The Truth About Your LIFE..

“Tell It Like It Is” The REAL Issue

“What is your life? It is a vapor that appeareth for awhile and then vanishes away. Your days are as a hand’s breadth. All the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. All flesh is as grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. “He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy! Boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesses: beware of covetousness! We brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out.” Job said for all of us, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return thither.” God said to a rich man, “Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose shall these things be? ‘They will bury you just like they did your ancestors.

You leave all at the grave. You cannot take anything with you. Good things and bad things alike are only things, and “things” can save no one. “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Isaiah stated that all the nations are as a drop in the bucket to God; less than vanity and worth less than nothing. No man can save himself. Death comes alike to all, regardless of station in life, or income, class, sex, age, color, or attainment. You are not ready to live until you are ready to die. In Adam, all die. “The wages of sin is death.” You die because you sin. All have sinned, and the soul that sinneth, It shall die. “Religion” never saved anyone. “Thou shalt call His name `Jesus’ for He shall save His people from their sins.” An “it” cannot save you. “It” is not God! You can take no ” it” with you through the undertaker’s parlor. You must have someone.

It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the Judgment. God has appointed a day In which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man, whom He hath ordained, and hath given assurance to all men everywhere in that He hath raised Him from the dead. “In the day that God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. God shall bring thee into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil.” Every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So then, every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Though thou sayest “I shall not see Him,” yet judgment Is set before Him. “I saw a Great White Throne and Him that sat on it, before whose face the Heaven and the Earth fled away …and I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. The judgment was set and the Books were opened, and the dead were judged by those things written in the Books. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the Second Death.“

If there is a Holy, Righteous God at all who lives forever, then the following statements are true: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the good and the evil. There is nothing hid that shall not be uncovered. Nothing done in secret that shall not be made known.” David confessed, “Thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising …Thou knowest my thoughts afar off! O Lord, there is not a word in my tongue that Thou dost not know altogether.” For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. “Thou hast set our secret sins in the light of Thy counsel.” There is no shadow of darkness where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. He that made the ear, shall He not hear? He that made the eye, shall He not see? “God shall bring thee into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil, in the Day that God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ…” Are you ready to have your secrets judged?

God has said: “My thoughts are not your thoughts and My ways are not your ways, with the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and My ways are higher than yours.” The Lord seeth not as a man seeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart. The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it? Hell and destruction are never satisfied: neither is the heart of man. There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise …that they are vain. The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. “Let God be true but every man a liar.” There is no respect of persons with God. “Add thou not to His words, lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar!” You may not believe this estimation of man’s goodness, but the Bible anticipates this unbelief when it says: “Let God be true but every man a liar.“

The Bible picture of man is negative. It never flatters man. “Every man at his best state is altogether vanity. There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. There is none that doeth good, no not one.” All we like sheep have gone astray,. we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Not of works, lest any man should boast. By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified in His sight. Every man will proclaim his goodness, but a faithful man who can find?“There is a generation that is pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness.” As someone so aptly said, “You are against the Bible because it is against you. “

You may be the best man or woman in the town in which you live-which is doubtful-but even if you are you could not hope to pass a perfect Judgment by a perfect Judge. You are a fool to even imagine that you can! Let no man deceive himself! The rich young ruler of Luke 18 was better than any man in your town, but he was lost; the Pharisee of Luke 18 was more religious than any Christian leader in the world today, and he was lost; Cornelius was a just man, a devout man of good report; he prayed, fasted, and gave alms, but he was lost; Simon the Sorcerer believed and was baptized, and he was lost; Job’s righteousness (in Job 31) was far superior to the righteousness of any Pope or Cardinal who ever lived, and God told him that his own righteousness could not save him; Paul kept the Law and was “blameless” in it, but he was so lost alongside God’s righteousness, he called his religion “dung.” This is what happens to any man who gets a glimpse of real righteousness.

He was wounded for your transgressions, He was bruised for your iniquities: the chastisement of peace was upon Him, and with His stripes ye are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Christ bore our sins in His own body on the cross that we being dead to sin might live unto righteousness,“by whose stripes ye are healed.” He poured out His soul unto death and made intercession for the transgressors, and made His soul an offering for sin. God hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteous­ness of God in Him. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wild­erness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up …that whosoever believeth in Him …should have everlasting life.” Christ died, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Will you let Him bring you?

“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Christ died, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” God said, “This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased,” In Whom we have redemption through His blood,even the forgiveness of sins, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world!! Christ died for the ungodly. “God commendeth His love towards us In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then being now  justified by His blood we shall be saved from wrath though him.” We love Him because He first loved us. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” If you miss this love you miss the only truly unselfish love the world has ever seen.

Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!! Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Christ took away the handwriting of ordinances that was contrary to us, and took it away nailing it to His cross. He gave up His life as a “ransom for many.” They crucified Him between two thieves: “He was numbered with the transgressors.” He came to save sinners and call them to repentance. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. The greatest Christian who ever lived said, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” By Him all that believe are justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the Law of Moses. How shall YOU escape If YOU neglect so great a salvation?

