YOU MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE with God now. It is permitted. God placed Himself in men’s hands when He sent Jesus Christ into the world as perfect God and perfect Man in one Being. He was then in man’s hands. They cursed Him. It was permitted. Men spit on Him. God allowed it. They called him a devil. God withheld His wrath. Finally men arrested Him, gave Him a mock trial, flogged Him, nailed Him on a cross, and hung Him between earth and heaven; and God allowed it.
You can do likewise though Christ is not bodily present. You can ignore Him. You can ignore His Book, the Bible, and His church. You can laugh at His blood-bought salvation, curse His followers, and laugh at hell. It is permitted. The eternal Christ may knock at your soul’s door, calling you to give up sin and prepare for heaven. You may refuse Him, spit on Him, call Him a devil, curse Him. It is permitted. You may takeHis name upon your lips in oaths and curses if you so choose. He is in your hands—now. You may do as you please.
On the other hand,
you may seek His favor, humble yourself before Him and beg His mercy, implore His forgiveness, forsake your sins, and abandon your whole life to Him. He has said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). The choice is up to you. The latch is on your side of the door. You may choose either the revellings and banquetings of this world or quiet communion with God; the ever burning lusts of the flesh or the powerful victory of Holy Spirit discipline. The choice is yours: God is in your hands, now.
God has already set the day when you will be in His hands. What He does with you then depends on what you do with Him now. Then it will be a “fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” if you have abused Him in your hands. In that day God will have only two verdicts: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41), or “enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21). The verdict that will fall upon you depends on what you do with Christ now.
Jesus Christ is the only shelter in the day of God’s wrath. Jesus Christ is the appointed expression of God’s love to us, demonstrated in His life, death, and resurrection. Through the touch of the Holy Spirit, He continues His love, moving upon our human spirit and prompting our human conscience. You have no connection with God or with heaven but through Jesus Christ. There is “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
You may choose to be neutral,
but that is delusion. You may postpone decision, but at the risk of eternal doom. God says, “Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart.” Today is your day. He is in your hands. In God’s day, when you are in His hands, there will be no postponement of sentence, no neutral place between heaven and hell, no mediator between God and man. No mediator! For Jesus, who is now Mediator, has already been appointed to be Judge in that day. Friend, listen! If you want mercy and pardon, you will have to get it now.
—Harold Brenneman
What to pray for salvation:
Dear Father,
I confess to You that I am a sinner, and that I need Your forgiveness. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross to save me from my sins. At this moment, I invite Jesus Christ to come into my heart as my own personal Saviour. I am willing, by God’s grace, to follow and obey Jesus Christ as Lord of my life, and I here and now thank You for my salvation.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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