Participants: John Carter
Series Code: 16SCM
Program Code: 16SCM000015S
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00:51 Welcome to 3ABN's Spring Camp Meeting:
00:57 Live from the 3ABN Worship Center. 01:01 Hello and welcome to the 3ABN Worship Center, 01:04 the Thompsonville SDA church. 01:06 And I almost want to say Happy Sabbath, 01:08 but you know, I think I will do that 01:10 because though it is not technically Sabbath just now 01:13 sometime during the course of the message the Sabbath 01:16 will come in. So I think we will get a little leg up on the 01:19 Sabbath and say Happy Sabbath. Happy Sabbath! 01:22 Praise the Lord! You sound good and you look even better. 01:25 We welcome you to our third day, the closing part of the third 01:29 day of this Spring Camp Meeting 2016: 01:33 Christ, Calvary, and the Sanctuary. 01:38 And we are so very very pleased to have those of you who are 01:40 in this house and those of you who are watching and listening 01:44 from around the world as together during this night 01:47 we lift up the name of Jesus. 01:49 Our speaker is no stranger to anyone who is familiar with 01:53 3ABN. He really was one of the very first 01:56 persons to sort of buy in to the vision 01:59 that Danny Shelton was given by the Lord way back in 1984. 02:04 He has been a friend and supporter of this ministry 02:08 yea these many many years 02:10 while also running his own ministry: The Carter Report. 02:13 Our speaker is Pastor John Carter from California. 02:17 Really from the world... and be- fore California from Australia. 02:20 He and his lovely wife Beverley have served the Lord 02:22 for so many many years. 02:25 And we are very pleased to have him here tonight 02:28 to speak on the subject... Let's see, Pastor Carter 02:33 is speaking on the subject and it right here in front of me 02:37 that's why I cannot see it. 02:39 I've got his name and everything else but I don't have 02:41 the subject here in front of me or either my old eyes are 02:44 deceiving me. But again he has been on this stage 02:49 and on 3ABN for so many many years. 02:52 He's a well-known person, a preacher of righteousness. 02:56 One who loves the Lord and who loves the Word of God 03:00 and who preaches with conviction and with power. 03:03 He has a great sense of humor, a wonderful person... but when 03:05 he gets into this pulpit he is all business 03:07 because he believes in the fact that Christ is coming soon. 03:11 And he, along with all of us, wants to warn the world 03:15 that Jesus is on His way. 03:18 Amen and amen. Our music for this hour 03:21 is coming to us from Reggie and Ladye Love Smith. 03:25 They are going to be singing You Raise Me Up... 03:27 a beautiful, beautiful song and they do it so very very well. 03:31 So without further ado we will have prayer 03:34 then we will hear from Reggie and Ladye Love 03:36 and then the next voice that you will hear 03:38 will be the voice of our pastor, our friend, speaker/director of 03:41 The Carter Report: Pastor John Carter. 03:44 Shall we pray? Gracious Father, we praise You 03:47 and thank you so very much 03:49 for the privilege that we have of calling upon You. 03:54 We thank Thee for the call that brought us from darkness 03:57 to light and from error to truth. 03:59 And we are thankful, Lord, that we can, even for a little while, 04:02 sit in heavenly places. 04:05 May I ask from You for the speaker 04:08 holy boldness and holy unction. 04:11 Anoint him and use him. Bless him so that he may 04:15 be a blessing to us. And may I ask, Lord, 04:18 for this waiting congregation and for those listening and 04:21 viewing around the world a special touch from You 04:26 so that we may not be just hearers of the Word 04:29 but doers thereof... 04:31 doing so in the knowledge that soon Jesus will come. 04:35 So be the honored guest this night. 04:37 Give us Your presence and Your power. 04:41 We thank you, Father, in Jesus' worthy name, Amen and amen. 05:11 When I am down 05:14 and oh, my soul so weary; 05:19 When troubles come 05:23 and my heart burdened be; 05:29 Then I am still and wait here 05:34 in the silence, 05:37 Until You come 05:40 and sit awhile with me. 05:46 You raise me up 05:49 so I can stand on mountains; 05:54 You raise me up 05:57 to walk on stormy seas; 06:03 And I am strong 06:07 when I am on your shoulders; 06:13 You raise me up 06:17 to more than I can be. 06:46 Thank you, Lord... 06:56 You raise me up 06:59 so I can stand on mountains; 07:04 You raise me up 07:07 to walk on stormy seas; 07:11 And I am strong 07:16 when I am on Your shoulders; 07:21 You raise me up 07:24 to more than I 07:27 can be. 07:33 There is no life - 07:37 no life without its hunger; 07:42 Each restless heart 07:45 beats so imperfectly; 07:50 But then You come 07:53 and I am filled with wonder, 07:58 Sometimes I think 08:01 I glimpse eternity. 