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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/eric-mccullough/god-speaks-the-spirit-strives-the-savior-suffered/
Job 33 and verse 14. For God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbling upon the bed. Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.
He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat.
His flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers. If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, or better, what is right for him, then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.
Verse 27, He looketh upon men, and of any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not. He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.
Lo, all these things worketh God often times with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living. Now, a short reading in the book of Genesis, and chapter 6. Verse 1 of Genesis chapter 6,.
And it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose.
And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. Verse 5,. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And he repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Now, a final verse in Peter's first epistle. First Peter, and chapter 3, and the verse 18. Verse Peter 3 and verse number 18, Peter says,.
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. Now we know that God will bless the reading of his word.
We've been hearing about the soul, and God breathed into man in the garden, he breathed into Adam the breath of life, and man became a living soul. I've often wondered what Adam looked like, made from the dust of the earth, and standing there before his maker, no life in him, a beautiful creation, likely the most beautiful that God had created, and then suddenly God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
That made him responsible to his maker, and we've been reminded tonight from the word of God that you and I are a living soul. I look at you and you look at me, and we see a body, we see a tabernacle, but the soul is the real person.
The spirit links the soul with God, but when life is over, the soul will live on and on forever, heaven or hell, for the great eternity. But I want you to think for a little while tonight at the interest of the Godhead in the salvation of the soul.
You see, God is interested, and the Holy Spirit has an interest in your soul, and the Lord Jesus has an interest in your precious soul. We read in Job chapter 33 that God speaks. What a wonderful thing that is.
The psalmist says that God looked down from heaven upon the children of man to see if there are any that understand and seek God, and he didn't find so much as one. The answer in the heart of man is this, no God for me.
Man live as if it's all of life to live, there's nothing beyond this life. They think that they're captain of their own destiny, and there's no accountability to God, but I want to tell you, friend, that you and I have an accountability with our maker.
God speaks. He speaketh once, we read, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not. I want to suggest a number of ways from this chapter that God speaks. Sometimes it's in a dream, we read that, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, when you're, as you think, sound asleep.
Sometimes God speaks. I can remember when I was a boy, dreaming that I was falling, and falling, and falling, and going down, and there seemed to be no bottom. And then what a relief it was when I awoke, and it was only a dream.
I knew a preacher's wife, and one night she dreamt that she was in hell. She thought, is it possible, after all my opportunities, after all the gospel that I have listened to, is it possible that I'll never be in heaven?
I'm in this awful place, a place of torment. And she awoke with the sweat on her brow, so thankful it was only a dream. But people don't get saved in dreams. People are wide awake, they're alert. Every nerve in their body is earnest to this point.
It's my soul's eternal destiny. It'd be a wonderful meeting if someone tonight would get this great salvation forever. But God speaks again, sometimes in sickness. Did you notice the picture that Job describes, a man lying on a death of pain, a bed of pain?
He's chastened with pain upon his bed. The multitudes of his bones stick out. I buried my only brother a month ago today in Florida, and when I saw him lying in the intensive care unit, I was shocked.
He had lost almost 50 pounds in two months' time. I could hardly take it in. Big strong man, never sick a day in his life, and suddenly, in the middle of July, overtaken with a cancer of the lungs and of the kidneys, and I knew it wouldn't be very long, and he would be gone two months.
Here's a man chastened with pain upon his bed, his flesh consumed away. He doesn't desire dainty meat anymore. His appetite is gone. His very bones are sticking out. I could tell you of some that God has put on a bed of pain to bring them to Christ.
I remember years ago getting a phone call from a Christian lady. She said, Eric, my husband's just home from Iowa City. The doctor says he has cancer of the stomach. He has two weeks to live, and I can't tell him, and he's not saved.
Will you tell him? And so I drove that Saturday morning about 30 miles to his home and asked God to help me to know what to say to him, and I talked to him generally, and finally he said, Johnny, you know, you're not going to get well.
I had preached to that man many, many times. I said, you're not going to get better. The doctor said you've only got a few weeks to live, and he sat right upright in the bed and he said, it's not that bad, is it?
Yes, I said, Johnny, and you're not ready to meet God. He began to weep, and I had the joy of telling that dear man how he could be sure of heaven, and I got a phone call about three days after from his wife to tell me that he had got saved and he lived about three weeks to prove it.
He told everyone that he was going to heaven, but what a cost. God brought him right to the very door of death to awaken him. Sometimes God speaks that way through sickness. Sometimes we read it's a messenger, maybe a word of testimony, maybe a gospel paper, maybe some circumstance that comes your way, and God uses that.
Why does he do it? We read to deliver him from going down to the pit. You see, friend, God wants you to be in heaven. God doesn't want you to perish. He doesn't want you to be in that awful place of torment where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.
The wrath unmitigable forever. God doesn't want you to be there. He looketh upon men, and not only does God speak in this chapter, but here's something the sinner says, I have sinned. Have you ever discovered that as you've been reminded that you're a sinner?
Nothing but a sinner. The late Frank Piercy, one of our preachers who was saved off the streets of Toronto years ago, he got up into his little rooming house and got down on his knees before his bed, and he said, Oh God, I'm nothing but a sinner, every inch of me.
I tell you, it wasn't long until God saved him. Have you ever discovered that you're just a sinner from the sole of the foot to the crown of your head? No soundness. Nothing to please God. A poor, guilty, lost, hell-deserving sinner.
I look back tonight, 73 years have come and gone. I was a boy, twelve and a half, now you know how old I am. One Monday morning, burdened about my sin, I listened to a little Scotch preacher for six weeks.
