Communion: He Comes to Fill Us With His Love and Make Us Like Himself — Hans R. Waldvogel

Old he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him. I thought tonight, isn't it wonderful that you don't have to crucify the Son of God. The Bible talks about those who crucify him by sinning willfully after they have received the gospel.

The Judgment and Hope of Christ’s Appearing

And no man can come by the cross of Christ, either you accept the blessing of it and are crucified with him or you crucify him again. Strange. But here it says he comes with clouds and every eye shall see him.

I love to think of that moment, when in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye, he's going to do something for me, thank God. Oh, I want to be there. I want to be there. I heard a little girl the other day, she was sitting on a couch, her legs were far too short to reach to the floor, and she was singing and beating with her feet.

I want to be there when the moon is turned to blood. I want to be there when the moon is turned to blood. But I want to be there when every eye shall see him, and when all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.

You know, the other night I went by a Pentecostal mission and some bad boys were running by the mission and just not cursing but blaspheming and yelling, hallelujah, they're going to wail because of him.

They shall wail, all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, because every eye shall see him when he comes in the clouds of heaven. But oh, our hope is different. When he abhadzara, ghumbilidzabal, ojobo, when he cometh, we shall be changed.

We shall be changed in one moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and changed into the same likeness of the Son of God. But beloved, if it happens in a moment, it's because tonight something's happening to you.

That's why. Because tonight, while the windows of heaven are open, your heart is open. Because tonight, while Jesus Christ is almost visibly walking through the aisles, and we all feel the touch of his almighty hand, we can't escape it.

You'd have to have a skin like an elephant. Well, some of you do, worse than that. Not to be conscious of that secret, powerful presence of the Son of God. Beloved, he didn't put that in the Bible for nothing, that every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and they shall wail because of him, all the tribes of the earth.

The Reality of God’s Presence

And when tonight, I saw in one of the magazines Time, I'm going to cancel my subscription because of the stuff that appears in it. But there was an article by all kinds of preachers that gave an answer to the question, is God dead?

And they gave their impression and their ideas of who God is and what he looks like and how he talks, and where you can find him or whether he exists anywhere, and so on and so on and so on. And tonight we're enjoying not only God the Father but the Son and the Holy Ghost.

And tonight God is among us working wonders, thank God. And here before he appears like this, he tells us something else. Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loves us.

Christ’s Love Revealed in Communion

We heard about that a while ago. And he says, this too, as oft as he eat it and as oft as he drink it, in remembrance of me. When a man makes love to a woman and proposes to her, he gives her, if he really loves her, an engagement ring.

I have sometimes been embarrassed, not here but elsewhere, when people found out that I was a jeweler and the girls come to me to say, is this a real diamond? Well, that makes a lot of difference because the value of that diamond proves his love.

And sometime ago it was in another land, I saw a woman, she came to a meeting and she always sported a big, great big diamond. It shone like the sun in the sky. And I was interested. Very seldom have I seen such a large, such a huge diamond.

And I said to the missionary in charge, is that a real diamond? She says, I don't know. I haven't got the nerve to ask. So one day when this woman was praying, I stooped over, I took off my glasses. I quickly withdrew.

It was just pump bottle glass. But it shone like the religions of people shine today. But beloved, here is the great, bright groom of your soul. And do you think he knows whether you love him or whether you don't?

Do you think he cares whether you love him or whether you don't? Just before coming to meeting, I opened my Bible and my eyes fell on that terrible verse, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed.

He'll naturally be cursed because only that great love of Almighty God that spared not his son, but delivered him up for us all, made it possible for us poor sinners to be delivered from our damnable sin.

That curse that was upon us, the wrath of God that would have been upon us forever and forever. Oh God Almighty loved us so greatly that He wouldn't allow us to remain lost. And in order to save me beloved, thank God He had to do something.

That mighty love of my God is spoken of here unto Him that loved us. Now you can tell me all about the greatness of Jesus. I love to hear about atomic science and I love to hear about the constellations and how many there are and how great that universe is.

And I love that song, How Great Thou Art, but here's a song I love much better. This song unto Him that loved me and gave Himself for me and cleansed me from all unrighteousness and made me a king and a priest unto God and my Father.

