(Making the big decisions too late.)
Open: The story of loosing my brother Kenny. My desperate hope that he’s in Heaven with the Lord, but I’m just not sure if that’s true or not. I stood there in my room alone after he died, weeping to God, wishing I could say a final goodbye, tell him how much I loved him. It was too late to turn that around.
It’s important for us to avert the catastrophe of seeing our loved ones pass away without Christ.
Illustration: After church one day in a small church on the East Coast a German man who had lived in Nazi Germany told the pastor a story of his experience there.
He said, “I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because, what could anyone do to stop it?
A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized that the train was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars!
Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to the death camp. Their screams tormented us.
It wasn’t long before we learned the exact time the train came past our church and whenever we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams we sang louder and soon we would hear them no more.”
Thousands of souls, doomed to certain death rolled by on that train. The last songs they ever heard were the hymns of the people in that little church, which claimed to serve the God of love, yet turned their backs on their fellow man and drowned out their cries for help.
“Years have passed,” the man said, “and no one talks about it anymore. But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians and yet did nothing....”
? How many people in your life, in your home or in your workplace are lacking a relationship with Jesus Christ? How many are traveling the road that leads to destruction? How many are being led like cattle to the slaughter? Have you reached out to save them, or are you drowning out their cries with your busy life?
? Is it really fitting for us Christians to lay hold of God’s Grace, and at the same time, withhold it from our brothers in need?
God forgive all of us who have called ourselves Christians and yet did nothing.
I: THE CALL (can you hear the whistle blowing?)
Listen my friends… Listen. Do you hear that sound? It’s the whistle. It’s the sound of the final trumpet of God, and it’s not far off… One day, mankind will face the stark reality of eternity.
Today, every man and woman is faced with the decision of a lifetime: choose life by the blood of Jesus Christ, or let the pride, the sin, and all the mistakes, which stand between us and God separate us from a right relationship with Him? Today is the day of reckoning because tomorrow we will live the rest of eternity based on the decisions we made the day before… The Bible tells us, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet… We will be changed.
“For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
1 Corinthians 15:52
Can you feel the earth tremble? It’s the people of God on their way to destruction.
Soon, as in the case of the Christians in that little church, the train will have passed and the moment of decision will be lost.
? Do you really want the blood of your neighbors, your family and your friends to haunt you because you neglected to share the way of salvation with them?
Then seize the day my friends. Seize the day! The return of the Lord is near. The final trumpet is pressed to the lips of its master. A single blast of wind is all that stands between eternal life and eternal death for so many people today. Is it right for us to just stand by and watch them pass away?
The Bible tells us about two roads men take. Both roads lead to a place in eternity. One is called the wide road and the other is called the narrow road.
The wide road is popular and easily traveled. Most people choose the wide road because they’ve seen so many others take it, and they really haven’t taken any time in life to plan out their trip to eternity.
From a distance, the wide road seems to lead to a pleasant place… But at the end of the road they find torment and destruction, much the same as the Jews did.
From a distance, the brick building at the end of the road seems pleasant enough, but the end of the road for the Jews was Auschwitz: a place of death and misery.
On the other hand, the narrow road is difficult to find. It takes planning and foresight to locate its entrance, and even when you find it, you must follow a guide to travel it. Some of the terrain along the narrow road is perilous and toilsome to travel, and you constantly have to look ahead to the guide, to stay on that road, but it ends in green pastures… It ends in eternal life.
The narrow road is named after its guide. If you search for it, you’ll find it.
It’s called Jehovah, or Jesus our salvation.
Matt 7:13-14, “"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
A man wrote this poem about the narrow road. It says,
“I encountered a man on the Road of Life, so sure of himself - so convinced he was right.
He had religion, but he didn’t know God, and though he had eyes, I thought this rather odd:
He only could see what he wanted to see.
