic that is not too difficult to transfer and that anyone who comes in tomorrow won't feel like they missed out. If we start with the definitions tonight, they'll feel like they're starting late. But this little series, they can pick up the paper and study it out on their own. What I'm suggesting here is that when you put together a jigsaw puzzle, it's always a good idea to start with the straight edges. Start with the things you know for sure. Even

18:09 Even little children can figure out this one has a straight edge, it goes on the border. Right? It contains the rest of it. It's the starting clue that builds towards the center. And so when we think about the gospel as it's presented in the word of God, there are certain clear statements that we can embrace and say, Well, I know that. I

19:20 Right? When Hebrew was being reintroduced in Israel, a man by the name of Ben Yehuda, Hebrew was a lost language. And he began to reconstruct it. And he didn't want sloppy words for things like television and oil change. And so he went back to the original words and he constructed words out of the original Hebrew. Well,

19:49 Well, he was thrown in prison by the Jewish religious leaders. We are not going to use this holy language to talk about getting an oil change. Right? That's how they thought of the language. But this is the beauty of the gospel.

20:12 It's like a loaf of bread. Any way you slice it, it's bread. Any way you present the truth of God, it's true. And so there are people and they don't know any Greek. They don't know any Hebrew.

20:27 They know Swahili maybe. And when they read the Swahili Bible, they discover the same truths that we discover when we look into the word of God. God is no respecter of persons. Let's turn for a minute here to James chapter two. And this may seem to be a bit of a trick.

21:02 He begins by saying, My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with partiality. That sounds sort of an awkward way to say it. But the idea is here, that if you're going to be a Christian, be the real deal. And being the real deal means that you have a heart like the heart of God. And God doesn't play favorites.

21:28 God isn't partial. He isn't prejudiced. For if there should come into your assembly a man with the gold rings in fine apparel, and there should also come a poor man in filthy clothes, And you will pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, Sit here in this good place, and say to the poor man, You stand there or sit here at my footstool. Have you not shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen?

22:01 Oh, wait. Has God not chosen the poor of this world? So I guess it's okay to be partial, as long as you're partial towards the poor people. Is that what he's saying? He's just said, Don't be partial.

22:20 Don't pick the rich guy over the poor guy. But it's okay if you pick the poor guy. Is that what it says? Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man.

22:35 Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

22:56 Well, this is the beauty of God, isn't it? God is preferential to everyone. You see, if people really saw themselves for what they were, they would discover they're all poor before God. Isn't that right? Isn't that the point?

23:23 You remember the rich young man, the attorney, he shows up and he thinks he's gonna argue Jesus into a trap. Oh, good master, what's the greatest commandment? And the Lord says, Well, you're the lawyer, tell me. Well, know, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbors yourself. Very good, go do it.

23:44 The problem was all his neighbors were standing around, maybe with their little list, you know. Oh, you're gonna love me like you love yourself? Well, I'd like a cherry just like yours and you can cut my grass on Thursday and, you know. So he realized he had fallen into the trap. And so he looked to Jesus to help him get out of it.

24:04 Well, who is my neighbor? This is the big deal, right? Lawyers love to do this. We'll redefine our terms. So Jesus tells a story.

24:17 And the man who's asking the question shows up in the story. But he's not the rich guy riding a donkey with all the goods, right? He's the man lying in the ditch, half dead, stripped and beaten and robbed. That's you, mister. That's how the Lord, when the Lord looked at these people, you think you're rich. What

24:44 What does he say to the Laodicean church? You think you got it all, don't you realize you're poor? And when the Lord said this, the disciples of the rich young ruler turned away, walked away. And Jesus said, How hard is it for a rich man to enter into heaven? All that money confuses you.

25:08 It fools you into thinking that you've got everything you need in life. But you're poor, man. You're desperately poor. You can't buy Elon Musk can't buy one second of time, let alone eternity. All is highly flammable green paper.

25:28 It doesn't measure up in heaven. It's not legal tender in heaven. And so what's being said here is this, it's okay to be partial as long as you're partial to everybody. As long as you see everybody as a needy soul and you want to help them, well great, go for it. We have a similar situation in the discussion of the firstborn in the Bible, right?

26:01 I was working in my garden and two gentlemen came around the corner and they initiated the conversation by saying, Do you think the world's coming to an end? I said, Wow, that's an abrupt way to start a conversation. My name's Jayb Nicholson. He said, Green and Jones. I said, Well, have you always been Jehovah's Witness?

