The Lord's return is imminent, as evidenced by the signs described in Luke 21 and parallel passages. The sermon highlights the destruction of the temple in AD 70 as a literal fulfillment of prophecy and connects this to future judgments on the world's systems. It details signs such as wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and persecution, emphasizing that these are not to cause terror but to signal the nearness of redemption. Believers are called to live in readiness for Christ's return, distinguishing between those who are saved and those who are lost, and living a life that reflects an expectation of His coming.
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This morning I tried to tell you why I believe in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Tonight I want to tell you why I believe that the Lord is coming back, and soon. I'd like to turn with me to the Olivet Discourse, as recorded by Luke, chapter twenty-one. It's recorded in Matthew also. and chapter twenty-four and possibly all of twenty-five there are some parables there but it's quite likely he spoke to the parables in connection with the uh... all of that discourse now i want to read with you from the twenty first chapter of luke's gospel matthew and remember wrote particularly to the jews luke wrote particularly to the greek or the Gentiles in general, but the educated Gentiles.
And much of what he says, Spirit of God, has led him to apply it to the world rather than just to the nation of Israel. We'll see this as we proceed through this chapter. I should like to read with you from the very first verse, and he, the Lord Jesus, looked up and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting until their two nights. And he said, Of the truth I say unto you that this poor widow has cast in more than they all.
For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God, but she of her penury, her poverty, has cast in all the livings that she had. Now this provides a kind of setting for what is said here in this chapter. The Lord found very little for himself in the nation of Israel. There was very little devotion. There was very little concern. There was very little interest in his death and resurrection. Very little interest in the gospel. Very much like the times in which we live. But in this poor woman he found one who was devoted to it, who loved him, and who was willing to give up everything that she had for him.
But out of that background, and in that setting, he says, and there's some stake of the temple, I was adorned with goodly stones and gifts. He said, as for these things which ye behold, the day shall come in which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. This was fulfilled literally in the year AD. Seventy. When Titus came out, the Roman monarch, came against the city of Jerusalem, he destroyed the temple completely. Rather, I should say, his soldiers did. He gave orders that the temple should not be destroyed because it was a beautiful place.
But the Lord had already predicted that not one stone would be left on another. And this was literally fulfilled. The temple was lined with gold. It was done with cedar, a cedar substructure, thrown on the outside, of course. And then the cedar was covered on the inside with gold. The cedar wood would burn very quickly with the trimmings, and the soldier is said to have thrown a torch in through the window. And the inner part of the temple was built in the blaze, the hangings, and so on. And then the gold melted, and the people literally pried these stones apart in order to get the gold that had melted and had run in between the stones, so that not one stone was left on another.
Literally. It happened just as the Lord said. Let me tell you that that same thing is going to happen in every one of God's judgments. God says that there won't be one stone left on another in this world's government. There won't be a stone left on another in this world's commerce. There won't be a stone left on another in this world's religion. When Babylon the Great, as it's called in the book of the Revelation, is destroyed, that is the whole cosmos, the whole world's system, that has been built up by man for his own glory. When this is destroyed, it will be destroyed completely. Just as this happened.
Now, when he said this was going to happen, they asked him, saying, Master, when shall these things be? And what signs will there be when these things shall come to pass? In Matthew's Gospel they ask an additional question. That is, it's recorded there that they ask an additional question, and that was, what shall be the signs of thy coming? Now not so much is said about that here. And yet we do have the signs here in this passage. And so he proceeds to answer these questions. He said, Take heed that you do not receive, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ. And the time draws near, going not therefore after them.
But when you shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified. Now this was a natural tendency, isn't it? Today there is a great fear in this country. It's been a growing thing. It's come, I think, through the loss of confidence in those who were over us in government. We have been very disturbed at the laxity of morals in politics as well as in other ways in this country. I think people are very disturbed today and they're very, they're wondering what's going to happen. And of course as you think of the atomic warfare and how closely it bends to the brink, of war in the last few years, conditions in the Middle East and so on.
