A time to be born and a time to die

Now before I speak to you, we'll speak to the Lord in prayer. We'll pray. Our Father, we thank you for everyone in this meeting tonight that is truly built on the rock.

And we thank you, our Father, we can so happily sing this hymn together tonight. We think of the Lord Jesus when he spoke himself. He spoke of a man that would build upon the sand.

He spoke of the judgment coming, the rains descending, the floods, and the house fell. And our Father, we thank that he spoke of himself as being that rock. The man that built upon the rock, his house stood firm.

And our Father, all our builders for eternity, all our travelers to eternity, and all will be in eternity. So Lord, it lends a solemn note to an occasion like this when we mount a platform again for the purpose of preaching the gospel. We pray that God will afford us help tonight from thyself.

And we pray that the of God may go from heart to heart. We do not know these people tonight. It wouldn't matter if we did know them.

We don't know them like God knows them. God knows their hearts. He holds their very breath in his hand.

We pray, our Father, that there might be breath from God tonight, that there might be a newborn one here, one to come to realize their need of a Savior and Christ as their Savior. We ask as we give thanks in the Savior's name. Amen.

I would like to read with you or to you from the book of Ecclesiastes. Now, that's in the Old Testament, Psalms, Proverbs. The Psalms are usually in the middle of your Bible, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes in chapter 3, Ecclesiastes chapter 3. And the verse for reading is verse number 2, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

I simply want to read those first words to you again. There's a total of 10 words, a time to be born and a time to die. Paul, the Apostle Paul said he would rather speak five words with his understanding that with my voice, he said, I might teach others than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue.

And I think that I've read to you tonight or with you 10 words or two sets of fives in a known tongue. Nobody can argue with this verse tonight. A time to be born and a time to die.

I went into the house of a man and his future son-in-law was doing his degree at university and we started talking along these lines and he said, wait a minute. Only fair, he said, for you to understand there isn't a word that I believe in that book you call the Bible. I said, are you certain about that? He said, I'm certain.

I said, can I read you just some words from it? He says, you can read me what you like. He said, I still don't believe it. So I read him these 10 words, time to be born and a time to die.

I said, do you believe that? Well, yeah, he says. Well, I said, I thought you didn't believe a word in the Bible. What happened? I said, the reason that you consent to believing them is because you are forced to.

My friend, we are forced to believe there's a time to die. Just as certain as we are, there's a time to be born. A famous speaker one time said this.

He said, you were born, that's big stuff. You die, that's bigger stuff. And in between is small stuff.

I can't concur with that. Between the time to be born and the time to die, there must be a moment, my friend, of preparation in a person's life. In other words, when it comes to dying, you make sure that's all you've got to do.

Make sure there's nothing else that's got to be put in order, nothing else attended to, nothing else looked after, but just dying. In fact, you are not ready. This Bible would teach, your Bible, my Bible, any Bible would teach you that we are not ready to live until we're ready to die, until you know where you're going.

In a nursing station on the aseptic floor, there was a little note put up. Actually, it was kind of a plaque, and it said this, be careful. It was addressing the nurses.

Be careful. It said, the first few minutes of life are very important. And somebody added a postscript and posted it to that and said, and remember that the last moments in life are very important too.

The Bible says, it's depicted on the chart here, and as it is pointed out, the man wants to die after this, the judgment. There are certain appointments in life we can get around. We get out of them.

We just don't go. I had a man that I used to preach with a lot by the name of Peter Orszag, no one to a number here. They've heard him, his testimony likely on CD, and he did not like the dentist.

Now, I don't know anybody that likes the dentist. I've never saw a kid yet, or myself, get up in the morning and say, great, I'm going to the dentist today. Isn't this fantastic? None of us like going to the dentist.

Well, maybe I should take that back. My wife says it doesn't bother me, because I'll be honest with you. I sit in Dr. Tom Steffel's chair.

He's working one day. He's a big military dental man, and I fell asleep. And he hit me on the cheek and said, hey, you still with us? I said, I'm here.

He said, doesn't bother you. I said, no. I said, yeah, I trust you.

But listen, friend, you can cancel it on the dentist, okay? You can tell the doctor you're not coming. You can tell any other appointment not be there. But my friend, there comes a moment when you don't tell death, I'm not home.

Death does not need 911 to find your address. It does not need a GPS to search out where you live. Just as sure as you are alive tonight is proof positive that you must die.