08:05 You raise me up 08:09 so I can stand on mountains; 08:14 You raise me up 08:17 to walk on stormy seas; 08:21 And I am strong 08:25 when I am on Your shoulders; 08:31 You raise me up 08:35 to more 08:38 than I can be... 08:42 You raise me up 08:48 to more than I can 08:56 be. 09:18 Thank you. 09:21 That was beautiful music, folks. 09:24 Amen! I was blessed. 09:27 It's worth sitting in the plane for hours 09:30 and driving on clogged up freeways. 09:35 You know, it took me as long to get from California 09:39 to 3ABN yesterday 09:41 as it takes for me to fly from Los Angeles to Sydney. 09:48 So it must be about 10,000 miles from California 09:52 to Illinois. But it's worth the distance 09:57 just to hear that wonderful music. Amen! 10:00 Um-hmm... they're special people. 10:03 Today's topic is... I understand that 10:08 Elder Murray didn't know what it was. 10:10 Is this so, folks? 10:15 I was sitting in the front expecting a presidential 10:19 build-up, and he said 10:24 "Our topic tonight is... I can't see it. " 10:29 But that's OK. I'm getting to the place where 10:33 I'm glad I'm seeing you. Let me give you the genuine 10:38 topic tonight. The topic is: The Search for Happiness 10:43 and The Cross of Christ. 10:48 Many years ago when Beverley and I were just 10:52 newly married we were out driving in our car 10:57 outside a little town by the name of Mullumbimby. 11:03 Somebody's laughing. It's not meant to be funny! 11:06 Do you... Think how the folks in Mullumbimby are going to feel 11:09 tonight when they hear you laughing. 11:13 Mullumbimby is a little town in North New South Wales 11:19 in Australia. 11:20 North New South Wales. 11:24 As we were out driving 11:26 we came upon a very pretty girl walking along the road. 11:31 She was a hippie girl... this was years ago. 11:34 So we stopped to see if we could help her 11:37 and we said: "Where are you going? " 11:39 She said: "I'm going to find happiness and peace. " 11:44 She said: "I'm going to go up in the hills behind 11:47 Byron Bay where people can be 11:52 lifted out of themselves because of what they smoke. " 12:00 And so she was on a search for happiness 12:05 but going in the wrong direction. 12:09 Somebody said: "The whole world is searching for a creed 12:14 to believe and a song to sing. " 12:19 And so tonight I'm going to talk about the search 12:22 for happiness and the cross of Christ. 12:26 I want you to take the Bible and turn with me to the gospel 12:29 of John chapter 10 and verse 10 to the words of our Lord. 12:35 John chapter 10 and verse 10. 12:39 The Bible says... Jesus says: 12:42 "The thief does not come except to steal and to kill 12:47 and to destroy. I have come that they may have life 12:52 and that they may have it more abundantly. " 12:55 The Bible teaches that there is a path to happiness 13:01 and it's better than any path that you can find 13:04 from the philosophers and the teachers of this world. 13:10 And we're going to talk tonight about the transforming power 13:14 of the cross of Christ. 13:18 Everybody agrees in the world today 13:21 that the human race is a problem. 13:23 America has a problem. 13:28 When you look today at the debates that are going on 13:31 in America you know that a cancer is eating at the soul 13:37 of America. And that same cancer 13:41 is eating at the soul of the world. 13:45 Every year in this great land 13:49 42,773 approximately 13:55 people commit suicide. 13:58 Almost 50,000 people find that life is too difficult 14:02 including many, many Hollywood stars. 14:06 More than 1 million people in the United States 14:10 attempt suicide every year. 14:14 And the question is this: what is the root cause 14:17 of this deadly malaise? 14:19 This all pervading sense of discontent 14:23 and hopelessness that is sweeping America 14:27 that is reflected in the debates that we hear in politics. 14:32 Now varied solutions in history have been proposed. 14:38 There was a famous German Jew. His name was Karl Marx 14:44 and he wrote the book The Communist Manifesto. 14:47 He said the problem could only be solved 14:51 through class struggle and the abolition of capitalism. 14:59 We hear people saying this again today. 15:03 He said the problem with the world was tied up 15:08 with politics and economics. 15:11 He made this remark: "Religion is the impotence 15:15 of the human mind to deal with 15:17 occurrences it cannot understand. " 15:21 He also said: "Religion is the opium of the people. " 15:28 In January of this year I went to Russia again 15:32 for my 46th visit. 15:35 And I saw in Russia something which will tear at your heart: 15:41 a nation that for 70 years turned away from God 15:45 and embraced Communism and Marxism... 