I think that there is a tendency today among the people of this country to be terrified. And these are not the religious leaders. The people who are really terrified today are the people who know what's going on in the state. People who know what's going on in the scientific world. People who know what's going on in the world of finance. These are the people who are disturbed. I was talking to a man not long ago, and he said, my prediction is that we're in for the worst year that we have ever seen in nineteen seventy-seven. I said, no, you're not a pessimist. Why do you say that?
He said, we have potential explosions in every area of our national life. And he said, I see no way at all that we can escape all of these explosions. I don't think that the Christians really believe as much as the learned Christians, that these things are coming. Some years ago, not too long ago, but some years back, there was a magazine that came out with a picture of the clock on the front of it, and it was set at five minutes from midnight. The clock was darkened, so to indicate that it was nighttime, five minutes to twelve.
They brought out another edition of that magazine two years ago, and the clock was set for two minutes to twelve. That was not a Christian magazine. It was a scientific magazine. It was a magazine put out by men who know the conditions in the world and who don't particularly know the teaching of the Bible. There's no reference in the article connected with it to the Bible or to predictions by the Lord Jesus. It's simply that people realize people who know conditions in this world realize that something's got to give. That conditions are not going to go on like this. I say these things in order that we might understand that when the Lord said, be not terrified, he realized that for most of the people would be terrified.
And he has given us, as believers, a reason not to be terrified. Also, I may say that he has given to those who are not Christians Another reason for being terrified. But I want to tell you how to be saved tonight. I want to tell you why you need to be saved. Anyone who is not yet a believer in this small audience, I want you to be very concerned about your own condition before God. Because I believe that these things are coming. Now he said, in verse nine, Be not terrified, for these things must first come to pass, but the end is not by and by.
And this is the old English use of the word, and you may find in modern speech testaments that he says immediately. And this is a better translation than by and by. It really is the opposite of me today. So this is quite common. Many old English words have changed. And so he's saying that the end doesn't come immediately. Now, many people who think about the coming of the Lord and the end of the world and all of these things as one great big boom. And this, of course, is partly due to the teaching so common today among evangelicals of anti-disconsationalism. That is, people do not believe that there are going to be certain things, certain events take place beyond the return of Christ.
I believe that the events will cover at least a thousand and seven years after the Lord's return for us, before the end of this world. My reason for that is that in the book of Daniel, and also in the book of the Revelation, there are distinctly said to be seven years of the Great Tribulation. And that period of time is called the time of Jacob's judgment, or Jacob's trouble. There will be seven years of that And then there will be a thousand years reign of peace on this earth before this world comes to an end. Now we know this in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation. In the twenty-first chapter then he tells about the new heaven and the new earth.
So I think that I can confidently say that if the Lord should come during this service, come this evening for his own, there would still be a thousand and seven years before the end of the world. That doesn't mean that you and I have a thousand seven years, or seven years, or even seven minutes. We have no assurance of time beyond this present moment. But these things, he said, must first come to pass. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and great earthquakes shall be in diverse places. That is...
not only in different places, but different places from the past. And of course, we're already seeing a great deal of this, you know. My son is connected with a branch of the government in Boulder, Colorado, that has to do with the earth science services. And they compile all kinds of records, everything it has to do with the movement of this earth, with its weather, and so on. And among other things, they're compiling a record of all earthquakes. This has been done, of course, for quite some time. And I asked him recently, what about this? And he said, well, there certainly is a step up of this thing.
We don't always agree why, but there is a step up of occurrence of earthquakes. And they are occurring in places where they never did before. And famines and pestilences. And we know that these things are just in the offing. We thought, the American people thought, that we had conquered all disease when we brought out the wonder drugs in the last few years. But strangely enough, now there is a recurrence of such diseases as tuberculosis, growing tremendously in some parts of the world, and such diseases as smallpox.
