Christ suffering for our sins (Quality: Very good)

[0:00] Now I will venture to ask you this evening to turn again to the Lamentation, the Book of Lamentations. I'm going to announce for our meditation this evening the same text from a different viewpoint.

[0:21] The twelfth verse in the first chapter of the Book of the Lamentations. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?

[0:37] Behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

[1:00] I hope that in consequence of our meditation from this word this morning, that you will be among those who sigh and cry for the abominations done in the land.

[1:23] That your heart will see the rampage of evil in our society and mourn that we are in the state we have brought ourselves into, having in many respects left the truth and ways of God and chosen those ways that are flesh-pleasing and are obnoxious in the sight of a holy God.

[1:56] My friends, we need a sensitive spirit to the prevailing situation and we need to realise that God is mindful of this situation.

[2:15] And I firmly endorse what I said this morning, that the judgments of God are present among us. In our parliament, in the laws and administration of justice, in our land, and then when we look into society, surely society is drunken with a desire for pleasure and not for the things of God.

[2:46] O that we may consider our ways and turn again to the Lord. But looking at the text from a different viewpoint this evening, is it nothing to you or ye that pass by?

[3:06] Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. I read from the 19th chapter of John's Gospel, which brought home to us in our reading somewhat of the sufferings of the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only one that can remedy our malady, the only one that can make us right with God, the only one that can cleanse us and clothe us and present us faultless before God's holy throne to a judgment day and to eternity to come.

[3:56] When you read your Bibles and read those wonderful accounts given to us, especially in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, of that which fell out as the essential pathway of our Lord Jesus Christ here upon earth, does it mean nothing to you?

[4:24] Is it nothing to you that pass by? Can you think upon those things and read those terrible, terrible low places into which the Lord must necessarily enter to carry the penalty of the sins of his people and to suffer the just reward of the sins committed by all for whom he himself became their sin-bearer?

[5:06] Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you? My friends, there's no greater and more profitable meditation, surely, than to think upon the way to escape the wrath to come.

[5:28] We're all sinners. There's not one of us can say, I'm guiltless. We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

[5:39] We have in thought and word and deed in many ways transgressed God's holy law and for every sin there is a just recompense of reward.

[5:54] You don't sin and finish with it there. Oh no! A day of reckoning presents itself before each and every one of us and we all shall be called to give our personal account before the Most High God.

[6:18] Sin is a terrible, terrible thing. One sin banished our first parents from the presence of God in the Garden of Eden.

[6:33] They were driven out because they had done what he forbade them to do. And if one sin carries, as it were, the measure of divine displeasure to that degree and that extent, what about all your sins of thought and of word and of deed?

[6:59] My friends, the load of personal sins from time to time as the Lord brings it home to our heart and our conscience is a terrible, terrible sickness to find ourselves to be in spiritually.

[7:19] And we may well think on these things and you say, well, I don't want to think about them. I don't want to meditate on such a doleful theme.

[7:32] That doesn't take you one step nearer the cure to dismiss all influences in your heart and conscience that you're a sinner and you need a saviour.

[7:47] and there's no escape from the wrath to come without a saviour. And there's only one saviour.

[8:00] There's only one saviour. And we can rightly say this from our hearts if we're wise unto salvation, give me Christ or else I die.

[8:15] Now, the text says, is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you or ye that pass by?

[8:26] Look, what does a suffering saviour as recorded in the word of God mean to you?

[8:39] Thousands and thousands of things cross your mind and my mind as we go through life. But is this a subject that doesn't mean anything to us?

[8:57] Does it, as it were, present itself from time to time in such a way that, well, we're almost forced to think in this direction for a little while but, oh, we don't like the thought of it.

[9:14] We don't like to entertain it. We're ready, as it were, to find some way to escape and to seek relief of our mind and spirit as from the truth of personal condemnation.

[9:31] Is it nothing to you? My friends, if you and I are people under the teaching of a holy God, God will make it to be something important to us.

[9:48] There will be times when it is such a consuming consideration that our hearts and our minds are full of it.

[10:00] Oh, to be right with God. Oh, to find peace and pardon through the only way of escape that God has made for sinners.

[10:16] Is it nothing to you? Can you say tonight, well, I'm listening to you talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and his powers, but really, it doesn't mean anything to me.

[10:28] My friend, the day will come when it will mean something to you. The day will come when inescapably, you have to face the issues of these considerations.

[10:42] If you face the issues in the leading and teaching and revelation of the Holy Spirit, Christ will be your all and in all.

