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Note:
As many of our customers come here because
they are suffering from life-threatening ailments, and as all of us are
subjects of a far worse disease, a terminal disease of the soul, it was
thought expedient to attempt to present to those of our customers minded
to hear of it, a certain remedy, and for which there is no price, but
which is free to all who are made to feel their need of it.
Are
You Ready to Die?
If
there is one thing that each of us is made aware of in this life, it is
the reality of guilt. Whether we think it's existence arises from a true
or a false cause, its reality cannot be denied. It motivates people with
a seemingly irresistible gravity, and in its consummate stages causes
men to go insane. It thus spawns vast multitudes of social problems, and
an equally innumerable army of those minded to work a miracle cure, but
who, in the providence of God, end up multiplied more times afflicted
with misery and insanity than the populous they suppose to cure. It is
a well established fact that the psychology profession is multiplied times
more afflicted with suicide and other psychological problems than is the
populous in general. As the proverb says, "Physician, heal thyself".
The
reason why psychologists cannot heal themselves or others, (nor those
that have no better authority in life than to follow the public opinion
they generate through educational institutions and the media), is because
their theories are always based upon one of two propositions; that their
guilt is something which they themselves can absolve themselves from,
or that it is entirely a false witness, the former being the place of
false religion, the latter of the psychology profession. For while psychologists
do believe that guilt can be telling the truth so far as telling us we
did something that was wrong, yet they defy its witness to constitute
a condemnation of the soul, and as representing the voice of God in its
awful condemnatory authority. Thus rather than find a satisfaction for
the reality of guilt, they seek to nullify the credibility of its witness
to the soul, and they never seem to be instructed by their failures, for
that never has, and never will cure anyone of anything, but only make
him worse. Man's remedy always seems to be either that of attempting to
make an atonement for himself, or to discredit the witness of his conscience
as a lie, the former of which is like telling a judge that you should
be exonerated from a murder charge because you helped 100 little old ladies
across the street, and the latter of which is like ignoring a one way
road sign in rush hour. Thus the two remedies of man.
But these all prove themselves powerless against the authority of conscience,
and men are nothing helped by them. They have no regenerations they can
point to, where people (by the millions, by the way), were utterly delivered
from their distress of heart, as the faith of Christ can honestly boast.
Indeed, whiles the ministers of this religion ponder the failure of their
labor, they themselves fall the like victims, because CONSCIENCE has an
authority which is not easily abnegated, and when it is, the individual
becomes far worse than he was before he confessed such a creed, for now
he has no conscience at all. When men seek to have no conscience as it
pertains the sins they have committed, they end up with no conscience
to presently keep them from sin at all, and they become spectacles of
moral abandonment. A fine cure this.
One would think that the perpetual and universal failure of such efforts
would provoke its ill-repute; and were man not such as they deny him to
be, (depraved), he would long ere now have discovered the cheat, and thus
their trade has a sure income, for it universally perpetuates the evils
upon which it thrives. But sometimes men are caused to think. Sometimes
the course of apostate humanity is arrested by an act of God in the soul
of a man here, a woman there. They begin to honestly reckon with evidence.
When my reason tells me of gravity, I believe it. When my consciousness
tells me of my existence I believe it. When my eyes tell me of my environment
I believe it. Why am I unwilling to hear the voice of CONSCIENCE, when
it speaks with the authority it does within my soul? The fact that it
is a painful witness cannot render it invalid. Could it be, that the reason
why I feel guilty is because, after all, I AM guilty? That the reason
that I feel condemned, is, after all, because I AM condemned?
The most painful aspect of this consideration is that conscience shows
no way of relief, nor any remedy whatever, but only renews its witness
with a more awful authority the more we indulge it, which is all perfectly
calculated to drive men back into their fantasies. The truth seems to
lead them to certain misery. And indeed were it not for the GRACE of God
that misery would be just as it appears in an enlightened conscience.....
HOPELESS! Hopelessness would be the ultimate truth for every man, were
he left to save himself from the results of his own sins, and under this
persuasion men invent things like psychology and works religion
.
thinking to atone for their own guilt by works, or denying the veracity
of its witness.
