Only Two Kinds of People - The Saved and the Lost

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like unto ten virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom, and five of them were wise and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept, and at midnight there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom, go you out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish said unto the wise, Give us your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, Say not so, lest it be not enough for us and for you, but go you rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut.

And the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgin, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Now, holding this place, I'd like to read a few verses in the 3rd chapter of John's gospel, where we have the very words of Christ spoken. The 3rd chapter of the gospel by John, verse 1. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God.

For no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Then Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. Verse 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Verse 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Verse 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. I'd just like to read another verse in the 8th chapter of John's gospel.

Verse 21. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me and shall die in your sins. Whither I go ye cannot come.

Then said the Jew, Will he kill himself, because he said, Whither I go ye cannot come? And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath, I am from above. Ye are of this world, I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you that ye shall die in your sins, for if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins.

Friends, we read together from the word of God, and we read that third of John and these other verses in John's gospel to bring before you the solemn fact that there are in this world today two kinds of people, and only two, not three, only two. I wonder now, if I mention these two, if you will very quietly, in the presence of God, classify yourselves under one of these two headings, those who are saved and those who are lost. God tells us in those verses I read that he that believeth not is condemned already.

Now, every man and woman in this room who has not been born again, who has not received a spiritual birth from heaven, is lost and condemned already. This is a prisoner in the jail, is condemned by the judge, taken back to the cell and put into the cell and the door locked, and on a certain day he is led out to the electric chair. That man is condemned already, and the execution is carried out maybe three or four or five months later.

And every soul in this room, oh, dear friends, I warn you solemnly, this is not my religion. This is what God says. The world is filled with religion.

You know, here in the United States on the west coast you can find hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who are preaching all kinds of religion. We want to put everything out of our minds regarding religion. We want to bring before you tonight what God says, the word of the living God, the Bible.

For heaven and earth shall pass away, but this book, the word of God, shall never pass away. It doesn't matter what I think or what I believe, it's what God says. Oh, dear friend, I ask you in this next 35 minutes or so, if you will please put aside everything to do with your money, everything to do with your family, your home, your friends, your neighbors, your pleasures, and just for this next few minutes, let you and let me be in the presence of Almighty God, as if this was the last night we're going to live.

And we were all here tonight and we all had a message from God saying, tonight you die. Tonight you leave the world. Tonight you enter into eternity, how stolen we would be.

My friend, let us forget our pleasures. Let us forget California. Let us be now in the presence of God as we bring before you tonight, with the help of God, this message.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, a man of religion, a respectable man, a leader of the Jews, a Pharisee, he said, Ye must, no question about it, no ifs and buts, he said, ye must be born again. Ye must. No question about it, my friend.

These are the words of the Son of God. Ye must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

My friends, if you come into this world, you came into this world in the flesh, and you're going to leave this world, and if you've never been born again and have a new life from God, you will perish under the judgment of God. For Jesus said, if ye believe not that I am, that is the eternal God in human form, if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins, and whither I go, there ye cannot come. Now, friends, it doesn't matter what I say, what does God say? What does the Lord Jesus Christ say? Nothing else.

My friends, tonight I plead with you, I beg of you, I fear above all else, religion. I fear it with all my heart, because men and women are deceived by religion today, and the devil is using religion to damn men and women in hell for eternity. Empty, Christ-rejecting religion.

Without the blood of Christ, there is no salvation. Apart from the death and the resurrection of the Son of God, there is no salvation. Unless Jesus Christ is your Lord and your Savior, you are lost.

You are lost, my friends. And you are far more guilty than the Chinese and the Africans and the Indians and those in the heathen lands, because you live in a land that God has so wonderfully blessed with millions of copies of the Bible from coast to coast. You can get a Bible tonight for nothing.

I say to you, my friends, if you haven't got a Bible and can't afford to buy a Bible, I will gladly buy you a Bible. The Bible is the word of God. Thank God for the open Bible tonight.

So in that 25th chapter of Matthew, which I want to speak to you about, you'll notice how it opens. The kingdom of heaven. Now, if you were careful, as we read the 3rd chapter of John, you'd see that the Lord Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God. What a difference the kingdom of heaven is. It means under the heavens every American.

Tonight we just deal with this room. Every American in this room that professes to know the God of the Bible is in the kingdom of heaven. You're a part of that great vast profession that owns there's one God and owns that there's an eternity and after death the judgment.

