It is Finished

Now, there's been a verse that has been quoted many times in our testimony meeting, and it's the very verse that I come exercised about for this meeting in the book of John, chapter 19. In John 19, reading at verse 30, when Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. And before we speak on this, let's just speak to the Lord in prayer.

Our Father, we thank Thee tonight that these testimonies have thrilled us when we think of young men and they were going astray, but we thank Thee that they felt the arresting arm of God stopping them, showing them the simplicity of so great salvation, attracting them to a man who has paid the price that none need perish. He paid it. They don't have to pay it.

And like everyone in our gathering tonight who is yet on the outside, they have no story to tell, male or female. There is no assurance in their heart that Christ has died for me. We thank Thee that the door to heaven is still open.

The tenderness of the suffering Savior is still the same. The plea is, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let's draw near to us now at Blue River and give us, Lord, a touch of God, the presence of the Lord.

May someone in our gathering also discover that I, too, need the Savior and rest upon his finished work, giving thanks in the Savior's name, amen. John chapter 19, verse 30, we'll read it again. And when Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished.

There is something wonderful about a verse like this for the simple reason that it was uttered from the cross. The Lord Jesus himself was six hours on the cross from the third until the ninth hour. And because of those six hours on the cross, there was seven different sayings, different cries, sayings, that was that he uttered.

The Lord himself said very, said many beautiful things, many things that people don't understand. Many things that they can't quite put their puzzle together. They can't quite get their hands around it for the simple reason it is profound truth.

The Lord himself, God manifested in the flesh, had many, many sayings that often stopped the mouths of the Pharisees. What does he mean, they would say. They didn't understand.

They were blinded. And because of it, there is, there is something that I wanted to share with the audience even tonight. The Lord said in John chapter six, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

Now, to my visiting friends here tonight, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. That is not everlasting life here on earth. That is everlasting life in heaven.

It's when I come to say goodbye to family. It's when I come to go out into the darkness, into, into the great beyond. And perhaps there's some here and you do not know if this day was to come to your life, through your life.

If this particular happening was to come to your home, it came to our home in the month of March. My mother, 97 years of age, had to say goodbye. Life was over, but thank God she was ready.

We just got an email from one of my classmates. Another one has gone into death, their words were. That's the third one in the last about eight weeks.

I went to one of those funerals. One of those funerals was a classmate, I played ball with him. He was the point guard, brought the ball up to us skinny fellows underneath the basket.

And so Billy died. But do you know what Billy was taught? The printer actually said, we have been taught, these people, all our life, we have been taught to do the best we can. And now Billy comes to the end of life, and I'm walking past his casket, and I'm looking into his eye, and I'm thinking to myself, the boy that just seemed like yesterday was dribbling at the ball and tossing it again to us taller fellows.

There was something real about that funeral. There was something that I did quite grasp myself. This boy that I played with, he's gone.

And I will dare say in front of this crowd, I hope and pray that Billy had more, had more than what that preacher said. Because that preacher said, we have taught this congregation to do the best they can. I had all I could do to keep from talking to the preacher.

Friend, that's bad medicine. That's horrible advice. To do the best you can.

How would you ever know that you ever did enough? How would you ever know that this is now the climax, that this is it? I don't need to do anything more. That is why I had to read, in view of what we've been hearing, I had to read John chapter 19 and verse 30, because there was something that is so very clear. And that is, we don't have to do anything.

You've heard our brethren, you don't, they don't, you don't have to do anything because the work is done. The D-O-N plan, the D-O-N-E plan. People are going, they're working, they're relying, they're trusting the do plan.

And all the time, the plan is done. There's nothing more. Friend, you could walk out of this meeting tonight, dear young woman, concerned.

I know you are. You're not saved. You're a teenager and you're concerned.

And if I was to sit down beside you and I ask you, do you ever think about it? I know what you would say. So friend, it's possible. It's very, very possible that you could trust the Savior this night because the heaven's door is open.

The Savior stands tonight and he pleads for you to come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, the Lord himself said, as I've indicated, very, very many unique sayings. John chapter 19 and verse 30 is one of the most unique.

