*SOUND WORDS 14*

Depraved human nature naturally rebels against God's Free Salvation strictly through GOD'S BLOOD alone and unearned grace.

The Cross Offends Human Pride

The carnal mind wants a hand in its own rescue. Self-righteousness demands a salvation based on human effort, moral reformation, church attendance, or personal merit, so that it has something whereof to boast. When you tell a lost man that his very best works are as "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6), and that his only hope is total reliance on the Shed Blood of the Incarnate Creator, this completely destroys his human pride and intellect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).

The Natural Carnal Mind is at War with God

Unregenerate human nature does not merely neglect the Gospel; it actively resists it. Paul declared that the natural man cannot receive or understand the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7). Because the natural heart is at enmity with God, it naturally rejects the divine terms of reconciliation: Free Justification by Faith in the Blood of Christ (Romans 3:24–25).

Self-righteous Religious Formalism Seeks Alternative Paths

From Cain’s fruit offering in Genesis 4 to modern religious self-improvement systems, human nature prefers "religion from beneath"—that is, outward morality, rituals, and human efforts—over "EMMANUEL'S PRECIOUS BLOOD." Self-righteous man insists on bringing his own wage to the table rather than receiving Salvation as a Free, unearned Gift paid for entirely by the Atoning Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

Religion flatters a man's pride; he thinks he can beat the devil out of himself. The more exacting a religion may be, the better human nature likes it. As long as the religion doesn't touch the heart and the sins he loves, human nature adores that religion. Human nature will turn to anything but the simple Gospel of Christ and the living God, Christ Jesus. Human nature loves public outward religiousness, because he doesn't have to give up his favorite private internal sins. The sinner can continue to drink, smoke, cuss, and do as he likes behind closed doors. He thinks, "Who cares? I can keep on messing around with religion; I only have to call for a priest, and get oiled up at the very end, and off to purgatory I will go; I can keep on having pleasure in my beloved sins."

Human nature doesn't mind what you tell it to do, as long as you don't tell it to repent and simply receive Christ by faith. If you tell the sinner to place simple direct faith in God's Blood, his self-righteous pride gets all riled up at once. But sin and the sinner must part, or else he must be damned.

The Divine Verdict

Left to itself, human nature will always choose self-salvation over Calvary's SINLESS LAMB. Salvation requires the supernatural, quickening power of the Holy Spirit to break human pride, expose the spiritual bankruptcy of the sinner, and grant the soul simple direct faith in GOD'S PRECIOUS BLOOD shed on THE CROSS.

Only an inward eternal work by the Holy Spirit can satisfy God the Father. Nothing less than a new creature will do. God is holy and just; He must and will punish every sin ever committed against Him, no matter who committed it. Your sins deserve eternal punishment and wrath, but Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Now once in the end of the world hath JESUS appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. JESUS was punished in your place.

Be Wise Now

Abjure your self-righteousness, come directly to Christ Jesus Himself, and take Him to be your personal Ransom and Redeemer from sin's condemnation and captivity. Give up all confidence in yourself; rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to regenerate you inwardly.

Seek true living Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and heart union with the Lamb of God. Confess and forsake your sins to be given a new heart, a contrite right spirit, and a divine nature as a new creature where all things are become NEW. Unless you are given a new heart by God and made a new creature within, "Depart from ME, I never knew you" must be your eternal verdict.

What will you do with JESUS which is called Christ? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all thine heart, and your soul shall be saved from sin's curse and eternal condemnation.

*SOUND WORDS 13*

God knows the things that come into your mind, every one of them (Ezekiel 11:5). JESUS said, "He that is not WITH ME, is AGAINST ME" (Matthew 12:30). It is of utmost importance that you prepare to meet God.

Carnal barbarians live and never think of their Creator or the end of life. They occupy themselves with many distractions throughout their whole earthly existence and are infatuated with worldly frivolities and ungodly deeds which they ungodly commit against the goodness of God. Think about yourself, all alone, in the quiet. Think of what you are, where you are, what you've done, what you are doing, and what it is leading to; especially think of the state of your heart now. Spend just an hour shut up with yourself, without your cell phone and thoughtless companions. With jesting silenced and foolish talking hushed, get all alone by yourself and focus on God and ETERNITY. Self-righteous human nature strictly refuses to focus and place simple direct Faith in the Precious Blood of God manifest in the flesh to take away sins freely by God's Grace.