Every one of us are in the kingdom of heaven, but to enter into the kingdom of God, you must be born again. For the kingdom of God is where God is in the glory land above. Would you like to be punished? Now, I speak reverently.

How would you like to be punished tonight by God in this way? If God was to say to a lady or a man in this room, your punishment is to live right in this world for another 500 years. How would you like that? What would you say? What an awful world to live in. Sin, crime increasing.

And remember, the worst is yet to come. The worst is yet to come. Our seats are not safe.

Crime is increasing rapidly. The great leaders of the world are baffled that the word of God stands like a light, a beaming light that flows across the sea to guide the ships as they come to port. My friends, are you saved tonight? Have you received into your heart, into your life, the Son of God? Do you love him? Now, he loves you, we know that.

But do you love him? Is the Savior your Savior? Oh, my friends, we meet people and they always say the same old thing. They always say the same old thing. What church do you go to? You know, you get so tired and so sick and so weary of this religion business.

Everybody has their own religion and they say, It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. What rubbish! What power the devil has to make men believe this rubbish! That it doesn't matter what you believe. When Jesus said, You see, friends, men don't believe the Bible.

They believe the preacher. And I don't believe there's a man in this room tonight who would put his automobile or his wealth or his money or anything he has in the hands of a bankrupt company. He makes very sure that every place he places his valuables is in the hands of something that's honest, upright, something where he can't lose.

But when it comes to the soul, when it comes to eternity, when it comes to the things of God, men don't care. They believe anything. You can go to a man and say, There's no hell.

And he'll say, Good, I believe that. But the Bible says there is a hell. You can say to a man, You know, you don't have to be saved.

And he says, Fine, I believe that, too. But you're deceiving him. You can tell a man, Well, you know, God won't really judge you, you know.

He loves men too much for that. You'll never go to hell. Don't worry about that.

But you deceive that man. And men believe that kind of thing. Just imagine.

They believe it. They grab it. Tell a man that Jesus Christ is a creature, that he's only a creature.

And they say, Sure, we'll take that kind of a religion. They believe anything, but they reject the truth. And so in our chapter here, it says about these ten virgins, notice, in the second verse, it says in the first verse, Which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

Now, what are these lamps? These lamps are professions. You say you're a Christian? Why, everybody does. You can walk down the streets here and stop every man, woman, boy and girl and say, Pardon me, are you a Christian? Why, certainly.

Are you a Christian? Why, certainly. Are you a Christian? Yes, sure, I'm a Christian. And they all profess.

And these lamps speak of that very thing, profession. Everybody has a lamp, the light. It speaks of a light, doesn't it? A lamp reminds us of a light.

And these people all have their professions. Oh, they say, Why, certainly I'm a Christian. You say, Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ? They say, Oh, no, we don't believe in that.

But they're Christians. They all say they're Christians because they live in a country that's so-called Christian. Isn't that true? Maybe you say, I'm a Christian.

You say, Do you love the Lord Jesus? Why, I don't believe that. I was one of them. When I was in the office, a young boy, 15 years of age, a man came to the desk and said, Are you a Christian? I said, Well, I'm not a heathen, that's a sure thing.

He said, No, no, I don't mean that. He said, Have you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? This is what I said. I said, I don't believe that, sir.

I've got my own church. He said, But it won't be any good, he said. It won't be much good unless you have Christ.

Oh, thank God, after 8 years of talking to me and praying for me, led me to Christ. Christ, not religion, but Christ, the living Savior, a person that by the grace of God I love, because he died for me on the cross of Calvary. He suffered under the judgment of God for me, a poor worm of the dust.

And my faith is built on Christ and what Christ has done, not what I have done, not Christ and religion, not Christ and reformation, but Christ alone and nothing else but Christ. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus and the blood he spilled upon the cross of Calvary. Blessed Savior! O friends, they took their lamp and went forth to meet the bridegroom, which is Christ himself.

Notice now, five of them were wise and five were foolish. Notice the difference between these virgins. What made them foolish? What made them wise? It wasn't because they didn't go to school, it wasn't because they hadn't got a degree, it wasn't because they hadn't graduated.

Notice the difference. And remember that Christ is telling us this. He says, verse 3, they that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil and their vessels with their lamps.

Now, that was a difference, a slight difference, you say. A great difference, we say. Oil, lamps, lamps and no oil.

