McNeil, William: Almost Lost But Saved ~ Luke 24;39-43

Now, during the Sunday morning services of this month, we are seeking to consider characters from the Word of God that stand over in contrast, one against the other. For example, we considered one Sunday morning two brothers, Cain and Abel. And while they had every privilege on equal terms, nevertheless, one took the path of sin and rebellion, while the other took the path of faith. Last week we were considering not only two men who were brothers, but they were twin brothers. Twins. Yet one became a profane man, according to the Bible, and the other turned out to be a man of faith and was given honorable mention in Hebrews chapter eleven. Today, I want to consider two that stand out in contrast, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it's a woman. In the New Testament, it's a man. The woman was almost, almost saved, almost, but lost. The man in the New Testament was almost lost, but saved. Open your Bibles, please, if you have them with you, at the book of Genesis chapter nineteen. Genesis chapter nineteen. Look at verse twenty three, Verse twenty three. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Now we're going to turn over to the New Testament and find what the Lord had to say about this in the Gospel according to Luke. The Gospel according to Luke, chapter seventeen. Gospel according to Luke chapter seventeen verse twenty eight. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away. He that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife. Down over a few pages to chapter twenty three, the Gospel according to Luke. We'll read now about a man who was almost lost, but saved. Gospel according to Luke, chapter twenty three verse thirty nine. One of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. For the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? We indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man had done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. I'm sure the Lord have blessed us the reading of the scriptures. Let us bow for prayer. Our Father, again we turn to thee, beseeching thee that thou wilt look down in mercy upon each of us. Grant that the words that have been read from the sacred page may be written indelibly upon all our hearts, that we may think of these words not as the words of men, but as they truly are, the word of the eternal God, by thy spirit convict and lead to conversion today. So we ask it, giving thanks in the Savior's name. Amen. It's an awful tragedy when people are almost saved and then are lost. It often happens. I don't know what the first impressions would be with your mind when you were brought face to face with someone dying. I was just a little boy, and I saw a man dragged out of the water. He should not have been in, of course. He'd been having a heavy lunch, and on top of that, he had had some liquor, and he had no right going into the fresh water. But with the others, he went in swimming. He was a stranger. He didn't understand the pool where he was swimming in the river. He was caught under. By the time they got him out and got some assistance, I watched them work with him for nearly two hours. And then the doctor rose and said something to the policeman, and they threw the sheet over him. We were standing up on the other embankment, and I saw a lady standing at my side. I knew the woman. Quite a crowd had gathered. I saw tears coming down her face. She says, what a shame, what a shame. I had those older people saying he's gone. That doctor and a policeman and a first aid man, they all worked with him in turns, seeking to give artificial respiration, but he's gone. Almost. He was almost saved, they did the best, but it wasn't enough. Not far from that spot where that man was drowned, it was my turn one day to be pulled out. Perhaps I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing, but you know what boys are. I took a picture of the place the last time I was home. There was a pool, pretty deep at one side. The bigger fellas used to go in there swimming, but on the other side it was sandy, and the sand and was like an embankment. It was just covered with about, oh, anything from um two inches of water to about a foot of water there, and then all of a sudden it went down. But as boys, we love to run back and forward on that sand, you know, and splash in the water, but I must have got too near the edge somehow, and the sand caved in, and so did I. And there I was. I couldn't swim at that time. It's about three or four years after that before I learned how to swim, but there I was. I think I told some of you once before, it was a cousin of mine who stretched out and caught me with something I haven't got now, and uh, she held on until others came and took me out. That same place carried the name of a boy who had been drowned there before. Now I was almost, almost lost, but saved physically at that time. But what I'm thinking about today from these passages of scripture we've read has to do with our eternal salvation. Our relationship to God. Here was a woman who could have been saved. She might have been saved. She was almost saved, but yet lost. She became a monument to warn others, and that's exactly what the Lord said about her here, as recorded in Luke's Gospel, chapter seventeen. And watch this very carefully. When the Lord Jesus Christ brings in the name of Lot's wife, remember Lot's wife. When he makes mention of that woman, he's dealing with a condition of things that's going to develop in this earth at a certain time. He's referring to a time when the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come back in power and glory under the title the Son of Man. Now, in case you don't know, let me emphasize this, that before ever that time comes, he's coming first of all to the air to take away his own, the redeemed. Those that have already trusted him will