Love Sent My Savior — E.A. Johnston

Christ’s Voluntary Sacrifice for Sin

When I was 16 years old, I visited my Catholic mother in the hospital who had surgery to remove her oversized goiter. As I sat by her hospital bed, she complained to me that she had suffered more in her operation than Christ did on the cross.

I looked at her incredibly for making such a silly and selfish remark because when I looked at her, I didn't see any nail prints in her hands. I didn't see any nails in her feet. All I saw was a scar on her neck where they had gone in there to extract that oversized goiter.

She thought her pain was more than Jesus' pain on the cross, but my mother was like most folks, I reckon, who have an oversized opinion of themselves and an ignorance to what actually took place at a place called Calvary over 2 ,000 years ago.

When they fastened the Lord of Glory to that ignoble tree, the nails they drove into his quivering, innocent flesh was hammered in there by you and me. My filthy, wretched sins were the nails that fastened them there.

If you're honest with the truth about yourself, friend, your own wicked heart, you know that those nails were driven into his hands and feet because of your filthy sins as well. Christ voluntarily laid his life down that day as a sacrifice for sin.

He said, no man take it from me, but I lay it down to myself. Speaking of his life, I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received in my father. Christ voluntarily paid that penalty for you on Calvary's cross, friend.

The Gospel Invitation to the Needy

Anyone who loves you like that, bearing the penalty of your sin and tasting hell itself for you makes you wonder, why should he love me so? Well I've got a message for you this evening, friends. The title of my message this evening, friends, is Love Sent My Savior, because it was love that made Jesus step out of heaven and empty himself of his glory to be born of a woman and live as a man, to be crucified for a sinner like me.

Perhaps God will be pleased, friends, to take some of his gospel truth that you hear this evening and apply them to your heart by his spirit and pierce your heart with the truth of the gospel. I believe, friends, that God gets serious with those who get serious with him.

I believe God sees a sincere heart that seeks him for mercy and grace and pardon of sin. I believe, friends, that the gospel is for the needy. If you feel your need of a savior from sin, I believe if you come to him for forgiveness of sin, that he won't turn you away.

Jesus says, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Well, I want us to look at a psalm this evening, friends, Psalm 22, for it is one of the messianic psalms that refers to Christ on the cross.

Psalm 22 is where we see a vivid picture of the suffering Lamb of God who taketh the sins of the world away. In this verse, friends, in verse 1 we read, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That cry from the cross makes me shiver down through the ages as I try to think what he actually was going through there for me.

Psalm 22 is a prophecy of the fact that Christ would come and die. The whole psalm deals with his sufferings and death on that bloody cross. His very blood poured out from him to wash away my sins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains, so says the hymn.

And it's true, friends. Think about what Jesus did on Calvary's cross. Look at him there. Look at the thorny crown tilted on his blessed head. His face was so badly beaten by the Roman soldiers that it looked like a pound of hamburger meat.

Verse 6 begins, But I am a worm and no man, a reproaching man, and despised of the people, and they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

Look at that crowd there, that day, friends, that bunch of religious hypocrites that crucified him. Look at them, wrapped in the black garments of their self-righteousness, as they cry, Crucify him, away with him.

Are you standing there in that gang of rebels, friends? Listen to verse 16. For dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me, they part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

The Cross, Sin, and the Call to Look and Live

Look at that incredible scene, friends, with the religious mob gathered there, at the very foot of that bloody spectacle of a bloodstained savior from sin, at the sight of the base Roman soldiers, look at them, shooting craps at the cross, gambling for his robe.

The sight of it all turns my stomach inside out, with the guilt of my sins stacked up there on Christ, as he writhed and wiggled in his cruciating pain. Beneath that weight of those sins, he hung by his hands and feet, his outstretched arms glamour with his own sweat and blood.

