Gospel—A.C. Hayhoe
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I'd like you to turn with me please, first of all to the Gospel of Luke, the 4th chapter of Lukes Gospel.
16th verse.
And he, Jesus, came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.
And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read, and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives.
And recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are frozen to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. I believe you and I have noticed before that if we were to turn back to the 61St chapter of Isaiah, which is being quoted and read here in these verses, we would find that there is one more statement following that which we just read to preach.
The acceptable year of the Lord and.
The day of vengeance of our God.
There is quite a difference, is there not, between a year and a day.
One is 365 times greater than the other, and I love to think of that as I read such a statement as we have here hear. The Lord Jesus stands in the company of those who needed His love and grace and mercy and pardon, and He says with joy that it is His mission.
To open the eyes of the blind, to heal a broken heart, and to preach deliverance to the captives.
Preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he doesn't finish the statement.
The next part of the statement which he leaves unread is this, the day of vengeance of our God. And I find this to be very, very significant, for I feel that we find in that comparison the matchless, wondrous grace of God in all its largeness as compared to.
That vengeance which yet will certainly fall.
The year, the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of bending. Oh, how this magnifies the wondrous, matchless, loving heart of God.
In grace it precedes the mention of judgment, and it abounds far above the description given of judgment and vengeance, even as a year exceeds a day.
So the grace and love of the heart of God far exceeds that mention of judgment which we find here. And this is very much on my heart tonight, the acceptable year of the Lord. Now you and I can measure a year, 365 days and a little more.
And at the beginning of the year, in the month of January, we know that there's quite a bit of that year left yet to run its course.
But when I read these verses here, and when I see these words to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, I ask you, in what month, in what day of this acceptable year of the grace and long-suffering of God, do you suppose we are this very light?
I feel firmly convinced, and I know I'm by number means alone in this, that we are right at the very end of the acceptable year of the Lord. We're right at the very end of the long-suffering and matchless grace of God which has looked down in lingering love and mercy.
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To a world which spit in the face of his beloved son.
And crucified him and sealed him in a tomb as much as to say we put him to death and we don't ever want to see him again. And God has looked down in love to this guilty world for over 1900 years since they put his beloved Son to death. And I am sure from the testimony of this book and I am sure from.
Which I see around me today that the very last moments of the acceptable year of the grace of God are upon us this very night.
Though there's kind of strange feeling that comes over us as the last moments of an old year ticked slowly by.
I guess quite a good many of us have remained up and awake in order that we might just have that unusual experience of observing the last few moments of an old year passed by and the first dawning moments of a new year ushered in upon us. And I must say, as I stand here with God's precious Word open before me, and look into the faces of those.
Who are bound for eternity, that I feel firmly convinced, my beloved friend, that I am witnessing the last moments of the acceptable year of the Lord. But I stand here expecting at any moment they hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we were reminded today saying.
Come up, hit her.
I was reminded today of a dear brother who can neither hear nor speak, and he expressed a little concern about the prospect of the Lord coming with that mighty shout of triumph because he had never heard a human voice in all his life. Well, I remember visiting a dear old man. His name was Brother Wilkins.
Of Thomaston, New Brunswick. He was not stoned deaf, but pretty close to it. And I went to one year and I hollered a verse of scripture in that year.
And he shook his head in disappointment while I walked around to the other side. And I tried the other ear. He shook his head again. I walked back again and made one more attempt.
And again he shook his head, looking a little bit sad, and then all of a sudden his face brightened up with joy and he said, never mind brother, I'll hear the shout when it comes. Are you able to say the same thing? Do you mind if I just look right straight at you and ask you that question? Will you hear the voice of the Lord Jesus?
If you were to call right now in this very room, everyone who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
Everyone whose heart is cleansed from every stain of sin. In a moment the acceptable year of the Lord comes to an end. And in that moment the sound of His voice with a shout of glad triumph is heard. Oh, I thank God, I stand here and say, I'll hear that voice. In that glorious and joyful moment I'll hear his voice, and I will be gone.
If that were to take place during the course of this gospel meeting, the meeting would suddenly come to an end. I would be gone.
Oh, as I look at these rows, I wonder. As I look at you, I wonder, would each and every row here be totally vacated with that seat?
For you are the empty. What an awful thing it would be. What a terrible thing it would be if suddenly, and you know I am not drawing upon my imagination, you know I speak the truth, if suddenly in this very meeting.
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You were found sitting alone in that rope, and you looked around with.
