Friday, December 9, 2011

Glad Tidings for the Guilty

Take a minute, and just think a little. God is present everywhere, at all times. He has seen all your evil doings every day, He has heard all your idle words and filthy conversations, He has recorded all of your thought life. There is no place so dark that can hide you from God's all-seeing eye. You are surrounded by God every minute of your life. God reads your thoughts and imaginations all the day long. He notes all of them, and He forgets none of them. All things are present to the LORD: the sins of your youth, and of your manhood all lie before Him like an open book. God knows what you do and what you think from the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed every night. Every sinful act of yours shall have its recompense. Every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Do not doubt that absolute truth.

God is always watching, how can you dare to sin while His very eyes are fixed upon you? How can you blaspheme Him right to His face? You need to fear God, in Whom you live, and move, and have your being. This God who is everywhere, and see and hears everything you do everyday is your Judge. *Thou God seest me* And whatever you think or say, remember there is a God who made you and died for you, and in whose hand your breath is. He sits in heaven and beholds all the sons of men, and however much you dislike that fact, there He is, and there He ever will be, and you shall have to deal with Him, and He with you, before long.

Now understand - Without the free pardon of sin through simple faith in Jesus Christ’s Precious Blood, it is impossible for you to satisfy or know the LORD. Unregenerate men naturally run away from God; they do not want to know Him. Human nature is strangely depraved – God commands, and man refuses; God forbids, and man desires. The carnal mind is diametrically opposed to the mind of Christ. Men long to cross the line, when they are warned to keep away. The carnal mind is so at enmity with God, that it delights in forbidden things. The natural man wants independence and freedom from the restraints of his personal holy Creator God.

Every man by nature is morally evil; he longs after the forbidden, and his tendencies are inclined towards evil. A man may not wander into gross open sin, yet his is still pleased with impure imaginations, infidel notions, and skeptical opinions. This is mental filthiness and will be brought into Judgment. Many men have a particular religion, and they will cling to that 'religion' with a death grip, and deliberately choose to remain ignorant of Christ's Righteousness, so they can continue live like the devil under the guise of their religion. Men reject the atoning Sacrifice of Christ so that they can add their own works to their salvation. All of your so-called good deeds are nothing but filthy rags according to the Bible (Isaiah 64:6). The absolute Righteousness of God is a man - His name is Jesus Christ (Romans 10:3-4; II Corinthians 5:21).

Human nature makes much of man, and nothing of God. Human nature refuses to follow the infallible guidance of the Scriptures and the Holy Ghost, or have absolute moral standards, or seek communion with God, or trust a finished Blood Atonement for human sin. You didn't live up to your parent's standards, you haven't lived up to your own standards, and you'll never meet God's Holy Standard - Christ Jesus Himself. The impurity of human nature abhors the holy nature of Almighty God. Bottom line - The atheist does not want to be saved from sinning. Your first few drinks from the cup of sin that the devil gives you may seem sweet, but the last few drinks from that devilish cup of sin will be bitter and deadly. Men want to be saved from hell, but not from their sins which is the main cause of hell. The more a man’s heart perceives the perfect holiness of the Law of God, the more he will perceive his own impurity and sinfulness. Lost men avoid God for the same reason a criminal avoids a policeman.

At the very bottom of all atheism there lies a love for some sin. The atheist would rather continue to practice some secret evil than come to Christ and be made pure within. If there's something rotten in the heart (love of sin), there will always be something rotten in the head (atheism). Naturally an atheist doesn't like the Truth, because the Truth doesn't like him. The Truth that condemns the atheist, he tries to condemn. The Truth makes the atheist uneasy, so he doubts and defies it. An atheist would rather do anything than come to Jesus Christ personally with all his heart.

 Atheism quarrels with divine truth because God's truth quarrels with them. Sinning always results in misery, guilt, and wretchedness. Whosoever committeth sin is the *slave* of sin. The love of sin is the reason for all your opposition to Christ. The love of darkness breeds hatred to Christ and His words. Atheists don't see truth, because they shut their eyes and don't want to see. They don't want to see too much lest they become uneasy in their sinful state of life which they enjoy, but only for a season. So they kick against Christ, and try to put out the light of Christ, lest they be reproved by it.

Most men think they are good and smart enough, they are proudly independent of the grace and wisdom of God in Christ Jesus.  They stubbornly refuse to cry out for heavenly Mercy and Pardon. You better listen - Your deadliest mistake is rejecting Christ's Blood Atonement for human sin. Sin is a hateful thing, it put the Lord Jesus Christ - God manifest in the flesh - to death on Calvary's Cross. Jesus said Himself, "And when the Holy Spirit is come, He will reprove the world of *SIN*, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of *SIN*, because they *believe not on Me*. Your rejection of Jesus Christ and His Atoning Blood is the soul-damning sin. Rejecting the Crucified and Risen Son of God is the greatest sin and insult you could ever put upon your Maker.

Just like Adam, the atheist hides away among the trees of the garden; he does not desire to see his Maker; for he has offended Him. The very thought of God is distasteful to every guilty atheist. It would be the best news to an atheist if he could be informed, or have sure evidence, that there was no God at all. The atheist cannot know God, because his whole heart, mind, and spirit are in such a sinful state that he is incapable of knowing or appreciating the Lord Jesus Christ – God manifest in the flesh. Darkness covers the atheist's mind, because sin has blinded his soul to all that is true and right and holy.

Atheists want God eliminated from every phase of your life. No atheist wants to answer to a holy God for his dirty rotten life, so nearly all atheists are evolutionists. They believe they came from amoral ancestors like fish, monkies, and butterflies. They only want to be accountable to themselves. Atheism is living, walking, thinking, talking, and dying in pitch black Darkness, and then going straight to Hell. Atheism is immoral and completely contrary to the Bible.