He preached from Isaiah's prophecy every night. I don't remember one of his messages, but every night he gave out that lovely hymn, Out of the ivory palaces, into this world of woe, Only his great eternal love made my Saviour go.
And the last night of those meetings came, and I thought, I'll never be saved. I've missed it. And one of my friends in school talked me into going in to speak to the preacher. My dad was a preacher, but I never spoke to him very seriously about salvation.
And we sat down on the little chairs in a Sunday school class, and he opened his big Bible, and he read verses that I knew so well. And then after a while, he said, we'll pray. And like a wise man, he let me go.
I don't think much of anyone that will spend hours trying to talk to someone about salvation. God will save the sinner when they're ready. We'll always help someone that's interested, someone that has questions.
But to reason and say, this and this makes this, that's how to get empty profession, you've been reminded of that. Salvation is God's work. And I walked that half mile home, and as I got there, a car pulled up beside me, and here it was, Mr. Craig, the preacher.
He had thought of an illustration to tell me. We sat down on the running board. Some of you don't know what a running board is. It used to be a step on a car to get up into it. And he told me about a man in the days of sailing vessels who was bent on suicide, and he jumped over the railing, and one of his shipmates lifted a life ring with a coil of rope on it, and he threw it out over the waters, and the sailors all cheered as it fell over his uplifted arms.
And then, to their horror, they watched as he took that life ring and he threw it as far as possible. You see, he didn't want to be rescued. He was bent on suicide, but that didn't help me. And I spent another sleepless night, and in the morning, my mother came into the room, and she said, Eric, are you saved?
No, Mother, I said, but I would love to be. And there was a little Bible there on the dresser, and she opened it to Isaiah 53 and verse 5. She said, just read this verse and put your name in it, and she left the room.
And I read, but he was wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised for my iniquities. The chastisement of my peace was upon him. And I didn't finish the verse. It just dawned on me. That's why Jesus died for me.
I tell you, there was joy in my heart that morning. So many years have come and gone, but I want to tell you tonight, the God that is able to save, he is able to keep. We came home just before the war started, before Hitler invaded Poland, and at 18 years of age, Uncle Sam said, I want you.
There was no college. There was no future for young men at that day at 18 years of age. You were in the forces if you were warm, unless you wanted to go to prison. And that didn't appeal to me. And so I spent 26 months in the U .S. Navy in World War II.
But what I want to tell you is this tonight. I watched young men fall morally many weekends when our ship was in port, and I was so thankful that I knew the Savior. For the God that is able to save, he is able to keep.
He is able to keep. That's the Savior that you need tonight. He says, if any say, I have sinned, he will deliver his soul from going down to the pit. And God speaks, and he may be speaking to someone in the meeting tonight.
But we read in Genesis chapter 6, the interest of the Holy Spirit in your salvation. God's word says, my spirit shall not always strive with man. You see, in Noah's day, the world was so corrupt. Every imagination of the heart of man, God says, was only evil continually.
Nothing else. What ascended to the nostrils of God was obnoxious. And God told Noah, I'm going to destroy man from off the face of the earth. And you know, he told him to build that ark. And God said, my spirit shall not always strive.
You know, I was glad when I was a boy, when I heard the gospel like this. And I recognized there was tugging at my heart string. I recognize that's the Spirit of God speaking to me. I believe he's speaking to someone in the meeting tonight.
You see, the Spirit of God strives to make you think about eternal things. But I want to tell you of the interest of the Savior before I finish. Not only does God speak and the Spirit strive, but we read that Christ suffered.
What a wondrous note that is for the sinner. Here I am, guilty, undeserving, bound for eternity. But Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. Christ also hath once suffered for sin. The just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.
If you would take that in tonight, that upon the cross, when that lovely man was nailed by hands and feet, crowned with a crown of thorns, bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood.
If you would believe that tonight, you could have this great salvation. Christ suffered. Listen to those golden words of John chapter 3, verse 16. For God's soul of the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, will never be in hell, but have everlasting life.
One illustration and I'm finished. There was an Indian prince that God had been dealing with, and he sent away to Johannesburg to a jeweler for a gem for his turban, a vast sum of money. And that jeweler had a copy of the Bible, but he didn't know what it was.
He was tearing out the pages and wrapping up these gems that he sent all over the world. And the Indian prince received that package, and he held that gem in his hand, and he admired its beauty. And then his eye fell on a tissue from John chapter 3, a page from the Bible.
And verse 16, and he read these words. For God's soul of the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And as that Indian prince read those words, God saved him.
And he sat down and he wrote a note to the jeweler. It went something like this. Dear sir, the gem was beautiful, but the tissue was priceless. God blessed his word to the salvation of that dear man. And friend, if you would take in that simple truth tonight, that Christ has suffered, He paid the debt of sin.
Ne 'er again shall God Jehovah smite the shepherd with a sword. Ne 'er again shall cruel sinners set at naught our glorious Lord. If you would trust Him tonight, and say in the language of that little children's hymn, Jesus, I will trust Thee.
Trust Thee with my soul. Guilty, lost, helpless, Thou canst make me whole. There is none in heaven or on earth like Thee. Thou hast died for sinners, therefore, Lord, for me. The Lord help you to trust Him tonight, and your soul will be saved for the great eternity.
We'll speak to the Lord in prayer, and maybe someone has a verse or two of a hymn that we can sing. Our Father, we thank Thee for the kind attention given to the preaching of Thy word, and for the Savior who came, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
We thank Thee for all in the gathering tonight who have understood why the Savior died Our heart goes out to those who are not saved. O God, make them understand it. Help them to take it in, what it meant to Thee, the Holy One, to bear away their sin.
We ask Thy parting blessing in the precious name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.