For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house...

WARNINGWARNINGWARNINGMESSAGETOTHECHURCHWARNINGWARNINGWARNING - Living Hope In Jesus

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

And if the righeous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

1 Peter 4:17-18

.

We are now in the last moments before The LORD Jesus' return. The antichrist is poised and ready to take his place on God's prophetic stage as we head very quickly to the end of the world as prophesied in God's inerrant and infallible Word. The Rapture of the Church is soon to take place followed by the tribulation of which man has never endured on this earth as God pours out His wrath upon the ungodly.

In the meantime, the Church is over-flowing with lukewarm compromisers that rarely can be distinguished from the ungodly, hell-bound world. It is time for us as the Church to repent and return unto The LORD Jesus in spirit and truth.

God so loved the Church, His Bride, that He sent Jesus, His only beloved Son, to earth to live for us, die for us, and raise from death for us....for death could not hold Him. He was and is and ever shall be God. So much love, forgiveness, compassion, grace, and mercy has The LORD Jesus shown His Church.

In these last days, it has become increasingly very difficult for truly devoted Christians to find a Church house to worship in because the demonic is rampant in the lives and teachings of those professing to be Christians in most Churches!!!

Those lost and hell-bound in sin are to be directed to Churches to attend......but to what Church? True Bible-believing Churches are extremely difficult to find in these last days!!! True Bible-practicing

http://www.livinghopeinjesus.com/WARNINGWAR...ESSAGETOTHECHURCHWARNINGWARNINGWARNING.dsp (1 of 7)3/16/2012 10:05:34 PM


Christians are also extremely difficult to find in these last days!!!

The fault for the state of the Church is NOT God's fault. It is the Church's fault. He has done everything He could ever possibly do in order to make a way for us to have His eternal salvation and live right before Him by sending The LORD Jesus Christ to earth to be slain as our blood sacrifice for sins. He has sent His Holy Spirit to us to teach and guide us. Yet so many in the Church have rejected Him. It is Jesus who stands outside of the Church knocking with desire to be invited inside of the Church.....yet He is supposed to be inside of The Church already!!! What does that say about us, Church???

.

Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Revelation 2:4-5

.

It is time we return to our first love lest we be left behind at The Rapture...left behind to suffer the wrath of The Almighty God Jesus Christ with all ungodly sinners. Think that would never happen? We had better think again!!! When Jesus compared the kingdom of God to ten virgins awaiting the bridegroom, only half were ready when the bridegroom came for them. The rest were left behind and the door was shut!!! The LORD Jesus surely had to be telling us what it will be like for The Church when He returns...only half of the Church prepared to go in The Rapture!!! Read it for yourself in Matthew chapter 25 verses 1-13!!!

Does this not concern you???

Does it not hurt anymore to grieve The Holy Spirit of God???



Does The LORD Jesus not matter anymore???

Does it not matter that apostacy, heresy, and hyprocrisy found in this last-days Church is a stench in the nostrils of The Almighty God and LORD Jesus Christ???

Does the Church not fear Almighty God???

.

Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

Revelation 2:22-23

.

We all love to sing "When We All Get To Heaven" while most in the Church are living like devils.....teaching false doctrines like devils.....spewing forth false prophecies like devils.....unashamedly bringing shame upon The Name of Jesus before the ungodly, hell-bound world without the ability to even blush over our sinfulness. Sexual predators are running rampant in many Churches while disguised as ministers, etc. Fornication and adultery ceases not. Homosexuals are running rampant in many Churches without a warning that God hates homosexuality and will destroy both their bodies and souls in hell. People claiming to be Christian are endorsing and voting for candidates that openly condone all that God Almighty hates...abortion, homosexuality, etc. The list seems endless of all of the apostacy, heresy, and ungodly, hell-bound living that is observed in what calls itself the Church in these last days.

It is so very heart-breaking indeed. Multitudes in the Church do not want



the God and LORD Jesus Christ of The Bible. They prefer the "good ole boy" image that they have created in their back-slidden and ungodly minds and have named "Jesus". Multitudes in the Church want the false "Jesus" that they have created in their back-slidden and ungodly minds that they choose to imagine lets ungodliness slide by without threat of judgement or chastisement. They want the false "Jesus" that forgives at a mere "I'm sorry, LORD!" with true repentance never necessary. (Such a "Jesus" does not exist except only as a mental image in their ungodly, sin-loving minds!!!) They want their riches. They want their fame. They want false devil-teachings that make them feel good as though all is fine between them and The LORD Jesus.....WHEN IT IS NOT!!! They prefer an abominable image they have named "Jesus" over the REAL LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.

Ministers stand and offer sermons and altar-calls often without the mention of true repentance necessary in order to be saved by The LORD Jesus. At such sermons, etc., the devil and his hordes do laugh for he does all he can to keep secret the need for our true repentance.

God's Word is not read and not studied by multitudes professing to be Christians!!! While The King James Version of The Bible and The Geneva Bible are the most accurate in translation from Hebrew and Greek to English, often what is read from pulpits and read in homes, (if it read at all!!!), are the distorted and defaced modern versions that are indeed perversions of God's Word yet preferred by so many professing to be Christian.

One example of a perverted version of God's inerrant and infallible Word is the New International Version (NIV).

Did you not know that the same company that publishes the NIV also publishes the satanic bible? Click here and here to read it for yourself!!!

Did you not know that the same company that publishes the NIV also publishes the ungodly book "The Joy of Gay Sex"? Click here and here to read it for yourself!!!


http://truthinheart.com/Zondervan.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/NIV/niv-gay-satan.htm

http://truthinheart.com/Zondervan.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/NIV/niv-gay-satan.htm


Are you not familiar with two on the NIV translation committee who where homosexual? Read about one of them here. Read about the other one here.

Are you not familiar with the atrocities to Holy Scripture in OTHER versions of The Bible? Take a look for yourself here.

.

God's precious and beloved newborn babes in Jesus Christ are being offended and discouraged in their new lives in Jesus as they observe the hypocrisy of so many that profess to be Christian. God has plainly told the Church that His little ones are NOT to be offended and has warned us against doing such!!! His little ones not only include children but also include those so new in Him as newborn babies in Jesus Christ.

.

Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!

It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

Luke 17:1-2

.

Would you like to really know how The LORD Jesus sees us, Church???

Would you like to really know what HE thinks of us???

Read it for yourself below!!!

.

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert


http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/niv_sodomite.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/niv_sodomite_on_committee.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/NIV/300_changes.htm


cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

Revelation 3:15-18

.

The back-slidden, compromising, and lukewarm Church is playing with God but He is not playing with us.

GAME TIME IS UP, CHURCH!!!

HEED THE LORD JESUS' WARNING...OR PERISH. HE IS WARNING US BECAUSE HE LOVES US, CHURCH!!!

.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Revelation 3:19

.

God's judgement has begun, Church, and His judgement is coming down quickly with The Church's name on it!!! Do we even recognize His judgement and chastisement upon us as coming from Him or will we continue, in our deceived states, to try to claim "it is the devil attacking



us"? It is time we wake up and get into The Word and get to know the REAL Jesus. Our back-slidings, compromising, etc., makes Him sick, Church!!! Is it any wonder that He would desire to spew us out of His mouth!!!

We MUST repent and return unto The LORD Jesus Christ!!!

We MUST do it TODAY!!!

Sincerely in The LORD and ONLY Savior Jesus Christ, Stephen and Bonita Ann (Logsdon) Richie

2/17-19/2008


David Wilkerson’s Warning for The Assembly of God: Sadly unheeded!

July 12, 2008 by John“People don’t like to hear this, but we’re headed for perilous times—just a few years away from a collapse

like the world has never known. When that happens, all who preached prosperity are going to disappear

because the people will say, “Your gospel has failed me.” When that time comes, I want to grasp onto Jesus,

and I want everyone I’ve preached to to have faith in the keeping power of Jesus Christ. I want them to

know Him in His fullness. I want to know that I’ve done it in love, in grace, that they would know the

difference between the holy and the profane.”

from The Word is True:

The Dangers of The Gospel of AccomodationA sermon given by David Wilkerson at an Assemblies of God headquarters chapel service.

By David Wilkerson

I am not coming to you as a pastor but with a prophetic word. God so shook me recently with

this message that I should bring it somewhere, sometime in Springfield. This morning the Lord,

by His Spirit, spoke to my heart that this is the time. He has called me to be one of His

watchmen, and I have wept over this and prayed that He will help me deliver the message in a

spirit of love. This is not a chastisement but a warning for the Assemblies of God.

A New Gospel

Accommodate means to adapt, to make suitable and acceptable, to make convenient. A gospel of

accommodation is creeping into the United States. It’s an American cultural invention to appease the

lifestyle of luxury and pleasure. Primarily a Caucasian, suburban gospel, it’s also in our major cities and is

sweeping the nation, influencing ministers of every denomination, and giving birth to megachurches with

thousands who come to hear a nonconfronting message. It’s an adaptable gospel that is spoon-fed through

humorous skits, drama, and short, nonabrasive sermonettes on how to cope—called a seeker-friendly or

sinner-friendly gospel.

To begin with, those terms are unscriptural. The gospel of Jesus Christ has always been confronting—there is

no such thing as a friendly gospel but a friendly grace.

This new gospel is being propagated by bright, young, talented ministers. They have come upon a formula

which states you can go into any town or city; and if you have the right formula, within a short time you can

raise a megachurch.

If you are a young man and have certain skills, you find those skills and a part of the city that would best

suit you. You move into that area, poll it, and find out what the nonchurchgoers want:

“You don’t like choirs. Well, would you go to a church that didn’t have a choir?” Yes.

“You don’t like to wear suits. Would you go where it’s informal?” Yes.

Then you go to your computer and design a gospel that will not confront but will shoot out the desires and

the needs of the people. After you have gathered a handful of people, you keep interviewing them to find out

what they want; then you design your message to help people cope with their needs. The program you

design is intended to make the church comfortable and friendly for all sinners who wish to attend.

This gospel is fast becoming the most prosperous and flourishing of all religious movements. Thousands

attend these churches. The pastor is the CEO, and it becomes a business. They make no bones about it:

They are following Madison Avenue tactics and can make a success of it. Their formula for quick church

http://truedsicernment.com/author/skye0725/

http://thewordistrue.com/?p=21

growth is cleverly packaged and is being sold especially to young ministers—those who want to be a part of

the big boys and what’s happening on a fast track. They want it to happen quickly.

Paul’s Warning

Paul warned of the coming of another gospel and another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4). He warned the church

that it’s really not another gospel but a perversion of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. If you hear any other

gospel, he said, let that preacher be accursed. In other words, no matter how pleasant, how pious, or how

sincere, if the message is not the death of sin through the cross of Jesus Christ, let it be accursed.

I tremble when I read in the Scriptures that in the last days Satan is going to come right into the church

posing as an angel of light. He’s going to take ministers who, at one time, had the touch of God, and he’s

going to transform them into angels of light to become his tool of deception. That’s frightening. It causes me

to fall on my face before God for such false, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of

Christ. No marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it’s no great thing if

ministers also are transformed as the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works.

Paul said they are going to glory in the flesh, in their bigness, their numbers, their influence, and their

contemporariness. They will boast they are contemporary, that there is a gospel that is out of style that

doesn’t reach human need anymore. They will glory in the world’s acceptance. Jesus warned, “Beware of

false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew

7:15). The context of that warning was: “Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth to life,

and few there be that find it” (verse 14).