The great question is, and the purpose of a gospel meeting like this, is for you to know where you will be on the other side of that pillar of death. You see, we're on what I call the acting side of eternity, where we make decisions, where we live. But really, when it comes to the other side, you know, that pillar on that chart looks so stationary, so static, but it's not.

Every 24 hours, just as that sun rises and sets, that pillar of death does a sweep across that broad way that the Lord Jesus spoke about and takes thousands into eternity. And someday, some night, you and I will be the same. There are two inseparable statements.

You cannot separate these statements, a time to be born and a time to die. Coming back to the apostle, he said, I want to speak five words in a known tongue rather than 10,000 in an unknown tongue. Let's deal with the first five, a time to be born.

It's significant, significant that in the Bible, our birth is very seldom referred to. Very little is spoken about birthdays. Now, I know there is some, but very little is mentioned about a birth.

But look at how much our death is referred to, how much a person's death is referred to. When life is over, even the Lord Jesus himself, and not taking anything away from Christmas, but even the Lord Jesus himself did not speak a lot about his birth, but he spoke so much about his death. He would speak about his birth upon it.

He said, to this end was I born, for this cause came I into the world to bear witness of the truth. And he went to Calvary's cross and he died so that you and I could know our sins forgiven and be ready to die. But not a lot is mentioned about his birth, a lot mentioned about his death.

Again, not a lot of mention about our birth, but a lot about our death. Now, let me ask you tonight, are you prepared for it? Oh, you see, I'm just a young person and I'm not old like you are, some of these people in the meeting tonight. Just a minute.

Outside of Windsor, Ontario, because I knew a policeman that was on the investigation. He was there when it was happening. When the highway 401, just a little to the east of Windsor, Ontario, was shrouded in fog and there was a 40 to 50 car pile up and include transports, cars, and everything else.

It was a horrific crash. And there was very few that lost their life. There's a lot of injuries, but there was one 13-year-old girl in the midst of that inferno.

She was trapped in the wreckage and she screamed out that everybody could hear. Can nobody help me? I'm only 13. Do I have to die? And she died.

She died. Nobody could get to her. Thirteen.

Thirteen. That's pretty young. You say, well, I'm not 13 yet.

Listen, there are other preachers in this meeting tonight will tell you that they've taken the funerals of people from months old to up in their late 90s. It's appointed unto men once to die. But coming back to the subject of the birth of time, to be born.

You know, we speak and rightly so. We have them for our children, we have them for our grandchildren. Now and then I think I'm too busy, they call me up, they say, listen, we got to go over.

So-and-so is having his birthday. Oh, wow, here we go. Can I go over to this birthday party? It's a big, thrilling time.

And we sing happy birthday. Why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we? But not every birth into this world is a happy one. I've had to visit homes where birth had taken place.

It was a very sad occasion. Something went wrong in that birth. That child would only live a few years and be gone.

Some of them are gone. Others are close to going. Why is that? Why is it that we have hoped that the design of our heart is that every birth would be a happy one? How come it isn't? Because of sin coming into the world.

You see, we would look at situations like that and we'd say this, what went wrong? We'd look at somebody and say, I'm a stake in nature. I had a little place I had meetings in a rural area when I first moved to New Brunswick a number of years ago. I found out the lady I was going to visit was the lady that did the cake decorating for the local bakery.

She had artistic capabilities I've never seen in my life. Tremendous. And I've seen some of the cakes on display.

People go to pick them up. I went into her house this day and she was doing this huge cake. And knowing that there's some pretty prominent people that live in our town, they're called Sussex.

I said, wow, who's the cake for? Oh, she said, that's for our daughter. I said, that's great. When mom could decorate a cake for her own daughter.

Yeah, she said, it is. She said, she's a special girl. I said, oh, that's nice.

And I knew nothing. At that point, at that point, and I won't elaborate because there's children in the meeting tonight. She pulled the door around.

I saw a sight I will never forget. Just let me say, I saw a girl nine years of age with a very, very enlarged head. And they were actually celebrating her birth.

Mom was decorating the cake. How could that be a happy occasion? Do you know the only reason that that could be a happy occasion is if that girl had never come to the consciousness of her need and was covered by the blood of Christ, could it be a happy occasion? You know, if you and I had gone with the Lord Jesus and his teaching and looked at different people he came upon, we'd say the same thing. Isn't that too bad? Why was that man born with that arm like that? Because of sin coming into the world.

Why did that happen? You know who usually gets the blame? God gets blamed for it, by the way. Man should take the blame. It's man's sin.