go. Whether you like to believe it or not, my friends, you've got to face this fact. This world is not getting any better. Economically, we're not getting any better. It's no use being like the ostrich and sticking our head down in the sand and saying, no, it's not happening. It is. The powers that be are afraid of what's coming. They've got our number, you know. They've got your number, all right. They know exactly who you are. Before long, they'll be telling you how much you can spend. They've almost done that already. They don't tell you, they just act, and that's it. You don't have much left. A little while they'll be telling you what you can do, what you can't do. They've got their number. They're ready to take full control of the economy of the world, and you know it. Morally, morally, this world is not getting any better, in spite of all the programs of education, in spite of all the advances of science, in spite of all the knowledge of medical science, there's more disease and trouble in the world today than ever before. And there are certain things for which they do not have a cure, and it's obvious they will never have a cure for them. Morally, this world is going down, and that's exactly what the Lord is referring to in the gospel according to Luke chapter seventeen. As it was, so shall it be. I suppose if someone today was to outline to you the condition of things that prevailed in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding area, you would say, oh, I'm thankful, I'm thankful I didn't live there. I'm thankful I wasn't born in that part. My friend, listen. We don't need to go there today to find the features of Sodom and Gomorrah. We've got them right here in the United States of America. And the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah has been legalized in our own land. Yet we are supposed to be one of the civilized countries of the world. Oh, we are way high above others. Well, now, if that's true, I'm glad I don't live in the others, but it's bad enough here. See, the Lord says, as it was, so shall it be. And he's telling us exactly, as it were, the condition of things that prevailed then, and he's telling us what will prevail in the end time here. Then he gives the warning of a sudden destruction, and he says, remember Lot's wife, a woman who was almost saved but lost, or her husband was saved, dragged out, as it were, saved as by fire. Dragged out by the hand of an angel. And her two daughters got out of Sodom, but it seems that Sodom never got out of her two daughters. They carried the character of Sodom with them, and we're suffering from it today. Here was a woman then, look at her companion in life. By her marriage, she became related to Abraham, the man who was called the friend of God. Abraham, a man who believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. A man who was the great man of faith, he occupies, as it were, more space in Hebrews chapter eleven than any of the other characters who are mentioned. Outstanding man of faith, Abraham. She became related to him by marriage. You see, she married the nephew of Abraham. And while it's true he was the nephew of Abraham, it's just as equally true, as it were, that Abraham put his arm around his neck and reared him, as it were, as if he were his own son. Brought in, as it were, to a good family. You might not be able to tell it by reading about Lot, but the fact is the Bible says he was a righteous man. He vexed, he vexed his righteous soul by what he heard and the things that were done down in Sodom. Nevertheless, he was a righteous man. So she had a companion in life that should have been a help to her, but obviously he was a hindrance. To use a word that we use at the present time, at that time, Lot was what you and I would call a backslider. He may have professed to be all right, but he wasn't acting it out. And you know, no backslider is a help to anybody. He lost his testimony. He lost his all when the judgment of God fell. Nevertheless, here she was in that awful predicament. And one day, she had a call. She heard a message. It's a wonderful thing when we're able to give our ear to the message of God. Escape for thy life. Tarry not in all the plain. Get out of it. The judgment of God is about to fall. It's not popular today to speak about coming judgment. Let us imagine for a moment that we could have been picked up, taken over, dropped down in Japan, away back in nineteen forty five. Suppose I had gone to Hiroshima, and I collected together a number of people and said, now look, I have a message for you. I've got inside information. There's a plane coming over here tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be your last day in this city. There's a plane coming over, and your planes will not be able to prevent it. And at a certain time tomorrow, they're going to drop one little bomb, just one little bomb, that's all, and your city will be obliterated with all the population. They would have looked at me and said, that's silly. How could one bomb destroy the whole city, when already during this war they've been dropping hundreds and hundreds of them on certain cities in Britain and in Germany, and the next day, what just goes on just the same? Nothing like that has ever happened before. But the morning dawned as usual. People got up and went to business as usual. The city was all a bustle. And the bomb fell, and you know the rest. You know the rest. You see, my friend, it's like the boy who cried wolf, of course, hmm. There came the time when he wouldn't listen. It may be that people have listened and listened and heard the message for years, especially the truth concerning God going to intervene again and the Lord will come back, and they've said, oh, we've heard that for, for years now, they've been preaching it, and it hasn't happened. No, but it will. It will. Escape for your life. This world is