His warning was to beware of the wolves who are going to say it’s really not that narrow and straight—they

are going to come posing as submissive sheep. Jesus put His finger on the cause: ambition—ambitious

ravening wolves. In the Greek it means “starved for recognition and quick gratification, quick growth.”

Jesus left no doubt about His meaning. For example, He was addressing a struggling pastor who has worked

for years and hasn’t seen the kind of growth he wants to see. A young man with an accommodating gospel

moves into town and and within a very short time has a megachurch. People are flocking there because there

is entertainment; it’s a gospel of fun. I’ve been in some of them. It’s the gospel of entertainment that has no

conviction whatsoever. There is very little in their gospel that speaks to sinners of repentance, brokenness,

and cross-bearing. A Christ is preached, Jesus’ name is mentioned, but Paul said their’s is another gospel,

another Jesus.

Paul warned that if you are caught in this trap, if you want that hook of entertainment, that hook of sudden

growth, this is the hook: The enemy will put in your path a teaching.

I have two preacher sons. One of them confessed to me, “Dad, I was that close to being sucked in because I

fasted and prayed and didn’t see the growth I wanted to see, and I saw these others grow. That hook was

there, and I almost bought it.”

That is something this Movement and every movement is going to have to look at and deal with: It is

possible, through unholy ambition, to be transformed from a man of God, who has been seeking God and

getting a word from heaven, to an unholy ambition and a tool of Satan. Let every pastor heed this warning:

The moment you begin to consider the “competition,” seeds of accommodation will be planted in your heart.

Suddenly, Satan will put in your path a wolf in sheep’s clothing—a man who will try to seduce you into

ungodly ambition and achieving church growth at any cost. Yet the truth is, it could cost you your soul.

The Right Formula

If you find the right formula, according to the accommodation gospel, you can succeed in any field of

endeavor.

An editorial in the New York Times (March 1, 1998) was entitled, How To Manufacture a Best-Seller. It told

the story of John Baldwin, a 53-year-old carpenter and a would-be writer, who had struggled for years to

make a living from writing. He determined to become famous and rich overnight by writing a best-selling

medical thriller. He studied five or six best thrillers. After 7 years’ research he found 10 steps to producing a

best-selling medical novel. He honed it with some Hollywood writers and agents, and here is the 10-step

formula he used:

1.The hero is an expert.

2.The villain is an expert.

3.You must watch all the villain’s activities over his shoulder.

4.The hero has a team of experts behind him, working in various fields.

5.Two or more on the team must fall in love.

6.Two or more on the team must die.

7.The villain must turn his attention from his initial goal to the team.

8.The villain and the hero must live to do battle again in the sequel.

9.All deaths must proceed from the individual to the group.

10.If the story bogs down, just kill somebody.

John Baldwin had the formula but no story, so he read of research by John Marr who was studying the

epidemiological causes of the 10 plagues, hoping to explain their causes scientifically. The two men formed a

partnership, and using Baldwin’s 10–step formula, together wrote a 640 page manuscript called The Eleventh

Plague. Harper Collins bought it for almost $2 million.

Baldwin, who has no passion for writing, said, “If I get the formula, I’m going to be a multimillionaire and

famous.” Well, he’s going to make another $3 million on the movie rights, and he’s laughing all the way to

the bank. His philosophy: “If you have the right formula, you can be a success at anything.”

You see, this is the gospel of accommodation—the formula. You get the formula, you get what people want,

and you can be a success. I am here to tell you that a formula-based, accommodating gospel is contrary to

everything in the Scriptures.

God’s Method

Certain men of God met at Antioch to send out men to preach the gospel and establish churches (Acts 13).

Here is God’s method:

1. They ministered to the Lord and fasted. This was their planning session—worshiping, fasting, waiting on

the Lord, and calling for direction from the Holy Ghost. They did not move until the Holy Ghost spoke. There

were no formulas, no surveys, no door-to-door asking people what they wanted and then serving it to them.

2. They prayed—no strategizing, no network, and not one step until the Holy Ghost spoke His mind. Then

and only then did they lay hands upon them, anoint them, and send them out in the power and

demonstration of the Holy Ghost.

Paul lived his whole religious life on religious formulas, and he said they didn’t work. He gave up on formulas

and said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1

Corinthians 2:2). Paul boasted unashamedly, “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock,

and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). He was saying, “Gentlemen (he was talking to his

peers), they want us to accommodate. The Jews are looking for signs in our gospel. The Greeks want the

wisdom. They want to know how to cope, but I’m not compromising. There’s only one message. Our gospel

has been and will be the Cross and its demands as well as its victories. As for me, I’m determined to preach

nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified.”

What the Gospel of Accommodation Does (1)

I see three things in the gospel of accommodation:

1. It is the accommodation of man’s love for pleasure.“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers…of pleasures more

than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1–4). The Greek forpleasure is “sensuous, lustful, voluptuous, exciting,

gratifying, sensual pleasure.” If you move toward this gospel of accommodation, you are going to have to

accommodate the people’s lust because they are not going to give up their love for excitement. They’ve

made gods of sports, pleasure, and lust. Unless that is confronted by the gospel of Jesus Christ, unless there

is a truth that comes forth, you have to accommodate this lust that is in the American lifestyle.

I was shocked by an article in the New York Times.1 Philip Wogaman, President Clinton’s pastor, said, “Sexual

misconduct does not automatically render a leader immoral. Morality should also be judged by indicators like

courage, concern for the poor, fostering world peace, running the economy responsibly, and furthering racial

equality. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are merely cultural expressions.” In other words, Mr. Clinton has

been told that he has enough good indicators to overrule another that would be immoral in his life.

God said that men who preach doctrines like these resist the truth; they are men of corrupt minds

counterfeiting the faith.

In disbelief I watched a televised Sunday night service of a seeker-friendly church—seeker-friendly by its

own admission. To a packed church where thousands attend, the pastor said, “This is fun night, a David

Letterman night.” The youth pastor came out and did his monologue as David Letterman. Then they showed

10 of the most boring things teenagers do during preaching. Three of the 10 were throwing spitballs,

yawning, and picking their noses. The crowd went crazy. After the service, the pastor brazenly announced,

“We’re not here to offend people, but to make church comfortable for everyone.” I wept.

I ask you, how long do you think that audience would stay in church if the pastor was gripped by the Holy

Ghost, convicted for “entertaining” people toward hell, and suddenly preached a message entitled, “Be sure

your sins will find you out”? How long would people keep coming back if a gospel of holy living and

separation from the world was preached? Two things would happen: (1) Those who are misguided, hungry,

and didn’t know any better would weep and run to the altar. (2) Those who are judiciously blinded by their

pleasures in madness would flee from the church and never come again. The church doors would close.

I keep this foremost in my mind and before my eyes, because every minister of the gospel one day has to

face it when he stands before the Lord. He will say, “Son of man, I made thee a watchman. You were to hear

the words of My mouth and give them warnings from Me. You were to tell the wicked, ‘Thou shalt surely die.’

And you gave them no warning nor spoke to warn the wicked to turn from their wicked ways to save their

lives. These same wicked men died in their sins, but their blood I’ll require at your hands.”


2. This gospel of accommodation accommodates all man’s aversion to self-denial.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of self-denial. Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny

himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial is not something you give. It’s

someone you give up—the giving up of yourself, giving up everything you are. It’s a living sacrifice to the

Lord Jesus Christ to present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable

service. God has every right to say to His church, “If you expect to give Me your body, your resurrected body,

all through eternity, I have every right—it’s only reasonable of Me and your reasonable service—to ask your

body why you’re here on earth. I want every part of you. I want you to be spiritually minded. I want to

possess you.”

The gospel we preach must bring people under the total possession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it’s a

gospel of accommodation.

The seeker-friendly gospel accommodates the body. The human body belongs to Him. What we see in

America is a neognosticism where you take your physical body on one side and do as you please as long as

your spirit is right with God. This is coming even out of the White House, this dividing of personality. No, we

are one personality, and it all belongs to Jesus Christ. This neognosticism is destroying the faith of many

throughout the nation.


3. There is an accommodation of man’s offense to the gospel.

The Scriptures state, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumblingstone and rock of offense.” Paul spoke of the offense

of the Cross. This is the heart of God’s anger. We’re not called to the Cross but to go through the Cross—to

experience the same thing Jesus did, not only coming to the Cross but dying and going into the grave with

Jesus Christ and then being raised from the dead to a newness of life.

It’s cruel, pastor, to lead sinners to the Cross, tell them they are forgiven by faith, and then allow them to go

back to their habits and lusts of the flesh, unchanged and still in the devil’s shackles. If the preaching of

grace doesn’t have as its goal the producing of a walk of righteousness, then it’s another gospel, another

Jesus.

I listened in horror to a man, who attended one of the largest seeker-friendly churches, being interviewed by

CBS. He said, “I come to this church because I’m comfortable. I’m never made to feel uneasy. I bring my

Jewish friends and my business friends, and I know nothing will ever be said that will offend them. The best

part of it is, the whole thing only lasts an hour.”

Take it from me: You can get your big church and be one of the big boys, but it’s going to cost you your soul

if you preach with a focus only on earthly things, rather than on the things of God.

I’ve lived in New York City 35 years. We have 103 nationalities from all walks of life—from the poorest to the

richest. Probably 300 or more from the United Nations live there. But I look over a congregation (so does my

dear friend, Jim Cymbala, in Brooklyn) and see men who have just walked in from the porno shops and are

wild animals. I see a businessman friend who was CEO of a multimillion–dollar company, but he started

snorting coke, lost everything, and is now a bum on the street. He sits in the congregation. A little 14-year-

old girl with AIDS is up on 8th Avenue performing lewd acts before dirty old men. She comes to church and

keeps saying, “Pastor Dave, I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to get help.”

I’m not about to put up a silly skit and preach a 15-minute message on how to cope to a multitude of people

who are dying and going to hell. I tremble at the thought.

People don’t like to hear this, but we’re headed for perilous times—just a few years away from a collapse like

the world has never known. When that happens, all who preached prosperity are going to disappear because

the people will say, “Your gospel has failed me.” When that time comes, I want to grasp onto Jesus, and I

want everyone I’ve preached to to have faith in the keeping power of Jesus Christ. I want them to know Him

in His fullness. I want to know that I’ve done it in love, in grace, that they would know the difference

between the holy and the profane.

May God, in Jesus’ name, spare the Assemblies of God forever. If I have ever given a prophetic message in

my lifetime that God intended for a purpose, it is now.

Many are being deceived. If they are not awakened, what I warn you about will happen.

I pray that God will keep the Assemblies of God in its original purposes. In New York City, He has proved that

the people come to hear a straight gospel, and thousands will come where the Word of God is being

preached without compromise and yet with grace. May the young men who are discouraged in the Movement

not try for a shortcut but be broken and on their faces before the Lord.

May we get our eyes off growth and onto a new revelation of who Jesus is.

Divine Warnings of Judgement DayGenesis 19:12-22 “The two men said to Lot, ‘Do you have anyone else here - sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.’ So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, ‘Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!’ But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.’ When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, ‘Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!’ But Lot said to them, ‘No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it - it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.’ He said to him, ‘Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it." (That is why the town was called Zoar.).”