Horror to realize what you had heard over and over again and what you thought wouldn't happen for a long time yet has suddenly taken place. You would know right away what had taken place. There are a lot of people in this land, a lot of people in Hessler and where I come from, who know nothing whatever about it. I think they would be taken by complete surprise.
They would be bewildered. Where are these neighbors of ours?
Where are these people whom we used to know? They've suddenly vanished and we don't know what happened. I can picture the dismay, the bewilderment in a town where I live at this moment, which is most certainly going to take place.
And who will tell them what has happened? Who will answer their?
Question.
I'm sorry to have to tell you that the ones who will answer their questions and tell them what happened will be.
The sons and daughters of Christian parents who heard about this over and over again and didn't intend to be left behind. Oh no. They intended to settle the matter and be numbered among the redeemed in order that they also might be called away. But they were left.
Really awful, awful reality of telling the bewildered people I know what's happened. I can tell you where they have gone. The Lord has come. I heard my father talk about it often. I've heard it preached in the place that I attended over and over. My Sunday school teacher told me it was going to happen. And now I'm left behind.
Oh, I tell you, I am not imagining this beloved friend. This is going to take place.
The acceptable year of the Lord. Oh how matchless is his long-suffering and the day of vengeance of our God. Or when I put the two side by side, it seems to me to magnify the love and the grace of the heart of God. The acceptable year of the Lord.
You know, I will admit that as we were together just before this meeting in prayer for the blessing of the Lord.
There seemed to be laid on my heart the special thought of the passing of time. I think because that there's something very significant about today.
That rather sets it apart from all the other days on the calendar. Am I not right in thinking that at midnight tonight we're going to turn back our clocks so that we actually experience, if you wish, 25 hours instead of 24 today?
Is that not true? Is this not rather an unusual day, that there's going to be one extra hour, by man's reckoning, given to us today?
And I feel that this may have influenced my thoughts as they turn to that which God's Word declares concerning the passing of time and the grace of God that accompanies the passing of time.
And yet the warnings that are found in God's Word as the years and the months passed by. Shall we turn from this to?
Exodus, the 12Th chapter of Exodus.
And the first verse.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of month. It shall be the first month of the year to you. This to me is a very, very beautiful story. Here are the children of Israel in captivity, slavery, ******* in the land of Egypt.
Day after day they wept and they groaned under that *******.
And the eye of God looked down upon their sorrows, that the ear of God heard those groanings. And God said to Moses, I'm going to deliver them from this. I'm going to take them cleaner of the land altogether, and set their feet in a land that flows with milk and honey. And the wondrous story of deliverances introduced with these words, This month shall be unto you, the beginning of month.
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It shall be the first month of the year.
To you, it was going to mean the end of their slavery and their *******. It was going to mean the prospect of a land that flowed with milk and honey and all. Beloved friend, as I stand here, I look back to the days when I too was a slave.
In *******.
A burden of sin, a burden of guilt, and a cruel taskmaster. And my face set not toward the glorious land that flows with milk and honey and all the blessings of God, but my face sat downward on the broad Rd. that leads to destruction. And God looked down upon me and in wondrous, matchless love and mercy.
There came into my life the beginning of months.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, having gone to the cross and accomplished redemption, having shed His precious blood in order that God might have the joy of offering pardon, full and free forgiveness from every stain of guilt, in spite of this offer of mercy.
I still was on that broad Rd. I wonder is this true of anyone else here?
These things are not new to you, you have heard them before.
And I don't believe there's anyone here that can turn away and say.
I don't believe that these things are true. I don't believe that there's any burden or stain of guilt in connection with my life. You know very well there is, friend, and I beg of you to remember this, that God's record of your life is stained with many, many more sins than you could possibly remember or I.
For God's reckoning of sin is not according to man's. God says the thought of foolishness is sin.
And every act of anger, jealousy, disobedience.
Any of these things in your life or mine have been solemnly written down by the finger of God on the record of your life. And now I want to ask you that if God were to turn those pages and open his book at the page where your name is written down, what would be found recorded there if there were to be found but one stain of guilt, Just one.
My friend, there would have to be written beneath your name that solemn word.
Lost.
Now it's serious enough, beloved friend, to be lost today.
In the moments of time to be lost during the acceptable year of the Lord, to be lost while yet there is hope and the offer of pardon. But oh friend, remember this, that as that solemn word loss stands written underneath your name.
There are souls who are even now in a lost eternity. I find myself thinking of this over and over again as the responsibility of preaching the gospel is laid upon my shoulders. For as I look into your faces and know that God is giving you this opportunity of hearing the gospel.
