The wages, ages, and pages

I'll read three verses of scripture with you. Romans chapter 6 verse 23 says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2 verse 7 But in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

I'll read with you in the book of the Revelation. Did we mention that that's not revelations? Probably did. It's Revelation.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, and it's not the revelation of Saint John the Divine. I know that's what your Bible might say at the heading, but that's something that man put in there. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 20 verse 15. We should read in verse 11. It's very familiar, but we'll read it anyway.

Revelation 20 verse 11, And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heavens, or heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which are written in the books according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

This is a second death. Notice, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Now, I'm only going to take 10 minutes, and if there's someone here that's got a word that's burning in their bones, you can finish it up.

I'll leave you probably, oh there's 10 minutes gone already. Where'd that go? Okay, I'm gonna try and leave you 10 minutes. You can preach the gospel in 10 minutes, can't you? We used to be able to preach the gospel in 10 minutes on the street.

Some of you brethren probably never preached on the street, but we preached on the street, and you could preach the gospel in 10 minutes. So here we go. I want to think about the wages, the ages, and the pages, and that's not original with me.

I'm sure that every brother here that preaches the gospel, whether they're out in the Lord's work full-time or not, and they preach on a Sunday evening, has probably taken that little line up. But I want to think about the wages of sin is death, and the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I read a story one time about a lady by the name of Tammy Faye Tucker, and she was a murderer.

She murdered, I don't know how many people she murdered, but she ended up in the Texas penal system, and the Lord saved her there, saved her soul in the penitentiary, and she appealed to the governor of the state of Texas to amend that sentence that she had instead of death, life, and he told her that he couldn't do that, that the sentence stood, and his name was George Bush, and he said he couldn't do that. He couldn't pardon her. But you know what George Bush couldn't do, God can do for you today.

If you're a stranger to the grace of God, and you've never been saved and born again the Bible way and washed in the precious blood of Christ, young man, young woman, listen to me now. God is able to do for you what Mr. George Bush could not do for Tammy Faye Tucker. He can pardon you, he can forgive you, he can separate you from your sins as far as the east is from the west.

He can put a new song in your mouth, he can put a hope in your soul, he can give you a bright and glorious future that Mr. George Bush never could do for Tammy Faye Tucker. But he can do that for you. He can do that for you because he loves you and he doesn't love your sin nor mine either, and I had to learn that just like you need to learn that today.

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. I didn't know anybody loved me until I heard the gospel message and I learned something I had never known before. God loved me and he's willing to pardon me and forgive me and God loves you today, young man, young woman, so much that he was willing to give his Son to die for your sins upon the cross of Calvary.

The wages of sin is death. Sin draws wages. They're earned.

Wages are always earned and your sins are earning a wage and that's death. And death is simply separation. There's such a thing as spiritual death, there's physical death, there's eternal death.

We were all born into this world spiritually dead. I can remember a time when I picked up a Bible before I was ever saved, I don't even know where it came from, and I read in Luke 24 about two on the road to Emmaus. My thought was in those unsaved days when I was a stranger to the grace of God, I thought there's two people walking down a dusty road and this old book is just as dry as that road.

That's what I thought about the Bible, that it was just an old dry book that a bunch of old men with long beards sat around all day and they read it. You know why I thought that? Because I was lost. I was dead in my trespasses and sins.

And my sins were drawn wages and those wages were death. And I knew before God ever saved me that if he put me in hell, that would be eternal death. I didn't know that.

But that's what it is, eternal separation from God. And I knew that God would be right and I would be wrong. And young man, young woman in the meeting today, if God consigned yourself to that place, eternally he would be right and you would be wrong.

Eternal death. You don't understand a message of the gospel because you're spiritually dead. Then there's that matter of physical death.

That's when the body dies and the individual that's living in the body, looking out of your eyes, looking out of my eyes, leaves the body because the body is no longer a fit resident for the person that is dwelling within the body. And that person, made up of mind and emotion, will leave that body in this world somewhere and go out into eternity to meet God. You're gonna meet God someday, young man, young woman.

