Amen.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
It's great to be back here once again,
our last weeknight service, and a very special
warm greeting to my young people, as this
is our youth night.
I haven't my youth suit on, but I
still feel young, and the biggest temptation I
think I had in the whole campaign to
do what might have not been right was
to put up my hand when he said
I'm in my thirties.
However, you're as young as you feel, that's
what they tell us over in the old
country.
Well now, I've got a lot I want
to tell you tonight, and we're a little
late in passing the message, but since we
have a holiday tomorrow, there's no meeting tomorrow
night except for me and those who go
to youth for Christ, I hope you won't
mind perhaps a little over the time, but
we'll try and keep it within the limits
if possible.
We're going to read a familiar passage.
There are three I would like to read,
but we'll keep to one, in the Gospel
of Saint John.
John's Gospel, chapter 14.
I'm choosing these out of the three possible
readings I would have brought you, because I
owe my conversion to our Lord Jesus Christ,
for the reading of these beautiful words.
John 14 and verse 1, Let not your
heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe
also in me.
In my Father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have
told you.
I go to prepare a place for you,
and if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am, there
ye may be also.
And whither I go ye know, and the
way ye know.
Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not
whither thou goest, and how can we know
the way?
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way,
the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by
me.
If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again.
Now, my dear friends listening to me tonight,
before we come to the examination of the
scripture concerning this fascinating subject of the coming
again of our Lord Jesus Christ, I want
to suggest to intelligent people here tonight that
the coming again of the Son of God,
Jesus Christ our Lord, is a moral necessity
in a world such as we face today.
Somebody says, I want an answer.
Will Jesus Christ come back again?
My reply is, it's a moral necessity that
he should come back again.
I don't believe unbridled sin and evil can
go on reigning persistently indefinitely.
I believe that there must come a point
in the affairs of life when conditions become
too bad to go on.
I believe there is a moment when some
great masterful man, some great personage, must step
into the field of world affairs and deal
with evil and vindicate good and issue in
a great age of righteousness and justice and
prosperity and peace.
I believe it's not only a moral, I
believe it's a political, it's an economic, it's
a commercial, it's even a psychological necessity, leave
alone a spiritual one, that Jesus Christ, the
Son of God should come back again.
Now if that is so, then there are
certain questions I want to ask, and there
are certain questions I want the Bible to
answer.
For as you know, I have said nothing
to you right throughout the crusade which isn't
included in the covers of this book.
I haven't given you my own opinions or
my speculations.
I have sought to expound the word of
God because I believe it to be the
final authority in all matters of faith and
practice.
This is the infallible word of God, and
if I'm coming to it for anything else,
then I come to it concerning this great
subject of the coming again of Jesus Christ.
I am not interested in extremisms of interpretation,
nor am I interested in pressing all sorts
of systems so well known in this land
and other lands.
What I'm concerned about is, is Jesus Christ
coming back again?
Is it a fact?
And if it is, well then what does
the Bible have to say about it, and
what are the implications of this tremendous fact
upon the people who are listening to me
tonight?
Well now, one or two of the things
that I want to know tonight, first of
all, is the coming of Jesus Christ a
reality?
Secondly, how soon before he comes back again?
And thirdly, what are going to be the
results and consequences of his return to this
earth?
Let's look at the first one, the reality
of the coming again of Jesus Christ, the
reality of the return of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Now I believe there are certain witnesses to
the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the first one is the witness of
the Scripture.
Young people, have you ever realized that as
you open up your New Testament and read
from Matthew to Revelation, if you take it
on the law of average, one in every
twenty-five verses from Matthew to Revelation speaks
of the coming again of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Out of two hundred and sixty chapters, there
is a mention of the coming again of
our Lord Jesus Christ some three hundred and
eighteen times.
There is more said concerning the coming again
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New
Testament than any other cardinal doctrine of our
Gospel.
As a matter of fact, the coming again
of our Lord Jesus Christ is mentioned in
every New Testament book, with the exception of
Philemon and 3 John, two personal letters where
there is a very strong inference concerning his
coming.