Isn't that solemn? You know, there was a test that came to these ten, and there was a test coming, my friend, to America. Of all the great professions, what is this oil? I read to you in the 3rd chapter of John's gospel that Jesus said these words, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Notice now, born of water and of the Spirit.

Oh, what do they say about this? What does the great profession say about this? They say, well, we believe that too. They say, water means baptism. I was baptized, so I'm saved.

Oh, some people may smile at that. But I believe that the vast people, the vast number of people in the United States and the country to the north, Canada, really believe it. They really believe that baptism will save their souls.

But it is not true. The water that Jesus referred to was the word of God. The word of God.

That's what it refers, that's what the water is, the word of God. Except a man be born of the word of God, the water, and of the Spirit, who is the Spirit of God, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. He may be the best man in the United States, may be an upright, moral, clean-living, decent, kind, gracious man, but if he is not born of the Spirit of God, he is going to hell.

He is going to hell. Oh, my friends, how solemn, oh, how important this is. If you only believe it, friends, we stand at the doorway and see men and women walking out without Christ.

And I speak reverently. I think we're salesmen. Well, I think I'll buy your product.

How awful, what a power! I pray, I kneel down to pray, and I just feel the power of the devil, the power of the devil. Men and women, fathers and mothers saying to their sons, won't you come to the gospel? And the power of the devil is so that they will not come. And we sit at the door with a young man.

Just imagine, he said to me, sir, I'm a sinner. He admitted, you're a sinner. God says there's no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

He said, I'm a sinner. I said, if you die tonight, where are you going to? He said, I'm going to hell. Just imagine, I'm going to hell.

And then when we pressed upon him and others pressed upon him to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, I'll think it over. Just imagine, eternity, eternity, eternal ages your soul has to face. There is no second chance.

Oh, the devil is clever. He tells men, well, there's a second chance, you know. If you make a mistake in this life, don't worry, there's a second chance.

But it's a lie, my friends. It's a lie. Jesus said, oh, it doesn't matter what anybody, it doesn't matter what the minister says or the evangelist or the preacher or the priest or the bishop or anybody else, it doesn't matter what they say.

Jesus said, if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins. He doesn't say there's a second chance. He said, you'll die in your sins, and whither I go, ye cannot come.

No second chance. When we leave this world, our eternal destiny is forever settled. There's no second chance.

If you die in your sins, you'll be buried in your sins. You'll be raised from the dead in your sins. You'll stand before Almighty God in your sins, and you'll hear him say, depart from me.

I never knew you. Friends, I ask you tonight, please, please, we go into a hospital. We see doctors going to operate on a husband or a wife or a boy or a girl, and we see the fathers and mothers or the husbands and wives weeping.

Oh, they don't laugh and tell jokes of solemnness. A loved one's been taken into the operating room, and they're waiting anxiously. They hear the footsteps coming, and they say, here he comes, here's the doctor coming.

Oh, how solemn. But when it comes to a soul going to hell under the judgment of God, under the judgment of God, they laugh and they smile and they look at us, and we give them a gospel track instead of saying, sir, tell me, please, I want to be saved. They say this kind of stuff.

Ah, they tear it up. They don't care. They're dead.

They're held by the devil. They're prisoners. And I believe the vast crowd in the United States today is held under the power of Satan.

They're his slaves, his prisoners, and Christ can free them. Tonight, my friends, Jesus stands ready to save your soul. So it says here in the 5th verse, While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

The wise with the oil. The oil is the Spirit of God. The oil, my dear friends, is God's Holy Spirit.

And every Christian in this room, that is to say, born-again Christians, who have received the Lord Jesus Christ personally as their Savior, have the Holy Spirit indwelling their bodies. 1 Corinthians 6.19, your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. Just imagine, as we go home tonight, we have a divine guest living in here.

The unsaved have no such a person. Oh, religion. Men will fight for their religion.

I've heard men stand up and say, if you dare to say that about my religion, I'll knock you down. And with the next breath, they curse Almighty God's name. That's religion.

But it's not Christ, my friends. Christ is not religion. Christ is a Savior.

Christ is a person who reaches out his nail-printed, pierced hands and takes hold of your heart and warms your heart and warms your affections and gives you the lungs to see his lovely face in the glory. Remember, there is no judgment for the Christian. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, we believe.

I remember. You'll pardon me saying this, my friends. I remember when I was 14 or 15 years of age, walking to the front, and a clergyman walked in and grabbed me by the hand, and he took my hand and said, Now you are a member.

