SALVATION NOW!

by
Scott Jones

No man ever fell on his face at the feet of Jesus, begging for mercy, and was turned away. No man who was genuine, who hungered and thirsted after righteousness, who beheld Jesus Christ in his glory by the Spirit, whose every fibre resonated with fear mingled with hope; no man who fell on his face at the feet of Jesus in this manner was ever turned away. Not in this dispensation of grace. Not if his desire was TRUE.

Ah, but this is not a convenient season, you say. Not right at the moment. No, you will consult Christ tomorrow, you say. Tomorrow will be soon enough, you tell yourself.

Thou fool!

If you aren't pressed BEYOND MEASURE this VERY MOMENT to lay yourself at the feet of Christ, your desire is COUNTERFEIT! Completely, utterly COUNTERFEIT! Your desire is not TRUE; your desire is not genuine in the SLIGHTEST, no matter how you may delude yourself to the contrary. Yea, if you will not have salvation NOW - THIS VERY MOMENT - then your desire is from Satan, not Jesus Christ. Your desire is a mere religious desire, or a mere moral desire, or a mere civil desire, or a mere penal desire, or other such desires that derive from a similar nature - that is, from your natural self - but these are all carnal, and such desires have NOTHING to do with hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and for beholding Jesus Christ in his glory. Nothing whatsoever.

Sinner, if your desire for Christ is not IMMEDIATE AND INSATIABLE, then you have no portion in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. None. And thus - "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still." [Revelation 22:11]

By all means, Sinner - along with you who profess to be saved, but aren't, you who profess to be born again, but know nothing EXPERIENTIALLY of the NEW BIRTH - by all means, go ahead and delude yourself if you will. Yea, instead of falling on your face NOW, go ahead and delude yourself and comfort yourself that you can call on the Lord five minutes from now if you choose. Indeed, console yourself with such delusions if you will - yet know that Jesus Christ likely will not hear you, because he knows that your desire is fraudulent. Aye, call on the Lord tomorrow if you will, yet know that Jesus Christ likely will not regard you, for he knows that your desire is lukewarm. No, Jesus Christ likely will not hear you, Sinner, not if you forsake the moment here and now, not if the presence of judgment is upon you, and you have an opportunity to fly to Christ for reprieve, yet you forsake your visitation.

"If you mean indeed to turn and live, do it speedily without delay. If you be not willing to turn today, you will not be willing to do it at all... Multitudes miscarry that willfully delay when they are convinced that it must be done... You have much to do, and therefore put not all off to the last, lest God forsake you, and give you up to yourselves, and then you are undone for ever." Richard Baxter, A Call To The Unconverted

If you forsake the moment, Sinner, God may very well forsake you forever - history is overflowing with just such cases - and then when you call, Jesus Christ will not even glance your way. The only glance you will ever get from Jesus Christ is on that day that his eyes flame out against you at his Judgment Seat, when he scorns you and despises you before all the world, before both angels and men, and in view of your very own generation. All who knew you here - your family and your friends, your husbands and wives and children and neighbors, your adversaries and your enemies, and all of those in heaven and hell - will observe the Lord Jesus Christ looking upon you with nothing but enmity and disgust and disdain as he sentences you to eternal torment, his holy eyes blazing against you with a scathing denouncing look that will torment you forever and ever. You despised Jesus Christ in the day of grace when you refused his call; Jesus Christ will despise you and refuse your call in the day of judgment, as he himself testifies - "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." [Matthew 25:41]
 

"Yea, as there be but few at all saved: Many be called, but few are chosen; and fewest saved this way; so the Lord hath peremptorily threatened to laugh at the calamity, and not to hear the cry of such as mocked formerly at His reproof, and would not hear when He called to them: Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh, which scripture, although it doth not shut mercy's door upon any, who at the hour of death do sincerely judge themselves and flee to Christ, as this penitent thief did; yet it certainly implieth that very few, who reject the offer until then, are honoured with repentance as he was; and so their cry, as not being sincere, and of the right stamp, shall not be heard." William Guthrie, The Christian's Great Interest

Sinner, if you are under awakening conviction, and yet you are not CRAVING salvation NOW, you cannot be saved. Not unless prevenient grace interposes itself in the future, which rarely happens, for while God calls MANY, as it is written, he nevertheless saves FEW, as it is also written, and as the Judge HIMSELF certified - "For MANY are called, but FEW are chosen." [Matthew 22:14]

Contend with those words of the Lord of Glory if you dare!

