Establishes the certainty and reliability of Luke's writings, specifically the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, by examining the author's character and methods. Lester Wilson highlights Luke's meticulous research, his Gentile background contributing a unique perspective, and his literary skill in painting vivid word pictures, such as the parables of the lost sheep and coin. The message emphasizes that Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, aimed to provide Theophilus, and by extension all readers, with a clear understanding of God's love, forgiveness, and the certainty of salvation through Christ. The sermon concludes by presenting Jesus as the ultimate physician who offers free, unfailing salvation to all who recognize their spiritual need.
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Well, it's certainly nice to be back in Albany again. Before we say anything about that, we'll read our text. Shall we turn to Luke chapter one and then we'll read something from Acts. Luke chapter one and verse one. For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order, a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us. And I want you to know how Luke speaks with certainty, both in the introduction to the Gospel of Luke and also to the Acts, the two books that he wrote.
Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things on the very first, to write unto thee in order most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed. There he speaks of the certainty of those things. Now over to Acts. Chapter one.
The former treaties, we're now referring to the book of Luke that we've just read from, the former treaties have I made, O Theophilus, he's writing to the same man, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up after that he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandment unto the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he showed, he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs.
But what certainty he writes? Many infallible proofs. being seen of them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith thee, he have heard of me. Well, I'll let you through my trip. I know a number of you are interested and will be inquiring, so I thought I would give it here from the pulpit so I wouldn't have to be giving it to each individual and repeating it.
Well, in many ways it was a very happy trip and then it had also its unhappy moments. I didn't know when I left here that I would find my eldest sister and my youngest brother in the hospital when I arrived, but that was the case. And as far as my younger sister is concerned, she seems to be in more or less a condition that she will be in for many months, possibly years. She's in a nursing home and will never get out of it. But she seems quite contented and happy under those circumstances, and so it's just a matter of time because she has a condition that the doctor says she will not be able to live too long.
Then as to my elder sister, I had a letter awaiting me yesterday from her daughter, Kay, and she said that her condition was deteriorating very rapidly from a case of thrombosis and also arthritis, and so her case also is one that anything could happen at any time. She's seventy-three years of age, and she could hardly speak well because the final last stroke she had interfered with the vocal cords. And so it's just a matter of time with her. As to my youngest brother, why he was in the hospital when I went there, quite surprised to find him there.
But Reggie has been away from the Lord for many, many years. He bought a store and he's made a success of it and making money. And he has been keeping the store open on Lord's Day, where he says that's his best day. And I've never been able to get very close to him. He's sixty-three years of age. I've never been able to get close to him. In other years, he just would climb up or he'd go for a walk. But this time, finding him in the hospital, it was another thing. As I walked up beside the bed to see him, he threw his arms around my neck, and he sobbed for about ten minutes. And we had a good chance to speak to him about the way he had been living, leaving God out of his life so he trusted the visit had some impact upon him.
The last I heard was he was taken back home but will be able to speak or walk eventually with the use of a walking stick and that's going to take time. However, there was one bright spot in my visit home. I have a sister-in-law who is unsafe. She married my youngest brother who is ten years younger than myself. And, of course, he's not saved, and Bertie was a Catholic, and she was more or less on the defensive when we were home on previous years. But I've been praying that somehow we would have an opening. They have a lovely son, David, twenty-five years of age.
Of course, he was brought up a Catholic. And so this time I stayed four days with him, whereas other years I didn't spend one. So I was going to leave. I was there Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and I told them I would leave on Thursday morning, but the objection said we wanted to stay over to Friday. And I thought maybe the Lord is going to open the door for a conversation with Bertie in the morning. And it turned out that way. Next morning, after George and David had gone to work, I waited till they left, then I got up for my breakfast. And Bertie has a job in her own home. She makes grapes. She has one room set aside for that, and she works there just like if you were working at a factory.
But she took my breakfast that morning, and as I sat down to partake of it, she brought the subject up herself, and that's what I was praying for. showing it was on her mind. And for three hours we had a wonderful conversation. And what's worried her is the fact that her son, who is the apple of her eye, is now about to be engaged to a Protestant girl. But she says, what can I say I married your brother and he was a Protestant? And so she finds now this is something she's going to have to put up with, although I don't think it's going to be difficult because of the conversation that followed.
