Biblical Essays
"GOD FOR US"
Romans 8:31: “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”
Much is wrapped up in these few words, “God for us.” They form one of those marvelous chains of three links so frequently found in Scripture. We have “God” linked to “us” by that precious little word “for.” This secures everything for time and eternity. There is not a single thing within the entire range of creature necessities that is not included in the brief but comprehensive sentence forming the heading of this essay. If God be for us, then of necessity it follows that neither our sins, iniquities, guilt, ruined nature, nor Satan, the world, nor any other creature can possibly stand in the way of our present peace and everlasting felicity and glory. God can and has disposed of all them in a way that forever and ever illustrates His glory and magnifies His holy Name throughout the universe. All praise and adoration be to the Eternal Trinity.
However, it may be that at the outset one might feel disposed to inquire, “How are we to know that God is for us?” In reply to this weighty question, we seek in this essay to furnish five substantial proofs that God is for us, in all our need, guilt, misery, and danger. He is for us in spite of all we are, and all we have done – for us although there is no reason whatsoever why He should be, but every reason why He should be against us.
The Gift of His Son
“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).
For various reasons, we are glad to commence our series of proofs with these memorable words. In the first place, they meet a difficulty that may suggest itself to the mind of an anxious student – a difficulty based on the fact that the sentence culled from Romans 8:31 evidently applies primarily to believers, as does this and the other epistles.
But, in reference to the all-embracing and encouraging words of Him who spoke as never man spoke, no such difficulty can be started. When we have from the lips of our blessed Lord Himself, the eternal Son of God, such words as, “God so loved the world,” we have no ground for questioning their application to all who come under the comprehensive word “world.” Before anyone can prove that the free love of God does not apply to him, he must first prove that he does not form a part of the world, that he belongs instead to some other sphere of being. If our Lord had said, “God so loved a certain portion of the world,” then it would be necessary to prove that we belong to that particular portion or class, before attempting to apply His Words to ourselves. If He had said that God so loved the predestinated, the elect, or the called, then, before having the assurance of God’s love, we would seek to know our place among that number.
But our Lord uses no such qualifying clause. He is addressing one who, from his earliest days, had been trained and accustomed to take a limited view of the favor and goodness of God. Nicodemus had been taught to consider that the rich tide of Jehovah’s goodness, loving kindness, and tender mercy could only flow within the narrow enclosure of the Jewish system and nation. We may safely assert that the thought of it going forth to the whole world had never penetrated the mind of one trained amid the contracting influences of the legal system. Hence, it must have sounded strange to hear “a teacher come from God” giving utterance to the great fact that God loved not merely the Jewish nation, nor some special portion of the human race, but “the world.” No doubt, such a statement would cause amazement to be felt by this master in Israel being told that with all his religious advantages, he needed to be born again in order to see or enter the kingdom of God.
Do we then deny or call in question the grand truth? God forbid. We hold these things as fundamental principles of true Christianity. We believe in the eternal counsels and purposes of God; His unsearchable decrees; His electing love; His sovereign mercy.
We do not need to consider in this essay the pros and cons regarding the religious teachings of predestination, election, or effectual calling, because they do not interfere with the gracious activities of the divine nature, or the outgoings of God’s love towards a lost world. God is love. That is His nature, and this nature must express itself toward all. The mistake lies in supposing that because God has His purposes, His counsels, His decrees; because He is sovereign in His grace and mercy; because He has chosen from all eternity a people for His own praise and glory; because the names of all the redeemed are written down in the book of the slain Lamb – that therefore God cannot be said to love all mankind; to love the world, and further, that the glad tidings of God’s full and free salvation should not be proclaimed in the ears of every creature under heaven.
The simple fact is that the two lines in the Word of God, though distinct, are laid down with equal clearness; neither interferes with the other, but both go together to make up the beauteous harmony of divine truth and to set forth the glorious unity of the divine nature.
