HELLO-SINNER, let me say a few words of truth in love. They are God's words. They are tidings not gloomy but glad. They are addressed to you as much as to any other. Listen, I beseech you: they concern you now and forever.
The gospel of God is not something for you to do. It is the glad tidings of what He has done by His Son, that you might by faith know your sins forgiven, and yourself justified in His sight. Then and thus only you may have peace with God, and be saved. God alone can do all this and more for you; but even He can only do it righteously through His Son as the propitiation for your sins.
The Lord Jesus gave Himself up as a sacrifice for us. No other way was possible. This way is all sufficient. It meets man as he is in his sins. It glorifies God as He is even as to man's sins, and His own judgment of them.
The Son, Who is God over all blessed for ever no less truly than God the Father, became man in a way altogether above man, that He might manifest God even the Father, defeat Satan, and bear sins in His own body on the tree. God was thus vindicated in all His attributes; and through Christ He can reconcile, cleanse, and save the most guilty. What can so fully prove, on the one hand His goodness, love, and grace; on the other His holiness, justice, and truth? The death of Jesus the Lord, His Son; was nearer to His heart and more to His glory than the worth of all the creatures that ever lived. Yet Him God gave to endure the judgment of sin; and Jesus glorified God in that wondrous work, as in every other, perfectly and according to the glory of His person.
You are a sinner, and in your conscience dread God's judgment of your sins. You are lost, as He tells you: what can be more certain or dreadful? But Jesus, the Son of man, came to seek and to save the lost Is not this equally certain? Is it not beyond anything blessed news for you if you believe God? But remember you only aggravate your guilt if you disbelieve Him. For it is more heinous to insult the glad tidings than to despise the law.
Beware then that you refuse not Him that is speaking from heaven in the gospel. There is salvation in none other than Jesus. His is the only Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
Doubt not God's infinite compassion to you. He it was Who gave His only-begotten Son for you. It is equally true that the Son came, and that the Father sent Him, in a love altogether divine. So it is the gospel "of God," as it is also "of Christ." Nor can you do greater despite to the Spirit of grace, than to treat His saving message with contempt or even neglect.
Delay here is most dangerous. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Therefore could the apostle and his companion say to the heathen but alarmed jailer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Oh believe, that you too may be saved! Why should you perish in your sins and unbelief?