A Just God

by Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

a just god you and your tremendous sin debt

When I was under conviction of sin, I had a deep and sharp sense of the justice of God. Sin, whatever it might be to other people, became to me an intolerable burden. It was not so much that I feared the wrath to come, but that I feared sin. I knew myself to be so horribly guilty that I remember feeling that if God did not punish me for sin, He ought to do so. I felt that the judge of all the earth ought to condemn such sin as mine. I sat on the judgment seat and I condemned myself to perish, for I confessed that, had I been God, I could have done no other than send such a guilty creature as I was down to the lowest hell. All the while, I had upon my mind a deep concern for the honor of God’s name and the integrity of His moral government. I felt that it would not satisfy my conscience if it could be forgiven unjustly. The sin that I had committed must be punished. But then there was the question how God could be just—and yet justify me who had been so guilty. I asked my heart, How can He be just and yet the Justifier? (Rom 3:26). I was worried and wearied with this question; neither could I see any answer to it. Certainly I could never have invented an answer which would have satisfied my conscience.
 
The doctrine of the atonement1 is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Who would or could have thought of the just Ruler dying for the unjust rebel? This is no teaching of human mythology or dream of poetical imagination. This method of expiation2 is only known among men because it is a fact. Fiction could not have devised it. God Himself ordained it. It is not a matter which could have been imagined.
 
I had heard the plan of salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus from my youth up, but I did not know any more about it in my innermost soul than if I had been born a Hottentot. It came to me as a new revelation, as fresh as if I had never read the
Scriptures, that Jesus was declared to be “the propitiation for our sins” (1John 2:2), that God might be just.
 
When I was anxious about the possibility of a just God pardoning me, I understood and saw by faith that He who is the Son of God became man and, in His own blessed Person, bore my sin in His own body on the tree. I saw the chastisement of my peace was laid upon Him, and with His stripes I was healed (Isa 53:5). Have you ever seen that? Have you ever understood how God can be just to the full, not remitting penalty nor blunting the edge of the sword, and yet can be infinitely merciful and can justify the ungodly who turn to Him? It was because the Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook to vindicate the Law, by bearing the sentence due me, that therefore God is able to pass by my sin. The Law of God was more vindicated by the death of Christ than it would have been had all transgressions been punished forever.For the Son of God to suffer for sin was a more glorious establishment of the government of God than for the whole race to suffer.
 
“Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf!” Behold the wonder! There He hangs upon the Cross! This is the greatest sight you will ever see: Son of God and Son of man! There He hangs, bearing pains unutterable—“the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1Pe 3:18). Oh, the glory of that sight! The Innocent suffering! The Holy One condemned! The Ever-blessed made a curse! The Infinitely Glorious put to a shameful death!
 
The more I look at the sufferings of the Son of God, the more sure I am that they must meet my case. Why did He suffer, if not to turn aside the penalty from us? If, then, He turned it aside by His death, it is turned aside, and those who believe in Him need not fear it. It must be so, that since expiation is made, God is able to forgive without shaking the basis of His throne or in the least degree blotting out the statute book. Conscience gets a full answer to her tremendous question. The wrath of God against iniquity, whatever that may be, must be beyond all conception terrible. Well did Moses say, “Who knoweth the power of thine anger!” (Psa 90:11). Yet, when we hear the Lord of Glory cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psa 22:1) and see Him yielding up the ghost, we feel that the justice of God has received abundant vindication by obedience so perfect and death so terrible, rendered by so divine a Person. If God Himself bows before His own Law, what more can be done? There is more in the atonement by way of merit than there is in all human sin by way of demerit. The great gulf of Jesus’ loving self sacrifice can swallow up the mountains of our sin, all of them.
 
For the sake of the infinite good of this one representative Man, the Lord may well look with favor upon other men, however unworthy they may be in and of themselves. It was a miracle of miracles that the Lord Jesus Christ should stand in our stead and “bear, that we might never bear, His Fathers righteous Ire.” But He has done so. “It is finished” (Joh 19:30). God will save the sinner because He did not spare His Son. God can pass by your transgressions because He laid those transgressions upon His only begotten Son.
 
What is it to believe in Him? It is not merely to say, “He is God and the Saviour,” but to trust Him wholly and entirely, and take Him for all your salvation from this time forth and forever—your Lord, your Master, your All. If you will have the Lord Jesus, He has you already. If you believe on Him, I tell you, you cannot go to hell, for that were to make the perfect sacrifice of Christ to none effect.
 
