So far

I would like to read with you in the 22nd Psalm, Psalm 22 please, and verse 1. My God, these are the words prophetically spoken of the Lord Jesus, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far, so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not silent, but thou art holy. O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel, our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. And it is for that expression in verse 1, why art thou so far from helping me.

Final reading over in the 103rd Psalm please, Psalm 103, Psalm 103 and verse 12. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Again verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

We have read a little expression today that is always an expression that is very common, at least it was to our children in their younger days, especially when you're traveling. The question that would come up often was this, why is it so far? Distance, always concerned about distance and time and of course that generates the question, how much further? And we're always concerned because usually they're saying it's too far. The little expression so far is only used twice in your Bible and this Psalm of course a couple times and once in 103rd Psalm, the expression so far.

I want you to remember it like this, that what we have in Psalm 22 of course is a distance that cannot be measured. What we have, my God, my God, why hast thou so forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? In the 103rd Psalm is a statement, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. So I am not only looking tonight at a distance that cannot be measured but directions that never meet.

That's a wonderful thing, directions that will never meet. You would not have to be a pilot to understand that east and west never meet. You can go out on the interstate here, these roads and go west as long as you like and you'll never be traveling east, you'll always be going west.

Go out and start going east and you'll go east as long as you want, you'll never be going west. They are directions that never meet. North and south do, never east and west.

That's beautiful, that's a reason that the psalmist gives us those directions. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us and of course a distance that cannot be measured. The Psalm, the 22nd Psalm is not necessarily written in a chronological order.

That means this, when the cry of the Lord Jesus, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, wasn't a case that he's just on the cross and realizes that he is forsaken. It is going into the depth of his suffering at Calvary and he asked this question that we read together tonight, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far, so far from helping me? Now it was that he did not know, please understand. The Lord Jesus did not ask this question because he didn't know the distance.

He was the only one that did. It was not because he didn't know the extent of the suffering. He was the only one that could could measure it.

But you can tonight. This is a distance tonight that cannot be measured. He says, why art thou so far from helping me? Good question, why is he asking it then? Well, he tells us if you go to the New Testament, he will pray and he said, Father, I have said or spoken these words for them that hear me.

He wanted people to hear what he was asking. He was not asking for information. He was asking for your help tonight.

He wanted you, you to understand that what he had stepped into, what he was experiencing was a distance that cannot be measured. We have tremendous equipment today for measuring distances, for measuring depths. I guess we'd hardly know that when they can take a Boeing 777 airliner and bury it somewhere there, likely in the Indian Ocean or wherever.

With all the technical advances of the day, they searched diligently. How many countries involved looking for that aircraft? Can't find it, can't find it. What's the difficulty? Distance, distance.

Talking about the depth of the ocean into which they have sent all that equipment. Distance is the problem. Children don't like distances.

Adults don't like distances. I have met people and they've never been further than 150 miles from home back our way. And they don't have plans to go any further than that.

And they will just simply say, I have no need to travel. I don't want to. Why would I want to leave my farm? I'm thinking of a man over in Prince Edward Island, nothing against Prince Edward Island, but that's what he told me.

We were putting in the, not we, but they were building the new bridge. And he said, I'm not interested in the bridge. I'm not leaving Prince Edward Island.

I said, excuse me, sir, you're going to leave your loved Prince Edward Island. So are you. You're going to leave the state of Iowa.

You're going to leave the state of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ontario, Canada, wherever you may be from, my friend, you're going to leave it. You're going on a journey. That's what Steve Jobs's sister said when he called her in final hours in panic mode.

He said, you better come quick because I don't think I'm going to make it. His own personal physician said so the first time that he acknowledged that death was a reality. Up to that point in time, he was fighting.

Eric, the former controller of his company that left and went with Google. And because of the patents off of the iPhone that were taken for the Google phone that they produced, the Android, as he lay in his bed, dying with 145 billion cash in the bank, he says, we'll drain our bank, we'll drain our assets. They are not going to build a phone off the patents of the iPhone.