15:49 and in the process of so doing murdered 50 million people. 15:55 Then there was Dr. Freud... the great psychoanalyst. 16:01 He said our problems "are psychological... 16:04 especially sexual. " 16:07 He said: "God is an illusion 16:10 based on the infantile need for a powerful father figure. 16:15 Religion can now be set aside in favor of reason 16:20 and science. " 16:22 And then in 1844 a famous man was born. 16:28 His name was Nietzsche... and he, too, was a German. 16:35 Perhaps the greatest of the German philosophers, he died 16:39 of syphilis in 1900. He rejected Christianity 16:43 totally... and yet the only people who would take care 16:47 of him as he died: his Christian sister 16:51 and his Christian mother. 16:55 Nietzsche taught this: that weakness is evil... 17:00 therefore Christianity is basically evil 17:04 because it takes care of the weak. 17:07 He taught that power is good, 17:10 the will to power, and the coming of the super race. 17:15 It is said that Adolf Hitler slept with a copy 17:19 of The Antichrist by Nietzsche 17:23 under his pillow every night. 17:26 The teachings of Nietzsche flooded around the world 17:31 and caused the first and the second world wars. 17:36 Listen to this... you may find it hard to believe: 17:41 in the great secular universities of America 17:45 and Great Britain and Germany 17:47 the most influential philosopher and thinker 17:53 is Nietzsche. Nietzsche has influenced 17:59 America more than any other single soul 18:03 with the exception of Christ. 18:07 The most influential philosopher of our modern times. 18:12 You wonder why the deep malaise? Why the riots in the streets? 18:19 It is because of these godless philosophies 18:24 that have swept over the world and America. 18:28 He said: "All superior men 18:33 who were irresistibly drawn to throw off the yoke 18:37 of any kind of morality and to frame new laws 18:42 had, if they were not actually mad, no alternative 18:48 but to make themselves or pretend to be mad. " 18:54 And thus he died as a raving lunatic with syphilis. 19:00 Another great philosopher who believed that the old gospel 19:05 was passé was the famous Englishman Charles Darwin 19:11 who gave us the doctrine and the theory and the idea 19:16 of evolution. He also said: 19:20 "The origin of species is a mere rag of a hypothesis 19:26 with as many flaws and holes as sound parts. " 19:33 Charles Darwin, that brilliant Englishman, 19:36 believed that life came from non-life. 19:42 He believed that we are simply an aberration. 19:47 That we are the product of time plus matter plus chance 19:53 and that there is no God because He's not needed. 19:58 This idea today that there is no God 20:02 and that He is not needed is believed by 98% 20:08 of scientists in our universities. 20:12 And this what they are teaching the young people 20:16 who go to those universities. 20:20 Professor Richard Dawkins from Oxford University 20:26 is the chief proponent today of atheism and evolution. 20:33 And Dr. Phillip Adams, another atheistic evolutionist, 20:38 said this... listen to this: 20:40 "We are as significant 20:43 as the 8 billionth grain of sand 20:48 beyond the final palm tree in the most distant oasis 20:54 in the Sahara. 20:57 Therefore, you are nothing 21:01 because you are the product of blind chance. " 21:07 Do you wonder why so many Americans 21:10 are committing suicide and why there is such a malaise 21:14 among millions of American young people? 21:21 They believe this... listen carefully: 21:25 Nothing produced everything. 21:29 Non-life produced life. 21:33 Randomness produced fine tuning. 21:38 Chaos produced information. 21:42 Unconsciousness produced consciousness 21:45 and non-reason produced reason. 21:49 That is the doctrine today that is sweeping America 21:53 and that is believed by almost every university professor. 22:00 In contrast tonight, by the grace of God, 22:04 permit me to present to you the Christian world view 22:10 based on the Old and the New Testaments. 22:16 We recognize that our problems in part 22:21 are psychological and political 22:26 and economic and genetic. 22:33 But our basic problem is the problem of sin. 22:39 Our basic problem is not psychological 22:44 but spiritual. 22:46 And please... I'm going to turn to many texts. 22:49 Come now to Romans chapter 3 and verse 23 22:53 dear hearts and gentle people. 22:56 Romans chapter 3 and verse 23. 23:01 The book of Romans was called or described by 23:05 Tyndale, the great British Reformer, as "good, glad, 23:11 and merry tidings that makes a man's heart 23:15 to sing for joy and his feet to dance. " 23:20 Martin Luther said: "This is the purest 23:25 and the perfect gospel. " 23:27 Because in the book of Romans we have a discussion 23:33 of man's dilemma and God's solution. 