Future Seen III
Daniel 9:24
March
20, 2022
Daniel ch. 9 v. 24 - Spurgeon Sermon –
Shutting, Sealing, and Covering, or;
Messiah’s Glorious Work
But it is not enough to shut up the vanquished tyrant,
unless he be shut up
forever; and therefore, lest there should be any possibility of
his breaking
loose again, the next sentence is, “To seal up.”
Yet, as if this might not suffice, the next term in the
Hebrew is to cover up;
for
the word to make reconciliation or expiation is usually in the Hebrew to
cover over. “Blessed is the
man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin
is covered.” Christ has come
to cover sin, to atone for it, and so to hide it.
His glorious
merits and substitutionary sufferings and death put
away sin
so completely that
God Himself beholds it no more. He has
blotted it out,
cast it into the sea, and removed it from us as far as the
east is from the
west. The two former
sentences speak of finishing transgression and
making an end of sin, and these expressions are full and
complete, while
this third one explains the means by which the work is done, namely, by an
expiation which covers up
every trace of sin. Thus in the three
together we
have a picture of THE UTTER EXTINCTION OF SIN BOTH AS TO ITS
GUILT AND ITS
POWER, AY, AND ITS VERY EXISTENCE! It is put
into the dungeon and the door is shut upon it; after this the door is sealed
and
then it is covered up, so that the
place of sin’s sepulcher cannot be seen
anymore forever.
Mercy-seat. ( Exodus 25:17 ; 37:6 ; Hebrews 9:5 ) This appears to have been
merely the lid of the ark of the covenant, not another surface
affixed thereto.
(It was a solid plate of gold, 2 1/2 cubits (6 1/3 feet)
long by 1 1/2 cubits (2 2/3 feet)
wide, representing a kind of throne of God, where He would hear prayer and
from
which He spoke words of comfort.
It was that whereon the blood of the yearly
atonement was sprinkled by the high priest; and in this relation it
is doubtful
whether the sense of the word in the Hebrew is based on the
material fact of
its
"covering" the ark, or derived from this notion of its reference to
the
"covering" (i.e.
atonement) of sin. Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Sin was aforetime in God’s sight, but through Christ Jesus
we read,
“Thou has forgiven the
iniquity of thy people; thou has covered all their sin.
Selah. Thou hast
taken
away all thy wrath:
thou has turned thyself from the
fierceness of thine anger.” Sin was
always breaking loose till Jesus sealed it up,
and
now it cannot come forth to lay any accusation against the justified.
The three words might be put into one word by saying Christ has made
a
clean sweep of sin of
every kind. Whatever may be its special development,
whether it be transgression, which means the breaking of bounds,
or sin,
which is any want of conformity to the law, or iniquity-that is
to say, inequity,
or
the want of equity, a default in righteousness; in all forms in
which it can be described Christ has shut it up, sealed it up, and
covered it
up by His atoning
sacrifice once for all. The depths have
covered it; if it be
searched for, it cannot be found; our blessed Scapegoat has carried
it away
into the land of forgetfulness; it shall not be mentioned against us anymore
forever. Those three words contain infinitely more of meaning than I
have
either space or ability
to set forth.
Observe, dear friends, that the
terms for sin are left in an absolute form. It
is
said, “to finish transgression,” “to make an end of sins,” “to make
reconciliation for iniquity.”
Whose transgression is this? Whose sins are
these? Whose iniquity is it? It is not said. There is no word employed
to set
out
the persons for whom atonement is made, as is done in verses like
these- “Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it”; “I lay
down my
life for the sheep.” The mass of evil is left unlabeled, that any penitent
sinner may look to the
Messiah and find in Him the remover of sin.
What
transgression is finished? Transgression of every
kind. But what sins are
made an end of? Sins of every sort-against law and against gospel, against
God and against men, sins past, sins present,
sins to come. And what
iniquity is expiated?
