The Midnight Cry — E.A. Johnston

Christ’s Return and the Midnight Cry

I look around, friends, and I see that society is in moral chaos. I look around, and I see a slumbering church, and I see apostasy within our denominations, and I see the spirit of Antichrist growing in the land, and I'm burdened to bring this message before you tonight, friends, a message entitled, The Midnight Cry.

It's about Christ's return and the surety of His judgment, and my text can be found, friends, in 1 Thessalonians. If you brought your Bibles, you can turn there now. We'll be in 1 Thessalonians in chapter 4 and verses 16 and 17, which read,.

For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. And then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Well, to the born-again believer, these words are full of hope and very comforting. To be born from above and washed in the blood means the reality of that last sentence.

So shall we be ever with the Lord. That means for all eternity, friends. But these same words to the unbeliever, to the unconverted, should strike terror in the very heart of them, for it points to a last judgment, where those who are apart from Christ will be judged by Christ.

The Final Judgment and the Exposure of Sin

Lives will be read, books will be opened, every thought, every deed, every word will be held up against the strictness and severity of God's unbending law. As books are opened, lives are revealed. An individual's life will be brought to bear, how they lived it will be opened and exposed.

Solomon in Ecclesiastes points to this very thing. For God shall bring every work into judgment and every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. As the lost sinner stands before a great white throne, every secret sin he ever committed will be made known, brought out, and exposed as your life is reviewed by the one who has eyes of fire, and your works pass beneath his holy magnifying glass and come under his intense scrutiny.

On that day, we will know all the things that have been covered up for years. We'll know who killed the Canadians and who the Canadians killed. We'll know that every single celebrity who brags now that they had sex with a thousand partners, there'll just be evidence brought to bear against them then to accuse and convict them.

For the sentencing of the law must be carried out upon all guilty lawbreakers. It'll all come to the open that day, friends. All the dirty deeds of every government will be exposed and brought to light, and the men behind them, nothing, nothing will be hidden and covered up but dirty laundry spread out like on a table to where it'd be visible to all.

Well that's my little induction, friends, to my sermon, The Midnight Cry, and I'd like to begin by sharing a little story with you, friend, but let me pause here, friends, because I have to pray right now because I need help from above.

Prayer for Conviction and Spiritual Awakening

Give me a little time to pray here, friends. Great and terrible God in heaven, you who are high and lifted up, whose name is holy, you dwell among the cherubim. Help me, Lord, I pray, to deliver this message.

You have burning in my bones, though Satan roar and hellish hosts revile forever. Let me preach this message tonight in the demonstration of your spirit and a power. Bring a soul, I pray, out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and life.

Open hearts, I pray, Lord, and reveal your son as the pearl of great price worth selling all for so he may be gained. For your word says what profits a man if he gains the world but loses his soul. There may be some here tonight who are in danger of losing their soul.

The devil's got four aces on them, and their heart is as hard as the rock of Gibraltar. Oh, friends, oh, friends, oh, help me, Lord God, to pray to thee, to preach to thee tonight here, Father, because your word is like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.

Great God in heaven, I ask you to come bust up things here, bust up every false foundation of an empty religious profession. Come bust up every false hope, break apart every false refuge of carnal security.

Lord, people are asleep here in their sins, but your word, Lord, is like a fire. Come burn someone's conscience through this message and in this time and awaken them to their lost condition. Alarm them to the perilous position of dying in their sins and experiencing the terrible and awful consequences of damnation in the devil's hell.

Great God, your word's like a two-edged sword that divides asunder. I pray, great God, that by your spirit you come tonight and cut somebody up to pieces. Hew them down, Lord, like Samuel hacked up old Rod King Agag.

Open hearts, I pray. Pull the curtains back on eternity. Let people see the reality of a God of eternity. Let sinners tremble as they totter over a bottomless pit ready to be pitched over into destruction at any moment.

Alarm lost religious individuals. Make them tremble at your presence, Lord. Let your gospel be heard and felt tonight through your spirit. May your spirit come and disturb, folks, I pray in the strong name of Jesus.

Amen. Well, let me pause a minute here, friends, and let me catch my breath. I plumbed warm myself out before I even got started here. I'm an old man with a pacemaker and a weak heart, but I got a burden on my heart because I want to be true to your souls.

I didn't come here to make you laugh or entertain you. I came here to give you the undiluted, unvarnished gospel of the Son of God. Like we say in the South, I'm going to give you tonight the oil straight from the can.

A Childhood Story About the Suddenness of Judgment

Well, let me share a story with you, friends. I really love this story. It's central to our text tonight about the return of Christ Jesus. It's from the biography of an American Methodist missionary to China.

His name was William Schubert, and he was a co-laborer with John Song, the Chinese evangelist. He had a call for revival in Nanking in 1931. John William Schubert had prayed 60 days for God to send revival to the church in China, especially to his church in Nanking, and God answered that prayer by sending the powerful evangelist John Song to him, and God turned that church and that whole community upside down in revival.

But the incident I want to relate to you tonight, friends, is a story from William Schubert's childhood, because it illustrates our text from 1 Thessalonians. Let me read you his words now. Heaven and hell were always very real to me, and not only the love of God, but the surety of his judgment.