If I were to be honest and balanced
in all my preaching and necessity were made
upon me, then one in every six sermons
I preach should be on the coming again
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to say there is no man
or woman, no fellow and girl, who is
prepared to get to grips with truth, who
is prepared to accept the witness of the
Scripture, who can read this book without being
confronted with the fact of the coming again
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But not only have we the witness of
the Scriptures, we have the direct witness of
our Saviour.
I know we read about it in the
Scriptures, but it's the emphasis of our Lord's
words to which I now want to draw
your attention for a moment or two.
When the Lord Jesus came to us and
began His teaching, He made some tremendous revolutionary
upturns.
I think amongst the many that He made,
I have three that arrest my attention, and
to which I want to just call your
attention for a moment or two in passing.
Speaking of His resurrection from the dead and
lightening His body to the temple, the temple,
He said this, You destroy this temple and
in three days I'll raise it up.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, He was talking concerning
His body.
In three days I will raise it up.
I want to ask a question here tonight.
Did He do that?
The answer is yes.
Up from the grave He arose as a
mighty victor over His foes, and the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ tonight is the
greatest proven fact of history.
On the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ
is founded Christianity in the church.
And Jesus rose from the dead, and I
know He's alive, for He lives within my
heart.
But He made another statement.
He said this.
He said this looking into the faces of
His disciples.
He said, I will build my church.
I will build my church.
His disciples might have doubted that statement when
they saw Him nailed to a cross, wrapped
up in linen, and buried in a tomb.
But to know He has completed, He has
completed that task, or He has, He is
completing that task, He has fulfilled His promise.
For let me tell you tonight as I
speak to you, the flag of the church
of Jesus Christ is fluttering in every corner
of the earth.
Having rose from the dead, He went up
to heaven, and fifty days after Calvary, He
poured out the Holy Spirit.
And a hundred and twenty disciples were fused
into a society we know as the church
of Jesus Christ.
And the very first day, the birthday of
the church, three thousand people were added to
that church.
Another three thousand people almost the next day.
Then five thousand.
Then Luke uses a word which just means
myriads.
And since then, ten thousand times ten thousand
and thousands of thousands have been added to
the church of Jesus Christ.
And I'm telling you right through to the
very end that gates of hell shall not
prevail against the church of Christ.
The world can say what they like.
They can talk about the division superficial merely.
They can talk about all the various emphases
in the church.
They can talk about the failure and defeats
of the church.
But the church of Jesus Christ constant will
remain.
And I've got no pessimism about the church
of Jesus Christ.
I'm thorough, optimistic.
But Jesus Christ made another great statement.
Not only concerning His resurrection, I will raise
it up.
And He did it.
Not only concerning His church, I will build
my church.
And He's doing it.
He made another statement.
He said, I, I will come again.
And He who has fulfilled the first, He
who is completing the second, I believe will
keep His word concerning the third.
And Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will
come back again, as He has said.
There is a witness then of the Savior.
But let's go a step further.
There is the witness of the saints.
When I read my New Testament, I read
verses like this, that everyone who is truly
born of God, everyone who knows the wonder
of that redemptive blood, everyone who's been born
again, I repeat, has within him, listen carefully,
a living hope, a living hope.
We're told that we're begotten unto a lively
or a living hope.
We're told that we're indwelt by that hope,
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We're told that that hope is for the
Christian like an anchor for the soul, both
sure and steadfast.
And you know, as long as the church
has existed, right down through the centuries, there
have been men and women who have held
hold of this great, thrilling hope of which
Ray Moore was singing tonight, the hope of
the coming again of Jesus Christ.
You read the history of those early Christians,
and especially those who hid their lives away
in the catacombs in order to worship.
And what you hear, you hear them greeting
one another, not with the horrible greetings of
today that carry no significance.
But brother, Maranatha, Maranatha, Maranatha.
It was the cry of those early Christians
in the church, the Lord cometh, the Lord
cometh, the Lord cometh.
And that hope has come down right through
the centuries.
And I could give you thousands of names
had we time tonight.
But let's start from Martin Luther.
He held the hope.
John Calvin, he held the hope.
John Milton, he held the hope.