I won't mention the denomination. You're now a member, he said. But if I had dropped dead that day, I would have gone to hell.

I had religion, but not Christ. I had never been born again. I was still in my sins, outwardly a Christian, because I lived in Canada, a so-called Christian land.

Inwardly, dead as a doornail, cold and stiff in death, dead in trespasses and sins, God says. In Ephesians 2, there was no life towards God, and the prayer meeting bored me silly, and the Bible reading made me sick. This old book to me was a book of fairy tales, good for reading at a funeral parlor, good to read at a wedding, but the rest of the time, close it away and hand me the newspaper and the sport page and the boxing magazines and so on.

That's what I liked to live on. Oh, I was a dead person. And I tell you tonight, there may be somebody dead in this room tonight, a dead spiritual person with no life toward God.

Notice what happens here in our chapter. Verse 6, At midnight there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom, Come, let's go you out to meet him. Now, this cry was made about 170 years ago when the Spirit of God graciously restored to those who knew the Lord Jesus the glorious truth that Christ was coming to take out of this world, every believer in the Son of God.

That truth was restored, beloved, and many of us in this room believe it, we rejoice in it, and we're waiting for God's Son from heaven. Jesus, our blessed Savior. But notice what happened now in the 7th verse.

And all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out, are going out as the merchant reads. But the wise answered, saying, Not so, lest it be not enough for us and you, but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came. Oh, the bridegroom that carried, the bridegroom came. Now, notice what it says, And they that were ready.

They that were ready. My friend, are you ready? One night in Montreal a few years ago, I met an old gentleman walking down the street. He was a night watchman.

I guess I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. And he said to me, How do you do, sir? And after talking to him for a few moments, he said, I'm 75 years of age, sir. I've got this job as night watchman here for the next few weeks.

And he said, My name is Wright. And he said, Even when I'm wrong, I'm still Wright. I said to the old gentleman, Are you Wright with God? And he stopped walking, and he said, No, sir, I'm not.

I'm not Wright with God. I'm not Wright with God. Are you Wright with God tonight, ladies here and gentlemen? Are you Wright with God? The old man said, No, I'm not Wright with God.

And I talked to him for about 45 minutes, and I said, Will you be here tomorrow night? He said, Yes, I'll be here tomorrow night at 11 o'clock. We went back at 11 o'clock, and God in his grace made the weather so cold we had to go into this little shack, a little shack in the field where he went to be during the night watchman night. It was a cold night.

There was a little stove in there, and we sat down on some old rags, an old stool, an old stool. And I told him about Jesus and his love. I said, Sir, won't you receive Christ? You'll be Wright with God if you'll receive Christ.

And I'll never forget this. I said, Shall we pray? And I can see the old man yet as he got up, and he slowly bowed his knees at this bench, and I prayed, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited. And at last I heard his voice, and he said, Oh, God, have mercy on me! Have mercy on me! You know, he got saved, that old man.

But here's the climax of that story. It was his last invitation. A few months later, he and his wife passed into eternity.

Before she died, a friend of mine went to see them, and he said to her, like so many people, You know, I hope I'm saved. I don't like to say I am. He said, I believe in the Lord.

I just hope I'm saved. And she said, Dear, I know I'm saved. They were gone, and about a week or so later, both of them gone into glory, into glory.

My friend, tonight, are you right with God tonight? It doesn't matter about your job or your home. It doesn't matter about anything, your money or anything else, your pleasures and your dances and your card games and your beer bottles. It doesn't matter, my friend.

Are you right with God, or are you wrong with God? Are you right with God, my friend? Young man, are you right with God tonight? Are your sins forgiven? Nothing else matters in life. Nothing else really counts, but that one thing and one only, are you right with God for eternity? A billion years from tonight, times a billion, you will be living in heaven or hell for eternity. Eternity never ends as long as God lasts.

And he says, I am he that liveth forever, the living God. You're going to live, my friend, and so am I. We're going to live forever. We'll never, never die.

Never. We'll never die. I ask you, I warn you solemnly, do not believe these false witnesses, these false prophets who tell you that, well, you know, if you're not saved and you die, you'll just be like a dead dog.

No, don't believe that. Don't believe it. God says that every knee shall bow to me and every tongue confess to God.

Are you saved? Are you right with God? But ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, please, I ask you to please put out of your mind a thought that this is our religion. Oh, I beg you, please. I ask you to be at least respectable enough to stay behind after and correct me if I'm wrong, but do not go to that room and say, well, that's what they, those people believe that, you know.

