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Greetings to you all. We have been unable to send
out a Mini-Despatch for a while,
as commitments have been too heavy. Also our computers
have spent much time offline.
We pray we can rectify this from now on, and send
you a Mini-Despatch regularly again.
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TOP PRIORITY for YOU and YOUR FAMILY is that you are truly saved in Christ Jesus. He is the Lifeboat that will deliver you to safety from this Titanic ship called Mother Earth! Be sure you are in that Lifeboat. Just because everything is going along normally in many people’s lives does not mean that the ship is not going down. Just like the Titanic, people are not aware of the disaster that is happening, they are dancing and partying like the people on the Titanic were. Most will NOT get into the Lifeboat. This is their own choice; do not let it be yours.
The Bible tells us this:
“But as the days of Noe [Noah] were, so shall also the coming
of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day
that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took
them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
(Matthew 24:37-39).
Some of you may have accepted a FALSE SALVATION message from churches
or preachers. There are many, many counterfeit “salvation” messages in
these perilous times. It is imperative that you take time to seriously
go over what you believe saves you! Even if you think you are already saved
and in Christ. This is the most important thing in your life for eternity,
and in your loved ones’ lives.
A false Gospel message will not put you in the Lifeboat, only
the Biblical Gospel will.
We will begin this investigation of true Biblical salvation by a brief
outline
of what IS NOT THE TRUE SALVATION message:
READ the following outline of the TRUE GOSPEL
1. You cannot be saved by good works of your own;
2. You cannot be saved by church attendance, or joining some church;
3. You cannot be saved by simply repenting of your sin;
4. You cannot be saved by just having an experience of a spiritual nature;
5. Going down to the front of a church cannot save you;
6. You cannot be saved by a long period of receiving graces from God;
7. You are not saved by accepting Christ as Saviour, and then adding to His redemption by good work of your own.
This is a mixture of grace and works which nullifies
G.R.A.C.E. –
God’s
Riches
At
Christ’s
Expense.
8. You are not saved by the worth of your faith, but you are saved by the worthiness of the
One Whom you have faith in.
9. You cannot be saved by believing the Bible is God’s Word, or by saying you think Jesus Christ was a wonderful man, or even by believing He was the Son of God.
Extract “The Bible Tried Tested Triumphant”
by (the late) Pastor W. E. Jackel, p.p. 134-142. […Aust.]
If we refuse the revelation of God what shall be our compensation?
If we reject the Bible what shall we receive in return?
If we throw overboard the chart and compass, who shall guide our frail
barque?
The soul is forever raising questions of life and death, sin and salvation,
suffering and sorrow. The Bible has the answer to all these problems, and
to every fear and doubt that conscious guilt awakens in the soul. Once
take your stand upon this rock of truth, and the waves of doubt and fear
will break harmlessly at your feet, and you will say,
"I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest
I’ll sail the wide seas no more,
The tempest may sweep o'er the wild stormy deep,
In Jesus I am safe evermore."
THE BIBLE AND THE SIN PROBLEM.
A Bishop, in the dark ages, came across a copy of the Bible—a book which he had not seen before. He began to read it, and became greatly distressed because of his sin. One day, while in company with other ecclesiasts, he took the book in his hand and said, "I do not know what they call this book, but it is all against us.”
Let the Bible speak, and soon we shall discover "it is all against us”, and the plague of our hearts will be revealed. Lord Byron once said, “The worst thing I know about the Bible is that I believe it." Byron was a wicked man but conscience told him that what the Bible said about sin was true.
The age in which we live has lost the sense of sin. Men no longer shudder at its awfulness, but toy and trifle with things from which our fathers would shrink in horror.
The “bald jagged words” used to describe sin have become obsolete, and in their place has come scientific definition and high sounding phrases, which have thrown an air of respectability about sin.
Sin is termed a "psychological complex", "an unfortunate weakness", “a stage in the life of an ascending creature", "growing pains" etc. Thus modern man has whittled away the meaning of sin and emptied it of its loathsomeness, but nothing can alter the fact that sin is a dread and terrible reality, the foulest thing in all the universe of God.
We cannot learn the meaning of sin from the dictionary; the law only interprets sin as it touches society, but sin goes infinitely deeper than that— it relates to God and to His holiness.
"If anything is certain about sin it is this, it destroys the capacity by which alone its estimate can be rightly made. (Sin is the one thing in the universe which the more we practice it the less we know about it)." We must judge sin from the standpoint of unshaken moral purity, and that is exactly what man has lost.
The Bible alone contains God's estimate of sin. Every one of the sixty-six books deals with sin. There are over l000 references to sin in the Bible. The most amazing description of sin ever written is found in the opening chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. The Holy Spirit puts mankind in the dock, and masses argument upon argument and succeeds in bringing a verdict against the entire race of men.
HUMAN GUILT DOUBLY DECLARED.
The Holy Spirit brings fourteen terrible indictments against fallen
man.
Seven times, then seven times again, God brands men sinners.
"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God" (Romans 3: lO-I9)."There is none righteous, no not one,"
"There is none that understandeth,"
"There is none that seeketh God.”
