I'm going to ask you tonight to turn, please, to the Old Testament Scriptures. It's 1 Samuel, chapter 20. 1 Samuel and the 20th chapter. A very short reading tonight. Just the first three verses of this chapter. 1 Samuel, chapter 20, and verses 1, 2, and 3. The first three verses of 1 Samuel and the 20th chapter. 1 Samuel chapter 20, and the first three verses, please. The Word of God records it, and David fled from Nioth and Ramoth, and came and said before Jonathan, what have I done? What is mine iniquity? And what is my sin before thy father that he seeketh my life? And he, that is Jonathan, said unto him, David, God forbid thou shalt not die. Behold, my father will do nothing, either great or small, but that he will show it me. And why should my father hide this thing from me? It is not so. And David swear moreover and said, thy father certainly knoweth. that I have found grace in thine eyes. And he saith, Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved. But truly, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death. There is but a step between me I want to speak tonight for a little while upon this text and our title for this message tonight very simply, The Near Room to Death. The Near Room to Death. Let's pray together and ask the Lord by His Spirit to speak to hearts. Let's of all of God's people praying, and maybe you've never prayed for a long, long time, let's pray that the Spirit of God will come tonight. Solemn message. And I trust that the Lord will write it upon our hearts and it will come with the spirit with which it is intended. Let's pray together. Father, we thank Thee tonight, Lord, for another opportunity to meet together around the Word of God. We thank Thee, O God, tonight for Thy people and for all who have gathered into this place. And Lord, we have come just to sit at Thy feet and we pray now that the Spirit of God will come and open our hearts and write the Word of God upon our very souls tonight. Thank You, Lord, for the ministry and song. We thank Thee for these wonderful hymns that we have heard. And Lord, it's a wonderful blessing to know that the God of heaven invites us to come. just as we are, just the way we are, and to experience the freeness of God's salvation. Thank Thee tonight for Thy love, for Thy mercy, for Thy grace, and for this wonderful plan of salvation, for a wonderful Savior. And Lord, we pray tonight that we might see Him in all of His fullness and majesty, and that You'll bring us all to His feet. Hear and answer prayer, and grant now the help of heaven, the infilling of the Spirit of God. Hide me, Lord, behind the cross. Glorify thy Son, and receive all honor, praise, and glory in the salvation of precious souls. We humbly pray with thanksgiving in the Savior's precious and worthy name. Amen. 1 Samuel chapter 20, David's life has been under threat now for quite some time at the hands of King Saul. And what a tragic story the story of the life of Saul is. Here's a man who lost the blessing of God in his life. Here was a man raised up with great privilege and great responsibility, a man with tremendous influence and ability, the anointing of God upon his life, and yet he became consumed with the spirit of envy, became full of pride and jealousy and covetousness, jealous over the blessing of God in the life of David, and Saul tragically forfeited the blessing of God in his life. There's scarcely anything worse than a root of bitterness springing up within a person's life. Saul was a man who became consumed with bitterness and with envy and with greed and lust and jealousy, and he forfeited the blessing of God simply out of a root of bitterness. And the great tragedy is that Saul ended his life and a suicide's grief. What an awful tragedy the life of Saul is. The Bible reminds us that sin can bring us into so much bondage. And here's a man who was bound and fettered by sin and rage and jealousy and covetousness. And he proved the truth of the hymns. Sin will take you further than you want to go, slowly but wholly taking control. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay. And sin can cost you far, far more than you ever want to pay. Scarcely anything worse than knowing in your heart of heart that you've lost out with God and you've lost the blessing of God in your life and somehow you never seem to regain it at all and you never seem to get it back again. Controversy has raged as to whether or not Saul will be in heaven. Many people for generations have been asking that question. Was Saul a true believer? Was Saul really saved? Will we see Saul in heaven? Well, the Bible doesn't maybe answer these questions. And there are some things that we are not to know the side of heaven, some things that we're not to delve into. Suffice to say that the Bible exhorts each and every one of us, rather than looking at others and wondering about their salvation, the Bible calls us to examine ourselves and to search our own hearts and to make our calling and our election sure. But at any rate, God's servant David is very, very conscious of the frailty of life of the brevity of life, of the fragility of life. And