doomed, like Sodom and Gomorrah, waiting the day when God will act in judgment. Oh, she heard the message, all right. She knew the circumstances. She came right to the door, right to the gate of the city, and here she stands at the crossroads of life and death. Her husband is going on as the angel is dragging them out. What is she going to do? Will she go on with Lot? Will she go on with the angel? Will she go on with the daughters to the place of safety? But back there, our home, all our belongings, all our worldly goods and shackles were there in Sodom. And most of her family back there. Her sons were back there, and their wives. A divided family! Some of them back in Sodom, three of them going on to the place of refuge and safety. She stands at the crossroads. But watch, the vital thing was this, her heart was back there in Sodom. She wanted Sodom. She liked it in Sodom. It suited her. Her desires were there. And instead of going on to the place of salvation, she could have been saved. She turned back, and the judgment of God fell, and she was numbered with the lost. Almost, almost saved, but lost. What a tragedy. But it need not be that way. The Lord says, remember Lot's wife. In plain words, he wants us to sit down and consider these facts. She stands out, as I have said, as a monument of warning, warning men and women of the awful outcome of resisting and rejecting God. He that believeth on the Son have life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. There's no neutrality here. There's no middle course. Over in contrast to that now, here is a man who was almost lost, but saved. There's not a time I think of this man, but my mind goes back many, many years. I was away from home at the time, working up in the big city, and I was living in a home where there was another two people like myself who had rooms there. We used to sit at night and talk occasionally. He was quite a religious fellow, this too, a good living fellow, you would say, meant well. But he says to me, he says, Bill, do you mean to tell me, he said, that you believe what they teach in those mission halls? So what do you mean? Well, he said, do you believe this story about a man who was a thief? And he lived all his days as a robber. But just in his closing moments, he asked to be forgiven, and that man gets to heaven. While some folks who live good lives, don't do anybody any harm, that if they don't get this thing you call conversion, that they'll go to hell? I said, that's what I believe. And he sneered and he scoffed. No, no, he said, I don't believe that. Well, and I said, you see, I believe the Bible. A man doesn't get to heaven because he was a good living man. You see, the point is this, when you come to consider this man, the thief, it's perfectly true he was living a life of rebellion. He was against the law. He was against the establishment. And perhaps, you know, if you go into the matter, he may have had some, some valid reason for it. After all, it seems to me he was a Jew. You can tell that by what he said. And if he was a Jew, he was living under the heel of Rome. You see, at that time, it was the Roman power that had control over the Middle East. And some of the people who were in high places, such as Herod, was an Edomite, a sworn enemy of the Jews. So think of the circumstances in which the man was living, and perhaps, uh, he didn't have very much of the world's goods. So, like a lot of other people, he says there's only one way of doing it. I'll be like, uh, what we would say at present day language, I'll be another Robin Hood. I'll just steal from the rich to supply for the poor. I sometimes think there's a lot of Robin Hoods up in Washington or Baltimore, but they do it in a different way now, they legalize it. But he's going to take from the rich to supply for himself, and plain was he became a thief. Going to steal. Of course, if you don't want to call a man a thief, if he doesn't want to admit it, he just says, oh, I just appropriated that for my own use, that's all. It's a kindly way of saying I stole it. Appropriating it for your own use. He was a thief. He was against the establishment. He was living on his wits, but one day the law caught up with him, and we're introduced to him. No doubt he was there that morning. When that day dawned, he was in the condemned cell. The law had laid hold upon him, and no doubt the people around said, he's just got what's coming to him. After all, see what he's been doing in life. He was a thief and a robber, and he didn't mind who he pushed out of his way to get his end. He didn't care whether it was an old person or a sick person. If he wanted, he'd go to the house and take it, that's all. He got what was coming to him. He broke the law. But one day he was judged by the law, and the law condemned him to the cell. And in these days, they were cells. If you ever go to Rome, they'll show you a place there. They'll not guarantee that's the actual place where Paul was placed, but it said if it's not that room, it was one like it. These were cells. There was no way of getting out of them. I've seen some prisons where they used to put them into solitary confinement. I know one fellow was put to jail one day, said he'll never forget it. He hadn't broken the law. But he certainly wouldn't obey a certain law, that's all. He wouldn't obey it, he didn't break it. So they came along, the policeman came to him, he says, you don't need to put handcuffs on me, sir. So I'll just come with you. Don't worry. I'll not run away. They took him down. He says, I'll never forget it. He says, when they opened that door and just pushed me in, bang the door. He said, just looked down, he said they were going to take it. He said, no, no, he said, you won't take my Bible. Do you have anything else? He said, you'll leave me with my Bible. I demand that. And he said, after they'd gone, I looked around. Bare floors. Part of