Not wanting to follow in their train into this dark dead-end tunnel, we
ought the rather to ask: What is guilt? Guilt is the answer of a moral
judge inside every man, which proclaims to him the genuine moral character
of his heart. We do not feel guilty wrongly. The miserable, but entirely
true fact is, that we feel guilty because we have done things, said things,
thought things, and desired things, which conscience faithfully declares
to be evil and wicked. And yet we did them; we said them; we thought them;
and we desired them, and our conscience seems to hold us captive to the
degree we fail to silence it. And yet if we silence it, it grows weaker
and weaker, and we become worse and worse, which we feel we are unwilling
to do. And yet if we entertain its witness we grow more and more miserable,
which we are even less willing to do.
But why do we not just stop sinning? Why is it that we not only fail to
satisfy conscience as to the matter of past guilt, but fail equally, and
constantly, (if God has given us eyes), in the matter of present duty?
There not only seems to be an irresistible authority in conscience to
terrorize the soul, but there seems to be an equally authoritative power
in our character which compels us to defy all its threatenings, with perfect
success. Thus we become convinced that the problem is not just that I
did bad things, but that I did them BECAUSE I AM BAD. We come to be convinced
that the problem is one of present character, and this is the fountain
from whence all the other evils flow, and which our guilt is really directed
at, and shows all of the threats and retribution of conscience to be justified.
I do bad things because there is something altogether NOT RIGHT about
what I am at the very inmost core of my person. We finally come to admit
and confess that "I'm all wrong, I'm not right, I'm morally polluted
and defiled". It is not just that "I stole". It is that
I am a thief! It is not just that I committed adultery, but that I am
an adulterer, or an adulteress.
Now I have followed this argument as though everyone was thus directed
by their experience, when the fact is that men have many ways of avoiding
honest dealing with the witness of conscience, and reason. But, as was
said, there is that number whom the hand of God prevents from such a purpose.
Not because they were any different from the others.... FAR FAR from it.
They are often worse. But there is a God, and he has power to make men
face themselves, and let the truth lead them into the depths of human
need, called despair, or at least to feel the inescapable misery of their
character, as a tutor to bring the scholar to a graduation. Contrary to
all his impressions, there is no safer place on earth than to be the scholar
of tutor Despair, because he effectually teaches us the precious inestimable
value of the blood of Christ, and prepares us to love it, to believe it,
to receive it with joy, being made thus sensible of our need.
For those souls ALONE is the gospel good news. None other will ever give
it the least consideration, because they have never been shown favor enough
to FEEL their need of it. If you have read this far, it is likely that
you feel somewhat of the need I have referred to, and have wished, either
secretly, or openly, that there were some way of escape from such a prison
house. You are in a fair way to hear the gospel, for this is how God draws
men to it, and let me, therefore, attempt to give it too you.
Why do not men know God? Why must we speak as we do here today? If there
were a God, why would not everyone know him? Why, then, are there so many
opinions about God? There is a good reason for that. The reason is, because
God is holy, and we are unholy, and God is ALIENATED from men because
of their sin. It is an unpopular truth in our times of preachers scrambling
to fulfill the "felt needs" of man so as to flatter and dine
them into the kingdom of God, but the truth of the bible is that "God
is angry with the wicked every day". (Ps. 7:11) It is no myth of
priest craft, but the sure testimony of the scriptures that God is angry
with the wicked. Because of our unbelief, we are accustomed rather to
think of sin being a matter ONLY of conscience. But conscience is only
bearing faithful testimony to a truth much more awesome...... That its
witness is the voice of God in the soul, and there is an Almighty God
with whom you must reckon, and if you are found in an unprepared way in
that solemn hour of death, then you must certainly and inescapably suffer
an eternal vengeance from his hands; even the eternal vengeance of an
everlasting lake of fire and brimstone in hell.
