Tracts 211 - 220

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning,
that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Romans 15:4
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TOO LATE
 

John, a friend to whom I’ve been sending these Gospel messages for about 40 years, began 3 years ago to show signs of having Alzheimer’s disease, but so slight as to be barely noticeable. 

 

Then 5 weeks ago he required surgery for an intestinal problem.  Complications developed requiring him to be in intensive care for over a month.  He improved slightly, but then it was discovered that during that month of inactivity the Alzheimer’s disease had progressed dramatically to the point where he has forgotten how to speak, eat, walk, etc. 

 

Special therapy was prescribed, though the doctors weren’t optimistic, but just as he was about to be transferred to a clinic providing that therapy, he had a relapse, and is back in intensive care, comatose, with little prospect of recovery.

 

Death doesn’t always come suddenly, but other things, e.g., a stroke, or sickness such as that suffered by John, may suddenly render one incapable of rational thought, so that he has passed beyond hope of salvation just as surely as if he were dead.

 

Because I care about your soul I’ve been sending you these messages for many years, knowing that you probably laugh at them and at me. 

 

John isn’t able to laugh today, nor is it likely he will ever laugh again, for he has never given any indication that he has been born again, John 3:7, “You must be born again,” so that he will weep and wail, Matthew 8:12, for ever in the torment of the lake of fire, Revelation 20:11-15.

 

God warns, “My spirit shall not always strive with man,” Genesis 6:3; “He, that being often reproved hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy,” Proverbs 29:1.

 

To be born again...

 

(1) Admit that you’re a sinner without any righteousness

 

(2) Believe that Christ loved you enough to die in your stead for your sins

 

(3) Believe that in response to that confession and faith God will pardon all your sins, and receive you into heaven at the end of your life. 

 

The terrible alternative is to first enter hell, and then the lake of fire.

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PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD

 

To pray for the dead is futile; the deceased is in hell or heaven without possibility of change, each having chosen his own eternal destination: heaven, by being born again; and hell, by dying without having been born again.  The Bible makes no mention of Purgatory or any other intermediate state.

 

God has predestinated that every born again man will be in heaven; and all others, in the lake of fire eternally; but He has not predestinated the choice to be or not to be born again.  That is a free will choice each man makes for himself.

 

If you haven’t been born again, then simply by default you have chosen hell as your eternal destination.  Nor does church membership, baptism, confirmation, moral reformation, good living, etc., constitute that imperative new birth.

 

To be born again, admit that you’re a sinner with no righteousness; believe that Christ loved you enough to die in your stead for your sins, and that in response to that confession and faith God pardons all your sin, and will receive you into heaven.


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BAPTISM

THE MISUNDERSTOOD ORDINANCE

 

First, baptism is to be by immersion; not sprinkling, robbing it of its spiritual meaning.

 

It is the symbolic confession of having already been born again, immersion portraying the believer’s vicarious death with Christ; emerging from the water, portraying his spiritual resurrection with Christ, as it is written, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me,” Galatians 2:20.

 

Second, it is only for born again believers.  To baptize infants is an unscriptural travesty, for Scripture knows nothing of anticipative baptism whereby a parent or anyone else can have a baby baptized in anticipation of its becoming a born again believer.  Every biblical record of baptism is of a born again believer. 

 

Third, it is not a means of salvation.

 

To believe that faith plus baptism is the formula for salvation is to denigrate Christ by implying that His vicarious death alone is not sufficient for one’s salvation.  God says it is.


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THE COMING WORLD CATASTROPHE

 

The terrible Tribulation judgments that will leave the world in ruins is imminent.  Every prophecy relative to events that will culminate in the rapture of the Church, and the beginning of the Tribulation, has already been fulfilled, the restoration of Jewish autonomy in 1948 being the last such event, and in regard to it Christ has warned that the generation witnessing that restoration will not have passed from the earth until the Church is raptured, and the Tribulation begins, Matthew 24:34.  We are that generation.

 

The rapture is that event in which Christ, with the speed of lightning, see 1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, will remove every believer from the earth, leaving without hope of salvation those who had refused to believe the Gospel.  The rapture could occur as you read, and if you are left behind you are as sure of being in the eternal torment of the lake of fire as if you were already there, Revelation 20:11-15.  You are doomed.

 

Save yourself while there is time.  Admit that you’re a sinner without any righteousness; believe that Christ loved you enough to die in your stead for your sins; and that in response to that faith God will pardon you and receive you into heaven.


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IN GOD WE TRUST?  NONSENSE!

 

We worship MONEY, SEX, SPORTS, EDUCATION, and a host of other “gods,” and are stupid enough to think that GOD is also stupid enough to be fooled by the above slogan! 

 

He isn’t! 

 

2,500 years ago Israel made the same mistake.  She also worshiped other “gods,” and mocked GOD by maintaining the pretense of also worshiping HIM, while her false prophets declared that His threatened judgment wouldn’t come.  But it did!  She was virtually destroyed by Assyria and Babylon.

 

That same GOD has warned that today’s world is to be devastated by the now imminent Tribulation judgments, and every prophecy relative to that destruction has been fulfilled, except for the rapture of the Church, and that could occur today.

