His Nail-Pierced Hands

I want you to picture a scene in your minds. It is a solemn scene that involves you particularly. Let me first read you our passage of scripture, which is found in the book of Revelation, chapter 20, and beginning in verse 11.

As you turn in your Bibles, I will read it to you now. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. There will come a day, friend, when you will die.

You may die suddenly and quite unexpectedly. You will one day stand before the judge of all the earth who sits on that great white throne. That throne speaks of the greatness and majesty of a holy God.

His authority is so terrible that even the earth and sky flee from His presence. Now I want you to picture in your mind that heavenly courtroom scene with God sitting at the judge's bench. The angels are the bailiffs, Satan is the prosecuting attorney, and you are the guilty lawbreaker standing before that terrible throne, and you are guilty as all get out, for you have broken the strict law of God.

Here comes Satan, the accuser of the brethren, and he brings forth the evidence against you. All your sins are brought before that judge, and Satan presents his case against you. Every piece of evidence indicts you and condemns you.

You are guilty. You have broken the law of God and deserve punishment as a lawbreaker. God reviews your case very carefully.

The angels carefully turn the pages of the books that are opened, which tell of your life, all your actions and thoughts and motives while you were alive on planet earth. But now you stand in another realm, a realm of eternity, and you stand there guilty as charged. In fact, God asks you how you shall plead.

You see the great surmounting evidence against you as the prosecuting attorney presents his case to the court, and you realize you have no defense whatsoever. As you stand there as a guilty lawbreaker, you hang your head as you plead guilty as charged. For God stands as the judge, the law as the accuser, sin as your indictment, and every mouth is stopped, and all the world is guilty before God.

You try to look upon God, but his face is turned from you, for your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. There stands a mountain of evidence against you stacked up on that desk. Your knees are buckling under the fearsome terror of what is about to take place, which is your sentencing.

Just then, a voice is heard from the back of the courtroom, and a hush comes over the assembled crowd. A figure asks to approach the bench. It is your defense attorney, your advocate.

He walks over to the judge and faces him, and he declares, Holy One, Ancient of Days, look at this evidence which will set my client free and pardon him. And Jesus Christ holds up his hands and shows his nail-pierced hands to the judge who sits there on that throne. Then Jesus motions for you to approach the bench.

You slowly approach the bench and stand next to Jesus, your advocate with the Father. Jesus takes you by the hand, and then he pleads your righteousness before the Father and says, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Then your advocate says to the judge, Grant this malefactor liberty.

Sinner as he is, he is under my blood. And then Jesus tenderly places his arm around you and says, He's with me. And there's a great shout in the courtroom of hallelujahs, and the judge says to you, Enter in my child to your rest.

Listen, friend, the word of God in Romans declares, But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us much more than being justified by his blood. We shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

And not only so, but also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. You see, friend, the gospel of your day and mine omits all of what I've spoken of so far. It omits the blood.

It omits the cross. It omits the pen of wrath, which will fall on every sinner who dies in his sins and stands before a holy judge. The gospel of our day omits the dreadfulness of the strictness and severity of the holy law of God and how every man will one day be held up against that strict and severe law of God.

And all will fail that test because man is a guilty rebel who is a lawbreaker and is under the condemnation of a holy and just God. But the gospel of our day does not warn you to flee from the wrath to come. It does not tell you about a coming day of judgment where you will be arraigned before a king and brought before him and held there by strong angels so you cannot run away from his presence, that all your works will be brought before that judge, the books will be opened, and you will be judged according to what is in the books, which speak of your life while you lived here on earth, and how if you stand there in your own merits, you will surely be sentenced, condemned, and cast into the lake of fire, which is hell itself.

You need an advocate with the Father in the person of Jesus Christ. You need a sin substitute as you stand there in his merits and not your own. You drove the nails into his hands.

