Romans chapter 13. Our text will
be verse 11 through 14. The scripture says, "...and that,
knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of
sleep. For now is our salvation nearer
than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day
is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the
day, not rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness,
not in strife and envy, but put on ye the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." The message We simply wake up, get dressed, walk. It's all there in the text. Knowing
the time, what do we do? Wake out of sleep. What are we
to do when we wake out? He says put on. What? The armor
of light. Put on Christ and walk out honestly,
soberly. Righteously and godly, when? Now. Now. And so then let's begin
this looking, and I want us to see this first. Paul here is
using an analogy. When he says, knowing the time,
that knowing the time, knowing it is high time, he is talking
about, he's using the analogy of the morning sun. The morning
sun. As it is risen and starts to
break through the darkness, you see the sun rising. As it comes
up over the horizon, yes, there still remains darkness, but it
is time to what? It's time to get up. That's what
the morning is, it's time to get up. He says, now, knowing
the time. In order to get up, you've got
to know what time it is. And he says, you know the time.
Knowing the time what time is he talking about? He's talking
about the time of grace knowing that it is now the time of grace
It is a time of daybreak the dawn of God's grace we as believers
in Christ are are not we were children of the night even as
others and We were in spiritual darkness and in ignorance and
in depravity, running from God, striving to hide our shame. But
now we are quickened by God and see the light. We now see the
light. We thought ourselves to be okay.
We thought ourselves to be better than some men. Isn't that how
we used to judge ourselves? We'd say, surely God would accept
us. I'm better than this person.
That's how men think. That's how men naturally think
is to suppose God would receive them because they're better than
someone else. That's how we thought. But now by the grace of God,
He has caused the day to rise in our hearts and give us, listen,
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. God commanded the light to shine. Where? Out of darkness. Out of
darkness. And as shine, where did he shine
this? In our hearts. to give us the light of this
knowledge of the glory of God. We are in the face of Jesus Christ.
This is not an act. This is not by our act that moved
God to shine this light in our hearts. It was God that commanded. It was an act of divine grace. If you know the time, if you
understand grace, if you understand the glory of God in the face
of Christ, know that it was not by your merit, it was not by
your person, it was by a free act of God alone that moved to
shine this glorious light of the Gospel in our darkened hearts.
And we that have believed on the only begotten Son and see
His face alone, as the glory of God, as the righteousness
of God, the Lamb of God. We know this. Now is the time
of grace. Why? We've experienced grace.
You've experienced grace. So then you know it is time. You know this time. Believer,
we have been awakened by the dawning light of Jesus Christ.
Let us see that now is the day of grace for us and for all the
elect of God." What does the Scripture say? Today is the day
of salvation. Today. Today, now, is the time,
knowing that it is high time. Knowing that it is the day of
grace has dawned in our hearts, it is high time that we who believe
in Christ should live for Christ, that we should preach this gospel
of grace. And so we know the time, it is
the time of grace. The second thing, we know that
this time is short. Isn't this day of grace short?
Consider this. In the book of Revelation, you
know, the Scripture describes this day of grace as only a thousand
years. It is a thousand year reign.
That tells us that it's substantial, but yet it is still limited. This day of grace is limited. But even shorter than that, we
ought to know this, that the time of our life is short. We
should know that the day of grace, that this is the time of grace,
but this time is short. Just as a man wakes up in the
morning and before long the day is spent, so it is with our life.
Is that not true? I know this. The older we get,
the more we understand this truth, that your life is but a vapor.
It appeareth for a little while, and it's gone. All flesh is grass, and the glory
of man is as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the
flower fadeth. away. The wind blows and you don't
even know it was there. That's your life. That's your
life. It's my life. It's but a vapor.