This is the vital point: Gaze into the looking-glass of God's words and discover your heart's true condition in the sight of God. Your whole head is sick, and your whole heart is diseased with many deadly sins. You're sick in the head because you're filthy in your heart. O that you were WISE, that you UNDERSTOOD this, that you would CONSIDER YOUR LATTER END! You must get the trash taken out, for every time you SIN, more and more trash is building up within the house of your Soul, defiling and rotting and reeking with stench. Only JESUS can take your trash out and purify your Soul. This is the all-important need of your Soul: JESUS must dwell in you.

Take a sober look into your future and into your ETERNITY, before you must take that final leap at last into eternal darkness without Christ, having no hope. The fountain of your inner being is defiled back at its wellhead; it keeps spewing out deadly toxins called SINS. Come to JESUS today: escape from your evil ways and forsake your fake righteousness. Your Soul's eternal state will be fixed by the verdict from the lips of the Great Judge of all the earth—Christ Jesus Himself (Acts 17:31).

Unregenerate souls choose the way of evil, the path of darkness, and run down the broad way that leads to eternal destruction with their eyes shut and their ears stopped. You're so concerned about your worldly cares and circumstances, your temporal profits and losses, and your vain pleasures and amusements, but you REFUSE to seriously consider your true inward condition before God.

The Holy Spirit must apply the words of life to your conscience, or you remain dead in your sins—there's no doubt about that. When you die, you will not cease to be; then you will enter the region of reality called ETERNITY. There will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. In the last day—the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, in the great day of God's wrath—who shall be able to stand?

The day of wrath will soon come upon your Soul. You will live on and on out in ETERNITY, for you must give account and pay the awful price for every sinful deed. Trifle not, the Judge is at the door: let thoughts of God abide in your mind. God will judge the secrets of men by JESUS CHRIST.

Hardened sinners sin and transgress and rebel and tremble not; but penitent sinners tremble at God's words and sin not. You must first tremble before God because of the evil of your sins. You must first understand, by the quickening operation of the Holy Spirit, that you have grievously sinned against God Himself. This is a very flippant age today when it comes to sinning against God. Are you a trifler, or a trembler? Will your heart hearken to God, or be hardened even more by your SINS?

Sin is exceeding sinful in the sight of God, and sin's punishment will be exceeding terrible. JESUS Himself endured sin's punishment on THE CROSS (Mark 15:34). Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men to flee to Christ Jesus for your refuge from the wrath to come. Do not be thoughtless and careless about your Soul.

Whatever you may think, the only wise God that created you, and in whose hand your breath is, knows everything you've ever done in secret and public. There is a God in heaven now; He looks down from His throne and beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation, He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. However you may dislike this thought, there GOD IS, and there HE ever will be, and eventually you'll have to deal with Him personally, and He with you, and before long your appointment with God will surely happen.

God is everywhere present, at all times; He sees all your evil ways and hears all your foolish and foul speech. You cannot hide from God's eyes and ears; no secret place can shut HIM out. God reads your thoughts and understands your wicked imaginations. You are constantly surrounded by God, for in HIM you live, and move, and have your being. God keeps your brain stem, spinal cord, phrenic nerve, and diaphragm communicating together during atonia (temporary muscle paralysis), so you can breathe all through the night. All things that you think, say, and do are present to the LORD of heaven and earth.

The reason you don't believe in God is because you are dead to Him; there is no LIFE in you (John 6:53). God notes all your sins and forgets nothing; He's not like you at all. The days of your youth, manhood, and old age lie open before God in His books. God is always there when you SIN to His face; you SIN right before His eyes. Thou God seest me! Stand in awe, and desire to sin no more. Awake to RIGHTEOUSNESS, and sin not.

