James Young Simpson and the Gospel of Substitution

James Young Simpson and Chloroform Anaesthesia

James Young Simpson had now the assurance of a home in heaven — a step that puzzled one of his scientific friends, who said, “What a curious psychological phenomenon this step of Simpson’s is. I can’t make it out. It looks downright fanaticism.”

As a young man, Simpson had always wished there were a way to improve the comparatively primitive medical profession — a way to lessen the pain that surgery entailed. At this point in his life, he was powerfully influenced by the creation account in the book of Genesis. He read that the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and then God took one of his ribs. Simpson said, “That was surgery, and God put the patient to sleep.” He wondered whether there was any way of duplicating that.

Once, while he was experimenting with anesthetics, Simpson paid a visit to a man named Lyon Playfair, who afterward became Lord Playfair. Playfair was a famous chemist, at work in his laboratory, and Simpson took the opportunity to ask him if he had ever come across anything capable of producing anesthesia. To Simpson’s unbounded joy, Playfair told him that his assistant had recently prepared a liquid worthy of the experiment. Immediately Simpson said, “Let us try it on ourselves.” Playfair absolutely refused to allow such a thing to happen unless the experiment was first tested on two rabbits.

Reluctantly — very reluctantly — Simpson agreed, chafing at what he considered a needless waste of time. The new anesthetic was given to the animals, and with much delight Simpson watched their recovery, coming back to consciousness. He returned home, and went back the next day. Now was the day they were going to try it on themselves. Just before they did, the assistant suggested, “Do you think maybe we should check the rabbits?” They did. Both were dead. Thus, through his reckless bravery, medicine nearly lost Simpson before his great discovery had even been made.

The Night Simpson Tested Chloroform as an Anaesthetic

It was the evening of November 4th, 1847. Dr. George Keith and Dr. Matthew Duncan were Simpson’s guests. After dinner the three gentlemen withdrew and went downstairs for the latest experiment. (I need to stop right now and say: warning, do not try this at home.) They had decided to try a heavy liquid substance called chloroform that they had previously overlooked. All three inhaled it. Dr. Keith was the first to hit the floor — in two minutes he was under the dining room table. Simpson and Duncan soon followed.

Anyone suddenly entering the room would have thought the three men were drunk, lying on the floor, rather than this being one of the epoch-making moments in the history of medicine. The ladies whom they had forsaken — their wives — were astonished by the sound of crashing glass, followed by complete silence. Rushing downstairs, they found all three gentlemen stretched on the floor, gone completely unconscious.

Later on they tried it on Simpson’s niece, Miss Petrie. She fell asleep soon after inhaling it while singing the words, “I am an angel.” It was very much up to chance that Simpson survived the chloroform dosage he administered to himself, let alone to his niece. If he had inhaled too much, subsequently passing away from an overdose, chloroform would have been seen as a dangerous substance. However, if he had inhaled too little, it would not have put him to sleep, and would have been eliminated as a possibility. It was his willingness to explore the possibilities of the substance that established his career as a pioneer in the field of medicine. Of course, nobody ever says anything about poor Miss Petrie, his first test patient.

In short time, Dr. Simpson started to use it as an anesthetic to ease the pain of childbirth. There were a lot of people who objected to that — I’m not going to go into this in great detail — but they raised opposition to it, and he always answered them to just read the Bible, because this is what God did; this is what the Creator did. The battle was pretty well won when Queen Victoria herself took chloroform, and then when the famous preacher Dr. Chalmers declared that the question had not even the remotest connection with theology, the battle was won. This innovation was recognized as the greatest discovery in a century of outstanding discoveries. Dr. Simpson may not have been the first to use chloroform, but it was his persistent advocacy which led to its acceptance.

A Portrait of a Humble, Faithful Man

As to his reputation in the medical field, patients came to seek him from all over Europe, and he had much more to do than he really could find time for. But his old friends from Bathgate always had first call on his time — if it was a friend, he never turned him away. One day such a man had come, and it was near the end of the day, and he was speaking with this man, listening to his medical needs. A very famous authoress rang his bell. The servant informed her that there were no more patients for the day. She said, “I am sure I can be admitted — take my name, he knows me.” The servant said, “Dr. Simpson knows the queen, ma’am. No more patients today.”