It's short. We know that this is the only
time where God will save sinners. And when the light of life is
gone out, there remains no more hope, no more opportunity for
us to declare this gospel. Is that not right? We only have
this time. We don't have... The day of grace
is long, but we only have this short span of time called life. That's all we have to declare
this day. That's it. And so then, we do this only
because there's hope in life. As long as one lives, there's
hope for grace. There's hope for salvation. But
once a person dies, there is no more hope. Solomon said, for to him that
is joined to all the living, there is hope. For a living dog
is better than a dead lion. Why? Because the living dog has
hope. The dead lion has no hope. Dear
friends, the only hope for the living is for the living and
it is better to take our place as a dog before God." One of
my favorite messages that Todd ever preached was, all dogs go
to heaven. And he used the illustration of the woman who came to Christ
and he said, is it me to give the children bread to dogs? And
she said, truth Lord! She took her place as a dog before
Him. And what did she find? She found
salvation. She found life. You remember
Mephibosheth, he took his place as a dog. He said, What am I
but a dead dog? What did he find? He found favor
with the king. And so it is with us if we come
before Christ and bow before the Sovereign. It is better than
a dead lion who will not bow the knee. There's a man who is
strong, who is fierce, who is powerful, who is rich, and yet
he's dead. because he will not bow the knee. And so then let us see it is
high time, the dawn is broken, the dawn of God's grace and we
only have this short day to preach. We don't have long, we have this
short time to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what do
we declare? This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners. This is the gospel of grace,
that Christ came to save not the best, but the worst, the
vilest of men. That's what He came to save,
sinners. And so then what are we to do? We're to preach it.
Listen, we can't preach to the dead. We preach to the living. I'm
preaching to you this morning. You're living. And I'm telling
you right now, the day is dawn. Grace is at hand. Come now. Believe on Christ and be saved
now. Don't wait. Believe now. Trust now. Let us not wait until we're better
equipped. Isn't that always the thought?
Well, I'm going to witness when I'm better equipped. No, you
don't have that much time. You don't have that much time
to wait. I remember this story of Spurgeon. First time he had
preached in the country, he went to a cottage, and one of his
professors there at the preacher's school told him that he needed
to go on out and encourage this young man to preach. And so he
said, OK, I'll go out to encourage him. I'll go out to be there
for him, sing a hymn or something. And as the two men were walking
down to the cottage, Spurgeon said, What message are you going
to preach? And the man says, I'm not a preacher. I'm not a
preacher at all. If there's any message to preach,
you'll have to preach it. You see, his professor tricked
him. He made him to be the one to
go out and preach. And he did. He walked along in
the message of Christ's preciousness. To you that believe, He is precious. And He preached that simple gospel
to those simple people. And after that, He wrote this.
He said that there are men who long to do great things, therefore
they do nothing. He who talks upon the plain gospel
themes in a farmer's kitchen, and is able to interest the dairymaid
is more of a minister than him who speaks words that none can
understand. See, I'm here to interest the
dairymaid. I'm here to interest the simple folk and just preach
plain gospel faith. That's what we're to do as a
church, as a people, as God's people. Let us not wait till
we're studied enough, educated enough about theology and speak
few things people understand and nobody loves. But let us, in this short time
that we have, in the dawn of God's grace, let us tell others
of the grace of God, of mercy, of love, of salvation without your works. salvation only in Jesus Christ. Tell them that He is the way,
the truth, and the life, and no man comes to God but by Him. Tell them plainly. None will
come but by the grace of God shining in their hearts. But
listen, none will come without preaching. It's the means God
has chosen. It's the means that the world
despises. Go to any church in this generation
and most likely you will find there's about ten minutes of
what they call preaching and everything else entertainment.
Why? They don't value preaching. God
values preaching. It's the means He chose to deliver
this life. The second thing is we know it
is high time. We know it is the day of grace.
