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In the past year I have developed the habit of enjoying -- when it were possible -- to sit outside immediately before sunset and watch the day turn to night. There are some definite signs of the change from one to the other and as the sky fascinates me, I have learn to recognize them as they happen. The first sign that the day is winding down is the sun slowly drifting toward the western horizon and as it gets close, the horizon all around ignites in a reddish haze as the light particles pierce the dust in our atmosphere. As the sun gets closer to the horizon, a trick of the eye actually causes it to appear a few minutes above the earth when it has actually passed below it and the sunset shows it's greatest splendor. After the sun has passed from view, it's rays still shine through the sky, but any bright planets will begin to pop into view. And then across the entire sky the long, darker blue form of the earth's shadow in space slowly creeps up from the east until it crosses the sky. Then very slowly the dark blue begins to fade to gray and the brightest stars begin to come out slowly one by one until -- about an hour after sunset -- twilight is over and night has begun.

Today, the coming of night is nothing more to us than a daily phenomenon that signals time, but in the days before streetlights and electricity, the ending of the day signaled a finality and the ending of all tasks. If there were a harvest to be brought in, then it had to be brought in before sunset. If there were chores to be completed, then the onset of the signals of the end of the day put a pep in the step of the laborer, because he knew that when the sun went down, all that could possibly be accomplished would have been accomplished and he would have to stop. No man could work in the night.

We read as our text the words of Jesus Christ. It is the third year of His ministry and Jesus is hard at work teaching, preaching, and healing. His disciples had tried at times to get Him to slow down saying "He is beside Himself." His friends thought at times that perhaps He was a bit too radical and too passionate because Jesus kept up a rigorous pace. And yet we find the reason for such a pace in the words that He spoke to them:

Jesus was a man who understood the timetable of God for His life. He had come to earth with a very specific purpose. There was a beautiful beginning to His ministry ordained of God, but there was also coming a time of ending. While the disciples saw popularity and viewed it as "we have the rest of our life to reach all of these people," Jesus had a determination and a resolve that was heightened because He knew that His time was short. He understood that He didn't have much longer in His earthly ministry and so the clock and the calendar became His enemy to a point. In terms of His earthly ministry and the plan of God, night was fast approaching, and the knowledge of that put a pep in His step and a purpose to His stride and a determination in His voice. He realized the urgency of the hour and that if God's will were to be done and people were to hear the voice of God, then they would have to hear it now! And so He said "I must do the works while it is day: the night is coming, where no one can work." It was this knowledge that the sun would soon set on His ministry that drove Jesus to such a ministry that turned the world upside down.

There are some people who believe in Christ but never get the revelation that the kingdom of God is about more than just them, personally. There are many people who are content to worry about their own salvation and trying to make it to heaven personally, and certainly we should desire to be saved, but if we only think of us and we only serve God for what we can get out of it personally, then we have not truly been changed to be like Christ. Christ's personal agenda was to die on the cross. His personal agenda was to pay the blood sacrifice for sin, but His personal agenda did not stop Him from spending three and a half years of ministering to the needs of others. If we are truly following in Christ's footsteps, then we will care about the kingdom of God beyond our own personal and selfish needs. If we do not, then we are not truly like or serving Christ.

God didn't save you and give you this wonderful revelation just for you to sit on a pew and hopefully make it to heaven one day. But as long as there is a living soul that has not received the Holy Ghost. As long as there is one living soul that has never been baptized in His name. As long as there is one person on earth who has not developed a close relationship with God and learned what it takes to please God, then we have a job to do. We have a task to perform. If you have not yet developed a burden for the spiritual condition of other people, and you have not prayed a prayer for God to lead someone to you that you could lead to Him, then you have missed the point of why God has you here. If we are His disciples, then we should obey the commands that He gave all of His disciples to "Go and preach and teach." We should obey the commandments where Jesus said "make disciples of them." When you are forgiven yourself and filled with the precious gift of the Holy Ghost, then you have the responsibility to reach out to others and pull them also.

Think of this. How would we view a person who was amidst many drowning people, and a lifeline was thrown to them and they were pulled on board a safe vessel, and then when someone handed them a rope and a floaty and said "you're safe now, help us reach someone else," they said "I'm here and that's all that matters, let the rest of them drown." How would we think of that person?

How would we think of someone who had inoperable cancer and yet a cure was found and administered and after they were cured, a doctor said "here is more of the cure, go find somebody else who is suffering and give it to them," and yet that person said "I'm cured now, so who cares about anybody else?" "Let them deal with it without this stuff!" What would such an attitude reveal to us about that individual?