23:37 Look at Romans 3 and think about these texts. 23:42 The greatest of all theologians, Paul said: 23:45 "For all have sinned... " This is past tense... 23:49 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. " 23:53 "Fall short of the glory of God" is present perfect continuous. 23:59 The Bible teaches that we all have a problem 24:02 and the problem is sin. 24:05 Because all of us sitting here tonight have a problem 24:08 because we are in a state of sin. 24:14 Evidence of sin is everywhere! 24:18 It is seen in hate. 24:21 We see it everywhere today in America. 24:24 Hate... anger... lust. 24:29 Millions... tens of millions of Americans 24:33 indulging their carnal natures. 24:36 Men and women with pornography 24:41 day after day. 24:44 Hate, anger, lust, lying, bigotry. 24:49 White racism, black racism, 24:53 brown racism. People have said to me 25:00 "But racism is confined only to one group: 25:04 people who look like you. " 25:08 Let me tell you folks something: 25:12 if you look inside a white man and look inside a black man 25:17 and look inside a yellow man or a brown man 25:22 it is exactly the same. Amen! 25:25 And that is why we all need the undiluted 25:30 grace of God. Nothing else is going to work! 25:35 So... white racism, black racism, 25:39 brown racism. I see it all the time on television. 25:43 Intolerance, greed, sexual perversions 25:50 such as the United States Supreme Court 25:54 seems so willing to back and push and encourage. 26:00 You know it's the truth. 26:02 You know it's the truth. 26:04 But let me tell you something: when the Supreme Court 26:08 passed those laws they were shaking a fist 26:12 in the face of Almighty God! 26:15 And it's not over until it's over 26:18 and then it's not over! 26:22 I wouldn't want to mess with God. 26:27 I wouldn't want to change what made America great 26:34 for a sexual perversion. 26:38 Slavery. There are more slaves in the world today 26:42 than in the days of the slaves in America. 26:46 Slavery, violence, and here is the worst of all sins: 26:51 spiritual pride. 26:55 That is not the sin of the prostitute. 26:59 It's usually not the sin of the person who is deluded 27:04 with pornography. Spiritual pride is the sin 27:10 of the churchgoer... 27:16 and especially those 27:18 who call themselves the remnant church. 27:23 And that, my friend, stinks in the nostrils 27:28 of a holy and a righteous God. Hallelujah! 27:32 It's the worst of sins. 27:35 God can do a lot with a prostitute 27:38 but He can't do much with a Pharisee. 27:41 And remember: the prostitutes did not put Christ on the cross. 27:48 But the Pharisees did... 27:51 the people who claimed to be the church of God. 27:55 Saint Augustine, the great theologian 28:00 of the Catholic church, said these words. 28:03 Listen carefully. He said: "Our souls... 28:07 our souls... our souls were made for God 28:13 and they cannot rest until they rest in Him. " 28:19 Inside every person 28:22 outside of the grace of God is an empty soul. 28:29 This restlessness. And if Christ doesn't fill it, 28:36 somebody else is going to fill it 28:39 or some other power or some other force or some other thing! 28:44 Our souls were made for God and they cannot rest 28:49 until they rest in Him... hence the suicides. 28:54 Without God we're empty inside; 28:58 without God we have a black hole inside. 29:02 And we try to fill this black hole with drugs, 29:05 alcohol, illicit sex, consumerism. 29:11 More stuff... more stuff. 29:13 You listen to the television in America 29:16 and in other places it is a crazy song 29:21 that says if you get more stuff 29:24 you're going to be filled inside. 29:26 It's the devil's lie. 29:29 It's the devil's lie. 29:32 Consumerism. Comedy. We've gotta have comedians 29:37 because we can't laugh any more. 29:39 Gotta pay people so that we can laugh. 29:42 Violent games and movies. Man-made religion: 29:47 an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. 29:54 And the lust for power... "I will be like the Most High. " 30:01 Sin is deadly, and humanly, my dear friends, 30:06 incurable. Come here to Romans chapter 6 30:11 and verse 23. 30:13 Roman 6 and verse 23 the Bible says: 30:19 "For the wages of sin is death 30:23 but the gift of God is eternal life 30:27 in Christ Jesus our Lord. " 30:31 Now you'll notice when I'm preaching tonight - 30:36 whenever I preach - I use the Bible a great deal. 30:42 I know I'm in danger of boring the carnal heart. 30:47 I know that. I know we've come to a stage 30:51 in the history of the world that even in churches 30:54 people come to church not to hear the Word of the Lord 30:58 but to be told some flippant, funny little story. 