the floor up a little bit, but a foot up, concrete. And he says they came in after and threw me in a sack of straw. That's your bed. And he said I didn't sleep much that night. That was in the cell. Nowadays they would, uh, report that to the union and have a, a strike amongst the criminals, you know. Send for the union representative to see what was going to be done about it. I was up in our local place one day, the old one. Was preaching, and a fella shouted me over. He said, hey, listen, he says, could you do something about this? I said, what is it? He said, look. He says, that's our lunch. I said, well, what's wrong with it? He says, there's not enough. He says, that's all we get for lunch. We only have three different things. It's about as much as I've seen some folk getting as they went round the line. But he was complaining about it. He wasn't getting enough. I thought to myself, I wonder what he'd do if he was getting put on bread and water. That's what he used to get. Ah, but this man was condemned and the law had got up with him. He was judged by the law, and he was condemned by the law. And listen, my friend, you don't need to go to prison to see that. Do you realize that each of us here this morning, I care not who you are, we have all broken God's law. Every one of us. And according to the teaching of the Word of God, we've been condemned, we're found guilty before God. Let's face up to it. The law has caught up with us. The law can do nothing for you, the law cannot excuse you, the law simply condemns you, and like that man, we're in the condemned cell. That was the morning. But he's taken out of there at nine o'clock in the morning. And at nine o'clock in the morning, he's placed on the criminal's cross. And he'll be there for at least six hours. To suffer the untold agonies of crucifixion. If you'd passed by, most of the folks would say, I know him. He stole from me. That's the man that broke into my house. Someone else would say, yes, and it's him that broke into my grandmother's house. Interfered with her before he stole the goods. Oh, he had it coming to him, all right. He deserves it. That's the way they would talk. There was another criminal on the other side, and in the midst was the Lord Jesus Christ. Three men on the crosses. This was a man who, in his dying hours on that cross, was smitten in conscience. His conscience began to work. He was able to review the past. He knew what he was. He had a conviction of sin. Now, it's so easy to point the finger, you know, at someone else. Sinner. Oh, she's a sinner. He's a sinner. It's so easy to pick them out. But to say when you point at someone else about sin, you should always have one finger pointing back in. Sinner! Some of you have heard about this preacher. I knew him very well. Really, his name was Saint John, but he didn't call himself Saint John. That's how it was written. He always was referred to and referred to himself as Sinjon, being an Englishman, Sinjon. And someone said to him one day, Father, why don't you pronounce your name correctly and call yourself Saint John instead of St. John? Oh, no, no, he said, no, no, he said, see, if I, if I said Saint John, he said, I would really think I was such a holy person. But he said, I like the other way, it reminds me of what I really am, Sin John. That tells me what I am, that I need the Savior. But it's not everybody's prepared to face up like that. Friend, look, this man had a conviction of sin, and there was a confession of sin. He said, we indeed receive the due reward of our deeds. We're only getting what we deserve. The judgment has come upon us. But he looks, as it were, to the man in the center cross, and there's a confession about the Savior. He said, this man has done nothing amiss. Then at that point, he cries to the Lord. He looks to Jesus on the center cross, which says Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. He turns to him and he says, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. See, there's a confession of sin, and there's a cry to the Lord, and the Bible states this, whosoever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whether we do it early in life, or midlife, or late in life, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I'm glad that I learned that truth when I was quite a young lad. I was able to call on the name of the Lord, and I was saved then. I know the place, I know the time, I know where I was. I know the circumstances when I called on the name of the Lord and was saved, and I've never doubted my salvation, because my salvation rests upon the word of God. A friend, it's not the first time men and women have called upon the Lord in their dying days. There's always hope. Here's a man, it was his last hours. He'd be dead at three o'clock in the afternoon, but he called. It was a cry for help. Who else could help him, dying on a criminal's cross? He couldn't go to hear some great preacher. And if the preacher had asked him to walk the aisle, he couldn't do it. His feet were nailed to the cross. The preacher had asked him to raise his hand, he couldn't do it. He was nailed to a cross. But he had ears to hear. He heard what the Lord prayed, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. He had ears to hear. He had a tongue to confess. He confessed Jesus as Lord. He says, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Remember me when thou comest. Listen, my friend, that man in the center cross was dying also. But the dying thief says he'll come into his kingdom if he's the Lord. He'll have a kingdom. Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And oh, the assurance from the morning. Criminals cross during the day. The saint's paradise in the evening. He was almost lost. Almost. Had he been put to death the day before, he perished. That day he was brought, as it were, into vital contact with Christ, who was able to save him.