When All is Spent

General Meetings, Toledo, November 1976, Gospel by Brother Wakefield. Sing together number two, the second hymn on the sheet. Come, says Jesus, gently calling, Ye which care and toil oppress, With your guilt, howe'er appalling, Come, and I will give you rest.

For your sin he once has suffered, On the cross the work was done, And the word by God now uttered, To each weary soul is come. Hymn number two. Come, says Jesus, gently calling, Ye which care and toil oppress.

Might we sing in the first and the last verses a number four. Christ is the Savior of sinners. The first and the last verses of number four.

I'd like to look first at the 15th chapter of Luke, for one verse, before we turn back to it in a few moments. Luke chapter 15 and the 22nd verse. But the Father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him.

In the 22nd chapter of Matthew, for one other verse, and the 11th verse. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. Then in the 27th chapter of Matthew, and the 28th verse.

And they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe. When they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand. And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, king of the Jews.

And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him. They took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on him and led him away to crucify him.

Verse 45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lamb of Sabachthon, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And the 28th chapter and verse 5. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not, ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

He is not here, for he is risen. As he said, Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Well, dear friends, you've noticed probably in reading these verses, in the first passage we read, we read about the best robe being put on to the prodigal son.

In the second scripture we found a man that dared to enter into the presence of the king without wearing a wedding garment. In the third scripture we have them putting on the Lord Jesus a scarlet robe. Then we read about the three hours of darkness when the Savior bore my sins and his own body on the tree was made sin for me and received from the hand of God the judgment which I deserve.

And then the last scripture we read showed that the Savior was no longer dead but alive. Now we'll consider, first of all, this well-known 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. My friends, I'd like to remind you that we come to these conferences quite often.

I don't know how many there are in a year. Maybe there's a dozen or so. And pretty well in the larger conferences the same people are pretty well here.

And I'm sure that in an audience like this, with probably 700 maybe here, around that figure, there are some here that are on the way to hell. There are some here tonight that if the Lord Jesus came they'd be left right here in Toledo. And be lost forever and have to spend eternity in the dungeons of the damned.

Being able to say, I knew John 3.16, I can quote in the very dungeons of the damned, John 5.24, I know the way to heaven. I know how I could have got there but I put it off. I was dreaming.

You know on Thursday I went to get a haircut and the barber, a Jewish gentleman, started talking to me about the elections in the province of Quebec. And he said, you know, it's a sad thing that so many English people in this province and so many Jews are dreaming. And he said they're trying to pretend that everything is all right.

But he said, not me. The very day after the election took place I had all my money transferred to the city of Ottawa. And he said, my friends, you know, think I'm kind of strange but I'm ready, he said, I am ready for what's going to happen when they seize the money of this province.

Well, he said, everybody around me is dreaming. Oh, they're saying, don't worry, nothing's going to happen. Well, I said, sir, that's interesting but what about eternity? That's what they're doing, they're all dreaming.

They're all dreaming and they're saying nothing's going to happen, everything's going to be the same, we're going to get out of the mess we're in, why, there'll be some genius come and fix everything up and there's nothing to worry about. And he said, exactly, they're dreaming. My friend, tonight you may be dreaming on the very brink of hell, right on the very doorstep of hell you may be dreaming tonight.

And so I trust that by the grace of God and by the leading of the Holy Spirit of God what we say to you tonight may be used to bring you to Christ, to bring you to the Savior of sinners before it is forever too late. Now, this well-known parable the Lord Jesus told, which I believe is really one part of three parables, we're only going to consider the one about the prodigal son. It starts at verse 11 and it tells the very same story that young men tonight and young ladies and sad to say young men and young ladies in Christian homes are faced with.

They want to get away from home. That seems to be the ambition of so many young people today. Let's get away from home and be on our own and live in an apartment where we'll have nobody to keep after, where we can live exactly the way we want to and do exactly the things we want to do without our mother and father always preaching on us and warning us and trying to spoil our enjoyment of life.