31:03 I'm telling you the truth... 31:05 as we have clowns in the pulpit. 31:08 We've got 'em in the pulpit. 31:10 But tonight we are going to be preaching, God help us, 31:14 from the Word of God because the power is not 31:18 in the church. Hey! You hearing me? 31:22 The power... I'm going to take it further: 31:24 the power is not in the Conference. 31:27 The power is not in the General Conference. 31:32 Do you hear what I'm saying tonight? 31:35 Some people are mesmerized by organizations 31:39 and they think that's where the power is. 31:41 The power is in the Word of God. Amen! 31:46 And that's why tonight we're not quoting the church manual 31:51 and we're not quoting this church council 31:55 or that church council because quite frankly 31:58 we don't care a great deal. 32:01 But we are desperately interested in finding that there 32:06 is a word from the Lord. 32:08 Now are you folks hearing me tonight? Amen. 32:11 Um-hmm. In Africa some years ago 32:16 a virus broke out in the little town of Lassa. 32:21 And the patients complained of getting headaches, neck 32:25 aches, and they'd get ulcers at the back of the throat, 32:29 high pounding fever, and on the fourth day they would die. 32:34 There was a Baptist missionary doctor 32:37 who was taking care of the patients. 32:42 And so she decided she was losing all the patients 32:46 she would do an operation post-mortem 32:51 and she'd send some of the tissues back to America 32:55 to try to trace this deadly thing down. 32:59 But she was so tired that night 33:02 that as this Baptist missionary was operating 33:05 on the corpse she slipped with the knife 33:10 and cut her finger. 33:12 And she ran over straightaway to the tap, 33:16 turned on the faucet, and washed it with soap. 33:20 But a few days later she got a headache 33:24 and the blisters. She died on the fourth day. 33:29 When they got this thing in New York 33:32 the people who worked on it put on those white suits. 33:38 But after they had worked on it with great security 33:42 two of the doctors, the scientists, got ulcers and died. 33:47 They thought: "What's going to happen if this thing gets 33:50 out on the streets of New York? 33:52 It's going to wipe out America! " 33:55 They did discover where it came from, 33:59 and even though there was no cure they could prevent it. 34:04 Sin that came into the world through our first parents 34:08 is more deadly than the Lassa virus. 34:12 But the Bible says there's a cure. 34:14 Romans 6:23 again. 34:18 "For the wages of sin is death 34:21 but the gift of God is eternal life 34:25 in Christ Jesus our Lord. " 34:28 Now I want you to come to this other text now. 34:31 I want you to come to Romans chapter 5 34:35 verses 6 to 8. Turn in your Bibles, folks. 34:40 "For when we were still without strength in due time 34:43 Christ died for the ungodly. 34:46 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die 34:50 yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die 34:54 but God demonstrates His own love toward us 34:58 in that while we were still sinners 35:02 Christ died for us. " 35:06 This is the cure to the problem of the human race: 35:09 that God came into this world and Christ died for us. 35:14 And so tonight I'm talking on the glory of the cross. 35:18 I want you to come over here to the gospel of John 35:21 chapter 1. John chapter 1 and verse 1. 35:27 I want you to notice these words: 35:30 John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word 35:34 and the Word was with God and the Word was God. " 35:37 Then if you come to verse 3: "All things were made 35:41 through Him and without Him nothing was made 35:44 that was made. " And verse 10 says: 35:46 "He was in the world and the world was made through Him 35:50 and the world did not know Him. " Please look at me. 35:54 It has been my privilege in the last few years to associate 35:58 with some of the world's great Christian scientists. 36:02 Scientists who are Christians... who are born again. 36:07 They have told me some things about the universe 36:10 that is incomprehensible to my mind. 36:14 Some things we can grasp such as the universe 36:19 that we know of is made up of 200 billion galaxies... 36:25 each galaxy as big as the milky way system. 36:29 In recent years - almost months - 36:32 we've come to realize that most of the universe is made 36:36 out of stuff that is called dark matter and dark energy. 36:40 More than 99% of the universe cannot be seen. 36:46 So what we see out there with the telescopes 36:49 is less than 1% of what is there... 36:52 and the rest we do not know what it is. 36:55 More than 99%. We know that the universe 36:59 is expanding out... thus it had a beginning. 