[10:54] But if you've treated with indifference, the truth as it is in Jesus, as you've gone on sowing seeds of condemnation according to the Creator's holy law, oh, what a terrible, terrible day it will be when you're face to face with the realities of spiritual things, when you're face to face with the holiness of God, when you're face to face with the just law that he has given to mankind, when you're face to face that there's one thing that faces you above all other, condemnation, just condemnation.

[11:48] I'm talking to you tonight in affection that you might find a refuge, you might find a helper, you might find a saviour, you may find one who so loved that he gave himself to suffer the penalty of sin, to make a perfect deliverance, a way to escape for those that pleaded for his pardon and peace with God.

[12:32] Is it nothing to you? Oh, my friends, how solemn if you and I stand in this place this evening with no certainty as to our future way, because our times are in the Lord's hand, we've got no hold on to time, only as the Lord mercifully extends our lives, but there will come a time when temporal things will mean nothing and spiritual things will be all important to us.

[13:14] Now, is it nothing to you? Oh, my friends, are we concerned? Are we here tonight because we're not only worried about a religious profession, we're worried about am I his or am I not?

[13:36] As the Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour, is as he paid in his own body the penalty of my transgressions?

[13:50] Is there an answer in the Lord Jesus Christ that makes the relationship of a holy God and my poor soul a peaceable relationship and that forevermore?

[14:07] Is it nothing to you? all the most important thing in life is the last thing that many people want to face up to and to consider?

[14:23] And such were some of you. And such were some of you. Living in sin, wallowing as it were in the sea of condemnation according to the declared holy will and way of God and indifferent to the consequences of these things when at length God will call us to account.

[14:51] Is it nothing to you? All ye pass by. Well now we come to this behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.

[15:06] You know sorrow is a word that the Lord interprets as no other can. No other can.

[15:18] He knows what sorrow means in such a deep and perfect way that we in our sorrows but touch the surface of the meaning of the word.

[15:35] We know he was very God because only as God could he endure the sufferings that were necessary to pay the price of sin and to procure an absolute discharge and salvation to those who are brought to trust in him for their salvation.

[16:07] There is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved. This is the man of sorrows.

[16:19] This is the man of sorrows. And he says in this 12th verse of lamentations behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.

[16:34] You and I born as we are into this world we come into seasons of sorrow naturally. Things happen in our circumstances that give rise to sorrow.

[16:50] We wish things were different from what they are. if this and that had not happened we would be far happier than we feel to be today or tonight as sometimes this night season seems to be a time of reassessment.

[17:14] Nevertheless blessed is it nothing to you or ye that pass by behold and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

[17:33] There is a sense in which our sorrow is a sign of weakness. happiness. Oh, pull yourself together.

[17:48] It won't be so bad as that. My friends, the sorrow of Jesus, the sorrow of Jesus is beyond our comprehension.

[18:02] What he endured, no tongue tongue can tell to save our souls from death and hell. He sunk so deep into sorrow that he even felt the hiding of his father's face.

[18:27] He'd enjoyed his father's presence from eternity. a perfect, happy, peaceable relationship existed between the father and the son from eternity past.

[18:49] But now, for the sake of his people, his father hides his face from his beloved son.

[19:02] My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Agony, spiritual agony beyond our comprehension.

[19:19] We may, in our little measure, and I have to use that expression with some understanding, what we know of the sorrow in consequence of sin is but to taste the cup.

[19:38] We do at most but taste the cup. The Lord himself has drunk it up. Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

[19:55] Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Christ, bowing to the sovereign love and purpose of salvation through his sufferings, given for the deliverance of mankind from the penalty of their own sins.

[20:22] Was there ever sorrow like the sorrow of Jesus? And I don't believe that such a fruit and effect of pain has been experienced.

[20:43] Pain of a spiritual nature in this sense that the pain of his spirit was so great that it brought from his holy body the shedding of blood from the pores of his skin.

[21:10] The agony of his soul was such that his body reacted in that way as to bleed under the consequence of the pain of his experience.

[21:32] You and I have known what it is perhaps to be in pain and perspire but not to the extent of witnessing the pain of our heart through every pore of our skin.

[21:56] Is there any and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow unto my sorrow.

[22:07] And my friends, look at his friends. Look at those that forsook him.

[22:19] Those that turned away from him. Those that professed, as it were, to be followers of him, who came into a testing experience and they didn't prove to be good friends.