We know salvation is of the Lord and we should be about our Father's
business. Therefore, the apostle says, wake up. Wake up. Why? It's morning. The day is
dawn. Wake up. He says that in our text, knowing
that it is time, knowing it is high time to wake out of sleep. See a man there, he sleeps in
his bed. He's all comfortable and cozy. It's cold outside. His covers are warm. I know many
of you experienced that this morning. I did. The buzzer went
off. The alarm went off. And you know
what? I didn't want to get up. I was comfortable. I was complicit. So the alarm was not pleasant,
was it? The crow of the rooster in the
farmer is not pleasant, not comfortable to bid us to
open our eyes. But wasn't that true of the gospel
when we first heard it? Was it not an alarm to the unconverted? It was not a pleasant sound,
it was a sound of the guilt of our sin. It was a sound of the
holiness of God, of the justice of God, of God's demands of perfect
righteousness. It was an alarm that woke our
souls from the dead, exposed our sin. Isn't that what light
does? Light shows, it reveals. The gospel sound took us from
the dreams of our night and brought us into reality. Now, well, we
were floating about in darkness in our dreams and then all of
a sudden, we're awake and we're exposed. That's what the gospel
does. It exposes the sinner. We saw
our nature, we saw God's nature, we saw we were enemies of God
under His wrath, guilty of treason and rebellion against the Most
High God. We owed a debt of sin we could
not pay. We needed righteousness we could
not obtain. This was an unpleasant awakening. Yet by the grace of God, this
light was not for our hurt, but our good. Wasn't it? Wasn't it
good to be exposed? It was good, because God not
only exposed our guilt, He showed us the remedy. He showed us His
salvation, which is by Jesus Christ. We saw Christ the Lord
and His blood shed for our sin, that His righteousness is imputed
and imparted to all that believe. So then by hearing of the Word
of God and the application of faith by the Holy Spirit, we
believed and we were awoke. We were awakened. And what did
we find when we awoke from the sleep of our death? Look back
at your text, verse 12. We know this, the night is far
spent. Now, the picture here is not
of the noon-day sun. I want you to keep that in mind.
It's still a picture of the morning sun arising. The night is far spent. You know,
I remember this. I spent a lot of time out there
on my parents' farm, my parents' ranch there, and I liked to get
up on top of the house and watch the sun set. I enjoyed the beauty of that. I oftentimes remember in the
military when I'd have to be up so early in the morning and
I would be out marching and all of a sudden the sun would come
in and break up over the hill. And you know, every time I saw
that, I knew this, the night was over. I knew the night was
over. The night had been long spent I know when we see the sun rising
that night is over, but listen, does that do away with all darkness?
When the sun is just rising, you know this, that there are
still shadows. There is still darkness. Now you know the night
is over. The day is here, yet there are
still shadows. And so it is with us, believer,
the sun arises in our hearts, but there is still darkness in
the shadow of the old man. There's still that darkness that
remains in us. We have been, by the grace of God, forgiven,
given the righteousness of Christ, imputed and imparted to us in
the new nature, yet we still see this old nature that is not
yet done away with. Do you find that to be true with
you? It's true in the Scriptures that there are two natures residing
in every believer, the old and the new. What have you found
about this old man? What do you know about him? You
know this, that at His very best, He is altogether sin and vanity. That's what you know about that
old man, that old nature. He is altogether sin. Jesus declared it very plainly
to us, that which is born of flesh is what? Flesh. It will live and die flesh. It
will live and die flesh. But let us praise God for this.
Though we still see these shadows of darkness in our nature, the
night is gone. The night is far spent and the
day is at hand. In other words, the power of
darkness no longer has authority, no longer has power over us. Once the light comes in, there's
no more perfect darkness. That life of darkness that we
once loved, that ignorance and rebellion of the old man that
once ruled, has now been crucified with Christ. Paul said, I am
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me. We should rejoice in this truth
that though this somewhat dark remains, All our sins have been
put away. Our sins not in part, but the
whole. are nailed to the cross, and
I bear them no more." See and rejoice, believer,
that we have been saved, and the day of Christ has sprang
up in our hearts by the command of the Sovereign God, and the
Spirit of God dwells in us and moves us to cry, Abba, Father! You know, I know this. I'm not what I I desire to be. I am not what I should be. But
I do thank God that I am not what I was. And so now then, the day is dawn. We know the time is a day of
grace. We know it by the experience
of our heart. The darkness is far spent, and listen, the day
of our salvation is now closer. than when we first believed.