37:03 It is expanding out almost at the speed of light 37:08 and it is being driven by dark energy that nobody understands. 37:15 The Bible says: "In the beginning was the Word. " 37:18 The Bible teaches that the God who made all of this 37:22 which is incomprehensible to our puny minds 37:24 the Almighty God who made all of this 37:28 tabernacled for 9 months in the womb of a girl 37:32 and then was born with crying and blood. 37:36 This little baby that she held in her hands 37:40 was the Creator God. Who can believe this? 37:44 This is the incomparable mystery of the goodness of God. 37:50 The Bible says the universe was made by Him. 37:54 And the Bible tells me that this God came down to this world 37:58 and eventually was crucified on the cross 38:03 because there was no other way. What sort of God is this? 38:08 What sort of person is He? 38:12 Verse 10 says: "He was in the world and the world was made 38:16 through Him and the world did not know Him. " 38:20 And then the most famous text of all: John 3 and verse 16 says 38:26 John chapter 3... you hardly need to turn to it. 38:30 "For God so loved the world... " 38:32 Have you got it? "For God so loved the world 38:35 that He gave His only begotten Son 38:38 that whoever believes in Him should not perish 38:41 but have everlasting life. " 38:44 And if you come back a little bit before there to verse 14 38:48 I want you to notice this. It says: "As Moses 38:51 lifted up the serpent in the wilderness 38:53 even so must the Son of Man be lifted up 38:56 that whoever believes in Him should not perish 38:59 but have eternal life. " 39:03 I want you to think of this. 39:07 Why on earth? Please tell me, think about this: 39:11 the Bible says: "As Moses lifted up the serpent 39:15 in the wilderness... " Why did He not say 39:19 "As Moses took the lamb... " "As Moses butchered the lamb 39:25 with his own hands. " It doesn't say that. 39:29 Why on earth would it ever say "As Moses lifted up 39:33 the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man 39:37 be lifted up? " Let me give you 39:42 what I think is a reasonable answer. 39:47 The serpent was the symbol of sin. 39:53 In two weeks' time I'll be preaching in Sydney 39:56 and I have a little property I go to: Northern New South Wales. 40:01 And because I'm never there and because there's so much bush 40:06 there and rivers and ocean 40:09 it is a place for brown snakes. 40:13 The brown snake grows this high, this thick. 40:18 It is the second most deadly snake in the world 40:21 after the inland taipan 40:23 which is 20 times worse than a cobra. 40:27 So is the brown snake. 40:29 And the brown snake is not docile... 40:32 he is a fighting snake. 40:35 I've seen twenty since I've been going there. 40:39 And you don't try to kill them. 40:41 You let them go because if you let them go 40:45 the chances are you'll be all right. 40:49 But if a brown snake attacks you 40:51 you've gotta get to a hospital very quickly. 40:55 It has poison! Now let me tell you something: 41:00 I want you to think about this. When Christ 41:03 hung upon the cross, the poison of the serpent 41:08 was placed on Him. There was no poison in Him. 41:13 He was the holy Son of God, 41:16 but the poison of sin was placed upon Him 41:21 and He was punished for the poison. 41:28 People say: "Do you really believe that 41:30 Christ was punished? " My friend, if He were not punished 41:34 then you and I certainly will be. 41:37 He came and He stood in our place to redeem us. 41:44 Jesus was not an old man with white hair. 41:49 He was strong... suntanned. 41:53 When he was 35 years of age the tide of popular opinion 41:58 turned against Him. He was betrayed by the church leaders 42:03 to the Romans... the hierarchy. 42:06 The Jewish hierarchy. 42:09 This person they betrayed was God... 42:13 God in human flesh. 42:17 We talk about the glory of the cross 42:19 because usually we don't understand it. 42:22 A crucifixion had nothing glorious about it. 42:27 The person was usually put on the cross 42:30 hung on the cross or nailed on the cross 42:33 usually stark naked. 42:34 And the cross was not very high. 42:38 It was low enough so people could go past 42:41 and abuse the victim and spit in their faces. 42:45 He had already been beaten by the Romans 42:49 and abused by the hierarchy. 42:52 He was half dead when He got to the cross. 42:57 But the cross would not kill a man in six hours. 43:00 You all know this, don't you? 43:02 A man could live on a cross for up to a week or even more. 43:07 Gangrene would set in. 43:09 The body would start to putrefy and rot 43:13 and the birds would come and pick out the eyes. 43:18 And the only way to breathe was to reverse the process. 