It is with the activities of divine nature and the outgoings of divine love that the preacher of the Gospel has to do. Though aware of their existence, he is not to be cramped, crippled, or confined by references to God’s secret decrees or purposes. His mission is to the world – the whole world. His theme is salvation – a salvation as full as the heart of God, as permanent as His throne; as free as the air; free to all without exception, limitation, or condition whatsoever. The basis of his work is the atoning death of Christ which has removed all barriers, opening up the floodgates in order that the mighty tide of divine love may, in all its fullness, richness, and blessedness, roll forth to a lost and guilty world.
Here lies the ground of man’s responsibility pertaining to the Gospel of God. If it is true that God so loved the world that He give His only begotten Son; if God’s righteousness is for all; if it is God’s gracious will that all be saved and know the truth; if He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance; then every man who hears this glorious Gospel is under solemn responsibility to believe it and be saved. No one can honestly and truthfully turn around and say, “I longed to be saved, but could not, because I was not one of the elect. I longed to flee from the wrath to come but was prevented by the insuperable barrier of the divine decree that irresistibly consigned me to an everlasting hell.”
Within the covers of the God’s Volume, in the entire range of His dealings with His creatures, in the aspect of His character, or in the enactments of His moral government, there is not the faintest shadow of a foundation for such an objection. Every man is left without excuse. God can say to all who have rejected His Gospel, “I would, but you would not.” Nowhere in God’s Holy Word there is there any such thing as reprobation, i.e., consignment by God of His creatures to everlasting damnation. Everlasting fire is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25). Yes, men will rush into it. However, “vessels of wrath” are not fitted “to destruction” by God, but by men themselves (Rom. 9). Everyone who gets to heaven will have God to thank for it. Everyone who finds himself in hell will have only himself to thank.
Furthermore, we must always remember that the sinner has nothing to do with God’s unpublished decrees. What does or what can he know about such? Nothing whatsoever. But he does have to do with God’s published love, His proffered mercy, His free salvation, and His glorious Gospel. We fearlessly assert that as long as these glowing and glorious words – “Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely” – shine in the record of God, it is impossible for any son or daughter of Adam to say, “I longed to be saved, but could not. I thirsted for the living water, but could not reach it. The well was deep and I had nothing to draw with.” No, such language will never be used; such an objection will never be urged by anyone in the ranks of the lost. When men pass into eternity they will see with awful clearness what they now consider to be obscure and perplexing, i.e., the perfect compatibility of God’s electing sovereign grace and the free offer of salvation to all – the fullest harmony between divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
Hopefully, each of us sees these things. It is important to maintain the balance of truth in the soul – to allow the beams of divine revelation to act on the heart and conscience, unimpeded by the murky atmosphere of mere human theology. There is imminent danger in taking up a certain number of abstract truths and forming them into a system. On the other hand, we seek the adjusting power of all truth. In other words, the growth and practical sanctification of the soul are promoted, not by some truth, but by the truth, in all its fullness as embodied in the person of Christ and set forth by the eternal Spirit in the Holy Scriptures. We must rid ourselves of all preconceived notions; all theological views and opinions; and like a little child come to the feet of Jesus to be taught by His Spirit, from His Holy Word. Only in this way shall we find rest from conflicting dogmas. Only in this way shall all the heavy clouds and mists of human opinion be rolled away and only in this way can our enfranchised souls bask in the clear sunlight of a full divine revelation.
The Death of His Son
The second fact we offer to prove that God is for us is found in the death of His Son. For our present purpose, we take up only one feature; one cardinal feature in the atoning death of Christ – the marvelous fact set forth by the Holy Spirit in the prophet Isaiah, “It pleased Jehovah to bruise him. He hath put him to grief” (Is. 53).
Our Lord might have come into this world of sin and sorrow. He might have become a man. He might have been baptized in the Jordan; anointed by the Holy Spirit; tempted of Satan in the wilderness. He might have gone about doing good. He might have lived and labored, wept and prayed, and, at the close, gone back to heaven again, thus leaving us involved in much deeper gloom. Like the priest or Levite in the parable, He might have come and looked on us in our wounds and misery, passed by on the other side and returned alone to the place from whence He came.