Every form of iniquity, whatever falls short by
omission, whatever goes
beyond by commission. Christ in this
passage is
spoken of in general
terms as removing sins, transgressions, and iniquities
IN THE MASS. In other places we
read of the objects of His substitution but
here all is left indefinite to encourage all. He gives us no catalogue of
offenses; for where should He write it? The very heavens could not hold
the enumeration; but He just takes the whole, unformed, horrible, black,
disgusting mass, and this
is what He does with it-He encloses it, fastens it
up, and buries it
forever. In the words of our version He finishes it,
makes
an end of it, and
makes expiation for it. The Messiah came to wipe out and
utterly destroy sin, and this is,
and will be, the effect of His work. Put all
the
three sentences into one and this is the sum of them.
______________________________________________________________________
Go
back to the clause above He encloses it, fastens it up, and buries it forever.
God has done this on a temporary basis in eons past with the evil angels by
putting them away in an abyss, or bottomless pit!
v. 3 - Somewhere deep in the center of the
earth a prison cell has been reserved
for a special prisoner, a cell in the remotest
recesses of the bottomless pit. The Greek
word for this central cavity is ἀβύσσος - abussos,
meaning literally “without depth”
or “bottomless.” Modern
translations call it the “abyss,” but “bottomless” is a more
precise derivation. Located at the very middle
of the earth, one could
not fall any deeper down, and every
boundary is a ceiling. It seems that such a
place will be Satan’s confine during the millennium, as far removed from human
beings as is possible to be on this planet. He who is the father of lies (John 8:44)
and the deceiver of the whole world (ch.12:9) will
be absolutely shut off from
exercising his wiles (Ephesians 6:11) for a thousand
years. Not
only will he
be hurled to the center of the earth, but he will
be shut up in his cell, with its
entrance invincibly
sealed so that he cannot even direct his own demonic hosts
while so restrained. (Contrast this with II
Thessalonians 2:3-12
with Revelation
20:1-3, 5-10; 9:1-3 - 5th trumpet - CY - 2022)
Encourage to read the following excerpt from
The Revelation Record
on website at www.adultbibleclass.com.
These latter will presumably
likewise be bound in appropriate compartments of Hades
or the abyss, as will the spirits
of lost men and women, there to await the judgment of
the great day. A central
cavity no more than ten miles in diameter could easily confine
the spirits of all the fallen
angels and of all lost humanity through the ages, even if each
spirit still required as much space as
a human body. It is doubtful whether such a cavity
could ever be detected by
scientific measurements made by geophysicists on the earth’s
surface, but the
Bible says it is there. Eventually, toward the close of the
millennium,
Satan “must” be released for a
brief period, apparently because the people born during
the millennium must be
tested. Incidentally, this is further proof that the binding of Satan
is more than a relative
semi-restraint on his power by virtue of Christ’s victory over him
at
(Colossians 2:14-15) but if
this is all that is meant by the millennial binding of the Devil,
then what is the meaning of his
subsequent unleashing? Is the victory at
become defeat again? Such an
idea is preposterous. In the meantime, with Satan
bound for a thousand years, the
world will be freed from its most virulent source of evil.
The awful physical trauma
through which the earth had just passed during the seven years
of its tribulation will not only
have purged it of its human and demonic corruption but also,
in considerable measure, of its
natural deformities. Thus it will be prepared to serve
appropriately as the physical setting of
the great millennial messianic kingdom. The
violent earthquakes and upheavals
will have leveled all the polluted cities of a sinful
world, the better to facilitate the
erection of new, clean, peaceful communities at the
beginning of the millennium.
