with us for some time. Some evenings
are aware that we have been conducting a study on some of the leading
areas of biblical teaching concerning the doctrine of sanctification,
and I was fully intending to carry on that theme, but whether
just due to the realization that we'll be leaving in a few weeks,
to be gone for six weeks, And this time of absence causing
me to reflect upon you as a body of God's people and as others
who attend to the ministry of the Word here, or whether by
some inward constraint of the Holy Spirit, I don't know. I'm
not infallible in discerning the actings of my mind. But I
am constrained to speak to you tonight not on the subject of
sanctification, particularly the biblical teaching relative
to the mortifying of sin, but rather I wish to speak out of
my heart and from the Scriptures along some very fundamental,
basic, almost what we would call simple, elementary principles
of biblical truth. And I want every one of you kids
to listen to your pastor tonight harder than you've listened for
a long time. Now, some of you listen pretty
hard, because if I get involved in telling a story or something,
you forget yourself and you almost drop off the end of your seat
sometime. And I notice that a number of you do listen very carefully,
but I want you tonight to listen extra hard. And some of you who
are here as visitors and strangers, others of you who visit this
place from time to time, with whom I've not had opportunity
to have much personal dealings, to investigate scripturally the
state of your soul, I trust that you will attend very carefully
and very earnestly to the preaching of the Word of God tonight. For
I want to speak to you very simply, along the following lines. We're
going to look into scripture to consider three universal,
absolute facts of life, three things that are true of every
single one of you, and in the light of those facts, secondly,
one supreme responsibility which is laid upon every one of you,
from the youngest to the oldest, and then in the light of that
supreme responsibility, resting upon those three facts, I want
to close with a pressing personal question, a question which I
hope to make as personal as though there were only two people in
this building, you and myself, and I want to press the question
as earnestly as though I looked you right back to your retinas
and asked you the question seven or eight times, slowly, carefully,
and earnestly. First of all, then, consider
with me three universal, absolute facts of life, things that are
true of every single one of you here, true of those people in
New Guinea concerning which Mr. Hawker writes. true of people
in India, true of people in China, so that if I had the ability
tonight to speak in Hindustani to some Indians, or if I had
the ability to speak in Portuguese to some people in Brazil, or
if I had the ability to speak in some other dialect of some
remote tribe, I could take my entire message and just put it
in that language and every single thing would be true of those
people wherever I spoke, that is true of you people to whom
I speak tonight. The first of these universal
and absolute facts of life is this. You are here through no
choice of your own. You are here on God's earth,
breathing God's air through no choice or through no power of
your own. In the 17th chapter of the book
of Acts, the Apostle Paul makes this statement. God hath made
of one all nations for to dwell upon the face of the earth."
And he goes on to derive from that the conclusion, we are his
offspring. That is, we are creatures of
God. You're here through no choice
or power of your own, but you're here by virtue of the creative
power and the sovereign choice of Almighty God. Psalm 100 focuses
upon that principle when the psalmist says, We are His people. It is He that hath made us, and
we are His. Is there anyone here that would
want to dispute that fact and stand up and say no? I can remember
back before I was here, I had a powwow with God and we decided
that I ought to come into being. No, no. Every one of you, you
are here through no choice of your own, but as a result of
God's creative power and His own sovereign prerogatives. And you can't go back into a
state of nothingness. You may not like it that you're
here. You may not like what you see and experience here, but
you can't uncreature yourself. Try as you may, you cannot do
it. You are here. That's a fact.
If you don't believe it, I'll come and pinch you. and you'll
know that you're there, and I'll know that you're there, and you
are here through no choice of your own. A second, universal,
absolute fact, you will not always be here. You're going to make
an exit from this life, again, through no choice of your own.
