Echoes of Grace: 2007

Richard Redding received a monthly bill in the mail for heating his small Texas home. It made his eyes just about pop out of his head. The bill was for twenty-four billion dollars. His initial shock turned to unbelief and then relief as he quickly figured out the bill must be in some kind of error. When he contacted the utility company, they were embarrassed and apologized for their mistake.

Someday each one of us will have to give an account of himself to God. The price people will pay for sin is astounding. It is important for you to know that sin has an enormous price tag attached to it. Unlike the bill Mr. Redding received, there is absolutely no mistake about it.

God in His Word says, “The wages of sin is death.” Death has a double aspect. The physical part of death is when a body and a soul are separated. Death also has a spiritual aspect which is far more terrible. This takes place when a soul is separated from God because of sin and cast out of His presence for all eternity. An eternity spent in the darkness of hell is the price tag for sin. It is a price that every soul which dies without the Savior will pay. Every misery in this lifetime is made lighter because of the hope that relief may come. The miseries in hell will be greater than any experienced on earth because there will be no hope of change and no hope that things may ever get better. So intense will the misery of lost souls be in hell that they will continually “gnash” or grind their teeth in bitterness and anger. “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:30), the Lord Jesus solemnly spoke.

God doesn’t desire the spiritual death of any man. He earnestly desires that all men turn from their sin. Listen to what He said through Ezekiel: “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” No matter how dark your past may have been, God invites you to find a new life in Christ. On the cross the Lord Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice for sin. He died for sinners so that all who believe on Him should never have to collect the fearful wages of sin for themselves. When a person comes to Christ and confesses Him as their Savior, the blood that was shed on Calvary washes away their every stain of sin and makes them fit for heaven.

“The wages of sin is death” is just half a verse. The second half reads, “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). It cost the life of the Lord Jesus for God to be able to offer this stupendous gift to lost sinners. It was a cost God was willing to pay because of His love to lost souls. Seeing He has done this on your behalf, can you turn Him away and continue to live as a stranger to His grace?

Maybe Mr. Redding laughed a little bit about the bill after he figured out it was a mistake. But the price souls will have to pay for never coming to the Savior is nothing to laugh about. Take the warnings in the Bible seriously. Only by coming to the Lord Jesus by faith can you ever avoid having to collect the terrible wages of sin for yourself. The Lord Jesus is the sinner’s only hope. Will you take Him as your Savior?

Attacked by Rottweilers

Feeding time! Bruno and Brutus waited impatiently for the familiar sounds of dishes being filled and food brought out to them. Not yet a year old, the two Rottweiler’s roused up eagerly at a sound inside the house. No—not yet. They sank back to the ground, their eyes fixed on the door.

Finally the back door slowly opened and their owner stepped out, carrying their food. At last! Quivering with excitement, they leaped up to greet their familiar friend.

But what was this?

There was someone else, a stranger. A stranger in their yard—their territory. Their owner’s 13-year-old granddaughter, Melissa, ran out “to help Grandma” feed the dogs. “Go back! Go back! You aren’t supposed to be out here!” the grandmother cried.

It was too late. As Melissa turned to run back into the house, the two dogs threw themselves upon her and pulled her to the ground, biting and clawing.

The horrified grandmother tried to pull the dogs away, but she was no match for two ninety-pound dogs. Inside the house, 11-year-old T.J., Melissa’s younger brother, heard them and ran out. Seeing the two attacking his sister, he knew he had to help.

“I knew if I didn’t do something, she would have gotten really hurt,” he said. “I tackled one, and kept kicking the other” and the dogs turned their attention to him.

“They started biting me and pushed me against the fence,” he said, but he wasn’t thinking of what might happen to him. He said, “I was just scared for her.”

T.J. escaped when his shirt was ripped off and the dogs were momentarily diverted, giving him a chance to get away.

Melissa and the grandmother suffered bites and scratches, but T.J. had deep puncture wounds and slashes that had to be stitched up and would take months to heal. Faced with a whole summer “stuck” in the house, unable to swim or to ride his bike, he only said, “I’m glad that I got what I got and she didn’t.”

There is someone who has suffered far, far more to save others than T.J. did to save Melissa. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, suffering and dying for sins He did not commit, the people standing watching mocked Him and said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save....Let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him” (Matt. 27:42).

Did Christ have the power to come down from the cross?

Of course He did.

But would He come down, stop the torture and go back to His Father in heaven—alone? Never! Never!

He came into the world to save sinners, and nothing could change His purpose. He came to offer salvation from sin to everyone who would receive it, and, as John the Apostle wrote, “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.”

As T.J. knew that his sister would be hurt-perhaps killed-unless he helped, so the Lord Jesus knew there was no help for us, lost and sinful as we were, unless He, the sinless One, came and gave His life on the cross for us.

T.J. could say that he was “glad” that he suffered instead of Melissa. The Bible says of the Lord Jesus, after He “was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities,” that “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” He will “justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5-11).

Are you one who has been justified, whose sins have been pardoned, who has received the Lord Jesus Christ and become a child of God by receiving Him? You can-the offer of salvation is still open, but we cannot say for how long. The Bible says only that “now is the day of salvation”-it never says “tomorrow.”

The Book

We have heard that, out of every thousand books written, six hundred do not pay the cost of printing and only live a year, while only fifty last seven years. However, the Bible, which is centuries old in its complete form and probably over 3500 years old in its oldest portions, is still easily the “best seller” of all time.

It is printed in hundreds of languages and dialects, and millions of copies of the whole or part are circulated every year. Yet no book has ever been so persecuted!

Persecution has raged since the days of Jehoiakim, king of Israel, who “cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire” (about 606 B.C.). Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C.) destroyed all the copies he could find. Diocletian (303 A.D.) did the same, and many in later years made bonfires of the earliest printed New Testaments.

It has had to stand the attacks made upon it first by atheists and then by modernists, but it is still what a former Prime Minister of England called “the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture.”

Other books die a natural death, but this Book is possessed of indestructible vitality.

“The word of the Lord endureth forever” (1 Peter 1:25)!

Byron and Paul: A Contrast

The poet Byron wrote before he died:

“My days are in the yellow leaf;

The fruit, the flower of life is gone;

The worm, the canker and the grief

Are mine alone.

Paul, the Apostle, wrote just before he died:

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing”
(2 Tim. 4:7-8).

Choose Now

“Someday,” you say, “I will seek the Lord;

Someday I will make my choice;

Someday, someday I will heed His Word

And answer the Spirit’s voice.”

God’s time is now, for the days fly fast,

And swiftly the seasons roll;

Today is yours! It may be your last;

Choose life for your precious soul.

Choose now, just now! Your soul is at stake!

Oh, what will your answer be?

It’s life or death, and the choice you make

Is made for eternity.

Choose now, just now, for the Lord is here;

Must He for your answer wait?

Choose now, just now, while the call is clear;

Tomorrow may be too late!

A Deadly Mistake

The September night was warm and dark. Clouds covered the face of the moon, and only the soft splash of waves on the sand told of the dark Gulf of Mexico beyond. High on the beach there was movement in the sand—a whisper of anticipation—a stirring of new life.

Word was hurried to members of Longboat Key Turtle Watch, and soon the watchers were rewarded by seeing 90 baby loggerhead turtles breaking from their shells in the protected nest. Long abandoned by their mother, emerging alone into an unfamiliar world, how does a little turtle find its way to water and safety?

The guide is light on the water: moonlight, starlight, phosphorescence. So it has been on the beaches for thousands of years, and for so long a time the turtle hatchlings have turned naturally to the water.

What is different now?

There are conflicting lights on the shore: street lights, porch lights, automobile headlights—and the baby turtles turn in confusion and flounder toward the brightest light.

It is a deadly mistake. Born to swim free in the cool waters of the Gulf, they cannot survive on dry land. If they escape being crushed under the wheels of passing cars as they cross the beach road, it will only be to die miserably of starvation and dehydration on the land.

Here the Turtle Watch comes to the rescue! Wading out from shore, they hold lights on the water just where the hatchlings can see them. Soon all the little flippers are scuffling across the beach, scurrying to water and life.

Are there any false and confusing lights for us too? Most certainly there are! In fact, in all the glitter and glare of our modern world, it is possible for us to be completely dazzled and disoriented. The fantastic achievements and technological advances of our time are almost beyond our comprehension, and as everything around seems to be changing, we look for some guiding light to steer by.

New lights spring up in all directions: New Thought, New Wave, New Morality, but they lead only to disaster—soul disaster. We need—we must have—a true light. There is one, and only one: Jesus Christ is “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9).

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). The light of life! Not flickering, temporary candles that may be blown out at a breath, but light of life—everlasting life. We can have that life only by accepting the One who is light and life; we must receive the Lord Jesus as our own Savior. He will be our light all through this life, and our life and light forever.

Dear Bernie

Just a little note to tell you how good it was to meet you again after so many years, despite the circumstances.

In our conversation you were mentioning the sad passing of your brother Peter six months prior to the passing of Bob Macintosh—both men who meant very much to you.

I am sending you a tract that my son Mark wrote about eight months prior to his death. I hope that you will read it.

You were asking yourself, What is this life here all about? Permit me to tell you what I have found to be the answer to this question as simply as I can.

Twenty-six years ago I found forgiveness of sins in the Lord Jesus Christ, the same person I used to make jokes about and use His name in vain. By reading the Bible I learned about the forgiveness that God has for a sinner like me in the sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, on the cross of Calvary. What I don’t have is religion. What I do have is Christ—and the forgiveness of sins; peace with God; a promised place in heaven; the assurance that I will meet my son again someday in heaven.

Bernie, without God there is no hope and no real meaning to life here or after death. The answer basically is in God’s beloved Son—Jesus Christ.

Your friend,

John

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Decisions

Decisions, decisions-life is full of them. It is doubtful if we can go a waking moment without making one. The quality of our lives depends a great deal on the quality of our decisions. Some are big and some are small. What would you say was life’s biggest decision of all? Choice of spouse? Career? Area to live?

If the biggest decision means the one with the greatest consequence, for the longest duration, then there is a decision far greater than any other. This is the decision to believe on Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. When one makes that decision to believe in the Lord Jesus and accept Him as God’s only and beloved Son, he (or she) receives the gift of eternal life. “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). This gift will last throughout eternity. It will never cease. It will bring greater joy than any other decision. The very atmosphere of heaven will be pure joy, and in heaven nothing will ever interrupt or cast a shadow on that joy.

On the other hand, those who never come to Christ as Lord and Savior must perish, which means to pass into the darkness of a lost eternity. Hell will be a place of no joy, no hope, and no light. The suffering of those in hell will never cease. The love of sin brings people to hell. The love of sin makes them deaf to God’s entreaty to believe on the Savior. It is because men love sin that Satan gets so much control over their lives. Farmers used to put rings in the noses of oxen to make them do what their masters wanted. The love of sin is what Satan uses to make men do his bidding. Oh, that you would recognize sin for being as hateful to God as it is and turn to the Lord Jesus with all your heart.

Only God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, can break the power of sin and set men free. The moment you believe in Christ you are forgiven, and you can be as sure of heaven as if you were already there. Then the Savior will help you win a daily victory over indwelling sin and help you break any evil habits you may have formed when you lived without Him.

Nobody can make the decision to receive Christ as Savior for you. It is a decision you alone must make. Others may pray for you, and they may seek to show you the way, but you must take the step of faith that brings you as a lost sinner to the Lord Jesus alone. With so much to lose (your sins and misery in this world) and so much to gain (eternal life-eternal joy!), don’t let another moment pass before you decide for Christ.

God can offer this incredible gift of eternal life to every human being because of a decision He made in eternity past. Before the foundation of the earth was laid He made the decision to send His Son into the world. He knew man would turn away from Him and plunge into sin and rebellion against Him. If anyone could ever be saved, there would have to be a redeemer. The Lord Jesus, God’s only and beloved Son, came into the world to be that Redeemer. On the cross, He gave His life’s blood to make the one atoning sacrifice that can take away sin. He could do this because He was God, and He also became Man. As Man, He could give His life as a sacrifice for sin; as God, that sacrifice would have infinite power to cancel guilt. Nothing short of this great sacrifice could ever deal with the problem of sin to God’s satisfaction.

Believers are redeemed by the blood of Christ. The word “redeemed” means to be “bought back.” Man has sold himself under sin, but at the cross the Lord Jesus became the Redeemer for every member of the human race who will receive Him.

There is no other way to be redeemed from the awful power of sin but through faith in Christ and His precious blood. Will you not seriously consider the claims of the Lord Jesus and make the decision to believe on Him for eternal life? No other decision in your lifetime will ever be as important, or bring you as much joy, as the decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Decide for Christ today,

And God’s salvation see;

Yield soul and body, heart and will,

To Him who died for thee.

Christ alone can save,

Break the power of sin; Christ doth fully satisfy

The heart that cleaves to Him.

Destined to Crash

The new condominiums looked so good—on paper. The architect’s drawings, the plans, the blueprints-what a sound and solid construction it would be!

As the building rose, tall and white against the blue sky, many looked forward to its completion and to the luxurious life it promised.

BUT—the engineers cut construction costs by designing the poured concrete floors too thin. Support columns were left out, solid walls to stiffen the building against high winds were omitted, and when the actual work began, the concrete was poured even thinner.

Floors sagged, support beams buckled and cracked, inspections were skipped, but the workers struggled on until the day it was to be “topped off.”

Suddenly there was a quiver, a tremor, a rattle-and with a roar of collapsing concrete, walls, floors, pillars and men fell. Eleven workers were killed in the crash; twenty-three others were injured.

A state consulting engineer said the “workers... were building a structure destined to crash down on them!” From the foundation up, it could not support even its own weight.

Like those workers, many, many people are spending their lives building on a foundation “destined to crash.” They did not begin on the right foundation. “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). No matter how skillfully they build on another foundation or how many props they put in, it is only a matter of time till all comes crashing down.

As the world rushes on toward its destiny, stop and check the foundation upon which you are building your life. There is only one safe foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ. To believe and accept His Word is to be “founded upon a rock” (Matt. 7:25).

Down a Dead-End Road

On July 10, 2001, four young forest firefighters lost their lives in the Okanogan Highlands in Washington State. Every summer in Washington, young adults are hired as firefighters, given training and then sent throughout the state to fight forest fires. If you vacation in eastern Washington, you can often see crews of these young people driving down the highways in their yellow emergency trucks.

The Chewuch fire was started by a spark from a campground fire. Firefighters sent out to fight the flame thought it was going to be relatively easy to extinguish. When it rapidly grew into a large blaze, the crew that suffered the fatalities thought they would outrun the fire. They drove away down the road in their van, hoping to escape the flames. The fire, fanned by the wind, seemed to be traveling in the same direction as their escape route. To get out of the path of the fire, the crew turned left on a side road. Under most circumstances, this would have been a good decision, but due to an unexpected change of the wind, the fire made a sudden shift, “a freak of nature” it was later called, and headed up the Chewuch Valley Road behind the van.

The road up this valley is a dead-end road. It suddenly ends at the base of some rugged hills covered with brush and rocks. The fire racing down the valley had the fire crew trapped. The crew in the van didn’t realize this until the fire was almost upon them.

The Chewuch Valley Road is a dead-end street, and sin is a dead-end road too. Every sinner will come to the point where he has nowhere to go and no way to escape the fiery judgment of God that must overtake him. God’s judgment against sin will be like fire both in its energy and in its unsparing nature. Listen to these verses: “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29).

“In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:8-9).

Sinner, are you ready to meet God when He has plainly declared in His Word that His wrath is against sin? “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Do you think you will be spared for some reason or other when He has said His wrath is revealed against “all” ungodliness? Sin is a dead-end street, and the end of it is the fiery judgment of God. The only way to escape the judgment your sins deserve is to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior this world will ever know.

One of the basic rules of safety for forest firefighters is to never underestimate the power of a forest fire. This was tragically the case at the Chewuch fire. This same mistake is being made about God’s wrath against sin. Many people don’t believe God could possibly punish any person for eternity in hellfire. Is this a mistake you are making in your life? Underestimating the power of the forest fire cost the firefighters their lives. Underestimating God’s wrath against sin will lead many souls to make poor choices about salvation. Never realizing their need, they will eventually lose their souls in the place “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44). What a tragic loss that will be, and all because they underestimated God’s wrath against sin.

The firefighters drove the van down the Chewuch Valley Road. They got to the end of itthe point where they could go no further. They hadn’t realized it was a dead-end. They tried to backtrack but had to give it up when they saw a giant wall of flame racing towards them. The truck was no protection, so they left it. Each firefighter was equipped with a type of silvery foil safety blanket or fire shelter that they could use in a last resort if they were trapped in a fire. Within seconds the fire would sweep over them. They didn’t have much time to deploy their fire shelters.