26:22 And the one guy said, No, I was a Baptist. The other guy said, I was Pentecostal. He said, man, you gave up an awful lot. I said, what do you mean? I said, the Jehovah's Witness, they don't believe in the hope of heaven.

26:39 They don't believe in the finished work of Christ. They don't believe in the personality of the Holy Spirit. They don't believe in the final authority of Scripture. They don't believe in the reality of a devil. I mean, what do you guys believe? I

26:53 I know what you don't believe. You gave up everything when embraced this. And they responded by saying, well, know, these people came to our door and said, do you want to study the Bible? I said, That's what you need to do. Don't study the Watchtower Society literature, study the Bible.

27:15 And they said, Well, I bet they don't teach you at your church that Jesus was the firstborn of creation. Well, as a matter of fact, they do. But I bet they don't teach at Kingdom Hall that in the Bible the firstborn was never the one born first, and the one born first was never the firstborn. I said, What? I said, Well, yeah.

27:38 You know, Cain was born first. Abel was the firstborn. Esau was born first. Jacob was the firstborn. Ishmael was born first. Isaac

27:45 Isaac was the firstborn. You know the story how old Jacob crossed his hands over and put his right hand on the head of the younger Ephraim instead of Manasseh. And Joseph said, Dad, Alzheimer's. And he was like, No, son, I know exactly what I'm doing. This has been God's plan from the beginning.

28:09 Israel is first, but the church is the church of the firstborn. Adam is first, but Christ is the firstborn. The whole idea is that if God gave the right to the firstborn, then he would exclude everybody who wasn't the firstborn. The idea is that the law would require that the others be disenfranchised, and only the one born first would get the inheritance. And Grace comes in and says, Here's an idea.

28:40 Why not make everybody heirs? Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And the one born first can get in on it too. They just can't get on it by law. They come by grace, just like everybody else.

28:57 And so this is the message of our Bible, that God, his heart embraces everyone. He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And so this is something we should nail to our mass. This is something we should lay hold of. This is a glorious truth in the word of God, that God has a heart for everyone.

29:27 Jesus tells the story of the 99 sheep, good little sheep that all stayed home and one got lost. And if he was a theologian like we have today, he probably would have said, Oh well, sheep have more sheep, we'll write that one off as a business expense. But the shepherd said, No, I want that one too. I want them all. Right?

29:50 I want them all. And when the ones who are invited won't come, then go into the highways and byways and compel them to come in. This is the heart of God. And it should be our heart as well. God is no respecter of persons.

30:39 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority. Well those are the rich ones, right? I guess he wants them too, doesn't he? That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

31:29 Pray for all. Pray for all because God wants all men to be saved, and to that end, Christ gave himself a ransom for all. Now there are people and they work very hard to explain to us that all doesn't always mean all. You listen to the words of Isaiah 53 verse six, All we like sheep have gone astray. How many of us went astray?

31:58 All. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The old preachers used to say, Go in at the first all, come out at the last all, you're saved. Discover that you're the all included in the all have sinned, and discover that the all that Christ died for includes all who have sinned.

32:28 And if you can match up the two, it's not too hard, you don't need an advanced degree for this, But if you can figure out that the all at the beginning and the all at the end are speaking about the same all, well then you can be saved. He is not willing that any should perish. And then number three, his legitimate offer means what it says. Mark sixteen fifteen, the Lord sent out his disciples and said, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now maybe there's some people that are more clever than I am and you can make something out of that that it doesn't seem to say.

33:16 But when I read that verse, it sounds an awful lot like Jesus said, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And the early Christians who were nearest to Christ and who spent three and a half years studying and learning from Him, they, of all things, thought that what Jesus meant was, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And when Paul writes to the Colossians, he says that that's exactly what happened. That the gospel went out to the whole world because they thought that's what Jesus meant. And of course, it is what he meant.

33:59 Acts chapter 13 verses thirty eight and thirty nine are beautiful in this regard. By him, everyone who believes is justified from all things. Don't you love that? Don't you love the simplicity of the gospel And the certainty of the gospel? And the clarity of the gospel?

34:23 And the availability of the gospel? It's great, isn't it? Listen again. He says, by him, that is by Christ the savior, everyone who believes is justified from all things. That's why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel.

34:48 It's the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. I got a little note from one of the prisoners recently in Central Mississippi, in the Meridian. And he writes this little note and says, Please forgive me, I'm not real good at explaining what happened to me. I'm just getting used to God living in my body. Okay, that's not the most finessed way to describe it, but it's exactly true.

35:25 This is the wonder of God's salvation. Not only that he said like King David, Okay, you can go back to the palace, I don't want to see his face. God says, no, I not only forgive you for all your heinous sins, I want to move in. I want to live in you and transform you from the inside out. It's an inside job.