John Knox, he held the hope.
John Wesley, he held the hope.
Charles Wesley, he sang of the hope.
Yes, and in more recent times, I think
of men like C.
H.
Spurgeon, D.
L.
Moody, Dr. Archer Rubin-Torrey, Dr. Campbell Morgan,
and a myriad of others have held the
hope of the coming again of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And if you were to say to me,
Stephen Alford, what is it, what is it
that keeps you with a steady gaze so
far as your Christian life is concerned, I'll
tell you this, my friend.
Apart from the wonder of the indwelling Christ
who gives me power day by day, the
thrill of my life is to look forward
to that day of seeing my Lord face
to face and casting down before Him the
trophies of grace that He's enabled me to
win for Him, men and women all over
the world it may be, and some here
from Minneapolis.
Dear Minneapolis, I've come to love.
I'm looking forward to that day.
You know, when Blondin, the great tightrope walker
of your own country here crossed the Niagara
Falls on that tightrope again and again and
again, they asked him why he was so
steady.
They asked him how it was that he
could manage to put a man in a
wheelbarrow and wheel him right across the Niagara
Falls with the water falling on all sides
and everything calculated to unnerve him.
Do you know what his reply was?
His reply was that he had a secret,
and the secret was this, that he managed
to maintain the balance of his walk by
keeping his eye centered on a suspended star
away across the river.
And as he looked at that star and
walked, he managed to cross every tide.
You ask me again what is the secret
of a steady life here down below?
I'll tell you, keeping your eyes focused on
the star of that shining hope of the
coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But there is not only the witness of
the Scriptures and of the Savior and of
the saints, there is the witness of the
signs.
And I want to say here tonight that
whereas our Lord Jesus Christ warned men and
women never to date his coming since times
and seasons were hidden in the power of
the Father, and it's not given to any
Christian to know the hour when Jesus Christ
is coming back again, though that's clear on
the page of Scripture, yet our Savior made
it also plain and clear that there were
certain signs that were going to announce his
coming, impending then cast their shadow before.
As I look into my Bible and as
I look into my newspaper today, as I
listen to my radio set, especially at home,
where I understand it a little better, I
tell you, my friends, I cannot but believe
that we're very near the moment when the
Lord Jesus Christ is going to descend from
heaven with a shout.
The signs of the times.
I think, for instance, of the signs of
widespread apostasy.
The Lord shall not come except there be
a falling away first that that man of
sin may be revealed, the son of perdition.
Do you know, my friend, that even though
cults and even though apostasy has raged right
down through the centuries, there is a resurgence
of apostasy today that eschatological, uh, men of
eschatology prove conclusively is far in excess of
anything that's ever been known before.
There are great monster apostasy movements that have
their hand upon the peoples of today.
They've got priority over the radio, they've got
priority over politics, they've got priority in commerce,
they've got priority over the minds of the
people.
In lands all across the sea and in
our own land, they've got into theological colleges,
into theological works, into pulpits, into the man
in the street, and there is a resurgence
of apostasy all over the land today, in
our land, in your land, and other lands
as well.
I believe that that's a sign of the
coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I go further and I say there's a
sign not only of widespread apostasy, but of
widespread anti-godism, a widespread anti-godism.
I have a tremendous fear for our own
country.
I don't know about your country, but there
is a man of tremendous insight who has
said that there's such an infiltration today of
anti-godism, especially in the form of Communism,
that there could be a complete change, a
complete change of government in our own land
overnight.
You have never, never studied Communism without trembling
in your shoes as to its phenomenal growth
and strength throughout the world.
And when you hear me preaching as I've
been preaching like I have been here, and
especially to you young people, and last Friday,
and I'm asking you to count the cost
of sacrifice for Christ, suffering for Christ, service
for Christ, I believe if the Lord Jesus
Christ doesn't come back again, some of you
who claim to be Christians are going to
be tested by the shedding of your blood.
I believe we're going to see the day
if Christ doesn't come back again where your
faith is either going to go absolutely to
pieces because you've demonstrated you aren't really born
again, it's only nominal, it's only nominal, it's
only popular, it's only glamorous, or you're going
to shed your blood in proving that you
are a Christian and that you're not going
to bow to anti-Godism.