Just as certainly as you are here through no choice of your
own, you're not always going to be here, you're going to make
an exit. This thought is brought out so vividly in that simple
statement of the writer to the Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 27
where he says, As it is appointed unto men once to die. As it is appointed unto men once
to die. It is appointed for man, or as
the marginal reading has it, death is laid up for man. This isn't something man lays
up for himself. You don't find people, unless
life has just embittered them, going around saying, well, you
know, everything's so lovely and nice, but I think I'd like
to end it all. No, no. Death is this intruder into the
human race. And death is this universal intruder. It is appointed unto men once
to die. Now, a lot of people don't like
to think about death. I venture to say most of you here don't
like to think about it. The very mention of it from the
pulpit gives you sort of a queasy feeling. You don't like to think
about death, because death is a horrible thing. It's a severance. of a man's true humanity. Man
is man, his soul or spirit and body, and death is the separation
of those two, this terrible rupture when the soul departs from the
body and death occurs. Though you may not like to think
about it, and though you may use everything in the cosmetic
department, and everything in the athletic department, and
everything in the vitamin department to try to make life as buoyant
as possible, to sustain it with as much vigor as possible, you're
going to die. You got it? You're going to die. You're going to make your exit.
It's appointed unto men once to die. And the youngest of you
kids are not too young to think seriously about the fact you're
going to die. And just as much as mommy and
daddy rejoiced when the doctor said, you've got a baby girl,
you've got a baby boy, and the news went out and the preacher
made the announcement the next Sunday morning. Someday the preacher
will stand with a sad face and say, we regret to announce the
decease of And the same words will be used that were written
on those bright little cards that were sent out as birth announcements. That's a universal, absolute,
indisputable fact of human experience and existence. You're here through
no choice of your own. You're going to make your exit
through no choice of your own. And then the third indisputable
fact is that you will stand in the presence of God after you
make your exit, and then your state for eternity will be fixed. Look at that text in Hebrews
to which we referred just a moment ago. As it is appointed unto
men once to die, and after this cometh judgment, So Christ, having
once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear the second
time." You see what the writer to the Hebrews is doing? He's
seeking to establish the fact that just as certainly as Christ
came once to die, He will of necessity come a second time
to complete His saving purposes. And as He seeks to prove that
as certainly as He came once, He shall come again, He reaches
for a comparison and he says the certainty of Christ's death
to be followed by Christ's return is like unto the certainty of
man's death and his subsequent standing before God in judgment. He assumes this as a common and
established fact and then he builds upon it his argument concerning
the work and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. And again,
we don't like to think about this, but I'm trying to help
you tonight to think seriously and hard and long upon this universal
and absolute fact. Listen to the words of Jesus.
In the fifth chapter of John, in verses 28 and 29, our Lord gives us one of these
sayings that He underlines in red. One of these verily, verily
sayings, John chapter 5, verses 28 and 29. He begins in the preceding paragraph,
verse 9, or the first part of this paragraph, by asserting
that as the Son, the Mediator, He is given a task from the Father. Whatever the Father tells Him
to do, He does. And that the Father has given
to Him the right to impart life. The Father has given to Him all
judgment. Verse 24, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that
sent me, hath everlasting life. And as though people would be
marveling at this and saying, who in the world are you to claim
to give eternal life? You dare to say whoever hears
your words, you will give them life? Who in the world are you?
Don't be surprised at this claim. I've got something greater to
tell you. Verse 28, marvel not at this. You think it strange
that now by my Spirit and Word I shall bring sinners to myself
and give them eternal life? Don't think that strange, for
the hour is coming in which all that are in the tomb shall hear
His voice and shall come forth, they that have done good unto
the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto
the resurrection of judgment. Just as certainly as gathered
in this building, there are men and women who are monuments of
the fulfillment of the first part of this paragraph. You have
heard the voice of the Son of God reaching your heart in grace,
and you have come to life, spiritual life. Just as certainly as we
are monuments of the fulfillment of the first part of this paragraph,
so the last part will be fulfilled. The same voice that is spoken
to us through the Scriptures and brought us to life is the
voice that will speak, and the graves will vomit out their dead,
and you and I will stand in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. This universal, absolute fact
You're here by no choice of your own. You're going to make an
exit from this life. You're going to stand in the
presence of God when you make that exit, and then your state
will be fixed for eternity. Jesus speaks in this passage
of the resurrection of life, the resurrection of damnation,
or of judgment. That dealing of God in the Day
of Judgment is graphically described in passages like Revelation 20,
verses 11 through 15, where the sea gives up its dead, death
and the grave give up their dead, and they stand before God and
the books are opened. And the conclusion of that paragraph
brings into sharp focus this perspective Whosoever was not
found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of
fire, which is the second death." Now, we don't like to think about
things like that, do we? You children don't like to think
about that. I don't like to think about it. There are adults here
tonight who say, let's give us pleasant things. Tell us nice
things. The world's in a mess. We come
to church to get comforted and to feel good. My friend, listen.
