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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/norman-crawford/revealer-rebel-ransom/
I want to read with you tonight in 1st Timothy chapter 2. 1st Timothy chapter 2 and verse 3. 1st Timothy chapter 2 and verse 3. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who will, that's a powerful will, who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. I have three things I want to try to speak to you about from these verses.
First of all, God is the revealer. I think I'll try to explain that to you so you'll understand what I mean by that. God is the revealer. Man is the rebel and Christ is the ransom. Everything we preach depends on whether the Bible is true.
Now I believe the Bible but I have every reason to believe it. I've been studying this book for well over 60 years and I have more respect for it than I ever had. It is the Word of God. It is the living Word.
It proves itself to be true. We were mentioning at the ministry that today or yesterday that there are something like 362 or 63 Old Testament prophecies, predictions about what would happen. Not something vague but something unique, distinct, and detailed.
And those hundreds of predictions were written as much as a thousand years before the events happened. They all happened just exactly as it was written. I wonder if you'd gone up to those soldiers who were gambling for that garment of the Lord Jesus down at the foot of the cross and you tapped them on the shoulder and you said, do you know that what you're doing here was written a thousand years ago by the King David of Israel?
They would have been shocked. In fact, it was so detailed what David wrote. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. That's exactly what they did. Those four soldiers who crucified Christ, they took his four garments and they passed them among themselves.
I say four. I don't know that there were four but there were at least four because each one of them got one of the garments. But then there was one garment and it was woven from the top throughout and it had no seam.
And they said, let us not rend it but cast lots for it whose it shall be. So they gambled for that garment down at the foot of the cross and David had written a thousand years before. They parted my garment among them and cast lots upon my vesture.
How did David know that? He couldn't have known it unless it's God's Word. So we believe that this is the Word of God. Now that's what I meant when I said God is the revealer. This is his Word. He is revealing his own heart and mind.
Many think that God is unknowable but it's because they don't understand that he has revealed himself. And God has revealed himself in the person of the Lord Jesus. God has made himself known. In fact, this is a great wonder to me.
I know that this is something very difficult for some people to take in. But not only has God made himself known, he has actually shown us what is in his heart. The heart wish of the Almighty. Ever heard of that?
What is the heart wish of the Almighty? What is in the heart of God for you that you might be saved? That is what is in God's heart. God will have all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
In the very heart of God is the longing that you should be saved from the punishment of your sins. That you should be saved from going to hell. That you should be saved so that you can go to heaven. That's the heart wish of the Almighty God.
I'm so thankful that that's the God that we preach about. Now, I think you know this, God is transcendent. What does that mean when we say God is transcendent? It means that he is greater than our highest thought.
We can't measure his greatness. God is infinite. He cannot possibly be measured by human effort. And God is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, our God. And this is the God who in his heart desires that you might be saved.
That's a wonderful fact. God so loved the world 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. But I need to tell you that man is a rebel against God.
Now, sin is a great reality. As by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death is passed upon all for all have sinned. Now, let me be very clear about this. Romans 3 and 23 is a verse that we almost always quote when we preach the gospel.
There is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is no difference. Oh, I know people think there's a difference. They imagine I'm not nearly so bad as that person or the one down the road or the one that's in the prison or in jail or wherever.
There's no difference. The heart is the same. There is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But what has sin done? And this is my message tonight. This is what I've had on my heart.
What has sin done? Sin has created a gulf, a chasm between the sinner and God so great that there is no way that we can bridge it. No way that we can cross it. A distance so vast, so great, that it will separate you from God and heaven forever and ever and ever.
That's what we mean when we say sin shuts people out of heaven because sin has created a chasm, a gulf. The Grand Canyon would be a tiny thing in comparison to the gulf that exists between a sinner and a holy God.
And that great gulf separates you from God. So how can you get to God? How can you be saved? That great chasm, that great gulf must be bridged. And that's what I see in 1st Timothy chapter 2. There is one God and one mediator, one bridge between God and man, himself, Christ Jesus.