That's exactly what this young man did. And so down he goes to the far country and it tells us in the 13th verse not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country and there wasted his substance with riotous living. Now my friends, these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And just in this one verse he really describes what exactly is happening today in North America. This is exactly what's happening. They're going into a far country away from God, away from the Bible, away from everything to do with God's realities and God's eternity and God's truth and there in that far country they're wasting their substance with riotous living.

Well, we know what that means, don't we? That means they're taking their God-given health and their God-given strength and all the abilities that God has given them and they're just throwing them into the hands of the devil and they're wasting their substance with riotous living. But I want to warn you tonight, my friend, if you're here and you're living that kind of a life there's an end coming to that kind of thing. You know, I believe that the Father, who I believe speaks of God here, sent into that far country a famine.

And the Lord Jesus says about this famine in verse 14, "...and when he had spent all..." Now, you know what that means, don't you? I know what it means, too. When everything was gone then the Father sent into that country a mighty famine. He sent the famine.

Now, why did he send that famine? Was it to punish this young man? I believe it was to show that young man his nothingness, to show that young man his need of his Father, to show that young man, later on in the chapter, the Father's heart and the Father's love. And so it tells us that he began to be in want. Well, I suppose many of us tonight who belong to the Lord have been to hospitals, different other places, and we've met young men just like this and young ladies and older people and they're in want.

And they have no more enjoyment of life because they're in want and everything they had is gone. All the resources have come to an end and there they are in want and they're going on to eternity and they're miserable and they're unhappy. Maybe you're unhappy tonight.

Maybe you say, I would to God that I could get rid of my sins. I would to God that I could get this question settled between my soul and God himself. So, what happens here? Well, it tells us in the 15th verse and here is human reason, my friends.

He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his field to feed swine. Now, this citizen of this country is the devil. You see, this man was going down.

Man's history is downward. All my friends believe, not those who tell you that man's history is upward, but morally and spiritually man's history is downward until he meets the God of the Bible who saves his precious soul through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the cleansing power of that precious blood and gives him a brand new life, a new beginning, so that the poor sinner, through faith in Christ, is now a new creature or a new creation in Christ Jesus. My friend, how wonderful and how blessed.

We're going to see more of this later. Now, it tells us in the 16th verse, and he would fain have filled his belly with the husk that the swine did eat. Now, he's going down lower still.

You see, his pathway is leading downward. And who allows this pathway to lead downward? His father arranged all this. Down he was going.

Now he's lower still, and he's down reduced to be in the company of the swine. Then he goes down further, and it tells us in the end of the 16th verse, and no man gave unto him. Oh, my friends, what a wonderful thing that Jesus in these few verses gives us exactly the history of every man of Adam's race without Christ.

Every man in these few words that Jesus spoke, we see the history of man. It's a downward path. Down he goes, my friends.

And how solemn this is. Well, I've had the privilege of being in the prisons in the United States and visiting men there. And I've seen some men that have gone down, down, down they've gone.

And there they are, as far down as they could go. I've talked to those men. I've heard their testimony.

One of them said to me, I'm glad to be able to say that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior too. You see, he came to the end of himself. Another man told me, he said, I was released from prison on parole.

And he said, I stole a car. I headed to the Canadian border, but I was intercepted by the police and brought back into this prison. And thank God I'm here, for here I heard the gospel.

And my friends, as I think of those men in the prison, I think of the children, the young people, of those who are Christians, with Christian mothers and fathers, who hear this gospel so many times, they just absolutely despise it and they reject it. And God says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Now there may be some in this room tonight, because we don't know everybody here. And you're just like this prodigal.

There you are, down at the very bottom. And you come into this room tonight, maybe your parents had to struggle to get you here, but by the grace of God you've come. And I want to tell you, my friends, tonight with God's help, and by the grace of God, the history of this young man that can be your history tonight, notice what he says now in the 17th verse, and when he came to himself.

When he came to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my fathers have bread and nothing to spare, and I perish with hunger. Now he's beginning to turn back towards his father. First of all, he confesses the position he's in.

