S. Lewis Johnson

And as she is walking up and down in a trance and washing her hands, the blood red myrta stain will not come out. And finally she cries out, out, damned spot. Out, I say. Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. It's a terrible scene, and anybody reflecting upon it cannot help but have some kind of horror.

Did you notice this week in the paper, I think it was yesterday morning, there was a most interesting story of a woman who was seeking three divorces at once. She had been married and she had left that husband, but she hadn't bothered to get a divorce. So she married another one. She didn't bother to get a divorce from that one. She married another one. She actually had married three times right in this area, as a matter of fact, from that city west of us. Three divorces. So this past week she went down to get three divorces at once. I couldn't help but think what an illustration that is of the marriage that so many of us have to the world, the flesh, and the devil. What God would love for us to carry out is a determination to be divorced from three things that so often are our masters at once. The world, the flesh, and the devil. And to give ourselves to wholehearted service to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is soon coming, perhaps.

I think when I was preaching on chapter 13, I made reference to a time when a preacher was preaching to a congregation. And he announced to the congregation in the midst of his sermon, there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth among the wicked who pass on to the next world. A member of the congregation said, what about those who haven't any teeth? And the preacher said, teeth will be provided.

Act Two is seven weeks later. It is the day of Pentecost. The day of the feast day of Pentecost. The last of the feasts that Simon would celebrate on his visit to the city of Jerusalem. His visit is almost over now. He probably has heard a great deal about Jesus of Nazareth. He has heard these rumors. He has heard, no doubt, some friends of his speak. And he has heard many of the enemies of our Lord speak. He has reflected upon the life and works of this man. As other things have been said about him. He also has noticed a kind of Hush, hush attitude on the part of the Jewish leaders and Jewish priests and scribes when the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth has been mentioned.

The message that I am giving you this morning goes back many, many years ago to a radio program that I used to have in Dallas at least 25, probably 30 years ago. The title of it was Musical Mornings in the Psalms. It was my duty in this program, because it was put out and supervised by someone el to expound the Psalms in order. I can still remember. It was in the early days of my own experience as an expositor of the word of God, coming to Psalm 109 and being puzzled about this psalm. It is an imprecatory psalm, that is, a psalm in which the psalmist pronounces those terrible curses upon men that seem so out of harmony that to some people with the tenor of biblical doctrine, for example, let his days be few, let another take his office let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow let his children be continually wanderers and beg let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. Terrible curses which the Psalmist pronounces upon someone whom he calls his adversary.

A number of years ago, I was traveling in the western part of the city of Dallas on a streetcar. I'm not trying to contend with Mark over who's the oldest. We'll keep that a secret between us. I was very interested, however, to know that Mark is laying claim to being aged as I have been laying claim to that. But anyway, I remember when there were streetcars in Dallas, and I doubt that he can top that. I was riding on a streetcar, and I was reflecting on this this past week, remembering those streetcars that we used to have in Dallas, and thinking that really it's not such a bad idea to get on a streetcar. You at least were forced into conversation with people who sat down right next to you. And I sat down one day going out to preach by a man who was a clergyman in another denomination in this city. Sooner or later, we soon fell into conversation, as I remember. Naturally, the thought turned to biblical things. I was young and anxious to see if he really was one of the faithful. So I asked him, was he really a Christian man? In the course of the conversation, we got into a debate over the principle of grace. It was obvious that he did not believe that men were saved through grace, but rather were saved through good works. Soon he cited this passage and said, this is the passage in which we have the last judgment. If you read this passage, you will see immediately that we are to be judged according to our works. And with that he cited, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Since this was the passage that had to do with the last judgment, and since the judgment seemed to be concerned with deeds to these my brethren, that seemed to settle the question for him. As many of you know, I was brought to faith in the Lord Jesus by the preaching of Donald Ray Barnhouse. And he was a Presbyterian man who, as I had been instructed in the Westminster Confession of Faith. But in one of his books, he makes reference to the fact that in matters of judgment we must pay attention to the various jurisdictions of God in his judgments of different classes of his creatures. Suppose you met a man who was stupid enough to tell you that he was going down to court to listen to a trial and that the case involved counterfeiting, murder, arson, embezzlement, and parking the car by a fire plug. And you ask him where the trial is to be held. And he replies, well, it's at the federal, state, county, municipal police court. And you ask him if he isn't a little confused. And he answers moronically so Dr. Barnau said, oh, is there more than one trial? Well, in our legal system, there is more than one court. We do have federal courts. We have courts, and we have county tribunals, and we have city tribunals. And we do have a police court. At least I think we do. It is not, therefore, surprising that in God's system of tribunals we should have different judgments. It is my opinion that in this passage we have the judgment of the living Gentiles.

I think the best illustration of this is a parent's dealing with a child. I can still remember many, many years ago now when I used to have to exercise a little discipline with the members of my family, and particularly with my son. I can still remember the times when as a little boy, I would have to take him in and get out the brush and apply the brush. Someone has said we learn a lot when the board of education is applied to the circumstances of learning. And we do. I noticed, though, that regardless of what had happened, when I began to use the brush, immediately the words of confession poured out. I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry, Daddy. But I got the distinct impression that it was not so much sorrow for what he had done as it was for sorrow for what was happening to him at the present moment. It was not until the particular note to I'm sorry, Daddy had that other little note to it that I began to stop.

