"Day of Salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). ((Day of Redemption" (Eph. 4:30). "Day of Judgment" (2 Peter 2:9).
The day of salvation is not a period of twenty-four hours; it is not to be measured by time, for it began in a timeless eternity, before time began. It dates from that period when in the council chambers of the Godhead there came one who said, "Lo, I came to do thy will, O God; a body hast Thou prepared me." Before man fell, God knew he would fall and made provision for his salvation. Before the morning stars sang together, or even an angel's wing had fanned the viewless ether, He had a plan for the deliverance of a lost race. Angels desired to look into it, but could not comprehend the love that provided it. The old poet was right when he said, "the first archangel never saw so much of God before." Angels could not save, none but God could devise a plan that would meet the need. As the Englishman wrote, "He who best the vantage might have taken, found out the remedy." The Son of God, the Fellow of Jehovah, the Second Person in the Trinity, took upon Himself our nature, stooped down to our low estate that we might be redeemed.
This salvation is a salvation from sin; not primarily from hell, but from sin. I once saw a minister in my audience, and out of courtesy I asked him to come on the platform and lead in prayer. His whole prayer was that God would save people from hell, and all the time that he was praying I was revolting against it, because I do not believe that Jesus died to save men from hell -but from the sin that sends them to hell. When we talk about sin, we are talking about something that all know about, for all have sinned, and the glad tidings of salvation declare a Savior who came to save from sin in this life here and now. I want to go even farther than that and say on the authority of the Word, man must quit sinning, go out of the sinning business altogether, before God will save him, for sin is the only thing that God hates. It crucified the Son of God, it robs heaven, populates hell, fills prisons, and dance halls, and theaters, and houses of lust, and dishonors the Holy Ghost and the Word. Sin separated the first man from God, and it is the only thing that will or can. Listen to the Word: "Your sins have separated you from Me."
Sin burdens the conscience. Some few years ago the Treasurer of the United States received a letter from a conscience-stricken man who had been a quartermaster during the Civil War, and it read something like this: "During the late war I was a quartermaster and I robbed the Government of three thousand dollars. It has been such a burden in my conscience ever since that I herein restore the principal and interest to date." Along with this in the Treasury is one that reads. "Please find enclosed five cents. I used as postage a two-cent stamp that had formerly done service. I want to get right with God, and this has bothered me ever since I committed the sin. It is not the amount, it is the sin. Conscience never sleeps. A boy one time went up to a baker's wagon and stole some cookies therefrom, and twenty years after that boy wrote a letter acknowledging the sin, and paid for the cookies. I was preaching in Troy, Ohio, and a young man came to me and said, "You only got me in one thing. I have to pay for some watermelons I stole sometime ago." Folks laugh at that as though stealing melons was a joke; but theft will send a soul to hell, whether it is a watermelon or a bank. Sin is sin, and must be repented of. There was a young girl who worked in a food factory as clerk. She stole money time and again and placed it away. After a while she became alarmed and altered her books, and then, fearing the books would be examined, she went down to the office and set fire to the desk, intending to destroy the books, which she did, and the office and the factory. In a few years she was married to an estimable young man and she surprised him with the prodigality with which she spent money and purchased furniture and a piano. He said to her, "Why, where did you get all this money." And she replied, "I worked for it, was saving, and had it in the bank." One month there was a revival came to that town, right down from heaven. It had been prayed down, and that kind of a revival always uncovers sin, and alarms the conscience of the wrongdoer. This young wife got under awful conviction, and one day when her husband came home she said, "I have a confession to make to you, husband. I stole all the money with which I bought the furniture." He stood aghast, looked at her in amazement, and then she said, "That is not all. You remember the fire in the city that destroyed the factory? Well, I went down to the factory one evening, fearing the thefts would be discovered, and I set fire to the books, but the fire spread and the factory was burned down. The papers said it was an incendiary fire, but I did it, I did it! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" Let me tell you what they did. They went to the Directors of the Company, and that young husband said, "My wife has a confession to make." She made it and when she was through he said to them, "You can have all the furniture, all the paintings, all the money we have We will do all we can to right the wrong she did; she must get right with God." Oh, how sin burdened that woman's conscience. Oh, the blasting, blighting, burning influence of sin. I know a man who one day stole a broadax, and while he was seeking pardon God never said one word about that ax, but in the near future after he heard from heaven, God spoke to him one day and said, "Son, you must take back that broadax you stole." And he said, "I will, tonight, Lord." But God said, "Take it back in daylight." And he did. I knew a boy about ten years of age who came to me in one of my meetings and he said, "I have just got one thing more to do." I asked what it was and was told that one day he saw a man pulling some things out of his pocket, pull out also a penknife, which he dropped unknowingly on the ground, and then walked off and left it lying on the ground. This lad picked it up and kept it, but said he, "I must take it back and tell him." And he did and was a satisfied boy after that. In that same meeting a young woman came to me and said, "I want some advice; I am keeping company with a young man who is not a Christian, and I guess I must give him up." I told her that was right. God was not pleased with it. Then she said, "I have a date with him to bring me to church tonight." I said come with your mother; let him go; he will not bother you when you let him know you are going with God. How faithful the Holy Ghost is all the time and everywhere. At Sullivan, Ind., a young man walked into a grocery store and said to the grocer, "Since that fellow has been preaching in this meeting my girl won't look at me." The Spirit had been applying the truth to the girl's heart, and she was minding God. Thank His holy name, this salvation, the real thing, will get a man where he will not only not sin, but where he will not want to sin -- the want to will all be taken out. And God does it every time when you are willing He should. Faithful is He who calleth you, who also will do it.