It's one of the most thrilling statements that he ever said because it has accomplished and it has completed a work that nobody else could do. You can take the patriarchs of the Old Testament. You could take the finest men of the Old Testament and you could talk about an Abraham.

You could talk about a Moses. You could talk about a Gideon. You could talk about a Caleb.

You could talk about all those, I was going to call them fantastic men. You could talk about all those great, great men. But there's just something, the Lord Jesus did something that all of those men put together couldn't touch and that was this.

He made provision to put your sin away. There is something wonderful about Calvary. I just want to draw your attention tonight to the fact that when the Lord Jesus said, it is finished, meant that man attempt, man's attempt to find favor with God was finished.

It was finished. He did not need to find favor with God in something that he could do. Cain brought something that he did, that he grew and he presented it as far as to God was concerned, the fruits of the ground.

But friend, what the Lord Jesus did when he said, it is finished, he shed his blood. He was put in the new tomb. He rose again the third day and he went back to heaven, settling and settling sin's tremendous claim.

Now there's something involved with this phrase, it is finished. First of all, there is the payment of redemption. So there had to be some payment.

There had to be a payment given. And of course the payment that was given, the shedding of his blood was totally sufficient. There wasn't anything lacking in that payment.

It was totally sufficient for every single sin, for every single man and woman, the shedding of his precious blood. Now, the reason why that that was sufficient is because God was satisfied. Which one of our men said that? God was satisfied.

And because God in heaven is satisfied, young woman, you can be satisfied tonight too, because if God is satisfied, then why can't you be satisfied? So there is a payment and that payment was blood. There was a plan and that plan was a fulfillment of the person of Christ that came. That plan was every picture in the Old Testament.

Every prophetic mention of the Messiah, every picture that you want to look at in the book of Genesis, the book of Exodus, the book of Leviticus, and right on through. Every particular picture, it pointed forward. Every lamb that was slain in the old economy pointed forward to the greater lamb.

And when John the Baptist stood up and pointed, behold, the lamb of God was taken away, the sin of the world. It was only the fulfillment of every lamb that was given. The plan of redemption, every previous sacrifice pointed to the last lamb.

The last lamb came and outside the city of Jerusalem, he walked and he walked up the little hill. He walked to Skull Hill. I saw Skull Hill as many tourists have.

Don't try to take that away from me, brethren. It's a place of a skull. It's a rock, huge rock.

The face of a man, holes for his eyes, two holes in the rock for the eyes, a protrusion from the rock for the nose, a concave cutout for the mouth. It's a real place. And as we stood there that day, I'll never forget it as long as reason is on the throne.

What must it have been? I thought of that hymn, hark, I hear the dog blow, of the hammer swung low, they're nailing my Lord to the tree, the cross they upraised, while the multitudes gazed at the blessed lamb of Calvary. But there's something else. Not only the payment, not only the plan, but the pain, the pain of redemption.

You see, there were seven things that took place, and I'll say them in less than 10 minutes. There were seven things that took place at Skull Hill. There was the scourging, the scourging that left many a man organs showing as they laid the whip upon the back, as the man who had the whip in his hand, a professional in the way that he moves the whip, pulling the skin down, hitting the back and hitting blow after blow with a back that was open.

Your Bible says his back was plowed, was furrowed like a furrowed field. The scourging often led to a man's death. There the Savior knew what it was to be nailed, nailed to the tree and whipped.

The second thing I'd like to suggest is the beatings. They stood back and they buffeted him as if they had a big time sport, as if it was a big game, blindfolded him and then slapped him and then could say prophesy who it is that smote thee. These ugly rebels smote the Son of God.

The beatings, friend, I have never seen a man beaten. I hadn't spit in my face, but I have never had seen a man beaten physically. Some of my brethren here who knows what it is to fight in their unsaved days knew what it was to see men beaten, but I've never seen a man beaten.

When I take a look and I read in my Bible that they smote him, they pulled the hairs from his face in chunks, hair from his cheeks. It must have been excruciating. And yet when I come to my Bible, I discovered that he opened not his mouth.

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, he opened not his mouth. How can it be, friend? You tell me, friend, how can it possibly be a normal human being? And yet it was God. How in the hands of wicked men could utter not a complaint, but rather he could say, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

The third thing I'd like to suggest is the spitting. It's one of the most humiliating things you can do to a man. I talked to a football player one day.