It's our sin that causes that. The Lord Jesus said it. Remember the people would say, who did sin? This man or his parents? The Lord Jesus said, no.

It's not a case of either one of them committing sin. It's because sin has come into the world. But let me tell you something.

Of all the people the Lord Jesus came in contact with, of every person that he saw, if you want to call it a mistake of nature, you can call it that. Not once did the Savior hang his head and say, I'm too bad that happened. I'm sorry.

And he was sorry that sin came into the world. It grieved him. Not once did he hang his head and say, better that person wasn't born.

On one occasion he did. Do you know who he said that about? As far as I know, one of the keenest minds there ever was. A man that was too sharp for his own good.

A man that had every capability of anybody in this meeting tonight. His name was Judas. And when he went out, the Lord Jesus said these words, better that man was never born.

Do you hear what he said? Better that man was never born. Do you know why? Because he died without knowing the Savior as such. My friend, if you die as successful as you might want to be or will be or lack of it, if you die without a Savior, the Lord Jesus would say the same thing of you, sir, the same thing of you, lady, boy, girl, he'd say, better you were never born.

My father's not a hard man, not as hard a man as you would think of you, madam. I think I only had seen my father cry twice in his life. Once was when a little girl, a sister, nine months old died.

I can remember the undertaker coming to our home. Myself and my brother would have been about 11, nine years of age. The undertaker was related to the family, Lyle Sifton, big tall fella.

Mom told us the car was coming. We were waiting. We were watching.

Sure enough, in that maple tree driveway, that black car came. Lyle Sifton walked out of it. He opened the back doors of that hearse and he just put under his arm a little wee white casket, not much whiter than this podium.

He brought it into the house to a table that was waiting for it in the living room and he put it down and he opened it up. Went over to my mother, he said, Ruth, I'm very sorry. Went over to my father, said, Alan, I'm sorry, and he walked out with tears in his eyes.

That was the undertaker. Undertakers seldom cry. My father took us, both boys, up to that little casket.

He was not trying to be hard. He said to my brother, Tim, and I said, boys, I've got to tell you something. He says, if you don't get saved, if you never trust the Savior, better that you died when Rhoda died.

I never forgot it. Never forgot it. So you say, well, you have painted a pretty morbid picture about our first birth.

You know something? I have to agree with you, I have. I want to tell you something. God did not stand back in the shadows because of sin coming into the world and say, there's mankind.

Well, it's a happy birth, but he messed it up because of sin. Let him literally grovel in his own sin. Let him stay with it.

Let him have it. Let him sleep in the bed that he's made. Let him learn the error of his way.

God didn't do that. God's too loving. The Bible says, 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.

What did God do? He brought another birth into this world. You know what it's called? It's called the new birth. And he picked up five more words.

Here's what they are. Ye must be born again. It's like God superimposed the truth of the new birth.

And my friend, there's everything to be happy about in the new birth. Everything. The Lord Jesus would tell people, he'd say, you know, you're from beneath, but I'm from above.

And he spoke of this new birth as coming from above. And he said, if a person has it, they'll never die. They'll never suffer for their sin.

They'll never be in hell. They'll never be in the lake of fire. But said the Lord Jesus to the most religious man of his day, the heavy fackle and everything going for him, he looked at him and said, ye must be born again.

Are you born again tonight? Are you? When did it happen? How were you born again? How were you born into God's family? I will never forget the night I was saved. I have to admit to you, I was not so much thinking about being born again as such, but I was just realized that night I was a lost sinner. Do you ever realize that? I know you don't like being asked if you're saved.

A lot of people aren't comfortable with that. I've got family, extended family members, and they're not comfortable with it. Are you comfortable with that? It doesn't matter whether you are or not, friend.

You've got to be born again to be in heaven because Jesus said it. Ye must be born again. And my friend, sin cannot touch that birth.

Sin cannot bring it down. It can't ruin it. It can't end it.

The Bible speaks of it as being born of God. You say, well, how's that happen? The moment, the moment, my friend, that a person places faith in what Christ has done, takes God at His word, believes the Savior for who He is, God declares them saved. Wonderful thing to be saved.

Wonderful to be born again. You born again tonight? Do you have what it needs for the next life? I'm reminded of flying into Toronto one time and picking up a, I used to be a bad newspaper reader, still am, picked up a Toronto Star. I remember across it was a picture of a lady and a very distraught look on her face.