Let me now call your attention to this second text -- The Day of Redemption. This is a day the sinner will never see. Redemption is salvation completed. It is deliverance from all the infirmities of the body, from all the ills that flesh is heir to. The Israelites will tell you that from the time that Jacob wrestled with the angel, he limped all the rest of his days. But when the resurrection morning comes, and that body is restored, Jacob will not have his limp any longer. We may suffer in these bodies of ours clear down to the grave, and live to please God, too, but there our sufferings will all end. Trials, temptations, conflict, suffering, will all be a thing of the past. I confess I think a great deal of this body of mine. In it I marched many a weary mile, carrying a Springfield rifle and tramping through the red clay of old Virginia. In this body I one day met Jesus Christ, and heard Him say, "Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee." In this body, which is a temple of the Holy Ghost, I have had many precious times. Yes, I expect in this very same body, only glorified, to see my Lord. I have no sympathy with that hymn that is sometimes sung, in ecstasy by some folks, "I don't care where you bury me, my sins are pardoned, I am free." I do care. If Jesus does not come for me, and I should go the way that Jesus went, down through the grave, place this old body away very carefully, for as sure as Jesus rose from the grave, I have the promise, "They that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him," and one day the clods shall fly above my grave and I shall get up in this same body and meet my Lord in the air. That will be a wonderful day to the saints. One day a pastor was in the poor house visiting an old saint who was on her death bed, and she was smiling, so he asked her, "Why are you smiling ?" and she said, "I was thinking what a change it will be for me, from the almshouse to glory."
"Oh, what a wondrous change shall Jesus' sufferers know, As o'er the fields of bliss they range, incapable of woe."
Think of it! From trial to triumph, from the cross to the crown. Paul tells us that the saints in glory are longing for the time when they shall be restored to their bodies, shall have them again. That reminds me that a lieutenant down on the Peninsula lost his good right arm. When he came out from under the influence of the anesthetic he said to the surgeon, "Where is my right arm?" And they told him out in the ditch. "Bring it to me; I want to see it once more." When they brought it in he grasped it with his left hand and said, "Good-bye, old arm; you will never swing another saber, nor pull on another bridle, but good-bye till the morning of the first resurrection, and then I'll see you again." Do you believe that? Have you a faith like that? If not, then you are three thousand years behind the times, for old Job said as he lay there in his affliction, "I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though after the skin the worms shall destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Piety day; then thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. That day of redemption is a day the sinner shall never see. With him the worst is yet to come. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.
This leads us to the third text -- The Day of Judgment. A day that is big with destiny. I saw a picture once -- let me describe it to you. A court room, twelve empty chairs; in these the jury had sat; a lone man on the bench waiting; a prisoner in the box, thoughtful and pensive, leaning his head on his hand; nearby sat a woman, the wife of the prisoner, with several little children standing by, and a babe on her lap. The title of the picture was, "Waiting for the Verdict." He did not know what it would be, but every sinner dying in his sins knows what the verdict will be. The soul that sinneth it shall die. Sentence against an evil work is only delayed, but each and every evil doer knows God is just. Too late at that day to remedy mistakes, to undo wrongs. Carlyle, the old Scotch writer and philosopher, was indeed a very gifted man; a man of genius, a vigorous writer and author. He had a wife who would have shone in any circle, but his wife was overshadowed by his gigantic qualities. He kept her in the shade, and she was little appreciated by him or his friends. The time came when she died, and then he knew what she was. He said one day, "I have lived thirty years with an angel, and did not know it." He loaded up with flowers from the hothouse one day and went out to her grave (some men never give their wives any flowers till after they are dead), and as he dropped them one by one on her grave, he said, "Oh, Jean, Jean, if I only had known.' But it is too late now, and regrets never undo the past, nor do they bring back opportunities. You know that the most of folks have their little spats when they are first married -I mean after the glamour has worn off. So did a young couple of whom I have heard. The wife followed him to the door as he was going to work and said to him, "Good-bye, John." But he went right on as though he had not heard. Raising her voice she again said "Good-bye, John" But the brute went right on. Calling after him as he was nearly passing out of sight, she repeated, "I said Good-bye, John." And there was no reply. How he did wish as they brought him home shortly before noon that he had said good-bye, just once; but now it was too late -- the little cottage was burned to the ground and she was in the ashes. Regrets avail nothing. So it will be at the Judgment Day. We may long to undo the past, we may pray, but praying time has gone forever. As a man has sowed so shall he reap. He who has said, "Go thy way," will hear, "Depart from me." He who said, "Have me excused," will find he is excused and excused forever. As a man sows so shall he reap. Destiny is fixed forever, and fixed by a man' s own actions. Here we make character, and what God inspects there is character. We must leave houses and lands and reputation behind us, but we take character with us, and it is the only thing that we can take. Probation ends forever; the last opportunity is gone, and gone forever. When James Pollock was Governor of Pennsylvania a number of years ago, the pardoning power was entirely in the hands of the Governor, not with a commission, as it is now. There was a man who was condemned to die, and the last Friday was near at hand. Governor Pollock was a Christian man and much interested in the spiritual condition of the criminal. One day he went to the Warden of the penitentiary and told him he would like to see the man soon to die, saying at the same time, "Do not tell him who I am; just put me in the cell with him." The Warden called the turnkey, gave him his instructions, and the Governor was ushered into the cell. When the prisoner saw him he said, "Who are you?" "I came to pray with you," said the Governor. "Well, you can get out of here. When I want any sniveling Harrisburg parsons to pray with me, I will send for them." "But, man, you are to die next Friday, and I am interested in your soul. I would like to pray for you." "Get out, I told you. Hallo, turnkey! Come take this preacher out of here." The turnkey came, and Mr. Pollock left without the opportunity to pray with the prisoner. A few days after the turnkey said to the prisoner, "Do you know who that man was that wanted to pray for you?" "No, I do not. I suppose it was some preacher from the city."