Then consider that salvation is of far greater worth and value than a lifeline in a rough ocean or a cure for cancer. Drowning and cancer can only end this physical life, but sin causes eternal separation from God. If we don't believe that, then we don't truly believe in Calvary and the cross, because it was because of the horrible price of sin that God became flesh and came to earth and died. But if we believe that, then we become selfish and worthless human beings if something doesn't arise in our souls that brings us to the realization that we have work to do! There is a cause for which I was granted salvation and that is to bring others to Christ. If the church loses that focus and that burden, then the church ceases to be the church. We are the laborers in the vineyard that Jesus taught about. We are the harvesters in the fields that are white and ready to harvest. We are the body of Christ in this present age. If we don't reach them, then who will? We have a job to do!

The Hollywood version of the story of the sinking of the Titanic left out a true story that was collected from the memoirs of the six survivors. On the ship was a man named John Harper who was the newly elected pastor of the famous Moody Church in Chicago. He was en route from London to New York and was on board the ill-fated ship on it's first and last voyage. Once the ship hit the iceberg, Harper ran through the ship yelling, "women, children, and unsaved into the lifeboats!" "Women, children, and unsaved into the lifeboats!" He escorted his wife and daughter into a lifeboat and then returned to the ship, running up to people screaming at them "are you saved?" And when the answer was "no," then he cried out "then by all means get on a lifeboat!" When the boats were filled, he turned to a man and asked "are you saved?" and when the answer was "no," he took off his lifejacket and handed it to the man. Of the six people rescued from the frigid waters comes the story of a man who realized the most important thing of the moment.

He was a man who realized that being saved and right with God in eternity was the most important thing. And let me say being saved and being right with God are one and the same thing. You are not saved if you are not living according to God's Word, and if you are truly right with God, then you are saved. We cannot separate the two.

If you are saved then thank God for it, take a deep breath, and then let the realization set in: you have a responsibility now that you have received salvation because there are others yet in the waters of sin before you floundering and dying. In following Christ comes a personal responsibility to help others. He saved me, therefore I must reach others with this great message. And so what John Harper knew needs to become our realization: if I end this life and I am ready to meet God, then death is nothing to be afraid of, but if there must be a choice, better that I die in these waters and allow someone else to have one more chance to get things right between them and God. Such is the importance of being saved! It is far greater than a cure for cancer or a lifeline in troubled waters.

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If there should be one verse that becomes our "day-to-day thought" in living for God, it should be our text. We should be constantly reminded that "the night cometh when no man can work." It needs to run through our mind constantly "I must work while it is day." Why should this verse become our mantra? Because the signs of the day of Grace are showing in the earth. The Light of Truth is just above the horizon and the shadows are growing long. We do not have yet the most of the day to work for we are at the end. The night is fast approaching.

On the Day of Pentecost, Peter spoke up to defend the 120 tongue talkers and said that the Holy Ghost being poured out that day was a fulfillment of a prophecy of Joel:

It was God pouring out His Spirit just as prophesied, but did you catch what Peter said? That it would come to pass "in the last days?" He said that the Day of Pentecost was "the last days." The Day of Pentecost was almost 2,000 years ago. If two thousand years ago was considered "last days" then how close to sundown are we now? Truly we should know that night is fast approaching!

You can't preach or talk about the fact that we are living in the end times and that Jesus is coming soon, without someone laughing and saying "oh, preacher, they've been saying that for hundreds of years. Where is His return? If He's coming back where is He?" And yet their scoffing proves that we are truly close to the night because Peter said this:

Did you catch that? The mockers would come "in the last days." In their making fun of our preaching about His return, they actually prove that we are indeed coming close to the night fall of Grace.

Consider this: Throughout the workings of God in history, we have seen a progressive revelation of His master plan. At every new revelation, there has been a major event in God's timeline. After Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, God did not reveal more of Himself until the great Flood of Noah's day. The time between the two was 1,656 years. From the Flood until God gave the Law to the children of Israel, was 1,012 years. The next major event on God's calendar was the cross of Jesus Christ and from the giving of Moses' law to Calvary, was 1,520 years. After Calvary the next major event on God's calendar is the Rapture of the church with Jesus coming back in the clouds to separate the saved from the lost, and this will end our Era of Grace. The Rapture has not yet taken place. It has currently been 1,965 years since Calvary which means that God has far extended this era over any other. That's why Peter finished with:

He is coming back, but He has just extended the time a little so that a few more would find a place of repentance from their life of sin! Thank God for that, but you can't help but realize that we are fast approaching the end. The horizon is growing red. The night is fast approaching, and that ought to put a pep in your step. It ought to resolve your focus to know that "I must work while it is day!" Because indeed the night is fast coming where no one will be able to work!

