Adrian Rogers - The One True God
Take God's Word and find Isaiah chapter 6, will you, one of the great chapters in the Word of God. And everything that is worthwhile, everything, depends upon your concept of God. It's interesting to see what children think of God. Here's a newspaper article entitled "What Happens When We See God"? "When I see God, I will give Him a big hug," says Whitney. "Then I will go say hi to all the people in Bible times. Then I will ask Him everything that I asked my parents that they can't answer". "I will fall down on my face and worship God," says Blaine, who's 8. "Then I will go to see my dog in Heaven. Next, I will go see my cousin".
Here's another: "I will go to see Jesus and ask Him if you ever get to play in Heaven. I love God," said Carson, who's 8. "My eyeballs will fly out of their sockets and my mouth will fall to the ground," says Hillary, 8, "and God will be glowing. I will hold onto His leg so tight He can't let me go, no matter how much power". "I would fall and faint," says Christopher, 8. "I would scream. I'd be surprised. I would know that I'm in Heaven". "I would come to Him and say, 'I love you, God,'" says Amber, 9. "I would bow down to Him and praise Him and adore Him and worship Him with all my heart. I would want to stay with Him all day. I would ask Him to preach to me about the Bible. I would want to know more and more about Him, and as I grow up, I will always remember the day I met Him".
Well, from a child's viewpoint, and that's precious. But let's read about a man, a prophet, whose name was Isaiah who did see the Lord. And it was an amazing event. Isaiah chapter 6 verse 1 through 5, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. And above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain," that is, with two, "he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another, and said, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole Earth is full of His glory.' And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, 'Woe is me! For I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'"
Today like never before, we need to get a glimpse of God. Not any god, and not many gods, but the one true God. Now we know that there're not many gods, but we wonder, is there one god who just has different names? We're hearing today, "Well, it doesn't make any difference whether you believe in Jehovah or Allah. After all, we believe in one true God". Well, how many Gods are there? One. How many capitols of Tennessee are there? One. Now suppose I were trying to get you to a destination and someone might say, "Well, we call the capitol of Tennessee Nashville, but I call it Memphis. But what difference does it make as long as we believe in one true capitol"? Not if one true capitol are different. Things that are different are not the same. Now we need to understand, is there one true God? Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 11, "Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit".
I want to make it abundantly clear, I believe in pluralism. I believe that's what makes America great is our pluralism. I'm grateful that, in the area of faith, we allow room for those who don't believe in God at all. I would fight for the right of a man to say, "I don't believe in God". We have those who believe in many gods, the New Agers, who are more or less pantheistic. They believe that God is everything and everywhere. They believe that we are God and God is us, and that the trees are God, and the rocks are God, and the dirt is God. And so, if we're God, we're dirt. I mean, think about it. That's what they believe. If they want to believe that, this is America. They've got a right to be wrong. I believe in pluralism. I believe you can believe in Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, vegetarianism; you can believe in this or that.
That's what makes us Americans, and we don't believe in forcing our faith on anybody. Forced religion is an abomination to Almighty God. We don't believe in that. We believe a man is free to believe what he wants to. He's going to have to give an account to God about it. I mean, he's going to have to face Almighty God with his beliefs. But we believe in pluralism. But you know what we have today is not pluralism. Those who prate the most about pluralism don't really believe in pluralism. What they believe is syncretism. There's a difference between pluralism and syncretism. In pluralism we all practice our faith. If a Jew wants to pray with his prayer shawl on and his skullcap on, I say that's the way a Jew prays. I respect that and admire it. If a Buddhist wants to pray the way he prays, or an Islamic wants to pray the way he prays, I respect that. That's his right. I would not try to keep him from doing that or force anybody else to pray that way.
And I, as a believer, I pray in the name of Jesus, and I think that needs to be respected. There are those today who want us just to dumb it all down and put everything in a blender and mix it all together, and it's not pluralism; it is syncretism. And somehow today we're un-American if we don't put our arms around everybody else and say, "Your religion is just as good as mine". I'm here to tell you, and I want you to listen to me, there is but one true God. Now you say, "Well, that's your opinion". That's exactly right. That is my opinion. But I want to show you that it is more than my opinion if you believe the Bible. Now, there're many things about God that we cannot understand, and nobody understands God.