 Atheism is all about self from start to finish: it is selfish, self-centered, self-justifying, self-righteous, self-preserving, self-promoting, and self-gratifying. Atheism worships and serves the great god "I". Every evolutionist is mentally challenged as well as intellectually dishonest. An atheist is a humanist self-exalting monkey man headed for a grave and the Bottomless Pit, and at the same time they are bragging about how smart they are.

If you live and die without Jesus Christ, and lose your soul, you're going to lose all you've got. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? You get to growing up and pretty soon you get into some type of sin, and you start to get hardened by it, and then you get deceived by your sin, and grow harder and harder. These are only a few of the excuses of Christ-rejecting sin-loving men: "Not today, I can't live it, I'm not ready yet, I think you ought to live it, there's so many hypocrites in the church." You need to quit putting off Christ and His great salvation. How shall you escape the damnation of hell, if you neglect so great Salvation? If you're not careful, you're going to die and go to Hell. You are living alone in the world today, without hope and without Christ. You're a great sinner, but Christ Jesus is the Great Savior. Sin will slowly turn you into a filthy miserable wretch. You main problem is that you love yourself and your sins.

The Gospel is too holy for the atheist, for it will cut off his unclean amusements. The lover of sin does not know God, and does not want to know Him. The atheist had made up and believed, and loved his own lie (Revelation 22:15). The atheist prefers his sinful pleasures to the Savior, that’s his real problem. He has blinded his understanding and defiled his conscience and has become his own dupe. Falsehoods from darwin and other fools have saturated his brain, so that he tell the truth from a lie. The atheist has willfully shut his eyes for so long that he has become completely blind. Nevertheless, there is still pardoning mercy and cleansing grace available in the Blood of Jesus Christ for every sinner alive today.

As salt flavors every drop of the sea, even so does Sin affect every part of your nature, thoughts, and deeds. You have indulged in sin and ruined your soul. Sinful pleasures, evil companions, secret vices, and self-righteousness will keep you from trusting Christ. Christ is the Remedy for every sin-sick sinner. Self-satisfied sinners wind up in the lake of fire. Christ died for the ungodly, not good and respectable people. Only one Person ever loved you enough to die for your sins. When Jesus died for you, you didn't love Him at all. In fact, you were His enemy, but He was your Friend. Jesus didn't love you what He could get out of you. He loved you what He could give to you. Your best works, boasted performances, human virtues and goodness are all rottenness in the sight of the heart-searching God. Quit your own righteousness now.

Here are some Glad Tidings for the Guilty: God became human flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He lived here below a life of love, labor, and holy obedience. Then He was betrayed, condemned to die, and nailed to a rugged cross. Christ Jesus died especially for your sins; He suffered the divine justice and wrath due to your transgressions. Jesus His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Jesus loved you, and gave Himself for your sins. Jesus put away sin by making a full Atonement to divine justice for you. Jesus was punished in your place, and so ended your awful sin debt. God cannot punish those for whom Christ was punished. God cannot exact the same debt twice, first of the Substitute, and then of the sinner. Jesus is the One Atonement for human sin, trust Him to satisfy God for you. All approaches to God must be by Jesus’ Blood alone. There is no other way to safely approach God (John 14:6). The old, old Gospel must do, for nothing new is true.

It is either salvation by self, or Salvation by Christ. Is your righteousness one which you have attained yourself, or has the Righteousness of Christ been freely imputed to you by the Holy Ghost? If you will simply yield, God can make you absolutely righteous through Christ’s Righteousness by imputation. Imputation is the miracle of God by which He transfers Christ’s Righteousness to your guilty soul, and then transfers all your sins (past-present-future) to Christ Jesus. Then you get to take credit for everything that Jesus has done for you, and are made absolutely righteous in God’s sight. If you’ll let Him, God will impute to you what Jesus did for you.

Now understand - God will only accept you on account of what Jesus IS, and what He did for you. Jesus Himself must be all your Righteousness before God. If you refuse to receive Christ’s Righteousness, you will be damned for sure. Atonement by Blood, Forgiveness of Sins, and Imputation of Righteousness all for free, because Jesus died as your Sinless Substitute. Again, Jesus Christ (God manifest in the flesh) suffered, bled and died bearing human guilt and sin in Himself, and now whosoever trusts in His atoning Blood shall be immediately and irreversibly forgiven, and made a new creature in Christ. You cannot deny your present sinful state, your own conduct proves it every day, and your past guilt troubles your conscience.

Free salvation by Christ’s Atonement is precisely what you need to take away your guilt. Lay hold on eternal life through God's Son. The Gospel is so simple, you'll miss if you're not careful. Human nature wants complicated religion because it wants to get itself involved so it can get self-righteousness as part of the salvation process. The more destitute you are spiritually, the more eligible you are to be saved. Your only safe course is to acknowledge your awful guilt of sin, and need of Atonement by Blood, and then turn away from your sinful self and come to Jesus Christ Himself and place all your trust in His Blood Atonement to completely satisfy the wrath and justice of God against your sins.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner, I don't want to go to Hell when I die, right now the best way I know how, I'm going to trust and receive You as my own personal Lord and Savior. God be merciful to a sinner, and save my soul for Jesus' sake. Lord Jesus, please let me know I'm saved. I'm only going to trust you Jesus from now on and nothing else to save my soul and give me eternal life. Thank you Lord for dying for my sins on Calvary's Cross. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God - Christ Jesus' Atoning Blood has fully *satisfied* God's divine justice for me, and all my sin and guilt is gone forever!