These great land movements will also have eliminated the
great mountain ranges and islands
of the world, filling up the ocean depths and restoring
gentle, globally habitable
topography and geography all over the world, as it
had been
in the antediluvian
age,
before the cataclysmic upheavals of the great Deluge. As Isaiah
the prophet had foretold, “Every
valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill
shall be made low: and the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough places plain”
(Isaiah 40:4). This reversal
of the topographic upheavals of the Flood, however, will not
send waters over the continents
again, since much of the waters of the oceans will already
have been re-elevated above the
atmosphere, restoring in some measure the antediluvian
“waters
above the firmament.” (Genesis 1:7) The
worldwide drought of the first half
of the tribulation, the
cataclysmic splashdowns of bodies from the heavens during the
trumpet judgments and the intensified
solar radiations of the bowl judgments will all have
contributed to the translation of vast quantities
of water vapor far into the skies. Quite
probably, the immense tectonic
movements, eruptions, and landslides may also have
trapped vast quantities of water
beneath fresh sedimentary and volcanic deposits,
reinstating in partial degree the
primeval pressurized reservoirs of “the great deep”
(Genesis 7:11), facilitating
the birth of copious artesian springs, including one which
will feed the vast river emerging
from the millennial temple in
Zechariah 14:8). (I recommend Ezekiel 47 – Spurgeon Sermon – Waters to Swim In – this
website – CY – 2015) Thus the seas of the millennial world will be
relatively narrow and
shallow once again, as in primeval days.
Furthermore, the restoration of the vapor canopy
should, in large measure, restore
the globally pleasant warm climate of the antediluvian
period to the earth again. (A
short cut to what modern Progressives are so upset about
in their theoretical “climate change?” -
CY – 2015) No
longer will great atmospheric
movements generate violent rainstorms,
blizzards, hurricanes, and tornadoes, because the
uniform temperatures of the global
greenhouse will inhibit air mass movements of more
than local extent. In
the original world, the only rains were gentle mists, from localized
daily evaporation and precipitation
(Genesis 2:5), keeping the world everywhere at
comfortable temperatures and humidities, and supporting an abundance of plant and
animal life in all regions of the
globe. There were no deserts or ice caps or uninhabitable
mountain heights. It was all “very
good” (Genesis 1:31). The cataclysm of the
great
Flood destroyed that
beautiful world, but the global
upheavals of the great tribulation
WILL RESTORE
IT, at least in measure. For
example, note Joel’s prophecy: “Fear not,
O land; be glad and rejoice:
for the Lord will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts
of the field: for the pastures
of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit,
the fig tree and the
vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children
of
moderately,and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and
the latter rain in the first
month” (Joel
2:21-23); see also Hosea 6:3, and Zechariah 10:1).
The redistribution of earth’s
topography and restoration of its vapor canopy will soon result in
an elimination of many, if not
all, of its wastelands and deserts: “The wilderness and the
solitary place shall be glad for them;
and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the
rose. . . . for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in
the desert. And
the parched ground shall become a
pool, and the thirsty land springs of water” (Isaiah 35:1-7;
note also Isaiah 30:23; 32:15; 51:3; Ezekiel 34:26; 36:33-35; etc.). Somehow there will also
come a great healing of the lands
and waters of the earth. Before the great Flood,
the soils were rich in all needed
nutrients, and the drinking waters all came pure and
fresh from artesian springs fed
from deep underground reservoirs. The destruction of these
deep fountains and the devastating
land erosion of the great Flood largely destroyed God’s
primeval terrestrial ecology, leaving
the lands depleted and waters polluted. Originally all
animals, as well as man, were to
derive nourishment only from plant foods (Genesis 1:29-30),
but under the far more rigorous conditions
of the postdiluvian environment, God authorized
man to eat animal flesh as well
(Genesis 9:2-4). Evidently for the same reason many animals
also had to become
carnivorous. These conditions were further aggravated
during the long
centuries after the Flood, with the
lands becoming further impoverished and the waters further
contaminated, requiring increasingly great
expenditures on fertilization and purification.
