God's Last Call — E.A. Johnston

Sudden Death and Eternal Urgency

I don't believe I've ever seen a time in my life where sudden death was all around us. You can't drive down the street without seeing wreaths on the roadside as memorials, which mark the spot where somebody was run over or tragically killed.

You can be gunned down any moment in this violent society of ours. Why, you have no guarantee, friend, you won't make your bed in hell tonight. The car you're riding in may end up being your twisted coffin.

The pleasure boat you're out enjoying the day on may bring you down to a watery grave. The plane you were flying on may suddenly lose altitude and plunge down to the earth. You may go to bed tonight feeling fine like a friend of mine in his 40s who woke up in the middle of the night, got up out of bed, and took two steps and dropped dead to the floor.

The Warning of God's Last Call

My message this evening, friends, is entitled, God's Last Call. I believe there comes a day in a person's life when the Spirit of God withdraws himself and God no longer woos or calls, that a sinner can ignore and reject God's call only so many times until he walks through a door, a steel door that becomes forever closed.

You cannot repent and you cannot be saved, no matter how many tears you cry like Esau. God may be issuing you through my voice and message this evening, friends, your last call to come to Christ and be saved.

Proverbs 29 and the Three Warnings

God's last call is bound up in the solemn words from Proverbs 29 .1. He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. I want to draw your attention, friend, to three words of this text.

The word often, the word suddenly, and the word remedy. I wonder if you were to look back on your life as a photo album with pages that you could flip through and see the many times that God reproved you by his gospel.

A reproof is any time you heard a sermon or were handed a track or someone spoke to you about your eternal soul and you hardened your neck and ignored God's call. You felt a pull on your heart, but you ignored it and it went away.

You may be an unconverted church member who has hardened their neck under the gospel for years and you sit in church and listen to sermons that move you to think of eternity and where you'll spend it and the Spirit of God tugs on your heart to go forward and settle it with God and you ignore the plea and it goes away and leaves you alone.

The Danger of Repeatedly Rejecting God's Call

God's last call is exactly that. You reach a point of no return where God leaves you alone. How often did he call with no response on your part? He, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck. The second word I want you to notice, friend, is the word suddenly and I want you to pick it out in this next Bible verse from Ecclesiastes.

Sudden Death and the Uncertainty of Life

For man also knoweth not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evil net and as the birds that are caught in the snare so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them.

There's that word again, suddenly. Sudden and an unexpected death like people going to a concert or a movie or even church and they're gunned down by a madman Suddenly be destroyed, our text from Proverbs declares.

Pick up your local newspaper today and read about the people in your town last night who were suddenly destroyed. The next word I want you to notice, friend, is the word remedy. What kind of remedy does this mean?

Christ as the Remedy for Sin

Well, man is sick in sin with a poison in his blood from Adam's fall and he needs a remedy for sin through the Lord Jesus Christ. To die apart from Christ is to die without remedy. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy God's last call may be to you right now, friend.

The Urgent Call to Repent and Believe

Have you realized that you are a lost sinner? Have you felt your need for Christ the Savior from sin? I know I am a sinner and I need a substitute for sin in the person of Christ Jesus. So do you, friend.

So do you. Is God's spirit tugging on your heart and conscious right now? Will you ignore his call yet again? Why will you die? Turn ye, turn ye from your evil way. Come to Christ, the bread of life who says, I am the bread of life.

He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. This may be God's last call to you, friend. If you ignore it and reject it you may pass that point of no return where you will never hear his call again.

Don't delay. Eternity waits and you may be in eternity tonight in either the bliss of heaven or in the agonies of hell. I want to share a true story with you and I want you to listen closely as I relate it to you.

A Mining Town Revival and Thirty-Three Conversions

I want you to hang on every word as if it was your last meal. It's told by Rolf Barner the evangelist and it's about God's last call. Hear me now, friend and listen to his words. In Texas many years ago there was a little mining town and I was holding revival services in a church in that Texas town.

I began the meeting there on Sunday night and I remember I preached on hell that night and dismissed the congregation praying that the Holy Spirit would speak to hearts and disturb people. As we stood there something touched my shoulder.

I looked around and the old white-haired pastor stood there, his face drenched in tears. He said Brother preacher might I say a few words? Of course he might and he said Folks, let's don't go home for a few minutes.

I just can't let you go right now. Somebody happened to look at his watch and exactly 33 minutes later a lot had happened. That pastor stood there with his face in tears and he pointed men out and called them by their given name.

I'd never seen anything like it. He'd been pastor there for over 30 years. He knew them each by their given name. He said Bill I just can't let you go tonight and he preached to Bill and here came Bill.

Then he spoke to Jim and preached to Jim and here came Jim and he did that to 33 men. One by one they came. 33 minutes later 33 men were lined up. There was power there that night. There was somebody there besides us.

God used that preacher to talk to those men through him. We had 33 men professing their faith in Christ. Everybody made their living in the coal mine and I was supposed to preach again Monday evening but we didn't have service because at 4 .26pm that Monday afternoon one of the mines had an explosion and caved in and men were buried in that mine.

The Mine Disaster and the Meaning of God's Last Call

The whistle blew as sirens and alarms went off in that little mining town and men worked feverishly to get down to where those men were trapped. The timekeeper consulted his books and knew there were 33 men trapped down in that mine.

Finally they worked and worked and they got down to them and one by one they hauled up the bodies of those 33 men who were crushed in that mine. Every one of them were dead and they were the 33 men that lined up there at church last night and said they received Christ.

Listen friend God's last call. Those men from the mine responded to God's last call before they were suddenly removed by death. It was a tragedy. They died. But how much more tragic it would have been had they died without the remedy for sin.

He, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. Come to Christ, friend. Repent and believe on Him. This may be God's last call. Let us pray.