so he comes one day to his best friend Jonathan and pours out his heart before Jonathan and says concerning Saul, what have I done? What is mine iniquity? And what is my sin before thy father that he seeketh my life? And Jonathan tries to reassure him. But David has no confidence in Jonathan's reassurances. And so he says at the end of verse number three, there is but a step, just a step between me and death. You know, on the 1st of October 1975, Joe Fraser and Muhammad Ali, the two best and most famous boxers of their day and generation, were to meet together for the third and final time in the confines of a boxing ring in the city of Manila in the Philippines. The fight was billed a thriller in Manila, and certainly it lived up to its name. It was one of the most aggressive boxing matches of that decade. And Joe Frazer and Muhammad Ali fought in the blistering heat of that afternoon, the Thrilla in Manila. Such was the veracity of that boxing match that at the end of the 14th round, Joe Frazer could hardly see. He could hardly function. He could hardly think straight. But he was adamant that he was going to go out into the 15th round. The judges had the scorecards almost equal. And Joe Fraser stood up, but his manager, Eddie Fudge, put his hand on Joe Fraser's shoulder and said, sit down, son. It's over. But nobody will forget what you did here tonight. But they did not realize that in the far corner of the ring, Cassius Clay, or Muhammad Ali, was speaking to his manager, Angelo Dundee, and saying, cut off my gloves. I'm through. And then whenever they realized that the far corner had thrown the towel in, Ali raised his hands in victory. But after the fight, he said, I've never felt so close to death. in all my life. As he did, entering into the end of that 14th round, he felt surely that another three minutes would usher him from this world into the next. And he said, during that fight, I was in the near room to death. the near room to death. And dear friends tonight, I just want to take that simple phrase, the near room to death, and draw a few simple parallels from it as we consider the word of God this evening. Because the reality is that in this life, in this world, there's just a very small and thin veil that separates us from eternity. We're all tonight in a departure lounge. We're all tonight in the near room to death, and over the last fortnight or so, I've become more acutely aware of the reality of death. It seems that death is never far away from us, and even the royal family sadly have been plunged into the reality of bereavement as well, and many other young families also that we have heard about even this afternoon, and how tragic it can be for many, the near room to death. First of all, our text simply says, there is a step between me and death. There is but a step, but a step, just one step between me and death. God's servant David is very acutely aware that at any given moment he can leave this world and go out into the next. David is acutely aware that his soul at any moment can leave the body and he's thinking that that most likely will happen at the hands of Saul. Have you ever thought about your soul? Have you ever wondered what it is that keeps body and soul together? We have just one free life, one short life, and within your free, within your earthly tent or tabernacle, there is an eternal, never-dying soul, and that's the very principle of life. And whenever God made you and created you and brought your body together and put a soul within your body, that principle of life, that soul will live for all eternity. And if you ever wonder tonight or thought about your soul, what is it? that keeps your body and your soul together. I tell you tonight, it's nothing more and it's nothing less than the grace of Almighty God. There's nothing that keeps soul and body together, W.P. Nicholson used to say, other than the skin on your ribs. There's just a step here, David says, between me and death. And as we think for a few moments tonight about death, I want to mention the conspiracy The conspiracy about death. You say tonight, well what do you mean by that? I mean tonight that there is a conspiracy of silence about death. A conspiracy of silence about death. Nobody seems to want to talk about death. It seems like such a dark and a morbid subject. Why would you want to talk about death? Why in a gospel mission like this we've thought in nights gone by about the grace of God, the love of God, the person of Jesus Christ, that He's able to meet us at the point of need and satisfy the longing within our hearts? Well, then why would you change from subjects like that and focus on a mission and a meeting like this upon that awful subject of death? Nobody really wants to talk about death. Nobody wants to consider what it actually is. You know, it's an amazing thing that in this world of ours, there's no given definition in science as to what life actually is. And by the same token, nobody really seems to understand what death is. The Bible says that death is whenever the soul leaves the body. It's not annihilation. It's not a cessation of existence. It's but