And what if He had? We must always keep in mind that all the living labors of the Son of God; His amazing ministry; His days of toil and nights of prayer; His tears, sighs, groans; the whole of His life-work, from the manger up to, but short of, the cross, could not have blotted out one speck of guilt from a human conscience. “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” No doubt, the eternal Son had to become a man that He might die; but incarnation could not cancel guilt. Indeed, as a man the life of Christ only proved the human race guiltier. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin.” The light that shone in His blessed ways only revealed the moral darkness of man – of Israel; of the world. Therefore, had He merely come and lived and labored for a little over thirty years, and gone back to heaven, our guilt and moral darkness would have been fully proved but no atonement made. “It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.”
This is a foundation-truth of Christianity – one that must be constantly affirmed and tenaciously held. It holds immense moral power. If it is true that all the life-labors of the Son of God; all His tears, His prayers, His groans, His sighs – if all these things put together could not cancel one single speck of guilt; then may we not lawfully inquire what possible value could there be in our works, our tears, our prayers, our religious services, our ordinances, sacraments and ceremonies – the whole range of religious activity and moral reform? Can such things avail to cancel our sins and give us a righteousness before God? The thought is monstrous; if any or all of these things could avail, then why the sacrificial, atoning death of Christ? If anything else would have done then why that ineffable and inestimable sacrifice?
But, it might be said that although none of these things could avail without the death of Christ, yet they must be added to it. For what? To make that peerless death; that precious blood; or that priceless sacrifice of full avail? Is that it? Shall the rubbish of human doings and human righteousness be flung into the scale to make the sacrifice of Christ of full avail in the Judgment of God? The thought is blasphemy.
But are there not to be good works? Yes; but what are they? Are they the pious doings, the religious efforts, the moral activities of unregenerate, unconverted, unbelieving nature? No. What then? What are the Christian’s good works? They are life work’s, not dead works. They are the precious fruits of life possessed – the life of Christ in the true believer. There is nothing beneath the canopy of heaven that God can accept as a good work except the fruit of the grace of Christ in the believer. The feeblest expression of the life of Christ in the daily history of a Christian is fragrant and precious to God. But the most splendid and gigantic labors of an unbeliever are, in God’s account, but “dead works.”
However, all this is a digression from our essay, to which we must now return.
We stated earlier that for our present purpose we shall refer to one special point in the death of Christ – that it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him. Herein lies the striking and soul-subduing proof that God is forus. “He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.” He not only gave Him but bruised Him for us. That spotless, holy, perfect One – the only perfect Man that ever trod this earth – the One who always did the things that pleased His Father; whose whole life from the manger to the tree was one continued sweet odor ascending to the throne and to the heart of God; whose every movement, every word, every look, every thought was well pleasing to God; whose one grand object from first to last was to glorify God and finish His work; this blessed One was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; was nailed to the cursed tree and there endured the righteous wrath of a sin hating God; and all this because God was for us.
What marvelous and matchless grace. The Just One bruised for the unjust – the sinless, spotless, holy Jesus, bruised by the hand of Infinite Justice in order that guilty rebels might be saved; and not only saved but brought into the position and relationship of sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty – heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.
This surely is rich, free, sovereign grace; grace abounding to the chief of sinners; grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. Who would not trust this grace? Who can look at the cross and doubt that God is for the sinner; for any sinner – for us? Who would not confide in that love that shines in the cross? Who can look at the cross and not see that God does not will the death of any sinner? Why did He not allow us to perish in our guilt – to descend into that everlasting hell which we so richly deserved because of our sins? Why give His Only-begotten Son? Why bruise Him on that shameful cross? Why hide His face from the only perfect Man that ever lived – His own Eternal Son? Why all this? Surely it was because God is for us, spite of our guilt and sinful rebellion. Yes, He is for the self-destroyed, hell-deserving sinner, no matter who or what he may be; and each one whose eye scans these lines is now entreated to come and confide in the love that gave Jesus and bruised Him on the cross.