He's gone. I'm telling you that for this reason. His sister, when she arrived and saw that gaunt, daunt looking figure laying there, cheeks all dented in and that bed, he said, you're the king to me.

She said, my brother was going on a journey. And it was a long one. And he did nowhere.

That's just what you've been hearing tonight for Mr. Thibodeau. We're all on a journey tonight, my friend. Life is not a destination.

It's a journey. We're on a journey tonight. There's a world out there that doesn't want to believe it, much less face it.

But I want to tell you, I'm not thinking of the distance that takes you go from here to there, or from here back to Manchester, or here to wherever you may be going tonight. I'm not, I'm not thinking about that distance. That is important.

But what I'm concerned about tonight, my friend, I'm looking into the faces of some that have been on the journey of life long enough. And here you are tonight and you are further. You have never been further from heaven than you are now and never closer to hell.

It would be a week ago right now, this weekend, if you had been in New Orleans. There's a pretty popular man that was in town that night entertaining the town in New Orleans. Doesn't take much to entertain New Orleans.

His name was Jim Hellman. Jim Hellman was better known in the wrestling world as the ultimate warrior. Went into that big wrestling match in Canada and Toronto.

Packed the place. Why? I don't know, wouldn't interest me. But packed it.

The ultimate warrior to take on Hulk Hogan. Supposedly he came away that night a victor. But because of all the business in the wrestling world, as corrupt as it is, the ultimate warrior did not feel he was given proper chances.

So he just bowed out of the thing. But he had ability. He could draw people.

And the wrestling commission decided this boy's got to go to the Hall of Fame. Whether we like it or not. Whether Hogan wants to admit it or not, he's going Hall of Fame.

And he was there in New Orleans. And then we traveled to Scottsdale, Arizona to be inducted into the wrestling Hall of Fame. Put on his wrestling garb that he used to wear in younger days.

He's 54 years of age. Did a lot of nonsense, I guess, on the stage that night to a pack company as they sat there and roared out his name and watched and asked for some of his acts. He stopped.

You know what he said? Well, there was 5.5 million viewers watching it. Here's what he said. Every man's heart.

Every man's heart is one day beats its final beat. Every man's lungs will breathe one day, their final breath. That was on Sunday.

It's recorded. You know where you can find it. Monday night, he's on his way to his motel with his wife, Dana.

They get out of the car. They're making their way to the motel. And he keels over.

He's gone. He's gone. 54.

You sailed past that, sir, a few years ago, still not saved. Your name may not even be known outside of Butler County. Still not saved.

Never come to a point to realize the tremendous and the ultimate distance that there is going to be if you die in your sins and die without a savior. That's what the Lord Jesus was experiencing. Understand, he was experiencing a distance I'll never have to experience.

Aren't you thankful, brothers and sisters? You'll never, ever have to experience the horror distance. The separation of a soul from God for all eternity. We preach about it.

We look at a chart that tries week in a week, very weak manner to depict it. Nobody can comprehend it tonight. That tremendous chasm between the Christ rejecter and a savior in heaven that could have saved them.

Now the savior stepped into that distance at Calvary. That's why his words are given here. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Then he reminds the nation.

Our fathers trusted in me. They'll just deliver them. Isn't that true? Some in the meeting tonight.

Save fathers. They're already in heaven. I preach to those people.

Save mothers already in heaven. You're not. You're not going.

Never to see them again. I don't know how people's thinking is. Doesn't concern you that you'll never see them again? That there's a distance that they're beyond, beyond any type of blue sky hemology tonight.

They're in heaven where Christ is. Where are you going tonight? Where are you going? Well, my friend, you know what makes these distances here? You know what causes them? Every time sin. Sin.

Sin was what caused this distance here. You see, you must understand that, that sin is a debt that must be cleared. That's what the Lord Jesus spoke about when he spoke about a debt or owing debt.