a door that leads us from this life and from this world into the world to come. Nobody wants to consider what death is. Nobody wants to consider why death happens. Have you ever wondered why is there such a thing as death? And why is it that nobody seems to have cheated death? We get to 70 or 80 or 90 years, or some reach 100, but very few seem to go on beyond that. Why is that? Why is it that we're not living in a generation where people live to 500 or 600 years of age? And how come nobody ever seems to cheat death? Why is it that we die? The Bible says it's because of sin. The wages of sin is death, spiritual death, physical death, and tragically for some, Eternal death as well. Few people like to consider what death is, why it happens, and then what happens in the life thereafter. And maybe tonight you're afraid to think about death. Maybe tonight you're afraid to talk about death. That's why whenever we leave meetings like this and we've been confronted with time and eternity and the reality of the soul and the reality of death and the reality of a judgment, we don't like to be alone with our own thoughts. We turn on the radio or the CD player or the MP3 player in the car. We go into our homes, we lift our phones, we check our tablets, we go on to social media. Some will turn on the television. And we always need to have background noise and stimulants and amusement. Do you know what the word amusement actually means? The word muse means to think. The little letter A put on before it is a negative prefix which means not. So the word amuse means not to think. And we live in a world where we're consumed by amusement because we don't like to think about the things that really matter. Because sometimes whenever we're alone and it's a sleepless night and we can't sleep, we begin to think about our mortality. We begin to think about our past. We begin to think about this old loneliness and this emptiness that's inside. We maybe wonder where we're going and we can't bear to be alone with thoughts like that. So we choose rather not to think and we choose rather to be amused. Death somehow seems to be a taboo subject. We will talk about life, but we will not talk about death. Well, we're going to talk about it a little bit tonight, the conspiracy about death. That leads us tonight to think about the certainty of death. Death is no respecter of persons. Death is the most democratic thing in all the world. There are many things tonight that you and I will never get to experience. I don't think I'll ever set foot in the White House. I don't think I'll ever set foot out of a spacecraft and stand on the moon or on Mars as we're trying to do now. I don't think I'll ever get to meet some of the world's great leaders. I don't think I'll ever know what it is tonight to be a millionaire. I don't think I'll ever know tonight what it is to be a great business tycoon. I don't think tonight I'll ever be good at very many things and rise to a place of fame and prosperity in the eyes of the world. But one thing I will get to experience is death. It's the most democratic thing tonight in all the world. Now, George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright and author, was certainly not a Christian as far as we can discern. But he said this, he said, the statistics of death are quite impressive. One out of one people die. Death is a great leveler. And even in the last week, we have heard about some that have passed from this world into the next. I met with an old friend during the week that I used to work with, and he said, you remember so-and-so, and he mentioned the name. He said yesterday he was found dead in his home, 47 years of age. I spoke to somebody today and they had lost their grandmother just yesterday and they talked about their mother having a friend at work who had a young daughter who just during the week there left this world at the age of 19. Heard about another young man this morning left this world just in his mid-40s. And we seem to be living in a day where death is stalking us. And we have all heard as well about the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Death is no respecter of persons. One out of one die. None of us are getting out of this world alive. The human mortality rate in every nation upon the face of the earth since the very beginning of time, since the fall of man in the garden, has been 100%. Death never takes a holiday. Death is a universal reality. You say tonight, well, I've got no time for God. The Bible says there's a time to live. And there's also a time to die. Regardless of how busy you are, someday you will find the time to die. The Bible says we must needs die. The Bible says it's appointed unto man once to die. The Bible says that death is passed upon all men. The Word of God speaks about the house that's appointed for all living. The conspiracy about death. the certainty of death? What about the conclusiveness of death? Isn't there something very, very final about death? I'm sure tonight we have all known what it is to lose loved ones, people that we love and people that we care for, and we can empathize and sympathize