This went back to my boyhood in Watts. One day, when I was a boy there, a boy came into our school and sat right back of me, a boy by the name of Wilbur. He was about six months older than I. He had come from Oregon, where he had been very bad, and he continued to be a very bad boy.

Yet, he and his family came to our church. Before I was converted, one night, I was staying at Wilbur's house overnight. We were both asleep in the same bed, and in the middle of the night, there came a great sound.

Well, unbeknownst to me, every night at midnight, a fast train went by Wilbur's house from Los Angeles to Santa Ana, and just in front of Wilbur's house, the train would blow its whistle for the next crossing.

Such a heavy freight train, going so fast, shook the whole house. In the middle of the night, when I heard that great sound, and I felt the house shake, I thought it was the angel Gabriel's trumpet. The whole house shook, and I thought it was the last great earthquake.

I sat up in bed, and Wilbur said, What's the matter, Willie? I replied, Oh, I thought it was the last great earthquake and Gabriel's trumpet. And I remember our pastor, Reverend Carnes, had preached about Jesus' return, and he always ended with the prayer, Let us do live, that when thou dost come, we may hear thee say, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of the Lord.

So I was really under conviction about all this, and therefore was greatly frightened. But Wilbur thought it was funny, and he laughed at me rather fondly. The strange thing was that I was afraid, but Wilbur wasn't.

He grew up and married a girl who couldn't live on what he earned, so he wrote a check and signed somebody else's name, and he was put in prison for forgery. And there he met some real crooks, and after he came out, he was helping them rob a bank and was shot to death by a policeman.

We were often reminded of what the Lord said, that there would be two in bed, like me and Wilbur there that night. One would be taken, and the other left. I was afraid of the judgment, and Wilbur was not.

The Urgent Call to Repent Before Christ Returns

Well, that's the end of that story, friends. And that underlines my story, my comment earlier, that all you have to do to go to hell is for God to leave you alone. One boy was afraid of the sudden noise of judgment, but the other boy was not.

He just thought it was funny. How about some of you? Does the thought of a final judgment strike terror in your heart? Will your sins be brought to life and brought to light and exposed? Does that frighten your friend, or does it just make you laugh?

Is this funny to some of you? Is the reality of Christ's return and the surety of his judgment? Shouldn't it strike fear in your heart? Are you such a tough person and hardened in your sins that this doesn't disturb you?

Are you lost? Have you trusted this blessed Savior? If you have not, receive him now before it's too late. Soon he will come in judgment on this world when his anger shall burn as an oven, and then you shall meet him as your judge.

And this was manifested, the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him here in his love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Listen, friend, as a tree falls, so it shall lay. You got no promise of tomorrow. You may die in your sleep tonight. You may get killed on the way home in an automobile wreck. You may die on an airplane this weekend.

Listen to me, friend. We read the words of Jesus in the book of Revelation in the last chapter. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.

And he that is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city. That's what the Bible says, friend. The bottom line is Jesus is your only hope.

Salvation Through Christ Alone

Salvation is in Christ alone. He is chief among 10 ,000. He hung naked on a bloody cross for sin. Listen to me, friend. I'm running out of energy, but you must get to Christ. I know I'm a sinner and I need a substitute for sin.

And so do you, friend. So do you. I've got to wind up this sermon, friends. Let me close with a remarkable little story I want to share with you before we leave here tonight. I'm going to ask you when we get done, not to disperse all at once, but I'm going to ask you to stay quiet and just stay and pray and search your heart before God.

Will you do that for me? Before you leave here, will you take a little time to get along with the Lord and just ask him to speak to your heart and examine your life, friends? Please do that for me. Well, let me give you this story now, friends.

The Thief on the Cross and the Believer’s Only Hope

I know it'll mean a lot to you. It's meant a lot to me through the years. There was a man traveling through the city of St. Louis and it was a Sunday and he was a Christian. So he parked his car at a downtown church and went inside to worship.

Once inside, he realized he was the only white person in an all-black church. So he took a seat on the back row and prepared his heart to worship. Up on the platform stood the elderly pastor who was just beginning his message.

And as he commenced his sermon, his topic was heaven and he began by saying, some folks think of heaven as Abraham's bosom. Other folks call it paradise. But I like to think of heaven this a way. Here is Jesus, just returned from his earthly ministry and old Gabriel greets him.

Hello, Jesus. Sure is good to see you, Jesus. We sure missed you up here, Jesus. We're so glad to have you back, Jesus. Oh, welcome home. Welcome home, Jesus. But wait, wait. Who's that with you? Is that that thief, that crooked thief from the cross?

Oh, no, sir. We can't have no thieves up here. He's not welcome here. Just then Jesus replied, never your mind, Gabriel. Never your mind. And then Jesus wrapped his arm around the thief as he kept saying, never your mind, Gabriel.

And then Jesus announced, he's with me. Well, I love that story, friends, because that's your only hope. Jesus is your only hope. You can't stand in your own merits. When you get to heaven, you got to stand in the merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's your only hope of pardon for sin. But you must get to him. You must close with him. In the Bible, he's called the blessed hope. Time is running out. The days are getting darker. Society's getting worse and worse every day.

It's just chaos every once in a while. I look up at what used to be a distant rumble. It's getting stronger all the time. I seem to get it. It's getting nearer all the time. At the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus says, surely I'll come quickly.