Any comfort you have that comes at the expense of facing these
facts is a delusive, damning comfort. May I repeat it? Any comfort you have which comes
at the expense of facing these facts squarely and biblically
is a delusive and a damning comfort. The comfort of a Christian is
a comfort which he has when he looks Death straight in his black
eyeball. He looks judgment straight in
its awful grandeur. And he says, facing death, facing
judgment, I have comfort because of my relationship to Jesus Christ. And if you've got to look away
from death and look away from judgment and forget them in order
to have comfort, you have a delusive and a damning comfort. Sure,
a man who's slated to go to the electric chair 1st of September
can feel good right up to July 31st if he keeps himself drunk
and forgets about the electric chair. And it's perfectly possible for
you to have no terrors of the thought of death, that people
say, well, I must be ready to die, I'm not afraid to die. No,
you may be so utterly drunk by the wine of your own deceit that
you haven't faced death for what it is, and ushering into the
presence of God to stand in judgment before Him. And so I face you
tonight with these three universal, absolute facts of life. You're
here, and you can't unborn yourself. You'll not always be here. You're
going to die. And when you die, you'll stand
in the presence of God to have your state fixed for eternity. To summarize, you are here by
divine creation. You will leave this place by
divine appointment. and your condition for eternity
will be fixed by divine disposition. God will dispose of you and fix
your eternal state. Now, in the light of those three
universal, absolute facts, we come to our second point tonight. There is one supreme responsibility
laid upon you. Now, you have many legitimate
responsibilities in life, but in the light of these three great
facts of life, you have one supreme responsibility that stands head
and shoulders above all others. And you know what that responsibility
is? It's to get ready for your exit. Your one supreme responsibility
while you are here in life is to prepare for your exit out
of this life. Let me illustrate. Suppose there
was a certain man who was told that he was going to have to
leave the land in which he was now living. And he had six months
to prepare to leave. Now he was told that he was going
to a certain land, and it was named for him, and that if he
lived out his normal life, he would spend the next 50 years
in that land to which he was going. He was told the place,
but that's all. Now, he was given every means
to get information about the land to which he was going, what
the climate is like, what natural resources were there, whether
or not he would have to take warm clothing, whether or not
there would be the natural resources to make clothing to sustain himself. He was told, look, you're going
to this land for 50 years, Here's a manual of instruction about
what that land is like. Now you've got six months to
prepare for that trip to that land. What would you think of
that man if he spent those six months out playing golf every
day, having a great time? playing the horses and winning
all kinds of money, investing in the stock market and just
padding his checkbook in his savings account. He wasn't investing
in 1971. And everything was just going
great. He was having a great time in
those six months. And once in a while, as he was
going off to bed at night, he'd say, boy, you know, time's getting
close. I'm going to make my journey,
but everything will work out all right. And then the day comes. The six months period has ended.
He's got to pack his belongings and go. What would you think
of that man if he had taken no pains to examine the manual which
told him of the land to which he was going, and how to be ready
to live usefully and successfully in that land? You'd say the man
was an absolute fool. Right. Right. And that's exactly
what Jesus called a man who didn't prepare for his exodus out of
this life. who did everything to make his
six-month stay as comfortable as possible, but who made no
preparations for his visit to the land out there. You remember
the parable in which our Lord talks about such a man? It's
found in the twelfth chapter of the Gospel according to St.