I'm telling you, my friends, that when the
late C.
E.
M.
Jode, Professor C.
E.
M.
Jode, reviewed the Communist Review, that great manifesto
of Communism only a little while ago, I
read it, I read it in its totality
and I was absolutely shaken, I was absolutely
shaken.
The view that the Communists has about our
Christ, our God, our Bible, our Christian faith
is something which shakes me to my very
depth as I think of myself as a
Christian.
They talk about it as an abominable lie.
They talk about it as a fantastic, as
a fantastic opium for the people.
They talk about it as something which completely,
completely, diametrically opposes everything that's reasonable, everything
that's politic, everything that's wise, everything that's pure.
They make out even our Christianity to be
something which is utterly immoral.
My friends, I'm telling you that that sort
of thing is growing apace, not only in
Russia, but in other countries as well.
Did you know that a little before the
war, and I've heard of it since, that
the children in Russia are taught to wear
shoes that carry a caricature of the Lord
Jesus on their soles so that every time
they stamp, they can stamp on the face
of Jesus.
They even carry around to hit over the
head some of the compatriots that are religious
-minded and those clubs carry the face of
a little demon named Jesus.
I'm telling you that anti-Godism is just
running amok.
I don't know about this land, but I
do know about other lands, and I certainly
know about our country.
Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and
worse when, on the eve, on the moment
of the coming again of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Widespread anti-Godism.
And with widespread anti-Godism, there is widespread
abominations upon the earth.
Listen, my friends, we're living today in a
day of utter lawlessness, lack of restraint, and
defiance of the established order of things.
Somebody says, well, that's always been so.
I want you to prove it.
I want you to prove it statistically.
I can demonstrate that with our much of
so-called much vaunted modern progress, instead of
evolving, we are devolving and deteriorating.
And I'm talking to a generation of young
people today who just cannot be held for
their sheer lawlessness and defiance of the established
order of things.
I think today of the drunkenness.
I think of the vice.
I think of the immorality.
I think of the things in relation to
the life we've had, in relation to the
so-called inventions of science, in relation to
our so-called education, in relation to our
so-called progress.
Why, we're miles, miles, miles behind some of
the civilizations that existed long before Christianity, so
far as the relative corruption of our hour
is concerned.
And I want to go further, and I
want to say this.
Not only is there widespread abominations today, in
the last days perilous times shall come.
Men shall be lovers of themselves more than
lovers of God, lovers of pleasure, but something
more.
In the last days, too, there shall be
wars and rumors of war.
Widespread antagonism.
Well, now it's a matter of historic and
factual evidence that there's never been a time
when there wasn't a war somewhere in the
world.
It's been more normal to be in war
than to be in peace.
But do you realize, my friend, that it's
only in our, in our generation that there
have been two global wars?
The 1914-18, 1939-46.
That ghastly, that ghastly carnage through which some
of us passed physically in London and Great
Britain is only a foretaste to what is
inevitably going to come if the Lord Jesus
doesn't come back again.
And that's a third world war.
God have mercy upon us.
There is no doubt about it.
It's just an inevitable law that we're bound
to run into conflict.
We're bound to run into war unless there's
a mighty Holy Ghost revival that's going to
sweep the world and bring the latter reign
of refreshing from the presence of the Lord
or the coming again of Jesus Christ.
You're not going to tell me that men
like Eisenhower, good as he is, and Macmillan
or Churchill or anybody else can hold back
the reigns of uncontrolled and unpredictable men.
There's a war coming, a third world war,
and some of you ought to be pitchforked
into London and just have seen something of
what we saw there when the last war
was on to know how ghastly and how
terrible even the contemplation of it is.
I was telling my dear brother Paul Rees
of one instant only when I stood in
a hotel the night that Germany claimed to
have dropped 1,000 tons of bombs in
a given area of the city of London.
I can see now one side of that
hotel absolutely blown to pieces, every window shattered,
my father lying on a bed, driven by
sheer impact, cling to the ceiling right over
one bed, crashing down the other side, and
I myself hitting the ceiling and coming down
almost in the same position.
