John 3:17, 36

I want to go back to John chapter 3. Thank you for coming and for your attention and quietness in listening. The Gospel of John, the first reading will be one of the words statements of the Lord Jesus in verse 17. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

To the end of the chapter, verse 34. For he whom God has sent speaketh the words of God. For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.

It's a complete revelation. The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.

And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him. May the Lord bless the further reading of His word. We've been hearing as to the person of Christ and the reason of His coming into this world with Calvary in view.

A plan that God, in the person of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, purposed before the beginning of ages. A plan in eternity that God realized and knew that sin would not overtake the Godhead by surprise. He who created the worlds, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, whose goings forth are from everlasting to everlasting, knew well what would happen in the garden of Eden when, after creation, and on earth prepared for men to live upon, an atom formed of the dust of the earth, a body.

And God breathed into that body the breath of life. Man became a living soul. And so as we recognize some of the Holy Scriptures, and I trust that all of you realize that the word of God is inspired by God, divinely given, and using men to write what God gave them to write, that you and I would have the very mind of God in view of what His purposes are.

The revelation of God is all in the person of His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to think tonight with you for the remaining minutes of our gathering, the one who was the creator of the worlds, the Godhead, revealed in the person of Christ, as the Colossian letter relates, by Him all things consist, and He is the sustainer and the maker of all matter. And yet God has given everything, as we've read here, He loveth the Son, and has given all things into His hand.

And that reveals to you and I that not only this one who is the creator was sent into the world to be the Savior, and of course in relative to the fact that man in disobedience, Eve was deceived, Adam took of the fruit from her hand, and accountability going to Adam by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin. So death is passed upon all men. And thus, as the word of God relates, the fact that we, all of us, by nature have inherited a fallen nature.

We were born sinners, we had no choice. We are very soon old enough to be accountable, that is, old enough to understand, I have sinned. And the seriousness of sin and the solemn issues, as we consider not only the Old Testament truths given to us, and reminded as well from Exodus chapter 20, the Ten Commandments, given that man might understand in the righteous way the knowledge of sin, would bring conviction as to why you and I now in our own day need to know the Savior.

I want to think of these words God had given the Father who loveth the Son seven times that statement in the Scripture, in John's Gospel, and had committed and given all things into His hand. What you and I do in response to this wonderful provision of grace to manifest the love of God, for God sent not His Son into the world, that word world three times in that 17th verse that the Savior is speaking about, the world of mankind, billions on the face of the earth at this hour. But God is interested in your eternal well-being, fellow traveler to eternity.

He does not desire that you would experience the judgment of God in view of what we deserve. He desires that you might recognize that in love He gave His blessed Son to bear that punishment and to take that punishment in response to bearing sin in its judgment, to make this wonderful provision of grace a free gift on the response of the sinner who will believe God and agree that God is right, that's a repentance, I am in wrong. The natural man takes away that seems right.

And in the early days of creation, right away in the beginning, Adam tried to cover himself with a clothed fig leaf aprons. God would reveal that there must be shedding of blood and a sacrifice. Skin was provided for a garment.

And all through the Old Testament, the sacrifices were buried. And showing this, there's one that's going to come to put away sin by one sacrifice. The bullocks, the goats, the lambs, the doves, and those offerings were foreshadowing the one who would answer for that sacrifice totally, completely, and once for all.

I want to think a little as to this fact, as to what man needs to be caused to ponder. In the three testimonies we heard tonight, each individual was first of all awakened to their need. You look at stories, accounts in the Scripture of salvation.

Here in the third chapter, John is an older man, and he was marveling that he needed a spiritual birth. And the spiritual birth to be born again is to be saved. The only you mention of the one word, once saved at third chapter.

God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. What a privilege given to men and boys and girls to become awakened to the reality, I have sinned. That sin is against God.

That sin is separated. He did in the garden, Adam found himself out of fellowship with God. He was trying to hide himself.

God knew where he was at. And God sees you and I tonight, and he sees you fellow traveler to eternity. He values your eternal well-being.

Judgment, it is strange work. But the one who is the Savior will eventually be the judge. The great white throne for the unbeliever, the judgment seat of Christ, a day of reward for the Christian and his other judgments in the Scripture.