35:51 Look at the Lord Jesus weeping in Luke chapter 19. And he says to Jerusalem, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you? How often? Do you not see this when you read the Gospels? How often he pled with them?

36:10 How he used every possible illustration and parable and miracle to teach them? Over and over and over again. How often I would have gathered you, but you would not. The word is willed. I willed but you willed not.

36:41 We'll think a little bit about the interplay between human will and the sovereignty of God. But just for now, acknowledge that this is exactly what God says. That he wants all men to be saved. That Christ died for all. But not all will be saved.

37:34 The elect say no, so the non elect say, well, we'll take them. And they end up getting saved. Because the election was not to salvation. There's only one verse that talks about being chosen to salvation. And that's not salvation from the penalty of sin. That's

37:50 That's salvation from the wrath of God that's going to fall on this earth. Second Thessalonians chapter two is talking about the judgment of God is going to fall on the earth and we have been saved from wrath through him. We will not face the wrath of God that is coming on this world. That's part of the redemptive program. And so, there is still a choice when it comes to God's election. Look

38:21 Look at the Lord Jesus. In great servant songs in Isaiah, the father says, Here's my son. This is what I have called him to do. And then, in chapter 61, Jesus responds. And he says, The spirit of the Lord is upon me to do these things.

38:41 And he takes up the challenge. You know, the wonderful thing about God is that God is a gentleman. God does not foist his will on others. He is not willing that any should perish, but some people will perish. And why do they perish? Well,

39:02 Well, we'll find out why a little bit later in the list here. But the idea that God, through history, has elected his son, the Lord Jesus, not to be saved, but for a role, the supreme role of being the savior of the world. He selected the nation of Israel. They did not all respond in faith. Some of them did, but most of them did not. As

39:29 As a nation, they rejected the opportunity to be his missionaries. But even when they did, God found a way to back them into blessing. Isn't that the truth? Look at Jonah. Jonah is such a beautiful picture of this.

39:48 Jonah is told to go to Nineveh, the most wicked city in the world, who committed such horrible atrocities, and not only so, but carved bas relief pictures of their atrocities on the walls of their dining rooms. Look at this, here I am doing this horrible deed, right? They were horrible people. But God says, They're my creatures, and I have a loyalty to them, and I want to warn them. And Jonah has no interest in doing it.

40:27 And so he takes an early retirement from preaching. He decides it's a perfect time for a Mediterranean cruise. And what happens? Through no manipulation of his own, he ends up seeing a whole boatload of pagan seamen trust the Lord. He didn't mean it.

40:53 Right? But it happened. And this has been the history of God's dealings with people. When people fail, God doesn't fail. Right?

41:10 When people fail, God doesn't fail. And so God has selected certain individuals. And you know, people will go into Romans nine through 11 and they see this little piece of the puzzle. This little piece about Isaac and his sibling, you know, Ishmael and Isaac, and Jacob and Esau. And they take that and they explode it into a whole theological system.

41:39 If they could just see that Paul is just zooming in on a little tiny piece of a huge water glass, What do you call it? Hourglass. Hourglass, there you go. A huge hourglass, right? And so you start with the whole Adamic race.

42:02 And then God moves down and He selects Seth. And then He selects Shem. And then He selects Abraham. And then Isaac and Jacob. And then Judah and David.

42:17 And eventually, we come to the seed of the woman. Right? And we see this, how God is choosing. And as he's choosing, he's not rejecting everyone else, but he's choosing these individuals for a role in his purposes to accomplish his will. And the whole objective is with Abraham, with David, with Jesus, whoever it is, his whole objective is to maximize the blessing to the most number of people.

42:49 Why did he choose Abraham? That through Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Why did he send the Lord Jesus? To be the savior of the world. Right?

43:02 And so, we see this little piece of that hourglass. And we make these big conclusions about it. Instead of seeing that God began with the human race, where does he end up? Comes all the way down to the seat of the woman, and then it starts to open up again, doesn't it? Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth.

44:20 He's given us a capacity to love, to worship, to serve, to sacrifice, to know him, to fellowship with him. And so this idea of light, it's not the amount of light a person has, it's whether they embrace the light. And Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night. And he didn't come at night because that was the only time he had on his day timer. He came at night to avoid his crowd.

44:57 He didn't want others to see what he was doing. And we know that because Jesus rebuked him and said, Nicodemus, if you're going to get saved, man, you're going to have to step into the light. The reason people don't get saved is because they love the darkness. They want to stay hidden. You see, you can look like a movie star in the dark, but when the light turns on, reality strikes you.

