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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/murray-mccandless/lord-save-me/
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 14, please, Matthew chapter 14. Matthew chapter 14, and while I could read much to you from this chapter, and it certainly would be most profitable, I just want to read the last of verse number 30, and I only want to read three words with you.
Matthew chapter 14, and verse number 30, the last three words are, Lord save me, Lord save me. Is it any wonder that the man that said these words is the man that gives us that beautiful text in Acts chapter 4, verse number 12, where it says, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
Peter from his own personal experience understood very clearly that salvation was not just something that is optional in your life, not just something that would make you a better husband, though it will do that, not just something that would make you a better person to live with or to work with, though it may do that, and it should do that.
But as you've been clearly hearing already before I stood behind this lectern tonight, that if you're never to be saved, you will never be in heaven. So I want you to just think of these three words tonight, Lord save me.
Now if I was to ask you, without being any kind of a Bible student, you or I, if I was to ask you tonight what you felt was the most important of these three words, what would you say? No, I'm serious.
Lord save me. What would be the most important single word there? Oh, you'd say I'd have to be saved because I need to be saved. Well, that is true, you need to be saved, but that's not it. You say, well, it would be me because salvation has to be a real personal thing.
That's true too. Do you know the key to the passage is Lord, Lord. You see, once a person has confessed that, there's nothing else they need to do. You see, that thief that was right beside the Lord Jesus, about to go into eternity.
Lord, he says, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom and so on. Do you understand that he had to say absolutely nothing more once he said Lord. I don't like to use the term, but it was done deal.
It was finished. Because Romans chapter 10 and verse number nine says that if thou shalt confess with I want you to just look at this scene here for a minute without any background of it. I just want you to think of three things.
I want to discuss with you tonight the situation, the situation. Because my friend tonight, there are circumstances in your life that bring you to a particular situation. I not only want to think of the situation, but I want to think of the sinner.
Just like you, a man that realized he needed to be saved. This is the man that will say, depart from me, oh Lord, for I am a sinful man. He does not say depart from me because, you know, I just haven't been what you think I should be.
And I just haven't quite measured up. And I do sin. All of those things may be true, but he understood this. Just like a leper in the Old Testament. Until he was full of leprosy. Until he realized the truth of the scripture that from the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
That have not been bound up with ointment and so on. That's the understanding, friend. That's your condition. That's your plight tonight. You see, it is not a case that this man is really saying, Lord, help save me.
You see, there are people that we talk to and they like help to be saved. Sorry, you've got the wrong people. We cannot help save you. Nobody helps save you. You need help, that's true. But when it comes to salvation, that's what you need.
It was a hundred years ago yesterday. One hundred years ago yesterday. Two Scottish men in Southampton, England, unknown to each other, walked the same gangplank and boarded the big white star liner they called the Titanic.
Two Scottish men, didn't even know each other. There were just numbers among 1 ,500 people. The one man was a man by the name of John Harper. He was a preacher of the gospel. He had been invited to go to the Moody Memorial Church to preach.
Very prestigious invitation. Mr. Harper was a real faithful preacher of the gospel. He had lost his wife, but he'd taken along his little six-year-old daughter, Anna, with him. And his sister, which would be an aunt to this girl, boarded the ship.
Set out and the ship was going along. He's looking forward, making preparation undoubtedly to speak and preach the gospel in the Moody Memorial Church and preach to those thousands of people. Looking forward to it.
That night, there was a beautiful sunset. Mr. Harper was known to have said, quite a sunset. But he said, it'll be a lot better in the morning. What he did not realize, and what 1 ,500 people did not realize beside the crew, that for 1 ,500 of them, there would be no morning.
There would be no morning. But into the hours of that night, 100 years ago tonight, out here in the Atlantic, that big vessel would slice along the side of an iceberg that refused to budge and would be the means of taking that vessel to the bottom of the Atlantic with its human cargo.
As that terrible carnage was taking place, quick thinking, Mr. Harper gathered his daughter and his sister together. He said, listen, don't worry about me. I want you to be safe. He says, if anything happens, he says, I'll see you again.
If something happened to you, sir, would I see you again? If something happened to either of us tonight, I know I'd see you again. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Some of these young men that's in this platform here tonight, young sisters I'm looking at, older ones tonight, somebody just so glad to come back and see you here.
Something happened to me tonight. Something happened to me on the way home. I would see you again. He said, don't worry about me. I will see you again. He put them into lifeboat number 11. And just in a matter of minutes, what seemed like minutes, suddenly people were in 28 degree weather, water, thrashing around.
Some that couldn't swim just died. Some that couldn't take the temperature of the water died immediately. Mr. Harper was an experienced swimmer. And you know what he did? He would actually, he was hanging on to pieces of the ship really, and he would make his way over to people.
