Ford at Southside-st.louis 01 Matt 27 — Stan Ford

If you find yourself unable to hear, just raise your voice or your hand, and I think we can make ourselves heard without this, whatever it is. It's nice to see you tonight. I want to read, if I may, I suppose the most familiar words from the Gospel of Matthew.

If you have a Bible and care to turn with me, but it is not my custom to ask men and women to turn with me, I know that there are many folk who would much rather that the Scripture was read to them, but evening by evening I will be telling you from the portion of the Word of God that I will be reading, and if you wish to turn you can, if you would rather listen, you are at liberty so to do.

Jesus Before Pilate in Matthew 27

I am reading this evening from the 27th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had found him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor.

And Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused of the chief priests and the elders, he answered nothing.

Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? And he answered him to never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled greatly. Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner whom they would.

And they had then a notable prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Who will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas, or Jesus, who is called the Christ?

Verse 22,. Then Pilate said unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, called Christ? And they all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

And when Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water and washed his hands, before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it.

Then answered all the people and said, His blood be on us on our killing. Now may the Lord just add his blessing to the reading of his own precious word. I presume that most of you have already this evening gathered that which is on my heart.

For tonight and in the coming nights, if the Lord will, I want to suggest that the most important thing for any one of us to do is to face the claims of Jesus Christ. Face them earnestly, and face them thoughtfully.

And I suggest to you that if I can get you to do that, then I am persuaded that there's not a fellow or a girl, there's not a man or a woman who will have to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the most unique person they've ever thought of.

Or a God or a man or a woman, if I can get you to think with me a pinch, but will acknowledge that his claims are the most tremendous, that there's no end to them. And I would, ere we come to the close of the gatherings, that every fellow and girl and man and woman here would also acknowledge that that Christ has a claim on their life.

And in responding to that claim, they will find, like to use the words of my friend Lindsay Blake, life with a capital L. And if you will please, you with a capital 1. The text tonight, so simple, and yet so profound.

Sir, madam, you young man, what I do then with Jesus, if you call the crowd with what you're going to do with me, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Long ago I asked why what men think of me or even think of my preaching.

I'm concerned tonight as to what you think of Jesus Christ. For if you are wrong in your attitude to him, then life and eternity will be lived. You will rue your thoughts concerning the faith. I suggest to you that there are two great truths in the text that we have quoted.

We have talked before, first of all, the greatest person in the universe. It's not that true. What shall I do then with Jesus? All you say for just a moment, Mr. Preacher. It's all very well for you to talk like that.

You tell me that Jesus is the greatest person in the universe. Why, there have been many great men. No confusion. The followers of Buddha would claim for him that he was the greatest person that ever lived.

If you go over into the lands that bow before his land, then they will tell you of a Mohammed who can claim almost as many followers of Jesus. The greatest person in the universe. Yes, the greatest person in the universe.

And, sir, you will soon find out that I don't stand in front of a congregation like this and make statements when I'm thinking about them. I spend too much of the months of the year before a crowd of undergraduates from the University of Cambridge to dare stand in front of anyone and make a statement unless I think it through.

Because I have too many people who come to me afterwards and say, for just a moment, and if I say that Jesus Christ is the greatest person in the universe, I don't ask you to accept that, but I want you to understand that I believe it.

And I believe I can prove it as well. And then I won't suggest to you that the second great truth in our text is not only that it brings before the greatest person in the universe, but it brings before the greatest problem in the universe.

What shall I do then with Jesus, who is called the Christ? For what I do with Christ affects every moment of my life. What I do with Christ affects my attitude in a service like this, my behavior in front of others.

What I do with Jesus Christ affects my work at school and at college. For suddenly I begin to realize that life has a purpose in it, or I dare believe that life has no purpose in it. What I do with Jesus Christ will affect indeed my relationship with my husband or my wife, with my children and my friends.

What I do with Jesus Christ will affect my eternal destiny. And I think that's important in any man's reckoning. So shall I say again, the greatest person in the universe. What shall I do then with Jesus?

He is the greatest problem in the universe. What shall I do? Firstly then, now you young folk on the side, if you don't want to listen, please leave. You can compile ideas, come to a service, you've got a crowd of dignity, speak of the Lord Jesus from the Calvary.

I would expect, as I always get in an American audience, expect some things I believe. It would be nice when you young folk get converted. I don't love starting the service, you shall understand, telling young folk off.

Jesus as the Greatest Person in the Universe

I said that first we have the greatest person. Then of course we have the greatest problem. What's the greatest person, Jesus? I would suggest to you there are three reasons that I believe that Jesus Christ is the greatest person in the universe.

