A TRACT SUITABLE FOR NON-CHRISTIANS
AND
WORLDLY CHRISTIANS
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One
reason why people take drugs is because of the hit
or buzz they get from them. Drugs like Es,
Tabs, Speed
and Charlie are as much a part of the club culture
today as the strobe lights and dance music, so popular only a few years
ago. These mind-bending
drugs create feelings of great joy which soon turn sour. They
create artificial feelings of happiness.
It is sad to think that this generation of clubbers are risking sudden
death, paranoia or psychological problems all
because of their selfish desire for worldly PLEASURE.
Perhaps
you have taken drugs and enjoyed the buzz, or
you are simply one seeking pleasure at the clubs, beware, THOSE PLEASURES LAST ONLY FOR A SHORT TIME. Endless pleasure in that environment is an
illusion. When the lights go down, the trip is finished, and the thrill is gone, you are
left craving for more and more of this kind of satisfaction; and unless
something miraculous happens,* your trip upon this earth will eventually finish, the
pleasures of sin will have ceased and you
will have lost your soul!
*
Our Lord Jesus Christ said: I came that they may have
life, and may have it abundantly:
(John 10: 10, R.V.). If therefore the Son
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed: (John
8: 36).
Boils and abscesses plague the skin; gnawing pain racks the
body. Nerves snap; vicious twitching
develops. Imaginary and fantastic fears
blight the mind, and sometimes complete insanity results. Often times, too, death comes much too
early in life.
Such is the torment of being a drug addict,
such is the plague of being one of the walking dead! - (A quotation taken from
U.S. Supreme Court.)
It
has always the devils intention to get young people so occupied with sinful
pleasures and worldly amusements that they have no time to look forward to the future, or for the eternal salvation found through faith in our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The
following incident happened some years ago in
In
The
Lord Jesus Christ said: I am come that they might have
life, and that they might have it more abundantly: (John 10: 10).
The Life that the Lord Jesus offers you is a new life overflowing with
pardon for sin, peace and everlasting joy in A new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21: 1). It is Life with a capital L.
Canon Hay Aitken tells the story of a young lady, fashionable and
worldly, who was persuaded to attend one of the services he was conducting in
the West End of London. Apparently the
preachers earnest pleading did not move her in the least, and as soon as the
sermon was ended she rose to leave the church before the after-meeting. But the church was crowded with people, so
that her progress towards the door was very slow, and as she moved along she
became very interested in the appealing Hymn with its constant refrain, - Even me, even me.
The
Hymn was new to her and just as she reached the door the choir were singing the
last verse:-
Pass me not! Thy lost one bringing,
Bind ny
heart, O Lord, to Thee!
While the streams of life are springing,
Blessing others, O bless
me, even me.
Suddenly
her lost condition was borne in upon her.
All along her homeward road the words rang in her heart Pass me not! Thy lost one bringing. Presently she was alone in her bedroom, lying
on her bed sobbing from the depths of her soul the pleading prayer, Pass me not, Thy lost one bringing! and the Holy
Spirit brought to her mind the Saviours words, The
Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost and ere she
slept that night her soul had found rest in the Saviours love and her new life
in Christ had begun.
There
is only
one Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The way to obtain eternal salvation is to believe
in Him, and ask Him to be your personal Saviour, (Acts
16: 31). Cf. Acts 4: 11, 12; John 3: 16.
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On
the other hand, there are many of the Lords redeemed people who received the free gift (Rom. 6: 23,
R.V.) of eternal life, but are blinded by Satan to the doctrine of REWARD and the coming GLORY
of Jesus Christ, (2 Cor.
4: 4). These believers are mostly
Anti-Millennialists,
because they doggedly refuse to believe that Messiah Jesus will one day come
to reign UPON THIS
EARTH for a thousand years (Rev. 20: 4, 6).*
* Jer. 23: 5, 6; Ezek. 34: 23-31; Isa.