with others whenever they experience it, but whenever it comes to your home, There's something very final and there's something very solid and very conclusive about death. We often call it the end. Somebody's reached the end of life's journey. They've experienced the end of life in its present form. They've experienced the end of life's opportunities. And the soul has vacated the body. And we often say, therefore, that such an individual has gone. Such an individual is no longer with us, even though their body is still very much real and material and tangible. But they have gone, they've left us. And the soul has gone out into eternity. And whenever the Bible speaks about death, It's not speaking, as we have said, about annihilation or cessation of existence. The Bible says nothing about reincarnation. It has got nothing to say about karma or limbo or a second chance or another opportunity. There's a finality about death, a conclusiveness about death. It's appointed unto man once to die, but after this, the judgment. Whenever Queen Elizabeth I was dying, she had a number of days upon a deathbed. They say that in her dressing rooms round about her bedroom. She had over 10,000 dresses, and she knew I will never wear any of them again. She reigned over an empire upon which the sun never set, and yet whenever she was dying, she spoke to her physician, and she cried out and said, all my millions for one inch of time, all my millions for just one more inch. of time. There's a certainty about death. There's a conspiracy about death. There's a conclusiveness about death. And then as well, there's also a sense of realization of the closeness of death. There's a step, David said, between me and death. Now whenever Paul in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 spoke about death, he described death even for the Christian as being an enemy. He said the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Death is an enemy because it robs us of life on this earth. Death is an enemy because it robs us of opportunity. Death is an enemy because it robs us as well of dignity. Death is an awful enemy. And yet all the while in this world of ours, we always seem to be in the shadow of death. It's never far away from us and it can call us. at any time. David said, there's a step between me and death. And the 23rd Psalm is a young man, he spoke about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and he realized that this awful enemy of humanity is never far away from anyone. of us. Whenever those thousands of passengers boarded the Titanic for its maiden voyage, they never anticipated that they were in the near room to death. Whenever John F. Kennedy, along with his wife, got into that limousine that day and were passing through the streets of Dallas to make one of his great speeches, he never anticipated, as he put on his shoes that morning, that somebody else would take them off his feet that evening. Whenever my wife was having a special birthday, I thought I'm going to treat her, going to take her out for a nice day out and we'll enjoy a day together. And so I took her to the Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast. How romantic was that for this great tour of the old Crumlin Road Jail, a dirty, dark, dank old jailhouse. And one of the highlights of that trip as the tour guide took us around was visiting the condemned man's cell. We spent maybe 10 or 15 minutes in that cell, and the tour guide talked about this cell. It was about twice the size of all the other cells. And the condemned man knew that he would never get out of the jail alive unless the laws would radically change. And at any moment he would be called from that cell and would go to another part of the prison and would stand in the gallows and the executioner would put a noose around about his neck and then a bag over his head and within a few moments of that happening he would be ushered from this world. But that cell was more comfortable than all the other cells. It was twice the size of all the other cells. He got greater food rations than the other prisoners. He was offered more cigarettes than all the other prisoners. He was allowed to drink a little bit of alcohol as well. And all the while there were two men in the cell with him. They would play chess or checkers or ludo or cards together. And all the while he knew that I'm not far from eternity. And then the day would come whenever one of the chief prison warders would come into the cell and call him by name and say, this is the day that you're going to face the gallows. And all of a sudden his perspective would change. The tour guide said he'd be offered, now what would you like for breakfast? But most of the time he was just lost in his thoughts and his appetite went from him. Have you got anything you would like to say before you go to the gallows? Lost for words, he holds out his hands and they put the handcuffs on. And he still in his mind has this idea that the executioner's cell is somewhere else in the prison. He'll be able to leave his condemned man's cell, walk down the gangways of the prison, say farewell to his