The traumatic upheavals of the
tribulation period had brought these conditions to a
climax, with devastating famine
conditions and with terrestrial waters so depleted
and poisoned that all the animals
of the sea had perished. Had such
conditions been
allowed to persist much longer, all
life on earth would soon have become impossible. In
some marvelous way, however, God
will use the physical convulsions of that awful
period
of purging to cleanse the lands and
waters of the earth as well as its moral and spiritual
climate. Possibly the tectonic
and volcanic upheavals, and perhaps even the
atmospheric
bombardments, will implant new supplies of
needed nutrients and trace elements in the
soils. Even the multitudes of
dead animals and plants in the lands and oceans, as well
as the skeletons of the millions
of dead men and horses at Armageddon and elsewhere,
may well become fertilizing
agents for the lands as their remains are scattered far and wide.
The unprecedented global earthquakes
and eruptions will trigger vast and violent landslides
and showers of dirt and rocks,
entrapping tremendous volumes of ocean waters beneath
great overburdens of solid
materials which will rapidly become pressurized, lithified,
and
partially sealed. This will likely
produce at last two important effects. In the first place,
the sea bottoms will be raised to
higher elevations than at present, compensating for the
great losses of water caused by the
restoration of the atmospheric canopy and by the
entrapment of vast volumes beneath the
huge landslides and rock showers. The entire
crust itself will, to some unknown
extent, have shifted and slipped over the earth’s
mantle, rearranging the various
continental plates to a more nearly uniform distribution
of land and sea surface areas,
but with relatively greater land areas than at present.
Second, this extensive
rearrangement of topography and formation of large pressurized
subterranean water pockets will facilitate
the development of a new terrestrial system of
springs and spring-fed rivers, the
waters of which will be purified by the processes of heating
and percolation. “I
will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys:
I will make the wilderness a
pool of water, and the dry land springs of water” (Isaiah 41:18).
Whether or not the ocean
population of fishes and other marine organisms will somehow be
replenished is uncertain. The
second bowl judgment (ch. 16:3) had caused the death
of
“every
living soul . . . in the sea,” so that at least those fishes requiring a marine
environment
had apparently been eliminated
from the so-called food chain. The third bowl judgment had
similarly affected the fresh waters,
except that no reference was made to death of fresh-water
organisms (ibid. v. 4) so that probably many of these had survived, and they
would be more
important for the future millennial
economy. In the description of the great
millennial river in
that every thing that liveth, which moveth, withersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and
there shall be a very great
multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they
shall be healed; and every thing
shall live whither the river cometh” (Ezekiel 47:9). This
river will emerge from the new
temple (ibid. v.1) and may well
contain health-giving minerals
acquired from source beds deep under
the city. Perhaps also it may be artificially purified
and fortified as it issues from
its spring in the temple, using the knowledge and ingredients
obtained from the accumulated research
of the greatest minds of the ages, now redeemed
and perhaps
instructed by Christ Himself. The scenario inferred in the
foregoing is bound
to be incomplete and may well be
incorrect in many respects. Further study and research
on these fascinating
possibilities are in order, but the most important point is to realize
that GOD IS
somehow going to
revitalize this tired old planet and make it ready
for the
glorious
the old dragon, Satan, must be
completely restrained from continuing his nefarious and baleful
influence over the earth. He must
be bound, and then the dominion usurped by him can be
unbound. “No man can enter into a strong
man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he
will first bind the strong man;
and then he will spoil his house” (Mark 3:27). “Because the
creature [better translated as
“creation”] itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans
8:21).
(The Revelation Record – Henry Morris)
BY HENRY M.
MORRIS, PH.D. | Institute for Creation Research
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1997
“The angels which kept not their first
estate, but left their own habitation,
He hath reserved in everlasting chains
under darkness unto the judgment
of the great day” (Jude 6).
This controversial verse provides an important insight into earth history. It is parallel
to II Peter 2:4. “God spared not the angels that sinned, but
cast them down to hell,
and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.”
These chained angels cannot be the same angels as the principalities and powers
of darkness which are still in “high places” (Ephesians 6:12) under the direction
of Satan.