I believe he's the greatest person in the universe, first of all, because he is the only one who has ever revealed God. He is the only one who has ever revealed my older friend. Tommy, is it not true that many a time you have sat in your chair, if you were in my country I would say by the fire side, but here by the central heating anyway.

You've sat down and you've said to yourself, oh, you know God. And so many people speak of our eternal being. I hear so many statements for and against. Is there a God? Is it possible for me to know that God?

Well, I'm going to dare say that Jesus is the greatest person in the universe, because he is the only one that has ever revealed God. If you want to know God, then you can come to know him. The pastor himself looked into the face of one of his disciples and said, He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.

The second thing I want to say, that Jesus Christ is the only one that has ever lived, who not only reveals God, but the only one who ever lived has redeemed for God. Oh, is it not a fact that every one of us in this parish, when we examine our own hearts and our own lives, we know that we have not even reached the standard we've set for ourselves, let alone the standard God has set for us.

And yet there is one, blessed be God, who has come from heaven to reveal God. Blessed be his name, he came from heaven to redeem for God. The blessing of the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin not in part, but the whole.

And I'll bear it no more. It is well. He not only redeems for God, as he reveals God, but all of it. He is the only person, and I challenge any man or woman in this service, to tell me anyone else who's living, who has lived, of whom these three things could be said.

He is the only one who reveals God, the only one who redeems, and he's the only one who reconciles to God. For redemption and reconciliation is surely seen as we catch in Jesus Christ a revelation of God.

The Revelation of God in Christ's Birth and Life

First, he's the only one who reveals God. I don't doubt that any person who has any thought in them at all would agree when I suggest that when we think of the birth of the Lord Jesus, we know that the Bible tells us that here we have a revelation of God.

I was saying just the other evening, I would repeat myself if you will permit me. I was saying just the other evening that in imagination many a time I wended my way to a stable on that dark Galilean night.

And there upon entering the stable I gazed down into the face of a babe in a manger. I dared to say this, Emmanuel, for though there may be darkness in that stable, babe is the light of the world. Though there may be no food in that stable, that babe is the bread of heaven.

Though there may be no nurse or midwife in that stable, that babe is the great physician. I have said, I suppose, literally hundreds of times as I addressed young men who were preparing in some manger for the work of God, I have said, young men remember this, when you gaze at that babe, you do not gaze at the Son of God, you gaze at God.

For my Bible says that the Father prepared that body, a body was found prepared. My Bible says God the Spirit produced that body, for He conceived of the Holy Ghost. But my Bible says that God the Son possessed that body.

God was prepared of the Father and produced of the Spirit and possessed of the Son. It's a body that tells me that God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Emmanuel, is with us. Find the name, the message of Christ.

The more we have Jesus Christ's came into the world to reveal God. I dare suggest to you that we have a revelation of God in the birth of the Lord Jesus, and there's no one else in His birth who has revealed God like this, that we have a revelation of God in the life of the Lord Jesus.

I know nothing of your background. I know nothing of your thinking. I have the privilege of sitting down really with any one of you and discussing the things that really matter. I only know this, sir.

There's a chance there's a man or woman here tonight who has rejected Jesus Christ, and are facing the greatest problem anyone can face. If Jesus was not what He claimed to be, who was He? Jesus was not who He claimed to be.

Who was He? He was the illegitimate son of a peasant. Is that so wrong? If He wasn't what He claimed to be, He was the illegitimate son of a peasant who never went to school, who only once in his life ever crossed the boundary of a little country that has become almost the smallest country in the world.

Look what He's done. He's transformed the history of this world. He has, 2 ,000 years after His birth and death, who would be prepared to lay down their lives. There are men and women today beyond the Iron Curtain who are being cast into prison.

I'm a big man star enjoying time. They're doing it for one who was the illegitimate son of a peasant. When He died, that was the end of Him. Bring it to a face that's based upon an absolute lie. That He never rose from the dead.

That it's not true. And the people who said He rose from the dead knew it wasn't true. They knew it wasn't true. They stood up and said, we fought Him. We handled Him. We explained Him. And they do it with a pack of lies.

And the searchlight of any man's intelligence. When I say to you that Jesus Christ revealed God, I suggest to you it is the only way you can account for Him. That He went about. Dyes Jesus made to see.

Dumplets made to talk. We're living in a day when people laugh at the miracles. Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed that those Jews that hated Him and would have done Him to death, they never once came out and said all that He'd done was wrong.

