"This day is Salvation come to this house. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Luke 19:9, 10.
THERE is just one little word, my unconverted friend, that the Lord has laid very much on my heart, and I want to impress it on yours, and that word is Today. If you want to be saved, be saved today, if you want to escape the damnation of hell, escape it today. The Lord has come to seek and to save today; He wants to save you today. Let me ask you this question, Do you want to be saved? "Oh yes," I hear you answer, "of course I should like to be saved." When would you like to be saved? When? When? "When I die," you say. Let me tell you then, my friend, if this be your thought, you are doing your very best never to be saved at all. You are doing your very best to secure your own eternal ruin, for today only does God offer salvation to you; today only is yours.
Today is a moment of priceless value, tomorrow you cannot call yours. The Lord's gospel is today, the devil's gospel is always tomorrow. The Lord's word is today, for today you are lost. Perhaps you say, "I do not agree with you, I do not believe I am lost." Are you saved then? If not, what are you? The Lord has given me this message for you: Go and tell them that they are lost, and that I came to seek and to save them today. Oh, listen to His message then today, for literally there lies but a comma, between "the acceptable year of the Lord," and "the day of vengeance of our God.”
When the Lord was upon earth, and entered the synagogue, He read, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." (Isa. 61:1-2). He stopped in the middle of the verse, and did not read "the day of vengeance of our God." Why? Because it was then, and it is now, the acceptable year of the Lord. But what is the next thing? Vengeance! Judgment is the next thing in this world's history; how soon it may set in, I know not, you know not.
God in goodness is restraining now the wheels of the chariot of His righteous judgment, that the energy of His grace may go out. He is restraining judgment, that you may have another hour to be saved in. Oh, will you not make use of this hour wherein His grace lingers over you? Do not trifle with God, for if you are not a saved person at this moment, God knows you are lost; whether you know it or not— whether you believe it or not. Again, I say, do not trifle with God, do not sport on the very verge of eternity, on the verge of everlasting ruin. Do not risk that day of judgment, the judgment of the God whose mercy you have despised and refused. Think how the heart of Jesus yearns over you, think what He feels at your refusing His love—Jesus, who came from the Paradise of God, down to the darkness and gloom of Golgotha, to save you, and yet you are utterly careless about it. Oh, wake up, wake up from your fit of madness, for madness it is. What madness so great, as for a sinner to say tomorrow, when God says today!
Christ has, shed His precious priceless blood for sinners, and knowing this can you be longer careless? Can you bear to turn away from such love as His? Listen to this word "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha." What is that? Cursed when He comes! What will it be, think for one moment, what will it be to be cursed when He comes, and to bear that curse for eternity? Will you risk it? Will you not rather hear the Lord's word today? Salvation today. Mercy and pardon for the penitent soul today, and who could remain impenitent, when He calls so lovingly?
The devil would suggest putting it off till tomorrow. Today, says Christ; tomorrow, whispers Satan. Today Christ says, He will save you. Tomorrow He may be compelled to curse you. Why tomorrow? Because to-night He may come. To-night, when all are wrapped in deepest slumber, the clouds may be parted, and the Lord descend from heaven, and those that are His will hear the sound of the trumpet, and the voice of words, and be caught up in the cloud to meet their loving and beloved Lord in the air, and you, yes, you will be left behind. You, child of godly parents too, you will be left, and left forever: they gone to be with Jesus, you left behind to meet His judgment. I know, then, you will raise your hand and knock at His gate, only to hear those terrible words, "Depart!" "Depart!" "I know you not." Think of it. What will it be to hear the voice of Jesus saying to you, "Depart from me," telling you it is too late!
Oh! be warned in time, do not put it off: do not think you may have plenty of opportunities. "Today," He says. To-clay may be your sole—your solitary chance—of accepting Christ. It is real agony to the heart of the evangelist to think of seeing one he has known on earth among the number of the eternally lost on that day. For once, once, I shall see you (God grant it may not be once only), but once we shall meet, and where? At the great white throne. You will be there, and I shall be there, but I shall be with the Judge, and like the Judge, and you, where will you be? Oh, will you be among the impenitent, the condemned, the unwashed, the unforgiven, among those who stand clothed in their sins, before that great white throne, to be judged out of the things written in the books, according to their works? Preachers say sometimes, Sinners are judged only for neglecting Christ. God does not say so. That is the deepest, darkest sin of all—the sin of despising His mercy, refusing His love—but there is more than that against you before God. In those books are recorded all your sins, every one of them; each thing put down you have done, each evil word, each evil way, each idle thought, for these you must give account in that terrible day, and this, as the aggravation of all the rest, that you heard the gospel of His grace, time after time, and rejected it. Do not, I implore you, reject it any longer! Do not refuse to listen to His voice a day more!