But how wonderful tonight that God seeks to, by the Spirit of God, through the Word of God and circumstances, even been mentioned tonight by the testimonies, to get us to realize we need to be prepared to meet God. Our sins are accountable and we're responsible for them. An awakening causes an alarm, because in our 36th verse that I want to ponder here, this last verse, and it's the words of John the Baptist, as John, the gospel writer, quotes them.

The Father loveth the Son and had given all things into his hand. What you do with Christ, friend, determines your eternal destiny and mine as well. And an awakening to sin and its consequences and the destiny.

Heaven will not be entered apart from knowing deliverance from the penalty of sin and the sacrifice paid in full. Wonderful a provision, but the absolute necessity of knowing Christ as your personal Savior. Looking back to that moment when you received them, it causes alarm, because the last expression of verse 36, the wrath of God abideth upon that person.

He that believeth not the Son, the wrath of God abideth over him. Long ago in the book of Job, you read these words, the first public, most historical, as far as the Bible, the book of Job was the earliest one likely written. Because there's wrath, beware.

The wrath of God has been revealed and it causes you and I to realize this. The wrath of God is going to mean eternal separation, the consequence of missing heaven, to find oneself leaving life without knowing Christ in hell and eventually the lake of fire. And whether you're younger or whether you're old, friends, seek ye first the kingdom of God, priority.

We need to recognize that sin in its reality not only has brought spiritual death, it will bring eternal separation if never put away and knowing what it is to have, knowing sin's forgiven. Wonderful in the mercy of God, the Old Testament foretold and announced the Savior will come, a child will be born, a son will be given. His name shall be wonderful, consular, the Prince of Peace, the Everlasting Father, and many more names.

But when the shepherds heard that announcement, watching their flocks, and the angel spoke to them, unto you this day in the city of David has been born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. You'll find him lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. They went and saw as the angel had announced.

What a moment that was for the human race. The one that had been promised now is come, thirty-some years later he would be at Calvary. The divine appointment, the very hours that would answer to the satisfaction of God's righteous throne, the payment of sin and not knowing him caused an alarm in my soul.

Have you thought about your soul today? Have you thought about your hereafter? Life goes quickly by. You're old enough to understand you are a sinner before God. You're old enough to understand those sins deserve punishment.

Thank God for the gospel. We thank God tonight not only that being awakened, some go through soul troubles we determine more than others. Some are prepared to recognize their sin in unbelief and in simplicity simply take in the message.

Mr. Paul Elliott, who was visiting this area many years ago, many years, he and I were in northwest Iowa around Emmitsburg having gospel meetings. A lady who had grown up in that area and moved to Minnesota some years before heard the gospel and trusted Christ. She sent word to me, go out and see my parents.

Mr. Elliott and I found, got the address, we went out there. We wasn't sure if we was at the right farm. I went to the door, I looked through the door, the glass in the doorway and here on the kitchen table was a Bible.

I motioned Mr. Elliott to come. The lady invited us in. She began to tell us about, she says, I have heart trouble.

And both of us thought, we talked about it afterward, we thought she was talking about the physical condition of that organ that's found in each of us, her heart. What she began to make known to us, ever since my daughter has written that she is saved and knows it on the authority of God's Word through faith in Christ, it has troubled me. She was anxious and she was turning to the right book.

God's Word eventually got saved. Sin brings a burden. Sin will bring friendly consequences, terrible, tragic.

But sin and life with all its problems. But listen, God's salvation is available and we're looking at a verse. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.

He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. How wonderful that availability that the one who came into this world to take upon him manhood and move in all his holiness, perfection, and sinlessness would submit himself into the hands of men. When that hour had come, he left the upper room, instituting the Lord's Supper, which we enjoy every first day of the week as a company of saints, the breaking of bread.

But he went out into the garden of Gethsemane. His heart was filled with sorrow. He alone could look into the cup of wrath filled with indignation and judgment.

And as he fell prostrate upon the ground in agony of soul, three times this expression in prayer, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Willing to submit himself into the hands of men, the third prayer, and then he comes back, Peter, James, and John have fell asleep.

He said, the betrayer's at hand. He walked forth to meet him. You know the account as far as the mockery and the hatred and scorn.