I cannot help but be reminded again and again.
Of those who had this privilege and they're not here tonight.
They're gone. They've gone into an eternity without Christ and their lost forever. They're lost forever.
A solemn thing that is now here. We find in Exodus 12 That God, having looked down upon these people, says to them through Moses, that this month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you, so wondrous was the event that was to take place.
That God just sort of stopped the calendar and said we're going to start all over again.
From this day onward, this is going to be a new beginning.
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Now in the ways of God, in matchless grace with this rebellious soul of mine.
It so happens that I was born again on New Year's Day.
The first day of the year just coincides with my spiritual birthday. I know that's rather unusual, but so it is. And when that New Year's Day comes around, by the grace of God, I remember the matchless, long-suffering grace that brought me to my knees to own that I was lost and guilty.
And to receive from the hand of God that which He had offered me again and again and yet again, the forgiveness of all my sins, the gift of eternal life, and the certainty of a home up there in the glory.
He is offering this to you tonight.
Will you not, will you not give him the joy of making that grand and wondrous new beginning? Also in your pathway, you right now are either on a broad Rd. that leads to eternal hell or you are on the narrow Rd. that leads to eternal glory.
Can you answer, friend? Can you answer? On which of those two roads are your footsteps this very night? You entered this meeting room either lost or saved. You entered this meeting room either guilty or pardon. You entered this meeting room either bound for eternal hell or bound for everlasting glory. There is no middle stand between those two.
Could you and you and you would everyone here truthfully answer tonight Which of these two conditions describes my case?
Lost, guilty and on your road to hell.
Or save and pardon, and on your road to glory. Is it any wonder that we find words like these? This month shall be unto you the being beginning of months. It shall be the first month.
Of the year to you. I'm pretty sure in the life of everyone of us, we look back to certain very outstanding events, something that took place and we said I'll never forget this day as long as I live. Some of those things that seem so important at the time of rather faded away, have they not? But this event was so important that God stopped the calendar and started it all over again on that day.
And all I say to you, as we look at this wondrous story of the Passover lamb slain and its sprinkled blood on the lentil on the two side posts sheltering those Israelites from the judgment of God, I say, what a marvelous picture.
And what a wonderful and yet solemn statement this is. This month shall be unto you. The beginning of month. It shall be the first month of the year to you.
I don't believe we need to go over this story, for that was not really my point in turning to this passage. However, I believe we ought to say this that judgment fell on absolutely every home in all the land.
The Egyptians and the Israelites alike, judgment fell upon every home. On some homes it fell on the first born. On others it fell on the lamb.
A substitute.
Judgment fell upon the lamb. There wasn't a home in all the land, be it an Israelite or an Egyptian, that God could look down and say there is no need for judgment to visit this home. Our friend, judgment must fall either upon me or upon my substitute, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you do not yet know, the Lord Jesus Christ as.
Your own personal savior.
Then I must say this in faithfulness to you and in accordance with God's word, that the judgment of God hangs over your head right now, no matter how respectable, clean, upright, honorable your life and testimony may be, I say once again, the judgment of God hangs over your head.
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Unless you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
And so we see in that land the homes of the proud and self-righteous Egyptians and the homes of those slaves, the Israelites. And we look one by one at the homes of those Israelites. And we see on every home the sprinkled blood on the lentil. And on the two side posts it could actually be seen although.
When the Lord went by at midnight.
I suppose no human eye could see it, but his eye could, even though it was midnight. And you know, right now in this meeting, as I look up and down the rows, there's something that the eye of God can see that I cannot see. Permit me, then to look up and down these roads and to remind you as I do so, that the eye of God is looking.
Not at a company of people, but at you, my friend, right where you sit on that road.
The eye of God is looking at something which I cannot see, nor can your father, your mother, nor whoever may be sitting beside you.
That God's eye at this moment sees that heart of yours, and this heart of mine, either cleansed from every state of sin by the precious blood of the Lamb of God, or with those stains of guilt still there.
Would you not wish that this might be for you also, the beginning of months, this day in which we are granted that one extra hour? Could it not be just that special day for you when by the matchless grace of God, your needs?
Are bowed in His presence, that you might accept Him as your savior.
I was visiting in a home just a few days ago.
And there sat before me a young man just in the vigor of young manhood, and he bowed his head and he said, I have turned my back on the Lord since the early days when I went to Sunday school in Montreal. Again and again and again and again. I have not only turned my back against Him, but I have.
Fought against him tonight when you or this afternoon?
