Friday, June 17, 2011

Love Christ, Hate Sin

The main reason any man continues to reject Christ is because he is secretly clinging to some pet evil he cannot give up, and that sin will be his everlasting ruin. The lost man has an intense love for his sin. He not only sins, but he loves and longs to sin against God. Sin is the unregenerate sinner's element. The reason why the Bible and Jesus Christ trouble lost men is because they interfere with their sinning. The natural man says in his heart, "If I become a Christian, I cannot live as I have been accustomed to live, so I will not believe in Christ, I will reject the Gospel and turn my back on the Crucified Creator. Christ will cost me my sins and reputation with my worldly companions, I would rather keep on in my sin than give up my way." The true reason any man questions and rejects the Bible is an ungodly private life. If you probe down to the bottom of the matter, some secret sinful pleasure is the reason for a man's unbelief or atheism.

If you come to Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:28-30), that means to turn from sin, and trust Christ Himself. Coming to Christ is a forsaking of all other false confidences, a renouncing of love to sin, and a looking to Jesus alone as your only hope of salvation. Bottom line: If you come to Christ, you will forsake your sin; If you love Christ, you will hate your sins. A man will never quit his sin because he is hell-scared; he will only quit his sinning when love of Christ is shed abroad in his heart.

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, was born of a Jewish virgin. God became a Jewish man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He lived here on earth a life of holiness and suffering, and at the end He was nailed to the Cross. Christ was punished for your sins. He was buried and three days later, He rose again from the dead, and then He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And now God “commands all men everywhere to repent;” and God tells you this in His book — “Whosoever believeth on the Son of God shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This is the Gospel of the Grace of God.

You must believe on Christ's blood alone (Romans 5:9; Colossians 1:14); cast your guilty soul on Jesus' perfect Atonement that He made for guilty sinners; and even if your soul is as black as hell in sin, your soul this day can be made whiter than snow by simply trusting Jesus Christ. You must take Jesus Christ Himself and trust His Righteousness to save your soul and get you past the Judgment. Believe that the Man who died on Calvary was God, and that He took your sins upon Himself and paid for all your sins in full with His own blood. You must give up trusting your own goodness. Put your faith in Christ's Righteousness, give up trusting your goodness, you can't make it past the White Throne Judgment trusting your own righteousness.

If you dropped dead today, you need to be prepared to meet God your Maker in judgment. If your secrets were judged, you would be found Guilty. You need to receive Jesus Christ, so you are ready to die and meet God in a fit condition. You must receive and trust Jesus Christ who died in your place, He bore your sins and became Sin for you, He paid for your sins. You must take Jesus Christ Himself as the Atonement, the payment for your sins against God. You must have God's Righteousness to make it pass the Judgment, and God's Righteousness is a Person - Jesus Christ. Nothing else will do. Come to Jesus now as a sinner, and trust Him to save your soul from the love of sin. Without Jesus Christ, you will not make it.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

How to Meet your Maker

Life is short, Death is sure, Sin the curse, Christ the Cure. The human body dreads sickness, pain, and death. No one likes to sit down and think about their last days here on earth: frailty, ill health, the death bed, mortality, the corpse, the coffin, the hearse, the grave, Eternity, the Judgment, Reality. The signs of your coming death are showing up in your flesh daily. Death will soon strip your soul of its fleshly outer garment, this is a very trying process. You must die, and it may be sooner than you think. Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

As surely are you are living and breathing, you must die and give up the ghost, and after death, you must face God at the Judgment. This is a tough thing to chew and swallow without the Savior to guard and protect you from the wrath to come. Your conscience often alarms you to this fact, but you stifle it with your carnal pride and insane rebellion. Without the Great Savior, Jesus Christ, you must go where hope can never come (the burning Hell). If you pass out of this world in your current sinful state, you will never see the face of God with joy, but you will be banished from the presence of God forever and ever, and go away into everlasting punishment, all because of your stinking pride and the love you have for your sin. Eternal life lasts forever, and so must eternal damnation. Sin brings nothing but misery here on earth, and in the eternal hereafter.

Be wise now, prepare to meet your Maker in Judgment. A wise man always prepares for the inevitable. Without Jesus Christ, all your secrets will be judged, everything about you that you’ve ever thought, said, or done will be brought up at the Judgment and condemn you to the Lake of Fire forever and ever. If you are conscious of your sin and its penalty, right now you need to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior so you will be ready to die. Only Jesus Christ Himself can make you ready to meet God Almighty in a fit condition. There isn't any church, or religion, or sacrament that can give your soul that fit condition. You will never get by the Judgment of God Almighty with all the religious paraphernalia and nonsense that unsaved men have thought up to make money off of you.