One bridge, one bridge. Now I have a very simple story I tell and it helps me to illustrate this fact. Many years ago, Mr. John Kemmerer and I were preaching in northern Ontario. It was an area that has few people and few roads, but there was a river flowing through that part of the country, a very strong river with very great rapids in it.
And the road that crossed that river had a bridge, but to look at the bridge didn't give you very much confidence. It had been there for a lot of years and it didn't look like it was going to stay up very much longer.
But the difficulty was there was a little town north of that bridge called Kynock, and we had visited from house to house in Kynock, and we were encouraged to go and preach the gospel there. There was a problem.
There was no building in Kynock that we could preach in. The few people who lived there, they lived in tiny little houses and little cabins, and there was no place to preach. So we decided that we would build a portable hall.
A hall that had wheels, and that we would haul that portable building up to Kynock. There was a problem. The bridge. We had to go over the bridge to get to Kynock. And that bridge, we talked to people up and down the road, and our mobile hall weighed, and we weighed it, so I know this, it weighed two tons.
And how could we ever haul such a heavy load over that bridge that looks so poor? And as we talked to the people on the road, they mostly said, oh well, it doesn't look very good, but we think it would hold it.
But they didn't really act like they were too assured, and some just were the very opposite of that, and said, don't you ever try it. So one day we talked to a man who said, do you know that the lumber business in this part of the country hauls lumber over that bridge several times in a month?
And they said to us, this man said to us, if you see that truck with the load of lumber on it, you'll realize it's much heavier than your mobile hall is. They haul that lumber over the bridge. Well, we had believed a little bit about the bridge when people told us, but now we had reason to believe that we could trust it.
We believed about the bridge. I'm doing this on purpose. We hadn't trusted it yet. We believed about it. Now there are people probably in this room at this moment, in this hall, and you believe about Christ, that he's God's son, that God sent him down from heaven to go on to the cross and to bleed and die and suffer there for sinners.
You believe all about that. But that's a very different thing than trusting him. So we believed about the bridge now. They told us that the lumber company used it and their loads were very heavy, so now we believed about the bridge.
But we hadn't trusted it yet. I remember so distinctly on a Wednesday afternoon, we came up that twisting gravel road and we came around the last curve and we came to the edge of the bridge. We stopped.
We weren't very anxious to trust the bridge. So we stopped and we did all we could to prepare for crossing it and then we actually trusted the bridge. But we had not trusted that bridge until that Wednesday afternoon.
And we finally trusted it. It bore the weight. We went across. We went up to Keynock. We had our gospel meetings there. But wait till I tell you the rest of the story. Two weeks later, a lumber truck was on the bridge and the whole thing went down into the river.
The bridge and the truck and the load and everything else. So it wasn't worthy of our trust, was it? It really was not worthy of our trust. You'll say, how did you ever get out of that country? Well, the last I knew that building was still up in there.
But I can tell you this, the Lord Jesus is a bridge you can trust. He actually bridged the gulf that separates sinners from God. Now, there's no works of men, no good works, no church membership, no baptism, nothing like that will ever bridge that great chasm, that great gulf that separates man from God.
There was only one hope for sinners separated from God in their sins. There was only one hope, that there's a bridge great enough, strong enough, trustworthy enough to bridge the chasm. Who is the bridge?
Christ. Christ is the bridge. We read wonderful words in 1st Timothy chapter 2. There was one God and one mediator between God and man. Himself man. Himself man. He's God. And God became man. The Lord Jesus is truly God.
I think one of the most outstanding illustrations of this in the Bible is in the upper room where the disciples were gathered on that first day of the week. And Thomas had not been with them when the Lord appeared in resurrection in that room.
But this second first day of the week, Thomas is with them. And the Lord Jesus came into that room and I can see this. I have a vivid imagination in this kind of thing. I can see the Lord Jesus stepping into that circle of disciples, eleven of them, and looking around from one to the other until his eyes fastened on Thomas.