Two messengers from heaven had been sent by God to Sodom for the last evaluation of the city. The men from every part of the community, young and old, gathered that night around the house of Lot where the two men were staying. They screamed for Lot to send out the two young men that they might all sodomize them. It is a hellish scene. The two men responded by smiting them with blindness and total confusion. That was the beginning of the judgment on Sodom. Then they turned to Lot and addressed him with great urgency; “Do you have anyone else here - sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it” (vv. 12&13).

1. GOD WARNS US OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF A LIFE OF SIN.

We live in a nation full of warnings, official and private, important and trivial. You can’t go to a newsagent or grocer shop without seeing the rows of packets of cigarettes and the stark government health warnings in large letters on every packet. We are warned about the dangers of obesity, of sunbathing, or lack of exercise, or carrying a pen-knife. There are road signs on every single stretch of the highway obscuring the view warning drivers of the dangers ahead, and when you are not driving there are warnings of clamping (in Wales they come in two languages). Here is an insidious drip-feed of potentially fatal consequences attached to simply everything men do. That is accepted and yet men resent a God who warns them of far greater dangers ahead. People don’t want a preacher to warn them. They’ve invented their own religion; they might call it ‘Christianity’ but it is an utter distortion of what the Lord Jesus and

his apostles taught. It contains no warnings at all. It simply says that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life and that you also should love. Yet warnings are everywhere in the Bible. The Lord Jesus warned the Pharisees of their false religion. He warned us all in the Sermon on the Mount to watch out for false prophets. He warned his disciples that he would be crucified and buried. He warned Peter that Satan desired to sift him as wheat and that soon he would deny him. The Lord warns us because he loves us, just as any earthly parent warns his children of thin ice, and warns them of traffic on the road, and of strangers who invite them into their cars, and of taking drugs. Would anyone say to such a mother, “You don’t love your children because you are warning them”? Of course not; it is the very opposite. The warnings come out of their love and because of the reality of the danger facing their children. We don’t warn them of hobgoblins and ghosts and the dangers of walking under ladders because there is no danger in silly superstitions and old wives’ tales, but meeting God unprepared, unrepentant and unbelieving is to lose our souls for ever. Then so it was here. There were real dangers ahead for this family.

Righteous Lot and his family were loved by God, and that’s the reason his messengers told Lot, “Get your family out of here.” God was saying, “I don’t want you to get hurt.” Doesn’t God love the family? Didn’t God design and make possible the family? Didn’t God say, “It is not good for man to be alone”? God was dealing with Lot on the level of the household; Lot was the federal head of his little family. In the same way God had dealt with Noah and his family - his wife and his three sons and their wives. Under the new covenant two thousand years later the gospel preached by Paul addressed a Roman jailer and said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” Plead this promise to God, that there may be no empty places either at the Lord’s Supper of believers in this life or at the marriage feast of the Lamb.

So judgment hung over Sodom and, of course, the scene deliberately invokes memories of the judgment of the flood, but here not on a cosmic level but on a personal and localized level. God has given everyone in Sodom a conscience, just like everyone in Aberystwyth. On everyone’s heart he has written the things of the law. A righteous man has lived as salt and light in that town over the past years. Messengers from God have come to it, and so, no one can plead ignorance of why God judges. No one in Lot’s family and no one in the city can protest, “But Lord we didn’t know that you were angry with us. We didn’t know there was danger ahead.” God would respond, “But I sent you my word with its warnings and entreaties.” The messengers spelled it out, “we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it” (vv. 12&13). Is this not so with us today? Isn’t this a moral universe? Don’t we all live by passing judgments, great on small, on ourselves, and on others? We are made in God’s image. Hasn’t God given us the ten commandments? Doesn’t God hold us responsible for our actions? Doesn’t he tell us to flee from the wrath to come? Has not God said, “It is appointed unto men once to die and after death the judgment”? Was it not the Lord Jesus who spoke of the worm that did not die and the fires that are not quenched? Are you sure that you can dismiss them as old wives’ tales and archaic superstitions? They were spoken by the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount, remember.

The messengers from God to Sodom were not crying “Wolf!” The people were really staring at a most terrible imminent judgment. Just so had the generation who heard the preaching of Noah, and just so do we. The wickedness of Sodom was crying out for punishment. There had been extraordinary restraint by God for decades, but he would stay his hand no longer. The sin of the Sodomites had now reached

its full measure. The messengers of God would confirm to God, as they presented him with a report of their visit to Sodom, what was their experience of its foulness. The town was as evil as the report that had reached heaven. One single night there had given God’s messengers all the data God would need, and when they told Lot to get his family out of that godforsaken place there was sufficient authority in their tone of voice that Lot initially didn’t hesitate. “So Lot went” (v.14) we read. How important is that? It is all important. Without obeying the messengers whom God sends into our lives how will any one of us escape? Off Lot went that same night, the crowd having dispersed in its blindness and confusion, no threat to him at all. Lot set out to warn his sons-in-law . . . actually it was his prospective sons-in-law because we’ve been told that neither of his daughters had slept with a man (v.8). So these two girls of his were betrothed to men of Sodom. Lot had given his permission for the marriages; he had discussed the dowry price of his daughters with fathers of men who were Sodom born and bred. Lot had been happy with such ungodly and unrighteous alliances, light fellowshipping with darkness, good with evil.

So how did these two men respond when they heard these words, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city”? (v.14). Just like some of you respond to my warnings. You smirk. All the sons of darkness since the fall of Adam have always responded to the threat of God’s judgment in this same way, they mock. We have all seen newspaper cartoons in which religious men are caricatured. A man is holding a sign which says something like, “We are all doomed,” and such men always look like the wild man of the mountains. His hair is unkempt and his clothes are in tatters and he looks like an idiot, because anyone who believe in the coming judgment in the eyes of cartoonists, their editors and the people who read them is an idiot or a fanatic, because the faith of most journalists is that death is followed by nothingness. We are wiped out, and annihilated. We simply no longer exist! Aren’t you afraid of that? That that is the best you can hope for? What if your faith in this is misguided and that the Lord Jesus Christ is right? “Who knows?” you ask. “Who can tell?” The one who rose from the dead. The one who was resurrected on the third day knows. Death did not annihilate him. “Because I live you shall live also,” he said.

If you mock then you are in company with Lot’s future sons-in-law. For them judgment falling on this place was simply unthinkable. “Come on old man! Yes, last night was pretty rough. Things got out of hand. Sorry that our fiancées got a bit upset. We spread the word that the lads shouldn’t do that again with anyone staying with Lot, but don’t over react, old boy. Things have gone on in Sodom for a pretty long time and there’s never been a judgment. From the beginning of the world things carry on just the same . . .” So they thought and so they spoke, laughing at him, and forgetting Noah’s flood and the distant voice of their own consciences. They covered over their wickedness with the garment of scornful laughter, just as old Abraham had laughed at God’s promise of a son, and Sarah also. God speaking to men words of warning and entreaty was all so far fetched. They mocked; “A judgment to come? What place have such beliefs in our modern world? No one has believed that since . . . the time of Noah.” Yes, the time of Noah, and what happened then? Yet the Lord had had pity on the doubts of Abraham and Sarah, but is there pity here? Does God pity a spirit of rigid hostility to his kind words of warning? That is all that the two messengers of God saw and heard in the two prospective sons-in-law of Lot and in all their libertarian companions; there was no trembling at all. They had hardened their hearts against God and their consciences, and if we should mock God’s word there is nothing before us but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour us.

1. GOD GIVES A SECOND WARNING OF THE JUDGMENT TO COME.

Aren’t you glad that God brings his truth to us more than once? Of course, once you have heard the gospel you are under obligation to believe the gospel, and once you have heard the warnings of the judgment that await you then you are under obligation to prepare to avoid them, in the appointed ways. But many of you have heard the gospel and its promises and warnings more than once. You have heard them twice . . . three times . . . many times, three hundred times, and still you are not prepared for the tremendous day.

The dawn is breaking in Sodom and no one is heeding the warning; “With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.’” (v.15). What do we call such a time? Five minutes to midnight? The last hour? The Scripture announces here that judgment day has dawned and Lot was still not out of the city, not climbing up out of the valley to the place of safety where his half-brother Abraham was staying. What will happen to him when the divine signal is given? What will happen to us at the last trumpet? What will happen when the sun of righteousness arises with all his glory? How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Think of Lot, the city magistrate, the establishment man, dispensing justice in the city. Isn’t it hard for someone who passes sentence on the guilty to plead before God that in his sight he himself is guilty? How long has it been since a judge, a Queen’s Counsel was converted from unbelief to trusting in the Son of God, Jesus Christ? How many such men were converted last year, or even in the last decade? I pray that there have been some. Do you remember what Jesus said, that it is hard for certain men to enter the kingdom of heaven?

Lot had met these two men at the gate, and he had thought that it was his duty to protect them, and he would have sent them off to safety early this very morning. Now it is these messengers who are hurrying him along this morning to save him from the great terror, the wrath of God. The spokesman says to him, “Hurry!” Will you listen with some urgency? Will you think of your family? You have a wife and children? Will you take them to safety with you or will you all be swept away in the great deluge that lies before us? We are nearer judgment than when this service started. Think of yourself and prepare. You may have time to take those who are most precious to you along with you. Perhaps they already see your concern. They may feel the pew trembling on which you are sitting. They may see the tears of shame on your cheeks. They may see you looking down and almost beating your breast. They may hear real prayer on your lips. The day of the Lord is coming and you need the protection of the blood of Christ. It cleanses from all sin. You need robes of righteousness to cover all your filthy garments. The day of the Lord is coming as a thief in the night, so secretly. Hurry or you will be swept away when the city is punished.

God’s messengers gave Lot a second warning, but he lingered! He had seen the power of the angels smiting the Sodomites with blindness and confusion of faith. He had heard their voices speaking with authority, telling him exactly what was going to happen, and yet he was still unpersuaded. Maybe . . . maybe not. Lot lingered . . . but he lingered not knowing whether to flee or tough it out in Sodom with the rest of the people he knew there. “Am I to believe these messengers that come from God or do I believe my family and my friends and everyone with any wealth and power in this place? Am I going to risk all my credibility and seem so foolish in running away from this place? I shall be a laughing stock. I have been scared by a couple of very religious men. They got under my skin and I acted completely out of character. I’m beginning to feel ashamed of myself.” Lot had initially made his decision and set off, but then he hesitated and dragged his feet. He had eaten the food of haste the night

before, unleavened bread, but now he was not prepared to get cracking. He delayed. His loins were not girded up; his staff was not in his hand. He dawdled; he cannot bear to take so radical a step. So Lot was just like some of you.

Was it a hard thing for Lot to acknowledge that he had been such a fool to leave the land of promise and part company with Abraham and move to Sodom? Was it so hard for him to move away from a place pleasant to the eyes, watered like the garden of God? Was it tough for Lot to leave a place where he was greatly admired because of what his half brother and hero Abraham had done in rescuing them when the king Chedorlaomer had captured all the inhabitants of Sodom? Was it hard to leave town when two weddings were coming up and the boys were from long established citizens of the city – maybe they were considered such good matches for his daughters – men out of the top drawer? It was so hard for Lot to risk it all on becoming religious, believing two men’s words of warning when two thousand people rejected them. It was tough for Lot to stand alone, but it was not as hard a choice as Jesus made when he set his face steadfastly towards Jerusalem. It was not as hard as his drinking the cup of wrath that his Father gave him to drink. It was not as hard as having nails driven through his hands and feet and lifted up by them to die in agony. Not as hard as suffering all that our sins deserve on Golgotha and tasting death for us. It was not that hard for Lot to be laughed at, or for you to be teased for going to church on a Sunday, but the contempt became too much for Lot.