In describing his Christian character, his biographer wrote that for Simpson, faith was as natural as breathing. Family prayers were at 8:15 a.m. in the dining room; everyone had their own Bible in hand. The family sat around a mahogany table. Simpson always read the lesson from the Bible, but he enjoyed the children leading the prayers. His growth in spiritual attainments was very rapid.

Dr. Simpson once wrote to a friend: “The Bible verse ‘God is love’ has kept me thinking for the last twenty-four hours, and the more I think of it, the more wonderful and marvelous and comprehensive it grows. In some of our clear northern lights, the heavens above sparkle with countless numbers of bright and beautiful stars; the pages of the Bible sparkle with countless numbers of bright and beautiful verses. But I fancy that for the future I shall consider the text ‘God is love’ as the greatest and grandest in the great and grand firmament of Bible verses — a kind of pole star, around which, as around the pole star in the heavens, other starry messengers and sayings of the Bible revolve. And when I stand by the bedside of a weak and dying patient and count her pulse, your selected text” — this is what the man had preached — “your selected text will enable me to speak words of strength to her in her weakness, and words of life to her in the hour of her bodily death.”

When he was asked to address the medical students convened by request of the committee of the Medical Missionary Society, he said, “When I got a note requesting me to speak, I was in a sick bed, ill with fever, and I at once thought, I cannot do this. But when I came to reflect further, I felt I must do it. I cannot speak earnestly, or as I ought, for Jesus, but let me speak a little of Jesus — his matchless love, his great redemption, which he offers to you and me. Some of you have perhaps read many novels and dramas, and been interested and amused by them, but here in the word of God is a more touching story than the mind of man ever created — a story as far above all of these as the heavens are above the earth, and differing from all these in this: it is every word true. In those, the characters are limited, but this takes in everybody. Those stories have reference to a few days or years when they happen, but the interest of this is limited to no time — it stretches on to eternity. Look at the Saviour’s terrible submissiveness, the appalling passiveness with which he allows himself to be scourged, beaten, nailed to the cross. Think of his dying in darkness for your sake and mine, and when he cried, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me’ — he died that you and I might live.”

In 1870, as he lay near death, he said to his friend Mr. Duns: “I have not lived so near to Christ as I desire to do. I’ve had a busy life, but have not given so much time to eternal things as I should have sought. Yet I know it is not my merit I am to trust to for eternal life — Christ is all. The hymn expresses my thoughts: Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.” (That is exactly what our dear brother has been reminding us about — the blood of Christ. “But that thy blood was shed for me” — I so like that hymn.)

Then he turned to Duns and said the passage in Duns’s last book, about the world being made by the hands that were nailed to the cross, had brought him much strength and comfort — it had stuck with him ever since he read it. Duns went on to say that as they spoke, Lady Simpson, his wife, withdrew to the window to weep, because her husband was dying. He said that Professor Simpson’s eyes followed her, and he gazed on her for an instant with a look of inexpressible anxiety and yearning tenderness, and then turned back to Mr. Duns. He said the simplicity of Simpson’s trust in Christ was very striking. He said, “It has happily come to this: I am a sinner needing a Saviour, and Jesus is the Saviour that I need.” Mr. M. — another preacher — had told him to rest his head on Jesus’s chest, like John did at the supper table. “I cannot just do that,” Simpson said, “but I think it enough if I have hold of the hem of his garment” — a reference, of course, to the woman who was healed when she took the hem of the garment of the Lord Jesus.

“I Am a Sinner Needing a Saviour”

Now, in case you have not had a chance to read over tonight’s handout, allow me to tell you in just a moment the great truth that Dr. Simpson learned. He talked about seeing someone being whipped for a crime, and he said nobody offered to take the man’s place and be whipped in his stead. Then he described watching a man being brought out to be hanged, and he said no one said, “Take the noose off him and put it on me — I will be hanged in his place.” And then he described learning that there is somebody who took his place — the Lord Jesus — and that the Lord Jesus died so that James Young Simpson could live, could go to heaven.