He said that debt's got to be cleared. You've got a debt tonight. That debt has to be cleared.

More than that, he went on to say that there's a defilement that must be cleansed. Sin. That's got to be cleansed as you are.

God cannot accept you. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanseth us from all sin. But that brings me to this.

It's a distance that must be closed. You know, Luke's gospel is the gospel of the distance. Luke's gospel.

Luke chapter 16, there's a man in hell. It does not just say he saw Lazarus, but he saw him a far off. A far off.

Tremendous distance. A distance that could not be measured. Go further.

Luke chapter 17. There's 10 lepers and because of their lepers condition, they stood afar off. And with a loud voice, they glorified God.

Glorified God. I do not stand on a platform and profess that I read that preachers could preach and they could be heard two miles away. I don't believe it.

Sorry. Sorry. I do not believe it.

I believe that human voice naturally, unless there is something miraculous, will carry about 300 feet at the most. But I want to tell you, friend, this was a voice that carried. If you come here tomorrow morning in this building and other buildings around Iowa here further from the rising of the sun going down on the same little companies, maybe a four or five and maybe two or 300.

There are voices from old gentlemen that you'd have to lean ahead to hear and they're heard in heaven. Do you know why? They're blessing the one that experienced this distance for them. I wonder if that'll ever be your experience.

Or will you have to hear this kind of preaching and still take it in the chin and still take the distance? My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? What's it say in Luke chapter 18? There's a publican. And it says concerning that publican that he stands afar off. He senses there's a distance between me and God.

Job experienced it. He was a far off or just staying with Luke's gospel. There was that poor publican and he understands the distance.

So I often tell people, I was convinced, I don't know where I got the thinking, that when it come to salvation, I could get saved. Yeah. I knew how it was gonna happen.

I thought I knew how to make it happen. Well, my friend, you know what I didn't realize? I was lost. I was in the darkness.

You do not go far when you're in the darkness, my friend. And you're in darkness, you're lost. But the good news is the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

God says in Isaiah 59 verse 2, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God. And your sins have hid his face from you. Doesn't Paul write to the Ephesian believers in chapter 2? And here's the language he uses.

But now in Christ Jesus, but now, not before, but now in Christ Jesus, ye who are sometimes afar off, afar off. What does he go on to say? Are made nigh by the blood of Christ. The Savior stepped into that distance and experienced eternally, my friend, in those hours on Calvary's cross, a distance that cannot be measured.

We have friends here, very friends, personal friends of Brody and I. They're here visiting from Nova Scotia. We met them at the back. First thing they said, didn't talk about weather.

This is a long ways out here. Well, I'm very privileged. I have a very quick way of going home.

And when they write from home, they say, the kids used to say, Dad, it's only six and a half hours, isn't it? From Iowa home. That's about what it is. It's not very far.

It doesn't take very long, but my friend, I want to tell you tonight about a distance, a distance that cannot be measured. You know, I have to tell you something tonight. That's not easy to tell you.

I'm not talking about odds. Okay. I am not talking about chances, but it's highly likely everybody in this large audience will be in heaven.

Now, that's just not preacher terminology. That's biblical truth. Because the Bible says many, many there be which go in the Broadway, few there be that find it.

Now understand friend, that's not totality. That's ratio, ratio. In other words, a few in this neighborhood, and a few in that large company in stout tonight.

Wonder, dear girl, if you're going to make it. I wonder, boy, if you become so careless, you'll never make it. Never make it.

And so he says, Why are thou so far from helping me? Was he heard? He was heard. Was it a case he had to have explained to him the distance? No, no, he was only too glad to experience it. And I'm only too glad to give him thanks for it.

I'll tell you that. But let's come to the next next one that we read, you know, much more can be said about it. I mean, it's in the cause of the separation.

It's sin today that separates the jet. It's sin that has separated homes. It's sin that has separated families.

It's sin that draws such separations all over our world tonight. But I want to come to the 103rd Psalm and tell you about sin tonight. And I want to talk tonight about directions that never meet, directions that never meet.