45:28 And so the Pharisees, before Jesus came, they could present themselves as being very righteous, very proper. But when Jesus walked into the room, he exposed the devil lurking in their hearts. And they hated him for it. They wanted to stay in the dark. And so Jesus says, Nicodemus, if you want to be saved, if you want to be born again, you're going to have to step into the light.

46:00 Nicodemus does it halfway, doesn't he, when he's meeting with the council. He says, We don't condemn a man without hearing him first, right? That's kind of a half step into the light. But then at Calvary, he reaches up and takes down the murdered body of the Lord Jesus and by that disqualifies himself as a ruler of the Jews from being involved in the Passover. He was now ceremonially unclean.

46:31 But he had discovered what Jesus told him in John three, that when the Son of Man is lifted up, he will provide salvation Better than all the rituals of Judaism, he would provide salvation. He realized that this indeed was his Passover lamb, and he received him as his savior. So we know that not everyone gets the same amount of light. Jesus said, if the people of Tyre and Sidon had seen the miracles that I'm doing here in Capernaum, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. So not everyone gets the same amount of light. And

47:15 And we're going to think about that a little bit when we look at what Paul says at Mars Hill. But you will notice, if you do the research, that Tyre and Sidon keep showing up in the scriptures. We see time and time again. Let's remember that it was the people of Tyre and Sidon who helped construct the temple in Jerusalem. It wasn't that they had no light.

47:43 They had enough light. They didn't have as much light as having Jesus walk down your main street almost every day for three and a half years. But they had enough light. You don't need much light to tell the difference between the light and the darkness. And if you embrace the light, he'll give you more light.

48:04 And if you refuse the light, he'll shine on your back until there's no hope left. Number six. No one naturally seeks the Lord, right? People are very quick to quote a verse in Romans chapter one that says, And none that seek after God. Is that a verse in the Bible? Yes.

48:27 Yes. Is it true? Yes. Is it the whole Bible? Well, no, it's not the whole Bible.

48:38 No one naturally in their fallen state seeks for God. That is true. But God has all sorts of tactics to stir the hearts of people, to be curious, to be convicted. Right? The Apostle Paul talked about this. We'll

49:04 We'll see this a little bit later. That Christians simply living life leave behind them the aroma of Christ. It's not something they do. It's something God does. He makes manifest the fragrance of Christ by us in every place.

49:27 So no one naturally seeks after the Lord, but the Lord has found ways to stir people's hearts. Every funeral of a friend, every memory of a kind neighbor, or a Bible verse learned in Sunday school, is another voice from heaven. It's time to repent. It's time to turn to Christ. We're going to be looking at these verses in Acts chapter 17, but notice what says here, that God determined their pre appointed times, this is speaking about the nations, their pre appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord.

50:22 So God arranged the boundaries, the rise and fall of nations, the circumstances of wars and so on. He superintended, he oversaw that to the effect that people would seek the Lord. That's what it says, right? He designed history. History is his story. And

50:51 And he designed it in such a way that people would seek him. That's what it says. So that they should seek the Lord. This is what God did. Now, if that verse in Romans one means categorically, no one ever seeks the Lord, then this is a futile attempt by God to do something that he knows they'll never do.

51:17 But it goes on to say that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grove for him and find him. That's his objective. You're asking about me and my family. Well, my maternal grandmother ended up in Southern Ontario because they fled the American Revolution. They were what they called United Empire Loyalists, they moved to Canada to stay under the British Crown.

51:50 My my maternal grandfather, his family were driven from the fishing grounds in the North Sea by these big trawlers that came in and forced them out of business, and they ended up coming to Canada for work. And my wife's father and his family, they fled the Bolshevik revolution. They were Mennonites in the Ukraine and escaped by the skin of their teeth traveling by boxcars to Estonia and then Canadian Pacific had ships to bring them to Canada. And my father came to Canada and met my mother because of World War II. That's how I ended up here.

52:34 All of these things that we read about, we think about in the news, you don't realize this, that God is at work in all of these things, right? You had the Russians came into Afghanistan and forced the mujahideen up into the mountains and crossing the borders into Pakistan where we had missionaries waiting for them. They couldn't reach them in Afghanistan, but they reached them in Pakistan. How many times this happens? People are driven out in Albania, right?

