Your Future

 •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 7
DEAR Reader, what about your future? your past, whatever it has been, is gone forever and cannot be recalled, your present is slipping away moment by moment with every beat of your pulse. Your future-ah! have you ever thought about it-the endless, endless future? Perhaps you say, "I have never given it one serious thought." Dear friend, why is this? If a man had a bill to meet on an appointed day, would he not be prepared for it? or if he had a friend coming to see him, would he not be anxious to be quite ready for him?
Ah! my unconverted reader, there is a solemn event in your future. God says, "It is appointed unto men once to DIE" (Heb. 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)). Do what you will, you cannot avoid DEATH. But the Scripture just referred to does not end there, solemn though it be to contemplate death, and though the miserable annihilationist would fain have us believe that the unconverted man perishes in death like the beast; for I read, "after this the JUDGMENT." This, my friend, is what I especially desire to call your earnest attention to. As you think of your future path, there stands right against you in the way DEATH and JUDGMENT; what a future yours is, dear friend, if you continue in your present road. And you cannot escape it. God cannot remit the sentence. He has said, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." And His word also says, "ALL have sinned." Thus ALL, including my reader, are under the sentence, which is death, followed by judgment.
I earnestly pray that every unsaved soul who reads these words may realize his danger, and see that, except by this sentence of death and judgment being fully borne, there can be no salvation. For oh, dear friend, when you have thus found out your need, and have cried from your heart to God, "What must I do to be saved?" we have to tell you that He is "rich in mercy," "not willing that any should perish;" that He has said, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom" (Job 33:2424Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. (Job 33:24)); that though He is of "purer eyes than to behold evil," and cannot "look on iniquity" (Hab. 1), yet "doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him" (2 Sam. 14:1414For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. (2 Samuel 14:14)). Are you indeed so anxious to be saved that you say, "Do tell me how these things can be?" Then listen, and may God bless His Word to you.
Now, my friend, do you not see that HE has borne the SIN; HE has passed through DEATH; HE has been under the JUDGMENT. This is the means God has devised to bring back His banished, to bring you back, poor sinner, into His presence in perfect peace and happiness, and that, too, in perfect righteousness. "How do I know it is for me?" some soul will say. Ah, my friend, when you feel your need of it, you will not raise such a question, but you will joyfully accept the word that says, "By him, ALL that believe, are justified from ALL THINGS" (Acts 13:3939And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:39)). Death and judgment are now no longer in your future, as the consequence of your sins, if believing in Jesus; yea, God is righteous and just in justifying you (Rom. 3:2626To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:26)), because His own Son has fully and infinitely met every claim, and, discharged all your responsibility as a guilty, but now believing sinner. How simple, yet how blessedly true.
And now, what is your future? Blessed he His name, Christ has so settled the questions of sin, death and judgment, that God can give you in lieu of sin, righteousness (2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)); of death, eternal life (John 3:36;10:2836He 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)
28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:28)), and of the fear of judgment, the hope of glory (Rom. 5:22By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2)). What an exchange! what a future! The dark future of death and judgment is gone forever, for Christ has taken them; so that as He has passed through them, I can now look at them as BEHIND me, for He went through them FOR ME. And He has brought in eternal life and the glory of God, and given them to me as my present possession and future hope. This is what is BEFORE me. Is not this a bright future?
And think, that all this blessedness may be yours this moment, even NOW, for the Word is "To him that WORKETH NOT, but BELIEVETH on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:55But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)).
H. P. A. G.