friends, be taken outside and look up to the sky one last time before he dies. And he's getting ready for his last journey. But just beside his bed, there's this huge bookcase, this huge dresser, this huge cabinet. And once he has refused his breakfast, once they've asked him if there's anything else he would like, before he goes to the executioner, he shakes his head, and then they just pull aside that big dressing unit, that wardrobe, and just on the other side of the wall that he's been sleeping in perhaps for months, there's the gallows. And he doesn't even know that all the while he's been sleeping in that bed, he's in the near room to death. And the thing that's going to take his life is just about 10 feet from where he lays his head every night. Dear friends tonight, all of us are in the near room to death. Just a step between us and death. But friends, if we just died like a dog in the street or just died like a tree dies and that's it, there would really be nothing for us to worry about. But the Word of God also makes it clear for the unconverted that while you're in the near room to death, you're also in the near room to destruction. Or can we even use that awful word, the near room to damnation. What an awful word, what a crude, coarse word, and yet the word damnation was a word that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God Himself, who the Word of God says was incarnate love, incarnate deity, full of grace and truth. He often used that word, damnation, to describe the eternal destiny of those who do not know him. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. He spoke about the Pharisees, the religious people of his day, and he said that they would receive greater damnation. It's a word that the Apostle Paul used as well. He spoke about those who sit at the Lord's table, unconverted and in their sin, eating and drinking damnation onto their soul. But what does that awful word mean, damnation? It literally means a sentence of punishment or condemnation. And can I remind you tonight that whenever the Son of God spoke about damnation and destruction, He was speaking about something that was real. Something that is real. John Blanchard, the great evangelist in the 1990s, put out a book entitled, Whatever Happened to Hell? Whatever happened to hell? We don't hear much talk nowadays about judgment. We don't hear much talk nowadays about damnation. We don't hear much talk nowadays about hell. We hear a lot of talk about heaven, and rightfully so. Wonderful to think about heaven. Wonderful to point men to the cross, to Christ, who can take people to heaven. But is it not true today that we are living in a day of cafeteria Christianity? where we take out all of the nice things that we want and we leave the undesirables behind. One preacher recently, a number of years ago, Rob Bell, said the Christian life, the Christian gospel, the body of Christian truth is like a great wall. And he says you can just take out various bricks and the wall still stands. So if you don't like the doctrine of regeneration, Or if you don't like the doctrine of the deity of Christ or the resurrection or sin or depravity or judgment, you can take these things out and by and large the wall still stands just so long as you don't take too much out, the wall will still stand. What an awful doctrine. Dear friends, tonight, this book tonight is either absolute or it's obsolete. Either Jesus Christ meant what he said and said what he meant, or he was a fraud, a charlatan, a liar, and my Savior, the Bible says, was full of grace and truth. He spoke about the devil. He spoke about death. He spoke about hell. He spoke about condemnation. He spoke about judgment. Most are happy to believe that there's a heaven. Praise God there is. But very few really want to consider the fact and the reality of hell. And yet Jesus Christ used the strongest possible language to describe it. Hell is truth often seen too late. One preacher said that even the gospel in hell is bad news. Even the gospel in hell is bad news. It's a real thing the Savior is speaking about. It's also a righteous judgment, a righteous damnation. Off the cry goes up, if there's a God out there somewhere, why doesn't he fix everything that's wrong in this world of ours? And that's the attitude that man has. We will break God's law, and then whenever the consequences of breaking God's law begin to affect our lives and our society, we will point the finger back at God and ask Him why He just doesn't come and fix all of our problems. We have this idea that God, if He loves us, should just be like a jailer who opens the keys and opens the doors and just lets us out. to live lives the way we please. And yet God, if we're honest tonight, has got absolutely no promise, absolutely no duty, and absolutely no obligation to show grace or love or mercy to this fallen world of ours. We do not deserve the least of God's mercies. God's love is an undeserved love. God's love is an unmerited love. God's love is a love that we cannot work for, we do not deserve, we do not earn. God's love is bestowed upon us out of mercy, out of grace, and