That's the beauty of the 103rd Psalm, verse 12. As far, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Isn't that wonderful? My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, was nailed to his cross and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul.

You see, in the Old Testament, God made a means by which sin could be taken away. That the best means that the people in that day understood was it was a goat. It was an animal.

And the sins were just for simplicity, for your understanding, were confessed over the head of that goat. That goat was released. Another goat had died.

That goat was released to be taken by the hand of a fit man. And people would watch it. There it would go.

They'd watch the two of them. Pretty soon it would come down to one solitary little figure. Finally, they would disappear over the horizon.

Now the people waited. They had to wait. Their best hopes, though, was a one-way trip.

A one-way trip for the goat, but a two-way trip for the man. In other words, if that goat come back, sin's going to be forgiven. The fact it never came back proves sins were forgiven.

But not until they saw the man. When they saw the man come back, they said, there's the seal. Our sins are forgiven.

I want to tell you tonight, there's one in heaven. He's coming back. We sang about it today at the opening of our gospel meeting, about a Savior that's returning.

And, you know, it looked like a long ways for him. It still must be a tremendous way beyond the sky tonight. There's a Savior coming, coming for dad and mom, coming for you, coming for you, sir, coming for your wife, coming for your daughter, coming for your mother, your father.

What about you? There's a Savior coming. You know, for him, well, you say, it's, he's God. And for him, it'd be just a short distance.

Oh, come on. Think a little better terms of that. Who's he coming for? He's coming for his bride.

And like Jacob, when it came to the bride, what it would take four or five men to do single-handedly, he'd lift the lid off that well. I know what it is to get a bride from a long ways from home. And when you're going for the bride miles, don't even count.

Don't even count. Doesn't matter how long you didn't even think of those terms. Do you know why you were going for someone you loved? Well, I'm going from here home, trust me, whatever it means I go home on.

It's a lot shorter going home. It's a long ways out. My brethren, it is.

I'm not begging your pity tonight. There's men in the work longer than I have. I was sure that when I got this age, it'd be easier to leave home than it is.

It's harder, harder. It's quiet. You sit along there, let those twin engines churn their way westbound.

And we aren't talking a lot, not saying a lot. You get settled in. Christians are so kind.

They're too kind. But there's somebody back home waiting. They start to wait as soon as you leave.

There's a savior in heaven tonight. You know what he's doing? Isn't it wonderful? He's waiting for you. Isn't that sweet? Anybody else ever wait for you? He's waiting for you.

He's going to come and take you as his bride. Let me give you the conclusion of the Bible. The spirit and the bride say, come and let him that is a thirst come, let him that hear come and drink of the water of life freely.

Whatever that distance is, you can't measure it. And personally, maybe I'm stepping to the other side of what the book says. I don't think he cares.

He just knows who's here. I trust tonight, there'll be someone that'll come to him. That'll be for the first time, be able to put your knees where they belong on the floor, maybe besides your bed.

And thank God there was one ever left heaven and came to this tremendous distance. He didn't get here on earth to say, well, that was a long ways. That was down stupid.

He could have said that. Doesn't mention it. You know what bothered him? Was the distance between someone that he loved.

The father loved the son, but the son loved the father did always those things that please the father. He doesn't mention those distances, but the distance that concerned him was unfortunately going to be a distance. That's going to be yours.

If you choose to die without him, come to him tonight. You know, the amazing thing about, about it. Do you know how far it is to Christ? One step, one step.

Do you know how far it is to hell, sir? One step, one step. When David said there is, but a step between me and death, he was, I don't think he was talking about oncoming cars and the step. You can take it horizontally.

If you like, I take it the other way. These feet of mine are going to take some time. The final step, just like Jim, hell is the ultimate warrior.

If you like lost that big battle with death outside that Arizona hotel, hand in hand with his wife, he took one final step. Why not take a step to Christ tonight and be saved? Shall we pray?