"They are all gone out of the way,"
"They are together become unprofitable,"
"There is none that doeth good,"
"Their throat is an open sepulchre,"
"With their tongues they have used deceit,”
"The poison of asps is under their lips,"
"Whose mouth is full of cursing,"
"Their feet are swift to shed blood,"
"Destruction and misery are in their ways, “
"The ways of peace have they not known,"
"There is no fear of God before their eyes."
SIN— THE UNIVERSAL MALADY!
"There is no difference: for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3: 22, 23). The glory of God referred to here is God's standard of human life and conduct. There are differences between men ranging from high morality to depravity, but the sense of failure is everywhere. Whatever be the difference in other things, all are one in the fact of sin.
"There is no difference." SIN. Once perhaps you resented that word. Now you take all its import home. Whatever your difference may be from the notorious breakers of God's law, you know there is none in this respect, that you are as hopelessly remote as they from the glory of God.
"The harlot, the murderer, the liar, fall short of it, but so do you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the peak of an alp, but you are as little able to touch the stars as they" (Moule, Romans). We cannot escape the fact of sin. Man is a sinner wherever he is. A visitor once asked a Trappist Monk, "Why did you come in here?" "I came in," he said, "to escape the sin of the world." "And have you succeeded?" “No,” he replied, "You see we bring ourselves in.”
The work of the Holy Spirit is to make men conscious of their guilt,
for the gospel can never be proven except to an awakened conscience. No
man can desire the things of Christ until he has gotten to the end of self.
There is a dictum in the medical profession, which says, "Successful treatment
depends on right diagnosis." Diagnosis must precede treatment and for that
reason the Holy Spirit gives us a full diagnosis of the disease of sin,
and only as we accept His verdict can we know the blessings of forgiveness.
Every true conversion has its beginning here. When men get face to face
with the holiness of God, they see themselves for what they are.
When this vision flashed upon Bishop Andrews, he exclaimed, "I am made of sin"; Pascal said, "I am made of falsehood and insincerity." William Law declared, “I am a compound of wicked and disorderly tempers", while the Apostle cried out in agony of soul, “Oh wretched man that I am. who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"“That underworld where lust and lies
Like vermin crawl and creep
Across my vision and my life
Where sordid passions leap."
All this sounds strange to a generation that has enthroned humanism. The Christianity that spoke so powerfully to our fathers sounds odd and outlandish to the pagan culture of today. Holiness, the new birth, repentance, are distasteful to an age that worships itself and is busy constructing the world of its dreams.
A modernist sums up his religion in the lines of a well-known poem —
“Let me live by the side of the road, And be a friend to man.”
And yet one may fulfill this, and even burn up one's life by social
passion, and not even be a Christian.
But that is not all this tired world needs. This kind of false solution is everywhere. It is part of the humanistic illusion that only "nourishes the soul’s disease.""So many men, so many creeds,
So many ways, that wind and wind
When just the art of being kind
Is all this tired world needs.”?
A Danish missionary, Dr. L. Larsen, relates a story of a crazy sweeper who went through an Indian bazaar inviting everybody to come and see his daughter married to the Rajah. Someone asked him "What induced the Rajah to marry a sweeper girl?" "Oh", he said "The Rajah doesn't know anything about it yet, but on our side its all fixed up. ' It is easy to put together a comfortable religion by leaving out a holy God and His righteous demands on sinners.
MAN'S DILEMMA AND GOD'S ANSWER.
The extremity of man's need is God's opportunity to reveal the riches
of His grace.
The cross of Jesus Christ is God's answer to the wickedness of the
human heart.
A crucified Christ settles everything, both as to God's claims and the sinner's needs. The life of Christ, beautiful as it was, is not enough. His ethical character would not do; His teaching and example could not avail.
Christ had to DIE, the blood had to be shed, the tomb had to receive His lifeless form. The sword of divine judgment was sheathed in His body—the lightnings of divine wrath burned themselves out in His anguish, and the very righteousness of God which seemed to shut out the sinner demanded the cross, where God's claims against the ungodly were fully met.
"When Jesus our Lord ascended to the Father to offer the fruits of the atonement, in effect He said, 'My blood has been shed, and I have brought into existence a 'new humanity' against which you have no charge." (Dr. W. Houghton).
THE PRINCIPLE OF SUBSTITUTION
This vital principle lies at the very heart of the atonement. God placed
Adam and Eve under law. The probationary law is revealed in Genesis. "In
the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die."
Adam violated the law by an act of disobedience, and the broken law
cried out for satisfaction. It demanded that the death penalty be carried
into effect against all sinners. Adam was representative of the human race.
Whether we like it or not we are all bound up in a unity with him. When
he sinned, the entire race sinned in him. "In Adam's fall, we sinned all."
Mankind fell in him, and unless someone can be found to fulfill the righteous
demands of the law, then the entire race must perish.
“Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that He might bring us to God." {1 Peter 3: 18).
The lawgiver took the place of the lawbreaker, and since the law does not exact its penalty twice, BELIEVERS are forever free from the wrath of the law.