Thus it becomes evident that these wicked angels must be the same as those
“sons of God” (Genesis 6:14) who left their own habitation in heaven, disobedient
to God in “going after strange flesh” (Jude 7)
in the days of Noah, possessing the
bodies of ungodly men and women and hoping thereby to
“corrupt”
all flesh on
earth (Genesis 6:12). The terms “sons of God” in the Old Testament always
refers only to angels, but these angels kept not their first estate (“principality”),
and through the medium of demon possession (not angel/human cohabitation),
attempted to defeat God’s purpose for mankind.
End Institute of Creation Research
Revelation 20:1-3, 5-10; 9:1-3 - 5th
trumpet
If Tartarus
is the same as the Abyss, then the inhabitants of the bottomless pit are
the same angels who sinned and left their first habitation. God uses the bottomless
pit as a holding place for the most evil of angels, including
Satan himself and those
who tried and failed before the Flood to thwart God’s plan to
bring the Seed of the
woman into the world (Genesis 3:15). The inhabitants of the
Abyss are released
for a very short time during the last three and a half years
of the tribulation to
fulfill God’s purpose, namely, to torment the wicked (Revelation
9:5). These
prisoners of the bottomless pit hate humanity and seek to destroy them, but
God controls their terror and limits their power.
The true rendering of Daniel
12:1-3, in connection with the context, is “And (at that time)
Many (of thy people) shall awake
(or be separated) out from among the sleepers in the
earth-dust. These (who awake) shall be unto life everlasting, but
those (who do not
awake at that time) shall be unto shame and contempt
everlasting.” So, the most
renowned Hebrew Doctors render it, and the best Christian exegetes.
As some understand it, our Lord came that in His death
transgression might reach its highest development, and sign its own
condemnation. Sin reached its finish, its ultimatum, its climax, in the
murder of the Son of God. It could not proceed further: the course of
malice could no further go. They had stoned the prophets and
killed
everyone that was sent unto them; but now He came, and God said, “They
will reverence my
Son,” but they did not; on the other hand,
they cried,
“This is the heir; let us kill Him, and the inheritance
shall be ours.” Sin
finished itself when it brought forth the death of the Son of God.
It could
produce no riper fruit, for no supposable crime can exceed the
putting to
death of Jesus our Lord. Now hath sin finished itself, and now
hath Jesus
come to finish it. “Thus far,” saith He, “thou shalt go, but no further: here
in
my wounds and death shall thy proud waves be stayed.” Sin virtually
committed suicide when it slew the Savior, for His death became its
death.
The kingdom of sin was overthrown in that day when it smote
the Prince
of
Peace: then was a period put to the dominion of evil; and, to come back
to
the Hebrew, the Lord restrained
transgression, and Satan was bound
with a great chain. “
Now take the second sentence, which in our version is, “To
make an end
of sin.” Messiah has come to proclaim so free, so rich, so gracious
a
pardon to the sons of men that when they receive it sin virtually
ceases to
be:
it is made an end of. The man that is in Christ, and hath Christ for his
covenant Head, is this day so delivered from all sin whatsoever,
that he
may
boldly ask the question, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of
God’s elect?” If Christ has made an end of sin there is an end of it:
the
matter is ended, and
no more is to be said. Down among the dead
men let
sin
lie, forever buried by the right hand of the conquering Savior.
But now, the last expression is in English, He hath come
“to make
reconciliation for iniquity”; that is, to end
the strife between God and man
by
a glorious reconciliation, a making again of peace between these twain;
so
that God loveth man, and, as a consequence, man loveth God. In the
blessed atonement of Christ, God and man meet at a chosen
meeting-place.
Christ is Jehovah’s darling and our delight. A slain Savior
is well pleasing
to
God, and oh, how pleasing He is to a sinner who is deeply under a sense
of
sin! Here,
here is that mercy-seat sprinkled with blood where man may
speak to God without
fear, and
where God doth speak to man without
wrath. Here
righteousness and peace have met together; mercy and truth
have kissed each other.
Now, take the Hebrew for it, and read the sentence thus, to cover iniquity.
