EVERY person hopes to go to heaven. Even the professed infidel says, “If there is such a place, hope I shall go there.” But the question arises, How are they going to get there? Various men express various thoughts about that, and were it a matter left to our option, no doubt we should have each preferring his own way to that of his neighbors. But here is just the whole point, and all will be forced to see, sooner or later, that their thoughts have no place. God has made the way Himself, and each must avail themselves of God’s way; or find out, like Saul of old, that they “have played the fool,” and perish forever in their own way.
My reader, perhaps you say like many, “Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners.” But what does it mean? Do you understand what you say? Can you have weighed it? A sinner! A rebel against God! Guilty of the crime of sin against a holy God, who never did you anything but good How terrible! Do you know the sentence pronounced by Heaven’s unalterable decree? Allow me to tell you, lest your sleepy conscience has forgotten it; and perchance it may wake up and lead you to repentance.
God has a right to make His own laws, and an equal right to punish the creature who breaks them. Who can deny Him that right? Ah, dear reader, as your eyes scan these lines, you know that God would be just if He were this moment to cast your guilty soul into hell forever, as an unrepentant, unconverted, time-serving, pleasure-seeking sinner. You may well say with those of old, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not” (Lam. 3:2222It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. (Lamentations 3:22)).
But there are those who say, “I do not think God will cast men into hell. He is a God of love. He is not cruel. And I do not see casting men into hell consistent with love.”
Away with such soul-trifling thoughts! Let not the enemy of your soul throw dust in your eyes, and thus lead you on blindly to everlasting ruin. Awake, sinner, awake! God is not cruel. You know He is not. But He is righteous, and you forget that. Would He be a just God if, after you had sinned, and He had pronounced the penalty to be death, then, out of pity, He did not inflict that penalty? You know He would not.
Then there are others who say, “But why should God punish me, simply because I cannot see as you see?” I reply, “He will not punish you because you do not see as I see; but because you refuse to see as He sees.” “The wages of sin is death.”
God in His boundless love provided the Saviour who took the wages. “When we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:88But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)). His blood was shed, and it is recorded of it, that “it cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)). And all God asks is, your acceptance of Christ as your own Saviour, for “there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)). But what are you doing? Denying God the right to prescribe the way in which you should approach Him. Coming to Him on the ground that you are not so bad as some, and a great deal better than many. You go to your place of worship, attend all the means of grace, pay everyone their clue, and do the best you can; while many with as high pretensions do not do so much. And thus you lull your soul into a false security, and rock it to sleep in Satan’s cradle of self-complacent Phariseeism. May God arouse thee, my self-satisfied, blindfolded, benighted reader, ere it be too late.
Allow me to advise you to write down on paper what you call your best,―all the good you can say of yourself, and for which you think God ought to allow you to go to heaven. And then write above it all, one little sentence from God’s word, ―
Now, in the light of that divine sentence, tell me what is your very best worth? Nothing! Why? Because there is no blood in it. Then take care, sinner! Your road is the wrong one, and leads to hell. Beware! Far better trust Jesus and his precious blood.
There is no salvation by works, prayers, tears, fastings, vigils, penance, or any such thing. Hear it, ye workers for salvation. God declares it is “NOT OF WORKS” (Eph. 2:99Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:9)). Then stop, as you value your soul, stop! Listen to the cry of the dying Saviour on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:3030When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:30)). Believe it, and live. See, written as it were over His best, the divine testimony to the value and efficacy of His blood, “It cleanseth us from all sin;” and let your heart rest forever.
I beseech you, go on no longer in such a dangerous and slippery path. There is a solemn moment coming soon. Do you ask me what moment I mean? I mean your last. When your soul is slipping away into eternity, laden with a lifetime of guilt. Yes, your last. When the thought of the wasted moments, missed opportunities, and rejected blessings, are sending a thrill of horror through your palpitating heart, until the chill of death creeps over it and stills its throbbings and beatings forever!
Do you curl your lip, and laugh and sneer at this warning? You will not always do so. The day will come, when you will wish you had heeded it, and taken God’s way instead of your own. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:2525There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 16:25)). “Jesus said, I am the way” (John 14:66Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)). And “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him” (Heb. 7:2525Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)). It is Jesus who says, “Come unto me,” and “Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out.” Surely God’s way is best! W. E.
FAITH is the soul’s reception of a divine testimony; repentance is the effect of such reception, or, in other words, it is the tear-drop in the eye of faith.