Will you please show me how I can receive him as my savior?
And he knelt down. He owned that he was lost. He owned two that he had turned again and again away from it against the Lord.
And he received the Lord Jesus as his Savior, and he rose from his knees and spoke with joy of what it means to have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my own Savior. Oh, I was so glad to hear those very words from his lips. Have you ever told anyone in all your life?
I have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.
As my savior, perhaps the best that's ever yet been gotten out of you is when someone cornered you and said are you saved? And you said yes because you didn't want them to bother you any further. Am I not speaking the truth?
Come now, I'm going to ask you plainly, and I want you to answer before God. Have you ever in all your life told anyone I know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior? Permit me please to repeat that which I know I have mentioned before the occasion of a gospel meeting.
In which there was a deer, but sad old lady sitting on the front row. Her heart was sad because her dear son Henry had turned his back on the Lord and had not been seen under the sound of the gospel for many years. And to my astonishment, unknown to her, I saw her son Henry come in and sit on the back row.
Well, it caused me great joy to see Henry sitting there. But you know, at the end of that meeting, he turned.
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He turned to Doctor Harold Hewitt, who was present at the meeting. And he accepted the Lord Jesus as his savior. And he said, I'm going up to the front to tell my mother I'm saved. And someone heard Henry say that, and they tapped him on the shoulder and said, Henry, if that's really true, you can tell your mother something better than that.
Said what better than to go and tell her that I'm saved? He said yes.
Could you tell your mother tonight I have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior? He smiled and he walked right up the aisle and all I can see it get from his dear mother saw that he'd even been at the Gospel meeting. Her face lighted up with joy. He sat down beside her. He said, mother, I have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.
As my Savior, God's Word says, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth.
The Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved.
I'm going to ask you again, have you ever told anyone in your life?
I have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, the acceptable year of the Lord. It's just about run out.
This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. Let's turn over to 2nd Corinthians and we'll bring it down closer still. Not a year this time, not a month, but Second Corinthians chapter 6, the last part of the second verse.
Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is.
The day of salvation.
Now is the day of salvation.
Tomorrow, as we speak of things, is Sunday or the Lord's Day. But could anyone here stand up and say now I am absolutely sure that tomorrow I am going to do this or that?
You may have your purposes. You may have your plans for tomorrow.
But God's Word would stop us short right here.
Mention of a year, no mention of a month. But here we find it brought down closer still. Now is the accepted time. Behold, what does that word mean? It means take heed, pay attention, look. Now is the accepted time.
Behold, now is the day of salvation.
Oh, I am looking tonight into the faces of those whose hearts are filled with Thanksgiving to the Lord, that there was a day in your life when you were brought to your knees to own your lost and guilty condition and to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Perhaps you can't specify just exactly even the day or place.
But you know that this occasion has taken place.
You know that on the authority of God's precious Word and by virtue of the precious blood of Christ, that that day of salvation has already taken place in the years that have been entrusted to you. Is that true of all of us? I'm trying tonight to present the message to anyone here.
Who may not get known with God-given certainty.
That this matter of which we speak is a settled matter between your soul and God. You may have heard the gospel so often, and remember its message so well, that you could turn to others and direct them where they're they ought to go.
And tell them the way to heaven, and yet be among those who are lost forever.
You know, I remember one time I was on my way to Bermuda and I was at La Guardia Airport in New York. Now, this is quite a while ago. They don't fly from La Guardia to Bermuda any longer, but that's the way it was at that time. And I had my passport and I had my ticket and I had the number of the departure gate and I knew the time and number of the flight.
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And I looked at my watch.
And I said no, I'm going to listen very carefully for the sound of that flight number being called.
Well, I don't know whether others are fascinated by the activities of an airport the way I am, but I found I remember quite well a nice plate glass window in the TWA office and I could see that Cummings and goings and it fascinated me. I heard flights being announced one after the other, but I didn't hear mine until suddenly I looked at my watch.
And the departure was within about 3 minutes.
And I had a long way to go to the gate where I was supposed to board that plane and.
I'm sure the folks I passed by looked on and bewilderment as I rushed past one gate after another. And I came to the departure lounge and there was no one there except the girl behind the counter. And I said, as the flight's been called for Bermuda, she said, call, everybody's on board. And I said, where's the plane? She said out there. And I looked out and there the steps were still up the door and there was a stewardess standing at the door looking just a little bit puzzled.
And I ran.