Luke. In the twelfth chapter of Luke, in verse 16, He spake
a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich
man brought forth plentifully. And he reasoned within himself,
saying, What shall I do, because I have not where to bestow my
fruits? And he said, This will I do. I'll pull down my barns
and build greater, and there will I bestow all my grain and
my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thy ease,
eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool,
this night is thy soul required of thee. This night you're going
to take your journey. And all that's in your bones
can't help you. You've played the fool. You've
played the fool. Oh, dear young people, children,
moms, dads, friends, visitors, whoever you be, In the light
of those three absolute and universal facts of life, your one great
predominant supreme responsibility is to be prepared for your exodus
out of this life. And it's that perspective that
causes our Lord to ask the simple question, what shall it profit
a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? Well, you say, that makes sense
to me. But why do I have to make preparations? Well, for the simple reason that
no one is ready to make his exodus by nature, but Anyone can be
ready to make his exodus by grace. Now that's not hard to understand,
is it? Nobody's ready to make his exodus by nature. We come
into this world unprepared to go out of it. We come into this
world unprepared to go out of it because we come into it as
sinners. Psalm 51 and verse 5, Behold,
I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me. We are brought into this world
with a positive disposition, an inclination to sin and to
evil. Jesus said in Mark chapter 7
and verse 19, For from within, out of the heart of man proceed. Then he lists all these ugly
sins. You bring nothing with you into
this world to prepare you to leave it. You've got a bad nature
that is utterly unfit for the presence of God. And as your
life follows the direction of that bad nature, you accumulate
a record in the presence of God and in the books of heaven that
cries out for your condemnation. This is why the Apostle Paul
said in Romans 3.19, whatever the law says, it says to those
that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world become guilty before God. Oh, listen to me, you dear
children. And I can say I believe honestly
before God that as far as yearning for your salvation, I love you
in Christ as though you were my own offspring. When I use
that church directory to pray for our families, and I come
to that name, that part where your mommy and daddy are listed,
and under it, you're listed in your birthdays, I don't skip
over those names to go to the next parents. God is witness,
and the walls of my study are witness. There's not a child
of this church family whose name is not breathed in prayer to
God, that God would be pleased to change your nature. give you
a new heart, and lead you to that fountain open for sin and
uncleanness, that your bad record will be blotted out in the blood
of Christ, and that you may be found accepted in the Beloved. And though there are present
here tonight some of you whose names I do not know, I can say
in the presence of God that that which I want more than anything
else as a result of your being here this day and this night,
is that God would be pleased to do something with that nature
of yours that is wholly unfit for the presence of God. As much
as it is unfit to take some loathsome toad that dwells in the bottom
of some stinking, polluted well and set it upon the veil of a
bride dressed in her white garment, To take the likes of you and
me and our native pollution and put us in the presence of God
would be to defile the very heavens in which God dwells. No, no,
there must be a cleansing of this pollution of our nature. There must be a blotting out
of our bad record. We must have a new heart and
a new record. Your one great responsibility
is to prepare for your exodus, but you're not prepared by nature.
But thank God, though no one is ready for his exodus by nature,
anyone can be ready by grace. Listen to this great text in
1 Timothy 1, verse 15. This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptance. that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save what? Sinners. It doesn't say He came
to save not-so-bad sinners. He came into the world to save
not-so-depraved. Just sinners. Just sinners. Big sinners. Little sinners.
Open sinners. Secret sinners. Proud sinners. Humbled sinners. Open sinners,
secret, all kinds of sinners. Jesus came to save sinners. That's the saying that already
had become sort of a popular little scientific cliche in the
church. And Paul says, when you hear
somebody saying to somebody else, Christ Jesus came to save sinners,
he said, oh, that's a faithful saying. Not only faithful, that's
worthy to be embraced by all men. Now, wait a minute, Paul.