43:24 You couldn't just breathe in. 43:28 It caused an agony that nobody could understand 43:32 except the crucified. Hanging on the cross was God! 43:39 What sort of God is He? 43:42 Why did He cry out: "My God, My God, 43:46 why have You forsaken Me? " 43:52 Now there is a theory in the world today 43:54 taught in some parts of the church. 43:56 It's called The Moral Influence Theory. 44:00 It is a heresy from hell. 44:03 It says Christ came down to this world 44:07 and He died to show us an example 44:10 of how a man should die. 44:13 To show us how far God will go to show us love. 44:20 But that's not the teaching of the Bible. 44:24 The Bible teaches the doctrine of the wrath of God. 44:29 You can read this all the way through the Old Testament 44:31 and in the New Testament, 44:33 especially the book of Romans, that talks about 44:36 "Now the wrath of God is revealed. " 44:40 God is righteous and holy and love. 44:45 How can He combine both of these opposing attributes: 44:53 righteousness, holiness, and love? 45:01 Sometimes a mother will say to a child: 45:04 "I want you to take this oil, the castor oil. " 45:07 It's not nice. And the mother will say: 45:11 "I will take some. " 45:13 From that we have the expression: "She took, he took 45:18 his own medicine. " 45:21 Listen: on the cross 45:25 God took His own medicine. 45:30 The holiness of God said that sin and the sinner 45:36 must be punished to the "nth" degree... 45:40 and no mercy. 45:45 And Christ on the cross 45:47 took all the poison of sin. 45:50 He carried the poison of sin on His soul. 45:58 The Bible says, listen to these words in Galatians: 46:02 "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. " 46:06 You say: "No, no, no... Christ. I don't believe that. " 46:09 That is because we do not understand the gospel. 46:13 The holiness of God and the love of God. 46:19 The holiness of God says Christ must bear 46:25 the punishment of every one of us. 46:31 And that is why He cried out, a strong young Man, 46:35 not a wimpy individual, 46:40 not a cry baby but a strong young Man: 46:43 up from His belly came the utterance that 46:49 forced its way through His throat 46:52 and out his bloodstained, caked lips 46:54 "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? " 46:59 On the cross as far as He was concerned 47:03 He was a lost soul. 47:07 Ellen White said He could not even see 47:10 through the portals of the tomb. 47:12 He had no hope! 47:14 He had no hope that you and I might have hope. 47:19 He had no mercy so that you and I might have mercy. 47:25 So how does this work? 47:31 I want you to think of the cross. 47:33 I want you to think on one side the human race, 47:36 sinful... that's us. Guilty, unrighteous. 47:41 Doomed to eternal death... that's us! 47:45 Sinful. When you hear people talking and trying to tell you 47:49 that they're sinless they're a million miles from God. 47:53 They've never seen the holiness of God. 47:56 They've never seen the righteousness of God. 48:00 The doctrine that says "I can be sinless now 48:04 and I am sinless now, hallelujah! " 48:07 is a delusion of blind, blind foolish people. 48:15 But the Bible teaches that we are sinful, guilty, unrighteous, 48:21 and we deserve eternal death. 48:24 And Jesus... He's sinless. 48:28 Not like us... He's sinless. 48:31 He's guiltless; He is righteous; He enjoys eternal life. 48:37 But on the cross He came and stood in my place 48:42 and in the eyes of God He became sinful, guilty, 48:47 unrighteous... and tasted HELL - 48:51 eternal death - so that I might have by grace 48:57 as a gift His sinlessness. 49:01 That I might be seen to be guiltless. 49:04 That I might be seen to be righteous. 49:06 That I might have eternal life even though none of those things 49:10 are mine... but they're His. 49:16 Now if you get those things into your mind 49:20 then you'll have a lot of peace 49:23 and a lot of tolerance with other people. 49:28 A Russian nobleman had tremendous debts. 49:33 He didn't know what he was going to do. 49:36 Hopelessly in debt. He broke down all the debts... 49:41 millions of rubles. Then he wrote across the page 49:45 "Who can pay all my debts? " 49:48 and fell asleep. This happened in St. Petersburg. 49:54 Peter the Great, the Tsar of all Russia, 49:57 that day came to visit him. 50:00 The man, the noble, did not know that his friend Peter 50:03 was coming. Peter came in and saw the man in a sleep 50:06 of exhaustion. And he pushed his hand aside 50:10 and he saw the list of his debts and the question 50:13 "Who will pay all my debts? " 50:16 And Peter the Great took his pen and he wrote 50:19 across this great catalog of crimes and sins 50:24 "I, Peter the Great, will pay all your debts. " 50:27 And he did! 50:29 When Christ died - listen to the good news. 50:32 Why is the gospel good news? 50:36 For many many people including maybe some of you 50:40 the gospel is not good news. 50:42 The gospel is what you've gotta do. 50:44 It's do, do, do... cock-a-doodle doo! 50:47 I've gotta do more... I've gotta try more. 50:50 If I don't do this, I'm a slack Christian. 