Plain and Simple 3

You are a sinner deserving nothing from God but justice and wrath, but free mercy is available to every sinner, including you, at the Cross.  The Bible will never give human nature a good word.  The Bible exposes our falseness, pride, and unbelief.  Man's ego refuses to be humiliated and be saved by pure grace.  Lord, save me in your own way, your words are good enough for me.  Have done with your own glory.  You need a real change of heart and life.  Sin will bring you from wealth to poverty, from competence to actual want, from virtue to vice, from soundness to rottenness.  Evil is festering within your heart right now. Sin leads from finances to fame to foulness to flames.

Human nature refuses the Charity of Heaven. There are two righteousnesses - your own righteousness and the Righteousness of God, and there will always be a conflict between the two.  If you want to be accepted by God through your own righteousness, your righteousness must be perfect, and that is an impossibility for a sinner like you.  If you have committed but one sin in thought, word, or deed, you have stained your character in the sight of God, and now your hope of attaining a perfect righteousness that will please God is gone.  Only Jesus can provide to you the free forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

God's Law requires perfect obedience, from the first moment the creature understands the Law, as long as ever that creature shall live on earth.  Have you done that?  I trow not.  When a man commits just one sin, he is guilty of disobeying to all the commands of God. *James 2:10* Your tainted and chipped righteousness will not do before God's divine majestic Holiness. Acknowledge to God plainly that you have nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can bring before God.  If you humble yourself and admit that you have no righteousness of your own, you are on the doorstep of Mercy.  Lost men cling to the things of this earth, for things are all they have.

Your sins are terrible; they will damn you if you continue to love them and die in them. You will give account to God for your evil thoughts, wrong desires, foul attitudes, filthy imaginations, unkind gossip, malicious slander, and proud words. You cannot dictate to God how you ought to be saved from your sins.  Sin takes you down the road to ruin. Be wiling to be saved by free grace through the blood of Jesus Christ, for that is God's way.  Be willing to be saved by simple faith in the blood of the Lamb.  Immediately trust to Jesus.  Look to the Great Propitiator.  The Son of God gave His life to redeem and deliver you from sins.

Think seriously.  Leave off sin, walk in holiness.  Do not imagine that self-reformation can atone for your sinful past, or secure a righteousness for the future that will satisfy God.  God shall judge the quick and the dead; you will stand before his bar; all your deeds shall be revealed before an assemble world at the judgment.  Feel that you are a guilty sinner, conscious that you have rebelled against God and violated your conscience. Acknowledge your transgressions, hate and abhor them, you can do nothing to atone for your sins.  Christ Jesus, God in human flesh died for you.  It took an infinite Victim to atone for man's guilt and satisfy divine justice.

Nothing short of the Blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit can renew the human heart.  Human nature tries to atone for sin, help itself to Heaven, and to be accepted before God.  A sinner cannot make atonement for his own sins.  He cannot render to God the Righteousness which divine justice demands of him.  You have gone astray from God, transgressed God's Righteous Law.  God laid on Jesus your iniquity, and punished Him for what you have done wrong.  His substitutionary atoning Sacrifice brings peace between God and the sinner.

Christ bore your sins and the wrath of God that your sins deserved for you.  Man was bound to bring God a perfect obedience to please his Maker, but as a sinner, he could never do this, but Christ did it, and now whosoever believeth in Jesus is perfectly satisfied that God is well pleased with Jesus, and that God is also well pleased with us in Christ.  By faith, I am wrapped in the Righteousness of Jesus Christ, with His finished work imputed to us.  I am now blameless and acceptable in God's sight because of what Jesus has done for me.  I am perfectly satisfied with Christ as my justifying Righteousness. Christ Jesus died as my Substitute, and because He bore the punishment due to my sins, and now God righteously withholds His wrath from me.

