Please turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 13. We find ourselves today at the conclusion of the chapter verses 11 through 14. Romans 13 verse 11. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Our Father, would you please bless the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit. In Christ's name, Amen. The title of the message today, The Urgency of the Hour. In the preceding verses of Romans chapter 13, we have been instructed in how to live, especially how to love. We have a mission to love in a manner that people are struck, this is not a normal love. This is a love that they hadn't seen before. It's a type of love, as a matter of fact, that we can only comprehend if God opens up our heart to comprehend it. It's the love of God. The love of God isn't just the same as the love manifested on earth by normal human effort. But it's a special and profound and remarkable and awe-filling love. We are told that that love has been shed abroad in the hearts of believers and people can know that we are Christians by that love. We looked at that truth last time. Now we go on to the next verse, verse 11, where Paul, sort of like a drill sergeant, says, well, what are you waiting for? Move it, move it, move it. Like the bugle has sounded and it's time for the cavalry to move forward. Knowing the time, let's go. It's an assignment from heaven. Manifest the love of God. See, in the preceding verses, the idea was things that we owe others. And we're told as Christians, you pay everything you owe. You pay taxes here, you pay your debts there, you pay honor here, fear there, and oh yes, this, love. Pay love. It's the one debt you'll never pay in full because you'll always keep paying as long as you have breath, there's more love to give. But as we go to this text here, he says that I'm not just rhetoric here. It's not just sweet words. Go and do. See the urgency of the hour. And as instructions come, well, there are three parts. When to awake, what to wear, and how to walk. Romans 13, 11 through 14. First instruction is when to awake. We find that in verse 11. and that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." In this first assignment there is this charge, know the time. It says, knowing the time, do you know the time? What do we know about time? Well, we know it's valuable, the painful thing to waste time. You only have so much time. When one is young, sometimes he or she doesn't really think about time and just got to keep on going. Sometimes you get profoundly aware of its brevity. You get older, you realize you got less time left, don't know how much sand is left in that hourglass. I think about King Hezekiah, 2 Kings chapter 20. Hezekiah lived a godly life for a long time and then he started fading in his latter years. And so God sent a prophet to him and said, Hezekiah, get your house in order. You're going to die. And we read that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed and wept sore. and begged for more time. Time is very valuable. The second thing we know about time is that it is brief. Repeatedly the Bible warns us and impresses upon us, do you understand how brief is your time? Time is likened unto smoke, or grass, or vapor, or a hand breath, or the movement of a weaver's Moses prays in Psalm 90, "'So teach us to number our days.'" Because life and time is brief. It's valuable, it's brief, and it is uncertain. When I was in high school, I had a good friend. We were out at the golf course sledding in the winter, he and I and a few other fellows. And then the next day, maybe it was two days later, I met my uncle's, he was the coroner for our county. I was at his house looking at my friend lying in a coffin, died in a car accident. Life is uncertain. Brief and uncertain. We read in James chapter 4 verses 13 and 14. Go to now ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain, whereas you know not what shall, what's the next part say? What shall be on the morrow? For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. So we know some things about time. We're told now, engage what you know about time. Time is valuable. Time is brief. Time is uncertain. And if I can add one more, time is God's. O Christian, our lives are not our own. We can't spend as we want our time. It's our time. We're going to give account to God what we did with His time. If we are His, He has demands on our hours. So we read in Ephesians 5.16, Redeem the time, for the days are evil. Colossians 4.5, walk in wisdom towards them that are without, redeeming the time. So we're given a charge. You go out there and love in a manner that people will think about who God is. And go, go, go, go. Go now, knowing the time. It is high time to awake from sleep. Now we may maintain, I'm not asleep, eyes are open, brain's thinking, I'm alert. But sleep in the scriptures can represent that which can occur while we're wide open, wide awake. Sleep in the scriptures can represent inactivity, ignorance, carelessness. stupid indifference and insensitivity as to the agenda of God. You can be at a game or at a parade and there are hundreds, thousands of people and you can find yourself falling asleep as far as insensitive to what God's agenda is for them, what God's agenda is for us to be taking part of. You can fall into a stupor and be lollied into what the way the world thinks. We can be inactive, ignorant, careless, indifferent, insensitive to the duties that we are to perform or to the works examination which is to come. Sometimes we quote 2 Corinthians 5 verses 10 and 11. where we are told that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things that everyone may receive the things done in the body according to that yet done whether they be good or bad. You know what the next verse is? Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men I know somebody who was in college and she was to give a recital and somehow she had just passed it off and the time came to step up on stage and she had nothing prepared. That's terrifying. Here we're told, knowing the terror of the Lord, we're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of those deeds we have done. Oh, we don't want to confess I fell asleep at the wheel. Awake from sleep. Another thing to which we can be indifferent or insensitive is the jeopardy of souls around us. Paul says in Acts 20 and verse 31, watch and remember that by space of three years I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears. Souls in danger, eternal souls that must be reconciled to God before it's too late. We read in Ezekiel 33 and verse 11, saying to them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. Why will you die? So our first charge is to rise from sleep. Know the time. Awake from sleep. Don't be like Christ's disciples. Jesus is in torment, praying, sweating drops of blood. His disciples are asleep. Jonah, dead asleep there in the hull of the ship while there's a storm without and every man above the deck there is praying to his own God. Oh, that God not find us asleep. Why? For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed, as we continue in that verse. Salvation. Soteria. That word means, it means our rescue. Our deliverance is nearer than when we believed. Rescue, deliverance from what? Well, from this world, from this devil, from our flesh. Now our salvation, our deliverance from all this darkness about us is nearer than when we believed. Soon enough this is going to be over. Soon enough we go home. Soon enough our eternal state is sealed. We are told that the Lord Jesus will come as a thief in the night. When I lived in New Orleans, I once left where I lived to go paint a house. I forgot some tools. I went back, and my own door was locked with a chain. So I couldn't get into my own place. And I'd only been gone, I don't know, six, seven minutes, 10 tops. But there was somebody who had broken into my house, locked the front door, and stole stuff and ran out the back door. I couldn't believe how he must have been watching, how fast he got in and how fast he got out and what he took with him. He tipped over dressers and stuff. It was just chaos, books. But that's when a thief comes, right? When you don't expect it. And in that regard, so is the second coming of Christ. He's not a thief, but he comes when not expected. You don't expect him now? Maybe that's when he's coming. But we read in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 and 17, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. So now, now is the time to awake. Now is the time to be shaken from our inactivity, ignorance, carelessness, indifference, or insensitivity as to the agenda of God, as to our duties we are to perform, and the judgment to come, and the jeopardy of souls. We have three instructions today. The first one is when to awake. And the second one we find in Romans 13 is what to wear. We see that in verse 12. What to wear? There we read in verse 12, the night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Paul is saying as we're advancing nearer to heaven, we are hastening to the world of glory. Daily we are approaching the kingdom of light and in prospect of that state we ought to lay aside every sin and live more and more in preparation for a world of light and glory. See, the world is sunk into night. We look outside and it's brilliant out there and the Bible says, no, that's night for those who don't know Christ. It's dark, it's night out there. People don't see that there's a God in heaven who has demands on their souls. They don't know the pleasure which is afforded them if they would come to Christ and the forgiveness and the relief of the conscience and removal of all guilt. The opportunity to become a new creature, to live a life worth living. One day to stand before God. Now it's all night out there, friends. Night. Night is the time when crimes against God are commonly committed. And it's about over. We read again in this verse, the night is far spent. That means it's hastening to a close. The curtains are being drawn. The world is sunk in the night and the night's about over. Now for us who are redeemed, it is over. It's been over from the moment of our conversion. One way to describe our conversion is that we have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, the kingdom of light. We've gone from darkness to light. Now we're told that the night is far spent and the day is at hand. Soon we're going to go into full light and all are going to see full light. It's at hand. It's the doctrine of imminency, the return of Christ. And we're told it repeatedly. Hebrews 10.25, not forsaking to summing ourselves together as a man of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Peter says, the end of all things is at hand. James says, the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. John writes, the time is at hand. Therefore, dress appropriately. Dress appropriate to the occasion. That means you take something off and you put something on. What you take off is the works of darkness. Cast off the works of darkness. Works are like another clothing. You can work with the hogs all day, it's a reasonable and an honorable profession, but your clothes stink at the end of the day. You need to cast them off. If we have been living in the world, there's a stink that goes to that clothing and there's a time to cast it off. Jude verse 23 says, "...hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." The works of darkness which used to clothe our life need to be seen as abhorrent. Would you turn with me to the book of Psalms, please? Let's go to Psalm 2. They're saying that whether we're saved or lost, there's always something to cast off. And if you got saved, you moved to light, you need to cast off the works of darkness which are likened unto soiled and abhorrent garments. And cast off means now and it means completely and it means with repugnance. He despised the former. Psalm 2 says, Why do the heathen rage? It's a mystery why anybody would do this. Why do the heathen rage? And the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us." See, when we're in darkness, there's a casting away that occurs. It's a casting away of the bonds of righteousness. the demands of God upon us. I've got to speak this way, I've got to think that way, I can't do those things, I've got to do these things, and I hate these restrictions on my life. And so the interest of those who chafe under the authority of God is to cast off all those bonds. Now we're told here in Romans chapter 13, you who have