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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/larry-steers/christ-died-for-the-ungodly/
Psalm 1, reading from verse 1, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so. There's a contrast between the man who is referred to as the blessed man and the ungodly.
The blessed man of this psalm is the Lord Jesus Christ. He says the ungodly are not like him. He says the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff, which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. We're going to come over to the book of Romans, and to the fifth chapter. The book of Romans, chapter 5. And we'll read from verse 6.
Romans chapter 5 and verse 6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet for adventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
And that's all that we are going to read. I'm going to refer just briefly to the passages that I have read, or the verses that I have read in Romans chapter 6. But I want you to notice one verse particularly.
This will be my text for this evening. Verse 6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. I want to take that verse for a few moments tonight. And I'm going to look at five words in that verse.
I'm going to take five words out of the verse. The five words that I'm going to take from the verse will not in any way alter the significance or the meaning of the statement of divine truth, but will emphasize what really is being said.
I want to take the word ungodly. Then I want you to notice the two words without strength. And then finally the two words Christ died. That's really the message that we have tonight. Ungodly, without strength, Christ died.
In Romans chapter 6 where we have read, there is a three-fold description. Of every person who knows not Christ. These words were true of each of us who are saved before we were saved. You'll notice that he says when you come to verse 10.
For if when we were enemies, we discovered one day that we were the enemy of God. The enemy of God has no love for the word of God. Has no love for the Lord Jesus Christ. The enemy of God objects to being referred to as a sinner even though that's what God says.
The man who wrote this verse by the guidance of the Spirit of God discovered on a journey on the Damascus Road when he thought he was doing what God wanted him to do. He thought he was honoring God, but he discovered that he was the enemy of God in a moment of time on that Damascus Road.
That word enemy describes our relationship to God without Christ. We are the enemies of God. That's what God says. That's the declaration of the word of God. That is clear. That is plain. When you come down or up the chapter to verse 8, he gives another word.
For if when we were, what God commends his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That word sinners describes our condition before God. We are in our relationship to God, the enemy of God.
But before God, our condition, we are sinners. We have been reminded already that the Bible makes it very clear that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's every one of us. When I come to John chapter 8, an interesting event took place.
They brought to the Lord Jesus a woman that was taken in adultery. And they challenged the Son of God. They challenged Jesus. When they said to Him, Moses in the law said that this woman should be stoned, what sayest thou?
They thought that they had Him in a corner. Because if He said to stone her, He would not be a man of grace. And if He said, let her go, He would not uphold the law of Moses. That's when the Lord Jesus stooped down and began to write upon the ground.
And then He looked at those men. And I'm paraphrasing just a little here. It was as if He was saying to them, we will keep the law, but I will add a condition. I want you to notice the condition that He added.
He said, let the one amongst you who is without sin cast the first stone. Who in this gathering tonight would dare rise to cast the first stone? We would have to be honest tonight. We are all disqualified.
That being the condition. For we are all sinners. But it's interesting that the only man who was without sin was the Lord Jesus Christ. And He was the one who did not cast the stone. He upheld the law, but He was a man of grace.
I want you to understand tonight, if it's never got into your soul before, that you have a holy God to meet. And the Bible declares that you have sinned. He says, well we were yet sinners. That's our condition before God.
But notice, there's another word. That is the word ungodly. That's the character of life. You need to look at your life tonight. You need to take a good look at your life tonight. Because the divine evaluation of your life without Christ is that you are ungodly.
I would acknowledge to you tonight that I had a difficult time with the word ungodly. I saw other people being ungodly. I looked at my friend just across the road. He was ungodly. But I thought that I was a little better than they were.
Until one day I discovered that I was ungodly. Ungodly is unlike God. That's what we have emphasized. The character of life. Totally. Unlike God. The ungodly person is described in Psalm 1. There is a description that is given that is applicable here in Romans 5 and verse 6.
The writer of the Psalm on Noah says, the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. I would have to tell you before I say what I'm going to say that I was a history teacher.
I taught the history of the United States from the coming of the pilgrims on the Mayflower to the Civil War to students up north in Canada. And up our way when the early pioneers came and I would expect that they did the same here.
When they cleared a little bit of ground and they planted a few seeds and the time came to harvest a little crop. When they used a scythe or sickle, didn't have the modern machinery that they have today, and they would cut the green that they had planted and they would bring it into the threshing floor in the barn that they had built.
Can't do anything with a stock, chaff, and the kernels of the grain still in the chaff. They had to somehow thrash it. They had to beat it. And so they had a flail. And a number of them would surround it with a flail which was simply a stick and they would begin to beat it and beat it until they had separated the stalks and the husks of the grain and had the kernels of the grain all mixed up on the barn floor.