He'd say, are you saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved. Know what he said? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved. And that dark, fateful night, he came upon a piece of the ship, and there was a young Scottish man.
They come from the same country, his fellow countrymen. Terrified. He said, man, are you saved? He said, I'm not saved. I'm not saved. Are you prepared to admit that to God tonight? Stop admitting that to us.
I am not saved. He said, man, I tell you what I've been telling everybody. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. That raging frigid waters of the Atlantic took Mr. Harper to his grave.
A few years ago, in Hamilton, Ontario, not far from Toronto, an aged man got up. He said, I want to tell you how I got saved. And people were listening, and they weren't really too interested, because after all, he's an old man, and he's limping up there to the podium, and he's going to tell us how he got saved.
When he got saved, he said, I wasn't the old man that I am tonight. He said, I want to tell you where I got saved. He said, I got saved out there in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. People started to listen.
And he started to relate the story. He started to tell them exactly what had happened. He started to tell of that fatal night. He said, there was this man. He said, obviously, it was a Scottish man. He said, I could tell.
He said, I don't know the man's name. He would find it out later on. He says, as I was clinging for my life, frantically, realizing there was likely two miles of ocean below me, I wasn't going to make it.
That man, with the last of his life, swam over to me and said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. He said, at that moment, I could do nothing else. I said, I just trust him. I just trusted him.
He said, you know, I look forward to heaven, just as we've been hearing. And he says, I want to see the Lord Jesus, the one who died for me. He went on. He said, and there's family, but he said, I want to see John Harper.
He said, two men, total strangers, that boarded that ship that night. But he said, you know what Mr. Harper became to me that night? He became my Savior. Now my friend, this scene here is a little like that.
It's a dark scene. It really involves two people. It involves this man, a sinner, and this man, the Savior. I know the disciples were over there in another boat, but so be it. There could have been other people on the sea that night, the Sea of Galilee.
There could have been other people fishing. There could have been other people working with their livelihood. Other people that maybe knew Peter and knew his family and maybe knew his wife and his mother-in-law and so on.
Other people that knew that. But at this moment, understand this was an encounter of one-on-one. That's what the Gospel's about, friend. It becomes a very lonely business. But I want to tell you, as you've been clearly hearing tonight, to die in your sins and go down to hell will be one lonely business.
You want to believe it. You want to believe it. The town where I live, my sister-in-law nursed a man, used to be a pastor in the local church. Everybody thought, no, I know he didn't preach the Gospel.
Didn't he make any profession of being saved? Used to market. Meetings I used to have, they were just food. Some of his congregation got saved in Gospel meetings. It was just a big joke with him. Do you know that when that man was in the last moments of life, they had to literally shut down that end of the hospital.
The screams coming from that man, the screams. My sister-in-law was there. She would tell you. As that man was screaming, could somebody help me? Please bring me water. Could somebody help me? The rest of the patients in the Sussex hospital couldn't bear it.
He died. He went out that night. Now, here's a man that for years had preached, supposedly preached to people, pastored a church. When my sister-in-law was going through the medical records, to sign off the fact that the man had died or whatever they have to do.
She found something very interesting. When it come down to the little section that said religion, you know what he wrote in there? Nothing. Nothing. Oh, excuse me? I thought you were the pastor of the United Church in Sussex, the biggest church in town.
My grandson sat in the building. He said to dad, he said, dad, we should come here. This is a nice place. Biggest place in town. What's he say? Nothing. Well, my friend, religion won't take you to heaven, but Christ will.
You need a savior tonight. You see, this took place in a dark scene. And as you heard us say so many times, and I know I speak to some tonight, it's been a dark scene. But I want to tell you it becomes darker and darker and darker to the point where you realize I'm not going to make it.
I'm not going to make it. There are those that I'm not going to see on the moral. Well, I want to tell you passing this man's experience was a savior. Fannie Crosby, a number of years ago, a good number of years ago, was asked to tour a jail.
She had been in the Chicago area attending Moody's meetings. And with Mr. Sank, he was asked to tour a prison. And the prisoners heard who was coming and that they're religious people. And there was one prisoner particularly crying out, don't pass me.
Don't pass me by. Please stop. Don't pass me by. And she didn't. She stopped and communicated, had a little visit with a man that did not want to be passed by. She couldn't get that out of her thinking.
She went home and she penned those beautiful words, pass me not, oh gentle savior. Hear my humble cry. While in others thou art calling, do not pass me by. I'm here to tell you, friend, there's a savior that will do anything but pass you by.
Unfortunately, what you're doing, you're passing him by. You see, the situation here, I want you to know, the first thing about this man's situation, it was real. It was real. I mean, this was no play acting.