Some of the crew lay down on the middle of the road and covered themselves with the safety blankets. Six of the firefighters climbed an embankment of rocks, boulders and brush, called a scree, and deployed their fire shelters there. When the fire passed over them, the intense heat was trapped by the boulders and four of the six were asphyxiated, and one was badly burned. The heat was intense on the road also, but with no obstructions nearby the heat was able to radiate away from the firefighters under their safety blankets. They survived, and when the firestorm passed, they ran up the rock scree to see how their companions had fared. They were heartbroken to discover that several were dead.

When the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, His death provided an atonement or covering for sin for all who would believe on Him. This covering is the only way any of us will ever be saved. Even if your sins are the worst possible, the atonement Christ made on the cross will protect you from the judgment they deserve. There is no other way to be saved from the judgment to come.

If you are going through life without faith in Christ, what will you use for an atonement, a covering, when it comes time to die? If you are rich in this world’s goods, can you use them as a covering in that day? No, they never will provide any protection for your soul. “Riches profit not in the day of wrath.” You need Christ!

If you are trusting in your own “good works,” will they cover you in the eyes of a holy God so that He sees no sin in you? Will they give you a refuge? Absolutely not, “for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Gal. 2:16). Salvation is “not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:9). Faith in Christ is God’s way of salvation. Good works are the way men in unbelief vainly dream of being saved. They vainly dream this because in the pride of their hearts they think they know better than God. A covering of good works will be less than worthless in the day God calls you to give account of your life. You had better realize it now before it is forever too late.

Friend, take the warnings about God’s wrath in the Bible seriously, and get off the dead-end road of sin that leads to judgment. Turn by faith to Christ. Through His death on the cross, He will keep you safe when others come under the fiery judgment of God. Have a change of heart and mind towards sin. Recognize it as that which leads to death and judgment. Once you trust Christ, seek to live for the One who loved you and gave His life for you. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). If you will ever escape the judgment that will sweep over everyone in their sins, you must come to Christ!

F-14 Crashes

Witnesses in Horsham Township, Philadelphia, were stunned one Sunday afternoon when the “warhorse” of the Navy’s carrier fleet, the F-14, crashed in a residential area. The $38 million, sophisticated F-14 jets (nicknamed the “Tomcats”) were capable of flying at twice the speed of sound. They had been used effectively in “Desert Storm” and the Bosnian crisis.

Only highly skilled pilots were assigned to these jets, and the two who were flying today were among the most highly rated. Each had more than 1000 hours in that aircraft.

These officers were part of the VF-101 Squadron called the “Grim Reapers,” stationed at Oceana Naval Air Station at Virginia Beach. Little did they realize how soon they would meet the Grim Reaper—death!

The supersonic jets were part of the annual “Sounds of Freedom” Willow Grove Naval Air Station Air Show and were performing simulated carrier landings. This particular maneuver was called a “wave off.” The pilots had performed this same routine many times in practice, and in the show as recently as Friday and Saturday.

As the jet approached a landing, they slowed their speed slightly. They were waved off and sped away in a climbing turn to make another landing. As more than 120,000 watched, it banked steeply, wavered and plunged upside down into a wooded area in a ball of fire and smoke.

This event reminds us vividly of the uncertainty of this life. The Word of God makes it crystal clear that we have an allotted time upon this earth. God gives to all life, breath and all things, and there is no one who knows when his or her last moment will come. It is the Apostle James who says, “What is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14).

Each of us inherits a sinful nature because of our fall in Adam (read Gen. 3). Because of our sinful nature, we practice sin in thought, word and deed and are accountable to our Creator.

There are just two destinies, heaven for those who know the Lord Jesus as Savior and hell for those who do not know Him. Perhaps you are asking, “How can I be assured of being in heaven and know that all will be well when life is over?”

It is with joy that we can tell you the Word of God has the answer. The moment the sinner realizes that his greatest need is to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal Savior and to trust Him, depending only upon His finished work upon the cross, he can be assured of heaven.

We turn again to the Bible and learn that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son”...to die upon the cross at Calvary. There, after men had shown all the enmity of their hearts by crucifying the Lord Jesus, God accepted the sacrifice of that perfect One in the place of the sinner. This is the truth of John 3:16. The moment the sinner places his trust in what God has done, he has the assurance from the Word of God that “whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

May you know today the joy that God’s salvation brings through faith in the work of the Lord Jesus when He died as our substitute upon the cross of Calvary. He satisfied all the claims of God’s righteousness that were against us because of sin. We can commend the Savior to you as the One who not only saves but keeps, and He satisfies the longings of the heart.

In view of the uncertainty of life, we urge you to make preparation for eternity. It is just ahead for all of us.

“Prepare to meet thy God” (Amos 4:12).

The Foolish Rich Man

Have you ever read the story of the rich man who was called a fool? His fields had produced a plentiful harvest—so much that he did not know what to do with it all. He said, “I will pull down my barns, and build greater....I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:18-19).

“But God said unto him, Thou fool” (verse 20).

What the rich farmer said is like a businessman today who says, “Well now, I have done well in business. I have worked hard to earn what I have, and now I have plenty in the bank-there is enough to last my lifetime. I shall take it easy the rest of my life.”

Nothing very wrong in that, is there? Nothing dishonest in hard work, nothing foolish in saving what he earned, nothing sinful in wanting to take things easy. Why, then, does the voice of God sound in his ears: “FOOL!”

He was a fool because he left God out. He made wise provision for his body, but he forgot his soul. He took care to see to his physical comforts, but he forgot about his soul’s future. He valued his body highly, but his soul at nothing. Because he did this, God called him a fool.

That night he saw his schemes for large barns and larger comforts fade away from him. He felt the things which he had wanted so much slipping away from him. What were his thoughts as he found himself sinking into eternity without God and without hope, with a soul unprepared to meet God?

When morning dawned, the harvest was there, the barns were there, but the man was gone.

“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).

While we know that this man was a sinner, we do not read that he was guilty of any great sin. God did not call him a fool for being a sinner; he was a fool because he left God out. Are you in danger of doing the same?

Your immortal soul is your most valuable possession. Though your body may die, your soul will live on. But where? Will it be in the Father’s house (heaven) or the lake of fire? Rest assured, if you leave God out, He will leave you out!

“What must I do to be saved?...Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:30-31).

Forty Years Nearer

One day, when I was a young girl, I was walking along the street and saw a notice outside a theater: COME AND BRING YOUR BIBLES!

What a strange thing! I thought. To a theater? What can it mean?

I had often been to the theater, but had never been told to bring a Bible. I did not even own one! But I made up my mind to go that night just to see what it was all about. I would borrow a Bible just for once. I did so, and that night, full of curiosity, I entered the theater.

On the wall near the stage were charts, and a man stood up to explain them. He had a long stick in his hand and pointed to the different diagrams as he spoke. He continually referred to the Bible and asked his audience to turn to the different passages for themselves.

I sat there unable to find one verse. I had never read the Bible. I could hear the flutter of the pages as the other people turned from chapter to chapter, and I listened to the speaker’s voice. He told us the Lord’s coming again. He said, “He may come at any moment!”

I was terrified! For the first time I learned I was a sinner, and I felt the great burden of my sins.

Suppose it should be true, I said to myself, that the Lord is coming quickly. Am I ready to meet Him? I knew I was not, so I sat with my head bowed, feeling that God’s wrath was hanging over me. One thought was in my mind: The Lord Jesus is coming soon-and I am not ready.

I left that place and went to a neighbor who had tried to speak to me of the Lord Jesus. She and her husband welcomed me into their house. They told me what they knew themselves, and I learned that the Lord Jesus had died on the cross for sinners. My heart just opened to Him when I realized that He had died for me.

But I was not at rest, for I had not learned that God can righteously forgive a sinner. I felt that my safety depended on myself-on my being good and doing good. Sometimes I was bright and happy and would say to myself, I wish the Lord Jesus would come today; I am sure I am ready to meet Him now. At other times I would think, I hope He will not come today; I believe He would leave me behind!

I went on like that, up and down, for forty years. At the end of that time a neighbor of my daughter invited her to a meeting. She went, and the Lord saved her soul. Then she came to see me and urged me to attend those meetings.

I didn’t want to go! I was so used to my doubts and fear that I thought there was nothing better. But my daughter persuaded me, and on the next occasion I went.

I can never forget that evening. The subject was John 5:24: “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

The preacher explained so clearly that the work was finished. I had only to believe what Christ had done. I could doubt no longer and, half rising from my seat, I exclaimed, “I believe it!”

From that moment I knew that I had passed from death to life. I turned my eyes from myself to the Savior in heaven. Do you think I have ever doubted since?

Then the preacher spoke of the coming of the Lord. I had heard nothing of His return since that evening in the theater forty years before. Now I live in daily anticipation of seeing Him and comfort myself with the thought that His coming is forty years nearer than when I first heard of it.

“Surely I come quickly....
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20).

God Is Not Mocked

Three million acres, nearly fifty thousand square miles of prime Montana/Idaho forest, lay in charred ruins in the wake of one of the greatest forest fires in North American history. Timber which might have been harvested by the trainload and used to build thousands of homes, forest where many different types of wildlife thrive, forest where campers and tourists came to enjoy the natural beauty and feel their spirits revived, was now a scorched, lifeless, total desolation. Green, the color most associated with life, the color most pleasant for the eyes to look on for long periods of time, had completely disappeared and been replaced by the ash gray and char black of smoking ruin.

This is the first of two parallel scenes I would like to call to your attention. The second is halfway around the world. Although only three trees are involved, it is even more desolate. The three trees are really crosses made out of wood. On each of the three crosses was nailed a man. According to the custom of the times, each cross had a small board nailed to it just above the head of the person crucified. Two of the signs had “Thief” printed on them. The sign on the middle cross had the words “King of the Jews” printed on it.

They were all executed as criminals, but one was not a criminal. The man in the middle had for three and a half years walked through the countryside of Israel proclaiming love, goodness, and the mercy of God. The message He spoke was confirmed to be God’s truth by the miracles He performed. He raised the dead, healed the sick and lame, gave sight to the blind, and even commanded a storm to cease. Now, on Calvary’s hill, the One who brought such life to others by word and deed has died and His lifeless body is hanging on the cross.

Let me fast-forward you to the present. The year is 2007. It is almost two thousand years after Christ’s death on the cross and nearly 100 years after the great Montana forest fire of 1910. If you were to go to Montana today, you would be hard pressed to find any remaining traces of the fire which laid waste to a large part of the state. The great forest has grown up again. Timber is being harvested. Animals live in it. Campers and tourists and all types of people visit it. The beautiful green has returned. Life has issued forth from that scene of desolation.

And what life has issued forth from that other scene of desolation! The body of the Lord Jesus was carefully taken down from the cross and laid in a tomb. The mouth of the tomb was closed with a large rock. After lying cold and lifeless for three days in death, the body of the Lord Jesus came back to life in resurrection. Rising, He showed His victory over death’s awful power. He is now exalted to the highest place in heaven. Seated at God the Father’s right hand, His name is higher than every other name.

Millions have received the gift of eternal life by believing on His name. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life though Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). They are millions who otherwise would have been swept away to everlasting destruction through the power sin had in their lives, but Jesus Christ has the power to set the vilest free. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

And what life we may find in the Lord Jesus! He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). There is no other way to live life to the fullest but by drawing near to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

When this life is over and death claims the mortal bodies of believers, the spirits of those that belong to the Lord Jesus will enter into His presence in heaven. The Bible says they are “absent from the body” and “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). How wonderful it will be to see His face and hear His voice in the place where sin and sorrow never come!

Yet God in His love has an event even more wonderful planned for those who love His Son. A grand, incredible moment is coming in the near future, when all those who died in faith will follow their Lord in resurrection. In a moment of time their bodies will be made new in a state suitable for glory. The same power that raised the Lord Jesus from the grave will raise them up. Bodies and spirits reunited, they will enjoy God for all eternity. So “when this corruptible [body] shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Cor. 15:54-55).

This is the life that flows from the crucified Savior. This is the life that has issued forth from Calvary’s scene of awful desolation. This is the life that God in grace has for you! You can never earn it, you will never deserve it, but God would have you receive it as a free gift. Will you believe on the Son of God that the gift of eternal life might be yours?

“These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name” (John 20:31).

God Is Not Mocked

Jerry was a lineman in Bill Getty’s crew, which was under my supervision. Jerry was a good worker and carefully observed all safety precautions. The crew was replacing small electrical wires on a pole line with larger ones.

It was necessary to keep the old wires operating to serve the customers along that road while the new wires were being installed. In order to install the new wires in their proper place on the poles, the old wires had to be raised above the top of the poles. This they did by bolting a cross arm to each pole in an upright position. Then the old wires were attached to another cross arm mounted in a horizontal position. These cross-like arrangements were put together on the ground and then raised to the pole top.

As duty required, I visited the crew and was talking with Bill Getty, the foreman. Jerry picked up one of these heavy arrangements and, putting it on his back, he staggered along pretending to carry the cross as Jesus did. As he did this, he made a disparaging remark about the Lord Jesus.

The following day I was at another location when the company radio announced, “Signal One! Signal One!” It was from Getty’s crew. “Signal One” meant that there was an emergency and all other use of the radio was curtailed to give priority to urgent messages. My immediate thought was: “Something has happened to Jerry.”

As I started driving toward the site where the crew was working, a radio call came for me to go to that location. Sadly, this normally careful worker had made an inattentive move. That move cost him his life, as 2400 volts surged through his heart. He died instantly.

The Lord Jesus died six hours after He carried His cross. Jerry died twenty-four hours after carrying his! Jesus gave His life for our sakes. “I lay down My life for the sheep....I lay down My life, that I might take it again” (John 10:15,17). Jerry’s life was taken from him. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

“Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Sam. 2:30).

“The Lord is not...willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

The Greatest Physician

Ten men stood in the street of a village of Samaria—ten brokenhearted men. The eastern sun lit up mountain and valley with a splendid glory. But what charm had this for them? The sunshine had faded out of their lives; the sun of their hopes had set forever.

The notes of singing birds sounded sweetly from bush and tree. What had they to do with singing? The music had died out of their hearts long ago.

The sound of children’s laughter came ringing up the street and reached where they stood. The sound awoke old memories not yet dead, touching hearts almost turned to stone, but not quite.

There, amid the sunshine, the singing of birds, the laughter of children, they stood—ten wretched outcasts—ten blighted lives.

So the ten lepers stood.

Through the village gate came a little band of strangers. The eyes of the ten turned toward the group for a moment, and then turned away.

Their ears caught the sound of a name, a wonderful name, the name of Nazareth’s great Physician: JESUS.

Then from ten pairs of eyes a new light beamed, the light of newborn hope, and from ten tongues a piercing cry leaped forth: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Instantly, without delay or question Jesus spoke: “Go show yourselves unto the priests.” The word of grace went forth, and with it divine power, for “it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”

The ten stepped out of the shadow of their misery into the brightness of a new life; the sun shone on the hills and valleys of Samaria as they had never seen it shine before.

And the birds still sang, but to the ten they sang as they had never sung before.

And the children still played and laughed, and as they laughed the cleansed men laughed too, a happy, joyful laugh, for had they not met Jesus, and had He not turned their sorrow into joy and their night into morning?

Jesus journeyed on with His face set towards Jerusalem—the city of the cross-towards the place where His life would be given in the leper’s stead, but as He journeyed His heart too rejoiced in the knowledge that He had lifted the shadow off ten lives and had flooded ten weary hearts with a joy that had never been there before.

Blessed, wonderful Savior! Have you met Him yet? Has He turned your sorrow into joy and your night into morning? Has His blood cleansed away your guilt, and is His love flooding your heart with its heavenly sunshine? Jesus said, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

Her Pet Tiger

We’ve all heard the old story: wild animal raised as pet, gentle and charming at first, sudden reversion to nature, owner injured or killed. Usually we skip the moral at the end and dismiss the whole as a fable.

A fable?

A fact! A tragic fact, that Doris Guay did not live to repent.

She and her husband “adopted” Jupiter, a rare white Bengal tiger, when he was only six days old. Carefully raised, hand-fed, Jupiter was a beautiful creature-all 400 pounds of him.

But with all that beauty-with an appearance of as beautiful a nature-Jupiter was still a tiger-not a nice little lap-kitty, but a tiger with a tiger’s nature and a tiger’s cravings. One day as Doris Guay was hand-feeding him some chicken, his tiger nature overcame all his loving care and training. Open-mouthed, he lunged at her throat. She died instantly.