So what I would like to do for just a few minutes is take that one sublime Bible truth and speak to you about substitution. Because I will be in heaven, even though I deserve to be in hell — I will be in heaven because Jesus took my place at Calvary and died for me. And the moment that I took him as my Saviour, all the limitless value of what he did on the cross was carried over in God’s ledger to my account, and I will never perish, simply because Jesus died for me.

The Gospel of Substitution

I want you to think about three things about a substitute: the idea of a substitute required, a substitute provided, and a substitute received. In other words — a substitute required, we needed one; a substitute provided, God’s provided one; a substitute received, I have one, and you can have one tonight as well.

A Substitute Goes Where We Cannot Go

Think about a teacher who is ill, and so the district calls, and they bring in a substitute teacher. The substitute teacher goes in the place of the other teacher — a substitute goes where you cannot go. Now, you and I never could have approached God in order to settle the issue of our sins. We had nothing we could have taken to God. We have no money, no resources — nothing we could have gone into the presence of God with to handle this problem of our sins. But the Lord Jesus went where we could not go.

In going to Calvary, to that cross, the Lord Jesus was not only going to a physical place outside the city of Jerusalem, but on that cross, in a sense, he was going into the presence of God. He was going to deal with my sins. And I read to you the language of Isaiah: he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. He was going where I could never have gone.

If you’re familiar with Bible history, you will remember that at Mount Sinai, when the law was going to be given and God came down on the mountain, the Israelites were cowering at the base of the mountain, saying to Moses, “Moses, you speak to us — don’t let us hear the voice of God, it’s thundering in our ears.” Moses was told to make sure no one comes near.

If I could suggest something to you: the Bible speaks on a number of occasions about people not being able to see God, or they would die. Have you ever heard the expression — when somebody would say, “I was almost scared to death”? It was such a fright they could almost feel their heart stop, and so we have that phrase in the English language. (I don’t know how it would be in French — something about your coeur.) But “I was almost scared to death” — people coming into the presence of God carelessly. I don’t think it’s a case that somehow judgment falls on them and they die in every case; it is God telling us that as finite human beings, we could never look on God and live — like trying to stare at the sun and not go blind. And so there was this reminder: don’t let the people come near. Moses was told to remove his shoes from his feet — he was standing on holy ground.

Isaiah, that wonderful preacher, seeing something of what God was like, said, “Woe is me, I’m undone, I’m a man of unclean lips — I’ve seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” Throughout the Bible, some of the finest people who ever lived, when they found themselves in the presence of God, just seeing something of what God was like, were terrified. Daniel said, “I felt like everything in me turned to corruption.” Peter said, “I’m a sinful man, Lord, leave me.” Moses hides his face before God. Isaiah, as I just told you, feels like he is the worst of sinners in the land. What was creating that? Just a sight of how great this God is. We could never have gone there into the presence of God. The Lord Jesus went.

A Substitute Experiences What We Cannot Experience

A substitute experiences what we can’t experience. On the way to school, the substitute teacher experiences the traffic jam, not the teacher — the teacher’s home sick, but the substitute faces the traffic jam. Later on there’s a fire drill in the class; the substitute teacher experiences the fire drill with the students. The substitute is experiencing what the other person did not.

We never could have experienced the totality of the wrath of God — never. And if all you know about Calvary is what you’ve seen in the movies, if all you know about Calvary is depictions — even in the finest artwork from the finest artists — please understand: there was something that happened that April day unparalleled in the history of eternity.

Do you remember when the flood came, and Noah and his family were safe in the ark? Do you remember the phrase that is used — we’re told that the windows of heaven opened, and the fountains of the deep erupted, and the world that then was overflowed with water. And then do you remember that significant phrase, “the waters were restrained”? In other words, there was more water that could have come, but it was held back — there was no need for it.

Now please understand that what I’m telling you is: at Calvary, God poured out his judgment on his Son for me, and there was no restraint. The Lord Jesus suffered more than any human being ever has or ever could suffer, and he did that for me. It wasn’t just nails in his hands and feet, it wasn’t just thorns in his brow — and when I say “just,” those are terrible things, but you must understand that what was happening at Calvary was God and his Son dealing with my sin, and that required that the Lord Jesus would suffer.