A few hours earlier the men had been much rougher. Lot was standing outside his house pleading with a mob to respect the people in his home, but his words were disdained, and the crowd was threatening. The door behind Lot suddenly opened, an arm came out and grabbed him and yanked him back into the house and the door slammed on the mob. That was the night before, but this time the two messengers of God were very tender. One took hold of Lot’s hand, and with the other hand he held the hand of Mrs. Lot. The other angel took a hand of each of the daughters and the angels steadily led the four of them through the streets of Sodom and through the city gate and out into the countryside and along the lanes through the fields, on and on not letting go of them, taking them to safety. Can’t you see the mercy of God, how immense it is, to a stubborn lingerer like Lot? (v.16) He had had two warnings from heaven and they were not enough to motivate him, and then God told his angels, “Hold their hands and lead them to safety.” Aren’t you glad when God tells his messengers to do that? He says, “Yes. Please send the children to camp; drive them the whole way there, and also give them pocket money for the week.” Or God says, “Go and play golf with your friend though you are not very good and pay for his round.” Or he says, “Give him a really good Bible.” Or God says, “Write him a letter every Sunday afternoon.” These are the gestures of men who serve the Lord who don’t want to see you perish. Behind them you must see the mercy of the Lord.

1. GOD GIVES A THIRD WARNING OF THE JUDGMENT TO COME.

You would think that that would be it, two warnings and that’s your lot, the fires can fall. God has drawn them out of the city and they are safe, but in fact they are not safe. There are the lights and sounds and smells of Sodom just ten minutes’ walk away. The bakers are calling out in the streets selling freshly baked bread. The water carriers are announcing their presence. The cocks are crowing and the city is coming to life again after the hours of darkness. That place has been the only home the girls have known. How alluring it looks in the soft light of early morning, and the angels know its attractiveness even to Lot. Don’t we all know the seductive power of familiar people and places? We

are not home very long from the conference or the camp or the special Sunday service where we believe we have heard a messenger from God. We are not back very long with the gang in school when soon the earnest messages of God seem to be losing their power over us and we are drawn again to love all the things of the world that our buddies and family hold dear.

It is then that even sinners like ourselves receive, morning by morning, new mercies from the God who sent those messengers into our lives, because God hasn’t given up on us. He speaks again to us through one of his messengers; “Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” (v.17). You see the relevance of all this? We can take you to camp and conference and can pray for you and speak to you, but there comes a time when you must nail your colours up. You must dare to be a Daniel. You must dare to stand alone. Now the faith of your parents, and the faith of your preacher, and the faith of the camp officers is of no avail. Now you must say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” You must take that step of faith; you must exercise it. The Lord won’t do that for you, you must do it yourself. Of course he is always there, but you must appropriate him. You must set out for yourself. You must never ever look back in longing to the Sodom from which the Lord has saved you – whatever it is. You must keep going; you must keep on and keep on. Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere on the way or you will be swept away.

How often have you been told that there’s a hell to avoid and a heaven to win, and that only the blood of Jesus Christ can buy our pardon, and only the power of the indwelling Spirit can energize us for the journey? Maybe you are now at university and so away from home; or you are now in the army; certainly wherever you may be you are on your own as a Christian. You are in a place of vulnerability and danger. Don’t look back and don’t stop! Follow the Lord Jesus wherever he’s going. Keep in step with the Holy Spirit. Never give up. Never give up. Look forward to all you have in Christ, the purpose to live, the knowledge that man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever, a conscience that doesn’t condemn you, the hope of heaven’s glory, fullness of joy at God’s right hand for evermore. Don’t look back. Don’t let your heart envy sinners. Look forward to the life ahead that God is preparing for you. Don’t look back at Sodom. Don’t betray your new heart. Don’t, with a glance, say that the treasures of Sodom mean more to you than the One who is the pearl of great price, Jesus Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Turn from Sodom or burn! Escape for your life. The life of this world without Christ is no longer an option; it is no longer viable. Either the life God offers is the life for you or there is brief day’s journey into night.

Still Lot lingers! Listen to him; “You have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die” (v.19). These words of a lingerer address the grace of Christian friendship – and the speakers have been the beneficiary of much Christian kindness. Men thank us out of politeness – when in fact they want us to stop speaking to them of their need to be saved from disaster. “You have shown great kindness to me, and I’d be a boor to ignore you, but . . .” And that ‘but’ will come in a hundred ways. What is the excuse you make for not being a Christian? Lot said, “I can’t flee to the mountains.” They were too far, too high, too steep, too cold! He might not make it to the mountains or in the mountain, so why not die in Sodom? Don’t people say that very often? “Well, I’m going to hell, and that’s it,” and the first five seconds they will be in that terrible place they will scream for deliverance. No deliverance from hell once you are there. You have grasped the sovereignty of God in judgment? That he is right in condemning you? Yes? Then I say to you, “Grasp his sovereignty in the mercy he is now offering you.”

But Lot has another suggestion to make. How amazing the grace of God that hears men making their excuses and suggestions to God as they linger at the mouth of the pit. “Look,” Lot says to God, “Could I tell you what I want? Would you mind? There is a little town near enough to run to – not those distant mountains, don’t make me go there. Let me escape to that nice town. My wife and I always liked it and spoke of retiring there one day – it is very small isn’t it? Then my life will be spared’ (v.20). So we bargain with God. We lay down conditions under which we are prepared to become Christians. Not to meet with the Baptists. Not with the Calvinists. Not the narrow fellowship. We know what we want; deliverance from unbelief, from materialism, from cynicism and despair – yes, we want deliverance from that, but not to flee to the mountains of holiness and separation and self-denial and cross bearing and loving God with all our hearts. We want watered down religion! That is what we want. Diluted, undemanding Christianity. The Saviour carried a cross and hung and died for us. Why? That we might have it easy in this world and live safely in heaven when we die – is that what we want? Lot says, “O.K. I can’t have Sodom, but can’t I have a little place, a cottage with roses round the door, at least, a little piece of this world?”

Men and women, what does God say? It is an incredible reply; “Very well, I will grant this request too” (v.21). God gives that little town to him. Can you believe it? What extraordinary long-suffering! What mercy! He gives him a little place called ‘Zoar’ to live in. You can see the name on the wooden gate that leads up to the house. But what was the price Lot had to pay? A totally anonymous life for the rest of his days. He disappears from the pages of history and he is never mentioned in the Old Testament again. Good-bye Lot. You asked for something, and this bad thing God gave you, a useless life. Aren’t you afraid that you will persist in asking for something, and God will give it to you, and for the rest of your days it will be just the second best? Others are in the midst of the battle, the Lord’s mighty men are doing exploits. See the gates of hell tremble as these men and women approach. They are steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord while you are a forgotten man, pottering about in your garden pruning the roses in your small town, sitting on a few committees, smiling at the young people enjoying themselves. Is that what you want for your futures?

God saved Lot from that. He did. May he save you from that too. O yes, he let Lot get to Zoar (v.23), and he avoided the conflagration of Sodom, but there was too much grace in Lot’s life to stay in that wretched second best existence. Lot was afraid to waste the rest of his life doing nothing. May it be so for some of you too! We are told, “Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar” (v.30). He couldn’t stay there in that nice little cozy place for long. What had changed him? Was it the judgment that had fallen on his wife?

So God hurries Lot out of the danger zone of Sodom. He says some amazing words to Lot; “Flee to Zoar quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it” (v.22). Is God saying that his hands are tied? Is that what we see here? That God can’t do anything until man does something first? No. God is referring to the authority he has given to Abraham the intercessor: Abraham the mediator: Abraham the prefigurement of Jesus Christ our great high priest. Abraham had prayed for Lot and God had heard and determined not to destroy righteous Lot along with Sodom. Lot has to leave Sodom first. “I cannot do any work of judgment on this vile place until you have reached the place of safety, because you have been covered by the prayers of Abraham.” I am making this extraordinary claim that God does not begin his judgment on Aberystwyth today because in this town there are Christians who pray for it. God’s wrath does not descend on you while we pray for you. Christ has shed his blood; Christ has poured out his Spirit; Christ is sending forth his servants with the gospel and with their praying, and so

God will not judge the world yet. Not one of God’s elect is going to perish, and so Lot must be safe, and God delivers him from the wrath to come. Thus it will be in that tremendous day. Weaklings like Lot and his daughters who have yet rested their ultimate hopes on the mercy of God in Christ, will hear the great words, “Come ye blessed of my Father to the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.”

The Son of God, Jesus Christ, came on a fact-finding visit to our world. It lasted over thirty years and he examined how men and women behave. The place was so bad that he wept over it. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! . . .” This world hated him so much it killed him. Yet in his death he bared his soul to the wrath of a sin-hating God. It fell on him, not on our Sodom. He got what we deserved, and we who are joined by faith to him, receive what he deserved. So God for Christ’s sake is sincerely offering to you pardon for your sins now. He will show you mercy in Jesus’ name, but do not delay! Flee to Jesus for your lives. Do not hesitate! Do not linger! Do not make another excuse. Do not say, ‘Tomorrow’ because that day never comes. When tomorrow comes then you know that it has become today, and then you will say again, ‘Tomorrow . . .’ and then on that morrow it is again today and ‘tomorrow’ is always a day away. Beware of the tyranny of serving tomorrows that never come. Beware of an addiction to tomorrow. Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. As the poet once said;

‘Tomorrow,’ he promised his conscience, ‘tomorrow I mean to believe.

Tomorrow I’ll think as I ought to; tomorrow the Saviour receive.

Tomorrow I’ll conquer the habits that hold me from heaven away’

But ever his conscience repeated one word, and one only, ‘Today.’

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Thus, day after day it went on.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Till youth like a dream had all gone.

Till age and his passions had written the message of ‘No’ on his brow,

And then from the shadows came Death with the pitiless syllable, ‘Now!’

16th August 2009 GEOFF THOMAS

Hell-Fire Preachers Neededby Greg Gordon

A urgent message to a sleepy church and dying world

HOLY FIRE OR HELL FIRE

Either people have Holy Ghost fire or hell-fire. There are no other options in the economy of God. The way is narrow that leads to life but the way broad that leads to destruction. Never before in the history of the Church has their seemed to be “so few” on this narrow way. The way most Christians are living shows no reverence for a Holy God. It is either God’s holy habitation or hell as our habitation. Never has there been so much sinning against grace. If there is no alarm for converted sinners going to hell fire then they will perish. Christ was a city shaking, trumpet blasting hell fire preacher. He warned day and night of hell, judgement and the world to come. The life that is living in righteousness is an utter contradiction to sinners. Christ himself was a contradiction to a whole generation that was untoward, perverse and pleasure seeking.

