Thank you. Do remember us, too. We have a funeral service to conduct on Sunday afternoon. Dear old Saint of God, you've been a member of Dunmurray for many, many years. Your sister, Mrs. Rose Hamilton, went home to be with Christ last evening. And do remember us as we preach the gospel at that funeral service on the Lord's Day afternoon. And I see her. My voice goes tomorrow. I usually preach in the open air on a Friday. I got word today, don't come down to the open air on Friday, for they're putting up the huts and the stands for the Continental Market. So there's no open air tomorrow, so that'll save me a wee bit of my voice, and we'll see how we're going. I'll maybe even sing with the guitar, not with the guitar, you know, but the instrument, the guitar. And I usually say, here's a hymn, I'm going to sing a wee gospel hymn, Usually sing it with the guitar, but this is an accordion. Of course, I always tell the people, this is the instrument of heaven, isn't it? Never mind the harps and the trumpets and the organs, no, the cymbals, no. The accordion. I says, have you any scripture to back that up? I says, yes, accordion to your faith, be it unto you. But it's the old hymn about don't overlook salvation. Heaven is a city, and it's built with jewels red. Its beauty is as splendor had once told. If you neglect salvation, you'll never enter it. You'll never ever walk those streets of gold. So don't overlook salvation while living here in this temple. Someday it may be too late to pray. Someday when you need him, he may not get you in. How awful if he should turn you away. Sometimes we get discouraged. While we walk this golden way. But Jesus said, He left me burdened there. So take care of all your troubles, When you feel all hopeless gone. For in all He hears and answers prayer. So don't overlook salvation by living here in sin. Someday it may be too late to say. Someday when you leave here, he may not catch you in a waffle if he should. Turn you away. My Jesus said be ready. For we know not when they are We may come at morning, night, or noon So keep your eyes upon Him And your soul filled with His love For we know He surely Come and play Don't all overlook salvation Wild imagination Someday it may be too late to pray Someday when you need her He may not get you in. How awful if He should turn you away. Oh, how awful if He should turn you away. Amen. Well, if you have your Bible with you tonight, I invite you to turn with us please to the epistle to the Hebrews and Hebrews chapter 2. A very familiar portion of God's Word indeed. The epistle to the Hebrews and chapter 2. And we're going to read from verse 1. And again, we're delighted to be back with you in the gospel mission. We thank you for your prayers, for your support night by night. And do continue, as Rev. Salda said, continue to pray. to press a bottle to the gates and ask the Lord to really move by His Spirit in this district upon the hearts and lives of men and women, that as the mission continues we might see precious souls come to know Christ as their own and personal Savior. Now in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 1 it says, Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard. lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompensive reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him? God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will. For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak? But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels. Thou crownest him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the work of Thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels. for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." Amen. May God bless to us the public reading from His own inspired and His infallible Word. I want to leave with you tonight a question that is asked in verse 3. It's a very famous text of Scripture, very well known, and been preached upon time and time again. But the question is, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him." I was with a dear couple today from our congregation, and we were talking about the mission here. And the woman was asking me what I was going to preach on tonight. And I said, I think I'm going to preach on Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 3. And as soon as I said the word, she got up from the seat from where she was and she ran out of the room and she ran down the hall and she came back up again with a beautiful picture. And it had this text on it. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? And she said, Fred, you know, it was way back in 1965 under the ministry of Dr. Alan Kearns at a Sunday night service in the Ulster Hall. He said that I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my own and personal Savior. He said that is the text that he was preaching on the night I was saved. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? One of the many, many, many questions in the Word of God You recall, of course, from your reading of the Scriptures, that when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, and God called on to them, and they ran and hid themselves behind the trees of the Garden of Eden. You remember that God called on to Adam and God said, Adam, where art thou? Now, the Lord knew exactly where he was The Lord knew what he had done. The Lord knew the estate in which he had fallen. But the Lord in grace and in mercy came and called unto Adam. And that is the picture of the way the gospel works. God seeking men and women. Even when they ran and hid themselves from his holy presence, he came searching for them. And the Bible says concerning the Lord Jesus that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Do you remember Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea? Do you remember as he had Barabbas and Christ? Do you remember he gave the people a choice He wanted them to choose Christ over Barabbas, but they chose Barabbas. And he says, well, what shall I do then with Jesus, which is called the Christ? Friend, that's the question that 2,000 years later is still relevant, still comes to you. If you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, what Shall you do with Jesus Christ tonight in our gospel mission? What will you do with the Lord Jesus? What will I do with Jesus? The