When I was vaccinated and made a trip abroad a few years ago, The doctor said, this is probably the last vaccination you'll ever have to have for smallpox. And I said, well, none that I've ever had has ever taken. He said, I don't mean that. I don't think there'll be any such thing as vaccination for smallpox because there won't be any smallpox. That was maybe eight years ago. And now we've had a fresh outbreak of it, even in this country. And in some countries, it's reached testable of proportions. We've even had an outbreak of bubonic plague. I don't say these things to cause the commotion. I just say, we need to think about these things. The Lord said that there would be a recurrence of this, and with it be the famine.
I don't know whether you were aware of this or not, but do you know that ten thousand people, on an average, starve to death every twenty-four hours? Now think about that a little bit. Ten thousand people in this world every twenty-four hours. Of course, that's a small proportion of between two and three million people, million people, but still it's a tremendous number of people. We have everything that we need and more than we need. But four-fifths of the world's population is estimated today go to bed hungry.
We're a highly favored people as far as temporal things are concerned, and we're not very thankful people. But these things, he said, will come, and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. But before all these they shall lay their hands on you, that is, on the Jewish disciples. For he was speaking not to the church. The church had not yet begun, but he was speaking to Jewish disciples, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogue and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your heart, Not to meditate before what she shall answer, but I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversary shall not be able to gain, say, nor resist.
And he shall be betrayed both by parents of brethren in Ken's vote in France. Now, we have already seen this in the Iron Curtain countries. Communism has encouraged this. It began even before communism was as strong as it is. Hitler encouraged this in Germany before the Second World War. He encouraged children to tell stories on their parents to report anything that was contrary to the state. And this is a very common thing now in many parts of the world. China has been deceptive of this for a number of years, so that people do not trust their own families.
And so he said, these things will happen. For some of you shall they cause to be put to death. and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But there shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls. The soul is the feeling part of human beings. The spirit is the part of which we have God consciousness. The soul is the part of man with which we have self-consciousness. And the body is the part with which we have world-consciousness. without five senses we have contact with the world. And so when he says, in your patience possess ye your souls, he says, keep your emotions under control.
Don't become wild-eyed over this thing. Don't become disturbed over this thing. Now, how can we know facts like these, that I've been just briefly enumerating, how can we know facts like these and not be disturbed? Well, of course, there's only one way that this is possible. And that is if we know the one who is controlling the event. This is the thing that you and I, as believers, must get old of. And this is the thing which any of you who are not saved need to seriously think about. If you don't know the one who controls the universe, there is not very much hope for you. Now think about this. There is not much hope for you if you do not know the one who controls the universe.
Do you know him? Let's read on now and see what happens. When you shall see Jerusalem, compass with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Now this is called the abomination of desolation in the book of Daniel, and it has to do with the seven years of the Great Tribulation. Then let them return Judea. And notice the connotation here. Jerusalem, Judea, and so on. Jerusalem went to the game of twenty-four. Son of Man is mentioned in verse twenty seven. This always has to do with his coming back to the earth. Not the first day to his coming, but when he returns to this earth instead of his kingdom.
So this marks this section into here as being the Great Tribulation. I'm just trying to lay a little background for the things that I want to say to you now, particularly tonight. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter therein too. For these be the days of vengeance, which all things which are written, that all things which are written, may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with time, and to them that are with time, and to them that give stock in those days, for there shall be great distress in the land. Now the land is always Palestine, and wrath upon this people, that is the nation of Israel, I do not believe that the Church will go through any part of the Great Tribulation.
My reason for this is manyfold. For one thing, I believe that the Lord has definitely promised in speaking to the Church at Philadelphia that He will keep us from the Great Tribulation. The same word is translated there that is used for the Great Tribulation. And I believe also... that the Great Tribulation is a time of judgment. It's not just another event in world history. It's not just something like the Dark Ages, the church had to go through that. It's not something like the pestilences of the times in Europe, the church had to go through that. But the Great Tribulation is different from anything else.