So why do men not know God? Because they are fallen into a state of total
depravity, and God is angry with them, and does not show himself to them,
and they, being in that state do not naturally know Him, nor wish to know
Him. Thus men are in a state of total blindness and enmity to God, and
God in a state of total enmity to them. Thus fallen man is like unto a
blind man sitting in a room of total darkness, for fallen man has neither
light to see, nor eyes to see it.... has neither God's revelation to his
soul, nor the spiritual organ of sight (faith), to see it, though he had
such light; and thus are men blinded by their sin to the True God.
Were that the sum of our knowledge about God, there would be no point
to publishing it, because the result would be the same whether we knew
of it or not. But what if there is a way out? What if God Himself, seeing
that we were in a perfectly hopeless case, and wholly unable as well as
unwilling to effect our deliverance, felt pity for us, had compassion
on us, and was moved to undertake for sinful men to affect their deliverance
Himself? My friend
. that is the truth. This is exactly what God
has done. He has revealed Himself in mercy to men in the cross, and that
even though man is ungodly, unthankful, sensual, and at enmity to Him.
So great is God! How awesome is that? Not because MEN were good or provided
some worthy motive for pity, but out of the purest most singular and untinctured
mercy, God condescended to save them. All man's works were only sufficient
to provoke everlasting wrath in the heart of God, and just would He have
been should He have elected so to require it of every one of us. But simply
because God is good, and would make that goodness known, He wrought by
his own arm, a salvation so thorough and so complete that not only can
man lay no claim to the least part of it, such that the glory therefore
goes to God alone, Whose goodness alone wrought every part, but it frees
him from the prison house of trying to extricate himself from his moral
bankruptcy when he has nothing to pay. Man is thus let loose from the
prison house of guilt to give glory to God and to worship Him in a much
higher strain than angels, not only for his creation, but for this awesome
redemption.
Imagine, if you will, a man sentenced to die for his crime. Imagine that
he is sentenced to die by being shot through the heart with an arrow.
Imagine further that his executioner stands before him, bow in hand, and
releases the arrow to execute the just sentence upon the culprit. The
bow releases, and the arrow flies straight for its mark and the condemned
knows that he shall the next moment reap the bitter reward of his ways.
Reader, it is a similitude not at all unlike yourself, if you are a man
or woman in an unregenerate, unconverted condition. Reader
is this you? For if your sins are not blotted out by the hand of God,
a sentence has already gone forth for your blood, and the purposes of
God will never be disappointed. For the criminal described above there
is no hope. He is stricken through, and tastes the bitter agony of the
guilt of sin! But did you ever consider that on the spiritual side of
our similitude there is ground for hope, even though the sentence is gone
forth against the ungodly? Even though that arrow of providence presently
speeds against you? Yes, reader, Jesus Christ interposed his breast in-between
the condemned sinner and the arrows of God's almighty wrath, and where
it smote his breast He drank up the cup of sufferings appointed to that
number of souls for the crimes which they had committed, and for the character
of heart that wished to commit them. Just as if a man had stepped in between
the executioner and the criminal, and had opened thus his breast to receive
the judgment of another to work his salvation, so did Jesus Christ, the
historical man, answer before the tribunal of God for the sins of all
that will believe in Him, and has satisfied the wrath of God. Reader,
if God has been satisfied, you can be too. Do you believe this?
But how do I know that this is true? Jesus said, "My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me". (Jn.10) Yes, those for
whom Christ died will necessarily know that it is true, because "Salvation
is of the Lord." (Jonah 2) Do you believe that Jesus Christ was made
an offering for sin, to satisfy the wrath of God against the sinner? Would
God really do that? Is the real God truly like that? God has marvelously
published to the world that it is even so! Hear
. HEAR the words
of God: "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to
grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see
his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall
prosper in his hand. 11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall
be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
for he shall bear their iniquities." (Isaiah 53:10) God the Father
would make God the Son an offering for sin; would see the travail of His
soul upon the cross, and be satisfied.... satisfied toward the sinner,
because all his sins have been imputed to Christ, and satisfaction made;
satisfied against every claim which His incomprehensible justice could
exact against those for whom it was wrought; satisfied in respect to all
the crimes, the shameful secret deeds, the infamous lewdness, the greed
and oppression, the covetous grasping..... satisfied in respect to each
and every unspeakable deed which they had committed against the authority
of heaven, and all others with them. Satisfied! The prison house of conscience
unlocked, for conscience is the voice of God in the soul, and here we
have the voice of God testifying of a satisfaction in the sinner, because
his deeds were propitiated, atoned for, and himself thereby reconciled
to God with power and efficacy! The prison door is opened by God Himself.