 

If it does, and you haven’t been born again by admitting that you’re a sinner, and by believing that Christ died in your stead for your sins, that split second removal of believers from the earth will leave you doomed to exist in the eternal torment of the lake of fire, Revelation 20:11-15.


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WALKING BLINDFOLD

INTO AN ELECTRIFIED FENCE

 

Would anything induce you to walk blindfold over a bridge across which was stretched an electrified fence that would kill you the instant you touched it?

 

Nothing would?  Well then, may I ask why you’re already doing something far more dangerous?  You’re walking over the bridge between time and eternity, not knowing which step will be your last.  What if this should be the hour you become one of the countless multitudes who take that fateful step that carries them instantly into heaven - or hell?

 

If you can’t remember how, when, and where you were born again, that step will take you into the eternal torment of hell with no hope of escape.  And don’t make the deadly mistake of equating clean living, church membership, baptism, confirmation, etc., with that new birth.  They aren’t, in spite of assurance to the contrary given by the hordes of false preachers who occupy pulpits, but who are themselves on the way to hell.

 

To be born again, admit that you’re a sinner already condemned; believe that Christ loved you enough to die in your stead for your sins; and that in response to that admission and faith God will pardon you, and receive you into heaven.

 

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TODAY’S IDOLATRY

 

The destruction of idolatrous Israel and Judah by Assyria and Babylon had been long foretold by the prophets who were contradicted by the false prophets who declared that there would be no judgment. 

 

But the judgment came, and those who had ignored the warning perished, learning too late the folly of having heeded the lying prophets while mocking those who had told the truth. 

 

Their folly and destruction are but a figure of the eternal destruction that will overtake the men of this generation who also ignore God, and worship instead today’s worthless idols: money, education, sports, pleasure, to name but a few. 

 

The utter worthlessness of these things, and the madness of having occupied oneself with them while despising the precious blood of Christ, which alone can cleanse sin and fit men for heaven, will be fully revealed only when the doomed soul drops into hell to await consignment to the eternal torment of the lake of fire. 

 

Trust Christ as your Savior today.  Tomorrow may be eternally too late.


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BILLY GRAHAM

 GOING TO HELL!

 

According to the teaching of Roman Catholicism all who are not members of that system are going to hell, and that includes Billy Graham. 

 

Yet according to Scripture he is going to heaven, for he has faithfully and fearlessly confessed the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, manifesting the reality of his conversion by faithfully preaching the Gospel, and being used of God to point countless thousands to his Savior. 

 

Only a fool will believe Rome’s false teaching that the only people going to heaven are those within its pale, and all others to hell. 

 

If membership in the Roman “church,” and adherence to its unscriptural doctrine is your only hope of heaven you are deluded.  You’re going to hell. 

 

The only way to heaven is

 

1)to accept God’s indictment that you are a sinner without a shred of righteousness;

 

2) believe that Christ loved you enough to die in your stead for your sins, and

 

3) believe that in response to that confession and faith God pardons all your sin, and will receive you into heaven.  Any other way is the way to hell.

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GETTING RID OF GOD

 

Rejection of God is achieved in such subtle ways as attributing all natural phenomena to Mother Nature; banning the Bible from the classroom, while promoting other religions, and mandating the study of their books.

 

How has this come about?  By the machinations of our educators,  education (and money) being the gods universally worshiped today, while God is mocked, and those who believe in Him regarded as idiots.

 

He is denied as Creator, while evolution - the most puerile THEORY every propounded, and rejected by most competent scientists - is taught in our schools as FACT, but biblical creation may not be discussed, nor the biblical account read. 

 

(Incidentally, God did not create the world in six days - He remade it, some Christians aiding the evolutionist by rejecting the fact of a creation that preceded the six days of Genesis 1).

 

Fulfilled prophecy is only one proof of the Divine authorship of the Bible (there are many others).  Everything points to the imminence of the foretold Tribulation judgments with which God will punish this rebellion, hence the need to “Prepare to meet your God,” Amos 4:12, by trusting Christ as your Savior today. 

 

Tomorrow may be too late.

 

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ADULT ENTERTAINMENT 

Adult entertainment is the euphemism for gross immorality, prurience, immodesty, nudity, crudity, vulgarity, brutality, obscenity, coarseness, indecency, aberrancy...  It is America’s defiant affront to God - and it draws the biggest audiences! 

Who watches this filth?  Many are the same people who sit piously in church for an hour on Sunday, convinced that that ritual appeases God and absolves them from guilt; the same people who proclaim hypocritically, In God we trust! 

That God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity,” Habakkuk 1:13. 

Only fools would trust in a God they dared to affront so brazenly.  The book of Jeremiah records His terrible destruction of Judah for similar hypocrisy, evil, and professed trust, their judgment being but a preview of that which is about to engulf today’s equally wicked world in the impending Great Tribulation.

As it was too late for Judah to escape God’s wrath, so is it too late for today’s world to escape, because there will be no national repentance, but the few individuals who confess their guilt, repent, and trust in Christ as Savior may yet save themselves while God is still willing to pardon. 

Trust Christ as your Savior today.  Tomorrow may be eternally too late.

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© 2000-2005 James Melough, ©2008 Boundless Partners
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