The Love That Cleanses and Transforms

That's radical. I not only prove that He loves me, but it's the very essence of love. And tonight Jesus Christ cares whether you love Him or not and if you don't, He wants to pour His love into your heart.

He wants to set your heart on fire with His love. And in order to do that, thank God He's not only given us the Bible and the gospel, but He opened the windows of heaven. And tonight He's pouring out the power of the Holy Ghost.

And if you open up just a little bit, it's bound to get inside of you. It's pragic, it's bound to touch your heart. Here is the last book of the Bible and it tells us the greatest thing that anybody can know about God.

God so loved me. If I told you that I love you, it wouldn't mean anything to you. But God loved me and how greatly did He love me? He tells me that He washed me from my sins and He had to shed His own precious blood to cleanse me and to wash me.

And now because that great cleansing has been accomplished and that great blood of the everlasting covenant has been shed, God commands all men everywhere to give up their rebellion against Him, their enmity against God, to give up their sin.

He commands all men everywhere to repent. He says, you have no more right to sin. You don't have to sin anymore. Sin shall not have dominion over you. If you'll come to Jesus Christ and allow Him to enter into your heart and to be on the throne of your heart, and if you do, He will raise the priest and He will subdue all things unto Himself.

What a salvation. But tell me, what a Savior who so loved me. And if you want to know how greatly Jesus Christ loves you, you've got to go to Calvary. Astronomy won't tell you. Biology won't tell you.

Phrenology won't tell you. Psychology won't tell you. You've got to go to Calvary. The word of the cross, which is the wisdom of God and the power of God, whereby we are saved and delivered from our sins.

Glory to God. And all the chains of sin and of flesh are burst and we are free. Unto Him that loved us. How greatly did you love me? There was an evangelist who said, if God sent the archangel Gabriel down from heaven into this meeting to tell us how greatly God loves us, he couldn't tell it any better than John 3 16.

For God so loved the world. And God so loved you, that whosoever, that means you, listen, whether you care or whether you don't, He who made you, He against whom you have sinned, whose name you have shamed by your sin.

He so loved you. He had to suffer these things. He had to be smitten. He had to go to the cross. He had to be in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself because he couldn't help himself. His love for me and for you is so great that it drove him to Calvary's cross in order to make a way out of darkness into light, out of your shameful failure and loss out of your defiled condition.

Sin, Repentance, and the Call to Righteousness

I saw that sign downstairs, uh, uh, rebellious teenagers. I said, put that aside. The more fuss you make about the teenagers, the more you feed the cancer. Let them know that we expect them to be decent people and live honestly and not like a lot of missing links.

But men and women, it isn't the teenagers, it's the grown people, this adulterous and wicked generation that puts aside this Bible, threads underfoot the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified and counted an unholy thing and crucify the son of God.

Beloved, why do people do that? Isn't Jesus beautiful? Tell me, isn't Jesus Christ wonderful? Isn't he holy? Give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. There's no spot in him. A young man that went through life, not only blamelessly, but full of love and full of God.

Thank God. And now he makes it possible for you and for me to be as holy as he is. That's what it means. That's how he loved us. And he washed us from our sins in his own blood. He took that blood of almighty God to wash me from my sins.

I couldn't wash myself. Dein Weinen und deine Gebete sind es nicht, womit du mit Gott wirst versöhnen. Dein Jesus, der trat für dich in den Riss. Er ist der mit Gnade dich krönt. It wasn't your prayers, nor your weeping, nor your religious grunts that deliver you from your sin, but an about face.

Repent! Do you love your sin? Do you love yourself? Do you realize that all your goodness is rot and rags in the sight of God? Has the Holy Ghost through his blessed Bible been able to desert the thoughts and the intents of your heart and make you hungering and thirsting for righteousness?

Then he'll point to the cross and show you how greatly he loved you. Loved you! And gave his only begotten Son, and Jesus gave his life. I used to use an old German song, and recently I came to the source of it.

Calvary and the Depth of Human Guilt

You've heard me tell it, but it's a wonderful illustration. It's a legend of a young man who fell in love with a young woman. She was a picture. She was pretty, but she was as rotten inside as she was pretty on the outside.