I said, how is it on the line where those men do what they can, do their worst to defeat and to even cripple the other man? I said, what was the worst thing that they ever did to you on the football gridiron? Most humiliating thing, he said, that I got spit in the face by the opponent. I had all I could do to keep from ripping his head off. Spit in your face.

Humiliating. And there on the cross, they walked by wagging their heads and spitting in the Savior's face. Something that we can't quite imagine.

Number four, there was the mocking. The mocking. If he'd be the Christ, you say, here the Christ, come down from the cross.

They put a reed in his hand. If he says he's going to be the king, we're going to make him a king. I put a reed in his hand and they bowed the knee.

They got a robe and put upon him and they bowed the knee in mockery as if, okay, you're the king. They mocked him. The very man who gave him air to breathe, the very one who was the author and finisher of faith is the very man that these men mocked.

Number five, I'd like to suggest was the nailing. The nailing. The nailing of the hands.

Not just little seven penny nails. These were Jerusalem spikes. These were spikes that was placed into the hand.

A hand into the palm, I would like to suggest, in the palm of the hand because of a verse in the book of the Psalms. They have graven my names in the palms of their hands. And in the palms of the Lord's hands was a nail.

Dr. Gibbs in Lakeshore area, I said, is it true, doctor, that there are 17 bones, 27 bones in a man's hand? He says it is. I said, doctor, tell me, how is it possible that a Jerusalem nail, a rugged, long spike could possibly be put into a man's hand and not break a bone? He said, it's not possible. I said, Dr. Gibbs, it is.

And he came to many, many meetings and was under deep conviction of sin. You see, friend, the scripture had to be fulfilled, not a bone of him was to be broken. There was something about the nailing.

I think we already quoted that little chorus, heart. I hear the dull blow of the hammer shone low, their nailing my Lord to the tree and the cross they upraised while the multitudes gazed at the blessed land of dark Calvary. Number six, there was the piercing, there was the piercing, the spear, those men that came by, those men that came by and they broke the legs of the first man, of the thief, and they come over here and they broke the legs of malefactor number two.

But when, it was shocking that when they came to the middle man, they could see he was dead already and a man takes a spear and he drives it deep into the bosom of the Savior, the Savior's side, and out flowed that precious, precious blood. I have often said, as well as many of my brethren have said it, what must that man, the man who, the man who drove the spear, the man who shoved the spear into his side, what must he have thought when he saw blood and water roll, the piercing? They shall look upon him whom they pierce. But there is a number seven, and the seventh one is the three hours of darkness.

When God Himself laid upon His only Son the iniquity and the sin of us all, He, the just one, died for me, the unjust, that He might bring us to God. The hours of darkness, when the sun was out, when the sun refused to shine, and from twelve o'clock noon to three o'clock in the afternoon, the brightest part of the day, it was dark. It was supernatural dark.

When you could not see your hand in front of your face in the darkness, wave after wave of God's righteous punishment was put upon Him. And at the end, He said, finish, finish. Do you know what thrills me about that verse before I sit down? What thrills me is this, that I see men and women in this audience tonight, and I've longed to see you saved.

I, not only me, but every single adult in here. There is something wonderful, friend. The door to heaven is not closed.

There is an opportunity that you have. You think of the poor world out there, and they are being taught like Billy was being taught. Do the best you can.

But tonight, friend, it's done. Tonight the work is finished. Tonight you don't have to lift a finger.

The Savior says come, and you can trust the Savior sitting in that chair. Diane, was it her? Is her name Diane? In Sarnia. I said, Diane, how did you get saved? When did you get saved? I got saved in the gospel meeting.

When the first speaker was speaking? No. When the second speaker was? No. When we were singing the hymns at the beginning? No.

When we were singing the hymns at the end? No. Well, Diane, when did you get saved? When did you trust the Savior? She's a quiet girl, shy, her own shadow. She said, I trusted the Lord Jesus as the first man was getting off the platform and the second man was getting on.

That could be your portion tonight. Will you take Christ? He that believeth on the Son hath, you've got it, hath everlasting life.