“God hath given all men assurance, everywhere, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” He was declared to be the Son of God by the Spirit of holiness and the resurrection from the dead. Christ became the firstfruits of them that slept: for it was not possible that death should keep Him. His soul was not left in Hell, neither did His flesh see corruption. He arose the third day according to the Scripture. Wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for them. “If Christ be not risen from the dead, your faith is vain …You are yet in your sins …of all men most miserable, and we are false witnesses.” You can find the grave of every religious leader in the world but this One, and 500 eyewitnesses saw this One walking around after a Roman centurion and a medical doctor declared Him dead! If anyone could find ONE BONE of His body the Bible could offer man nothing better than “one more religion,” for all religious leaders are dead and buried.

As a risen, living Saviour He stands at the crossroads of eternity, where He has been inviting sinners to come to Him for more than 1900 years. He says “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” And again He says,“You will not come unto Me that ye might have life. Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise case out. Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely. Come now, saith the Lord, let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as wool; though they be red like crimson, they shall be white as snow. How often I would have gathered you as a mother hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord and to our God for He will abundantly pardon.” Will you come to Him today? By faith, the best way you know how? Why not? What do you hope to gain by a delay?

“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us. All have sinned and there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. None of you keep the Law. As many as are under the works of the Law, are under a curse. By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified in His sight for by the Law Is the knowledge of sin.” Those who count on the Law to save them are “fallen. from Grace:” They; being ignorant of God’s Righteousness, are going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the Righteousness of God, for Christ Is the end of the Law of righteousness to everyone that believeth. If you really were honest with yourself, what would your righteousness look like if it were laid alongside God’s righteousness?

You see, the whole issue is RIGHTEOUSNESS. Man has a thousand ways to justify himself and sidetrack the issue, but the issue is RIGHTEOUSNESS. It has nothing to do with “religion” except where man has erected such religions as Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism; Buddhism, Confucianism, etc.., for the purpose of getting around the issue. The issue Is God’s Righteousness, and Gods is JESUS CHRIST. Any system which pits man’s righteousness against God’s Righteousness is a manmade system no matter what authority is quoted, including the Bible itself. There are two kinds of RIGHTEOUSNESS: God’s and man’s. With God it is DONE and you are to believe it; with men it is “DO” and you have to  work at it indefinitely. God will not give assurance of eternal life to any man who substitutes his righteousness for God’s Righteousness! This is why millions of people in the world don’t know where they are going at death. They still insist on trusting their own righteousness. Every priest, preacher, bishop, pope, or prophet on earth who does not know where he is going at death is inwardly trusting HIMSELF or his religion. What are YOU trusting in? Your righteousness or GOD’S? 

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Therefore to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness) Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than for him. Be not deceived! Let no man deceive himself) Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction: wide is the gate and many there be that go in there at.” Judas was a lost, healing evangelist. Simon was a lost man who had “believed and been baptized.” Cornelius was a devout, praying, vision seeing Roman and he was lost! The rich young ruler was better than any man you know (Luke 18) and he was lost. Are YOUfooled, too?

What a man calls “Living a good life,” God calls “a refuge of lies.”  Man’s view of his nature is positive, but Jesus said, ” If ye being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more… etc.” Jesus recognized that human nature was basically evil and needed to be regenerated, not exercised, educated, cultured, or pampered. This means that if Jesus was right, there is nothing you can do or have done or will do that can stand the righteous revelation of a Holy God dealing with your sins at the Judgment. Like Adam’s fig leaf, the straw house of your religious “self righteousness” will blow away like the chaff in the wind. “Sincerity” is one of the many roads to hell, where it does not recognize and honor the truth: “Every man at his best state is altogether vanity.”

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand! “All other ground” means churches, religions, creeds, sacraments, “faiths,” beliefs, ideologies, education, science, philosophy, mankind, the future, the past, the present, and everything and everybody connected with it. The Lord Jesus Christ is the “Rock,” the Stumbling Stone, the Rock of Offence, the Stone which the builders rejected: and God hath made Him “The Head of the Corner.“ He is, unto us who believe, “A Precious Stone.” We are moved, He is not. Our feelings change, His finished work cannot. Our faith falters, His prayers avail forever. Our works waver, His one, effectual, finished sacrifice pays the demands of the Law, meets the demands of a Holy God for perfection, and enables Him to clasp God in one hand and us in the other. Five bleeding wounds He bears, received on Calvary: they pour effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me,” Forgive him, oh forgive, they cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die.” He is my Propitiation and Atonement. He is my Substitute and Advocate. He is my Mediator, my Rock, my Fortress, my Strong Tower. Is He yours? Why isn’t He? Do you have anything better?