O Sinner! Why kick against the pricks? Do not contend, but fall at the feet of this great God, even the Lord Jesus Christ, RIGHT NOW, and BEG Jesus Christ to clothe you with HIS OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS; BEG Jesus Christ to wash you in HIS OWN BLOOD; BEG Jesus Christ to INDWELL you and make you a NEW CREATURE, otherwise you will likely be lost for ever.

And if you consider nothing else, Sinner, then consider this: can you guarantee that in just a few moments a diversion will not IMMEDIATELY come your way to take you off from heartfelt reflections of eternal matters? Diversions such as a performance of religious duties, deceiving you and making you feel that God is now pleased with you? How foolish! Or diversions such as prosperity, or love, or vocation, or travel, or any millions of numbers of things? Even if God deigns to call again, can you guarantee that you will be empty enough to hear it when he does, that your heart will not already be off into other worlds and other desires? Besides that, can you guarantee that you will even draw another breath? Can you guarantee that you will even be alive tomorrow? And even if you're alive tomorrow, can you guarantee that you will still be sound in mind and body?

More importantly, Sinner, do you actually think that you can move God to call you whenever YOU will? Thou fool! Repentance - SAVING repentance - is a GIFT, Sinner. Yea, faith - SAVING faith - is a GIFT, Sinner, and God is NOT mocked! Do you think that the MAJESTY ON HIGH will entertain your willful spurns and then come running at YOUR beck and call? Thou fool! Have you not heard of him with whom you have to do? - "I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, MY COUNSEL SHALL STAND, AND I WILL DO ALL MY PLEASURE!" [Isaiah 46:9-10; Galatians 6:7; Ephesians 2:8; Acts 5:31]

"For MANY are called, but FEW are chosen."

There's more -

For you can be sure of this, Sinner: if Jesus Christ is observing you, then so is Satan, and Satan will not let you go. Not ever. You already belong to Satan; you have belonged to him from birth, even though you are deluded enough to think that you are your own person. Nevertheless - like it or not, believe it or not - you already have an eternal reservation in Satan's desolate dominion, and unless you are delivered, there you will repine everlastingly, utterly without reprieve, and all your dreams and evasions will not change it. Satan will never let you go. Not here, and not in the world to come, the only difference being - here you may be freed, whereas in the world to come, you will never be freed, and hope will no longer exist. Satan will never let you go, Sinner. Satan's grip must be BROKEN before you are shed of him, and you cannot break it yourself. No, Sinner, Satan will not let you go under any circumstance.

It takes the call of the Spirit, and the power of Jesus Christ, and the will of the Father, to break Satan's grip. Satan does not sleep; he does not rest; he does not tire, and you cannot overcome him without divine interposition. If God is calling you, Satan is resisting with all might and main, and it is a rare case indeed when a man who rejects awakening conviction, a man who rejects the awakening call of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, is not so compromised by Satan's devices that the next time God calls - IF God calls again - yea, it is a rare case indeed that that man can readily respond to God's call the next time, especially if God has called him with awakening power on the first occasion.

"For MANY are called, but FEW are chosen."

O beware, Sinner! You cannot POSSIBLY conceive or comprehend how TREACHEROUS your position truly is. The Scripture does not speak in vain when it warns all men emphatically - "Behold, NOW is the accepted time; behold, NOW is the day of salvation." [2 Corinthians 6:2]

And if not NOW, Sinner, then likely never. And whatever you do, don't stop short, Sinner. Don't stop short of a thorough, sound conversion; yea, don't stop short of the NEW BIRTH; don't stop short of becoming an ALTOGETHER NEW CREATURE, for otherwise you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Hear this, for these are sound words, and wise - "Men may advance to a great deal of strictness in their own way of religion, and yet be strangers to the new birth... A person may have sharp soul-exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth... There may be sore pangs of conscience, which turn to nothing at last... and some have sharp soul-exercises, which are nothing but foretastes of hell." Thomas Boston, Human Nature In Its Fourfold State, The State Of Grace, Regeneration

O beware, Sinner! Don't stop short, whatever you do! This life is but a wisp; eternity is FOREVER!

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." [John 6:37-40]