The priest who said, He said He raised the dead. He never did. Because Lazarus was there as evidence of the fact that He had. There wasn't one of those Jews who said, He said He made lepers to behold.

He never did. Because there were lepers all around that were living evidence that they'd been done. All the denials of the miracles came about 500 years after the church came into being, if you know anything of the edifice.

He didn't deny those things. I dare say this to you, Savior. You can only account for Him. That He was God. His life tells it that you need something more than that. Can I ask you to imagine that instead of the carton being at the back there, it was way in the front here of the platform.

The Cross as the Full Revelation of God

And instead of the grand piano being there, it was on the... And instead of my being here to speak to you, we had here the world's greatest pianist. I don't know who that is. Who's that, mister? No, I don't know.

We'll say Paderewski. He's been dead a long while, so you can't argue with that. But anyway, all this to say to us that the world's greatest pianist was going to perform on the piano. Do you know something?

There wouldn't be any vacancy. What can I say to you, ladies and gentlemen? And instead of sitting down at the grand piano, the great pianist sat down at the little one-octave toy piano. What? If the world's greatest pianist could pour out his soul in his music, he'd need more than the one octave of a child's piano, wouldn't he?

Nothing wrong with his music. Nothing wrong with his ability to play. Something wrong with the instrument. He'd need the full keyboard of a grand piano that he might run his fingers over there and tell you in his music what his heart felt.

Sir, I thank God for the one octave of the birth of Jesus Christ. He revealed God. Emmanuel! But it needs more than the one octave of his birth or the two octaves of his birth and his life to reveal God.

It needs the full keyboard of his life and his death. And in the 8th chapter of John, some of those disciples occurred his claims that he claimed to be God. And they turned to him and they said, But is this true?

Tell me now. And this is what Peasel said in the 8th of John, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am he. Do you want to see God? Do you want a revelation of God from a cross?

See God put nails on his hands and feet, and a crown of thorns on his brow. And you'll see God as he reveals his love for a poor lost world. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He reveals the righteousness of God.

As there he reveals to us that the wages of sin he was in have gone. One place you have come to know me. I feel this is most important. Permit me to bear just a little word. You will find I don't speak of myself.

This is the only thing I'll say during the next few days. I wasn't brought up in a Christian church. I preached among folk who say their prayers and read their Bible. I didn't go to church or chapel or Sunday school.

A Personal Encounter with the Gospel

I heard the gospel and I didn't hear it in a place like this. I heard the gospel in my life, I heard it in a pub. I was leaning against a bar with a pint of beer in my arm, in my hand. And suddenly the door opened.

A little girl, a post boy, a bundle of water. She said, some of you girls. She went from one to another and she said, will you buy a water? Half drunk, I said, I'll buy a water, Missy, if you'll sing us a song.

I don't know what she wanted. She said, I'll be very happy to sing a song. Will you ask the men to be quiet? Oh, I thought and said that was different. You know, I didn't mind the girl singing a hymn, but I didn't want to be the chairman of a religious meeting in a pub where I used to go.

She put me on the spot. She said, will you ask the men to be quiet? And I turned to a crowd of drinking, cursing barons. I said, come on, will you be quiet? The girl was going to sing. And she jumped up on the table in the public bar of the five-way hotel in my hometown.

And she sat on a hill far away stood an old, rugged cross. That was the start in my life. That was the start. Not the realization that Christ was so wonderful, but the realization that that girl thought he was so wonderful.

It's hardly anyone else that can reveal God but Jesus Christ. But he is not only the one that reveals God. He is the one that redeems for God. We sing sometimes to win our redemption. Oh, wonderful story.

Glad message for you and for me. That Jesus has purchased our pardon and paid all the debt on the tree. He redeems for God. Imagine that. He redeems for God. In that reason, again, I must apologize to you.

Christ's Redemption Through Substitutionary Sacrifice

I don't know any Americans. And so my stories are English stories, as you'll understand. We have a story that is associated with the British medicals. Doctors in our country love to tell it. It goes back to the years.

We were in the city of Hull on the northeast coast of England, the world's largest. We lived there by the Anteroads in one of the slum areas of the city. Mother would have three children. And one day, She had to go out to the back to hang some washing out.

And as she was hanging out the washing, her neighbor said, Why don't you take him to the doctor? You're the doctor of a man's fishes. And he doesn't get any money until he comes home and he hasn't been home for weeks.

Take him to Dr. Nelson. He's a Christian doctor. He'll look. And he'll put her arms around a boy of ten. And carry him a mile and a half from the Anteroads across Hull till she came to the surgery of the great Dr. Nelson.