There are some people who live for Christ as if they have all the time in the world. I have seen people prolong and put off stepping out in faith or totally committing to God's kingdom for years. If you are not right with God and are still living in a life of willful sin, then this message is to you: Today is the day of salvation but tomorrow is not promised. In fact, all of the signs are pointing toward that the day is ending soon. And some people choose to remain ignorant of the signs. Jesus said:

The signs of the times are that we are close to the end. We cannot ignore them. We are living in the last days; the signs are clear if you want to look at them. Observe these further scriptures:

"In these last days, has spoken to us in His Son." Jesus Christ' ministry was almost two thousand years ago. The book of Hebrews was written 1900 years ago. And yet the writer says "in these last days." You cannot deny what the signs of scripture are telling us! Listen to another:

Is this not an accurate portrait of most people today? Cannot we take this to our schools and jobs and see it's fulfillment? Cannot some of us see it in our own homes? The signs are screaming: the night is fast approaching, and if the night is fast approaching, then we must "work while it is day!" We very literally are running out of time.

Jesus gave us definite signs of the end of Grace in the 24th chapter of Matthew. Listen to His words:

Jesus said that these things had to take place before the end could come:

Wars and rumor of wars -- do not we live in this daily? This past century has seen the bloodiest and worse wars of human history, and every day we hear of a new conflict and rumors of future ones. This has certainly been fulfilled.

In various places there will be famines and earthquakes -- Have you read the newspaper lately or seen the news? Every week we hear about a famine or a great earthquake. They have become so common that they no longer even grab our attention when we view the news. They are common place today; certainly this condition has been fulfilled.

Israel will be severely persecuted among all nations and believers will be attacked -- Is there any nation on the earth with as many enemies as Israel? Have you ever read of the years of horrors that the Catholic church inflicted upon the Holy land? Have you ever heard of the holocaust? And what of the martyrs that happen daily, today. Not back then, but today. Did you hear of the two young school girls walking to school who were beheaded last week by Muslims because the girls were Christians? Certainly we must admit, even in luxury-padded America, that these conditions have been fulfilled.

People will betray and hate each other. People's love will grow cold -- Has there ever been a society with a higher divorce rate? How about murder? We live in a time where people have truly lost their "natural affection" as Paul foretold. When mothers can leave their babies in trash cans and fathers can kill their newborns, it is a definite sign that we are in the last days.

This Gospel shall be preached in every nation of the world -- In the 1990s, this was fulfilled. In every sovereign nation of the world, that has been at least one Apostolic missionary preach Christ. This final condition is no longer a future fulfillment, but is a past achievement!

And then after these signs, Jesus gave one more definite sign that would bring the end:

He is speaking of the Antichrist who will stand in the holy place in the temple in Jerusalem and defile it. We will definitely know that we have reached the end when we see this. But for their to be a holy place to stand in, there must first be a rebuilt Jewish temple. I was talking to Bro. Dillon this past week and he mentioned that the noted prophecy teacher, Irvin Baxter, had just returned from his annual visit to Israel. He has friends there with connections to allow him to see and talk to the Orthodox Jewish religious leaders. In the past years, they have been fast working to have everything made and ready for when the temple is built. They have had garments for the priest made up. They have formed the spoons and the furniture and the censers and such. They have found a guy in Texas of all places (!) to raise the red heifer that will be required to cleanse and dedicate the temple for it's first use. Bro. Baxter said that every year he has gone, the report has always been "well, we are 20% there," or "we have 60% more stuff to do," but this year the priest said "we are ready to go. If there was a temple here, we could begin sacrifice tomorrow. We have all the utensils and we have even already organized the Sanhedrin court to rule on religious matters."

They are no longer preparing, but they are waiting. Just waiting on a temple so that they can resume the sacrifice. And so I'm preaching to you: the day is far spent! The night is fast approaching! It's not time to play games with God! It's not time to remain uncommitted! But it's time to sell out and make your calling and election sure! And it's time to get busy winning others because we must work while it is day, the night is coming when no man can work. The night is fast approaching!

