Before we read the scriptures together, we'll speak
to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we quiet our hearts in thy presence
again this evening to thank thee for the
day.
We thank thee for the answered prayer, which
thou hast been faithful to meet the needs
of thy people.
And our Father, now the time has come
for the preaching of the gospel, and we
pray that there would be indeed a genuine
working of the spirit of God in the
hearts of each of us again tonight.
We think of those who are yet in
their sins, and they know not the Savior.
If they would die tonight, the best that
they would have would be a hope for
heaven.
But our Father, we know that that is
not enough, and so we would pray that
there would be a great awakening tonight for
those that need salvation, that they might be
located as to where they are in the
light of eternity and in the sight of
God.
So we would just ask for help now
as the gospel is to be proclaimed in
the worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
We're gonna read together in the Gospel of
John, please, in chapter three.
Gospel of John in chapter three, and we'll
read the very last verse of the chapter.
Verse number 36.
In John chapter three, verse number 36, these
are the words of John the Baptist.
And he says, he that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life.
And he that hath not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God
abideth on him.
Lord, bless to us the reading of his
precious word.
The Gospel of John is a tremendous book
when it comes to the person of the
Son of God.
And really, that's what John the Baptist is
speaking about.
He's speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we're looking at this verse tonight, just
in the opening of this meeting, I would
like to get each and every one of
us to find out where we are in
the verse.
Not where we think we are, maybe in
our own understanding.
But as we examine this verse, it is
divided very clearly into two different groups of
people.
There are those that have the Son, those
that believe on the Son, have everlasting life.
And there's those that believe not the Son,
and they shall not see life.
And so to start just very simply, if
you were to die tonight, would you be
in heaven and why?
If this would be your appointed day on
earth, when you would go out into eternity
to meet God, would you be those that
have life, or among those that have not
life?
It's just really that black and white.
When it comes to God's salvation, and when
it comes to the work of the Lord
Jesus, and when it comes to the love
of God, the reality is very simple.
We make the Gospel sometimes complicated in our
thinking.
But the reality is tonight is this, you
are either on one of two roads.
You either have life tonight, or you do
not have life.
You can't be somewhere in the middle.
You can't be half dead or half alive.
Either you have Christ tonight, or you do
not have Christ.
And it behooves us all tonight to ask
the question, and to search our foundation.
Am I saved?
Or am I lost?
Am I in Christ?
Or am I out of Christ?
You see, there are billions of people on
the earth tonight, and they believe about the
Lord Jesus Christ.
They believe that He came at Christmas time.
And they believe that He died at Easter
time.
And they believe that God raised Him from
the dead.
But you see, to believe about the Lord
Jesus Christ is entirely different than knowing Him
as your own personal Savior.
We can understand all the facts about Him.
That He came, that He died, that He
was buried, that He was raised again from
the dead.
But when did He become your Savior?
When did He become yours?
Not just the history about Him, but the
reality of the work of Christ.
And what does it mean to you tonight?
John says, He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life.
And that tells us something very simple.
There's a time when a person obtains everlasting
life.
A person isn't born with everlasting life.
A person isn't born on their way to
heaven.
We're born in sin and shape in an
iniquity, but it says here that He that
believeth on the Son hath.
There's a moment in one's experience when the
truth of the Word of God strikes home
to the heart of the individual.
And they trust Christ.
But the night that I was saved, I
was saved without even thinking about believing.
The reality of the truth of the Scripture
was so obvious, it was right there on
the page.
It was right there the whole time, but
I couldn't see it.
Why couldn't I see it?
Because I was blind.
Blinded by the prince and the power of
the air.
Blinded by sin.
And it's the same for all tonight.
If our gospel be hid, it is hid
to them that are lost.
And whom the God of this world hath
blinded the minds of them that believe not.
Lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ should shine unto them.
So we're not born saved.
We need to be born again.
And John says, He that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life.
And he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life.
Shall never see life.
But the wrath of God abides on him.
I want to take just a few moments
and talk about the reality of the wrath
of God.
The wrath of God is something that is
quite intriguing, really.
How that a God that is love, described
by that as His character, God is love.
And yet He has a wrath that is
holy.
That He has an anger against sin that
is righteous.
And to think that those that die without
the Savior, they'll be under the wrath of
God forever.
Make no mistake about it, God has done
everything heavenly possible that you might be saved
tonight.
Did you get that?
God has done everything heavenly possible that sinners
would never see His wrath.
That sinners would never experience a judgment for
their sin.
God has done everything that heaven can do.
That souls might be rescued.
But yet, there'll be multitudes that'll be under
the wrath of God.
Human mind cannot comprehend what that's like.
Most of the wrath of men is unrighteous.
Most of the wrath of man stems from
hatred.
You think of the wars that are going
on and the conflicts that are going on,
where one nation hates another nation, and then
you've got the result of war.
You've got one ideology that hates another ideology,
and what do you have?
You have a state of war.
But when it comes to the wrath and
the judgment of God, judgment is God's strange
work.
You think of the Lord Jesus as He
looked over a city called Jerusalem so many
years ago, and He did everything that He
could do.
How often He would have gathered that city
as a hen does gather her chicks under
His wing.
But they would not.
The onus was on them.
They would not.
And there was not one stone left upon
another when the emperor come through and leveled
the city.
Not that very long after that.
You see, the judgment of God can be
seen in different ways throughout the Scripture.
We see it in Noah's day, don't we?
Where there the thoughts and the imagination of
the hearts of men were only evil continually.
And God sent Noah, a preacher of righteousness,
and there that man preached and that man
builded, and he made an ark, and God
is going to destroy the world then because
of their sin.
So corrupt, so abominable, and we're no different
tonight than they were then.
The thoughts and the intents of the heart
were only evil continually.