Oh, what bliss this is: to think, dear friends, that sin is
now once for all
covered! Not as though it lay rankling there beneath some coverlet
through
which fire might burn, or lightning strike; but Christ’s
covering is such that,
if
you could heap hell over sin, it were not so hidden; and if you could pile
worlds upon it, were not so concealed; and if all heaven bowed to
overlay
it,
it were not so out of sight as when Jesus buried it deeper than the lowest
depths, where no
memory can remember it, or mind perceive it.
This is what is to be done with the whole kingdom of evil,
as well with the
power of it as with the guilt of it. As when the darkness flies before
the sun, not a
trace of its blackness is left, so is sin to be destroyed utterly
from the redeemed of
the Lord. It is not merely the guilt of
sin that is shut
up
and sealed and covered, but sin itself, its power, its dominion, its
habit,
its
defilement, the dread that comes of it, and the fear and the burning of
heart which it engenders.
All the foul birds of sin’s filthy cage must fly
away, never to return.
I invite you now for a few minutes to consider the second
work, namely, the setting
up
of righteousness. This is set before us in three expressions: first, in the
words
“to bring in everlasting
righteousness.” And what is that? Why, His own
righteousness which is from
everlasting to everlasting, and will never be
taken way from those
who have it, and will never cease to be their beauty
and their glorious
Jesus. The work of Christ in His life and death is
by God
imputed to His people:
indeed, it is theirs because they are one with Christ.
He is the Lord their righteousness, and they are the
righteousness of God
in
Him. Saints are so righteous in Jesus Christ that they are more righteous
than Adam was before he fell, for he had but a creature righteousness, and
they have the righteousness of the Creator: he had a righteousness which
he
lost, but believers have a righteousness
which they can never lose, an
everlasting righteousness. Nor is that all the meaning of our text: those to
whom God imputes righteousness, to them also He imparts righteousness.
He makes them pure in heart, He changes their desires, He makes them
love that which is
right and just and good, and so He gives them grace to
lead godly, sober,
honest, and holy lives. This righteousness
shall not be
crushed out of them, for the work of the Spirit shall continue
until they
shall become perfect, and be meet to dwell with God in light.
(Psalm 138:*) Happy
are those spirits
to whom Christ gives an everlasting righteousness, for theirs is
the kingdom and in
it they shall shine forth as the sun. They
are right and
they shall be right; they are true and they shall never degenerate into
falsehood; they are God’s own children and they shall go on to
develop the
image of Christ, their elder brother, till they shall be without
spot or
wrinkle or any such thing. THIS CHRIST CAME TO DO! He imputes and
imparts
righteousness, and thus brings in everlasting righteousness as the
foundation of His
kingdom.
Next, in order to the setting up of a kingdom of
righteousness He is come
that He may “seal up vision and prophecy.” That is, by fulfilling all the
visions and the prophecies of the Old Testament in Himself, He
ends both
prophecy and vision. He seals up visions and prophecies so that
they shall
no
more be seen or spoken; they are closed, and no man can add to them;
and
therefore-and that is the point to note-THE
GOSPEL IS FOR EVER
SETTLED TO REMAIN
ETERNALLY THE SAME! Christ has set up a
kingdom that shall never be moved. His truth can never be changed
by any novel
revelation. This, then, is an
essential part of the setting up of that
which is good-namely, TO SETTLE
whereon
we may stand steadfast, immovable. The candles are snuffed out because
the
day itself looks out from the windows of heaven. Rejoice in this, beloved. God
makes you righteous in
Christ and with Christ, and in order that you shall
never be perplexed with
change, He sets aside all other teachers, THAT
CHRIST MAY BE YOUR ALL IN ALL!
This is Christ’s
work, for which He came, and for which
He ascended on high,
to set up the truth, to set up righteousness, and to
make it
everlasting by the dwelling of the Holy
Ghost in the
in the midst of
the sons of men.
Heaven rings
with the praises of the Messiah who came to destroy the work
of sin, and to set
up the kingdom of righteousness in the midst of the world.