53:07 The Irish Christians got a deep burden for the Christians in Albania and said, We need to send them some supplies. They sent them semi loads of bedding and diapers and canned food and all kinds of stuff. And the Christians in Albania had no idea what is all this for. Until a slaughter occurred across the border in Kosovo when all their men were being killed and the mothers and children fled into the arms of the missionaries in Albania who just happened to have sheets and pillows and diapers and food. Like, what's going on here?

53:53 God is using what seem to be very often tragedies to bring triumph, turning curses into blessings. You meant it for evil, God meant it for good. This is the way of God. And so, while no one naturally seeks after God, God has found all sorts of ways to poke and prod the human heart to seek after him just the same. Number seven, the Holy Spirit was sent at Christ's request to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

54:36 The Lord says, of sin because they believe not on me. In other words, if you want to think of sin in this way, sin is everything that is un Christ like. He is the glory of God. He's the standard of God. And when people in the world are not convicted of their sin, they don't feel the need of a savior.

55:02 And so the Lord Jesus asked the Father, the Holy Spirit's called the promise of the Father. And while the Spirit came to help the church, He also came to convict the lost. And he's got out into the world. He never takes a day off. He works 20 fourseven.

55:23 The bamboo curtain, the iron curtain can't stop him. He's working in North Korea. He's working wherever there's a heart that needs to be convicted of sin and righteousness and judgment. And this is Jesus speaking. And he says, that's what I wanted him to do. That's

55:44 That's why I asked the Father to send him, that he might convict the world to bring them to conversion. You can be sure that the Holy Spirit does not convict people of sin, righteousness and judgment to leave them in their sin. He convicts them to convert them. He brings them to understand their desperate need of God, so that they might cry out to him. And my Bible says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

57:00 You can't get to heaven by being a good anything except being a sinner saved by grace. That's the only way to heaven. Jesus said that. He's the only way. And so when we think about people who are saved, from the very beginning, from Adam and Eve in the garden through to the last person saved, everyone who's saved by the grace of God is saved by virtue of the finished work of Christ.

57:30 Right? We have to keep saying that. And so if we say that, for example, what about these poor Muslims in Iran, for example, that are abhorred by what Islam is doing in slaughtering their own people, and they cry out to the true God, we're not saying that being good Muslims helps them. What we are saying is that the Holy Spirit is working in Iran right now and bringing them to the end of themselves. This is the story of the prodigal son.

58:04 Right? That before he ever came to the father, he had to come to himself. And coming to himself meant that he realized he was a sinner. This is the point of the Lord Jesus story when he spoke about two who went up to Jerusalem, to the temple, and one of them beating his breast said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. The words could be translated, be to me at the mercy seat.

58:37 Be to me a sinner what you are at the mercy seat. That's the word hilasterion. Be to me what you are at the mercy seat. In other words, he wasn't coming offering anything of himself except his sin. But he knew that behind the veil there was a God of mercy, a God who forgave sinners, and who had confidence in the value of the blood. And

59:10 And so that's what he did. Only your sins rightly introduce you to God. And that's what the work of the Holy Spirit is. To bring people to the point where they understand what God thinks of their sin. Number nine. If

59:33 If there's any way God can righteously save a person, he does it. We're going to be thinking about this as some of the remarkable ways that God goes about to save people. The foundation of their salvation is always the same, right? But sometimes He uses shipwreck, and sometimes He uses a disease, and sometimes he uses a war. He uses all different methods to get people's attention and to bring them to the point where they realize how hopeless they are without God.

60:12 Romans eleven thirty three is not some sort of general statement. It's Paul's conclusion after he wraps up this lengthy discussion about God's salvation. And he says, His ways are past finding out. We're working in a prison where every week when we go, we'll meet half a dozen maybe fellows who just got saved that week. And they come up and tell us their stories.

60:44 And I'd be hard pressed to come up sometimes with some of the creative ways that these guys end up getting saved. But it's exactly the way that God knew was the best way to bring them to the foot of the cross. And sometimes we think, well, you know, everybody here, we all got saved pretty much the same way. We were talking as we were waiting to go through the line. It's a good question to ask. How

61:21 How did the gospel come to your family? Not necessarily how you got saved. I got saved four years old, yeah. But how did the gospel come to my family? Right?

61:33 My grandfather's parents lived in this little fishing village in Scotland and nobody in the village, as far as they knew, was saved. Nobody knew the gospel. They all went to the Church of England, but nobody knew the gospel. Except one lady who came to visit every Sunday afternoon and gather the young girls together and give them a little class. And one by one, those girls got saved.

62:02 And every week they began to have a prayer meeting for the salvation of their parents. And after praying every week for a whole year, they then were encouraged to write a letter to John Knox McEwen, who lived in Exeter, England. Which is like kids in Mississippi writing to a preacher in Vancouver. And they said, God has saved us and we're praying for the salvation of our parents. Would you come and preach the gospel in foot D?