We looked out of the window and we
saw wardens, we saw people chafing for the
underground, chafing for the shelters, being cut down,
absolutely cut down just like, just like corn
with a scythe by flying bullets and bursting
bombs.
Great tank, taxi ranks, absolutely burst to pieces,
driven, driven to miles and miles and miles
of the extent of London just by one
terrific explosion.
I've seen fire burning, I've seen planes falling,
I've seen children, children, tiny little children carried
in their mother's arms, cut off instantly.
I've heard the shrieks and wails of men
and women in pain with not a soul
to tend them.
And I said, this is war.
Some of you don't know anything about it.
You never knew there was a war on.
And I'm telling you, some of us who've
been through it know what we're talking about
when we say, God preserved us from another
third world war.
And there are the signs of the times,
and I believe that all these things are
a portent of that which is soon to
be, the coming again of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
I cannot believe, I cannot believe that the
world will go on with unbridled evil, on
and on and on, persistently and endlessly, without
the Lord breaking in to just seize hold
of the situation Himself, the reality of the
coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How do I know the witness of the
Scriptures?
How do I know the witness of the
Savior Himself?
How do I know the witness of the
saints right down through the ages?
How do I know the witness of the
five?
But somebody asked me tonight, when do you
think He'll be back?
How soon will it be before He comes?
Well, I don't know the day or the
hour.
I don't know the day or the hour,
but I can say this, as to the
day, it's bound to be soon.
It's bound to be soon.
I'm absolutely sure it's bound to be soon.
If our Lord, by inspiration, spoke to the
early apostles of the imminence of His return,
do you mean to tell me that, do
you mean to tell me that those Scriptures
aren't even more relevant today?
Paul says the time is short.
Peter says, the coming of the Lord, the
coming of the Lord, verse 9.
John says, the revelation of the things which
must shortly come to pass.
The other apostles talk about, it is time
to seek the Lord.
Why?
Because the end is at hand.
The end is at hand.
As to the mighty descent from heaven, once
that moment strikes, when He's going to come
from heaven, the Bible tells me that it's
going to be swift.
It's going to be swift.
The day may be soon, but the descent
will be swift.
Once He leaves His sapphire throne, it'll be
instantaneous.
He'll come.
Listen to the three beholds of the last
chapter of the Bible.
Behold, I come quickly.
Three times.
As to the mighty deliverance that's going to
be effected for His own people, that's going
to be, listen, it's going to be devastatingly
sudden.
Listen to this.
In a moment, that's an indivisible part of
time.
In the twinkling of an eye, that's not
the winking of an eye, that's far too
long.
In the twinkling of an eye, just as
that light reflects upon the eyeball and twinkles
for one moment, as fast as that, at
the trump, at the last trump, that is
to say, just as a trumpet blasts the
air, like that, He will come.
He will come.
And, says the Bible, the bodies of our
humiliation shall be likened unto His own glorious
body, and we shall be changed in a
moment.
We shall be changed in a moment.
Beloved, now we are the sons of God,
and it does not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when He
shall appear, we shall be like Him, for
we shall see Him as He is.
Blessed moment for the true Christians.
I say, my friends, are you ready for
that moment?
Are you ready for that moment?
Coming suddenly, coming soon, coming certainly, night or
noon, Jesus, I humbly pray, take all my
sin away, and keep me till that day
when Thou dost come.
But what's my great burden tonight, what my
great concern is tonight, is not so much
the reality of His coming, because I think
that's generally known, not so much the speed
and rapidity of His coming, because that's assumed.
We believe in the imminent return of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
What is concerning me in these closing moments
is what the consequence and results of His
coming are going to be.
There are three classes of people listening to
me over the radio.
Three classes of people in this auditorium tonight
are going to be affected at once by
His coming.
Never mind the wider sweep of His coming,
let's consider just the three classes that represent
you people here.
There are going to be, listen, when He
comes, the believers.
They're going to be the backsliders.
They're going to be the unbelievers.