Furthermore, are the prophecies and visions sealed up as to
you? Are they
fulfilled in you? When God declares that He will wash us and make us
whiter than snow, is it so with you? When He declares that He
will cleanse
our
blood, which has not yet been cleansed, is it so with you? When He
says, “A new heart also will I give them, and a right spirit will I put
within
them: and I will write my law upon their hearts”; is it so with you?
Nor is this all: are you anointed to be most holy to the
Lord?
Are you set apart that you may serve Him? Has the
Holy Spirit come upon you,
giving you a desire to do good? Have you a wish to rescue the
perishing, a
longing to bring the wandering sheep back to the great Shepherd’s
fold? Is
the
Spirit of God so upon you today that you can truly say, “I am not my
own;
I am bought with a price?” Jesus, the Messiah, came to do all these
things, and if He has not
done them to you, then He has not come to you;
you are still a
stranger, still far off from Him. Oh, may
the Lord make you
desperately unhappy till you come to Jesus: may you never know what
quiet means till you find it at the pierced feet! From this hour
may you
breathe sighs, and may every pulse be a new agony of spirit, till
at last you
can
say, “Yes, the Messiah was cut off, and cut off for me, and all that He
came to do He did for me, and I am a sharer and a partaker in it all.”
Concerning
security. How can that man be lost whose
transgression is finished, and whose sin has ceased to be? What is there
for
him
to dread on earth, in heaven, or in hell? If Christ has put away my sin, I
cannot die; if Christ has washed away my guilt, I cannot be
condemned; I
am
safe, and may triumphantly sing
And now, inasmuch as you are secure, you are also reconciled to God, and
made to delight in Him. God is your friend and you are one of the friends
of
God. Rejoice in that hallowed friendship, and live in the assurance of it.
And now, inasmuch as you are secure, you are also
reconciled to God, and
made to delight in Him. God is your friend and you are one of the friends
of
God. Rejoice in that hallowed friendship, and live in the assurance of it.
Now you have the anointing, do not doubt it. Christ has
made it yours by
His death. The Spirit of the Lord resteth
upon you; you are fit for service;
set
about it without further question. The anointing is upon you; you are
most holy to the Lord; so let your life be wholly consecrated. God dwelleth
in
you, and you in God. Oh, blessed
consequences, you shall soon dwell
with Him
forever!
But now suppose when I put the question you had to shake
your head and
say,
“No, it is not so with me.” Then hear these few sentences. If the
Messiah has not done this for you, then
your sin will be finished in another
way-sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death. An awful death awaits
you-death unto God, and purity and joy.
If Christ has never made an end of your sin, then mark
this, your sin will soon
make an end of you, and all your hopes, your pleasure, your boasting, your
peace
will perish. Oh, terrible end of all that is hopeful within you. You shall
be a
desolation forever and forever.
Has not Christ reconciled you? Then mark this, your enmity
will increase.
There is no peace between God and you now, but soon will
the war begin
in
which He must conquer, and you, never yielding, will continue forever
more to hate God, and to find in that hate your utmost torment, your
fiercest hell. Have you never had the righteousness of Christ
brought in?
Then mark this, your unrighteousness will last forever. One
of these days
God will say, “He that is unholy, let him be unholy still:
he that is filthy, let
him
be filthy still.” That will be the most awful thing that can ever happen
to
you.
Where death finds
you, there judgment shall find you, and there eternity shall
leave you. Oh,
wretched soul, to have nothing to do with the everlasting
righteousness of Christ!
Lastly, will you never be anointed to be most holy? Then
remember,
holiness and you will stand at a
distance forever, and to be far off
from
holiness must necessarily be to be far off from heaven and
happiness.
Sin is misery; in
it lies both the root and the fruit of ETERNAL WOE!
Purity is paradise: to be right with God is to be right
with yourself and all created
things; but if ye will not be holy, then must ye by force of your
own choice
be
forever tossed about upon the restless sea of wretchedness. God save
you, brothers and sisters; God save you for Christ’s sake.
Amen
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