Haven't you gone a little bit too far? You know who might come
across that statement? Some man that's lived for 50
years the life of a lecher, a drunkard, a blasphemer. You don't want
somebody like that to get a hold of a word like that. He just
might think God will take the likes of him and forgive him
in an instant of time. Paul said, hallelujah, I hope
he does. He says, that's the saying that's
worthy of all acceptation. He said, I hope some man who
50 years has wallowed in the sink of iniquity will hear that
saying and through that find encouragement to believe that
God is able to save even a sinner like that. Well, wait a minute,
Paul. Some little child might hear
that saying, Christ Jesus came to save sinners. And that little
child might get the impression that he can't have any dealings
with Christ unless he's willing to acknowledge he's a sinner,
unless he's willing to acknowledge he deserves hell and judgment.
And Paul says, wonderful, if he gets that message, because
that's the truth. Oh, you dear children, listen to me. Preserved
as you have been, and thank God for it, from an open life of
pollution and defilement, By the nurture of your Christian
home, this saying is worthy of acceptation by you. Christ Jesus came to save sinners,
and God groups us all together in that same category. So anyone
can be ready for his exodus by the grace of God. because Jesus
Christ perfectly obeyed His Father, thus providing a perfect righteousness
that can be put to our account. And He perfectly satisfied all
the demands of His Father's justice when He died upon the cross,
so the Father can forgive us and still be just. That same
Jesus who in His God-man person obeyed perfectly and died in
the place of sinners, now lives to receive all who come unto
God by him, to keep them and to preserve them, and to land
them safe in heaven. So there is no one beyond the
reach of his mighty salvation. The Scripture says He is able
to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him, seeing
He ever liveth to make intercession for them. The one supreme responsibility
every one of you has is to prepare for your exodus. You are not
prepared by nature, but you can be prepared by grace. Show me
one verse in the Bible that says on the one hand that you don't
need the perfect righteousness of Christ, the cleansing blood
of Christ. On the other hand, show me one
verse that says anyone has gotten beyond the power of Christ to
change the nature and to cleanse away their sin. In the light
of what we studied this morning in our studies in Ephesians,
What tremendous confidence and joy this gives to a preacher
of the gospel. Because I know as I preach to
some of you tonight, some of you I know enough personally
to know, that you actually came into this meeting determined
that whatever was said, nothing's going to touch you. You're determined, I'm not going
to be hoodwinked, I'm not going to let that preacher get up there
and rant and rave and holler and get me all worked up and
concerned, no sir. Oh, my friend, isn't it strange
that though you came with that attitude, the thought that you've
got to die has begun to disturb you, hasn't it? Well, yeah, it
has, hasn't it? Hasn't it? The thought that you're
going to stand before God, your own conscience says an Amen.
When you hear that preached from Scripture, it's appointed unto
men once to die, and after this the judgment, your own conscience
says Amen. It's true. You know it's true.
Though you may try to throw a smoke screen up before your conscience
and try to put baffles upon its voice, conscience thunders and
says, it is so, it is so, it is so. Oh, listen, though you came here
tonight determined that nothing would get through to you, listen,
listen. Jesus Christ receives sinners
who are doing everything in their power to run away from Him. He receives even such. He receives
those who have determined that nothing of His truth would touch
them, who have been guilty of willful rejection of light, This
is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. He lived a perfect life, and
he died the sinner's death. So the Father now has a basis
of saying to every sinner who comes and casts himself upon
his son, I will now accept you in the Beloved. I will see you
as in my son and accepted in him. Paul McCoy, one of our members,
was recently abroad, and in the course of his travels he visited
up in Scotland, up in Edinburgh, and while there he listened to
a friend of mine preach, and he told me a very touching illustration
that this Scotsman gave in his sermon when preaching to the
children, and I've been looking for a good opportunity to pass
it on, and I think this is a good opportunity. Up in that area
there's a plethora of lamb, you might call it industry, but farmers
whose task is to raise sheep. And the sheep of course are raised
for meat and as well as for the famous wolves that come from
those areas. And sometimes you have a real
problem that happens in the lamb community. Perhaps you have a
ewe Yo, as they say out in Iowa, they call them yo's. I don't