[22:37] I'm thinking of Peter in the judgment hall. What that must have been to the Lord Jesus Christ to witness in his great experience before Pilate and the priesthood and so forth.

[23:00] in the period of his indictment. My friends, look, they all forsook him and fled. They all forsook him and fled.

[23:14] And Peter, to that extent and that degree, having given expression of his love and loyalty, though all men forsake thee, yet will not I, he stands there before a little maid in the judgment hall and says, thou art also one of them.

[23:35] And Peter says, I am not. He denies his Lord with oaths and with cousins. What agony that must have been.

[23:45] in the experience of a faltering friend in the person of Peter.

[23:59] He said to Peter, flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. There's no question about Peter's standing, but when Peter comes to the testing, he proves insufficient to stand by his suffering saviour and he denies him.

[24:23] And then my friends, I could go on with the catalogue, could I not, of the sorrows that were cast into the lap or ministered into that cup which Christ must needs drink, the cup which my Father hath given me.

[24:45] Shall I not drink it? And he knew that he couldn't possibly complete the work that his Father had given him to do. He could not satisfy the requirements of the holy law of God.

[25:00] He could not meet the need of his people whom he so loved to be identified in manhood with them and be free.

[25:16] All the sufferings of the saviour. What about the women? Those dear women, those Marys. Mary Magdalene, she was so indebted to Christ.

[25:34] Look, seven devils were cast out of that woman. She'd be so under the dominion of Satan and sin and this present evil world that there doesn't seem to be one expression of favour, naturally speaking.

[25:57] Just an entire condemnation. The love of Christ for her didn't falter.

[26:10] But oh, the women stood afar off, beholding these things. Sorrow. Sorrow.

[26:21] not one to stand with him, not one, as it were, to stand by him. All forsook him and fled.

[26:37] My friends, that sorrow of Jesus Christ must be in the scale of your salvation. unless you have an interest in that sorrowing of the Saviour, you'll never have rejoicing in the benefits and blessing of his salvation.

[27:03] The cost he had to pay that you might be absolved from debt.

[27:17] Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you? Can you think upon the suffering Saviour and not mourn that such and one as the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, must needs descend into those awful experiences of misjudgment erroneous justice.

[27:51] Nothing meriting the cry of the multitude, but the multitude in unison for his death. Cry, let him be crucified, let him be crucified, let him be crucified.

[28:11] Even Pilate, a strange personality personality of Gentile background, he says in a judicial statement, I find no fault in him, but the cry of the multitude persuaded him ultimately to give way to the pressure and he gave a commandment that the soldiers should take the Son of God and that they should march him as it were from the judgment hall outside of the wall of Jerusalem there to crucify him, nail him to a cross.

[28:59] But what shame as it were was heaped upon him ere he took that journey from the judgment hall to the cross. he was crowned with a crown of thorns and he was indeed humiliated that they put a robe, a scarlet robe upon him and they cried, they cried, we have no king but Caesar.

[29:30] everything is as it were out of harmony in a reasonable assessment of the situation as the sinless one.

[29:49] He was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. is it nothing to you?

[30:02] Are you going on through life without a thought of the Lord Jesus? The thought of the consequence of your sins except as Christ has paid the penalty instead?

[30:16] Is it the greatest expression of love that the world has ever seen in the living and dying and suffering the Saviour who out of the fullness of love yea he loved the people all his saints are in thy hand?

[30:39] The sins of the whole election of grace paid perfectly and forever are discharged from the consequence of their transgressions.

[30:54] is it nothing to you? Oh my friends is there a more attractive testimony in the word of God?

[31:09] when you and I were brought to feel how many many times in a day I sin how many many times in the night my thoughts run riot into subjects that are totally antagonistic to the glory of God and the welfare of my immortal soul.

[31:35] Jesus alone can bring a discharge Jesus alone can pay the penalty for us Jesus alone can bring in an answer the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleansed from all sin he was made sin for us oh my friends was there any sorrow like it I can't think of any that suffered in the consequence of sin to touch it to any great degree but blessed be God God uses the law as our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ us and if a schoolmaster is of any value and consequence to us the teaching that he gives brings a profitable issue and I don't know of anything that's more profitable as an issue of the law of

[32:52] God than to bring us to Jesus fate crying God be merciful to me a sinner Lord let thy blood that only efficacious cleansing power let that wash my sin stained soul from every stain of guilt and that I may be presented faultless before the throne of God forever and forever is it nothing to you my friends I'm sure of this those that are going to heaven when they die will find that this subject is a priceless subject and the fact that there is a way of escape from God's penal wrath under the law in the person of