And so we dipped it from one thing to another, and I found many cracks in her faith in Catholicism. And after the three-hour conversation, she seemed quite shaken up and said, well, I didn't know I was going to hear all this. Well, I said, Bertie, you asked for it. you brought the subject up and so I have real faith that God is going to keep working in a real safe working and if she gets saved she's really going to be all out for the Lord and so my visit with my loved ones had its high point as well as its low as for myself well I got back I suppose just about as tired as I left and so for a week or two I'll try and rest now our text for today You know, in taking up the books of the Book of Acts, some would like to have other subjects taken up, and I can understand that.
Some would like to have more prophecy preached as we took up in the Book of Daniel. Others would like other lines of truth, such as doctrine. Others would like evangelical truth. Others would like devotional truth and others practical truth. But there is such a way There is a manner in which one can preach the whole Bible through one book. Your Bible is composed of sixty-six books. Now, when we went through the revelation a number of years ago, we were able to support many things that came up in that last book of our Bible because of connecting verses in all the other books of the Bible.
And so you would find a definite link right from Genesis on to Jude with verses in the Revelation. And so in the book of Revelation you would find evangelical truth, many opportunities to bring in the gospel. You would find devotional truth and you would find doctrinal truth and you would find practical truth. And so it was when we took up the book of Daniel, and before that the book of Romans. In other words, it's possible to fix the whole Bible through one book, because there's always verses and truths linked between those books.
And in going through the book of Acts, we'll have many opportunities to bring in prophetic truth, in fact, in the very opening chapter. Verse three, for instance, or is it verse, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many valuable proofs, being seen of them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And verse six, when they therefore were come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? Right there you have a prophetic link.
And you can dwell on that and bring out a lot of prophetic truths from all parts of your Bible, especially the prophetic category. And so we'll be doing that right throughout. And of course you go down to verse eleven, we'll be speaking on that too. which also ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven, this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. So there again you have another prophetic length or association. And so as we take our way through the book of Acts from Sunday to Sunday, we'll be bringing in all these various truth that we have mentioned.
I've never taken up the Book of Acts, and so I'm anticipating, looking forward to it with considerable joy. Now let us think of the writer of the Book of Luke and the Book of Acts. Luke wrote these two books. Luke's name means a luminous or light giver. Back in earlier days when they gave names to sons, those names, as a rule, had real significance. And so Luke's name is very significant. His name, meaning as I've already given it, means a light-giver or a luminous.
And certainly Luke illuminates a lot of the Bible. He throws lights upon the truth of God. And we'll find that as we go along. How passages open up and chapters reveal themselves because of this gifted position, Luke. And thus his name is very significant. It has been said by many theologians that Luke wrote the most beautiful book in the world when he wrote the Gospel of Luke. and it indeed is a wonderful gospel.
He seems to be less known that is above his life than the other writers of the New Testament. We have no indication as to when he contacted the Apostle Paul or when he got saved. We cannot find that information in the Bible. Whether Paul being in ill health and he often was, whether he went to this physician, Luke, after he used to speak of Luke, as Luke, the beloved physician, whether it was during one of those contacts that Paul led this doctor to the Lord, we do not know.
But he was a wonderful man, and on one occasion, Paul could say, only Luke is with me. And Paul speaks very endearingly. and affectionately of this doctor. And so we see these points in connection with Luke. He might have been saved. He was, more or less, a native of Antioch, a Gentile city, and he himself was undoubtedly a Gentile. In his gospel, he take out Luke's gospel, opens you hear the rustle of the angel's wings.
as they appeared over the manger. And they sang glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace good will toward men. And when you come to Luke fifteen, you hear also the sweetness of angels' song, for there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repented. For more than over ninety-and-nine just persons that need no repentance. And so you have Luke and these lovely touches in his writings. Now he's writing to Theophilus. It seems strange that he should be writing to Theophilus.
Why should he write to this man? And we have very little information concerning this character also. Theophilus. And strange to say in looking up the meaning of his name, his name means loved of God. or lover of God. I think that's not. He was loved of God and he certainly became a lover of God. And that's true of everyone here this morning who is saved by the grace of God. We're loved of God. And certainly God has left his love without doubt. As we look at Calvary, we see God taking out his very heart and lifting it up, dripping with blood at the cross.
