This is for YOU

As one who is deeply interested in your soul's welfare, permit me to ask, Do you ever seriously consider where YOU will spend ETERNITY?  Remember that there are only two places - Heaven and Hell; and in one of these you must spend it. You cannot stay here for ever. You cannot say that you are "not at home" when DEATH calls with his summons. You may have a beautiful house, or a cosy little cottage, where you enjoy many comforts or luxuries, and where you may keep a closed door against those you may not wish to know; but you cannot keep out that visitor when he calls. There are no bolts, or bars, or patent fasteners that can prevent his entrance when God sends him FOR YOU.

Your numerous engagements, business or social, will all have to be cancelled then, and YOU MUST DIE, and die alone. Loving hands may hold yours, and bear you company right up to the border-land, smoothing the path as best they can, but they can go no further, and you must cross by yourself --- all alone - and MEET GOD about your whole life. Solemn thought! Can it be possible that you treat such a momentous fact as this as un-worthy of your serious consideration? What madness, if you do.

Then have you never considered that in this great question God must have His way of saving you and assuring you of that salvation so that you may be safe, certain, and happy about it? He has not left it to you to plan and suggest how you may be saved. He is the offended One, the sinned-against One. You are the offender, the sinner. It is for Him to say how He will be met. He leaves not that to you. How foolish, then, to say what you will do. You can do nothing. None of us can do anything. Nor does God ask us to. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isa. 64:6). Our very best is just labelled, "filthy rags." He wants none of it. Will you suggest turning over a new leaf and taking more heed to your religious duties? Hear God saying again, " By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; NOT OF WORKS, lest any man should boast.' (Eph. ii. 8, 9). "But to him that WORKETH NOT, but believeth on Him that justified) the un-godly, his faith is counted for righteousness " (Rom. iv. 5).

How then will God be met, you may ask?  You must come to Him through the Mediator.  "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave His life a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." (1 Tim. Ii. 5, 6).  The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, has died for sinners.  He has laid His hand, as it were, on the throne of God and met Him who sits on that throne by that death on the cross of Calvary. He stretches out the other hand to you, and offers to bring you to God in peace and righteousness because of the value of that same sacrifice which He offered to God for poor, sinful and helpless creatures like you and me.

Will you accept salvation from God as a gift? Or will you seek to purchase it by your so-called good works? The first you can do. The latter you cannot do, however much you may try, and however much you may do. The thief on the cross did no good works to entitle him to paradise, yet he went there. But the cry of the penitent was his. The faith of the penitent was his. And that hand of faith which he stretched out to the Lord Jesus was taken hold of in divine love, and he was led up and into the paradise of God. Will you take that ground and receive the same blessing? To the penitent woman (Luke vii.), the Lord said, "Thy sins ARE FORGIVEN. Thy faith HATH saved thee. Go in peace."

It may be that you are of those who say,"No one can know, or be sure in this world that their sins are forgiven." What a mistake that is! The disciples knew. The penitent woman knew. Millions have known since then. The Apostle John says, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins ARE FORGIVEN you for His Name's sake" (1 John ii. 12). Because they were forgiven he wrote his letter. So you see we can know blessing both here and now.

Put it to yourself in this way. The Lord Jesus died for sinners, then He died for me. I am a sinner and need a Saviour; and I accept the Lord Jesus as my Saviour. God assures all who believe in Him that remission of sins is theirs (Acts x. 43). I do believe in the Lord Jesus and accept that God-given assurance. If you can say this in honesty of heart as in God's presence, you will realise that the blessing of salvation is yours.

O the joy, the happiness, the blessedness of being saved and knowing it!  It has to be experienced to be understood. It is not a dead formality, a wearisome burden, a religion of forms for one day in seven. No, no ! It is a living reality, filling and flooding the soul. It is the constant and enjoyable presence of the ever-living, ever-present Saviour. It is Christ in the heart, Christ as our life, Christ as our pattern, Christ as our object, Christ as our strength. And for you to have all that and to enjoy all that, means letting Him enter YOUR heart to take full possession of it.  Will you allow him to do it?