Oh, they're sincere people. That man was sincere. I want you to say that.

I want to warn you. If I was a doctor and you came to my office and I said, you've got cancer, would you say, oh, doctor, don't give me that rubbish, doctor. Don't give me that rubbish.

I don't believe it. You say, but I study it. I know medicine.

I've studied it for years. I'm a doctor of my profession. I'm a medical man.

I know what I'm talking about. And I warn you that this Bible says you have got a worse disease than cancer, which is sin, S-I-N, and there's nothing can cure it but the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which cleanses from all sins. And thank God my sins are forgiven.

They're all forgiven. And an infinite God has taken from his mind the memory of my sins, and he says I'll never remember them forever and forever. They're gone, my friends, under the shelter of the blood of Christ.

Like the little girl in the Sunday school when she was asked this question, is there anything that God cannot do? She said, yes. God cannot see sin through the blood of Jesus Christ. For the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.

My sins are going to have eternal life. I'm going to be in heaven. If I drop dead on this floor, my friends, I'll open my eyes immediately in the presence of my beloved Savior, who suffered and bled and died on the cross of Calvary by the grace of God, I say, the poor sinner saved by grace.

Not as they that were ready. Are you ready tonight? Would you like to be ready? Is there some man in this room who'd say, I'd get anything to know I was ready? There's some lady who says, I've tried this religion, I've tried that, they've all failed me, I'd do anything to be ready. You can be ready.

Come with me, please. Let us notice. Let us turn back the calendar 2,000 years.

Let us gaze at Calvary. Let us see the Lamb of God, the eternal Son of God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator himself, a man nailed to a cross as a sacrifice for sin, and see him as he hangs there from 9 to 12 and from 12 to 3 in the afternoon. And from 12 to 3 in the afternoon he bore my sins.

My sins were placed on him by Jehovah God himself, who knew my sins. Though I was not born and had never sinned yet, the God who knew my sins laid them on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then he brought down his purity and his judgment upon the head of my substitute. And the blessed Lord Jesus Christ exhausted the wrath of God for my sins.

He took the cup of judgment and he drank it to the very dregs, and nothing for me remains, nothing but love. Instead of his finished, he bowed his head in death. The Roman soldier pierced his side, and forthwith came the red blood and water.

And Jesus went into the grave, and on the third day he rose again, triumphant over death, the risen Christ. And 40 days later he ascended to heaven, a Savior, and sat down at the right hand of God. And that Savior is my Savior.

Is it yours? Are you ready, my friends? I say, look to that cross. Look to that cross. You know you're a sinner.

Everybody in this world knows there's a sinner. They're a sinner. They know it.

They say, Well, I never sinned. But they lie. For God says there is no difference, all of sin.

Are you getting older? Are you getting older? That's because you're a sinner. Is your hair turning white? You're a sinner. Are your teeth getting loose? You're a sinner! Do you get pains? Do you get rheumatism? Do you get arthritis? Why? You're a sinner.

You can say what you want, like people say to me, Well, we're getting old. That's why we get arthritis. No, my friends, you're a sinner.

That's why you get arthritis. That's why I get it. We're sinners.

Why do we go under the casket? Why do we go into the ground? We're sinners. The wages of sin is death, God says. You can call it what you want, old age.

You can call it what you want, but it's sin, my friends. Sin is killing us. We're dying of sin.

That's what kills man. The wages of sin is death, God says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. God always brings Christ in when there's blessing.

There's no blessing without Christ. There's no blessing. If the Lord Jesus hadn't died on the cross, every child of Adam's race would have gone to hell.

There would have been no salvation. But the blessed Lord Jesus said in John 12, verse 24, Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. He was the corn of wheat, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

How blessed to be part of the fruit that came as a result of the death of Christ, the corn of wheat. Well, they that were ready went in. Now, notice this verse, verse 10.

The end of verse 10 of Matthew 25, and the door. Notice the door was shut. The door is open tonight, whosoever will may come and take the water of life freely.

We said on Monday night there's no collection here. We don't take collection. We don't preach a free gospel, salvation is God's gift, free and then ask a man for $5.

Why, that's hypocrisy. We don't want your money, and God doesn't want your money. He wants you.

He says, Whosoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely without money and without price. God's a giving God, a Savior God. He doesn't want a man to give him anything.