We pray that many will come to Jesus. That none will delay or waver. May God help each of us to cease our reasoning and no longer listen to Satan. That we listen not to the suggestions and imaginings of the heart; but listen to that word which assures that God is for us, and to that love that shines forth in the gift and death of His Son.
In pursuing what we may truly call the golden chain of evidence in proof that God is for us, we have dwelt on two facts of the gift and death of His Son. We have traveled from the bosom to the cross, along that mysterious and marvelous path marked by the footprints of divine and everlasting love. We have not only seen the blessed One giving His only begotten Son from His bosom, but actually bruising Him for us; making His spotless soul an offering for sin; bringing Him down into the dust of death; making Him to be sin for us, judging Him in our stead – thus affording the most unanswerable evidence of the fact that He is for us, that His heart is toward us, that He earnestly desires our salvation, seeing that He has not withheld His Son, His only Son from us, but delivered Him up for us all.
The Raising of His Son
In speaking of the glorious fact of resurrection, we must confine ourselves to the one point – the proof it furnishes of God being friendly to us. A passage or two of Scripture will suffice to unfold and establish this special point.
In Romans 4, the inspired apostle introduces God as the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He is speaking of Abraham who “Against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that [what? That gave His Son? No. That bruised His Son upon the cross? No. What then?] raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead [the very same] who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (emphasis added).
May we weigh this great fact. What was it that brought the precious Savior to the cross? What brought Him down to the dust of death? Was it our offences? Truly it was. “He was delivered for our offences.” He was nailed to the cursed tree for us. He represented us on the cross. He was our Substitute, in all the full value and deep significance of that word. He took our place and was treated as we deserved to be treated. The hand of infinite justice dealt with all our sins at the cross. Jesus made Himself responsible for all our offences, all our iniquities, all our transgressions, all our liabilities, all that was or ever could be against us. He made Himself answerable for all and under the full weight of our sins died in our stead. He died, the Just for the unjust.
Where is He now? The heart bounds with ineffable joy and holy triumph at the thought of the answer. Where is the blessed One who hung on yonder cross, and lay in yonder tomb? He is at the right hand of God, crowned with glory and honor. Who set Him there? Who put the crown upon His blessed brow? God Himself. The One who gave Him, and the One who bruised Him is the One who raised Him, and it is in Him we are to believe, if we are to be counted righteous. This is the special point before the apostle’s mind. Righteousness shall be imputed to us if we truly believe on God as the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Mark the vital link. Seize the all-important connection. The same One who hung upon the cross, charged with all our offences, is now on the throne without them. How did He get there? Was it in virtue of His eternal Godhead? No: on that ground He was always there. He was God over all, blessed forever. Was it in virtue of His eternal Sonship? No; for He was always there on that ground also. Therefore, charged with innumerable offences it could not meet our need as guilty sinners to be told that the eternal Son of the Father had taken His seat at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens, because that place – yea, the deepest and tenderest place in the bosom of the Father – always belonged to Him.
Was it as the spotless, sinless, perfect Man that our adorable Lord took His seat on the throne? No; as such, between the manger and the cross, He could have at any moment taken His place there.
To what must be our conclusion in this matter? To that precious, tranquillizing conclusion that the One who was delivered for our offences, bruised for our iniquities, judged in our stead, is now in heaven; that the One who represented us on the cross, is now on the throne; that the One who stood charged with all our guilt, is now crowned with glory and honor; that, so perfectly, so absolutely and completely has He disposed of the question of our sins, that infinite justice has raised him from the dead, and placed a diadem of glory on His sacred brow.
Do we truly understand this? Do we see its bearing on us? Do we believe in the One who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead? In so doing, do we see that He has declared Himself friendly to us? And, in raising up Jesus, do we believe that He set forth His infinite satisfaction in the work of atonement and furnished us with a receipt in full for all our debts – a receipt for the “ten thousand talents.”