There you see the heart of God in the death of His Son. And we're all loved of God. And once we're saved, we become lovers of God. We love Him because He first loved us. And friends, you don't love God until you are saved by the grace of God. You may fear Him You may reverence him, but you don't love him, because love is based upon forgiveness. Even Luke brings that out in chapter seven of his gospel. Here you find this woman and says the Lord Jesus, she was forgiven much.
That's why she loved much. And only when we are assured of the fact that God has forgiven us all our sins, that our sins have been washed away, then we can love the one who shed his blood to thus wash away all our sins. When we apprehend and take in the fact of God's love that he loved us and gave his son for us, we receive that blessed story by faith has given us in the Word, then our heart bubbled up in love to God himself.
I didn't love God one bit until I was nineteen years of age and trusted Christ in the kitchen of our home in Stratford-on-Turkey. But I certainly was afraid of God. And I reverenced God. I wouldn't take His name in vain, although I took other names in vain. But I wouldn't take God's name and be. I feared God. I reverenced God. But I really didn't love him until that night I knew for the first time in my life that all my sins were forgiven. I had a passport to heaven. Then I loved God, for giving His Son.
I loved the Lord Jesus for dying for me upon the cross. And so we find that this man's name, Theopolis, is very significant. And there's something else that indicates he evidently was a Roman of high rank, because Paul uses the language most excellent Theopolis. You find those two words linked together only three other times in your Bible, a connection with Felix and Festus. On three occasions, the Apostle Paul in addressing these men, and we'll find it when we get later into the book of Acts, on three occasions, the Apostle Paul addresses these men as most noble, most excellent felons, most excellent testers, showing that that expression was in keeping with a Roman man in high rank, an individual occupying a place of authority.
And Theophilus, undoubtedly, was a Roman of high rank, because Luke addresses him when he says most excellent Theophilus. How did Theophilus get saved? We don't know. Could he be a convert of Luke? when Luke addresses both of his books to most excellent theophilus. You say, well, in this case, how can we say that God wrote the Bible? Here is a case of Luke writing these two wonderful books to one man.
The point is this, God by inspiration, selected this very capable doctor to write these books. Other books were written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy. Others were written by Peter. Paul wrote several epistles, as we know. But here is God selecting these men because of their natural capabilities. God selects them like you would select a pen. I often do it. I have maybe eight or ten pens on my desk and pencils, and I often select a certain one because it serves my purpose to express my thought.
You never thank your pen for writing a letter. You never thank your right hand. wrote the letter because it began in your mind to express through your hand and through that pen and ink. And so God picks up these men because they're suitable for God to express himself. And God in this case, he wrote up, he picked out, he selected Luke. And Luke was certainly qualified and capable in writing the book of Luke and the book of Acts.
You'll see that as we go along. And so we find Luke, this one selected by God. And you know he must have been a remarkable man, undoubtedly a very modest man to begin with. I think we mentioned this one time before in taking up the book of Luke some points in reference to Luke himself, but seeing where taken up acts, and there are those who are here now that weren't here when we took up Luke. We'll mention a few of these days. He must have been a very modest man. Only once does he use the personal pronoun I, just once.
And he says that, or refers to that in verse one of the first verse of Acts. The former treaties have I made old theophilus, and as far as we know that's the only time in the book of Luke and Acts that Luke speaks to themselves in the personal pronoun I. He will sometimes say we, showing he must have been a very, very modest man. He wasn't seeking glory. he was seeking the exaltation of the one he was seeking to present the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And furthermore, he must have been a very clever man. To begin with, he's an author, and as far as we can discover, he wrote in very excellent Greek language, And he's the only writer in the Old and New Testament who was a Gentile. All the others were Hebrew or Jews, but not Luke. And he used very excellent Greek. And so he must have been a very clever man. And some ancient writings also tell us that Luke was an artist. Now whether he was an artist or not, Whether he were an artist or not, we do not know.
That is, by Russian power. But I know one thing. He certainly was an artist to paint pictures, word pictures, as he gives us in Luke and also in the Acts. You speak of a man who can paint a picture before you just by the use of words. another man can take a brush and paint and he'll paint a picture of a landscape but if you took his brush away he couldn't illustrate anything but there are those you can use human language use words to paint a picture to make a story live before and that's the kind of painter lukewarm all you have to do is look at some of his writings in this case.
