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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/stanley-wells/while/
The book of Romans, please, chapter 5. Romans, chapter 5. We certainly appreciate all who are here this evening and echo what our brother has told you. We sincerely thank you for coming. And before we go, I want you to listen to this.
I want to talk for a few minutes on the closing part of this meeting on the concept of Ahoya. That's the message. Verse 7, For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Psalm number 88, please. Psalm number 88. This verse has been quoted already today.
I want to read it with you. Psalm number 88, toward the end of this psalm. Speaking prophetically of the Lord Jesus, verse 15, I am afflicted and ready to die for my youth up. While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted.
Thy fierce wrath goeth over me. Thy terrors have cut me off. Verse 18, Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance in the darkness. See verse 15, While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted.
Matthew chapter 25 for another verse, please. Matthew's gospel 25. We won't read the story, but we'll give you the bottom line. Look at verse 10. These are the five foolish virgins. Verse 10, 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.
Verse 13, Watch therefore, you know not neither the day nor the hour, wherein the Son of Man cometh. Verse 10, While they went to buy, the bridegroom came. One more in Hebrews, please, chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3.
Now to conclude. Hebrews, please, chapter 3. Here's what God says in verse 15. While it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. While it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
That's all we're going to read. The Lord will undertake the message that has been given on the words we have read together. The concept of a while. It's pretty obvious that it is limited by time. I have four simple thoughts I want to leave with you at the close of this day.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's the while of provision. Now that will endorse what you have heard already. There's a provision for you tonight, as we'll see. You see Psalm number 88?
I want to make an application to the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.
Now that's Golgotha, as we'll see in a minute or two. Then I want to point out to you, in keeping with what we have heard, there's a time to prepare. The Lord wanted to put a cross to his audience on this occasion, and he uses a parable to do it.
Here are five young women, and while they went to buy, they had no oil. The bridegroom came, and they were shot out. A while to prepare. That's right now. Then I want to send a warning note before we go.
Here's what God says. Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart as in the provocation. That's a while of provocation. By your attitude to the gospel on the Lord Jesus Christ, on the message that you have heard, your attitude is provoking the God of heaven.
Let me just endorse what's already been said. See this chapter? A while of provision. Lying right on the surface. Says the writer, amongst men, very few, very few will give their lives for a righteous man.
Some might do it for a benevolent man, a kind man, but God, in a contrast, commands his love toward us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now, if the provision is going to affect you, friend, you need to learn your need.
And so, the word has already been mentioned, and it's right in this verse. While we were yet sinners, your soul, if you have never been born again, and if you've no peace in your heart, and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, we've come to tell you, you're in your sins.
Can't help it. You weren't in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned against God. But because you and I are sons and daughters of Adam, and Adam all die, and we have come to tell you another time, dear soul, on this side of eternity, if you're going to enjoy the provision, you need to learn your need.
That's simple. I would like to ask every one of us tonight, myself included, now, do you believe that what God says about the world, about humanity, is true of me? Maybe you've heard it all your life, but it has never come home to your heart that I'm without the Lord Jesus, without God, without Christ, no hope in the world, moving to eternity without a ray of hope.
Be a tremendous Saturday evening if one or more would learn their need tonight and understand and tell God from their heart, oh God, I'm just a poor sinner. I've missed my way in life, and I need salvation.
Now, here's the power of the message that we proclaim. I was in another country recently. We were having gospel meetings, and these dear people that never heard the gospel once in their life, as far as we know, came to hear the message.
This lady that I never met before, didn't know anything about her, went out the door after the message was given. She said, Sir, I have found out tonight, for the very first time, that I'm a sinner on the way to eternity, and I have no hope beyond the Lord Jesus.
You find that out? Whatever age group you're in tonight, you've heard it all your life, but like I asked you tonight, have you ever told God from the very depths of your heart, oh God, I'm just a poor sinner that needs salvation.
Now, if you're in that category tonight, and that's your mindset, I have come to tell you how you can be saved. And I want to just make an application from Psalm 88, speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, the while that he was on the cross, the while of his passion, his suffering.
You listen to it? While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Six lonely long hours on that tree, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. Do you accept the history of the crucifixion?
Sometimes we try to convey to people, must have been a tremendous moment when hundreds had gathered that day outside the walls of the old city, and they watched those Roman soldiers put the spikes in the hands and feet of the blessed Savior.
Was it for crimes that I have done was sung tonight? He groaned upon the tree, amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond degree. Stop tonight when the darkness fell, and when all activity stopped at Golgotha, and no one moved, the incarnate maker died, for man is creature sin.
I want to just think of that statement, maybe a thousand years before it happened. While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. We borrow the words of other passages in the Old Testament. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.
The earth with her bars was about me forever, and into the dark domain of death, the Lord Jesus Christ went alone, forsaken by God, abandoned by man. You ever stop, friend, and ask yourself, why was he there as the bearer of sin?
If on Jesus my guilt had not laid, and why from his side flew the sin-cleansing tide? If his died, my debt had not paid. I was telling the folks here the other night, I want to talk to the children just at this particular junction of the meeting.
There was a little girl of seven years of age sometime ago in another land, and while the preacher was getting help from God to tell out how a soul could be saved, she said to her dad, Dad, you know what?
I've just got saved. In a meeting, the father says, listen to the preacher, dear. Meeting is over. We're singing the last hymn. She says to him again, I want to tell you, I was saved tonight. He didn't believe her.
See, that night before the darkness fell, and he kneeled at her bedside, before she went to sleep, she got eye contact. She looked into his eyes, and she says, Dad, I want to tell you something. I'm saved.