If the Lord Jesus Christ died in my stead, why should I die also? Every believer by faith has laid his hands on the Sacrifice, and made it his own, and therefore may rest assured that he can never perish. The Lord would not receive this offering on our behalf and then condemn us to die. The Lord cannot read our pardon written in the blood of His own Son and then smite us. That were impossible! Oh, that you may have grace given you at once to look away to Jesus, Who is the fountainhead of mercy to guilty man! Will you come into this lifeboat just as you are? Here is safety from the wreck. Accept the sure deliverance. Leap for it just as you are, and leap now!
 
I will tell you this thing about myself to encourage you. My sole hope for heaven lies in the full atonement made upon Calvary’s Cross for the ungodly. On that I firmly rely. I have not a shadow of hope anywhere else. You are in the same condition as I am, for we, neither of us, have anything of our own worth thinking of as a ground of trust. Let us join hands and stand together at the foot of the Cross and trust our souls once for all to Him who shed His blood for the guilty. We will be saved by the one and the same Saviour. If you perish trusting Him, I must perish too. What can I do more to prove my own confidence in the Gospel which is set before you?

 





What Heaven Will Be Like

what heaven will be like

This information is for people who think they are going to heaven, who think their good deeds will outweigh their bad deeds and that God will therefore grant them entrance into His eternal kingdom.  Many such people will want to run out of heaven, since it will be so foreign to them and to their way of thinking. They will want to run from the King of Heaven if their sins have not been forgiven and if their hearts have not been supernaturally changed.

 
This is what it will be like for those who end up in heaven:
 
BEAUTIFUL FELLOWSHIP with their blessed Redeemer – Jesus Christ – who suffered and died for all their awful sins.
 
EXTREME JOY & GLADNESS that there will be no sin in them or around them any longer, no more taking of our Lord’s name in vain, no more ungodly thoughts or speech or actions.
 
WONDERFUL COMPANIONSHIP with all the godly saints who died before them, who love God and His laws as they do and who hate sin as God hates it.
 
AWE & WONDER for the holiest Being in the Universe, God Almighty, the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of Hosts, the King Of Glory, who did something for man that man could never do for himself, pay the awful penalty for sin that we could only pay if we were to spend eternity in hell.
 
IMMENSE GRATITUDE for God’s grace and mercy for having saved them from eternal wrath in Hell at such a terrible price to Himself – the sacrifice of His beloved Son, Jesus.
 
PREOCCUPATION WITH BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF such a holy, righteous, and sinless Creator who came up with such a glorious plan of salvation that showed His love and mercy in the most powerful way imaginable.
 
PRAISE, WORSHIP AND SINGING to God about His incredible love for saved sinners like them.
 
UNENDING THANKFULNESS for the opportunity to serve and worship such a gracious God and Savior for all eternity.
 
Do you think you will want to be in a heaven like this?
 
Do you think God will want you there?
 

“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” [Revelation 6:9-17]

 

Friend, if God has not made you ready for heaven, to the point where you long to be in a sin free world and in permanent fellowship with a HOLY GOD who hates sin, then you will be among those mentioned above who will be screaming for the rocks to fall on you to hide you from God’s wrath. — RM Kane

 





Are You Ready To Meet God?

by Harold Camping

area you ready to meet god gospel message tract

The return of Jesus Christ could be sooner than you think! Are You Ready?
 
God Tells us in Ezekiel 33:3 “When he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people.”
 
Are you ready to meet God? To test this question, let me present this situation:
 
Suppose you went to the doctor for a test, and a few days later, you were told that you had a terrible, incurable illness that would take your life in the next thirty days. After the initial shock, would you begin to be increasingly at peace and in happiness that soon you would be leaving this life with all its tears and sorrows and would soon be in the glorious presence of your Savior?
 
Or, would you find an increasing bitterness and resentment in your soul that your life is being so quickly cut off. Such a careful examination can help you to know if you are ready to meet God.
 
Never before in the history of the world have so many people been at risk: More than five billion souls are in danger of meeting God face-to- face with no defense or covering for their sins. Every one of these people, men, women, and children, if he or she is not covered with Christ’s robes of righteousness, will be found guilty of breaking God’s law, and will be sent to Hell to forever suffer for his or her violations of God’s law.
 
Don’t think for a minute that there will be any comfort in the number of unsaved people because the Bible tells us in Luke 23:30: “Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.”
 