And what God had made had been so
defiled and so destroyed and so distorted from
what He intended it to be.
And the people in their hatred of God,
in their hatred of authority, in their hatred
of that which is good, and God now
sends the flood upon the earth.
And you can see how God moves when
the time comes.
With those in all their pride and all
their unbelief.
And they reject God.
They reject God and His love.
And the wrath came in those days.
And God spared not the old world, but
took them away with the flood.
And you see the wrath of God in
Sodom and Gomorrah, 2 Peter chapter 2.
And there the fire and brimstone comes from
heaven, and it burns those cities up.
And again we're reminded that God is holy
and that sin will not be tolerated.
God is long-suffering tonight, not willing that
any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance.
And so even this night, God is long
-suffering, waiting for sinners to listen and to
change their mind and agree with Him.
And that's repentance.
But the wrath of God abides on Him.
I used to think that before God saved
me, that I was in my unbelief.
I knew I was in my unbelief.
Have you ever been convinced of your unbelief?
There's a dear brother in Iowa, he always
prays that God would convince people of their
unbelief.
Have you ever been convinced of your unbelief?
And I used to think this was me
in my life, and I was a pretty
good kid, and I knew I wasn't saved,
and the wrath of God was over me,
and that's true.
But do you realize what's keeping that wrath
from falling tonight?
I used to think that God was waiting
for me to make my last sin, or
maybe my biggest sin, whatever one it might
be, that would trigger the judgment to fall
and He would smash me into hell.
That couldn't be farther from the truth.
You see, what kept me out of hell
all those years was the mercy of God.
You see, I deserve to be under the
wrath of God.
It was what I had done, it was
my sin.
And it's the same with you tonight, friend.
Your sin deserves nothing less than the wrath
of God.
And tonight it's God's mercy that you're here.
It's God's mercy that you're not experiencing that
wrath, and the wrath of God abides on
Him.
And God now is longing in this day
and age of grace that souls would be
saved, that they'd be forgiven of their sin,
that they would find the Savior, that they
would know that the Lord Jesus Christ is
God's only way of salvation.
That's why the verse is talking about believing
on the Son hath everlasting life.
If a person has it, they don't wonder
if they have it.
They know that they have it.
What does John write in 1 John chapter
5?
These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of
God that you may know.
Do you know tonight?
Oh, nobody can know for sure until they
get there.
That's not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says if you don't know, you
won't go.
They that believe, he that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life.
And he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life.
Did you know tonight we don't really know
what life is until we're saved?
That's so real.
People are seeking to be satisfied in everything
that never satisfies.
The businessman, he's not satisfied with what's coming
in.
There's always opportunity for growth, and there's always
opportunity for expansion.
And whatever avenue, whatever aspect of life you
think about, men are never satisfied.
But the Christian, those that have Christ, they're
satisfied.
And the peace that comes with knowing Christ
is my Savior.
To know Christ is the substitute that was
under the wrath of God for me.
The one that suffered for sins but not
his own.
The one that satisfied God on behalf of
sin.
If you've never been saved, you have no
clue what true life is really all about.
And the devil will tell you that if
you're saved, it's going to ruin your life.
You'll never be able to have any fun.
You'll be a miserable old Christian with your
lip dragging on the floor because everything's going
wrong.
It's just the opposite.
A true believer tonight, one with everlasting life,
knows not only the quantity of that life,
but the quality of that life.
Is that you tonight?
To lay your head down on your pillow
and know if you die in your sleep,
that it is well with your soul, that's
life.
To lay your head down tonight and not
know, and just hope that you live and
wake another day, and hope you don't have
some sort of a wreck or something that
would take you out into eternity.
That's no way to live.
Men through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage.
But when a person possesses presently an eternally
everlasting life, what a quality of life.
And so just to start this meeting tonight,
are you located tonight where you stand before
God?
This isn't a matter of, if God doesn't
accept me the way I am, that's His
loss.
That's not the attitude to have.
It isn't that if I'm not good enough
and my good works aren't good enough, then
that's just too bad.
It's not the idea of, this is what
I've been raised in and I've always been
taught that, and we're the 17th generation that
have been to this church and have done
these things and carried out these ordinances.
That's not everlasting life.
It's found in the Son.
The Son.
And there at the cross of Calvary, when
John here is talking about the Son, John
the Baptist didn't understand the depths of the
suffering that Christ was going to go through.
But Christ at the cross of Calvary suffered
the wrath of God for sin.
Christ died for our sin according to the
Scriptures, and He was buried and He rose
again the third day according to the Scriptures.
And what took place at Calvary was God
dealing with sin.
Not men dealing with sin.
But God.
And because God has settled the sin question
through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the cross and the resurrection, you can
know for certain tonight that you'll be in
heaven at the end of life.
There's a lot of people who want to
dispute that, but they're going to have to
argue with God.
Because God says everlasting life.
Everlasting life.
So, which are you in this verse?
Do you have this everlasting life?
If you have the Son, you have life.
Or are you missing out on this everlasting
life?
If you do not have the Son, you
do not have life.
And the text goes even further.
But the wrath of God abides on that
person.
This is very solemn tonight, but it's very
exciting at the same time.
That there might be someone in this audience
tonight, and you're wanting to be right with
God, and you're wanting to know the forgiveness
of sins, that you can be saved tonight.
You can be rescued from your sins and
their consequences tonight.
Why?
Because Christ finished the work.
Nearly 2,000 years ago at the place
called Calvary, where He made payment for sin
that was not His own.
And when He suffered for sins that were
not His own, and when He satisfied God's
righteous and holy wrath, the judgment that sin
deserves, it fell upon Him.
It fell upon Christ.
What's the text say?
Think about it tonight.
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.