9: 6, 7; Hos. 2: 18; Joel 2: 27; Amos 9: 11-15; Hab. 2: 14; Zech. 14: 8, 9; Matt. 2: 6; Luke 1: 32; Rom. 8:
18-23; 1 Cor. 15: 24, 25;
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Then shall he speak to them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore
displeasure: Yet I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will tell of the decree: the Lord said unto
me, Thou art my son; this day I have begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts
of the earth for thy possession.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be
angry, and ye perish in the way, for HIS WRATH will soon be kindled.
Blessed are all they who put their trust in HIM: (Psalm 2: 4-8, 11, 12).
SILENCE IN THE CHURCHES
OF A FUTURE JUDGMENT
Dr. William Smith once stressed
the iniquitous silence (with which we
are all too familiar) on the dark side of the truth:-
I think in orthodox circles today there are some great subjects
in the Word of God that are almost never talked about. Twenty-seven times the Apostle Paul, e.g., mentions good works as something
to be practised, but you and I can live in institutions of the reformed faith
for fifty years and never hear good works mentioned. That is not rightly
dividing the word of truth. I remember a few years ago looking carefully
into the Greek text of 2 Timothy 2 (Pauls terrible delineation of the character of men at the
end of the age), and I was astonished to find that not in any single book, in
our language at least, on the eschatology of Paul, was there a single page of
treatment of this great chapter. I fear in many circles today the New
Testament teaching on sin is almost wholly ignored, and a vital conviction concerning
the wrath of God and a judgment to come is tragically omitted. If we are to teach the word of God, we should
teach it in its entirety. The
righteous Judge must deal
with sin in believers equally with sin in unbelievers.
His
judgment begins at the House of God (1 Pet.
4: 17): for after a long time the lord of those
servants cometh and maketh a reckoning with them (Matt.
25: 19).
I would rather go through the Great Tribulation,
said Dr. Graham Scroggie
to his friend Earnest J. Lang, than endure what I believe some Christians will go through
at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man
- [any man, Christian or non-Christian] -
soweth, that shall he also reap. (Galatians 6: 7). The farmer who plants
barley in his ground, will not come back at harvest time and reap a crop of
potatoes. No! If you sow barley then you will reap
barley. This is the unchanging law of
the harvest - You reap what you SOW. The devil wants to deceive Christians into believing
God wont punish them for wilful sin.* This is why God
through His written Word warns His redeemed people, - Be
not deceived. Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord will judge HIS PEOPLE. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God: (Heb. 10: 30, 31).
* Hebrews 10: 26.
OUR NEED TO STOP
AND CONSIDER WHAT GOD SAYS
It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this [death] cometh judgment; so Christ also, having
been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from
sin, to them that wait for him, UNTO
SALVATION: (Heb. 9: 27, 28). That is, unto a future salvation - at the
time of Resurrection and Messiahs Second Advent, which will be revealed in the last time:
this salvation is described as: -the salvation of your SOULS: (1 Pet. 1: 5, 9). This is not initial - (that is, the eternal or first)
salvation, which all true regenerate believers have receive by grace through faith in
our Lord Jesus Christ - the salvation which is
the gift of God, (Eph. 2: 8, 9. cf. Rom.
6: 23.) a salvation which He purchased in full at
* Rom. 8: 17b; 2 Tim. 2: 12; 2 Thess. 1: 4, 5.
Yes! We all need to stop and consider what
God says worldly Christians as well as non-Christians because we all
possess a soul which awaits the time of that future
salvation; and the ultimate question is, - Tell me,
(1) HOW CAN I ATTAIN
THIS FUTURE SALVATION OF THE SOUL?
and (2) WHERE DOES THE SOUL
GO IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH?
For
those who accept the teaching of Christ and His Apostles, and who believe we cannot
ascend into Heaven until the Body
and Soul are united at the time of Resurrection, the Scriptural answer to the
above questions is not too difficult to find:
And he, - [the
rich man after his death, in the underworld where all the souls of the dead
presently are, (Rev. 6: 9-11, cf.