Was it wise to adopt that beautiful “kitten”? Was it wise to go on for three years treating the fully grown and mature tiger like a beloved child? To think “someday he might have to live in a cage in a zoo-but not now-not now”?

Is it wise to continue “playing with fire,” indulging in forbidden pleasures and thinking, “This is beautiful, this is good, this can never hurt me. Someday maybe I’ll turn over a new leaf and reform, but not now—not now”?

Answer “NO” to both. When the tiger turns as he will-and has his victim by the throat, it is too late. Too late to be wise, too late to change anything.

The devil appears as “an angel of light” at first, and it is easy to follow his smooth, downward path in pursuit of sin, but at the last his true nature appears and he is shown to be our enemy, the devil-a roaring lion!

The Bible says that he walks about, “seeking whom he may devour.” The saddest thought is that it was all unnecessary. The baby tiger was so appealing, and the road to hell is so easy, but God says, “avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away” (Prov. 4:15). The Lord Jesus Christ gave His life on the cross to open the door of escape for all (everyone!) who will believe and receive life-eternal life.

Why will you die?

An Honest Confession

Some missionaries went to a previously unreached tribe. Their message was listened to with interest for a while, but then the tribesmen spoke: “You say that the God of the Christians knows everything, that nothing is hidden from Him, that He is everywhere and sees all that is done. Now, we do not desire a God so sharp-sighted! We choose to live with freedom in our forests without having an observer always watching our actions!”

In simple honesty they told what was in their hearts. But what they spoke openly is what many secretly wish might be the case.

From Adam down—remember Adam’s efforts with the fig leaves?—man’s desire is to hide himself from God. He wishes that there could be no God to observe his ways—no God to whom he must give account. In all his thoughts it is, No God for me. No one to control my actions, no one to record my sins against me, no one to call me to account.

But God IS. And whether people of savage tribes or “civilized” people like it or not, He observes men’s ways.

“The wicked...will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts....He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: He hideth His face; He will never see it....Thou hast seen it; for Thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with Thy hand” (Psa. 10:4-14).

God has seen.

Who is this God who “has seen” and who “will requite”? Is He a God delighting in judgment? Is it His pleasure to condemn the sinner?

Far from it. He delights in mercy. He has made Himself known through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. There He has revealed Himself in His true character: “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

Sin deserved judgment. For believers, judgment has fallen, but it has fallen on the One whom the love of God provided. The way of blessing is open now. God is known as love, and those who once feared Him now rejoice in His presence.

"I Can't Make It!"

The railroad crossing bell was ringing, the approaching train was signaling for the crossing, but the automobile on the highway did not slow down. A boy on the road, seeing the danger, shouted to the driver, “Hey, Mister, the train is coming!”

As the car flashed by, the driver yelled back, “Oh, I can make it!”

A moment later, screams, bell, train whistle and a grinding crash all mixed together—a sound that seemed to echo endlessly in the ears of witnesses. Eight lives were snuffed out—the result of one man’s inexcusable carelessness in his rush to save one minute.

We condemn—and rightly so—a man who would run such a risk. But isn’t it true that there are countless thousands today who are running a far worse risk than that? In the face of the clearest warnings of coming judgment upon this Christ-rejecting world, men and women carelessly disregard God’s voice and rush into “swift destruction.”

Do you know that this world is guilty of the murder of the Son of God? Do you know that God has never forgotten that tremendous crime?

Do you know that “He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained” (Acts 17:31)?

Do you know that if you have never repented of your sins, you are exposed to the righteous anger of a holy God? “Because there is wrath, beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee” (Job 36:18).

Turn at this very moment to the Lord Jesus Christ who in infinite mercy gave His life for yours on Calvary. He invites you with outstretched hands to come to Him for eternal rest and relief from your sins. He is ready now to remove every sin stain and place you forever beyond any possibility of judgment.

“Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee” (Job 22:21).

I Chose Life

Donald Wyman had been clearing land and felling trees when a tree fell in such a way that he was pinned underneath it. His leg was broken—it was a compound fracture-and he cried for help. Again and again he called. No one came; no one heard. After an hour, he gave up hope of rescue by others and began to do what few of us would do: He pulled out his pocket knife and cut off his leg above the fracture. Then he crawled to a bulldozer, pulled himself up into it, and drove to his truck. Managing to transfer to the truck, he drove to a farm house. The farmer drove him to a hospital.

“It was a terrible ordeal...being trapped in the woods,” he said afterward. I had a life-or-death situation, and that was my only option-life or death. I have so much to live for that I did the only thing I could—I chose life.”

And that is the same option that every one of us has. God said, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life” (Deut. 30:19). It is not a “terrible ordeal” for us: We do not have to suffer great pain, alone and unheard in the dark woods of this world. The Lord Jesus Christ has suffered the pain for us, dying alone on the cross of Calvary.

Like Don Wyman, we all have “so much to live for.” There is the God who created us, who promises to be a Father to us, the One who satisfies the longing soul. There is the Lord Jesus who loves us with an everlasting love and who went to Calvary for us. There is the Holy Spirit who comes as the Comforter to everyone who receives Christ as Savior.

All of that is in the here-and-now. So much to live for indeed! And afterward—the Father’s house home—heaven. Why will you die?

Therefore, choose life!

"In Jesus"

I’ve tried in vain a thousand ways

My fears to quell, my hopes to raise

But what I need, the Bible says,

Is ever, only, JESUS.

My soul is night my heart is steel—

I cannot see; I cannot feel;

For light, for life, I must appeal

In simple faith to Jesus.

He died; He lives; He cares; He pleads;

There’s love in all His words and deeds;

There’s all a guilty sinner needs

Forevermore in Jesus.

September

In Jesus

I’ve tried in vain a thousand ways

My fears to quell, my hopes to raise,

But what I need, the Bible says,

Is ever, only, JESUS.

He died, He lives, He reigns, He pleads;

There’s love in all His words and deeds;

There’s all a guilty sinner needs

Forevermore in JESUS.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, GOD. Go back to the remotest point in the past that you can think of, and there HE is. You cannot get behind Him. Yes, and go forward to the most distant point in a future eternity, and HE is there also. You cannot get beyond Him. In the beginning, GOD. And in the eternal future, GOD.

King David, the writer of the Psalms, asked, “Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” He answered his own question: “If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.” That is equally true for us all today. We cannot get away from God.

And why should we want to? Where do we get this fear, this instinctive dislike of the very idea of God? The answer is simple. We are sinful creatures, and a guilty conscience makes cowards of us all. God is the God of truth and righteousness, and who of us can stand in His holy presence? Only those who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.

If you can say, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7), you do not need to fear God, nor have any desire to get away from Him. On the contrary, every thought of Him should be a delight to you.

But first of all you must be introduced to Him, and that can only be through the Lord Jesus Christ. His own words were, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

Come honestly. That is absolutely essential. No hypocrisy can stand for one moment. Admit yourself to be sinful and deserving judgment, and accept salvation through the blood of Christ. Only in this way will you be saved.

It Can't Happen

For almost a month one storm after another had brought record rainfall. Temperatures higher than usual had melted much of the snow in the mountains. Lakes and reservoirs were filled to overflowing, and still the rains came. Rivers ran deeper and began to overflow their banks.

Higher and higher the water crept. Highways and railroad tracks were covered, and then washed away. Houses and other buildings were pushed off their foundations by the force of the water. Some farmers put their livestock into barns, only to have the floodwaters come ever higher and destroy both barn and animals. Other farmers drove their animals to hilltops where they were safe.

As the days passed and the storms continued, warnings went out in every news report telling people of the danger and urging them to get out of the low-lying areas. Groups of men went from house to house and from one farm to another, warning people to flee.

So it was that men stood at the door of a cabin on Bull Creek, waiting to rescue its elderly occupant from the rising waters. They told him that the river was rising so fast that he must leave immediately. But he refused their help as he answered them: “I have lived in this cabin for many years. The river has never risen above that peg on the wall, and it can’t happen now!”

The rescuers knew that the water was going to rise yet more and would surely cover the very ground on which they were standing. Finding that their warnings were in vain, the men went boldly into the cabin, caught the man up in their arms and carried him up the slope to higher ground. Here he was not only safe from the floodwater but could also be fed and cared for.

What was their astonishment and dismay when they saw the man running back to his cabin! They raced after him, but before they could overtake the man he was back inside. Now again the rescuers were at his door. There was no answer to their knocking, nor to their urgent calling. They tried the door, but it was locked. Then with shoulder to door they tried to force their way in. Again they failed.

The river had continued its rapid rise and now was almost to the cabin. As the rescuers continued their pleading, they looked up and saw a “wall of water” bearing down on them. They ran for their lives. From the safe, high ground they looked back and saw the current hit the cabin with such force that it was torn from its foundation and smashed to pieces.

What must have been the thoughts then of the foolish man who had locked himself inside his cabin. He had just insisted, “It can’t happen now”-but it did happen! In his self-confidence he lost everything—not just the cabin, but his life as well.

A worse flood is coming on this poor world. God’s judgment is soon to fall on all those who turn a deaf ear to the gospel of His grace and on those who neglect that free salvation which He offers in and through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Long ago God said, “Behold...and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.” The work that God did was to provide a way by which sinners can be forgiven and made fit for heaven. The way of salvation—the only way—is by faith in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). But “if ye believe not...ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24).

It Can't Happen Here

It is the playground of the world. There is everything for the vacationer—beautiful, luxurious hotels and restaurants and shops-and tourists flock there from all over the globe to enjoy them and to share in the lights and music and laughter and illusion of the big entertainment complexes. You can call it Pleasure World.

Not far away there is a different world. A place where workers arm weapons of war, terrible weapons of destruction. Stored there are warheads, rocket motors, and fully armed missiles, waiting—waiting. Security cameras watch silently over hundreds of missiles. Over a million pounds of missiles and rockets rest quietly in the so-called “Remote Area”—remote no longer.

Once it was really remote, with a wide belt of vacant land for safety around it. Now progress and development have encroached and encircled it until they almost meet across the chain link fence that separates them. Is it still safe?

What if—a terrorist targeted one of the metal storage buildings and started a fire? The motors are packed with extremely volatile fuel.

What if—lightning started a fire in the grounds? On an average, lightning hits each square mile in Central Florida fifty times a year. That means an average of 125 strikes in the remote area every year.

What if-the more than thirty thousand motorists who daily drive as close as one-fifth of a mile (that’s only a little more than feet) to some of those stockpiles of disaster were aware of the possibilities? Would they perhaps choose another route? Or would a little of the glitter be rubbed off the shining playground?

Probably not.

It’s just human nature to think: I don’t see anything wrong. It has never happened. It can’t happen to ME! The It-can’t-happen-here syndrome is widespread.

Why not? In a world and time when we are increasingly sure of only uncertainties, how many people actually sit down and think seriously: Tomorrow I might not be here? How many consider, I could die tonight?

Has it ever occurred to you?

No one is immune to disaster. No one has a guaranteed lifetime. But that is only for the here-and-now. There is something beyond; it is called eternity. Forever. And that is guaranteed. Whether it is reached sooner or later is not important; what really matters is where will it be spent?

There are only two places: one is with God, who is light and love. The other is away from Him, which necessarily means being away from light. It means darkness, the blackness of darkness forever. It means being away from love, all love, in a place of “weeping and wailing.”

Tonight, tomorrow, twenty years from now it is still “appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

Is anything more important than being prepared for that?

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

It Could Happen Tomorrow

Recently, some studies have been published showing what it would be like for some large cities to experience a disaster like a hurricane, tornado or earthquake. None of these cities had actually experienced the disaster; it was just a study of possibilities. Hopefully it would help people to be better prepared if a disaster should strike their area.

There is an event that really COULD HAPPEN TOMORROW, even today, even before you finish reading this message. The Lord Jesus Christ is coming back to take all who have believed in Him back to heaven with Him. We do not know when, but we are assured it will happen. John 14:2-3 says, “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Are you ready? Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, believing that He died on the cross of Calvary for your sins? The penalty for your sins was laid on Him at the cross; there is nothing you can do to save yourself. Only believe that He suffered and died for you.

“The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God....Then we which are alive and remain... shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air...and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

Many people have tried to figure out WHEN the Lord is coming back. Only God knows. He is waiting for the last one who will be saved, and then He will tell the Lord Jesus that it is time to come. “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh” (Matthew 25:13).

Do not wait any longer! “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 3:15). “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). Are you prepared? Are you ready if the Lord Jesus comes tomorrow? Today?

“Prepare to meet thy God” (Amos 4:12).

It Is Finished

Were Jesus on the cross,

The work were not completed;

But He to glory’s gone,

Above the heavens now seated.

Were Jesus in the grave,

Death had not been defeated

But God has raised Him up,

And now the works completed

Were Jesus not on high,

We had been doubting, fearing;

But every doubt is stilled

By Christ in heaven appearing.

Oh, ‘tis a finished work,

And God delights to view it;

And ‘tis a wondrous work,

And none but Christ could do it!

John 3:16: The Two-Sided Verse

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

God’s side: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

Your side: “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Notice: God loved-God gave. The loving and giving are God’s side; the believing and having are your side.

Many people try to change sides with God. They try to do the loving and giving, and expect Him to do the believing and having! That is, they are trying to love God and trying to serve God. Then they hope He will believe in their earnestness and accept their good works and give them eternal life in return.

You must keep on your own side of the line. God has loved you and given His Son for you; that is His part. Now, do you really believe in Him? If so, then God says you shall not perish, but have here now—everlasting life. It’s all in that verse.

John 5 and 24

When I was lost and dead in sin

And judgment lay before,

God breathed a precious word to me:

John 5 and 24.

I trusted in His finished work;

What could I ask for more

Than His unchanging Word of truth?

John 5 and 24!

I KNOW eternal life is mine

Since Christ my judgment bore;

My hope is founded on that verse,

John 5 and 24.

I soon shall see Him face to face,

And then I’ll praise Him more

For pardon through His faithful Word:

John 5 and 24.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

A Lighthouse in the Desert?

Most lighthouses are on the shore near rocks or dangerous places in the water. Practically all lighthouses seem to say, “Stay away from here! Danger!”

There is a lighthouse that says just the opposite, for it says, “Come!” This lighthouse is in the middle of the Arizona desert. There is no water to be had for over thirty miles in every direction, but just where that lighthouse stands there is a well. So there is a light there at night to let thirsty people know where the well of water is. The tower in the daytime and the light at night say, “Here is water.”

Isn’t that just like the Lord Jesus who, in the middle of the desert of this world, would stand and cry, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.”

Where else can you go for living water but to the Lord Jesus? The gospel is still offering to all, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17).

Have you come to that life-giving water? Nothing else can satisfy soul-thirst, both now and forever.

A Living Hope - Now!

Life for millions is dull, flat, daily routine with no major problems, but no hope—just an unsatisfying existence.

Maybe you had a normal childhood. No major worries, no struggle for existence, and a reasonable expectation of becoming an adult.

There have been some high points: the first job, courtship, marriage, a new home, the first child. But now the days pass in monotony. You strive to “get ahead,” get a new car, a better house, a comfortable retirement. You see your neighbors doing the same, but there’s no future except routine living—then old age—then death. And that’s scary!

If this sounds familiar to you, let me tell you something: Becoming a Christian will change your life! I don’t mean going to church occasionally; I mean accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of your life.

The Apostle Peter speaks of it as having a new birth, being “born again” to “a [living] hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” A living hope! Not a dull and fuzzy sitting-in-church-with-a-long-face hope about the future, but a new life NOW.

The life that Peter was talking about is a new life from God that people receive when they believe on Jesus Christ. They become a new person with a new life in Christ Jesus. Instead of the fleeting happiness they have struggled to find, they now have a permanent joy in God that will last forever.

Since Jesus Christ is Lord of everything, acknowledging Him will not only affect your eternal destiny, but it will influence your daily work, your leisure and your family life; in fact, every aspect of your life will be changed.

The problem in your life now is simply sin. You may be a wonderful person, but everyone is sinful and separated from God unless his sins are forgiven in Jesus.

The words Peter wrote are found in that most wonderful book, the Bible. Read this book about God’s miraculous ways with people. God comes to you and me in the person of Jesus Christ—His only Son, who lived, died and rose again so that all who believe on Him should have real life.

You need Jesus desperately. Receive Him by faith into your heart. Then you can start on the greatest future of all. And that future starts right now!

“Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psa. 16:11). Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Living Next to a Volcano

The Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica draws thousands of tourists every year to gaze at its constant spewing of smoke and lava. On a clear day, with binoculars, a person can see big chunks of black boulders rolling and bouncing down the sides of the mountain. You can tell that they are hot, because they leave puffs of smoke in their wake and, as the boulders get smaller, the smoke is less. At night the trails glow red, and you can follow the path of hot lava as it flows downward.

Several communities and towns lie along the base of the volcano, and the residents enjoy the spectacular view of the volcano as do the visitors who come to see it. When asked if the people are worried about a major eruption, those who live so close to the simmering volcano seem unworried. The volcano has done the same thing for years and years, and people are so accustomed to it that they hardly give a thought to what could happen to themselves and their homes if Mt. Arenal were to explode.

Many people today realize that they should be thinking about their eternal future, but time passes, seasons come and go, and it is so easy to be lulled into thinking all things are going on as they always have.

2 Peter 3:4 says that people ask, “Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” But God says that the Lord Jesus is coming soon to take all the believers to heaven.

If He should come today, are you ready? Have you asked the Lord Jesus Christ to come into your heart, cleanse you from sin, and make you one of His own sons or daughters? “NOW is the accepted time...NOW is the day of salvation.”

Don’t put it off. Accept Jesus as your Savior today. Then you’ll be ready when He comes to take His own to be with Him in heaven. “Then we which are alive...shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). 

Luna

Luna was a young killer whale, an orca, who first appeared near the mouth of the Gold River in Nootka Sound, British Columbia, nearly four years ago. Somehow he had been separated from his pod of orcas by a distance of several hundred miles. In his isolation he turned to boaters and fishermen for company. He would swim near boats and do antics such as “spy hopping,” fanning his tail or rolling over to attract attention. Often he would let boaters touch him with an oar or a broom. Nootka Sound had plenty of salmon for the lone orca, and he grew to the adult size of over two thousand pounds.

Treating a highly intelligent wild orca almost as a pet posed serious problems. One day Luna swam too close to a moving boat and got a deep cut over his eye. Many people in the region realized that it was only a matter of time before close contact with humanity would cause the animal serious injury or even death.

They were right. A day came in the spring of 2006 when a 104-foot-long tugboat named General Jackson, towing a heavily loaded barge, plowed its way across Nootka Sound. Luna, looking for attention, swam near the giant tug and started doing his antics. Soon all the sailors aboard the tug were at the railing watching and snapping photographs of the friendly “killer whale.” Luna had a habit of swimming under moving boats. However, he had never been under a boat as powerful as General Jackson. The sailors watched him go under their ship, but he never came up alive. The 1700-horsepower engine turning the big propeller caused an enormous suction, and he was drawn into the churning blades and killed.

Orcas are highly social animals, and they need others of their own kind to make them happy. When Luna didn’t have any others of his own kind, he turned to man for company. They are a lot like people in the sense that they need others like themselves. They are also different in an important sense: Only man of all the creatures on earth was made a “living soul.” This means he was given a soul which shall continue to exist for all eternity. It also means he has a heart that can come to know and love his Creator. His heart is made in such a way that he needs to know and love God to be truly happy.

Luna got separated from his pod and turned to human beings for company. Man has gotten separated from God through sin and has turned to all sorts of things to take God’s place.

None of those things will ever fill the vacuum in man’s heart. No one can ever be truly happy without coming to know God. And no one can truly know God without being justified by faith. “[Happy] are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom. 4:7-8).

This blessedness—or happiness—is the portion of all those who put their faith in God’s Son. At the cross He (Jesus) gave His life in the one sacrifice for sin that God will ever accept. All the good of that sacrifice has been placed to the account of those who believe on Jesus Christ as Savior. The sins which kept them separated from God are paid for and forever done away with. “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

Some of the people in Gold River saw the handwriting on the wall concerning Luna. They knew he would come to grief if he continued to live near men and wasn’t returned to his pod. Luna’s place in life was with his kind, but he became habituated to the company of men—and died an early death because of it. People have become habituated to sin and will certainly die an eternal death if they don’t find the Savior.

Will you pass through life trying to fill the void in your heart with created things when God offers you the immense gifts of eternal life, forgiveness and justification from sin through faith in Christ? Then, the handwriting is on the wall as regards your life. You may live a number of years, maybe more and maybe less, but eventually God will bring you into judgment for your sins in the horrible place called hell. There is no lasting happiness apart from Christ; sin has made that an impossibility.

Come to Christ today and find the blessedness of knowing your sins are forgiven and your iniquities are covered by His atoning work on the cross. Come to Christ and know the one true lasting happiness man, the sinner, can ever find. “Through this Man [Christ Jesus] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 13:38).

The Man, Christ Jesus

Christ Jesus really lived!

That is one thing that all agree upon-that this Person who claimed to be the Son of God really lived here on earth among men.

We know when He lived: from about 3 B.C. until about 30 A.D.

We know where He was born: in Bethlehem of Judea, a real town and not a mythological one. We know where He lived for most of the years of His life: in Nazareth, in northern Galilee. There He worked as a carpenter.

We know many of the leaders of His day. Their names appear in other historical writings besides the Bible: Herod the Great, his great grandson Herod Agrippa, Salome, Pontius Pilate, Tiberius Cæsar, Gamaliel, Felix and Festus.

Every history of the ancient world and every encyclopedia records the fact that Jesus lived during the first century of our era. H. G. Wells had a contempt for almost every article of the Christian faith, but he was compelled to give pages to Jesus of Nazareth in his Outline of History.

All dates of history in our calendar are now designated by the letters B.C. and A.D.-both of which refer to the time of the birth of Christ-not Plato, not Julius Cæsar, not Mohammed.

Christ has done more to lift the moral and ethical standards of men than all the philosophers of Greece and Rome combined. He is above all!

And surpassing all that, millions in each generation have had their lives changed by the firm belief that Jesus Christ has given the world the perfect revelation of God, the only gospel that does deliver from the power of sin, the only assurance of forgiveness of sins, the only positive of life to come.

JESUS CHRIST LIVED!

AND JESUS CHRIST LIVES! He ever lives to make intercession for those who believe on Him. Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Man Saved Me from Drowning

These five words tell us an amazing story. They tell us how one brave man risked his own life to save three complete strangers from a tragic death by drowning. This is the story that was published in our local newspaper.

A man, his wife and two children came to Niagara Falls, Ontario, to spend the day and to visit the attractions around the river. Late in the day they decided to walk down the glen in order to get right beside the Niagara River.

Now then, to get down to the river at this point is not easy. It’s like walking down a steep cliff; there are many steps down. Yes, there are railings to hold on to; there are also warning signs telling of the dangers: “Stay on the steps.” “Do not go out beyond the railings.” Also, the park police and the park workers try to watch and make sure that the visitors understand the danger of slipping and falling into the river.

(I thought about God’s Word, the Bible, that warns us about breaking His laws and the danger of falling into hell and the lake of fire, where there is no return. Yet people continue to ignore His gracious warnings!)

And so this man and his wife and two children were now carelessly walking alongside this beautiful, powerful, dangerous river, not realizing how close they were to death itself. If they had looked up the face of the cliff, they would have noticed a rock climber examining the rock and stone, but all their attention was centered on the turbulent water so close beside them.

The younger son just couldn’t resist getting a little closer to the water. Then it happened! The boy slipped on the stones and fell into the river screaming, “Help me! Save me!”

His older brother, seeing what had happened, jumped into the water to help him! Now they were both screaming for help!

The father, seeing his two sons about to drown, also jumped into the river to help! Now we are hearing the cries for help from three drowning people who cannot help themselves-who are about to be carried into eternity by drowning!

Meanwhile, the rock climber on the cliff had heard the very first scream for help. He immediately started scrambling down the cliff to where the mother was crying for help. He could see that the man and his two boys were being drawn closer and closer to the edge of the giant whirlpool, and he knew that if they were once in the vortex there would be no chance of rescue. Without a thought for his own life and safety, he took off his shirt and shoes and plunged into the mighty river!

I think of the Lord Jesus Christ, who saw you and me when we were in our sins and needed a Savior; He said to His Father, God, “Here am I; send Me!” And—HE CAME.

This heroic man reached the father first. He was able to take hold of the man’s shirt and swim back to shore and hand him over to the willing arms of the bystanders who were starting to gather along the edge of the river. Then turning, he swam back out into the current to grab hold of the older boy, and a little more slowly he pulled this boy also to safety in the waiting hands of those who had gathered to watch this amazing rescue.

Our hero was nearly exhausted. He must have thought: Can I? or can’t I? should I? or shouldn’t I? But no one else was offering to go out into that dangerous water. Casting his feelings aside, he turned and swam out to try to save the boy! The younger son was almost in the clutches of the giant whirlpool, from which there is no return. He reached him just in time! Holding the boy with one arm, he used the other arm and his powerful legs to swim to shore!

On shore the people were cheering him on, shouting words of encouragement! He made it! These people had just witnessed a rescue that was almost impossible! So close to death, yet rescued!

Does this not remind us of the joy that is in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents, or trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? After a period of time, when our hero and the father of the boys were able to talk, the father offered his rescuer all the money he had. But our rescuer refused it, saying, “There is no price for life.”

Think of what our God has said in Eph. 2:8: “Saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God”!

Again in Rom. 6:23: “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” What a gift! Priceless!

Will you accept this very precious gift that the Lord Jesus has bought for you with His own precious blood?

It is free, to whosoever will!

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Never Enough

Perry Ellis “had it all.” A designer who had won eight Coty awards, he was at the top of his profession. He was at the head of a multi-million dollar business, with one of the most beautiful showrooms in New York City. Charm and talent had won tremendous popularity for him, both personally and for his designs. An exciting career, a beautiful home, world travel, many friends—yes, Perry Ellis had it all.

But with all this, at only 46 he lay dying in a New York hospital. Slipping in and out of a coma, he roused a little as a friend came into the room and commented on all the beautiful flowers. “Never enough!” said Perry—and those were his final words.

Never enough! Wealth, fame, friends—it was never enough. And it could never be enough. Perhaps he left God out of his life, and without Him the whole world is “never enough” to fill one human heart.

“There is an emptiness,” as “Murph the Surf” said. Do you remember “Murph the Surf”? He (Jack Murphy) was another young man who “had it all.” Born into a good family and in comfortable circumstances, he was a talented musician and a champion sportsman, yet with it all he said there “was still emptiness there.”

So he began to look for more excitement. Looking for thrills, he tried stealing-spectacular stealing no “small stuff” for him. He entered the gem room of the Museum of Natural History in New York and stole the 563-carat Star of India sapphire, as well as twenty-one other beautiful, valuable and well-known jewels.

Capture was certain-and soon. But as soon as he was released from a short prison term he was busy trying to fill the emptiness again. At last he sat alone in a six-by-nine-foot cell in the state prison for murder. It was a total contrast from his “have it all” years, but one thing had not changed: the “emptiness” was still there.

The prison chaplain came to him with the message of God’s love and forgiveness for sin, but Murphy told him to “take that to somebody who needs a crutch.”

At last he began to listen and to watch. He said, “When the ‘losers’ would ask the Lord to come into their lives...the lights would start coming on in their eyes.”

Murphy, too, accepted Jesus Christ into his life as His Savior. He said, “I didn’t hear any bells. I didn’t fall down. It was just by faith!” And, receiving the Lord Jesus Christ “just by faith,” he found the emptiness at last was filled.

One man had all the world could give, but found it “never enough.” One man had lost everything, even his friends, but found that “Jesus Christ is the answer to filling an empty life.” Even in that six-by-nine-foot cell, Murphy knew that he had received, as he said, “a brand new life.”

Today he is out of prison after spending twenty-one years of his life behind bars, but he is still working for convicts. He says he will continue “to work in the darkness, lifting up Jesus Christ” to the lost and lonely and empty-hearted in prison, telling them that “there is an answer.”

There is an answer. Christ is the answer. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

No Regrets, Not Even One

The northern Ontario gold-mining town had several churches, and Joe and Linda joined one right after their marriage. It seemed the right thing to do. Soon Linda was teaching the older Sunday school children. She didn’t know much about the Bible, but she did explain that God created everything.

They didn’t realize the Bible says, “Ye must be born again.” The word “saved” meant nothing to them; they thought of themselves as “good citizens” who deserved to be in heaven. There was one fatal flaw in their thinking: They were deceived! The god of this world, that is, the devil, has “blinded the minds of them which believe not” (2 Cor. 4:4).

“We’ve Missed Something”

Time passed. They were now the parents of two little girls, and they were anxious to bring them up the best way possible. When the minister of another church invited them to a “Bible study” at his house, they went eagerly but soon noticed that they were the only ones there with a Bible. The table was filled with beer and liquor, and young couples sat around drinking and laughing. That Sunday the minister preached in the pulpit against drinking as the young people smiled to themselves at his hypocrisy. Linda thought, “There’s no way we could bring up our two girls in this atmosphere!”

(You remember the Lord Jesus spoke of spiritual leaders who were “blind leaders of the blind.” Perhaps you have met such “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who preach one thing and practice another. Please don’t dismiss God and the Bible because of this. Have you stopped using money because of the counterfeits that exist?)

As they continued their search, they were often disappointed. At another “Bible study,” there was little of the Bible but much of other books. They were almost giving up their search now. “We’re not staying here,” they decided.

Then a neighbor gave them a book about the future events that are recorded in Revelation, the last book of the Bible. They were amazed as they read about coming judgments on the unprepared world. Linda began to read her Bible more and understood that she was not ready to die and that good works did not qualify her for heaven. “Joe, we’ve never thought about hell before, but I think that’s where we’re going. We’ve missed something.”

Two Roads and
Two Destinies

A few weeks later, one cold winter evening, Linda struggled to understand the truths she had learned. Something seemed to say, “Choose God and live His way.” Another voice seemed to say, “What will your friends say if they see you with a Bible? Do you really want your life to change?”

She looked up at the old Bible text on the wall. It said clearly, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).

In her heart she surrendered to God’s will and received the Lord Jesus as her Savior. She thanked Him for dying for her sins.

A few days later Linda and Joe went again with their neighbors to hear the gospel. There were two speakers. Both speakers read from John 3 and emphasized Jesus’ words: “Ye must be born again,” and, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

They also talked about the two roads of life and the two destinies in eternity. Joe knew he was on the wide road that leads to destruction and hell. He wanted off that road!

He simply asked the Lord to take away his sins, and immediately the weight of sin that he had carried for so long was gone. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).

New Desires

Their life began to change now as they saw life-problems-priorities from God’s point of view. They grew in love and appreciation for other believers and for God’s Word. They discovered that the Lord who saved them also had the power to sustain them as believers. No, they weren’t perfect now, but they were forgiven. In their hearts blossomed new desires to live as God intended. And when they failed, Someone was there to pick them up. Truly, they were “born again.”

Their old friends did mock: “Saved from what? And what’s this about the Lord coming again?” Sometimes it wasn’t easy to answer them, but they knew one thing for sure. They had no regrets, not even one! Salvation was the best thing they had ever experienced.

What regrets do you have?

Have you been deceived?

Can you say, I know for sure I have been forgiven?

Once Too Often

He did it once too often!

Who? A boy whose terrible mistake launched him into eternity instantly.

What did he do once too often?

He ran to cross the railroad tracks in front of the whizzing express train. It was his habit to wait until the last moment and then dash across the tracks right in front of the oncoming train, laughing as the engine almost brushed his heels.

But he did it once too often. A miscalculation of the distance, a slip, a stumble, or the extra speed of a behind-schedule train: Somehow or other he was caught and in an instant crushed to death.

Where? In the town of Valparaiso, Indiana.

You may do it once too often!

Who? You! You may be sane and rational in everyday affairs, but you may be acting insanely towards your far more important soul.

What may you do once too often? Risk your soul! Once too often you may take a chance with your soul-once too often you may assume that there is plenty of time and that it is safe to postpone the most important decision of your life.

You may take that chance once too often.

Where? In a land with Bibles on every side, in a land with privileges unparalleled and where no one need perish in the dark or miss an entrance into heaven because they cannot learn the way.

Jesus says, “I am the way.” Receive Him as your Savior now. Don’t refuse His love any longer. Remember, you may do it once too often.

“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3).

Onesimus

What a strange, old-fashioned name—Onesimus! It is not likely you have ever met anyone of that name today, but in Bible times it seems to have been quite common. Common, too, was slavery—and Onesimus was a slave.