I perish with hunger. I perish. Maybe tonight you're perishing in your sins.

You have to admit if you are really an honest young man or young woman or older person, you'd have to say, that's true. I perish with hunger, not physical food, but spiritual food. I perish.

I've got so far away from God that I don't even thank God for my food, and I never pray. I never pray. Oh, my friends, how so? I never pray anymore.

My mother taught me to pray. My father taught me to pray, but I quit that long ago, and now I perish with hunger. Notice what this young man did.

Verse 18, I will arise. Isn't that wonderful? I will arise. You know, the Lord Jesus looked at a man, and he said, follow me, and it says, and he arose, and he left all, and he followed him.

So this young man arises. And he said, I will go to my father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee. Now here is his confession.

My friend, I want to ask you tonight, if you have made this confession in the presence of God, have you ever been in the presence of God and said, I have sinned against heaven and before thee? Have you ever done that? You know, somebody has said, and I believe they're right, there is no salvation without repentance. There is no salvation without repentance. Now, repentance can't save you, that's for sure.

But my friend, repentance is, I believe, taking sides with God against yourself. I wrote to a young man in the prison just before we left Montreal, and I said, Robert, you have to come to that place where you say, I have sinned against the Lord. And you have to get down on your knees and acknowledge before him that you are a sinner.

For your verses you quote to me, and the things you say about knowing the Bible will not save your soul. For the Bible cannot save you. It's only Christ that saves.

Thank God for the Bible. It's the Word of God. But it's Christ that saves, my beloved friend.

And the Word of God turns us to Christ. For Christ is the Savior. He's the only Savior.

The only Savior that God has for man is the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no other. Only Him.

He's the Savior of sinners like me. And so it says here, And I'm no more worthy, in verse 19, to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father. Notice now, his father. This now begins the story of the Father's love.

The story of the love of God. And who could better tell it than the Savior himself? Who could better tell it than the one who came into this world whose heart was filled with love for poor, miserable, hell-deserving creatures like you and me? He could tell it out in all its fullness. And so the Savior said, in these words now, in verse 20, And he arose and came to his father.

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. I understand that one translation, I don't know which one it is, says he covered him with kisses. Isn't that beautiful? This young man who came back to his father was greeted by his father.

And my friend, the devil loves to tell people, you know, well, redemption's point is past for me. I'd like to become a Christian. I'd like to be saved.

But I've gone so far that there's no hope. Friend, listen, that's not true. That's the devil's lie.

The Lord Jesus said when he was here, Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Absolutely. There is no man in this world, I believe, that's gone past redemption point as long as his heart is beating.

God loves you. God loves you. Isn't that wonderful that God loves you and that the Lord Jesus came into the world to save sinners down in the gutter, sinners, sinners who sunk down into the very gutter almost of hell.

And the Lord Jesus came into the world to die for them, to save them, to take their sins away. An all-powerful Savior, beloved friend, who has power to break the very chains, the very heaviest chains of sin that there are. He's able to break those chains for He's a powerful, living, mighty Savior.

Well, it tells us now in verse 20, And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. Now, this is solemn, isn't it? He doesn't say, Now I've sinned before thee. But he goes a little further and he said, I've sinned in thy sight.

My dear young man tonight or young lady or older person who may be here without Christ, it's a grand thing to know that you've sinned in the sight of God, that you're guilty. You know, in the courts of this land, they have to have what they call witnesses. And these witnesses have to number at least two or three.

One witness is not sufficient. But God doesn't need any witnesses. The sinner has sinned in his sight and he knows, my friend, all about you.

And he knows more about you than you know about yourself because he sees everything. Yes, indeed he does. And so this young man, as he got into his father's arms, he realized at last that his father could see him and his father ran to meet him and his father knew every detail in his life.

Those secret sins, those hidden sins, those thoughts of yours and mine, you know them all, don't you? Maybe you've forgotten, like I have many of them, but God knows them all. And how wonderful it is to have that record cleansed absolutely, spotlessly clean by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Word of God declares so wonderfully that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all, A-L-L, all sins.