Can't bake bread with that. Maybe they were reading their Bible. Maybe they got this idea from the Word of God. And so they had a big sheet and they would put the contents of the threshing floor in the sheet and they would go outside on a windy day and with someone standing on the four corners of that sheet they would throw the contents up into the air and the wind would blow the chaff away.
That's what the psalmist is saying when he is describing the ungodly like the chaff which the wind driveth away. I don't know who you are tonight. I'm a stranger here as well. But I want to tell you this.
That for a person who knows not Christ the very best that they can do the best kind of life that they can live is like the chaff which the wind driveth away. I had to face that fact when I was 19 years old in my sins.
That I was ungodly. That there was nothing in my life that brought delight to the heart of God. I was a stranger to grace and to God. And my whole life was a lost cause when it comes to my relationship with God.
It was like the chaff which the wind driveth away. There was nothing to it. Let me ask you tonight. Let me challenge you tonight. If you know not my Savior. That's the character. That's the condition of your life.
That's the character of your life tonight. It's like the chaff which the wind driveth away. There are some sad moments that we have had to face. I have had to stand beside the bedside of a dying woman who came to tent meetings.
Listened to us preach the gospel. And as I walked into that hospital room and I bent over her and I said I want to read some verses from the scripture to you. And she shook her head and faded away. And so I told her husband who was holding her hand I was going to pray.
I quoted every gospel verse that came to my mind when I was praying. Her life. She had lived a careless life. And now she is on the very verge of eternity. Going out into that eternity with no hope. And her life and the character of that was like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
No hope for eternity. And all of her sins just a few hours later slipped out into God's eternity. The psalmist also says the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. I have sat in the senate in Washington and I have sat in the House of Representatives.
I don't think you can do that today. I have not sat in the Supreme Court in the United States but I have sat in the Supreme Court building in Ottawa. There are nine justices sitting on a dais. I don't understand the case that was being tried.
It was all legal language that was formed to me. But I did understand this. That the lawyers were trying to convince those judges that their client had a standing before the court and if the lawyers failed to do that then the client would have no standing.
That's the thought here. Not that the ungodly will not be there. The ungodly will be in the judgment. But they'll have no standing before the judge. The book of Revelation describes that moment solemn when those who have not a savior will look at the judge upon the throne and they will begin to cry to the rocks and to the hills to fall upon them and hide them from the face of him that sits upon the throne.
No excuse. No alibi. No one to support you. All alone. You will stand before the judge in all of your sins. Ungodly if you reject Christ. He also says here, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
That is going to be a grand moment for every soul. We've been hearing three men tell how they got saved. For every soul that has a moment in their life when as a sinner they trusted the Savior and they're going to be in the great congregation of the righteous.
Robert Murray McShane wrote about that. When the praise of heaven I hear loudest thunder in my ear not till then Lord shall I know, not till then how much I owe. He says the way of the ungodly shall perish.
My friend I want to tell you tonight that for a soul to spend their lifetime upon this earth trying to fill their life with a few of the little pleasures of this world that are just like a snowflake on the river here today gone forever.
Careless relative to the gospel. Indifferent. Facing God's eternity and to go out into that eternity he says the way of the ungodly shall perish. I want to tell you tonight that hell is a real place. I would that I could tell you that with more compassion in my soul that hell is real.
That it is literal. And that souls who die in their sins are going to perish. That is they are going to spend that eternity with no hope. In the lake of fire eventually with no hope. No exit, no way out has rejected Christ.
You'll notice that he says here without strength this is a history teacher coming out as an illustration for a moment in the early years of the last war the German Navy had a battleship called the Bismarck.
Some of you might have read about the Bismarck. It's one of the greatest battleships that was ever built. The guns on the Bismarck were so powerful and the range was such a great range that no ship could get close to the Bismarck.
Early one morning British operators discovered that the Bismarck had escaped from the Norwegian fjord and had made her way out into the Atlantic Ocean. A number of vessels from the Navy of Great Britain were sent after the Bismarck but they couldn't get close to her.
One of the large battleships of Great Britain, the Hood received a shell from the Bismarck and in 60 seconds or so went down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with nearly every sailor on board. As the Bismarck was getting closer now to the coast of France almost in desperation a little seaplane took off from the deck of one of those British ships and the pilot frantically fired a torpedo not really knowing where it was going and banked away from the Bismarck.
Later that day they discovered that the Bismarck was sailing almost out of control because that torpedo had hit the rudder and the mighty battleship was helpless on the Atlantic Ocean and sank, went down to the bottom.
