Alan Crooks presents a triptych sermon, part testimony, part historical, but also with a hopeful eye to the future. Alan gave his life to Jesus 73 years ago, aged 17. Seeing him return to the Chartridge Mission Church pulpit with this moving and timely message was a joyful occasion for all.
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00:00As we are alert, Jesus is here, one with each other, Jesus is here.
00:22Joined by the Spirit, washed in the flood,
00:33a holy voice, the jeerky of God, as we are alert.
00:47Good evening everybody, welcome to our service this evening.
00:50It's lovely to see Angela and David, so lovely to see you again,
00:55and pray that you'll be blessed as you share with us.
00:59And thank you for the rest of you for coming.
01:05I wondered, by way of introduction, especially for those who are listening online,
01:11that I should give some reasons why I'm here tonight, and can I suggest there's two.
01:20The first one is that when I was 17 years old, that was 1951,
01:29I accepted the invitation of the minister to ask the Lord Jesus to come into my heart and my life.
01:38I confirmed that by witnessing at my baptism, and therefore my first reason why I'm here.
01:46But the second is slightly different.
01:52I'm going back now to a long time ago, some 55 years perhaps,
02:02and I just will share with you what has happened in the years between when I was converted at 17,
02:13and the 73 years that I've been a believer in the Lord Jesus.
02:19And for those of you who are watching online, it's a pleasure and a privilege to speak to you,
02:26and I think it's appropriate that I just introduce myself.
02:32The members of Chartreuse may know me very well, and some of us go back over 50 years of fellowship and friendship,
02:41and that's very valuable to me.
02:48It's been said that life, Christian life, is not a bed of roses.
02:59The implication being, of course, that our Christian life doesn't guarantee that we won't have our problems.
03:13But during those 73 years, I'd like to suggest in fact that for me, the experiences I've had are like roses.
03:28I'll tell you why.
03:31If you'd let me lay you on a bed of roses, you might be surrounded by a sweet perfume.
03:40Roses are supposed to be one of the favorite perfumes in the world.
03:44But at the same time, if you try to move, then you'd realize just what horrible forms roses have got.
03:54And that, I think, has been my experience in my life.
03:57There's been the heights of love and blessing, there's been the depth of grief and pain and sorrow,
04:05and probably most things in between.
04:08And that's the second reason I suggest that I'm here tonight, that I've got experience.
04:15Many years ago, when I left the Air Force in 55, I needed two pieces of paper.
04:22One of them was to tell my prospective employer that I was qualified to meet the standards that he'd advertised for in the job application.
04:37The second thing was that I realized I needed something that would tell the prospective employer about me.
04:47And there was something in those days called a CV, a curriculum vitae,
04:54and when I sent the applications for jobs, it was important that I sent the CV as well
05:02because that gave the prospective employer the opportunity of assessing me before I had the appointment.
05:12And that's what I suggest I can offer you tonight, my CV of 73 years, trusting and believing in the Lord Jesus.
05:24The Lord Jesus did say himself in John's Gospel,
05:29in the world you'll have trouble, and I think we can all agree with that, can't we?
05:37But he also said, fear not, I have overcome the world,
05:43and I think that's a tremendous blessing to any Christian,
05:49that irrespective of what life throws at us, we can always remember that the Lord Jesus is still in charge,
05:57irrespective of circumstances.
06:00So they're the two things that I wanted to remind you about,
06:04and why I'm able to say that I feel that I've got the qualifications to share some thoughts with you this evening,
06:13especially on the worship and praise and thanksgiving that we're going to give to God.
06:20Now if you'd like to take your Bibles, I've got some verses to read.
06:27The first one is from Genesis chapter 6, verses 1 to 13.
06:35And I'm reading from the New International Version,
06:39because I know some of you, perhaps you're listening, may not be familiar with the normal Bible,
06:47King James Version, but as an ex-Plymouth brethren I was brought up on the King James Version.
06:53So I thought we'd try an in-between now, and this is from the New International Version.
06:58And we're going to start reading at verse 1.
07:03And when man began to increase in numbers on the earth, and daughters were born to them,
07:10the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married, and any of them they chose.
07:19Then the Lord said, My spirit will not contend with man for ever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years.
