Transcription
Do you number your days? Do you realize how important every single day is?
I want to speak tonight on the brevity of life. Do you know, in the days of Jesus, as fast as a person could go was as fast as a horse could run? And that happened all the way until 1830 when we developed an engine faster than a horse. Think of that. Those hundreds and thousands of years, all as fast as you could go was on horseback. Then, in 1910, we developed a military aircraft that went 42 miles an hour. And then I remember very well, just like it was yesterday, when Lindberg took off for Paris, and in 33 hours he was in Paris. And we thought that was really something. Today, we get on a Concord, or some people do, and they're there in 3 and a half hours.
You know, we've invented all of these modern things to save time, and we have less time than ever before. We have a lot less time now than my father and mother had in the horse and buggy days. And yet, we have fast automobiles and fast airplanes, and we're running from place to place like mad people. And most of us don't know what we're going to do when we get there. Time is collapsing on us.
How much longer do we have? You have so much time, but for what? You have time to serve Christ. You have time to live according to His will. You have time to obey Him. Have you done like the psalmist said in 31:15 and put yourself at God's disposal when he said, "My times are in Your hands"?
And what are you going to do with those years? Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Do you know how many minutes there are in a day? 1,440. Do you know how many hours there are in a week? 168. Now, if you live to be 70, your first 15 is childhood or adolescent. You spend 20 years in bed. The last 5 years of physical limitations, and you're curtailing your activities. That means you only have 30 years left for everything else. 30 years to live. And part of that time has to be spent eating and working and figuring up your income tax.
The scripture asks this question: "What is your life?" It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Our time is already in God's hands. God has a day already set for your being taken from this world. It may be an accident. It may be a cancer. It may be a heart attack. Whatever it is, it's already set. You will stand before the great judgment of God to give an account of how you spent this life and what you did about Jesus Christ. Because God gave His Son to die for your sins. Because, you see, we're all sinners. We all have the same disease. I don't care what the color of your skin is. God doesn't look at the color of your skin. God looks at your heart. And God sees that you have a spiritual heart disease, and that spiritual heart disease is called sin. And we're all sinners.
It's interesting to me that rich people cannot buy more hours. Scientists cannot invent new minutes. You cannot even save time to spend it on another day. The scripture says that we're to redeem the time. It's a phrase out of the business world. It means to buy the time. Take 10% of your time and say, "Lord, this is yours for Bible study, for prayer."
Have you committed your whole life to Christ? Has that ever happened to you? Oh, you say, "Yes, I've been baptized. I've been confirmed. I go once in a while to church. I think about God once in a while." But have you really committed to it? Are you totally committed to Him? And are you sure if you died at this moment, you'd go to heaven? Are you certain your sins are forgiven? That's why Christ came and died on the cross and shed His blood, and God raised Him from the dead. And God raised Him from the dead.
And then there's the tyranny of time. It controls us, and we become frustrated, running from one thing to another, because we don't feel that we have enough time to get everything done that needs to be done. Jesus said, "I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work." The night is going to come to you, and you won't have an opportunity to serve God. Serve Him while you can. Serve Him now. Put Him first in your life. Yet, at the end of His life, He said, "I have finished the work that You gave me to do." God has a plan for your life, and you can finish it with God's help, and He'll give you a joy and a peace that you never dreamed existed if you put your confidence in Him.
Oh yes, when Jesus left the earth, there were people that needed to be healed and lives that needed to be touched. But Jesus said He had finished the work that had been assigned to Him by the Father. God has assigned a work that only you can fill. You are unique. Nobody can take your place. And God needs you in His kingdom.
Time can be our tool, but we can also be its slave. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you can still have tomorrow. Adlai Stevenson once said, "It's not the days of your life, but the life in your days that count." You have to buy it. What is the price you have to pay? The price is that you have no time for certain things. We shouldn't drift along haphazardly, doing all the pleasures and all the drinking and all the other things that are wrong. God wants us to love others. The main thing that He wants us to do is to love your neighbor and love people of another race. The one thing that distinguishes a believer from others is love that dominates your life. Your life should be carefully planned.
Then there's the termination of time. Brevity. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians, "Time is short." In Revelation, it tells us that "time shall be no more." Jesus and His disciples spent the 94 verses of Matthew 24 to the end of the chapter 25 talking about the end of the age. As we approach the end of the age, we read in Revelation 12 that the devil will be frantically active because he knows that his days are numbered. Yes, there is a devil. There is a Satan. He's a real person, and there are real demons, and they're going to battle for your soul tonight. Because Satan does not want to give you up. He'll battle to keep you in his kingdom. Because there are two kingdoms. There's the devil's kingdom, and there's God's kingdom. And you have the right to make a choice which one you want to be in.
In Romans 13, the Apostle says, "Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." The Bible several times uses the phrase, "The time is at hand." Jesus told us to discern the signs of the times. One of the signs is that iniquity shall abound. Pick up your newspapers and watch your newscasts. Iniquity is abounding everywhere, not just in New York, not just in New Jersey, but throughout the world.
When the roll is called in heaven, will you be there? Is your name written on the Book of Life? Because the scripture says if your name is not on the Lamb's Book of Life, you'll never enter heaven. Your name right now is on what is called in the Bible, "the books," and under your name are all the sins that you ever committed, all the things that you've ever thought that are wrong, all of your intents that are wrong. It's all there, recorded, and will face you at the judgment. But when you come to Christ and present yourself wholly and completely to Him as Savior and Lord, He blots out everything in those books and writes your name in another book, "The Book of Life." Is the Lamb's Book your name written there? If my name was not written there, and I didn't know it, I wouldn't leave this building tonight until I was sure. Because there may never be another moment like this in your life. This is your hour with God.
And then the brevity of time calls for immediate action. The fact that time is short calls for us to do something about it now. Because the scripture says in 2 Corinthians 6:2, "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Not tomorrow. Today. Things you ought to do, do it now. Money you ought to give, give it now. People you ought to witness to, witness now. Every time the clock ticks, it seems to say, "Now. Today. If you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." You can harden your heart. You hear a message like this, and it can be very dangerous because you'll harden your heart, and the next time you hear the gospel, your heart will be harder and harder and harder. Come to Christ now. If there's even a whisper in your heart that you need to come, you come.
Then there's the warning of time. It will someday be too late for your soul. Time is too short for indecision and vacillation. Don't halt between two opinions. Fools say there's plenty of time. The devil says there's plenty of time. Every morning you have 86,400 seconds to spend and to invest. Each day, the bank, "Time," opens a new account with you. There may be no tomorrow. Come now. When I tell you, you need to come and make your commitment to Christ with these hundreds and thousands that have already come in this crusade. The devil will say, "Wait another time, another place. This is not the time." This is the time. The very fact you are here indicates it's the time. By some strange coincidence or providence, God has brought you here tonight. And before you came, you thought you were all right with God, but now you're not sure, and you want to make sure. You want to be certain. Yes, the devil always says, "Yes, do it, but some other time, and some other place." God says, "Here and now."