Hell, the refuse dump, the mad house of the universe. Nothing is more terrible, nothing more fierce. Nothing can stop its terrible torments and fury. A Christ-less, God-less eternity eagerly awaits those that walk contrary to God, to His commandments. Oh Christian will you not think and meditate on this awful fact; millions are heading on this broad road as we speak. Hell yawns its mouth greedily to swallow this pleasure seeking, hedonist generation.

THE SAVIOURS CRY

The warnings of Christ are many! He does not relent in his crying out of the sober truth of judgement and hell. Will we stop our own ears to hear of these things? Will we heap to ourselves books, teachers and churches that will tickle our ears of good things when it is an hour of urgency? It is a crisis hour! This world is going to have Holy Ghost revival fire or Hell fire judgement. Hear the weight of the testimony of God in the gospel of Matthew the apostle of Christ. He records Christ’s warnings and indictments to obstinate sinners, religious legalists, and sleepy believers. May our Bible’s become tear soaked as we recount many of Christ’s impassioned plea’s about a hell that is eternal and a judgement that is absolute!

“For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God.” -Matthew 5:20

“...but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire.” -

Matthew 5:22

“Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” -Matthew 7:14

“Every tree that beareth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” -Matthew 7:19

“But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” -Matthew 8:12

“He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” -Matthew 10:39

“Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not.” -Matthew 11:20

“And thou Capernaum which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell.” -Matthew 11:23

“But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gommorah in the day of judgement, then for thee.” -Matthew 11:24

“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad.” -Matthew 12:30

“But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement.” -Matthew 12:36

“...evil and adulterous generation.” -Matthew 12:39

“Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” -Matthew 12:45

“And shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” -Matthew 13:42

“And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” -Matthew 13:50

“Ye hypocrites...” -Matthew 15:7

“...wicked and adulterous generation.” -Matthew 16:4

“For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” -Matthew 16:26

“O faithless and perverse generation.” -Matthew 17:17

“...ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 18:3

“...it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.” -Matthew 18:8

“...be cast into hell fire.” -Matthew 18:9

“...a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 19:23

“...for many are called but few chosen.” -Matthew 20:16

“...the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” -Matthew 21:31

“Cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” -Matthew 22:13

“...but few are chosen.” -Matthew 22:14

“...Ye do err, not knowing not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” -Matthew 22:29

“For ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.” -Matthew 23:13

“Ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” -Matthew 23:15

“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” -Matthew 23:33

“...there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” -Matthew 24:51

“...I know you not.” -Matthew 25:12

“And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” -Matthew 25:30

“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” -Matthew 25:41

“...into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” -Matthew 25:46

SIT AT EASE IN ZION?

Dear reader, after the weight, gravity and truth of these statements we should be on our knees, frothing with utter horror at the reality of it. Either we are of those that believe with all our heart and flee from the wrath to come or we find ourselves stripping him, mocking him, spit upon him, crucified him, and reviling him. Consider this statement from Leonard Ravenhill: “Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? could a doctor sit in a comfort and just let his patients die? could a fireman site idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you DAMNED?”

Hell is filling by the minute as we idly stand by. If our praying and preaching is not marked by tears in these last days something is wrong with our hearts. This generation of believers is responsible for this generation of unbelievers. We need hell-fire preachers! burning, impassioned men that will cry out and spare not. In light of eternity is it not a shame the way we are living? will we get to the judgement seat of Christ and hear God say “my son, you were too spiritual minded, you cared too much about eternity?” No! we will look back and see all the riches of Jesus Christ and realize we have come to the judgement seat a pauper. “One life to live will soon be past, only what is done for Christ will last, and when I am dying how glad I will be, when the lamp of my life has been burnt out for Thee.”

So what do we do in response? Let us hear the words of Ravenhill on the matter: “Brethren, we have only one mission- to save souls; and yet they perish! Oh! Think of them! millions, hundreds of millions, maybe one thousand million eternal souls, need Christ. Without eternal life they perish! Oh! the shame of it! the horror of it! the tragedy of it! Christ was not willing that any should perish!” Let the world say what it will, let the church say what it will. We need hell-fire preachers. Oh Lord send them.

MY FRIEND

My Friend, I stand in Judgment now, and feel that you're to blame somehow. On earth, I walked with you day by day, and never did you point the way. You knew the Lord in truth and glory, but never did you tell the story. My knowledge then was very dim, you could have led me safe to Him.

Though we lived together on the earth, you never told me of the second birth. And now I stand this day condemned, because you failed to mention Him. You taught me many things, that's true, I called you "friend" and trusted you. But I learn now that it's too late, you could have kept me from this fate.

We walked by day and talked by night, and yet you showed me not the Light. You let me live, and love, and die, you knew I'd never live on high. Yes, I called you a "friend" in life, and trusted you through joy and strife. And yet on coming to the end, I cannot, now, call you "My Friend."

THE MESSAGE OF ZECHARIAHNumber 29

THE REALITY OF GOD'S JUDGEMENTZechariah 11:1-3

******WE come now to a very terrible and searching chapter. This chapter is all about the final end of the Jewish nation as the people of God and protected by God. After so many times of calling them to repentance, and frequent pouring out of grace upon the nation, God's judgement finally falls in a most terrible way. God gives them one more chance to heed his call and warnings in the coming of their Messiah, but when they finally reject him there is no other end but terrible judgment. This chapter is echoed in the parable of the tenants in Matthew 21:33-40 which ends with the record that the Pharisees knew that Jesus was speaking of them, but instead of taking the message to heart, they sought ways that they might kill him. God's judgment came upon them with terrible effect by the Roman invasion and occupation of Palestine. Even then God preserved their peculiar status and protected them from being broken up until he had sent his Son, when they rejected his Son, the final judgement came, and in AD 70 Jerusalem was destroyed and the nation scattered, never again to enjoy the status of a nation chosen by God. This did not mean that God had rejected the Jews as Paul argues in Romans 11, but now they were on the same level as the rest of the world. Salvation was offered on the same terms of whosoever believes on Jesus will be saved.This terrible judgment came at the end of the first dispensation and marked an end of an era. It is then a picture and warning of the final judgment at the end of the world, where all who reject the Saviour of the world, our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, will be lost and destroyed. It is for this reason the study and the positive listening to this prophecy is so relevant and important for us and the church today.These first thee verses are an introduction to the prophecy, where God reveals the inevitable and inescapable fact of judgment on all who despise his saving grace. It is important to notice and realize that this prophecy was uttered over 400 years before it was finally executed. None can say that God is a hard God, and delighting in judgment. God gives us plenty of time and opportunity to heed his call and warning. This world has no one to blame but itself if judgment and destruction finally fall.

The picture explained.If you are like me, the first reading of such a picture leaves us baffled and puzzled. The words seem to have no meaning. I have to read Scripture over and over again before the meaning in some measure dawns on my darkened mind.The picture is of a fire sweeping with irresistible force over the land. This picture is couched in terms of forests. The fire sweeps down from the north of Palestine. The forests of Lebanon with their tall cedars could not withstand this ferocity of the flames. These great trees are consumed and the forest laid bare. If these great cedars have no defence against the fury of the flames, then the lesser trees, the pine and the oak need to lament, because they have no hope at all. All the trees and vegetation are consumed and the land his laid bare and destroyed. There is nothing strong enough to withstand the devastation of the flames.Because of this devastation and the destruction of the rich pastures, and even the lush vegetation on the banks of the Jordan, all life is brought to despair and death. The shepherds

have no pasture for their flocks, so the sheep die. Because the sheep die there is no food for the shepherds and the population, so they starve and die. The great beasts of the field like the lions who shelter in the thickets by the river roar in pain and suffering, because their place of rest is taken away, and there is no food for them to eat.The picture is of total destruction, the end of everything. This is what happened to the Jewish nation at last, when they turned in hate from their Messiah and showed their rejection of him by crucifying him. As a result their peculiar relationship with God was taken away. They ceased to be the chosen people, and the protection of God which they had enjoy for so long down the centuries was removed. Their land was devastated. Jerusalem was destroyed. The people were killed in their thousands, and those that survived where scatter over the face of the earth. The Jews have been wanderers ever since, and even though there is a nation of Israel now in Palestine, they have not ceased to suffer, and conflict pursues them, and will do because they still as a nation reject their Messiah.This terrible judgment is frequently linked, if not always, with the final judgment, when Christ will come at the end of the world. Jesus does this in Matthew 24,25. This judgment therefore is a powerful warning to the world, and the church in particular. The parables which open Matthew 25 press this warning upon us all. The warning is to be ready for that fateful day.

The Lessons to be learnt.1. The first lesson that we learn from this is the reality of God's judgment.The truth of the Bible teaching concerning eternal judgment and hell is real. The last verse of Matthew 25 "Then the unrighteous will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life" is so telling. The word for eternal in the Greek is the same with reference to the wicked and the righteous. If eternal life means life for ever, then eternal punishment means punishment for ever.The Jewish nation did not heed the prophecy of Zechariah here, and all the other warnings they were given. They held on to the vain belief that because they were the chosen people of God, they were never going to be judged. They never learnt from the judgments of the past. Such was their complacency, and hardening in unbelief that even when Jesus came, they turned in hate away from him, but still felt secure in their beliefs. This did not prevent them from suffering the final destruction that came.Our world is in the same position. Even in the church today there is much rejection of any idea that a God of love could possibly condemn a soul to hell. The teaching of the Bible concerning sin, and how it is viewed in the sight of God, is nullified, and denied. The revelation of Christ as our sin bearer who gave his life to death and hell to save us from this terrible end, is often rejected, and Christ becomes simply an example of love, which we are called to follow. We are all rushing headlong to the end, and there are so few who call us to look and listen and heed the reality of judgment, and call people to the one and only salvation from it through faith in Jesus Christ. The church in its desperate concern to be politically correct has ceased to preach that Christ is the only Saviour, and that other religions however good and held with sincerity can not save a soul from the coming wrath of God on a sinful world.2. God offers free salvation, but will not stand aside if it is despised.Those who cry against the reality of God's judgment do so by saying it denies that God is a God of love. What is forgotten is the fact that God offers free salvation to all who cry to him for his mercy. God's mercy and love is seen in giving his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to take