He was the property of Philemon of Colosse, a city in Asia. It was a long journey from Colosse to Rome, Italy, but at that time Rome was the center of the civilized world. As people then said, “All roads lead to Rome,” and it would certainly attract a discontented, young slave. There, among the throngs from every corner of the Roman Empire, even a runaway slave could escape notice and, maybe, begin a new life as a free man.

Many of us today can read our own story in that of Onesimus. Though the property of the God who made us, we have been unprofitable to Him. Our lives have been spent as though there were no God. “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:12). These are the words of the living God Himself. Like Onesimus, we have not only been unprofitable to our God, but we have turned our backs on Him altogether.

So, Onesimus ran away from Philemon and journeyed toward Rome. Reaching it at last, he must have felt the past slavery was far behind him. What a bitter awakening it must have been for him to discover in Rome the Apostle Paul! Paul had been to Colosse and knew Philemon. Probably he was acquainted with Onesimus also. This might well mean his return to slavery with all the penalties prescribed for runaway slaves. Or it could mean his death!

Not so! Paul, who once had threatened death to any followers of the Lord Jesus—whether men or women—had experienced the grace of God and been forgiven for his murderous efforts. Now, knowing the Lord Jesus Himself, he told Onesimus of his own conversion and of his assurance of forgiveness and salvation. Such grace and mercy! Onesimus could not refuse it, even knowing what the cost to himself might be, and he turned thankfully to the Lord. Onesimus was converted.

Did he then find himself imprisoned and awaiting judgment? Not at all. Paul sent him back to Philemon with a letter pleading for mercy for the escaped slave. He would have grace shown to him, like the grace of God to prodigals. Yet he would not have righteousness disowned, and so he says, “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; I, Paul, have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it” (Philem. 1:18-19).

This is just such language as the Savior Himself might have used as He went to the cross of Calvary. His atoning sacrifice has met every claim and satisfied every righteous demand. On the basis of it, God can show grace even to the most unworthy.

“For love’s sake,” too, Paul pleads. Who more unlovable than sinners? But who so dear to the divine heart of Christ? For His sake every blessing awaits those who come to God in His name alone.

The heart of the Apostle seemed to glow with his theme. He describes in detail the kind of reception that was to be given to the returning one. Never again was he to be a slave, but to be welcomed to the heart of the family. In like manner every believer in Jesus has been divinely emancipated from the slavery of sin and Satan and has been brought into the very family of God. Onesimus was to be received as Paul himself, and he was to be welcomed home forever.

Every believer is blessed according to the worthiness of Christ Himself. In Christ’s acceptance he is accepted, with all Christ’s blessings is he blessed, and with all the love of the Father’s heart is he loved forevermore. What a position! What glorious results from Christ’s atoning sacrifice!

A Place of Absolute Safety

Six miles northeast of Avery, Idaho, William Rock was in charge of a crew of seventy firefighters. They had been directed to this strategic location in order to halt the progress of a very large forest fire which had already utterly destroyed thousands of acres of prime wilderness forest.

When the fire swept up to their fire line, it was dreadfully apparent at once that with their shovels and mattocks they were pitiably overmatched. The swiftly moving blaze was being fed by strong winds. Like a giant tidal wave of orange leaping flames, it was engulfing everything in its path of destruction.

William Rock had never seen a forest fire of this magnitude before. He knew the safety of his men depended on him. If they tried to stay and fight the fire, they would be swallowed up in its flame. If they broke and ran, the swiftly moving flames would overtake them on the rough terrain. Desperately he pitched about in his mind for a way to save his men. Then he remembered the area that had been burnt by a spot fire the day before. His men had been able to control that burn, and the small area had nothing left in it that might be fuel for the fire.

He led his men to this already burned-over area. Soon the area was surrounded by high walls of leaping flames. Smoke spiraled high into the sky. Ashes and embers rained down on the already burnt area, but, having nothing to feed on, they died out. So terrible was the sight all around them that one man panicked, bolted, and tried to outrun the fire before the area was surrounded. He was the only casualty among the crew in the terrible fire of that day.

If William Rock had tried to stay and fight the fire or tried to flee on foot before the firestorm, his crew would have been lost. But he led them to an area where the fire had already been, and it turned out to be a place of absolute safety.

Because God is omniscient, or all-knowing, there is no use in pretending we haven’t sinned. Because He is omnipotent, or all powerful, no one should believe they can withstand His anger in their own strength. Because He is omnipresent, there is no use trying to escape His wrath by running away or hiding from Him. “Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” (Psa. 139:7). Each one of us will have to give an account of our lives to a holy God.

Our only hope is to stand where the fire has already been. The Son of God, the Creator of the universe, in love and mercy became a man and went to the cross and died for us. God’s wrath in all its awful power fell on Him in wave after wave. Of all the men who have ever lived, He only was able to bear the sins of others, for He had lived a perfect life and never sinned. In the last three hours of darkness on the cross, the Lord Jesus bore in His own body the sins of all those who would afterward believe on Him.

God is worthy of the highest praise from every heart for what Christ has done on the cross. Because Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, we can find a place of absolute safety. When we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we stand, as it were, in the place where the fire has already been. We go free, because the Lord Jesus paid the supreme price for us.

You may not flee God’s wrath in the sense of finding someplace to hide where God will never find you. You may not extinguish His wrath by doing “good works” even as the firefighters in the story were not able to put out the towering flames by throwing shovels of dirt at it, but by God’s grace alone, you may come to the Lord Jesus Christ who paid sin’s awful price. By coming to Him as a sinner and trusting Him with all your heart, you will stand in the place of absolute safety.

This disobedient and unbelieving world is soon to pass into fiery judgment. Only the long-suffering of God holds back His wrath as He waits for sinners to repent. But the long-suffering of God will not hold back His wrath forever. The only place of safety is to stand where the fire has already been by trusting the Savior. Oh, do come to the Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners, before it is forever too late and the fire of God’s judgment breaks over you!

“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

Plenty of Time

“Run for your lives! Leave quickly! Soufriere is going to erupt!” George Edwards was rushing from house to house in the little village, crying out these words, warning everyone he saw: “Leave now, before it’s too late!”

Even as he spoke, rumblings could be heard coming from the volcano towering four thousand feet above them. Smoke was billowing out from the peak, as it had been for some days.

George Edwards was a God-fearing man who for years had told these people of safety for eternity by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he had two messages of warning to the people. The first was God’s message: “Flee from the wrath to come” (Matt. 3:7). The second was from the government of the island of St. Pierre. He was being paid by the government to watch the mountain and to give warning when it seemed ready to erupt.

During the last few days it was obvious that something was happening in the mountain. The usually quiet and peaceful area was disturbed by strange sounds and smoke and dust. However, after a few days the people became used to them and continued to work in their fields and gardens. That is, they did until Mr. Edwards came along with his disturbing message: “Leave at once,” he pleaded again and again. “It’s not safe to stay!”

Some left their homes and gardens and fled, but many did not. It would be too hard to leave everything, so they kept right on with their work. They said, “Ol’ Soufriere’s OK. There’s plenty of time!”

At last George Edwards dared wait no longer, and he fled the town just before the mountain burst out in a burning, flaming eruption. Molten lava came pouring down the mountainside, destroying everything in its path. Down, down it came, two miles three-right through the village without waiting for any now as they tried to flee. Almost 2,000 people were swept into eternity-some killed by the poisonous gases and many others trapped in the super-heated lava as it flowed onward four miles and then out to sea. Then even the sea began to boil and the sea water turned into steam.

What a tragedy! How heartbreaking, even for those who had fled, to have their homes demolished so suddenly—but they had escaped with their lives. Those who remained behind in the village no doubt intended to leave in time, but they put it off until it was too late. Have you done the same thing to God’s message? Have you put off your answer to His loving invitation? Oh, don’t delay!

“Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

Don’t delay, my friend; delay is dangerous. Come to Him NOW! The Lord Jesus shed His precious blood on the cross of Calvary. He will save you today, if you will only own your lost condition before Him and flee to Him for shelter. We can warn and plead with you, but YOU must take the loving Savior at His word.

“Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

Reflection in a Spherical Mirror

A remarkable quality about the self-portrait in the spherical mirror is that, no matter where the mirror might have been placed in relation to the viewer, the eyes of the viewer will always be in the dead center of the mirror. Whether he had held the ball inches away or an arm’s length away, at eye level, shoulder level or above his head, it would have made no difference. There is really no escaping the phenomenon of always being at the dead center of a spherical mirror when looking into it.

Just as there is no escaping the phenomenon of being at the center of a spherical mirror for whoever is looking into it, so there is no escaping the truth that every individual is at the center of God’s attention. Whether you are upright or wretched, atheist or believer, small or great in the eyes of others, you are, as an individual, at the center of God’s attention. Someone from a long time ago once said, “The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.” The saying describes how God looks on the world and individuals in particular. He knows everything about you, sees all you do, and knows your every undertaking. He knows all this as if nothing else beside you ever existed and all His infinite power was directed toward you alone.

As men, we possess the limited ability to concentrate on a few objects at a time. But God is infinite and not limited by time or space. Therefore, He knows all things, at all times, and in a perfect way. There is no place where you may hide from His sight. You cannot disappear into a crowd. No darkness is thick enough to block out His vision, nor is there any place where you can escape His presence.

It is the nature of a spherical mirror that when you look into it, you will see yourself at the very center of it. And it is the nature of God that wherever you are, whatever you are doing, God’s attention is centered on you.

As His attention is focused on you, so also is His love. So that all men might know the greatness of His love, He sent His Son into the world. In His life the Lord Jesus glorified God by His unerring obedience which eventually led Him to the cross. In His death He made a way that hell-deserving sinners might be saved. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The same immense love that brought the Lord Jesus to the cross is in the world today seeking out sinners to bring them home to Himself. The way to enter into God’s favor for time and eternity is open to all because the blood shed on Calvary has the power to wash away the repentant sinner’s every stain of sin. “The blood of Jesus Christ [God’s] Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Since He knows you so well, there is no sense trying to pretend that you are not a sinner. It is probably true that you have done many good things in your life-acts of kindness, keeping the law, paying your taxes on time, loving your family, or many other acts that are praiseworthy—but nonetheless the truth is that at the same time you have done those worthwhile things your heart inside you was not right before God. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart” (Jer. 17:9-10). The undeniable truth is you are far from perfect, you have committed sin, and you are marked as a sinner in God’s sight. The God who sees all and knows all has said very clearly in His Word, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Because we are sinners, we all desperately need the Savior. Through His work on the cross, the Lord Jesus has obtained the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life for all who turn to Him in faith. Once you are saved, He wants you to learn more of His love and live as His dear child. Make no mistake, you are at the center of God’s attention. This same God, who knows all about you, wants you to come to Christ and to receive His wonderful gift of eternal life—eternal love.

Can you refuse His love and continue to live as if God were far off and Christ never died for you? Or will you return to the God who loves you and gave His Son for you that you might have life?

The Rose Bowl Games

It was years ago, and I was a real football fan! That summer I’d been in charge of a threshing crew near Glendive, Montana, and I’d been able to save over $500. That was a lot in those days; it would be enough to take me all the way to Pasadena, California, for the Rose Bowl game, and I was itching to be on my way.

After a few stops here and there, I arrived at Seattle and decided to go the rest of the way by boat, so I bought a ticket to San Francisco, since that was where the boat was going to stop.

I got so sick on that boat that I thought I was going to die. I got to the point that I was so sick I wanted to die. So I decided I’d better get off when the boat docked at Coos Bay, Oregon. I bought a train ticket from there to San Francisco.

San Francisco was interesting. I looked around for a day or two and then bought my train ticket to Los Angeles.

I was hotfootin’ it down the street to the train station with my luggage when a big, burly policeman stopped me. He thought I was some kind of a crook. Wait! Let me change that a bit—the Lord stopped me. When that policeman finished going through my suitcase and let me go, I’d missed my train. There was no way I’d get to Los Angeles now in time for that game!

I did finally get to Los Angeles-after the game was all over. There was a little park there close to the station. I sat down on a bench; I was kind of grouchy and wondering what I should do. I felt in my pocket, and there was a tract in there that I’d picked up while I was on the train. I read it over and found it pretty interesting, so I just prayed to Jesus and asked Him to show me where He wanted me to go.

I felt sort of restless, so I went for a short walk. I found myself at the corner of 6th and Main, listening to some gospel preachers. I listened for about an hour.

When they were finished preaching, one of the men came over to me and asked if I was saved. I said, “No.” So he asked me if I would like to be saved. I said, “Yes.” We talked for a little while, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior right there on the street.

One of the men took me home for supper, and I went to a gospel meeting with him. After the meeting was over, I was invited to another man’s house. He rented me a room, and I stayed there for quite a while doing carpentry work and repairing things for him.

I’m not one bit sorry I missed that Rose Bowl game-no, not one tiny bit! What I found instead is so much better that there’s no comparison! And it lasts for all eternity! You can have it and enjoy it, too. It costs nothing, because Jesus paid the price for my sins when He suffered and died on the cross. He set me free from my sins when I accepted Him as my very own Savior. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Would you like to meet Jesus and have Him set you free? “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

A Rude Awakening

James Currens was a sleepwalker. It was not unusual for him to rouse a little from a sound sleep, reach for his indispensable cane, and wander around a bit at night. It didn’t seem like a big problem in the quiet neighborhood where he lived—that is, not until the night when he walked straight into trouble.

It was a pleasant, peaceful night with little to disturb Currens as he walked. No dogs barked, no car horns blared, no late night loudspeakers roused him as he strolled around. Nothing seemed threatening, until he stumbled and fell—fell down the bank of the pond behind his house.

He fell into water and mud chest deep, and there he stuck. At 77 years of age with very weak legs (one knee had been rebuilt with titanium parts), he was too frail to pull himself out of the muck.

Wide awake now and struggling in the water, he began to realize that he was not alone. A curious alligator approached, and another, and another. Soon he was surrounded by eight or ten gators, each three feet long or more. As they moved closer, he began to poke at them with his cane, but they would merely move away a little and begin another approach.

He knew he needed help and began to yell. At last a neighbor woke up and heard him and called for help. Firemen and sheriff’s deputies soon arrived and could hear his cries, but they could not see him in the dark water. Shining their lights on the water, they could see nothing but alligators.

“I’m over here where your light is,” he cried.

One deputy, James Cooper, ran, jumping a couple of fences, and found Currens in the water. As the others used their lights to scare the alligators back, he waded into the mud, got hold of Currens’ cane, and pulled him to safety.

What a rude awakening! We wonder how many others in the world today are “sleepwalking” their way through life. They see nothing threatening, hear no alarm sounding, and go carelessly on until they fall helpless, hopeless and irredeemable into the pit.

There was a rescue for James Currens. There was one who risked his own life, went into the dark waters, and brought him safely out after he fell in. There is a rescuer for living sleepwalkers too—there is One who not only risked His life but gave it to save souls from falling into the pit of hell. But not even He can or will lift one out after they reach that dreadful destination. Salvation has been provided, but it is for the living. There is no escape if we “neglect so great salvation.”

“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14).

Saved by a Strong Arm

Three friends, all energetic men in their early twenties, pulled up to Altaire Campground on the Elwha River. They unloaded two brightly colored kayaks, one red and the other yellow, from the top of the van and carried them to the river’s edge. Two of them, Evan and Tyson, donned life jackets, sat themselves down in the small openings of the narrow boats, and snapped the cockpit skirts around their waists. With a wave to their friend and a flick of their paddles they propelled themselves out into the current of the river.

The third friend, Josh, didn’t like the water as much as his two buddies. He had come along to hike the trail next to the river. He had a digital camera on a strap around his neck. The blue-gray water of the river, surrounded by forested hillsides, is home to all sorts of birds and wildlife, and Josh planned to get some great photos.

The Elwha flows down from the mountains. Fed by snowmelt, it flows at a brisk rate but all was going well until, coming around a bend, the pair in the kayaks saw a giant uprooted tree blocking a large portion of the river. The tree was several feet in circumference and over a hundred feet long. The fallen tree was redirecting a large flow of the river, creating treacherous currents.

If Evan and Tyson had had more experience kayaking on a river, they might have foreseen the danger and avoided it, but all their prior experience kayaking had been on lakes and the protected waters of Port Angeles Harbor. They were steering their kayaks to pass around the tip of the giant log when the current caught them in its power and quickly swept them towards the log. They thrust their paddles into the water to break away from the current, but the flow of water was too strong.

With a heart-stopping thud, Tyson and his kayak rammed the tree broadside. The point of Ethan’s kayak hit Tyson’s, causing Ethan to spin away downriver. Tyson, trapped against the log by the current, lost his balance in the collision. The relentless flow of water piled up on top of his small craft. An enormous flow of water also ran downward under the tree. It was drawing the kayak beneath the surface. Tyson reached out and grabbed a small limb of the tree.