This is not a man that is discovered. I'm not the swimmer I thought I was. This man knew the sea like the back of his hand. He likely knew other men that fished on that sea. And, you know, there may have been a time in his life when he would have been just a little hesitant to make a cry like this, a little embarrassing.
After all, this is a cry of absolute dependence. This is a cry for mercy. This is a cry for help. This is a man that's got past all of that. Like somebody I was speaking with, a couple of times this happened.
Big men, far bigger than I am, as I often say, could put me down with one hand and bury me with the other. They sat there and they cried. And I told them, this is the place to get the crying done. Don't cry when it's too late.
Don't cry on the other side of the pillar of death. And they said, I don't know what's happening. I know what's happening. God's starting to bring them down. They didn't care. They didn't care who saw them.
They didn't care who heard them. There's only one thing they wanted. You know what they wanted? They wanted what this man wanted. What did he want? Would you have to go to Peter and say, what would you like here?
What is it you want? I mean, it's so obvious. Lord, save me. Lord, save me. I wonder if there's not one in this meeting tonight. And that wouldn't be the cry of your heart. Lord, save me. But you're a little too proud tonight.
You're just like.. You say, how can you speak so well about it? I was the same way. The night before I got saved, I did not want to know. I did not want over 61st cousins that I sat in a gospel meeting with across the front of the..
Had a memorial school in Sarnia, Ontario. I did not want them to know that I was thinking about this. But I wanted to be saved. But I want to tell you, by the time Monday night rolled around, I didn't care who knew.
Up in that bedroom, well, I thought, sure. Just like you. You know, push comes to shove. I will figure this out. I will get this. But, you know, the harder I tried, the darker it got. And finally, I came to that moment where I said, I can't get this.
I'll never be saved. My situation was real. So is yours tonight, my friend. You're going to hell. Time you faced it. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. No distance is too far to go. No floor is too high to put your knees on.
That's a big task for you, isn't it? Well, I want to tell you, hell will bend and break the stubbornest knees. You will bow. The Bible says every knee should bow. Whatever God wanted me to do that night.
Nobody had to tell me, nobody said, no, I think you should get down and ask God to save you. And do it on your knees. Listen, my friend. I laid on the side of that bed asking God to save me. I got down on my knees and asked God to save me.
I sat on the side of the bed crying, asking God, save me. How sweet those beautiful words. Luke 19 and 10. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Mr. Beacon here at the meeting tonight was reminding them in stout one night.
I'd forgotten about it, but he reminded me of some vinyl banners we were getting made in Jackson, Michigan. We were in meetings there. The man that was making the banners was professed to be a Christian.
And so he said, of course, I want that text up, obviously. Luke 19 and 10. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. He says, is there anything in particular you'd like done with the banner?
I said, well, what can you do with it? Well, he says, is there anything you'd like in a little different color? I said, you know, would you put the word sun in gold? Yeah. He said, you know, that would be a good thing.
Put the sun in gold. Yeah. Yeah. He said, we could do that. I said, but there's something else I'd like put in gold. He said, what's that? I said, lost. He said, what would you want that for? What would you want that for?
Because I was once lost. I was once lost, friend. You've listened and are listening to two men that were no different than you. The situation was real, but it was very revealing. Very revealing what a man wants in final moments of life.
Very revealing, isn't it? I've always asked some of you Apple fans. Don't ask me what kind of a phone's on my hip tonight. What Steve Jobs died of. You would very quickly tell me that he died fighting pancreatic cancer.
Right? That's what he was fighting in this disease, but that's not what he was fighting. It was who he was fighting. You know who Steven Jobs, you know who he died fighting? A man by the name of Eric Schmidt.
Eric Schmidt sat on an Apple board for years. Eric Schmidt was the technical brains behind Apple. Steve Jobs was the business brains behind it. But the technical brains behind it was a man by the name of Eric Schmidt.
A company by the name of Google hired him away. And he introduced, just to fast forward, to what's called the Android phone. Mr. Jobs got a hold of that phone and he brought it into their lab. And had his engineers go through that phone.
And they picked up something like 116 of what they thought were infringed on patents in the design of the Android phone. And thus the lawsuit started to go. It enraged Steve Jobs so bad he couldn't sleep at night.
It literally tore him apart. And finally Google came forward and said, Mr. Jobs, okay, alright. You think we've infringed? We don't think so. We'll settle. Five billion. Hey, that's not a bad settlement, is it?
No court cost. Five billion. We'll cut your check this afternoon. You know what he said? You know what a dying man said? Forget your five billion. He says, at Apple we've got 50 billion in the bank. In fact, he said, our line of credit is big enough to pay off the debt of Greece, 170 billion.