question is, one day, what will Jesus do with me? I think two of that great question that was asked in the days of Elisha the prophet, asked of that great woman, He said, is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? And that woman in faith, even though the child had died, she said, it is well. It is well with me. It is well with my husband. It is well with the child. Would to God that every home and every family in Ulster could say that of a truth. It is well with me. It is well with my spouse. It is well with my children that they are all gathered in safely into the fold and family of God. Now this question that is asked here in Hebrews 2 and verse 3, of course, in many ways is impossible to answer because it says, Or shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? And yet the simple answer is, if men and women neglect God's salvation, there is no escape. There is no remedy. There is nothing. The Bible says in Proverbs 29 and 1, I quoted it last night, He that being often reproved and hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. And what an awful thing for men and women in this middle land of ours A land that was blessed with revival in 1859. A land that was blessed with a great spiritual awakening in the days of Nicholson. A land where we have had the gospel preached time and time and time again. Friend, where then shall men and women escape if they neglect so great salvation? Now, I want to leave with you three very simple thoughts. I want to speak first of all about salvation. And you will notice that salvation is described here as being a so great salvation. Now, this is not religion. This is not philosophy. This is not the ideologies of men. This is salvation. But purchased, procured for us at Calvary's Cross by God's only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And God's salvation is a so great salvation. See, the Bible says, God so loved the world. And I love that little verse in the Acts of the Apostles where it speaks about the apostles going forth And it says, they so spake the Word of God that many precious souls were saved. And here the Bible says salvation. It is a so great salvation. Why is it so great? Well, it is so great because of its plan. Because of the conception of salvation. Because this salvation that is so great, it is the plan of God to save men and women. Way back there in the Old Testament, I will read you a verse of Scripture. I quoted it before in our mission, but in 2 Samuel 14, and in verse 14, the Word of God says these words. It says, For we must kneel down and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Neither doth God respect any person, yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him." And the writer is reminding us that the whole concept, the whole plan of salvation The whole means of salvation is from God. God, the old Puritan said, God the Father thought it. God the Son bought it in Calvary. God the Holy Spirit wrought it in my heart. And he said, Praise God, I've got it. That's a wonderful plan of salvation. that before the hills in order stood or ever earth received her frame, before there was ever a fallen sinner to run and hide behind the trees at Eden's garden, thank God there was a matchless, a wonderful, a unique plan of salvation through the precious blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That's why John writes in the book of Revelation in chapter 13 and verse 8 that Jesus Christ is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. This great plan of redemption that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, of whom the Apostle writes in the Epistle to the Romans, they were God-blessed forever. They always enjoyed sweet communion and fellowship, the one with another. And they devised a plan of salvation. And salvation is so great because of its plan, because of its conception, because of the person, because of Christ in whom salvation is to be found. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God did not give an angel or an archangel, but God emptied heaven of His very best, and He gave us His only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And you remember the message of the angels to Mary and to Joseph? Call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. Jesus means Savior. The One who would save His people from their sins. The One who would be our sacrifice. The One about whom the Apostle Peter writes, and he says, He bore our sins in His own body to the tree. The One about whom Isaiah writes when he said, All we like sheep had gone astray and we had turned every one to his own way, but the Lord laid on Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, the iniquity of us all. And the one who, when he hung upon the cross of Calvary, suspended between earth and heaven, the one who could say to his disciples, I will lay my life down and I will take it up again. And when he cried out, it is finished, then he could bow his head and he could say, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit because the Son of God, our Savior, our Sacrifice, thank God He is the Sovereign Christ. He is in control. It wasn't the nails that held Him to the cross. It wasn't the bleeding wounds that He bore upon the cross of Calvary. But at the end, He dismissed His spirit into thy hands. I commend my spirit. And salvation is so great because of its plan, its conception, because of the person, the Christ of God in whom salvation is found, because of the purchase through the cross of Calvary. Look what the Apostle says in Hebrews chapter 12. Isn't that wonderful? In chapter 12, verse 2, it says, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and the set-down at the right hand of the throne of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, to purchase for you, to purchase for me an eternal redemption, He had to endure the cross Verse 3 of Hebrews 12 says, For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Why? He endured the cross and he disguised the shame. Why? Verse 10 of Hebrews chapter 2 says, For it became him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory. to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. He suffered and he bled and he died. There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven, let us say. You know, this salvation is so great because of the price, the currency. 