As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have any confidence in a God I could understand. I wouldn't have one in one you could understand either. You don't have to understand God to know God. Einstein believed and taught and understood the theory of relativity. Now they asked Mrs. Einstein, "Do you understand the theory of relativity"? She said, "No, but I know Dr. Einstein". You don't have to understand how God runs His mighty universe to know God. We all have questions, and we sometimes have doubts. Tom Skinner, a black evangelist, said this, and I think it's one of the greatest quotes I've ever read. I want you to listen to it. He said, "I spent a long time trying to come to grips with my doubts, and suddenly I realized that I had better come to grip with what I believe. I have moved from the agony of questions I cannot answer to the reality of answers that I cannot escape, and that's a great relief".
Listen to it again. "I have moved from the agony of questions I cannot answer to the reality of answers I cannot escape, and that is a great relief". Now I want us to think about the God of the Bible, the God of Revelation, and I just read to you about Isaiah, who saw the Lord high and lifted up. It was the year of national crisis. The king had died. And it seemed as though Isaiah had pinned all of his hopes for his country upon King Uzziah. And Uzziah died. And in a time of crisis, he went to the temple of God and there he saw the Lord, high and lifted up, sitting upon a throne, and His train filled the temple.
Now, boys and girls, he's not talking about a railroad train. Did you ever see a bride come down the aisle sometime with that long, flowing train behind her? Beautiful! Or in ancient times, a monarch, a king would have a robe, and sometimes the greater pomp and circumstance, the longer would be the train coming behind him. In the Passion Play, you see those kings as they come up, those Magi, and they come and they will have a long train so long that it takes attendants to carry the train of these men, speaking of their glory and their majesty. Isaiah said, "I saw the Lord. His train filled the temple," talking about the glory, the majesty of our great God. And when Isaiah saw the Lord, he saw many things about Him. I want to mention three attributes today of the one true God that Isaiah saw. Three attributes. Now there are infinite attributes of God, I suppose, but I want to mention three, and I pray God that you'll get a lock on these three attributes.
Number one: the one true God is the triune God. He is the triune God. Now look in chapter 6 verses 1 through 3 again, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I also saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims," now the word seraphims means burning ones. These were angels, "Each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried to another," now listen to this, "and said, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole Earth is full of His glory.'" And then go down to Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 8, "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?'" Now don't miss this, "'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' Then said I, 'Here am I; send me.'"
Now Isaiah here has seen a vision of the triune God, and not only the one true God, but one God in three persons. This is the great Christian distinctive, and it may be the hardest concept for all of us to grasp, whether we're Christian or non-Christian, the idea that our God, the one true God, is revealed in three persons. To deny the Trinity is the root of many heresies. For example, Unitarianism, the Unitarians don't believe in the Trinity. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity. Mormons do not believe in the Trinity. Islam does not believe in the Trinity. Our Jewish friends will not accept the doctrine of the Trinity. So what I'm talking to you about today is not incidental. What I'm talking to you about is absolutely fundamental. It is , "Tell me about the Trinity". They say, "Well, there's God, then there's Jesus and the Holy Spirit".
Wa stumbling block to some and many, many Christians are ignorant about the Trinity. You ask a Christianrong. There's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We do not worship three gods; we worship one God who reveals Himself to us in three persons. Now we don't worship three gods. That's polytheism, or tri-theism. We worship one God revealed in three persons. You say, "Pastor, how do you know that? Did you figure it out"? No, I didn't figure it out, you didn't figure it out, nobody's ever figured it out. The only way that you understand the doctrine of the Trinity is by divine revelation. Did you hear that? By divine revelation. Say, Amen. By divine revelation. That's the only way you can know God.
Charles Wesley asked this question: can a worm understand a man? Can a human being, the finite, understand the infinite? Only by revelation. Not by investigation, not by logic, not by philosophy, not by science, and not by mathematics. Now listen. It may sound contradictory to logic. It is not contradictory to logic; it is beyond logic. You say, "Well, if I can't understand it, I can't accept it". Many of you don't know how windshield washer works, wiper, I mean. Maybe the washer, too. You don't understand it. Do you understand infinity? Do you understand how God can be everywhere at the same time? Do you understand eternity, that God never had a beginning and never have an ending? None of those concepts fit human logic. So don't get upset if you can't understand the idea of the Trinity.