How stupid can boys be? How stupid can girls be? And then they bawled for the rest of their lives. And this girl said she was jealous of him because he loved his mother. She said, I'll give you my hand if you'll give me your mother's heart in place of it.

And the foolish boy went and killed his mother, pulled that bleeding heart out of her body. And he ran through the forest to this wicked girl to bring her this sacrifice. This heart was bleeding, and the forest was dark, and he stumbled over a log on the ground, and that heart fell from his hand, and he fell.

And that mother's heart began to talk. We have a German song that says, I'm Mutterherz, nur wehres kenn. I always tell the girls when they say, somebody proposed to me, find out how he treats his mother.

That's the way he'll treat you after a while. And this mother's heart began to talk. Just think he murdered her. And what would mother's heart say? Wouldn't she curse him? No. This bleeding heart said, son, did you hurt yourself?

And you know, that takes me to Calvary, where I caused and occasioned the death of the Son of God. I did. You can't blame the Jews nor the Romans. Ich bin zur meine Sünden. I did it. You did it. It was because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and there's not a human being on earth that is not under this condemnation.

That the whole world might become guilty before the Son of God. That they might be before God. Guilty of what? Not of their wickednesses only, but of having caused the crucifixion of the Son of God. And thank God, God took that wickedness of humanity and turned it into salvation by taking the blow, by bearing the penalty himself and bearing away my sin.

What are you going to do with it? That will determine your eternal damnation or your eternal salvation. What you're doing with this one, but oh, if I could show you the beauty of the Son of God. Oh, if I could show you that marvelous man that never sinned and on the cross, when he was spat upon and when he was filled with shame, he was more beautiful than all these fat bellied priests and theologians that stuck their tongue out at him and said, come down from the cross and we'll believe you.

He was real beauty. He was real righteousness. Thank God. And because thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. That's it. Beloved, it isn't joining a church, but it's loving righteousness and blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, they shall be filled with his righteousness.

Therefore, God, even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And so here, all the saints, they say unto him that loved us. And this is the beginning of revelation. That's the revelation.

Cleansing, Holiness, and Readiness for Christ’s Return

The world must first find a people that have been so loved and received the love of God so that they have been cleansed from their sin. Thank God. And from the cross, he says, come now, let us reason together.

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Sonny, did you hurt yourself? This wonderful blood that was shed for you is powerful to cleanse the blackest heart. The blackest sinner.

Thank God. And that's what's going to happen before he comes in clouds and in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I marvel at people in this church who say they don't like this strong preaching.

What in the world do you like? Tell me, what do you like? What is this strong preaching? Why? It's the evangelist coming to the beggar on the dung hill and say, come on, you fool. Come, you fool. Those worms that you've been eating, they're going to poison you and you're going to die of, of atomic, of poisoning.

Come on, get off of that. Your God, he has built the palace for you. He's got a crown of glory for you. He's going to make a king out of you and make you reign over a realm. Come on. And he said, I don't like that strong preaching.

You'll get out of here. I'll go to the next dung hill where they don't talk like that. They'll pour a little rose water on the dung hill to make them make it smell a little bit better. Go ahead. Ah, but unto him that loved us.

Christ at the Door and the Church as a Kingdom of Priests

Oh, I must listen to the son of God. He says, because you say you're rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, you'll never be rich until you let me come in. And if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in.

Here's the lover of my soul. And here it says something else. He has made us a kingdom of priests unto God and his father. That's the church of Jesus Christ. And if you want to know what church to join, join a church where they pray in the Holy Ghost, a kingdom of priests.

They know that he died for them, that they might no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again. And the spirit of God will possess them, come upon them and make them pray like Elijah prayed until the fire falls and souls are saved and the sick are healed and the kingdom of the devil is destroyed and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ comes with power.

Abiding in Christ Through the Lord’s Table

That's what Jesus wants, not only to save you from hell, but as we heard a while ago, to make you partaker of himself, the great high priest. I am the true vine and my father's the husbandman and every branch in me and without me, you can't do nothing.

And so tonight, let us come to the table of the Lord Jesus Christ. And let us remember that he himself will minister to us. And he says, now do this in remembrance of me. And.