Isn't that what the Apostle says? The night is far spent, the day
is at hand. He says, I'm sorry, in verse 11, he said, for now
is our salvation, what, nearer, nearer than when we first believed. The time of grace, the time is
short, we've been given the light of the gospel, No, we are not
what we long to be by the grace of God. We are what we are, and
now is the time of salvation in the hand. In other words,
we have been saved, we are now being saved, but there is coming
a day when that salvation is going to be complete. You think
about it again, the pictures of the morning sun arising. When
the sun is at high noon, where are the shadows? Where's the
darkness? It's gone. That day is fast approaching. Our salvation is nearer than
when we first believed. There's an approaching day when
all sorrows and sins and tears and death shall be forever removed. Therefore, Jesus said, let not
your heart be troubled. I'm troubled. Let not your heart
be troubled. What's the remedy? You believe
in God, believe also in me. in my father's house many men
it were not so i would have told you therefore i'd go and prepare
a place for you if i'd go and prepare a place for you i will
no doubt come again and receive you under myself where i am there
you may be therefore believer let us away this is a call to stir us up,
to be reminded that now is the time. Now is the time to wake
out of sleep. Because of the old man, I know
that we are prone to fits of spiritual sleep. Is that not
expounded out in Scripture? The bride, you remember that
in the Song of Solomon, she was found, what, asleep? He knocked
at her door, but she was asleep. You think of the ten virgins,
five foolish and five wise virgins. That parable there of our Lord
Jesus Christ, those were believers and non-believers. The difference
is the believers had the oil of the Spirit, and when the call
came to them, they were energized. They were able then to light,
to trim their candles. And the light of the oil was
burning bright, waiting for their bridegroom. And this is the cry to you and
me right now. Wake up. Wake up. Why? It's a day of grace. It's
a day of grace. And our salvation is nearer than
when we first believed. As the days passes, our salvation
draws nearer and this should excite us. Isn't that right? This should excite us. This should
motivate us. This should move us. This love
should move us to do what? The third thing, get dressed.
You know the time. You know you've been awoken out
of the sleep of the dead and we need to be waken out of our
spiritual slumber to do what? Get dressed. Verse 12, The night
is far spent, the day is hand. Let us therefore, because it's
day is at hand, night's cast off. What do we do? Cast off
the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. So first,
put off darkness. Look again at the man awakened
from his sleep. Does he go down in his sleep
clothes? No. What do you do when you get
up? You get dressed. You put off your night clothes,
you put on your day clothes. And so it is, this is the expression,
to put off, as one would put off a cloak, one would put off
clothes. Put off the works of darkness. Believer, let us wake
up and put off the old man and his deeds. How often? Every day.
Every day we must put off this man and his deeds. This old man is not going away. You suppose he'll just go away. I know the thought is of compromise.
Who doesn't compromise with themselves? That is a fatal error. One, he's never going to be satisfied.
He'll tell you that in the morning. He'll say, well, if I could just
get this and that, then I'll do this other. He won't ever
do it. No. He's a liar from his birth. He's never going to be put away
until we're in the grave. You know, there are some people
who don't strive with the flesh. Some people don't have a fight
with their flesh. You know where they are? They're
dead. Only the living have a warfare
with their flesh. And so, true believer, pray that
God would stir our hearts to constantly put off this old man
and his deeds. Mortify the deeds of the flesh
every moment. Put it off as a garment. And
what are we to put on instead? The armor of light. The armor
of life. This reminds us that we are not
awakened to the sounds of birds chirping or pleasant dreams or
pleasant experience. When a believer is awakened,
he is awakened by the sound of the cannon. He is awakened by
the sound of war. When Israelites crossed over
Jordan, we just, on Jordan's stormy banks, I stand and cast
a wishful eye to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions
lie. We think of Jordan as a crossing
of death into heaven. And that's a good illustration,
it's a good type. But I tell you this, Jordan is also a type
of a believer who has been born again of the Spirit of God because
they crossed that Jordan, they didn't go into heaven, they went
into war. And once you are born again,
you go into the sound of war. Therefore, the Apostle said,
put on what? Armor of life. Armor of life. Our battle begins
when we come to Christ. It doesn't end. It begins. Our warfare begins. Let me just
do this to you. Just use this. Do it. Preach. the gospel to one of
these false free will religion people, any one of them. Tell them the truth. Tell the
world the truth and see how they treat you. See if they welcome
you into their homes, embrace you as a son or a daughter. They'll
hate you for it. Tell them it is the day of grace
and they will despise you. So then, what is the picture
here? Get up and get dressed for battle. Put on the armor
of light. The idea is an instrument of
war and an offensive weapon. This is not just armor for protection,
but rather an offensive thing. You know, in the Ephesians, it
only gives us one weapon that we are to wield. It is the Word
of God. This is our weapon. This is the
only offensive weapon that we have. the word of God let us be like Elphaz Eliezer
that's his name remember he was one of the mighty men of David
the scripture says he fought the Philistines until the weapon
claved to his hands the picture is the blood was
just dried up on his hands and he couldn't separate his hand
from his sword that's how united we should be with this book Lord,
teach my hands to war. You know what always wins? Truth.