And I went up those steps and I can see her yet as I handed in my boarding pass, she just shook her head like that and closed the door behind me. You know, I sat down, puffing and puffing and thinking to myself what a fool I was. There was a passport, there was a paid ticket, everything in readiness for departure. But I was so taken up with something which was not the least bit wrong, but so taken up that.
Moment of departure almost caught me at unawares. Now, my beloved friend, you sit here in this gospel meeting tonight with an open Bible in your hand. You heard God's way of salvation over and over and over again. You know that all it was necessary has been fully paid for the Lord Jesus Christ in hanging there upon the cross of Calvary.
And enduring that awful load and burden of sin pride, it is finished.
All the price was paid, but you, my friend, in this world that is so filled with that which attracts the attention of man today, have perhaps forgotten at the moment of the return of the Lord Jesus to take His own away, may find you with everything necessary as far as the knowledge of the way of salvation is concerned.
But there's one vital thing you have forgotten.
You have not yet personally owned your lost condition and received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. May I ask you one further question? Perhaps you say? Oh yes, I'm pretty sure.
I remember when I was a little boy this took place. May I ask you then this other question? When did you last thank Him for paying that mighty debt for you?
For shedding his precious blood, that you might be redeemed. Oh, I think this is a question that we are entitled to ask you. You claim to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You claim to rejoice, to know that you're going to spend eternity up there with him in the glory. Is it possible?
That having received from His loving hand that wondrous and costly gift, the forgiveness of every stain of sin, the wondrous reality of eternal life sent from above, and the certainty of a home with Himself up there in the glory. All this you claim to have received. But do you thank Him for it? Is there still something that you wish me to believe happened a long time ago?
From that day onward, you've just gone on as you did before.
Oh, friend, let me ask you, you who would wish me to take you for a believer, when did you last thank the Lord Jesus, or that which He did for your guilty soul and mine upon the cross of Calvary? Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. I'd like to turn to one more scripture. This one is not at all an appeal to the.
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Unbeliever, but a solemn verse in Luke's Gospel.
Luke Chapter.
22.
Luke, chapter 22.
And verse 53.
The Lord Jesus is speaking here.
When I was daily with you in the temple. He stretched forth, no hands against me. But this is your hour and the power of darkness.
Permit me please, just to speak of this hour of which our Lord Jesus referred here in the moments of time has come, that occasion when the Son of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ sent into this world from the loving heart of God to reveal that heart of man is now faced with that which He refers to as the power of darkness. Oh, I have looked and looked at that statement and bowed my head as I realized that I will never know what that statement really means.
The power of darkness. I was under that power. You were under that power.
You and I were held captive in a ******* that we will never realize how dreadful it was. We have been rescued from an eternity which, thank God, we shall never realize the awful reality of it, the power of darkness. Nor did the hand of the Lord Jesus simply reach into that awful darkness and smash you and me out of it.
He himself, beloved face that hour. He himself went right into the awful darkness of that hour.
There he bowed his head, while a son refused to shine on the waves and billows of God. Wrath and judgment, which ought to have fallen upon me, which ought to have fallen upon you, and I, who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior during that awful time of darkness.
It fell instead in all its power upon God's beloved Son, who I can call.
My Savior.
Whose sins did he bear during this time of darkness and suffering? Whose sins?
And you truthfully and thankfully say thank God in that hour of darkness, He bore my sins. Is this true? Have you made him? Have you accepted Him as your own precious Savior? You know, I suppose I could be exceedingly.
Thirsty and I could have placed before me a glass of delightful.
Pure water. And I could thank the one who brought that water. I could believe that it was just the very thing that I needed in order to quench my thirst. I could point it out to others as being the very thing and the very best thing to quench the thirst of any man and yet die of thirst within reach of that glass of water.
And I believe that there are many in these Christian lands.
Surrounded by God's precious Word and having heard again and again.
The wondrous pleading notes of the Gospel of the grace of God, and yet go forth from such a privilege into a lost eternity. Oh friend, this is solemn. The Lord Jesus Christ is facing in the moment that we see pictured in this verse, the very power of darkness. This is your.
Hour, The most solemn and the most dark power ever to stay in the history of man's.
Man's life here on earth.
The hour when the Son of God was crucified, that during that time, my dear friend, He took my guilt upon Himself, laid upon him by the very God who had that awful record, and the wrath of God poured out upon him, in order that you and I might even hear the gospel of his matchless grace proclaimed.
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Our time is slipping by I would like to turn to.
1St Corinthians 15.
1St Corinthians 15.
For we come down now to this last.
Recording of time.
A 15th of First Corinthians.