It comes for this particular purpose. The Lord says it is the time of Jacob's trouble. It is the time of judgment. And the Lord said to us, There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The church will not go through any kind of condemnation. And the Great Tribulation is a condemnation, definitely. I think there are many other reasons also. But I do not expect to be here, or for any of the Lord's people connected with the church, to be here during the Great Tribulation. There will be Jewish believers. There will be those who are saved in the Great Tribulation.
Not any who have heard the gospel in this present age, but those who have not heard the gospel in this present age, according to Second Thessalonians, too, will be saved during that time. But you and I, who are believers, will not go through that period of time. What about those who have heard the gospel in this age? Second Thessalonians chapter two tells us that they will all be damned at the strong word. that they all might be damned, who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in them right tonight. Anyone who has heard the gospel in this present age will not have an opportunity to be saved during the great tribulation.
And you who are present tonight have all heard the gospel, and you will be hearing it again tonight, as I try to tell you about the Lord Jesus. There is simply no hope for those who are left behind on the Lord Jesus' house. We were saved ought to do everything we can to win our friends. Now let me read on about these days of vengeance. They shall fall by the sword, the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Now notice there's a new paragraph that begins with verse twenty-five.
And this has to do with the signs of the end of the great tribulation. There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity. The sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking upon those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, the T. Ironside, who is a very able writer, and I recommend these books, especially for young believers, they are so easy to read, he is able to give you so much in such simple language.
And I think that most people profit greatly from reading H. Ironside's lectures on the various books of the Scripture. He has written one that's particularly good, lectures on the Revelation with a chart, the beginning of it. And one of his expressions is this. He says, we do not look for science. The church is not told to look for science. But he said, there's no reason why we can't look at the science. And when we see these things happening, he said, the Scripture says, when you see these things begin, it comes to pass. He said, we are not seeing Scripture prophecy fulfilled. I know a lot of people tell you this on the radio and TV, radio preachers, they're great to scare heads every time they get a news byline and they feel that they can say, now this is a prophecy of being fulfilled and this indicates that the Lord's going to come next September and all kinds of things like this until people have gotten to where they don't believe much of anything because they've been fooled so much by these false prophets and this is what many of them are.
Some of them may be real children of God who are fooled. But anyway, we ought not to be deceived by this kind of thing. The term type says, instead of saying, we are seeing prophecies fulfilled, it would be wiser to say, we are seeing the stage set for the last great drama. Now, I like that expression. We are seeing the stage set for the last great drama. We are seeing things brought into shape. frequently. We know that the Antichrist, who will reign over all of the religions of the world, united, as will be the success of the Ecumenical Movement.
It's not good, but it will be successful. The Ecumenical Movement will incorporate all religious bodies in the world, and the Antichrist will rule over them. Now, we know that the Antichrist is a great dictator. We know also that we have the two beasts of the Revelations, the beast and the false prophet, both mentioned in the thirteen chapters. And we know that both of them are dictators. One is a political dictator and one is a religious dictator. But if you had said this when I was a boy, nobody would have known what you were talking about. There were no dictators. I remember my father teaching the book of Revelations perhaps sixty years ago.
And he taught it from the Scripture. He wasn't particularly concerned about what was happening in the world at the time. I don't know that he was that much aware of things happening in the world. He was quite limited in his scope. But he did say there will be a United States of Europe. And after the meeting, the brother came to him and he said this. Mr. Walden, he said, you've gone too far today. He said, when you say there'll be a United States of Europe, he said, that could never be. said, you haven't been to Europe. I have. I've been there two or three times. And he said, you just as well have an eighty-foot wall between all the countries of Europe.