You could have a million people screaming a lie, and one person's
telling the truth, and the one person will triumph. Always. Why? Because the lie is just
a lie. It's a vapor. It's empty. It's not true. Only
truth stands, and the Word of God is true. Let God be true,
and every man a liar. Let us be armed for battle, equipped
with this sword in our hearts and minds. Let us grab this sword
for our weapon, strap it to our side, and then put on the defensive
armor, the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness,
shodding your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. the belt
of truth. All of these are necessary. Let
us put on the armor of God and impress the enemy every day.
Every day. Why? It's high time you wake
up out of sleep and figure out what you're here for. You're
here to fight. And you must have the armor.
So what is it to put on the armor of life? That's my third, that's
my next point. You do this by simply walking.
Look what Paul says here. Verse 13. Let us walk honestly. Honestly. With integrity. Let us walk honestly as in the
day, not rioting, nor drunkest, nor chambering, nor wantonest,
nor strife, nor injuring. We are children of what? Light. How are children of light to
walk? In the light. In the light. We're to walk in love, in faith,
in hope, in meekness, in moderation, in every grace. This is what
it is to put on the armor of light. It is to walk by faith. He puts it another way in verse
14. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it is. We put on
the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the flesh.
Just as we put off darkness and put on the armor of light, we
put on Christ. Here we have the sum of putting on the armors
to put on Christ. What is it to put on Christ?
What does this do? Is this complicated? Is this
difficult? For the believer, it is simply
this, believing on Christ alone. All of your enemies desire nothing
but to pull you from the simplicity that is in Christ. Your flesh
desires you to trust in Him. The world wants you to trust
in them. Satan wants you to trust in anything else but Christ. But the just shall live by faith. By faith. We walk by faith, not
by sight. May we see that our walk with
Christ is begun by faith and it will not be completed by works
or by sight, but it will be completed by faith. And lastly, practice it. What
we believe, we should practice. Make application of what you
know and believe. put off. He says make no provision for
the flesh to fulfill lust. You know, He understands you
have lust. That's why you should make no provisions for them.
Because you have them. They're there. Wake. Put into practice the things
you know of Christ. Walk. Turn not to the right nor
to the left remove that book for me i know i've said it before luther
said i can't stop birds walking but i can't stop it yet those
people you can't stop coming in you can stop it We should. Keep our eyes on Christ. Ponder the things of Christ.
Walk after Christ. It is not to feed the desires
of the old nature. The rather opposite is walking
in the Spirit. How do we do this? Don't make
any professions for the flesh. Leave to Christ. So then, knowing
the time. What time is it? The time of
grace. What do we do at the time of
grace? We woke up by the grace of God, and we're to always continually
avoid spiritual slumber. Let us get dressed, put on Christ,
walk after Christ, walk in love and faith and practice, and rejoice,
believer. Now, our salvation is nearer
than when we first believed. This is what we're here to do.
We're not, please don't play church. I plead this for myself. We're here, we have a purpose. To worship God. To call sinners. May God even do that today. Why? It's morning. Day of graces. Pray God will bless this to us.