Well, now it tells us, going back to our chapter where we started to read at the beginning in the 22nd verse, but the father said to his servant, you see the young man said, make me as one of thy hired servants. That father didn't want hired servants. He wanted that boy of his.

He was looking for that boy to come back again. And here he says to his hired servants. He had servants enough.

And God has servants enough, my friends. The heavens are filled with mighty angels. What God wants is you, my friend, to come yourself.

He wants you to trust him and to know that on that cross we're going to have in a few minutes what the Lord Jesus did on that cross. We're the sinner who will have him. Well, he says, bring forth the best robe.

I've enjoyed this thought that the best robe was for the worst. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that just like God? The very best for the very worst. Bring forth the best robe and put it on him.

And put a ring on his hand. God's never-ending, eternal love. Oh, it's the love of Christ, my friend.

God's matchless love. We can trace it through the word of God. In the 13th chapter of John, that eternal love, that he loved them unto the end.

Having loved us all which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. In the 15th chapter of John, verse 9, we have that divine love. Speaking of the Lord's people, of course, as my Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.

Continue ye in my love. Then we go on and we find that personal love. In Galatians 2 and 20, the Son of God who loved me, said the Apostle Paul, and gave himself for me.

That mighty, matchless love of God found throughout the whole Bible. God's matchless love. And this ring that the Father put on the hand of his Son shows out that matchless, unmeasurable, eternal, never-ending love of God.

How blessed this is. And shoes on his feet. Isn't this wonderful? You know, I am told that in those days the servants went barefooted.

But the sons wore shoes. And so here was the son coming back. He had to wear shoes.

He was a son. He wasn't a servant. And secondly, it tells us of a new standing.

No longer connected with this world as we had this afternoon. No longer connected with this wicked world that's going on to judgment. But now a new standing and that standing is in Christ.

And a believer in the Lord Jesus stands before God dressed in Christ and nothing else will suit God. Absolutely. Your good works, your good deeds are not acceptable to God.

You must come and receive from this giving, loving God what He has for you in His matchless love. Now there may be a girl here tonight and your father and mother have prayed for you. A young man whose father and mother are praying for.

Right now their heads may be bowed. They may be praying for their children. I suppose there are some here.

God loves you. Just imagine. And I like to say this again and again and again that God has blocked the road to hell with the cross of Christ.

Isn't that wonderful, my friends? Are you going to pass by this matchless, eternal love of God? That matchless love that God has for sinners. And so then He says in the 23rd verse, "...and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry." Let us. Notice this.

Let us. Who is this? The Father and this returned Son. Let us.

Isn't it wonderful that God brings us into fellowship with His beloved Son so that as His children, dear Christians, He can say, "...let us eat and be merry." And you know, it tells us in the next verse, "...for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found." Those are the solemn words of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was dead.

Dead. Is that what you are tonight, a spiritual corpse? And you say, well, you know, I don't enjoy the Bible and I find these conferences sort of boring. I like to get into the meals, you know, and stay in the motel and live like a king for a couple of days.

But when it comes to these Bible readings, I've got no enjoyment of that. You're dead, my friends. No life towards God.

Doesn't that trouble you? Doesn't that exercise you, young person? Why are you not interested in God's things? Ah, because you're dead and sin. And then you're lost. Lost.

Can you think of anything worse than to be lost? Lost. Are you lost tonight in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not? To those that are lost, if our gospel is hid, it is hid to those that are lost. Lost in sin.

Lost. Oh, my friend, may these words sink down into your heart, that man without Christ, no matter how good a life he may be living, he's dead and he's lost and he's going into eternity to meet God about his sins. What a solemn thing.

And then it says, and they began to be married. They began to be married. Earlier in the chapter, the young man began to be in want.

But here, he and his father, they began to be married. Speaking of that eternal, never-ending, heavenly joy that the people of God will enjoy in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with God their Father for all eternal ages. Oh, bring forth the best robe and put it on him.

And that best robe would speak to us of God's righteousness. There nothing else would do. The son may have found a robe on the way home, but that robe was no good.