They have nothing to do with each other. They don't even know each other's languages. They have a bad rate of exchange. They have a bad tariff rate. They want nothing to do with each other. There could never be a United States of Europe. How do you think? Well, practically, for all practical purposes, we already have it. NATO and the common markets and many other things have resulted in a close alliance in Europe. And yet, within my lifetime, people said this could never be. When he said that there would be a man who would be a great dictator over all the European countries, then he just threw up his energy.
He said, that's too much. This could never be. When Mussolini was in power, he said, I would gladly make an alliance with the devil himself if it was saved for Italy. And some almost think that he tried to do that very thing. And many a person today is willing to accept help from any place. If that man is big enough, strong enough to unite the countries of Europe, there will be such a man. There will be. And he very likely is alive somewhere today. I wouldn't attempt to make it. I've heard too many attempts made at this.
People will tell you that this man's name, when it's spelled out in Latin or Greek or some other language, the numerical value of the letters comes to six hundred and sixty-six. And since they've already proved this to be true of seven people that I know of, then I can't very well figure that they know any more about it now than they did in the past. And I don't accept any of those prophecies, so-called, at all. But I do believe that there will be a great dictator who will unite Europe, and that there will be a rebellion against the Lord. And I think these are some of the things that he's talking about right here. Now when he says that men's hearts will fail them to fear, he certainly is saying exactly what is happening in the world today, and will continue to happen until the Lord comes back.
Now he said, When these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption, draw it now. And he spake to them a parable. Behold the fig tree and all the trees. Matthew says, Behold the fig tree. The fig tree is Jerusalem, or the Jews, the nation of Israel. The fig tree has to be there. It's used in that way many times in the Old Testament. There's no question at all that when he says the fig tree, he means the Jewish people. But when he says all of the trees, then he must mean the rest of the nations. Let's examine this situation. Do we have a budding of the fig tree?
Do we have a blossoming out of the people of Israel? Yes, we have. I don't believe that we have a nation of Israel in existence today. I don't think that you can call what is now in Palestine really the nation of Israel. This is a nation of unbelievers this was a nation of people who were atheistic Zionism is not Christian it's not Jewish Zionism is atheistic and Golda Meyer and Moshe Dayan and many of these other people got their training under the communists in the communes and they are they are not interested at all in the return of Christ in fact when Moshe Dayan was interviewed after the Six-Day War And people said, it looks like your Jehovah is still on your part.
He became enraged. He said, Jehovah had nothing to do with it. We won that war because we were smarter than we were. We were richer than they were. We were more powerful than they were. And Jehovah had nothing to do with it. He doesn't even believe there is a Jehovah. And they finally had to take him off the air because he became so in control of them. I was watching the thing at the time. That's the kind of people that have been heading up. He's not with any great budding of the other people. Isn't he true? When the United Nations was organized, there was a very small percentage of the number of countries that we now have. Now, we have well over a hundred countries that are not quite small. Unfortunately, they have the same votes that the United States had, and we don't really have much control over the country anymore.
But what has happened is that it has to be a finding of the all the people. There was a growing sense of the nation in it. there was a blowing awareness out there, the possibility of being in the nation. Now why is this true in the twenty-century of what we're doing in the nation, the ages, the ages, the avenues, the ages, and having been through for life in the world? But all of these things are true now. Why are they true now? Well, I believe that we want you to understand that not only is God working among the Jews, but God is working in all of the nations of the world. And I'm going to add a third of this area. According to the third chapter of the book of Revelation, the Lord predicted that there would come in the church, in the prophetic church, there would come a dead man and a dweller and a lethargy.
There would be, there would be characteristics of that age. He said, You are needed cold and high. I will convert color or high, but because you are not, because you are lukewarm, he said, I will send you out of my mouth. The Lord said he will give you his message with the conditions of the church at the end of the day. Now let me ask you, what has happened to a fasting church? When you can have a man in the public of the largest congregation in the north, He says, I don't care whether my church members do the things we cite as existing now. All I want is a fallen love, dimly blue.