62:36 And at the invitation of these little Sunday school girls, John Knox McEwen came. The meetings went on for thirteen weeks, sixteen weeks, sixteen weeks. And they think that maybe everyone in the village got saved. Thousands of people came from Aberdeen, from all the countryside around. They'd never heard the Gospel before.

63:02 The preaching of the Gospel. It's wonderful. I was saying how I was in British Columbia talking to a young man, How did the Gospel come to your family? He said, We were all Roman Catholics. We didn't know the Gospel.

63:15 But then my little sister died, just a little baby. And my father didn't have enough money for the Catholic church to bury my little sister. And my father was walking down the street weeping, thinking, I don't have enough money to bury my little girl. And one of the brothers who was a barber was standing, he didn't have a customer, and so he was standing out by his barber pole. And he saw my father weeping and he came over and said, Sir, I'm a Christian, what can I do to help? And

63:44 And he told him how his little girl had died, and he didn't have enough money to bury her. Oh, he said, We're real Christians, we'll help you. And some men made the coffin, and the ladies made a little dress for the little one. And someone went and got some flowers and they put on a meal for the family. And the whole family got saved.

64:10 I think they'll meet the little girl in heaven too. But this is it, you see. We're tough bunch. We are a tough bunch. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

64:24 You know, you preach John three sixteen, For God, I object. I don't believe in God. The God so loved, how can there be a God of love in a world like this? The God so loved the world. Are you kidding me? Do

64:35 Do you think he loved Hitler and Mussolini and Pol Pot? Are you kidding me? For God so loved the world that he gave. Oh yeah, God gave. Sure, he's a taker. He's

64:45 He's always taken. Every time I go to church they want my money. You can go through John three sixteen and you can't get two words out before somebody objects. You talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Here we have the most wonderful thing that God could do.

65:04 As I mentioned at the top, salvation is all that God has for us in Christ. And people turn up their nose at him. I had a man say to me when I offered him the gospel, looked at me with disdain and said, I don't take charity. Wow. You don't take charity? No.

65:25 No. I said, Well then spit it out. He said, What? I said, That breath you just sucked into your lungs, what do you think that was? Every mouthful of food you've ever eaten, every conscious thought, every ounce of energy, every moment of time. It

65:41 It was given to you by a gracious God and now he offers you his son and you mock him and say, I don't take charity. But God has a way to reach people like that, doesn't he? I know, because half the New Testament was written by a fellow named Saul of Tarsus who killed Christians for a living. God's a winner. He knows how to win souls.

66:46 Jesus tells the story of the prodigal and the father says, My son who is dead, While he was dead, he came to himself and then he came to the father. The dead shall hear his voice and live. You think that's talking about the resurrection? No, it's talking about the gospel. Jesus has a voice to wake the dead.

67:10 He can speak to the dead. And that's why we need to use the word of God. Because the word of God is able to get in there and separate between the soul and the spirit and make contact with people who are dead in their sins. When we say they're dead, they're not annihilated, they're separated. And they need to hear the voice that wakes the dead.

67:41 God's way or my way. Right? Someone has said that over heaven it says, Not my will, but thy will be done. And over hell it says, Not thy will, but my will be done. Robert McClurkin, who is a great influence in my young life, he used to say, If heaven is by grace alone, and it is, you can't work your way to heaven.

68:09 If heaven is by grace alone, then hell is by works alone. And you will work your way over every obstacle that the love of God can put in your path. You gotta work your way there, man. Right? Because he's not willing that any should perish.

68:27 The Lord Jesus is called the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense. The stone of stumbling is the often repeated entreaty of Christ to turn, to repent, to believe, to eat, to drink, to come, to rest. But eventually you'll face the unavoidable bedrock. You will face Christ. But right now, there he is again and again and again.

69:07 Why people perish? Because men love darkness rather than light. That's why. Because they embrace the dark. They don't have to. They

69:15 They can have the light. Come to the light, to shining for thee. Right? This is the light that lightens every man. And if you step into the light, the light will illuminate your soul.

69:30 It will give you eyes to see. Number 11, although sinners are spiritually dead, they can respond when they hear the voice of the son of God. The gospel is the power of God. See, there are people who say, Well, of course, you don't understand. This person has nothing in themselves in order to respond to the gospel.

69:56 Well, but you see God provides that too. Provides all the resources necessary. Included in the gospel presentation is the power to obey it. Do you get that? Like this is the whole character of Christianity, isn't it?