come out of that darkness into light, you've got something else to cast off, the works of darkness. dress appropriately, cast off the works of darkness. The common assignment we see in Ephesians chapter 5, 11, and 12, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them, expose them, rebuke them. For it's a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. Now as we go on in verse 13, What are those works of darkness specifically? I'm not going to go into much detail because we know first of all what they are and because it's not the main emphasis here. But we do have them listed in three categories, as sins often are, three categories. Let us walk honestly as in the days, it's in Romans 13 verse 13, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, three groups of sins, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, rioting and drunkenness, partying, chambering and wantonness, sensuality, strife and envying, not being resolved in your relationships with other people, self-pity. Today, though, We're not going to spend our time listing our specific sins, but we're going to focus on the charge, which is you've got to take off the old, cast off the works of darkness. It doesn't mean hold on to them, redress into them again, put them in the closet. It means get rid of them and instead put on the armor of light. Now, of course, we have to go to Ephesians chapter 6 to remind ourselves about the armor of light. Old clothes, darkness. New clothes, armor of light. I read that if there are soldiers stand on the horizon, the sun strikes them and they're wearing their armor, they're just brilliant. And that's the picture here, as though light were reflected off of the armor which we're wearing. But in Ephesians chapter 6, Verse 11 says, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Put it another way, as we go back to Romans 13 verse 14, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Cast off works of darkness, the old clothing, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know what that means? It means to imitate Him, imitate His example. It means to copy His spirit. It means no closer to become like Him. Take Him as a pattern and guide. Imitate His example. Obey His precepts. Become like Him. Put on Him so that all the people see when they see you is Jesus Christ. Wear Him like a garment. Just be inside of Him. He inside of you emanating out. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in Galatians 3.27, For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Christ who was sinless. We read in Hebrews 7.26, such a high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. And we read in 1 Peter 2.22, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. When to awake? Now. What to wear? Cast off the works of darkness. Put on Jesus Christ. Now, thirdly, how to walk. Romans 13, verse 13, we read, here's how you walk. Honestly. As in the day. Let us therefore only do what is fit to be exposed to the light of day. As we are about to enter on the glories of that eternal day, we should be pure and holy. The expectation of that day will teach us to seek a pure life. We read in Hebrews 12, 14, follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Friends, our call is to walk honestly. Dishonesty seeks the night. The children of the day will walk honestly. This implies honest, upright, pure lives which need no concealment. As in the day, that is, as if all our actions were seen and known. You read the book of Job in the last chapter, Job says, this is what I know about God. I know you know all of our thoughts. Nobody can hide anything from you. We're all open before God. Walk honestly as though God could see you all the time. and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof." This way to walk honestly is to learn to do the things which guard your heart and guard your mind, stay close to the Lord, and therefore don't come near any of that stuff which can lead you to be tripped up. Don't go near. No fuel for the fire. So the doctrine in these verses, Romans 13, 11 through 14, is that a deep conviction of the nearness of eternity will prompt sincere believers to an upright life as the Lord Jesus Christ's life. Can I say that again? The nearness of eternity will prompt sincere believers to live an upright life reflecting what is true about Jesus Christ. The meaning of this text is, hitherto we have walked in darkness and in sin. Now we walk in the light of the gospel. We know our duty. We are sure that the God of light is around us and is a witness of all we do. We are going soon to meet Him and it becomes us to rouse and to do those deeds and those only which bear the bright shining of the light of truth and the scrutiny of Him who is light and in whom is no darkness at all. That's what I want to share with you today. Let's pray. Our Father, we could, and there is a time to enumerate all the works of darkness. But I expect that Thy Holy Spirit, speaking to any and all of us here, we could confess pretty accurately what our own works of darkness have been, maybe still continuing to some measure. We hear Your charge, cast them away, a decisive act, an emotional act, an act of integrity because now we've come to the God of light. Give us grace to cast off the works of darkness, to awake and see the appropriateness at this time, at this place to do such a thing and to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of the brevity of time, who knows but that before we finish the service, Christ may come or we may go. We pray that there are souls here still in darkness, that this would be the day to come to the gospel of light and understand whatever we've done, whoever we are, whatever our history, we're all sinners. The ground is level at the cross, and there is forgiveness afforded, free and plentiful to anybody who will come to Christ, for he will in no wise cast you out. And if we are found to be confessing Christians but have been living a compromised life in darkness, in light, back and forth, we pray, given the shortness of the time and the fact that one day we shall see Christ face to face, that we would have a renewed commitment to live in purity, in thought, in word, and in deed. These things we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.