It had to be the robe that the Father himself provided God's own righteousness. And every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ tonight in this room is dressed in God's righteousness. How wonderful.

Well, going back now to the 22nd chapter of Matthew, we have something very solemn here. We're not going to go over the chapter. But there was a marriage given for the certain king, a marriage for his son.

And the invitations went out. Each one received the invitation to attend the marriage. And, you know, they accepted the invitation.

And apparently with every invitation there was a robe provided, a wedding garment apparently provided for every one who accepted the invitation. They received a wedding garment. And they put the wedding garment on and they came except one man.

And I suppose that one man would remind us of the self-righteous sinner who says, well, I'm good enough. I don't need to be saved. You know, I'm very religious and I do all kinds of good deeds.

And whenever any charity is needed, I'm right there to meet the need. I give to my neighbors and my friends. I don't need a Savior.

Why, I'm good enough. And I believe this wedding garment would speak to us of God's righteousness, God's salvation. And this man dares to come in and sit down with the guests.

Notice that verse I read to you, the third, the twelfth, the eleventh verse. And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. What a contrast.

The best robe placed on the prodigal son. Here's a man without a wedding garment. And when the king comes into the room and looks at those many guests, his eye rests on that one man.

He stood out. He stood out. And my friend, I speak reverently, if it were possible for any sinner of Adam's race to get into heaven without Christ, when God looked into that crowd, you would be singled out.

What are you doing here without Christ? And what happened to this man? Verse 12, And he said unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? Now notice. And he was speechless. He was speechless.

I've talked to men about Christ, and they say, you just wait till I get before that judgment day. Believe me, I'll have some things to say to God about the unrighteousness of this poor world. What does it say here? And he was speechless.

He had nothing to say. Nothing to say to defend himself. Nothing to say as to why he didn't have the wedding garment on.

He was speechless before the majesty of that king. You know, my friend, when the unsaved we had this afternoon stand before the great white throne, they will be speechless. Absolutely nothing to say.

Now I want to remind you that these are the very words of the only man that ever lived in this world who never told a lie. These are the words of the one who was God manifest in the flesh. He did not exaggerate.

He did not add to or take from. He told the truth. Notice the 13th verse.

Then said the king to the servant, bind him hand and foot. What does that mean? Why he lost his liberty. Now, you know, the devil is very clever.

And there's many, many people tonight in the United States of America who really say this, and they really believe it too. When I get to hell, all my friends will be there. I'm going to have a wonderful time.

It's going to be a wonderful thing to get away from all the Christians and just be with the ungodly forever and ever. But notice, my friends, bind him hand and foot. His liberty was gone.

First of all, his speech was gone. Now his liberty is gone. And then it tells us incast him into outer darkness.

Now his friends were gone. He couldn't see his friends. He couldn't see anybody.

He was in outer darkness. Now these are the words of the Lord Jesus. Don't dare try to take from them.

Don't dare to try to add to them. These are the faithful words of the blessed one who died on Calvary's cross to save you from going to this very fate of everyone that rejects the precious Christ of God. Notice now what it says, incast him into outer darkness.

He lost the light. You got the light tonight. You have in your home the Bible.

When you go home tonight, do you see on your father's desk or your mother's bureau the Bible? You have the light there, don't you? The light will be gone, my friends. You come into this assembly and there's many lights here. Everybody that has a Bible has a light.

But there'll be no light there. All light will be gone. He lost the light.

And then there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. He lost every bit of joy, every bit of peace that he had. Oh friend, count the cost.

Count the cost in case you cross that line tonight that will lead you to hell. Now we don't like to preach hell. I would rather preach Christ than preach hell.

That's for sure. But we must be faithful, my friends. Hell is at the end of a Christless life.

Are you living a Christless life tonight? Are you tonight here one who's... Maybe you say, well, I'm not really rejecting Christ, but I'm neglecting. I'm just putting it off until a better time. There's a day coming when I'm going to make my choice for Christ.