70:16 The difference between the new covenant and the old is that the old covenant, there was nothing wrong with the law except that it was weak through the flesh. Right? There was no power in the law. It was like those dead tables of stone. Inflexible, hard, brittle, lifeless.

70:39 All it could show you was where you were wrong. It was a ministry of condemnation. On the other hand, the New Testament, the New Covenant is different. He said, I'll write it on your hearts and minds. In other words, the spirit of Christianity is that when God gives you a command, he includes in the command the power to do it.

71:01 That's the beauty of it, right? That the word of God is alive. If I get a chemistry text or a calculus text, if I don't do something to the text, it doesn't do anything to me. But when I open up the word of God, God's word acts upon me. God's word speaks to me.

71:23 God's work convicts me. God's work illuminates me. It gives me joy and peace in believing. And so the Gospel is the power of God to salvation. The word is alive and powerful.

71:39 And as I mentioned earlier, wherever we go, God, through us, diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge by us in every place. These are all influences at work in the world to woo and win people. And so to say, well, you know, everybody's dead, so they just don't get it. And they'll use the story of Lazarus. Well, the story of Lazarus is not a picture of a dead sinner. Lazarus

72:10 Lazarus is a believer. The story of Lazarus is a picture of the promise that if you put your trust in Christ, you will conquer physical death. I am the resurrection and the life. That's the message that's being proclaimed there. It's spiritual death in the story of the prodigal.

72:35 He was dead. And while he was dead, he came to himself. And he came home to the father. Number 12, faith is not a special gift given to some. Right in their favorite passage, Romans nine through 11, Romans 10 verse 17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

73:00 Faith is the response, the innate ability to believe. Everyone's a believer. Everyone into the world is born a believer. Right? Everybody's a believer. They

73:10 They just believe all the wrong things. And so that's why repentance is necessary. Repentance means a change of mind. People believe the wrong things, and in order to be saved, they have to begin believing what God says in his word, believe the right things. And so, every person has the opportunity and the ability to believe God or to reject his offer.

73:45 When people say, Who made the choice? Did you make the choice or did God make the choice? Said, Well, have you ever been to a wedding? Okay, you have a man and a woman at the front, and the preacher says, Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? And the man says, I do. And

74:03 And so he says, Well, on that basis, I pronounce you husband and wife. And the wife speaks up and says, excuse me, do I have something to say here? Oh, right. Yeah, I guess we should ask you too. In every love relationship, there is mutual agreement, isn't there?

74:20 Isn't that the whole idea? And so God is on record. Do you know what his decision is? Whosoever will may come. But your decision is whether you choose to come or not.

74:32 And on that basis, a person is saved or lost, not because God didn't love them, not because Christ didn't die for them, not because the spirit didn't woo them, but because in their intransigence and rebellion they said no to the offer that God has made. This is what Jesus said. He said to the people of his day, You will not come to me that you might have life. You might have life, but you will not come to me that you might have life. It was they couldn't come that they wouldn't come that you might have life.

75:10 Number 13, there will be some redeemed in heaven out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Does your Bible say that? My Bible says that. God is doing a much better job than we give him credit for. Someone redeemed in glory, so that a person stands up and says, Well, you know, I wasn't born in Cleveland, Ohio.

75:38 I was born in this little spot off in Papua New Guinea. Someone from their kindred, someone from their tribe, their tongue, their people will stand up and say, Well, I'm here. No. I'm here. We go back into the history of the world and we see people and we wonder, Where did he come from?

76:01 Melchizedek, where did he come from? Or Enoch, who walked with God. Before there were local churches, before there were Bibles, before the indwelling Holy Spirit, before the manifestation of Christ, They had faith in God. And you know, Romans chapter one makes it perfectly clear, the problem God has with man is not that he doesn't know God. It's that when he knows him, he doesn't want him to be God.

76:31 He wants to be God. And there's only room for one at the top. And that's why people perish, because they don't want God to be God. And that's how people get saved. When they get down off their high horse and say, Guilty as charged, your honor.

76:50 I want Christ to be my savior. And if you want him to be, he wants to be. But he wants you to come willingly or you will not come at all. I finish off by saying, in considering these matters, I must remember that I am not wiser, more loving, or more merciful than God is. Sometimes you hear people talking about like, well, how could God do this? Why

77:16 Why did he do it this way? As if somehow we're more merciful than God is. I want to tell you that God in heaven is the epitome of love and mercy. And if there's any way that God can save someone, he'll do it. But he won't ride across their wills.

