John 3:14-17

John 3:14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

«Whosoever.» Note that word, for it means you, and it means me. No matter though you are near to death's door, crushed and broken, bruised and mangled, look to the Crucified One, and, looking, you shall find that there is life eternal for you. Though your soul has been ready to choose strangling rather than your life, yet there is a better life for you by trusting in Christ. Choose that, and rest in him. Say, from your heart, the last lines of the hymn we sang just now,

«Jesus, to thy arms I fly;

Save me, Lord, or else I die.»

John 3:16. 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. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Now this, which is good teaching for those who have but lately come to Christ, or for those who are seeking to come to him, is the very same teaching which will bring comfort to the most advanced and best instructed of the saints. How I love continually to begin with Christ over again as I began at the first! They say, when a man is sick, that it is a good thing to take him to his native place, and when a true believer's soul gets faint and unbelieving, let him breathe the air of Calvary over again. The learned Grotius, who had spent the most of his life in theological disputations, not always or yet often on the right side, when he was dying said, «Read me something;» and they read him the story of the publican and the Pharisee. He said, «And that poor publican I am; thank God, that publican I am. ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.'» That was the word with which the great scholar entered into heaven, and that is the way in which you and I must come to God. May the Holy Spirit help us to come to him thus!

Amen.

This exposition consisted of readings from Job 7:1, and John 3:14.