He recognized that she was in deadly earnest, and he said to her, how do you know you're saved? Now listen to a seven-year-old. She says, Dad, I found out tonight that when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, He finished the work for me.
And he says, how do you know? Because the Word of God tells me, he that believeth on the Son has everlasting life. Before we end the day, there's someone here simple enough to just bow your head in God's presence right now and take the guilty sinner's Savior and be saved in a moment of time.
Somebody says, how will it take place? Well, all I can tell you is the minute that you're saved, you'll know it. Whatever age group you are, upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, another's death, another's life, I stake my whole eternity.
Will you stop tonight? Will you think of those six lonely hours on the cross while I suffer thy terrors? I am distracted for you, friend. God helped you this very night to take it in. Now, let me go up the other side.
See, we have to convey to people that they can't get saved from the lake. We have talked to folks in recent times in different parts of the world, and they think in their folly that they can get saved from the lake.
Maybe you're here tonight. When I think that I am dying, I'll be saved, but not tonight. The Lord wanted to impress his audience on this occasion. I'm just picking this one point out. You see, whenever these foolish virgins were awakened out of sleep, they realized they had nothing to meet God with, and the wise told them, go down there and buy oil for yourself.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and the door was shut on their outside. I didn't read the verse, but it's right there at the end of the section. They came afterwards, and they said, Lord, Lord, open unto us.
He shall answer, I never knew you, depart from me. Can I tell you tonight, friend, could I appeal to you? Maybe you're careless tonight. Maybe you're not in deadly earnest, but I have come to tell you, if the Lord Jesus comes tonight and you're left outside, you'll be in deadly earnest then.
The Luke 13 passage just complements this very one. The language will be said, Lord, Lord, open unto us. Our loved ones are in there. We have a claim upon you, but it's too late. Ere night that door may close and seal thy doom, then the last low, long cry, no room, no room.
No wonder we would say to you tonight, oh, enter, enter now. Let me spend a minute or two on this last scripture before it's time to go. I'll just take it out of its context and make an application. The writer wants to get across to these people how God feels about the attitude of people when they're presented with salvation.
Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart as in the day of provocation. See, these people, they were full of unbelief. They were full of disobedience, and they wouldn't accept what God says.
God tells us in this verse, the quotation of Psalm 95, how the God of heaven, the Creator God felt when He listened and saw the attitude of people their attitude was such that they provoked the God of heaven, they lingered.
I'd like to make the application tonight. What's your attitude towards salvation? Some of you younger folk are thinking, oh, I would long for the day when I become an adult and I can do my own thing and go all the places that I want to go and all the rest of it.
Well, friend, you're provoking the God of heaven. There's a sense in which it applies to the nation of Israel as they moved through the great unholy wilderness on the land to Canaan. But many of them, with many of them, God wasn't well pleased.
They never made it. I've come to appeal to you tonight, friend, the dying moments of this day, as far as the conference is concerned, with your weary man, with your attitude. You're not interested. But oh, if you're weary God, dear sinner, God's patience may weary some day and leave thy sad soul in the blast.
By willful resistance, you have drifted away over the dead lane tonight. Now, let me appeal to you. It's very, very possible we'll never all meet in this building again. We might never have the opportunity or privilege to tell you how you can be saved and to tell you about the Lord Jesus and to tell you how He loved you and how God sent His Son to die on the cross.
But if you refuse and say no, I'll take a think about it another time before another day comes round. You could leave the world for eternity. We've been reminded so forcibly about it today. I've come to tell you, friend, every one of us are facing the great eternity.
I would like to ask you tonight before another sunrise comes round and you leave the world, where will you be? It's forever, dateless, timeless, shoreless, boundless, fathomless, eternity. There's only two places.
Your people, if you're saved tonight and you leave the world, it's heaven. If you're an unbeliever and you're lost and you leave the world without Christ, you'll be in hell at last. How do you know? Well, that's what the Savior said three times over in John chapter 8.
If you die in your sins, if you die in your sins where I am, you cannot come. Will you ask yourself as we leave the building, where am I going right now? There's a heaven bright and fair. There are many mansions there, one of which you can share.
Will you come? There's an awful place of woe. There's a hell where you must go. If you die unsaved but oh, will you come? God help your friend tonight to understand the way of salvation as we have heard and to understand this is the day of salvation right now.
If I was in your shoes tonight and you're an unbeliever, I would leave no thing unturned until I got to Christ. I tell people all the time, if you understood and if God opened the way for you to understand what it'll be like to be in hell, to weep and wail and find you the lake forever, I want to tell you tonight it wouldn't take much gospel to see a one for heaven.
Two ways before you lie, a choice you have to make. One upward to the sky, one downward to the lake. Shall any choose the pit of woe? We all must answer yes or no. God help your friend tonight to understand that time is in essence the while of provision, the while of suffering, passion, the while of preparation, the while of provocation, and I didn't read the other one, while he lingered, the while of procrastination.
God help your friend tonight to take Christ as Savior and meet us in heaven when life on earth has passed. We have to pray. We're finished. Let's pray. Our Father, with deep appreciation in our hearts tonight, we thank thee for this day spent in this very building.
The Lord Jesus Christ and all his fullness in person and work have been brought to our attention. Now it's time for those without the Savior to trust him before they leave the building. We've been reminded that the great king of terrors and the terror of kings has come.
We think of our departed friend who's left these shores for the coming world and soon it will be our turn. Oh God, bless with salvation tonight. We humbly pray, crown the day with salvation to some poor weary soul and encourage thy people and encourage the work of God in these parts as we thank thee for every soul that has been saved in recent days and give unpainted thanks for thy son and for the message in his honored name.
Amen.