And the coming of the Lord Jesus is
going to affect every class.
For the believer, for the believer who's living
in victory, for the believer who knows the
radiance of the mighty Son of God dwelling
in him, for that believer it's going to
be unspeakable satisfaction.
I shall be satisfied when I awaken His
likeness.
Why is it going to be satisfaction?
Because that moment is going to usher the
believer into all the realization of the blessings
of the gospel.
For him it's going to mean a happy
reunion, a happy reunion.
For when the Lord shall descend from heaven
with a shout, the believer is going to
be caught up together with the Lord to
meet Him in the air.
And there's going to be a reunion, not
only with the Lord, but with all loved
ones who've gone on before.
Blessed moment, blessed moment of recognition, not only
of our Lord, but of the loved ones
who've gone on.
It's going to be the moment not only
of happy reunion, but the moment of happy
rewarding.
Behold, I come, says the Lord Jesus, and
my reward is with me, to give to
every man according as he has done.
Oh, the wonder of standing at the judgment
seat of Christ and taking from Him one
of those six crowns for which we can
qualify.
Those symbolic, those symbolic crowns of degrees of
responsibility and purpose and service in the eternal
kingdom.
It's going to be also the joy of
happy, listen, listen, the joy of happy worship
and service eternally in the presence of the
Lord without any sense of regret, no regret.
Why?
Because we've served Him perfectly.
It's going to be a happy rejoicing for
we're going to be presented, be presented before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
Happy reunion, happy rewarding, happy rejoicing.
Are you, my beloved brother, waiting for that
moment?
Can you say face to face with Christ
my Savior?
Face to face, what will it be when
in rapture I behold Him, Jesus Christ who
died for me?
But there is another craft to which I
want to say a word of solemn warning.
It's the backslider, the backslider.
And I want to say that the backslider
is the man or woman who is not
living in conscious victory.
The backslider is the fellow or girl in
this audience tonight, man or woman who isn't
winning souls for Jesus Christ, who doesn't know
the radiant happiness of the indwelling Christ, who
doesn't know the joy of daily communion and
fellowship with Him over the word and prayer.
The man or woman who doesn't know the
radiant thrill of living in victory.
The backslider.
For that person it's going to mean, listen
carefully, unutterable shame, unutterable shame.
When the Apostle John writes to his converts,
he says, my little children, oh I beg
of you, I beg of you, abide in
Him, abide in Him that ye may have
confidence and not be ashamed away at His
coming.
And I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ
is going to come and He's going to
find people, and I trust there won't be
anyone here tonight, who have not been living
in touch with Him and by virtue of
that fact are backsliders.
And I want to tell you, my friend,
that when you look, when you look into
His face, you're going to be ashamed.
You're going to be ashamed.
Your eyes are going to drop.
Your face is going to burn with shame
and confusion.
You're going to be ashamed not only before
your Lord, but before the judgment seat of
Christ.
Because I want to tell you, my friend,
that every single day you live, you're either
building gold, silver, precious stones unto the day
of reward, or wood, hay, and stubble.
That day when you stand before the judgment
seat of Christ, if your life has been
lived selfishly, if your life has been lived
in deceit and frustration, if your life hasn't
merited the gold, silver, precious stones, you're going
to see that wood, hay, and stubble burn
up, burn up!
And you're going to have the unutterable shame
of bending down and picking up the charred
embers of a wasted life and pressing them
into His hand and saying, that's all I've
got for you, Lord.
And I wouldn't be in the shoes of
any backslider in this place tonight.
And you say, then what about, what about
heaven?
Will heaven ever be a happy place if
I'm a backslider?
Listen, when you stand before the judgment seat
of Christ and Christ gives the assessment of
your selfish, defeated living down here, your very
happiness will be to agree with Him and
to say, Lord, you're right.
You couldn't have judged otherwise.
I deserve it.
And heaven wouldn't be heaven for me if
you didn't judge me for the life of
unfaithfulness I've lived down here.
And so you'll be saved, so is by
far.
But I want to tell you this, right
throughout eternity, you will carry a mark, however
happy you are in the presence of the
Lord, you'll carry a mark that demonstrates that
your life wasn't lived as it should have
been lived.
