Sunday Night Meditations 07 Message and Song - 1950's — Welcome Detweiler

Greetings, radio friends. For nearly 20 centuries, God's messengers have been spreading the good news of the gospel, and during that time many weary, sin-sick souls received Christ as Lord and Savior and have become the possessors of eternal life.

Many others have heard the same life-giving message and have turned down God's offer of salvation. If you are in this latter class, we ask you to listen carefully as we seek to bring the claims of Christ to your attention.

This is Welcome Lettweiler speaking. In this scripture reading, I am reading a few verses from that well-known fourteenth chapter of John's gospel. Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.

These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. We thank thee for the wonderful salvation thou hast provided in thy blessed Son.

We thank thee that through him thou hast blotted out all of our past. We thank thee thou hast made the present secure. And we thank thee too for the bright prospect that is before us, that one of these days we'll be in thy presence and enjoy thy presence for all eternity.

Bless us as we seek to make Christ known. Bless us as we tell the wonders of his grace, we ask in Jesus' name. When the old account was settled long ago, Count was large and growing every day, For I was always sinning and never tried to pay.

But when I looked ahead and saw such pain and woe, I said that I would settle, As the old account was settled long ago. Hallelujah! And the record's clear today, For he washed my sins away, When the old account was settled long ago.

You will enter in, for then if you should live, You'll not regret it, you settled long ago. And the record's clear today, For he washed my sins away, When the old account was settled. He saw nothing to pay, never a word of excuse to say.

Year after year thou hast filled the score, Owing thy Lord still more and more. Hear the voice of Jesus say, Verily thou hast nothing to pay,. Ruined, lost art thou, and yet I forgave thee. Nothing to pay, the debt is so great,.

What will you do with the awful weight? How shall the way of escape be made? Nothing to pay, yet it must be paid. Hear the voice of Jesus say, Verily thou hast nothing to pay,. All has been put to my account, I have paid the full amount.

Nothing to pay, yet nothing to pay,. Jesus has cleared all the debt away, Plotted it out with his bleeding hand, Free and forgiven and loved you stand. Hear the voice of Jesus say, Verily thou hast nothing to pay,.

Paid is the debt, and the debtor free, Now I am free, lovest thou me. Now just before I bring to you a message from God's precious word, here is Margaret Greenhill singing Take Time to Pray. I heard the story of a traveling man who kept his eyes open for anything unusual in the cities that he visited.

During a tour of a certain town he was attracted by a somewhat remarkable spire over a public building. About two-thirds the way up he noticed that the figure of a stone lamb had been inserted. Then from its back the spire continued its course.

Stopping a passerby, the traveler said, Excuse me, friend, but I am a stranger here, and wonder whether you could tell me if there is a story behind that peculiar spire. The accosted man replied, Yes, the spire has a story.

I live around here and saw the building go up. When the masons reached the part indicated by the stone lamb, one of the men lost his balance and fell over the scaffolding. As you can see, it's a good way up.

The interested traveler asked eagerly, Was he killed? No, said the local man. That's the miracle. When the workfellows hurried down expecting to find his mangled body on the pavement, there he was, badly shaken and bruised, but with hardly a bone broken.

And the reason of his miraculous escape from death was due to a lamb. Several lambs were on their way to the slaughter as the mason fell. He lighted on the back of one of the lambs. The lamb was killed, of course, but saved the man's life.

The builder was so impressed with the incident that he had the stone lamb placed where you see it as a lasting tribute to a lamb dying to save a stone mason from a terrible death. It sounds almost like a parable, for in the Bible we are told of a lamb who died in our room instead.

Among the many titles that are given to the Lord Jesus in the scriptures, he is called the Lamb of God. Our sins should have crushed him, for we deserved eternal death. But the load fell on God's lamb.

He was crushed so that we might be saved. John said, Behold the Lamb of God, who beareth away the sin of the world. Are you among the number who owe their deliverance from the guilt and government of sin to a lamb?

If you are, then you will never tire of singing the praises of that lamb, for his willingness to carry your curse and die your death. The lamb that was the instrument of sparing the stone mason's life was an unconscious victim, having no forethought, it did not know what a terrible death awaited it, and having no willpower, it could not have refused to die for the man.

How different was the sacrifice of Christ, God's Lamb, on our behalf! He knew he was to die as the sinless substitute for sinners. He was born to die for our sins. His death was a voluntary one, for his life was not taken from him, it was given.

Did he not say, I have power to lay down my life, I have power to take it again? Dying as the Lamb, God's innocent, unblemished lamb, the taunt was flung to him. He saved others. Himself he cannot save.

But his enemies erred when they affirmed his inability to save himself. Had he wished, he could have made his blood-stained cross a throne, and meted out judgment upon his enemies. He could have come down from the cross, but he stayed thereon that power to save might be for others.

He knew that it was the only one, the bleeding Lamb, who could give his life and offer salvation to the guilty sinners. Of all the amazing things that we find in the word of God, the most astonishing is Christ's love for lost and guilty sinners.

It cannot be explained so that the human heart can understand why the sinless Son of God chose to die as a substitute for unworthy sinners of Adam's family is a great mystery. In Romans 5 I read, For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet for adventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

But God commends his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We hear of it occasionally when a mother will die for an effort to reach or rescue one of her children. We even hear of a man dying for a good friend occasionally.

But never do you hear of one who will die for his enemies. Only the love of God will extend that far. Although this great truth is very clear and plain in the Bible, I fear that there are many people who do not realize the value of Christ's appalling sacrifice.

Do you know this, my radio listener, that not one of us could ever have entered heaven if Christ had not died for our sins. Our tears of repentance, our prayers for forgiveness, are not enough to cleanse us from our sins.

Our baptism, our good resolutions, our good deeds apart from the death of Christ would leave us outside that celestial city. Our religious activity, our teaching, our preaching, our giving to the Lord would all be in vain, for salvation is found in one person, God's beloved Son and his substitutionary death and resurrection, and that's the only passport that we have, and God wants us to accept it.

Those of us who have been saved by his grace have a desire to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, just as the builder of the old steeple lifted up a stone lamb that all might see it. So, born-again Christians love to speak well of our great Savior, and it's our greatest desire that he might have the privilege of saving all who are yet unsaved.

I trust that you will take seriously the wonderful invitation that God is extending to you, announcing to you that a lamb has died in your stead to deliver you from the penalty of your sins. Now God asks you to do one thing, one very important thing.

He asks you to open your heart's door and receive that Savior as your very own, for if an offer is made to you, you will only enter into the good of it when you receive it. God provided the salvation for you, he offers it to you, and many are passing by that opportunity and are not receiving the Savior that God is offering.

I trust you'll never be guilty of that, but rather in this hour when God has spoken to you, you will say, I have missed something very important. I am a sinner, I am lost, and if God has provided salvation for me, at least I should put out my hand and take it.

Is he offering it to me on a basis of free salvation? Yes, he is. And he asks you in simple faith, even though you are unworthy, simply to put out your empty hand of faith and receive Jesus Christ who loved you and died for you.

It's almost unbelievable that God would pardon you and forgive you and give you eternal life by so doing, but the word of God says, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.

I ask you in this hour to do the one important thing, receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you will be eternally blessed.