AN old Christian meeting a youth by the wayside proffered him a tract, headed, “Believe, and be saved?” “But what am I to believe, sir?” said the youth. “That all-important question,” replied the gentleman, “I am delighted to hear you ask; for most persons content themselves by saying, ‘Oh, yes, we ought to believe.’” The old Christian lives, the youth was suddenly snatched away by illness, but he learned the gospel of God in his heart.
Dear Reader, may we respectfully but earnestly ask, “What do you believe?” and remember that eternal peace or misery depends upon this.
1. What do you believe about yourself? That you your very self will live forever? That you may die at any moment to this world? That the way which the tree falls that way it will lie? That there is no place for repentance after death, it being appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment? That you will either be forever in heaven with God and Christ, the holy angels and holy men from every dime and tongue and age; or, that you will be forever in hell with the devil and his angels, and with all the vile people that have hated God and loved sin from the first?
You have been brought up from youth so to believe, but can it be possible that you verily do so believe? Not merely assenting to the facts, but believing these things in your heart as things which concern your own self? Do you believe that you will be judged for your sins, and that after the judgment comes the second death—that is, the lake of fire? Be honest with yourself, we pray you. Then one more question about yourself. Are you now, at this moment, safe for all eternity. Certain that there is no condemnation, no fire, no torment for you; assured that heaven is your heme; that every sin which you have ever done is clean gone forever, washed away in the blood of Christ, blotted out of God’s book of remembrance and by Him forgotten?
You hesitate. “Are all MY sins forgiven?” This, you say, is a presumptuous question, ill-befitting genuine humility and true religion. “No,” is your reply, “Neither have I, nor has anyone else, a right to say my sins are all forgiven.”
Honest friend, if you really believe that there is no repentance after death, and that at any moment you may die, and yet cannot say you are now forgiven, then you must be miserable. And if you are not utterly miserable, then what you suppose to be belief is merely educational assent. The truth is you do not believe that you are an immortal being, whose destiny is everlasting happiness or woe, and whose only opportunity for mercy depends upon this short uncertain life.
Does the tempter whisper, “But there will be pardon at the day of judgment?” Oh! dear reader, this is a cruel temptation, heed it not, heed it not. Read the account of the great judgment of such as die with their sins unforgiven recorded in Revelation, chap. 20:11, 14, and if you believe what is there written, you must confess that the idea of pardon at the day of judgment is a cruel snare of Satan. Be not entrapped thus.
Neither dream of a thousand years of woe, nor of ten thousand years, nay, nor of ten thousand thousand years of woe, for it is eternal, ever existing woe. The second death and the lake of fire mean the same thing. Be not deceived by these pleasing lies of the Liar and Murderer.
Another question we make bold to ask you? What do you believe about the Scriptures? Do you indeed believe that the Scriptures are God’s own words? That they “cannot be broken?” That though heaven and earth should pass away, yet not one jot or tittle of those Scriptures can pass away until all be fulfilled?
Now this belief is far more solemn than that about yourself; though, indeed, what you profess to believe about yourself you learned from God’s word―learned by His revealing it to you. No human mind ever conceived what you profess to believe about yourself and eternity.
Do you believe that those Scriptures teach us God’s plana and counsels, and His character and glory―record His ways with men, His way of saving men, and the character of His salvation. That He is most jealous over His words, that if one word failed, then His character would be blotted? And, therefore, that a man is bound by God’s word, bound to believe it, bound to obey it, bound for time and eternity by it? That trifling with God’s word is a great sin, that saying, “It cannot mean so and so,” when the plain words have only one meaning, is a crime against God Himself?
3. Do you believe that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God?” (Rom. 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23).) You may be inclined to smile at the question sins it is the habit of evangelical persons to call themselves hundreds of times yearly, “miserable sinners,” or to say continually, “we must repent.”
And this question we should not have asked were it not the case that much of the religion of the day is so deceptive. People fall upon their knees and cry aloud to God, “We are miserable sinners, spare us, be not angry with us forever;” or, “We must repent, we must repent,” and having done so, they go home to eat, drink, and be merry until the time comes round for them to do the same thing again. So they go on, round and round, until they drop into the grave.
Honest reader, do you believe for a moment that God accepts’ such a way of men coming to Him as sinners? That such shallow outside work satisfies the great Searcher of hearts and Weigher of actions? Indeed, it is a most important question to ask of you, “Do you believe in the light of God’s truth that you are a sinner?”
But, whispers the evil one, it says “all,” so never mind, you are not worse off than others. But are you any better off? When the passenger ship, London, began to roll between the monstrous waves, and when the great seas began to wash over her poop, and at length to break through her skylights and the water to pour into her saloon, so that all on board saw the ship was lost and that all must perish, tell me did the agony of despair diminish because fathers, mothers, children, were lost together? because captain, sailors, and passengers were all lost? And because rich and poor, young and old, are all sinners, and because all are sinking down, down, down to the everlasting waves of the lake of fire, does it make your own case the better? If you were lying dying on a field of battle, where the wounded cried piteously for water as their life-blood eked away, would your thirst be less, or your pains lightened by the thirst and pains of others? Folly, folly, flap, UNBELIEF, when men say, well, we are all alike.
It is not only a general likeness of mankind, and a family likeness, that God gives us in His word, but it is you your very self-photographed to the life. If you were to stand before a looking-glass you would go away and straightway forget what manner of man you were, saith James. The reality would be exchanged for an ideality in your mind, but you are drawn exactly in God’s word. And not your appearance, but yourself. Not your exterior, but your heart. Not y our smiles and church graces, but the facts and abominations of your inmost self. Man paints pictures hiding the uncomely part of the face: God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, and He gives the very truth.
We will end the questions for the present by asking you whether you believe that the following portrait is yourself. May the Holy Spirit convince you as He did David by the lips of Nathan, for “Thou art the man.” “None righteous, no, not one: none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God. Gone out of the way, become unprofitable; none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps under their lips: mouth full of cursing and bitterness: feet swift to shed blood: destruction and misery in their ways: the way of peace they have not known: no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3)
“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”