To plan to wait until the last minute before Christ returns and then repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness is very dangerous. God tells us that… “behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Corinthians 6:2).
 
In fact, not one of us can know that we will be alive tomorrow. Not one of us is guaranteed another day. Therefore, the urgency to be ready to meet God is now.
 
Right now is the time to be ready for eternity. Every day, almost 200,000 people die. You or I could be one of the people who will die tonight, and then our eternal fate is set forevermore. Now is the time to cry to God for mercy and to repent of sins.
 
Don’t believe it for a minute if you read a bumper sticker somewhere or if someone told you, “Oh, it’s so wonderful that God has a wonderful plan for your life, and God loves you,” unless you know that you have repented of your sins and have a sincere and deep desire to do only what pleases God. If you do not want to obey God’s Word, the Bible, then you had better think about your spiritual condition. God tells us in Philippians 2:12: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”.
 
If you, dear reader, are not saved, there is still a little time to cry to God for mercy. If you have any doubts at all about your salvation, cry to God for mercy!
 
Look in your Bible at the reaction of the Ninevites to the proclamation of Jonah that in forty days Nineveh was to be destroyed (Jonah 3:4-9). Nineveh was a wicked and Godless city, in complete rebellion against the God of the Bible. Yet, they repented, and from information found in the New Testament, we can know that many of them became saved.
 
Are you ready to meet God? The God of heaven who spared the Ninevites is the same God who will spare you from the impending judgment if you cry to Him for mercy.
 
This is not a time for theological debate. This is not a time to trust in church doctrine or a pastor or a teacher or me. You must trust the Bible only. My earnest prayer and desire is that you will go to the Bible, know that God’s judgment is coming on the unsaved and this world, and in repentance cry to God for Mercy. May He bless you abundantly through the work of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
 





How can a person know they are saved?

 

how do i know i am saved and ready for heaven

 
The question here is, “Hw can a person know they are truly ready for heaven”- that they truly possess salvation for their sins? God saves a person, not by taking the old person and making him or her better through a combination of religious rituals, traditions and guidelines, but by supernaturally imparting a whole new nature into a person when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in them at the moment of salvation: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” [Romans 8:16].
 
Ask yourself the following questions to see if you bear the fruit and marks of a true Christian, a true child of God:
 
A. Have I come to a realization that in God’s eyes, there is no good thing in me – that is, I have nothing to offer God for my salvation except my sins? … “For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us” [Isaiah 59:12]
 
B. Do I realize that I owe Jesus everything for my salvation – there is nothing I could contribute to it? – “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” [Titus 3:5]
 
C. Has my attitude about sin changed? Do I now hate the sins I used to love and love the things of God I used to hate? – “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” [2 Corinthians 5:17]
 
D. Do I understand that ALL people are lost without Christ and do I show my concern for the souls of others by warning people to flee God’s wrath in hell? – “we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” [2 Corinthians 5:20]
 
E. Do I enjoy talking about how Jesus changed my life and saved me from Hell? – “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee” [Mark 5:19]
 
F. Do people make fun of me or in some other way persecute me for standing up for Jesus Christ? – “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” [2 Timothy 3:12]
 
G. Do I realize that I am here on earth to serve God and to get ready to spend eternity with Him? – “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” [Romans 12:1]
 
H. Do I fellowship with other Bible-believing Christians on a regular basis and do I consider it a matter of necessity for my spiritual health? – “let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” [Hebrews 10:24-25]
 
I. Do I realize that God is very holy and that I must strive to live a life of holiness? “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” [1 Peter 1:16].
 
J. Do I love to read the Bible daily to find out more about God and how He expects me to live? – “I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.” [Psalm 119:16]
 
K. Is my conversation different than before I was saved? Do I think and talk more about God and less about the things that the unsaved are so preoccupied with? – “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” [Colossians 3:2]
 
You may wonder ‘How is it possible for anyone to think and act like the kind of Christian described above?’. That’s the whole point! No one is born in this condition. Only God can change a person’s nature which is why Jesus said: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” [John 3:3].

 





EXCUSES That Will Not Stand The Test

 

“And they all with one consent began to make excuse.” – Luke 14:18

 

Are YOURS among them?