As soon as the doctor looked at the lad, she diagnosed that the boy had diphtheria. He laid it there upon his little table. Went to his drawer and took out his pump and his little rubber tube. Placing his rubber tube at the seat of poison, he began with his little pump to pull away the poison.

When suddenly, the rubber tube broke away from the pump for he'd not use it for a while. And with no thought to himself immediately, the great Dr. Nelson brought his lips to that pump. I can tell you they love to tell that that day, a little slum boy, that day the great Dr. Nelson contracted diphtheria.

Which he died and passed it to the present. Do it! Do it! Why do I want to talk to you about Dr. Nelson? I know someone greater than Dr. Nelson. Biggest physician the world has ever known. Down from heaven he came.

And there to Calvary's cost he went. To the seat of poison. To the seat of the wickedness of the world. And there he took my sin. And my soul he made in his very own. He bore my burden to Calvary. He suffered and died and died.

He did it this way. He bore my sin in his body. Came from the world to translate. I know that. And I know not what you say in or into. He bore my sin in his body. Is it not a fact that there was no one else that ever lived who died on the cross to redeem us to God.

To take the punishment of our sins. Something more. He is not only the only person that reveals God. And the only person who redeems for God. But he's the only person who reconciles to God. He came to know God.

And Jesus came to reveal him. I need to be redeemed for my sin. My sin has been so awful. He died on the cross. You remember the lovely story of your great Bishop MacDowell. I know that American story.

I know that one. The story of your great Bishop MacDowell. When standing before a great company of Episcopalian Methodists. He said, I wouldn't cross the world to take the new code of ethics to Japan.

I'd go around the world a dozen times to tell one poor sinner that there is a fountain filled with blood. Drawn from an anvil. My sin needs to be washed away. And he died to deal with that. But something more of my sin has separated me from God.

And I need to be reconciled to God. God never needs to be reconciled to me. My sin that turned my back on him. He never turned his back on me. I need to be reconciled to God. And the wonder is this. He reveals God.

John 8, Isaiah, John 3, and John 12 at the Cross

John 8. Lifted up the Son of Man. Then shall ye know that I am he. Isaiah. He redeemed for God at the cross. John 3. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

Isaiah. He reconciles to God at the cross. John 12. Stump on the earth. I will draw all men unto thee. This he said. Please don't all stop there. Just an ordinary comment. This he said. Signifying by what death he should die.

Pardon me brethren watchers. You'll pardon me. But if ever I hear a verse misused, it's that one. How many times in a prayer meeting have I heard brethren before the service say, You've said if you're lifted up God will draw all men unto you.

Enable your heart to lift you up. And I bang my head and thank God. Don't ask me to pray it. Crucify Christ again. He said signifying by what death he should die. The cross that's before us there. And sir.

Because Christ died on the cross he will draw every man and woman to him. There will not be a man or a woman here tonight. But will be drawn to him because he died. Now please. Don't go from this place saying I speak universal reconciliation.

Because I didn't. Don't say you will be drawn to him for salvation. I'll say you'll be drawn to him. You'll either be drawn to him to be reconciled. Or one day and acknowledge that because he died he's willing.

The Death of a Child and Reconciliation

Please permit me to tell a story that's an emotional one. Now I confess that to you right from the beginning. It's an emotional story. It's not the sort of story I usually tell. But it's an emotional one.

I confess that to you. I will tell it as callously as I can. But I want to tell it because I think it illustrates what I want to get over. Some years ago my wife and myself were away in Cardiff in South Wales.

We were staying in the missionary home. I was conducting services in Ebenezer Gospel. It is my custom while I'm home always to have children's services at 6 o 'clock on 6 till 7 or so. And then the adult meetings starting at half past 7 and on.

We just got in from the service and I was preparing for bed when suddenly a ring came at the front door. And I went to the door and standing in the doorway there were preachers. Do you know I can see them now signing me up.

I wonder why no one ever takes me for a preacher. But they never do, you know. And they were sort of sizing me up. And he said, I'm sorry there's so many servants. I think I might have come to the wrong place.

I'm looking for someone called Uncle Stan. Well, you're looking at the wrong person. That's not the children for me. Well, you are. We've looked everywhere. But after the children's service and the gospel all that evening, as the youngsters were going out, I suppose because he'd been to a children's service, when he laid in his bed, he kept asking for Uncle Stan.

The police had tried everywhere. They'd gone to where he'd been picked up on the road. They'd made inquiries in the glass. They'd tagged me half past ten at night. I got in the police car and they rushed me off to the hospital.