our nature and become human, and then to give his life as a ransom for our sin. God in love gave his Son to suffer his just and real judgment in the place of sinners. This is the grace and mercy of God. There could not be any greater demonstration of his mercy.This act shows how much God wants to deliver us from the just deserving of our sins. He was ready to suffer his justice upon evil upon himself in the person of Jesus, so that he could be just when he forgives and saves sinners, and so release them from the judgment they deserve. We forget that God can not overlook any falling short of his holiness. He can't forgive at the cost of his holiness and justice, for if he did he would cease to be God. What does he do? He satisfies his justice by meeting his law's just demands upon his Son, in order that he might justly save us who do the wrong. How does Paul express this amazing wisdom and love? He expresses it at the end of Romans chapter 11:33-end "Oh. the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counselor?" Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen."God has given himself to suffer the pain we deserve to save us from eternal damnation. How can we say he is not infinitely loving when he has to judge and punish sin in us when we don't avail ourselves of the salvation he freely supplies, which cost him so much. God must justly condemn and cast into hell all those who refuse his love in Christ. He can do no other.3. No power in heaven or on earth can withstand God' wrath.Many suppose that it is a little thing to despise God, for in the end they will be able to escape his judgment. There is no solution in placing ones head in the sand by saying that there is no God. It is the vain belief of all those who live their life for evil that they are masters of their destiny. The fact is that all will be compelled to stand before the judgement seat of Christ when he sits on the throne to judge the world. None will be able to plead they have any excuse if they are condemned. None will be able to avoid the sentence when it falls. The end of Matthew 25 makes this so plain. How we need to heed the message of his love now that on that fateful day we may hear his gracious words, "Come, children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world." 4. We learn the terrible nature of the Judgment.The picture in the three verses before us is of fire that nothing can stop, and no one can quench. It is a picture of a fire that renders total destruction, and leaves total desolation.If any believe that hell will not be so bad as the Bible makes out are doomed to sad disillusionment. The truth is that it will be far worse than anything we can imagine now. The story of the rich man in hell who sees the beggar, Lazarus, in heaven, is all we need to heed. The rich man, who had so much in this life, says he is tormented. The story tells us that his suffering can not be relieved. How people need to heed this and feel it, so that the offer of Christ as Saviour may be seen as their all consuming need now. It may be true that no one is brought to repentance and to fear God by being told the pains of hell, but this did not stop Jesus giving the warning in the Gospels. Even if people laugh at us, we should still warn them, and at the same time speaking much of the love of God in Christ.5. God's love is seen that judgment is not without warning.This prophecy of Zechariah came almost 500 years before its final execution. Such is the love of God that he not only warns of the consequences of sin and rebellion against him, but he gives ample time for people to heed the warning and close with his offer of eternal salvation. If

judgment falls on any one they can have no possible excuse. God in mercy has warned. God in mercy has given time for people to hear and act on the warning..CONCLUSION.When we hear the awfulness of God's judgment, what should we who believe do, and how should we react? Firstly, we need to be sure that our whole trust is in Christ alone, and that we have truly ceased to rely on any goodness we imagine that we possess. Then secondly, we need to urgently witness to our wayward world, and with all our hearts call people to heed the message, and plead with them that they might believe on the Saviour and be saved.

America! America!” – A Prophetic Cry & WarningDecember 05, 2007 – Cindy deVille

"Many Enemies, Many, Many trying to get in!America, America, you are filled with sin. Guilty, Guilty you stand before Me! You are weighed in the balance and greatly found wanting.

If you do not turn from your sin My protection over you shall subside and the enemies will come inside. For I've cried out to you, but you would not hear Me, for you no longer Love, Honor or Fear Me.

Judgment, Judgment, Judgment is standing at your door, It’s standing at your door. Yet, will you sin more and more? You go on as if nothing is wrong.

Enemies, Enemies, Enemies, they all want in! America, America, you are filled with sin. You have exchanged My Glory and My truth for a lie. You have cast My word and every restraint aside. Turn away from your sin, turn away, pray, pray! Seek My face and I will turn your enemies away. I will not let them in. Free yourself America, turn from your sin. Turn from your perversions, your lusts and greed, humble yourself and cry out to Me.

Choose Life and not death! For the cries of the unborn are calling out to Me. The blood you have shed is knee deep. Turn, turn or you will see blood run in your streets. Turn Roe vs Wade or for all these lives you will surely pay. For as you have sown much death, so shall you shall reap.

Judgment is waiting, judgment is waiting, while you keep on debating.

Turn, Turn, Turn or you will see your cities burn, there shall be bloodshed and war in your streets. For without My defense you will see defeat at the hands of your enemies! The Towers were just a warning. The Towers, New Orleans, New York City, the natural disasters, fires, floods, droughts, these are just the beginning of sorrows, warnings I am giving you this hour.

Why do you not heed, why do you harden your heart, Why do you not turn and cry out to Me? HEAR MY CRY – for I long to shed My grace on thee. I want to show you My goodness and My mercy, but what else can there be.

If you will not heed My warnings, My judgments must come, they will run, they will be swift and sure indeed. They shall be swift, they shall be sure, who can endure.

For I AM the God of all the earth, the wind and the sea at My command, they all obey Me! Natural Disasters will be multiplied unto thee because I have seen your sin and unrepentant heart.

For you must turn and repent, or I shall take your Glory and your wealth from you and you shall no longer be great. For in My hands America, I hold your fate. For I can cause your Markets to fall in a day. All that you trust in will dissipate.

I cry out to you this last time, turn, turn, turn, repent, repent, repent!You must turn from your sin, then I can begin to heal and restore you. I long to show you My mercy, but you have turned Me away again and again... Away from your schools, away from your children.You have turned Me away from rule, from your government. You have rejected Me and You have given place to other gods.

So now, if you do not repent, I will leave as you have asked. My protection shall leave you, My goodness and mercy shall leave, and My glory shall leave you. You shall be left to your own ways. The enemies will come in and the devastation and destruction will begin.

America, America, America, I am your defense. Only you must turn from your sin. Turn back to Me and I will heal you, and I will help you, and I will cover you, and show you My glory.

Humble yourself under My mighty hand as you did when you were young. Put no other gods before Me, then I will come and heal your land. This is My final cry to you. America, what, what will you do?

For the sake of your children, turn back to Me or all this devastation they shall see. I cry out to you, turn back to Me!”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

EXTRA NOTE: Soon after this while reading news of an earthquake taking place at the United Nations Summit (they were talking about fears of “Global Warming” impact) God spoke to me and said: "They call it Global WARMING, but know, these are My Global WARNINGS."

America, Repent!

Dan Corner

[Permission is granted to duplicate this article in its entirety, but only without additions, alterations or omissions of any kind,

including the author, ministry name and address at the end. Nothing may be removed from this page including links to other pages.]

On Tuesday September 11, 2001, amazing and shocking tragedies happened in New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania claiming the lives of thousands just because they were in the USA at the time.

How Should We View This Spiritually?

In the book of Revelation, things happened in the spirit realm before they manifested in the natural. There were trumpets that were sounded, seals that were broken, vials that were opened, then things would occur in this natural world that we live in. From this and other Scriptures, we can deduce that the spiritual realm affects the natural.

So let's now get back to what some are saying was the event that has started WWIII.

From a Spiritual Perspective, WHY did this happen to America?

If we examine America in the light of Scriptures, we can only conclude that it is a sinful nation. In our

AMERICA REPENT!

http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/americarepent.htm (1 of 14)3/17/2012 6:12:52 PM

http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=xa-4ce723c86d857fe0

AMERICA REPENT!

country, wickedness abounds and is even promoted in some ways. What kinds of abominations occur in the USA?

1. Homosexuality is condoned and even promoted with special rights. There are homosexual parades where these unsaved people unashamedly march down the street in full view of the public. There is no record in the Bible that even Sodom or Gomorrah, which were given over to homosexuality did such a thing as is done in our country. And even beyond this, in some places homosexuals get married and even ordained by apostate counterfeit denominations and religious groups.

2. Divorce is something that God specifically stated that he "hates" in Mal. 2:16, but many people in this country not only divorced but did this thing numerous times. Our country even promotes this with "no fault divorce" laws and divorcing over incompatibility and "mental cruelty," etc.

That in turn, oftentimes, has led to adultery. According to Jesus, an illegitimate marriage is ADULTERY (Mt. 5:32, 19:9). Just this form of adultery through an illegitimate marriage has to be so widespread that it would be shocking if we knew the statistics.

3. Sexual immorality between the unmarried is also rampant in this dark country. People openly live together as man and wife, with no shame. Their hearts are that hardened and it is just accepted now, unlike it was decades ago.


AMERICA REPENT!

4. Pornography is a monster problem in this country, especially among men. Jesus said lust in the heart is ADULTERY (Mt. 5:28). About 8 years ago, a radio show was interviewing a so-called "Playboy Bunny" who posed naked for around 50 pictures in porno magazines. That woman was held up, honored and treated like she was a great prize with people actually wanting her autograph! That woman, and others like her, have led millions of men into ADULTERY by her wickedness. (This is one of my chief complaints about TV. It promotes various forms of worldliness and especially adultery.)

5. Murder is rampant in this country as well as other acts of violence, which in part angered God to the point that he destroyed all human life in Noah's day except those in Noah's ark. Suicide, a form of murder, is also a major problem in this wicked country, with so-called counselors openly telling those who are thinking about murdering themselves they will go to heaven if they were once saved. The eternal security teachers and those who say they reject eternal security but essentially teach the same have been a major cause in the spiritual decline of America, while they continue to mislead precious souls to hell.


AMERICA REPENT!

6. Abortion is another serious sin of America. It is nothing more than cold-blooded, premeditated murder of an innocent baby. The shedding of innocent blood is a very serious sin in God's eyes, especially when repeated millions of times over as has been the case in the USA for years.

7. Witchcraft is growing in our country. In the public schools you can get books on how to cast spells on people, but sometimes can't find much about how to live a Christian life. Sometimes in the same library you can't find a Bible. They don't want the Bible in school; they don't want prayer in school; they don't want the word of God exposed in the classroom. In part, God sent the Israelites in the promised land because the people there were guilty of the sin of witchcraft. (By the way, the New Age Movement is nothing but a combination of Hinduism and the occult.)

8. Pride is rampant with our country's leaders. This is also most scary because God humbles the proud. God's eyes are on the proud and arrogant to bring them low. Sooner or later this will happen to America unless it REPENTS. Unless America turns from sin it will continue to face God's anger. It is not by the size of one's army or how many chariots they might have, but if God is with or against them that decides who wins in battle. Remember, God is against and opposes the wicked.

Besides all of these, there are all the other sins, too numerous to mention, from one end of the gamut to the other. People sin and then brag about their


AMERICA REPENT!

own wickedness.

The Apostate Spiritual Leaders

Besides all of that, we have the apostate, darkened, savage wolves in sheep's clothing that are supposed to be spiritual leaders of Christianity in America. They wink at sin such as occasional acts of sexual immorality, drunkenness, theft, homosexuality, etc. and downplay its seriousness in various ways, but this is what this wicked country as a whole seems to want—someone to tickle their sinful ears with a lie. All along these servants of the devil, in their greed, continue to grow rich and expand in power and influence to the harm of those who believe and support their harmful ministries.

For the most part, the spiritual leaders of America are heretics, who have misrepresented God, the gospel, the meaning of grace, the vital need to repent and dozens of other chief subjects in the Bible. Again, these people are preaching a counterfeit gospel, which is deceiving multitudes and ruining the country.

A Pre-Tribulation Rapture

Besides everything else these religious leaders have done, they have taught the Christian people a pre-trib rapture. As a Christian, I used to believe in this teaching, but it is not true! I find it most interesting that after Tim LaHaye's video has been seen by millions, which teaches a rapture before the tribulation, America has been attacked. Now think about how many Americans could have their faith destroyed if they survive a nuclear exchange, because they think God's word teaches they should have


AMERICA REPENT!

been taken out of here before this all happened. They are relying on a false hope and security. The false teachers of our day have really done a job deceiving America's people with various lying teachings.

The Prosperity Message

Another dangerous teaching is the prosperity message. What is going to happen to the same Christians who survive a nuclear exchange, but think they should be having prosperity, but there is famine and lack instead? The spiritual leaders of Israel were responsible for its ruination:

The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: "It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses." (Isa. 3:14)

The horrible spiritual complextion of the present day so-called church and our country began with savage wolves behind the pulpits posing as Christian leaders. The pastors in the vast majority of the cases, here in the USA, are just like the false prophets in the Old Testament, who are trying to make the people feel secure as they teach security and prosperity in sin and lukewarmness.