Finally nailed to a cross. God's salvation available through that finished work, which has been brought before your attention clearly and faithfully. The satisfaction of the throne.

A salvation that he desires that you need and can have. And you notice as John the Baptist quotes these words, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. The Lord had mentioned in Nicodemus, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

Six hours upon that cross, I've had the question placed to me, how could one man bear punishment for a whole world? Guilt and all. We want to remember who was it? It was on that cross, the Holy Son of God. In those dark hours, when there was none to offer pity or any, as were words of comfort, the judgment of God borne out upon and focused upon him.

It took the whole six hours of the cross as to its work. But how wonderful those words that came as intimated tonight. One word in the original finished.

What a provision. Is he your savior tonight? Have you recognized that what he has accomplished has provided salvation to make it available for you? There's a lot of Roberts in this world. I was in a waiting room at a doctor's office about a year ago, and the nurse come out and said, Robert, three older men stood up.

I said, she says, I want Robert Orr. The other two sat down. I was glad for the word whosoever when it made me think about it.

Friends, salvation available. But salvation must be received by trusting Christ. It is not his work plus ordinances or prayers or trying to do best keeping commandments.

God shows us this. There was only one that could pay that sin, and he did it completely on the behalf of others. Available to every individual on the authority of his word.

Wonderful the terms of God's salvation for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works less than a man should boast. Wonderful these words that he gave himself.

He's the one that can be received. He's the one you can come to as we've been reminded tonight. He's the one that you can trust.

God brings a message friend into a simple plan that no way faring man made make a mistake. And yet we look beyond our own thinking and trying to reason out matters and figure matters out. That Monday night was 66 years this past August the 28th.

I'd learned just a few hours of something I had three or theoretically had known for years as a lost sinner. I was lost. But to recognize your totally lost condemned and would be in hell.

I went to listen that night for all I was worth. The gospel of God's grace. Thinking that something God must do something I cannot do nothing I'm condemned.

And suddenly the preacher was speaking said let us pray. The meeting was over. The lostness friend that's how helpless we are.

But what a message and though I asked the man who spoke how do you know when you believed? He didn't answer. We'll sit down together when the folks are out. He took up two or three scriptures that did not have the word believing in.

But it had the person and his work. Isaiah 53 5. I've told it here before. He was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. Another word for sin. The chastisement or the punishment was upon him.

By his stripes were healed. He turned over to first Peter 3 verse 18 for Christ hath once suffered for sins. The just for the unjust to bring us to God.

Friend God's message for you tonight is a Savior who desires to be received. But the move is yours. God has done all that is required and completed to the glory of his Son.

God will have all the glory in our blessed Lord Jesus Christ will be the theme of praise when we see them and be with them and like him for all eternity. But if you never come to know him you'll meet him friend as your judge. That day at the great white throne it'll not be who will be determined will be in the lake of fire that's been sealed already in life rejecting Christ.

The consequences of refusing it'll all come before the soul and it'll be not a long drawn-out trial in an instant. The soul will realize I spurned his grace. I made light of it.

They're sad to say they're people that are willingly ignorant. Peter tells us they choose to deny divine truth. But friend the acceptance of God's salvation is trusting Christ.

He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life and absolute possession. Peter tells us this the word of the Lord endureth forever. And I love John's words in the fifth chapter of his first epistle.

He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that ye may know that ye have eternal life.

God's salvation brings an assurance. The word of God reveals. How wonderful to know and how wonderful the opportunity that God would think upon you and I as human beings.

And this wondrous provision but he never forces anyone to be saved. Our Lord said himself I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me. Ye'll be drawn in love and grace and accept him as your Savior.

But friend you'll be drawn to the judgment and the doom and despair. God helped you to receive him. Trust him as your own.

He bore the penalty in full. And there's something that every Christian now anticipates with wonder as we ponder. The moment which will be unending when we'll see him and be with him and like him.

Don't miss heaven. It's the doom of eternal ruin. God grant you might receive the Savior.

You'll give him the praise the glory and the honor. And as John said later in his epistle we love him the Lord Jesus because he first loved us. May the Lord lead you to himself for his name's sake.

Shall we pray?