He wants man to come to him and receive from him. Man is always talking about giving God something. God doesn't want anything from you.

He doesn't want anything from you except your confession that you're a sinner and your reception of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you were out in the water, we mentioned the other night, swimming, you got a cramp and you were drowning, you wouldn't need a book of how to swim. You wouldn't need to have a book of how to dive and how to swim and how to move your arms.

You need a Savior. And, my friends, if you're not saved tonight, you don't need religion, you don't need baptism, you don't need confirmation vows, you don't need to join anything. You need Christ.

You need a Savior who will lift you up and put your feet on solid ground, the rock of ages, the Christ of God, the only Savior God has for sinners, the only Savior, the only Savior. My friends, the door was shut. There was a man seen in London, England.

He raced across the platform of one of these great stations, crowded with people. He got to the gate. The gate was shut, and he said, Sir, open the gate.

The man said, I'm sorry, the train is leaving. He said, Open the gate, I'll run after the train. He said, I'm sorry, Sir, the gate is shut, you can't get through.

He said, Oh, God, it's going to cost me a thousand pounds to dismiss that train. Open the gate, please. The guard said, Sir, I can't.

The train is gone. The door is shut. You can't get through.

He lost a thousand pounds. My friends, if God shuts the door of salvation, you'll lose your soul. You'll lose your soul.

And I warn you not to believe. I don't care who he is who tells you there's no hell, who tells you there's no judgment, who tells you you have a second chance. I say, believe them not.

They're the servants of the devil. They're the servants of the devil. They lie.

The Bible says, if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins and where I am. There you cannot come. And the door was shut.

Solemn is that the door was shut. Oh, the door of heaven is open tonight. God says, Young man, young lady, old man, old lady, come to Christ.

The door is open tonight. Whosoever will, that means you, may come. Tomorrow morning may be too late.

The door may be shut tonight. Jesus may come tonight. And every born-again believer in him will leave this world in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.

And this world is going on to judgment. Friends, we who are Christians and know anything about our Bibles, we just marvel that we're still here. The Roman Empire has been formed around us.

It's all being ready, it's all getting ready. Ten nations to meet in Rome, a little forerunner of what's coming. The Jew is ready, the Arab is ready, the great professing church is ready.

They're all amalgamated into one. They're all going to come together into a church union which God is going to judge. Revelation 17, 18, how solemn, my friends, the days in which we live.

The Lord is coming, Jesus Christ the Lord is coming in the air to call out of this world the wise virgins who have their lamps trimmed and their oil, the Spirit of God. We're having much more time, my friends. Crime is increasing all around us.

Our great leaders are tumbling around us. Communism marches through this land, through the land of the Lord. All kinds of trouble, internal trouble caused by Communism.

Russia is ready to play her last game. God is going to judge Russia, my friends. He's going to judge this world.

But Russia will be the last great power to come under the power of the judgment of Almighty God. Everything is ready. Are you ready? Are you saved tonight? Will you receive Christ tonight? Or will you say, well, they'll laugh at me in the office.

Let them laugh at you. They can laugh you into hell, but they certainly can't laugh you out of hell. They can laugh you under the judgment of God, but they can't laugh you out of the judgment of God.

And we who are Christians, we don't boast, my friend, when we say this, but if you be reproached for Christ, happy are ye. And every time the world sneers at us and laughs at us and mocks at us when we give them a gospel tract and they say, take that stuff away from us, every time they do that, the Spirit of God brings joy into our hearts because we sought to bring Christ before souls. The door was shut.

Now, notice our next few minutes, just notice this word in the 11th verse, afterward. Afterward, oh, what a solemn thing. This is an awful word, you know.

This is a terrible word, afterward. You know, men would like to be able to say, well, when we're dead, we're dead. An ungodly man dies, and they say, well, his sufferings are over.

Oh, how foolish. His trouble is only beginning. He's gone into eternity.

Afterward. Isn't that a terrible word? Afterward. Wouldn't it be nice if we could say, we're like dogs, we're dead, we're finished, we're never going to be here anymore, we're going to turn to ashes and that's it? But afterward, God says.

Afterward. Reminds me of that verse. It's appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.

You must meet God, my friends. Have you forgotten that? Who makes you forget? The devil. Mother, when you do the dishes, when you make the bed, who is it that tells you, oh, don't believe that stuff? Lots of times we get saved.

Get saved in your deathbed. There's only one in the Bible. Only one deathbed repentance, the thief on the cross was saved on his deathbed, which was a cross.