Acts 2: 37; Psa. 16: 10)]
said, I pray
thee therefore, father, that thou wouldst send him - [Lazarus] to my fathers house; for I
have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this
place of torment. But Abraham
- [in Hades,
on the other side of the great gulf (verse 26)]
saith, They have Moses*
and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one
go to them FROM THE DEAD,** they will repent. And
he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will be they
be persuaded, IF ONE RISE FROM THE DEAD: (Luke 16: 27-31).***
* Gen. 37: 35: I will go
down to Sheol - [the place of the dead, translated Hades in the LXX] - to my son mourning, said Jacob believing Joseph was
dead and his body devoured by an evil beast and torn
in pieces: (Verse 34). Again, If the Lord
make a new thing, and the ground open her mouth, and swallow them up
and they go
down alive into Sheol: then ye shall understand that these
men have despised the Lord: (Num.
16: 30).
**
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to
bring me up - [from Sheol, the place of the dead.].
Because thou obeyest not the voice
of the Lord
the Lord will deliver
***
Commenting on the above Scripture, Mr.
G. H. Lang wrote: The state of death and the
place called Hades are not the lake of fire, for ultimately the two former are
to be cast into the latter (Rev. 20: 13, 14).
It is not warranted to preach eternal destiny from what
Scripture here says Hades. Dives may be
an utterly lost soul, but on one can rightly assert this. If his concern for his brothers was sincere,
he was not yet utterly hardened. Nor
does he make complaint as to his sufferings, like those who blaspheme God
because of their pains (Rev. 16: 9, 11). And Abraham
acknowledges relationship with Dives by answering his appeal Father with the term Child.
Eternal consequences
have indeed been cancelled for the repentant by the sufferings of Christ on the
cross; but temporal consequences prevail in the period between death and
resurrection. (M.I)
It is also denied that at death the saved go to heaven and
the lost to hell. They all go to the
realm of the dead, where Christ went, but some to the portion called of old,
Abrahams Bosom and now given the nobler description with Christ (Phil. 1: 23), for now He
fills, or occupies, all things (Eph. 4: 9, 10).
When the A.V. was made hell meant what
the Greek Hades means, a vast covered region out of ken of our bodily senses,
reached after death. Today hell has come to mean the place of final judgment, the lake of fire, which misleads the present reader of the A.V. Pictures and Parables, pp266, 267.
We
can all live recklessly, believing there is nothing more to Christianity than the
receiving of a Free Gift (Rom. 6: 21, R.V.): but God and His Apostles have
much to say to Christians about a race to run,
a prize* to be won (1
Cor. 9: 24), an inheritance which they can
forfeit, (Gal. 5: 21; Eph. 5: 5) and a crown which can be lost through neglect and
disobedience, (Rev. 3: 11. cf. 2 Sam. 1: 10.).
* One supreme and final Revelation has a
messages challenging and bright with promise as an earlier section was
with inky blackness of despair. It is
the message of the faithful servants, so called in Matt. 24: 42-47; the
overcomers (Rev. 2 and 3, 7: 14, 12: 11,
21: 7), the
undefiled in the way, here described as the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb (14: 4-5). Listen to our Lords
words in the epilogue:- Behold I come quickly; and My REWARD is with Me, to give to every man according as his work shall
be (22: 12). Chapters 2 and 3 tell us about these rewards. Chapter 14 is the Harvest chapter.
It begins with the privileged first fruits who must be carefully
distinguished from the 144,000 sealed Jews in chapter
7. Then
follows the main Harvest (vv 15-16), when the wheat and tares are sifted. Finally comes the
Vintage of the wicked at the time of Armageddon. We read
of throned saints, of the crowned saints, of those who share in the victory of
the Lamb and reign with Him a thousand years (20: 4). The world (mans artificial civilisation deep dyed in sin) passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the
will of God abideth forever. We are called to the heavenly citizenship of Philippians 3: 20-21. To be
an overcomer means being a good soldier of Jesus Christ. There is a race to run; a prize to be won. Look to
yourselves. Writes John in his second epistle,
that we
lose none of the those things which we have wrought,
but that we receive a full reward.
