Three Absolute Facts of Life

Introduction: A Fundamental Message on Life's Absolute Facts

0:02 With us for some time, Sunday evenings, we're 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. 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

1:24 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.

2:04 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, 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

Fact 1: You Are Here by Divine Creation

3:25 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 English 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're here on God's earth, breathing God's air.

4:05 You're here 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.

4:37 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. Now, is there anyone here that would want to dispute that fact?

5:06 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.

5:29 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. You may not like what you see and experience here, but you can't uncreature yourself.

5:40 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.

Fact 2: You Will Not Always Be Here – Death Is Appointed

5:48 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.

6:06 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.

6:34 As it is appointed. Unto men once to die.

6:43 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.

7:03 Death is this intruder into the human race. And death is...

7:08 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.

7:20 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.

7:34 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.

7:49 And 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.

8:16 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, Sunday 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. Through no choice of your own.

Fact 3: You Will Stand in God's Presence for Judgment

9:14 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?

9:49 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, 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 5th 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.

11:12 John chapter 5, verses 28 and 29.

11:23 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, that is, he has given to Him all judgment. And in this verse, verse 28, 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?

12:05 You dare to say whoever hears your words, you'll give them life? Who in the world are you? The Lord says, don't be surprised at this claim, I've got something greater to tell you. Verse 28, marvel not at this.

12:18 You think it's 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. The 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.

13:36 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.

13:48 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, 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.

14:43 There are adults here tonight who say, let's give us pleasant things. Tell us nice things. Tell us nice things. Tell us nice things.

14:48 Tell us nice things. Tell us nice things. Tell us nice things. Tell us nice things.

14:48 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.

15:05 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. The comfort of a Christian is a comfort which he has when he looks death in his black eyeball.

15:28 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...

15:53 a delusive and a damning comfort.

15:57 Sure, a man who's slated to go to the electric chair the first of September can feel good right up to July 31st if he keeps himself drunk and forgets about the electric chair.

16:14 And it's perfectly possible for you to have no terrors of the thought of death. Bad 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 life.

16:27 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.

16:38 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.

16:54 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.

17:12 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.

Supreme Responsibility: Prepare for Your Exit

17:37 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 is to get ready for your exit.

17:59 Your one supreme responsibility is 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.

18:19 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 fifty years in that land to which he was going. He was told the place, but that's all.

18:42 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 fifty years. Here's a manual of instruction about what that land is like.

19:08 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 and his savings account. He wasn't investing in 1970. And everything was just going great.

19:37 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.

19:50 The six months period has ended. And 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.

20:10 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 months stay as comfortable as possible, but who made no preparations for his visit to the land out there.

20:32 You remember the parable in which the Lord talks about such a man? It's found in the 12th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke. In the 12th chapter of Luke, in verse 16.

20:43 And 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.

21:00 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.

21:12 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.

21:32 And all that's in your barns 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.

21:47 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?

Preparation: Not by Nature, But by Grace

22:29 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.

22:48 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 and 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.

23:25 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.

23:53 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.

24:23 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. If 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's utterly unfit for the presence of God. As much as it's unfit to take some loathsome toad that dwells in the bottom of some stinking polluted well, and set it upon the veil,

25:46 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.

26:18 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?

26:51 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.

27:03 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 sanctified cliché in the church. And Paul says when you hear somebody saying to somebody else, Christ Jesus came to save sinners, he said, ah, that's a faithful saying.

27:31 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?

27:41 Some man that's lived for a long time, some man that's lived for fifty 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.

28:02 He says that's the saying that's worthy of all acceptation. He said, I hope some man who fifty 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.

28:28 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.

28:44 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.

29:08 So anyone can be saved. 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.

29:38 And that same Jesus 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 unto 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 or 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

31:06 and joy this gives to a preacher of the gospel because I know as I preach to some of you tonight 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.

31:29 Oh, 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? Yeah, it has, hasn't it? Hasn't it?

31:47 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.

32:18 Oh, listen. Though you came here tonight determined that nothing would get through to you listen, listen. Jesus Christ received sinners who were doing everything in their power to run away from Him. He receives even such.

32:33 He receives those who've determined that nothing of His truth would touch them who've 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.

33:01 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 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 a yew as they say out in Iowa they call them yews I don't know why we say yew but they call them yews out there in that sheep country you have a yew who may die in giving birth to her lamb. On the other hand you may have a lamb who dies in those first few days so you've got some mismatched

34:29 yews 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 yew 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 yew 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 yew and when that little lamb comes nestling up to the yew 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

35:56 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

The Pressing Question: Are You Ready for the Journey to Judgment?

37:24 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 is 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 is going to turn out alright when you breathe your last here everything somehow is going to turn out alright I'm not asking you if you have some vague notions I'm not asking you if you have some vague hopes or some general aspirations my question is

38:51 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 or you have some vague hopes you know 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 alright 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 do you hope 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 disobeyed mom and dad all those times you fought with brother and sister all those times you sat in church and dishonored God with wandering thoughts

40:19 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 and 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?

41:47 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 and the world and the flesh and the devil my greatest joy is to commune with God? listen to me parents if God's done a work of grace in your kids one of the evidences will be there'll 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's that longing within to commune with God that's the life of heaven and listen children need to be fit for heaven the same way adults do 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

43:16 and who has no heart after God thought of that well I hope you do because it's true except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven and you can show me from the Bible that children get to heaven without the new birth then I'll believe in ourselves saved without the evidence of hunger after God but until you can establish the one don't try to float the other do me 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 said in scripture but in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible

Conclusion: Flee to Christ Today

44:43 in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible in the Bible 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.

45:50 You're not always going to be here. It's appointed on the men once to die.

45:56 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?

46:28 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? 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 entreaty 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're not, today while you hear his voice, that you'll 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.

47:36 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.

47:56 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,

48:21 but lingered too long. Let us pray.