[33:52] Jesus Christ is a wonder of wonders the love of God himself providing an answer to our need there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh not with the madly multitude that put no value on the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ not that let the world go on and over the precipice to endless perdition love love love the truth as it is in Jesus when the Holy Spirit condescends to take of the things of Jesus and bring them personally home to my heart there is no person happier under the sun there is no person person that can rejoice in any any equivalent subject which sets my whole being on fire in response of love and adoration that though I'm a sinner and a sinner of the deepest dye there is hope for me that Jesus has put the record straight is this nothing to you

[35:31] I'm babbling on in that sense in perhaps a way that seems to you disjointed but what I'm trying to say if your poor soul and my poor soul is to be saved it's Christ must be the way let anybody suggest to you if anybody detract you from Christ to any of these other gods that carry their thousands in deception to perdition oh my friends Christianity is salvation and there's no neither is there salvation in any other for there is no there's no subject but the suffering saviour as our substitute as our wonderful free and sovereign benefactor who took our sins to himself and suffered what would have rightly and justly procured hell eternally for us had he not paid our debt in our behalf is it nothing to you or ye that pass by oh my friends there's a lot of passers by and it means nothing to them they say these are old people in their churches and chapels that cling to old fashioned ideas well we've got beyond them now we don't embrace the doctrines that they seem to find such comfort and pleasure in thinking upon and talking about and listening to from preachers many and various my friends let the world go on is it nothing to you personally is it nothing to you all ye pass by that pass by oh God makes it something

[37:47] God makes it everything I was going to say and he certainly will make it everything to us when we're called upon to lay our heads on the dying pillar because nothing else will be of any value to us except Christ Jesus is my saviour that will open the glorious doors of heaven and open up an eternal future that is happiness peace and joy satisfaction forever and forever and forever is it nothing to you or are you choosing the wrong way you're choosing the world you're determined as it were to have your fill of the pleasures of time and in consequence you're jeopardizing the welfare of your immortal souls my emphasis is this my emphasis is this think that when your body has done its work and it's called upon to lay down your soul your soul continues forever and forever either in heaven through the merit of

[39:18] Jesus Christ as your personal saviour or in hell among the lost forevermore is it nothing to you sin I mentioned this morning sin brings suffering if you want to know as it were somewhat of the dreadful nature of sin consider the willingness of Christ to pay the price of deliverance and procure salvation for his people no greater price ever confronted a man than the price that the man Christ Jesus willingly and lovingly paid when he laid down his life as a ransom price for the redemption and deliverance of his people from the just consequences of their personal sins well now is it nothing to you all ye that pass by and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow he sorrowed unto death what he endured no tongue can tell to save our souls from death and hell but there was a sense in which he waited amidst the agony the indescribable incomprehensive agony of soul and body and spirit forsaken and alone nevertheless he waited that vital moment that precious precious blood bought testimony of him who never spoke anything but the truth and he said it is finished it is finished

[41:50] I've completed the work my father gave me to do I paid the price I've gone to the end of the law for righteousness there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus the blood bought family of God clothed in the righteousness of their saviour are presented acceptable and acceptable eternally in that holy and happy place we commonly know as heaven oh my friends let us consider our ways and turn again to the Lord fresh guilt needs a fresh look to the saviour for how can we know peace in our hearts and our consciences unless our eyes are fixed on the satisfaction God the father has in the suretorship of his son who paid the price of salvation for his people to the uttermost father peace by his cross as

[43:06] Jesus made it is finished the law has done its work the salvation necessarily resting upon the shoulders of the God man Emmanuel God with us has been perfectly and securely met is it nothing to you I ask the question and I ask it desiring a personal arrow to fly from the pulpit to each heart please God in the congregation that he does the gospel mean anything to you does the truth as it is in Jesus bring hope and comfort to your sin sick soul can you say the truth as it is in Jesus is the best the best message that I've ever received while in the flesh here below that though

[44:29] I've sinned God has made a way to escape the way to heaven is a way marked out and the end of the road is life everlasting I've said enough I haven't said too much as much I haven't said that concerns the salvation of our souls oh that God will give us a mind and heart to turn from the world and the welfare of the body in need of our souls that we may be ready when we are called from time into eternity to reap the benefit of Christ's purchase for us in being happy in that land of peace and joy forever and forever hereafter

[45:33] Amen in the peace and k民iks