By the way, a five-year old child can ask questions that nobody can answer. The doctrine of the Trinity rises or falls on Bible revelation. And don't ever get caught in the trap of saying, "Well, I can prove the Trinity". No, you can't. Well, you say, "God is like this, or God is like that". Oh, really? Listen. There's only one God, so there's nothing you can compare Him to. Put down in your margin Isaiah 40 verse 18. God says, "To whom then will you liken God? Or to what likeness will you compare Him"? Think about it. I mean, I can say this pulpit's like another pulpit. That plant's like another plant. This man's like another man. This building's like another building. And I can show the similarities and the differences, but listen to me. There is only one God, so you can't compare Him really to anything.
Think about it. Now you can see reflections of His triune nature, because you see the reflection of His nature. For example, time. Time is God's creation. Time is past, present, and future. The past is not the present, the present's not the future, the future is not the past. Each is distinguishable, all are inseparable, and you can't have one without the other. That's a reflection of His triune nature. Just one time, but time is past, present, future. Space: height, width, and depth. Height is not width, width is not depth, depth is not height. Each is distinguishable but all are inseparable. You can't have one without the other. And God is the one who created time and space. And God created man, body, soul, and spirit. Body, soul, and spirit are separable, but they are a part of a unit. And we're made in the image of God. But none of these things are proofs of the Trinity. All they are, are reflections of the Trinity.
Now I want to show you from the Old Testament since Islamics and Jews and Christians all believe the Old Testament, I want us to look in the Old Testament today, and I want us to see what the Old Testament says about the triune nature of God. Now, we see this in the vision of Isaiah. Look in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 1, "In the year that king Uzziah died I also saw the Lord high and lifted up". The word for Lord is Adonai, and it, it is a name for God only, Adonai. And in Isaiah 6 verse 3, Adonai is shown is to be the Jehovah of hosts. Look, "And one cried to another, and said, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord.'" This is a different word for God, the Jehovah of hosts. "The whole Earth is full of His glory".
Now Isaiah saw the Lord. And then he asked a question in Isaiah 6 verse 8 concerning the Lord is speaking Himself. Jehovah, Adonai, is speaking. "I also heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send,'" now put that down. The I is what? Singular. "And who will go for Us"? That is plural. Now here is Adonai, here is Jehovah, the Lord of hosts, saying, "Whom shall I send, who will go for Us"? Here is the Holy Trinity acting in concert. No wonder that we read in Isaiah 6 verse 3, the seraphim are saying, "Holy, holy, holy". Holy is the Father, holy is the Son, holy is the Spirit. You see, here Isaiah speaking of God with a triune nature. You see not only that, but you see the Trinity in the creation story. The opening verse of the Bible has the Trinity. Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1, "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth".
Now the name for God there is the Hebrew word Elohim, and it has an "i-m" ending. And the "i-m" ending means that it's plural in nature. It could be translated gods, but the translators of the Scripture just say, "God". "In the beginning Elohim". You see, that's a plural ending. For example, read in Isaiah chapter 6, about the seraphim. It ends in "i-m". A seraph is one angel; seraphim are many. Or you read about cherubs and cherubim. A cherub is one angel; cherubim more than one. And here, it has the same "i-m" ending. Here God is Elohim, and, "In the beginning Elohim created the Heavens and the Earth". Not three gods, but one God that is plural in nature. When God made man, listen to this. Genesis chapter 1 and verse 26, "And God," that's Elohim, "said, 'Let Us make man in Our image,'" Genesis 1:26. "Let Us". Now God is speaking. Elohim is speaking, "And God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image.'"
Now to whom is God speaking? You say, "He's speaking to the angels". No, we're not in the image of angels. God didn't make us half-angel and half-man. We wouldn't be in the image of either one. Angels are sexless. Angels don't marry. Angels are ministering spirits. We have a different nature. We're not made in the image of angels. To whom was God speaking? The triune Godhead was taking counsel together. You see, who created everything? The triune God. Now put these verses down. Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning Elohim," God, "created the Heavens and the Earth". That's God the Father. But now go to the New Testament, chapter, John chapter 1 and verse 1 through verse 3, "In the beginning was the Word". Now that's the name for Jesus. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God," now watch this, "and the Word was God".