And I thought, boy, what's happened? She's lost a family member or something. The story went on to tell that she'd flown back in from Miami. And by the Canadian customs that really aren't all that hard and certainly not as strict as the United States has in your country is very, every good reason to be very, very strict on who comes into their country.

He asked the lady for, back then, not even a passport. He asked her for a birth certificate. She handed in a driver's license and he thought she misunderstood him and said to her, I need a birth certificate.

She handed in an OHIP card, which is Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan card with her picture on it. Ma'am, he says I need a birth certificate. She handed him one other piece of identification.

He just shook his head. There was a reporter from the Toronto Star standing right there. Do you know what he said? He said, I watched.

He said, I watched that woman nervously fumble through her purse for something she knew she did not have. She didn't have a birth certificate. She wasn't born in Canada.

You say, what happened? She didn't get in. You weren't either, friend. You've got to have the birth certificate for heaven.

You must be born again. You must be saved. So has that happened? Oh, you say, yes, I was baptized.

That's what my wife thought, too. Until she heard the gospel, learned that baptism will not take you to heaven. You say, well, I go to church.

I'm a church member and people understand a lot about me. They may understand that about you, friend, but are you born again? Do you have the only prerequisite for heaven stated by the Lord Jesus Christ and again by Peter? Peter says, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible, of the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. All flesh is his grass.

The glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass withereth away, the flower thereof falleth away. The word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word by the which the gospel is preached unto you.

In between afternoon ministry meeting and this gospel meeting tonight, unfortunately, I received a picture of... I thought he was a friend. It was a picture of my wife and I and the family 30 years ago. You know what convinced me? I was born of corruptible seed.

Wow, I thought, man, what happened? You hardly know who it was, but my friend, that's my first birth. Because the sin coming into the world, it's taking its toll on it. But you know, I have a birth, born of the Spirit of God, born again, taking me to heaven.

And I'm going to tell you, there's no amount of birthdays that'll touch it. Nor do you have that tonight. You going to heaven? Isn't that wonderful? Isn't God kind? Really, when you think of it.

A birth that has been so messed up, planet wide, and God says, all right. It's almost like Numbers 21, isn't it? He doesn't take away the snakes, okay? He doesn't take away the bite of the first birth, but he gives us something better, a new birth for heaven. What about these last few words? And a time to die.

Five words again, time to die. You know, mankind has an awful hard time with the factor of death. Oh, I have to say that I speak from family experience just of recent.

I had a brother-in-law that died with no interest in the gospel at all. I spoke to him just before I came over to Wisconsin for gospel meetings. His sister, my wife, sat down and read him God's way of salvation, cover to cover, two days before he went into eternity.

No interest. Died, cremated, ashes put in an urn, and they're going to have a viewing. You know what the viewing was? An urn at the front of the table where everybody talked about everything else, what a great pipefitter he was in the union, elected and all that.

And they didn't even have what they have today. They call it a celebration of somebody's life. A celebration of life.

My friend, I've been into far more funeral homes than I want to. When I step out of the parking lot of a funeral home, you know what I'm reminded of? There's been a lot of tears that have fallen here whether we like it or not. I sit behind that undertaker's desk and I'm reminded, many a trembling hands reached up here to sign it.

Death on every hand. There's no such thing as this joyous moment in a person's death. People today have made a mockery of death, I'm sorry to say, a mockery of it.

I've been to it and you think it was an auction sale, and right with the body laid out there. These men all gathered around carrying on like you wouldn't believe. And you almost want to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, somebody's died here.

Are we paying respects or what are we doing here? So what about it? Mankind in general can pretend it is not so. Down a little place down in Nova Scotia that Scott knows very well, there's a lady decides she's going to defy death too. You know what she did? She had a band come to the hospital.

A little place called Greenwood, Nova Scotia. Just beyond it, there's a hospital there. I saw the yard where it happened.

And they came and they planted flamingos around and they had a party while she died in that hospital. Serious. Can you imagine? The mockery of it.

What's God think of something like that? Really? Did it change it? Did it change where she went? Oh, you see, that wouldn't be me. I've got more respect, sir. When it comes to dying, I've made arrangements and it's certainly not going to be like that.

And it might not. And you could die with absolute dignity, but are you going to die with Christ? Seriously. To die with Christ means to die with the new birth.

So when it comes to death, what did God do there? Did God again stand back and say, yes. Adam heard it from on down, it's been preached. As an Adam, all die.