The kayak was ripped away from him and disappeared beneath the downward surge of water. Holding on to the limb with one hand, most of Tyson’s body was plunged beneath the surface. The same relentless current which had pulled his kayak under was now pulling him. He knew that if he let go, the current would pull him under the surface and he would drown. For long minutes he clung to the limb, fighting for his life. With his free hand he tried to claw the bark of the tree to pull himself up, but it was hopeless. Abruptly the limb partially broke, plunging him even deeper into the water. Just when it seemed he would lose the battle against the current, a hand reached out and grabbed his arm.

It was Josh. He saw his friend’s danger and ran out on top of the fallen log to help. Lying flat on his stomach, he reached out his arm as far as he could and grabbed his friend’s arm just when he was about to sink. The force of the river was so great that Josh “felt like he was hanging on to a thousand pounds of dead weight with one hand!”

Deep fatigue set into his arm as he strained with all his strength, and he cried out with pain as his arm was pulled from its shoulder socket-yet he held on. Soon Evan was able to beach his kayak and run out on the giant tree to help. Together he and Josh managed to get Tyson out of the water and on top of the tree. The trio lay on their backs on the broad tree, panting for breath. Downriver they saw the yellow kayak as it finally resurfaced. It had been underwater for the entire ordeal of several minutes.

If Josh had gotten to Tyson a few seconds late, or if Josh’s arm had been shorter, Tyson might have been sucked under the logjam and been drowned. He owes his life to his friend’s strength and perseverance. There is One, mighty in power, who is reaching out to lost souls. No matter how deeply anyone has fallen into sin or how strong the current is that is pulling them down to destruction, the arm of the Lord is strong enough and long enough to reach down and save that one. God can save the most wretched of sinners because His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, died for them.

At Calvary God “showed strength with His arm” and made a way for destitute, ungodly sinners to be saved. Because Christ died on the cross, the good news of the gospel can go out to all the world telling them of a free salvation.

Sadly, not everyone who hears the good news of a Savior dying for the sins of the world will believe it. Isaiah, an Old Testament prophet, asked, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” It is sad because only those who believe the gospel will receive eternal life. Those who reject it will be cast out of God’s presence for all eternity into the darkness of hell. Those who reject the gospel will learn by awful firsthand experience that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31).

Do you feel like sin has caught you in its swirling whirlpool and is dragging you under? Like there is no hope of recovery? Like life is unbearable? Like you have given yourself over to hell, and to hell you must go? Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His work on the cross, He can save you. His hand is not shortened, but can surely reach you where you are and lay tight hold of you and bring you to Himself.

The Lord Jesus didn’t give His life for us because we loved Him. He gave His life for us because He loved us. He knew our sins, shame, unworthiness, coldness and hardness, and still He loved us and gave His life on the cross that we might be saved. If He treated us as we deserve, there is not a man or woman who would escape the destruction of hell. Only the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners, can set us free.

Won’t you come as a lost sinner to the Lord Jesus? No matter how black your heart is, His blood can wash it white as snow. If you come to the Savior, you may know for yourself the wonderful truth contained in the incredible verse in Deuteronomy 33:27: “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Those are the only arms strong enough to keep you safe for time and eternity.

“The Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isa. 52:10).

The Search on Staircase Trail

Gilbert Gilman, ex-Army paratrooper, was in the prime of life. Strong, confident and capable, one day he parked his shiny sports car (which was one of his prized possessions) in the small parking area at the beginning of the hiking trail known as the “Staircase” in the eastern Olympic Mountains. Up he began to hike into some of the most beautiful and rugged landscape in North America.

Somewhere along the way he must have wandered or fallen off the main trail. When he didn’t return in the evening, National Park Rangers were notified, and they organized a search to begin the next day as soon as it was daylight. The search lasted ten days and involved over 5,000 man-hours. Rangers, “Search and Rescue” personnel and volunteers all combed the terrain. Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft searched by air. Snorkelers swam the Skokomish River, searching in the shallow water in case the missing hiker had drowned. When the river ran too fast for swimmers, men searched with underwater cameras attached to poles along ledges and logjams.

Gilman had not told anyone where he was going, and despite the all-out effort of the searchers, no trace of the hiker was found. When Park Rangers felt they had tried everything possible-and failed-they called off the search.

Do you know that we live in a world of lost souls, and that a grand search is underway to find them? Men and women are lost because they have been estranged from God through sin. Being lost doesn’t mean they have experienced a fall from the path of respectability. It doesn’t mean that they are crushed under the circumstances of life and are so wounded that they cannot lift themselves back up. It doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate the beauty of the universe. Being “lost” doesn’t mean they have never felt the presence of the Creator; many of them surely have.

Being lost means sin has separated us from God. We have wandered from the God who made us into paths of self-pleasing. It means, because of our self-will, we are living at a distance from the one true source of goodness and truth in the entire universe. Our souls are lost when we try to live apart from the Giver of all life. “Lost souls” isn’t a catchy, poetic phrase devoid of any definite meaning. Souls who continue on in their lost condition until they die will find themselves “lost” in the darkness of hell for all eternity.

No one has to perish in a lost state. Even at this moment a search is going on by God to bring lost sinners back to Himself. God had to initiate this search because man, left to himself, would never find his way back on his own. To make a way possible for people to come back to Him, God sent His Son into this world. The Lord Jesus went all the way to the cross where He gave His life for sinners. God’s light and love shone out at the cross like a mighty beacon for all the world of lost sinners to see.

On the cross the Lord Jesus paid sin’s fearful penalty. Because the death of the Lord Jesus means so much to God, He can freely justify all those who place their faith in His Son. “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39). Without this justification by faith, souls are lost and will always remain so, unless they come to Christ.

The intensive search for Gilbert Gilman continued for ten days, but he was not found. God in grace is searching for you to bring you home to Himself. Will you hear the Savior’s voice and come to Him? If you come to Christ, you can have the happy assurance that you are saved and can sing with truth:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now I’m found;

Was blind, but now I see.

“The Son of Man [Jesus] is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

Security

Security! How we value it! How we strive to achieve it with bolts and locks and bars, with watchdogs, guns and bodyguards. Can security be guaranteed by such means?

Hardly!

With all the resources of a great country at his command, surrounded by secret service men whose sole mission in life was to protect the president, President Kennedy was struck down by an assassin’s bullet.

In New York City, a well-known musician was shot to death with his guard by him.

Pope John Paul was shot and seriously wounded in the presence of 10,000 devoted followers.

It has been said that, in spite of all precautions, every time a public figure steps out of doors, “he is at the mercy of any madman with a gun.” Is this security?

Forgetting the high-risk people, how about the majority of us: ordinary people, doing ordinary jobs in ordinary places—schools, office buildings, shopping centers, trains—does “lower risk” mean “secure”? Every day brings news of sudden death or injury in all walks of life. Where is security to be found? Must all people today live out their lives in fear and trembling, huddled behind locked and barred doors? Is there any real security?

YES! There is security—security beyond anything the world can offer or imagine. The Lord Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:27-28).

Who are these “sheep”? In verse 9 of the same chapter He says, “I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

Any man-or woman-or child-who comes to God through the Lord Jesus, “the Door,” and in simple faith accepts His gift of eternal life becomes one of His sheep, one of His own who shall never perish.

God’s Word tells us that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come...shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

Now that is real security!

See How Much I Will Lose

She was young, healthy, pretty, with many friends and interests—in short, she was living what is called “a full life.” Many people might say enviously, “She has it all!”

But one thing she lacked! When a Christian talked with her about receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior, she seemed to be weighing her choices very seriously. She put her pleasures and prospects on one side of a scale, and an indefinable something, “turning religious,” “getting saved” or something of that sort on the other side. She came to the conclusion that the loss would be greater than apparent gain if she were to take the step to Christ.

“See how much I will lose,” she said in conclusion.

She was asked, “Did you read the other day of the big fire where a house was burned and an elderly woman at the top of the house was rescued at the last minute by a fireman?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then try to imagine the fireman dashing into that room and saying, ‘Lady, you haven’t a moment to spare! Come quickly, and I will save you,’ and the woman answering, ‘See how much I will lose if I come with you just now? I have jewelry and art treasures here worth thousands of dollars-must I lose all that?’ The fireman would say bluntly, ‘Lady, if you don’t come this minute, I must save others and leave you to your fate.’”

She agreed that no sane person would be likely to say anything so foolish, yet she was doing that very thing and risking her immortal soul for the uncertainty of her present life.

Are you doing the same? Suppose you put in the balance on one side the things that go to make up your life and without which you think you could not live, and on the other side of the balance you put Christ. What will you lose?

Your sins.

You may have your pleasures; you certainly have your sins. Do what you will, go where you wish, live as you please—you still have your sins, from which you cannot get away. Sometimes the thought of your sins haunts you, the knowledge of the penalty of your sins terrifies you, but still you hesitate, asking yourself, “What will I lose if?”

Add it up yourself. Put all you have or can hope to have in all your life on the one side, and at the end write: eternal loss.

On the other side think of every possible trouble and sorrow that you can have if you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and write at the end: life everlasting.

It just doesn’t balance at all! There is no way to compare the two lives, but the Lord Jesus put the matter clearly when He said when He was here on the earth, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37).

The choice is yours—make it now for Christ, for life, for eternity.

Sorry

There was never any doubt about their guilt. The two college students were caught by police as they burglarized cars on the university campus. When the police searched their car, they found stereo equipment linking them to eight burglaries at another campus over a hundred miles away.

Arrested, facing possible jail sentences, they were offered a “deal.” A prosecutor would drop the charges if they completed probation and apologized. Accordingly, the two paid for advertisements in their school’s newspaper and submitted apologies. One said, in part, “It wasn’t worth it. I’m sorry.”

Others have escaped jail terms by the same route: a teenager who sold cocaine, a lawyer who scuffled with a policeman, a convicted drug dealer-a newspaper ad saying, “I’m sorry,” has been the penalty.

But is it enough?

In the parking lot of a shopping center there was a crash—a sound of crumpling metal—and a driver hastily got out to examine the car he had so carelessly hit. After looking at the damaged car and finding it empty, he took out a piece of paper, wrote on it, and tucked it under the windshield wiper. Then he drove away.

Soon the owner of the car came back from her shopping and saw what had happened. Shocked and dismayed, she turned to a man sitting in a car nearby.

“Did you see what happened to my car?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he said, “I saw it all. He left a note for you on the windshield.”

Visions of a big repair bill faded. Evidently the man had left his name and telephone number. Relieved, she opened the paper and read one word:

SORRY!

Speechless, she showed it to the witness.

“Well,” he said, “he said he was sorry; isn’t that enough?”

“Sorry!” Her voice rose to a shriek. “SORRY! But who is going to pay?”

That is the point. “Sorry” wasn’t enough. “Sorry” paid no bills, made no restitution. “Sorry” left the stereos ripped out of the cars; “sorry” would have left the woman’s car as it was. (Happily, the witness had quietly written down the license number of the hit-and-run car, and we can hope that the driver eventually paid for repairs.) It is good to be sorry for wrong things done, to repent, even to determine to “do better next time,” but there is still the question: “Who is going to pay?”

We have all done wrong things, broken God’s laws, sinned. Is it enough to tell God that we are sorry and that we won’t do it again? The Bible says that “God requireth that which is past” (Eccl. 3:15).

No amount of reformation will wipe out the sins of the past. There must be an atonement; someone must pay the bill.

Can we ourselves do that? Never. Only One could ever do it-the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to this earth and lived a perfect life down here-but that alone could not save a single sinner. He had to give His life, to die, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God.

“God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Yes, the Lord Jesus paid the penalty for our sins and now God can justify all who simply believe and receive “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).

And then? Then “not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Rom. 5:11). Yes, Jesus paid it all!

The Spot on the Sun

The picture filled the computer screen. The sun—that great, glowing, orange ball 93 million miles from earth. And on that ball—a tiny black spot. Zoom in a little closer, and the familiar outline of the Space Station appears. A closer look, and there is the “shuttle” slowly moving away from the Station as it begins a three-day journey back to earth, 250 miles away.

It is amazing! fantastic! mind-boggling! awe-inspiring! There at last is the right word: awe-inspiring. To see that little black spot so accurately pictured against the sun, and the sun still in the focus of the camera even though 93 million miles farther away, is almost unbelievable.

But, as one knowledgeable person commented, “If that doesn’t point up just how feeble and puny our outer space efforts are, I don’t know what does!”

True. We have ventured out a little way from earth; we have sent our “probes” farther out into the unknown, but the more we learn, the more humble we are-or should be. More than three thousand years ago King David wrote, “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?” (Psa. 8:3-4).

What is man, indeed? The Bible says, “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field...for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more....The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever” (Psa. 103:15-16; Isa. 40:8).

And the greatest wonder, the unfathomable mystery, is why should the ever-living God want to bless poor, sinful, ungrateful humanity-wanted it so much that He gave His only Son to suffer and die for us.

That is the greatest wonder.

Stop - Look - Listen

STOP, for judgment lies before you

And a holy God you face

If you still refuse His mercy,

And despise His offered grace.

LOOK, to Him who once was lifted

On the cross for you-for me;

Bore the storm of wrath and judgment

That the guilty might be free.

LISTEN to His call of mercy,

“Come, and I will give you rest”;

Trust in Him who died to save you,

And believing you are blest.

STOP, and LOOK, and LISTEN, sinner,

For you soon will pass away

Either into outer darkness,

Or to heaven’s eternal day.

Such Good Intentions

Good intentions? The very best! Scientists and engineers all agreed that all those tires clogging up landfills could be dumped into the ocean to make artificial reefs for marine life. What a wonderful idea!

Millions of old tires were barged out to sea and dumped offshore, with the unqualified approval of scientists, engineers, and even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The idea was received with enthusiasm by tire companies, one company even marking the public inaugural of the great project with a gold-painted tire dropped into the sea from a company blimp hovering overhead.

That was more than three decades ago.

Today, the tires are still there, but the hoped-for coral reefs and the fish are not. The tires form dismal, barren areas of sea floor, or have broken loose from their moorings and are washing up on our beaches.

There is little marine life clinging to the would-be reefs; instead, the sad truth is that where thousands of tires have come to rest against natural reefs, “they are blocking coral growth and devastating marine life.”

“They are a constantly killing, coral-destruction machine,” said the coordinator for a federal group organizing a clean-up program. The state of Florida alone proposes to spend over $2,000,000 to remove the tires, and estimates say it will cost as much more over a period of at least four years. One engineer called it, “A white-walled, steel-belted monument to good intentions gone awry.”

Have you had any wasted good intentions in your life? Have you perhaps said, “I’m going to live a better life,” or, “I’m going to turn over a new leaf,” or even, “I’m going to be a Christian (someday).” Good intentions all, but don’t waste your time! ACT now! There just might not be another time for you.

Probably no one, now living, remembers the old copy books that school children once used to practice writing. One sentence, to be copied over and over, was, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Only too true. Good intentions have never saved one soul from hell, never lifted one soul up to heaven.

Never, never let it be said of you, “He always intended to come to Christ.” Or, “She really meant to become a Christian!” Good intentions are just not enough. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Josh. 24:15).

A Talk at the Door

Knock, knock.

Who is it?

Hi! Just visiting in your neighborhood. May I ask you a spiritual question?

Guess you could, but I’m an atheist. There is no God. So why bother?

Interesting! You know for sure that there is no God? On what evidence?

Well, what I mean is, I don’t think there is a God. I don’t believe there is. Who can know?

Oh, I see; you don’t know if there is a God. Well, that makes you an agnostic.

I’m an agnostic then.

What kind?

How many kinds are there?

Two kinds. The first one says you can’t know if there is a God; in fact, you can’t know anything for sure.

Hey, that would be me. Nobody can know anything for sure.

Really? How do you know that?

Know what?

How do you know for sure that nobody can know anything for sure?

Ah, I see. That was dumb of me. I guess I’m the other kind of agnostic. What is it?

The second kind doesn’t know if there is a God because he has never seen evidence for God.

Well that’s me, I suppose. I’ve never seen the evidence. Is there evidence for God?

Of course there is. And some people are afraid of finding it. Could be their conduct makes them afraid to look. They just hope there is no God and no evidence for Him. It’s like hoping the doctor can’t see the threatening spots on your lungs in the X-ray because you have a busy schedule. As you know, wishful thinking can’t make the evidence go away.

I see where you’re going with this. What do you want to say?