07:31The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards.
07:36When the sons of God went to the daughters of men and children by them, they were the heroes of men of old.
07:44The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become,
07:49and the every inclination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually all the time.
07:57The Lord was grieved that he made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
08:04So the Lord said, I will wipe out mankind whom I have created from the face of the earth,
08:12men and animals and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air,
08:18for I am grieved that I have made them, but now have found favour in the sight of God.
08:26And the second reading is from the Romans chapter 1, and I'm going to read the first verses from 1 to 24.
08:38I thank Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God,
08:45the gospel he promised beforehand through the prophets in the holy scriptures,
08:50regarding his son, who as to his nature was a descendant of David,
08:56and who through the spirit of holiness was dedicated with power to be the son of God,
09:02by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
09:08Through him and for his name's sake we receive grace and apostleship
09:13to call people from among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.
09:18And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
09:25Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
09:31First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you,
09:36because your faith is being reported all over the world.
09:40God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his son,
09:45is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times.
09:51And I pray that now at last God's will, the way may be open for me to come to see you.
09:58Now I'm going to just skip on the two verses and I'm going to start reading from verse 18.
10:08The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
10:12against all the godlessness and wickedness of men
10:16who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
10:20Since what may be known about God is plain to them,
10:24because God has made it plain to them,
10:26for since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities,
10:30his eternal power and divine nature,
10:33have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,
10:37so that men are without excuse,
10:40neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.
10:45But their thinking became futile and foolish hearts were darkened.
10:51Although they came to be wise, they became fools
10:55and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images
11:00made to look like mortal men and birds and animals and reptiles.
11:06And this is the verse I really wanted to concentrate on.
11:11Therefore God gave them over to the simple desires of their hearts,
11:16to sexual immorality for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
11:22They exchanged the truth of God for a lie
11:26and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator himself.
11:33May God bless that reading to us.
11:40It says in the Gospel according to Matthew 24, verses 6 and 7,
11:48And you will be hearing of wars and rumours of wars.
11:53See that you are not frightened, for these things must take place.
11:57But that is not yet the end.
12:00For nations shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom,
12:05and there will be famine, pestilences and earthquakes in various places.
12:12The same thought is also found in two other Gospels,
12:16the Gospel of Mark and Luke.
12:19The one thing that's missing in the other two versions
12:24is that when the Lord Jesus answers the disciples,
12:28they were going past the temple and the Lord Jesus,
12:31the disciples remarked on what a beautiful building it was.
12:36This was Herod the Great's temple.
12:38And the Lord Jesus said,
12:40In time there won't be a single stone left standing.
12:45And so they said, Well, when will these things be?
12:49And he said this to them,
12:52But of that day and hour no one knows,
12:56not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
13:03And I'll talk about some aspects of the coming of the Lord Jesus to earth again,
13:09perhaps a little bit later in the talk.
13:12We've read already in Genesis chapter 5
13:16that Lord saw the wickedness of man was great upon the earth
13:20and every intent and thought of his heart was uneven continually.
13:25He was sorry that he made the earth and he was grieved in his heart.
13:31So he destroyed all human and animal life by flood.
13:36Only Noah, his three sons and their wives
13:40and the animals taken into the ark with them were saved.
13:46Similar thought is found if we fast forward a little bit.
13:51Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 talks of God's punishment on Sodom and Gomorrah.
13:58Again, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth
14:05and every thought and intent of his heart was uneven continually.
14:09He was sorry that he had made man on earth.
14:12He was grieved in his heart and that's when he said he would destroy them all.
14:19In between that and the second reading, which was one Roman,
14:24the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is very similar with respect to the state of Sodom and Gomorrah,
14:32the cities, as it was in the times of Noah.
14:39In fact, the Lord sent, I think it was three angels, three people to tell Abraham
14:46that he was going to destroy the cities and to go and get his nephew
14:52and his wife and his daughters out of Sodom before that time came.
14:59And so the angel took them out of Sodom and Gomorrah
15:03and when they were safely away, he destroyed not only Sodom and Gomorrah
15:08but the whole of the valley and everything in it.
15:12And it says it was fire and brimstone.