George Whitefield. I greatly admired Mr. Whitefield. One of his characteristic statements, he said, this is one reason, among others, why I admire the doctrine of election and am convinced that it should have a place in gospel ministrations and should be insisted on with faithfulness and care. It has a natural tendency to rouse the soul out of carnal security. How true that is when we are telling you from the pulpit that there are some who are the objects of our Lord's saving work that he has elected in the ages past. There is a man sitting in the audience and he says, God loves everybody and I'm loved by God. And God has died for everybody in the Son, and I've been died for and I'm in my carnal security. And he says, that fellow is telling me there are some that are going to be saved and there are some that are going to be lost. And it does have a tendency to rouse him out of his carnal security, out of his cozy Indifference out of his I'm all right Jack attitude. Or his false peace, to put it in the sense of the scriptures.

Now let me illustrate as I have to close. Let's just imagine a person in England who about 50 years ago, has heard about this great city in the United States of America and about this great country of the United States of America. And since he's had some relatives, of course, come over here, he's wanted to come, too. So he gets on a boat and he leaves England and he comes to Charleston, South Carolina. He finds the country magnificent. Well, it so happens that he's come through storms on the sea. And when he arrives in Charleston, he praises the captain for his skill in bringing the boat through the storms. He praises the boat because the boat has been able to withstand the storms. He thanks them for the fellowship that they've had. And he arrives in this country, and then he does not investigate the United States of America at all, but stays in Charleston and about two or three months later, goes home. Well, it's nice, of course, to have come. It's nice to have seen Charleston. But he has failed to see the United States of America with all of the magnificent beauties and glories of this country.

Simon was from Libya. Let's assume that he went back to Cyrene. Now, we could assume that his wife and children had come with him. That is possible, of course. But the facts are that through Simon, evidently the wife and the sons heard the strangest story that a pilgrim to the city of Jerusalem had ever told them. He came home. He told them as he was standing on the street corner, how contrary to all of his desires, a hand was put on his shoulder. He was forced to carry the cross of this man from Nazareth, how he was the strangest person he had ever looked upon, how he convinced him as he gazed upon him that he was something other than human, how he went out to see him crucified. He heard him utter those strange statements on the cross. Father, let them go, for they don't know what they're doing. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The passage we shall look at next Sunday, and finally it is finished. He told them how he pondered the things that he had been saying, how he came in contact with others who explained that he had claimed to be the Messiah and had done the mighty miracles that the Old Testament prophesied. He told finally of the preaching on the day of Pentecost and how he had come to faith in the Lord Jesus as he saw the miracle of men speaking in his own tongue, who had never studied the tongue that he spoke. And finally, how he had been saved. They heard the story, and evidently they responded to the ministry of Simon of Cyrene, because, as Mark writes, Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus, well known to the church in Rome. We know that the Markan Gospel is probably the gospel that Peter preached. Our contemporary New Testament scholarship is generally agreed that the Markan Gospel is the gospel that Peter himself would have preached if he were here with us. It was written for the Romans. There are indications in it, incidental indications in it, that it was designed specifically for Romans. And Alexander and Rufus must then have been well known to the church at Rome. Evidently Simon's family, the remainder of them, had come to Rome, the chief city in the Roman Empire. Tradition has it that Alexander was martyred. Rufus was still living. Then the Apostle Paul speaks in Romans chapter 11. And he, writing to the Roman church some years later, asks them to greet Rufus, the elect servant or saint, and then his mother and mine. So it seems then, that what happened was that Simon led his wife to the Lord and also his sons.

So, like so many, they stumble on spiritual cowards ruined at last, when humanly speaking, they might have been redeemed. Anatole France has written mother of pearl. He has a picture of Pilate in it. It's philosophical, it's not intended to be true to fact, but it does reveal a great deal about the heart of this man Pilate, and what may happen to others like him. You may remember that he has powlett living out his last days in a villa in luxury in Italy, in the southern part of Italy. Having been practically an alcoholic, his eyes are bleary with alcohol. A man comes up to him and said to him, in the midst of the picture of Pilate, pilate, weren't you the governor in Judea when that man Jesus was crucified? Pilate is said to have said by Anatole France, jesus, Jesus. I don't remember the name. What a profound picture that is of what it means to reject our Lord Jesus and then inevitably, to move into spiritual darkness.

The first sentence that he gave in the first of the messages on Tuesday morning at 10 o' clock for chapel used to be held from 10 and following, he would say to the new students and to the old ones who had come back, at Dallas Theological Seminary, we have a faculty of one. Well, since there were 10 or 12 men sitting on the platform, that seemed a rather startling thing for him to say. And I can still remember him saying it. At Dallas Theological Seminary, we have a faculty of one. And then he would turn primarily to these passages that I have read for the Scripture reading this morning. And he sought to show that ultimately the teacher of spiritual truth is the Holy Spirit. And ultimately our responsiveness to the ministry of the Spirit determined our growth in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.