The Lord knew what Thomas had said. He said, except I see in his hand the print of the nails and thrust my finger into the print of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. The Lord Jesus fixed his eye on Thomas.
He held out his hand and he said, Thomas reach hither thy finger and thrust it into my hand. Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side. Thomas looked at the wounds of death in a living man. Oh, I love this.
Listen to what Thomas said. My Lord, my... Was he right? 100%. The one who stood before him with the wounds of death on his body is none less than God Almighty. So the only way that great chasm, that great gulf could be bridged is for the one who is verily God to bridge the chasm himself.
That's what it means here. This is a marvelous statement. Who gave himself. Do you get that? Who gave himself. Couldn't give more. Gave all he had, all he was. He gave himself a ransom for all. Now maybe this isn't a word that's too familiar to us, but a ransom is something that is paid to release a captive.
In the days of slavery, ransom was paid for a slave and because the ransom was sufficient, if the ransom was great enough to meet the requirements of the owner of the slave, then the ransom meant the slave could be set free.
So the ransom is the price to set free a captive. My friend, you and I were captives of sin. You and I were held under the bondage of sin and Satan. To be set free from that bondage, that slavery, it required a ransom price.
What is the ransom price? Oh listen, listen to these words. Who gave himself a ransom, he gave himself. The ransom price is Christ himself and he gave himself a ransom for all. The heart of God has been made bare.
He has yielded up his well-beloved son. Send him into the world where he knew he would be despised and where he would be spit upon. I don't think the wickedness of man has a greater expression than what happened there in Jerusalem when soldiers took the Lord Jesus so cruelly and beat him and battered him and lashed him and rained blows upon his face, plucked the hair from his cheeks and spit upon his wounded face while blood drops down at run, then lead him forth in deep disgrace, the Eternal's humble son.
That the Lord Jesus should give himself into their hands, he's the Creator. He gave them the very breath they had. He gave them the very strength with which they rained blows on them and they spit upon his wounded face in mockery and scorn and the Lord Jesus endured it all silently.
He was led as the lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before her shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. I'm gonna tell you something that touches my heart. I've been telling you that in the heart of God is the desire that you should be saved, but in the heart of God was found the means by which you could be saved.
Now this to me is a great wonder that the ransom was sought. God was seeking for a ransom. God was seeking for a way to save you. Where did he find the way? In his own son. God did search earth and sky.
His help did in his bosom lie and God sent his only son. Wonder of wonders. The ransom was found in the very bosom of the Father and the ransom was given. That to me is the great wonder of salvation, that God was willing to give the ransom price to save you and to save me.
But you know the ransom can be refused. There's a story I've heard, I heard preachers tell it when I was only very young, of a man in a prison in Britain who was sentenced to be executed and the execution was by hanging so it was going to be very serious.
But one of the prosecutors for some reason went to tremendous lengths to have that man freed and finally he succeeded in having the court issue a pardon for that man and an official took the pardon to him in his prison cell.
Here is his escape. Here is freedom for him. A pardon. You know what he did? He refused it. He said I won't have your pardon. The authorities went back to the court and they said to the judge, Mr. Wilson won't have the pardon.
His name is on it. He should be set free. And the judge said a pardon is issued to a person to set them free but they have to receive it. If he will not receive the pardon he will have to be executed.
And he was. Have you received the pardon? See Christ gave himself. So when you receive salvation you're receiving a person, the Lord Jesus, who gave himself that you might be saved. And what a wonder this is.
On the tree at Calvary the Lord Jesus bore the very marks of your sin. The thorns that wreathed his brow were the mark of man's guilt and man's sin. He was nailed to a tree. He was crowned with thorns.
He was unrecognizable. His visage so marred more than any man. His form more than the sons of men. What caused him to suffer there? Did he not have power to save himself? Absolutely. You know what led him there?
Love to you. The love that Jesus had for me to suffer on the cruel tree that I a ransomed soul might be is more than tongue can tell. He gave himself not only to the wicked men who treated him so cruelly but he gave himself up to a holy God.