Just like I'm gonna meet God someday. Do you ever wonder about that? Going into eternity? Think about how awesome that is. You're gonna meet God.

You're gonna stand before God someday. You're gonna give an account for those sins. You are.

Whether you believe that or not, you are. And you can disbelieve that this afternoon, but that's not gonna change it. That isn't gonna alter it.

You are gonna meet God and you are gonna give an account for your sins. And you need to get that matter settled, not tomorrow, not somewhere down the line, not somewhere where maybe you're a little older than what you are right now. You need to get that matter settled right now.

Right now in this room. And then there's eternal death. You leave this poor, groaning world behind, with unforgiven sin you will be eternally separated from God and from the people of God for the endless ages of eternity.

You know this afternoon there's a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. Wouldn't it be a tragedy to spend an eternity forever and ever and ever in a place called hell with no relief and no release? And the only thing you'll experience forever and ever is regret and remorse. And that will lay heavy upon your mind forever and ever.

And there will be no escape. And this afternoon you have no excuse to linger in your sins in nature's darkness, strangers to the grace of God, when God has manifested His love for you at Calvary's Cross in giving the very best of heaven for the very worst of earth. And that's the Son of God.

I can say today like Paul who loved me and gave himself for me when I was unlovable. And even today I'm unlovable. And God was willing to give His lovely Son to leave the glories of heaven and the peace of the Father's side, and come into a world of sin and shame and sham, and to go all the way to the cross of Calvary and there to suffer, bleed, and die on behalf of a world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall.

Listen, and trembling on the brink of hell, that's where you are this afternoon. If you're not saved, think about it. But don't think about it too long.

You say, why not? You don't have too long to think about it. God has given you a moment. And that moment is right now.

And you don't have anything right now beyond that moment. So you need to get this matter settled about your soul's salvation. You need to get it settled now.

Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation, not tomorrow. Not sometime during this series of gospel meetings that's coming up here.

But long before that series of gospel meetings commences, you need to get this matter settled. It's settled quickly. If you have any intentions this afternoon of getting through the door, Christ says, I am the door by Me.

If any man enter in, he shall be saved. Not hope to be. Shall be saved.

And if you have any intentions of getting through that door, you better come at a run. Because soon that door's going to shut. And you could be left outside.

Left for a sinner's judgment. Left for a sinner's doom. Left while the twilight hastens into a midnight gloom.

Left but instead of heaven, the shall thy portion be. Weeping and wailing only, all for eternity. Could you bear the thought of that friend in the meeting today? We read about the ages to come.

In the ages to come, in ten years from now, twenty years from now, fifty years from now, where will you be? Will you be in heaven? Or will you be in hell? There is no purgatory. There is no in-between. When I was a boy, I was taught that there was a purgatory.

My dad drowned when I was eight years old, and I remember standing at the door of my mother's house right alongside of her at eight years old, and a priestly fellow came to the house. You know what he wanted? He wanted some money. You know what my mama told that man? She said, I've got three children and seven dollars.

He wanted that seven dollars to pray my daddy out of purgatory. He wasn't in purgatory, and he isn't in purgatory tonight. He's in hell.

Because people that go to heaven never acted like he did. And I can tell you how he did, but I'm not going to, because I don't want to give you nightmares. And my mama said to him, she said, mister, I guess he'll just have to stay where he's at.

Seven dollars, three kids, and a mortgaged house. I was back in the day. In the ages to come, where are you going to be? Are you going to be in heaven? Are you now? Maybe you intend to be in heaven, but if you intend to be in heaven, you better get through the door right now.

Christ says, I am the door by Me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved. The Lord says, come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And that's the only rest you'll ever find in time or eternity, is when you rest your soul in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Accomplished so many years ago, when the Savior died on that felon's cross to pay that debt of sin that you and I could never pay if we suffered in hell for all eternity. How about those pages? I think there's an old song that goes something like this.

Is your name written there on the pages so fair? And I don't know the rest of it. But I know that much of it. And that's a pretty good question now, isn't it? Is your name written there on the pages so fair? Well, when was your name written there on the pages so fair? When, where, and how were you saved? Is that a fair question? Sure it is.