For as by one man sin entered into the world, death by sin, death is passed upon all men, and then all have died. Let man go to it. Let him suffer in his sin.

Come on, you would have done that. That's our nature. That's our thinking.

Let him eat of the fruit of his own way. He sinned, he rebelled. Again, God is too loving.

Let me give you five more words that God did about death and put them right over top of the five words that says, and it's time to die. Christ died for the ungodly. Ah, the death of Christ, my friend, literally comes in and like a massive blanket goes over death itself to the point where the apostle says, you know what has happened because of the death of Christ? Oh, he said, we sorrow.

And we do. There's nothing wrong with soaring. But the apostle says, we don't sorrow like others do.

We're able to say, oh, death. Where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory? For a believer, now follow me. If you're not saved, you wouldn't understand it.

But for a believer, the death of Christ has literally reached in and taken that sting out of death. Now, I didn't like to lose my mother anymore. Anybody else likes to lose their mother.

I didn't like to lose my sister anymore. Anybody else likes to lose their sister. But my friend, I want to tell you, the sting was taken out of it.

I have to tell you, if there'd been a funeral, I'd have flown home from Ontario for the funeral. There's no funeral. The sting wasn't taken out of my brother-in-law's death.

My wife's other sister, my wife's sister, her only sister is Mrs. Walter Gustafson. She flew up the day before he died. The plane was late getting into Bangor, Maine.

Shirley picked her up, came back late that night. And Shirley said to her, Joan, her sister, Joan, you better go to the hospital and just see him. She went over and she wasn't sure if he knew she was there or not.

Next morning, they had breakfast together. Of course, I was out here in Ontario and had breakfast together. And Shirley said, listen, I'll do the dishes.

You go over and see Henry and I'll be right over. Okay, she says, I'll go over. And we live just behind the hospital.

She took her car, went up the street and Shirley's into her dishes. The phone rings. She picks it up.

She says, Shirley, our brother's gone. Our brother's gone. The doctor gave him a year and a half.

He didn't have a month and a half. He's gone. That sting was so bad, so bad.

My sister-in-law was there to see it all. Went home. It would take a week before it sunk in that my brother's gone and I may never see him again.

He's gone. She begged my wife to get on a flight, which she doesn't like doing, flying and go down to see her. Shirley boarded a plane, went down to comfort her sister as they comforted each other.

Why? My friend, there was a terrible sting in death when you die without Christ. My dear boy, girl, in this meeting tonight, you die without a savior. There'll be an awful sting in your death.

I have 64 first cousins come from large families, two large families. I remember that the family of more than one cousin. I was at the funeral of one cousin, this young boy.

I wish there'd been some hope left. There was no sting taken out of that death. My uncles, two of them are in heaven now, three of them are in heaven, four of them are in heaven now.

They're all there, big strong men. I used to respect those men. They're a lot of fun.

Not that day. Very sober. My aunts, who I loved, all standing there had been weeping.

Why? There's an awful sting in that death. Let me ask you, if you died tonight, boy, girl, if you died tonight, is there a sting taken out of your death because you've trusted Christ? If you pick up the paper, I was in Cashton the other day getting my hair cut. Of course, you come in and I know these barbers.

And good thing Mr. Elliott isn't around here. He'd be giving me a hard time after, because I'm working where he labored, by the way, and Mr. McCullough knows too. He said, where do you come from? I said, I come from Canada, eastern Canada.

I just waited. He said, what are you doing here? That's good enough. I said, I'm preaching the gospel down in Ontario.

Oh, he says, oh yeah, well, he said, I go to church too. I said, okay. And got talking.

He says, you know, I picked up the paper the other day. I said to my wife, I said, look, two of my customers are gone. I said, where'd they go? He said, I don't know where they went.

I said, well, they went somewhere. You said they're gone. Where'd they go? Oh, he says, I don't know.

I said, I'll tell you something. Forget his name now, Don, I think it was, I'm not sure. I said, listen, someday, a hundred people will pick up the paper and they'll say, the Cashton barber's gone.

And if they ask, where did he go? What can I tell him? Well, you see, just tell him I went to church, you know? No, no, my friend, that won't take it. That won't cut it. You got to be born again to go to heaven.

And I'm just getting over a haircut I had three weeks ago. I never learned you don't preach the barber when he's cutting your hair because it's anyhow. But listen, friend, as I close, can I just leave this with you? Two sets of fives and a set of five on top of them.

Time to be born. He must be born again. Time to die.

Christ died for the ungodly.