"No," said the turnkey; "it was Governor Pollock." "Governor Pollock? Why did you not tell me? I would have fallen on my bended knees to him. I would have begged him for a pardon. I would have told him of my wife and little ones. I would have told him that there were extenuating circumstances, that I was not wholly to blame." But the opportunity had gone. If that man had prayed, if he had truly repented, who knows but the Governor might have been moved to pardon him. But too late, too late. Here we may have pardon, here we may pray, here God is always present, here are promises that encourage, here are praying friends, and the very heavens are bending as God inclines Himself to hear the sinner pray; but in that great day praying breath is spent in vain. Do you know, have you learned it from God's Word, that the men of today are the worst sinners the world ever saw, or the heavens ever looked upon? Not Scriptural? Listen to this: "Woe unto you, Capernaum, woe unto you, Bethesda. It shall be more tolerable in the day of Judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for thee." Why? Because they have sinned against greater light. Hear the Master, He who spake as never man spake, He to whom was given the tongue of the learned. "The people of Nineveh shall rise in judgment and condemn this generation, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here." We are living in the best age the world has ever seen, the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost. He is doing His best to win men for God and righteousness, and men are doing their utmost to resist Him. I do really believe that the very devils in hell will be astonished because you are lost. You for whom the Son of God died; you to whom all heaven appealed; you for whom a mother. prayed, with whom the Spirit of God pled and strove. Some years ago a man of wealth was the president of a National Bank in Chicago. He owned coal lands in southern Indiana, was part owner of stone quarries, and spent much money to open up a railroad to the mines. One venture he used the bank to advance his own private schemes, violated the law of the nation, and the Government officials were on his track at once. He was arrested, tried, and though defended by counsel of ability and talent, he was found guilty. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court and after one year, during which he restored some millions of dollars, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the lower court, and the wires from Washington flashed the news to Chicago that he must go to Leavenworth. The detective at once was by his side; he bade good-bye to wife and children, took the train on the Rock Island, and went to the Federal Prison at Leavenworth. The guards on the walls knew he was coming, the prisoners in the prison knew, somehow or other, that he was coming. And when he was given his number and suit, they whispered to each other is here. The man who had his millions, the man who was president of _____ _____, the man who moved in the highest circles of society. If we had his chances we never would have been found here; we had no high-priced lawyer, we had no friends to appeal our case, or we would not have entered this place of woe. So in hell, when you shall be lost, the very demons will hiss with astonishment that you of all men should be eternally lost. Hear them as they taunt the lost soul. "For us no Savior died, no Holy Spirit ever strove with us, no Gospel of salvation for us. To us no ministers ever came, talking of hope. When we fell, we fell forever. But you -- you trampled the blood of the Son of God under your feet; you came to the torments of the damned over the crucified body of the Christ of Calvary. You invited your own damnation; you paved your own way to this hell home of the forever lost." Is it not so that today men are running against the shields of the Almighty? They insult the Holy Ghost, they invite the wrath of God. Hear the Word, 'Hell from beneath is moved to meet thee at thy coming." The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Men today are sinning against light, against the examples of godly living in their own homes, against their own consciences. The Word cries, "Prepare to meet thy God," and they make no preparation. The Son of God says, "Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." And there are few getting ready. Men are in love with sin -- sin, the thing that God hates -- they are crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame, and yet he cries, "How shall I give him up ?" Oh, men and women for whom Christ died, yield yourself to God before it shall be eternally too late, and thou shalt take up the cry, "'The harvest is passed, the summer is ended and I am not saved." And to be not saved is to be eternally lost!