For instance, the fifteenth chapter of Luke, and here Luke is relating how that man is lost, yet God is seeking to save the lost. And he paints a picture. There was a certain shepherd, and he had one hundred sheep. Ninety-nine were in the fold but one had gone astray. And how the shepherd left the ninety-nine in the fold. And he went out to seek that which was lost. And when he found that one sheep, he wrought it back on his shoulders, and he came back rejoicing.
He called together his friends, his validness, And he says, Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that is lost. Now there's a picture, though. One could spend time elaborating on it and painting it, to see that shepherd as he goes forth, leaving his wife that made the meal time, leaving his wife and facing that dangerous terrain, the mountains, the wild beasts that roam among the mountains, the hide in the cave, the threatening storm that is seen rising up over the horizon.
And he turns his back on safety, and he faces the mountains, he faces the wild beasts, he faces the storm. Why? One that was sheep was lost. Is it worth it? Yes. The shepherd couldn't eat through food till he found the sheep that was lost. And here is Luke painting a picture of the love of God toward man. And how the Lord Jesus came as the shepherd to find that sheep. which was lost. Then he speaks about a woman losing one piece of silver.
She had nine left. For though she wasn't satisfied with having nine, she wanted ten. She wanted one was lost. And you can picture that woman as Luke does, and she sweep the house She moves the furniture. She sweeps under the rug. On mine you can see the dust flies. The windows are open. The doors are open to take care of the dust that she's kicking up. In search for that one jewel, that one piece of silver. And thus again we describe how God, by the Holy Spirit, is seeking to reach that which was lost.
God is not content to have five million people, five billion people in heaven if you're lost. He wants you. He loves you. He wants to reach you. God should call the business off and say, I've got enough to inhabit my heaven. shut the door, bring in judgments about all or less of the human race. I've got plenty. We've got billions of people here who've shaved down the ages. We've got all the angelic hopes to add to our adoration and worship and singing.
It's all over us. Bring the ages to a climax and oh, it's a start. There are still sinners unsaved. And until the church is complete, I am going to try and reach all I can. And you might well thank God this morning that the door has not been shut. There is still hope. You can get in before it is shut. Then he comes to the Father, and he looks over his audience. And as he saw a shepherd leaning on his staff, he tells the story of the lost sheep. He sees a woman worried, and he thinks of the lost coin.
He sees him as a father. And what father, having two sons? Oh, he's got the attention now of the fathers. And so Louis was a wonderful painter, wonderful painter with works. And so he was a very, very able man, a clever man. That's very evident. He was a very adventurous man. He didn't mind traveling with the Apostle Paul, although it might have meant death on many occasions. Paul's life was constantly in jeopardy, and yet...
Luke went along. These were serious adventures. And on one occasion, he says, devils have forsaken. Only Luke, says Ripley, the beloved physician, falls deep to affectionately of Luke. Ah, yes, Luke stood with the Apostle. He was an adventurous man, and likely a good sailor too. If you read his story, which we will, we get to chapter twenty-seven, on how he pictures that fearful storm when Paul was on his way from Jerusalem to Rome. There are those who have read that description of a storm.
I have a friend of mine, Ed Pesh, a preacher, and he was a sailor before God saved him. And I heard him preach on that passage one time, and it certainly was entertaining. To listen to Ed Pesch, who had been a sailor for many years, handled the twenty-seven chapter of Acts. So I have a sermon on it. But when I heard his, it was quite different because he looked at it from the standpoint of a sailor. And he could use the language of a sailor. You know, Luke must have had a good knowledge of seamanship. must have been expert sailors, because seamen have read this passage.
And they say that Luke uses technical terms, he uses nautical terms, expressions, in order to bring out the vividness of that great storm that the Apostle Paul went through with all on board on his journey up the Mediterranean. And so he was a very clever man, an author, an artist, and a sailor, an adopter, an adopter. Furthermore, in connection with Luke, he was a very earnest man, a very sincere man.