Nuclear War

A description of nuclear war is found in the Book of Revelation:

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with


AMERICA REPENT!

blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!" (Rev. 8:7-13)

When nuclear war will occur is not known. When, and if, it will hit America is likewise unknown, but know this: America is not mentioned in the book of Revelation and especially not seen as the great power it thinks it is at this moment.

America Has God's Truth


AMERICA REPENT!

Other countries are just as wicked as America, someone has said. Yes, this is true, but America is different than other wicked countries. We have the Bible. We have heard bits and pieces of truth mixed in with all the lies that have been taught over the years. But still this country, morally speaking, is just as vile and wicked as pagan countries. Saints, let us learn a lesson from the Old Testament where we see how God dealt with sinful Israel who, likewise, had God's word and was given his commands.

When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? (Amos 3:6)

But people have been taught about a God who would never do this. Unlike the true God of the Bible, their concept of God doesn't have him as a killer God. God has slaughtered multitudes of people because of sin. Multitudes—millions over the course of time, but most seem blinded to this truth! (Please see our article entitled, Yahweh The Killer God.)

So How Did God Deal With Sinful Israel?

Amos chapter 4 states it was by famine, drought, blight, mildew, plagues and death, yet they still didn't "return" to God through repentance. For an agricultural type people that means that they were financially hit through these. Doesn't this ring a bell with at least hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of Americans losing their high paying jobs they had years ago? Read these words:


http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/killergod.htm

AMERICA REPENT!

"I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me," declares the LORD. "I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me," declares the LORD. (Amos 4:6-8)

"Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up." (Amos 5:2)

Why wasn't there anyone to lift up Israel? Because God was now her enemy because of her sins.

Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it. (Amos 5:6)

What does it mean to seek the Lord?

Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. The LORD did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him. (Dan. 9:13,14)


AMERICA REPENT!

Notice: God didn't hesitate to bring disaster on them! That is because God is righteous. But there is more:

Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all good things are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you. When ye have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you. (Josh 23:15,16)

God is a righteous God who gets angry over sin. He sends trouble and death because of sin.

God Was Patient While Israel Continued To Sin

God gave Israel time to repent. In Jeremiah's day, it was at least 23 years, but they refused to repent, while His anger was kindled:

So Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to all those living in Jerusalem: "For twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you again and


AMERICA REPENT!

again, but you have not listened. And though the LORD has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. They said, ‘Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the LORD gave to you and your fathers for ever and ever. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.' ‘But you did not listen to me,' declares the LORD, ‘and you have provoked me with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.' Therefore the LORD Almighty says this: ‘Because you have not listened to my words, I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,' declares the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years" (Jer. 25:2-11).

God is slow to get angry, but He does get angry enough to kill. For decades people have been saying


AMERICA REPENT!

that America needs to repent, but just like Israel they continue in sin. No doubt some will think, "But that was in the Old Testament and it's not relevant for us today," however they are wrong. Notice what happened to Israel is the same way God will deal with us under the New Testament:

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry." We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. (1 Cor 10:1-11)


AMERICA REPENT!

There is Hope For America

Is it too late for America? NO! There is yet HOPE FOR AMERICA, according to Scripture:

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. (Jer. 18:7,8)

Read the book of Jonah. That is exactly what happened to the city of Ninevah. They repented and God didn't destroy Ninevah. But God did destroy Jerusalem because they were dealt with by God and they refused to repent. God is righteous. God doesn't change.

America Please REPENT

If America continues in unrepentant sin, God will continue to severely judge this country. Things might never be the same again. America please repent before it is too late.

Ecumenical Religious Meetings

America has recently had ecumenical religious meetings with false religious leaders in the front, including several who reject that Jesus is God's only begotten Son. Such meetings only give God more cause to judge America. Moreover, such meetings seem to be for the people who lost loved ones and for peace and prosperity to continue, instead of repenting from its abominations! America doesn't need a prayer meeting for that, they need to turn


AMERICA REPENT!

from sin and grieve over their sinful behavior. Besides God doesn't hear the prayers of anyone who cherishes sin in their heart (Psa. 66:18), which is the sad spiritual condition of many who profess to be Christians in America at this moment in time.

May God bless America again, but how can He, according to the Scriptures, if its abominations continue.

Your Precious Soul

Whatever America does as a whole, each person must die one day and stand before this same righteous God who judged Israel. Hence, for your own eternity's sake, turn from ALL known sin NOW. It is only a trust-submitting and enduring faith in Jesus that saves one from eternal fire. You don't know how much longer you have to live. You could die in the next car ride you take and then it will be eternally too late to repent. Heaven and hell are both real, but only few will enter Heaven!

Contact Us Or Join Our Email List

Evangelical Outreach PO Box 265, Washington, PA 15301 www.evangelicaloutreach.org


http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/contact.htm

http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/index.html

The Conviction of Truth Beneath the Cross


When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Truly he was the Son of God!" Matthew 27:54

Among the great blessings found beneath the cross of Christ, to which the attention of the reader has been directed, we know of none exceeding in its importance the conviction of Divine truth which is brought to the mind of the humble, believing student of the Bible. The cross, as we have reminded you, is the central fact of God's moral universe. All Divine truth meets in Christ's cross. All glory beams from Christ's cross. All spiritual blessings distill from Christ's cross. It is at its feet that the studious, earnest mind receives the most luminous, comprehensive, and glorious revelations and views of the Divine Being; and from thence he draws the sweetest and richest blessings to his soul.

The subject of our present meditation is- the Divine instruction, the perception and conviction of truth, received by the humble, spiritual disciple who carries his spiritual ignorance, perplexities, and doubts to the foot of Christ's cross, for solution. The words we have quoted will at once suggest to the mind this train of thought. While all around the cross were reviling the Savior, indulging their scepticism and their hate, here was a lonely group, bending with pensive sadness at its foot; and, as the strange phenomena were transpiring- the earth trembling, the sun darkening, the rocks rending, and the graves opening- there darted the conviction of truth into the mind of the wondering centurion; and, overwhelmed by its convincing and irresistible force, the exclamation bursts from his astonished soul, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

The grand error of many earnest inquirers is, they mistake the place, the position, and the spirit in which Divine truth is really learned. They will go in quest of truth to every quarter but the legitimate one. They will be the followers of

http://www.gracegems.org/W/foot7.htm (1 of 10)3/17/2012 2:21:24 PM


every teacher but the Divine One. They will be the earnest students of every book, but the Book of God. They see not that the true skill of a spiritual learner is to unlearn; that the true posture of a Christian disciple is with his mouth in the dust before God; that, while natural theology will unveil many a glorious attribute of Jehovah, while the physical world will present many a grand view of the Divine power and goodness, yet that moral truth, spiritual, gospel, soul-saving truth, can only be found in the cross, and can only be truly, experimentally learned in the believing, humble spirit of a true disciple, sitting where the devout centurion sat; with him gazing upon the spectacle that filled his mind with light, his soul with astonishment, when, under the conviction of truth, he exclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

Let us proceed to quote some of those great, vital truths of Revelation which are only properly learned at the foot of Christ's cross.

I begin with the first revealed truth, the Being of God. Not that other evidences of this truth are lacking. The creation is one vast volume of evidence to the being of God. We hesitate not to aver that no man shall stand acquitted at the bar of God of the crime of having denied His existence from a lack of evidence. He may never have heard of a God, or of His revelation to man; upon his ear may never have chimed the glad tidings of the gospel; he may never have heard of the cross of Calvary, with all its wonders; yet, we hesitate not to affirm that the granite rocks, the cloud-capped mountains, the flowery valley, the starry heavens, the burning sun, and the natural intuitiveness of the human soul, constitute one vast library of evidence, all testifying to the being of a God; and that man, chargeable with the awful crime of atheism, who dares to deny His existence, with such demonstrative and overwhelming evidences of His eternal power and Godhead, will be without excuse. But where do we find such demonstrations of the being of a God as are exhibited on the cross of Calvary? Where has God revealed Himself as here? Where has He demonstrated the solemn fact of His being, of His Divine perfection, as He has done on that accursed tree to which His own hand bound His beloved Son, in order that



He might not only harmonize in redemption His infinite perfections, but demonstrate that those perfections were the perfections of an eternal, self-existent, and righteous Being? Study, then, devoutly, believingly the cross, and be no longer an atheist!

The character of God is exhibited, and learned only by the spiritual and believing student, at the cross of Christ. There the Divine character, or, in other words, there God is exhibited in His completeness, His perfect symmetry. We learn something of God's character in other departments of His magnificent and extensive operations. We trace a penciling of God's goodness here, we behold a demonstration of His power there, a magnificent illustration of His wisdom yonder; and thus, as we traverse the circuit of the world, we gather something of what God's character is in these partial developments and unfoldings. But we need the full, complete, focal portrait and representation of His character. Where shall we find it? Where but in the cross of Christ? There, my reader, God stands before you complete-not an attribute of His nature, not a perfection of His being, not a trait of His character but is embodied, expressed, and unveiled; and the man who bends before that cross as a humble, believing student; one spiritual, believing glance will discover more of God's character in its glory, perfection, and harmony, than did he absorb the entire volume of creation's evidence.

The grand truth concerning God's relation to us as a reconciled God and Father, is nowhere learned but in the cross of Christ. Nowhere can we find anything of what the heart of God is, what His pardoning mercy to us is, what His thoughts of peace to us are as sinners, but as we learn it all in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We may travel the circuit of creation, and behold His marvellous and glorious works and goodness, which, as with a lavish hand, He has scattered all around, but we find no relief to the anxious yearnings of our bosom oppressed with a sense of sin. We ask the sun- How may I obtain light to this my spiritually darkened understanding? and not a beam floating from that glorious orb responds! We ask the rocks- How may my heart, cold and insensible as marble, dissolve into penitence and love? and they are silent! We ask the winds- How may



the life-giving breath enter my heart, and I become a living soul, living henceforth to, God? and not a zephyr answers! We ask the mountain stream and the ocean's waves- How may my sins be washed away, and not the shadow of a stain remain? and all are silent as the sea of death! No oracle in nature meets the momentous inquiry, "What must I do to be saved? " Oppressed with guilt, crushed beneath a load of sin, conscience lashing us as with scorpion-sting, hell staring us in the face, we wend our mournful footsteps to Calvary, and stand beneath the cross of the incarnate God. We gaze upon His wounds, look at His flowing blood, hide within His pierced side, and embracing in faith the doctrine of the cross- Christ dying for the ungodly, suffering the Just for the unjust- in a moment the great question is answered, the burden of guilt is removed, and we learn how God in the suffering Son of His love can be pacified towards us. There we read God's love, and in embracing the crucified Savior, we feel we are embraced in the arms of our reconciled Father. Oh, you who are wandering in quest of an answer to the anxious inquiry, "How may I know that God is reconciled to me, the vilest rebel that ever trod the earth? How may I know that my innumerable sins are pardoned, that my soul is saved, that God regards me propitiously, and looks upon me in forgiving mercy?" Go to Calvary, travel to the cross, gaze in faith upon that wonderful spectacle- the spectacle of Christ suffering and dying, the Holy for the unholy, that He might bring you to God, and your questions shall be answered in the peace and joy of assured forgiveness.