know why we say you, but they call them yo's out there in that
sheep country. You have a yo who may die in
giving birth to her lamb. The other hand, you may have
a lamb who dies in those first few days, so you've got some
mismatched yo's and lambs. So you've got little lambs without
mamas to suckle and you've got suckling mamas with no little
lambs to suckle them. And what will happen is one of
those little orphan lambs will come up to a yo and try to suckle
and the mama smells it and it doesn't smell like her own and
she rejects it. She won't let it suckle. So what they do is
they take the skin from the lamb that died. Here's a yo whose
legitimate little lamb has died. And they take the skin from that
lamb, carefully skin that animal. You see what I'm leading to,
don't you? And this is actually done. They take that skin in
its entirety and they tie it over that little orphan lamb
so that that little lamb is perfectly covered by the coat of the true
lamb of that yo. And when that little lamb comes
nestling up to the yo, to the you, and begins to suckle, and
the mama smells it, when she smells the coat of her own offspring,
she then accepts that lamb as her own. Would you be accepted by Almighty
God? Would you have Him say, enter
into my presence? Don't you dare, young person,
adult, don't you dare try to saunter into the presence of
God in your own native pollution and uncleanness and guilt. The Scripture says we are accepted
where? In the Beloved. You must be clothed in the righteousness
of Christ. You must be found united to Him
so that as the Father would look upon you, He sees you not in
your native uncleanness and pollution, But He sees you in His Son, and
the fragrance of the perfect righteousness of Christ is acceptable
in His sight, and you are received in Him. Oh, I plead with you
tonight to recognize that your one supreme responsibility in
this life is to be prepared for that exodus, and the only way
of preparation is to be found in Christ, not having your own
righteousness, but that which is by the faith of Christ. And now this brings me to my
conclusion tonight. In the light of these three basic
facts of life, leading to this one supreme responsibility of
life, I would close with one very personal and pressing question. And I want you to try to think
as though everybody else silently walked out and the only one left
here was you and the preacher. And here's the question I want
to press on the conscience of every child, every man, every
woman. It's this. Very simple, but very pointed. Are you ready? for the journey
which leads to judgment? That's my question. Are you ready
for the journey out of this life which leads to judgment? That's
my question. Are you ready? Now I'm not asking
you If you have some vague notions that everything will turn out
alright, that when you breathe your last here, everything somehow
is going to turn out alright. No, no, I'm not asking you if
you have some vague notions. I'm not asking if you have some
vague hopes or some general aspirations. My question is, do you have a
biblically grounded confidence that you're ready for the journey?
Do you have the kind of confidence that can face honestly what the
Bible says about sin, and how God hates sin, and how God will
punish sin, and how God will pour out His anger upon sinners?
Can you face all of those statements of the Bible and still say, I'm
ready to die? But you have some vague hopes,
you know, of God's love, and somehow love will do something
with sin, and somehow sin will get submerged in love, and everything
will just turn out all right. Oh, my friend, that's not my
question. Do you have some of those vague notions? My question
is, are you biblically prepared? Is your preparation biblically
grounded? Do you know that your sins are
pardoned through the blood of Christ? Do you know that? I'm not asking you to do your
homework. Do you know that your sins will not rise up as a mountain
in the day of judgment, only to fall upon you and crush you
to the deepest hell? Think of those sins, you kids.
All those lies. All those times you've disobeyed
mom and dad. All those times you've fought
with brother and sister. All those times you've sat in
church and dishonored God with wandering thoughts and a rebellious
spirit. All those times you cheated when
you played ball. All those times when you lied
to mom and dad. Think of it, you adults. Every
deflection from God's law, not only in word and in deed, but
Paul says in Romans 2, in the day when God shall judge the
secrets of men's hearts, every lustful thought, every covetous
desire, every angry attitude, every jealous disposition, every
sin known to the eye of omniscience. You face honestly all of that
mountain of sin and say, I'm still ready for the exodus? I'm
ready to meet the God who knows every one of my sins and could
call them into account in a moment of time? It's only the man whose
confidence is rooted in the mighty power of the saving merit of
Christ who can say, I'm ready for the exodus. Do you have a
perfect standing before God through the righteousness of Christ?