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"Okay, preacher, I understand that we are close to the end, but what can I do?" "How can I work for the kingdom of God?" "How can I make a difference?" Let me ask you a question: "what was it that won you to truth?" Why are you here? What was it that convinced you to come?

I can answer the question for some of you because you have told me. Some of you are here because "I felt something in the presence of God that I had never felt before." Some are here because "I saw people genuinely changed by God's power and it blew me away." Some are here "because someone was able to answer my questions about the Bible and I understood." Some of you are here because there was someone who was on fire for God that grabbed your attention and salted your spiritual appetite for something more. Some are here "because there was something different about this church." Some are here because you saw a depth and a spiritual level in others that you had never seen before.

But not one of you is here because someone was a hypocrite around you. Not one of you is here because nobody would pray for you. Not one of you are here because someone was spiritually cold. Not one of you were attracted to God by someone compromising with sin and trying to live as close to the world as they could. There's not one of you that can say "I wanted to know more about God because I walked into a service that was cold where people really weren't seeking God or worshipping and their minds were elsewhere." Not one of you can say "I was really attracted to truth, because I noticed people missing church all the time and I thought 'wow, I want what is causing them to be unfaithful'!" Not one of you are here because somebody refused to teach you a Bible Study or because the saints just sat at home. Not one of you is here because of clamped mouths and witnesses that did not share their testimony. Right?

So what can you do to win a soul? How about starting with what others were doing that worked to win you? Whatever you saw in others, then why don't you become that for someone else? Why don't you totally commit!? Why don't you be faithful? Why don't you get red hot for God so that people cannot help but notice your faith and power!? Why don't you pray and fast so that our services draw people? Why don't you study so that you can answer someone's questions? Why don't you worship like you saw others worshipping when you came in? It worked for you, maybe others need to see it also! Perhaps if we would open our mouths and speak faith to others and encouragement to others just as someone did to us, we would see a great harvest! Maybe if someone could see a great a change in our lives, as we did in others long ago, that it might have the same effect on them as it did on us!

But whatever you do, it's not time to quit or back down on our faith. If anything, it's time to shift to a higher gear. It's time to fast more than we've ever fasted. It's time to pray more than we ever have. It's time to be more committed than we ever have been before. It's time to worship more passionately and truthfully than any time hence. Why? Because the night is fast approaching. Therefore we must work while it is day. Like Jesus, we must get the harvest in with everything that we've got, because the night is coming where no man can work. The signs are all screaming that we are in the last days!

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Isaiah had this unique prophecy about the last days:

He prophesied that in the end, the "desert would blossom as the rose" and that it would "blossom abundantly." We have lived to see the literal, physical fulfillment of this prophecy in an unexpected way. In modern times, the area had become extremely arid because one of the two major rainfalls associated with that region had quit for a while. The Bible mentions these rains as the "former rains" and the "latter rains." The "former rains" came in autumn and were light, and the "latter rains" came in the spring. God told the children of Israel that the rains were dependent upon their faithfulness to Him. Listen to some scriptures:

In Jeremiah's time, because of Israel's great sins, God withheld the latter rain of the spring from the land:

Throughout the centuries after Christ even until modern times, people noticed that the latter rains of the spring stopped falling in Israel. Many scholars believed that this was a fulfillment of scripture and a testimony of the Jews' rejection of Jesus and lack of faithfulness. But Joel prophesied that in the last days, the latter rain would return:

In 1828, almost two hundred years ago, the latter rain began again very feebly. Israel was still a desert area and a very dry place to live, but Jews across the world took the return of the latter rain as a sign that they were close to seeing the fulfillment of God giving them back their homeland.

In 1948, God gave the Jews back their homelands and I don't have time to go through all of the miraculous things that God did from that point on to help Israel win against their antagonistic neighbors. As the Jews began to travel back to live in their homeland, something happened: the latter rain became heavier and heavier, so much so that since 1948, the rain levels of the spring have more than doubled! This rain had enabled Israel to be slowly converted from a dusty desert land to a plant and tree covered land, and since the late 1980s, Israel has been one of the leading exporters of roses! What Isaiah said had to happen for the Messiah to come again, has happened even as we speak!

In the last days, God will establish Israel and the temple mountain as the center of worship in the earth. We are fast moving that way. All the signs are there. The night is fast approaching. We should not ignore them, but recognize them and allow it to spur us to action. It's not time to grow cold in God and sit idly by, but it's rather time to be sold out to His cause! We must work while it is day because the night comes when no man can work. The sign of the sunset of this age are all around; the night is fast approaching. Let us be examples of Godliness in this sinful world!