So, blind to the truth that could set his soul free the man charged ahead - unaware he was lost, until he encountered a man on a cross at a fork in the road where the path became two and the man who’d always been sure of himself had to choose.
Between broad and narrow, between left and right, between things he could see, and things out of sight.
And I’m sure the man would have gone the wrong way, had he not encountered the Savior that day.
But love rescued him! Truth set him free! Grace opened his eyes - he could finally see that the man on the cross makes all the difference.
II: THE CRISIS
Thousands of people are taking the wide road and they have no idea where it leads. There are people all around us in the same situation as the Jews in those train cars, and their final destination is even more terrible than a Nazi death camp, where the bodies of the dead are heaped up like piles of refuse. They don’t know the road they’re on leads to a place of everlasting torment called Hell.
It’s time we stop ignoring the problem. It’s time we reach out and do something to help.
There should be no question for us, Christians, as to what we should do. You and I have in our hands and in our hearts the one thing that is able to save them from this death and eternal torment, and that’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, the relationship between God and man has changed drastically. Before the original sin, Adam and the Lord were able to fellowship together every day. Adam was enabled to enjoy the very best life had to offer. But after he sinned, he was cast out of the Garden and his sin created a barrier between himself and God. Since then, the destiny of mankind has been the wide road. Since then, man has had to work and toil and search God out with all his heart to find the road that leads to eternal life… And that life is found in Jesus Christ.
Genesis tells us the man and woman were ashamed of their nakedness, so the Lord killed an animal to cover them… The animal’s skin covered their naked bodies, and its blood covered their sins. But still, the relationship between God and man was damaged. It’s been different since that original sin.
The relationship was still strained, and God’s anger against sin had to be assuaged by the sorrow of an innocent death: a lamb without any spot or blemish.
Soon, even the sacrifice of animals became nothing more than tradition to men. They no longer felt the sorrow of their sins when they sacrificed the innocent lamb. There was no more heart in it.
It became tradition without heartfelt sincerity, like the meaningless repetition of a memorized prayer.
“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray dear Lord, my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”
The only answer to the disease of sin was one, final and all-encompassing sacrifice. And just as God did with the original sin, He would offer it Himself, for us, with His own hands…
Jesus, God the Son, lived 33 years among mankind, without spot or blemish, then He willingly offered His life in the place of ours… The ultimate sacrifice to repair a damaged relationship between God and man once and for all… And when we accept that sacrifice, we can have a right relationship with Him. He did it himself, so no man could offer another meaningless sacrifice without heartfelt sincerity.
The only way any of us can approach God today, is by heartfelt sincerity: true sorrow for our sins and an absolute desire for reconciliation with the one true God. Jesus is the only sacrifice left, my friends…
There is no other road!
"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12) Now no man can come to God except by a sincere and broken heart, through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ…
There’s a decision that lies in the heart and hands of every man and woman here today, and that is to accept the call of God on your life before the final trumpet sounds. From there, we begin to put on the new self, which is being transformed by God in the image of Jesus Christ. Salvation means gradually becoming more like Jesus every day. That means having a heart for the lost and dying.
Barna reports only about 2% of Christians have actually led another person to the eternal life through Jesus Christ. That means we have a long way to go in becoming more like Jesus. His whole life was spent healing the hurt people and saving the lost souls.
Spurgeon said, "I think I may say to every person whom I am addressing, “If you yourself are saved, the work is only halfway done until you are employed to bring others to Christ. You are only half formed in the image of your Lord. You haven’t fully developed your life in Christ unless you have begun in some feeble way to tell others about the grace of God; and I trust that you will find no rest till you have been the means of leading many souls to that blessed Saviour who is your confidence and your hope.
Let us ask Him to give us grace to go fishing for souls, and to cast our nets so that we may take a great multitude of fishes. Oh, that the Holy Ghost may raise up from among us some master-fishers, who will sail their boats in many seas, and surround great multitudes of fish!"