You cannot hide behind a hypocrite unless they are a bigger kind of person than you are. You had better spend a lifetime in a church with a few of them, being saved yourself, than spend an eternity in Hell with them as one of them. “So then everyone of us shall give account of himself to God.” Your alibis for rejecting Christ and clinging to some “Religion” are only proof that you yourself are somewhat of a hypocrite. Why do you profess to be “trying” when God said, “to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness”? Why do you talk about “doing the best you can” when you have not received God’s Son, and that is by far the best thing you can do? Are you not a little inconsistent yourself? You say, “Well, I have my own ideas.” “Let God be true and every man a liar, that the whole world may become guilty before God and every mouth stopped. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the Judgment of God?”

First John 5:12 has two parts to it; the two parts are illustrated in the picture. When you receive God’s Son, you pass from death to life (John 5:24); you become a “new creature in Christ,” born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but born of God. You are adopted Into the family of His Dear Son. You are translated from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light, turned from Satan to the power of God. “Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.” In Him you have remission of sins and redemption, justification and forgiveness. Whereas you were “alone in the world without hope and without God,” an alien from Israel and the covenant promises of God, you now become “accepted in the beloved,” one of His own, flesh of His flesh, and you are supernaturally placed in His body, seated with Him in heavenly places. Furthermore, you are sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise unto the Day of Redemption, being cut loose from the flesh (inside), by the circumcision not made with hands; you are “BORN AGAIN.’ Has this ever happened to YOU? Where? When?

God deals differently with His children than the unsaved man. As a Son of God you will be chastened and whipped when you sin against your Father, but you will never be left nor forsaken. He has promised grace sufficient for every task and a way out for every temptation, plus the supply of “every need” according to His “riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” In Heaven you have a reserved inheritance “that fadeth not away.” At the Judgment Seat of Christ you will be rewarded for the service you rendered to Him AFTER your salvation (which was wholly free and by grace). He says: “He that hath begun a good work in you will perform It until the Day of Jesus Christ.” He is able to keep you from falling and present you “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” Your whole body, soul, and spirit will be preserved blameless unto His Coming, for God hath predestinated you to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many “brethren.”  

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with Me!” because I called and you refused, I knocked and no man answered, therefore I will laugh when your calamity cometh. I will mock when your fear cometh upon you. Why will ye die? “As I live saith the Lord, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn from his wicked way and live.” The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. “All day long I have stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.” Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, for there is no “other Name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” ARE YOU SAVED? Have you heard His voice? Did you let Him in? WHEN? Are you certain?  Why not make certain before you close this book?

Boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. What is your life? It is a vapor that appeareth for a while and then vanisheth away. My spirit shall not always strive with man. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. See that ye refuse not Him who speaketh from Heaven. How shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation?” He that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? You have nothing worth going to Hell over, and you cannot escape God’s Judgment in your own righteousness. What do you suppose God will allow to happen to a sinner who deliberately substitutes his own righteousness for God’s and claims it has more merit than the righteousness of the only sinless Man who ever lived? If God let a sinless Man be tortured to death, what do you suppose will happen to YOU?

“Whoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night.” Jesus will say: “Depart form Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.” And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, pain, torment, shame, and contempt. They shall be “punished from the presence of the Lord” and the glory of His power with everlasting fire; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. In Hell the rich man (Luke 16) lifted up his eyes in torment and cried, “send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame!” All the nations that forget God shall be turned into Hell; wherefore hell hath enlarged herself.Jesus commands: “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness!” There shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. If God lives forever, how long will it take to pay for a sin committed against HIM?

Jesus said, “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have eternal life.” How often He would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens under her wing, but YOU would not! What will you say in the Day of Judgment when you see Him as a righteous Judge, when you could have accepted Him as a loving Saviour?What excuse will stand before the eyes of injured love, when you try to explain why you turned down a perfect Man, who loved you enough to die in your place? Will ANY excuse do? Pilate said, “What shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ?” You can do anything you want to with Him, but five seconds after your soul has departed from your corpse, He will do anything with YOU that He desires, and you will be powerless to stop Him or influence Him. You will “die in your sins” and where He went you will NOT be able to go! Why not bow your head this minute and receive Him as your LORD, MASTER & SAVIOR? As many as RECEIVED Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe ON HIS NAME.”   

You must consciously receive Him and His righteousness. You say, “How do I do that?” It is very simple. Wherever you are this minute (it doesn’t make any difference where), bow your head and pray this simple prayer: “Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and unless you save me I am lost forever. I come to you now, the best way I know how, and ask you to save me. I receive you as my Saviour and trust you to justify me and present me without fault before God’s throne in the day of Judgment.” You say, “it can’t be that simple!” “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise…” (1 Corinthians 1:27). The Lord has made salvation simple enough to be understood by a little child. “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3). IT IS that simple. If you pray like that, with a simple, childlike faith, meaning it from the heart, you will have made the greatest decision of your life-to choose God’s gift of eternal life! If you now receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, don’t be ashamed, tell someone: “…Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:11).

SOURCE: www.bbcrogersville.org

September 29, 2011 | Categories: All Truth | Tags: death, life, Man, Reality, Soul, truth | Leave A Comment »