 

“What wilt THOU say when he shall punish THEE?” – Jeremiah 13:21

 
READER: Do not disregard this message. Read it carefully and thoughtfully. Though you may not be aware of it, your soul is in great danger if you have not been “born again” in God’s way. Upon which of the following excuses are you building your hopes of escaping Hell and reaching Heaven? Whom will you blame if like the rich man in Luke 16th chapter you die, are buried and in Hell you lift up your eyes being in torments?
 
YOU CANNOT BLAME GOD for “God is not willing that any should perish.” He would have all men to be saved, “For 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.
 
YOU CANNOT BLAME CHRIST for “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” – 1 Timothy 1:15. “I am come that they might have life.” – John 10:10. “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” – John 6:37.
 
YOU CANNOT SAY YOU ARE NOT A SINNER for God says: “As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” – Rom. 5:12. “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” – Ecclesiastes 7:20. “There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:22, 23.
 
YOU CANNOT SAY “I am doing the best I can,” “I have turned over a new leaf and joined the Church,” “I have a good heart,” “I will trust in the Lord for the rest,” “God is nothing worthy of Hell.” God says: All your “righteousness are as filthy rags” in His sight. – Isaiah 64:6. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” – Titus 3:5. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately (incurably) wicked.” – Jeremiah 17:9. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” – Proverbs 14:12. “The wages of sin is death.” – Romans 6:23. “It is appointed unto men once to die but after this the judgment.” – Hebrews 9:27.
 
YOU CANNOT SAY YOU HAVE NOT BEEN WARNED for this little tract containing God’s Word is your warning and it may be your last. Search the Scriptures and see if these things are so. If you are concerned about these matters it is God’s Spirit striving to show you your danger, your guilt and your helplessness. You are “without God,” “without Christ” and “without hope in the world” – Ephesians 2:12. You have no claim on God, you have broken His laws and you are “condemned already” and awaiting the execution, but there is pardon for you today if you will have it. If you resist the Spirit, God says, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” – Genesis 6:3. “he, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” – Proverbs 29:1. “Because there is wrath , beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.” – Job 36:18.
 
YOU CANNOT SAY THERE IS PLENTY OF TIME to settle this matter, for God says, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” – 2 Corinthians 6:2. Listen to His solemn warning against delay, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded… I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh… Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer.” – Proverbs 1:24-28.
 
YOU CANNOT BLAME THE ONES WHO WROTE THIS, for in love to your soul, realizing your awful danger, they sought to faithfully warn you and turn your thoughts toward “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” – John 1:29.
 
YOU CANNOT BLAME CIRCUMSTANCES for there is nothing that can keep a sinner from Christ if he wants to come to Hem for salvation. “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” – John 5:40.
 
YOU CANNOT BLAME HYPOCRITES, those who talk one way and live another, for you have a Bible to direct you and you need not follow the footsteps of others. Read the Bible for yourself. It is the Word of the Living God. “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” – Romans 14:12.
 
YOU CANNOT SAY YOU KEEP THE LAW for God says, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” – James 2:10. The law was given to show to a fallen race their inability to keep His laws (“that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God,” – Romans 3:19), showing them their need of a Saviour to pay the debt they could never pay. Just as a looking glass shows the dirt upon the face, but is unable to cleanse it, so the law shows us our sinful condition, but it takes the blood of Christ to cleanse those sins away. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” – 1 John 1:7.
 
YOU MAY SAY DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. But, my friend, two minutes in Hell amid the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth will change your mind. When you realize then, as every one in Hell realizes today, that the Bible is the Word of God, that you are a sinner, that Christ died for sinners, that you could have been saved had you believed and accepted the Saviour and as the truth of it all bursts on your poor lost soul you will cry aloud in agony as you weep and wail and gnash your teeth, “Fool that I was, Too late, Too late.”
 
READER: You may say you do not believe all this but the mere fact that you do not believe it does not alter the facts. Who are thou that repliest against God? “He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar.” The responsibility of spending Eternity in Hell is yours and yours alone. If you are not concerned about your own soul and have no desire to be saved, pass this paper on to some one else. They may thank you for the warning and be saved.
 
YOU ARE LEFT WITHOUT EXCUSE. Romans 1:20. Where will you spend eternity? The “prudent man forseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the foolish pass on, and are punished.” – Proverbs 22:3.
 

“BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED.” – Acts 16:31

 


This tract is available in print from:
Faith, Prayer & Tract League
PO Box 141126
Grand Rapids, MI 49514
(616) 453-7695
info@tractleague.com