You must trust the Man Christ Jesus (I Timothy 2:5-6) to do that for you. Only simple faith in Christ’s Precious Blood can get you safely past the White Throne Judgment. Go directly to Jesus Christ, God is in Him. You can only find God at the Cross, you can be reconciled and rescued there. Away from the Cross, God can only be your Judge and His wrath will consume and damn you. Come to Jesus by trusting and relying on what He did for you. Jesus suffered the divine justice and wrath that your sins justly have merited. He surely has borne the full penalty of all your transgressions. Believe on His atoning sacrifice for sinners. Trust only in Him for your divine pardon. At the Judgment, Jesus Christ will do with you what you have done with Him.

You are a sinner. You've done many things you are ashamed of that you don't want anyone to know about. Those very secrets will be judged by Jesus Christ. You must trust a sinless Man who died for you, God manifest in the flesh, the living Savior who died in your place as a Sinless Substitute. Christ Jesus bore your sins and became “SIN” for you in your place, and rose again the third day from the dead according to the Scriptures. You must take “HIM” to be yourAtonement, as the full payment for all of your sins. Have you done that?

Now listen, according to the Holy Scriptures, you as a sinner must have God’s Righteousness to escape the wrath to come, and God’s Righteousness is a “MAN”, and His name is above every name, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. There is no other way. Christ's Righteousness is the death of your self-righteousness. Come on now, take Jesus Christ as your Savior and trust HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS to save your soul to get you by the Judgment. Leave off depending upon yourself altogether. If you trust Jesus Christ, Christ's Righteousness immediately becomes yours. Your sins will no longer be yours, they will all be imputed to the Mediator. Nothing else will do. You could be the finest man in your town, but your self-goodness (ethical human morality) can never save your soul from the Righteous Judgment of God. All your sins must be paid for by Someone. You need God's Righteousness - and it is only given freely to guilty sinners by Jesus Christ Himself. Human righteousness can never prepare your soul to meet your holy Maker. Your religion (sacraments, water baptism, good works, church membership) won't do the job. All earthly religions teach you that there's something you have to DO to be saved from sin and have eternal life. Trust Christ, not yourself; rely on Christ's finished work, not your works.

The Gospel of Christ teaches that you must simply trust what Jesus Christ has already done for you, that is all. Your soul needs a new image, and the image is God's Son. You must come to Jesus Christ as a lost, undone, wretched sinner, knowing and acknowledging that you cannot help save yourself at all. You must completely trust Him to do the job. Without “HIM” you’ll never make it. If you are trusting in anything you can do to help save you from hell, you are just as lost as a golf ball in high weeds. You must take Jesus Christ as your Savior, and trust His Blood and Righteousness alone to get you by the inevitable day of the eternal righteous Judgment of God. Your good intentions and best works can never pay the awful debt you owe. If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? Trust God Son's and His Blood Atonement to pay for your sins and get you past the wrath of God. By the grace of God, Only Trust what Jesus Christ did on Calvary's Cross to "TAKE AWAY" all your sins forever. (John 1:27) You can't go to Heaven carrying your sins with you, you can't go to bypassing the Cross of Christ. The wages of sin is death, Christ paid the price for sins with His death on the Cross.

Right now, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be SAVED! Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." To believe in Jesus Christ — is to repent of your love of sin and self-righteousness and rest your lost soul upon Jesus Christ's Blood and Righteousness alone for immediate and eternal salvation. He was put to death on Calvary's Cross, because your sins were laid upon Him — to believe in Him simply with a childlike confidence is the only way of salvation. Your soul must be saved from the wrath to come by the living Incarnate God who died especially for you on the Cross. Trust your soul into Jesus' hands for safekeeping. Christ died for your sins, He was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. It's not what you know, it's WHO YOU KNOW. That's the way it is with Salvation. Do you know Jesus Christ personally as your Savior? Do you know you have eternal life? I John 5:12-13

"God be merciful to me a sinner! Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner; I believe you died for me and rose from the dead to take away my sins; I don't want to go to Hell when I die; I want you to save my soul right now; the best way I know how I am trusting you alone to save me, I receive YOU into my heart as my personal Savior. Lord remember me, save my soul for Jesus' sake! Thank you for saving my soul. Amen."

Let Jesus Christ be glorified both now and forever.