And you see that in reading through his Gospel, could be that Luke was the first medical missionary ever to go out. a medical missionary. Because he was a doctor, he certainly knew something about medicine, and he became a missionary in that he was constantly with the apostle. The apostle Paul was a sickly man. He needed the peasants and the service of a doctor at all times. And Luke was that doctor. When you start to think of some of Luke's language, Luke was very, very earnest. He didn't mind telling men and women they were lost.
He tells us in the nineteenth chapter that the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. And the passage I've already referred to in order to get across the man that man has lost, he tells the story of the sheep and the silver and the sun. to try and get across the man. He's lost. He's got to be saved, and he cannot save himself. Luke was very earnest. Furthermore, he tells about hell in chapter sixteen of Luke. But I tell you that's a sober passage to read about the rich man in hell.
But Luke held nothing back. He was a very earnest man. And also he knew what it was to rebuke hypocrisy. He's just like a doctor analyzing a patient, and he's going to lay it on the lines, you know, telling the truth. And Luke, in the eighteen chapter of his gospel, he talks about that hypocrite. He went up to pray, and he prayed his prayer, I'm not like other men. I've not read this publicly. I've passed away from the book.
I give entirely of all of our scriptures. I, I, I, and Luke denounces and instructives and expresses hypothesis in his gospel. He was a sincere and a very early man. And then when it comes to the thought, Luke ever got to possibly a social who could portray the sufferings of Christ on their cross more than a gospel. Know how earnest he was in going into these details.
And no other writer in the New Testament tells us and gives us more information about the birth of Christ than Luke. Read. the opening chapters of Luke's Gospel. And Luke is able, as a doctor, to tell us things that the other writers of the Gospel couldn't tell us. He's a doctor. And he's a very sincere, a very earnest man. In other words, he knows what he's talking about. And I've already mentioned a fact about his willingness to suffer. He was a loyal man He was with the apostle unto the end. He stayed right by his side, knowing that any day it might mean his death.
But the stones that were being thrown at the apostle could might well have hit him. But I know he was ready and waiting. He was very loyal, waiting to assist the apostle on his mission, as God's chosen man to begin to He was a very observing man. That's quite evident. You know, we have no evidence at all that Luke ever was an eyewitness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't know when he got saved, as I mentioned previously. It could have been his contact with Luke or with the Apostle when Luke got saved.
We have no evidence that he was an eyewitness of the Lord Jesus. or saw any of the miracles that the Lord Jesus performed. Well, where did he get all his information? Well, he speaks of the certainty of those things. He says that I'm writing unto you. He said, I've got perfect understanding of these things. Where did he get his information from? He must have talked to hundreds of people. who had experienced the miraculous power of the Lord to gather his information. Just like a news reporter and an accident has taken place, and he interrogates everyone involved.
Did you see that accident? Which way was this God? Which way was this God? And they try to guess all, get all the information they get. They talk to the people involved in the accident, those injured, the one driving the car, and after they assemble all the material they try to come up with a pack. And I can picture Luke, the beloved physician, and he begins to gather all his material. And there are no contradictions showing how thorough he was in his research. especially interested in those who were healed by the Lord.
He thinks of the girl of twelve. And after he came to know Christ, I can see him going to that home. I don't know how old a girl is by now. And he would ask all the Christians about how the Lord raised that young girl from the dead. And after he comes to the fact, He records it in his gospel. And then blind Bartimaeus. He goes to see blind Bartimaeus, who by now has received his sight. And he questions them. And those who knew about him, sitting by the highway, just outside Jericho's gate, steady.
And he gets all the information he can. And so on. The widow's son. The man with the gobsies. The ten lepers. And the man was carried into the Lord's presence by four men, and the withered hand. Yes, he asked these questions. And I'm sure he talked a lot with one lady, the one who was crippled for eighteen years. And you know what Luke says? Now doctors don't as a rule of hell on other doctors. They kind of protect one another. But you know what Luke says about this case? She had wasted all her money on many physicians, and was nothing better, but rather grew worse.
Now, Luke said that, showing how he didn't spare any friends or his contemporaries. There was a woman she spent all she had on physicians. Evidently, he knew there were men in that profession that couldn't help certain people. And here's a woman in a hopeless situation, the Lord alone, Peter, and Luke tells us all about it, very graphically. He must have done a lot of research and asked him questions before he was able to write his story. And he speaks of many imperable proofs.
