The Time Has Come!
The Time Has Come!
John 17: 1: " These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
'Father, the hour is come.'"
This was the crisis hour in the life of Christ, the pivotal point in the redemptive purpose of God.
Jesus Christ, incarnate deity, is about to die the death of the cross.
In the cross all streams of prophecy will meet, and from it will radiate all the glowing lines of history.
It was not only the hour of decision for the Son of God, it was the hour of destiny
for the redeemed among men.
The inhabitants of heaven, the glorious holy angels and archangels which crowd heaven's
battlements to watch with breathless interest this hour of decision and redemption.
Millions of human beings throughout all eternity will praise God for what Christ did for them
in this his crucial hour.
I am going to lift this text out of its setting and apply it to every unsaved soul before me.
The time has come!
This is your hour of decision.
There are those here today who should receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord.
Think of all the millions and millions of years that lie ahead of you.
If you leave this service without Jesus as your Saviour, you will regret this moment
for all eternity -- dying in hell forever.
If you receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you will have done something that
you'll never, never regret.
Among all the millions and millions who have been saved there has never been one
who has regretted his or her decision.
The only regret would be that this decision wasn't made sooner.
I speak to every unsaved man or woman, boy or girl that the hour is come for you
to face the greatest question you will ever face, and that question is "What will you do with Jesus?"
Nothing in time or eternity is worth more than the salvation of your soul, in your relation to
God through Jesus Christ.
The time has come for you who are without Jesus to end all intellectual dishonesty,
all moral cowardice, and without procrastinating or further delay, face honestly and squarely
the fact of where you are going to spend your everlasting future in heaven or hell.
I'm going to mention several plain, practical compelling reasons why you should receive Christ
this very hour, and join those of us who have received Christ as Saviour
and be on your way to heaven.
The time has come for you to consider the value of your soul.
Your soul is you -- you yourself.
Man is not a body that has a soul in it.
Man is a soul who lives in a body.
This soul of yours -- the real you will live forever in heaven or hell.
Your soul is your greatest possession.
That is why Christ said, " For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?" (Mark 8: 38)
Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, died to save you and me from the power and penalty of sin.
God valued your soul so highly that He gave His only Son to die that you might be saved.
What have you done about the salvation of your soul for which Christ died,
and which will live forever?
Just suppose that on your way home from the Sunday night church service you see a house on fire,
and you stop your car and run to the house and look in a ground floor bedroom window,
and you see a a baby asleep in a cradle.
The flames are licking along the wall toward the cradle, and in a minute that infant will be covered
in flames.
Suppose, you see the mother of that baby down on her hands and knees on the floor
carefully picking up straight pins!
She had dropped some straight pins on the floor which you could buy 100 for a few cents
and is slowly and carefully picking them up.
If you saw that, what would you think?
You probably would think that in the excitement of the fire, that mother's mind had suddenly
become deranged.
No sane mother would gather straight pins from the floor while her baby's life was in danger.
If you are unsaved, you are like that mother.
You are gathering straight pins while your soul is dying.
You are concerned and anxious over the trifles of this world which are passing away
while your eternal soul is in danger of burning forever in the eternal fires of hell.
The time has come for you to stop this insane gathering of trifles and consider the value
and destiny of your eternal soul.
I would also mentioned that ingratitude to God is a terrible sin.
God is the giver and sustainer of life as well as the Saviour of your soul.
You and I belong to Him by the right of creation, preservation, and redemption.
He created you.
He gave you life.
Daily, He preserves you.
And through the death of Christ on the cross, He will forgive your sin and give you eternal life.
In Romans 1, Paul lays this indictment against the pagan world of his day:
" Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful."
Does that describe you?
You know there is a God.
Do you glorify God?
Had you confessed and do you confess before others that you believe in God and are thankful
to Him for what you are and what you have in Him?
Do you love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength?
Do you honor and obey God?
God could have ordained that you be born, not in this land of liberty and plenty, but in the jungles
or in the desert or as a despised untouchable; but He did not.
Are you thankful for that?
Over 2000 years ago, God in a human body died on a dreadful cross for your sins,
taking your sins and your punishment upon Him that your sins would be forgiven
and that you could have a life
in heaven forever.
Had you thanked God for that?
Imagine a person knowing that Christ died for him, yet he has never thanked Him for it!
" Blow, blow thou Winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude."
Imagine the mighty, all powerful God dying for pitiful, sinful man, yet that man is not grateful
to his God.
Ingratitude is a horrible sin.
The time has come for you to end such horrible ingratitude.
The time has come for you to turn to God lest you miss the joy and glory of living forever
in God's heaven.
In less than 100 years from now every person here in this place will be gone from this earth.
Some of us might be gone from this earth tomorrow or next week or next month
or sometime next year.
But we will die!
If you are saved, you'll go to the wonderful place that God has prepared for you in that
eternal city called, Heaven.
What a glorious place it will be with all the saved people who ever lived assembled there.