We sing a hymn, like a ship without a rudder on a wild and stormy sea my heart goes out to every young person here tonight who knows not Christ. You're trying to make your way through life and all of the pitfalls and the dangers that are around you on every hand and I know about those.
I have seen students that have squandered their life very young over drugs and a few things that they find in this poor, sinful ungodly world. They're just like that ship without a rudder, trying to go through life trying to make their way trying to feel their way with all of the dangers around them and seemingly unconcerned about the eternity to which they are going.
I want to impress upon you tonight that there is an eternity ahead of you, ungodly without strength. That simply means that there is no one here who has any power to deliver their own soul. There's no one here who can do anything acceptable to God that will be acceptable for the ransom of their soul without strength.
Unable to produce anything that will please God. Unable to produce salvation for yourself. The Bible makes it very clear. Not of works, lest any man should boast. No one will be in heaven and boast upon how they got there, on something they have done.
It says clearly here without strength. A series of tent meetings way up in northern Ontario. There was a young woman Tammy was about 14, 15, maybe 16. We knew that Tammy was concerned about being saved.
One night after the tent meeting when we were going around doing up the tent for the night, Tammy had left the tent. I hope you get the picture tonight. Because that girl was concerned. She was troubled about her sin.
She had a burden. She wanted to be saved. And she knew there was nothing she could do. She knew she was helpless. And after the tent meeting, she made her way away from everyone else. And she went to a clump of little trees.
And she stood behind the trees with her Kleenex in her hand crying. She wanted to be saved. But she wasn't interested in the conversation that was going on outside the tent. You know, sometimes that can take away from the solemnity of the Gospel.
And so she went by herself. And when she saw that the tent was empty, and only the two of us were left, she came back. And she told us she wanted to be saved. I hope there's someone here tonight. More than one.
Tammy was 14, 15, 16. And she had a real burden. Really troubled about her soul, about her sin. And when she came back into the tent and the three of us sat together, she expressed that desire, that burden.
She acknowledged she was a sinner. She was ungodly. She deserved to be in hell. And the man who was with me opened his Bible and began to read some verses to Tammy. But it almost seemed that every verse that he read, and they were what I would refer to as very simple, very precious Gospel verses.
But it seemed that to Tammy it got darker and darker and darker. And I could hear, I can't see anything. I can't see it. I wonder if there's a soul like that here tonight. The hymn writer put it this way, I wandered on in the darkness.
Not a ray of light could I see. And the thought filled my soul with sadness. There's no hope for a sinner like me. And she told us after, that's how she felt that night in that tent. That there was no hope.
The verses were read. She couldn't see anything. Then she did something. That the man who was with me was a far older man than I was. I have never seen it since, never saw it before. I want to ask you before I tell you what she did.
Are you really serious about this matter of God's salvation? Is this a real concern? A real burden to you? Is it really something that you're troubled about? Maybe you've lost nights of sleepless nights.
Concern, wanting to be saved. Tammy got up from the chair she was sitting on. And we thought for a moment that she was going to leave the tent, but she didn't leave the tent. That tent was pitched on gravel.
The only place we could find to put a tent up. Tammy got down on her knees on the gravel. And she had her elbows on the chair that she was sitting on. And her fists were doubled and the chair was actually shaking.
And I will never forget what I heard. She cried. She literally cried. Oh God, save me. She knew we couldn't save her. She knew her grandfather couldn't save her. Her grandfather loved her and made certain that she got to the tent every night.
He couldn't save her. She sensed futility when she realized that two men were sitting with her and they couldn't save her. And she wanted to know her sins forgiven. And in urgency, in seriousness and dead earnest she cried Oh God, save me.
Then she got up and she walked out of the tent. And she left the two of us there looking at each other wondering What about Tammy? Really, we shouldn't have wondered too much. Because the Bible says Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
God says that. And that girl was in serious earnestness that night. And she meant every word of that short cry Oh God, save me. I can't tell you whether she got saved on her knees that night, or in grandfather's car going home, or in the bedroom by herself.
But the next night when she came back to the tent, you couldn't miss that Tammy had trusted Christ. Her face was different. Her face was illuminated when she came into the tent that night to tell us that she had got saved.
Friend, listen. This is not a fairy tale. This is not something that's made up in the mind. We're not talking about an invented experience tonight. We're talking about that which is real. I know we sing to the children it's a grand thing to be saved, but it's a real thing to be saved.
It's a real moment when for the first time a soul understands that Christ died for them. They accept that. Their sins are gone. Anybody on the way to heaven could not forget that. I want you to notice just as I close that when it comes to enemies notice what verse 10 says.