Here lies the gist, marrow, and substance of the Romans 4 argument. If the Man who was delivered for our offences is now in heaven by the hand and act of God Himself; then certainly all our offences are gone, and we stand justified as the blessed One Himself – free from every charge of guilt, every breath of condemnation. It cannot possibly be otherwise, if we truly believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. It is impossible for a charge to be brought against the believer in the God of resurrection, because the One whom He raised was the One whom He bruised for the believer’s sins. Why did He raise Him? Because the sins for which He bruised Him were forever put away. Having undertaken our cause, making Himself answerable for us in every way, the Lord Jesus could not be where He now is, if a single jot or tittle of our guilt remained. On the other hand, being where He now is and being there by God’s own act, it is utterly impossible for any question to be raised regarding the full and complete justification and perfect righteousness of the soul that truly believes in Him. Thus, one who truly believes and obeys God is counted righteous before Him. This is most marvelous, but divinely and eternally true. May we feel its power, sweetness, and tranquillizing virtue. May the eternal Spirit give us the deep sense of it. Only then shall we have perfect peace in our soul; only then shall we understand how that in raising as well as in bruising and giving His Son, God has declared and proved Himself to be for us.
We had intended to consider Hebrews 13:20, but we must allow the reader to dwell on that lovely passage for himself, while we now proceed with the fourth proof that God is for us:
The Descent of Holy Spirit
We must here confine ourselves to one point in that glorious event – the form in which that august witness, the eternal Spirit, descended.
Let us turn to the second chapter of Acts. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now, when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
Here we note one special fact of deep interest – three times referred to in the foregoing quotation. The Holy Spirit came down to speak to every man “in his own dialect” – not the dialect in which he was educated, but “in which he was born” – the dialect in which his infant ears first heard the sweet and tender accents of a mother’s love. Such was the medium, the vehicle adopted by the divine Messenger for the blessed purpose of making known to man that God was for us. He did not speak to the Hebrew in Greek, or to the Greek in Latin. He spoke to each one in the language he understood, in the plain vernacular, in the mother tongue. If there was any peculiarity in that mother tongue, any idiom, any provincialism in the dialect of each, the blessed Spirit would make use of it for the purpose of reaching the heart with the sweet story of grace.
Contrast with this the giving of the law from Mount Sinai. There Jehovah confined Himself to one language. If people had been gathered there “from every nation under heaven,” they would not have understood a single syllable. The law – the ten words – the record of man’s duty to God and to his neighbor was sedulously wrapped up in one tongue. But when “the wonderful works of God” were to be published – when the blessed story of love was to be told; when the heart of God towards guilty sinners was to be revealed, one language was not enough. No, “Every nation under heaven” must hear in their mother tongue.
This is certainly a telling fact. It will perhaps be said that those who heard Peter and the rest on the Day of Pentecost were Jews. However, even if that were true, it in no wise robs our fact of its charm, its sweetness, and its power. Our fact is that when the eternal Spirit descended from heaven, to tell of the resurrection of Christ, to tell of accomplished redemption; to publish the glad tidings of salvation; to preach repentance and remission of sins; He did not confine Himself to one language, but spoke in every dialect under heaven.
This was done because God desired to make man understand what He had to say to him. He desired to reach man’s heart with the sweet tidings of redeeming love, the soul-stirring message of full remission of sins. When the law was to be given; when Jehovah had to speak to man about duty; when He had to address man in such terms as, “Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that,” He confined Himself to one solitary language. But when He would unfold the precious secret of His love; when He would prove to man that He was for him, He took care to speak in every language under heaven, so that every man might in the dialect wherein he was born hear the wonderful works of God (note a fact alluded to elsewhere, that in Genesis 11 divers tongues were given as a judgment on man’s pride. In Acts 2 divers tongues were given in grace to meet man's need. And in Revelation 7 the various tongues are all found united in one song or praise to God and to the Lamb. Such are some of the wonderful works of God. May we praise Him with all our energy. May our hearts adore Him).