out of kindness. The Word of God says that the Lord shall judge the world in righteousness. God is righteous tonight and shall not the judge of all the earth do right. This awful word, damnation, There's a real damnation. There's a righteous damnation. It's also what we could call a retributive damnation. Punishment and retribution are concepts that are foreign to this liberal society we're living in. Often now, whenever a person is put in prison, it's not to punish them for the crimes that they have committed. It's to try to reform them or rehabilitate them. And I believe in rehabilitation. I believe in reformation. I believe in making a citizen a better citizen. I believe we should all try to be the very best that we can be. But there is such a thing as righteous judgment. There is such a thing in the Bible as punishment. There is such a thing as facing the judgment of God. And God's hell tonight is not reformative or restorative. Hell tonight is retributive, retribution. One last thing about this damnation. It's also a relentless damnation. What is hell but the absence of God? the absence of God's love, the absence of God's mercy, the absence of God's grace. In hell, there's no time. In hell, there's no hope. Hell is a relentless place. One old Puritan said that I read in my Bible that there are three things in hell. There's darkness, there's chains, and there's eternal fire. One last thought as we bring this message tonight to a close. We tonight are in the near room to death. Those of you tonight who are not saved are in the near room to destruction. But praise God, there's always hope. As long as there's a God in heaven, as long as there's a Savior at God's right hand, and as long as you've got breath in your lungs, I believe tonight there's always hope. Because while there's a step between me and death, A step tonight between you, perhaps, and damnation. There's also a step between you and deliverance. A step between you and deliverance. In Mark's Gospel chapter 12 and verse number 34, the Lord Jesus Christ was having a conversation with a scribe. Now a scribe is a man who wrote down the Word of God and made copies of the Holy Scriptures. And he was a very religious man. And as the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to this scribe and listened to him, and the Lord will listen to you tonight if you talk to him. And the Lord listened to this scribe and then said to him, I perceive that thou art not far from the kingdom of God. He was like Abner, just a step, just a step within the walls of the place of refuge. not far from the kingdom of God, so close to becoming a Christian, like a group who said, to be a Christian, not far from the kingdom of God. And here you are tonight, and some of you have been out more than one occasion at this gospel mission. You've been maybe thinking about becoming a Christian. You've maybe been thinking about trusting Christ. You've maybe been thinking about getting right with God. And here you are tonight, you're amongst God's people and they're praying for you. You're under the sound of God's Word. You're in an atmosphere of prayer, an atmosphere of worship. And you're not far tonight from the kingdom of God. And the Savior has promised in a mission like this, in a meeting like this, that where two or three are gathered in His name, He's there in the midst. He's nearer tonight than hands or feet. And you can call upon Him just where you sit. You don't even have to call out loud. Just in your heart, you can call upon the Lord. As the publican did, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Or as Peter did, Lord save me, I perish. As the Philippian jailer just believed in his heart, he was wonderfully saved and wonderfully delivered. Thou art not far from the kingdom, just a step between us and death. just a step between you, perhaps, and damnation, and just a step between you and deliverance. Let me say a few simple things in closing about God's great deliverance. That's what the word salvation means. It means to be delivered. It means to be rescued. It means to be set free. God's deliverance tonight is free. It's free. Whoever he won that thirsteth, come to the waters. He that hath no money come by wine and milk without money and without price. Maybe the thing that holds you back tonight is you think I've nothing to give to the Lord. I've nothing to offer Him. I don't have gift or talent or ability. I'm so weak and so frail and I maybe don't have many years left to live. I've nothing to give Him. Well, God's salvation tonight is free. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, at a birthday or an anniversary or Christmas, if a loved one gives you a gift, what do you do with it? Do you say, well, how much do I owe you for that? Maybe you open it up and you think, boy, I couldn't afford something, I guess could I pay you off in installments? And they say, no, I give it to you because I love you. I've paid for it. It's a gift and I want you to receive it and I want you to enjoy it. And that's just the same with the gift of God, which is eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And the measure of a person's love can often be determined in what they're willing to give. Some of you tonight would give your lives for your children. Some of you would maybe give your life for your parents, or your life for your brother or sister, or maybe your life for a friend. Well, God was willing to give His life, the Son of God, becoming a man. God the Son gave His life for us. Upon that cross and salvation becomes a free gift. It's not cheap. It's the most expensive gift that was ever purchased. My Savior went to a cross and shed His blood and became sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. The gift is free. Deliverance is free. The deliverance as well is full. Hebrews 7.25 says He is able to save to the uttermost. Save fully and save completely. Doesn't matter tonight what your background is. Doesn't matter tonight the type of life that you've lived. Doesn't even matter tonight how many times you've heard the gospel and rejected Jesus Christ. There's still mercy for you. He is able to save you freely. He's able to save you fully. Horatius Bonner, the old Scottish hymn writer, said, man is a complete sinner, but Jesus Christ is a complete Savior, and Jesus Christ saves complete sinners completely. God's deliverance is free. God's deliverance is full. God's deliverance is final. The Word of God says that whenever the Savior was on the cross, He cried out with victory and with triumph, that word finished. It is finished. The price is paid. The door has been opened. The veil has been rent entwined. Divine justice has been satisfied. It's finished. You don't need to do anything. All you have to do is trust in Him and come. Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to the cross I cling. naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace, foul I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. The Word of God says that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be done forever. The Bible speaks about God's eternal redemption. The hymn writer could say, "'Tis done, the great transaction's done. Jesus and all in him is mine. Alive in him my living head and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the prize through Christ my own." The near room to death, the near room to destruction, the near room to deliverance. You know tonight there's room at the cross for you. And whenever the Savior was on that cross, you know that there was a thief crucified on either side of him, both in exactly the same predicament, both in the near room to death, both in the near room to damnation, both in the near room to deliverance. And yet one rejected Christ. And one received Christ as his Savior. He had nothing to offer. He had nothing to give. He couldn't go back to a synagogue or a temple or a place of worship. He couldn't put money in a plate. He couldn't go through the waters of baptism. He couldn't do anything other than trust the Savior. And he simply prayed and said, Lord, would you remember me? When thou comest into thy kingdom, And right there and then, he was wonderfully delivered. I pray tonight that you'll trust in this blessed, blessed Savior and give your heart and life to him tonight, this September Lord's Day evening, 2022, the same weekend that the world mourns the passing of her queen. I wonder tonight, will you trust in the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Just a step tonight. just a step between you and death, but just a step between you and deliverance. Will you take that step tonight, that step of faith, and step out for Jesus Christ and say, Lord, I want you to take me tonight. Lord, I'm coming home just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me and that thy bids me come to thee, O Lamb of God. Let's pray together. Let's seek the Lord. And as we have said on other nights, we've got little gospel booklets. Have to get a few more of them. After last week, a new beginning. There's a few more there. What must I do to be saved? I'll have these at the door of the tent. If I can help you, or you'd like just to receive a little booklet, do you want to speak to me or somebody else about the things of God? There's a gatehouse up there. It'll be private. It'll be quiet. And if we can help you, pray with you, open the Word of God with you, you want to get saved, do that tonight. Make that step. And even in the closing moments, why not call upon the Lord? Heavenly Father, we thank Thee once again for Your presence with us. Thank You, Father, tonight for the wonderful messages and song and for the glorious message of the gospel. And, O God, tonight we pray that You'll bring men and women and young people through for Yourself. Give deciding grace. Don't let anybody leave this meeting and take one more step without the Savior. But, O God, we pray that there will be those who will take that step towards Calvary. And it's the last step they'll ever take alone, because Lord, you'll be with them throughout the rest of life's journey. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Give deciding grace. Glorify thy son in the salvation of the lost. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.