Only one in the whole Bible. Don't take a chance on that deathbed. An infidel in the office where I worked, he mocked at me, but he did say this.

On my deathbed, I want you to be sitting beside my bed. I want you to be there. That was 40 years ago when I first got saved.

Recently in the office, I was visiting, and he phoned up. He's now, I think, 78. He said to me, he asked to speak to me when he heard I was there.

He said to me, remember, I want you at my deathbed. I said, my friend, you may not get a deathbed. You may drop dead any minute.

He said, I will take my chances on that one. He's got lots of followers. They'll take their chances.

Just imagine. Why do men say that? Because they're blinded by the devil, and they're just held like little toys. We see children playing with their toys.

We see men playing checkers, and those men move those chess across the board. That's exactly what the devil does with you, my unsaved friend. He moves you across the board at his will.

You're his prisoner, his slave, his servant. And I warn you, he's a hard taskmaster. He'll bring you to hell with him.

Although tonight I have better news than that. Jesus loves you. God loves you.

God has blocked the road to hell with the cross of Christ. If you want to go to hell, you pass that cross, my friend. You go by that cross, you spurn the love of God, you turn your back on the grace of God, you will perish.

You will perish, says the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible. They that were ready, afterward they came and they said, Lord, Lord.

No, that's profession. Lord, Lord. That's profession.

But listen to this verse in Romans 10 and 9. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Do you believe in the resurrection of Christ? Tell me, my friend. Is there a man in this room or a lady tonight that believes, and I speak reverently, that Jesus Christ the Lord, the Son of God, is dead? Do you believe that? I believe.

Every man in this room would say, I don't believe that. I believe he's living. I believe he's risen.

Why don't you receive him? Why don't you take him as your Savior? To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe in his name, which were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but born of God. All friends, our time is just about up. We don't want to keep you overtime.

But is there a man in this room tonight? Is there a woman in this room tonight? I believe that on that cross, the Son of God, the Lord of glory, died for my sins, and I receive him as my Savior. Will you confess the Lord Jesus? Young men, I know the world looks attractive to you. Look, this country is rich, isn't it? Lots of good jobs, big salaries, oh, big salaries.

Young boys, young men getting $10,000 a year. It looks big, doesn't it? You've got to leave it all behind. Looks great, doesn't it? Looks good.

You're young and you're strong and you're healthy. But Christ is coming, and you'll be left behind. Is there somebody, as I bow my head in prayer, who will say, Lord Jesus, save me tonight.

Save me tonight. I believe you died for me. I'm a sinner.

I believe in my heart you died for me, a sinner. Will you take Christ tonight? Will you take Christ? I don't preach religion. I wouldn't waste my time.

I preach a living Savior, the man Christ Jesus. There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Nobody, angels can't save you.

Saints can't save you. The Virgin Mary can't save you. Jesus alone can save you.

He's the Christ. He's the Christ. Tonight it is my joy and pleasure to present to you the Son of God, the Lord of Glory, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Will you have him, my friends, or will you have the devil? Who will be your friend? Who will be your master? As we leave the room tonight, every lady in this room, every man, every boy and girl is going out of that door at the back of this room under the colors of Christ, or under the colors of the devil, because there are only two masters, not three. Who's master will you have? What master will you have? May God grant. As we bow our heads, oh, I pray God, I just hate to close this meeting, but I must.

I just plead. I beg you, my friends, I plead with you tonight. I earnestly, in my God and Father, in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, I plead with you, dearest Lord.

I know there are men tonight in this room. I know there are young boys, young men. If they died tonight, they'd be in hell.

If their bodies were in their caskets now, in one of these undertaker parlors right now, they'd be in a lost eternity. And I beg you, as the devil sneers at Christ and as the devil holds you in his power, I pray to you tonight that that mighty hand of Jesus lift you up and set your feet on the rock of ages. Will you receive my Savior? Oh, my friends, I recommend to you my precious, adorable Savior.

He brought joy into my life and peace and happiness. My only regret is that I didn't come to him sooner. I wasted my substance with riotous living.

But thank God that he's my Savior tonight. And I recommend to you, Christ, take him as your Savior. Now, may we bow our heads.

Oh, dear friends, reverently, I ask you reverently, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, don't allow the devil to pull you to hell with him. Please don't do it. Tonight Jesus stands, a living Savior.

He says, Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.