And in the darkness at Calvary, you know this, in the darkness it was God who dealt with his son. A holy God who must punish sin. Punish the Lord Jesus for your sins and mine. I'm so glad it was my sins.
Do you mind if I tell you how I discovered that? I'm getting to that stage in life where I tell how I got saved almost every time I preach. But I won't I won't ask you to forgive me for that because I don't think I need forgiveness for it.
I'm glad to tell how I was saved. I was brought up in a Christian home. I was the youngest of a quite a large family. I had a brother. His name was Harry. Harry wasn't saved and Harry loved football. He became the quarterback on the high school football team and he was very successful and won a number of games.
One day, and it wasn't even a game. It was a practice. Harry was injured and in that practice. He didn't want to confess that he was hurt but he had very serious pain that he did not admit to. In fact, he even kept on trying to play.
Finally, one day he came home from school and I remember this so vividly and he said to our mother, he I've been having severe pain for six weeks. Maybe we ought to see what is wrong. I can see that ambulance yet in my mind going down the street from our home, taking him to the hospital.
You know why that's so vivid to me? Because he never came home. He died in that hospital and I stood beside the casket in our home. Many friends had been there that day and relatives, family, many Christians and the casket was there in our living room and the family had now gone to bed.
It was very late and I stood there alone beside that open casket. Looked into the face of my 19-year-old brother. I knew he had gone to heaven. You see, when Harry was in the hospital, a man by the name of Mr. James McMullin came to see him one day and opened his Bible and read scripture after scripture to him and left him with John 5 and 24 open on his lap and Mr. McEwen left him there alone and when Mr. McEwen had left, or Mr. McMullin, excuse me, had left the hospital, Harry trusted Christ.
He proved it in six months that he lived. He proved the reality of salvation and I knew that night in our home when that casket lay in our, was in our living room and I knew as I looked into the face of my brother who was dead, I knew he was in heaven but I knew something else.
I knew if that were me in that casket, I would be in hell. Oh, it was real. You never could, you never could imitate that sort of thing. It was genuine. I knew I was lost and helpless and going to hell.
I turned away and tried to sleep but I couldn't sleep. I went through weeks of misery, soul trouble, under conviction of my sin and guilt. Mr. Sam McEwen, you notice I said the name McEwen before when I met McMullin but you'll understand why now I said the name McEwen because Mr. Sam McEwen came to have gospel meetings.
I attended every night for six weeks. It was the last night. It was a Friday night. It was April the 1st, 1938. That night when Mr. McEwen went to the platform, he said we're going to read Revelation chapter 20 and he began to read it verse 11.
I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were open and another book was open which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death and and here's the verse that struck home and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire and I knew that was me.
I was going to hell. I was hopeless and helpless. I could do nothing. The meeting went on. Preaching was very solemn and searching I know. A dear man sitting beside me that night told the brethren afterward, the elders in the assembly told them afterwards that the the chair trembled.
I don't doubt it did because I knew I was going to hell and I was hopeless and helpless and as I sat there it suddenly dawned on me that is why the Lord Jesus went to the cross. That's why he suffered there.
He died for me so I would not have to go to hell and all I can do is trust him. You know say what did you do then? I didn't do anything because when I understood he died for me I couldn't help but trust him.
I had already trusted him. He died for me. I had tried so hard to do something to be saved. I tried to believe. I tried to feel. I believed. I worked at that diligently. I tried with every might and main I could.
I would get the Bible. I would get down on my knees beside my bed at night and I would read scriptures in the Bible and put my finger on them and say I believe this. Nothing worked. Couldn't make it work but when I finally understood I can do nothing.
I am helpless. Christ did everything. I couldn't help but trust him. Have you trusted him? He's worthy of your trust. If you trust him you'll be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
So God says I have found a ransom. That's what this is all about. There was one God and one mediator between. There's the great gulf. There's the great separation that sin has put you from God. A vast chasm that separates you from God.