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 18 and 19, For ye are not redeemed, with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without spot or flemish." In the Old Testament order, men and women could come. They could offer as a sacrifice for their sins a lamb or a bullock. If they could not afford it, They could offer two turtle doves. Mary offered two turtle doves when she came after she had given birth to the Lord Jesus Christ. But who could ever put a price or a value on that perfect, virgin-born, sinless life and precious blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. For the Bible says in Hebrews 10 and verse 4, For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. But then in verse 12 of chapter 10 it says, But this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom John the Baptist said is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Salvation is so great in its plan, in its conception, in the person, the Lord Jesus Christ, in its purchase through the cross, in the price that He paid, the currency of His precious shed blood. For, thank God, in its power, in its conquest, Paul writes and he says, he was raised for our justification in Romans. To the Corinthians he said, this is the gospel that I declare unto you, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. That is why Paul could say, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. It can save the uttermost, all that come unto God through Christ. W.P. Nicholson used to say, It can save the down and out. It can save the up and out. It can save the rich. It can save the poor. It can save the Protestant. It can save the Catholic. It can save the Muslim, or the Hindu, or the Hottentot. It can save to the uttermost all them that come unto God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is so great because of its power. O. W. P. Nicholson, to quote him, he used to talk about the modernists and the liberals and their social gospel. I used to say, my, their gospel has not the power to save atonement. But my, this gospel that we preach, it is the power, the dynamite of God unto salvation. It can blast away, take away every sin, break every chain, snap every feather, set the prisoner gloriously free. The power of the gospel. And of course, it is so great because of its promise for the great climax of the gospel. You remember Jesus gathered His disciples and He had told them again and again that He must need suffer many things of the scribes and the Pharisees. He would lay His life down, as we have quoted. He would take it up again. He would die upon a cross. They could not understand. He called them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. But you remember He said to them, Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. And if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also." What did Paul say to the Colossians? He says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. And that is the wonderful promise, the great promise of the Gospel, that every man or woman or boy or girl who has come to Christ and sought Him as their own and personal Savior, they have salvation. And thank God it is so great a salvation. And it will take them safe and home to heaven when this life is over. So salvation is so great. But then you'll notice the verse says, How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? I want you to notice tonight that salvation is so great and neglect is so simple. Neglect is so simple. You know, if a man was sick, And they persuaded him to go and see the doctor, see the physician. And the physician would say to him, I know exactly what's wrong with you. Make his diagnosis. And he'd say, I'm going to prescribe a certain kind of medicine for you. And I want you to take this medicine three times every day. And very soon you will be well. The man might leave the doctor's surgery, the script at his hand. He can go to the pharmacist. He can get the medication. He can take it home and set it on the shelf. And he can die of the disease if he doesn't take it, if he neglects it. And that's exactly the way it is in the Gospel. There are men and women in Northern Ireland, and they have had the privilege They have had the opportunity. They have heard the Word of God. They were brought up in Sunday school as little children. They sang their choruses. Even in our day schools, we learned verses of Scripture. We have heard the Word of God in Gospel missions. We have a Bible in our own language. We can read it for ourselves. And sad to say that in many a home in Uster, You could write damnation on the dust that sits upon the Bible. And I meet people and they tell me, oh, I'm a loyalist and I would fight for the civil and religious liberties that are in the Bible and I believe the Bible and oh, I stand for the Bible and fight and die for the Bible. And I say to them, would you read the Bible? Would you read it? Would you believe it? Would you act upon it that you might be saved? Because neglect is so simple. And you see, there are many tonight, and they are sincere. And in their heart of hearts, in their mind, they are thinking to themselves, now some of these days, some of these days, I am very busy. I am following my career. Doing this and doing that and settle down and all the rest of it. And we're trying to make ends meet and trying to go forward. But some of these days I'm going to sit down and I'm going to take the Word of God and I'm going to take the time and I'm going to read the Word of God and I'm going to give my heart and life to Christ. Now that's what they're thinking. But they've never done it. And what would happen If the Lord would call them out into eternity, they'd be lost, why? Because they neglected so great a salvation. They've made preparation for many other things. They've maybe made preparation for their children growing up, for their children's education. They've made preparation for a holiday. They've made preparation, they're looking forward to retirement. But they have never made preparation for God's great eternity. They have neglected so to do. Dear friend, that is the surest way to a lost eternity. Neglect. Procrastination. Putting it off. You remember when Paul preached to Felix And he preached the Word of God. Felix was troubled. But he said, I will hear thee