Why, why, why should he love me so? Nails pierced his hands and his feet for my sin, why should he love me so? If you're standing there as a guilty sinner, friend, look on him and live. Look at that darkening sky, as the very sun hides from all the hell being poured out on him on that cross, as all creation seems to groan.

Oh dear sinner, friend, I hope you don't come away from this message tonight only hearing the shaky voice of this poor preacher, but that you would hear his voice as it comes to you in all power, authority, and majesty.

Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Listen to the Christ of the cross, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Repentance and Salvation for Lost Sinners

I'm going to end this meeting, friends, with an opportunity for you to come to Christ for salvation. An awakened sinner feels his or her need of a savior from sin. The gospel is not for secure folks, friends.

Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If God has been speaking to you tonight, friend, and you see your lost condition, and you feel your need of a savior from sin, then don't delay.

If you're like me, one day you'll realize that I know I am a sinner and I need a substitute for sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So do you, friend, so do you. But I believe the first cry of salvation is, I'm lost, I'm lost.

Because after that comes, I'm saved, God saved me. Jesus said, he came to save lost folks, lost sinners in need of a savior from sin. Jesus said, for the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Maybe God's been dealing with your soul, friend, through this message. Perhaps he has pierced your heart to see a pure savior hanging on a bloody cross. Look at that man on the cross, friend. Look at that man with the nails in his hands and feet.

He is fastened to that cross for my sins. Look at that bloodstained sacrifice for sin. Why, why is he hanging there, friend? Love holds him there. Love towards sinful man. Love sent Christ to the cross.

Love, God's love. God's love towards us and sin and his son for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. I want to share a story with you, friends, before we leave this evening, because it speaks of the love of Jesus towards sinners.

Christ’s Love Demonstrated in the Story of the Rescued Dog

Hear me now. Listen to the story. My Bible says in Romans 5, 8, but God commanded his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Listen to this story, friends, especially if you are a dog owner.

You will appreciate it as it speaks to your heart. But there was a farmer who had a dog that had been very useful to him, but it was getting old. His master decided to get rid of him by drowning him, taking the dog with him to a large river near his farm.

He got into a boat and rowed out to the deepest part. Around the dog's neck, he tied a cord attached to a heavy stone. Then he threw it in the water. The poor dog sank, but the cord broke and rising to the surface with a whine, he tried to get back into the boat again with his beloved master.

Unmoved, the farmer pushed him off a number of times with an oar. Finally, the farmer stood up in the boat, intending to strike the dog a blow with the oar that would send it to the bottom. In the attempt, he lost his balance and fell into the water.

He could not swim and he would have drowned. But when the dog saw his master struggling in the water, in spite of the cruel treatment it had just received from him, it swam up to him, caught hold of his clothes and brought him safe to land.

The Final Appeal to Receive Christ

Jesus has been going after some of you for years and you've pushed him away time and time again. You've had people praying for your soul, but you've spurned the love of Jesus. Love sent my savior to the cross.

Love sent my savior to die for me. Don't you think it's time, friend, to stop rejecting the love of a savior? While I close this message, I want to call you to come to Christ. Love sent my savior to die on that cross and Christ's saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners and own them as their savior and Lord.

Jesus saves us from our sins, not for time only, but for all eternity. Listen, friends, in this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him.

But you must get to Christ, friend, and believe on him. The duty required is to come and he's got a pure gospel promise to all who come. Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Well, I'm going to close this message, friends, now at this time, and I'm going to sing one of my favorite hymns.

And as I sing it, I want you to come to Christ. Oh, come to that Christ who loves you, who died for you, and get your sins washed in his blood. Love sent my savior to die in my stead. Why should he love me so?

Meekly to Calvary's cross he was led. Why should he love me so? Why should he love me so? Why should he love me so? Why should my savior to Calvary go? Why should he love me so? Nails pierced his hands and his feet for my sin.

Why should he love me so? He suffered sore my salvation to win. Why should he love me so? Why should he love me so? Why should he love me so? Why should my savior to Calvary go? Why should he love me so?