There are Christians in this place tonight who
think that because they've got Jesus Christ in
their life and they're born again, that they've
got an insurance policy to heaven, and it
doesn't matter how you live, it does matter
how you live.
God doesn't condemn sin in the sinner and
condone it in the saint.
And I'll be witness against you at the
judgment seat of Christ that you heard me
speak tonight.
You can't play with fire.
You can't go on living defeated lives.
You can't live a normal sort of Christian
life and get away with it.
You'll stand that day and you'll carry forever
the marks of unfaithfulness.
And it's one star difference to another in
glory.
So your places in the kingdom will mark
whether or not you've been well rewarded or
less rewarded.
The very brightness of your life up there
will demonstrate just how you've lived down here.
Your life up there is a crystallization of
your life down here.
And if I never said a warning word
to this audience before, I say tonight, God
have mercy upon any man or woman who's
a backslider here in this place tonight.
God bring you to the cross tonight.
God break you.
God smash you.
God cleanse you.
God fill you.
God send you out to live victoriously until
he comes.
And I want to say another thing too.
I want to say this, that your test
of faith, your test of faith concerning the
coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ is
one of the things which will be brought
to account.
There are some of us who are loving
His appearing.
Some of us who are living as if
Jesus might come before this service is over.
And whether or not He comes won't matter.
Jesus Christ is going to judge our faith
in terms of our expectancy of His coming.
But there is another class, and this class
burdens me even more perhaps, it's a class
called the unbeliever.
And I'm telling you my friends, if it's
unspeakable satisfaction for the believer, if it's unutterable
shame for the backslider, it is going to
mean unending separation.
Jesus comes into the air.
The day of grace is closed, is closed.
The next moment will be when He comes
from heaven with His mighty angels, inflaming fire,
taking vengeance on them that know not God,
that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord.
Oh God, have mercy on every unbelieving soul.
Separation from Christ will mean eternal loss.
Separation from heaven will mean eternal hell.
Separation from your loved ones will mean eternal
loneliness.
A very foolish man came to me one
day and said, Stephen Alford, I'm not afraid
of hell.
I'm not afraid of hell.
There'll be plenty of us down there.
Oh, the doped man, the blinded man, the
foolish man, he didn't realize that heaven's going
to be the loneliest place in the universe.
Don't ask me to explain it.
Don't ask me to try and rationalize it.
Don't ask me to try and pierce the
mystery that all I know is that everything
that can be terrible and horrifying is characteristic
of hell.
And Jesus Christ is coming back again, and
His coming back again means the closing of
the door of mercy.
I beg you, I beg you, I beg
you tonight, if you're out of Christ, I
beg you if you're out of Christ tonight,
oh, get right with God and do it
now.
Get right with God.
He tells you how.
Oh, come to Christ who shed His blood
and at the cross get right with God.
He's coming.
The reality of it is unfashionable.
The rapidity of it is plain and clear
in the word of God.
The results of it are conclusive for the
believer satisfaction, for the backslider shame, for the
unconverted eternal separation.
I'm facing you with a challenge in this
closing moment.
I'm asking, first of all, the backsliding brother,
sister here tonight, will you come to the
cross?
Will you be humbled?
Will you allow your pride to be broken?
Will you get into fellowship with Him again?
Will you start to live the victorious life?
I beg of you.
For the unconverted tonight, may I say there's
only one guarantee for heaven, it's Christ in
you, the hope of glory.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Will you come to the cross tonight and
bow low there and having sought the pardon
and forgiveness which the cross provides, will you
ask this Savior, Lord, to come into your
heart and life?
Will you do it now?
Will you do it right now, right now,
in the silence of the next few moments?
Will you get ready for that day when
He shall come?
And He will not parry, for when He
stepped off His throne, it'll be in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the blast of the trumpet.
I repeat, coming suddenly, coming soon, coming certainly,
night or noon.
Will you pray, Jesus, I humbly pray, take
all my sin away and keep me till
that day when Thou dost come.
Let us bow together and pray.