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. What a statement. God gave His Son to die for those who were His enemies. That's the heart of God. Notice what He says when you come to verse 8.
But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. The death of Christ for the enemies of God. The death of Christ for sinners. God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
The enemies, sinners for when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. I am certain tonight that there will be many souls in heaven because the Spirit of God left this verse, this statement upon the pages of the Word of God.
Have you discovered you're without strength? Do you realize tonight that there's nothing that you can do? Do you realize tonight that you're helpless? I hope there's a soul here or souls who understand that.
I want to close and draw your attention to the death of Christ. The prophet in the Old Testament penned these words. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? And as we close this Gospel meeting, you must pass by and celebrate.
I want you to view for a moment tonight one hanging upon a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. We sometimes sing crowned with thorns upon the tree silent in its agony dying crushed beneath the load of the wrath and of the curse of God.
Every blow of a hammer that drove nails through the hands and feet of the Son of God reverberated in heaven. God was looking on. God saw every mark of dishonor that was upon the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God heard the mockery. The God of heaven looked upon His face, the face of His Son covered with the spittle of men hanging upon a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. We want to ask you tonight, why was He there?
Why Calvary? Why would God give His Son to die upon a cross? I have a son. I don't think I could stand and watch my son tormented. I think it would probably break my heart. But God looked on and saw every detail of that which took place at Calvary.
But let me finish what the prophet said. Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by, behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.
That is the God of heaven looking upon the Savior at Calvary and the prophet says, from above He has set fire into my bones and it prevails against them. It was a fire of God's judgment. It was the wrath of God that sin demanded, that sin deserved.
It was poured out upon the Lord Jesus at Calvary and He endured, He bore the awful judgment for sin. In those terrible hours of darkness Peter, when he writes his epistle, writes as a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
Peter saw some of the things that men did to the Lord Jesus and he writes about that. When he suffered, when he was reviled, he reviled not. When he suffered, he threatened not. But Peter's going to write about something that he never saw.
He suffered, says Peter, in chapter 3 and verse 18 of the first epistle. He suffered the just for the unjust. That's what he suffered when the wrath of God was poured out upon him, unsparingly. Nothing was held back.
In those dark hours at Calvary he bore the judgment of God for sin. God has only one way of dealing with sin. That's suffering. Peter tells us that. For the Lord Jesus to answer and settle the issue of sin, He had to suffer.
If you reject Him, you will suffer eternity in the lake of fire with no escape. I want to ask you tonight, what do the sufferings of the Lord Jesus mean to you? Every soul on the way to heaven at some time during the course of this day have lifted their heart heavenward and have thanked God for the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary and that it was ever open to their understanding to realize that that suffering was for them.
One of our brethren in telling how he got saved referred to death. I stood at the casket of my father. 47 years of age. I knew my dad was in heaven. I was on the way to hell. And as I stood in the cemetery that afternoon, looking at my father's casket, I knew that it was eternal separation if I died without Christ.
I knew that I would be in hell if my body was in that casket. And I determined as I stood in that cemetery, I knew the gospel well. I was raised in a gospel hall Sunday school. And I determined that evening, that afternoon, that if I was going to be saved, God was speaking to me for the last time.
Maybe God is speaking to someone here tonight for the last time. I went down to the house not too far from the cemetery up to the upstairs bedroom. And I sat with an open Bible upon my knee, reading the words of John 5 and 24.
I'm going to quote them to you before I sit down. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and it was pointed out to me that day, and believeth him that sent me. And I think someone just said during their testimony that they could believe God.
And I had no doubt that God said I was a sinner. Do you doubt that tonight? And I had no doubt that God sent His Son to die for sinners. And I realized for the first time that afternoon that I was a sinner for whom Christ died.
I called my mother upstairs. My mother was only 46, a widow at 46 years of age. Her eyes were red. She wouldn't cry. She came from the funeral of her husband. And I remember my mother sat down beside me, and I put my arm around her.
And I looked into her face and I said, Mom, I just got saved. Tears of sorrow, with almost a snap of a finger, became tears of rejoicing that her oldest son had got saved. You know, I have some regrets.
I was talking to some of the brethren out in the hall. One regret is that I should have got saved sooner. Young people tonight, this is the time to be saved. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation.
My second regret, I would love to have stood before my father and to look into his face. We were hearing that this afternoon. To look into my father's face and tell my dad, I just got saved. Maybe someone here will be able to do that tonight.
A sinner, trust Christ. I know for certain that you're saved.