I don't care. What do we say when one of the different denominations in this nation and one of the biggest churches in that denomination performs a marriage right to assume two men who are homosexual? What do we say about conditions like this? in the world today, where the church is taking it in immorality. What are we to say about the attitude of the church that is not only discounting such a church, but is discrediting the Lord's inhuman child? Well, this is what has happened. I have underage these two things, as they say, by names and posts concerning my elective Lord.
They have dishonored these names. They have said all kinds of things against me, And today we have led to Judaism's marching force. I don't know what you can say of this. Well, particularly if it didn't happen in other ages, it would come within almost within my lifetime. I suppose in the last century there came out of Europe higher criticism. This resulted in what was known as modernism. And out of that came liberalism, and then out of that came neo-Orthodoxy. And what we've got today is a denial of everything that we find at least. And this is true to what's being done in many continents. Now, if you tell you the stories that were mentioned in the head, well, about what you've seen taught around young people in the continents, I would invite a young person to go to any of these places, even those that are still...
Apparently, it's fundamentally sound, because it's not the training part of that type of thing. Men whose writings would never have been taught in some seminary would not be introduced. Now, what does the law mean for understanding? Well, the writing of the fiction and that of all the treaties, all the nations, and the convictions of the land of faith. How does it mean for us to understand it? You need for us to understand, I believe, that the Lord is about to do something here in this earth. And the thing that he's about to do is taught right here. When you see these things happen, he said, Your own selves, know your own selves, the summer is nine days.
Likewise, you will be seeing these things. come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh of him. That is, heaven's king is about to appear. This is exactly the message of John. John preached this before the Lord came the first time. Did he come? Yes, he did. Did he come on time? He definitely did. Did he come in response to those actual prophecies? This is true. And so we can expect that the same dream will happen in our days. Then he goes on to say, and I want you to get this in particular. Currently I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. I do not believe that that means a generation of thirty years.
The writer used this expression, and he used it before this also, in relation to the nation of Israel. He said, this is an adulterous generation, meaning a people. I believe what he's saying is this people will not pass away. The nation of Israel will not pass away. So if you take it as a generation, then you're open to all kinds of defeat. You can say, well, this generation began with about eighteen ninety-seven when Zionism began. Or you could say it began in nineteen, was it seventeen, eighteen, when General Allen was marched into the city and liberated from the church.
Or you could say it happened in time that Israel proclaimed themselves a nation. So they became a nation, but in May the fourteenth, in May the forty-eighth, they took the status of a nation. Or you could say it came with a six-day war. But whatever you say, then you're obligated to say there will not be more than about thirty or thirty-five years until the law sets up the kingdom. Not many of those dates have long passed. When you see that history, the actual fulfillment of any prophecy, nor can it be A date that is. If I tell you when the Lord is coming back, I would be very foolish because the Lord has plainly said that we don't know.
And if you believe me, you'll be more foolish. And we ought not to believe these false prophets. We ought not to say somebody said the Lord is coming in such and such a date. Right now they're talking about, it was The Jupiter, what is they call it, is going to happen. The alignment of all the planets, and this is supposed to make such a call on the Earth. It's going to cause tremendous earthquakes and so on. Now they've had these every hundred and seventy-six years, and it doesn't mean that this is necessarily going to be that, and it doesn't mean that it couldn't be that.
But it means simply that we ought not to be putting things off into the future. I told you that I wanted to tell you why I believe the Lord is coming. I'm going to also tell you why I believe he's coming soon. I believe that the coming of the Lord is necessary soon because of the dishonor that's been brought upon his name, because of the trouble that's being brought upon his people, and because of the conditions that are rapidly accelerated in this world. Some years ago, my wife and I were driving into Canada by way of Niagara. We went up the Niagara River on the Canadian side, and when we got to near the Canadian Falls, we noticed the rapids in the Niagara River.