Listen, can you hear it? It’s the rumble of wheels on the tracks…
Hundreds and thousands of people are on a road to destruction and they have no idea where they are headed. Soon & very soon, we will have spent too long raising our righteous voices over their desperate cries, and will have robbed them of their decision to choose Jesus Christ. My friends, very soon, it will be too late!
A headline in the June 5th, 1997 Atlanta Journal newspaper read, "The clock struck midnight, and Clarence Jackson didn’t turn into a millionaire."
Jackson, who is 24, works in a small cleaning business in Hartford, Connecticut to help support his elderly parents. He won the Connecticut Lotto jackpot in October 1995. It was worth 5.8 million dollars. He submitted the ticket three days after the one-year deadline.
He had given the ticket to his ailing father and didn’t realize it was a winner until fifteen minutes before the deadline. He didn’t know he could verify the ticket at his local lotto dealer. Instead, he waited until Monday to redeem the ticket at lotto headquarters. It was too late. The Connecticut House of Representatives voted 82-63 to award Jackson the money. Senator Alvin Penn refused to allow the bill to come to the floor of the Senate, and thus the bill died. Jackson left the Connecticut State Capitol a dejected man that day.
? What’s it like to be too late and lose 5.8 million dollars? It would have to be absolutely devastating. ? What would it be like to be too late and loose your soul for eternity?
III: THE COMMISSION (Save the dying: will somebody reach out and do something to help?)
I’ll plead to you today as one who pleads for your very life: Don’t be too late.
Don’t make the mistake of failing to make plans for your eternal destiny & the destiny of the people in your life.
1Thes 5:2-3, “for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
And don’t let your friends and loved ones stroll through life, wandering around on the narrow path without any notion of the destination to where they’re heading.
Some days, while I sit in my car waiting for the light to change, I’ll take a good look at the faces of each person that rides by the opposite way. And it strikes me when I realize that most of those people have no idea that they’re on a wide road to destruction.
How sad… Most people will live the rest of their lives to earn money and spend it, only to end up in eternity naked and tormented time without end.
How can we stand by and let this happen? Is there anything we own worth more than their souls?
? Is our pride too costly to lie down for their sakes?
? Is our comfort really more important than their right to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and choose eternal life for themselves?
? Are our possessions too valuable to cast at the feet of Jesus for His use and purpose?
Listen. Can you hear the cries of God’s people? SAVE THEM!
I want you to see the sorrows of a man who realized the value of a soul a few days too late and consider, will this be me on the day of reckoning? Roll clip from “Schindler’s List.”
One day, you will stand before the mercy seat of God and give account of everything you did with your worldly riches: everything God gave you with the confidence that you would invest in His people.
? What will you say to Him then?
? How much will our money, or our car or our jewelry mean then?
? How many of us will be on our hands and knees before God, sobbing and weeping because we underestimated the value of a human soul?
Don’t let them slip away friends. Don’t let them slip away…
Take the command of God seriously, to seek and save the lost.
How much is it worth, that one human soul, one last person? How much is it worth?
Some of you in this congregation today have failed to take your life seriously. You’ve failed to realize God’s purpose for your life. You’ve traveled the wide road and you realize today that your life is headed for destruction… It’s time for you to think seriously about where you’ll spend eternity.
Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Rev 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in…”
Jesus stands before the heart of man and He continues to knock, and knock, and knock without ceasing. He knocks on your door with every gospel message you hear. He knocks when every moment of depression, worry, fear, anxiety or sickness strikes your life. He knocks on your door every time you receive a blessing that you don’t deserve. He knocks and knocks and knocks and will never quit until you draw your last breath and your final decision has been made.
I can hear the whistles blowing. Don’t you wait till it’s too late to make the most important decision of your life. Today is the day of salvation. Don’t let it slip through your fingers. Don’t live an eternity of torment because you failed to choose Christ when you had the opportunity of a lifetime.