15:16Unfortunately, he also said that if anyone looks back, they'll be turned to a pillar of salt.
15:22And Lot's wife couldn't resist looking back and was turned to a pillar of salt.
15:32Now if we look to the New Testament, we read from Romans chapter 1.
15:39It said this,
15:41Gentile man changed the glory of the incorruptible God
15:47for an image in the form of corruptible man
15:51and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
15:56However, in this case, we learn from verse 24,
16:01God didn't destroy them as he'd done with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah in Noah's time.
16:07He did something completely different because we read in verse 24,
16:13God gave them over to the lusts of their heart,
16:17to impurity, that their bodies may be dishonored among them.
16:25People he was talking to were the Gentiles living in Rome at the time
16:30and what he effectively said because of their sinfulness,
16:36you've made your bed, you've turned away from me, now you go and lie in it.
16:41So he said, I'm going to give you over to your own devices,
16:46effectively saying, you've rejected me and I am rejecting you.
16:52And I think that possibly might be the situation we're in in our world today.
17:01There's no need for me to remind you about the happenings of the last few weeks.
17:07Things are happening and they must be satanic
17:11because there's so much evil in what people are doing.
17:15They've rejected God, they're turning to their own ways, they're doing what they want to do
17:20and consequently we have problems like we had in the last two weeks.
17:25Those three little girls who died and all the riots.
17:28That was Satan's work.
17:30Somewhere else in the Bible it said that Satan was like a roaring and ravaging lion
17:36seeing who he could devour.
17:39And I think that in all fairness, in everything that we see around us,
17:47surely that's what's happening at the moment.
17:50It's so hard to try and imagine what some people are going through.
17:56And I know Lord that it's just that it's your will being done
18:01but sometimes, heavenly Father, what's happening is beyond our imagination perhaps and our understanding.
18:10That's the situation as I see it today.
18:14But there's a time coming and there's a warning when we think about what's happening in the world,
18:21what's happening in our country, what's happening right across the world.
18:27There's a warning in that.
18:30Because one day the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come back to earth
18:38and he's going to judge the world with righteousness.
18:44Can I just clarify one or two things about the second coming?
18:51The verses in the scriptures would indicate that the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth at different times.
19:011 Thessalonians 4, verses 13 to 18 says that the church will be taken out instantly
19:09to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven.
19:13And that's called the rapture.
19:16At the same time, we read that the prophet Zechariah prophesied 520 years before
19:25that the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth and stand on the Mount of Olives.
19:33And the first advent, the coming of the Lord Jesus into the world as a baby
19:39and the second advent where he comes into the world to stand on the Mount of Olives
19:45are the only references specifically I can find that relate to the actual events.
19:53The others are in between.
19:55It's just that there are verses in the scriptures that support some of the theories
20:00but people, including me, we've got our own ideas of what they mean.
20:06To me the rapture may or may not come.
20:11I believe that in this world there's going to be more and more tribulation.
20:17The Bible talks about something called the Great Tribulation.
20:21It talks about the Lord Jesus coming to fight the Battle of Armageddon.
20:26He'll stand on the mountain in Jerusalem.
20:31He'll split the mountain and it goes into graphic details of what's going to happen.
20:37And then there's going to be what they call the thousand years of peace
20:41when the Lord Jesus comes to reign.
20:45Can I suggest that the only positive thing, and I feel this myself,
20:51the only positive thing about all of that is the fact that one day
20:56the Lord Jesus Christ will come again.
20:59We don't know when, we don't know how, we don't know where.
21:03Just three weeks ago a brother stood on this platform and was talking about
21:07a particular group of Christians and they believed that they could give the time
21:12of the Lord Jesus when he was coming back.
21:15And of course he didn't come back.
21:17And so they moved the time forward a bit just to justify what they'd said.
21:23But the end result, the actual basic thing I think for you and I to remember
21:29is the Lord Jesus Christ will come back in God's own time and in God's own way.
21:37And the other thing about it, the scripture tells us that when he comes back
21:43it's going to be quick.
21:45It talks about in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
21:49it's like lightning coming from the east and the west.
21:53The Lord Jesus will suddenly come back and the scriptures say to us
21:59he will come back, we don't know when, but be prepared.