Will you leave now? Were you the most wretched and vile profligate on
the earth, Here is a way of salvation for you, because the way is not
of you, but of God, who here proclaims satisfaction in His own work on
behalf of your need. "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (IICor.5:21)
That is why Jesus called men to believe on Him. Because it is by faith
in His person that men are saved from condemnation. This, THIS is the
only escape; the only valid, the only real, living, actual deliverance
in all God's universe from the plague of your guilt, the guilty conscience
of a guilty soul. The point is this. This witness is true. This is the
truth. God can, God will, God does save people who are totally unworthy
of the least part of it. He does it every day, friend. He does it for
"whosoever will". Would that be you? He does it just because
he is good. It is by believing in that Goodness that men are saved, and,
more specifically, by believing on the PERSON who wrought so great a salvation,
The Lord Jesus Christ.... believing that He wrought a salvation acceptable
to God the Father, believing that He pardons FOR NOTHING ANY who come
to Him with NOTHING to spend for it. We would desire to make it more difficult,
but it cannot be more difficult without failing to be salvation. Forget
your own unworthy condition when it comes to the matter of acceptance
with God. Behold the condition of Jesus Christ as he bore the sin of His
people on the cross, and come to God, because that door is opened to you.
If a starving man sees, or even smells, food, he will earnestly desire
to satisfy his body. So if you have been made to feel the pangs of conscience
which waste the spirits of men, you may perhaps by the grace of Jesus
Christ have been made to desire the things of which you have here read.
Has the message of FREE salvation..... Salvation for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
in yourself.... Salvation to the ungodly, to the ill-deserving.... has
it appeared to you as some GOOD NEWS? Has it found a welcome to your heart?
Has it appeared to you a precious message.... a banquet to the famished?
An oasis to the weary desert wanderer? If you can say yes to these things,
it is highly likely that God begins the great work in you. And so I ask
further, do you begin to find deliverance from guilt by such a faith in
a God who saves men for FREE through Jesus Christ? Do you begin to find
the God to whom you have been blinded and alienated by your sin? Do you
begin to find deliverance from the power of sin, and a will to live unto
Christ? Is this happening to you?
If it is not, it ought to be a constant prayer that it would. In either
case, think, pray, read the bible, and above all, get yourself regularly
involved with some godly fervent biblical church that worships Jesus Christ.
Beware of places that simply wish to just run you through their little
savomatic ritual, and proclaim you a saved person with no respect whatever
as to whether you experienced the salvation of God thus described. (Baptist
Holy Water, I call this! And I am a Baptist! lol) Look for a church where
they do not think that being loud and physical in worship constitutes
spirituality. Look for a church where the people have a manifest love
of God, and a place that when they sing you sense that they are truly
worshipping God out of a persuasion of what He has done for them. Try
a Baptist church, or a Bible Church, but above all look for love, gratitude,
and worship toward Jesus Christ
a living love of Him out of a persuasion
of His greatness and what He has done for us. It is nothing less than
essential to your welfare that you get yourself in some place like this.
If you don't find it at first, keep trying.
If I can be of any help, please email me, (Charles Church), at charles
at homehealthresource.net . I would be anxious to speak with you if you
find yourself interested in the things of God. Or if you are still enquiring
and are experiencing a sense of need for God's mercy, please do not hesitate
to contact me. Above all, read the bible and pray for God's enlightenment,
and mortify the deeds of the flesh, that you might be illuminated by the
Spirit of God in the scriptures to understand His truth, and serve Him
with faith and constancy. And may the Lord sanctify and gather His people.
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