Do you know that you've been given the life of heaven now,
that you might be prepared to enter heaven then? Heaven is
a prepared place for prepared people, and nobody enjoys the
life of heaven then who doesn't have the life of heaven imparted
now. And what is the life of heaven? It's a life in which we know
God. This is life eternal, Jesus said,
that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent. Do you know Him intimately, personally,
vitally? The life of heaven is a life
in which the fellowship of God is the supreme delight of every
inhabitant of heaven. Do you have that life now? Can
you say, in spite of all the opposition of indwelling sin
in the world and the flesh and the devil, my greatest joy is
to commune with God? Listen to me, parents. If God
has done a work of grace in your kids, one of the evidences will
be there will be pressure on their renewed hearts to pray
in secret. I entertain little confidence
that anything has been done in my children until I see a longing
to pray in secret, until there is that longing within to commune
with God. That is the life of heaven. And
listen, children need to be fit for heaven the same way adults
do, a supernatural work of grace. I'm not saying they have to point
to the time, the place, the circumstances. No! But the product has got to
be there. And a kid who's only interested
in mommy and daddy and bicycle and school and all these innocent
things, and who has no heart after God, would be out of place
in heaven! He's a worldling! You say, I
never thought of that. Well, I hope you do, because
it's true. except a man be born again, five
years old or fifty, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
If you can show me from the Bible that children get to heaven without
the new birth, then I'll believe children are saved without the
evidence of hunger after God. But until you can establish the
one, don't try to float the other to me. It can't be done. I ask you, children, do you find
the life of heaven in your own heart? Do you long to have communion
with God, to pray, to seek His face, to ask the pardon of your
sins? Not some pretty little parroting
prayer you heard your mom and dad say, and we ask all these
mercies with the forgiveness of our sins in Jesus' name, and
so you learn to parrot it. I'm not talking about that. I'm
asking you children, do you know what it is when you lie upon
your bed or kneel by your bedside to say, Oh God, forgive me when
I was nasty to brother today? When I spoke unkindly to Sister,
do you know what it is to mourn and to repent and to confess
your sins, your childish sins? For childish sins are never set
in Scripture to form a child's hell. There's only one hell.
And the wages of sin is death. And so I entreat you children
as well as you adults to face this pressing personal question. Are you ready for your exodus
and for judgment? Do you know that your sins are
pardoned? Do you know that you have a perfect
standing in the righteousness of Christ? Do you know that you
have new life given by the Spirit of Christ? And so I close where
I began tonight. I've not told most of you anything
new tonight. If you came expecting some profound
exposition, you're going to go away terribly disappointed. I've
tried to talk as simply and as clearly as I know how and as
I can with any grace God has given me to press upon you three
absolute facts of life. You're here through no choice
of your own. You're not always going to be
here. It's appointed on the men once to die. And you're going
to stand before God, your Maker, and your state for eternity will
be fixed. In the light of that, there's
one great responsibility God lays upon you. Many others, but
this is supreme, to prepare for the exit. And in the light of
the fact that we're not prepared by nature, but that any can be
prepared through grace, I press upon you the question, are you
ready for your exodus? Are you? Are you? If God should
take me into His presence tonight, that which I would long to cry
out from my very casket as you pass by is the question, are
you ready for the exodus? And some of you are strangers
to grace when you try to pillow your head tonight. I pray that
the Spirit of God will bring back the countenance of His servant,
the intrigue of His voice. Are you ready for the exodus? Are you ready for the exodus? Are you ready for the exodus? May God grant that if you are
not, Today, while you hear his voice, that you will not harden
your heart, but flee to Christ. Say, Lord, the preacher told
me tonight from the Bible that you receive sinners. This is
a faithful saying. Christ Jesus came to save sinners. And Lord, based on that, I come,
I come, I cast myself upon you. I plead the merits of your blood. I plead the covering of your
righteousness. I ask you to clothe me with yourself
that I might be accepted by the Father. No sinner ever went to
hell thus pleading for mercy at the footstool of the throne
of grace. But multitudes will go into hell who saw their need, saw the provision, but lingered too long. Let us pray.