- SAMUEL F. HURNARD.
* * *
The cost of loving
the world is enormous,
but vaster still is the wealth of rejecting it.
She
was young (says the writer in Our Hope),
she was married to a husband devoted to her, she was beautiful, she possessed
wealth, she occupied a high social position, and she easily gained access to
all the sources of amusement and pleasure opened to her in an ungodly world;
still she was not happy. She came to her
own accord one day to the study, confessing her conviction of sin and her need
of a Saviour.
She
was willing to be a Christian, but she was unwilling to give up the world. She was very fond of dancing, card parties and
the theatre, and wished to know whether she could not retain these delights,
and at the same time be enrolled among the followers of the Saviour?
She
was asked, Can you sincerely seek the blessing and
guidance of the Holy Spirit, as you go to the theatre, the card party or the
dance, and can you honestly say, Lord Jesus, I do this to please thee? No, she
replied, I cannot. She was warned of her fearful peril, and the
words were read to her, Whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world, is the enemy of God (James
4: 4): Love not the world, neither the things
that are in the world. If any man love
the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2: 15).
But in the face of all that could be said, she deliberately rejected the
Lord Jesus Christ, saying that she could not and would not give up the world.
Within
a month after that interview she was stricken down even in the flush and pride
of her health, and was called to die.
She sent for me, and, on entering her room, she was found to be
perfectly conscious, and so calm and collected that it was a great
surprise. I
have sent for you, she said coolly and slowly, not to pray, nor to read the Bible to me, nor to utter one word about
salvation. That is all past, and now it
is too late. But I only desire that at my funeral you will speak freely of my fatal
decision, and implore others not to do as I have done. She was entreated to listen once more to the
invitation and promises of a loving and long-suffering Saviour, but she
persistently declined; and when prayer was offered, notwithstanding her
protest, she quietly said, I paid no attention to you; it does me no good. It was a sad funeral, and there kept ringing
through my head and heart the solemn declarations of
God, My Spirit shall
not always strive with man (Gen. 6: 3).
Now we see what the rejection of the world can bring.
More
than half a century ago a young girl was preparing for a grand ball to be given
in her native town. Full of gay
anticipation, she started out one day to her dressmaker to have her fine dress
fitted for the occasion. On her way she
met her pastor, an earnest, soulful man, and in the greeting that passed
between them he learned her errand. He
reasoned and expostulated, and finally pleaded with her to stay away from the
ball. Greatly vexed, she answered, I wish you would mind your own business! and went on
her wayward course.
In
due time the ball came off and this young girl was the gayest of the gay. She was flattered and caressed; but, after
dancing all night, laying her head upon her pillow only with the returning
light, she was far from happy. In all
the pleasures there had been a thorn, and now conscience made her
wretched. The pastor had always been a
cherished friend, and her rudeness to him rankled in her breast.
More
than all, the truth of his words came to her heart and would give her no
rest. After three days of misery, during
which life became almost insupportable, she went to the minister with her
trouble, saying:- For three days I have been the most
wretched girl in the world, and now, oh, that I were a Christian! I want to be happy. What must I do? The pastor freely forgave her rudeness to
himself. He joyfully directed her to the
true source of peace. Give yourself, my child, to the Lamb of God, just as you are. This was a new Gospel to her,
she had never comprehended it before.
What? Just as I am?
she asked. Do
you know I am one of the worst sinners in the world? How can He accept me just
as I am?
That is exactly what you
must believe. Was the answer. You must come to
Him just as you are. The simple
truth took possession of her mind. She
went to her room, knelt down, and offered God her heart, as it was, to be
cleansed and made fit for His own dwelling.
As
she knelt, peaceful, overflowing joy filled her soul. Inspired by the rapturous experience, she
then and there wrote the hymn beginning:
Just as I am, without one
plea,
But that Thy Blood was shed for me;
And that Thou bidst
me come to Thee,
O, Lamb of God, I come!
So
Charlotte Elliott wrote the first of
her 150 hymns, with which she enriched the whole
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