They were rapidly accelerated. At first you couldn't tell. As you came out of Lake Erie, you couldn't tell which way the river flowed. It just seemed to be part of the lake. But as you go farther north, it accelerated until finally it just roared over the falls. The last quarter of a mile had most of the reaction, much more than all of these miles and miles and miles before that. The same thing is true of events in the world today. They're moving much more rapidly now within the last few years than they have in all of the centuries before that time. This has been true of all developments in the world.
It's been true of scientific development. Do you realize that Most of these things have come within the lifetime of some of us who are elderly today, scientific inventions. Many of these things were totally unknown. Within our lifetime, there has been tremendous progress, scientific, but not moreover. we have seen the tremendous downfall of the moral of our nation within our lifetime. I believe that the coming of the Lord is very, very near.
I want to conclude this by just saying a little bit to you about what's going to happen at the return of Christ. Our Savior came into this world, nineteen hundred and some years ago, and went to the cross and took our sins on himself, bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And today was the day that most of the world celebrates what they call Easter Sunday or the Resurrection. I'm thankful that Christians can celebrate every first day of the week, and we ought to be very happy for this service. Easter doesn't mean as much to me because we have Easter every week.
That is, we have the resurrection of Christ emphasized every first day of the week, and I think this is the way it ought to be. The Lord Jesus rose again from the dead, and because he rose again, we know that our sins are put away. If we put our trust in him, potentially the gospel is for everybody. Every human being could receive Christ as Savior, could be saved, could go to heaven. But they're not all going to do so. When the Lord comes back, there will be two classes of people on this earth. Now the educator would say that there are several classes of people. There are them very well educated, and then they are totally illiterate, and then there are different degrees in between.
The physicians say that there are all kinds of people, from the very well to the very sick, and all in between. And different ones would say different things. But the Bible divides the people into two clanses, and nothing in between. He says there are those who are saved, and there are those who are lost. And this is the way God sees all of us here in this room. This is the way he sees all people here on this earth. Those who are saved, and those who are lost. Now, don't say you're being saved. That's not taught in the Bible. It says in First Corinthians chapter one, unto us who are saved.
The gospel is the power of God. In second Corinthians chapter four, it says, And the men who are lost, so there are people who are lost and those who are saved. The first thing you need to find out for your own self is where do I stand? I'll tell you a very simple tale. First John chapter five says, Either half the Son has life. Either has not the Son of God, has not life. Now, it's a very simple test. It would be very simple to test all the people in this room as to whether or not you are married. You could answer without any question at all. You wouldn't say, well, I think I am.
I hope I am. You wouldn't say, well, I feel like I'm married. No. You would say, I am, or I am not. And you would base this on facts. And these facts would be historical facts. I know when I accepted a wife. The preacher asked me if I took her. I don't know what he thought I was there for, if that wasn't why I was there, but he went through the trouble to ask that question. And he asked her the question, and he asked it in front of witnesses, and we both said yes. And after we had done so, he pronounced us husband and wife, and he had the authority to do it. And now we still have that piece of paper that was signed by him that says that we are married.
But when it comes to salvation, people say, well, I think so. I hope I am. Or they say, well, I think I'm a little more saved than I was last month or last year. Oh, no. See that half the sun have life. When did you take Christ? Who? Suppose the Lord came tonight for his own. He tells how this will happen. You can read about it in First Corinthians, and in First Thessalonians chapter four. If the Lord should come tonight, what would happen? All of those who have received Christ as Savior were going meet. I used to use a little illustration like this for the children.
I used to take all kinds of nails and screws and pieces of pieces of metal and and a magnet. Now, some of those pieces of metal were non-ferrous, not iron. They were brass or copper or something of that kind. The magnet wouldn't pick them up, because the magnet and the material are two different natures. And when the Lord comes, He's only going to take those who have His nature, only going to take those who have His life. And I would hold this magnet down and pick up every piece that never fails. This strong magnet Every piece of ferrous metal was picked up.