Not hard to answer either if you're saved. You say, Preacher, do you know when, where, how you were saved? I do. I know exactly when, I know exactly where, and I know exactly how.

And the reason I know when, where, and how is because I was there when it happened. And if you don't know when, where, and how you were saved, it's not likely it ever happened. I wanted to leave 10 minutes, but I was 10 minutes short anyway, and there's only five left.

And so I'm going to burn up the five minutes, okay, if I can. You'll allow me that, won't you? An old man. See, I'm an old man now.

I'm gonna be 80 my next birthday. Now you don't have to figure it out. Is there another wonderful thing that God loved you and loved me so much he was willing to give his son? And he was leaving, he was willing to leave the Father's side, and the peace of the Father's side, and all the glory, and all the majesty that he experienced in heaven, to come into a world of sin, and shame, and sham, and what else? A world of sorrow.

How sad, the world that you and I are moving through. There's so much sorrow on every hand. I know a lady today, I almost weep when I think about her.

My wife knows her. I told about it in Manchester, Iowa. You let me tell you again, maybe some of you heard it, but some of you didn't.

You know, there are so many ways that God can take an individual out of this world into eternity. My dad, he choked on a sandwich. A bite out of a sandwich caught his throat, and he was ushered into eternity.

I'm going to tell you about a lady. Her name is Amanda. She had a daughter 16 years old.

Her name was Laramie. They came from a little place called Nowata, Oklahoma. That's not Nowater, that's Nowata.

It's an Indian name. A lot of us Indians in Oklahoma, 36 different tribes. Every little town at one time was an Indian town.

This woman and her daughter were horse people. This girl, 16 years old, a lovely, beautiful girl, was a barrel rider. She rode a horse around barrels.

She was good. And she won a lot. And one day, just out of the clear blue, there was a pack of dogs.

I like to say wild dogs, but they weren't wild dogs. They were domestic dogs running in a pack. And they go in and lay at their keeper's hearth in the evening.

And when he turned them out the door, they would go run and run deer and run cattle. That pack of dogs came into this lady's yard and got on to her calves, started killing her calves. And she did what every red-blooded Oklahoma Oklahoma housewife would do.

She went in the house and got a gun. She came out of the house with this gun. And she walked across the porch and started to go down four steps off that porch.

And while she started down that porch, her daughter Laramie started up the porch. And Amanda had her finger on the trigger. And she stumbled.

And she pulled the trigger. And she killed her daughter. And ushered her into eternity in one heart beat.

Imagine how that mother feels today. Think about it. Amanda never meant that to happen.

She never got up in the morning thinking that she'd usher her daughter into eternity before the day was over. And when Laramie came up that set of steps, she never dreamt in her wildest dreams that her mother would pull a trigger on a gun and kill her. The gun didn't kill Laramie.

It was a trigger on the finger on the finger on the trigger. See, guns don't kill. It's the person behind the gun.

And Laramie, in one heart beat, the doctors told her mother that Laramie was dead when she hit the steps. When she fell on the steps, she was already dead. And I'm telling you this, to tell you this, you've no guarantee you'll see tomorrow's sunrise.

And neither do I. Not one of us in this room, and all of us believe that that possibility exists, but there's not one of us, and myself included, that believe it's going to happen today. Or expect it to happen today. But it could.

Death is a preacher of the old school. And he lurks and waits for you at every intersection. He's there.

He is right there. And he's ready to lay his hand upon you and put that death dew upon your brow. You need to be saved.

You need to be saved now. You need to get this matter settled more than anything else in your life. You need Christ as your Savior.

And he is available today as your Savior. The Christ of God, the Savior of sinners, and a God who loves you so much, my friend, that he was willing to give his lovely son to die for the likes of you and me on the cross of Calvary, so that you might have eternal life, that I might have eternal life, that you might have a bright and glorious future in me as well. The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me at Calvary.

Think about it. Here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation or satisfaction for our sins, your sins, and my sins. May this be your experience today, right now, for his name's sake.

We'll pray.