I would want you to start reading your Bible. Start in John, the fourth book of the New Testament. It’s written for people who want to read the evidence. The Bible is a bit like the doctor’s X-ray, and it may point out a few things about yourself that you’d rather not know. But it seems you’re the type who does want to know the truth. Thankfully, it also will show you the remedy for your shortcomings.

The Bible says, “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name” (John 20:31).

"Ten Dollars, Man!"

I had given out some gospel booklets in the town, and as I walked on down the street I was overtaken by a prosperous looking man. He spoke to me and said he was glad to see me doing such a good work.

“Are you a Christian too?” I asked.

“Do you see that building over there? We had a meeting for the Sunday school there last evening,” he answered.

“Then you must be interested in such matters. Are you a Christian?” I repeated.

“We had a collection last evening for the Sunday school,” said he.

“Really! But are you a Christian?”

“I gave ten dollars to the good work. Besides doing the school good, that is a good example, isn’t it?”

“Well, but are you a Christian? Or, speaking more plainly” (for he seemed a little deaf as to my question), “are your sins forgiven? If you should die this moment, are you ready to enter God’s presence?”

“Humph,” muttered the man, “who knows that? Haven’t I helped the good cause for the Almighty?”

“Then do you think that God needs your ten dollars?” I asked.

“I have helped on the good cause,” he said. Walking along more briskly he repeated, “Ten dollars, man! Money!”

“Man!” I cried. “Do you mean to go out of this world offering God your money? He is freely offering to you the value of the precious blood of Christ, and you are turning from the wonderful gift of His own dear Son to boast how you dragged out a bit of money from your unwilling pocket.”

At this point the annoyed man turned off to another street, and as he went I could hear him still repeating, “I gave ten dollars to the school last night!”

He expressed his own opinion of his good deeds and generosity, but there are many like him who imagine that money given to the collection on Sunday or a large subscription to a charity is, to say the least, one step up the ladder to heaven.

Not so! The Apostle Peter said to Simon the Sorcerer, “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God” (Acts 8:20-21).

God’s way is very different. Sin earns wages, and “the wages of sin is death,” but eternal life is “the gift of God...through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Are you earning the wages—or receiving the gift?

"That Jesus Christ Stuff"

Almost everyone who is offered a pocket calendar will receive it with thanks. Some even ask for another one, but few refuse them. A gentleman ahead of me at the checkout had finished his transaction. As he passed by, I offered him a calendar which he gratefully accepted. He walked toward the door reading it.

Suddenly he turned back and slammed the calendar down on the counter. In a loud, angry voice he said, “That Jesus Christ stuff!” Then he turned and stomped out the door saying, “You should have your head soaked in ice water.” I thought, Wow, I got off easy. My Savior had a crown of thorns pressed on His blessed head. Then the soldiers struck him on His head with a reed and spit on Him.

Two ladies behind us accepted the calendars with thanks. One of them in an astonished tone asked, “Is this what he was so angry about?”

How sad that anyone would reject the Lord Jesus who came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Others neglect Him. Rejecting or neglecting salvation has the same result. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3).

In Luke 10, Jesus told the story of a man who was beaten and robbed and left half dead by the roadside. By chance a priest and then a Levite came where he was and looked on him. They both passed by on the other side. As representatives of religion and the law, they could not help him. Religious activities and trying to keep the law cannot save a sinner.

But a certain Samaritan came where he was. When he saw him, he had compassion on him. He went to him and bound up his wounds and took him to an inn where he was cared for. The priest and the Levite would have despised the Samaritan. It was the despised one, however, who really cared for the wounded man.

The priest and the Levite only came by chance. The Samaritan came intentionally to where the wounded man was. This is a lovely picture of what the Lord Jesus has done for us sinners. He had come into the world on purpose “to seek and to save that which was lost.”

How sad the result if the wounded man had said, “Go away, Samaritan, don’t touch me.” He did not reject the Samaritan. Rather, he accepted what was done for him. The Samaritan bound up his wounds and brought him to an inn. He paid the host for the man’s care. Before leaving him, the Samaritan promised to come back again.

The Lord Jesus came down from heaven to reach lost sinners and to give Himself a ransom for us. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but...to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).

Before the Lord Jesus went back to heaven, He promised to come back again. Believers today are waiting and watching for Him to come. He is coming to take all those who have trusted Him for salvation home to heaven with Him.

“I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3).

How sad to think of this man turning away in anger from the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps his conscience may repeat his own words to him—“Jesus Christ.”

“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).

"This Is Not Your Rest"

Imagine living in a country where so much pollution is pumped into the atmosphere that the people can no longer see the sun. What a loss it would be for the folks living there! People who had lived all their lives in such a place might even begin to doubt such a thing as a sun even existed.

I know you would not like to live in a country so full of smog and dirty air that you could not see the sun. However, many people are living in a state spiritually which approaches this condition. The sun is the supreme object that we see in the sky, and God is the supreme being of the universe, but so many people are filling the atmosphere with talk about how the Creator God doesn’t exist and how we really are just the product of random chance that a generation is growing up having a great difficulty seeing the truth of God’s existence.

The quantity of false teaching about God may be overwhelming, but it will never alter the truth-God lives and reigns supreme! He is the great “I am,” the eternally existent one without beginning or end. His existence doesn’t depend on any other, while the existence of every other person or thing depends totally on Him. He is great in every way, whether in love, kindness, mercy, righteousness, holiness or wrath.

In the greatness of His love He sent His Son into the world to die in the sinner’s place. This same love is active in the world today seeking sinners, making them to know their lost condition, and then bringing them home to the Savior. A person’s sins may be as black as the pit of hell, but no matter how terrible those sins are, they will be forgiven and washed away if they turn to the Savior in faith. “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow,” the psalmist wrote, and his words are absolutely true for every soul that trusts in the Lord Jesus.

Only by coming to the Lord Jesus can anyone leave behind the pollution of sin, shame and unbelief and have, as it were, the sun of God’s love shine into the depths of their dark hearts. They might have caught glimpses of its faint outline before, but until a person comes to Christ, he can never know God’s love in its depth and breadth and life-giving power in a personal way.

God pleads with man: “Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction” (Mic. 2:10). God is not willing that any man should perish. He wants all men to depart from that which is polluted and brings eternal death. He wants them to turn to the Savior and find the life He alone has to give. “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish,” the Lord Jesus said.

Oh, be wise and come to God the Father through Jesus Christ His Son, and receive the gift of everlasting life today.

Tickets to Paradise

The scenery is so lush and beautiful and the climate is so mild in the Hawaiian Islands that sometimes they are spoken of as “Paradise.” Recently a new company, Johnson Airways, advertised shockingly low rates to Hawaii: only $89 dollars for a one-way ticket out of Los Angeles! The price was the lowest of all the bargain rates, almost too good to be true. Purchasing the tickets was a painless procedure on the Internet, and customers began snapping up the tickets. They had only to put in their credit card numbers and select the flight they wanted from the schedule. In return, they received their e-tickets promptly.

There was only one problem. Johnson Airways was the scheme of a college business student who set up a very complicated, attractive Web site in order to defraud unwary customers of their money. Johnson Airways didn’t possess a single aircraft, much less the fleet it would have needed to make all the scheduled flights. The young man who developed the Web site and collected the money was soon arrested by police for fraud and will probably spend some serious time in jail. Many of the customers who bought tickets were unable to recoup their losses.

Hawaii is a beautiful place, but it is not paradise on earth. Even in Hawaii there is still a plentiful supply of sorrow, tears and death. Only in the paradise called heaven will these things never be allowed. Heaven is a place of pure love, light, joy and life, where sorrow of any type will never come. The joy of heaven comes from knowing God, and seeing Him as He is. These joys are so great that they are impossible to describe with words. God wants everyone to share in the joy of that wonderful place. He invites everyone to come.

The only problem is sin. Sin effectively bars a person from heaven. This is a problem indeed, “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). To deal with this problem, God sent His Son into the world. At the cross the Lord Jesus gave His life to do away with the problem of sin forever. The Lord Jesus stood in the gap between a holy God and sinful humanity. The ransom He gave was His life on the cross. Because of that ransom, every person who believes on the Lord Jesus will have their sins forgiven and will be made fit to enter into God’s presence, for “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Lots of people these days are buying into the concept that human beings are not sinners, and everything will eventually be all right with their souls even if they never come to Christ. Don’t believe it! The only way of salvation is through faith in Christ, who died to put our sins away. Every other way of salvation is a hoax, fraud or deceit perpetuated by sinful man. Don’t be taken in by any false schemes, for if you die without having come to Christ, you will never be able to recoup your losses, but you must spend eternity banished into hell and out of His glorious presence forever.

Tomorrow

“Moses said unto Pharaoh...when shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?”

“And he said, TOMORROW” (Ex. 8:9-10).

“Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1).

“Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and TOMORROW shall be as this day, and much more abundant” (Isaiah 56:12).

“Ye know not what shall be on the MORROW!” (James 4:14).

Trapped in a Transport Tube

Something was crying. Not crying softly and gently, trying to smother its cries, but crying wildly, desperately, shrieking a distress too great to be borne.

The patients in the doctor’s office looked at each other in dismay. Who? Or what? And where was it? Where were those awful shrieks coming from?

It was not in the doctor’s office. There were no desperate patients there! All was new and shiny clean in the newly renovated bank building. Nothing was screaming there!

At last they traced the shrieks to the transport tubes leading out to the old drive-through stands. They identified the sounds; a tiny kitten was trapped inside. Ah...this would be easy! Just reach into the tube and get the little thing. The tube was four inches wide, but twenty-two feet long. Then they tried a medical instrument, made to shine a light down a human windpipe. No success. Could they make a hole in the top of the pipe? The pipe was buried beneath three feet of concrete.

By this time the fire-rescue truck was there with two trained rescue medics. The little kitten continued to wail.

There were two wires in the tube, wires used to transport documents and money from one building to the other. One of the firemen fastened a red plastic cup to one end of a wire, and the other man gently pulled the other end of the wire. The kitten was caught in the cup and carefully and gently pulled to the other end of the tube and delivered to the doctor’s office.

Then what a change for the little calico cat! They gave her oxygen, fed her with a syringe, and cleaned her face. Never had she been so cared for in her whole one day of existence.

Her eyes were not open yet, but she could feel the warmth, the comfort, the satisfied hunger, and, yes, the love that saved and cared for her. She went home with one of the women in the doctor’s office. She said, “She can really scream for such a little one!”

Blind, and without any strength of her own, she cried-and was heard. That is a picture of us as human beings: Blind and helpless, there is nothing we can do for ourselves but cry to Him who has done all we could ever need, and done it forever.

When Jesus died on the cross, it was a sacrifice great enough to cover the whole human race, if they would accept it. But so many, many have said as the Jews of old, “Away with Him”, “we will not have this man to reign over us.” And they refused the one and only Savior.

“If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24).

How much better to be like little Teller (that is the name they gave to the little kitten found in the renovated bank) and accept all the kindness and mercy which He showers down on those who trust in Him.

All He asks of us is to believe and trust and accept all His kindness. The reward is immeasurable: “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” Adopted into His family, received at last into His own home: Think of it!

Two Roads at the Same Time

Two roads at the same time? Or one going up, and the other down? Can you travel both at once? Do you even think you can?

Well, there was once a man who thought he could, and he tried with all his might to go both ways at once. His name was Balaam, and he lived many years ago, but human nature has not improved with the passing of years. Balaam could well have lived in our time. Certainly there are many today who would say exactly what he said.

“Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” (Num. 23:10). That was what Balaam said, and a very pious wish he expressed, but how different is the record of his life! He would have gladly cursed God’s people, the Israelites, for money; he loved the wages of unrighteousness, and finally he is spoken of as the man who taught Israel to sin.

Poor Balaam wished to die the death of the righteous, but nothing at all shows that he wanted to live the life of the righteous. He is a warning to all who hope to come to the end of the narrow road that leads to life and glory, yet remain in the broad road on the way to destruction. No, no one can travel the two roads at the same time.

The death of Balaam came as he was fighting against the people of God: He was killed by the sword on the battlefield. It was a sad end for one who had hoped to die the death of the righteous.

It is not surprising that men should desire to die the death of the righteous, but if as many who desire the happy end of the righteous lived the life of the righteous, what a different place the world would be!

The truth is that in things pertaining to God and the Lord Jesus Christ, life and death, heaven and hell, we cannot be neutral. We must be either for or against.

The way toward righteousness begins by accepting God’s Word that there is none righteous, no, not one and by receiving the righteousness which is given of God. Those who are “righteous” will be in heaven with Jesus Christ, while many who intended to do right will find their way down the slippery descent to eternal destruction.

It must be God’s righteousness, or none at all. You must be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ or an unbeliever-either on the broad road or the narrow one. On which one are you? Which?

Do not let the indifference and the apathy to divine things that is so prevalent today lead you into the swamp of procrastination. Christ is real! Life and death are real! And-time is short! Choose now-choose the upward road! You will never regret it.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

The Coast Guard Station located where the Quileute River empties into the Pacific Ocean is responsible for the safety of boaters in some of the most treacherous waters in the Pacific Northwest. On a certain winter night a husband and wife were sailing a 31-foot sailboat, named the Gale Runner, when they were caught in a violent storm. To escape the terrible pounding of the storm, they made for the harbor at La Push on the Washington Coast. Before they could manage to get to the shelter of the harbor, a strong gust of wind broke the mast of the sailboat, and then a huge wave crashed over the length of the boat, blowing out the hatches of the ship and filling the engine compartment with water. Life sputtered out of the engine and the boat was without power. Driven by the fierce winds, it would soon dash itself to pieces on the nearby rocks.

Four men from the Coast Guard Station set off within minutes of receiving the distress signal from the sailboat. They were equipped with a modern, 40-foot motorized lifeboat. This boat was designed for rough waters and would automatically right itself if flipped over by a wave.

No sooner did the boat cross the bar of the river and enter the sea before a powerful wave flipped it over. The boat righted itself and kept going in the direction of the Gale Runner. The second time it flipped over, the entire superstructure was wrenched off. In the grueling sea, the boat flipped over in the water a total of four times. All but one of the sailors was swept overboard to death in the effort. The fourth was so badly wounded that he had to be rescued himself.

The husband and wife were lifted off their boat by a helicopter crew just minutes before it was battered to pieces on the rocks. It was a daring rescue. In the attempt to rescue the boaters, three brave men made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives in the line of duty. These men did not hesitate to go out into the night and the dangerous sea, and helicopter pilots risked their lives in the rescue effort.

Do you know the One who made the ultimate sacrifice that your soul might be saved? He is the Lord Jesus Christ. He left the glories of heaven and came to this earth where sin has set everything in turmoil. At the age of thirty, He began His public ministry. He preached the gospel to the poor and did miracles of healing. After three and a half years of tireless service, He was taken by cruel hands and nailed to the cross, where His life was cruelly taken away from the earth.

Many men have been called on to make the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country or fellow-man. The sacrifice made by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is far and away greater than any other.

God is the giver of all good, and when He gave His Son to die, He could give no greater gift to sinful humanity. “Jesus bruised and put to shame tells the glory of God’s name,” a songwriter wrote. When Christ died, He made a way that the infinite riches of His mercy might flow out to undeserving sinners. All who now realize their impoverished condition and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ receive the gift of eternal life. “Whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:15). Do you have the gift of eternal life? You may not have it through any merit of your own, for we are all undeserving sinners. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” But God is pleased to give it to every person who recognizes his lost condition and need of the Savior. Unless you believe in the Lord Jesus, God’s wonderful gift of eternal life will never be yours.

Only because of His sacrifice on the cross will all those who believe on Him enter into the glorious rest of heaven. Heaven is a place where all is light, love, peace and joy. No sorrow or distress will ever cast a shadow over the hearts and minds of souls in heaven. The desire to sin will forever be done away. Never again will they know a sinful thought or an unholy wish. Will you be there? Die you must, for we are born with a necessity to die, but only those who believe in Christ and the work He did on the cross can look forward to heaven. Come to your senses, and believe in the Lord Jesus so that when this short life is over you might have a home in heaven.