Is that double talk? No! That's the Trinity. "The same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by Him; without Him was not anything made that was made". We read in Genesis 1:1 that God made it. Now we read in John 1 verses 1 through 3 that Jesus made it. But then turn to Job chapter 26 verse 13, "By His spirit hath He garnished the Heavens". God said, "Let Us make man". Now in the beginning, the triune God made it all. You see in the vision of Isaiah the tri-unity of God. You see in the creation of the world the tri-unity of God. You see in the great confession of Israel the tri-unity of God. The reason that some of our Jewish friends will not accept our faith is they think that it's blasphemy to believe that God had a Son, because if you believe that God had a Son, they think you've got more than one God.
And so the great confession of Israel, put it down, it's Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 through 5, and it's called the Shema, the great confession of Israel. And here it is, and pious Jews would repeat this every day, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might". They say, "Since He's one God, we cannot accept the Trinity". That's the prime proof text, but the word Lord is translated from the word Jehovah. "The Jehovah, our Jehovah, is one Jehovah". But it doesn't say "Jehovah, our Jehovah". It says "Jehovah, our Elohim," is one. Jehovah, our Elohim, is one. Jehovah is singular. Elohim is plural. And the word one is echad, E-C-H-A-D. Write it down. That's the word one.
Now, that word does not mean a singular one. It means a collective one. Don't check me out now. You listen to this. You say, "You're getting too arcane now". No, we're talking about the one true God. When the Bible says that the Lord, Jehovah, our Elohim, is one, He uses the word echad, and it means one as a collective one. Now jot these Scriptures down very quickly. Genesis 2 verse 24, "They two shall be one flesh". Husband and wife, a collective one. Genesis 11:6, "Behold, they are one people". All of them are called one. In Numbers 13 verse 23, "One cluster of grapes". A bunch of grapes, but one cluster. First Samuel 13 verse 17, "One company of people". First Chronicles 17 verse 21, "One nation". What He's talking about is one as a unity. The Jehovah, our Elohim, is one; a unity. Now we're not worshipping three gods, but we're worshipping one God who is a triune God.
Now, you see this in the great confession. Now, the Bible makes it clear, therefore, that the eternal Father is triune. I've talked about the vision of Isaiah. I've talked about the creation of the world. I've talked about the great confession of Israel. We're still talking about the fact that God is a triune God. Now you're going to see the tri-unity of God in the prophecies concerning Messiah. Let's think about that. The Bible makes it clear that the eternal God, listen, has an eternal Son. Put these Scriptures down. Daniel 3 verse 25. The three Hebrew children were in the fiery furnace. The King looked in. "And he answered and said, 'Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.'"
Three men went into the fiery furnace for God and the Son of God got in there in that fiery furnace with them. By the way, Jesus didn't come to get you out of trouble; He came to get into trouble with you. Proverbs 30 verse 4, listen to this question, "Who hath ascended up into Heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the Earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name, if thou canst tell"? Well, we're talking Old Testament now. Psalm 2 verses 6 and 7, God the Father is speaking and says, "Yet have I set My king upon My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree".
Now God the Son is speaking, "The Lord hath said unto Me, 'Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee.'" The holy King that God sets upon His hill of Zion is the Son of God. And then that classic passage in Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 6, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God". Who? The Son, the Child. "The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace". And the term mighty God is El Gabor. It literally means, the God-man, the God-man! Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There is no way, no way to explain the deity of Jesus apart from the Trinity. You cannot accept the full deity of Jesus unless you accept the Trinity.
Now, that's Old Testament. How does the New Testament treat Him? Did Jesus believe Himself to be God the Son, as well as the Son of God? John 8 verse 58, "Jesus said unto them, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was,'" now listen to this, "'I Am". That's the name for God, the most holy name for God in the Bible, the great I Am. He didn't say "Before Abraham was, I was. I got here first". No, no. "Before Abraham was, I Am". That's the reason Jesus said in John chapter 5 verse 23, "That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent Him". John 14 verse 6, "Jesus saith unto him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.'" Matthew 11 verse 27, "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him".