In the Napoleonic wars, the eligible manhood of France was drafted into the army. A wealthy man, unable to go, hired another man to take his place. In the battle that ensued he was killed. Some time later when a further draft was made, the wealthy man was called up again. He went to the recruiting office with the papers showing that the one whom he had hired had died as his substitute. An entry was accordingly made opposite his name. "Died in the person of his substitute on the field of Rivoli." Likewise the believer can say, "The law has no terror for me, the demands of the law have been met. I died in the person of my substitute, Jesus Christ.""Payment God will not twice demand,
Once at thy bleeding surety's hand,
And then again at thine.”
"In garments dyed in blood,
'Tis He, instead of me, is seen
When I approach to God."
THE WONDER OF JUSTIFICATION.
Justification is another glorious fruit of the cross. It is the work of God in Christ, whereby He declares the sinner righteous. It is nothing but a miracle of divine grace. Unrighteous in ourselves, we stand before God without accusation and are received as though we had never sinned.
"God", says Hooker, ''Doth justify the believing man, yet not for
the worthiness of his belief, but for His worthiness who is believed.”
"We are not justified by belief in Christ, but by Christ in whom
we believe. Faith is nothing apart from its object, and is only valuable
as it leads us to Him who for us has wrought a perfect redemption."
THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Mankind possesses many things in common With Deity —love, power, wisdom, fellowship. All these, in a degree, he shares with His Maker. But holiness is the one characteristic he does not possess. God's standard of holiness has been openly displayed to the world in the person of Jesus Christ, and no one will get into heaven with less righteousness than the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The perfect, holy life of Jesus Christ is the standard, and nothing less.
If there is a moral man reading this who expects to go to heaven by
keeping the golden rule, the ten commandments, or the sermon on the mount,
then consider this: The only standard accepted in heaven is Jesus Christ.
Would any presume to say, “I am as good as He?" “I am as holy as He?"
The Word of God declares,
"We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags" (Isaiah. 64: 6).
The sinner has no righteousness. He cannot build it up, neither
can he originate it. Paul's complaint against the Jewish nation was this.
"They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness
of God" (Rom. 10: 3). The sinner can do but one thing in the matter of
righteousness— he can RECEIVE it. To all who are trying to be religious,
to all who are trying to make themselves good enough for heaven,
God's Word says,
"But to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifieth
the ungodly,
His faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4: 5).
Divine righteousness is bestowed on all who are found by faith in Jesus Christ—the divine merit is reckoned to them, put to their credit. This is spoken of in the Scriptures as the "gift of righteousness", the righteousness which is by faith."
We quote again from the writings of Hooker.
"Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in Him.
God accepteth the sinner in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if
he had fulfilled all that which is commanded in the law."
Such are we in the sight of God as the very Son of God Himself.
We care for no other knowledge in this world than this—that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made Himself the sin of man, and that men are made the righteousness of God.
This then is the grand theme of the Bible. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”"No condemnation now I dread,
Jesus and all in Him is mine,
Alive in Him, my living Head
And clothed with righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne
And claim the crown through Christ, my own."
The haunting shadows of doom no longer distress, the burdens of guilt are lifted from the soul, and the troubled conscience is at rest.
The blessed testimony of the Bible comes to a close with a great invitation.
"And the Spirit and the Bride says Come; and let him that heareth
say come,
and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely."
The water of life is offered to all, a GIFT not to earn but to take. The sin problem has been settled. Salvation is generously offered to all. The man who turns his back on the gospel turns his back on the biggest thing in the universe of God.
"The blackest sin is not righteousness violated, But mercy despised."
We draw this book to a close with the words of Dr. R. C. Davidson, whose early faith as a theological student was shattered by modernism and evolution, but who came back to a radiant faith in the Bible as the Word of God, to exercise a fruitful testimony to the end of his life.
"Clasp this Book of God to your heart. Believe its Precious promises.
Yield yourself to its divine author. Give him back the life you owe.
Redeem the time. Work! Pray! Spend and be spent for others, and at last
lay down to die pillowing your head upon the bosom of the Saviour."
YES, dear reader, you too can come just as you are and take the GIFT of eternal life in Christ Jesus. YOU can be saved from this evil world of fallen sinners."This lamp from off the everlasting throne
Mercy took down, and in the night of time
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow
And evermore-beseeching man with tears
And earnest sighs to read, believe and live."
How? Humbly turn from your sin and come to God in prayer.Tell Him you will take His forgiveness and mercy offered to you in His Son’s sacrifice for you on the Cross. Say you want to take the GIFT of Christ Jesus as your Saviour, and by faith in God’s Word believe that Christ has done it all for you.
"And the Spirit and the Bride says Come;
and let him that heareth say come,
and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely."
Editor of `Despatch'
Magazine
& "Beauty for Ashes" Booklet
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also access daily
email
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Endtime Ministries...Christian Resource Centre Ph. 07 38882974 (also Fax) Mob. 0422359978
Editor of Despatch W. B. Howard
despatch@mail.cth.com.au
http://www.despatch.cth.com.au