Another doctrine especially learned beneath the cross of Christ is the doctrine of His Essential Deity. We believe that nowhere is there such a demonstration of the Deity of the Son of God, as is found in the cross. Our Lord never appeared more really man than when in indescribable soul-agony, and in unparalleled bodily suffering, He traveled through those lingering hours of pain on that accursed tree. And yet, never did the deity of Christ appear more evident than when the sun of His humanity was setting in darkness and in blood; never were there such demonstrations of His Godhead, such seals to the doctrine of His divinity, as when, suspended upon that cross, He bowed His head and died. If, my reader, there lurks within your breast the



slightest suspicion of His Godhead, and you desire your faith in this cardinal doctrine of salvation confirmed, fall at the foot of the cross, sit and gaze upon that wondrous scene, mark those astounding prodigies of nature which transpired at the moment that Christ expired! and we ask, if your mind is sensible to conviction, and you are really anxious to know the truth as it is in Jesus, whether the exclamation of your soul will not be an echo of the convinced centurion, ''Truly this is the Son of God!"

Observe, again, it is only in the cross of Christ that the essential, saving doctrine of our faith- the atonement is seen, learned, and received. A man may be a student of the most able treatise ever penned by human hand on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and yet close the book with a very vague, imperfect conception of the marvellous truth, or with a very faint conviction of its reality. But let him travel to the cross, become a lowly student there, a humble, earnest, believing inquirer after truth, and he shall not leave that awful spot without an overwhelming conviction of the fact, that those sufferings were expiatory, that that death was sacrificial, and that the mystery of the whole scene can only be explained, the problem of the Sinless suffering as the sinful only solved, by the doctrine of an expiatory offering; that all those mental and bodily sufferings were in consequence of His bearing our sin and curse; that His death, thus voluntarily and freely offered, was a satisfaction to the justice of Jehovah, and designed to unite and harmonize all the moral attributes of God in the salvation of man. Go my reader, in faith and lowliness to the cross, study its Victim, dwell upon its unparalleled scenes, and you will rise with the firm conviction that Christ died, not as a hero, nor as a philosopher, nor as an example of virtue and fortitude, but to redeem and save lost and ruined man.

Nowhere, except here, can the doctrine of the atonement be learned; nowhere but beneath the cross can it be received into the believing heart; nowhere but upon Calvary can these marvellous predictions of prophecy be understood- "He was wounded ['tormented,' marg.] for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." "The Lord has laid on Him the



iniquities of us all." "Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Approach, then, in faith the foot of the cross; in its light read, by its spectacle interpret, those marvellous passages, and see if your conviction of the great truth will not be as deep and devout as that of the centurion, "Truly, Christ died for the ungodly!" Thus accept the atonement, thus believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved!

And have we a stronger proof and illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity than is found beneath the cross of Calvary? The moment an inquiring mind after that truth is led to receive the doctrine of the cross in simple faith, which is, the doctrine of the Atonement made on our behalf by the death of Christ, it finds no difficulty in accepting the doctrine of three distinct People in the one Godhead. No individual can fully understand the doctrine of the Trinity who rejects Christ's Atonement. The light that beams from thence invests with radiance every other revealed truth. Where the light of the cross is not, the light of reason is as Egyptian darkness. Nature is wrapped in midnight gloom, unenlightened by one ray that flows from the cross of Calvary. But let an inquirer for truth stand at this focal point, let him place himself beneath the beams of the Divine glory concentrated in the crucified Savior, and he will find no difficulty in embracing every doctrine of God's revealed Word. Here is the grand mistake men make, in not commencing their study of God's Word, their inquiries after the truths of revelation, at the cross of Jesus. Do you think that the sceptics of the day would be found, in this advanced age of Biblical research, questioning the truth of the Bible, ignoring the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, and, with effete weapons borrowed from the dusty arsenals of error, whose edge had long since been turned, attacking the integrity of the Pentateuch, involving in its fall the destruction of the entire fabric of truth, had they made the cross of Christ the starting point of their investigations, the foundation of their inquiries? Alas! men, for the most part, commence at the farthest circumference of truth, and endeavor to work their way to the center; thus reversing God's order, which is to commence at the center and so reach the circumference. Now, with regard to the



profoundly mysterious doctrine of a Triune God, we admit that the mode of the divine existence transcends the power of human reason to explain; and yet, no revealed doctrine of the Bible is more consonant with reason than it. And he who will receive the Atonement of the cross as a little child, as a humble disciple at the feet of Jesus, shall know of this doctrine whether it be of God, or whether we speak it of ourselves. In the light streaming from Calvary he will read and understand these remarkable words, "For through Him [Christ crucified] we both [Jew and Gentile] have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father." Could the doctrine of the three Divine People, in their essential unity and official relations, be more luminous?

The way of salvation is only clearly seen in the light of the cross. All the mystery and complexity and crudeness which, in the view of many, gathers around the way by which a sinner is saved, is the result of studying redemption from every stand-point but the correct one- the cross of Jesus. If an individual looks at salvation through his favorite creed, or church, or early education, it will, in all probability, receive a complexion unfavorable to a simple, lucid, believing apprehension of the way by which God saves the sinner. But let him approach the cross as a sinner, as a learner, as a penitent believer, divesting himself of all ecclesiastical, traditional, and educational trammels and prejudices, and receive the simple yet sublime truth, "In due time, when we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly," and he is saved! Salvation can be conveyed by no church or minister; its nature must be studied through no ecclesiastical or priestly medium. Passing by every other object, we must pause not in our search for the priceless, precious treasure until we confront the naked cross, and stand in the immediate presence of the crucified Nazarene. The spectacle may be appalling, the posture humiliating; nevertheless, while all self-righteousness, all human merit, all pride of intellect, all hatred and opposition to the truth pales and expires in the pure effulgence of the cross. On the other hand, full salvation is found- the blood that effaces the guilt of sin, the righteousness that justifies the person of the sinner, the peace that tranquillizes the troubled conscience, the hope that expels the demon of despair, the heaven that supplants our hell- in a believing



reception of the doctrine of Christ crucified, in the humble position of the soul studying at the foot of Christ's cross. Come, then, you perplexed searchers for truth- come, you anxious inquirers after salvation- come, you weary and heavy laden- come, you sin and sorrow-stricken, come, you self-destroyed and bankrupt- come, you who have resisted evidence and stifled conviction, who have effaced impressions and quenched hopes, approach the cross of Jesus, believe, and be saved!

We may add, and it is a solemn conclusion, that at the cross of Christ the justice of God, in the final condemnation of the impenitent, is fully exhibited. Hell itself, with all its untold and inconceivable woe, exhibits no such expression of God's holiness, justice, and power as confront us in the sufferings and death of the Son of God! Finding the sins of the Church charged to Christ, their Surety, Divine justice drew its sword and slew Him. Bearing the curse of His people, the holiness of God extracted from Him the death-penalty they had incurred. What is the true, the solemn, the awful conclusion? It is this- If the pure, the sinless, the innocent Son of God endured the Divine wrath due for His people's sins, what must be the certain and the righteous doom of those who die in their sins, unsheltered by the Atonement of the cross from the wrath that is to come? Sin found charged to the account of the Savior was the cause of His death. Sin found upon and charted to the account of the sinner, when his soul goes hence, will expose him to just and eternal punishment. From this logical but appalling inference there is no avenue of escape. If your sins are pardoned by Christ, then you are saved; but if you die impenitent and unbelieving, then must you endure the inevitable and equitable condemnation of those sins. Despising a Savior so divine, scorning a sacrifice so complete, and neglecting a salvation so great, how shall you, how can you, escape? "There remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. O man! O woman! I put it to your conscience, I appeal to your judgment, if God will not be righteous, His throne guiltless, His justice, holiness, and truth awfully severe, yet eternally glorified, in condemning to endless woe the soul who wilfully rejects Jesus Christ, His beloved



Son? Spurn and thrust from you the life-boat which a God of love has launched upon the dark, surging waters of the curse, for the rescue and salvation of poor lost sinners buffeting amid its billows, and you sink into the yawning gulf of the bottomless pit, the author and the architect of your own just and everlasting destruction- a moral suicide! He who said, "He that believes shall be saved," also said, "And he that believes not shall be damned."

We gather from the subject of this chapter, HOW IRRESISTIBLY FORCIBLE AND CONVINCING IS DIVINE TRUTH! Confronted by Essential Truth, around whom were accumulating the witnesses of His Divinity- creation in sympathy with the death of her Creator- the centurion, before perhaps a sceptic and a scorner, now exclaims, "TRULY this was the Son of God!" We hesitate not to affirm that an individual, be his ignorance, scepticism, and prejudice what it may, who will take his lowly place at the cross, study the gospel in its light, shall find no difficulty in accepting all its essential, precious, and sublime truths. In what way?

In the first place, there will be the reconciliation of his mind to all that is mysterious in Divine truth. He will not cavil at a doctrine, or reject a truth, or disbelieve a fact, because it transcends the grasp of his intellect. He will not ask for mathematical demonstration in proof of moral truth, but, accepting the greater mystery of godliness- "God manifest in the flesh"- he accepts all other mysteries in it- the faith that embraces the Savior equally embracing the salvation. Thus, when the humble and believing heart receives Christ Jesus the Lord, it receives the whole truth, because it receives Him who is essentially and emphatically "the truth; " and then, all the scepticism, perplexity, and opposition which previously enshrouded the mind in its investigation of revealed truth disappears as the gray mists of the morning which wreath the mountain's brow dissolve into sunshine before the ascending orb of day. "Truly this was the Son of God!"

Again, receiving into your heart Christ crucified, there will be a moral molding of the life to the gospel of Jesus. The conviction produced by Divine truth is not simply



intellectual, it also emotional; while it enlightens the judgement. It penetrates and sanctifies the heart. It was one of our Lord's petitions in His sublime intercessory prayer, "Sanctify them through the truth." The "truth which is after godliness," thus insinuating itself into the heart, becomes an element of holiness; and thus those who receive Christ crucified are emphatically numbered among "the pure in heart, who shall see God."

The intensifying of our love to God will follow. One of the effects of a spiritual conviction and a believing reception of the truth as it is in Jesus is love. No embers will enkindle upon the altar of the human heart such a fire and flame of divine love as those which we take from off the altar of the cross. Do you want, my reader, a "burning heart?" Take your heart, all dark and icy as it is, and bring it in contact with the cross of Calvary, and while you are musing upon its stupendous spectacle of love, the fire will burn and your lips will praise. Our love to God and to Christ and to the saints will be proportioned to our walks in Gethsemane and our visits to Calvary. " The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God!"

Lastly, there will be the happiness and comfort of a full assurance. There is no assurance like that which is found in close proximity to the cross of Jesus. Oh, with what of earthly good would not many a child of God part to be fully persuaded of a personal interest in Christ! But why should there be a moment's doubt? Approach the cross, look in simple faith to Christ, the Crucified, accept Jesus as the Savior, believe in Him as a sinner, learn of Him as a disciple, follow and glorify Him as a saint, and the conviction will be as true, and the joy will be as thrilling, and the hope will be as bright, and the exclamation will be as loud as the centurion's. "Truly, Lord, I am your servant, your child, your disciple! bought with blood! and henceforth, whether I live, I live unto the Lord; and whether I die, I die unto the Lord; whether I live or die, I am the Lord's!"


For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house...

Documents

Transcript of For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house...