Don't forget now: There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. All your thoughts this very moment are being read and recorded by God Himself. Don't sin in God's very presence, and blaspheme His name to His face, and disobey Him while His holy eyes are fixed upon you. The eternal God watches you all the day long. Remember this: God is everywhere and sees everything, all the time, and He is your Judge.

God is holy and pure and cannot bear iniquity. God is angry with the wicked every day, and will surely judge all your transgressions. Every one of your sinful acts shall have its eternal recompense of reward; do not doubt this. You must eternally pay for your sins in the lake of fire's outer darkness, or you can trust Christ with your Sins and Soul, and let His ATONEMENT pay for your sins' death penalty.

The wicked prosper now, but the way of the wicked God turneth upside down. Men respect and fear earthly judges at the courthouse, but not the ETERNAL JUDGE. God is Almighty; He only has to will it, and you'll be crushed like a bug or snuffed out like a candle. But you continue to insult God's justice, do despite to the Holy Spirit, mock His mercies, injure His law, and spurn JESUS' bleeding LOVE.

Your time's running out, sir; it's getting late. SIN is a great wrong and evil towards the LORD GOD of heaven. Your Soul must be passed from death unto LIFE by Christ Jesus Himself; there is nothing you can do to help yourself, but get your Soul to the only Physician of the Soul.

Seek ye the LORD JESUS CHRIST while He may be found, call upon His name while He is near. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and Christ's righteousness. God must give you another heart, just like JESUS' heart. You cannot change your heart by your own imaginations, devices, or religiousness.

Ye must be BORN AGAIN by the eternal Spirit's divine power, by simple direct faith in GOD'S BLOOD that was shed by THE LAMB OF GOD on THE CROSS.

LET'S GET DOWN TO BRASS TACKS

This is the very root of the matter: Ye Must be Born Again; It is Finished! Jesus said it, and that's all there is to it. You must be passed from death unto LIFE, Translated from darkness into LIGHT, and be made a new creature in Christ Jesus by the divine power of The Holy Ghost. This ETERNAL work is way above your pay grade: Go Now to The Lamb of God, and let HIM wrought His Eternal work deep within YOU. Salvation is a very personal thing between You and The Lamb of God Himself. Without Christ, you are Doomed every way possible; having no hope, and without God in the world.

By nature, every man hates the living and true God, despises Christ Jesus, offended by THE CROSS, and disgusted with the Free Gospel of God. Human nature cannot understand the Gospel and will not receive Christ. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF is your sinful Soul's only HOPE of missing HELL. Your spiritual leprosy called Sin lies deep within and at times bleeds through in your thoughts, words, and deeds. All your thoughts, imaginations, idle words, and secret deeds are recorded in God's books. If you say you have lived one day without a sinful thought or deed, you have never known Sin or your crooked self. The blinding light of God shines and discovers all the dust particles of your sins. A multitude of grains of sand overload a truck as surely as heavy beams of iron.

Your Sin pollutes your very best works and mars your finest intentions. You may be good in your own eyes, but not in God's sight. On your best day, you can do nothing else but SIN and stir up the wrath of God towards you. Saving Faith means this: you abandon all claims of self-righteousness, abandon every attempt to earn or deserve salvation through your dead works or religious efforts, then submit to Christ' Righteousness (Romans 10:3), and Freely Receive His ATONEMENT (Romans 5:11).

This present evil world is the lost man's only heaven; he sees hope in its vanity and happiness in its filth. The carnal mind loves the old nature, old lusts, old habits, old family (worldly company), and your old father (the devil). *John 8:44; 1 John 3:10* The motions of sin carry you away like a leaf in a hurricane, and your self-righteous pride and worldly lusts are dragging you down into THE PIT (Job 33:18-30).

Human merit and Divine Mercy can never be mixed. Do not remain self-righteous, self-sufficient, ungodly, careless, and worldly. Know your sins and hate them, for they will surely damn you. Your conscience pricks you at times, but you try to hush it with liquor and worldly distractions. Why do you refuse to leave your sins and turn from your self-righteousness?

You must abhor your own righteousness and be afraid of yourself before you will flee to Christ for eternal safety. Confess your secret iniquities with care, and repent of your own righteousness with sincerity. You must become a new creature deep within, given a new nature, made to love what you hate, and hate what you love.

