SCRIPTURE READING: II Peter 2:4-9:

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;

And did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

And if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter;

And if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men

(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds),

then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment . . . .

Last week this nation suffered a terrible loss. Our civil liberties and institutions were directly threatened, our sense of national security received a slap in the face. But more importantly thousands of innocent lives were lost—we don’t even know exactly how many yet. But from this national tragedy we can learn several things: FIRST, from the threat on our national institutions—we must take heed. This nation has been wallowing in unrighteousness and God punishes the unrighteous. SECOND, from the people who died so suddenly and unexpectedly—we must be prepared. For we know not the day nor the hour when our own lives will be extinguished.

I never thought I’d say this from the pulpit, but Jerry Falwell made a poignant observation last Friday on The 700 Club with Pat Robertson. I have here the story as reported on ABCNews.com, where his quote is this:

"Throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools," he said. "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad . . . The pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America," Falwell continued, "I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’"

Of course, those Falwell mentioned, as well as various conservative political groups and even the White House condemned Falwell for sowing the seeds of destruction and disunity at such a time as this.

Elizabeth Birch, a prominent spokeswoman for gay and lesbian causes, called the remarks, "Beyond contempt," and further said "they were irresponsible at best, and a deliberate attempt to manipulate the nation’s anger at worst." In response, Falwell relented to some degree, saying he was misquoted. Ms. Birch took this as an attempt to promote violence against these individuals, I imagine. But even if he had been clearer on the point that this is a time for the unrighteous to REPENT, I believe her response would have been the same. The ungodliness she fights daily glorify was condemned as turning God’s disfavor toward this country.

It would be false to suggest that it was God’s hand that steered those planes into those buildings—indeed, any thoughts toward God’s specific goals and intentions for this nation can only be made through our own speculation. It would be outright error to say that the United States is God’s Chosen People—the new Israel. In the early does of this country especially, that was a popular view, part of "Manifest Destiny." But we do know, from Acts 17:26, that God has determined every nation’s "appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation." I’m reminded of a sermon preached by Bro. Rick Duggin here last spring, a sermon from Daniel 5, in which God determined the downfall of the Babylonian Empire in the length of ONE verse of scripture. Without an arrow fired, world powers changed hands, because GOD said to Babylon, "Time’s up!"

Psalm 9:17: The wicked will return to Sheol, even all nations who forget God.

Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Proverbs 16:12: It is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness, for a throne is established on righteousness.

We have the examples cited in the scripture reading moments ago: angels, the world population of Noah’s time, Sodom and Gomorrah . . . God destroys the corrupt. In every case, God’s providential control was determined by THEIR moral character. I would encourage you to read and study Ezekiel 32—there we read a rogue’s gallery of condemned nations, ringing out through the ages in Scripture: Egypt, Assyria, Elam, Meshech, Tubal, and all their multitude, Edom and its kings, the Sidonians, "ALL of them slain, fallen by the sword, who went down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, who instilled their terror in the land of the living, and bore their disgrace with those who went down to the pit" (v.24).

In 1997, Americans aborted 1,184,758 babies. I assume Mr. Falwell’s figure of 44 million is a more recent statistic. In all but a few of our states, government institutions are funded by the greed and covetousness of its citizens through lotteries. The divorce rate hovers at 50%. It is now YOU, and not the homosexual, who is a social outcast. And churches everywhere are responding to this self-serving atmosphere by closing Bibles, turning on the coffee maker, and making a religion out of patting one another on the back.

As Bro. Duggin said in his sermon, if God DOESN’T smite this nation for its wickedness, He’ll have to go back through history apologizing to Sidon, Edom, Assyria, Egypt . . .

Jonah walked the streets of Ninevah, crying out, "Yet forty days and Ninevah will be overthrown" (Jonah 3:4). We as Christians ought to recognize the lessons learned from Holy Scripture. And in our prayers for the grieving families and for the safety of our own families, it serves our interest to pray in repentance, to pray that this nation might turn from its path, and that God might spare us for a while longer. As Christians we recognize that all things happen to the glorification of God. We ought to regard this as a wake-up call. Our freedoms were affronted by terrorism last Tuesday. These freedoms we are blessed with, these freedoms we so often pray for and thank God for . . . we’d better USE them!

As the second part of this morning’s lesson, I want to present a simple lesson that could be used as we exercise our freedom to spread the gospel. A lesson we can reflect on from the thousands of lives that were taken in a flash of light and a cloud of dust. As news comes in, they’ve been reporting that people who were trapped in the buildings and held prisoner on the planes were communicating with their friends and loved ones through e-mail and cell phone calls. This is an advantage of modern technology I don’t imagine many of us have ever thought about—these people were given a second chance to say "I love you" before they died. Those individuals on the air planes especially were given a unique opportunity—they were told they were going to die, and then they had time to deal with that. Put yourself in a similar situation: "WHAT IF YOU HAD ONLY ONE DAY TO LIVE?"