22:04And there are a couple of parables that the Lord Jesus gave to indicate
22:09that the Lord Jesus is coming back very suddenly.
22:16What will happen then when the Lord Jesus comes back?
22:20Well, we're told the Lord Jesus will take his world out of the church,
22:25the church out of the world in Mark's Gospel.
22:29And he also emphasises that today is the day of salvation.
22:36I made up my mind when I was 17 to accept the invitation to accept the Lord Jesus
22:43as my saviour.
22:45And for me that was the accepted time.
22:48And it also says in the scriptures, Matthew chapter 44,
22:53the son of man is coming at a time when you don't know when.
23:02The Lord Jesus, when he rose from the, ascended after his resurrection
23:11and ascended into heaven with a cloud and the angel said
23:17don't worry, you'll see him again, he's coming back in the same way.
23:23And that's one of the verses that causes so many problems
23:27against the rapture theory and all that's associated with it.
23:32So what is the truth?
23:35What is the facts about the Lord Jesus coming again?
23:41Well, the Christian Gospel teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth
23:48by God's grace through faith and lived and died according to the scriptures.
23:54And the scriptures said that he bore all our sins in his body on the tree.
24:00The Lord Jesus in fact took our sins upon him
24:04and that's what I affirm when I accept him as my Lord and saviour.
24:10So God says words like this in the scriptures.
24:15For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son
24:21that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
24:30He goes on to say the Lord Jesus didn't come to judge the world,
24:35he came to save the world.
24:38And all this mixed together makes it very difficult for some people
24:42to understand or want to identify with just specific times
24:47and places for the Lord Jesus to come back.
24:52In Romans chapter 9 he said that if you, and this is the verse that
24:58I believe I must have said when I accepted the Lord Jesus but that was 73 years ago.
25:06I can't remember that far back.
25:10This is what they call the Gospel in a nutshell.
25:14For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son
25:19that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life
25:24and be saved through him.
25:27And as you know that's John 3, 16 and 17.
25:34So what is my thought on the world in which we're living?
25:40I'm afraid I just can't grasp it.
25:43It just seems to be getting worse and worse and worse.
25:47And I think that the people in England and all around the world
25:52have rejected God and he's rejecting them and things are going to get worse.
25:57Sometimes the events we hear about are so horrific you don't really want to know about them
26:02because they're so evil.
26:05And as to all the wars and rumours of wars there's very few places in the world
26:10that haven't got some sort of conflict in the present time.
26:15And so what's the message behind all of these events
26:19with Noah and with Sodom and Gomorrah and with the book church of Rome?
26:27They've got similarities in that they turned their backs on God
26:34and God punished them in different ways.
26:38And the message of the Gospel is
26:42trust in the Lord Jesus with all your heart, with all your body,
26:46with all your soul and with all your mind.
26:49That's the first commandment.
26:51Second is like unto it, the scripture said,
26:54and love your neighbour as yourself.
26:57Neighbourly love is something we can really deal with, isn't it?
27:01I find it so difficult.
27:04Right, in closing may I just say this.
27:08All through my life I've had various things happen.
27:12I've probably had a cross-section of most human emotions.
27:17I've had depths of grief.
27:20I remember joy I had when I was holding my first great-grandchild.
27:26She was just a week old and they gave her to me to have a cuddle.
27:34And that was a moment of real joy for me.
27:38A little tiny baby and she's grown up to be about eight years old
27:43and probably taller than me now.
27:46So there have been times when it's been sad and difficult
27:51but the Bible teaches, as we've already been reminded,
27:56that no matter where we are, whatever the situation around us,
28:01whatever difficulties we're going through, physical, mental or spiritual,
28:06there's always somebody there with us.
28:09Not always easy to see, depending on circumstances,
28:13but God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit,
28:18wherever we are, whatever our situation is,
28:22God tells us that I'm there with you.
28:26And I'm sure we can praise God for that.
28:36One with each other, Jesus is here.
28:47Joined by the Spirit, washed in the flood.
28:58Come, come, come all ye, the church of God.
29:09As we all gather, Jesus is here.
29:20One with each other, Jesus is here.