Thus, in our series of proofs; in our golden chain of evidence, we have traveled from the bosom of God to the cross of Christ, and from that precious cross back to the throne. We have marked the giving, the bruising, and the raising of the Son. We have seen the heart of God told in deep and marvelous love, and tender compassion toward guilty perishing sinners. Moreover, we have marked the descent of the eternal Spirit from the throne of God. We have briefly marked His mission to this world to announce to every creature under heaven the glad tidings of a full, free, and everlasting salvation, through the blood of the Lamb, and to announce these tidings not in an unknown tongue, but in the tongue wherein each was born.
What more remains? Is there yet another link to be added to the chain? Yes; there is one remaining:
The Possession of the Holy Scriptures
It may perhaps be said that our fifth proof is involved in our fourth, because the fact that we possess a copy of the Bible in our mother tongue is, in reality, the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the language in which we were born.
True; but still, as far as we are concerned, the fact that God has put into our hands or within our reach the sacred volume, the inestimable boon, the Holy Scriptures, is an additional proof that He is for us. Why were we not left in ignorance and total darkness? Why was the divine book put into our hands? Why were we so favored? Why were we not left to live and die in spiritual blindness? Why was the heavenly lamp allowed to cast its precious beams on each of us?
The answer is, “Because God is for us.” Yes, for us, notwithstanding all our many sins; for us, spite of all our forgetfulness, ingratitude and rebellion; for us, although, as we know so well, we cannot show a single reason why He should not be against us. He gave His Son from His bosom, bruised Him on the cross, raised Him from the dead, sent down the Holy Spirit, and put His blessed book into our hands – all to show us that He is for us, that His heart is toward us, that He earnestly desires our salvation.
We cannot say, nor should any of us dare to say, “I could not understand the Bible; it is beyond me; it is full of mysteries I cannot fathom; of difficulties I cannot solve; of discrepancies I cannot reconcile. And when I turn to those who profess to be Christians, I find them split up into almost innumerable sects and denominations, and divided into almost endless schools of doctrine. And, not only so, but I see such utter hollowness, such gross inconsistency, such flagrant contradiction between profession and practice, that I am forced to abandon the whole subject of religion with a mingled feeling of perplexity, contempt, and disgust.”
Such objections will not stand in the judgment, nor keep anyone out of the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. Remember and deeply ponder this; let not the devil or our own heart deceive us. What does Abraham say to the rich man, in Luke 16? “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” Why does the rich man not reply, “They cannot understand them?” He dare not.
No; a child can understand the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (see Rom. 3:21-26). There is not one beneath the canopy of God’s heaven, who possesses a copy of the Holy Scriptures, who is not responsible before God for the use he makes of them. If those who profess to be followers of God’s Holy Word were split up into ten thousand times as many sects as they presently are; if they were ten thousand times as inconsistent as they are; if schools and doctors of divinity were ten thousand times more conflicting than they are – still the Word to each possessor of the Bible is, “You have Moses and the prophets, and the New Testament, hear them.”
We earnestly pray that the unconverted, unawakened, and unbelieving might be persuaded to think on these things now, to ponder them in the hidden depths of their moral being, to give them undivided attention, before it is too late. With ever-deepening horror, we contemplate the condition of a lost soul in hell – of one in that place of endless torment opening his eyes to the tremendous fact that God is against him forever; that all hope is gone; that nothing can ever bridge the chasm that separates the region of lost from the heaven of redeemed; that “there is a great gulf fixed.”
We find it difficult to proceed. The thought is so overpowering. The heart is crushed by the appalling contemplation. Therefore, before laying down the pen, we entreat each of us to turn, this very hour, to a dear loving Savior who stands with open arms and open bosom to receive all who come to Him, and who assures us that “him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” May God help each of us to trust in God’s faithful Word and Christ’s finished work.
Here lies the secret of the whole matter. Look away from self, look straight to Jesus, confide simply in Him and in what He has done for us on the cross – our sins can be blotted out, divine righteousness can be ours; eternal life, sonship, an indwelling Spirit, an all-prevailing Advocate, a bright home in the heavens, and a portion in Christ’s eternal glory.
May the Holy Spirit lead each of us to the feet of Jesus, and enable us to cry out in holy triumph, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Dear God, please grant it for Jesus Christ’s sake.