This brings to mind the story of a king, Hezekiah, from II Kings 20.

II Kings 20:1-3: In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’"

Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying,

"Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Thy sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

When Hezekiah was told he was to die, he reacted by looking back over his life, by praying to God, and by weeping bitterly. If you had one day to live, what would you do?

I. First of all I imagine there are several things that we would NOT do if we had only one day to live.

1) We wouldn’t try to serve two masters.

Matthew 6:24, 33: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you."

I don’t imagine any of us would go in to work. We would be seeking after the Lord’s kingdom. The troubles of this world would rightly be on the back burner. Where are they now?

2) We wouldn’t put things off until tomorrow.

Acts 24:25: And as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, "Go away for the present, and when I find time, I will summon you."

James 4:17: Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.

How many "right things" would we get done? Would the time spent on doing the Lord’s work be greater than the time spent watching TV? We wouldn’t be "too busy" to get things done. We’d MAKE time.

3) I wouldn’t do questionable things. Given one day to live, I imagine the debate over gray areas would diminish significantly. In that light, what we ought to do, and the spirit we are to look at the world in, would be crystal clear. No need for argument. That resembles unrighteousness, I don’t want any part of it. I don’t belong there, I’m going to see God tonight. That joke’s not funny, I’m appalled that you would waste my time and precious oxygen telling me something I’m going to be ashamed to relate to my Heavenly Father this evening. The lines of black and white would get drawn out real quick. We wouldn’t do questionable things.

4) Nor would we remain undecided. We’d be as the Christians at Berea in Acts 17:11, "for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so." I wouldn’t knowingly face death with uncertainty.

II. What WOULD We Do If We Had Only One Day?

1) I imagine first we’d do as Isaiah instructed Hezekiah. We’d set our houses in order. We’d ensure that our families would be taken care of. We’d find someone to take care of the kids, we’d secure our finances, make sure they had access to whatever we’d leave behind.

2) We’d probably search ourselves as never before.

II Corinthians 13:5: Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?

Probably not once in that one day would we be critical of other individuals—we’d be looking at ourselves, grieving over lost opportunities, wasted years . . . wanting the chance to do it all again. And in light of what we’d find from our self-examinations we’d probably . . .

3) Study God’s word as never before. If we knew at the end of the day we’d face God, the author of our salvation, we would indeed "study to show ourselves approved unto God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed" (II Tim. 2:15). And, brethren, that’s a test we don’t need to be cramming for.

4) We’d pray as never before. I Thessalonians 5:17, "pray without ceasing," wouldn’t be such a difficult command to keep. God would hear from every one of us, and I wonder how familiar our voices would be to Him? We would pray as hard as we could.

5) We would become Christians. When I was in seventh grade, it was becoming ever clearer that my station in life was hopeless. There wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t aware that if I died outside of Christ there was no salvation for me. I knew what I needed to do, but when the preacher would say the words, "If there are any here" and I’d hear the Bibles shuffling closed and the song books scraping from the racks, my stomach would sink down to the soles of my feet and my heart would race . . . and I’d find SOME excuse to not go forward and be baptized. If we had only one day, I don’t imagine we’d trifle over what song was being sung or on whether or not we were really ready to give up certain things and live the life of a Christian.

Acts 26:28: And Agrippa replied to Paul, "In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian."

I’d imagine Agrippa would have hopped up out of that seat if he knew he was going to die that day. We would let nothing hinder us from being baptized.

6) We’d set things right with the brethren. Or anyone we harbored a grudge against. What’s a grudge when you have such a short time left on this earth?

7) We’d live our last day as faithful as we know how. What if services were being held? What if it were a Wednesday? Would we find time to make it to church? I know I would. And regardless of whether I could remember anything specific or not, I’d be on that front pew at the invitation. We’d take advantage of the gift of God’s kingdom on that last day.

Proverbs 27:1: Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

Live each day as if it is your last. Be diligent to spread the gospel as you know you should. As a citizen of the Lord’s kingdom, exercise your responsibility. As a citizen of the United States, exercise your RIGHT . . . and save this perverse and wicked generation before God says, "Time’s up!"
 
 

I. Some Things We Would NOT Do

1. Try to serve two masters (Matt. 6:24, 33).

2. Put off until tomorrow the things of today (Eccles. 12:1; Acts 24:25; James 4:17; Heb. 3:13, 15).

3. Would not do questionable things.

4. Would not remain undecided (Acts 17:11).

II. What would we do if we had only one day?

1. Set houses in order (II Kings 20:1).

2. Search self as never before (II Cor. 13:5).

3. Study God’s word as never before (II Tim. 2:15).

4. Pray as never before (I Thes. 5:17).

5. Become Christian if not one (Acts 26:28).

6. Get right with brethren if wrong with them. Not important to harbor grudges.

7. Be as faithful as I know how. If service in progress—be there. Christ is most important institution—Why?—Christ is the Savior of it.