Again, the Word of God says, How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Now in the 27th chapter of Matthew, we came to this solemn account which God gives us of the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a world that has rejected Christ. We live in a world that its history is written in blood.

We live in a world that's stained by the blood of tens of thousands of millions of men who died on battlefields and so on. But apart from all that, this world is stained with the blood of God's Son. God's Son.

This world is stained with the blood of Christ. It tells us here in the 28th verse, And they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe. I believe, speaking of Jewish royalty, the scarlet robe.

In mockery, they put on him a scarlet robe. And they said, This man's a king. Why, we'll crown him king.

And they put on him a crown of thorns, a mark of the curse. And there, beloved, let me bring you over back to that day. And there we have this scene of this glorious man as he stood there before Pontius Pilate with the scarlet robe on and the crown of thorns on his head.

And men saw him. And the devil saw him. And the demon saw him.

And the angel saw him. And God saw him. A sight for men.

A sight for angels. The man, the creator. The one who came down from heaven, born of a virgin, crowned with thorns by men who just before had said, Release unto us Barabbas.

I'm sure what we've heard this afternoon, young people, about this world, was indeed something to make us think. And I want to bring out to you that the man who started this world was a murderer. That great world system, his name was Cain, as our dear brother told us, he was a murderer.

Barabbas, who the world chose, was a murderer. And the God and Prince of this world, the Lord Jesus said, is a murderer. How can we expect anything else in this world but trouble, wars, fights, quarrels, strikes, and everything else, when the whole business was started by at least three murderers? Three murderers connected with this great world system.

The devil, the God, and the Prince of this great world system, Cain, the originator, who built that city, as our brother told us, and Barabbas, who was chosen by the world, who said, Away with Jesus. Away with Jesus. In other words, they said, we would rather have Barabbas come for supper, even though while we were not looking he might kill us all, and the children, and my wife, and everybody, but we would rather have Barabbas with us than to have Jesus.

Anybody but Jesus, they say. This is a solemn thing. This is the world, young people.

You and I are living in tonight. And the newspapers, apart from the Bible, tell us what is happening in this great world system tonight, soon to come under the heavy hands of the judgment of Almighty God. This is the world we're living in, my friends, in the world that crucified the Lord Jesus.

They crucified Him. Now the Savior hung on that cross from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For the first three hours He suffered at the hands of man. For the last three hours He suffered at the hands of God.

And you know, a careless world, and men and women say, well, of course I believe in the crucifixion. Didn't Jesus Christ die for everybody? That's true. As our brother pointed out a few weeks ago at a funeral service, Christ died for all.

But Hebrews 9, verse 27, I believe, is very careful to say that Christ bear the sins of many. My friends, Christ didn't die for every man's sins in this world. He only died for the sins of many.

And if you want to be numbered among the many, then you must have Christ. You must receive Him as your personal Savior. You must have Christ living in you.

Not religion, my friends, no, but Christ, a living Savior, one who birthed the very bars of death and who came forth triumphant over death, the Son of God, very in His hands and feet and side, the marks He received on the cross of Calvary, who went back into heaven as a man, who sat down at the right hand of God, a risen and a glorified Christ, who will bear for eternal ages in His hands and feet and side those marks, which forever tell God and man that Calvary's work is forever finished. But I point out to the verses I read to you in verse 45, Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. The mighty Son that He placed in the heavens hid His face.

As the Creator, God's beloved eternal Son, the Maker of heaven and earth and all the planets and everything that was made, was made sin. You can understand that, can't you? We can read the verse in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, that He was made sin for us. He knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

And the Savior in the garden of Gethsemane contemplating those three hours of darkness said, Oh, my Father, it will be possible that this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done. And there's men in this room tonight and women who are faced in eternal damnation and eternal ruin and eternal hell.

Maybe you're not moved at all. Maybe you're laughing and mocking. Maybe you're talking to your neighbor beside you and you don't fear the awfulness of being away from God for eternity and the very darkness of the damnation of hell.

My friends, what a solemn thing. Christ died for the ungodly. Here is Christ in this 46th verse in about the ninth hour.