77:38 He gives them a real legitimate choice, and he lets them decide. Now some people find this quite objectionable and say, No, no, God is not sovereign if he lets us decide. But then, of course, the problem with that is that we end up with God being the author of evil. When Joseph said, You meant it for evil, God meant it for good, what he didn't mean was that God was conniving with his brothers to sell him into slavery. And God was saying, come on boys, let's do it. I

78:11 I know how this works out and it's gonna be great. He said, not for a moment did I think that he was whispering in the ear of Potiphar's wife and saying, Look, I need him in prison so he can meet the guy from the palace. And so if I were you, I'd frame him. We know that's not true. God does not solicit evil. He

78:32 He doesn't tempt people with evil. You know, if you start talking like that, it's impossible to tell the difference between God and the devil. No, that is not true. If I was able to set up the system where I could push all the buttons and make everything happen the way I wanted it, there's nothing terribly impressive about that. What is so impressive is that God allows man not total freedom to choose, but limited freedom. He

79:25 Yeah, sure, go ahead. And he says, That's perfect. Right? It doesn't matter what we do. In the end, God works all things after the counsel of his own will.

79:42 He makes all things work together for good. They're not good, many of them. But he makes them work for good. And some of you have heard me tell the story, but I just want to finish off with this. My grandfather was quite an artist. He

79:58 He loved to paint and painted beautiful scenes of Scotland. And on one occasion, he painted an oil painting of the open sea. And in those days, every home had a parlor. And the parlor was a room that was closed off and you didn't use it unless special guests arrived. And that way, that one room was nice and tidy and clean all the time.

80:24 And unfortunately, the best window through which my father as a little boy could look down the laneway and see who was driving up the lane was the window in the parlor. My grandfather had taken the canvas and had put it on a chair right by that window. And when my father heard a car coming down the lane, in those days cars were very rare, especially out in the country, and my father went running into the parlor in the dark, jumped up on the chair to look out the window and put his foot right through the canvas. And my grandfather took the canvas and very carefully stitched together the wreckage in such a way that the stitching became the rigging of an old ship. And he painted an old ship fighting its way through the stormy seas and made it a more interesting and captivating painting than it would have been any other way.

81:27 My father learned from that. When he would stay in Christian's homes, he would give the children a piece of paper and say, you go ahead and scribble on that. And they'd do a little scribble. And then he'd take it and he'd look at the scribble. And then he'd use those lines maybe to make a seacoast scene or a mountain scene with a lake or maybe the face of an old man. He'd

81:49 He'd turn the scribble into something interesting. God's doing that all the time. I know he does it with you. I know he does it with me. Because that's the kind of God we worship.

82:04 He's a wonderful God. If he could take the cross, the worst thing that ever happened, when men rose up and murdered their own God, and turned it into the best thing that ever happened. I don't know what you have in your life, Christian, what failure, what brokenness, but I do know this. He takes broken hearts, but he has to have all the pieces. If you'll just say, Lord, I've made a mess of this. What

82:36 What can you do with this? Some relationship, some plan, some ministry, and you feel like, I really messed that one up. This is why we have our scriptures, isn't it? The stories of Jonah, the reluctant missionary who ends up leading a whole boatload to Christ, to the Lord on his way to Nineveh. This is the story over and over and over again that God is at work and he loves us.

83:12 And he wants to do for us the very best. We're our own worst enemies. But in the end, we'll stand back and say, Lord, I can't believe it. Look what you did. With the wreckage of my life, with the failure of my life, the brokenness and all, look what you did.

83:30 Oh, oh, God's ways, our past finding out. Father, again, as we've looked into your word, we're just so thankful that you have not given us a book of nebulous ideas, of wandering notions, but clear, obvious statements from your word. All have sinned. The soul that sins dies. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

84:12 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll be saved. Father, you're so good to us. And this salvation, no wonder it's called so great salvation, the Gospel of the Happy God. We are just so delighted that we can look a little into your word this weekend and be reminded how wonderful you are, how amazing your plan is, how you take the weak things of the world to confound the wise, the things that men despise, you take them up and use them in such a way that someday we'll say, Lord, only you would have thought of such a thing. Only you could have done that to take what little, what broken things, what wasted things the world has rejected, like these men in prison, and say, I think these are the men I want for my missionaries.

85:16 Oh God, you're so good. And we give thanks again for that broken, bruised, bleeding body hanging on a tree. Is this the answer to the need of the human heart? It certainly is. This is God's greatest gift to the human race.

85:41 The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. We give our heartfelt thanks tonight in Jesus' lovely name. Amen.