READ that again, friend; maybe you have never before grasped its wondrous meaning. God is offering to save your guilty soul from hell, on condition that you believe on His Son.
Do you marvel that He can save you on such simple terms? Listen then:
Long ago, while sin was raging in all its terrible power in this unhappy world, and man was powerless either to arrest its progress or to save himself from its fatal consequences, the Son of God came down in the likeness of man, and then — oh, wondrous kindness, love unparalleled―! He took the place of the sinner, and meekly offered Himself to bear the sinner’s judgment.
Stretched on that cross, the torrent of God’s wrath against sin swept in upon the sinless One, and in was judged in His holy person. The face of God was turned away from Him, and as He died there went forth from His lips that cry of agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Look up, reader; for the cross, the tomb, are vacant now, and the risen Christ is seated on the right hand of the Majesty on high. There is no shadow now; but the glory of God shines in His blessed face, and the descended Spirit has brought to the sinner God’s answer to the dying question of His Saviour Son — “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
Friend, Jesus was forsaken that you, the prodigal, might be welcomed by the Father’s kiss of peace and love. He suffered, that you, the guilty one, might never suffer. He endured the wrath of God, that you, the sinner, might have peace with God. He died, that you might live with Him in the glory of God forever.
And is there nothing for me to do? do I hear you ask? Neither prayers, nor reformation, nor ordinances, nor works of righteousness? Nothing, sinner, nothing. You cannot add to a work that is already finished. Do you imagine for one moment that God would allow you to lay the filthy rags of your righteousness alongside of the obedience, the atoning blood and the glory of the person of Jesus, the Son of His bosom? Never, sinner, never. God is offering you this instant, even while you read this, a salvation which has already been procured by Christ at Calvary, in agony and blood — procured for sinners, guilty, lost, helpless, hell-deserving sinners, such as you and I, reader; He is offering it to you because you are a sinner, and need it; He offers it to you as a gift, without money and without price, apart from any good works of yours, or any efforts to produce them. Hark! He is still saying, “BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED.”
How wonderful! Surely you have responded to this invitation of grace.
Are you a stranger to the fact that Christ at the cross undertook to do for you what you could never have done for yourself; i.e., to satisfy God so completely about your sins that He could righteously put them away without punishing you for them, and that to this end there flowed from His riven side that stream of precious blood without which there was no remission? Have you never before heard that the blood shed there, so perfectly and eternally glorified God that He forthwith sent from heaven that wonderful message to a world of sinners — “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” (Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31).)
But this is the truth, and God will never lay anything to the charge of those who have believed in Jesus, nor will He ever judge them for their sins. On that shed blood is founded His offer of salvation to sinners such as you and I, my reader, who, if we had our deserts, would be in hell this moment; and it rests with yourself whether you will take the place of a lost and ruined sinner before God, and accept salvation upon His terms; for the Redeemer has so perfectly accomplished His work that all you have to do is to believe on Him, AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED.
W. H. S.