That's our line. That's what we can reach to. I've got 50 billion. He said, I will spend every dime of it fighting it. Until there's no Android phone. Can you imagine? That's how he died. With a limited, and last breath, that is how he died.
You may not die arguing over billions of dollars. The Android phone is still going. Still being used. Apple may be with Google and courts. I don't know. I don't really even care. Steve Jobs is gone. What's it matter tonight?
His sister Marie that called him and said, Steve, hang on, I'm coming down. You're not going to make it. I'm going to be gone. She did make it. You know what she said when she looked at her brother dying?
Here's what she said. This is his sister. She said, my brother looked like a man going on a journey with a backpack. He didn't know where he was going. That's you tonight. On a journey with a backpack of sins.
And you know where you're going. You're going to hell. You know the glorious message of the gospel is that you can be saved. You can be saved. This man said, Lord save me. I don't think you're sincere enough about this.
I don't think you know enough about... Lord save me. Must just delight his ears when he hears that. Believe in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Harper was right. No man calleth him Lord but by the Spirit. It's all in the name, my friend.
That's why Peter says, neither is there salvation in any other for there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must, we must be saved. We flew over Grand Rapids, Michigan on the way out here the other day I thought of it.
It was in the Detroit airport, Detroit Metropolitan Airport in the McNamara concourse. A gathering of people around and there was a young man there and he was very inquisitive. He said, hey, who's coming in?
I said, you stay back. Stay back behind the tape. You'll find out who's coming in. They did. It wasn't too long and a plane landed and people started to get off and sure enough native Michigan former president Gerald Ford walked into the McNamara terminal and the young fellow's leaning ahead.
He said, hey, come back. President Ford. And people were wishing him well and the young fellow was pretty determined he was going to get through to the former president. So he did. He just kind of kept there.
He said, Mr. President, he said, how's Mike? Ford looked around and he said, who asked about Mike? And he said to the security, who? He said, I did. He said, what do you know about Mike? He said, I went to school with him.
He said, I played football with him. He said, okay. Well, that's good. No, he said, told him where he was and now what brought that whole entourage to a stop? What brought everything to a complete heel?
One name. One name. One name. There's one name tonight that's precious to heaven. You see, your life is out of control. Your life is spiraling, taking you, my friend, at breakneck speed to a place you don't want to go to, my dear girl, but you're going there.
You are just one heartbeat from eternity and what stands between you and a hell tonight is the cry of one word, one name, Lord. See, you didn't have to say any more. That blind man that said, Lord, have I received my sight?
Once he said, Lord, it's all right. The rest could be looked after. How about you tonight? How much further do you have to go down? What else has to take place? I mean, notice this man here. There's no going back to the boat.
See, that's why you're not saved. You come and you hear the gospel, you go back to the boat. What was the boat? That's what he's familiar with. He lived on those things. He worked on those things. He likely knew more about boating and fishing than maybe the Lord Jesus did.
Or the other disciples that were there. There's no going back to the boat. Why did Nicodemus say, now listen, wait a minute now. I'm going back to the boat. I'm going back to the Sanhedrin. I just don't like this being born again bet.
No, no, there's no boat to go back to. That's why he's born again that night. The thief that's literally dying on a cross. There's no going back with the boys. There's no coffee with the boys tomorrow morning.
He's done. He's finished. He had played out all his options. What option do you have left tonight? There's some option you think you're exercising. See that rich young ruler? Oh, sure. He'll go running to the Lord Jesus.
He'll look very sincere and very honest and very opening. I mean, it sure fooled the disciples. It didn't fool the Lord. But he had his riches. He could go back to them. So he'd go back to his riches.
Not a blind man. He's got nothing to go back to. Just his old rag. Just his old rag. And the Lord gave him sight. The woman, she was tired of that life. Are you tired of it yet? At that moment when he said, well, go call your husband, she could say, just a minute now, you've overstepped the line.
You've just run a little too close to this. And I'll go back to my old life. No, she wasn't going back to the old life. You know what she wasn't doing? She was not leaving if she had been here tonight.
If the Savior was where I am tonight. And she was the only one in this auditorium. You know what she'd say? These lights aren't going out until I go with those doors saved. But you've got other things you think you can go to.
You're like the people in the Bible. They say, well, we'll hear thee again on this matter. They didn't. No, there was this situation. There was this sinner. But the best thing, there was the Savior. There's no worse without the Savior.
There's nothing I can tell you apart from the Savior tonight. What I can tell you though, this Bible says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I wonder tonight if a cry that heaven has been waiting for all your life will hear tonight for the first time in absolute honesty.
Lord, save me. You know what the best news is? That's exactly what He'll do. Shall we pray?