The Holy Spirit must put you on a new road, with new habits, new thoughts, new loves, new hates, and new appetites, making you very different in private and in public. The Holy Spirit comes, puts His light into your darkened understanding, begins to warn and woo, pricks and awakens your conscience, and gives life to your dead soul. The Holy Spirit applies the words of THE LAW to your conscience and brings the truth of the Gospel home to your heart, and then the soul is gently persuaded and lovingly compelled to trust in Christ.

Salvation is the instantaneous, supernatural working of the Holy Ghost. You must be quickened by THE HOLY SPIRIT and called out of your darkness into the light of life. Your filthy, clogged, polluted, stony heart must be removed, for your natural heart is void of peace and goodness. Regeneration and transformation is the instantaneous, eternal work of God's free grace. The same power of God that raised Christ from the dead must raise up your dead soul to walk in newness of LIFE. Simple Saving Faith Restingly Receives God's Provided Atoning Sacrifice: THE LAMB OF GOD HIMSELF (John  1:12; John 1:29). To Believe on Christ Jesus alone means to submit your proud intellect and rebellious heart to God’s simple appointed way of Salvation—trusting exclusively to the divine Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), and in GOD'S BLOOD that was shed by the Merciful Mediator.

The object of your Faith must be capable of bearing and taking away the full burden of your sins and their guilt. Put all your trust in Christ Jesus Himself. Don't just admire or study about JESUS; place your entire confidence in JESUS' finished blood ATONEMENT immediately. Rest in HIM and the eternal fact that He took your place and bore your sins and God's fury and wrath, that was due to your sins on THE CROSS. Look to Christ now, see Him bleeding to death for your sins; only He can PUT AWAY (Hebrews 9:26) your sins forever by the sinless Sacrifice of HIMSELF on THE CROSS. Only one Man ever loved you to Death: His Name is EMMANUEL (God with us). Do you know Him? Does He know you? (See Matthew 7:23) Only GOD'S BLOOD can bridge/close the infinite gap between you and God Himself.

With the help of The Holy Spirit, you first need a sincere interest and faith in GOD'S PRECIOUS BLOOD shed by the Lamb of God. Receive the Eternal Spirit of Christ into your body and heart ASAP. Receive the full forgiveness of your sins as a free, unearned GIFT from God, for JESUS' SAKE. Confess your secret sins, forsake your own righteousness, and flee to Christ for abundant Mercy (Matthew 11:28; John 6:37). If you are relying on anything short of GOD'S BLOOD to PUT AWAY your sins, you are trusting in a LIE.

Genuine saving Faith is when a soul completely despairs of his own righteousness and rests entirely in the living Savior and His finished ATONEMENT for human sins. Don't follow the multitude that loves evil; stop desiring worldly respectability, be saved from public opinion, and go now unto JESUS without the camp and bear HIS reproach.

The inevitable end of the fearful, Christ-rejecting sinner is certain doom and eternal death in the lake of fire. Don't die in your sins with a dead soul, seared conscience, blinded mind, and false hope and peace. When your disembodied soul stands before the judgment bar of God, before the blazing eyes of the Almighty, the DAY of days and the dreadful Hour will have come upon you. Without JESUS as your Advocate and Ransom, you will have to pay eternally in the lake of fire for every sin you've ever committed against God's divine justice.

The books will be opened, and you will begin to hear the rustling of those awful pages where your dirty secrets are eternally recorded. Your eternal state of damnation will be fixed in shame and everlasting contempt before the Judge of all the earth (Acts 17:31). There will be no offers of Mercy then. No works of yours can ever satisfy God's wrath, so quickly discard your righteousness.

You have ruined yourself by sinning, but you must be Regenerated by the Spirit of Christ. Fix your heart's eye on THE LAMB OF GOD now. Fix all your Faith on GOD'S BLOOD alone. Greedy men want to religionate you on the outside, but the Holy Spirit wants to REGENERATE you on the INSIDE. Trust Christ *Himself* Alone, by Personal Faith Alone, in GOD'S PRECIOUS BLOOD Alone.