50:54 The gospel is not about you. 50:58 Do you hear this? The gospel is not about you. 51:02 There's no good news about John Carter. 51:07 There's no good news about you. 51:09 The good news is about God. Amen! 51:13 What is the gospel? 51:15 The gospel is that God comes down to this world 51:20 and in the person of Christ 51:24 takes hold of the serpent and kills the serpent. 51:29 And everything He is He gives to me as a gift. 51:34 And I don't deserve it. 51:36 That's the good news... it's not good advice. 51:40 Come over here to Romans 5 and verse 1. 51:43 Romans chapter 5 and verse 1. It says: 51:48 "Therefore having been justified by faith 51:53 or through faith we have peace with God 51:56 through our Lord Jesus Christ. " 51:58 How can I get peace? 52:00 How can I get this emptiness in my soul filled? 52:06 It is through Jesus Christ. 52:08 It is through what He has done. 52:11 Now come with me to perhaps the most difficult passage 52:14 in the Bible that we should memorize off by heart. 52:17 Some say it is the high point of all scripture. 52:21 Romans 3:21 and onward. 52:23 "But now the righteousness of God 52:27 apart from the law is revealed 52:30 being witnessed by the law and the prophets. " 52:33 The Bible is in favor of it. 52:35 "Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ 52:40 to all who believe. " 52:44 This is a bit amazing, isn't it? 52:45 "If you believe... for there is no difference for all have 52:50 sinned and fall short of the glory of God. " 52:52 We sin and we continue to fall short of the glory of God. 52:56 Verse 24: "Being justified freely 53:01 by His grace through the redemp- tion that is in Christ Jesus 53:05 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood 53:10 through faith to demonstrate His righteousness 53:13 because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins 53:17 that were previously committed. " Listen: 53:19 I'm going to run out of time. 53:22 The Bible says we are justified. 53:27 Justified does not mean to make righteous. 53:31 That is the teaching of the Jesuits in the Council of Trent 53:35 that some of you might believe. 53:38 When God justifies a man or a woman 53:43 He doesn't make him righteous. 53:46 The making of righteousness is called regeneration 53:49 or the new birth. 53:51 It's distinct but never separate. 53:53 Justification is the declaration of the Judge. 53:59 And the Judge says: "Even though you are a sinner 54:05 because you come to My Son in true faith, 54:11 because My Son wrestled with the serpent, 54:16 because My Son bore your guilt, 54:22 I now as a righteous and holy God 54:25 declare that you are sinless 54:30 and holy just as Jesus is... even though you're not. " 54:36 Even though I'm not? No, no. Of course you're not. 54:39 Don't get deluded. 54:41 It's a gift... it's a gift. 54:47 And this is why Tyndale called it: 54:51 "Good, glad, and merry tidings 54:53 that makes a man's heart to sing for joy 54:57 and his feet to dance. " 55:01 Now let me try to illustrate this. 55:03 Now I'm going to tell you this; you've got to think about this. 55:08 What I'm going to tell you now I tell you from experience 55:12 and the words of the Bible. The Bible says - Paul says 55:16 He wasn't taught this. It was revealed to him by God. 55:20 He says that in the book of Galatians. 55:25 To understand this you must have a revelation by the 55:30 Holy Spirit. And as you open up your heart 55:37 God will say and reveal to you your sins. 55:41 Umm. You won't feel a goodie-goodie. 55:44 You won't. You won't be critical of other people 55:48 because you know what you are yourself. 55:50 And then God gives the gift of faith. 55:55 And you say: "I believe that Christ 55:59 died for me and bore my guilt 56:04 and I accept this now. " 56:08 In that moment - listen - 56:11 I pass from death to life 56:16 and my name is written down in glory 56:20 NOW! 56:26 And it is this gospel that saves our souls. 56:32 And when the big God comes in 56:35 all the little gods go out. 56:40 Let's pray. Our Father, 56:43 we thank you for the story of the gospel. 56:46 Tonight we glory not in our own goodness 56:50 or in our church affiliation 56:53 but we glory in the cross of Christ. 56:56 We thank you that God became a Man. How amazing! 57:00 He slept for nine months in the womb of a girl. 57:04 He was born; He went to the cross 57:07 and bore our sins; and if we truly believe tonight 57:12 we are justified and saved. Hallelujah! 57:18 Amen! |
Revised 2019-12-28