Your sins nailed him to that bloody cross. You stand guilty, guilty, guilty, for justice requires satisfaction. But if you have exercised repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, then he will approach the bench and show the judge his nail-pierced hands.

He will be your advocate with the Father and say that you should be set free because you are under his blood. You are washed in the blood of the Lamb. Listen, friend.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. There is power in the blood. Wonder, work, and power.

We don't hear hymns about the blood anymore. We don't hear sermons about the blood anymore. Brother preachers, bring back the blood.

I recall listening to a country preacher down south, and his sermon still is with me, even though it has been over a decade since I last heard it. This old preacher was a faithful handler of the word of God, and he was preaching on the blood that night in this country church where I was visiting. His message was about a friend of his who had gotten blood poisoning, and he was dying.

He was in the hospital dying from blood poisoning. And this country preacher began in the book of Genesis and went through the entire Bible all the way to Revelation and rapid-fire sentences talking about how man came into this world with poison in his blood, poison in his blood through the ruined nature, and how God from Genesis 3.15 onward had a remedy for that poisoned blood of man. And that remedy was the blood of Christ, which washes all sins away.

It was a dynamite message, and it was delivered so powerfully that night that the two men I was visiting that church with were quite overcome with emotion and bowed down under that solemn message. In fact, long after the sermon was ended and all the people were gone out of the sanctuary, the three of us remained there, and we were bowed under in prayer. I have since forgotten the name of that country preacher who delivered that sermon that evening, but I've never forgotten the message.

That's preaching, friends. We need more preaching like that in our land again. Now let me ask you, friend.

Are you under the blood? Have your sins been pardoned? Are you united in a living faith to a living Lord? Is Christ your Lord and Savior? You can't divide Him into two persons, Savior and Lord. He is one and the same. Is He your Lord? Is there an area in your life where you have driven a stake in the ground and have told God to keep His hands off that area in your life? That is rebellion, friend, and God will have no rebels in His kingdom.

You must come to repentance to a sovereign and lay down your shotgun of rebellion and submit to a king and take him as Lord. Have you done it? Do you need to do it? Do you realize that one day soon, sooner than you realize, you will die? A sudden death is all around you in this country today. Sin and violence is so rampant you could be gunned down tomorrow while you're going about your average day.

You may be young. You may be in good health. But you could be quite taken out of this world suddenly, for the Bible declares, For man also knoweth not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evil net and as the birds that are caught in the snare.

So are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them. You don't know how close you are to dying. You have no guarantee of even tomorrow, friend.

Sam Jones, the great Methodist evangelist of the 19th century, was preaching in Oklahoma to a men's meeting at a church, and his sermon title was Sudden Death. He made the comment to them that night, Men of Oklahoma, look out, he warned. Before my voice has died out in your ears, there will be deaths following this meeting that will shock this city and state and maybe this nation.

Later that night, Sam Jones boarded a train to head back to Georgia. And while he was on that train, he began to feel quite ill, and his face went pale, and he asked for some hot water to drink. And as soon as he took a sip, his head dropped down on his chest, and he fell over dead.

And it was as if his own death was an explanation point to his sermon on sudden death. That could be you, friend. You better settle your accounts with God.

You better get right with God right now before it's too late, before your day of grace is over. And it can be said of you, the harvest has passed, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. Believe me, friend, you do not want to be held up against the strictness and severity of God's holy law and stand there in your own merits.

If you do, you'll fail that test. No, I am a sinner, and I need a sin substitute in the person of Jesus Christ. And so do you, friend.

So do you. Go to God and beg Him for mercy. Beg Him for the mercy and grace to turn to Him savingly.

Listen, friend. I implore you. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.

Call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him.

And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Listen, friend. You can come to Jesus without money or with price.

Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk.

Without money and without price. Are you thirsty, friend? Are you thirsty for Jesus? Jesus paid the price already, friend. And that price was His pierced hands and His precious blood.

Get unto the blood, friend. Get unto the blood before it's too late.