Listen to the language the Bible uses, and you’ll catch the idea of the intensity and the extremity of it: “My soul is full of troubles. I am laid in the lowest pit. I am afflicted with all his waves; God’s fierce wrath goes over me.” Those are words that tell us how much he suffered, and we never could have experienced the burden that he felt at Calvary.

I was fifteen and a half years old when I became aware of my sins. That may sound like strange language to you, but up until that point I was just on cruise control, hardly thinking about what was going to happen when I died and when I met God. But in a meeting like this, for the first time in my life, I became aware of my sins, and I thought to myself, wherever am I going to be in eternity? How can I meet God like this? Now, that was just my sins — I left that meeting with just one thing in my mind: how can I get rid of my sins? But when John the Baptizer saw the Lord Jesus, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God” — sin-bearer for the world — and on him God laid all of my sins, and he suffered for those sins.

A Stranger Saved While Reading Isaiah 53

I was visiting with some people last week, and the name came up of a mutual friend — a gentleman who now lives in Massachusetts. His wife was saved, his wife was a Christian, he was not. He was coming to meetings that the late Mr. Sydney Maxwell and I were having, and one night after the meeting there were a number of people we were going to be visiting with. So I was with Ed and his wife, and we went down the highway — it was Route One — just down to (I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the States, when they used to have Friendly’s restaurants; their specialty was ice cream, but it was a restaurant for other things as well). So we went to Friendly’s. I was sitting across from them, and I’m thinking of him because of the passage that we read, because after a conversation together for a few minutes, I turned him to Isaiah 53, and I said, “Now, notice what’s happening in the chapter.” In the beginning of the chapter the people are saying, “We did not know who he was — we did not know who he was.” They’re talking about how they despised him, they rejected him, there was no beauty in him that would draw them. They’re basically saying, “We did not know who he was.” When you get to verse four, they’re saying, “We did not know why he died — we esteemed that he was stricken by God for his sins, for his blasphemies.” Now, that’s the significance of the word that begins verse five — it’s a sudden change. They’ve discovered it wasn’t for his sins that he died — it was for theirs.

Now we’re sitting across from each other, and I had the Bible facing him, and — I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box, so I wasn’t catching on to what was happening — right when we were talking about this, I went to turn him to another verse. I was going to say, “For instance, you’ll see the same thing right here.” He said, “Stop — no, no.” He put his hand out and stopped me from turning the page. “No,” he said, “I can see this.” And he kept reading the verse. He turned to his wife and said, “I’m saved.” She said, “What?” He said, “I’m saved.”

Now you have to understand what happened — there’s a waitress coming this way, she has a carafe of coffee, and she’s coming over to the table, and just as she’s coming to the table, they dissolve into tears on each other’s shoulders, hugging each other and crying. And the woman just did a turnaround — she had no idea what happened, but she thought this is not the time to be pouring coffee. I think she thought something sad had happened, when in fact the greatest thing that can happen to a human being had just taken place: he had found out that Jesus died for him, and he had trusted Christ.

That’s what Professor James Young Simpson discovered — a substitute who went where he could not go, who experienced what he could not experience.

A Substitute Does What We Cannot Do

And a substitute does what we cannot do. It’s the substitute that steps in to assume the task, to teach the class, because the teacher is ill. We could never have put away our sins, we could never have satisfied God. Revelation chapter 5 shows us that the entire human race is disqualified — sin has taken away from us the capability of paying for our sins. I don’t know if that sounds too convoluted, but it has robbed us of the ability to do anything to make up for our sins. We’re penniless, we’re powerless, we’re helpless.

I read a few years ago about a woman in Germany who wanted to buy a new car. She came onto the lot and spoke words that are like a dream for a salesman: she said, “I want to buy a new car, and I want to pay cash — I want to drive off the lot with a new car.” “Well, we’re delighted to see you, ma’am, come on into the office.” She told him the car she wanted — she already had the car picked out. He sat down behind the desk, she sat down in front of the desk. She had a bag with her, and she started to pull out money, placing it into stacks on his desk. He’s looking at her — she had a dot matrix printer at home (some of you are far too young to know what a dot matrix printer is), and she had printed off money on her printer, and she was pulling printed paper out of her bag, placing it on the desk. He thought it was a joke. She wanted to buy the car with money she had printed — and in case you don’t understand, it doesn’t work that way.