What a magnificent new world it will be with all sorrow and sickness, all misery and want,
all wars and bloodshed never happening again.
There are some beautiful parts of this world; but in Heaven it is all beautiful.
It is more beautiful than anything we could ever imagine.
It surpasses human language to describe it, and human understanding to comprehend its glories.
Joys of eternal life in Heaven will be far, far beyond the joy as we know in this poor, limited world.
Dr. R. A. Torrey once said: " Do you asked me what eternal life means?
I cannot tell you.
I can tell you what its beginnings are, for thank God, I have them in my heart tonight.
But what eternal life means in all its fullness, no human language can describe,
and no human imagination can conceive.
I will tell you what to do.
Take that moment of your life whose joy a was purest, deepest, highest, holiest, divinest,
and multiply it by infinity, and carry it out to all eternity, and you'll have some
faint conception of what eternal life means."
I ask every unsaved man and woman, " Are you willing to live and die, and never see
and know God's glorious Heaven?"
I can tell you that I am not willing to miss heaven.
I don't intend to miss the greatest sight our eyes shall ever look upon.
Once again, I would urge you to receive Christ as your Saviour right now.
Because you will certainly stand before God in the day of judgment.
God's Word declares: " And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."
(Hebrews 9:27)
Everyone here will die…
But listen!
That isn't all!
" But after this the judgment."
That is an appointment that every single individual will have to keep.
That is a meeting every unbeliever will have to attend.
However, I have thrilling news for those who are ready to meet God.
In Revelation 20 we read, " And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God;
and the books were opened… and the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books."
That means, as surely as people have lived and died, they will stand before that judgment throne
unless they receive God's salvation.
But, thank God, there is one way to escaped that judgment.
Jesus said, " He that believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not
come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." (John 5:24)
Think of that -- shall not come into judgment.
Don't you wish God would say that of you.
You must know that the time has come for you to be saved and to escape the judgment of God.
I urge you to receive Christ because hell is the destiny of every unbeliever.
I would think that just knowing the love of God would draw each unbeliever to Him,
but if not, every unbeliever must hear of God's wrath.
People might scoff at hell, and they might use it as a swear word.
They may laugh at Christians who believe that there is a hell, but many do not believe that
they will ever be there.
Did you know that Captain Smith on the maiden voyage of the supposedly unsinkable Titanic,
while walking the deck one evening, was handed a radio report warning of icebergs
in the path of the ship?
He did not take measures to slow the speed of the ship, but calmly put the report in his pocket,
and resumed his walk while the great ship went forward at great speed crashing into an iceberg.
1,490 people, the captain among them died in the icy waters because he refused to heed
the warning.
Did you know that early in the morning at Pearl Harbor, Sargent Joseph Lockhart sitting
at his radar screen, detected the approach of a large group of enemy planes
and alerted his superior officer?
That officer refused to be moved with fear or to be alarmed, and told Sargent Lockhart
to forgets it.
He insisted that they were probably American planes.
That morning nearly 3,000 American soldiers were slaughtered and like sheep
because that officer would not heed the warning and would not be moved with fear.
What can I say concerning Hell so that you will see its awful reality?
People will live forever after they leave this earth, and there are only two places where they can go.
If they are saved, they will go to Heaven.
If they are unsaved, they will go to Hell.
What a fearful place Hell must be!
How horrible to spend eternity in the place were Christ said, " Their worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched."
I believe that someone here today is ready to say,
" The time has come for me to be saved, lest I spend eternity in Hell."
Unsaved person you must come for there is danger in delay.
This may not be the first time you have been this close to deciding.
With all my heart I urge you to let nothing stop you from becoming a Christian.
This may be your last opportunity.
The time of decision is here.
God is ready to give you life and hope and joy.
You will never regret your decision to make this the greatest moment of your life.
If you refuse this urgent opportunity, it could pass and never return, and you will go out
that door and doom your own soul.
The verdict of your crime will be that you destroyed your soul in unbelief and indecision.
You murdered yourself by delay.
One of the most intriguing stories of World War II was told by a young paratrooper,
who was led to Christ in a church in Chicago.
He was one of 10 paratroopers in training.
They went up in a large training plane to make their first jump.
This young man was third in line.
It was a tense, fearful moment.
The first man walked to the door, and bravely stepped out, and went down and landed safely.
The second young man went to the door and hesitated.
His nerves got the best of him.
He walked past the door and stood to one side.
Then, this was the third young man time to jump.
He summoned his courage, and stepped out of the open door.
He also landed safely.
But he had scarcely jumped free of the plane when it suddenly exploded and every man
aboard that plane died, including the young man who had his chance and passed it up.
Do not gamble with your eternal soul any longer.
Today, God has set before you an open door.
" Now is the accepted time…"
Tomorrow may never arrive!
You can not afford to miss this opportunity!
Come to Jesus now!
Sermon by Dr. Harold L White