I am safely hiding behind the blood of Jesus.  My confidence is entirely fixed in the great Reconciliation and Propitiation which Christ made for me.  Think much of His sufferings, by which your guilt is taken away.  I was fallen through the first Adam, and restore by the last Adam (Jesus), so in the infinite wisdom of God, there came into the world the second Adam, and He offered an Atonement for the offenses committed against God's Law, such an Atonement that whosoever believes in Jesus has his sins forever put away.  We fell in the first Adam through no fault of our own, and we rise in the second Adam, through no merit of our own.  If you will simply trust in Jesus, you need not dread the punishment of your sins.  Once your faith is in Jesus' blood alone, there is no more dread of Hell or wrath from God, you are free from condemnation and punishment.

The carnal mind in its natural state cannot know God spiritually.  The creature always forgets its Creator is watching and listening.  You may be out of man's sight, but you are never out of God's sight.  Men worship man and nature, not God their Maker.  Lost men trust in good fortune, chance, almanacs, fate, horoscope, and luck, but not the providence and blessings of God. Human nature is very superstitious.

If you will be kind to God, He will help you to be kind to others. The less a man thinks of himself, the more he will think of Christ.  Trust in Christ's Precious Blood, not your doings.  I have no dependence anywhere else but the finished work of Jesus Christ.  A humble trust in Jesus, dependence on Him for grace and strength.  Trust only to Jesus' bloody Sacrifice to take away all your guilt.  Only trust to what God has said in the Holy Bible, and what Christ did on Calvary's Cross.  The Gospel will never flatter evil human nature.

The Cross is divine love to the guilty, pity for the miserable, mercy for the wicked, compassion for the wretched.  To the guilty preach remission of sins through faith in Jesus' atoning blood.  Sin-sick sinners are always welcome at Christ's Mercy Hospital.  This man Christ Jesus receiveth sinners. Your conscience is that tiny voice is your heart and mind that reminds you when you have done right or wrong.  God gave His Son to bleed for the guilty.  Jesus died for the sins of the whole lost world.  Jesus alone can forgive sins, and He does so through His own blood.  Trusting wholly to Jesus' Blood is the essence of saving faith.  Faith is not merely believing Bible facts, but trusting implicitly and entirely to the crucified and living God and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Personal faith in Christ Jesus Himself is needful.

You need immediate divine help via the Holy Spirit.  Beg the Holy Ghost to help you see and believe on Jesus. Have done with evil self, and look to the Crucified Creator, and find life eternal in Him now.  If  you are guilty and filthy, foul and polluted with sins, come now to the Son of God who died for your sins.  Shut your eyes to all things but the Cross.  God only freely forgives sins for Jesus' sake.  Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." *John 6:47* H-A-T-H spells "Got It!"

Everything for nothing is out of the question for self-righteous human nature.  Human nature wants to do this, and that, or the other thing; anything but trust Jesus Christ Himself with your soul. There is a natural tendency toward self-salvation in the mind of every lost man.   Lean upon the great Invisible Creator.  Single eye, single hope - Christ is All.  Allow Jesus to help you, He receives the guilty graciously.  I am trusting to Christ now, He is my way, my life, and my end.  The less you value your own righteousness, the more you will value and seek Christ's Righteousness.  As long as a man admires himself, he will never adore Jesus Christ - God Incarnate.  Men in their natural state cannot see truth, because they love falsehood.  The Gospel is too pure for the lover of sin. Human nature wants to rule, but the Holy Spirit gives us humility, meekness, and lowliness.

Never tolerate low thoughts of Jesus.  Think of Him more and more; make your thoughts of Jesus great.  You can never have personal merit, you are only justified by imputed Righteousness.  Wretched human nature proudly rebels against free salvation by Christ alone.  Trust your soul with Jesus, and then adore the living God with living love.  Perfect holiness in the fear of God. Trace all your daily blessings back to the good hand of God. Be sensitive to Holy Spirit, don't grieve the Comforter, welcome His as your Best Friend, yield to His influences.  Instead of wanting to be first, the spiritual man is satisfied to be last for Jesus' sake.  The man who wants to be the king of the castle is not filled with the Spirit of God, but he is willing to be nothing in the kingdom of God.  Holy Spirit, please speak with me, guide me, enlighten me, quicken me, and dwell in me forever.  God please fill my soul with true worship and love to you, adoration of the Lord Jesus Christ, and fellowship with the Holy Spirit.