We think that’s kind of foolish, except all over the world there are people who think, “I put two dollars into the collection plate, I think God’s okay with that.” I think there are people who imagine, “I said so many prayers, I’m sure that takes care of my sins for the day,” or “I did this good work,” or — you know, it’s like that carbon offsetting: “I do this, I fly in a jet, but I’m going to put in ten dollars over here to make sure it’s all balanced.” Well, there is no way we can balance our debt of sin. We can’t pay for it — we don’t have the currency, we don’t have the resource. That’s why the Bible says that none of us can redeem our soul, or give to God the ransom. We never could have satisfied God, we never could have put away our sin, we never could have saved ourselves. Therefore we needed a substitute who would not only go where we couldn’t go, but who would do what we could not do. The one person in all the universe who could handle your problem of sin was the Son of God. God cannot die — he became a man so that he could die. And on a cross outside the ancient walls of Jerusalem, the Son of God died for our sins as my substitute.

A Modern Ransom Story

I think it’s an amazing story that comes from 1998. It was a June day — don’t let me get ahead of myself. There were leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, in South America, who kidnapped a sixty-year-old man named Ed Leonard. Ed Leonard was from Vancouver — he was a drill foreman for the Tundra Drilling Company, which was at work down in Colombia. These rebels, these communists, captured him and demanded two million dollars ransom from the company. The owner of the company was a man who lived in Alberta — and I guess, since this is being recorded, I’ll just give you his last name: it was Reinhardt. He was in touch by phone with people down in Colombia, trying to resolve this, and he said to his wife, “I’m going to try one more time, and if that doesn’t work, there’s only one thing I can do.” He tried one more time — it did not work. So Mr. Reinhardt, after more than three months of negotiations, flew down to Colombia, and on October the 6th, 1998, at a remote mountain pass in Colombia, soldiers lined up on one side, armed rebels lined up on the other. Two men began to walk — from the rebels’ side came Ed Leonard, from among the soldiers came the owner of the company, Mr. Reinhardt. They walked toward each other. When they met in the middle — the boss had never met his employee before — the boss turned to Ed Leonard and said, “Your shift is done. I’ll take over now.” Ed Leonard walks to the soldiers and goes home to Canada. Mr. Reinhardt walks to the rebels and goes into captivity. He took his place.

I’m glad to tell you it has a happy ending, because I was able to follow the story, and I saw the picture of when that man landed in Alberta, in the airport, and his little girl running down the hallway to throw her arms around her dad — the company had paid, and he was released. They had held him for ninety-four days, but they didn’t kill him, because they got their money.

I thought, what courage — how amazing that a man would take another man’s place and put his life on the line. He had no assurance that they were going to release him, that they wouldn’t kill him — but he became his substitute.

I have a substitute. He took my place. I wasn’t even born yet, and he knew every one of my sins that I would commit, and he took my place at Calvary, on that cross. In one sense, you know, Barabbas — he could have — I don’t know that he did, but he could have come to Calvary, he could have looked up at his two fellow crooks and criminals and seen that they were dying, and he could have looked at the man on the middle cross and said to himself, “That was my cross — that’s where I should have been. He took my place.” What I’m telling you is, in a grander, greater way, he took my place, answered to God for my sins, settled my tremendous debt that I never could have paid, because he was wounded for my transgressions, he was bruised for my iniquities, he was chastised so I could have peace, and through his sufferings I have been saved.

Why Only Christ Qualifies as Our Substitute

You need a substitute. I’m glad to tell you that God has provided a substitute. The Lord Jesus is unique — now, you can’t modify uniqueness, I can’t tell you he was “very unique” or “extremely unique” — unique just stands by itself. He was unique. He’s the only person who never sinned — never sinned.

If you’re a mother or father, I’ve got bad news for you: that little boy, that little girl, that cherubic little child of yours has the same kind of nature that you have. We come into the world as sinners. Upbringing, discipline, even sometimes religion or fear of punishment can curb us and make us behave right, but nothing can reach inside and change us except God’s salvation, because we come into the world as sinners.