According to Jesus, the only way you can truly know the Father is through Him. John 5 verses 22 and 23, "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent Him". John 14 verse 9, "Jesus saith unto him, 'Have I been so long time with you, and yet thou hast not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou then, "Shew us the Father"?'" Friend, this is the treasure of the Trinity. We worship a triune God. "Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity". That's the reason we sing, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye Heavenly hosts; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost". Listen to me. The one true God is the triune God. Got it?
Number two: the one true God is the holy God. Look in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 3, "And one cried unto another, and said, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole Earth is full of His glory.'" If you had to go through all of the lexicons of this world to choose one word, all the dictionaries to choose one word, every thesaurus to choose one word that would characterize God, it would have to be holy. God is a holy God. This is His inward character of perfect goodness. It means that He takes sides against everything that is bad and evil. There's a story that's told many times about former President Calvin Coolidge, who was a man of few words. He went to church and his wife stayed home. He came home. His wife said, "Well, did you go to church"? He said, "Yes". Said, "The preacher preach"? "Yes". "What'd he preach about"? "Sin". "Well, what'd he say"? "He was against it".
So is God. So is God. God is holy. Now that means that God will punish sin. You don't really break the laws of God. You don't break the Ten Commandments. They stand. You're broken on the Ten Commandments. A man who tries to break God's law is beaten. He is defeated before he starts. You step out of a ten-story building and say, "I'm going to break the law of gravity". You don't break the law of gravity; you demonstrate it. You're broken on it. You become a glutton and eat everything in sight. You say you're breaking the laws of health. No, you're the one that gets broken. You're the one that is broken. And you cannot truly break God's law because although you disregard it and in one sense break it, what you do is, you put yourself on the side of sin. And God is holy, and God is forever against sin.
Now most Americans have never really seen the holiness of God. Sometimes it takes a crisis for us to see the holiness of God. They've never worshipped God as a holy God. It was when King Uzziah died that Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up. I want to say something: the hope of America is not the White House; it is the church house, and the hope of the world is not America; it's God. It is God. We need to see God as the holy God. Isaiah had his eyes on the wrong king. And then when Uzziah died, he saw the Lord and it made a difference to him. You know, the answer, friend, is Almighty God. We need to see that God is a holy God. These seraph, the seraphim, these are angelic creatures.
The only place I know of in the Bible they're mentioned, and they're creatures with six wings. With two they cover their eyes because He's too holy for these angels to look upon, and they cover their eyes. And with two they cover their feet in shame to even stand before His presence. And with two they fly to serve Him. One of these angels brought a coal from the altar, we're going to see, and they're seeing and they're standing and their service is wrapped up in these wings that these have as they hover around the throne, and they're saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts". And that's the missing message today in America. We think of God as some sort of a glorified grandfather or "The Man Upstairs". He is the thrice-holy God of Israel. And you don't have a concept of God until you see the triune nature of God, until you see He is the triune God. He is the holy God.
I must go on and come to the third and most wonderful thing: He is the saving God. The answer to the New Age, friend, is the new birth, the new birth. Look in Isaiah chapter 6 verses 5, "Then said I, 'Woe is me! For I am undone.'" I was studying the fifth chapter of Isaiah verses 8 through 23, and Isaiah there is mentioning six different woes. He's coming down on sin. He's excoriating sin here and sin there, and sin there, and sin here, and sin there, and sin there, and he's saying woe to this, and woe to that, and woe to this, and woe to that, and woe to that. And then he sees the Lord, and he says, "Woe is me"! If you're self-righteous, if you're pointing the finger at other people and condemning the sin of other people and not falling on your face before God, you've got a serious problem. Now Isaiah says, "Woe is me"!
Look at it in Isaiah chapter 6 verses 5 through 8, "Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts". Now I love verse 6, "Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he'd taken with tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, 'Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.' Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' Then said I, 'Here am I; send me.'"