There is no other way to escape the ultimate ruin of the “second death” but through Christ. The second death will occur when all the wicked dead from the beginning of history are raised from the grave and gathered together to stand before God as their judge (the “great white throne”). There they will be judged by their works and receive the just sentence for their deeds. “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God...and the dead were judged [by]...their works.” Those who lived without the Lord Jesus and wanted nothing to do with His salvation will be cast into the “lake of fire.” There they will suffer for all eternity. The act of being judged and sentenced to the lake of fire is what Scripture terms the “second death.” Only the ultimate sacrifice of the Savior on the cross can save a soul from the “second death.” You who are alive without faith, look squarely into the future. You will at some time, if you continue in a state of unbelief, stand before God to be judged by your works. Are you ready for that horrible moment when you must face a holy God in judgment? Of course not! Fall on your knees before the Lord Jesus Christ and thank Him for making the ultimate sacrifice for you, and trust Him as your Savior. The only way to be saved is by faith in Christ.

Many men have given their lives and made the ultimate sacrifice. They deserve to be acknowledged and honored. But there is only one Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His life for the world. He deserves the deepest praise from every heart. He alone is ultimately worthy. Will you give Him the honor due Him and trust Him for salvation?

The Very Ordinary Little House

The little house looked very much like all the other little houses on the street: built the same year, by the same builder and by the same set of plans no, it didn’t stand out in any way. Well, there was that one slight difference in the healthy herbs growing in his front yard. Where most of his neighbors had flowers or foliage plants, this one house had pots of herbs such as parsley and oregano and basil. Probably the occupant had a “green thumb” and just loved growing herbs.

But the innocent little house held a not-so-innocent secret. Inside it was a garden, a garden devoted to only one kind of plant: marijuana! When the police received a tip and went to the little house with a search warrant, they found 163 marijuana plants growing in 163 big pots. Some of the plants were already four feet tall. They estimated the value of the plants “on the street” at about $400,000.

There was an elaborate system of control for temperature and humidity in the house, plus carefully planned light and water and fertilizer. Most human babies would not have been so precisely monitored!

And for what purpose? Was the gardener only working because of a love of plants and growing things? Hardly. His eyes were on money—big money—to be harvested from the plants. The money would be spent on even stronger drugs for himself. That was just the beginning of the story. Every sale of marijuana was intended to be one more small step downward to drug addiction for someone else, someone who would continue to spend more and more on drugs until his money would be gone. Then, caught in the web of an addiction stronger than himself, he would go on down into a life of petty crime and trouble and loss. It might end up in prison or homeless on the streets: a lost and wasted life, a lost and ruined soul, a terrible result of the hidden and covered-up secret of the little house that looked so much like all the other little houses on that street.

We, people—human beings—are much like that. We all look somewhat alike: two eyes, one nose, one mouth, bodies, heads, arms and legs, basically the same as everyone else. But what a difference there is inside! Some are on the downward road, with their backs to God and faces toward fun and possessions and, yes, money—just plain old money—that will make it possible to get more possessions that will give them more fun. But do you remember Judas? He sold his soul for money, money that he didn’t live to spend or enjoy.

What a relief it is to think of the other kind of people-people with their faces turned toward God and Christ, toward love and light and life eternal. They may look the same as others, may be going on with ordinary occupations and ordinary expectations, but their treasure is in heaven. It is not really on things of earth (certainly not in those carefully tended pots of poison!). What a difference! What an eternal, everlasting difference!

The Voice of God

“He doth send out His voice,
and that a mighty voice” (Psa. 68:33).

God spoke in POWER: Let there be light,

And light directly shone!

The voice of God resistless is:

He speaks-and it is done.

God spoke in JUDGMENT: Thou shalt die;

Man sinned, and death came in!

A blighted world attests the fact

Of human guilt and sin.

God spoke in MERCY: “Look to Christ,

Believe in Him and live!”

Thousands receive the precious word:

It’s God’s delight to give.

And still in perfect LOVE He speaks,

His accents all divine!

O wandering one, the call obey,

And glory shall be thine.

Was It a Lie?

The wagons were rolling westward. Long lines of wagons moved slowly across the hot prairies, over the cold mountains, bearing settlers, miners, adventurers, hunters, trappers—all seeking “something beyond.” One was a company of Christians who hoped to take the gospel of God’s grace to those in the West.

It was a company of Christians—plus Joe. Joe was not a Christian. Joe was a very bad character indeed, so bad that in his own country there was a price on his head for murder. It was not safe for him to stay in his own neighborhood, so, meeting up with the Christians, he asked to be hired as a driver of one of their wagons.

However, being in the company of Christians did not make Joe a saint! He hated “religion.” When the wagons stopped rolling for the Lord’s Day (Sunday), Joe did not have to drive, so he would go off with his gun and spend the hours in shooting what game he could find. He would keep well out of the way of hearing the Word of God preached.

As the party went on their way, in the middle of July there came a Sunday so hot that Joe did not even care to go hunting. He laid himself down in the shadow of one of the wagons, carefully selecting that of one of the group who would not be expected to conduct the service.

But Joe had made a mistake. The one whose turn it was to preach was so overcome by the heat that he asked to be excused, and the owner of the wagon under whose shade Joe was sheltering offered to take his place. So the little company gathered around his wagon, and the meeting began.

Joe was lying in the long grass, half asleep, and was furious at being so disturbed. To lie still while hymns were sung and to see the hated Bible opened was too much for him. He would move. He stood up to go, but the heat was too great and he threw himself back down upon the grass. There he lay on his back in front of the preacher, his angry eyes glaring up at him.

“Lord, help me to preach to Joe,” prayed the speaker as he saw the opportunity before him. Forgetting everybody else, he began to tell of the love of God to all His creatures. He told his hearers that, though God gave them rain and sunshine, food and drink, even life itself, yet they did not love Him in return. Instead of loving Him, they hated Him and His servants and His Book. But did He send the lightning and strike them down for their enmity? No, He had given His Son to die to put away their sins. He had shown His love to them, to the worst of them, even to the murderers, and if they would only believe in His Son, He would forgive them and make them His dear children.

Joe’s eyes were fixed on the speaker who, as he went on, watched the anger slowly fading out. Joe did not forget that sermon. One day, walking beside another of the men, he said, “Didn’t the preacher tell awful lies that hot Sunday?”

“Lies, Joe? I didn’t hear any.”

“He said that God loved wicked men. Wasn’t that a lie?”

“Not at all, Joe; it is in the Book. “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins” (Eph. 2:4-5).

“But wasn’t that an awful lie, that the Great Father gave His Son?”

“No, Joe; it is in the Book. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

Then Joe said, “But it must be a lie that He is preparing the beautiful place for them.”

“No” was the answer. “That is true too. It is in the Book. Jesus, the Son of God, said to sinful men whom He loved and had saved, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).

Then Joe said, “If all this is true, I want this way of peace; I want this new life!”

That sermon, and the talk that followed, turned Joe from being Joe-the-wicked to Joe-the-Christian. He believed that God loved him and gave His Son to die for him, and joyfully he received Christ Jesus as his Lord.

Where to Be When A Tornado Hits

The weather forecasters were puzzled. The computers must be wrong. The computerized model at the National Weather Service showed a huge storm coming to the eastern United States-“a storm of relatively unprecedented proportions,” as Elbert Friday, the Service’s director, described it.

How could that be? Such a storm? A week before spring would officially begin? The weathermen shook their heads and concluded that the computers were wrong; someone had fed the wrong figures in or had not used the right equations.

There was no mistake. The computers were right, and by the week’s end the whole eastern seaboard was swept by a “once in a lifetime” storm. Homes and buildings were destroyed, travel was disrupted, and lives were lost from the Tortugas to the Maritimes. Truly it was a storm of “unprecedented proportions.”

Another storm has been forecast, and it is a perfectly reliable forecast. The storm of God’s judgment on this whole world is not far in the future. We can see the storm winds rising already. The Bible has accurately described the signs of the last days.

One definite sign is that “perilous times shall come.” At a recent count, there were forty-two different parts of the world torn by civil strife, if not outright warfare, where the whole population lives in daily, deadly peril. Terrorist actions and a rising tide of crime leave few people confident of safety.

Safety? Where is it? As one man said, “The only safe place in a tornado is somewhere else.”

Exactly! And that is God’s plan for every born-again child of His. Before the full fury of that worldwide storm strikes, the Lord Jesus is going to “descend from heaven with a shout...and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

It could be today!

Where?

I work in a hospital in the suburbs of Chicago and would like to tell you about someone I met there. Her name is Sandy. She was a schoolteacher who lived in the Chicago area. Sandy had developed a serious lung disease that progressed to the point that she required hospitalization.

Shortly after she was admitted, I went into her room to give her the medication that would make it easier to breathe. As I walked in, I saw a Bible on her bedside table, so I asked her if she had read the Bible.

“Not really,” she said, “but people in a prayer group are praying for my recovery.”

I asked Sandy, “Do you know where you are going to spend eternity?”

“No, I’m not sure,” she replied, “but I hope to go to heaven.”

“Do you know the Bible says that you can have your sins forgiven and know where you are going to spend eternity?” I asked.

“Nobody ever told me that before!” she answered.

So I told Sandy that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” and “that through this Man [Jesus] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified.”

On subsequent nights I continued speaking with her about God’s way of salvation. Then her physical condition worsened and she had to be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. If Sandy was going to survive, she needed to be placed on a respirator.

I was at the bedside when she said to the doctors, “I’m counting on you guys!”

Those were the last words she ever said, for after that Sandy’s heart slowed and then her heart stopped altogether. We performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but it was too late. Sandy was dead.

I’m telling you this story because I want to ask you, Who are you counting on?

Has anyone told you that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

Is Jesus Christ your Savior? Or are you counting on the prayers of others or your own good works?

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.”

Where is Sandy now?

If she received Jesus Christ as her Savior,

HEAVEN.

If she did not accept Him as her Savior,

HELL!

There are no other options.

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

Friend, instead of living a life without an assurance of eternal blessing, risking eternity in hell, and counting on the prayers and efforts of others, why not come to Christ now? Accept Him as your Savior for an assured and blessed eternity, and a much happier life here on earth. Jesus said that He came that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.

Yona of Rwanda

Andrew, an African schoolteacher, was an eyewitness to the death of Yona, a Christian pastor in Rwanda. This is the translation of Andrew’s report: “Yona died rejoicing. He died praying, praying for those who were killing him.

“On Thursday, January 23, at seven o’clock in the evening, a jeep with five men arrived in front of Yona’s house. He was called outside; he went with a brave heart, trusting God. Two of the men came to my house and told me I was wanted. When I went outside, I found my friend already there. They told us to climb into the jeep.

“We went off with a third prisoner toward a town where we thought we were being taken. When Yona saw we were going toward this town, he said to me, ‘Let us surrender our lives into God’s hands.’ He did not say this because of any evil he had done, but because for many days he had seen men taking people away like this, and they never returned.

“We went on our way, crossing a river, and a little way on the further side we saw about eight more men. They ordered us out of the jeep and told us to surrender anything we had. The third prisoner had a small suitcase which he put on the ground, and I put my watch on this case.

“Yona asked permission to write in his diary, and he wrote, ‘We are going to heaven...’ and then he wrote, as carefully as he could in the time, an account of the church funds left in his care. He placed this diary, with the key of his cupboard, on the case as well as a few coins from his pocket and asked the men to see that his wife was given those things.

“One man then said, ‘You had better pray to your God.’ So we all stood up and Yona prayed, ‘Lord God, You know that we have not sinned against the government, and now I pray in Your mercy, accept our lives. Look upon our innocent blood and these men, who know not what they are doing. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.’

“Then we were commanded to sit down, and they brought rope and tied our arms behind our backs. One man was told to take Yona away, but before he went we sang the hymn, ‘There is a happy land, where saints in glory stand...’

“When we had finished singing, they took him away, and as he went he asked me, ‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ?’ I said, ‘Yes, I believe, because we read that whosoever believes will be saved.’ Then he went, singing as he walked: ‘There’s a land that is fairer than day, And by faith we can see it afar...’ “The men took him to the bridge over the river. There they shot him and threw his body into the water. “I was left sitting with the third prisoner and the other men. They were all amazed; they had never seen anyone go singing to his death as he did. The men then called me to them, and I went. They ordered me to sit again and asked if anyone had an ax or a knife, and I thought that perhaps they were to cut me up as they had done to many others. They asked me my name, and then they returned my watch to me. I asked them to keep it to send to my wife, but they ordered me to put it on.

“They then put me in the jeep again and, leaving the third prisoner on the road with some of the men, we returned, and they told me to go home. God in His mercy later sent a man to lead me through the bush, so that I might flee to another country where I have found refuge. “The death of Yona amazed those men who saw him, because he truly died as a man of God, praying for his enemies. For himself he did not fear death, because for him, as for all other saved people, Christ Jesus is the door to heaven. “As for me, who have been saved from this bodily death, it has taught me again that God will save me from the second death which is the final judgment saved through faith in Jesus Christ who died for us. And you who read this testimony, God is asking you to confess Him before men now even though the day may never come when you might be called to stand before those who would kill you, as Yona did. “I, Andrew, whom God has saved from death, write these words, and they are true.”

You Really Shouldn't Be Here

Nelson glanced at the threatening sky as it began to rain. The other roofers were already climbing down to the ground. In Markham, Ontario, the June 2006 season was full of summer promises and life was busy. Today he looked forward to going home early to be with his wife and his little six-month-old son.

The words of the doctor two months ago were still fresh in his mind: “Your son may not pull through this serious heart surgery.” But, thankfully, he had pulled through. Sometimes as he looked into his son’s bright eyes he thought, “You really shouldn’t be here.”

Truly life can take some unexpected turns. The Bible says, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1).

Just as Nelson undid his safety harness, he remembered that he had one more thing to do. He walked across the slippery roof to the edge without replacing his harness. He would simply pull the tarp over the roof to keep it out of the rain and he would be done.

But he slipped! In a moment of time, so fast he had no time even to think, he went down. Thirty feet below the roof his body slammed into the hard pavement. The workmen scrambled over to his quiet body. They all spoke at once: “He must be dead.” “Quick, call an ambulance!” “They’ll never get here in time. Look at the traffic!”

Quickly the police blocked off the four lanes of traffic, and a medical helicopter slowly dropped to the road. Then off they flew to nearby Sunnybrook Hospital.

The next day Nelson looked up as the doctor spoke: “You shouldn’t be here, you know.”

“Oh, am I in the wrong room, doctor?”

“No, I mean you fell thirty feet. You should be dead.”

But he was alive and very thankful.

Perhaps you have had such a thought: “I really shouldn’t be here.” Maybe you’ve had a close call. The other car was hit and you were, oh, so close! Maybe it was the surgery you had. The patient in the other bed didn’t make it, but you did. Do you know where you would be if you had not made it? Do you have the assurance that you would be in heaven?

You can have that assurance. The Lord Jesus came into our world to deal with our sin. That’s why He died on the cross-it wasn’t an accident. On the cross He took the blame for my sin. God judged Him as if He had done all the sinning, but He was holy. The Bible says it this way: “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6).

Have you ever stopped to thank God for His mercy, for sparing your life more times than you are aware of? You are still here, by the goodness of God. Consider it another opportunity to welcome the Lord Jesus into your life.

“As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).

Echoes of Grace: 2007

Table of Contents

A 24,000,000,000 Utility Bill

Attacked by Rottweilers

The Book

Byron and Paul: A Contrast

Choose Now

A Deadly Mistake

Dear Bernie

Decisions

Destined to Crash

Down a Dead-End Road

F-14 Crashes

The Foolish Rich Man

Forty Years Nearer

God Is Not Mocked

God Is Not Mocked

The Greatest Physician

Her Pet Tiger

An Honest Confession

"I Can't Make It!"

I Chose Life

"In Jesus"

In Jesus

In the Beginning

It Can't Happen

It Can't Happen Here

It Could Happen Tomorrow

It Is Finished

John 3:16: The Two-Sided Verse

John 5 and 24

A Lighthouse in the Desert?

A Living Hope - Now!

Living Next to a Volcano

Luna

The Man, Christ Jesus

Man Saved Me from Drowning

Never Enough

No Regrets, Not Even One

Once Too Often

Onesimus

A Place of Absolute Safety

Plenty of Time

Reflection in a Spherical Mirror

The Rose Bowl Games

A Rude Awakening

Saved by a Strong Arm

The Search on Staircase Trail

Security

See How Much I Will Lose

Sorry

The Spot on the Sun

Stop - Look - Listen

Such Good Intentions

A Talk at the Door

"Ten Dollars, Man!"

"That Jesus Christ Stuff"

"This Is Not Your Rest"

Tickets to Paradise

Tomorrow

Trapped in a Transport Tube

Two Roads at the Same Time

The Ultimate Sacrifice

The Very Ordinary Little House

The Voice of God

Was It a Lie?

Where to Be When A Tornado Hits

Where?

Yona of Rwanda

You Really Shouldn't Be Here