He was the only one born absolutely perfect — stainless, sinless. We are peccable; he was impeccable. Not just that he did not sin, as true as that is, but that he could not sin — there was nothing in him that responded to sin. That’s what made him the one person who could die for us. But of course, if he was merely a perfect man, then one perfect man could die for one imperfect human being. You needed a substitute — so did I, so did my parents, so did my siblings, so did my children, so did my grandchildren. We needed something more than just one perfect man; we needed somebody who was absolutely sinless, who would be of such limitless value to God that by one death he could provide salvation for every one.

Now you understand that in all the universe there’s only one person who meets that criterion — just one, the Son of God who became a man. And that is why the Bible says that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. That’s why the Lord Jesus, as he says, is the light of the world. That’s why he could say, “I am the door — by me if anyone enter in, he shall be saved.” That’s why he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life — no one comes to the Father except by me.” That’s why Paul wrote that he gave himself a ransom for all — because such is the unlimited value to God of what his Son did on the cross, that if every human being in the world right now simultaneously turned to God seeking salvation, there is enough in the work of Christ to save every last member of the fallen race of Adam, if only they will turn to the Lord Jesus.

How to Receive Christ

God has provided a ransom for you. Now, as this meeting closes, I want to very quickly tell you that substitute needs to be received. I’m so thankful to tell you that I have a Saviour who became my substitute, who took my place and who saved me. I came into the good of that on the 10th of July, 1966.

The Bible tells us people become saved by receiving Christ. John chapter 1 says, “As many as receive Christ, they become the children of God.” There’s a man named Zacchaeus, racing through the streets of Jericho because he wants to get to Christ, and we read that wonderful statement that Zacchaeus received him joyfully, and you remember what the Lord Jesus said: “This day salvation has come to this house.” He could circle the date on the calendar — the moment he received Christ, salvation was his.

Will you receive Christ? Will you receive the Lord Jesus? You see, we’re not asking you to join the Gospel Hall — this is not an attendance drive where we’re hoping to add to our numbers by having you come. The purpose of these meetings is that we want you to be in heaven when your life is done. We want you to know Christ and to have salvation. And the way that you obtain salvation is you receive Christ. The way you become saved, you receive Christ. The way that you receive Christ is you receive his word.

If you keep coming to the Gospel Hall, it is likely that at some point you will hear somebody get up and tell you how he was saved. If you hear enough of those, you’ll realize that there are all kinds of verses that have helped people, all kinds of things that have triggered a concern in a person’s heart and led them to the Lord Jesus. If you listen carefully, you will realize that every person who is saved obtains salvation from this book — they find out truth from the Bible, they accept what God says. And I’ll just give it to you the way the Lord Jesus put it — it’s true, he said, “I’m telling you: he that hears my word and believes God that sent me has everlasting life, shall not come into condemnation, is passed from death to life.” God is giving you his word that Christ died on the cross, and he’s telling you to receive Christ tonight and let Christ save you.

The Pardon He Refused

Just allow me to give you a story from my country. Many years ago there was a man named George Wilson who was sentenced to hang — he had been convicted of murder while robbing a federal payroll train. Public sentiment led to an eventual pardon by the then-president of the United States. You’ll recognize how old this is if I tell you that the president was Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson issued a pardon for George Wilson. George Wilson, in his prison cell, was informed of the pardon — and created a legal conundrum by refusing it. Refusing the pardon. So now the question was: what happens to him? Here’s a piece of paper that says he can walk free, but he’s turning that down — does he live, or does he die?

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States at that point was John Marshall. I will give you his words: “A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not completed without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him. It may be supposed that no being condemned to death would reject a pardon, but the rule must be the same.”

George Wilson rejected the pardon. George Wilson was hanged. And while George Wilson’s body was swinging from a gallows, there was a drawer, in a desk, in an office, with a pardon from the president of the United States that would have saved him. But he said no.

Closing Appeal

There’s a Saviour who suffered more than I could ever begin to tell you, no matter how long I tried. But you need to accept him, you need to trust him. And I’m going to take a moment just to beg you, in the name of my God — don’t go to hell. After all he suffered, don’t you miss salvation. After all he went through, after all it cost God to send his Son, after all it cost the Lord Jesus to die on a cross — don’t you throw that all away. Turn him down and die in your sins, and go to hell — or turn to him tonight, receive him tonight, trust him tonight. Believe — the Bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.