There is one mediator between. That bridges the chasm. A mediator between God and man. Himself man who gave himself a ransom. He gave himself. Why? So you can be saved. I wonder if salvation is not so plain and so clear that sinners can stumble over this.
I know that people do that because I did it too. So I know you can do that. But listen you don't have anything to do. Christ did everything. You don't have to feel anything. You don't have to do anything.
He's the ransom. He paid the price in full. Now this is something that's very simple to me. And sometimes this has helped people. I have found that people who are strangers to the gospel get help from the thought of a debt paid.
And that's what this verse is all about. A debt pay. Your sin is a debt. There's no possibility of you paying the debt. But what if another who has the means to pay the debt is willing to pay the debt for you?
Then you're relieved. You're relieved from the debt. You're set free from the burden of the debt. But oh it cost him everything. It cost him himself. The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
That's what Paul says. I believe it. I take that for myself. The Son of God loved me and he gave himself for me. So the ransom has been paid. Why are you still burdened under the load of guilt and sin?
If Christ has died and God with him is satisfied and now is ready to forgive, the simple term believe and live. And you could be saved. You could be forgiven. You could have Christ who bridges the gulf.
Trust the bridge. You see you could believe all about the bridge. You could believe it's worthy. It's trustworthy. Many have trusted it. Millions have trusted it. And you can trust it. But you haven't trusted it yet.
That Wednesday that I was telling you about when we hauled that trailer over that bridge up there at Kainot, we actually came around a curve in the road and there was the bridge and we stopped. There was the bridge.
We hadn't trusted it yet. There had to be an actual commitment to put our weight on it. And then we trusted it. Have you trusted Christ? Have you put your weight on him to save you? If you do, you'll be saved.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Let me go over what I've tried to preach. God is the revealer. What does he reveal? That he is holy and you are sinful. That your sins have separated between you and God.
Your sins have caused a mighty chasm to be formed. A great gulf that separates you from God. And because man is the rebel, you have caused that chasm to be made. It's your sin. Your sins that have made that great gulf.
But oh God has found a ransom. God has found a bridge. And if you trust the bridge, you will be saved. God grant you will. Simply, without work, without feeling, just to trust. Trust Christ and he's worthy of your trust and he is able to save to the uttermost.
Let me read these words with you again. There is one God and there is one mediator between God and man. Between, that's the great distance that exists. There is only one who can bridge that distance. Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom to bridge the gulf.
To bring you near. And if you trust him, you will be saved. I'm gonna pray. Heavenly Father, we bow to thank thee for thy precious word. Oh God, how dear is this Savior to us. That he would give himself.
That he would love us so. How amazing this is. The love that no tongue can teach. The love that no thought can reach. No love like his. And oh God, what a wonder to us that he would give himself for us.
And be willing to bear our sins. To be mocked and spit upon and bleeding. To be let out to be crucified. Thorn crowned, nailed to the accursed tree. Lifted up to die. And wicked men mocking him in death to his last laboring breath.
And there he suffered. Oh what he suffered we can never measure. We know he suffered at the hands of men. But oh he suffered much more. He suffered at the hands of a holy sin-hating God. And upon him almighty vengeance fell.
Enough to sink a world to hell. But we thank thee Lord he bore it. In wondrous love he bore it. He is the ransom price. He has paid for our redemption. And we thank thee for the blessed ransom. And thank thee for salvation.
Thank thee for the joy we have. And the peace we have. And the rest we have. The assurance that we have. Heaven is our home. We're going to see the Lord Jesus face to face. Be able to fall on his feet.
And tell the story of his love. And we thank thee Lord for being able to tell the story now. God bless it tonight. Bless thy precious word and use it for thy glory and the honor of thy son as we humbly pray.
God bless here at Ontario. We ask thy blessing on the assembly. We pray thy blessing on the gospel that is preached in this building. We pray for thy blessing upon the children's work. The Sunday school work.
Lord use thy word and save precious souls. And even tonight would it please thee Lord to save a soul or more in this very building tonight. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.