Jesus says, He "came to seek and to save that which was lost." He treats every one as lost who is not already saved by faith in Him. This is the point from which I behold the Gospel. I am lost; but Jesus came to seek and to save the lost; therefore He came to seek and to save me. He came to seek and to save you, will you not let Him? Do I hear you say—I am seeking Jesus? Well, you are sure to find Him, for the Savior-seeking sinner and the sinner-seeking Savior are sure to meet. Whenever a soul is really anxious, the moment will come when the Gospel will fall on the ear of that one, and he or she will see Jesus, and get salvation. The soul that is anxious leaves, as it were, no stone unturned to get where it wants to get— to the feet of Jesus. Satan will always try to hinder the anxious soul; but his very devices bring out decision for Christ. Again I say, the soul that is really anxious will always get to Jesus. And where is the spot where you may meet Jesus, the Savior? That spot, my dear friend, is the small circle of the consciously lost; for He came for the lost and only for the lost. Reader, if you are not lost, I have no Gospel for you.
The really anxious soul will not let anything hinder him in the deep desire of his heart to see Jesus, and do not you let anything hinder you, for today He wants you. Come then to Him today. Today He invites you. Answer his invitation today. Today you may have Jesus, today He bids you to His feast, do not hesitate then another moment, accept His offer, be His today, His only, His forever. You know you have thought of these things before, have been “almost persuaded " to come to Jesus, have meant to come some day, but you have never quite decided, you have not come out boldly for Christ, and the time has passed on, and your convictions have passed, too, in measure. And today you are still undecided. Oh! I entreat you, I warn you, do not remain so another day. "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him.”
Perhaps you say, "I have plans laid for tomorrow, that must be overthrown if I were to decide for Christ today." Yes, you may have your plans, but let me tell you this, your plans may be well laid for the morrow, but to-night a marauder may enter your house, and rob you of them all, that grim marauder death. Death, the relentless thief, whose power none may resist; then what will become of all your plans, what will become of you and your never-dying soul? Let me tell you of one who had once plenty of plans; lie laid his schemes well, and for years to come; he was a rich man too, and all seemed to go well with him, and in his heart he said, The future shall be as the present. But was it? No! No! listen! "Thou fool," says God, "this night thy soul shall be required of thee." Then what of his plans—what of his schemes? "In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Why in hell? Because he would not go to heaven; because he chose the world instead of Christ.
Make your choice now, my friend: let me counsel you; decide for Christ, make a thorough surrender of yourself to Christ, and what will be the result? The moment you receive the Lord Jesus Christ, that moment salvation is yours. The moment you receive, in simple faith, Him who came from Heaven, and who died, and who is gone into glory, that moment you are entitled to know you have salvation. Salvation is a word that wraps up in itself all the blessings of the gospel. Be you like Simeon, take salvation the very moment you have the opportunity. The 2nd of Luke says that when His parents brought the child Jesus into the Temple, Simeon received Him into His arms, and "blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." That is it, I get everything in Christ, pardon in Christ, eternal life in Christ, He is my righteousness too, my sanctification, and my redemption likewise. Do I receive Christ? Then I receive everything. I get my sins forgiven, my soul saved, and I stand before God in the conscious possession of salvation, His free gift.
"Look unto me and be ye saved," says Christ. The moment a soul looks, in simple living faith, that moment it has salvation, for it has the Savior. Christianity is no dry set of doctrines, for the mind to take in, but it is Divine truth and blessing for man, wrapped up in the person of the Man Christ Jesus, who came down and did a work upon the cross by which all my sins are put away, and who is gone up again into the glory, Himself to draw your heart and mind to Him up there; and now the Holy Ghost has come out, and says "You trust!" And oh, will you not trust Him? He is worthy of all your heart, shall He not have it?
Throughout this year, now drawing to a close, the gospel has been pressed on you again and again. You have over and over again heard or read it, and know well what its sweet sound means. Now I can only lay upon you the solemn, the awful responsibility of rejecting Christ any longer. Will you not say, Today—I know I have eternal life because I believe on the name of the Son of God. It is presumptuous to doubt, for God has said, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life." It is true humility to believe God. This day, if you will decide, He will receive you; this day He will bless you; this day He will welcome you; this day He will save you; this day He will give you eternal life, pardon, peace, everything He can give you; but if you put it from you till tomorrow, tomorrow He may have only to curse you, and that forever and ever.
The Lord give you to believe on Him today, and more, do not be ashamed to confess Jesus, do not be ashamed to own that He has saved you, and that you are His for time and for eternity.
Surely the past may suffice to have lived without Him, and the last moments of 1875 will be sweet to recall, if they mark the moment when you owned and confessed the Lord Jesus. Today, then, harden not your heart any longer, but, since God has said, “Behold now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation," do you say today—Lord, I can believe!
“Just as I am—without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.
Just as I am—Thy love I own,
Has broken every barrier down:
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come.”