You see, here was an answer to Isaiah's sin. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. There's a lot of theology in that. You just can't repair a broken egg, and you can't repair a broken life, but God can. The Lord Jesus can. You know, you come to church not to hear a sermon; you come to church to meet God and to find God. Thank God there is a way. And what was the way? One of these seraphs went to the altar. The altar is where there was a blood sacrifice. And they put that sacrifice upon that altar, and drip by drip by drip that blood fell into those burning coals and was consumed. And that seraph goes to the altar with a tong, and he gets a coal from that altar and places it on Isaiah's lips and says, "Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is purged". That's the God that we serve.
Friend, all of this is a prophecy and a picture of the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, that cleanses from all sin, for, "Without shedding of blood is no remission of sin". Hebrews 9 verse 22. And any kind of belief in God that does not see this God as a God of love, and a God of grace, and a God of forgiveness, and a God of salvation, has missed the one true God. There's only one way to know this one true God, and that is through a bloody sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes unto the Father but by me". He is the triune God. He is the holy God. And thank God, He is the saving God. There's salvation in the name of our great God and Savior.
I was watching the news where those workmen had gone down into the ruins of the World Trade Center, those colossal towers, and where workmen found two beams of steel. You saw it on the news. One beam of steel like this, and another like this, and they were joined together and made a cross. And they've lifted up that cross and men are coming to that cross there as they're working in that rubble, coming to that cross to find solace and to worship. And I thought of that song that we sing, "In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time". Thank God in all of this confusion, thank God in all of this heartache, there is a cross. It is the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And there is a way. These terrorists had the idea that they could go to Heaven if they would murder others and sacrifice their own life. Let me tell you about the God of the Bible. He doesn't say you'll go to Heaven when you take the lives of others. He said, "I will lay down My life for you". And Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in infinite love, died upon that cross.
There's a story that I read years ago. In the time of Cyrus the Great, the great emperor, there was a man who lived on the outskirts of his great kingdom, and his name was Cagular. And he was kind of like, perhaps, Osama bin Laden. Cagular could not be penned up and holed up, and he did all sorts of devastation. One day, Cyrus the Great said, "I'm going to bring my whole army against him," and they captured Cagular. And they brought him into the judgment hall to be sentenced and then to be put to death. Cyrus was sitting on the throne and they brought Cagular in, along with his wife and his two little children. Cagular was a handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered. He had piercing blue eyes. His wife was a noble-looking woman that you would think would be married to a chieftain like he was. His two little children were exquisitely beautiful with golden ringlets of hair coming around their face. Cyrus was impressed with Cagular, and Cyrus asked him a question, "If I were to pardon you and not put you to death, what would you do"? He said, "If you were to pardon me, I would serve you the rest of my life".
Cyrus looked down at those two little children, and said, "If I were to spare the lives of your children, what would you do"? He said, "Sire, if you were to spare the lives of my children," he said, "I would go back, and your enemies would be my enemies, and I would fight for you, and I would gather my scattered horde and make them a part of your army and fight for you". And then, Cyrus looked at Cagular's wife, and said, "If I were to spare your wife, what would you do"? He said, "Sir, if you would spare my wife, I would gladly die for you". Cyrus was so moved that not only did he pardon him, he sent him back to be the governor of that province.
When they got back home, Cagular, who had never been in a place like that, said to his wife, "When we came in through the portico, did you see the marble, how all of the colors were blended together? Did you see the tapestry on the wall? The colors looked like the sunset at evening". She said, "No, husband, I didn't see that". "Oh," he said, "did you see the throne? It looked like it was made of one piece of solid gold. I've never seen a throne like that. Did you see that"? She said, "No, I didn't see it". "Well," he said, "what did you see"? She said, "I saw the face of the man who said he would die for me". Friend, when I get to Heaven, it's not streets of gold or gates of pearl; I want to see Jesus, the one who died for me. What a mighty God we serve. How blessed we are to have the one true God, the only God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the triune God, the holy God, the saving God, the God who's knocking at your heart right now.
Would you bow your heads in prayer? Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. The Bible says, "For by grace are you saved through faith". Would you pray a prayer like this?
Oh, Lord Jesus, thank You for Your amazing grace that You died for me. I'll put my faith in You. I open my heart. I receive You now as my Lord and Savior, and I will follow You all the days of my life. I will never be ashamed of You. I will gladly stand for You. I will let people know that I love You. Give me the courage this morning to make it public. In Your name I pray, Amen.