And the 52nd verse.
In a moment.
In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, this has not taken place yet.
But it is very near at half, just a moment, without anything preceding that moment to give us a little advance notice. Everything that we need to remind us of the imminence of that moment is surrounding us this very day. And I say with this blessed book open before me, that I'm expecting this moment to be upon us.
At anytime, I thank God I can say with joy. I hope that moment comes to pass before tomorrow's sunrise.
Now I say again, if the Lord spares us, there will be one extra hour added tonight.
But God doesn't even promise that you'll be here to see that extra hour. For here we find not a year, nor a month, nor a day, nor an hour. But just a moment, beloved friend. Just a moment. And that moment might take place before we close this meeting. In a moment, in that twinkling of an eye. That's a good deal less than what you and I call generally a moment.
It's a very small fraction of a second, the twinkling of an eye. You have linked your eyes a good many times since this meeting began, and you weren't conscious of it at all until this moment that I mentioned it. And now for a few passing blinks, you'll think of it. But you have blinked your eye good many times and didn't even notice the interruption in your vision. And do you know, my friend, that just as quickly as that?
One moment looking into one another's faces down here and in a brief Spanish.
Sprinkling of an eye, we will be gone. The eagerness and the joy of His heart in having us home will be realized in that brief span of the twinkling of an eye.
Oh, let me remind you, in the midst of the joy that floods my soul at the very mention of it, that if that moment, if that twinkling of an eye, were to come to pass this very evening.
Where would it find you, my friend? Would it find you in the joy that is described here?
That glorious moment finds you transferred from this world of sin and darkness into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved and died for sinners. The answer to that question is this. Have you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? You may have many.
Another answer. But I warn you solemnly that those answers will not stand you in good stead in that day.
I remember one time arriving by ship at Trinidad and we were called up on deck to meet the immigration officer. As the ship approached the shores of Port of Spain, we were told to have our passports ready.
And I stood there on deck with my passport in my hand, and I noticed that the young man in front of me who had boarded the ship at Saint Vincent had no passport. He had a white envelope in his hand, and he didn't seem to be a little uneasy.
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And I can see the immigration officer yet. He was busy with his books. And each passenger would set down his passport. The man would look at it, look up at the passenger, stamp it and hand it back. And this young fellow right ahead of me put down the envelope with a letter inside. And the immigration officer didn't even look up and said, your passport, Sir. And the young man said, Sir, if you'll just read that letter, it will explain everything.
The immigration officer said. Your passport, Sir.
The young man again tried to cover up by saying, Sir, if you'll just read that letter, it will explain everything. And he sat down his pen and looked up. I can see him yet. He glared at him. Do you or do you not have a passport? Young man said, no, Sir, but if you'll just please read that letter, it will explain everything. And the man turned and picked up the ship's telephone and phoned for the police barge to come.
And I watched while the police barge came out from shore.
And took that young old man away and locked him up in jail. The 24th day of December it was locked him up in jail. And I stood by helplessly. There was one thing I could do. That young man, I don't know what was in that letter, but he had tried to enter Trinidad without a passport.
My friend, are you doing something much more foolish and serious than that? Do you have that which God requires for admission to those courts of glory? If this moment, if this twinkling of an eye, where to separate the redeemed from the lost and this company, in which would you be numbered?
There will be no opportunity to get that passport at the last moment.
You know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. If you are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, then you have that which is required for admission to those courts of glory. You may have everything else that man respects so highly, but I warn you that God will be no more lenient than the immigration officer that locked that man up in prison.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the redeemed of the Lord will be called home to enter the unending joy of the presence of our Savior. There's a verse in Job. Perhaps we could just turn to that in closing.
The 21St chapter of Job.
Job 21 and verse 7.
Wherefore do the wicked live? Become old, Yeah, are mighty in power. Their seed is established in their sight with them and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear. Neither is the rod of God upon them. Verse 13. They spend their days in wealth and in a moment.
Go down to the brave.
This is Psalm, friend. In a moment. There is a moment coming, beloved friend, which will find you and me by the matchless grace of God, either in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or lost.
Forever.
That moment, that brief moment of time.
Will reveal.
Your eternal destiny and God's word declares as the tree falls.
So shall it lie. There will be absolutely no changing of that eternal destiny.
The acceptable year of the Lord, I warn you once again, has run its course.
We're in the very last hours. I don't know that I'm entitled to say that we're in the very last moments of the long-suffering grace of God, what it cost him, that you and I might even share together the wondrous, loving story of the Gospel.