again some more convenient season. See, the devil's lie is tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. Don't get saved tonight. Wait until tomorrow. Don't get saved in the mission. Wait until some Sunday night. The devil comes along and says to young people, you don't need to be saved. Just, oh, get saved sometime. Later on, when you have lived your life, when you have sown your wild oats, when you have had a good time, then come and get saved. Paul preached before King Agrippa. And Agrippa said to Paul, He said, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Now sometimes Bible commentators argue over whether or not Agripple was sincere. Was he sincerely saying to Paul, because Paul said Agripple was an expert on all these things and these customs of the Jews, was he sincere? Was he saying, Paul, In my heart of hearts, I would love to be a Christian just like you. Was he being sarcastic? Was he praying to the crowd? Was he saying to those others who were assembled there, all those Paul you persuaded me to be a Christian to? I do not know. But I know one thing, that whether he was sincere or whether he was sarcastic, there are no almost Christians in heaven. That's for sure. You have to be not almost, but altogether persuaded. And you have to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your own and personal Savior. The devil says, you have plenty of time. But the Word of God says, we read it tonight there in 2 Samuel 14 and 14, we are as water that is spilt upon the ground that cannot be gathered up again. The Bible says our life is swifter than a weaver's shovel. I served my apprenticeship fixing sewing machines in the factories in Belfast and then later on installing them and selling them and all the rest of it. Part of my course when I went to the tech down in Belfast was to be with the weavers so they might learn about the cloth. And they had a great big loom down there in the basement of the Technical College down there in Belfast. And my, they had the loom working. They had the shuttle. And it just flew across. You could hardly see it from one end to the other as the cloth was being woven. God says, is swifter than a weaver's shovel. It's like a dream in the night. It's like a vapor that appears for a little while and then it vanishes. That's why, men and women, you cannot afford to neglect salvation. We were singing about tonight. If you neglect salvation, you'll never enter in. You'll never, ever walk the streets of gold. And then I want you to notice just in closing, salvation is so great. Neglect is so simple, but escape is so impossible. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Will not Then the Bible says that if God spared not the old world, that's the antediluvian civilization before the flood. And the apostle says, if God spared not the old world, he said, if God spared not the angels that fell, And if God spared not the cities of the plain Sodom and Gomorrah, then I ask you the question, what makes you think that God will spare you? He has given you his Son who died for you on the cross of Calvary, who shed his precious blood that you might be saved. And if you will not take him as your Savior, the God who spurred not the angels that fell, the God who spurred not the old world, but took him away with a flood, the God who rained fire and brimstone down in Sodom and Gomorrah, then he will not spur you." That's the truth of God's Word. Maybe unpalatable, but it's the truth of God's Word in Luke's Gospel. Chapter 19, the Lord Jesus Christ, who wept over that beautiful city of Jerusalem. He said in chapter 19, in verse 41, When he was come near, he beheld the city, and he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes, For the day shall come upon thee that thine enemy shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee. And they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. Jesus, who looked at Jerusalem and who cried, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brood. But he says, ye would not come. And he said, there's coming a day when the enemies will come. Happened 70 years later. When the enemies would come and they'd put a trench round about thee and encompass thee round and keep thee in on every side. and lay thee even to the ground." It was said they stopped crucifying men because they ran out of wood. Terrible judgment this man. And Jesus says why? Because thy knewest not the time of thy visit. In other words, you did not take the opportunity. He came on to his own and his own received him not. Pilate said, choose one of these prisoners. They said, give us Barabbas. What'll it do with Jesus? Crucify Him! And then they said, His blood be upon us and upon our children. They knew not the day of their visitation. Listen, there's men and women who have come and gone from Gospel meetings and they didn't know it was the day of their visitation. They didn't know it was the last opportunity. They didn't know it was the last call. They didn't know it was the last striving of the Spirit of God with their immortal soul to come to Christ. They went out into God's eternity. Salvation so great. Neglect so simple. And escape so impossible. You know, with this I close as a great preacher, he was a great theologian, great evangelist. And he had preached for many, many years. And one night as he was speaking to a group of students, one student asked him about eternal punishment and hell. And they said, Could you give us one word that really sums it all up? And he said, Hell is not just the fire and the flame. It's not just the terror and the torments, or the memory and its miseries, or the thirst and the torture, the death and the dying, the cry and the crying, the pain, the perdition, the damned and the damnation, the sinner and the separation from God. He says that tragedy is one word, forever. is forever. Friend, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Don't be like those people in the city of Jerusalem. They didn't know it was the day of their visitation. Felix didn't know it was the day of his visitation. Some were convenient. We never read of a more convenient season. That's why it's imperative. That's why we stress the importance. When God's Spirit bids you come, sinner, do no longer roam, lest you seal your hopeless doom. May the Lord bless His Word through our hearts.