Day Late and a Dollar Short

My message tonight, friends, is a solemn warning. 284 years ago, in the pulpits of America, it was not uncommon to hear the ministers of New England preach sermons that were solemn warnings to their hearers. God used those search and sermons full of the Holy Ghost, full of the doctrines of grace, to bring revivals.

One thinks of Jonathan Edwards and his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, which he preached in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741, where an eyewitness recorded in his diary of that event. We went over to Enfield, where we met dear Mr. Edwards of Northampton, who preached a most awakening sermon from these words, Deuteronomy 32, 35, To me belongeth vengeance and recompense, Their foot shall slide in due time, For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things that shall come upon them make haste. And before the sermon was done, there was a great moaning and a crying out through ye whole house, What shall I do to be saved? Oh, I'm going to hell.

Oh, what shall I do for Christ? To where the minister was obliged to desist from preaching, ye shrieks and cries were piercing and amazing. Well, we don't hear much search and sermons today, friends, that are solemn warnings to the unconverted. Instead, we preach nice little messages that don't disturb a flea or the deacons, yet alone convert a sinner from his ways.

And because of our politically correct pulpits today, we don't see any revivals either. But things have gotten so bad in society and so bad in the church, it's time to take the meat axe out and hew down some sinners. I need to pray before I preach you tonight, friends, because I can't do this alone.

I got too much coming against me. I need God's spirit upon me, and I need Christ's disturbing presence among us. That's my prayer.

That's my hope. That's my need. Let me pray.

Oh, great and terrible God, you dwell among the cherubim. Turn your face toward us, Lord, this evening and walk among us, I pray, with your divine presence by your spirit. Come and disturb, folks, I pray, if anyone here is resting upon an empty religious profession.

I pray you take your word and like a hammer bust that thing to pieces. Let your word be as a fire that awakens and alarms and singes the very conscience. Make your word a meat axe to hew sinners down like Samuel hacked King Agag to pieces.

If there's someone here whose faith is as empty as a hole in the wall, then smoke them out of their false refuge. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

If you brought a Bible with you tonight, friends, turn to the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 25. We would deal tonight with the parable of the and foolish virgins. Here now is the word of God.

May the spirit of the Lord attend the reading of his holy word. This is Jesus talking. Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened 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 the vessels with their lamps. Oh, while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh.

Go ye out to meet him. Well, let me pause here, friends, to say it was a custom among the Jews that the bridegroom came, attended with his friends late in the night to the house of the bride, where she expected him, attended with her bridesmaids, who, upon notice given of the bridegroom's approach, were to go out with lamps in their hands to light the way for him into the house. The bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ, who at present is tarrying his return.

Right now that bridegroom is tarrying, but he will come as a thief in the night when you least expect it, meaning he could come any time now. Are you prepared to meet him? Our text says the five foolish virgins were not prepared. They were unprepared.

Oh, friends, listen to me. All these women were professed believers. They were like members of a church, each believing they had an assurance of heaven.

But 50 percent of them, half of them were deceived and lost. Imagine a church of 100 people, where half of them are yet unconverted individuals, or worse, a church of 3,000 members, which 1,500 will go to hell when they die and not heaven because they're just deceived. Dr. R.G. Lee, the former famous pastor of the huge Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, shocked the Southern Baptist Convention one year when he announced that he felt only 10 percent of his people had an experiential knowledge of Christ Jesus.

90 percent were lost in his opinion and going to hell. In verse 10 of our text, we see that half of the virgins were ready, and they went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. The shut door represents the end of the day of grace.

It's now judgment time, where a tree falls, there it shall lay. 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. When the bridegroom comes back, you'll be too late then, friend, to get saved, because if you're lost, you'll just be damned.

Notice how Jesus responds to the unconverted church member. Afterward came also the other virgin, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, fairly, I say unto you, I know you not.

But Lord, Lord, I'm not bad enough to go to hell. I'm a good person. I've been a member of a church for 20 years.

Lord, Lord, I'm a deacon in a Baptist church. Lord, Lord, I sing to you in a choir each Sunday. You've seen me there.

Lord, Lord, I deserve heaven, because I've never robbed a liquor store or killed anybody. Lord, Lord, I'm a good Methodist. Lord, Lord, I walked an aisle for you when I was a youth.

I repeated the sinner's prayer. Didn't you hear me? Lord, Lord, I raised my hand when they asked us who wanted to become Christians. Too late, friend.

You're a day late and a dollar short. You've been sitting on a false foundation of an empty religious profession, and your day of grace is closed. It's judgment time, and you're a day late and a dollar short.

But Jesus answered, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

But Lord, Lord, I teach a Sunday school class. Lord, Lord, I'm a seminary professor. Lord, Lord, I'm the pastor of a big church.

Why, he runs three thousand on Sunday. No, you'll be too late then, friend. You're a day late and a dollar short, just like the others.

The unregenerate cannot get into heaven. Ye must be born again. The door of grace will be shut against you, just as solid as the door on the ark in Noah's day was closed to the antediluvians.

Once the rain came, it was too late. Dry as they may, as they clawed at it with their nails and pounded on it with their fists. It was all to no avail.

Their destiny in doom was sealed, just like your destiny in doom will be sealed if you are not truly born from above and washed in the blood. When the bridegroom returns, you will not be to offer pardon, but to carry out justice. When the Lord Jesus should be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord in the glory of his power.

Jesus came into the world doing good. Jesus healed the sick. Jesus gave sight to the blind.

Jesus even raised the dead to life. Yet what happened? Men cried away with him and nailed him to a cross. Look, look at that blessed man on the cross, friend.

Look at that man on the cross. See him there with his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to him and believe on him. Look at that bloodstained savior for sin as he squirms and struggles under the terrible weight of sin, my filthy sins, your dirty sins.

When all is against him, his love flows out to a world of guilty sinners. The cross is the place where men sought to get rid of him. But by his death, it becomes the place where his saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners and own them as their savior and Lord.

If you've not trusted this blessed savior, receive him now before it's too late. Soon he will come in judgment on the world when his anger shall burn as an oven, and then you shall meet him as your judge. And you'll stand there, friend, a day late and a dollar short, and there'll be hell to pay.

Come to Jesus, friend, and lay your sin burden down at his nail-pierced feet. What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for, mister? Don't wait until you're better. Come.

Come to Jesus, young lady. Come to Jesus for forgiveness of sin. Bring to him your troubles.

Bring to him your fears. Bring to him your heartache. Come.

Come. He will soon return. Then it's too late.

It'll be too late then, friend.