This past week I received a package in the mail that I never expected. It was filled with miniatures that my father used to make and three notebooks that he used when he wanted to become a minister. Thank you Connie for sending the box of memories.
I thought I would share one of the sermons he gave back in 1952 at the age of 17. Today would have been his 78th birthday. It was a birthday I was supposed to share with him. I was originally due on February 20, 1961 but ya’ll know me, stubborn as all get out, I didn’t decide to be born until almost a month later.
(Note: Translated material – all spelling and punctuation errors are in the original copy)
Sermon by Philip L. Whitney given February 3, 1952 at the Pulaski County Jail, Little Rock, AR
Christ the Eternal
II Peter 3:1-4; 8-14
It has been customary for many generations and through hundreds of year for religious observers to analyze the prevailing downward trend of religion as an evidence that Christ’s coming was imminet. Wherever religion has been at a low ebb men have been quick to declare that the dark hour of the last days had come.
But according to the word of God, Christ’s delay in returning to earth has been that He might extend to sinners the opportunity of salvation. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise,” He is not dishornering the promise of His coming, but he is unwilling that sinners should perish.
It must be that God is extending the day of grace just as long as His divine wisdom will permit it–that He is preserving this earth so that every man will have the opportunity of salvation.
An so God over and over again has extended the day of probation for mankind is general, and for us individually. Have you ever asked yourself why God has extended your life? Why He has kept you under the influence of the Gospel? Surely the answer is that he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to a knowledge of the truth.
How have you and I responded to the mercies of God? What are we doing to fulfil God’s eternal purpose for our lives?
Are you and I ready to be arraigned at the judgment bar of Him who hath continually extended His salvation to us.
I ask you–Do you have a hope of salvation based on the eternal Christ Himself? “Seeing then that all these thing shall be dissolved,” are you anchored to something that never will be destroyed?
As we review the history of the world, as we study the events that have transpired since the beginning of time, we must acknowledge that everything in this world bears the marks of dissolution.
Kingdoms have risen and declined. Knowledge has been gained and then discarded for new knowledge. And every man seeks in vain for security for that which will endure when other things begin to shake. I would like to call you attention to those things that will be dissolved.
Many people are clinging tenaciously to the thought that some day they will obtain salvation.
There are some religious sects that go so far as to hold to the belief that men will have another opportunity to find God in the wold beyound the grave. People do not want to believe that the day is coming when probation will be over, their enternal destiny fixed.
It is so easy to indulge in the hope that tomorrow or the next week will be opportunity enough to seek salvation, while the present is unimproved. Time is going to be dissolved. And ere that great day comes, probation may be over for you, What we are when our day of opportunity is over, we shall remain throughout the the ages of time.
You may indulge a fond hope, that you are going to stand at the judgement different from what you are now. You do not like to think that perhaps Christ will come back to earth today. And so you project the day of your salvation expecting to be somehow.
Christ alone changes men. It is the purpose of Christ to change sinful hearts now. How precious is this day of opportunity.
The time is coming for each one of us when life will be over. I heard a story some time ago, about a man lying on his deathbed, He knew that time was short for him, be he did not want to pray. He gritted his teeth, and he said, “Life is sweet; it is hard to let it go,”
Did he cling to Christ? No, he was clinging to the life given him as a period of preparation for the eternal existence./How uncertain life is, and how eternal is the Christ he had rejected.
The Bible tells us that heaven and earth some day will be destroyed. Think of it! The time is coming when this great world of ours will be destroyed in a moment of time. And then you and I must stand before our Maker to render an account to Hom for the use we have made of this life.
Another thing to which we cling so much is going to be desolved; the church. That institution—–withall its means of bringing man to his God—the preaching, the singing and all the other things which we value so highly will be dissolved.
I there not a secret hope in your heart, that your affiliation with the people of God will recommend you to your Make when time shall be no more?
Are we going to Heaven as church groups, as families? No; we shall stand before God as individuals. And if we hope that our standing before God will be based on anything capable of being destroyed, when shall be disappointed.
We are not going to be recommended to the Savior because of our attendance at prayer meeting, the Sunday School, the morning worship, the Young People’s Society and the evangelistic service. We shall stand in that great day when time /shall be no more only if we are founded on the rock Jesus Christ which cannot be destroyed.
No matter how precious or loving our family relationships have been in this world, no matter how much we appreciate those who work by our side we alone shall stand before the great judge.
This relation will help us to place the proper value on the family relationship. God has ordained that is should be most comforting and pleasant, Where Christ is the center of the family activities, there that divine institution fits into God’s plan.
When that great day of dissolution comes, opportunities to promote the Gospel will be forever over. Let us consider that as w view a world on the road to destruction today. It now lies in the hand of the wicked one, and those who are going to be saved will be saved by the same means that have always been employed: the effort of godly mean and woman who will dare to take the Gospel to lost souls.
The time is coming when there will be nor more preaching or missionary work.
Will you knell down before God today and cry out, “What can I do to spread your precious Gospel into this darkened world, seeing that it will be dissolved in a little while?”
Let us put away the trifles and baubles of this world. That day is just a little ahead of us when the possibility of helping a struggling sinner to Christ will be over. We dare not put the Gospel light under a bushel.
Look into your own heart, Do you have a burning desire to carry this Gospel to lost men and women?
Are you conscious of having had committed unto you one of the most precious things in this world-the Gospel of power?
Do you believe that Gospel will convert sinners?
The day is coming when you and I will wish that we had one more opportunity to carry tis Gospel to the lost. Think of it: God is going to take from us the privilege of shareing this Gospel that can reach down into the vilest heart and make it pure and holy.
There is one more opportunity is going to be forever over: the opportunity of growing “in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” The experience of holiness is just the beginning of Christian Living.
The baptism of the Holy Ghost lays the groundwork for a successful walk with God in this world. As long as the Christian is here he is subject to correction and advice and counsel; he is living on probation.
This work of preparing ourselves to live with God is a most/important one. This is a blessed responsibility–gaurding and using this holy love. And it is going to come to an end some time.
“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy coversation and godliness?” The time is coming when this brief life will be over, and you and I will stand just as we are before the judge of all the earth.
The time is coming when all our deeds are going to be tried. That which is hay, straw and stubble is going to perish. The character founded on the eternal Christ is the only once which will stand the test of the great tribunal.
“Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.”
find.