Non-ferrous metal was left behind. I even, one time, just to illustrate what it really means, I took some matches and put needles down through the center of it. And you couldn't see. You couldn't see the metal. You couldn't see the steel that was inside. Just to help the children to understand that we have within us, not our bodies, but we have within us the life of God. And the Magnet searches that out. And the Lord will take home those who are truly His. And He will leave behind those who are not His. Now, you can belong to church. You can be baptized. My father got baptized three times before he got saved.
He said he was a web of sinner in Iowa. He was sincere. He really was trying to do the right thing. But all he had was religion. All he had was baptism. He wasn't saved at all. Do you need to think seriously about this? The Lord may come tonight. He will take you if you have Christ as your Savior. He will not take you if you don't have Christ as your Savior. So it's that simple. And that's correct. The effect on believers will be not only to be taken when the Lord comes, but it has tremendous effect on us here and now.
You know that every Christian who is really looking for the Lord's coming is going to behave himself. Look at the thirty-fourth verse of our chapter. And take heed to yourselves. He's saying this to his own. Take heed to yourselves. lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that they come upon you unawares. For as a smear shall it come in all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. First dwellers, people who are not saved will find the coming of the Lord like a smear. Watch ye, therefore, and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man.
And in that day he was teaching in the temple, and at night he went out and abode in the mouth of the tall amount of olives. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple for to hear him. Why did he say this? He said, in order that those who were saved might be alert, and in order that those who were not saved might be awakened. The coming of the Lord should have a tremendous effect upon believers. We ought to be with our loins girded. We ought to be, as the twelfth chapter of Luke says, we ought to be with our last burning. This again is given in the twelfth chapter. You might like to read the last part of chapter twelve, and this has to do with the same thing.
There he's talking about how Christians ought to live in view of the coming of the Lord. You know what's the matter, brothers and sisters? We don't really expect the Lord to come this week. And you can't expect the Lord to come. If you say he might come in ten years or hundred years, you can't expect him that way. There's only one way you can expect the Lord, and that's expected momentarily. And we do not believe that the Lord is coming this week, because we would change our way of living as we did. We wouldn't be hanging on with things so carefully and so intensely. We would be glad to let these things go for the sake of the Lord and the sake of His work, if we really believe this. But we think that we need these things for the future.
And we've got a long future here on this earth, in our own calculations. And this is all wrong. Think what a shock it's going to be to find out that you haven't met for the last of twenty years and you only need to be met for twenty minutes or twenty days. Think what it's going to be. The people who really are looking for the coming of the Lord are willing to spend deep things. They're willing to put everything that they have into it. They're willing to hold things very lightly here in this earth. And they love His appearing. That's the word that's used, loving His appearing. The unsaved are going to be surprised. The unsaved are going to be dismayed.
The unsaved are going to be deceived. And the unsaved are going to be judged. If the Lord comes tonight, he'll be too late. Is he your savior? Did he die for you and rise again? Have you received him? If you have received him, have you owned him as Lord? Would you be willing to tonight, while we bow in prayer, would you be willing to turn your life over to him? I'm not calling for a demonstration. I'm calling for real heartfelt attachments with the Lord himself. Our Savior, we acknowledge that our lives do not show that we're expecting thy return.
So many things that mark us as being earth-glowers, rather than citizens of that city. We pray, Lord, that thou will restore us and revive us. Draw us near to thyself. Help us to see the priorities. Help us to see the values of thou to see them. Help us to see the value of souls. all about us going on without Christ. Help us to reach out to these people. We wonder why we don't have more to talk to tonight about the Savior. We wonder why we're not being others brought into Christ. And we acknowledge, Father, that we do not have the concern for them that our Savior had when he wept over the city.
Father, we pray that thou wilt help thy children. to be really expecting the coming of the Lord, and to love his appearing, to want nothing so much as to hear his footfall on the threshold of the door. We have thy blessing now as we go away, and the Savior stretches me.