Jesus cried with a loud voice. The Savior was about to die, but He was God, my friends. He was the Son of God.

He was God manifest in the flesh and He cried with a loud voice. Not a weak voice like a man dying or a woman passing through death, but He cried with a loud voice. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Have you answered the question, my friends? Have you answered the question? I received a tape message from our brother in the assembly at Walla Walla.

He preached on this verse in the little chapel in the Washington State Penitentiary. And he preached on this very question. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he said, man, is there one man in this group tonight who can answer the question? There wasn't one man who stirred.

He turned to a man behind who he knew was a believer and he said, Mike, can you answer that question? And this man that's been in prison, I suppose nearly 10 years, he said, yes, I can. He said he was forsaken by God because he was bearing my sins in his own body on the tree. Friend, when I heard that tape message in my home, I bowed my head and wept.

And I thought of the boys and girls and the young men and young women who have been favored by God with the Bible read morning and noon and night with the verses on their walls who have heard this question asked and asked and asked again and again. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And they don't care. They don't answer the question.

But a man in the prison behind those mighty penitentiary walls said he was bearing my sins in his own body on the tree. Yes, he died for you, my friend, if you'll have him. He loved us, dear Christians.

He suffered for us. The suffering we'll never enter into for eternity. He loved us.

He paid the price. We had to suffer agony as he bore our wretched sins and our guilt. And when he was made sin and the stroke of judgment fell upon him, for God must punish sin and God will punish sin.

Either he has punished it at Calvary's cross or he will punish it in the future and eternity. Which will it be, my friends? Then in the last passage we read in the 28th chapter, notice now, the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye see Jesus which was crucified. Now, dear Christians, this is a word for you and for me.

Heaven knows exactly what we're seeking. The angel here said, I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified. In case there were other people in the world called Joshua or Jesus, he's marked out here, beloved, by the angel of God.

I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified. Ah, there's the difference. He was the crucified Jesus.

And he said he is not here. He's not here. In Luke's gospel it says, Why seek ye the living among the dead? Which brings us back to our brother's address this afternoon.

Dear Christians, why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we make friends of the unsaved, the ungodly, those who have no use for Christ? They're dead, my friends. Why seek ye the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen, says the heavenly angel.

How glorious, how blessed. Christ lives. We don't preach a dead Christ.

We preach a living Christ, a Christ that broke the bonds of death, again I say. A Christ who has power to rise from the dead and come out of that sepulcher a living Savior. And thank God he's my Savior.

I ask you before I bow my head in prayer, are you going to be saved tonight? Are you going to put off this question and be damned? Are you going to put off this question and lose your soul? Are you going to put off this question and have the wrath of God fall on you and you be left in North America and all your loved ones and your father and your mother all gone home to glory and you left in this wretched world where men will seek death and not be able to find it. These are the words of the living God, my friends. We don't preach religion.

We preach Christ. Christ crucified, Christ risen, and Christ come in again. The Christ of Calvary, the one who shed his precious blood and that blood has power to cleanse from all sin.

It's the blood of Christ. It's the love of God. It's the love of Christ.

Will you have that Savior tonight? Will you, as I bow my head in prayer, will you say, Oh God, I'm guilty. I'm a sinner. I've sinned against thee and in thy sight.

And I come tonight to the Lord Jesus Christ. I claim him as my Savior. I confess him as my Lord.

I confess that the man the world spit upon, that the world crowned with thorns, is not only Jesus, but God has made that same Jesus both Lord and Christ. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. And if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

That precious verse, down in Fredericton, New Brunswick, last Saturday night, was used by the grace of God to lead a young woman to tell another brother who was in the room, Tonight I got assurance. What did she do to get that assurance? She said, I was saved two weeks ago. I think now she knows why she confessed the Lord.

Have you ever confessed the Lord yet? Young boys and young girls, have you ever confessed the Lord? Why not tonight confess the Lord? He's Jesus, but he's the Lord Jesus. May God bless his word for the glory of his eternal name.