I walked into the ward, and there I pushed myself behind the curtains. For in our long wars, when someone is seriously ill, they have curtains around them. I pushed myself beyond the curtains, and I went and looked down into the face of the wall.

Now, you big grown men, what do you tell a boy who's dying, and you know he's dying if you don't know Jesus Christ? What do you tell him? What do you tell him? Beyond a pack of lies. Beyond saying you'll get better when you know very well you won't.

What do you tell him? I looked down at the boy, and I put my hand on his shoulder, and with a smile I said, Jimmy, all I know, not the exact words I said, is you will appreciate, for I was there with a loved one, and I just spoke to a boy who, before long, pre-trusted the Saviour.

He was going home to be with the Lord, and there's nothing wrong with a boy going home to be with the Lord. Nothing wrong with the Lord. I stood by his bed. Suddenly, the curtains pushed aside, and his mother came in.

They had fallen in love with a young boy, and after a while, maybe before time, they married. The little boy was born about two years after. And the marriage went apart. Somehow they drifted apart. They never intended to, but they drifted apart.

And eventually they went to a court, and they had a separation order. And the boy was given to live with his mum for six months, and given to live with his dad for six months. And his dad went back to Pondefri, where he was a coal miner, and worked under the ground.

And his mum got herself a job. She got herself a job in St. Mary's Street in Cardiff, working in a little restaurant. And she was working nights. And the boy was left to look after himself, till she came home after ten.

That's how they found me, before they found his mother. She was looking for him when he didn't come home, because he was working. He wants to go. And she said, oh no, we'll stand with you. And after a while, his father came, for she told them where father was.

He'd been working back shift. And he came out of the ground, and still had coal dust on him. And I wants to go, and he said, in his Welsh tarnum, or so. And I saw a little boy, who took his hands from the couch of pain of his bed, and took his mummy's hand, and took his daddy's hand.

And I told them, as he lit from the dead, and looked up at them, Mummy, Daddy, don't go away any more. Five days later, when there was an inquest, I stood by the side of a little grave, in Ealing Cemetery, in Cardiff.

And I said, ashes to ashes. I turned away, and as I turned away, I saw her husband slip her arm, his arm, around his wife's shoulder. I saw him as he helped her up into the car. And I saw him as he followed her.

And I looked at them, and there her head rested on his shoulder. And I said, but it needed the death of their son. Boys and aunts, because if you were with me last Sunday in Cardiff, I would have taken you along to a little assembly that was the resort of one of the tent missions we had in Cardiff, where a place called Glenisham.

And I would have taken you into a little chapel. Well, a chapel this size, I suppose, but a congregation larger than this. And at Sunday school, I would have taken you into a Sunday school. And you'd have said, who's the man who's the superman, who's wearing his shoulder's white, his wife's shoulder,.

And to a primary class with about 60 little tackers, the lady of charge, she said to us, reconcile, for it needed the death of our son. Come with me to the cross. His hands and his feet, and a crown of thorns on his head.

And over the cross, I want to write you letters of praise. He is the only one. Reveal. You, you, you, vanquish. He's the greatest person in the universe. He has the greatest heart. What will you do? What did they do?

This is what we raised. Piper, let me quote it to you. His blood be on us, and on our children. Can I repeat? His blood be on us, and on our children. What are you saying to me? What will you do then with Jesus?

Are you saying his blood be on us, and on our children? I hope you're not an excel. Sir, listen. I hope you are. I hope you are. You see, it's not the words, is it? Is that true? It's not the words, is it?

It's how you say it, isn't it? You see, it's the cry of the condemned. It's the cry of men and women who couldn't care less. What does it matter if I die? His blood be on us, and on our children. We couldn't care less.

It's the cry of the condemned. It isn't. It's not only the cry of the uncreated. That man said he'd die someday. His blood be on us, and on our children. It's our fault that he died. It's my fault that he hung there.

His blood be on us. It's the cry of the convicted. It's the cry of the condemned. It's the cry of the converted. Let me say it as a father. To children. Oh God, his blood be on us, and on our children.

Say it, let me say it as a grandfather. I've got three grandchildren. Listen. His blood be on us, and on our children. For I know of no place where a man can shatter from the rock of God. I know of no place where a man can shatter from the consequences of his sin.

I know of no place where a man or a woman can shatter from the problems of life, but under the blood of Jesus Christ. His blood be on us. The time allocated to me is gone. But the responsibility has just been taken off my shoulders and put on yours.

I thank God that thirty years ago, as a young man of twenty-four, I said, Yes, Jesus.