He must have been a wonderful man for observation to get all the facts under the guidance, of course, of the Holy Spirit of God. Today you meet people who are not well. They tried his doctors. They obeyed his orders. They carried out his instructions, but no he thought. They try another doctor. They end up the same way. They try nothing until they give up sinfulness. I don't know who else to go. I just about spend all my money on our getting worse. Well, there's only one who can help you.
And I'm not referring to the body now. I'm referring to the soul. And that is the great position of the Lord Jesus Christ. And just like people sometimes throw up their hands about their bodies, it's a grand thing when a sinner gives up and throws up in hand, his hands in hopeless despair. I'm lost, I'm going to hell, and I can't save myself when there's no man on earth that can save me. But Jesus is there. And that's the sinner's only hope. And that's what Luke is seeking to bring out.
And how fascinating it must have been to Luke as he interrogated and questioned all these characters from the Lord of Eden in order to compile his wonderful story, the Gospel of Luke. And you know, furthermore, in connection with Luke is a man who is deeply concerned deeply sincere, very sincere, very earnest in his writing, that thou mightest know the certainty, he said, of these things. The certainty of what? Luke in writing his gospel and the acts of the apostles was every man the priest who is writing these books.
But he knew he was under the power of the Spirit of God, God's hand of the apostles. I want you to know the certainty of sin and sins forgiven. And in Luke chapter seven you get the story of the woman whose sins were forgiven. He also had investigated that sin. Firstly, Dr. Luke, I want you to know the certainty of sins forgiven. You may know it without a doubt and also of peace with God. For in his gospel he tells about the one who had a death, and after his death was paid he got free.
He tells about the woman with the disease, and after the disease was healed she had free. He tells about an old man sinning and was facing death, and when he found fright he had free. And so here is Luke, and he wants you to know the certainty of peace with God in view of death, disease, and death. He wants you to know the certainty of eternal life in this life and in the next. You may know of a certainty that you are saved. And also he wants you to know the certainty of everlasting punishment.
Make no mistake about it. Read the sixteenth the blue thing received. the certainty of eternal punishment. And so here is this physician, only a type of the great physician, because he's revealing the mind of the great physician himself. The Lord Jesus Christ is revealing himself through a human instrument, who in this case is a doctor, a physician, a surgeon. He's speaking through Luke's lips. He's seeing through Luke's eyes. He's listening through Luke's ear.
He's loving with Luke's heart. And here is God giving up his mind through this man in the Gospel of Luke in this marvelous book of the Acts. He has diagnosed your case spiritually. It's hopeless. He knows your needs. you need to be saved. And disposition is very tender, very sincere, very loving. Yes, he is indeed. This doctor knows the seriousness of your spiritual condition.
You know what he does? He offers you his services free. He'll save you by his grace, for salvation is a gift. of God. Will you take it for you? Not from Dr. Luther, but from the great position of death with scarred hands. Yes. Here we have a shepherd who dies for the sheep, a king who dies for his subjects, and a doctor who dies and suffers for his patients, the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you accept him?
Will you accept him? Right now. He loves you. He knows all about you. He has all the X-rays. In fact, he is the X-ray himself. He sees all of you. He has diagnosed everything. Nothing is hidden from him. He knows and sees your innermost part. If you're professing to be what you're not, if you're trying to play the hypocrite, gear it up, for he knows all about you. He knows the facts, and he wants you to agree with me, and as a doctor would spread out his report before you, physically, and let you read to me if you want, what the laboratory has gone up, what the x-ray has been in your pulpit.
God's x-ray is his word, and you can look in him and get God's diagnosis, especially in Romans chapter three. But in many cases the doctor, in the case of two of my sisters, the doctor says, you can do nothing. Just a matter of time. Doctors are limited in this world, in the treatment of our bodies. But there's one in heaven who's not limited in any He knows your case and is admitted to the fold and it will cost you a penny. It may cost you a five. It may cost you the concept that you have that you're able to work out your own situation.
And you can get yourself to heaven or you can work your way to heaven. No, you can't. We've got to come to Christ those cases absolutely holy, and only as a sinner will he save us. When we say, God be merciful, for me, the sinner, we'll save right here